Declaro VIII: Tableaux

There was a moment in which Severus Snape breathed, watching, almost through his lashes, Draco Malfoy curl his hand into the other boy's hair more tightly and rock his hips forward again with sharp sound - "Ah."

And then it was gone.

"Wood! Malfoy!" Oliver lurched away with a startled cry. There was a flash of naked Draco thrown back against the dark of the wall, head turned away, long white angle of hipbone and thigh, a pale erection shaded with slightly darker curls.

Wood shuffled with clothes and hair in the dark, but Draco looked back at his Professor unashamedly, dropping his arms and shifting to frame his hips. In the instant before the older man could growl out "Cover yourself!" he saw the boy's penis twitch and glisten in the light from the door and his anger swelled.

Severus watched Draco close off his face in a slow blink, and then curl up into a new pose, one foot on the wall as he began to slowly shut the lower clasps on his robe. A slash of pale chest moved between the panels of cloth, dropping with the movements of his hands to reveal on this side a smooth stomach, on that a nipple or white upper arm.

"Professor," Wood moved into his field of vision, announcing briskly, "I apologise. . ."

"Get out, Mr Wood."

"Oh. Yes, of course, sir." Oliver clearly moved to help his companion. "Draco. . ."

"I need to speak to Mr Malfoy. You can leave."

"Sir, as, um, the older party, and no longer a student. . ."

"You are therefore not my concern."

Oliver hesitated between them, unsure of the proper behaviour when. . . his head span.

"Oliver," Draco said. "It's all right. I'll meet you back inside." His robe was only closed to the breastbone, and his fingers dropped away loosely.

Oliver caught the look then - softer and more lascivious than the sly glances he'd been given. The Professor's stiff fury rang out through the dark room from the half open door that framed them perfectly, and it was so obvious what an idiot he'd been. "I'll leave you to it then", he said coldly.

Snape caught his arm as he strode off. "Don't presume too much, Mr Wood."

Oliver held back the sneer and the bright humiliation and pulled away. "And I believe Mr Flint is looking for you. He was rather drunk." Oliver dropped his eyes, glanced at Draco, who was looking only at Snape, and left.

* * *

SEVERUS:

The boy keeps his place on the wall, a practiced picture of vulnerable availability. I wish I could laugh at him, but I feel uncovered and angry. His mouth slides carelessly between an almost smile and a lush pout. Lush - Merlin, I've called the boy lush.

I've never been such a fraud as to pretend my senior students weren't attractive when they were, and Draco is erotic. This morning's foolishness was not the first time I've been propositioned by a student, either, even if he was the first one to actually end up in my arms - where he did fold and writhe back against me beautifully, too dazed to notice how hotly hard I was for him as he struggled and lost. I also can't deny he's been watching well enough to pick my preferences, and the submissive boy act is beautiful (the sudden thought that he's not entirely acting sends a tingling rush through my prick). But I can safely say I've never stood, iron hard now, watching a mostly naked student blatantly flaunt his body and his interest in me. He takes his time over the last clasps, though he knows by now I'll wait for him - the image flashes back for what I know won't be the last time of his eyes on mine as he took his pleasure, in another's mouth but from my eyes on him - to finish.

With long and hard-learnt care I move the practiced glower into a stony frieze.

He can tell he's lost the edge and moves, not closer to me but across the room. The boy thinks he's circling me. And I hate Lucius right now for his knowing so much and so little.

"I am genuinely surprised," I say coolly, "that the Malfoy heir and a Slytherin prefect understands the obligations of hospitality so poorly. "

I see his irritation spark. "We're not talking about manners here," he replies. At least he's ceased the performance, facing off with me just over arm's length away.

"Really," I move my tone down to cold, "did you think you'd have another attempt at blackmail instead?"

"That was a mistake," he says, more quietly.

"Not to mention ill-informed." Which I know all too well is a serious insult to a Malfoy. He colours slightly and drops his gaze.

"I was jealous."

I will not sympathise with him.

* * *

Draco raised a hand as if to offer it and stepped closer. Severus didn't stop him, but he didn't respond. It was intimate. He breathed the feeling in a little and, carefully, placed his fingers against the stiff fabric of Severus' robe. Draco could smell wool and sandalwood and - was it grass? The fabric creased and smoothed - and lemon. He whispered, "I think you want to touch me."

Severus didn't move away, but his mouth curled in something like disgust. "Unlikely. Especially now I've seen the type you're rutting with - Quidditch players, Draco?"

The boy's eyes flickered. "Hardly rutting, Severus," he stressed the last word as he lifted his other hand to lightly curl around the other man's wrist. Snape didn't move, almost as if he was waiting for something to happen which must.

"Not yet, anyway," Draco added. He tilted his head up and aside to speak softly across Severus' neck. "Don't you want to know?," he breathed, "How I want to give myself up."

Snape broke the contact swiftly with a decided step back. "Did that work on Potter?"

Draco flinched.

"Now what I want, Draco, is for you to compose yourself and farewell your guests appropriately. You will also tutor for me instead of Professor Flitwick for the remainder of the term." Draco, adjusting his clothes, hesitated for just an instant. "So I can keep an eye on you." The boy's eyes closed and his lips pressed and released in an emotion neither of them could have named.

Snape moved to the door and waited silently, and certainly without looking, until he felt Draco at his elbow. "Draco."

"I will hate you if you sympathise," the boy whispered.

"Unlikely," Snape said with some bitterness. "In fact I'm more than usually disappointed. Your behaviour has been. . . unbecoming."

"House pride, Professor? How trite."

"You've been careless; foolish. Bordering on suicidal." From one side he saw Draco's hard smile. Severus felt both empathy and something like grief and he had to add, flinging a resentful thought in the Headmaster's direction, "But it's entirely possible that I understand your situation rather more than you think."

"Ironic", Draco replied, not looking his way. "I never thought you didn't."

"Understand me then," Snape said, leaning almost over Draco's shoulder. "It would help neither of us."

Draco would have walked off without a response but Snape stopped him with one hand, and waited. "I haven't made things worse," the boy eventually said quietly. "I will not do as he wants and he will never let me go."

There was nothing else to say.

* * *

Harry rolled back into the body suddenly flung across his bed. "Ha-rr-y, c'mon wake up."

". . . Ron?" Harry mumbled.

Ron waited a minute, at most - "Ha-. . ."

"Urgh. I'm awake. I'm - what's the time?" He blinked against the light and at the clock, which said Too Early. "Merlin. What is it?"

"Harry. . ."

"You realise I was up really late and, uh, my head hurts."

"Harry," Ron said, urgently. "I'm going to do it."

"Great. Can it happen while I'm sleeping?"

"I need your help," the redhead pleaded. "Now. Before everyone else gets up. I'm. . ."

"Coffee." Harry said.

"Huh?"

"Ron. You bring me coffee - not transfigured coffee either, because that just tastes weird - otherwise I'm sleeping."

By the time Ron returned with something resembling coffee, Harry had drifted off, to a very strange dream about ravens under his bed, woken again, and was crossly huddled into his quilt, scowling at the day and trying not to think. "I don't suppose you could tell me I didn't do anything embarrassing last night," he asked.

Ron shrugged. "You were pretty, ah, enthusiastic about a few things. But everyone was drunk. Now. . ." he trailed off expectantly.

"Ok," Harry said resignedly, "what is it you're going to do?"

"Hermione."

Harry raised an eyebrow at that and Ron flushed in a satisfying way. But he still shoved himself in under the quilt and stole a pillow.

"You know what I mean," Ron said. "Help me."

Harry was just about up to registering surprised concern, or was that concerned surprise. "You're," he started, "and, um, will she want you to? Live Your Life and everything."

"Well she thinks it's a fraud, but if no one's being pushed. . . Anyway, she shouldn't have to choose Snape."

"She doesn't have to choose anyone," Harry said. "But about Snape - you're being scarily calm. Why?"

Ron lay on his back, nudging the curtain with one foot, flicking the sunlight across them distractedly. "She wants it, I know she does. Something for, you know, how hard she works. I just thought, maybe I could come up with something too. I mean imagine having to be ordered around by Snape for another five years. He's such a slimy, cruel. . . sorry."

"I did ask."

"Yeah but you know," Ron said, somewhat embarrassed, "bagging your. . . interest."

"Huh?"

"You really don't remember last night do you?" Ron said with a laugh.

Harry ran through too many possible scenarios - Snape's eyes, Snape and Flint, Oliver's mouth, Draco against the wall - and at least as many ways of asking about it. But Ron had arranged parchment, ink and quill before he found anything he could bear to say. "So. What do I write?" he said with an expectant look. He couldn't, he wouldn't have done anything like. . . or too. . . Think about Ron.

"Well," Harry said, eventually, "what are you going to offer?"

Ron just looked.

"You know," his friend continued, "like Karkaroff did. You say why she should be interested."

"No, I get it," Ron said, "but. . . it's Hermione."

"Yeah, I know." Harry took a breath. "But, let's say you do this - what would be in the so serious because so binding contract? Not just 'it's Hermione'."

Ron gave a dismissive wave. "We can work that part out later. Hermione would. . ."

Harry stopped him - "What - does - she - want?"

"Hermione?"

Harry hit him with a pillow.

With a serious look Ron said, "Ok! All right, I know this. Um, brilliant research, new vista-things of knowledge." There was a really long pause. "For me to grow up?" "Definitely offer her that one."

Ron frowned at the paper. "She doesn't need me to do well and I can't give her stuff," he considered. "Do I need to say? Can't we just share stuff, like usual? But, I guess, more. . ." He caught Harry's grin. "Don't give me that look." Harry grinned more. "What? You think I'm going to fall at her feet and 'offer her my heart'?" Harry's grin was ear-splitting. "Look," Ron said grumpily, "if. . ."

"Ron, I'm just. . . it's great. But," and suddenly it did seem both great and really serious, "what is it you do for her?"

"I've no idea," Ron said quietly, rolling his face into the pillow. Harry watched him. He stayed there.

"Ok, look. . . Ron?" Harry lifted the pillow to look at his friend. "Hermione can do the study thing on her own, lots of different ways I guess," Ron pulled the pillow back down over his head, "but she might - she'd probably rather not do it on her own".

Muffled Ron said "So. . .", and then pulled away the pillow to look at Harry in horror. "Oh god - am I offering her marriage?"

There was a silence filled with uncertain intensity.

Ron eventually said, "I can help. We could live together. Auror training pays ok, what with the maybe being killed any moment, and I've already got the papers. She'll get a scholarship for sure but that's not much - Percy's starving all the time since he quit Fudge. Hey, I guess I could ask Percy? What, you know, the really committed student needs."

"You really should ask him. And Ron, maybe your parents?"

"They'll hate the idea; they hate the whole thing."

"I wouldn't want to be round when your mother finds out if you don't tell them. And it'll be in the paper anyway. Shit! Sirius, I didn't think. . . He always reads. . ."

"Are we done with my life-changing decision then?" Ron said sarcastically.

"Sorry. You just need to owl Percy about student life and tell your Mum you're going to propose to Hermione."

"Great." He went back under the pillow.

"And Ron?" Harry said, sliding out of bed and heading towards the bathroom, "definitely offer her your heart."

He ducked the pillow, laughing.

* * *

The weekend was rife with gossip, though as none of it seemed to be about Harry he decided to try and forget about it. The one time he broached the subject with Hermione she blushed and actually giggled - and he wouldn't be trying that again.

He hadn't seen Draco at all. Rumour was there'd been a howler from his father Saturday morning, but no one had actually seen it. He'd listened to Ron's half-baked plans, read Hermione's books, and watched the rain. It was one of those weekends. Sunday night the common room was busy with bickering about board games, clothes and favourite teams, and he had to get out for a while.

He was most of the way to the Astronomy Tower when he saw Draco, Crabbe and Goyle entering a lower passage towards the owlery. He really should write to Sirius.

There was always spare parchment for emergency notes there, and Sirius wasn't fussy about that kind of thing. Of course, he didn't want to run into the Slytherin goon squad, so he stayed on the upper level - there was a stairway from the Astronomy Tower down to the owlery, if you could convince it to open. He passed a hand over the place where the opening would be and the stones shivered. Taking out his wand he whispered a spell, and watched them blur and reform. "Thanks," he said softly, one hand on the mossy wall to steady himself as he went down.

Below he heard voices, and finally Draco saying ". . . for which I'd like some privacy."

Edging just barely around the wall where the landing turned he saw Draco finish something on a parchment and, putting the quill down, scroll it up. His companions waited a short distance away, watching him.

Harry considered going down. He had to write to Sirius after all. Just as he decided to, there was a sudden firm grip on his shoulder and, in the same moment, amid a rustle of owls, Draco rose to receive the arrival of a falcon. "Don't move," Snape's voice said.

Draco removed a scroll from the owl and offered the new one. It was off, without pausing for rest or reward, and Draco watched it go with a strange expression. Certainly there was a pause before he unfurled his letter, taking a minute to skim the contents before turning to the other Slytherin boys. "We can go now."

Crabbe and Goyle almost seemed to wait for other instructions, but after a minute, sharing a look, they clearly agreed, made way for Draco, watched him pass, and followed him out of the owlery. Snape released his hand from Harry's shoulder.

He turned to see the Professor leaving by the entrance he'd opened to the parapets, trailed by a flare of black robe. He could follow Draco, and it looked like Snape wouldn't stop him. But he might discover more from Snape.

"Professor?" Snape stopped, not so far down the corridor as he could have been.

"Yes Mr Potter? And I won't ask what you're doing up here at night."

"I am a prefect," Harry said with some annoyance. He seemed always to have to remind Snape of that.

"Quite. I don't know how I manage to forget that particular decision."

"Can we. . . talk here?" Harry asked tentatively.

"If we couldn't I would hardly let you get so far as. . . ." Snape waited for Harry's response.

"Draco." Harry said. Snape nodded.

"Is he," no, Harry knew that. "He's in danger."

"He's a Malfoy," Snape replied, "and neither quite obedient nor precisely ambitious enough for a Malfoy. You could call that dangerous."

Harry searched for something that would clarify things, and that Snape would answer.

Snape cut him off - "They should be clear by now if you want the owlery."

Harry shuffled a little nervously and murmured a non-answer.

"Writing secret notes to Black, I suppose?" the Professor said, walking back towards him. "He'll be rushing here to protect you from the evil Slytherin."

Harry choked on the answer he was about to give. . . "evil Slytherin?"

Snape pushed that almost smile towards something almost pleased.

"I meant Zabini," he said. "Ironically, of course."

"Oh that," Harry replied.

"You seem unconcerned."

"We figure it's just a test of what I'll do. Not important." As he said it Harry realised he actually hadn't been concerned about it since his conversation with Draco.

"A girlfriend, then." Snape said. "I suppose Gryffindors think the useful elements of the Rite are somehow corrupt because not, what is it, spontaneous inspiration and affection."

Harry moved to sit on the parapet. "And Slytherins are of course always putting aside what they actively want - in the interests of the greater game."

Snape chuckled, there didn't seem to be another word for it. "Perhaps I see its use," Harry continued, thinking about Hermione, "if there's something you're clearly wanting, and you know whom to ask. "

Snape moved right up against the nearest pillar, and turned out to the dark. They could hear astronomy or perhaps divination students in the tower above. There was a shrill trilling imperative call. Divination then.

"Draco wants something," Harry finally said.

Snape hesitated more than was dramatically necessary - "I suspect he has a list." They both smiled and, in the moment, Snape added, "So it's a boyfriend then."

"Not yet," Harry replied, without thinking. Stuck with the words, he also forced out "and not necessarily Draco."

"But not out of the question either?"

"Well, perhaps I'm a Slytherin at heart." Snape raised both eyebrows at that. "I don't think any," he wanted to say lover, "'romance' is going to stand up to the expectations, so maybe I'm actually waiting for something more. . . pragmatic." A flickering series of past short-term girlfriends overwhelmed or peeved with Harry being Harry occurred to him. "Perhaps I don't have a choice."

Snape paused. He clearly paused. "In fact , Mr Potter, I'd be. . . grateful. . . if you were keeping an eye on Draco." Harry looked at him with blatant surprise. "He's become my responsibility, it seems."

"I can do that," Harry smiled; "After all, I already was."

Snape nodded an acknowledgment and seemed about to leave.

"You'll owe me though," Harry added abruptly.

Snape stopped and looked at him.

"You're an interesting boy, Harry Potter" he finally said, and swept round to the stairs with the usual dramatic flourish.

More than a little flattered, though it was hardly a blinding compliment, Harry called after him, "Can I take that as a declaration of interest; or do I need it in writing?"

Snape looked back from the stairwell with a clear - and utterly fascinating - smile. "Technically, I don't believe you do."