Making Do

Disclaimer: I\'m not JK Rowling, and even if I had my name legally changed, I would still own nothing more than my own copies of the books.
Warning(s): Harry is 16, Snape is not - if you find this offensive, please don\'t read.
Also, drug use.


Harry\'s not really sure how long he\'s been sitting here, waiting, chin
in hands, at this battered table, with his cloak hood pulled up and a ratty
blanket draped around his shoulders. He dozes; slips in and out of
consciousness with fade to black and back to white screen cuts, barely
registering the subtle gradations between asleep and awake. He can hear
Hermione, her voice soothing as water lapping at the edges of a calm lake as
she comforts other weary campaigners, collects information, consoles the heart
worn. Harry hears it all from the purgatory between sleep and self, unable to
fully connect with either. He sits, and he waits, for what he can\'t quite
remember, but he\'s sure it will come, just the same.

And then, a biting draft swirls around, cutting through the warmth Harry is
huddled in, carrying with it an even colder voice. "Miss Granger,"
whispered in the oh-so-familiar frigid tone, strips away the queer comfort
Harry has buried himself in and replaces it with clear and unavoidable awareness
and numbing fatigue.

His waiting over, Harry shifts, lets the blanket slide down his shoulders and
the hood fall back from his face. "Snape," he says, leaving off the
"Professor," not out of disrespect, but because he\'s not sure how
many words he\'ll have before exhaustion claims him entirely. The ever-constant
pain in his head flares, the blinding pressure of so many lives, so little
time, so little hope, tied in a knot around the brilliant searing of his scar.
The burning centered there never stops now, always shrieks with the intensity
of freshly branded skin - like the time Aunt Petunia had thrown a hot iron fry
pan at him and he\'d not dodged fast enough, and his skin had pulled away where
the scorching edge of the pan caught his arm, and the pain had boiled straight
from his spine and down to take the place of his missing flesh - and sometimes
Harry wonders how he can even stand anymore, let alone continue to fight. And
because his mouth has always, always been like this, he speaks before he can
stop himself, "How much can any one person take?"

Snape looks at Harry hard for a moment and Harry is surprised to see how
utterly bad the man looks, skin no longer sallow but parchment pale. And
looking parchment thin, too. His eyes, though, his eyes burn with the same
black, inescapable intensity Harry remembers from Snape and it\'s a brief rock
of familiarity to cling to in the wild rapids life has become. The moment
shifts when Snape\'s eyes do, and he slumps in a chair across the table in a
display of fatigue that echoes in Harry\'s soul. "As much as he has to, I
would suppose," Snape finally answers and they let the words and sentiment
die between them as they both grasp onto the mugs of steaming tea Hermione
places in front of them before taking a seat at Harry\'s side.

The china is hot under Harry\'s fingers, unpleasantly so until his nerves deaden
to it and the heat spreads out to his chilled hands. He loses himself in the
sensation while Hermione questions Snape, but brings himself back to the
unrelenting reality of the table as maps are spread out between the three of
them. Snape speaks low and quickly, fingers stabbing out strongholds and
positions of weakness. The grid on the papers look like a chessboard, and Harry
once again hopelessly wishes for Ron by his side. But there are things in life
one simply cannot have, Harry knows, so he throws himself into the planning and
strategizing as best he can. Snape has brought with him many of the puzzle
pieces Hermione needs, and Harry does not allow himself to think of the cost.
Every plan, every tactic, every battle won comes at a price, and they\'ll all
have paid far too much by the time it ends.

Slowly, their talk becomes circular, filled with too many "what-ifs"
and "if-onlys" to be useful. Harry grips his forehead in frustration,
trying to force the pain and inadequacy out by squeezing. Harry feels
Hermione\'s hand on his arm, "Is it your scar again?" and he tries to
respond in affirmation but only manages a strangled groan.

“I suppose you\'ve been long without adequate potions."

Harry drops his hand to stare at Snape, and laughs with a bitterness that he
knows is far too sour for any 16-year-olds mouth. "There never has been an
adequate potion."

“Perhaps not," Snape agrees mildly. Harry can feel those eyes on him
again, the cool assessment and weighing of things he imagines only Snape can
see. "Perhaps," and there is a pause as Snape begins searching his
robes, "Perhaps this shan\'t help, either. But neither do I believe it will
hurt." He holds a small metal box in his hands, and flips the lid before
he lowers it to the table and busies himself with its contents, a smallish heap
of greenery. The smell of the herb tickles Harry\'s nose with its familiarity,
but does not reveal its identity.

"Marijuana, Professor?" Hermione asks in her should-have-been,
would-have-been Head Girl\'s voice.

"Cannabis," Snape corrects. "An ingredient, which I\'m quite
sure, you, Miss Granger, will recognize as being a component in several
potions, particularly those of the healing variety."

"Oh! And in Dreamless Sleep, as well!"

Harry smiles to himself at the excitement in Hermione\'s voice. Nothing, it
seems, can kill her passion for learning. He listens with half an ear to
Snape\'s further lecturing on the plant and its properties and Hermione\'s eager
questions, not giving his attention to the facts, but to the warm, fuzzy
feeling of familiarity the exchange brings. For a moment, he can almost slip
mentally back to Hogwart\'s, can almost hear Neville\'s stuttering voice in front
of him and Ron\'s sardonic comments from his side, can almost smell the noxious
ingredients and taste them in the acrid dungeon air. He snorts in brittle
humor, in disgust with himself - how has he come to a place where he could feel
such a deep longing and nostalgia for the Potion\'s classroom?

Snape\'s eyes pin him again, and Harry meets them, allowing a trace of his
traditional Snape-fueled impudence to shine through in a shallow smile. Snape
lights a small hand rolled cigarette with his wand and inhales deeply before
offering it to Harry. "Inadequate, most likely, but one must make
do…"

Harry grins now; feeling recklessly heartened by the small artificial sense of
home generated between the three of them, and brushes Snape\'s fingers as he
slides the cigarette between his own. He smokes from it, and then holds his
breath in as Snape had done, before attempting to pass it to Hermione.

She pushes his hand back towards Snape. "No, I\'m not in any particular
pain, and I\'ve things to see to."

She leaves them then, and for several long minutes, the only sound between them
is the rustling of sleeves, and the slow inhale and extended exhale of breath.
The thing has almost half burnt-away before Harry thinks that he feels nothing
from it, no different. But by the time it rests, a small, spent cinder between
them on the box top, he knows different. Everything\'s still there, the pain,
the desperation, the death, the despair. But it can’t touch Harry; it\'s no
longer rubbing against his skin like a hungry cat, clawing and yowling at him,
no longer trying to consume him. It is there, and Harry is here,
and for the moment, for however long it lasts, Harry feels good.

"Oh," he says, looking at Snape in an entirely new way. And because
that\'s inadequate, and there\'s one thing Harry knows Snape hates above all else
- inadequacy in himself and others, Harry expands, "Thank you," and
smiles in the most sincere and simple way he can.

Snape stares back with a total lack of expression, but his tone is a few
degrees warmer than usual. "Ah, then, you\'re welcome, I suppose."

Harry beams at this, and catches the smallest fleeting glimpse of something in
Snape\'s face. Their gazes lock for an endlessly long moment, and Harry knows
his expression is fatuous as he ponders the intricacies of Snape\'s, but he
doesn\'t care, he\'s just happy to be in this time of now, where nothing
matters but the strange thoughts swirling through his head and the blessed
feeling of disconnectedness from it all.

Hermione is at his side again, murmuring things about sleep, an empty pallet,
extra blankets. Her chatter rushes by too fast for him to catch more than one
word in three, but Harry can\'t find the energy or focus to care. He vaguely
hears her arguing with Snape, something about too many Apparitions in too short
of a time, about how he looks worse than Harry, and how she\'ll not let him go
to splinch himself. And then they are in a long, darkened room with the late
afternoon sun peeking in around heavy drapes and vague, colorless heaps of
cloth around the perimeter marking the location of other sleepers. "You\'ll
have to share," Hermione tells them before weighting Harry\'s arms down
with blankets and scurrying away.

Harry doesn\'t know about Snape, but this pitiful excuse for a bed is the most
luxurious thing he\'s seen in ages. He quickly spreads the blankets out on the
few already there and then adds his cloak and outer robe to the pile. Harry
fingers the waistband of his jeans briefly in consideration; he hates to sleep
in them, wakes up feeling wrinklier and grubbier every day, and decides any
propriety in their situation disappeared long before this point was reached, so
he sheds them, leaving them in a crumpled heap with his boots on the floor. The
air is cold on his bare thighs, and he crouches down to slip into the bed, but
Snape grasps his wrist. "I\'d prefer to sleep against the wall, if you
don\'t mind," Snape says. So Harry waits, shifting from foot to foot in his
holey socks as Snape adds his outer garments to their coverings, slipping off
his trousers as well, but neatly folding them and dropping them on the foot of
the bed before snaking under the blankets and holding the edges up in
invitation.

And numbness was good, but this, this is bliss, each laying on their
side, Harry\'s back to Snape, a mountain of blankets over them. Snape\'s arm
cautiously comes around and his hand rests softly on Harry\'s abdomen, and the
air in the scant inches between them becomes supercharged with heat. It\'s so,
so good, and Harry cannot begin to stop the little noises of contentment he
makes as he snuggles back, cannot stop the small sigh of pleasure as his back
connects with Snape\'s chest and the heat between explodes and melts into each
neglected and frigid part of Harry\'s body. "Never knew," Harry
mumbles, feeling both incredibly stupid and enlightened, "Never knew
sleeping with someone could feel so bloody good."

"Hmm, yes. Be that as it may, I will have to ask you to stop wriggling
so." And Snape\'s hand stilling the restless twitching of Harry\'s hip in a
desperate attempt to get closer, to burrow into the warmth, brings with it the
realization Harry has been rubbing his arse on his potion master\'s barely clad
groin.

"Oh." And because this is weak, he adds, "Didn\'t mean to make
you uncomfortable, sir." Harry puts his hand on Snape\'s and squeezes
lightly to show he means it, and is allowed briefly before the hand slides
away, glides between his jumper and t-shirt, and settles there, fingers tracing
undecipherable hieroglyphs across his stomach. Harry wonders hazily at the ease
of this movement, but is much too warm and cozy to care.

"Not uncomfortable," Snape whispers into the fine hairs on Harry\'s
neck, sending small shivers skating across his skin. "But I\'m far too
exhausted for the appropriate response, and you, for the same reason, have no
idea what you\'re doing."

Before Harry can puzzle out the appropriate response, if there is one for the
circumstances, he feels the currents of sleep pulling at him, and so simply
breathes out, "Mmm-hmm," before he allows himself to be swept away.

When he wakes with the suddenness of falling down a flight of stairs, Harry has
no idea how much time has passed. Darkness has swallowed the room; only the
faintest outlines show the others present. As he wonders what woke him, he
waits, tense with held breath, for any signs of danger. Snape is awake as well,
Harry senses it in the stiffness of the body behind him and the clench of the
fist twisted in his t-shirt. And there comes a noise from across the room - a
voice moans quietly, and another joins it, not in the sighs of pain Harry knows
so well by now, but a call and response with deeper and richer intent, along
with a slow slide Harry knows, in his bones, must be flesh-on-flesh.

He listens, feeling trapped in his voyeurism, and his flesh responds to the
promise of pleasure the voices carry. His mind provides him with a scattering
of flashing images, the half-formed fantasies that had kept Harry\'s hand
company as it worked his cock in the stillness of the dormitory nights before
hell came to earth, before Hogwarts fell. Harry\'s internal pornography had
changed between 5th year and 6th, fleeting glimpses of
Cho, of Ginny, of Hermione were replaced with images of Ron in the shower after
Quidditch, of columns of pale, wet flesh, of Harry finding the courage to sink
is kis knees and worship with tongue and lips, of three Weasleys in the shower
instead of one, and Harry, naked and kneeling before them, breathing out,
"Use me," and having hands and cocks and tongues on him, in him,
around him. It has been so long, so long since he\'s thought of or felt any of
this, and the sensation overwhelms Harry, moves him involuntarily, pushes him
back against Snape.

Hot and hard and alive behind him. And responding in the same way. Thought
becomes action before Harry finishes thinking, and his hand surrounds Snape\'s,
drags it down as Harry turns to bury his moan in their shared pillow. Snape\'s
fingers spasm before firmly grasping, and Harry rocks, driving himself into
motion, losing himself there before he can stop to think this is never what he
wanted. What he wants doesn\'t matter anymore, because it can never be had.
Snape\'s earlier words about making do echo in Harry\'s mind, and it\'s suddenly
more important than anything to feel this now, while it\'s here, available.
Harry counts his lifespan in weeks, not years, and knows this opportunity may
never come again.

Snape, who can never leave well enough alone, who must always question his good
fortune, pants in Harry\'s ear, "Is this truly what you desire, Mr. Potter?
Do you even realize who you\'re rutting yourself against?"

Harry grinds back harder in retaliation, and hisses, "I don\'t want to die
a virgin," and the truth of it is enough for both of them. Snape\'s hand
tunnels into his pants as the other comes up from underneath to catch Harry\'s
stuttering moan before it can leave his mouth.

Harry writhes, and his boxers are around his knees and then gone as he suckles
the saltiness of Snape\'s palm. He can\'t stop moving now, for anything, for
anyone, the nerves in his cock sparking under Snape\'s fingers. He can\'t stop
moaning and whimpering, and he clasps a hand over Snape\'s to muffle the noise
better, to anchor himself in the maelstrom of sensation burning through him. As
the pressure builds, Harry grasps Snape\'s forearm, digs his nails in, but it\'s
not enough, so he fumbles back to the hip rocking against him, tears at the
cloth separating them, desperate to feel more skin, more heat.

Snape stops for a brief but painful moment, and then the hot, damp cock
pressing into the cleft of his arse warps Harry\'s wail of disappointment into
one of hunger and need. Harry sways back again; it\'s all at once both something
he\'s never felt and all he\'ll ever need, someone else\'s flesh flush against his
own, burnigaingainst him in feverish delirium. "So… responsive… so very…
hot… eager…" Snape pants out bitingly, grudgingly, into Harry\'s ear. Harry
rocks his hip in agreement and parts his legs so Snape\'s hand can slip between
them; so madding fingertips can spider along his inner thighs and brush across
his balls.

 

Harry literally shakes in Snape’s arms, his movement entirely
uncontrolled, fueled by touch and taste and heat. Harry burns, oh he burns, for
something hovering at the edges of his imagination, something just beyond his
reach. But surely, surely, Snape must know, and he proves it as his hand moves
down and back, circling and pressing until each nerve ending sends flares up
Harry’s spine. And he’s sure he’ll burst, simply combust when the touching
stops. He whines his frustration into Snape’s hand and dances it out against
his hips.

 

“Hold still!” Snape commands. “I need – “

 

But Harry t het hear what he needs, because Harry is all need, now, and
the rush of it through his body fills his ears with the hammering sound of his
pulse and drives the cadence of his body against Snape’s.

 

Snape draws him in tight. “Do you wish to continue, Mr. Potter?” he asks
in the soft, cutting tone Harry knows so well. Harry nods desperately against
Snape’s muzzling hand. “Then do still yourself, I must have something to ease
the way.” And Harry tries; he truly tries, but cannot entirely contain the
undulations of bod body as Snape fumbles in his cloak.

 

Snape makes a small, triumphal noise, and presses Harry hard down into
the bed, jerking against him, and the sweat between them lets him slide deeper
between Harry’s cheeks. Just as Harry catcthe the rhythm of their movements,
Snape rolls slightly back and away. He grabs Harry behind the left knee and
forces his leg further up and tighter to the bed, and Snape’s other hand leaves
Harry’s mouth to push his shoulder down.

 

Harry turns his face into the pillow only moments before slick, cool
fingers breach him, and he forces his stunned and grateful exhalations into it.
Harry knows now he never could have come close to imagining anything remotely
like the reality of this, of fingers buried and twisting within him, of every
nerve-ending at attention and hovering between pleasure and pain. And just when
Harry thinks he understands the dichotomy of sensation, the fingers move this
way instead of that, and Harry rubs himself desperately against the rumpled
sheets and cries out something he cannot understand but knows is vital to
repeat into the pillow over and over again, his voice throbbing in time with
the waves of fire rolling over and through him.

 

Snape understands though, and the fingers disappear, give way to
something hardheavheavier, hotter. Harry rises onto elbows and knees to meet
the invasion, and as he stretches, fills, gives way and takes in, he fractures;
he cannot take this, it’s too much, too much, the pleasure razor-edged with
pain and the feeling of fullness, of someone else’s fullness, and he’s
submitting to it, welcoming the strangeness, embracing it with his flesh.
Nothing to Harry has ever felt so inescapably tangible as this, another man’s
cock buried so tightly in his body that he fancies he can feel Snape’s pulse,
and Harry knows that whatever else he is at this moment, he’s alive.

 

Each in-and-out wears away the strangeness, and Snape strokes longer,
deeper, somesometimes this way instead of that so the flashpoint in Harry’s
body flares again. Little grunts and groans spill directly into Harry’s ear
from Snape’s humid mouth, and to Harry these sounds are the most sublime thing
he’s ever heard Snape voice. And a hundred times more erotic than what he’d
overheard earlier, because these are Harry’s noises, only Harry’s, for him
alone.

 

Harry curves his back to the extreme, pushing his arse further up, body
begging for more, more. And he gets it, and it overwhelms him, but Harry takes
all Snape gives, and he still wants, and so spreads, and tilts further back.
Snape’s hands dig in, one on Harry’s hip and the other pinning his shoulder,
and his pace becomes brutal, primal. Harry feels as if the world is rocking
with the force of Snape’s thrusts and then he claws the bed, and bites his arm
as his orgasm is battered out of him with blinding intensity. Harry comes hard,
harder than he’s ever guessed possible, and he wonders disjointedly if he’ll
find blood or come if he were to reach his hand into the warm mess coating his
stomach and the bed.

 

The last of Harry’s shudders wane and Snape still uses him, pace frantic
and furious, and Harry begins to numb under the onslaught. He aches as Snape
sinks in; he aches when Snape recedes. And after Snape stiffens above him
fractionally and rolls off with a low rumble, Harry can still feel the missing
cock working inside him, can still feel the blaze deep within. A hand
hesitantly stokes the stiffness in Harry’s unnaturally bent lower back, and he
slowly flattens himself under it, turning one way and then the other to work
out the kinks.

 

A series of pops as Harry twists draws a dark sound of amusement from
Snaand and Harry turns to face him. The low light only reveals an imprecise
slice of patrician profile, but it’s sufficient guide for Harry to rise up
slightly and brush his mouth across Snape’s. Lips slide under his in negation
of the action, but Harry pursues, pressing Snape to the wall and working his
tongue through the gate of crooked teeth. They both taste of stale tea and
smoke, but Harry wants this as well, takes intimacy where he can find it. As is
the nature of kisses, it ebbs and flows between them, Harry’s arms around
Snape’s neck and twisting in his hair, and Snape’s hands firm against his
backsides. When they drift out of it, Harry drops his head to Snape’s chest,
breathes in the ghostly scent of home, and gives himself to sleep.

 

The room is brighter when Harry wakes next, pre-dawn light sneaking in to
highlight the weary lines of Snape’s face. Harry guesses he himself looks no
better, even after their rest. He pauses briefly before leaving the bed,
looking at the man he’d known in such a different life, so far away from here
and now, a man he suspects he never really knew at all. And most likely
never will. There is no time for such luxuries, and Harry understands, in his
marrow, that for himself and Snape, there never will be time.

 

Harry slips from their nest, before bitterness can overwhelm the warm
sanctuary they’ve built there. He leaves the room, Snape, the only bit of peace
he’s felt in forever, without daring to look back. If there’s one thing Harry
has learned from the blood, the battles, the failed plans, it’s that looking
back never helps, never changes anything. But now he knows that making do
sometimes can.