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Chasing Moonbeams. Ch33.
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?”
Chapter 33.
Severus realizes he is in love with Harry Potter on an unremarkable Thursday evening. They had no plans to get together but, when Severus opens Draco’s ecstatic letter informing him that he’d just received a rather flattering job offer from the British DMLE, Severus’s first instinct after contacting his godson and spending a good forty-five minutes basking in the boy’s euphoria is to share the news with Harry. Severus doesn’t even think of owling first. He simply gathers a small pinch of Floo powder and throws it into the hearth, calling out his boyfriend’s address as the flames turn green. He steps out in Harry’s familiar living-room a second later, earning himself a surprised but delighted smile from the Gryffindor who is sitting cross-legged on the fireside rug, sorting out a thoroughly puzzling ragtag heap of laundry into a wire basket.
“What’s up, moonbeam?” Harry greets him, casual as you please. He is barefooted and sporting a pair of low riding sweatpants coupled with the most decrepit looking t-shirt Severus has ever seen this side of a trashcan, and the seemingly overactive libido Severus never knew he was capable of possessing, raises its insatiable little head and takes notice. His mouth waters unconsciously, and he licks his bottom lip, to Harry’s smug satisfaction. “See something you like, beautiful?” The boy flirts playfully dropping his half-finished chore in favor of batting those thick eyelashes of his in a way he knows Severus finds nearly irresistible.
“You are a shameless little flirt, Potter,” Severus grumbles, and the brat bursts out laughing and makes grabby paws at him.
“Come over here, you, git. Lemme give you a hello kiss.”
“You gave me a hello kiss this morning when you showed up at my door, and at noon when you came over for lunch, and this afternoon, when you made your last round.”
“True. But those kisses are all in the past, moonbeam, and I prefer to focus on the present.”
“Do you now?” Severus snorts, but comes forward dutifully enough and kneels carefully beside Harry, presenting his left cheek demurely for the promised kiss. “Will this do?” he teases playfully, tone gone soft and coy and as flirty as Harry’s own.
“Never.” The Auror claims with that earnest, worshipful ardor that never fails to make Severus’s heart pound just a tad harder than it should. Their lips meet with their next breath, and the touch is sweet and soft. Unhurried, like everything they do these days. Severus’s hands bury themselves greedily in the silky-soft wildness that is Harry’s mop of hair and he feels his boyfriend’s arms curl around his slender waist, cradling him closer in response. When they finally part for air they’re both smiling like a couple of lunatics, foreheads bent together while they breathe in the same air. “Everything all right?” Harry asks after a moment, gently squeezing Severus’s side in moral support.
“The DMLE contacted Draco. He’s been offered a senior position in the brand new special tactical division the Auror department is about to launch. Robbards himself signed the offer.”
Harry blinks. “Really? That was fast. There’s still a month to go before the deadline he gave me.”
“Looks like they’re not taking any chances. They want Draco’s answer by the end of next week.”
“Blimey! I should have demanded they assign a permanent Unspeakable to my team too. I never thought they’d cave on that one, though.”
“Unspeakables are a damned pain in the arse. I know a bloke down in Cornwall who could run rings around them for shits and giggles while blind drunk on Firewhiskey any day of the week. He might agree to aid you on a case here and there if I ask him very nicely.”
“How nicely are we talking about?” Harry asks suspiciously, and Severus shakes his head in silent wonder. He still finds Harry’s obvious conviction that he’s some sort of Homme Fatale rather bizarre.
“Nothing sinister. He likes playing around with Poly-juice potion. He’s the most ridiculous prankster you’ll ever meet. Hopelessly ineffective and hardly ever funny but, ultimately, harmless.”
“You went to school with him?”
“He was a friend of my mother’s. Took me in when I ran away from home after she died.”
“I didn’t know you’d run away. Or that there was anybody out there who’d— I want to meet him.”
“Patience, Harry. This is the sort of ‘relative’ who scares boyfriends away.”
“Nobody can scare me away, moonbeam,” Harry says softly, looping a loose lock of hair behind Severus’s left ear with the delicate devotion he seems incapable of hiding. “This man looked after you when nobody else did. I think I love him already.”
Severus fidgets in his arms, dark gaze searching the room for inspiration on a safe topic to divert the conversation, and alighting on the mismatched piles of clothing that surround them. “Are you planning on donating all this stuff? Millicent Bulstrode runs a charity that looks after homeless squibs. Maybe she’ll find something worth keeping in this unsightly heap.”
“I’m afraid I’m not giving this lot away. But I’ll let all my mates know that they should pass their old stuff to Bulstrode if they’re thinking of getting rid of it.”
Severus frowns, and eyes the clothing stuffed inside the wire basket more closely. “But all these things are damaged, Harry. There’s a hole the size of my fist on that blue robe.”
This time it’s Harry’s turn to fidget. He looks down at the robe in question. Picks it up with infinite care and rubs the ragged edges of the awful hole that mars the cloth with a soft smile on his lips. “Kreacher thinks me a clumsy oaf. He’s— I sent him to work at Hogwarts after the war. He was bored stiff with me. I’m self-reliant and low key, so there was nothing for him to do around here. He is much happier over there.”
Severus looks from Harry’s fond smile to the torn robe in his hands, equal parts puzzled and curious. “I sense a ‘but’ coming up.”
Harry laughs. “He is the last house-elf of the House of Black. He grumbles if there’s nothing he can do to serve the last heir. He is too old for most household-chores, and I can’t stomach his old-fashioned cooking, but he likes mending stuff. It relaxes him.”
“So you collect old rags and send them to him?”
“Nah. H-he can tell if the stuff isn’t mine. House-elf magic is sort of possessive, you know? I’ve convinced him that I’m the messiest eater who ever lived, and also the clumsiest Auror to walk on two feet, so every three weeks or so he expects about a basketful of stuff to mend and remove food stains from. I sort of artfully stage a rip here and there, drop a dollop of sauce on a shirt and some wine on a bunch of slacks, cut a hole over the toes of my favorite socks and send them over.”
Severus blinks, gobsmacked. “Let me get this straight: you make a mess of your own clothes so your ancient house-elf can get his jollies off mending them.”
“Pretty much. It keeps Kreacher happy, and making the mess is sort of fun. Wanna help?”
“I— yes. I definitely want to help.”
“You can’t do it with magic, though. He’ll notice that. I use some muggle scissors and that rusty nail over there. The serrated knife to your right works wonders too. And there’s a bunch of messy foodstuffs in those bowls for the staining bit. Be careful with your own clothes, though.”
Severus gazes around the rug they’re sitting on with growing wonder, finding each and every item Harry points out. He picks up a pristine white shirt, stares down at its perfection and finds himself drowning in fondness at the thought that Harry is willing to taint such beautiful garment for the sake of that old, wrinkly little shit. Regulus used to love that grumpy elf too, but Severus has never seen the appeal. He picks a slice of beetroot from one of the bowls, drops it carefully upon the shirt’s chest area and lifts his gaze back up tentatively, seeking Harry’s opinion. The Auror smiles at him brightly and pokes a hole through a black sock with a long and rusty nail. They admire their handiwork, place it haphazardly in the wire basket and reach out for something else.
Severus picks garment after garment, growing bolder and more inventive with every attempt. Harry sits next to him, humming rather terribly under his breath, and somewhere between the first and second hour of their self-appointed task of destruction, Severus lifts his head and his breath hitches in sudden, undeniable, understanding. Harry’s kindness was always going to be his downfall, and there’s no better test for kindness than witnessing the things a man does not for his superiors or even his peers, but for those he has absolute power over. Kreacher is a lucky house-elf indeed.
Severus stares at the boy’s distracted profile, drinks in the barefooted, humming, messy-haired sight of him and realizes that the something warm and gentle that’s oh-so-delicately fluttering in the pit of his stomach is not friendship or fondness or even increasingly passionate lust. It’s love. He is in love. He is truly, madly, deeply in love with Harry Potter.
The boy catches him staring and looks at him curiously, all soft smile, flirty green eyes, and gentleness personified. “All right there, moonbeam?” he asks quietly, and Severus smiles in reply, nodding in silent reassurance. He is tempted to move closer and kiss the living daylights out of Harry. Tempted to whisper his new realization in the boy’s attentive ear, but he is a careful man who enjoys holding tightly onto his secrets, so he cradles his new truth close to his heart and lets it settle, like a warm blanket, over his senses. Over his bones. Over everything he is and everything he hopes to become.
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