High Time (Started as It Wasn't So Bad)

Intervention



When Harry returned to the cabin in the late afternoon, Neville was sitting at the dining table, staring into a glass of firewhiskey. His face was completely impassive, but slightly benumbed, as if he had observed something truly odd, and was trying to come to terms with it.



“Hey,” Harry said.



“Hey?” Neville repeated accusingly. “Harry! How could you?”



“What?” Harry muttered, becoming instantly defensive. “You are the one who said I should go apologize.”



“Apologize, Harry. Not hump. I thought you\'d know the difference between the two.”



“I did apologize!” Harry spat. “And for your information, I wasn\'t humping him. I was fucking him.”



“Oh,” Neville said bitterly. “You are right, this is much better.”



“What is wrong with you anyway?” Harry muttered. “It\'s not like it\'s a surprise to you that I\'m gay. And you\'ve said it yourself, Snape is cool. So what\'s your problem?”



Neville shrugged and a long pause ensued. “It just seems wrong, you know,” he said finally. “That you should be the one to... dominate. If anything, you should be the one getting tied up, being spanked and buggered. And worse.”



“I wasn\'t dominating!” Harry insisted. “I was just... er...” Harry paused, trying to find the words for it. None came to mind readily. “He liked it,” Harry said defensively. I hope, he added mentally.



Neville was glaring at him in absolute silence. It was becoming very uncomfortable.



Harry sniffled slightly and looked at Neville plaintively. “You aren\'t mad at me, are you?”



“Why would I be mad at you?” Neville asked soothingly. “Would I be mad at you because you are an impulsive, careless, self-indulgent prat, who has a new boyfriend every two months, and who leaves a trail of broken-hearted lovers in his wake? Because you are going to ruin the one man who deserves nothing better than some peace and happiness, after a lifetime of misery? Gee, Harry, why would I be angry about something like that?”



“I\'m not that bad,” Harry muttered. “Besides, this is different.”



“How is this different?” Neville demanded. “Please tell me, how is this going to be any different from your usual escapades, where you break someone\'s heart, and leave it to Hermione to clean up your mess?”



Harry shrugged. He didn\'t quite know how to explain this, but this really was. The afternoon was absolutely dreamlike. The sex was incredible. But more than that – he had never met someone who would be so down to earth, so serene, so peaceful, so uninhibited and free, and not at all demanding. All in all, Harry had a really good feeling about this.



“I am in love,” Harry said simply.



Neville cast him a disgusted glance, shrugged, and retreated to his room, obviously unwilling to argue further.



Harry sighed, and cast a spell on himself to remove all intoxication from his system. He then went to shower, and ended up wanking furiously, remembering Snape- Severus – bent over the driftwood log on the beach. Finally, he emerged, changed into a fresh set of clothes (khaki trousers and a shirt), and tried to enjoy the rest of the late afternoon. However, thoughts of dyed dreadlocks and pierced nipples continued to haunt him, and in the early evening, Harry went looking for Snape\'s cabin.



X x X



Snape\'s cabin turned out to be half a mile\'s walk from Sandpiper Spit, and there were anti-Apparition wards in place, but Harry didn\'t mind the walk – the scenery was beautiful, and walking gave him a chance to think. Maybe he really was in love, he thought – but then again, Neville was right, he had been using those words so easily and recklessly, that they had lost meaning coming from him.



He wasn\'t sure why he was such a bastard when it came to relationships. He wasn\'t exactly selfish when it came to sex, or unpleasant when it came to interpersonal contact, but whenever things got challenging in a relationship, Harry bailed on his partners before they had a chance to say Waddawazi. He wasn\'t into working on relationships, Harry realized. He just wanted a relationship where things would be easy. Flow naturally. Where he could just be happy, without all the \'working things out\' nonsense.



Maybe it was just the aftermath of the war, Harry tried telling himself – a kind of desperation to be happy, and a dreadful fear that he would settle for something less than absolute bliss, and live the rest of his life in squalor and mediocrity, tied down to someone he would only somewhat like, or easily tolerate.



“You shouldn\'t be so obsessed with being happy,” Neville told him once. “You should just try to be a good person, and happiness will follow.”



Harry wasn\'t buying that for a minute. He had been trying to be a good person all his life, and what did he have to show for it at the end of his school years? A near-death run-in in the Chamber of Secrets, his blood being used to reincarnate the Dark Lord, a blood-quill scar, a sloppy kiss from Cho, a turbulent relationship with Ginny, and getting smacked with Avada Kedavra. And then, all the stupid attention from the media, which might have been nice, if Rita Skeeter hadn\'t been such a consummate bitch.



After all of that was over, Harry decided, he was done trying to be good – and was going to focus on just being happy. If he didn\'t deserve happiness after all the fucked up shit that had happened to him over the years, then maybe he should have just stayed in the afterlife, and hadn\'t bothered coming back.



Besides, it was easy for Neville to be all moralistic, Harry thought resentfully. He was fucking both Luna and Ginny, who were both also fucking each other. It\'s just too easy to tell others not to obsess about being happy, when you yourself are living your wildest dream. Fuck Neville, Harry thought, as he made his way to Severus\' cabin.



X x X



The cabin was near a pond, and Severus wasn\'t inside the cabin. Harry looked around and spotted him – he was sprawled out near water, face down, completely nude, a book in one hand, and a joint in another. For a few minutes, Harry simply stood and stared at him – amazed that someone could be so comfortable with himself and his own body to simply laze around in the nude like that. Not that Severus had anything to be uncomfortable about – his body was ... stunning. Tall, limber, slender, muscular... and no longer twitchy at all.



Slowly, Harry walked towards him. Severus twisted around and gave him a genuine smile. Harry felt his heart skip a bit as he approached the man.



“Hi,” Harry said. “You all sobered up?”



“Completely,” Severus assured him.



“What are you doing?” Harry asked, stretching himself in the grass next to him.



“I am reading. It is the cognitive process of understanding a written linguistic message,” Severus added with an absolutely serious expression on his face. “You may have heard of it in your school years, although I doubt you had ever attempted it.”



“Hey!” Harry exclaimed, suddenly realizing that he was being... teased. And then, without thinking about it at all, he delivered a sharp, loud smack to Severus\' backside, causing him to flinch slightly.



Harry\'s hand fell down a bit harder and a lot louder than he had intended, and Harry felt his heart sink. He fucked it up already, he thought – you don\'t just swat someone on the arse like that unless you are pretty certain they would like that sort of thing. And while Severus did mention he enjoyed being fucked, and not being in control, he certainly never indicated that he was agreeable to ... this.



Severus was looking at him oddly. “What was that all about?” he asked curiously, but not accusingly.



“Um. There was a mosquito on your butt,” Harry improvised. “It was about to bite you.”



“Impossible,” Severus said flatly, but his lips were already curled into an amused smile. “I have a mosquito repelling charm set.”



“Well, doesn\'t look like it\'s working,” Harry said. “As a matter of fact, there\'s another one. Mosquito, that is. It\'s going to bite any moment.”



“Hmm,” Severus murmured, pushing the book aside, and resting his chin on his hands. “That\'s very distressing. You\'d better kill it, too.”



“Right,” Harry agreed, and delivered another sound slap to the tanned backside.



“Oh,” Severus said. “Thank you. Am I safe now?”



“No,” Harry advised him with feigned regret. “There\'s a whole swarm of them. I am not sure what to do.”



Severus chuckled. “It looks like we are out of options, other than the obvious.” He arched his hips upwards to meet Harry\'s hand.



Harry stared at him in wild disbelief, and then, leaned over to kiss his back. His tongue trailed along Severus\' spine, enjoying the taste of his skin, and the little tremors the caress was eliciting from his body. Slightly dazed, Harry slid his left hand underneath Severus\' belly, seeking out his cock – completely erect, veiny, member, and grasped it firmly. A loud gasp from Severus rewarded him.



Harry lifted his right hand and proceeded to spank the firm, slim buttocks presented to him, the sound of the smacks resonating throughout the area. Harry\'s hand was leaving prints on the man\'s backside, but Severus did not appear to mind at all, if the throbbing in his member, pressed into Harry\'s palm, was any indication.



Harry increased the strength of the blows slightly, and made them fall faster. Severus grunted slightly, but did not move away. Harry continued, and stopped only once his own hand was tired, and the buttocks beneath his palm were radiating heat.



“Well then,” Severus said, sounding slightly breathless. “Am I safe finally? From the mosquitoes?”



“Completely,” Harry assured him. “They will think twice before trying anything again.” His heart was thumping in his chest. He was not sure whether he was going to laugh or faint, and suspected it could easily end up being both. He\'d just spanked someone. For the first time! And - his former teacher! That was a level of deviancy new even for him.



Severus chuckled quietly, as his breathing began to return to normal. “What would I do without your intervention?”



“End up exsanguinated, most likely,” Harry said solemnly. “It would have been terrible, you know.”



Severus turned to lie on his side, and stared at Harry thoughtfully. “Indeed. Just like Nagini\'s bite, only worse. Thankfully, you came to my aid. Perhaps I should thank my rescuer,” Severus murmured, and the corner of his mouth moved upwards.



Harry found himself nudged to rise to his feet, and Harry did, without thinking, his mind still reeling from the obvious oddness of the situation. And then, naked, beautiful, smirking Severus knelt in front of him, and bowed his head, the multicolored dreadlocks cascading down the man\'s sun-kissed shoulders and back.



Harry stared down, mesmerized, even as Severus used his long, nimble fingers to unbutton Harry\'s trousers, and free his erection.



Harry shut his eyes and gasped slightly, when the wicked tongue proceeded to stroke the length of his shaft, moving along the underside of his cock, the bead of the piercing traveling along one of the veins, making Harry\'s entire body tingle and shiver. The delightful torment went on and on. Harry found himself approaching a climax several times, but each times it happened, Severus changed the form of caresses slightly, and the orgasm would back off, like an animal being held at bay by a skilled handler.



“You are teasing me!” Harry said reproachfully.



Severus released his aching member from his mouth, and looked up at him, smirking. “Unbelievable that I would have the nerve to do such a thing. I wouldn\'t blame you if you decided you couldn\'t tolerate such insolence.”



Harry\'s hand rested on top of Severus\' head, and then, Harry grasped a handful of his dreadlocks firmly, twisting them in his fist. Severus simply leaned into his cruel touch, and opened his mouth again. Harry thrust into it, and proceeded to fuck it, callously and furiously. His cock was sliding along the bead of the tongue-peircing, and the head was impacting against the man\'s throat, over and over again. He felt his orgasm approaching, and grasped the dreadlocks tighter, driving Severus\' face towards himself, burying himself deeply within his mouth, and finally, sending a stream of release down the man\'s throat.



When Harry released his hold on Severus\' hair, the older wizard looked slightly stunned, but not unhappy. Severus was still kneeling before him, nude, untroubled, and Harry stared at him speechlessly. Harry was not sure what to say – thanking Severus somehow seemed... weird. He felt an urge to apologize, but apologizing seemed weird as well. Finally Harry managed a faint smile and asked lightheartedly:



“So... I\'m still good to move in with you?”



Severus raised an eyebrow and looked at him curiously. “Yes, that\'s fine,” the man said.



Harry shivered slightly, still unnerved by the easy acceptance he was receiving from his former nemesis, and unsettled by what he had just done. He had never been like this, Harry thought. He may have been a jerk when it came to the actual relationships, but at least, he had never been callous or domineering when it came to sex... until now. In fact, he used to pride himself on being gentle, giving and ... nice. The urge to apologize was growing.



Severus took Harry\'s hands in his, and pulled him to crouch on the ground next to him. The man\'s lips pressed to his forehead.



“You absolutely need to learn to relax, Harry,” Severus said with amusement. “Would you like me to roll you a joint?”



Harry shivered again. “Er....nah, thanks, I\'ll be all right...”



“If you say so.”



Another kiss to his forehead. Harry shuddered slightly. The surreal feeling of something being terribly wrong with the universe gripped him one more time.



“Gotta go. See you tomorrow,” Harry said, jumped to his feet, and ran.



X x X



When Harry returned to his cabin, the sun had already set. Neville was sound asleep, snoring quietly. Harry poked him and woke him up.



“What?” Neville asked.



“You were snoring.”



“There are spells for that, you know,” Neville muttered.



Harry pulled off his clothes and climbed into his own bed. “Neville,” he said.



“Yeah?”



“How many life-debts to I owe to Snape?”



“A few.”



Harry shivered nervously. “How many, Neville?”



“Sixteen. Well, Hermione thinks it might be seventeen, or eighteen.”



“Oh. That\'s a lot.”



“Yeah.”



Harry sat in grim silence, pondering the moral repercussions of the newly budding relationship. That thin, elusive line between good and bad had grown fainter for him over the last four years, but now, it seemed to have began disappearing altogether.



“So,” Harry mused, “hypothetically speaking, if I were to ... like... spank him, grab him by the hair, fuck his mouth, cum, and then leave him alone, without getting him off, that\'d be... bad? Right? Like, um, things would be out of balance even more?”



Neville bolted to sit up. “Harry....” he started saying dangerously.



“This was just a hypothetical question,” Harry said quickly.



“You are a jerk.”



“I know,” Harry sighed. “I\'ll be nice tomorrow.”



Neville snorted. “You just keep telling yourself that.”



“Good night, Neville.”



“Fuck off, Harry.”



To be continued.. maybe.. possibly.... don\'t know! Should I?