Another fic for insmallpackages
Fandom: Harry Potter
Pairing: Harry/Snape
Rating: R (swears, nongraphic sex)
Length: 1600, give or take
Summary: The original prompt was Harry/Snape UST that gets resolved. This is non-epilogue compliant fic in which they are both Aurors, unwillingly partnered
The boy was infuriating. Utterly bloody infuriating, and what’s more, they had to share a sodding broom cupboard of a sodding Auror’s office, because Harry sodding Potter didn’t see fit to drop the ‘oh look at me I’m humble’ act in order to get a decent working space. Infuriating, and currently, by the looks of it, hungover. “Potter--”
“Oh, dear god, please whisper.”
Hungover. Ha.
-
He hated him. Hated hated hated him. Hated his stupid tea with enough sugar to revive a corpse, the way he chewed his pens, the way his left foot turned in a little, his stupid broken glasses and inability to brush his hair, the way he touched his left ear when he was about to tell a lie, the way he blinked very slowly when he was trying not to be angry. He hated him forensically. He hated the damn situation more, of course, but Shacklebolt’s willingness to use blackmail, and his unwillingness ever to set foot in Hogwarts again conspired to make-whisper it- partnering Potter inevitable.
“You’re breathing too loudly,” he snapped, surprising himself as much as Potter. Potter looked at him with that familiar expression of wounded innocence, but declined to comment.
-
Back to back with Potter, firing off spell after spell and hoping that at least some of Potter’s basic training had been retained. Five assailants: two death eaters (small scale, nasty work but hardly prominent) three imitators (two a real threat, one lax, with a defensive weak spot and a habit of not finishing off wandwork properly) against two Aurors (one former death eater, one boy who generally relied on noble self-sacrifice and good reflexes, both somewhat restricted in the spells they were allowed to use). Snape took a deep breath, and trusted Potter to hold his own in battle, then put his knowledge of the precise wording of the Auror’s code of conduct (details, details) to good use.
It was a satisfyingly brutal fight. No one was killed, but no one escaped uninjured. He himself had an interestingly painful gash down his left side, a burn on his right leg and three possibly broken ribs. Potter was currently unconscious, due to a blasting spell on a nearby oak tree. Snape would, at some point, bring up this salient point in argument, but was currently occupied in reading out the rights of the prone neo-death eaters, words slurred a little due to a split lip. Once that was done, Snape crouched down, brushed a hand over Potter’s hair. The boy was alive, breathing gently. He allowed himself to sag a little, then regained control over himself. His habit of watching over Potter was one he had yet to break.
-
“An oak tree, Potter.”
“Snape, you can’t keep bringing that up every time I try to disagree with you! It’s not reasonable or mature or-oh for fuck’s sake, you’ve got an oak tree calendar, you’ve probably got it tattooed somewhere, I refuse to keep arguing with you.”
“So I’m right, then?”
“Yes. You’re right. Put it on the chalkboard, I know how you love to keep score.”
-
“What’s wrong, Potter?”
Potter glared at him from behind a desk piled high with paper, hair an utter bird’s nest eyes red rimmed and skin tinged slightly with grey. “Ginny’s broken it off. She…the worst thing is, I can’t be angry with her. I think she might be right.”
“Of course she’s right, you’re insufferable. Fancy a duel?”
-
They were pressed up against each other in a wardrobe belonging to an elderly witch (who may or may not have had a torrid affair with Lestrange senior) hiding from an unexpected number of dark-arts inclined house guests. He could feel every small movement Potter made, hear every intake of breath, the susurration of his robes. He could smell him.
The meeting lasted for an hour. It was utter torment, the object of his occasional idle fantasies pressed up against him as they gathered names and plans, information that was the culmination of three months of research. He kept his eyes and ears open, his brain functioning, but running parallel to his surveillance were vivid images, sensations, wants and desires that had signified little in his leisurely wanks but seemed now to be of vital importance. He knew, then, that he was doomed.
-
He hated his damn jeans. They were shocking. The most tawdry rent boy of his acquaintance would baulk at wearing them.
-
“Out with it, Potter. Why are you still staring at my arms?”
Potter flushed, then touched his left ear quickly. “I’m not! I- um- I thought I saw a spider on them.”
Snape looked down at his forearms. It was damnably hot, and he had rolled his shirtsleeves up. They were in no way unusual looking. Just arms. Snape frowned, flexed his fingers absent mindedly. There was a gulp from behind Potter’s desk. Odd.
-
Shacklebolt kept smirking at him, and wouldn’t tell him why. The other Aurors had a betting pool that they were keeping secret from him. Draco, damn him, kept smiling for no good reason every time he said the word ‘Potter’, and kept on making notes in a book he seemed to carry around solely for that purpose. Narcissa seemed to have fallen back in love with Lucius. The pair of them were like teenagers in love (with magical tracking, curfews, and criminal records) and had little time for the rest of the world.
Potter kept humming tunes from old Hollywood films.
-
“Good night, Potter,” he said, absently kissing him on the cheek as he juggled files from the Kovac case. It took him ten paces down the corridor before he stopped abruptly and banged his head against the wall.
“I hate Tuesdays, too,” one of the Weasleys commented as he passed.
-
“You could…you could call me Harry,” Potter said. Snape looked across at him. He was fiddling with the cuffs on his frayed and ratty jumper.
“One day, Potter,” Snape replied, and felt a sudden burst of warmth at the smile Potter didn’t quite manage to hide.
-
“Try not to die just yet, Snape,” Harry said, putting pressure on the wound. The world seemed to be retreating as he tried to keep breathing. “Severus. Please.”
Snape breathed, breathed again. Breathed.
As he lost consciousness, he was aware of Potter’s hand on his forehead, gently brushing the hair from his eyes.
-
Potter had left flowers. They were rather lovely, but they were still flowers. He felt oddly grateful, but then again, he was at the fretful stage of convalescence, and sometimes felt as if he were about to cry. He closed his eyes again, thoughts snagging at the edge of his mind as he went to sleep. When he regained consciousness, Potter was sat in the chair by the side of his bed, quietly reading out the case notes and post-arrest report, the arrest that had ended with him in hospital. Snape counted three split infinitives, one incorrect use of the dative and four manglings of spell declension. When he pointed this out, Potter just smiled a little mistily, and patted his hand.
-
He stood up, ignoring the directives of the mediwizard, hand gripping the bedside chair. Potter didn’t fuss, or offer advice, just stood next to him and let him grip his shoulder for support. He leaned into him, and kept leaning.
-
“Snape, don’t hit me, or turn me into a radish. I think…I think I’m going to kiss you.”
“Good grief, boy, Longbottom had better lines than that. Got a lot of tail in Hogwarts.”
“Yes, must have been the constant threat of death. Makes girls queue up. Now, can we never mention Neville in this context ever again?”
Snape stayed leaning against the wall, feeling punch-drunk with exhaustion. Potter swore fervently under his breath, then kissed him, hands on either side of his head. He was oddly gentle, ardency restrained. He took a step back, and smiled. “I’m not a radish. Can I…can we? I think you need to be in bed, and I’m not ready to leave you alone. I don’t want to watch you nearly dying again.”
“By all means, watch me sleep,” he said, waving a hand magnanimously. Potter shook his head, started to help him climb the stairs to his bedroom. Once there, he just stood, too tired to do anything any more. Potter helped him out of his cloak, then his robe, undid his belt and the buttons of his shirt, then ushered him into the bathroom with a nightshirt. Numbly, he slipped out of the last of his clothes, pulled the nightshirt on over his head and then brushed his teeth. Potter was still fully clothed when he came out, and had transfigured himself a chair. “You actually intend to watch me sleep?” he asked. Potter flushed bright red.
“I prefer the term ‘guard,’” he said stiffly.
Snape closed the gap between them, kissed him with none of the gentleness Potter had shown, until Potter lost his damned diffidence. It felt like this had been building up for a long time, longer than Snape is fully comfortable with, but Potter was just the right height, lithe and curious, with stupid messy hair and a stupid face and a glaringly obvious crush on him. They fell back together onto the bed, and it was over in a fairly brief tangle of limbs, the result of which Snape cleared up with a wordless wave of his hand. “Smooth,” Potter said, grinning, glasses askew. Snape shook his head and watched as Potter disrobed, throwing clothes to all corners of his room. It was only when the lights are extinguished and Potter was sprawled half over him that he allowed himself to smile. He was, after all, awfully fond of the boy.