Courting Disaster. Chapter 2.

[pekeleke]

Title: Courting Disaster.

Rating : NC-17.

Author: pekeleke

Word Count: 2058.

Warnings: None.

Disclaimer: Don't own these characters. No money is being made out of this work.

Summary: For once in his life Harry Potter has a plan. A carefully plotted plan to help him conquer the heart of an extremely reluctant Severus Snape, only... conquering a suspicious ex-spy isn't for the fainthearted and soon Harry finds himself -quite literally- courting disaster.

Courting Disaster. 

Chapter 2.


Harry Potter is leaning with apparent casualness against the left post at the foot of his richly carved four-posted bed, looking down towards his mattress with shadowed green eyes.  Despite his deceptively relaxed and laid-back posture, his heart is pounding a mile a minute.  His throat feels dry and is painfully constricted even though his slightly kiss-swollen lips can't stop smiling at the vision before him: a sight that fills his entire being with the kind of wild exhilaration that he's been waiting a veritable eternity to have a chance to enjoy.

Severus Snape is tangled in his bed sheets in all his relaxed, long-limbed glory.  Beautiful dark hair covers that beloved and stern profile, shielding it from Harry's thoughtful scrutiny for the time being.  A slender and mostly hairless chest, shifts in the rhythmic ebb and flow that is so characteristic of deep sleep, gracing Harry's usually empty bed with it's pale, breathtaking beauty.

Severus' body is a rather startling mix of wiry strength and old scars that Harry can't bear to look away from.  A number of small, purpling marks are beginning to bloom across that heartbreakingly marred neck and all along the prominent line of the Slytherin's collarbones and shoulders.  There is something thoroughly satisfying in the knowledge that those tiny, lip-shaped hickeys are the work of his own lips, of his own unbridled passion for this impossibly difficult creature, and the idea that he has finally found a way to plant himself firmly in Severus Snape's life makes him smile toothily, giving him such a ridiculously huge sense of accomplishment that his chest expands with unchecked joy.

Harry is aware of the fact that his tactics so far haven't been fair to the Slytherin.  He realizes that he timed his offensive perfectly.  Striking at a moment when he'd known that Severus was bound to feel particularly vulnerable, willing to set aside his usual wary reserve in order to enjoy a single night of comforting illusion.  But he also knows this man's heart like the back of his own hand.  He understands both Severus' deepest fears and the reasons behind all that unapproachable formality that he uses like a repelling shield.  Harry has seen with his own eyes the nature of the hopes that used to fill that narrow and courageous chest, and has been mourning this wounded creature's long-abandoned dreams for a very long time now.

Love...  Severus craves the emotion like the Dark Lord craved more power, yet he doesn't believe in his ability to inspire it any longer.  He doesn't actively seek it and is closed-off in every sense of the word to the very possibility of encountering it at this point in his life.

It has taken Harry years to realize both the true nature of his own sexuality and the identity of the man who could complete him.  He'd searched for his prince charming among skin-deep beauty, finding only warty toads hiding under the bright shimmer of eager caring.  He'd never settled for any of the bright-eyed, young hunks who chased after him in the hopes of becoming 'The One and Only love' of The-Boy-Who-Lived.  He'd never wanted submissive devotion, or brainless idolatry. He wanted substance, loyalty and integrity.  He wanted genuine affection.  He wanted beauty beyond his wildest dreams.

His coming out had been difficult at first, becoming plain and simply exhausting by the time someone had decided to use his unfortunate fame for the benefit of the Wizarding Homosexual Movement and turned him into the unwitting symbol of gay strength everywhere almost overnight.

Although homosexuality per-se isn't particularly rejected in the wizarding world it used to be generally understood that a gay wizard was slightly useless to their society, since he would not be reproducing, thus failing in his unspoken duty to expand the already waning magical population.

Having Harry Potter, of all people, step right out of everyone's idea of the stereotypical heterosexual hero to announce that he was not only gay, but also unwilling to ever marry a woman just for the sake of propriety, had given an unprecedented weight to the idea that there was no truth whatsoever behind the supposed 'weakness' that afflicted the magic of openly practicing homosexuals.

Things had gotten out of hand from then on.  There had been speeches and campaigning to be done.  A lot of oohing and aahing had gone on when he'd yielded to Hermione's need to fight for the under-dog and decided to accept the unexpectedly heavy mantle of a magically strong gay icon.  A number of unreasonable, archaic laws that still affected the rights of homosexual wizards, based on that very same assumption of magical fragility, had been overturned and modernized.  Using both his image and reputation as undeniable proof against their core assumptions.

He'd been too busy with life and work to pay too much attention to anything or anyone who wasn't included in his immediate circle of friends and professional acquaintances.  It hadn't helped at all that Severus had refused to return to Hogwarts after his trial.  He'd resigned from his position as the school's appointed Headmaster, shunned every offer he'd received to work for any of the Potions Laboratories that actively tried to head-hunt him, and abandoned the United Kingdom altogether in order to 'find peace'.

It wasn't until Draco announced that he was marrying Ginny that Severus had returned.  Brought back home not by a sense of duty or the promise of the riches that he could still lay claim to, if he ever bothered to accept the position of Head of the Potions Research Department that St Mungo's was -literally- desperate to offer him.  No.  Severus Snape had returned home for Draco Malfoy and Draco Malfoy alone.  Love for his precious godchild had brought the old spy back to England three years after the end of the war and it had been at that point that Harry had finally realized why he'd never found the man who could complete him among the thousands of idiots who'd been pursuing him relentlessly since his coming out.

He'd never found the love of his life because the man had been out of his reach all along.  His heart had always been yearning for that very same intensity that had once put his teenage self under the thrall of his mysterious Half-blood Prince.  It had taken him one single look, one terribly awkward conversation, one ill-fated argument over some stupid topic that he can't even properly recall anymore to realize that he felt... alive... for the first time in years.  That he felt energized and dizzy with anticipation, breathless with the sort of physical awareness that was very clearly not being reciprocated in the slightest by the aloof creature who inspired it.

For a while he'd tried to forget the crazy notion that he might, just might, have developed a wild crush on his former potions professor.  He'd returned to the dating game with a vengeance, attempting to find himself a more suitable, frighteningly clever, dark haired would-be-lover.  But he'd failed to develop the deep attachment he craved.  He'd failed to find a replacement for Severus and, as their mutual closeness with both Draco and Ginny respectively kept throwing them both into increasingly frequent contact year after year, that vague initial awareness of desire had shifted inexorably into a powerful passion.

Harry has known for a while that his affection towards Severus is unlimited. It is both unbridled and viscerally instinctive.  It is the kind of emotion that could so very easily last throughout their lifetimes.  The kind that tells him he can't afford to let his dreams go without fighting for the chance to try making them real.

Severus is gay, too.  That one piece of knowledge, discovered almost by accident less than a year ago, has turned Harry's entire world upside down.  Gone is his grim determination to never reveal his own feelings to the man, to never make him feel uncomfortable in his presence, to respect the fact that there is nothing he could possibly offer him that may suit Severus' preferences.  Now he knows what he'd never realized before: Severus could be his.  They could be a couple.  They could so very easily find a way to love one another with the kind of genuine intensity they both crave, if only he manages to pull off his carefully devised plan.

Harry's heart is already engaged.  It was hopelessly deposited at Severus' forbidding feet a long time ago.  Now all he has to do is find a way to get past his beloved's extensive maze of self-protective barriers.  He has to make the wary man 'see' him as a romantic partner.  Has to burrow under Severus' skin and make him understand that all those dreams of home and hearth that he's given up for lost out of hopelessness could be well within his grasp.  They could become their very future, their very own version of that peskily elusive happily-ever-after.

He has to find a way into his wary potioneer's heart.  Has to earn a trust that has always been only skin-deep on Severus' part when it comes to him.  He has to show his stubborn Slytherin that there is more to Harry Potter than a famous, but brainless, athlete.  He has to charm a man who is going to distrust the very notion of being charmed because no one has ever bothered to take care of him in such a way before.

He has to attack Severus' self-protective cold formality with his own hopefully disarming devotion and hold on for dear life, no matter how hard or for how long Severus attempts to deny them the possibility of becoming finally closer.

Sex can lead to love.  Harry has seen it happen plenty of times.  A strictly sexual liaison could open the door to further intimacy between them.  Sex is often the beginning of most modern-day romances, anyway.  Harry knows that he has used Severus' fragility ruthlessly, but he hadn't had any other option. Taking advantage of a drunk man's desire to lose himself in the warm illusion of affection had ended up being the only door left for him to knock on, after every single casual invitation he'd issued to his stubborn Prince in the last few months had been viciously rejected on principle.

“I know I should be ashamed of myself, Severus.  I even know that you'll hate my guts for taking advantage of you, at least for a little while.  But I can not -will not- let you go without fighting for you this once.  I'm a warrior, you know?   And so are you.  We both deserve someone willing to fight for the right to be beside us.  We deserve each other.”  Harry's softly voiced explanation falls into the oppressive silence like a shaken little sigh.  His lips lose the faint smile that has been gracing them as the first rays of the raising sun finally break through the flimsy barrier of his delicate curtains.

He realizes that Severus won't be asleep forever.  Not with the kind of hangover he's most probably sporting.  There are things he needs to do before his very own grumpy version of sleeping beauty finally wakes.  He has a battleground to prepare.  A necessary explanation to polish.  A hangover potion to collect from the kitchen and a few key items of Severus' dark clothing to misplace.

It's time to retreat and plan his strategy while he still has the advantage of surprise in their upcoming skirmish.  He is up against the very best example of Slytherin cunning and there's only one possible way to conquer this particularly slippery snake.  He has to go for the heart.  He has to do so directly.  Bluntly.  Without leaving room for misunderstandings or misinterpretations of any kind.  He has to own up to his feelings and his plotting from the word go.  He has to slice his own shields open and expose his terrifying vulnerability to the scrutiny of his beloved, because Severus Snape is a man who will never fall for pretty little lies.  He won't fall for either half-truths or subtle mind games.  Severus will only fall for honesty.  He is an all-or-nothing sort of man and that means that only an all-or-nothing sort of love will tempt him into risking his fiercely guarded heart.

( Chapter 1 )


( Chapter 3 )

Comments

[barb2210]

OMG, multi-chaptered fic from you!! I'm delighted. Delighted!

[pekeleke]

LOL. Oh, barb... :D

I'm so glad that seeing a new multi-chapter fic of mine can make you this happy. Thanks so much for your constant encouragement, my friend. Your enthusiastic support of my work means the world to me. ;)

Ps: You know how much I love this jumping smiley face that you included in your message, don't you? I can't stop grinning every time I set my eyes on it.

Take care for now.
Hugs
pekeleke

[barb2210]

I was hoping to make you smile. Glad that I succeeded!:D

[soleo]

It's good that Harry knows that it's going to be a wild ride getting Severus to be his and is preparing for battle. They're just too passionate to let life push them gently in one direction.
I'm looking forward to another multichaptered story from you friend. yeeeeee!

[pekeleke]

I agree with you on the point that these two are way too passionate for their own good, but watching the fireworks explode all over the place while Harry attempts to woo his Prince and Severus tries his very best to be difficult should be fun for all of us. ;D

I'm thrilled that you are looking forwards to joining me on another of my multi-chapter journeys, SoLeo. It's nice to be doing another one of this. I hadn't realized that I missed this particular form until I started posting this story.

Thanks, as always, for keeping up with my work, my friend. Your wonderfully encouraging comments never fail to make my day. :)

[sighing_selkie]

This bids fair to being an epic love story :)

[pekeleke]

Hopefully it will. :)
Thanks for taking the time to both read and review. Your lovely comment was greatly appreciated.

[prayer_at_night]

Yay! Love this so far and can't wait for the next update.
Very nice twist to introduce both boys by using their POV - I already feel like I know them well (the specific ones you're writing, I mean... does that make sense?), and am excited for them. :) Your Happily Ever After is coming, boys, don't fear! ;)

[pekeleke]

LOL. I'm thrilled that you are enjoying this story so far and yes, your point about feeling that you already know this particular version of the boys makes perfect sense.

Thanks so much for taking the time to both read and review. Your lovely and enthusiastic comment made me smile like mad... :)

[adafrog]

Get your man, Harry.

[pekeleke]

LOL. Hopefully he will, ada. Thanks, as always, for taking the time to both read and review. :)

[myk_myk]

I love the background of the story, all these details about Harry's life, homosexuality, about Ginny and Draco. And I know that it's not the beginning of the relationship from Harry's dreams but it's good to know that he is not disapointed and the hopes that they could be more only one-off.
Harry is right, they are both warriors. And I know that Harry always would fight for love. Hope that Severus won't be stupid and stubborn.
I'm waiting for more!
Hugs,
myk
PS. I wonder how much Firewhisky Severus had to drink... :P

[pekeleke]

Hello there again, myk! :D

I'm thrilled that you liked Harry's back-story for this fic. It is true that they are both warriors and it's definitely a good thing that Harry knows that wooing Severus won't be easy. He'll fight for love, of course, he has done that in the past, and so has Severus. Our stubborn Slytherin will just take a bit longer to allow himself to believe that his good luck with regards to Harry is actually genuine... :)

I suspect it must have taken bucket upon bucket of Firewhyskey before Severus felt brave enough to accept Harry's invitation, but I'm sure the hangover will be worth it in the end :D

Thanks, as always, for taking the time to both read and review another work of mine. Your wonderful comment meant the world to me.

Hugs
pekeleke