All about a wedding

1. BEFORE

Severus Snape was staring morosely at his mirrored image. The mirror seemed to like what it showed him, according to its comments. He, however, did not.

He didn't mind so much that his hair was much longer now, not to mention conspicuously clean. It had more to do with the rest of his look: the whitened teeth, the light tan... And the wedding robes, of course. The very *non-black* wedding robes. Harry had whined, flattered and finally, all else failing, threatened him into wearing them.

He had given in; of course he had given in. He always gave in, in the end. Harry had stored his memories of that fatal night of two years ago in a pensieve - and then he had somehow managed to make several copies, and stored them in various secret places.

It gave Harry perfect leverage. Should he do anything Harry didn't like, the memories would be distributed over half of the Wizarding world, and his life would be worth less than last week's Daily Prophet.

And, what was even worse, the boy - or young man now - knew how to use the threat flawlessly. He had blackmailed him into a torrid, half-public affair; starting the morning after the night Severus, roaring drunk, had mistaken the boy for his deceased lover, and had rather forcefully bedded him. The morning after, the dreaded pensieves had been mentioned for the first time. Severus had lost his hangover in record time.

Mind, in time he stopped hating it so much. Harry was an enthusiastic and, once he got a bit more experienced, a very capable lover. The sex was nothing less than breathtaking, and the lad was not half as annoying as he once believed.

The boy had matured over these past two years. His gratuitous rebellion had been quenched, and instead of a disagreeable, impulsive teenager, he could now be seen as a cautious, albeit rather headstrong young man.

Unfortunately it was the death of the Weasley girl that caused him to grow up. She'd been in fifth year at the time of her death. She was having a butterbeer at The Three Broomsticks with a couple of friends when there was a Death Eater attack. Harry hadn't been there to save her; he had been chasing who he believed to be Pettigrew on the other side of town. He had followed his prey for hours, until the image of Pettigrew had blinked and dissipated.

Only then had he realised he had been tricked, and he had run back to Hogsmeade where the damage had already been done by then. The present members of the DA had managed to stun the six Death eaters that had performed the attack, but not without a heavy price to pay. Five students had died that afternoon, one of them Ginevra Weasley.

Harry had blamed himself, of course. Had he been there, had he not been chasing phantoms, he might have stunned the Death eater that had killed his best friend's sister.

It had a very sobering effect on the boy. His character lost some of its Gryffindor flamboyance, and - surprisingly - he had developed an almost Slytherin capability of strategy and cunning. Severus had eagerly encouraged that mental growth, and it had helped Potter immensely at the final fight with Voldemort. He had made use of several rarely known spells, combined into something formerly unheard of, and as it turned out quite fatal, even for Evil Overlords with delusions of grandeur. Especially for those.

Harry had been seventeen and a few months, then. He had considered himself an adult, and less bound by regulations and laws than others of his age - and made profusely use of that fact. It had helped a lot that he could do no wrong in the eyes of the entire Wizarding world, no matter what he did. Even if he chose to date one Severus Snape, Potions master and suspected Death Eater.

That last half year spent as a student at Hogwarts, Harry had had the time of his life. As said before, he knew he could do no wrong and took full advantage of it. He never slept in the Gryffindor dorm anymore, but quite openly descended the stairs leading to the dungeon and stayed in his lover's rooms every night. He insisted on taking Severus out on weekends, both to Muggle and Wizarding places.

It had made the formerly unpopular man all the rage for a while. Clearly, people thought along the lines of: okay, so he's twice the boy's age, ugly and unpleasant, and yet he landed the most wanted wizard on earth. He must have something quite special. I wonder what it would be - and could I get some of that, please?

He even made it to the cover of Witch Weekly once. "Man of Mystery, Man of Intrigue - What Makes Him Harry's Hearts Desire???" the title read in sickening pinkish-red.

Severus snorted. There was very little mystery or intrigue in their affair. All it required was a healthy sex-drive, and submitting to Harry's desires.

Not that it was torture to do so - Harry was quite an inventive lover, and had made him feel things no lover had uncovered in him before.

One of their first nights together, Harry had claimed he needed to get to know his body. Severus had allowed it, smirking inwardly at this admittance of ignorance. His smirk had melted away like snow for the sun after all of five minutes. There hadn't been an inch of his body left untouched; there had been lips and teeth and tongue and fingers everywhere, awakening responses in the most unexpected places.

Severus often thought back of that night. It had made him realise how very little he knew about his own body. Who would have thought that nibbling kisses at the base of his neck were enough to make him shudder and moan, or that slow caresses on his calves could make him weak with desire? He for one hadn't known, and his former lover most certainly hadn't either.

But Harry knew, he hadn't cared how idiotic it seemed to admit his inexperience. He had explored his body with a dedication worthy of nobler causes; he'd treated every square inch of skin with the focussed attention a foot-fetishist would lave on a black lace shoe.

No, he was quite happy with Harry. But to be forced to marry the brat! Call him romantic, but he had hoped for well... romance. Dates, and presents, and even, Hel forbid, flowers - though he would probably use them only as potion ingredients the morning after.

Instead Harry had woken him up one morning and declared they would be married the day after he finished school. Severus had been affronted at the lad's gall. "Who did he think he was to dole out an ultimatum like that", he had ranted, and his lover had the nerve to declare he *thought* he was the one holding the Potion master's future in his hand. Didn't he *want* to make an honest man out of the poor child he had seduced in his drunken stupor?

That had ended *that* discussion. He had accepted, of course he had accepted, what else could he do? He didn't have to be happy about it though, and so he did what in a lesser man would be called sulking.

He had to let go of his broodiness quite rapidly, when Harry pulled him into his arms and gave him one of his trademark devouring kisses. He was lost immediately, carried away by the young man's desire. He knew right away this would not be an elaborate game. He was going to be taken hard and long, and he would enjoy every minute of it. Harry could be very masterful, and he loved it.

Harry had one advantage over Severus: he didn't need a wand to perform the necessary spells. And so, only moments later, Severus found himself facedown on his own bed, hands tied to a post with his own belt, and shivering in anticipation.

He wasn't disappointed - Harry made good use of the extensive knowledge he had, and had him begging for release in moments. He would have felt ashamed of himself for being so easy hadn't he felt so great and so loved. He almost cried at how very good, how very right it felt when Harry finally entered him. His body had adapted long ago to Harry's ample endowment and the initial burning and occasional small tears had faded since then, leaving only pleasure and a feeling of being completely filled. Severus briefly enjoyed that glorious feeling, but soon wanted more.

Harry moved, a slow rocking at first, designed to drive him mad; but that soon developed into full-blasted thrusts into his willing body. He was screaming now, but didn't care. Harry knew he was very vocal, and loved him for it; in fact he did everything he could to make him scream more. There was that peculiar twist of his hips that had him yowling and the teasing of his weeping cock that made him desperate to reach his orgasm. Finally, when he was convinced that he couldn't take another minute of this exquisite torture, Harry wrapped his hand firmly around his pulsing erection, his mouth sucked on that one spot in his neck, his cock assaulted his sensitised prostate, and he was swept away into those realms where bodies no longer mattered and souls connected.

That was the end of that particular argument. There were others, of course, and they were solved in the same delightful manner. It didn't do much for Severus' pride, but worked wonders with his temperament.

Come to think of it, Severus could do with some of Harry's peculiar kind of settling an argument. These robes could make an excellent pretence for some quality quarrelling. He really didn't like them, they were far too colourful for his taste, and he might as well get something good out of them since there was not a chance in hell Harry would give in to his complaints and send them back to be exchanged for some decent black ones.

Severus knew Harry wasn't usually this unreasonable when it came down to something that would make him happy. Had it not been for his mother's freely shared conviction that he was wearing far too much black as it was, Severus was quite confident he might have changed Harry's mind about the robes.

But alas, there was no chance of that now: Harry and his mother got along like a house on fire. If you saw the two of them together, planning the wedding, making decisions about guests, flowers and what not, you would think Harry was her beloved son and Severus the outsider.

Severus loved his mother and he loved Harry, he really did, but that unholy alliance of his betrothed and his mother made him wonder if he wouldn't be better off putting his wand against his head and kill himself.

Melania Snape had always complained about how he neglected his appearance, but had been quite helpless to do anything about it. To her unending joy, she had discovered that her future son-in-law's complaints and demands were usually obeyed by her rebellious son - hence the new look. All she had to do, was ask Harry if he didn't think Severus would be so much more attractive if he'd only - add whatever change she wanted to happen at that time - and Harry would be there, nodding his agreement, and sending a threatening look at him.

Most of the changes weren't too world shocking, and he obeyed without having the damned pensieves mentioned, but when he looked into the mirror these days, Severus almost didn't recognise himself. He had to admit though that the almost-stranger staring back at him was looking good. Sometimes he could almost understand what Harry saw in him, when he called him beautiful.

His mother was quite happy with his new looks too, and he didn't begrudge the woman her feelings. He was far too happy they were back on speaking terms. They had reconciled after the long estrangement caused by him taking Voldemort's Mark. Once she found out about her son's espionage, she had spelled the carriage that would take her to Hogwarts so heavily; it almost flew over the road. The reunion had been tearful on her part, even more so when she discovered her poor, misjudged baby was in a relation with a handsome, heroic young man.

The years apart had been long and lonely with many bitter feelings on both sides, but everything was back to normal now, and she was quite driven to make up for all the lost years. Clearly, in her opinion, that meant: make sure her son would be happy; and to be happy seemed to include look good, and get married to that lovely, kind young man that was so obviously madly in love with him. Severus could hardly believe that his smart, experienced mother didn't see the truth of their relation - although he had to admit that, no matter how they got together, Harry did seem to make him happier than he ever had been before.

Perhaps a wedding was not such a bad idea, and if it took wearing ridiculous clothing to please his husband on that occasion, he would do it. But he would pester Harry about them all the same. Part of his mind lined up his many objections, while another part was already gleefully thinking of how his lover would make an end to the discussion.