Archive of Our Own

All days are nights to see till I see thee,
And nights bright days when dreams do show thee me.
Shakespeare, Sonnet 43, lines 13-14

The first dream Severus Snape sends arrives in an ornate glass phial, ruby red and glistening in the light of Harry’s mind’s eye.

There’s a small place card set beside the phial. It’s of a heavy, cream cardstock, as one might find on a table setting at a fancy dinner party. Harry’s sleeping-self appreciates the attention to detail.

He would recognise the man’s handwriting anywhere. Narrow and cramped. A precise, spidery scrawl. ‘Drink me.’

Harry recalls a similar directive in a story he read as a child. Alice down the rabbit hole.

He picks up the potion. The glass is warm to the touch, and it’s beautiful, shimmering as Harry turns the phial around. But he knows he can’t discern its contents by sight alone.

He doubts Snape would set out to poison him in a dream, though. And the man’s dead, besides.

That will be a problem for his waking-self, anyhow.

All right, then. Bottoms up. Down the hatch.

Alice turned out all right, in the end.

The potion tastes like nothing at all.

***

The next dream is a serpentine green. Prettier, perhaps, than the ruby red potion, but smoking rather ominously.

‘Not poison!’ The placard proclaims.

Harry laughs and drinks it down.

It feels like slipping into a warm bath. Water so calm and comfortable, you could fall asleep and not realise you were drowning until you woke gasping for air.

***

The first time Snape is waiting for him on the other side of his dream, Harry has to close his eyes. He feels like pinching himself, but he doesn’t want to wake up.

“You’re here,” Harry says, when he opens his eyes and Snape is still sitting there.

Harry sounds breathless. He thinks he’s smiling.

“These are my dreams, are they not?” Snape says. And his voice—his voice is exactly as Harry remembers it. It’s as though that snake did no damage to his throat at all. But, then again, it is a dream.

“I thought these were my dreams,” Harry says. And Snape smiles—an actual, honest-to-god smile. It looks good on him, Harry thinks. Snape looks younger, softer. Or, maybe, just not so tired as he always used to be, that final year when they were all running on fumes and trying not to die.

“What—where—?” Harry starts, because he has so much to say. So much to ask, but he doesn’t know where to begin. He looks around. They’re in Snape’s old office at Hogwarts. He’s recreated the room perfectly, but of course he has.

Even the air is perfect. That cool, familiar, dampness of the dungeons. The magic pulsing beneath Harry’s feet and in the stone walls surrounding them.

Snape leans back in his chair, legs crossed, ankle resting on a knee, and regards Harry. He feels awkwardly, agonisingly, on display. Which is ridiculous—this is all Snape’s doing. So, he holds out his hands, as if to say, well, how do I look? “Should I turn around for you?”

Snape laughs. “That won’t be necessary.” But he continues to look.

He’s dressed casually. Or, Harry supposes, casually for him. Dark trousers. White button-up. Sleeves rolled up to the elbow. Harry can see the Mark, dark against the pale skin of Snape’s left forearm. Still, it seems faded somehow. Almost an afterthought after years of disuse. Or a detail Snape chose to ignore in his dream construction.

Harry can’t help it. He rubs at his forehead. The scar is there, puffy and swollen and exactly as it was the last time Snape saw him. The night of the battle, in the shack, before… “It’s better now,” Harry says. “Usually, I don’t notice it at all.”

“Yes,” Snape says. “I imagine it is.”

Harry has the sudden urge to lift up his shirt, to inspect the rest of his body—his scars. He doesn’t, of course.

“I’ve missed you,” he says instead. Which, what—? But it’s true. And there’s no harm in this dream-Snape hearing that, surely.

Snape looks stunned, however, as if this Harry he’s conjured to his post-mortem dream-state has somehow caught him off-guard. “You…what?”

But Harry is shaking his head because, no, he’s not doing that. “Why am I here?” He asks instead. “What’s going on?”

Snape frowns. He gives Harry that same look he saw time and time again in the Potions classroom. The look that says, ‘Isn’t it obvious, Potter?’ Or, ‘Christ, you truly are an idiot.’ But Snape merely says, “Come with me.”

Despite the attention Snape clearly paid to his office, the corridors are a bit of a mess. The dimensions seem ever-so-slightly off. Too narrow here, too wide there. That ceiling too high and that doorway too close to the next. The tapestries look more like brushstrokes on canvas. Not afterthoughts, not really, but…placeholders. As though Snape knew they belonged—because of course he did—and therefore could not bring himself to leave them out. But didn’t have the time or desire to bother with painstaking recreation.

Harry is still impressed.

The magic here is absurd, even if he has no fucking clue what’s going on.

They walk for a few minutes, but have not gone down nearly enough hallways, have made three wrong turns, and have climbed zero staircases when they pass the Great Hall and immediately find themselves in the main foyer.

Snape opens the doors, and they emerge, not into the castle’s courtyard, but directly onto the sloping lawn leading down towards the lake.

It’s not night out, but it’s not daytime either. Rather, it feels like that brief stretch in between. Dusk bleeding into twilight before the moon has fully risen and the stars come out.

Harry realises he’s stopped to stare up at the purple-grey sky. It’s beautiful, but he must hurry to catch up with Snape again.

The lake’s surface is too still, like glass or an oil slick. But the ground is slightly damp when he sits down, and the sand is cool and grainy beneath his fingers. He hears a gentle sloshing—water lapping against its shore, even as there are no visible ripples to see. No movement at all.

Harry wonders if Snape has envisioned the giant squid or the colony of merfolk deep below the lake’s smooth surface.

“Wow,” Harry says, when Snape has not said anything at all. “It’s perfect.” Because it is, and Harry doesn’t know what else to say, sat here beside Snape in his dream.

“In the gloaming,” Snape finally says. It sounds like agreement. He is not looking at Harry, and Harry wants to know what he sees. What Snape’s dream-self sees, in this dream place he’s conjured up.

“I still don’t understand what’s happening,” he says.

“You,” Snape says, turning his head towards Harry, “are dreaming. And I… I am working through some things.”

“What things?”

Snape leans back, resting on his elbows on the wet sand. He closes his eyes. “What are they saying about me? Are they still looking for me?”

Harry frowns. He’s not sure what he was expecting. Though, he supposes, this makes as much sense as anything. “Not really,” Harry says. “I mean, the case is technically still open. Without—” he exhales, “without a body, you haven’t been declared dead. And you won’t be,” he looks at Snape again, trying to gauge a reaction, but Snape is still staring off over the lake, his expression calm, face perfectly blank. “Not yet. Not for a while.”

“No,” Snape says. “Not for seven years.”

Harry wants to know what would happen if he reached out and touched. Would he feel flesh and muscle, warmth and bone? Or would his hand pass through Snape’s body, like it would through one of Hogwarts’s ghosts. Snape doesn’t look like a ghost. And Harry certainly doesn’t feel like one. But he’s not the dead one here.

“Yeah. So, there’s still a trace on your magic. And an alert in our bullpen. But it’s just a formality. No one expects anything to come of it.” Harry looks down. His chest feels tight. He mourned Snape. After the battle. After he returned to the shack to find Snape’s body gone. It was… He takes a deep breath. “I looked for you, you know. For months. Long after we officially stopped looking. But I had to.” He looks at Snape again, but his face is still unreadable. “Ron thought I was crazy, and Robards had to take the team off. I mean, of course he did. But I couldn’t…Christ, Snape. That night, and you were just gone.”

Snape reaches out then, puts a hand on Harry’s back, right between his shoulder blades. And it feels warm and solid and so, so real. Harry shivers, closes his eyes and just breathes.

***

“What do you know about dream magic?” Harry asks Hermione the following day.

They are at an Italian place near Whitehall. They have lunch every week or so, when they can. Ron usually joins, but his team is on assignment in Newcastle today, so it’s just the two of them.

“Dream magic?” Hermione looks up. “There are potions to prevent dreams, obviously. And those that cause lucid dreaming. Heavily controlled, of course.”

Harry knows this. Their properties are close to peyote and LSD.

She waves off the waiter when he appears to take their order. “Another few minutes, please,” she says politely, looking back down at her menu. “What’s good here?”

“Everything, I think.”

Hermione laughs. “And you’ve tried all sorts of things, yes?”

“Maybe.”

“Uh huh, right. I’m sure you have.”

Harry laughs.

The waiter returns, Hermione orders a Caesar salad with chicken, Harry the spaghetti. He always orders the spaghetti.

“And I don’t mean dreamless sleep,” he says, once they’re alone again. “Or potions for, er, personal…recreation.” He winks at Hermione and she laughs, cheeks pinking slightly.

“Good, because I don’t think Ron would appreciate our discussing potion-induced dream fantasies over lunch.”

“Without him, here, you mean?”

Hermione laughs again. “Naturally.”

“But no,” Harry says. “I mean magic that allows for dream sharing or transfer. Or something like that.”

She frowns. “Your scar isn’t bothering you, is it?”

“No. It’s nothing like that. I would tell you if it was.” And he would.

Hermione purses her lips, but nods. She knows Harry wouldn’t lie to her. Well, wouldn’t lie to her about this.

She takes a sip of her water. “There is magic for dream sharing. It’s not something I’m familiar with, mind you. But there are Unspeakables that work with dreams. There’s always been an interest in manipulating them, of course. Personal entertainment aside, it would be a powerful tool of control.”

Their food arrives. Harry shakes his head at the waiter’s offer of cracked pepper and busies himself with spooning parmesan cheese out of the little bowl on the table.

“Is someone sending you dreams?” Hermione asks after a few minutes. She’s always too damned perceptive.

“Yeah. I think so.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know,” Harry lies. “But it’s not what you think,” he adds before she can say what he absolutely knows she’s thinking.

Hermione takes a bite of her salad.

“Well?” She prompts, when it’s clear Harry isn’t going to give her anything else.

He twirls some pasta around his fork. Hermione gives him a look.

He sighs. “Fine. When Voldemort was in my head, it was…invasive. He wasn’t supposed to be there, and I wasn’t supposed to see the things I saw. Even before I understood what was happening, it was clear I was eavesdropping or…trespassing. I wasn’t invited. And, thankfully, Voldemort didn’t know I was there, either.” He takes another bite of pasta, then spears a meatball with his fork. “This isn’t like that.”

He can tell Hermione is trying her very best to give him her ‘I am not alarmed’ face.

“Really, it’s not.”

“Unsolicited neuromancy is always concerning, Harry. And if you don’t know where it’s coming from—”

“No, I do.”

“But you said you didn’t know who was sending you the dreams.”

“No, that’s not—I mean it’s not unsolicited,” he tries to cover. “I’m making the choice to enter into them.” Hermione, shockingly, does not look reassured. “There’s no coercion or pressure,” Harry continues. “It’s entirely voluntary and,” he pauses, searching for the right word. “And innocuous.” He takes a sip of his water. “Besides, I’m not even sure it’s neuromancy.”

At Hermione’s look, he says. “Well, I mean, it’s probably neuromancy, but I can’t tell for certain.”

He’s not sure how Hermione’s expression manages to be so fond, so exasperated, and so concerned all at once. “Yes,” she says slowly. “It likely is. At the very least, there must be some mind magic component. I can’t think of how dream transfer could work otherwise.”

“Right.”

They finish their meals silently. Hermione is clearly thinking over what he’s said, and Harry knows better than to try to distract her.

Finally, she sets her fork down on the side of her plate and dabs at her mouth with her napkin. “And you know you haven’t been exposed to anything? No potions or unknown spellwork.”

Harry shakes his head, swallowing the last bite he’s chewing. “No.” He doesn’t tell her about the potions Snape is leaving for him in his dreams. That’s part of the dream, after all. Not the cause.

“Okay,” she says.

Harry signals the waiter for the cheque and hands him his bank card.

“Regardless, Harry,” Hermione says gently, “you still have to stop whoever—or whatever—is sending you these dreams. You can’t know their intentions.”

Harry nods.

“I’m serious. Please tell me you won’t let them send you anymore.”

“I won’t.”

It’s a lie, of course.

***

The next potion waits in a crystal goblet and smells faintly of cherries.

Harry notes that Snape did not leave any reassuring messages tonight, but he drinks it anyway. It’s sweet, almost refreshing.

Snape is waiting for him when he emerges into the dream.

The man rolls his eyes. “Didn’t I teach you anything?”

Harry laughs. “Well, yes, but I took a chance that you weren’t actually going to poison me.”

“Potions that smell of cherries are—”

“Almost always laced with cyanide. Yes, I know.”

“And yet you drank it down without thought.”

“I thought about it.”

At Snape’s raised eyebrow, Harry amends. “I thought about it briefly.” Then, “It’s a dream, Snape.”

“Doesn’t make it less real.”

***
Gin’s in his flat when he gets home from the Ministry the following evening.

He’d given her a key a few months ago—it seemed only proper—and he’s pleased she feels comfortable letting herself in. Though, she doesn’t do so often.

Tonight, she’s in the kitchen making dinner. She’s dressed casually in joggers and one of Harry’s old Quidditch t-shirts. And she looks beautiful. Something tightens in Harry’s chest at the sight, but he can’t explain the feeling.

“Hey,” she says, smiling as he sets his messenger bag down. She turns for a kiss and Harry presses his lips briefly to her cheek. “How was your day?”

“Good. Ron’s team finally caught a lead in that Newcastle case,” he says. “And I’m—I’m busy.” He takes the beer Ginny hands him and pops the cap with a wave of his hand. She’s got a bottle of wine open on the table, her glass sitting beside it.

“You always are.”

After dinner, Harry sets the dishes to washing. Ginny pours herself another half-glass of wine and leans against the side. “You want to watch a show, or something? Or just head to bed.”

Harry knows she wants sex. Her disappointment is palpable when he tells her he has a case file he must look at, but he’ll be along in a bit. She sighs but hands him her now-empty glass and leaves him alone in the kitchen.

Harry does have case files to go over. He always has case files to go over. But he doesn’t need to do so now. He should leave his work for the morning, turn off the lights, and follow Gin to the bedroom. But the thought of her hands, her lips on his skin right now makes him uncomfortable in a way he doesn’t want to think about. So, he takes another beer, sits back down at the table, and pulls a file jacket from his bag.

Gin’s asleep when he finally goes to bed. But he’d planned it that way, of course.

It makes him feel like the world’s shittiest boyfriend, but he’s too tired to think about that right now.

There is no dream waiting for him when he falls asleep.

***

Harry is distracted at work the next day. He sits at his desk in the bullpen reading the same file notes over again for the fourth time. The words all seem to run together, and he takes off his glasses to rub at his eyes.

Gin is funny and kind. She’s gorgeous, clever, fantastic at magic, and a professional athlete, for Merlin’s sake. Not to mention, she’s his best mate’s kid sister. Harry’d be mad not to want her. And he does want her. Of course, he does. They’re perfect together.

It doesn’t matter that they haven’t had sex in—Christ—Harry can’t even remember. A while, he thinks. But they’re just in a bit of a rut. Gin’s busy with training, and Harry’s stressed at work. He’s not getting enough sleep. Or, he’s getting too much sleep but not enough rest. But, regardless, he’s got a lot on his mind right now.

Things will come around with Gin.

They always do.

The problem is, for the first time Harry can remember, he’s not entirely sure he wants them to.

Maybe he should talk to someone. To Ron or Hermione. They’re good with relationships. They would listen; they would understand. But the only person Harry really wants to talk to right now is Snape.

And that’s absurd for so many reasons. First of all, the man is dead. And he’s somehow still sending Harry dreams. They hated each other, when Snape was alive. Harry now realises that he didn’t actually know Snape at all. And, obviously, Snape is the very last person he should talk to about his girlfriend.

Harry puts his pen down and gets up from his desk. He needs a break. He needs a cup of coffee. Or, maybe, a nap.

***

“I missed you last night.” The words are out before Harry can think better of it.

Because seriously? That really isn’t the type of thing he should be saying to Severus Snape.

Snape rolls his eyes. But Harry thinks there might be fondness there. He’s not sure what to do with that, so he looks away.

They’re in a small, shabby sitting room. Harry hasn’t been here before, but he recognises it all the same. The house from Snape’s memories. The one he grew up in.

“Where are we?” he asks, just to hear what Snape says.

“My father’s house. Or,” he glances around, “I suppose it’s my house now.”

Snape sits down on the sofa. He’s bruised and tired. Harry wonders what night he’s recreating. What injuries he’s sustained. Harry’s tired too.

A fire is burning in the hearth. Harry can hear the hiss and snap of the logs. Smell the faint hint of wood smoke. Snape has been meticulous with that, of course. There are bookshelves lining the walls and three throw pillows on the sofa. A half-drunk cup of tea sits on the side table. Harry wonders if they could eat or drink here, in these dreams. What would it feel like if they did?

He sits down beside Snape.

“What happened tonight?” he asks. “Why are we here?”

“Nothing important.” Snape sounds so tired. His lip is cut, his cheek bruised.

“You’re hurt,” Harry says. “That’s important enough.”

“It was war. I was often hurt.”

“I know.”

Harry turns to look at Snape. He runs his thumb along his lower lip. The blood has dried. Snape shivers at the pulse of Harry’s magic. The bruise fades.

It feels natural, then to settle back against Snape, to rest his head on his shoulder. Snape stiffens at first, but relaxes again.

Harry exhales.

Tentatively, Snape runs a hand up and down Harry’s arm. The touch feels good. It feels so, so good.

Snape looks down at him sleepily. Harry shifts so Snape can slip his arm around him. “This is nice,” Harry says. Because it is. And it’s also all wrong.

A log pops and cracks on the fire. Harry hears a car drive past outside. Snape closes his eyes.

Harry doesn’t know what’s wrong about it. It’s beautiful here and it feels so much like home. But he also feels a dull ache in the pit of his stomach, and he doesn’t know what to do with it.

“There were many nights,” Snape says carefully, “when I came back here. Or to my rooms at Hogwarts after…” He takes a deep breath.

Harry doesn’t need to ask what he means by after. He knows.

“And, and I used to think how nice it would be to have someone to come back to. Someone who cared that I made it back alive.”

“I would have cared.”

“I know.”

Harry wonders if Snape is making dreams for anyone else. He doesn’t think so, but he doesn’t want to ask.

Snape’s hand falls to Harry’s hip. They sit there quietly for a while. Harry still isn’t sure how time works here, in this dream world Snape has constructed for them. Snape yawns, but Harry’s eyes are closed and he opens them again too late to see it.

Has Snape noticed his hunger for these moments of inhibition, of… quiet domesticity? Harry’s sure he has. The man was a spy. He misses nothing.

And Harry wants to keep from falling asleep, but it’s a losing battle. It always is.

Inevitably, he will fall asleep and wake up in his own bed alone.

***

The next time Snape leaves him a dream, it takes the form of a silver chalice. Liquid so cold and clear it could be water going down.

When he opens his eyes, Snape is standing there.

Harry smiles.

“Do you brew all these specifically for me?”

Snape raises an eyebrow because of course he does. “Obviously.”

“How do you do it?”

“Dream building is not all that different from potions work,” Snape says in an entirely non-answer.

“Now, come with me.”

He holds out a hand and Harry takes it without hesitation. Snape’s palm is warm and calloused. From wandwork and brewing, Harry thinks. But Severus Snape has never actually held his hand. He wonders whose hand he has held to inform the memory he used to craft this feeling—their hands together—in this dream.

But Harry forces himself to stop thinking about that because it makes his head hurt and sends a twinge of something too close to jealousy twisting in his gut.

They’re back at Hogwarts. This time he follows Snape through empty halls towards Dumbledore’s old office.

“So, you’re Morpheus now, yeah?” Harry says as they turn a corner. They’re passing the kitchens. Snape’s floorplan is such a mess.

Snape stops and turns. He looks genuinely pleased. “And which gate would you choose? Ivory or horn?”

“Ivory, of course.”

“Really? And here I thought Gryffindors could stand nothing less than honesty and truth at all times.”

“But I thought…” Harry frowns, because surely Snape understands. “Isn’t this all a lie?”

Something softens in Snape’s expression then. He reaches out, brushes a finger down Harry’s cheek. The touch feels more real than anything Harry could dream up.

“Is it?”

The gargoyle is waiting when they reach the staircase, but Snape merely nods and they are let through. He was Headmaster, too, after all. And it’s his dream.

As the circular stair takes them upwards, Harry trails his hand along the wall, looking for cracks, for holes in the creation. But the stone is rough and perfect under his fingertips.

Harry still can’t fathom the magic involved here, and he wants to ask Snape about it. There is so much he wants to ask him.

The office itself seems more hastily thrown together, and this pleases Harry. He’s starting to enjoy discovering the things Snape takes his time with—the details he cares about.

A fire burns low in the hearth, casting the room in shadows and giving everything a smudged quality. The familiar silver instruments litter Dumbledore’s desk, though. The one on the end is whirring contentedly. But when Harry touches it, it only shudders. No puffs of coloured smoke.

“You didn’t get this one right,” Harry says, and Snape grunts.

“Ridiculous contraption. Come here.”

Harry follows Snape around the desk to one of the tall bookshelves.

The books are a random assortment. Not an accurate facsimile of Dumbledore’s collection, but rather—Harry knows surely—thrown together at Snape’s fancy.

Harry imagines the myriad bookshelves in Snape’s life, informing these titles. He wants to take his time looking, to run his fingers over the spines, but Snape is pulling a battered copy of T. H. White’s The Once and Future King off the lowest shelf, revealing a secret compartment behind. There is a small box hidden there. Snape removes it and sets it on the desk. It’s of a dark, polished wood, approximately six inches square, and unremarkable, aside from the fact that there seems to be no latch or grove to open the lid.

“The book is not warded,” Snape says, nodding back to the shelf. He pulls his wand from his pocket. “But this case is.” He drags the tip of his wand down his palm, cutting the skin. Harry watches as he presses his bloody hand to the surface of the box. It glows faintly before opening with a click.

“There is a phial of blood in the drawer beside my bed, in my old rooms. The enchantments will let you in.”

“Okay.” Harry nods, as Snape sets the lid aside. Inside the box are a half a dozen slender phials, each labelled in Dumbledore’s precise, narrow hand. Snape takes one. The silvery substance inside swirls and shimmers in the low light of the room.

Memories.

“You will get these for me?” Snape asks. “Minerva will let you up.”

Harry’s throat feels dry. His heart is beating too fast for a dream. “Yeah, I’ll get them.” He’s desperately curious to see what memories Dumbledore left behind that Snape took such pains to keep hidden.

“Thank you.”

***

Harry returns to Hogwarts—awake—the following day.

Minerva is happy to see him. It’s been too long, of course, and they chat over a pot of tea and some chocolate biscuits. Harry tells her about a case he recently worked, where the perp was transfiguring Galleons into blister beetles to protect his money during drug deals in case things went south. But he got too ambitious, tried to extend his operation to the continent. Didn’t realise customs cares more about exotic insects than coins.

Minerva laughs. “The entire operation blown by a beetle.”

“Pretty much.” Harry takes his last swallow of tea.

“So, what can I do for you?” Minerva asks then. “A visit is lovely, but I know you didn’t come all this way just to catch up.”

Harry rubs at the back of his neck. “No, I didn’t. I’d hoped to stop by Dumbledore’s office for a few minutes. There was a book he—”

But Minerva is already waving her hand. “Of course, Harry, take all the time you need. Do say goodbye on your way out, though.”

He leaves Minerva’s at her desk, closing the door softly behind him. As Headmistress, she’s kept her office on the first floor of the castle, never moving up into the old Headmaster’s tower. The location makes sense—so close to the Entrance Hall. And Harry supposes she prefers the familiarity.

The castle is quiet. Students won’t return from summer holidays for another few weeks. Harry doesn’t see anyone on his way down to the dungeons. Snape’s office door is exactly where it always was. Harry knows the castle changes, rearranges itself to accommodate its residents. He wonders at its leaving Snape’s quarters as they were. Or why the new Potions instructor did not take them over. It’s nice, he supposes, that Hogwarts has remembered Snape in this way.

He takes a deep breath and places his hand on the door. Just as Snape said, the protective enchantments shift to allow Harry inside. The office is just as Harry remembers from school, and, more recently, from Snape’s dreams. The door behind Snape’s desk is not locked. Harry opens it and slips inside.

He’s never been in Snape’s private rooms before. It looks as though the man has just stepped out and will return soon, not that he left for the last time one night over five years ago. He doesn’t want to snoop, but he can’t help the urge to look around for just a minute.

There is a stack of potions journals on the coffee table—the top one from fall of 1996—and a book of crossword puzzles with a blue ballpoint marking a place between the pages. On the side table sits a nearly full bottle of whiskey and an empty glass. Harry runs a finger over the table’s surface. There is no dust. The house elves must still clean.

There is a small kitchen off to one side, and a hallway leading back to what Harry presumes is the bedroom on the other. He goes that way.

It feels so personal, being in Snape’s private space and, not for the first time, Harry wonders at Snape’s decision to entrust him with this. With his dreams and the life he left behind.

Snape’s bed is unmade, and there’s a robe thrown over the back of the room’s one chair. But, otherwise, the space is tidy.

There’s a battered copy of some Muggle crime novel on Snape’s bedside table, and that makes Harry smile. Makes something warm twist in his chest.

The drawer is warded, but it opens at Harry’s touch. As though he’s expected. As though he’s supposed to be here.

There are a few crumpled receipts. A small notebook tied with a cord. Two ballpoint pens. A handful of loose coins. A jar of neatly labeled bruise paste. And a half-empty bottle of lube. Which, oh my god, Harry is going to have to think about later. But now he only pushes the notebook aside and, there, in the back, is a single phial of blood.

***

Harry Apparates directly to Grimmauld Place from Hogwarts.

He lived here for a bit after the war. For the first several months of Auror training. But there were too many memories. And Kreacher—while as tolerant and accommodating as he could stand to be—definitely preferred his solitude. So, Harry moved into the small Camden flat and has, for the most part, enjoyed having his own place.

Still, he comes for dinner every week or so. Kreacher likes cooking and, Harry thinks, enjoys his company in very small doses.

The elf appears with a pop just moments after Harry’s entered the library. “Is Master Harry joining me for dinner tonight?”

“Yeah, that would be nice.”

“Fish or chicken?” Kreacher asks. “I have a lovely halibut. Fresh at the market. Was planning for one, but can serve two, most likely.”

“The halibut sounds great.”

Kreacher nods. “Is you needing any help?” he says then, looking around suspiciously. Harry has known Kreacher for over a decade now, but he still seems to worry about leaving Harry unattended among the Black family heirlooms.

“No, thank you. I just need to use the Pensieve. I’ll come down when I’m done.”

Kreacher considers this for a moment and then nods. “All right. I is thinking red wine with dinner. I will pick one you like. Not too sweet.” Then he’s gone with a loud crack.

Harry smiles. Sirius would get a kick out of his old house elf making himself at home in the wine cellar.

Harry takes the Pensieve out from the storage chest and sets it on the table.

The phials are numbered one through six, neatly labelled with dates spanning some eighteen months up to the time of Dumbledore’s death. He takes the first memory and pours it out into the Pensieve’s bowl.

It’s a defence.

Carefully detailed and methodically arranged.

Harry is not a barrister, but he knows his way about the legal system.

While Snape’s own memories, given under duress and at time of death, could be challenged in court, Dumbledore’s—once confirmed as unadulterated and authentic—would be indisputable.

The thought of Snape being officially cleared of all suspicion and of all charges thrills Harry. He feels giddy.

After the war, Harry had shown Kingsley the memories Snape had given him the night of the final battle. Part of him felt like it was a violation. They were not his memories to share. But Snape was gone, and Harry wanted people to know the truth.

Snape wasn’t a traitor. And he didn’t deserve to die the way he did.

But those memories alone hadn’t been enough for an official pardon, even posthumously.

Harry could prove they hadn’t been altered. Their accuracy couldn’t be challenged, but first-person recollections were rarely given unequivocal weight in court unless corroborated by additional sources.

There were so many details about the war that were best kept from the public. Snape’s role as a spy, his allegiance to Dumbledore were among them.

It was enough that Kingsley quietly took Snape off their most-wanted list. That there would be no further investigation into his alleged wartime crimes. And that a handful of select Aurors, the Weasleys, and Snape’s closest friends—Minerva and Filius, Hagrid and Argus Filch—knew the truth.

But now… Now with these memories—with such irrefutable evidence not only of Snape’s innocence, but also his heroism—Harry wonders if he can finally get Snape the pardon he so deserves.

***

“What do you want me to do with the memories?”

Snape hums. “I’m not sure yet. I’ll let you know when I decide.”

“Okay.”

They’re in Snape’s office again. Snape is behind his desk, dressed more casually than Harry has ever seen him. Soft, grey, cashmere pullover and dark trousers. Harry is wearing a Weasley jumper. It’s comfortable and worn and fits him perfectly, but it most closely resembles one Harry got from Molly over a decade ago. A deep maroon with a tiny dragon curled around a golden H. Snape must remember Harry wearing it back at Hogwarts. He’s not sure how he feels about that.

“You looked at them, then? Everything?”

“Yes, of course,” Harry says. “Was I not supposed to?”

“No, you were.”

Harry tugs at a thread on the jumper’s sleeve. It pulls slightly then starts to unravel. Harry stops. He leans forwards instead, letting his hands fall between his knees. Dream or not, Snape never fails to make him feel as though he’s on uneven footing. “I still have your other memories, you know. From the night in the shack,” Harry clarifies, as if either of them could ever forget.

“Yes.”

“I showed them to Kingsley.”

Snape raises an eyebrow, but offers no other response.

“No one else saw. I promise. But I needed to show Kingsley. He had to know.”

“And why did you feel he needed to know?”

“Because you were on our side all along.” Harry’s voice is too loud. But the answer is obvious. “You were working with Dumbledore and, in the end, we wouldn’t have won without you.”

Snape looks at him for a moment, as though he’s puzzling something out. But there’s no press of magic. No brush of Snape’s mind against his. Then again, would Snape even need mind magic to know what Harry’s thinking? It’s his dream, after all. He wrote the script.

“No,” Snape agrees. “Likely not.” He drums his fingers on his desk and looks almost bored. As though they’re talking about the weather, or Gryffindor’s chances to win the House Cup and not Snape’s innocence. His reputation. Then, “You didn’t show your friends? Mr. Weasley or Ms. Granger?”

“No.”

“It would have been all right if you had.”

“I know. And I told them what I saw—well, some of it, anyway.”

Harry thinks about the flashes Snape showed him of his childhood. The things Harry saw about his own mother. About how much Snape loved her. “But some of that was private.”

“But Kingsley?”

“He was heading the Death Eater investigations. He became Minister. It was important he see the evidence directly, even though you were…gone.” The word feels wrong, somehow. Unsubstantial. But Harry can’t bring himself to say dead. He hadn’t wanted to admit it then, and he certainly won’t now. Not sitting in front of this version of Snape. “We can trust Kingsley with these, too. If you want.”

***

The following night, Harry wakes in Snape’s father’s old house again. They lie curled together on the couch. A candle sputters on the mantel. Harry stretches, then turns in Snape’s arms.

Snape is watching him; his eyes on him feel like a tangible thing.

“Have you done this for others?” he asks “Sent them dreams?”

For a moment, Harry doesn’t think Snape will answer, but then he feels him shake his head. “No.”

It sounds like a confession.

“Good.”

***

The first time Harry happens upon a mirror in one of the dreams, he laughs out loud.

“I don’t look like this.”

“My memory has always been exceptional.”

“What, you remember me as part-Veela?”

“Of course not.” Snape looks offended. “Everyone knows there’s something not right with Veela. And you have lovely skin.”

***

They emerge into a thicket of trees, warm sunlight filtering through the canopy overhead. In the distance, Harry can hear the sound of rushing water.

“I know this place,” Harry says. “From your memories.”

“Yes.” Snape sits down and stretches out on the grass. He folds an arm behind his head and closes his eyes. “I used to come here with your mother.”

Harry sits cross-legged beside him. The grass is soft beneath his fingers. Each blade carefully attended to. There is a breeze, soft against his face. It rustles in the leaves above their heads.

“You loved her.”

“You know I did.”

“Did you ever sleep with her?”

Snape smiles. He does not open his eyes. “No.”

Still, Harry feels his cheeks pink with embarrassment. He wonders what he looks like in Snape’s mind’s eye, his skin flushed with warmth. “Did you want to?”

“No.”

Somewhere, a bird chirps. Harry looks down at Snape. His skin is smooth and pale. There are no dark circles below his eyes, and his throat, here at least, is not yet scarred. He looks so content and so…young. Harry wants to reach out and touch. He plucks at a blade of grass instead, pulls it apart between his fingers.

Suddenly, and with a desperate sort of need, he wants this to be real.

But it isn’t and Snape is gone. This is just what he’s chosen to leave behind.

That realisation rises like bile in his throat.

“Did you have a girlfriend—or a boyfriend—before?” Harry knows Snape wasn’t married, but apart from the few glimpses of his childhood, his friendship with his mother, and, of course, his dislike of his father and Sirius, Harry knows very little about his personal life.

Now, Snape does open his eyes. “We were at war, Potter. I was a spy. Where do you think a relationship would have fit in?”

“I’m not sure.” Harry’s head hurts. He wants to see Snape. To touch him. He hates that this is only a dream, only what Snape has elected to give him. “I don’t want this,” he says. “I want…” He closes his eyes. “I want something real.”

“I’ve told you before. This is real.”

“No, not really. You know what I mean.”

“What do you mean?”

“You built this for me, but we’re not—we’re not anything, and when I wake up, I’m alone.”

Snape sits up. They have not talked much about Harry’s life. About what he does and who he’s with when he’s not asleep.

“You’re not alone, though, are you? You have Ms. Weasley.”

Harry’s not sure what to say. He does and he doesn’t have Gin. But he knows he doesn’t want to talk to Snape about it.

“She doesn’t know where I go when I fall asleep, though. No one does.”

***

Sometimes the dreams feel like pulling on an old jumper—worn and soft and familiar in all the right places.

Others feel as though he’s stepped into the wrong room—thoughts all sitting at right angles until his perspective settles and Harry realises he’s just seeing things from Snape’s point of view. But still, he feels at home.

Harry wonders if he should be concerned that they’re starting to feel like old friends, starting to feel like, perhaps, something more.

***

“You look tired,” Ginny says over dinner the following week.

“I’m not sleeping well.” It’s true. Too much and not enough.

“Anything I can do?” There’s a suggestive lilt to her voice that makes Harry’s cheeks warm.

He laughs. “Maybe.”

Gin smiles, reaching out to cover his hand with hers. Her thumb strokes back and forth across his knuckles.

“So, you know that, er, incident we had last week trying to run down those potions smugglers near Diagon?”

“The one where you had to call out the Obliviators because your team pursued armed suspects into Trafalgar Square, cast three Impedimentias, a stunner, and a binding spell in broad daylight?”

“And an entire tour bus of Muggles saw our perps Disapparate into thin air?” Harry laughs. “Yeah, that one.”

Gin rolls her eyes and takes a sip of wine.

“If you could just finish the paperwork for me when you’ve got a chance because it’s turning into an administrative nightmare. And then, maybe, see if you can run down any leads because how the fuck did those morons manage to get away?” He shakes his head. “That would help.”

She smacks him on the forearm, but her smile is fond. “Not what I’m talking about.”

“I know.” He finishes his beer. “You want dessert?”

“Not tonight.”

“Okay.” Harry pays the cheque.

It’s a nice night and they walk the few blocks back to Harry’s flat.

Later, Harry lies awake listening to the soft sounds of Ginny’s breathing.

Her hair is down, a wash of red over her pillow and bare shoulder. Her skin is tanned from summer days spent flying. Harry gently traces a line of freckles beneath her collarbone with his finger. She shifts slightly, settling back against Harry’s side.

He should be happy.

He should buy a ring and ask her to marry him.

They could throw a big party in the Weasleys’ garden and he’d, finally, finally be part of their family for real.

But all he wants to do is roll over and fall asleep and see what dream Snape made for them tonight.

***

“You’re late.”

“I know. But I came.”

“You always come.”

They’re in Snape’s bed at Hogwarts. Snape is leaning against the headboard; Harry sits between his legs. His back against Snape’s chest, head resting on Snape’s shoulder. Snape’s hand is on Harry’s stomach, one fingertip stroking lightly along his waistband.

They’re wearing matching pyjamas. Dark, soft sleep pants, and long-sleeved t-shirts.

“I don’t sleep like this,” Harry says, looking down at his chest.

“How do you sleep?”

“In less.”

Harry thinks he feels Snape’s breath catch, but he covers it with a laugh. “You’re welcome to…adjust.”

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

For a moment Snape doesn’t respond, and Harry thinks, maybe, he’s said the wrong thing, that he’s misread the situation.

But then Snape says, “I would.”

The kiss is both familiar and unfamiliar. They’ve kissed and been kissed before, but never by the other. And Harry refuses to think that the press of their lips together, the touch of Snape’s hands on his skin is the press of someone else’s lips, the sensation of someone else’s skin under Snape’s fingertips.

Snape’s eyes are dark in the dim light of the room, and Harry wonders what he looks like to Snape now, cheeks flushed and lips wet and kissed swollen. He traces a hand down the side of Snape’s face. Snape’s cheek is smooth under his touch, and Harry smiles, curious if that’s oversight or if Snape can go days without shaving, without stubble.

He reaches his neck and pauses, tracing the thick lines of scar tissue there. He can feel the thrum of Snape’s pulse beneath his fingers, quickened now. Although Severus’s breathing remains steady, he is not unaffected.

“Is it sensitive?” Harry asks.

“Yes.”

Harry has a thought. He sits back and pulls his shirt up and off over his head. Severus’s eyes go wide watching him, but Harry looks down at his own chest, at the scars Snape has put there. He laughs. “Not even close.”

Snape shrugs. “I had to guess.”

“I know.” Harry leans in again, mouth close to Snape’s. “Would you like to see them for real? My scars.”

“God, yes.”

Snape kisses him again, tongue licking into Harry’s mouth. It’s filthy and perfect, and Harry marvels at how well they fit together, how naturally his body seems to move against Snape’s.

Though, of course, Snape would have scripted it this way, would have their dream-selves know each other as familiarly as lovers would.

Snape reaches down then to cup Harry’s erection in his hand, pressing his palm against it, rubbing slowly over soft fabric. It’s so, so good. Not enough and too much all at once. Fuck. “Fuck, Snape.”

“Severus,” he says, scraping his teeth along Harry’s jaw. “Call me Severus if you’re going to let me touch you like this.”

“Fuck, Severus,” Harry manages, arching up into the touch, pushing helplessly against him. God, he’s close. From only a few rough kisses and Snape’s hand on his cock over his pyjama bottoms. He wants Snape’s shirt gone. He wants all their clothes gone. He wants this to be reality and not a dream. He wants—fuck, he’s going to come, he—Snape starts to say something, but Harry doesn’t catch it, too focussed on staving off orgasm.

But he’s pulled up, out, and suddenly awake. He turns his head. Ginny looking down at him, concern printed all over her lovely, sleepy face.

“Hey,” she says, “you okay?”

Harry closes his eyes again to steady himself, nods without looking at her, trying desperately to calm his breathing. “Yeah,” he says, voice scratchy and raw. “Yeah.”

Never has he been more thankful for sleeping on his stomach. Fuck. He shifts his hips, discreetly pressing his aching cock to the mattress, trying to force the erection away. Another minute and he surely would have come all over himself. He takes a deep breath and then another. Opens his eyes again.

The room feels strange and not nearly as real as Snape’s dungeon bedroom had felt just moment ago. There’s something very wrong about that, but he doesn’t want to examine it further.

Ginny is touching his arm. “Bad dream?” she says.

Harry nods.

“You know, there’s no harm in taking some Dreamless Sleep. It might help, yeah?”

Harry laughs. “You’re right. Not sure why I hadn’t considered that.”

Gin frowns, unsure if Harry is mocking her. He’s not. But Dreamless Sleep isn’t an option. Obviously.

“But you won’t take it?” she asks carefully.

“If the dreams get worse again, I will,” he lies. “But you know I don’t like potions.” He tries to smile. It feels more like a grimace.

“But you’re so tired,” she says gently. “And I think it’s making you miserable.”

Of course, he’s miserable. But not for the reason she thinks. The dreams are not the nightmares. It’s the waking up that is. Gin still looks worried, but she doesn’t argue. She presses a kiss to Harry’s shoulder and settles back down against her pillow to go back to sleep.

Harry lies awake for a long time.

***

For the next seven nights, Harry ignores the dreams Snape leaves for him.

He’s known for weeks that this whole…thing with Snape was a problem. But waking up in his bed with his girlfriend with a hard dick and the sense of utter fucking loss in his chest made it too big to ignore.

He goes to the Ministry. He somehow feels more rested and utterly exhausted at the same time.

He sits in on a strategy meeting with Kingsley and Robards. He submits his outstanding paperwork, has lunch with Ron in the commissary, and joins his team one night for drinks at The Leaky Cauldron.

On the fifth night, he has dinner at the Burrow with Gin and her parents. It’s lovely. Chicken and vegetables. Mashed potatoes with butter. Carrot cake for dessert.

Gin wants to leave with him, but he cites field work and an early morning as an excuse and goes home alone.

That night is the first night Harry jerks off thinking about Severus Snape.

On the sixth night, he won’t let himself fall asleep because he knows he won’t be able to resist whatever Snape has left for him.

On the seventh, he can’t help himself.

He wakes to find himself in Snape’s office. Snape isn’t behind his desk. They’re both on the sofa. But they’re fully clothed and not touching.

“I prefer your bed,” Harry says.

“I wasn’t sure you were coming back.”

“I always come back.”

Snape nods in acknowledgement, but doesn’t say anything.

Harry wonders what dreams Ginny would make for him. Lemon-yellow sun, blue-crayon sky. Perhaps a beach. Somewhere tropical. He doubts she’d get the breeze right. Sea-spray and sun lotion. Lapping water and sand beneath his feet. Would she remember to do his scars?

Harry closes his eyes. The dungeons are cool and quiet. Harry smells woodsmoke and leather, parchment and old books, cloves and spice.

Snape’s air is always perfect.

***

“How did it feel, not thinking of me?”

“I always think of you. I can’t help it.”

“Do you?”

Harry looks at Snape, tries to read something in his expression. He thinks he’s better at it now, reading Snape. Or maybe it’s just that dream-Snape doesn’t have to hide everything away behind a mask of Occlumency and lies. “Of course, I do.”

“Even when you’re awake?”

“Especially then.”

Snape doesn’t smile, but his lips twitch slightly, and Harry can tell he’s pleased at this. Harry laughs. “Bastard.” Then, “My life was fine, you know. I have a great job. I like it, and I’m good at it. I have friends. A girlfriend. Everything was fine, until I fell asleep one night and found that damned potion waiting for me, and I couldn’t leave well-enough alone.”

“You were curious.”

“Of course, I was curious.”

“And now?”

“Now, what?”

Snape shrugs. “I’m not sure.”

Harry wants to laugh. Or maybe scream. “What are we even doing, Snape?”

“Severus.”

Harry glares.

“What? I thought we agreed you’d call me Severus.”

“Fine, sure. Severus, what are we doing? Because you’re dead, and I’m asleep.” Harry’s voice is too loud, but he feels like he’s going crazy. Or, maybe he has been crazy all along. “But it feels like we have something, right? Like this isn’t all in my head.” He covers his face with his hands and groans. “I mean, of course, it’s all in my head. It’s a fucking dream. But I want more. I want this to be real, and that scares me because I know that can’t happen, but I can’t stop thinking about it anyway.”

Snape looks sad at this. He puts a hand on Harry’s back, strokes up and down along his spine. Harry leans into it. Why does it always have to feel so good when Snape touches him? Fuck.

“It will be all right,” Snape says after a moment.

“Will it be?”

“Yes.”

Harry sighs. He’s so tired. He should wake up. He should go back to sleep and ignore whatever dreams are waiting for him. He rests his head on Snape’s shoulder, lets Snape continue to rub his back. “I just wish I knew you like this before.”

***

The next night, there are two phials: one labelled ‘Before,’ and the other, ‘After.’

Harry takes the ‘After,’ because he’s not sure what good going back will do. Snape is still gone. He’s still dead.

Harry wakes up in the shack. The battle is still going on, but it’s a muted and distant thing. There is blood on the floor, slick beneath Harry’s shoes. It’s on his hands, and it stains Snape’s shirt so dark it’s nearly black. But it does not smell the way Harry remembers—meaty and cloying and enough to clog Harry’s throat even though he’s not the one dying.

He laughs, because otherwise he would cry. “Have I told you how good your air is? Because ‘exceptional memory,’ or not, you’ve got this all wrong.”

Snape smiles from where he’s slumped against the wall. He holds out a hand, the one not pressed to the mess of his throat. “Here, come with me.”

“Is this what would have happened?” Harry asks. His chest is tight. His eyes feel hot, but he’s not going to cry. Not here. Not in Snape’s dream. “If I’d been stronger? If I’d been able to save you?”

“No,” Snape says, and Harry finally takes his hand. There’s so much blood. Harry tries not to look at his neck. “This is what did.”

There is a pulse of magic and Harry feels the familiar tug of a Portkey. Then the shack is falling away from them and Harry closes his eyes against the whirl and rush of it.

They land with a jolt, stumbling together into each other’s arms. Snape is still gripping Harry’s hand in his; his other hand clutches at Harry’s hip, before he steps away.

Snape’s vision swims, the edges of his dream awareness blurring with Harry’s. He is dizzy but does not fall. Yes, he is dying. But he thinks he might be saved. Between Harry’s magic still thrumming in his veins and his own contingencies…

Harry shakes his head. It’s never been quite like this, feeling Snape’s thoughts so acutely. He looks around. They are in a small flat. It is dark and cramped, with scuffed floors and peeling paint, but it is clean and recently inhabited.

There is a stainless-steel table occupying the small room’s centre—a makeshift potions worktop or medical table. Its surface is lined with rows of phials, neatly laid out and waiting. Snape waves a hand, and the oil lamp at one end sputters to life.

There’s a metal tray with suturing supplies, forceps and scissors, a scalpel and sterile gauze pads. Harry sees packets of alcohol swabs and a bottle of iodine solution. There are stacks of clean cloth next to an empty basin, and Snape takes one, pressing it to his throat. Harry wants to do something, anything to help. But this is a dream and he is not an active participant.

Still, he watches as Snape works. The basin is filled with hot water. Snape downs several of the waiting potions, grimacing at the taste, or maybe the pain. He has more dittany—a thick salve rather than the liquid drops Hermione had in her bag. His skin is pale and grey, but his breathing is steady, his pulse no longer as thready as before.

Harry wakes with a start, bolting upright in bed. His heart is pounding as though he’s run a race, and his eyes—now his eyes are wet with tears.

“Oh my god,” he says aloud to the empty room. “Oh my god.”

Severus Snape is alive.

***

“I’m sorry,” Ron says, mouth hanging open, “but what did you say?”

“Snape,” Harry repeats, looking around, but no one is listening to them. “Severus Snape is alive.” They’re in a pub in Muggle London. They’ve been here before, after work for a drink, and Ron didn’t think anything of it when Harry had asked to grab a quick lunch away from the Ministry.

“And how in Merlin’s name do you know this?”

“He, er, sent me a message.”

“A message?” Ron looks sceptical. Harry understands. “Harry, mate, it’s been five years. We looked. Everything was a dead end.”

“I know. And I know it’s hard to believe. But it’s true.”

Ron looks at him for a long moment and then nods. “Okay.”

It’s something Harry loves about Ron. Harry can tell him the most outrageous thing, but, if Harry asks him to trust him, to believe him, Ron will, just like that.

Ron takes a bite of his sandwich, wipes his mouth with his napkin. “So, what did the message say?”

“It was several messages, really,” Harry says. “Do you remember the dreams I told Hermione about?”

“Yeah, of course. Didn’t think you knew who was sending those.”

“It was Snape.”

Ron doesn’t press Harry. Doesn’t say anything at all. Just waits for Harry to tell him whatever it is he wants to say. Harry takes a sip of his pint. Thinks about what he does want to tell Ron. “I didn’t think he was alive,” he finally says. “I thought, somehow, it was just some sort of memory left behind.”

“For you?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s weird, though, right?” Ron pours a bit of vinegar on his plate, drags a chip through it.

“Maybe, but I was there that night. When he nearly died. He gave me his memories, and now I know that it was my magic, partly, that saved him.”

Ron nods, thinking. He eats the chip, then another. “So, what happened?”

“He had a Portkey. A safehouse. I mean, he knew he was in danger. Obviously. And he was prepared. He had antivenin, dittany, surgery supplies. And it worked. He survived.”

“Fuck,” Ron says after a moment.

“I know.” Harry shakes his head. “Fuck.”

Ron finishes his meal. Harry takes the last bite of his fish. It was good today. They should come here more often.

“Do you know where he is?” Ron asks, leaning back in his chair.

“No. Not yet. But I think he’ll contact me again.” Of course, Snape will. But Harry can’t begin to explain whatever relationship they’ve fallen into over the last few months. It would sound absurd. Because it is. And, also, Harry is dating Gin.

“Should we tell Kingsley?”

“No,” Harry says too quickly. “I mean, I showed him my memories after the war. He knows Snape was on our side. But there was never an official investigation. You know what Kingsley said.”

“Not enough for a pardon. Too many war secrets we didn’t want the public to know. Yeah. But now? Doesn’t he want his name cleared?”

“I don’t know, maybe? Probably. But that’s Severus’s choice to make. Not mine. And I don’t want to cause some sort of witch hunt. He’s stayed hidden for a reason.”

“Until now.”

“Yeah, until now.” Harry is grateful Ron doesn’t comment on his use of Severus’s given name.

***

When he arrives in the dream, Harry is back in Snape’s father’s house in Cokeworth. The fire burns low in the grate.

“Why didn’t you just tell me? That you were alive?”

“You hated me.”

“I know. But I didn’t want you to die. And you always protected me. You could have trusted me.”

“I know that now.”

Harry sits down on the sofa beside Snape. “And I don’t hate you anymore. I haven’t for a long time.”

“I know that too.”

They sit quietly for a while. Harry thinks about Snape, alive and living somewhere without Harry. The thought sits like a weight in Harry’s stomach. He assumes Snape is alone. Why else would he share his dreams with Harry?

“What happens tonight?” Harry asks. Severus’s dreams are unpredictable, but they usually have some purpose.

“Nothing. We fall asleep. No one is looking for me and no one expects anything from you.”

“That sounds nice.”

“Yes,” Snape agrees. “I’d like to hold you, if you’ll let me.”

***

Snape is smoking. A cigarette held loosely between two fingers. He takes a long drag. Harry watches the way his mouth curls around the filter, how he exhales the thin stream of smoke into the air.

He shouldn’t find it so fucking hot.

The skin of his neck is smooth today, unscarred, and Harry supposes that makes sense. Smoking isn’t good for you. And certainly not after a snake has damned near ripped your throat out.

“What are you looking at?” Snape asks, as if the bastard doesn’t already know.

“You,” Harry says plainly, just to see him smile.

Snape brings the cigarette to his mouth again, watching the way Harry watches him. Harry feels his cheeks heat. Fuck.

“Tell me something I don’t know,” Harry says, to distract himself. “Something true.”

“And here I thought you wanted deception.”

“I want everything.”

“What do you want to hear?”

“I don’t know.” That’s a lie. There is so much he wants to hear, so much he wishes he could ask. But he’ll settle for anything he can get.

“Hmm,” Snape says, considering. Then, “My father died when I was nineteen, but my mother is alive.”

Harry looks at him. “Really?” He never considered that Snape might have living family.

“Yes. She was young when she had me. She is still young.”

“Where is she?”

“France. She moved during the war. I insisted, for her safety. But she is happy there.”

“And is that where you are?” Harry asks. He realises his heart is pounding. He so desperately wants to know where Snape has been living. And, if he can see him.

“Sometimes,” Snape says.

“Will you tell me where?” The, ‘so I can come find you,’ is obvious.

“Not today. But, yes. Sometime soon.”

***

There is a note waiting with Harry’s potion the next night: ‘Only if you are alone!’, and Harry laughs, because he’s always alone. Isn’t he? Except in his dreams. But Gin is travelling with the Harpies for a match, and he had gone to sleep by himself in his empty flat. So, he drinks down Snape’s potion with a sense of delighted anticipation.

This dream is different. He can tell right away. For one, he’s naked. His chest, his shoulders are not so broad as they should be. And his skin isn’t scarred. His hair is longer than he wears it, yet it’s exactly how it should be.

Still, he still feels more or less like himself—for all Snape’s attention to certain significant details.

He’s in Regulus Black’s old room because, naturally, he is Regulus Black.

Harry wants to laugh. But there’s a knock at his door. “It’s open,” he calls out, too casually. His heart is pounding in his chest. Then, “You’re late.”

Snape glares. He’s younger too, but still himself. Familiar and unfamiliar all at once. “No, I’m not.” He closes the door behind him. Harry feels a subtle beat of Snape’s magic as the lock clicks into place. “Anyway, your mother was downstairs. I had to say hello. She was going out.”

Harry raises an eyebrow. “Not my mother, though, yeah?”

Snape only stares because, yes, here, Harry supposes, she is.

Harry wants to roll his eyes, but Snape is already taking off his clothes. And, well, fuck.

It’s obvious where this dream is going, and it’s strange and exhilarating all at once because Harry suddenly knows Snape is giving them both permission here. To touch each other however they’d like. To do all the things he’s been thinking about doing…which Snape has obviously been thinking about, too.

And it’s that realisation, mostly, which makes Harry’s cock twitch and start to fill as he watches this younger version of Snape pull off his trousers before folding them and setting them aside on Regulus Black’s desk chair.

It’s clever, and, frankly, hilarious, that Snape would contrive this scenario. Would recreate this experience for them now, as an excuse. Because that’s what it is, clearly. These bodies know each other. They have done this before.

Still, Harry’s heart is in his throat. Because they are going to do this, and it will still be his first time. Their first time together, even though the dream has cast them as lovers.

“Well,” Harry says, trying for self-assurance, “don’t you want me?”

Snape swallows. Harry can see the outline of his cock, half-hard in his briefs. “Yes.”

“Then come to bed.” Harry sounds like himself, he thinks, though his voice is rough with anticipation and arousal, and he doesn’t know what Regulus sounded like, anyway. He wants to ask how often they did this—met at Grimmauld Place to fuck. But Snape is on the bed on his knees, pulling Harry close to him.

Next time, Harry thinks, he’ll take some time to look around the room. To see what details Snape remembers. What details he thought to include. And how Regulus Black’s room then compares to the room in the house Harry owns now. Though, of course, he sleeps in Sirius’s room when he sleeps there at all. Still, that Snape would somehow know this space as intimately as Harry does is a pleasure all of its own.

But now all Harry can think about is Snape’s hands on him. The thud of his heart, beating fast and hard. And lower, against his thigh, the unmistakable heat and weight of Snape against him. Harry lies back, lets Snape settle on top of him.

His own cock aches. Harry’s already close. And god, that’s embarrassing and so hot all at once. Or maybe it’s just part of the scene. They were teenagers, after all, when Snape and Regulus were together like this.

But when they kiss it feels nothing like a dream. It’s needy and desperate and exactly what Harry’s been missing. He gasps into Snape’s mouth, hips shifting forwards without permission, grinding against Snape’s hip, and fuck—he’s right there too, hard and thick in his pants. “Yes,” Snape breathes against his lips, like he’s been waiting to feel it. To feel their cocks pressed together. Snape’s hand slides down, gripping his hip, pulling Harry even closer. “Yes, I feel you.”

Fuck.

There’s a phial of lube stashed beneath the mattress. Harry knows exactly where to find it. Snape’s fingers are gentle and patient as they work Harry open. But they press bruises to Harry’s hips when he fucks him, hard and deep and somehow tender all at once.

They are face to face. And, as Harry watches Snape as he moves inside him, he hopes Snape can see him beneath this flimsy disguise. See him and not Regulus Black. But when he takes Harry’s cock, warm and thick in his hand, Snape gasps out Harry’s name, so he knows. Harry has to close his eyes at the intensity of it all, and Snape kisses him. Kisses him again until his mouth is sore.

When Harry wakes, cock sensitive and come cooling on his skin, he thinks about Snape’s skin and hands and cock. Harry’s own body was like and unlike Regulus’s, and he desperately wants to know how like Severus’s real and current body is to the one Harry knew so intimately in their dream.

***

Harry’s not sure how it happened. How waking up came to feel like Harry is leaving some vital piece of himself behind. As though parts of him are only accessible when he’s asleep. Snape’s dreams are a key that unlocked something in Harry’s chest that no one else has ever been able to shake loose, and every time he leaves, things fall right back into the wrong place.

Harry’s not sure when he stopped expecting to be able to breathe the same when he’s awake.

***

“I cannot believe you used me—used our dream—to fuck your old boyfriend.”

Harry almost laughs at the look Snape gives him.

“You know that is not what I was doing.”

“Do I? Because I keep coming back, night after night. I think I’ve made it pretty clear that I want to be here. That I want…you.” Harry sits down. They’re at Hogwarts tonight, outside by the lake. The sand is cold and damp and perfect. “But that—that wasn’t what it should have been.”

Harry thinks he sees something like sadness in Snape’s eyes.

“Make another one,” Harry says. “Tomorrow, or, whenever you can.”

“Another one?”

“Yes. But next time, next time I want to do that without pretending to be someone else. If you’d like to, that is.” Harry’s throat feels dry, his chest tight, even in the dream. Snape only nods, but Harry feels such a wave of relief, he laughs. A nervous bark of sound. “Okay. That’s…okay.” He reaches out and takes Snape’s hand in his, happy when he doesn’t flinch or pull away. “It will be nice, I think, to be honest with each other.”

***

Gin’s out of bed when Harry wakes up the following morning, but that’s normal with her training schedule. He rolls over, stretching his arm across her cool side of the bed.

There’s a noise from the bathroom and she emerges, already dressed. Oversized Harpies sweatshirt pulled on over black joggers. Her hair is tied up atop her head in a messy bun.

“You going into the Ministry today?” she asks,

“In an hour,” Harry says. He doesn’t add, ‘Just like I do every day.’

“Dinner tonight? We could try the new place in Diagon? Or that Indian restaurant you like?”

“Maybe,” Harry says, already thinking of excuses. “But I might have to stay late. Can I call you at lunch?”

“Sure,” she says, but Harry hears the disappointment there. She’s always disappointed with him. Still, she smiles as she comes over to the bed, presses a quick kiss to his lips. “We’ll talk later, then.”

“Yeah. Sounds good.”

***

“Stop, stop. I’ll come.” The rush of orgasm always pulls him awake, and already Harry can feel his climax hurtling towards him. He doesn’t want this to be over so soon.

“Then come.”

“I’ll wake up.”

“Yes,” Snape says, and there is something like regret in his voice. “But I want you to come anyway.”

***

“Do you think it’s weird? That, here, we are lovers?”

They haven’t touched. Not tonight. Not yet.

But it’s become a recurrent theme—this casual intimacy. Sometimes here, in Snape’s old rooms. Sometimes in his father’s house at Spinner’s End. Or Grimmauld Place. But never as Regulus anymore. Always as himself. No more disguises.

“They are dreams, Potter,” Snape says simply. As if that’s an answer to his question. He reaches over, opens the drawer in the side cabinet. He pulls out a crumpled pack of cigarettes. Once again, Harry marvels at the details. Snape is meticulous as always. He wonders what else he might find if he rummaged through the drawers, started opening cupboards and inspecting closets.

“I know, but was it what you intended, originally? When you made the first dream?” They haven’t really talked about it—or, Harry hasn’t wanted to ask. What Snape intended, where he imagined this would end, when he crafted the first potion for Harry.

“Would you let me fuck you?” Harry asks, boldly.

“I think there is very little you could ask, that I will not do for you.”

“Will you tell me where you are? You know that’s really what I want.”

“Soon,” Snape says. He puts out the cigarette, kisses him before he can argue. Harry licks the taste out of his mouth.

When they are naked, and Harry drags a finger across Snape’s hole, he finds him wet and already loose and ready.

Harry comes too quickly. Wakes up alone, stomach sticky with his own release.

***

“It would be easier, I think, if we didn’t do this anymore.”

“Would it?”

They’re walking hand-in-hand down Rue Saint-Dominique.

“Is this how it is?” Harry asks instead. “Autumn in Paris?”

“I pride myself on my ability to remember the seasons.”

Harry laughs. “Even in dreams.”

“Even in dreams.”

“It’s beautiful. Thank you for showing me.”

There is a chill to the air, but Harry is not cold. The trees lining the street are starting to lose their leaves. Music spills out of open doorways, but the cafes are empty. They are alone here, as they always are.

The Eiffel Tower is up ahead, its lattice structure rising up above the buildings and over the tree line. Harry has only ever seen it in pictures. He wonders if Snape got the details, the dimensions right. He probably did.

“Where else would you take me?” He asks.

“If we don’t stop the dreams?”

“Yeah, if we don’t stop.”

“Italy, I think. Have you been?”

“I haven’t been anywhere.” They pass a patisserie. Harry can smell warm bread and sugar. The window case is filled with lemon and raspberry tarts, chocolate croissants, and cream-filled eclairs.

“Then I’ll show you Milan. Or Venice, perhaps. You’d like it there. Not during the summer when it’s overrun by tourists. But during the rainy season.”

“There wouldn’t be tourists, though,” Harry says, looking around at the beautiful and empty Parisian street. “Not if—”

“Ah, no,” Snape says, brow furrowing. “You’re right.” He shakes his head, as though he forgot. As though, for a moment, he didn’t think about the fact that it would only be a dream. Like this is. Like everything.

“When does it rain there?” Harry asks. “In Venice?”

“Winter. It’s beautiful. High water in the canals. Rain flooding the streets.”

They turn a corner and, suddenly, the Eiffel Tower is just a spec in the distance. There are more shops here on the ground level, with flats above. Beige stone and iron-wrought balconies, tall windows with bright-coloured shutters.

“There,” Snape says, pointing to the one at the end of the row. “My mother’s.”

The flowers are still in bloom in the window boxes. Red and pink geraniums, purple verbena and green ivy spills over the sides of their containers. There are herbs, too. Rosemary and basil, thyme and parsley. And Harry wonders if they’re magically maintained or just how Snape envisions them in his dreams, despite the time of year.

“And you are?” Harry asks, allowing himself to hope that Snape might bring him to his home, too.

“Close by.”

***

“This is nice,” Harry says, looking out over the lake.

“Yes, it is.”

He takes a deep breath. If only he could wake up and still be here. “Sometimes,” Harry says, “I feel like, here, when we’re together, it’s better than anything I have awake.”

“It’s not, Potter,” Snape says, voice harsher than Harry expects. He pulls a cigarette from his pocket. Lights it with the tip of his finger. A pulse of magic. “It can’t be. This is a dream.”

“I know, but—”

“Is your wife lying beside you now?” Snape says, cutting him off. His voice isn’t cruel, but it’s gone cold, flat. “Does she know where you go each night?”

“She’s not my wife,” Harry says. “We’re not— you know we’re not married.”

“But yet you are together.”

Harry wants to tell Snape that everything is better here. That the way they are is exactly what he wants in his real, waking life. But that, alone, is a major red flag. He knows enough about dream magic to know it can and will take over your awake world. That’s why it’s illicit. That’s why it is so heavily controlled. And why it takes someone as powerful as Snape to do what he’s able to do with dreams anyway. Harry sighs. He can’t look at Snape. “And you won’t even tell me where you are when you’re awake.”

***

“What does she dream about? Ginevra?”

Harry glares. He doesn’t like talking about Ginny. Snape knows this.

“I don’t know. I haven’t ever asked.” Harry only feels a little bad about that.

“Hmm,” Snape says, irritatingly.

Harry stares up at the ceiling. They’re in bed together, in Snape’s dungeon rooms. Snape’s dressed them in the matching pyjamas again, but Harry’s not wearing the shirt this time. His chest is bare. He traces Snape’s rendering of Voldemort’s Avada Kedavra scar with his fingers. “It’s better this time,” Harry says. “But not quite right.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. More like a spider web.” He places his hand on his chest over the scar, fingers spread out in demonstration.

“I’ll get it right someday.”

They lie there together for a while, not quite touching. Harry feels the weight of Snape beside him, the dip of the bed. He wants to reach out, to put his mouth on his skin, but he also wants to prolong this moment. Their time here together in this dream before he wakes.

“Where would you take her, if you made her a dream?”

“I wouldn’t,” Harry says quickly. The thought, alone, feels like cheating.

“I know, but if you did.”

“I dunno. The beach, maybe. She likes the sun. Or flying. We do that together, you know.”

Snape snorts, lips curling.

“What?” Harry says, self-conscious. He sits up, propping himself on his elbow to look down at Snape. “Is that boring?

“Yes, very much so. But you know that already.”

“I’ll take you flying one day,” Harry says in response. He reaches out to trace the curve of Snape’s cheek with his finger. “I think you’d like it.”

“Maybe,” Snape concedes.

Harry smiles.

***

Harry can’t keep putting off dinner with Gin. He closed the case he’s been working on, isn’t due in court for another two weeks, and has exhausted his excuse of outstanding paperwork.

There’s a steakhouse in Diagon Gin’s been wanting to try, and he’s able to get a reservation last minute. Part of him feels guilty. For taking his girlfriend on a date. For not telling Snape that he might be late, or might not be able to come at all, by the time he gets to sleep. But that’s ridiculous. He’s not doing anything wrong.

He can go out to dinner. Gin can sleep over afterwards.

And, it’s not like he even has a number to call, or an address to Floo, if he wanted to get hold of Snape.

Dinner is great. Or, at least, Harry thinks it goes pretty well. For all he’d rather be back at home getting ready for bed.

But the wine list is decent, and not overpriced. And Harry and Gin split a nice bottle of Pinot. Harry’s steak is cooked perfectly, and Gin says her filet is just how she likes it. It’s nice to just talk with Gin—because they are so busy, and he has missed her. So he listens as she talks about the Harpies’ last road trip and their upcoming match schedule. And that they’re absolutely going to have to sign a new Beater because Fiona Maxwell’s been playing hurt and her shoulder just isn’t getting any better.

“I’ll come to your next home match,” Harry says, “if you want.”

Ginny smiles over the lip of her wine glass. “Yeah, I’d like that.”

They order one dessert with two spoons, and it really is such a nice night. Harry should be happy. God, he should be so happy. But he’s tired, and he just wants to be home and in bed so he can meet someone else. And, fuck, but doesn’t that make him the worst boyfriend ever?

Gin comes home with him, because of course she does. Why wouldn’t she?

And, Harry suggests watching a movie that he knows she’s wanted to see. Because they’re both tired, but Harry knows if they just go to bed, Ginny will want things that he’s not sure he can give. He’s not even sure if he could get hard right now, and, yeah, that’s pretty much the most pathetic thing he can think of. But Gin smiles, and they sit together on the sofa. Harry strokes her hair and hopes that, maybe, she’ll fall asleep before the movie’s over.

***

“You kept me waiting.”

“I’m sorry I—” But Harry’s not even sure what to say. He’s not cheating on Snape. Christ, by all possible accounts, he’s cheating on Gin.

Snape glares. “How’s your girlfriend? You have a nice time tonight?” His tone is so childish, so petulant, that Harry no longer feels bad for keeping him waiting.

“Oh my god. Stop. Are you jealous?”

“Of course not.” But the way Snape isn’t meeting his gaze speaks volumes.

Harry wants to laugh, because it’s so ridiculous, but there is something vulnerable in Snape’s expression that stops him. “Hey,” he says, softer. He wants to reach out and touch Snape. But Snape raises an eyebrow and actually folds his arms across his chest. And does Harry really need to explain this to him?

Harry does not roll his eyes. “It’s not—it wasn’t like that. Not tonight. And not for a while.”

Snape looks at him again. “Really?”

“Yes, really. And I cannot believe I’m telling you this, but we haven’t had sex in months. Months.” Harry feels his cheeks heating. He wonders how Snape manages to get the sensation right. But he’s still irritated because Snape doesn’t have any right to demand fidelity from him. To demand anything from him. Not when he won’t even tell Harry where he lives. Won’t let Harry come to him when they’re awake. “Not like it should matter to you. This isn’t even real, right? Isn’t that what you always say? It’s just a dream.”

“That’s not…” Snape frowns, at a loss for words. “I never said it wasn’t real.”

“What?”

“Just because it’s in our heads—in our dreams—doesn’t make this less real.”

Harry doesn’t know how to respond to that because it sounds as much like a declaration as anything. So, he says, “Dumbledore said that exact thing to me once.”

Which, yeah, saying nothing probably would have been better.

Snape’s look says, either, ‘Well, there you have it.’ Or, more likely, ‘Seriously, Potter? Bringing Albus into this?’ Which is fair.

“It’s not working, me and Gin,” Harry admits then, because he’s already admitted so much. “Not anymore. Not for a while.” He closes his eyes, takes a breath. “But, for the first time, I don’t want to fix it.”

Snape is quiet for too long. Harry’s heart is pounding in his ears.

“Oh?” Snape finally says, and Harry opens his eyes. He has to smile at how casual Snape is trying to sound—and failing miserably.

“Yeah.”

***

Harry glances over at Ron, then picks his glass up again just so he can have something to do with his hands. The silence feels awkward between them in a way it doesn’t, usually. And Harry knows Ron is working through whatever it is he wants to say, trying to find the right words for it.

“So, I’m only gonna ask you this once, okay,” Ron tells the plate of chips sitting between them. “And then, I promise, I’ll let it go.”

Harry doesn’t look at him. He stares down into his pint, because Ron knows him so well, and of course he knows something is wrong—has been for a while now. But he doesn’t know it’s because Harry’s been having some sort of dream affair with Severus Snape and is this close to ending his relationship with Gin over it.

“Should I be worried about you, mate?”

Harry blinks, processing the question, then shakes his head. “No, I’m fine.” He takes a long sip of his drink.

“Not really convincing,” Ron says. “Like, at all.”

Harry laughs. He wants another pint. “Yeah, sorry about that. It’s just—” He shoves a chip in his mouth and chews, thinking about what to say. It’s work. It’s stress. It’s—

“You can tell me,” Ron says. “You know that, yeah? Even if it’s not something you think I want to hear.”

“Thanks,” Harry says, and he means it.

They order another round. Ron polishes off the chips. When their drinks arrive and Harry’s taken a long swallow, he says. “Gin’s not happy.”

Ron looks at him for a long moment, and he’s not angry, or upset, or anything like that. Just concerned, and maybe a bit sad. “And you’re not either,” he says.

“No.”

“That’s important, too,” Ron says, gently. “I love my sister, of course. But you’re my best mate. And your happiness matters too.”

***

Harry can’t sleep.

It’s a bad feeling.

His head hurts, and his skin feels too tight, too hot. He’s restless and irritable, and his heart is beating harder than it should be for doing nothing at all.

He can’t lie still. He rolls onto his back, then turns to his side. He sits up. He’s fine. Everything is fine. The war is over. Voldemort is dead. Harry’s mind is his own. He wonders if Snape is waiting for him.

Gin isn’t here. Harry is alone, in his bed, in his flat. But he feels open and exposed. Thoughts he shouldn’t be having, swim around in his brain. I wish Snape was here. I miss him. I’m falling in love with him.

It feels like a confession.

He imagines Snape’s reaction if he told him. The feigned smile and polite deflection. ‘Harry, I’m sorry, but that was never what this was meant to be.’

The thought settles like a stone in the pit of his stomach.

But maybe…

Harry thinks about Snape’s jealousy. About how possessive he can be. And about all the moments of tenderness, of…affection when they’re alone together in their dreams.

He lies down again, fluffs his pillow, adjusts the blankets. But the feeling won’t go away. The restlessness won’t settle. He can feel Snape everywhere, and he can’t decide if that’s a good or a bad thing.

***

“I think I’m breaking up with Gin.”

“Oh?”

Harry nearly laughs. That one syllable fighting for its life to stay neutral, uninterested.

“Yeah. We’re going to dinner on Saturday. She wants to talk, and—” Harry chews on his lip. “Well, we haven’t been happy for a while now. Maybe not ever. I know that. Gin knows that. You know that. And she deserves to be happy. She really does.”

“Then this is a good thing,” Snape says, still clinging to neutrality. “And,” he adds softly, “you, too, deserve to be happy.”

“Still feels like a failure.”

“It’s not a failure to admit that a relationship is not working.”

“I think I’m gay, Snape.”

This time it’s Snape that laughs. “You don’t say.”

Harry glares. “I mean, I’ve always been attracted to blokes. But I always thought I could still make it work with a girl, with Gin.” He shakes his head. “But now—” He trails off, not entirely sure how to finish that thought.

“Does this also feel like failure? Admitting you’re gay.” Snape’s voice is calm, carefully controlled, but Harry knows there’s an undercurrent of unease there. Knows that what he says next matters.

“No.”

Beside him, Snape relaxes—just a tad.

“I mean, it’s not how some people wanted my story to go. Boy hero turned Auror breaks up with childhood sweetheart, superstar Quidditch player.”

“Your life is not someone else’s headline.”

“No,” Harry agrees. “It’s not.”

Snape wraps an arm around Harry then, pulls him close. “It will be all right.”

“Yeah, I think it will.”

***

In the end, it’s easier to break things off with Gin than he ever expected it would be.

“Oh, I know, Harry,” she says gently, taking his hand. “We tried. We really did. But I guess some things aren’t meant to be.”

“I thought we were, though.” Harry frowns. “Meant to be.”

Gin smiles sadly, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. She really is beautiful.

Harry refills their wine glasses.

“I have to ask,” she says a few minutes later. “Is there someone else?”

“No,” Harry says too quickly. Then, realising how that might sound, he adds. “I’m not seeing anyone else—I wouldn’t do that to you.” The lie comes easily, but, then again, it’s partly—mostly—true. “But, maybe,” he continues “there is someone I’d…like to see.” He thinks he owes Ginny this much honesty, at least.

“Oh.” Gin takes a sip of wine. Then, “Is it someone I know? The girl you’d like to see?”

“It’s a man, Gin.” And there it is. Out in the open.

Gin’s eyes go rather wide, and then she blinks a few times before literally throwing her head back and laughing.

“What?” Harry asks after a moment. And, when Gin still hasn’t stopped laughing, he says, “It’s not that funny? Is it?”

There are tears in her eyes. Her mascara is smudged. “Yes, I mean…no—” She dabs at her eyes with her napkin. “It’s not.” She’s grinning now. “Well, not really.” She laughs again. “I’m so sorry Harry.” She shakes her head, expression fond. And Harry knows she’s not being cruel or making fun of him.

At Harry’s raised eyebrows, she says, “It’s just, Fred said something, once. Years ago.”

“Did he?”

“Just that, maybe, you weren’t quite as straight as everyone assumed you to be.”

“What?” Harry’s not sure if he should laugh or feel offended. Probably both.

“He was trying to make me feel better, I think. This was before we got together, but I liked you. Merlin, Harry, I think everyone but you knew that I liked you. But you weren’t interested. Or maybe you were just oblivious. And Fred suggested that maybe it was because I didn’t have, er, all the right parts to do it for you.”

Harry does laugh at that. Because, of course, it would have been Fred to have said something all those years ago.

“Charlie shut him down,” Gin says, taking a sip of wine. “Said it wasn’t like that. That I should just give it time.” Gin shrugs. “And I was like, fourteen. Figured if anyone knew what they were talking about—about, well, you know—it was Charlie.”

“He was right. Fred, I guess. Or, well, maybe they both were. I dunno.” He leans back in his chair. He feels a bit sad, but there’s relief there too. He feels lighter than he has in weeks. He finishes his wine. “I certainly didn’t know back then. I’m just now finally starting to figure some things out, I think.”

***

“Will you show me how you do it? Create shared dreams?”

Snape reaches out and takes Harry’s hand in his, lacing their fingers together.

“I will,” he says, “when we are—or, when we are not—”

“When we’re together for real,” Harry finishes for him.

“Yes,” Snape agrees. “Outside of our dreams.”

They’ve talked around it before, seeing each other in the waking world, but this is the first time, perhaps, Snape sounds serious.

“How does it work?” Harry asks.

Snape turns his head. The sunlight casts a warm glow on his face. Snape never takes liberties with his own appearance—not like Harry insists Snape does with his—but he still looks beautiful here. In this created light. Softer somehow, or younger. “There is a potion,” Snape says, “that facilitates dream scaffolding and creation. Then spellwork because these worlds exist in my mind, and my magic allows me to share them with you.”

Snape shifts slightly, so his head is resting on Harry’s lap, Harry strokes his hair back from his face.

“What would you show me?” Severus asks after a while. Harry thought he’d fallen asleep. “In your dreams?”

Harry thinks about this. Thinks about Snape’s version of Hogwarts and of Grimmauld Place. He thinks about his mother’s town and Snape’s father’s house. About Paris and Milan and their walks along quiet, tree-lined streets.

“I would take you to the coast,” he decides. “Dover, perhaps. Or maybe Yorkshire. I’ve been there before, you know. During the war. The fresh air reminds me of you.”

“Oh,” Severus says, closing his eyes again. “That will be wonderful.”

***

“So, Gin told me you and her broke up.”

“Yeah.” Harry hands Ron a beer. They sit down on the couch. The telly’s on, volume muted. Some football match Harry isn’t paying attention to.

Ron takes a long swallow of his beer. “I know you told me things weren’t good,” he says. His voice is careful, but not accusatory. He is not upset or angry. “Guess I figured you’d work things out, though. Think I took you two for granted. That you’d always end up together no matter what.”

“I know,” Harry says. “And it was—good. Until it wasn’t.” He scratches at the label on his bottle with a thumbnail. “I love her, mate. You know that. I always will. But, no, we weren’t happy. And it wasn’t fair to either of us to keep trying for something that wasn’t going to work.” He takes a sip of beer. Manchester scores a goal. The camera pans to the crowd, the celebratory sea of red and black.

“I know,” Ron says. “And you’ll always be like a brother to me. Even if it’s never going to be official now.”

Harry smiles. “Thanks for that.” Then, “How’s your mum?”

Ron laughs. “She’ll be fine. You’ve always been her favourite son. That won’t change.” He bumps their shoulders together.

“I didn’t mean to disappoint her.”

“You didn’t. Not really. She knows you and Gin tried. If anything, she’s more upset with Ginny. Thinks if her schedule hadn’t been such a nightmare, maybe.” He shrugs.

“That’s not it. It wasn’t her fault.”

“I know. And Mum knows that too, I think. She just wants you to be happy. Sad it won’t be with Gin.”

They sit quietly for a while, game on in the background. Then Ron gets up and brings them two more beers. “You don’t have to tell me, if you don’t want. But I have to ask. Is it Snape?”

“Hmm?” Harry looks at him, but Ron’s face gives nothing away.

“Snape? That made you realise you and Gin weren’t going to work out. The dreams or messages or whatever it is going on between you?”

“Yeah, it is.”

Ron nods. “Well, I can’t say I understand—and please never tell anyone I said this, because I can’t believe it myself—but I’m glad you’ve found each other. I want you to be happy.”

***

“Doesn’t this all feel like a lie to you?” Harry asks. Snape holds the door open for him. Snape’s office. Hogwarts.

“A lie?”

“Yeah, you and me, here.” Once inside, Harry pulls off his coat and tosses it aside. Snape is watching him curiously. Harry toes off his trainers. “Truth or reality of dreams, aside, don’t you think we deserve more?”

“Would you like to go to bed?”

“No. Not tonight.” Harry sprawls out on the sofa. When Snape goes to join him, he shakes his head, and points to the desk chair. Snape raises an eyebrow, but sits down without objection, his eyes still locked on Harry.

Harry looks around. The room is rendered perfectly, because of course it is. It always is. The neatly aligned stacks of papers on Snape’s desk. The ink pot and quill beside. One tea cup on its saucer. The curio cabinet in the corner filled with all varieties of phials and bottles and jars. The bookshelf against the far wall.

It makes Harry feel overexposed and a bit raw.

He starts on the buttons of his shirt and slips it off his shoulders, letting it fall to the floor. Then he tugs his vest over his head and discards that, too. Snape’s gaze is like a physical thing on his skin. He tries not to shiver under the weight of it.

“Wow,” he says, craning his head to look at his shoulder. “Maybe your best one yet.” He traces the raised ridge of scar tissue there. It’s slippery smooth beneath his finger.

“And your chest?” Snape asks.

Harry looks down; it’s still so clearly a guess. He shakes his head. “Almost. But you just can’t seem to get it right.”

“Hmm,” is all Snape says.

Harry undoes his belt. He thinks he hears Snape’s breath hitch as he slides his jeans and underwear down. God, he’s already half-hard. He stretches out on the sofa, arm folded behind his head.

“Do you want to touch me?”

“You know I do.” Harry smiles at the rough edge Snape’s voice. His throat isn’t even scarred tonight.

“You can, of course.” He shifts, undulating his hips just slightly. “But aren’t you tired of not knowing what my skin…” he raises an eyebrow, “or what my dick actually feels like?”

Snape swallows.

He wraps a hand around his cock. It’s a strange sensation, when he stops to think about it. Touching himself in this body Snape has recreated. But they’ve had sex. They’ve kissed and fucked and fallen asleep in each other’s arms. He knows Snape so intimately. And yet he doesn’t. He still feels so far away. As though he’s on Snape’s lab table, and Snape is staring at him through a looking glass.

“What do you want, Harry?” Snape’s voice is infuriatingly calm, but he doesn’t look calm. He looks undone.

Harry twists his hand, slides his thumb over his swollen cockhead, through the pre-cum beaded there. “It’s your dream, Severus.”

“I thought it was yours.”

Harry shrugs but strokes himself faster. Fuck. This won’t take long. “Maybe I’m tired of this simulation. Maybe I don’t understand why we can’t have something real.”

“Is that what you want?”

“Yes. God. How can you even ask that?”

Harry shuts his eyes. If Snape keeps looking at him like that, he’s going to come, and he’s never able to stay asleep when he does. “I broke up with Gin,” he says then, voice breathless and rough. “It’s over now. I could be all yours.”

Snape is up and out of his chair. He crosses the room in two quick steps, hands at his belt, his flies. He bends down to cup Harry’s face in one hand, leaning close. Harry is breathing fast and hard. With his other hand, he takes Harry’s cock and his own, stroking them together.

It’s too much.

Harry spends across his stomach, his chest, and the scar that isn’t quite right. He wakes, heart pounding, Severus’s name on his lips.

He lies there for a moment, memorising the sensation, imagining what it would feel like if Snape were still here with him.

***

The following night, there’s a slip of parchment waiting beside Harry’s dream. An address written in Severus’s neat, cramped hand. Harry picks it up. There are apparition coordinates, as well.

He downs the potion immediately.

“Do you mean it?” Harry asks, when he emerges into Severus’s chambers. He’s out of breath, feels his heart pounding in his ears. Severus looks up from the book he’s reading. “The address. Can I come to you?”

“Yes.”

The happiness that crashes over him takes Harry by surprise. He can’t help the dumb smile spreading over his face. “Oh my god.”

Severus smiles too.

Harry realises something then. “You’re waiting for me? You knew I’d come here. That I wouldn’t wake myself up and go straight to you, out there?”

“Just a guess.”

And Harry laughs. “Fucking neuromancy.” Then he walks around Severus’s desk and kisses him. “Okay. I’ll see you soon.”

***

“Why does this matter so much to you?” Kingsley’s voice is kind, but his eyes are sad. “Severus is gone.” Still, he takes the phials, each neatly labelled in Albus’s narrow script. “I know the truth is important, but I can’t imagine him reacting too kindly to the thought of his name being drudged up again. His life back on display. He was a private person, Harry. You know that. Sometimes it’s best to leave well-enough alone.”

Harry makes a decision, then. They’ve discussed this, of course. Sharing Dumbledore’s memories with Kingsley. Setting in motion the process of clearing Severus’s name. Securing his pardon, so he can return to England. To his life. And, to Harry.

But Severus, so accustomed to keeping secrets, wasn’t keen on revealing too much, too soon.

Harry takes a deep breath. “He’s alive, Kingsley. Severus Snape is alive. I’ve seen him. And I’d like him to be able to come home.”

***

The flat in Paris is so much like Harry had envisioned it that it feels like walking into another dream. The spotless kitchen, the wooden floors, the shelves lining every wall of the sitting room and absolutely overflowing with books. Then the bedroom with its pale curtains and floor-to-ceiling windows, and the four-poster bed with cream sheets and its worn, soft comforter.

It leaves Harry with a disarming sense of vertigo—both unreality and homecoming all at once.

He looks out the window at the trees lining the street below. They’re bare of leaves now, and the setting sun casts their branches in a rosy-pink glow. Severus comes up behind him, placing a hand on Harry’s waist. He kisses his neck.

“Dinner’s ready.”

It’s a simple meal. Severus ladles out stew from the pot on the hob. It has meat and potatoes, bits of carrots and celery. There’s fresh bread spread with butter. And beer and wine, too. Harry takes a beer, pops its cap with a wave of his hand. Severus pours himself a glass of red, and they sit together on the sofa, bowls on the coffee table in front of them.

It’s so, so nice.

Comfortable and domestic and, Harry finds, it suits him down to the ground.

Severus has a television—which is just so wonderfully…normal. And he turns on some nature programme. They sit together close but not touching while they finish their meals.

Afterwards, Severus clears their dishes and hands Harry another beer. He takes it with a laugh, and Severus frowns, looks unsure. But Harry smiles.

“No, no—I’m sorry. This all just feels a tad surreal. Like I’m in a dream and I’m about to wake up. Only, this time, I know I’m not.”

Severus smiles, too, a soft and uncertain thing. And Harry desperately wants to press his mouth to his.

“A good dream, I hope,” Severus says.

“Yeah, definitely.”

“I feel the same.”

“Good.”

They sit back down on the couch. And, then—when it’s become painfully clear that Severus, who might have no qualms about initiating things in their dream meet-ups, is not about to be so bold here—Harry sets his beer on the side table and takes Severus’s glass from his hand. Their fingers brush, and Harry is sure he feels Severus shiver. It’s enough encouragement.

“Dreams, do have some benefits, you know?” Harry says.

“Oh?”

“Yeah. In our dreams, we always knew the script.”

“And now?”

“Maybe we improvise?”

Harry turns, pressing a kiss to Severus’s neck, and then to the corner of his mouth. Carefully, he climbs on top of him, knees spread, legs straddling Severus’s thighs, as Severus settles back against the couch cushions. The movement feels so practiced—so familiar—that Harry relaxes, feeling less hesitant, less self-conscious.

Severus’s hands slide up and down Harry’s back, and Harry cups Severus’s jaw in his hand, angling his face up and kissing him again. Harry’s already hard, and he wants to capture the way Severus is looking at him, remember it forever, because it really is the stuff of dreams. “You okay?” he asks, just to be sure, and Severus nods, taking Harry’s hand in his.

“I feel as though I’ve tasted every part of you,” Severus says. His eyes are dark, pupils already blown. “But I haven’t, not yet.” He looks down at Harry’s hand, at their fingers laced together. “Can I?”

“Fuck,” Harry says. “Yes, please.”

Severus brings Harry’s hand to his mouth and slowly slides his tongue up Harry’s middle and forefinger.

Harry curses again, as Severus wraps his lips around the tips of his fingers. It’s wet and warm, and so, so good. The implication is clear. This could be your cock, Harry. We’ve done that before, but not really. It will feel so good when we do it again. This time for real. Severus sucks harder, ducking his head, mouth tightening, as Harry presses his fingers down against Severus’s tongue, but he doesn’t gag. He just swallows around him expertly, and, fuck, Harry is already too close and aching.

Severus rolls his hips up against Harry’s, and Harry instinctively pushes down, grinding their cocks together. The pressure is too good and too much, and he can’t come right now, so soon, and in his pants like a fucking teenager. He pulls back slightly, sitting up on his knees until the sensation passes. But, god, Severus is literally smirking at him, and he pulls him back down, hands on Harry’s arse, pressing their hips together again, rocking up once more, and Harry is gone.

“Oh fuck, Severus. Oh fuck, I'm coming, I—” Harry groans, helplessly pushing down into Severus’s warm, solid weight, thrusting roughly against him in time with his orgasm.

“Christ, Potter,” Severus says, moving Harry up and off his lap and toppling him onto his back on the sofa.

He’s on top of him then, hands fumbling with his belt, his zip. He shoves his trousers down over his hips, bracing himself over Harry with his free hand. The other wraps around his cock to jerk himself off. Severus’s lips are parted, eyes locked on the dark, damp spot spreading on the front of Harry’s jeans.

“Pull them down,” he says, breathless. “I want to see you covered in come for me.”

Harry obeys immediately, too strung out from orgasm to be embarrassed by how eagerly he complies, how desperate he is to do whatever Severus wants.

“Fuck,” Severus says, dragging his fingers through Harry’s spunk, using it to slick himself. “Fuck, you’re going to make me come now,” he gasps, hand stilling as he shudders, cock spurting hot and wet over Harry’s stomach, his own still half-hard cock.

“Shit,” Harry says, as Severus lowers himself down on top of him, careless of the come spreading between them, dirtying their shirts and Severus’s trousers. Severus kisses him, then pulls away to look down at Harry.

“God, you look so good, like this,” he says, lips curving. And Harry wants to kiss him, or smack him.

“Like what? Covered in your come?”

“Yes, and here, awake with me.”

Finally, Harry thinks. Finally, and it’s so damned good.

After a minute or two, Severus stands, goes to the bathroom for a cloth. Harry tugs his jeans the rest of the way off and tosses them aside. They’ll need a good cleaning charm, at the very least, before he can wear them home. He tries not to think about what happens now, as he listens to Severus moving about down the hall. The rush of water, the snick of a door.

He comes back and hands Harry a damp flannel. He wipes come from his stomach, his cock, and tries not to tense at Severus’s eyes on him. But Severus only smiles and holds out a hand, helps Harry to his feet.

Together, they walk down the hall to his bedroom, and it’s the most natural thing in the world to strip off the rest of their clothes and climb into bed side-by-side.

They curl together easily, Harry’s back against Severus’s chest, Severus’s arm across Harry’s waist. And it’s the same and so much better than the dreams all at once.

Severus presses a kiss to Harry’s shoulder blade, then mouths a line along the ridge of the Basilisk scar.

“I wasn’t too far off,” Severus says, hand stroking against Harry’s breastbone, the curve of his pectoral. “I’m not sure you gave me enough credit.”

Harry laughs, catches Severus’s hand in his. “I said you were close, didn’t I?”

“Close, yes. Now I’m certain I could get it right.”

“I’m sure you could.”

They lie there for a while, Harry listening to the sound of Severus’s breathing, feeling the rise and fall of his chest against his body. It’s entirely new and achingly familiar all at once. “What happens now?”

“Now?” Severus says, voice soft. “Now we go to sleep. And, when we wake up, we’ll both still be here.”