Title: Soft Places
Author: smallbrownfrog
Characters/Pairings: Severus Snape/Harry Potter
Rating: NC-17
Kinks/Themes Chosen: adolescentism, Tunnel of Love, impotence
Other Content: oral sex
Word Count: 2,711
Summary/Description: Harry finds that life can be complicated, but that what truly matters is simple.
Author's Notes: A big thank you to my beta who continues to make my writing better.



Drinking the de-aging potion went about as well as could be expected. In other words, Harry should have known better. In fact, he had known better. Testing things for George rarely went smoothly. Yet Harry never seemed to be able to say no to George, now that Fred was gone. He would get ready to say no, and then George would look at him. That was all it took. Then the next thing Harry knew, he would find himself promising to test another experimental potion. And worse, he would have to explain to Severus that he had committed them both to another round of testing.

Severus was never shy about telling Harry exactly what sort of idiot he was; but so far he had been remarkably patient with the actual testing. What’s more he had been remarkably patient with the many unexpected side effects. Severus had quietly removed the small tentacles that decorated them after the disaster of the melting fire potion; and he only occasionally mentioned the incident with the lime green hair.

So Harry wasn’t surprised when his vial of potion didn’t work as promised. He had been told it would de-age him for about 10 or 15 minutes. However, it didn’t seem to de-age him at all. It did give him an odd sense of vertigo and a tendency to breathe out smoke, but that barely qualified as noteworthy when one was dealing with untested Weasley products. Severus managed to put out the smoke with a single wave of his wand, and the dizziness left on its own once Harry had sat down for a minute.

When it came to Severus’ turn Harry was surprised to see him blur like ink in the rain. It lasted only a moment. Then Severus was solid once again -- yet utterly different. He looked younger. His proportions were all wrong, as though he was stuck part way into a growth spurt and left with mismatched parts. He looked 15, maybe 16.

After a half hour of waiting, Severus still looked 15, maybe 16. He also looked distinctly unpleased. Harry cast about for a way to distract him until the potion wore off. “What do you say to going out for a bit? We could pick up that unicorn hair you wanted.”

“Yes, perhaps you could buy me an ice lolly,” hissed Severus. “Delightful.”

Harry decided to treat this as an actual suggestion. And so they found themselves joining the crowd at a little muggle funfair. It was a shabby affair, but it was such a glorious day that nobody seemed inclined to complain. The sun had pushed the clouds aside as casually as if they were curtains and everything glowed with the kind of light photographers dream about. The dirt paths were full of giggling couples and gleeful toddlers who were still young enough to be amazed by the miracles of balloons. Indeed, it seemed that the whole muggle world had come out to play in the fresh spring air.

Severus had dressed in a pair of muggle denims and a t-shirt, topped by a very unmuggle cape. At least Harry thought it was unmuggle. Maybe the fashions had changed. To Harry’s great surprise, Severus seemed to be enjoying himself immensely. He insisted on trying several of the sideshow games, and Harry was now the proud guardian of a magenta teddy bear.

Harry gazed fondly over at where Severus was standing in yet another line buying them some sort of ridiculous sweet. The potion had done exactly as promised, but somehow the effect still surprised Harry. He felt protective and warm and, well… he wanted to touch Severus in all sorts of ways not allowed in the middle of a muggle funfair.

Severus would never be a cinema idol, and at 16 he had clearly been a bloody disaster. He was thin and awkward and made out of entirely too many elbows. Yet all Harry wanted to do was inspect him in detail with lips and tongue and hands and cock.

It was like having a package waiting under the tree and being expressly forbidden to open it. Harry hadn’t expected to feel this way. After all he had Severus to himself whenever he wanted. They were no mystery to each other. But this Severus, this wasn’t his Severus. This was simultaneously somebody new and unexplored and the person he knew intimately. His brain kept edging up to the contradiction and then short circuiting.

Harry couldn’t stop looking at Severus. He was surrounded by sweets and carnival food, but it was Severus he wanted to devour. By the time Severus came back from the sweet vendor with an ice lolly for each of them, Harry had been fantasizing for a solid ten minutes.

Smiling at Severus, he licked his lolly with an aching slowness. He paused for a long moment before neatly biting off the bright red tip and noisily sucking it into his mouth. Then he swirled his cold sweet tongue over his lips. Severus looked like he was going to explode and Harry doubled over in laughter. He almost choked on the little chunk of ice before getting his breath back.

When Harry looked up again, he noticed a grey-haired couple looking towards him in intense disapproval. Harry looked behind himself to see what they were looking at. Then Harry realized how he must look, flirting with a teenaged Severus.

He wasn’t sorry, but he didn’t want to stand there being looked at. In a fit of pique he pulled Severus into the line at the Tunnel of Love. If people had looked unsure before, now they looked positively disapproving. Still, Severus was tall enough for the “you must be this tall to ride” mark. So into the boat they climbed. It was a shabby little thing that might have once been a brilliant sky blue, but was now splotched with a muddle of colors where the paint had peeled off in layers. Harry suspected that the entire ride was unsafe, but what was the point of being a wizard if he had to worry about a little water?

Right now all he cared about was the delicious feel of Severus’ coltish young body next to him. It was the thrill of touching a stranger mixed with the easy joy of touching someone he loved. As the light faded and the boat bobbed into the dark tunnel, Harry slid his fingers under the waist of Severus’ t-shirt. He let his hand rest there feeling the heat of Severus’ skin.

All around him was the steady sound of water lapping against the tunnel walls. It was surprisingly chilly and damp in the tunnel. Cold water dripped down from an invisible ceiling. Harry was beginning to feel cold himself, except for where his skin met Severus’. The place where they met was alive with warmth. Harry wanted to climb into the heart of that warmth. He wanted to press himself skin to skin against Severus until all he felt was warmth.

Harry’s hand dipped lower until it hit tight muggle jeans. Why did they have so many clothes on? Growling in frustration, Harry knelt down between Severus’ legs and began fumbling with the zip. It took entirely too long to open.

Then Severus banished his muggle clothes to whatever magical place wizards send all the small annoyances in their lives. Harry barely paused to wonder where they had gone before Severus loosened his cape and settled it around them both. His whole body was an extreme of hots and colds. The bits of Harry that stuck out from the cape were still cold and his knees were getting damp from kneeling in the boat. Yet his face was in the furnace of Severus’ crotch and he was warm where he pressed up against a wonderfully naked Severus.

It didn’t really feel like anything outside the cape was real. That cold world was imaginary. It was wet under the cape, but an entirely different wetness than the world outside. In here was a little greenhouse, hot and wet and moist. All around him was the warm scent of male flesh, musk, heat, and moisture.

He explored Severus cock with his tongue. It was surprisingly hard and larger than he expected. Again, everything was familiar yet slightly different. He took the head into his mouth and let his lips play over the raised corona just before the shaft. It seemed more pronounced than usual, but surely that wasn’t something that changed with age?

It didn’t matter. Now wasn’t the time for thoughts of any kind. Harry ran his tongue happily down the shaft, then returned to lipping and tonguing the sensitive corona ring. Soon, Harry was lost in sensation, and he was almost startled by the salty taste of Severus’ release.

It was a good taste, soon followed by the good feel of Severus’ hands stroking him to completion.

Severus was unusually quiet as they emerged from the tunnel. He looked quite composed, his cape buttoned tight to conceal a lack of clothes, but his expression was solemn. Harry was quiet too, his feelings too big for words.

When they arrived home Harry found himself yawning. He felt a happy laziness that made him stretch out on top of the bed and smile sheepishly up at Severus. “I’m knackered. I’ll just rest here a minute before I check in at the office.” He didn’t intend to sleep, really he didn’t. He planned to laze for just a little bit before getting back to the world of work and memos, but when he woke with a start -- the room was dark.

Severus’ side of the bed was empty. Harry didn’t think anything of it at first. Severus often came to bed later than Harry. Then he saw the clock. It was almost 2AM. The bed was still made. Something wasn’t quite right. Harry felt grungy in his slept-in clothes, and his brain was struggling to make even simple connections. He wanted to change clothes or wash up, but first he needed to find Severus.

The bath was empty, so was the library.

As soon as Harry entered the kitchen he knew something was definitely wrong. The lights were turned off and Severus was standing in the dark. He had his back to Harry as he gazed out the window, so most of him was a featureless black shadow. Only here and there a silvery bit of moonlight caught a strand of hair or the edge of a shoulder.

“Do you want to take the potion again?” asked Severus.

Harry froze. He was still trying to blink away his sleepiness, but he knew a loaded question when he heard one. He didn’t know what he had done wrong, but suddenly he was back in the early days of their relationship, when every conversation was a minefield, and all the answers were wrong.

What had he done to be back in this place? What had he done to make Severus’ voice so horribly neutral? It was the same empty, polite voice Severus once used with the Dark Lord. Harry felt slow and stupid. He was missing something vital.

Severus seemed to take his silence as a tacit agreement. “Very well. I’ll get another test dose for this weekend.”

Severus pushed away from the kitchen counter and Harry realized that Severus had been leaning on it throughout the conversation. It was odd the way the detail stuck out. Severus’ stubborn refusal to use a cane was part of why Harry loved him. It was a normal part of their normal everyday lives, a routine detail. So why did it feel so wrong and out of place?

Then it all clicked. For most of the day he and Severus had been living as though Nagini never struck, as though they were two teenagers together -- or at least a teenager and a young adult. For most of the day Severus had been pain free. And now Severus was back in the body Nagini had poisoned. It was as though Nagini had just struck all over again. As though Severus had just been freshly injured.

So it made sense that Severus might be off balance, or even angry. Yet why did he sound so entirely wrong when he talked about taking the potion again? Surely they had had fun rutting like two teenagers in heat? Surely Severus’ cock had been as eager as his own?

Oh.

Oh.

Of course. Severus thought Harry had made a comparison, thought that he wanted a teenage lover instead of what he had. Merlin! Why did Harry break everything he touched? Why did he still charge in without thinking? What was wrong with him? Surely he should have seen that this was a chink in Severus’ armor. A soft spot that Severus trusted Harry to protect. Yet he hadn’t seen anything but a simple straightforward potion and a fun way to spend an afternoon.


Harry stared at Severus, trying to think how to show him that he loved him in his current body. He was never again going to leave Severus alone and wounded. Not here, not now, not ever.

It still frightened him sometimes, how close he came to losing everything he had with Severus. A few moments more and the healers said he would have been dead. A few moments more and the poisons that burned through his veins would have done so much more than injure him.

“I don’t need potions,” said Harry. “Let me show you what I want.”

Slowly, Harry walked up to Severus. Slowly, he waved open the buttons on the cape. Catlike, Harry ran his tongue over the ill-knitted scars on Severus’ neck.

“I want this,” said Harry, sucking on the raised swell of hard scar.

“I want this,” said Harry, licking down the soft pale skin below the scar.

“I want this,” said Harry, nibbling delicately on a nipple, barely denting it with his teeth, then kissing his way down the white chest with messy wet kisses. The sounds of wet suction were loud in the quiet room.

“I want this,” said Harry, breathing out moist air over the small swell of belly. Slowly his tongue swirled into the hollow of Severus’ navel.

Then his nose and cheek rubbed against Severus like a cat.

“I want this,” said Harry. Then his hand reached out to trace the dark and wiry hairs that made a disorderly line under Severus’ navel.

“I want this,” he repeated as he sank all the way to his knees. Then his nose rubbed its way into the nest of Severus’ groin, and he gave the lightest of kisses to the root of Severus’ cock. Slowly, each kiss lighter than air, he worked his way down the shaft to the head. Here he took it gently in his lips and let his tongue visit the underside.

Severus said nothing, but his cock seemed to twitch just a tiny bit, or maybe that was just Harry’s imagination, willing away the damage Nagini had done.

Maybe Severus was right and Harry was imagining a lover whole and undamaged in his responses. Harry tried to imagine a world without Severus, a world with some other lover, and was surprised by the rush of pain and tenderness.

No, this was who he loved. This body was Severus. This body had so much beauty. Harry loved all the sharp hard parts of Severus, loved that severe and angular face, the sharp angles of his hips, and the long bony fingers that opened him up inside when they fucked. But he also loved the soft parts. He loved the small hidden rise of belly, the musky balls, and the beautiful soft cock that fit his mouth so perfectly.

Harry knew that Severus despised the changes Nagini brought to his body; but sex with him was never second best. How could anyone call it lacking, when it felt so good, when Severus’ toes curled and Harry’s back arched? When Harry could feel the current thrumming between them when they touched?

All this flashed through Harry’s mind as he mouthed his lover. All this and more.

Pulling slowly off, Harry faced the beautiful soft cock and said, “I want this.”