Chasing Moonbeams. Ch17.

[pekeleke]

Title: Chasing Moonbeams.
Author: pekeleke
Pairing(s): Severus Snape/Harry Potter
Rating: NC-17, eventually.
Length: 82K+
Warnings: Extremely Slow burn. Pre-slash to slash. Enemies to friends to lovers. Pinning!Harry. Oblivious!Severus. Implied Bottom!Severus. EWE.
Disclaimer: Don't own these characters. I make no profit from writing fanfiction.
Summary: “Really?” Harry beams, green eyes wide and full of wonder. “You’re going to let me snog you to my heart’s content?”

“Of course not.” Severus replies contrarily, curling elegant digits around the brat’s neck and tugging him down low enough for a quick and dirty kiss before the Savior has a chance to protest. “I’m going to let you snog me to my heart’s content, Potter.”

Chapter 17.

 

The fallout of the special edition article is immediate and overwhelming. Everyone wants a piece of Potter’s hero, the version of Severus Snape who once sat in the office of the Hogwarts’ Headmistress and laughed himself silly upon receiving ugly socks for Christmas. There’s hardly any mention of his war-time misdeeds in the barrage of articles that follow and, whenever they are brought up, the journalists use them to illustrate his courage and dedication to the side of the light, rather than as proof irrefutable that he must have a dark and hardened heart. Severus finds himself being ‘popular’ for the first time in his life and doesn’t really know how to cope with it, so he hides inside his cottage and stops accepting post from unfamiliar owls.

Nathaniel doesn’t understand what the hoo-ha is all about, but he was so proud of Severus for being in the newspaper, ‘just like Harry,’ that his enthusiasm brought the first genuine smile to Severus’s stressed features since the first article was printed. Blaise is jumping up for joy, and so is Daphne. Draco has reported the slightly disturbing news that someone asked him about ‘the lovely man who drinks tea with Harry Potter’ all the way in bloody Germany, and Severus’s last Firewhiskey Friday with Minerva had been peppered with her revoltingly satisfied smug expression and vague allusions to his now apparently indisputable achievement of ‘tempting’ Potter. Everyone seems to have forgotten that Severus Snape isn’t a ‘lovely man’ at all. He is a dammed petty bastard who holds grudges like a miser and has murdered more people in cold blood than anyone currently outside of Azkaban should be able to claim.

None of that matters anymore. The public simply adores him. That stupid picture of his has been doing the rounds since it first came out, and Severus is positively tired of seeing it printed every-bloody-where these days. A witch had even asked him to sign one the last time he’d dared to set foot in Diagon Alley.

Potter hasn’t made a single reference to the special edition article after his initial question of ‘All right?’ the day after it was published. The Gryffindor hasn’t mentioned the distressingly intense scrutiny the media is currently attempting to submit Severus to either. Everything Severus does is newsworthy now. He can no longer purchase a simple loaf of bread from his local grocer without it making front-page news the next day, and it’s getting on his nerves.

Today they’re slated to show their faces out in public once again, and Severus is simply dreading it. The savior is right, though, Severus can’t keep hiding at home. They’ve got to seize the momentum that Potter’s clever stunt has created, so they’re going out to dinner with Granger, Bollingfrog and, to Severus’s never-ending relief, Draco. He’d never expected Potter to agree to his demand that they make room for his godson in the outing, but the Gryffindor had taken a single look at his mulish expression and agreed with a quiet “Of course Malfoy can come,” and a soft look in his eyes.

Severus is fiddling nervously with the crisp cuff of his formal robes when the open Floo whooshes loudly, and a perfectly groomed Draco Malfoy steps out into his living room. The boy straightens at once and aims a lazily cast Vanishing Charm at the stray flecks of soot that cling to the unexpectedly casual shirt he’s chosen for the evening.

“What on earth are you wearing?” Draco’s affronted question has the unfortunate side effect of making Severus instantly stiffen in ruffled affront.

“Clothes?” He snaps sharply, looking down at himself and wondering what’s wrong with his robes. They’re perfectly suitable for dinner at a posh restaurant. Why, Severus wore this exact ensemble to the reception celebrated in his honor when the Société Internationale Des Potions Magiques had presented him with his most recent professional award, six months ago.

“I can see that, godfather. What I want to know is why you’ve picked those robes in particular. They make you look like a stuffy librarian. Or a former potions professor. You’re not spending the evening patrolling Hogwarts' corridors. You’re supposedly heading to a relaxing dinner with friends.”

Severus forces himself to take a very deep breath. “This is what I normally wear when I go out with friends, Draco.”

“No. It isn’t. This isn’t how you dress when you come to the manor for dinner, or meet with us at the club. This is your professor’s armor, Severus, and it’s the exact opposite of what you should wear tonight.”

“Everything else is— I’m going to look too much like I do in that damned picture.”

“So?” Draco asks, his perfectly drawn eyebrows climbing almost to his hairline.

“I won’t feel comfortable. Our companions for the evening are virtual strangers. I’m not at ease around them, and I don’t want them to see me like that.”

“They’ve already seen you like that. And they can’t ‘unsee’ it, godfather. The public wants the man in that picture, and you have to give him to them. You’ve come too far down this path to turn around now.”

“I can’t fake that sort of ease when I don’t feel it.”

“You don’t have to fake anything. You just have to let yourself be. The press didn’t fall madly in love with some made-up illusion, Severus. They fell madly in love with you.”

“You have your mother’s gift with words, boy,” Severus grumbles and heads towards the stairs with the intention of going up to his bedroom to exchange his formal robes for something a tad more casual.

“Why don’t you wear the purple shirt I bought for your last birthday? It should make your pale skin glow like moonlight.”

Severus halts halfway up the stairs and looks toward Draco with horrified trepidation. “Why in the bloody hell would I want to wear a shirt that makes my skin glow like fucking moonlight when every paparazzi worth its salt is bound to be stalking the place, camera at the ready?”

Draco has the gall to laugh, brightly, delightedly, greedily. “Because those pictures will sell newspapers by the hundreds. And they, in turn, will make the world fall even more deeply in love with you: Harry Potter’s hero. The best man he knows. A teacher. A spy. An ex-Death Eater. A Slytherin. And while the world thinks its only learning to adore you, in reality, its learning to adore all of us.”


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