Series: Minor Arcana. Sequel to "Declaro" (rating R). You really need to read that first, I think. Find it through the author link @ ff.net or skyehawke.com.

Rating: R (at least, I'm pretty sure it's R – I have a way higher bar for NC17 but if anyone thinks I'm wrong I'd be grateful for the warning.

Pairings: This section – pretty much SS/HP.

Notes: This is closest I've got to publishing a sex scene. It's not quite, but it's getting there. As there will be sex later on, and I've never done this before, I would really value feedback on that element of the writing. I'm also not sure the reason why either of them are doing this is quite clear enough, but I don't want to have to explain it here. I'm sure it was better in the erased draft. Anyway, comments on that would also be particularly welcome before I revise this.

Disclaimer: J.K. Rowling.

Archiving: Only where I've agreed.

Feedback/Reviews: Definitely – especially to tell me what works and what doesn't.

Pervinco III (c): Persuasion

Harry felt the world come back into focus slowly and with a groan. There was an uncomfortable bitter watery feeling in his back of his throat, and the sides of his mouth, and. . .

"Here. Drink this Potter." Snape. He took the flask. The liquid was syrupy and foul, but as it slid down his throat he immediately began to feel better.

Across the dimly lit room he could see Snape raising the fire. He wasn't sure where he was, but there was a Slytherin crest on the wall – so he was probably at Hogwarts – and another on the end of a large wooden bed. He sat up.

He was in an armchair between the bed and the fire, facing another across a low table. A flashing slither of green under glass – a snake in a glass column? Books. Snape closing a cabinet. A decanter and glasses. Snape in dark trousers and a white shirt. Harry closed his eyes until the buzzing went away.

"So we're lovers are we?" Snape said, placing a glass of what looked like water in Harry's hand. Trust Snape to find that amusing.

"I never said that. They just assumed. . ."

"And you didn't correct them?" Snape took the other armchair.

Harry gulped down half of the drink, which wasn't water, but was very nice. "No."

"Which reminds me, Mr Potter. I received your letter explaining why you felt compelled to accept Draco's declaration, but it failed to clarify why you are waiting till the last minute to accept a declaration you begged me to send you."

Oh. It hadn't occurred to Harry that Snape wouldn't predict what he planned. "I thought it was meant to be spectacular. I thought, at the last minute, in a public place, it would look more. . ."

"It would look forced, or like you were trying to embarrass me. I am not a teenager, Potter."

"Oh." Harry put the empty glass on the table and realised he didn't feel tired anymore.

"If you have any further hare-brained plans involving me I'd prefer to be consulted."

"But when? If I'm not supposed to. . ."

"For someone with such expertise at breaking rules and interfering you seem to have chosen a very inappropriate time to develop either scruples or timidity." The Professor put his own empty glass on the table. "Very well, Potter. I have office hours for Slytherin students on Tuesday, from 7pm to 9pm. If you must speak with me in person you may do so then."

"With a queue of Slytherins outside."

"As you say."

Harry nodded. It was better than nothing.

"So, how do you want to. . ?" Harry looked around the room as if something would give him a clue, or at least keep him from looking at Snape. "I could send the letter. You could send Thetis to me, I mean. For the letter. How does she get to you down here anyway?" Snape clearly raised an eyebrow and folded his hands, as if fully prepared to wait out the babbling. Harry stopped.

"Did you write to Draco to seal the spell?" Snape calmly observed Harry's mortification.

"No," the boy said eventually, removing his glasses to clean them, although they were charmed.

"How did you do it then?"

Snape didn't move – he wasn't closer – but it seemed that way. Harry looked at the fire, his hands, the floor. It was stupid to be embarrassed; he'd not done anything wrong. "I kissed him."

"I see." It was a strange tone, and Harry looked at Snape.

Harry shrugged uncomfortably. "Is this 'fatherly' concern or jealous interest." Snape huffed in amusement. "Yes, I guess. Yes. But I can't trust him." Now he wanted to cry more than laugh, and it seemed bitterly unfair that. . . "I can't get him out of my head."

"At your age," Snape said, "yes, every new experience. . ."

For a moment he wanted to be outraged but, yes, it was partly that. "But it wasn't entirely new," he finally said and, with a small smile added, "there was Angie Bell, and there was you."

"I'm thrilled to join the list, of course."

Snape shifted in his chair, and his unbuttoned collar fell away from his neck. Harry couldn't even feign surprise that he found that exciting. Snape gave him a dark look that just had to be consciously seductive, or at least conscious of how much he wanted to be seduced.

Harry ran his hands over the brocade of the chair, feeling the texture, feeling his cock swell and his clothes itch, and trying not to panic. This is how I feel; this is who I am and what I want. "Do you want me to kiss you?"

"I think it's enough of an indignity that you accepted Draco Malfoy first. I'd rather avoid re-enacting your highly charged romantic scene."

"I never said it was like that." Snape smirked, and Harry looked away.

"So you don't trust Draco, but you do trust me?"

"I don't always believe you." He suddenly realised he couldn't see a door, and laughed at his own idiocy – carried drunk to an unknown place by a known Death-Eater; and had it really been years since he'd wondered if Snape had killed anyone. "But yes, even when I don't like you."

"Open your robe."

"What?" Some look crossed Snape's face. There was a moment in which they just looked at each other and Harry knew something turned on this, but not what or which way.

He put his fingers thickly to the clasps on his robe. He wanted to – his cock was suddenly pressing hard against his trousers telling him how much. One leg over the other, Snape rested his arms on the chair, touching his fingertips lightly together, and Harry remembered them in his hair, on his mouth. He pulled open the clasps roughly one by one.

"Are you in a hurry?" Snape said, in a smooth voice. Harry's fingers slowed briefly but sped again as the other man moved one hand across his own face and into his hair, watching him – "It's important that you remember it" – Snape seemed to watch only his face, which didn't help.

Feeling stunned, Harry closed his eyes, but kept going. Was he going to. . . were they going to? Harry's cock swelled tautly, till it ached.

Then, without warning Snape was slowly pulling him to his feet. An arm slipped around Harry's body under the open robe and then Snape's other hand lifted the cotton of his T-shirt, running fingers smoothly across his stomach, which jumped at the touch, prickling goosebumps up his chest and arms and forcing his erection painfully upwards. He lent a palm against Snape's shoulder for support and exhaled.

Snape's hand guided Harry's to the zipper on his own trousers. "Oh my god," Harry groaned and Snape's mouth was at his ear.

"Do you remember the spell?"

Harry nodded, more times than was necessary, as Snape guided his own hand to open the fly. He shivered as Snape's lips brushed the side of his face, "Take yourself out."

Harry knew what he meant, and his cock jumped and began to leak, but didn't know if he could do it. He leant his head on Snape's shoulder, and breathed in the crisp cotton of his shirt. His cock bounced stickily across his hand and he had to grasp at it twice. He was so hard it hurt to be touched, but almost involuntarily he pulled back on the soft skin and bucked into his own fist. Snape made a soft noise in his ear, and he did it again.

"What are you going to give me, Harry?"

Harry pulled back on his cock again with a sigh, and turned his mouth up towards Snape's face. He felt a rush at Snape's eyes on him, steady and intense. "Touch me," he whispered against the side of Snape's mouth.

Without a word there were long cool fingers wrapping around him, and Harry was grateful for the supporting arm behind him as his knees buckled. "God," he gasped.

"That's not how it begins."

It took Harry a moment to sort that out as Snape slid a smooth hand up, tightened around the now dripping tip, and smoothed the slickness back down again, his breath on Harry's face.

"Ahh."

"That's not it either," Snape whispered into his ear, touching a tongue just to his neck as if tasting him. "Do you know what I want now?" He stroked a little more firmly and Harry's hips jerked erratically into Snape's hold.

"Do you want me to make you come?" Harry made an inarticulate sound somewhere between a groan and a whimper. "The spell, then."

With a mental shake he thought how powerful it was to be here, dangerously in Severus Snape's arms, with maybe so much and maybe just his own pleasure riding on what they did.

"Ego agnosco." Harry whispered, as clearly as he could. Snape slid a little faster back towards the base of Harry's penis, and slipped a hand down to his bare arse to direct him more firmly. "Vos suscipio," Harry groaned, throwing back his head as Snape sucked hard on his neck. He suppressed a sharp cry as he came across his professor's hand in jagged spurts. It tore at his throat – the spell, the spell – and he moaned into Snape's neck, "Pervinco."

The spell ratcheted through him in a hot surge. Snape caught him and lowered him to the chair.

After a moment he said, "Fuck."

"Language, Mr Potter." Snape produced a towel from somewhere.

"Wow," the room faded back, "it didn't hit like that with Draco." Which was a stupid, thoughtless thing to say, and he closed his eyes against Snape's scorn

"I imagine the intensity of physical contact inflects it," Snape replied from across the room in a professional but not unfriendly voice, and Harry looked over at him. Snape stood in front a mirror fixed to the wall near his bed, his hair hanging loose, wiping his hands, and looking back at Harry in the glass.

"Wow again," Harry let his eyes drift shut. "I must remember to have sex with Zabini."