Summersmut Mod (summersmutmod) wrote in hp_summersmut, @ 2007-09-07 09:41:00 |
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Entry tags: | harry potter, harry/snape, severus snape |
[FIC] Bleak House (Part Two): Severus/Harry
Original posted here on 25 August 2007
Title: Bleak House
Requestor: sevs_lil_secret
Author/Artist:
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Severus/Harry
Word Count: 13,000
Summary: There are some people in this world who have become so accustomed to being alone that they’ll never allow themselves to trust in something more
Author's Notes: Dear Requestor, I attempted to include as many of the requested elements as possible, but as you can see by the word count, this story took on a life of its own. That said, I did manage a non-magic and muggle setting, of sorts, as well as a bit of fluff and plot. There are also some D/s undertones, alongside some crossdressing and an issue of unexpected virginity. I hope you like it. Also, thank you to my beta and pre-reader, whose identities shall remain, for now, confidential.
Part One
When Severus emerged from his apartment two hours later, everything in the shop was as he had left it, Potter included.
With a sigh, Severus crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the doorframe, studying his new assistant with a critical gaze. Potter’s entire body was shaking with the force required to maintain his position, and a bead of sweat traveled down the length of his nose, falling into a small pool that had formed on the surface of the table. Even Severus had to admit, however grudgingly, that the young man’s resolve was impressive.
Unfortunately, his anger with the brat’s unending stubbornness was dulled somewhat by the shock that, for once, this headstrong behavior was not the result of defiance, but obedience. Oh, it might have been a ploy to prove him wrong- the boy was no doubt acutely aware that Severus expected failure from him at every turn- but not even Potter would be willing to subject himself to hours of aching muscles and waning strength if it was nothing more than a battle of wills.
Sighing heavily, Severus pushed away from the doorframe and unlocked the top drawer of his desk that served as a makeshift cash register. Pulling three twenty-pound notes from the top of their neat stack, he stalked over to the table and tossed them down next to Potter’s head.
“Where have you been staying?” he snapped impatiently. “Answer, or I’ll use the last of my magic to ensure that you never set foot inside this shop again.”
“Wherever,” Potter replied in a strained voice, the muscles in his shoulders quaking.
“Contrary to your opinion of me, I’m not in the habit of denying others their due,” Severus announced in an imperious tone, bracing himself with both hands on the tabletop and leaning down until his lips brushed Potter’s tousled hair. Hesitantly, the younger man lifted his head and blinked, his green eyes glazed and unfocused. “This is your salary for the week; I suggest you use it to secure yourself a proper room, one with a working shower, as I expect you here tomorrow morning at nine o’clock, looking presentable.”
“Yes Sir,” Potter replied weakly, dropping his head again with a shuddering sigh.
“You may leave now,” Severus said, straightening and punctuating his point with a dismissive wave of his hand.
Potter’s relief was audible in the grateful moan he let slip as he all but collapsed to the floor in a trembling mess of tangled black hair, panting breath, and sweat-slicked flesh. Again, he looked far lovelier than he had any right to be, and Severus turned away with a sneer of disgust, with both himself and the boy who lay almost at his feet.
“Nine o’clock,” Severus repeated as Potter pulled himself to his feet and closed his trembling fingers around the bank notes, his other hand seeking out the glasses that lay abandoned on a nearby stack of books.
“Thank you, Sir,” the infuriating creature murmured, and Severus made a noncommittal noise in the back of his throat as he retreated into the sanctuary of his apartment, safe from flushed cheeks and feverish green eyes.
~*~*~
When Potter arrived the next morning at ten minutes after nine o’clock, Severus greeted him at the door with a smirk.
“You are late,” Severus said as he stepped aside to allow the boy entrance. “Again.”
“Er,” Potter explained, all but hugging the two cups of coffee he held to his chest.
“You seem to be under the impression that nine o’clock means any time in the following hour,” Severus went on as he closed the door behind him and turned to face the younger man. The previous night had not been kind, and he had lain awake for hours, entertaining no less than a dozen schemes to ensure that his initial plans to humiliate, or otherwise punish Harry Potter’s very existence, continued uninterrupted. It was petty, and vindictive, and precisely what he’d needed to lull himself into a very restful four hours’ sleep.
“Sorry,” Potter muttered sheepishly, toeing the corner of a tattered book with a worn oxford. Severus had no doubt that the gesture would have been accompanied by the requisite stuffing of hands into pockets, had the aforementioned hands not been otherwise occupied with two steaming cups of coffee.
“Furthermore,” Severus continued as if he hadn’t heard the apology, “You seem to be under the impression that presentable means only somewhat less shabby than usual; after today, your shoes will be properly polished and your trousers will not look as if they’ve been attacked by a swarm of slithytoves.”
“Yes Sir,” Potter replied through clenched teeth, a flush of shame and anger tinting his pale cheeks pink.
“For today, Mister Potter,” Severus said smugly, “Since you’ve not seen fit to properly clothe yourself for your scheduled shift, you’ve put me in the rather loathsome position of having to dress you myself.”
Potter’s head snapped up at that announcement, and there was that familiar gleam of fury in those bright green eyes. The younger man’s grip on the flimsy paper cups tightened, and Severus braced himself for the overflow of scalding hot liquid that never came.
All the same, Severus could smell victory in the space between them just as sharply as the warm, bitter scent of coffee.
“What are you talking about?” Potter asked slowly, carefully pronouncing each syllable.
“Put those down and come with me,” Severus told him with a smirk.
It was quite a feat not to turn and see if the wretched brat was following him as he made his way across the shop to his apartment, but as he stopped in the doorway, he could feel Potter lingering hesitantly behind him. Flipping the light switch on the wall, he strode into the center of the tiny sitting room and whirled to face his apprehensive victim.
Potter followed, scanning the heavy mahogany furniture that cluttered the otherwise unremarkable room. The boy opened his mouth as if to speak, but quickly closed it again as his gaze landed on the dark green satin and black lace draped over the back of a plush armchair.
It was all Severus could do not to laugh aloud as he watched Potter’s eyes narrow, then widen as the blush on his cheeks intensified. Surely, surely Potter would leave him in peace after what he was hoping would be a rather spectacular explosion of temper.
To his eternal dismay- he refused to acknowledge the slow burn of excitement that rushed through him- Potter only exhaled sharply and cleared his throat before asking, “Is that- I mean- you don’t really mean for me to- that?”
“Once again, your eloquence is nothing short of astounding,” Severus remarked dryly, resolutely ignoring the sadistic delight that Potter’s discomfort aroused in him. “And yes, I do mean for you to that.”
“I see,” Potter said quietly, and there went the hands into the pockets.
“Well?” Severus asked, arching one eyebrow inquisitively.
The younger man glanced up at him, green eyes burning behind overly large spectacles and messy black hair. They regarded one another for a silent moment before Potter’s chin lifted defiantly, and Severus felt a shock of unbidden desire race along with his rapidly increasing pulse. Certainly the boy didn’t mean to-?
Oh, but he did. Potter brushed past him with a toss of hair that would put even Lucius Malfoy at his haughtiest to shame, and ran one fingertip over the green satin with an appreciative hum. “I’ve always thought I looked good in green,” he said thoughtfully. “Pity I didn’t let the Sorting Hat put me in Slytherin.”
Absolutely refusing to dwell on the implications of that curious statement any more than he was willing to concede defeat, Severus huffed and turned away. “The guest bathroom is through that door,” he snapped, placing heavy emphasis on the fact that Potter was, indeed, a guest, and a very unwelcome one at that. “As I’ve said, I expect you to look presentable.”
“Yes Sir,” the wretch purred from behind him, and Severus slammed the door on that smug tone with all the strength he could muster.
~*~*~
Ridiculous, insufferable, twisted, deviant, sinful creature.
Severus leaned back in the chair behind his desk and studied the young man who hovered uncertainly in the doorway that separated the shop from his apartment. Potter had taken the command to make himself look presentable quite to heart, it seemed, because- Merlin fucking help him- for a moment, Severus forgot that breathing was an absolute necessity.
The green satin corset was pulled tightly over Potter’s slender torso, cinching his already thin waist and highlighting every curve of his surprisingly toned body. Beneath it, the black skirt seemed to have been applied to his hips and thighs with the practiced strokes of an artist’s brush, leaving a thin strip of tantalizingly pale flesh between the hem and the lace tops of his black stockings. The infuriating boy wasn’t wearing shoes, and he curled his toes into the marred wooden floor as he shifted uncomfortably beneath his employer’s gaze.
“Snape,” Potter began apprehensively, pulling his full lower lip between his teeth and casting a furtive glance around the shop. “I- this- what if someone sees me?”
“What if someone sees you, indeed, Mister Potter,” Severus replied quietly, unable to tear his gaze from the dark flush that had crept across his assistant’s cheeks. The boy didn’t need to know that the door had been locked- there were some things that Severus refused to subject even his most loyal customers to- since this was a lesson in humiliation, after all.
Wasn’t it?
“You may tender your resignation at any time,” Severus told the younger man in a dry tone that betrayed nothing of the searing arousal that was slowly creeping through his body. “I’m sure that there are any number of grocers or retail chains in need of mindless labor.”
That had the desired result, because Potter’s blush quickly faded beneath a mask of contempt, and he took a resolute step forward into the shop. “What would you like me to do?” he asked, placing a hand on his hip in a mockingly feminine gesture.
“The bottom shelf of the poetry case needs to be resorted,” Severus replied, offering a silent prayer that Potter could not see the visual evidence of the effect those damned stockings were having on him.
“Yes Sir,” Potter mumbled unenthusiastically.
Severus had always been the sort of man who was prepared for anything. Years of treachery had taught him to live by certain rules: always sleep with a wand beneath your pillow, never drink anything without testing it for poison, and never trust a man who refused to meet your gaze. Therefore, it was somewhat of a surprise that he was wholly unprepared for the groan that rose, unbidden, to his lips when Harry fucking Potter knelt down less than five feet from where he sat and bent over until the flimsy fabric of his skirt rode up to reveal a nicely curved arse, barely covered by his green satin knickers.
“Sir?” Potter prompted, glancing over his shoulder with what appeared to be genuine concern.
“Get back to work,” Severus snapped, dragging his gaze away from the smooth lines of his assistant’s thighs.
Startled, Potter obediently returned to his task, but Severus noted the slight arch of the younger man’s back and the way he raised his arse ever so slightly from his heels when he leaned in to pull a volume off the shelf. A moment later, a pale hand sneaked between those slightly parted thighs to needlessly tug at the top of one stocking.
Pressing a palm to his insistent erection, Severus turned his chair at an angle and struggled to focus on the open ledger before him. Temptation now safely out of his immediate line of sight, Severus blinked rapidly and set into the comfortingly monotonous routine of balancing his books.
Behind him, Potter made a quiet whimpering sound, and Severus turned to glare at him with a snarl.
“Sorry, Sir,” Potter mumbled over his shoulder, tugging the back of his skirt down as a blush rose to his cheeks. “I- uhm- nicked myself on- er- splinter in the bookshelf.”
Knowing damn well that there were no splinters in the highly polished wood of the bookcase, Severus huffed and turned away.
It was going to be a very long morning.
~*~*~
One hour and twelve minutes later, Potter’s resolve shattered.
“I can’t do this anymore,” he declared, slamming a book down onto the shelf with an irritated sigh.
“Oh?” Severus asked, turning in his chair to regard the younger man with an arched eyebrow and a triumphant smirk. “Has the intrepid teenage hero finally met his match in green silk and black lace?”
His elation melted, however, when Potter rose to his feet and whirled on him in a firestorm of flushed cheeks and burning green eyes. The younger man’s chest was heaving, and to all appearances he looked as if he might use the last of his magic to cast a string of Unforgivables to avenge his sullied pride.
That was, of course, except for the noticeable erection clearly outlined in the black fabric pulled taut across it.
“Yes, you utter bastard,” Potter hissed, stalking to the desk and slamming both hands down on its surface. “I’ve had enough of your fucking teasing, Snape.”
With that, he climbed onto the desk, completely ignoring his former professor’s surprised huff of protest, and settled himself in the center. Severus watched, half horrified, as Potter planted his feet on the arms of the chair, effectively blocking the only route of escape that didn’t involve physical violence.
“Potter, get off my desk this instant,” Severus snapped, tugging uselessly at one of the brat’s silk-clad ankles.
“I’ve been kneeling on the floor for the last hour with these fucking knickers riding up my arse and my prick rubbing up against them every time I move,” Potter continued in a rage. “I’m so hard it hurts, and I swear to bloody Merlin if I don’t come sometime in the next five minutes, I’m going to- mph!”
Severus silenced him with a punishing kiss, wrapping his fingers around the back of the younger man’s neck and pulling him forward until Potter’s arse was perched precariously at the edge of the desk. Potter’s mouth opened to his demanding tongue, and he gripped the younger man’s hip with his free hand as with a growl he knotted his fingers in black hair. White sparks danced behind his eyelids, pulsing in time with his thunderous heartbeat, and when Potter moaned into the kiss, he swore he could feel it all the way down to his aching cock.
“Demanding, spoiled brat,” Severus admonished as he all but flung himself backwards into his chair and glared up at the wretched boy, who was gasping and blinking and gripping the edge of the desk as if he might tumble to the floor otherwise. “If you want to come, then you will do so on my terms.”
“Yes Sir,” Potter spat, his knuckles going white and his feet shifting restlessly on the armrests of the chair.
“Take your knickers off and place your feet back where they are now,” Severus commanded sharply.
Potter hastily complied, somehow graceful even as he tugged the flimsy silk down over his hips and tossed them to the floor. With a defiant yet hungry gleam in his eyes, he moved back into position, thighs spread wantonly as he leaned back on his elbows and returned his former professor’s glare.
Severus took a moment to rake his gaze over the pale flesh less than two feet away. The younger man’s thighs were still well toned from Quidditch, and his thick cock was already leaking precome across his firm stomach, just below the skirt that had bunched up around his waist. Resisting the urge to lean in and taste every inch of the exposed flesh, Severus ran his hands up Potter’s trembling calves.
“Mister Potter,” Severus purred, his voice rough with desire, “You are going to fuck yourself with your fingers while I watch, and you will not come unless I’ve given you permission to do so, have I made myself clear?”
“Yes,” Potter hissed, his eyelashes fluttering against his pale cheeks.
“Yes what,” Severus prompted with a sharp slap against the younger man’s inner thigh.
“Yes Sir,” Potter replied with a groan, rocking his hips forward as much as his precarious balance would allow.
Severus watched with amazement as Potter slipped two fingers past those sinfully full lips and swirled his tongue around the second knuckles. For all that the boy might be a virgin, he was obviously no stranger to this particular enjoyment, and the wicked contrast of angel and whore that Potter presented turned his blood to liquid fire.
Clutching Potter’s ankles, Severus shifted his weight until his trapped erection was nestled between the inseam of his trousers and his thigh. The younger man took immediate notice and moaned around the digits in his mouth before removing them with a wet popping sound that reminded Severus of much more enjoyable things those beautiful lips could be doing.
“Show me,” the insolent wretch breathed, his hand hanging in midair as he stared, seemingly fascinated by the outline of his former professor’s cock.
“Brat,” Severus growled, pressing his fingernails into Potter’s ankles through the black silk.
The unexpected pain must have reminded Potter of what he should be doing, because he gave a startled cry and immediately reached beneath one pale thigh to prod impatiently at his opening.
“Slower,” Severus told him in a murmur.
Potter obeyed by slowing his fingers by a fraction, swirling them in teasing circles around his entrance before slipping the forefinger in to the first knuckle. “So good,” he breathed shakily as he gently pushed the saliva-slicked digit further past the tight ring of muscle.
It was on the tip of Severus’ tongue to reprimand the insolent creature for the unsolicited commentary, but Potter’s breath hitched on a quiet whine, and the former potions master was suddenly much less irritated than he’d have liked. In fact, he was so entranced by the sight of Potter’s fingers, two of them now, slowly breaching and stretching and fucking, that he scarcely noticed when two stocking-clad feet slipped into his lap and ran up the length of his thighs.
Only when one slender ankle brushed the side of his cock through his trousers did he tear his gaze away from those maddening fingers to glare up at their owner. “Mister Potter,” he said quietly, secretly delighting in the visible shudder that ran through the younger man’s body, “What, precisely, do you believe you’re doing?”
“Want to touch you,” Potter whined, with an expression that clearly said he could hardly believe it, himself.
Severus, for his part, didn’t believe it at all. He had always been acutely aware of how he looked, and he could count on one hand the number of people who had willingly touched him with any gentleness, lover or no: Albus Dumbledore, Minerva McGonagall, Lucius Malfoy, Tom Riddle, and Draco Malfoy; all of them gone in one form or another, whether by death or the inevitable chasm that had formed between he and the wizarding world.
Taking it as yet another challenge, another raising of the stakes, he leaned back in his chair with a self-satisfied smirk and thumbed open the button of his trousers. “Is this what you want?” he purred, stroking himself lightly through his trousers with one hand while he drew down the zip with the other.
Potter groaned and drove his hips forward, impaling himself to the last knuckle. “Yes,” he hissed, trailing off into a sibilant breath that could almost have been mistaken for parseltongue.
Refusing to retreat from the challenge, Severus likewise refused to look away from the brat’s green eyes as he slid his hand into his trousers and withdrew his now achingly hard prick. It twitched against his palm, and he gave it a firm squeeze.
“Fuck,” Potter breathed, seemingly stunned into stillness by the sight of his most hated professor’s cock.
Severus almost smirked, but it never quite reached his lips because, a moment later, Potter was slithering right off the desk and onto the floor at his feet. “What are you doing?” he asked sharply. “I told you to- ah!”
Potter, intrepid teenager hero that he had once been, leaned in and swiped a hot tongue from the base of Severus’ prick to the tip, right across the knuckle of his thumb. “Please,” he begged softly, all hot breath and green eyes as he stared up at Severus. Without waiting for an answer, Potter leaned in and sealed his lips around the head of his former professor’s cock; and the brat had the audacity to moan when Severus moved his hand from the swollen shaft to tangle in the back of the insolent creature’s hair.
Unrefined as his skill may have been, Potter more than made up for his lack of experience with the sheer need with which he performed the task. A hot, slick tongue lapped at every centimeter of flesh it could find, and those soft lips formed a tight, perfect channel for Severus to thrust into. The younger man’s hands were between his thighs, fumbling for his own neglected prick beneath the skirt bunched around his waist, but Severus was too lost in the slow burn creeping through his lower abdomen to admonish the blatant disobedience.
Twisting his fingers in Potter’s hair, Severus rocked his hips forward, thrusting into the younger man’s welcoming mouth. Every little groan of pleasure vibrated down the length of his cock, crept through his stomach and down his thighs to writhe and entangle with the smoldering embers of his impending release. It built, moment by agonizing moment, wrought with the glide of Potter’s tongue over the vein in his prick and ignited, at last, by the fire in the glazed green eyes that snapped open to meet his.
With a sound that met somewhere in the center between a growl and a snarl, Severus held the moaning, squirming boy in place as he emptied himself into Potter’s suckling mouth. The tongue pressed against his cock seemed intent on coaxing every last drop of his release out of his aching balls, and Severus complied with relish, lifting his hips off the chair and thrusting past those maddening lips until he collapsed with a groan.
The instant his hair was released, Potter sat back on his heels and- oh sweet, deviant, beautiful fucking boy- spat into his palm. Severus curled his fingers into the arms of the chair, his prick giving an impossible throb of ardently renewed interest as he watched Potter slick himself, arse and cock, with the remnants of his former professor’s come.
“Oh god, fuck, fuck,” Potter whined, head falling back against the edge of the desk as he spread his thighs and shoved his hips down, hard, driving three slicked fingers inside himself. The head of his cock glistened as he stroked it, the wet friction of skin against skin coaxing a desperate sounding moan from his throat.
“I want you to come,” Severus growled with a heated conviction that would have surprised him, were he not so fixated on the vision at his feet.
“So close,” Potter whimpered on a shuddering exhalation, the muscles in his thighs trembling and tensing in time with every jerky thrust of his hips. “So fucking close.”
With a rush of what Severus told himself was pure lust, not benevolence, he leaned forward in his chair until his lips just brushed the younger man’s as he whispered, “Come for me, Harry.”
There was a pause, a breathless beat of silence, before Potter’s eyes flew open, and his back arched, and his cock pulsed in his hand. The expression on his face seemed almost surprised, as if his orgasm had ambushed him in that momentary silence, but Severus wasn’t laughing; he couldn’t laugh, not with the Savior of the Wizarding World kneeling at his feet, shivering violently and making low, keening sounds in the back of his throat as he came with such force Severus was certain the boy would faint.
Potter did not faint, though it seemed a near miss as he slumped backwards, only just catching himself with one hand braced behind him on the floor. His usually pale cheeks were flushed crimson, and every breath seemed labored against the green satin pulled taut across his torso. “Can’t breathe,” he gasped, clawing at the fabric with his free hand.
With a speed and instinct honed by years of protecting the insolent whelp, Severus grabbed the silver letter opener from its stand on the desk. Had he the capacity to examine the situation, he might have found it curious that Potter didn’t flinch when he sliced through the closures at the front of the garment with precise flicks of his wrist; as it was, he could only watch through his post-orgasmic haze as the younger man heaved a sigh of relief and pressed a trembling hand to his newly bared chest.
“Thanks,” Potter gasped, tilting his head back and baring the dangerously alluring curve of his throat.
It was the third time in less than a week, and the third time in all the years they had known one another, that Harry Potter had genuinely thanked him. Strangely, Severus was at a loss for any cutting remark to offer in response, so he settled instead for, “You’re welcome.”
They sat in silence for a moment, each alone with his thoughts. Potter’s face was uncharacteristically blank, and Severus wondered when the ridiculous afterglow would fade and be replaced with the inevitable and awkward confrontation between two former enemies who had just all but shagged one another senseless.
“Er,” Potter offered after a moment.
Severus rolled his eyes and resolutely refused to dwell on what the wretch would look like bent over the edge of his desk. “Clean yourself off and go home,” he said with a long-suffering sigh. “I’ve work to do, and I have neither the time nor the patience to spend the afternoon supervising you.”
There was an irritated huff as Potter hauled himself to his feet and shot Severus a glare that was far angrier than the situation really warranted. When Severus remained silent, the younger man turned away and stormed out of the room, slamming the apartment door behind him as if it was his to abuse.
It was on the tip of Severus’ tongue to reprimand his errant assistant for such childish behavior, but he thought better of it as he heard the groan of pipes in the guest bathroom. The very last thing he needed was yet another epic row with a very naked, very wet, very angry Harry Potter.
Unfortunately, his prick disagreed.
Cursing quietly, Severus slumped down in his chair and ignored his cock’s plaintive pleas for attention as he tucked himself back into his trousers. This was not going nearly as well as he’d planned, and in the privacy of the shop, he allowed himself the tired gesture of rubbing one palm over his face.
When Potter emerged from the shower some seven minutes later, he left the shop without saying good-bye. The locked door was observed without comment, and closed behind him as he stepped out into the late afternoon sunlight.
Alone in Bleak House, Severus wrenched open the bottom drawer of his desk and prepared to drown his temporary defeat in a bottle of cognac and the yellowed pages of The Haunted Man.
~*~*~
They did not touch one another again for two weeks, four days, two hours, and thirty-six minutes.
Severus became more and more convinced with every passing day that Potter would soon lose interest in their suddenly proper employer to employee relationship. Therefore, he grew increasingly surprised, and more than a little bit suspicious when, every morning at precisely ten minutes past nine o’clock, Potter appeared in the doorway of the shop with two cups of coffee and a hesitant smile.
The first week passed without incident. Potter would arrive, attempt to make conversation and, failing that, would set to work on the day’s tasks in silence. At exactly six o’clock, Severus would usher the irritating boy out of the shop and retreat into the safety of his apartments to spend long nights glaring into a glass of brandy and formulating new ways to rid himself of his assistant.
Unfortunately, Potter was slowly but steadily proving his worth, and despite the fact that his very existence wore on the former professor’s already overwrought nerves, Severus was hesitant to return to the days of shelving and dusting the shop himself.
It was on the Monday of the second week that everything began to go a bit pear-shaped. Instead of lapsing into silence when his morning attempts at companionable conversation failed, Potter launched into his own one-sided discourse on everything from Quidditch to news from Hogwarts. Severus spent most of the day glaring at the back of his assistant’s head, but Potter ignored him entirely, seemingly content to natter on about absolutely nothing of substance for the next eight and a half hours.
The rest of the week passed in very much the same way. In five days, Severus learned things about Harry Potter that he had never cared to know, and even some things that he would have cared very much about, had he known to ask.
For instance, he had always suspected that the rumors of Potter living in a cupboard for most of his childhood were true, but he’d never known precisely how cruel the boy’s Muggle relatives had been. Memories of his own father’s mistreatment had risen to the surface, and Severus was surprisingly unsurprised to feel that familiar urge for revenge curling in the darker recesses of his mind.
Severus had already worked out that Potter’s magic had begun to fade after the Dark Lord’s death, as had the magic of all those who had been tied to him. However, he hadn’t realized that the decline had been just as rapid, if not moreso, than that of the remaining Death Eaters.
That was why, he supposed, Potter had found himself there at Bleak House to begin with; when the boy who was never allowed to be anything more or less than one of the greatest wizards in history suddenly lost the one thing that set him apart from his peers, he must have found himself in quite a predicament, having neither the skills nor the knowledge necessary to secure proper employment outside the wizarding world.
Severus had offered a silent, if somewhat wistful, prayer of thanks to his mother’s memory for having introduced him to Muggle literature at such a young age. Otherwise, he’d doubtlessly have found himself in a similar situation after the war’s end.
On Thursday afternoon, Potter had asked him, “Why don’t you ever tell me anything about yourself?”
“You already know far too much about me for my liking, Potter,” Severus told him. “Get back to work.”
The younger man had obeyed, and Severus thought for certain that would be the end of their little one-sided heart-to-hearts. Unfortunately, Potter had returned on Friday and shattered those hopes just as easily as he had always destroyed Severus’ patience.
Just as Potter was in the midst of explaining the latest of Fred and George Weasley’s asinine business ventures, Severus decided that he had finally had enough. Slamming his pen down on the desktop with enough force to make the irritating brat jump and reach for a wand that wasn’t there, Severus rose to his feet and stalked across the room toward his menace of an assistant.
“Why are you still here?” Severus demanded in a snarl, grasping the front of the younger man’s shirt and shoving him backwards into a nearby bookcase. An elderly couple that had been browsing the shop gasped in unison, but Severus ignored them in favor of glaring into Potter’s suddenly furious green eyes.
“Why do you let me come back every day?” Potter countered, scratching uselessly at his assailant’s wrists.
The bell above the door, which Potter had insisted upon repairing, gave an aggravatingly cheerful tinkle as the elderly couple fled the shop.
“As if I’ve been given a choice in the matter,” Severus growled, resisting the urge to shake the insufferable twit. “You’d come here every day, no matter what I have to say about it.”
“You’re right,” Potter said, finally succeeding in shoving Severus away. “I would.”
“Why?” Severus asked again, hating the faint desperation he could hear in his voice. “Why do you persist, knowing that you’re unwanted?”
“Because I’m not unwanted,” Potter challenged, chin lifted, eyes flashing with anger behind the spectacles perched haphazardly on the bridge of his nose.
“How very presumptuous, Mister Potter,” Severus replied dryly, crossing his arms over his chest. “What in Merlin’s name would give you the idea that I actually enjoy your company?”
“I never said you enjoyed it, you git,” Potter seethed, hands curling into fists at his sides. “There’s a difference between enjoying something and wanting it.”
Severus arched an eyebrow, carefully concealing his own anger and confusion behind the comfortingly familiar mask of indifference he had perfected.
“You’re not as smart as you think you are, Snape,” Potter announced, mimicking his former professor’s posture.
“You little-“ Severus began, simmering rage finally boiling over into outright fury.
“No,” Potter interrupted sharply. “For once in your fucking life, you’re going to listen to me. You’ve spent almost a month trying to get me to go away, but every single bloody time I come back, you act like nothing’s changed; every sodding day starts and ends the same way around here. Don’t you think that’s a little unusual?”
“I beg your pardon?” Severus asked incredulously, carefully reining his anger in.
“You heard me,” Potter shot back. “No matter what we’re doing, every god damned day ends in a fight, just like today’s going to; and tomorrow when I come back, you’re going to bitch at me for being late, act like nothing happened, and then set me to work on one of your mindless chores until we just can’t take it anymore and end up in another row.”
“Remarkable powers of observation as usual, Potter,” Severus said wryly. “Now I suppose this is the part where you fumblingly attempt to psychoanalyze the situation.”
“No fumbling about it, Snape,” Potter replied, blowing a lock of hair out of his eyes with an angry huff. “If you didn’t want me here, you would’ve thrown me right back out on my arse the first time I showed up on your doorstep after you told me to leave. Face it, no matter how much you hate me, part of you needs me to keep coming back.”
“Do not,” Severus hissed, his calm façade slowly cracking, “Make the mistake of believing that I need anything from you.”
“The problem’s that you do,” Potter retorted, taking a step forward. “You’ve spent your whole life being used by people who don’t give a bloody damn about what you want, or think, or need, and here I am, ready and willing to do anything you want me to.”
“You naïve child,” Severus said coldly, “Do you really believe that I would take advantage of your feigned submission because I enjoyed it? I have been attempting, and apparently failing, to get you to leave me in peace.”
“That’s not why you did it,” Potter countered, fists dropping to his sides. “You probably told yourself that, didn’t you? But you were really testing me to see how much I could take before I went away, like everyone else.”
For his part, Severus could only stare at the wretched boy in stunned silence, caught somewhere between anger and regret: precisely where he had sworn to never find himself again. Hysterical laughter made him choke on a shaky exhalation, fueled by the knowledge that Harry Potter, bane of his existence, proverbial thorn in his side, had been the one to shatter all of his carefully constructed defenses, leaving him once again cold and aching in the shadow of abject loneliness.
“I don’t need you,” Severus asserted, but the denial sounded as hollow as he felt, and he turned away with an irritated huff.
“Yeah, you do,” Potter said quietly. “You need me as much as I need you, and I hate it as much as you do.”
“Why did you come here?” Severus hissed over his shoulder through clenched teeth. “Surely there are any number of swooning sycophants who-“
“They’re all afraid of me, okay?” Potter snapped.
“Afraid of you?” Severus repeated, his brows drawing together in confusion.
“They’re afraid I’ll pull a Voldemort,” Potter said, more quietly this time. “After I killed- after he died and everyone knew what happened, they were scared that I’d do the same thing he did: find some way to get my magic back and turn into the next Dark Lord.”
Severus blinked at the bookshelf on the opposite wall, watching the way the late afternoon sunlight glinted off the gilded titles and highlighted the silvery dust on the shelves Potter hadn’t finished cleaning. Suddenly, everything, everything, fell into place and he turned, slowly, to face the young man who hovered behind him. Potter’s arms hung limply at his sides, and his face was ashen.
Severus had never imagined that Potter’s green eyes could harbor so many ghosts.
“Go into the apartment and undress,” Severus told him quietly. “Wait for me beside the bed, with your hands behind your back.”
There was a beat of infinite silence, the most profound decision of their long and turbulent relationship hanging in the air between them until Severus felt suffocated by its weight. At last, Potter nodded, just once, and brushed past him with the air of a man being led to his execution.
Severus watched him go, and when the door of the apartment closed with a soft click, he exhaled quietly and waited.
~*~*~
Two minutes later, Potter jumped at the first brush of fingertips across his shoulder, and bowed his head as they made their way up the side of his neck to card through his hair. “Wasn’t sure you’d actually come, or if this was just another game,” he mumbled.
“Nothing between us has ever been so commonplace as a game,” Severus murmured, leaning in to press a kiss to the back of the younger man’s neck. “Turn around.”
Potter hesitated.
“Potter,” Severus said quietly, “Turn around.”
A flush that Severus was certain had nothing to do with arousal and everything to do with embarrassment crept across the younger man’s cheeks as he obeyed. Curious, Severus hooked a finger beneath Potter’s chin to lift his face, but the ridiculous creature refused to meet his gaze.
Impossibly, it appeared that Potter was nervous.
“You needn’t keep your hands behind your back,” Severus told him with a quiet sigh. Perhaps it wasn’t the comfort that Potter needed, but it was all that Severus had to give. Somewhere in the back of his mind, a cynical voice taunted him for being so gentle with the boy who had once made every hour of his life a living hell, but the memory of his own first time reminded him of how very important kindness could be, even from a man who seemed to possess none.
Severus whispered a nearly silent prayer of thanks to Lucius, the one and only person who had never failed him, except by having the nerve to die without consulting him on the matter first.
“Snape?”
Severus blinked and stared down into the green eyes that gazed up at him with seemingly genuine concern.
“What are you thinking about?” Potter asked quietly, so softly that Severus could barely hear him. It must have taken no small amount of courage to pose that question with peace hanging in such delicate balance between them.
“Lucius,” Severus replied. Courage deserved honesty.
Potter’s arms came around his waist slowly, almost painful in the apprehension they held until they relaxed minutely beneath Severus’ touch. Their lips met, a brush of sensitive flesh to sensitive flesh that urged as many unshed tears to the surface as it did tendrils of warm arousal.
“For Lucius,” Potter whispered as he withdrew, green eyes searching Severus’ face.
Severus returned the kiss with one of his own, dragging his lower lip across Potter’s until the last of the tension in the younger man’s body faded. “For Ron,” he murmured.
It was Potter who moved backwards first, leading them both to the bed and pulling Severus down atop him as he leaned up for another kiss. Their tongues met almost tentatively, like the brush of two shy lover’s hands, and when the younger man pulled away, he breathed, “For Draco.”
Closing his eyes to shield his former enemy from the pain that burned in them, Severus ran a possessive hand down Potter’s side and caught the younger man’s lower lip between his teeth. “For Dean.”
Potter’s legs came up around his waist, holding their bodies together as Severus slid one hand across the mattress and fumbled in the drawer of the nightstand. When he turned his face to the side to aid his search, the young man below him pressed an almost reverent kiss to his cheek, so startlingly gentle that Severus turned to stare down into those burning green eyes.
“For your mum,” Potter whispered.
Minutes stretched into hours, each kiss a blessing of memory, of pain, of triumph, of loss. Together, they honored and exorcised mothers and fathers, friends and lovers: Seamus Finnegan, Vincent Crabbe, Sirius Black, Albus Dumbledore, Lily Evans, Andromeda Black. James Potter. Tom Riddle.
Potter’s head was tilted back, pressed into the pillows below, throat bared for the lips that kissed, the tongue that licked, the teeth that bit and held until the younger man was writhing and begging for, “More, please, need you.”
Severus withdrew his fingers from Potter’s body, slowly, needing to feel each spasm and thrust of hips, needed to know and believe that this was real. Shifting, his pressed the head of his swollen cock against the younger man’s slick, hot opening, and leaned down for yet another kiss.
“For you,” he murmured around the tightness in his throat, and Potter’s tears spilled over, down his flushed cheeks, soaked into his tousled black hair.
With a gentle push, Severus breached the tight ring of muscle, holding Potter’s hips steady, lest impatience overrun common sense, as it was so oft to do. The younger man whimpered quietly beneath him, though whether it was from the physical ache or the emotional, Severus didn’t know.
“Relax,” Severus murmured, brushing his lips across Potter’s collarbone. “Give it a moment.”
Potter shook his head wildly, black hair clinging to his tearstained cheeks and catching at the corners of his kiss-bruised lips. “No,” he whimpered, “Just do it, please.”
“Harry,” Severus began, but the reprimand broke off in a sharp gasp as the younger man thrust his hips upward, taking him in nearly to the hilt.
“Fuck,” Potter cursed, eyes flying open with shock as he curled his fingers in the rumpled sheets.
“I warned you,” Severus remarked dryly, shifting until his weight was resting on his elbows. Potter was so tight around him, so fucking good that his thighs trembled from the effort not to sink fully into that clinging heat, but he refused to hurt the boy, refused to be the cause of any more pain.
“It- I-“ Potter stammered, his chest heaving with every breath. “Move, please.”
Acquiescing with an almost grateful sigh, Severus pushed forward before withdrawing slowly, angling his hips downward to drag the head of his cock along the younger man’s prostate.
“Mph!” Potter told him, pulling his lower lip between his teeth and writhing on Severus’ prick.
Severus bowed his head, kissing the drying tears from Potter’s cheeks as he slid home again, smiling against heated flesh as hands came up to clutch at his shoulders. The younger man rocked beneath him, thighs tensing around his waist as he slowly withdrew and thrust forward again.
“Fucking, bloody fuck,” Potter groaned, turning his face to bare the side of his neck, which Severus immediately took between his teeth with a quiet snarl. “That’s- it- you- that!”
“I that, indeed,” Severus replied with a breathless laugh, pushing a lock of wayward hair away from Potter’s forehead. The surrealism of the moment caught him then, as Potter turned to gaze up at him with feverish green eyes, beautiful lips parted on a quiet moan. Of all the scenarios that Severus had conjured for them over the many years they had known one another, this was perhaps the only one that he had never imagined. Yet, somehow, it was perfect.
Potter was every bit as graceful beneath Severus as he had been on the Quidditch field, all taut muscles and smooth lines that shifted and twisted against the green cotton sheets; a study in black and white of hopeless, haunted beauty that breathed, and burned, and lived in Severus’ arms; pink lips that parted in perfect surrender and hot breath that pleaded for more, harder, and please.
“You aren’t him,” Severus growled into Potter’s ear, fingers curling into jutting hips and around swollen flesh. “You won’t be. I won’t allow it.”
It was then that Potter came, shuddering, gasping, and sobbing a litany of, “Thank- oh god- please- I can’t- please- Severus!”
That name on those lips, those tears in those eyes, a song of praise and gratitude that lured Severus over the edge, downward, spiraling into the oblivion of a white hot release and threatening to pitch him into a churning sea of darkness before lips caught his, held him, hovering in that space between life and death, whispering as he burned and bled and ached, “For you, for you, for you.”
~*~*~
“You’re late.”
Severus doesn’t need to glance up from the newspaper he’s reading to know who is hovering uncertainly in the doorway. It’s the same person as always, at the same time as always, which just happens to be exactly ten minutes after Severus has told him to be there.
He’s beginning to think the insolent little wretch enjoys provoking his wrath.
In fact, he’s willing to bet the last of his waning magic on it.
When Potter says nothing, does nothing more than stand there with the smirk that Severus knows is playing on those sinful lips, he snaps his newspaper shut with a sure flick of his wrist and glares up at his irritating morning visitor.
“I wouldn’t have been if I hadn’t had to stop and get your sodding coffee,” Potter says as he saunters across the room and slides a flimsy paper cup across the tabletop.
“Then perhaps you should leave ten minutes earlier every morning, so as to ensure that you reach your destination at the appointed time for once,” Severus replies, arching an eyebrow as he accepts the cup and wraps his fingers around the comforting warmth.
“That’s not as much fun as pissing you off,” Potter admits with a casual shrug. The hand is in the pocket again, tugging the waistband of his trousers down to reveal a tantalizing glimpse of red satin.
The boy does it on purpose. Severus is sure of it.
“Unfortunately, Mister Potter, you haven’t the time to stay here and piss me off as you so eloquently put it,” Severus tells him as he takes a sip of coffee.
There is sugar in it. Again.
“So I guess that means I also don’t have time for a sound spanking?” Potter teases, and the tongue is sweeping across the lower lip again in the most distracting manner imaginable.
“Not this morning, brat,” Severus growls, shoving the cup of coffee away and glaring until Potter relents and hands him the cup he’s been pretending to drink from. “There is a shipment arriving from Humbert and Humbert in less than half an hour, and I’m not about to trust those imbeciles from the real estate firm to have hired proper movers.”
“Fine,” Potter says with a put-upon sigh. “I’ll go open the shop, you stay here and grumble at your coffee until the movers get here and you can grumble at them.”
“Get out, you infuriating creature,” Severus tells him, even as he stands and rounds the table to pull the insolent boy closer.
“Oh, calm down you dreadful old bat, I’m going,” Potter replies, and doesn’t. Instead, he braces his free hand on Severus’ chest and tilts his face upward with an expectant smile.
“Brat,” Severus admonishes him again before bowing his head and bestowing a lingering kiss on those smirking lips.
They needn’t kiss for anyone but themselves, now.
“Don’t forget to call me the moment that shipment arrives,” Severus tells him once they’ve both withdrawn from the embrace.
“I won’t,” Potter replies with the requisite eye roll as he turns and makes his way to the door.
“Oh, and Harry,” Severus murmurs just as Potter’s hand is hovering over the doorknob. “Don’t think that I’ll have forgotten, come this evening, that you’re long overdue for a proper punishment for this coffee nonsense. You’ll spend the day thinking about what you’ve done, and return here once you’ve closed the shop, at which point I will cut those beautiful red knickers off your arse and give you that spanking you’ve been all but begging for.”
There is a shaky exhalation, a momentary tensing of broad shoulders, and Potter laughs, a low, seductive sound that is far more arousing than it really has any right to be. With that, he is gone, leaving Severus to lean against the table and smirk at the doorway through which his lover has just disappeared.
The coffee is still warm, and Severus takes a sip, rolling it around on his tongue as if it were brandy. Early morning sunlight is streaming in through the open kitchen window, and for once, perhaps for the first time in years, he does not feel sadness when he remembers the way it gleamed in his mother’s hair or made Draco sneeze.
Pushing away from the table, Severus strides down the narrow hall to the sitting room of his sparsely furnished house. It is small, and will require extensive renovations, but it is his, and more a home than Hogwarts or Spinner’s End could ever have been.
Setting his cup aside on a packing crate that Potter, the infuriating creature, has left in the very center of the room, Severus surveys the stained wallpaper with a critical eye. It is then that he spots it, lying on the mantelpiece above the fireplace, a small package wrapped in plain brown paper and string.
Narrowing his eyes at it, Severus resists the ridiculous urge to test it for dark magic. Instead, he lifts it and turns it over in his hands, inspecting the wrapping for any clues as to its origin. There, on the underside, is a short note written in Potter’s messy scrawl.
Severus,
For you.
Yours,
Harry
Smirking at his lover’s rampant sentimentality, Severus carefully unties the bit of string that holds the paper in place. It is a book of some sort, he’s known it from the moment he felt its familiar weight in his hands, but he is unprepared for the sudden tightness in his chest as the paper falls away and the title comes into view.
There are some people in this world who have become so accustomed to being alone that they’ll never allow themselves to trust in something more; some souls that are so defined by their suffering that the sharp edges of their defenses will never be shattered, even by a force as strong as love. Sometimes, though, in those brief cosmic moments when luck aligns with the stars, and the tides flow in time with twin heartbeats, two impossible questions will collide, and the edges of their unsolvable riddles will connect, fit together like two drifting continents that have somehow found one another in the vast sea of human loneliness.
Severus stares at the title for a moment before turning to gaze out the window of the sitting room; and he smiles at the sun then, perhaps for the first time in years, as his fingertips trace the gilded words, ‘A Fairy Tale of Home.’