Against His Nature

CHAPTER 26

“Mr. Potter,” Harry paused in the hallway and glanced back at the headmaster who was weaving his way around the crush of students trying to get to their next classes. “Have you by any chance seen Remus today, I had thought he’d be coming to see me like I asked.” Harry shrugged his shoulders carelessly, still not entirely happy with the werewolf after the previous outburst. “Never mind, I’ll fire call the house and see if he’s there.” With a bright smile a swirl of royal blue robes the headmaster left, leaving Harry to run the last few corridors in order to get to potions on time.

“You’re late Mr. Potter, five points from Gryfindor and see me after class.” Harry sighed heavily as he skulked over to his bench beside Hermione’s. Professor Snape hadn’t even turned around from the board he was writing on to identify who’d walked into his class late. It went without saying that Snape could smell the boy enter a room at fifty paces but to the untrained student it merely seemed like he had eyes in the back of his head.

The class ran as smoothly as a seventh year potion class could, with only meager points lost for ineptitude. Snape sat at his desk and watched as the students began leaving right on the bell, all of them grumbling about the latest homework assignment. Harry took his time packing up his things, knowing that he was staying with Snape anyway.

“You wanted to see me sir?” With the last student exiting the room, and the door closing behind them Harry stood up and addressed the elder wizard. Snape was observing Harry closely over his steepeled fingertips.

“Yes, I thought you might be interested to know that I,” Snape paused as if thinking for an appropriate adjective. “Discussed the incident that happened between you and the wolf with Remus last night.” Harry’s face paled a little as all the dreadful things Snape could have done to Remus came rushing into focus.

“What did you do to him?” Harry whispered a little more accusingly than he’d meant to. Snape huffed a contemptible laugh and rolled his eyes at the boy’s suspicion.

“Typical Gryffindor, loyal and protective despite the betrayal.” Harry tightened his lips in irritation of Snape’s rather accurate description of him. “But don’t despair Potter, I did nothing to permanently harm the wolf. I simply gave him something to remind him of his own situation in life.” Harry nodded deciding it was better he didn’t know what had gone on between the Vampire and the wolf.

“I think Dumbledore’s suspicious, and Remus is sure to tell him…..” Snape cut Harry off with a hand on his shoulder having moved out from behind his desk to stand beside the boy in the center of the room.

“The headmaster is always suspicious Potter, and after last night Remus knows better than to talk to anyone about us.” Snape not realizing his slip padded quietly over to his potion’s store cupboard and replaced some of his own bottled ingredients from his sample potion. Harry frowned his attention picking up on only one word out of the entire comment.

“Us?” Snape froze at Harry’s voice; his hand paused in the action of putting back a large bottle of salamander blood on a shelf. “Don’t you mean, he knows better than to talk about you?” Snape let out a ragged breath silently cursing himself for being so lax. The boy wasn’t stupid despite appearances to the contrary, and he had an uncanny knack of picking up on subtle subtext that others missed. “I’ve got nothing to lose if he tells anyone I’m your donor, I’m just your willing victim remember.” Snape cringed at the boy’s suspicious tone of voice. Trying to relax Snape finished replacing his ingredients before daring to look back at the boy, who was now stood in the entrance of the store blocking the path out into the classroom.

“Of course Potter, just a slip of the tongue.” Snape met Harry’s narrowed gaze with his usual impenetrable cold stare as he moved to push the boy out of the way but Harry stood firm and shook his head.

“Bullshit, you twitched. You always twitch when you lie.” Snape arched a surprised eyebrow in Harry’s direction, the boy now looking entirely too smug for someone who was supposed to be pissed off.

“I never twitch Potter, and I would ask you not to use that language in my classroom less I remove your tongue for a week.” Again Snape went to move past Harry back into the main classroom but Harry was once again blocking the path, with more determination than ever. Snape glared at the boy, and drew his wand instinctively. Harry didn’t even flinch, as the tip of Snape’s wand was pressed against his throat in a threatening gesture. Harry could feel the warm glow of the end of the wand against his skin but stared defiantly into Snape’s gaze.

“No, you didn’t always twitch because I think the lies you told were just manipulations of the truth so you’re conscience ignored them. But of late, I’ve watched you twitch on three occasions when I’ve known you’ve been lying.” Snape lost his temper quickly, his fear of Harry’s discovery overwhelmed by the boy’s arrogance.

“This is nonsense Potter, now I suggest you remove yourself from my path or I will forcefully move you myself.” Harry knew he’d pushed his limit and with a lingering glare obediently stepped out of Snape’s path to allow the potion professor to stride out into the classroom. Harry watched Snape circle around once he’d put a safe distance between himself and the boy, his wand still raised angrily. “I would appreciate it if you did not accuse me of lying again Mr. Potter, now I suggest you remove yourself from my classroom less I take further action for your blatant disrespect of my authority.” With a nod Harry collected his school bag and books from the bench he’d left them on earlier, and made his way to the door. “Oh and Mr. Potter,” Harry paused and glanced over his shoulder at Snape who had returned to his desk, his wand safely back in his cloak sleeve. “I wish to see you tonight, please come by my chambers after dinner.” Snape didn’t raise his gaze from the parchment he was pretending to read on the desk, even when he heard the boy laugh in the doorway.

“Good to see our little disagreement hasn’t put you off your appetite Professor.” Snape clenched his teeth and resisted the urge to curse the boy into next week, as the brat closed the door behind him as he left, still chuckling at Snape’s expense. Snape was angry, and decided to spend what remained of his free periods before dinner locked in his chambers sulking with a bottle of whisky.

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Harry ran down the corridor, barely skidding to a halt outside Snape’s office. He was late having spent the last hour in the library engrossed in a book about mythical creatures. Without knocking Harry stepped into the office and was surprised to find it empty. Snape was usually waiting for him in the room, to escort him into the man’s private retreat but tonight the office was dark and empty. Harry warily looked around him as he tiptoed into the office. A single wall torch lit the room, casting shadows across the stone floor.

“Snape?” Harry whispered as he negotiated his way around the desk and over to the doorway that Harry knew led into Snape’s private rooms. Predictably there was no reply and Harry sighed as he stepped up to the closed wooden door that led into Snape’s chambers. Harry was sure he wasn’t too late that Snape had changed his mind. Being rather anal about his privacy Harry knew Snape wouldn’t have left his chambers unlocked but the boy reached for the door handle all the same. The boy practically shit himself with the door pushed open without so much as an effort. A chill ran up Harry’s spine as the door swung wide to reveal the cold dark room beyond. Instinctively Harry reached for his wand, something hadn’t felt right since he’d stepped into the office.

“Snape?” Harry called again into the darkness of Snape’s rooms and when he got no reply he bravely stepped inside. Unlike the times before, Snape’s chambers were bitterly cold through the lack of a fire and the darkness within was only broken occasionally by the glint of a glass object on Snape’s many bookshelves. Swallowing nervously Harry tip toed across the living room, carefully avoiding tripping over the unfamiliar furniture scattered about the room. Automatically Snape’s door slammed closed behind Harry, making the boy practically jump out of his skin. With his heart racing and sweat breaking out on his forehead Harry began to feel his way along the back of the armchair towards Snape’s bedroom. Harry might not have been as fearful as he was, if it wasn’t the thought of what Snape would do to him if he should be discovered in Snape’s rooms unaccompanied. Reaching the archway that Harry hoped led to Snape’s bedroom, he paused when he heard a flutter of wings behind him. Whipping around Harry’s eyes darted back and forth in the darkness searching for the source of the sound. It was impossible to see anything in the darkness though and so Harry put the sound down to his imagination. Turning back to the archway Harry heard the whoosh of air behind him right before a velvety thing brushed past his head.

“Arghhhhh!” Harry wasn’t prone to screaming, but the idea of anything creepy and crawling rushing him in the darkness just freaked him out. With his hands waving about his head like a lunatic Harry swatted at the velvety flying thing that kept swooping at him. Blindly Harry tried to run for the door but miscalculated where the coffee table had been, and tripped over it in spectacular style. Sprawled on the carpet in front of the fire Harry continued to swat at the air around his head, unaware that the creature that’d attacked him was now standing large as life in front of him, a large smile breaking on his face.

“Oh do stop that Potter, you look like a turtle that’s been flipped on it’s back.” In Harry’s fear addled brain the familiar voice began to register and slowly the boy stopped waving his arms and opened his eyes.

“Octavia?” Harry stared up at the glowing blue eyes of the Vampire standing over him. In the darkness the man looked like nothing but two headless eyes bobbing in mid air, but with a flick of Octavia’s wand the room erupted in flame and light revealing the man’s body wrapped in long flowing black robes. “What are you doing here?” Squinting as his vision adjusted to the new light Harry accepted the elder man’s hand up from the floor before dusting himself off after the fall.

“Probably the same thing you’re doing here, looking for Severus.” Octavia flicked off his outer cloak and tossed it carelessly over the back of an armchair before helping himself to Snape’s liquor cabinet. Harry stared at the elder wizard still entranced by the man’s youthful appearance compared to Severus’ own aged features. Beneath the robe Octavia wore leather, tight leather pants and soft leather boots with a black snug fitting t-shirt. A silver cross hung around his neck and glittered in the torchlight. The man was everything Severus was not, and then some.

“So you haven’t seen him either then?” Harry sat down gingerly on the edge of Snape’s armchair, still rubbing his knees where he’d scraped them on the coffee table.

“Nope, suppose he’s gone to see Riddle he wouldn’t willingly pass up an opportunity of a meal with you.” Harry swallowed thickly as he watched an amused smirk catch the corner of Octavia’s lips just revealing the tip of pearly white incisor.

“I would have felt it if Voldemort had summoned the death eaters.” Harry watched as Octavia circled Snape’s rooms easily sipping from his glass of whisky as he casually inspected a few items of interest that caught his attention on Snape’s bookshelves. Harry wouldn’t have dared to even touch anything in Snape’s rooms let alone be here uninvited but Octavia was happily making himself at home.

“Very receptive to him aren’t you Potter? It’s not good practice to be letting rogue wizards fuck with your mind.” Harry raised an eyebrow at Octavia in surprise; surely the vampire knew he was the boy-who-lived and what that title automatically meant. “You should have Severus teach you Occlumency, he’s rather good at it.”

“Tried that, he nearly killed me.” Harry snapped sarcastically and rather bitterly, causing Octavia to chuckle in what appeared to be a private joke. Harry didn’t think him dying was so funny and so glared at the Vampire who instantly apologized.

“Sorry Potter, Severus’ never was a patient student. He tires very quickly when his peers do not pick up a subject as quickly as he does.” Having circled the lounge one last time Octavia came to sit down on the armchair opposite Harry. The Vampire reclined easily into the cushions, and smiled at Harry’s tenseness as the boy perched on the very edge of his own seat as if afraid the chair might swallow him whole. “You’re genuinely afraid of him aren’t you?” The question came out of nowhere and Harry felt a shudder role down his spine. The Vampire was reading his mind, or at least skirting the edges of it assessing the most immediate of Harry’s emotions. The boy knew he had no defense and was powerless to stop Octavia from reading his thoughts.

“No…” Harry went to protest loudly, using the excuse to shake his head to try and shake Octavia’s gentle prodding.

“Don’t lie Potter, lying is such a filthy habit.” Octavia’s blue eyes glittered in the firelight his penetrating stare pinning Harry fearfully to the chair. “You shouldn’t be afraid of him, his bark is far worse than his bite, as you well know.” Again the knowing smile twitched at the corner of Octavia’s lips as the man finished his whisky and put the empty glass aside.

“It’s not that bite I’m worried about, he knows things no one else does, he can do things that make my skin crawl just thinking about, he’s…” Harry paused trying to find the right word to describe how he felt about Snape. “…evil.” Harry finished wondering if he’d aptly describe the man who made his knees tremble everytime they passed each other in the hall.

“Evil.” Octavia huffed a gruff laugh and shook his head, the gaze he threw Harry assuring the boy he’d sounded as childish as he’d felt. “Evil is a relative description Potter. Just because your notion of what is right and wrong differs from his, does not mean that what he does is ‘evil’. Perhaps it is not him that you are afraid of but instead fear that what he believes in is more right than what you believe in or at the very least what you’ve been told to believe in.” Harry stared at Octavia watching carefully as the man assessed him with a cautious gaze. Harry sighed inwardly, as much as he didn’t want to say it, some of what the vampire had just said had made far too much sense. After a stagnate awkward pause Octavia broke the uneasiness with a smile and a yawn. “So tell me Potter, do you have a girlfriend?” Harry took a second to register the question and the abrupt change of topic before he could reply.

“No, not anymore. I dumped her.” Harry didn’t particularly want to talk about Ginny with almost a complete stranger but the alternative conversation wasn’t appealing either so Harry took the lesser of two evils.

“Bet the Ministry’s happy about that.” Harry shrugged his shoulders uncaringly at Octavia’s comment, and the vampire smiled and nodded in agreement. “Severus can’t stand the hypocritical bastards. Forcing an entire generation to copulate like rabbits, it’s not entirely natural is it? But sadly you do have to comply willing or not, so any suitors on the horizon?” Octavia was fishing for information and Harry silently wondered why the man was doing so.

“There’s no one I like, and besides Snape’s not looking for anyone so why should I. We’ll defy the ministry together, and he’s said already he’ll look after me.” Octavia’s eyebrow rose high into his hairline in surprise, having not expected that reply from the boy. Perhaps Snape’s charms were working already on the boy.

“What makes you so sure Severus isn’t pursuing a relationship as we speak? After all, Severus doesn’t just have the Ministry to please, Riddle will want a say too.” This comment took Harry off guard, and the boy opened and closed his mouth several times as he tried to formulate a response in his mind. Harry had just assumed that Snape was going to defy the Ministry and there been no sign that the wizard was looking for anyone.

“Who’d have him?” Harry spat out not quite realizing how jealous he sounded. Octavia was smiling to himself as he watched the boy play out the scenario in his mind. Being the donor to a Vampire, and having the said Vampire sleeping with someone else surely wasn’t going to appeal to the donor, and Harry was showing all the signs of starting ‘possession’ even if he hadn’t realized it. “He’s hardly attractive, not for a wizard anyhow, and certainly not for a Vampire. Just look at you compared to him and you’re older than him by about a thousand years or something.” Harry gestured pointedly at Octavia who couldn’t help but grin as he stretched out his leather clad legs in front of him and parted his knees slightly to allow Harry a great view to his tightly contoured groin.

“Five hundred and three actually.” Octavia chuckled as he watched Harry peruse his figure casually reclined in the armchair. Octavia could sense the boy’s mild irritation, but underneath the vampire could also sense the young wizards hormones raging wildly away just beneath the surface. Young boys were always horny, it was a fact of life but Harry in particular was beginning to smell very much like a fledgling in heat. Octavia was impressed that Snape’s attentions had incited such a powerful reaction from the boy already, without Harry even realizing. It was time to test the waters. With a smile Octavia leaned forward towards Harry, drawing the boy’s attention from his leather-clad thighs up to his captivating blue eyes. “Are you saying I’m attractive Mr. Potter?”

“Compared to Snape you are.” Harry whispered all of a sudden becoming very nervous with the Vampire hovering so close to him. Octavia smiled and unconsciously licked his lips his eyes predatorily watching Harry’s every reaction as he pushed further forward into Harry’s personal space. The boy had moved back in his chair to try and put some distance between himself and the Vampire but he was now pinned against the cushions at the back and Octavia was still edging forward.

“Severus’ isn’t so bad, and given time away from the ‘inhibiting’ potion he’ll grow youthful again. With the dark mark naturally ages him but when Tom is gone, Severus will be free once again to look as beautiful as he did as a ‘fledgling.” Harry held his breath as Octavia hunched over him, now completely enclosing Harry’s personal space. “Shall I tell you how beautiful he was?” Harry closed his eyes and automatically tilted his head to the side as he felt the Vampire’s presence over the top of him. Harry knew what was expected of him when Snape fed from him, so Octavia’s presence in place of Snape’s incited the same instinctive reaction. Octavia’s voice was deeper than Snape’s but not as silky, yet it still washed over Harry in waves that made him shudder. “He was tall, lean but muscular. He had long silky black hair that he always tied in a black ribbon at the base of his neck. His face was narrow but finely featured, his nose wasn’t crooked then, Sirius Black broke it in second year. He had thin lips, warm eyes and a narrow neck. His skin was creamy white, kissed only by the sun during the Quidditch season.” Harry’s breath hitched in his throat as Octavia paused and licked a long wet trail up the side of Harry’s neck, mirroring the path Snape’s did when he fed. Harry’s mind had long repressed the image of Octavia hovering over him and had instead replaced it with the tantalizing image of this unfamiliar Severus Snape being described to him. “Do you think him as handsome as me now Harry Potter?” Octavia whispered as he drew his lips from Harry’s neck and brought them around to hover over Harry’s slightly parted ones. Harry nodded but just barely as he leant automatically towards Octavia who was staring at him closely. The boy was like putty in his hands, completely under the spell of Severus Snape, without even realizing it. The boy couldn’t even tell the difference between the illusion of Snape and the reality of him.

It was perfect.

Octavia smiled and leant in the last inch to press his lips to the boy’s. Having indulged the boy so long he felt almost obligated to provide the pay off. Inexperience played on the boy’s tongue as Octavia grasped the back of the boys’ head and pulled him in tightly, forcing his tongue past the tight lips of Potter and into the warm cavern beyond. Harry groaned into the kiss, as Octavia’s tongue swept around his mouth tasting every inch. Octavia envied Snape’s choice in mate as he continued to explore the boy’s mouth with his tongue. Harry Potter was a powerful wizard but he was also so submissive, so willing and so wrapped up in Severus Snape, he didn’t even realize he was kissing a man for the first time in his life.

The kiss lasted for another few moments before a sound caught Octavia’s hearing. Like lightening the Vampire drew away from the boy and put several steps worth of distance between them. Harry was still collapsed in the chair, totally captured by the Vampire’s presence and scent.

“He’s back.” Octavia whispered more to himself than Harry as he heard the shuffling of robes on the stone floor outside in Snape’s office, followed by the scrape of a stool as Snape walked into it in the darkness. Harry was still in a daze as the door to the lounge swung open and Snape staggered in, his death eater robes hanging around him like thunderclouds, and his mask grasped in one bloodied hand.

“Bad night Severus?” Octavia went to Snape’s side, and helped him over to his chair. Snape sat down with a grimace while Octavia went to get Snape a glass of whisky. Snape’s gaze re-focused in the light and fell on Harry Potter slumped in the opposite armchair. The boy looked practically debauched, his lips swollen and moist, his hair tussled and his school trousers tented in arousal.

“What the fuck did you do to him Octavia?” Despite his pain Snape leaned forward and tilted the boy’s head to the side, clearly inspecting Harry’s neck for signs of puncture. Octavia rolled his eyes as he brought Snape over a glass of whisky and smiled at his own handy work.

“Don’t stress I didn’t touch him. I just provided a little image of you that he might not have expected.” Octavia leant over the back of the armchair that Harry was slumped in and gently prodded the boy. Harry was out like a light, the senses having overwhelmed him and made him pass out. “He’s out like a light, too much for one night I think his body isn’t used to sensation.” Octavia moved out from around the back of the chair and over to where Severus was nursing his drink, clearly in pain. “You need some rest.”

“I need more than that.” Snape whispered as he stared at Harry longingly before glancing up at Octavia with the same expression. Octavia rolled his eyes and reached over to take the whisky glass from Snape’s shaking grasp.

“Come on then, it’s been a while for both of us….” Taking a hold of Snape’s hand Octavia helped his student from his seat before leading him into the bedroom and closing the door behind them…..

TBC>>>>