Underneath

Title: Underneath
Author: Elizabeth Malécrit
Rating: R (slash; at a stretch, vaguely implied incest)
Pairing: Snape/Draco (*very* lightly implied Snape/Lucius and Lucius/Draco)
Category: Pseudo-PWP, almost romance, challenge response.
Summary: Response to a challenge on snapeslash of ‘why does Snape wear such high collars?
Disclaimer: Err, not mine, don’t sue. All you’ll get is four well-thumbed copies of the Harry Potter books anyway, and I don’t know about you but as far as JK’s concerned, I’m quite sure she has enough of those already.

~*~*~

“Professor”, Draco drawled, leaning back into the armchair in front of the fire and crossing his legs at the knee. “I was wondering. Why is it, exactly, that you always wear such high collars? Do you perhaps have something to hide?”

Snape smirked at the odd and rather direct question, peering imperiously at Draco over the top of the snifter of brandy from which he was drinking. “And what, *exactly*, makes you think that?” he asked.

Draco shrugged, the shoulders of his robe catching slightly on the rough fabric of Snape’s lounge chairs. “Oh, I don’t know. Just something my father mentioned”.

He watched carefully, but Snape didn’t so much as flinch. Of course, Draco had hardly expected that he would, consummate actor as he was. Snape just arched one dark eyebrow, and if he hadn’t known better Draco would’ve sworn there was something almost akin to a smile playing at the corners of Snape’s thin lips.

“Indeed. Well, what did he have to say?”

Draco deliberately dropped his gaze and slowly smoothed out the cloth of his robe over his thighs. He wasn’t entirely sure why he bothered, as such pseudo-innocence would be entirely lost on Snape, but he’d been practicing it for so long that it was practically second nature. And really he was just doing it to contain the surprise that Snape hadn’t thrown a fit and forcefully ejected him from his rooms just yet.

“He just said that there was something there worth seeing, Sir”. He let his gaze flicker back up, almost tentatively but not quite. He knew he was pushing his luck, but he was hoping the brandy might have loosened Snape up enough to let it slide without a detention.

“Let us suppose for a moment that there is ‘something there worth seeing’, as your father so eloquently put it”, Snape said. “What makes you think that I would show it to you, Mr. Malfoy?”

Draco frowned. “Because you showed my father?” he ventured, though he found it an admittedly feeble excuse.

Snape smirked. “Contrary to popular opinion, I am perfectly able to distinguish between father and son, and I do not believe for one second that you are Lucius Malfoy. For all your similarities, I can assure you that the two of you are not at all alike”.

Snape set his glass on the small table beside his seat and stood; Draco watched as the long dark robe fell back into place with nary a fold awry. He’d always wondered how he did that. He wasn’t sure that the robe wasn’t spelled. “Now, I believe it is time for you to return to your dormitory”.

Draco sighed and uncrossed his legs, getting to his feet. “Yes, Sir”, he muttered, heading toward the door that Snape was now holding open in front of him.

Draco, despite popular and especially Gryffindor opinion, knew when to admit defeat, and this was one of those rare times. Though of course admitting defeat to himself and admitting it to his Head of House were two very different things, and he headed to the door with his chin held almost haughtily high.

“And, Mr. Malfoy?”

“Sir?” Draco stopped just outside the door and turned back.

Snape let go of the door and the hand that had been holding it went up to his chin, three long fingers stroking quickly down the underside as he tilted his head back. The fingertips caught over the top of his collar and pulled down.

Draco’s breath caught in his throat. As the door slammed shut, he was sure he caught a glimpse of a snake.

***

Three days. Three whole days of watching Snape like the proverbial hawk and absolutely nothing. Of course, he’d expected as much. It was just like Snape to tease him with the briefest of glimpses of what he wanted to see and then torture him by never revealing any more. And to top it all off, he’d been staring at Snape so intently through the last Potions class that he’d forgotten to mock Longbottom’s stunningly failed concoction and sneer at Potter and Weasley. Slumping over the Slytherin table that morning at breakfast, he felt like such a failure.

Then Snape walked in. He almost didn’t bother to look up – in fact, even though he knew it was Snape who’d just walked in, he really couldn’t have cared less at that precise moment. Somewhere off to his right Parkinson and Bulstrode were having a loud and particularly tedious spat with Crabbe and Goyle, which was all but sucking the life out of him just from hearing it. Even the ominous presence of the Potions Master couldn’t assuage the thudding that it caused in his temples.

But then, just by chance he looked up at Snape. Really he’d only meant to reach for the jug of pumpkin juice, but as he looked up, he looked up at Snape. Who was looking right back at him.

This in itself was somewhat disconcerting, as Draco had noted that usually Snape’s breakfasts were quick affairs in which his eyes were fixed solidly on his food, and if they did happen to stray, it was to glare in the direction of the Gryffindor table. But no, he was definitely looking right at Draco, who had to force himself not to frown. Instead he took the pumpkin juice and poured himself a glass, studiously avoiding Snape’s disturbing stare.

To his right, the argument got louder. Bulstrode seemed to be goading Goyle into a fight whilst Parkinson and Crabbe cheered on the battle of distinctly lacking wit. Draco dropped his head into his hands. Between the petty argument, that from what he could make out was over who deserved to get the last piece of toast, and Snape’s strange stare, he was convinced he was losing his mind.

“Would you do us all a favour and just SHUT THE HELL UP!”

He’d yelled it before he’d even realised he was thinking it. And he almost went bright red as the whole hall lapsed into a sudden silence and turned to stare at him. But, being a Malfoy, he just raised his eyebrows and raised his chin, and calmly took a sip of his pumpkin juice as if screaming at his classmates wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. It took about three seconds before the school’s collective attention span wore out and they all went back to eating. Including, happily, Crabbe, Goyle, Parkinson and Bulstrode.

But Snape was still staring at him. He didn’t have to look up, he just knew it.

So, he decided, he’d give him a taste of his own medicine. He put down his juice and looked right up to where Snape was sitting at the head table, meeting his eyes steadily. Yes, Snape was still staring at him. And now Draco was staring right back at him.

If it hadn’t sounded so utterly barmy, Draco would’ve thought Snape was trying to hex him; for the longest time the Fearsome Potions Master didn’t even blink as he stared. But, fortunately, it *did* sound utterly barmy, even in Draco’s head, and it wasn’t as if he felt compelled to jump up on the table and dance the lambada, after all.

Snape blinked. And then he smirked. Draco suddenly felt like the temperature had shot up a couple of degrees, but no one else seemed to notice. He just bet he was going red.

Then Snape’s left hand went slowly and rather casually to his collar. Draco swallowed, hard.

Snape tilted his head to the left, and three fingers dipped down between throat and collar. He pulled down. For the briefest of moments Draco saw the head and about five more inches of a dark green snake curling around Snape’s neck and poking up past the tight black collar. And in the instant before Snape let the collar spring back into place, he could have sworn he saw the bright red flicker of a forked tongue across Snape’s pale throat.

***

Lucius Malfoy hadn’t been kidding when he’d said there was something worth seeing under Professor Snape’s collar. At the time half of Draco had wondered if his father was having him on, and that Snape would sneer and slap him into detention for raising such an absurd subject, and with a teacher no less.

Of course, when his father had mentioned it – in the middle of Draco’s last little temper tantrum about how Snape wasn’t acting nearly as nastily to the Gryffindors as they obviously deserved – there’d been another part of him that had been more than a little curious. That part had believed his father unquestioningly, if simply because the idea of there being something lurking beneath the collar of those immaculate robes was too hot a proposition to pass up. And his dad knew things about Severus Snape that could make your hair curl.

And now Draco knew it was true. Of course he was more than a little baffled by what he’d seen, but if it was possible, he was even more curious than he had been before, and now he thought about it, more than a little turned on. Snape had a secret, possibly a secret that only his father along with Snape himself actually knew, and Draco was so close to finding out what it meant. He was *so close*. He couldn’t stop now, even if it meant he ended up with Snape’s hands wrapped around his throat, and not in a good way.

The corridors of the dungeons were empty, though that was hardly unexpected at a little after 10pm. Filch would probably lynch him on the spot if he was found wandering the halls after curfew again and with nothing like a good excuse, but he guessed the risk was worth it. No guts no glory, right? He pressed on.

And eventually he came to the forbidding last door at the end of the Potions corridor. He took a deep breath and knocked.

“Is there something I can do for you, Mr. Malfoy?” came Snape’s low voice through the undoubtedly locked door. Draco frowned.

“I was wondering, Sir…”

“You do far too much wondering for your own good. It’s unnatural for a boy of your age”.

“I’m eighteen, Sir. Technically I’m an adult”.

“Technically perhaps”. Snape paused. “So, are you going to come in or are we going to continue this conversation through my door?”

Draco set his hand on the doorknob and twisted. He’d half expected the door to be warded and his hand would dissolve or something, but surprisingly the door swung open and his hand remained intact. He stepped inside and let it close behind him.

Snape’s quarters were larger than he’d expected, but no more homely; before the first time he’d been allowed into the lounge just a few days earlier – under the pretence of needing extra Potions tuition – he’d expected a tiny room and had been surprised to find it comparable to the size of the Slytherin common room, though distinctly less welcoming. The austere look was rather reminiscent of the Potions classroom, especially with the presence of several shelves of assorted vials and a line of drying herbs strung across the window, though just exactly what that window looked out on, seeing as the room, was in the dungeons Draco could only speculate; all he could see beyond it was darkness.

Snape himself was sitting in a chair by the fire, the same one as he’d chosen those few nights ago. He had a snifter of brandy in his right hand and motioned with it for Draco to take the other chair. He did so quickly and quietly.

“So, is there something particular with which I can help you tonight, Mr. Malfoy?” he asked, eyes trained on Draco as he sat down almost opposite him. “And I should remind you that failure to produce a satisfactory explanation for disturbing me will result in my turning you in to Mr. Filch, and no doubt also in several hours polishing the silver in the trophy room”.

Draco blanched at the thought, though he was already so pale that it didn’t make any difference to his skin tone. Still, Snape graced him with a small amused smirk.

“I was wondering…”

“Ah, that word again. Clearly you spend far too much of your time in contemplation and not enough in action. Spit it out, Malfoy. I’m not getting any younger, or any more benevolent”.

Action. The word jarred something inside Draco and he virtually jumped to his feet, Snape’s brows knitting slightly as he watched. Draco strode forward and took the glass from Snape’s hand, setting it on the little table. Then he took two large handfuls of Snape’s robe and hauled him forcibly to his feet.

“What in Merlin’s name do you think you’re… mmmph!”

Draco cut him off with a rather forceful kiss. It must have taken Snape quite by surprise because Draco had the top five buttons of his robe undone before Snape could shove against his chest and extricate himself from Draco’s grasp.

“What exactly was that in aid of?” Snape snapped, rubbing absently at his lips as he glared wide-eyed at a similarly wide-eyed Draco. Then he noticed that the boy wasn’t actually looking him in the eye. His gaze was a little lower; he was staring right at his throat. Snape sighed.

“It’s… it’s a tattoo!” Draco exclaimed, still staring at it.

Snape crossed his arms over his chest. “How very astute of you, Mr. Malfoy”, he said. “What a great pity it is that you choose to waste that brilliance playing Qitchitch. Surely you didn’t think I was walking around with a live snake around my neck”.

Draco glared as best he could, but stopped when he realised the stupidity of it considering the situation. After all, he’d just kissed Snape, not the other way around. And especially considering the fact that he was still staring at the tattoo.

With the collar hanging open as it was, Draco could see a little more of it. The head of the snake lay in the hollow of Snape’s throat, then its body made one lazy loop about his neck before vanishing into the shoulder of the robe. And the longer he stared at it, the surer Draco was that the thing was moving.

He took a step forward and reached out, stroking his fingertips over it lightly.

“Ouch! Damn it, what was that?” Draco pulled his hand back and rubbed his forefinger. Snape raised his eyebrows. “Did that thing just… bite me?”

“It appears that he likes you”.

Draco scowled. “If that’s what it does to people it likes…”

“Trust me, if he didn’t like you then you wouldn’t be alive to wonder what he does to people he doesn’t”. Snape chuckled; it was an odd sound and made Draco frown. “Besides which, I thought you wanted to find out what was under my collar”.

“I did”. Draco sighed and stopped rubbing his hand. “I do! I just didn’t realise it would involve snakebite”.

The amused smirk dropped from Snape’s face and his fingers went to the buttons at his collar. “If this has been such a disappointment for you, Mr. Malfoy, might I suggest that you return to your dormitory and do not disturb me again until you know exactly what it is you want from me”.

Snape turned his back. It only took a moment for Draco to swing him back round by the shoulders and kiss the dour expression from his pursed lips.

Then Snape’s hands were on him and he was kissing back. Draco could’ve died of shock had he not been so damn turned on by the fact he was standing there in Snape’s living room snogging his Potions professor. And it was damn good, too. Snape’s tongue teased Draco’s lips apart and suddenly he was in heaven, fingers clutching at Snape’s shoulders as he let himself be ravaged, but it was just for a second before he fought back. He was breathless and his heart was pounding and he was sure he must be imagining things and… was that hissing?

He pulled back. The snake was hissing.

“I told you, he likes you”.

Draco glanced up at Snape dubiously. “If you say so”.

“He only hisses when he’s pleased”, Snape said.

Draco snorted. “There’s no wonder father wouldn’t tell me what it was. I’d never have believed him”.

Snape opened his mouth, doubt to offer some scathing retort, and found it full of Draco’s enthusiastic tongue.

Draco was vaguely aware that they were moving, but he didn’t realise where they were moving to until his back hit the bedroom door. Then they were through it and his hands were on Snape’s robe, fiddling with the tiny little buttons. He wished he could just give it a good yank and send all of the little silver annoyances scattering all over the bedroom floor, but somehow he didn’t think Snape would appreciate it. And he’d probably make him sew them all back on. The Muggle way.

The robe fell from Snape’s shoulders and the snake hissed again, louder. Draco took a step back, drawing in a deep and much-needed breath. Snape was bare to the waist, the pale skin of his chest exposed. And so was the snake.

It looped once around Snape’s neck, then dropped back over his shoulder before circling his right arm maybe seven times, the tip of its emerald green tail sitting over the inside of his wrist. Draco had never seen anything like it. He’d never even imagined anything like it. It looked just like a real green snake was wound around Snape’s neck and arm, of course presuming that real snakes could exist in two dimensions instead of the usual three. Draco could’ve sworn its shiny lidless eyes were staring right at him, and he saw its odd forked tongue flicker out across Snape’s skin.

And tit sit started to move.

Before Draco really had time to register what was going on, the snake had made two loops of Snape’s torso and its head was resting just above his navel, tongue flickering out across it. Draco stared. Snape chuckled.

“So you weren’t expecting it to move”, he said. Draco gave him a clear look of ‘really? You think?’ then frowned.

“Can you feel it when it moves?” he asked suddenly.

“Feel for yourself”. Draco frowned. “Oh, honestly! He’s not going to bite… hard”.

Slowly, Draco reached out and laid his hand over the snake on Snape’s chest, just under his right nipple. The head twitched and gave a contented little hiss, and Draco snatched his hand away. It actually felt like a real snake was moving under his hand.

“That’s… disconcerting”, he said.

“To say the least”.

For aent ent Draco just stood staring at the snake, and the snake stared at him. Then it looped around Snape’s body, coming to rest with its head poking over his right shoulder, little red tongue flickering over his collarbone, almost like… beckoning.

So Draco touched it again. He traced the line of it from the head to the tip of the tail, winding his way around Snape’s body as he did so, Snape just standing there, still, letting him do it, muscles quivering just a little under his touch. Then he lowered his head and pressed his lips to it, softly. Snape took in a sharp breath and the snake started to hiss again. Draco took that as a good sign and did it again. And again and again, along the whole length of it. He felt the tongue flicker out against the pad of his finger and shivered. Snape shivered too.

And apparently Snape decided then that he’d had quite enough of being the silent party because the next thing Draco knew he was sprawled on the bed, his robe flung somewhere across the room and shirt miraculously open with Snape on top of him, the snake writhing between them and Snape’s hands everywhere. They were kissing again, hot and hard, probably hard enough to bruise, but Draco couldn’t say he really cared. Not when his arousal was quite so evident, and quite so pressing, and Severus Snape was doing things with his mouth that made his insides quiver. And definitely not when he had a snake grazing over his hardened nipples, Snape’s hair falling around his face and a desperate desire to get naked and fuck.

When Draco kicked off his shoes and started to fumble with the buttons on his trousers, Snape finally got the idea and let up on his assault long enough to divest them both of the remainder of their clothing. Then he was on him again, lips now latching onto a nipple, one hand on the other and the other hand on Draco’s thigh. It felt so good, Snape’s erection brushing against his own, sending little sparks of pleasure jolting through him. Not to mention the incredible feel of snakeskin running over his belly. Draco just clutched Snape’s shoulders and gasped dumbly.

Snape reached out and circled Draco’s wrist with his hand. Draco couldn’t help but look, turning his head on the pillow and looking down at Snape’s long white fingers gripping his wrist, the snake slithering down his arm in lazy spirals. It was a strange sight, but one he was looking forward to seeing a lot more of. But there was something, something weird, something…

“Hey, hey! Stop. Stop! Get off me!”

Draco pushed, hard, knocking Snape off him and onto the other side of the bed. He scrambled up and stood with his back against the wall, frowning and staring, rubbing his wrist. The snake had just… he was sure it had just slithered off Snape and onto him; he’d felt its tongue on his thumb and seen its head slip onto the back of his hand.

“Mr. Malfoy…” Snape started, then frowned. “Draco. There’s no need to be alarmed, I assure you. He just wanted to get a better look at you, that’s all”.

“But it… it was on me! How could that happen? I mean, it’s *your* tattoo, not mine!”

“It’s an enchanted tattoo, Draco. If there’s enough skin touching then he can slither off me and onto someone else, but he always comes back. He won’t hurt you”. As if to emphasise his point, Snape stroked his fingers over the snake’s head, eliciting a soft hiss.

“I… I just don’t think…” he stuttered. And Snape suddenly scowled.

“Oh, I think I understand”, he said, his voice strangely flat. “Your father always did enjoy torturing me. No doubt he thought that unleashing his enticing young son on poor old sex-starved Severus Snape would be a fine game, but unfortunately- -\"

“No, no, I just freaked out. It’s not as though I expected a tattoo snake to crawl onto me like that, you know”.

“- -it is one which I have no intention of playing”.

The two of them stared at each other for a moment, Draco trying to fathom what exactly it was that Snape was implying and Snape trying to discern if Draco was actually telling the truth. Eventually they both came tsimisimilarly satisfactory conclusion.

“Your snake seems to disagree with you, Severus”, Draco said, his lips threatening to tweak upwards into a smile.

Snape sighed deeply as Draco put his hands on him. One on his snake, and one somewhere not all that dissimilar. “I always knew there was a reason I named him Lucius”, he said.

***

Two weeks later, on the last day of term, Snape swept into his last seventh year Gryffindor/Slytherin Potions class and stunned them all to silence. In place of the usual high black collar he was wearing a loose black shirt with an open collar under his robes, showing off rather more smooth, pale skin than his class was used to.

One forbidding glare was all it took to get the class in order, and the rest of the lesson passed in relative silence, considering that all of the students had received their NEWT results and had turned up as a mere formality. In about an hour they’d all cease to be Hogwarts students and Snape shuddered as it occurred to him that in about an hour every last insufferable brat in the room would be a fully qualified wizard, ready to be set loose on a wholly unsuspecting world. What disasters their sheer incompetence would produce were beyond even his imagining.

The last hour passed. A rather loud cheer went up as the seventh years ended their last class and made a grinning dash for the door. They were all so busy pushing and shoving through the narrow doorway that no one noticed the satisfied grin on the face of one Draco Malfoy. Whose collar was uncharacteristically high.

With a shout of ‘last one to the Three Broomsticks gets the beers in!’ the last of the students dashed from the room. Except for Draco. He just swaggered up to Snape’s desk with that same satisfied grin on his face and leant down over it.

“I’ll see you soon”, he said, stealing a quick kiss before Snape could prevent it. Though neither Draco nor Snape were completely convinced that he would have prevented it if he could have.

Snape nodded, a smile lurking at the corners of his mouth. “You know where to find me when you’ve finished”, he said, looking up at Draco with considerably less malice than any of his pupils were used to, except maybe Draco. “I hope your father enjoys his little visit”.

Draco smirked, his eyes sparkling. “Oh, I’m sure he will”, he said, lifting his hand to Snape’s face. “I’m sure he will”.

Snape was rather sure he felt the lick of a small forked tongue against his cheek before Draco left the room.

***
End
***