Mature content.
Chapter Twenty-One
Almost shouting with relief, he unleashed his emotions, calling upon every scrap of love he possessed, starting with the kind of memories that had driven back the Dementors. But he needed more than that. He needed to mean it. He closed his eyes and summoned up everything to do with Snape: lust, jealousy, joy, hope, hatred, the way Snape had shrieked at Sirius, the memory of Snape's face as he blasted Dumbledore off the Astronomy Tower, the child in the photograph, Snape cradling the roses, the cock in Harry's arse, the intensity with which they fought again and again, the horror inside him when he'd watched Snape's eyes close on the canal bank.
And all those times that he couldn't let Snape go. Harry realised they belonged here, too.
He threw it all at the wand, thinking I sure as fuck feel something for you, you bastard. Christ don't you fucking go and die on me now. So maybe it wasn't magic, but it was power, and it collided with the iridescent current of Snape's emotions, that twisting, brilliant rose of light that Harry had seen once, dark and heady and anything but pure. Snape's desire was all-consuming. It branded and claimed him before swirling onward, mottled with passion and regret, doing in one moment what probably required twenty pages of Arithmantic proofs to explain, by merging with Harry's emotional explosion.
The wand vibrated. Circling around them, flames darted and split and leaped to the ceiling. The incessant crackling and popping made it hard to think beyond the impulse to Apparate or throw himself out the window. Desperately Harry suppressed his magic, even though all his training and experience screamed at him to start flinging spells. He had to give this other power time to build and strengthen. It had already saved them once. He had to let Snape guide him, trust that between the two of them there was enough purity, enough selfless intent, to wreak an arithmantic change in whatever was giving life to the fire.
If he wanted to live, he had to stop lying to himself. If he couldn't, they were doomed.
A molten shape grew swiftly from the wand like a globe at the end of a glass-blower's tube. It expanded, colours revolving over its wobbly surface. Increasing, it stretched, larger and rounder, connected to the wand's tip only by a thin, weak strand.
As the sphere of power swelled, so did Harry's prick. The sheer emotional intensity was giving him a hard-on.
His hand trembled, and Snape worked his own fingers up the wand. "Hold," he growled. They switched hand positions, Harry clinging to Snape and gripping the wand between thumb and forefinger. He was enchanted and aroused by this exquisite thing rising out of them. As it grew in size, the deepest part of him strove to rise up with it, to fill the house and embrace them both in its monstrous clarity.
"Beautiful," Snape gasped, then, "Harry."
With an eerie, singing, rumbling noise, the fire met over their heads and came crashing down.
Harry felt as though a lid of flame had slammed down upon them, and the whole world turned orange and unreal. The heat sucked every last drop of moisture from his skin. He shrank from the unbearable brightness and felt his hands blister and from somewhere far away heard himself scream.
With no warning the sphere flipped inside-out, folded back, and spread around them. They were enclosed in a dark, silvery limbo of shifting colours, where it was cool and they weren't dying. Harry hacked, loud in the silence, expelling smoke from his lungs. From Snape, he heard nothing at all, but he didn't need to. Snape was in him, all around him, and that was enough.
All too soon the raw material of whatever had formed between them, the heat and fury, the hunger and shame and awful, aching, unwanted sweetness, reached its utmost limit. The globe's substance thinned, grew clearer, finally transparent: a delicate membrane beyond which the raging shapes of fire still consumed the world.
Then it popped.
There was no explosion, no sound. The sphere's circumference blew outward in a silent ball of light, sucking the fire into its backdraft and extinguishing the flames, expanding right through the walls of the house. The air around them gave a giant, ecstatic gasp, and then the sphere was gone, taking the fire with it.
Harry's ears rang. Around them, the room looked ordinary, unravaged. A bedspread was thrown carelessly on the floor nearby. If not for the smouldering nets of briars hanging in blackened shreds from the walls, you would never know that they'd almost died here.
The charred wards reminded Harry of his arm. Now that they were safe, the bone-deep, throbbing agony returned. When Snape's grip slackened and the wand started to drop to the floor, Harry summoned it back. Holding it in his uninjured hand, he grimly stripped away the pieces of burnt cloth sticking to his skin. Stammering over the words, he cast as many healing charms as he knew and slumped over in relief when the pain eased. The scars would be bad.
"Any burn salve?" he asked after a minute. "Or dittany?"
Snape had pulled away to give them both room, but not so far that Harry couldn't reach out and lay a hand on his booted foot. A bit distant, the rough voice croaked, "Gone. Fuel."
Harry turned over on his hands and knees, concerned about Snape's injuries. The older man was lying flat on the floor, eyes shut, his skin and clothes peppered with angry red weals and scorch marks. Creaky with fatigue, Harry focused his magic and cast a general healing spell. Snape didn't move.
"Are you all right?"
Snape's eyes opened a crack. He pointed to his throat, and Harry thought for a minute and then aimed his magic at the collar. The snakes could bloody well help out here. He directed some of their venom to Snape's vocal cords and used it to relax the bruised tissue.
Wincing, Snape massaged under his jaw, then said, sounding more like himself again, "Thank you."
"You're welcome." They looked at each other, and slowly, Harry allowed a grin to spread over his face. "Hey, we're alive."
"Merlin knows I would never have figured that out if you weren't here to announce the obvious," Snape muttered, but his tone wasn't particularly scathing. He continued to lie there in his tattered black t-shirt, his scarred arms at his sides, the runes around his throat writhing and re-arranging.
Harry shifted, wondering if they needed to talk about what had just happened. Wishing he had a shred of subtlety to call upon, he coughed. "I'm sorry." Snape tilted his head to the side, his face skeptical. "About the fire. I'm sorry that I – " Almost let you die, he started to say. But no, he had to admit the truth. " – almost killed you," he finished in a whisper.
You could have knocked him over with a puffskein when Snape said, "It wasn't your fault. It would be easy to blame you, and it is unfortunate that you have so much magic at the disposal of these ghosts. But that doesn't change the fact that you're possessed. You've been cursed with a murderer's guilt and that murderer's conscience will take advantage of any chance for revenge."
He stretched and grimaced, looking so tense that Harry wondered if Snape were still hiding some inadmissable pain. "But remember this, Potter. Even when I asked you to kill me, you wouldn't. That by itself required a tremendous act of – " Snape hesitated, then concluded softly, "Of will."
He stroked his hand along his chest, kneading bone and muscle as if checking to be sure everything was still there. "So. We're alive." Snape's hand dropped to his crotch and stroked that, too. "Perhaps we should celebrate."
"We should?" Harry mumbled. He'd been too bleary to notice the bulge in Snape's jeans, though he hadn't forgotten the erection hiding under his own robes. A side-effect of sympathetic magic, he'd reckoned.
"Unless you'd rather not?" Snape thumbed open the snap at his waistband and undid the zip.
"Don't be mental," Harry said. Utterly knackered and assuming Snape was, too, he thought perhaps they could lie side by side and just toss each other off. Already between Snape's legs, he crawled closer. "What do you want, should I – "
"You should fuck me."
Harry stared. His exhaustion didn't evaporate, but at the sound of those words his prick produced a mini-orgasm and his desires underwent a sudden shift in priorities. A hand job was too paltry a way to celebrate not being burned alive. "Are you s-sure?" he gulped. "I thought you said – "
"Are you trying to talk me out of it?"
"Jesus," Harry said. "Of course I want to fuck you." He tried to smile at Snape, but the git's expression was unreadable. That didn't exactly inspire confidence.
"Take my boots off," Snape said. "And help me with my trousers." Harry did as directed, his hands shaking. Then he pulled his own clothes off, paying no mind to whether he tossed them aside or banished them entirely. He was a bit bewildered and, since he was mostly thinking with his dick, not terribly clear about what the hell was going on. The sight of Snape's curving, rigid cock and pale legs, splayed open in invitation, overrode his anxiety and filled him with yearning.
"Arithmancy as foreplay," he joked.
"Are you surprised?" Still sprawled on his back, Snape waited. Harry wished he would stop expecting Harry to do everything, because he'd really appreciate some guidance right now. "Just because we express our mutual feelings by relentlessly fucking each other's brains out."
Blushing, Harry trailed the tips of his fingers over Snape's kneecaps and then, very shyly, petted the creased skin alongside his bollocks. Snape said, his eyes closed, "I won't last long, Potter. I want you inside me. Do you remember the lubrication spell?"
"I think so." Harry's need to cherish was almost as strong, just then, as his desire to fuck. He leaned forward and kissed the tender underside of Snape's cock, but Snape continued to lie silent and tense. Sodding hell, this felt awful.
"Don't you even want to look at me?" he said.
Snape's eyes snapped open, and he glared. Then his frown faded and he sat up, saying hoarsely, "Yes. I want to know who's fucking me. Come here, Potter." He kissed Harry, gently at first, which was still so new a thing that Harry marveled at it. He'd had many revelations about Snape, but this unpredictable gentleness was a surprise every time. Then Snape's mouth turned rough, and they kissed as if trying to climb inside each other, to return to that moment when each had been immersed in the other's private, life-giving passion.
Snape broke away first and gasped, "I want you. God forgive me, it's completely stupid and wrong, but I do. Give me the wand, Potter."
Harry did, and Snape pronounced the spells to prepare himself. He braced his hands behind him and raised his legs. He was still wearing the black t-shirt, and Harry noticed a lot of frizzy ends where Snape's hair had sizzled. Every detail seemed designed to inflame his lust.
"Now put a finger inside me."
Exhilarated and nervous, Harry touched Snape's pucker and looked to him for permission. Snape's face was full of shadows and lines and an almost terrible concentration. Hesitating, Harry blurted, "I don't want to hurt you."
"It doesn't matter," Snape said through clenched teeth.
Wow, that was reassuring. "It does to me," Harry snapped, because it did. It really mattered, and after being surrounded by the spontaneous magic he and Snape produced when their feelings merged, he couldn't pretend otherwise. He cupped his hands to the back of Snape's thighs, easing his awkward position. "I've almost killed you several times. Don't let me hurt you again, okay? I want this to feel the way it does when you're inside me. Like you never want it to stop. Like you love – you know." He swallowed. "It."
Damn it all to hell. He still couldn't say me.
Harry didn't know what Snape heard when he said that, but his face lost some of its strain and got that look he sometimes wore, of surrendering to beauty.
"You're not Voldemort," Snape said. "I know that, Potter."
Okay, what could you do when your worst enemy offered you his heart? Not to mention his arse. If you were Harry, you accepted them. He and Snape watched each other as Harry pressed his finger against the small, moist button of Snape's hole. It yielded. Oh God, the inside of Snape's arse was hot and extremely tight, and his body shuddered at the slightest touch. Harry's heart thumped; he could feel it vibrating right up to his glasses. He slid his finger in and out, watching Snape hood his eyes and part his lips, as if he was one breath away from hyperventilating.
Snape nodded, and Harry introduced another finger, biting his lip to remind himself to go slow and not cause pain.
"You feel fantastic," he confessed. The words just slipped out. Still trembling in reaction to every thrust, Snape exhaled carefully and smiled at him. Not smirked. Smiled. It was a horrible smile, grotesque from lack of use, and Harry blinked, startled by the tears that swam to his eyes. He wasn't exactly in a position to wipe them away, but he could do better. He could shut his eyes to his own embarrassment and lean forward. He could kiss Snape's ugly, perfect face while continuing to stroke deep inside his body.
Snape banished Harry's glasses and pulled him closer, legs entwining his waist, while Harry teased Snape's arse with one hand and held his throat with the other. He felt as if he might overflow soon. Not come; it wasn't something centred in his prick. This feeling brimmed throughout his whole body. His skin was tight with emotion and he couldn't take much more.
"Now," Snape groaned, leaning back on his elbows. "Do it now. Fuck me, Potter."
Part of Harry was ready to argue about needing a third finger and whether Snape was stretched enough and why he was still tense. But he could no more have disobeyed the command in Snape's voice than he could have got up and left the room.
He gasped when Snape bent his knees and braced his feet on Harry's shoulders. This raised Snape's arse enough that Harry could fumble the head of his cock against Snape's distended pucker and push.
He sank inside, and Snape hissed and fell back against the floor, twisting his head up and to the right. Harry stared at the runes around Snape's long, gorgeous throat, at his greasy hair, his burnt t-shirt, his heavy, untouched cock. Everything but Snape's face. The thin body twanged under him like a bowstring about to snap.
"Look at me," Harry begged. His prick was halfway in, and it was dizzying to kneel there and not finish his thrust. He almost wished they'd never started this. "I can't see you. Snape, will you fucking look at me. Please."
His ghosts stirred inside him, and Harry realised I'm doing it again. He'd put Snape in a position to be hurt, and his sins had congregated for the final impalement, the thrust that would prove Harry couldn't be trusted. He was breaking Snape for his own pleasure and amusement. What choice did he have? Hadn't Harry come right out and rubbed his face in it? You're at my mercy. Their near-death had just proved that. Snape was trapped here with Harry and Harry's ghosts, the sins of his old master. He couldn't escape.
But that wasn't the whole truth, it hadn't been for a long time. Only, Harry didn't know what to do about it. Sure, there were words for it, but he couldn't say them. To himself, maybe, but not to Snape.
There was another word, though, as basic and powerful as any spell, equally strange to his lips.
"S-Severus." There, he'd managed it. "Look at me. Please."
Snape's head jerked toward him, his eyes subterranean and terrified, trapped in some private hell. He stared at Harry without a flicker of recognition. Fuck. You're not Voldemort. I know that. Well, it hadn't taken Snape long to forget. Harry didn't know what the memory was, but he didn't want to be part of it.
He turned and kissed the first thing he encountered, a bare, bony ankle, and whispered, "Right, this hurts too much. We have to stop."
"No." The gravelly voice startled him. He looked at Snape's face. "Potter, I'm – " Snape tilted his head back and drew a deep breath. "I'll be fine. Just do what I tell you." He tensed his forearms, levered himself up, and surprised Harry by pushing his arse an inch further onto Harry's prick. "Go deep." Harry shook his head, more in shock than denial, and Snape growled, "Do as I say, you idiot. My cock's hard and my arse is empty. I need you. Go as deep as you can."
He scowled, but the heat in his eyes was the permission Harry had been waiting for. Thigh muscles bunching, he shoved his prick inside Snape – Merlin, the bastard's arse was tighter than a fist – and grinned when his bollocks landed with a slap. But the strange, throaty noise Snape made, and the way his sphincter muscles squeezed and released, almost pushed Harry over the edge. He leaned forward, completely sheathed and afraid to move.
"Well?"
"Give me a sec." Harry blinked away spots and slid back, exhaling. "All right now?"
"Potter, which of us is behaving like a fragile flower here?"
It was so very Snape that Harry smiled, as he was meant to, and answered by embedding himself with a satisfying thwack. It was amazing. He refused to believe that he'd never get to do this again. Instead, he thrust deep, the way Snape said he wanted. Snape jerked, and his face darkened. He wore the same expression that used to greet students caught out after curfew: sneering, malevolent, implying he knew something about you that you didn't know, something he'd have no compunction using against you. Feeling challenged, Harry fucked him harder, just to watch his eyes flash and his lip curl with erotic outrage. He couldn't tear his eyes away. Snape scarcely blinked, burning Harry up with the ferocity of his stare. Harry watched sweat creep out on Snape's pale forehead; it brought a sheen to his cheeks, and Harry's own lips stung. He tasted salt. He shifted the angle – cripes, fucking on the floor was murder on the knees. Snape twitched and vibrated like a coiled spring tapped in just the right spot. Slamming that spot again, Harry reached down for Snape's cock, and was surprised when Snape knocked his hand away.
Instead, Snape pulled Harry into his arms and smothered his last rational thought with angry, wet, biting kisses. One leg was hooked over Harry's shoulder and the other bounced against his back as Harry, with no finesse but much enthusiasm, threw himself into fucking as deep inside Snape as it was physically possible to go. He'd been there emotionally; this felt like the necessary equivalent, a different language complicated by arms and legs and pricks and arseholes and Snape's dangerous tongue and snapping teeth and their sweat and spunk and all the physical evidence that they were alive.
Harry reveled in every second of it, while a phenomenal ache built inside him and intensified in his groin.
Hips pumping, lungs heaving, he gasped, "Oh, Merlin. Fuck. Gonna come. Snape. Oh holy fucking – "
He lifted up, scissoring Snape's legs open and plunging deep as the first spasm hit. Through glazed, unfocused eyes, he saw Snape reach sideways and swing his arm up. The wand tapered from his hand. Wondering what that was about, Harry gave himself over to coming as hard as was humanly possible without passing out.
Snape's voice rang in his head, absolutely clear, "Redde mihi sanguinibus," but it barely registered. Harry was possessed, gut-wrenchingly wrung out, by bliss.
Magic cracked over him like a whip. Harry's orgasm had just peaked, yet he found himself spasming again, coming with even more ecstatic violence. His body rammed brutally into Snape, and if he'd been in his right mind he would have struggled to stop. He would have called it rape.
"Redde mihi peccatis tuas," Snape shouted, arching up to receive a fresh battery of thrusts as Harry shook and screamed, feeling as though the ball of light that wiped out the fire had just detonated within him. Moaning, he buried himself inside Snape, clawing to get deeper, every cell in his body yearning to be inside him, to possess him and be possessed.
The wand hit the wall and clattered to the floor. Light streamed behind Harry's eyes, and he felt irradiated, brilliant, like one of the glass edges in the broken window, cruel and sparkling. Magic prismed through him and turned the world into shards of colour.