The clock in the Astronomy Tower had just chimed a quarter past midnight when Severus slipped out of his bedroom, closed the door softly, and began to make his noiseless way through the Hogwarts corridors. He had put a muffling charm on the soles of his boots, and several concealment charms on the Muster & Heaton box, which floated hugely behind him. He had checked on the Slytherins, he had checked on the Wolfsbane, he had read three tedious papers arguing about the best temperature to stew Felix Felicis. And now the castle was silent. The night was his.
He went carefully down the dark stairs, stopping frequently to listen for Filch or Mrs Norris, aware of every tingle and throb of anticipation moving up and down his body. Tonight would be a new experience. He had never so much as kissed anyone whilst at Hogwarts, let alone – this. And it was risky, too: what if he was needed? What if Sirius Black got in again? If Dumbledore or McGonagall tried to summon him and couldn't find him in his rooms or in the dungeons? How would he explain his absence?
But he hardly cared. He headed across to the east wing, hoping to hell he'd remembered which one was the Unicorn Room. It would be profoundly inconvenient if he couldn't find Lucius – not to mention embarrassing if he knocked at the wrong door. As he climbed the carpeted stairs he pictured himself retreating in horror out of a dark room, where Bertram Bartleby-Crouch was sitting bolt upright in bed, frightened and angry at the intrusion – or worse, overjoyed and welcoming …
Anyway, he found it. The door was, as he remembered, by the portrait of Lucretia Ecclestone, one of the major theorists of the Polyjuice Potion. She was grey-haired and sitting calmly in a chair, perfectly awake, watching him smooth down his robes. 'Young Severus Snape, what on earth are you doing at this hour?' she said.
'Research,' he muttered, and, ignoring her raised eyebrow, pushed at the door. It opened to admit him, and he was inside with the box and the door was shut before she could ask any more questions.
Even the first look – Lucius throwing a newspaper aside and getting up from the armchair in his black dress trousers and white shirt, collar unbuttoned and sleeves rolled up, his hair thrown back over his shoulders and his eyes burning crystal – was nearly too much for him. He almost whimpered in anticipation as Lucius strode across the room to him, he'd waited so many hours, he was so ready –
But Lucius didn't kiss him. He gripped Severus by the shoulders and held him at arm's length, breathing hard, looking at him. 'You took far too long,' he said softly. He leaned in, brushed the tiniest feather-touch of a kiss on Severus's lips – and immediately released him, and was turning away –
– Severus couldn't help it, he let out a half-wail half-sob of frustration and want –
– and suddenly Lucius was back and was kissing him, the long, full, hard kiss Severus had waited for, his mouth and nose and mind full of Lucius's breath and lips and tongue, his neck gripped hard by Lucius's hand, and a shudder going again and again through his body at the sheer relief of it.
Finally Lucius broke the kiss and looked at him wryly. 'Better?'
He nodded, eyes closed, settling his breath. 'I – yes. It has been a long evening.'
'Poor Severus. One delay too many, perhaps.' Lucius stroked a finger down his cheek. 'Now will you have a drink?'
'If you insist, but I haven't got anything.'
'I have.' Lucius gestured towards the table, where there stood a bottle of McNeil's Firewhisky – perhaps triple the price of the Campbell's Dumbledore usually served – and two beautiful crystal glasses. 'Allow me.' He levitated the bottle into the air, and poured two generous glasses of whisky; Severus accepted his glass as it floated across the room and pressed itself gently into his hand. He took a sip, and immediately a gorgeous sense of warmth and wellbeing began to spread in his stomach. He took a deep breath. 'You brought this from home?'
'Yes,' Lucius said, 'along with a few doses of Sobriety Draught.'
'Oh?'
'Yes – in fact I've already taken one. I didn't want to be drunk and irritating when you're stone cold sober. And I managed to do a little work while I was waiting for you. Now we can enjoy a good drink together and go to sleep sober whenever we want.'
They sat down on the sofa by the fire. Severus had a strong urge to rest his head on Lucius's shoulder, which he managed to resist. Instead he took a large mouthful of burning whisky, put the glass on the table, and slumped back against the cushions. He was tired, and a bit overwrought. 'What time did you leave the party?' he said.
Lucius made a face. 'Much later than I'd hoped. Benedict Webb wanted to talk shop. He actually suggested coming back to my room with me so we could strategise for Fudge's Egypt trip.'
Severus smiled faintly. 'That's a euphemism I've never heard before.'
Lucius laughed and slid an arm around his shoulders. 'Fudge occasionally talks about team bonding, but … What have you been doing?'
'Wrangling students, mostly.' He yawned, moving slightly to get into the crook of Lucius's arm. 'Reading journals. Counting minutes.'
'Tell me about your Russian friend.'
Yes, he'd knew that would come back. He took a breath and tried to decide what to tell Lucius. 'Well. He was slightly older than me. From St Petersburg. He'd been in London for a few years when I met him. We were – involved. And he helped me improve my chess.'
'Where is he now?'
There was a pause. Then Severus said what he had not said to anyone else. 'He's dead.'
Lucius didn't say anything, but his arm tightened around Severus's shoulder, just for a moment. Severus stayed still, then said, 'It was years ago.' He repeated to himself: then was then, and now is now.
Lucius leaned closer and kissed him. 'All right. Will you put the robes on for me?'
'Oh. Yes.' Severus hauled himself forwards; as he began to unlace his boots, Lucius put a hand on his neck and stroked him gently, making him hum in pleasure. He kicked the boots off, then reluctantly stood up and moved away from Lucius to take off his dress robes and trousers.
He summoned the Muster & Heaton box. As he lifted the lid and unfolded the silk trousers, he was aware of his shirt moving around his hips, revealing his thin thighs and white underwear. He wasn't used to just standing there half-naked in front of anyone, even Lucius, who tended to let him get dressed as soon as they got out of bed. But Lucius was sitting perfectly still, his eyelids half-lowered, watching him with evident enjoyment as he leaned against a chair and lifted one leg, then the other, to draw the new trousers on. When he buttoned them at his crotch, Lucius made a noise of unmistakeable pleasure. Severus flickered a glance at him. 'Do you always enjoy watching people put clothes on? That's rather unconventional.'
Lucius laughed softly. 'Surely you're aware how much I enjoy watching you do almost anything.'
Severus stopped in the middle of buttoning the coat, and stood looking at the ground. His chest was tight. Hard to convey to Lucius that a compliment like this caused him so much pleasure he almost felt it as pain. Eventually he said, 'No doubt it helps that you bought the robes in the first place.'
'No doubt. But you've never understood clothes, I think.' Lucius got up and came over to him, levitating the wonderful black cloak out of the box and arranging it over Severus's shoulders. 'Do you like them?'
Severus turned to the large mirror standing in the corner of the room, and took a sharp inhale when Lucius's hands slid around his waist from behind. 'Yes, I do,' he said evenly.
'Of course you do,' Lucius murmured, looking over his shoulder and meeting his eyes in the mirror. 'You pretend to be so austere, but look at you. You can hardly believe how good you look.'
Severus said nothing. It was true. He hadn't tried the robes on since that first time, and they were even better than he remembered: he loved how narrowly the trousers were cut in the leg, the tiny buttons in hard black ebony, the black embroidery along the collar of the coat, the way the cloak moved in a shifting wave at his ankles. His limbs felt longer and straighter, and his mind felt as precise and sharp as a needle. He felt he could have stood up in the Accademia at Bologna and lectured to four hundred eminent witches and wizards.
He took a deep breath. 'I trust they're discreet, the people you dealt with at Muster & Heaton?'
'Naturally. But Severus, listen.' Lucius took him by the shoulders again and turned him around so they were facing each other. 'What I said earlier – I was serious. You're wasted here. Anyone could teach basic antidote theory, or whatever it is you do with your NEWT class. I'm sure the staff are all good company, and I know the Ministry gives you the odd research job, but really, don't you wish you were making proper use of your abilities?'
Severus could hardly respond. Lucius's hands were so warm on his shoulders, and his eyes were gleaming grey, and what he was saying was so persuasive. All he could think of to say was, 'Actually, antidote theory is often taught very badly.'
Lucius laughed. 'All right. We'll talk about it some other time.' He moved closer, sliding his hands again around Severus's waist. 'This is very good silk.' He placed a kiss on Severus's lips and then began to trail kisses down his neck; when Severus let out a moan, he murmured in response, and soon they were clutching together, kissing and gasping, both rock-hard and pushing together through their clothes. Severus suddenly suspected that Lucius hadn't been with anyone since their weekend together in October – at any rate, little shivers in Lucius's body kept pulsing into him, enough to convey how desperate his lover was.
At the point when the only thing left to do was to tear off each other's clothes and fall into bed, however, Lucius seemed to get a new grip on himself, and drew back. 'Before we get too carried away,' he said, 'I want to make sure the robes fit properly.'
Severus shook his head, standing there, trembling. 'You have,' he said, 'fucking awful timing.'
Lucius smiled. 'I like drawing it out for myself, you know that. Relax your shoulders, let me see.' He lifted his hands to Severus's collar and began to make tiny adjustments to the way the silk lay against his neck and collarbones; Severus watched his fingers twitching at the material, then smoothing. 'Arms up,' Lucius murmured. Severus complied. 'Now down.' Then Lucius drew out his wand and murmured a few words; Severus felt the seams move slightly under his armpits and over the top of his shoulders, and immediately his arms felt freer, looser. 'Better?' Lucius asked, and Severus nodded. He would not even have known it needed altering.
As his lover continued to examine and modify the robes – the coat a little slimmer at the waist, the trousers a little looser around his haunches – Severus stood there, receiving a kind of attention he'd never known before, nor would have expected from Lucius – a deft, expert, meticulous kind of attention which felt, strangely, both soothing and erotic at the same time. The Firewhisky was humming in his belly, and so too was a realisation that whatever Lucius was doing here, whatever he had planned for their relationship, he was dead serious about it. Severus had never imagined Lucius could be serious about anything, unless one counted getting as much sex as possible and keeping on the right side of whatever authority he was nominally serving. No doubt those things were still true. But the wizard here with him was someone slightly other than the Lucius he thought he knew – not sentimental or confessional, of course, and still as sexy as hell – but also, yes, serious. It would require a good deal more thought, once Lucius had gone.
Then Lucius spoke from where he was kneeling and adjusting the length of Severus's trousers. 'Lupin likes you, you know.'
Severus looked down at him. 'What?'
'You heard me.' Lucius stood up, took a few steps back, and surveyed him, his gaze darting over the robes. Eventually he nodded in approval. 'Better. I shall report to Augustus Heaton that his Perfect Fit Charm is something of a blunt instrument.'
Severus didn't move. 'Would you care to elaborate on that little mutter?' he said. 'Or were you just thinking aloud?'
'Well,' Lucius said, 'It occurred to me that if you were finding the frustration too much during termtime, Lupin might be a useful prospect.'
He blinked. 'You think Lupin wants to sleep with me?'
'I would say that's plain as day,' Lucius said, smiling. 'You have the disadvantage that you never expect people to want you. I, on the other hand, assume everyone does.'
'Then surely we both exaggerate the true numbers,' Severus said coolly. He could feel irritation rising in him, and didn't quite understand why. 'So if I start sleeping with Lupin I'll have a higher tolerance for your antics, is that what you have in mind?'
Lucius did not immediately reply. He put a hand on the back of the nearest armchair and exhaled, frowning. 'I'm finding you a little – changeable tonight. Is something wrong?'
Something strained and heaved inside Severus's chest. He spoke tightly. 'I just don't see why – why you have to be such a – cocktease. For all your talk about fucking me under Dumbledore's nose' – He broke off, still not knowing why he felt so unhappy. The teasing hadn't helped, but it both was, and was not, the reason.
Lucius looked at him. 'You really didn't enjoy the party, did you.'
'No. I've never got the kick out of dissimulation that you have.' He went back to the table where the Muster & Heaton box lay open, removed the cloak, and folded it back into the box. He didn't turn even when he felt Lucius's warmth behind him. His patience was finished.
Then he felt Lucius's hands reach around to his front and clasp his hands, and the bulk of his body pressing into him from behind. A warm mouth kissed the side of his neck, and whispered, 'Let me undress you.'
He turned. Lucius's hands came to his front and began unbuttoning the silk coat. Neither of them spoke; the only sound in the room was their breathing, and the rustle of the silk as Lucius eased the coat off over Severus's shoulders. Something in Severus's chest began to loosen a little. He stood, letting Lucius's palms rub over his shirt, his chest and shoulders and back, allowing himself to be soothed. When Lucius reached a hand up and stroked up his forehead, over the top of his head and down the back of his neck, he let out a long sigh. And when he found his shirt unbuttoned and slipping off, and his whole torso enveloped in a strong embrace, he let his arms come up and wrap across Lucius's back – not clinging, not quite, but holding onto his lover, accepting his affection.
'Better?' Lucius said, for the third time that night.
Severus nodded into Lucius's neck. 'I feel like a difficult child,' he admitted. 'In need of constant soothing.'
'Hm.' Lucius hugged him harder. 'Or a wild animal in need of taming.'
Severus snorted. 'Hardly.'
'Anyway, I like soothing you.'
'Oh?'
'Well.' He felt Lucius take a deep breath. 'Soothing you as a prelude to getting you unbearably aroused, then fucking you so hard you can't walk.'
'Ah.' He shifted against Lucius's body, confirming that they were both hard. 'I sense a transition to stage two in the offing.'
Lucius exhaled in pleasure. 'Yes,' he said softly. 'And this time I'm aiming for stage three as a matter of urgency.'
'That's just as well,' Severus said, 'because any more delays and I'll Reducto the entire fucking castle.'
Later that night, just after four, he was lying wide awake in the dark, Lucius breathing softly beside him. He couldn't sleep. Of course he should have known the insomnia would come back as soon as he left his own charmed bed. He wondered about the wisdom of relying for the rest of his life on a sleep charm he couldn't perform himself – how long it would take to learn – whether he wanted to spend half an hour applying the charm every new bed he slept in – and whether it would be possible ever to banish the insomnia for good. He lay still, trying not to fidget, staring into the dark.
Then Lucius spoke sleepily. 'You know … if you left Hogwarts … I would help you. If you didn't want to work for the Ministry.'
'What?' He hadn't even realised Lucius was awake.
Lucius rolled onto his side; Severus could just see the gleam of his eyes, and felt his warm breath when he spoke again. 'I have a house, in Somerset … it's an old Malfoy place, it reverted to me when my cousin died.' He turned his head away for a moment and yawned, before laying it back down. 'It's not enormous. But there are rooms which could be converted for potions research. You could live there and do your work. Without being accountable to anyone.'
Severus was silent. Eventually he said, 'I'd rather not make an arrangement that's dependent on whether we're still … doing this.'
'It needn't be.' Lucius took a breath – then seemed to hesitate, as if whatever he was going to say was too risky. After a pause he said, 'Let's talk about it after Christmas. Come here.'
They rolled together, and lay there for a while, exchanging breath, body heat, kisses, and small murmurs. When the Hogwarts clock chimed five, Severus rose, dressed by the light of his wand, levitated the new robes back into their box, and came to kiss Lucius one more time. Lucius half-awoke as he was kissed, lifted a hand to Severus's cheek, and murmured, 'See you at breakfast.'
Then Severus slipped out of the Unicorn Room and, trying to ignore his longing to go straight back and kiss Lucius again – trying, too, not to think about having to get through the day on less than two hours' sleep – he returned silently to his own room.
A/N: Thank you again for all the recent follows, favourites, and reviews. I'm going to take a couple of months away from this story – not because I'm not enjoying it, but because university term is about to resume and I'm finding I can only snatch small bits of time here and there to write it. Sorry if it's reading a bit jerkily as a result! I'll be back some time later in the autumn – thanks for your patience. –SS–
