THERE'S SOMETHING YOU SHOULD KNOW
By Dementor Delta and Your Cruise Director

Chapter One

Severus Snape had promised himself long ago that if the Ministry ever came through with the pardon that so many people had testified he was owed, the first thing he would do was to lose his virginity.

It was a relatively safe promise to make, because the Ministry apparently had no intention of pardoning him before he was a hundred and twenty years old. When he contemplated the manner by which he might fulfill that promise, the most practical avenues seemed likely to land him in prison anyway, since they involved either paying for sex or using a potion to procure it. He might successfully have accepted succor from one of the ridiculous women who had written letters in the aftermath of the war proclaiming faith in his innocence, but that idea seemed even more pathetic than hiring a professional. Moreover, Severus Snape had no interest in a liaison with a woman.

The Ministry, at least, did not suspect his secret. They had not bothered with details like house arrest or incarceration in Azkaban for Snape, since his admirers had testified that he was far too skilled a wizard to remain captive for long. Snape was allowed to come and go as he pleased, so long as he checked in with the Auror assigned to his case each Tuesday and refrained from dabbling in the Dark Arts. Love potions and anti-aging draughts for wealthy witches and wizards were not considered dark enough to cause him any difficulty in making a living.

Since Snape was required to see very few people in this line of work, it suited him, and he might have wished to remain celibate rather than face the complications of sexual intimacy; in truth, his principal reason for desiring sex was to prove wrong that bastard, James Potter, who had once told Snape that he was sure to die a virgin. Just in case Snape was doomed to meet Potter or Sirius Black in the afterlife, he wanted to be certain that he'd be able to laugh in their faces.

Thus Snape was doubly unprepared for the knock that rattled his door one fine autumn morning as he was preparing to visit the laboratory where he made overpriced potions for tedious clients. Yanking the door open, he blinked into the face of one of the last people he had expected to see. By way of welcome, he demanded, "What are you doing here?"

It was quite satisfying to observe that he could still make The Chosen One flinch. "I've brought you this...may I come in?" Harry Potter gestured at the doorway, holding up a letter sealed with a large Ministry crest and extravagant ribbons. A summons, no doubt, and the Ministry had sent its youngest Auror to deliver it. Details like proper Auror training had been overlooked in Potter's case, since he had saved the world and all that rubbish..

With a jerk of his arm, Snape directed Potter inside, stepping out of the way to let the younger man strut in unimpeded. Potter, however, was studying Snape's face, not watching where he was going, and because of this he brushed much closer to Snape than either of them intended, shoulder bumping Snape's chest and hand swaying close to a place Snape had never been in the habit of letting anyone else touch. Not that anyone had really tried. Not that Snape really disliked the sensation, either.

"Er, sorry," Potter said, having the grace to blush. Snape shut the door behind him. "I wanted to be the one to bring you this." He held out the letter, but Snape gestured toward the parlor. If he was going to be forced to read a Ministry summons in front of James Potter's infuriating if rather attractive son, now that Harry had outgrown his awkward teen years, then Snape was going to do so sitting comfortably on his favorite sofa where Potter would not have the satisfaction of seeing him flinch.

The letter, however, was not a summons. Snape had to read it twice before he trusted that the words on the parchment were not some sort of optical trick, but of course that didn't make it a genuine article. "What's this?" he snapped.

Potter had been smiling, sitting near the edge of the couch a little too close to Snape with an eager expression, but now he looked dumbfounded. "Isn't it a pardon? They didn't let me read it..." Leaning over, he pressed once again against Snape, who jerked away as quickly as he could, pretending to want to read the document in privacy. The truth was that his prick had been half-hard since Potter had brushed against him coming through the doorway, a fact he certainly did not want Potter to discover.

"Yes, I can see that it's meant to be a pardon." From the safe distance of an arm's length away, Snape whipped the sheet under the prankster's nose so he could see it. "Is this a Zonko's -- excuse me, a Weasley Wizard Wheezes product? Honestly, Potter, don't you have work to do for the Aurors?"

"It isn't a joke!" Potter's expression wavered between astonishment and indignation. "Look at the seal, that's directly from the Minister himself. Now that Shacklebolt's in office, he's in a position to...what are you doing?"

Snape had bitten the seal. The wax tasted genuine enough, high quality, without the bitter flavor that would suggest it had been lifted from another document and affixed to this one. The signatures, too, looked genuine. He peered resentfully at Potter. "If this is an actual pardon, my actual pardon for crimes committed during the war, why are you the one delivering it?"

"I told you. I wanted to." Potter was blushing, and his eyes looked away behind the glasses that made them look too big for his face. Aha -- Snape recognized his guilt all too well. Then Potter looked back at him. "I know it was my testimony about Dumbledore's death that got you sentenced in the first place. Now that we all know why..."

"Yes, thank you." Snape had no desire whatsoever to discuss anything about that night with Harry Potter. "Well. Thank you for bringing this to me, and now, since I have work to do, you had better return to the Ministry."

"Actually, um." Potter blushed again, bright spots of red beneath the glasses and the unruly dark hair on his head. "I don't work for the Ministry anymore. This is my last official task for them -- I was meant to have finished last week, but I asked to be allowed to deliver this. I guess you might say I'm between jobs at the moment. And I thought maybe we could have breakfast."

"I've already had breakfast," Snape replied automatically, glancing toward the kitchen. He had, indeed, boiled two eggs, and sat at the kitchen table for a quick wank while waiting for them to finish cooking, and he was very grateful that Potter couldn't possibly know that, since Snape had Scourgified the bottom of the table, wiped his chair and washed his hands before eating. Potter might have been one of the people Snape had conjured in his fantasies, but the prat couldn't possibly know that, either.

"It doesn't have to be breakfast. I just wanted to...you know, talk. I haven't really seen you since the trial." There was a long, awkward pause. "How are you?"

"Potter. I saved your life out of an obligation to others. You owe me no..."

Then Harry Potter got up from his seat on the sofa, came around in front of Snape, leaned down and kissed him.

Snape was far too startled to push him away in the first instant, which was a mistake, because in the next instant, Potter had insinuated himself between Snape's legs, was kissing him open-mouthed and had pressed up against Snape's body. Before Snape had managed to object, Potter was grinning at him, practically in his lap, pushing against his erection. "I'd rather have that than breakfast," he practically growled.

"Stop that!" demanded Snape in a voice that sounded far too breathless. It was distracting as well as maddening to be tormented like this. "That is not what it appears to be!"

"Oh, you have a big fat wand in your pocket?"

Truly Potter was as juvenile as ever. Snape attempted to look as dignified as possible under the circumstances. "I had an itch," he retorted.

"An itch? Right." Stepping back, Harry crossed arms over chest. "I used to have those sorts of itches in Potions class but at least I made it to the loo before anyone noticed."

"You were a teenager when you were in Potions class. I imagine you had all sorts of...itches."

An unfortunate blush heated Snape's face as Potter slid his fingers through Snape's hair, pulling it back to reveal one ear. Leaning down, he whispered into it. "I'm not a teenager now. Are you sure you weren't thinking about me when you got that itch?"

Sudden uneasiness gripped Snape. Potter had, after all, managed to qualify as an Auror even if his education had not been conventional. "You haven't become a Legilimens, have you?" he asked.

"No. I never learned any more than what I picked up from you during those Occlumency lessons." Harry grinned conspiratorially at him. "But I'm not bad at reading body language, and you didn't resist much when I touched you. Or when I kissed you. Really got me going, if you know what I mean." Still grinning, Potter adjusted the front of his robes.

Biting his lip to avoid moaning, Snape tried to perform a nonverbal Killing Curse on himself, but as usual it didn't work. "Potter, I know you must have dreamed of witnessing me humiliate myself for years, but I can't believe your gloating would extend so far."

"Gloating?" sputtered Potter, frowning. "What makes you think I'm gloating?"

"You don't really expect me to believe that you find me...arousing?"

"Of course I do!" The frown dissolved into mirth as Potter chuckled at Snape, then studied his face and the smile faded. "Wait, you think I'm just having you on? Two minutes ago I was flirting with you!"

Forgetting to die of embarrassment, Snape stared at him. "That was flirting? I thought you were attempting to remind me of my age."

"Well, only if you mean you're at that really sexy age men get when you just have to look at them to want to see how they look when they come." Snape's jaw dropped open as Potter gave him a saucy grin. "And yes, I'm flirting again."

"I didn't realize." Slowly Snape came to his senses, and closed his mouth. "I didn't realize you had watched so many men come."

"Well, not all that many." Potter made a self-deprecating gesture with his hands. "No as many as you have, I'm sure." Looking away from him quickly, Snape wondered when he had given away to Potter the fact that he was attracted to men. He could feel Potter's eyes on him; then he, too, began to study an invisible speck on the sofa. "Well. Sorry to have bothered you. I can see you aren't interested in --" Potter swallowed audibly.

"In being added to your growing list? One more for The Chosen One?"

"Look, I'm sorry!" Now Potter sounded a bit angry. "I thought I'd flirt with you since I've always wanted to but never thought you'd ever be interested. And now I can see perfectly well that you aren't."

Hearing the anger made Snape equally irritated. "You are just trying to get me to..." Fortunately, he stopped himself from completing the thought aloud, remembering that most people would not consider an offer of sex to be an act of cruelty. Shaking his head slightly, he pointed out, "I never flirt, as I would expect you to know. It has nothing to do with...interest."

"It must have something to do with interest, if it gets you hard. And no, I didn't know you never flirt, I thought it was just that you wouldn't flirt with me." Potter was studying Snape again, and a look of understanding abruptly crossed his face. "Oh -- bloody hell. I didn't even ask if you had a lover. I'm sorry. Tell him that I didn't mean anything, and he's a lucky man."

"Of course I don't have a lover!" That was all Snape needed, for Harry Potter to go around telling people that Snape had been having secret liaisons. "When have you ever known me to flirt with anyone?"

"But if you don't have a lover, then why --" Potter frowned again. "Look, you seemed interested for a minute. I mean, I can take rejection. But I am sort of curious why you don't want to..." He made a vague gesture between the two of them with his hand.

"You actually want to...?" Snape echoed the gesture. His own curiosity was piqued. Potter peered at him to see whether he was joking.

"Of course I do. Why else would I flirt with you?"

"I don't understand." Snape was utterly mystified by this. "You have never liked me. Is it a matter of conquest? Are you harboring some misplaced guilt because it has taken the Ministry so long to give me this?" He held up the pardon. "Or do you suffer from the delusion that sex will magically erase all the misery we have inflicted upon one another and bring us to some peaceable balance?"

Typically, Potter rolled his eyes again. "Why do I have to have any hidden motives aside from the fact that I think you'd be really hot in bed?" He looked Snape over while Snape tried not to blush or squirm. "All that repression -- you must know how it makes people long to see it unleashed."

"Why would people not assume that I would be repressed in bed as well?"

Potter shrugged. "I suppose you might be. That's all right. I might be awful as well, but people always wanted to give it a go just because of a stupid nickname. Like I could confer personal salvation on them or something." Snape could not imagine how many people were included in people and really didn't want to. "It taught me not to judge strictly by appearances."

"You have misjudged me if you believe I must be a raging inferno in the bedroom because I don't flirt," Snape informed him. He expected this to be the end of the matter, but Potter took his hand. Given that the alternatives were either jerking it away or pulling it slowly free and risking the chance that Potter would think he was being encouraged, Snape simply left the hand where it was.

"Which brings us back to me flirting with you. We could just find out what each of us is like, and leave the showy stuff to smoother blokes."

Was Potter actually offering...? Yes, he was, of course he was, he had said so several times. Snape wanted to groan and curse his fate. He had promised himself that he would lose his virginity at the first opportunity if he ever received his pardon, and now the rather fine form of the young man who had delivered the pardon was being offered to him without conditions or even, apparently, expectations.

"Whatever you're expecting, you'll be disappointed," Snape warned. "I guarantee that you've had better elsewhere."

Shrugging, Potter rubbed his hand until Snape's fingers twitched spasmodically and clutched back. "You probably have as well," he said with a shrug. "But if we're both willing..."

"I'm sure I haven't." Snape had not meant to say that aloud, and tried to curse himself again, but it made Potter smile and stand up, tugging on his hand. "Very well. I may as well disabuse you of whatever you might be imagining."

Shaking his head, he got up crossly as Potter hesitated. "If you don't want to, just tell me. I told you I can handle rejection. Even yours." It was an offer of freedom, and Snape very nearly took it before Potter leaned up to try to kiss him. For a moment Snape was confused about what Potter was doing, then he felt like an idiot, realizing, and lowered his head so that Potter could reach his lips.

It was a rather gentle kiss, but it went on for a long time and distracted Snape sufficiently that he did not notice when Potter's arms went about his waist until he found his stiff cock pressing through their clothes against the firmness of Potter's hip. The younger man pulled back with a rather dreamy expression. "I won't be disappointed," he whispered.

Snape was quite certain that Potter was wrong about that. But instead of saying so, he kissed him again.

Chapter Two

"I want to hear you say my name."

Potter was still smiling dreamily at Snape's rather clumsy kisses. Unlike Snape, who felt tense as a werewolf just before the full moon rose, Potter had relaxed into his arms, sliding his fingers through Snape's hair. Closing his eyes and repressing a shudder, Snape murmured, "Harry."

He felt Potter shiver. "Mmnice." The lips brushing the corner of his mouth moved down, over his chin and onto his throat. "Again."

"Harry." Snape's knees threatened to shake. He needed to lean on a wall, to lay back against the pillows...to lie on a bed. "Do you want to go...into the other room?" he inquired cautiously.

"Yes." Potter sounded breathless, and he looked up mistily as Snape grasped his wrist, marching him into the other room more firmly than was probably necessary. Yelping as though he had just earned detention, Potter followed meekly. "Right, then." Looking around, he spotted Snape's bed and had moved ahead before they reached it. He turned Snape so that his knees were against the bed and rubbed a hand over the front of his robes.

To cover his unease, Snape kissed him rather aggressively, pushing his tongue deep into Potter's mouth. A moment later it was being sucked and stroked by Potter's tongue, and he moaned, hoping he wasn't so clumsy that he would fall backward on the bed. He did not know whether Potter intended for him to sit down, lie down or remain standing. "Tell me what you want me to do," he said when Potter released his tongue.

"I was just about to ask if you'd like to top or bottom. I'm fine with either." Grinning, Potter squeezed Snape's cock lightly through his robes, making him jump.

He had only an instant to make a decision, an instant in which what he instinctively wanted warred with what he believed he could get away with. If he topped, he would be expected to know what he was doing. It would be far too likely that he would rush things, cause Potter pain or humiliate himself. "Bottom," he muttered. It wouldn't matter if he didn't know what he was doing the receiving end. He was good at disguising discomfort -- too many years of associating with Death Eaters had taught him that. Likely he would have an orgasm from the stimulation even if he had no experience of it. It was safer.

To his immense relief, Potter nodded. "I'd love to fuck you. You don't know how many times I've thought about it." Sitting on the bed, he guided Snape between his knees.

Snape went where he was pushed, startled by the confession and glad that he no longer had to make decisions about what to do. He held his breath as Potter unbuttoned his robes, taking his time, until the last button had been unfastened and Snape's cock popped free. Grasping the base, Potter nuzzled it, rubbing the shaft against his cheek, then turning and licking the head. The sensation overwhelmed all thought and very nearly undid Snape. "Oh fuck," he hissed, grasping at Potter's shoulder, pressing his knees together to stop them from knocking.

The exclamation apparently pleased Potter, who smiled as he kept licking, releasing Snape's cock from his hand to keep removing his clothes. Snape wondered if it was proper etiquette to hold himself steady for the mouth teasing him, sending gusts of warm air over the taut skin as he exhaled, but when Potter's hand slid around his arse, Snape was forced to focus on remembering to breathe and not move lest he should ram himself into Potter's throat or come on his face or something equally disastrous.

Pulling up, Potter mouthed the head of the cock once more before straightening and starting to unbutton his own clothes. "Did you ever think about fucking me before?" he asked as he shrugged out of his robes, balling them up and tossing them over the side of the bed.

"Yes," Snape replied honestly, watching Potter shove down his pants and scoot back on the bed.

"You did? Excellent." Lying on his side, Potter patted the empty space on the bed. "Lie with me." Glancing at Potter's firm, Quidditch-toned form, Snape was quite sorry he had not insisted that they wait to do this until night, when it would have been too dark to see either his own highly imperfect body or the expression on his face when Potter fucked him. Indeed, Potter was looking him over, shaking his head slightly, but what he said was, "Why did you think I'd be disillusioned? You look good. Come here."

In the same moment that Potter kissed him again, working his way down Snape's throat and chest toward his belly, Snape remembered that he had not washed that morning, anticipating a day of working with strong-smelling potions where it would not matter. It wasn't as if he could have anticipated that Harry Potter would turn up and offer him sex. Biting his lip, he moaned at the feel of Potter's lips on his skin and touched his hair. "Don't...I haven't bathed."

"I can tell." Potter licked him again with just the tip of his tongue. "I like you this way--you don't taste of soap." His nose buried in Snape's pubic hair, sniffing deeply, then he licked down the side of Snape's cock.

Moaning, shuddering, Snape realized that he was clutching Potter's hair too tightly and forced his fingers to relax. Potter mouthed kisses along his balls and for a moment Snape feared -- hoped? -- that the tongue would continue to circle around behind them, but then Potter licked his way back up and over his cock again. "Do you want to come first? Or when I'm inside you?"

Having no idea what to say to that, Snape replied, "Whatever you want."

Potter frowned slightly, as if he did not expect Snape to be so passive, but then he nodded. "Do you have anything, or should I use my wand?"

"Do I have anything?" Still wondering why Potter was frowning, Snape blinked, then realized what he meant and felt foolish. "Oh -- yes." He had to get up and go digging for the lubricating potion that he sold to others for many galleons but did not often use on himself, as he usually could not be bothered to wank with anything more than spit. While Potter waited, he let his knees fall open, giving Snape a full glimpse for the first time of the cock that would momentarily relieve him of his unlamented chastity. It was quite erect, darker than the rest of Potter's skin and smoother than Snape's. He had a strong urge to run his tongue around the foreskin, pull it back and suck the swollen head. He realized he was staring and quickly handed over the lube.

Scooting across the bed to where Snape was sitting, Potter rested his chin over his shoulder. "If you've changed your mind, it's all right. I don't mind being on the bottom." His fingers stroked through Snape's hair again.

Gingerly, Snape put his arm around Potter. He felt impossibly young and smooth in his arms, something pliant and warm that could be bent and shaped to Snape's pleasure. Snape was tempted to say yes, but he knew that if he buggered it up, it would be worse than a nightmare. "No. I haven't changed my mind."

Potter kissed him again, seeming almost giddy. "Really, either way. You can top next time." He slid his arm along Snape's shoulders.

Surprised, Snape twitched, hoping that Potter wouldn't notice. "Are you so certain you'll want a next time?"

"Oh yes." There was a soft shiver, then Potter bit his lip. "Unless you only want a one-off? I don't usually do those, but I would for you, if you only do one-offs."

Snape very nearly laughed at this. "I do not. I have never done a one-off."

"Good, because I want to do everything with you." Potter's lips brushed the side of his mouth, and Snape closed his eyes and kissed back, which was easier than trying to think. "Everything. I want to fuck you and have you fuck me and suck you in the shower or under your kitchen table. I want to watch you when you come and lick it off you." He pushed gently, urging Snape to lie down, as Snape moaned helplessly, breaking out in a sweat all over. "But only if you want it too."

Something cool dripped onto Snape's belly, and he realized that Potter was drizzling lube onto him, dragging a finger through it, down through the hair curling around the base of his cock. It made him wriggle, partly because it tickled to be touched in all these places by someone else and partly just because he felt like he had to move or he might explode. Potter played with the hair all around his cock, getting the slippery stuff everywhere, even where it couldn't possibly be needed. He kissed the tip of the cock again while letting his fingers trail around Snape's balls.

It was impossible to relax with Potter doing that. Snape swallowed a moan and shifted his legs. "Lift your knees up a bit," Potter suggested, rubbing his palm against the balls, and Snape obeyed immediately, as if he had been planning to do so all along. "Oh yes, that's beautiful." Potter's forefinger dipped again into the lube, and then it was swirling around Snape's arsehole, where he had never been touched by anyone else even by accident.

Snape shuddered all over. His body could not decide whether it wanted to twitch away from that teasing finger or press down on it. Potter teased him with little strokes in and out, smiling up at him. "With all that talk earlier about how I'd be disappointed, I wasn't sure you'd be so responsive," he said. Trembling, Snape realized that he was clutching at the bedcovers as if for life, and forced his fingers to release them before he gave himself away.

"My God, you're so tight," Potter continued, easing the finger in slowly. "Feels good." Cursing inwardly, Snape tried not to be so tight, but he was terrified of passing gas or something equally appalling if he relaxed too much. His fingers clutched at the bed again because otherwise they would have clutched at Potter, who had begun to slide the finger in and out. "You're so tense. Tell me what you like. Severus."

The grimace that was distorting Snape's face finally came to his attention due to the stiffness in his jaw. No wonder Potter knew he was tense. He tried to force his mouth to relax. "Perhaps it would be better if I were on my belly," he announced, pulling away from the finger which felt equally strange and tempting, flipping himself over.

Potter lifted up to allow him to turn, but sounded puzzled when he spoke. "Is this how you like it?"

"Yes." Snape put all his confidence into his voice. He could always change his mind later, if there was a later rather than an unmitigated disaster, but allowing Potter to fuck him in any position where his face would be visible was certain to be a disaster of some magnitude. He felt Harry sidle in between his legs, head near his arse, fingers already stroking up and down through the thin cleft.

"All right." Now the cool lube was being spread out onto the small of Snape's back. "Sorry if I'm using a lot of this. You're just a bit -- er, tight -- and I don't want to hurt you."

The words made Snape grow tenser. "That's because I haven't done this in a long time," he snapped, impressed at his own quick thinking.

Harry hummed quietly. "I'm glad you told me." He kissed the curve of Snape's arse. "I'll make it good for you," the tongue trailed along to the other side, "I promise."

Well, that was a relief...Potter believed him so far. Snape relaxed a bit, wriggling at the tongue tickling his skin. When it dipped into the moist places lower on his arse, he moaned and pushed his cock against the bed. "I didn't...I don't know whether that's sanitary."

Potter chuckled, then seemed to realize he was not joking. "I don't mind. I like it." The tongue wiggled deeper for emphasis, making Snape groan raggedly. It felt like nothing he had ever known, he wanted to press back against it, to beg for more...this was madness, he had not been expecting this, he hadn't washed, he was likely filthy! He tried to bend his knees to move away, but Potter laid a hand gently on his back. "Don't. I like the way you taste. You don't ever have to do it to me if you don't like it. Please."

The fingers stroking Snape's back were making him quiver. He did not want to seem ridiculously fastidious, but he felt dirty and was certain he must have been disgusting to Potter, whose tongue was moving again at the top of the crack, licking a pattern that felt to Snape like the shape of a lightning bolt. Potter's fingers moved back into the crease, and Snape heard himself whimper as he pushed back helplessly.

Potter made a satisfied noise in response and let his tongue roam downward while his hand stroked lower, reaching beneath Snape to find his cock. It was impossible not to thrust against those fingers, though Snape was afraid to push back against the tongue until Potter simply dove in, licking up and down. Without thinking, Snape cried out and spread out more widely, and Potter ran his tongue all around the hole, then wiggled the tip inside.

Trembling, moaning, Snape was very glad that he'd wanked while waiting for breakfast for he was certain that he would have come immediately otherwise. Potter pushed more of his tongue in, stroking below with one finger, and although Snape had not forgotten that he was not clean enough for anyone's finger, let alone tongue, to be touching him there, his entire body quivered at every touch of Potter's as if he were a violin and Potter the bow.

When at last he was certain he would come at any moment if Potter continued, Snape gasped, "Fuck me now."

"All right." Potter's head lifted, though his fingers continued to slide up and down the cleft, a sensation that made Snape moan again. "Sure you're ready? You're still a little tight..."

He eased the finger back in, angling experimentally. Snape refused to let himself tense around it, trying to push down on it, feeling as if he was just missing whatever would make this sensation pleasurable instead of just strange. Then Potter pushed lower, pressing the low nub of the prostate, and Snape made a dreadfully loud crying noise as his entire groin felt like it was going to explode. "Harry!"

Likely Potter was grinning, gloating, but so long as he didn't stop stroking, Snape could not find it in himself to care at the moment. He heard himself groaning pathetically, practically mewling, rocking back and forth against the finger. "Yes! Fuck! Yes, good!"

"So good." Potter's voice was quiet and hoarse as he agreed. He slid out the finger and Snape could hear him slapping lube on his cock before the large, bulging head fitted itself to his own now-very-relaxed hole. "So good," Potter moaned again, and eased the head inside.

The invasion made Snape tense again; he very nearly cried out, and lowered his head to bite into his pillow to avoid doing so. It was not particularly painful, but the incursion felt terribly intimate, whereas Crucio affected the entire body and seemed impersonal by comparison. He tried to force himself to remain relaxed, and Potter panted, "Almost there. Oh god..." Stilling, he slid in deep, leaving Snape caught between the ache of the stretch and the pleasure of where the cock inside him was rubbing.

He jerked forward, then pushed back on the shaft, impaling himself, which was not precisely enjoyable but offered something of the relief of scratching an itch. "Oh fuck, Harry, move!" he begged.

He felt Potter shift, then start fucking him slowly, grunting as he thrust. "So tight, God," he huffed. "You fit me so perfectly." Potter's fingers clenched into Snape's arse.

It was still uncomfortable, but increasingly less so, and moreover Snape was weak with relief to discover that Potter apparently could not tell he had never done it before. He relaxed gradually, muttering his approval, "Yes, better, better -- oh!" Potter's cock brushed his prostate again and he jolted.

"So good, yeah." Snape could hear the grin in Potter's voice as his hand came down hard, very nearly a slap, and squeezed his bum. Keeping the angle steady, he continued to thrust as Snape grunted and tried to angle his hips so that he could press his cock against the mattress. "That's it. Fuck me back." Leaning over, Potter groped for his cock. "Lift up so I can touch you."

Snape lifted up very willingly, then cried out as Potter's cock pushed deep. "There! Please!" he tried to thrust into the fingers as Potter dabbed his hand in the lube still clinging to his skin before curling the hand around Snape's cock. The rhythm was awkward at first, not precisely the one to which Snape had become accustomed in his many long years of furtively pleasuring himself, but the delight of having those eager fingers pulling at him and the rhythmic pressure inside made him feel as if he might explode. "Uh, uh, fuck Harry I can't last if you do that..." he gasped urgently.

"Come then. I want to feel you come in my hand."

Potter thrust in hard, and Snape thought he could come just listening to him say things like that. "Yes Harry yes!" he shouted, feeling his balls tighten. The world tilted and went dark as he erupted over Potter's fingers, grunting and moaning.

Letting out a whoop as if he had just caught the Golden Snitch, Potter thrust back and forth until he slammed in hard one final time, shaking, and Snape could feel the cock buried deep inside him twitching and pulsing. "God, yes, so good, knew it would be like this," Potter groaned.

Snape had not yet gained control of his voice, nor his thoughts. "I had no idea. No idea, no idea," he muttered. He felt Potter drape himself over his back and rub his cheek in the sweaty spot between his shoulder blades.

"I hoped. Now I know how good it can be between us." Potter's semen-covered hand rubbed along Snape's bum, stroking wet streaks onto his skin. Slowly, Snape recovered his mind.

"It wasn't too much of a disappointment, then?"

Potter made a disbelieving noise. "God, no, couldn't you tell?" He moved slightly, making a squelching sound in Snape's arse, which in turn made Snape glad his face was hidden from Potter's eyes. He felt Potter's lips dropping little kisses on his back. "That was even better than I was expecting." The wet hand brushed over Snape's hip and he heard distinct sucking sounds.

"What are you doing? Snape tried to turn his head in spite of himself, but the stretch made Potter's cock slide out of him and a trail of ooze slid down Snape's leg, making him turn scarlet.

"Want some?" Potter was grinning. He gave his finger a long, lingering lick before offering it to Snape, who licked it hesitantly, refusing to allow himself to make a face. He did not particularly enjoy the taste of his own semen, but he did like the look on Potter's face as he sucked on his finger -- wide-eyed erotic interest, even if Potter wasn't quite young enough to get hard again so soon.

Smiling lazily, Potter thrust the finger shallowly into Snape's mouth. "You look so hot like that." It was a ludicrous thing to say, so Snape sucked harder, hollowing his cheeks and licking across the fingertip. With a groan, Potter offered him another. "If you suck cock the way you suck finger, I don't think I'll ever be able to get out of this bed." The words startled Snape, who very nearly bit him before ducking his head to suck both fingers. Potter looked at him curiously, but then smiled rather dreamily and said, "I told you a one-off wouldn't be enough. You can suck me off before you have a turn on top."

Snape found himself quite happy about that news, but he was very unsure how well he could bluster through anything more. "I am considerably older than you, you know," he said, attempting to muster the proper irritation. Without thinking he glanced at Potter's cock, relieved that he could see neither blood or feces. "You don't plan to wash first?"

"I usually use a spell for that, but I can wash if you like." Potter shifted to put his arms around him, and Snape felt like a fastidious idiot for failing to think of using a spell. "I'm not ready quite yet, anyway. I'm not that young."

Nuzzling his chest, Potter rubbed his chin all around as Snape snorted softly, relieved to have this recovery time to use to his own advantage. "How do you like to be sucked off?" Green eyes peered up at him and Snape cursed himself for the blatant question, but Potter was grinning, rubbing his limp cock against Snape's thigh. Cautiously Snape stroked his hip and around to his bottom. "I am more comfortable..." Pausing, he felt his face turning red again and blurted, "I would rather not swallow it."

"Just the idea of your mouth on my cock gets me going." Potter's fingers slid into his hair. "You don't have to, really -- it was just an idea. I can wait until you'd like to fuck me." There was a new note in his voice...disappointment? No, Snape realized, it was caution. Potter was afraid that he had pushed him too hard. Snape's hand felt warm; suddenly he realized that he had been rubbing the same spot on Potter's bum over and over, like a nervous tic, and stroked up to his lower back as Potter nudged his prick against him again. "I know not everyone likes doing it."

Potter's skin felt warm and smooth under Snape's hand, muscles curving to invite him to explore his back and stroke up to his shoulders. It was an agreeable sensation. "It is not that I dislike doing it," Snape said carefully. "No one has ever told me that I have any particular skill at it." He expected to be laughed at, but the soft snicker that escaped from Potter sounded both self-conscious and relieved. It made Snape shiver softly, letting his hand come up Potter's shoulder and into his hair. "Perhaps I'm not any good at it." Potter sucked lightly on one nipple, then brushed over it with his mouth. "I can't imagine you're any worse than I am. And just the idea of you doing it is nearly enough to make me come." He thrust against Snape again, and Snape had a brilliant idea.

"Perhaps you could do it to me at the same time, so you can show me what you like."

Grinning, Potter shifted around in the bed so that his head faced the bottom, stopping to rub his chin along the top of Snape's thigh before wiggling close enough to reach him. Sniffing cautiously, Snape tried a nonverbal Scourgify on Potter's prick, which from this angle looked too large ever to have fit comfortably inside him. He could not tell from looking whether the spell worked, as the organ in question still looked damp, but it smelled inoffensive and he tried to mimic Potter's motions as the younger man licked at him, snuffling into his pubic hair and laving him in long strokes.

A happy noise burst from Potter's throat, sending a gust of warm breath over Snape's sensitive skin. "Feels good." While he licked at Snape's bollocks, Snape nodded somewhat dazed agreement. Potter's hair was scratchier against his face than he had expected, but this already felt as if it were familiar ground, though Potter's balls were firmer and less hairy than his own. He was startled to find himself getting hard again so soon.

"Mmmnice." Growling softly, Potter licked around the base of his cock, sliding a hand up his thigh to cup his balls. Snape did the same to him, nuzzling and licking him there. "Such a nice cock."

"How many am I being compared with?"

Clearly Potter had not expected that question. He raised his head, blinking. "Does that matter to you? Probably not as many as you, at least. I'll tell you if you want to know, but you'll have to tell me in return."

Snape was very sorry that he had asked. Squirming, he pressed his face against Potter's cock, going back to licking fiercely. "Doesn't matter." Taking the head of the cock in his mouth, he sucked on it, drawing a whimper from Potter, who went back to licking him in turn. Realizing that he was probably sucking too hard, Snape relented, rubbing his tongue cautiously over the head of the cock in his mouth.

A small incoherent noise burst from between Potter's lips. "Oh, yeah," he groaned. "Your other lovers must have been idiots -- you're fantastic at this." Snape could not guess whether the comment was meant to be sarcastic; such arrogance would have been characteristic of Potter, but he was making breathless noises, clutching at Snape quite indiscreetly. "Yes, god, just like that." Potter's mouth shifted in some indescribably pleasurable way, and a moment later Snape realized that the tongue was playing with his foreskin.

Grabbing Potter's arse to keep him close, Snape tried to reciprocate, moving his lips up and down on the shaft. It was easier than he had expected, and more pleasurable, feeling Potter wiggling his bum against Snape's fingers, groaning affirmative sounds around Snape's flesh. Feeling more confident, he tried to take Potter deeper into his mouth, choked, gagged a little, and felt his face turn scarlet as he drew back to cough.

"You all right?" Potter paused for a moment, apparently listening to make sure that he was all right, then went back to sucking. Mortified, Snape rested his face against Potter's belly long enough to catch his breath before nuzzling again hesitantly at the cock being thrust at him needily. "Don't stop!" Gurgling happily, Potter played with his bollocks and ran his thumb up behind them, a gesture Snape attempted to mimic. It earned him another soft moan. "I--I think I'm going to come like this. It's just too--"

Pausing, Snape rubbed along the shaft with his chin. "Do you want to come like this?" he asked, feeling that he had been given an unexpected reprieve.

"Oh, yes..." Potter's tongue shot out like a snake's and licked along the slit in Snape's prick, a sensation so intimate and pleasurable that Snape could imagine erupting from that alone, He did the same, feeling Potter's hips buck, "Y-yes," groans bursting from him continuously, "Oh god, yes..." Then silence for a moment, and stillness, for so long that Snape wondered whether he had misunderstood just as he felt Potter go rigid, crying out as orgasm washed over him.

Snape almost choked again, but when he forced his throat to relax he found that he could keep swallowing until nothing else seemed to be coming out of Potter's cock. The taste was bitter, though not unexpectedly so; Snape had only ever tasted his own, and then in much smaller quantity. Moaning softly, Potter panted, "Sorry. Wanted to be able to last longer." He looked down and grinned. "Told you with a mouth like yours I wouldn't last long."

Had he done something to give himself away? Snape licked his lips gingerly. "That was...the way you like it?"

"Yeah, except it was the best ever." Potter nuzzled his still-hard cock. "Would you like me to finish you off, or would you like to fuck me?"

There was something to be said for getting it over with, thought Snape. For one, Potter was unlikely to come again so soon, and would have lowered expectations; plus the offer might never be renewed. On the other hand, Potter might pay much closer attention now that he was relaxed, which was the last thing Snape wanted. "What do you want?" he asked guardedly.

Licking him again, Potter said, "I want you to come in my mouth. Been thinking about it for ages." His brow furrowed as if he might be anxious about this admission, but Snape was primarily surprised at his own sense of relief to have the decision taken from him. He could not help smirking slightly, and Potter responded with a wide grin. "Maybe after we can sleep a little, and then you can fuck me into the mattress."

His mouth closed over the crown of Snape's cock before Snape could respond to that extraordinary declaration, making him moan and arch instead, trying for a moment to guess whether Potter might have some ulterior motive for wanting to share his bed. The hot mouth surrounding his cock settled quickly to earnest sucking, exploring every inch, and Snape -- unable to think of a reason not to show his appreciation -- moaned loudly. Encouraged, Potter sucked hard, still rubbing Snape's balls across his palm, reaching back to tease his still-sensitive arsehole, until a voice Snape hardly recognized as his own was babbling, "Harry...oh...more..." as he spread his legs, shuddering, inviting a finger inside, pressing shamelessly back on it.

There was very little warning, only a moment for his head to thrash against the mattress while he called out, "Going to come!" Potter sucked fiercely, pressing the finger in deep, as Snape thrust into his mouth, shuddered all over and shouted, "Harry!" The delightful mouth sucked greedily, throat working to swallow everything Snape pumped out into his mouth, continuing to lick until Snape could feel himself growing soft and twitching in acute overstimulation. He was shaking from having come so hard, muttering, "Fuck. Fuck!" when he heard Potter laugh.

"You taste good." A smooth cheek nuzzled his thigh languidly. "Mmmreally good." Twisting, he wriggled into Snape's arms, feet brushing over his before he all but collapsed beside him. Struggling to think of something to say, Snape glanced at the younger man's face, finding that his eyes were already drifting shut. He nuzzled against Snape's arm, tickling until Snape lifted it just enough for Harry to nuzzle under it. "If it gets those sorts of noises out of you, I'll keep doing that forever," he murmured. A moment later his lips parted in a sigh, and he was asleep before Snape had to say anything.

Chapter Three

Of anyone Harry had ever known, only Severus Snape would have woken up in the middle of a blow job with an exclamation of protest. For a moment Harry feared that the complaint was a reflection upon his skills at cock-sucking, but then he remembered that this was his former Potions professor, whose idea of a compliment was to admit that someone was not a complete failure. Likely Snape had simply been taken by surprise.

"I thought you were asleep," Snape grumbled. "What do you think you're doing?"

"I woke up." Harry kissed the tip of his cock, fondling his balls. Given the events of that afternoon, he supposed that he was entitled to think of Snape as "Severus" even outside of a very private fantasy. "As for what I think I'm doing...I think I'm sucking your prick."

"I can see that." Again Harry had a moment of wondering whether he was expected to apologize, but then Severus let out a needy whimper that was the sexiest sound Harry had ever heard in his life. He rubbed his mouth all over Severus' cock, fingering up the crack that was still damp from their earlier activities, and was delighted to feel Severus bending his knees and spreading his legs.

"Not sore?"

Severus tensed more than Harry would have thought possible from such a simple question. "No." The muscles surrounding Harry's finger, which was barely grazing Severus' hole, tightened and pushed as if trying to dislodge it. "Are you certain that I do not need a bath?" he snapped.

Clearly asking whether Severus was sore had been a mistake, though Harry still wasn't certain why. He rubbed his cheek against the hairy balls and licked up the still-hard shaft, relieved when Severus did not try to displace him again. "I don't think you need one, but if you'd like, we could take a bath," Harry suggested. "Is your tub big enough for two people?"

"If they were very close together."

Was Severus blushing? Harry grinned up at him from around a mouthful of cock. "Would you like that?"

"I suppose so." Again that slight hesitation, the same as Harry had heard in Snape's voice earlier, completely unexpected from a man who had always seemed to know precisely what he wanted from others.

Sliding up, Harry brushed a kiss over his mouth. "All right." The kiss was returned with rather more enthusiasm, and Harry focused on the slow thrust of tongue while he tried to puzzle out the unexpected caution of a man who had previously taken delight in ordering him about.

Severus obviously liked kissing, at least; he had pulled Harry down, rubbing his hand along Harry's back, tracing his spine, until his hands cupped Harry's arse. Wriggling, Harry slid his hands through Severus' thick hair, still kissing. He was getting hard, rubbing against him, and they were both moaning softly when they breathed...

Very suddenly Severus pulled back, with color in his cheeks and an expression like shame in his eyes. "Did you want the tub?" he asked brusquely.

"We can bathe after." Now Severus merely looked surprised, and Harry took advantage of his distraction to kiss him again. He expected to be asked after what, but Severus was already busy tasting him again, stroking his back and neck. Harry licked his ear and kissed down his shoulder, pleased to discover that the older man was being a bit more aggressive. The unnerving passivity earlier had made Harry feel at times like he was back in Potions class with a stern, unimpressed professor judging his every move.

Severus was moving his tongue over Harry's neck and collarbone, licking inside a bicep, nibbling a little, and Harry tangled his fingers in the dark hair, careful not to clench too hard. This was what he had anticipated from Snape...not that he had really anticipated anything besides being tossed out on his arse, but he had always imagined that if he somehow talked Snape into giving it a go, there would be teeth and fingers gripping hard enough to bruise and those little harsh breaths that weren't quite moans.

"That's good, yeah," he whimpered as Severus worked his way down, using his teeth a bit on Harry's belly, biting at the sparse hairs around his navel. Belatedly Harry remembered that Severus had expected him to wash, earlier -- did he stink? But before he could ask, a warm tongue licked hesitantly over the tip of his cock, and by the time Harry had recovered his breath enough to speak, the tongue had been joined by lips that were teasing his foreskin and pressing around the head.

"Oh fuck!" Harry moaned loudly, arching up into Severus' mouth, which pulled back at first as if Severus resented the presumption, then returned to suck more firmly. That was odd, even for Snape, thought Harry with the miniscule part of his brain not entirely focused on the feel of that mouth. It was almost as if Snape hadn't realized Harry wanted to be sucked, though he was now making up for it, taking Harry in deeper, stroking over his balls with the flat of his palm.

"So good," groaned Harry, a bit embarrassed to find himself reduced to babbling. He lifted one knee so he could get a better view. "You look amazing doing that."

Severus turned a shade of scarlet of which Harry had never imagined he was capable. He slid his mouth down Harry's cock and over his balls as if he wanted to hide his face, moving his fingers out of the way around the backs of Harry's thighs. While the tongue went to work massaging the bollocks one at a time, the fingers slid into the furrow, inspecting.

Harry's fingers had again wandered into Severus' hair; he stroked it, making encouraging noises. Then he gasped when Severus brushed a finger over his arsehole. Severus had seemed so determined to bottom earlier that Harry had wondered whether he disliked topping, though now he suspected again that perhaps Snape had merely been looking for an opportunity to evaluate Harry's own skills in that department. There certainly hadn't been any complaints during the sex.

The finger rubbed gingerly, prodding at the dry hole, and after a moment Severus pulled it away to lick before returning it to Harry's quivering skin. "Please...please," Harry panted, hoping Severus would take the babble as encouragement instead of ridiculing him for it. He could feel Severus' warm face pressed against his thigh as the finger tickled him, not quite pressing inside. "Mmmtease..."

At that, the finger shoved in hard, and Harry sucked in a breath before groaning. "Oh god! More!" He felt the finger withdraw and looked down to see Severus with his brow furrowed, glancing around. The lube was still lying on the edge of the bed where Harry had dropped it earlier, and he shoved it downward toward Severus. "Here!"

It was too erotic to watch Severus spread lube over his fingers in preparation for putting them inside Harry without coming, so Harry let his head fall back, spreading out as widely as he could. He made happy gurgling noises when Severus frigged him with two fingers, fumbling inside him for many excruciating seconds before the room blurred and Harry shuddered in pleasure as the fingers found fuck right there! He was babbling again, nearly jerking off the bed, "God, yes...please, fuck me, please!

The fingers kept moving. Harry wondered whether Severus was going to insist on making him come just like this, with only his fingers, denying Harry his cock so that later he could scoff at Harry's lack of control. Thrashing about on the pillow, Harry whimpered, "God, please, want you in there..." and glanced down to see Severus looking at him with a guarded expression. Did Snape have performance anxiety? Well, he was many years older, and the war had probably taken a lot out of him...

"We can do it any way you like," Harry continued, trying to sound cajoling instead of demanding. "I've always wanted this. Even if it's quick and dirty, or you think I'm rotten, I just want the chance..."

Abruptly Severus picked up the lube again. He refused to meet Harry's eyes. "Perhaps it will be easier if you roll over," he announced imperiously, and Harry pushed aside a momentary pang at the thought that maybe Severus wanted sex but preferred to pretend that he was doing it with someone else. Harry wanted it no matter how Severus had decided to rationalize doing it; everything he had confessed about his Potions classroom fantasies had been true. He rolled over eagerly, thrusting his arse into the air and waggling it in what he hoped was an enticing way. "Like this?"

"Yes. Fine." Snape's voice was terse, belying his words of agreement. Harry could hear him slicking his cock, using what sounded like half the lube. Puzzled, Harry looked over his shoulder and was met by an expression as taut as the voice had been.

Did Severus not really want to fuck him? Hesitantly, Harry started to say, "If you don't..."

But before he finished the sentence, Severus had moved his hand, sliding the excess lube over Harry's arse as if he had intended to do so all along. As the fingers pressed against his hole, Harry felt his body relaxing again, even though his cock was twitching urgently.

"Oh yes...that's perfect," he sighed into the pillow. The bed heaved as Severus straightened behind him, replacing his fingers with the wider head of his cock, which pressed at an awkward angle. Before Harry could shift to adjust, Severus had shoved forward, his cock sliding up the crack and sending Severus crashing over Harry's back.

Mortified, Harry felt his cheeks turn red. He'd expected to be tight -- it had been months since he'd been with anyone -- but not like a scared virgin, so tight that someone he really wanted to fuck couldn't even get inside him. "I should have warned you, it's been awhile for me too," he muttered.

"Am I hurting you?"

Harry couldn't tell whether Severus meant to sound anxious or taunting. He opted for believing the first; he did not believe that Snape would take him to bed only to humiliate him. "Oh God, no. You'll just have to go slow."

Easing back down onto his forearms, he spread his knees more widely and, when he felt Snape press again, tried to push back until he felt himself stretching open. "That's it -- just like that," Harry whimpered. Even if there had been irony in that voice, there had been none of Snape's onetime nastiness, and Harry could only imagine how hot Severus looked sliding in...his muscles relaxed and he pushed back, listening to Severus groan. "You feel so good," he whimpered.

Severus' knees trembled -- there was no mistaking it. "So do you," he replied, again in that terse, clipped voice, thrusting sharply, and Harry suddenly guessed that Severus was neither mocking him nor pretending he was elsewhere so much as trying to hold himself back to avoid coming too soon. It made Harry feel lightheaded to have that sort of power, and he smiled, moving more easily into Severus' hesitant thrusts.

"So good. Better than good. You feel amazing." It was true, if a bit embarrassing to find himself so emotional about this when he had tried so hard to be casual. Harry lowered his forehead to where his hands were clutched on the bed, whispering, "Oh God, I want more..." He felt Severus clutch at his hip, thrusting quite hard, and moaned softly in response. "Yes, please, yes."

They moved together, Harry grunting and mewling, Severus very nearly silent except for the harsh sound of his breathing and the slap of his thighs against the backs of Harry's, holding on to Harry's hips as if he expected to fall over otherwise. "Can you -- make yourself -- " Severus growled.

Moaning into the mattress, Harry fumbled for his cock, hissing as his fingers cupped it. "Yes, want to!" The moment he began to stroke himself, he knew it would be over in a matter of moments even though they had done it once already. "Oh, God, going to come!"

"Ahh fuck!" The gasped utterance from Severus was more than Harry could withstand. He exploded helplessly, crying out his pleasure, feeling Severus buck and shudder before he too was over the edge, choking out, "Harry! Harry! Fuck!"

Harry was still panting, rubbing his come-soaked hand over his belly. "God, yes." He felt Severus bury his face in his hair, his fingers still leaving bruises on Harry's hips. "Oh fuck. Never thought..." Before he could finish the sentence, he found himself needing to suck in air as though he had never breathed before.

"Never thought what?"

The tightness that was nearly akin to snappishness had returned to Severus' voice. Harry felt his cheeks warming. "Never thought I'd come so fast," he muttered.

"Ah." He could hear Severus swallow. "There was a good deal of foreplay." More like two minutes of licking and moaning, so far as Harry could recall, but he might have been too aroused and sleepy to remember properly. He strained around, seeking Severus' mouth, wanting to kiss him while Severus was still inside him. It was a sloppy kiss but a happy one, since Severus responded quite readily, and Harry felt himself grinning.

"What's so amusing?"

"Us, like this. I never thought it would really happen and here we are with your cock up my arse." Smiling again, he clenched around it.

Severus gasped softly, closed his eyes, then lowered his face so that Harry couldn't see his eyes, though he didn't withdraw. "Was it...acceptable?"

"Acceptable?" There was no way to tell from this position whether Snape was serious, nor whether he might have an ulterior motive for asking. "It was amazing! Um, I mean, was I okay for you?"

"There is no need to be arrogant. I'm certain you can tell that I...enjoyed it."

"I'm certain you can tell that I did, too," Harry pointed out, sliding his semen-coated fingers around where Severus could see them. "I don't think I've come so fast since I was fourteen. If it gets any better, I'm not sure I'll survive it."

"I lasted no longer than you did," Severus reminded him tersely. At that, Harry smiled.

"So, I was okay? It really has been a while."

"How long is 'a while'?"

Severus' face was still in shadow. Harry cleared his throat, embarrassed, and replied in a mumble. "Nearly a year." "Then you aren't seeing anyone else..." The sharp voice bit itself off. "You aren't seeing anyone now?"

"No. Not for a while." As he spoke, he felt Severus tug his fingers up, sniffing at them curiously. "I'd like to --" Taking a chance, Harry traced a wet fingertip across Severus' lower lip. "I'd like to see you again. Soon. Often."

Straining forward to lick Harry's finger caused Severus to slip out of his arse. They both rolled onto their sides, facing one another -- Severus looking disheveled, sweaty and sexier than Harry had ever seen him even with all his buttons fastened, Harry with his own come spattered in sticky patches on his belly. He ran the finger that had been in Severus' mouth across his cheek and watched it grow even redder. "You must realize my...incompetence at this."

Leave it to Snape to assume that one either had to be an expert at sex or a total failure. "Well, I'm a bit out of practice too," Harry sputtered, leaning over to kiss him lightly. "We can practice together."

"How many people have you..." Severus gestured vaguely at the bed.

"Slept with?" Harry frowned. Clearly Severus wasn't going to let this go. "Why is it important to you? There have been a couple of women, I might as well tell you." He exhaled sharply. "I don't want to get into a contest. Will you only keep seeing me if I've been with as many men as you have?"

Severus snorted, tracing a finger through the drying pool of semen caught in Harry's pubic hair. "I'm afraid that would be quite impossible even if I wished it."

"You don't--" Well, it wasn't as if Harry hadn't been afraid of this, and it wasn't as if he hadn't been warned. "You don't want to keep seeing me, then?"

Finally Severus looked directly at him, though his fingers continued to play with the damp curls above Harry's exhausted cock, like a child who had just discovered an entertaining new toy. His expression was startled, as though he couldn't figure out where Harry had got that idea. "I meant that I expected it to be impossible that we had similar pasts. Why do you want to keep seeing me?"

"I told you, I don't do one-offs. I know I said I would for you, but I want more than that." Now Harry had to drop his eyes. "I guess it sounds stupid and clingy but it's the way I am. It's why I haven't been with very many men. Things never get this far unless I think there's some chance."

Severus was doing something with his thumb along the edge of Harry's navel that felt very good, a cross between a tickle and a caress. It was relaxing, so Harry was caught off guard when the bitter, terse tone returned. "That doesn't really answer the question, does it? Why would you want any of this with me? I'm much older than you are. You have never made a secret of the fact that you find me ugly. I have no sexual skills to speak of. And you have never been...fond of me."

There was no need for Harry to feign astonishment at this declaration. "After that, you still need to ask?" he demanded, ticking off on his dry hand because Severus had gone back to sniffing at and licking the wet one. "You're old enough to be interesting and not vapid. You're not 'ugly' just because you don't look like a Muggle film star. Your sexual skills seem fairly up to scratch considering I had an orgasm practically the moment you asked me to." Snickering, he concluded, "And I should think it's obvious that I'm becoming fonder of you by the moment."

"Perhaps you've gone mad. Seeing me pardoned must have pushed you beyond reason." Severus' lips twitched against his palm. "It would explain all of this. You didn't have an orgasm because I asked you to; you had an orgasm because you wanted to. I had no idea what I was doing."

"Right." Harry snorted softly. "You were fucking me...I think you had a bit of an idea what you were doing." He watched the lips moving up and down his fingers, one at a time, as if each one needed to be inspected. Again Harry had the sense of watching a child who had just been given permission to play with something that had always been denied him before.

A peculiar suspicion floated through Harry's mind, though he knew that it couldn't be true. "Do you like it?" he asked. Severus raised his eyes uneasily, as if he had not realized that he was being watched. His lids lowered as he nodded. "Does it taste any different than anyone else's?" No reply, only a slight shrug as Severus busied his mouth sucking on the last finger. The suspicion grew stronger, though Harry wasn't entirely sure he wanted to confirm it. "Hmm? How many other men have you tasted like this?"

The moment dragged on and on, as Harry wondered whether Severus would simply refuse to answer the question or throw him out of bed and out of the house. Finally the older man shrugged again slightly, releasing the finger and turning Harry's hand over in his. "I've never tasted anyone like this."

Everything Severus had said and done since Harry had kissed him hours before twisted in Harry's mind the way Severus was twisting his hand, lifting the loose skin of one knuckle in his teeth so he could lick the folds clean. From this perspective, all the tension and suspicion made a different sort of sense. Was it really possible...? Or was Snape playing a game with words, so that he could ridicule Harry later?

"You've never given a blow job?" asked Harry as offhandedly as possible. "Well, and swallowed?"

Dark eyes swept up, glanced at him, then looked back down at his hand. "Not before this morning."

Harry gulped, nodded and fought an impulse to wrap a leg over Severus to keep him close. No wonder Severus had been so concerned about Harry's previous experience. "There's always a first time," he said as if it were a minor declaration about some unusual spell. "I mean, I've never done it out of doors, which I know people try even if they don't have an Invisibility Cloak. Um, what else haven't you done?"

Again the silence. Maybe Severus wouldn't answer. Maybe he...

"I have never visited Bavaria."

"No?" What did that have to do with anything? Probably it was all a game. That was why the long silences, so Snape could give himself a moment to laugh silently, before looking scornfully at Harry and...

"I never particularly wished to visit Bavaria before this morning."

Oh.

Harry nodded, feeling his own face growing hot, as Severus continued, "You must have realized earlier."

Shaking his head slowly, Harry said, "I swear I didn't. I thought -- well, you make me nervous, and it's been a while for me, too."

"What went wrong with the last one?"

The question was as carefully casual as Harry's had been about what else Severus had never done before, but Harry could see the tension in the muscles of his shoulders. He slid his fingers up Severus' face into his hair, stroking through it. "I thought I was ready to find someone to spend my life with, so I tried to make it into that. I told myself that would be enough until it just...wasn't."

"Then you left him?"

"We left each other, really. He went on holiday without me. I pretended I had to work while he was at the shore. He took his things with him and he never came back."

"Perhaps he was eaten by a sea monster."

Severus said this with such satisfaction that it drew a laugh from Harry, who continued to run his fingers through the smooth hair. Was Snape actually jealous? Of someone who had never managed to fascinate Harry nearly as much as the Potions professor he had thought for a long time despised him? "I suppose it doesn't matter anymore. But I haven't been that much interested in sex since, until this morning."

Under any circumstances, Harry thought, he would never become tired of seeing Severus flush. "I thought you said that you had considered doing this with me before."

"Oh, I have. For years, really." Harry's hand slid down Severus' hair along the back of his neck, thumb moving to stroke the outer curve of his ear. He could feel Severus trying not to shiver and wondered how deprived he had felt of simple touch. "It started as a fantasy really -- one of those 'this is so wrong it's hot' things while I was in school. And it evolved into just a 'this is hot' fantasy, and I stopped worrying about why I liked it -- I just did."

"While you were in school?" Severus looked distinctly uncomfortable. Belatedly Harry realized that he had been underage the entire time he and Severus had been at Hogwarts together, and he smiled almost shyly. "Because you wished to control me? Or some reconciliation fantasy when you believed I was likely in league with the enemy?"

Harry couldn't help rolling his eyes. "It wasn't that complicated. It was just because I thought you were hot back then, in an 'I should not be having these thoughts about a teacher' sort of way."

Severus snorted again derisively. "No one ever thought I was 'hot.'"

"More for me, then." Though he was grinning, Harry felt fiercely possessive. If no one had done any of what he wanted to do with Severus before, he had weeks and weeks ahead to demonstrate. Leaning over, he licked a nipple, smiling more broadly when Severus let out a rather loud, startled moan. "See? That's hot."

He continued to move his mouth across Severus' chest, burrowing into an armpit before it was withdrawn. Wriggling, Severus reminded him, "We still haven't had a bath. Weren't we supposed to wash?"

Harry looked up muzzily. "I suppose we should eventually." But he couldn't resist licking Severus again. "Can I ask you something?"

"What?"

The tension had crept back into his lover's voice. Kissing back toward the center of Severus' body, feeling a pleasant lassitude creeping up on him again, Harry said, "If you'd never, all these years...I know you've had opportunities. I'm sure I can't be the only former student who ever expressed interest. How come you wanted to, ah, to go to Bavaria with me today?"

Hesitant fingers moved into Harry's unruly hair. "I suppose I've tended to assume that the trip would not be worth the preparation. And that there might be some risk of...wanting to remain in Bavaria."

"It's worth the risk." Harry looked up, smiling a little. "If I'd known there was any hope, I'd have taken the trip with you a long time ago." Hesitating, he asked, "After our bath, and maybe something to eat, can we...explore the area a little more?"

"I suppose, having come this far, it would be foolish not to enjoy the countryside," Severus said. And for the first time in Harry's memory, he smiled back.

Chapter Four

Harry stayed for supper. And for breakfast. Snape had little besides reheated shepherd's pie and instant oatmeal to serve him, but Harry wasn't fussy, and he thanked Snape for the cereal by getting under the kitchen table and giving Snape a much better orgasm than Snape had ever managed to give himself while waiting for his eggs to boil.

"Careful, Potter," Snape warned, his mind still clouded with pleasure and his knees still shaking. "I may decide to keep you."

Harry laughed, threw on his clothes, kissed Snape and informed him that, in that case, he would bring a toothbrush when he returned that afternoon. An hour passed, then two. Snape worked in his cellar laboratory on potions for his wealthiest clients. Perhaps, he mused, it was time to cut back on the number of hours he devoted to work. He had accumulated plenty of galleons at Gringotts while waiting for his pardon, and now that he was free to travel without anyone suspecting that he was trying to flee the terms of his parole, he supposed that he might spend some time abroad.

Perhaps, he thought with a quirk of his lips, Harry would like to go to Bavaria with him.

Three hours passed. Four. Five. Was it possible that Snape had failed to hear a knock, since he was in the cellar? He did not believe that he had ever done so before when he was expecting a client, but his mind was admittedly distracted. He had mistakenly used chopped tubeworm instead of flobberworm, forcing him to discard a promising emetic.

After carefully cleaning the laboratory, he went to wash, leaving the door unlocked and unshielded in case Harry should arrive while he could not hear knocking. Another hour passed. Harry did not return.

Midway through a spell to heat water for tea, Snape realized that he was behaving like a fool. A besotted fool. Potter had had his fun, added another notch to an undoubtedly well-marked bedpost, and now he was probably at a pub with his smug Gryffindor friends, laughing at their pathetic former professor who had...

The door banged open. "Hope you're hungry," a familiar voice called cheerfully. "I thought about stopping for takeaway but Mrs. Weasley was visiting Ron and Hermione, and of course she brought food, so of course I got sent with...what's the matter?"

Snape forced his expression into an approximation of indifference and took the bag Potter was holding out to him. He did not feel hungry, though it must have been hunger that had made him nearly dizzy with relief when the little bastard came through the door without the courtesy of knocking.

"I expected you at a reasonable hour for supper," he snapped, flinging the food onto the table and marching across the small kitchen to get plates. "Do you have any idea what time it is?"

"Oh fuck. It's later than I thought." Potter bit his lip. For what it was worth, Snape thought, at least he had succeeded in making Harry look as wretched as Snape himself had felt a few minutes earlier. "I was going to send a message but I thought you might think I wasn't giving you any space...oh god, did you think I wasn't coming back?"

He ducked as Snape sent cutlery flying across the room, then straightened as it set itself properly on the table. "Sit," ordered Snape.

"I'm sorry." Snape did not allow himself to flinch as Potter stepped around the table toward him. "I didn't let you out of my sight at all yesterday and I thought you must be happy to be rid of me for awhile." Abruptly he found his arms filled with Harry's warm body as the younger man leapt forward, embracing him. "All afternoon the only thing I wanted was to come back here and get in bed with you."

It was difficult to set aside the lifelong habit of suspecting a prank. "Didn't you enjoy yourself with your friends?" Snape grumbled, feeling Harry's hands sliding along his back, rubbing his shoulders.

"A bit. They asked whether I was seeing anyone, and I must have turned red because they teased me mercilessly when I wouldn't tell them who." Harry's face was warm against Snape's shoulder. "Ron's parents don't quite know about me. Though I think Mrs. Weasley has finally stopped holding out hope that Ginny and I will get back together, now that Ginny's practically living with Neville..."

"Ginny Weasley is dating Longbottom?" Snape interrupted. If that hapless boy had managed to find a mate, it surely meant there was hope for everyone alive. And if the elder Weasleys had not met any of Harry's previous lovers, it tended to bolster Harry's claim that none of the relationships had been serious.

"Ginny's been with Neville for months. He's always really liked her." Letting go, Harry started opening the packages of food, and as their scents filled the room, Snape found himself suddenly ravenous. "He took her to the Yule Ball the year I spent convincing myself I had a crush on Cho instead of Cedric. Which I always thought you found out during those Occlumency lessons."

Preventing Harry from discovering his sexual orientation and lack of experience had been only two of hundreds of difficulties Snape had faced when Dumbledore, refusing to listen to reason, had demanded that he teach the boy. "I did my best to forget everything about those lessons," he muttered. All right, so that wasn't entirely true; he had had a wank more than once using borrowed imagery from Potter's mind, but that really did not bear mentioning.

"I did too, for a long time, but I kept remembering how you told me you'd block me again and again until I learned to keep my mind shut. And you wouldn't let me use any Unforgivables. And you'd let me hide that Potions book when you could just as easily have used Legilimency to find out where I'd put it. It was pretty obvious you were trying to teach me something." Harry pushed a plate of food across the tabletop to Snape as he spoke. "You have no idea what a relief it was to find out which side you were really on. I'd felt awful about having fantasies about you when I thought I was supposed to kill you. No wonder you didn't want to have sex with anyone on either side."

Though it was a relief to have had the subject changed from his own momentary certainty that he had been a subject of scorn among Harry and his friends, Snape decided that had had enough of this line of conversation as well. "Shut up and eat your potatoes."

Harry glanced up in surprise, then smirked and said, "Yes, sir," before beginning to shovel food into his mouth. He continued to talk all through the meal, filling Snape in on Weasley family gossip and how the twins had made Harry quite a lucrative offer if he would become a spokesperson for their new line of inexpensive Invisibility Cloaks, though Harry didn't think he ought to be putting his name on commercial ventures even for such close friends as Fred and George. Snape tried to figure out why Harry was telling him all this, and whether Harry had always talked so much, and how improper it would be to shove the food off the table so he could bend Harry over it. "Well?"

"Well what?"

"Does it make sense to keep living off what I have in the bank until I figure out what I really want to do, or should I just take the job?"

"With the Weasleys?" Harry's face fell slightly, and Snape realized that he had scarcely heard what was being said for the past several minutes, so much of his mind had been occupied with considering positions in which he and Harry could have sex. "If your time and your money are your own, why not see a bit more of the world? You certainly don't owe the Ministry another moment."

Harry brightened immediately. "Would you come with me?"

He had only to make a joke about visiting Bavaria and they could go into the bedroom. It had been so easy...too easy. "You would really want that?" asked Snape, abruptly uneasy. Harry nodded seriously, though he was smiling a bit. "We have an unpleasant history," Snape reminded him. "I cannot imagine how you could forget."

"Oh, I remember. I just prefer to focus on the future, not the past." Rising, Harry came around the table and reached for Snape's hand. "We can start again on the..."

"How can you touch me?" The fingers weaving between his own stopped halfway, leaving Harry bent at an awkward angle. "You know what I was. You saw what I did. Even if you accept that it was necessary, that piece of paper you brought from the Ministry does not make it all disappear."

Harry's hand wrapped around Snape's, pulling it firmly between them. "Did you have a choice about it?"

"We always have choices. You didn't have to stay and fight the Dark Lord."

"And you could have let Draco kill Dumbledore. You did what Dumbledore thought you should do, same as I did -- he thought I was the only one who could defeat Voldemort. I had to stay and fight. There were really no choices at all."

Snape watched Harry's thumb trace circles on the back of his hand. "It makes very little sense for you to want to spend time with me," he said. "I'm much older than you are. I wasn't considered a prize when I was young. I have never treated you well..."

His words were stopped by the press of lips over his. "You shut up and eat your potatoes," Harry said with a grin. "I already told you, I wanted to fuck you for a long time. And I don't do one-offs. And the sex has been brilliant." Harry's mouth descended again before Snape could object. "Don't argue -- it may be all in my head, but just the fact that it's with you makes it hot, and knowing you've never done it before actually makes it hotter." Another kiss followed. "And the fact that you've let me talk this much and keep interrupting you, without hexing me, makes me think you don't really want to stop yet, so since I want to do it, and you want to do it..."

Harry grinned wickedly, giving Snape a moment to get a word in edgewise. "My point, if you would grant me the courtesy of letting me finish, is that you will eventually tire of this. And find yourself growing bored. And leave. I would rather not engage in any false pretenses."

"Are you bored already, Severus?" As Snape stared at him, Harry leaned forward to nuzzle the side of his face. "I'm not bored. I'm not going to get tired of this. And I'm not leaving except when I need a change of pants, which might be soon at the rate we're going, but I'm coming back and next time I won't be late. Or you can come with me, and fuck me in my bed, which I've thought about a lot." Snape's cock made its interest in seeing Harry's bed known; he reminded himself that he could not possibly live up to whatever Harry had imagined, and would likely look out of place in Harry's home -- presumably the ancestral mansion of the odious Blacks. "If we both like it enough to make it work, we'll have to figure it out together."

"Make it work?"

Warm fingers squeezed his. "Because I think it could work between us. If you want it to. As ridiculous as you probably think that sounds. If you're willing to spend time with me, have lots and lots of sex and see where it goes from there."

What was Harry suggesting? A clandestine arrangement? A seasonal affair? The proposition was still maddeningly vague to Snape. But one aspect of it, at least, was evidently on offer at the moment. "Lots and lots of sex?"

"Absolutely." Harry's fingers threaded through his own once more and Snape squeezed back. "Now will you please take me to bed? I think I'd like to ride your cock. After we suck each other a bit. Unless you had something else in mind."

Snape left the dishes scattered across the table, as uncharacteristically neglected as all the points he should have clarified before taking Harry up on this offer. He tugged Harry into the bedroom, undressed him and urged him down onto the bed, letting Harry strip off his clothes in turn. When he felt Harry's mouth closing around the head of his cock, tongue trailing along underside, he reached out to turn him around, ordering, "Give me yours."

Grunting affirmatively, Harry stretched out along beside him, though he did not stop sucking. Snape stroked his hand up and down the warm, silky flesh pulled taut over the hard shaft of Harry's cock. He touched it reverently. "Magnificent. So smooth here." His fingers brushed below the wrinkled foreskin.

"Not so magnificent that it doesn't like to be kissed now and then." Shivering, Harry thrust his hips hopefully. "I think it's best admired from a bit closer, don't you?"

"Oh, is it impatient? I'm not finished looking at it." Smirking to himself, Snape kept stroking with his hand, listening to Harry whimpering around his cock. "Of course you are, after all, the expert..." He thumbed the balls, so much tighter than his own, feeling Harry lift his knee and huff a moan. "Perhaps I should show you what I've learned."

"What a fantastic idea!" Harry wailed happily as Snape nudged the foreskin with his tongue, sucking just the head, still stroking Harry's balls. The younger man was probably jaded but this still felt rather deliciously dirty to Snape.

He slurped noisily, sucking and licking, moving his hand up to close around the shaft when he felt Harry trail a finger teasingly between his buttocks. If Harry thought that Snape did not intend to suck him until he came messily on his mouth and face, he needed to be corrected, gently but firmly. No amount of Harry teasing Snape's hole or kissing his balls was going to make Snape go off first. It was one of the few advantages of age.

Harry was moaning, sliding his finger deeper, licking back up to close his mouth over Snape's cock. He was both fucking Snape with the finger and letting Snape fuck his mouth, which was extremely arousing. But if Snape allowed himself to come now, it would preclude having his cock ridden -- as Harry had promised -- for several hours, given how many orgasms Snape had had early in the day.

"Give it up," he murmured, massaging the spot between Harry's balls and arsehole. "Come in my mouth. Come on my face." He knew it was playing dirty, but the small gasps and whimpers coming from Harry's mouth were as pleasurable as the play of lips on his skin.

"Can't last!" Harry's mouth rubbed over his cock as the teasing finger pressed into his arse. Just a few more seconds, Snape told himself, rubbing and sucking and attempting to ignore it. "Can't hold -- oh -- Severus!" The taut body went rigid, Quidditch-toned muscles jerking as Harry came. Pulling his head up, Snape grasped the pulsing cock in his hand and shut his eyes, feeling warm spurts spattering his face, licking his lips as he clenched around the finger that Harry had not removed from his arse.

Still trembling, Harry licked and sucked Snape's cock with a hungry moan. Snape moaned too. "Keep doing that, with your fingers." He felt Harry press in deeper, pull out, then add a second finger, unexpectedly slick. So Potter had learned that nonverbal spell, after all. "Yes," groaned Snape, licking again at his own mouth to taste Harry's seed. "But don't make me come. I don't want to come until you can fuck me."

Stilling himself, Harry lifted up, fingers still buried in Snape's arse. "I just came all over your face!" he panted.

Snape nodded, smirking. "And in a while you can come again in my arse. But if I come now, I'll be finished for the evening."

Harry licked his leaking cock-head with a moan of regret, wiggling the fingers in Snape's arse, but he shifted obediently. "Let me lick it off."

"If you like that." Snape twisted around carefully to avoid dislodging the fingers, which were pressing very pleasurably in a spot he could never have reached so well himself.

"I do." Harry licked up his cheek to his hairline, then paused before kissing him. "Unless...does that bother you? How it tastes? Or if I like to taste my own on you?"

"Of course it doesn't bother me." Catching his lips, Snape kissed Harry before letting him return to his task. Objectively, he thought, semen had a rather bitter taste and a somewhat slimy consistency in the mouth, but it was enjoyable to lick skin marked with such evidence of delight. "Some time..."

"Wow, I came a lot." Harry licked near his ear. "Some time, what?"

Snape paused, embarrassed that he had begun to speak aloud. "I want to watch you make yourself come," he muttered.

"Really?" Harry looked up, pleased, and kissed next to Snape's mouth, tongue flicking out to catch a drying patch of his own come. "I'd love to do that for you. Or on you." Moaning a little, Snape tried to find that wandering tongue with his own. "All over you -- your chest, your cock. Your hair."

Snape whimpered softly. Oh, to be as young as Harry, who was already getting hard again, apparently excited by the conversation. Rubbing a hand along the younger man's chest, Snape found a nipple and tugged at it. "Everywhere."

"Yes, everywhere." Harry sucked in a breath. "Then I'd lick it off again and kiss you all over. And then you'd have to fuck me..."

Moaning again, Snape tugged harder on the nipple, wondering whether it was too soon to reach for Harry's cock. "I'd have to," he agreed.

"I'd want you to. I love your cock inside me." The fingers at his arse, which had slipped free, wriggled back inside. "Do you like it as much as I do?"

Clenching around the fingers, Snape groaned, "Having my cock inside you is the most exquisite sensation I have ever experienced."

"Oh god." Harry shuddered. "You could do that right now. I think you should do that right now."

"But your fingers are inside me."

"Can I help it if you've got me going like this? I told you I was going to ride you!"

"Can you put your fingers in my arse while I'm inside you? Fuck me while I'm fucking you?" Snape felt beyond shame; he was too aroused now, and Harry grinned in delight.

"I can reach around, I think. See, I knew you'd never be boring in bed." Shifting, he straddled Snape, reaching for the pot of homemade lubrication that Snape had brought up from his cellar laboratory earlier in the day. "We'll need more of this."

The sight and feel of Harry stroking lube on Snape's cock, preparing it to enter Harry's arse, was nearly more than Snape could withstand, and he hissed in warning as much as pleasure. "Ssssslow..."

"God, that sounds sexy when you say it. Almost like Parseltongue." Harry was still smiling blissfully. He said something in that sibilant tongue, then went still.

"Don't stop!"

"Sssorry." Snape couldn't tell whether he had meant to draw out the syllable or not. "Thought it might have, um, reminded you." The hand went back to work, slicking all the way down Snape's cock before pulling the shaft upright so Harry could rub himself over it.

"I like it. Do it again." Harry said something else in Parseltongue as he pressed down, his arse slowly admitting Snape, who shuddered at the tightness and heat. "Ahh! That's --" He could not think of any words, settled for running his hands up Harry's thighs, feeling the muscles bunch as Harry moved up and down on his cock.

"Like that?" Harry hissed something else again softly. "Want it hard and fast." Knowing that he would not last, either, Snape wrapped a hand around Harry's cock and tried to stroke faster than Harry was bucking over him. It was distracting from his efforts not to come, yet he could not tear his eyes away from Harry's swollen cock and his ecstatic expression. "Going to come all over you...love riding you..."

Snape was scarcely aware of what he was saying but he loved the groaned words, the sounds of approval. This was better than any fantasy he had ever had. "Good," he muttered. "Not going to last long."

"Hold still a moment so I can..." Harry tightened around him as he reached behind himself, wiggling his fingers to seek an angle to slide inside Snape, who raised and parted his legs, careful not to throw Harry off. He nearly shouted when he felt the fingers easing in. "How's...how's that?"

"Perfect, Merlin, perfect!" Through the haze of pleasure he could see Harry grin as he slid the finger awkwardly in and out, back arched, thrusting his cock into Snape's hand. Snape tried to thrust into him without dislodging the fingers, thinking that nothing could possibly be better than this. "Fuck! Fuck!" he grunted. He could feel orgasm building in both his cock and arse. "There -- Harry -- fuck -- Harry -- oh!"

"Yes!" Harry's fingers were slipping out again, but Snape was too far gone for it to matter. Convulsing, practically screaming, he came hard, slamming inside Harry, who took over the task of stroking himself from Snape and came not long afterward, spattering hot jets over Snape's belly.

Had he had any breath left for it, Snape would have whooped in delight. Instead he shuddered, trying to catch his breath, suddenly feeling selfish. "I wasn't even touching you," he said regretfully.

Harry's laugh was pure joy. "You fucked me!"

Snape moaned softly, happily. "I fucked you and you fingered me and it was all about me."

"And since I never want to stop doing this, I had entirely selfish motives. Plus I get to lick you off again. Though maybe not right this minute." He squeezed Snape inside him, eliciting another groan. "Being here is everything I want."

Snape slid his fingers from Harry's thighs to stroke up his own chest, into the whitish streaks beginning to run clear. Reaching up with one finger, he stroked Harry's cheek, leaving a slick line that ran across his lips. "Having you here...makes me happy." Abruptly, he smirked. "We sound like a pair of queens.

Again Harry laughed happily. "Good thing, since I'm pretty sure we're both queer."

In his current post-coital state, this struck Snape as one of the most hilarious things he had ever heard. "You're queer? Potter! Why didn't you tell me?"

Letting Snape's cock slide out of his body slowly, Harry shifted back, lying across his thighs. "Didn't know myself until I put my fingers in your arse. That was a revelation."

"Merlin," Snape groaned in mock horror. "I've made the Chosen One queer. They'll lock me away. They'll say I used Dark magic!"

"Not to worry. I'll rescue you! Might have done it anyway if had they tried to put you in Azkaban before they got around to pardoning you. I have to warn you though -- my rescues usually involve flying cars."

"Flying cars? Like that thing you set loose in the Forbidden Forest? Well, well. My hero." Harry was giggling; Snape discovered that he enjoyed the sound, though it was a slightly sobering thought. "I would rather not go to Azkaban. If they rescinded the pardon, I would have to run. It's why I haven't kept much..." He gestured apologetically around the rather spare room.

"They won't rescind the pardon. And if they did, I'd run with you." Harry paused from licking to hold him tightly around the waist. "It would be quite romantic, really."

Apparently Harry was even sillier after sex than Snape was. "You'd lose everything you have here."

"Everything I have here," Harry said firmly, "is right here in this bed."

"You're quite mad, you know." Snape felt a sharp flutter in his gut, utterly ruined a moment later when Harry leaned down and blew a raspberry against his skin. He shook with unaccustomed laughter. "Completely mad! That scar on your head must go deeper than anyone suspected. I knew you must be mad when you said you wanted to go to bed with me, but I thought it would be impolite to mention it."

"I would have been quite put out for at least five seconds!" Harry was giggling again. "Then I would have gone to bed with you anyway. If you were interested in going to bed with an unemployed former Gryffindor Seeker."

"If you really want a job, you could come work with me." Snape spoke without much thinking it through. Harry's brow furrowed. Too late Snape realized that he had just invited unpleasant reminders about illicit magical brews and unpleasant teaching methods.

"Don't you still make potions?"

"Of course I do. Exotic, overpriced potions for horrid, wealthy clients. You would find it dreadfully dull. I don't blame you for not being interested."

"It's not that I'm not interested. Are you telling me you trust me to help you make potions?"

Was that what was bothering Harry? "Horace Slughorn repeatedly insisted on telling me that you were his best pupil. Obviously you were capable of NEWT-level work in Potions, once you had studied my private notes."

"But I didn't get an O on my OWL," Harry recalled, having the grace to blush. "I had to steal all my tricks from your book."

Snape knew an evasion when he heard one. "You don't want to put in the work? Or is it that you don't want to work with me?"

"I don't want to disappoint you." Harry looked at him anxiously. "I would love to work with you. I'd like to learn all the things I didn't before, when we couldn't trust each other. But you told me once that I don't have a real aptitude for Potions. I'm not a natural like you are. I can only copy what someone else comes up with."

"You've never given it a proper chance. I taught you only what you needed to know and made certain you would spend no extra time hovering outside the Potions classroom. I no longer have the same reasons to avoid you, since there is no longer a Dark Lord who might return."

The look of relief on Harry's face was so apparent that Snape felt faintly regretful that he had not made that clear earlier. "You mean it was always about Voldemort? Not that you hated me because of my father and my friends?"

"That and being unable to afford distraction..." Snape's eyebrows narrowed. "You aren't only considering it so that you can plot to seduce me while I work?"

Harry rolled in his lips to hide his grin and lifted his eyebrows as if the thought had only just crossed his mind. "Think it would work?"

Snape pretended to consider this. "Potion-making does require so many long, empty stretches of time waiting for ingredients to boil. It is useful to work with someone who can keep one from falling asleep."

"And all that lovely chopping and grinding." Harry mimed as though his chest were a workbench. "Very seductive."

"And since so many of the potions for which I receive commissions are for love and potency, and semen enhances such potions..."

"I have lots of semen!" Harry crowed, while Snape glanced at his exhausted cock. "Well...give me a few hours and I will. After that kind of intensely fabulous sex, I might need some recovery time."

Snape studied him curiously, uncertain whether he really wanted an answer to the question he finally voiced. "Surely you have had 'intensely fabulous' sex with other people?"

"Not like that." Harry's voice shook faintly with laughter. "I told you. It's different with you. Better." Sliding up Snape's body, he leaned in for a kiss. "Even that's better."

Snape knew better than to believe this. "Who was the first person you ever kissed?"

"Cho Chang." Harry made a face. "She was crying about Cedric at the time. I think she would rather have been kissing him. I think I would have, too."

"Then you were in love with Diggory."

Harry shook his head. "Not in love. I had a crush on him, but I didn't really realize that until later, after he was gone." His fingers played with Snape's hair. "I thought I had a crush on Cho. Guess I had a thing for black hair."

Snape snorted delicately. "Who was the first person you were in love with?" He decided that he would only hex the person in question if it was someone intolerable, like Harry's godfather.

"Really in love? As in 'This is the one?' I've never been that. There were a couple I tried to tell myself might be the one, but they never lasted long."

Snape felt a sense of deep satisfaction to hear this, difficult as it was to believe. It did make a certain amount of sense: he could not imagine that if Harry Potter had met the person he considered to be "the one," that person would have been stupid enough to let Harry escape. "I could hex their bollocks off, if you'd like," he said innocently.

Harry pretended to think about this. "I don't think that's necessary, really. I was just as anxious to see their backs as they were to see mine." He smiled at Snape. "You aren't jealous, are you?"

Again Snape snorted; again Harry leaned in to kiss him. "I meant what I said before," he told Snape. "I want to go on holiday with you. I want to work with you, if you're really sure you want me. I want us to give it a go. Do you?"

"I would not refuse it." Harry's warm weight over his body was making Snape sleepy. The proper objections were failing to surface in his mind.

"Good." Harry slid to one side, snuggling against him. "Nap first. Then more sex. Then probably should clean up the kitchen and have a bath. Then more sex." He sighed in contentment. "It's good to have a plan, isn't it?"

Snape chuckled. "You've become responsible in your old age?"

"I'm very goal-oriented." Harry snickered too. "Comes from being a Gryffindor. And a Quidditch player. Especially a Gryffindor Quidditch player. Doomed to pursue all my goals."

Snape wondered whether panic would set in the next time he saw Harry taking a risk on a broomstick. He supposed that if he had managed to preserve the Boy Who Lived during his various escapades at Hogwarts, a weekend Quidditch match should not pose too much of a risk.

"Know what my goal is now? Want to stay in Bavaria with you. Would you like to stay in Bavaria with me, Severus?"

"I will stay in Bavaria with you." Snape returned Harry's sleepy embrace, grateful that his blush would go unnoticed since Harry was too busy yawning. "I suppose it's the least I can do, if you are doomed to pursue whatever you want."

"Want..." Harry yawned again. "Want you."

Snape's felt his face grow warmer. "You appear to have me." The sleepy murmur in reply trailed off into a soft snore. Stroking a hand over Harry’s warm back, Snape whispered, "Stay as long as you want."

Chapter Five

One of the many amazing things about sex with Severus was that, apart from lingering defensiveness about his lack of experience, he had almost no inhibitions. Anything that Harry did, Severus would try to imitate or even outdo. He must have done quite a bit of reading -- either in the Restricted Section or in other people's thoughts -- because he was quite creative, though occasionally things got awkward when theory and practice didn't quite mesh.

On the whole, Harry thought happily as he levitated the tray carrying their tea toward the bedroom, it was like getting to have his own first times over again. Only this time it was better, because this time he had no doubt he was doing it all with the person he felt he was meant to be doing it with. Life would have been perfect had it not been for the nagging concern that if somebody else had arrived with Snape's pardon and begged as persistently as Harry, that person might now be enjoying Severus' eagerness to leave no erotic possibility unexplored, instead of Harry himself.

"What did you fantasize about, before me?" Harry asked Severus as he passed over a teacup, since Severus looked entirely too lazy and sated to raise his arm to pick it up. Harry knew this was a dangerous question, because it could have been anyone, really, from Remus Lupin to Viktor Krum.

"What did I fantasize about?" Severus asked rather dreamily. "Killing Voldemort, of course. And killing Greyback. And killing Pettigrew...I hope he realized how lucky he was that Lupin got to him before I did."

A funny feeling twisted Harry's stomach. "That's what you thought about when you were wanking? Killing people?"

"When I was wanking?" To Harry's relief, Snape looked disgusted. "I didn't realize that we were talking about pornography. I assure you that neither Voldemort, Greyback nor Pettigrew ever appeared in a sexual fantasy of mine."

"Thank Merlin for that." Still, Harry couldn't quite bring himself to smile. Tom Riddle might no longer have been handsome when Severus had met him, but something -- or someone -- must have made the Death Eaters look attractive to the young Slytherin. Dropping a sugar cube into his tea, Harry ground it apart with a spoon. "What about Regulus Black? Or Lucius Malfoy?"

"Black and Malfoy both provide ample proof that family fortunes cannot protect short-sighted cowards." Severus sounded irritated, and Harry couldn't help noticing that he had not really answered the question. "If you insist on digging up the past, at least let's talk about something pleasant. Did you really think about masturbating while you were in my classroom?"

Harry smiled fondly. "Only about a thousand times. I'd imagine you fucking me over a desk. Legs up in the air, black robes all around us in a pile, those hands of yours digging into my thighs..." Realizing that he might have said too much, he took a gulp of tea to cover for the warmth creeping across his face. "Er...yeah, I thought about wanking."

Severus was staring at him, also flushed and looking somewhat dazed. "As soon as I have recovered sufficiently to stand, I am going to take you over my desk. If I don't spank you first for having such wicked thoughts."

There was no holding back the groan that burst from Harry's throat. "Yes, very wicked! I'd have given you my fifteen-year-old arse if you'd asked."

"I would not have asked. I had a position of authority to maintain." Severus waved his teacup aside, sending it floating onto the bedside table. "Did you honestly want me to say, 'Potter, instead of detention, this weekend I shall be bending you over my desk and buggering you'?"

"Yes, that was every fantasy I ever had in school!"

"Then despite my past, perhaps I was not so wicked as you."

"You never thought of me that way, then?" Harry gave Severus what he hoped was a tempting smile.

"You were fifteen years old."

"And you didn't answer the question."

Severus blushed harder. It fascinated Harry that a man who had not seemed at all discomfited the first time he put his tongue in another man's arse could be so embarrassed by simple conversation. "You know that I was nearly mad, that last year, waiting to see whether Draco would choose to follow his father and what Dumbledore would demand of me next. Fantasies were my only escape. Nor could I hide completely from the Dark Lord. He would have been suspicious had it not seemed that I wanted something for myself..."

"Fuck." Harry felt vaguely queasy, putting his teacup down beside the one on the table. "You had fantasies about me for his benefit?"

"Not only for his benefit. My thoughts were never pleasant during that time. Fantasies were all I dared to have, but not all fantasies are meant or even wished to come true, as I believe you know. None of my fantasies has ever been about a person as I knew him, but rather a twisted, wanton projection. Why would you want to hear about any of them?"

"Dunno really." Harry knew better than to pry any further, certainly not for names. "I guess I don't want you to feel like you're missing out on anything just because..." He took a deep breath, afraid that he was digging an already deep hole even deeper. "Just because I was your first."

Severus frowned at him. "It was my choice. It wasn't that no one had ever offered. When I helped Draco flee Hogwarts and hid him from the Dark Lord, he made it clear that he would do anything I wished if it would keep him under my protection. Luckily for him, I had no interest in what he presumed I might want."

"You didn't even consider it? Draco is very good looking, if you like that sort of thing." Harry let his fingers trail idly along Severus' back, hoping he wasn't making a face. "He was of age. And willing, from what you said. You could have had more than fantasies."

"Do you really need me to explain this? He was a child playing adult games in which he had no business becoming involved. His innocence had been sufficiently tarnished by others. I had no desire to touch him." Severus shuddered faintly, and Harry did not think that it was only because his fingers had brushed over the sensitive spot at the base of his spine.

Biting his lip, Harry plunged on. "Well, I'm sure Draco wasn't the only one. Lots of people weren't involved in the war on either side. You're fit enough that if you'd wanted to make any of your fantasies come true, you could have."

"I'm fit enough?" Turning, Severus smirked, his composure returning. "I was under the impression that you and your friends believed I was, in the words of one Mister Weasley, a greasy git."

"Well, you were!" Harry couldn't help laughing, relieved to see that Severus appeared more amused than offended. "That doesn't mean you aren't tall and lean and have hands that make a bloke's mouth water thinking what they might do wrapped around his cock."

Severus snorted quietly, though not before Harry saw the expression of pleasure that crossed his face. "That may be your own personal perversion." His gaze lowered. "I saw no possibility of having a risk-free sexual encounter while I was living under what was, in principle, a death sentence. Until I was pardoned, it made little sense to contemplate. All of that changed when you came through my door."

This was exactly what Harry had been most afraid of hearing. "It all changed because I was carrying that paper from the Ministry? You're saying if it had been Malfoy bringing your pardon, it could be him lying here right now."

Again Severus frowned. "I don't know which of the Malfoys you mean, but in either case, no. Lucius has amply proven his undesirability and as for Draco...weren't you listening to me?"

"I was listening." Harry shrugged slightly. "You said it changed when I walked in with the pardon. It just happened to be me. If Draco had come round with your pardon flipping his pointy chin at you, your sheets would smell like ferret now instead of me!"

Snape's lips twitched once, whether in horror or amusement, Harry couldn't have said. "Yes, Potter, you've found me out! You were just a convenient fuck, since in my wantonness I would have taken any Ministry courier who came through my door, even Alastor Moody." This time even Harry couldn't help snickering, though his laugh had a wretched, whimpering quality. "And how obvious for me to harbor secret lust for Draco Malfoy, even though as his Head of House I was responsible for wiping his snotty nose whenever he came crying that some bigger boy had been bullying him. Now, do you intend to tell me what is really troubling you? Am I boring you in bed? Has this little arrangement grown too cozily domestic for you?"

"No! I like staying here with you and it's the best sex I've ever had!" Taking a deep breath, Harry tried to look brave. "I guess, if you think you might, you know, need to try all this out with someone else...I don't want you always to wonder if it should have been Draco who brought your pardon."

"If Draco had brought my pardon, I would have thanked him and sent him on his way. No, that isn't entirely true -- to someone of Draco's breeding, that would have seemed unconscionably rude and he might have sent his mother to complain. I would have invited him in, served him the month-old shortbread biscuits in the pantry left over from a visit from Minerva, and then I would have sent him on his way."

"Really?" Harry felt himself brightening. "Oh, wait. He wouldn't have made a pass at you like I did."

"He might have, despite no longer owing me his life. He dislikes being refused, from a combination of arrogance and spoiled pureblood principle, and it wouldn't have been the first time he suggested it, though I don't mind telling you that he was more subtle than you were."

"All right, then, not someone you didn't want. But someone else could have brought your pardon besides me, and now you'll never know if you'd have felt just as free to do what you wanted."

Severus got that calculating look he had worn in the classroom when he was about to reveal to Harry exactly what was wrong with one of his attempts at potion-making. To his dismay, Harry found it arousing. "Then what a shame they couldn't have sent Moody to bring my pardon, after all. Or Hagrid -- I've always wondered if half-giants are as big as one imagines. Or Dolores Umbridge. Think how attractive she would have looked with her pink ribbons spread out on my kitchen table..."

Harry had to laugh at that image. Nudging Severus' arm, he burrowed against him. "I was desperate! I didn't have time to be subtle. I'd have worn pink ribbons for you if I thought it would have helped. Anything, for some sort of sign that you might not, you know, despise me."

"If I had given you any sign that I did not, you know, despise you, any sooner than I did, we would both be dead now and the point would be irrelevant."

It took a moment for Harry to digest that statement. Severus had said before that he had only treated Harry with such contempt to deceive Voldemort and to protect himself, though it was still hard to believe, no matter how badly Harry wanted to believe it. He had tried telling himself similar things at various times while he was in school, but when Snape had fled Hogwarts that awful night, it had seemed obvious to Harry that the loathing was sincere.

"Let me make certain that I understand," continued Severus. "You are, apparently, upset about fantasies I may or may not have had many years ago, despite the fact that I preserved my virginity for all those years while you were having sex with other people. Do you argue about madness like this with all your lovers?"

Did that mean Severus thought of himself as Harry's lover, not just a convenient fuck? Harry fervently hoped so. "I'm sorry I ever had sex with anyone else," he said humbly. "I never thought you'd want me. That day I came here with your pardon, I told myself I owed us both one chance to see if you might."

The knot that had formed in his stomach had begun to ease, though it was being replaced by a different kind of tension. Not arousal, exactly -- something fierce and possessive, like when he had the Golden Snitch in sight in the middle of a Quidditch match. Turning, Harry kissed Severus' shoulder. "Now I don't want to lose this. It's never mattered to me like this before, and I got scared."

Dark hair fell against his cheek as Severus turned to rub his mouth over Harry's forehead. "Insecurity is not a trait I have ever observed in you -- rather the opposite. You were always overconfident to the point of arrogance. If my behavior did not frighten you off years ago, I fail to understand how I could have scared you today."

For a moment, Harry didn't understand either. And then he did. It was not an explanation he could possibly offer to Severus, who would hear the words as a lie or a manipulation or, worse, as a truth he did not wish to accept.

Wrapping his arms tightly around the older man, Harry buried his face against his skin. "Thought you might be upset I wanted you to fuck me over your desk when I was fifteen," he said, because that was something that he could admit.

Severus' cheek rubbed over Harry's hair, then the long, angular press of his nose nudged Harry's forehead. "I would hardly say that I am upset, though it is to both our benefits that you never expressed that wish to me. I doubt I could have resisted your arse on my desk."

"Really?" Harry said hopefully. "Even when you thought I was a despicable Gryffindor prat?"

"Especially then. It would have been forbidden and considered very wicked even had you not been the Chosen One. But we would certainly not be here now if that had happened."

"Then I'm not sorry." Leaning up, Harry kissed his cheek. "The real thing with you is loads better than anything I ever dreamed up in Potions class. Fantasies are just, you know, to get you going."

"Oh? Which fantasies get you going, as you say?"

"All the ones about you. Especially the desk one. But there was the 'Saving Snape After Being Cursed' one -- good for long, slow wanks in the bath -- or 'Detention with Snape' for when I needed to get off really fast." Harry felt himself blushing again. "Why do you think I got detention with you so many times?"

He shivered slightly as Severus stroked a finger up his arm, tickling the sensitive skin inside his elbow. "I had been under the impression that it was because you misbehaved. Evidently you like being punished. And you have a martyr complex. You wanted to save me after being cursed?"

"I wanted..." The explanation seemed so obvious to Harry now, and too dangerous to speak aloud, though oddly he felt no shame. If anything it was a comfort of sorts to know that it had never been just a wicked sexual urge. I wanted to make you love me. I wanted to believe you could be saved by love no matter what you'd done.

Severus was studying his face curiously, the fingers still moving along Harry's arm, and Harry shut his eyes tight against the possibility that Severus might see into his mind. He kissed him, pressing his mouth hard over Severus' narrow lips, and felt greatly comforted when Severus kissed him back. "I still think you're daft," Severus murmured, stroking his fingers through Harry's unruly hair, which was sticking up in all directions after their activities of the early morning. "But I won't pretend not to be flattered."

"It isn't daft. Once I realized I hadn't got myself killed fighting Voldemort, and could actually think about what I wanted, I still wanted you. I just didn't think you'd want me." Shutting his eyes again, Harry leaned his face against Severus' throat to hide his expression. "If I got your name tattooed on my bum or stood up in front of our friends and made some soppy proclamation about you that Fred and George would take the piss out of me for saying for the rest of my life, that would be daft."

"No tattoos," Severus agreed firmly, scratching at his forearm. Glancing down, Harry saw the faintest scarring where the Dark Mark had once marred the skin. "And if you insist upon making proclamations, I would prefer that you do it in some language not spoken by the Weasleys."

It was easy for Harry to rationalize that he had his arms around Severus and was burrowing against him as a prelude to more sex, not because he felt a sudden urge to cling to him. "I want you," he said in Parseltongue.

A soft groan answered him, then the muscles in Severus' chest bunched as Severus pulled back enough to look at him. "I had thought a Parselmouth had to be in the presence of a snake to speak Parseltongue."

"Usually it only works if I am in the presence of a snake, but I seem to be able to do it around you. Maybe because Voldemort tried to curse both of us." Harry glanced down to see Severus still scratching his arm and stroked his own hand up it. "Or maybe because you like it. You said you did, last time, right?"

"The hissing has a rather stimulating effect."

"I can see that." From this angle, it was apparent to Harry that at least one part of Severus liked the hissing. He let his hand slide down Severus' arm and onto his belly, continuing through the thickening hair to his stirring cock. "How about if I talk to this snake?"

"He may be quite done in from earlier, but you are always welcome to try."

Severus' prick did not look in the least exhausted, though Severus had a tendency to protest loudly that he was not as young as Harry and could not have sex as often. Thus far, he had never failed to have an erection at a pivotal moment. "I am going to suck you," Harry whispered in Parseltongue, blowing his breath over the heated skin and fondling the shaft.

Severus shivered. "That is disturbingly arousing."

"Not as sexy as listening to you talk," Harry whispered with a smirk, still in Parseltongue. His lips were not quite touching the twitching cock in his hand. Glancing up, he said to Severus in English, "Think I can make you come talking dirty to you in Parseltongue?"

With another groan, Severus thrust himself forward into Harry's clasp. "I think you are very wicked to tease," he announced.

"Not teasing." Harry reverted to Parseltongue as he continued, "Want you to come. Want to watch you when you come inside me." The language of snakes was sadly limited when it came to describing orgasm; Harry feared that he had just asked Severus to fertilize his eggs, but at least Severus wouldn't have to know that. It remained a mystery to Harry that he could speak another language without quite hearing himself do so, and that the words that put themselves in his mouth held unintended meanings.

At the moment Severus appeared quite unconcerned with translation. He groaned, looking into Harry's eyes, "More...please..."

The little bottle of potion lay where Harry had dropped it earlier while slithering out of bed to fetch their tea as Severus lay basking. Picking it up, he uncorked it and spilled a bit of the slippery contents onto his fingers. "So sexy," he hissed. "Shesha, want to come all over you, in your hair, all down your belly. Want to mark you...show everyone you're mine."

"Shesha...the Hindu serpent?" Severus whimpered softly. Harry realized that he must have been trying to say God, a concept for which snakes had no precise equivalent. He slid two fingers into his own arse, stroking and stretching the entrance, looking at the now-very-stiff cock he hoped would soon be sliding inside him. His other hand wrapped once more around the shaft, making it slick. "Oh that's...yessss!"

"Severus. Love having you make me come. Love being wicked with you." Harry hissed the words, something having to do with mating out of season, as he rose up and slid himself down onto his lover's cock, grabbing and rubbing his own. Strange phrases kept spilling out as he moved, "Love sharing your nest, love flattening the grasses with you, love the sun-warmed heat of your body..." There was no possibility of controlling the language as he approached orgasm. Words poured through him in the musical tongue. "Make me yours, nest-mate, love you, love you, love you!"

Severus cried out very nearly at the same moment as Harry did, a sharp inarticulate sound, levitating off the bed to slam in deep just as Harry spattered his belly and chest. They convulsed together, grunting and panting, holding on to one another for several minutes before either had recovered sufficiently to speak.

"What did you say?" asked Severus in low, vaguely suspicious voice.

Oh fuck. Had those words come out in English at the end? Harry didn't think so, but he couldn't be sure, any more than he could be sure that in those final dizzy seconds, the Legilimens might have slipped into his thoughts. "Uh...it's not a very precise language," he tried lamely. "I, um, was trying to say I wanted you to come for me, but what came out was probably "My eggs are ready for your seed."

To his immense relief, Severus shook with laughter. "So much for snakes as symbols of sexual potency. Do they have a phrase for 'Hurry up, already, so I can go and eat a mouse'?"

"Probably," Harry laughed with him. "I don't think they have a phrase for 'come' exactly...they would probably say I fertilized your belly." He ran a finger through a whitish streak.

"Fertilized my belly! If either of us has a baby snake, Potter..."

"I know, I know, I have to do the middle-of-the-night feedings." The snickers faded, and Severus looked at him speculatively. Oh God, had that been too much? What had Severus said -- too cozily domestic?

But then Severus wiped off his chest with a hand and offered it to Harry with a smirk. "Use your tongue, snakeling."

Ducking his head, Harry licked and sucked the fingers clean, then the rest of Severus' chest, flicking his tongue in and out as he had seen snakes doing. Severus moaned breathily and Harry hissed, no words this time, just the sound. Had he actually said "I love you" to Severus? It wasn't because snakes had no other phrase for that sort of pleasure -- snakes had a wide assortment of variations on "nest-mate" -- he had meant it, and he had known it earlier. How much had Severus understood, or guessed?

Harry's cheeks were burning. "You should market that lube," he told Severus offhandedly. "It's great stuff. Maybe give it away, even, as a public service."

Severus narrowed his eyes. "To think you accused me of taking you to bed only because you were holding my pardon," he growled. "This has all been an elaborate scheme on your part to recruit me to some grand do-gooder public service, hasn't it."

Harry couldn't hold in a giggle, though he replied in his most innocent voice. "Of course not! Don't you think I would have mentioned it before now?"

"I think that you are extremely sneaky and conniving." Snape, of course, had never bought his most innocent voice, though he was smirking now. "You brought me tea, and didn't even give me a chance to drink it before distracting me, and now it's gone cold."

"Oh, Severus, I'm sorry! I didn't realize you'd rather have had tea than sex! Is there some way I can make it up to you?"

The older man smiled at him lazily. "I'm afraid that after sex like that, I shall require a full breakfast, not merely tea. And then a bath, not a shower. After that, some experimentation is in order."

"Oh?"

Severus looked at him very seriously. "I may need," he began soberly, "to fuck you all afternoon."

"Oh! All afternoon?" Harry felt his spent cock quiver with interest again.

"But not in bed. Perhaps we should go to the park and get some fresh air...beneath your Invisibility Cloak, of course. Or we could Apparate to the Lake District and take a swim. With gillyweed. And I'm told that sex is particularly exciting, for someone like you who enjoys flying, on the back of a hippogriff, or on a broom. You could ride my cock and fly at the same time, couldn't you -- a Gryffindor Seeker like yourself?"

Harry groaned urgently after each suggestion, several pleasant fantasies taking shape in his mind, each more arousing than the last. "I've had quite a bit of Slytherin in me lately and I've loved every bit of it," he protested. "All right, now we have a plan for today...but what shall we do tomorrow?"

"I feel quite certain that you will think of something. And if not...detention, Mister Potter. Over my desk."

Chapter Six

The desk was ruined. It was his own fault, Snape reflected -- he had not remembered to use a charm to strengthen the old wooden legs. With time and many repetitions of Reparo, he might have restored it sufficiently to use as a writing table. But why bother, really, when he intended to fuck Harry on it again as soon as possible until the legs gave out?

It made far better sense to purchase a sturdier desk. This one, at least, had had a very happy final few minutes. "We killed it," Harry said in a faint, dreamy voice against Snape's shoulder, gesturing at the splintered wood from the couch where they had collapsed.

"I trust that you are uninjured?"

"Mmm..." Snape felt Harry smile. "My throat's a little sore from yelling and my arse feels like it's been fucked hard. In a little while maybe we had better do it again, just to make sure I'm completely uninjured. But first I think I might need a bath."

Snape's utterly spent prick gave a pathetic little twitch. The first time he had allowed Harry to invite himself into the tub, he had failed to hide the imported shampoo he used to try to make his hair less oily, to no better effect than any of the numerous potions he had tried. Embarrassed, he had tried to shove the bottle beneath the sink, but Harry got a sly look and said, "I know a cure for greasy hair better than anything in any Potions textbook," and proceeded to perform a delightfully pornographic act all over Snape's face and hair.

Snape couldn't explain why it was so arousing to have Harry wank onto him, yet even when he believed himself to be completely exhausted, the sight of Harry's fingers around his own cock made Snape's stiffen. Merely the thought of Harry touching himself got Snape going. "Does my hair need your special treatment?" he asked rather hopefully.

"All of you needs my special treatment." Again Snape could feel a wide grin pushing at the skin of his arm. "I might need some help getting it out, though. A cock in my arse is usually good for that. In the bath?"

Not even magic could make Snape's tub quite large enough for the two of them to fuck with ease, though they had tried several activities in a variety of positions. They had also done it once in the much larger tub at Grimmauld Place, but Snape was not entirely comfortable listening to the rumblings from the portraits of the Blacks hanging all over the house, and Harry too had been more inhibited there instead of his usual vocal self.

He seemed happy enough in Snape's much smaller house, but even with such distraction, Snape had had enough of living in the place that had substituted for a prison while waiting for his Ministry pardon. Surroundings had never mattered to him much, but now he wanted a larger home. With a fireplace. And an ottoman. And a tub large enough for unrestrained depravity.

Where Harry might wish to stay with him indefinitely.

"In the tub," Snape agreed with a slight groan, pushing himself upright and holding out a hand to Harry, who took it and leaned forward for a kiss as he stood. They had scarcely spent an afternoon out of one another's sight since they had begun this -- this liaison -- let alone an entire night, and Snape had realized that he wished to continue it. He was aware that if he expressed such a longing aloud, he would sound like a lovesick fool and give Harry cause to rethink the arrangement, so he kept the thought to himself. But he did consider mentioning that he might like a larger house, with a larger tub.

The bar of homemade soap resting in the tray looked sticky and had small dark hairs clinging to it. Snape tossed it in the rubbish bin and pulled out a new one...or, rather, a very old one, part of a holiday gift along with some sort of after shave tonic from a student who had been hoping to curry favor. He sniffed it suspiciously, but it smelled inoffensive enough, so he placed it in the tray just as Harry followed him in.

"Don't forget lube. That one you taught me to make -- it's loads better than anything from a store." Turning on the taps, Harry stuck a foot into the tub to test the temperature while Snape fetched the bottle. He had demonstrated its brewing to Harry and discovered that Harry was indeed a competent potion-maker, perhaps not yet as creative as his mother had been, but he could follow instructions when he set his mind to them and apparently he remembered every criticism that Snape had ever given him. "Do you ever think about going back to teaching?"

"I could hardly teach the art of aphrodisiacs at Hogwarts." Snape spoke with greater irritation than he had intended. Even if Minerva would have him back -- a subject it would have been ridiculous for her to have broached until his name was cleared -- he had little desire to return to a place with so many unpleasant memories. It had not occurred to him that Harry might wish to go back.

Startled, Harry cocked an eyebrow, but then he laughed, bending down to shut the taps while Snape admired the view. "I didn't mean to Hogwarts necessarily. I've thought I might like to teach, but with all the current Ministry restrictions on what students should or should not be taught, I don't fancy trying to tell a bunch of twelve-year-olds how to defend themselves. Older students, though...if you could teach me how to make Wolfsbane, say, I could teach it to the werewolves who never got a chance to go to Hogwarts like Lupin."

"This is yet another effort to recruit me to a philanthropic scheme, isn't it," Snape grumbled without rancor, stepping into the tub. It had occurred to him that Harry was unlikely to remain content for long brewing potions in a cellar, even if they continued to stop for sex several times a day. Harry had always been quite social. If Snape wished to work with him, his own familiar work habits would have to be altered.

The tub was long enough for Snape to stretch quite fully, but it was narrow, requiring that he and Harry twist their legs together like pretzels if they wished to face each other. Harry turned around like a dog before settling back to front against Snape, tossing one leg over the side of the tub to dangle in the air, running his hands up Snape's thighs. "Very cozy," he said, passing back the soap. "Wash me."

Hesitantly Snape put his hands on Harry's shoulders and stroked downward. "You don't find this too crowded?" he inquired.

"Not at all." Leaning back, Harry turned his head and kissed Snape, who leaned over Harry's shoulder to kiss back. Water continued to slosh back and forth over his thighs as Harry's hands moved, splashing them both softly. Snape's fingers moved back to his shoulders, across them and down his chest, feeling the nipples harden as he dripped water over them. Sighing against his mouth, Harry murmured, "Not too crowded at all."

Snape did not feel as if he was getting clean, but he was definitely getting hard with Harry wriggling back against him. Reaching for the soap again, he lathered his hands and began to wash the dark curls surrounding Harry's prick, which rose above the waterline like an elegant serpent. Harry hissed softly, then said something in the language of snakes.

"Perhaps the key to your ability to speak Parseltongue is for one of us to have an erection." Snape suspected that it was more likely the proximity of an adder in the garden -- occasionally he caught it to harvest its venom and compensated it with a dead rodent -- but he decided not to mention that to Harry, who had seemed to find it a pleasant surprise that he could speak the language in Snape's presence. "What does..." Snape made some effort to pronounce a phrase he had heard Harry utter several times. "What does that mean?"

Harry tensed under his hands. "It's not a very precise language," he muttered. A moment later he leaned back and began to nuzzle Snape's chin and throat, which proved a sufficient distraction to make Snape find his prick and rub soapy hands up and down it. While Harry whimpered softly, Snape lifted his other hand to tease a stiff nipple again. "Oh fuck! More!"

Snape decided that he liked having Harry pinned against him. He wrapped one arm over one of Harry's while stroking his chest, the other still pumping his cock. Biting at Harry's neck, he wanked him slowly, enjoying the water moving up and down his forearm, listening to Harry's whimpers which mutated into his name.

"Severus...please...inside me..."

Letting his free hand fall down Harry's chest, Snape reached between his legs, cupping his balls, then reaching behind them in the water. Bending over Harry's shoulder, he wriggled the finger as far back as he could reach, stroking lightly over Harry's arsehole, feeling Harry crush his legs against the sides of the tub in his effort to spread them open.

Snape managed to get just a fingertip inside, but the position was not conducive to continuing and Harry was begging quite shamelessly. "Oh god! Don't stop! Touch me, please!"

"Turn around." Detaching himself somewhat reluctantly, Snape traded positions with Harry, watching him bend himself over the back of the tub with his hands reaching back to spread his arse -- a delightful sight.

Bending awkwardly in the half-full tub, Snape licked one cheek, then the other, and somewhat cautiously up the middle, discovering that the time spent underwater had left Harry's underside reasonably clean. "That's so good," Harry groaned, shivering all over.

Since the first time he had tried rimming, Snape had been quite entertained by the way the little wrinkles quivered under his tongue and the soft place quivered just beyond the tight opening. The noises Harry made were quite extraordinary. He was hissing a phrase in Parseltongue again, the one that seemed to be his favorite -- perhaps, unfortunately, the one about fertilizing eggs. "What was that?"

"Just...fuck me, please!" Smirking, Snape reached for the lube, feeling the water slosh dangerously at the sudden movement. Harry rubbed frantically back against him, hands braced on the tile wall behind the tub. The speed with which Harry recovered between sexual encounters was something of a marvel to Snape, who usually took quite a bit longer, but at the moment he was as hard as Harry was and the heat around his finger when he slid it in, breathless, made him twitch.

"Not sore from before?"

"Not sore. Want you. Please!" Sliding in another finger, Snape stretched the opening, moaning as Harry dropped his head back to hiss again. The channel was still wet from earlier, and Snape could not bear to wait any longer. Grabbing his cock, he guided it in, careful not to overshoot the opening as he had done previously in his haste.

"Oh god!" Harry's groan was loud and urgent. He slid back hard, engulfing Snape's cock and pressing Snape's hips so that his knees slid on the slippery bottom of the tub. Grasping Harry's moving hips, Snape began to thrust, rising and falling feverishly, heedless of water splashing around them. He was a bit too high to press just the right spot...bracing one knee against the side of the tub, he changed the angle and Harry's moans became incoherent.

Snape's hand fumbled around for Harry's cock, traveling down his arm to find a hand already wrapped around it. He pushed it aside, stroking firmly, aware that he could not last long and even if he tried, his knees were already aching. "Come," he muttered. "Want to feel you come, do it, Harry..."

His words were interrupted by a cry in Parseltongue and the tight spasm that gripped at his cock as Harry spurted over his fingers. Snape wanted to ride out his orgasm, milking every drop from the cock pulsing in his hand, but his own body refused to wait. He shuddered and erupted into the heat squeezing at him, very nearly crushing Harry against the unforgiving back of the tub.

Harry was still howling, hisses turning to cries, "Yesss, Sssseverusss, love this, fuck, love you!" Half-blind with pleasure, Snape clutched at him, collapsing over his back as his own knees skidded again on the bottom of the tub.

What had Harry said? Had that been Parseltongue or English? Snape was panting too hard to ask, trying to hold on with slippery fingers covered in Harry's come.

"Love you." Snape lifted his head. That had unquestionably been English. "Severus..."

Then Harry seemed to realize what he was saying as well, and the muscles in his back rippled as they tensed. Reluctantly Snape withdrew, hoping Harry wasn't the sort to become withdrawn after babbling nonsense during sex. After all, Snape had been plotting to ask Harry to live with him, which might easily have been construed as romantic attachment.

Which, upon reflection, certainly would be construed as romantic attachment. Because it was.

While Snape sat back, still breathless from pleasure and the shock of this realization, Harry pulled away and turned slowly, eyes downcast, leaning to rub his forehead against Snape's shoulder. When Snape automatically reached out, Harry's arms went around his waist and clung. "I do love you." He kissed Snape's shoulder. "You don't have to say it back. Just thought it had to be said."

Shifting back, Snape slid a hand beneath Harry's chin to tilt his face up. He knew better than to use Legilimency to seek the truth of Harry's words; the use of Legilimency in romantic encounters was not only considered coercive by the Ministry of Magic but had a habit of reversing the very affections one wished to find. "That's not just something you say when you come?" he asked.

Harry snorted softly. "I say stupid things when I'm not coming, but I'm very serious when I am. I've been saying it for days...just always came out in Parseltongue before."

So that was what that repeated phrase meant. Snape tried, experimentally, to pronounce it as Harry watched him warily. It started with a sort of guttural sound, then a hiss rising into a long vowel...

His efforts were cut off by a soft cry and Harry's mouth pressing over his own. "Do you mean it?"

"Did I even pronounce it correctly?"

"Yes! I mean, I'm not sure but I don't care." In between kisses, Harry smiled up dreamily at him.

"I feel ridiculous." That was certainly an understatement, and not only about his incompetence as a Parselmouth, Snape thought. He was too old for this.

"But you mean it?" Harry shivered happily and Snape reached for a towel, wrapping it around his shoulders. "That you love me, I mean, not that you feel ridiculous." He kissed Snape again and again. "I don't want you to feel ridiculous. I want you to feel as good as I do."

"You understand that everyone I have ever cared for has died or done something so terrible that it would have been better had they died?"

"I'm not going to die." Harry giggled a bit as Snape glanced skeptically at him. "Well, not anytime soon, I hope. And I've no plans to do anything terrible since I'll be too busy shagging you to plan anything else."

Barking out a laugh, Snape reached for another towel, though they were still kneeling in tepid water and could scarcely be described as clean. "You had better not die. If you do, after everything I went through to keep you alive, I will find you in whatever afterlife there may be and haunt you forever." Then he reddened again, feeling even more ridiculous. "Until you prefer someone your own age."

Harry pounced on him, making the towel drop into the water with a soft splash. "I've had someone my own age and I prefer you. I love you. You know how fiercely Gryffindors do anything."

"Gryffindors are insane. I can point to several others as proof. From any rational perspective, you should despise me."

"Severus." Harry beamed at him, still kissing in between sentences. "You remember how you explained that it made sense for you to have sex with me when I walked through your door with your pardon? It makes sense for me to love you. I figured out a long time ago that you were sorry about all the things you did with the Death Eaters and you were trying to keep me alive. I should have done a lot of things differently in my life, but this is one I'm sure of."

There were, Snape knew, numerous arguments he could make to show Harry the faults in his logic, but he was feeling rather tired from all the sex, and one thing that certainly made sense was for them to get out of the tub before they ruined any more towels. "Come to bed," he said gruffly.

"Yes." Harry snuggled against him as they stood so that Snape could wring out and hang the towels. "Though we'll probably need another bath later." He giggled.

"If your Charms professor failed to teach you a deodorizing charm, I shall have to remedy that oversight in the very near future."

"Not now though. I like the way you smell." On anyone else's face, Snape would have found the doting expression pathetic, but somehow it looked good on Harry's, particularly without his glasses. Glimpsing his own face in the mirror over the sink -- flushed, indulgent and obviously middle-aged -- Snape decided that the absence of the glasses had worked to his own benefit. "Anyway, it's not like I'm not going to lick you clean from head to foot."

"Would you--" The moment he had spoken, Snape regretted it, but Harry had already lifted his head.

"Yes. Would I what?"

Feeling Harry's arms tighten around him, Snape decided that this was as good a moment as he was likely to find for the conversation. "I have grown tired of living here," he announced. "I had been thinking of finding a larger home. I could install a proper laboratory; perhaps take on a few upper-level students. There would be more space if you wished to entertain your friends or engage in some other form of work." He paused for breath. "Are you interested?"

Harry's jaw hung open. "Are you asking me to move in with you?"

Snape blushed furiously, belatedly understanding what a rash invitation it had been, so soon after they had begun this relationship. It should have been enough to acknowledge that it was a relationship. "I know you must prefer to live at Grimmauld Place. I only thought that if you visited..."

Once more Harry's mouth cut off Snape's speech. "Yes! I'm interested." Again he kissed Snape hard. "I prefer to live wherever you are." It was impossible to reply with Harry's lips descending on Snape's own. "Here. Grimmauld Place if you want to live there. Or someplace new." Harry's laughter puffed out against Snape's mouth. "Bavaria. Anywhere."

That had been surprisingly easy. "We can visit Bavaria whenever you wish," Snape said somewhat smugly, returning the kisses.

"Then it works out great." Harry beamed. "I want to move in with you. Sleep with you every night. Fuck every hour or so." Snape suspected that he was smiling back. He felt very foolish and couldn't be arsed to care. "Look, that stuff you were saying about how everyone close to you died or turned bad? I haven't done much better. I'm probably rubbish at loving anyone."

"It sounds to me as though you haven't properly tried."

"No, I haven't." A small laugh burst from Harry's mouth. "I guess I'm pretty much a virgin, when it comes to that. I was something of a late bloomer."

Snape snorted aloud. "By whose standards?"

"Most everyone's. My friends were off chasing girls. I was off chasing horcruxes."

"Not by my standards." Snape had had enough of standing around embracing. The idea of lying around embracing had far greater appeal, and he tugged Harry to bed. "Getting erections in my classroom sounds more precocious than a late bloomer to me."

"All right, but can you imagine if I had told you then? You'd have hexed me, or worse!" Wiggling his bum as he reclined, Harry gave Snape a hopeful smile. "Good thing I turned out so irresistible, huh?"

"Good thing for me." Snape put his arms around Harry. He found the way Harry cuddled against him rather endearing. Smirking, he added, "And I'm flattered that you saved yourself for me."

Harry's cheek rubbed against his chest. "Loved you for such a long time," he said, voice gone soft and sleepy. "Just thought it was something you ought to know."

The End