A/N:
This little story was written for the SSHG_Exchange on LiveJournal as a gift for Dreaming_Trees. I do not apologise for the shameless ammount of innuendo contained below. You have been warned!
Chapter One – Failure.
The waiting room was empty, much to Snape's relief. He surveyed the room with superior disdain before choosing a chair to sit in. It gave him the best view of all of the doorways, and he had his back to the wall. He felt comforted for a brief moment, until he remembered the reason for his visit.
He glanced down at the card in his hand and read it again for the sake of distraction.
'Mr R Bates – Therapist. No problem too hard, no issue too long.
My solutions are firmly rooted in a lifetime of hands on experience and practice.'
Snape sighed and slipped the card into his inside pocket. Lucius had assured him there was no better man but still, it was humiliating and ridiculous.
He hadn't even realised he had a problem in the beginning. His recovery from Nagini's bite had taken several months, and sex had been the furthest thing from his mind. Afterwards, he returned to his old post at Hogwarts for the lack of anything else to do and threw himself into his work. It had proved to be an ideal way of blocking out the endless flashbacks from the final battle. It was only much later that he realised that his body wasn't in full working order.
He had never been a lothario, and visits to Knockturn Alley had always been few and far between, but Severus Snape was a wizard in his prime and he liked a bloody good wank now and again. Unfortunately for Snape, the relevant bits were refusing to play ball, or stand to attention, or rise to the challenge. Basically, Snape couldn't get a stiffie no matter how he tried.
At first he tried to ignore it. One failed erection does not a eunuch make, after all. But the more he tried to ignore it, the bigger it became. Or didn't, in this case. So like all good Potions Masters, he tried to heal himself. He soon found that Lust Potions, hormone stimulants and general relaxation therapies were a waste of time. Lust Potions made him horny as all get out with no tool for the task. Hormone stimulants caused mood swings he hadn't experienced since the age of fourteen. During breakfast one morning, he veered between hilarious laughter at the way Minerva's hat had fallen rakishly over one eye to steaming anger and then tearfulness, all in full view of the whole school.
He coupled his remedies with strategic manipulation of said malfunctioning anatomy and gleefully managed a half-mast once. He had stared at his manhood with the wonder and awe of a pubescent teenager, but then he'd needed to pee and the moment was lost. It took him a good few hours of wand-waving to put his bathroom back to normal after that outburst, and his mood severely deteriorated after that, hence the relaxation therapies. But they just sent him to the land of nod, and if his bits had sprung to life mid-snore, he had been too sound asleep to notice.
He then turned to that which had turned him in the past. Dark magic had its origins in sexual ritual and virgin sacrifice back in the day, so by Snape's logic there must be some spell or other that would put the magic back between his legs. He did manage a lengthening and thickening spell, but long and thick is no good when you're floppy and bugger all use to a woman or fist.
So Snape did what he had always done when the pressure is on and he had no one to talk to. He sulked for a few days, got pissed five nights in a row and let his stubble grow into an almost-beard. When he finally stopped showing up to take his classes, Minerva got a bit antsy and called in Lucius. It was a low move, even for her, but an effective one. Lucius was never one to stand on ceremony or ask permission before casting Legillimens on his friend. He was a busy man and he didn't have the time or the patience for Snape to just spit it out. Afterwards, once he had managed to convince his face to stop grinning, he passed the Therapist's card to Snape and assured him he'd be back in the saddle in no time.
So here he was, waiting to share his embarrassing secret with a stranger. But he had his wand up his sleeve and he wasn't scared to Obliviate the man if the need arose. He was just musing about adding a hex into the mix when the door opposite him opened and a tall, blond haired and (Snape had to grudgingly admit), handsome man stepped into the waiting room from the office beyond.
'Mr Snape?' He flashed a perfect row of white teeth at Severus, who immediately scowled back.
'Mr Bates?' Snape stood and reluctantly shook the younger man's hand.
'Please,' said Mr Bates. 'Call me Dick.'
The office of 'call me Dick' was lit with natural sunlight from two large picture windows on the far wall. The desk, polished mahogany, held a series of silver-framed photos of numerous blond-haired children and a startlingly beautiful blond-haired woman with laughing blue eyes and full, promising lips. Snape groaned inwardly. He was looking for advice from Mr Perfect Life who obviously functioned fully and regularly in equal measure. He hated him already.
'Take a seat, Severus. I can call you Severus, can't I?' Dick beamed a bright smile as he sat behind the desk and motioned Snape to follow suit.
'No.' Snape pursed his lips and his cloak billowed ominously before he sat down with a glare.
'Relax, Mr Snape. I want us to be friends.' Dick looked at Snape beseechingly.
'Never going to happen. Now, can we get on with this?' Snape narrowed his eyes and felt smug as the man shrank visibly in his chair. He might have the perfect life, but Snape was going to make damn sure that today would not be perfect for Dick Bates.
'Very well. Problems in the bedroom are much more common than one might think, and I've heard them all, so why don't you explain to me what's happening and we'll go from there, mmm?' Dick sat back and placed the fingertips of both hands together. Snape was reminded of Albus, and he felt his resolve crumble ever so slightly.
'There's nothing happening. That is the problem,' he replied sharply.
'And Mrs Snape? How does she feel about this?' Dick lifted his quill and started to write, all the while keeping his eyes on Snape.
'There is and never will be a Mrs Snape,' retorted Snape. Dick raised an eyebrow and nodded.
'Forgive me. My gaydar has never been finely tuned, not being homosexual myself. So, a Mr Snape, then.' He started to write again but stopped when Snape lost it.
'I am not gay, Mr Bates!' Snape slammed his fist on the desk, causing all of the photographs to topple in a pleasing domino effect, and the glass in the frames cracked loudly.
Both men stared at each other open-mouthed. Dick Bates was non-plussed by this towering inferno of a wizard who he knew by reputation but had previously, thankfully, never had the unfortunate circumstances to meet. Snape, on the other hand, was cringing at his loss of temper and his subsequent decimation of the man's family photographs. He withdrew his wand to fix the damage, but found himself immediately disarmed and strapped by the wrists in the chair before he had time to blink.
'I have a wand detection spell in the room. You wouldn't believe how many times I've been hexed in here.'
'Actually I think I would. I just wanted to fix the mess.' Snape slumped in the chair.
'That's why we're both here, Mr Snape, to fix the mess. Now, what is the problem? It's obviously badly affecting your mood.' Dick looked pointedly at the debris between them.
'I seem unable to function.' Snape averted his gaze and felt the flush of embarrassment across his pale cheeks.
'Erectile dysfunction? I see. And you have tried potions, I take it?'
Snape nodded.
'Probably some sort of psychological trauma, then. Tell me, Mr Snape. What do you think about when you masturbate?'
'I beg your pardon?'
'Come now. We're both men of the world, and all men use fantasy to get them to their happy place. What is yours? A former lover, perhaps, or someone you lusted after but never had? When you take yourself in hand and close your eyes, what do you see, Mr Snape?'
'That is personal, Bates. It is enough that I have debased myself by admitting to my lack of performance.' Snape glowered at Dick Bates as best he could while strapped in and slumped uncomfortably in his seat.
Dick Bates sighed deeply and rubbed at the crease in his forehead. He had known Snape would be prickly, and he was doing his best, but he had nothing solid to go on.
'Mr Snape,' he said impatiently. 'I am trying grasp the nettle, so to speak. There is something underlying your current predicament, a worry, a concern or an experience, perhaps, which has triggered this physical lack of response. When the problem first arose, had something significant happened?'
'The Final Battle and the demise of the Dark Lord were fairly significant, wouldn't you say?' Snape fixed Dick Bates with a baleful glare. This was getting tedious, and although he had tried releasing his bonds with wandless magic, nothing seemed to work, so he was bloody well stuck there while Mr Perfect tried to get inside his head. Even Snape didn't want to look inside his own head at times.
'Of course. However, the release of pressure for you should have had the opposite effect, Mr Snape. You should have felt a lust for life, and for anything else that took your fancy. Try and think. What else happened around that time? It may seem insignificant, or something you've tried to put out of your mind.'
Snape frowned. The final battle had merged into a series of significant events and melded into one continuous memory, one that he tried not to revisit too often. He had been stretched to his limits, mentally and emotionally, and rarely slept at all in the last month before Voldemort's death. He started to catalogue the days after he left Hogwarts until he remembered something.
'Oh, fucking hell,' he groaned, his head falling backwards in disbelief as he rolled his eyes to the ceiling.
'You recall something?' Dick Bates sat forward eagerly, hoping that Snape would finally give him something to work with.
'Fucking Lily Potter,' Snape snarled.
'You fucked Lily Potter?' Dick Bates blinked quickly.
'Not me, you moron, Wormtail. Wormtial fucked Lily Potter, and I saw the whole damn thing!'