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Harry Potter is fuming at Severus Snape, as he always seems to be, mind you.

His rage is like a cauldron simmering, ever-present, ever close to the boil. An extra degree of heat applied and it always spills over.

His fellow ‘eighth-year’ students - those who have returned to Hogwarts after the defeat of Voldemort - tell Harry to give it a rest, that he himself had fought to clear the man’s name, so they ask him, again and again, why the continued enmity?

But being a war hero doesn’t make one any less of a bastard, Harry has decided.

He hands in the parchment of his NEWT-level essay ‘Horklump Juice Against Dark Maladies.’

Snape’s eyes glower at him from where he sits behind his desk.

Harry keeps his head held high and meets the gaze straight on. He will not be intimidated; will not be cowed. He is no longer the little eleven-year-old desperate for his teacher’s approval. He is the vanquisher of Voldemort, and the one responsible for the freedom of this hated man.

He can glower just as effectively as his Defence teacher and he proves it.

Snape’s lip curls into a sneer as he takes the parchment.

Harry holds on to it for a microsecond more than is necessary, just to annoy the git.

He releases it just before he can be formally accused of goading the man.

Snape’s voice is venomous when he speaks.

‘Is there something you wish to say to me, Potter?’

Too fucking right there is, Harry thinks to himself.

This man makes his blood run hot; and fuels him with a fire of fury deep within. He can feel it unfurling inside him as he stands above the seething arsehole. A spark is generated, and kindling catches alight. Then an inferno rages.

Harry is looking at the man with all the intensity of a combustion reaction but has yet to speak.

‘Harry, come on…’ his friend Hermione says a little nervously. ‘We’ll be late for potions.’

Harry reluctantly needs her, shooting Snape a dark look as he leaves the Defence classroom.

‘What was that about?’ Hermione whispers incredulously as they head through the doorway.

‘Y’know…’ Harry mutters darkly. ‘It’s Snape…’

Judging by the worried glance Hermione gives him, she doesn’t know or understand.

Harry doesn’t know how he can explain it. Is not quite sure he fully gets it himself.

It’s Snape.

How he would love to break that man. Physically, mentally, entirely.

Beat the smirk of his face, cow him into submission.

He pictures himself standing above his most hated teacher, who is staring back up at him, enraptured.

‘I killed the Dark Lord.’ Harry would say. ‘Who will be your master now, Snape?’

Harry finds himself only a little surprised to realise he is beginning to harden beneath his robes.

He shakes off the mental image.

Mental in more ways than one, he decides.

***

Severus grimaces.

It’s not the ‘T’ for troll grade that he would so love to give the boy, but it’s not the ‘E’ for exceeds expectations that Potter needs either.

Certainly, it’s lacking in finesse and despite his personal dislike - very, very personal - he knows the young man is actually capable in this subject.

In red ink, he writes ‘Acceptable - but barely.’ at the top of the parchment.

Then he rolls it out flat and scans it once again.

Severus begins to write more detailed feedback, something he normally only bestows in a verbal dressing-down.

‘Horklump juice has long been considered worthless -‘ he reads the sentence aloud in mild disbelief.

Only to those with your lamentable lack of potions knowledge.

Severus writes the note scathingly next to the offending line.

His eyes continue to run over the text.

‘NEWT-level Defence is reliant on knowledge of potions as well as spells and charms…’

Yet you couldn’t brew a simple lubricant, could you Potter?

The teacher writes this with a flourish to the side of the passage in question.

‘The long-term effects of cruciatus…’ Snape murmurs as he reads.

Now this insight is quite interesting, possibly the only redeeming feature of the entire submission, Severus thinks.

Remember how you aimed that curse at me, one night in June? Unsuccessfully. How did it feel to be impotent before me, I wonder?

He hates recalling that evening, the events atop the astronomy tower. He just hates Potter more.

Severus appreciates that he is crossing multiple lines here, but he just can’t seem to help himself now that his quill has started.

Fought for his freedom or not, Snape is convinced Potter only did so because he is a noble, foolish Gryffindor and because he can now lord it over Severus for the rest of their Merlin-forsaken lives.

Just like his father before him, saving Snape from the werewolf just so he could carry on tormenting him throughout the rest of their school years.

It sickens me to immortalise this in ink, but you are undoubtedly better than this, Potter. So go on. Impress me.

Setting the challenge in black and white causes a shiver to run down his spine.

For all the boy’s other flaws, he is never one to back down when the gauntlet is thrown.

With a wave of his wand, Severus sends the marked homework back to its author.

***

Every touch of theirs would be exothermic, eliciting heat. Explosive, even.

***
Harry’s attempt to make a potion for Slughorn is derailed somewhat by a rolled-up piece of parchment hurtling towards him from elsewhere in the castle.

It smacks him square in the face, causing him to miss a time-sensitive step in the proceedings.

Slughorn is quick off the mark, summoning the parchment in fear it is a cursed object.

He unfolds it and reads.

‘Ah, Harry.’ he says. ‘It seems it is just Severus returning your homework.’

He raises an eyebrow at the red annotations he sees but says nothing, simply handing the essay back to Harry.

The young wizard looks at what the Defence professor has written and flushes scarlet.

Oh, he will impress him alright. Make him blush, if this is the twisted game the old man wants to play.

***

‘Here. Mark this.’ Potter says coolly the next day, throwing his rewritten essay down on the large wooden desk and walking away immediately, before Severus has a chance to throw a hex at him.

The icy demeanour is in direct juxtaposition to the heat that Severus feels emanating from the young man and it is all for him, every unit of it.

Oh, he will mark him alright, Snape thinks to himself. He will mark Potter’s tender flesh with his teeth. Open his jaw wide and sink an impression straight into him.

Wordlessly and wandlessly, Severus slams the classroom door from behind the desk where he sits. As one hand moves south, suddenly within his robes, he silently wards the entrance shut.

Snape is stroking himself now, with all the gusto of a dragon in heat.

He expects he looks ugly as he fists his own cock, he always does after all, and he thinks the sudden flush to his face, the gurning of his pleasure and the little grunts that escape will do nothing but enhance his unloveliness.

How he wishes he could force Potter to watch this, to spurt all over his face, watch the pearlescent strands cling to his glasses as the boy blinks, unable to see, but still haunted by the image of his ugly enemy fervently polishing his broomstick handle above him.

A sudden scene change.

He pictures the roles reversed, himself staring up at Potter. His face would be quite lovely, this Severus is certain of.

‘Open your mouth.’ the fantasy figure of Harry Potter tells him and Snape feels his own mouth drop open automatically at the command.

He has always been the one at the feet of the more powerful wizards, after all.

Unbidden, Severus suddenly sees himself being furiously fucked by Potter - not on his cock, but on the hardwood of his firebolt.

He comes instantly at that image, beads of sweat on his forehead, mouth slack as all tension is released.

The Defence master hates Potter, it is true. Wants to humiliate him, yes. But it seems the habits of a lifetime are hard to break. He wants the wizarding hero to dominate him. Would delight in seeing the boy come undone above him, for him, in him.

That should be humiliation enough for the young man, given their history. For Severus to lay beneath him, to spread his own legs wantonly, to have Potter unable to resist the ugly temptation, unable to do anything but pound into him; fucking out all of their frustrations.

Severus huffs out a small snort at the ridiculousness of it.

A charm makes him physically clean, but inside he feels delightfully filthy.

He cannot bring himself to truly care. He has been a Death Eater, a turncoat, a traitor. What does it matter if he is now a pervert in addition?

An evening earlier.

Harry didn't think it was possible to hate the bastard any more than he already did, but then he got his first essay of the year returned.

Harry rewrites furiously, responding to those infuriating comments as he goes.

Only to those with your lamentable lack of potions knowledge.

A telling assessment Snape, given how you were solely responsible for my formative potions education over five whole years.

Yet you couldn’t brew a simple lubricant, could you Potter?

If I needed something slick I could simply track you down and run my hand through your hair. Greasy bastard.

Remember how you aimed that curse at me, one night in June? Unsuccessfully. How did it feel to be impotent before me, I wonder?

Have you ever considered that the one who fails to cast the unforgivable actually has the true strength?

It sickens me to immortalise this in ink, but you are undoubtedly better than this, Potter. So go on. Impress me.

Writing all of this on an essay rather than saying it to my face? Coward.

Harry is aware of just how triggered the man is by this word. He picks it and scratches it on to the parchment very deliberately.

He re-reads his essay, plus his asides to Snape, with a sense of grim satisfaction.

He will turn it in tomorrow, he decides.

Reluctantly he charms his messages to Snape away under large splots of ink.

He is still a student after all.

For now.

***

Severus Snape is just recovering from a most satisfactory wank over his least favourite student.

He then turns his attention to the young man’s resubmitted essay.

Ah. Much better, he notes. Not yet up to his high standards, but an improvement.

This time he writes ‘Acceptable - less barely.’ at the top of the scroll.

He squints at the parchment. There’s something off about it, he thinks. A trace of magic, too many ink blots at the sides. Was Potter cheating using a quick quotes quill, perhaps?

Only that menace could cheat and write something still sub-par.

Raising his wand, Severus undoes the last charm cast on the essay.

Words, previously covered, begin to make themselves visible to him.

A telling assessment Snape, given how you were solely responsible for my formative potions education over five whole years.

If I needed something slick I could simply track you down and run my hand through your hair. Greasy bastard.

Have you ever considered that the one who fails to cast the unforgivable actually has the true strength?

Writing all of this on an essay rather than saying it to my face? Coward.

Severus genuinely doesn’t know whether to seethe or to painstakingly stroke himself to hardness once again. What madness is this, he asks internally.

He settles on a combination of the two.

He is far too sensitive, of course; this is far too soon since his last orgasm. He has allowed himself no recovery time whatsoever.

Still he moves his hand up and down his raw shaft, gritting his teeth through the heady mix of pleasure and pain. He pretends that it is Potter making him uncomfortable in such a way, and the blood immediately pools to his loins.

Suddenly it’s more bearable - it’s fucking enjoyable - because in his head it is Potter pulling roughly at his cock, Potter inflicting maximum discomfort, teasing him, humiliating him.

He comes once more with incredible ease and a pained cry.

Now, such insolence could not be borne.

Severus spells himself clean yet again, and considers his next move.

He conjures his patronus. A beautiful doe, pure and ethereal. Far too innocent to suit his jaded, battered temperament, but still, it is what it is.

‘Potter, cease whatever havoc you are currently causing in the castle and come to my office.’ Snape mutters darkly, wand at his throat.

The darling little doe trots off with his message.

Some time later, the young man appears in response, looking characteristically sullen.

He hears Albus’ infuriatingly wise voice in his head.

‘Now Severus, is the boy actually sullen, or does your attitude towards him make him appear that way?’

He inwardly tells the voice to fuck off.

‘Potter,’ he begins, remaining seated behind a desk.

‘You wanted to see me, sir?’ The boy asks. He is clearly working hard to keep the expression on his face neutral.

He would make a terrible spy, Severus thinks.

The older man unfurls the parchment and taps meaningfully on the first offending scribbles.

Potter blushes a fierce red, as scarlet as his house colours.

‘Perfectly reasonable responses to what you wrote to me,’ he states, managing to keep his tone even. ‘Besides, I covered them.’

‘Not very effectively, however.’ Snape drawls. ‘Much like all your other endeavours.’

‘I killed Voldemort successfully enough,’ he replies hotly.

Severus flinches at the name, but has no time to reprimand the boy because the damn has opened and Potter is overflowing.

‘I didn’t seem to have any problem saving your life in the shrieking shack either, sir.’ He bites out the mark of respect. ‘Didn’t have any trouble saving your arse from Azkaban!’

‘What do you want, a medal?’ Snape stands, snarls the words at him. ‘But of course, you already have one, don’t you?’

He approaches the younger man in a manner that he assumes is menacing.

Potter takes a step forward to meet him, rather than back in retreat.

‘I don’t seem to have much difficulty riling you up either, do I?’ He says, voice suddenly soft and mocking.

Both men are breathing heavily and staring at one another, wands drawn, as though convinced they will be attacked if they take their eyes of the other for a millisecond.

It is difficult to predict who will cave first. It turns out to be Severus.

He lowers his wand, and hands the parchment to the young thorn in his side.

‘I expect a better first attempt next time, Potter.’ He says darkly.

Potter shoots him a look equally as dark before departing.

Harry can’t understand how he got away without a detention. Completely unscathed from the encounter, in fact.

Perhaps it’s because he’s eighteen now, and Snape is treating him more like the adult that he is?

Harry shakes his head. Surely not, he thinks. He’s fairly certain that Snape’s petty cruelty does not have an age limitation.

Still, having come out of the altercation alive has emboldened him somewhat. Harry is not going to wait for the man to bait him with provocative lines when his essay is returned.

Harry will be the one to do the provoking first, he decides.

The topic of the assignment is the infallibility of the imperius curse.

I can have fun with this one, Harry thinks darkly.
Not only does he know that it can be resisted, but he has personal experience of doing so.

He begins to write.

Imperio may be the most concerning of all three unforgivable curses. Whereas the cruciatus, to torture, and the killing curse, to murder, have distinct and dark purposes, imperio can be used to control, coerce and manipulate almost any given situation. It’s the range of applications and its relative subtlety that render it almost more dangerous.

The potential for someone to falsely claim that their actions were only carried out under the influence of Imperio are widely appreciated and difficult to verify. Veritaserum may be the most effective tool in seeking the truth, but then I wouldn’t know anything about that, would I, Snape?

Imperio can be used to control someone’s actions, words and even their thoughts. It can be used to convince someone that they are in love where there is hate, or worse - indifference. It can command a hero to fight for their enemies’ side rather than against them. It can be used in brutal sexual assault and rape, forcing one to pleasure another contrary to their free will.

For example, a spy of Voldemort’s in the Death Eater’s circles, may be forced to perform acts that are distasteful to him. Death Eater’s were renowned for their carnal appetites, their willingness to use any means necessary to satisfy them.

A reluctant observer could be turned into an active participant with a flick of a wand. A spy considered prudish by his lack of interest could be forced down on his knees, forced to choke on Death Eater cock, or even on the snake’s himself. He could be bent over and buggered while the ‘Dark Lord’ watches and wanks over the sight.

This would be tragic, naturally.

I believe the esteemed professor to be incorrect when he describes the imperius curse as ‘infallible’. Is he generalising for his students, or does he genuinely not know the truth? It can be resisted.

I have done so.

He continues to write the requisite number of feet of parchment, no more and no less.

Too far? Harry wonders. Then he decides no, it is just far enough. Snape had started this. So he needs to be man enough to run with it until its conclusion.

Harry isn’t certain what that will be. His expulsion, probably. If he can goad and terrorise Snape in the meantime it may well be worth it.

The door to the Magical Law Enforcement department is already open to him, that has been made clear. He will be an auror, regardless of his academic results this year

So if Snape wants a battle, the giant prick can have one, he thinks decisively.

Tucking the roll of parchment away to submit it for marking tomorrow, Harry says goodnight to his dorm-mates and tries in vain to sleep through the raucous beating of his heart.

***

Harry’s mind is somewhere between dreaming and wakefulness. The scene he stands in cannot possibly be reality, yet he is lucid and aware of the fact.

He is in the potions classroom, but it is not Slughorn who presides over him and his classmates; it is Snape.

‘Imperio,’ he hears the dark voice mutter, feels the press of a wand end against his back.

Harry as though compelled, turns and sinks to his knees before the man’s black robes.

No, this isn’t right, Harry’s mind thinks urgently.

‘No thanks,’ he says, suddenly throwing off the curse and standing up straight. ‘I’m good on my feet, actually. Why don’t you kneel down for me?’

A familiar sneer begins to unfurl on Dream-Snape’s face.

‘Imperio!’ Harry cries, putting the full force of his power into the unforgivable curse.

Severus Snape falls to his knees in one swift motion. His usually heated gaze is blank and lifeless.

Good, Harry thinks, drifting in and out of conscious awareness. He will be more compliant like this.

‘Suck my cock!’ Harry commands the man in front of him.

Snape instantly complies, freeing Harry’s hardness with unrealistic ease, and deep-throating it without qualms.

‘That’s a good boy,’ Harry says through a massive groan. ‘Always knew we’d find a better use for the nasty mouth of yours, Sev.’

Tears begin to stream from the Potions Master’s eyes and down his cheeks but Harry, lost to the dream now, fucks his mouth relentlessly.

‘You like that, don’t you Snape? Like being used by me, abused by me? It’s what you’ve wanted for a while now, isn’t it? Why don’t you call me Master now?’

When Harry comes he is jerked back into the Gryffindor common room with a cry that he is surprised to find has not awoken anyone else.

This is reality.

There is a very real damp patch on the bed, soaking through Harry’s pyjamas to the sheets.
A quick spell takes care of that.

That was rape, Harry has the sickening realisation. He had assaulted Snape, fucked his mouth in a dream, and worse still, he had enjoyed it.

It wasn’t real. That’s not who I am, Harry thinks to himself fiercely.

It was just because it was Snape, he reasons. It was what he had alluded to in the essay, simply to harass the bastard. It was his over-active imagination.

It was only a nightmare. A wet nightmare.

Somehow scared to go back to sleep, the young man tries to read until morning dawns and he can put the dark fantasy out of mind altogether.

Imperio may be the most concerning of all three unforgivable curses. Whereas the cruciatus, to torture, and the killing curse, to murder, have distinct and dark purposes, imperio can be used to control, coerce and manipulate almost any given situation. It’s the range of applications and its relative subtlety that render it almost more dangerous.

This is quite nuanced argument, actually. Severus is a little surprised. It is almost profound, coming from that veritable half-wit, he thinks.

The potential for someone to falsely claim that their actions were only carried out under the influence of Imperio are widely appreciated and difficult to verify. Veritaserum may be the most effective tool in seeking the truth, but then I wouldn’t know anything about that, would I, Snape?

Ah. Here we go.

Snape summons and pours the little left in a bottle of firewhisky into a glass. He is starting to view this whole repartee as a unique form of entertainment.

Imperio can be used to control someone’s actions, words and even their thoughts. It can be used to convince someone that they are in love where there is hate, or worse - indifference. It can demand a hero to fight for their enemies’ side rather than against them. It can be used in brutal sexual assault and rape, forcing one to pleasure another contrary to their free will.

Severus shudders involuntarily. Rape is certainly not something he would partake in during his role in the war, preferring to fake and be judged harshly for impotence than to violate innocent muggles. He did, however, bear reluctant witness to more than he could count.

For example, a spy of Voldemort’s in the Death Eater’s circles, may be forced to perform acts that are distasteful to him. Death Eater’s were renowned for their carnal appetites, their willingness to use any means necessary to satisfy them.

Low blow Potter, Severus thinks darkly.

A reluctant observer could be turned into an active participant with a flick of a wand. A spy considered prudish by his lack of interest could be forced down on his knees, forced to choke on Death Eater cock, or even on the snake’s himself. He could be bent over and buggered while the ‘Dark Lord’ watches and wanks over the sight.

This would be tragic, naturally.

Seems like Potter harbours some dark fantasies. Unsurprising, really, Snape muses. The fact that such scenarios seem to incorporate him though… that is a little more unexpected.

I believe the esteemed professor to be incorrect when he describes the imperius curse as ‘infallible’. Is he generalising for his students, or does he genuinely not know the truth? It can be resisted.

I have done so.

Really? Snape wonders.

He uses his doe patrons to summon the younger man once again, despite his better judgement.

Potter is less sure of himself this time, Severus can tell. Perhaps he knows that he has gone too far; that he recognises that there must be consequences for these transgressions.

Yet Severus is not angry. Far from it. Severus is… intrigued, to say the least.

Although there will be consequences for the boy. There certainly will, he resolves as he stands to meet Potter.

Snape draws his wand. Harry does not, just stands his ground and raises his jaw defiantly.

Cocky little fucker, Severus thinks.

He casts before he can even think.

‘Imperio!’ he calls out and without him requiring to voice the command out loud, Potter falls to his knees unceremoniously.

He looks mutinously up at the older man. If looks could kill like Avada Kedavra, then Severus would be dead and buried on the spot.

‘Go on then, Potter.’ his nemesis invites him silkily. ‘Resist me then.’

It seems to be a struggle, judging by the efforts flickering over the younger wizard’s face, and yet sure enough, he successfully fights it off and stands back up again.

Snape can't quite fully hide his astonishment.

‘Want to give it another go?’ Harry snarls at him.

‘This isn't my fantasy, Potter.’ Snape drawls in response. ‘Looking at your essay, I rather think... it's yours.’

‘Yeah, right,’ Harry scoffs but his discomfort is clear. It speaks volumes, in fact.

Snape merely looks at him as though studying a previously undiscovered magical creature. Nothing as grand as a hippogriff, maybe something just above a flobberworm in status.

‘Why, you interested?’ Harry attempts to mock Severus but it falls rather flat.

Severus waits for a moment before responding. The tension is palpable.

‘Perhaps.’ he decides to admit in a low voice.

Harry’s face is suddenly on fire.

‘What? But you are - I mean… what?’

‘You’re about as eloquent as a kneazle having a seizure,’ Severus belittles him, while simultaneously casting those locking spells and silencing charms that have proven themselves so useful to him these past few days.

‘But you can't -’ Harry tries again to form the words. ‘I mean - I'm still a student!’

‘Completely averse to any and all rule-breaking yourself, aren't you Potter?’ Snape facetiously asks him.

‘You’re serious?’ Harry croaks.

‘When have you known me being anything less than?’ Severus’ question is genuine.

‘Right.’ Harry swallows audibly.

‘It's not a marriage proposal, Potter.’ Snape says snarkily. ‘It’s merely an offer to explore your… darker impulses. An offer that is soon to expire if you continue to stand there like an imbecile.’

At this, he points his wand to the door, ready to lift the wards again.

‘No - wait. Wait.’ The young man suddenly blocks the unlocking spells with a wave of his own hand.

Severus folds his arms and looks at the bane of his existence with mild interest. The boy has power. He knew this already, of course, but it was another experience - an almost heady privilege - to witness it in such a raw fashion.

‘You’re offering me the chance to - to explore what I've written about you? What you think is my fantasy?’

Snape sighs. The boy saviour does not cotton on quickly to anything at all, it seems.

Harry looks directly into the man’s coal-black eyes with his trademark steely gaze.

Severus feels a sudden rush of desire.

Harry points his wand at him.

‘I need your explicit consent,’ he tells the older man firmly.

A sharp intake of breath from Snape.

He lowers his own gaze from those piercing green eyes.

‘You have it.’ The Defence Master offers simply.

Harry feels like he might be back in his dream once again. Still, he is famously brave and he is recklessly bold.

‘Imperio.’ he casts experimentally.

He verbalises his first command to Snape.

‘On your knees,’ he tries, harshly.

To his combination of delight mixed with mild horror, Snape complies.

Of course he does, Harry’s mind supplies idly, you have him under the imperius curse.

‘Yeah?’ Harry voices roughly, a very noticeable bulge becoming obvious through the muggle jeans he wears.

His question is free from compulsion.

Snape is at eye-level with Harry’s crotch. He nods in response.

Emboldened somewhat, Harry voices the next instruction.

‘Unzip me,’ he tries.

The older man looks for all the world like he is scornfully judging Harry’s lack of imagination, but nevertheless, he does as bidden.

‘You like me ordering you to the ground before me, yeah?’ Harry says uncertainly.

Snape raises an eyebrow in a way that suggests ‘evidently’ but simply releases Harry’s hardening cock and swallows it down in response.

That had not been his doing, Harry realises with the little capacity for conscious thought he retains and neurones fire explosively in a haze of pleasure.

He feels for the curse he had cast.

It still holds.

‘Stop,’ he compels Snape

The man instantly does so, in fact he is statue-still, not even drawing breath. A little saliva pools below his lower lip. Harry is momentarily transfixed by it. Then he realises the older man is yet to inhale.

‘Breathe!’ he tells Snape sharply, and the other wizard gulps a large inhale to repay the oxygen debt he has built up since Harry said the word stop:

Need to be more specific, Harry realises in a daze.

He summons a chair closer and sinks down on to
It, fully removing his jeans and underwear now.

Snape surveys the hardness now fully on
display with his beady eyes. He licks his lips, as though he would like to resume his actions, but of course he is physically unable to now that the younger wizard has forbidden it.

Harry doesn't know exactly what he wants, but he knows it does involve the complete submission of this exasperating man who kneels before him.

‘I want you to eat my arsehole, Snape.’ Harry instructs suddenly, shifting down in his seat and opening his legs.

The man instantly begins to do just that.

It is like nothing Harry has ever felt before and he feels his fingers carding in the other man’s hair, tightening, pulling it in response to the intense sensation.

Harry is suddenly glad for the very thorough shower he had earlier in the evening, complete with a quick wank. He is sure that Snape wouldn’t hesitate to complain later if he was anything less than fastidiously clean for this act and he wouldn't hesitate to humiliate him if he came so soon like the teenager he is.

As it is, Harry’s head falls back in pleasure as the former Death Eater penetrates him with his tongue.

An idea occurs to him and it’s too filthy not to put into action.

‘ ‘m gonna come on your face, Snape.’ Harry gasps out, suddenly grasping himself in hand.

‘Look at me,’ he instructs him, in an echo of the words Snape spoke when Harry thought he was dying. Now the man’s attentions immediately leave Harry’s arsehole for him to gaze upwards with raw desire.

It is not the usual slack facial expression of someone under imperious, Harry thinks, but then he can think no more as he quickens his pace in response to the man viewing him almost earnestly.

‘Touch yourself,’ Harry chokes out as he becomes closer to dizzying release. He doesn't know why, but he knows he wants to see the man’s ugly face contort in ecstasy.

Snape reaches into his own robes and begins fisting his own cock, making sounds of hot pleasure that Harry has not forbidden. The older man comes with a shudder and a shout.

It is this that undoes Harry in the end, as he erupts with a cry, spurting pearlescent strands of ejaculate all over the kneeling man’s face while it is still grimaced in the wake of his own orgasm.

Harry is seeing currently stars. He is not certain he will ever recover.

Snape is seeing very little, as everything inch of his countenance including his eyelashes are coated with white, sticky come.

‘Evanesco,’ Harry casts shakily.

The charm misses a spot by Severus’ lip which the man instinctively tastes with his tongue.

Harry relinquishes all the power and control of imperio.

Not for the first time in the Professor’s enigmatic presence, the younger man does not quite know
what to say.

‘You alright?’ he settles on awkwardly.

He extends a hand, offering to help Snape to his feet.

The man ignores it and instead gets himself back up with some difficulty, using the chair for leverage.

‘Quite.’ is all he says to Harry, still looking at the younger wizard almost studiously.

He unlocks the door with a flick of his wand.

Harry stares at him, not sure of what to do or say, but certain it is not quite safe to turn his back just yet.

‘Passable,’ Snape says finally. ‘You will get better in the role.’

Harry stares at him suspiciously, that fear tinged with horror back in full force. Was Snape marking his performance?

With that, Snape strides past Harry out into the corridor, head held high.

Harry remains for a good few minutes, uncertain of exactly what has transpired but knowing even now that he will be indulging in it again.

No essays are set or due the following week.

The days pass by almost unbearably slowly for Harry, particularly the seconds, minutes and hours spent in the presence of the Defence master.

Why does he not set a written task? Harry wonders in frustration.

He doesn’t know how to approach Snape in any other way. Not anymore.

He spends most of Defence class staring at the older man. Snape never so much as glances back at him all week.

I’ve seen his face when he comes, Harry thinks, sure it must somehow be broadcast to the room at large. I’ve had his mouth on my cock. I’ve had his tongue up my arse.

At the end of one particularly frustrating lesson as far as Harry’s teenage libido is concerned, Hermione sticks her hand up in the air.

‘Professor Snape, Sir,’ Harry’s friend begins. ‘Aside from the reading, is there any work you wish us to complete at all?’

Harry breathes a sigh of relief. Thank fuck for Hermione, he thinks. She would never let this unexpected homework drought continue for much longer.

Snape stares at her.

This is it, Harry truly believes. Snape will set an essay and he will use it as an excuse to rile him up, then Snape will summon him to give feedback, and maybe even suck his cock again… although why he would even want that, he doesn’t know, Ginny is still at Hogwarts with him after all.

Though she doesn’t have those eyes black as sin, that wicked mouth or sharp tongue, that complete submission to the inherent darkness he had not previously realised he possessed -

‘Nothing at this time, Miss Granger.’ The Professor says silkily.

Harry’s heart sinks back to reality with a thud.

Fuck.

‘What about for optional credit?’ He blurts out loudly before he can stop himself.

The whole class look at him in undisguised shock. Hermione looks genuinely concerned for his welfare. Harry has never been a bad student per se, but he has never been one to go above and beyond in his efforts either.

Snape looks at him directly for the first time since he had Harry’s come dripping all down his face.

There is something in those dark eyes, Harry reckons, for a moment, then just as quickly it is gone.

‘Is an Order of Merlin not enough additional credit for you, Potter?’

The sneer the man has adopted is particularly nasty, even by his usual standards.

C’mon, Harry’s internal voice is almost desperate now, pleading with the man to use his expert legilimency skills and delve into his mind. Don't pretend it's not your fantasy too. You fucking loved it, Snape.

An unmistakable flash of desire in the black eyes.

‘Detention, Potter. 7 pm.’

Yes. This was it. Finally.

Harry feigns an expression of outrage and Hermione looks like she might be about to leap to his defence, so he stops her by accepting this unfair sanction.

‘Let me guess - because I spoke out of turn?’ he asks the foreboding man.

‘Precisely.’ Snape responds in his softest, most dangerous voice.

Harry pretends to grumble to Hermione, but in reality his heart is racing.

How far might he dare to go this time? he wonders.

Evening can't come quickly enough. Harry isn't particularly hungry when dinner is served, but he somehow believes he will need his strength.

A school owl swoops in unexpectedly and drops a scrap of parchment beside Harry. Harry’s stomach swoops in kind, does a deep dive into its own, when he notes the distinctive handwriting.

My former office, in the dungeons.

No signature. Then again, it was hardly required.

Harry is a little nervous about the change of location. Severus Snape was at his most cruel in those damp, dark conditions.

Another thought occurs to him.

Snape’s dungeon office.

Is that not adjoined to - or at least nearby to - where Snape still keeps his quarters?

He expects he will soon find out.

Steeling himself as the hour approaches, Harry heads in the direction of the dungeons and reaches the heavy wooden door of the office.

Poised to knock, the door swings open just a crack for him.

A deep breath in to steady himself.

Then Harry proceeds.

Snape is there, of course.

Standing in front of the desk, arms folded. Appearing every inch the foreboding dictator he plays so well.

But Harry thinks he may now know better about the role the man truly wants to play.

The older man says nothing at first. Just stares at Harry in an unspoken challenge.

Harry refuses to be deterred.

‘Will I need my wand?’ he asks softly.

‘That is entirely up to you, Potter.’ Snape replies in his trademark silken tone.

‘Right,’ Harry accepts. ‘Not right now, then.’

The silence stretches out like a desert; just as empty yet unbearably hot.

‘Will you kneel for me?’ Harry asks the man, clearly tentative.

‘Don’t ask me, Potter. Tell me.’ Snape corrects him.

‘Kneel for me,’ Harry tries with conviction.

Snape instantly slips down to the floor. Harry shivers. It's as though he feels an instant rush of power along with arousal.

There is no magical compulsion this time - just this temperamental man, kneeling before Harry, simply because he has been told to.

It makes the experience even more heady than when consensual imperio was involved.

Harry needs to focus his brain. He has had a whole week to think about what he would do in this situation again. If he had Snape in this particular position once more. Yet still he feels somewhat indecisive.

‘Remove my boots,’ Harry commands experimentally.

Immediately the older wizard begins to unlace the tight knots and pull them off Harry’s feet. Harry is merely testing the waters, but he likes what he sees.

Snape literally at his feet.

Harry looks at him in undisguised wonder.

‘I’m taking my wand out now,’ he warns the unusually quiet man.

Snape just gazes up at his, that dark expression difficult to read. Harry likes it anyway.

Raising his wand, Harry casts a binding charm.

‘Incarcerus!’ his voice rings out clearly.

Then Snape is bound before him. Hands forced behind his back, thin rope tightly wound around them. His feet are also tied, severely limiting his ability to move.

The man does not complain.

‘I’m not sure what to do next,’ Harry admits a little breathily.

He prepares himself to be mocked for it, but the scathing assessment does not come.

‘Enter my mind, Potter.’ Snape mutters the offer. ‘Let me show you some ideas.’

Harry hesitates. Mind magic has never been his forté. His occlumency efforts in years gone by have been abysmal, according to Snape.

People have literally died because of it, Harry thinks. So could he really - wordlessly, and wandlessly - use legilimency on Severus Snape, master occlumens?

Looking into those black eyes, Harry is surprised to realise that yes, he can. Snape must be all but broadcasting thoughts to him, helping the process along, he is sure.

The images come hard and fast. Snape, bound and gagged before his feet. Looking up at him with his smouldering dark gaze.

A paddle, hitting pale flesh, hard and hot. The skin reddens like a sunset and the pain somehow transforms into beauty in Harry’s mind’s eye.

He sees himself pulling Snape’s hair, slapping his face, and even dragging him across the floor to position him where wants him - and where doesn't he want him, Harry thinks, the onslaught of images is too much and he wants everything, immediately. Ideally sooner.

He withdraws from Snape’s mind.

‘Feeling inspired, Potter?’ the Defence master asks casually, as though he hasn't just shown himself writhing in submission at the young man’s feet.

‘Yeah,’ Harry agrees, not particularly caring if the man in front of him judges his lack of eloquence.

The man in front of him wants him, somehow, for some reason. That is enough.

Snape experimentally flexes his wrists.

‘Tighten the binding charm,’ he instructs Harry.

Harry hesitates.

‘Any tighter will leave marks,’ he says to the older man to explain his reluctance.

Snape merely raises an eyebrow.

‘And?’

Oh. Realisation dawns for Harry.

He is allowed to leave marks. Expected to even.

For some reason this excites him even further, and his already achingly hard cock is now fit to burst.

Using his wand, he draws the bindings of incarcerus tighter.

Snape checks them again.

‘Better,’ he all but purrs.

Harry tries to channel some of the dominant energy he had just witnessed in the mind of the other man.

‘I think I'll be the one to make the criticism from now on,’ Harry says daringly, not taking his eyes off Snape.

‘Is that so?’ the older wizard replies silkily, the challenge implicit in his tone.

Snape is currently perched before the younger man. Harry’s response is to push him down to the ground.

‘Yeah. I'll be taking charge from here.’

‘Very well, Potter.’ Snape speaks as though it is an imposition.

‘Very well, sir.’ Harry corrects the other man.

Snape’s head is raised to look at him, but his body remains grounded.

Harry can see that fire of desire present in the otherwise black pools.

‘Sir,’ Snape repeats obligingly.

‘Good,’ Harry confirms, his confidence increasing in response to the other man’s meek compliance. ‘Now, err - tell me, Snape - what do you want me to do with you?’

‘What I want is inconsequential,’ the man answers immediately, tone lacking any of its usual bite.

Bite.

He surveys the man on the floor, the little of his pale-white skin which is visible is above his stiff black collar, and his bound wrists.

Now the word has occurred to Harry, he can't seem to shake it away.

To bite down on Snape’s neck, as though he himself were the vampire the potions-cum-defence master was always rumoured to be.

Harry bends down, brings himself towards Snape, though does not lower himself quite to the ground.

He takes the man’s upper limbs and pulls them towards himself forcefully. Snape winces at the sudden friction of rope against skin.

That paper-pale skin; white as bleached parchment. Practically translucent over the blood vessels beneath.

Harry presses his slightly-parted lips against the prominent blue veins on the underside of that bony wrist in a facsimile of a kiss.

He thinks he may feel the older wizard shiver.

The reality of it finally starts to hit him. This usually impossible man was improbably, yet entirely willingly, at his mercy.

It is certainly not an unwelcome realisation.

The next press of his lips against the flesh sees Harry using his teeth. He tentatively bites into the skin.

Snape barely manages to stifle a moan and that proves to be Harry’s undoing. He nips and nibbles at the surprisingly warm wrist, sucks and scrapes. Until the noises are loud, uninhibited cries of sensation that threatens to overwhelm them both.

Harry releases the wrists from his grasp and admires his handiwork. Purple marks, somewhere directly between black and blue are already deepening.

Snape’s breathing is ragged.

Don’t ask, just take. An inner voice instructs Harry. It could be the silent command of the seemingly subservient Snape. Or it could be Harry’s natural dominance beginning to unveil itself.

Harry transfigures a wooden paddle out of a paperweight. Snape looks at him with undisguised interest.

‘You’re to count to ten,’ Harry’s voice roughly instructs. ‘Then when you get there I’m going to fuck your mouth. Understand?’

Snape nods and Harry immediately strikes him across the face, full-force. It is automatic, instinctive. His next impulse is to apologise and ask the man if he is alright.

But a look at the flushed face he has just struck confirms that things are more than okay. The expression is practically mad with desire.

‘Answer me properly when I speak to you.’ Harry justifies his action.

‘Yes,’ Snape verbally confirms his understanding.

Harry slaps him again.

‘Excuse me?’ He challenges the older man. His cool words do not match the fiery passion of his demeanour.

‘Yes, sir.’ Snape corrects himself.

‘Better.’ Harry says darkly enough to rival the man himself.

He circles around Snape’s body, comes up behind him and awkwardly lifts him so that his bound wrists lean on the large wooden desk, the angle such that his bound legs can keep him upright.

Harry steels himself for his next move, which will be a daring one.

‘Divesto!’ He casts before he can lose his nerve.

Suddenly, no robes shield the older man’s body from his view. The naked whole of him is exposed.

He looks down at Snape’s bare arse. It’s not particularly lovely, but it’s inviting enough.

Harry gives him one firm smack with the paddle. Snape groans loudly.

‘You count.’ Harry reminds him.

‘One,’ Snape obliges through gritted teeth.

‘Good,’ Harry says in an exhale, as he draws his strength to hit harder this time.

Smack.

‘Two,’ Snape grinds out.

‘Good…’ Harry trails off. Good boy hardly seems fitting for someone of Snape’s standing, but he needs to call him something in this scenario.

‘Good Prince,’ he settles on as he raises the paddle again, and Snape snarls in carnal pleasure before he hisses ‘Three’.

Harry has to fight against every impulse to check for consent, to ask if the man is sure.

Besides, the consent is given implicitly, the younger man can see it in the glittering black eyes.

Harry performs the same disrobing charm on himself this time.

He pushes Snape down into a kneeling position, holding him steady as the bindings won’t allow in this posture.

He traces Snape’s thin lips with his hard cock. Snape opens his mouth and Harry feels hot, wet breath tease his arousal.

Experimentally, Harry jerks his hips once, letting his turgid flesh touch the moist tongue he can just access.

Just take, Harry reminds himself. So he begins to thrust into the warm, welcoming cavern that opens greedily to accept him.

It doesn’t take long before he is coming down Snape’s throat and the man has little choice but to swallow it all down.

Harry has not the wherewithal to care and he tries to regain control of his faculties. His heat rate and breathing are beyond that of his liveliest quidditch game. This is a new level of exertion.

Harry slips underneath where Snape’s body is propped diagonally against the desk and uses his hand to bring the other man to completion.

Shuddering and pained grunts punctuate the experience.

Harry redresses with a cleaning charm and not another word as he leaves.

Harry heart is racing, his blood is pounding - his world as he knows it seems to be crashing down around him.

Yet it is utterly delightful.

The hedonistic pleasure he just took, barely a thought or a care for the other man - using him, taking his pleasure from him…

Harry has sprinted back to Gryffindor Tower. His cleverly stashed invisibility cloak proves useful for sneaking past his friends and classmates in the common room. He wants to be alone in the dormitory as soon as possible, to recap what has occurred this evening.

‘Who’s there?’ the portrait of the fat lady asks suspiciously, as she swings open at the whispered password. ‘Is that you again, Mr Potter?’

‘Shhh!’ invisible Harry instructs her, before ducking through the portrait hole and heading straight to the dormitories, out of sight.

Hermione and his other best friend, Ron are… rather close on one of the sofas, Harry notices. Mouths pressed together kind of close.

He knows they would have sprung apart awkwardly had they seen him passing, so he is grateful for the cloak. They deserve a little uninterrupted time together, he thinks.

He thinks things are getting a little hot and heavy between them, and it is all he can do not not to wolf-whistle then flee off up the stairs.

He manages to control the impulse. Just.

A close brush with immaturity successfully avoided, Harry makes it on to his four poster bed and lays down, curtains drawn.

He thinks he needs to take another few deep breaths to re-centre himself.

The turn his eighth year at Hogwarts has taken was unexpected to say the least. Certainly not unwelcome.

His recently-spent cock could attest to that.

He thinks of a very different coupling, currently happening a few floors below where he sleeps.

He hasn’t even kissed Snape yet, Harry realises. Not really. Nipped and marked at his flesh, yes, stroked his cock, absolutely.

But lips had not touched lips.

But that’s alright, Harry reasons, he and Snape are hardly like Ron and Hermione after all, besides he didn’t even want to lock lips with the greasy old - oh.

His cock begins stirring once again, despite Harry being certain his sex drive had been completely depleted by his earlier activities with the Defence master.

Perhaps he is a little interested in the potential meeting of their mouths then, he admits.

He remembers the way he left Snape on the dungeon floor, still bound, and suddenly feels a little ashamed of himself. It had been hot to leave in a hurry like that, certainly, and it’s not as though he imagines that the man desires or expects any tenderness in their interactions.

It’s only… Harry knows that were their roles in proceedings reversed then he would want to be taken care of. Kissed. At least thanked, for fucks’ sake.

He ponders upon it a while longer.

He knows nothing about the etiquette of such things. Hogwarts’ sex education curriculum is sorely lacking in many ways. He can’t very well go and ask Hermione what is acceptable in such matters, not without drawing attention to his new proclivities. Not while her tongue is busy in Ron’s mouth, anyway.

Harry decides to deal with this the way he deals with everything. Act first, ask questions later.

Disappearing under the cloak once again, he makes his way back downstairs and through the common room.

This time he does wolf-whistle, before darting back through the portrait hole.

‘Harry!’ Hermione takes her mouth off Ron long enough to scold him as he runs off snickering. Harry may be a legal adult, but he is still prone to a little silliness at times. He even feels he might deserve it after the hell he has been through these past few years.

Harry withdraws the Marauder’s map from where he keeps it concealed at all times.

‘I solemnly swear I am up to no good.’ He murmurs the familiar pass-phrase, wand pointed at the parchment.

The words are certainly apt recently.

He checks for the dot labelled ‘Severus Snape’.

It is there, still in the dungeon office, but pacing.

Harry is relieved - the man has evidently been able to free himself from the bindings then. The young man does not always recognise his own magical strength and Severus had insisted they were drawn particularly tightly.

Severus. Harry scoffs at himself. It’s just because the man’s full name appears on the map. He feels no differently about Snape than he ever did.

Perhaps an appreciation that his mouth could be used for something other than snark. That was about it.

Harry reaches the dungeon office he had left so recently. Still cloaked, Harry remains invisible. He is not sure if the vanquisher of Voldemort requires to abide by a curfew, but it’s old habit regardless.

Placing one hand to the wooden door, it opens again to Harry’s touch.

He slips inside the small gap, sees Snape standing beside a simmering cauldron, his back to the door.

Carefully and quietly, Harry sneaks closer.

By the time he has made it to directly behind Snape, the man is aware of his presence. He grips his wand tightly and spins around to surprise a potential attacker.

Before the man can cast even a first syllable, Harry removes his cloak and lunges at him, kissing him right on the lips.

Snape returns the kiss after a moment of shocked stillness. Harry moans and opens his mouth greedily, seeking to taste and to take. He is delighted when Snape gives as good as he gets in the interaction.

They break apart only when they must. The older man looks completely taken aback. It makes a nice change, Harry thinks.

‘Forgot to do that earlier.’ Harry says by way of vague explanation. ‘Bye then.’

He leaves without another word, but satisfied that this was a better note to end on than his previous inconsiderate exit.

He resolves to go to the library tomorrow. There is at least a small section on sex and relationships. Perhaps there would be something… educational that he could peruse while he explores whatever this is.

When Harry decides to apply himself, he gives it nothing less than his best.

Snape himself will be proud, Harry decides.

Severus Snape is feeling more relaxed than he has in what feels like years. He is not quite sure when he developed a taste for being used and abused as such.

As a Death Eater turned spy, he was always top of the food chain amongst the Dark Lord’s followers, following the foul wizard’s return.

He was encouraged to take, to dominate new recruits, but he had never had much of an appetite for it. As for being dominated, however…that was another matter altogether.

A different thing entirely, to be at the mercy of a powerful wizard. Not those wizards - the Dark Lord and Albus Dumbledore hardly had physical appeal for him - but when he saw a particularly pretty Death Eater - think Lucius Malfoy, for example - play the role of master to someone beneath him in the chain of command, Severus would often wish he were somewhere lower in the pecking order.

He has never played the submissive before in reality, but he had witnessed it - and in all honesty, wanted it - many times.

Now with Potter? It was not something that had crossed his mind until very recently. Possibly just after he had vanquished the Dark Lord.

He is, without a doubt, the most powerful wizard of the age. A damn sight nicer to look at than his former masters certainly, Severus cannot deny this.

So with all of that in mind, he expects it was only a matter of time before he tried to get Potter into his bed. Into him, if he can possibly manage it.

Potter seems to be taking to it, if not like a duck to water, then at least like a niffler to a shiny galleon. Drawn irrepressibly to it.

He had come looking for it this last time. After Severus made him wait. The older man relishes the thought that the power still ultimately lies with him, even as he physically surrenders his body to Potter.

That unexpected kiss… what was that if not a young man conflicted about what he really wants from these encounters? He loves the idea that even as he gets what he wants, he is making Potter second-guess himself and squirm.

The kiss wasn't half-bad either, Severus concludes.

The Hogwarts Defence master has been making his way to the library. On entering the large, book-lined space he spots the Weasley chit studying alone at a table. He half-wishes Potter was with her, treating her as his little girlfriend.

The look he could then shoot them both would make Potter’s toes curl.

But Ginevra Weasley is alone, studying for his class by the looks of it, so he feels a small, smidgen of guilt for his uncharitable thoughts. Minuscule.

Rounding a corner to his reading material of choice, he spots the young man himself. Potter - with Granger, of course - seemed to practically live in the Hogwarts library. Whereas he couldn't have previously attested that the boy saviour even knew where it was.

They are standing in front of… the sex and relationships section. Severus hangs back, out of sight. He is rather skilled at inconspiculously lurking, as a recently retired spy.

Potter’s potential research is a particularly interesting development that he wouldn't mind further insight into.

He hears Potter’s tones first, sounding somewhat put out.

‘- just typical that she has to be sitting in here today of all days,’ The young man grumbles. ‘Nine times out of ten she's on the Quidditch pitch, but the one time I want to check out something without the pressure of an ex-girlfriend’s eyes on me…’

‘What exactly is it you're looking for, Harry?’ the bushy-haired girl beside him asks, her higher-pitched voice carrying further than that of her friend’s. ‘I assume you know all about the birds and the bees, so it's something a little more… exotic?’

‘You could say that,’ Harry murmurs. Severus strains to hear if any more is said, but he struggles.

He requires the opposite of a muffliatio, he thinks. He vaguely remembers those Weasley menaces inventing some sort of listening device a few years back.

The young woman speaks again.

‘It’s not sex magic, is it Harry?’ she asks a little worriedly. ‘Because that can be - ‘

‘No!’ Potter interjects, loudly enough this time that the man loitering can hear him without issue. ‘At least, I don't think that's what he has in mind…’

‘Ah, so it's a he!’ Granger proclaims triumphantly, clearly pleased at having managed to glean some information. The girl did indeed live to learn, it seemed.

‘Keep your voice down,’ Potter shushes her. ‘I really don't want my newly discovered preferences on the front page of Witch Weekly, thank you.’

‘I doubt Rita Skeeter’s lurking in the Hogwarts library,’ his friend says sceptically, but she does lower her voice at his request.

Potter himself casts muffliato. Severus smirks. That charm is particularly effective, of course, but not against its very inventor. He waves it away with a quick swish of his wand.

‘Harry,’ Hermione says, seriously now. ‘I have read everything the library has to offer on
sex and relationships, whether or not it has any appeal for Ron and I - purely for educational purposes.’

‘Of course you have.’ Potter replies with a small smile.

‘So if you just tell me what it is exactly that you're looking for, I can I probably - ‘

‘BDSM!’ Harry blurts out, still assuming his silencing charm is completely effective.

Snape stifles a snigger.

‘BDSM?’ Hermione repeats slowly and blinks. ‘Alright.’

She pulls two or three books volumes from the shelves and hands them to Harry.

‘These all have relevant chapters,’ she tells him, looking at him very carefully.

‘Thanks,’ Potter tells her gratefully, visibly pleased by her non-judgemental attitude.

‘Not at all,’ she assures him, a bit of an amused sparkle in her eyes, Severus thinks.

Unable to resist any longer, the professor makes his presence known with a gentle clearing of his throat.

The two older students all but jump out of their skin and it is all Severus can do not to laugh out loud.

‘Potter. Miss Granger.’ he acknowledges them both in his usual dark silken voice.

‘I must say, Mr Potter, how very… impressed I am at how diligently you are studying assigned topics these days.’

The boy flushes red, Severus is pleased to note as he stalks away.

Harry wants to chase after Snape. Shout at him, ask him what does he think he is playing at? He wants to catch up with him, draw his wand and threaten him against the wall. Tell him to cut the comments, to drop the act.

More than that – he wants to punish him. Harry feels the blood which had rushed to his heated face begin to move south and he gets a hold of himself.

Hermione is looking at him strangely, he suddenly realises.

He drops his clenched fists and looks to his friend.

‘Still a git, isn’t he?’ Harry remarks, trying to sound casual.

‘Is he?’ Hermione asks, her tone just mildly suspicious.

Harry shuffles a little awkwardly. He doesn’t want to lie to his best friend but at the same time he is not ready to reveal much more at this early stage.

‘Well, we still have a lot we need to sort out between us.’ He settles on finally. Not untrue, exactly.

Hermione still eyes him warily but says nothing further.

‘You’re taking the books then?’ is all she says, shrewdly.

‘Yeah…’ Harry says. ‘Erm, do you think maybe a quick confundus charm on Madam Pince – ‘

‘Honestly, Harry!’ Hermione chastises him. ‘Give them here. I’ll check them out with mine.’

Harry gives a sheepish grin and hands the texts over.

When back in his dormitory, Harry opens the first of the books and flicks to the chapter Hermione had highlighted for him with a spell.

He tries to think of where he had first heard the expression - BDSM. He knows it’s not something mainstream, not something the Dursley’s would be likely to have discussed over Sunday dinner. Hermione had known instantly what he had meant – of course she had, she was the most well-read on every topic imaginable.

He thinks it may have been that magazine the Weasley twins had snuck into his trunk a couple of years ago. The one with the leather-clad wizard being led on a leash by a dominant partner. That had been… enlightening to say the least.

He hadn’t felt a particular draw towards the images at the time, except perhaps a sense of amazement that they even existed – then shortly after discovering the magazine he came across the Half-blood Prince’s copy of Advanced Potion Making – and that had been… enlightening and captivating in his own way.

He thinks of the failed muffliato in the library.

The bastard, he thinks to himself. It was Snape’s spell; he must have deactivated it somehow.

The Half-Blood Prince's textbook had never failed to keep his attention. To inspire him. To arouse him. He had long known that the wizard behind the words was brilliant - long before he knew the identity of the boy genius. Now a man. A difficult, infuriating man who Harry can't wait to put into his place. He knows he wants to fuck him. He doesn't know when or where, or but the sudden need is almost overwhelming. 

Harry begins to read from the highlighted pages.

BDSM-play must always be consensual. Establishing a safe word is an essential step. When either partner says that word, the scenario must stop, no questions asked.

Both partners should discuss the roleplay before-hand. It does not need to be scripted, but it also cannot be free-flowing and organic until both partners are comfortable with their own and each other’s limits.

Right, Harry thinks. So, he and Snape had been about as good at laying the groundwork as he expected they might have been.

Although, there had been that assisted legilimency, Harry considers, so that might count for something.

A safe word hadn’t even occurred to him though. That was something that could be established. He didn’t truly want to cause Snape permanent injury, as much as the man did drive him mad. In more ways than one, recently.

He withdraws the marauder’s map.

Funny, he thinks. For four whole years he had used this enchanted parchment for the purpose of avoiding Severus Snape. Today again, his eyes actively seek the man’s location out for another purpose.

The Defence classroom this time. Catching up on some marking over the weekend, perhaps. Marking. Harry shivers at how this turn of events began and of other implications of the word. Marking. Harry heads there, not quite certain of what to say but meaning to say something.

He knocks on the door, firmly but politely. He does not wait to be invited in.

‘Potter,’ Snape says in a tone of mild interest. ‘Been reading anything interesting?’

Fuck, but the man can rile Harry up like no-one else in existence – more than his aunt and uncle, his cousin, Malfoy and Voldemort himself combined. Harry has a brief flash of annoyance, thinking that perhaps a safe word could be damned, but he takes a moment and collects himself again. No wonder Snape gets off on winding him up, Harry chastises himself. He makes it so bloody easy for him sometimes.

‘Snape,’ he begins, his tone as cool as he can possibly muster in the circumstances. ‘You dispelled my silencing charm.’

Snape eyes him carefully.

‘I did.’ He acknowledges simply.

‘Why?’ Harry asks, still managing to remain calm – for now.

‘I have a vested interest in the area you were researching.’ Snape says smoothly.

‘Right – well don’t you think I was going to talk to you about what I learned?’ Harry shoots back, annoyance beginning to rear its head.

‘I could not be certain, no.’ Snape says.

‘Don’t do it again.’ Harry instructs the other man rather firmly.

He wonders if he imagines an almost imperceptible tremor from the other man. A sign that he likes Harry likes this. More than likes it.

‘Alright.’ Snape agrees simply.

That’s too easy, Harry thinks suspiciously.

‘Why aren’t you arguing?’ Harry asks, very much on his guard.

‘Didn’t get very far in your reading, then?’ Snape asks, not unkindly. ‘Potter, if you wish to continue this, then you will find that unless there is a very specific reason, I will not tend to argue with you while we’re both – ‘

‘Both what?’ Harry checks.

Snape gestures between their bodies.

‘Aroused.’ He says bluntly.

Harry opens his mouth to protest, then realises that the other man is quite right. He is so used to it in Snape’s presence now that he has barely even noticed.

‘Oh.’ is all that Harry can think to respond instead.

‘So,’ Snape’s voice is a low rumble. ‘What did you discover between those pages, Mr Potter?’

Harry swallows nervously.

‘We should have a safe word,’ he begins.

‘Ah.’ Snape nods. ‘That’s reasonable. What might you suggest?’

Harry wracks his brains. He is aware that Snape tends to think he’s an idiot, so he doesn’t want to come up with something stupid, or even worse, come up with nothing at all and prove the point.

‘Hungarian Horntail?’ he eventually voices aloud.

Snape raises an eyebrow but doesn’t come him an imbecile.

‘I agree it’s not something that either of us are likely to cry out in the throes of passion,’ he allows dryly. ‘But perhaps something with fewer syllables might be prudent.’

‘Right, okay.’ Harry agrees. ‘How about… basilisk? Erm, wait, I suppose that could in theory be a pet name – ‘

Snape rolls his eyes this time but doesn’t dispute Harry’s unlikely point.

‘Hippogriff?’ he suggests himself.

‘Yeah,’ Harry finds him agreeing easily. ‘Yeah, that works for me.’

‘Wonderful.’ Snape says almost sarcastically.

‘You don’t have to do this, you know, if you think that you’re so intellectually above me.’ Harry says hotly.

Snape seems to consider him carefully.

‘Intellect has very little to do with it, Potter.’ He replies. ‘Although there would be little point in embarking on something such as this with someone who possess no capacity for imagination whatsoever. I expect your abilities will be… more than sufficient.

Harry blinks. Was that compliment he just received?

Surely not.

‘Okay,’ he soldiers on regardless. ‘So, I did read that we should be talking about this. I know that when we talk it doesn’t tend to go well, but we should at least try – right?’

Severus Snape does not disagree or even say anything at all. He just waits for the younger man to continue.

‘We should set limits.’ Harry finally elects to say, decisively.

Snape pauses for thought before responding.

‘Consensual imperio was acceptable,’ he begins. ‘Merlin knows we likely both did far worse in the war.’

Harry has to agree with him.

‘No use of the cruciatus curse, please.’ Snape adds seriously.

‘Of course not,’ Harry snaps a little crossly, that such a possibility would even enter the discussion.

‘You asked for the limits.’ Snape points out.

Harry supposes this is fair.

‘Everything else that is non-lethal is within limits,’ the older man continues. ‘Or if something threatens to approach a limit we had failed to consider, we use the safe word.’

‘Yeah,’ Harry agrees. ‘That seems reasonable.’

He can’t quite believe he is using the word reasonable to describe an idea that came from Snape, never mind in this particular context.

‘Erm, I glanced at a section about role play…’ Harry begins hesitantly. ‘Is there anything that is or definitely isn’t on the cards?’

‘No teacher/student dynamics.’ Snape answers immediately.

Harry stares at him.

‘Well no, because that’s reality.’ He mutters under his breath.

Snape looks at him mutinously and Harry is glad he didn’t voice the thought any louder.

‘Is there anything you want to address me as?’ Harry asks, hastily changing the subject.

Snape stares at him as though transfixed by an idea - then suddenly and swiftly he drops to his knees in front of Harry.

‘Master,’ he answers in a low growl.

Harry is now more than aware of his arousal, the heat pooling to his groin as he looks down at Severus Snape beneath him.

‘Yeah?’ Harry asks throatily, his voice instantly rough through desire.

It seems like the usually composed Snape is all but quivering on the ground before him.

‘Master.’ Snape repeats in a choked whisper.

Harry isn’t confident in this yet, doesn’t quite know how best to proceed, but knows that he will give it a shot anyway.’

‘Remove my boots.’ He instructs the man from above.

‘Yes, Master.’ Snape responds as he begins to carefully unlace them.

It is Harry’s turn to shiver in anticipation. He suddenly wants more – everything – now.

‘I want you to… strip completely.’ He comes up with next.

Snape acquiesces. He removes what clothing he can manage in his kneeling position, then stands to take care of the rest.

‘Good,’ Harry

He has seen snatches of Snape’s flesh before - recently, of course - but he has never taken a decadent eyeful until now. His body is… imperfect. Pale. Scarred. Unloved.

Harry wants it anyway.

He thinks that at least one of these descriptors could change for him over time.

‘Kiss me.’ Harry demands.

Snape seems to hesitate a moment. Their only kiss to date had been out of scene, instigated by Harry and had taken the older wizard quite by surprise.

‘Yes, Master.’ Snape repeats, more slowly this time and he tentatively steps towards Harry. He presses his lips to the younger man’s, carefully at first, until Harry coaxes his mouth open and takes with his own tongue.

Snape moans into the kiss in instinctive response, allowing Harry’s tongue much more access to dominate.

Harry’s hand cups the back of Snape’s head through his greasy black hair, keeps him in position, takes the taste that he wants from him.

‘Good boy.’ He tells Snape as he eventually must allow them to part for air.

If Snape does not want to be infantilised, he doesn’t address it, indeed the way his eyes suddenly flash suggests that he appreciates the words.

‘Bend over for me.’ Harry whispers urgently and he shifts Snape and presses him into the position he envisions, bracing him over the Defence classroom desk.

Snape does not complain, does not resist.
Harry uses his wordless and wandless skills to conjure up some lubricant.

He doesn’t say anything at all, just coats his fingers and finds Snape’s entrance where it is hidden between his cheeks. He allows his slick digits to trace the hole in a circle – one, two, three times – then he penetrates the man with just one.

A sharp intake of breath and a guttural groan in response. Harry is still fully dressed but for his boots and it only adds to the delicious wrongness of it all.

Another finger is inserted and Snape all but yelps in pleasure. Harry is finding it difficult to keep his cool, longs to release his own cock from his robes and frantically stick it into the man.

Somehow, he resists.

‘Who am I, Snape?’ he asks roughly, thrusting a third inside.

‘Master!’ Snape cries out as Harry mercilessly fucks him with his fingers. ‘Fuck, Master!’

Harry feels close to coming where he stands. Removing his fingers, he pulls his robes to the side as necessary and brings out his cock, coating it with the left-over lube.

‘Ready?’ he checks with Snape.

Snape nods fervently.

‘Then ask me for it.’ Harry whispers harshly.

‘Please, Master!’ is the almost choked sob he receives in response.

‘Good boy,’ Harry calls out as he presses inside the warm, tight yet welcoming passage.

He doesn’t last long. It’s his first time after all.

He has the wherewithal to take hold of Snape’s hard, heavy cock and bring him to completion as he comes himself, on the sixth or seventh thrust.’

‘UNGHH!’ Harry makes a noise he didn’t realise he was capable of.

Snape shudders and shakes beneath him and that something so perverse could be so perfect is a mystery to Harry.

Harry, still robed, is collapsed on top of Snape’s sweaty, spent form.

He absently presses a kiss to the back of the man’s neck, wondering where to go from here.

A knock at the door prevents the luxury of time to think about it.

‘Severus?’ Harry hears the voice of newly instated headmistress, Minerva McGonagall outside.

‘Fucking hell!’ Harry hisses, withdrawing from the man beneath him.

Both he and Snape are panicked. No locking spell cast, no wards set by either of them? They had been quite carried away.

Harry retrieves his wand from his pocket and spells Snape fully clothed in an instant.

By the time the door creaks open, they are both dressed, panting in exertion, wands drawn at each other.

‘Really, gentlemen?’ Minerva asks, her face the picture of confusion.

‘Sorry.’ Harry wheezes breathlessly. ‘Duelling practise.’

Both the headmistress and Severus Snape stare at him in disbelief, for quite different reasons.

‘Duelling practise?’ Minerva asks her colleague with a look of incredulity, regarding the heated situation she had just walked into involving the Defence Master and Harry Potter.

The young man himself had scarpered almost immediately, after blurting out some excuse about sparring with Snape.

Severus nods, busying himself with looking for something on his desk, which the headmistress is not quite convinced actually exists.

‘The boy bested the most dangerous wizard of all time not six months ago, do you really think he is in need of more hands-on experience?’ The Scotswoman says sardonically.

The question is clearly meant to be rhetorical. Severus answers it anyway.

‘He sought it out.’ he mutters between his teeth.

‘Sought it out?’ Minerva repeats sharply. ‘Sought what out?’

She is not quite sure what he is referring to exactly.

‘A physical escalation.’ He says, still not looking her in the eye. ‘The boy - young man - has been struggling, in the aftermath of the war. You must have noticed it yourself?’

‘Yes,’ Minerva allows, still somewhat uncertainly. ‘I have noticed his ire towards you has not simmered out, not at all.’

She realises that whatever she had inadvertently interrupted had both men looking better than they had in weeks. Possibly months or years.

‘This physical exertion you speak of… ‘ the headmistress continues. ‘It is benefitting you both?’

‘I believe so.’ he finally turns to look her in the eye and she believes him. She doesn't know why - his mind magic skills outmatch hers any day - but she has the distinct sense that he is very deliberately not occluding at this moment.

‘And is this… extracurricular exertion - it's not something you intend to offer to other students? ‘Eighth year’ or otherwise?’

‘Absolutely not.’ Severus says with such conviction that she simply cannot doubt him

‘Alright,’ she says finally, as though somehow defeated. ‘Alright. If whatever this is remains healthy - and consensual - for you both, then I shall turn a blind eye to it.’

‘Thank you.’ Severus murmurs. He clearly means it.

‘Oh - but one thing,’ Minerva adds.

The man looks at her enquiringly.

‘A little more discretion, for Merlin's sake.’ The headmistress finishes in an exasperated tone.

The wizard bows his head in acknowledgement and in genuine respect.

She leaves him to his thoughts.

Some five minutes later comes a tentative knock at the door.

‘Enter,’ he calls out in his clear, deep tone.

An invisible entity breaches the classroom, but this time Severus is aware and prepared.

‘Take that ridiculous thing off, Potter.’ he drawls.

Harry obliges.

‘I’ll have you know this was handed down to me by Ignotus Peverell himself.’ He says a little crossly, but Severus expects it is for show.

‘Via a few uncultured swine, perhaps.’ Severus snipes but for once there is little malice in it.

‘You looking for a punishment for that, Snape?’ Harry says hotly.

Snape’s thin mouth curves slightly upwards in a vaguely pleased expression.

‘I would say I’m somewhat sated for now, Potter.’ Severus remarks in some amusement.

‘Yeah, same.’ Harry admits somewhat awkwardly.

‘Then why are you here?’ Severus asks, though not entirely unkindly.

‘Erm, we were interrupted - ‘ Harry begins.

‘Yes, but we were largely… finished.’ Snape settles on the word.

‘Mmm,’ Harry makes a noise that isn’t quite agreement. ‘It’s just, it was a bit of a rush at the end for obvious reasons.’

‘Well, yes.’ Snape acknowledges.

‘So I thought maybe I should come back and… take care of you.’

Snape’s brow is furrowed now.

‘As I said, Potter, I’m quite satisfied, so there’s really no need -‘

‘I want to look after you, alright?’ Harry blurts out almost violently.

‘What?’ Snape asks in disbelief, a mild sneer starting to form on his face.

Harry soldiers on undeterred.

‘I don’t feel finished.’ He tries to explain. ‘I mean yeah, obviously I came, and holy fuck Snape - that felt amazing, by the way - but it doesn’t feel right to just leave you and head back up to the tower after that. Not without…’

‘What did you have in mind?’ Severus asks almost suspiciously.

‘Well,’ the brave Gryffindor boy is somehow hesitant all of a sudden.

He inches closer to the older man, both suddenly hyperaware of each other, their rapid breathing, the quickly decreasing space between their bodies.

Then Harry leans in and kisses Severus.

Slowly and gently.

This is not the clumsy fumbling of desire or the smooth, self-assured tool of seduction. This is something altogether more caring.

When mouths open and tongues meet it as though they are truly exploring each other for the first time, without defined roles, without barriers.

Seconds, minutes, or hours later, Harry releases the older man’s mouth.

He is not sure, but it seems that Snape might be shaking, just a little. Harry reaches a hand out, unable to stop himself.

He strokes the long, black hair which could admittedly do with a wash, but is not unpleasant to run his fingers through.

Severus is embarrassed when he realises that he has leaned in to the touch considerably. Harry doesn’t give him much time to reflect on it though, pulling him down for another kiss while his hands continue their caressing motion.

He lets his touch fall on to the man’s shoulders, then down to his back. He begins to massage the flesh through the dark robes, delighted when he receives a groan of appreciation for his efforts.

Harry wants to say the man’s name but fears if he voices ‘Snape’ aloud then this spell will be broken.

He is not willing to sacrifice this tranquility quite yet.

‘Severus,’ he sighs the Defence Master’s given name experimentally, and the peace is maintained. As he kneads the tense muscles through the layers of fabric, he says it again, louder this time.

‘Oh, Severus.’

This time it is the older man who leans down to capture Harry’s lips in his own. This time as he moans in anticipation it is in to the younger man’s mouth.

Eventually they must break for air once again.

‘That’s what I need afterwards,’ Harry says, swallowing a little awkwardly. ‘That alright by you?’

Snape quickly nods, avoiding all eye contact with the younger wizard as though exposing himself to it directly would somehow burn.

‘Good.’ Harry says decisively. ‘Then I’ll see you tomorrow.’

Darkness. Dungeons. Desire.

Harry never thought these things would become so entangled in his mind as to become almost one and the same concept.

The sound of hard leather hitting flesh. Rapidly, repeatedly. Then a state of rapture. Red marks await soothing kisses. But not too soon.

Short, sharp grunts punctuate proceedings.

Orders. Commands. Resistance.

Not for long, of course.

‘Beg for it.’ Harry tells the man who is crouched beneath him.

The cold, hard dungeon floor can’t be any good for the other man’s joints, but Harry knows better than to express any concern or sympathy.

Not now. Not when they’re like this.

Gritted teeth, pretend defiance.

‘And if I refuse?’

Bindings tighten.

Rope burns.

Hot. Harsh. Hellish.

He grabs Snape by the chin, twists his head and forces him to look at the powerful wizard positioned above him.

‘Are you going to refuse?’ Harry asks him, sounding as angry as he ever has.

Dangerous. Deadly serious.

Snape loves it but he also fears it.

Wincing.

‘No.’

Breathless. Bruising. Black and Blue.

‘Are you certain?’

Eyes glinting. Emerald.

Snape swallows.

Those eyes are everything to him.

‘Tell me. Now.’

‘No, Master. I won’t refuse.’ The answer is breathy and beaten.

‘Good boy. Now beg me.’ The younger man’s voice is hard as steel.

‘Please, Master. Fuck me.’ Snape tries valiantly.

To no avail.

‘You’ve asked nicely. But I wouldn’t call it sufficient, Snape. I quite clearly said beg for it.’

‘Please, Potter. Master. Fill me. Fuck me. Please.’

Pleading. Punishment. Pleasure.

Who needs who? Harry wonders as the blood rushes from his brain to his balls, as it thunders through his veins.

Pounding.

He applies lubricant to his own throbbing cock.

He doesn’t prepare Snape whatsoever, not this time. They have done this often enough now that Harry knows that his submissive partner can take some pain. That he thrives on it.

One thrust, two thrusts.

Pain swirling with pleasure, one indistinguishable from the other.

Three thrusts, four thrusts.

‘Tell me.’ Snape chokes out between cries.

Five. Six.

‘You’re a good boy,’ Harry obliges easily through his mounting pleasure.

Seven.

‘Fuck me harder, please. Use me. Abuse me.’ The older wizard encourages Harry.

Little encouragement is needed.

Eight, nine, teneleventwelve - faster, harder until they both lose count.

Harry is close now and he is yet to touch Snape, flesh meets flesh only in that hot, tight channel.

But then the right angle, a brush against his prostate elicits a groan of ecstasy.

Harry thrusts again with renewed vigour, trying to hit that target again and again. He can’t help himself, as much as he enjoys this dominant role, he wants his partner to take maximum pleasure in the degradation.

‘Who else has been inside your arse, Snape?’ Harry demands to know as he fucks him furiously.

‘No-one, master.’ Snape says in all but a whimper.

Harry channels his crackling magical energy to pull the bindings tighter still.

‘The truth, you little slut.’ He growls.

‘Just for you. Just a slut for you.’ Snape repeats. It is almost a sob.

‘That’s right,’ Harry gasps out. ‘Fucking keep it that way.’

He slams into his two, three, four more times then comes with an intensity that threatens to take his consciousness.

He collapses on his lover, atop his bare back. He is notably shaking.

‘Severus,’ he whispers into the older man’s pale skin. Then it is he who is overcome with emotion. ‘Severus. Fucking hell, Severus.’

He presses a few soft kisses to his partner’s flesh.

Then a few tears fall.

He is not unhappy by any means, but the intensity of his emotions, the sheer contrast and conflicting nature of them draw the tears out like a moth to a flame.

Severus frees himself wandlessly. It is easy to accomplish when Harry’s guard is down. He rolls over, shifts his position so that he is on his back and Harry can curl up on top him, head buried in his chest.

‘Shhh,’ Severus tries to soothe his lover.

Harry sniffs then laughs.

‘Is it not supposed to be me providing the aftercare?’ he asks lightly.

‘You’ve never played by the rules, Potter.’ Severus reminds him, pressing a brief kiss to the top of his head.

‘Is it true?’ Harry asks in a whisper. ‘Just me?’

Severus snorts.

‘Where would I possibly find the time for another?’ he asks sardonically,

‘No, I mean -’ Harry continues shakily. ‘Only ever me? Like that, I mean.’

‘Only ever you.’ Snape confirms, arms wrapping around his young lover, holding him close.

‘Mmm.’ Harry makes a soft noise of acknowledgement.

Severus looks at the other man with an expression of mild concern.

‘What’s wrong?’ he asks.

‘Nothing.’ Harry replies.

Another sniff follows soon after.

‘Really?’ Severus checks.

‘Well, maybe that's the issue actually.’ Harry voices the thought aloud. ‘How right this actually feels. You and I.’

Snape stiffens suddenly then embraces the young man tighter.

He has no inclination to argue.

A half-term holiday looms before him. Harry has no good excuse not to join Ron and Hermione at The Burrow, not really.

The family time will do him good, it really will. He knows this to be true.

Yes, it has been a little awkward with Ginny since their split and things will never be quite the same in Fred’s absence - but still, the Weasleys have never made Harry feel like their home was anything other than his as well.

And yet…

Almost a whole week, without touching his lover, tasting him, claiming him.

Harry is not certain it can be borne.

Still, half-term approaches regardless and as far as anyone is aware, he will be going home with Ron.

He sits in the office adjoining Severus’ Defence classroom, working on an essay for the man himself. He has long given up on the barbed comments and poorly disguised innuendo. He will just say it to the man’s face now.

Then he’ll oftentimes come all over it as well, just for good measure.

Mine. Mine. Mine. Harry always thinks as his cock spurts in pleasure, regardless of where he is marking the other man.

He hasn’t touched quill to parchment in a few minutes now. His mind often wanders to such places while in Snape’s presence.

‘What are you doing over the half-term hols?’ He asks his lover suddenly.

Snape snorts.

‘Do I suddenly find myself in an Enid Blyton story?’ He asks dryly, mocking Harry’s contraction of the word.

‘Not unless she has published some deliciously twisted works hitherto unknown,’ Harry says with a grin. He hopes Snape appreciates his expanding vocabulary as well.

Severus smirks at that.

‘Touché,’ he replies smoothly. ‘I will be here, as ever, working.’

‘During the holidays?’ Harry checks, unsure himself why that would be even the slightest bit surprising.

‘I may allow myself a later start.’ The older man says, quite seriously.

‘I’m going to The Burrow.’ Harry tells him.

‘I had heard as much.’ Snape murmurs distractedly as he continues to read at the same time as responding.

‘But I was just thinking, maybe I could floo back here once or twice, during the week?’ Harry ventures, his casual tone an affectation.

‘You were, were you?’ Snape puts the potions periodical down. It seems that Harry has captured his full attention.

‘Yeah,’ Harry replies. ‘If you’re here and you’re not too busy… working.’

‘I may also be able to allow myself an earlier finish,’ the older wizard says slowly. ‘What did you have in mind?’

‘Well,’ Harry is a little surprised to find his face flushing a little at the suggestion he is about to make. After everything they have already done.

‘Well,’ he pulls himself together and begins again, ‘If no-one else at Hogwarts believes me to be here, then no-one will miss me in the dormitories overnight. What do you think?’

Severus Snape stares at him for what seems like an eternity to Harry.

Finally he responds.

‘I think that perhaps you should have been sorted into Slytherin after all.’ He says in a tone of some amusement.

Harry grins once again.

‘From anyone else I might be insulted, but from you I know it’s the highest praise indeed.’ He jibes back in a good-natured manner.

‘Indeed.’ Snape intones.

‘So… I can stay with you? In your quarters?’
Harry always likes to make sure that everything is crystal clear when planning with his admittedly prickly partner.

A strange expression comes over the Defence master’s face at the phrasing of the question. A sort of intense heat flickers in his black eyes - but it’s not his usual flare of sexual desire that Harry would recognise.

Harry thinks he may recognise it from his own range of emotions. The look is possessive, he decides. Like Severus has just been offered something precious that he could never refuse.

‘Yes,’ is all that Severus says aloud.

Sometimes they refrain from playing their usual roles. This evening is one of these occasions.

Remembering the silencing and locking charms, following that embarrassing incident with the headmistress, Harry slides off his chair and to the floor in front of Severus.

The older man arches an eyebrow.

‘Can I help you?’ He asks dryly.

‘I don’t know,’ Harry says salaciously. ‘Perhaps on this occasion I could help you?’

‘Perhaps,’ Snape allows softly and he lets his legs fall open just slightly where he sits.

Harry has grown accustomed to their normal dynamics, would miss it dearly if Severus were to seek it no more, but there is something nice about being on his knees in front of the other man for a change.

Harry grips Snape’s legs with each hand, parts them further. He hears the older wizard’s breath hitch then quicken. Harry allows his hands to run up and down the length of his lover’s inner thighs in response and he is rewarded with just a clearing of his throat that is quite obviously disguising a noise of pleasure.

His lover remains oddly reticent when not in his submissive role, Harry thinks. He resolves to break that facade.

Robes are pushed aside. Trousers are unbuttoned. Harry presses an open-mouthed kiss to the outline of Snape’s hardening cock beneath his underwear.

Which is black, of course.

Snape can’t stifle a gasp this time, the younger man is pleased to note.

‘Good boy,’ he tells Severus, knowing how this brief phrase normally affects his libido. Sure enough, his lover’s hips jerk up instinctively, pushing hard flesh through soft fabric against Harry’s lips.

Harry can’t help but chuckle. This is exactly the response he was hoping for.

‘Get on with Potter,’ Snape pretends he is having a terrible time which he is being forced to endure.

Harry does not comply. He might not be currently acting as the dominant partner, but it doesn’t mean he will be responding to the other man’s orders either.

He continues to mouth at Severus through the fabric until the noises he elicits are all but incoherent.

‘When I’m good and ready,’ he reminds the man, as he pulls down the black boxers and takes the hard cock into his mouth in one swift motion.

‘Fuck!’ Severus hissed and there is no longer any pretence of failing to enjoy himself. He throws his head back in ecstasy as Harry works him up and down with his mouth.

When he can tell his lover is close to the edge, he withdraws for a brief moment and is delighted to hear what sounds like a suppressed whimper.

‘Want to taste you, Severus’ he tells the older man and when he resumes his ministrations it isn’t long at all before he does, swallowing the copious volume of release down gladly.

Snape’s breathing is still laboured following the act and Harry stays with his head in his lap. No cleaning charms required; he has swallowed every last drop.

‘Such a good boy,’ Harry murmurs from him position as Severus seems to shudder through the aftershocks.

‘I’ll come back Wednesday, yeah?’ The younger man says eventually. ‘I’ll miss you until then.’

Snape says nothing but does stroke the boy’s hair softly.

Harry takes the lack of biting retort to mean that he will indeed be missed in return.

It has been less than two days since term ended and Harry already feels miserable. He puts on a brave face to cover it, of course.

What else could the golden boy of Gryffindor possibly do, after all?

Friday’s classes had ended, as they must. Harry had taken a sneaky peek at the Marauder’s map, hoping to say a quick goodbye to the object of his current hyperfixation. Sadly, he seemed to be surrounded by his colleagues at all times, with no opportunity for Harry to corner him privately.

Still, as Harry makes to depart, he sees Severus Snape in a crowd of Professors supervising as pupils set off on their various journeys. He stoically raises a hand in the man’s direction as a farewell.

He receives a small nod of acknowledgement in return. It is enough, Harry thinks.

For now, anyway. Severus Snape is expressive sexually and reticent in every other regard, it seems.

Still, Harry means to keep whatever this is going, to keep it simmering throughout the rest of the school year. He means to allow it the opportunity to develop over time. To see if what has started as acting out scenarios, a strange sort of stress relief for two men who had been through hell and back, could in fact be a precursor to a relationship in reality.

Harry can’t say with certainty that he has fallen for the other man – but he also can’t say that he isn’t in the process of it.

What is love, anyway? Harry thinks.

He struggles to define such things. He has always been a bit dense when it comes to matters of the heart, he reckons. He must be a bit weird about such matters overall, he thinks with a self-deprecating chuckle, seeing as the love interest in question is the greasy dungeon bat of Hogwarts.

There is a comfort at being with the Weasley family, of being welcome at The Burrow. Of letting Mrs Weasley fuss over him, sniggering subtly with George and Ron and Percy’s pompous statements.

Yet he misses… Snape, of course.

It’s not the sex. Well, not just the sex, at least. It’s the feeling these past few months that someone has always been there when he needs him. Someone who understands what he has faced and survived. Someone who has done the same. A man who seems to know exactly what he needs, before Harry even realises what his desires are himself.

Of course he misses that.
Then, there is the sex. He is about to enter his last year as a teenager, after all. His libido will probably never be higher. The thing about The Burrow, is there is rarely a quiet place to take care of such needs alone. A quick, cursory wank in the shower, possibly. But there’s always an awareness that someone else needs in to wash soon.

So therefore, Harry ignores the aching in his balls that intensifies every time he thinks of Severus. Which is often. Wednesday will be all the sweeter, he reasons.

Two days down. Two to go.

They will be sharing a bed, he remembers happily.

It seems like an important step, somehow.

‘Harry, you coming?’ Ron asks, his mouth still full of whatever his mother had been baking.

‘Yeah.’ Harry says a little flatly. ‘Yeah, I’m on my way.’

‘You alright, mate?’ George checks in. ‘We’re used to Hermione having a bit of the holiday blues, but you seem uncharacteristically out of sort for the circumstances!’

‘You’ve not got a girlfriend you’ve left back at Hogwarts?’ Percy asks from where he reads in a corner. He has been much better at visiting his family since the war and the loss of a brother, Harry has noticed.

‘No, a boyfriend.’ Harry shoots back before he can help himself.

Percy sputters through a mouthful of tea and Harry is strangely gratified.

George and Ron both grin.

‘Good for you, Harry!’ George says, patting his back in a congratulatory fashion.

‘That alright, Ron?’ Harry asks, his tone lighter than he really feels.

‘Course it is mate.’ Ron instantly replies.

Harry finds himself decidedly unsurprised. Ron has always been an excellent friend, a few weeks of jealousy in the past notwithstanding. But he is the very definition of loyalty these days.

Some quidditch with friends takes his mind off the physical exertion he would rather be partaking in. He lets his brain go blank as he flies against the breeze, soars the skies. He thinks of nothing but the sensations – not even Severus Snape.

He feels better for it, he decides, when it is suddenly time to get ready for bed. His mind has been a bit busy, a bit preoccupied of late. Switching it off for a bit had been healthy.

Nevertheless, Harry still can’t help himself taking out the map again in the evening and just watching the dot with his lover’s name beside it. He has long figured out which space on the crowded map is the man’s bedroom.

He feels the familiar feeling unfurling in his abdomen. A sudden realisation occurs to him. He can be the last to use the shared bathroom this evening.

He says goodnight to Molly and Arthur, who have their own facilities. Ginny is usually the last to perform her bedtime routine. Harry feels more than a little awkward, practically lurking outside the bathroom door until she is finished.

She comes out in a white robe, her freckled skin a little pink and her red hair damp.

‘Oh,’ she notices Harry with a small degree of surprise, but she doesn’t look particularly embarrassed. Harry’s seen her in less, certainly.

‘Sorry, Gin.’ He says with an apologetic smile. ‘Missed my usual slot earlier.’

She smiles back at him and moves aside to allow him into the bathroom, still steamy from her shower.

He shuts the door hurriedly, lest she think the growing hardness in his jeans could be for her. It is for the thought of one person only.

He prefers his own gender exclusively now and can’t deny it. Ginny is admittedly gorgeous – he has just seen her at her most natural and beautiful – but it stirs nothing for him anymore.

The thought of Severus does. It has been a mere two days since that stilted goodbye, a few more still since their last tryst.

Harry is addicted to the thought of him. The wrongness, the rightness. They haven’t discussed any possibility of a future beyond this year. Harry decides there and then that they must.

Harry decides on a bath rather than a shower, preferring to luxuriate as he touches himself. He lathers soap on his skin, feeling clean and ready for release.

By stroking himself up and down just once or twice, his hardening cock becomes rock solid, almost painfully strained.

Harry bites down on his lower lip to keep himself from groaning too loudly.

He could certainly do without shouting Snape’s name over the sound of the bathwater running, with George Weasley potentially in earshot. He would have a field day with that, Harry is certain, one that would have made Fred proud.

Harry can’t remain totally silent, however. Whimpers of want escape as he works his own cock. And in his head, it is anything but quiet, in fact he is screaming out orders. He imagines his lover completely at his mercy, bending him to his every whim as he has done so many times now. He works himself up into a furious frenzy, imagining fucking the other’s man’s tight arsehole, imagining how Severus would clench and shudder around him.

It is the image of his partner’s orgasm that triggers Harry’s own release. The grunt he lets free is quiet and expresses nothing of the tremors and intensity of his feelings inside.

Harry washes the sticky semen away with the bathwater and drains the tub. He wants a bath with Severus, he decides. What a wonder it would be to instruct the man to serve him, to wash his hair, his back, his… other areas. He wonders how the bathtubs in the staff quarters compare with that of the Hogwarts prefects. He resolves to find out on Wednesday.

The halls of Hogwarts are quiet at half-term. Severus thinks he can hear his own heart beating in the silence as he prowls the corridors at night, despite knowing that students are sparse and his efforts will be fruitless.

He remembers a time, not so long ago, when he had to try to consciously control every movement; every facial expression, every verbal intonation. Failure to do so would have meant certain death.

The only thing Severus could never fully control was his heart. In more ways than one. He could never prevent that pounding, that pulsing of blood around his body screaming danger, danger, danger when in the presence of the Dark Lord.

He remembers how his countenance remained cool, his voice remained steady. All the while masking the thudding dread inside his chest.

Severus couldn’t protect his own heart when he lost Lily; once to his own stupidity then later to death. He couldn’t help how it shattered into a thousand pieces when he knew it to be true. He couldn’t stop how his heart jolted when he believed that her boy, all that remained of his childhood best friend, had to die in order to save the wizarding world.

Then Harry Potter had survived. And so had he. Against all odds, all literary ideas of karma.

Perhaps that’s why he has taken the young man on as such, Severus thinks idly. Neither of them were supposed to be there. What did it matter what they did now, assuming it was consensual?

A grim smile betrays the man’s usually blank face. About once a week this occurs - when he imagines Black’s reaction from beyond the grave.

Cheered slightly, even in the absence of young people to berate and belittle, Severus returns to his quarters and pours a glass of firewhisky.

This particular blend of spirit is older than his lover, he thinks as he quaffs, with a grimace that is not solely due to the bitter heat of the liquid.

Still, at least his lover is old enough to drink it, Severus muses. Just. This consoles him somewhat.

The nature of their relationship… he isn’t sure. It’s not teacher-student - that’s certain. It might be mentor-protégée, mind you. In the most perverse way possible.

Why not embrace it. Why fight, why pretend that he doesn't want it. He does. Of course he does.

As for the future… well, by all rights neither of them should have had one.

So what does it matter if this game they are playing is temporary, that it can't possibly have longevity, that it can't even be open and real?

Severus felt they were fated on this path now. The only alternative would have been oblivion.

It had never come. So now they find that oblivion in each other, in the roles they play, in the pleasures they seek.

It is the worst thing he has ever partaken in. And he was a Death Eater.

Then again, it is the best thing he has ever partaken in.

Paradoxically both are true.

Another firewhisky sees his mind start to wander a little more aimlessly.

His hands start to wander too. Their aim is more clear.

The boy means to come back on Wednesday, so he has said. Means to stay in his quarters, and means to stay the full night.

He has no doubt that Potter will keep his word. He's famed for it, after all.

The idea makes him uneasy but it's an excited anticipation, albeit tinged with fear.

Won't this shift things over from fantasy to reality? And if it's real, how can he possibly cope when Potter leaves, finds a nice witch or wizard, settles down - as he must.

Then Severus will be left with his treacherous heart dented, not broken, he doesn't think, the organ in question is probably too dark and shrivelled to shatter now.

The boy will return back to the light, the respectable, the vanilla. The expected.

And he will be here, in the dark. Alone again.

He shouldn't allow it, he thinks. He feels bitterness arise in his throat like bile.

He should turn the boy away on Wednesday. He should end this farce, plead temporary insanity, go back to his simple, if rather unsatisfying real life.

As he takes his own cock in hand there in his quarters, he knows he will do no such thing.

He is addicted to the highs and lows, addicted to the ecstasy and the misery.

As he touches himself, he imagines Harry Potter whispering filthy commands in his ear. Tentatively at first, then more insistently. The level of the power he exerts over Severus builds at the same rate as the man’s own orgasm.

You like being my little bitch, don't you Snape?

You are desperate for my cock to stretch you open again, aren't you?

You need to be punished for every infraction against me, Snape. And there are several thousand.

I will take you. I will own you.

At the imagined words Snape climaxes, spilling all over his hand.

Potter’s voice does not leave him be, not yet.

Shhh, Severus hears as he shivers and lets out a choked sob of his own.

He recovers momentarily, tries to harden himself emotionally as he has so many time before.

Snape shrugs the boy’s presence off, performs a cleaning charm, tries not to spiral into despair.

Then he hears the whispered voice again, echoing a sentiment the boy had already expressed aloud.

How can something so wrong feel so right?

Snape didn't have an answer for the young man then, and he doesn't for the echo now.

Wednesday. Two days from now.

Things will be clearer then, he thinks.

This is nonsense, of course. He knows it to be so.

Every interaction takes them ever deeper into murkier waters.

‘Potter.’ Severus stands warily in the doorframe of his dungeon quarters.

Wednesday has arrived at long last. It is early evening, and the younger man stands a little uncertain of himself, having rapped on Severus’ door at seven pm promptly.

‘You… did remember I was coming?’ Harry asks Snape, tentatively.

Severus lets out a breath he hadn’t realised he was holding.

‘Of course I did.’ He says, meaning the words to sound irritable. In fact, he sounds relieved, even to his own ears.

Surreptitiously checking the empty corridor for sneaky Slytherins who ought to be at home in their mansions, Harry steps forward and leans up to kiss Severus.

Severus at first allows him, then welcomes him, then practically devours him.

Only the slightest remaining presence of mind prevents him from ravishing the boy right there in the hallway.

In the back of his mind, he had wondered if Potter might simply…forget about him. Not by accidentally obliviating himself, or somehow erasing the affair entirely – even Harry Potter wasn’t such an idiot as that. But away from the darkness and depravity of the dungeons, out enjoying the sunshine and his half-term holiday, playing quidditch with Weasley… Weasleys… that might have been enough to turn his head. He could have rekindled a romance with Ginevra, perhaps…

Yes, Severus Snape’s mind had wandered and as usual it took him to dark places plagued by the shadows of his insecurities.

His air of superiority was born from a lifelong sense of being inferior. Severus was intelligent, doubtlessly, and he liked everyone to know it. He was inventive and talented in many ways. Just not the ways appreciated by the masses.

He has never been considered classically handsome; he does not come from a wealthy pure-blood family. He is not particularly suited to his profession, having been forced into it.

So, it was not a big stretch for him to imagine that the handsome, young wizarding hero would forget about someone like him entirely.

Potter hadn’t written.

Neither of them had said they would write, in fairness.

Still, Severus had thought that Potter was the sort of sentimental fool that should have written anyway.

The fact that he didn’t has left the older man feeling vaguely miffed, despite the fact that he hadn’t written either.

A pause for breath, urgently required by both men.

‘I missed this. Missed you.’ Harry says between gasps for air.

The urgency with which they still require each other is even greater than their need for oxygen.

With a noise akin to a growl, Harry spins the older man around and presses him against the wall, grinding himself against his arse, through both sets of robes.

Severus does not object, in fact he encourages it with the noises he makes in response. He uses his wand to quickly ward the area, against all but Minerva, who he hopes does not happen by and get an eyeful. He does not have the power to ward Hogwarts against its own headmistress.

Harry waits hungrily for the wand motions and incantations to conclude.

Then he resumes his ministrations. He uses Snape’s body and the friction they generate for his own pleasure, knowing full well that the other man craves this.

He sneaks one hand between the hard wall and Severus’ equally hard cock to confirm this. He just allows his fingers to just brush gently against the straining bulge in the other man’s robes. His sneaking suspicion was absolutely correct.

Harry removes his hand. They have all night. He will not offer Snape release too quickly.

The semi-public setting is thrilling, even with the area magically secured by the older man’s magic. Harry finds himself quickly coming in his robes, the delicious friction they generate more than enough without direct contact. It has scarcely been a few days since he fucked the man before him, but it feels like a lifetime.

Snape is of course, not satisfied, but that’s how he gains his ultimate satisfaction.

He turns around and drops to his knees in front of a panting Harry Potter.

‘May I, Master?’ He asks, averting his eyes from Harry’s intense green gaze.

‘Fuck, yeah.’ Harry says, failing to adopt his dominant character in his haze of lust.
‘I mean, unbutton me, Snape.’ He revises his initial enthusiasm into an aloof command.

Snape is only too happy to oblige, removing Harry’s softening, sticky cock from inside his robes. He proceeds to lick it clean.

Bowing his head down submissively, he licks the spilled come from the base to the tip salaciously, thoroughly. Harry is hard again within moments.

‘Master, will you fuck my mouth?’ Snape asks in desperation.

‘Yes. Fucking hell, yes. Good boy!’ Harry exclaims as he enters blissful oblivion, his cock suddenly engulfed by deep, wet heat.

He groans and thrusts; Snape gags a little on his furious motions, but Harry knows better than to stop, not without the safe word, and as wizards they had long come up with ways to express it non-verbally.

Harry practically screams as he comes once again, this time down Severus’ throat. He relies on his lover to keep him steady as he feels his legs could easily give way from the intensity of two strong orgasms in such quick succession.

‘You’re amazing.’ Harry blurts out before he can stop himself. He knows it shatters the illusion somewhat when he talks to the other man in this way.

‘Hmm.’

Severus responds with only that non-committal sound, but he does not seem particularly displeased.

They are still in the dungeon corridor.

Harry laughs at the absurdity of the situation. Severus can’t help but smirk in kind.

They make their way inside and collapse on a surprisingly comfortable winged leather sofa.

‘You’re staying all night.’ Severus says cautiously.

It isn’t phrased as a question.

‘Mmm, all night.’ Harry agrees happily. ‘Maybe all the nights, when I finish school.’

Severus snorts.

‘That is never going to happen, Potter.’ He says in a tone that Harry struggles to comprehend.

So the young man makes light of it instead.

‘You don’t think I’m on track to pass?’ Harry teases lightly.

‘You know what I mean.’ Snape grumbles in response.

‘One of us has to be pragmatic, I suppose.’ Harry murmurs, tracing the shapes of ancient runes over his lover’s chest through his robes. ‘Or who knows where I would end up on my flights of fancy.’

‘Lucky I’m here to keep you tethered to the Earth.’ Severus remarks dryly.

Harry chuckles and the other man raises an eyebrow to enquire as to why.

‘You’re always saving me.’ Harry says sleepily by way of explanation.

'We're having a bath together tonight.' Harry announces suddenly, as the same evening draws later.

'We are, are we?' Severus enquires mildly. He does not seem inclined to object.

'I think so, yeah.’ Harry mindlessly answers what was presumably supposed to be a rhetorical question and Severus rolls his eyes.

'Don’t you want to?' Harry checks, mistaking this display of attitude for reluctance.

Severus' mind conjures up visions of running water, hot steam, slick and tanned skin sliding all over him...

He swallows dryly and struggles to answer.

'I... can certainly see the appeal.’ he finally admits to his young lover.

Harry chuckles.

‘Well, if I’d ordered you to in the… err, heat of the moment, you wouldn’t have much choice in the matter anyway, would you?’

Severus stiffens to repress a shudder.

‘No,’ he acknowledges quietly. ‘I would not.’

His deep voice lowers even further to a distinctive rumble that Harry associates with sexual desire.

‘Is it an order?’ The Defence master asks with some unspoken level of urgency.

‘Does it need to be?’ Harry challenges him in return, green eyes sharp as steel meeting black as coal.

Snape shakes his head.

‘No.’ He replies hoarsely.

Harry places his hand on Severus’, the youthful, sun-kissed skin in stark contrast with the pale, aging flesh beneath it.

They are both here at Hogwarts, but they belong in separate worlds, Snape thinks as he observes the difference.

Harry speaks slowly and firmly when he makes his commands.

‘Lead the way to the bathroom,’ he says, digging his fingernails in to Snape’s skin just a little, just enough to emphasise that he expects to be obeyed.

Suppressing a wince, the older man takes Harry by the hand and pulls him into a standing position. Despite this, Harry is very clearly still the one in charge, his posture and the surrounding hum of magical energy says as much.

Severus gently leads Harry behind a wooden door of dark panelling.

It creaks as he presses upon on it and Harry looks with interest at the new room exposed to him behind the doorway.

It’s impressive enough to rival the prefects’ bathroom Harry had snuck into years earlier -
but in completely different ways.

Tiled in a forest green, so dark as to be as black, the accents are a shining silver, clean and glistening like unicorn’s blood.

The bathtub is not sunken but rather free-standing; on massive clawed feet, it by far has room enough for two.

Harry wonders if Severus has ever had anyone else test the spacious tub with him previously and he is momentarily incapacitated by the flash of irrational jealousy for witches and wizards that may not even exist.

While far from traditionally lovely, Harry has long seen the Defence master as hot, handsome… most importantly, as his.

His to use, to take, to please, to have, to hold…

‘Potter?’ Snape’s tone is one of mild concern as he interrupts Harry’s internal monologue.

Harry metaphorically shakes himself. His rambling thoughts were almost forming wedding vows, at this rate.

And that was just ridiculous.

He sends a quick prayer to Merlin that his lover, with all his mind magic talents, has not been privy to any of these spiralling thoughts.

The possessive feelings swell and threaten to drown Harry, so he decides that they should both be likewise soaked.

‘Fill the bathtub,’ he commands, the certainty suddenly back in his voice.

Snape complies, retrieving glass vials from a drawer discreetly tucked under an ornate mirror.

He uncorks one and the scent wafts to Harry almost immediately.

‘Mmmm,’ the younger man vocalises his appreciation for the fresh, appealing smell that reminds him of both mint and pine simultaneously. ‘What is it?’

‘Oils to enrich the experience,’ Snape answers slowly in his trademark velvet tones, examining the contents of each vile in turn, before silently declaring them as acceptable and adding them in to the cascading bath water.

Harry watches him methodically uncork, inhale and decant, finding the whole process strangely erotic despite the fact that no clothing has yet been removed.

Following the draining of the last vial, Harry approaches his lover with more confidence than he truly feels. He cups Severus’ jaw with his hand, forces him to look at him though the action is ultimately unnecessary.

The older man is unmistakably enthralled by Harry’s sudden forceful demeanour.

‘Kiss me,’ Harry demands and Snape’s lips instantly fall against his; it's tongue, teeth, thrashing and bashing. It is terrible and yet it is perfection as each moans wantonly into the mouth of the other.

A wave of one hand a whispered ‘divesto’ is all Harry needs to disrobe them both.

He pushes Severus into the water first and follows him into the bathtub, pressing him down, submerging him for a time then finally releasing him for air.

‘Okay?’ Harry whispers, breaking character as he is wont to do whenever they introduce a new
element into their play.

Severus has yet to invoke their agreed safeword, and this time is no exception.

‘Please, Master,’ he splutters, and the younger wizard knows instantly that he enjoyed the experience, so forces his head under again and again and again.

Could something be so carnal, so violent, so sensual all at once? It seems paradoxical and undeniable all at once.

Releasing his partner from under the water again, Harry dips his dominant hand under and feels for the cleft of Snape’s arse beneath the few bubbles.

The enchanted bath oils make his fingers naturally slippery and when he finally locates his target they slide into Severus with ease.

The older man grunts but it is not a protest.

Harry pins him down against the side of the bathtub, allowing his head to remain unsubmerged.

He pushes his achingly hard cock inside Snape’s tight hole with hardly adequate lubrication and it is obscene and rough and grotesque and glorious as he pushes in and out, out and in, bringing himself to completion while resolutely avoiding any direct stimulation of his lover’s own prick.

Harry comes with a shudder and a shout.

He collapses against his lover and is kissing his bare back before he can stop himself. The scenario is now over as quickly as it started - his gratitude for the man beneath him overwhelming.

Severus Snape needs to come.

Desperately.

He has never been the recipient of such exquisite torture before.

In the past scant few hours, he has bestowed a blowjob he is particularly, wickedly proud of - with no thought of his own pleasure.

He has been submerged repeatedly underwater, unable to cry out, certain he would drown and welcome it. Then he had been promptly fucked against porcelain, to within an inch of his life, each delicious slide in and out of his channel exhilarating, but not enough to take him to the edge.

That was quite deliberate, he is certain. He and Potter both have a shared understanding of what he wants and needs. To be wanted and needed, to be seemingly used and discarded.

It is an act, of course, one that Potter usually drops before the final curtain call, smothering him in that asinine affection that he really should detest, but somehow he has come to expect and appreciate nonetheless.

It can't last; he knows this. It's a dangerous game they partake in.

His straining erection painfully reminds him yet again that hs own release is long overdue.

‘Potter,’ he rasps out from where he stands by the bathroom door, another entrance that adjoins his bedchamber. He is in a plain, grey dressing gown.

His lover is wrapped only in a towel below the waist, and sits on his bed. He is seemingly lost in thought until the older wizard speaks.

‘Come here,’ Harry speaks the words to Snape gently, but it is still ultimately an order.

Severus approaches carefully, then kneels on the ground beside the bed where the young man perches.

Harry runs his fingers through the long black hair, still damp from their time in the bathtub together.

Severus leans into the touch momentarily, then his cock throbs for attention once again. Not this tenderness.

‘Potter, please.’ Snape chokes out the plea desperately.

Harry looks him in the eye intently for a moment and sees a world within those black depths.

A kiss, claiming and searing, as though to brand.

Not tender whatsoever.

Harry unceremoniously pulls his lover on to his own bed, and pulls him down atop him.

Severus normally prides himself on playing the part of the perfect submissive, will forego his own pleasure, give everything to his dominant partner.

Now it seems he is too far gone; he ruts against Harry like a beast in heat and the young man finds no cause for complaint - not at first - not until he realises just how close the other wizard is to spilling his seed right then and there.

‘Wait, stop.’ Harry protests and Severus complies immediately, though it all but causes him physical pain to do so.

He looks at Harry somewhere between quizzically and wretchedly.

‘Me on top.’ Harry insists softly by way of explanation and Severus can only grunt and groan as he allows himself to be manoeuvred into position.

Harry kisses his lovers’ forehead, cheeks, chin, and even down his generously-sized nose. He means to tease and he is succeeding.

Harry unites the knot in the belt that keeps Snape’s grey dressing gown over his body - that pale, scarred, skinny, imperfect flesh - that he can't wait any longer to touch and to taste.

The fabric falls open and Harry immediately lavishes his tongue’s attention on Snape’ chest - the modest muscles, the smattering of dark hair, the taught and sensitive nipples.

Severus thinks he will now come untouched as he gasps and writhes beneath Potter.

As if reading his mind, which of course he isn't, Harry prepares his lover for penetration once again with a charm he has come to appreciate almost as much as the disarming spell.

Both in his repertoire courtesy of this unlikely - no, impossible - man who he now has completely at his mercy.

‘Did you like our bath together?’ Harry asks him roughly.

Inspired by the memory of holding the other man under the water, Harry places his hands over Severus’ throat, applying pressure.

Snape’s eyes widen in anticipation with perhaps the edge of delicious fear.

He nods in response to the question.

Harry can now feel as well as see the scars left by Voldemort’s damnable snake on his seemingly most faithful servant.

He blinks the traumatic memory away; he is in the role of master now.

‘Good boy.’ Harry praises Severus, pressing a bit harder on the other man’s windpipe, limiting the oxygen available to him just a little more.

He has read about erotic asphyxiation in the library book he borrowed all those weeks ago.

The idea immediately appealed to him and the only thing that put him off trying it sooner has been the thought of needing to summon Madam Pomfrey in the middle of the night for something so embarrassing and so deviant, particularly involving his defence professor.

Despite the nerves that had initially deterred him from this act, he can now magically feel Severus’ complete faith in him, and it both calms and invigorates him enough to continue.

Severus meanwhile, is seeing stars and feeling heaven.

Harry makes sure to observe him closely, to release his hold long enough to allow for the safe word to be uttered, but it does not come.

Harry fucks him now, restricting his breath all the while, and when they reach a mutual climax Harry worries he may have killed them both, as he swears they are in the stars together.

Coming down from such a simultaneous high takes time, during which Severus is more receptive to the aftercare that Harry favours. They exchange kisses, share cuddles and whisper what can only be described as sweet nothings.

Of all the intimate acts they have performed together, sharing a bed is new territory.

Severus feels both secure and terrified in equal measure.

‘Mmm, wish we had more time.’ the younger man says sleepily.

‘You’re staying the night.’ Severus reminds him.

‘I’m staying forever.’ Harry counters, his voice muffled by a pillow as he drifts off.

No, Snape thinks, his brain instantly alert and on guard. This is the second time Potter has suggested such a ridiculous notion, only hours apart.

He is not staying forever.

He cannot possibly.

Severus closes his eyes and lets the unlikely feeling of being wanted wash over him.

Harry gives a soft snore and Snape sighs fondly, then once again more hopelessly.

He has to destroy this pure and beautiful connection soon.

But he lets them have just this one night, wrapped up together.

Something has changed irrevocably in their relationship since the half-term holiday.

Harry had felt it immediately from that next morning. The sudden terseness of Severus’ interactions. The way his own kisses are suddenly being returned in a perfunctory manner, brief and closed-mouthed.

Harry is not sent away from Snape’s quarters prematurely, but he is not truly made to feel welcome anymore either.

Severus busies himself, marking essays, brewing potions, reading texts - and it is clear that he wishes to be lost in them alone. Harry has never felt more of an imposition, which is saying something, having grown up with his particular family.

‘Well… bye, then.’ Harry says awkwardly when it is finally time to say goodbye to Severus, now returning to his friends at The Burrow. The abject misery is clear in his tone.

‘Goodbye, Potter.’ Severus coolly feigns disinterest, which he achieves expertly.

Harry doesn't know why, wonders what he has done wrong, what he can do to fix it.

He doesn't know much of anything; except that his heart is currently breaking.

Harry picks up his half-term holiday where he left it off. Quidditch, laughter, larking around. He tries to be present and in the moment, he really does. But it's all but impossible when it feels like a dementor is slowly sucking out his soul.

The school term resumes.

Harry raps on the Defence Master’s office door sooner rather than later, steels himself, demands an explanation.

What he receives for his efforts is less than satisfactory.

‘What did you think, Potter?’ Snape sneers and Harry is eleven years old again.

He can't even look at the older man, who it seems is not yet finished.

‘Did you think we would slow-dance together at the eighth-year ball? That your peers, my colleagues would accept us because the great Harry Potter has deemed me his choice?

His face is slowly shadowed by a realisation.

‘Merlin, Potter… that's exactly what you thought, isn't it?’

A derisory facial expression followed by a short burst of incredulous laughter makes Harry briefly angry, followed by a period of intense humiliation.

Then anger settles once again.

He raises a fist and hits his lover square in the face. There is no pretence or play in this. He is hurting and he chooses to lash out and hurt in return.

Harry is not proud of himself, but he cannot apologise. He draws his wand immediately, ready to turn this physical fight to a deadly magical duel if necessary.

Snape recoils at the punch, looking shocked and similarly angered.

Yet he does not retaliate, merely shows Harry the door disdainfully, and it is worse somehow.

Fight back, you coward. Fight back.

The words echo in Harry’s mind, followed by an addition.

Fight for me, you utter bastard.

Fight for me, Severus.

Fight for me.

Life at Hogwarts seems to continue as normal to the untrained eye.

Hermione, and by extension, Ron, know that something is wrong. It normally kills her not to know the details of every situation, but in this she sits stoically, supporting Harry without knowing exactly what the trouble is.

Harry is grateful for that.

If anyone notices that someone has swung for Severus Snape, leaving him with a substantial bruise, it goes unremarked by all except the headmistress, who seems to suggest he may be deserving of it, if Harry Potter’s general demeanour is any indication of Snape’s behaviour.

Harry wishes Snape would have the evidence magically healed, or at least concealed. The guilt he feels is substantial.

The man has also taken to tying his hair back in class, scraping it away from his face, which just serves to accentuate the bruise further.

Harry reckons that might, in fact, be the point.

He knows that he should feel bad about it and he does.

Not as bad as he feels at the understanding that Severus Snape has stepped back so suddenly, cut him off so cruelly, seemingly without a second thought.

Harry finds himself struggling to breathe at times. He awakens to a wet pillow more often or not.

He is never teased for crying in his sleep by his dorm mates. They have all been through a lot, mind you - and Harry more than most.

He finds himself wondering whether he would have preferred to have never had Severus at all. He had been doing fine before, hadn't he?

He tries to explain it to Hermione, in as much as he can.

‘Imagine you experience a high so magical, a rush so extreme, that you are instantly addicted,’ he tells her. ‘Imagine you feel invincible. You don’t need to eat, to sleep. Then imagine it is taken away.’ He claps his hands together suddenly to emphasise the point.

Hermione actually jumps.

‘Just like that.’ He finishes sadly.

Harry spends the remaining weeks at Hogwarts as something of a shadow of his former self. Most assume it is the horrors of the war catching up with him at last.

In truth, he had been falling in love - truly, madly, deeply in love - and then casually tossed aside.

Sometimes Harry will catch Snape looking at him with concern, though only when he thinks the young man is unaware of his gaze.

More often than not, Harry now meets his stare and glowers in return. Sometimes he imagines the ghost of shame on the other man’s face.

The last week of eighth year brings a last defence lesson.

Harry finds himself alternating between pining over the bastard and wishing him dead. He swings violently between the two options on an almost hourly basis.

To everyone’s disbelief, Snape sets them a final essay. There is no set theme, merely a title.

‘The Darkness Within.’ Hermione reads aloud, thoughtfully when the class is over and Snape has already stalked out.

‘I’ll write about horcruxes!’ She announces brightly. Harry is strangely pleased that she will have the opportunity to show off the copious knowledge she gleaned from all her time spent researching with him last year.

‘A last bit of homework, at this stage!‘ Ron grumbles characteristically as they pack up their belongings and leave the classroom together.

Harry pretends to share the sentiment, but it could not be much for further from the truth.

A last assignment. A final submission.

One more chance to make this right.

‘The Darkness Within’

Harry ponders the assigned essay title for some time before putting quill to parchment.

Strangely poetic notion, for the absolute prick, he thinks idly.

Harry doesn’t really mean it; of course he doesn’t. The derogatory term against Snape is a defence mechanism, resolutely in place to keep the remains of his fragile heart together.

While others have been preparing for life outside Hogwarts, Harry has spent hours simply wondering… why?

Why did Severus ever open his eyes to such scenarios? Only to deprive him and take such heady pleasures away again so suddenly.

Harry thinks he knows now.

It has nothing to do with Snape being bored of him, tossing him aside. Not really.

It has much more to do with Snape having bitten off far more than he could chew, Harry has decided.

It has everything to do with Snape assuming he needs to let Harry go. That it will be easier in the long run. That one, or both or them, will only get hurt if they were to have continued in that fashion.

Well, it’s too late for that, Harry thinks rather darkly.

That’s when the obvious subject to write about occurs to him. Snape himself.

He wonders what Snape expects him to choose as his topic.

Dementors, Voldemort, the use of unforgivable curses… none of these concepts frighten him half as much as his feelings for Severus Snape.

Harry begins to write, letting his cautious thoughts touch the parchment.

Some hide behind their darkness.

As soon as the ink begins to flow it quickly becomes a frantic scribble, an outpouring that he cannot possibly stop.

They are ever cloaked in black, they keep others at bay, and their usual mood is cloudy at best.

They indulge in sarcasm and dark humour.
They may have knowledge and expertise of the dark arts, and how to defend against them.

There. Harry isn’t very good at subtle. If Severus hasn’t already realised that he is marking an essay about their relationship then he will by this stage. Harry hopes he doesn’t just set it on fire.

I can’t hide in the darkness forever.

He continues to scrawl.

I have entertained it, for a time. But I need a partner who is as proud to be mine as I am to be his. I want the public displays of affection, the dates in the daylight; yes, even the slow-dancing.

Harry pauses his penmanship for a moment, recalling the last, shameful private moment he had spent with the man.

The man he loved.

Loves, still.

I don’t hide behind my darkness.

Harry soldiers on.

I try to keep the darkness hidden within me. But then it erupted in a violent burst because my heart was broken.

I’m so sorry, Severus.

There is no acceptable excuse for my actions in your office. I almost wish you had killed me in retaliation.

The thing is though, you have been killing me since half-term, you know that, don’t you? Day by day, moment by moment.

Every time you brushed me off, every time you kept your distance. Every time you stalked past me in the corridors, remaining in the shadows, never pulling me back to join you in the darkness once again.

You almost make me wish you never had.

Harry considers scoring out this last sentiment.

It feels almost sacrilegious to express, after every wonderful moment they had experienced together.

He resists the temptation to erase the truth from his highly personal essay.

The highs you brought me to could only be rivalled by the lows of withdrawal - suffering the loss of that same adrenaline.

The only thing that keeps me sane is the thought that you are just hiding in the same shadows that have kept your true colours hidden for so long.

I don’t expect you to change your thinking. You are as stubborn as ever and not even the finest fuck I was capable of giving you will sort that out.

I once wrongly called you a coward. You didn’t deserve it then. I don’t know if you deserve it now. Is it bravery that allows you to walk away so stoically from what you clearly want and need? Or is it cowardice that prevents you from claiming it openly?

If you are as brave as I think you are, then step out of that self-imposed prison of darkness and dance with me at the ball on Friday.

Harry wonders if Snape will read it, even actually grade it. He thinks that he probably will. His ex-lover is nothing if not meticulous about such things.

***

He receives his answer when the parchment is magically returned to him two days later.

Severus has given his short essay an ‘E’ - for Exceeds Expectations.

Severus spends more time in his pensieve memories than out these past few months, it seems.

He has never before been prone to fits of melancholy, an uncharitable way of expressing that he has sabotaged something important to him and that he is sad about it.

Of course, he chooses to view it as an appalling weakness, rather than the natural result of someone mourning what they have lost - not to mention, grieving what could have been.

So he spends his school days resolutely not thinking about Potter, which is challenging, particularly when Potter is right in front of him.

Then he spends his evenings either getting drunk (to avoid thinking about Potter), abusing his supply of dreamless sleep potion (to avoid thinking about Potter) and then finally, when he can take it no longer, he draws silver strands of memories from his temples (when he is ready to stop delaying the inevitable).

He steps into the memories of recent months, and allows himself to finally reflect, to think, to feel.

He sees Potter fucking him, with what can only be described as an expression of reverance on the young face.

He sees himself being fucked, witnesses his own facial contortions and hears his own wanton pleas.

‘Master, use me!’ The memory-Snape begs in urgency. ‘Take it all out on me, master.’

A sheen of sweat is visible on his lover’s face as he does his best to make Snape feel like he doesn't care for him, like he is just a convenient hole to be fucked, but looking at them now just highlights how far from the truth that actually was for Potter.

Present-day Severus watches himself objectively and is surprised to note that an arseful of Harry Potter’s cock can make even his ugly countenance glow with something akin to beauty.

He deserved that punch in the face, he thinks
to himself. Watching that dazzling young man climax inside him makes him think of the great muggle artists - Da Vinci, Monet, Picasso.

Severus feels like a reprobate that took
a great piece of artwork - a masterpiece, in fact - then tore it all up.

Then set it on fire, then pissed on it for good measure.

Severus turns away from this oft-replayed scenario, disgusted with himself, but not actually sure what he would have done differently if he were handed a time-turner right there and then.

The eighth-year ball is approaching, in two days time. He has just sent a final piece of work back to his ex-lover, which spoke of far too many home truths for comfort.

Snape isn't honestly sure why he set the essay. Perhaps because he knew that they couldn't leave things like this.

Potter would never allow it. Not in the end.
He was too ashamed of his violent outburst to confront Severus again recently, but that wouldn't last forever.

Eventually, he would match straight back in to the castle, demanding to know exactly why.

But in the short response he turned in, Potter has proven he knows already.

Severus thinks of the challenge issued.

If you are as brave as I think you are, then step out of that self-imposed prison of darkness and dance with me at the ball on Friday.

Potter seems to always know how to get his attention, even as a younger student. No one has ever been able rile him up like that young man.

Even if more recently he has been riled up into an excruciatingly pleasurable frenzy.

Severus knows full well that he will be expected to attend the ball, to supervise. There is no acceptable excuse to avoid it.

Even feigning a nasty dose of wizard flu would only result in Potter hammering on the door of his private quarters, making a scene.

And even if not... hiding away like that would prove him a coward to the boy. Yes, Potter knows all of the right buttons to press.

He would rather suffer the indignity of the badly-timed slow dance than appear to cowardly.

So that is what he decides to do.

***

Severus sees Potter in dress robes of dazzling green.

He swears his heart momentarily stops beating.

He is in black himself, of course, but he has made a concession to the occasion by swapping into his robes of the finest fibres.

The boy is kept busy, with his other professors, his peers, talking jovially and laughing riotously.

Even so, Severus notes that the green eyes are never off him for very long.

The band plays fast number after fast number, foxtrot, quickstep, even an Irish jig.

Severus starts to think (panic) that perhaps the opportunity won't come.

But then, the band takes a break and returns with a waltz, and Potter is right there beside him.

‘Will you take the lead in this?’ Harry asks him. He has correctly surmised that Severus will oblige him.

Severus nods and places them in a waltz hold. Not the best at being led, Potter moves in closer than is typically properly.

Meaning to sigh, or even admonish, Severus takes in breath but then just ends up inhaling tne scent of the young man, all but undone by having him in his arms.

So they dance.

Severus is certain they look ridiculous, is convinced they'll be a laughing stock over the front page of the Daily Prophet the next morning.

He banishes the self-conscious thoughts from his mind temporarily.

For Harry.

‘I like your dress robes,’ he murmurs awkwardly.

Potter grins before he can help himself.

‘Slytherin green,’ he points out to Severus brightly, before clearing his throat and allowing the silence to take over again as they sway together.

‘This is -’ Severus begins and falters. ‘This is just a dance, Potter. You understand that?’

‘What else would it be?’ the young man pretends with a fake innocence.

‘It is just for this moment,’ Severus warns him more seriously. ‘Not to be repeated.’

‘Never?’ Harry asks lightly, despite the question being particularly loaded.

Severus struggles to say what he feels he really should.

‘Not now.’ he settles for instead.

‘So, not never.’ Harry surmises with a small, smug smirk.

Severus is not Sybil fucking Trelawney, he doesn't pretend to know what the long-term future has in store.

So instead of responding further, he gracefully finishes the dance.

It seems to be enough for Harry.

‘I’ll be back here.’ he promises both himself and Snape.

Severus bites back the question he longs to ask - when.

Harry answers it anyway.

‘I don't know when,’ he whispers softly as the music gradually slows to a halt.

‘Just… not never.’ Severus replies, echoing the boy’s own words.

Harry gives the older man’s hand a quick squeeze before returning to his flabbergasted friends.

‘Exactly,’ the younger wizard says, with a quiet determination, as he turns to walk away.

For now.