One

"Look… at… me…"

Harry Potter woke from his dream with a start. His face was flushed with color and very feverish, and he dragged one sweaty hand over it as he sat up in bed. Sweat was pouring off of him, but it did no good in terms of cooling his heated face. Instead, the chilled sweat made Harry shiver as it soaked into his blue-striped pajamas, causing them to stick to his skin uncomfortably. Harry rubbed at his forehead in pain, for it had begun to throb quite persistently, and he moaned as he recalled just what he had dreamt of.

"Look… at… me…" Snape had whispered. Green eyes met black, but only for a moment, since just a second later Snape's eyes fell closed, his mouth lying open strangely. Then Harry felt a great pull at the front of his robes, and he was suddenly in lip-lock with Severus Snape.

After a moment of shock, Harry began to respond to the kiss; and soon it didn't seem like Snape was in any danger of dying at all, for his kiss was so ferocious. But eventually, Snape pulled away, and as he did so he whispered one last thing.

"I've always loved you," Snape said, looking more distraught than he ever had, "Even more than…"

Harry had woken up before Snape could finish his last words, but Harry had an inkling as to what Snape was about to say.

"Even more than Lily…" Harry whispered groggily, puzzling over it as he stared at his hand, blurred by his poor vision. A glance at the blurred numbers of the digital clock on his bedside table reminded Harry again to put his glasses on; and after he groped about on the table for them and placed them haphazardly on his face, Harry noted the time to be 5 o'clock in the morning.

"To bloody early," he mumbled in disgruntlement as he swung his legs over the side of his single bed. Some habits died hard, and the routine formed by Ginny always waking Harry up at 5 o'clock to go for a 'refreshing' morning jog was one of these hard-to-kill habits.

However, now that Ginny was out of the picture, and off with some other, handsome bloke— named Frederic, strangely enough— most of the old habits were falling fast. Unfortunately, some new ones were beginning to make themselves known. Ever since Ginny had cheated on and then broken-up with Harry, Harry had begun to have recurring and rather odd dreams about Snape; most of which were of his death, though they were hardly ever accurate.

Harry stood up from his bed, flapping his hand half-heartedly at the light switch, which obediently flipped on. The bright light made Harry wince, and he shielded his eyes with a moan as he stumbled out his room, down the hall and into the bathroom. As his eyes finally adjusted to the brightness, Harry pulled open the curtains over his window in the bathroom. The sun's light was not nearly as bright as the light bulb's; its glow barely lighting the horizon. Harry felt the throbbing ache in his head begin to dull, and his head was completely back to its normal self once he had finished brushing his teeth.

Still feeling particularly disjointed, Harry decided to take a hot shower before he headed down stairs to make his breakfast tea. After turning the knob onto hot and stripping out of his blue-striped pajamas, Harry stepped under the hot spray. He sighed as the water poured over him, soothing the muscles along his back that were tensed by the drudgery of life in the city. Slowly working out the knots in his shoulders calmed him down quite a lot, and before long he was aroused; his hands having wandered down his chest to his nipples.

Harry's thoughts turned dirty as his hands wandered even lower and— after careful consideration of the probability of his house staying empty— Harry took his hard prick in hand and began to stroke. Barely moments later, Harry was completely lost in his own perverted thoughts, and the faster his hand moved along his cock, the more Severus Snape came to mind.

"Uhn, Snape," Harry said, licking his lips. He was too far gone to care or even notice what words came spewing out of his mouth as he masturbated. With a quick jerk of his hand Harry was cuming, and he let out a low moan as he did so.

Once his head had cleared of the pleasant post-masturbation fog, Harry realized just whose name he had moaned. After a quick scream, Harry jumped out of the shower; caught his reflection in the mirror and screamed again, and then jumped back in to the shower to turn the damned water off because he really couldn't afford to pay for all that hot water. Harry leapt out of the shower once again and looked purposefully at himself in the bathroom mirror. He slapped his face a few times; chanting, "Get it together, Potter. Get it together!" before realizing that this was completely absurd and that the logical thing to do would be to have some tea and possibly an antacid. An upset stomach had a tendency to make him delusional; and his tough— or rather, completely fried— nerves had a habit of not communicating with his brain on a regular basis.

Harry toweled his hair dry and slipped back into his dirty pajamas, reminding himself to do laundry before that ketchup stain became a permanent part of his favorite trousers. He moseyed down the stairs with an air of a person who was only half awake. Once the bread was placed in the toaster (Of course you put bread in the toaster! It would be a waste to put toast in, now wouldn't it?) and Harry finally found the extremely sneaky marmalade, Harry began making his favorite kind of Irish Breakfast tea.

Harry was facing towards the counter top— making his tea— when the apparition first appeared. It had materialized behind him, of course, so he did not notice its existence until it spoke.

"Harry," it said disjointedly and in a low, tenor voice.

Harry squawked in surprise, turning to face the ghost and spilling his steaming tea onto the tiled floor in the process. He then succeeded in promptly slipping on the spilt tea and dropping his cup, which shattered upon contact with the tile, and hitting the back of his head on the rounded edge of the table top. Harry was out cold before he made it to the floor himself.