Harry stared mesmerised. The voice of the man lulled him in as mothers were said to be doing with their children. Well, he couldn't know, now could he? He sure didn't feel like he was Snape's son. Urgh! That would be fatal. "Well you know, I always feel quite peaceful and in harmony with life again, when I leave your rooms", he murmured, not wanting to say aloud just now that he felt at home in these dark damp dungeons. It was bad enough that he was the one who came again and again to see the other man, he would be damned if he did all the courting.

Snape's eyebrow lifted. "Ah, and would you care to enlighten me why that would be so?" The dark gaze washed about Harry as did the sweet and spicy breath of the man. He even smelled like no other, let alone – taste. Harry gulped and saliva started to flow freely in his mouth. He licked his lips and looked the other man directly into the eye, with that look he had honed since first year. Defiant, but good. He was a good boy after all. Right? "Trying to stay in character", Harry began something of which he didn't know where it would lead him, but had that ever hindered him to run headlong into anything? No it hadn't, just ask Voldemort, or the sorry remains that must surely be left somewhere on the face of the earth, or in the lesser known regions of hell. "I would have to say that coming from your rooms and your vilification of my character, I feel very much alive and at ease with my less than brilliant peers, who know nothing of the darkness in me."

Speaking of darkness: How dark could eyes get, really? There seemed to be no bottom in these dark pits before him. "Stepping out of my character just a little, I would have to confess, that I enjoy our bantering a lot. That I feel a lot more at ease with you than with any of the other people I know who would make me a hero. You never do that. You treat me as an obnoxious brat, spoilt and all that, who doesn't know what he did to defeat the dark forces and revels in his fame. That is of course not the truth either."

"What?", asked Snape in that special silken voice of his that was reserved for deepest sarcasm. "Not the truth either? In which way would the golden Gryffindor violate the truth? Violate the rules of good etc.?"

Harry was not to be disturbed by the feelings that voice invoked in him. Not much. "I meant, your vision of me, or the vision you pretend to have of me, is not the truth about me, either. Not the whole truth, at last."

Snape snorted. "Remind me to tell Albus to revise the Curriculum. It seems as if our divinations teacher is more out of her tree even than usual, teaching you brats things that sound like deep philosophy and are nothing but crap."

Harry's eyes gleamed. "You – are –quiet. It has nothing to do with that nut case and you know it." Snape cocked an eyebrow but remained silent. Astonishingly, most astonishingly. Harry had dared him in his own rooms and was still alive and not body-bound or anything. That must mean something. Snape simply looked at him, mouth set and eyes flashing. If Harry wouldn't come to the point, and soon, he could still find himself hit with one of the just not unforgivables or scrubbing cauldrons without magic. Loads and loads and loads of them.

"I was not finished yet, Professor", he offered as an explanation and a cease fire. Snape cocked the eyebrow again. "Well, Potter, I'm dying from curiosity here, to see what else is on that scatterbrain of a mind of yours."

"Liar", Harry said in a tone that might have been called tender, even if neither man would do that. Ever. "As I was saying. If I got out of character even more, I would say that being here with you in these dismal dungeons, bantering and quibbling, being called names, be ridiculed and all that, is that part of my life that I really love. The part of my life which is worth living, really."

Harry felt himself blushing. He had never gone that far before. But he held the dark gaze that was devouring him and did not budge an inch. He swallowed and felt like running away, but he staid. For what felt like hours in which the Potions master perused him like an insect, with eyes that seemed to penetrate to his core.

At last Snape spoke. In a barely audible voice. "But we both and all the world know that Harry Potter would never be so out of character to say such a thing, now would he?" The voice sounded – wistful, Harry decided. He kept silent. Snape seemed to ponder questions of imminent danger and weight. Harry could see the storms raging in that man's brain, their shadows haunted his brow. He wanted to sigh. Snape did everything the hard way. No one could do torture as well as Severus Snape. Especially on himself.

Eventually the dark eyes opened to the full frontal glare again and a touch of a curl graced the mouth. "Come here, you insufferable brat. You earned your reward. Loath so I am to admit it: You have shown extreme courage and even persistence in the face of adverse circumstances that I would never have expected you to be capable of. Moreover, you have shown a talent for insight in yourself and others that is – humiliating. I meant of course, promising."

Harry felt his heart become lighter and lighter with every word the other man spoke. The return of the mischievous grin led him to jump into the arms of Snape that were suddenly opened to him. Abracadabra. He had found the key again. The key to the castle where the dark prince lay buried and awaited his saviour. He had found it time after time, again and again, only to be thrown out of the castle again, every time. This time finding the key had even been harder than usual. But Harry had never been the one to shun hardness. Not when it meant that enduring adverse circumstances lead to heaven. Hell, his whole life had been like that! And it was heaven now, when the awakened prince behind the dark and forbidding mask of the Potions master devoured his lips in a seething kiss and all he could do was sigh into the heavenly mouth.

"You sure play hard to get better than the rest, Sev", he murmured into the dark locks when he finally could speak again. A mock glare. "Do I, Potter? And please tell: Who would be the rest you are talking of?" Stern as always, but with his robe hanging over his elbows, collar of waistcoat and shirt opened, Severus Snape was not as much of a monster as he usually cared to appear. His cradling the boy in his arms, for that was how Harry felt, but would sooner die than tell Severus Snape that, also diminished the abject terror he always wanted to drive into the hearts of the populace.

"Figure of speech", Harry curled in the lap of his teacher and lover rather comfortably, kissing the enticing neck up and down in quick movements. Somehow they had sunken down to the floor under Harry's attack, the older man leaning to the desk and the younger one slung around him like vine. Harry couldn't help it. It felt like coming to a home he had never had. Well that and it felt hotter than hell at the same time. He shifted just to make a point there. Some times Sev could be so very slow on the uptake. All this thinking would distract him from other things at hand. Things that Harry thought a bit more important just now. But then – he was Gryffindor. Perhaps the Slytherins were different, after all.

No, not so very much, he thought smugly. Would have been news, too. It was not as if Snape got too much into thinking whenever he was around. Not after the initial foreplay. Not when Harry rubbed himself onto him in a way he knew was not so very innocent.

"Talking of figure", the low smooth voice dripped into his ear and from there went on its march to plunder and devastate his body. His body loved being tortured like that. "Might it be possible that you put on some weight? The way you are pressing into me is rather – hard."

Harry grinned. "Only partially, Sev. But if it disturbs you – much, I remember that you have a bed there, somewhere. Contrary to popular belief you don't sleep hanging from the ceiling like a bat, that much I gathered. We could do something there to get rid of the excessive - weight."

He was grabbed harder. Snape didn't mind the friction, it seemed. "Impudent brat", the whiskey voice murmured. "Do you mean to imply that you have had more insight into my personal life than you ever cared for? And could blackmail me with it? We are in my office, Mr. Potter, and I as a teacher of Hogwarts don't have a bed in here."

"Oops, sorry", Harry said happily. As always he felt ridiculously elated, like on a high while flying or while drinking the third butterbeer with just a shot of firewhiskey, when Snape had given in. "My fault. Of course I didn't want to imply any critique of your bearing as a teacher." Ouch – that could have gone wrong. Harry looked at Snape's face through his eyelashes. Would that serve as a pretence for Snape to fall back on his teacher behaviour?