CUM AEGE CINGERE
By Schemingreader and Your Cruise Director

I. Charmed, I'm Sure

"I swear, Ron, I must have been hexed!"

"What do you mean, mate?"

"How else would you explain this?" Harry's eyebrows lifted to his famously messy hairline. "What else would explain my sudden desire to shag Severus Snape?"

Ron's face, which had so far shown only confusion, twisted in disgust. "You didn't tell me you wanted to shag him!" he objected. "You only said his hair wasn't quite so bad as you used to think and he had a commanding voice..." Now Ron looked as though he might be sick. "I don't know any hexes strong enough for that. It must be Imperius."

"But who'd want to curse me to want to shag Snape?" It didn't make sense, thought Harry. It wasn't as if Snape liked Harry any better than Harry had liked Snape...well, until a couple of days ago.

From the corner where Hermione sat with her head in a book, there was the sound of a tongue being clicked. The eye-rolling was inaudible. It was just like ten years ago, when they were back at Hogwarts, except that now they were working on battle plans instead of homework.

"She's doing it again," whispered Ron.

"It's not Imperius, anyhow, Ron," Harry said. "I can resist Imperius, and Imperius feels kinda peaceful, you know. This doesn't feel peaceful, at all."

"Well, when did it start? You didn't just wake up wanting to -- you know -- this morning, did you?"

No, he hadn't, though in complete honesty, Harry had once woken up with his pyjamas wet and a fading memory of a dream in which a scarred hand with yellow fingernails had just given him the best orgasm of his life. "I think it was while Tonks was talking about Draco's rescue. I started thinking about how Snape had got him away from Hogwarts. Then I wondered whether Snape and Draco had..."

"Enough!" Ron had put his hands over his ears. "I get the point. Maybe it's some kind of delayed curse? You had to hear certain words in a certain order to trigger it, or something?"

The quiet snicker from the corner was impossible to ignore.

"It couldn't be because Harry genuinely admires Professor Snape?" Hermione muttered scornfully. "Oh, no, even though the animosity between them has cooled to nearly bearable levels you couldn't expect either one of them to acknowledge a feeling, heaven forbid."

"Harry's acknowledging feelings!" Ron said a bit defensively. "Can't you, er, give him credit for understanding his own, um, emotions?"

"Nice try, Ron," Hermione said.

"Do NOT tell me I have the emotional range of a teaspoon, again," Ron said. "That really hurts my feelings."

"But Hermione," Harry interjected, "this doesn't exactly feel normal to me. I really think there is something weird going on here. I can accept that maybe I might fancy, you know, a man. I mean, someone like, like, Sirius was. But this is different."

Ron was no longer covering his ears, but his expression was no less horrified. "But Sirius was old enough to be your father!" he exclaimed. "For that matter, so is Snape!"

"And Madam Rosmerta is about as old as they are, but that didn't stop you from fancying her!" Hermione's smirk only made Ron turn an even deeper shade of red.

"In any case," Hermione continued, "this isn't technically a hex. If you feel love or lust for someone, it's a charm. Hexes are hostile and negative, and a love charm isn't."

"Is this meant to be positive, then?" Ron asked incredulously.

"Just ignore him, Harry. What doesn't feel normal about it?"

"Well, it's..." Biting his lip, Harry tried to figure out how to explain this in a way that wouldn't make Ron try not to listen or Hermione laugh. "Usually, when I've liked someone, it hasn't been all at once. I noticed that Cho was pretty before I ever thought about kissing her, and Ginny and I were friends for a long time before we..." The warning glare from Ron made Harry cut that thought short. "Well, before I realized that I wanted to date her. With Snape, it isn't as if I want to take him to Madam Puddifoot's or go for a walk around the lake with him. I don't even want to talk to him, particularly! I just want to..."

"Shag him, right," finished Hermione in a serious tone over Ron's unhappy whimper. "You know, not everyone falls in love before they feel lust."

Ron gaped at her. "Who are you, and what have you done with Hermione, my moral compass?" he demanded.

"Look, let's just acknowledge human nature, all right?" Hermione continued sagely. "The fact that I have to tell you this, Harry, is just a measure of how your upbringing has cut you off from normal human interaction."

"You think it's normal that he wants to shag Severus Snape?" Ron interrupted.

"Certainly," Hermione responded placidly.

"So do you think I should do it?" asked Harry.

Ron gave a screech. Even Hermione sat up and yelled, "Absolutely not, are you mad? The man is an emotional minefield."

After a moment Hermione looked unhappy. "That was the wrong thing to say, wasn't it, Ron. Either Harry will take that as a challenge, and try get Snape into bed, and blame me for goading him into it -- or worse, Snape will turn out to be the love of his life and he will always remember that I was negative about it."

Ron bleated, "Love of his life! Harry, you won't do it, will you?"

"I don't really see how I can," Harry replied rather gloomily. "Can you imagine what he'd say if I walked up to him and said, "'Oi, Severus, fancy a fuck?'"

"He'd probably point his wand at you and turn you into a beetle." This did not make Harry feel better, but Ron looked relieved. "Best never to speak of it at all, I think."

"On the other hand, if someone has put some sort of charm or curse on Harry, Snape might be the person we know best equipped to discover how it works." Hermione looked thoughtful. "Mind you, I'm not suggesting that you come out and tell him you want to shag him..."

"You just said you thought it was perfectly normal for me to want to shag him!" objected Harry, just as the door creaked open.

"I thought the three of you were going to work on strategy, not discuss your lingering adolescent sexual confusion," said Snape, who stood in the doorway glowering at them.

Hermione didn't bat an eye.

"Actually, as difficult as this may be to believe, Professor, this side conversation is germane to our discussion of strategy."

"Miss Granger," Snape responded.

"Harry is concerned that he has been the target of a spell."

"Unlikely, but of course we can do the appropriate scans," Snape said. He did not sneer. He was taking it seriously. Harry was gratified. "Mr. Potter, as I am no longer useful as a spy, I can assist you by checking you for magical signatures. If that is agreeable."

Now Harry was terrified. What if it really wasn't a hex, or a charm, or whatever? How could he explain that he was having strange feelings that seemed out of character? Snape had never liked Harry following hunches. He wasn't a hunch sort of person.

Not to mention, how could Harry avoid telling Snape that he...was... you know...interested. In Snape. In a sexual way.

Harry looked at Hermione and shook his head. Unfortunately, all she did was to smile a little and nod encouragingly as she stood up. "Come on, Ron, we can grab some lunch while we take notes."

Ron -- who had frozen in his seat from the moment Snape entered, as if he expected to be turned into a beetle if he spoke -- gave Harry a look that was partly apologetic but mostly delighted to have an excuse to get out of there. "Just don't say anything stupid and you'll be fine," he muttered to Harry as he rose.

Practical as that advice might have been, it didn't really give Harry any clue where to start as Hermione strode out of the room with Ron chasing after her. Now he was alone with Snape, who had not taken his eyes off Harry since Hermione mentioned the hex. "Tell me exactly what has happened to arouse your suspicions," Snape ordered.

Harry really wished Snape had used a word other than arouse. He also wished Snape's voice did not sound so sexy, and that Hermione and Ron hadn't left them alone together. "I think maybe someone is trying to influence my behavior. By making me feel, um, uncontrollable lust."

"Potter," Snape said impatiently. "You are twenty-four years old. How unusual is it for a man your age to feel lust?"

Harry looked at the floor, and then at the ceiling, and several other places that were not directly at Snape.

"This is one of your hunches, isn't it," Snape said in a flat voice. "Which means I have to pursue it, because your hunches are sometimes correct." He sounded pained.

"I'm--I'm just embarrassed by what it is. It's two days since we finally disarmed the last Horcrux, and I'm feeling so...I wonder if it's a side effect. That's all." Harry wasn't telling him a lie, he thought. It had been a strong feeling for the past two days. It could have been a side effect of the Horcrux. All of this was true.

Harry was just omitting one detail: the object of these sudden, inexplicable lusts. Perhaps Snape could perform the diagnostic without actually knowing that. It would certainly be helpful--

Harry yelped. "What is it, Potter," Snape said in a distracted voice, "have I trod on your toe?" He was standing very close all of a sudden, bending over Harry to look into his eye. "Could you take off your glasses, please, I want to check your pupils."

"For, er, dilation?" Harry said, in a slightly higher voice than usual.

"Very good," Snape said, almost to himself. He was using a tiny light at the tip of his wand to look.

"Is it like when they put the drops in your eyes, you know, to check your vision?" Harry asked. Was he babbling? He was babbling. Please please please don't notice that I'm hard please.

"No, Potter, that's to check the retina. You were right the first time; this is to check that your pupil dilates normally and isn't affected by anything magical."

"Is it, uh, dilated?"

"Yes, your pupils are dilated."

"Does that mean I was hexed, or, you know, affected by..."

"Just--just let me concentrate for a moment, please!" Snape's face was still very close to Harry's. He smelled nice; Harry didn't expect that. Aftershave, or maybe it was his soap or shaving cream. Harry's groin throbbed. And then, too late, he recalled the more frequent reason for Snape to gaze into his eyes. The room began to swim.

"No -- don't -- " he choked, trying to concentrate, but he'd always been crap at Occlumency with Snape. Wildly he cast about for something else to think about. He tried thinking about Quidditch, but the broomstick turned into a giant erection, and he tried thinking about Transfiguration, but everything transfigured into images of hands stroking over his body. He was so terrified of picturing Snape's face that he tried to force himself to think of some good-looking girl, but the generic pretty one he conjured pulled up her skirt to show that she had a penis.

Harry was scarlet when the room reformed around him and Snape looked embarrassed to be there too, though he was still much closer than Harry thought he needed to be. "Potter, did you grow up among Muggles with prejudices against homosexuals?"

Harry nodded uncomfortably.

"Then if you found yourself attracted to men, you would have reason to wish to believe yourself hexed?"

"It's not that I'm attracted to men!" All right, that had been a stupid thing to say, and Ron had warned him against saying stupid things. "Listen, the Dursleys hated magic and the Irish and anyone who wasn't exactly like them. I wouldn't be pretending I was hexed because of what they'd think."

"Purebloods strongly frown on same-sex couples as well."

"I care about what people like the Malfoys think even less than I care about my relatives!"

"Then what makes you believe you have been hexed, rather than that your own latent desires are surfacing?"

"Well, maybe I am attracted to men, and I can accept that, it's fine. Perhaps I'm bisexual: I like girls, I like boys." Harry shrugged. "It's just that this isn't attraction, it's a sort of madness."

"What do you mean?" Snape asked in a neutral voice. Harry was amazed that Snape wasn't mocking him. Indeed, since Snape's role as the spy had been exposed, his entire attitude toward Harry seemed to have changed. Though he did try to look into Harry's thoughts without his permission, so maybe he still was a git at heart.

What did he mean? He meant that he had wanted to kiss people before, but his heart hadn't pounded like it was pounding now, pooling his blood between his legs where it beat inexorably.

"I--I mean, this isn't like anything I've experienced before, that's what I mean. It feels like magic, not like sexual attraction. I mean, it's sexual attraction, it's just not..."

Harry realized that he was still looking into Snape's eyes, at much closer range than he ever had. Snape's pupils were dilated, though the difference between them and his irises was just barely discernible in this light.

"Why are you trusting me, Potter? You shouldn't trust me. You ignore all the evidence of your eyes," Snape's voice had a strangled sound.

"I'm...I'm not sure what you mean." Harry paused to lick his lips. His mouth felt very dry, maybe because all his blood had rushed to his groin.

"I mean..." Snape swallowed, and when he spoke again his voice was low and throaty. "It isn't any easier for me to listen to you talk about what your prick wants than it is for you to tell me about it."

Helplessly, Harry let out a groan; just hearing Snape say the word prick made him think he might come in his pants. "Sir," he said without even thinking about it, and then Snape moaned, too.

Was it possible that Snape himself had used some kind of sex magic on him? Snape had just said that Harry shouldn't trust him. Yet he found it impossible to believe that Snape would have done such a thing...not because he had such faith in Snape's ethics, but because Harry couldn't imagine that Snape would want Harry to pursue him only because of a spell. If Snape wanted Harry, he would probably want him begging freely...

Harry's gaze had dropped, trying to stop Snape from reading his mind any further, and then he realized what was meant by all the evidence of his eyes. Snape was as hard as he was.

"Do you think..." Harry said, his ears ringing with the blood pounding in them, "do you think this is a side effect of disabling the Horcrux? Since it seems to be affecting you, too, and..."

Snape did not answer. His face took on a peculiar ferocity as, with unexpected gentleness, he tipped Harry's face back to his. His face got closer, and Harry realized in a moment of panic that they were going to kiss.

As Snape's lips touched his, he thought his legs would fail him. There must have been some enchantment, for the kiss to feel like this. Snape, at least, was not himself, because if this was Snape then Harry didn't know him at all. Even when he'd been thinking about shagging Snape, he'd never given any thought to kissing Snape; if anyone had asked Harry, he would have guessed that Snape wasn't any more subtle at kissing than he was at teaching Occlumency.

And Harry would have been wrong. Snape's mouth moved slowly and deliciously over his own. Snape's tongue was sneaky and persistent and even though Harry felt clumsy, like he was sucking too hard and pressing too strongly, he would not have broken the kiss for anything.

Except that if someone didn't stop, he was going to come in his trousers.

It was Snape who broke the kiss, but only in order to run his lips over Harry's face to his neck.

Harry gasped. "Snape, er, Professor Snape, remember this could be a spell! You don't really want to do this..."

But then he lost the ability to form words because Snape's tongue was describing a circle under his ear. Snape's hard thigh was between his legs. He pushed his cock against that muscle, perhaps three times, and came, explosively, in his pants.

Panting, he sagged against the other man. He registered the arms around him, and felt a hand in his hair.

Well of course, Snape must still be under whatever baleful influences had caused this. Harry was grateful that Snape wasn't turning him into a beetle just now, but even in his state of panting relief, he knew that there would be hell to pay.

"Prof -- sor -- Sna -- Severus," he spluttered, clutching Snape around the back, since it was the only way he could speak and remain upright at the same time. Snape's mouth was still on him, now sucking his earlobe as if it contained some magical elixir, and Snape's erection was still pressed against his hip.

Would it be better to try to put a stop to this right now, before anything else happened for which Snape might want to kill Harry when he came to his senses, or would it only be polite to try to do something about that? It wasn't as if Snape could pretend that he hadn't been willing...or, at least, that Harry wasn't just as afflicted as himself.

Hesitantly, he tried sliding a hand around, pulling it across Snape's side and between them. He felt as much as heard Snape moan in his ear. "Let me," Harry muttered, cupping his hand over the rigid shaft he could feel beneath Snape's clothing. Maybe the spell would be broken if they both...

Snape howled his name, thrusting against his hand, and Harry felt his spent cock try to twitch in response. The madness wasn't going away.

After a few minutes. Snape released Harry from their mutual clinging. He didn't look at Harry, but seemed embarrassed.

"Professor?" Harry said.

Snape cast a cleaning charm on himself and on Harry, and looking down, adjusted himself inside his clothing. He didn't speak. His hair fell into his face but he didn't push it aside, so Harry couldn't see his expression.

"Sir? Are you all right?" Harry asked.

"Potter, I..." Uncharacteristically, Snape had no words ready.

"Do you see why I thought that wasn't normal sexual attraction? That it had to be a magical effect or something? Because you don't even like me, and it affected you, too. I mean, okay, I'm twenty-four and, well, maybe I didn't know I liked men before or something, and well, maybe I could get carried away. But you're, you know, I mean, what are you, twenty years older than I am and even you..."

Snape just looked at him. His expression, which Harry had only seen angry or cold, was something else. Harry felt like his heart was turning over in his chest. The darkness of Snape's expression was anger, yes, but it wasn't cold at all.

Didn't Snape hate Harry, though? He was only hurt because he was confused by this weird sex magic, right?

Which of the two of them had this all wrong?

"Since I am twenty years older than you," Snape began in an imperious tone, then paused and lowered his voice, "you might consider a few facts. For one, while you may be -- unseasoned -- in your sexual experiences, I assure you that I am not. I am quite capable of recognizing and taking responsibility for my own urges."

Well, at least Snape didn't somehow think that all this was Harry's fault. But the rest was even more confusing. Was Snape saying that he took responsibility for what Harry was feeling? Again Harry wondered whether Snape had put some sort of spell on him, maybe rationalizing that it was for Harry's own good. There was some kind of magic at work here; Harry could feel it.

Harry didn't know very much about sex magic -- those books had been in the Restricted Section at Hogwarts, and since leaving school it wasn't as though he'd had time to indulge in reading about it. But he did think it was supposed to work better if the people practicing it were...attached to each other.

"Sir," he said, because it seemed the safest way to address Snape right now. "Hermione said, well, she thought it was perfectly normal for me to want to, ah, shag you -- you probably heard the end of that conversation. Is that what you're saying, too? Because, all right, it might be perfectly normal for me. But it's not perfectly normal for you. Perhaps you have a lot of sexual experience, but it's not like you like me, or something. You think I'm arrogant and as thick as two planks."

"When did I ever..." Snape began.

"'You lack subtlety, Potter. It's one of the things that makes you such a lamentable potions maker.'" Harry parroted Snape's words to him from a decade ago. "Not that you were wrong about that."

"Saying that someone lacks subtlety isn't the same as..."

"See, you don't...you would never...it's completely out of character for you. Here you are taking all the responsibility for your urges and all, and you're going to be so angry with me afterward. Like Ron when he took Amortentia by mistake." Harry thought for a moment. "Unless this is your spell or potion or something and you're doing it to be self-sacrificing. I mean, you would do that, you've already shown you would do anything..."

"Potter. For Merlin's sake would you stop."

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to remind you of---of that."

'You think that--sexual congress--with you--is comparable to being required to perform a Killing Curse?"

"No, well, I suppose, if you put it that way..."

"Potter!" It had taken awhile, but Snape finally looked as if he might be thinking about hexing Harry. Which was comforting, in a way; it meant that Snape hadn't changed that much, even if the old Snape would have started exploding jars of potions ingredients several minutes earlier. He had, after all, let Harry interrupt him three times, which had to be a record.

"All right," nodded Harry, taking a deep breath. "Why don't you tell me what's going on, then? Because you can't tell me what we just did is completely normal. This might be the longest conversation we've ever had, and it's normal for me at least to talk to someone before I let them kiss me till I come in my pants!"

Snape was flushed, which gave his pale face a feverish appearance. "You are arrogant and thick as two planks," he said in a pained voice. "Which, if you were older, you might realize is not always a deterrent to desirability."

Harry's stomach tightened in a rather pleasurable way. Was Snape saying he was desirable? But why did he even care whether Snape found him desirable? He and Snape didn't like each other!

Harry flushed, but he did need to know. "You have done a diagnostic and you don't find any evidence that I'm being manipulated magically--some kind of befuddlement, or some magical aphrodisiac or something?"

Snape shrugged. "I haven't been as thorough as that. It appears to me that there is no hex, no enchantment; you merely haven't experienced your full potential for sexual desire."

"But you have. This isn't something new to you." Snape did not answer. "Professor?"

"That's a rather personal question, Potter."

Harry counted to ten. He had had to do this relatively frequently since Snape had rejoined them. It still made him angrier than almost anything when someone withheld information from him, especially if it was something "for his own good."

But perhaps there really was something personal. It was sex, after all. It was unfair for Snape to expect Harry to respect his privacy when he had just read his mind--subtlety or no, that's what it was--but when was Snape ever fair?

"Well, if there's nothing harmful about this, and you aren't going to hex me for it," Harry said, taking a breath.

"Yes?" Snape said, raising his eyebrows.

"I really want to kiss you again."

The stare Snape gave him made Harry so uncomfortable that for a moment he wished Snape would hex him. It couldn't possibly be worse. At least then he'd be able to fight back...maybe even make Snape tell him what was going on.

"Your friends could return at any moment," Snape said finally. "I will come to your room in ten minutes." Without another word he whirled and strode out the door.

Harry took off his glasses and rubbed at his eyes, hoping to make his head clear. It didn't help. He'd been happy to let the Order keep using Grimmauld Place as its headquarters, but sometimes he really wished he could have a private conversation in his own house without having to worry about all his allies barging in.

And Snape was coming to his bedroom! He had better make sure it was clean, Harry realized. He raced out of the room, only to bump into Hermione, who was coming down the hall from the other direction.

"Well? Do you still want to shag him?" she asked with the sort of seriousness that only Hermione could give to that question.

Blushing, Harry nodded. "And if that's not bad enough, I think he might want to shag me, too."

Hermione pursed her lips thoughtfully. "I don't really see how that makes it worse," she said. "I mean, wouldn't you be more embarrassed if you wanted to and he thought you'd gone mad?"

"At least then he'd be doing everything in his power to fix me! What if this never goes away? What if we both decide we like shagging each other and we don't stop?"

It was hard not to notice that Hermione was smiling. "Why, exactly, would that be so horrible?" she asked.

Harry opened his mouth to explain, but he couldn't think of what he wanted to say. Then he remembered: his room, ten minutes. "I have to go," he announced, and fled.

Well, why would it be so horrible? Even the word "shag" had him so hard he could barely make his way down the hall. But there was some reason this was a bad idea, wasn't there?

Harry dashed into the room and silently cast the bed-making charm.

Hadn't Hermione just told him herself that Snape was an emotional minefield?

Like Tonks, he wasn't much at household charms. He'd better do it by hand. He pulled up the sheet.

Should he really be having sex with someone who actively disliked him? That was rather a problem.

What was the point of having a house-elf if his room was such a pit?

Maybe it wasn't a good idea to have sex under the influence of possible magical compulsion. What if it put him in Voldemort's power?

Blimey, there was dust on every surface in this place. Scourgify. No, that didn't do it. Scourgify! That was a bit better.

On the other hand, he did stand a good chance of getting killed in this next battle. Snape did, too. Should they really pass on the opportunity for sex that promised to be so mind-bogglingly good? Damn, he was hard...

Shit! Shit! The wardrobe door wouldn't shut. Shit! Of course this was a bad idea. Snape was going to mock him mercilessly and then leave. Of course it felt like an aphrodisiac, he probably slipped something in Harry's food.

Or perhaps he'd slipped it into his mouth on his tongue when they were kissing.

Harry realized he was staring into space. He sighed through his nose. Kissing.

Shit! It had to have been ten minutes. Harry tried to comb his hair with his fingers but it wouldn't lie flat, of course. He sat on the edge of the room's one chair. There was a knock at the door.

"Come in," he tried to call out forcefully as he rose, but his voice cracked on the last syllable.

Snape might not have heard, though, because the door was already opening. He stepped through, shut it and turned the heavy metal lock that Harry never used because no one had ever come into his bedroom uninvited. Then he pulled out his wand and cast a silencing charm.

Maybe Snape had planned all this so he could come here and perform some horrible hex on Harry. That actually seemed more plausible than Snape coming here for sex. But Snape put the wand back in the pocket of his robe and began to unfasten the buttons.

"What are you doing?" Harry asked nervously. Which was a very stupid question, and Harry already knew the answer. His own hands were already beginning to unfasten his trousers. But he'd felt that he had to say something.

"The last time you kissed me, our clothing did not escape unscathed. I am attempting to avoid another incident."

Just the thought of coming on Snape's bare skin was nearly enough to make Harry lose control again. He left his shoes and trousers in a pile on the floor he'd just cleaned and threw his shirt beside them.

"I guess you know I've never done this before. With a man," he said.

Snape, who was folding his clothing neatly on the chair Harry had abandoned, reached into the pocket of his discarded robe. Now he's going to hex me, thought Harry, but what Snape pulled out was a little pot of something with a stopper. Harry guessed it was lubricant.

"Fuck," he whispered, wondering why he was so excited instead of nervous.

"Potter," Snape began in a serious voice. He sat on Harry's bed in his pants and vest. "You don't have to do anything you don't want to do." He'd clearly misinterpreted Harry's reaction to the lube.

Harry launched himself at the older man. He threw his arms around his shoulders and pinned him to the bed. Their naked legs tangled, knees bumping. Hairy, his brain registered, Snape's legs were hairy.

"Potter!" Was Snape laughing? It was just a guffaw, an expulsion of air--the wind knocked out of him, his face unnatural, a twisted smile.

"I want to," Harry said. "Don't laugh at me. I want to. What if we die?"

Snape reached up and tangled his fingers in Harry's hair, bringing their faces close enough to kiss. Their lips touched, and then Harry felt the softness of Snape's mouth, the endless feeling of their tongues touching.

He hadn't realized how long he was kissing with his eyes shut until Snape broke the kiss.

"You're still wearing your spectacles, Potter," he said. His fingers caressed the sides of Harry's face as he slid the eyeglasses off carefully. He folded the temples with a soft click and placed them on the chair.

"You're still wearing clothes," Harry blurted. Harry wasn't.

"True," Snape replied. He pulled off his vest. His chest was hairy, and there were a few gray hairs sprinkled in with the black ones.

"I want to--can I?" Harry said. He hooked his fingers in the waistband of Snape's pants and pulled them down. Snape's cock sprang out, large and nearly red.

Snape made a sound, but Harry couldn't stop looking. "I don't know what you want me to do, exactly," he said finally.

Snape looked at him very seriously. It felt odd to receive such a somber look from a naked, aroused man, and it made Harry smile. "What do you want to do?" Snape asked him.

In all the vague fantasies that had been in Harry's mind since this madness began, he realized, he had been shagging Snape. He hadn't given any thought to what it would be like for Snape; he had had Snape on all fours or on his back, and Harry had been thrusting mindlessly into him.

"I'm not sure I know," he said aloud, turning as red, he suspected, as Snape's cock. He hated ever having to admit to Snape that he didn't know something. It was usually used against him sooner or later.

"Do you want me to touch you?" Snape asked.

The question seemed to reverberate in the still air of the room, so that Harry felt he must remember to breathe.

"Oh. Yes." The "s" hissed out of him like he was speaking Parseltongue. He briefly wondered if he had, by accident, from looking at Snape's cock so intently.

Snape brought his arm around Harry's body, so that they were lying full length next to each other on the bed. Harry was on his back and Snape on his side. Snape kissed him and began to run his hands down Harry's torso. He stopped at a nipple with one hand, and then the other was on Harry's cock.

"Oh!" Harry's eyes rolled up in his head for a moment. Snape kissed him again, stroking his cock almost lazily, so slowly, touching his chest. He writhed.

"It's so..." he said, when Snape released his mouth. "I want...ah. It feels so good, I want to do it to you. Can I try? I might--ah!" He didn't want to come right away, but he was worried that he might. Snape relaxed his grip a bit.

"Is it a sign that I've been hexed if I want to--to put my mouth on you?" Harry asked.

Snape huffed a laugh that turned into a moan. His breath was warm on Harry's face. "I doubt it's a sign that you've been hexed, Potter, but it is very likely a sign that you're queer," he said.

This particular piece of information was less disconcerting than it would have been several days earlier. Discovering that he was attracted to men wasn't nearly as strange as discovering that he was attracted to Snape. Harry had always thought Snape was ugly. His complexion was unpleasant and his nose was too big and his teeth were yellow, but more than that, his eyes were cold and he always sneered. Even now, he didn't think Snape was handsome, but the expression on his face was far from cold, and looking at his groin made Harry's mouth water.

Before he could think too much about the impulse, he slid down on the bed and put his hand on Snape's cock. The foreskin slid away from the head when he tugged down, exposing the shining crown. Leaning over, he ran his tongue across the tip, feeling the furrow at the top of the slit. It didn't taste too bad, and he liked the noise Snape made when he did it, so he put his mouth over the bulge at the end and sucked.

This made Snape hiss, and a hand dropped into Harry's hair. "Gently," he said in a voice that was more plea than command.

Harry took his mouth away long enough to say, "Is it all right--can I make you come this way?"

Snape couldn't speak for a moment. "Please," he said.

Harry tried to slide the entire length into his mouth. He'd always wanted Ginny to do this for him, but couldn't ask her. Still, he gagged as the head of Snape's cock breached the back of his throat. He didn't even have the whole thing in his mouth!

"Don't--don't hurt yourself," Snape's voice said in a groan from a million miles away. Harry put his hand around the bottom of the cock and his mouth around the top, and sort of bobbed up and down in a rhythm of his own devising. The skin slid easily. He made his lips firm so that it would feel like a hand, only better, and sucked experimentally.

Snape was moaning above him. Harry stretched his neck so he could keep sucking and look at Snape's face. Snape's head was thrown back and his body curved away.

Soon Snape lifted himself on his shoulders and looked down at Harry. He said, "Potter, Harry, Harry, I'm going to come!"

Harry smiled up at him around his cock. Sex with a man was a lot easier!

Then his mouth was filled with bitter spunk as Snape nearly screamed with pleasure. He choked a little, and Snape immediately pulled back, but this was worse. Semen spurted into his face and hair.

In a moment, Snape had gathered Harry up into his arms. He kissed Harry's face, wiping the semen from his eyebrows. "I'm sorry," he whispered breathlessly.

Harry didn't think Snape had ever apologized to him for anything. His throat still burned, but it wasn't terrible, and he liked the way Snape was kissing him and licking his face clean.

"If you lie back, I'll return the favor," murmured Snape after a few more kisses.

"Oh, fuck, yes," Harry said in what he hoped wasn't too much of a whimper, forgetting for a moment not to use such language with a professor. Except of course Snape hadn't been his professor for a long time; Harry just forgot, and cringed whenever Snape disagreed with him in a meeting or made a suggestion. Maybe Snape hadn't hated him for a long time and Harry just hadn't noticed.

In any event, he couldn't really think about it any more when Snape shifted over him, sucked on one of his nipples for a little while, then moved down and put his mouth on Harry's cock. He didn't suck right away; he rubbed his tongue up and down one particular spot just beneath the head and licked into the slit, even though Harry could feel that his cock was leaking.

Snape put a hand on Harry's balls, rolling them up toward his body. He did something with his lips to cover his teeth and took Harry's cock into his mouth, tongue still moving against the shaft. Harry couldn't help it; he was spurting into Snape's mouth before the cry of warning had even left his lips.

He wanted to lie in Snape's arms. That was weird. Maybe it was just because he'd had such a brilliant orgasm. But what if it was...

"Potter. Stop worrying about being hexed." Snape said in a rumbly, sleepy voice.

"So you do think there's a possibility?" Harry asked. Snape arranged them on the bed. He pulled Harry's head onto his shoulder and put his arms around him.

"Maybe," Snape admitted.

"It's not just because I'm gay and didn't know it?"

"Who knows," Snape murmured.

"Did you do something..." Harry started to ask, but his eyelids were very heavy. "Or did someone else do something to you, too. Because I could like you, maybe, that part could be real. Because I could like someone, you know. But you don't like me. That's what I still think. " He was so sleepy now.

"I know you do, love," he thought he heard Snape say, but then again he was falling asleep. Even under a spell, Snape wouldn't say something like that. He wished that Snape would stay with him while he slept.

"I'll stay for a little while. It would be good for you to sleep. Potter."

"S'Harry," mumbled Harry. If Snape was going to give him orgasms like that, the least he could do was call him by his...

Harry was having a strange dream, though not a bad one. He was in bed with Severus Snape. Who had rolled with his back to Harry, and Harry's cock was sliding up and down in the cleft between his buttocks. It felt good, and Harry was moaning.

Snape was moaning, too. "Harry," he sighed. "Harry..." Yes, a pretty good dream, having Snape say his name like that, let alone having Harry grind against him naked. "Here, here."

He opened his eyes. Snape had pulled Harry's arm around in front of his body and was pushing something into his hand. It was the little pot.

Which meant three things: Harry wasn't dreaming. He and Snape had actually sucked each other off earlier. And Snape was inviting him to fuck him.

Maybe, thought Harry, he should stop thinking of Snape as Snape. "You have to show me how," he said.

Snape rolled onto his back and pulled Harry on top of him. Their cocks touched as they kissed. Harry made another involuntary sound. The heat of the other man's erection against his was exquisitely pleasurable.

"Is it even morning?" Harry said groggily.

"Yes," Snape whispered. He reached Harry's hand down below his balls. "I'm going to tell you about what we're going to do, all right?"

Harry looked into Snape's serious face, and nodded. He kissed him on the mouth, and then looked into his eyes and nodded again.

"We are going to have anal sex," Snape said in his classroom voice, which was very quiet in the dark house. Harry drew in a sharp breath.

"You will use your fingers to prepare the opening. It has millions of nerve endings and is one of the most sensitive areas of the body. Take some lubricant on your index finger, and insert it."

As Harry did this, Snape gasped. Harry looked as his face.

"Can you feel that there are two rings of muscle there?" Snape's voice was thick with desire. "As you stimulate the anus and the receptive partner relaxes, both the first ring of muscles, which I can control, and the second ring, which is involuntary and tied to stress response, will open. You will be able to introduce a second--finger--"

Harry kept watching Snape's face. Snape continued to lecture Harry.

"In addition to the sensitive tissue at the opening, there is a pleasure center at the prostate gland, which you can feel with your fingers if you--ah!" Harry had found it. Snape's eyes rolled and fluttered shut for a moment.

"I want to--can I--" Harry stuttered.

"Patience," Snape said sharply. Patience was something Harry was very short on at that moment, but he bit down on his lips and moved his fingers, trying to see if he could make Snape roll his eyes like that again. He didn't want to hurt Snape, after all.

He tried spreading his fingers a bit and discovered that it didn't seem to be causing any pain. "Severus," he tried saying.

"Harry." No one had ever said his name like that before. Harry whimpered loudly. "Take some of the lubricant and put it on your penis. Use more than you think is necessary -- it should be quite messy."

It was, and Harry's fingers squelched as they stroked up his cock, but the embarrassment was just enough to help stop him from coming. He was afraid he'd erupt before he ever got inside Snape.

Snape had raised and spread his legs so that when Harry moved over him, his feet were practically at Harry's shoulders. Snape's cock was rigid against his belly. "Take a pillow," he instructed. "Push it under my hips...there."

Harry could wait no longer. He took his cock in his hand and pressed it against the hole. It still looked too small, and at first Harry thought it wasn't going to open for him. He was whimpering miserably, afraid that he was going to come all over the backs of Snape's balls, when Snape did something and moved his hips and the head pushed inside.

"I can do this," Harry thought, "just as long as he doesn't say 'penis' again. Or my name. Oh God."

He looked at Snape, who was spread open to him, his cock hard on his belly. Silently, as though he knew what Harry was thinking. Snape pulled up one of his legs so that Harry could place it on his shoulder.

Harry's cock could slide, now, slowly, into this other person's body. It was hot, and very tight, and slick from the lubricant, and it felt like he was in some way in the right place--home. It was Snape, he was inside Snape.

"All right," Snape said softly, "all right, Harry?" and he didn't sound mocking, or like he was teaching, or even like a lover. It was just a friendly question.

Tears started at the corners of Harry's eyes, which was the closest he ever really got to crying. He wanted to say so much but when had he ever been able to say anything to Snape?

"Yes, all right," Harry said in a choked voice. "Will it hurt you if I move?"

Snape gave a small, aroused grunt and said, "Move," and Harry pushed in further and Snape groaned. Then he swung in and out.

Snape's voice made deep gravelly grunts with each thrust, uh uh uh, his face ecstatic. Harry was doing this to him. He had seen this man save someone's life and he had seen him kill someone and he was seeing him now, coming undone.

Harry saw Snape grab his own cock and begin to wank in time with his strokes. "Yes, Severus, yes," he gasped. He was going to come.

He started to say so, but just as he did, Snape went still and groaned. Harry felt a ripple around his cock, then a sudden squeeze. A white jet shot over Snape's belly, leaving a long streak partway up his ribs. Snape groaned again, and Harry watched as spurt after spurt spilled onto his belly, mostly little surges after the first big one.

Except in a bunch of magazines that Fred and George had once passed around, Harry had never seen another man have an orgasm. He decided immediately that he wanted to do it again. But as Snape's muscles relaxed around him, his cock reminded him that he needed to come now. He started to move again cautiously, afraid of hurting Snape.

"Let go," Snape wheezed. Harry didn't know whether that was supposed to be permission to move or permission to come, but as soon as he gave a real thrust forward, he felt his balls tighten.

Snape had a hand on his chest and was tugging on one of his nipples. Crying out, Harry came and came, grinding his groin against Snape's bottom. He kept making noises and shaking even after it was over, until Snape pulled him down, still inside his arse, and put his arms around him.

"I love you," Harry said. He hadn't known he was going to say it. He hadn't even thought about saying it, which probably meant that he was still under some spell.

But he didn't feel like he was hexed; he felt like everything in the world had scrambled, rearranged and come back better than they ever had been before.

Even so, as soon as he said it, Harry felt terribly embarrassed. Snape didn't say anything, which was good. Harry didn't want to know that Snape didn't love him, or why what he was feeling was only sex, or why this was a bad idea. He was grateful for the silence.

It was enough that he had let Harry feel all of this. If Snape had said "I love you too"? Harry wouldn't have been able to believe that anyway.

Snape just held him, even though their bodies were starting to stick together a bit. He played with Harry's hair, and planted warm dry kisses on the top of his head.

Finally Snape said, "We're going to be sticky." He grasped his wand and Summoned a washcloth, and quietly cleaned them both up with it.

"Could you--could you stay here?" Harry asked shyly.

Snape gave him a puzzled look, but he put down the wand and lay back, putting one hand behind his head. Harry had started to settle back down against him when he realized that the question could have been taken to mean some more indefinite period than a few minutes this morning.

He raised himself up on one elbow and looked down at Snape's face. If this was all the result of a spell, it was working very strangely. He still noticed how blotchy Snape's skin was where he'd scrubbed it clean, and Snape's nose was as big as ever, just like before. On the other hand, he'd never just blurted out I love you to Ginny like that.

"You have questions," Snape observed, not looking altogether pleased. Maybe he had hoped Harry would be clever enough to figure out what was going on by himself.

"A few," Harry said, nodding. He dropped his eyes. Snape's cock was lying in a quiet curl over one of his thighs, pale now against the dark hair. Seeing it like that, Harry felt a funny surge of possessiveness. He looked back up at Snape.

"If you really believed this was a hex, why not try finite incantatem?" Snape asked.

"It's too early in the morning," Harry said.

"You're awake now," Snape pointed out. His face was expressionless.

"All right," Harry said. He silently Summoned his wand--something he could do thanks to Snape's lessons. Every time he used non-verbal spells in front of Snape he hoped that Snape noticed.

Then he had a thought, and wrapped himself up in the sheet. If Snape got angry, he didn't want to be completely naked. Pointing the wand at Snape, he intoned finite out loud. His throat was tight.

"Why did you perform the spell on me, you fool?" Snape asked in an irritated voice. "Aren't you the one who has bizarre inexplicable lust toward an inappropriate object?"

"All right," Harry said. "You do me, then."

Snape hesitated.

"Go on," Harry said. Snape lifted his wand and repeated the spell. Harry did feel something change. He looked at Snape experimentally.

"You aren't yelling at me," Harry said. "That's a good sign. You aren't angry then."

"Why would I be angry with you, annoying and obtuse as you are? We have just enjoyed a very pleasurable sexual encounter."

"That's all right then," Harry said, and snuggled down in the bed, his body just under Snape's armpit, his head on the other man's shoulder. He put his arm across Snape's chest, and enjoyed the sensation of Snape gradually relaxing.

He must have done something to me, Harry thought, but it didn't work properly. He was nervous about taking off whatever it was. I'll never understand him. The whole thing's crazy.

I want to be on the bottom the next time.

"I still have questions, you know," Harry said sleepily.

"Go to sleep, Potter. We have to be up in an hour."

II. Side Effects

Harry was sure his confusion wouldn't permit him to fall back asleep, but he was wrong. He jolted awake some unidentifiable span of time later, finding Snape still wrapped up with him in Harry's bed.

"Tell me why you're doing this," he said to Snape.

"I have had more orgasms in the past few hours than in the past few months. Isn't that reason enough?" asked Snape irritably. When Harry shook his head against his shoulder, Snape sighed in a rather frustrated manner.

"Tell me why you are alive, Potter."

"Well..." Petunia had allowed Harry to live under her protection until he was old enough for school, and Sirius had come to save Harry in the Ministry of Magic, and Snape himself had taken the curse off Harry's broomstick when Quirrell was...oh.

"My mother," Harry recited unhappily. "She gave her life to save me, and that protected me from the Killing Curse."

"But why did it protect you?"

"Because she loved me. Dumbledore said it left a mark in my skin. But it doesn't work anymore. Voldemort can touch me now. He could probably cast the Killing Curse and if I don't block it..."

Why was Snape asking him this? Harry remembered stupidly blurting out that he loved Snape and felt his face grow warm.

"Are you trying to tell me there's some connection between being in...um, between what we're doing and being able to defeat Voldemort?"

"I'm not trying to tell you anything," Snape said. He turned away from Harry in the bed.

"Why can't you ever just spell things out," Harry muttered under his breath.

"What's that?" Snape said, looking at him.

"Look, I am thick about some things and I like clear explanations. You've never lied to me when I've asked you a direct question, ever. Just tell me: did you put a spell of some kind on me?"

"I cast a charm of protection on you, yes," Snape said. "You have destroyed the last Horcrux. Now you must destroy the Dark Lord's reconstructed body. You will have to face him, and..."

"So there was some magic on me that made me want to...want you, I mean."

"That was an unintended consequence of the spell."

"A side effect?"

"Yes."

"Why did you cast it?"

"What do you mean, why? To protect you. It's a charm of protection."

"I mean, why did you cast it."

"Because I am prepared to do whatever is required to protect you."

"But you lifted it just now when I asked you."

"I understood that your feelings of attraction to me might be a side-effect of the spell. I wasn't trying to coerce you, Potter, just to protect you." Snape's face had a serious expression, his heavy brows knit and his mouth a line. "I will have to cast the charm again before you go to meet the Dark Lord."

"My feelings didn't change when you lifted the charm," Harry said.

"Mine didn't, either," Snape said, quietly.

"If you've taken off the charm and this is a side effect, then why hasn't it gone away? Is there supposed to be a delay, maybe? So someone can't lift the protection right when it's needed? Or maybe -- what's that called that makes you want someone -- the pheremones haven't gone down yet?"

Snape shrugged slightly, hunching his shoulders as if he expected something unpleasant to happen. "There was a theory, in one of the books." He cleared his throat. "I had thought this sort of effect would be impossible between us because a certain mutual attraction is necessary for it to manifest."

Snape was saying that he and Harry would both have to have wanted this, at least a little, even without any magic. Harry thought about protesting that he hadn't, but then it occurred to him that Snape wasn't offering similar denials. In fact, the day before, Snape had said that Harry being obtuse and thick didn't make him unattractive.

Then Harry realized something else. "My mother had to die for that protection to work!"

"I am well aware of that." Snape's voice was scornful, but he didn't look at Harry. Harry thought he seemed embarrassed.

"Well, forget it! I'm not letting you get yourself killed to protect me!"

"Do you really believe," Snape asked, now staring straight at Harry, "that you will be able to dispatch with the Dark Lord without others putting themselves in danger to give you the opportunity?"

"In danger, yeah! You were already in danger, but this is different. I am not going to let you--"

"Oh for heaven's sake Potter, grow up! 'Let' me, indeed."

"Is this what you do, Snape, risk your life for one person after another?"

They were face-to-face and angry at each other, which seemed so ordinary and expected. Except that they were both sitting up naked in Harry's bed and it was early morning in Sirius Black's much-despised ancestral home. Except that instead of wanting to kill Snape and have his revenge, Harry wanted to prevent him from laying down his life.

Yes, except for all of that, perfectly ordinary.

Snape looked down at their clenched fists and smiled. "No, for a few years I actually taught Potions in a school for witchcraft and wizardry."

Harry smiled too. "Which had its own set of risks."

"Cauldrons exploding..."

"Dunderheads who preferred foolish wand-waving..."

"Do you remember everything I ever said to you?" Snape said softly.

"Unfortunately, not enough of the Potions bits."

"What are your career goals, Mr. Potter?"

"I wouldn't mind taking a post-Hogwarts course in remedial potions, sometime."

"Deadly dull stuff," Snape said.

"You aren't dying for me, Snape."

"Shows what you know," Severus Snape leered, and bent a little to kiss him.

If removing the protection charm was supposed to make Harry less interested in Snape, it wasn't working. Harry felt both his cock and his heartbeat jump when Snape's mouth touched his.

"Do we have time for another go?" he asked hopefully.

"Potter. You may still be in your twenties, but I am not." But Harry was sure that Snape was smiling against his mouth, which he kept kissing in between words. After another moment he slid his hands into Harry's hair.

"All right, we'll do it later then. Promise me."

"I thought you were hoping that you'd have lost interest by 'later.'" Snape's tongue was doing something dead sexy in the corner of Harry's mouth. It tickled, but it also made Harry want to turn his head and suck Snape's tongue into his mouth. They kissed deeply, until Harry's erection was digging into Snape's hip and he was whimpering softly.

"I want you to..." Harry paused. He couldn't say fuck me to Snape and he couldn't think of a good alternative; have sex with me was too vague about exactly what he wanted Snape to do, and Harry didn't dare think of anything involving the phrase make love.

Snape straightened to look at him, and then he said, "Lie back." He wasn't hard, Harry noticed, but he found the little pot of lube and dipped a finger in. "If you've never done this before, you may find it more uncomfortable than pleasurable."

Lifting one of Harry's legs over his shoulder, Snape bent and licked the head of Harry's cock as the finger touched Harry behind his testicles and slid gently but firmly back. Around. Inside him.

It was incredible, the feeling of a finger teasing his arse and the mouth on his cock. Harry was sure that even the finger must be too huge, but he was already groaning from it.

Snape took his mouth off of Harry's cock and said, "Later, I'll fuck you," in his darkest voice. He wasn't moving his finger. He didn't say "Relax," which would have been ridiculous. He said, "It will be my cock that finds all your secret places, my cock that makes you writhe."

Harry felt something inside him relax and then, oh God. Snape was stroking his cock and his finger was inside and Harry felt a jolt of electricity. Snape had found Harry's prostate. He bent his head to Harry's cock again and that wicked mouth was sucking at him, hard.

Snape worked in a second finger. Harry heard himself making strange noises, deep guttural sounds. Snape was fucking his fingers in and out. He lifted his head to look at Harry.

"It will be my cock, pounding into you," Snape continued. "Inside, where you are hot and tight, so tight." It was like Harry was the one fucking and the one being fucked, he could imagine the pleasure on both sides from the choked sound of Snape's "tight." He threw his head back.

"Severus!" he gasped, "Oh God I'm going to come!"

Snape bent his head and sucked Harry hard into his mouth, and Harry came noisily. He was still groaning after his cock had stopped spurting. Snape slowly and carefully worked his fingers out.

"That's right," he said to Harry softly, "that's right," and he lay down beside him and held him close.

Harry was shaking against Snape. Again he had that odd feeling like he wanted to cry. He did not trust the words that would come out if he tried to speak.

"The spell isn't wearing off?" Snape asked after awhile. He was stroking Harry's head. "My apologies."

Snape didn't sound sorry. Not at all.

"I am NOT letting you die to protect me," Harry said vehemently. His voice sounded funny to himself, like he had been coughing. "You had better have some other plan."

"If the aphrodisiac effect hasn't abated, I might as well recast the charm for its protective aspect," Snape said in a businesslike way. They got out of bed and Snape buttoned his robes. Harry was still in his pants; he just couldn't miss Snape buttoning the buttons, and had to stop dressing. It was amazing how quickly Snape did them up without a spell.

"Not if it means you have to..."

"It provides some protection whether I'm alive or dead, Potter."

"All right, then. But you..."

Snape cut him off before Harry could try to make him promise to stay alive. "I know you will want to discuss the state of your magical influences with your little friends. Please do not share the details of our sex life with them. I'm sure they will be able to figure it out without an explanation; that's exposure enough for me."

Harry's face heated from his hairline to his neck.

"Yes, if you blush like that, it will be enough for Granger to suss things out. You won't have to say a word." Snape smiled in his crooked way.

"I've never learned to suppress my emotions properly," Harry admitted sheepishly.

"You have other virtues," Snape said. He opened the door and swooped out of the room, robes billowing.

Harry smiled.

They were so late for breakfast that he did not need to say a word to Ron and Hermione, anyway. Snape was nowhere to be seen, but the moment Harry entered the kitchen, Ron turned as red as Harry had done, while Hermione smiled at him.

"Was it a spell?" she asked briskly.

Blushing again, Harry nodded, ignoring Ron's squeak of horror. "Snape was using some sort of protection spell. He didn't think it would have side effects."

Ron rolled his eyes a bit and muttered about Snape, but Hermione had a look of understanding on her face. "I've read about those spells. Don't you remember, in History of Magic, how kings used to have them cast for knights before...no?" Harry was shaking his head. "Well, no matter. But, Harry, if the spell is making you feel desire..."

"It shouldn't be happening unless I was already attracted. I know -- Snape told me." Harry bit his lip. "I guess you were right that maybe I admired him. But, Hermione...how does that whole business about someone dying to protect someone else work? What happened with my mother was unique, right -- no one else has ever survived the Killing Curse. Snape can't do anything daft like get killed for me, can he?"

Hermione looked puzzled for a moment. "Harry, any of us can get killed. Or all of us. You know that."

"Yes, but.."

Ron chewed some toast, and swallowed. "We decided when we left school in seventh year that we were going to throw in our lot with you, whatever that meant. If we die, then we die."

Harry didn't want to even think about Ron dying. "But that's not the same as deciding to sacrifice yourself for..."

"Lupin said that if Voldemort wins, there wouldn't be anything worth living for anyway." Ron said.

Lupin had disappeared four months ago and no one knew whether he was alive or dead.

"I don't want anyone else to die for me, all right?" Harry said finally. "I don't want that to be part of anyone's plan for how the war should go."

"But there's the Prophecy..." Hermione began.

"Bugger the Prophecy!" Harry exploded. "It's just Voldemort believing it that makes it so! I'm not letting this happen. There has to be another way." He thought for a moment. "Could there be some sort of counter-spell? Something that would make Snape...dislike me like he usually does?"

"You tried finite incantatem?" When Harry nodded, Hermione shook her head a bit, frowning. "There are other spells, and potions, too, but I imagine that if there was a specific antidote, Snape would know it. If he doesn't want to dislike you..."

"What about something like an anti-love potion?" Both Harry and Hermione turned to look at Ron, and he squirmed a bit. "I mean, something that works like Amortentia but in reverse -- isn't there something that can make you notice everything you already don't like about someone?"

"Well...yes, but..." Hermione crossed her arms, suddenly reminding Harry of Professor McGonagall. "Harry, why are you asking us this instead of Snape? Did you tell him you don't want him to do this?"

"Of course I did!" Harry rubbed at the bridge of his nose. What he really wanted was to find a way to convince Snape that there wasn't enough of a connection between them for it to be worth Snape risking his life, while at the same time keeping enough of an attraction that Snape would shag him later as he had promised. Just thinking about it made him feel hot all over. He wondered where Snape had gone.

"A potion is a bad idea," Hermione said. "Snape is sure to detect it, and if it goes wrong..."

"Yeah, Ron, after your experience with Amortentia..." Harry added.

"It's just a bad idea, all right? You can't be underhanded about this," Hermione insisted.

"Well, I think you should just stop--you know," Ron said. "If he thinks that he loves you, just be a git about--about sex." Ron had the Weasley family blush now, red face, red hair, freckles standing out like orange neon.

Hermione looked at Ron with unconcealed pride. "You see, Ron, you see! You really do understand people's motivations. It's not all about chess moves with you."

"You think Ron is right?"

"You have to say no to more sex, Harry," Hermione said bravely, her voice sinking to a near whisper on the word sex. "Sex only makes people who care about one another feel closer."

Ron smiled involuntarily and Hermione looked, forgivably, smug.

Harry felt as though the wind had been knocked out of him. So it wasn't going to be real, after all. It had felt so good to have Snape's arms around him, to kiss him and be kissed by him. It had felt like he was finally in the right place. He felt sick at the prospect of giving it up, even though it had only been one night.

But if he didn't turn away from Snape now, it would only get worse. Snape would die. At least if Harry said no now, Snape would still be alive. He wouldn't have a reason to sacrifice himself for Harry if he didn't love Harry.

He might need a potion, himself, to be able to do this.

"Are you all right?" Hermione asked.

"I feel a bit queasy," Harry admitted. He rushed from the room. Lying down in his own room did not make him feel better. The room reeked of sex. Or Severus' aftershave or something. In any case, being there reminded him too much of Severus.

Fuck. He should not have been thinking of Snape as Severus. That had to stop right now.

Harry was supposed to be working on deflection and diversion charms, but he didn't want to be around anyone. He wanted to be someplace where no one would disturb him. No one ever went into Mrs. Black's room; after they'd found the locket, they had all agreed not to get rid of her things in case something else of great importance turned up, but they'd put it all away in her room and never disturbed it.

For at least the thousandth time, Harry wished Sirius were there. He bet that Sirius knew more about being in love than Harry did. And even if he didn't, he would have reminded Harry of all the reasons it was a terrible idea to be with Severus. That is, Snape.

Somehow this was not a comfort.

By lunchtime Harry was feeling hungry and less unhappy. He had work to do -- he was supposed to be working on deflection charms to defeat Voldemort! That was the only thing really important.

He went downstairs. Ron and Hermione were nowhere to be found. And there in the library was Sev- Snape.

Harry felt his stomach plummet to his shoes. How could he do it? He was crap at suppressing his emotions. Right now, for example, he knew that Snape could read him like a book.

"What's wrong, Potter?" Snape said. He sounded impatient, not loving--like his normal self. Good! There was no evidence at all of the warmth that had been between them. Perhaps Snape was coming to his senses.

"Er, nothing," Harry said.

With his usual sneer, Snape responded, "You are quite possibly the worst liar I have ever met. You are flushed, you are practically trembling with your attempts to appear calm, your face looks unhappy."

"But aside from all of that, what tipped you off?" Harry joked under his breath.

As Snape turned away from him Harry saw that he smiled to himself surreptitiously. How long had that been going on? Had Snape always smiled to himself at Harry's stupid jokes?

"I have been thinking," Harry said, and then grinned, "Which is something I do sometimes..."

"And?" Snape said coldly. "Let me guess: you think this isn't a good idea. The spell's effects have dissipated. You find, on reflection, that now that you realize that you prefer men, you aren't interested in having sex with a man old enough to be your father, with all the physical limitations that entails. 'Thank you professor, I enjoyed myself, etc. and can we still be friends'--to the extent that we were friends, which we were not."

"That's not it," Harry blurted. Damn. He was an idiot. He should have said something cruel and cutting and made Snape believe that he didn't want to be with him.

"Well, what is it. Looking for a quickie?" Snape said with his trademark soft sarcasm.

"If we have--if we keep up--" Harry began.

"Having sex," Severus said, motioning Harry with his hand to continue.

"I just don't want you to love me!"

Snape's face looked hurt for a fraction of a second before it realigned.

"Who said I loved you?" Snape said. "Perhaps I just want to use your nubile young body for my perverse pleasures."

Harry laughed, relieved. "Oh, well, that's all right then."

"What?"

"I like your perverse pleasures, Sever--Professor."

"Are you flirting with me, Potter?" Snape looked genuinely confused.

"Yes, I think so," Harry said. He was fucking this up, wasn't he? He wasn't supposed to be flirting and trying to get Severus to come closer.

Which he was, coming around the big table.

"You want sex," Snape clarified. "You just don't want me to..."

Abruptly his face cleared. "Potter, I will do whatever is necessary to be certain that you accomplish your task. If that means..."

"No, you won't!" Harry spoke over Snape loudly to prevent himself from being interrupted in turn. "I asked Hermione whether there was some kind of counter-spell. Don't think I'd hesitate to use it. It isn't as if you warned me before you cast whatever caused this...this!"

Snape looked almost sympathetic. "I assume, then, that the side effect has not lessened?"

Blushing, Harry shook his head.

"Nor for myself," muttered Snape, half to himself.

"In that case..." Harry still felt torn. He knew that the wise thing to do would be to suggest something that would break whatever connection was forming between them. But he said, "You made me a promise. I think I should collect before it gets any later."

Or, he thought, before he talked himself into doing what Hermione had suggested and put a stop to the whole thing, which was the very last thing he wanted to do. Other than letting Snape die for him.

Snape bent his neck slightly and kissed him on the mouth. It was just a casual kiss, but Harry couldn't help shutting his eyes. He opened them and caught the ghost of Snape's odd, crooked smile.

"You have to eat, Potter," Snape said.

"But I want..."

"You were right; I promised you--" he put his mouth close to Harry's ear "a brilliant fuck." Harry gasped involuntarily and Snape actually, he couldn't believe it, chuckled. "I have every intention of delivering on that promise." He straightened. "You need to eat and sleep and practice. We don't have long now."

Harry grabbed him and hugged him about the waist, and felt Snape stiffen.

"What? What is it?" Snape asked.

Harry couldn't explain it. "Nothing," he said. Then, just so Snape wouldn't feel uncomfortable about the hug, he said, "Can we eat in my room, so that we can--?"

Snape relaxed. "Yes, I think that would be fine."

But although Harry fetched sandwiches, biscuits and butterbeer from the kitchen before meeting Snape upstairs, he lost interest in food the moment he saw Snape sitting on his bed waiting for him.

"You could fuck me first..." Harry said hopefully.

"Discipline, Potter." Snape frowned at him and Harry felt contrite. It wasn't enough that Snape liked sex with him; he wanted Snape to like him, maybe even to have some of the same respect for Harry that Harry had for Snape -- though not, of course, to love him, which was entirely too dangerous.

Except what if one or both of them got killed fighting Voldemort, and this was their one chance?

"I need..." Harry sat down on the bed and handed a bottle to Snape. "Before I have to face Voldemort. I've been practicing and practicing Defense, I can do that all as well as I'm likely to learn from practice. But I still can't block you when you use Legilimency. I need to know how you block him. What to put in my mind to make it impenetrable."

Snape took a bite of one of the sandwiches and chewed for a moment.

"One reason why our Legilmency lessons were such a disaster nine years ago is that you prefer explicit instruction in order to help you draw theoretical conclusions."

"I did very well with your Potions textbook though."

"But that didn't have any theory in it, because I didn't have trouble with Potions theory. You probably still don't understand how Potions work. It's native to the way I think. I can see a set of empirical results and extrapolate a theory."

"Was that what you were trying to do with Occlumency and Legilimency, with me?"

"Yes, of course. I thought if you just practiced, you would understand it. But then of course there were other issues as well."

"I didn't trust you." Harry said. "I never understood why you hated me so much."

"Do you understand now?"

"Did you really hate me?" Harry looked down.

"No."

Harry swallowed. He took a drink of butterbeer. Something was stuck in his throat.

"In any case, I don't know if I can teach you. I am willing to try."

"Why--" Harry started. He couldn't say anything.

Snape was studying him, and put down his sandwich. "You were not the one I needed to convince that I despised you."

"Well, you did convince me." Though Harry tried to cover the shake in his voice with a laugh, he could see that Snape wasn't fooled.

"I saved your life by doing so, and the lives of others. Why should my opinion have mattered to you? You always had plenty of friends and admirers, and your marks in my class were adequate. It isn't as though I was particularly friendly toward the other students, not even people like Malfoy whose trust it was essential that I keep."

The butterbeer seemed safer than trying to answer right away. Harry took another swallow and took his time before speaking. "Dumbledore trusted you...Dumbledore liked you," he said finally.

For a moment Snape wore the same expression Harry had seen on his face that awful night on the balcony. Then it was gone. He picked up his food and set the butterbeer down on the table by the bed, and Harry did the same. There was something he had wanted to ask Snape for a long time.

"That memory from the Pensieve," he said. "You must have had worse. I mean, I'm not excusing what they did, but whatever brought you back to Hogwarts after Voldemort must have been worse. You wanted to stop my lessons in case I really did learn to break into your memories."

Snape inclined his head briefly. Harry had not known what a relief it would be to have him agree -- to acknowledge that it hadn't been entirely Harry's fault. He let out a shuddering breath. A moment later he found himself being pulled forward, down on the bed.

"Enough," Snape said and kissed him more ferociously than Harry could ever recall having been kissed. He knotted his hands in Snape's hair as he tried to return it.

"What do you want?" Snape whispered in his ear. "Do you really want me to fuck you?"

Harry shuddered involuntarily. "Yes."

"Yes. You blush all over. I want to kiss you everywhere you turn red, to follow the blood down your body."

He kissed Harry's face, throat, collarbone. Harry pulled his t-shirt over his own head and while he had his arms up, Snape was kissing down the sides of his chest. He was everywhere. It was like being devoured.

"Wait, wait," Harry said, panting a little. Snape had his tongue in Harry's navel. He looked up. "Aren't you going to take off your clothes?" Harry asked.

Snape grabbed his wand, said "Divestio!" and all of their remaining clothing flew off and folded itself up on the one chair in the room.

"You still have your shoes on," Harry murmured. The socks were gone though. Snape toed them off with a disgusted look. Harry pulled him up, so that Snape was over him, hands on either side of Harry's head. "I want to look at you," he said.

"What? Why?" Snape said, with a look of annoyance.

"Because I want to see you."

"I'm not..." Snape began. He shivered as Harry ran his hands over his body. He was thin, and rather muscular---wiry. Harry could see the outline of his muscles in his skinny arms, and his pectorals. His skin was pale and his hair was dark, his nipples flat and pink.

"Have you ever seen a naked man up close?" Snape asked.

"No, just other boys in the dormitory." Harry was still just staring. "I didn't realize that men's bodies were beautiful before."

"There is nothing beautiful about me," Snape said irritably, turning a shade of red that revealed mottled, discolored spots on his face and chest. From this angle his nose looked enormous.

"You're wrong," Harry said.

Snape glowered intently at him, and then said, "Move your legs apart." Harry did so obediently, watching as Snape leaned to one side, reached out and caught a vial out of the air. He must have conjured it from his discarded clothing.

"What's that?"

Snape did not answer right away, but poured a small amount of the contents onto two fingers and held them out for Harry to sniff. They smelled good, like almonds.

"You should never put your mouth on anyone's anus unless you have made certain that he is clean." Just as Snape took back his fingers and stroked behind Harry's balls, Harry made an involuntary noise at this. He couldn't imagine wanting to put his mouth on anyone there, anyway.

"Tell me if this makes you uncomfortable," Snape murmured and lowered his head, licking at Harry's balls.

Uncomfortable! If by "uncomfortable" he means "so turned on I'm going to die," then yeah!

Snape licked from Harry's balls, which felt so sharp, down to his arsehole. Oh my God he's really going to-- and then Snape was licking his arse.

Harry had read about this, that it felt incredible, but nothing he had read could have prepared him for it. He was making animal sounds. He really wanted to feel Snape's fingers inside him. Snape licked him until he couldn't stand it, and then, as if he had read his mind, put a finger inside. Then he licked some more.

"More," Harry grunted, "Oh please, please..."

Snape had put another finger into Harry's body and was working them back and forth and widening them.

"Uh, oh, are you going to--oh God!" Harry tried to speak but couldn't get the words out.

"I am going to fuck you," Snape growled.

"Now?" Harry gasped.

Snape was slicking his cock with lubricant and Harry realized that his arse was dripping with it.

"You might enjoy it more if you turn over," Snape said. "The angle will be..."

"No! I want to see your face." Harry's voice sounded strained and breathless. Snape looked unexpectedly nervous, but Harry thought that he could not possibly feel as exposed and vulnerable as Harry did himself.

The feeling only intensified when Snape raised Harry's leg so that he was bent almost double and moved forward, nudging against Harry's arse. He gasped at the stretch -- it hurt at first, when the thickest part of the head pushed inside.

Then Snape moved forward, further inside, and Harry gasped again. He could feel pressure in places he never had before, and it was wonderful though very strange.

"All right?" Snape asked him. His eyes were almost black, and his lower lip twitched once.

"Oh -- yes -- please -- " Harry didn't even know what he wanted to ask for, but when Snape angled his hips and thrust, nothing else mattered anyway.

"Touch yourself, Harry," Snape ordered. He didn't have to ask twice. Harry was amazed that he was even hard, but he was.

He wanted to watch Snape's face, but the sensations were too overwhelming and his eyes shut. Each thrust forced a groan from him, a sound he didn't think he'd ever made before. It felt too good, though there was also a burning where the wide base of Snape's cock stretched him. He was so long!

It felt like a long fuck to Harry, hours of groaning, but then he opened his eyes and there was Snape, bending over him, sweating.

"I want you," Snape grunted, "to come first," he thrust again, "come around my cock," pull out, thrust in, "come, and scream, call out," thrust, "my name--"

Harry pulled harder, gasping, and said "Severus!" and came hard. His groan was something like a scream, not high but something dragged out of him.

Snape was coming, too. He couldn't feel the spurts inside but he could feel the trembling of Snape's body over him. He held on to Snape's arse and pulled him in tight.

This time, at least, he managed not to blurt out anything daft like I love you. Even though Hermione was right -- sex only made people feel closer. It wasn't as if he hadn't known that already, but after the way she'd gone on about most people feeling lust separately from other things and how Harry would have known that if he'd had a normal life, he'd thought maybe having Snape fuck him would only be like great sex, in the end, nothing else.

Snape lifted himself up on his elbows to look at Harry, still inside him. Harry didn't know whether to feel ecstatic or disappointed, because if he was supposed to be putting distance between himself and Snape, he was doing a piss-poor job of it.

"You're thinking so loudly that I can't help overhearing you," Snape said softly. Without withdrawing, he shifted his weight to one arm and raised his other hand to brush back Harry's hair.

"Severus," Harry began. It was getting easier to think of Snape by his first name. "I need you to promise me."

"That we can do this again?" Snape smiled, looking rather smug, but also happy. Harry didn't think he had ever seen Snape so happy, not even when he thought Slytherin was going to win the House Cup.

"That too. But." Snape's eyebrows drew together as he listened. At least he couldn't read Harry's mind completely. "I want you to promise me that you won't put yourself in any more danger for me than what we all have to do now. I don't know how I can do this if I'm worrying about you getting killed. I need to know you're planning to survive the war."

"I wasn't expecting to survive," Snape admitted, averting his eyes from Harry's. He affected to be absorbed in the problem of smoothing down Harry's hair. "I had thought that I would be able to maintain my cover with the Dark Lord, and that you would probably kill me."

"You were planning for me to kill you?"

"Albus asked me to protect you in any way that I could, and I agreed to that."

"But you PLANNED to make me the means of your death?" Harry was trying hard not to express the outrage he felt.

"I don't particularly value my life. I am isolated, essentially friendless. I killed one of the few people I could call a friend. Perhaps it was necessary for me to murder Albus. He called it euthanasia. He said it was for the greater good!" Snape had stiffened and was sitting up. "But it's not something I want to live with. I really don't care if I die in this war." He was out of bed, pacing the room naked. His cock was still half-hard and his whole body was flushed. He was angry.

"I need to play my part, I know that. I have a duty. I would never off myself. But it's not as if I have anything to live for, after that." Snape had calmed himself to the point where he was not yelling. He shut his eyes and took a deep breath.

Harry got up and put his arms around Snape's body and held on to him. He felt more frightened of Snape than he ever had, but he was determined.

"No, no, you have to live. You have to live."

"What does it matter to you, Potter?" Snape's voice had suddenly gone cold and contemptuous. "As I reminded you before, we are not friends. Except for this recently developed interest in fucking, we have practically nothing in common."

"Stop it!" Even though Harry had so recently tried to think of ways to restore the distance that had always existed between himself and Snape, he couldn't stand to hear this now. "You admitted your spell would not have had this effect if there wasn't some possibility in the first place."

"It still changes nothing. You will have a life after the war -- you'll be a hero. I will still be Albus Dumbledore's killer."

Harry wondered whether he was better at Legilimency than he realized, because he was sure that all the pain he was feeling could not be his own. "What kind of life? Everyone I ever loved is dead or missing. My parents are gone, Sirius, Dumbledore, probably Lupin...no one knows whether Hagrid is alive or dead either. Cedric was killed just for standing with me. I'm afraid even to LIKE anyone, I'm afraid anyone I get close to will..."

Harry had to stop talking to swallow. Probably Snape was just going to tell him how he was being selfish and short-sighted again.

"You're strong. You were strong enough to spy against Voldemort. You're strong enough to survive this -- you have to be."

"No I don't," Snape muttered sulkily. But his body relaxed into Harry's embrace and his arms snaked around Harry. "I know I'm weak because I want this comfort." He kissed Harry again. "There are many very perverse things about this relationship, Potter. I'm too much older than you are. I could be your father."

Harry said, "Maybe I like you for that. I like your body."

"Which is why you thought you might be hexed!" Snape snorted.

"No, I thought it was strange that I would want to have sex with someone who didn't like me, and I'd never been that interested in a man. I didn't know anything about your body then. But I like it. I like the way you look so strong." Harry ran his hand down Snape's arm. "I like the way you feel." He ran his hands down Snape's back and over his buttocks, which were high and muscular and hairy.

"You're so--don't--" Snape sighed. He was getting hard against Harry's belly.

Harry's face felt hot against Snape's shoulder, but he kept on. "I like your cock," he said, his voice dropping to an embarrassed but emphatic whisper.

Snape was kissing the back of his neck. "Harry," he whispered. "I know what you're doing."

You do? Harry thought, because I don't!

"I'm hard again," Snape said under his breath, "I can't believe it."

"The power the Dark Lord knows not," Harry cracked. Snape snorted again.

"I'm not going to stay alive just to fuck you," Snape said, his voice a little strangled.

"Why not, I'd do it for you," Harry muttered.

"You're just enjoying the sex. This is a novelty to you. Once the full extent of your options becomes clear, you will find me far less interesting."

Harry didn't believe for a moment that this was just sex, even if it had been a spell that had triggered it. At least, it wasn't for him. "Maybe you're used to fucking whomever you please and then forgetting about it..."

"Potter, do I look to you like someone who has regularly had the opportunity to fuck 'whomever I please'?"

A few days ago, Harry would have said absolutely not, even if not to Snape's face. Now, though he had to admit it just might be himself, he thought that Snape was terribly sexy -- he certainly knew how to make someone feel good.

Right now Snape was rubbing his cock alongside Harry's, which was twitching and jumping even though his arse hadn't yet recovered from the sting of being penetrated. He whimpered softly. "I don't think I can, so soon. I'm a little sore."

"You don't think you can let me suck your cock?" Snape asked in his rough, hungry voice, and Harry's whimper changed to a moan.

Snape pushed Harry back onto the bed. "You're very noisy," he said.

"Let me do you, too," Harry said. "At the same time."

"No," Snape said. "Just talk to me." Looking into Harry's eyes, he began licking down the front of his body.

"I--you--you're the one with the voice..." Harry protested weakly.

"Tell me how it feels," Snape said. Then his head dipped below Harry's line of sight and he took Harry's cock in his mouth.

"Oh! Oh, I can't even...okay. Your mouth is so hot, it feels like...Oh Severus, I can't talk...Oh, what are you doing with your--your tongue and--ah God! Is that even--is that possible? Oh!" Harry pulled up on one elbow so that he could watch Snape's head bobbing in his lap. He saw that Snape was pulling on his own cock.

"Oh Severus, are you going to come with me? Come with me!" Harry made some more inarticulate sounds and Snape moaned around his cock, which made his whole body vibrate, and they both came.

Harry lay back, panting and laughing a little. "That was brilliant! How do you do that?"

"There's a spell so you don't choke," Snape explained, leaning his head on Harry's belly. His hair was tickly.

"You're really good at a lot of things, aren't you," Harry said, "Potions, dueling, inventing spells, sex..."

"It's not that hard to be good at sex."

"Oh, I dunno," Harry said, blushing,

"You like men, Potter, that's why it all seems so much better," Snape said with as much scorn as he could muster in his post-orgasmic state.

"Maybe," Harry said. "Did I mention that I like your chest hair?"

"You are a pervert," Snape announced.

"Yeah, I know," Harry said happily. He doubted that this was really true -- he suspected that next to Snape, for instance, he was hopelessly naive and inexperienced -- but Snape hadn't said it like he thought it was a terrible thing.

Having failed so dismally at his attempt to make Snape dislike him, Harry decided that he really had no choice but to try the opposite strategy. "I do like your chest hair. And your cock." This time Snape only raised an eyebrow. "I like you, all right?"

"Perhaps you have been hexed, after all," Snape said. Two spots of color deepened on his face.

"I haven't. You know it. You know this isn't just sex. This is -- it could be something. But not if you get yourself killed. Do you really think Dumbledore would want that? For either of us?"

"Stop mentioning his name!" Snape's face had twisted with pain. "The only thing he wanted in the world was the defeat of the Dark Lord. He gave his life for that. My personal happiness was quite irrelevant to him. And you might perhaps have noticed...so was yours."

"That's not true." Harry said this with total confidence. "He could have forced us to keep up the Occlumency lessons. He could have..."

"He could have spared you a childhood with that aunt and uncle of yours. He could have spared you the sight of his own death. There are many choices that he could have made differently, if he did not have a single goal in mind. So don't talk to me about happiness!"

A window shattered and they both jumped.

"Was that you or me?" Snape said.

"I think it was me. Sorry." Harry said. But he didn't feel sorry. He felt angry.

"I agreed with him," Snape whispered. "I thought the end justified the means. It was quite possibly the cruelest thing anyone has done to you, and there were many."

"You--you want to protect me. You think I should have been protected before." Harry felt extraordinarily stupid, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"Well, of course, you were just a child!"

"You basically--you love me already."

" I wouldn't go that far," Snape said, looking sour.

"You said you were prepared to do whatever you had to do, to protect me. Isn't that--"

"No." Snape had unconsciously brought his hands over his ears.

Harry pulled at them. "You stupid arse!" he yelled. "Are you just being this way because you hated my father? Was Dumbledore right -- you couldn't teach me because of a stupid grudge?"

"Your father has been dead nearly as long as you have been alive!" The moment the words were out, Snape looked sorry that he had said them. Harry wasn't certain why. It wasn't as if it was news to him that his father was dead.

"Do you feel guilty, is that it?" Harry asked carefully. "You were the one who heard the prophecy..."

"I had no idea what the effect of that would be. I don't know why you would want me to love you; everyone I have ever cared about has met with a premature end!" Snape barked back at him.

"So has pretty much everyone I ever loved! Or whoever loved me! We've already been through this! Maybe if you'd stop being such a bloody coward..."

More glass shattered. Snape's expression went from murderous to sheepish. There were purposeful-sounding footsteps outside the door, then a smart knock.

"Harry?" Hermione said. "Is that you, blowing out all the windows?"

"Er...yeah. Sorry!" Harry said.

"I cast Reparo on them. Be careful in there, okay? This house had a horcrux in it for at least twenty years. People get angrier here than they would other places. It's easy to lose control of your magic."

"Uh, yeah, I know." Harry said.

"Do you need any help?" Hermione said.

"No! See you later, Hermione. Later!"

When he turned around, Snape was laughing.

"Perhaps it is too dangerous for us to be together," he snorted. "Between the protection charm and this house..."

"Then let's go be together somewhere else." Harry was very happy to see Snape smiling, even though he felt faintly ridiculous. "Then you won't have to worry about my friends checking up on us, either."

"You know perfectly well that we can't run off anywhere now, with the end so near."

"Which is why you have to promise me that when this is all over, you'll still be here. I don't care where we go -- I know you hate being in Sirius' house."

"This is your house now," Snape pointed out. His expression had grown more somber. Reaching toward the little table beside the bed, he retrieved two biscuits and passed one to Harry.

"I had to keep the house for the Order, and because we didn't know what might be hidden here. Once the war's over, I don't want to stay here. I was thinking of letting Tonks have it -- it should go to a Black."

"Narcissa Malfoy will not be pleased," Snape said. But his lips twitched once. Evidently he liked the idea. He took a bite of his biscuit and Harry did the same.

"Having sex, arguing, yelling, having more sex, breaking glass, eating biscuits," Harry said. "It's about time I got into a mature relationship, like this one."

"Shut it, Potter," Snape growled, and laughed again, looking surprised at himself.

"I love it when you laugh," Harry said.

"Don't start," Snape said, and kissed him, licking up the biscuit crumbs on his lips.

"Listen, if I kill Voldemort and neither of us dies, will you still want to..."

"If you killed Voldemort and neither of us died, Potter, I would suck your cock even if I were straight."

Harry laughed.

"I won't be the last person to say that to you," Snape warned with a trace of sulking in his voice.

"I don't care. I want you."

Snape reddened a bit but could not disguise his smile. "If you insist," he said shortly, "then we have work to do. If you've had enough..."

"Sex?" asked Harry. Snape gave him an impressive glower.

"Food, Potter. I need to teach you Occlumency properly."

"Do I get a reward if I do it well?"

Snape sighed softly. "Yes. We win the war and you get everything you want. Now, if you are ready?"

III. Sword and Shield

"It isn't all about dueling skills, Potter," Snape said impatiently.

"That's easy for you to say," Harry muttered. "Your dueling skills are amazing."

"May I remind you that you successfully held the Dark Lord at bay nine years ago, when you were fifteen?"

"That was just luck," Harry grumbled. "I'll never be as fluid when I duel as you are."

"You don't need to be," Snape said. "I use those gestures to confound and intimidate my opponent. Half of them are just feints. Like that damned fool Lockhart, only less obvious. You don't need them. You bring all your Quidditch skills to fighting: speed, and the ability to know where your opponent is without looking."

"I don't have that!"

"Of course you do, you have a sense of where people are in the room. You always know when people come in, without looking."

"How do you know that?"

"Potter. I pay attention to you."

Harry flushed red.

"In any case, our time is short and I don't want to waste it on dueling practice," Snape said decisively.

"Did you want to waste it on something else?" asked Harry hopefully. He attempted a leer.

It had been days. Well, a day and a half at least. It would have been much longer, if Snape had had his way, but Snape was a fraction slower to resist in the morning, and Harry had taken full advantage of that fact...and Snape.

This time, he was not going to get the same opportunity. Snape frowned sternly.

Unfortunately for Harry, this was just as enticing as Snape smirking or Snape staring intently. But it signified that Harry had better cooperate if he hoped to have any chance of getting Snape to do the same in another context later.

"Your mind is still transparent with only very small effort," Snape told him. "I can only tell you so many times that you must learn to keep your mind closed."

"I don't need reminders about shutting my mind," Harry said impatiently. "I need instructions. When I do it, it's like I'm saying 'no no no' but you just force your way in."

Snape winced.

"When you block me, though," Harry continued, putting his hand on Snape's wrist, "there's no sense of effort. You can hide whatever you like, in plain sight."

"Yes," Snape agreed. "Anyone can hide things if they keep them out in the open."

"What?" Harry was confused again.

"Once again I see that you can't dissemble to save your life. So instead, you must feint."

"The only feints I know are from Quidditch," Harry muttered.

"How do they work?" Snape asked.

"Generally you pretend to see the Snitch somewhere it is not, and then you lead your opponent into some dangerous maneuver or other. Like the Wronski Feint, where you skim along the ground..."

Snape cast a wordless Legilimens.

Harry tried to keep thinking about Quidditch tactics, but even though he loved Quidditch, he couldn't possibly pretend that that was all he ever thought about. Voldemort would recognize the distraction for what it was and see right through him.

Thinking about dueling tactics likely wasn't the best idea, either; he'd only do what he'd always done when he practiced with Snape and give away his planned next maneuver. No, he needed to think about something else entirely.

Sex. That was always close to the surface of his mind, particularly these days. It wasn't as if he had to feign interest in any way.

And, he thought with a touch of smugness, it was something he had an aptitude for. More than he had for Potions, at least. Snape had been surprised at Harry's creativity, once he had got the hang of what men did together.

Harry filled his mind with the most intense erotic fantasies he had. There was the one where he asked Snape to wank in front of him, and he sat and watched Snape pleasure himself until Snape groaned his name and came. Then there was the one where Snape hid under Harry's Invisibility Cloak and sucked him under the kitchen table where anyone could come in, so Harry had to remain very silent and still even as he was spurting into Snape's mouth.

And ever since the first time Snape had put his tongue in Harry's arse, Harry had been thinking about reciprocating. He had been afraid to mention it, because what if he decided at the last minute that it was too disgusting or what if he was terrible at it? But he did keep imagining it, and he imagined it now, what it would be like to have Snape bent over and moaning into a pillow the way Harry always did while his tongue moved into that tight space and...

Abruptly Harry realized that Snape was no longer reading his thoughts. The room had stopped swimming around him. Instead Snape was staring at him with two spots of color on his face.

"Well, that seemed to work a bit better," Harry said with false brightness.

"Yes, it was effective," Snape murmured. "There's only one problem, Potter. Are you really going to think about sex the whole time you're meant to be finding and fighting the Dark Lord?"

"Two problems," Harry said, "Because I would be thinking about sex with you, and that could endanger you."

Snape, whose face was still flushed, shut his mouth abruptly, and then opened it. "No, actually, there's a good chance the Dark Lord would think I had seduced you in order to distract you, and would re-evaluate my loyalty."

Harry laughed incredulously. Then he grew serious. "I wish I hadn't had that thought myself. It's so hard to believe that this is real. I do want to try rimming you, though."

Snape choked.

Harry, however, was still thinking about what he had just learned. "I used to think that if I could just focus on how much I hated you, I'd be able to block you. Only that never worked, except the very first time when I used a hex without even realizing it. You'd be able to tell what attack I was going to use before I'd even figured it out. But you had no idea I was going to think about rimming just now, did you?"

Snape blushing was really irresistible. Particularly Snape blushing because he was getting an erection when they were supposed to be concentrating on the Dark Lord and Occlumency and things like that.

"Come upstairs," Harry said. "Because whether we take a break for sex or we keep practicing and I keep trying to see if there's a way I can use sexy thoughts to block you, I don't think we want anyone coming in without knocking."

"I thought you wanted me under the kitchen table," retorted Snape, and Harry felt his own face heating. He wondered what Snape would think if he knew Harry sometimes thought about perverted things like whether Lupin had ever had sex as a wolf.

Somehow he had a feeling that none of his dirty daydreams would really shock Snape. "I want you everywhere," he admitted. "But there's a difference between fantasy and reality. I don't really expect you to do that, under the kitchen table, I just like to think about it." He paused. "That's a kind of feint, isn't it? Making someone think you want to do something, or you're trying to do something, when actually you're planning something else."

Snape nodded, looking a bit impressed.

"Good. Now let's go upstairs."

Snape might have looked impressed, but he still stopped on the landing to trick Harry into more Legilimency. He stroked Harry's jaw lovingly, and as Harry gazed up at him with a flushed face, cast Legilimens wordlessly.

But Harry was ready. Instead of seeing into Harry's thoughts, Snape saw a memory of chasing the Snitch. Up he went, pretending to see it in the sunlight, and then down to actually catch it.

Snape broke their connection.

"What's wrong?" Harry asked.

"I get motion sickness on a broom," Snape replied. Then he smiled crookedly, which went straight to Harry's gut. In the moment that they were smiling at each other, he cast again.

But Harry had another idea and plunged them into another sexual fantasy: Snape moaning inarticulately as they sucked each other's cocks. It was a very vivid fantasy--Harry entertained it frequently. There was special attention to the quality of Snape's cock in his mouth.

Snape broke the connection again.

"Good, eh?" Harry grinned.

"Merlin, Potter, I'm not that big!" Snape muttered, kissing him.

"Bedroom," Harry whispered. "I know you're going to keep testing me, but I am going to get your clothes off anyway."

Once inside the bedroom, Snape sat down in the single chair and gestured for Harry to sit opposite him on the bed. "If you intend to take advantage of me," he said, "it is not enough to be able to defend against my attacks. You will have to be able to break into my thoughts as well."

Of course. If Harry could go on the offensive against Voldemort, it would require him to expend energy hiding his own plans. "Is there a trick, besides the Legilimens spell?" he asked.

"A trick?" Snape's eyebrows shot up. "Yes. You must concentrate on your objective and not allow yourself to become distracted by other thoughts or memories." So that was why Snape had been able to make Harry see his Potions textbook back in sixth year and things like that; he'd decided what he was looking for before he broke into Harry's thoughts.

"Did you deliberately go looking for embarrassing and horrible memories when you were teaching me Occlumency?" he asked indignantly. Because Snape must have...before he offered up one of his own humiliating memories as an excuse to stop the lessons, he had managed to make Harry think about so many things he hadn't wanted to share!

Instead of answering, Snape chose that moment to cast Legilimens. Harry had already been feeling defensive, though, and even though he wasn't quite ready, he grabbed at a memory of hiding from Snape, sneaking through the corridors of Hogwarts to go to the Restricted Section.

It seemed to work: Snape was, apparently, interested in Harry's flouting of the rules all those years ago, and did not try to push elsewhere into Harry's thoughts. At that moment, Harry concentrated on breaking into Snape's own thoughts. This time, however, he wasn't going to use force to push past the barrier. It would be too easy for Severus to block him if he used force.

He thought of pushing his penis into Snape's body, how slowly and carefully he did it, and tried to push into his mind in the same way. Deliberately, without hurting him, he pushed in, as though their minds were joining.

Snape was apparently thinking of the same thing--the first time Harry had fucked him. Harry saw the image of his own face, concentrating, and felt his own cock as it had felt to Snape, pushing into his arse.

In the memory Snape said "All right? All right, Harry?" all over again. Harry saw his own face contort for a moment, like he would burst into tears, and then smooth out. He felt, without hearing it, Snape thinking that he loved him.

Seeing this shared memory was a lot like sex, because his thoughts and Snape's thoughts were coming together and pulling apart. He began to try to block, not by blocking but by showing. He would show Snape his objective, and distract him from it, at the same time.

Then he went cold.

Snape was thinking that Harry was good at this. Snape was exulting because that meant, perhaps, that Harry could defeat the Dark Lord in the end, after all.

Snape was telling himself that that meant his own sacrifice would not be in vain. He was picturing himself still, peaceful, with a crowd of mourners around him.

"NO!" Harry shouted at him like a child, pushing Snape out of his thoughts as violently as he could. He felt Snape resist, flashing onto some other thought entirely -- a memory of Harry's face after Snape had tossed away an effort at a potion and given him a failing mark.

Now Harry understood that it had been another test, that funereal memory. He felt Snape break the connection and heard him sigh softly. "Potter, you cannot possibly believe that your adversary will fight fairly. If you don't..."

"SHUT UP!" Harry had to get up and walk across the room to calm himself. He didn't want to blow out any more windows, and he thought he must either do that or cry.

It took him several deep breaths to calm himself enough that he trusted himself to speak again. He could feel Snape's eyes on him.

"Don't DO that. Whatever you...not that!"

"But you have to be ready to face the worst, Potter," Snape reasoned in his soft voice.

"I've already had the worst, thank you," Harry said. "What could be worse than the deaths I've already witnessed? The man killed my mother in front of me when I was an infant. Nothing could be as bad as that. Not even seeing Cedric, who was so brave, tossed aside like nothing. Not even seeing Sirius die. Not even," he took a deep breath "not even losing you could be as bad as that."

He breathed slowly, as Snape had taught him. He was not going to shatter the windows with wild magic. He was going to control himself.

"Anyway, Voldemort is a madman where I am concerned. He does strange things..." And here, when Harry turned toward him, Snape immediately cast Legilimens again.

It was vindictive, Harry knew it, but he immediately imagined himself dead. All the times he had met danger he had dared his adversary to kill him, including Snape, sixth year. "What do I have to fear from death," he thought, "at least I'd see my mother." He imagined challenging Voldemort to kill him, and finally just dying, after so many narrow escapes.

Snape broke the connection without a word. Harry looked up to find the older man weeping.

Harry was frightened. He didn't expect this, after all of the talk of discipline. What happened to Snape's iron control?

"Severus? What happened?" Harry asked softly.

"You little bastard, you got me," Snape ground out. His nose was running and his eyes were red.

"Too bad Voldemort doesn't love me like you do," Harry said.

"I do not love you," Severus said. He took a deep, shuddering breath. "Not really."

"Shut up," Harry said again, more gently, walking over and putting his arms around Snape's waist. "I may not be able to dissemble to save my life, but you're a rotten liar too when it comes to this. You weren't lying, before, when you were thinking that you loved me. "

Snape's face had dropped to Harry's shoulder and his hands were clutching at Harry's hips. He felt Snape's breath go out in a long shaky sigh. "Do you understand now how dangerous this is?"

"Not as dangerous as your stupid plan to get yourself killed for me and make me too furious and miserable to do anything useful."

"I could get killed fighting at your side. We all could -- every one of your allies. You must be able to push forward nonetheless. If you do not fulfill the prophecy, then every death, including your mother's, will have been for nothing."

"I know that." Snape was swaying slightly with him, as though they were dancing a very slow dance, or maybe more like a parent rocking a child, except Harry couldn't tell who was rocking whom. "I know that in the end I may have to do it all myself. Why won't you just be with me in the meantime? How would anything be worse if you admitted you love me too?"

"I'm not going to do that," Snape said.

"I know," Harry told him.

"I wouldn't be able to cast a protection charm on you if I didn't, you know," Snape said, and waved his hand.

"If you didn't love me," Harry completed for him.

"Back to work," Snape said, and, as they were face to face again, cast Legilimens. Harry immediately defended with the rimming fantasy, again. Snape's guard went down and Harry pushed into his mind.

Snape put memories there of sucking other men's cocks. Most Harry didn't recognize, but they drove him out of Snape's mind quickly.

"Eww," Harry said. "I don't want--I don't want to see that." He felt a little sick.

"Made you jealous, or turned you on?" Snape asked curiously.

"Made me feel sick to my stomach," Harry said. "I know one thing about being younger than you is that you had twenty years without me, but..."

"Not to mention people I slept with since we met," Snape smirked.

"I don't want to know about it. I know...I just want to pretend that you belong to me."

The amusement disappeared from Snape's face. "That's a dangerous thing to pretend."

"I don't care how many people you slept with before me," Harry insisted. "I don't think you loved very many, or you'd be better at it."

"Better at it?" Snape repeated incredulously.

"Yes, better at it. You're terrified. You look for ways to call it something else or turn it into something else. You didn't even want to admit it was there until your protection charm made it physical."

While Snape was staring at him, Harry cast Legilimens silently. To his surprise he entered Snape's thoughts easily, where a much younger Snape was looking sadly at an older boy, someone Harry almost recognized, and quite suddenly a familiar voice was speaking -- Sirius' voice -- "You aren't in love with him, are you, Snivellus?"

"No," Harry said out loud, "You don't want to let me see this. Stop!" He still saw the young Snape, looking so sad, and heard Sirius, Harry's Sirius, taunting him.

Harry broke the contact.

"It's a test, isn't it," Harry said. "You're testing me."

But Severus didn't say anything.

"Because there's no way that you can block Voldemort, who is the best Legilimens in the world, and not block me, when I'm utter crap at it."

"You thought of Black as 'my Sirius,'" Snape said quietly.

"Yeah, when you're an orphan, you don't have too many people who belong just to you. My aunt and uncle and cousin even stopped me from having friends, before I came to Hogwarts."

"You can't make a lover into a sort of parent, Harry," Snape said softly.

"Sirius wasn't my--oh, you mean you. Yeah. I guess I can see what you mean. You're older, and I feel safe with you. That's sort of like a parent. I guess I'm kind of psychologically weird about that. "

He thought for a moment.

"You don't want me to feel that way about you, but you are willing to sacrifice your life for me? Am I supposed to understand why from a memory of you having a crush on someone at school?" Harry frowned. "You make no sense, Severus."

To punctuate this thought, Harry kissed him.

"Anyway, who wouldn't love you? You're brave and clever and funny, and incredibly good in bed..."

Snape snorted. "Shh. Stop." His hand was on Harry's jaw; he was kissing him back. He sighed softly. "Don't attribute any noble motives to me, Potter. You've always believed that my behavior is unfair and self-serving."

"Then do something self-serving now, and tell me to suck you or spread out for you or something," Harry didn't care if it sounded like he was begging.

"There are some advantages to being with someone so much younger," Snape began thoughtfully.

Harry silently cast Snape's Divestio, trying to get the clothing to fold itself on the chair in the process. It all flew off, even the shoes, and fell over the chair in a sort of heap.

Harry saw the moment before Snape suppressed his smile.

"I got the shoes off that time," Harry grinned.

"So you did," Snape acknowledged. He buried his nose in Harry's navel.

"Advantages?" Harry asked.

"Aside from your inexperience, which gives you such an unrealistically high opinion of me, there's your body."

"Is my inexperience an advantage?"

"Not in every way, but..." Snape became preoccupied by the trail of fine downy hair that ran from Harry's navel to his cock.

"Are there any other--oh God!" Harry forgot what he was going to ask as Snape breathed on his cock.

"That's one," Snape said.

Harry didn't think his opinion was unrealistically high. If Snape was any better at this, he was sure he would suffer from some kind of mind-damaging sensory overload. Fortunately the bed was there to catch him when his knees gave out and he sat, heavily.

"Let me do you too," he insisted when Snape tried to move between his legs. "If we both lie down..."

"I'm aware of the technique," Snape sounded like he did in a classroom when he was speaking to a particularly slow pupil but he was looking at Harry like he wanted to kiss him. Which he did, when Harry tugged him up to his feet.

They both lay down, Harry turned toward the foot of the bed and Snape the headboard. He hoped that he could last as long as Snape. He'd wanted to do this for a long time.

Snape took Harry's arse in his hands to angle his hips and breathed over Harry's cock again. It felt so good that Harry almost forgot to lick the erection bobbing in front of his face. When he did, he felt Snape twitch against his tongue and moaned happily.

Unfortunately, Harry hadn't yet mastered whatever it was Snape did so he could take him deep into his throat, but fortunately, Snape didn't seem to mind. He made small noises around Harry's cock as Harry licked and sucked the head of Snape's. He had a hand wrapped around the shaft to keep it where he wanted it, sliding up and down the skin.

Harry was surprised that he could last so long in this position. It was terribly exciting, but it was also distracting.

He couldn't concentrate on the sensations in his own body hard enough to come, because he was so absorbed in Snape. He was hard, so sensitive, dying to come.

The stimulation went on and on, until he felt like he was in a trance. They were two parts of the same body, the same aroused body, with two mouths on two cocks. Snape's arms were wrapped around his body, and he was parting the cheeks of Harry's arse.

The feeling of air on his anus was so erotic that Harry began to whine in his throat, still sucking.

Then Snape teased him with a wet finger, and before he was even penetrated, he was coming, pulsing, down the older man's throat. He had to tear his mouth away from Snape so he could cry out; he was afraid of accidentally biting him.

Snape kept holding him, swallowing and then nuzzling beside his exquisitely sensitive cock, until Harry had stopped panting. He kissed the side of Snape's cock and started to tease the head again with his tongue.

"Do you want me to come like this?" Snape asked softly, a bit breathlessly.

"Wait." Harry shifted, suddenly wanting something else. Again it was like Snape had read his mind without Harry having to focus on what he wanted Snape to see and what he wanted to block out.

Snape rolled onto his belly and Harry crawled up behind him. He wondered whether a simple Scourgify would work to make sure Snape's arse was clean or if there was some spell specifically for that. Concentrating, he tried it and heard Snape moan softly in anticipation.

"A little lubrication might make this easier."

Sitting up, Harry grabbed at the potion he now kept at all times by his bed. He rubbed some over the wrinkled opening, then bent his head and very cautiously licked it. Snape tasted at first more like the potion, which was a bit sweet, than like anything else, and Harry pushed the tip of his tongue inside.

It was everything he had imagined. Not the feeling of the muscle opening under his mouth, which wasn't particularly disgusting or exciting. He had feared worse and hoped for more, but it was just a part of the body like any other.

What made it worthy of his fantasy was Snape's response. With every touch of Harry's tongue on the soft and sensitive inner flesh, he groaned deeply and shoved his buttocks toward Harry involuntarily. Harry was hard again, shoving his erection against the sheet.

"Do you want--" Harry whispered into his arse, and Snape moaned, "Yes, yes!" Harry slid his finger inside. It was hot and tight and drew him in. Harry licked some more.

"I want to fuck you, all right?" Harry asked as he was lubing up his cock. It had to drip; he wanted it to feel smooth, to make Snape gasp.

"Yes, Harry, yes!"

Was there some magic involved in his name? Harry knelt and drew Snape's hips up. He spread the buttocks wide and looked at the vulnerable place, and then sank his cock into the wet and ready hole.

He rested inside, his face against the small of Snape's back.

Snape whispered, "Give it to me. Don't hold back."

Harry had intended to try to go slow and impress Snape with his stamina, but that didn't make it sound like Snape wanted slow. He slid back out until just the head of his cock was inside, looking down to see the gleaming, slick shaft between them. Then he pushed in hard, and Snape groaned.

"That's it, just like that, show me you want it..."

Thrusting in hard again and again, Harry listened to Snape's voice dissolve into groans and wished he could say erotic things as easily as Snape did. He loved it when Snape told him what he was going to do to him and how it was going to feel, but he couldn't find the words.

Harry's hand slid down Snape's hip and beneath him, finding his cock. As Harry wrapped his fingers around it, he wondered whether Snape would let him into his mind now as easily as he had let Harry into his body.

I want to see what you see when you come, he thought, pushing at Snape's mind. It was much more difficult without being able to look into his eyes. Harry didn't know at first how to be certain whether the image of himself and Severus sitting face to face with their cocks pressed together was his own or Snape's.

Then Harry saw a quick series of images that must have been Snape's. They were all Harry at the moment of orgasm--one, two, three different images, and Harry heard his own name, and then Snape was coming, and there were no images.

Harry could feel his involuntary internal spasms and the thrusting of his cock in Harry's hand, but he also felt Snape's orgasm from the inside, as it were. He knew how it felt to Snape to be fucked by Harry Potter. He knew how it felt to be Harry Potter fucking Severus Snape.

The complexity of Snape's emotions was ornate. Harry was coming hard, convulsing, crying out, and still something in him was touching those feelings.

Finally he broke the mental contact and collapsed over Snape's back. They fell to one side with Harry still spooned around him. Snape performed a cleaning spell, to Harry's disappointment.

"You do love me, don't you," Snape murmured.

"Yes," Harry agreed.

"Not safe for you," he said sleepily.

"No, it's not. You speak to me," Harry clarified.

"What?"

"Yeah, tired too."

"Take a nap," Snape muttered. "You can't defeat a Legilimens until you learn to block and parry."

"Then maybe I can't defeat him. I can't win with you. I can't learn the truth of what you feel--I am not good enough to get that far into your mind."

There was irritation in Snape's voice when he replied, though his words were slurred. "Don't see why it matters. I'm not any bloody good at loving anyone. I might love you but that can't make the..."

Harry's eyes had snapped open. "Shut up, shut up," he said over whatever qualification Snape was going to add. He tried to pull Snape over to look into his eyes, but Snape's sleepy form resisted.

"Not fair cheating when I'm not really awake," murmured Snape plaintively, shoving at the pillow until he had it where he wanted it. Harry leaned his head against Snape's back. His head was heavy but he couldn't stop smiling.

It's beautiful, the complicated way he thinks. All those patterns. No wonder he won't say he loves me, with all of those theories and contingencies to explain everything. Harry's eyes were shut, and he wasn't going to be able to stay awake much longer.

There was some piece of information that Harry needed in this thought, and he didn't know what it was. He fell asleep.

In his dream, Snape was dueling with Harry. His spells were making webs of light that reversed and bloomed in fractal profusion, like a kaleidoscope. Jewels of light shaped and reshaped themselves as he waved his wand.

"You see, Potter, I will do what is required to protect you." Snape's mouth opened and his tongue licked light patterns in the air. Then he was naked, and his erect cock made patterns, and his fingers. Snape reached into his own chest, and opened like it was a hinge, and light poured out.

"Do you want my heart? I will do whatever is required."

Harry was wrapped in the shifting light patterns. His own cock and the scar on his forehead poured out light. It hurt. In his dream, Harry was weeping.

"It hurts, Snape, it hurts! Wake me up! Please wake me! I need you!"

A hand was on his shoulder, shaking him hard. "Harry! Wake up. Wake up!"

Harry's eyes opened and he blinked against the light. It wasn't the light from his dream any longer, with rainbow colors, but the afternoon sun, which had shifted and was shining through the open window.

"What's wrong?"

"I had a nightmare." Harry tried to remember why it had been so painful."

"A nightmare? You were shouting."

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to..."

"You were also screaming into my mind."

There was pounding on the door and a worried, cautious voice. "Harry! What's wrong? You were shouting for Snape. Is he..."

"I am here," Snape barked irritably. "We were practicing Occlumency and Potter became confused."

"I'm fine, Ron," Harry croaked. He sat up, grabbed his robe and threw it on with nothing underneath, then got up and opened the door just a crack. "Thought we used a silencing charm. Sorry."

Ron had a suspicious expression. He tried to crane his head over Harry's to see inside the room, then turned even redder, freckles standing out all over his face.

"He wasn't hurting you?"

"No, of course not. I mean, Legilimency can be painful, but I have to learn to block it."

"Right." Ron still sounded suspicious, but he was backing away like he was afraid Snape might show up naked in the doorway or something. Harry was sure that he would tell Hermione about this in lurid detail as soon as she got back.

"I'm sorry," Harry said to Snape as he shut the door.

"Your dreams have been predictive in the past, haven't they?" Snape asked.

"Yes," Harry admitted, "but they are also symbolic, just like anyone else's. I usually don't figure out what I've seen until afterward."

"You should have learned some of that in Divination."

This time it was Harry who snorted. "How exactly was I supposed to learn the subject from a teacher who kept predicting my gruesome death? Anyway, Dumbledore hired her for her prophetic talents, not for her teaching."

Snape rolled his eyes. "I can't understand your attitude. Does how a teacher treats you determine whether you learn the subject?"

Harry looked at him. "Yes. You can't learn from someone you don't trust."

Snape shook his head and frowned. "Knowledge is power and you take it where you find it. Can't be helped now; we need to figure out whether this dream is predictive, or whether the Dark Lord has succeeded in penetrating your mind again after all these years."

"No, I don't think it's Voldemort. It was a dream about you." Harry knew he was blushing again.

"I have no more than an average competence in dream interpretation," Snape admitted, "but I don't think anyone in the Order is much better."

"I don't want to tell the dream to anyone else. Couldn't I just--show it to you?"

"The words you use in relating the dream will help us to interpret it. I think you should write it down."

With a sigh Harry walked over to his desk. He had quills and parchment in there, somewhere, though they were buried at the moment beneath some Quidditch magazines and a book of defensive puzzles that Hermione had given him a few weeks earlier. Harry found practicing with Snape much more stimulating than practicing against hexes from a book.

"Snape and I were dueling," Harry said aloud as he wrote. "Snape was using a spell I don't know that created giant webs of light."

"Like a spider?" asked Snape.

"No, not like a spider -- like a kaleidoscope." Harry wrote that down. "When the edges touched, they created new colors. Or sometimes they folded in on themselves and then bloomed much brighter in a different direction."

"Was I using a wand?"

"At first. Then you were doing it with your hands, and your mouth. And your cock." Harry was writing all this down.

"My mouth? Was I speaking?"

"Yes. You said, 'Potter, I will do what is required to protect you.'" Harry wrote down that Snape was naked. "The light was coming out of your cock. Not like an orgasm -- continuously."

Snape snorted softly. "Was I touching you?"

"No. Only the light. You ripped open your chest, only you didn't bleed or anything -- you asked if I wanted your heart." An echo of the pain returned to Harry's cock and head and chest. "I don't know if it hurt you, but it hurt me." He didn't know how to describe this in words.

"Was light coming out of you, or only in?"

Harry thought. "Light was flowing in both directions."

"Make sure to write down all the parts of the body on both of us that were emitting light."

Harry did that. "You were drawing with your tongue, and there was also light coming out of the scar on my head."

"We can map the points of emanation against the Eastern Chakra system, the Kabbalistic Tree of Life of Sephirot, and the meridians of traditional Chinese medicine." Snape thought for a moment. "What color was the light? Was it green?"

"It was all different colors, not like light from a curse." Harry wrote some more. "I want to know something. How did I scream in your mind like that? What did I say? In my dream I was asking you to wake me up."

"Yes, that was what you said, 'Please wake me, I need you.'"

"I'm sorry, Severus, I think it was probably only a dream, nothing significant," Harry said, rubbing his forehead. Snape, who had moved behind him, rubbed his fingers through Harry's scalp.

"You first saw the Department of Mysteries in a dream, I believe? You had never been in that part of the Ministry of Magic."

Snape's fingers felt good against his skull, and Harry tilted his head to make him keep rubbing. He didn't like to think about the things Snape had seen during their horrible Hogwarts Occlumency lessons. "But that wasn't my dream. Voldemort wanted me to see that."

"We cannot dismiss the possibility that any other particularly striking dream you have may be sent to you by someone else, for some purpose that we must determine. What about the pain? It has generally meant something specific when your scar hurt in a dream."

"This wasn't the same. It didn't feel like it was burning." Snape's fingers brushed over the scar, making Harry shiver. "My cock too -- it was like it was too sensitive, like I was feeling too much. Not like Dark magic was involved."

"Why did you scream for me?"

"Well, for one thing I didn't like you opening your chest like that. It was frightening to see, even in a dream. As much as I wanted you to open your heart to me, I was terrified that you were going to die."

He glanced up unhappily. Snape was still rubbing his hands through Harry's thick hair, looking a little hypnotized by the motion. He looked preoccupied, as though he was thinking about something quite abstract.

"I don't think I would have interpreted the image of opening the chest as 'opening my heart' in that straightforward and literalistic way, if you had not done so. I thought the light from the different body parts was symbolic of something else. Because your scar is at the Third Eye chakra, for example, and the penis is connected to the sacral chakra, and feelings of joy and anger..."

He stopped stroking Harry's hair and put his hands on Harry's shoulders, resting his head on the back of one hand. His fingers closed and squeezed the tight muscles beneath them. "I suppose the simplest explanation is that it was just a dream."

"The simplest explanation was also that you were working for Voldemort all along, and that was wrong." Harry didn't know anything about the Third Eye chakra but he wondered if it meant something that Voldemort's curse had marked his head rather than his heart, when it was love that had supposedly saved him.

"Why do you suppose the scar ended up where it did -- on my forehead?" he asked Snape. "The Killing Curse leaves no mark at all when it works, no matter where it's aimed. Why did it scar my head instead of my chest or something?"

When Snape replied, his voice had an odd wistful quality. "The Headmaster thought you had an exceptional heart...that your capacity for love was extraordinary."

"All right, what would it mean in terms of the chakras for you to open your heart?" Harry asked.

"The heart chakra is the place of union of the upper and lower realms. It is the seat of empathy, joy, pain, anger and fear," Snape replied.

"I don't know that that means," Harry said. "Or what it would mean for me to open the Third Eye."

Snape rocked back on his heels and blinked. "The Third Eye is manages clairvoyance, telepathy, and healing through mental projections. It's almost--it's the seat of magic, in a sense, because it's the chakra from which you make thoughts real."

"Maybe that dream was predicting something," Harry said, "and not your death."

"We're going to do something that liberates patterns of power..." Snape began. He looked amazed.

"A dream about how to defeat Voldemort?" Harry asked.

"A dream about how to defeat Voldemort!" Snape affirmed.

"What's the, um, what did you call the chakra that corresponds to my bits?"

"The sacral chakra. In Tantra, it is given more significance, as you might imagine...it is most often associated with instinct; when it is blocked, it is said to have a detrimental effect on creativity and emotional control."

"Tantra like tantric sex?" Harry didn't know much about how magic was used in other parts of the world -- a lot of that was covered during seventh year studies, the ones he'd missed -- but the twins had been interested in sex magic and had had a book on it.

"The sacral chakra is also associated with healing energy. You said it felt overstimulated? I have been foolish to have you focusing so much on dueling and blocking; you won't be able to block everything. We should work on healing spells."

Snape motioned for Harry to change places with him. He looked at Harry's written description of the dream, and picked up a quill and a parchment. He quickly sketched two human figures and began labeling them.

"The light in the dream came out of my body here, here, and here," Snape summarized. "Fingers and not toes?"

"I didn't see your toes," Harry said.

"On you the light was circulating here and here," Snape said. "The Third Eye; I really don't know why I've never thought of this before. You have both poor vision, in the sense of myopia, and excellent vision--your ability to see the Snitch. Also you have insight--trances, dreams, predictions--and in some ways, you lack..."

"I lack these two kinds of wisdom that you have coming out of my forehead like horns," Harry said, looking over his shoulder.

"No..." Snape was just thinking, not really paying attention. "These are technical terms."

"So there is something in the dream about healing?" Harry asked. "I'm still confused, but you seem to understand what's going on."

Snape was nodding. "My heart chakra is blocked and you are asking me to unblock it."

"In the dream?"

"No, all the time. You are constantly asking me to--to feel things. If I would let you...I think I would have access to more power. I've blocked these channels," he said, gesturing, "because of having to spy. I've sacrificed my power."

"So if you say you love me, you will become more powerful wizard?"

"It's not just about saying it." Snape was scribbling notes in the margins of his drawing; he did not look up. "Some of the power will be yours, because we can cleanse the impurities from the Third Eye."

"How are we going to do all of this?" Harry leaned back on the bed. His head still hurt. It was like the aftermath of a Voldemort headache.

"You might be happy about this, but I think it will hurt a bit," Snape said. "Sex magic."

Chuckling, Harry looked at Snape to see if he was serious, though it would have been unlike Snape to make such a joke. Sex magic! After all the times he insisted that sex was a diversion from their preparations to face Voldemort! Of course he was happy about it.

"Hurt a bit? I thought sex magic was about synchronizing your breathing and anointing your partner with your bodily fluids." He tried to imagine painting a spell on Snape's chest with his semen and laughed again.

"Those are exercises, not the root of the practice," Snape said, getting up from the desk. Leaning over, he peered into Harry's eyes, frowned and straightened again. "I am going to get something for your head."

Harry didn't recall having told Snape that his head still hurt but he wasn't about to argue. The pain was not helpful for thinking about sex magic or sex in general.

He wondered whether Snape meant that his scar or his arse would ache. Would they have to have a lot of sex for it to work? That made him grin, even though he was sure he was doing what Snape said he had done with Occlumency and Potions -- failing to extrapolate a theory from practice.

Well, it wasn't Harry's fault if they hadn't taught sex magic at Hogwarts. He was sure a lot of mediocre students would have worked a lot harder in that subject. Snape was just going to have to show him what he meant.

Snape came in carrying a small vial. "Drink this." Harry did, and immediately felt sharper, even though it tasted like a combination of Muggle cough syrup and chalk. "Better?"

Harry nodded. "Now we can start on the sex magic," he announced cheerfully. "Unless you're going to make me read a book or something first."

Snape was very solemn, though. "This is going to change things between us," he said gravely. "It's going to be an," he seemed to grope for a word, "intense experience."

"Severus," Harry said, reaching for his hand. "You used to hate me, or I thought you did. Then you cast a protection charm on me that could require you to die for me. Also, we have been having mind-blowing sex, and on top of that, we have been sharing each other's memories and thoughts. I don't see how much more intense things can get."

"You're holding my hand," Snape said.

"Yes," Harry confirmed, "Have we not done that before?"

"No. It's just--odd," Snape said.

"Why?"

Snape was just staring at their joined hands. Harry looked at him. He still looked the same--his face was still hawklike, with the large nose and craggy bones. His eyes were still black and intense and dangerous, his mouth still crooked.

Severus squeezed his hand gently.

"When are we going to start the sex magic?" Harry asked.

"We have," Snape answered. Their eyes locked and Harry fell forward, though his body remained sitting still.

He fell into Snape's body. It wasn't the same as seeing through Snape's eyes, or catching glimpses of his fantasies, like when he had been able to see his own face at the moment of orgasm in Snape's mind when Snape was on the verge of coming himself. He could actually feel what it felt like to be Snape.

His breathing was different. That was, he realized at once, because he was -- they were -- trying to control it. It wasn't what he thought it would be like, trying to breathe with someone to achieve Tantric sex, because they weren't working together. It was more like being taken over.

"Severus," he said aloud tremulously, because it was frightening. Speaking seemed to break the connection for a moment. He took a deep breath, and then it happened again.

Harry could remember feeling things that had never happened to him -- he could feel those memories in his body. He had been struck across the cheek by a careless swinging hand, he remembered how the sting had felt. He had been flipped upside down by a spell, the breeze cool on his legs, his face hot and furious as his blood rushed downward.

There was a recollection of a sudden, agonizing pain in his arm and he let out a choked scream. It moved, slithering in a pattern he couldn't make out beneath the skin of his forearm, and then it seemed to burst through the surface.

The Dark Mark. It had to be.

Snape had broken eye contact and was looking at the floor. "Did I do that right?" Harry asked, panting with exertion. "I'm sorry I got so frightened."

"We weren't supposed to merge. You weren't afraid enough, you just threw yourself in. You have to stay a separate person."

"Oh," Harry said, "What's wrong, Severus?"

"I didn't know you would have to see all of those horrible things," Snape muttered.

"I knew about them," Harry said. He stroked Severus' hand absently. "Did you feel more power from doing that?"

"Not yet," Severus said. "We'll try again."

Harry leaned forward and kissed him. He was thinking of how Severus' tongue traced patterns of light in his dream.

"You are Harry, the only one like you in the world," Severus said without speaking out loud. Their tongues were touching and they were breathing together. Harry felt his own body, this time. He shut his eyes.

Light flowed between their two open mouths. "You are Severus," Harry thought, "and I am still myself, and I can know you, and I can love you."

As he thought it, he felt arousal low in his belly, and his cock hardened. He moved closer, still kissing Snape, pulling the older man's body against his on the bed until he had to slide a leg over Snape's thigh so that their lower bodies could touch. He felt a cock nestling alongside his own, hardening against him, but he didn't know how to make light move between them the way it had in the dream.

This way. He felt Severus' hand close around both of them, squeezing their cocks together. Harry didn't have to move; their breathing was doing it for him, like rising and falling on waves of light. One of them was groaning and at first he didn't know which.

That wasn't right: he was supposed to stay himself. He stopped kissing, though he didn't move away from Snape's mouth. Light was still moving around and between them. He bent his head slightly to see the hand wrapped around their two erections, to see if the light was there too, and felt Snape's lips brush his forehead.

Snape was kissing his scar, moving his tongue over the lightning-bolt shape. It burned, though it was different than when he'd been in Voldemort's presence; it reminded Harry of a cut on the verge of healing, when the edges are sore and sharp.

He lowered his own head and kissed Snape's chest, feeling the deep groan vibrating against his lips. Light poured from his mouth over the hairy skin, which began to glow. Their cocks pulsed against one another.

"Don't come yet," Snape warned him. The words seemed to move through the light like something solid through water, sending ripples around Harry's head. His scar still ached, which was distracting him from his erection.

"How do I know if it's working?" he asked.

"You'll know here." With his free hand Snape touched Harry's forehead. His skull felt as though it was burning itself open. Bright light was pouring out of Snape's fingertips into him.

I need to stay myself, and I need to live through the pain, and I need to heal him, too. I need to heal his heart, too. How--

He used his tongue to trace a pattern like the ones in his dream. An S symbol, something with overlapping loops, like a snake or a Celtic knot. It was dizzying, he felt like he was in a trance. His tongue wasn't a tongue, but a wand. His head ached and his cock was about to burst.

"Severus," he said out loud. "Talk..."

"It hurts," Severus said, "I'm sorry."

"I don't care about that, I just need--I need to know you are here."

He knew it made no sense, when they were so physically close, when they were licking each other's bodies, when their cocks were hard and rubbing against each other. Snape knew what he meant, though. His thoughts were spilling into Harry's head. The healing hurt him too, but surges of feeling were coming up through his feet to his head.

"Harry," he gasped. "Slow down."

Harry's head was buzzing and ecstatic. He could see Severus' heart chakra, alive with light. Snape could see it too, in Harry's thoughts.

"An open lotus--a six-pointed star, like the Shield of David--unhurt, undamaged, fresh, clean..." Snape was weeping. It was the opposite of how he thought of himself. Air filled his lungs. Harry saw it all.

"You are shining," he whispered. It no longer hurt to talk. His head was clear. "I can see you."

They hung on the edge of orgasm, breathing together. Harry could feel himself, distinct from Severus, an aura of light around their bodies.

Snape's fingers were still moving on his forehead. They drew a mirror image of Harry's scar, beginning at the upper point of the lightning bolt. When the echo was completed, he drew a line just above Harry's brows, connecting the scar to the ghostly inversion written in light.

It felt to Harry as if his eyes were opening wide, seeing things he hadn't before.

He knew everything Snape knew about potions. He understood exactly how to judge when it was time to stir in a different direction or let ingredients settle, he could tell from the scent when he had not added quite enough of an ingredient or when the heat was too much for the cauldron.

He knew everything Snape knew about Occlumency. There were ways thoughts could be hidden, wrapped in memories so unhappy that a Legilimens would go no further, believing the worst had been exposed. Ways to use shame and self-loathing as cloaks, and ways to exploit the confidences of another.

And he knew everything Snape knew about the Dark Lord, in whispered conversations about immortal life, stoppering death, the only power that truly mattered to Voldemort. Voldemort did not truly believe in the power that had saved Harry from the Killing Curse -- Voldemort had no experience of love.

They had a weapon.

Of course that thought had to come from Snape: purified heart chakra or not, his mission was foremost. He was going to protect Harry and see everything through.

Harry could hear him thinking "I am a shield and you are a sword" over and over again. He was maintaining his trance that way.

No, Severus, that is not right. I am your love and you are mine, your human love. Your human heart.

The light grew brighter.

"Harry, it's just the sex magic," Severus said out loud, "It's not real."

"Severus," Harry gasped--he was once again conscious that they were two naked men with hard cocks rubbing against each other--"you just performed a spell to improve my vision, to help me see what's true. I love you. It's real."

Harry kissed him on the mouth. Light passed between them in complex patterns. I want to come with you, he thought.

"We need to sit up," Severus said. He sat cross-legged and pulled Harry into his lap, so that their legs were wrapped around each other. He arranged their arms.

Even though the trance was broken, Harry still saw light around Severus' face. Their cocks and bellies were flush against each other.

"Breathe with me again--we're going to make the energy go through all the chakras through the crown of the head."

They kissed. Harry felt a pulsing in his groin, an urge to thrust. Not yet! Magic throbbed around him. Then it throbbed through him, as though an orgasm was shuddering through his entire body.

Slowly, Severus thought. He was also full of magic. They were touching at their clasped hands, their open mouths, their bellies, their penises. The magic was circulating through their two bodies at these points of contact. Light, or sex, or the heat of their blood, or some kind of connection, filled up and spilled between them.

Now, they thought at the same time. Severus broke the kiss and leaned his forehead against Harry's. Harry opened his eyes and saw the dark irises up close, ringed in light, dilated.

He was coming, and Severus was coming. All the energy between them spurted upward through their cocks. It was as though all that light had become semen. It seemed to go on forever.

When, finally, the pleasure calmed enough that he could think again, Harry blinked to see the room unchanged. It seemed dimmer without the light, but familiar.

Snape's head was bowed, looking at the mess they'd made on one another's bodies. He stroked a finger through the wet streaks. Harry realized he was writing a symbol, or a letter, in a language he didn't know. No longer knew. There had been a moment when he knew everything Snape knew, but it was fading now, like the light.

I still love you, thought Harry. It's not just the magic. Snape looked up at him slowly. Aloud Harry said, "Don't tell me it's not real. I can't do this if it's not real."

"Then you have to be willing to risk my life. It isn't real if you won't let me protect you. That's why I am here. So many things I have done have been to that purpose."

Harry didn't know what to say to that. He felt boxed in again, even though the unbelievable joy of the sex and the magic were still flowing through him

"What will you do then, if I succeed?" Harry asked. "Will you stay with me?" Even to his own ears he sounded terribly young.

"Do you think you will want me, once you aren't trapped in your house and lonely?"

"Severus," Harry whispered.

"Yes," Snape said, as though he were admitting something shameful. "I will stay with you as long as you will have me."