A/N: Rated M content here, but if you want the MA or NC-17 version, I also post to Archive of Our Own where you can find the full, unfiltered version of this chapter.

Chapter 5

The dittany and bandages were sitting on his desk when he got back to his room.

Sunday he missed breakfast because he'd slept late into the afternoon. He dreamt of nothing. He stayed in his bed for hours and didn't move.

Snape's rejection of him reminded him acutely of Ginny. He'd never kissed anyone else besides her the whole time they'd been together and last night while he stumbled over himself to do just that, Ginny was out there, playing quidditch and thinking they had each other. She was somewhere writing letters to an empty person. A person not decent enough to tell her the truth. Not even decent enough to want to.

It would be so hard. That was the thought that often stopped him, often trapped the necessary expressions in his throat when he thought about leaving. Is this working? Did the war pulling us apart make us think we had to be together? What's in it for you? What's here for me? Do I even make you happy?

The Weasleys were the only family he had. Would they still be if he left her? If he broke her heart and seemed happier for it? Would Ron still wrestle with him when he was feeling affectionate, would Molly still hug him in that way that sometimes made his eyes watery?

He wouldn't, if it were him.

He was still, very still in bed with these thoughts until a tawny owl came pecking at his window.

It was Ron sending the muggle CCTV tapes and a little device that Mr. Weasley rigged that he could watch them on. It was a muggle tape player but it didn't need to be connected to a TV. You put the disk in and a projection would be cast above. You could use the player buttons to rewind or fast forward and use your wand to make the image as large as you wanted it.

He set it up at the foot of his bed to project above the fireplace. He laid down and watched footage from stores near that fountain at Piccadilly, the day before Rebecca Rickton would ever come into frame.

He watched for hours without feeling it, until it was darkness all around him except from the light of the projection. Hours of people driving, rushing, holding hands, walking dogs, taking tubes, buying newspapers, spitting, waiting.

He drifted in and out of sleep sometimes and when he was in one of his waking moments he saw a woman in the video checking her bag for something. At first it was a casual hand-in-purse rummage without looking and then when she didn't feel the shape of it in her hands, she started looking down into her bag as she felt around, getting frantic. When she still didn't find it, she sat on the steps before the fountain and took every item out of her bag, one by one, lined up on the concrete, to find what she was looking for. When she gave up, she put all the items back in her bags, and held her head in her hands and sat there for a few minutes, defeated.

He was suddenly crying and didn't know why. The rummaging, the light from the film on his face, the fullness, it all seemed to be conspiring against him. He felt raw and open like Rebecca.

There was a knock on the door- so quiet he might have imagined it. He wiped the tears from his face.

Then his room did something he didn't know it could do- it told him who was knocking. It was written in bright shivering letters that hovered and looked handwritten on the back of the front door.

Severus Snape

Harry couldn't be bothered to get out of his bed. Also, he was in his underwear. He grabbed his wand from the nightstand and pulled the cover around his bottom half and waved his wand at the door.

Snape waited in the threshold as if still expecting Harry to greet him there after the fact.

"Hello, Professor," Harry said from the bed.

Snape came in and closed the door behind him. He didn't take another step in, but was looking at the projection. "What is this?"

"It's CCTV footage from Picadilly Circus the day before Rebecca Rickton was killed," Harry said. He realized he should pause it in case anything significant happened and he missed it. He kneeled forward and crawled to the foot of the bed to hit pause.

He winced as he pulled himself back under the covers, his collarbone splich hurting in the process. The dittany had shallowly healed it and it was red and sore under it's bandage.

"You've missed all your meals," Snape said, now looking at him.

"I can eat here if I'm hungry," Harry said. He raised his legs close to his chest, self- conscious when his nipples hardened. He rested his chin on top of his knees. "Sit down or get out, you're making me nervous," he said quietly.

"Put a shirt on," Snape said.

"Deal." Harry pointed to the wardrobe. "Second drawer." Snape took a shirt out and tossed it to him.

When he pulled his head through the hole and put his glasses back on, Snape was sitting in his desk chair, facing him.

"You came to me with your perspective, shall we call it, on my contributions to the war efforts. It seems important to you, rehashing the past. So I thought I would share my own view so maybe it would stop you from harassing me."

"Okay," Harry said.

"As you know," Snape continued, "I loved your mother very deeply. After the war was over," he stopped. He leaned back in the chair and crossed his legs. "I don't know why I'm still here," he said. "I thought I'd be dead," and he looked dead too, in the eyes. "I hated you for saving me."

Harry's wound started to hurt, as if Snape had pressed a hand there and twisted. He supposed Snape hated him anyway, so he wasn't sure how that changed anything but he couldn't say that. He couldn't say anything.

He was thinking about the moment Snape almost died in his hands. How he'd every reason to hate the man but couldn't watch him bleed out like an animal. How he knew, somehow, as Snape begged him for that last comfort, that saving Snape might be the most important thing he did that day. Maybe even more important than killing Voldemort.

"Well," Harry managed. He struggled to keep his voice from shaking. "I'm still glad I did." And then the words came easier, faster. "I don't care that you had some stupid suicide wish and you looked at me and thought this fucking idiot won't know what to do, this is the moment, this is the time. Because it wasn't your time."

I still need you, he didn't say.

"You're quite comfortable calling me an idiot," Snape observed bitterly.

"And you're an asshole too," Harry added.

"And the best person that ever lived?" Snape asked, smirking.

Harry blushed and shut up.

Snape wasn't moving in his chair. He just kept looking at Harry and Harry avoided his gaze.

"Either way, I was shocked that I was alive. That you were alive. I didn't think about what would happen after, when my life wouldn't be about protecting you anymore. So I just went on trying to do it. I intercepted Rita Skeeter's mail, hoping to get tips on you that way. That's how I found out about the Cheering Charms."

"Someone told her about that and she didn't use it?" Harry asked.

Snape looked away. "Got lost in the mail."

Harry smiled then, big. "You did that for me?"

"For you, for Lily," Snape said. "To me, it's the same."

Harry's smile sank. "Right."

"For as long as I live, I'll always be paying the price of knowing I killed her," Snape said. "That's why I didn't want to live so long."

"I think you've earned the right to move on," Harry said, picking at a piece of lint on his blanket. "She would say that too."

"Of course she would," Snape said. "She was selfless and too forgiving. Would you be able to live with yourself if your actions had led to the death of a person like that?"

Harry said nothing.

"The standards we have for ourselves are the real ones to live by," Snape said, suddenly uncrossing his legs and getting out of the chair, his voice fiercer. "They're the truth. Anything else is meaningless platitude and false comfort only believed by the worst kind of person."

And then Snape was on his bed, leaning down into Harry's space with his hands on either side of him, pressing down the mattress. They were breathing each other's air.

"Why did you kiss me?" Snape asked, like a threat.

Harry took a breath, maybe because he was scared or because he wanted to prolong the moment. He thought Snape is so strange and it turned him on.

"Because," he stumbled. "Because I wanted to. I really wanted to."

"Do you want to now?"

"Yes," breathless.

Snape leaned down and their lips touched and they were kissing. No brief flesh kissing flesh but real, deep down, slippery, hot kissing. Harry moaned, couldn't help it, feeling his whole body melt pain and tension away, every nerve connected in bliss, floating, to his mouth and Snape's, his tongue and Snape's, his saliva and Snape's. The stretch of his neck to reach him, Severus, who wasn't really trying. Wet flesh, short gasps whenever they parted, desperate keening.

When Snape pulled away, Harry had that flashing feeling he might pass out.

"As I thought," Snape said. He fixed Harry with a look and then turned to leave.

Harry wanted to say wait or please but he couldn't get it out in time and Snape was gone.

The next morning, Harry got his life together and got out of bed. Partly because he had to teach his classes and partly because Snape had temporarily sucked out whatever crippling depression had kept him glued to the CCTV screening and locked in his room.

At breakfast, he and Snape said nothing to each other. Harry was afraid it hadn't been real, or worse, that Snape would deny it happened and make him feel crazy.

In between his classes, Harry kept trying to write a letter to Ginny. As much as kissing Snape made him feel like flying without a broom, the feeling kept being deflated by the thought of what he was doing to Ginny behind her back.

He kept rewriting and shortening his letter so that by the time he sent it, it was a narrow piece of scroll.

Gin,

I'm sorry it's taken me a while to get back to you. There's a lot to say and I've been trying to figure it all out for myself before I came to you with it. We should meet at the flat next weekend though. Please say you're free.

Love,

Harry

He stared at the words for a long time before sending it. He hated letter-Harry. He hated real-Harry. Real-Harry that found Snape in the middle of the night and kissed him selfishly without thinking of the consequences. Real-Harry that still couldn't do anything but moan desperately into Snape's mouth when it happened again.

But most of all, he hated that he couldn't feel for Ginny or feel sad in the least that they would leave each other. He hated that he couldn't wait for the weekend to be rid of any responsibility he felt for her.

Harry,

You've got me worried. Can you make it to the flat tonight?

Gin

He got that letter back the next day at breakfast and his stomach became too cramped for him to eat.

Snape wasn't next to him and that made it worse, somehow.

He borrowed a quill from Neville when he couldn't find one in his bag and wrote to Ginny that he'd be at the flat by 6.

When he gave the quill back to Neville, Neville asked him if he was alright. "You look kind of sick," Neville said.

"Yeah, I'm meeting with Ginny tonight," he said. "I think… well it's not going to be fun."

Neville laughed. "You in trouble for not keeping in touch? Hannah gets that way too sometimes. I mean, she doesn't keep in touch. I write her 10 letters for every one she sends me."

Harry said nothing so Neville kept trying to comfort him. "Though, you know, with Ginny on tour too, must be doubly hard for you lot."

Harry was grateful for the distraction of his classes. He was doing work with Cornish Pixies that day with the second years and they caused enough chaos that Harry was occupied until well after his last period, cleaning up and recapturing loose pixies, mending broken egos of students who'd been bullied by them.

He was in the flat by 6 as he said he would be without really knowing how he got there. He hadn't been there since he'd left for Hogwarts almost a month ago and the pictures of him and Ginny around the bedroom now seemed trite.

He sat on the edge of their bed, elbows on his knees, feeling sick until Ginny Apparated outside their door with a soft pop.

When she came into the bedroom, he saw she was in her post-training clothes; loose jeans and a soft long sleeve t-shirt. She was still red in her face from the cold. She was beautiful, athletic, strong.

Harry felt afraid of her.

"Hey," he said.

"Hey," she said. She seemed stiffer than usual, like she was bracing herself. Harry was grateful for that at least.

"Um," he said, "I guess I'll just start."

Ginny raised an eyebrow. "I guess you'd better."

But Harry didn't know how. How did you start tearing someone apart? How did you begin to make someone feel like their world was crumbling around them? And he supposed this is why it'd gone on for so long- he couldn't take the idea of hurting her.

He looked at her and noticed again how tense she was, how she got more and more tense with each passing second like a coil shrinking to spring. Maybe she knew that he didn't really feel for her what you should do for a girlfriend and it was easier on her to not know because this was comfortable, what they had. Knowing you weren't alone without all the complications of real love. Without the fear that one day they won't love you anymore because you'd never really loved them in the first place.

Maybe Harry wanted to believe that to make himself feel better. False comfort only believed by the worst sort of person.

He supposed the truth was as good a start as any. "I kissed someone."

A glass of water on the bedside table that neither of them had bothered to put away before they left, exploded. The water dripping into the carpet made plopping sounds that to Harry seemed deafening.

Despite her wandless magic, she looked calm. "Who?" She said it fast.

Harry shook his head. "Does it matter?"

"You're not in the position to refuse me," she said. She wasn't moving.

"I just- I didn't really," Harry tried to steady himself, "I didn't tell you that because it matters who it was." That was the first lie he told. "That's not what I meant. It does matter who it was. But what matters more for us, for this," he gestured between them, "is that we never- we don't really kiss, we don't really sleep with each other, which I know is because you're patient with me and not because you don't want to, and I think there are things wrong, missing- that we never, we never spoke about."

"Or that I tried to speak about and that you always avoid," she said. And she did move this time, as if to walk out the door but then turned toward him again. "Fuck you," she spat and walked away.

Harry followed her into the living room where she was sitting on the couch, focusing her eyes on the empty fireplace, which Harry was now glad he hadn't lit because she looked like she might set the whole place ablaze.

"Gin, I don't have an excuse. I know I was wrong for it. I'm sorry and all the time I didn't talk about it was-," Harry stopped, knowing anything he said was unforgivable. "I didn't know, did you think I knew and I didn't say anything? I didn't know. I love you and you're my best friend and if I didn't feel it when we kissed, how was I supposed to say that to you without hurting you?"

"You. Just. Say it!" She yelled. Her voice broke with the wave of tears that were sure to come. But she was holding back because if Harry knew her, he knew she would rather die than to let him see her cry.

So she yelled through it. "You just say it!"

Suddenly, there was a fire in the grate and Harry heard the sink come on in the kitchen and the water in the shower running.

Neither of them said anything because her magic was out of control and they didn't know what else would happen if they went on.

Harry sat in one of the armchairs. There were two, one of them on either side of the couch. They'd picked them out together right after the war when they'd rushed into moving in with each other. Harry felt sad for them, like he should have given them a better life.

He re-tied the laces on his trainers for want of something to do and waited for Ginny to say something.

"Who was it?"

Harry furrowed his brow. "It was- it was a man," he said. He almost wished he could take it back the moment he'd said it.

"Fuck," Ginny laughed, humorless. "Christ, Harry."

"I know," Harry said, ashamed. Not that he'd kissed a man, but that he'd been so far off for so long. "I didn't know. I swear, I didn't. I just was I think- doing what I thought made sense. I didn't understand."

"So it just happened? It's someone at Hogwarts, then?"

Harry's breath caught. She knew about his obsession with Snape and he saw her mind was working furiously to put things together. She would figure it out.

And she did. "Oh my god," she said, and with her abrupt Apparition, Harry closed his eyes and hid his face between his arms because every bit of glass in the apartment shattered and some of the pieces were headed his way.

That night, Harry went back to Hogwarts and had an owl from Ron waiting for him in his room.

The scroll was ripped, hastily from a longer piece of parchment and it just said:

Fuck you.

Harry's stomach coiled and he wondered how much Ginny had told him, who Ginny had told him about.

But there was another letter from Hermione. She told him to meet him at the Three Broomsticks on the weekend so they could talk. Said she didn't want him to splinch himself again.

The week rolled on and Harry was finding it hard to sleep again with the preparation for midterms that he needed to begin, as per McGonagall's instructions, and Ron sending him more torn pieces of parchment with expletives almost everyday.

Fuck you again.

How could you?

You sick asshole.

All their own scrolls, all their own deliveries.

He wrote to Ginny telling her he thought they should talk again since the last conversation hadn't ended well, hadn't really ended at all, but she never wrote back to him.

Neville at dinner one night asked him, behind's Snape back, who was between them as usual, how it went with Ginny.

"Badly," Harry said, staring at the back of Snape's robes. "We sort of broke up, I think."

"Blimey," Neville said. "Holy shit. I'm sorry, mate. You two've been together for a while, yeah?"

"Yeah," Harry confirmed.

"What do you mean you sort of broke up? You don't know?"

"Well," Harry said. "The conversation didn't last very long, if you know what I mean. So neither us said it, said it," he finished.

The next day, Ginny appeared to have 'said it' by sending Harry paperwork to end the lease agreement on their flat.

Neville was going to start talking to Harry over Snape again but when Neville opened his mouth, Snape rose abruptly, mumbling "Oh for Merlin's sake," and forced Harry out his seat so they could switch.

"Is that from Gin?" Neville said, when Harry was done switching plates and glasses with Snape.

"Yeah. She wants to end our lease," Harry said. He dripped tea on the papers accidentally and tried to dab it dry on his robes.

"Rough," Neville said through a bite of toast. "You going to sign it?"

"I guess I don't have a choice, do I?"

"You could fight for her! Go talk to her and try to work it out," Neville said as if it would be the easiest thing in the world.

Harry smiled because telling Neville the truth, that he didn't want to work things out, might feel like kicking a puppy. "Yeah, maybe."

But he did sign the papers later in the day and sent them back with a note that just said I'm sorry.

And he was sorry. He was sorry he wasn't the person that married his best friend's sister and instead he was the person that wasted years of someone's time because he didn't know what he wanted. He still didn't know sometimes, until he saw Snape turning a corner or licking a smidge of blueberry preserves off his thumb.

He was sorry he wasn't a simpler person that wanted simple things- a wish he'd had his whole wizarding life.

Saturday came and Harry was waiting for Hermione in the Three Broomsticks, warming up with a butterbeer that he knew would be too sweet for him when he was drunk later.

When Hermione arrived, she looked bright eyed but worried. They hugged and Harry thought she smelled like London.

She put her things down and went to order a drink at the bar. She came back with a shot of Firewhiskey for him and one for herself accompanied by a cider. She looked around the bar, which was fairly busy and loud but still cast a charm to muffle their conversation.

"You know how people get about your personal life," Hermione explained.

"I know." No one was looking at them but Harry knew they were very aware of his and Hermione's presence in the room.

"So- what did Ginny tell you?"

Hermione sighed. "Shots first," she said. They both cheersed and threw their heads back.

Hermione coughed a little. When she recovered, she said "She told us that you kissed Snape," and her face was screwed up as she said it, as if she was preparing to apologize to him it didn't end up being true.

Harry squinted his eyes shut. "Great."

"Yeah," Hermione said. "It was pretty shocking."

"Ron is freaking, isn't he?"

"Yes. He thinks maybe Snape Imperioed you or something. I keep reminding him that that curse doesn't work on you but he's in denial."

"How much worse is it that it's Snape?"

Hermione took a sip of her drink. "A lot worse. For Ron, I mean. You know, I don't really mind. Not that it's my business to mind."

She took Harry's hand in hers. "You know I love you, right? And Ron does too, he'll come around. He's just so protective of Ginny."

"I know. I don't blame him." Harry was looking at his hand in hers. "You're not still in shock are you?"

"No," Hermione said, her eyes intent on him. "I mean of course it's crazy, the idea of it. But when I think about it- it just sort of makes sense, doesn't it?"

They didn't say anything for a while, Harry finishing his butterbeer and Hermione looking around fondly at the bar.

"Do you mind my asking some questions?" Hermione said.

"No."

"Have you ever felt like this about another man?"

"No."

Hermione said nothing.

"I mean I always felt sort of…asexual. Not really attracted to anyone. I knew when people were beautiful or I had a crush on someone because they were cool or made me nervous. But I never wanted- I never wanted more. I tried for Ginny but we couldn't always force it and it sort of fizzled out between us a long time ago. And she was good enough not to say anything."

"Or negligent," Hermione said. "Not that I'm blaming her. I think you're wrong for not saying something earlier. But she could have worked on this stuff too. Sexless relationships generally aren't relationships that are doing well."

Harry shrugged. Madam Rosmerta replaced his butterbeer with a real beer and he was grateful.

"How long have you known you felt, you know, that way?"

Harry shook his head. "I don't know. I have no idea. You know, since the war, how I felt about him. I kept thinking and thinking about his memories, my parents. I suspected you knew that's why I came to Hogwarts."

He looked at her for confirmation and she nodded.

"And I don't know, I don't know how much I can say without feeling so stupid," he said and he said it before he realized he was feeling it, which often happened with Hermione.

Before Hermione could try to comfort him, he went on.

"When I'm with him, the truth comes out. There's no place to hide."

He drank from his beer, long gulps that made him feel full. "And then I started dreaming about him." He couldn't look at Hermione. "You know, fun dreams. Now it's all I think about. I've never felt this way, I've never wanted to have sex so bad." His face got hot.

"I had no idea."

"Yeah, well it's not exactly something to tell people. Being asexual. I always felt left out," Harry said. "But I'm so used to feeling different. I didn't think it was weird."

Hermione nodded. "I understand."

Harry loved her suddenly, hard. "Where would I be without you?"

"Dead," Hermione said. They drank to that.

"I know it's not my business," she said, "But there is one thing that worries me."

Harry tensed. "What?"

"How is Snape reacting to all of this? What's he done?"

"Well," Harry felt embarrassed again. "I kissed him first and he sort of yelled at me. And then he came to me, kissed me. But now he doesn't seem to be speaking to me. Or acknowledging my existence in any way."

Hermione nodded, a line forming between her eyes. "Do you think- Are you at all worried that-" she broke off.

"That-?"

"That he is not exactly in it for you," Hermione finished and she looked pained from saying it. "That maybe he's reciprocating because it's a way to feel close to your mother."

"Oh that. Yeah, I'm not worried about that at all," he said, all sarcasm.

"I just wanted to make sure that was a possibility in your mind," she said. "I don't want you to get hurt. Although I suppose that's what first great loves are for."

Hermione laughed and Harry wanted to join her suddenly, her mirth bubbling in his chest. "Is it a great love?" she asked.

"Huge," Harry said. "Insane."

They laughed at the idea because it was both true and absurd, Harry being in love with their former professor, and Harry felt hope for the first time that maybe when Ron saw the humor in it too, he would forgive him.

He was drunk when he got back to the castle. He headed to the dungeons even though he'd promised Hermione he wouldn't after he'd said bye to her.

"Why would I promise something like that?" he said out loud himself and hiccuped.

This time he brought his invisibility cloak because Snape was right. It was time he acted like a professor and hid his indiscretions rather than flaunted them.

He was ready to start knocking on every door near the Potions Classroom, like last time, when Snape appeared out of nowhere and spelled his cloak off of him. He grabbed Harry by the arm and pulled him through the door behind him, and shut it.

There were no windows in Snape's rooms, but the ceilings were very high and it still managed to feel airy. Snape had more in his rooms to make it look like his own than Harry did. More books, mostly.

"We have to stop meeting like this, professor," Harry said.

Snape was angry. "This isn't funny."

Harry tilted his head to the side because his head felt light he thought it would feel good. "Isn't it though?"

He noticed Snape wasn't wearing trousers, just pants and a sleep shirt and black socks that went up to the middle of his calves.

"Wow," Harry said, staring at the socks.

Snape's whole hand then was on his chest, pushing him back, back into a seat. He braced his hands on either arm of the chair, trapping Harry and leaning in in a way that made Harry's mouth dry because it reminded him of their kiss.

"Listen to me," Snape said. Harry's eyes were looking straight at Snape's pants now that they were almost eye level and Snape grabbed Harry's chin and lifted his gaze. "Are you listening to me?"

Harry nodded and made eye contact. "Yes." He pretended neither of them heard the way his 's' ran longer than it needed to.

"I realize my behavior in your room could have been misleading and I want to rectify that, since it seems you're determined not to pretend it didn't happen," Snape said and he was moving his head to catch Harry's gaze whenever it wandered.

"Get this straight in your head," he said, gritting his teeth and pressing a finger into Harry's forehead. "You should leave. There's nothing here for you. I'm a black hole. I'll take and take and there's nothing inside me to give."

Harry blinked. He wrapped his hands around Snape's bare forearms, one thumb right over his dark mark, and leaned back in the chair.

"Don't make promises you can't keep."

It seemed to be all Harry needed to say.

Snape's broad dry hand was around his throat, then, like a loving claw, pulling Harry out of his seat and placing their mouths together with measured intensity. Not rushed but urgent; patient and generous.

They pulled apart and Harry grabbed the collar of Snape's shirt, trying to pull him down into another endless kiss. "Don't you dare stop."

And Snape didn't.