Title: SNAPE ANONYMOUS PART II
Author: islingtonroad R (language, sexual references, mild hanky-panky)
Pairing: HP/SS
Category: Humour/Parody
Status: Sequel to a one-shot… oops, complete this time I swear
Length: 7 + a bit thousand
Summary: This time Snape has a problem and Harry doesn't want to help… "I think there has been enough 'relationship' for today."
> > >
Going to the Snape Anonymous meetings was supposed to be about rehabilitation, friendship, strength of character and sharing. To Harry it was more like the Arts & Crafts day at a holiday camp populated with perpetually nice people. Even his enemies weren't his enemies during the meetings -- and his friends! They were like well-meaning religious fanatics charged with the sacred duty of insuring Harry Potter's tarnished soul would buff up nicely enough to be let into heaven... When dear old Voldy could actually get around to attacking him seriously this year instead of working on his Impressionistic papier-mache sculpture entitled 'Serpent: The Unrequited Love'.
The thing that got Harry's goat the most (and dragged it up the hill, beat it with sticks and tossed it of a cliff saying 'Fly! Be free!') was the camaraderie...
The meaningful nods at mealtimes whenever a certain professor walked impatiently into the hall. The knowing winks whenever Harry got distracted during a certain class because a certain voice trickled like ant-infested honey all the way down his spine, into his pants and dripped on to his balls. The 'It's alright, mate' reassurances, the 'We've all been there' comforting touches.
Bloody hell! There were more coded phrases and frigging Masonic handshakes than were healthy for any secret society to have.
Pity it's not a bit more like James Bond and MI5, thought Harry, Then maybe Q could whip up something to laser out the bizarre part of my brain that goes: Potions class? Oh goody, wank material!
And the ultimate, mega-bad, mind-rendingly-catastrophic-beyond-belief, most-worst-thing-that-could-ever-happen-ever-anywhere-anywhen appeared to actually, really be happening...
...It seemed, to Harry, that Snape was beginning to notice.
That realisation felt like Devil's Snare squeezing around Harry's ribs, puncturing his heart, obliviating his lungs, worming up his oesophogas in thick, oily-green tendrils and raking up the back of his nose before splurking horribly into his brain and blossoming there quite nicely.
Harry didn't want to imagine what it must feel like for Snape.
Snape was not an oblivious man. At least, he didn't think so. The world according to Snape decreed that anyone who spent any amount of time as a spy (or a teacher) had to have his wits about him or suffer a terrible, agonising death at the hands of the conniving, murderous masses (or children).
Of course, it could be competently argued that anyone who had their wits about them would never become a spy (or a teacher) in the first place. Thus, neatly negating Snape's line of reasoning and/or implicating that all spies (and teachers) were fundamentally incompetent and short lived, or were a paradoxical paradigm that would collapse on itself, possibly negating the space-time continuum and destroying life as we know it.
Or not.
And so, it is safe to say, that while Snape was not oblivious per se, he was perhaps more oblivious -- or at least less vigilant -- than he thought himself to be. Otherwise, he would have surely realised earlier than he did that a considerable chunk of the people he interacted with melted as soon as they saw him. Given that one of these people was, in fact, Headmaster Dumbledore, whom most people believed to be mostly, if not completely, off his rocker, it wasn't actually much of a surprise that it took Snape sometime to put the pieces together.
Similarly, the idea that some of his little snakes in the house of Slytherin might be obsequious little shi - students, rather, meant most people might a) not take their affectations and affections too seriously, or b) assume they were the butt of a juvenile joke.
Anyway, what this all boils down to is that while it can be conclusively proved that Severus Snape was not actually the omniscient being he believed himself to be -- he wasn't as dull as the edge of a corncob either.
And, to his credit, Severus Snape was beginning to realise that something was up. That something was not quite right. That something was, in fact, not quite squaring up the way it should. That there was something slightly askew in the wizarding world as he knew it. That there was, seemingly, something beginning to smell...
...like roses...
...yes, roses. It was nearing Saint Valentine's Day, and Hogwarts, Hogsmeade and the greater part of the western world was slowly but surely turning into a sea of red roses, expensive chocolates and really lame Hallmark cards.
Realists -- gag now.
Romantics -- Bring out the tissues and cuddle up to a loved one, be it person, pet or soft, fuzzy toy.
Realists -- Gag again.
Harry had continued with the Snape Anonymous meetings. Admittedly, though, out of a sense (a very real sense) of peer pressure. While the brain-retchingly, gut-spasmingly horrid embarrassment had faded (some- very slight -what) other things had not really changed.
In fact, every subsequent meeting had been alarmingly similar to the first one Harry had attended, only with fewer cups of tea being offered. Harry had actually tried to stave off the offers of tea by desperately clutching a mug of the revoltingly-smelly, freeze-dried wallaby-droppings coffee, in the forlorn hope that the odour would deter people. Alas, no luck.
The only way the boy wonder could rationalise his continued attendance in the S.A. meeting room every second Friday was that it made Ron and Hermione's tryst seem like less of a date and more like a school excursion. With Dumbledore leading their way and chaperoning them, and with Hagrid bringing up the rear, it was almost like a Hogsmeade weekend, anyway.
The latest Weasley Boys' Project (patent pending) was trying to wrangle permission from the school to take the giant squid along to at least one of the meetings. The boys were conducting a convincing campaign along the lines of the squid really, truly, madly deeply being beak-over-tentacles in love with the Potions master. They had already added it to the official membership roll and were trying to convince Molly to knit it a black cloak -- complete with logo. So far, the teachers had been against the idea, and Hagrid had even been reduced to tears.
But back to Snape...
With the advent of Valentine's Day, more and more flowers, chocolates and cards were arriving addressed to him, signed from 'Anonymous'. This was in place of the usual assortment of love poems and what-nots carefully signed from despised figures of history. One year Snape had scored no fewer than seven tokens of love and devotion from Ghengis Kahn. That had been a highlight. Ivan the Terrible was another favourite, too.
Somehow, the anonymous ones were more disconcerting than the chocolate-covered hazelnuts laced with weed-killer. The anonymous ones had not been tampered with and Snape couldn't see the joke. What was the point of doing something like that? To lull him into a false sense of security? Grow up -- who would fall for a stunt like that?
Besides, Snape made a point of donating any and all foodstuffs to the Widows and Orphans' Fund to do with as they wished. Severus realised he might have to start re-thinking his policy if he was to receive actual chocolates and not cocoa flavoured mouthfuls of nerve-toxins. Maybe he could put up a notice and sell them to the students...? No, that wouldn't be any fun with unpoisoned chocolates, either. Maybe a preservation charm? Then he could pass them along as Christmas presents? Did people give chocolates at Christmas? Did Snape really care if they did or didn't? Did he even want to give Christmas presents anyway?
To add insult to injury, no matter how many times Snape faked hayfever-type allergy symptoms the hateful staff insisted on decking the halls with boughs of roses. For what point exactly? Did they hate the plant so much that they needed to hack off its sexual organs and nail them to walls to prevent the cursed blooms from spreading?
And so Snape stalked and swooped, swept and strode through the halls of the school, furiously trying to make rhyme or reason from the mindless, heart-shaped drivel that seemed to be filling up peoples' heads and spilling out of their ears.
He went to his office -- there was a pink and red pile of heart-shaped boxes with matching envelopes sitting there innocently on his desk.
'Ergh.'
Next, Severus tried his storeroom. But no, there were horrid little packages there, too.
Same story in the staffroom.
'Tsk.' It was terrible, really, how depraved some people could be. Snape could hear most of them tittering behind his back as he left his fellow professors and went to find some un-presentified corner of the castle. It was fine for some people to laugh at the misfortune of others. See if he brewed up a painkilling potion the next time one of them fell of their broom, drunk after a Friday-night booze-up at Rosemerta's. They could all roll about in agony if that was how they were going to behave. He didn't care. 'Hmph!'
Severus, feeling a tad overwhelmed by the heartiness of the world around him, decided enough was enough. Removing to his private rooms may be considered, by some, as a sulky retreat -- but providing it was a retreat, he didn't really give a rat's arse.
Step step step step step went the footsteps.
Clunk went the heavy door shutting.
'Bugger,' went the defeated Potions master when he saw the tumbled heap of presents -- big and large -- strewn across his desk, armchair, sofa, floor, hearthrug, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera...
He could even hear the tinny little voices of charmed cards singing unforgivably sweet songs, thankfully muffled by pink tissue paper and red envelopes. Snape wondered briefly if the dinky things would suffer if he drowned them in a bucket of water -- no, wait! Hydrochloric acid, that would make their little voices wail...
Harry Potter was no one's idea of a genius. Or even a keen student of social phenomena. But even he could tell when people were putting the cart before the horse.
'Ron. Ron. Hssst! Ron!'
'Huh? What?'
'He doesn't know, right?'
'Who? And what, Harry?' Honestly, sometimes Ron thought the whole Boy-Who-Whatever stuff was kinda overrated.
The boys were in the Great Hall, along with almost everyone else, in anticipation of the Valentine's Day feast. The hall truly was a memorial to all things fluffy, pink and kitsch. No one should ever have to see a house elf dressed as a Playboy Bunny. Ever. It made the eyes bleed and the brain implode. A cutesy-wootsey cotton tail just did not suit Dobby. He couldn't pull that and the pink stilettos off. Although, the leotard was an improvement over some of his pillowcases. Maybe.
'You know,' Harry hissed, not really wanting to open up the discussion to anybody else. 'Him, about the meetings. The ones with Moony?'
'Ohh. Right. Gotcha, Harry. Those meetings. And him. Right. Why didn't you say so?'
'Ron!''
'Oh all right. No. As far as I know, no he does not know. We are still all alive aren't we? D'you really think he'd let us live if he actually knew? 'Course not. We'd be deader than a really dead thing that's decomposing.'
'That's what I thought, too.' Harry was still whispering furiously. 'But if that's the case, why has everyone in the group been sending him Valentine's Day presents?'
Ron had the grace to blush a bit. 'Well. You know. Moony said...'
'Moony said what, Ron?' Harry was determined to find out the truth.
'Moony said it would be okay. To, y'know, send something. Anonymously of course!'
'Uh huh.' Harry was non-plussed. 'Well, I don't think by 'something' Moony meant the entire collection at Honeydukes! Just look at his place setting at the teacher's table! The pile of presents is the size of Hagrid!' Harry's face was beginning to mottle with the effort of continuously exclaiming in a whisper.
'Chill out, Harry. They're all signed 'Anonymous'. It's not like he's going to work out who they're from. It's all fair. No need to get your knickers in a twist!' Ron thumped Harry reassuringly on the back.
Harry glowered. 'Ron, correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought the whole point of going to those stupid meetings was to get over this problem -- not wallow in it and buy the man presents! He's going to find out and then we're all going to be dead. Very dead. Even deader than something that's been dead and decomposing for a very long time!'
'Come off it, Harry! You don't really think that, do you?' Ron was incredulous.
'Just look at the people that go to the meetings. Everyone stares at him like a love-sick school-girl!.'
'That's not true! Well, okay, maybe Ginny does -- but she is a love-sick school-girl!.'
'Ron, even Hermione does it! She's acting as if Snape's the second coming of Lockhart! Filch polishes the dungeon corridors trying to win favour, Dumbledore has taken to wearing muted colours on his robes, Hagrid has been providing stuff for the potions storeroom and you know how much he loves his pets. Malfoy and Co can't keep their tongues in their heads! There are more presents on that table than there are official S.A. members, so god knows how many more people are following him like dogs in heat!'
'C'mon on Harry! You're exaggerating! You've just become sensitive to the whole thing since we took you to the meetings. There's nothing to worry about!'
The covert exchange between the two was abruptly interrupted when the main doors boomed open and the object of Harry's turmoil stalked into the hall.
Snape was coiled tight, like a coiled, tight thing, possibly a spring. While brooding in his room he had come to a particularly unpleasant mental station, boarded the train of thought there and gone for a disconcerting journey through the countryside of 'What If-ville', with a stop over in 'I Can't Believe Any Of This-burg' where he'd had to get out to stretch his legs.
Severus had dismissed the idea as stupid, illogical, completely paranoid and definitely a few sandwiches short of a picnic. But...
But he had to be certain. And the only way that was going to happen was if he got up, left his rooms, walked all the way to the Great Hall, sat himself down and scrutinised every living soul he happened to see. And all the dead ones, too, just to make sure.
So he did.
Well, that is to say, he mostly did.
He did get up, and he did leave his rooms. He also walked all the way to the Great Hall. He didn't actually see anyone (living or dead) en route. He entered the Great Hall, however, didn't have to sit down at the teacher's table. All he had to do was scan the population of the hall, casually at first and then increasingly frantically. Every turn of his head gave him something to be alarmed about. For the first time in forever, Severus Snape was beginning to panic.
It can't be.
It just simply cannot be.
They're all looking at me as if they...
(like) (want) (expect) (like) (desire) (yearn)
...no.
No. It's an April Fool's Day trick in February. It's a poison in the water supply! It's...
As Snape's mind worked desperately to convince itself that people were not staring at him as if they wanted to eat him whole with chocolate sauce, Harry's mind was freezing at horror at the expression on the Potions master's face.
He knows! thought Harry. I know he knows! And now he's going to kill us.
Matters were not improved when Snape paused mid-stalk, in the centre of the hall, tables and expectant faces on all sides. Apparently the man had just caught sight of the tower of yet more presents piled up at his place at the table.
It was the last straw.
'This is too - fucking - much,' Snape said. He gave the room one last, encompassing glance, saw the vacant expression in the headmaster's eyes and figured he'd get no help from the quarter.
Harry was trying to will himself to become invisible. He had great instincts. He knew that something bad was about to happen and that he was going to wish he'd fallen off a cliff instead of getting up that morning. Bugger. Bugger. Bugger.
Snape looked at Harry.
Oh shit.
Snape began to walk towards Harry.
Buggerbuggershitandbugger...
Snape took steady, measured strides, He never took his eyes away from the boy. Not even when he reached one hand into his pocket and drew his wand.
Harry's saliva glands shut up shop and migrated to Timbuktu, taking his spine with them.
Snape drew up to the table, reached between Neville and Seamus who were sitting across from Harry (and equally unable to move), and with blithe disregard for the two boys, the cutlery, crockery, goblets and food platters, grabbed Harry by his shirt-front and dragged him across the table.
Snape secured his hold on the boy by wrapping one arm around his neck and aiming his wand at the boy's jugular.
Harry was convinced this was the beginning of the end. All Snape had to do with one hand was squeeze, or merely flick his wand with the other, and life as Harry knew it would be over.
Thank merciful heavens.
No more meetings, no more guilt, no more soul-searching, no more lost House points for Not paying attention!
Harry went limp in relief. All his suffering was about to end.
Poor Harry.. He had no idea that his suffering was just about to begin... in earnest.
Snape, having had years and years of practice at spinning around dramatically to allow his cloak to flare out around him with flair and elan - suddenly spun around dramatically, thus causing his cloak to flare out around him with flair and elan.
He was now facing the head table, but his eyes swept the room, left to right to left, alert for even the tiniest of twitches. He would not be stopped. No one would risk the Boy-Who-Whinged, not when he was grasped oh-so-securely around the neck by the only wizard in the entire school with Dark training under his belt.
The flabbergasted faces of the incredulous stared back at him. No one seemed to understand what was going on.
Snape thought he should probably enlighten them. Collectively, the entire school was probably too dim to work it out, anyway...
'I am taking this boy hostage. I will only return the saviour of the wizarding world once all this nonsense,' here he gestured with his wand elbow - waving it at the head table and the gaudy pile of presents, 'is removed and I have - in writing - the solemn promise that nothing of this sort will ever happen again.'
And without further ado, both the irate professor and the stunned-fish of a hostage, against all school regulations, vanished into thin air.
The odd pair reappeared with a displaced 'pop', just not in the Great Hall. Not, in fact, in any room Harry had ever seen inside or outside of Hogwarts.
To start with, the room was massive - cavernous, even. The walls were striped with immensely tall, immensely narrow mullioned windows, the kind of windows that let in just enough light to read by but were not quite big enough to admire the view out of.
Harry forced his eyes to swivel around, what he saw made the windows make sense.
The huge, vaulted ceilinged room was filled with sofas and armchairs. A veritable forest of rich chesterfields, worn overstuffeds, elegant chaise-longues, dainty fainting couches, omnivorous recliners - you name it was there. For a moment Harry was convinced the professor had apparated them to a furniture display store. Or the world's largest reading room.
Another forced swivel of the eyes in his still-captive head showed Harry something that he couldn't help but be curious about. Alongside every chair, lounge, sofa, recliner and footstool was a small, intricately carved wooden table. And on each table was an old dusty bottle and an immaculately clean, shiny glass tumbler.
Each glass was so clean and shiny that there was a noticeably 'tzing' around the rim where each glass reflected the light from the impossibly tall, narrow windows -- like really shiny things do in cartoons (and Terry Prattchet novels).
It looked a gentleman's study -- timesed by about a thousand.
The smell of dust, leather and a considerable number of opened bottles, of at least 40 alcohol by volume, drained the tension from Snape's shoulders. The apparent absence of gaudy pink and red things didn't hurt, either.
With a great big inhalation of air, Severus dropped the Boy-Who-Was-Hostage on the dusty floor, stepped over him, and bee-lined straight for the closest leather armchair, it's small, ornately carved wooden side-table and the highly important bottle that stood thereon.
It wasn't until he downed three tumblers-full that Snape felt unwound enough to exhale the great big breath he had taken earlier.
'You know,' said Harry from his position on the dusty floor, 'I could do with one of those, too.'
Snape stared down his nose at the pile of Potter. And said nothing.
After a time, he merely gestured around the euphemistically spacious room, at all the tables with all their bottles and all their tumblers, and elegantly and expressively shrugged one shoulder.
'Ah.' Harry thought he understood, and scrabbled to his feet. He headed towards the biggest, cushiest, most overstuffed recliner he could see -- about three over and two down from Snape's -- grabbed a glass and a bottle and made himself at home. 'This isn't so bad,' Harry waved a hand vaguely about, encompassing everything from the windows and armchairs to his own nose, 'for life-after-death. I assume it is hell and my punishment is to be locked forever in this room with you. But, overall, it's not so bad...'
'I, too, would consider this a punishment worthy of a Greek tragedy, Potter. However, I can assure you that you are not dead, despite your frequent forays into the realm of assisted-suicide. I... I believe I owe you an apology,' Snape continued stiffly, full of his habitual reserve, 'for involving you in this... event.' Severus gulped down what little remained in his glass, considered the not yet empty bottle, then re-filled his glass. Again.
Harry was busy swirling the muted, nutty flavour of the liquor around in his mouth, enjoying the warm, creamy texture -- and almost missed what the professor had said. He glanced up suddenly.
Snape certainly looked unhappy to Harry's eyes, but whether that was due to the uncomfortable situation or the hesitant apology Harry couldn't tell.
'I knew you wouldn't like what they were doing,' Harry exclaimed without thinking, 'I told Ron that you'd - ulp -' Harry stopped abruptly. Snape's wand was again poking uncomfortably into his throat, and there was a fierce hand gripping Harry's shoulder.
Harry hadn't even seen the man move, he'd been so fast.
Snape wasn't looking so unhappy now. Now, he was looking positively ferocious. And he was looming threateningly, way too close for Harry's peace of mind.
'Tell me,' the professor said very slowly and very clearly, 'what you meant when you said I would not like what they were doing. Who is doing what, Potter?'
Harry felt the wandtip jab a little harder into his flesh. This was bad. This was really bad. Snape was angry – that was an occurrence so regular watches were set by it. A powerful wizard with stacks more experience was threatening him – also an everyday event. What was really bad, so bad it was making Harry's pulse race was the fact that Severus Snape was so close to Harry that the boy could feel the gentle aura of the man's body warmth seeping through his clothes. What was worse, was that in this position, Harry could stare directly into Snape's endlessly black-irised eyes.
Oh yeah, that was so bad it was making his pants tight…
A lock of Snape's hair fell forward and brushed Harry's cheek. Harry, there was no other word for it, whimpered.
Snape looked at the cowering boy with renewed disgust.
Harry got harder.
With all of his courage, bravery, bravado and heroic experience trickling away like so much sand through a shattered hourglass, Harry drew heavily from the only source of resolve he had left… telling the others 'I told you so' should he ever make it out of this situation alive.
Steeled to the consequences, Harry took a shallow breath to enable his voice-box to squeak out, 'Group of us, counselling, Snape Anonymous.'
Snape withdrew from Harry's personal space, and settled back into his leather armchair. 'Explain again, Potter, and this time, try to be coherent.'
Harry rubbed the tender spot on his throat. Talk about an impossible task! Where on earth to begin? 'Um, there's this… association. Lots of members, and they all wanted to give you Valentine's Day presents…?' Harry's rising inflection made the statement sound like a suggestion.
'Pull the other one, Potter. Just get to the punchline of this little plot. The quicker you do so the least number of curses I'll use on you and all your friends.'
Harry grimaced. 'Okay. First of all, this isn't a prank, every one of those cards and every single gift has been in earnest. Um, people like you more than you realise?'
Snape barked out a harsh laugh. 'Ha! One of Dumbledore's schemes is it? Badgering old –' Snape caught himself time. It was not proper to insult one's headmaster in front of students. 'How did he garner such support? Extra credit project is it? Guaranteed Os in your next exams? Or is it a new form of extra-curricula activity? Dong this to earn a merit badge, perhaps?'
'Well, Dumbledore is a member, yes, but it's actually Remus Lupin who… heads… the…' Harry could tell by the immediate change in Snape's expression – from 'Not Amused By Your Juvenile Shenanigans' to 'Death By Glacial Glare in Furious, Deadly Earnest' – that he had said something utterly, horribly wrong. Oops.
'Whom did you just say?' Snape hissed, rage quickly building up behind his eyes.
'L-l-l-lu-lupin…?' Harry stuttered out, utterly terrified but still erotically charged. Good god, but the man could hiss! Such violent sibilants were rarely heard outside of courting rituals conducted in Parseltongue, and if it was good enough for snakes…
Severus Snape had surged to his feet in a building wave of hate and fury, but he contained it. Or maybe it subsided, Harry couldn't tell which. One moment the man was a towering inferno ready to blow his top, and the next he was collapsed in his chair, shoulders slumped in defeat.
Harry was scared. He'd never seen the man act like this before. 'I-i-it's not that Remus is playing some sort of trick, sir!' Harry thought the 'sir' couldn't hurt his cause. 'He's just doing it to help the rest of uh, the rest of them.'
Harry's words still seemed to be ineffectual at enlightening Snape, though.
'Oh Merlin,' breathed Harry. Nothing for it but the big guns now. 'They're all sodding well hooked on you – half the staff and I don't know how many students. And Remus… chairs the meetings and… offers advice, and a friendly ear…'
Snape raised his head and looked at Harry. The professor's eyes were guarded, but what they seemed to be guarding was… surprise? Was the Great Git finally getting it?
'Are you sure?' Snape asked, not quite pleading the boy to admit otherwise.
Harry nodded, and tried to look understanding and supportive.
Snape covered his face with his hands and muttered, 'I need a drink.'
That was all that was spoken inside the cavernous room for sometime. Harry decided after a time that the object of his affection was not going to off himself anytime soon, unless you counted cirrhosis of the liver. So, he explored around for a bit, testing out some of the likely looking sofas and armchairs.
Snape, however, only moved when he needed a new bottle.
A considerable amount of time passed in this manner, to the point where Harry had even developed an eleven-category system of comfort to which points could be awarded and deducted to determine the all-round comfort level of an upholstered piece of furniture specifically designed for sitting or reclining.
He was a bit startled when a wobbly Snape voice called out across the distance to him to ask, 'Are you really sure?'
Harry Potter was nicely pished.
So nicely pished, in fact, he decided to propose a toast to the niceties of being nicely pished.
'Bugger, the bottle's empty.' Harry struggled to his feet. This was harder than you first might imagine. While Harry had indeed been sitting in an armchair, he had been sitting in it upside down, with his head nearly on the floor and his legs where his head should have been…
…it had seemed like a good idea at the time…
After a few weak-limbed flopping motions, Harry eventually fell in a heap on the floor and struggled to his feet from there. He had to wait a bit, for the world to stop swaying, before he could make his way over to where Snape was sitting in a deeply plush, forest green, high-backed armchair.
The professor looked comatose. He was so pale and so still that Harry thought he had a pretty good chance of snagging the half-full bottle of whatever that stood invitingly next to Snape's left foot, so he crouched down.
'Touch it and you will die, Potter,' an apparently not-comatose voice intoned.
Harry tried to back away while crouching, and ended up falling on his arse.
Snape had one eye cracked open, and he was looking consideringly down at the hopeless Harry, fallen on the floor.
'Looks like you've had enough to drink,' he told Harry. Harry tried not to blush. 'Tell me, Potter, how many people know of the… association you spoke of?'
Harry grinned up at Snape stupidly, He was a happy drunk.
Snape grumbled something impatiently and waved his wand in an elegant swish in Harry's general direction, and Harry felt his head clear immediately.
Evidently, his surprise must have shown on his face, since Snape raised an eyebrow and snarked at him, 'Yes, I do not doubt you are suddenly feeling remarkably more compos mentis, and no, I am not going to teach you that trick. You can find it in the library like all the other irresponsible teenagers have throughout the ages. And now answer the bloody question.'
Harry felt duly chastened, 'Yes, sir. Only the people who go to the meetings know of the group …'
Harry was feeling uneasy. Snape was staring at him as if he'd sprouted an extra head – and Neville's head at that. He hadn't said anything outrageous, had he? He'd already told Snape about the group, so that wasn't anything to be surprised about. Harry ran the words through his head one more time… and made a horrible discovery.
No wonder Snape's looking at me as if I just said I'm the Queen of Egypt! Of all the times I dreamt and fantasised and daydreamed and wanked to this scenario I never – never ever – pictured it like this! I just practically gave him my head on a platter! How could I have been so stupid? I just bloody hell went and said –
'Only the people who go to the meetings know of the group? Is that right, Potter?' Snape's voice was a low and lethal whisper. A poisoned-tipped arrow aimed straight at Harry's groin.
Harry's bits couldn't decide if they should have a party in his pants from sheer, excited lust – or if they should wither in horrified discovery. Harry couldn't wait for them to make up their mind, he hunched forward protectively, wrapped his arms around his shins, buried his face in his knees, and tried to pretend he wasn't all alone in a mysterious location with no one else but the Potions Professor and nine or ten billion bottles of alcohol.
Briefly he wondered if there was a spell to bring forth the end of the world, and wished he'd liked studying enough to have discovered it.
A thousand different scenarios were zooming through Harry's head. Ideally, Snape would say something like 'So you like me in that way, huh? Well, let's get it on.' Or, maybe Snape would yell and shout and fume with anger and disgust, and try to throttle the life out of Harry. Harry's favourite one was Snape saying 'I need a drink' and they'd both get royally drunk, and then Harry'd get royally rogered. Although, now armed with first-hand evidence of Snape after a few drinks, Harry found it to be a depressingly unlikely outcome. Damn.
'So, who was it who left me the pair of red socks with glowing pink hearts all over them? With the insipid little note about 'warming my true love's heart from the outside'?' Snape demanded.
It took Harry a second to get up to speed. Severus Snape, tormentor extraordinaire found out the Boy Who Lived had a crush on him, and he wanted to talk about socks…?
'Dumbledore. That was Dumbledore's Valentine's Day present for you. I think he got Molly Weasley to knit them, sir.' Harry responded automatically.
'Headmaster Dumbledore, you insolent boy. Will you never learn?' Snape's voice was subdued. But Harry was still too mortified to look up. 'And the cherry-red leather-bound complete sonnets of Shakespeare, dare I ask whom that was from?'
'Hermione Granger, sir,' Harry replied, still mostly muffled by his knees.
'Ah, of course. And the… Karma Sutra Valentine's Day Special Edition Now With Three-Dimensional, Pop-Up Illustrations? Not your friend Weasley, I hope.' Snape sounded faintly ill by the prospect.
'No, sir. I believe that one is from my godfather. Ron could only afford a bar of Honeyduke's.'
'Sirius Black gave me a pornographic pop-up book? Merlin's Balls!' Snape finally seemed shocked out of his cocoon of stunned disbelief.
It made Harry smile, just the tiniest little bit, and lift up his head a fraction.
'And you… what was your revoltingly heart-shaped gift? An asinine attempt at romantic poetry perhaps? Or maybe you were responsible for the Two Lovers Atop The Eiffel Tower Ice Cream Sculpture? The freezing charm was incorrectly applied and it left a strawberry scented puddle in my rooms.' Snape's eyes were hooded, but Harry thought the man sounded oddly… interested… in his answer.
'No, Ginny did the ice cream. Didn't think her charms would be a problem, she's always been so good at those.'
'Yes, well, given that she had just invaded a professor's private chambers, her mind may have been distracted.'
Harry grinned at the Gryffindor girl's bravery. He didn't know anyone had had the guts to leave a Valentine's Day gift in what one could only assume was the professor's bedroom.
'It's no grinning matter, Mr. Potter. Left a bloody awful mess,' Snape grumbled, 'and you have yet to answer my question.'
'Oh. Err,' Harry hesitated, 'I, umm, I didn't get you anything. Sorry.'
A black eyebrow arched up perfectly. 'Oh. And why might that be, Potter?'
Harry couldn't believe it! Was Snape… miffed because Harry hadn't gotten him a Valentine's Day present? 'Well, you see, I don't really know you. I have no idea what you might like in a gift. And it's impossible to find so much as a card this time of year that isn't dripping in hearts and flowers and kittens and things…' Harry trailed off, letting his head sink back down to his knees. Snape was really looking at him oddly now.
'By virtue of wanting to avoid something I disliked, you chose to give me nothing at all?'
Harry tried to nod, but his knees were in the way. 'Yes, sir,' he mumbled instead.
Snape grunted something. Harry thought it sounded like 'Commendable' but he wouldn't have wanted to bet his life on it. It was probably meant sarcastically, anyway, Harry told himself.
'I suppose I should be relieved. Given your inept use of your undeniably powerful magic, the outcome could have been disastrously worse.'
Now it was Harry's turn to be miffed. Could the man refrain for just one single minute from calling him an idiot? Not even when he's complimenting me can he – holy hippogriffs, he called me powerful! He did compliment me!
Harry's amazement was short-lived.
Wait a minute. I only saw him perform that head-clearing spell on me, I never him use it on himself. I guess he must still be somewhat sloshed…
The thought was enough to make Harry look up again, though. And it was true, the professor seemed very relaxed, the most relaxed Harry had ever seen him. The man's back was against the chair's padding whereas normally, Snape sat ramrod straight and his spine never touched a chair. The perpetually sneering lips looked softer, too. And Harry thought he detected a faint sheen of saliva on the man's bottom lip, where a tongue must have swiped not too long ago.
'I certainly should be honoured,' Snape continued. 'It's not everyone in the Wizarding World who can lay claim to having captured the tender feelings of the Boy-Who-Whatever. Or is it? Tell me, Potter, am I merely some aberration in a long line of adolescent crushes? Did all this come about because your own fanclub could no longer do it for you? Needed something a bit darker to get yourself off? A bit more sinister?'
Snape was leaning forward, crowding Harry with his presence. Harry had nowhere to go, he was already on the floor, hunched down. But Snape's frowning face would tolerate no cowardice.
'Turning out to be something of a masochist, are you? Harry Bloody Potter?'
Harry tried not to look like the answer to all those questions was a tremulous, trembling, turned-on 'yes'.
But Snape knew anyway. 'You're a weak, little boy,' he hissed at Harry, his top lip curled back just enough to show a flash of bared teeth.
Disgust and disbelief Harry had been prepared to deal with, but being called weak? No I am not, he thought, angered.
'No, I'm not a weak, little boy,' he furiously told Snape.
'Really?' Snape seemed amused. He pulled back from menacing Harry, and relaxed into his armchair. 'You're relying on half-baked fantasies and unfulfilled wishes. You dream of things that are so far out of reach you know you'll never attain them, so you never have to try. You play it safe because you're either weak… or you're scared. Too scared to take what you want, or even try to reach out for it.'
Harry leapt to his feet, barely sparing a glance at the single, narrow window that illuminated the tiny chamber. He pushed himself off the solid, stone wall he had been leaning back against, and launched himself at his smirking, seated professor. He was in such a rush he nearly tripped over the solitary intricately carved sidetable with the clean glass tumbler on it.
But suddenly he was there. Mushing his body up against the object of long-held, pented-up desire, wriggling around so his groin and his chest could simultaneously rub and slide against the professor's body. He aimed an open-mouthed and sloppy kiss at Snape's mouth, but quickly settled for sliding quick kisses and a wet tongue along Snape's jaw and down his neck. Harry moaned in agonised pleasure when a hard hand gripped at his cock like talons. Whether it was to push him away or not, Harry simply didn't care, it was pain and pleasure and pressure right where he needed it. And then he was panting and gasping and spurting in his pants like the young, inexperienced thing he was, while Professor Snape ran his other hand through Harry's hair and down the boy's sweaty neck.
'Feeling better are you?' Snape murmured in Harry's ear.
Harry had just about enough strength left to nod his head where it rested heavily against his professor's shoulder.
'Oh good.' Snape's voice was dry.
Harry felt Snape move, and suddenly there was cushiony softness supporting his entire body – just as if Snape had transfigured the armchair into a chaise-longue wide enough for two.
Which he had.
Harry drifted off into a doze, surrounded by warmth and the scent of Severus Snape, and with gentle fingers running slowly through his hair.
Harry Potter woke up.
He was in a tiny stone chamber, barely big enough for a chaise-longue, a side table, a narrow window and one reserved Potions master, who was standing at the narrow window trying to peer out.
'Um,' said Harry, 'what happened to the really, really big room?' He thought it to be a more politic question than 'What happened to the touchy-feely professor who let me orgasm in his arms?'
Snape did not even turn from the window when he spoke. 'Apparently, it wasn't required anymore.'
Harry did not know what to say to an answer like that, but Snape knew a questioning silence when he heard one.
'There is a room in this school – this very chamber, in fact – that responds to a person's needs.'
Harry winced at the sound of Snape's teacher voice. But this was a subject Harry knew something about, for once. 'A Room of Requirement?' he suggested meekly.
Snape still did not turn to look at Harry. 'Ah, I believe you've heard of it then.'
If this is the Room of Requirement, thought Harry, I wonder what it means that it went from being big to small? Obviously Snape wanted space when he was all antsy in the Great Hall, and he wanted to get away from everyone… the alcohol is self-explanatory… and then it got small while we were, er… entagled? No, that's not right. It would be flattering if it was true, though.
Harry smirked a little.
Yeah, as if my brilliant technique was enough to make him feel… what? Safer? More secure? Relaxed?
Now Harry frowned.
But that's not it. The room was small when I… the wall was behind me before I um, attacked him. So, it was arguing with me that made him feel better? But we weren't arguing, he never lost his temper. Snape's always in control, he was egging me on. Picking on me makes him feel better?
Harry slumped.
What a basis for a relationship. I get hard when gets grumpy, and he feels better when I get riled. And the room is still small. Snape hasn't gone back to desiring space and isolation. He's kept it small and intimate…
Harry felt a silly blush warm his face.
Snape finally turned around from the window. 'You can take that ridiculous look off of your face, Potter. There is no secret romantic agenda. Needless to say, this sort of thing will not happen again – '
'I don't see why not, professor.' Harry interrupted. It was time to reach out and try to get what he wanted for once, instead of running away in an attempt to escape his desires. Harry took a deep breath and tried to sound more confident than he was feeling. 'I certainly enjoyed what went on earlier, and I don't think you could deny it either. Look, even if you only agree to it to keep everyone else off you're back for a while, we could at least try it, right? For a little while, at least?'
Great Harry, he told himself, you really came out sounding mature and confident with that pleading little-boy-voice bit at the end there. Well done.
'Agree to try what, Potter?' Snape sounded tired.
'Er, a relationship I think. You know, maybe spend some time together now and then?' Harry wasn't sure what to call it, but he didn't want to let this chance go.
'Let me see if I understand your proposal, Potter. I invite you to my rooms where I ply you with alcohol and tell you how much of an idiot I think you are, while you rut against me to achieve sexual release. And you call that a relationship?'
Harry was pleased Snape understood. 'We could at least try it, couldn't we?'
'I….' Snape was at a loss for words. 'You honestly think no one in your little club would mind?'
'Who knows? It might help them get over you. Once they understand you're no longer available. It might be of great benefit to them…'
Snape looked thoughtful, but finally replied, 'Alright, Potter. Consider it a trial run. Tomorrow night, eight o'clock, my chambers. But in the mean time, we shall wait like this,' he gestured to the space between them, 'until Dumbledore has the written assurance all sorted out. I think there has been enough 'relationship' for today.'
Harry accepted Snape's stern denouement readily enough. After all, it did come with a promise for more. 'Tomorrow night then, sir. It's a date!' Harry agreed. A cheeky grin crept across his face, and Harry could not resist from adding, 'Happy Valentine's Day, professor!'
Snape scowled.
THE END.