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Chapter 10: Christmas

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The door to Severus' bedroom in his private quarters had barely shut behind them with a bang, and he and Harry were already all over each other. Kissing, pulling at clothes, rubbing of equally hard erection and weeks of pent up sexual frustration oozing out of them both.

"Are you sure you want to go through with this?" Severus asked, as his fingers hovered over the top button of Harry's jeans. He looked intently into Harry's green eyes. "I don't want you to regret it."

"Less talk and more fucking" Harry replied and they both laughed. Severus ran a thumb down Harry's cheek and saw a flicker of something in Harry's eyes before resuming their kissing.

Clothes began flying everywhere. Once they were both standing there completely naked, Severus took Harry's hand and guided him to the edge of the bed and instructed him to lay down on it, which Harry did, looking up at Severus with flushed cheeks.

"You're irresistible" Severus said, as he threw his wand on the bed and climbed on top of Harry and began kissing his neck.

"You're not… so bad… yourself" Harry said and received a small laugh in response. "God… I need you… now" he begged.

Severus grabbed his wand, cast a lubrication and protection charm and hastily put Harry's legs on his shoulders. Without warning he pushed his cock into Harry's entrance, not stopping until he was completely covered by Harry's warmth. Harry had let out a shout when Severus entered, and was now bucking his hips, not able to wait any longer for Severus to start thoroughly fucking him.

Severus withdrew his cock and rammed straight back in again. Every time he did so Harry moaned and shouted appreciatively. "Faster" Harry instructed him a few minutes later and Severus picked up the pace, thrusting in and out of Harry hard, placing a hand around Harry's own cock and stroking it with the same rhythm as his fucking.

"Oh God" Harry moaned grabbing the bed sheets with his hands and Severus took this to mean that his climax was fast approaching. Severus began plunging harder and deeper, faster and faster until moments later they were both overpowered by their orgasms. Snape collapsed beside Harry, lazily cleaned the mess with a flick of his wand and they both drifted off into sleep, neither saying a word to each other.

An hour later Severus stirred. He opened his eyes and saw a sleepy Harry lying next to him. He looked so sweet and innocent, Severus couldn't understand what the boy saw in him. He could have anyone. He reached out a hand and was about to stroke his hair, but thought better of it, pulling his hand back sadly. Instead, he got up, dressed and left the bedroom to sit at his desk in his office. It wasn't long before Harry materialised, looking both adorable and shy, in his office.

"Hi" he said, coming to stand in front of Severus' desk.

"Hi" Severus replied. "Did you have a good sleep?"

"Yes thanks, it… um… Severus, what we did, it was fantastic and I don't regret it for a moment, but it doesn't change anything. And it… it can't happen again."

"Right… well that's fine with me. I understand completely."

"Ok so, see you later."

Harry left his office and Severus sighed. He took a bottle of whiskey out of one of his desk draws and decided that it would be thoroughly appropriate right now to get utterly pissed.

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"Harry Christmas" Ron said to Harry, as he appeared in the common room, rubbing his eyes and yawning.

"Harry Christmas" he said back and then dropped to the floor by a pile of presents with his name on. "Where's Hermione?"

"Oh, she's looking something up in the library."

"Good luck having her as a wife" Harry said to Ron who hit him on the arm and had turned pink.

Harry started opening his presents. He received sweets from Ron, new quills and ink from Hermione, a jumper from Mrs Weasley joke products from the twins, some clothes from Sirius and a book all about threstrals from Hagrid. There was one last present. He picked it up and gasped as he turned the tag over to read: "To Harry, Have a wonderful Christmas. Severus." Ron looked at him.

"It's from Severus" he said.

"Open it" Ron replied eagerly, moving closer to Harry.

Harry ripped the wrapping paper and was left with a photo album. Exchanging a curious look with Ron, he opened it and flicked through. Shocked wasn't the word. He was looking down at pictures of a younger James Potter playing Quidditch. Several of the photographs were moving images of his father making particularly complex moves or catching the snitch.

"Mate, are you alright?" Ron asked, as Harry's eyes had filled up with tears.

"Yeah, I'm fine."

"That's a pretty cool present to give someone who you were just 'fooling around with.' Maybe Severus isn't such a prat after all."

"I've got to go and thank him" Harry said suddenly, getting to his feet. "I'll be back in a bit."

A few minutes later Harry was standing outside Severus' office. He didn't even know if he was going to be in there, but it was the best place to start looking for him. He knocked lightly and sure enough Severus' voice was heard from inside saying "enter." Harry opened the door and went inside, shutting the door behind him. Severus looked up and a smile spread across his face when he saw who had come to visit him.

"I take it you received my present?" he asked.

"Yeah… where did you get these photographs from?"

"I wasn't that good at Quidditch… I wasn't that good on a broomstick full stop. But I earned extra points for my house for being the official photographer. I still had these photos of your father because I rarely put him in my official displays. You can probably understand why. But I found them recently and thought you might like them."

"Like? I love them. Thanks you so much, it's just… I can't even… describe how much… this means to me. It's the best present I have ever had."

"Don't mention it" Severus said, waving his hand dismissively. "It was nothing."

"No, it wasn't nothing Severus. It was…"

But Harry didn't finish talking. He put the photograph album on Severus' desk, walked around and straddled Severus' lap, kissing him passionately. Severus absently put his arms around Harry, pulling him in tightly. The kiss seemed to go on forever, until Seevrus lightly pushed Harry away from him, and stared into this emotional eyes.

"I thought this couldn't happen again?" Severus asked.

"I can change my mind can't I?" Harry replied.

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"That was amazing" Harry said, as they lay in bed looking at each other.

"By far my favourite present" Severus replied.

"Oh God, I didn't get you a present" Harry gasped. "I'm so sorry, I completely forg-"

"It doesn't matter" Severus interrupted. "It's not as though we're… anyway…"

"So what presents did you get?" Harry asked.

"The usual" Severus replied in a bored tone. "Books, books and more books." Harry giggled. "I'm glad you find it amusing. Although Albus never fails to give me a bag of sherbet lemons. They're not bad actually."

"I've really missed you" Harry said, smiling sadly. "I overreacted at the whole Sirius thing, I know exactly what he can be like and I don't blame you for the way you reacted. I never truly wanted things between us to end and since we split up it's been horrible. Every time I see you I just want t-"

"Harry, this really can't happen again."

"What? Why? I want this to carry on."

"No, we can't."

"Why?"

"Because I'm in love with you" Severus said plainly. Harry opened and closed his mouth without saying a word. He hadn't been expecting that. Severus was in love with him? "And how am I ever going to get over you if we keep… it's playing with my head and my feelings. I can't do it anymore."

"But I love you too Severus. We can get together, be a couple again."

"No, we can't. You don't love me. You may think that you d-"

"Don't you dare tell me how I feel!"

"Harry, you're seventeen. The only life you know is Hogwarts. Life with the same people, day in day out. Once you leave at the end of this year and enter the real world, I will become a distant memory. I can assure you."

"No you won't. I don't want anyone else, it's you I want."

"I'm sorry" Severus said quietly and he got out of bed, picked up his clothes and left the room.

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"Did you have a nice Christmas?" Sirius asked, as Harry turned up in his office shortly after he returned to the castle.

"It was alright" Harry said casually. "Yours?"

"It was… great. I missed you though."

"I missed you too" Harry agreed smiling at his godfather. "Did you have fun with Charlie?"

"We, um, split up."

"Oh I'm sorry to hear that. What happened?"

"It's a long story" Sirius replied, going red and looking away from Harry.

"You have to tell me now" Harry demanded.

"Ok, you know… Remus?"

"Yeah, of course I know him Sirius."

"Well, I've been in love with him pretty much since our fourth year at Hogwarts. I told him so in our seventh year but he assured me he was straight. Anyway, I never had a proper boyfriend before I went to Azkaban and Charlie is the first guy since. Tonks sent me a letter shortly before Christmas saying that Remus had confided in her that he was in love with me too, and the reason he'd told me he was straight was because of the werewolf thing, didn't think it would be fair on me. Apparently Charlie and I were making him insanely jealous. And, er… yeah."

"So?" Harry prompted impatiently.

"So what?"

"Are you two together?"

"Oh, yeah. It took me a few days to convince him but, yeah… were a couple." Harry noted that the redness crept up on Sirius' face again.

"I see" Harry said knowingly and smirking at Sirius. "So since you convinced Remus, you haven't been talking as such."

"I guess you could say that."

"Is he any good?"

"Harry!"

"What? I'm just curious. Is he better than Charlie?"

"It's very satisfactory thank you, that's all you're getting you cheeky little so and so."

"I'm really pleased for you" Harry told him. "I know you said you loved Charlie and everything, but I never got the vibe that it was… special. More like he was the first gay guy to turn up and show an interest."

"You're very observant Harry. You're right though. I did really like Charlie, and we had a lot of fun together. But I talked it up and made it sound as though he was the love of my life, but truthfully, Remus has always been, and always will be the only man I am in love with."

"How did Charlie take being dumped?"

"Brilliantly actually. There's a guy he works with who likes him and he's going to give that a go."

"So everyone's happy then?"

"I guess so… how's things with you and Snape been?"

"Oh fine, I haven't really seen him over the holidays though. But I'm well and truly over it, he's old news."

"That's good to hear" Sirius said happily, not noting the sadness in Harry's voice, not to mention the blatant lying.

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"Sirius and Remus?" Ron repeated after Harry had told him and Hermione all about it. They were sitting at a table in their common room.

"Yep. And I think it's great. I was always worried about Remus; he appeared really lonely whenever I saw him."

"Did Sirius ask about you and Snape?" Hermione asked.

"Yeah, I told him it wasn't something I thought about anymore. Old news, you know."

"But we all know that's a lie" Hermione said sternly.

"Can we drop it please?" Harry asked angrily. "Severus doesn't want me ok? Him and I aren't getting back together and I'd really prefer if you lot didn't keep going on about it."

"We just care about you mate" Ron said.

"I know" Harry replied. "But, if I'm going to succeed in getting over Severus, any talk of him has to stop.

"Ok" Ron and Hermione said in unison.

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Coming up in the next chapter: Harry comes clean to Sirius about Severus. He then starts to play up in Potions classes and Severus gives him detention.

Reviews: If you're reading this, please take a few moments to leave me a review. I really do appreciate them and they do help immensely with my motivation. My profile has details of all my story updates.

(This chapter was posted on July 19th)

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