Leap of Faith

Part 2

Snape is greasy and bitter and bad-tempered, and the feel of his cock in Percy’s ass is the best thing Percy’s felt all day.

Snape doesn’t try to bruise him, or bite him, or make him bleed; Snape doesn’t hurt him (not too much—not on purpose), or toy with him, or make him cry—most of the time he seems less excited about his part in Voldemort’s private sex-show than even Percy, so he’s the partner Percy likes most.

(Percy wonders when his standards fell so low. He figures it must have been the first time Lucius Malfoy raped him, right there in front of Voldemort, and made him scream and cry and plead for mercy like a girl. It was probably then.)

Percy wonders what Ron would say if he knew that the reason his least favorite professor suddenly looked so tired was because he was up all night banging his big brother through Voldemort’s embroidered bed-sheets.
He thinks it would probably be something like, “Those gits deserve one anther,” or “Always knew he was a pouf,” and, oh, he’s so wrong.

Ron would worry and blame himself (like he already does because of Percy’s capture), and feel a little like Percy’s felt almost all his life. Now he knows what that’s like.

But Percy doesn’t know that, and things are better that way, maybe, because knowing that someone he loves is concerned about him could very well eat Percy to the core. He’s so fragile, sometimes.

************************************************************************

Malfoy and Snape eye each other warily while Percy wonders what’s going on.

“Well, what are you waiting for?” asks Voldemort of the two men, pushing Percy forward into Lucius’s arms.

“Fuck him. Both of you. Now,” and Malfoy doesn’t need anymore prompting.

Malfoy shoves Percy backwards onto the bed so the naked redhead lands with his back on the mattress, and then Lucius is shrugging off his clothes and Snape unenthusiastically starts removing his own constrictive garments.

Lucius gets on the bed and straddles Percy’s face matter-of-factly, inserting his dick unceremoniously into Percy’s unresisting mouth.
“Suck me,” he demands, and Percy complies. Lucius’s hips rock lewdly over Percy’s working mouth.

“Aren’t you going to join them, Severus?” asks Voldemort, but his tone says he isn’t really asking at all.

Snape gets onto the bed and wonders what the fuck he’s doing as he pushes Percy’s legs up high and holds open that gorgeous ass—buries his tongue between those two nicely-rounded cheeks.

Percy jerks in surprise as Snape’s wet tongue probes his asshole, but keeps his tongue working on Lucius’s penis, one hand playing with the blonde’s balls and the other in his ass, two fingers pushing in through the entrance and searching for the prostate in the passage beyond (a technique that Lucius had, on several occasions prior, ardently expressed his approval of).

Snape’s tongue was licking the ring of muscle thoroughly—his head bumping into Percy’s dribbling erection and face partially obscured by the two ass-cheeks enveloping it as his mouth fixed itself over Percy’s tiny welcoming spot.
It actually felt kind of—good. Really good.
Then the tongue was pushing insistently at the hole—the tip going just inside; it worked and wormed its way all the way in, and Percy could feel Snape’s saliva running from his hole down his cheeks and dripping onto the sheets.

Lucius was tugging his hair insistently and Percy’s tongue licked wildly, his teeth scraping against the shaft just the slightest bit (something he knew Malfoy particularly loved); his fingers were buried to the knuckle in the other man’s ass, and Snape’s tongue was doing delicious things in there—Snape’s hand was pinching one of Percy’s hard nipples so the pink nub stood high and strong, and Lucius thrust crudely in his mouth, and Percy came, squirting Lucius’s back with his spunk.

“Dirty bitch,” snarled Lucius, but was too close to release to say or do anything else; he rocked two-three-four more times and came in Percy’s skillful mouth. Percy swallowed everything—his contracting throat pumping Lucius’s shooting dick of every white drop it had to offer, coating Percy’s stomach with two tablespoons of fresh, tart cum.

“Finish it,” says Voldemort, gesturing to Snape’s hard-on; Malfoy rolls off Percy’s face and collapses into the pillows.

Snape grabs his wand from the floor and mutters a word that leaves his dick slick and slippery; slides the wooden tip inside Percy’s bum and repeats the spell, leaving Percy’s passage lubricated and ready to use.
He positions himself at the boy’s entrance and pushes so he’s fully buried in that weak form—Percy barely even groans when that full member settles inside him.
Snape makes quick work of it; finds a fast rhythm that won’t hurt the worn-out redhead and brings him to orgasm within minutes.

“Beautiful,” says Voldemort.
“My beautiful men. Always do what I tell them.”
He runs one awful white hand through Severus’s oily hair; cups Percy’s damp buttocks; runs a finger down Malfoy’s wilted cock.
“Snape, Malfoy. You both may leave.”

Malfoy slides out of the bed languorously and dons his robes; Snape tries to imitate this unhurried nonchalance (tries to pretend that he doesn’t want to run the fuck out of this room and never come back), and does the same.

Snape reaches the door first—pauses at the threshold, ashamed, and looks back at one of the most promising students Hogwarts had ever produced (sticky sad rag-doll fuck-toy) lying spread and spent and despoiled in the dark lord’s bed; there’s nothing he can do. Nothing, okay? Dumbledore needs him as a spy—he can’t risk his cover for the boy, no matter how much he might want to. He just. can’t.

“Move,” says Malfoy, walking out behind him, and Snape moves; Snape closes the doors after Malfoy and pretends not to see Voldemort unclasping his robes—pretends not to hear the boyish sobs from where he stays rooted to the spot outside the closed doors, or the loud thumping of the headboard banging against the wall erratically.
He walks down the hall away from the stuff he didn’t hear and pretends his heart isn’t breaking right inside his chest.

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Percy thinks a lot.

Things would probably be more bearable if he didn’t—if he could just escape from his head for a while, things wouldn’t seem so terrible to him all the time.
But he can’t—he’s tried.

He’s become desensitized to the worst of it, but there are still all these hours with nothing to do but think about what a mother-fucking unfair bitch life is, and that fucks with a person.

Things get all jumbled and jaded in his head, and he tries to shut up all those sick, self-pitying thoughts and tell himself that he’s going to get out of this—he’s going to escape, and his family will learn to love him, and he’ll find a new job and maybe a nice boy to settle down with, and all of this will be a distant memory that he never, ever thinks of again—but he’s too smart for such senseless optimism, and when reality comes crashing back, it hurts.

Frequent sex, less frequent showers, only-upon-request guarded toilet breaks, once-every-two-days meals, and his thoughts: that’s what Percy’s life have been reduced to, and there’s no logical way Percy can think of to change that.

That’s always been his problem—the wheels and cranks are always running and whirling in his head; he just can’t accept something that isn’t rational, structured, and composed of solid facts.
He is unable to make a leap of faith and believe in something bigger than reasonability; he doesn’t know how.

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Three months after Voldemort first started fucking him, Percy was moved to a smaller room down the hall.

Voldemort was getting bored of him; Percy was put away so no one would bother him when they wanted to play with his soft and pretty Pureblood whore.

This was both a good and bad thing for Percy: good, because it meant that Voldemort wouldn’t be banging him every day anymore, and bad, because he was making Percy available for private sessions with any of his inner circle, and that meant there were no more rules, so long as no one hurt Percy so bad that he couldn’t be patched up.

Lucius is his most frequent visitor; Percy isn’t sure if the other man is really that fascinated with him, or if he’s just bored and has too much spare time. Probably both.

Snape doesn’t come visit him at all.
Percy kind of misses him.
He made him feel…safe. Which is ridiculous, of course—but Percy cherished the illusion, at least, and his warm, protecting weight.

************************************************************************

Percy wonders what his mother would do, if she saw him.
He wonders if she would scream and cry and upchuck into the toilet for two hours straight if she knew what they did to him every day.
He hopes she never finds out—because she’s his mother, for fuck’s sake, and something like that would tear her apart.

If he dies here, Percy doesn’t want anyone to know what he’s been through.

It’s not…right, to tell anyone.

No one should ever know that Voldemort makes him pretend to be Harry Potter (“Where are my glasses? Why are you doing this to me? No, no, get out of me, get out of me—it hurts, it hurts!—why are you hurting me?” Funny. Percy kind of wants to know the answers to those questions, too), or that Severus has lovely soft lips and a comfortably large cock (“I’ll get you out of here,” just barely whispered into his ear that one time, but Percy’s is clenching around that pleasant length and orgasming onto their stomachs, and doesn’t know if he heard right), or that Lucius likes to chain him to the bed and fuck him with his angry wooden cane when he can’t get it up (“Master, Master, stop! Please! I’m sorry! I’m sorry, I’ll try harder, I’ll—! Master, please—!”).

No one should ever have to know that, only someone does—someone has to, and Percy knows it’s better him than Ron/Ginny/Mom/Somebody he loves, because he can take it.

He can bear it, and they can’t, and he would rather it be him even if they could, because he’s got to protect them—like he’s always protected them—because that’s just who and how he is.

************************************************************************

When his door is unlocked and a man walks in, Percy feels gross and ashamed.

Lucius Malfoy had been with him a little over an hour ago; he’d tied Percy’s wrists to his ankles and charmed him to be immobile on the floor—head touching cold stone as he knelt with his ass held high in the air, and Malfoy had lashed his rear with a new dragonhide whip with many small long strips that left Percy’s pale arse red and welted and stinging.
He’d fucked the living daylights out of him; hadn’t let Percy come—had left the redhead bound and unable to move, with his ravished hole exposed like a brand that bragged about Lucius’s conquest to whoever came in next.

The door closed; the man dropped down next to Percy’s prone body and hurriedly recited the counter-spell.
Percy fell to his side clumsily from the shock of being able to move—tumbled embarrassingly like some helpless muggle into the man’s arms.

The man undid the knots in that same silken, strong voice; healed his cum-splattered, assaulted rear with a rush of soft, healing magic.

“Professor Snape?” asked Percy uncertainly, craning his head around and turning his body—unwittingly causing Snape to hold him closer and more comfortably, chest to his chest.

“Shh,” says Snape, reciting a litany of Latin words that Percy recognizes from advanced charms—an invocation that confuses all ease-dropping spells within a given area, rendering them useless for short periods of time.

“Why are you—” begins Percy after the spell is complete, but Snape puts his fingers to Percy’s mouth to quiet him.

“Don’t talk just yet. I need you to listen. There’s an attack planned two hours from now to raid these headquarters and capture You-Know-Who—I have permission to give you a portkey to Hogwarts, set for the beginning of the assault. I advise you to take it.”

“Wait, wait,” says Percy.
“You mean—you’re a spy? You’ve been working for Dumbledore the whole time?” he asks, pulling out of Snape’s arms and looking him in the face.

“Don’t ask questions.”

“Avoiding answers is wasting time. We only have, what, fifteen minutes left before that spell of yours ends?”

“For someone being rescued, you’re being awfully unhelpful,” said Snape, but can’t quite bring himself to get that upset over it.
“Yes, I’m a spy. Now take the portkey,” he says, digging a necklace from somewhere in his robe and holding it out to the redhead.

Percy’s hand is reaching out for the precious thing when he stops; pulls back.

“This attack will probably get a lot of people killed, won’t it? Not to mention the fact that your cover will be blown. Is it really the only way?”

“Yes. It’s all we’ve got,” says Snape.

“No, it’s not,” says Percy, shaking his head—his brilliant mind working quickly, turning over facts and forming a plan.
“What if I told you there was something else you could do to bring down Voldemort—something that won\'t reveal your status as a double agent, and won’t get you or anyone else on our side killed?”

“I’d ask you to tell me what it is,” said Snape urgently.

And Percy does.

The plan is startlingly, splendidly easy.
It can either backfire brilliantly or work without a hitch; either way, it’s more likely to work than anything else they have, and will save a fair number of lives.
It’s perfect.

Snape leaves with butterflies in his stomach and sweat on his palms, and, for the first time in a long time, dares to hope.

************************************************************************

Here’s what it seemed like:
Voldemort and Lucius Malfoy entered the prisoner’s room at approximately 10:42 at night. No raised eyebrows, there—everyone knew Voldemort liked threesomes.
Thumping and muffled screaming came from inside; nothing unusual (as any of the guards who’d had watch over that room while the Weasley boy was there would tell you).
At 11:37 the dark lord and Mr. Malfoy exited the room.
At 7:03 the next morning a house-elf arrived at the prisoner’s room to serve him breakfast, and was shocked and terrified to find the nude, dead body of You-Know-Who lying face-down on the floor, grotesque and cold.

What really happened:
Snape left Percy’s room, walked quickly until he reached the edge of the anti-Apparation field around the compound, and Apparated to Hogsmeade, where he visited the safe house located there. He used the special emergency floo system that linked him directly to Dumbledore’s office, and promptly told the Headmaster the details of his encounter. The attack on Voldemort’s base was immediately called off.
This having been accomplished, he then walked to his potions stores, grabbed a few small bottles of Polyjuice potion, and placed them in his pocket (next to the few blonde hairs Percy had given him), and practiced acting like Lucius Malfoy for four hours until he could mimic the familiar nuances perfectly.
At 9:54 the next night he lured Lucius to his room at Voldemort’s base (his regular room in Malfoy Manor being an unsuitable hideout for a man who’d just escaped from prison), stupefied him, altered his memory of the last twenty minutes, and stole his clothing and wand (taking special care to incinerate his own dull robes, shoes, and under things, and making sure to tuck his wand inside a special hidden pocket in the stolen robe). He Polyjuiced himself using some of the man’s long blonde strands, and was on his way.
At 10:22 he was passing himself off as Lucius to the dark lord himself; he hinted lightly at his interest in experiencing the Weasley prisoner with his lord (just as Lucius would have done if he’d wanted that, though at present the man in question was rather busy sleeping off an untraceable sleeping brew of Snape’s own design that Snape had given him right after he’d been stupefied). Voldemort immediately picked up on the flirtation and the significance of the blonde\'s insinuation. By 10:42 they were walking through the door of Percy’s room.
From 10:42 to 11:37, a number of very interesting and significant things occurred—the most important of which being that Snape performed the killing curse on Voldemort with Lucius’s wand while the overlord concentrated on pleasuring himself in Percy’s practiced little bum and “Lucius” lubed him up. After it was verified that Voldemort was, in fact, fully and finally dead, Percy changed into the dead dark lord’s discarded clothing and snatched up his wand—drank a bottle of Polyjuice potion with one ugly pale hair form Voldemort’s skinny chest while Snape dressed himself in Lucius’s clothes and again drank Polyjuice infused with Lucius’s gold strands. They exited calmly, stopping at Lucius’s rooms so Snape could leave the unconscious man his wand, and left the compound without so much as a backward glance.

************************************************************************

Percy’s family was ecstatic to see him.
It was the afternoon after Voldemort’s demise, and everyone was celebrating.

The rift between them was ignored—pushed away like it hadn’t happened, because Percy was back and Voldemort was dead, and how could there be any unhappiness on a day like that?

Molly hugged him and blubbered and fussed and wailed; Arthur gave him an odd but nonetheless authentic hug and Ginny clung to his arm as if personally ensuring that he wouldn’t be kidnapped anytime within the next ten minutes.
Bill clapped him on the back and said, “Welcome back, kid. We missed you,” and the twins didn’t play one practical joke. Not one.
Charlie even showed up later, greeting Percy with a big bear-hug.
Ron, however, looked like he was about to burst out crying until Percy asked him what was wrong, which is when he actually did, and Percy held him awkwardly and patted his back, and reassured him that it wasn’t his fault Percy got taken—told him to just be glad that he was back and You-Know-Who was gone, which seemed to help.

Percy was the man of the hour; at ten past seven he shut himself in his old room—just like old times—but found he’d spent too many weeks lately lying around in rooms, and went back downstairs to mingle uncharacteristically with his family.

That night he slept in the roomy, open living room, on the couch. No one commented on the change.

************************************************************************

Percy is oddly detached from his new life.

Suddenly he’s famous (only Snape, Dumbledore, and he know the truth behind Voldemort’s fall, but the Wizarding media had pieced together enough to know that Percy had been somehow involved), and his picture is splattered across every magazine.

He gets so much mail that he stops reading it—builds a pile in the backyard every Friday and burns it all.

He keeps sleeping in the living room; Molly inevitably tries to get him to sleep in his old bed after the first week of this, until Percy accidentally lets it slip that he’d been confined to a room during his captivity. After that she takes to leaving out a blanket and some squashy pillows on the couch for him at ten; Molly can be thoughtful, when she wants to.

But he’s still so jumpy all the damn time—jittery and stressed, especially with all those men around the house (he knows his own father and brothers would never hurt him—not like that. But his body remembers frequent, unwanted intimacy in the form of him riding a huge, erect cock for all he was worth, and it keeps him on edge).

He’s pretty sure his family can guess at some of what happened to him after a few weeks of watching the strange, strung-out way he acts—they’re not stupid.

They start treating him like he’s made of glass—like he’s unthinkably fragile and breakable, and will shatter if they say so much as breathe the name “Voldemort” around his delicate ears. Things get awkward.

Percy quickly tires of this forced, foreign sensitivity, and demands that they go back to treating him as they normally would before he goes to the newspapers and has the press print all their most embarrassing moments.

This very Weasley-esque way of breaking the tension seems to work relatively well, and after Percy’s skin fades from a glorious blue back to its normal ivory (courtesy of Fred and George’s Weasley’s Color Caramels), Percy finds that he’s actually glad to be home. Sort of.

Things don’t work out perfectly, like they’re supposed to.
Percy and his father hold an uneasy truce all summer; a draw. Neither apologize—neither even acknowledges the distance between them. Things with the rest of the family are going well—but slowly. A lifetime of emotional isolation can’t resolve itself in a few days.
And it’s really hard to get a job when the only thing on your resume is “filled in for lunatic at office; got cauldron bottom thickness standardized,” “assistant to the most-hated Minister of Magic of the last century. Was told by said Minister that I make a mean cup of tea,” and “currently being mobbed by the media. Have been named Witch Weekly’s Most Hesitant Heartthrob, beating out the five-time consecutive winner Harry Potter for the title.”
Come to think of it, that last part made it quite tricky for Percy to find a nice boy to settle down with, as well.

Percy’s working hard on his happily-ever-after, but that’s turning out to be a lot more difficult than he’d thought.

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The family was out on its annual school-supply stocking ceremony in Diagon Alley, and Percy was tired.

Reporters kept hassling him for details about his imprisonment and Voldemort’s death, and that lumpy couch had kept him awake for hours last night before he’d finally found a comfortable spot, and he didn’t like being around so many people at once.

He’d managed to excuse himself from his mother a while back, and lost the reporters sometime after that with some intricate maneuvering and a few clever spells (cast with the new wand he’d bought several days after his return home).

He’d ducked into a pub first thing after he was sure nobody was watching him; pulled up his hood, ordered a drink, and holed himself up in a shadowy corner where he was sure no one would notice him.

Ten minutes later, Albus Dumbledore himself had come in (who’d have guessed he was a frequent patron of Ambiguous Al’s Tasty Treats and Drinks?), ordered a butterbeer and assorted sweets, and made himself comfortable at Percy’s table.

“Would you like a Weasley’s Bird-Brain Brownie, my boy?” he offered kindly, unwrapping the morsel jovially.

“No thank you,” said Percy.

“No, I suppose you wouldn’t,” said Dumbledore knowingly, “seeing as how they do have the unfortunate side-effect of turning your hair into feathers. Nonetheless,” he took a bite, “they’re quite tasty!”

His white mane sprouted into a most spectacular display of peacock plumage.

“I’ll let Fred and George know they have a fan,” said Percy.

The small-talk continued, Percy wondering all the while how he’d gotten to the point where he was sitting around in a pub chatting with one of the most powerful wizards of the era as said wizard snacked on his brother’s prank candies. Finally:

“We’re still looking for someone to teach Defense Against the Dark Arts this year,” mentioned Dumbledore, sipping his butterbeer.

“Really. What happened to the last one? Wait, let me guess—he was possessed by the demonic spirit of a goblin, and kept performing gross acts of misconduct. Oh, no, I know—she was really the giant squid transfigured into human form, and persisted in gobbling up students. Or was he just a regular psychopathic bloke with voices in his head telling him to kill everyone he met?” responded Percy, his tongue a little loosened by his beverage.

“Actually, she kept trying to garner naked photographs of Harry Potter for Wizards with Big Broomsticks magazine. Quite the spectacle,” replied Dumbledore.

“What kind of a chance would someone like me have at getting that position?” asked Percy after a moment, taking a drink of his spiked pumpkin juice.

“Well, that depends. You wouldn’t try to take pictures of Harry Potter for a nudie magazine, now would you?”

“I’d try to contain the impulse,” said Percy dryly.

“Then your chances are very good, I’d imagine,” said Dumbledore.

“When do I start?” asked Percy.

“Next week,” said Dumbledore.

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The first few weeks of school went smoothly enough.

Percy’s newfound fame made it easy enough for him to gain the attention and respect from his students that he’d lacked as Prefect and Headboy in his earlier years, and the subject was fascinating and interesting to teach.

He made good money and people looked up to him—his relationship with his family was steadily strengthening and repairing itself, and the reporters stopped hounding him so much. He should have been really happy.

He should have been on top of the world, but he wasn’t; there was something missing—someone. Severus Snape.

He didn’t know why, or how, or when; he didn’t know what it was about the man that attracted him, but there was something—something about him that just drew Percy in despite himself.
Maybe he missed the hot, slow sex where Snape had held him close to his chest and screwed him smooth and steadily so he forgot for a while that he was just Voldemort’s silly little fuck slave, and that neither one of them wanted to do this.
Maybe it was the low, sensual voice; the intellect; the passion and compassion in those bright black eyes.
Maybe Percy likes the enigma; maybe it’s the way he has of making Percy feel like he’s the only person in the world that matters—something precious, to be guarded fiercely and adored by his lips and hands and hips and mind and—
Percy wanted him.

Percy wanted Snape to talk to him; to smile with him; to kiss him and ease him onto his swollen cock and make love to him deep into the early hours of the morning, and then do it all again.

Percy wanted Snape, but Snape was avoiding him; the other man couldn’t even look at him, half the time. He was too ashamed.

After two months of this, Percy finally decided to stop waiting to get Snape alone to talk to him; he took matters into his own hands.

Being a Weasley, he took the most direct approach; he showed up at Snape’s door (down the hall from the potions classroom, to the right, under the portrait of Helga the Magnificent. Percy’s done his homework) and knocked.

Snape irritably swung open the door, ready to demand to know who had interrupted his evening so brashly, and stopped, utterly surprised at the sight of Percy standing outside his door with a bottle of whiskey in hand.

“We need to talk,” said Percy with a boldness he didn’t feel, and Snape mutely stood aside and motioned him in.

Thirty minutes and four shots of whiskey apiece later, they still hadn’t gotten around to saying much, and Snape couldn’t take the uncomfortable, empty pleasantries and small-talk any more.

“You said you wanted to talk,” he prompted, voice sharp with nerves.

“I’m working myself up to that,” said Percy, playing with his glass.

“Here, let’s. Let’s start off slowly. I read about this technique in a psychology book where. Where I say something about myself, and you respond with something about yourself. It’s supposed to help,” said Percy finally.

“That sounds an awful lot like a delay tactic to me,” said Snape.

“Please,” said Percy, looking intently at the liquid sloshing around in his glass.

“Fine,” said Snape.
“…Go ahead,” he continued, taking another drink.

“I, uh. I have. Nightmares. A lot. I sometimes wake up thinking I’m still a prisoner there.”

Silence.

“This is where you respon—” began Percy, but Snape interrupted.

“This is silly. I don’t want to do this,” he said.

“Please. I’m just asking you to try,” said Percy.

Snape’s mouth stayed sullenly shut.

“If you won’t even try, then I might as well lea—” started Percy, getting up from his chair.

“I’ve gone through my entire life never actually knowing anyone,” said Snape, his hand wrapping itself around Percy’s wrist to stop him from going.

“I—oh,” said Percy, surprised by the statement and Snape’s hold.

He sat back down.

Snape’s fingers lingered on Percy’s wrist as he took his hand away, and Percy blushed.

Then:
“I’m scared of failure,” said Percy, when the silence had gone on too long.

“I had to be treated for nerves after taking my NEWTS,” responded Snape.

“My relationship with my family is demented and unhealthy.”

“Mine, too.”

“You’re the only thing that made my captivity bearable.”

“When I got the dark mark, it felt like the crucio curse was demolishing a part of my arm.”

“I don’t know what I’m doing teaching. I’m no good with kids.”

“Story of my life.”

“I hate my hair.”

“I only bathe every three days.”

“I freckle terribly in the sun. And then get all red and blotchy—it’s terrible.”

“As a child, I was mortally afraid of garden gnomes.”

“I really like you.”

“We hardly know each other.”

“I’d like to kiss you, now.”

“I—can’t. Don’t you remember what I did to you? I—Voldemort told me to take you when you couldn’t say no—couldn’t stop me—and I did it. How…how could you possibly want a person who did that to you? Why would you want a person so weak that he’d allow himself to do something like that?”

“You did what you had to. If you had blown your cover, you would have gotten yourself killed, and I never would have escaped. You did the only thing you could have done. You shouldn’t blame yourself for that. I don’t.”
He paused. Then, hesitantly:
“…You made me—you make me feel safe. And. Like…I’m wanted. You made me want to give you my body—give you all of myself. Like you would…cherish it—me; hold me, make love to me; protect me, want me. I thought…you might, maybe…want to give yourself to me, too. So, I guess, what I’m trying to say is—I want a relationship with you.”

“What makes you think something like that could even work out? What makes you think we wouldn’t end up regretting it?” asked Snape, looking at the lines on his fine wooden table instead of at the details of Percy’s sincere, exquisite face.

“I don’t know. For once in my life I have absolutely no fucking clue, except for something in my gut telling me that it’s right—telling me that I’ll regret it if I never even try, and miss my chance. I—can’t rationalize it. I can’t explain it logically, or prove it mathematically, or provide concrete evidence that we would work. But I think we’ve got something, here. I think…this could be…love. If we give it a chance. It wouldn’t be perfect—it’s not—it. It would be weird, and awkward, and implausible. But—it would work. It would work. I believe in it—in…us,” says Percy.

“Weasley, are you done with your speech?” asks Snape.

“Yes. And I think you can call me Percy, now, Severus. After all this.”

“Percy. Percy—” he said it like he was trying the name out on his tongue; it sounded good in that voice. Right, somehow.

“That was probably the most illogical, insensible, clichéd piece of dialogue I’ve ever heard. And. I don’t care. That made…sense. To me. I’m willing to try—this. To have a…relationship…with you. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but—I think I’ll like being weird, and awkward, and implausible with you,” and he smiled—he smiled—and kissed him, and that one moment between those two, broken men was beautiful, and far more perfect than either could have ever expected or hoped to find.

“And, by the way. If you tell anyone I said that, I’ll be forced to kill you,” added Severus self-consciously after they broke away, panting.

“Oh, I think there are much nicer things you could do to me,” said Percy, and laughed.

And there were. And Severus spent many decades trying out every last one of them.

The En—

Oh, and, in case you were wondering…

Albus Dumbledore was quite pleased to discover that the unlucky streak that had plagued the Defense Against the Dark Arts position was finally broken by Mr. Weasley that school term, as he kept his post not only through that first year, but also for a considerable number of years thereafter.
It was also a point of great interest and amusement for the Headmaster to note that Neville Longbottom insisted on avidly and repeatedly thanking the young professor Weasley at the end of seventh year for his noticeably relaxing influence Snape (who had gradually subsided into only greatly scaring Mr. Longbottom, instead of absolutely petrifying him).
Hermione had hypothesized that Percy had accomplished this through a great deal of sex, intellectual discussions, and all-around good company—which, though its suggestion had caused poor, prudish Ron to faint off-and-on for the better part of an hour, was ultimately correct.

Harry Potter suffered a nasty identity crisis in seventh year (the title of Voldemort’s Defeater having been snatched from him by Percy), but the issue resolved itself in a rather dramatic fashion once he snogged Draco Malfoy in the Great Hall at dinner and proceeded to enjoy a vigorous game of “shag the Boy-Who-Lived” down in the dungeons with the blonde, making Draco and himself two halves of the most famous 83-and-a-half hour gay Wizarding couple in history (sleep be damned, they said, and did the thing that horny 17-year-old-boys do best. An unfortunate consequence of this, of course, was that both had to answer various questions about stamina charms and Stay-Up potions for the rest of their lives). He ended up appearing in Wizards with Big Broomsticks, after all, and subsequently became the most sought-after bachelor in Britain.

Ron eventually got around to asking Hermione out on a date, and was many years later ridiculously happy when he married her, had three kids and a garden full of gnomes, and argued jovially every day with all of them.

Arthur got around to patching things up with his third son, and Molly, pleased, stopped nagging him about that and starting nagging him about his muggle fetish again.

Lucius was blamed by his fellow Death Eaters for the death of their lord, and died tragically during a freak floo accident as he fled to Spain.

Fred and George continued developing their candy line, eavesdropping equipment, and fake wands, eventually branching out to prank clothing, booms, and accessories. They even ended up making a candy called Weasley’s Dumbledore Butterscotch, which caused the candy-eater’s breath to smell like an old fart. Dumbledore loved it.

Ginny had a scandalous love affair with Millicent Bulstrode after she left school; Millie broke her heart and Ginny had to put up with Molly trying to find her “a nice girl” until she met, fell for, and married a girl from work.

Bill got dumped by Fleur after he cut his hair; he promptly charmed another girl with his fang earring and laid-back attitude, and had a jolly good time.

Charlie ended up meeting a pretty muggle girl from America; he married her and soon became acquainted with and addicted to the hit show The Crocodile Hunter.

Voldemort stayed dead, which was good.

Molly kept meddling and matchmaking whenever possible, which was sometimes not so good.

And Percy?
Percy was madly in love with Severus Snape, and the whole of Hogwarts was collectively astounded to note that its least-favorite professor felt the exact same way for his red-haired lover.
They eventually married, and enjoyed intensely satisfying sex and companionship for a very, very long time.

Percy’s happily-ever-after isn’t what he’d expected it would be.
It’s better.

The End