POEM: TWO LOVABLE YOUNG WOMEN

SUMMARY: I wasn't expecting to start off in this fandom with a poem, of all things, but it happened. Anyway. It got me wondering. Snape can hate Harry all he wants, but if he continues trying to protect him for the rest of the books, I'm not entirely sure he can convince Harry to hate him back. And that's when the letters start arriving…

PAIRING: Severus Snape/James Potter, Severus Snape/Harry Potter.

RATING: All of PG-13. It's a poem.

ARCHIVE: List archives fine; elsewhere ask first please.

NOTES: The poem's title comes from this lovely quotation from Charles Baudelaire that I found at Addictive Stigmata. Perhaps not what Sandycat expected her collection of inspirational quotations to be used for, but what the hell.

Debauchery and Death are two lovable young women...
- Charles Baudelaire, Les deux bonnes soeurs, translated.

TWO LOVABLE YOUNG WOMEN

Child. Potter. Harry. Don't trust me.

If there is one thing I'll ask you to do for me

It is this – simple, clear, precise –

Don't trust me. Take my advice

And live. Live and be known

As The Boy Who Lived – spawn

Of that too-perfect poster boy

I helped destroy.

Don't trust me. Don't look to me

As if you expect to see

Goodness buried deep down –

Don't waste your time. Leave town.

Don't think that, because I owe you

Something I'll be nice to you.

I won't. I owed your father – look

What happened to him when he took

My 'goodness' for granted.

Lily, dear Lily, has also been planted

Deep underground. Tell me, Harry, do you

Want that to happen to you too?

Don't trust me, boy.

Don't look at me as you would a toy.

Don't trust me.

Don't trust me.

Go. Celebrate. Be bright and gay

Let me mourn the desecrated ruins of today.

This is not for you, not now.

Go. Leave me to mourn a vow

I shattered. I will weep.

Then, hopefully, sleep.

It is not for you to witness –

I need no sympathy at this address.

Wait, perhaps for another incarnation

To whom you can send your letters of affection.

Not to me. Please. I hate you,

I think. No, I know. I do.

Barely seventeen, all ready to be a knight

In white armour, shining bright.

All ready to forgive my sins – do not.

Do not forgive when you know not what.

Do not write me pretty letters full of

Schoolboy crushes and of young love.

Don't make me laugh at you, Harry.

Just go and let me be.

Such pretty words you use; I'm sure

You are ignorant of their lure –

Or at least I tell myself that…

Are you still just a childlike brat

Or did you manage to become a man

While I dreamed of an aborted plan?

In that tic, toc, tic, toc, of chances missed

What happened to the son of a man I once kissed?

Don't look at me like that, Harry.

Don't write anything – don't think about me.

Don't trust me, don't think I won't hurt you.

Your father is dead – do you want that too?

Don't look at me like that, Harry.

Don't stay behind after class, smiling sweetly.

Don't lean in and whisper, "close the door."

Don't let me push you to the floor.

Don't think you can trust me

For a second, let alone two, or three

Or however long you had in mind.

Don't imagine me being kind.

Don't curl your tongue around

'Alabaster' – an unexpected sound;

Don't blush and whisper of debauchery,

Don't mention such luscious things to me.

I made a promise to protect you, Harry,

That isn't working, as you can see.

It doesn't matter; I broke all others.

Close the door and those damned shutters –

Keep out the blinding sun of midday

Let me forget you're 'you' for today.

I still have your letters – read them to me?

One by one, whisper them to me.

Speak to me of childish love,

Of swans, lakes, a dove –

Speak to me of life and sunlight,

Of being here again each night.

They are such pleasing words to hear –

So sweet, so sensuous to the ear.

Not a bit like 'coffin-board, ' bleached stone',

'Graveyards', 'hollow', 'lament' or 'shattered bone'.

fin