TITLE: Harry Potter and the Obligatory Sequel, Chapter Three
RATING: PG-13
DISCLAIMER: Belongs to J.K. Rowling, etc.
SUMMARY: Sequel to "The Master Plan." Slash. Harry is surprised to find a member of the Order on his doorstep on Privet Drive. Alas, Aunt Petunia is even more surprised, and thus begins a battle of wills like none other.

Chapter Three: A Sneer Delivered Right to Your Door

Harry was sprawled across his bed, running his fingertips across the smooth, cool surface of the little mother-of-pearl and mahogany box Severus had given him. It was a nifty little thing, shiny and elegant, and it fit in the palm of Harry's hand. Best of all, though, was what happened whenever it was opened.

"For Merlin's sake, Potter; stop messing about and get to your studies."

Harry laughed, shutting the lid only to open it again right away.

"This isn't a toy, you know. It's meant to help you remember what you ought to be doing while I'm away."

He shook his head, grinning at Snape's deep voice emanating from the teeny tiny box. It was a wonderful present. Every time he opened it, he got an entirely new gift.

"You really are beyond impossible. I despair, I really do. I should have known you'd be using this for something ludicrous. I intended it to put the fear of God in you, and you're probably using it to wank." The rich, smooth voice ended the sentence with a heavy sigh, and Harry shut the lid again, smirking. He wasn't wanking, but it was a rather nice thought.

"Boy! Come down here and help with supper. I don't care what your freakish little friends say; just because we're putting you up doesn't mean you get free board. You'll earn your keep, just as Dudders does with his summer job," Aunt Petunia's screechy voice informed him, causing Harry to roll his eyes. Dudley's summer job was at a local pizzeria, and seemed to consist mostly of his pigging out on the merchandise and complaining about the customers. Still, he was generously giving his parents about 1/100th of his check for rent, so they thought it was fabulous.

"Yes, Aunt Petunia," Harry called back. He heard her thumping back down the stairs, muttering about her wastrel nephew. Harry pressed his lips briefly to the top of the box and muttered, "I'll be back later," before shoving it under his pillow.

After dinner, Harry did the dishes, wondering if there was a spell to combat dishpan hands. He was certain there must be, but he would have been embarrassed to ask. He really would have liked to complain to the Order about his aunt and uncle, but they hadn't asked for much, so what could he say? 'They've forced me to do the dishes! Make it stop! Please! The horror!' sounded a tad melodramatic, even for him.

And really, he wasn't all that upset about it. He knew it could have been a lot worse. The only thing he was really worried about these days was Severus. The man was being hunted, he knew, and while Hogwarts was left nearly empty, there was nowhere safe for him to go. There were still a few weeks left before term. Would he be all right until then? Where would Dumbledore send him? When last they'd spoken, Snape had implied that they were running out of hiding places. God, where could he go that would be safe?

The doorbell rang, and Harry's uncle bellowed for him to answer it. "I can't!" he yelled back, annoyed. "I'm up to my elbows in baked-on grease! Besides, you ought to check and see if it's safe. I'd hate to tell my friends you weren't looking out for me."

"You vicious little weasel!" Vernon growled, but Petunia shushed him.

"Only a few more weeks, and then he's gone for good," she assured him. "I'll answer the door."

There were a few moments of blessed silence before Petunia began shrieking about those people and the neighbours can see and You're one of them, aren't you?

Harry poked his head out in the hallway, boggling when he saw Snape on the front stoop.

"I'm sorry to bother you, Mrs. Dursley," he was saying in a flat, insincere voice. "I've brought a note; it should explain things. If you'll step aside, please." He pushed passed her, moving into the house. "I say, is this the main family room? How very…prosaic. You've certainly reached new heights of monotony. You must have put a lot of work into it." He caught sight of Dudley, parked in front of the telly, a handful of crisps on the way to his mouth. "And what a lovely elephant you have."

"You can't—can't just—come barging in here," Vernon was stammering, his face scrunched up in anger like a flat-nosed bulldog.

"Oh, my God!" Petunia exclaimed, pale after reading the parchment Snape had handed her. "You can't! You can't! You absolutely cannot stay here! Whatever would the neighbours think?"

"I assure you that I can. And if you try to stop me, I shall redecorate your entire house in shades of fluorescent orange. I shall affix sequins to every available surface. I shall, with one wave of my wand, change the outer colour-scheme to something in the glitter and rainbows motif." He towered over Petunia, glaring. "If you do not wish do draw your neighbours' attention, I suggest you rethink your position."

Petunia opened and shut her mouth, but nothing came out.

Severus strode quickly up the stairs, finding Dudley's room, and tossing a small bag onto the bed. "I shall be sleeping here. Your elephant may sleep on the sofa."

"But we have a guest room, and it's—"

"Too far from the kitchen," Snape proclaimed, "which is where I shall set up my potions laboratory."

"S—Severus?" Harry finally got out, squeezing past his cousin into the room. "What are you doing here?"

"Mister Potter," the man acknowledged, giving Harry an offhand nod. "I'm afraid I cannot give you all the details. Suffice it to say that when my last hideout was discovered—thanks, in part, to being followed after the fiasco that was your birthday party—I found myself out of safe havens, and Albus felt I would benefit from the watch that is currently on your own lodgings. In other words, he dumped me on your doorstep with a letter reading, 'Please care for this poor, unwanted child,' much as he did with yourself."

"Potions laboratory?" squawked Petunia, who was still stuck on his first announcement. Snape raised his eyes to the ceiling and slammed the door in her face.

"There. A bit of quiet, and isn't it nice? Now. We have a good hour or so before the rest of my things are Floo'd in, so I'll unpack and resize everything, and you may begin putting it away. Fold the elephant's belongings and I'll move them downstairs later."

"Sure," Harry said eagerly. "Are you going to tell me what's going on?"

"No," Snape said shortly.

Harry glared at him. "So, what? We're just going to stand here in silence and fold clothes?"

"No," Snape replied slowly. "We have many things to discuss."

"Really?" Harry's interest perked up, as did certain parts of his anatomy. Perhaps Snape wanted to talk about their relationship, and where it was headed, and how the 'No-Sex Clause' really didn't make a whole lot of sense when they were living together in any case. "Like what?"

"Let's start with this; what would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?"

"What?"

"It's a first year Potions question, Harry. Even you ought to be able to deduce the answer. Fine, we'll try something else; describe to me the process of extracting antimony from its ore."

"What?"

Snape slowly turned to stare at Harry, one eyebrow raised imperiously. "If you do not answer my question correctly in the next ten seconds, Mister Potter, we are going to have words."

Harry frowned. Whenever they had 'words,' Snape was usually the one giving them out, while Harry sat bewildered under the onslaught. Really, sometimes he thought the man had swallowed a dictionary, and just liked spitting bits of it back out at him.

"You take two super-posed crucibles and cover one to reduce the oxidation of the sulphur. Then you—wait a second, what the hell has this got to do with anything? Look, number one, it's the middle of summer, and you don't have the authority to quiz me on my lessons. Number two, you're just trying to avoid the issue. What are you doing here? What's going on?"

Snape gave a great, growling sigh. "Mister Potter, I cannot divulge any information. I am under contract. I have pledged to do as I was bidden. If you will not stop pestering me, I am afraid that our relationship has no future. Do you understand?"

Harry's teeth clamped tightly shut, grinding slowly together. How like Severus to make an ultimatum like that. He tried to breathe deeply, and closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them, Snape's face swam into view, tired and touched with sadness. Harry didn't understand. Was Snape unhappy that he couldn't discuss it? Did he worry it might cause the end of their relationship? Or had something else happened to make him unhappy?

"I'm sorry," Harry croaked. "I know you've had a rough summer, and I'm not helping."

"Well…you are assisting in folding my clothes, but I could do with less interrogation in the meanwhile. You will be told…when the decision to tell you is made. I am not the one with the power to make that decision. Still, I…I don't wish to alienate you," he added softly, almost talking to his hands, which were busy flicking Dudley's clothes out of the drawers to make room for his own.

Harry came round behind the man and put his arms around his waist, leaning on the slender back and inhaling deeply. "I'm sorry," he repeated. "It was difficult for me to be away from you, and it's really horrible to be left out of the loop. It frightens me to know that things are going on—things that affect me—and I'm totally clueless about them."

Snape rested a hand over one of Harry's. "I know," he murmured. "I apologise for being unable to enlighten you. All I can do is assure you that I believe it is for the best. I dislike seeing you upset with me, but far better that, than seeing you endangered."

Harry smiled a small, rather bitter smile against the cloth of the Potions Master's robe. "Cruel to be kind," he intoned. "I understand." He cleared his throat a little. "Love you," he whispered.

Severus pried one of Harry's hands loose, and the youth thought the man would push him away, but instead he raised the hand to his lips, briefly pressing them against Harry's chapped knuckles. "I missed you, as well," he said. "It was almost amusing; whatever trouble plagued me, it was never you. I found it…strangely depressing, dealing with problems of which you were not the source."

Harry snorted. "Wow. Wild compliments."

Snape pulled Harry's arms away, turning to face him. "Dumbledore informed your aunt—via his little letter—that I am one of your professors. It would be…inappropriate for us to behave as lovers in front of your family." Harry could only imagine how disappointed he must have looked at this information, and Snape gave a grunt of laughter. He cupped Harry's chin in his hand, leaning forward to steal a soft kiss. "But I promise that I shan't completely deny you affection," he whispered.

Harry grinned, winding his arms round the man, feeling Snape's hand in the small of his back. "Mmmm," he said against Snape's lips. "Good enough for me."

OoOoOoO

Harry happily helped Snape set up his laboratory that evening, ignoring the way the older man couldn't seem to contain a dry smirk at seeing him enjoying anything to do with Potions. Harry supposed a great deal of his pleasure came from the fact that Aunt Petunia was standing in the doorway, staring in horror at the transformation.

Gone were her clean counters, now covered in bottles and jars. Gone was her shiny, polished tabletop, now hosting three large cauldrons, and a distiller. Gone was her window over the sink, long used to spy on the neighbours. It was now covered with a heavy curtain, both for privacy and to help keep in the cool air.

The entire room had been transformed; it was now dark, chilly, and very like the dungeons. Harry had no doubt that Snape considered it as close to 'home' as he was likely to get.

Several times in the next few days, Harry had to diffuse arguments over the arrangement. His family was afraid of magic, but they were also self-righteous prigs, and his aunt had always had considered the kitchen her domain, so he was unsurprised at the clashes. He'd hear his aunt losing her composure and shrieking "Get out of my kitchen!" and run downstairs to find Snape, equally strained and harassed-looking, bellowing, "Get out of my laboratory!" Harry would spend the next quarter of an hour calming Snape, while Petunia retreated to another part of the house to have her nervous breakdown and plot her revenge.

Generally, peace would be restored when Vernon threatened physical violence, Snape threatened magical harm, Dudley tried to hide under the nearest piece of furniture, whimpering, and Harry pleaded with everyone to calm down. Eventually, Uncle Vernon would take his family out for another expensive meal, Severus would fix something for himself and Harry, and Harry would lecture the man on self-restraint.

"After all," he explained rationally, "We don't want you to end up in Azkaban for murdering my uncle. Just…have some control, would you?"

"Control? This from the sex-fiend whom I found glued to my bedroom door in the middle of the night?"

Harry flushed. "I…I heard noises. I thought maybe you were being attacked. I was just trying to make sure you were all right."

Snape humphed incredulously. "Ridiculous. You were looking to sneak into my bed, or—barring that—you were looking to build your library of wanking fantasies."

"I wasn't the one wanking!" Harry shot back. "I couldn't, because your stupid entrapment spell stuck my hands to the door! And yes, I would have done if I could, but only because you were doing it first, and it's hard to listen to that sort of thing without having a reaction."

"You just keep your mouth shut about that, or I'll sue you for slander. And I wasn't doing anything. You were imagining things. It was the product of your unbalanced mind and preoccupation with sex."

"It was your bloody voice saying my name!"

"I'm not saying I blame you for fantasizing about it, I'm just saying that you ought to keep it to yourself."

"Well," Harry grumbled, "You ought to learn to be more quiet. You're going to give Aunt Petunia a heart attack, and I'm not sure if that would count as manslaughter. Best not risk it, all right?"

When the family returned from dinner, the cycle started all over again. Harry was never sure how it started, since he had never witnessed the beginning of an argument, but it inevitably turned into Aunt Petunia raving about freaks and deviants from the safety of the living room, and Snape viciously chopping potions ingredients while muttering about the 'horse-faced, horrible hag.'

Harry returned to the 'lab,' attempting to calm Snape down. He left his aunt to the rest of the family, if they cared enough to do anything about it. "You sound like you're talking about Camilla Parker-Bowles," he told the man. "Don't take it so personally. She's been saying stuff like that about me for years."

"She's a dried up prune of a middle-aged nag. If she was what you grew up with representing the female half of the species, it's no wonder you leapt straight into homosexuality. She'd have put me off girls for life, too."

Harry laughed. It was so nice to share the horrible bits of his life with; it lessened the blow. "I guess so. If I'm a freak, she has only herself to blame."

"Hmm. I doubt it's the root of all your problems, and you're not going to get any sympathy from this quarter. My own relations were every bit as awful, and I still managed to become a useful, responsible member of society."

"Um. What happened to all your relations, anyway?" Harry asked. It was something he was truly curious about, but cautious to approach. Considering the pensieve incident, Snape wouldn't thank Harry for getting into his personal memories.

"I poisoned them all," Snape quipped, but his voice was clipped. "The reward of being a Potions Master."

"Wow. I should study harder."

Snape's lips twitched. "Undoubtedly. Get your books and let's review, while I chop, all right?"

Harry groaned. He'd done more studying in the last week than he'd probably done in the last six years. "I don't want to," he moaned. "Can't I have a night off? Can't I just disembowel some bats or something?"

The Potions Master grunted. "I must express surprise that you find disembowelling bats more pleasant than cracking a book. Scratch that—I'm not really surprised at all."

"Very funny. I'm going blind from all this reading. And other stuff, too." He gave his lover a suggestive smile.

"None of that," the man responded severely, looking rather flushed.

Harry's smile widened. "I've got you flustered, haven't I? Who would have guessed that the big, bad Potions Master would fall for a scruffy thing like me?" Harry attempted to seat himself in the man's lap, but Snape held him off.

"And who would have guessed that the Golden Boy of the Wizarding world would take such pleasure in getting his poor old Potions Master hot and bothered, knowing nothing could come of it?" the man responded sourly.

"That's entirely your decision," Harry pointed out.

"Only due to the fact that you're too irresponsible to…to…" Snape broke off as Harry kissed him.

"Can't help it," Harry said, lowering his head again, nuzzling against the man's neck and ear. "It's not because I'm irresponsible. It's because you're irresistible."

"Harry…" Snape groaned, his hands rising to clutch thin shoulders. "We shouldn't be doing this."

"But I want you," Harry whispered heatedly.

"And I want you," the man echoed, his own voice trembling. He pushed Harry back, one hand softly stroking a smooth cheek. "But I don't want you just for today. I don't want you just for tonight. I don't want you just long enough to kiss, or to couple with, or to parade about so that everyone had a chance to see I'd acquired a stunning young lover. I want you forever. And if I take you tonight, I've already broken that dream."

Harry's eyes finally focused, losing their haze of desire. "What? Why?"

Snape sighed. "Because I made a promise, and they will take you away from me, if I do not comply. That, or they will send me away. Either scenario would end things between us. Is that what you want? Is that a trade you're willing to make?"

Harry groaned, sliding to his knees beside Snape, burying his head in the folds of robe near the man's thigh. "No…you know that. But why is it so hard? Why can't anything in my life be easy?" He became aware that Severus was stroking the back of his head with one hand while he peeled shrivelfigs with the other.

"I haven't the faintest idea. Supposedly, hardship builds strength of character. I've mostly found that it merely breeds bloody-minded bastards that would mow down their own mothers for a taste of power, but I'm surely missing something in the equation." He tugged at Harry's collar. "Up, now. You don't want your family to see you like that."

"No, I guess not." Harry stood up slowly, straightening his shirt. "I think I'll go upstairs," he said, "and take that wonderful box you gave me, and have a bath." He headed for the door, leaning against the frame and looking gloomily back at Severus. "I reckon I can soap myself up, and have a good enough time without you, so long as I close my eyes and pretend and all." He paused, as if waiting for Snape to say something. "'Night," he said, slipping out of the kitchen.

The man sat, utterly still, listening to Harry's footsteps trundle up the stairs, eventually into the bathroom, and pause. There was the sound of running water.

Snape made a low noise of frustration and pulverized his last couple of shrivelfigs. He had a lovely, randy, seventeen-year-old beauty one floor above him, drenched and naked and doing terrible things to himself, and picturing Snape all the while. And while that was well and good and wonderful and exactly the way things should be, it was also the most indescribably unpardonable thing that had ever happened, because Snape could not do a single thing about it. Making a move on Potter now would cost him his job, and, if Lupin was to be believed, his humanity as well, inasmuch as werewolves are not human—and that was only if he survived the bite.

The Potions Master lowered his head to his hands, whimpering. Why couldn't he have been the recipient of this sort of attention years ago, when it might have made a difference? And how the hell was he going to survive the rest of the summer, if Harry kept pulling tricks like this? Resigned, he threw the worthless shrivelfigs away and turned the heat off the cauldron. He gave Petunia a vicious snarl as he passed her in the hall, and headed up to his rooms, where he hoped a silencing charm and a measure of self-abuse would restore his equanimity…if not his dignity.