"Yes," Severus replied without pause. "This bothers you?"
Harry tried to find the right way to phrase this. "It's not right that you should . . . agree with me just to agree with me, not if you don't feel that way."
"I see," Severus softly said. After a moment's thought, he questioned, "But don't your friends always back you up when you make similar suggestions? At staff meetings I've seen Professors Weasley and Longbottom support you when they have no true interest in your suggestions. How is what I did today different?"
It was like Severus really had no clue about friendship.
"It's different because Hermione and Neville don't want to do something totally different when they back me up. They're not going against their own principles to support me. What you did today – you agreed to something you really don't want to do, simply to humour me."
"Yes," Severus agreed, as though there were nothing wrong with him doing so. After a moment, he said, "In Slytherin house, the only way you can tell friend from foe is if they support you. Principles rarely enter into the matter."
Harry thought about that, what it must have been like for Severus to grow up in an environment where unfair favouritism and mindless support were signs of devotion. Severus had been taught that despotism was how you showed your attachment to someone, and now, Severus was showing him that he cared the only way Severus knew how.
Loyalty was important. Right or wrong, his friends had always stuck by him. Harry remembered all the times when Hermione and Ron had stood beside him when the rest of the school turned their backs on him. Was what Severus was talking about really so different than their unwavering loyalty?
Harry wanted to say that it wasn't, but he knew deep down it was. Hermione and Ron might have always stood by him, but they'd always let him know when they thought he was making a mistake. Having Severus' blithely agree to things that went against his grain simply to humour him was wrong, dead wrong. Only, how could he say that without offending the man? In his own clumsy way, Severus was making a very public statement about his feelings for him, even if only Severus and he were aware of it. Everyone else at the staff meeting today had doubtless been convinced that Severus had finally gone mental.
"I can see where that would influence your behaviour," Harry said at last. "Only, I already know you're my friend. You don't have to . . . compromise your beliefs to prove it to me. I understand that we have completely different viewpoints on absolutely every subject under the sun. I don't expect or want you to agree with me on everything. So, if we get into the occasional argument, that doesn't mean we're not friends, just that we disagree on something. As long as we don't end up screaming and at each other's throats like we used to do, we should be fine. If you want to tell Minerva to dump the Christmas party -"
Severus simply stared at him with an unreadable expression for an uncomfortably long moment before he said, "All of those seasonal frivolities are equally offensive to me. While I . . . appreciate the sentiments you've expressed, you must understand; this is my way. I am Slytherin and Slytherins don't publicly reproach those they . . . call friend. I will not stand against you while we are . . . ."
Seeing how much difficulty Severus was having, Harry softly finished, "Lovers. We're lovers. You can say it."
"If you can't accept that . . . ." Severus faltered.
Harry couldn't really blame him. He was, after all, berating Severus for supporting him. It had to be terribly confusing to his emotionally isolated friend. Reaching out, he laid his hand on Severus' sleeve. "I'm sorry. I was just trying to let you know that . . . everything won't fall apart if we have a disagreement."
"That is what we've just done, is it not?" Severus asked with a hint of humour.
Relieved, Harry nodded. "Yes, I guess it is." He stared into those bottomless eyes, wanting nothing more than to cover Severus' mouth with his own and kiss the tension from his tight-held features. But he wasn't fool enough to chance something like that in the staff room. Even if the door was locked and a silencing spell on the room. "Dinner's going to start in about ten minutes."
"So it is," Severus agreed, his cultured, sensuous tone doing what it always did to his controls.
"Er . . . are you terribly hungry?"
Severus gave a ready nod, and then added in a smoky, sultry voice, "But not for food."
"We could, er, floo to your rooms," Harry suggested, thinking that if they didn't, they'd end up on the staff room floor in about thirty more seconds.
"That sounds far more appetizing," Severus said, rising with his papers in hand.
Unable to believe how quickly everything seemed all right between them again, Harry turned and followed his lover to the door.
*~*~*
"Noooo!" Harry awoke with a scream hurting his throat, images of blood and torture clinging to his mind and flesh. Panting, with sweat dripping down every inch of his body, he took a deep breath and tried to get hold of himself.
He sat up and stared around the dark room. His bed, his room. He was safe. It was only a dream, like the thousands before it.
The mantel clock told him it was barely six in the morning.
Damn, he'd forgotten to take his Dreamless Sleep potion when he'd returned from Severus' last night. He'd been so worn out from the loving that he'd barely been able to stumble from the floo to his bed. That man was going to be the death of him, he acknowledged. But what a way to go!
Today's Friday, he reminded himself, and tomorrow, it would be three weeks since Severus had kissed him in the Forbidden Forest. As he concentrated on Severus, the night terrors receded and his breathing slowly calmed.
Harry couldn't help but marvel over the fact that Severus was still around. He'd never had a relationship last this long. Either his nightmares would have ruined it by this point or the other wizard would have balked after he'd been careless and forgotten to pretend that he was like everyone else. This was the first nightmare he'd had in weeks; so they really hadn't been an issue yet, and, as for the fear factor, Severus didn't seem the least bit intimidated by his greater power. He'd even been so foolish as to leave his wand in the dungeons the first night he'd visited Severus' rooms. When he'd realized his error, he'd been worried that Severus would bail, but Severus had simply handed his wand back to him with a surreptitious sleight of hand while passing his chair in the Great Hall the following morning and never mentioned the incident. That took both style and guts.
Rather than being afraid of him, the freakish potency of his magic turned Severus on. Harry had never had a lover like him in his life. Whenever he thought about the things Severus allowed him to do to him, his mind reeled and his cock twitched. Every night for the last three weeks, Severus had placed himself entirely in his power and allowed him to have his wicked way with him magically. The freedom, the sheer exhilaration of not having to hold back all the time, had made this the most exciting sexual odyssey of his life. What they did together weren't typical power games; although feeling Severus surrender his autonomy to him was a heady rush like none he'd known. What happened between them was almost a blending. Severus was open to him both sexually and magically. He poured everything he was into Severus, and Severus took it all. Nothing was too extreme or too much for Severus, and Harry worshipped him for that courage.
But that was his secret. Severus Snape wasn't a sentimental man. For all that they'd had sex every night for three weeks now, Harry wasn't sure if his new lover would welcome emotional entanglement. It was strange. Severus never refused him when he snuggled up to him after sex, but Severus never initiated similar contact. He was beginning to think that Severus didn't need it. He was trying not to be too demanding, but he was getting to the point where he wanted to simply crawl into the other man's skin and take up residence there.
Severus would probably laugh his head off at the insipid sentimentality. But that was all right. Harry was good at keeping secrets. Severus need never know how big a fool he was.
Overcoming the last of the residual shakes from his nightmare, he climbed out of bed to meet the day. Stumbling to his pitch black, frigid bathroom, Harry lit the wall sconces with a thought.
There was a piece of parchment stuck to the mirror above the sink. He smiled as he read Hermione's neat penmanship.
H.
Ron actually had some life in him when the poor dear got in this morning. We probably won't be down to breakfast. He says he'll have Friday off, so keep that night open.
Love,
The Other H.
Gods, how he missed seeing Ron. The search for Burke was taking up Ron's entire life. All Aurors were pulling double shifts nearly every day. If they were lucky, Ron managed a fast breakfast with them, but most days the poor guy crawled out of bed and flooed back to work before either Hermione or he had even risen.
Harry was glad that Hermione was getting some time alone with her husband. Ron hadn't had a full day off for weeks. She kept busy with all her clubs and other interests, but he knew how deeply she missed Ron.
In some ways, Ron's absence had made it easier for his relationship with Severus to develop. With Ron gone so much, there had been no need for awkward explanations. At first, Harry had put off telling Ron and Hermione for fear that things would fall apart with Severus in the normally pathetic time span it took for his romantic relationships to self-destruct. When that hadn't happened, he'd delayed because he didn't want anything to poison his joy. He instinctively knew that Ron wouldn't approve of what he was doing with Severus. It wasn't exactly the kind of thing he could just drop at the breakfast table in the fifteen minutes or so he got to see him. Ron was already overworked and under-slept and he wouldn't have dealt well with this development under the best of circumstances.
Why he was delaying with Hermione was a complete mystery. It wasn't for lack of opportunity. They spent their shared free third period together every Tuesday and Thursday and ate all meals together every day. She always asked about Severus, and Harry always reported the innocuous portion of their evening's entertainment. But for all that he'd been tempted, he hadn't revealed the changed nature of their relationship.
Even now, the thought of telling anyone filled him with an almost superstitious dread. All his life, he'd been completely open with Hermione and Ron about his affairs, and without a single exception, every time he told them he was involved with someone, the relationship ended within a week. Logically, he knew that there was no true connection between his being open with his best friends and the end of his affairs, but this was the first time he'd ever kept what he was doing to himself, and it was also the first time a relationship had lasted this long.
Harry knew he had to tell them; he just wanted to enjoy Severus for a little longer. Well, this Friday would be as good a time as any. At least Ron would be in a good mood.
That decided, Harry hurried through his morning shower and made his way down to the Great Hall. He was starving. Good sex always did that to him.
The Hall was nearly deserted when he arrived. Little wonder, that, since it was barely six fifteen.
A grin pulled at his face as he noticed the tall, dark figure taking a seat at what was normally the empty end of the teachers' table. There wasn't another soul at the table yet, and less than fifteen students in the entire hall.
Harry normally sat with Ron and Hermione over by Neville and Hagrid, but since Ron and Hermione were sleeping in, there was no reason he couldn't inflict his company on Severus for a while.
Morning definitely wasn't his lover's best time of the day, Harry thought, as he took in the grumpy profile. Severus was concentrating so hard on pouring his tea that he didn't even see him approaching.
"Good morning," Harry said, slipping into the empty seat next to Severus.
Severus' gaze jumped past his shoulder, as if to guarantee that Harry was alone, before meeting his eyes and giving him a not-quite-surly, "'Morning."
"You don't do mornings well, do you?" Harry asked in a cheerful tone.
That earned him a baleful glare. "Not on four and a half hours sleep, I don't. How the devil can you be so disgustingly chipper first thing?"
Harry dropped his voice so that only Severus could hear his reply, even though the teachers' table was still completely empty except for the two of them. "I've got this amazing lover who makes my life worth living. You should meet him; he's really hot. Especially when he glowers into his teacup first thing in the morning."
"Pervert," Snape snapped, though Harry could tell that he'd pleased the man.
"He likes that about me," Harry continued in that same soft, playful undertone.
Severus took a quick look around them, as if to ensure their continued privacy, before asking in a similarly low tone, "And what do you like about him?"
He'd never thought Severus would have the nerve to ask such a question, even in play. He could tell it hadn't been easy, because those dark eyes flashed with uncertainty before they returned to their study of the unprepossessing teacup.
Taking a deep breath, Harry gave Severus the truth, "Everything. He's got the most wonderful hands, with elegant long fingers that look like they should be playing a grand piano. They play my body like an instrument, though, with a deft, virtuoso's touch. And he's got a fantastic mouth, perfectly shaped, deep and warm. I can't look at it without wanting to taste it."
Severus shifted in his chair and softly interrupted, "Surely, this paragon must have some flaws?"
"If he does, I haven't found them yet," Harry answered. "Oh, he's a bit grumpy in the morning, but he even does that sexy."
Harry grinned as he saw the corners of Severus' mouth twitch.
"Your judgement is obviously addled," Severus said.
