Finding Severus

I've been going over all my older stories and coding them as they should be so that all of my original formatting is in place.

Enjoy!

Please read and review.

The Squig - 16/12/2010


Finding Severus


1

Harry stood in the queue for the 5:30 evening Floo with all of his other fellow workers at the Ministry of Magic. He shuffled forwards not concentrating, pondering on yet another boring day at the office and before he knew it, he was almost falling into the handsomely lined municipal grate. Catching himself, he straightened his tie swiftly, patted down his robes, grabbed some powder and intoned, “Potter residence”. He vanished in a flash of green.

He called out, “I’m home”, to his wife of almost twenty five years and she came from the kitchen wiping her hands on her apron and wafting cooking smells in her wake. He kissed Ginny distractedly and she took his cloak in one hand, passing him the paper with the other, “Dinner’s in about half an hour and we need to have a talk about Albus, he’s playing up at school again”. His “Yes, dear”, made her roll her eyes. Harry was no good until he had a drink or food inside him, preferably both. She left him and went back to the kitchen.

He kicked off his shoes and stretched his legs out before the fire sipping at a freshly poured firewhisky, thinking of the day past and the series of meetings he had in his diary for the rest of the week. He pinched the bridge of his nose, running fingers over his eyes behind their glass lenses putting the worrisome meetings from his mind. He listened carefully to Ginny’s movements in the kitchen, heard the start of the ‘Archers’ on the muggle radio he’d bought her for their tenth wedding anniversary and knew he had a little time.

He picked up the paper and laid it on the sofa beside him, pressing it flat. He never had time to peruse the morning edition so he took his time with the night-time one. He scanned every headline, every line of text, looking for anything, anything at all, that pertained to a certain war hero.

Now on his third drink, he clapped the paper closed, there was never anything to read in the damned thing anyway. He pushed it away from him and laid his head back closing his eyes. Ginny entered, “Dinner’s ready, love. Come and get it while it’s hot”. Harry smiled vaguely, “Be there in a minute”, and she exited.

He picked up the paper, bringing it to the table and slumped in his seat. Ginny had the small TV in the kitchen on and was watching another of the interminable soaps she favoured. Harry did a slower trawl through the paper, this time indulging his guilty pleasure and reading the gossip pages.

He snorted at the story of his old-time nemesis. Draco Malfoy was to be divorced, yet again, his fifth by Harry’s reckoning. Harry muttered to himself, “Just admit you’re queer, mate, it’d be easier for you if you did”, he looked up but Ginny was engrossed in her programme and hadn’t heard him. His eye roved over the page.

Lavender Phillips, nee Brown had just had her sixteenth child and the squeezed face of the tiny mite wrinkled over and over as the child moved in the picture. At least the papers had stopped speculating how many the Potters would have. They had produced a healthy three, the youngest of whom was the only one left at school, which reminded him, he should have that talk with his wife but he wasn’t in the mood.

These days it seemed to take more effort to talk to her. He sighed inwardly, when had his wife turned into her mother? Oh, she didn’t have quite the same sharp tongue or propensity for nagging that Molly had, thank Merlin, but she was a mistress of the stony silence. These days, however, they seemed like ships that passed in the night.

They had their own activities. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, Ginny would attend the social get-togethers hosted by the Witches Institute. They did works for charity and held summer fetes to raise money. Monday afternoon and early evening she taught a cookery and baking class for young witches setting up their first home.

Harry’s interests encompassed a painting course at muggle night school, an amateur Saturday Quidditch league at work and a round or two of golf on the muggle links. He seemed to have taken on some of Arthur’s characteristics by having a shed that he would retire to and tinker, although he used it more for sitting and thinking in, he mused, a grown up version of the kids’ tree-house. A place to be him.

But, yes, he was slowly turning into Arthur.

He sighed as he took the rest of the paper out to his shed with his after dinner hot drink, shuffling up the path in his worn old slippers and closing himself into his little world. He relaxed in his battered old wing chair and once again tried hard not to draw the comparisons between this place and the cupboard he had lived in for many a year. No, he liked this little place he had staked out for himself, particularly after the children had become teenagers and had taken over the whole house with their noise and their friends. It was peaceful here and he could potter in the garden if he so chose. No, life was comfortable, by and large, he reasoned to himself, opening the bottom drawer of his old desk and removing the ‘spare’ bottle of Ogden’s finest. He shouldn’t, he really shouldn’t but just one more nip wouldn’t hurt. Just to keep out the cold, the shed had a habit of being a bit damp at this time of year. He added it to his tea and sat back, sipping.

Pushing his glasses up his nose, Harry reached forwards into the top drawer of his desk and removed his scissors before going through the night’s paper with a fine tooth comb. This was his real guilty pleasure. He cut out anything with the man’s name in it, whether speculation or fact, or even speculation parading as fact, Harry clipped it all carefully out, laying the tiny shreds of newsprint on his desk, discarding the main paper.

From a lower drawer he withdrew a battered foolscap sized scrapbook held together with elastic bands and added the latest scraps of tattle with careful strips of Spell-o-tape applied to them. He inked in the date and the edition of the Prophet then idly flicked back through the pages.

The man had been supposedly dead for over twenty five years but every so often there was a rash of ‘sightings’, a bit like Lord Lucan or the Loch Ness Monster. It was as if the public couldn’t let the man rest in peace, so had to keep making up these ridiculous stories, some of them more bizarre than the rest.

One had the man half-way up Mount Everest with a muggle climbing team. Another had him coming into shot on a Jacques Cousteau undersea documentary. There were a couple of shaky pictures from a sighting at a Chudleigh Cannons match about ten years ago and Harry always laughed at the shot from behind showing the man at the altar of a muggle church marrying a sprightly-looking bride. Harry had stuck the picture of the real man alongside it, the new husband looked nothing like him from the front, but from the back.....

Harry sighed as he flipped page after page, and these were just the last five years, he had many such scrapbooks all lovingly filed away in date order. At first, he too had tried to hunt the man down when fed these stories, particularly in the first few years after the war, but he’d learned to give them no credence. He’d accepted the man’s posthumous medal for him, for Merlin’s sake, been at his graveside as what was left of the man was laid finally to rest. One part of him wished to fuck that they’d leave this man alone but the other half thought guiltily that if they did, he’d have no snippets for his books. He laid it with the others and locked the drawer, finished his drink and headed to bed.

Ginny was either already asleep or pretending to be. Harry had no problem with that. He and Ginny had had a lacklustre sex life at best. Still, it had produced their three children, but somewhere, their duty all done, they had simply let sex fizzle out of their marriage and what passion there was died an easy death.

It was only in the dead of night that Harry could finally admit to himself that he was bored. Bored with his non-marriage, bored with the petty concerns of his offspring and most of all, bored to the teeth with his job. He had started out on the Auror training programme straight after killing Voldemort, was offered professional Quidditch posts and married Ginny, his childhood sweetheart. Life looked good, the kids came along. He was normal, or as normal as a man could be that had seen war, death and killing close to.

He had revelled in the normalcy that was his life. He was pursued for a while by an ever-eager press but then he sustained a leg injury during a Death Eater roundup and was invalided out of the front line troops. He remained a recorder on the back lines of the Auror squad but the fun had gone out of it. When the Ministry had set up a subsection of the Department of Mysteries pertaining to Dark Artefacts, Harry applied for and got the job.

It was tedious in the extreme with only the very occasional challenging object to pique his interest and nine times out of ten, it had originated from one of the Malfoys’ extensive collections. His ennui and the need to pay Hogwarts’ fees had kept him there now for close to fifteen years and he was bored rigid, tired of removing childish curses from household objects, hexed for spite rather than evil. All sorts of dross passed across his desk.

He tried not to sigh, the only thing that made his humdrum life bearable was seeing the lads at the weekends for their quidditch matches. He had the feeling that he wasn’t the only one of them that looked forward to their get-togethers to stave off the creeping boredom of middle age. Ron was quite the envy of their little coterie. He had married Hermione out of school, had two children with her and promptly divorced her. He was still an Auror, now in a senior position with a different nubile girlie on his arm every week, sometimes, ‘Chelsi’ or ‘Tiffani’ would come to practice and squeal at him but usually they stayed away.

Neville had probably become Harry’s best friend over the years, he and Ron had grown a little apart after Harry had been pensioned off and he and Neville were at the same level of seniority albeit in different departments. They often met for lunch during the week. Neville had married Amelia Shaw, a rotund mousy Hufflepuff three years his junior and Harry thought his old friend as bored as he was, although neither of them would have said a word, they both kept up the cameraderie....and the bullshit. They had dinners occasionally, the four of them and always split along same gender lines as soon as the dessert was cleared away and they rose from the table, the men discussing work and the ladies their occupations and their children. Harry often wondered where the sparky, seeker Ginny had gone to and snorted softly. Where, for that matter, was ‘seeker Harry’? He played beater now he’d gained some weight.

He thought of Dean and Seamus, still daft about each other after all this time. Dean chunky now, Seamus bald but with a massive beard, and smiled. Theirs had been the most successful ‘marriage’ out of the lot of them. Thinking of those two always brought a pang to Harry’s heart but he was long practiced at the art of secreting such thoughts deep into his mental vaults and throwing away the key. What was the point of having them? The man was long dead, Harry had named a son for him and life moved on.

Except in some small corner of his heart it hadn’t.

Encapsulated in that tiny space was a memory; a single afternoon spent being devoured by the man in his scrapbooks. During the War, three nights before the final battle, they finally gave in to the unresolved tension between them and had made love and fucked all the rest if that day, a perfect match in every way, Harry awash with ardour. Being with a woman had never been like this.

Then came the call and his new lover had reluctantly had to answer, peppering Harry with light kisses before he left, murmuring, “Find me when all this is over, Harry. I don’t want this to be the only time”, and Harry had promised with a smile and a blown kiss.

The next time Harry saw him was as a bag of vomited up remains from a large snake dinner in the Shrieking Shack. Hair, cloak, ring all there in the slimy stinking mess as well as the longer bones and the man’s wand. The snake was drowsy after such a large meal, then the mess was cleared, Nagini killed, the scene recorded and the battle continued.

It was a couple of years after that, that Harry finally started to grieve, but by then he was a married man with his first child on the way, Voldemort receding to a stain in his past that no-one ever really spoke of, just dusting Harry off to give speeches on the first few anniversaries of Voldemort’s death until folk lost interest and concentrated on the rash of weddings and children in the immediate aftermath.

The funeral of the snake mess barely rated two lines in the Prophet’s obituary column. Harry had been the only attendee. Harry had kept the wand. It lived in the same drawer as the scrapbooks.

Unable to sleep now he’d jumped on that train of thought, he rose as silently as he could and shrugged on his dressing gown over his pyjamas, shoved his feet in his slippers and padded off downstairs. Ginny, hearing him go, sighed quietly, what was wrong with Harry these days? He was never a deep sleeper at the best of times but was more of an insomniac than ever. She bet he was going out to that ratty shed of his. Yes, there was the back door opening. She punched her pillow and settled down, at least he didn’t have porn out there, she’d checked, as all wives did, she believed. She knew about his locked drawer and the stash of firewhisky but she didn’t comment. The scrapbooks seemed to be about the War so she didn’t mind those. She hadn’t looked too closely, only seeing that the meticulously clipped headlines featured people from that time. She didn’t think it healthy but she supposed it still meant a lot to old soldiers.

She stepped out of bed and peered out at the garden, the light was low in the shed but the door was shut. She waited a few minutes, switched on the TV at the end of their bed then fished under the mattress for the DVD that one of the ladies had lent her at the WI. She bit her lip as she fed the disc into the machine, listening carefully for sounds of her husband’s return but all was quiet then pressed ‘play’, and the titles rolled up.

She reached into her nightstand for lube, her vibrator and a bar of chocolate, she indulged shamelessly in ‘Hunky Firemen Off Duty’. Normally she’d save this until Harry’s art night but, sod it, she was in need.

****

Harry had been fretting. It was time to renew the charm on the wand he’d kept. He’d never quite had the courage to perform the priori incantatem on it, and had just renewed the stasis charm indefinitely. The wand felt warm to the touch as if it’s owner were still alive. Harry had handled the wands of many of the dead, he knew how cold they went after death, especially after the priori had been cast.

This is why he didn’t cast it. As long as there was this residual warmth in the wood, Harry could almost believe the junk in the papers and continue to avidly collect clippings of sightings across the globe. It often occurred to him to wonder just exactly why these snippets kept being posted, but then there was always rampant speculation about other warriors in the War being seen everywhere. Albus was a popular one and Harry had a few of the more outrageous stories of that man too, like the shaky picture that had him riding in a howdah on the back of an elephant beside the Ganges, even though Harry’d seen the man die with his own eyes. He sighed and drew the wand out. A man had to have a hobby.

He let his fingers play over the worn, smooth wood, he held it gently to his cheek and closed his eyes. He imagined he could feel the thrum of power still within but it was likely just the containment of the many old spells, light and dark, that the man had cast since last time his wand was ‘cleaned’.

Harry recalled a few of the spells a ‘priori’ would show up. He could still blush at the thought. The divestio that had him naked across the velvet covered bed, the lubricus that had been murmured in the fever of their coupling and the gentlest of ‘scourgify’, and ‘abluere’ charms as their breathing came under control again between sensuous kisses. It had been the most wonderful few hours of Harry’s life and by keeping the record of the charms still locked up in this piece of wood, it was some spurious proof that the afternoon had indeed taken place and wasn’t just a figment of Harry’s imagination. Proof like this would stand up in court, not that it would ever have to but it was the irrefutability of it that pleased Harry.

For just one solitary afternoon, he had been loved beyond reason. And he had loved in turn.

He smiled as he remembered.

****

The tension was starting to get to us both. When would Voldemort finally show his hand? I always knew we’d be separated at the final hour. He has to stand on that side at least for a while according to the plans. We’re sitting in his parlour, gasping and sweating from our last duelling bout just to keep our strength up, our limbs agile, but it hasn’t worn off the edge of the ‘itchies’. I’m still bouncing around like a cricket on caffeine and he gets up to pace about. We’re as prepared as we’ll ever be and all we have to do is wait, not an easy task for either of us.

He Summons a house-elf, whispers in her ear and makes her laugh. She disappears and comes back with several icy bottles of German lager. Perfect. I am of age now and this is out of school hours so, when he offers me one, I accept. I brush the tips of his fingers and almost drop my bottle. Crap! Now I know what the tension’s all about, though I’ve been thinking this might be the case for some time. I completely miss his flinch, so intent am I on my own gaffe.

I probably have a few too many too quickly and am a bit drunk, but as we all know, drink loosens the inhibitions. One minute we’re just staring at each other. I feel like I’m drowning in his eyes and then he’s kissing me like I’ve never been kissed before. Bloody hell! So that’s what all the fuss is about, is it?

Okay, I’ve nothing against gays, I’ve experimented a bit, but the rest’s been girls. I had a nice snog with Dean in fifth year and I let Justin blow me one night after quidditch practice but that’s it where me and men are concerned, sexually, but this man is blowing me away with his mouth. I’ve never been kissed like this and I’m responding, making these sounds as he eats me up and he’s pressing us together, his arms are round me and a somewhat bigger-than-mine hard-on is rubbing my dick. I want to explode, scream, come in my pants but instead I back away slightly and suggest we take this to bed.

We are shaky on our feet. I’m trying not to think of the implications of all this and am determined to stay in the here and now. If this is all I get then I’m going to enjoy it. I bet he wants me to bottom though. Not sure how I’m going to fit that monster cock of his in me and my meanderings almost cost me the moment. As if reading me, he says gently, “We don’t have to do everything, Harry, just play, enjoy each other”, he’s mouthing against my lips, “I’d very much like to taste you”. That does it! My legs are jelly and I fall backwards onto the bed.

I still have hold of his hand so he falls with me and we are kissing and biting and writhing about on his bed. The man is so passionate, abandoned. He groans and kisses and licks, his hands are delicate and everywhere, touching, massaging, pinching, caressing and with the single whispered ‘divestio’, I am naked before him.

He actually gasps and narrows his eyes. I’m still a bit of a scrawny bugger, all knobbly knees and skinny arse but he seems to like the view. He makes to descend on me with that sinful mouth when I stop him, “Do the spell on yourself. I want to see you. I want to touch you”, and I do, desperately.

I swear his hands are shaking and he mutters something like, “I’m no oil painting”, and it’s my turn to gasp. Gods alive! He’s gorgeous. I always pictured him smooth and hairless but he’s not. He’s no bear either but he has a nice dusting of hair over his chest and around his nipples and a lovely track all the way down to....oh....my....god.

It’s official! He’s got the biggest dick I have ever seen, and it’s very hard, very red and it wants me along with it’s owner. I manage to tear my eyes away and look up into my lover’s face. He’s flushed, shy even. “I know I’m a bit big, Harry, that’s why....well, we can do all sorts of other things”. Christ, the man’s almost stammering.

He’s nervous. He doesn’t want to hurt me. I look back down again and see that magnificent organ wilt a little. Without preamble, I dip my head and taste the tip. Hard again in an instant. I lick my lips and sit back a little to gaze upon it then reach out a hand and stroke the spongy tip, letting my finger trail in the slit picking up another small bead of fluid. He watches as I taste him from my finger, his eyes narrow and his face transforms with the slowest laziest smile, then I’m on him.

I can’t fit that much in my mouth all at once but I know I’m pleasing him as I feel his skin grow hot and damp and hear the grunts and hums he makes as I blow him. He pushes me off rather suddenly and I look up, afraid I’ve done something wrong but he leans in and kisses me, “Too close. I don’t want to cum yet. I haven’t tasted you”.

I am on my back and I’m being devoured slowly from feet to forehead. He finds erogenous zones I never knew existed. I groan when he misses my cock but he flips me over onto my front. Ah, at last. Friction. But he does something damned clever with his wand and I can’t feel the bedcovers against my cock. Damn. I’m going mad here.

He starts at the back of my neck and works downwards with his tongue then up from my feet. Ohgodsyes when he nibbles my spreading inner thighs. Then my crack is being delicately fingered. Who knew a guy could be so sensitive there? And when he licks me there......ohfuckinghell....and pushes his tongue inside....that’s when I start going mental and I know I’m going to beg for him to fuck me.

He prepares me. Yes, it feels bloody strange to have something going in where only exits are usual. He’s careful, I’ll give him that, makes sure I’m ready for the next finger but then he touches my prostate and I’m seeing stars....I had no idea.....ohgods.....more...yes...just....ohfuck and then I’m spread and his dick’s a bloody sight bigger than fingers and it hurts, it burns and ow ow ow and he’s telling me to relax, reaching round, stroking my belly then my cock which has shrunk a bit in the proceedings.

He makes me hard again and this eases things as I start to push into his hand, then he thrusts hard and is home. I’m fully impaled on that dick and it’s pressing me wide open. I feel vulnerable. I feel fucked and then he moves. Thick fat cock grinding my prostate to mush, his hand on my dick and him pounding in and out of me, neither of us lasts long. I grunt and sweat and brace myself, nearly there, nearly there, nearly there and he speeds up his thrusts, gods, I’m gonna feel this tomorrow. He quickens his hand on me and that’s it, I can’t take any more. I press back as hard as I can, his full length up my arse and cum and cum over his moving hand, my belly, the bed, the wall, our legs as I am now virtually sitting in his lap. He moans out my name, jabs upwards sharply, clamps me around the middle and fills my backside. I can feel every spurt as he spends himself.

We share another beer and kisses as we come down. We talk softly of this and that. The final battle is almost upon us but we don’t spoil the mood that we have created. Sooner or later and we are twining round each other again, kisses deepening and tongue-filled, hands roaming and touching, quieter, less frantic. I’m just about to say that my bum can’t take another fucking so soon when he calmly hands me the lube.

When I look a bit confused, he gives me instructions which I follow to the letter. Well, I add a few licks to his freshening cock for good measure as he is on his back. He wants us face to face. Criminy! He’s so tight. Gods, so beautiful. I slide in slowly. He tells me it’s been some time since he did this but he relaxes as I seat myself and start to move.

It is simply the most sublime fuck I ever had. There’s no rush, no hurry. He’s tight and responsive, arching into my thrusts, thrashing about below me. I take a hold of his cock but he gently removes my hand. He plants his feet below my arse and forces me deeper in. I have to come up onto my arms and he fastens his ankles together around my back, “Gods, Harry, that’s it, yes, yes, put your back into it, fuck me, I won’t break. Give it to me hard. Oh yes, fuck, yes. Harder, ohmygod, fuck me. Close. Mine. Yes. Ohfuck....Harryyyyyy”, and he’s yelling his head off and I’m fucking him so hard as he sprays the pair of us. I’ve sweat running into my eyes and I know I’m red from the exertions and I’m so fucking close then he murmurs, “Fill me, Harry, come inside me”, and that’s enough to catapult me over the edge, so I fill him and fill him until my balls are empty and my legs collapse.

****

With a grunt and a “Fuck, where am I?”, Harry startled back to himself again and looked down. His dressing gown was open, his pyjama bottoms were open and he had cum all over his hand and nightclothes. Damn. He waved a cleaning spell over himself and sat up from his slump, wand in hand and rubbed at his tired eyes. Time to get back to the house and go to bed, he had meetings in the morning.

He started to tidy up and made to put the wand he’d kept all these years back in it’s box and was casting around for his own when it hit him, hard enough to make him sit down again, trembling, still clutching the length of ebony and staring at it.

Of course, the ultimate proof of life left in the owner. Harry breathed out slowly and raised the staff, flicking it. “Accio cushion” and the textile he’d aimed it at sailed towards him and he caught it deftly. This wand still worked and any Auror worth his or her salt knew that a wand became inactive after it’s owner’s death. What a dunderhead! And he’d never thought to check. This was a revelation. This was one mighty shock. This was bloody brilliant.

This meant that somewhere out there, Severus Snape was still alive.

Harry remembered his impassioned words after the Summons called him away, “I don’t want this to be the only time”, and felt tears clog his throat. “Nor do I, Severus, nor do I”, he whispered before letting himself out of the shed and back into his house.

2

He started his enquiries tentatively enough, browsing through the library and Flourish and Blotts for old potions manuals, he knew the man had contributed articles. His steps inevitably led him to the Daily Prophet’s archives where he was welcomed and given tea before being left alone to browse. He was quiet at work so he had time.

He bought maps and started to go back through his considerable pile of cuttings, sifting out the most mentioned areas where supposed sightings had taken place. He bought a small notebook and made jottings. He spent an inordinate amount of time in his shed.

Ginny pulled him up, “Have you been given a mission, love?”, she asked cautiously one night as Harry fussed over his notebook, raking his hair and muttering. He looked up, distracted, “Hmmm? Yes, sorry, love....Ah..”, the lie slipped out so easily, “Yes....a dinner service....Meissen porcelain, very rare, charmed to poison the diner if particular ingredients are placed upon it then eaten off it, very tricky. It got split up several years ago and the new owners of the pieces keep turning up dead. We’re trying to track the spread, it’s a nightmare”.

She backed off, “Wow, that’s a bugger, isn’t it? I bet the pieces ended up all over the place. Does that mean you have to go away?” Harry glanced at her, “Um, yes. My department has been charged with the de-charming of the pieces once found and I sort of volunteered to go and help look. You don’t mind, do you?” She reached out and ran a hand through his hair affectionately, “’Course not, silly. A bit of a journey may help blow the cobwebs out a bit. At least this sounds more interesting than doilies that bite or armchairs that fart when you sit on them”.

He tried not to sag with relief. He had tons of leave accruing to him, a bit of a slush fund saved up and the department could quite happily tick along without him for a while, so three days later found him dressed for travel, a small rucksack on his back, in tweeds and walking boots, maps shrunk in his pockets and some food for the first leg of the journey carefully packed by his wife. She pecked him at the door and closed it behind him.

He walked away from the house without a backwards glance and Ginny’s insides dropped. She had met his colleague’s wife in town shopping. There was no dinner service, there was no mission and it had been the talk of the department that old Potter was finally taking a holiday to go hiking. So why hadn’t he told her? Why had he lied? What was really going on?

****

She could dismantle his locking spells pretty easily and was soon both in the shed and in the desk. She lifted out the scrapbooks, their page edges now bristling with tiny sticky notes. This wasn’t memory, this was research. She paged through the markers in turn, noted their location and read the articles nearest. This wasn’t even research anymore, this was obsession. All the markers pointed to one man as did most of the articles now that she viewed them properly. These brightly coloured bits of paper hadn’t been here the last time she’d flicked through them. This was recent and all the clippings seemed to point at a variety of locations. Damn him! Her husband was out looking for Severus Snape. Why? He was dead! What was the point of chasing after a dead man? All this nonsense in the papers was just that, nonsense, so why was Harry suddenly traipsing about around the country? She had no answers to any of this and went to put the books away. It was then that she noticed the box.

She lifted it out and it opened easily. The last time she had seen this, it defied every attempt on her part to open it, not that she wasn’t adept at magic in her own right but this thing was only going to open for Harry and despite it’s construction of mere stiffened, lined board, it had several unbreakable charms on it as well. Now it was open, and empty.

A simple foam liner covered in velvet, with a narrow depression running almost the length of the box, a label with Ollivander’s name and pedigree in the lid. A wandbox, with no wand. Surely not Harry’s, if so, why keep it safeguarded with such strong spells? So, there had likely been a wand in here until now there wasn’t. Was this small fact and Harry’s disappearance connected? She bit her lip and tried to remember but it was all so long ago.

She went back to the scrapbooks, only this time to the first one, the earliest, the one with scraps about the aftermath of the War itself and less about the characters. There had been a brief description of finding Snape’s remains with the dead snake. A list. The wand was on it.

A few weeks later and there had been a scurrilous rumour that Saint Potter had been called onto the carpet as a new Auror trainee accused of tampering with evidence in a case, vital evidence purportedly going missing. She had dismissed this out of hand at the time. She came to the sad couple of lines listing Harry as the only person at Snape’s funeral.

There was a crabbed note in Harry’s hand in the margin, she turned her head and lifted the book nearer to the light, ‘Why no autopsy? The long bones were from a deer not a human! Something about the clod of hair was all wrong! Why just the cloak and not the rest of his clothes?, he wore serge trousers as well as cloak. Where was the skull, snakes NEVER eat the skull. The Ministry couldn’t be ARSED and they just presumed!!!!!”.

Presumed? She sat back and closed her eyes. They all just presumed that Snape was dead. They had the so-called incontrovertible evidence before their eyes and in the rush and panic of war they had believed what they had seen. And the wily old bugger had got away, hey? Never had to answer for his own crimes, could just up and vanish without a trace.

Ginny recalled Harry giving her the gorier details, how, instead of having the nerve to take the body from the snake, they’d simply cut out the biggest lump of snake and flung that into the coffin, after all it was only Snape, for God’s sake, dumped in the rest of the effluvia and nailed the lid down before casting Incendio on what remained of Nagini.

She never quite understood Harry’s rage at the indignity of it all. She’d have been quite happy to have had Snape’s medal go uncollected but Harry was adamant that they go to the Ball that night and he stood and accepted the Order of Merlin (second class) on his dead mentor’s behalf making a calm and considered speech in his favour. No-one had ever seen what Harry saw in Snape but they let it go as one of his quirks.

They were wed and she was full of her first when the dam broke in him one night and he railed at how unfairly the man had been treated, how readily pushed to one side, how even his burial was an ignominy, then he cried for three days straight, making Ginny worry for his sanity for a moment, but he had eventually calmed down and they became a proper family. Dad at work, mum at home. Three lovely kids that were a credit to them.

But all of it was a damned lie. She sniffled and let the memories of the Battle wash over her. Harry, shining with his own power, resplendent on the battlefield, despite his specs being askew and his shirt hanging out. Ginny had never seen such a magnificent sight as her Harry battling the Dark Lord and winning, and, make no mistake about it, she was going to snare that princeling for her very own.

But she never really had, had she? She could see him now, proud and strong, fighting and hexing and cursing with abandon. He had been on fire those last three days, pacing the common room, driving them all nuts, muttering, “Come on, you bastard, I’m ready for you now”, and other such things.

So when the end finally came, it was a bit of a rout, for the losing side, for the Dark. Harry did what was expected of him, he killed Voldemort, and many others, but he had been in the red haze and hadn’t really noticed. They had run off and wed in a moment of madness. It was five days beforehand that Snape’s remains were found.

She let her mental fingers dig further back into her memories. Harry had been tense and bad-tempered that Sunday morning before the Final Battle. He had actually refused to come out to the quidditch stands with her for a snog and whatever else might happen and had barked at her, “I need to be training, not having bloody sex”. She’d pouted at him and said, “Fine. But if you ask me, a bloody good shag’d put you right, relax you a bit”. He’d glared at her then stormed off, “I don’t need relaxin’. I need to duel, to fight, damn it. See you later”, he called down the corridor.

She knew he had gone to Snape’s dungeon. He’d spent most of his last term down there, learning new fighting techniques as well as stealth and tracking skills out in the forest. Ginny had never liked or even respected Snape that much but she kept quiet when Harry lauded the man to the skies and knew that, as much as she disliked the man, he was her Harry’s best hope of staying alive through this.

That night, he’d been in the strangest of moods as he entered the tower, he seemed elated and glowing but as soon as he saw us his face fell. He rushed towards us and stopped. There were roses in his cheeks as if he’s been running, maybe he had. “Snape’s been Summoned. It’s coming. Soon”, was all he said and he turned on his heel and buggered off to bed. I never saw Professor Snape again.

“And now my husband’s going looking for you, Snape. Why?” She heard herself ask aloud and stopped. That way lay madness. She put everything back as she’d found it and left it all unlocked. Her and Harry were long overdue a talk when he finally returned.

****

It took Harry a couple of days to get the irritants out of his system by means of vigorous walking by day and camping by night. On the third night, he turned his sausages in the small griddle on the open fire and sighed, this was the bloody life all right, he popped a can of beer bought in the last village, laid on his pack and stared at the stars. He was finally starting to relax.

He had sifted carefully through his cuttings for the most plausible, so the ones of him bungee-jumping from the Golden Gate bridge were out but he’d laid aside the ones that had seen him in outdoor markets buying sage or marjoram for instance. One snippet had him at a petrol station but buying distilled water. These were the ones that interested him and they were the more tantalising for being few and far between.

But they were all in a cluster of sorts, covering the size of area that a reasonable flyer could get to in a morning, Harry thought, as he drew a rough red line around virtually the whole of Lancashire and North Cheshire. Damn, that was a lot of country.

He consulted his notebook at the timeline. The sightings had been spread over at least fifteen years in all sorts of places. Harry sat outside his tent and marked them all, and pencilled in a rough line finding the centre of the circle. Manchester or one of the suburbs south. He had no idea how he was supposed to search such a densely populated city but he was still grinning as he boarded a train in Little Codswallop or wherever he was to catch the connection to London. It was vague but he had a plan, the sun was shining and he had a plan.

The tent was packed small and Harry had transfigured his clothes to jeans and flying jacket with smart trainers on his feet and his backpack was now an artfully scuffed leather.

He booked into an hotel, a small modest affair, and spread his maps out on the table in his room then consulted his list as to where Snape had last been seen. In the city centre, he had been seen trawling the many farmer’s markets that the city hosted and had appeared supposedly at flower shows and country markets all over the region. Then Harry had to laugh. ‘He’s buying bloody ingredients, you oaf. A dead man would hardly have an account at the sodding apothecary in Diagon, now, would he? And I bet the flower shows are to pick up seeds and whatnots, so I bet where he’s hiding has a garden. Come on, Harry, you were a top Auror, figure it out’, his mind mumbled to itself.

He vaguely recalled from his schooldays that Snape had a house, Spinner’s something but a look through the A-Z made him sigh, there was nowhere that sounded familiar. There was a Spinners Gardens out north of Rochdale that he might check out and plenty of ‘Spinney’s but nothing in the city itself. Maybe it was the name of the house itself rather than the road. Maybe it was time to go to the Town Hall, see what he could dig up there. For a fee, he was seated before the microfiche machines and given more or less free rein. He looked up the place near Rochdale to find it a newish development and not worthy of investigation.

A search for ‘Spinner’ in house names came up with quite a few. Harry copied them into his notebook along with the addresses. He had a start now. He broke for food and decided on a pub lunch and some fabled northern beer. Neither disappointed. Full and relaxed, he went to the large reference library next and sat with their post code directory, back to his map to plot them all then a pleasant walk past the main art gallery to the bus station for route maps and a travel pass. If it all came to nothing, then at least he’d tried.

He was wandering back to his hotel along back streets following one of the canals when he drew up short in one of the streets, aptly named after the canal itself. There were pubs and bars lining one side of the street with a wall the other to stop people tipping into the canal, a much-used waterway. There were tables and chairs dotted about so Harry thought it a good place for an early evening drink.

He bought a pint from the dark wooden pub and took it to one of the tables. Then he started to notice the nature of his locale when the two chaps at the next table kissed each other and a pair of high-heeled transvestites click-clacked along the pavement, studiously avoiding getting their heels trapped in the cobbles, he smiled thoughtfully and picked up the menu, he might as well eat here.

He ordered food and it was soon brought, piping hot and delicious, along with another pint. The street was filling up with all sorts of working folk released from their day’s toil. He knew he was in the gay village now but these early denizens were mainly straight, maybe a clutch of office girls with a gay boy or two in tow, a few married businessmen looking for a little rent in the side alleys. After his excellent meal and the fourth pint, Harry was feeling very mellow. He’d shared his table with many folk as the evening waxed around him and in between times he cross-referenced his search notes.

A voice at his ear made him leap a mile, “Is this seat taken, Harry?”, and he started and exclaimed and jumped and there was a squeal as the speaker leapt back holding her drink higher. Harry spun, grinned and caught her, sod the drink, he hadn’t seen her in years. “Hermione. Wow, bloody hell, it’s good to see you. Let me buy you another drink. Wow. Can’t believe it’s you. What’ve you been up to? Wow”, she shut him up with another hug before they both sat down.

They snagged a passing barman and ordered fresh drinks both agog at seeing each other. Their questions were rushed and giggled, they really hadn’t seen much of each other since she and Ron had divorced and she had moved north but they still had plenty to say to each other.

“So, Hermione Granger, why are you in this gay place?” She grinned at him and sipped her mojito, “I could ask the same of you, Mr Married-for-how-many-years?” He rolled his eyes then looked down, “I think I’m having a mid-life crisis, ‘Mione. I think I’m obsessed and cracking up”. She sighed, “You’ve also had too much to drink. Are you staying nearby?” He mumbled the name of the hotel and nodded, “There’s a quiet resident’s bar there, quieter than here”. They finished their drinks and left the table, walking into the nearest alley arm in arm. They apparated away.

Two coal-black eyes watched them go from another table further down the street then dipped his sandy-haired head back over the paper he’d been reading. Yes, what exactly was Mr Married Harry Potter doing there in gaytown? The man closed his paper with a smirk, drained his Guinness and melted away into the darkness beyond the gaudy lights.

They were ensconced in a dim corner of the lounge bar with plates of nibbles on low tables and comfy chairs to curl up in nursing fresh drinks and Hermione asked, “So, spill it, Potter, what were you doing in the heart of gaytown, ‘cos from where I was standing it looked as if you were either looking for someone or maybe trying to get picked up?”, she quirked a brow.

Harry sighed, “Well, the latter I actually wouldn’t have minded happening although you’re right, I’m looking for someone, hence the....er.....obsession. I can’t believe I was such a dunderhead, how I let them bury.....ah, crap, maybe I’m just getting old”, he sank his head in his hands.

She unfolded him and slipped his arms around her then hers about him, “Why now, Harry?” He started in her embrace, “Have you seen him? Recently?” He could feel her nod against his chest, “Twice in the last three years. Nothing much, the first time was in Market Street on a Saturday and he was clearly in a rush, the second time we had coffee in the Royal Exchange”. “Fuck, Hermione, why didn’t you tell me?”, he groaned. She pulled away slightly then and sank to the floor turning away and leaning her back on the front of the sofa, she contemplated the gas flames. “Because you chose Ron, Harry, and you chose not to know me anymore. You are a married man, Harry. Why this burning desire to revisit with old lovers?”

Harry grabbed her shoulder and turned her quite roughly towards him. Hermione had been the only person to whom he’d confessed about that afternoon. She gasped and made to say something but was stopped by the tears in his eyes, “Because I thought he was dead all these years. I buried him. I collected his medal. I still have his wand and it still works, that’s how I knew and I only found out less than a fortnight ago”.

Her eyebrows raised and she reared back, “You mean to say you never did the priori? Surely that would have told you the wand was still active”. He reddened and looked down. She huffed a breath and shook her head, “I dunno. What are you like, Harry? That....er....afternoon...just before the battle...he did spells then? While you were....er...together that day?” Harry nodded, “I know. Daft, isn’t it? But it feels like if I let them go from his wand then I lose the only real bit of him I ever had”. Hermione huffed again, “Harry, you’re such a berk. Maybe it was the clue you were supposed to follow”.

Harry paled visibly and she reversed back to her own seat, “Harry, you’re not going to throw up are you?”, she muttered anxiously. He shook his head, plainly in shock. “I’ve really been an idiot, haven’t I?” She nodded. “Think about it, what a perfect opportunity to reinvent yourself. You were a junior Auror, you would have been given the wand to do as part of the investigation, surely....”, he cut her off, “I.....er....the wand disappeared before it was ever officially examined. I still have it. I want to give it back. I hung onto those spells like an old jumper that smelled of him. I thought he was dead, they had a squad of goons cut the snake up with him still inside, ‘Mione, I watched, I saw it”, he was weeping freely now, “then they bunged the whole lot into the coffin like so much rubbish but it wasn’t until long afterwards that I started to question stuff....and by then it was too late”.

She passed him a paper napkin to wipe his face on and held him as the tears lessened, “I suppose this isn’t a good time to ask how are Ginny and the kids?”, she said, softly, and Harry sniffled, straightened and blew his nose, “Yeah, they’re all fine, though I think Gin’s as bored with life as I am. We’re like two good friends sharing a house. We have our chores and our activities and hobbies but I feel as if I’m slowly turning into her dad. I even have a shed in the garden and I wear slippers. Severus would never have let me wear slippers”.

They started to laugh at this and the mood lifted. Harry sipped a coffee, “I don’t suppose you know where he is then?” Hermione shook her head, “But I do know that he still makes potions and that the last time I saw him, he’d just had another paper published in Potions Monthly, that’d be the year before last, erm, let’s see, June, July, middle of summer anyway, something on non-addictive sleep potions, he was quite chuffed about it, if that helps”. They hugged and carried on talking, letting the conversation drift to their children.

The next morning, Harry largely skipped, but that afternoon found him back in the reference library following Hermione’s instructions. “Go round widdershins from the second floor lift, through art and architecture, through the double doors and onto the rescue zone landing, tap your wand twice on the balustrading and another set of stairs should appear, the muggle stairs go up to the right and the magical to the left”, and here he was in wizarding Manchester’s own library.

He was shown to the potions journals by a friendly young wizard and was left to browse. He quickly found the relevant year and scanned the contents pages eagerly. Nothing for those months. He checked the contents more assiduously. Ah, here was an article on sleep potions in the August issue, written by....oh, of course....a pseudonym. Hang on, hadn’t he already seen that name somewhere?

He flicked through a couple of other back issues and there it was, a quarter page advert on page 69 for Meldrew’s Potions, established for over 2 generations, etc., etc, and an owl destination. ‘Spinner’s End, Manchester’. Now for an owl.

After tramping the city, Harry was rethinking his previous enthusiasm for the way Mancunian wizards and witches ordered their magical affairs. Instead of a wizarding district as such, they were more integrated and had small wizarding annexes to main businesses or offices.

This meant one side of town to buy parchment and quill from a legal stationers catering to both populations then back to the centre to the main Post Office to send it, then a further trek back to the hotel. He panicked and fretted and thought about just quietly leaving before there could be the hope of a reply. He had written,

S,

I know it’s been a long time, but I came to find you after it was all over, and I mean, all over. I never meant for that to be our only time either.

H xxx

And he had sent it quickly before he could chicken out and change his mind, appending his temporary address to the bottom of the parchment. He sat in his room and waited, and waited. Perhaps he was more the fool. Of course the man would have moved on, maybe he’s with a lover as I sit and think, he thought glumly.

Hunger drove him to seek food but tonight he dined in. The restaurant wasn’t bad and he’d left word at the desk to be told immediately should anyone try to contact him. Nothing happened all the way through his meal. Disappointed he trudged up the stairs and unlocked his room. He had left the window open just in case but there was no sign of owls or any other visitor.

He fell on the bed and closed his eyes. So close, yet so far. Suppose Severus had no wish to see him after all this time. Harry made up his mind, he would try again tomorrow and if there was no reply then he’d give up and go home. He stripped quickly and showered then sank into bed. It took a couple of hours and a protracted wank before sleep finally found him.

****

He’s here again, sitting at what happens to be my favourite table, the one with the best view up and down the canal as well as an excellent site from which to view the street life. He’s been here every night this week, just when I want to relax and dine, there he is, looking beautiful and rumpled in the setting sun, leaning on his table and writing whatever it is he writes.

I am sitting in the window, partially shielded from the bar but I have a commanding view of the tables outside and I’m pretty sure I cannot be seen from here. I watch as others ask to share his table and he smiles then ignores them. Why is he here? He still wears his wedding band, so if being picked up is what he’s after then he’s in for a long wait. He doesn’t ogle but he sits up and watches the street life from time to time.

I got his note but I didn’t reply. I couldn’t believe it after all this time. Why now? He starts to pack his stuff in his bag and I’m on edge. Should I speak to him or not? My heart is in turmoil. There have been another couple of notes since the first one. I have replied to none of them. Each has been more impassioned than the last. What does he want? He starts to walk away. One of the fey rent boys steps out of the shadows and speaks with him. I watch him waver then shake his head and walk on.

I decide to follow him for a while. He really is a country bumpkin, there are streets that no-one should walk down alone in this city but he seems to choose the darkest ones. I get close enough to hear what sounds like a sniffle from him and I see him grind the heel of his hand into his eyes. He looks tired. With a slipperiness born of many years as a spy, I slip into his hotel foyer and conceal myself behind plants as he walks up to the desk.

“I’ll be checking out early, so I’ll pay tonight if I may”, he is so polite. The receptionist smiles at him but I can see the sag in his shoulders. “Would you like an alarm call, sir?” He nods, “Aye, suppose I’d better. I have to be on the 6:15 to London, so, say, five thirty with breakfast in my room?” He settles up and moves towards the stairs.

Defeat lies heavily in every line in his body as he grasps the newel post and starts to haul himself up the stairs. One of the porters looks a little alarmed, it does look as if he might fall, and rushes over to offer assistance but Harry waves him off with a polite thanks. The boy ventures, “So you didn’t find the man you were looking for, then, sir?” Harry gives him a tight smile, “Oh, I found him but he doesn’t want to be found by me, so I’m off home tomorrow morning. I’m not looking forward to it. Goodnight, Anthony. Here, share this out between you and Alison the chambermaid”. I see folding notes change hands. The lad thanks Harry for the tip which must be generous from the expression on his face and leaves him to mount the stairs alone. I continue to follow.

There is a soft thump up ahead of me round the bend in the stairs and I rush up to see Harry collapsed against a door, weakly hitting it with his balled fists, his head hanging and snivelled mutters emerging, “Why won’t you see me, you bastard? I fuckin’ love you. I’ve loved you for years and you’re dead and then you’re not and I can’t stand it.....”

****

Harry slumped against the door to his room. He felt as if his heart was breaking but there was nothing for it. He was going to go home and break the news to his wife that he was leaving her. If nothing else had come of this sojourn then at least he owed Ginny the truth about himself. He had loved her in his way but he knew that it was not enough for the passionate woman. He had wronged her and himself even if they had three lovely children to show for it. He hammered weakly on his door as if it would open itself and he couldn’t help the words as they slipped out even as he despised himself for harbouring so much hope.

“Why won’t you see me, you bastard? I fuckin’ love you. I’ve loved you for years and you’re dead and then you’re not and I can’t stand it.....”

And he dissolved into a storm of weeping. He felt hands on his shoulders and flinched away, “Sorry, sorry, I fell, bumped my head, saw stars, I’m okay, sorry, sorry.....I’ll just....”, and he stopped when he felt arms go about him from behind, felt himself pulled back against a solid chest, that smell....so familiar... He turned, to see a curtain of black hair laced with grey strands over his shoulder, was aware of the weight of a head on his shoulder, knew immediately who held him and burst into fresh tears.

“Severus. You came to me. Why are you here? I didn’t think you wanted to see me any more. I’m sorry, I can’t do this. My heart is breaking. Hold me. I love you. I’ve always loved you”.

The arms tightened around him, “I know, Harry. I love you too. What idiots we have been. Why did you not test my wand? I left it for you, to tell you I was still alive. Nagini ate her keeper and threw up bones before she swallowed him. I hacked off my hair, tore off my ring and left my cloak and wand in all the mess to make it look as if she’d had me. I was stuck, Harry. I never thought it’d take you so long to find me. This was my chance to start again and I had to take it, you must understand. I knew that the round-up would begin after Voldemort’s death. I watched you kill him, you were magnificent. I also watched my own funeral but you didn’t notice me and when you went off and married Miss Weasley I thought it expedient to let you continue to think that I was dead. You would mourn and move on. I’m so sorry, love, so sorry”.

They clung to each other ignoring the occasional guest that passed them in the landing. It was only when the manager of the hotel came bustling up all concern that they tried to move. Severus shook the small man’s hand, “I am the bearer of bad news to your guest, I’m afraid. There is nothing to be alarmed about. I will take care of Mr Potter if you could let us into his room, please”. Harry didn’t raise his head but let himself be lifted gently into Severus’ arms. He heard the soft conversation between Severus and the night manager of the hotel. He heard money rustle, “Please could you ask one of your lads to bring hot sweet chocolate and brandy to Mr Potter’s room, for the shock, you know”. The man nodded and, watching the two stumble into the room, hared off back down the stairs barking orders at his staff.

Severus virtually carried Harry over the threshold of his room and laid him down on the bed, easing off his shoes and socks. This wasn’t quite how he’d envisaged undressing Harry the next time they met but he was flooded with gratitude that he was here at all. Summoning a towel from the bathroom, Severus dipped a corner into the water carafe by the bed and, after removing Harry’s glasses, gently bathed his red face of tears.

There was a gentle knock a few minutes later and Severus relieved the lad at the door of his tray giving him a generous tip. He poured chocolate for them both and laced them generously with brandy, slipping a phial of potion into Harry’s, who was struggling to sit up as he approached the bed.

“What’s in this?”, Harry asked as he took a shaky sip. Severus looped his arm around Harry’s shoulders, “Some of my latest non-addictive sleep potion and brandy as it likes an alcohol base to work with. You need to sleep now but I will stay with you if you prefer and we will talk when you wake. Should I set an alarm? Do you have to be somewhere else on the morrow?” Harry sighed, “I’m supposed to be heading back to London in the morning but I can miss the train and Floo or something, send an owl”, his voice was slurring, “Don’ leave me Sev. Please don’ leave me. Couldn’ stand it now I’ve found you again”, and he was sliding sideways down the bedhead until his head was resting on solid warmth. He was asleep before Severus could reply, “I’m here for as long as you want me, Harry, as long as you want me. I’m going nowhere”.

Just as he’d mis-imagined the next time he was to undress his lover, so he also could not have imagined their first night together, holding a heavier Harry against him as he slept, but he didn’t really mind. He dozed off with the more mature but still definitely ‘Harry’ scent in his nostrils and was content with that and the steady beating of his heart under his hand.

3

Harry had never been a ‘cuddler’ in his sleep, so was surprised at the warmth and the weight that surrounded him as he surfaced. Ginny and he had always slept on their respective sides of the bed: she was the furnace and he liked light bedcovers that he could kick off if he became too hot at night, so he was feeling almost suffocatingly hot as he woke slowly, trying not to struggle the extra weight from him, afraid of disturbing his wife. He vaguely wondered what had made her cuddle up in the night until it registered in his fuzzy brain that he, a) wasn’t in his own bedroom, which meant that b) he wasn’t with Ginny, and c) the body clamping him to it had none of Ginny’s familiar lumps and bumps, so, d) he was being held tight by a man.

His eyes shot open. He still couldn’t see much but an aroma was all around him that made him smile as the memories of the previous night crashed back into his consciousness. He couldn’t reach his glasses although he could see them mere inches away but his arm had been pinned to his side, another, not his, doing the pinning. He could feel steady breaths on the back of his head and neck, he needed the loo but was completely unable to move.

He looked down at the arm so possessively wrapping him. His free hand was a bit restricted but he managed to pull back the opened cuff a bit to see the dark hair and ran his fingers over the delicate bumps of wrist bones and the back of the hand not his own. He idly stroked as he thought, now what? He had what he wanted, he had found Severus and his own heart was singing but there was a heaviness in his chest that was nothing to do with Severus’ warm weight around him.

He had to face Ginny. He knew that something had cracked in his relationship with her, had been cracking for many years, but he had presumed that this was relatively normal for the middle-aged and married. He knew there was a lot that Neville and he weren’t telling each other but at least he hadn’t dumped her as ignominiously as Ron had Hermione. Maybe he should have. Maybe he should have been as swashbuckling as his friend was, a different woman every week and change them as often as the bedclothes, but he knew he wasn’t like that. Responsibility and duty had always lain heavily on him and he’d always risen to the challenge but.....wasn’t it time he had some chance of real happiness, real joy? But how the hell was he going to tell his wife? He sighed.

He felt a kiss to the back of his neck and tried to turn. “That sigh, Mr Potter, carries the world on it’s shoulders. How do you feel this morning?” Harry allowed himself a real smile. That voice would be his undoing, he was sure of it, but he’d got this far. “Sleepy, disorientated, guilt-ridden and strangely happy, if you must know, but I really need the bog, can you let me up?”

There was a chuckle from behind him and the weight decreased, “Although I am reluctant to let you out of my sight at this point”. Harry quickly hopped from the bed and shot into the bathroom. He needed a shower too, having slept all night clothed, but decided after flushing and washing his hands to go back to bed.

He stopped just inside the bedroom and met the full force of Severus’ dark eyes and knew he was lost. He ventured closer cautiously, Severus’ expression hard to read, and sat on the edge of the bed. They didn’t break their gaze. Harry’s mind was in turmoil. He knew he was about to break up his family, wreck his home, and for what? So he could be with the love of his life? Why not live out his life the way he had been doing? Surely it wasn’t that bad? But even as he asked himself these questions he already knew the answers.

He had done his duty, and, as he’d promised all those years ago, he had come to find his love once it ‘was all over’, and it was, for him. He’d likely lose the house to Ginny but he found it hard to care. Right now he wanted to put a torch to his wretched shed – no more living in cupboards for him – no more running away – no more subsuming his own life under his sense of duty: he’d had enough. Now it was time to live for him.

Extending his hand, he cupped Severus’ cheek, letting his fingers run under the heavy fall of black hair and Severus closed his eyes and pushed his face into the touch, turning to plant a kiss in Harry’s palm then smiled rubbing his stubbly cheek in that hand. It was the smile that did it. Harry’s heart leapt in his chest as he saw it and he knew everything would be just fine. Severus still loved him and he still loved Severus and that was all that mattered really. With that love by his side, Harry could do anything.

Harry pulled gently on that dark head and brought his own to meet it, their lips brushed gently lighting fires all through Harry. Severus made the smallest of sounds as their mouths touched, opened over each other, and they were kissing, slowly, tentatively, until Severus made a moaning sound deep in his throat, then they were clasped together, rolling about on the bed, the kiss becoming deeper, sexier, wetter. Hands were starting to explore when a sharp rap on the door brought them both to their senses.

They pulled apart with a lingering look and a last touch of lips. “Bugger!”, whispered Harry, “But I am supposed to be out of here this morning”. They sat up, Severus not quite able to leave Harry be, letting his hand trail along Harry’s arm. He took a deep breath, “Come home with me, Harry. I don’t live too far away. Don’t.....don’t go just yet...unless you have to get back of course”.

Harry smiled, there it was again, that slight hesitance, the shyness of a man that couldn’t quite believe he was so wanted. “Yeah, alright. I’ll come back with you but I do have to face the music at some point”. They kissed again and rose, straightening out the room and their clothes as Harry answered the door. Severus heard him say something to the chambermaid, heard the woman’s giggle and smiled.

Severus ducked them into an entry passage behind a row of shops, gathered Harry into his arms and apparated them both away. The house they landed in was small and more than a little cramped. Harry looked around him to see shelves built floor to ceiling piled high with books. No surprises there. He had expected a certain monastic austerity but instead, the area in the centre of the room was taken up with a comfy looking old leather sofa with a bright blanket thrown carelessly over the back, a coffee table groaning under more books and a tray with what looked like yesterday’s morning tea things still on it.

They disentangled themselves and Severus muttered, “Sorry the place is a mess, I don’t usually have visitors...”, Harry noticed the diffidence again and thought it rather sweet. Severus Banished the tray, “There’s not much to see but I’ll give you the grand tour if you like”. Harry grinned, “Would it be okay for me to take a shower or a bath, only this clobber feels a bit slept in and grubby”.

Severus led the way from the room into the kitchen, a fair size for such a small house. Harry raised his eyebrow, “No lab? I thought there’d be a lab here”. Severus rolled his eyes, “I do have a cellar here, through that door”, he pointed in one corner of the kitchen and Harry presumed the steps led under the stairwell to the first floor though he didn’t pry.

His nervous seeming host put the kettle on, “Ah, yes, a shower. Well, all I have us a bath but you are welcome to make use of it. Upstairs over the kitchen, help yourself while I make tea. Would you like some breakfast? I’ve eggs and bacon in the fridge. I’ll cook while you freshen up, there’s an airing cupboard in the bathroom with clean towels and the water should be hot”. Harry made to touch him, maybe steal a kiss but Severus had turned to the sink and was turning taps on. He sighed silently and made for the stairs instead.

They were steep and narrow, positioned between the two main rooms and Harry had to watch his step as he climbed. There was a loose bit of staircarpet about half way up that nearly made him lose his footing and he cursed kicking it back against the riser. There was a tiny square of landing at the top, the two upstairs rooms opened to left and right, the front, the bedroom and the rear the bathroom. Resisting the urge to peep into the front room he stepped up a step and into the bathroom.

The suite was white, modern and spotless. Harry quickly found the plug and started the bath running, looking around the shelves for products to use. He smiled, he should have realised that Severus would make his own and none of the bottles on the glass shelves was labelled, so he drew his wand and Summoned his suitcase from the sitting room.

The bath wasn’t very big but he could lie down in it with his knees bent up and was quite happily running all sorts of erotic scenarios through his mind when there was a knocking sound through the floor that brought him round, “Breakfast’s nearly ready”, Severus called and Harry shouted back, “Okay, be down in a minute”, and scrambled from the bath. He found a cloth to wipe the tub and the few drops of water he’d splashed on the floor, dried, dressed in clean clothes, waved his wand at his stubble for a quick shave and went downstairs whence the delicious smell of food wafted up to meet him.

“Better?”, Severus smirked as he lifted the warming charm from Harry’s food. Harry smiled, “Much, thanks” and sat down opposite his host at the tiny table in the kitchen. Severus poured them both tea and they ate in silence for a while glancing at each other when they thought the other wasn’t watching and when they caught each other’s eyes they would each grin shyly.

Severus wiped his mouth, made a long arm and deposited his plate in the sink then turned back to Harry still mopping up his tomato juice from his plate with bread. “So, Harry, what exactly is it that you want from me?” Harry nearly choked on his bread and went red. Severus leaned over and patted his back as he coughed and Harry sipped tea, “Sorry about that”, he mumbled as he swallowed.

He thought a moment as he laid knife and fork on his plate, “I don’t know really”, he murmured, “I realised you were still alive and came looking for you. I hadn’t really thought much beyond that. It was such a shock to find your wand still worked to be honest that I just didn’t think”. Severus snorted out a laugh, “Some things never change, Potter. Why am I not surprised?”

Feeling foolish and seventeen again, Harry reddened once more, “All right, all right, I know I acted a bit rashly but imagine my joy when I realised your wand was still active. I’ve kicked myself severally over that, believe me. I...er....just wanted to find you. Oh crap, I just wanted to know if there was anything still....you know...there still”. Severus half frowned, half smirked, “And what could possibly still be....there, as you so eloquently put it, after all this time? I meant for you to come back after the War, not leave it twenty five years”.

Harry bowed his head, “I’ve thought of that afternoon in your dungeon so many times during that time, you know, pondered many-a-time how us meeting up again would play itself out”. Severus was having fun now, “I see”, he drawled in his customary manner, “And you thought you could come blasting back into my life without so much as a by-your-leave and throw yourself at me to see if anything stuck? You told me yourself all that time ago that you didn’t think of yourself as queer”.

Harry didn’t raise his head, “Yeah, well, time can make you think differently. Let’s face it, if that chambermaid hadn’t knocked earlier.....we’d have been all sweaty and naked together...”, his voice tailed off in a sigh. Severus reached over the table and raised Harry’s head with his hand, “Potter....Harry, I am not to be dallied with and I’m not the sort of chap that indulges in one night stands. If relief is all I seek then I’ll quite happily pay a professional. Oh, and I have absolutely no interest in fucking straight men”.

He flinched from Severus’ grasp and rose from the table, “Thank you for breakfast, Severus, but perhaps I should be getting out of your hair, and, for your information, I don’t think I’m straight, but I suppose that doesn’t matter now. I’d best be off and trouble you no more”. Severus rose too, clamped his hands on Harry’s shoulders and pushed him back into his seat, “Potter, I’m not going to let you run off half-cocked like this. You and I are going to talk. We neither of us are young men any more and you shouldn’t run from a situation just because it becomes difficult”.

Harry frowned, “Oh, yes”, he bit out, “Just like I ran from killing Voldemort, I presume. I don’t run away, Snape, and I never have. I thought you were dead, you bastard. Dead. Dead and gone. I put you in the ground myself. I picked up your medal, f’fuck’s sake. I was the only one even faintly interested in you after your ‘death’, and so when I knew you were alive.....my God....it was such a shock. I had to find you. that’s all. Okay, I know I’m an idiot, harbouring these feelings for so long. I know, scoff if you will, but after that afternoon, young as I was, I knew there would be no other, not really. So, yes, I married, like just about everyone else in my year that could still draw breath. I tried so hard to forget about you. Hah, that didn’t work. I’ve been collecting cuttings like a sad bastard for years, out of the papers, sticking them into scrapbooks, I’ve loads of them at home, all those that think they’ve sighted you over the years, it’s how I found you, I triangulated the most mundane of the ‘sightings’ and came to Manchester. There, now you have the pathetic story. I love you and I always have....a-a-and when you held me last night...said you still loved me....I dared to hope....I’m sorry”.

Severus shook his head slightly and poured them more tea. Harry grumbled, “You wouldn’t have coffee here would you by any chance?” Severus shook his head again, “Sorry, it gives me dyspepsia, I only drink tea these days”. Harry added sugar and milk. His mind was a mess. He was so sure that Severus would accept him back but he knew now he was being a complete berk. Of course the man had a life, a pretty decent, if modest one. He had a home, a business, he didn’t need ‘Saint Potter’ barging in here and mucking it all up for him. Harry pushed his plate aside, leaned his elbows on the solid little table and sunk his head in his hands. He felt his eyes tear and pushed up his glasses to rub them. He felt old and tired and washed-up. He wondered how graceful an exit he could effect from all this. Go back to his wife and his shed and his quidditch buddies, sink back into the mire he’d made of his own life.

There was a long silence. Harry could hear the ticking of a clock somewhere measuring out the seconds as the silence lengthened. He heard Severus sigh and the scrape of wood on stone as the man stood up again. Then there was a hand on his shoulder and Harry looked up. Severus could see the devastation and hope in the younger man’s eyes and knew Harry at least believed what he said.

“So why didn’t you test my wand? You never did answer me. It seems as if you kept it like some grisly keepsake”, Severus kept his voice even and tried not to let his hand tremble. He didn’t draw it away when Harry placed his own on top of it and looked away, staring out unseeingly through the kitchen window, “It was all I had of that afternoon, Severus, the spells you cast that day, like keeping an old sweater that still has your scent on it or sleeping in your old shirt, so hex me, I didn’t want to lose what little I had. I have it in my case, I must give it back, it’s yours after all. I would handle it and it still felt a bit warm with all those spells still inside....I....didn’t want it to go cold....I thought to bury it with you.....but after that debacle....I just couldn’t throw you away like the fucking Ministry did. I thought that I might bury it elsewhere but....I couldn’t quite give it up....kept it in my desk with my saddo scrapbooks....I know....pitiful....laugh all you want....I...”, then his head sank onto his folded arms and balled fists and Severus could feel the shaking in his shoulders.

He opened his hand and reached down for one of the fists now thumping softly on the table top and tugged gently for Harry to rise. Not daring to look up, Harry got to his feet and was enveloped in long arms. He buried his face in Severus’ shirt and howled his grief even while he was cursing his weakness in low tones and apologising between sniffles for being such a berk.

Severus held the tightly wound man in his arms and found himself crooning comfort as he stroked Harry’s short bristly hair and he spoke aloud finally in a low voice. “Harry, I waited for you for years. I left Hogwarts in the few clothes I stood up in. I had to disappear, the Ministry was rounding up all the Death Eaters. I suppose I panicked a bit but do you blame me? I’d killed Dumbledore, for Merlin’s sake, no matter whose side I fought on at the end. Who would have believed my turnabout during all the hysteria that followed the War. I wandered rootless for a while until I dared to come back here. The house was untouched. I was at my funeral Harry. I saw you but even then I didn’t dare approach you. I read of your nuptials to Ms Weasley, your children as they came along and thought you were where you should be, happy, with a family, a wife, a job, with all the nonsense of adolescence behind you. Yes, I kept up with your doings. I had a subscription to that awful newspaper for years but let it slide once your second child was born.

I started a mail order business under an assumed name, had to build it from scratch, live on what little savings I had, but my work is good and soon I had quite the thriving little business growing which I maintain to this day. I had relationships, there was even one that seemed quite promising, but when I realised how much he looked like you, I finished it, he was no substitute for the real thing. There was one other, a professor at the university here in Manchester. It didn’t work but we are still friends. There was even a woman at some point, but, well, I’m queer, so that one went to the wall rather swiftly. I saw your friend Hermione, and I have to say, I think you treated her very shabbily. She lives near Burnley with her cats and her garden and has made a life for herself. I occasionally seek out company in Canal Street of the professional sort but mainly I like to sit outside Via and watch the gay world wag past.....I saw you there last week, actually, saw you meet Hermione and leave with her....and I followed you back from there last night to your hotel. I was wondering just what you wanted so stayed back in the shadows to observe....and then I found you in a heap on the hotel landing and here we are....”.

During this speech, Harry had slipped his arms around Severus’ waist and his sobbing had eased. He looked up, “Is there even the remotest chance that you and I could try and make a go of it? I’d really like to....I’m not a one-night sort of guy myself....and that afternoon.....rattled me, shook me to my core, blew me to pieces. It’s taken years to pick them back up and I think I lost some along the way. Ginny really didn’t have all of my heart, she never has. I know she and her family wanted me to be a part of it since second year and who was I to fight that sort of relentlessness? I’m only human, Severus, I’m not the ‘boy wonder’ everyone painted me, so I did the decent thing. We had three kids altogether. You stopped taking the Prophet or you’d know I named the youngest lad Albus Severus. He’s dark like me and his hair’s straight like his mum’s. He’s tall and skinny and good at potions, would you believe? Damn. Have I completely missed the boat on you?”

Severus gathered Harry’s head to his shoulder and tightened his arms around him, “No, Harry. But I’m not in the habit of screwing married men either. I don’t want you to scuttle back to wifey if this becomes difficult”. Harry snorted softly, “I’ve already decided to leave her once I go back. Whatever happens with you and I, I feel like I’ve lived a lie with her, and, if I do nothing else, then I have to sort that out at any rate. ‘Mione helped me clarify my feelings a lot the other night. We sat up and talked into the wee small hours, bloody hell, it was so good to see her again but when Ron and her separated, Ron made it clear that I must demonstrate where my loyalties lay and I was wed to his sister for god’s sake, I didn’t want to drive a family apart. I know, I know, I should have shown more backbone I suppose but I thought that stability and a normal life were what I wanted, particularly after losing so many during the war. I suppose I gave in a bit, anything for a peaceful life. I had been at the forefront of the war for good or ill and I just wanted to blend into the background a bit, let life carry me along. I was sad and insecure and Ginny loved me”.

They were silent again for a long while until eventually Severus spoke. “Harry, I give you one more year, after all the years I waited, can you at least allow me this? If you still want me as you profess to then you will give me this. I will wait another year for you and if you do not come back to me then I will do all I can to forget you again. I would like my wand back, though, no foolish sentimentality, or anything like that, not this time”.

Harry stepped away from the man and dropped his arms, “I will come back to you, Severus. I promised then and I promise now but I will not be held under some sort of spurious time constraint. What if it takes longer to sort out my affairs? What if I return one day beyond the year? Will you push me out? Send me away? I’m not going to live under another yoke, not this time. I’ve let folk dictate my life to me for far too long but no more. This time we have a level playing field or not at all, but I will be back. I’ll rent somewhere and we’ll take it slowly. No obligations. No diving in too quickly. I came as soon as I realised you still lived. That has to count for something, doesn’t it? Well, doesn’t it?”

He tried to keep the pleading out of his voice. They were mature men now. They could do this, couldn’t they? He paced the two steps to the kitchen sink and leaned on it, bracing his arms, trying to will the tears away, staring out at the tiny little yard at the rear of the house. Funny, he could have sworn the man would have a garden but didn’t let himself think about that now. His brain was overloading and his whole body shook, with what emotion he couldn’t have said, a mixture of anger, want, fear and crushing disappointment tinged with the colours of hope. There was no sound from behind him then a creak as Severus once more sat down.

Harry turned and saw the man looking as bereft as he felt but there was little he could do. He flicked his wand and Summoned his suitcase again. It bumped down the stairs making Severus look up. Without catching his eye, Harry unlocked it and rummaged around bringing out the wand wrapped in soft silk. “Here, I still never did the ‘priori incantatem’. It’s all yours again. I cast two spells with it and it worked, so you’ll see it if you do the priori, they weren’t much, just a, um, cleansing spell and a Summoning spell, but they was enough to tell me that the thing still worked and you were alive. The spells are less than a fortnight old. That’s how long I’ve known. Less than two damned weeks”. He snapped his case shut, pulled it upright then stood, brushing off the knees of his jeans.

He trundled the case to the front door in the sitting room and walked back into the kitchen, seeing the man sitting there with his head hanging. It was Harry’s turn to lift the dark head so the eyes met his own. He leaned in and gave him a quick kiss on the lips. “I’m going now. Thanks for the bath and breakfast. I’ll see you as soon as I can. I won’t make you wait any longer than is necessary and I will be back. I love you. I want you. I will be back. I keep my promises, Severus. I always did and I always will even though more years passed than I would have liked but then I mourned what I thought was a dead man. I’ll see you soon, take care”.

Walking as slowly as he dared, he went to the front door. Any illusions he may have countenanced of Severus running up behind him and grabbing him were soon dispelled. Severus wasn’t that kind of man. With a heavy heart, Harry unlocked the front door and closed it behind him with a soft click, walking away from the house as quickly as he could. He didn’t see the curtain twitch. He didn’t feel the black eyes boring into his back and he definitely didn’t hear the whispered, “I love you too, Harry. Come back to me. I don’t care how long it takes, I’ll be here”.

4

The rows were spectacular as he’d expected. Ginny had cried, raged and wheedled, firstly throwing stuff around then threatening him with the loss of everything to which he simply replied. “Fine, take it all, it’s not like I care any more anyway”, before they’d slunk to opposite ends of the house and fumed in bitter silence.

Finally they met up in the middle of the house and talked.

“So what happened while you were away, Harry, and I mean the whole story this time?” Harry sat on the kitchen counter and swung his legs, “Well, you saw the scrapbooks, yeah?” She nodded, rolling her eyes, “Well, and you have to promise to keep this a secret...”, she nodded, “I am still bound to you, Harry”. He raised his eyes, “I know, but I never inflicted that misogynistic stuff on you, though, did I? You know, the way wizards are expected to treat wives?”

She had to agree, Harry really had been the best husband. Not such a good lover but a good provider and an excellent dad, she’d always reasoned that two out of the three was quite bearable. She was sad that he seemed quite intent on leaving, “Go on, I’ll keep your secret”, she said warily.

“Severus Snape’s still alive and I’ve found him”. He was surprised at her shrug and her, “So?” Harry hung his head, contemplating the floor, “I’m going to give him and me a go”. This made her turn, her lips tight. “You mean all this time I’ve been wed to a gay man?”, she sounded less than pleased.

Harry didn’t know what to say so he kept quiet as she digested this. She chewed her lip, “This goes back to before me and you, doesn’t it?” Harry nodded, meeting her shrewd eyes. “In fact, that’s where you spent that Sunday when you wouldn’t shag me, wasn’t it? Bugger me! You shagged him instead? No wonder you came back that night looking as if all your Christmases had come at once. Hmmmm, explains a thing or two about why you grieved for the bastard as you did. Was that his wand you had? In the wandbox in the shed?” He nodded again.

He shrugged, “At least I didn’t have stacks of porn or anything out there”. She huffed out a breath, “I know, but that wand was far more dangerous, wasn’t it?” He went to lift his shoulders again but decided she deserved an answer, “Gin, if he’d lived after the war.....well, if I’d thought he’d lived.....then there wouldn’t have been you and me, I’m afraid. Sorry, but that’s the truth. Oh, and I know about your ‘hunky fireman’ DVD’s. I don’t mind, love, but I could never be that knight on a white charger type. I feel as if I was a constant disappointment to you”.

To his surprise, she smiled in spite of the tears filling her eyes, “Sounds like we both need the white knight to rescue us, sweetie, except you’ve got yours now and I hope you’re happy. I really do. You’re a good man, Harry, but no, you haven’t turned out the man I thought you would the day you shone on that battlefield”. Harry sighed wearily, “That was a prophecy, Gin. I never wanted any part of that and you know it. I was no warrior. Not really. I did what was expected, nothing more”. She let her tears track unimpeded, “Is that all I was, Harry, something you were expected to do”, her voice had bite. “I dunno”, was all the answer he could give. It felt woefully inadequate after twenty five years.

Ron , as was to be expected, defended his little sister, and weighed in with threats of mayhem and violence until Harry lunged at him and threatened to separate him from his balls.

“I’m sick of it, Ron. Your family ganged up on me after the War. Your sister got her hooks into me and you had the cheek to forbid me from seeing my other best friend, who, by the way, I saw whilst away. I’m turning into your dad and I’m only 42. How dare you rail at me about your bloody family values. Which bimbo is it this week? Bobbi!? Mandi!? Yet another whore to decorate your arm with? And what of your kids, Mr Morally bloody superior? At least all of mine are of age now. I’ve done my duty and I’m leaving. I’m gonna live my life my way and if you don’t like it, then the lot of you can take a sodding long walk off a short pier. As for threatening my job, I know Arthur is the Minister now but I’ve tendered my notice. What do you want with me?”

Ron slumped to the floor, “It was fun, Harry, surely you can see that. Wasn’t it fun?” Harry shook his head, “Actually, no, it wasn’t. If you must know, your sister and I haven’t had a sex life for ten years now and it’s not all on my side. I worked hard, provided for my wife and kids and lived like the fucking model citizen while you’ve crashed about fucking whom you chose and you have the fucking nerve to have a go at me, you bastard. I’ve never been unfaithful once. Not once, but there is someone now, and no, I haven’t slept with them, and I won’t until this is all over, so you can shove your morally repugnant attitudes up your arse and swivel on them”.

It was less than two weeks since he’d returned from Manchester and once more he was leaving his home. He’d made good on his promise to himself and burned his shed to ashes complete with all the scrapbooks, the old chair, everything. On top of the bonfire he chucked his little notebook and his ratty old slippers.

He stayed in the Leaky Cauldron while he sorted out his legal affairs then took the train north to his old school. He had read the reports of his son’s doings and was a bit shocked at the lad’s behaviour. Drinking, smuggling pot into school, wilful disobedience of his teachers. Minerva, now a very old lady, greeted him like the prodigal son and took him into her study.

“Well, Harry, I must say I was disappointed when I read of your separation from your wife, particularly as your son is going through such a .....transitional time”. Harry sighed, “I’ve failed that lad. Perhaps I should never have named him after the two people I miss more on this earth save Sirius Black. I don’t know where I went wrong with him but I think he could sense the unease at the back of mine and Gin’s marriage, he’s a clever boy, I know, and a bit introspective”.

Minerva topped up his tea, “I must confess, Harry, that I find myself wondering why this is happening now? Ginny mentioned something to the effect that you had gone haring off to try and find Severus Snape when she last owled me. Might I enquire as to what you thought you were doing? Particularly as our Severus has been gone from us for many years. Merlin! I still miss that man’s acerbity and sense. I miss sparring with him. I even miss his scowling face at the dinner table. He wasn’t a lovable man but he was honourable. I never thanked you for seeing to all the unpleasant aftermath of his death”.

Harry bit his lip then leaned forwards, casting a silencing spell around them to keep the nosy portraits from listening in. “Can you keep a secret, Minerva?” She reared back in surprise, “But of course, Harry, you have always been able to rely on my discretion”. Harry grinned then, the first time he had smiled in what felt like weeks, “He’s alive, Minerva. Severus Snape is alive. I found him and I’m going back to him. It’s bloody complicated”.

“Merlin’s arse, Harry. I think this calls for something a little stronger than tea, don’t you think?” and she fished out a bottle of Ogden’s and two glasses, pouring them both generous measures, and slid a glass to Harry. “Alive, you say?” Harry nodded, “Yes, as I’m sitting here. It was a shock, I can tell you. I still had his wand. I’ve given it back of course, he has a new one now but.....oh, fuck, I’m in love with the sarky old git, have been since I was seventeen if you must know”. Minerva smiled her tabby cat smile, “I always suspected that you and he were a bit sweet on each other, to be honest, and I saw how devastated you were after his death, but you seemed to get over it and you moved on just like so many others”.

Harry hung his head, “I know I gave that impression but I never stopped hoping, even when it seemed like a lost cause. I mean, being dead is a bit final but his wand always felt warm, you know, and I’ve handled the ‘cleaned’ wands of the dead. They’re just so much firewood afterwards. I’m so glad I never buried it with him”. Minerva patted Harry’s hand, “And how does he feel about you coming back into his life?” Harry shrugged and raised his brows, smiling, “Merlin knows, Minerva, but I haven’t ended my marriage just for this. I’ve been given the kick up the arse I so needed to get out from the Weasley’s bloody clutches. I saw Hermione too and we’re writing to each other again, though it’ll take time to get back to where we were if indeed we get that far but, gods, I’ve missed her too”.

“Do you have employment, Harry?”, her questions, as always, were blunt to the point of rudeness. He shrugged, “I’m applying here and there. In fact I have an interview for a week on Friday at the wizarding room at a library in Manchester. It’s not the best job but I don’t want to rely on anyone’s good graces ever again. It’s amazing how quickly obligation turns into ownership and I need to be earning my own coin”. She nodded wisely at this, “There’ll always be somewhere we can squeeze you in here, Harry. We are always short of staff these days. Criminy! You should see the dunderhead we had foisted on us as the DADA instructor, a cousin of a cousin of one of the Ministers. Bloody awful. I’d always welcome you back here. Severus too if he chose to come. He was always a damn fine teacher even if his methods were, shall we say, a little unorthodox.” They shared a laugh at this.

Harry was quite surprised at his son’s reaction to the fact of him and the lad’s mother separating, “Good on ya, dad. Have you found a hottie to shack up with?” Harry’s eyes widened, “Albus! I always respected your mother, always...” but he was interrupted, “I know that, dad, but I hate uncle Ron, he’s such a bully and he’s stuck-up. You’re well away from that lot. I think Grandma Molly is a nag, too, although I love Grandpa Arthur, but you were becoming as henpecked as he is, sneaking off to that rotten old shed in the garden, drinking yourself to death. Can I live with you after I finish school?”. Harry sighed; out of the mouths of babes and sucklings.....

****

He got the job, he rented a small house similar to Severus’ and spent part of the summer just getting to know this smaller but very cosmopolitan city, dining in the myriad cheap curry houses that were a mere five minutes walk away from his front door. He gave himself time off from all things romantic and just breathed the air and let himself adjust to his new life.

One summer night he decided to walk home and as his route took him past Canal Street, he decided to duck in and enjoy a quiet pint after a busy day. He was about to steer himself in the direction of the table he’d sat at the previous year when he stopped dead, recognising that all-too-familiar dark head bent over a book at the end table. He walked up slowly.

“Are all these seats taken?”, he asked quietly and was being bored into by those eyes again as Severus looked up. Harry’s heart hammered in his chest as their gazes met, “You may join me if you wish”, was said with the faintest of smirks, so Harry pulled out a seat and sat.

“How have you been doing, Severus?”, Harry asked softly. Severus smiled slightly, “Oh, as well as can be expected. I brew. I make a little money. I’m waiting for a man I love to return to me but he’s still got six months before the meter runs down”. Harry grinned then, “You can stop it running, love, I live here now. I’ve rented a house, got a job and I have my youngest living with me now he’s finished school. We both get by. He has a job of sorts, if working in a nightclub and recording studio can be called work but he contributes to the upkeep of the house, treats it like an hotel and expects me to pick up after him like many a spoiled brat but by and large we get on, Albus and I”.

They gazed at each other for the longest time until Harry whispered, “I’d really like to kiss you. May I?” Severus smirked wider, “Well, at least you developed manners along the way, Mr Potter, and, yes, you may kiss me, but I warn you, I may not want to stop once I’ve started”. A frisson ran down Harry’s back and he bit his lip sure he was grinning like a loony but he didn’t care as Severus moved his chair closer, took Harry rather clumsily into his arms and kissed him as if he really did not want to stop.

Want of air forced them apart fractionally and they touched foreheads, panting. Harry whispered, “Take me home with you. I care not whose. I want that magnificent cock of yours so deep inside me I can feel you come in my throat”, and Severus moaned, “Gods, Potter, but you’ve a way with words about you. Let’s finish our drinks and go, like civilised folks”. Harry chuckled, “Fuck civility, Severus, I’ve waited damned near twenty five years for this. Either that, or I’m gonna drag you into that alley over there and blow you ‘til you scream”.

Severus laughed, “Promises, promises, Harry”. Harry growled, “I make ‘em, I keep ‘em, now take me home...please”. Who could resist a plea like that? Certainly not Severus Snape. They rose from the table, tottered along the street with their arms around each other, round a corner, into a side street and apparated away.

Harry didn’t know where he was but from the scent and the silence he knew he was at Severus’ house. If he’d been at home there would be noise of some sort, either music or TV from his son’s room or the sound of high-pitched Urdu from the large family next door. He was pushed gently backwards and fell onto a comfy springy bed. Mmm. Good. Even better was Severus’ weight pinning him down…..

****

He kisses with hunger and want but not sloppy, not too wet. He really has the most delightful mouth I ever kissed. His style is more mature than during his teenage years but Harry is a natural sensualist. He doesn’t grab but strokes and caresses, nice and strong, raising goosepimples wherever he touches me. I am on fire. I have had plenty of sex in my time but the act itself is often divorced from whatever else we may feel for each other as if, as men, we can’t express any of our finer feelings through the act of love. Harry has no such inhibitions and therefore, neither do I.

I wave lights up and the blinds drawn. I want to see him. He feels bigger in my arms, no longer the ‘scrawny bugger’ as he described himself to me that afternoon all those long years ago. We strip each other slowly and kiss everything as it reveals itself. He has a way of tonguing my nipples that makes me cry out and he nibbles and tastes me as if devouring gourmet food.

Gods, he’s beautiful. Still somewhat unformed at seventeen, now I am in no doubt that this is a full-grown man I hold and savour. Creamy and smooth in youth, he’s hairier now but not too much, just a little spackling on chest and lower arms, his nipples have deepened in colour and his belly track leads below the waist of his jeans tantalizingly. I have to kiss and taste this feast below me.

He shivers deliciously as I remove his jeans and underpants and goes to cover himself but I keep his hands away and feast my starving eyes. Yes, he’s thickened out a little but there isn’t a spare ounce on him, his cock points impudently at me, bigger than he was before. His balls are hairier and I cannot resist him, nor do I try to. I know I’m moaning like a ten sickle whore as I take his leaking dick into my mouth and suck at him for a while. Gods, still so delicious, my every sense is bombarded by him.

He spreads his legs obscenely wide, lifting his legs behind the knees to his chest, the better that I may reach everything. I suck on his balls, still tight even as an adult, then I tip his hips up and feast to my heart’s content on his sweet dusky brown hole. He jumps a mile as I breech him with my tongue and he’s a babbling mess of ‘please’ and ‘more’ as I lap away like a thirsty little cat.

He stops me suddenly, “Sorry, it’s been so long. I’m gonna cum too soon and you’re still half dressed”. He rolls us over and removes my trousers, licking his bitten lips as my cock falls onto my belly. I’m rigid with need of him. It is almost painful how much I want him. He goes to town on me, sucking and licking up and down my shaft, teasing the head with his tongue tip and blowing on the wet head. Then, in a single move, he turns me onto my belly and hoists my arse into the air with my knees spread holding me up, my head on my folded arms. There’s sweat trickling across my scalp and into my hair and I can feel the sweat start in my lower back.

He’s parting my cheeks, feathering the lightest touches over my perineum and up into my crack then I launch into space as he delicately tongues my hole. I know he’s never done this before and I try and resist pushing my hole further over his tongue but I love this and fail miserably, feeling him enter me this way makes me cry out loud and he’s in me almost to the tonsils, bless him. He has no inhibition, as I said. He’s very good as he starts to get the hang of the tongue-thrusts and I’m a mewling begging quivering heap of jelly.

He sticks his hand in the air as if to catch a snitch and mumblingly ‘accio’s’ the lubricant without removing his tongue. Nice move. He catches the jar without even looking. That’s a move I could never do. Clever man. His tongue is gone and I’m being stretched with fingers now liberally coated with my home-made gunge. He has four fingers in me and he has big hands for a man of his height. He holds my hole open and flickers his tongue deep inside. Oh, gods, no-one ever did that before as if his mouth is trying to enter me. Bliss.

Then lips tongue and fingers are gone. I am bereft for a moment but my gut contracts as I hear the unmistakeable sound of a cock being slicked up ready for entry. Merlin! He’s definitely bigger than last time. He eases into me slowly murmuring how tight I am, how wonderful I am and although normally I never believe blandishments like this, coming from him I have no doubt that is exactly the truth as he sees it. I can see the light in his eyes now his glasses are off and I know that he loves me beyond all reason or explanation.

He leans over me and kisses me as he fucks me, his mouth tastes so strongly of myself layered over his sweetness, a heady cocktail indeed. He speeds up his strokes and groans aloud, “Bloody hell, don’t think I can last. It’s been so long....so bloody long...want to come so deep inside you, love, need you, want you”, he murmurs against my lips. His face is red and sweat rolls down him as he raises up and really gives it to me hard. “Touch yourself”, he whispers, his voice jagged and rough, “Wanna watch you cum, love. Cum hard all over me”, and who the hell am I to resist?. My balls cannot stand any more. I squeeze my dick hard and I’m splashing the pair of us in my thick stickiness, my head thumping the pillow with each spasm. He barely lasts another couple of deep thrusts and he’s filling me with his cum, his face twisted in his ecstasy, his head thrown back and his hands gripping me so tight there’ll be bruises in the morning, but I don’t care. I have my Harry back, and this time, he’s here to stay.

We untangle and he pulls out carefully. I feel a rush of body fluid trickle up my crack and almost to my waist at the back as he retracts his spent cock and, grinning, he flops own beside me and takes me in his arms, deliriously kissing me in the afterglow. We lie quiet and spent, gazing into each other’s eyes, catching our breath.

He leans up on one elbow and threads a hand into my hair, bends over me and gives me the softest kiss I ever received from a man. Despite how tired I feel, my body stirs again amidst the languour. I let my tongue slowly play with his as we ignite sparks in each other again and our mouths are pressed together and hands, they are a-wandering once more. He is passionate, giving, and so bloody oral but his delicious mouth unlatches from mine and he kisses a path to my ear, whence he mumbles, “I seem to recall requesting your gorgeous cock up my arse, are you up for it yet?”, and what’s a red-blooded man to do with so much squirming lusciousness in his arms? I roll us over and take that cheeky mouth of his with my tongue as I’ll have that beautiful arse with my relentless dick.

Both of us are making noise as the kiss comes to an end. Gods, he’s a sensualist all right and maturity has only mellowed and improved him, but he led last time and it’s my turn. I want him to yell and cry out and scream if he wants and I fully intend to coax as much sound as possible from him.

The first is laughter as we roll around. We fit together more than perfectly and neither of us can help tickling and pinching as we chuckle like a pair of kids, gently slapping and roughly stroking as we kiss again. He arches, I push back. He pushes a finger into me. I gasp and press against him. Oh, no, Mr Potter, not this time. This time I’m having you.

He throws himself on his back, casting a leg out to one side, stuffing a pillow under his hips, bending up the other leg. I have a perfect view once I leave plundering his almost chapped mouth and journey downwards, my tongue loves him.

I love him.

I stuff more pillows under him. His legs hang further apart. Merlin bless quidditch, I say! I pull him to the edge of his pillow stack, bend down and feast on his balls and arse, well, as much as I can reach before he flings his legs into the air and thrusts his pelvis outwards, towards my mouth, his cheeks parting as he clutches them open for me.

His hole flutters when I trace the edges with the tip of my tongue. Harry shudders with the effort of keeping still. He wants me to play with him but he wars with the burning heat rising in him. Impatient little Gryffindor. I will show him the Slytherin way. I will take him apart and put him back together again. Slowly.

I start to jab and thrust at that tight little sphincter uintil it lets my tongue in. I love eating Harry’s arse, he tastes wonderful. The laughter has long since turned to high mewls of pleasure. He loves being tongue-fucked and, so hex me, I love doing it. He has to push me away again. “Bloody hell, Sev”, he gasps, and I know why he’s stopped me and can’t help smirking. “Too much for you, am I?” I can’t resist this. I raise my head, the better to see his face. He grins sheepishly and nods before pulling me up for an arse-tasting kiss. By the end of it, I have a slippery finger inside him.

He cries out. Come on, Harry, just one finger? I’ve oiled it well beforehand. Oh, damn!! “Harry, when was the last time you did this”, my voice is hoarse with want. Harry grins up at me, “You were the last time....and you were the only time. You were my first fuck, both in you and in me. Remember, I was married.......to a woman, it’s....er.....different, and I was faithful.....please be careful with me....I can handle burn but not pain”.

Merlin’s arse!!! I’m his only one?!!! Me?!!! Bloody hell, it’s going to be like a deflowering all over again. He hasn’t done this in twenty five years, and I was the last and only time. I’m going to make this special. I have to. I don’t want to lose him. I love him.

So I slow the passion down and concentrate on the preparation. Harry is eager, he wants me, but there is anxiety in his core that’ll make fucking painful and I am going to fuck him, make no mistake about that. So I Summon my favourite lubricant, the extra special blend and I dip my fingers into the pot as I hold it centimetres from Harry’s face as I ask him, “How much do you think I’ll need to get you ready for me?” He squirms. His cock jumps and puts out a string of fluid that trails on his belly and he says, “As much as is necessary to put that magnificent cock inside me without ripping me to pieces. I’m not seventeen any more”.

My brain finishes that sentence, “And you’re a big man. Take care of me. Don’t hurt me”. I have no intention of doing so. I love him. I couldn’t hurt him. I can feel my own cock lying full and heavy between my thighs, desperate to take my younger lover, wanting so much to make him mine.

I have time, patience, and the best lubricant on the planet on my side. There’s no point in false modesty. Harry knows this as well as I do. I start again with the single finger. He pushes back this time, bearing down. I grease up the second and add it. It takes him a while to adjust. He has sweat beading in the small of his back and between chest and belly as well as under his hairline.

I kiss him as tenderly as I can considering my extremely aroused state but I take the stretching of him slowly. Truth to tell, it is almost like readying a virgin, he is so tight, and I’m trying so hard not to come, even at the thought of how delicious he’ll be when I finally enter him.

He’s gasping for breath and clinging to me as I add three and four to the mix. Even the strangled sounds he’s making are driving me to distraction. I murmur, “Harry, I’m ready to explode, love, please let me in”, and by way of reply, he pushes up, his legs widening, displaying his stretched hole. “Fuck me, Sev”, he whispers. “Take me. Make me yours”. I cannot resist this. I kiss him as I remove my fingers and he makes this sound that makes my blood heat.

Then I’m lined up, holding him open and easing in. Merlin! He’s tight. He wasn’t lying, but then he never does. I almost come with the first thrust but grit my teeth and hold off. I pull out and thrust back in, deeper each time. It takes a blinding and almost insanity-inducing eight goes to get him solidly entrenched on my cock. Not many men have stayed the course, I’m a big man, but this beauty has done it. His balls slap mine as we ease apart then together and finally we are fucking.

He threads his arms around my neck and pulls my head closer. The kiss we share is off the scale. It’s taking no time at all, despite the energetic session we just shared, but my balls are on the point of bursting. I want to fill him, claim him. He’s mine. But then he stops us and kisses me. “Too fast. I want to feel this for at least a week, and I can’t do that unless you have the energy to fuck me into the middle of next week”. Reluctantly, I desist and let us calm down. Get our breath back. I stay inside him but my cock softens.

It starts to stiffen again when we pull away slightly and he gives me this ‘look’. Burning. Passion-filled. Wanting. He presses his lips to mine, his emerald eyes closing. It’s all too much for both of us. Our tongues meet and are delicate with each other. I’m moving now, slowly, gauging his depths. He screws up his face as I reach his deep places before pulling back for what are now thrusts.

He gasps audibly every time my cock plunges in and cries out as I leave his hole almost empty. His sounds are turning me on beyond belief. I try a deep fuck and he howls. “More, Severus. More”, he screams ad pushes his opened arse backwards on my rampant cock, engulfing it balls-deep once again. Please, Harry, a couple more like that, and I swear, I’m putty in your hands.

As if he hears me, his arse speeds up taking me in and pushing me out and my hips have to move, in and out of him, my cock is burning to come and my balls are lifting tight against me. I am pumping now, my balls slapping his with the force of my thrusts. He has hold of himself as I loom over him, my weight braced on my hands. Christ! I can’t stop myself. I’m past the point.....I’m ramming into him harder and harder. He’s taking me. All of me. To the hilt. To the damned root. He’s dragging my head down so I can kiss him as he gasps against my mouth, arches up hard against me and comes, his face contorted, his mouth open, his cock spraying us both as he points it at me. When I feel the first splashes, so hex me, I shout his name aloud, plunge into him one last time, cry, “Haaaarrrryyyy” and come pints up his arse. It seems to take ages for my twitching hips to still but he takes every hard thrust with that smile.

I collapse over him. I am spent, my vision blurred. He kisses me with such gentleness as he gathers me to him. One of us is shaking. Maybe it’s both of us. I feel his fingers in my hair and his lips on my forehead, gentling me. Calming me from the beast I became. But he took me. He took all of me. And now I am putty in his warm arms.

My cock softens and slips from him but his arms tighten around me. He truly loves me. This one is forever. This thought makes me smile as I feel Harry’s sleepy arms go around me and hold me to him. He kisses my sweaty hair, and tells me he loves me.

We curl up under the blankets after a quick cleaning charm. A tiny part of my brain wonders if this is the cleaning charm he used my old wand for. I hope so. Merlin knows, I’ve brought myself off many-a-time thinking of him, I hope that he thought of me when he masturbated.

****

Harry revived himself, his eyes bleary and unfocussed. He burrowed into Severus’ chest and was gathered close. Harry mumbled something and Severus had to ask his pardon, “What was that Harry, I didn’t hear you?” Harry looked up, red faced, “Was that worth waiting twenty five years for?”

Severus could barely see through his sated haze. He simply nodded and tightened his arms around the love of his life. “Yes”, was all he said when he had his faculties back and continued to hold on to his lover long after the last tremors of orgasm were past.

Harry pulled Severus’ long arms around him, wrapping the older man about him like a warm cloak on a cold day and settled for slumber. He’d never been a cuddler whilst sleeping but he had a feeling that this would change. “I’m never lettin’ you go now”, he said, dozily. Severus burrowed his nose into the back of Harry’s hair and inhaled deeply, “Mmmm, I’m going nowhere, Harry, not any more. I’ve got you now, lover, and, likewise, I do not feel inclined to relinquish you”.

Turning in Severus’ arms, Harry gave his lover a last kiss, “May I stay?” Severus squeezed him tight, “As long as you want, lover, as long as you want”. He waved a ‘nox’ at the lights and they both settled to sleep after kissing and wriggling into the most comfortable position.

And I think we’ll leave them to it now, to share their lives as they may.

FIN

Written February 2008