Fourteen

Harry blushed violently. There were many things he had never expected to hear from his former Potions professor and drop your pants was certainly up there amongst them.

"What, here?" He demanded, looking around Snape's office. It was nicer than he would have thought and certainly more welcoming than it had been when he was a teenager. However the idea of baring his undergarments in the Potion Masters office was mortifying to say the least.

"I suppose we may retire to my sitting room if you insist upon being squeamish," rolling his eyes Severus indicated the door behind his desk. Harry followed him through, surprised at the level of comfort and sophistication that Severus chose to surround himself with. Like his own quarters it was decorated in earthy tones, with bookshelves from floor to ceiling and a huge ornate fireplace that sprung into flames with a flick of Snape's hand.

"If you are quite done with your inspection of my residence Potter, do you think we might get on with the task at hand?" Severus snapped impatiently.

Harry flushed darker than before, fumbling awkwardly with the fixture to his cloak, before casting it aside and toeing off his shoes.

"You just want me to...erh..." he hesitated self-consciously.

"Strip Potter!" The potions professor barked.

Harry's cheeks burned as he removed his trousers. Something about standing in Severus Snape's sitting room in only socks, y-fronts and shirttails felt impossibly wrong and as the man himself crouched down and examined his injury with a clinical eye, an eye that was nearly exactly at crotch level, Harry found himself wishing that the Earth might swallow him whole.

"Perhaps I ought to have liquored you up a little more before ordering you to take off your clothes Potter," Snape murmured, chuckling very softly as Harry stiffened even further. "Relax, I am a professional am I not? There is truly no need to be uneasy."

"I know you're a professional," Harry replied, staring at the ceiling and willing his blush to recede. "It's just that...other than the Healers from St Mungo's, nobodies ever seen...it before."

"It?"

"My wound," Harry clarified through clenched teeth, wondering if Snape was purposefully making him say the word in order to humiliate him.

"Ah," Severus suddenly understood. "Surely those you've been intimate with...?" He trailed off delicately.

"I'm sorry?" Harry questioned, not understanding.

"Your lovers, Potter!" Severus clarified. "Surely your lovers have seen the wound."

"Oh!" If Harry had been flustered before it was nothing to how he felt now. "Well, not really, I've always been pretty good at erh...hiding it. I prefer to bottom anyway and the scaring is mostly at the front so..."

Harry broke off, staring in astonishment at Severus, who had, rather inelegantly, fallen on his arse and was gaping at Harry in complete bemusement.

"Erh...Severus?"

"Potter," the man gasped out, his normally silken voice somewhat raspy. "Are you gay?"