Reconciling Lily's Eyes

CHAPTER FOUR

Draco Malfoy is the last person Harry expects to come across surveying the Muggle card decks in Weasley's Wizard Wheezes. The fact that he's holding a light pink Pygmy Puff very gently to his chest makes Harry question reality as he knows it.

He is not amused.

It's been a really calm, down-to-earth sort of day so far, with no squealing second years begging to ride his broom, naked Ginnys scolding him, or dish throwing of any kind, and Harry's had long stretches of time, sometimes whole minutes even, when he hasn't thought of Snape.

He should've known it was all too good to be true.

He should've stayed home, safe and comforted by Kreacher's adoration and chicken sandwiches, maybe bring himself off a dozen or so times to a glossy new magazine of shiny looking girls with their legs spread. He doesn't want to deal with Malfoy today, to think about betrayals and heroes and sides and what all of it means now the War's over, or why he'd forgo that magazine for trick wands and U-No-Poo.

When he first catches sight of the Slytherin's form, hunched secretively over the playing cards as though looking at them were a crime, Harry almost walks right back out. Glaring at the back of his slicked blond head though, a wave of anger washes over him. Who is Malfoy to disrupt his day out? And with a Pygmy Puff, no less!

"Nice choice, Malfoy," Harry says, walking up behind him. "Perfect way to soften your image."

Malfoy jumps, and the cards he's holding spray across the floor.

He's different now.

He's taller, and not so pale as the last time Harry saw him, colour splashed across his cheeks and deep grey eyes clear. He's still pointy, every angle sharp like the edges of one of Hermione's new books, but he's grown into his angles, more of Narcissa showing through. He still has that sleek, pampered sheen he had when he was young though, and his fine grey robes drape across his slim but solid shoulders, still as much the Seeker as always. He smoothes at them with the pale, slender fingers of one hand, holding the tiny Puffskein to him with the other.

"See something you like, Potter?" he sneers, and Harry blinks.

Because he does.

He wants to strip Malfoy naked right here, slide those expensive robes over his head and lick every inch of his malicious body. He wants to press that slim, spiteful chest up against the display racks, throw him onto the floor, blond hair and playing cards splayed out beneath him and nasty grey eyes hungry. He wants to take his wicked, slick prick in his mouth and make him moan and writhe and curse and gasp Harry's name. He wants to raise his bare arse into the air, look back over his shoulder and watch Malfoy's haughty features contort in bliss when he comes inside him.

It must show on Harry's face because Malfoy looks terrified.

"What're you playing at, Potter?" he demands, eyes wide.

Harry swallows, and Malfoy's terror must be catching because he feels it rising in him, spreading sharply like needles through his chest, his limbs, his now hard cock.

Oh God, he thinks, I want Draco Malfoy.

But he doesn't, he wouldn't, he couldn't. It's wrong, far more wrong than it would've been last night with Ginny, or ever with Snape because that's supposed to be wrong. This is something new and horrible and so completely unexpected, Harry's only option is to run.

The shop door swinging closed behind him, Harry pants in the April chill, and the storefronts of Diagon Alley spin in front of him. No place is safe anymore, like when Sirius was hunting him third year, or the Snatchers, and all Harry wants is something safe, and certain, that will make whatever's suddenly wrong with him go away.

Except that it's not suddenly because when he thinks of it, it's been there for a long time, but he somehow only just noticed how much it hurt. It feels like someone took a chunk out of him, somewhere just near his liver, and Malfoy's only reminded him it was there, poked around at it and smirked as Harry cringed.

A man in a purple cloak puts his hand on Harry's arm, and he jerks. "Are you alright, son?" he asks.

"Yeah!" Harry gasps and realizes he's still on the steps of George and Ron's shop, one hand against the rough brick of the outside, the other clutching at his middle. "Fine, just-- stomach ache!"

The man frowns, and then comprehension lights his face. "I know who you are! You're--"

Harry needs to get out of here. He needs to get out of here now, and with a sudden epiphany, he realizes where he needs to be.

Snape's house isn't hard to find. Harry just looks for the dreariest, most abandoned looking hovel at the end of the block. Spinner's End is an awful, ugly place just like Snape, even the cool spring breeze stinking in his nose as he pounds on the door, but Harry doesn't care. There is a pit inside of him, and it aches, and he has to make it stop.

The look on Snape's face when he opens the door is a mixture of too many emotions for Harry to sort out, even if he wanted to. "Is there some great emergency, Potter?" he demands, hand still firm on the door.

"Yes!" Harry exclaims, and launches himself at the man.

Their lips connect with a bruising force, and Harry's momentum drives Snape back from the door. Harry's heart is pounding in his ears, and his hands are on Snape's robes, around his neck, in his hair, anywhere he can get them, anything he can touch, any way he can get closer. Snape is protesting, shoving at Harry's hands and cursing into his mouth, but Harry won't let go, even feeling the man's robes rip in his fist.

"I can't do this anymore!" Harry screams when Snape finally manages to shove him away. His voice sounds mad in his own ears, and Snape is raging, hitting him, striking his glasses from his face and throwing him against a wall.

Harry hits him back, kicks, yanks hard at his hair, and digs his nails into his neck. "I can't! I have to-- please!"

Snape's teeth are bared, eyes wild, and hands dug into Harry's hair. "Shut up, shut up, you stupid boy!" he hisses, jerking his head back so hard Harry cries out.

"Please!" he begs again, his voice breaking at the pain and frustration, fingers caught in the rip in Snape's robes, and body arching toward him, "Professor, please!"

"SILENCE!" roars Snape.

Harry sobs, hitting with both fists at his chest with all his might. "Professor, I can't wait any longer! PLEASE!"

Snape makes a choked noise and then his lips are on Harry's, tongue filling his mouth, hands behind his head drawing him in with the same violence they pushed him away with moments before. Harry moans and twists his fingers into Snape's hair, forcing their bodies together, and when it seems they can't get close enough, he grabs a hold of Snape's arse and wrenches him forward.

He can feel the heat of Snape's cock even through the robes, so hard against Harry's hip that he whimpers into Snape's mouth, sucking frantically at his tongue. Snape makes a noise in return, deep and gut-wrenching, digs his fingers into Harry's neck, and grabs on to his arse. Harry shudders as his hand squeezes and grasps and pulls him in rhythm to the chaotic, jerking thrusts they've worked themselves into, fingers biting into his flesh.

The heat that's spreading through Harry's body has been building for so long, through all those nights they didn't talk or touch, all those empty times Harry brought himself off to the sounds of his own moans. Here like this, with Snape's body pressed into his every curve, it's everything he's been missing, and when Snape's hand shifts lower on his arse and a finger presses into the back of his balls, a burst of pleasure runs through him and he almost loses it.

Head spinning and lungs burning for air, Harry stumbles as Snape releases him. Gasping, he is thrown seconds later onto the hard surface of a small table, the sounds of clattering metal and breaking glass filling his ears. He reels and grabs at the far edge of the table, laid over it like a twisted feast.

Snape is behind him, pulling up Harry's robes with one hand and holding him down with the other. The cool air of Snape's house is suddenly rushing across the bared skin of Harry's thighs, and he hears himself make a noise of shock when Snape tugs at his pants. He feels them drop to his feet and kicks them off, arching impatiently and pressing his arse back into Snape's grasp.

"Hurry up," he says, "God," and it comes out all breathy and needful, exactly the way he feels.

Snape hisses between his teeth and pulls open his own robes. Harry can hear the rustling of the fabric and the plink of a lost button against the floor and utters the longest string of breathless profanities he can manage, his fingers biting painfully into the wood of the table and cock throbbing between his legs.

Harry gasps when Snape kicks his feet further apart and slides in between with bare hips. Snape swears loudly, rubbing between Harry's thighs, but dry, without the nice, slick feel of the last time. He swears again and his hands leave Harry for a split second before one presses into the small of his back and Harry feels something sharp jabbing at his arsehole.

He winces as it's pressed against him, and then inside, and his thighs tremble with the effort to keep still in this unnatural position. Snape whispers something, swears, and when whispers again, and the thing in Harry's arse suddenly grows warm and slippery. His cock jerks in response, and he clenches and feels something hot and jelly-like drip down the inside of his thigh.

The sound of Snape swallowing is followed closely by that of something wooden hitting the floor, but at that same instant Snape reaches a hand around and grabs Harry's cock, and all else vanishes. His hand is firm and almost too wet, sliding so smoothly down Harry's shaft and striking his balls that he shouts in surprise at the feeling.

"Shh…" Snape hisses, and Harry doesn't know if it's an order or a sound of pleasure and doesn't have the will to care, especially when he feels something slide inside him and curl upward to the same rhythm as Snape's fist. But as quickly as it entered, the thing pulls out, and Harry presses his arse back for it with a whimper.

It is replaced by something so very much larger pressing at his entrance, and the hand around Harry's erection halts. He takes a deep breath, willing himself to relax, to be still, as Snape's cock pushes slowly inside.

It should be uncomfortable, something that large shoving up somewhere it's really not supposed to be. It's not. Snape's fingers are bruising his hip bones, Harry's hard cock forgotten, but he feels warm and filled, the way it was when Snape did this to him in bed. This time there's an edge though, a feeling spreading through Harry's insides that has nothing to do with nestling animals.

It starts slowly, like the burn of sore muscles, and there's something just there, just beyond the head of Snape's thrusting cock. If he could just reach that spot, that spot, and Harry shoves his arse back at Snape to try for it. His thighs tremble and chest hitches, but if he could just get Snape to… that spot just there…

When he finally does, he feels as though he might explode, and he's shouting at Snape not to stop, to do it again, and then he is and Harry is screaming. It's like a solid ball of orgasm, that spot inside him, and he screams and screams and grabs his own cock and feels his sweaty fingers slip from the tabletop and his thighs shove against it with Snape's vicious thrusts but doesn't care because he's going insane, completely out of his mind, and he has to come now or lose it altogether.

Snape curses and forces him against the table, pinning his body against it with his own and pulling at his hair so hard it should hurt but doesn't because Harry's hand is jerking up his slick shaft and Snape is pounding into that spot inside him and he's going to come right now, bent over a table like a whore and screaming for more! and harder! and more!

And then he comes, hard, and arcs and pounds the table and screams it as the release washes over him. He hears and feels Snape join him, and he has no words for the feeling it brings him. Panting against the sweat slicked wood of the tabletop, Snape spread out atop him, body limp with pleasure, Harry wishes it will never end.

But of course it does, sooner than he hopes, and Snape slides to the ground, his softening cock pulling out of Harry with a wet and uncomfortable pop.

Harry moans, closing his eyes because his head is reeling. When he tries to follow Snape down onto the ground, he wavers and slips, catching his chin hard on the edge of the table. Sprawled out on the cold wood floor, he clutches at it, squeezing his eyes shut with the sudden but distant pain, head light and body deliciously lax and spent.

When he opens his eyes, it is to the blurred sight of Snape on his back, hair tangled and spread out over the remains of what probably used to be a lamp but is now assuredly rubbish. Even without his glasses on, Harry can see he looks an absolute mess, hand over his eyes as though he has a headache, black robes ripped halfway across his chest, too-large cock laying motionless and soft across the sticky white mess at the front of his robes.

Sighing, Harry abandons his bruised chin and slides over beside Snape to rub a hand against his thin shoulder. The man makes a little moan and reaches half-heartedly to tuck himself back into his robes, but gives up and settles for covering himself with slim white fingers.

He looks exhausted.

"Don't be angry," Harry says.

Snape sighs and rubs at his eyes. The corner of his mouth is swollen. "I am not angry."

"I couldn't do it anymore," Harry says, feeling awful as he looks at Snape's hurt mouth and ripped clothing.

"So you said," Snape murmurs, wincing as he dabs at the corner of his lip.

Harry makes a noise and dips his glasses-less eyes closer to pull the frayed edges of Snape's ruined robes together across his still panting chest. "I'm sorry, Professor, I…"

Snape's pocket is ripped as well, the one over his heart, and from it Harry sees his mother's face smiling up at him from the picture Snape stole from Sirius's room. He tucks it inside so Snape won't know he's seen.

"If you are sorry, Mr Potter, then I am Madam Rosmerta," Snape tells him. He tips his head up just far enough to see the mess at his waist, swears, and thumps his head back down against the wood of the floor.

"I just… I missed this," Harry explains.

"We have never done this," Snape retorts.

"Of course we have. We used to do this all the time," Harry insists, frowning down at his fingers, which are laced with several of Snape's long hairs. He expects them to be black, but they are not. "Don't tell me you don't remember, it hasn't been that long. Professor, are you going grey?"

Snape groans and attempts once more to right the sorry state of his cock. His temples, Harry now sees, are streaked with silver. He wonders how long they've been that way without him ever noticing.

"As astute as ever," Snape sighs, rolling to his side and pushing himself up onto his knees with a wince.

"What are you doing?" Harry asks, gaping when he sees Snape's cock still dangling outside his robes.

Snape stumbles to his feet, reminding Harry of the time he got pissed, and catches himself on a wall covered in books. The entire room seems to be books, actually, but Harry can't afford to pay it much attention, eyes glued to Snape's exposed cock. It may just be the most obscenely appealing thing he's ever seen. "Professor…" he starts.

"Shower. I smell like Gryffindor," the man answers, making a face. "And stop calling me Professor. You're giving me a complex."

"But can't we just stay here for a minute and… Profess--"

Snape's blurry back is toward him and he is tottering down a narrow hallway, shaky hands guiding himself on the books that line it. Feeling very unappreciated and malicious, Harry hopes he's smearing goo across all their spines.

When he hears the shower running, he's quite shocked. Who'd have guessed Snape even knew what a shower was? Harry's never heard him take one. He thought the man was bluffing.

Squinting around the room, Harry pulls out his wand and casts an Accio on his glasses, which are miraculously unharmed. With them on, he realizes what a disaster they've made of Snape's entryway. And then he realizes what a disaster they've made of him. Shuddering, he stuffs his wand back into his pocket and sifts through the broken things on the floor in search of his pants to wipe himself clean with.

They are mysteriously gone, Banished perhaps to the depths of Snape's cellars, or some such. Toilet then, Harry decides with an annoyed sigh.

The toilet is about the size of a broom closet, and Harry actually thinks that's what it might've started out as. The shower is still running at the back, the water splashing against the cheap plastic curtain an inch from his left elbow, and when Harry sits on the loo, his knees actually bump against the sink. He rolls his eyes when he notices there's no mirror.

"Ugh," he says to the sticky mess between his thighs, and grabs a wad of toilet paper.

"Potter?" Snape's voice says over the spray of the shower.

Harry makes a face, tosses the paper into the bowl, and grabs another handful. "Have you almost finished?" he asks, wrinkling his nose in distaste.

"What in Merlin's name are you doing in my washroom?" he demands, and Harry thinks he sees him pull the curtain tighter to the edges of the stall.

"Shitting out your come, what do you think I'm doing?!" he shouts over the sound of the water with a frustrated glare at the shower stall, feeling filthy but satisfied for having said it when Snape is being such a bastard.

"Potter!" he warns.

"Professor!" Harry taunts, hoping he gives the man a dozen really bad complexes this very instant.

Snape curses at him and the curtain pulls away from the wall just far enough for his drenched head to stick out and look abashed at the sight of Harry with his robes over one shoulder and his hand between his legs holding a clump of wet, brownish toilet paper.

"What, you didn't believe me? You're the one who put it there," he says crossly. "And what the hell did you do with my pants, anyway? I can't find them anywhere."

Snape looks incensed and ducks back into the shower, jerking the curtain back into place. "Around your ankle, you bloody imbecile!"

Harry blinks down at his feet to find the formerly missing pants twisted up in his left sock. Well, that was embarrassing, he thinks, a flush rising to his cheeks. "Have you got shampoo in there?" he asks to distract himself.

He nearly jumps when the water turns off. "Out of my bathroom, Mr Potter," Snape commands.

Taking a hesitant peek between his legs and remembering the disaster with his pyjama bottoms last time, Harry says, "I was thinking I'd just get in after you. I'm still rather, I mean--"

"Absolutely not! Out!"

Harry makes a noise of protest. "But… are you kidding me? I'm all… gross feeling!"

"Tragic." Snape's voice drips with sarcasm. "However, I find myself currently unclothed and without a wand with which to remedy the situation. So if you would be so irreconcilably kind…"

Harry's jaw drops. "What, you don't want me to see you naked? That's what this is about?! Professor, you just-- I mean, we just-- I'm not saying I'm dying to sneak a peek or anything here, but--"

"OUT!" Snape roars.

Harry sighs and stands, untangling his pants from his ankle and sliding the white fabric up his thighs. "If you're going to hog the bloody shower, next time we're using a condom," he announces, and marches out to the sound of Snape's offended splutters.

That night, even though Snape insists he sleep in the awful little room upstairs with the battered chest and sagging mattresses, Harry knows he doesn't mean it.

Indeed, when Harry slides into bed with him in the room with the old painted flowers on the walls, Snape wraps his arms around him and lays soft kisses across his cheeks. "Close your eyes," he whispers, and kisses Harry's eyelids as well.

His body is warm and comfortable, and Harry slides his hand across Snape's bony chest and down to his soft little belly and has to smile because this is so much better than Draco Malfoy. He wants to tell Snape that, but it makes no sense in the first place, so he says instead, "When are we going back to Salem?"

Snape sighs, breath hot against Harry's skin, and pulls him closer. "Are you so eager to go, then?" he asks in a quiet voice.

"Mmm," Harry answers contentedly, giving Snape's belly a pat, "your house smells."

With rather more patience than he thought the man possessed, Snape draws Harry's hand away, resting it against his heart instead. In the still of the night air, Harry can feel it beating against his palm. "I don't belong here anymore," Harry whispers.

"Nonsense," Snape murmurs back and runs his fingers through Harry's messy hair. "You belong wherever you want. You're the Chosen One, you moron."

Harry smiles, pats Snape's belly once more to his disapproving snort, and drifts off to sleep.

*****

Harry's eyes flick cautiously from the look on Snape's face to the small box in his hand. "When I said we were using a condom next time, that is not what I had in mind," he tells the man.

Snape crosses his arms, looking surly. The box sticks out from behind his elbow, bright blue and white label burning Harry's retinas.

Harry sighs and looks away, lying back against the sofa and doing his best not to think of Snape entering a Muggle pharmacy in his billowing black robes and demanding prophylactics. "Look, I appreciate the gesture and all, but I'm really not interested. Honestly, I swear." God, the store clerk must be scarred for life.

Snape taps his fingers impatiently against the box.

"I mean, I wasn’t joking at Easter, but what I really want is…" he trails off, not entirely sure what to say.

Because what does he really want?

It's not like Snape hasn't touched him since they got back. He has, often, but for some reason, it’s now Harry's responsibility to start things, to reach over in bed and run his hand across Snape's shoulder, or slide the quill from his fingers, pull him from his chair, and lead him by the wrist to the sofa. Only then will Snape snog him, or suck him off, or lie beside him and squeeze their cocks together until Harry’s shaking and clinging to his chest.

It should be ideal but it's not, partially because Snape hasn't touched his arse, but mostly because every so often he snarls and snaps, "Not now, Mr Potter!" and sleeps on the sofa for the next four days. Harry wishes he understood why. It's really frustrating.

Snape clears his throat.

"Look, don't get me wrong, I definitely want to use them and all, but why do we have to..." flustered, Harry gestures wildly, "change things up? I mean..."

"Ah," sneers Snape, "so you prefer to simply lie back and think of England, as it were. Is that what they teach all the good little Gryffindors? I should have guessed."

Harry throws him a look. "Shut up about Gryffindors already. And what does England have to do with anything? Look, I don't get why this is an issue-- you already know what I like, and it doesn't involve me... you know... I mean, I like when you put it in."

"You possess all the maturity of a five year old, Mr Potter," Snape informs him, steps forward and holds out the condoms again, rather closer to Harry's nose. "As well as the vocabulary. This will change. You shall do as I say."

"I will not!" Harry insists, crossing his arms tightly across his chest, determined to stay glued to the sofa until Snape gives up. "Why the bloody hell would I want to do something like that? Where's the appeal?" He hopes it will be soon, because he really, really hates this conversation.

"The… appeal," Snape says, as though the word tastes very badly in his mouth.

"I've done that sort of thing dozens of times with Ginny, it's boring," he informs the man. "Well," he recants, squirming uncomfortably, "not exactly that sort of thing, you know, as far as er, location goes, but the same general sort of… God, why am I talking about this?"

"I wish you wouldn't," Snape informs him, looking like he wants to stuff the box up Harry's nose. "I've had that in my mouth, you know."

Harry's cheeks heat. "Look, we can do anything else you want. Anything. Whenever you want. Wherever. Just… not that, alright? I'm really not interested. Not my thing. Honest. I'm good."

Snape stands, condoms still held in front of Harry's face, scouring him with a look of harsh intensity. Harry raises his chin, firms his lips, and does his best to look determined instead of really, incredibly squeamish at the thought of stuffing any part of his body up Snape's scrawny arse. What is he supposed to do, bend the man over a table the way he did Harry in Spinner's End and be turned on by his bony spine and the back of his greasy, greying head?

Guh.

Besides, not only is the thought of buggering Snape a huge and ghastly turn off, it's just too bloody intimidating. What if he does it all wrong and can't bring Snape off, or only lasts ten seconds or something? And it's not like with a girl, so what if he can't even, you know, fit it in there right? What if he's so pathetic he can't do it at all and just stands there with his silly, wilted little prick in his fingers and Snape laughs at him and never wants to touch him again?

Not that Snape laughs, and not that Harry's ever had performance issues, but still. It's just too much.

After a moment, Snape sniffs and slides the box into his wand pocket. Harry lets out a sigh of relief as the garish DUREX disappears into the folds of his robes.

"Anything else I want. Whenever, wherever. Remember that, Mr Potter," Snape says, and stalks off to the kitchen, where his usual stack of uncorrected homework awaits him.

Harry hopes he doesn't fail too many students on his behalf but is, in truth, not overly concerned. Doesn’t Snape realize Harry’s always up for anything, whenever, wherever?

He discovers later that evening that he may have been mistaken about that when Snape jerks the Transfiguration text from his hand, yanks his chair away from the kitchen table and orders, "Close your eyes and shut your mouth, Potter."

"I was revising!" Harry protests.

The back of Snape's hand stings as it strikes his cheek, not hard, but enough to make a point. "Close your eyes. And shut your mouth. Do not move."

Harry throws him a glare before obeying, since it's better than the alternative. And it's not that he's at all averse to the sex of course, as long as he doesn't have to-- you know-- but is all this ordering around and hitting really necessary? Can't they just talk it out?

Why is communicating with Snape as comfortable as a dissolved limb and a bottle of Skelegrow?

With his eyes closed, Harry feels strangely lost. For a few minutes, his senses tell him nothing, and he's left guessing at what's coming next. It's confusing, and it reminds him of his hated Occlumency lessons, which doesn't help. Once or twice he actually suspects Snape has gone and is amusing himself by making Harry sit alone in a chair immobile for no particular reason. It seems like his style.

He sighs heavily at the thought.

A noise from Snape follows his sigh, something choked coming from the blackness directly in front of Harry, and then a sort of squishing sound he's come to recognize as a hand on wet cock. He bites his lip, liking what he hears but nervous because he can't see what's going on, and Snape makes another noise, and then swallows.

"Do not speak, do not open your eyes," he says. "Kneel on the floor."

Harry feels a tingling shock run through him and he follows the orders, taking a shaky breath as he hits his knees, palms resting against his thighs. If Snape's about to do what he thinks, Harry’s more than willing, but he’s only done this once and will not be held responsible for vomiting all over his robes if the man doesn't pull out.

Even so, his mouth goes dry at the thought of it, that thick, heavy cock back in his mouth, and though there's an edge of panic to the idea of Snape just shoving it down his throat without warning, it makes him harden in earnest. He licks his lips and hears Snape speed up, and he can smell how near he is. Harry wonders if he might get away with pressing his palm into his own lap, if he’s sneaky about it.

Snape is panting, the sound mingling with that of his slick erection and the material of his robes rubbing together as he fists at it, and Harry decides he has nothing to lose. Careful to keep the rest of his body still no matter how fast his heart is beating or how stiff his cock is, he slips his right hand up his thigh so slowly Snape would have to be looking right at it to notice.

It doesn't make it to his now throbbing cock though because Snape suddenly takes hold of the front of his robes and twists him away from the chair. "Do not speak, do not… open your eyes," he pants. "Lie back and put your… your arms… clasp your hands above your head."

Harry hisses when his shift in position rubs his cock against the fabric of his pants, and he feels horny and stupid laying on the kitchen floor with his hands over his head. Snape makes an approving noise, and Harry feels an ankle on each side of his hips, and then with a groan Snape crouches down over him. Knees slide down and come to rest against his sides, and Harry gasps as he feels a brief and amazing bump of something against his groin.

Snape hisses and his legs tense around Harry's torso, and Harry squeezes his hands together and jerks his hips up, hoping to hit against whatever touched him before. They find nothing, the rub of his tight pants making him moan. Snape's cock is so close to his lips, he can feel the moist heat radiating from it, smell it, and he opens his mouth wide, tilting his chin toward it.

Harry’s bottom lip touches the hot, sticky tip, and a hiss comes from above him, and then a groaned curse, and something hot and wet dribbles across Harry's face. The curse comes again, and more wetness, spurting onto Harry's cheek, against his glasses and over his lips, a bitter squirt of it hitting his tongue.

When he opens his eyes, spitting at the taste, Snape is leaning over him with his hand on his cock, an indescribable look on his face. "I could come again just looking at you like this," he whispers, almost longingly, and smears his come onto Harry's cheek with his fingers.

Harry stares. "You came on my face. On my face! All over my-- what the hell is wrong with you?!"

For a split second, Snape actually looks ashamed of himself.

"Oh my God, get off me!" Harry shouts, humiliated beyond words and not caring how the man looks, and shoves him onto the floor. "Does that make you feel better, like a bigger person, to-- what will we be doing next, pissing on each other? That's sick! What sort of bloody freak are you?!"

"Will you leave now?" Snape asks.

"What? No! I just don't like you to--" Harry makes an exasperated noise and wipes the sleeve of his robes against his gooey jaw. Scowling, he takes off his glasses to clean the gunk off of them. "If you're going to make a mess of me, you should at least let me do something. I didn't even get to watch, and my face is covered in come, and I'm completely not hard anymore! You ruined the whole sodding thing!"

"So you're not leaving?"

From his position on the floor, Harry can't see much more of Snape than his feet and robe covered calves, which are stuck up in front of his sprawled form. Harry rolls his eyes and crawls up to his side, his glasses still smudged, and when Snape's eyes meet his, that odd expression comes back over them.

"Of course I'm not leaving, Professor," Harry says, putting a hand over one of Snape's. "I just don't want to be treated like some sort of… sex object. I mean… I want for us to think of each other, and treat each other, like equals. You know?"

Snape pulls his hand away from Harry's and presses it to his temple. "And yet you still insist upon calling me Professor," he says tiredly.

"It's a term of respect!" Harry insists. "And it's hardly like you've started calling me by my given name either. Who ever heard of calling someone Mister in bed?"

"You make me feel like a paedophile," Snape retorts.

"You make me feel like a twelve year old," Harry counters.

"I have been attempting to putting the two of us on equal footing for months, Mr Potter," Snape says with a sigh, hand over his eyes as though even looking at Harry pains him. "You do not seem appreciative of my efforts."

Harry blinks. "Really? When? Recently?"

Snape sighs and pulls himself into a sitting position, his back giving a loud crack of protest, and tucks himself back into his pants. "Constantly, Mr Potter."

Harry wrinkles his nose. "I must've missed it."

"I am shocked," Snape deadpans, buttoning his robes.

"We are not doing this again," Harry informs him, scraping with his fingernail at something dried on the lens of his glasses. " Unless… I mean, you have to at least warn me first."

"Yes, well that rather defeats the purpose now, do you not think?" Snape asks with a scowl, looking like a scolded child as he stands and heads for the door.

"Where are you going?" Harry calls from his spot on the floor.

"Anywhere you are not," Snape tells him, and slides his stocking clad feet into his boots.

"Is there a word for the opposite of foreplay?" Harry asks. "Because if there is, you really suck at it. Or, I mean, even if there isn't, you still suck at it. How are we ever going to reach any sort of understanding if you pretend I don't exist half a second after you orgasm?"

"I have wanted what happened this evening for longer than you could possibly know. Once you gain an understanding of this, Potter, then I may be willing to consider your suggestions," Snape tells him angrily, and opens the door. "I will not hold my breath."

"What, so you've been wanting to sit on me and come in my face since I was eleven or something?" Harry says, appalled.

"Again in your egotism you assume everything that happens is about you, when things could not be further from the truth. You are not so important as that," Snape says with a sneer. "Do not wait up for me. Correct the essays on the counter. And change out of those robes, you've got white all over the sleeves, it's vile."

Harry stares at the door as it closes behind Snape and wonders where he went wrong. Is it his fault he doesn't think he can keep a decent hard-on with his cock shoved up where the git shits from? Is that supposed to be appealing? What the fuck?

After a time, he decides this is one of the many things that are not meant to be understood, and he changes into his pyjamas and eats treacle tart, tossing the dirty dish rather violently against the wall afterwards for no particular reason. He considers burning the essays but gives them all A's instead, thinking that will make Snape angrier in the long run. There's nothing like giving someone something they don't deserve when it comes to setting the man into a frothing fury.

Harry is surprised when Snape comes home that night, and even more surprised when he rolls him over in bed and gives him a very thorough sucking-off. He does it without a word though, rolling over to sleep when he’s finished, and it leaves Harry feeling empty, like he's been attacked by a Dementor and hasn't had his chocolate yet. Like he wanted a hug but got a handshake instead. Like he should’ve known all along it was only a handshake, and he’s sold himself for less than he’s worth, and it’s easier to just fuck than try to fix what’s wrong.

Like what’s wrong can never be fixed and he’s been fooling himself this whole time about bonding and understanding, his free will being drained away one hot spurt of come at a time, and now he’s all hollow and parched and cold inside.

He remembers what Snape said to him on Halloween, just before he passed out in a sodden mess, and thinks rather hysterically that maybe souls really do come in ounces.

Harry sits down at the breakfast table the next morning already feeling unnaturally pensive and downtrodden, and finds himself in for an even less welcome surprise.

"What is this?" he demands, holding up a letter bearing the name Prof. Severus Snape on the front and a small blue crest of crossed wands shooting forth stars from their tips on the reverse. "I recognize this from the Triwizard Tournament," He says, tapping at it. "This is from Beauxbatons. Why do you have a letter from Beauxbatons?"

Snape, sitting at the table across from him, does not answer, even when Harry asks again in a much less polite tone.

The letter itself looks like gibberish to Harry, written entirely in French, all le and la and une and funny little accent marks, but he throws Snape a dirty look and tries to read it anyway, just to be spiteful. His heart plummets in his chest when he manages to decipher the repeated phrase professeur de la Défense Contre les Forces du Mal.

"You're going to teach Defense Against the Dark Arts at Beauxbatons," Harry says, dumbfounded. "Are you joking? I can't believe this."

"What you are and are not capable of believing is not my concern," Snape informs him, sipping his coffee with an air of pretension.

Harry feels his anger rising. "So you're going to run again. You'd rather head off to bloody France--"

"No one is running anywhere, Mr Potter, unless it is you. I came to Salem for one year in order to wait for the DADA position to open up at Beauxbatons. This has been my plan from the beginning," Snape says. "I shall not be returning to your precious Hogwarts. Ever."

This is not happening. Harry assures himself of this several times in quick succession, takes a deep breath, and tells Snape, "You're not going to Beauxbatons. You don't even speak French."

Snape graces him with a nasty smile. "Vous croyez qu'on n'est pas capable de l'apprendre? Peut-être vous, mais moi…"

Harry gapes. "You're kidding me, right? You are fucking kidding me! We cannot move to France!"

"Again this ridiculous idea of we, Mr Potter," Snape says. "There is no we. We is finished. We never was. You shall stop running from your many and preposterous personal demons and return to your life. You shall not be accompanying me in my new life."

"Your new life!" Harry shouts, slamming a fist against the table. "What about this one?! What about your students here, your poor first years who'll never have a decent professor ever again, what about--"

What about me?

"I informed my students yesterday that it was the last day they would ever be seeing my smiling face within the walls of their Institute. They were overcome with distress, I assure you," Snape says cynically. To Harry's shocked look he adds, "Did you not realize the year was over? It is July. Those essays were Final Examinations. It's fortunate you graded them as you did, as I fear none but Miss Barnett would have passed the course otherwise."

Harry stares at him, baffled. "It's July? How did that happen?"

"I shall certainly not explain to a man nearly nineteen years of age the annual progression of months, and I am quite glad you shall be leaving my presence soon, as you are so dim that insulting you has ceased to bring me its accustomed pleasure," Snape informs him. He sets his coffee down and stands.

"You shall stop this charade, Mr Potter," he continues, "the sooner the better. No more running from your problems, no more locking yourself in this flat for weeks on end, no more alienating those who care about you. I have made enough excuses for you, and you have had plenty of time to recover from your trauma. You shall return to your life."

"My," Harry splutters, "my trauma! Making excuses-- you!? When have you made excuses for me? When have you ever given a damn about how I deal with my problems and people who care about me?!"

"As you might have guessed given you possessed the mental capacity, Miss Granger and I have been in contact for some time," Snape tells him.

Harry gapes, feeling numb.

"I have been keeping her apprised of your situation down to the food you eat and when you use the toilet with the assurance that I am looking out for your wellbeing, as you seem incapable of it yourself. Being the soft hearted Gryffindor that she is, she was very understanding about how a lonely old man such as myself might give in to certain… unsavoury urges. I made a most solemn vow and assured her it would not happen again." Snape regards him searchingly, a frown twisting his lips. "She is unaware of my inability to honour it."

Harry swallows. "I don't understand," he murmurs. Sure he has some issues, but is he really so badly off that he needs constant supervision? Has he really locked himself inside? He couldn't have… but how, then, did it suddenly become July? What about the Quodpot QUEAR matches and Teddy's birthday? Has he really missed them? What about owling his friends? Has Is all he's done for the past three months sit, read, and stare out the window, waiting for Snape to get back from work?

What the hell is going on?

Snape clears his throat. "You shall return to your life with no one the wiser. Miss Granger and Mr Weasley know nothing, nor does your long abused girlfriend. You shake yourself out of this funk and pull yourself together, return to your home, and go back to being the obsequiously and undeservedly admired hero you so long to be."

"No," Harry tells him. "That's not how things are. I'm not hiding. I'm here to help you. I'm here to--"

"Bond," Snape sneers. "I remember. Mr Potter, this will not happen. We shall never understand each other, I shall never open up to you, we shall never be on a first name basis, and we shall never, ever, until the day I die, discuss one single word in regards to your mother. Ever. Do you grasp my meaning?"

Harry feels dizzy, and he grasps onto the edge of the tabletop for support. "But you need me!"

"Need you!" exclaims Snape. "Would you like to know the only reason I do not rest peacefully in my grave, where I should have been for the past eighteen years? If anyone else had received those memories, I would be there now, and happily. If any other member of the Order, no matter how insignificant, had been there when Nagini had struck me, I should not have bothered with Antivenom. Mr Potter, I clung to life after giving you those memories simply because I did not trust you know what to do with them!"

Harry shakes his head, thinking he might vomit. This is not happening. This is not happening. This is not--

"You are afraid," Snape says, leaning over the table. "You are terrified to go back to your life, to Britain, to face up to what everyone wants you to be--"

"What do you expect me to do!? I never asked for any of this! I don't want people shaking my hand when I walk down the street, or sending me dozens of owls every day thanking me or writing stories about my star-crossed love life! I just want to live like a normal person and have a normal family and be happy!" Harry insists, grasping his stomach. "I just want to become an Auror and take care of you and Hermione and Ron and make everyone forget I destroyed stupid Voldemort! Why can't I just have that? Why?!"

Snape is suddenly leaning over him, his hands on Harry's shoulders. "Look at me, Mr Potter. Look at me!" he hisses.

Harry swallows and does, to see those hard, dark eyes boring into his, not flat and cold now, but deep and full of emotion.

"Listen closely, Mr Potter. You shall return to Britain. You shall make amends with all your former friends and admirers. You shall become an Auror and protect people from Dark wizards. You shall marry Ginny Weasley and have an obnoxious, cheerful, red haired Gryffindor family. And you shall be happy. Do you understand?" he asks, giving Harry's shoulders a shake. "You shall be happy!"

"But Professor…" Harry murmurs, head spinning.

Snape shakes his head, closes his eyes, and takes a deep breath. When he opens his eyes, he presses his lips to Harry's scar and tells him in a quiet voice, "You cannot save me, Mr Potter. I am beyond even your reach. Now go and pack your things."

And Harry does.

TBC