Courting Disaster. Chapter 13.
Nov. 7th, 2013 06:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pekelekeTitle: Courting Disaster. 13.
Rating : NC-17.
Author: pekeleke
Word Count: 3475
Warnings: None.
Disclaimer: Don't own these characters. No money is being made out of this work.
Summary: For once in his life Harry Potter has a plan. A carefully plotted plan to help him conquer the heart of an extremely reluctant Severus Snape, only... conquering a suspicious ex-spy isn't for the fainthearted and soon Harry finds himself -quite literally- courting disaster.
Courting Disaster.
Harry swallows hard, trying to keep a tight lid on his growing concern as he walks beside Severus along the deserted streets of Hogsmeade. They left The Three Broomsticks abruptly around fifteen minutes ago and his companion hasn't managed to offer him a single explanation for their rather unceremonious exit so far. He seems intent on putting them both through the aggravating process of traversing the village's abandoned streets aimlessly at breakneck speed, instead.
The cold winter wind is sneaking in between the cracks left in the spaces between one of the tightly closed buttons of his heavy trench coat and the next, making him shiver uncomfortably despite the thick flannel shirt and heavy jumper he's wearing underneath. He has just cast his second Warming Charm of the night over both of them and is fully aware of the fact that he'll have to renew it in less than half an hour if they remain out in this cold for that long, but he's reluctant to repeat his offer of Apparating them back to his flat again.
He's missing the warmth of his fireplace with the fierceness of a man who knows that there are better, heated options out there to spend time with one's beloved and the idea of going back home and sharing a huge mug of spiced cocoa with Severus while seating comfortably on his living room sofa is becoming increasingly appealing to him. Only his awareness of the Slytherin's usual reluctance to spend time in his flat has managed so far to keep him from stomping his trainer-clad foot on the ground with frustration and demanding they head back to his place right now.
He sighs loudly into the tick silence, attempting for the last time to relax enough to come to terms with the disconcerting fact that his Prince seems to have developed the urgent need to storm through the village streets like a man on a mission, clearly needing the mindless release that just walking out whatever it is that prompted him to request they abandon the pub's comforting warmth so abruptly may bring him, only—he can not force that knowledge to ease his growing concern and ends up breaking the quietude again, trying to reach out to his beloved in a bid to shed some light into whatever the hell happened back there.
“What did Rosmerta say to you, my love? It was obvious that she wanted to approach you from the moment we entered her place and I didn't think it'd be so big a deal to give her the chance to speak to you in private. Now I feel awfully guilty for letting her get so close, since she managed to put you in a foul mood in the blink of an eye.”
Severus startles visibly upon hearing him speak and finally stops his brisk pacing, coming to an abrupt halt at the end of the main street. He takes what looks suspiciously like a fortifying breath before lifting his dark head up towards the heavens and allowing his gorgeous eyes to close tightly shut, looking for all intent and purposes like the very picture of a man in the throes of a fierce struggle with his own temper and leaving Harry with no other option but to stand there and stare silently at the tightly controlled mask that is so slowly taking over those beloved sharp features, feeling both useless and helpless to comfort the man he loves.
He despises the awful blankness that Severus so often conjures when he's upset, but has no idea whatsoever of what, exactly, Rosmerta could have possibly said to upset his Prince so badly. He feels the instinctive need to step forwards and do something, but can't make up his mind about whether his rattled beloved requires a hug or a sympathetic ear and is ultimately unwilling to offer him either until he's finally certain that he won't end up making whatever is wrong worse with an ill-timed intervention.
“Severus? What did she say to you? Why are you so upset? I thought we were having fun. Everything was going swimmingly until I got the brilliant idea of allowing that damned woman to get close to you.”
A heavy sigh escapes Severus' tightly compressed lips in a frustrated little whoosh only a second before the most beautiful pair of ebony eyes he's ever seen settles over him, brimming with what appears to be genuine contrition.
“I'm sorry that I'm being such a bear, Harry. I'm the one who suggested coming here and now I've gone ahead and spoiled our date with all this drama. There's no need for you to feel guilty about your desire to grant me a few moments of privacy with a woman who happens to mean a great deal to me. Rosmerta and I... we go back a long way. I've known her since I was eleven and she's grown to believe herself entitled to speak her mind about matters that very few others will dare to broach in my presence.”
“Why would she upset you like this? She's been complaining about how infrequently you visit Hogsmeade for ages.”
Severus shrugs awkwardly, looking uncomfortable with the idea of continuing the discussion any further.
“I suppose she felt compelled to say her piece while she could. I haven't set foot inside The Broomsticks in years. She claims I've been sorely missed around here.”
Harry's puzzled green gaze narrows with obvious disgust.
“She tried to make you feel guilty about not coming around more often? No wonder you felt so compelled to leave. I wouldn't have wanted to stay, either. She had no right to poke her nose into your business and make you feel ashamed of your need to stay away from Hogwarts. Coming back here must have been hard enough for you. The last thing you need right now is to have her making everything worse with unreasonable demands.”
“Things are not as cut and dried between the two of us, Harry. I owe a lot to Rosmerta. She saw me plenty of times dealing with members of The Order one night and Death Eaters the next. She knew that I met with both sides. Yet she never, ever, revealed to either group that she'd seen me betraying them to the other.”
“It wouldn't have mattered even if she told, Severus. Both camps believed you to be their spy on the other side. You would have successfully spun whatever she said to your advantage and she would have been killed on the spot. Rosmerta isn't the kind of woman who'd have remained silent for the simple purpose of protecting you. She was looking out for herself, too. You need to stop feeling indebted to people who never moved a finger to actually help you, my Prince. She may love you in her own weird way, but she saw more than she should have and still kept quiet. That tells me right there that she'd have never risked her own safety to pull you out of a tight spot.”
Severus shakes his head from side to side and looks up the hill, towards the distant lights of Hogwarts, with regret-filled dark eyes.
“Not all of us are bold Gryffindors at heart. Just because she never supported me openly doesn't mean she didn't do it in her own way. I became invisible after I murdered Albus. People who'd have trusted me with their lives suddenly began to look right through me. I felt so alone, so... lost. She was the only one who remained willing to look me in the eyes during my last year here. She was the only one who ever dared to touch me, Harry. It was no grand gesture on her part, I know that. It was just a small press of her hand against my shoulder, but it meant the world to me.”
“Severus...”
“It doesn't matter if she has the right to challenge my abandonment of her or not. The fact remains that she reached out to me when no one else was willing to do it and I haven't bothered to remember that small action in a very long time. I just realized that I owe a lot of people more than the silence I've offered them. I've been battling the ghosts of the war for so long that I've allowed them to pull me away from friendships that were once precious to me.
“I haven't visited Minerva of my own free will in years and, whenever we coincide in some Ministry function or other, I tend to avoid her like the plague. I have the bad habit of holding onto my grudges for so long that they end up robing me off the chance to repair friendships that I should have never abandoned so easily. I told Minnie that I forgave her lack of faith in me during the last year of the war and yet I haven't managed to turn that assertion into something more than words.”
Harry's heart clenches in reaction to the unmistakable tone of regret that taints his Prince's gorgeous voice. His arm shoots out of its own volition, curling lovingly around Severus' slender waist in a move that's meant to bring the man instantly closer. The Slytherin stiffens almost immediately, growing noticeably taller as his lanky body straightens to it's full intimidating height in the blink of an eye.
“Harry, what are you...?” Severus frowns with confusion, resisting Harry's insistent tugging out of habit and ends up blinking with embarrassed disbelief when the seeker sighs loudly enough to interrupt his puzzled protest, raises himself on tiptoes and kisses him fully on the mouth for all he's worth. The caress lasts enough to leave them both breathless and soon Harry leans away the tiniest fraction to growl fiercely against his ear:
“I'm trying to hug you, you damned oblivious idiot! Now will you stop fighting me off at every step of the way and allow me to pull you tightly against my chest, so that I may be able to offer you the comfort you need right now?”
“Oh!” Severus is so stumped that he becomes paralyzed with shocked surprise for what Harry guesses will be a very brief second indeed and he doesn't dare wasting any more time on ridiculous arguments. He steps forwards once again, pulling on his Prince insistently until not a single inch separates the tips of his comfy trainers from Severus' shiny boots. He then drags the man even closer, using the glide of his open palm as it travels along the protruding ridges of the Slytherin's spine to press that slender body firmly against his own chest, until the potioneer has no other option but to sigh in exhausted surrender and allow his neck to bend down low enough for him to rest his pale forehead against Harry's waiting shoulder.
They remain thus for what seems like an eternity before Severus dares to voice his thoughts out loud:
“I don't know where you find the patience to deal with all my nonsense, Potter. I'd had given myself up for a bad job after our first night together and gone out in search of a less troublesome lover.”
Harry chuckles softly, enjoying the simple pleasure of having his Prince so close. So willing to lean against him. So his to take care of, at least for the time being.
“I like troublesome lovers, sweetheart. They add spice to one's life. Now tell me the truth: is our current closeness really so frightening to you that you must revert back to calling me Potter? I'll have you know that I find the telling habit adorable.”
Severus' dismayed gasp doesn't surprise him in the slightest and he curls his arms around those deliciously slender hips more firmly, anchoring his self-conscious beloved in place just in case he decides to attempt a flustered retreat. The potioneer surprises him by remaining precisely where he is and offering him a simple acknowledgment in response to his playful comment instead:
“Sometimes your knowledge of the reasons that drive me to behave the way I do comes too close to the bulls-eye for my comfort, Harry.”
“That knowledge will never be used against you, Severus. It's just a tool that helps me anticipate your needs at any given time. A means to understand you better. The measure of my desire to get to know you in a way that no one else has ever managed to do before.”
Severus takes a deep breath before lifting his pale forehead away from his shoulder and Harry feels the absence of that comforting contact all the way down to his toes.
“Then you'll know that all this touching that's going on between us feels utterly foreign to me. I've never been held this lovingly before. And in such a public setting, too. I—this is difficult for me, Harry.”
“Do you really want me to let go of you or are you objecting to our embrace because you are worried that someone will come across us? I know the middle of Hogsmeade is really too public a place to give anyone a cuddle, but there's nobody else about, Severus, and you needed some comfort just now. It's not as if we are going at it on the cobblestones or something.”
A short bark of startled laughter makes it past the potion master's lips.
“Going at it on the cobblestones? That would be all kinds of uncomfortable, Potter.”
“That's what Cushioning Charms are for, gorgeous. Not that I'm that keen on having everyone gawk at us in appalled fascination, if you ever feel the need to help me get rid of a good few years of the most intense sexual frustration you can possibly imagine.
“The next time we make love is going to be pretty much like the first, only better, because there won't be a drop of alcohol anywhere near us. I'm going to love you all night long on a proper bed, with a fire roaring on the hearth and the lights turned down low. We are going to have all the time in the world to look and touch and feel each other and I won't place a single touch upon you that is tainted with my fear that it may be the last caress I'll ever give you.
“That kind of loving isn't a spectacle meant for the masses, Severus. My affection for you is a very private thing. I don't mind hugging you out here, on the streets, for everyone to see but the privilege of actually seeing your bare body and being allowed to touch it freely is a treasure that I'm not willing to share. That sort of intimacy will tie us together, help us belong to one another in a way that's too private to be witnessed by anyone outside our small circle of two.”
Severus smiles ever so briefly, clearly pleased with those words. His dark head turns slightly to the left, allowing his tall frame to align with Harry's own in such a way that he's able to look directly into his bright green eyes. Their gazes clash and merge together in a peaceful contemplation that feels open and full to bursting with the budding beauty of trust.
“You have the gift of the gab, Mr. Potter. Whenever you open your mouth to give me a lecture on the finer points of love I find myself aching to believe that I can reach the same levels of exalted passion. You could inspire armies to defend you to their last glimmer of magic. Albus would have been so proud of you.”
“Albus was a manipulative old coot, sweetheart. I don't speak like this to gain your favor. I'm just voicing my opinions out loud in the hope that they'll help you understand better what I want from you. This courtship of ours is not a game, Severus. It means a great deal to me. This is my chance to finally reach out for all the things that I've always dreamed of having.”
“You dream of being loved by me. That's such a strange dream to have. Some people may even argue that it sounds more like a nightmare than a dream, Harry. I'm afraid that your hopes for the future don't seem very wise.”
Harry snorts lightly in amusement, refusing to take the self-disparaging implications that underline his Prince's statement to heart. They've had this conversation enough times already as far as he's concerned, and he has decided to stop trying to fight this particular battle every single time that Severus brings it up. Only time will settle the man's understandable fears, anyway. Words alone can only lead them so far.
He smiles gently instead of answering, allowing his hands to uncurl from their comfortable position around Severus' hips and letting them travel slowly upwards along those spindly arms, until he's able to settle them oh-so-lovingly over his Prince's sharp cheekbones, proceeding to cradle that pale and narrow face as if it were a fragile crystal even though his touch is actually forcing that visage to remain utterly still. Locking it firmly in place while he robs it of the opportunity to turn away and avoid the sincerity that he can feel shining in the depths of his own eyes as he whispers his answer directly against those lips that have opened ever so slightly in a gasp of startled surprise.
“Loving you may not be the wisest thing I've ever done, but you are most certainly worth whatever trouble my feelings for you have brought me. Do not ever let anyone else tell you otherwise, Severus. Do you understand me?
“Let those who are interested in doing such things argue the point of whether you deserve me, or I deserve you, or whatever other assorted bullshit they wish to ponder about until they are all blue in the face and their throats have run out of moisture. My mind is made up already and no one will be allowed to mess with this decision. My heart is mine to rule over, that's the plain and simple truth. I'm a bold Gryffindor, remember? Wisdom isn't what we are after, that's a rather Ravenclaw goal. We, lions, go for pure gold, my love, and there's no treasure on Earth that's more valuable or precious than your heart, Severus Snape.”
His heart skips a single beat when instead of startling backwards in agitated retreat, as he's been half expecting his beloved to do, the man leans delicately against his touch, pressing the sharp lines of his cheekbones even more firmly against the palm of the hands that cradle them in a gesture that makes him look like an overgrown black kitten.
Dark eyes close in a silent offer of beautiful surrender as his love remains very still, quietly showing him the kind of trust that he's certain hasn't ever been offered to anyone before now. A warm ball of sheer gratitude settles firmly in the pit of his stomach and he lifts himself up on tiptoes to place a single reverent kiss on Severus' pale forehead. The cold breeze pushes the long tresses that frame that utterly beloved face playfully between them, forcing those inky black locks to tangle loosely around his wrist, his fingertips and the hard line of his Prince's shoulders like delicate coils of silken midnight.
“I love you with everything that I am, Severus Snape.” He whispers the biggest truth that his heart has ever known almost ferociously into the surrounding silence, allowing each and every one of those passionately felt syllables to fall over his precious Slytherin's visage like a soft benediction. Paper-thin eyelids flutter open once again and those eyes that are so dark and so full of often wounded emotions look directly into his own with hungry need.
“It's ironic how in tune we seem to be about this relationship of ours, Harry. You've just told me that loving me may not be wise, but you think it's still worth it, and I feel illogically compelled to confess that I said the very same thing to Rosmerta not so long ago.
“You claim to love me and I trust you enough to believe that you do. I trust you enough to want to open my heart to you and see where that will lead me. It's certainly not the wisest choice I've ever made, but I think it's worth it, too. I think you are worth the risk, Harry Potter, and I fervently hope that one of these days I may finally be able to look you in the eye and feel the genuine need to tell you that I love you right back.”
( Chapter 12. )
( Chapter 14. )
(no subject)
Date: 2013-11-09 10:45 am (UTC)Harry knows Severus better than Severus knows himself. Maybe because Severus has not a very good picture of himself. And of course he is wrong and Harry is right. I'm so glad that finally Harry is not afraid to touch Severus, to give him comfort he needs. And I think that Severus soon will be sure that Harry's touch is not only about sex.
And I'm looking forward to read "I love you" from Severus' lips.
Hugs,
myk
(no subject)
Date: 2013-11-11 07:09 pm (UTC)It is true that Harry knows Severus very well and I'm attempting to get Sev to the point where he stops being frightened by Harry's ability to understand him. Having someone who is always on your corner, no matter what troubles you are facing, is one of the most comforting experiences there is and it's time for Severus to learn exactly how that feels. Looks like Harry is gaining his trust one step at a time. Lets hope he doesn't falter...
Thanks, as always, for keeping up with this story and letting me know your thoughts about it. Your lovely and encouraging comments never fail to make me smile, my friend. :)
(no subject)
Date: 2013-11-09 11:51 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-11-11 07:10 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-11-10 06:20 am (UTC)This chapter brought out a much more gentle emotion, a sweet caring. Great job.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-11-11 07:14 pm (UTC)It's true that the boys' relationship is changing in nature rapidly. They still have some ground to cover, but Severus is finally cooperating, so things can only get better from now on.
Thanks, as always, for taking the time to both read and review, my friend. You know how much I love chatting about the boys with you...
Hugs
pekeleke
(no subject)
Date: 2013-11-14 07:33 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-11-15 07:59 pm (UTC)