Staggered

Harry blinks and waits for his eyes to become accustomed to the sudden change of light. Wherever they are, it’s much darker than the breaking dawn of the bedroom they’ve just come from. There is a painfully familiar smell that triggers conflicted memories and multiple fractured feelings that Harry immediately ignores.

“Where are we?” he asks tremulously. Draco says nothing and continues to stare into the gloom.

Harry walks round in front of him and takes his hand, “Draco, please, whatever happened back there, let’s just—we can talk about it, right? I mean, if you want to. I want to.”

Draco’s derisive snort is cut off by heavy footsteps crossing the room. Harry shrinks back in alarm and fumbles for his wand.

“Don’t bother,” Draco tells him in an oddly resigned voice, “You won’t need it.”

“What’s going on? Where are we?”

“I am deeply saddened that you do not recognise the distinctive atmosphere, Mr Potter, given that you spent numerous happy detentions here.”

The deep smooth timbre cuts through the darkness like a knife, twisting in Harry’s chest.

“No way,” he rasps, “No fucking way.” His hands shake uncontrollably as the distinctive smell thickens in his nostrils. Harry thinks he might gag from it.

Draco casts an overly powerful Lumos and Harry sees him then, standing by the desk at the far end of the stone-walled chamber, the same one he’s been spending all his spare time in. The sharp features are badly lit by the harsh reflections cast across his sallow face.

“No,” Harry cries, shaking his head in disbelief, “You’re dead, you died, I watched you die!”

He’s scared, so fucking scared that this isn’t real and then he remembers; he’d been in bed, hadn’t he? Harry visibly relaxes and his shoulders uncurl as he sighs, “Oh God, this is just a dream.”

“Sorry to disappoint you, Potter, but I can assure you I am no dream, or nightmare, nor any other kind of hallucinatory visage you may be debating. I am as real as you are.”

Harry can’t help it; he knows he shouldn’t because it will only be worse when he wakes up, but he crosses the room, eyes fixed on the gaunt face and curtain of lank hair that could only be Severus Snape.

Harry stops in front of him and lowers his gaze; the robes, buttoned high, the large pale hands, slim bony fingers, all is just as he remembers. Snape’s nose is long and hooked, his depthless black eyes glinting in the diffused glow, high pallid cheekbones as harsh as ever, perhaps more so since he seems painfully thin now; and those cruel, twisted lips, a thin slash of red...

Harry reaches out and runs a finger over them, tracing the soft flesh, convinced that at any moment, like so many times before this will all fade into obscurity and he’ll be left swearing and shaking through more unbearable disappointment.

But Snape doesn’t disappear; his lips quirk in subdued amusement at Harry’s wide eyed terror and allows the trembling finger to confirm to the brain what the eyes cannot accept.

“Potter,” he says firmly, clasping Harry’s shaking hands in his and stilling them, “It’s true.”

And something breaks in Harry then; he wants to fall to the ground and cry out his thanks but too many other thoughts are clouding his judgement and he needs to know, oh god, there’s just so much he needs to know.

“How? How did you survive? I saw you, you gave me your memories and-- I saw the lights leave your eyes—“ he spins round to face Draco, “You—you knew he was okay and you didn’t tell me? Why?”

Anger bubbles and explodes inside his chest. Harry stalks across the room and grabs Draco by the throat, “You fucking bastard, you knew how I felt, why didn’t you tell me, Draco, why?”

Harry’s entire body is taut with nervous tension. His fingers are viciously embedded in the alabaster skin, bright red welts hidden beneath them yet Draco doesn’t struggle. His breathing is laboured from the pressure being exerted on his windpipe but his eyes remain evasive of Harry’s stinging glare.

“Mr Potter, kindly release Mr Malfoy and allow him the use of his lungs. I am afraid you must lay the blame squarely at my feet.”

Harry doesn’t let go, can’t seem to make his fingers release their death grip. His brain is screaming at his nervous system, begging it to carry the message, but it’s not delivering. Harry pushes his face into Draco’s and whispers hoarsely. “You fucking bastard. I hate you.”

Snape flies across the room and yanks him backwards, causing Draco to wince in pain as Harry’s nails scrape over his flesh.

“You may be the Saviour of the Wizarding World, Potter, but that does not give you the right to abuse my Secret Keeper.”

Snape throws him into a chair and towers over him, blocking his view of Draco.

“Secret Keeper? You mean you’ve got the dungeons under Fidelius? How? That’s not even possible, and I’ve been down here, loads of times—since—”

“Indeed. How incredibly astute of you to work it out, but as usual you are only partway correct. This is a modified version of the charm. It allows me to remain here undetected. At least, it did until Mr Malfoy chose to impart the Secret to you.” The dry tone is not lost on Harry and is definitely not appreciated.

“Don’t you fucking dare stand there and make fun of me! I thought you were dead!” Harry’s desperate to take his mounting anger out on someone, anyone, but he needs answers and Snape looks irritated enough to hex.

“I had not considered you would be of a mind to care much one way or the other,” Snape sneers.

“He knew!” Harry cries, trying to jab a finger at Draco around the formidable wall of Snape, “He knew I – he said nothing!”

“Draco was merely doing what I asked of him; keeping my survival a secret. I knew the Ministry would show no mercy to Death Eaters when the Dark Lord fell, and I had always strongly believed that you would be victorious in his annihilation. Therefore it became imperative that I should take the necessary steps to protect myself. I imagine it must have been quite uncomfortable for Draco to witness your distress first hand.”

“Oh yeah, really uncomfortable! Do you know what his preferred method of reassurance was? Fucking me!” Harry shouts, hands clutching the chair arms to keep himself from tearing across the room and throttling Draco again.

“Really?” Snape turns around slowly and raises an eyebrow. “Is this true, Mr Malfoy?”

Draco emits an odd, strangulated laugh, “Why is all of this my fault?” he spits, “You, Severus, have spent the past month watching Harry night and day with that bloody mirror—“

Harry jerks his head and stares at Snape, “What’s he talking about?”

Draco tuts at him, “The Spy glass, Potter! The one in the desk at Spinners End! Didn’t you find it? Did you not stop to think what it might be?”

“I didn’t see anything in the desk because I never got a chance to look through it!” Harry retorts angrily.

“Ah, yes, too busy with Mr Malfoy to properly address my personal belongings,” Snape says, waving a hand loftily, “but no matter.”

“You were supposed to be dead!” Harry protests loudly.

“The point is,” Draco cuts in, “he was watching you. He made me swear not to tell you where he was, or even that he was alive until he could be sure of what your actions signified. He suspected how you felt but refused to believe it until you were sobbing at his graveside. Imagine, Potter, how he sat in this very room and observed your tears, yet he did nothing! Nothing except send me to wipe your snot and hold your hand. It was his idea that you should see Spinner’s End before he revealed himself to you. And he had no immediate plans to do that, either! I only brought you here because I couldn’t stand your miserable face a second longer!” Draco finishes, sliding down the wall, exhausted from such a voracious self-defence.

Snape sneers down at him as he applauds, just a bit too slowly. “A captivating performance, Draco, really. I imagine the Ministry would welcome you with open arms, such a fine politician you will make. You have still expertly dodged the issue of how you and Potter ended up in—my bed, perchance?”

“Fuck this, I did what you asked, Severus! I made sure he was okay, despite the fact that I wanted nothing to do with this!”

“Perhaps now I am beginning to understand why you were so opposed to the suggestion.”

Harry stares at Severus, then turns to look carefully at Draco, trying to make sense of what he’s hearing.

“Wait, wait, stop! Just—please! I need to understand. You’re not dead—“ Harry says, pointing at Snape who rolls his eyes, “But, the thing is, you didn’t die, you’ve been hiding out here in the dungeons and didn’t tell anyone except Draco where you were and asked him to—after spying on me—asked him to take care of me and take me to your house so I could see where you’d lived, have access to your things. Have I got it?”

“Fifty points to Gryffindor,” Snape growls, “Although it now appears he showed you more than simply my possessions.”

“So, you,” Harry ignores Snape and turns to Draco, “He made you promise not to tell anyone he was still alive, even though we held a fucking funeral and then when he saw me cracking up, he sent you to comfort me? Let me grieve in his house? Why did you let me touch you when you knew?” Harry’s up and pacing the room, running agitated hands through sweat-slicked hair, “I didn’t need your protection or your pity! I was fine!”

Draco and Snape exchange matching looks of disbelief before turning them on Harry.

“I beg to differ, Mr Potter. Not only were you regularly to be found at the cemetery, but you have also shunned, without exception, every single social invitation thus far, and your break-up with Miss Weasley was well documented in the Prophet. Both Draco and I were of the opinion—“

“I don’t give a fuck what your opinions were!” Harry shouts, shrinking up against the wall as Snape starts to approach him at an alarming speed.

“—of the opinion, that you might just be feeling regretful over my death. I did not realise quite how distressed you were until the day Draco found you. I had not planned on informing you of my continued existence because I did not think for one second that you would be pining for your dead Potions Master!” Snape’s breath is hot against Harry’s cheek and his spittle sprays harshly across his face.

Harry’s heart is stuck in his throat; this is the closest he’s ever been to those nasty, spiteful lips and it would be so easy to stand on his toes and press his mouth against them but Snape stalks away and Harry has to steady himself against the stone. Draco stares at the floor.

“Why were you even watching me in the first place? Why should you have cared about what happened to me?” Harry implores Snape’s turned back, but it’s Draco that lifts his head to answer.

“Merlin, Potter, how stupid are you? Why do you think? He wanted you too.”

Snape stops abruptly in the middle of pacing but does not turn round. Harry sucks in a breath and looks stunned.

“If—if that’s true, why not just find me and tell me?” Harry doesn’t need to ask though, he knows what the answer will be. And the acerbic delivery does not disappoint.

“Oh yes, what a truly insightful plan that would have been,” Severus snarls. He tilts his head, and turns slowly toward Harry, his hair occluding his face.

“Let us imagine the delightful scene of a supposedly deceased Death Eater turning up on Harry Potter’s doorstep. Here is his ex Potions Master; a man who has shown him nothing but contempt and barely concealed scorn, suddenly confessing his desire for a carnal relationship without any prior knowledge that such feelings might be reciprocated! Ingenious, Potter.”

Draco pushes himself up off the floor and brushes off his robes. “Well I hate to interrupt this little lover’s tiff but I have better things to do than stand here all day listening to you two bicker.”

Harry’s mouth drops open as he stares in amazement, “You’re going? You can’t just go! Half an hour ago—“ Harry snaps his mouth shut and looks at Snape.

“No, please, do continue, Potter, I am dying to hear what the pair of you were up to half an hour ago.”

“Fuck this,” Draco says, “I did what you asked.”

“And provided extras, too.” Snape retorts caustically.

Harry walks to the far end of the room and peers out of a tiny window, intent on ignoring the peaked tension behind him. The sun looks impossibly large; like it is hurtling towards him, reminiscent of a giant golden Snitch, giving the impression that at any moment he will be engulfed and die a fiery death. Harry finds the notion incrementally more appealing than the current situation.

Minutes pass as he continues to stare at nothing; eyes unfocused, mind spinning with the enormity of what the last twenty minutes of his life has revealed. He shouldn’t be surprised, he thinks, given who he is.

Even, paced footsteps stop just behind him and briefly he wonders which one of them it will be.

“Potter.”

It’s Snape. Harry wants to turn around and see what Draco’s doing but he just can’t bring himself to expend the energy.

“Where’s Draco?” he says in a monotone, as the cold dungeon air escapes his lungs to create a thinly veiled mist against the glass.

“Gone.”

That word. Gone. Like Harry had thought Snape was gone. First one, now the other. He shakes his head and laughs humourlessly.

“This cannot be happening. I can’t—I don’t know—“

Snape seizes his shoulders and turns him roughly, pinning him to the wall.

“I had no idea of the depth of your feeling for me, only of that which I possessed for you, highly inappropriate and as far as I was aware, unreciprocated. Yes, I watched you, Harry. Draco did not lie about that. I watched you night and day, hoping to see you move on with your life, celebrating the culmination of teenage years spent isolated and frightened. I planned to be content in the knowledge of your survival, but as usual you insisted on complicating matters.

Snape peers down into Harry’s upturned face, speaking quietly.

“It did not please me to see how miserable you were, how after my funeral you sat at my grave throughout the night. I watched you and I convinced myself that it was nothing more than pity, perhaps a little gratitude, that kept you away from your friends. How could I have known that your desire for me was as strong as mine is for you? I sent Draco to you because I did not wish to see you wasting your life mourning the dead. And even when you confessed your feelings I did not believe it, for what earthly reason could you have had to declare such nonsense? I had already suggested to him that you would be mollified after seeing Spinner’s End; that it would help you move on, yet when I owled Draco, he told me I was a fool for choosing to ignore what was plainly in front of my face. I was rather inclined to agree at that point, but still I did not act.”

“When would you have done? Were you ever going to?” Harry argues, “Or did you intend for me never to find out? If Draco hadn’t brought me here...”

“Yes, then there is Draco.” Snape sighs, sounding both rueful and exasperated. “I had not foreseen that particular complication.”

“Complication? Is that what he is? Maybe to you, but not to me. He let me stay at your house despite clearly having better things to do with his time—what was it he said? Something about babysitting me. That was down to you! And yet he stayed, he held me through my nightmares, listened while I talked and left me the hell alone when I needed to think. And yeah, I should be angry about what happened between us because he knew you were alive and didn’t tell me, but it was comfort and I needed it and I came onto him so don’t go throwing blame around when you don’t know the full story. If I’d known there was the slightest chance that you— I never would have—”

“Slept with him? Are you quite certain about that? I rather get the impression that Mr Malfoy is far fonder of you than he will ever let on to either of us. Perhaps you are also experiencing a similar dilemma; in which case, I urge you not to let a middle-aged dead man stand in your way.”

Snape lets go of his shoulders but Harry grabs his robes and pulls him back.

“Don’t. Can’t you see how difficult this is?” He searches Severus’ eyes for…something.

“All too clearly. Your perception of him has changed. Particularly since you now find yourself in what I presume to be the unexpected position of becoming sexually involved. Would that be an accurate summation?”

“I don’t know!” Harry cries, wanting to pull away, yet wanting to stay close, “I don’t want to think about that now. Oh God, every day I begged for the chance to see you again, to thank you for everything you did, for the Order, for me.” Harry drops his head against Severus’ chest. “To tell you what a bastard you were, how your nasty words and spiteful face only ever made me want you more. Even when I really wanted to hurt you, and there were plenty of times, I still wanted to stick my tongue down your throat. I sat in that fucking miserable graveyard and I thought I was talking to you, I told you everything. I thought maybe, just maybe, wherever you were, if there was an afterlife, you could hear me—“

“I did. Every single word. Admittedly not from the afterlife.” Snape at least has the good grace to look slightly shamefaced about that.

Harry looks up then, past the perpetually tight lips, over the contour of exaggerated nose and into glittering black eyes, alight with a desire he convinces himself he has never seen there before. His resolve crumbles in seconds and he can’t concentrate on being angry anymore.

“I thought you were dead. I didn’t think I’d see you again, or get the chance—“ he whispers brokenly.

Snape’s lips claim Harry’s, smothering the words that hurt with every breath to say. Harry propels himself forward into the heat and inherent safety of Snape’s robes, desperate to touch as much of the man as he can. Snape responds fervently, his fingers bestowing feather light strokes to either side of Harry’s face even as his mouth devours him, brutally and without apology. Harry puts everything into this one moment; every angry retort he’s wanted to scream, every electrified thrill of anticipation he’s ever felt. He transfers all of it through the meeting of their tongues and lips, giving everything, as he’s so desperately wanted to for as long as he can remember.

The kiss is exhilarating; every nerve ending in his body is alight. His lungs cry out for a single consolidating breath, a single second’s respite from the unmerciful assault that has knocked his glasses askew.

“Take me to bed,” Harry gasps as he fumbles to right his glasses, the need for answers temporarily replaced by a much greater urgency.

Long fingers answer in silent compliance, leaving reddened cheeks to grip a sweaty hand. Snape drags Harry away from the streaming sunlight and through a door to a much brighter room, and then into another, darker again.

Harry has a split second to register the presence of a bed before he’s roughly pushed backwards onto it, hitting the mattress hard enough to bounce once before Snape pounces on him.

And it’s everything and nothing like he imagined; Snape wandlessly removing their clothes, Snape’s pale, lean, body on top of his, grinding his bony hips against Harry’s. Their throbbing cocks finally achieving contact, punishing kisses and hot wet tongues, uneven teeth scraping across his lips. Harry needs it all.

Snape’s face is buried in Harry’s hair as he forces his knee between Harry’s legs, urging them to part and they do, willingly, Harry talking to him, telling him how much he wants this, telling him how long he’s wanted it and Snape grunts in his ear, encouragingly, his hands roughly travelling over Harry’s chest and stomach, arms and arse. Harry’s head is thrown back, throat working furiously with the need to process air as Snape plunders his mouth repeatedly. His neck and back arch to get his fill of those black eyes; never enough, he thinks detachedly, he’ll never get enough of them as Snape’s fingers circle his cock, taking the shaft firmly in hand before moving downwards and sucking the leaking tip into his mouth. Harry’s hands can’t decide where to grab, where to scratch and what to seize and possess: first hair, then shoulders, and spine, hands scrabbling to gain purchase on flesh, over and over until he’s sure the warm, ashen body really exists and he is not going to just wake up alone in his bed. And when his mind finally allows him to believe the incredible heat and suction is Snape: Snape’s wicked mouth around his cock, Snape’s palm cupping his balls, Snape’s fingernails dragging through the thick thatch of curls from where his pulsing, straining cock rises to thrust against Snape’s lips, Snape’s eyes as black as night watching the elation play across his face—Harry comes; harder and faster than he ever thought possible.

Harry screams as the explosive orgasm tears him apart, ripping his soul and sending it shooting along his cock into the greedy, expectant mouth still sucking him furiously. Harry shakes violently and commands his fingers to release their vice-like grip on a hank of black hair but his body remains highly uncooperative for many minutes; mini-shockwaves continue to course through him, even as Snape slides upwards, chest slicked shiny with sweat that mingles with his own until he’s lost once more in a searing kiss that tastes of his own salty desire.

“You are truly remarkable,” Snape whispers against the shell of his ear, sending shivers careening down Harry’s spine, “A second sexual encounter in less than an hour, and you still manage to come in a ridiculously short amount of time.”

Harry’s face crumples as the meaning sinks in. He suddenly feels very vulnerable as the memories of who this man truly is come flooding back with alarming clarity. Had he foolishly been romanticising a different Snape into existence all this time?

“For God’s sakes, what’s wrong with you? Why would you say that?”

Snape is smirking at him, the space that Harry’s body left as he recoiled away still visible beneath his naked form as he holds his weight on his elbows, cock just visible, pressed against his stomach, solid, red and angry.

“You think I could be indifferent to your recent carnal activity? With the man I had entrusted your well being to? I will not deny I would be disappointed should you choose to resume such a relationship with Mr Malfoy, however, I would prefer you make that decision now rather than come to the conclusion at a later date.”

“I don’t want Draco, I want you,” Harry protests, but there’s a niggling voice in his head that disagrees; at least in part. Harry beseeches Snape with his eyes but before he realises it, Snape is trawling through his mind.

It lasts barely a second before Harry gathers enough strength to throw him out, both of them falling against the mattress with the effort.

“Don’t you fucking dare!” Harry shouts, scrambling backwards into the pile of pillows and clutching at the sheets in an attempt to cover himself; as if this will somehow stop the invasion of his thoughts.

“How very interesting,” Snape pants breathlessly, eyes flashing as he stalks on hands and knees towards Harry. Harry isn’t quick enough to throw him off, or escape the rough hands gripping his biceps.

“You had no right to do that!” Harry glares, futilely attempting to put distance between them with jerky struggles.

“Shall I apologise, Potter? Did you think death had improved my personality? I can assure you it had no such beneficial side-effects.”

“You think I don’t know well enough by now what a miserable, sadistic bastard you are?”

Harry’s suddenly back in those Occlumency lessons; Snape’s sneering at him, his mouth twisted, eyes mocking and taunting as he circles Harry like a big cat stalking prey and Harry hates him, loathes him, needs him, wants him...

“More than anyone, I shouldn’t doubt.” Snape says thoughtfully, before releasing his grip.

Harry rubs his bruised arms and hugs them around himself.

“How did you survive?” he asks suddenly, ignoring the pounding of his heart and the screaming in his head, telling him to get the fuck out of there.

“How did you?” Snape counters pointedly over his shoulder, his back to Harry as he sits at the end of the bed. “I am led to understand you died too.”

“Are you ever going to tell me? Just for once, can’t you be straight with me?” Harry says exasperatedly.

Snape’s lips quirk into an almost-smile. “Straight with you?”

The pun is not lost on Harry, but right now it isn’t particularly funny.

“Just tell me.”

“No. I cannot see why it matters.”

Harry looks incredulous. “You can’t see why it matters?” he parrots, “It bloody well matters because I’ve spent the last month thinking you were rotting in the ground and repeatedly kicking myself for not having told you how I felt. It matters, because you just appear and say ‘Hey look, I’m not dead, and now, having spied on you to convince myself you really do give a shit about me, I’m just going to take you to bed and assume a good fucking will make you forget all about that big fat lie.”

Snape doesn’t move a muscle; not so much as a twitch to convey Harry’s words have affected him in anyway whatsoever, and Harry wonders if perhaps the man really is dead after all. Surely a normal person would have some kind of reaction?

“Well?” Harry prods.

“I think an infinitely more fascinating topic of discussion at this moment in time, would be your growing feelings for Mr Malfoy, wouldn’t you agree? I for one am most intrigued.”

Harry remembers how infuriating this man can be when he puts just the tiniest amount of effort into it.

“Okay, fine. Have it your way. Yeah, Draco was there. He held me in his arms and wrapped his hand around my cock. He pushed himself between my arse cheeks and came all over me as he bit my neck and I begged him to—“

“Yes, the rather startling bruising around your clavicle has not gone unnoticed—“

“—Twice. We did it twice and both times he didn’t try to fuck me even though I wanted him to, yes—“ Harry enunciates viciously at the look of disgust on Snape’s face, “yes, I wanted him to, okay? I could smell you on my pillow and I closed my eyes and breathed you in and I came with you in my head, I even whispered your name and—oh God—he must have heard. That’s what made him angry, I think, because the next thing I know he brought us here—“

Oh shit. Harry hadn’t thought about it before, it isn’t like he’s had time to, but it’s starting to make sense now.

“Ah. Poor Draco. The boy he publically hated yet secretly longed for finally succumbs to his advances, after he manipulates said object of desire during a period of emotional fragility, such an easy target, and such a Slytherin thing to do; but the body and heart are very separate which he perhaps did not consider. I was certainly not wrong in stating it must have been difficult for him to watch your grief. I had no idea he had feelings for you.”

“He—didn’t take advantage. Not really, and I won’t lie and say he did just to make you feel better.” Harry says with more certainty than he feels.

“And ever the noble Gryffindor. What a wonderful couple you’ll make.” Snape stands up and dresses himself, and Harry notices his clothes lying on the same chair from which Snape has retrieved his own.

“Perhaps if you hadn’t been such a bloody Slytherin yourself, we wouldn’t be in this mess! Pretending to be dead and spying on me, living here, in the dungeons! You must have been in your element watching me skulk around down here, thinking about you. It would have taken a second to reveal yourself and end my pain. Bet you loved that, didn’t you? Knowing I was hurting over you.”

Harry desperately wants to get his clothes and get the hell out but it means leaving the bed and the bed is warm and comfortable. And he’s still naked, and Snape is still standing at the foot of said bed, glaring at him and looking unusually flustered.

“On the contrary. I took no pleasure at all from it, the whole situation seemed ridiculously contrived. The hero of the Wizarding world skulking and mooning over his nasty, greasy professor, making moonlit visits to his grave. Time, I believed, would disabuse you of such pitiable notions. Strangely enough, it was Mr Malfoy who convinced me otherwise. He outright refused to take you to Spinners End if I were planning on watching you both with the Spy glass, so I reluctantly agreed not to and let him have it. I think now, perhaps, it is obvious why he did not wish for me to be privy to your time together there. Yet still he came and furnished me with the details of your visit, how it appeared to further entrench you in misery and not release you from guilt as it was meant to do. I suppose that was most admirable of him, considering his own feelings towards you.”

It dawns on Harry that Snape has probably said more to him in the last hour than he has in seven years.

“As for your—rather unusual thoughts on the situation, well—“ he drawls throatily, quirking an eyebrow at Harry, “I cannot say I am entirely opposed to the idea.”

Harry’s brow furrows in confusion as he tries to recall if perhaps the thought he thought Snape had seen, hadn’t been the thought he’d thought it was after all. Too many thoughts, he thinks, just before his brain short circuits.

“You—you aren’t angry? But—you—“ It’s no use. Adequate words will just not construct an appropriate sentence.

“I would have been far more disappointed had I discovered that your affections had been transferred, rather than merely shared, yes.”

“Fuck—do you know what you’re saying? You think we can be together? All three of us?” Harry cannot keep the prominent note of hope from his voice. The notion is just too good to be true, never mind viable. He watches Snape carefully, as the man takes his time considering and formulating a response.

“If Mr Malfoy is willing. If not, then you will have a decision to make,” he says eventually.

Harry crawls across the rumpled sheets and slips his arms around Snape’s neck, smothering his mouth with enthusiastic kisses. It vaguely occurs to Harry that he’s getting hard again, the image of himself delightfully sandwiched: Snape fucking him and Draco wetly mouthing his erection—

“Where is he?” Harry demands, jumping off the bed and hurriedly pulling on his clothes.

Snape looks amused, then schools his features not to betray him, a twitch at the corner of his mouth the only indication that he finds the situation and Harry’s eagerness remotely humorous.

“Spinners’ End, of course,” he says, as though it’s the most obvious place for Draco to be.

“What? Why is he there and not at the Manor or somewhere else with staff?” Harry stops long enough to ask, still wrestling with buttons his shaky fingers can’t quite fasten.

“Draco is as keen as I to live his life in the less-than-complimentary glare of media and public condemnation. He is using the place as respite until he decides how to proceed.”

“But there’s nothing there! No clothes, none of his stuff. He sat there in his underpants last night because his clothes were soaked and he had nothing to change into.” Harry says, hopping from one foot to the other in an attempt to reattach a sock.

“Really? How very devious of him. I can assure you it was highly unnecessary too, since his personal effects were merely hidden from your view under a Concealment charm.” Snape says.

“Of course they were. Neither of you could just be, I don’t know, open about everything? Bloody Slytherins.” Harry hisses.

“I would be rather careful how you phrase such an unusual request,” Snape says, ignoring the slur on his house, “I would not like to predict the outcome. It could yet be your grave we wail over in due course, should you offend him.”

Harry finishes buttoning his trousers and grins, “Right, like I’d ever find you sobbing in the middle of a cold graveyard, rueing my demise.”

Snape shrugs nonchalantly. “Perhaps sobbing is a little extreme. I would certainly wish to check for myself that I was finally rid of you, though.”

Harry’s grin widens as he finds a mirror and rakes a hand through his hair, ascertaining the amount of damage so much recent bed activity has inflicted.

“Really, Potter, I am certain Draco will not remotely care if your hair looks worse than usual.”

Truthfully, Harry doesn’t even know why he’s bothering but it’s a simple, familiar thing to do and today has been anything but simple and familiar so the motion is comforting. Could there seriously be anything more bizarre than finding out two men you thought hated you were instead harbouring smouldering, secret desire for you? And that the one whose grave you had cried over was actually very much alive all along; not to mention doing what he does best: spying. On you, of course. It all makes perfect sense when you’re Harry Potter.

It doesn’t matter, Harry tells himself, none of it matters now, because Snape is alive and Draco wasn’t fucking him out of pity. He’s not sure how he knows this, despite Snape’s rationalised explanation, he just does. And as unexpected as it is, it makes bloody sense in the weirdest, most twisted way. Of course Draco hated him; he hated him because he wanted him. Wasn’t that reminiscent of how it had been for Harry, too?

“Are you planning some ridiculously elongated babble in the hope that it will pass for a speech?” Snape mocks, penetrating Harry’s consciousness

“No, I was just thinking, that’s all.” Harry finds the last shoe underneath the chair.

“Merlin preserve us. Harry Potter philosophising, and he says ‘That’s all’. I imagine the Prophet would have a field day.”

“They’ll have a field day if I tell them about you,” Harry says, poking him in the chest before placing a kiss on his cheek. Damn difficult to do when you have to stand on tiptoes to reach. Lying down is far easier. His stomach lurches when he realises that very soon, he could be in exactly that position again, and this time, with two men he might not have to choose between. Doesn’t want to choose between.

“Aren’t you coming with me?” Harry asks.

“No, I imagine Draco will be more receptive to the idea if it comes from you.”

“Merlin, you’re just like him,” Harry says, drawing a hand across his throat to indicate the fallen Dark Lord, “He sent his minions to do his dirty work for him too.”

“Yes, and I am beginning to see the attraction,” Snape smirks, “However, I think from here on in, I shall privately refer to you as brats. It seems far more befitting than minions.”

Harry rolls his eyes, “You’re acting like it’s a foregone conclusion that Draco will even be remotely interested in what I have to say.”

“Perhaps, but if the Golden Boy’s tongue is not silver enough to seduce him, I can always find gainful employment for it elsewhere.”

Harry swallows, resisting the urge to lick his lips as his hand moves to cup Snape’s sustained erection, “Like here, elsewhere? You know, I’m sure another five minutes won’t drastically alter the outcome of my visit, may even help...if he’s cooling off.”

***