"Severus, what are you thinking?!"

"What are you shouting about, Lucius?" The dark haired man questioned, turning to his long time friend and lover.

"That insane suggestion you gave the Lord!" The Malfoy hissed, concern clouding his ice grey eyes, "You will never be safe as a spy, Severus!"

Something briefly flitted across the Snape's face, and he looked toward the floor, only to bring his gaze sharply back up to the man in front of him.

"It's for the good f us all, Luc, and you know it." Even to a deaf man's ears the voice sounded untruthful.

"Sev," Lucius stepped closer to the other an, raising an elegant hand to caress the Snape's cheek, "Don't lie to me, Sev. You can tell me anything, you know that."

Severus looked sorely tempted to say what he wished, but said instead,

"Perhaps in time Lucius."

The Malfoy sighed, but placed an arm around the other's waist in a comforting gesture.

After they had left Hogwarts, he had finally learned what had happened that horrible night his lover had come back shaken and pale.

He had been attacked by a werewolf.

One of the Gryffindor boys who had delighted in tormenting him, one of Dumbledore's Golden Gryffindors who could never do wrong, even when there was attempted murder on a fellow student.

Now, after that had been found out, comes another secret that would keep them that much further apart.

"Care to come to the manor tonight, love?" The blonde asked, walking with Severus towards the Anti-Apparation wards of their Lord's gathering place.

The Snape internally fought with what he knew to do, and what he wanted, eventually agreeing softly, and being kissed goodbye by the aristocrat as he Apparated away.

Severus stood there for a few moments, the loss of another body's warmth hitting him hard. With a small frustrated sigh, he too Apparated, only his destination would hold less than a pleasant welcome.

"Is that all he said to you?" A wizened wizard with a flowing beard questioned gravely to Severus, hands clasped together on his desk.

"Yes Headmaster." The man replied, eyes refusing to move from the carpet below his feet.

"If you are sure my boy. I shall see you at dinner."

With little hesitation the Snape replied, "I won't be at dinner Headmaster."

The older wizard raised an eyebrow in question, "Why ever not? Surely you must be hungry."

"I have an appointment to keep tonight, sir."

The Headmaster continued to look questioningly at the young man in front of him. Only twenty and involved in such muck.....

"I do hope it is not with one of your....associates, Severus."

"I must be leaving now, Headmaster. I shall be late otherwise." The man made to get up but was stopped by Dumbledore's steely soft command.

"Is it with Lucius Malfoy?"

Damn the old man, Severus thought grimly, Damn him to reside with the Dark Lord for eternity.

"Yes sir. I have agreed to meet Lucius at his manor tonight."

"I believe I asked you to break off ties with that man, did I not Severus?" Dumbledore steeped his fingers, still gazing unflinchingly at the man before him.

Severus glared daggers at the older wizard. Of course Dumbledore knew of their relationship, how could he not? Though wanting him to leave Lucius, that was unthinkable.

"I'm afraid can not do that Headmaster. If that will be all...?"

"Yes child. You may leave now."

With flowing robes Severus all but ran out of the castle, away from that madman who was the Headmaster, and towards the man he card for more than any other.

With an almost silent 'pop!' he was gone, already at the front gates of the Malfoy Manor.

"Gods, Sev!"

"Luc!"

The two men's ragged breathing was the only sound to fill the overly furnished room, and soon one had his arms around the other in an all too familiar position. Well spent and sated, Lucius dared to ask about the incident earlier that day- the secret Severus was trying to keep from him.

And he had thought, the dark haired man shook his head and mumbled, "Not tonight Luc, not tonight..."

Though the day came when the pressures of his life became too much, when his collogues still shunned him for once being on other side, when Dumbledore asked one too many times when he would stop seeing his blonde lover.

Almost five months after his suggestion to the Dark Lord, Lucius asked him again what his secret what, the thing that was keeping them apart still.

Severus could no longer keep it to himself, when those who knew shunned him, when all he wanted was an honest relationship with the man that vowed to love him always. Even though this would make that same man most likely shun from the Malfoy life.

"I'm a spy, Lucius." He said, trembling slightly in the other man's arms, positive this would get him kicked out of the Malfoy's life, and into his own solitary bed in the Hogwarts dungeons.

"I'm aware, love." Lucius replied, stroking the Snape's chest idly, and tightening their embrace slightly in reassurance for the other man to go on.

"Not for the Master, Luc." He whispered, shutting his eyes tightly, waiting for a blow, harsh rebuke, or anything else the blonde was capable of.

Lucius's eyebrow's furrowed, thinking quickly, as he always did.

"But surely you are not saying- You're....with him?"

The Snape didn't respond, the idiocy of his decision hitting him full force. What was he expecting Lucius to do? Hug him and say everything would be alright?

"Oh, Sev...."

The Malfoy buried his face in the other man's hair, close to hysteria,

"What are you thinking? Going against the Master? He'll kill you!"

Just when things surely couldn't get any stranger, the Snape thought with deadly amusement.

"Then I shall die at the Master's hands," he responded quietly, still refusing to call the Dark Lord anything but the Master, even when speaking with Dumbledore, "Either his or yours, whoever decides I am of no use anymore, first."

Five years, Lucius thought, somewhat angrily, Five years and he hasn't learned anything.

"Never," the blonde said with conviction, "Never would I harm you. We promised each other, don't you remember?"

"You...you...what of my b-betrayal to the Fold?" Even after five months, it wasn't an easy thing to admit he had turned his back to those who had taken him in when he was at his lowest.

"Do you think that it would truly matter to me if you decided to kill the Master?" The Malfoy stilled his roaming hands and focused on steadying his voice, "Sev, I joined the brothers because, and with you at my side. I will never do anything to harm you, ever."

Vision suddenly blurring, Severus brought his face up to kiss Lucius, nearly sobbing into the other man's mouth.

When they broke apart the Snape continued to look at the blonde, a small smile on his features.

"I love you Sev. Never forget it."

Lucius nearly started, when a timid voice replied not long after,

"Love you too, Luc. Gods I love you."