The Boy Who Lived A Bit

by Barbarella

Summary: Post-Hogwarts, though the War still rages. Harry is holed up at 12 Grimmauld Place with Lupin as his primary protector. Some of the best distractions in these days are provided by one Severus Snape.

Chapter 1

Author's Notes: Dedicated to juliatheyounger. The song Light And Dark, which is mentioned, was written by Sláine Trevelyan.

Cups of tea had become so much more palatable at 12 Grimmauld Place since Harry had convinced Dobby and his fellow house elves to supply teabags as well as the horrid black leafy stuff that everybody else drank, that lurked at the bottom of your cup and made you want to cough and spit if you forgot and drank too far down. The other members of the Order had given him strange looks when they first saw him dunking a paper bag on a string in and out of his mug. Honestly, sometimes it was like the Wizarding world had totally missed the last hundred years of human civilisation! Only Arthur Weasley and Hermione had been cool about the teabags becoming a staple grocery item in the Grimmauld kitchen. 'Miony had hugged Harry, eyes wide in gratitude, and could be heard murmuring every time she made a cuppa how she wished she'd thought of that. Arthur grilled Harry over how the bags were manufactured and to what purpose the strings could be put afterward - he knew Muggles were big on recycling, after all.

Harry tapped his wand against the kettle, boiling the water inside it instantly, and then poured some into his waiting mug. Setting the kettle down again, he busied himself with jiggling the small bag of tea up and down in the water.

'Still trailing bags of potpourri through our beverages are we, Mister Potter?' The black velvet voice was unmistakable. Harry didn't need to turn around.

'You should try it sometime, Snape. Tastes good. Less fuss.'

'Any wizard who doesn't know how to reduce the "fuss" of an act as simple as making a cup of tea, without resorting to Muggle inventions, hardly deserves to bear the title.'

Harry shrugged his shoulders as he levitated the sodden teabag to the bin. He added milk to his mug and carried it over to the table, looking up for the first time. 'Oh,' he said as he looked at his ex-professor. 'Is it snowing outside?'

Severus Snape gave him a look that clearly and loudly said "Obviously" as he unwound the thick woollen scarf from around his neck, specks of frosty white shaking loose as he did so and melting in the air before they even managed to reach the kitchen floor. The thick black scarf was laid on an empty seat, as were the black fingerless gloves that followed. Snape then shrugged out of his heavy winter robe, too, and added it to the growing pile of blackness.

'The kettle's freshly boiled if you want a cuppa.' Harry knew he hardly had to tell the man this information but he felt uncomfortable with too much silence around them. Elsewhere in the house, he knew that Lupin was reading or writing or sleeping or something, but apart from that it was just Harry and Snape. And as much as the relationship between the two of them no longer consisted of snarls of hatred and fits of pique, they weren't exactly bosom buddies either.

Most weekends found them thrown together though, Snape and he. Harry, since finishing school last July, now lived at Grimmauld Place, as did Remus Lupin. It was quite a nice arrangement, really, if a little claustrophobic. Harry wasn't allowed out much while the war still raged, and certainly was never allowed out on his own - the Order weren't even very keen on the idea of him being in the house on his own for any length of time, regardless of its hidden location and heavy wards. Remus didn't really have anywhere else to live either, so it had seemed a natural enough move for the two of them to set up home in the old Black family residence turned Order of the Phoenix headquarters. The Order tried not to give Lupin too many weekday errands, so that he could be home with Harry as much as possible. On weekends, when most of Lupin's errands would occur, the Order always tried to have one or two members hanging around Grimmauld Place to safeguard The Boy Who Lived. Sometimes, it would be one of the Weasleys, but more often than not these days it was Severus Snape. Many times, Snape would floo in when classes at Hogwarts finished on Friday afternoon and stay until Monday morning when he'd floo back to start teaching again. If he had a full detention schedule on Saturday morning, Snape would arrive in the afternoon or early evening, usually coming via Diagon, or more frequently, Knockturn Alley to purchase potions supplies while he had the chance.

Harry trusted Lupin with his life and knew the man was a very strong and powerful wizard, but somehow, however begrudgingly, he always felt just the tiniest bit more secure when Snape was around as well. The man had had the strength to turn away from his former life as a Death Eater, had acted as a spy for the Order against the Dark Lord Voldemort for almost as long as Harry was old, had saved Harry's life countless times and was simply, well, just one of the most scarily formidable wizards Harry had ever met. The man could probably glare a death attempt away! (Well, not really, Harry knew that, but damned near close, he was sure!)

Harry watched as Snape fixed himself a cup of tea - lots of the horrid black leafy stuff - and settled himself at the table opposite Harry, wand lying on the table to his side. One perfect black eyebrow arched upwards slightly as if to ask what the hell Harry thought he was looking at. He dropped his gaze to the table top between them, trying not to look as though he was looking at Snape's long fingers being warmed against the sides of the steaming teacup.

'I have news,' Snape suddenly said.

Harry looked up to Snape's face again, waiting for the man to continue. Snape took his time, producing a silver hipflask from his robes and pouring a liberal amount of whatever it contained into his murky black tea.

'Anyone else would try to break this to you gently, I suppose.' One corner of Snape's mouth tensed for a split second then relaxed again. 'But in light of the man's behaviour toward you, I see little point. Your uncle is dead, Mister Potter. The house in Surrey is… gone.'

Harry didn't feel his expression change at all. 'You were there?' A slight inclination of the dark head answered in the affirmative. 'And… Dudley? And Aunt Petunia?'

'Safe. Your uncle was home alone at the time.'

It was Saturday. Aunt Petunia had probably taken Dudley shopping or to the cinema.

'I would assume they have other Muggle relatives to go to?'

Harry had to wrack his brain for a moment. He'd been training himself, over the last few years, to think as absolutely little about the Dursleys as possible. He felt himself nodding. 'Aunt Marge. I guess. What happened to the house?'

'A textbook obliteration spell. The Muggle authorities are babbling about a gas leak or some such.' The dark eyes pinned Harry for a moment, his face unreadable, then he picked up his wand and waved it over Harry's mug. All of the milk Harry had put in disappeared in an instant. Snape reached across the table with the hipflask and poured some of the amber fluid into Harry's tea.

'Oh, are we celebrating something, Severus?' Lupin walked into the kitchen as Harry brought his mug up to his face and sniffed gingerly at the new concoction.

'Hardly, Lupin. I've just returned from the Dursley house. Or should I say, the site of the Dursley house?'

The small smile Lupin had upon entering the room faded as he slid into an empty chair at the head of the table, his expression immediately forlorn. Snape accio'd another cup from the bench, slopped some more alcohol into it and shoved it along the table. Screwing the lid tightly back onto the hipflask, Snape set it down and took a long drink from his cup.

Harry tried a small mouthful from his own mug. The taste wasn't actually too bad, he considered. Whatever the alcohol was, it blended very well with black tea and had a marvellous warming effect that seemed to tingle through his limbs. Since turning eighteen a bit less than six months ago, Harry had drunk alcohol precisely once prior to now, and that had been something of a disaster involving pints at the Leaky Cauldron with firewhisky chasers, one overly enthusiastic female "fan" who was determined to relieve Harry of his virginity, and many bruises that he couldn't explain the following morning. And that's not even considering the hangover strong enough to fell a miffed hippogriff that he'd suffered through the next day. Compared to that, sitting around the kitchen table at Grimmauld Place with two of his ex teachers was almost pleasant - even allowing for news of death and destruction and the fact that one of the ex teachers in question was Severus Snape.

'What is this stuff?' Harry asked.

'Scotch,' replied Snape. 'Older than you are.'

Harry had never drunk anything older than himself before. He figured alcohol must be the only thing safe to do so. Anything else would just go off, wouldn't it? He took another sip and rested his forearms on the table top. Yes, very pleasant.

'Were there any survivors, Severus?' Lupin asked.

'The young thug and the woman.'

'Oh, Harry, I am sorry about your uncle!'

Harry noticed Snape's eyes roll melodramatically.

'Why on earth should any of us feel sorry for Potter not having that abusing bastard in his life any longer?'

'He was the boy's uncle, Severus.'

Snape snorted. 'He locked him in a cupboard, starved him, beat him, worked him, neglected him, psychologically abused him. Oh yes, very avuncular behaviour! The boy should be so sad for his loss!'

At any other time, Harry would have rebuked both men for referring to him as "the boy" - especially in his presence, almost as though he wasn't sitting right there with them - but he was too fascinated by the fact that Snape actually appeared to be indignant on his behalf. Defending him, almost. Even though he didn't have the vaguest idea what "avuncular" might mean.

Lupin, obviously not wanting to get bogged down into a tired debate, ignored Snape's outburst. 'I wonder if you might be able to attend the funeral, Harry? That could be very good closure for you on that particular relationship.'

Snape's teacup banged on the table as he set it down roughly. 'Are you crazed, Lupin?' he spluttered. 'We're not that close to a full moon again already, are we?' His black eyes glittered dangerously. 'It would be murder to send Potter out there, out into the open, just for the sake of weeping over a dead Muggle! Don't even think about it!'

'I'm just trying to think of what's best for Harry - '

'What's best for Harry is to stay here where we can protect him, not send him giftwrapped into The Dark Lord's arms with a fucking ribbon around his neck!' As he spoke, Snape swept to his feet and gathered up his wand and discarded winter clothes. 'For fuck's sake, Lupin, there IS a war on! Or am I the only one who seems to have noticed?'

In a blur of black, he was gone from the room, the sound of his footsteps stomping up the stairs. Harry and Lupin just looked at each other for a moment while they listened to a door slam somewhere on the floor above.

Harry tried to stifle a giggle and failed. 'I've never heard a teacher say "fuck" before…'

Lupin bit down on a smirk. 'You should take it as a compliment. Severus obviously doesn't feel the need to act around you as though you were still a student.'

Harry considered that a short while and felt a grin spreading over his features. That actually did feel a bit like a compliment.

Lupin picked up the silver hipflask that still stood in the centre of the table. He turned it over in his hands a couple of times, admiring the filigree detail and the tiny inscription which read "To S.S., Bottoms up! from A.D."

'Here, Harry,' he scooted the flask down the table top. 'I'll be gone until dinner time tomorrow, I'm afraid, so you'd better give this back to Severus.' He gave Harry a mock-reproachful look. 'Don't drink it all before then, eh?'

Chapter 2

Severus Snape sat in a rather comfy chair in the Black family library at 12 Grimmauld Place, long legs stretched out before him, reading an interesting text on potential uses of some of the less commonly utilised bodily excretions. Some of the suggestions regarding vaginal mucosa had long ago been debunked, of course, and the chapter on child sweat was largely superstition, but overall the tome had helped while away a few blessedly peaceful hours. A peace that, naturally enough, had to be disturbed sooner or later.

'Professor? Sir? May I come in?'

'This is not my house, Potter, you need not seek my permission.'

'I just, um, didn't want to disturb your reading.'

'And yet you do so.' He looked up at the youth as he snapped the book shut. 'Is there something you require?'

Potter stepped fully into the room and closed the door behind him. Continued growth spurts over the last couple of years had given the boy a slightly gawky appearance. His full potential height would never be reached, thanks to his bastard relatives and the under-nourishment of his childhood years, but his limbs were long and Quidditch-toned and his face had thinned into early adulthood. Snape was finding it increasingly difficult to make himself mentally refer to Potter as "the boy" these days, and only forcing himself to recall the days of their earliest acquaintance made it easier. At least the uncontrollable black hair and the wide green eyes hadn't changed. No matter how large the young man's - boy's - hands may get or how deep his voice may plunge, at least Snape could cast a glance at those emerald orbs and that messy bird's nest and convince himself he was still talking to a child. Most of the time.

'I just wanted to give this back to you.' Potter stuck a hand into a back pocket of his blue jeans and produced Snape's silver hipflask. 'You left it in the kitchen last night.' He approached Snape's chair and held it out.

'Ah. Well. Thank-you, Mister Potter.' Snape took the flask. The metal was warm to the touch, having been cradled against Potter's behind for Merlin knows how many hours. He shook it from side to side, satisfied to hear a resulting slosh from within. 'And not even empty. Wonders never cease.'

The boy was smiling at him, damn him. 'I only had a tiny bit more after you left. I promise.'

'Hrm. So I can't be accused of turning you into a dipsomaniac, then. That's something, at least.'

Potter plonked himself down into the chair opposite Snape and looked around as though he'd never seen the interior of the library before, finally settling his gaze upon the book resting on Snape's lap.

'Good book, sir?'

'Vaguely. A little outdated but interesting nonetheless. You wouldn't believe some of the things one can do with female ejaculate.'

The green eyes widened to owl proportions. Ah, it was so easy to render him childlike at times. Excellent sport.

'Is that… Do they, I mean… is that true? Can they, you know, can they do that?'

Eyebrow. 'Can whom do what, precisely?'

The boy shifted in his seat and straightened spectacles that were already straight. 'F-females, sir. Are they able… to…'

'Yes. Some of them. Apparently.'

This was obviously earth shattering news to Potter. Good god, didn't teenaged boys hand sex books around the dormitories with all the wondrous bits underlined in this day and age?

'Oh.' Eloquent, as always.

Snape turned his attention to the flames flickering in the fireplace while the boy's thoughts churned.

'Oh, so… you've never known one who could?'

Shit, he'd left himself open for that, hadn't he? Sloppy, Severus, very sloppy.

'I mean… well, you did say "apparently"…'

Snape fixed a glare onto the younger man. 'It is not an everyday phenomenon, Mister Potter, and I advise you to make no further allusion to my private life.'

'Sorry, sir.' The boy feigned contrition, a sparkle in the green the only indication that he was no doubt shaking with laughter on the inside.

For several minutes, the two sat in silence, listening to the fire and a portrait softly snoring some place nearby. When Snape eventually lifted his gaze to Potter's face to speak, he was momentarily disarmed to see Potter already watching him, gaze steady and confident.

'I'm not a virgin, you know, Snape.'

That statement was approximately eighth or ninth on the list of things Snape had absolutely not expected to be the next out of Potter's mouth. He composed himself by folding his hands on top of the book in his lap and arching his eyebrow again. 'Indeed, Mister Potter? And you're sharing this riveting information with me, why?'

The boy shrugged. 'I don't know. You just seemed so happy to see me embarrassed about something I don't know about women. I'm not a total innocent, you know. I have lived a bit.'

Snape felt a twitch at the side of his mouth but willed the smirk away before it formed. "The Boy Who Lived A Bit", indeed. How charming! He cleared his throat before continuing. 'Yes well, I'm sure your multitude of fans and sycophants keep you knee deep in cunt and blowjobs, Potter, but I'll thank you to spare me the gory details.'

A fierce blush assaulted the boy. 'That's not - ! I don't - !' He made an exasperated noise but then seemed to make a concerted effort to calm himself and not rise to the bait. Impressive. 'I am not. Knee deep in,' a deep breath, 'Anything.'

Snape allowed himself a smirk this time, but not an entirely nasty one. 'So… you've committed the acts but can't bring yourself to say the words, hm?'

The unruly black hair fell around the pale face as Potter lowered his head slightly in embarrassment. 'Well, it's just, I'm holed up here with a bunch of old teachers, aren't I?' The voice rose up indignantly. 'It's a bit difficult for me to be "knee deep" in anything other than my own hand!'

Oh bravo, Harry! Well done.

'Not so much of the "old", if you don't mind.' Snape smirked a little more, realising he was actually enjoying the conversation.

Still flushed, Potter lifted his chin and met Snape's gaze full-on once again. The boy was defiant for a long moment but then the nerve seemed to go all at once and left him deflated. The square shoulders slumped and the face looked suddenly younger once more. 'It's all too bloody difficult,' he mumbled.

'Adolescence always is,' Snape conceded. 'I think that's rather the point of going through it.'

'Does it… Does sex get easier?'

Snape wondered briefly at the boy's gumption, embarking on such a discussion with the man who had long been his supposed adversary, a long time his most hated teacher (though that honour now surely belonged to Dolores Umbridge). Then again, what other options did the youth have, exactly? The Weasleys who considered themselves his surrogate parents? Mad-Eye or Hagrid? Merlin forbid. Dumbledore with his twinkling eyes and lemon sherbets? No, he'd want someone closer to his own age, surely? And Tonks was out of the question - no eighteen-year-old wizard is going to want to ask an attractive young witch about sexual anxiety. An older Weasley son? Perhaps, but they were scattered about the place on various Order assignments. That left just Snape and the werewolf. And unlike the werewolf, he had spent many years as Head of House to a succession of teenagers who looked to him as their Patriarch away from home. At least… he hoped they looked to him in such a way… Hm, the boy really didn't have much option, did he? Then again, what had Snape's own options been when he was that age? Death Eaters? Voldemort? "Excuse me, my Dark Lord, but how do I get girls to like me?" Snape shuddered invisibly at the very thought.

'Easier, Mister Potter?'

'Less complicated?' the boy tried again.

'I'm afraid not. If anything, it can become even more so.'

Potter sighed heavily.

Snape inclined his head a little. 'If it's any consolation, it appears to become… less of a concern as you grow up. That is to say, one becomes more confident in oneself and wastes less time angsting over something that is, ultimately, supposed to bring one joy and satisfaction.' He rested his elbows on the chair arms and steepled his fingers, letting Potter process this information, providing opportunity for an "out" if the boy chose to take one now.

Potter was nodding slightly, as though lost in his thoughts for a moment. When he spoke again, his voice was quiet. 'I… I don't think I liked it very much. I don't think she got much out of it either.'

Ah. So, his gossiping Slytherins had been off target with that particular rumour, then. The boy was straight. Figured. Always too concerned about being "just like everyone else", wasn't he? Scar and all…

'If you're referring to your first experience, Mister Potter, I think it would be safe for me to assure you that it will get better.'

'Is everybody crap their first time?'

'Mostly. I expect.'

'You're being awfully nice.'

'I don't know how to be that, and you damned well know it.'

Potter laughed then - a soft but deep rumble of a laugh, a man's laugh. Snape's eyes narrowed imperceptibly, mind on the alert to being made fun of, but the youth was laughing at the conversation, at the unlikely conversationalists.

'Were you crap your first time, Snape?'

'I'm quite sure that question is below my dignity to answer.'

'Silly me, I thought we were having a conversation as two adults.'

'One adult and one young adult, Mister Potter.'

'Touché.' Potter sat back heavily in his seat and crossed his legs, the one on top jiggling slightly with either nerves or an over abundance of youthful energy. The unmistakable gleam of trouble-making came over his countenance though and Snape knew the next comment would be worthy of an Unforgivable.

'I bet you were brilliant in the sack. The moody brainy ones are often the most wicked. So I've heard.'

The cheeky grin that was beamed upon Snape was near blinding as Snape felt his bottom jaw drop a good inch or so. To collect himself took a small effort, but he managed to hide it behind a bluster.

'Potter! As delightful as this intimate little chat of ours has been, I think you would do well to remember to whom you are speaking and attempt a modicum of propriety!'

'Says the man who just accused me of being knee deep in cunt!'

Snape's black eyes flashed. 'Potter,' he said slowly, with a menacing look, 'Are you flirting with me?'

A delighted giggle was all that answered Snape before five-foot-ten of former student plonked itself into his lap and attached itself to his face. Soft lips crushed hard against his mouth as surprisingly strong arms wound their way around his neck, a hand buried somewhere in his hair. Dear gods, teenaged manboy squirming in his lap! Swiping at him with its tongue!

So not all that straight really, then. Was Snape to be just another experiment, like whoever the apparently disappointed young lady had been? Was this another bit of life The Boy Who Lived A Bit wanted to rack up?

Panic hardened in Snape's chest - what if someone walked in on them like this?, what on earth could this lead to?, how much trouble could he get into for allowing this to happen? But the rest of him took charge of the situation - told his panic to fuck right off, clamped one of his large hands onto the back of Potter's head and shoved his tongue firmly into the wet heat of Potter's open mouth. If this turned out to be a prank on Potter's part, Snape was determined he'd at least get something out of it for himself before the laughter started.

The kissing was good. Very good, in fact. If Potter really had been "crap" at his first try at sex, Snape was sure it can't have been for any lack of finesse in the snogging department. He was even manoeuvring his way easily around Snape's nose! Impressive, Harry. But a scant few minutes was all there was to be. Potter tried to squirm nearer, ostensibly to press their bodies closer together, no doubt, but succeeded only in sending a stab of pain through Snape's groin. The book of human excretions upon which Potter sat had murderously sharp edges.

'Oh, shit! Shit! I'm sorry! Did I hurt you?'

Snape gripped the boy firmly by the upper arms and hoisted him off his lap. Potter stumbled slightly as he tried to stand upright, green eyes dewy with concern and a little abruptly halted passion. Snape took a couple of very deep breaths as he stood up, trying to will the throb of pain away, the book falling to the floor at his feet.

'I'm sorry, Snape, I didn't mean to hurt you! Honest! Is there anything I can do?'

'And just what, pray tell, do you think you would do to help this?'

'Um,' Potter bit his bottom lip, his gaze flickering briefly down to Snape's groin then back up again. 'Kiss of Life?'

Snape glared at him. 'Enough with the clumsy attempts at seduction, Potter. This has all been quite uncalled for. Haven't you got something else you should be doing this afternoon? Something that doesn't involve harassing ME?'

Any trace of a smile dribbled away from Potter's face. 'I thought it was going okay until now… You seemed to be liking - '

'Do NOT finish that sentence! Merlin, I should have known better.' Snape began to walk, a little gingerly, toward the library door. Potter tagged along after him.

'Can I get you an ice pack or something?'

'No, thank-you,' said Snape firmly. 'I think I'll retire to my room until dinner. Don't even THINK of disturbing me unless there is an emergency of the very most DIRE urgency.'

'Do you need help getting up the stairs?'

'I most certainly do not! Now go! Leave me alone, Potter! Do something worthwhile with your afternoon!'

'But - '

'NO BUTS! Just stay AWAY from me.' He tried not to think of what an extreme pout those dark lips would be set in right now…

Chapter 3

Dumbledore stabbed a buttered baby carrot onto his fork and held it aloft triumphantly. 'Amazing vegetable, the carrot,' he announced to his fellow diners.

Lupin and Harry exchanged a smile, waiting to hear what the Headmaster would enlighten them with next. Snape squashed his minted peas into green splodges on his plate before hiding them under his mashed potatoes.

'Did you know, Harry,' Dumbledore asked, 'that the Welsh word for carrot is moron?' Harry and Lupin laughed with Dumbledore at this piece of silly trivia.

Snape sighed dramatically and reached for his wine goblet. 'And me with just one remaining Weasley in class with which to share this linguistic gem.'

'Are you feeling better now, Severus?' Dumbledore enquired, as if he hadn't just been talking about carrots. 'I was told when I arrived that you weren't feeling too well this afternoon?'

Snape's expression betrayed nothing. 'I am fine, Headmaster. Thank-you for asking.'

'Of course you are, my dear boy, but I insist that you take tomorrow off, in any case. Your classes will be covered.' The blue eyes twinkled as Snape tried to protest. 'We'll see you back at work on Tuesday.' Dumbledore peered over the tops of his half-moon glasses, bestowing a look of great love upon the scowling Snape. 'Excellent work yesterday in Surrey, by the way. I sincerely apologise for your back-up not arriving sooner. It won't happen again, Severus, I promise you.'

Harry swallowed a mouthful of morons and looked sideways at Snape. Yesterday? At Privet Drive? Had Snape had to… He turned his head and looked properly at the glowering man at the end of the dining table. Had Snape had to deal with the Death Eaters that killed Uncle Vernon? On his own? Harry felt the rate of his pulse step up a notch or two. The man he had kissed earlier today was brave. Brave and brilliant and smart and looked danger right in the eye and was a war hero and had the sexiest voice in the world and had sinful hands and a sharp wit and had sucked on Harry's tongue and made him moan and made him stiff and oh god, Harry wanted to do that again with him!

He'd thought about it a few times over the last few years. Kissing a bloke, that is. It wasn't that he thought he was gay or anything, it was just… maybe it was best just to find out? He'd never been able to work up the nerve before though. And what a person to finally work up the nerve WITH! Harry looked back down at his food and felt thankful for the linen napkin covering his lap. None of the girls he'd ever snogged had had this effect on him. If Snape - Snape! - could have this sort of effect on his body, well then, maybe he did like blokes? Or maybe he liked both, like Fred and George did? Or maybe, and here was an unsettling thought, maybe it was just Snape? God, what if he was Snapesexual? Harry coughed uncomfortably and reached for his goblet. The wine, with a dash of soda water in it for him, took the tickle away and soothed his throat.

'Alright there, Harry?' asked Lupin.

Harry nodded and returned to his eating, trying his best to ignore the eyebrow that he knew was quirked perfectly in his direction.

Dinner seemed to take forever. Dessert had never dragged so badly. Dumbledore had never taken so long to make his goodbyes and disappear into the floo. Lupin, as much as Harry loved him, had never wanted to loiter so long in the livingroom, wanting to chat with Harry and Snape until well after midnight. After about the sixtieth or seventieth time that Harry had stolen a look at the clock or his watch, he'd started to wonder why Snape was still up, too. Did he realise Harry was waiting to talk to him alone? Did he perhaps want to talk with Harry as well? Maybe it was just coincidence…

Harry had just started to think that perhaps Lupin was going to stay up all night when the man suddenly yawned and, glancing at the clock, swiftly apologised to them both for lingering so long.

'No wonder I'm tired,' he said, 'just look at the time!' He pulled himself up out of his armchair and smiled tiredly at the remaining two. 'Goodnight, Severus, Harry. See you both in the morning.'

As the door clicked shut behind Lupin, Harry chanced a look at Snape. If the man was still angry with him over the accident with the bloody book, he'd make his excuses and leave now, surely?

'Why are you looking at me like that, Potter?'

How did Snape do that? He wasn't even looking in Harry's direction! 'Sorry, Professor.'

'I am no longer your teacher.' Snape's black gaze drifted over until it locked with Harry's. 'Plus, I have now had my tongue in your mouth. So one would assume that such a formal title is, as of today, rather meaningless.'

'I love the way you talk.'

Snape sighed at the whispered statement. Briefly, he closed his eyes and pinched at the bridge of his nose, as if trying to hold back a migraine. 'Have you ever been with a man before, Mister Potter?' Snape opened his eyes again and looked at the younger man. 'Oh for fuck's sake, stop blushing! You didn't feel the need to blush when you launched yourself into my lap this afternoon. I fail to see why a simple question should colour your cheeks. And I only ask because it is… prudent of me to do so before even talking with you further on the subject.'

Harry sat up straighter and tried to force himself not to blush so violently. Snape was right, of course. He had to be mature about this at some point. 'No,' he said simply. 'Today was, was as much as I've done.' He bit his bottom lip nervously. 'With a guy. That is.'

Snape nodded and looked into the fire. 'Did you find out what you wished to discover?'

Harry frowned slightly. 'What? I mean, pardon? I don't think I understand.'

Snape made a frustrated noise. 'I'd have hoped you took the opportunity of this afternoon's peace and solitude to have yourself a good hard think about at least some of these issues!' Well, Harry had certainly taken the opportunity to have a good hard something this afternoon… He reigned his thoughts in again though as Snape continued after a short sigh. 'Did I confirm for you that you like girls after all, Potter? Or did I help you realise something darker about yourself?'

'Oh.'

Snape fixed him with a toned-down glare, waiting for a better answer than "Oh".

Harry swallowed. 'Um. It's just. They, girls, that is… they never… Well, they never made me feel, feel like that. Not even the one I, er…'

Snape held up one hand to indicate Harry didn't need to go on. 'Do you have any idea of the intimate activities men can do together?'

God, this was like a test! One of those pop quiz types of tests that teachers could just spring on you whenever they felt like it without you even being prepared or anything!

Harry was determined not to blush. 'In theory,' he replied softly. With his head bowed, he didn't see Snape's curt nod at this.

'Look at me.'

Harry lifted his head and then his gaze until he was looking Snape straight in the eye. 'Yes?'

'I am a grown man, Potter.' Snape's obsidian glare bore into him, driving his point home by sheer force of will. 'I have the urges and appetites of a grown man. If I were to take you into my bed,' he ignored Harry's sharp intake of breath, 'I would want to fuck you. Have no doubts on this score, Potter, I am not another hormone charged teenager looking for a mutual fumble. If that's all you are after at this time in your sexual maturation, I strongly advise you to seek one out.'

'Are you always this cold about sex?'

'Cold? On the contrary, you idiot child, I am attempting to spare your feelings - and your arse! - if this liaison isn't exactly what you need at this point in time.' A thin smile crept across Snape's features. 'I can assure you, you would not find sex with me "cold", Mister Potter.'

Harry swallowed again. Decision time. Snape was laying his cards on the table and leaving it up to Harry to decide whether he wanted to play or not. That was pretty admirable, he had to admit.

Snape suddenly stood and smoothed down his robes. 'I shall leave my bedroom door unwarded for the next quarter of an hour. No need to knock or otherwise make noise. If you decide against a visit, however, I will understand. And you have my word I shall never speak of this to anyone.' He bowed slightly to Harry and then strode elegantly toward the livingroom door, throwing a last "Goodnight" back into the room as he left Harry to consider his next fifteen minutes of decision making.

Ten minutes later, Harry softly closed the bedroom door and leaned against the dark wood.

Snape was sitting on one side of his already turned-down bed in the most extreme state of undress Harry had ever seen him. His robes and jacket were gone, as was his footwear, leaving him in just black trousers, white shirt and black unbuttoned waistcoat. Harry stared down at the man's alabaster white bare feet, unable to see the face yet due to the curtain of black hair that hung limply around it. Snape was leant forward, resting his elbows on his knees, his wand held loosely in his right hand.

'You had better step away from the door,' Snape said quietly, his voice a low rumble from deep down in his throat. Harry obediently stepped away and watched as Snape raised his wand, pointing it at the door and intoning several standard wards and a few non-standard ones. Next, he enveloped the entire room in a silencing spell, one that Harry hadn't heard before and was no doubt of the super-duper, double-agent-in-a-war-zone variety. Harry used the time all this took to remove his trainers and socks and pull his Weasley jumper up over his head. By the time Snape's attention came to focus on him, Harry was wearing just his blue jeans and a thin grey tshirt.

'That was some silencing charm.' Harry was appalled to hear his voice come out squeaky.

'Your self-appointed surrogate godfather is lying on just the other side of this wall, you realise? You don't honestly want him to hear, do you?'

Harry felt his face pale at the thought.

'No, I thought not.' Snape turned slightly and put his wand onto the bedside table. He continued to sit there on the bed, feet flat on the floor, pale hands resting on his knees. He made no motion to encourage Harry over, certainly voiced no further invitation. If Harry wanted this, he had to make the decisions himself.

In just four strides, Harry had crossed the room. He clambered up onto the high four-poster and knelt on the crisp white sheet, a little to Snape's right and a little behind him. On an impulse, he raised his arms and pulled the grey tshirt up his torso and off, flinging it in the general direction of his shoes and jumper.

The curtain of Snape's hair moved as he turned his head to look at Harry. 'I wish you'd kept that on a little longer.'

'Why?'

An ever so slight flush appeared over Snape's high cheekbones. 'I would have liked to remove it myself.'

Harry smiled softly. 'I can put it back on if you like.' There was a tiny shake of the dark head, and then Snape leaned in and captured Harry's lips with his own. Where the kiss in the library that afternoon had been impulsive and roughly inelegant, this kiss was certain and precise. A welcome rather than a seduction. Snape moved his mouth gently against Harry's, testing and tasting, ending with the merest of nibbles to his bottom lip as their mouths parted again.

'You taste… minty,' Harry whispered, smirking.

'And you smell like black shiraz and fire smoke.'

Harry tilted his head a bit as he thought about this. 'I spilt a bit of my wine during dessert,' he whispered back. 'Aaand I was sitting closest to the fire afterwards. Is your nose really that fine?'

'Mastery of potions rather requires it. And you don't need to whisper, Potter.' Snape reached out and reverently trailed one long, pale finger down the curve of Harry's face. His voice dropped even deeper as he reminded the boy, 'He won't hear you. He won't hear what goes on in this room tonight.' He leaned closer to Harry's ear. 'He won't hear you moan when I take you. He won't hear the filthy words we speak to each other. He won't hear you groaning in ecstasy or screaming my name as you come…'

Harry hissed in a harsh breath. 'Okay, okay, I believe you about the damn silencing charm!' he said at normal volume, a nervous giggle punctuating the end of his sentence. 'Um…' he couldn't help a blush now. 'So where do we start with all that?'

Snape patted the edge of the bed lightly. 'Sit here.'

Harry manoeuvred his legs out from under himself and settled onto the edge beside Snape, giving the older man an "okay, what now?" look. Snape ran a hand through Harry's unruly hair once before dropping gracefully to his knees on the floor in front of the boy. Instinctively, Harry parted his legs to allow easier access. He reached out his arms and Snape moved in close, cupping his large hands around Harry's face and bringing their mouths together once more.

Kissing had never felt like this for Harry. His entire body was singing, wanting to feel more, feel deeper, feel more intensely. He pressed his tongue against Snape's lips and was allowed in immediately. Yes! He stroked his tongue along Snape's and felt the man press harder against his body. Snape moved a hand to the back of Harry's skull as he'd done in the library, holding Harry's head still as he deepened the kiss, taking charge. His other hand moved over Harry's naked chest, trailing over a hard nipple and making the boy gasp into his mouth. Harry moved his hands up onto Snape's shoulders and slid the unbuttoned waistcoat off onto the man's arms. Snape moved first one arm and then the other, allowing Harry to slide the garment off completely, then pulled back from the kiss a fraction, just far enough for him to speak against Harry's lips.

'Unfasten your trousers for me.' And then his mouth was back on Harry's again, his tongue lapping against the roof of Harry's mouth.

Harry hastened to obey, unbuckling his belt swiftly but making a frustrated noise as he fumbled with the button at the top of his jeans. A larger hand joined his and helped him with the fastener, and then his jeans were open and Snape's hand was inside them and - Harry pulled back from the kiss with a short cry of surprise as he felt the hand close around his erection.

'Oh,' he looked at Snape with a raw expression. 'Touch me…' He bit down onto his lip.

Snape smirked briefly and bent his head into Harry's lap. 'Ohfuck!' Harry's hips bucked involuntarily as Snape's lips moved over the head of his cock, tongue darting out to flick at the leaking slit. Harry looked down in absolute shock. Severus Snape - Professor Severus Snape, former Death Eater, loathed Potions Master of Hogwarts, Grade A snarky bastard and greasy git - was on his knees between Harry's legs, sucking Harry's straining prick into his mouth.

Harry put his hands back onto the bed and took his weight onto his arms, staring down at the bobbing head in his lap, trying to stop himself from thrusting upwards into the heat of Snape's mouth. 'No one,' he started to say, but the "one" turned into a low moan as he felt the head of his cock butt up against the back of Snape's throat. 'No one,' he tried again, 'Ever… bloody hell! No one's ever done this for me before.'

Snape licked flatly up the underside of Harry's cock, along the thick vein that trailed there, and swirled around the heavy head when he reached the top. 'Their loss,' he muttered darkly, before stuffing the whole thing down his throat again and humming around it.

Harry couldn't help it, he leaned forward and thrust his fingers into Snape's lank black hair, hands wanting to grab hold hard and push, but he didn't feel that would be quite polite. His hips began to roll of their own accord and he hissed a swear word or several under his breath as Snape's mouth continued to work him. Harry's hands fell back to dance on Snape's shoulders, tapping, pressing. 'You'd better stop, Snape. If you don't, uh, if you don't stop now…'

Snape's black eyes looked up at him and Harry was sure he'd never seen anything so intensely erotic in all his life. He pulled his mouth back from Harry's cock but kept hold of it with one hand, lazily stroking potion stained fingers up and down the hard, silky flesh. 'You can come in my mouth, Harry, I don't mind.'

He called me Harry! Harry's brain screamed at him. 'It's not that,' he tried to explain. 'It's just…' He thrust his cock upwards into Snape's hand and gasped. 'Don't wanna come too soon. Not yet. Don't want it over yet.'

'It won't be over yet, I assure you. I'll definitely be making you come more than once tonight, Harry.'

'Oh god!' Just hearing Snape say something like that to him, calling him by his first name, using That Voice on him… Harry groaned deep as Snape's mouth descended on him again, the suction harder this time, more insistent. He's gonna make me come like this, Harry thought. He's gonna suck on my dick until I come off in his mouth and he wants me to! Bloody fucking hell…

Harry opened his eyes and found himself looking up at the canopy over Snape's bed, glasses sitting askew on his face. He straightened them and raised his head up in time to see Snape dropping his white shirt to the floor and starting on the buttons of his trousers. The obsidian eyes flashed toward him. 'You might have told me you were a fainter, Potter.'

'I? Huh? I didn't, did I?'

'You most certainly did.' There was a hint of a laugh in the velvet voice. Snape stepped out of his trousers and climbed up onto the bed in his black silk shorts. 'How about lying the right way around on the bed now, hm?'

Harry had been busy looking at Snape's body, trying not to look too long at the scars or the vague tracery of the Dark Mark, but he snapped himself out of it now, swinging his body around so that his head was actually in the same area as the pillows and his feet were pointing at the foot of the bed.

Snape stretched out beside him, all deathly white skin and long, lean limbs. 'Trousers,' he snapped. 'Off.'

'I'm sorry about the passing out thing.' Harry lifted his hips off the bed and pushed his jeans down his legs, leaving himself clad only in regulation schoolboy y-fronts. 'That's never happened to me before.'

'Hm. It was only a couple of seconds. But I think I shall take it as a compliment.'

Harry threw his jeans over the side of the bed and turned onto his side to face Snape. 'Definitely.'

Chapter 4

It was a fairly well known phenomenon that teenagers are capable of kissing for inordinately long periods of time. If it weren't for the insistent poke of erection pressing into his stomach, Snape might have believed Potter wanted little more than this elongated snog in which they were entwined. He'd already given the boy one orgasm and here it was, barely ten minutes into a kiss, and the little incubus was hard and horny again! He made a mental note to seek out that book downstairs again tomorrow… he was sure he'd read something about the safe harvesting of adolescent endocrine chemicals.

He was pleased to note that Potter hadn't shied away from kissing the mouth that had just brought him to completion. There was no more annoying bedroom creature than a prissy lover, after all.

One of Potter's hands was rubbing and gripping at Snape's thigh, fingertips sneaking under the edge of the silk boxers every few seconds. Yes, Snape liked that. Perhaps he could encourage a little more…? Mm, excellent. As soon as he moved position even slightly, Potter took advantage of the extra space created between them, running his hand confidently up Snape's inner thigh and cupping what he found at the top. Snape pulled his mouth away from Potter's and lunged at his throat, licking and sucking his way to a sharp collarbone that he mouthed wetly before heading down even further to the boy's chest. Both Potter's hands splayed across Snape's back as Snape teased and suckled at the firm, dark nipples, even tugged gently at the sparse chest hairs with his teeth. Finally, Snape simply chose one nipple and latched on, sucking it and flicking it with the tip of his tongue until Harry moaned for him to stop.

'Stop?' Snape queried in a honeyed voice.

'Too much! I'm… it's just… too much!'

'Such eloquence, Mister Potter.'

'Fuck you.'

'Not yet.'

Snape wrapped his arms firmly around the smaller body and rolled them both over so that Harry was on top. He looked up into the green eyes that gleamed back down at him. 'Are you comfortable with your glasses still on, Harry?' The tousled head nodded. 'Good. I like you in them. Try to leave them on as long as possible.'

'Kinky for boys in glasses are we, Snape?'

'You've no idea, Potter. Now put your mouth to some better use, if you please.'

And please he did. Snape lay back, gazing up at his canopy without really seeing it, enjoying the ministrations of eighteen-year-old tongue and lips moving over his chest and throat, his belly and arms, his thighs and finally onto the silk of his shorts. With youthful enthusiasm, Potter dived straight onto his silk-draped cock and sucked its length hard through the thin material. Snape felt his hips rise off the bed and moaned despite himself.

'Uh, obstruction, Potter. You'd better fix it.'

The boy stopped his slathering and knelt up, sliding his fingers under the waistband of the shorts and easing them down over Snape's slim hips. Thankfully, Potter had the wherewithal to be careful of the erection underneath (unlike the performance in the library earlier), and the boxers were dispensed with without any bodily injury occurring.

Snape heard a tiny sound, something that sounded suspiciously like a "Meep!", and peered down the length of his prone body to see Potter staring at his prick. 'Is something amiss, Mister Potter?'

Green eyes, impossibly huge behind the glasses, met his warily. 'That's never gonna fit in me! It can't, surely?'

Snape crossed his arms over his thin chest. 'It can and it will.'

'But - !'

'I won't hurt you, Harry, I promise you that. We'll work on that aspect together. But we've other activities we can enjoy first…'

Potter looked about as convinced of this as he used to look in class when Snape tried to impart to him that brewing potions was an art as well as a science. But, to his credit, the boy laid himself out over Snape's lower body and recommenced his earlier investigations. Snape spread his legs appreciatively and Potter settled down to his task, Snape doubling the number of pillows beneath his head so that he could be afforded a better view. It was most certainly worth it - the Gryffindor Golden Boy trailing his pink tongue experimentally up and down the length of the Head of Slytherin's cock. Oh for a wizard camera!

'I'm sorry.' The words were pressed against his erection. 'I don't really know what to do here.'

Snape reached down and stroked the unruly mop of hair. 'I'm not expecting you to straight away.'

'You did with Occlumency.'

Black eyes flashed. 'Don't start, Potter! However, sucking cock is something so simple even Muggles can do it. You'll pick it up as you go along, like everyone else does. And you'll learn from what feels good when others do it for you.'

'Hmm, you mean like when you did this?' And Potter carefully gathered up the pre-come that had gathered at the eye of Snape's prick, then firmly ran his open mouth down the length of the shaft and back up again. The green eyes still gleamed up at Snape all the while.

'Oh… yes, Harry. Just like when I did that.' Snape's voice dropped suddenly to an urgent whisper. 'Do it again!'

It was at least gratifying to see that the boy could be a fast learner at something when he put his mind to it. In no time at all, he was sucking at Snape's cock like he'd born to the duty, making the most delicious mumbling and slobbering noises as he did so. Snape wanted to reach down and hold the Saviour's head steady so that he could fuck that hot young mouth until he shot into the boy's face. Merlin, how he wanted that. But even before he could give in to temptation, the scenario was changing and Harry had somehow gotten it into his dirtylovely mind to dip his head lower and give his ex-Professor's balls a good tonguing. Snape did reach down for the young man's head then, but it was to haul him off his bollocks and back up the bed into a hungry kiss.

'I'm more than twice your age, Harry,' Snape purred at him between kisses. 'If you make me come now it'll be a bit of a wait before I'm ready to show you anything more.' Snape rolled Harry over onto his front and covered his back with his body, nipping at the nape of the boy's neck, kissing the broad shoulders, licking the curve of his ear.

'Did you ever fancy my Dad, Snape?'

Snape bit down onto Potter's earlobe hard enough to make him yelp in surprise. 'Do NOT bring your father into this bed with us.'

'S-sorry! It's just, well, he looked like me, didn't he? And he wore glasses, too…'

'Shut it, Potter! I mean it!' Snape used a leg to spread Harry's thighs apart slightly, pulling the boy's y-fronts down at the same time so that they rested just under the swell of the pert Seeker's buttocks. He pressed his aching cock into the cleft of arse beneath him and gave a shallow thrust. 'Feel that, Potter?' He thrust again, his cock leaking anticipation into the boy's crack. Potter nodded into the pillow. 'Good. And are you excited by it?' Another nod and a muffled affirmation. 'Keep that in mind. If you mention your father in my bed again, you shall find yourself flat on your arse in the hallway with your clothes flung out after you. No wards or silencing spells there, Harry. Try explaining that to your pet wolf.'

Potter mumbled a shocked apology and the tension that had risen so quickly between them dissipated again. For a long while they simply lay there, Snape pressed down against Harry's back, Harry's hips undulating involuntarily from time to time. Then Snape licked gently at the earlobe he had bitten and Harry sucked in his breath at the wet sensation. Slowly, Snape began landing tiny kisses and licks onto every inch of Harry's flesh he could reach without changing his basic position on top of the boy. When that became old, he reluctantly removed his somewhat wilted prick from the snug cleft and pushed himself further down Harry's back, continuing to kiss and lick as he did so, his hair trailing after him as he moved his face over the boy's rear.

Removing Harry's pants completely, it suddenly hit Snape that they were now both utterly naked. Not just that, but utterly naked together and utterly naked together in bed. He had never shared himself with any person whom he had taught before. The situation was in some ways perfectly alien, but in other ways far too intimate. He had lived under the same roof with the boy for seven years, helped shape his mind, watched him grow, and grow up, had punished him and saved his life, he had even seen into the boy's mind. Maybe that was all too much baggage for the bedroom? Might he find himself mid coitus with the youth and suddenly not able to expel a rosy-cheeked eleven-year-old from his mind? That was bound to be a dick limper if he'd ever thought of one.

'Talk to me, Harry. Let me hear your voice.'

Potter twisted his head and peered at Snape over his shoulder. 'What do you want me to say?'

'It doesn't matter. I just need to hear your voice. Hear it as it is now.'

'Um, okay. Er… I'm sorry about before.'

'That's alright, Harry. Forget about that. Talk to me about something else.' As he spoke these words, Snape was spreading Potter's legs further apart, settling between them as he smoothed one palm over the rise of the boy's behind.

'I, er, oh. I'm still a little nervous.'

'Understandable. Continue.' He was finding it pleasing to hear the deep tones of Harry's adult voice, chasing the memory of the child he had once been out of Snape's head.

'I'm horny as all hell though!'

Snape grinned sharply. 'That will only get worse before it gets better, I'm afraid. Raise your lower half up onto your knees if you would, please.'

Potter rested his head on his folded arms and pulled his lower body up onto his spread knees as instructed. 'Do you want me to keep talking?'

'Yes.'

'Are you going to… going to fuck me now?'

Snape ran his large hands up Harry's spread thighs and splayed his fingers across the buttocks, easing them apart slightly. 'All in good time.'

'So, what are you going to do to me?'

Snape sighed and leaned forward. 'Make you beg for it.'

'Oh!'

Snape pushed his face into Harry's behind, planting a wet kiss onto the puckered entranceway. Potter bucked and pushed himself back, moaning at the bizarre sensation.

'I had no idea, Snape! Fuck! Oh, oh god, lick me like that!'

Snape happily complied, flattening his tongue and dragging it repeatedly over the opening, then flexing it and swirling around.

Harry's hips pumped in the air. 'Guh! Bloody hell! You're… mm, l-licking me. Licking my arse - oh!'

A swift change of angle allowed Snape to slurp on the boy's balls for a short moment, then he was back at his arsehole again, using all the strength of his tongue to push through the tight ring of muscle, causing Harry to buck and groan.

'Ssssnape… god, feels so good… push it further…'

Snape darted his tongue in and out a few times, each time managing to push it a little further into the increasingly compliant hole. Potter was now practically grinding himself on Snape's face, as if trying to get not just the man's tongue but his sizeable nose inside as well.

'What's this called?' Harry gasped out between heavy breaths.

Snape removed his tongue from Harry's arse and pressed two fingers against the wet opening. 'That, Mister Potter, was called rimming.' He wiped at his face with the back of his other hand as he gently eased the two fingers into the boy.

'OhfuckSnape! More!'

Potter had gotten greedy all of a sudden. 'You like how that feels?' Snape pumped the fingers in and out, shallowly at first, then increasingly deeper.

'Mm!'

A third finger slid in easily beside the other two and Snape reached his free hand toward the bedside table, retrieving a tube of all-purpose lubricant. His own recipe.

'I wish those fingers were you, Snape!'

'They soon will be, Potter. If you want it bad enough.'

Potter just about screamed in frustration. 'Yes, I bloody want it! I want you to fuck me, Snape, okay? Hard, Snape, fuck me hard…'

Snape smirked and pulled his fingers from Potter's body. 'On your back, Harry. I want to watch you being fucked for the first time.'

As Harry eagerly flopped himself over onto his back, Snape uncapped the tube of lubricant and smeared a healthy dollop onto his bobbing cock. He glanced down at the needy body below him. 'Spread your legs. And put a pillow under your hips.'

Potter had never been this obedient as a student, Snape thought, as he piffed the lubricant tube and positioned his straining cock at Harry's entrance. Holding onto his prick, he rubbed it up and down the cleft and around the opening first, making sure the boy was well greased. He gazed down at Potter and their eyes locked - nothing more was needed. Snape pushed his cock head against Potter's arse and felt it give straight away. He couldn't help but smile as he felt it slip in.

'Agreeable, Mister Potter?' Snape's breathing was heavy as he held himself back for Harry's comfort. The young man nodded silently. 'Bear down each time I push forward. Working on it together, remember?' Another nod. Snape pushed gently, Potter bore down and Snape's cock sank deeper and deeper each time.

Potter's breath was shallow as he struggled to adjust to the invasion, several beads of sweat gathering on his upper lip. 'You're still big!' he smiled up at Snape.

Snape smirked and lowered himself fully down onto Harry's body, feeling himself completely sheathed in heat and tightness. 'I've had bigger,' he whispered hotly and covered Harry's mouth with his own.

Harry wound his legs high around Snape's waist and his arms around Snape's neck and shoulders as they kissed their passions into each other's mouths. When Snape raised his hips and gently let them fall again, Harry moaned against Snape's tongue.

Snape thrust again, a little harder, revelling in the look of abandon on the young face beneath him. It had been a while, and his cock was telling him to quit being so polite and just fuck the little bugger's brains out, but he forced himself to take his time, enjoying the intensity of the virgin arse and the boy's naked expression. He kissed him again, moving his tongue inside Harry's mouth to the same rhythm as their bodies had fallen into. Speeding up his thrusts, he smiled to feel Harry's hips rising to meet him on each apex. He couldn't stop gazing down into Harry's face, even when he threw more weight onto his arms and began thrusting himself harder, deeper into the boy's arse.

And Harry kept gazing up at him, too. Every now and then, the lids would lower over the green orbs as waves of sensation washed over him, but each time, he forced them back up, eyes widening as he gasped up at Snape. His fingers dug into Snape's shoulders, scrabbled at Snape's back, and finally found purchase on the backs of Snape's thighs as he pulled him in closer, helping to bury Snape's cock so blissfully hard inside him that it hit a tiny nub of electricity that made Harry shout Snape's name in something that sounded like panic.

'Shhh...' Snape smoothed some wayward hair off Harry's forehead and cradled the boy in his arms. 'That was your prostate gland. Let's see if we can do that again, hm?' Harry nodded and bit hard into his bottom lip and Snape proceeded to find that same spot over and over again.

Snape was close and he could sense the boy couldn't take much more stimulation either. Their bodies moved so perfectly together, as one, that it was difficult to ease a hand between them. But Snape managed it, wrapping a fist around the boy's copiously leaking cock and stroking it in time with their fucking rhythm. Harry moved one hand to the back of Snape's neck and held on fast as they moved into their plateaux together.

'So beautiful,' murmured Snape, looking down into the emerald pools.

'Severus!' screamed Harry as he came, in exactly the manner that Snape had predicted he would.

Chapter 5

'You're… you… that… Wow.' Harry felt boneless and languid but couldn't for the life of him stop grinning. 'If Hogwarts ever decides to have sex education classes, you're definitely the man for the job.'

Snape rolled his eyes at the canopy in reply to that. He had cleaned them both up a little with a mixture of cleansing spells and a ready towel ("Lube on the bedside table, towel next to the bed… were you actually expecting to get laid tonight, Snape?", "Well, I DID invite you up here, you simpleton!") and now they lay side by side, almost touching but not quite, letting the cool night air quell some of the fire in their heated bodies. Harry finally took his glasses off and, folding them neatly, reached an arm out to place them on the table at his side of the bed.

'That… button inside me…'

'The prostate gland.'

'Yeah, that. That was pretty… intense.' Harry stifled an exhausted yawn. 'I guess that's what makes anal sex feel like… that?'

'Stimulation of the prostate can help a male achieve a longer lasting and more intense orgasm, yes. But I'd hate for you to think that the act is pointless without it. Women can enjoy anal sex too, Mister Potter, and they don't have a prostate gland.'

'They don't?'

Snape shot Harry a baleful look. 'It aids in the production of semen, you idiot child! What on earth would a woman need one of those for? Dear god, perhaps Hogwarts does need to add human sexuality to the curriculum.' He sighed heavily. 'Have all the other sensations you just experienced paled, simply because I've shown you a tiny gland you never even knew you had?'

Harry thought about that, about the closeness he and Snape had just shared, about the feeling of being entered and filled completely, about the sliding and the thrusting and muscles moving in ways he'd never felt before, about the feeling of having someone - a lover! - inside you, moving within you and giving you pleasure… He shook his head and cuddled up to the slightly scowling man beside him. 'No,' he assured him, draping an arm across the scarred chest, 'None of it has paled. And I doubt it ever will.'

Harrumphing, Snape eased an arm under Harry's head and neck, pulling him in closer. Harry lay his head on Snape's shoulder and yawned again, his mouth open on warm, smooth flesh.

'I won't be offended if you sleep now, Mister Potter. It's a natural male reaction to the endorphins we just released.'

'You know so much about stuff.'

Snape obviously didn't seem to think that statement worthy of a response. Harry snuggled closer still, hooking a leg over one of Snape's. 'Okay, I'll sleep now. But if I wake up during the night - '

'You have permission to molest me, yes.'

Harry smiled broadly against Snape's skin. 'You're amazing.'

'Nox.'



Harry awoke once during the night, disturbing Snape's slumber by attaching his mouth to the dozing cock and coaxing it awake. The sex in the pitch black of night was rough and urgent, not so much foreplay as before, Snape kneeling behind Harry on the bed, taking him with swift, strong strokes. The different position changed the sensations again, Harry getting almost as much enjoyment from the scolding spanking of Snape's hips repeatedly hitting his bum as he did from the fucking itself.

Quickly spent, they again curled up to one another and fell almost immediately back to sleep.



'Potter.'

'Mm?'

'Potter, wake up.'

'Nnnuh…'

Harry was shaken roughly. 'Wake up, Potter, or I shall spell you awake for the next thirty hours!'

Harry's eyes shot open. 'What time is it?'

'Time you were gathering yourself together and getting out of here before Lupin wakes up.'

Harry sat up and put his glasses on. A crack between the heavy curtains showed sunlight. Damn it. He pouted slightly. 'We slept too long,' he said. 'I was hoping we'd wake up earlier so that we could, you know, have some more time together.'

'Too late for that, I'm afraid.'

'But I wanted - ' Harry stopped and looked at the severe man beside him. Even in only minimal daylight, the complexion was sallow, almost sickly, and the hair was lank. The quick black eyes watched him as Harry made a mental inventory of the hooked nose, the cruel mouth with its crooked teeth within, the thin body with its scars and history of darkness, the long fingers stained with decades of meticulous potions preparation. 'I wanted to make love to you.'

Something told Harry that that wasn't what the Potions Master had expected him to say at that moment.

'Well.' Two delicate fingers pulled at a thread on the blanket. 'Your plans have been thwarted.' Black hair draped over the face, blocking Harry's view of all but the protruding beak.

Harry sighed quietly, then suddenly brightened. 'But you've got today off! Dumbledore said! So we should be able to find SOME time today, surely?' He reached up and hooked a finger against the dark hair, pulling it back so he could see Snape's eyes dart toward him. 'Remus will probably have something he has to do today. I'm sure we should be able to grab a bit of time at some point.'

'I was planning on using this unexpected time off to get some much needed research done. Back at Hogwarts, Mister Potter.'

'Can I come with you?'

'I'd hardly get much research done with you trying to hump my leg the entire time now, would I?'

'But - !'

'I'm sorry, Harry.' Snape took both of Harry's hands between his own and rubbed them gently. His velvety voice was low and distractingly sensual. 'As much as I, too, might enjoy having you try out some of your newly acquired knowledge upon me, I'm afraid the risk of doing so now would be too great. For the both of us.'

Harry thought quickly, desperate for something to cling onto. 'What about tonight? I could floo directly into your quarters in the Dungeons!'

'And where would you tell Lupin you were going?'

'Well, I… I could wait until after he's gone to bed and then I could - '

'And if he were to discover you gone? What then? The entire Order would be dragged out of their beds to search the planet for you. Use your brain, Potter! You are our most important weapon in this war - you CANNOT go gallivanting around behind your protectors' backs, sneaking off after lights out like some… some… Gryffindor rule breaker!'

Anger sparked behind Harry's eyes, but he pushed it back down. 'But Snape… Severus, I just want - '

'I know what you want, Harry, and I understand your frustration.' He pinched at the bridge of his nose, like he had done when they were discussing Harry's lack of experience with men the day before. Had it really only been the day before? 'But it's unavoidable, I'm afraid.'

'So, when… when will I see you again?'

Snape snorted. 'Who ever would have believed Harry Potter would say that to me in such a pleading tone?' His expression softened and he pulled Harry into his arms, his nose buried in Harry's hair.

Harry kissed forlornly at Snape's throat, certain he could feel the man's pulse pumping softly under his lips. Snape was right - who ever would have believed this? 'Thank-you,' he murmured against Snape's skin.

'Hm? Sorry? '

Harry lifted his face and looked into the dark depths of Snape's eyes. 'I said "Thank-you". You know, for…' God, for what? For fucking him? Twice? For sucking his cock so well that he blacked out? Harry smiled shyly.

Eyebrow.

Harry tried again. 'Thank-you for… being such a sexy bastard.'

Snape looked like he wanted to smirk but was holding it back. 'Get out, Potter. The last thing I want is Lupin leading an Order enquiry as to why the world's Saviour was seen exiting my bedroom with a sore arse and a sloppy grin.'

'It's not that sore.'

'Just wait 'til you try sitting on a dining chair.'

'Oh.'

Reluctantly, Harry swung his legs over the edge of the bed and stood up. 'Um…'

'This side, Potter.'

'Oh. Right. Thanks.' Harry walked around to Snape's side of the bed to retrieve his y-fronts, trying not to feel too self-conscious under Snape's appreciative gaze. He'd dressed in front of other guys heaps of times before, after all, so this shouldn't be so difficult. True, he'd never had to dress in front of a guy he's just spent the previous night naked and messy with… He dressed swiftly. Snape took up his wand and began taking down the wards.

'How many of those things did you put up anyway?' Harry stood at the foot of the bed, watching his… lover? reversing ward spell after ward spell.

'Eight.'

'Eight?! Fuck! Paranoid much, Snape? Do you always put that many wards on your bedroom?'

'No, I do not.'

'So why this time?'

'Because I had an idiot child in here with me.'

'Oh. Oh… But still! Eight! That's a bit over the top, isn't it?'

The baleful glare told him it was nothing of the sort. 'When, approximately, do you think the reality of your position and importance will finally sink into that soft head of yours, Potter? What if the house had been breached last night? Normally, I would hear them as soon as they crossed the threshold, but last night I would have been too distracted. Is any of this making sense yet? I am sworn to protect you, Harry, and I will take that duty seriously, even when I'm busy fucking you 'til you scream.'

Harry felt something strange then. A tiny ball of heat and hardness that seemed to settle somewhere in the pit of his belly, radiating tendrils of warmth and… presence… out into the rest of his body. He didn't know what it was or what it meant, but he knew it was something to do with Snape.

'I'm sorry, Severus.' He wanted to kiss the scowl off Snape's face but he knew that would only get him another order to Get Out. Replacing it with a smile might work though. ' I wasn't thinking. Must've been all the fucking.'

One side of the thin mouth twitched slightly. 'And what would be your excuse for the previous seven years of not thinking?'

'God, there's no beating you, is there?' Harry grinned widely at the man.

'You'll have to try a lot harder,' Snape agreed. 'Now go.'

Harry moved to the door and put his hand to the doorknob. 'It was wonderful, by the way.' He looked back toward the bed and locked eyes with the most remarkable person he could think of in the whole world at that point. 'Thank-you.'

Snape nodded once and Harry opened the door, grateful for the sight of a Lupin-free hallway. He closed the door softly behind him and dashed as quietly as possible along the landing to his own room.



'Good morning, Harry! Or should I say good afternoon?'

Harry smiled as he set about making himself a cup of tea. 'Sorry, Remus. Slept in.' He tried his best to look nonchalant. 'Didn't sleep too well last night.'

'Oh? No problems with the, er…' Lupin tapped his forehead, looking at Harry's scar.

'No, nothing like that. Just… restless.'

Lupin nodded and continued reading the copy of The Daily Prophet that was spread out before him on the kitchen table.

'Is Snape still about?' Harry plonked his tea onto the table and slid into one of the wooden chairs. Fuck, Snape hadn't been joking about the arse. He hid his wince by taking a sip of his too-hot tea.

'No, he was gone before I got up this morning. Not one to laze around on a day off, our Severus.'

Harry smiled into his mug. That little ball of heat and hardness in his stomach made its presence felt again. "Our Severus". He liked that.

'Do you like him?' Harry asked. He wanted to talk about him, felt an almost irresistible need to talk about him. He'd have to be careful of that… 'I mean, I know you didn't get along when you were at school. But these days?'

'Yes, I like Severus. Not the easiest man to try to get along with, as I'm sure you're aware. But he is a good man, Harry. I hope you can come to see that in time.'

What was Harry supposed to say to that? He settled for a shrug and another gulp of his tea.



The library - interspersed with a trip to his bedroom for a hurried wank - kept Harry occupied for the rest of the afternoon. It was difficult to keep his mind focussed long enough to retain any of the information his eyes were reading, however. Everything seemed to remind him of something from the night before. Inevitable, he supposed, seeing as he'd chosen the room in which he and Snape had kissed for the first time. He couldn't help but keep glancing at the chair by the fire, imagining himself there on Snape's lap, Snape's fingers buried in his hair, Snape's tongue in his mouth.

God, how was he ever going to get through however long it was he had to get through before he could see the man again? Was Snape having as hard a time of it as he was? He wondered what Snape might be doing right now, whether he might possibly be thinking of Harry. He shook his head at himself. Not bloody likely, was it? Snape would be nose-to-cauldron with his millionth potion of the day by now, completely lost in time and thought, utterly absorbed in something gloopy and smelly and probably bad for somebody.

'Harry! Harry, can you come to the livingroom, please!'

Lupin's voice jolted Harry out of his thoughts and made him blush, even though there was nobody else in the room for him to feel embarrassed in front of. He closed the book he'd been attempting to read and strode swiftly to the livingroom, his jaw dropping as soon as he entered the cosy room.

Lupin was sitting close to the fireplace, literally on the edge of his chair as he leaned over, talking quietly with the person whose head and shoulders were protruding from the flames. Snape! Snape was here! Or, at least, Snape was fire-calling here! He wanted to dash over to the hearth and throw himself onto his knees and snog the git so hard it hurt. Impossible though, with Remus sitting right there. Harry composed himself quickly and walked over to a respectable distance.

'Yes, Remus? Oh, hello, Professor.'

Eyebrow.

'Ah, Harry,' said Lupin. 'Severus was just telling me that there's been a slight accident at school involving young Miss Weasley.'

'It's not serious, Potter.'

'No, but she is in the infirmary and all of her brothers are indisposed at the moment aren't they, Severus? How about you go and cheer her up with a visit, Harry?'

Harry looked from one to the other of his former teachers and nodded dumbly. 'I, um, yeah, that sounds like a good idea.'

'Potter can have dinner here at school, I suppose. If he likes.'

'An excellent suggestion, Severus! That should help break the monotony a bit, shouldn't it, Harry?'

Harry smiled at Lupin's kindly face and nodded again. 'Definitely.'

'Well, off you go, then. Give my regards to Ginny.'

'Thanks. I will.'

Lupin rose and stood back from the fire. Snape disappeared into the flames without bidding Lupin goodbye. Harry shouted a farewell over his shoulder and hastened into the open floo.

A moment later, Harry tumbled out of a fireplace he'd never seen before. The room he found himself in was furnished in dark greens and blacks, the walls lined with books. No sooner had he clambered to his feet and dusted ash from his jeans, than he was gathered up into strong arms and snogged possessively. Snape's robes smelled like they'd been wafting around in potion fumes all day, which no doubt they had. Harry pressed himself flush against the taller body and pushed his pelvis forward, satisfied to feel a corresponding hardness through the many layers of clothes.

'Mm, missed you,' he moaned into the mouth kissing him. He ground his hips against Snape's and began trying to find a suitable spot at which he could ease a hand under the black robes. Snape sucked on Harry's bottom lip and then pulled back, holding him at arm's length.

'You need to go and visit Miss Weasley, Potter.'

Harry blinked. 'You mean she really is in the hospital? I thought you made that up.'

'It wouldn't have been a very satisfactory ruse. Far too easy for anyone to check up on. As it is, I saw an opening and took advantage.'

'So Ginny really has had an accident and you're using it as a cover to see me?'

Snape folded his arms across his chest. 'I am not above using the misfortune of a teenaged girl for my own nefarious ends if it presents an otherwise unavailable opportunity.'

Harry couldn't help an impressed smirk, even if he was starting to feel bad for Ginny. 'You sneaky old prick!'

'I thought I warned you about that "old" business?' He returned the smirk. 'Get yourself to the infirmary. Make sure Poppy sees you. Play the sympathetic brother-figure for, say, half an hour, then return here. Say hello to everyone you know along the way - be seen. Do you wish to stay for dinner?'

'In the Great Hall?' Harry frowned. 'Rather not. Can't we have dinner down here?'

'Suspicious.'

'Well, let's skip dinner, then. Though… isn't it going to be suspicious anyway? Me being here for any length of time? And where exactly IS here anyhow?'

'This is the sittingroom of my quarters. Behind that door there,' Snape pointed, 'is my private laboratory and office. A place I am sure you recall with something less than fondness.'

'Er, yeah.' Harry shuffled his feet. He wanted to get back to the snogging, damn it! And more besides. Then he thought of Ginny in the hospital wing and immediately felt awful and unworthy. 'Okay, I'll go and see Ginny and we'll work out the rest when I get back, yeah?'

'Very well. Need I remind you to keep your guard up, even if this IS Hogwarts?'

'Eternal vigilance. I know.' He stretched up and kissed Snape's lips briefly. 'See you soon, then.'

Chapter 6

What in Merlin's name did he think he was doing? Snape watched the door close behind Potter and took a deep breath. It had to be the bloody war. Wars always did odd things to people, brought together bedfellows who never would have been under saner circumstances. Temptation had been put in front of him and he'd given into it in return for a night's worth of sex and release. And the closeness, too, if he was being honest with himself. Being that intimate with another person after so long had certainly been as… pleasant as Snape remembered. These needs and desires come to the fore during wartime. Faced with an uncertain tomorrow, people will take what comfort comes their way today. Perfectly understandable human behaviour.

But what was all this now? No sooner has he heard of a slight mishap in a Transfiguration class, than he's plotting a scheme to get Potter back into his arms - as if it hadn't been only this morning that the wretch was last there!

He stalked over to his liquor cabinet and poured himself a generous splash of scotch. The only reason Potter was here in the castle right now was because Snape had orchestrated it once the slightest hint of opportunity had presented itself. Why had he done that? Weasley's injury wasn't serious enough to warrant a mercy dash. If he had simply kept his mouth shut and stayed the hell away from the floo, Potter would still be back at Grimmauld Place (where he should be, his brain offered up helpfully) and the question of if or when the two of them could be "together" again would still be as nebulous and unanswered as it should have been.

Snape slumped into a seat by the fire and stretched his long legs out in front of him. He wanted Potter around. That was it, wasn't it? He took a drink of scotch, mildly disgusted with himself. He just couldn't bloody wait to get his hands on the little sod again, could he?

Pathetic.

It was unthinkable, really. Unconscionable. But he hadn't been able to get Potter out of his mind for any longer than a minute or two all day. Even spending hours in his laboratory hadn't really worked. No matter what he did or tried to apply himself to, Potter's breath was on his throat, Potter's hands were gripping his thighs, Potter's voice was whispering filthy things that made his face heat and his prick swell. A walk of the grounds had hardly cleared his thoughts.

He drained his glass and checked the time. What was he going to do when the boy returned? Apologise and tell him he'd made a gross error of judgement and shoo him back to Lupin straight away? That was what he should do. Or bend him over the desk and give him a rogering he'd feel for a week? That was what he wanted to do.

Then there was the issue of what Potter had said he'd like to do. "I wanted to make love to you." The thought of Potter taking him… Dear lord. What, precisely, might Potter have meant by the term? Did he truly mean that he wanted to make love to him? Or could he simply not bring himself to say "I'd like to try fucking you"? Hm, he'd been throwing the F-word around fairly easily this morning… Wonderful influence you're having on the boy, Severus. In less than forty hours you've got him swearing, drinking, sucking cock and taking it up the arse. Excellent work. Have you ever considered working with young people? He accio'd the decanter of scotch and poured himself another two fingers.

For a good twenty minutes or more, Snape just sat there, watching the fire and sipping his scotch, unsuccessfully trying not to think about Harry bloody Potter.

'I'm back.'

Snape looked up to see Potter standing in the doorway. Gods, the boy was beautiful.

'So you are, Mister Potter.' Snape put his empty glass down and stood up. 'What would you like to do now?'

Potter stepped fully into the room and closed the door. 'Can you ward the door first?' Snape did so, then quirked his eyebrow at the younger man. Potter crossed the floor to him and seemed to pick up their earlier kiss right where they'd left it.

'Mm, you've been drinking scotch.'

'Indeed. The prospect of your return was… unsettling.'

'But you're the one who got me here!'

'That was a large component of what made it so unsettling.'

Potter clasped his hands loosely around Snape's neck and gazed up at him with a lazy smile. 'How much time do you think we've got?'

'Not so much that we can waste it standing around in here.' He unwrapped Potter's arms from his neck and led the boy toward another door.

Potter stood at the entranceway to Snape's bedroom and peeked in as though trying to ascertain what dangers lurked within. 'What, no coffin? Well, there goes that theory.' He shrugged and walked over to the bed, sitting on the edge and grinning again. 'Nice bed.'

'I am pleased it meets with your approval.' Snape suddenly didn't want to do this anymore. The flirting. He'd allowed himself to get too agitated while stewing on the situation. He busied himself with the removal of his robes, draping them over the back of a chair.

'Are you okay, Snape?'

'Hm?' He looked over at the bed to see Potter lounged across it comfortably, evidently very much at home. 'We don't have unlimited time, Potter. It may not be particularly romantic, but you might want to simply, ah, "get your gear off" is the expression, I believe.'

Clearly, this was the funniest thing anyone had ever uttered in Potter's presence. Snape continued undoing buttons while Potter rolled around in paroxysms of laughter on his bed. He was practically naked by the time the youth finally wiped his eyes with his knuckles and lay there on his back, chest heaving as he slowly regained his regular breathing. He looked up as Snape approached the bed, the green eyes glistening with mirth.

'Your arse looks really nice in silk,' the boy purred up at him, unbuckling his belt and unsnapping the button of his jeans.

Snape knelt onto the bed by his side and slid his hands under the long-sleeved tshirt Potter wore. The chest underneath was warm and silken, the nipples already hard under his fingers. He moved on top of the smaller body and leaned down for a heated kiss, Potter arching up into him as their tongues explored each others mouths. Merlin, he was hard for the boy again. His body was already composing a list of activities it wanted to perform - Get those clothes off; Raise those legs; Fuck that tiny little hole again; Come in him hard; Make him scream "Severus" with an arse full of cock again.

'Wanna be in you.' The words were hissed against his lips. He raised his head slightly and looked down at the mouth that had just said those words. 'I want you, Snape. Need to feel what it's like. To be in you. Can I? Please?'

'Well, when you're asking so politely…'

Potter's grin was impossibly huge. 'I want to fuck you so badly, Snape. Been thinking about it all day.'

'Ah. A war for the future of our civilisation is on and all Mister Potter can think about is shoving his dick into his greasy old Potions Master. What is the world coming to?'

'Not so much with the "old", if you please.'

'Touché, Potter. Were you planning on undressing anytime this century?'

Chapter 7

Harry removed his fingers from Snape's body and positioned his well oiled cock at the entrance. 'I'm scared of hurting you,' he whispered.

'I'll let you know if it becomes unbearable. Try not to worry so much.'

Harry nodded and bit his lip in concentration, trying to look down and see where he was going. A large hand cupped his chin and brought his eye level back to Snape's face. 'It knows what it's doing, Harry.'

He doubted that for a moment, as he tried pressing forward and didn't feel any give for a little while. But then Snape pulled his legs up a little higher and Harry felt the head of his cock dip into… into… oh god, it was going in! Wide eyed, he looked down at Snape for confirmation or encouragement or something, anything. The man beneath him just gazed steadily up at him, breath shallow, jaw tense.

'How long has it been since you've let someone do this?'

'Sixteen years.'

'Bloody hell! That's almost as long as I've been around!'

'Yes, thank-you for the astounding mathematics, Potter. Now, I do believe you were attempting to fuck me?'

'Git.'

'Child.'

'Bastard.'

Whatever insult Snape had been intending to throw back next was cut off in a gasp as Harry thrust forward and sank a further inch or so into the furnace of the man's body.

'Ohfuckinghell,' Harry whimpered, worrying his lip nervously. 'FuckSnape, you've no idea how you feel…'

'I think I, uh, have a vague notion…'

'So hot.' Harry gave another, tiny, experimental thrust and felt the walls of Snape's body tense around him. 'So fucking tight! Shit, I love this! I love you! Oh, shit!' He fell forward and clamped his mouth over Snape's, shoving his tongue deep into his mouth, moaning as he felt Snape's body take more of his cock in. God, it was almost all the way now. He could feel his balls nudge against Snape with every movement he made. Oh, fucking god.

'You can move more now, if you wish.'

If he wished? Harry braced himself on his arms and lifted his hips, feeling the delicious friction of his cock sliding almost all of the way out of Snape. Then, as gently as he was still able, he pushed it back in again, mesmerised by the sight of Snape's mouth falling silently open as he did so.

'Is that okay?'

Snape nodded, running a hand over Harry's chest, up onto a shoulder and finally gripping hold of his left upper arm. 'Very much so.'

'Good.' Harry smiled down at him. He lowered himself further and pressed his chest to Snape's, thrusting his cock in Snape's arse as their mouths met again - hard, horny kisses that matched their building momentum.

A swathe of Snape's hair fell across his face as they moved together and Harry reached to smooth it away. As soon as he'd done so, Snape turned his head and caught two of Harry's fingers into his mouth, sucking on them wetly, running his tongue all over them.

'Oh!' Such a simple thing, and yet Snape made it feel so good. Harry thrust his fingers in and out of Snape's mouth in time with his thrusts elsewhere, eyes closing as he lost himself in the twin sensations of heat and sliding. Fingers pressed into his mouth, too. Fingers that tasted like potions. Right now, he couldn't think of any better taste in the world. He sucked hard on them, wrapping his tongue around them, feeling his drool dribbling out of his mouth.

God, he was really fucking now. Every fibre of his being was engaged in the act of humping and thrusting, of penetrating and driving, of shoving as much of his body in and out of Snape as he could. He felt Snape's mouth move off his fingers and he put his hand back down onto the bed to increase his support, opening his eyes to see Snape watching him with an artful expression.

'Have you wetted those fingers sufficiently now, Mister Potter?'

Fuck, Snape could make him come with just that voice.

'Because, if they're not wet enough,' Snape removed his fingers from Harry's mouth. 'This might hurt a little.' And he moved his hand around behind Harry and pressed his fingers into Harry's arsehole.

'Oh! Fuckyes! Fuck!' Harry bucked his hips forward hard, dragging a moan from deep in Snape's throat.

'Thought you might like that.'

'You know everything that feels good.'

Harry fucked into Snape faster, both their bodies now gleaming with sweat. He lowered his face to Snape's neck and sucked at the flesh, claiming the older man with a mark. He suddenly thought of Snape's cock and tried to move a hand between them, but Snape batted it away.

'Leave that. I've got plans.'

'Hm?'

And then the bastard started using That Voice on him again. Harry moaned just at the sound of it.

'As soon as you've come in me, Harry, I'm going to be on you, you hear me? Your prick's still going to be throbbing from fucking me and I'll be mounting you and fucking your little hole until I fill it.'

'Ohgod… !'

Snape slid a third finger into his arse and Harry exploded, ramming his cock deep, deep into Snape and thrusting madly as he felt his orgasm flowing through him and out of him. God. God!

Before he could even catch a breath, he felt Snape slide off his cock and twist out from under him. Fingers left his body as he was shoved down roughly onto his front, his legs pushed wide apart, Snape's body over him, his entrance being stretched and invaded. He groaned as Snape shoved his cock in, thrusting hard immediately.

'You'll hurt after this,' Snape hissed at his ear. 'But you'll love it.'

Harry did. He did love it. Snape was strong and powerful over him, the orgasm having leeched every last drop of strength Harry had. Snape gripped his hips tight and fucked into him solidly, coming in no time at all, saying Harry's name over and over as he kept thrusting through his climax.



'Can't risk falling asleep this time, Potter. Keep your eyes open.'

Harry ran a hand through his hair and let out a deep breath. He gathered himself up into a sitting position on Snape's bed, leaning heavily back against the headboard. Snape pushed some pillows out of the way and sat next to Harry.

'Can I ask you something, Snape?'

'No doubt you will do so, whether I give my permission or not.'

Harry ignored the snark. 'How did we end up doing this? You and me? How did we possibly work out that we'd be good at this together? I mean, it's not like our mutual communication was so shit hot or anything…'

'As unfamiliar as I am with this bizarre expression, "shit hot", I would hazard a guess that I agree with you.'

Harry got up from the bed and began finding his items of clothing and putting them back on slowly. 'I mean… I'm right, aren't I? That we're good at this? That we sort of… just know what the other one wants? Or something.'

Snape watched him with an unreadable expression. 'You enjoy these encounters with me? You enjoyed… that just now?'

Harry, halfway into his jeans, stopped and gave Snape a hard look. 'You mean to tell me you couldn't tell? Bloody hell, Snape! I thought you had to be observant to be a good spy!'

Snape scowled. 'You mean to tell me that all of your feelings on the subject are positive?'

'Huh?'

'No guilt, Mister Potter? No regrets? No feeling a little bit… dirty?'

'Do you?'

'No. But it is not my feelings on the matter that currently interest me. Kindly answer the question.'

Harry pulled his shirt over his head and down over his torso, a hand moving automatically to straighten his glasses. 'I don't regret any of it at all. Quite the opposite, actually. I love it!' He looked at the older man with a steady gaze. 'And I don't think I feel guilty about any of it. And as for feeling a bit dirty about it, well…' His gaze wavered for a moment then reasserted itself. 'I guess I do a tiny bit.' His voice dropped in volume. 'But it's kinda nice, in a weird kind of way. Is it possible to feel dirty in a, a good way?'

Snape rested his head back against the dark wood from which his bed was carved. 'I believe the word you may be trawling for is "naughty", Potter.' The side of his mouth twitched slightly as though he was trying not to grin.

Harry smiled. 'Yeah. Is that silly of me? Feeling a bit naughty?'

'Not necessarily. We are indulging some of our baser instincts in the pursuit of pleasure. There is often something of a Bacchanalian element to such pursuits.'

Harry shook his head slightly, grinning widely at Snape. 'Thank-you,' he said through the grin.

'Thanking me, Potter? What for now?'

'For obviously thinking highly enough of my intellect that you believe I have the faintest idea what you're talking about half the time.'

Snape crossed his arms over his chest and scowled again. 'You have a well stocked library at your almost sole disposal at Grimmauld Place, Harry. I suggest you try filling your days with an activity other than masturbation.'

'But you make that so hard, sir!'

'Enough of that, Potter. Finish getting dressed, will you? Before your werewolf floos in to check up what I've done with you.'

'What haven't you done with me?'

'ENOUGH! Dress!'

Swallowing a laugh, Harry knelt on the floor to retrieve one of his trainers from under the bed, then sat down to put it on. 'If he asks me at all about what else I've done apart from visiting Ginny, I think I'll just say that I got talking with you for a while. Arguing mainly - that'll be more believable.' He flashed a grin at Snape. 'Maybe we were talking about my Uncle? Anyone'd believe I could spend - how long have I been in here with you now?'

'Almost an hour.'

'Really? God, that went quick. But yeah, Remus would believe I could spend an hour arguing with you about wanting to go to my Uncle's funeral. Anyway, I don't think it'll be an issue. I bet he won't even ask. Lupin's not as suspicious as you are about what people are up to.'

Snape grunted in response.

Harry stood up, fully clothed now, and looked down at the still naked man sitting on the bed. 'I think you were right about that, by the way. About it being stupid for me to go to the funeral. I don't want to go anyway. As much as I hate to think of yet another person dying just because of me, I can't bring myself to feel too bad about it. Is that wrong of me? Does that make me a horrible person for thinking like that?'

He watched, fascinated, as Snape's jaw tensed momentarily and relaxed again. In a fluid movement, Snape stood up from the bed and reached for a dark dressing gown that hung nearby. He approached Harry as he tied the sash around his middle. 'Since your parents died, Harry, who are the people who have been your carers, your loved ones? Have they been those to whom you are tied by blood? Or those that you have chosen as your own family and who have chosen you in return? There are those who would have you believe you should mourn the man, simply because you were related. I, however, don't believe that blood ties are any more or less sacrosanct that the ties we choose to bind ourselves to others.' There was the merest of flashes in the onyx eyes. 'I never felt the compulsion to mourn my family members' passings.'

'I guess the Snapes were about as much fun to grow up with as the Dursleys were.'

'Indubitably.'

'Is that what made you, you know.' Harry's eyes darted to Snape's left forearm briefly then back up again. Snape's expression was tight.

'It was… merely a contributing factor.'

The ball of warmth in Harry's belly pulsed faintly. 'I'm sorry for being such a shit to you over the years. Most of the time, anyway. Sometimes you deserved it, 'cos you were such a git. But, you know, I'm sorry. Sorry.'

Harry closed his eyes for a moment. That had to be the single worst apology that he'd ever tried to make to anybody, ever. He really should have given that one a bit more thought before launching into it, shouldn't he? He suddenly found himself being very soundly, and yet very tenderly, kissed. He raised his arms and wrapped them around Snape's shoulders and neck, returning the kiss with as much feeling as he could put into it.

When they gently broke apart, Snape pressed his forehead lightly to Harry's and the two of them just stood like that for a while, arms around each other, heads bowed together. Finally, Snape sighed as he rubbed a splayed hand over the small of Harry's back, and then lifted his head.

'You should go now. We don't want to raise anybody's suspicions.'

'I wish we could.'

Dark eyes considered him a moment. 'Fascinating as this new conversational tangent might well be, Mister Potter, I really must insist you get a move on. Go home. Have something to eat. Train Lupin to fetch your slippers or some such.' He began ushering Harry out of the bedroom and back into the sitting room.

Harry was presented with a box of floo powder and a point toward the fireplace. 'Okay, okay!' he laughed as he was backed toward the hearth. He took a handful of powder and set the box down on the mantle. 'Is it any use, me asking you when I can see you again?'

'You shall see me next when you next see me.'

'Oh, ha ha.'

Harry stepped into the fireplace and locked eyes with Snape. 'You're dead gorgeous, you know,' he blurted, and threw the powder at his feet. 'Twelve Grimmauld Place!' he instructed the floo and was whisked away immediately.

Spiralling through the network on his way back home, a memory suddenly came back to him that made his heart feel like it was trying to pump ice cubes into his veins. "So fucking tight! Shit, I love this! I love you! Oh, shit!"

Bloody. Hell.

He fell out of the floo onto the hearth rug at Grimmauld Place with just one thought running through his mind. He had told Severus Snape that he loved him.

Chapter 8

'Can't get 'em to mate, can I? Male just dun' wanna know. Won't mount, ye see. Tried ev'rything, I 'ave. Short o'showing 'im how it's done meself.'

The glassware on the staff table rattled as Hagrid's enormous bulk shook with laughter. Beside the half giant, Madam Hooch threw her silver head back and guffawed right along with him.

Snape sliced his scrambled eggs into ribbons and tried to think of something besides sex. A glance at his breakfasting Slytherins didn't help matters - at least three different couples on that table were barely managing to keep their hands to themselves and one particularly precocious third-year was flagrantly reading The Story Of O while eating a sausage.

Merlin's balls, the entire world was conspiring against him!

He shifted slightly in his seat. He hadn't been joking when he'd warned Harry about dining chairs. Sixteen years between incidences of this particular pain. What the fuck was he playing at? Sixteen years ago, he'd stood for an entire early morning double Potions class due to having been fucked senseless until daybreak. He'd never handed out so many detentions as he had that morning, despising the children's hateful ability to be just so fucking innocent in front of him. It had never really occurred to him until that day that they - children, the generation after generation of them that passed through these halls - were all going to be defiled one day, that their innocence would be lost or stolen, that each one of them, every wide-eyed, rosy-cheeked, lisping last one of them would one day be fucking or fucked. He'd shut himself in his laboratory and puked into the basin after that class, telling himself it was just the hangover he was nursing, but knowing deep down that he was not cut out to be a carer of the young. Not as he was, at any rate. He couldn't keep walking into a class full of eleven-year-olds and look any one of them in the eye when he had a gut full of spunk and an arse that had had a tongue in it mere hours before. Quitting his job was not an option. He needed to be here, under Albus' protection, on hand to do Albus' bidding and besides, where else would he have gone just then, with the Ministry's file on him still in the Pending tray, so to speak? The only sex in Snape's life since then had been either of the solitary variety or that which occurred as a natural consequence of his double agenting activities. Neither, it barely needed noting, had been particularly satisfactory.

And now this. Now Harry. Who had once been one of those hatefully fucking innocent eleven-year-olds for whom he had kept himself largely celibate. Harry, who still retained enough of that innocence to enjoy the "naughtiness" of being shagged by his ex-Potions Master.

Snape's mouth went dry. What. The fuck. Was he playing at?



'Miss Artis, do you really think your cauldron should be spewing foam into my classroom right now?'

'N-no, sir.'

'Then kindly do something about it. There are any number of ingredients on the desk in front of you that will halt that reaction immediately. You have only to make up your mind about at least ONE of them.'

'Yes, sir. Sorry, sir.'

Snape waved a hand dismissively and returned his attention to marking the essay he was reading.

"In summary, Muggles are clearly very stupid to limit the production and availability of the cannabis plant as it's basically just dead useful."

Snape sighed. Should he award marks for correctness of reasoning or subtract them for moribundity of language? "Basically just dead useful", indeed. Did teenagers take special classes in understatement in their spare time?

"You're dead gorgeous, you know". Snape's quill dripped ink onto the parchment in a pooling ooze of red, right in the centre of the page. He stared at it without seeing it, his mind's eye showing him only an image of Harry standing in his fireplace, grinning and complimenting and locking green onto him…

'Professor Snape? Sir?'

Snape's head jerked up at the voice. The foam vomiting forth from Artis' cauldron had now decided to catch fire apparently. He composed his thoughts, schooled his face into a never-fail scowl.

'Ah, Miss Artis. It seems we chose the wrong ingredient from our desk, didn't we?'



The week just seemed to go from bad to worse. Snape couldn't keep his mind on anything it should have been on, not even when working on his own in the sanctuary of his private laboratory. And the children, the horrid little advantage-takers, had picked up on their teacher's distraction almost immediately. Classes degenerated into fume-fests and detention delivery. Meals in the Great Hall were spoilt by tousle-haired, scar-headed phantoms at the Gryffindor table; meals in private consisted of not much more than scotch. By the time Saturday morning rolled round, the Dungeon walls were looking imminently climbable.



'Severus! So good to see you! Snowing again, is it?'

'Why does every dim wit in this house feel the need to ask if it's been snowing every time I arrive here with SNOW on my robes?'

Lupin laughed. 'Quite right, Severus. Sorry about that. I guess Harry and I just aren't getting out as often as we'd like. We're having some lunch in the library if you'd care to join us.'

The two men walked down the length of the corridor and turned to enter the warm and welcoming library at the end of the passage. Snape made sure to be wearing his blandest and least interested expression as he entered the room. His young lover was curled up into a large armchair, legs tucked in tight to his body, eating a bowl of bread and butter pudding. With custard.

'Heaven forbid you should ever actually read in here, Mister Potter.'

'Snape!' the boy practically yelped over his pudding before quickly composing himself.

Careful there, Harry.

'Tea, Severus?' Lupin moved to the chair beside Potter and conjured a third teacup.

'Thank-you.' Snape looked to the nearby empty chair. It was the one in which he had been reading the first time Potter had… Gods, it was less than a week ago. Six days! Where had all his self control gone to? What about good old fashioned dignity? What the fuck was he playing at? Snape sank down into the chair and crossed his legs casually.

Lupin levitated his tea to him. Was he really doing this? Sitting down to tea with his barely legal lover and the surrogate godfather chaperone, as though he were some sort of Edwardian suitor come to declare his intentions and prospects?

"Hrm. Yes, well, my intention is to fuck the boy in every manner imaginable for as long as he'll consent to have me. As for my prospects, I am engaged in one of the most dangerous and precarious professions on the planet, a job that will no doubt get me killed sooner rather than later. As well as THAT, I'm also a double agent spy in the house of the Dark Lord." Cue polite laughter.

'Is Ginny back in classes now, Professor?'

'Hm?' Snape looked up at emerald pools. 'Oh. Yes, Miss Weasley returned to normality on Wednesday. No lasting damage, except to her pride. I would have thought the extra limbs might have been an improvement, but evidently not.'

'Would you like something to eat, Severus?'

Snape dragged his gaze away from Potter to look at Lupin as though the werewolf had just asked him to dance the tango with him. 'Am I really doing this?' he heard himself saying.

Lupin's expression changed but Snape couldn't read anybody but Harry anymore. He drank half of his tea in one go and set the cup onto the low table somewhat shakily. Collect yourself, Severus. Get it together. He braced his hands onto the arms of the chair and rose to his feet. 'My apologies, gentleman, but I think I shall retire for a short time. I'm, I'm not feeling particularly well.'

He managed a shallow bow and walked away from the library as fast as he could without collapsing. Just have to make it to my room, he kept thinking. Just put one foot in front of the other. Keep moving. The staircase proved tricky, but he navigated it successfully and stumbled into his regularly designated room to be confronted by images of himself on top of The Boy Who Lived, both of them gasping and moaning as they rocked together on the bed. The bed… yes. He shambled over to it and fell face first into the crisp coolness of the sheets, the famous nose wishing it could smell their union clinging to the fibres still, but knowing that those crotch-sniffing house elves had already spelled all evidence of degeneracy away. He cursed house elves and werewolves and incubi and eleven-year-olds and other such magical creatures before sliding nauseatingly into unconsciousness.



'He's barely eaten all week, of course. And just between you and me, Remus, I'd say he's been making up for it with his whisky consumption.'

'If I find anyone has dared to try checking the spirit levels in my liquor cabinet, I shall slip wormwood into their pumpkin juice.'

'Severus! You're awake!' Lupin smiled down at him. He looked tired, but then didn't he always?

Poppy Pomfrey elbowed Lupin out of the way and laid a hand on Snape's forehead, then moved to wave her wand over the pulse point at his wrist. 'I don't want you to get out of this bed for the next two days. No, no arguments! Don't think I haven't noticed you going quietly off the rails this past week, Severus. You're obviously exhausted. And starving yourself! What were you thinking?' She fussed at plumping his pillows and tsk-tsked at him. 'I've given Lupin and Potter firm instructions for your care and feeding for the rest of the weekend. I was all for taking you back with me to Hogwarts, but they assure me they can nursemaid you until Monday morning.'

She turned to Lupin. 'Make sure he takes the restorative potion after every meal. Don't let him convince you he doesn't need it.'

'I'm sure Severus realises its importance, Poppy.'

'Of course I bloody do! I make the fucking thing!'

'LANGUAGE!' Poppy glared at him, her mouth tight. The glare softened only slightly as she snapped her mediwitch bag closed and prepared to leave, giving Snape a curt nod as she turned away. 'Please do take good care of him,' she whispered to the werewolf, brushing a hand against Lupin's arm fleetingly as she left the room.

'You gave us all a bit of a scare there, Severus,' Lupin remarked as he came to stand next to the bed. 'Young Harry was quite beside himself.' The amber eyes looked steadily at Snape, but if he was expecting some elucidating response to these statements from his patient, Snape could neither tell nor care.

'And since when doesn't Potter get himself all worked up over nothing?'

'Oh, you're not calling yourself "nothing", are you?' The werewolf smiled softly.

'Poppy wants me to rest, Lupin. Would you mind kindly pissing off?'

'Not at all, not at all. Er,' he took a step back but paused suddenly.

'What?'

'I think Harry would like a quick visit. Just to convince himself you're alright, Severus. He really was worried, you know. Charming, really. I had no idea the two of you had worked through so many of your old problems.'

Snape couldn't think of anything appropriate to say to that, so settled for a scowl.

'I'll just go and get him. Won't take a moment. And then you can be left in peace, I promise.'

Brilliant.

A moment later, the brat himself was bounding into the room, eyes wide and limbs clumsy. 'You're okay?'

'Yes, Mister Potter.' He tried to sound his most put-upon. 'As you can plainly see, I am not knocking at death's door just yet.'

'I was worried about you.'

'Well, I can assure you there was no need to be. I merely need some rest. Something I would appreciate getting now, if you don't mind.'

Oh no, not the pout!

'Potter, pull that lip in this instant! I won't have you mooning around my sickbed like a hired mourner.'

'Sorry. It's just… I was so happy to see you again and then I was so worried - '

'Keep your voice down, you idiot child! There are no sound proofings in place at the present time.'

Potter gulped and bowed his head like a reprimanded puppy.

'Potter. Harry, look at me.' Slowly, the green eyes looked up. 'You have to be more careful about the manner in which you speak about me to others, as well as the way you act around me in front of them. Lupin was just now remarking on how "charming" he thought it that you were so demonstrably worried about me.'

'Well, if he thinks it's charming then there can't be any harm in it, can there?'

'Try not to be so incredibly naive.'

Potter approached closer and wiggled his bottom onto the edge of the bed, perching there seemingly casually and gazing down at Snape with a soft look. Hesitantly, he reached a hand out to Snape's chest, laying his palm over the area of Snape's heart through the covers. 'Are you sure you're alright? In here, I mean? It's just you seemed a bit, well, out of it earlier on.'

'I don't think I wish to discuss it, Mister Potter. Suffice to say I've had one of the stranger weeks of my teaching life this week.'

'Is any of it to do with me at all?'

'Did I or did I not just say that I had no wish to discuss it?'

'Sorry.' Potter stood up and looked for a moment as though he was going to leave straight away. Suddenly though, he leaned over and pressed his mouth against Snape's - a brief but heartfelt kiss that made Snape's stomach roil. The boy pulled back again, smiled shyly and moved away toward the door.

'That was very dangerous, Potter.'

'Sometimes dangerous things just have to be done.' Bloody Gryffindors.

'Potter?'

'Yes, Snape?'

'Who the hell undressed me and put me to bed?'

'Oh. Oh, Madam Pomfrey. We fire-called her straight away and she was here in a flash.'

'That's something at least. I suppose.'

'See you later, Professor.'

Eyebrow. 'Yes, thank-you, Potter.'

The door closed with a click and Snape lay back against his pillows, firmly telling himself he couldn't possibly still feel a touch over his heart or a brief kiss upon his lips.



When Snape next awoke, the windows showed no light making its way in from outside. His door was swinging open to reveal the most beautiful youth he had ever seen holding a dinner tray.

'Snape? Are you awake?'

'Evidently.'

Potter grinned wide and marched into the room. 'We didn't know what you might feel like eating, so there's a bit of a selection.'

'Something light, hopefully.'

'Soup?'

'Very well. Thank-you.'

Potter set the tray on the bedside table while he helped rearrange Snape's pillows. Gods, the boy smelt positively edible. 'You smell n - ' The words were very nearly out of his mouth before he'd even realised his brain was thinking about saying them.

'Hm?'

'Nice,' he finished, with a sneer. What a pathetic bloody word that was. So fucking Mugglish.

'Oh. Thanks.' The boy blushed a little as he set the tray down on Snape's lap. 'Do you need any help with this?'

'I'm not an invalid, Potter. I merely needed some sleep. I'm perfectly capable of feeding myself.'

'Okay, okay. Sorry I asked.'

Snape paused with the spoon hovering over the steaming bowl and met the gaze of the lovely green eyes. 'Why are you bothering with me, Harry? What can you possibly be getting out of all this?'

'You mean apart from the incredible - ' Potter suddenly checked himself, no doubt recalling his earlier warning, and lowered his voice. 'Apart from the incredible sex?' he whispered, eyes gleaming.

'Yes, apart from, from that.'

The square shoulders shrugged. 'We make sense.'

'We do?'

'Yeah! Yeah, we do. Don't forget to drink your potion.'

Snape watched him leave again. There had been no kiss this time, and yet his lips tried telling him otherwise.



'Mmm.'

At some point in the middle of the night, Snape half-awoke to find a smaller body pressed up against his in the bed. He wrapped his arms around it and, sighing, hugged it to him tightly. The smaller person wriggled so close to him it was like they were trying to meld their body with his own. He felt his cock beginning to respond drowsily to this lazy comfort, but he willed it away, burying his nose into a bird's nest of soft tousled hair and drifting back to sleep and rare dreams of peacefulness.

The next time he woke, to a lightening room, he was alone in the bed once more. This didn't bother him unduly. On the contrary, he actually felt a grudging bit of… pride? Harry had come to him, not disturbed his attempts at peace and recuperation too badly, and had left again without being found out. Was it actually possible that he was starting to have some influence on the Gryffindor?



'Has Harry been in already this morning?' Lupin took back the breakfast tray and handed over a glass of restorative potion.

'Please don't tell me you've lost him?'

Lupin smiled. The wolf's imperviousness to snark could be nothing short of astounding at times. 'He's been spending a lot of time in the library lately so I'm not seeing him quite so often as I was. Catching up on his reading, he says.'

'About time.'

Lupin ignored the comment completely. 'No, I was simply wondering if you'd spoken to him today already.'

'Is he required to?'

'Of course not. I'm simply, well, happy to encourage a friendship between the two of you. That's all.'

'Why you'd want to wish such a thing upon either one of us is beyond me.'

The werewolf actually laughed at that. 'You may not want to believe this, Severus, but I do think you're good for the boy. And only Albus has protected him longer. The tide of the war may very well end up being turned by your place in Harry's life.'

'My "place", Lupin? Has it occurred to you that I may not want a "place" in anyone's life but my own? I'm sure you're familiar with the concept of the Lone Wolf.'

The amber eyes glinted. 'Were you this funny when we were at school? I'm sorry I didn't realise it at the time…' Lupin added the empty potion goblet to the breakfast tray and, still obviously greatly amused, bid Snape goodbye and left the room.



For once, Snape was entirely happy to follow Poppy's terse instructions to very nearly the last letter. Being granted a weekend of lazing around in bed, not even having to worry about meals, was surprisingly pleasing. Obviously the week prior was to blame for this sudden need he felt to be weak and dependent. He'd soon snap out of it. But, for the time being at least, he was more than content to go along with it and be indulged. Sometimes the strongest action was to admit to a need for temporary weakness.

Late in the Sunday afternoon, a messy head appeared around his door. 'How're you feeling?'

'I am feeling particularly well, thank-you for asking, Mister Potter.'

Smirk. Potter walked into the room fully and approached the bed with slow, languid movements. 'Remus had to go meet Tonks about something. He said he'll be home in about two hours.' Green eyes flashed under the black fringe. 'That means you're in charge for a while.'

Snape crossed his arms over his chest. 'Am I, indeed?'

Without saying another word, Potter toed his trainers off whilst simultaneously pulling his jumper up over his head. Snape felt a distinct stirring in his lap but he ignored it in favour of simply watching. 'And here I thought you were simply collecting my luncheon tray,' he said imperviously as he followed the journey the too-big white tshirt made toward the floor. The jeans were undone and peeled off and then last went the socks and the still mildly endearing y-fronts. He shifted to the side slightly as Potter pulled the bed covers up and slipped his white-gold, naked body in beside him. Snape ran a hand over the curve of a warm hip, traced the shallow valley of a straight young spine.

'I've missed you so much,' Potter whispered and pressed his mouth against Snape's.

Chapter 9

Harry felt Snape's erection pressing against him through the pyjamas as they kissed. He moved his body slightly so that his own erection aligned with the other and then slowly rolled his hips, satisfied to feel a moan being kissed into his mouth. One of his hands fell to the buttons of Snape's pyjama top and began a tentative fumble of getting them undone. What a change to find a mere six buttons keeping his Snape from him! He tilted his head to get more kiss as he uncovered Snape's chest to his fingers.

'Harry.'

Harry kissed deeper, trying to stop Snape from talking.

'Harry. POTTER!'

'What?'

Black eyes appraised him sternly. 'Have I taught you nothing in all this time?'

'What?' He knew he sounded petulant, but damn it, he couldn't help it right now! He was naked in Snape's bed again and they both had hard cocks and his fingers were grazing over a nipple and he wanted to keep kissing, fuck it!

'Lupin is out, so there is no one else outside of this room?'

'Exactly.' He rolled his hips again.

'And this room is not warded.'

Harry stopped rolling his hips.

'And we are both about to get impossibly distracted and self-involved.'

Harry stopped playing with the nipple under his fingers.

'What would happen if we were attacked right now, Potter?'

Harry sighed. The git was right. 'I'm sorry,' he mumbled. 'I just…' his hips rolled involuntarily. 'I just wanted…'

'Don't put yourself in danger just for the sake of appeasing pleasure, Potter. Take care of the necessities first. Now, if you don't mind.'

Harry sighed a little heavier than he meant to.

'Take care of them quickly,' Snape continued. 'And then give your attention back to me. Seeing as I am, after all, in charge.'

Harry looked up to see Snape smirking at him. 'Bastard.'

'Child.'

'Git.'

'Just do it, Potter. I'm getting impatient.'

Harry stretched and arched his body backwards, looking askance at the floor, knowing that his wand was down there amongst his clothes somewhere. He heard Snape hiss in a breath as he reached out and twisted himself until the wooden implement was in his hand. He pointed the wand at the door and quickly cast as many warding charms as he knew. He looked sideways at Snape as he reached the limits of his knowledge. 'Should I bother with a silencing charm?'

'Just a simple one. Merely as a precaution.'

Harry complied and then threw his wand back onto the twisted heap of his clothes on the floor. 'There,' he said, 'Can I get back to what I was doing now?'

'I'd hex you if you didn't, Potter.'

Harry smiled and basically threw himself on top of the other man, enjoying a strange shiver from the unexpectedly wanton feeling of pressing his nakedness up against a still fairly-clothed lover. 'I want you,' he murmured against Snape's mouth. 'I want you to take me again. I want to be underneath you.'

Snape practically purred in response. A sound Harry had never thought he'd hear the man make, and yet it sounded so good coming out of him, rumbling out of him with that black velvet voice set at an impossibly low pitch. Together, they worked at Snape's pyjamas until they were both naked and entwined around one another, kisses becoming deeper and more insistent. Then Harry manoeuvred himself under the larger body and squirmed to get comfortable on his back. He wanted this quickly now, felt needy and demanding. He spread and raised his legs, gratified to feel Snape immediately take advantage of his new position.

'You were saying you've missed me, Mister Potter?' Snape's tongue trailed wetly along his jawline.

Harry lifted his head so that his throat elongated for Snape's mouth. 'So much,' he muttered weakly. 'Ohgod…'

Snape ran a hand down his side, around his hip and onto a thigh - a thigh that was currently tensing against Snape's waist. Their erections continued to slide together, pre-come lubricating the sensations, though whose, Harry didn't know and didn't care. Having Snape's arms on either side of his head, Snape's chest against his, Snape bracing himself over his body - he never would've anticipated how exciting these supposedly simple things were.

'I like how it feels,' he tried to explain, 'Being under you, having you move on top of me. And the way you, um, brace yourself over me. I like that. I don't know why I should like that so much. But I do.'

'You are simply enjoying the sensation of surrender, of putting your trust and pleasure into the hands of another. Part of the thrill, no doubt, comes from a spark of wonder in your subconscious as to whether your trust is well placed. It is human nature to occasionally take pleasure in our own vulnerability.'

Harry had no idea at all what Snape meant by all that. Was the man trying to suggest that he liked to be dominated or something?

'I liked being on top of you, too,' he felt the urge to point out.

'Yes. For the reverse reasons, one presumes? Thrilling to another's vulnerability. Having the trust and pleasure of another put into your hands. Being surrendered to…'

'And the humping and thrusting.'

Snape laughed softly with his mouth against Harry's ear. 'Now you are moving onto the physical sensations, not the psychological ones.'

'Oh.'

Snape raised his head and looked down at Harry with a look that, on anybody else's face, might have bordered on fondness. 'Shall we indulge in some physical sensation, Mister Potter?'

'We probably should. Just in case Remus comes back early.'

'Indeed. That would be… most unfortunate.' Snape lifted his body and kneeled between Harry's spread legs, reaching in the drawer of his bedside table and retrieving the tube of lubricant.

Harry raised himself up onto his elbows and watched him, fascinated and increasingly turned on, as Snape smoothed the clear, viscous gel onto his cock, the long fingers moving up and down the shaft. Harry wet his lips. 'I'd love to watch you sometime, Snape. Doing that, I mean.' Slowly, he dragged his eyes away from the glorious sight and raised his head to meet Snape's gaze.

'Likewise, I'm sure.'

Snape finished his preparation by running two lubed fingers up and down the cleft of Harry's arse, making Harry fall back onto the mattress solidly. His eyes fell closed and he raised his arms above his head until his hands could brace against the headboard. 'Fuck me,' he whispered. The tip of one finger breached him, quickly moving down to the second knuckle. It moved in and out of him several times. It felt nice, but what really felt incredible now was the knowledge of what the finger led to. Knowing that this finger was only there to prepare him for something much larger and harder, something that would fuck his body so much deeper - that was what was so incredible about having this finger inside him. 'Fuck me,' he whispered again, and a second finger slid into him beside the first, both pumping at him for a moment before leaving him quite abruptly.

Harry's legs were raised by large, cool hands. He opened his eyes again as he first felt the bluntness of Snape's cock being pressed to his opening. 'Oh… fuck me,' he whispered a third time.

Snape thrust forward lightly and seemed to miraculously fill Harry with just one stroke. Harry blinked and looked up into Snape's face. Eyebrow. Snape was obviously as surprised as Harry was…

Tentatively, they began to move together, their movements quickly finding pace and rhythm. It was like some erotic ballet, the way their bodies could be together, the closeness of the act, the raw intimacy of it. Harry grabbed at Snape's back and shoulders, clinging to the man riding him, holding him close, holding onto him. As long as he could hold this man - this man - here against him, hold him inside him, then nothing could ever harm him.

Snape pressed his temple to Harry's. 'Fucking… Harry… Potter…' he murmured into Harry's hair. 'Merlin…' He raised his head and looked down into Harry's eyes, bestowing upon him the biggest smile Harry had ever seen the man attempt. A crooked smile that didn't seem to fit right on the usually stern face, as though it caused him pain to move his thin lips in that way.

Harry couldn't help but smile his wide, floppy grin back in response. 'Do you like fucking Harry Potter?'

Obsidian eyes flashed as they continued to gaze down at him. 'So much so that I fully expect to wake at any moment and find myself the recipient of a most wondrous dream.'

'Nobody's ever said things like that to me.'

'Then none of them deserved you, Harry.' Snape pushed one hand under Harry's bottom, manually lifting his pelvis higher to meet Snape's harder thrusts.

'Mm that's, that's nice. And you, uh, you deserve me?'

Snape angled his hips slightly and pleasure lit along Harry's entire nervous system. 'You tell me, Potter.'

'Fuckyes!' He buried his face in Snape's throat, licking and kissing and sucking. 'Fuckyes,' he muttered again, so softly he wasn't quite sure if he was saying it out loud now or just chanting it over and over in his head.

'Touch yourself for me,' Snape whispered to him. 'I'm close…'

Harry disentangled a hand that had somehow become grasped in Snape's hair and eased it between their bodies. His prick was heavy against his stomach, leaking copiously and desperate for his fingers to move around it. He touched the head just as Snape's cock thrust even harder into him and he almost came then and there.

'Bloody hell! Sev-Severus! Do that again!'

They were coming together. Snape's mouth suddenly descended on his in a desperate, horny, climax of a kiss as they moved through their shared intensity. His brain was going to explode, definitely going to explode with pleasure if this lasted too much longer.

'Harry.' Snape was stroking his skin and sucking his throat. Oh god, Snape was so wonderful. So fucking wonderful.

'Harry? Severus?'

Harry and Snape both stared at each other in horror. Dumbledore's voice was calling them from downstairs!

'Fuck!' Harry hissed.

'Move, Potter! Now!'

Harry winced as Snape pulled out of him roughly. He tumbled out of the bed, hideously aware of the patch of come clinging only slightly to his stomach. He grabbed up his tshirt and wiped it once across his abdomen - that would have to do - and stuffed his shirt under the blankets of Snape's bed.

Snape got halfway through an eyebrow raise before catching on to what Harry was doing. 'Socks and underwear, too. You haven't got time for those.'

Harry shoved the other garments into the bed as he was told and snatched up his jeans, shoving his legs into them so quick he was scared he might fall over. Weasley jumper was pulled on while he pushed his feet into his trainers, thankful that he'd toed them off earlier without undoing the laces.

'Harry? Are you up here, my boy?' Dumblebore's voice was definitely coming up the fucking stairs.

'Wand, Potter! Wards!'

Shit, shit, shit! Harry waved his wand in hasty circles at the bedroom door, hoping he was getting rid of everything he'd put in place. Snape, meanwhile, was calmly doing up the buttons of his pyjama top and smoothing his hair down, his dignified air not giving away the fact that his pyjama bottoms and half of Harry's clothes were somewhere in the bed with him.

'Tray,' Snape hissed at Harry, pointing at the long-forgotten lunch tray sitting on the bedside table. Harry made a lunge for it as Snape raised his voice and called out, 'In here, Headmaster!'. 'Get out as soon as possible,' he whispered at Harry, 'But do NOT act suspicious.'

A quiet knock came at the door just before it swung open to reveal a benignly smiling Dumbledore holding a huge bunch of gaily coloured flowers. 'Ah! Here you both are! Taking good care of our patient, I see, Harry?'

'Just clearing the dishes away, sir.' Harry gave a little smile and hoped his voice sounded normal. Thank fuck Dumbledore had brought flowers, he found himself thinking, 'cos surely the room must smell like two men had just been having sex in it? 'Er, shall I bring a vase of water up for those, Headmaster?' he asked, indicating the flowers as Dumbledore held the bedroom door open for him.

'That would be wonderful, Harry, thank-you. Careful with that tray on the stairs now.'

'I will be, sir. Thank-you.' He chanced a last glance back at the perfectly composed and dignified Snape before exiting the room and wobbling his way to the kitchen on very nervous legs.

Chapter 10

'I do wish you'd consider discussing your concerns with me, my boy.' Dumbledore sat at the foot of Snape's bed, peering over the top of his spectacles and twinkling.

Snape glowered at the vase of flowers beside him. 'Again, Albus, you have my apologies for my substandard behaviour in school this past week. I will see to it that it won't happen again. But my… Rather, the mitigating factors behind that behaviour are not something I wish to discuss with anyone at this time.'

Dumbledore nodded a little sadly. 'You are a strong man, Severus. Life has put so much into your path and you have not only coped but blossomed.'

Snape snorted loudly. 'Please, Albus! "Blossomed"? Do you honestly see any resemblance between myself and one of these?' He jabbed a finger at the centre of a sunflower whose head hung perilously close to his own.

The old wizard chuckled, his blue eyes watering with mirth. 'What flora would you compare yourself most with, Severus? A black orchid? Belladonna? A carnivorous pitcher plant, perhaps?' Snape crossed his arms haughtily and tried to not let his amusement show. Dumbledore wiped at an escaped tear of laughter. 'Ah! Forgive me, I shouldn't make sport of you when you're not feeling your best.'

'Indeed. Was there another reason for your visit, Headmaster?'

A last chuckle allowed Dumbledore to sober sufficiently. 'I was merely worried about you, my dear boy. Your decline over the last few days was… painful to witness. Are you quite sure there is no issue you wish to raise? Troublesome students, perhaps?'

'Imbecilic, unruly children are hardly enough to give me a nervous breakdown, much as they may like to think they can. And frankly, Albus, if I could cope with attempting to educate The Boy Who Lived and his fan club, I'm surely more than capable of dealing with the hoard of quiet little nobodies we have this year?'

'Quite right, quite right.' Dumbledore folded his hands in his lap and fixed Snape with a penetrating look. 'I hate to bring it up, but could that possibly be a contributing factor to your malaise?'

Snape's eyes flashed. 'Whatever do you mean?'

'Well, perhaps life at the post-Harry Hogwarts is not quite so, ah, action-packed or even interesting as it had come to be? A war still raging notwithstanding, of course.'

'Are you - ' Snape snapped his mouth shut again while the stab of indignant outrage pierced through him. He took a deep breath. 'Are you seriously trying to suggest that I made myself ill because I miss Harry bloody Potter?'

Harry bloody Potter chose that moment, of course, to poke his head around the doorjamb to enquire as to how popular a suggestion of tea might be. All three men fell silent. Snape became suddenly very interested in the various botanicals that made up the bouquet Albus had brought. Out of the corner of his eye, though, he noted the Headmaster cast a fatherly look first in his direction and then in Potter's. Interfering old witch, he thought as he flicked a fingernail at a sturdy protea.

'I think tea would be a marvellous idea, thank-you, Harry,' said Dumbledore. 'Shall we have it here, Severus?'

'I've had enough of lazing around up here, if you don't mind,' Snape snapped. 'If I can possibly be left alone for five minutes, I'm perfectly capable of joining you downstairs forthwith.'

'Splendid!' Dumbledore eased himself to his feet and walked toward the door. 'We'll await you in the livingroom then, shall we?'

Snape nodded stiffly in response and glared until they'd left and the door had shut. Fuck. Fuck! That had NOT been enjoyable. Well, the fucking had been. But an afterglow involving panic and Albus was most definitely not.



Lupin had returned by the time Snape swept into the livingroom. Snape stood at the door a short moment, composing himself sufficiently before striding in to join his employer, his lover and the werewolf for a spot of tea drinking. Gods, what company.

The available seat in the little group was beside Potter on the two-seater settee. He gathered his black robes about himself and sat down, ready to hex the first person who might dare to utter the words "love seat". He noted with relief that Potter had changed his clothes at some point. Lupin passed him a cup of tea and Potter held a tray of chocolate biscuits out toward him.

'Thank-you, Lupin. No, thank-you, Mister Potter.' The emerald eyes locked with his momentarily and he was instantly transported to a heated memory of being balls deep in the boy and coming hard with his mouth sealed to those luscious red lips. His body wanted to moan and he had to hold it back. Was it like this for Potter as well? Potter sitting there with two of his father figures and his arse sore and probably leaking Snape's come as we speak? Oh dear gods.

He wanted to excuse himself and run away again, just like he had in the library on Friday afternoon when Lupin had invited him in and Potter was eating pudding. With custard. But if he ran away again now they'd all just follow him, wouldn't they? So bloody over-concerned with his state of health and his mental wellbeing. He just had to calm himself, that was all. Sip your tea, Severus, ignore the lithe young body beside you and definitely ignore the fact that you were giving it to him up the arse not half an hour ago - stop looking at him, you prat! Stop it.

'All better again, Severus?' asked Lupin idiotically.

'Marginally,' he sneered and blew steam from his teacup.

'Ah, that's the Snape we know and love!' Lupin grinned, making Potter giggle quite unnecessarily.

'Did Tonks have any useful information?' Snape pointedly changed the topic of discussion.

Lupin picked up his teacup and settled back in his chair. 'Not much, I'm afraid, though she has been privy to an interesting conversation between a certain Malfoy Junior and an unidentified companion in Gringott's bank two days ago.'

'Oh?' Albus leaned forward in interest.

'Yes. Seems Draco was withdrawing a tidy sum from his family's vault. Tonks couldn't linger around too long without raising suspicion, naturally, but she did overhear him talking to his companion about buying German currency and purchasing a house in Munich. Of all places.'

'Munich?' squeaked Potter. 'What's going on in Munich?'

'Absolutely nothing,' Snape responded. 'Which would be precisely why Draco wants to be there, I presume.'

Dumbledore was nodding quietly, the others fell silent as they waited for the Headmaster's response to the news. The blue eyes swept over each of them in turn before settling on the teacup in his old hands. 'The storm gathers, gentlemen.'

'Sir?' Potter's voice sounded young again. Snape had a surprising impulse to lay a hand on the boy's arm or shoulder, but he tamped it down and ignored it.

Albus took a deep breath before continuing. 'The Malfoys are close to Voldemort, as you know Harry. If Draco is getting out of Britain, then we can assume that the Malfoys believe the war here is about to get far worse. They want their scion safe and out of harm's way.'

Potter took this in and stared into the fire for a moment. 'Has anyone heard from Ron or Hermione?' was his next question. Naturally, one's thoughts go to one's friends at such news. Snape mused silently on whether he had a thought for anybody outside of this room at present…

'Yes, Harry,' said Lupin. 'They're both fine. Hermione and the twins are still putting in daily reports from the base in York. And Ron should be back in London any day now. We'll make sure he comes here to spend some time with you before he's back on the road again.'

Potter crossed his legs and his arms in a classic defensive gesture and pouted. 'I feel so helpless here! If only I could be out there with them! Helping them!'

'How many times do we have to go over this with you, Potter?' Snape started, but quietened when Dumbledore held up a hand.

'Harry, my dear boy, we all appreciate how badly you wish to help your friends. If there was any other way…' He smiled softly. 'The greatest way you can help them now is to remain safe until the moment when you are most needed. If you were to fall too early our war would be over.'

Potter stood abruptly. 'I've got to feed Hedwig,' he said in a surly voice and stalked out of the room.

The three wizards watched him leave without a word. Lupin levitated the teapot to pour more tea into each of their cups. 'I try to keep him occupied, Albus,' he said as he poured. 'But I'm afraid there just isn't enough here to keep a teenaged mind healthy. Especially in times like these when he's so worried about what's going on outside.'

Dumbledore nodded sadly.

Snape snorted and they both turned to look at him. 'Well, I doubt either of you would fare much better,' he heard himself saying to them. 'Imagine if your sole purpose in life was to be used as a weapon, a weapon that nobody even knows how to operate. You're just to be kept in your box until the foot soldiers decide things are so bad that it's finally time to drag the big guns out. Frankly, I'm surprised the boy is still as sane as he is.'

Snape steadfastly ignored their surprised looks as he stood up and followed Potter out of the room. To hell with them, he thought bitterly.



'Can I help, Potter?'

'I've fed her now. She doesn't need anything else.'

'I wasn't talking about your bloody owl.'

Potter looked over at the bedroom door, toward Snape, still absent-mindedly stroking the snowy white feathers on the bird's back. 'What is it you think you can help with?'

Snape stepped fully into the boy's room and closed the door behind him after only the merest of hesitations. The room was almost identical to the others on this floor, the same style of bed and bedside tables. Potter had moved one of the desks from the library into here soon after he moved in, but apart from that and the owl perch, Snape might have been in his own room or Lupin's. He approached the desk and stood beside it, conscious of keeping a sufficient distance between himself and the younger man.

'You feel of little use here,' he stated simply. 'It is often the nature of warfare, that warriors spend an inordinate amount of time doing nothing but waiting for something to happen. Boredom, mixed with nerves and tension, uncertainty and fear… this is not a healthy cocktail for the human mind.'

'So you're saying you think I've gone mad?'

'Well, I have certainly found some of your recent behaviour surprising.' Eyebrow. 'To say the least.'

Potter stared at him, open mouthed, for a short while. Then, slowly, realisation dawned and the sides of the mouth quirked upwards into a hesitant smile. 'Funny sod, aren't you?'

'Only to those who make some effort toward understanding my humour. Apparently.' Snape pulled the chair out from the desk and sat down, his tall frame falling easily into a casual expression of studied nonchalance. He watched Potter quietly for a moment before continuing. 'You feel that others are fighting on your behalf while you do nothing with your days?'

'Nothing but hiding away where it's safe. Yeah.'

'We MUST keep you safe, Potter. The Headmaster is absolutely correct on that score. We cannot lose you before you have fulfilled your destiny. Should that happen… every sacrifice made on your behalf, every fight your friends put up, it would all be for naught. They would fall for nothing and the Dark Lord would conquer everyone left. It's the reality, Potter. That is what would happen.'

Potter sighed deeply, ruffling the wispy feathers around the owl's darting eyes. 'I know,' he said, his voice barely more than a whisper.

'So what do you want to do about it?'

The boy looked up. 'What do you mean? There's nothing I can do about it.'

'Incorrect, Mister Potter. You can either accept this reality or you can choose to rail against it and make yourself, and everyone around you, miserable and even more nervous.'

'Huh. Not much of a choice.'

'Indeed. I trust you will be wanting to take the former option.'

Potter locked his gaze to Snape's. 'Indeed,' he said sarcastically.

Snape ignored the bad imitation. 'Very well. In that case, I shall meet you in the library here every afternoon after I have finished my classes for the day. Between the Black family's personal collection and some choice selections from my own shelves, I am confident we can build you a library of excellent Dark Arts texts. I will tutor you in hexes and counter-curses for an hour each day and expect you to practice them in your copious spare time. The fact that you are living with Hogwarts' most competent DADA Master of recent memory should certainly stand you in good stead for your training. We will also work on identifying certain poisons and potions - you are certainly in luck there, Mister Potter, for I have obviously intimate knowledge of all potions you will likely encounter in the Dark Lord's camp, should you be taken. Nothing quite like having the primary source at one's disposal, hm? I shall also attempt to imprint upon you the entirety of my knowledge of the layout of all major Death Eater encampments and venues I know to still be in use. Occlumency, naturally. That goes without saying. Anything else I think of, we can add to our curriculum as we go.'

The green eyes were huge. 'You, you'd do all that for me?'

'For the war, Potter. For the cause.' Liar - the word came unbidden to the fore of Snape's consciousness. 'The Order has allowed you to become sloppy and unpractised these last few months. But as I see that you are obviously chomping at the bit to do your part or go mad trying, then I feel I should take you under my wing, as it were.' He paused slightly as a thought came to him. 'Or my bat wing, as my students might have it.'

Potter laughed then, that wonderfully rumbling sound that Snape hadn't quite gotten used to yet. 'No one will believe you actually want to help me. Or that I actually want to let you.'

'Do you honestly think I care what anyone chooses to believe about me?'

The boy shrugged. 'In relation to what they believe about us, you might.'

'Us, Potter? A trifle presumptuous, aren't we?'

'I don't think so. There is an "us", isn't there?'

Careful, Severus. Snape tugged lightly at a cuff as he chose his next words. 'May I ask you, Mister - Harry. May I ask you, Harry, what it is you think constitutes an "us"?'

A slight blush appeared on the smooth cheeks. 'Um, well. We're having… sex, whenever we get the chance to. Seems like we are anyway. I was kind of thinking that that was sort of, well, um, indicative of… something.'

Snape shot him a curious look. 'Indicative? That doesn't sound like your vocabulary.'

'Spending too much time around you,' the boy mumbled into his chest.

Snape willed a smile away. 'I see. Anything else?'

'We don't hate each other anymore. At least, I don't think we do.'

'Yes, the absence of hatred would certainly be… indicative,' he noticed Potter's smile, 'Of a softening of feelings. So, we are having sexual relations and we no longer hate each other.'

'And you're being nice to me and offering to help me.'

'Sexual relations, absence of hatred, attempts at social niceties, willingness to render assistance. Hrm. Astounding as it may seem, you might just be right, Mister Potter. The concept of there being an "us" may not be so outlandish as it appears.'

'I've never been part of an "us" before.'

Snape stood up from the desk and pushed the chair back in. 'Don't go getting sentimental on me, Potter. There's enough misty-eyed, sentimental bastards crowding my world as it is.'

'No sentiment. Gotcha.' Potter watched Snape take a couple of steps toward the door before surging forward and pressing himself up against Snape's body. 'Thank-you!' he blurted out against Snape's robes. 'Everybody else just tells me to wait and stay safe, just over and over. But you understand. I do appreciate it, Snape. Honest.'

'Then show me your appreciation by working hard with me each afternoon, Potter.'

'Your students won't know what hit them.'

'And what do you mean by that?'

'Well, if you're going to be here every afternoon after class, just think of all the detentions they'll be missing out on!'

Snape extracted himself from Potter's clumsy embrace and reached for the door handle. 'Idiot child,' he said affectionately. 'Why do you think I court an acquaintance with such an odious individual as Argus Filch?'

Chapter 11

'Honestly, Harry, I don't know how you're coping with all this. Really, I don't.'

'Coping with what?'

'Being cooped up here,' Ron sprawled further along the floor in front of the fire. 'With no one to talk to but old teachers. And all those extra classes they've got you doing! With HIM, of all people! It's just not fair, is it?'

Harry leant his head back against the seat of the settee. He and Ron had both been lounging around on the livingroom floor, but Harry had hauled himself up into a lazy sitting position with his back against the couch as soon as he'd heard the tone of Ron's voice. 'Actually,' he said calmly, 'It's all a lot better now than it was even just a little while ago. And I like those extra lessons, Ron. Snape's teaching me so much stuff that I'm going to need to know, plus a whole lot more besides. Things that might just save my skin if I get captured or something. Really - it's okay.'

'Yeah, but did they have to choose him for it?'

'Well, actually, Snape offered. Everybody else seemed happy to just have me sit around here doing bugger all until I got a chance to meet Voldemort again. But Snape offered to help train me up in the meantime. So that I'll be as ready as I can be when the time comes. And honestly - who else could be better at teaching me what to expect from dark wizards?'

He could tell by the look on Ron's face that the very thought of Snape offering to do something for somebody else was distasteful and unbelievable. Harry shrugged his shoulders against the couch and crossed his legs at the ankle. If Ron couldn't even cope with the idea of Harry training with Snape, how would his friend ever possibly come to accept the reality of what he and Snape often did after those lessons?

It had taken barely a fortnight for them to fall into a good routine. An hour of duelling and hex and curse work, then an hour of either potions/poisons and Death Eater hang-outs or Occlumency. Then half an hour of fucking or blowjobs on the library floor or over one of the tables before it was dinner time and Lupin was calling them into the dining room. Harry often found himself wondering if it was possible that sex could make his brain work better. He seemed to be learning things much more easily, grasping concepts, retaining information, far better than he could ever remember doing in the past. Maybe it was nothing more complicated than a simple reward system - he put in a good two hours of work and was richly rewarded with mind-blowing sex. Plus, of course, he found himself so utterly intrigued by and obsessed with Snape that it was all too easy to give the man his undivided attention these days. He'd never been so hungry for information - just so long as it was being imparted to him with That Voice.

Tuesday and Thursday evenings saw Snape leave promptly after dinner; he had to be available for his Slytherins to come to him with House matters. But Monday and Wednesday evenings meant drinks and long talks in the livingroom or around the kitchen table with Lupin and whomever else might be present joining them. Fridays, as they had been for the past six months, turned into an entire weekend of having Snape around - except now, unlike before, weekends meant heavy duty wards and silencing charms and a lot of time spent on his back or his knees. Harry was quite happy for the war to stretch on indefinitely.

'It's just yuck though, innit, mate? We all thought we were free of lessons with the greasy git when we left school, and now you're stuck with him again. S'hardly fair.'

'I honestly don't mind, Ron.' Harry found himself speaking slowly, enunciating each word carefully, no doubt in the vain hope that this might help get the message into Ron's skull. 'He's not so bad, now that I'm not his student anymore. You'd probably find that out yourself if you just gave him a chance.'

'Give him a chance! This IS Snape we're talking about, isn't it? Made our lives a nightmare for seven entire years Snape? Ridiculed you in Potions classes from absolutely the first moment you met Snape? That one? Or is there another Snape gadding about that I wasn't aware of? A nicer, touchy-feely Snape who's really an alright bloke once you get to know him? Bloody hell, Harry, I never thought I'd say something like this to you, but you really, REALLY need to get out more!'

Harry sighed. 'I suppose now isn't the time to tell you that he's actually alright once you get to know him, then?' He tried a grin but his friend obviously wasn't having any of it.

'He's the enemy, Harry! He was a Death Eater!'

'Yeah! WAS a Death Eater! I think you're missing the operative word there, Ron.'

'God, you're even starting to use words like him.'

'Look, I don't want to argue with you about all this. I haven't seen you in ages - I don't want to spend what little time we get together arguing about your grudges against Snape.'

'MY grudges?! That man can wear a grudge like a birthmark, for god's sake! It'll never come off!'

Harry had to give a little grin at that. It was fairly true, after all. 'Well, you're wearing yours pretty blatantly, too, Ron. You're still in student-mode. If you approached your dealings with Snape in an adult manner - you know, like adult to adult - I'm sure you wouldn't find him the same person you thought you knew in school.'

'So you're trying to tell me that he isn't rude or snarky or sarcastic or bad tempered anymore?'

'Er, well, no. He's still all of those things. It's just… that's not ALL he is, if you see my meaning.'

The bright red head shook vehemently. 'No, Harry, I don't see. All I'm seeing here is that, after seven years of being bullied around and put down by that bastard, you're now trying to make out that he's your bloody friend or something.'

'Seven years of being bullied around, put down, treated like an ordinary kid instead of The Boy Who Lived, saved from myself and from others…'

'Oh, don't give me that!'

'Don't give you what? The truth? Snape saved my life umpteen times while we were at school, Ron, and you fucking know it! And if we hadn't have made such a big deal of the grudges WE had against HIM, he might've been able to help us out even MORE than he actually did!'

Ron clambered to his feet, staring down at Harry with wide, crazed eyes. 'He's done something to you, hasn't he?'

Harry's jaw dropped practically to his chest. 'What the fuck are you on about, Ronald Weasley?'

'He's charmed you or given you a potion or something, hasn't he? The bastard! You've never liked him, Harry, and now listen to you! He's done something to your head, that's what he's done. Done something to make you like him!'

Harry braced himself against the settee and used it to help him climb to his feet, turning to face Ron on the hearthrug. 'Yeah, he did. Snape DID do something to make me like him. He was good to me and he treated me well and he UNDERSTOOD me when every other bloody person I know just wants to be NICE to me!'

'Oh! Well, EXCUSE us for being NICE to you, you ungrateful twat! If only we'd known it was UTTER BASTARDRY you were really after, we could've all treated you like SHIT and then you'd love all of us, too!'

'He does NOT treat me like shit!'

'Oh yes, sorry - he UNDERSTANDS you. I forgot already. And just how is it that Snape can UNDERSTAND you so well but the rest of us can't? Huh?'

Harry put his hand to his forehead and roughly shoved his hair back. 'Because of THIS, that's how. Out of all the people you know on this side of the war, Ron, who has actually faced Voldemort and walked away to talk about it afterwards? There's just the two of us - me and Snape. We're it. He's been there, just like I have. He knows what we're up against. And like me, he's got a mark to prove it.'

Ron was momentarily taken aback by this line of debate. He clenched his fists at his sides a couple of times, obviously trying to think up a good retort. 'Yeah, well,' he said, the edge having faded from his voice now. 'You might both have You Know Who's mark but don't forget that Snape CHOSE to get his. Yours was forced on you, mate.'

Harry dropped his arms to his sides and sighed heavily. 'Is there anything I can do to convince you that he's on our side and that he's not like how you're saying he is?'

Ron looked hurt. 'I don't understand why it's suddenly so important to you, Harry. Why does it mean so much to you what I think of the bloke? Aren't I entitled to my opinion?'

'Yeah, but your opinion on this is wrong, Ron.'

Ron gave his friend a steady look. 'Fine,' he said. 'If that's how it is. I'll see you tomorrow, then.'

'Ron!'

But Ron was striding away, throwing open the ajar livingroom door solidly and finding himself face to face with Lupin and Snape on the other side. 'Oh bloody brilliant!' he fumed. 'Just bloody fucking brilliant!' He pushed by his two ex-professors and stomped to the staircase, heading upstairs to slam himself into the nearest guest room.

Harry made to follow, but was struck down by embarrassment when he saw that Lupin and Snape had overheard at least a portion of his argument with Ron. 'Shit,' he cursed under his breath. He pushed his hands into the front pockets of his jeans and slouched. 'Sorry you had to hear all that,' he told the tops of his trainers.

His face felt unbelievably hot as he carefully wound his way between the two older wizards and headed for the staircase. He just wanted to get up to his room as soon as possible and hide his head under his pillows. As he climbed the stairs, he clearly heard the amusement in Lupin's voice as he turned to Snape and said 'Well, Severus, I'd say there's no longer any doubt that Harry definitely knows you're on our side now...'



Sometime between two and three in the morning, Harry was awoken by a tall figure standing over his bed. 'You set your wards to open to my touch, Potter.'

Harry sat up and rubbed at his eyes. 'Mm. Yeah. Don't you do yours the same way now?'

'No. Nobody but I can break my wards.'

'Oh.'

A solitary candle flared to life in the nearest corner, throwing shadows over Snape's face as he came to sit on the edge of Harry's bed. 'I didn't get the opportunity to thank you earlier. For your, ah, impassioned defence, that is.'

'How much did you and Remus hear?'

'Quite a bit, I should think.'

'Oh. Then you heard all those horrible things Ron said - '

'Nothing I haven't heard a thousand times before, I assure you.' Snape hung his head slightly, the deep voice coming out as a whisper. 'A thousand times, but never with such an advocate.'

Harry reached one hand out from under the covers and smoothed the hair back from Snape's face. The onyx eyes held his gaze as he reverently ghosted his fingertips over the high cheekbones, the perfect eyebrows, down the length of nose, along the thin line of mouth. This was not a handsome face or even a mildly pleasing face, but to Harry, this face was beautiful in ways he was only just beginning to understand. A face with character and expression, all the more striking for the rarity of its softer moments. He leaned forward and kissed the tip of the large nose, pulled back, then leaned in again to plant a procession of tiny kisses across the forehead. He felt Snape's breath against his skin as he closed his eyes and sought out a kiss.

'Make love to me.' He pushed the words into Snape's mouth with his tongue.

'I shouldn't linger so long with your suspicious friend under the same roof.'

'I thought you didn't care what others thought?'

'Of myself? Hardly. But of you?'

A silent moment passed between them then Snape stood, letting his dressing gown fall to the floor and slid naked into Harry's bed. He was cold but Harry didn't care. Their bodies twisted around one another with ease and familiarity; they were becoming used to doing this together now.

Harry wound his arms and legs around the larger man as they rubbed against each other. He felt all of his senses spring into life as Snape moved over him, his hands and mouth reducing Harry to a puddle of neediness and want in no time at all. He held Snape's head gently as the older man sucked and licked at his cock, then moved back up the bed to kiss Harry's pre-come back to him. Snape's full and leaking prick was already nudging at his entrance as they kissed deeper before Snape broke away to mouth at Harry's throat, grasping the back of Harry's left knee as he did so and lifting that leg higher.

'No lube!' Harry whispered urgently, stilling Snape's movements.

'Then we improvise, Mister Potter.' And Snape took hold of Harry's straining erection and pumped it expertly. 'Do you want me to fuck you, Harry?'

Right now, Harry felt like he'd shag a goblin if one suddenly appeared in his bed. 'You know I do.'

'Then come for me now. Come all over my hand, Harry.' Snape licked at Harry's ear as he spoke, his voice little more than a deeply sighed murmur. 'You feel so perfect under my fingers. So hard. Hard for me, I know. Hard because I was sucking you just now, tasting you, tonguing you and shoving that tongue into your mouth straight away. You like how you taste, don't you, Potter? I can tell. When you come in my mouth and I kiss you afterwards, it's always like you're trying to fuck me with your tongue. Think about coming in my mouth again now, Harry, think about my mouth around your cock, and come for me.'

There should have been some law against a voice as sinful as that. Snape suddenly crawled further down the bed and opened his mouth on Harry's balls, his hand never letting up the fast, hard strokes on Harry's cock. Spreading his legs wide to allow Snape better access, Harry felt a finger push into his arse and that was it - he was arching his back up from the bed and coming into Snape's hand with a hushed litany of swear words.

'Good boy,' Snape knelt up between Harry's legs and smeared the semen over his erection and around Harry's entrance.

Breathing hard, Harry watched all this preparation with detached fascination. 'You said all that just to get some lube?'

Snape repositioned himself over Harry's body and smirked down at him. 'I told you we had to improvise. And I find the idea of spitting on my own erection quite repugnant. Ejaculate, on the other hand…' he thrust forward with a slight moan. 'Wizard-kind know how valuable their body's fluids can be to others, how dangerous it can be to allow them to fall into the hands of another. Do you have any idea how many, many dozens of spells and potions recognise the inherent magic of your seed, alone?' He forced the head of his cock through the tight ring of Harry's arse.

Harry gulped in a breath and reached to pull Snape closer, ignoring the man's question to ask one of his own. 'You do know what you can do with that voice of yours, don't you?'

'Of course. I can make cock hungry young men come with it. Can't I, Mister Potter?'

'Cock hungry?' Harry gasped as he felt more shaft sliding into his body. He lifted his legs as high up around Snape's torso as he could and pulled Snape down roughly into a possessive kiss. 'You'd better fuck me so good after calling me that…'

Snape growled softly in response. 'Oh, I think you'll find this experience falls decisively into the "so good" camp.' And he whispered a short Latin phrase under his breath.

'Huh?'

'Shut up, Potter, and listen to your body.'

Harry lay back against his pillows and tried to remain as silent as possible while Snape drove into him repeatedly. He tried to concentrate on the burn of Snape's cock thrusting forcefully in and out of his body, its weight and girth making him feel alternately filled and empty. He tried concentrating on the sounds of their breathing and the slaps of flesh on flesh. He even tried concentrating on what words he might choose to describe Snape's performance tonight - so much of his approach to Harry's body was gentle, and yet there was a sense of brutality edging in this time. It wasn't enough to make Harry feel uncomfortable, but it was there in the way Snape didn't lower his body onto Harry's for kisses or nuzzling, the way he put all of his weight onto his straightened arms and, thus braced, slammed unforgivably hard into the smaller body beneath him.

'Hold your legs wider for me.'

Guh. Harry obeyed, grasping the backs of his knees and holding his legs apart as far as he could, the effort making his muscles shake. Snape changed his strokes to longer, more angled thrusts that - impossibly! - became even harder and rougher, jolting Harry's head dangerously close to the headboard each time.

'Can you hear it yet, Harry?' Snape's voice was gruff with exertion.

'Hear what, exactly?'

'Forfuck'ssake!'

'But I, I don't know what you mean, uh…'

Snape's gaze bored into Harry's. 'Listen!'

'But I can't - ' Hang on. Harry fell silent mid-sentence as his ears seemed to suddenly pick up a low, sibilant sound. As he listened, the sound seemed to vibrate rhythmically, almost like a low hum, except more… well, more Parseltongue-y, if he had to put a word to it. 'Is that coming out of me?' he asked his lover.

'It's within you, you've simply never heard it before.'

'And can you hear you?'

'Yes. Can we concentrate on fucking now, please, Potter? I can't keep this effort up AND deliver a lesson on sex magic at the same time for long.'

'Oh. Sorry.'

Sex magic? Harry renewed his grip on his legs as Snape reapplied himself to fucking Harry's brains out. He'd heard of it, of course. Even read a little bit about it in the Restricted Section at school. All that Muggle superstition about witches having orgies with demons was Mediaeval nonsense, of course, but sex magic was a real enough discipline - though certainly not considered the sort of thing that "polite" people indulged in. Then again… the same could be said for plain old anal sex, couldn't it?

Harry became lost in the double efforts of staying tuned in to his sound and physically taking the roughest, hardest fucking of his young life. Yes, certainly not the sort of thing polite people would engage in. The crown of his head was banging into the headboard in no time at all, but as this coincided with Snape's prick attacking his prostate mercilessly, he barely even registered any pain.

'Still listening, Harry?'

'Yes.'

'Oh fuuuck…' Finally, Snape brought his body down to Harry's. He wrapped his right hand around the top of Harry's head to protect it from further headboard abuse, and simultaneously melded their mouths together in a hungry kiss as he came crashingly hard into Harry's sore arse.

To Harry, it felt like every nerve ending in his body was set alight at the same moment. The sound in his ears now became two - his own sibilant Parseltongue-y hum and a second sound, a deeper, more resonate thrumming that he knew immediately to be Snape's sound. The two noises entwined around one another, complimenting each other, finding a perfect pitch together and… singing?

'Oh…' Harry felt hot tears prickle his eyes. He let go of his legs and wrapped his droopy limbs around Snape's shaking body.

Snape lifted his face from Harry's and looked down upon him with a watery gaze. Harry watched in awe as a single tear escaped and ran down the hook of Snape's nose. Instinctively, he reached his tongue out to catch it as it fell. They kissed again, rolling over on the bed, holding each other tight enough to leave bruises. Harry whimpered miserably as he felt Snape's spent cock slip out of his body. It was then that he realised tears were streaming uncontrollably down his face.

Chapter 12

'I'm sorry. I'm sorry.' Harry hadn't been able to say anything else for the past minute or so. Snape was starting to feel a bit bad for the boy - he was obviously unused to crying in front of others and not comfortable with it. And yet, Snape understood that the tears had been involuntary and of the joyous variety; just as his own had been. There was no shame in responding so heartily to such a spell as they had just wrought. He tried mutterings on this theme as he stroked the boy's skin and hair, but it would seem that Potter would just have to calm down of his own accord. Snape got comfortable under the covers and hauled Potter's still shuddering body against him. With his arms around Harry's shoulders and his chin resting on Harry's head, Snape closed his eyes and set about waiting however long it would take for his young lover to recover. The onset of questions would most likely be the best indicator…

'What on earth just happened then, Snape?' Potter whispered against his chest ten minutes or more later.

'Oh, compos mentis once again, are we?'

'Wha-?'

Snape smiled into the bird's nest of hair. 'In your right mind, Harry?'

'After that? I'm not sure.'

'Mm. Perhaps I should have forewarned you of the outcome.'

'I wouldn't have believed you anyway.'

'True. In answer to your question, we just, ah, rubbed our sexual powers against one another. For lack of a better expression.'

'Well… I can believe that. How does it work? Was it a spell?'

'Yes. The Culmen Densus. A most coarse and rudimentary potion, if you will…'

'Potion?' Potter lifted his head from Snape's chest and frowned in consternation. 'That doesn't make sense.'

They rearranged their positions slightly, both heads resting on the same pillow, limbs still draped around and upon one another. 'Inadequate choice of descriptor, I'll admit, but the analogy can still hold. With the spell I incanted when I first entered you, we were able to hear the current of our own sexual powers. Then we took two magically powerful ingredients - your semen and my own - and we mixed them together during an act of incredible closeness and intimacy. At the moment when the two ingredients were mixed, we could hear and sense those currents combine and flow together as one, creating a combined power, or force if you like, that we could both feel.'

'I can still feel it a little…'

'Yes. Take up your wand and try a Lumos for me.'

Harry grinned slightly and reached to the bedside table for his wand. 'Lumos,' he muttered. A dazzling light shot out of the wand and lit up the entire room. Around the edges of the nimbus were faint tints of green and red, the two colours mingling together as they danced at the periphery of the almost-blinding glare. 'Wow!' said Potter, predictably.

Snape shielded his eyes with one hand. 'Very well, you've seen it now. You can turn it off again, if you please, Potter.'

'Nox.' The light disappeared as suddenly as it had formed, leaving the bed once again bathed in just the single candle that Snape had lit when he arrived. 'Wow!' said Potter again. 'That was huge! And the green and the red! Was that… was that us?'

Snape lowered his hand from his eyes and let his pupils re-adjust to the light's sudden absence. 'The combination of our powers won't last for long. It wanes soon after the afterglow, I'm afraid. But yes, those inter-mingled colours are a residue of our union. As is the temporary increase in power.'

'That's fantastic!'

'That's magic, Mister Potter.'

Potter flushed all of a sudden and averted his green gaze. 'There's just so much stuff that you know that I don't.' His voice was small and shy.

Briefly, it occurred to Snape that, just a matter of months ago, he would have found the sentiment and the manner in which it was spoken, worthy of ridicule. Or at the very least a well practiced sneer. Now, however, he found it - gods, what did he find it? Endearing?

He hadn't performed the Culmen Densus with anyone since his very earliest days with the Death Eaters, when he'd still laboured under the delusion that certain of them were his friends and comrades. There had been no reason, since that time, for him to feel that any partner was worth such a binding - even if said bond was only a temporary one. Why had he done it tonight? They had merely been in need of some lubrication. He didn't have to go and incant over the top of it like that.

Snape sighed heavily and buried his nose in Potter's hair again. He liked it. He liked this bizarre relationship that he and Potter had fallen into. He liked the sex. (Hell, he loved the sex.) He liked the Dark Arts training every afternoon and having a willing student who truly strove to achieve results and appreciated his tutelage. He liked… Potter.

He liked Potter. That's why he'd cast the spell.

'Can you stay here tonight?'

'Hm?' Snape lifted his head so as not to be clocked on the chin by Potter raising his face up to his.

The boy leaned in closer and trailed his tongue lightly along Snape's bottom lip. 'Can you stay?' he repeated. 'Please.'

'I shouldn't. Mister Weasley would surely succumb to apoplexy if I were discovered here.'

'When have you ever been discovered anywhere you didn't want to be discovered?'

'Curious, Potter. Either you're complimenting my success as a spy or you're teasing me.'

'I'm not teasing you.'

'I should very much hope not.' Snape contemplated how cold his silk dressing gown would feel, putting it on now after it had lay on the floor for at least ninety minutes. Then he contemplated how warm it was here in the Saviour's bed, in the Saviour's very arms. 'I can Apparate to my room in the morning. I suppose.'

Potter squirmed against him, all sex-warmed skin and sleepy sighs. 'Yeah. It's late now. You should stay here. With me.'

With him. Snape stared into the flame of the single candle for a very long time as the night wandered toward morning. Potter's head didn't leave the pillow of his chest once. And Snape's arms never once let him go.



They were roused some hours later by a timid knocking on Harry's bedroom door. An equally timid voice soon joined it. 'Harry?'

Snape stretched languidly as Potter finally stirred from his chest. Trust Weasley to disturb his friend so early in the day. Potter yawned and stretched fetchingly, then attached himself very firmly to Snape's face as the timid knocking at the door continued.

'I just wanna say I'm sorry, Harry!'

'You're going to have to answer him eventually, Potter,' Snape murmured between kisses.

'But I'm hard!' came the petulant retort. 'And I want to fuck you…'

As enticing as the two statements were, Snape managed to gently push the younger man away a couple of inches and fix him with an impervious look. 'It is morning and you are male, Mister Potter, so I should hardly be expected to feel flattered by the natural post-slumber state of your penis.' The boy pouted beautifully. 'And frankly, Harry, the thought of you fucking me while Ronald Weasley bangs away at the door is nothing short of mortifying.'

Snape slipped out of the bed while Potter chuckled at the mental image he'd left him with. He could feel Harry's eyes on his body as he gathered up his dressing gown from the floor and eased himself into it.

'It was another amazing night, Snape. Thank-you.'

Snape sashed the gown and let his gaze wander over the pale skin, the raven hair and those stunning verdant eyes. He held back the sigh that was threatening to make its presence known. 'Thank-you, Harry.'

He Disapparated before either of them could say anything else.



So, he liked Potter. Snape stalked through the busy hallways of Hogwarts, glowering and instilling abject terror as he went, musing to himself on how different he felt to just a couple of weeks ago. It still shamed him to remember the downward spiral that had led to a weekend of enforced bed rest and strict orders to imbibe his own restorative potions. But something had changed now. He could spend the night in Potter's bed (Merlin, spend the night in Potter!) and still look the children in the eye the next day. There was no guilt involved in the liaison now, at least none that extended so far into his regular life that it could stop him eating or functioning as normal.

He was still loath for anyone to find out what he and Potter were doing though, wasn't he? And why exactly was that? Potter was an adult now, after all, and no longer Snape's charge. There was no law in either Wizarding society or Muggle Britain that prohibited them being together in any sense. And yet the thought of Albus' eyes no longer twinkling when they settled on him… or the thought of the werewolf's quiet voice quietening further with disappointment… Ronald Weasley's look of nauseated disgust… Molly Weasley's shrill outrage… as much as all of these things annoyed him to distraction normally, his reluctance to be in receipt of them was so strong that his next thought was "scotch".

Breakfast beckoned stronger than the whisky bottle, however, and he took his seat at the staff table in the Great Hall, secure in the knowledge that he was actually coping quite well with his first relationship in sixteen years. He swept a gaze over the Slytherin table as he sipped his tea, not at all perturbed by the glimpses of hands on thighs or that bloody precocious third-year who had advanced this week to reading Sacher-Masoch's Venus In Furs. Yes, coping exceedingly well, in fact.



Second-year Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs hovered over their cauldrons. They were the first class after lunch on Mondays and usually proved little trouble - no doubt mainly due to the fact that Snape had always made sure to partner them into mixed house pairs, so that each Puff had a Raven to oversee it. Snape generally got a lot of marking done in these classes. He was working his way through a stack of parchments at a cracking pace, derisory comments flying out of his quill with all the alacrity of a Snitch with Potter behind it. Hm. He probably shouldn't have had that particular thought…

The Headmaster's voice suddenly boomed through the room, travelling on one of the loudest Sonorous spells Snape had ever heard. 'Attention everyone. Hogwarts' grounds have been breached. All teachers to the main entrance as soon as possible, please. Students should be safe in the castle.' Every student in Snape's class looked wide-eyed around at one another as the voice paused. 'Oh, this isn't a drill, by the way.' Silence descended on the room once again.

Breached? The grounds… breached? No. No, the war can't come here. Not here. Not like this. Snape set down his quill calmly and looked around the roomful of twelve-year-olds, their faces pale, some of them reaching hands out to hold each other already. He glanced at the fireplace. He could at least get these children well out of harm's way right now. "Should be safe in the castle" be damned - there were Death Eaters out there.

Snape pushed his chair back roughly and strode to the hearth, throwing a hastily caught up handful of floo powder into the grate. He spoke the desired address directly into the floo, as quietly as possible in the hope that no students heard him. 'Lupin!' he shouted into the interior of 12 Grimmauld Place.

The werewolf, who had obviously just been tending that particular fire, started in surprise. 'Severus! God, you startled me!'

'Hogwarts is breached,' Snape barked at him before he could launch into any small talk or pleasantries. 'I'm sending my class through to you right now. Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws. Make sure none of them find out where they are and DEFINITELY don't let any of them discover who lives there with you. I must go. Close the floo behind them.' He saw the shocked look in Lupin's weary face. 'Keep them safe, Remus. I'll be back.' Then he stood and ordered his class into the fireplace. 'Orderly now! Don't panic.' He fixed his black gaze on a tall Ravenclaw boy, seeing him square his shoulders in response. 'You're in charge, Hunter.'

The boy nodded solemnly. 'Be careful, sir.'

Snape turned on his heel and swept toward the door, extinguishing the fires under the cauldrons with one swish of his wand as he went. His robes whipped around his body as he threw the door open forcefully and stalked out into the hallway. Breached. Death Eaters. Here. No! He broke into a run, taking the steps up from the dungeons two and three at a time as he headed for the main entrance and Merlin only knew what else.

Most of the teachers were already there when Snape arrived, his appearance coinciding with Hagrid and his loping canine and Trelawney who looked like she might just drift away on the next stiff breeze to happen by. Albus and Minerva were standing together in the archway of the great doors, heads bent together, muttering. Snape pushed his way to them, his eyes all the while scanning the surrounding lawns for evidence of invaders.

A distant rumble caught everyone's attention and they all turned their heads toward the Forbidden Forest where the incredible sight of an orderly stampede of magical creatures met them. The animals and half-animals stopped at the edge of the trees and about-faced, forming a cordon with the castle now behind them.

'They mus' be comin' in through t'woods!' Hagrid said.

Well, that much is fucking obvious, thought Snape. 'Headmaster? Our orders?'

Albus turned to face Snape and still managed to twinkle, despite looking so grave. His voice was quiet, unheard by all except Snape and Minerva. 'Severus, my dear boy, if you join us in this fight your cover in Voldemort's camp will be irredeemably blown.'

Snape felt a slight twitch below one eye. 'You cannot expect me to hide myself away, Albus.' He swallowed as an uncomfortable thought occurred to him. 'Surely the fact that I was not privy to the plans for this assault would indicate my cover is perhaps not as intact as we believe it to be?'

'All the more reason for us to be careful with you, Severus. You are far too important to us. I should not want to lose you.'

'Here they come,' said Sinistra softly.

'Everyone inside!' Albus and Minerva each took hold of one of the heavy oak doors and began closing them in their wake as everyone surged backwards several paces into the entrance hall. Dumbledore looked around at his staff members. 'Right then,' he rubbed his hands together lightly. 'Our friends of the forest will hold them back for a short while, I should think. We should probably cover all the major entrances, hm?'

Several pairs broke away from the group and headed down various corridors. Hagrid was already heading for the courtyard with his crossbow.

Why were Death Eaters even here? Snape's Dark Mark hadn't burned for almost two months, so the plans for this attack hadn't resulted from a general summoning. This was obviously the work of the inner circle themselves, those who never had to be summoned because they so rarely left the Dark Lord's presence.

Snape ignored Dumbledore's protests and stayed by the Headmaster's side, wand at the ready. With Minerva and Flitwick flanking them, they faced the main entrance and waited.

Chapter 13

Harry hadn't seen so many people in the dining room at Grimmauld Place since Christmas. It seemed that every available member of the Order was there, all of them chattering loudly and gesticulating in their enthusiasm. The Death Eater attack on Hogwarts was big news and absolutely everybody seemed to want to talk about it at great length and at great volume. The one person that Harry most wished to see and hear from, however, was not there. Each time the floo had flared into life that afternoon, Harry's heart had leapt for his throat as he hoped desperately to see the lank black hair and the surly face emerging from the grate. Each time, he had swallowed his heart back down and told himself that the next time, surely, it would be Severus…

'Oh, Harry, Ron, isn't it horrible?' said Hermione as she appeared in front of them. Her eyes were red-rimmed with tears. Beside her, Fred and George both offered her hankies at the same time.

Harry gave her a wan smile. 'At least it failed, 'Miony. You have to look at it that way.'

'Yeah,' added Ron, 'At least there's quite a few less Death Eaters around today than there was yesterday.'

'But poor Professor Sprout! And Firenze's brother! And that Ravenclaw seventh-year - what was his name again?'

'Alistair Addock,' murmured George.

'Alistair Addock,' Hermione repeated, dabbing at her face with Fred's handkerchief. 'He was a brave boy…'

They all nodded sadly. It was something of a miracle that the short battle had incurred only three losses for the side of light, but the losses still stung deeply nonetheless.

A large shadow passed over the little group as Hagrid tried to manoeuvre his huge bulk through the crush of people. Hermione put her hand on his arm, stopping his progress. 'Oh, Hagrid! Can you tell us what happened? Please? It's so difficult to get a straight story out of anybody at the moment!'

'Now, 'Ermione, you jus' dry tha' pretty face o'yours. It were all over so fast, like, I'm still no' sure o'all the facts, meself!'

'Have you spoken with Snape?' Harry interrupted. 'And Professor Dumbledore?' he quickly added.

Hagrid nodded his bushy head. 'Only briefly, mind. In t'infirmary afterward. He was brilliant, was Snape, weren't he? Only one to think 'bout gettin' his children out, he was. An' never left the 'Eadmaster's side for a minute. Not even one! Even though them Death Eaters was really layin' it on thick.' He grinned hugely at them all, his round cheeks rosy above the unruly beard. 'I know none o'you was too fond o' 'im, like, when you were in school 'n' all, but he's a good man to 'ave around in a fight, believe me. Prob'ly owe 'im for us still 'aving Dumbledore with us, I'd wager.'

'And how is Professor Dumbledore?' Hermione urged.

'Righ' as rain now! Madam Pomfrey patched 'im up in no time. Jus' a few scratches was all. He should be 'ere any tick o'the clock now, so you can all stop yer frettin'.'

'Thanks, Hagrid.' Hermione stood as high up on her toes as she could and pressed a quick kiss onto the half-giant's cheek, making his cheeks even rosier. He made some gruff noises and shuffled away with a sheepish look toward the table and the tea pot and sandwiches.

No sooner had Hadgrid gone than the floo spluttered once again and Harry whirled to face it. From out of the flames stepped Albus Dumbledore in an impressive robe of scarlet and blue. The whole room erupted into applause as the Headmaster dusted some soot off his sleeve and advanced forward, smiling and glittering, holding his arms out in greeting to them all. Harry applauded and felt his mouth pulling into a smile, even as his gaze flitted back to the still open floo where, sure enough, a tall black-clad figure with a dour expression was following behind Dumbledore.

Harry's heart was back in his throat again - felt like it was jumping up and down in there for good measure, too. His eyes raked over his lover, looking for any obvious sign of injury and, finding none, he let out a long held breath he hadn't even realised he'd been holding in. He simply watched Snape for a short moment, observing the way the black eyes darted about the room, as though counting the number of people present and assessing what potential danger any of them might be. Although the mask never shifted, the posture seemed to relax slightly as the spy ascertained that he was surrounded by allies.

Everybody was making such a fuss of Dumbledore. Snape folded his arms over his chest and stood to the side of the fireplace, watching the proceedings with a slight scowl. Harry's Gryffindor spirit emboldened him and he made a beeline for his lover. As he approached, Snape's black glare locked onto him. It's okay, Harry said internally, I'm not going to hug you in front of all these people. No matter how much I want to. God, I want to. He stopped a good foot or two in front of Snape and held his hand out. Snape's eyebrow quirked as he looked down at him.

'Well done, today, sir,' Harry said in a steady voice. 'I'm pleased to see you're okay.'

Harry was vaguely aware of hearing Ron's voice from somewhere behind him saying 'What the hell's Harry doing?'. Snape obviously heard it as well, for there was a momentary flicker in the onyx eyes before he carefully unwrapped his arms and reached forward to shake Harry's hand.

'Thank-you, Mister Potter.'

Harry grinned widely as the handshake finished. God, it was so perfect just to touch him, even just that little bit. 'Can I get you a drink, sir?' He saw Snape swallow as they looked at each other. He wanted so much to wrap his arms around the man and kiss him over and over and tell him how wonderful and brave he was and how very, very glad Harry was to see him alive and unscathed and back here with him.

'Is it possible that there's some scotch left in this house that you and Lupin haven't poured down your throats already?'

'Definitely. I think it might even be older than me.'

Snape nodded slightly. 'Very well. No ice, Potter.' There was a slight pause and then, 'Thank-you.'

Harry grinned even wider than before and set off to hunt down the drink. As he passed by the group of Weasleys and Hermione he smiled shyly, trying his best to ignore whatever looks were being thrown his way.

He returned to Snape with two glasses of scotch, no ice, and handed one over. Hesitantly, he clinked his tumbler against Snape's. 'So glad you're back,' he whispered and raised the drink in a discreet toast. Snape appraised him darkly for a second before nodding once and taking a large drink of his scotch.

'Professor Snape? Sir?' Hermione's voice broke in on them. Snape turned his gaze on the young woman. 'Er, Hagrid told us how, that is, he told us we probably have you to thank for Professor Dumbledore being safe.'

Snape lifted his chin slightly. 'Hagrid was in the courtyard most of the time, Miss Granger. He is not a reliable witness.'

Hermione gave a small frown. 'Well… thank-you anyway, Professor.' She exchanged a look with Harry, the very tiniest of eye-rolls, and moved away again.

Harry smirked up at his lover. 'You're such a bloody git at times.'

'Now, Harry,' Lupin cut in as he came to stand beside him and gave him a stern look. 'You're not teasing poor Severus, I hope?'

'Only a little bit,' Harry smiled. He felt like his shoulders had been relieved of a solid weight. His Snape was alive and safe, he was standing right here with him and things would be just fine, he knew it. He sipped at his drink happily and began wondering how possible it might be to get Snape to slip away with him for a quick spot of life-affirming snogging...

'I trust my class managed to not tear the place apart this afternoon, Lupin?'

'Oh, we're back to surnames again are we, Severus?'

'I beg your pardon?'

'Well, you called me Remus this afternoon, you know. I do believe that's the very first time you've ever done so.' Lupin smiled as Snape's frown deepened. 'Anyway, your class wasn't any trouble at all. Nice bunch of kids. They just sat quietly in the library and read and talked amongst themselves. It was quite a pleasure to have children's voices around the house for a while.'

Snape sneered. 'You're welcome to them.' He appeared to notice something going on behind Harry and suddenly set his glass down on the mantelpiece. 'Ronald Weasley,' he said in a cold voice, 'Would you mind stepping out into the hallway with me for a quick word? I shan't keep you long.'

Harry turned around in surprise to see Ron standing there with his mouth open. Snape was already striding toward the door, obviously expecting that Ron would follow him obediently. Ron exchanged a look of panic with Fred and George and then ambled after the other man, as though approaching his doom. Harry watched him leave and then walked to the door himself, hovering just inside in order to try and overhear what Snape had to say.

'Do you actually like Mister Potter, Weasley?' Snape's voice was hard.

'What? Of course I do! He's my best mate!'

'So why do you persist in treating him so badly? So childishly?'

'What are you on about, Snape? I don't!'

'You don't trust his judgement, you disparage his decisions, and you openly mock his attempts to act in a mature and admirable manner.'

'Huh? I do not!'

'I saw you just now, Mister Weasley. That look on your face while he was talking with myself and Mister Lupin was downright ugly. It got a good laugh from your equally facile brothers, yes, but did you stop to consider the fact you were publicly ridiculing the one you profess to be your best friend?'

Harry would've given anything to see Ron's reaction to that.

Snape gave a frustrated sigh. 'You disapprove of Potter being nice to me?'

'Well, I, er - '

'Do you truly hate the idea of him being agreeable to anyone but yourself, Mister Weasley? Or could it possibly be that you feel threatened by Potter's increasing maturity and adult behaviour?'

'No! You - '

A shrill screech suddenly filled the corridor. They'd obviously disturbed the portrait of Sirius' mother. 'Disgusting filth!' Mrs Black shrieked at them. 'Traitorous scum! Get your dirty mudblood filth out of my house!'

'Bloody hell!' yelped Ron, clearly startled.

Harry dared to poke his head around the dining room doorjamb just a little and peek at what was going on down the hall. Snape was rounding on the large portrait, lifting the cover over it and shouting into the portrait's face. 'I am a Snape!' he roared at Mrs Black. 'And he,' he jabbed a long finger in Ron's direction. 'Is a Weasley! We are BOTH pureblood wizards, you hateful old bitch! Now FUCK OFF!'

Ron's bottom jaw was open about as far as it was possible for it to go. He was looking at Snape with a new kind of look - begrudgingly impressed.

Snape dropped the covers back over the now cowed painting and turned on Ron once again. 'You do not like me, Mister Weasley, I am well aware of that. And I can assure you my liking for you is likewise minimal. But Potter is an individual important to us both and I would remind you that part of being someone's friend involves maintaining respect for their decisions and occasionally having to tolerate their other associations. I do not wish to ever again witness you being so churlish with regard to Harry. Is that clear?'

'Y-yes, sir.'

'Very well.'

Harry ducked back into the dining room and scurried back to Lupin who was now chatting with Hermione and the twins. He watched surreptitiously as Snape stalked back into the room, followed a short time later by a rather sheepish looking Ron. Snape retrieved his drink from the mantel and was quickly dragged into a conversation with McGonagall and Kingsley. Harry smiled at Ron as he rejoined them.

'I hope that wasn't too torturous for you,' Harry told him quietly.

Ron looked shell shocked. 'He called you Harry, Harry.'

Harry willed his pleased-as-punch smirk away. 'Yeah, he does that sometimes these days.' He tried to look casual as he sipped at his scotch.

'And he told Sirius' mum to fuck off! It was brilliant!'

Harry laughed with delight at that. Oh god, he couldn't wait to be alone with Snape again.



'Harder!'

Harry gazed down into Snape's face and grinned sharply. 'Harder? Fuck, Snape, I feel like I'll rip you in two if I'm not careful!' He groaned as he felt Snape squeeze himself around Harry's cock impatiently. 'Bloody hell… don't do that! I'll come too quick…'

Snape smirked up at him and squeezed his internal muscles again. Harry moaned and thrust himself forward as hard as he could. How could anybody feel this good? So hot and tight and just goddamn fuckable? He angled his hips and thrust hard again, feeling the vibrations of Snape's cry as he did so. Godyes. He wanted to stay here forever, stretched out over Severus Snape with his cock buried deep in his arse, fucking him as hard as he could.

'Harry…' Snape whispered hotly at his ear, his voice rough. 'So good… oh, like that… there.'

Harry got up on his knees and grabbed Snape's hips roughly, pulling his pelvis onto his lap. 'Can I, uh, do it this way?'

Snape put his legs up onto Harry's shoulders. Oh dear god! The angle was perfect! His cock slid easily into Snape's arse, all the way with the merest of thrusts. He wiped some sweat out of his eyes, then got a good hold on Snape's legs and began fucking into the man's arsehole like his very life depended on it. He closed his eyes in ecstasy and lost himself in the intense sensation. His prick represented everything he was at that moment - he was Snape's lover, he was the man giving Snape pleasure, he was the man making Severus buck and groan and beg to be fucked deeper and harder, he was Snape's man.

Panting, Harry opened his eyes and looked down. Snape's eyes were twisted shut as he took the pleasurable assault, his mouth slightly open in a long, silent moan. His right hand was wrapped tight around his own cock, pulling on it rhythmically, its large purple head glistening with pre-come. As Harry watched, the hand moved faster and suddenly brought Snape off, long pulses of spunk splashing up Snape's stomach and onto his chest. Harry felt the arse he was fucking clench tight around him and he pushed Snape's legs off his shoulders and leaned over, swearing darkly. His balls tightened as he swept his tongue greedily across Snape's chest, slurping up as much come as he could and then he was erupting, throbbing deep inside Snape's arse with a cock that just couldn't stop thrusting and fucking.



'Mm… that hurt good.' Snape nuzzled his nose at the back of Harry's neck as they lay together, spoon-fashion, on the wreck of Harry's bed.

'Sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you. You should've said - '

'No, it was perfect, Harry. Just what I needed. You fucked all my tension away…' Snape tightened his arms around Harry's torso and pressed his chest more solidly against Harry's back.

'Were you scared today? When it was all happening?'

'Terrified.'

'Did you know any of them? The Death Eaters?'

'Yes.'

'Do you know what they were after?'

'Yes. Me.'

'You?'

Snape sighed, his breath moving the fine hairs at Harry's nape. 'I believe it would be safe to say that my career as a spy has come to an end.'

Harry felt Snape's mouth move down the side of his throat, kissing and nipping at his flesh, mouthing at the juncture of his neck and his shoulder. 'Go to sleep, Harry.'

'Hold me.'

'Of course.'

Chapter 14

Snape was transfixed by the lightning bolt scar on Potter's forehead. He reached forward and lightly smoothed the dark hair away so he could better see the disfiguration carved there by his former Master. Long, dark eyelashes fluttered and the emerald orbs looked up at him, full of mirth and such lovely-to-see lust. Snape's breath hitched for a moment in the back of his throat as he stared down at the beautiful face - the cheeks were flushed pink and the mouth, the mouth was stretched beautifully wide around the girth of Snape's erection.

He shifted his weight slightly in the library chair and managed to push his cock a little further into the sucking warmth of Harry's mouth. He leaned his head against the back of the chair and watched in fascination. The lightning bolt beckoned again and, reverently, he traced its zig-zag with a trembling index finger.

'Legilimens,' he suddenly hissed.

Potter was thinking about fucking him, about being fucked by him. The boy's mind was a tumble of erotic moments, all of them starring the hard member he was currently fellating. He saw Potter's memory of being on his back with Snape riding him. He saw a wet dream Potter had had involving being bent over his old student desk back in the Potions classroom, his arse plundered by Snape's fingers and tongue and finally, again, yes, his cock.

'You aren't even attempting to block me, Potter.'

The green eyes gazed up at him lasciviously. The prettily bruised mouth eased off from its task. 'I know,' he said, his voice thick. 'But I want you to see how much I'm enjoying this.'

'That's hardly the point of these lessons.'

'Just this once… let me show you.' And the mouth descended upon him again, the tongue flexing against his engorged flesh.

A fantasy version of himself drawled "Detention again, Potter". There was their first kiss in this very room. Potter was on all fours on his bed in the dark, feeling the slick length of Snape's cock thrust roughly into him again and again. Potter's fingers were sliding in his mouth. His legs were wrapped around Potter's ribcage. His hands were holding Potter's head steady as he eased himself into Potter's hungry mouth. Potter was exclaiming "Shit, I love this! I love you!" as he clumsily banged his ex-teacher for the first time.

Snape extracted himself from Potter's mind as he became lost in the sensation of his cock emptying into the young throat swallowing around it. His balls ached with the pulse of the orgasm and he pushed himself up further, watching saliva and come dribble out of Potter's mouth and down what little of his shaft hadn't been able to fit.

The boy really had become astoundingly good at fellatio in a very short period of time. Most impressive.

Potter continued to suck him lazily until his dick was completely limp, then he gently tucked Snape away again and wiped at his mouth and chin as he stood up, crossing the room to flop down tiredly into one of the other chairs. Snape sprawled where he was a few moments longer while his breathing steadied and his thoughts gathered. He'd forgotten about the younger man's exclamation of love. At the time, it had seemed so obviously to be merely a mid-coitus blurting. People said all sorts of outrageous things between the sheets that they would never normally even dream of saying - Snape knew this. The words had clearly stuck in Potter's thoughts though. And Potter, sitting across the room with his cheeks still flushed and his mouth now thoroughly fucked, knew full well that Snape had just heard the admission once again whilst in his mind.

'You said it during the act of congress, Potter, I'm not going to hold you to it.'

The boy had removed his glasses and was wiping the lenses with the bottom edge of his tshirt. He flinched almost imperceptibly as Snape spoke. With that faintest of movements, Snape suddenly understood perfectly. He stood and turned away, walking over to the windows and pretending to be engrossed in the nothingness to be seen outside.

Potter wanted to be held to his words.

Snape heard footsteps and then felt the boy standing close beside him. He looked down to his side briefly. Potter was staring straight ahead through the window, too, likewise engrossed in nothing. Snape returned his gaze forward and wondered what to say. Somehow, he just didn't feel himself adequately equipped to deal with… love.

Merlin, how had he ever gotten himself involved with a fucking Gryffindor anyhow?

A gong sounded from the direction of the dining room. Lupin's latest addition to making life at Grimmauld Place just that tiniest bit more annoying.

'Dinner time,' murmured Potter and moved away quietly. Snape followed him out to the hallway and further to the dining room, feeling vaguely angry at himself for hurting the boy without meaning to, and angry at the boy for being hurt in the first place.

They joined Lupin at the table and began their meal, both of them trying not to look at each other and continually failing. Lupin made several attempts at conversation starters before giving up and staring at them both alternately.

'Whatever is the matter with the two of you? Don't tell me you've had a falling out.'

Snape sneered into his wine goblet. Potter pushed his potatoes around his plate like a sulky teenager. Hell, exactly like a sulky teenager, seeing as how he was one.

'S'nothing,' Potter managed. As if that ever worked.

'Well, it certainly doesn't seem like nothing, Harry. Severus? Do you care to enlighten me?'

'I most certainly do not.'

'Now, really! You two can be so impossible at times, I swear! One moment you're the best of friends and the next you're both sulking and surly and acting like you expect me not to notice.' There was an uncomfortable silence for a short while, broken by Lupin making a frustrated sound not unlike a polite growl. 'Well, there's obviously something going on between you two. Do neither of you think I deserve to know what's happening between the two people I live with?'

Snape blanched at the idea of he and the boy and the werewolf being described as a ménage; he'd never thought of it that way but gods, Lupin wasn't exactly incorrect, was he? Potter looked suddenly very pale.

Lupin's tone softened as he looked at him. 'Come on, Harry… Gryffindor spirit, eh? Bravely face the problem, whatever it is, yes? A problem between friends is no problem at all? Just take a deep breath and tell me what's wrong.'

Snape drank his wine slowly, watching the two Gryffindors with as much of an air of detachment as he could summon up under the circumstances. He trusted Potter to choose his next words carefully, though they still came as a shock.

'I'm not really a true Gryffindor, Remus.'

Snape's eyebrow shot up. Lupin blinked.

'W-whatever do you mean, Harry?'

Potter stared down fiercely at his vegetables, obviously hoping the two men in the room with him could be willed away if he wished it hard enough. 'I only ended up in Gryffindor because I argued with the Sorting Hat.'

'You can't argue with the Sorting Hat, Potter.'

The boy looked up at Snape defiantly. 'Well, I did.'

Snape felt the urge to respond with "You would!", but settled for a disdainful sniff instead as Lupin continued the questioning.

'But if you argued with it, Harry… which house was it wanting to sort you into?'

'Can't you guess? The Hat said I'd do really well in Slytherin.'

Snape put his wine down a little harder than he had intended. 'And may I enquire, Mister Potter, as to why you saw fit to argue against being sorted into my house?'

Potter shrugged, still staring at his dinner. 'I'd met Draco already. And Ron had told me how all the evil wizards had been Slytherins.' Snape silently cursed the youngest Weasley son. 'And you - ' Potter looked up at Snape and held his gaze. 'When you looked at me that night, Severus, my scar hurt. I mean, it wasn't you, of course, it was Quirrell who was sitting next to you, but I thought it was you at the time. And well, frankly, I didn't fancy spending the next seven years in pain whenever my Head of House looked at me.'

Snape got the distinct impression, from the look on Harry's face, that he was causing the boy pain right now.

'I see.' He thought on the information for a few moments, imagining what the last seven years may have been like, had Potter not taken on the Sorting Hat and won. How could Snape have kept up the pretence of hating the very ground he walked on if Potter had been his regular shining self as a Slytherin? There would have been less points taken for being James Potter's son, he mused. And a few more House Cups in the Slytherin common room. And Quidditch Cups, of course…

Like cold water being splashed into his face, anger washed over Snape's skin, prickling at him, chilling him. He'd almost forgotten what it felt like to feel such fury in response to Harry bloody Potter. It had been years since he'd actually felt it, but now it seemed all too easy to slip back into the comfort and familiarity of it. It was almost as though Potter had just admitted to stealing those cups and glory from Slytherin House.

Snape rose to his feet shakily and glared across the table. 'My appetite seems suddenly gone,' he spat, throwing his napkin onto the top of his dinner and storming out of the room. On autopilot, he found himself in front of the fire in the livingroom. It felt sort of silly and peevish to be flouncing off in a huff like this, but the behaviour came too easily after so many years of practice.

He flooed back to his dungeon quarters at Hogwarts.



Honestly, you imbecile, Potter did you a favour. Snape was on his fourth whisky and his conscience was whinging back at him now. How much more difficult would it have been to convince the Dark Lord your hands were tied when he demanded you bring Harry to him, if he had been one of your very own children? How would you have duped everybody into thinking you hated him all this time, and thus hiding the fact you were secretly helping him, if you couldn't readily take House points and dole out detentions and snark at every turn? Naturally, things hadn't been easy the way they'd gone, but it would have been all the more difficult with Harry and Draco in the same House - sharing the same dormitory! Gods, they might have ended up friends! Potter might have gone the same way you did…

Snape took a hefty gulp of scotch and felt his stomach grumble. It could all too readily have gone that way, couldn't it? A boy with all that raw power being sorted into Slytherin, where his Parseltongue would be hailed as a great gift, where the sons and daughters of Death Eaters would befriend him and exert peer pressure upon him. It hardly bore thinking about. Harry giving his virginity to a Death Eater junior who would whisper sweet fuckings to him and fill his head with the notion that he could be more powerful than the Dark Lord himself, if he only chose the darker path to walk. What terrible things that boy may have become - had he not, as an eleven-year-old, argued with a Sorter that had been appraising children for over a millennia.

Long, pale fingers tapped a staccato on the side of the tumbler in Snape's hands. A grim smile ghosted over his face. Harry had given his virginity to a Death Eater. And not a junior one, either. Hrm, well, thank Merlin the boy could at least pick his Death Eaters carefully.

Snape drained his glass and stared into the fire, giving the dinner conversation another going over in his mind. How had the detail about the Sorting Hat come out again? Ah. Of course. Potter hadn't wanted to tell Lupin what the frosty ambience was all about. Snape smirked. Potter had offered up the information about the Sorting Hat in order to direct the werewolf away from the topic at hand. He'd kept that little Sorting Ceremony detail to himself since he was eleven years old, only offering it up when it could be of use to him, when it could serve his purposes.

How positively Slytherin of him. He felt the corner of his mouth twitch.

Snape poured himself another scotch - just a small one, he'd already had plenty - and swirled the liquid around the crystal glass. He remembered standing at the library window with Potter beside him, neither of them speaking, both of them embarrassed about three silly little words having been blurted out in the throes of passion.

Buggeration. He was… involved… with Harry James Potter. Romantically involved, even. He sneered to himself. Ridiculous - it was all intrinsically, puerilely, abominably ridiculous. He was Severus Snape, for Merlin's sake. He did not get "romantically involved". And particularly not with sexy young saviours of the world who could ostensibly bed any witch or wizard in the known universe and still be regarded as perfect and golden by the mewling masses. The very notion was absurd.

Wasn't it?



Potter was already waiting in the library when Snape arrived at Grimmauld Place the following afternoon. Striding into the room in a swirl of impressive black, Snape tried to summon up his usual strike-terror-into-the-hearts-of-children demeanour. Unfortunately, he felt as though some key ingredient for the effect was missing. Potter looked up at him with nothing but smiles and gleams. Damn it. Snape cast a hasty ward upon the room, his attention focussed on trying not to meet Potter's gaze.

'As much as it pains me to say this, Potter… we have to talk.'

'God. There's four words no man ever wants to hear!'

Snape glanced at the younger man sharply. 'Indeed.' Potter was sprawled casually in one of the chairs, looking positively lickable in his usual Muggle clothes, but Snape couldn't bring himself to sit with him. Instead, he stalked about the room as he wrestled with his thoughts, trailing stained fingers over surfaces and objects as he went. The hands helped to a degree, he could keep his eyes trained on what they doing, what they were touching, rather than having to look up at Potter for any great length of time. He was sure he'd had a prepared and rehearsed speech before he entered this room, but he was buggered if he could remember any of it now. Stupid boy and his damned smiles.

'Do I owe you an apology, Potter?'

'What for?'

'For leading you to a place you never should have gone? For taking advantage of you? Making you vulnerable? Endangering you by letting you get too attached?'

'Huh? I don't follow. You didn't take advantage of me, Snape. I came on to you, remember.'

Snape nodded at an atlas. 'I am still at a loss to explain that…'

A laugh bubbled through the room. 'Explain what, exactly? That I was attracted to you?'

Snape chanced a glance in Potter's direction. 'How could you?'

'Easy. You're a bloody impressive bloke and I thought it'd be interesting to find out what kissing you would be like. And once I found out…' Blush. '…I wanted it all.'

Snape's mouth went dry as he watched the colour on the boy's cheeks. "Wanted". Potter wanted him. It was too bizarre. And yet the evidence was undeniable.

'I should have controlled myself better. Resisted you - '

'I didn't WANT you to resist me! I'm glad you didn't.'

'That's beside the point, Potter. It is still what I should have done.'

'Why? We're not doing anything wrong!'

'Would your Godfather have thought so? Will the Weasleys think so?'

'I don't care what they think!' The green eyes blazed. 'I only care about you! About us!'

'You have an entire world to save yet, Potter. You had better make yourself care.'

'Oh, don't start being a bastard now.'

'I've wanted you since you were fifteen. I've been a bastard for quite some time.'

Potter stared at him, mouth slightly open. 'Fifteen?'

For fuck's sake, Severus, what made you suddenly throw that out to the boy? Snape composed himself and held Potter's gaze steadily, trying to pull the strings of his thoughts back together. 'So now you see, Harry. I should have resisted you. For both our sakes.'

But Potter was shaking his head already. 'No. I'm glad you didn't. If you'd resisted me, then… the last few weeks… I never would have… Fuck! Why do you have to make everything so fucking difficult?'

Snape knew he shouldn't ask, shouldn't pursue, but he'd become rather adept, in recent weeks, to giving in to temptation. 'You never would have - what?'

Potter raked a hand through his mess of hair. 'I never would have known what it's like. To be like that with someone, I mean. To be intimate with someone and… share myself with someone like that. To, to be loved like that. To love.' His voice had started out steady but ended in a scratchy whisper. Snape had never wanted to hold anyone so badly in his life. 'I could die tomorrow, Snape. Hell, I could die tonight and I wouldn't ever even SEE tomorrow! And if that's going to happen, then I want to live first, you know? I want to know a bit about life before I'm dead. I want to feel and experience and revel - that's okay for me to want that, isn't it? Surely nobody could begrudge me that? Nobody who really cared about me anyway…'

'While they may not begrudge you that - and you're quite right, Potter, no one who cares about you should - they may very well begrudge you your choice of partner.'

'Sod 'em if they don't like it.'

'Very mature attitude.'

'And sod you, too, then.'

'You already have, Potter. On multiple occasions.'

'Likewise.'

They looked at each other for a moment that stretched and stretched. Snape wasn't sure who moved first, but there was suddenly no more space between them. Their bodies collided together in the centre of the room, mouths crushed together, hands grasping and clutching and bruising. They had never shared a kiss this desperate while their bodies weren't physically joined.

'Never doubt me,' Potter spoke against his mouth. 'I'll always stand by you, no matter what anyone says. And I don't care if they know. I want them to know. I'm not ashamed. I love this too much.'

Snape cradled Potter's head in his hands as he dragged his lips along the younger man's jawline. 'So I must either accept this love or bugger off?'

Potter laughed, his hands squeezing at Snape's arse through the many layers of robes. 'I reckon.'

'So be it.'

'You've really fancied me since I was fifteen?'

'You were a beautiful child.'

'Would you have done anything about it?'

'As if you even have to ask, Potter. I'm not a monster.'

'Not a saint, either.'

'Most definitely not.'

Potter smirked and ground his pelvis against Snape's. 'Me neither,' he purred.

Chapter 15

'Let's skip our lesson - just for today, Snape! - and Apparate up to your room for an hour. Remus won't know.' Harry's eyes glinted, realising that Snape hadn't immediately protested the suggestion. That was a promising sign, at least.

Snape sighed, brushing his cheek against Harry's. 'I let you get away with far too much.'

'Only because you want me so bad.'

The black eyes bore into him steadily. Snape held him even closer and Apparated them both into his room upstairs. Harry blinked, startled at the smoothness of the action. He grinned up at his lover. 'Has anyone ever told you you're really impressive?'

'You did, not ten minutes ago, you little prat.' Wards and silencing charms fell into place.

'Oh yeah! I forgot.' Snape kissed him again and he forgot everything else as well.

Slowly, they worked their way toward the bed, removing items of each other's clothing as they went. Snape had accepted Harry's feelings and was still here, still doing this with him, still kissing him and undressing him and taking him to bed. Harry smiled around a kiss and hummed with delight.

As soon as they were naked and lying down together, Harry spread his limbs out and offered himself up to the other man. Snape held himself back from the offering for a moment, holding Harry with a look that Harry couldn't quite make out, then lowered himself over Harry's body gently. Snape's lips ghosted over Harry's before pressing into another slow kiss, his black hair falling around both their faces as their bodies settled around each other comfortably.

With their erections aligned, they rubbed languorously against one another and their kisses deepened. Harry hooked a leg over Snape's and ground his hips upward, desperate for more contact, more friction. Immediately, Snape dipped one hand down and between Harry's legs from the rear, making Harry moan as Snape's mouth moved off his and onto his throat, sucking hard over his pulse point.

'Bloody hell! You trying to mark me, or what?'

The sucking continued for a few seconds more, then Snape raised his head (and an eyebrow) and smirked down at Harry. 'Well, you are mine now, are you not?' He brushed his fingers over Harry's arsehole, smiling as he watched Harry's reaction to the light touch on so sensitive a place. 'Accio lubricant,' he whispered and the tube flew off the bedside table and into his free hand. He snapped the cap off and squeezed a small amount onto the other hand, repositioning it back at Harry's entrance immediately. 'Have you been keeping count, Harry?'

'Hm? Keeping count of what?'

One long, talented finger slid into Harry's body. 'How many times we've done this. I know teenagers generally do…'

Harry felt his face heat a little. 'This will make it nineteen.'

Snape fingered him deeply but slowly. 'Is that all? Does that include fellatio?'

Harry blushed more. 'No. Just sex. Should I be counting the blowjobs, too, do you think?'

A slight shrug. 'It's a technicality, probably. Lots of men will count it as sex, no matter what aperture they manage to get their cock into.'

'Do you?'

Snape put his head to one side as he considered this with a slight smirk. 'My definition of sexual relations would most likely include any deeply intimate genital contact.'

Harry snorted over the top of a laugh. 'Where the fuck did you learn how to talk like that?'

A second finger slid into Harry's arse while he was laughing. 'Mister Potter,' Snape sighed down at him, 'Need I advise you to not mock a man who has you in such a vulnerable position?'

'I like my vulnerable position.'

'Mm, so you do.' Snape's fingers slipped out. His mouth captured Harry's again, and Harry was sucking on his lover's tongue when he felt his entrance being widened by Snape's swollen prick.

'This is the fourteenth time you've been inside me.'

Snape's expression was heated as he looked down at him. 'It's nowhere near enough,' he whispered.

'We'll just have to do it more often, then.'

Snape sunk deeper into Harry, groaning softly against Harry's temple. 'As often as you'll let me, Harry. You're perfection for me - as though you were made for me.' He began to move slowly on top of Harry, whispering all the while, almost as though he was talking to himself. 'If only your parents had known what they were doing when they created you for me, how perfect you are for me, how beautifully you fit me.'

Harry sensed that the old him wouldn't have let Snape get away with saying something like that. It felt wrong, somehow, to be invoking his parents during this act, but at the same time… fuck, it made him horny. Maybe this was the sort of feeling Snape had been referring to when he'd asked if any of this ever made Harry feel a bit dirty? Because, really - the thought of him lying here on his back, with his legs spread for Severus Snape, his arse filled by Severus Snape, making fucking noises with Severus Snape - it wasn't a thought that would've made his parents very happy, was it? And yet he wanted this so much, needed this so much, that he didn't care what they would've thought. Even if they were still around, he still would've wanted to fuck Snape, he'd still be here on his back for the man, clenching his arse around his cock and shoving his tongue in his mouth. He was an adult and this was what he wanted, this was who he wanted.

'Oh - ' Harry lifted his hips to meet Snape's thrust and felt the cock head inside him graze against his prostate. 'Oh fuck - '

'Yes…' Snape held that angle and brushed himself on the tiny nub again and again, watching Harry's face hungrily as Harry undulated on wave after wave of near-orgasm. 'Beautiful.'

'You are.'

'Only to you.'

'Good.'

Their mouths melted into each other again. Oh god, thought Harry, we're perfect. Me and Snape are utterly fucking perfect.

Pain suddenly seared through Harry's brain and he yelped, hearing a corresponding cry from Snape. Pain seared in his arse, too, due to Snape jolting roughly and pushing his cock too hard in a direction that Harry's arse obviously didn't want it to go.

'Fuck!' spat Snape. 'That cunt! That fucking mudblood CUNT!'

In pain, Harry squinted up at his lover. What the hell was happening to them? A glance at Snape's left forearm told him all he needed to know. The Dark Mark was ablaze, the skull and serpent seeming to writhe upon Snape's flesh, almost as though trying to dig themselves down deeper into the skin in which they were cut. Harry's hand flew instinctively to his forehead. His scar felt more raised than usual, and burning from the inside.

'You'd better be using Occlumency, Potter! Right now!'

Harry nodded dumbly. He felt about ready to pass out from the pain, but he took a couple of deep breaths and concentrated. Snape buried his face into the side of Harry's neck for a short while, breathing heavily with his mouth open on Harry's skin. 'Severus? You okay?' Harry felt him nod against him. 'Is it usually this bad when your Mark flares?'

Snape raised his head and upper body. 'No. This doesn't feel like a regular summoning. The bastard's just raging.' Carefully, he eased his cock out of Harry's body and cast a simple cleansing spell upon them both. 'I can give you a potion for the pain, if you wish.'

'Yeah. I think I'd better. Should we contact Dumbledore?'

'Right away.' Snape got up from the bed and held a hand out to Harry, helping him as he gingerly got up and swayed at the bedside for a moment. They both re-dressed themselves quietly, Snape not bothering to put on his heavy jacket or his robes. The white shirt, Harry noticed, was left uncuffed on the left sleeve, as though the pressure of even that light fabric was too much against the angry flesh.

'Can we Apparate back to the library together again, please?'

'You can do it perfectly well on your own, Potter.'

'I know. But I, I just - '

Snape's expression softened marginally and he pulled Harry against his body with his right arm. 'You just want to stay close?'

Harry wrapped his arms around Severus and squeezed him. 'Yes,' he whispered. In a flash, they were standing in the library once again.

'My apologies if I hurt you before, Potter. When the pain came, that is.'

Harry could still feel the throb in his arse, but the constant hammering in his head was far, far worse. 'It wasn't your fault,' he told his lover. 'It's okay.'

Snape nodded curtly and removed the wards on the library. 'There is a supply of common potions in the kitchen,' he said and led Harry out and down the hallway.

Lupin was doing the crossword in the Daily Prophet at the kitchen table when Snape and Harry walked in. Snape headed straight for the glass-fronted cabinet where his potions were stored, while Harry accio'd himself a cup and poured some cold water into it.

'Lesson finished early tonight, Harry?'

Harry nodded at Lupin and plonked down heavily into a seat at the table. Between dealing with the pain from his scar and concentrating on keeping his Occlumency impenetrable, Harry didn't even notice that Lupin was looking at his throat for a moment before averting his eyes.

'Catch, Potter.' Snape threw a vial of dark blue glass across the room. Barely even looking up, Harry automatically shot a hand into the air and caught the object easily. He unstoppered it and drank the potion down in one go, washing the taste away with the cool water from his cup.

'What's wrong? What's going on?' Lupin asked, looking alternately between Harry's zoned-outness and Snape's state of partial undress.

Snape knelt at the fireplace and threw in a fist of floo powder. 'Albus Dumbledore's office,' he spoke into the fire clearly.

'Harry?' Lupin's voice was sounding increasingly worried.

The pain relief potion was starting to take effect already, and Harry managed to meet Lupin's gaze, albeit a little shakily. 'Voldemort,' he muttered, and swept his fringe back off his forehead to show his scar.

'Good god, Harry! You're bleeding!'

'Ah, Severus, my dear boy! What can I do for you?'

'May I come through and speak with you, Headmaster?'

'Of course, of course.'

Snape threw a last look over his shoulder at Harry, then stepped into the flames.

Lupin reached across the kitchen table with a handkerchief and pressed it gently against Harry's scar. When he pulled it away again, there was a lightning bolt of blood soaked into it.

'Voldemort,' Harry said again. 'Just now. Snape said the bastard's raging.' Harry's eyes widened. 'You should've seen what it did to Snape's Mark!' He pulled a face.

'Oh, Harry, I am sorry. Can I get you anything? A cup of tea, perhaps?'

Harry gave a slightly hysterical giggle and nodded. 'Yes, please.'

Lupin pushed the Daily Prophet aside and set the kettle and tea things to work. 'Er, Harry…' he looked up, sounding like he didn't quite want to be saying what he was about to be saying.

'Yeah?'

'You might want to, ah, do a quick de-bruising spell before Dumbledore or anybody else stops by.'

Harry was at a loss, for a moment, as to what Lupin could be talking about. His scar wasn't causing a bruise on his forehead, was it? But then, his hand flew to his throat and he remembered Snape sucking him hard over the pulse point there - oh shit, no! He knew he must look guilty as all hell. God, what was he supposed to do now?

'I, er, it's from, um…' Harry wracked his brain, trying to come up with an adequate lie that could explain why he would have a bruise on his throat after supposedly having a private DADA lesson with Snape. Was there a hex that caused hickies to appear on the victim's skin? If there was one, Harry didn't know of it. Could he have fallen against a desk or something? As if that sounded even remotely feasible to explain away a round mark in the middle of his throat, for fuck's sake.

'It's alright, Harry. I'm merely alerting you to something you might wish to take care of.' Lupin gave him a small smile as he slid a cup of tea across the table to Harry. 'For Severus' dignity as much as your own.'

Harry's fingers lingered over the bruise, pressing the abused skin gingerly. He took his wand out of his pocket with his free hand and pointed it at his throat. 'Um - ' he looked over at Lupin shyly. 'I can't tell exactly where I'm aiming for.'

'Ah, of course.' Lupin nodded and pointed his own wand at Harry's neck. 'Vulnus remedium,' he said simply.

'All fixed?'

'All fixed, Harry.'

'Thanks.' Harry re-pocketed his wand and put his hands around his cup of tea, staring into its brown depths. 'So, er, you know…?' He felt stupidly young and delinquent all of a sudden, like he'd been caught out doing something that he really, REALLY shouldn't have been doing.

'We don't have to talk about it if you don't want to. Of course, if you do want to talk about it…'

Harry shook his head, still looking into his tea cup. 'Are you angry with me?' He hated how little his voice sounded.

'Is there any reason why I should be?'

'Are you angry with Snape?' God, his voice was just about a squeak by now!

'Again, Harry - is there any reason I should be?'

Harry made himself look up to meet Lupin's gentle eyes and shook his head firmly. 'No,' he said, as steadily as he was able. 'None at all.'

'You'd tell me straight away if there was?'

Harry managed a smile. 'Definitely.'

'Well, then. That's all I need to know.' Lupin raised his tea and took a sip.

Harry blew steam from the top of his cup. There were so many questions he wanted to ask. How long had Remus known? How had he found out? How come he was taking it so well? And, if he really was so cool about it, did that mean Harry and Severus could be a bit less secretive about what they were doing?

Lupin laughed softly, shaking his head in a bemused fashion as he looked across at him. 'I must say, Harry - from taking on a full grown mountain troll at eleven, to Severus Snape at eighteen, you certainly are one insanely brave young man.'

Harry felt like his blush must be of Weasley proportions. 'I doubt Sirius would have called it brave of me…'

'Yes. Well. Sirius would likely have agreed with the "insanely" part though, I'm sure.'

Harry couldn't help a snort of grim laughter. 'And my Dad too, I bet.'

Lupin smiled at him for a moment. 'Does Severus treat you well, Harry?'

'Yes.'

'Then that is all that should matter. Your father and Sirius are no longer with us, so what they may or may not have thought or said should not stand in your way of making decisions regarding your happiness.'

'But how did you even know?'

Lupin tapped a finger to the side of his nose. 'Canine senses, Harry. I can smell you on each other. Some times stronger than at others.'

Like now, probably, Harry thought. 'Since when?' he asked in a quiet voice.

'Since you went to visit Ginny Weasley at Hogwarts. I dismissed it as impossible at first. Tried to convince myself it must have been simply because you'd flooed into Severus' quarters. Silly of me, really. But the following Sunday when we took tea with Dumbledore - remember, I'd been to see Tonks while you were taking care of Severus when he was ill? It was quite overpowering, actually. Damn nose is very sensitive, you know. I couldn't exactly dismiss it after that. And what with all the behavioural changes as well…'

'Mine or his?'

'Both.' Lupin's eyes twinkled in quite a Dumbledorian manner. 'But mainly his. Honestly - defending you to myself and Albus? Demanding Ron treat you better? Merlin, he even called me by my given name! You've positively softened the poor man, Harry!'

Harry blushed again, wishing desperately that he could cope with this conversation in a more grown-up way. 'He'd SO hate to hear you say that,' he said, without really thinking. He bit his bottom lip and glanced up, seeing the mirth in Lupin's gaze. Harry felt a smile creeping slowly across his face and then, before he knew it, he and Remus were laughing raucously, so hard that vibrations from their hands on the table caused the tea cups to rattle.

'My pain relief potion is obviously as effective as ever, I see,' drawled a dark voice from the hearth.

Harry wiped at his eyes and tried to calm himself. 'Snape! You're back!'

'Too late to hear the jokes. Thank Merlin.' Snape walked over to the potions cabinet and took another dark blue vial from within, opening it and downing its contents in one go while first Dumbledore and then McGonagall stepped out of the fireplace behind him, their faces grim.

Chapter 16

In no time at all, the Grimmauld kitchen had become a War Room. Potter and Lupin cleared the table so that Albus and Minerva could spread out various maps and pieces of interesting parchment. Potter's house elf friend kept up a steady supply of hot beverages and sugary treats as different Order members flooed in and out of the house over the course of the evening.

Snape was too agitated to sit down for long. Despite the effectiveness of his pain relief potion, the Dark Mark still blazed sufficiently for him to notice it. Only once before, had Snape ever felt the Mark be this incendiary, and that had been during the first war - just prior to its climax. He pulled his silver hipflask out of his robes and downed about half its contents in one gulp. Twice in one lifetime was enough for anyone, surely?

A warmth by his side brought Snape's gaze down to Potter's. Silently, he offered the boy the hipflask.

'No, thanks.'

'Suit yourself, Potter.'

Companionably, they leaned against the kitchen wall and watched as first Molly and Arthur Weasley and then Tonks and Moody filled Dumbledore in on what events had rocked their days. A brief and inept attack on a Muggle school near Cardiff, the disappearance of a Squib shopkeeper in Dagenham, the Dark Mark burning over a churchyard on the Derbyshire moors… So much of it seemed random and unrelated. Snape suspected it had all been done in no other name but that of Chaos; Death Eaters attacking anywhere and everywhere, so as to hide or decoy their real objective.

'What was it like?'

'Hm? Pardon?'

He looked down at the boy again, realising for perhaps the first time that he didn't really have to look all that far down anymore. How had Potter managed to grow taller without him noticing?

'I, um, was asking you what it was like…'

'What was what like?'

'You know. Being one of them? Being a Death Eater.'

'Why are you suddenly interested?'

Potter shrugged. 'S'not that sudden, really. Just never had the…'

'Balls?'

Green eyes flashed. '…the guts to ask.' Smirk.

Snape sighed, watching all the heads around the kitchen table bent together in intense discussion. 'It was. Both horrific and remarkable at the same time.'

'How?'

'Well, I'm sure you can make some guesses with regard the "horrific" parts.' The messy head beside him nodded a little. 'And beyond that, I really have no wish to elucidate you further. Suffice to say, I have seen… and done… some things I dearly wish I hadn't. And that I dearly wish I could forget.'

He found it difficult, all of a sudden, to meet Potter's wide, green eyes but he made himself do it, prepared to find distaste or disappointment there. Instead, he saw there only sadness and sympathy. He looked away again.

'So what about the remarkable parts, then?'

Yes. What about those? Snape took a deep breath and considered his next words. He'd never tried to articulate this for anyone else. Anyone who had never been, nor would ever think of being, a Death Eater wouldn't have understood, so why bother? And anyone who had been one didn't need to have it explained to them. And anyone who expressed some desire to be one and needed to be dissuaded certainly didn't need to hear this aspect…

'Occasionally, Mister Potter, it was fun.'

'Fun?'

'Yes, fun. I'm sure you're familiar with the concept.'

'But how could it be? Doing all those horrible things?'

Snape looked down his considerable length of nose and hoped to all the gods that attempting to explain this wasn't about to land him in the doghouse. 'Late adolescence is a remarkable time, is it not, Potter? One is at one's physical peak, the world is one's oyster, one feels… immortal and invincible. You're convinced you're going to live forever and be something amazing that all future generations of mere mortals will remember in awe. All adolescents experience these feelings to some degree or another. But it's so much worse for magical adolescents, isn't it? Because we ARE more than mere mortals.' He paused for a moment, making sure that everyone at the table was still deep in conversation before continuing. 'We were young and stupid with power. We were following the most formidable wizard to visit the world in an age or more. There were times that were the most exciting and adventurous of my life. Dangerous times, yes, but thrilling, exhilarating like you wouldn't believe, Harry. It felt, sometimes, as though nothing could ever touch us.'

'How old were you?' The voice was a whisper, for his ears only.

'Eighteen.' Yes, the same age as you, my Saviour. Snape watched the younger man taking all of this in, considering it. 'Have I disappointed you, Potter?'

The emerald orbs locked onto his gaze. 'Never.'

Snape felt a slight twitch below his right eye. He believed it.

The fireplace spluttered loudly and threw one of the identical Weasleys into the room. George, Snape ascertained after a cursory glance over the young man.

'Oh, George, dear!' shrieked Molly and rushed over to gather her son into her shawl-draped arms. 'Is everything alright, love? Your brother? Yes? Hermione? Yes? Very good. Would you like a cup of tea, dear?'

George rolled his eyes over his mother's shoulder and nodded.

'News from York, Mister Weasley?' asked Minerva, as Molly busied herself with cups and saucers and snacks, much to the house elf's ear-pulling displeasure.

'Albertus Tollinger!' beamed George. 'We got him!'

Snape lifted his head. 'Albertus Tollinger, the Dark Lord's explosives expert?'

'Death Eater explosives expert? Hah! No match for the Weasley Twins!' George winked at Snape in far too over-familiar a manner.

Snape arched an eyebrow sardonically and threw his hipflask in George's direction. The redhead caught it and jiggled it at his ear. 'Cheers, Snapey!' he grinned, unscrewing the cap.

Potter bristled at Snape's elbow. 'Snapey?' he whispered.

'Don't ask, Potter.'

'And where is Tollinger now, George?' asked Arthur Weasley, managing to look proud but slightly worried at the same time.

'Aurors. Bastards took him off us with barely a thank-you!'

'Language, George!' fussed Molly.

George ignored his mother. 'He did let one titbit slip before we had to hand him over though. Amazing, really, what a bloke will tell you once you've threatened him with insertion of a Weasley's Whizzing Whopper - '

'Yes, THANK-you, Weasley!' Snape glowered. 'The information, boy?'

George downed the remainder of the hipflask's contents and blinked. 'Docks,' he managed to wheeze as the Firewhisky burnt a trail of flame down his throat. He winced in Snape's direction. 'You usually drink scotch!'

Snape lifted one shoulder elegantly and let it drop again. 'I ran out,' he said simply.

With a little difficulty, George composed himself. A few hacking coughs, a mouthful of pressed-upon-him tea, and then he was fit to continue. 'We picked Tollinger up when he'd just Apparated into York in a mad dash out of Muggle London. Seems he'd been doing business with some rather shady Squibs scattered up and down the urban parts of the Thames.'

'Dagenham,' Snape barked, pleased to see Tonks immediately searching out the report about the shopkeeper from among the dozens littering the kitchen table. He motioned for George to continue.

'Tollinger seemed most upset about the fact he wouldn't be getting a chance to bask in his Lord 'n' Master's pleasure when, and I quote, "everything blows to fruition". He needed something from a contact in York, y'see, to finish off whatever it is they've got planned for the London docks this week.' George's grin faded slightly. 'I think they're planning on some SERIOUS disruption down there. Me and Fred, we know serious disruption when we see it being plotted.'

'A lot of people, Muggles, live around there now,' said Potter, his voice making him sound a bit unsure of himself. 'The docklands are being re-developed for luxury housing these days. It's not just an industrial wasteland anymore.'

Dumbledore was nodding sadly, his forearms crossed on the edge of the table. 'There's also a very large Wizard market, Harry.' He pulled one of the maps toward himself as he spoke. 'It's hidden here, between Belvedere and Erith on the River Thames.'

Moody ran a good eye over the map. 'What sort of shop did this Dagenham squib have, then?'

'A chemist's, according to this report,' said Tonks.

'You mean an apothecary?' Snape asked.

'Yeah,' muttered Potter. 'Do we know what an explosives expert would be running off to York for?'

'Unfortunately,' Snape replied, 'yes.'




They hadn't articulated it to one another, but neither Snape nor Potter seemed to have any intention at all of leaving the other's side. No matter if he was conversing with other Order members in the kitchen, researching in the library or just sitting quietly in the livingroom with no illumination save for the flames in the grate, Snape could sense as much as see Potter beside him at all times. The boy didn't seem to have smiled for a few hours, at least, and his pale face was setting further and further into a mask of circumspection.

'You should sleep, Potter. It's almost four a.m.'

'I'm not tired.'

'You don't know when you might next get the opportunity…'

'I said, I'm not tired.'

Snape fixed him with a faintly withering look across the library table and the multiple open tomes upon it. 'Well, at least curl up on the settee and rest your eyes for a short while.' The eyes in question, though looking weary, were still defiant. Snape felt his withering look soften as he looked at his young lover. 'I won't leave the room without waking you. I promise.'

Potter blinked slowly while he considered this option. A yawn seemed to tip the balance for his resolve and he dragged himself up from his chair, using the table as support. 'Okay,' he said sleepily, 'but only 'cos you promised.'

Snape gave a nod and turned his attention back to the text he was reading. After a short moment, arms slithered around his neck from behind and Potter nuzzled into his throat and hair. 'We were so perfect before,' the boy murmured. 'Before we were interrupted, I mean.' He yawned again, his breath fanning over Snape's skin. 'You were so beautiful.'

'Sleep, Potter. Your faculties are obviously beginning to fail.'

'Git.'

'Child.'

'Bastard.'

Snape turned his head and caught Potter's lips into a quick kiss. 'Settee,' he growled. 'Now.'

'Mm, does that mean you're joining me?'

'How much sleep do you think you'd get if I did?'

The drowsy mouth quirked into a grin. 'How much do you think I'd care?'

Snape made a tetchy sound and waved the younger man away. 'Rest, you.' The arms slipped from about his neck and Potter shuffled over to the sofa near the fire, stretching himself out on the plush cushions and seeming to fall asleep immediately. Snape indulged himself in watching the boy for a few minutes. 'Sleep, Harry,' he whispered into the stillness of the room, before re-focusing on the article on illicit spell-enhancement potions he was reading.




Sunshine was flooding strong through the library windows when Potter sat bolt upright from his slumber and screamed 'Severus!'.

Lupin, who had wandered into the library shortly after daybreak and was reading quietly in an armchair against the far wall, jumped at the sound and lost his page.

'I'm here, Potter. Do try to keep the screaming to a bare minimum, if you please.' Snape hadn't moved from the table and the piles of potions texts.

'S-sorry,' the boy mumbled, fussing his glasses onto his face and looking around the room. 'Oh. Sorry, Remus.'

'That's quite alright, Harry. Good to see you managed to get some shut-eye.'

Potter stood up from the settee and enjoyed a languid stretch, rubbing at one shoulder gingerly until it made a soft popping noise. 'How long did I sleep?'

'Roughly four and a half hours,' Snape informed him. 'You should try for more, if you can.'

Potter walked over to the table and stood at Snape's side, eyes wandering over the many books, journals and tracts that were scattered along its length and breadth. 'Nah, I'm awake now. I could do with some breakfast, though.' He leaned over slightly so as to peer around the black hair that fell about Snape's face as he read. 'You should have breakfast, too. And coffee. You look like shit.'

A long, potion stained finger marked a line of text while Snape looked up into the young face. 'Thank-you ever so much for pointing that out, Mister Potter.' Potter suddenly grinned and Snape had the uneasy feeling that the boy was going to forget the werewolf's presence and actually lean down to kiss him. 'You had best call your house elf, then, should you not?'

'Yeah.' Potter stood up straight and stretched again. Snape was thankful that Lupin had chosen a reading spot that was behind him, so that his line of sight - currently fixed on the tiny band of teenaged flesh that was exposed as Potter's tshirt rode up his torso - was noticed only by Potter himself. The boy smiled lop-sidedly and turned to go and stick his tousled head into the fireplace and order up some breakfast. 'And black coffee,' he finished his order. 'Lots of it.'

Chapter 17

'So what is it that you've been working on all night?' Harry licked a smear of melted butter off his left thumb and continued munching on his toasted muffin.

Snape put down his mug of coffee and glanced briefly at Lupin who was tucking into poached eggs on toast at the other end of the table. Snape's black eyes fell back to Harry and he cleared his throat before continuing. 'Enhancement potions.'

'To enhance what?'

'Spells.'

'Okay. Anything useful?'

Snape picked up his coffee again and cradled it between his pale hands. 'I believe so.' His eyes flickered toward Lupin again, then back to Harry. 'Remember the spell I showed you recently, the one that made your Lumos so much brighter and more powerful than it normally is?'

Harry hid his slight blush behind his muffin. 'Y-yes. I remember… that.'

Snape pursed his lips at the comment briefly, then went on. 'So you will remember that the extra power waned after barely a half hour or so?'

'Yeah.'

'Well. I think I might have found a potion that may prolong that increased power by up to twenty-four hours after the initial spell is cast.'

'That's brilliant!' And even more brilliant than that, thought Harry, was the fact that this would mean another Culmen Densus fuck, coming right up! He shifted in his chair a little and grinned at Snape. 'You're brilliant!' he told the older man.

'It was all in the books, Potter, I merely had to read them.' He cast a warning look in Harry's direction, as if to say "Kindly remember that the werewolf is listening to all this and stop your gushing!".

Harry coaxed his grin away and drank some coffee. 'So I'll have, um, double my own powers when I go up against Voldemort?'

'That is the theory, yes.'

'Is the potion a difficult one? I mean, does it take a long time to brew or anything?' Harry just couldn't help thinking about some of the more powerful potions he'd encountered before - the Polyjuice potion, for instance, that had taken a whole MONTH to make!

'Not an especially long time, no. An afternoon with no interruptions should do it. Some of the ingredients are rather rare, I suppose, but I'm confident my private stores at Hogwarts are not lacking for any of them. That is, provided no marauding students have taken it upon themselves to break in and rob me, of course.'

Lupin looked up at the word "marauding". Harry looked down at the mention of stealing from Snape's private stores. Snape smirked, satisfied, and poured himself another cup of black coffee.




Snape made a frustrated noise over his cauldron. 'If you are bored, Mister Potter, you could perhaps remember that you don't need to be here and do something about it?'

Harry stopped banging his heels arrhythmically against the desk he was perched on. 'You want me to go?'

Snape upended a beaker of something very slimy looking into the cauldron and stirred three times, counter-clockwise. He waved a hand through the clouds of vapour that billowed from the hissing potion and glanced in Harry's direction. 'No,' he said quietly. 'Merely… stop doing that.'

'I've already stopped.' Harry slid off the desk and walked around to sit in its accompanying chair. With his elbows resting on the desktop and his chin propped in one hand, he watched Snape brewing for a few minutes. It wasn't that he was bored. He could sit and watch Snape all day, really. He was just… agitated, he supposed. Maybe even nervous. Events seemed to be speeding up now, rushing him along. There seemed to be a certain - what was the word for it? Inevitability? Yeah, a certain inevitability about the approaching fight now. He couldn't back out, and he was fairly sure that Voldemort wouldn't either. He was actually going to have to face the bastard again. And soon. At least, there was something else to be certain about this time. Severus would not leave his side. He knew this as assuredly as he knew his own name. He sat quietly and watched the older wizard as he worked, appreciating the looks of concentration and of calm on his lover's face, marvelling at the elegance of the large hands, admiring firm forearms bared by shirt sleeves rolled to the elbow. Mine, he thought to himself. All mine. Completely. And I… am in love with him.

Snape looked over at the desk as he turned the heat down under the cauldron and met Harry's gaze. Harry smiled a tiny smile which got bigger as he watched Snape raise an eyebrow at him. Whoever knew that an eyebrow could be so bloody eloquent? He stood up and walked over to the workbench, coming to stand just a foot or so in front of Snape, who set his stirring rod down and turned to face him properly. Harry stretched his arms and folded them around Snape's neck, feeling their bodies moving closer together. 'Is this okay at the moment?' he asked softly.

'For the next fifteen minutes, at least, yes.'

'Good.' And he pulled Snape's head down and kissed the mouth he'd been aching to kiss for the last few hours.

Twelve minutes later, they were still kissing. Snape had one hand buried in Harry's hair, holding Harry's head steady, and the other under Harry's tshirt, fingertips stroking languid circles over and over on the smooth flesh of his lower back. It still awed him that Snape could be so gentle with him at times, when he could be so passionate and forceful with him at others. But both moods were wonderful and Harry wouldn't choose one over the other.

'How many people do you suppose you kissed before me, Potter?'

Harry was surprised by the question. Surprised even more to realise that he actually had to think in order to come up with the answer. 'Umm… four? No - five. Five.' He nodded to himself. 'Five girls. Why?'

Snape carded long fingers through Harry's hair and sighed softly. 'No reason. Idle curiosity with regards your proficiency, is all.'

'I like kissing you best though.'

The simmering potion made a belching noise and Snape drew away to attend to it, glancing up at Harry through his hair as he leaned over the cauldron. 'The feeling is mutual, Potter,' he murmured softly.

Harry grinned and returned to the desk, slouching against it with his hands in his jeans pockets. 'How many people have you kissed?'

Snape crumbled a sprig of something desiccated into the brew and gave what sounded like a snort of amusement. 'I honestly don't recall.'

'Just roughly?'

'I never kept count, Potter.'

'Ball-park figure, then. Dozens? Hundreds?'

Snape actually laughed. 'Hundreds? Gods, which fantasy world do you live in where there would be HUNDREDS of people who would wish to kiss me?'

'You're way too hard on yourself, you know.'

Obsidian eyes met his. 'I think not.'

Harry crossed his arms over his chest and held his chin up. 'Anyway. Come on - a rough figure on how many blokes you've kissed.'

Eyebrow. 'You're only concerned with the men?'

Okay, he hadn't expected that. Harry blinked. 'There's been women?'

'Indeed.'

'Oh.' He felt his eyelids flutter down into a blink again. 'Oh.'

Snape's head inclined to one side slightly. 'Does this disturb you, Potter?'

'Ah… no.'

'It surprises you though?'

'Well, yes, I mean, no! I mean, I just thought… no.'

'You assumed I was homosexual?'

'I, well… I guess. Yeah.'

Snape gave a small shrug and recommenced stirring the bubbling concoction. Harry watched him for a short while.

'So, you've had sex with girls?'

'With women, Potter, yes.'

'And did you like it?'

'Depending on the woman and the mood, yes.'

'Is it better?'

Snape looked up at him through the steam. 'Better than what?'

'Me-men?'

The dark eyes narrowed a little at that. 'You'll have to forgive me if I'm not following your incredibly insightful line of enquiry, Potter, but am I correct in guessing that you feel threatened all of a sudden?'

'No!'

'Are you quite sure? Because you're certainly acting like it.'

Was he? Harry opened his mouth to say something but then shut it again. What was he feeling? Why on earth did it bother him that Snape had been with girls? It shouldn't matter one way or the other, really. And he'd had sex with a girl himself, after all, so why should he feel… uneasy about Snape having done so, too? 'It's - ' he started to say. 'It's just… you're so good at it. With me, I mean. You're so good with my body and stuff.'

'Certain ladies almost had me convinced of similar, I assure you.'

Okay, so that was another little after-shock. Snape had had sex with women. AND they reckoned he was good at it. Could someone be really good with both? Harry supposed so. 'Fred and George,' he found himself saying without really thinking about it. 'They like both, too.'

'Yes, I am aware of that.'

Harry's heart stopped beating for a moment, his brain immediately jumping to irrational, jealousy-fuelled conclusions. 'H-how?'

'Night time patrols of the Astronomy Tower can garner one far more knowledge of one's students than one would sometimes like to possess.'

Harry's heart thudded into action again. He released a held breath and mentally kicked himself. Of course. Shit, his brain could be stupid at times. A soft, nervous chuckle bubbled up from his throat and he tried to hide it behind a hand over his mouth. Hormones, he thought to himself. Hormones make you think and feel some of the weirdest things…

'A few dozen. Altogether. I suppose.'

'What?'

Snape shot him a hardening look. 'Do keep up, Potter. I think a rough estimate, in answer to your query, might be a few dozen people.'

'Oh. Right. Thanks. Did you have sex with all of them?'

'No, of course I didn't, you prat.'

'Sorry. Stupid question.'

Snape's look told him he agreed. He checked the time and then extinguished the flame beneath the cauldron. He spelled the ladles, knives and stirring rods clean and placed the cauldron lid over the potion, sitting it askew so that steam could escape as it cooled. Snape wiped his hands on a cleaning cloth and rolled his shirt sleeves down. 'Is there anything else you wish to know?' he suddenly asked.

Harry pushed his hands back into his jeans pockets and felt a little bad that he'd pushed for info on Snape's past in the first place. 'You don't have to tell me anything. I'm sorry I started, really.'

'Don't be.' Snape walked to the desk where Harry slouched and leaned against it at Harry's side. 'You do, in fact, have the right to know certain information. So ask, if you wish to. I shall try to keep my reticence at bay.'

'How old were you when you lost your virginity?'

'Seventeen.'

'With a girl? Or a bloke?'

Thin lips pursed for a second. 'Male. Female not long afterwards.'

'Did you…' Harry took a deep breath. 'Did you ever fancy my Dad?'

'Oh, not that again, Potter! No. I did not have ANY positive feelings toward your father, whatsoever.'

'Sorry.' Harry bit his bottom lip and blushed a little.

'Anything else?'

'Have you ever been in love?'

Snape's shoulders seemed to stiffen imperceptibly. 'That is… a difficult question to answer.'

'Difficult-uncomfortable? Or difficult-difficult?'

'The latter.'

'What's so hard about it?'

Snape turned his head to look at Harry's face, crossing his arms as he did so. 'I fear I haven't quite managed to sort out my feelings on the matter, as yet.'

It took a short while for the meaning of Snape's words to sink in properly. Harry's brain was whirring away on so many different points of interest that he honestly didn't GET what Snape was on about for a minute. But then a ball of heated mush flared in the pit of his stomach and Harry felt tingly and soft all over. 'Oh,' he managed to say. His skin was flushed, he knew it. 'Oh.'

'May I ask you something, Harry?' Harry nodded. 'Why did it disturb you to learn that I have had relations with women?'

Harry's first instinct was to shrug. 'I don't know,' he said vaguely. 'It was sort of… if you just liked guys, well then, I can give you that, I can give you what you want. But, if you wanted to be with a girl, then… I couldn't give you that, could I? I'd lose you to that.' He shrugged again. He really didn't feel like he was explaining himself very well.

Snape uncrossed his arms and put one around Harry's shoulders, pulling him into his side. 'If ever a woman should come along who is a greater temptation than you, Mister Potter, I shall give up potions brewing and become a children's party entertainer.'

The mental image of Snape dressed as a clown, surrounded by toddlers climbing all over him as he twisted balloons into obscene animal shapes almost made Harry rupture something, he was laughing so hard. Snape just looked at him sourly until coming up with the great idea of kissing Harry into shutting up.

Twelve minutes later, they were still kissing and this time there was no potion to be attended to. Both of Snape's hands were under Harry's tshirt now, one tracing circles on his back again, the other on his chest, teasing his nipples into hard points. Harry pulled back reluctantly from Snape's mouth just long enough to pull his tshirt up over his head and drop it to the floor. Snape took advantage immediately, bending his head to Harry's chest and licking at the tiny nubs there, his large hands holding onto Harry's hips tightly.

'Do you think,' Harry sighed. 'We could…' he glanced about the laboratory. Every flat surface was crowded with potions equipment and jars of things that Harry would rather not know about. Glass-fronted cabinets and crammed-full shelves and stacks of potions journals - none of it exactly screamed eroticism, did it? 'Can we?'

Snape straightened to his full height and gave Harry a quizzical look. 'Am I to assume that was an attempted request for sex?'

'Yes?'

He was answered by a soft growl from deep in Snape's throat and then he found himself spun around and pushed toward the desk. Of course. It was the least-cluttered surface in the room, after all… Harry put his hands out and braced himself against the desk's edge, arching back when Snape wrapped his arms around Harry's body and pressed himself solidly against Harry's back.

'Undo them.' Snape's voice was low and hot at Harry's ear. Harry almost moaned at the sound of it as he obediently unfastened his jeans and then re-braced his hands against the desk. He looked down so he could watch the elegant hands he'd been mesmerised by earlier make their languid way down his body, the right one plunging straight down into his pants.

He liked the look of his cock like this. All hard and straight with a large hand wrapped around it. It was almost like looking down while he was wanking. Almost. But it was so much better seeing a different hand there, a pale hand that contrasted so starkly against his dark hair as it grabbed hold of his erection and stroked it. His jeans fell down to his ankles and he groaned to feel Snape's clothed body press harder against him. God, he wanted this so much. Wanted HIM so much. Wanted to be filled and fucked and filled in the other way, too. Now.

'Uh, want you,' he muttered. He took hold of Snape's left hand and guided it around to his rear. 'Now,' he told the older man, and spread his legs a little wider, pushing his arse back invitingly. God, he hoped Snape got the message…

Harry felt a rush of cool dungeon air as Snape's body moved away from his and he whimpered. Snape's right hand was still on his cock, though, so the man obviously wasn't going anywhere. He heard movement and then moaned as he felt Snape's face pushing into him from behind. Ohfuckyes. That horrible, big, crooked, beautiful nose! And that wicked, amazing tongue at his arsehole… bloody hell. His hips undulated as Snape licked and sucked at him, pushing tongue and fingers into his hole, making his cock harder than ever and his glasses fog over slightly.

'Please… yeah, fuckyes! Oh…' He was concerned, for a second, when the hand on his cock moved away, but then he heard clothing rustling and a fresh wave of pleasure spiked through him in anticipation. He felt his cock leak a little. Snape pulled back from Harry's arse and stood up. There was a licking sound (Snape licking his palm, maybe?) and then the tall body was pressing against him again, the fingers in his arse moving out to be replaced by hard, insistent cock. 'Are we - ugh,' Harry grunted. 'Am I wet enough?'

'You'd better be.' And the head was pushed inside him.

Harry's eyes screwed shut as he was invaded so roughly. Yeah. He took a few shallow breaths and nodded his head. 'Go on. Do it.'

Snape rearranged his hands on Harry's body, holding a hip and a shoulder tightly, and shoved forward. He leaned down and pressed his mouth onto the nape of Harry's neck, sliding his cock further into Harry's saliva-slicked arse. When he pulled back slightly and rammed it in further, Harry felt his eyes roll up. 'Fuck. Yes. Snape. Mm…'

'Monosyllabic as ever, Mister Potter,' Snape purred at his ear, sounding exactly like he'd done in countless Potions classes over the years. Fuuuuck… he was in the Potions laboratory with Snape! Being bent over a desk and getting fucked up the arse by the Potions Master himself! Harry pushed his bum backwards so hard that he could feel the hair on Snape's stomach against his skin. True, this wasn't the actual classroom - that was just through that door over there - but this was so close to at least ten of his favourite wank fantasies that it hardly mattered. Harry let his head fall forward and lost himself in the repeated thrusts of his teacher into his body.

'Look up, Potter! See how perfect you look when you're being fucked.'

Huh? Harry didn't understand, didn't want to have to THINK about anything right now except that hard length that plundered him over and over. The hand that had been gripping his shoulder suddenly reached around to grab his chin and force his head to the side. 'Look,' Snape commanded him.

Ohhhh godddd… There they were. Reflected in the door of one of the glass-fronted cabinets to their right. Harry stared in awe. Snape's black trousers were lowered to his thighs, his pelvis pressed flush against Harry's naked behind. Harry, of course, was spread out beneath him on the desk, most of his body naked and an expression of utter wonder on his face. As he watched, Snape pulled back slowly, lifting his hips from Harry's body. Oh fuck, he could see it! He could actually see Snape's cock sticking into him! 'Bloody hell… I think I'm gonna come, just looking at that…'

In the reflection, his gaze suddenly met Snape's. Another thrust, and Snape's body was tight against his again, their reflections showing them melded together, Snape's arms around him, pelvis thrusting slightly, repeatedly, against him. Harry could feel the effects of those tiny movements, feel Snape's cock buried so deep inside him that the tiniest undulation caused a ripple effect of horniness, completion, pleasure and beauty.

'Yes,' gasped Harry, his gaze still locked with Snape's in the glass. 'Yes. Yes…' His cock wasn't even being touched, but he was coming. Hard. He felt the climax flowing through him so strongly that he was sure Snape must be able to feel the pulse of it, seeing as he was melted so perfectly against him like that. Harry's arse clenched as he came and he watched Snape as he heard the man groan, watched the spasmodic thrusts that filled his arse up with come.

'I've come all over your desk,' Harry murmured, eyes still on Snape's.

'I don't care.'

'I love you.'

'I… I know.'

They stayed like that for a few minutes, neither of them moving, neither of them able to stop looking at their shared reflection.

Chapter 18

'What day is it today, anyway?' Potter, for someone who had just been bent over a desk and soundly debauched, looked remarkably composed as he watched Snape begin ladling cooled enhancement potion into a series of glass vials.

'Thursday, Potter. How can you not know what day it is?'

Slouching shoulders shrugged. 'One day pretty much bleeds into another when you're hidden away in a hidey-hole.' Something seemed to occur to the boy suddenly and he stared at the door that led into the Potions classroom. 'There isn't a class in there, is there? They wouldn't have heard - '

'Albus has suspended all classes until further notice in light of the current situation, and many students have returned to their families for the time being. Those remaining are under Flitwick's charge until the Headmaster returns.' Snape attempted to give his young lover a withering look but his heart just didn't seem in it anymore. 'Do you honestly think I'd be in here brewing and buggering while my First Years sat around twiddling their wands in the next room?'

'Yeah well - I was gonna say!' Potter gave a very adult, throaty chuckle. 'Do you want some help with that?'

Although Snape's first impulse was to decline, he held out a spare ladle. The boy came to stand on the opposite side of the work bench, picked up an empty vial and took the proffered implement. Potter had ended up achieving a passing grade in Seventh Year Potions, Snape considered. So he supposed he could trust the younger man with something so simple as brew apportioning.

'Gee, actually being allowed to touch one of the Professor's own potions! Hermione'd faint with envy!'

'Shut up and ladle, Potter.'

Part-way through a potion-pour, the little bugger actually blew Snape a kiss. It was a moment before Snape could force himself to stop staring and resume bottling.

In silence, and in half the time it would have taken Snape to do on his own, they decanted all of the enhancement potion into neat rows of red glass vials. Snape kept two samples aside and asked Potter to put the rest away in one of the cabinets while he Scourgified his cauldron and bench top.

'Thank-you, Potter.'

The boy grinned sloppily. He certainly looked a lot more relaxed since being bent over Snape's desk. 'Anytime, Professor.'

Snape tried for a glare but decided not to bother. 'Are you hungry? Perhaps a visit to the kitchens…'

'Brilliant idea. Hey, is there still a house elf called Winky working here?'

'Do I look like Miss Granger to you?' Snape pocketed the two vials he'd kept aside and headed for the door. ' How should I know what creatures infest this place?'

Potter didn't seem in the mood to rise to the snark bait though as they left the laboratory and Snape warded it behind them. Harry headed for the dungeon stairs but Snape grabbed his arm lightly and propelled him in the opposite direction. 'Short cut's this way, Potter.' He guided the boy toward a bare stone wall that revealed, after one tap of his wand, a narrow staircase leading up to the level above the dungeons.

'Ah, so this is how Slytherins sneak around the castle!'

'Indeed. We don't need to rely on invisibility cloaks and enchanted maps.'

Potter poked his tongue out and laughed as they alighted into the corridor outside the kitchens. Snape reached for the painting of the pear but Potter beat him to it, tickling it in what Snape thought was quite an obscene manner for fruit.

'Harry? Harry! What are you doing here?'

They both froze in the doorway at the sight of Neville Longbottom gaping at them from the long table in the centre of the room.

'Neville?' Potter bounded over to the Longbottom boy and smothered him in a brief hug before sinking down onto the bench at his side. 'Why on earth are you here? You were the last person I expected to see!'

Longbottom's smile for Potter faded quickly as he saw Snape round the head of the table and seat himself on the bench at the opposite side. Snape arched an eyebrow at the walking disaster area and watched all the colour drain from the boy's jowls. 'Professor Longbottom,' he drawled in greeting.

'H-hello, Professor S-snape,' Longbottom managed to stammer out.

'PROFESSOR Longbottom?' pressed Potter, forgetting to shut his mouth for a moment.

'I've just started, Harry. I, I've taken over the greenhouses since Professor Sprout...'

'Oh, Neville, I forgot. I am sorry.'

Longbottom looked forlornly down at his mug of tea and Snape found himself feeling an unexpected commiseration for the young herbologist. To lose one's mentor in such circumstances must be trying enough; to be asked to take their place must be an occupation of mixed emotion indeed.

A handful of elves silently levitated plates of sandwiches, cakes, fruits and biscuits onto the table, along with a pot of tea and a carafe of pumpkin juice. Plates, utensils and drinking vessels appeared with a faint popping sound.

'But what are you doing back at Hogwarts, Harry?'

Potter's gaze flickered across at Snape and away again so quickly that Snape was sure Longbottom would not have noticed. 'I was collecting a potion from Professor Snape, actually. Something for the war effort. You know how it is. Hush hush and all that.' The green eyes glittered behind the glasses.

'Oh. Right. Of course.'

Snape could tell that Longbottom no doubt wanted to ask Potter what bringing Snape to lunch had to do with the "war effort", but the boy was suitably terrified of his ex-teacher to not dare press further.

The three men settled down to their luncheon, Snape eating and drinking quietly while Potter and Longbottom prattled on, filling each other in on what they'd spent the last seven months doing. For the first time ever, it would seem, Neville Longbottom had been living a far more interesting life than that of poor, cooped-up Harry Potter. He had travelled to South America and Australia to visit rare flora, had written an article for Witch Weekly on the care and feeding (and occasional locating) of shape shifting house plants, and professed to have "gotten over" his unrequited feelings for the Granger girl. Snape received a glare from Potter when he snorted into his teacup at that. Hrm, no, Longbottom probably didn't need to hear about the living arrangements shared at the Order base in York. Longbottom blanched anyhow.

'And what about you, Harry? Have you got yourself a girlfriend yet?'

Snape watched Potter's cheeks flush and the emerald orbs develop a sudden interest in the arrangement of slices on the cake salver. 'No, no girlfriends for me.' Potter's tone was artificially airy.

'Not even that girl from your birthday last July? She seemed very friendly…'

'Oh. Yeah. Definitely friendly.' Potter's blush deepened. He threw a quick glance across the table.

Was he perhaps hoping Severus would wade in to save him from his friend's line of questioning? "In fact, Mister Longbottom, that young lady was so friendly that she turned Harry sufficiently far off women to seek refuge in MY bed…" - that sort of thing? Snape opened his mouth to speak but Potter seemed to panic and blurt out whatever next popped into his head.

'Maybe when the war's over…' he looked steadily at Snape. 'Maybe then, I'll be able to really be with somebody. Somebody I want to be with.'

Snape quirked an eyebrow. 'And is the unlucky individual aware of their impending doom, Potter?'

His young lover averted his eyes for a moment, then looked back at Snape as though his gaze was being pulled to him against his will. 'If they've been paying attention, they should be.'

Longbottom looked from one to the other of them, wearing an expression that a stunned mullet would have looked erudite beside. 'You two,' he looked longest at Harry. 'You've become friends!'

Potter laughed and flashed Snape a smile that he usually only bestowed in private. 'Yeah, I guess so.' The smile morphed into one he used often in large groups. 'Would you call me your friend, Snape?'

Was that - ? Not a blush, surely? Snape's stomach prickled with panic as he realised his face felt markedly warmer. 'Not likely,' he retorted, pointedly checking the time and shoving his plate aside.

'No?'

'No,' Snape willed the strain out of his voice, 'I would not call you my friend.' He stood up from the table in a blur of black. 'But, if you recall, Potter, we do have a prior engagement for which we should be leaving now. If you'll excuse us, Longbottom.'

Potter punched the boy lightly on the shoulder as he stood up. 'Fantastic running into you like this, Neville. I'll have to come back and visit you in the greenhouses when everything calms down a bit.'

'I'd like that, Harry. You'll, you'll take care, won't you?'

'I promise.'




'Honestly, Potter, you were practically shouting it from the rooftops.' They had flooed back into the library of 12 Grimmauld Place and were walking toward the dining room.

'I was not! Besides, it's just Neville…'

Snape pushed open the dining room door. 'A little discretion, Harry. A little longer at least - '

'Ah, Severus! Harry! I was worried we would have to start without you!'

Snape and Potter stopped abruptly as they found themselves facing practically every member of the Order of the Phoenix. Snape composed himself swiftly. 'Albus,' he nodded solemnly, and moved to the nearest patch of clear wall against which to lean.

Potter finally remembered to shut his jaw and grinned shyly around the room. Ron Weasley motioned him over to stand with him, his twin brothers and Granger. The werewolf gave Potter an unnecessarily indulgent look, Snape thought. Not that he was watching, of course.

The Headmaster cleared his throat to bring the room's attention back to him. 'The last two days have been quite mad, have they not?' he smiled benignly at his gathered army. 'Yes,' he answered himself quietly before raising his voice again. 'Well, ready or not, my friends, we stand now on the eve of our biggest battle. With the final pieces of the puzzle falling into place - with thanks to Mister Shacklebolt's latest intelligence-gathering - we are now confident of the precise time of Voldemort's planned attack on the Wizard markets and docklands at Belvedere's Hump. If we fail in this, countless Wizards and Muggles will be caught unawares. Killed. And the backbone of Wizarding trade and industry here in the nation's capital will be broken. We must not fail.'

For the better part of an hour, the assembled Order listened to Dumbledore outline the plans for the defence of the location and for the counter-attack against the Dark Lord's followers. An impressive swish-and-flick from the Headmaster turned the entire expanse of dining table into a topographic map of the Belvedere's Hump area. As Dumbledore named each member of the Order, a floating marker bearing their name and the time by which they must be in position would appear over the map, hovering above the exact spot he wished them to make their stand. When Snape's marker materialised and levitated to a place far removed from Potter's, the room was shocked to hear Snape interrupt.

'I am sorry, Albus, but I cannot acquiesce.'

'Severus?' Dumbledore peered over the tops of his spectacles, his look one of extreme disbelief that any of his trusted allies would defy him at this late hour.

Snape glanced in Potter's direction. 'My apologies for interrupting, Albus, but I really must insist that I be stationed with Mister Potter tomorrow morning.' The hiss of whispers filled the room. Snape squared his shoulders and forced himself to remain calm.

Minerva was staring at him like he'd just declared himself to be the Easter Bunny. Finally, she appeared to find her voice - the tone set firmly in Teacher Mode, apparently. 'No, Severus. The plans are already drawn up. You will accept your orders and do as you are told.'

'With respect, Minerva, I will not.'

Beside Potter, Ronald Weasley barely dropped his voice low enough to stage-whisper, 'I told you we couldn't trust him!'. The glare that Potter turned on him made Snape almost feel sorry for the redhead.

Dumbledore straightened his posture from leaning slightly over the map and fixed his blue gaze onto Snape. 'You are refusing to take your orders, Severus?'

'I am refusing to take those orders, Albus, yes. I wish to fight beside Mister Potter. And I will not accept otherwise.'

Dumbledore turned to look at Potter. 'Harry? What are your wishes, dear boy?'

Potter looked like his only wish was for the floor to swallow him whole. His delicate throat moved as he swallowed uncomfortably, all too aware that every eye in the room - except Moody's magical one - was on him. 'I, I want Snape by my side, sir. I want him with me the whole time.'

Ronald Weasley spluttered resentfully. 'But I'll be with you, Harry! Just look!' he pointed indignantly at the map. 'You'll have me and Remus AND Mad-Eye, ALL protecting you!'

'I know, Ron. And I know you'd do a great job of it. But I want Snape next to me. Sorry, but I do.' Potter turned to the Headmaster once more. 'Please, Professor Dumbledore, sir. I don't want to have to walk out there without Sn-Severus with me.'

'Albus,' Minerva said quietly, 'Do we honestly have time for all this?'

'No, Minerva, we do not.' Dumbledore looked from McGonagall, to Snape, to Potter and back to the map again. With a tiny wave of his right hand, Snape's marker exchanged places with Moody's. Another round of whispers made a quick lap of the room. 'Alastor? You will now be controlling all possible exits to the East. Severus?' Another look over the top of the half-moon spectacles. 'You will be here, with Remus Lupin and Ronald Weasley, protecting Harry Potter.'

'Thank-you, Albus.'

'You may not thank me for it afterwards, my boy. I'm putting you in charge of Harry's safety.'

Snape nodded curtly and barely lifted his gaze from the map for the remainder of the meeting.




'What the fuck is going on, Harry?' The Weasley boy was just about puce as he rounded on Potter when everyone was dismissed. 'You trust HIM more than ME? I'm your best friend! Aren't I?'

'Of course you are, Ron. Always. I just want him with me. End of argument.'

'End of - what's that supposed to mean? You won't even talk about this with me?'

'No.' Potter moved toward the door. 'Look, we've got Hell to wake up to in just a few hours. And starting the day in the middle of the night isn't something I'm particularly looking forward to either. I'd much rather spend that time trying to get some rest than arguing with my friends about who's going to be standing where when the Death Eaters come for us.' He stopped in the doorway and looked back steadily at Snape. 'I'm going to bed now,' he said clearly, and walked out of the room.




Potter kicked at a heavily carved leg of his bed. 'God! Ron can be such an arse at times!'

'He merely feels threatened for his place in your affections.'

Potter sat on the edge of the bed, pulling his trainers off roughly and throwing them across the floor with some force. 'Well, he's just gonna have to get over it.' His shoulders slumped. 'Shit. I'm going to have to tell him about us, aren't I?' He shook his head a little then looked up at Snape. 'What?'

'You do realise, I hope, that you all but did precisely that just now?'

'I didn't do anything!'

Snape shot him a hard look. 'Where are we right now, Potter?' The boy seemed to only then realise that they were both inside his bedroom; and more than that, no magic had gotten them there - Snape had merely followed him up the stairs and through the door.

'Do you think they noticed?'

'In all honesty, Potter? I couldn't care less if they did.'

'What happened to "a little discretion for a little longer", hm?'

'Our orders happened. We're fighting tomorrow, Harry.' Snape suddenly couldn't look into the boy's face. He couldn't bear to watch the full realisation of their situation ease its way across the pale features. He turned and busied himself with removing the two red glass vials from his robes and setting them down carefully on one of the bedside tables. That done, he turned his attention to the divestment of his heavy robes and black jacket, placing both garments over the back of a chair, brushing his fingertips over the rough fabric. As he stood there, a presence appeared behind him and Potter's arms curled around his waist, holding him lightly. Snape undid the cuffs of his white shirt, suddenly very conscious of every breath he took.

'Are you sure the enhancement potion will work?' Potter's voice was quiet and unsure. Snape couldn't even summon enough indignation to feel insulted that the boy could question the success of one of his potions.

'Yes,' he replied in an equally quiet tone. He ran his hands along Potter's arms until he was wrapping his own arms over the top of them, hugging Potter's embrace to him. 'I once bonded myself to a powerful wizard,' he murmured. 'I now seek to bond myself to one even more powerful.' He turned in Potter's embrace and put his arms around the boy, pulling him against his body, stroking one hand over the unruly hair and pressing his lips to his forehead. He barely noticed, for some moments, that he was kissing the wretched scar.

No more words passed between them for quite some time. Not while they kissed, or undressed one another with reverent hands. Not when they lay down together, holding each other close, mapping each other's body with fingertips and lips, committing their physicality to memory. When Harry moved to lay over him, there was only one word whispered. "Severus." It was like they barely even needed breath, they could kiss at such length, all the while stroking and touching, holding and moving. When Harry breached him and entered him, they both froze for a moment that might have lasted hours or only seconds. Severus wrapped his legs around Harry's waist, cupping his face with trembling hands, and brought their mouths together, breathing for one another. To look up into Harry's face was to see beyond tomorrow, beyond the coming fight, beyond uncertainty. His lover's gaze contained only assurances. He was wanted. He was needed. He was loved.

Harry moved his hips achingly slowly, setting a leisurely pace to the love-making, his mouth lingering at Snape's ear. 'Love being in you,' Harry moan-whispered to him. 'Surrounded by you. Lost in you. In you. Oh… in you. Deep in you.'

Damn it, he's mumbling. He's going to come soon if you're not careful, Severus. Snape sighed and urged Harry's head up so he could make the boy look at him. 'Harry. Don't come in me. We need that.'

The green eyes were languid as they gazed upon him. 'Tell me what you want, then. You don't, uh, want me to stop?' Harry punctuated this by brushing his cock lazily against Snape's prostate. 'Do you?'

Not bloody likely.

'No, don't stop, Harry. Merely… take care to withdraw before you ejaculate.'

'You want me to come ON you instead?' A flash of emerald. Marvellous time for the little sod to find a new kink he likes the idea of… Snape nodded.

Harry bent his head for a rough kiss and began thrusting himself harder into Serverus' body, moaning into his mouth, his momentum building steadily. 'God, you feel so good. So fucking good - uh!' Harry lifted up suddenly and slid his hips back, holding the base of his cock as he pulled it out of Snape with a groan. He began pumping his fist up and down the slick shaft immediately, coming over Snape's torso in large splashes, his mouth open in a silent cry of release. Severus had never seen anything so perfect. Ever. It was all he could do to not orgasm himself, just watching that glorious sight.

Chapter 19

The second time Harry and Snape performed the Culmen Densus spell, it took Harry even longer to stop sobbing than the first time he'd encountered it. He supposed it was the added effect of the enhancement potion, plus the heightened emotional state of realising this could easily be the last time he might be alone with his lover. As he welcomed Snape's power into his body, he could feel his own settling within Severus, each spark and tendril of magic making its presence felt, making itself at home. He felt every emotion all at once, keenly, penetratingly. Harry felt… absolute completion for the first time in his life. As they rode out the waves of their climax together, Harry pressed his face up against Snape's chest, trailing trembling lips over the old scars there, knowing that he was muttering nonsense words of love and devotion against the damp flesh.

Severus made a soft, bemused noise. 'Your body sings in Parseltongue.'

Harry nodded into the juncture of Snape's neck and shoulder. 'How would you describe your sound?'

Snape sighed shallowly. 'Dark.'

All this time fighting for the side of Light, and the man still thought himself a Dark Wizard. What would it take to soothe him? To give the man his reckoning? Tell him his debts had been paid in full? Harry didn't know. 'Don't leave me,' he murmured over and over. 'Stay inside me. Don't leave. Don't leave…' He was still muttering it when his exhausted body drifted into a restless sleep.




'Have you slept at all?' It certainly didn't look as though Snape had.

'Maybe a little,' the deep voice answered, probably lying.

'And you didn't sleep the night before either.'

'I'll take some Pepper Up. And a concentration draught. How do you feel, Harry?'

Harry looked over his limbs, as though expecting his body to look as different on the outside as it felt on the inside. 'Powerful,' he whispered, and then laughed softly at himself. 'You?'

Snape nodded. 'And you doubted the efficacy of my enhancement potion.'

'Sorry.' Harry smirked. 'Forgive me?'

Severus answered him with a deep kiss. 'We have time to shower and for breakfast,' he noted when he pulled his mouth back reluctantly from Harry's.

The windows showed it was still pitch black outside. Why did markets always have to start so bloody early anyway? Wanting to avert disaster at a marketplace meant getting up in the middle of the damn night!

'I don't know if I could eat anything right now.'

'At least a little, Potter. You need strength and energy, remember.'

'I think you fucked all the strength and energy I need into me last night.'

'A cock up the arse is no substitute for a bowl of porridge, Potter.'

Harry spluttered. 'Can I quote you on that?'

Eyebrow. 'To whom?'

'Everybody!'

'Absolutely not.'




All through breakfast, Harry couldn't quite decide if people were looking at he and Snape differently or trying not to look at he and Snape or trying desperately to act as though everything regarding he and Snape was perfectly normal. Hermione gave him a strange smile every time their eyes met. And Ron looked pale and shifty and tried to do everything possible to not let their eyes meet at all.

Harry reprimanded himself that he shouldn't be so self-centred as to think that anybody acting a little odd this morning would automatically be doing so because of him. They were all marching off to war today, after all. But there was just something about the way Ron's lip curled ever so slightly when he saw Snape pass Harry a cup of tea…

'Alright there, Ron?'

The redhead uncurled his lip immediately. 'Yeah. Smashing, mate.'

'Sleep okay?'

Ron shrugged. 'This bloody house gives me the creeps.'

'Ron…' Hermione said in a warning tone.

'Well, it does! I can't help it.'

'Ronald Weasley,' said Molly carefully from the other end of the dining table. 'I didn't bring you up to be rude about other people's houses while you're a guest in them!'

'It's okay, Mrs Weasley,' said Harry. 'Ron's right, this IS a creepy house.'

'Makes people do some creepy things and all,' Ron muttered into his slice of toast.

Harry just looked at his friend for a moment. So, it was about him and Snape, then. What was he supposed to say? 'Ron?'

Ron kept his gaze firmly on his breakfast.

'Ron!'

'What?' He finally looked Harry in the eye.

'I'm happy.'

'You what?'

'I'm. Happy. Just thought you should know that. That's all.'

'Potter.' Harry turned toward the soft voice to see Severus stand up from the table. 'It is nearing time for us to leave.' Snape smoothed his robes down and bowed slightly in Mrs Weasley's direction, then he pushed his chair in carefully and walked toward the door. Harry was two steps behind him, crunching down the last two bites of his toast and almost tripping over Dobby who was standing in the hallway, wringing his hands.

'Harry Potter is coming back? Dobby would hate to live here alone!'

'Try not to worry too much, Dobby.'

The house elf's huge eyes looked suddenly very watery. Harry glanced at Snape, who was standing nearby with his arms crossed, looking impatient. Harry looked back at Dobby and reached out to pat a slender, bony shoulder.

'Will Harry Potter and his friends be…' Dobby paused to blow his nose loudly into a large, spotted handkerchief, '…wanting lunch?'

'I don't kn- '

'Yes.'

Harry looked up at Snape's interruption in surprise. He'd never heard the man address a house elf directly before.

Snape took a couple of steps toward them, peering down at Dobby from his imposing height. 'Apply your thoughts to preparing lunch, Elf. Take your time and be very thorough. Do not let your thoughts wander to such silliness as worrying. Remember who you serve and prepare him a meal that is worthy.'

Dobby's face brightened as he craned his neck to look up at Snape. 'Oh, Harry Potter is choosing his friends wisely indeed!' he beamed. 'Dobby will make a magnificent lunch! Yes!' He stuffed the handkerchief into the top of one of his stripy socks and, grinning widely, scurried away toward the kitchen.

Harry tilted his head at Snape. 'That was… well, that was actually nice of you.'

'Shut up, Potter.'




Belvedere's Hump still lay in a cloak of the city's near-darkness when they Apparated to the banks of the Thames River. The skies overhead showed few stars, due largely to a cloud cover that threatened rain, but also because of the proximity to an urban expanse as large as London. The sky over such a metropolis would not have seen pitch blackness for several centuries. Behind them, the dark river could be heard, lapping softly at the landings dotted along its banks. The movement of tethered boats sounded forlorn and almost like a warning, to Harry's ears. The wizard market looked as sad as the boats sounded - bereft of people or movement at this hour, no stalls dotting the wide expanse, no commotion, no commerce. Around the perimeter stood various industrial-looking buildings which housed the headquarters of some of the largest import/export companies in Wizard Britain.

'Wouldn't a place like this have security guards on duty at night?' Harry whispered to his companions.

'Yeah,' Ron whispered back. 'They must be around here somewhere?'

'Already dead,' Snape informed them simply.

'How would YOU know?' Ron returned.

'You are almost standing on one of them, Weasley.'

Ron and Harry both looked down with a start. Sure enough, the body of a young man in Security Wizard robes lay just a few inches from one of Ron's boots. 'Bloody hell!' Ron's face looked abnormally pale in the surrounding gloom.

'I think perhaps we should all not talk unless it is absolutely necessary?' Lupin reminded them.

With Snape in the lead, the four made their way swiftly to their designated position and waited.

Harry pushed his back against a brick wall and sank down slowly to sit against it. He rested his head back against the cold bricks and just… thought about stuff. His friends and his parents and the events that had brought him to this moment. But, mainly, he thought of Severus. He thought of their first time, of their second, their third… he thought of their last. He thought of their mouths pressed together, their voices moaning in harmony, their arms wrapped around each other. No detail, no word spoken, would ever be forgotten.

"If it all goes wrong out there," he had told his lover just hours before, "If I don't make it, I mean. I want… there's this song… Light And Dark by Sláine Trevelyan. It reminds me of us. Will you make sure they play it for me? At my funeral?" He'd made Severus promise him, despite the man's protests. Snape had hung his head for a moment after that, lank black hair shielding his face completely from Harry's view. "Jerusalem," the dark voice had finally responded in kind. Harry had frowned slightly at that. "The hymn about England?" he'd queried, only to see his lover raise his chin and give a positively regal snort of disdain. "Well, I AM an Englishman, Potter. I'm allowed to get misty-eyed over that one…"

Sitting against the brick wall at Belvedere's Hump, waiting for Voldemort and his Death Eaters to attack them, Harry had to put a hand over his mouth and swallow a bark of near-hysterical laughter. He could make out the outline of Snape's unenvied profile in what muted ambient light there was. He swept his gaze along the sharp lines of the silhouette and felt his heart expand to surely three or four times its regular size. That tiny ball of warmth in the pit of his belly sent pulses of indescribable happiness through his entire body. He and his lover, along with his best friend and his surrogate father, were about to face down their mortal enemies - and Harry felt unadulterated happiness. Something had freed him from any fear. Somebody had freed him.

A far-off shout to their right caught everyone's attention and Harry clambered back to his feet, back against the wall, wand at the ready. They could hear the tattoo of boots running across the paved market place. Ron took a few steps forward, placing himself a couple of feet in front of Harry.

Two flashes of sickly green light flared to the East. Everybody knew what that was.

It was on. Events moved quickly after that.

Harry saw Ron go down first, a blast of Cruciatus piercing clear through his friend's body, it seemed, and into the ground upon which he now writhed. Before Harry could react, Snape's hand was on his chest, pushing him back against the brick wall as Snape moved in front of him protectively, throwing Avada Kedavra at the Death Eater who was attacking Ron. The Death Eater crumpled to the ground silently. Snape drew his wand across the space in front of them both, a double-intensity shielding charm making the very air ripple and crackle. From the ground, Ron forced his wand arm up and shouted a hoarse Expelliarmus at the nearest masked figure. As the Death Eater spun backwards through the air, Harry had just enough time to register that the Avada Kedavra shooting toward the flying body was being cast by Lupin. A fine, mist-like rain had begun to fall and the green of the Unforgivable curse seemed to touch each droplet of moisture, creating a thousand tiny prisms around the intended victim. The body stiffened in the air and dropped to earth with a sickening crunch.

It was all happening too fast. Too fast! Harry couldn't look everywhere at once but he fucking well wanted to. Another bolt of green light flared nearby and suddenly Snape's hand on his chest was gathering up a fistful of Harry's robes and pulling him along. Pain blazed in Harry's head - pain like Voldemort's raging - and he did his best to push it out, wandering vaguely if Snape was even registering it as they ran to the next building for cover. He looked back over his shoulder to see Ron was on his feet again, he and Lupin standing back to back, throwing out curse after curse at a small army of Death Eaters. That's impressive, he thought to himself stupidly.

'Are you harmed?' Snape snapped at him.

'N-no. You?' Harry only received a growl in response.

From across the market square, more flashes of curse light could suddenly be seen. From two different directions, it seemed, Death Eaters were being forced into the open landscape. Judging from the directions from which they were coming, it must have been Dumbledore's section from the West and Shacklebolt's group from the South driving the enemy before them. That was good, right? That probably meant things were going the Order's way. Of course… it also meant that more and more Death Eaters were being driven toward Harry and his protectors…

Harry leaned forward. 'We should be out there, shouldn't we? We have to fight!'

'You will stay here!' Snape's obsidian eyes dared Harry to defy him. 'There is only one person you have to fight and you will remain safe until he shows himself.'

'But - !'

'But NOTHING! If I have to cast fucking Petrificus upon you - Merlin help me, Potter - I'll do it.'

'People are dying!'

'Mainly them!'

Harry blinked. Snape was right. He swept his gaze over the wet square, taking in the moving shapes, the unmoving shapes and the fire-fight of curses lighting up the proceedings intermittently. They were winning. The Order was actually winning… For several minutes they stood together in their dark corner and watched. People Harry knew crumpled to the ground in flashes of green and he felt his throat constrict with each one. In a blast of light, he saw Snape's face as Severus watched a Death Eater take the full force of an Unforgivable. Snape knew people on both sides of this fight. Harry manoeuvred his hand into Snape's and squeezed the cold fingers. The rain got heavier.

'I wish I'd never joined them,' Severus whispered.

Harry had a horrible feeling that only himself and Dumbledore had ever heard the man say those words. He tried to think of something comforting to say. 'Everything happens for a reason,' he settled for. 'If you'd never been one of them, you couldn't have become a spy for us, you couldn't have supplied all the information you have over the years. We needed you… as you were... with all the bad things as well as all the good.'

Snape looked as though he were about to say something in response, but fell silent as they both watched a vortex of scarlet light spear the centre of the market square. The pain pulsing from Harry's scar flared once more, and a quick glance at Severus told him the Dark Mark was torturing his lover again, too. Voldemort was here.

Harry's emerald gaze met the black of Snape's. 'You'll stay with me?'

'I'll stay with you.'

'You know I love you?'

Eyebrow. Followed by one short, curt nod. 'Likewise?'

Harry's breath hitched. He figured that was the closest thing to an admission he was ever likely to get. He looked down at their hands, interlaced his fingers with Snape's, and looked up at his lover again. 'Yes,' he smiled. And he started running toward the scarlet light.

His scar felt like it was burning the flesh clear away from his forehead, and he guessed Severus' Mark was inflicting similar damage, but rather than the pain debilitating them, Harry actually fancied it was focussing them. Although there were still a thousand things occurring all at once and he could still never hope to see so many things happening at one time, Harry felt time slow down around him as they crossed the square. He was aware of each and every distinct action that occurred in the surrounding area, could place every person in the geography, could assess every situation, sense every emotion, could very nearly convince himself that he could feel the energy currents of every thought occurring around him. So, this is what destiny feels like, he thought abstractly as he and Snape slid to a halt in front of the serpent-eyed Dark Lord.

The other Death Eaters won't dare attack us, Harry considered. They wouldn't want to rob their own Master of his pleasure, after all. "With only the keeper left to beat!" - Harry grinned at the Muggle football memory. He was… enjoying himself?

'Tom!' he shouted in greeting at Voldemort. 'The years aren't being kind, are they, mate?'

The red eyes raked over Harry lasciviously. 'Ah, Harry. Dear Harry. Oh look! You've brought me a traitor to eviscerate! How very kind of you, son.'

Certainties cascaded through Harry's brain in the space of a split second. Even better - his brain felt clear enough to accept them as the convictions they were. Snape could only have done good for the Order by having first done bad for Voldemort. Harry could only be sharing Snape's power right now by having become sexually involved with the greasy git, unlikely as their liaison might be. Harry could only be feeling their powers enhanced by having chosen a Potions Master for his lover. Harry was as powerful as he was because the Dark Lord had transferred some of his own powers to him when he'd tried to kill Harry as a baby. Harry and Snape were connected, bonded - connected to each other with love and magic, bonded to Voldemort with marks carved into their bodies. The certainties continued to cascade through his brain. He knew what to do. Everything happened for a reason.

Harry watched Tom's eyes narrow further. Now!, his brain told him coolly. Harry pulled Snape tight against his body, pushing at the man's lefthand sleeve as he did so, hearing the fabric of Severus' white shirt tear from his force. The pain in his forehead was getting worse, almost at the limits of his endurance. This was a one-shot. Harry raised both arms; his right bringing his wand up to point at Tom Riddle, while his left grabbed hold of Snape's left forearm and pressed the burning, turgid flesh against his forehead and his equally incendiary scar.

'Avada Kedavra,' he said softly, calmly, feeling the doubled-up powers of himself and Snape flowing through him into his wand, doubled-up again by potion his talented lover had discovered for them, and increased yet further AGAIN by the power of Voldemort himself that was flowing, in the form of pain, through their respective marks.

Certainty, Harry thought, as he watched the blast of light flow in a circuit between the three of them.

The pain burned suddenly deeper as he and Snape collapsed against one another, then just as suddenly it was gone. Harry saw the Dark Lord glow green but he turned his face away to look into Severus' beautiful onyx eyes. He was only vaguely aware of hitting the wet ground before the entire world went black and he stopped feeling or sensing anything at all.

Chapter 20

Snape's consciousness was segmented. One part of it was telling him to wake up, to make sure Harry was alive and unharmed, to get them all the hell out of there. The large majority of it, though, was telling him to let go, to just let the peace come and take him away, that he couldn't feel his legs anyway so what would be the point of waking up?

He worried about Harry… but perhaps it would be better for the boy if things happened this way? What would The Boy Who Lived Yet Again, the war hero, the Saviour of the fucking world itself want an old git like him around for afterwards? Potter's praises would be sung from one end of the Earth to the other. Every witch and wizard in existence would want to kiss him or shake his hand or marry their daughters off to him. The last thing the boy would need would be a lame ex-Death Eater trundling around after him, scowling at all his fans, scaring potential wives away. And then what? Eventually, the boy would see the light and decide to bugger off and Snape would be left alone worse than he had been before - because now he would have known what love could actually be, before it was torn away from him.

No. This was best. Not waking up. Giving in. Letting go. It was best for everybody if he simply didn't come back from this fight. He had served his purpose, made at least some amends. Now it was time for him to go.

Thank-you, Albus. Goodbye, Harry bloody Potter.




If there was one thing in which Severus Snape absolutely DID NOT believe, it was the concept of Heaven. His astute mind could not entertain the theory. The mere notion of it offended his sensibilities. And yet - what else could this be?

He was surrounded by softness and warmth. He could hear laughter and singing. He could feel the exquisite beauty of tender lips pressed gently to his own. He could smell… Chocolate Frogs and lemon sherbets?

Snape's eyes flew open. Ceiling. Messy raven hair. Round spectacles. He couldn't see much else. But then, then there were emerald orbs opening to him, and the softness against his mouth retreated a short distance.

'Harry.'

Smirk. 'Welcome back.'

'Back from where, Potter?'

'Wherever you've been for the last five hours.'

'Asleep?'

'Passed out, more like. How do you feel?'

Snape considered that question for a moment. 'I am fine. Except,' he sighed resignedly. 'I cannot feel my legs.'

Concern and fear flashed through the green eyes before a slow smile spread over the lovely pale face. 'Sorry.' And Potter shifted properly and scrambled down off the bed, standing beside it and reaching down to rub at Snape's legs ineffectually through the covers. 'Is that better?'

Snape merely watched Potter's hands for a little while. 'You were sitting on me.' It was a statement, and he whispered it, feeling at once relieved and silly and grateful as pins and needles made their presence known in his lower limbs. He looked up suddenly. 'How long have you been sitting on me, you idiot child?'

'Dunno. Better part of an hour, maybe. I just couldn't take sitting next to the bed for much longer. Not while you weren't waking up at all. I just, just wanted to hold you. I shouldn't have for so long, I guess. Sorry about that…'

Snape let his gaze travel slowly over the boy. It was almost painful to look at him, he was so beautiful and alive. 'And you? You're not harmed in any way?'

Potter removed his hands from Snape's legs and slouched against the bed casually. 'I knocked my head a bit when we fell. Apart from that though…' He shrugged his square shoulders. 'Actually I, I feel kind of great.' He looked at Snape shyly, as though "great" was something he might not be allowed to be feeling at this time.

'You are definitely unharmed?'

'Yeah. Like I said.' Potter looked sideways at him, a look of uncertainty and wariness. 'I'm okay, Severus.'

'Kiss me.'

The green eyes grew huge and the mouth smiled its sloppy grin. Potter clambered back onto the bed again, this time kneeling astride Snape's lap, and fell into his arms. He was solid and corporeal in Snape's embrace - this was not Heaven, it was no dream, this was no trick of Severus' consciousness. He was alive and Harry was alive and Harry's mouth was moving against his again. They'd made it.

Questions were suddenly banging at his brain. Potter's tongue stroked his. Mmm. No - questions first, tongues later. Snape managed to pull his head back slightly from Potter's.

'And the Dark Lord, Potter?'

'Gone!' The smirk was back. 'Utterly gone. Dumbledore says we obliterated his life force - can you believe that? So he can't ever come back again. It's so cool…' Harry sighed as he looked into Snape's eyes. 'You're free, Severus. We both are. He's gone.'

Free? It was too difficult a concept to truly accept just yet. Snape would have to stew on that one for a little while some time later - preferably on his own and with some good scotch. He nodded solemnly, to let Potter know that he had at least understood the words. Potter leaned forward again for another kiss, but Snape held him back with a light touch to his chest. 'You've spoken with the Headmaster? So he, Albus survived?'

'Yeah, he's fine. And Remus and Ron and - '

'Shh, please, Harry. Don't give me the inventory just yet. I don't wish to know who has and who hasn't made it. For now, at least.'

Potter nodded.

Something else occurred to Snape. 'Wasn't there supposed to have been explosions?'

'Fred and George,' Potter rolled his eyes in mirth. 'Kids in a sweet shop, those two. All that trouble Albertus Tollinger went to - they had it ripped to buggery in minutes! The Ministry's been moaning about how many of the components appear to be "missing", too…'

Snape could almost feel a smile threatening. He gave a curt nod instead. 'And what is that infernal racket that's going on outside?'

'What, the singing? Celebrations, Snape! The war's over! If Pomfrey would open some windows in this place, you'd be able to hear the brass bands in Hogsmeade from here!'

The war. The war was over.

Snape took a firm hold of the back of Potter's skull with one hand and, pulling the boy closer, kissed him hard. He breathed in, filling his lungs with Harry, felt his nose being squashed against the boy's cheekbone, drew him in tighter against his body.

'Mister Potter! What DO you think you are doing to my patient?'

They both turned to look at Poppy Pomfrey, who was standing a couple of feet away from Snape's bed, her mouth terse and her hands on her hips.

Snape answered her before Potter could. 'Quite obviously, Poppy, he is congratulating me on my return to consciousness. Bloody good job he's doing of it, too.'

Poppy shook her head in mock disdain as she approached them and shooed Harry off Snape's lap. 'Are you experiencing any dizziness at all, Severus? Any nausea?' She ran her wand over his torso and each of his limbs.

'None, Poppy. May I go?'

'Go?! You've just spent five hours dead to the world, you stupid man! Do you honestly think I'm going to allow you to run off the very second you regain your senses?'

'If you don't, I'll be forced to bugger Harry Potter right here in your hospital wing, Poppy. And I promise you, I shan't even bother to pull the screens around the bed first.'

'You always did have a filthy mouth on you, Severus.' Pomfrey checked his pulse and his blood pressure, then tilted his head back slightly and shone a weak Lumos into each eye in order to check his pupil dilatation. 'Hrm. And everything else appears to be in similarly working order, as well.' She put her wand away and gave him a steady look. 'Need I caution you not to overdo it too soon?' Her gaze shifted to Potter. 'Or perhaps I should be warning YOU not to exhaust my patient, Mister Potter?' Harry blushed crimson and Pomfrey's look became downright saucy. 'Go on, the two of you. Get out of here and celebrate your victory. Have some quality time to yourselves before the multitudes want a piece of you, eh?' She winked at them and bustled away toward her office.

They watched her leave and then their gazes drifted back to each other. Harry looked as though he could barely contain himself. He either wanted to melt into the floor with embarrassment at having been caught snogging in Snape's lap, or he couldn't wait to throw himself on Severus and repeat the transgression.

'Shall we?' Snape asked him.

'What? Here?' The green orbs shone with mischief.

Snape made a frustrated noise. 'No, you prat. Shall we leave the hospital wing? My quarters beckon, do they not?'

Potter's cheeks flushed again. 'Oh, absolutely.' He glanced toward the doors as a loud burst of laughter drifted through. 'We can forget about getting a moment's peace if we step out there, though. Floo?'

Snape threw the covers back and stood up from the hospital bed, looking around for his clothes. 'Definitely.'

Potter held Snape's robes out to him. 'Just throw these on and let's go. You can come back for the other bits and pieces later.'

Snape smirked at the younger man. 'Impatient, Potter?'

'I've been waiting five hours for my Victory Fuck!'

'Merlin forbid, the great Harry Potter should be kept waiting, I suppose?'

'Just get in that grate, Snape. It was all I could do not to molest you in your coma.'

'My memory seems to tell me that I awoke from said coma to exactly that…'

Laughing, Harry clamped his hands to Snape's head and kissed him solidly but briefly, propelling them both toward the fireplace as he did so. They broke apart long enough to throw some floo powder and tell the network where they wanted to go. Then they were falling out of the fireplace in the sittingroom of Snape's dungeon quarters, limbs and tongues entwined already.

'Shall we repair to the bedroom?' Snape queried against Potter's mouth as they lay on the hearthrug together.

'Mm-mm - later,' Potter mumbled, pulling both his jumper and tshirt off at the same time and flinging them across the room. 'Can't wait any longer.' He knelt up and undid his jeans, pushing them and his underwear down to his knees.

Snape allowed himself a moment to appreciate the view of his lover's firm flesh and aching arousal before standing to remove his outer robes and hospital pyjamas. He knelt down on the rug in front of Potter and they moved into each other's arms, the intensity of their kisses scaling up as their chests and pelvises pressed together. Snape reached down between their bodies and took both their erections into his right hand, holding them together and stroking them as though they were one organ. Harry's hands were all over him, cupping his balls and his arse, stroking his arms, rubbing flatly over his chest, caressing his shoulders and throat, pulling at his hips.

Harry trailed his wet tongue along Snape's jaw and lunged at his ear. 'Fuck me, Severus. Please. Now. Fuck me.'

Snape stroked his left hand down the curve of Harry's face, then held that hand up in the air. 'Accio lubricant,' he intoned into the room. A tub took flight from one of the shelves and landed in his outstretched hand. He glanced down at it. Er… no. He threw it aside and held up his hand again. 'Accio personal lubricant,' he tried again. They both looked up at the sound of thin glass breaking from beyond the bedroom, and then a small clear bottle came flying into the sittingroom and slapped itself into Severus' hand. 'Much better,' he said, looking down at the label.

'What broke?' Potter's voice was thick with arousal.

'Probably the bathroom cabinet. I'll spell it back together later.' He kissed Potter deeply. 'Turn around.'

Harry moaned softly and shuffled himself around on his knees until he could rest the top half of his body onto the seat of the sofa. Severus moved behind him, between his legs, and pressed his urging cock into the heat of the boy's cleft while he splashed some of the bottle's contents into his palm. It was cold and smelt like oranges. He threw the re-capped bottle away and wrapped his palm around his shaft, shivering at the sudden temperature change on his heated flesh.

'Don't worry about too much prep,' Harry said over his shoulder, his hands grasping at the sofa cushions in anticipation. 'Just get in me. Fill me up, Severus.'

'Merlin, you're tiny…' Snape pressed one finger to Harry's entrance, smearing the clear lubricant around it in firm circles, allowing the tip to push in and out a couple of times.

'And you're big! Like I've always said!' Harry leaned forward more and jutted his bum into the air a bit higher.

The little sod really wasn't going to let him take his time with this one, was he? Severus moved his left hand to Harry's hip and held the boy steady, while his right hand guided his cock to the tight hole. He leaned forward and watched the darkened cock head pressing against Harry's arse. He rocked his hips a little, knowing how the movement would feel to his young lover. Obediently, Harry sighed and pushed backwards, rubbing himself on Snape's prick. There was some give there, Severus considered…

'Oh - !' Harry steadied himself on one arm and reached the other behind himself, fingers gripping at Snape's hip, trying to pull him closer. 'More. Please.'

Severus looked down in time to see the head of his cock slide into Harry. The younger man arched his head back and moaned. 'Now fuck. Me.'

The walls of Harry's body were fairly quivering around him as Severus pressed his chest down onto Harry's back and braced himself against the sofa. He sighed and thrust forward gently. Yes… He nuzzled against Harry's throat and thrust his hips again. 'Perfect,' he whispered into the messy raven hair.

'M-more,' Harry murmured. His eyes were closed, his head back so that there was more throat for Snape to lick and kiss and suck on.

Snape thrust again, harder, and knew he was truly alive. His pelvis was flush against Harry's arse, his cock completely sheathed in the heated tightness of his lover's body. He let his forehead fall to Harry's shoulder and waited a short moment, feeling muscles moving beneath and around him, accommodating him, welcoming him back.

'I love you.'

Harry looked back at him over his shoulder and smiled. 'I know,' he said softly.

Chapter 21

The grumpy bastard actually said it! He actually said he loves me!

Harry was pressed between the couch and Severus, both of them sated and sticky and trying to catch their breath. Beneath his body, Harry's wilting cock was trapped painfully between himself and the old leather of the Chesterfield. He sighed. Yet another item of Snape's furniture that he'd now spilt himself upon…

'My apologies if that hurt you, Potter. Too hasty…'

Harry turned his head to the side. 'Never. It was perfect,' he murmured. At the periphery of his vision, he could sense Severus nodding. Then he felt the gentle movement of Snape easing himself out of Harry's body as tenderly as possible. There was a muttered cleansing spell and they were both suddenly fresher.

Snape stood and held a hand out to help Harry get to his feet. When Harry looked up into Snape's face, the obsidian eyes were almost glittering, the thin mouth pulled into an almost-smile.

'You did it, Harry. You vanquished the Dark Lo - ' He paused briefly. 'Voldemort. Congratulations.'

Harry reached blindly down for his underwear and trousers, pulling them back up his legs as he continued to look into his lover's face. 'I couldn't have done it without you. You DO realise that, don't you? Don't you?'

Snape's only answer was to lean down and press his lips fleetingly to Harry's forehead. 'I must dress,' he said and turned to walk into the bedroom. 'Your public won't be kept waiting much longer, I am sure.'

Fishing his jumper from behind the couch, Harry found himself pausing to think about that comment. His public. As long as he was gracious for the next few weeks, as long as he let people vent their happiness and their gratitude toward him, as long as he got through it without cracking under the constant attention and pressure - surely then, people would do the decent thing and let him get on with the rest of his life in peace? He'd fulfilled his destiny, done what he had to do, delivered the world from evil and all that business. He'd be allowed to walk away now, wouldn't he? They'd let him do that?

He disentangled his tshirt from the jumper and pulled it on.




Twenty minutes later, Harry and Severus walked through the main doors of the Great Hall. The ceiling had been enchanted to show a constant pyrotechnic display. Hundreds of gold-coloured candles floated in the upper reaches of the carapace. Harry looked around in wonder, feeling as small and insignificant and overwhelmed as he had the very first time he had set foot into this vaulted hall.

'Harry?! Harry! It's you!'

A lanky blonde boy was suddenly looming over Harry, shaking his hand mercilessly and beaming at him. 'I, er…' Harry suddenly put a name to the face and tried a smile back. 'Hi, Colin. Um, how's things?'

That was the last coherent thing Harry remembered saying to anybody for the better part of half an hour. It was almost as though somebody had unfurled a huge banner that read "Harry Potter Has Entered The Building!!" over everybody's heads, because it seemed that every person in attendance suddenly knew that he was there. And, of course, they all wanted him. Everything was a blur of faces and handshakes and slaps on the back and gushing and thanks. Lost in a crush of people, Harry looked around wildly. He couldn't even see where Severus was anymore. Claustrophobic panic began to creep steadily up his gullet. The welcome sight of three tall redheads parting the crowd to reach him made Harry thank all good forces in the universe for the existence of the Weasley clan.

'C'mon, you lot! Step aside! Give the man some air!' Ron sidled - as much as was possible in such a crowd - up to Harry. 'Hullo, Harry! Fancy a bit of space?'

Harry's grin felt impossibly huge, fuelled by relief and gratitude to his best friend for coming to his rescue. 'Love some, thanks,' he replied.

'Well, step right this way then, our Saviour,' said George, bowing mockingly.

'We shall convey you to your people forthwith,' assured Fred, giving an equally theatrical bow.

'Quit it, you guys!' Harry laughed as the twins straightened once more and took up positions, flanking him. Ron stepped in front and began his Parting Of The Red Sea act again, the crowd opening up before them as the Weasley brothers ushered their friend swiftly to the front of the hall and up onto the dais usually reserved for the teaching faculty.

The general hubbub in the large room swelled to a pitch as people realised Harry was up there, and then dulled again as Dumbledore held his hands up in a request for quiet. A few camera flashes went off. Harry searched the assembled heads, looking for the dark, lank one he knew must still be here somewhere.

'Could I have everyone's attention, please?' Dumbledore looked serenely over all the upturned faces as they quieted further. 'Thank-you. Now, I know that you've all been waiting some time now to meet the man of the hour, though I believe I can assure you all that his lateness to this celebration was for the most noble of reasons. He refused to leave the hospital until the last of his comrades was given the all-clear.'

A rumble of oohs and ahhs swept through the hall, people nodding to one another as if to say "I knew it!" and "I told you so!". That's all I need, thought Harry somewhat churlishly, for everyone to think I'm even more bloody perfect and fucking noble than they already think I am.

'Harry?' Dumbledore tried for his attention. 'Would you like to say hello to everybody? They've been waiting to thank you for some time now…'

Harry suddenly noticed Severus standing against the wall to his left, dignified and severe-looking, his scowl enough to make the crowd around him give him a berth of at least a couple of feet. Harry smiled and felt his face flush.

'Harry?' urged Dumbledore.

'Huh? Oh. Yeah, okay.' Harry stepped up to Dumbledore's podium and looked out dumbly over the attentive congregation. 'Um…' He took his wand out and pointed it at his throat, casting a hesitant Sonorous. 'Can everybody hear me?' he asked quietly, though his voice travelled easily throughout the entire hall. A multitude of yeses and nods told him they could. Now what?

'Um… I'd just like to say, ar, thanks to all of you. You know, for coming out today. And for,um, waiting for me and stuff.'

A camera flash went off very close by, causing Harry a momentary blindness. He blinked a few times. 'Er, I'm not really too sure what else to say.'

The wizard with the camera spoke up. 'Chad Burning from the Daily Prophet,' he reeled off, as though having said it a thousand times a day for years. 'How'd you do it, Harry?'

Harry glanced at Dumbledore who shook his head ever so slightly. 'I, er, it was… complicated. And fast! It all happened fairly quickly. I'm not exactly sure what I…'

'Was it an Unforgivable, Harry?'

God, he hated reporters. 'There were all sorts of things going on… I couldn't really say…'

'Did you have help?'

'Yes! Lots of help. We were all out there, you know, it wasn't just me.' Harry glanced around at the various Order members he could spot with ease. 'My friends had my back. I was never alone.' His gaze landed on Severus again. 'I couldn't have done it without their help.' He looked directly into Snape's black eyes as he spoke. 'I couldn't have done it without you.' The onlookers closest to Severus looked around quizzically and, seeing only a glowering ex-Death Eater, looked back up at Harry with slight frowns.

Dumbledore laid a hand on Harry's shoulder and gave him a quick smile before turning to the assembled throng. 'Harry will be releasing a statement to the media tomorrow, which should answer all of your questions. But for now, I think our hero would appreciate being able to get some much needed and well deserved rest. Isn't that right, Harry?'

Harry smiled gratefully. 'Yes, sir, I would.'

Dumbledore patted his shoulder and nodded. 'You should go home now, Harry. We'll all be along when we can.'

'Thank-you, sir.' Harry suddenly remembered the Sonorous on his voice and waved his wand again to dispel the enchantment. A round of applause started up. Harry moved away from the podium and gave an awkward bow. The applause got louder and noisier, shouts and whoops joining the clapping. He waved and managed to smile, wanting now to just get the hell out of there. He managed to catch Snape's eye and motioned his head slightly toward the door normally used only by the teachers on their way to and from meals. Snape nodded once and strode away.

The three youngest Weasley brothers surrounded Harry once again and ushered him toward the small, unassuming door to the side. The applause and cheering didn't let up, even after Harry had disappeared into the ante chamber beyond and the door had banged shut behind him. He took a couple of deep breaths, getting his bearings, and headed for the nearest corridor.

'Leaving your party so soon, Potter?'

Harry rolled his eyes. 'Please! It's a madhouse in there!'

Severus arched an eyebrow as he looked down at Harry with a barely contained smirk. 'I suppose you'll be expecting me to chaperone you back to Grimmauld Place now, hm?'

'Well… it's not like I need a chaperone, exactly…' Harry grinned.




Most of the remainder of the day was spent in the Grimmauld library with Severus. They talked quietly together for hours, dissecting the fall of Voldemort in minute detail whilst sipping a seemingly never ending procession of scotches. In the moments that they weren't talking, they were kissing slowly, holding each other's faces while their mouths moved together. It was the sweetest and freest that Harry had ever felt. He could move forward with his life now. Things were going to be okay.

'What are you grinning about?'

Harry looked at his lover, stretched out on the settee in front of the fire, his eyes tired and the crease between his brows even deeper than usual. The man looked absolutely exhausted. Little wonder really, Harry considered, seeing as the only sleep Severus had had in the last two-and-a-half days was little more than the five hours of unconsciousness he'd endured after the battle. He suddenly felt guilty for keeping the man awake now with his desire to talk and snog.

'Nothing,' he said automatically. 'I was just thinking how much better life's gonna get now that all of that's over. You know. Stuff.'

'Ah, the eloquence of the triumphant hero.'

'You sound tired.'

'I am tired.'

'Should I let you go up to bed now?'

Severus' eyes were beginning to droop, but he shook his head despite this. He held one pale, elegant hand out and beckoned Harry over to him. 'Lie down with me.'

Very carefully, Harry manoeuvred a knee between Snape's legs and, bracing against the couch, gently lowered himself down onto the larger body stretched out below him. Some slight readjustment went on until they were both comfortable, then Harry tucked his head under Severus' chin and sighed against his chest. 'Mm. S'nice.'

'Except for your glasses digging into me, yes.'

'Oh.'

Snape plucked the spectacles from Harry's face and, holding them lightly, draped his arms around Harry. Where Harry's tshirt rode up slightly over the small of his back, he could feel the warmth of Severus' hand and the dull chill of the wire frames touching him. By the time his body temperature had warmed the metal, he could sense Severus asleep beneath him. Harry smiled into Snape's chest and relaxed - truly, utterly relaxed - for the first time in what felt like years and years.




Harry stirred slightly at the sound of hushed voices and dared to open his eyes the tiniest little bit. He was still stretched out upon a sleeping Severus on the settee. Apart from the flames in the fireplace, the library was now cloaked in darkness. Although he closed his eyes completely again straight away, he felt his mind and body became fully awake and tuned in to the quiet conversation that seemed to be going on at the doorway.

'Most odd,' said one whispered voice, which sounded like Dumbledore.

'Is it really so surprising?' said another, which could only have been McGonagall.

'But I believed I knew them both so intimately…'

'Not as intimately as they know each oth- '

'You know what I mean, Minerva.'

'Och, but who can blame them? I mean, really? Look how peaceful they are. Oh, it does my heart good, Albus, truly it does. To see two boys who've lived through so many troubles in their time… I know we aren't supposed to have favourites - of course, I understand that. But I can't help feeling, well, I'm just so proud of them both! Even allowing for the fact that one of them is a Slytherin!' Harry could hear the good humour in McGonagall's voice, even as he discerned the emotional strain that coloured her words.

There was a rustle of fabric, as though McGonagall was searching her robes for something. Then there was the rather alarmingly louder sound of a nose being blown. McGonagall had obviously found the handkerchief she had been looking for. Harry steadfastly kept his eyes shut and his breathing regular. He didn't want the two most senior members of the Order to know that he'd just overheard their whispered conversation.

The sound of nose blowing retreated as the Headmaster and Deputy Head exited the room, closing the door softly behind them.

Harry managed to get a look at his watch in the weak light offered by the fire. It was well into the evening now. Teatime had already been and gone. But he could hear the muted sounds of many different voices in the house - there was quite a gathering here at Grimmauld Place, if he wasn't mistaken.

Gently as possible, Harry shook Severus awake. The man who had spent so many years living the double life of a spy reached consciousness in a mere instant, grabbing hold tightly of the hand that had shaken him and staring up at his assailant threateningly.

'Hm. Potter.' The grip on Harry's hand relaxed.

'Sorry,' said Harry. 'I didn't mean to panic you.'

'You did not panic me, Potter. Merely… disturbed my rest.'

'Didn't mean to do that either.'

With a little difficulty, Harry managed to stand up from the settee without causing any undue damage to the body underneath him. Severus composed himself and stood also, smoothing down his hair and his robes before turning a questioning look upon Harry.

'I think the rest of the Order are here now,' Harry offered. 'I was thinking that maybe we should go and put in an appearance. Have something to eat…'

Severus nodded. 'Indeed.' He seemed to hesitate a moment, taking a steadying breath. On what seemed like an impulse, he reached out and ran a hand over Harry's unruly hair, then smirked slightly. 'Does your hair ever behave itself, Harry?'

Harry gave a small snort of amusement. 'Not bloody likely.'

Snape cleared his throat and held out Harry's glasses.

'Oh - ta.' Harry put them on and looked at his lover properly for a moment. Yes, the Potions Master was still what most people would call an ugly bastard. But to hell with it all - Severus was the most perfect man Harry had ever known. His heart tugged at him just a little as the remains of his childhood consciousness whined "But what about Sirius?", but he lifted his chin and resolved to put his past behind him.

Without another word, the two of them exited the library and made their way toward the kitchen, from where most of the noise seemed to be emanating.

Harry had indeed been correct - most of the surviving members of the Order of the Phoenix were here now, talking excitedly, laughing, commiserating, quaffing, snacking, explaining. Harry spotted Ron and the twins and waved at them from across the room. In between Fred and George, Hermione held up her good arm to wave as well, her other arm encased in a magical cast that would come off in the next day or so, leaving her perfectly functional once again.

'Fancy a cuppa, Harry?' called Ron, gesturing toward a kettle belching steam.

'Yeah, thanks,' Harry mouthed to his friend, nodding vigorously. He was distracted momentarily by Tonks slapping him on the back in a matey manner.

'Brilliant job, you!' Tonks enthused at him and Harry blushed.

'Thanks, Tonks. It was a great group effort though, don't you think?'

'Course it was, love, course it was.' Tonks winked at him and moved on.

Harry looked back toward the area of the kitchen benches and the cup of tea Ron was making for him. He was surprised for a moment, to see Severus laying a hand onto Ron's shoulder and halting his beverage making. What was going on there, for god's sake? Harry moved a few steps closer to that side of the room. He watched as his lover levitated a container of teabags out of an open cupboard and over to where he and Ron stood at the bench.

'Actually, Mister Weasley, Harry prefers his tea made with these… things.'

He couldn't help it - Harry started laughing. By the time he could make himself stop, his face was wet with tears and every person in the kitchen, including his Severus, was staring at him in stark bemusement.

~fin~

This story archived at http://www.walkingtheplank.org/archive/viewstory.php?sid=719

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