Back to Hogwarts: FIC: When Unicorns Shit Sparkles Title: When Unicorns Shit Sparkles Author:eeyore9990 Other pairings/threesome: None Rating: NC-17 Word count: 3,281 Warning(s): (highlight for spoilers) *At least one love letter filled with purple prose* Summary: Severus Snape finds a love letter addressed to Harry Potter. Privacy? What is this privacy you speak of? A/N: Prepare yourself. There might be the most ~romantic~ conversation you've ever read at the end of this fic.
When Unicorns Shit Sparkles
"—can only be seen by those who have witnessed and been affected by death. Carter, can you explain why a thestral cannot be seen by someone who witnessed death as a baby?"
Harry, writing on the blackboard, felt the change in the room even before he noticed Carter Williams' lack of answer. Dropping the chalk into the tray below the board, he turned to see Severus Snape standing in the middle of the aisle between the two halves of the Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom.
Snape shook out a piece of parchment he'd been holding in his hand and cleared his throat. "My dearest Harry," he said in an airy tone, causing Harry to choke and splutter.
What the fuck?
Snape looked directly at him, one eyebrow raised high even as he sneered. "Dearest? What have you been up to, Potter?"
"What—" Harry tried to say, but Snape was already speaking over him.
"For I shall call you my Harry on the printed page, since I cannot say it to your face. Your face that has brought me both heartache and joy."
When Snape paused for dramatic effect—and to allow the students a moment to get the giggles out of their systems—Harry groaned and dropped his head into his hands. A love letter. Snape had intercepted a love letter and was reading it out loud in the midst of Harry's sixth year DADA class.
Where was a stray Avada Kedavra when he needed one?
"'Your face that I yearn to see, so much so that I seek it out in my dreams.' I cannot decide, Potter," Snape said, dropping into his normal speaking tone, "if I am more revolted by the purple prose the author of this letter utilized, or by the fact that you apparently inspired it."
Harry sighed and walked around his desk, leaning back against it and crossing his arms as he got himself comfortable. He felt qualified enough, after knowing Severus Snape for over thirteen years, to predict that he would drag this out to make it as embarrassing and painful as possible for Harry. And as Harry had learned early in his teaching career at Hogwarts, the best way to deal with Severus Snape was to adopt as his motto the question 'what would Remus do?'
"'But the face that rends my heart in two'—it could be worse," Snape mused, lowering the parchment. "They could have said twain." Clearing his throat, Snape picked up the thread of the love letter where he'd left off. "'…because I know I will never see it soften with love for me."
As far as Harry could figure, Remus would patiently wait through Snape's little recital and then confront him in private to ask that such a moment never ever ever be repeated.
Ever.
"'I would curse you for haunting me, filling my days and nights with your beloved face, but I could not bear to find myself bereft of your presence.'" Snape gave a small, gagging cough, inducing more giggles throughout the room.
Harry fought to keep a very slightly amused smile on his face even as his fingers dug troughs into his biceps. Just keep smiling… don't let him know he's getting to you.
"'Your emerald orbs of purest beauty shine with the light of Aphrodite, banishing the shadows from my life.' Really, Potter." Snape wrinkled his nose and glared at Harry, as if it was his fault! "Whatever did you do to inspire such romantic twaddle?"
"Is that all?" Harry asked, hoping against hope that it was.
"Of course not. We've yet to reach the truly insipid bits, but… 'emerald orbs of purest beauty'? I may revisit my lunch." Allowing the parchment to flutter to the floor, Snape turned sharply on his heel and began to walk briskly down the aisle again.
"Excuse me, class," Harry said, giving an exaggerated wince. "I'll go make sure the Headmaster finds his way to Madam Pomfrey. Carter, you'll want to use this time to find the answer to my earlier question before I return. Don't think I've forgot about the thestrals!"
Before the door closed fully behind him, Harry could hear the excited chatter of his students, which only spurred him on to find Snape and give the bastard a piece of his mind. Thankfully, he didn't have far to go.
Snape was waiting for him, a smirk of pure evil joy twisting his mouth. "Haven't you a class to see to, Potter?"
"They're reading ahead, of course. And I won't be gone long, so you don't have to worry. I just wanted to ask that you never do anything like that ever again."
"Like what?"
Harry rolled his eyes. "Read manufactured love letters out loud in a room full of my students, of course."
"'Manufactured?' That letter was absolutely, stunningly real, Potter. I found it addressed to you in the staff room."
"If it was addressed to me, why did you open it?!" Harry asked in a near shout.
Blinking as if stunned at the logic of the question, Snape said, "Because I felt like it."
"You felt like it."
"Of course."
"What right do you have to—"
"In case you've forgotten, Potter, I am the Headmaster here, as well as—"
Harry cut him off, slumping with defeat. "Whatever, Snape. I don’t even care. Just, please, don't interrupt my classes anymore. It seriously undermines my authority with the students."
"Surely you aren't giving me an ultimatum?"
"And if I were?"
"I would simply say, 'I am the Headmaster, and as such I can do whatever I want.' Neener."
Snape leaned so close his face was mere inches from Harry's and whispered, "Neener." The stale smell of coffee and the roast duck they'd had for lunch assaulted Harry's nostrils, but he knew better than to say anything against Snape's basic personal hygiene.
As well as he knew that saying anything further regarding the reading aloud of letters in his Defence classes would only have Snape searching out more letters to regale them with. Defeated for the moment, Harry turned back to his classroom, mind swirling with ways to repay Snape for that day's events. The sight of Harry Potter walking into the Great Hall had ceased to impress the students more than five years prior. To them, he was simply Professor Potter, DADA instructor and yet another authority figure from which to hide all activities of an illicit nature.
The sight of him climbing onto the long trestle tables on Gryffindor's side of the Great Hall, however, was unusual enough that one of the first years dribbled food down his robes when his mouth dropped open in amazement. In seconds, the entire school had ceased all noise, giving Harry the perfect platform from which to address Snape.
Never a fan of public speaking, Harry cleared his throat several times while slowly pulling a folded piece of parchment from the pocket of his robes. "'Severus,'" he read from the short letter, then flicked a glace at the head table to see Snape's reaction. Satisfaction trickled through Harry when he saw the way Snape's eyes were narrowed in anger and the dark flush in his normally pallid cheeks. Holding the parchment in front of him, Harry continued to stare at Snape as he recited the words he'd written on the parchment earlier that day and committed to memory.
"'I would call you my dear, but that would be a lie because you're certainly not dear—though you are mine, so I suppose I'll have to address you as my Severus.
"'Beginning again.'" Harry coughed lightly, then accepted a glass of pumpkin juice from Lucinda Bigglesworth, one of his fourth year students, with a smile of thanks. "My Severus. I decided to write this letter to inform you that acts of jealousy like the one performed today will no longer be tolerated in our relationship.'"
Harry had to pause due to an outburst of gasps and several shouts of 'no way!' After waiting for the shock to recede enough for the room to settle back into a semblance of quiet, he finally continued, "'I will accept responsibility for my role in today's fiasco. I should never have agreed to keep our relationship a secret. In doing so, I realise now that I fed into your sense of low self worth. For that I apologise.'" Harry bowed his head in apology—though he wasn't stupid enough to break eye contact. He had to be ready to deflect any and all hexes, curses, and jinxes Snape was surely about to fling his way.
"'We have done our best throughout the long months of our frankly tempestuous—'" A loud snort from the head table interrupted Harry, who grinned and lightly said, "Yes, I do know big words, and can even use them on occasion."
Snape's "You fire-called Miss Granger" was met with blank stares from the students and chuckles from the staff who knew Hermione.
Harry shook his head, still grinning, and glanced at the parchment to see where he'd left off. As he'd known would happen, though, the instant he stopped watching Snape like a hawk, a bolt of magic shot across the room, incinerating the parchment in his hand. Harry rolled his eyes, exasperated, but continued regardless. "We have done our best throughout the long months of our frankly tempestuous relationship to avoid any vocal acknowledgment of our feelings for one another, so I will simply tell you today, in front of those gathered here, that I love you. You should know more than anyone that those are not words I say lightly, and the importance I place on them." Almost unconsciously, Harry brushed the scar on his forehead with the back of his hand.
"However, that does not mean that I don't know and acknowledge your faults. You are one of the most insanely jealous people I've ever met. Jealous even in ways that have no basis in reality. Honestly, Severus, do you really believe that a piece of poorly written 'twaddle' would be able to sway me, even if I didn't love you?"
Harry glanced around the room, hoping that the implied part of that last question had found its mark in whichever person had been the perpetrator of the 'love letter' from earlier that day.
"So now the Quaffle is with your Chasers. You can either trust in me and the strength of our relationship, or you can pull another stunt like the one you did today."
Silence echoed through the room, underscored by a vague swishing sound as several hundred heads turned from staring at Harry to staring at Snape. Harry almost felt sorry for the man.
Almost.
"Potter, I'd like to see you in my office immediately."
A rather-too-loud whisper of "I'll just bet he would" broke the tension, and the entire student body—as well as several of the more gossipy staff—began to speak over one another as they all fought to be heard by their table mates.
Harry hopped down from the table, walked to the centre of the aisle and waited for Snape, who was still skirting the head table, to join him. When Snape reached him, Harry could see remnants of fury in his gaze, but Snape simply held up his hand for silence as he passed by Harry and continued down the aisle. Sighing, Harry turned around and followed him, knowing that the subsequent few minutes would see either the end of his relationship or the strengthening of it.
The halls were almost eerily silent with all the students gathered in the Great Hall, and Harry felt his stomach clench with every step he took toward the headmaster's office. While in a righteous anger, his "letter"—and his delivery of it—had seemed a most excellent idea. Now he wanted to blast himself with a curse for even considering such rash actions.
As soon as the stairwell to the headmaster's office stopped rotating and the door closed behind them, Harry opened his mouth to apologize… only to find himself unable to do so as Snape had turned and lunged at him, pinning him against the door and crushing their mouths together.
The sharp taste of blood was overwhelmed by Harry's relief, and with a lot of adjustment, he was able to return Snape's rather-too-enthusiastic snog. As he opened his mouth to deepen the kiss, he found himself wondering vaguely how Snape had grown the two inches necessary to put him at the right height for this kind of mauling. When Snape's fingers dug into his arse to pull their hips together, he decided it didn't matter.
Fighting through layers upon layers of thick black wool, Harry was finally able to feel Snape's skin beneath his fingers. As their hips were busily grinding against one another, Harry dragged his hands upward, tugging against Snape's hastily opened robes, until he found the tiny peaks of Snape's nipples. Snape went a bit wild when he thumbed them, biting at Harry's tongue and lips before breaking free of their kiss with a groan of pleasure and burying his head in the crook of Harry's neck.
And sinking back to the floor as he lost the fine magical control needed to sustain his hovering charm.
Harry's chuckle turned into a gasp of pure pleasure when Snape began to bite and suck at his neck. "Fuck," Harry whispered, head knocking against the door rather painfully as he tossed it backward in an attempt to give Snape better access.
Snape released the skin from between his teeth to mutter, "Excellent plan. Get your arse to my desk."
Nearly stumbling in his haste, Harry did as Snape ordered—very likely a first for him—and with one sweep of his arm, knocked every bit of neatly-stacked parchment to the floor. Bent over the desk as he was, it took nothing for Snape to banish his clothing, pull his arse-cheeks apart, and begin sliding his own clothing-covered erection along Harry's crack.
Harry allowed his head to fall to the desk, one hand gripping the side of it and the other reaching back to wind in the material of Snape's robes, pulling against them. "Off," he said, lips moving through the moisture his breath had left in the gleaming wood of the desk.
Another Banishing spell had them both moaning as Snape's newly freed cock slapped against Harry's arse. Harry lifted up onto his hands, pushing his arse backward against Snape's hips, wanting more. Bare knuckles brushed Harry's arse as Snape took his cock in hand, rubbing the head of it up and down Harry's crack, glancing over his puckered rim.
Harry bit back a shout and lowered his hand to his own cock, squeezing it furiously in an attempt to keep himself from coming far too soon. The thought lingered in the back of his mind that this might be their last go, and if it was, he wanted to enjoy every moment of it, not spend himself too soon.
Widening his stance, Harry pushed down against Snape's cock the next time it swept over his arsehole, prompting Snape to hiss and pull away completely. "Idiot, we'll need lube."
Harry, though, was too frustrated to wait. Spinning around, he sat down on the top of the desk, reaching out with his legs to hook his heels around Snape's waist and drag him forward. "No time for lube. Want you now," he said, grabbing the back of Snape's neck and hauling him in for another kiss.
"No buggery without lube," Snape muttered against his lips.
Too busy sucking on Snape's bottom lip, Harry simply pulled against Snape until the man was standing between his thighs and then pulled some more. Hips flush against one another, Harry grabbed their cocks in both of his hands and began slowly wanking them both, allowing room for a bit of thrusting, which Snape immediately started.
With Harry sitting on the desk, Snape had the advantage of several inches, and he used them to best advantage. Pulling free of the kiss, he pressed his fingers to Harry's mouth, prompting him to suck on them while Snape dropped his head back to Harry's neck. He started sucking at the juncture of Harry's neck and then moved his head, biting along Harry's collar bone before drawing the tip of his tongue along the line he'd traced and starting over again on the other side.
Harry was on overload and without thinking, he stopped wanking their cocks to reach up and wind his fingers in Snape's hair, tugging on it as he rocked on the desk. Growling, Snape pushed Harry backward and climbed on top of him, thrusting his hips against Harry's and driving their cocks against one another. Harry's hands clenched in Snape's hair as he opened his mouth on a silent scream of pleasure.
He was so close, his stomach knotting with pleasure, when Snape bit at his neck again and went still. The warm pulses of come landing on his cock took Harry over the edge and he lashed out with his feet, kicking over Snape's chair as he rode out the spasms of his own orgasm.
When he finally had breath enough to speak, Harry nudged Snape with his chin and said, "Do you hate me?"
Literally feeling Snape roll his eyes—his face was still pressed tightly against Harry's neck—was slightly disconcerting, but Snape's grumble of, "Dolt," put his mind at ease.
"Really, though," Harry said. "You can't do that."
Snape pushed himself up onto his elbows and said, "One letter read to a class of twenty or so students versus a verbal acknowledgement of slightly against the rules fraternization?"
Harry flushed. "You started it." Then, remembering their conversation from earlier that day, he grinned and added, "Neener, neener."
Snape just huffed and stood upright with a grimace—either at the fact that they'd rather stuck together or at the way his back had crackled as he'd straightened… or both—turning immediately to search out his wand.
"So, err," Harry pushed himself back to a sitting position, feeling somewhat self conscious. "About that 'verbal acknowledgement'…"
Snape Summoned their clothing back to them and turned to look at Harry with an upraised eyebrow. "Yes?"
"Is this… I mean." He waved his hands around vaguely, hoping to encompass every bit of the insecurity he was feeling with that one motion.
"Are we going to live happily ever after, bonded in love and frolicking through sparkly unicorn shit?"
A reluctant grin twisted Harry's lips. "Yeah, I guess?"
Snape studied him for a moment, then shrugged, handing Harry back his clothing. "You know me, how I am. I can't guarantee your happiness. But I'll attempt—attempt, mind you—to suppress my insane jealousy."
Relief flooding him, Harry flopped back on the desk. "And you know I love you… Sorry about that, by the way."
"Loving me?"
"No, you berk. Announcing it like that."
"Ah."
"As for the unicorn shit, can I take a pass on that? I mean. I know it's probably a very important ingredient in some potions, but it really doesn't appeal."
"Heathen." Snape smirked at him, then went perfectly still. "You know… the other. I am not quite as vocally-minded as you, but—"
"I know," Harry said, interrupting what appeared to be the most awkwardly circuitous route to a confession of love ever. "I know, Snape. You don't have to say it."
"Perhaps I'll surprise you one day."
Harry just shook his head and grinned. The day Severus Snape was comfortable enough to actually say the words 'I love you,' unicorns really would shit sparkles.