InsaneJournal

Harry Potter has been in my mind. The thought kept waylaying Severus Snape, tripping him up at the most inopportune moments. When he was sitting at the staff table in the Great Hall of Hogwarts, for example. That single thought pierced the armour of his Potions Master battle regalia and left him feeling wide-open and vulnerable. And that he would not and could not tolerate.

Then again, he reminded himself, he was neither the headmaster nor a teacher at the school. Nothing and no one could force him to endure another meal under the judgmental gazes of teenage dunderheads. Or, for that matter, those who had gathered to "celebrate" the fifth anniversary of the Dark Lord's defeat.

He stood up abruptly, the scraping of his chair legs against the stone floor drowned beneath the hubbub of voices. Sparing Minerva and the others at the table a curt nod, he ignored their questions, wrapped his dignity around himself, and strode out of the castle into the unseasonably cold night.

* * * * *

"This cannot continue," Snape yelled at Potter when he found him standing next to Dumbledore's tomb.

"Really?"

The amusement that laced Potter's voice had Snape spinning around and shoving him against the marble wall. "This is no laughing matter. It's been nearly five years, and I have had it with your unwanted intrusions into my life."

"My... what?"

Snape had to give credit where credit was due. Potter's faux-innocent look would have done a Slytherin proud. Leaning into Potter so that the tip of his nose was almost touching Potter's — which was depressingly much easier to do now that they were nearly of a height — he snarled, "Get your filthy mind out of mine."

To Snape's dismay, Potter neither cowered nor cringed. He softened. There was no other word for that change in Potter's body language, not even in Snape's voluminous vocabulary.

"You too, huh?" Potter smiled. "I thought I was going mad."

* * * * *

Harry waited until the healers left Snape's room at St Mungo's before stepping out of the corner where he'd hidden when they arrived. Holding onto the folds of his Invisibility Cloak to ensure it didn't catch on any of the blinking and beeping magical bits and bobs that surrounded Snape, he made his way back to the chair between the bed and the wall.

"It's safe to open your eyes now," he whispered yet again. "You're free from all of them."

That time, however, unlike every other time he'd tried, Snape's head turned towards him, his eyes opened, and Harry fell headlong into Snape's mind. Or maybe Snape entered his? He was never completely sure.

Inside, Snape was warm and dark. His thoughts were soft as velvet against Harry's not-skin. Images flashed all around him. From Harry's past and from what must have been Snape's, although they weren't any of the memories that he'd seen in Dumbledore's Pensieve. And behind all of those scenes lay emotions beyond anything Harry had imagined: fear and cowering, pain and suffering, protectiveness and a determination to keep something safe.

Although what that thing could be... Harry turned around only to find himself pressed up against something, someone.

"You can't be here." Snape's words surrounded Harry. "It's not safe for you to be so close."

"Funny that." Harry said, or thought, he wasn't quite sure, "because I feel perfectly safe."

"I cannot save you from everything, Mr Potter." Snape drifted away, leaving Harry feeling cold and alone. "In fact, when this is over, I'm retiring from the business."

Unwilling to release Snape that easily, Harry reached for him. Snape stopped, and Harry wrapped himself around that warmth and tried for reassurance. "Good, because that particular business is over."

"You won."

It wasn't quite a statement or a question, and it was flavoured with emotions that Harry couldn't identify. So, he focussed on the memories of the events he wanted Snape to know, of Voldemort's death, of the aftermath, and of the Order of Merlin that was waiting for Snape when he woke up.

"You won," Snape repeated. He seemed to expand, to wrap himself around Harry before releasing him and moving back again. The amorphous figure that was Snape in this mind seemed to coalesce for an instant. His head was bowed, preventing Harry from seeing his expression or looking in his eyes, but the emotions flying around them, embracing him, left him in no doubt whatsoever that Snape understood.

That understanding lasted until Harry was released from Snape's Stupefy and informed that Snape had signed himself out of St Mungo's against his healer's orders. When asked for a home address, Snape had apparently told them that Harry Potter was sleeping in his hospital bed and snuck out while they were distracted.

* * * * *

"Going mad?" Snape scoffed. "You've been mad for years."

Looking thoughtful, Potter nodded. "True. You and me both, I'd think. Caught in the middle between Voldemort and Dumbledore, allowed to have barely a second of our lives to ourselves."

His sympathy made something ugly and terrifying rise up inside Snape. He grabbed Potter's shoulders and slammed him back against the wall of the tomb. "Don't you dare pity me."

"Pity you?" Potter's laugh was bitter. "I've never in my life pitied anyone less."

Potter lifted his chin, and their eyes met for the first time since Snape's hospital room. This time, however, Snape didn't fall into an involuntary Legilimency session, but he was caught all the same. Captured by green eyes that were only like Lily's from a distance, because hers had never had those flecks of gold or that outer rim of darker green.

"You." The word fell from Snape's mouth, confession and accusation.

"Us," Potter said, shaking his head in a disagreement that didn't make any sense at all.

Then Potter's hands were on either side of Snape's face, and his mouth was on Snape's. Not soft, those lips, nor experienced, but the kiss was perfectly imperfect anyway. A trifle sloppy, with Potter's tongue darting everywhere, licking and twining, and invading, but Snape couldn't help but open up to it.

The touch started an ache inside Snape, at the back of his throat and the base of his cock, tingling through his bollocks and down his spine, making him feel empty and needy.

"Maybe we should lie down." Potter's suggestion made Snape realise that his legs were trembling and he was resting most of his weight on Potter's broad shoulders.

He pushed himself off with an effort. "I think not," he said, but then Potter was kissing him again and Snape didn't even try to argue when Potter knelt and he found himself following that mouth down to the ground.

Warm ground. Dry ground. Spells had been cast, and Snape hadn't noticed. Didn't care really. Not when Potter was lying on top of him, between his legs. Not when Potter was nipping, laving, sucking on his jaw and beneath his ear. Not when a roll of his hips brought his cock against a hard thigh and made him spread his legs, wanting Potter to know what he needed even if he couldn't say it himself.

Another spell opened buttons and undid trousers, and Snape threw his head back and arched into Potter's touch. Potter's finger pads and palms were roughened by years of holding a broomstick and a wand. They skimmed over Snape's skin, catching on every sensitive spot he had, and Snape clutched at him, squeezed his arse and pressed them together.

"Easy," Potter murmured, and Snape would have argued if Potter hadn't been shoving Snape's trousers down at the same time.

Instead, Snape ordered him to, "Hurry it up," and he was left with his shoes and socks on, one leg free, and his trousers and pants stuck dangling off the other ankle.

Pressing his feet flat against the ground, Snape bucked up, rubbing his cock against Potter's, curving his hips to try and get something against his arse.

"Going to fuck you," Potter said, utterly unnecessarily.

"Well, get on with it then," Snape growled.

There was a moment's scramble as they changed positions, Snape getting onto his hands and knees and Potter kneeling behind him. Then a muttered charm led to him finally getting Potter's thumb in his arse, and Snape pressed back on it, wanting it deeper than it could possibly go. He demanded, "More."

Potter complied, with almost enough alacrity to suit Snape. And when Potter went to push a third finger inside him, Snape said, "Enough," although it wasn't. None of Potter's fingers were long enough to get where he needed them to go.

"Demanding sod, aren't you?" Potter was smiling at him and lining his slick cock up against Snape's hole.

"I've concluded," Snape said, as if he hadn't just come to that decision right there, on his hands and knees before Potter with his robe and shirt shoved halfway up his back, "that I'm hardly likely to get what I want if no one knows what that is."

"You deserve—" Potter began to say, but then he pushed inside Snape and seemed to lose all of his words in a groan that resounded through Snape and left him gasping.

Arse spread open, pierced by Potter's cock, and held to the earth by the weight of Potter's body, Snape was free. He rocked back and forth on his hands and knees, impaled himself on Potter, again and again, meeting every one of Potter's thrusts. When Potter finally found his prostate, Snape threw his head back and snarled out his demands, and Potter met them all.

Potter slammed into him, used the arm he had wrapped around Snape's chest to keep his balance so he could squeeze and tug on Snape's cock.

Still Snape asked for more — harder, faster, deeper — until Potter was saying Snape's name over and over, both "Severus" and "Snape" in a way that let Snape know that he owned Potter as much as he was owned by him.

And then, finally, Snape came in a surge of want, have, belong that left him twitching and jerking, clenching around Potter and pulsing his release over the grass and his clothes. He hung there panting, fighting for breath, and commanded Potter to "Come, damn you."

"God, yes." Potter pulled out and slammed back into him. His rhythm was lost in a babble of "Mine" and "Need you" that almost drove Snape head first into Dumbledore's tomb before Potter came with a shuddering, spasming cry.

* * * * *

They lay on the ground afterwards, wrapped in Snape's robes and Potter's cloak, cleansed, cushioned, and warmed by charms. To Snape's not-quite-dismay, Potter had ignored all of his complaints and had curled himself into Snape's side. He had one leg between Snape's and was occasionally toying with Snape's nipples, pinching and rolling them.

Exasperated and more than a little turned on despite having just had a brilliant orgasm, Snape slapped a hand over Potter's fingers. "Stop that."

Hurt was etched in the frown lines that surrounded Potter's eyes and creased his forehead when he raised himself on one elbow and looked down at Snape. "Do you really mean that?"

Snape sighed. "You're an idiot, and I'm too damn old and cranky to be interested in having it off on the ground next to a grave." When Potter opened his mouth to object, he belatedly added, "For a second time."

"All right," Potter said. "I can understand that." He subsided for a moment before wriggling around until he could look into Snape's eyes again. "We could go to my place. I have a great bed."

Shifting Potter into a more comfortable position, Snape rubbed his cheek against Potter's head. "There are worse places, I suppose."

"Brilliant." Potter reached for Snape's nipples again.

And this time Snape didn't object, not even when he felt himself being dragged into the twist and squeeze of Side-Along Apparation without so much as a 'by your leave'. He would, however, ensure Potter provided him with adequate compensation for the indignity.