Harry hadn't had many lovers. Alright, so he'd had just the one. But he knew that the way they interacted wasn't normal. Not that he minded, as such, he just…
It was like, he supposed, to create a metaphor, as if normal love, the sort that Ron and Hermione enjoyed, was a warm evening in front of a fire. Everyone else in the universe was distant and cold, and they warmed themselves with each other's presence.
But their love, or rather the way that they made love, was different. It was as if all of the fans, all of the critics, everyone and their blasted awful letters and howlers and popularised press-fed bullshit, were the burning heat. It was as if Ron and Hermione cleaved together during winter, and as if during the horrible sweltering summer Severus had presented him with a cold iced drink.
It wasn't an alcoholic drink, more like an iced tea, green, with little minty bits and blueberries, with honey sitting in a languid solid puddle at the bottom. And when they met they didn't hold each other, or talk, or laugh; they didn't eat dinner alone together or plan families or holidays. They just were, at once, in the same room. In summer. And they'd both decided to pick up that wonderful drink and have a sip.
And then another sip.
Harry drew his index finger down his lover's spine, pulling up and away as he reached that soft curve just before Severus' arse. It was really, really, nice, he thought to himself. To know that upstairs, with all the rising heat and friction, the other teachers were sweating and greasy and uncomfortable in their robes, while he lay in the cool dark damp of the dungeons and could slowly touch as much as he wanted.
Severus didn't know that he did it. There were unspoken rules to it, that they'd negotiated in silence in the dark. Harry would try, Severus would pull away, and he'd never try it again, while the man was awake. So there were no kisses, no embraces save the obvious, no snuggling and no caressing outside of sex. They'd just lie there, on the cold sheets, in the afterglow, not even holding hands. Then they'd shower, and Severus would return to his work. Harry would return to his room, and listen to music on his discman until he fell asleep.
It was strange, he thought to himself, as he reassured himself that Severus was asleep and reached out to trace the snake bite with his fingertips, that things had ended the way that they did. So suddenly. His mind repeated what he'd been thinking during the whole battle.
That Neville was the one. That it was obvious, that the prophecies never mentioned who or how or when or how many, just a birthday and circumstance that fit them both. It was Harry's bad luck that he was the horcrux and Neville was the hero, and that the entire universe had mixed it up and misled them.
That he was going to die, just by chance, and that nobody would notice the efforts of anyone who'd volunteered. Heroes volunteer, like Neville. They step up and accept challenges, they don't just run along trying to save their own hides.
So when he'd sat up, alive, and shocked by it, and he'd calmed down from the adrenaline rush, and he'd stumbled onto the slowly bleeding body as if he'd been dragged there, he'd felt his heart push.
As if his own heart, his own self, had rejected the life he'd been given. It pushed, out, like a great exhalation of breath. And then there had been nothing, and then there had been the infirmary full of weeping families.
Ginny was at home with her parents and siblings. Hermione had gone to be with Ron. But Harry couldn't really go there. He wasn't meant to be there, he was supposed to be dead, for fuck's sake!
Instead he set himself up in one of the abandoned dorm rooms, and begun to help Neville and the professors and some nice Hogsmeade locals rebuild Hogwarts in Dumbledore's memory.
It was summer, though, and with the wards all twisted, and holes in the roofs all over the place, it was godawfully hot. And the dungeons were very very cool.
Harry realised that eyes were watching him, so he slowly withdrew his hand and lay still, solemn, on the bed. He'd crossed one of those impossible lines, and those eyes were saying nothing. Was he being reprimanded or just accepted?
Harry stretched his arms back, and he felt a hand on his belly. It moved slowly and deliberately in lines, pressing cold and hard like ice. He knew enough to not ask any questions. He arced up into the hand and spread his legs so that Severus could slip one of his own between them.
They made love like clockwork, starting with slow caresses to sides and thighs. Smooth and cool. It had been a month, still summer, and they'd learnt each others' bodies so well. Harry pulled a little, and Severus settled onto his chest lightly. While Severus pressed his lips to Harry's left nipple and let his tongue fall softly out from between them, gently begin laving the sensitive area, Harry sighed and gasped and felt himself stiffen against Severus' thigh. Slow, nice, cool and wonderful. His brain began to float away, as he drowned in the sensation.
A well learnt ritual now, as Severus sucked and bit and tantalised Harry ran his hands mindlessly in soft circles and shapes over his back, fingers digging in when that blissful sweet sensation flared suddenly. They rocked against each other slowly.
For some reason, that morning, somewhere between the start, with those wonderful kisses to his chest, and the end where Severus was arching up and away while sliding in and out, slowly, it struck Harry that this wasn't the escapist fucking that they'd wordlessly agreed on.
Because it never used to matter, really, that Severus hid behind his hair while he rose over Harry and watched those final moments. Because now Harry was squinting up and losing track of the motions, trying to catch a glimpse of those eyes.
Because, at the start, they'd shuddered with the speed of it, and were exhausted and out of breath. But now they were going slow, they were rested, and Harry could hear the soft burr-like catch in Severus' breath with every thrust, a muted scream almost.
Harry could feel everything at once. Severus deep inside him, thrusting slowly so slowly, forcing their bodies to slide in an endless ecstacy. The coolness of the air against their warm skin, their skin, as if they were one being.
They were making love. It seemed important, to be bothered by it, but then Severus moaned and let himself fall forwards, resting his weight on his arms, which he propped beside Harry's head. Harry's eyes sought through the hair, until with one soft thrust it fell felicitously to the side, and Harry could see up into those cool black eyes. They were shining, and beautiful, and the sight of them did more than one hundred million long slow thrusts into his prostate could. He came, but gently, feeling his orgasm wash over his body in waves. As his mind began to blank out, he could still see those eyes above his, staring down, as Severus' cock pulsed inside him.
Severus collapsed onto him, for the first time ever. His face nuzzled itself into Harry's shoulder and lay there, breathing, into his neck. Harry's arms came up relfexively and wrapped around his back.
Harry felt like he was on the edge of a precipice, as if he was standing outside the OWLs again, waiting for his turn. He had no control over anything, he had no idea what came next, whether he'd even want to succeed or fail, or whether this was a situation at which anyone could succeed. He felt floaty in a different way, and lost, as if his soul had been sat on for too long, and it had developed pins and needles.
But he was anchored by the soft, repetetive breath against his neck. There were lips, soft lips, barely touching his skin. They moved as if they were speaking, but Harry couldn't hear anything.
He realised that Severus was still inside him, shrinking as his blood slowly returned to the rest of his body. It felt sweet and awful, to feel that warm connection melt away. Harry had never felt that before, and even as he tried to describe the sensations in words he could remember, the feeling slipped away. He was lying in an embrace which was surely against the rules, and he could sense tangibly how it all slipped away from him.
Severus' breathing slowed, calmed, and then disappeared. He pulled back, pushed himself up, and went to have a shower.
Harry lay on the bed for another hour, unsure of how to feel or what to do, before he followed.
When he entered the lab to help prepare the wards, he found the room empty, so with a growing sense of dread he walked up the stairs into the warmer air. In the Great Hall he checked the task assignments, and saw that Severus had swapped Harry out onto the clearing of rubble from the dorms. They'd cleared the remaining staff's rooms first, then refurbished them, and then started on the common rooms and dorms, working in one house at a time.
Harry dejectedly grabbed an apple from the bowl on the table near the listings, and slumped up more stairs again in the heat to the Hufflepuff common room. Professor Vector waved hello, and then turned back to unenchanting the wall hangings so that they could be removed and restored safely.
Before, everything had just happened easily, Harry realised, as he sat down later in the day to dinner. There had always, somehow, been a vacant seat beside Severus when he'd entered the dining hall, but that evening there were none. Harry filled his plate and sat along the side of the dias with the other stragglers, and picked at his bread roll. The house elves were wonderful, but they had reduced their kitchen time to help with repairs. Admittedly they'd fixed the wall in no time whatsoever, but it did make for much less exciting fare than the old dinners of Hogwarts.
Severus sat there, back still and barely moving. He could, surely had to, feel Harry's eyes on him. When he left, Harry took his plate to the dirty piles on the set table, scraped his scraps into the bin for Hagrid's… pets… and followed.
Severus pretended not to notice Harry and swept, deliberately and resolutely, downstairs into the dungeons. Harry stumbled, lost in thought, and felt the brush of a hand touch his elbow. He looked up in shock to see a gentle, worried face turn into a dark snarl.
Severus stalked off again, and Harry followed again. As they descended Harry could feel the air around his skin cool and start to create that familiar welcome chill. Then, one quick turn, and they were there. Severus opened his door silently, but instead of leaving it open for Harry to walk through, he slammed it shut loudly behind himself.
It wasn't, of course, enchanted anymore. They'd stripped the wards from the teachers' quarters, all of them, so that new ones could be woven into the resculpted bricks of the school. It was just a door, with a few simple locks and an alarm spell attached. Harry took a deep breath, certain that this was one of those turnpoint moments, and thought about Ginny in The Burrow.
He'd join them, there. He loved her, he'd wanted to marry her. She was his family, as were all the Weaselys, and Hermione. But it felt wrong. It felt too warm. He didn't fit there, he knew he'd just hae to sit down and hear their voices, feel the absences, and the panic would bubble up from his stomach.
Harry raised his wand and cast Alohomora.
He pushed open the door and walked carefully into Severus' rooms. He passed the books on their shelves and a pile of their dirty clothing that they'd shelled off of each other two nights past. He inhaled the dark, dusty, cool scent of the living room and walked through to settle himself silently on the bed, removing his shoes and socks with his toes along the way.
He could hear Severus in the shower. He was taking much longer than usual, but at last he emerged and lay, dripping with a towel around his shoulders, on the bed. He didn't seem to have noticed Harry, but then he spoke.
"You know, you aren't welcome here anymore."
Harry bit his lip, holding in something angry and bitter that was trying to escape. He counted to ten, and thought about tall cool glasses of iced tea, bitter and cold, but with that wonderful honey coiled in the bottom.
"We made love. You can't pretend that it didn't happen."
"Actually, I can. Whether or not I will, Potter, is another question. And I will."
Harry frowned, and rolled onto his side to face Severus.
"No, you won't. And don't argue grammar with me." Harry paused, as if saying a name aloud meant something much more sacred than it did. "Severus. Don't do that. I know that you can't."
Harry reached out to touch Severus, pushing his dark, long wet hair aside so that they were, after a fashion, seeing eye-to-eye. He noticed, a day of realisations, he laughed to himself, the tiny tic of a flinch that he had never noticed before.
"Severus."
His head turned, body rolled so that they were facing each other in the cool dark.
"Why do I scare you so much?"
They lay in silence, and Harry could see Severus' eyes begin to shine again. They leaked sideways, and Harry stroked his lower cheek to feel the hot moisture
"Because," Severus forced out after a while, "You don't scare me at all, and I'm… I can't… It's not…"
Then Severus was moving, fast, and his arms were wrapping around Harry's waist. Lips pressed up into Harry's, and he felt them burn against him. Felt Severus' warm, desperate tongue stroke fire into his mouth, and felt the burn of those salty tears as they fell onto his cheeks.
Severus slid onto Harry, and into Harry, and as they moved together Harry realised that summer would be over in a few weeks, and that Autumn would bring a cold change very soon. It was, in retrospect, a very good thing that Severus' living room had a fireplace.