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This was not the first time that Harry had found himself unable to sleep in the middle of the night, staring down at his former potions Professor. And it probably won’t be the last, he thought to himself as he studied the man’s distinguished features. It had been two weeks since their first… encounter, he supplied for lack of a better word, and he was still processing exactly what the fuck he thought he was doing with the older man. And, for that matter, what that man was doing with him.
It wasn’t that Harry didn’t trust Snape, he trusted him with his life. But it just so happened that he didn’t understand the man at all. The more he had learned about him, the more confusing he became.
At first, while he was in school, Harry thought he had the man entirely figured out. Snape was a conniving and - while not entirely evil - angry man, who hated the mere fact that Harry existed. And he’d had plenty of proof to back that up. Year after year, the man had bullied and loathed and done all he could to convince the headmaster to expel Harry and his friends from Hogwarts. But there was always the annoying fact that Snape had also saved his life more times than he’d care to admit. He’d try not to think about that too much back then.
And then Harry’s fifth year, he’d seen those awful memories in the Pensieve, and he couldn’t just forget those, so he’d added them to the list of things he knew about Severus Snape. Bastard, Rude, Ugly, Greasy, Bullied by my father and his friends. He’d sometimes repeat the list in his head at night when he was told he should clear his mind to keep out Voldemort. It hadn’t had the desired effect.
And then there was the whole ordeal of sixth-year, The Prince, Dumbledore’s death, all irrevocably tied up with Severus Snape. It made Harry angry at the time. He had trusted The Prince. And he had been told to trust Snape. Neither had seemed to work out in his favor.
But in the end, in a weird twist of fate that had left Harry with shaky legs and in possession of the Elder Wand, Snape had proven his ultimate loyalty to Dumbledore’s cause, to me, Harry sometimes thought to himself. It was always too much to take in. It overwhelmed him so often that he occasionally drank too much and made irrational, erratic decisions. Such was how he ended up with Snape in his bed, of all places, exactly four years and two weeks after he had murdered Lord Voldemort.
Harry sighed and brushed his fingers gently through the man’s black hair. It was softer than he had imagined, though he wouldn’t care to admit that he had imagined it before feeling it for the first time two weeks ago. Though, perhaps it was okay to admit that it hadn’t actually been the first time at all. He’d first felt Snape’s lanky hair when he’d thought the man was going to die from blood loss or Nagini’s venom, pick your poison , he supposed, on the floor of the Shrieking Shack. Neither of those things had happened, of course. That would have made it too easy on the both of them, Harry getting a normal life and Snape dying a hero's death with the rest of his classmates.
No, why would Harry Potter’s story ever be tied up with such a neat little bow? Besides, normal is vastly overrated.
That sentiment, combined with his poor decision making and a penchant for trouble, was probably how this really started. But that was a story for another time, wasn’t it? It had already happened. Much like everything else, it was in the past. That wasn’t what kept Harry up at two in the morning, shifting through his memories with a worried frown on his face as he carefully inspected the man in front of him.
Harry studied Snape like he might forget what the man looked like if he closed his eyes for too long. The truth was, even if he never saw the man again, he would never forget the bone white skin that spanned the width of his naked chest. He could never forget the strong fingers that had plied and pulled at him. Had pursued him. He could never forget the eyes, though closed at that moment, that had raked through his brain for the last ten years and over every contour of his body for the last fourteen days.
He raised one of his own fingers and brushed his hair out of his eyes. His body was tacky with sweat, the smell of hormones and sex still hung low in the spring air. The window was open and the hint of a breeze threatened to tear all evidence of their night’s activities away. He frowned again. He wasn’t sure how long he’d get to keep Snape and this routine of theirs. He didn’t like the idea of it being taken away from him unwillingly.
And that was the essential question, of course it was, that kept Harry up into the early hours of the morning. Twice now, Snape had woken up alone, only to find Harry already downstairs and showered, drinking a cup of tea after a sleepless night. The older man had ignored it when asked, and Harry hadn’t brought it up again.
So, how long do you plan on letting me annoy you for?
He had asked, joking but not. The man hadn’t even had the decency to look up from his book.
Harry had laughed and rolled his eyes before climbing into the bed, but inside he felt a little light go out within him.
That was last week. Tonight, Harry dared only ask the essential question while the man was deep asleep, lost to a realm of nightmares and the occasional dream.
“How long do we have?” Harry whispered under his breath, the heat of it making his lower lip sweat. He half wished the man was feigning sleep and would just answer the damn question.
It was driving him mad. How long until he’d have to mend his broken heart? It was a shame that it had fallen so quickly for the man. Though, if he took the time to think about it , which he wouldn’t , perhaps it hadn’t been so fast at all.
Snape shifted his weight and his right knee met Harry’s own. It felt cool and clammy. Harry wished he could unknow the fact that when Snape slept, he curled in on himself. It was a protective position, something that Harry had done during all those years when he lived at the Dursley’s. He had stopped, unbeknownst to him, after Voldemort had gone. Ginny told this to him, before she left too.
Voldemort, Ginny, Snape, everyone was going to leave him eventually, it was really only a matter of time. Though it was probably best to not align Voldemort’s obsession of killing him with his faulty romance with Ginny and whatever the bloody hell this thing was with Snape. Harry snorted at the ridiculousness of all of it.
“Something funny, Potter?” He heard the low grumble of Snape’s voice from a few inches away. There was enough light coming in from the street for him to see the man’s black eyes when he looked down. He was startled for a moment tto find that the man looked wide awake.
“You talk in your sleep, you know that?” Harry said with a grin. It was a lie, the man never said a thing, much to Harry’s chagrin. Perhaps a revealed secret or two could quell his worries.
“Liar,” Snape hissed, though the word contained no malice. The older man stretched his body, his arms raised above his head and toes pointed downward. Harry watched the stretch of skin around his navel pull until it was nearly flat. It made his heart beat at an embarrassing pace.
“I’m not lying,” he sighed as he pressed the back of his head into his own pillow, “you said something ‘bout a niffler and bratty third-years ,” Harry copied Snape’s narrow glare and his deep voice, though he couldn’t quite get the accent.
Snape snorted himself and rolled onto his stomach, his arse covered only by a thin linen sheet. He faced Harry as the side of his head pressed deep into the pillow, “I was not dreaming about nifflers or third-years, that much I know.”
Harry couldn’t help but think the man looked incredibly cute at that moment, but he did not dare voice his opinion. Instead, “What were you dreaming about, then?” He asked.
“You.”
Harry nearly choked on the air in his lungs, “Oh!”
He didn’t know what else to say. He stared into the man’s eyes for a moment, waiting for a scathing remark or quick witted comeback that never came. Snape stared back, rigid and unreadable.
“A good dream, I hope?” He asked, suddenly feeling very shy.
Snape closed his eyes, “Yes, I think so.”
He didn’t smile or extrapolate further, but Harry was content enough with the admission. He reached a hand out and gently caressed a pale cheek with his index finger and a thumb. The man’s eyes stayed closed and, eventually, his breathing evened out into the low rumblings of a sleeping man.
Harry continued to stare, no less confused or desperate than he had been before the man had woken, though perhaps slightly more smitten. He wondered again how long he would be able to keep this man in his vicinity. Did he have weeks? Days? Had he already reached the halfway mark of this endeavor?
He hoped not. He desperately hoped. It was surprising how well they got on, when Harry actually listened to what the man said and when the man didn’t try to teach Harry about brewing or defensive theory. It was nice , Harry thought , existing around someone who considered you an equal.
And that was a revelation in itself. The sex, obviously, was something else entirely. Not to say that it wasn’t fantastic, it was. And extremely unexpected. But the way Snape treated him like a person. It was as if The Boy Who Lived or The Chosen One or whatever else The Prophet had dubbed him was a different person. To Snape, he was Potter, for better or worse. And it was better these days, given that Snape actually cared to speak with him about the news, or politics, or the book he was reading, or the weather, Merlin’s sake. Nobody ever talked to Harry about the weather. More importantly, he didn’t talk to Harry about the war, or thank him for his service, or try to give him a god damn Order of Merlin. No, Snape treated Harry like a person and in return, Harry did the same for him.
Harry knew that Snape was a…controversial figure. He had been pardoned by the Wizengamot, mostly thanks to Harry, though neither party would ever say that aloud. There had been stories printed about his heroism. How he’d been the spy on the inside of the most dangerous group of serial killers and supremacists alive, but many people found it hard to look past his handling of their children at Hogwarts during that last year of the war. None of them understood how much worse it could have been. Harry did, though, so he didn’t talk about that either. Their entangled past, the thing that brought them together, was something neither of them wanted to revisit. They did each other the favor of avoiding it altogether.
Sometimes the only reminder of their past would be each other. Harry would occasionally look at Severus’ face in the moonlight and be reminded of the greasy haired git who berated him over a cauldron. He’d have to repress the urge to shake the man awake and ask him why were you so awful and why couldn’t you have been this nice to me when I needed your help or why did you ever become a Death Eater in the first place?
That last one was another essential question in Harry’s mind, but it was less pressing to him than the question of how long it would be before this whole thing they had came crumbling down around them.
He set a feather light kiss at the man’s temple and threw an arm over his back. At the very least, he would hold onto this man for as long as he could.