Courting Disaster. Chapter 20.
Sep. 8th, 2014 02:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Title: Courting Disaster.
Rating : NC-17.
Author: pekeleke
Word Count: 2655
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.
A/N: I want to dedicate this particular fic to Delia Cerrano, who is the kind of wonderful reader and reviewer who never tires of reading -sometimes even more than once- the shenanigans of my particular version of the boys.
I don't know how many times she has expressed a desire to read a story featuring the gradual dismantling of Severus' defenses through romantic courtship, so... I thought I should indulge her for once and attempt to finally write this dynamic for her. Here is my take on this particular trope then, Delia. I do hope you enjoy it as much as I relished the challenge of coming up with this story-line for you. :D
Courting Disaster.
Severus sighs explosively, utterly frustrated by his own nervousness with regards to what amounts to nothing but a small dinner for two. He's the one who issued the invitation. The one who insisted it was time for Harry to set foot in his home, at long last. He's the one who is rushing to get past this particularly pesky milestone in their relationship when he's certain that the brat would wait a veritable eternity for him to feel completely ready.
He knows himself inside out, though. Knows that he'll never feel ready for this. Not completely. Knows that he'll never stop waiting for the other shoe to drop when it comes to personal relationships. Knows that he stands to lose far more than he's willing to surrender, if he doesn't push himself to suspend all disbelief and take this risk. Knows that he has to grasp happiness by the scruff of its elusive little neck and force it to remain exactly where it is: right beside him for the first time in his memory.
Harry, bless his generous soul, had tried to give him an out. Told him that he wouldn't force him to honor an invitation he'd issued in a moment of weakness. Said they had time: all the time in the world, in fact, to move forwards with their relationship now that they both have confessed their feelings. But he hadn't wanted to hear a single word against this plan, so here he is now: having gotten his cake through his own stubborn determination to have it and attempting to convince himself to eat it out of sheer, pig-headed pride.
He should be feeling more calm and collected than he is. He should be feeling safe, secure and in control. This is his turf. His home. His safe haven. This is the place where no one he hasn't invited himself will ever be able to reach him. This is his last remaining bastion. His back-up refuge, and he has willingly exposed it's location to Harry Potter, of all people.
'Pull yourself together, Severus. Harry will be here any second now.' He scolds himself mentally, re-arranging his mother's sparkling silver cutlery for the hundredth time and tilting the pristine white napkins just so.
The little pessimistic goblin who lives inside his head and delights in cautioning his already paranoid mind against anything even remotely frivolous or pleasurable has been disparaging his insistence in honoring this dinner invitation for the last two days in a row and, although he's trying his very best to ignore it and remain... positive... about it all, the truth is that he's absolutely terrified that Harry will think his home too small. Too drafty. Too isolated. Too ugly, poor, drab, or any other of the myriad adjectives that he's perfectly aware others often use to describe both himself and his every possession.
“Harry won't do such a thing. He loves me.” Severus whispers into the oppressive silence, just to hear the reassuring words surround him, and all but flinches when his pesky inner gobbling scoffs: 'He loves me... bah! You're letting that brat turn you into a goggle-eyed fool! He's twenty years younger than you are and richer than Croesus. He's going to take a single look at this dump and start running for the hills, you idiot!'
“Enough!”
'What kind of brainless nincompoop would settle for this—for you, when he could have any of those attractive young blokes he used to hang around with back on his arm in less time than it'd take you to blink? Most of those guys would fit better into the glamorous world of the savior than you ever will. They all knew exactly how to smile for the cameras and charm the public at large. They knew how...'
“He didn't want any of them then, though. He wants me, just me. I am enough for him, no matter how unsuitable I may seem to everyone else.”
'You are a fool if you believe that particularly ridiculous tall tale. A stupid, romantic fo...'
“Severus? Are you in there?” Harry's voice brings his unpleasant inner thoughts to a complete halt and he closes his dark eyes with grateful relief. Reassured, despite himself, by the enthusiastic sound of the seeker's door-rattling knock. That isn't the kind of noise a man makes when attempting to gain entry into a place where he doesn't want to be. No. Harry wants to be here. This dinner date isn't going to be a disaster. He knows it in his heart of hearts. He just has to ignore his cripplingly pessimistic brain and let his growing trust in the Gryffindor take over.
A second knock flits through his silent house, forcing him to open his eyes once again and straighten his spine. He takes a single deep breath and attempts to compose whatever traitorous expression may be plastered in his face so that, by the time he opens the door to a ruffled looking Harry, he's the most picture perfect image of calm confidence he can possibly fake.
Harry smiles and pushes inside in one go, hiding Severus' weak attempt at a welcoming smile behind the huge flower bouquet that he presses into his startled hands.
“There! I thought about bringing wine and discarded that idea at the last second. You're not much of a drinker anyway, and I'd rather we enjoy the evening without heavy booze in sight. Flowers seemed the best bet, since you love them so, Severus, although if you feel it's too girly a token I can always bring you chocolate next time.”
Severus blinks, utterly bewildered, and feels his tense shoulders relax upon catching sight of his lion's wide-eyed gaze and recognizing the terrified expression so clearly reflected within it as the one he, himself, had been trying so hard to hide a mere second ago.
“You are nervous.”
Harry shrugs his formally-clad shoulders and looks down towards the uncharacteristically polished dressy shoes he's wearing.
“Of course I am.”
“And you're dressed to impress.” Severus whispers softly, thoroughly unable to keep the delighted statement to himself, despite his best efforts.
Harry lifts his head back up then, glancing at him with eyes that positively gleam in the shadowy darkness of the hallway. He looks bright and hopeful and loving. He's the best possible representation of Severus' own ideal of the perfect, charming gentleman come to life.
“This is the first time I've set foot in your home, my Prince, I want this evening to go smoothly. I want it to be amazing. I want it to be... memorable.”
Severus' unreasonable nerves all but die at that second and he smiles as wholeheartedly as he is capable of, holding onto his huge flower bouquet and gazing stupidly at his love while neither of them seems able to find enough sense to do anything beyond standing here, in the doorway, gaping at each other like a pair of moonstruck calves. He feels rather juvenile and happy, conscious of the fact that he wants to kiss the brat until they both are too breathless to continue and not experiencing a single shred of shame over such longing. He doesn't even have the slightest doubt regarding the enthusiasm with which his kiss will be received, if he were to bend his neck down just so and...
Soft lips open under his own: cold and chapped by the fiercely windy air of the early evening, but yielding to his caress with a warmth that sets his pounding blood on fire. He pulls back after a second, reluctantly surrendering to the heavy flutter of wild moths that's attempting to turn his stomach into lead, and licks the rim of his kiss-swollen mouth in a gesture of such bewildered disbelief at his own spontaneous action that Harry breaks into a sudden fit of giggles.
“You are nervous, too. Aren't you?” is all the brat offers in response to the dark glare he throws his way and he shakes his head from left to right, sighing with lighthearted self-deprecation even as he admits:
“Guilty as charged, I'm afraid. It's been ages since the last time I had anyone over.”
“I'm not going to complain about that anytime soon, Severus. I'd rather you're rusty with lack of practice than having to contend with the awful jealousy of wondering how many guys you cook for in any given week.”
“You give my questionable charms far more credit than they deserve, if you honestly believe I could have been entertaining gentlemen on a weekly basis, Harry. I have always struggled to snare sexual partners and the idea that anyone would have me outside a drunken one-night stand was preposterous to me before you decided to barge into my life, and turned my every preconception about such things on its head.”
Quidditch-callused fingertips trace the prominent lines of a slowly blushing cheekbone with the kind of reverence than only Harry has ever bestowed upon him, and Severus holds onto his kiss-crushed flowers like a drowning sailor holds onto a flimsy piece of drifting wood.
“I'm glad that you found the courage you needed to let me show you better, then. I could have forced myself to be content with that first night, Severus, but now the idea of never having this—of never having you like this is the stuff of my worst nightmares. You've given me heaven, my love. I would have failed to reach the level of happiness I've been blessed with since that night, if you'd walked away."
The moment hangs: precious and fragile like newly formed ice. Like a gently trembling dewdrop dangling from the edge of a new leaf, or the flimsy mirage of a barely remembered sweet dream. Severus swallows past the thick lump that is trying to interfere with his ability to speak and moves slightly away from the still opened door, motioning his attractive young guest inside his humble abode and locking them finally together within the comforting safety of his fire-warmed refuge.
“Welcome to my home, Harry. I hope you don't find it... wanting.”
Green eyes rake the softly lit hallway, taking in the soothing marine-themed paintings that hang on the white-washed walls, the hand-woven rug that covers the aged floorboards they're standing on and the slightly ajar door that opens onto the sparsely decorated, but comfortably furnished, sitting room where he spends most of his time reading and caring for his beloved plants. This is a place Severus finds both soothing and deeply personal. A space in which he's poured so much of his own soul that he feels virtually naked as he stands quietly beside Harry, allowing the brat to make of it what he will.
“Are you kidding? I've wanted to see your place for ages. You've got no idea of how many times I've tried to picture it in my head over the years. It's better than I dared to imagine, Severus. This is all so... you... that I can't honestly understand how my head failed so abysmally to come up with it.”
“I... thank you.” He mumbles softly, at a loss for what else to say or how to move the conversation along to slightly less awkward waters. It's becoming abundantly clear to him that they are both on edge, which is something he isn't used to dealing with at all. Harry often throws his boundless Gryffindor boldness into every situation, bridging life's usual pitfalls with the kind of flair that tends to smooth every wrinkle and soothe every discomfort, yet he's failing to do so right here, right now. Probably second-guessing everything he's thinking of saying and allowing the atmosphere between them to be tainted by the kind of nervous uncertainty he's usually hell-bent on hiding.
“Aren't you going to put those flowers in water? Neville said they'd last about a month with proper care. He's been trying to develop the kind of stalk that absorbs twice the amount of fluid as a regular one to help increase the life-shelf of cut blooms.”
Severus looks rather desperately into clearly anxious green eyes and mumbles a strangled response:
“Yes. I've been following Mr. Longbottom's research very closely. Narcissa is most impressed by his conclusions and Pomona's constant bragging about her star pupil's talent has started to irritate even her most fervent fellow Herbologists.”
“You mean that Draco can't stand the thought of being outsmarted by his old Gryffindor rival, don't you? It's rather entertaining to listen to him huffing like a spoiled brat about how Nev's not the only one who did well out of that particular generation of Hogwarts teachers' pets. He earned his mastery in half the time it took everyone else to do it, after all, and Ginny isn't shy about pointing out how he's the only potioneer to have been personally trained by the greatest potions master in all of Europe.”
Severus shrugs reedy shoulders and turns towards his small kitchen, concentrating on rummaging inside his cupboards for a vase wide enough to accommodate the lush bouquet.
“I wouldn't call myself the greatest potion master in Europe. I honestly don't know where that idiotic title came from. I'm far too young to have been placed on such unreasonably high pedestal. There are still a million things I haven't managed to achieve when it comes to my craft, Harry.”
“That's the attitude that has made you as great as you are when it comes to potions, sweetheart. Even I recognize the respectful awe that colors the voice of most apothecary clerks when they sell the stuff you make. The bottles that carry your lab's shield are always the first ones to go, regardless of the fact that they tend to be more expensive.”
“Better ingredients drive the product's price higher. I have no other option but to charge more than the others just to break even. I'm not trying to swindle anyone. I'm...”
“Hey, hey, stop that, sweetheart, please. I wasn't criticizing your prizing policies. I was trying to make a different point and you've jumped straight to the wrong conclusion, Severus.”
“Forgive me, I...” Severus shakes his head, struggling with his instinctive need to explain himself further. To snap out or even walk away from the entire discussion. He takes a single deep breath and focuses on filling the vase he's chosen with water, forcing himself to concentrate all of his attention into arranging Harry's unexpected token of affection carefully into it and letting everything else go. “No one has ever given me flowers before. I know you took me to that greenhouse up North, but that wasn't the same. This is uncharted territory for me, Harry, and I—I'm terrified of doing something so stupid that I'll end up ruining everything.”
Harry sighs, runs restless hands over the messy dark mop atop his head and comes up closer, looking right at him with the most disarming expression in his beautiful green eyes:
“We are both being very stupid about this. I mean... yeah. You've finally allowed me inside your home and it is a big deal indeed, but... we've done bigger than this already. We sailed through our first date and the second. We survived all those awful Prophet articles. We've gone out to dinner in public with my friends and made it through about a hundred little fights. We can do this too, Severus. We can live through a private dinner for two in the comfy nest you've created for yourself. All we need to do is relax and trust each other. I'm not going anywhere and you're not going to mess this. We're going to eat whatever is making this room smell so bloody amazing and then we'll chat the rest of the evening away on that comfy couch of yours. We may even share a kiss or two before I finally leave... This is going to be perfect, my prince. You'll see.”
TBC...
( Chapter 19 )
( Chapter 21 )