*Use of marijiuana in this one. I'm not a pothead that can't help but add weed to a story, I just really feel like Harry and Ron would be toking up together.

*Thank you for the reviews, follows, kudos. I literally live for them and I'm not above begging for more. 3

Chapter 4

When he tried to sleep, the sound of his heart beat in the dark was like Rebecca Rickton's life running out.

The more he moved around in his bed, the dizzier with his own breath he got, not sure if he was supposed to be inhaling or exhaling, if he caught a bad breath rhythm, if he would ever feel his lungs full again. His heart would race and race and he thought he would die.

When he did manage to sleep, her blood was with him, rushing. He would dream of her and then find himself awake too soon again, wishing she had said something when he'd been so close to her (let go or please don't let go), or asking himself why, why, why.

Why was she naked, why was she alone, why can't I sleep?

After the third night of this, one of his Hufflepuff third years, who he was learning was very forward, said to him "You don't look like yourself, professor."

Classes, at least, were great. Harry was getting to know so much about his students individually and relating to them more than he ever thought he would. There was a Gryffindor third year whose boggart turned into her room at home with her foster parents and a Slytherin seventh year who was interested in being an Auror and knew the whole history of the office. To Harry's surprise, none of them asked him questions about the day in Piccadilly Circus or made him feel strange about it. The student population was becoming his most comfortable companion.

Ron kept him updated on the case, but there wasn't much information to share. The ministry was mostly caught up in dealing with the fall out of muggle perception. From what Harry understood, they'd managed to convince the population that what happened was some sort of avant garde performance piece, and that Rebecca was actually alive and well. It was the only way they could explain the knife and Harry flying to reach her, which Harry barely understood himself. He'd never been able to fly without a broom and he'd certainly tried after knowing Snape could do it.

Ron said that the ministry officials needed to play with the memories of those closest to Rebecca so as to make them forget she'd ever disappeared. Ron said they were making them think she was on vacation and it would never seem strange to them when she didn't come back.

Sometimes Harry hated the ministry too much to put into words. When Harry expressed this to Ron, Ron shrugged and asked him what else were they supposed to do?

Harry didn't know. He didn't know anything except that if he didn't get a decent night of sleep soon, he would cry.

It was Friday when Harry decided to resort to desperate measures.

After his last class of the day, he made his way to the dungeons. He wanted a sleeping draught so strong he wouldn't wake the entire weekend. But even as he itched his eyes the entire path down the dungeons, he knew what he was really after.

When he entered the classroom, there were still students there, cleaning their cauldrons. First years. Snape was putting away ingredients. Harry smiled when he saw how small the students looked compared to Snape, who didn't need to tower over them to terrify them, but did anyway.

"Hello professor," one of the boys said sweetly when he saw Harry. Snape looked up and Harry didn't meet his eyes.

Harry made small talk with the first years until they left and then sat on a stool near the front of the room, where Snape was.

"Hey," he said and he hated himself. He was filled with shame. Why couldn't he leave Snape alone?

"Actually," Harry started again, "I think-" He was going to do it- he was going to say forget it, and walk away and never talk to this man again. But that gave him the same feeling at the back of his neck that looking down from a great height did.

"I need a sleeping draught," he finally managed. "And I was wondering if you could help me- if you had one or you could tell me how to make one." Or make one for me. Harry didn't dare say that one.

"I did tell you how to make one, in your first year here at Hogwarts," Snape said.

"Ha, ha," Harry said, loosening up as they found the cadence of their easy hatred.

"It's quite simple to make, I daresay even you could manage it. The ingredients are available in the student cupboard. I might even have some in my store. But I'm not giving you any." Snape leaned back against a table, arms akimbo, hands resting on the edge.

Neither of them said anything for a moment, but Harry could almost hear the echo of his thoughts in the silence of the room.

"What? Why?" He was confused. "I remember you making Wolfsbane potion for Lupin in my third year. That was super complicated and difficult, but you won't give me some sleeping draught?"

"It seems like a fairly harmless potion but the worst ones often do. It's addictive. The more you have, the more you'll need. You'll never sleep normally again."

Harry felt a chill, but not because the thought scared him.

"Well then why do you teach children to make it? How can people take it all the time?"

"It's for children. Too-fretful-to-sleep children, sick children, or even sometimes the adult with nerves before a big day."

Harry was studying Snape's hands and was almost too distracted to notice when Snape looked straight at him.

"Not for Aurors who dream of the terrible things they see."

"What do you know about my dreams?" Harry said, almost a whisper.

"A thing or two," Snape said.

It was quiet again, deathly quiet.

Was Snape reading his mind? Did he hear Harry's thoughts every time he chanced a glance at some other part of Snape's body besides his face? In his sleepless state, Harry couldn't even bring himself to care. He almost hoped Snape did know.

He could end the conversation now. He could walk out and wait for the opportunity to talk to him again, to be in the same space as him, but Harry couldn't bear the thought. His desperation was magnified, his need too big for him to get all his thoughts around it.

"Help me," he said. He couldn't say anything else without saying too much.

"Potter," Snape said, voice more forceful this time. "I said no. Especially not considering your history. It would be stupid to give someone with addictive behavior a sleeping draught."

"Addictive behavior?" Harry said. "What are you talking about?"

Snape said nothing for a moment. "Maybe there was a time after the war, when everyone was happy. And you were supposed to be happy, happiest of all, which makes being miserable even worse. Maybe that's when you had the thought nothing a Cheering Charm won't fix."

Harry inhaled sharply. "How did you know about that? Who told you?" There had been a time, he did have that thought. Cheering charms were strange things that Harry realized the hard way didn't work the way you wanted them to.

Snape said nothing.

"I didn't tell anyone about that, except my closest friends. I remembered them from Charms class one year and I just-" Harry shook his head "I don't know. It felt good, not really because it made me feel better but mostly because to other people I looked happy and they stopped worrying about me.

"I think I hoped," he carried on, "that one day I'd cast it on myself and I'd really feel different. I'd really feel myself smiling-" the words caught up inside him. He shook his head. "But I wasn't addicted to how they made me feel. I was addicted to how they made everyone else feel."

Snape was looking at him, hard.

Harry felt it like a phantom pressure, like the comforting press of Snape's hand over his mouth or the weight of a heavy blanket.

"Don't take a sleeping draught," Snape said. "Try other things. Go be with your wife."

"She's not my wife," he replied immediately.

"Go be with her anyway," Snape said and Harry hated that it hurt so much.

"Alright," he said, "I guess that's good advice. Be careful, or someone might think you don't hate me."

"I'll never hate you, as long as you have her blood running through your veins," Snape said, blunt, and it made Harry go numb.

When Harry managed an hour or two of sleep that night, it was around thoughts of Severus rather than Rebecca. And he thought about him that way, by his first name, Severus, in his head hot twisting and turning in bed. As if Snape's reinforcement that he still only cared (always) about Harry's mother was ammunition, Harry felt his desire for the man rear its head with double vengeance.

He felt like a masochist. His longing felt so second nature, as it'd been building inside him since he'd learned the truth about Snape, but at the same time so wrong- who would fantasize about the man whose claimed he will love your deceased mother forever?

It was wrong, wrong to be jealous of his mother who he would still give anything to have one adult moment with.

Not to mention what it meant about Ginny.

But Harry'd never felt more sexual in his life then now. In fact, he'd always felt the least sexual of all his friends, and certainly less sexual than Ginny, who he could never seem to satisfy with enough touching, kissing, penetration. She'd been sweet the first few times he hadn't been able to sleep with her but the more it happened, the less she asked.

But Severus and thinking of him that way felt like the sexual awakening he'd heard everyone talk about but figured must have skipped him because Voldemort's soul was lurking there instead. Thinking of Severus felt like being awake- it was exciting and endless and creative.

Just the simple thought of all sorts of normal body parts thrilled him and the thoughts alone were enough to make him hard. He thought about Severus's forearms and the back of his neck and his legs, especially his knees and the straightness of his tightly corded thighs.

He thought about how Snape would be, wondered if he'd be domineering and controlling or infuriatingly soft and focused or selfish or generous or both and any way Harry thought about it, it was hot. Stupidly hot.

It was so bad that sitting at dinner that night before he'd put himself to sleep, he could hardly move his hands from his lap. When he did get to his rooms, he touched himself for the first time in ages, and that's probably what got him his first hour of sleep.

Saturday night he'd planned to have dinner with Ron and Hermione.

When Harry left the castle, the grounds looked beautiful. The leaves were starting to turn already and the sky was clear so as he got to the edge of Hogwarts's boundaries at sundown, it was a crisp ombre of dark blue to light yellow at the edges of the skyline. Harry felt the cold like the comforting gulp-down of medicine.

He Apparated in midstep at the beginning of Hogsmeade. He stopped to buy wine but was still early when got to Ron and Hermione's. Ron wasn't home yet but he met Hermione as she was fumbling with her keys, her hands full of groceries. She dropped them when she saw him down the hall and she put the shopping down to hug and kiss him. They were so glad to be in each other's company again that they forgot about the darkness they'd discussed the last time he saw her when he Flooed his head over.

When they were inside, Harry felt warm and happy.

"And you thought you'd survive till Christmas without us," Hermione said as she stocked the fridge with food.

"I still get separation anxiety whenever I leave you two," Harry said, playing with the Chuddly Cannon chess pieces Ron had on his coffee table and magicing them to stay in risque positions. He did stuff like this to Ron's things often and weeks later Harry would find whatever it was he'd messed with in his sock drawer or pocket.

"How's Ginny?" Hermione said.

Harry didn't pause in his work of detaching a Chudley Player from his broom (a knight). "She's alright," Harry said. "To tell you the truth I haven't really spoken to her much."

There was silence in the kitchen and Hermione stepped out to look at him. "What do you mean you haven't spoken to her?"

"Well she sent me a letter a few days ago and I haven't gotten around to answering it or Flooing her."

Hermione came over to the sofa, took a pillow, and chucked it at Harry.

Chudley Canons were knocked over. "What was that for?!" Harry said, picking up the pieces.

"For what you're doing to Ginny! I know it's not easy with her on tour and you up at Hogwarts but you've to at least answer her letters!"

Harry was still fiddling with the pieces, not looking at her. "I've got a lot on my mind."

Hermione sat, picking up another pillow and hugging it to herself. "Don't you always?"

She reached out a foot to nudge Harry's leg with it. "You're hiding something."

Harry looked at her, quirking his eyebrow in case he wanted to lull her with a joke instead of the truth. He felt on the verge of saying something to her.

And then Ron barrelled in the door with Dawlish.

"John's eating with us," Ron said, taking off his coat.

"Hope you lot don't mind," Dawlish said. Harry surprised all three of them by aggressively pulling Dawlish into a hug and they all laughed.

He was a welcome dinner guest. Harry and Ron liked partnering up with him on cases because he was good at his job, didn't speculate too much needlessly, and knew how to keep a secret. They'd been through their entire training as Aurors with him mentoring. Dawlish was much older than them but Harry thought he recognized the special kind of tired around the man's eyes.

Dawlish went into the kitchen with Hermione to get something to drink and him and Ron went into the bedroom for their ritual. Ron kept an old cookie tin, blue and rusting, on top of his wardrobe filled with stuff to make spliffs.

They'd take it out to the fire escape because Hermione hated the way the smell lingered and Ron would roll the perfect little ticket to a goodnight's sleep and Harry would lick it closed because they'd argued once about his contribution to the process and Ron had reluctantly given him that one task.

Ron always started smoking it first. "You alright?"

Looked like Ron could tell too. They always worried about him, especially after they found out about the cheering charms.

"Yeah," Harry said. He put his hands in his jean pockets. "Why? Ginny say something?"

Ron shook his head. "I don't need Ginny to know."

Harry wanted to change the subject. "Any updates on the case?"

Ron flipped the spliff toward him. Harry was happy to unburden him.

"Yeah. It's happened in America. New York. The same scene, same thing as Rebecca Rickton."

Harry coughed for what felt like an eternity. "What?" he wheezed.

"Yeah. It's fucked. Some bloke, a muggle celebrity named Daniel Strause. He does action films."

"Holy shit," Harry said, handing the spliff back. "This is…bad."

"Yeah," Ron said. "This is the first night I could have dinner at home. I've practically been sleeping at the office, going through CCTV from the London scene. There's not as much from New York, but they're working through what they have."

The spliff was burning and piling ash in Ron's fingers and Harry had to take it from him. It seemed Ron was still at the office.

"I know you've probably got your hands full at Hogwarts," he went on, "but would you mind going through some of the footage? You were always so good at that. Besides, s'good to have a second set of eyes."

"Course," Harry said, his lids getting heavy.

Ron laughed at him. "Lightweight."

They finished the spliff, Ron always better than he was at letting it burn his fingers till the bitter end. When they came back in, Dawlish was trying to make sense of the broken Chudley chess pieces and Hermione was in the kitchen, starting dinner.

Harry joined her and they played music and drank glasses of wine the size of their heads. She always gave Harry the jobs she found tedious like chopping onion and parsley, but Harry didn't mind.

When dinner was almost ready, Ron was realizing what Harry'd done to his chess set and started yelling. Him and Hermione laughed till they cried at that.

But when dinner was over and it was time for him to leave, Harry was full and drunk and high but still alone.

He splinched himself on his way back to Hogsmeade. It wasn't a big splinch, just a long shallow scrape along his collarbone and he couldn't really feel it because of the wine. Hermione told him it would happen and asked him to sleep there but he didn't think he could stand that feeling in the morning of being an intruder.

His cut was sort of hot and he bled through his shirt, a beaten up white tee under his black jumper. His walk up the hill was sobering, tiring. But the moment he reached the castle, he knew he wasn't going to his quarters.

He thought it might be cruel to put the Potion Master's quarters in the dungeons, where there were no windows, but that was the only place Harry could think Snape might be right now, maybe robeless, maybe sockless.

The dungeons were cold and Harry wondered if that was why so many of the Slytherins were so mean. He went to the Potions classroom first, because there was a door in there that he thought led to Snape's office, but the classroom was locked.

"Potter," Snape's voice hissed in the dark. Harry turned and saw Snape's outline in the light of a dungeon lantern, walking toward him, closer and closer all the time. "What are you doing wandering the halls at this hour? Don't you understand you're not a student here anymore, you're a professor and you need to begin acting like one."

"You need to begin acting like one," Harry said, stone faced.

He could see Snape's angry face now as Snape came toward him into more light and there was something so human and real about his hair and Harry felt crazy, capable of anything.

"What on earth could you possibly be up to?" Snape asked.

Harry pulled down the neck of his jumper, revealing the blood. "It's mine this time. Splinched myself. I need dittany."

And then he took a step and stretched up to reach Snape's face and kissed him.

Flesh on flesh. Although Harry had the element of surprise, Snape was quick and reached a hand between their faces and pulled them apart. Harry didn't let him pull t0o far and they stood for a moment breathing hard in each other's faces, Snape's one whole hand holding Harry, his eyes dark and empty.

"Take me in," Harry said. "I'm her son, right? Take me in."

He could see Snape deciding and it killed him. He knew that if Snape took a second more to think, he'd say no, he'd let go of him and leave him in the dark to find his own way out of the dungeon.

"I won't let you use me, Potter," he finally said and did exactly what Harry saw he would do.

He went up the stairs to his room mechanically. As smart as Snape was, he didn't really get it. Harry didn't want to use Snape. He wanted Snape to use him.