The Devil Will Drag You Under

by Dementor Delta

Challenge #10: One of the requirements for entering Hogwarts is a sexual 'coming of age' ceremony, which must be performed with one of the staff prior to school starting.

Author's Notes: Thanks to the lovely Venivincere for the great suggestions as well as betaing the work as a whole. And thanks to everyone who put up with me while I bitched about this fic.

Severus Snape hunkered down in the most comfortable armchair in the staff room. He rarely had to dispute his right to it, especially since years of staff meetings had left an indelible greasy spot on the paisley-patterned back.

As usual, he let the talk swirl around him and as usual, or as usual for this year, the talk centered on one thing. This was the year Harry Potter was coming to Hogwarts.

As if on cue Hagrid's loud voice said, "Sweetest lad in the worl' he was."

Snape snorted, though no one heard over the giant's all too familiar re-telling of his brief hours with Hogwarts newest celebrity a month ago. The inner cockles of Snape's heart warmed at ways he would deflate the ego of one Harry Potter. Anyone raised by Muggles wouldn't know which end of a cauldron was up, and Snape fully intended to ridicule the boy about every aspect of his lack of knowledge. No free ride for this Marauder spawn.

A shadow fell onto his knees, breaking an otherwise pleasant fantasy involving a fast acting poison, and a non-working bezoar.

Snape looked up. Albus Dumbledore looked down. Then the clearly-troubled blue eyes swept his staff. "Mr. Potter did not board the Hogwarts Express."

Assorted gasps, and one snort, echoed around the room. Snape was about to say something about the train not being good enough for the Boy Who Lived, when Hagrid stood up.

"I expect it's those Muggles he lives with," the half-giant said with a sigh that ruffled the sprig of moonflower in Sprout's hat. "I'd best go fetch 'im."

Dumbledore stopped him with an upturned hand. "I need you here, Hagrid," he said, "but I suppose you're right about his relations. They are proving…more difficult than I expected." The half-moon spectacles again glanced down at him and Snape frowned, already expecting the worst.

"May I see you outside, Severus?"

Exactly two hours later Snape, in a fine temper, Apparated directly into the living room of #4 Privet Drive. Vernon Dursely dropped his newspaper and began sputtering. A child, who was most definitely *not* young Potter gave a pig-like noise and bolted around the corner.

"Where is Mr. Potter?" he asked, not raising his voice. He expected the boy to be summoned from an upstairs bedroom, no doubt surly for being deprived of his telly for the evening. Dursely started to stand, until Snape pulled out his wand. From the expression on the porcine face it was obvious the other man had seen one before.

"I asked you, where is Mr. Potter?" His voice had gotten quieter.

"He's--he's gone off to that freak school. Put him on the train myself."

Snape thought he heard a thump of some sort that didn't come from upstairs but it was drowned out immediately by a loud commotion behind him. He stepped back to see the child, now clutching what could only be Mrs. Horrible Muggle as they stepped into the living room. Before she could say anything, Snape heard the noise again, definitely not coming from upstairs.

"…amn, it, in here!"

Black eyes narrowed ominously and he saw the fat child dart a glance toward a locked cupboard under the stairs.

"Alohamora!" After a swish and flick the heavy padlock sprang open. Snape made a half circle motion with his wand and the lock twisted off and dropped to the floor.

A child sprang out, glaring angrily. "I've been locked up all day," he said, eyeing his relatives with contempt. Then he got his first look at Snape and stopped. "Who are *you*?"

"Severus Snape, Potions Master at Hogwarts."

Behind him, he could hear various Dursley-esque epithets being muttered in his direction. He ignored them for his first glimpse of the boy. Small, smaller even than Snape himself had been at that age, though he'd eventually grown into most of his features. Potter's however, were as James-like as he'd been informed, though more fey, as though James had had a fairy parent. Eyes, too wide yet not as innocent as they should have been, especially when catching sight of his guardians. His about-to-be-former guardians, Snape amended mentally.

"Hogwarts? I was hoping Hagrid would realize I'd missed the train," the boy said, his composure snapping into place at the mention of the word 'Hogwarts'. "This lot wouldn't lift a finger to get me to King's Cross, even though they don't want me around." Another glare, and tension shot through the slight frame whenever he looked at either Dursley.

"I told you, boy, you're going to Stonewall," Dursley put in.

Slowly Snape turned back toward him, tapping his wand lightly against one opened palm. The tiny pig-like eyes facing him widened as far as they were able. "Harry Potter is going to Hogwarts. His name has been down since he was born. No Muggle will stop him." Then Snape frowned and sidled a glance at the intently watching young man. "If he so wishes?"

Potter nodded, then grinned. "Yes, sir!"

"You'll have to trust me," Snape said carefully.

Defiant arms crossed over the thin chest. "There's nothing for me here."

And indeed, Snape suspected, there had never been. "Do you have your school things?"

The untidy head nodded. "They've locked them away. I tried to get them--" He stopped and glared at his cousin, cherry red lips thinning to an angry line.

"Where?" he asked, very aware of where each Dursley stood. He was fairly certain he could stun all three of them before they made any moves, but it never hurt to be prepared.

Jade green eyes lifted ceiling-ward. "Upstairs. I can carry it if you can unlock--"

Snape smirked and Potter went silent. "Accio trunk," Snape said with a quick flick of his wand. A loud crash from upstairs turned every head in the room. A smallish trunk, miles too heavy for the boy, unassisted by human hands, clearly chipping the paint of every banister rail it touched, bumped heavily down the stairs. Snape quirked one side of his mouth up as Potter's hands clapped in boyish delight.

Snape let the trunk crash down to the landing, putting more than one banister spoke out of alignment, until it stopped at his feet. Another simple spell shrank it and he held it out to the boy.

Potter dashed across the room, oblivious to his staring relatives. Snape held open his hand as though proffering a toy and a tentative hand covered his own. Gravely Potter inclined his head and thanked him for the trunk.

"Anything else?"

Mischievous green eyes looked up into his. "I've an owl upstairs." Then he frowned and glared at his uncle. "At least I did."

This close Snape could see the boy was obviously undersized. It made the details of Dumbledore's plan all the more atrocious, but seeing the boy's home situation, it looked to be the only way.

"Have you harmed this boy's owl?" he asked, addressing the uncle. A swift shake of the thick head brought a ghost of a smile to the other man's lips. "Run fetch your owl, boy, we've wasted enough time here."

"Yes, sir!" Potter darted away but didn't dawdle, returning with a caged snowy owl. Hagrid had mentioned the gift in one of his endless recitations about the boy's first trip to Diagon Alley.

"What's its name?" he asked, surprised at how soft his voice had become, as though no one else was present.

"Hedwig, sir."

Great yellow eyes stared at him though the cage. "Well, Hedwig, your master and I are going to Hogwarts," he said, addressing the creature directly, despite a slight choking noise coming from one Muggle or another. "Will you meet us there?" The owl blinked. Truly a fine creature. Perhaps Hagrid wasn't beyond redemption.

Snape kneeled, his robes pooling on the floor. He was still taller than the Potter child. "I'll let her go, but she'll meet you at Hogwarts." One of the delicate lips disappeared behind tiny front teeth. Wordlessly, Potter nodded.

Back on his feet, and not without a withering glance at the all but frozen Dursley's he went to the door and released the owl. Then he shrank the cage and put it in his own pocket. Potter was staring at the sliver of dusk outside the door. But he wasn't bawling. Good. There was hope for the brat.

He held out his hand again and unhesitatingly Potter closed the distance between them and took it. How trusting he was, since Snape had used the magic word 'Hogwarts'. Snape knew it wasn't that easy, that Dumbledore had charmed him, as he'd done with Hagrid a month ago, to pass through the magics that protected the boy.

"Stay close," he warned, closing his cold fingers around the boy's warmer ones. Potter nodded as Snape faced the Muggles. "Mr. Potter will not be returning," he said imperiously. He saw something purple creeping up the uncle's cheeks but decided not to wait for whatever foulness was about to erupt. He pulled the about-to-be student closer so that Potter was all but enfolded in his robe. He felt a shiver of excitement go through the slight form. No longer looking at the Muggles Snape saw the untidy head looking up at him with trusting eyes. With a spell he Apparated them both to just outside Hogwarts.

~~**~~

The low throb of a headache pressed into the back of Snape's skull as he tried to ignore the turban-wearing professor beside him. Vampires or not, why would anyone willingly wrap their entire head in purple linen?

Snape eyed his own dinner with distaste. He'd made it back with the boy in time for the Sorting and no one had been surprised when the son of two annoying Gryffindors had been sorted into the same house. To all appearances the boy was busy making friends at his own table.

Then he saw the boy look up, as though aware of being observed. The smile he bestowed upon Snape was dazzling and he felt his own lips twitching in response. The Gryffindors around him followed Potter's gaze, and the red-haired elder Weasley frowned in confusion. He could tell by the expression on the students around Potter that he was recounting a no doubt highly idealized tale of his own rescue.

Time enough for revulsion and horror later when Dumbledore revealed to the child what steps must be taken in order to allow him to remain at school. Snape pictured Potter looking at him with the same loathing he'd shown his previous guardians. Soon enough. It would be difficult after the near-camaraderie of his liberation from the cupboard but he would deal with it. He'd dealt with worse.

Snape moved his pork chop around listlessly on his plate, trying to decide whether to swear off pork forever. Then he remembered bacon and decided even Dursley's porcine face haunting him might be worth it. He took a bite of his chop. Potentially life altering dietary decisions could wait until after breakfast.

He saw the note delivered to the boy and though he knew the gist of it, he gave away no clue when those green eyes sought his unquestioningly.

Dumbledore was waiting for both of them after the feast, expressing his delight at meeting Mr. Potter at last as Snape joined them. It wasn't until they were seated in the Headmaster's office that things turned serious. Dumbledore was giving his speech about choices and Potter was listening intently. Then very slowly the boy's hand reached over onto the arm of his chair. The same his own arm was making use of. The small white hand looked very pale against the black of his sleeve.

"So, you're saying my aunt and uncle are no longer my guardians?" Potter waited for a nod. "Well, that's good, right?"

"Good for us in that we may now accept you as a student. But we cannot do so without an…alternate guardian." The cool blue eyes flickered quickly to Snape.

Potter frowned, missing the look. "Doesn't anyone…want me?" The fingers on his arm tensed, then slowly slid away. Slight as the warmth was, Snape missed it immediately.

The headmaster sighed, leaning back in his heavy wooden chair. "If it were only a question of wanting, people would be lined up for you, my boy."

Snape got a mental picture of a line of insipid witches and lecherous wizards stretching past infinity. Funny that he saw himself at the front of the line. He forced himself to pay attention when Dumbledore shifted in the chair.

"There are only two types of legal bonds recognized by our society. The family bond and the matrimonial bond. Your aunt has effectively cut off the former and we are left with
the latter."

The small shoulders squared. "You're saying I have to get married?" Snape gave a mental point to Britain's school system.

"Only while you're at school," Dumbledore explained. "Once you're of age and have completed your education, the marriage can be annulled, and you will of course be free to make your own decisions."

"Well, all right, then," Potter surprised them both by saying, clearly not uncomfortable about two sets of very surprised eyes looking at him. "Do I, er, have to ask someone?" For some reason the boy's gaze sidled over to Snape, then just as quickly, away.

"Actually, Harry, that's why Professor Snape is here."

It wasn't difficult to picture the horror and revulsion that must be on the boy's face. He'd seen a glimpse of it as the boy stood up to his horrible relations. There was a profound silence. Which, naturally, the Headmaster rushed to fill.

"Professor Snape is one of our most powerful wizards. He'll be well able to protect you."

"I--" Potter began.

"And of course the relationship will be more like that of a guardian," Albus interjected swiftly.

"Yes, but--" Potter tried again.

"No, er, consummation is necessary to make the marriage legal," Dumbledore went on, "All that needs be done is a simple ritual…"

Snape finally lost his temper. "For heaven's sake, Albus, let the boy speak." For the first time he turned toward the seated boy. "Someone else can be found, Mr. Potter. Someone more to your taste. There simply wasn't time--"

Potter stood up. "I accept."

Another profound silence filled the room. Potter sat back down with an air of satisfaction. This time Dumbledore didn't rush to fill it. Potter himself huffed slightly, then turned to Snape. "You told me to trust you, and I do," he said, as if that explained everything.

"You can't possibly--" Snape began but Potter huffed again.

"I do." He leaned back into his chair and gave into the yawn he'd been fighting, before eyeing the disconcerted Headmaster. "What do I have to do?"

Dumbledore produced parchment and quill and within moments the deed was done, sans Muggle trappings. It was only a legal document, after all. Snape thought of the brief ritual needed to complete it. Why on earth did Muggles make such a fuss over everything?

It wasn't until they were in his rooms in the dungeon that he broke the silence.

"We have to talk," he said firmly.

But in this, as in all things, the boy had his own ideas. "I'm awfully tired."

Snape eyed his young…charge. No need to dignify their union with any silly romantic notions. Green eyes met his defiantly.

"I've been locked in a cupboard, and rescued, and sorted, and married all in one day."

Snape looked down at this young intruder to his quarters, then noticed that the house elves had brought Potter's things down. There would be time tomorrow to have them taken up to Gryffindor Tower. Tonight he and the boy needed a bit of privacy for the ritual. Except he was already coming to recognize the defiant stance--not enough to trigger warning bells in anyone not familiar with the signs, but Snape was rapidly becoming familiar. Potter had apparently fought for everything in his young life, and was, inexplicably, prepared to fight for this.

"Very well," he said; Potter's flush of relief was evident. He realized suddenly that his charge was indeed very, very tired. That in fact, this proposed 'discussion' was the last fight Potter was capable of tonight. Still, he grudgingly admired that Potter was indeed prepared to fight it.

"You can take the bed. Bathroom's through there."

Wordlessly Potter nodded and began rummaging around in his trunk for his nightclothes. After a suspiciously short time in the bathroom--Snape mentally added 'check teeth brushing' to his to do list--Potter emerged in an overly large t-shirt that hung down to his scuffed knees.

They stood facing each other for a moment. Then Potter looked toward the slightly open door of the bedroom. Then he looked back at Snape as though expecting something. "Aren't you coming to bed?"

Snape made a dismissive gesture. "Later. And I'll take the couch out here."

It seemed there was indeed one more small fight left in the child. "You can't sleep on a couch for the next seven years."

"Until other arrangements can be made," Snape replied. Then he saw something that surprised him. For just an instant the willful boy looked almost frightened.

"You're sending me away?"

Something of his intentions must have shown on his face. "Not tonight," he settled on. Potter looked up and there was a determination there Snape had never seen on this boy's father's face. "Only," he began, and Potter, his hand on the latch of the bedroom door, turned. "Only if you wish it," he found himself saying. He was confident that when exposed to the other children the boy would want to move into the dorm. The conclusion was inevitable, when the time came, Potter himself would want a more suitable arrangement.

A nod and the boy was gone, leaving the door slightly ajar. Only to be back ten minutes later. Snape had just settled himself on the couch with a botanical book when the door creaked open and Potter, in his absurd nightshirt/t-shirt, sans glasses, stood there.

"Can I have some water?"

"There's a cup in the bathroom," he said, returning to his book until he realized Potter, cup in hand, was standing beside the couch.

"What are you reading?"

Snape's eyes flickered up briefly but returned to the botanical tome. "The Care And Feeding Of Young Boys."

Potter took a careful sip of water, but his eyes were dancing. "Well, I've already eaten, so I'm not hungry. I don't suppose you'll have to trouble yourself about caring about me."

Snape ran his finger over a drawing of the stalk of wolfsbane. "There's a passage in here about children who won't go to bed even though they claim they are tired," he said, laying the book open in his lap.

"I was thinking," Potter said, hip resting slightly on the armrest of the couch. "The bed in there is awfully large. More than big enough for two." Snape's bed was one of the standard issue Hogwarts beds, a heavy old four poster.

"You'll be more comfortable by yourself," Snape said firmly. Sharing a bed with an eleven year old was not the way to guarantee a good night's sleep. "Run along," he went on, as if that decided it.

Potter obeyed. For another ten minutes. Again the small form stood in the arched stone doorway. "May I have another blanket?"

Snape huffed irritably and got a blanket out of the bottom drawer of the armoire. When he turned back around Potter was on the couch. Accepting the blanket, Potter looked up at him. "Can I stay out here with you? Just for a little while?"

Was there really a book called "The Care And Feeding Of Young Boys"? He foresaw, even without the dubious distinction of Trelawney's so-called 'gift' the next hour filled with ten minute interruptions for unknown quantities of teddy bears or story telling.

"Just until you fall asleep," he said, but at the word 'just' Potter had climbed onto the couch, clutching the blanket. Snape settled on one end and let the boy stretch out until the small bare feet were all but in his lap. Potter was asleep within seconds.

Almost involuntarily he found his eyes drifting over to the relaxed child. He'd been so prepared to hate this spawn of his enemy. Perhaps he'd seen this mad scheme of Albus' as a fitting sort of revenge on the unworthy brat. But the sire and dam were dead, though he saw traces of Evans's spirit in her son. The rest of the Marauders were scattered. Revenge, he thought, as the child huffed in his sleep and shifted slightly, was nothing to warm up to on a chilly night.

Snape awoke from his doze stiff and out of sorts. Had he fallen asleep on the couch again? There was something heavy in his lap--a book? He started to push it off so he could stretch and encountered soft hair. His eyes flew open, then blinked unseeingly. Potter had shifted so that his unruly head rested on Snape's thigh. Gently he shook the boy awake. Potter only made a noise and burrowed closer to the juncture at the top of Snape's leg.

"Mr. Potter!" The boy started awake, blinking. Then his features softened, and the slightly crooked smile peeked out.

"You aren't cross with me, are you? You put out heat like a furnace." The boy made as if to hunker back down but Snape tugged insistently on the loose collar of the t-shirt.

"Off to bed with you."

"But--"

"No buts," he said firmly, adding a slight glare, not sure if the boy could see it without the awkward glasses.

Potter scrambled upright, gathering the blanket like a robe. "That bed is too big," he said, "It scares me."

Snape exhaled slowly. "Mr. Potter. Having seen you face down assorted relatives, Slytherins, myself included, and one headmaster, I do not believe there is anything in this *world* that frightens you."

Arguments were marshalling behind those green eyes. He knew they both needed to get some sleep, and knew somewhere he'd lost the reason why he was so opposed to the idea. "Oh, all right. Let me change first." He ignored the light of happiness in the boy's face. "We'll make other arrangements tomorrow."

Snape stood up and began stripping, no longer worrying about the boy's supposed tender sensibilities. They were bound--or nearly--to each other for seven years. It was ridiculous to expect that modesty was called for. When he turned around he noted that the boy had taken no notice of his disrobing, leaning against the back of the couch, eyes closed.

"Come on then." Potter took the side closest to the door and waited only until assured that Snape was climbing into the other side before falling fast asleep. Snape lay on his back, his thoughts, if possible, more uncharitable than before. What a ridiculous position to be in.

He woke with Potter wrapped around him, and a hard on.

Stress, he told himself. Simple tension from the day before and the overabundance of unaccustomed human contact. His body, unlike his mind, which he considered superior, was only human. For the latter problem he did the only rational thing he could do and willed it down, rather unfortunately easy at his age. He had to use the promise of some attention later to get his arousal to cooperate, but perversely, his brain, that equally treacherous organ, flooded him with images designed to collect on the debt.

Snape shook his new charge awake. The boy seemed not at all concerned to have twined himself, ivy-like, around his sleeping partner, one small hand on his chest, one leg thrown over his. They made it to breakfast on time, though Snape took a brief moment before leaving to check the boy's toothbrush, which was gratifyingly damp. They separated once they reached the Great Hall. For a few moments the Gryffindor table was dead silent as Potter took his seat.

Then one of the red-haired boys said something to Potter, earning himself a shy smile. By the end of the meal the two boys were getting along like a house on fire. Though when they left for classes Potter turned and made sure to catch Snape's eye at the Head Table and give him a wave good-bye.

He didn't see his erstwhile 'husband' all day, but that didn't mean he didn't hear about
him--from teachers stopping to offer their congratulations to his own Slytherin prefect asking if there were any 'official' way Potter should be treated.

"He will, of course, be treated with the respect you would accord any student," he'd replied, and the prefect had nodded. "But be warned, Mr. Potter can take care of himself." That might save the boy a few hexes anyway.

He didn't see the boy until dinnertime, when he'd shown up, obviously tired but looking happy, still in the company of the Weasley first year and several other Gryffindors. Again the boy waved at him, this time as he sat down. Several of the teachers around him nodded approvingly, though it made Snape want to grit his teeth.

After dinner he stood up, immediately aware that Potter was hastily pushing away from the table as well, making farewells to his newfound friends before catching up to him. They walked down to the dungeons in silence. Once they were in his quarters he waited for the youth to put his books down.

"I spoke to Professor McGonagall today," he began.

"So did I," Potter replied brightly, stacking his books on top of his still-packed trunk.

"I'm aware of that. She told me she'd spoken to you about moving up into the Gryffindor boy's dormitory. She says there's plenty of space for one more bed." No need to tell the boy how disapproving the old cat's eyes had been or how utterly thin her lips had gotten during their discussion.

Potter was looking down at his books. "I told her I wanted to stay with you."

"You'd be happier in the dorm, among boys your own age."

Finally the boy turned around. "I don't know them." The tiny red mouth was set in a very determined line.

"You don't know *me*," Snape said sharply.

Potter shrugged. "You're my husband," he said stubbornly. "You said you'd only send me away if I wanted to go. I don't want to go. I want to stay here with you."

Snape tried another tactic. "You need to make friends your own age," he pointed out, slowly peeling out of his teacher's robe.

Potter picked up one of the books and brought it to 'his' end of the couch. "I have made friends. I met Ron and his brothers last night, and Dean and Seamus this morning. There are some girls too, but I haven't got their names sorted out yet."

Snape studied the coltish young man, legs drawn up Red Indian style, book open though not actually being read. He thought about making the boy feel as though he were intruding on Snape's own privacy but there were other things he wanted to discuss tonight.

"I won't send you away," he said at last and tension visibly flowed out of the boy. He realized that Potter had been, however casually poised, geared for all out resistance. Snape wondered how long the boy had been fighting.

"But I do want to talk about this…contract."

"The marriage?" Potter asked, now only slightly wary.

Snape was proud of himself for not wincing at the term. He didn't think of himself as married--it had never even been on his horizon, even so much that wizards allowed that sort of thing. He certainly didn't think of this mere waif as his husband.

"A legal convenience for your protection." Snape sank down on the couch, aware of not wanting to have this conversation, aware of wanting only a bath and his bed. Preferably unoccupied, but after the charade last night knew there was little hope of that.

"It's only for seven years," Potter began.

"My point exactly. By then you'll be a young man and a trained wizard, an adult in our society. It's ridiculous to expect your--legal status--to stop you from the natural exploration of your coming of age."

The delicate brows pulled into a frown. "I don't follow."

Well, he *had* been deliberately vague. "The headmaster told you that the legality of the contract doesn't hinge on…consummation."

That at least was plain enough. A flush crept up the pale cheeks.

"There is," Snape went on, "a small ceremony, a ritual if you will, that bonds witches and wizards together. We shall need to perform it to be…legally bound. It is much more binding than something as simplistic as, er, consummation."

Potter scratched the side of his neck. "I don't have to wear a dress, do I?" he asked, wrinkling his nose.

For just a moment Snape couldn't tell if the brat was being serious or not. "If you do, I don't want to know about it," he said, releasing the smile Potter was holding behind his cheeks.

"Is it something really cool, like drinking kneazle blood out of the same ancient rune-encrusted goblet, by the new moon? Or--"

He could clearly see where this was going. "Bloodthirsty little bugger, aren't you?"

"Fred and George said wizard rituals always involve blood and…sacrifice."

Snape tried to remember if he'd been this bloodthirsty at Potter's age and figured he probably had been. "Fred and George Weasley are not exactly good role models," he said, thinking how ghastly it was to suddenly sound like one's own father.

Potter smiled broadly. "Yeah, I kind of picked up on that." Why was it that any serious conversation always got sidetracked by that impish smile?

"This is important," he tried again. "You won't be allowed to stay with me unless we finish the ceremony."

"Yes, Severus," Potter said, with a meekness that didn't fool him for a moment.

"'Severus' is it, Mr. Potter?"

The thin shoulders shrugged. "Seems silly when I've seen you in your knickers." Well, he *had* done that deliberately. He tried to ignore the fact that the conversation had gotten sidetracked yet again.

"About the ceremony--"

"Yes, Severus."

Potter was obviously relishing the sound of Snape's given name on his tiny tongue. "In private only, you precocious child."

"Of course," Potter agreed, though he looked like he wanted to add a 'Severus' for good measure. Wisely he refrained.

Snape waited to make sure he had the boy's attention, then went on. "It's very simple really, and forms a sort of--" He tried to think of another way to describe it, and couldn't. "A bond, between us."

The green eyes lit up immediately. "You mean a deeply spiritual bond that can only be broken by…" He paused dramatically. "Death!"

Snape blinked, convinced for the first time that his charge would *not* be better off among his fellow Gryffindors. "Good heavens, no! Which Weasley told you that load of--"

"Wasn't a Weasley," Potter defended. "It was one of the girls. Brown or Beige or something."

Snape cleared his throat, determined to get this over with. Bath and bed, he reminded himself, thinking of all the first days of classes he'd spent in exactly the same way. He didn't think he was alone among teachers in forgetting how stressful the first day of classes were.

"First of all, I don't think you should be discussing our…arrangement in the Gryffindor common room."

He expected a protest, but got instead, "All right, sir." A pause. "But it *was* awfully dashing of you to rescue me like that."

"I didn't--" he began. Then, "Harry," he said firmly, not missing the frisson of surprise that went through the boy at the use of his given name. "Don't romanticize this, any of this. I'm not the hero, and you are most certainly not the fair maiden." Harry giggled, but Snape went on. "Professor Dumbledore sent me and I got the job done as he knew I would. It isn't anything more than that."

Harry's face wasn't schooled enough to hide his skepticism but since he kept silent, Snape continued. "If we let the nine days wonder of it die down, we might both yet get through the next seven years tolerably well. And when you get tired of living down here with me, you are welcome to move up to Gryffindor tower and leave me in peace."

"I won't get tired of it, sir."

Snape frowned at the 'sir'. "I refuse to let anyone who shares my bed call me sir."

The smile was back.

"Now come here and let's get this silly thing over with." Harry scooted over and looked at him gravely. "Yes, we're going to establish a bond but it will be in the form of a protection spell, a bit of a vow, sworn on our magic." He frowned at his charge. "You'd best turn 'round." Once Harry had his back to him Snape reached around as though hugging him, but instead gripped both slender forearms, just below the wrist. Then he thought of something and let go. Harry's arms stayed outstretched. After a moment he looked up over his shoulder.

"Was that it?" he asked with a frown. "It wasn't very dramatic."

"No." Harry continued to look at him, puzzled. "The thing is, there's an…element to the ceremony I should tell you about."

Harry put his arms down and half-turned on the couch, waiting expectantly.

Snape debated. He'd only ever done the ritual once before, but he'd been an adult, had known what to expect. "All right," he decided, unsure of what to do with his hands. It didn't help that Harry was suddenly watching his hands as they tried to settle in his lap.

"The thing is," he repeated, "this is a very intimate ceremony. Sometimes the feelings it induces are a bit, er, arousing."

Harry stared up at him. "I don't follow."

Snape sighed, finally at his limit. "Never mind. No matter what happens, it's perfectly natural. And you shouldn't be…ashamed."

But something in the last statement caused Harry enlightenment. "Is this like a sex thing?"

"No," Snape assured him. "But it might feel as though…That's what 'aroused' means. You may feel things you've only ever felt in private."

That he hadn't explained it well showed plainly on Harry's open face. Then Harry turned back around, assuming the position they were in before, his arms outstretched, his back to Snape. "Okay."

Again Snape brought his arms around the boy's back under his armpits, putting his hands back on the inside of Harry's forearms. "All right then," he said, his chin just brushing the top of the untidy head. "You know witches and wizards use wands, but do you know why?" He moved both thumbs so they were on Harry's pulse points just below each wrist. "Because magic is a part of your body, flowing within you. But it comes closest to the surface--" His thumbs were moving as he spoke until they were rested in the palm of Harry's hand. "Here."

Harry had gotten very still, bolt upright, his backside against the leg Snape had raised to the couch. "Is that…" he said very softly. Snape remembered the feeling, when Albus had shown him all those years ago, of his own magic thrumming through him.

At the time he'd thought of hot caramel sauce running into melting ice cream, something he'd missed in the scant years he'd been away. That had been just before the arousal had slammed into him like a freight train. He'd been horribly embarrassed, more about this than of having to come to Albus in the first place, but he'd never had ice cream and caramel sauce again without feeling his loins stir.

"Yes," he said simply, giving Harry a good taste of it. He could feel it himself, the touch of Harry's magic joining with his own, throbbing through them both. It was intoxicating; it was more than arousing; it was like the softest most amazing afterglow. "Just a moment more," Snape said, lulled by the soft ripples of magic flowing over them both. "Let me just say the binding spell. You're doing fine."

"Yes," Harry repeated, stretching the word out, swaying on the soft sibilant. Snape gripped him firmly by the wrists, but it made the afterglow feel all the sweeter. Very slowly Harry's head leaned back until it was on Snape's chest. Snape looked down, careful not to dislodge his arms and hands. Harry's face was flushed, but it was no fever burning through the boy's veins. There was no mistaking the flush of arousal on the boy's face. Snape was suddenly desperately sorry he'd neglected his own erection that morning for it chose now to try to collect.

He made sure the protection spell was in place before sliding his hands back down Harry's arms. As expected, once free of the support, Harry slumped back bonelessly against him. Harry was breathing heavily and Snape let him lean against him for as long as he needed.

"We should do that more often," Harry said at last.

"Once is all that's required," he said, not unkindly. When he thought he could, he looked down at Harry's face, resisting the urge to tame the unruly hair. "Are you all right?" he managed, quirked that all that work getting his hard on to go away had gone to naught at once glance from those green eyes.

"Yeah," Harry said, then shifted slightly against him. "Though I'm pretty sure I know what you were going on about now."

"I thought you might," Snape said. "It's perfectly natural."

Harry shifted again, as though to turn into their quasi-embrace. "It feels weird," he said at last.

When it was clear Snape wasn't going to let himself ravish an aroused eleven year old boy, he said, "Hurts a bit, but feels good too?"

Harry nodded, strands of his flyaway hair just under Snape's chin. "It's always gone away before."

"It just means you're growing up," Snape said softly, easily able to picture Harry at seventeen, a man grown, on the arm of a curvaceous witch. "Becoming a man. Your body is, er, practicing for when you're old enough to have intimate relations with someone."

"Sex, you mean?" His voice sounded much calmer. More like Harry the imp than Harry the nymphet.

Best to get it out of the way. "Yes, sex. Your body will be going through a lot of changes in the next few years." And thank you Albus Dumbledore for letting Snape deal with *that*. "Men unfortunately have to deal with their hormones like this."

Harry stretched a bit, moving more naturally now that the arousal was leaching out of his system. "Does everyone…I mean, did you go through it?"

Snape laughed softly. "Of course." He didn't add that he'd been in the throes of mortification for much of the time. He'd known, even then, that he was odd, or as they'd called it then, queer.

"I suppose it's okay then," Harry said, sounding normal now, just a boy. "I don't see much point to it."

Snape wanted to laugh again but didn't. "You will when the time comes."

Harry shrugged as he leaned forward, away from Snape's chest. "Do you want the bathroom first, or shall I?"

~~**~~

As he sank into the blissfully hot water Snape leaned his head back against the high rim of the tub. He soaked not just the smell of potions and the stress of dealing with their makers away, but the lingering traces of pulse quickening arousal out of his system. Knowing it would happen, then having it happen with a child, had been distressing. When he'd let Albus perform the ceremony on him, to ensure his protection from his former master, the headmaster had explained it in much more lucid terms than Snape had, and had held him, and yes, stroked his hair, until the arousal had worked out of his system. He'd been an adult in all senses of the word. And still it had been one of the most memorable experiences of his life. Now he'd done it with Harry, linked his destiny with the boy's for seven years at least. It would either be the longest seven years of his life or the shortest.

He'd just re-charmed the water to heat again, when he heard a knock at the door. Before he could answer, the door was sliding open.

"I've got to go." The boy hardly glanced at him, making for the toilet behind the tub. When he was done, he stood beside the tub, staring down at his guardian. "Can I get ready for bed? I'm falling asleep over History of Magic."

"Go right ahead," Snape said and he listened to the small sounds the boy made moving around the sitting room and bathroom. He'd left the bathroom door open and it was surprisingly pleasant to know they could be comfortable around each other.

When he at last had the bathroom to himself again he climbed out of the tub. Once he was in clean underpants he found Potter waiting for him on the couch. "I thought you were going to bed. He rummaged around for his nightshirt and slipped it over his head.

"I was waiting for you."

Snape rolled his eyes. "You aren't going to tell me you're frightened again?" He thought of the boy blithely telling McGonagall he was staying in the dungeons.

Harry had the grace to look embarrassed. "I just like it better when you're there." He scratched his chin, not looking at Snape. "It's an awful big bed," he added incongruously.

It was a small concession after putting him through the ceremony. Snape picked up the book he'd been planning on reading. "Come on then."

They settled in as easily as before, though Potter lay facing him tonight, his pillow right up against his guardians', watching him for several moments before exhaustion won and the green eyes closed. "I don't like big beds," Harry said, without opening his eyes.

Snape looked down at the unmoving figure, stretching his arm out to smooth a strand of black hair away from his forehead. Harry's eyes opened sleepily and he smiled. "Don't like big beds without you," he said and his eyes closed again. Snape left his arm out and Harry's head seemed to magically edge onto it.

Waking up with a hard on, Snape reflected, was becoming a problem. Especially since this one didn't believe any promise of 'later'. It, like Potter, who'd rolled over sometime in the night to lay half-sprawled on Snape's stomach, seemed here to stay.

Snape eased out of the tangle of skinny arms and legs that had no doubt caused his problem even as sleep heavy fingers scrabbled against his chest in protest. At least he made it to the bathroom in time.

~~**~~

"'Lo!" Harry cried, and Snape looked up from his cauldron.

"How was practice?" he asked, hands moving easily over the next ingredient to be added.

"Great!" Harry said, obviously still a bit adrenaline flushed from Quidditch practice, as he sidled up to the worktable. "What are you making?" He wrinkled his nose at the slightly sour odor coming from the cauldron.

"Activus for the sixth year class tomorrow. It's a base they'll be.." He caught himself. "Sorry."

"'s okay. I like when you tell me stuff. Potions are sort of interesting." The boy fished for an apple from the bowl they'd started keeping in their quarters. Ostensibly for Harry's seemingly bottomless appetite, the bowl had served Severus well too.

"Sort of? Kind of you to say so," he smirked, adding the lacewings Harry had chopped that morning.

Harry laughed and bumped him slightly with his hip, teasing. He took a few more bites from he apple before lifting his shirt over his head. He sniffed his armpit unselfconsciously. "Need a bath," he said, picking up the shirt and the rest of the apple.

Snape nodded absently, then looked up. "Wash your hair tonight."

Harry hesitated on the way to the loo, but didn't turn around. He shook his head testingly. "I think it's okay."

Snape put down the chopping knife. "It's looking awful. Best wash it." He was prepared, after the last few months of dealing with this mercurial creature, for the defiant expression.

"Why?" The boy's chin came up. "You don't."

"Ah." Two sets of willful eyes met, assessing. Harry was a fighter; he'd known that from the moment they'd met and the last few months had bourn it out. Unlike many Snape had known who allowed their passions to rule them, Harry knew when to choose his battles.

"What's this really about?"

Harry's stiff posture softened, out of battle readiness, but not fully relaxed. "Just…trying some stuff out."

Snape crossed his arms over his chest. "Really?" He'd learned a lot about his charge. Harry was not really comfortable with outright lies. "Come here."

Harry hesitated only a second before coming back to stand in front of Snape, face slightly flushed. Snape pushed some of the exercise-damp hair away from Harry's face. He had been surprised to learn, as the weeks had turned into months, how easily and casually the physical contact had come. Snape was not normally accustomed to touching people or being touched. But since Harry hadn't known that he'd blithely ignored Snape's original token protests. They twined easily in bed and that closeness had spilled over just as easily.

"Tell me," he commanded softly. The flush on Harry's face deepened.

"It's just that sometimes people say things I don't like," Harry said, obviously reluctant. "And I thought, if I were…more like you, they'd have to say those things about both of us."

That certainly explained the coldness he'd sensed between Harry and the youngest Weasley at dinner this evening. . It was also no surprise that Harry was ashamed of him. That chasm would only increase as the boy got older. He wondered for about the millionth time if he'd done the right thing in not insisting that the boy move up to Gryffindor tower with his fellow first years.

Harry huffed. "Do you think I'll be as tall as you?" he asked unexpectedly. "Or as good at magic?" Harry, always more casually affectionate than he, ran a finger down the row of buttons on Snape's coat. When Snape didn't answer, finding his eyes focused on the small fingers on his coat, Harry said, "I'll wash my hair tonight, Severus."

Snape found himself pulled into a quick bare-chested hug before Harry darted away, into the bathroom. When he emerged he was still toweling his hair. "All done?" Harry nodded a bit sheepishly. "My turn then."

He was neck deep in the softly-scented water when Harry came in again. The boy brushed his teeth, a bit too quickly for Snape's taste but he let it slide because he'd won the hair washing issue. He heard a noise behind him, then Harry rounded the tub, a bottle of shampoo in his hand.

"Brat." But he took the bottle, sliding down in the tub until his knees came up out of the water. He popped back up, hair dripping into his eyes. He heard Harry giggle. In revenge, he handed him the bottle. Strong, sure fingers set to work while Snape held the sides of the tub.

"Duck down again," Harry commanded, and Snape let his grip slip as he slid back into the water. Harry was waiting with a towel when he came back up. Later when they went to bed, Harry to sleep, and Snape to read a bit as was his habit, Harry snuggled under his arm and stuck his nose through Snape's hair.

"It looks good," he said, then inhaled. "Makes you look sexy."

Snape snorted. "Fat lot you know."

"Smells nice anyway," Harry said before settling in the crook of Snape's arm. After a moment Snape slid his fingers through Harry's hair. Even a good washing hadn't tamed it. Tonight he found he didn't mind as much.

He felt a wiggle of movement beside him and looked down just as Harry's head came nearly level with his. He thought Harry was going to say something, was wondering why he had to be this close to say it. Before he realized what the boy was going to do, Harry had brushed his lips over Snape's cheek in a light kiss before settling down and sliding almost immediately into sleep.

When Snape woke, it was suddenly. As always when he woke too abruptly he checked to make sure Harry was safe, thinking somehow the protection spell had alerted him. Harry, as always was twined around him, one arm over Snape's chest.

It was however not Harry's arm that had woken him. It was the boy's hips, which were moving slowly against Snape's cloth-covered thigh. Snape stilled, then stole a glance down. He could see clearly enough in the dimness to tell that the boy's eyes were closed, lips parted slightly.

Snape could clearly feel the boy's arousal moving against him. He was torn between waking the boy and…and…what? The choice was taken away when the boy made a soft, alluring noise, shuddered slightly and sighed himself back to sleep.

It was a long time before Snape himself got back to sleep.

~~**~~**~~

"Can I walk Ron and Hermione down to the train tomorrow?"

"Of course," he said absently, but smiled slightly at the flush of pleasure it gave the boy. Harry's emotions were always very close to the surface and after the recent unpleasant events he was just glad to see the boy back to normal.

"Thanks!" Harry said, and Snape studied his charge.

"Have you given any thought to where you'd like to go on holiday?" he asked.

Harry frowned. "You already said I could spend a week at the Burrow with Ron."

Snape set down his Evening Prophet. "You've got seven other weeks of leisure. Unless you'd prefer to spend them in the dungeons?"

Harry plopped down on the couch beside him. "Yes, actually."

Snape snorted. "And you'd willingly consign me to the same fate?"

Harry brightened immediately. "Oh! Can we go someplace together?"

"Well, of course…" He frowned again, the carefully folded his paper. "Let us begin again. Harry, I'd like to take two weeks away from the school, in your inestimable company. Do you have any thoughts about a destination?"

Sliding across the couch, Harry bumped his knee playfully. "I've never been to the beach," he said, equally solemnly, belying the merry sparkle in his eye.

"Nasty, hot places, beaches. Sand gets into everything."

"Sounds perfect," Harry said, eyeing him and obviously trying not to smile.

"We'll have to get you some trunks," Snape went on.

"I have money in Gringotts. Hagrid showed it to me," Harry said with confidence.

"That money is for your school supplies and nothing else, until you are of age," Snape informed him.

Harry looked thoughtful. "Then, I can probably borrow a pair of Ron's."

Snape quickly put an end to that notion. "No *husband* of mine is going to appear in public in borrowed, outgrown, or otherwise ill-fitting clothes." He didn't often refer to Harry as his husband--and when he did it was nearly always just between the two of them.

Harry sat back on the couch, slouching. Snape had often told him not to, but it had little effect. He scraped some no-doubt disgusting substance out from under one nail. "That's okay, we can go someplace else if you like."

Snape picked up his paper and disappeared behind it. "We are going to the god-forsaken beach, you impossible child." When he didn't hear anything he peeked over the brim of his newspaper. Harry was grinning.

He looked like he did just before he was going to give Snape his evening kiss. Only he'd only ever kissed him right before bed, and Snape always made sure to turn his cheek. Instead Harry said, "You're impossible too," he said.

~~**~~**~~

Something splashed his back and Snape looked up sleepily. The shade under the umbrella was broken by one very wet boy.

"Some girls want me to play with them. May I?"

Two adolescent faces peered out of the shadows behind him. "Remember the rules," he said softly and turned over onto his back so he could keep Harry in sight. His wand, under a concealment charm, lay within reach. Harry rolled his eyes and darted off.

The rules included the usual about not talking to strangers unless Snape was present, but encompassed absolutely no mention to anyone that they were married. And if pressed, Harry was to say Snape was his guardian.

He watched the children shrieking in the waves, chasing each other in the surf. He also noticed a woman, thirty or forty feet down, also keeping an eye out. Muggle, he was certain. They'd been at the beach cottage four days, and Snape had to admit it hadn't been as bad as he'd dreaded.

When told his needs, Minerva McGonagall had taken to re-outfitting the boy with a vengeance. She'd returned Snape's silk galleon purse considerably lighter and with an amused gleam in her eye. Apparently by not abusing the boy on a regular basis, he'd won some measure of respect in the Gryffindor's eyes. If he cared.

He had to admit, eyeing the rapidly browning boy splashing in the ocean, that she'd done a good job. Harry's new collection now filled several drawers of his armoire back in the dungeon. And the knobby knees didn't look quite so stick-thin in shorts that actually fit.

Later when the girls and their mother had trundled off to their own lodgings he and Harry lay under the large umbrella. They'd been dozing--something Harry was spectacularly good at and something Snape was finding he enjoyed as well.

From down the beach, two men, side by side and wearing nothing but loose shorts and trainers, jogged along. Idly Snape let himself enjoy the view, eyes drifting down their path until the two nicely muscled backsides were out of sight.

Beside him on the blanket Harry made a noise and rolled over onto his stomach but not before Snape had noticed the bulge in the now-dry trunks. Interesting.

After a moment Harry said, "Is it okay to talk you about stuff?"

Snape bit down a sarcastic remark. Obviously the boy was troubled by his inappropriate response just now. "Such as?" he asked.

"About liking girls and stuff."

He repressed a smirk. He'd been right, of course. "If you think I'm any judge of such things," he replied.

Harry appeared to think it over, then asked. "Did you like girls at my age?"

He avoided the question by saying, "It's all right to be confused by what your body tells you at your age."

Harry was quiet again. Then, "Do you know what they call boys who only like boys?"

"I'm certain I've heard quite a few of them," Snape said carefully. Harry was quiet again but Snape, who knew him well enough to know he hadn't drifted off to sleep, waited.

"Would you," Harry began, then pursed his lips and started again. "Would you still let me stay with you if they called me any of those names?"

Snape hesitated, conscious of staring out over the abyss of no return. "They've called me some of those names too, Harry."

Harry rolled over immediately, mouth open. He had some sand clinging to one side of his jaw. "Do they--still?"

Snape smiled slightly. "Not within hexing range."

Harry smiled and rubbed the sand off his jaw as he scrambled up to a sitting position. "Is that why you didn't mind taking me on?" Harry said, a bit more breathlessly than the movement upright would indicate. "So you can teach me about sex and stuff?" When he'd been Harry's age, Snape would never have been able to ask such a question.

"I will teach you how to keep yourself safe, how to keep your partner safe. I will answer any questions you have in the course of your explorations. I will even, if necessary, obtain literature for you, if your questions go beyond my range of experience."

Harry frowned and stared out into the ocean. The tide had been going out and there was a long stretch of glistening sand down to the waves. "I want you to teach me more than that."

Snape looked at Harry but the boy was still staring into the admittedly mesmerizing ocean. "You know I won't do that."

This time Harry did look at him. "I can wait. I've *been* waiting. But I want it to be you."

Snape was already shaking his head. "When the time comes…" he began, but Harry cut him off.

"I don't care about that. I've never wanted anyone but you."

"You've never known anyone but me!" Snape interrupted harshly. It had all seemed, well, not simple, but at least without the complication of sex, when he'd entered into this simple legal arrangement a year ago.

"You…you sleep with me, but you won't…" Harry began, but again Snape cut him off.

"I don't remember being given much of a choice about our sleeping arrangements," Snape hissed as Harry shot to his feet.

"I'm sorry I forced you to be nice to me!" he said, voice rising, breaking slightly. "I've had to fight for everything until you took me on and now you're making me fight you over this. I thought you'd understand." Harry whirled on his heel and stalked back to the cottage.

Snape watched him until he saw the rusty screen of the back door swing shut. Then the began gathering their towels and blankets. Once everything was folded and arranged, he checked the landscape before using his wand to shrink the lot into a small quart-size cooler with handles. He followed Harry back to the house.

He expected the chill when he got inside and he wasn't disappointed. Harry sat rigidly at one end of the battered sofa, a book Snape was certain he wasn't reading propped up in his lap. Harry didn't look up when Snape entered.

The older man set about unpacking their sandy accessories, enlarging the towels and blankets before hanging them outside on the graying fence to dry. Harry was still ignoring him when he started dinner. They'd been eating simply and tonight was no exception. Harry came trudging when called, but refused to engage in even the simplest conversation.

Snape, not much interested in talking himself, allowed it. The boy was obviously horribly overindulged. And no one was more qualified to disabuse him of that than his guardian. His brooding brain refused tonight to wrap itself around the word 'husband'.

He was surprised then when he announced tensely that he was going to bed and Harry's green eyes greeted the information with the barest flicker of recognition.

"I'll sleep out here," the boy said, obviously bracing for a row.

"Fine," Snape said, and closed the bedroom door between them for the first time since Harry had come to live with him.

~~**~~**~~

He was awake when the door to the bedroom opened. The gauzy curtains parted before he'd decided whether or not to feign sleep.

"You're awake," Harry said, climbing into bed. He hesitated only a moment before launching himself at Snape.

"I'm so sorry, Severus," Harry said into the folds of his nightshirt. "I'm so tired of fighting. I don't want to fight you too."

His hand found its own way to the back of Harry's head.

"Please don't send me away, Severus," Harry said and Snape could tell that despite everything the boy wasn't crying. "We don't have to have sex--not now or ever. Just please don't--"

Snape's hand tightened in Harry's hair at the base of his skull. He pulled the small head back. "Tell me what absurd notions you've got in your head." Harry gulped but only looked at him with wide green eyes. "Did I or did I not tell you I wouldn't send you away unless you wanted to go?"

"Yes, sir, only--"

Harry only called him 'sir' under trying conditions. "Adults have lied to you before."

"Yes, sir," Harry said, then softened. "Yes, Severus."

"I'm not like those Muggles, Harry," he said softly.

The hand slipped out of his grip as Harry looked down into his lap. "I know."

"So this notion you have formed that you must…offer yourself to me, is offensive to me. Do you understand?"

Harry nodded. "I understand you don't want me. I'm ugly and awkward and I have those awful glasses." He backed away slightly until Snape grabbed his wrist and pulled him close.

When he could speak Snape said, "Never say such things again."

From just under his chin Harry said, "I only thought if you were like me, that if you liked boys too, you might want me someday. And I was on the couch thinking of never having this--" He squirmed into Snape's chest. "Again and I didn't care if you ever wanted me or not. I just didn't want you to send me away." One hand clutched in the loose fabric of his nightshirt. "I just love you so much."

Well, he might have expected that. Only he hadn't. He thought of the boy's unceasing assertions that he would stay with Snape even after he left school. They would have to deal with that soon enough. He couldn't, after everything else, pummel the boy any more tonight.

"You would love anyone who took you away from your relatives," he said, his voice softening.

Harry giggled, tucking himself under Snape's arm, as they slid back down into the bed. "Aren't you glad it was you then?"

~~**~~**~~

Snape never forgot the late night declaration, even though it was never repeated. Harry was soon immersed in his busy second year, after spending the last week of summer within the bosom of the Weasley family. Snape had looked forward to reclaiming his own bed for a week, but found himself struck by insomnia as soon as he got his wish. Sleep returned as soon as Harry did, but Snape would never admit it had been the empty bed that had caused his insomnia.

It was no longer unusual to see Harry pushing away from the meal tables when Severus did; they nearly always walked down to the dungeons in the evenings together. Some evenings Harry did spend with his friends in Gryffindor tower, but he always returned to the dungeons--usually before curfew, though on Quidditch victory nights, Snape was more forgiving of his lateness.

Harry had grown a bit, standing mid-chest to Snape. And if he threw himself a bit more into Quidditch than studies, well, that was the way of most students.

Snape awoke in the early hours of the morning to three incontrovertible facts. First was that Harry, curled into his side, was slowly, quietly, humping himself again against Snape's leg.

Second was that, unlike similar occasions, Snape realized that Harry was wide awake. His firm hands held Snape's arm deliberately, his head shifting when he looked down, stilling the motion before slowly, quietly resuming.

Snape tensed but didn't move. Should he tell Harry to stop? In his sleep, gripped by boyish hormones, Snape could forgive, even indulge the mindless action.

But this was deliberate. Very deliberate.

The third fact was that Snape's own cock was rapidly finding its way to fully functional status. This last fact, more than any rationalization, kept him still as Harry's fingers tightened, the untidy head pressing deeper into the pillow, hips still slowly moving but with shorter strokes until the thin body shuddered, still quietly even so.

Snape held his breath as Harry released his. He hoped the boy would drift quickly into sleep and Snape could decide what to do about his own problem. Only Harry shifted. The movement sent the thin sheet covering them gliding across his now-leaking tip. Snape suppressed a groan.

More movement and then, incredibly the feel of something deliberately sliding under his nightshirt and into his underpants. Something that felt a lot like Harry's hand. Snape jolted out of Harry's grasp and sat up in the bed. Harry's eyes looked very innocent in the soft morning light.

"No, Harry," he said very firmly, turning, scrambling to the opposite edge of the bed, trying to catch his breath. He was still achingly hard. He felt the boy slide up behind him, one shin resting along the bottom of Snape's hips.

"You know I want you," Harry said into his back.

"I won't. We can't. You're too young and I'm too old."

Arms slid around his waist. "We're married."

"A legal convenience."

Harry sighed. "But we sleep together."

Snape ran a hand through his hair. "Maybe we…shouldn't. You're getting older, and…"

The arms around him tensed and Harry laid his head on the back of Snape's shoulder. "No, Severus, no."

He wanted to shake his head, to clear it of the drugging arousal, then he felt the lips on his shoulder, felt them slide up to his neck. "Just let me touch you. Just let me…" Harry lifted up, leaned over and rubbed his smooth cheek against Snape's stubbled one.

There was a reason this was wrong. Snape knew it, knew he should pull away. But he was tired of fighting too.

He turned his face into Harry's, letting the hesitant lips touch his. They were softer than any he'd known, and certainly more tentative. He let them ghost back and forth over his mouth, letting the boy explore.

"I can't give you what you want," he said, into Harry's mouth.

"You already have," Harry sighed, arms sliding around Snape's neck, shifting them in the bed. "I just want someone to touch me. And you do that. I want to touch someone back. I want to touch you back." The smallish hand had slid, as the boy spoke, over his hip, close to the traitorous cock. Slowly, as though waiting for the order to stop, he tugged Snape's nightshirt up, over Snape's knees, up his thighs. There was no disguising the state of his cock through his pants.

"When mine gets like this, nothing makes it go away except touching." Harry's fingers crept inside the slit of the pants, into the lush pubic hair, stroking as if fascinated. His was a lot thicker than the boy's, who had wisps of raven-dark hair forming on his body, so he might well have been.

"I'm older than you, and I hope I have a bit more control." But he didn't feel like had any control at all over the rampant betrayer between his legs or the thrum of arousal in his veins.

"I like it when I do it with you, though," Harry said, his head still on Snape's shoulder. "I did it right before you woke up and it felt really good." Harry's voice had grown husky. "You get hard sometimes in your sleep, when I rub myself against you. I've…I've touched you before in your sleep. Sometimes you c-come."

"That's just.." he said, hating how shaky his sounded now. "Hormones. We talked about that."

Harry was moving very slowly against his back. He could feel the swell of his hardness very clearly. "I like it when you come. Sometimes you say my name." Harry replied, the quiescent fingers inching a bit closer, tentatively rubbing the base of his shaft. "You must have hormones too."

"Of course I do!" Snape snapped, pulling away as he should have done earlier. "Sex isn't just about hormones. There should be more, a bond…"

He knew he'd said exactly the wrong thing. Harry's face lit up beatifically. "We've got one of those then. Remember? That thing you did with my magic? When we first got married." On the last word Snape's mouth was filled with twelve year old boy as lips met his own. Not the chaste kisses of their good night ritual but a thing a heat and hesitancy, lust and curiosity. He surrendered before he even knew the battle had been joined.

Harry's mouth opened in surprise but offered a sort of surrender all its own. Snape was bearing him backwards onto the bed, head thrumming with the delicious noises the boy was making. Arms wrapped around his neck, clutching the hair at the base of his scalp. He ran his mouth across the smooth jaw line, letting the noises escape, licking the smallish ear, then behind it into Harry's hair.

He was aware that Harry's leg was trying to wrap around him but he gently pushed against Harry' s hip. When his questing fingers smoothed over Harry's erection the boy went absolutely still.

"No, I want to touch you," Harry breathed, but the slender hips were pushing into his hand. He whole hand could easily fit both cock and bollux; he could feel both through the snug white underpants. He slipped his hand inside, growling as Harry gasped. Harry was so compact. His head fit on Snape's arms; his bare feet kicking restlessly against Snape's shins.

Sweeping the tiny balls into his hand Snape pushed them against the base of Harry's hard arousal. The scant amount of hair surrounding it brushed his knuckles as he stroked. Below him Harry was writhing, panting, eyes closed tightly as his head bucked into the sheets.

He knew Harry was beautiful when he came, had seen it when the boy's restless dreams set him moving against his bed partner.

Harry let out a long breath, then didn't seem to be able to inhale as he shuddered in Snape's arms. Snape drank in the sight, knowing he'd damned not only himself but this beautiful creature. Right now he didn't care. He waited for regret to come crashing in; he waited for guilt. Instead he found himself a prisoner of Harry's impish smile, which lost nothing for being sated.

"I told you it's really nice," Harry said, moving his hips in Snape's still-clenching hand despite the fact that he'd gone soft rather quickly. Slowly Snape pulled his hand out, wiping the thin fluid on the hem of Harry's underpants. He himself was still aroused, painfully so.

"Still want to touch you, though." Using the hand around Snape's neck, Harry pulled himself upright until he was so close his features blurred. All Snape could see were green eyes, wide with new-found knowledge.

Small lips touched his though neither made a move to deepen the kiss. "Kissing is nice too." Harry rubbed his lips along Snape's, small kisses like the ones he'd used on Snape's cheeks to say good-night. "I didn't think it would be, but it was." The other hand had drifted between Snape's legs with a contented sigh. "You feel nice everywhere."

"You mustn't," Snape said. He'd been afraid his voice would be ragged and he was right.

"Don't be daft, Severus," Harry said, rubbing over his mound. Even through two layers of cloth it felt good. "We need to do this *so* much more." He was rubbing more rhythmically now, exploring the shapes it made against the cloth.

Feeling a bit like a Victorian maiden succumbing to the demands of a patiently wooing husband, he lifted his nightshirt again. Harry's eyes widened in appreciation as his hand echoed Snape's intrusion and slid inside his underpants.

Snape leaned back on his hands, trying to decide between whether he minded more being damned or being driven mad by Harry's hesitant caresses.

"Is this right?" Harry said. "This angle feels--"

"Close your hand," Snape instructed, "That's it. Harder, and just let me move through it." Snape covered the tentative hand with his own, adjusted the angle and nearly spontaneously combusted after only a few strokes. Harry's hand flew open in surprise but Snape closed it back firmly over the shaft, letting Harry milk him until the lush spurts had stopped.

Harry looked like he'd invented sex, so completely satisfied was he. He stripped off his t-shirt and wiped the strands of come from Snape's chest, blotting it up with a concentration that nearly constricted his heart.

"What am I going to do with you?" Snape said, voice as languid as his bones as he tipped Harry's chin up.

The boy grinned. "That. Lots more." Then a slight wariness Snape recognized snuck onto the usually open face. "You aren't going to argue with me, are you?"

Snape recognized the fighting spirit in his young charge. It was one of the things they had in common. And Snape too knew when the battle was lost. "Would it do any good?"

Instead of replying, Harry threw his arms around Snape's neck. "We should have been doing this ages ago." One hand came up to support the squirming young man. "Now, see all the time we have to make up for."

Harry let him go abruptly and let himself fall backwards recklessly on the bed, all sprawled legs and outstretched arms. Snape eyed the bare chest and the balled up t-shirt. Harry saw his expression and sighed, rolling over and crawling off the bed to the loo where they kept the hamper.

Snape took advantage of the brief absence to tuck himself back in, expecting the return of his modesty with the downward tug of his nightshirt. Except just then Harry came out of the bathroom and climbed back into bed.

"Don't you have any clean t-shirts?" Snape asked as Harry slid, still bare-chested, under the covers.

"Loads. Only, can't I sleep like this, just this once?" He adjusted the pillow under his head. "Everything feels so nice against my skin." He undulated against his bed partner. "Couldn't we…just this once?" He tugged at Snape's nightshirt. Snape let him lift the nightshirt up, let him settle them both in the rumpled bed, Harry's bare chest wriggling into Snape's side.

Everything *was* feeling rather good next to his skin too. Harry's hand had settled quite comfortably in the hair on his chest.

Needless to say they never slept in nightshirts again. That summer they rented a cottage for a month, one rather more isolated than the last. They'd discovered, in the course of their explorations, that Harry liked to sit between Snape's legs, his back leaning on Snape's chest, arm clutched backward around his neck while Snape stroked him off.

Snape never fought the sensual demands, never looked back over the line they had crossed. He'd never thought of himself as a man with an overactive libido, but under Harry's increasingly skillful hands he found himself surrendering happily. Though Harry had trouble understanding why Snape didn't need stroking as often as he did.

"But it feels so *nice*," Harry would always say, on those admittedly rare occasions Snape settled beside him without letting him return the favors he bestowed so willingly.

"When the time comes, you'll know, you demanding infant," Snape would growl.

They'd never gone beyond kissing and stroking, but as Harry predicted, they did both a lot. Snape's conscience had quieted that he wouldn't be taking the boy's virginity, even if his innocence was irreplaceable. Anyone with eyes that knowing, or who reached for Snape in pleasure, could not on any account be called innocent.

Harry was growing, blossoming in the fresh air and sunshine. They celebrated his birthday in his favorite position, sitting upright, facing each other, Harry's legs draped over his lover's, their cocks close enough to touch while Snape stroked them both off.

He'd got used to the kisses, some innocent and casual, some demanding and needy.

He'd given Harry permission to spend the last week before school with his friends and tried not to think how empty their rooms were while Harry while gone.

They were lying in bed the night before he was to take Harry to the tender mercies that awaited him at the Burrow. Snape had a book propped up on his knees as Harry came out of their bathroom in his underpants. He took a moment to appreciate the lengthening body, the light ripple of muscles beneath the still lightly bronzed skin.

Harry climbed into bed and settled himself beside Snape, gazing up as if expecting him to say something. With a sigh, he slid his hand onto Snape's bare chest as though he were going to go to sleep. But a moment later the small hand began sliding down his body, over the band of Snape's underwear, stroking across the slit without actually going inside.

"You'll miss me, won't you?"

"Mmm," Snape said, noncommittally.

Harry teased the shape of his cock over the cloth of his pants. "You'll miss me awfully, I can tell." He squeezed a bit harder.

"Miss what, infant? You conspiring with the house-elves to keep me from working too late in the dungeons?"

The small hand stilled, but just for a moment. Snape's traitorous prick had begun taking an interest, especially since Harry had learned quite well what he liked. "Now, the dungeons really were leaking that week, and you'd been holed up down there for a week."

"Miss having you drag my arse to these ridiculous beaches every summer, getting sand in all my things?" Snape went on, setting the book aside. Harry was pursing his lips, a sign he was in thought.

Snape lifted his arm and draped it around Harry, shifting his own hips to accommodate the stroking fingers. "Miss your constant--" He hooked a leg over Harry's and pulled their hips together. "Unceasing--" He stripped off Harry's white briefs with a smooth practiced motion, aided of course by Harry himself. "Demands for sex."

Harry laughed. "You *are* going to miss me. I knew you would." He returned the favor, sliding Snape's pants down before resuming his former position. He pushed his hips in closer. Neither of them were hard yet but both were well on their way. Harry moved in to kiss him and Snape carried them both back so that Harry was pulled on top of him. He knew his lover liked to rub himself against Snape's answering firmness.

He also knew Harry liked kissing, liked sucking those places on his neck that made Snape groan--he'd mapped each one, and with a scholarly devotion he'd never shown in school had committed each sensitive spot to memory. Tonight he tasted each one, his determined mouth tasting Snape's skin while he moved against him.

Harry also liked sucking his nipples, and did it with a focus he'd never shown any spell ever chanted. Snape lay back, swept away by arousal at the onslaught. Thin hips pressed harder into his. Harry always got the angle right now--they'd certainly had enough practice. He heard Harry's breath catch, and opened his eyes. The famous green eyes were closed, his head tilted back as he humped himself against his lover.

Snape slid his hands along Harry's damp back, cupping his firm young arse, pushing them together harder. "Oh yes, Severus!" Harry said just before he caught the last breath he could before shuddering against Snape, spurting furiously between them.

Harry slowed but did not stop moving, milking his spent prick in his own seed. His eyes shot open, and he grinned, triumphant and sated all at once. He looked at his lover like Snape imagined the snitch must look as it sensed the seeker's fingers about to close around it. Harry's fingers slid down between them, grasping Snape's cock, while still moving against him.

Snape groaned. Harry knew exactly what he liked, knew how hard to squeeze and just when, ah now!, to close the tightening balls up close to his shaft. Harry's fingers were soon sticky and wet with come, coating them both, but concentrating on Snape, pulling now, squeezing, still rubbing his body against his.

"Just--" he began, trying to praise Harry's efforts but suddenly *there*, thrusting up, into Harry's hand, against the body, anything that would give him more of that lovely friction exactly where he needed it. Dimly he heard Harry make that noise of satisfaction he made every time he, Harry, brought Snape off.

Harry held him until he caught his breath. "Be right back," he said, sliding off the bed and returning a moment later with a warm flannel. Snape disdained cleaning spells for things like this and Harry enjoyed the task. They settled back in the bed, Harry snuggling against him, neither bothering to dress again.

"I'll miss you, Severus," Harry said sleepily.

He slipped his fingers through the slightly damp hair. "It's only a week." He thought about how anxious he'd been last summer to have the bed to himself, though he wasn't really looking forward to it this year.

Harry opened his eyes, peering up sleepily, sliding his fingers languidly across Snape's belly. "I'm not going to, you know, do anything without you."

Snape frowned. "Don't be ridiculous. Of course you'll--" But Harry was already asleep.

~~**~~**~~

While he was getting ready to go up to the Welcoming Feast on the first day of term, he found himself warming up to the idea of seeing the ebullient, maddening, combative child again. When he heard the door to his quarters swing open he turned, only to be nearly bowled over by said ebullient child.

Harry, apparently confident of Snape's ability to steady them both wrapped legs, arms and lips around Snape, not stopping until the need for air became critical. "God, I missed you," he heard from somewhere below his ear.

"It was just a week," Snape said, shifting the squirming bundle in his arms until Harry slid down of his own volition.

Then he pressed himself into Snape again, more deliberately. "I really missed you," Harry said, eyes alight with erotic mischief.

"We haven't time for that, infant," Snape said, despite the urge to slap his own hand away from Harry's bulge. "We've got to get to the welcoming feast."

Harry buried his nose in the front of Snape's coat. "You smell so familiar," he said, inhaling deeply. "Our soap and our shampoo and that weird stuff you shave with."

Snape had, on more than one occasion caught Harry examining his own chin for incipient signs of whiskers. The boy was unduly proud of the wisps under his arms and between his legs.

Harry said, pulling himself closer by the fronts of Snape's open coat. "I'm about to burst!"

Snape frowned. "You mean you really haven't…" He hadn't relieved his own sexual urges either, but just because the frequent sex he'd shared with Harry hadn't left him with the urge. And if he were honest it was just more pleasant to leave such tasks to someone who entered them with such obvious enjoyment.

That grin. Tiny fingers over his own trouser front. Eyes that promised sin. Lips damp from Snape's own kisses. He made a fast decision.

"On the couch with you then," he said, knowing how it would look if the both came into the feast late and flushed.

Gleefully Harry scampered over, but looked curiously when Snape kneeled in front of him. They were quickly on familiar ground when Snape parted Harry's black school robes and unzipped his trousers. Harry leaned back into the couch with a blissful sigh.

If Snape smelled familiar to the boy, Harry himself smelled of unknown things. The soap powder Mrs. Weasley used to wash Harry's clothes, the lingering smells from the train. But this was also achingly familiar. Reminding himself that they had no time he hooked one finger over the elastic of the pristine white underpants. Harry's cock, damp and expectant, sprang free.

Without warning, Snape put the whole thing in his mouth. They had never done anything like this and the shock of it elicited a startled gasp from above him. Then Harry was shaking, coating his tongue with pubescent come. It was sweet and briefly Snape wished he could do this when Harry grew to manhood and could fill his mouth with the heady, viscous stuff. Not for the first time, he tamped down such longings. When the time came, Harry would be happier with someone his own age. Snape had only been given the gift for seven years.

He didn't let go until he felt Harry soften slightly, though it was apparent that if he kept sucking, Harry's eager erection would firm up again. When he looked up, Harry's eyes behind the spectacles were glazed over. Snape himself had gotten hard at the first whiff of arousal. The welcoming feast would be quite uncomfortable for a while.

With more reluctance than he would have thought possible he tucked Harry's still-uncertain prick back in, resisted the urge to inhale deeply one more time before he did, and got the still-dazed Harry on his feet and both of them out the door in time for the feast.

Harry settled in quickly with his friends but cast enigmatic looks in Snape's direction. The group of Gryffindors left together and Harry went with them. He would spend a couple of hours in the Gryffindor common room meeting the new first years and catching up with his housemates.

Judging from last year, Snape assumed Harry might be out late. He climbed into bed alone, absurdly grateful for the fact that it would probably be the last time for awhile. He was just getting drowsy when he heard the door open for the second time that night. Snape set the book down on his lap and looked up expectantly.

Harry looked…almost shy. He hovered in the bedroom door, staring at Snape as though just emerging from that damn cupboard two years ago. Still without speaking, Harry finally climbed on top of the still made up side of the bed, without undressing.

Cold dread clenched at Snape's heart. It had finally happened. Harry, whom he must have frightened with the unexpected intimacy was, at last going to tell him he was moving up to Gryffindor tower. He felt a surge of wretchedness that he'd hoped tonight would be his last night alone in the bed.

"Hi," Harry said, the shy smile still tugging at the corners of his mouth.

"Hallo," he returned, outwardly calm. He would be an adult about this. Harry deserved to be with his friends, with people--with *children*--his own age. It was, after all, Snape who had urged him to spend time with his own house.

Harry pulled his legs up so he was sitting cross-legged on the bed, on his usual side, facing Snape. "That thing you did?" Harry asked, not quite meeting Snape's eyes.

Snape frowned, nonplussed. "Yes?" he asked warily.

"Can we do it again?" Harry asked breathlessly. The smallish body suddenly seemed as taut as a wire.

Snape set the book in his lap on the night table. "About that," he began.

"Yes?"

"Surely you realize it was an emergency," Snape explained, as though he'd applied a bandage to a paper cut.

Harry looked down at his lap. "I never thought anything would feel as good as when you touch me, or when we touch each other." He looked up finally. "But that was amazing."

Somehow it sunk in to Snape that they were not talking about Harry moving out anytime soon. "I shouldn't have done it," Snape said with a sigh, feeling guilty for the relief he felt.

Only Harry sighed as well. "This is going to be something you're doing for my own good, isn't it?"

"Harry," he began warningly, but Harry was turning, plopping down on the pillow beside Snape, one leg over one upraised knee. "I've indulged you shamelessly. Look, when this façade of a…marriage is over, you'll be glad there are things to discover with your new lover."

Harry looked up but didn't say anything. Snape had expected him to protest about Snape's expectations once Harry left school. He had always done it in the past. Things, Snape told himself firmly, were different now. Harry was growing up.

"There's something else I should tell you, while we're on the subject." He waited for a reaction, but Harry looked utterly engrossed in fiddling with the buttons on his shirt. "It's very normal for boys your age to experiment with other boys. Girls even."

Harry let out a short laugh. "Did you?" he asked, searching Snape's face. "Experiment with girls I mean?"

"Well, er, no. But that doesn't mean you can't. You're trying to distract me. You always do it when you think there's something unpleasant, but it isn't."

Harry looked chastised. Slightly. "Okay, Severus."

"I know you might feel some sort of…loyalty, to me," Snape began, waving away the boy's automatic protest, before he could make useless protestations of love. "What I need to tell you is that I don't expect any ridiculous sort of fidelity. As long as you are discreet, you have a certain amount of freedom to experiment."

Harry's face had that rebellious look he was so familiar with. It didn't matter; Harry would remember the loophole when he was approached by someone in the Quidditch changing rooms, or caught someone's eye in a secluded corridor.

Face still stubborn, Harry asked, "Does that work both ways?"

Snape blinked in surprise. The boy was worried about *that*? "It isn't an issue with me." He'd tacitly understood that one of the reasons Dumbledore had sought him out was that his lack of past social compatibility all but precluded inconvenient romantic entanglements while Harry was under his protection.

He had the uncomfortable sensation of being studied and that the studier had formed some conclusion Snape was not privy to. "I won't betray you," Harry said finally and Snape snorted.

"Of course you will," he rebutted.

Another of those slow thoughtful looks. "So, you're saying it's okay to experiment with strangers that I have no feelings for, but I can't make love with you, whom I do."

Snape's mouth opened. To give the perfectly logical reason why his version made more sense. Only he couldn't think of it.

"So, there's a lot more to this sex business than you've told me," Harry went on, once it was obvious Snape wasn't going to speak. "Like that…thing you did." He looked up earnestly. "And that thing… back there."

"Back there?" he repeated, and Harry rolled his eyes.

"You know…back there. I *know* what men to. I'd like to try it sometime."

"I'll get you a book," Snape said quickly, not certain when this conversation had gotten away from him.

"I want more practical experience," Harry said, edging closer.

Oh yes, it had been when Harry had come into it.

"You know I won't--" he began, but Harry was climbing into his lap.

"If you're only letting me stay with you until I leave school, then I want everything. I want you to show me all of it." The last bit was said as he pulled himself into Snape's chest like a child. Snape had taken to wearing nightshirts again while Harry had been off on his holiday.

"When you do send me away, when the time comes, I'll go," Harry said, face pressed sideways into his nightshirt. "If that's what you're worried about."

Snape realized that despite the notion that he'd been providing security for his charge, Harry had interpreted it differently. Not for the first time he wanted to return to Privet Dr. and give his relations what they deserved. Harry, his Harry, was still fighting. It was only his tactics that had changed.

Snape wrapped his arms around his young husband. He thought he was probably going to regret this. "Haven't I told you, I won't send you away?" he asked softly, smoothing fingers through the unruly hair.

In his lap Harry stiffened and looked up. "You'll let me stay? Even after I've finished school?"

Snape shifted his legs. "If you want to, yes."

Harry smiled. "You think I won't want to. You think when the time comes I'll just walk out of the dungeons. That's why you won't.." The smile had changed into something different, something mesmerizing. Before Snape could find out what it was, Harry was kissing him. It was Harry's mouth moving on his, his tongue coaxing it open.

He'd missed this, Snape realized with a start. Missed having someone who wanted him unreservedly. Who wanted to--Harry's hand had found its way to his lap, rubbing him through the nightshirt.

Snape groaned, his head laying back against the headboard. Harry knew exactly how to touch him. Except he was sliding away, moving the bedclothes down, lifting Snape's nightshirt up. Then, slyly, he bent to drop a kiss on top of Snape's very interested arousal. When Snape didn't rebuke him, he licked the tip, moving so he could get closer.

Harry's mouth covered just the tip, sucking, licking pre-come whenever it dribbled to the surface. He stretched his still-clothed body between Snape's legs where he could reach it, lying flat on the bed. His hand wrapped around the base, and since this was more familiar, Harry concentrated on just that for a few moments.

Then he began licking and sucking, obviously uncertain but determined to find out what worked. When his small hand moved along his length Snape moaned. He was cursed, Snape thought suddenly. If he watched Harry, the sight was so erotic he knew he'd go mad with it. If he closed his eyes the physical sensations would overwhelm him.

"Harry," he said, but it took him a couple of tried to get the boy's attention. "I'll let you know when you can…pull back," he said carefully.

"Do you think you might come from this?" Harry said, unabashedly eager. "I should like to taste that." He bent as if to resume, though his hand was still stroking slowly. Harry watched his own hand as if spellbound.

"I mean, you know when a man comes, there's more than when you--" Harry had licked the bubble of clear fluid that had welled up.

"You come a lot. I like that," Harry said impishly, as if aware of the pretty picture he made, small tongue licking Snape, hand still clutched around his thick shaft.

"It's just--" Snape tried again, "It can be a little startling if you aren't…used to it." He had a sudden vision of rushing Harry to the Infirmary and trying to explain to the nurse why Harry was choking.

Harry frowned. "You *don't* want me to swallow it? You swallowed mine."

Merlin! Wasn't there anything the boy wouldn't argue with him about? "I knew what to expect. And I haven't, er, done anything either, since you left." He felt the warm flush creeping up his chest.

For some reason that seemed to please Harry. He squirmed in closer to resume his task. "Let me know when, then," he whispered, lips very close to his cock. As he bent his not inconsiderable attention to sucking, Snape almost forgot to give warning.

Even so, Harry left off his sucking until nearly too late and got splattered a bit before he pulled up far enough to watch, fascinated. As Snape had taught him he kept pumping and squeezing until every last heated strand spilled out and Snape was panting like a hippogriff in heat.

They faced each other over the spent ruin of Snape's cock. Then, before he could speak, Harry put a tentative hand to his splattered cheek, wiping before sucking his fingers clean. Feeling a bit like a contestant in a bake off, Snape waited for Harry's verdict. He knew how enthusiastic Harry was about most sex play and the idea of shooting down his softly sucking mouth was appealing enough to make his sated prick twitch.

"I could have done it," Harry said, "I'm not a baby, you know."

"No, you are the most exasperating child I have ever met," Snape said but he was leaning forward, letting his momentum push Harry back, pushing up his jumper, then his trousers down, until the firm young cock sprang up, practically begging for attention.

This time Snape let the boy enjoy it longer. At the first touch of his lips, every ounce of tension had melted out of Harry's body as though he'd become as insubstantial as a ghost. With one hard anchor to the world of the living. Soon Harry was thrashing, moaning something over and over again and it wasn't until he felt Harry shudder through his release did he realize he was calling out Snape's name.

It was Harry's turn to lie breathless and boneless until he sighed feelingly. "You know, I'll bet we could figure out a way to lie together so we're doing that to each other at the same time."

Snape rolled his eyes, then tucked Harry back into his trousers. "Go get ready for bed and you can lull me to sleep with your adventures with the Weasleys."

Like a genie that had tasted freedom, Harry's sexual curiosity refused to go back into the bottle. He'd lived with Snape long enough to be perfectly aware of the older man's weaknesses, and on those rare occasions Snape balked, the annoying infant found some way of overcoming his admittedly ruinous defenses. He'd woken up on more than one morning with the boy's mouth fastened around him, sucking for all he was worth.

And more and more he lingered, using the time between Snape's legs to explore, getting up the courage one night to stroke his finger across the puckered opening there. Snape shivered and Harry looked up.

"Does it really feel good, fucking like that?"

"You've an impudent mouth," Snape said, feeling too lazy just at the moment, to chastise him for his language. Harry had gotten *spectacularly* good at blowjobs.

Harry, in the cradle between Snape's pale thighs, laughed, and swiped the hole again. "I can't think a whole cock will go in there, not even mine." Harry was by no means full grown, but Snape had reason to believe he'd have no reason to be ashamed of what nature had given him.

"It will," Snape said smugly.

"So you've let someone do that to you," Harry said, still seemingly fascinated, now that he'd got that far, to touch him more intimately, rubbing small circles around his entrance.

"Rather willingly at the time," Snape recounted. He'd been older than Harry but he remembered it fondly.

"But you've done it the other way 'round," Harry went on, his strokes more sure now, his finger probing the soft flesh above the hole. Snape, though recently spent, felt a stirring of interest.

"I'm not discussing my past with you," he said, much too torn between this delightfully boneless languor and interested arousal to put much vinegar in it.

"But you have?" Harry persisted.

"Rather willingly as well," Snape said. Harry was running his forefinger over the crease of Snape's balls. Harry was very tactile and had a great delight in touching Snape long after their immediate passion was spent. By now, even Harry had noticed the effect he was having.

"How old were you when you first.." He took a swipe at the slightly flexing hole to emphasize his point.

"Older than you. Positively ancient, really," he said, letting himself watch Harry nuzzle his gracefully swelling cock.

"Well, you've always said I was precocious," Harry said, with a smirk, remarkably like Snape's own. Not for the first time he thought they had similar features, though Harry's had somehow rearranged themselves more favorably than Snape's ever had.

"I'm not going to fuck you," he said, though his cock had quite a different opinion. It wasn't the first time Harry had hinted about it, and he'd had time to think about it.

"You have the most inconvenient moral sense," Harry said, a smile in his voice. He let the tip of his finger ever so slightly breach Snape's body. "But that isn't what I had in mind."

Oddly, Snape's cock got the idea faster than Snape's brain. It was instantly a lot more than interested, shooting up to what-are-you-waiting-for status. Snape knew he should be marshalling his arguments for why they should have a terrible row over this. But on some level the genie had been practically rubbing its own bottle on this one.

"Only if you do exactly as I say," he said. Harry went very still, his finger still just slightly inside him. "And don't argue with me."

"Do I *ever* argue with you?" Harry said, not even trying not to smirk now.

"And if it looks like you can't, we'll stop," Snape went on, warming to the idea much sooner than he would have thought. There was none of the customary nervousness when he'd allowed a past lover to breach him. He could trust Harry.

"And try again later," Harry said. "But I can do it." He lifted up, eyes sparkling with in-born confidence.

"Tell me first what you know about the business," Snape said as Harry rolled over to pillow his head on Snape's thigh. The atmosphere had become charged with sensual anticipation and they both enjoyed the feel of it. Either way, Harry was quite erect, Snape not far behind.

"I put my cock inside you, and pound away until we both come at exactly the same moment, to cement our mystical union, in a shower of red and green sparks. Sometimes larks sing as well," Harry said cheekily.

"Do I even want to know where you pick up this rubbish?" Snape asked, rolling over to the drawer where they kept the oil they used. More often than not now, Harry opted for oral sex, so it hadn't been used that often of late. He handed the stoppered vial to Harry.

"Put some on your fingers just like we used to do." Harry complied eagerly. "Good and slick now; don't be stingy." Harry added more until his fingers were glistening.

"Now, you've got to get me ready," he said and Harry nodded, nearly shivering with excitement. He eyed Snape's anus with fierce determination. "Go slowly. One finger at a time. I'll tell you when I'm ready."

It had been a long time. The first finger, though tentative, slid in easily enough, though. Harry had slender fingers. He got all the way inside and stopped, uncertain. "In and out, like a cock." Harry followed the instructions easily, finding a tentative rhythm. Snape's cock had faltered a bit at the first intrusion and though the fingering was pleasant enough, he knew they both needed more.

He propped his knees up and angled his arse a bit. "Okay, one more." This one was a bit trickier and burned a bit as it went slightly beyond his immediate readiness level. Harry's face scrunched up in concentration.

"Do you feel that little bump in there as you slide in?" he asked.

Harry's fingers slowed, concentrating. "This, here?" he asked, brushing just over it. Snape let the unaccustomed sensation melt over him like warm paraffin.

"Oh, that's it, lad," Snape said, as Harry, agape at his reaction, did it again. "Just brush it, just like that." He let Harry see how it was affecting him then said, "If you can do that with your cock, you may drive me mad."

"I'd like that," Harry said, still probing, still observing. Without being told, he re-oiled his hands, stroking himself lightly before pushing his hand back in. As with everything that didn't involve schoolwork, Harry had a concentration that Snape only saw in himself when concocting a potion.

"This is--" Harry began, looking up, searching Snape's face, unable to finish the sentence.

"I'm ready," Snape said gently. For the first time Harry looked uncertain. "Use the oil on yourself."

"I'm afraid I'll come if I touch myself." Harry moved his two fingers in and out again. "God, you look so hot like this." He pulled his fingers out slowly, watching each knuckle slide free.

"Don't worry if you come," Snape said, feeling suddenly empty. "There's no shame in it if you do. It takes patience to get good at it." He'd been afraid of touching himself for the same reason. His own cock lay heavy against his belly, achingly sensitive.

Harry oiled himself quickly and slid his hands along Snape's legs, down his thighs, thumbs stroking into the lush pubic hair. Then, very lightly, he leaned over and kissed Snape's cock. He slid himself closer, his cock glistening and slick.

"Guide yourself in, don't rush it. That's the way."

There was a sheen of dampness on Harry's forehead and a second flush on his chest and neck. Snape forced himself not to cry out when the first stretch felt like it was ripping him. He knew from memory it would only last a moment.

Then, achingly, "We have to stop," Harry said, desperation edging his voice. "It won't go in." Harry's voice was strong but broke slightly.

Snape grunted in frustration. "It'll go. Take your time." The heavy bluntness had stretched him, but the whole tip had not gone in.

"If I move, I'll come," Harry said, more desperately this time. He was sweating now.

"Then come."

"I want you to--" the boy said with fierce determination.

"Just get inside me, and then come. You can take care of me afterward." Harry pushed his hips forward slightly. "It'll go, Harry. You aren't hurting me."

With a determined thrust Harry was through the breach, steadying himself only just in time. Snape reached out one hand to help.

"Take a deep breath. Take your time."

Harry sucked in his breath, throwing his head back. Snape guided his hands to either side of his body and Harry tried a very small thrust. "Oh Severus," he said softly, lowering his mouth for a kiss. Snape sucked his tongue as they slowly rocked together. He'd meant the kiss to be a taste of the familiar in an unfamiliar situation but Harry grabbed onto it like a lifeline. His hips began to move.

He felt the groan rising out of Harry's chest, the instant Harry's cock sank into his body one last time. A cry tore out of Harry's throat as he bucked against Snape, who did the best he could to hold him.

Even though he hadn't come, he welcomed the liquid heat inside him, welcomed the brushes Harry made against his pleasure gland, welcomed his young husband inside him.

They were both sweaty as Harry collapsed onto this chest, his cock slipping out since he wasn't thinking about holding it inside. Snape immediately felt empty and wondered how long it would be before he could let Harry talk him into doing this again.

He let his fingers spear into Harry's hair, then down the damp, heaving back. He might have known the boy would have a grin on his face when he finally looked up. "It all fit in; did you see?" Then the grin slipped as he pressed his belly into the hardness of Snape's cock. "Did I hurt you?" he asked, with child-like concern.

"Dreadfully," Snape said, ruffling his hair. "I'm quite put off the business."

"Maybe I can put you back on it," Harry said cheekily, recognizing the teasing. Gingerly he slid off Snape's chest, eyeing the cock that sprang up with undisguised interest. Oh yes, Snape thought to himself as the eager mouth slipped between his legs, Harry had gotten quite good at blowjobs.

Once Harry settled beside him afterwards, he found himself being stared at with eyes both familiar and bewildered. "Severus?" Harry asked quietly. "May I tell you something?"

Struggling up through the layers of absolute contentment, Snape said, "Bear in mind that the things one says in situations like this, one invariably regrets later."

Harry laughed. It was nearly like his giggle of old, but his voice had begun to deepen. Snape thought he would quite like his voice once it settled into its range. Then Harry kissed Snape's cheek. "I just wanted to tell you I love you. I know you don't like me to say it."

He pulled Harry close. He knew, as Harry did, that they'd crossed a line tonight. Over it and no looking back now. "Let's make a pact between us," he said, feeling a shiver go through his lover.

"A secret pact? Sworn in blood under the full moon?"

Snape sighed. "Your dramatic streak is appalling. You're trying to distract me." Harry smiled up at him disingenuously. "You may tell me you…love me as often as you like if you promise--"
He paused. "Promise," he stressed, "to leave your heart open for love. When the right time comes."

"Okay," Harry said, wriggling happily.

"I'm always suspicious when you don't argue with me," he replied, looking into the crook of his arm at the smugly content boy.

Still smiling Harry said, "Okay, but you have to promise me something too."

Snape's eyes narrowed. "I knew there was a catch." He knew he wasn't the only to notice that he hadn't said he wouldn't promise whatever Harry was asking.

"Let me," Harry said, stroking his face with his small hand.

Harry's voice was soft but Snape heard him clearly. He just wasn't sure he understood. "Let you what?"

"Love you."

Oh, that was easy enough. "I've already said you could say it." He relaxed slightly in their bed.

Harry snuggled closer so he could prop himself on Snape's chest. "I want you to let yourself believe it."

Snape, startled, opened his mouth but no words came out.

Harry went on, green eyes alight, "So that one day, when the time comes, you *will* believe it."

~~**~~**~~

He'd never really got used to an empty bed. How could he, Snape mused as he turned over onto his side in the middle of the lonely night, have slept alone the first thirty-odd years of his life, then become so spoiled by one impudent boy in a few brief years, that he could no longer sleep alone now that the aggravating creature was gone?

Snape opened his eyes, spying the empty pillow beside him. Nights like this, he knew he'd never get back to sleep once he started thinking about the absent child. Man, he corrected himself, for Harry had gone out of Hogwarts a man in all senses of the word.

Activity, Snape thought, though not the sort he'd got too used to when Harry had been here; that was what he needed. He'd roam the halls as he used to, frightening miscreants. Only, term didn't start until tomorrow. Hundreds of brats lay in hundreds of beds all over England dreaming of their trip to Hogwarts, of meeting old friends, or of making them. It had been ten years since one Harry Potter had slept inside a cupboard, shivering perhaps at the idea of leaving his relations for the then unknown sanctuary of Hogwarts.

Ten years, then since Snape had pledged his life, and more importantly, his magic, to the boy, who'd grown exactly as Snape had predicted into a self-assured, attractive young man. He sat up in the bed, pushing the duvet down as he swung his legs over the edge. They were bare; he'd never gone back to sleeping in nightshirts.

"Can't you sleep?" came an exasperatingly familiar voice. Snape, startled, peered into the gloom.

"Damn it, boy!" he said, as Harry materialized out of thin air a few feet from the bed. "You'll scare the life out of me!"

Harry grinned. "I hope there's a bit of life in you yet, Severus," he said, sidling in between Snape's knees, pushing him backwards.

"You're early," Snape said, hearing his voice catching, but not caring. Harry pinned him easily, having grown nearly as tall as Snape himself. Lips met his hotly. Snape wrapped his arms around his husband, then brought his knees up around Harry's hips. Together they rolled onto the bed, untangling somewhere in the middle.

"Ron threw me out," Harry said, kissing the side of Snape's mouth, bringing one of his own knees up around Snape's hip. "Said he couldn't stand me moping around another second." He drew back slightly and grinned again. "He knows tomorrow's our anniversary."

Snape drew a finger down Harry's face, frowning slightly. "You know we don't--" Harry, even though he and all his friends had finished school, usually spent a week at the Burrow. In recent years he'd had to work around the youngest Weasley son's Quidditch schedule.

"Celebrate?" Harry said, pulling his traveling robe off and throwing it over the bed. "Mark the occasion?" he tried next, lifting his shirt over his head. "Renew our solemn vows under a rose-encrusted arbor?" The compact body shifted, and Harry shucked out of his trousers. Over the years, Harry's imagination had gotten, if anything, more appalling.

"God, I missed you," Harry said breathily, leaning in for another kiss, and this one went on for considerably longer.

Snape smoothed his hands over the more rounded curve of Harry's arse. "It was only a week."

Hips burrowed into his. "Oh, right, like you did so much better. Did you sleep at all?"

Snape pretended to consider the question. "Does just keeping my eyes closed count?" he asked as Harry started kissing his chest. "If it does, I slept quite a bit during the staff meeting." Harry smiled but didn't stop kissing him.

"I hate sleeping alone," Harry said, having kissed his way down between Snape's legs.

"Ah," Snape said, curling his fingers into Harry's hair. "The actual reason you've stayed with me all these years."

Utterly undaunted, Harry nodded. "True, I'm afraid," he replied between mouthfuls of cock. "I put up with your brutish lovemaking for the sake of a warm bed." He nuzzled his chin along the head of Snape's swelling prick. "*Speaking* of brutish lovemaking--"

"Now?" Snape asked archly, lifting his head to look at Harry, now settled between his thighs. "When I'm all agog to hear about your adventures at the Burrow?"

Harry made a needy noise, and not so discreetly, rubbed his own much firmer arousal against the lower part of Snape's leg. "The usual. All night orgies, the illicit conception of many red-haired children. Me, spilling the most intimate details of our love life." He licked hopefully around the purpling ridge of Snape's now very interested arousal. "*Speaking* of our love life--"

Snape pressed his shin in harder where Harry was humping it. "And here I was thinking you were just having a good time with your friends. Fuck any Weasleys?"

Harry grinned, stroking Snape slowly. "All of them," he lied, unabashed, "Molly especially begged me for more." Reluctantly he pulled his hips backward, the better to raise himself up a bit. "*Speaking* of begging for more--"

Snape pulled Harry up the rest of the way, his hand wending between Harry's muscular arse cheeks. "You've already slicked up, damn it. You might have at least let me watch you do it." He felt the tightness buried there, rubbing it teasingly.

Harry spread his legs to accommodate the exploring fingers. "And spoil the invisibility spell?" His eyes rolled back briefly as Snape pressed him backwards into the bed. Harry raised his knees and edged himself closer to Snape's groin, stroking himself slightly as he did. "I wanked a bit too, before you woke up."

Snape concentrated, then slid all the way in, enjoying the passionate arch of the body beneath him. "Is that what I smelled?"

One of Harry's eyes opened. "I didn't *come*. I wouldn't have saved up all week and then just come without you." He wiggled his hips. "*Speaking* of coming--"

"Is sex all you ever think about?"

"Mmm, terribly shallow of me, I know," Harry said between breaths. Then he angled his hips until Snape found his stroke. "*Speaking* of shallow--" he said, a bit more breathlessly this time, sweat breaking out over his cheeks, then along the sides of his neck. The teasing stopped for awhile, at least that part of it that had been verbal as Snape moved inside Harry, inside his husband, for they had never dissolved the bonds.

"Oh god, that's…oh god…"

Much later, when the thought of not getting any more sleep that night didn't seem quite so dire, Snape lay beneath Harry's arm, while clever fingers stroked his hair. They'd worked out, of course, that whoever topped got the benefit of the cuddle position.

Something Harry had said earlier drew a chuckle out of Snape. "A rose-encrusted arbor?" he said, repeating Harry's words. "Where do you get these notions?"

A contented noise came from the man above him. "There's an arbor in the back of the second garden at the Burrow. I stood under it and recited lovely vows to you. It was quite romantic." He sighed dramatically. "Too bad you weren't there."

No wonder, Snape reflected, that upon finishing his wizard education, Harry had gone on to modest success writing Muggle genre fiction. Using a nom de plume of course, and a feminine one at that. He'd already had to turn down several requests for book signings.

Snape tilted his head so that his chin rested on the crook of Harry's arm. "Swearing your undying love to the garden gnomes again?"

Blushing slightly and ignoring the reference to an incident several years past, Harry pretended to the awful weight of his perversion. "They love me, Severus, you can't deny it. In a deeply, spiritual, mystical, potato-y sort of way." He was laughing now, mostly because Snape had begun stroking his ribs. Harry still giggled, for all that he now had a lovely rich, deep voice, when he was tickled.

"Stop it, you beast!" He tried, ineffectually, to push Snape off, but other body parts had gotten involved, and it turned into more of a tussle. "I'll always love you best!"

Snape relented at the words, their version of the word 'uncle', and Harry, still recovering, ran his fingers down his husband's face. "I love you best of all," he said, all teasing having fled from his face. "And I love that look on your face when you're getting ready to say it back."

Before Snape could say anything though, Harry's hand found its way between Snape's legs, fisting his no longer quiescent cock. "Ah, you did miss me."

Even though his body was betraying his interest in the most fundamental way possible, Snape grimaced. "Damn it, Harry, I'm trying to make a romantic declaration here!" Belying the statement, he thrust his hips forward, into the experienced hand.

Harry, all innocence, or as innocent as he could look with two handfuls of assorted genitalia, asked, "Would it help if I conjured a rose-encrusted arbor for you? I'm partial to them."

Snape pulled Harry's legs apart, rubbing his thumb through the dampness lingering there to gauge whether he needed something more to slick Harry up again. Satisfied, he looked up. "If you do, I won't be the one wearing the dress."

Harry, looking down between his legs, settled his own cock out of the way, so he could watch his lover. "Don't be daft, Severus. I'd look much better in a dress than you would."

Snape fitted himself to Harry's entrance. "So much for romantic declarations."

Harry slid his arms around Snape's waist, making little noises. "As romantic declarations go--" Snape slid all the way in, and Harry hissed in pleasure. "This is a pretty good one."

"Impudent," Snape said after the first thrust.

"Yes," Harry said, drawing out the word as it slithered over his tongue.

"Infuriating," he said, sliding in again, feeling Harry clenching around him.

"Yes," Harry repeated, still hissing slightly.

"Impudent," he said, moving downward, then back, watching Harry's face.

"You used that one already," Harry said, without opening his eyes.

Snape pulled back and plunged back in hard. "I'm incoherent with lust," he countered. "Intoxicating."

"Much better. Much, much…"

Snape loved when Harry started repeating himself. He loved when Harry touched him in all the places he'd learned during their years together. And he loved that rush of words, mostly repeated, always nonsensical, that poured out of Harry's throat.

"I love you, Harry."

"I know, Severus. I know..oh, oh…"

After all, it wasn't *that* hard to say.

 

End

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