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She sits there on this - this fucking plane. Squashed in the middle seat between the two men she hates most in life.
Well, she hates one of them. The other one she -
She doesn't want to think about how she feels about the other one.
Her wand is in Voldemort’s possession. He had taken it off her when he found her. In fucking Hawaii of all places. The Order had begged her to go. Leave. They needed more time. To do what, she doesn't know. They never tell her anything. Even at 18 years old. She is nothing but a sacrifice apparently, used as a distraction to lure Voldemort away from Magical Britain.
Well the plan worked. She led them on this wild goose chase for weeks. No magical travel, to make it harder to track her. She mostly road-tripped around America. She saw the Grand Canyon and the volcano in Yellowstone. And now, for some ungodly reason, Voldemort - looking like a middle-aged Tom Riddle - has decided they are taking a plane back to England.
The flight attendant does her rounds and stops at their row.
“Sir, please fasten your seatbelt. We will be taking off soon.”
The stewardess is speaking to Snape at the window seat. Snape is ignoring her, or perhaps, does not hear her, as he is staring out the window. Both Harrie and Voldemort turn to him after a moment of silence, the woman in uniform getting more annoyed the longer she has to wait. She looks at Harrie.
“Honey, can you please tell your dad-”
“Oh, he’s my husband.” Harrie lies as she elbows Snape in the ribs.
Snape turns to her in shock.
“What?” He says, obviously scandalized.
Voldemort audibly snorts next to her.
“Buckle up, dear. We’re waiting on you,” Harrie sneers.
Snape fumbles with the buckle, taking turns glaring between her and the Dark Lord. Which reminds her.
“Why are we on a plane?”
Tom Riddle glances down at her before deciding to indulge her curiosity.
“While I control the British Ministry of Magic, and can get a long-distance, international portkey easily from there, the American government is not in cooperation with ours, at the moment.”
“I hope they invade you and throw you in Guantanamo Bay.”
“That's not how it works.”
“So what, you can't make a portkey yourself?”
“Not for this. I specialize in the Dark Arts.”
“And this is what? Neutral Arts?”
Voldemort makes a face as if that's the most ridiculous question ever asked. Maybe it was. He looks over her head at Snape.
“You didn't tell me she's funny.”
“She's not.”
Which is terribly offensive, and she’s just about to let him know just how offensive she finds that, because she is very funny, thank you very much, when the Pilot’s announcements begin.
A baby starts to cry.
After a few minutes, the plane begins to lurch forward and that's when she notices it. Voldemort’s white-knuckled grip on the armrests (including the one that is supposed to be hers goddammit, does he have no understanding of these things? The middle seat gets both armrests!) and his breath is coming out a little heavier.
“Have you ever flown before?”
It takes him a moment longer than it should to respond, and the plane goes into the air.
“No,” he grounds out between his teeth.
“Are you nervous?”
He has to know she's teasing him because he glares at her again, denying it once more.
“So what's wrong?”
“Nothing is wrong!” He hisses at her. She shrugs and turns to Snape, who looks back at her in what most would say is a blank look, but Harriet has been watching him for years. She can tell he is amused.
After another minute of Tom stewing in his nervous energy, clearly becoming more agitated, he blurts out -
“Why is she crying?”
Harrie and Snape both turn their heads back to him. She realizes that they had just been staring into each other's eyes for the last minute.
When it becomes clear he isn't going to elaborate, she asks -
“The baby?”
“Yes, why is she upset?”
“Oh,” she shrugs, “I think the plane is crashing.”
“What?!” Tom whips his head around to her, fear visible on his face for a split second before he starts scowling at her.
She laughs, but she isn't the only one.
Snape’s shoulders shake as he hides his laughter behind his hand and turns his face away, once again to the window.
“Maybe she is funny,” he chuckles.
Voldemort narrows his eyes at her and threatens, “I should kill you and everyone here right now.”
Well, he’s obviously in a foul mood but the threat hits a little too close to home, it's too real and reflects every fear she has at the moment, so her face falls and she looks down.
She goes to grip her armrest but she grips Snape's arm instead because -
Because he is also taking up her other armrest and have these two never flown on a plane before because come on, this asshole already has the window and -
He turns his hand over and holds hers.
He squeezes her hand like he’s trying to provide some kind of comfort, for her and maybe even himself. Her breath catches and she looks at his face. He’s looking down at their hands and there’s an openness to his face that usually isn't there. A fear.
Fear that she has seen on his face before, the night she fell in love with him. When he threw himself between her and a raging werewolf, despite being afraid. She had known then, how utterly brave he was, maybe the bravest man she had ever met. She had known then also that she loved him, loved him so fiercely that night that the thought of him powered a patronus that dominated hundreds of dementors.
And he knows too. He knows she loves him because she had shouted it at him, the night he betrayed her.
(He had disarmed her after her failed attempt at Sectumsempra, after revealing that he was her Half-Blood Prince all along. And wasn't that just typical.
She wanted to rip his heart from his chest the way he had just done to hers.
She resorted to throwing rocks and fistfuls of dirt at him instead, which he deflected but lingered still to allow her to scream her piece at him through angry tears.
“How could you?! You traitor! I loved you!”
She crumpled to the ground and saw his stricken expression before he turned to flee. She had been wrong about his bravery. He was a coward.)
He tucks their hands deeper between them, beneath the armrest, out of Voldemort's sight. She allows it because-
“I still love you.”
Should she have been more subtle? Probably.
Does she know how to be more subtle? No, she’s quite socially awkward. She blames the fact that she spent 10 years locked in a cupboard.
Snape looks just as stricken this time as the last time she said it. Voldemort has also turned his attention back to her, but she isn't looking at him.
“If killing Dumbledore didn't make it stop, I doubt this will, with the limited time I have left. Wanna fuck me in the bathroom?”
Snape’s mouth falls open. Had he expected an emotional confession instead of a proposition? She already raged at him once before.
She should probably elaborate.
“I don't want to die a virgin and you're the only one I’ve ever wanted so…” She trails off because she feels nothing more needs to be said. The two of them are both creatures of few words.
Voldemort sucks his teeth behind her. They break eye contact to look back over at him.
“I’m not actually going to kill you, you dramatic girl. But please, feel free to fuck in the bathroom if you must. Just know you will have plenty of time later as well, so you do not need to fornicate in a dirty toilet.”
And isn’t that a revelation? Snape doesn’t look surprised, though.
“So what do you want with me?”
He tells her. About being a horcrux. About needing to be kept. Safe. Snape holds her hand the whole time.