AN: I am truly, deeply, sorry for this. I wish I had never written it. But, since it is finished, I will post it anyway. Please do not tell me how crappy it is; I already know.
HBP did not happen.
Disclaim Her: Not mine, you blood sucking lawyers.
Searching
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It wasn't anybody's fault; they had agreed on that. No one's fault that they were attracted to each other, no one's fault that they were twenty years apart in age, and definitely no one's fault that they had kissed. They had agreed that it would never happen again; that it couldn't happen again. After all, Snape was Snape, and Harry was Harry, and it just wouldn't work.
But that doesn't explain why they are in Snape's office kissing, and it definitely doesn't explain why Snape agrees to let Harry into his rooms.
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Harry had sex with Snape last night. He's not sure how it happened, or why, but it did, and now he's waking up next to Snape, and he's sore in places he's never paid much attention to before, and Snape is turning over in his sleep, and throwing an arm over Harry's stomach.
Harry smiles.
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When Snape wakes up, he panics and throws Harry out. Mindlessly wandering the corridors, Harry contemplates this new development. Really, it's not Harry's fault that he's only sixteen, and it's not his fault that he hadn't realised just how drunk Snape was the night before. He wishes that there were some way to let Snape know exactly how he feels.
When he gets to breakfast, Ron and Hermione badger him mercilessly about where he was last night. He just smiles and shakes his head and hopes that they'll eventually give up and leave well enough alone.
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The next Potions Class, Harry gets detention on purpose. When he arrives for his punishment, he insists on talking. When that doesn't work, he walks right up to Snape's desk and kisses him, slowly. The Professor is stunned, and waits a few moments before opening his mouth, and deepening the kiss. When it's over, he pulls Harry close, and takes him into his rooms once again, because, after all, Harry is so very hard to resist.
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The next time Harry tries to see him, Snape yells a lot, and throws things, and is generally cruel and despicable. When he gets tired of his own ranting, he grabs Harry by the arms and pulls him closer, and Harry wonders if it counts as rape if he still doesn't know if he wants it or not.
Later, after Snape has thrown him out yet again, this time with orders to never, ever come back, Harry realises that he wants it more than he ever imagined he could.
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Harry is sitting in front of the fire with a bottle of Firewhiskey, getting absolutely sloshed, trying very hard not to even contemplate thinking about Snape. When Ginny comes down the stairs to see what's wrong, he asks her to sit with him. They share the whiskey for a while, and Harry eventually breaks down. Ginny, being Ginny, lets him cry on her shoulder like the good friend that she is, and when Harry lifts his tearstained face to hers and begins to kiss her, she lets him do that too, even though she knows damn well that she's just a replacement for the man that Harry is so desperately pining for.
When she gets back to her dorm, slightly drunk and smelling like Harry, she gets into bed, draws the curtains, and cries herself to sleep.
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Harry, in the boys' dorm, does the same.
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Snape is watching Harry, wondering when he became Harry and not Potter, pretending that he doesn't give a fuck.
He tries to tell himself that he's twice Harry's age, that he shouldn't even be interested in the boy-and he is just that-a boy. He tries to tell himself that he doesn't care, that it doesn't matter that Harry now wanders the castle in a daze, pale and drawn, like a ghost, or that he seems to be taking whatever he can get from whoever offers, no matter the cost. He tries to tell himself that the way Malfoy leers at Harry in class now doesn't bother him at all.
He fails miserably.
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Harry wonders if he is a whore, having now slept with a good third of the sixth years and quite a few of the seventh years. It has been a very long time since he slept in his own bed, and his friends are worried, like always. He wishes that they would leave him alone.
Malfoy is smirking again, and Harry know what it means, and sincerely wishes that he didn't.
He follows him down to the Dungeons anyway.
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Malfoy is cruel; when has he been anything else? But it is different this time. This time Harry says no. He is tired of doing anything to keep from feeling alone, tired of the abuse, of the meaningless sex, and of Malfoy.
Malfoy, as his father has raised him, refuses to take no for an answer.
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Snape finds Harry curled into a ball, shaking, in a long neglected corner of the Dungeons, tears leaking out of his eyes. He helps him get up, and escorts him to his chambers, and tells himself that it's impossible that he helped cause this, in any way at all. Still, when the shivering, crying boy latches on to his robes, he can't help but feel responsible. He awkwardly places an arm around Harry, whose shoulders are shaking with sobs, and whispers little meaningless phrases and platitudes to try and calm him down.
He wants to kiss him.
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He shouldn't.
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He does anyway.
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Harry, physically and emotionally exhausted, collapses into the Potions Professor's arms, and begins sobbing. He can feel an arm go around him, and words are being whispered into his ear, but he can't understand them. He looks up and meets eyes that, like his, are lonely and confused.
Snape - Severus - kisses him.
Harry kisses back.
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And now Harry is once again lying next to a sleeping Severus Snape, and he is smiling, and he is thinking that he really couldn't be happier right now.
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Severus wakes up and Harry gets ready to leave.
"Where are you going?"
Severus reaches up from the bed and pulls Harry back in, under the covers, into a warm embrace. Harry, still smiling, falls asleep again, the thought passing through his head that he wants to wake up to this every day.
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"I love you."
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"I know."
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"I love you too."
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THE END.