The Reality Of Love.

[pekeleke]

Title: The Reality Of Love.

Rating : G.

Author: pekeleke

Word Count: 12889.

Challenge: Written in celebration of Valentine's day 2013.

Warnings: None.

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

Summary: The reality of love is rather predictable when it comes to Severus Snape: no matter how much he grows to love someone, his feelings are never returned. That has always been the case. Always. Until Harry Potter got involved...

 

A/N: I want to dedicate this story to my dear friend Moya, who once told me that, if she ever wrote a Snarry, she'd base her story-line around this quote from Shakespeare: "Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind, and therefore is winged Cupid painted blind."

By the time she told me that I had already started writing something else for her, but it was obvious to me that she wanted to read a very different story from the one I had in mind. So I shelved my original plot, pondered her quote for a long time and started writing from scratch. This story has been seating on my hard drive for a while now, as it was impossible to release it on any other day but this one, since Cupid belongs to Valentine's day, no matter how blind he is.

I sincerely hope I managed to make justice to the quote that you so admire, my friend. And, even If I didn't, I'd like to imagine that reading your story will make you smile today, at the very least.

 

The Reality Of Love.
 

Severus Snape sat stock still in his ridiculously small chair, blinking dazedly into space as his mind whirled with the implications of Lucius' ludicrous request. Since his friend had always been aware of the aggravating circumstances that had led him to accept Potter's harebrained idea of pretending to be involved in a romantic relationship with one another, he could not truly understand the man's extraordinary assumption that he had any sort of sway over Potter's private investments.

They were “together” from a public perspective only, had been playing this particular charade for a little over a year with the astonishing result that now everyone believed them to be an actual couple and he was being treated as The Saviour's “better half” across the board.

People stopped him in the street to ask him about “Harry”. They flocked to his Apothecary, whenever their health requirements involved something a bit more advanced than your typical pepper-up or sneeze-away remedy, eager to claim that they were being treated by “Harry Potter's sweetheart.” All in all their deception had brought him both prosperity and the kind of respectability that earning his Order Of Merlin, First Class, had failed to accomplish. He'd been pardoned for his terrible role in the war, yes. He'd been labelled a hero and allowed to scape Azkaban's dank cells on his own merit, but he'd been nothing more than a much despised former professor, who happened to be a veritable genius with potions. Even that remarkable talent had meant next to nothing, until the fateful morning when Alloyseus Slug had set his depraved little heart on claiming ownership, not only of Severus' breathtaking ability with a stirring rod, but also of his long and lanky body.

Now Severus fidgeted atop Lucius' dainty chair, lost in pained reminiscence of the dark months that had immediately followed the end of the war. He'd tried so hard to establish his shop... Had knocked on every door he could think off and jumped through every loop he'd been presented with, in order to buy outright the well ventilated premises of a former bakery in the heart of Diagon Alley. He'd poured his very last knut into a deal that had left him virtually broke, but could eventually grant him the kind of independence that he'd spent every single day of his adult life longing for.

He'd been a fool. Naively convinced that his genuine talent with potions would eventually gain him the clientele he needed to live comfortably off his shop. Finding out that the retail business had more in common with backstabbing politics than with the law of supply and demand had been a hard blow for him. One that had eroded not only the last of his meagre savings but, also, his self-confidence.

He'd ended up asking Lucius for advice and it had been in response to his friend's recommendations that he'd finally approached Slugs and Jiggers with a proposal to brew their more time-consuming potions at a discounted rate, after finding out that the established apothecary had had a recent fall-out with their national supplier and was actively seeking to contract someone new...
“You know I'd love to help you, Luc, but I have absolutely no idea about what Potter does with his money and it's not my place to point him in the direction of your investment firm. Regardless of the image we may be portraying for the general public, you are one of the very few people who knows the exact nature of our actual involvement with each other.”

To his baffled astonishment his host laughed with genuine amusement.
“I know nothing of the sort, Severus. The way I see it, the only thing that is keeping that particular association on the same business terms that were laid down at its conception it's your own determined refusal to change it. Potter would do anything for you. Anything at all. Everyone can see that much, my friend. Everyone but you, apparently”

Severus stiffened. His shoulders squared unconsciously as his body language reacted to that outrageous claim.
“I don't know what game you are playing, but you are talking absolute nonsense. I won't have you uttering this rot in front of Potter, Luc. There's absolutely nothing between us, nothing at all. You were there when I walked out of that meeting with Alloyseus Slug. You drank half of that blasted Fire-whiskey bottle in the Leaky Cauldron with me, while listening to my account of the kind of additional “services” that the loathsome toad had dared to demand from me in exchange for his precious contract. You were the one who stopped me from storming right out of the place, when we realized that Potter had been eavesdropping on our private conversation, and you were the one who agreed with his ridiculous plan to help me. It was your logic that convinced me that faking a relationship with “The Saviour” could keep Slug out of my hair, by giving me an iron-clad excuse to turn down his unsavoury demands without putting the rest of the deal in jeopardy.”

Aristocratic grey eyes narrowed intently as his friend regarded him thoughtfully.
“That was more than a year ago, Severus, and you are still playing a game that should have ended long before now, if there's nothing beyond... gratitude... to fuel it on his part. You don't need his reputation to boost your own any longer. Your fifty-year contract with Slugs and Jiggers is absolutely water-tight and now there's nothing they can do to change the terms. Even if you became unattached tomorrow you'd still be able to rebuff Slug's advances with relative impunity. They need you too much to risk upsetting you right now. You've become literally untouchable.”

Severus frowned, attempting to understand Lucius' point of view, but genuinely failing to do so.
“That will be too awkward. Everyone already assumes that I'm with Potter now. We don't see any reason to disrupt our lives with a staged “falling out”. The interference of the press alone would be a bloody nightmare to deal with.”

“Listen to yourself, Severus. Since when have you ever opted for the “easiest” solution? Can't you see that, if it's true that your relationship isn't going anywhere, then it should follow that at least one, or both of you, is giving up on the chance of finding a real partner? Doesn't it occur to you that you haven't dated anyone since the end of the war? Can you not see that Potter is a young, attractive man who has been playing at being your partner for more than a year when, in theory, the two of you haven't so much as shared a single kiss out of the public eye? Where is he finding relief for his physical needs? Who is actually relieving them and how often? It's ridiculous to imagine that he's been “faithful” to you for so long, if you aren't actually servicing him!”

Severus' ebony-black eyes widened impossibly as those questions hammered him with the sudden awareness of exactly how ridiculously implausible their association sounded. The very idea of Harry, coiled around some faceless lover in sated exhaustion, had the power of weakening his limbs to the point of near paralysis. His stomach churned with revulsion at the mental image and his throat ached with the instinctive need of howling a forceful denial of that devastating scenario.
“Not everyone is as... attached... to their sexuality as you are, Luc. People can function perfectly without engaging in that sort of thing every two seconds. I find your implication that Harry lacks the will power to be celibate for the measly period of a year deeply offensive. He is not some hormone-driven savage. He is a respected auror who is more than able of conducting himself with perfectly commendable decorum.”

His friend laughed so hard that a couple of small tears of mirth appeared at the edges of those beautiful gray eyes.
“You are a bloody frigid bastard. I'd feel sorry for Boy Wonder if it wasn't for the fact that he obviously knows exactly what he is doing, doesn't he? I remember how he kept sending you owls, requesting a private meeting right after the end of the war. You steadfastly refused to see him before finally sending him packing back to school with the excuse that he needed to live his life and you both had nothing further in common, now that the war was over. Draco used to comment that he was absolutely insufferable during their eighth year. He was constantly asking my poor son about you, always wanting to know exactly what you were doing and when was the last time we've seen you...”

Severus' eyes narrowed with irritation.
“I don't like where this is going, Luc. Potter sent me a few letters at the time. He followed those through with the guilt-induced offering of a single Christmas card and then left me finally in peace when I didn't respond. You can't use his youthful desire to... fix... our former antagonistic relationship as an excuse to imply that he felt something beyond guilty respect towards me.”

Luc gaped at him as if Severus' refusal to agree that Potter might have been the victim of a misguided schoolboy crush during his last year at Hogwarts was some sort of dogged feat of unreasonable stubbornness on his part.
“Fine! Even if you refuse to acknowledge that “The Saviour” got involved with you because he was shamelessly eavesdropping on our private conversation, for no apparent reason that either of us could see, by the way, you still have to agree that he did jump to your rescue with surprising enthusiasm. The plan of pretending to be your boyfriend was all his, Severus, and although I embraced the idea at the time because I could clearly see the benefits of that small deception, the truth is that you don't need to hide behind it any longer.”

“I told you this already, Luc. Everything is simpler this way.”

“No. This isn't about your peace of mind, or his, for that matter. This is about the two of you having exactly what you want and refusing to rock the boat for fear of... sinking it. Potter is head over heels in love with you, my friend, trust me on this. It's so patently obvious that I can't understand how you are managing to miss it, Severus.
Why on Earth would he still be pandering to your “need to have a romantic attachment”, unless he wants to do it? He shows up at your shop on a daily basis, takes you out to dinner and the theatre so often that he is being accused of “pampering you rotten” and spends every weekend following you around like a little eager puppy... Nobody wastes a whole year of their life building that kind of lie, Severus. You and him, both, are involved right to the heart with one another. Nothing else makes any sense...” 
 

*****

After that rather disturbing conversation with Luc, Severus found himself unable to sleep properly. He tossed and turned restlessly, unable to ignore some of the points that his friend had so ruthlessly forced him to acknowledge. Could Harry actually be harbouring genuine romantic feelings towards him, or was Lucius' own greedy desire to benefit from a relationship that went deeper between them colouring his friend's perception of reality?

Sitting beside his fireplace at two thirty in the morning, absentmindedly contemplating the small photograph of Harry that the brat had given him for Christmas, Severus wondered if there was any chance at all, no matter how small, that the man he'd grown to love more deeply than he cared to admit out loud would ever be able to feel any sort of attraction towards him.

He'd never noticed anything untoward in his dealings with Potter. Not recently and definitely not at the beginning of their fake romance. Back then he'd been adamantly certain that they wouldn't be able to fool a single person into believing that the boy found him attractive. It had shocked him to the core when the gryffindor had put on so convincing a show that he had everyone expecting them to announce their wedding within six months of their relationship “going public”.

He'd been stiff as a board around Harry in those first months, absolutely unable to relax enough to appear half-way comfortable whenever the young man touched him or pressed a small, dry-lipped kiss against his cheek. Quite a few people had commented on the fact that he looked extremely uncomfortable with those small tokens of affection, but Harry had laughed them all off, claiming that Severus was private by nature and was finding it difficult to adjust to the public aspect of their association.

Surprisingly that simple explanation had managed to convince people like Fillius and Minerva, who had known him for years and, therefore, should have known better than to imagine that he'd get himself involved with a man half his age, no matter how “mature” the youth in question might be. Potter claimed they were in love and that was all anyone really cared to know about the situation. The same lack of real surprise had been shown by both Arthur and Molly Weasley, upon hearing the news. And Severus had never been certain of what, exactly, Harry told his two best friends, as they didn't behave in front of them any differently than they did in front of everybody else...

It had taken him ages to become used to being on the receiving end of Harry's little touches and bright smiles. He'd been spooked out of his mind the first time the boy had pushed himself up on tiptoes and looped a stray lock of hair behind his left ear, in so intimate a gesture, that he'd stammered in the middle of a sentence and had to listen to George Weasley's loud catcalls for the better part of an hour.

He'd relaxed into the role of Potter's paramour slowly, learning to accept the easy-going camaraderie of his friends and family. Mastering the art of smiling distractedly whenever Harry touched his arm or elbow, in order to introduce him to someone, and teaching himself to accept the guiding hand that invariably settled on the small of his back whenever they walked the streets alongside each other.

He'd also learned to accept and eventually respond to the gentle, but firm, pressure of those lips over his own as they placed small, soft kisses on his mouth. It had taken ages for him to discover the wonderful man who dwelt beneath the skin of the boy he'd taught for years. The day had finally dawned when he'd been forced to acknowledge that the Harry Potter he thought he knew so well had never really existed and that had been the beginning of his end as the sole owner of his own heart.

Almost without noticing it he allowed himself the foolishness of falling under the thrall of a boy he had no business desiring. He could not possibly lay claim to the Saviour of the Wizarding World for real. He wasn't charming enough, courageous enough, or pure-hearted enough to ever deserve the affection of a man like Harry Potter. He was an idiot for even daring to allow himself the weakness of dreaming about having the kind of life that everyone assumed to be his day to day reality.

He knew the ugliness that lay behind the pretty lie they both were constantly telling. Their fake romance was all glittery perfection during show-time and heart-destroying emptiness, once the curtain fell across the stage and the lights went finally out.

He was invariably returned, sans knight in shinning armour, to his lonely flat for the evening. He spent the long hours of the night in solitary misery. Trapped between these empty walls that told such a different story from the one everyone else thought they knew. These walls had been silent witness to his every wishful sigh and his every forbidden fantasy. They had heard him cry out for Harry when he woke in the middle of the night, victim of another bout of terrible nightmares. They had seen him rage in despair when he'd found that ancient picture of Harry kissing Ginevra Weasley in an old album that the matriarch of the family had insisted on showing him one afternoon. They had heard his desolate laughter when he'd fled New Year's Ball, claiming a headache at the last second, just to avoid having to stand beside the man he was desperately in love with and ring in the New Year with another meaningless kiss that would convince everyone around them of the fact that they wanted to spend every second of their future kissing each other tenderly...

*****

Harry bounced into the shop at lunch-time with the same casualness that he'd been using now for months, but Severus couldn't feel comfortable with the auror's ease any longer. The youth pushed the door open, glared almost fiercely at his assistant on his way across the main floor of the shop, and leaned against the door-jamb of his lab, watching him stir the potion that he'd been working on all morning with a small assessing look.
“Good morning, Severus. Is that Mrs. Henderson's gout remedy? Urhg, I can't believe my bad luck! This means that you'll be glued to your table for the whole of my lunch hour and I was so looking forwards to treating you to The Hissing Dragon's noodle soup special...”

That simple statement brushed past Severus' roaring ears and settled against his agitated senses like a thorn digging into flesh. He couldn't find any particular fault with either the words, the plan, or even the bold casualness with which his “partner” addressed him but, after the sleepless night he had spent wondering about the actual nature of their relationship, he was utterly unable to offer the apologetic smile that Harry was so obviously expecting to receive.

A single beat of deafening silence was all it took for a puzzled frown to mar the auror's attractive features and those crimson-sheathed shoulders straightened as their owner righted himself in the next second, standing as tall as he could in the kind of posture that made him look more alert than relaxed.
“Is something the matter, Severus?”

The question was asked point-blank. It was so direct and obviously concerned that it set his teeth on edge, but he couldn't find the strength to actually come right out and repeat Lucius' embarrassing claims aloud. He couldn't bear to suffer the indignity of actually demanding to know the real nature of Harry's feelings towards him. What if the boy didn't care for him at all? What if Harry's emotions were exactly what he claimed and the idea of being genuinely involved with his former professor made him laugh hysterically? The very thought of having to endure that particular humiliation was horrific enough to make him bite his lip with the anxious desire to avoid a confrontation.
“There's nothing the matter, Potter. We've been busier than normal, that's all.”

“You are lying to me, Severus. What I can't understand is why you are doing it.”

He was so startled by that softly-voiced accusation that he halted in his stirring, turning his head minutely around to gape at the little brat with patent disbelief.
“Why on Earth would you say something like that? It's not even true, for Merlin's sake!”

Harry's brilliant green gaze narrowed thoughtfully. The gryffindor pushed his hands deeply into the pockets of his uniform, rocking back and forth on his booted heels as those all-seeing eyes studied his features so intently that he lowered his face towards the table, feigning a sudden interest in his neglected brew.
“It's true alright, Severus. Your wand arm always becomes stiffer just before you utter a blatant lie. I think it's an unconscious tell left over from the war. Lying to your masters as much as you did must have been hard, specially when you knew you ran the risk of being hexed to within an inch of your life if you were discovered. Whenever I see you lying it always looks to me as if you are mentally preparing to reach out for your wand. I could recognize you by that gesture alone even if you were polyjuiced into someone else, Severus.”

That detailed explanation floored him completely. His mind reeled with the uncomfortable realization that there were things this man knew about him that he, himself, wasn't even aware of. Could Harry actually read him that easily? What other secrets had his traitorous body-language already revealed to these all-seeing eyes? Was it at all possible for the gryffindor to have noticed the inappropriate attraction that Severus hadn't been able to quash? His blood ran cold with sheer dread even as his pale face flushed with embarrassment and he swallowed the huge lump that was threatening to choke him with nothing but pure pride guiding his reactions.
“It's work-related, Harry. I don't want to bore you with the specific details.”

“That's not it, though. Is it? At least it's not the whole truth and that makes me wonder what, exactly, could you be trying so hard to hide away from m... Oh, Merlin! Tell me that Zabini wasn't trying to kiss you against the counter again. I thought he looked hungover when I walked past him. If he touched you again I swear I'm going to hex his balls off for good this time and I won't let you use the excuse that he was drunk out of his mind to defend the little shit!”

Severus reacted so fast that his potion splashed all over the place when he dropped his stirring-rod on the table before casting a swift stasis charm over his work, freeing himself to whirl frantically around and walk towards the seething auror with obvious agitation.
“No! No, Harry, please... you must believe me when I say that Blaise has been a model of propriety since that morning, I swear.”

Silence pulsed around them as the gryffindor raked his flustered form from head to toes with a startled sort of focus.
“What is really going on, Severus? I know that you didn't like the scene I caused the last time I caught your annoying protégé trying to stick his tongue down your throat, but this reaction is too... nervous... for you. I know you. I've seen you work under far more pressure than this and you've never behaved this way before. Something happened here. Something that managed to rattle your unflappable equanimity so badly that I can barely recognize you... I need to know what is going on, Severus. Whatever trouble you are in I can fix it, I promise. I hate seeing you so unbalanced when there's nothing I wouldn't do to help you out of a tight spot, my treasure...”

That fervently delivered avowal had the power of making Severus shiver from head to toes. He didn't know if the horrible conversation with Luc was colouring his own perception of their usual interactions in such a way that, now, every single word that left the gryffindor's lips felt thoroughly inappropriate to him. He couldn't understand his own reactions to the barely repressed intimacy he could read in the auror's entire demeanour, but he knew that he was more frightened than he'd been in a long time. He was uncomfortable and on edge. He was completely out of his depth, wavering between wide-eyed disbelief and the thoroughly embarrassing suspicion that he was badly overreacting to the situation. He was going to humiliate himself completely, exposing his shameful attraction to the other man, when there was absolutely nothing to gain from doing so. He was about to destroy the easy-going camaraderie that they had managed to build in the last year and lose Harry completely...
“I wish you could help me, Harry. I honestly wish you could, but there's nothing you can do. This is... private. It's about a small matter that I can't really share with anyone yet. I must solve it quietly on my own. It's the only way.”

He muttered that answer as truthfully as he dared and felt like crumbling to the floor like a deck of wet cards when those fierce green eyes raked his flushed face with an unbending sort of determination and the mouth that had pronounced the one curse that rid them all of the Dark Lord informed him very quietly:
“You are not alone anymore, Severus. You might be reluctant to share whatever this is with me at the moment, but trust me when I tell you that there's absolutely no need for you to deal with any of it on your own. I'm neither of your former masters, you know? I don't leave my friends in the lurch to sort themselves out, no matter how convenient that might be for everyone. I'm here for you. I've been here for a while and I'll still be here when you finally realize that you can trust me to be on your side, always.”

*****

Severus listened half-heartedly to his dinner companions. He was busy pushing entire fork-fulls of his untouched meal around the plate with a listlessness that he could not bring himself to overcome. The lively restaurant that Harry's friends had favoured for as long as he'd been included in their standing Friday get-together was buzzing with activity and, as soon as the four of them had been seated in their usual table, he'd been struck with the sudden awareness of just how... intimate... that spot really was. He'd never noticed before how small their table was. Or how close his own chair was to Harry's, once the four of them were seated. He'd never realized before how often Ron and Hermione referred to them as “you”, either. And it was a shock to his system to become finally aware of how very domestic their pretend relationship sounded when they made comments like: 'We finally tried that new Indian restaurant, just off Constitution Alley' or 'We'll arrive late for Sunday lunch because Severus is brewing Mr. Ludington's nerve restorative first thing in the morning'...

“You are awfully distracted tonight, Severus. I hope everything is going well with your business”
Hermione's concerned comment finally dragged him out of his unsettled musings and he lifted troubled dark eyes to look at her, noticing for the first time that they had been momentarily left alone in the small table. His smile faltered briefly when she noticed his puzzlement at their companions' absence and she placed her delicate hand over his arm in a show of silent support that brought a lump the size of China to his drying throat:
“They've gone to the restroom, in case you missed that. What's going on, Severus? Harry is worried sick about you. He's been telling everyone that you seem out of it recently. I dismissed his concerns as his usual protectiveness towards you, but it's true that you are distracted. You haven't been able to focus on anything so far. You barely touched your dinner and you failed to berate Ron when he stuffed half his pie into his mouth... I'm starting to share Harry's worry. Your behaviour isn't normal, Severus. There is something on your mind”

His breath faltered on the receiving end of that concerned query and he didn't know how to react to her good-intentioned probing. He'd been uncharacteristically uncomfortable around Harry lately, reacting to the man's presence with a stiffness that he hadn't shown since the very beginning of their little deception. He was aware of the fact that his inability to relax around the auror was a source of obvious puzzlement to the gryffindor and, just yesterday, he had actually caught the man mercilessly grilling his assistant about anything and everything that could possibly be going wrong with his shop.
“I'm aware that I've been distracted lately, Hermione. There are some things on my mind at the moment that I'm trying to work out. Nothing sinister, though. I swear.”

Long-lashed brown eyes regarded him thoughtfully for a very long time.
“Is it the shop? Harry said that your behaviour has been off since the day Malfoy called you over for dinner. He's worried that your business is in some sort of economical trouble, since the loan you took when that leak on the roof was discovered came from Malfoy's investment firm.”

“I assure you that there's nothing of the sort going on. Lucius and I have been friends for a long time. We have plenty of things to discuss that have nothing to do with the state of our mutual bank accounts. We discussed some investments that he thinks could be quite lucrative, but my purchasing power isn't really in league with his own and I was never his intended target for that venture.”

“Does he want Harry to invest in his firm, then? Is that it? Did he try to convince you to put pressure on him and you refused? Did you have a falling out with Lucius Malfoy over Harry?”

Severus shifted uncomfortably in his chair and reached out for his water goblet, trying to gain a few seconds to think about his answer. He couldn't tell her to mind her own business when it was obvious that she meant to help him, if she could. He wasn't entirely certain of when, exactly, he'd became close enough to this young woman, whom he'd so openly despised as a student, to give her the kind of answers that she was so casually demanding, but the truth was that he'd done so and now he couldn't deny her a response.
“Lucius is under the misconception that I could influence Harry to pay more attention to his investment firm, if I put my mind to it.”

Her gaze sharpened, even as a small smile appeared on her lips:
“Why is it a misconception? I'd imagine you could easily convince Harry to do pretty much anything you wanted, if you put your mind to it.”

He blinked in appalled reaction to that assessment.
“It has been my experience that no one can force that brat to do anything he doesn't want to do, Ms. Granger.” He stated curtly, only to startle into flustered agitation when Harry's amused laughter curled around his senses in the next second.

“What did you say to him, Herm? It's been months since the last time I heard him call you Ms. Granger.”

Ron joined them at that second, too, and all joking was momentarily suspended while they rearranged themselves around the table once again. Severus' sigh of relief proved to have been premature when Harry inched closer to him, looked searchingly into his eyes and whispered softly:
“It's nice to have you back among us, my treasure. You've been up there with the fairies all evening long.”

Crimson colour flooded his pale features as he sat there and blinked like a deer caught in the light of a sudden Lumos spell. His eyes widened and his throat dried with tongue-tied embarrassment. He couldn't have offered a response to save his life and it became patently obvious that he'd been deeply flustered by Harry's playful address. A thoroughly awkward silence fell across the table, making their companions avert their eyes with the kind of tactfulness that only served to increase Severus' self-consciousness.
“I'm afraid I can't stay for dessert” He stammered baldly, holding onto his fraying composure by a very small thread.
“I forgot that I promised to help Draco with his thesis research and there are a ton of papers that I need to review before meeting him for lunch tomorrow, so I should be getting off. Now, If you'd excuse me...” He put swift actions to words and was already out of his seat before any of his companions had time to blink in response.

He'd just straightened beside the table and was in the process of nodding curtly towards Ron and Hermione for the last time when Harry's tanned fingers curled around his wrist, halting his retreat with a firm pull.
“What is really going on, Severus? You've got to stop trying to avoid talking to me about whatever is spooking you this badly. I'm willing to help you, my love. I just can't manage to get close enough to do it when you keep pushing me away for no good reason!”

The endearment left those lips so fluidly that Severus become convinced that Harry hadn't even noticed he'd said it, but the impact it had on his own senses was devastating. He detested hearing himself being addressed in such a way, deeply resenting the irony of knowing himself entitled to the one thing he'd been desperately craving for months, as long as they were out in public. He knew himself to be well past merely enthralled by Harry's obvious charms. He wasn't the tragic victim of a shamefully misplaced little crush, either. He was in love, as deeply in love as anyone could be, with a man who didn't belong to him in any way that mattered.

He'd been foolishly attempting to ignore that small fact for months now, pathetically latching onto every crumb of Harry's fake affection that he could lay claim to, because he didn't have the courage to face a very simple truth: Harry Potter wasn't his. He'd never been his and it was ridiculous to imagine that he'd ever grow to love a hideous freak like him. The relationship they were faking was tearing his heart apart with a million moments just like this one: lies, all of them. Little painful mirages that hurt him beyond words, because he was sure as hell that the Saviour of the Wizarding World wasn't languishing for his rather dubious charms in the privacy of his own bedroom, night after lonely night. Why would he? He had the entire world at his feet. He could have anyone he wanted. Harry would fall in love one of these days and leave him behind without a backward glance...
“I've got to go” He choked out in a panic, pulling his wrist away from the gryffindor's scorching touch and taking a jerky step back.

“Severus...”

“I realize that I owe you an explanation, Harry. I'll be willing to discuss everything with you as soon as I come up with the right words to make you understand what's going on. We'll talk about this soon, I promise. I'm beginning to see that things can't continue like this for much longer, but I... I need a few days to think properly about this. Give me some space, I'm begging you, Harry. I need at least a week without your constant presence. I require time and space to set my head straight and find the strength to do what must be done...”

*****

The weekend dragged on forever. He hadn't realized how much of his free time he devoted to the different activities he shared with Harry until the auror failed to knock on his front door at ten o'clock on Saturday, as usual. It took him half an hour of absolute miffed discontent to come to terms with the fact that the gryffindor was responding to his own plea for space by granting him exactly what he'd claimed to need. Contrary to what he'd expected, he didn't feel relieved at all. He felt abandoned and on edge. He felt wronged. Cheated. Cruelly betrayed.

His scheduled lunch with Draco allowed him to forget his personal troubles for a few hours, as they argued back and forth over the best combination of ingredients to accelerate the rate of growing bone on the current Skelegro formula. Their meeting lasted longer than usual, due to the fact that Harry didn't show up to cut it short at half past four, as was also usual, and so it was that Severus ended up being able to discuss potions with his godchild until well into the evening for the first time in months. It had been wonderful, yes, but he hadn't felt as exhilarated as he'd thought he would. He felt inexplicably deflated and mildly discontented. He felt... neglected.

He ended up walking back home with his hands buried deep inside the pockets of his robes, instead of apparating directly into his flat. The early February weather was mercilessly cold, a Northern wind had started blowing mid-afternoon and it hadn't relented ever since. He shivered, despite the fact that he was wearing his thickest winter coat, but the idea of apparating directly home, where there was nothing for him to do besides picking up a book or do a spot of tidying up held no appeal whatsoever. Eventually he grew bored of walking around aimlessly. He was far too cold and the streets were mostly deserted, anyway. His whirling mind could not find a single thing of interest to engage it and it didn't make any sense to risk catching a cold for no apparent benefit...

Sunday turned out to be as dismal as Saturday evening. He'd been bored out of his mind by ten thirty and ended up locking himself inside his personal lab and brewing up a storm, just to pass the time. Despite spending another sleepless night tossing and turning around in his bed, trying to analyze every single word or action of Harry's in a desperate attempt to find something about them that could actually convince him that the brat genuinely found him attractive, his own knowledge of the deal they had struck, coupled with the fact that he'd spent more than a year in very close proximity to Harry, without ever considering himself to be genuinely loved by the man, aided him in entrenching himself even more firmly in his own account of the situation.

He was nothing of Harry's, nothing. He was just the man the auror claimed to love. A man who couldn't lay a single legitimate claim to the Gryffindor's heart. He was the smoke-screen that kept all galleon-diggers at bay, the readily available excuse that the Saviour of the Wizarding World offered to his adoring public, whenever it grew weary of waiting for him to settle down.

'I'm in love, madly in love. I'd gladly settle down to Hearth and Home today, but Severus wants to wait. We'll marry the moment he is ready and not a single second before that...'

How many times had he heard that explanation in the last year? How many times had he read it in print? How many people berated him on a weekly basis for refusing to make “an honest man” out of Harry Potter? This was the true nature of their association. The reasons behind their fake romantic relationship. Severus had needed someone of consequence to fend off Alosious Slug's repulsive advances and Harry had needed the most difficult man he could find, one with a reputation for being as unromantic as a block of stone, to use as a shield against the tenacious matchmaking matriarchs of the wizarding world.

No. Harry didn't love him. The very idea would be laughable if it wasn't so heartbreaking. Harry liked him, respected him and was much better at creating the illusion of devoted affection than he, himself, had ever been. But the auror had never even tried to move their association beyond what was strictly necessary to make it believable. All their kisses had been exchanged scrupulously in public. All their touches were done out of doors, too. Whenever they were together inside his house, or Harry's, there was never the same sort of... closeness... between them. Regardless of what Lucius might think about the entire situation, the truth was plain enough to Severus' own mind: Harry Potter felt no passion whatsoever towards him. Not to the level and intensity that he, himself, felt it.

It was unlikely that Harry would never feel more than mere fondness towards him and, therefore, he needed to decide if he could cope with their lie for a little while longer or not. He knew the answer to that question already. He'd known it for some time now, of course. It was plain to see that he'd be better off cutting his losses right now, remove himself entirely from a situation that was bound to break his heart sooner or later. He just had to find the strength to do it. No matter how much his soul ached at the prospect...

*****

Severus entered the small flat he kept above his shop and leaned against his door with utter exhaustion.
The week had been absolute hell so far. It was obvious to everyone around him that there was something unusual going on between himself and Harry. As soon as the auror failed to show up for lunch on Monday his assistant's tongue began wagging and, by Tuesday's closing time, he'd been gritting his teeth fiercely in a determined attempt to stop himself from snapping at every single person who dared to look at him with pity.

Now he closed his dark eyes wearily and exhaled a deep sigh that singed his burning throat with the bitter taste of defeat. Working himself to exhaustion wasn't helping him forget that he missed Harry with the kind of desperation that turned every meal into cardboard, every conversation into an unbearable burden, every single second of the day into a veritable eternity of dreary nothingness that he had no idea how to fill and had even less inclination to endure.

His life was crumbling like a pack of cards around him with every passing hour. He was floundering in a veritable storm of deep despair that he didn't know how to weather and the fact that he had no outside support, besides Harry's own circle of friends and family, was making the idea of finding someone to talk to rather difficult. He didn't want to speak about this with Luc and, although he'd grown close to Molly and Hermione in the last year, those relationships had come to him because of his association with Harry. He'd couldn't possibly knock on their door and expect to be received with the same level of affection, the same amount of... tolerance... if he made it patently obvious that he'd come seeking the reassurance he needed to break up with Harry.

He took a couple of steps towards the kitchen, rubbing his aching forehead with a slightly trembling hand as he crossed the corridor, and promptly came to an abrupt halt when he realized that there was someone seating on his fireside chair. Someone who didn't appear to have shaved in the last five days, someone who looked unhealthily pale and had dark circles under the most vibrant pair of emerald-green eyes that he had ever seen. Someone who was staring at him with enough fierceness to make him shiver from the inside out.
“Harry... What are you doing here?”

“I couldn't take this anymore, so I came to see you. You look like shit, Severus.”

He was so shocked by the fact that the auror was right here, seating calmly in his armchair, that he couldn't even dredge up enough energy to be affronted by the rudeness of that comment.
“I am tired. The shop has been unusually busy.”

“You mean everyone is showing up at your door, trying to find out what's going on between us? Zabiniy said you've run out of flu remedies, Hemorrhoid-away and even Soothing Gastro-Milk. I don't think I've ever heard of an apothecary running out of that vile stuff. I swear it tastes just like monkey piss.”

“I've told you a million times that Soothing Gastro-Milk doesn't taste like a Primate's urine. The Asafoetida base is what gives it's distinctive flavor to that particular potion.”

A small bark of mirthless laughter interrupted his automatic lecture and he swallowed with sudden discomfort in the tension-filled silence that followed.
“I love it when you rant at me about potions. I love it when you allow me to watch you brew your smelly concoctions for hours on end. I love it when I walk into your shop and the sight of all your ingredient jars makes me realize that you must be near, because I don't ever see insect body-parts stuffed in small glass bottles unless you are right there with me.”

“Harry...” The short name left Severus' drying lips in a pained gasp that he never got to add onto because his companion chose that moment to stand up agitatedly, claiming the strangest thing with disarming distress:

“I miss you like crazy. I don't know what's going on with you, but giving you the space you said you wanted is becoming so hard that I feel I can't breathe. You've got to tell me what's happening, Severus. You've got to let me help you out of whatever it is. You've got to look me in the eye and tell me that we are doing fine. Tell me there's nothing the matter with us. That you are worried about your shop, or about Draco's research. Say that you are fretting about Malfoy's investment firm, about that fool who teaches potions at Hogwarts nowadays, or even about Slug's lecherous ways. Tell me whatever you want except that you are thinking of leaving me for another man, please!...”

Severus was so shocked by that last shaken plea that he couldn't bring himself to move neither left nor right. He was glued to the spot. Utterly paralysed. His eyes burned, his heart lurched and he felt completely raw from the inside out, as if some careless giant had peeled the very skin off his body and then abandoned him upon a craggy outcrop to await his gruesome death.
“I'm not thinking of leaving you for another man, Harry. I haven't had the time to meet anyone new. I've been too busy lately with the shop and with... you. I hadn't even thought about how long its been since the last time someone took me to bed, until Lucius mentioned it the other day.”

The silence that followed his flustered statement became so thick that it could have been pierced with a butter knife. Harry's bright eyes looked feverish with emotion. His face had lost all colour and he'd taken a single step forwards, as if readying to grab him, before coming to a rather abrupt halt. His voice rose in the awful silence like a small, wavering whisper, summarizing the situation in four strained little sentences:
“So I was right, after all. Malfoy said something to upset you. Something that made you look at our relationship in a new and unflattering light. Something that made you realize that this isn't what you want.”

“We do not have a relationship, Harry. We have a deal that we never bothered to rescind.”
The words seemed to hit Harry like dark hexes. He swayed in place, as if wounded to his core, and his green eyes widened impossibly, staring straight at him with a disbelieving sort of fragility.

“Is that what you think? That we are still playing that stupid teenage game for Alossious' benefit? We've been going out together for a year, Severus. A whole year! I've introduced you to every single one of my friends and family. You've accompanied me to every work function that I've been invited to. There's not a single work colleague of mine that you aren't at least acquainted with and you are my primary contact in case of emergency. I'd have thought all of those things make us a couple.”

Severus bristled, unable to believe the brat would dare to argue against the truth:
“You never spend the night and never even touch me, unless we are surrounded by people. You behave very differently when it's just the two of us, Harry. We... we've been faking our romance for so long that we've grown comfortable behaving in that manner, but it's not enough. It's all wrong. You should be free to go out and find yourself someone your age to love. You should be able to do more with your Friday nights than have dinner with your friends and then go home to that empty mausoleum that your godfather left you. You shouldn't have to live like a married man when you are barely into your twenties and are actually unattached!”

Harry stiffened from head to toes. His head turned minutely to the left as those mesmerizing eyes darkened with genuine fury:
“I'm not “unattached” and I happen to enjoy spending my Friday nights having dinner with my friends. I'm not into the kind of wild clubbing that your precious Draco likes to indulge in and, if its sex you think you are missing, then I have no bloody problem giving it to you, Severus!”

“I didn't say I missed sex. I said...”

“I heard you just fine the first time around, thank you very much. Malfoy made you realize that you haven't done the deed in only the Founder's know how long and you build yourself an entire Greek tragedy of badly managed sexual deprivation. What I don't get is why you decided to drag us, both, through almost two weeks of god-awful misery. There's no need for these theatrics, Severus. Craving physical intimacy is the most natural thing in the world and I wouldn't have turned a hair if you told me that you were finally ready to go there!”

Ebony-black eyes widened impossibly as their owner repeated aloud the one word that made the least sense to him among Harry's astonishingly... open-minded... reply:
“Finally? Are you trying to imply that you've been waiting for me to... demand... sexual favours?” He couldn't even fake his usual nonchalance. Couldn't actually comprehend what exactly they were discussing or where the hell he'd lost track of the conversation. His throat refused to utter a single word further and he ended up just standing there, gaping dazedly at Harry like a half-witted lump.

“I'd have gone for “request”, of course, but “demand” works for me, too, Severus. If what you want is sex, then I say we get to it already. This is not a deal breaker for us. This is actually good. Bloody good. Brilliant, even.”

Severus was certain that his brain had liquefied at some point in the last five minutes and he was now having some sort of auditory hallucination. He couldn't have heard Harry refer to them having sex together with that appallingly casual “let's get to it,” could he?...
“I don't think we should engage in that sort of activity together, Harry. I'm old enough to be your father.”

“You've been old enough to be my father all along, Severus. I don't think that old chestnut has shocked anyone since I had that little meltdown in the middle of the ministry atrium. Rita Skeeter was driving me nuts with all the rubbish she kept publishing about us and it didn't help that I've just come in from a thirty hour stake-out when she tried to interview me...”

The memory of that particular scandal rose between them like a warm, beloved echo. Severus hadn't been present when Harry lost his patience with the intrusive journalist, but the article she'd published, coupled with the numerous photographs that had been taken by passers-by at the time, had painted an unforgettable image of that particular scene not only in his own mind, but in thousands of others. The story had run for weeks, sparking a rather heated argument about the age difference in wizarding couples that created an excruciating buzz of social discomfort when it became immediately apparent that they, with their measly twenty year age-gap between them, were among the most “conventional” couples out there. Their detractors used their age difference as a weapon, not because it bothered them, but because they weren't brave enough to call Severus Snape a "disgusting Death Eater" to his face. Or to Harry's.

“The argument might have lost strength for the masses, but that doesn't make it invalid in my mind. I'm old enough to be your father. I was you mother's best friend, in fact. I spent many years trying to teach you Potions and Occlumency, growing increasingly frustrated with that useless endeavour. I'm not the right kind of lover for you, Harry.”

Wounded green eyes studied him intently in the building silence. The gryffindor's restless hands curled into a pair of clearly frustrated fists that he stuffed into his pockets with a thoroughly irritated growl.
“Why the hell not? You are gay. I'm gay. You are free and so am I. We enjoy each other's company and have what many people claim to be “an idyllic relationship.” What is it about me that drives you to dismiss me so casually as a sexual partner? I'm not a virgin, in case you are planing to use that excuse to shoot me down, and I'd be willing to accommodate whatever preferences about positions you hold dear.”

“I don't want to have meaningless sex with you. I don't want to have meaningless sex with anyone. This isn't just about you, Harry. This is about me. I've decided that I need love. Real love. Not just... companionship, or willingness, or whatever it is that you've told yourself you feel towards me. This thing between us... it isn't real. Not in any way that matters. This is just a game. A stupid, hurtful game that is leading us exactly nowhere and I don't want to play it any longer.
I want out of our deal. I have to move on. I don't want to waste any more time and effort pretending to feel something I don't feel. I don't want to end up like my father or, even worse, my mother. I don't want to settle down for second best or wishy-washy. I want it all. I want the very same thing that everyone around us assumes I already have. I want affection. Real, honest-to-goodness affection and if I can not have that, then I'll have nothing at all.”

*****

After that fraught conversation, Severus found himself relieved despite his heartbreak. He'd found the strength to break the ties that bound him to Harry and, although there was an unmovable lump of what felt like sheer dread sitting in the pit of his stomach round the clock, he also felt strangely liberated. He was unhappy, yes, but he had always been unhappy and at least now he wouldn't have to cope with the awful irony of having his most cherished dream, the one thing that he desired above all others but was utterly convinced that he could never have, shoved down his throat every two seconds. Harry would move onto greener pastures soon enough, now that he was free, and at least this way Severus wouldn't have to deal with the indignity of agreeing to “break up” with his fake partner in order to give him the freedom to pursue his real love interest.

He slept fitfully that first night and dragged himself out of bed the following morning, going through the motions of showering and dressing automatically, before deciding that he couldn't possibly stomach any breakfast and locking himself inside his laboratory a whole hour before he was meant to be there.

Work had always been his refuge from the harsh realities of life and he immersed himself in it's well known rhythm to the point that he wasn't really aware of Blaise's arrival, nor did he notice it when the shop opened for the day, or even registered the first customers that entered it quietly and were served by his assistant in unusually strained silence.

It wasn't until a loud feminine voice demanded to speak to him directly that his head rose and his attention became finally diverted from his brewing as he frowned with appalled surprise at the unexpected ruckus.
“Master Snape is brewing this morning, Mrs. Elliot. I'm afraid that I can't disturb him right now, but I'm willing to pass on any message that you care to have him receive, Madame.”

“Tell him that hiding in the back of his shop, like a whinny coward, won't solve whatever problem he is having with his young man. I'm sickened of the lack of staying power in this younger generation. In my day nobody was even allowed to have a “disagreement” with one's partner until well past one's fifty wedding anniversary!”

“Since I'm not actually married, I don't see how your very exacting standards could apply to me, Mrs. Elliot, and please do take note that I don't tolerate anyone calling me a “whiny coward” in my own shop. Whatever you think you know about my private life I can assure you that it's probably incorrect, so let's agree to forget this uncomfortable moment and move onto the rest of our day, shall we?” He spoke calmly from the doorway of his lab, startling both customer and assistant, caring not a wit for the fact that he could very easily be accused of blatant eavesdropping.

The razor-sharp blue eyes of the old lady raked his thin frame, from head to shiny boots, with the kind of scorn that hadn't been directed his way since the end of the war and he felt himself tense in instinctive response to the unwarranted slight.
“If you don't care to have anyone criticizing your “private life” then maybe you shouldn't allow it to get into one of the shadiest clubs in Knocturn Alley and end up in the papers for having been involved in a nasty pub-brawl. Your young man is in the front page of The Prophet this morning, looking as wrecked as I have ever seen him, and we are all wondering what on Earth could have driven Harry Potter to end up sporting a broken nose for all of us to see at breakfast time, on Valentine's day no less, when he was rumoured to be going to propose to you tonight!”

He stiffened with surprise. Not only had he forgotten that it was Valentine's day, but he hadn't seen the paper yet and, therefore, hadn't been aware of Harry's little escapade.
“The rumour that he planned to propose on Valentine's day went around last year too, Madame, and it proved to be as false then as it is today. Now, if you'd excuse me, I believe it is high time that I find the morning paper, since I've been too busy to read it so far...”

“He obviously meant to surprise you with it, then. I have it on good authority that he has bought you a ring, Master Snape. A wonderful, custom-made ring that is infused with so many protection spells that it took my husband three months to work them onto the stone. I've seen the finished piece with my own eyes and I can honestly tell you that I've never beheld a finer ring in all my years as a jewellers' wife.”

Utter shock froze Severus to the spot. He was acquainted with the fact that Mr. Elliot was one of the most accomplished jewelry makers in Europe. One didn't get to become the craftsman of choice of people like Lucius Malfoy, unless the quality of one's work was as far removed from average as it could possibly become. He could not imagine any reason why this particular woman, who was generally known to be as straight-laced as her dear friend, Augusta Longbottom, would suddenly decide to play a prank of this nature upon his person. That made her astonishingly matter-of-fact statement all the more bewildering.

A ring. Harry had bought him a ring... And not just any ring, by the sound of it, but a formal engagement ring imbued with protection spells, as was the custom of old pure-blood tradition. Wizarding society had very strong views about courting. It placed great value on old fashioned ideas like betrothals, marriage contracts and bonding. The choosing of one's partner was considered to be the most important decision that anyone would undertake during their lifetime. Due to the fact that divorce wasn't exactly an acceptable proposition everyone tended to assume that a marriage, once it took place, was for life.

No matter how hard he looked at the situation, Severus could not understand why Harry would go as far as to purchase a traditional engagement ring for him, unless he meant to actually propose. If the gryffindor had gone through with that ridiculous idea, if he'd been dimwitted enough to ask him such a question in a public venue, leaving Severus no other option but to publicly reject him, then it became immediately obvious that Harry had already been planning a highly elaborate lover's quarrel to end their fake relationship. That wouldn't explain why he hadn't told him about his plan, though. It didn't explain why the brat had apparently left his apartment and walked straight into a Knocturn Alley pub with the intention of getting himself blind drunk, either...

“Why would he do such a thing? I can't understand any of it...”

He wasn't even aware that he spoke his thoughts aloud, until the old matriarch answered him with a curtness that startled him.
“Why does any young man decide to stop playing at having a casual relationship and pops the right question? Because he is in love, you idiot! Isn't that the reason why the two of you can't go anywhere without having the other in tow? Isn't that why you've been walking around the streets as if your heads are dancing in the clouds for a whole year? Isn't that why everyone is so used to watching the two of you cooing at each other constantly that no one finds it odd anymore?
I've haven't seen a couple so well-suited in a century. It's a simple joy to watch the two of you together... I don't know what's happened here but, whatever it is, you've got to fix it, Master Snape. It's unthinkable to imagine that I'll live to see so much love evaporate like teardrops in the sun. Only fragile things vanish for no reason and I'm pretty convinced that the kind of affection linking your hearts together wasn't ever meant to understand the meaning of that word.”

*****

Severus sat inside his lab like a silent, forlorn statue. He'd walked in, dragged his copy of the morning paper to the small desk he kept in the far corner of the room and read the front page twice over before finally deciding that he'd been an utter fool.

He couldn't bear to look at the pictures of Harry's bloodied face for more than a few seconds at a time, and this inability had nothing whatsoever to do with the brat's clearly broken nose or the swollen black eye that he sported on them. It had to do with the unbearable dejection that was written in his posture and the unhappy curve of his broken lip. It had to do with the fact that the expression in the only eye that he could still open enough to stare straight towards the camera was clearly dull with heartbreak. Harry looked empty of life and joy. Dead like grey stone. Utterly crushed.

He shivered with unbearable cold at the realization that Luc had been right all along and he, in his infinite stupidity, had ignored his friend's counsel. He'd disregarded both Hermione's words and Harry's own actions in order to indulge his own pathetic insecurities to the level where he'd thrown away the one thing that he craved with every beat of his heart. Harry loved him... loved him... that much was patently clear in the defeated posture of the gryffindor who stared straight at him from the front page of the paper, looking ashen and in pain, like a youth who had been forced to watch impotently as his whole world was ripped away from him in the cruelest way possible.

Severus couldn't understand how this was possible, couldn't even begin to imagine why on Earth a man like Harry could have ever found him worthy of being loved. He was trying his best to understand it, but the task was beyond him and, the more he sat there and stared at the paper, the more horrible he felt about the awful things he'd said to his beloved. He'd messed everything up. Had reacted to Lucius' casual remarks like a frightened little child and ended up saying unforgivable falsehoods to Harry. He'd accused the auror of being thoughtless, of attempting to keep holding onto a meaningless liaison because it felt comfortable and safe. He'd lied to Harry by omission, denying his own emotions in a misguided attempt to protect himself from having his love mocked. He'd taken the coward's way out and refused to acknowledge that he was hurting because he'd fallen hopelessly in love with the other man and had finally reached the end of his tether. He'd tried to shield himself from the pain of exposure and had ended up delivering a lethal blow to the owner of his heart.
“Oh, Harry... What have I done to us?”

“Hopefully nothing that can't be undone with a bit of honesty on your part, Severus.”

That thoroughly unexpected answer startled him so badly that he jerked in his seat. His dark eyes turned towards the door, widening impossibly as soon as they fell on Harry's clean-shaven features. The man who was leaning nervously against the wooden frame on his lab's door looked nothing like the despondent creature in the front page of the paper. There was no trace of the broken nose and his black eye had been carefully healed. He was slightly pale, probably as a result of a double dose of hungover potion, and looked jittery with nerves, but he was in one piece. He was clean and meticulously attired in an incredibly elegant traditional robe that flattered his colouring and made him look unusually formal.
“Harry... What are you doing here? You... you look wonderful...”

Shaky laughter broke across Severus' flustered senses as Harry giggled with nerves.
“I'm glad you like the robe. Now I know that going through the horrible ordeal of entering Madam Malkin's with Ginny and her mother in tow wasn't a total waste of time.”

Sudden awareness of what was happening brought Severus' startled form to his feet.
“You allowed your mother and sister figures to choose that robe?” He squeaked, raking the richly embroidered ensemble with flustered dark eyes.

Harry straightened in the doorway, obviously struggling with instinctive agitation as he forced himself to stand utterly still, allowing Severus' gaze to settle over him and look its fill. A trembling right hand came out from behind the gryffindor's back, where he'd kept it until now, exposing the entwined red and white roses that he carried. The flowers' stems had been carefully woven together in the traditional pattern of wizarding engagement tokens, leaving their thick, serrated leaves to curl around the joined stalks in a way that symbolized protection towards the young love they were meant to be cradling.

“I also allowed Minerva Mcgonagal and Poppy Pomfrey to choose these flowers for me, as the closest thing to a mother and sister that you've ever had. You know what it all means, don't you, Severus? This says that both our families approve of what I have come here to do. It means that you can give me an honest answer, that I have no desire to deny your importance in my life.”

“Harry...”

“I was close to giving up, you know? I left your flat yesterday in a storm of despair, totally determined to forget I ever met you. But, when I woke up this morning, I finally realized something that I should have noticed straight away: you never claimed not to love me when you broke up with me. You just ranted about being unable to continue pretending things that you don't feel... You were talking about our deal, weren't you? You finally realized that you love me for real and had some sort of weird panic attack. You wanted to set yourself free because you didn't want to suffer the indignity of watching me give my heart away to someone else. I'd bet the idea that I might love you back never even crossed your mind, did it? You just... assumed yourself rejected.”

Severus' throat burned with the shameful desire to deny the truth, but he couldn't bring himself to look this man in the eye and utter that monstrous lie:
“I've been in love with you for a while, Harry. But I... I'm a foul-tempered old man who has never possessed the smallest shred of charm. I'm so ugly... It just never occurred to me that you'd look in my direction long enough to fall in love.”

The tension that had been steadily rising between them disappeared with his words, as if it had never been. Harry's nerves dissolved too and he smiled with his usual confident brightness, taking a single, determined step in his direction before coming to a halt.
“OK... You were scared out of your mind and you reacted on pure instinct. I can live with that, Severus. Just remember that I don't want to go through the horror of having you trying to abandon me a second time. I thought you knew how I felt. I thought you were taking your time to come around and erring on the cautious side of things. I just never realized that your crippling insecurity would lead you to believe that I was still participating on that ridiculous farce a whole year after it started... You aren't as foul tempered as you think. You aren't precisely ugly, either. You might not be as breathtakingly beautiful as your friend Lucius Malfoy, but then love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind, and therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.”

Severus snorted darkly, unable to digest the irony of having Harry bloody Potter daring to quote Shakespeare in his presence.
“But you never tried to stay the night. You never touched me in private. You behaved as if our relationship was only real in public.”

“That's not exactly true. I tried at least twice to become intimate, Severus. The first time you assumed I was drunk and put me to sleep on your sofa. The second you became rigid like stone and sent me packing. You wouldn't even talk to me, unless we were in public, for a whole week after that and I decided not to rock the boat for a while.
“I was already engaged down to the heart by then. I've been in love with you all along, my treasure. I tried to see you after the war, but you wouldn't consent to a meeting. I sent you letters and pestered Draco non-stop to get whatever news he had about you during my last year of school. I couldn't bear it when I lost that last link to you, after I left Hogwarts, so I was gathering enough courage to ignore your refusal to see me and go visit you anyway when I saw you at Slugs and Jiggers. I was in the back of the store when you stormed out the door. It was the first glimpse I had of you since your trial and I couldn't bear to leave without saying hello, so I followed you...”

Sudden understanding flashed across Severus' dark eyes.
“That's why you were at the Leaky Cauldron that morning. You followed me there and overheard me ranting to Luc about Allosious' disgusting demands.”

Harry smiled, coming even closer to him, now that it was obvious that he wouldn't be rejected.
“That old pervert was a godsend. I hadn't even finished listening to half of that story when my mind hatched the plan to “fake” our relationship. I was desperate to find a way into your life and I planed to do everything in my power to turn our pretend “romance” into reality. I just never found the nerve to say that out loud. Not once things started going so well between us... I played it safe and assumed that you were in the same boat: as deeply in love with me as I was with you and equally afraid to recognize it for fear of rejection. When we crossed the year mark I convinced myself that we were definitely together. I never once doubted that you wanted what we had because I knew you wouldn't have stayed for so long if you were unhappy.”

Contrite dark eyes lowered towards the floor as Harry crossed the last few steps that separated them.
“Then it must have been a shock to hear me claim that our relationship wasn't real. I've been so foolish, Harry... I'm truly sorry.”

A slightly trembling hand tangled in his hair, carding gently through his dark locks.
“You broke my heart, Severus. I walked away from you with my whole world in tatters and spent the next few hours trying to drown my pain in Firewhiskey. But then the sun rose up this morning and my friends came to my aid. They listened to everything I said and refused to believe you didn't love me. That's when I remembered my pensive... Watching you tell me for the second time that you wanted “real love or nothing” was one of the most satisfying experiences of my life.”

Their gazes met, holding onto each other with the kind of desperation that neither of them had allowed themselves to show so far. A thousand unvoiced emotions flashed freely across their eyes for the first time in their memory and they shivered with sheer nerves in the growing silence. This was a wordless communion, an instant of complete and utter understanding. A confession of their fragile vulnerability before one another. A fearless trust, a blissful hope. A promise of tomorrow.

“Do you know what day it is, Severus?” Harry's question broke the silence and he flushed a bright crimson as he stuttered his answer with suddenly crippling self-consciousness.

“It's Valentine's day”

Harry smiled, seemingly pleased that he'd remembered the day and Severus didn't have the heart to confess that he'd forgotten all about it until Mrs. Elliot had reminded him of the importance of the date.
“I've got a question to ask you, my treasure. A very important question that required I get, not only these robes and these entwined flowers, but also a few other things along the way.
I want it all, too, Severus. I've been wanting it all with you for a very long time... I planned to take you out to dinner and ply you with good food before presenting you with the engagement ring that I'm hoping to slide onto your finger, but... I don't think I can wait until tonight anymore. Not after coming so close to losing you just yesterday. I want to marry you, Severus. I want to wake right next to you every day of my life. I want to hold you, always. I want to have the right to call you mine for all eternity. I want to have the right to bear your name alongside my own. I want to bond with you...”

Severus' heart lurched inside his ribcage as those bright emerald eyes looked directly into his own, disarming him completely with the sheer hope shining so clearly within their depths.
“I want all of that too, Harry. There is nothing I want more” He murmured his answer in a small, threadbare whisper that escaped his parched lips like a delicate sigh.

“Then it shall be done, my treasure. We'll be married as soon as you set the date and live happily ever after until we are both as old and grey as Nicholas Flamel. Isn't that the most wonderful plan we've ever made?”

“Yes. It is.”

“I'm glad to hear you finally agreeing with me on something important” Harry chuckled softly and Severus' throat dried with emotion as his brand-new betrothed stood up on tip-toes, curled his free hand around the nape of his neck and drew his head low enough to kiss him with breathtaking affection. The kiss was quiet, but heartfelt. It sought only to give pleasure, to soothe nerves, to estate a truth that could now never be denied: they were finally together. They were in love. They belonged to one another and would continue to do so for what was left of their existence. Blind cupid had arrived in all its winged splendour to look upon them both not with his sightless eyes, but with the infinite wisdom of his loving soul, hooking his sweet arrows through their hearts and bringing them together in heartfelt harmony, so that their relationship wasn't meaningless any longer. It was now perfect. Genuine. Complete. It was as real as it could possibly get.

“Happy Valentine's day, my love”

Those five words were whispered so softly against Severus' lips that he felt them more than heard them the first few times. Then he smiled, kissed the mouth that uttered them with a bubbly sort of joy that he'd never felt before and whispered them right back:
“Happy Valentine's day, Harry.”

The End.