Noticing the direction of his gaze, Harry looked nervous. "Do you mind?"
Severus gave a negative shake of his head. That Potter would have taken this shot of him in secret, and put it up here with these photos of the people who were the very foundation of his life was strangely touching. Nearly every day that passed, some action of Harry's told him that Harry didn't view him as something to be easily discarded.
"I keep hoping he'll look happy some day," Harry softly said.
The moonlight was glinting off Potter's ridiculous round spectacles. His full lower lip looked soft and glistening. This beautiful man hoped that he'd be 'happy'.
Severus swallowed hard and warned in a low, gruff tone, "He never has been. It's an entirely foreign concept to him."
Somehow, it was easier to talk about himself in the third person, as though they were discussing the problems of one of their students.
Harry pressed his body into Severus' side and questioned in a small, hurt sounding voice, "Never?"
Recognizing his potential blunder, Severus quickly back-pedalled, "Well, lately, he's had a taste of it."
"But it's not enough to take that worried frown off his face?" Potter asked.
Severus' mouth ran dry. Potter wasn't going to just let him wriggle out of this one. But those sheltering arms stayed around his waist and the promise of that hard, warm body didn't pull back from him. Drawing courage from that, he found the strength to admit, "Perhaps he doesn't know what he's doing up there with those bright, happy people. Perhaps he . . . doesn't understand why he's in this room at all."
Potter seemed to freeze in the embrace for a heartbeat, and then his arms tightened almost painfully around him. "Fair enough. Will he allow himself to be shown?"
Severus nodded his consent, and Potter reached up to bury his fingers deep in his hair, guiding his head down into another kiss. Harry's mouth was so soft against his own, pliant and welcoming, for all that it had been Potter who initiated the kiss.
Delving into the sweet depths, lingering, Severus drew strength from Potter's openness. Harry never held anything back from him. Harry gave his all in every single kiss, every touch.
Those blunt, calloused fingers were stroking through his lank hair as if it were as luxurious to the touch as raw silk. Severus had forgotten to wash it for the fourth day in a row and couldn't understand how Potter could want to touch the oily mess at all. But Harry seemed as fascinated with it now as when it was freshly washed.
The fingers of Potter's right hand trailed over his ear, down his neck, following the collar of his white shirt down to the buttons. In moments they were undone, and Potter was sliding it from his shoulders.
Taking hold of the bottom of Potter's grey sweatshirt, Severus pulled back from the kiss and lifted the shirt up over Harry's head.
Once he'd tossed the shirt to the floor, their gazes locked. They continued to undress.
When they were naked and shivering in the early December moonlight, Potter silently levitated the clothes at their feet over to the armchair on the far side of the room. Those shadowed eyes glanced at the fireplace, and a roaring blaze flared to life in the logs that the house elves had left piled there. Then Potter's gaze turned to the bed and the duvet rolled back, revealing the inviting expanse of stark white sheet.
Severus stared at Potter's face, taking in the strange picture he made at the moment. The light was poor in the room, so he couldn't see the colour in Harry's eyes or the emotion there.
Harry had a long, handsome face with a cleft chin. The right side of his face was currently bathed in soft, silver moonlight that stopped at the cleft. The left side was highlighted by flickering orange firelight one second, and then thrown into shadow the next.
It was an odd effect. Severus tried not to place too much significance on a trick of the light, but it almost seemed to him as though he were seeing Potter's soul at that moment: the steady, almost angelic silver being the bedrock of Harry's kind, honourable, and generous nature; while the flickering fire and shadow were the other side of him, the power that could so easily wreak destruction with a single thought.
Severus reached out to embrace both, framing angel and demon between his yellow-fingered hands.
As ever, his discoloured, bony hands looked like an obscenity on this handsome young flesh, never more so than now when they framed this unearthly portrait that was the enigma of Harry Potter.
"What is it?" Potter whispered, sliding his arms around Severus' bare hips, his flat palms stroking everywhere they could reach, spreading warmth in their wake.
To speak of it would only make Harry uncomfortable. Severus had heard enough to know that Potter considered himself a freak because of his extraordinary abilities. So he settled on a lesser truth. Compliments did not come easily to him, but he felt he could dare one under the circumstances. "You're . . . very beautiful in this light."
Harry smiled and pressed their fronts together, with electrifying results. Potter wasn't tall enough for their genitals to nestle together, but any contact with that warm body was usually enough to send him flying.
"So are you," Potter said once the pleasure shocks from that initial contact had faded from both their bodies enough that they could lean on each other without losing cognitive ability. "All silver and shadow . . . sexy as all hell."
Severus thought that he'd hidden his uneasiness at the blatant untruth, but Harry's next words told him that he'd failed.
"You never let me say anything nice about how you look," Potter complained, standing on his tiptoes to bury his mouth against Severus' neck, his arms cementing them so tightly together that Severus could hardly breathe.
He shivered as Potter started to give him wet, sucking kisses below his ear. Severus gave a soft, self-deprecating chuckle. He was unwilling to berate his lover for his kindness, but he was equally unwilling to allow the preposterous statement to go unchallenged. "That's because I know how I look."
"You don't know how you look to me. That guy in the photo over there, he doesn't know how all the anger and pain washes off his face when he looks into my eyes. He doesn't know about that expression of wonder that gentles the hard lines, that softens his mouth and eyes and makes them utterly kissable. He doesn't have a clue about himself. Only I know what that Severus Snape looks like, and he's absolutely gorgeous," Harry insisted, lifting his head to meet Severus' gaze.
"You've always had poor eyesight," Severus reminded, reaching up to remove the spectacles. "Wingardium leviosa."
Severus was capable of a little wandless magic and managed to float the glasses to the nearest nightstand. It took great effort, however, and left him terribly wobbly.
Harry's body seemed to pool around him, holding him up. "Show off."
The ensuing kiss finished what the wandless magic had started, leaving Severus virtually boneless.
Potter backed them over to the bed and eased him down. The white sheet was cool, almost cold under Severus' bare bottom. He lifted his legs onto the bed and laid down flat on his back, scooting over to make room for Potter.
Harry climbed in and lay on his side facing him, his left hand settling on the centre of Severus' chest. His fingertips gently stroked, absently following the trail of body hair downwards.
Severus hissed out a breath as Harry's hand made contact with the part of him that was straining for attention. It was strange, but for all the foreplay they engaged in, Potter never really teased him mercilessly or made him wait too long for any touch. It was almost as if his lover understood that he'd already waited his entire life for a gentle hand.
Harry didn't disappoint him tonight. He collected Severus' cock into his palm and gave it a welcoming squeeze that sent skyrockets of delight flaring through Severus' entire system. Gasping, he laid back and waited to see what Potter would do next, his own hands hungrily charting every inch of Harry's shoulders and chest that he could reach.
Then, Harry bent down over Severus' groin. It still stunned him to see that familiar figure, with its messy, ragged hair, curling around him to give him pleasure. Moonlight made the moisture on Harry's full lower lip glisten as his mouth opened to absorb the blood-red tip of Severus' cock.
The warm, wet suction that followed was absolute perfection. Harry's fingers found his balls, rolling them and milking every bit of pleasure they could out of him as Harry's head bobbed up and down at its task.
Usually around that point, Harry would enhance things by introducing his magic into the mix. Over these last few weeks, Harry had perfected those spectral touches. Most times, the probes were simply Harry's raw energy, but other times Harry made them feel human. Sometimes when Severus had his eyes closed he couldn't tell whether it were Harry's flesh or his magic caressing him. The suction at his nipples, cock, or behind his knees always felt like a real mouth now, the dozens of hands gently caressing him were indistinguishable from Harry's own. When they made love, he felt as if he were being serviced by five or six lovers whose sole purpose for existence was to make him feel good.
Perhaps because of what they were about to share, Harry didn't involve his magic. They both knew that he never lasted long once Harry loosed his power upon him. Tonight, he made love to Severus with his mouth, hands, and body, kissing, stroking, licking, and sucking him all over until he was malleable as putty.
Only when there wasn't a hint of resistance left in his body, when so much delight had tingled through him that the flesh was ready to melt right off his bones, only then did Harry slip his hand between the cheeks of his buttocks.
Severus couldn't hold back his whimper at that first, tentative touch to his anus. Harry had had his fingers up inside him before, so it wasn't a completely new experience to them, but this was the first time he'd done so with the intent of taking him. Knowing what was to come gave every touch an indefinable edge.
Although no lubricant had been summoned to the bed, the finger that played over his clenched opening was slick with some kind of gel. Severus felt Harry spread it across the tight bud of muscle. Then Harry's middle finger began to gently tap at the tight guarded aperture, every contact sending a dizzying rush of delight through Severus' entire body.
Finally, that tender visitor pressed down with even pressure and slipped inside him. Severus' eyes shot open at the incredible feeling of even that small part of Harry moving into him. He focused on his lover's bent face, barely able to credit the gentleness in his features as Harry prepared him for entry.
That finger was no stranger to his pleasures. It knew the exact route to take. Within seconds, it was nudging against that deep hidden spot that had been Severus' undoing since Lucius Malfoy's cock had acquainted him with it in first year. Even Harry's slightest finger knew more of giving pleasure than Lucius' whole body, for it rocked his entire world with a few gentle strokes.
Severus couldn't hold back the pleading sounds as his universe was reduced to that tiny gland and its devastating effects on his body.
The finger withdrew after a time, only to return with a companion, one equally skilled at delight. Those fingers played a concerto of passion in that tight passageway, circling, and twisting, and targeting his prostate until his skin was drenched with sweat and he was quivering all over, barely able to catch a breath in his need. It seemed they would dally there forever, insinuating pleasures that he longed for with all his soul, but which they were unable to deliver. Finally, the fingers pulled back.
Harry's hands settled firmly on Severus' hips. A pillow floated down from the top of the bed, settling beside his right hip. Incapable of any kind of thought or protest, Severus allowed Harry to guide him over onto his stomach.
Settling on top of him, Harry was a warm muscular blanket. Severus shook at the shivery kiss Harry gave his neck as Harry's knee slid between his own to spread his legs wide. He had never been as viscerally aware of anything as he was of Harry's rock-hard shaft nudging into the cleft of his arse, brushing, but not violating the slick entranceway hidden there. For a moment, Harry let him feel his full weight, then Harry pulled back to kneel between his legs.
The guiding hands settled on his hips again, and Severus was silently urged up to his knees. He trembled at how well Harry knew him, how utterly his needs were understood.
Severus lowered his head to the mattress and clenched his fists into the sheet beneath him as his buttocks were parted and cold castle air touched that most intimate of places. In contrast, Harry's gaze was a branding heat on the same area. He couldn't see it, but he could feel it.
They stayed frozen in that position for what felt like forever, with his unattractive body laid out bare and vulnerable for the taking, his whole being quivering in anticipation.
Then, at last, Harry moved. With a breathy grunt, the snub edge of his well-greased cock nudged at the lubricant-slick entrance.
Severus tried to concentrate on opening up, on being as relaxed as possible, but it had been nearly two decades and there was simply too much emotion running through him for his brain to let go. It hurt as Harry pushed into him. The head of his cock felt as huge as a quaffle.
Fresh sweat broke out all over him, his muscles locking in instinctive protest as long buried memories surfaced and fought for supremacy. The demons of his past reminded Severus how each and every time he'd opened himself this far, been this vulnerable to anyone, he'd been consistently used and betrayed. He knew what he was, what he deserved. Gentleness wasn't intended for the likes of him. He was –
"Severus! Harry called in something like desperation, hands stroking up and down Severus' sides and flanks in soothing rhythm. "Come on, love. You've got to relax or this isn't going to work."
Love? No one had ever used an endearment like that with him.
Severus gritted his teeth, then forced out a reply, "It's all right. I . . . like it hard. Go on."
