A Man Cannot Control His Dreams

Snape’s eyes were smooth and cold.

“Stop what?” he asked. Harry felt his anger flare up at the feigned innocence.

“Making me feel things! Stop!” The Potions Master’s lips curled up in a smirk and he stepped yet closer.

“I may supply the images, Mr. Potter, but the reactions are your own.” Harry flinched away from his hand. Suddenly he was scared. Not of Snape, no. Not of the situation. But of one idea, one question.

“Liar!” What if he was telling the truth?

“Believe what you will, Mr. Potter.” With one last piercing gaze that shot down Harry’s spine like fire, Snape turned away. “You may go.”

****

The next day’s potion’s class was, if possible, even more excruciating. The potion they were attempting that class required an excess of precision and concentration, both qualities that Harry tended to lack. And, of course, Snape seemed to have it in mind to distract the Gryffindor even more. Every so often Harry would be forcefully reminded of the dream he’d witnessed. Everything brought it to mind. The bottles holding their ingredients. The swish of Snape’s robes. The work tables. and Snape’s voice chastising them. Everything.

When the class was nearly half over, Harry’s potion was an entirely inappropriate shade of chartreuse, while beside him Hermione’s was the suggested tranquil ice-blue.

“Your Mugwart cubes were really more like slices, Harry, I’m sure that’s why,” Hermione whispered sagely, as if he really wanted to hear about his geometric deficiencies.

“Thanks, Hermione, I’ll try harder next time,” he hissed back, Immediately feeling guilty for his tone when his friend sniffed indignantly and turned back to her potion. Resigning himself to no marks for the day, Harry began to poke irritatedly at the mixture, which was rapidly thickening to the texture of wet cement. He let his mind wander, and, of course, it could wander no place but one.

He felt like he’d already replayed the scene a thousand times. The image of Snape holding him down while he arched up and moaned seemed imprinted on his eyelids. It was an intoxicating tableau. He could almost feel Snape’s slender hand on his chest, pushing him back, or the dangerous touch of a wand-tip on his throat. Again, he tried to imagine just how it would feel to be pinned immobile while Snape kissed him.

So engrossed was he in the daydream, that he failed to notice when the end his quill wandered too close to the fire beneath his cauldron and ignited.

“Mr. Potter I believe you are aflame,” Snape commented from beside the chalkboard. It took Harry a moment or two of shock to realize he was being literal. And, of course, he immediately panicked and flung the pen to the floor. Hermione extinguished it with a tidy jet of water over the collective laughs of the class. “Do try to concentrate,” Snape continued drolly, and Harry glared back at him, trying to put all his thoughts on the matter into one piercing look. The Potions Master simply quirked an eyebrow.

Harry lagged behind when the rest of the class scurried away to their next classes. Once the last had gone, he approached the front of the room angrily.

“This has to stop!” he said, pointing an accusatory finger. Snape turned to look at him.

“I believe, young man, that you are overestimating my role in your inability to concentrate.” His words were innocuous – nothing a teacher couldn’t say to a student under different circumstances, but his tone… His tone was undercut by a smooth current of domination and craving. And Harry could feel it like something physical.

“Do you?” he replied scathingly, overcompensating the weakness in his knees and the heat under his skin with bravado. Snape brushed chalk absently from his hands.

“Did you feel my influence there?” he asked, moving to stand before Harry, looking over him just a little bit more. Harry fought the desire to step back. Now was not the time to cower!

“What does that mean?” Harry demanded in response. But, horribly, he thought he might already know. Snape withdrew his wand and, twirling it deftly between his fingers, made Harry’s boldness falter.

Harry took a step back. He’d put himself in a situation, he could tell already.

“My magical hand, Mr. Potter.” Snape nimbly slipped his wand back into his sleeve and out of sight. “You should know what it feels like by now. Think for a moment: Was I manipulating your mind?” He touched briefly at Harry’s thoughts, as if reminding the boy just what he was talking about. He felt a brief surge of burgeoning panic as he brushed through, along with a jumble of intriguing, fractured thoughts. Harry shook his head as if to clear him away like cobwebs.

“No…” he said slowly, resisting the knowledge. “I didn’t… It didn’t feel like that.”

“Then I’m afraid to say it’s you and you alone supplying… whatever daydreams

currently distract you.” Snape’s eyes flicked purposefully to the table nearest them. Harry recognized it at once. And at that same instant his mind was inundated with the most explicit of images. He could hardly notice, then, when Snape circled to stand behind him.

“That, however,” Snape murmured silkily, sliding a hand into unruly black hair, “is me.” Harry knew it already. He could feel Snape’s subtle influence funneling the thoughts into his head, and with it, his own response as it flickered to life within him. He felt drugged, not in control of himself, as Snape flexed the fingers in his hair. “Don’t try to deny what you want,” the man continued, voice dropped low. “Your mind is chaos with it.”

Harry couldn’t muster a response. He did want what Snape offered. He couldn’t believe it, but he did.

Snape observed him closely, relishing the feel of the hair between his fingers, yet reminding himself not to let Harry’s shallow, aroused breathing or flushed skin effect him too much. After all, he had another class in… Oh, 5 minutes. Snape pulled his hand from the Gryffindor’s hair, and mind at once, but with regret.

“Mr. Potter I doubt your other professors tolerate tardiness more than I do.” Harry turned slowly to look at him, still dazed from the deluge of fantasies Snape had invoked.

“I- I don’t have t-“ he started, but Snape cut him off.

“I also, have a schedule to keep. It would do you well to keep up with your own.” He could have been a parent scolding a child, but there was the subtle reminder of Harry’s detention lurking within the words, and Harry’s stomach clenched.

“Right,” he said. “I’ll be,” he cleared his throat nervously, “late for class. I’ll… go.”

At the door Harry hesitated. Took a breath. He should just go.

“Sir?” he asked to Snape’s back. “What, um, what did you say to me?”

“Excuse me?”

“Er, in the m- the dream. That I saw.”

Snape’s mouth twitched at Harry’s obvious nervousness. The boy truly wore his heart on his sleeve. Normally, this was a quality that Snape looked at with disdain, but he did find it useful, to know with one look how easily Harry could be swayed. But Potter's inquiry was a demonstration for another day.

“Another time, Mr. Potter.” Second-years began to trickle in past Harry, who, finally realizing the time, hurried away.