TITLE: Juiced
AUTHOR: Predatrix
PAIRING: SS/HP
RATING: NC17
FEEDBACK: predatrix@ntlworld.com
DISCLAIMER: JKR: characters. Me: humour/kink
SUMMARY: "Severus Snape" does it with Harry Potter. Then Severus Snape does it with Harry Potter.Dedicated to Lexin and Bernice for able beta-ing, ideas and coming up with some of the best lines. Also dedicated to Ellen F. for pointing out that it needed more work.
NOTES: Part of the Severus Snape Fuh-Q Fest, a response to Scenario 73: McGonagall complains that Snape is fucking a student, but it turns out the student used a Polyjuice Potion to make their lover into Snape. Snape is curious.
ARCHIVING: The Severus Snape Fuh-Q Fest Archive, and after that anyone else who wants it

Juiced

The Astronomy Tower was a de facto trysting-place for students. Occasionally, teachers met each other there. McGonagall was no prude. When she’d seen evidence of the occasional tryst before, she’d considered it the students’ business, if it was consensual, and merely tried to make sure the girl had taken appropriate precautions, if it was a girl, and that neither one was hurting the other.

She could not, however, condone Severus Snape fucking Harry Potter. Not that she felt equal to going in and pulling them apart with her bare hands, either. It looked, from the fact that neither had noticed her approach, as if that was what it would take.

She determined that they would hear about this tomorrow, and walked away. She heard Harry Potter say something really quite coarse to Professor Snape, as she went.

She did not hear a loud laugh, nor did she hear the rhythm of their activities still a moment later.

“Did you hear something?”

“No,” panted Harry, not caring about any strange noises, just wanting more. “Try to stay in character!”

“Oh, I’m a nasty bastard, I am! I’m a horrible greasy git! Take it up the bum, Gryffindor swine!” his companion said, between bouts of hearty laughter. He was laughing too much to continue the act properly, which annoyed Harry.

“Would it help to remind you how much bloody work it was, and ask you to take this at least a bit seriously?” snapped Harry, as his companion slid out of him and flopped down in the bed. What with the trouble they’d taken in making the Polyjuice Potion, and Harry’s secret acquisition and use of a sex-toy to get in practice before they did this, setting up tonight had taken a lot of trouble.

“No,” said “Snape”.

“Well, next week, when I’m Hermione for you—’Ron! Ron!” Harry said, in a high voice, “do you remember what I said about how to find the clitoris? Haven’t you ever read a book?’“

Ron-as-Snape clouted him with a pillow. “At least I fancy someone who washes her hair!”

“At least I’d try to put on an act properly, and I won’t give up in the middle because I’m laughing too hard!” said Harry rather peevishly.

“Mm. Sorry,” said Ron.

“He wouldn’t be sorry.”

Ron leaned forward. “Do you have the insolence to criticise my technique?” he murmured, in what turned out to be a creditably Snape-like whisper, while sliding a hot Snape-like hand around Harry’s cock.

Harry was too busy coming to criticise anything.

“Want anything?” he asked Ron when he’d finished, more out of duty than anything else.

“No, you’re all right. Next week’s my turn. Being Snape’s putting me off, anyway. How the hell did you get to fancy the greasy bastard?” Ron’s voice and body returned to normal while he was speaking.

“How the hell did you get to fancy the girl you described as “a nightmare” when you first met her?” Harry retorted. “Her personality hasn’t changed a bit since then.”

“Yes, but at least she’s...”

“A girl?” asked Harry.

“It’s Muggles who have that sort of prejudice, I think,” said Ron. “If a Muggle wrote a book about Hogwarts, they’d have to leave out all the magic and half the shagging. No, I was going to say, at least she’s nice.”

“Ron, to my certain knowledge something she says drives you up the wall at least once a day.”

“Yeah. But I do like her as well as fancy her, even if I’m too scared to tell her. But you and Snape...”

Harry was silent. Ron knew him well enough to pick up on what he didn’t say.

“You can’t,” said Ron.

“I sometimes do sort-of sometimes almost like him,” admitted Harry cautiously.

“My god, who’ll you want to make friends with next? Malfoy?”

Harry snorted. “No chance.”

“They’re both horrible to people.”

“There’s more to Snape.”

“Just because you want him to shag you,” said Ron.

“No. Not just. I started thinking about him before I realised I was attracted to him. He’s just... interesting, I suppose.”

“He’s just horrible.”

“I started wondering,” said Harry, “after that thing with Quirrell being Voldemort. Wondered what else I was wrong about. Wondered how somebody could try so hard to save my life, and be a bully that nobody liked. Wondered what it was like to be a double agent, when I heard about that. Wanting to do it with him didn’t seem like too much of a jump, it was more of a shock finding him interesting, before that.”

“Lust is blind,” said Ron. “Actually, I’d understand it more if it was Malfoy. At least he’s pretty.”

“Pretty boring, if you ask me,” said Harry. “At least Snape’s good at something. Malfoy thinks his looks or his father will get him what he wants in life, without having to learn anything.” He felt the old ache, so familiar he almost didn’t notice it, at the way Snape treated him as if he were coasting through life the way Malfoy actually was.

“Snape’s good at chopping slimy things, who’d want that?” said Ron, with disgust.

“But those hands...” Harry moaned softly. “Even when they’re doing something dreadful...” Fantasy number 2, where Snape attained expert carnal knowledge of him using nothing but precise, firm, knowing hands, slipped into place in his head. His cock twitched.

He looked at Ron, who was looking disgusted.

“I think it was just what he said, at first. And how he said it.”

Ron looked blank.

“Don’t you like 'Mione because she’s clever?”

“Try, 'in spite of’,” said Ron.

“I started realising Snape was quite witty. Nasty with it, but intelligent. Sometimes I admired some of the things he said, even when they were about me. Then I started wondering all those things, about whether he was good or evil. Somewhere in all that, I started watching him. I’ve never quite been able to stop.”

“Evil fascination,” muttered Ron.

“You must admit, I did try to keep it a secret.” He’d tried quite hard. Every time he masturbated, he’d made sure to bite the pillow and keep still. One dream and one gasped name had been enough to lay the secret open. Ron had taken it rather well: he hadn’t been sick, run away, or broken his friendship with Harry. He hadn’t really understood, just prodded at Harry’s weird secret in a number of edgy conversations, but this was bearable. Especially when he and Ron could let off steam a bit about how difficult it was to get close to someone, which had led to a conversation about letting off steam in a more physical way, “if we weren’t both stuck on someone who probably wouldn’t look at us,” said Ron. Then Ron had mentioned how Hermione had done the Polyjuice Potion before, and one thing had led to another.

Harry took early breakfast, nobody there but the Quidditch team and Madam Hooch, after dawn practice. He went back to the broom-sheds and polished his beloved broomstick, after that, wondering how the hell Draco thought he’d get anywhere in the next match on a broom he’d barely touched all year, shedding twigs and showing visible signs of neglect.

Morning lessons, Herbology, Magical Creatures and Charms, went perfectly normally. Hagrid got bitten by something, of course, but that always happened.

Harry took a quick lunch, and was about to go to the Library with Hermione to swap revision notes when Professor McGonagall stopped him.

“Harry Potter,” she announced, “would you follow me, now? There is something I need to talk to you about.” Something not-particularly-nice, Harry thought, noticing the thinness of her lips. Definitely not Quidditch. She looked back towards the staff table. “Professor Snape, would you join us?”

Snape looked pleased, and malicious. Harry sighed, and followed quietly.

“Shut the door, Harry,” said Professor McGonagall, in her room. “This is a sensitive matter.” She looked at Professor Snape, her expression perfectly blank.

Snape smirked. “Thank you for being so thoughtful, Minerva. I admit to being surprised that you feel the need for an observer as you discipline Potter for whatever infraction he has committed, but I will be quite happy to watch.”

“Oh no, Professor Snape,” she said grimly. “It happens that you are probably in a great deal more trouble than he is. Having sex with a student isn’t usually considered to be the student’s fault.

Harry blushed. “Professor McGonagall,” he said, “I think you’ve got the wrong end of the stick.” He wasn’t sure she’d heard him. His voice had clashed with Snape asking her if she was completely insane.

“Whatever you think of me—and I am quite aware you do—I would never—I have a few principles,” said Snape, loudly.

“I might believe you, Professor Snape, if I hadn’t seen what I had last night. I have to ask both of you to take a dose of Truth Serum.”

Snape got up.

“No,” she said. “I don’t entirely trust you not to have a neutralised version kept to let you lie in emergencies. I have my own bottle in this locked drawer, and I know nobody’s tampered with it.

Carefully, she filled two large glasses with blue fluid.

Snape went even paler than usual.

Why should Snape look worried? It’s me that has to confess! Harry thought, as Snape said, “That’s about a ten-hour dose, as far as I can judge it by sight.”

“Well, I’m sure both of you have gone through worse fates in life than telling the truth for a day,” said Professor McGonagall impatiently. “Drink up.”

Harry drank it.

“Professor Snape,” said Professor McGonagall, “I’m beginning to think you may have something to conceal.”

Snape lifted the glass, as if making an ironic toast, and downed the dose quickly.

“Did I see you having sex with each other yesterday?” asked Professor McGonagall bluntly.

“No, Professor McGonagall,” said Harry.

“No, Minerva, you did not,” said Snape.

Professor McGonagall looked at the bottle, then at both of them.

“Would you like me to fetch the standard references on the effects of that serum?” asked Snape dryly.

“No. I’m just wondering what could possibly be a rational explanation for this,” said Professor McGonagall, rather shakily.

“There is a perfectly simple explanation,” said Snape. “Despite my best efforts to control access to the materials, the students still experiment with Polyjuice Potion regularly. It explains what happened to my depleted stock of boomslang skin, and also why Hedwig made off with a lock of my hair. I just thought she was nesting at the time. Careless of me.”

“Is this true, Harry?” she demanded.

“Yes,” he admitted, looking at his feet.

“I should imagine Mr Weasley found the stunt quite amusing,” said Professor Snape, expressionlessly.

“Y-yes, sir. Sorry, sir,” said Harry, feeling obscurely guilty.

“Merely a childish prank?” asked Professor McGonagall. “I’m relieved to hear it. I apologise, Severus, but you must know I couldn’t give you the benefit of the doubt on a matter this serious. You may give Harry whatever detention you think fit for misuse of ingredients now. But don’t be long, Harry, you’ve got Transfiguration with me in a few minutes.”

She shut the door behind her, leaving them together.

Very slowly, Snape sank his head in his hands. He was shaking.

“Are you all right, sir?”

Snape lifted his head.

“Just relieved, Potter,” Snape muttered through his fingers.

“But there was nothing... I mean, we hadn’t... What’s there to be relieved about, sir?”

Snape glared at him. “Because she didn’t ask me if I was attracted to you, you idiot!” He appeared to be trying to cram his fingers into his mouth to stop himself speaking, but Harry could still hear him, and could certainly see the look in his eyes.

Harry grinned slowly. “Thanks for the compliment, sir.”

“You, me and Weasley in some disgusting version of the Eternal Triangle,” Snape said bitterly. “I refuse to find that entertaining.”

“Are you...jealous, sir?” Harry said, with some surprise.

“Yes, damn you!” Snape forced out in a harsh whisper.

Harry laid a hand gently on Snape’s shoulder. “It’s not like that, sir. He’s my friend, and he’s in love with Hermione. Neither of us fancy each other. I said, if he’d Polyjuice into you, I’d Polyjuice into Hermione for him next week. But I think I’ve changed my mind, considering. Does that cheer you up, sir?”

“Not entirely.” Snape sighed. “I suppose the question of how difficult this is going to make today doesn’t even cross what passes for your mind, Potter? For example, I have reasons to conceal how I really feel about the students.”

“That you fancy me, sir?”

“Not everything is about you, Potter.”

“Well, the fact that you’re hostile to everyone in my year except Malfoy isn’t news, sir.”

“I’m hostile to Malfoy!” Snape snapped, “but I don’t intend to let it show.”

Harry opened his mouth to ask 'why not?’’ but found Snape’s long hand clapped over his mouth.

“You don’t need to know, Potter. And you ought to stop licking my fingers.”

“Would you like me to stop?” Harry asked innocently, rather muffled.

“You ought to,” said Snape, gasping rather, removing his wet hand and wiping it on his robe.

Harry wondered how he’d ever found Snape’s eyes cold. Dark, certainly, and not twinkly like Hagrid’s, but they gleamed with fury and lust.

“Excuse me.”

To Harry’s surprise, Snape stalked towards the little door to Professor McGonagall’s private quarters, instead of towards the door.

“What are you doing?” asked Harry. Snape had never been late for his work, not that he’d heard of. He wasn’t even ill, considering that he was walking.

“Not that it’s any of your business, Potter, but I am going to the bathroom to masturbate in the faint hope of improving my self-control. Or at least my ability to get through the next few lessons without admitting what I want to do to you,” said Snape, punctuating the sentence with the slam and lock of the bathroom door.

“Alohomora!” Harry tried. To his surprise, it worked. Snape must have used a fairly simple locking-spell.

To his disappointment, Snape wasn’t displaying bare flesh. Not that Harry could miss seeing his cock: it might be bundled up in a very large hanky, but the shape was clearly visible, and Snape was squeezing it slowly. He was sitting on the closed toilet: oh good, Harry thought, no tricky balancing act.

“You weren’t taught that spell so you could spy on your benighted teachers using the bathroom,” Snape accused him. He wasn’t quite blushing. Not quite.

“No,” said Harry, “but it works.” He eyed Snape’s crotch longingly. “You’re bigger than Ron. Sir.”

“Am I supposed to be flattered?” Snape raised an eyebrow.

“Yes. He’s pretty big.”

"I'm not going to touch you, you know. There are rules about that."

"That's quite all right, sir. You don't have to."

Snape groaned.

"I'll take care of you." Harry put his hand firmly on Snape’s cock,

Snape let his own hand fall loose to his side, to be replaced by Harry’s. Harry wasn't quite sure whether he was weak with lust or had decided to let Harry do something.

“I think you’ve got at least an inch on Ron, sir.”

“And Weasley's big compared to whom?” said Snape, panting slightly. “Have you decided to enliven your last year of school by becoming the Gryffindor bike?”

“Big compared to me. I’m not that promiscuous, sir.” Harry knew hurt feelings were seeping out around the edges of that.

“Don’t pout, Potter. You’re not all that small either, if nobody’s told you.” Snape returned an equally-intimate glance.

Harry knew he was blushing. All the blood his cock could spare was rushing toward his face. Not that that was much.

The admiring look was replaced by a much more familiar cross expression. “Had I known that keeping your hand still was the limit of that vaunted Gryffindor courage—”

Interesting. So he'll hint, and say things, but he wants me to act so he doesn't have to. Well, I can do that. Harry jerked at the handkerchief, and before it fluttered to the floor, had his hand on Snape’s cock. It felt miles better, touching him properly. Fingertips fluttering over the wet velvety tip, a loose hand-grip on the shaft: squeeze and squeeze and rub. Better be a quickie, he thought, can’t imagine he’d let me get away with this for long. His left hand fondled Snape’s balls: nice and tight and ready. Snape gasped shallowly, pushed into his hand, fell back panting, head against the toilet cistern.

Harry thought: poor bastard, can’t be comfortable, and what a place for a sexual encounter!

As Snape opened his mouth, opened his eyes, and Harry felt the pull of those dark eyes again, the second of those mental comments morphed slowly into: don’t care! He didn’t care if it was sordid and contemptible, he just wanted Snape. Now, and probably often after that. He fumbled with his own trousers for long enough to free his cock.

“Do you remember any spells for putting a room under a ward of silence, Potter?”

It took Harry a couple of seconds to work out that Snape wasn’t asking a merely academic question.

“Think so, sir,” he said, removing his hands long enough to find his wand and shape a couple of spheres through the air that would swallow up every sound in the room. Snape groaned a little, jerking his cock helplessly against the air.

“Possibly your education is finally bearing fruit, Potter,” Snape said, gasping, “although I wouldn’t admit that if I were not under severe strain.”

“Can’t have that, sir,” Harry said innocently. “Let’s see what we can do about the strain.” He started again, a slow twisting stroke intended to torment.

“Do it hard!” Breaking strain in that voice.

He slid his hand up, much harder than he’d done before, and flexed his grip in a sensitive spot. Harder. Hard. The cock in his hand flexed and throbbed and spurted heavily all over both of them, and Snape groaned.

Then Snape just sat there and gasped, eyes closed, unmoving, for a while.

Then his eyes opened: dark and strange and uninterpretable.

Harry sat down on his leg, and wriggled. “That feels good, sir.”

“Is that what you want?”

“I’m tempted. Not bad thighs,” he added, being a connoisseur of such things. “Not a Quidditch-player’s legs—Hooch can crack nuts with hers, probably—but nice and firm to rub myself on.” He took a moment to be pleased that Snape had so little vanity: if he had (god forbid) fancied Lockhart, he’d be in trouble with telling him any part of his anatomy was less than optimal if forced to be temporarily truthful.

“Legs muscular enough for a hormone-crazed seventeen-year-old to want to hump. All that walking up and down stairs suddenly seems worth it,” said Snape very dryly. Interesting, Harry thought. He can’t say anything except the truth, so does that mean he’s trying to be sarcastic just to slip round it, or he’s being honest and trusting to the sarcasm to cover it? Judging by the look on Snape’s face, he did like the idea.

“Not that that’s all I want,” said Harry. “I’ve been thinking about your hands for ages. How they wrap securely round a ladle. How they might wrap round me.” Harry wriggled round to sit in Snape’s lap, glad that the toilet was large and he himself undersized for his age. He’d put on flesh a bit since he was kept in a cupboard, but he was still not exactly massive.

“Do you imagine I’d ever lay a hand on a student?” Snape growled.

“No,” Harry said happily, picking up Snape’s hand and laying the loose curve of it round his cock. “I’d have to do that, if you wouldn’t.” The hand slipped down a bit; just brushing against his balls, which could have been intentional or accidental, but felt fantastic.

Harry moved the hand where he really needed pressure.

“Impudent little devil,” said Snape.

Harry patted the hand, and thrust into it impatiently because it was still not tight enough.

“I think I need a proper grip to do it, sir. I think I would like you to show me,” Harry said, in his most misleadingly-innocent tone of voice.

“I refuse to believe you need instruction in this activity, Potter.” Snape squeezed him hard.

“Quite right, sir. Nearly every private waking moment I have. Can’t get enough,” Harry told him cheerfully. “Would you like to know what I think about while I do it, sir?”

He achieved a sort of compromise arrangement where both their hands were so entangled in the activity that Snape could, if he so wished, avoid the thought that he was doing anything reprehensible. Harry himself, being relatively uncomplicated, merely enjoyed the sensation that his cock was exactly where he wanted it, and damn causality.

“I wouldn’t like to admit to wanting to know,” said Snape, flexing their hands together. “Do you ever get afraid you’ll break the thing if you grip it this hard?”

Harry moaned happily. “Harder the better, sir!”

“Is this like your fantasy?”

Good. He does want to know.

“Pretty much, apart from the toilet not being the setting normally. Fantasy number two, this is. Definitely my second favourite.”

There was an interested silence. Harry took pity on him.

“My first favourite—well, I’m in your lap there, too. Sort of.”

Snape’s cock twitched against his bottom.

“That’s the idea. Do you think you could...”

Snape sighed irritably, and his cock fell back limp. “The difference between seventeen and nearly forty is that one can think without instantly translating the thought into action.”

“Sounds fascinating. Must try it sometime. Not now, though,” Harry told him, shoving rudely into Snape’s tight hand, which was beginning to get a mind of its own. Good. He picked up Snape’s other hand, which was trailing limply and waiting for something to do, and sucked the fingertips into his mouth.

“I’m too old to be persuaded yet, I told you,” Snape complained. He kept masturbating Harry firmly, though.

“I could make you think of oral sex later, if you prefer.”

Snape gasped a little, Harry was glad to notice.

“But now what I want is...” Harry moved Snape’s left hand where he wanted it, and used one wet elegant fingertip to just slide over the head of his cock. “Never thought I’d be wanking myself on your hands.”

Snape fluttered the fingertip delicately, and added some more.

“Oh fuck, just there!” Harry growled.

He noticed that Snape seemed to know what that meant, at least enough to keep both hands at work. Right hand tightening on him like a vice, left thumb smoothly scooping up the increasing wetness and tracing it around the tip of his cock in a wet figure-eight. He was still trying to hold back, hold on to it, when the last lightning-bolt of pleasure shot right up the length of his cock from his balls and surged and spilled and flooded out of him so hard it felt as if he’d redecorated the room in white splashes. Snape kept holding, kept stroking, until he was finished.

When he came back to himself enough to speak, he said, “I’ve never come quite that hard in my life.”

“I don’t like meaningless flattery, boy,” said Snape in a tone that indicated he was probably spoiling for a fight.

“That’s objective, sir,” Harry said indignantly. “It normally lands about here,” he said, indicating his chest with a languid finger-flick, “and I got it in the face.”

“Only because you were bent round in a peculiar position,” said Snape.

“That and really excited. I’m sticking to my point here,” Harry said stubbornly. A thought occurred to him. “Actually, I’m sticking to yours as well.” He wriggled suggestively.

“You’re sticking to everything, Potter. Get up and let me make you marginally less disgusting.”

With a quasi-effortless wand-flick and a little muttering, Snape cleaned them both up, led Harry out, and settled them, clean and blamelessly tidy in their chairs.

“I suppose it would currently be impossible to persuade you how much of a total disaster it is to have taken an overdose of Truth serum?”

“Yes. It’s got me something I’ve wanted for ages,” said Harry happily, “and I’m not like Fred and George: I can last an entire day without mischief.”

“You are young and foolish, and do not think before you act, but you will understand what an unmitigated nuisance the thing is by the end of the day,” said Snape with utter certainty.

The door began to open.

Snape’s glance said, can you now see how terminally stupid you were? Harry’s said, we got away with it, didn’t we?

“What have you two been doing in here for ten minutes?” Professor McGonagall asked.

Harry began to see what Snape was getting at. He couldn’t say anything.

Snape said, “Apart from a visit to the toilet, I have been apprising Potter of his reckless, foolhardy and erratic behaviour. He has enough to take some time.” The tone was his normal smooth oiled malice.

Oh, well done, sir! Harry thought.

“He wouldn’t say anything nice about me whatever I did,” Harry said, in a reasonable facsimile of his usual disgruntled tone. “If I made the best Potion he’d ever seen in his life...”

Snape’s snort did an amazingly good job of conveying as if that’s likely!

“...the next words out of his mouth would be, 'Fifteen points from Gryffindor’.”

“You may be right,” said Professor McGonagall, with a small smile. “Off to lessons, both of you.”

On the way to lessons, Harry met up with Hermione and Ron. Surely Snape had been unnecessarily paranoid (as usual) about the truth-telling Potion? He could see it if he’d been intending to play any tricks, yes, but at the moment he was just going to have a quiet afternoon’s work at his lessons. Telling the truth about whether he knew a particular spell or not was hardly going to get him into trouble.

“What did Professor McGonagall want, Harry?” asked Hermione.

“She wanted to give me a Truth Potion to find out who I’d been shagging, but it wasn’t who she thought. It was Ron, only he’d taken a Polyjuice,” Harry said casually, deciding that Snape had a point about the dangers of the unvarnished truth.

“How on earth did you know how to do it?” said Hermione. “I mean, I could get the book from the Restricted Section a few years ago, but Madam Pince would smell a rat if either of you tried.”

“You know that thick file of yours marked EXTRACURRICULAR? It’s got details of everything you’ve ever done that wasn’t for a lesson,” Harry told her.

“And where did you get the boomslang skin?”

“That was more difficult.”

“And the...bits of the person.”

“Got Hedwig to do that.”

“And who does Ron turn into for you?”

“Somebody who’d never do it with me,” Harry said, just managing to shut his mouth with a snap instead of adding no matter how much he wants to. He was very glad Professor McGonagall didn’t have clearance to use Veritaserum itself: instead of babbling about whatever occurred to him, he could at least use the truth misleadingly. This particular version of Truth Serum merely forced the truth when questioned. It was true: Snape’s conscience, weird as it was to admit, meant Snape would never approach a student. If Harry hadn’t done everything himself, nothing would have happened.

“But why on earth would Ron do that for you?”

“Because I said I’d Polyjuice into you for his turn,” said Harry, feeling a bit of a heel and even more aware of why Snape thought the truth could be so dangerous.

“Oh Ron!” Hermione breathed. Strangely, she didn’t sound indignant. “Do you really fancy me...that much?”

“Yes, he does,” said Harry. “He’s just too chicken to ask you out.”

Ron blushed redder than his hair.

“If I asked you to put the rest of the Polyjuice ingredients back, would you?” asked Hermione.

“Yes. If I asked you to meet me in the Astronomy Tower, would you?” asked Ron.

“Yes.” They looked at each other across Harry. Harry felt as touched as was compatible with feeling irritable because he felt like an obstruction, and feeling irritable because Snape would never look at him that way if anyone else was in the room. He cleared his throat.

“Sorry, Harry,” said Ron.

“Sorry, Harry,” said Hermione.

Harry led the way towards lessons. Ron and Hermione weren’t holding hands, but it was probably only a matter of time. Oh well, at least somebody was happy.

First lesson was Transfigurations. Professor McGonagall looked at Harry, to his relief, with a stare no more or less severe than ever before.

They were doing hedgehogs and pincushions again, not something any sixth-years should have any problems with. Hermione turned hers into a blushing-pink cuddly hedgehog with soft fabric spines to start with, and Professor McGonagall said something about, “we are not doing love tokens today, Miss Granger,” which made her blush even pinker than the hedgehog.

“Neville,” Professor McGonagall said, “why is yours green with purple spikes?”

Neville looked at her with an expression that plainly said he wished he knew.

Harry’s hedgehog marched jauntily around the desk, whistling a merry tune.

“A touch of humour is reasonable in this transformation, considering that it starts as a sort of visual pun,” said Professor McGonagall, “but one must be careful not to go too far. 'Bonnie Dundee’ isn’t it?”

Harry concentrated. The hedgehog stopped whistling.

“Yes, the tune’s 'Bonnie Dundee’,” Harry said carefully. He was glad he knew the tune had a name. When he’d last heard it, Ron had been singing different words to it. The chorus was: “The hedgehog can never be buggered at all.”

Hermione’s second attempt looked more like a hedgehog.

Ron’s looked as if it had fleas, and they were giving it an itch in its prickles. Then it scrambled down the desk leg and up the leg of Hermione’s desk next to it, and started giving her hedgehog friendly delicate sniffs. Harry supposed that the courtship of anything so prickly was necessarily a cautious affair.

It was difficult enough if the object of one’s attentions only had metaphorical spines. Harry snorted with laughter.

“What are you thinking about, Potter?” Professor McGonagall asked him.

“About the difficulty of anything spiky having a courtship, Professor.” It was true. He was very glad Snape had masturbated him just before this lesson: even a “hormone-crazed seventeen-year-old” wouldn’t be desperately randy after ten minutes. If he had the free time to go and jump on Snape, and Snape wouldn’t mind, it would be different, but... Want it, don’t need it, he told himself.

Professor McGonagall gave Ron and Hermione a speaking glance.

Harry smiled. Ron and Hermione were not that spiky.

Everybody got their pincushions back without difficulty at the end of the lesson, although Neville’s seemed to have changed colour completely even when Professor McGonagall used a 'reset to default’ spell. Nobody, not even Professor McGonagall, could figure out how he’d done that. Unfortunately, nor could Neville.

Next class was Divinations. Well, he’d just have to be a bit cautious. Not that he ever distinguished himself in that class, just tried not to be noticed.

As usual, he could barely see the teacup. The smoke gave him a tickly feeling in his nose and his head, and he felt too fuzzy to react quickly. Even when Neville broke a teacup from the special row of teacups Professor Trelawney kept at the back for him, it took Harry a second or two to jump and then decide he shouldn’t have.

None of them, by now, had any real sense of anticipation as they drank the tea.

“Neville?” asked Professor Trelawney.

“It looks like a finger,” Neville said. Looking up in the book, Harry read: “Raised finger—a warning. Lowered finger—a need for direction.” He wasn’t sure how you’d tell which it was, if you only saw the finger.

“That’s a warning,” said Professor Trelawney. “Is your grandmother quite well?”

Harry sighed. Trust her to take whichever interpretation was worst. It seemed unsporting to pick on Neville—not that that ever stopped some of the teachers.

Neville, of course, looked upset. His parents were in St Mungo’s. His grandmother was the one rock of reliability in his life.

Having spread doom and despondency for Neville, Professor Trelawney moved on to Ron.

“Squiggly thing, wobbly thing, squiggly thing,” said Ron, sounding bored.

Harry tried not to laugh.

“Well, that’s a harp—that’s romance, my dear. Broken eggs—that’s a career setback,” Professor Trelawney told Ron, looking into his cup.

Ron looked upset. “If you translate work things to school things, that means I might fail my exams, I suppose,” he whispered. “Not that I believe this rubbish, but I’d hate to stay back while Hermione didn’t.”

“Spider—reward for work,” Professor Trelawney went on.

“Those last two things cancel themselves out,” Ron whispered to Harry.

Harry was the next one along. He remembered uneasily that after every two more-or-less ordinary readings she liked to get creative, usually describing violent death or disaster for Harry.

“Teapot, snake, daisy,” Harry intoned, in a god-this-is-boring tone of voice.

“I think that’s a vase, dear child, not a teapot,” Professor Trelawney said. “Secret admirer for you.” She passed quickly over that. It’s so much less exciting than sudden death, Harry thought bitchily. “Snake,” she added, tone picking up enthusiasm: “that’s an enemy close by.”

Ron’s finger flicked quickly at Malfoy on the other side of the room. Harry stifled a giggle, but wondered if “snake” could refer to somebody else whom he couldn’t quite describe as an enemy, just perhaps.

“Daisy’s a new love, and I should certainly not advise you starting up a romance while your life’s so troubled and dark,” said Professor Trelawney sternly.

“Troubled?” said Parvati interestedly.

“Dark?” said Lavender.

“I see... I see...” Professor Trelawney sat down in her chair hurriedly.

Harry sighed.

“I see a tall dark man who means you trouble.”

Harry sighed again. The Tall Dark Man Who Meant Him Trouble turned up on average every six readings. Usually when she wanted a little variety from the usual violent-death ideas. He’d been very impressed at first: Snape was definitely a Tall Dark Man Who Meant Him Trouble. After a while his Gryffindor sense of fairness stepped in to suggest that Snape could be very determined about saving his life. A little voice in his head that sounded just like Ron tended to say 'save it. Huh. Only so he can make it a misery’, but he didn’t quite believe that. Well, not all the time, anyway. There had been a brief flurry of excitement at first when none of them had been sure whether the Tall Dark Man Who Meant Him Trouble was Snape or Black, of course, but this was just a routine vision by now.

“He has a very unprofessional attitude to you.”

“I think you’re right,” said Harry softly, hoping so.

“He has little reverence for the Ways of the Stars, the Truth Written in the Heavens,” Professor Trelawney concluded pettishly. That was no doubt the basis of her feeling. Snape had never actually said what he thought of Professor Trelawney, but given the way he looked whenever she spoke, he had no need to.

“Perhaps he might be the Dark Threat that Hangs over your Life,” she added. She usually seemed to feel like upping the stakes a bit after the first couple of sentences.

Harry snorted. “No, that’s Vol—”

Several of the more nervous students gasped. Harry sighed, and bowdlerised his sentence in the interests of stopping them actually wetting themselves.

“...I mean, You-Know-Who. You-Know-Who tries to kill me. Snape just gives me detentions.” He shut his mouth fast before he could say and the occasional mind-blowing orgasm. His cock twitched, and he told himself to stop thinking about that. Want it, don’t need it, he assured himself again. It was like that game he’d played with Ron and Hermione, where the object of the game had been not to think of a white bear, and the minute you were told that you could think of nothing else. Only in this case he was trying not to think of Snape, and Snape’s cock, and what Snape could be doing to Harry’s cock...

Professor Trelawney gave him a sharp look. “That’s not what you usually say.”

Harry felt a twinge of conscience. He had, over the years, been very unfair to Snape. Even after his feelings had changed, he’d often said nasty things about Snape in public. It was easier than saying nice things, and it eased the hurt a little when Snape said horrible things about him.

“No, but it’s true. I s’pose you don’t see anything useful in your vision, like how to defeat You-Know-Who so he can’t come back. No?”

Ron sniggered.

“The Ways of the Stars are obscure and often troubled, even to the expert eye. The truth is occluded by the Veil of Time, and there are few of us that Clearly See,” droned Professor Trelawney. “Now it is time to unveil the darkness of the future for you other dear children.”

The lesson did not improve, but at least Harry didn’t say anything else he shouldn’t.

The last lesson of the day was Double Potions. Harry was dreading this for a lot of reasons entirely unlike the reasons he’d originally dreaded it in his first year.

He tried to steel his nerves against the thought of Snape, to be prepared. The door banged open, as usual. Snape started talking before he’d even entered the room, as usual. Snape stepped in; mid-phrase and mid-stride as usual. Harry jumped. Snape glared at him, but didn’t say anything.

Harry clenched his fist. Want it, don’t need it, he assured himself again. He was afraid that mantra was beginning to lose its effectiveness.

Ron looked at his lap, nudged him and muttered, “sproingg!” It was their private code-word for the sort of instant erection that helped make seventeen such a seething turmoil of embarrassment.

Harry looked at Hermione getting her books out, and Ron gave him a wordless thank-god-she-didn’t-notice glance.

Elaborately casually, Harry rested his book-bag on his lap.

“Are you all paying attention, insofar as any of you can pay attention?” Snape murmured.

“Riveted,” said Harry. Well, he was. Since the truth-telling Potion didn’t seem to affect one’s tone of voice, sarcasm was definitely the best way through this lesson. Since Snape hadn’t specified what he should pay attention to, he could manage that.

“Today we shall be making Taming Potion,” Snape said, smiling unpleasantly. “Hagrid has brought me a couple of snakes to play with.” He went to an inconspicuous cardboard box at the back of the room, and brought it to his desk. A hissing came from within, and the box had air-holes. The hissing sounded angry. Harry was sure he caught something about 'imprisssoned!’ and 'sssscoundrel!’ before it died down a bit.

“If the bite were fatal, I would be put to the trouble of removing or countering the venom, which is a fiddly job, so these aren’t actually dangerous snakes,” Snape said lightly. “These are, in point of fact, what are known as 'Squib Serpents’. Due to the high level of magical predation in their native habitat, their bite neutralises all trace of magic in their attacker, hence the name.”

There was muttered indignation, and more hisses. “I, however, have prepared my Taming Potion already, and will demonstrate that it works.” Snape picked up a jug of smooth creamy lotion and rolled back his sleeves. He massaged the liquid slowly into the skin of his arms and hands. Firm, delicate, sure. From the tips of the fingernails to the elbows.

Oh god, those hands! Harry thought, biting his lip so as not to moan. He’d had those hands, sliding up and down his hard cock, and now even the thought that he was seeing those hands naked excited him. Let alone the fact that hands and arms were wet and naked. He wanted them on him, now.

Luckily, the smell then made itself felt. It might smell delicious to a wild beast, but it helped calm Harry down.

There was a noticeable diminution in the hissing. What Harry could hear was a lot more like 'what’ssssss that?’ than 'sssscoundrel!’ now.

“You, on the other hand, have success or failure in front of you.”

Hermione moved closer to Ron, clearly prepared to protect him. Snape sneered faintly. Too much to hope that he’d miss that, Harry thought.

Harry said, “I don’t think you’d stop us being wizards, sir.” He tried frantically to think of a diplomatic and truthful way of putting, “you’re horrible, but not that horrible,” and came up with, “You’re trying to educate us as wizards, sir. I think you’d find it an awful waste if we lost our magic.”

“Love appears to have a deleterious effect on the brain, Miss Granger. I thought that you would have been the one to reason it out. Potter is right. The bite of a Squib Serpent is only effective for about a week. So you risk nothing but moderate discomfiture for a week or so,” Snape told them, “and although I would find it amusing should you fail, it is perfectly possible to succeed. Not necessarily likely but possible.” An extra sibilance on “possible” echoed from within the box. “As you see,” Ssee, ssee, ssee, echoed the serpents, “possible,” finished Snape.

“Watch,” Snape said, and eased the snakes out. They coiled around his arms in a way that Harry could only describe as lascivious. Their tongues flicked out. They flattened their bodies lovingly against Snape’s arms.

“Sssseducer,” a snake said.

“Yessss,” agreed the other one.

“Sssssexy,” said the first snake.

“Ssseduced, posssesssed, massstered. Nec(sss)essary. Ssssecure,” Harry disagreed crossly, wishing he could think of a sibilant and limb-free way of putting the concept: hands off, he’s mine! Language could be a bit constraining at times. Both Squib Serpents slowly uncoiled themselves and dropped back into the box.

Snape looked smug. He wasn’t blushing. On the other hand, he hadn’t been able to hear what the snakes had been saying.

“Sir! Sir!” screamed Lavender, “He’s doing that...thing again!”

To Harry’s relief, all Snape said was, “Shall we get down to the serious business of making the Potion?”

The Potion wasn’t too tricky to make. Harry diced and chopped and boiled and added and reduced with a will. Not even the sillier among the girls bothered to make a fuss about the more revolting ingredients by now. Snape had stamped out that sort of foolishness early on. Scales and slime and smelly things just got done now, and if they had to get done, it was better not to hear people making a fuss about it as well. Lust must have driven me silly—I’m finding myself agreeing with Snape a lot more nowadays.

By the time it was finished, Harry was feeling quite cheerful, and looking forward to it.

“Come now, Mr Potter,” Snape purred. Harry almost did. “Proceeding to tame snakes would be useless for a wizard of your particular gifts.” Harry’s fists clenched. He hated it when Snape pulled that sort of trick, isolating him from the rest of the class. Lavender and Parvati edged their chairs forward in front of him.

“Mr Potter,” Snape continued, “you shall sit in the corner and revise quietly. Your attempt at Potion-making shall not be wasted, however. Mr Longbottom shall pour his own Potion down the sink and test yours.”

Neville looked relieved.

This, thought Harry crossly, is going to be a disaster.

In point of fact, only three people got bitten. Lavender and Parvati, thoroughly unnerved by Professor Trelawney’s worrying hints about the future, nervously painted their hands with a thin line of Potion and then tried, with a predictably painful result and a lot of moaning about oh, this was a disaster and now they had to be Squibs for an entire week. Snape asked them if they would like to go and talk to Filch about being Squibs for an entire week, and they shut up.

Draco Malfoy slapped handfuls of Potion onto his arms, complaining loudly about, “This is rather beneath my status in life. I shall have armies of servants to handle animals for me when I grow up, so this is pointless. And I’m a Slytherin. Snakes are meant to like me.”

“Malfoy,” Harry said, “you’ve got to rub it in properly or it won’t take.”

“Oh yes,” sneered Malfoy, “that’s just what you’d like, isn’t it? Ingrained chemical muck. Dirty, greasy, horrible stuff that stays on for months—” His voice rose to an aggrieved wail on the last word, as he stuck an angry hand into the box and was bitten.

Hermione had to remind Neville to rub the stuff well in, but there were no more bites.

Snape almost looked impressed when they’d all finished. They had nearly one full lesson left, and only three people had been bitten. Even Lavender, Parvati and Draco were back in about five minutes from the medical wing, with bandages and notes excusing them from magic for the rest of the week.

Snape had just started to talk about revision, when Ron jumped in and said, “Since it’s the end of term, do you do requests? I mean, for us to learn how to make a particular potion.”

“Not normally, Weasley. But for once I am amused enough by your sheer impudence that I’m actually considering it.”

“Lubricus Potion,” Ron suggested, putting his arm round Hermione.

There were a number of marginally shocked gasps, and quite a lot of interested sounds. Lubricus Potion had a few medical uses that could be described in polite company, but those weren’t what people thought of in connection with the Potion. Its common name was “Easing-the-Way”. It was unusually pleasant to use; making the loss of virginity (in either sex) a pleasure rather than a burden, and (for those without a partner) making masturbation a luxurious indulgence rather than the loser’s option.

Snape looked at them as if calculating his chances of escaping a riot if he didn’t agree. “Very well. Under protest, I might add, but this is the end of year.” He rattled off a list of ingredients at ferocious speed.

“Oh!” said Hermione, blushing fiery red.

“As Miss Granger points out, there is a non-standard addition to this Potion,” said Snape. “It is not dangerous, non-toxic, and may be beneficial in a few cases.”

Harry was actually quite curious, but decided to restrain his curiosity.

The Potion was tricky to make, and took rather more than half-an-hour after the end of the last lesson. Nobody complained, for once.

Ron was, of course, the first to finish his. Snape smelt it, rubbed it between his fingers in a way that made Harry feel even more susceptible than he did already, and pronounced it adequate. Ron slopped some into a beaker and tried to slide it under his robe.

“Oh-for-god’s-sake, Mr Weasley. Not only will that drip everywhere, but it degrades when exposed to air.” Snape slapped a small stoppered container onto the desk in front of Ron. “I suppose, in order to avoid waste and prevent Mr Weasley feeling unnaturally distinguished from his fellows, I had better provide containers for everybody.”

He did.

With varying degrees of furtiveness, everyone prepared to take their Potions work home with them for the first time since they had arrived at Hogwarts. Harry was interested to note that they were repressing the excited chatter that would have been natural to them at such a gossip-worthy lesson.

Seamus muttered, “I can’t believe I’m doing this!” as he scooped up his portion of Potion.

Dean said, “I’m not going to tell people about this. Nobody would believe me, for one thing.”

Harry felt a bubble of happiness rise in his chest: they’d got away with it, and it was the end of the school day.

Malfoy cleared his throat. “How very unusual. Professor Snape has let an entire lesson—and slightly over—slip past without telling the students what he thinks of them.”

Harry clenched a fist. I might have known things weren’t going to be that easy.

“Ah. Mr Malfoy. Perhaps you would like me to rectify that omission.” With a hiss on the last word that was picked up by the snakes waiting attentively inside their box.

Malfoy said smugly: “Of course, sir.” Prat, Harry thought, he hasn’t got the brains to realise the danger signals, and he’s so used to being praised whether he’s done anything worthwhile or not it hasn’t occurred to him that things have changed.

“Very well. Anything to ensure my students, woodenheaded or not, learn something about themselves or the world around them.” Harry sat up. That was interesting. Nobody else had noticed, because they did not know that Snape had certain constraints on his behaviour.

“Weasley. My natural response to the latest of the Weasley line is always 'oh god, not another one’. Red hair, hand-me-down robes and pets, and a distressing sense of humour.”

Ron looked as if he’d expected that.

“In the interests of fairness, I might add that I find you less nauseating than Percy. Also that you have an adequate brain, though where you keep it eighty percent of the time is a mystery known only to you.”

Ron looked a bit baffled.

“Granger. I have tried to teach you for years that the world responds to intelligence in a dismally unfair and arbitrary manner, and I am still not sure if the point has sunk in.”

“Do you mean you think I’m clever, sir?” asked Hermione, doubtfully.

“You do not need me to point out you are the most brilliant student this school has seen in many years, Miss Granger, you’re already fully aware of that fact,” Snape said nastily. “Would you please take the Squib Serpents back to Hagrid’s cottage as you leave?”

Hermione visibly pulled herself up at that, and said: “I suppose that’s the best I can hope for from you, sir,” as coolly as she could manage. She picked up the box carefully.

Snape muttered, as he turned away. “Shows promise. For a Gryffindor, anyway.” He passed over Harry (who was disappointed but not surprised) and went on to Neville.

“Mr Longbottom. I nearly weep at the prospect of your exams. All my students have passed Potions at last, even if it took them three years of re-sits, and I would really hate to ruin my record. You may be with me for the rest of your life, Mr Longbottom. Your children will be in the same class with you. Rows and rows of round blank faces.” He paused. “That is, if you pass elementary Human Reproduction.” There were a few scattered, startled laughs. “Mr Longbottom, your future is in your own hands. If you wish to avoid me, for god’s sake pass!”

Neville looked thoughtful.

Most of the class were dealt with quickly, and less unpleasantly than they were expecting, although Lavender and Parvati complained loudly about Snape considering them boring.

Finally, there were just the three Slytherins left.

“Crabbe and Goyle: parasitic relationship with Malfoy, who helps them conceal their illiteracy in return for bodyguard duties. Might be able to create Potions if they engage in a little basic evolution and get as far as having opposable thumbs.”

“Malfoy. Ah, what shall I say about you, Malfoy?”

Harry clenched his fists. He didn’t want Snape to say anything nice about Malfoy, but he didn’t want Snape to get into danger by expressing true and unpleasant feelings.

“A practical carbon-copy of your esteemed father. Rare qualities of intelligence, beauty and charm are entirely dwarfed by enough ambition for any three other Slytherins, which is saying something.”

Oh, bravo, sir! Harry thought. The ambiguity on the use of the word 'rare’ had nearly slipped past him, and he’d been looking for it.

But Snape was continuing. “An impressive number of cunning plans for Potter’s defeat, all of which have nearly worked perfectly. To top it all off, you are of use to me in a number of ways, including the fact that Crabbe and Goyle will certainly pass, even if they can barely scrawl an X on the paper left to their own devices.”

Malfoy’s pretty face looked disgruntled. Harry hoped he hadn’t seen through what Snape was saying.

“But Professor,” Malfoy said, “you haven’t said a word about Potter.”

“That is because I was saving up my opinion, and his detention, as a pleasant surprise for him,” Snape replied.

Harry sighed and, in the privacy of his own head, cheered.

The heat of Snape’s gaze, and full attention, made his skin prickle.

“Mr Potter, you may start your detention now, as I tell you precisely what I think of you while the others leave.” Any Hogwarts students were used to snatching any chance they got to escape from Snape’s lessons. Harry believed that quite a few of them thought Snape’s listing of Harry’s faults might take another two hours, as well. They began to file out. Malfoy was smirking as Snape began: “Words cannot express how eager I am for the moment you pass your exams and are no longer under my tuition. The rest of Hogwarts will be in sober mourning for the loss of Famous Harry Potter, their most exemplary pupil, and I shall celebrate it...” Harry waited for Malfoy, the last of the students to leave the room, and for the end of the sentence. The door slammed shut behind Malfoy. “Rapturously,” Snape finished in a low purr. His eyes blazed.

“So shall I, sir,” Harry admitted. “However, until then, I s’pose we’ll both be using Lubricus Potion and our own hands rather a lot. It seems a propitious chance we’ve got a fresh supply of it right in front of us.” He led the way, cradling a cauldronful of the stuff, to Snape’s bedroom. Full bookshelves and small single bed. Harry patted the bed. “Quite inadequate,” he said. “You’ll get a double for when I visit after I’ve left school.”

“I suppose I shall have to,” Snape admitted, in a slightly bemused tone. Good, Harry thought. The way to handle Snape was evidently not to give him a chance to argue.

Harry shut the door and spell-locked it.

“Meanwhile,” he said, “if you won’t lay a finger on me, strip off and lie down and use that Potion on yourself. I want to watch,” he added greedily.

Snape raised an eyebrow. “I cannot imagine that watching your greasy old Potions master pleasure himself would be a particularly aesthetic or enjoyable experience for you,” he said repressively.

“Luckily for both of us, I’ve got more imagination,” said Harry. “You’re not pretty, but you’re sexy as hell, and I’m not letting those snakes be the only ones to get any fun out of you today.”

Snape looked at him.

“They think you’re... 'ssssexy’, too. When they’re under the influence.”

Snape blushed slightly. “I have spent years envying you for having Salazar’s gift. Now I’m glad I didn’t know that at the time.” He sat down on the bed.

“I really do want to watch you,” Harry said, hoping he wasn’t blushing. “I’d rather have you, but if that’s not on offer I want to watch you doing it.” He bent down to whisper in Snape’s ear. “Unbuttoning yourself slowly, teasing me with the sight of you.” He undid his own robes, and brushed his fingertips over the bulge in his own trousers. “So that I’m all hot-and-bothered, just thinking of how you want to. I think I’m going to come in my trousers,” he whispered, “just thinking of you needing it so. That lovely big prick of yours getting hard and wet and ready.”

Snape moved his hand, not to his crotch, but his pocket. He gestured carefully with his wand and muttered a few words. Harry felt his own fingertips slipping over bare flesh, and gasped as he realised he was as naked as... As naked as Snape now was, in fact. Mmm, he thought.

Snape’s wand fell to the floor, and Snape continued the gesture, stroking his own cock and balls and thighs with exhibitionistic delight. Harry gasped again.

“Hand me that Lubricus of yours, Potter. I might as well rediscover the delights of that particular Potion; I never bother to make it for myself.”

Snape moaned quietly as he splashed a handful on and began to work himself thoroughly. At last his eyes closed. Harry felt a twinge of regret at losing that fixed, intent gaze, even though he was really sure Snape was just concentrating on making it really good.

Snape went at it slowly, for some time. Harry didn’t dare touch himself; he knew he’d come the second he did.

“God, you’re so controlled!” breathed Harry.

Snape did not cease torturing himself with slow stroking movements, although he opened his eyes again. “Strange as this may seem, Potter, I can actually remember being your age. For a seventeen-year-old, there is no need to make any sexual act into a careful work of art: if one particular orgasm isn’t ideal, there’ll be another along in a few minutes. This is the only time I have treated myself to either Lubricus Potion or the admiring gaze of a sexual partner in the last ten years. There’s no point in not making a thorough job of it.”

Harry sighed heavily. “I wish losing my virginity hadn’t been such a farce,” he admitted.

“Oh?” Snape raised an eyebrow, and kept his hand still, which was the closest Harry was going to come to getting his full attention in this condition.

“I like Ron. He’s my best friend. I thought it was going to be good, him sort-of dressing up as you.”

“Did he hurt you?” asked Snape, in a tone which promised swift and savage revenge on Ron if Ron had.

Harry laughed. “No, of course not!” He blushed. “I’d used this toy thing to make myself ready, though I hadn’t used Lubricus, just an ordinary salve, I wouldn’t have had a clue how to make it, although I’ve heard people talk about it.”

“What did Ron do?”

“Laughed, mainly,” Harry admitted, blushing furiously. “I can’t blame him, sir. I know what he thinks of you, even if I don’t agree with it. He’d just got it in properly, and I was moaning something...” Harry’s voice trailed away.

“I may as well know the worst,” said Snape.

“Oh, er, I think it was, 'Fuck me harder, Sev!’ Something like that, anyway. Anyway, he just lost it. Really. Laughing too hard to do it. I don’t blame him a bit, it’s just...that was my virginity. If I ever tell anyone, they’ll think that was my sex-life, because that was really doing it. Having to have you without touching you sounds like nothing, even if it’s miles better. And...and I know Lubricus is meant to make it good, for virgins.” Harry sighed crossly. “I know when you’ve set yourself against doing something, you won’t. I...I just wish, that’s all.”

“As you said, Potter: a farce. Be silent, I need to think of something.”

Well, that’s ruined the mood, Harry thought crossly, as he saw Snape’s hands fall limp by his side. Snape’s cock wasn’t exactly limp, but it was also clear that it was less immediately ready than it had been a few seconds ago.

“Don’t look like that. I need some of the blood supply for my brain, at my age.”

Harry sat down on the bed.

“All right,” said Snape thoughtfully. “Are you prepared to follow me into a disgraceful exercise in mere sophistry?”

“Haven’t the foggiest, sir,” said Harry.

Snape sighed, and snapped his mouth shut rather crossly. “I mean, you must have noticed that I feel more comfortable with our activities if you initiate them, so that I am following the letter of the law, at least. I realise this is dubious, but some form of self-respect, however marginal, will make it easier for me to cope with my life.”

“All right, I understand that far,” said Harry.

“Do you know any spells for painlessly immobilising people?”

“I think there were about four in the NEWT-level set texts, why?—Oh.”

“Slow today, Potter?” Snape smirked at him.

“Shut up and let me get myself fucked. Sir.” The thought of being allowed to speak like that to Snape, of all people, was its own particular pleasure.

“I’d be delighted to,” said Snape, in a low suggestive purr. His erection had come back to 'extremely ready’ by now.

Petrificatus Totalus was a little too immobilising, so Harry settled on a spell that wouldn’t cause pain, and wouldn’t leave Snape like a statue, but would hold Snape, and anybody riding him, securely in position. He cast it carefully, relieved when the slight glitter of it appeared in the air, and Snape relaxed into the grip of the spell.

Snape’s cock was wet enough from his previous use of Lubricus: only Harry needed to get ready.

Harry prepared himself carefully, making a show of it and leaning over to open himself up. That Potion was worth every bit of the effort it took to create it. Little sparks of smooth excitement arose everywhere he stroked it onto his inner flesh. He took a while to stretch himself—not entirely sure whether he was being prudent or tormenting his lover, as both seemed worthwhile goals.

Easing his fingers out, he looked round. Snape hissed crossly and said, “I wish I could get my bloody hair out of the way!”

Harry obligingly tied it back for him. “I don’t want anything to distract you.”

“Now you’ve got Potion on my hair,” said Snape.

“Which, if anything, may make it slightly cleaner than usual.”

“I should make you regret that, if you didn’t very temporarily have the advantage of me,” Snape said, in his haughtiest manner.

“I have no intention of regretting anything, Sev. Honestly.”

“Oh, it’s 'Sev’ now, is it? Perhaps it’s a good thing I’m tied down, if you’re going to force pet names on me.”

“Actually I was being serious. Half the time I’ve been calling you 'sir’ I’ve been taking the piss, today, and I’d better call you something. Unless you’d prefer 'oi, you’?” Harry grinned at him.

“'Sev’ will do, thank you. Were you thinking of doing anything, Harry?”

Harry dropped the wand within easy arm’s reach on the bed, in case he needed it later, scrambled on top of Sev, and levitated himself showily if fractionally into place. Without a broom, a wizard couldn’t exactly get very far off the ground, but he had just enough lift to get himself mounted. He wanted to have Sev’s hands on his hips, guiding him down; lacking that made him nervous and just a little clumsy, but he managed it. It didn’t hurt, and the coating of Lubricus gliding Sev’s prick deep inside him made the feel of it exquisite. He moaned as he came down, gravity doing the work.

“Is that what you wanted?” came the thread of a whisper from behind him, as he ground himself down in Sev’s lap.

He groaned deeply, so deeply that his inner muscles tightened around Sev and made him cry out. “Oh, want to move!” he panted. “But it feels as if I’ll either fall off or come if I do anything.”

After a lot of breathless noises from behind him, Sev said, “Adjust the spell. Add a touch of Mobilis. You can twist it around so, so it moves you, get...a rhythm.” With some difficulty, Harry managed that. It was a steadier, less frenzied rhythm than he’d have used if he was doing it more physically, but it was good. The next downstroke rubbed steadily against his prostate, and his cock jutted out even harder.

“That’s...good,” said Sev.

Harry moaned loudly. “Yes.” He adjusted the spell further, managing to get it fast enough for a good hard ride. This time, as he dropped the wand, it fell onto the floor beside the bed, but that was all right, neither of them needed to use any more magic, just keep moving. A few minutes of that, and...

“Ready to come?” he panted. He was, but it seemed polite to ask. He slid upwards, nearly off.

Sev’s only answer was a sob of breath, so Harry poised himself, resisting the spell and gravity for just long enough to feel the need, and impaled himself. Want it. And need it. And—ah!—that’s it!

Sev kept absolutely still and came without moving a muscle, as if Harry’s arse working on his cock was enough to pull the orgasm out of him. Maybe it was. It was apparently satisfactory. He’d never heard his oh-so-controlled Potions master making quite that noise before, he thought, his own cock jerking out one last spurt at the thought.

Satisfied, he pulled off and collapsed on top of Sev. There was perfect stillness for a few minutes. Then there was a cross muttering from beneath him.

“What’s the matter?” he asked.

“I can’t put my arms round you. I shouldn’t want to put my arms round you. The sex was meant to get rid of all that.”

Harry sighed, and arranged Sev’s arms around him. “I’m sure the novelty will wear off after a bit, Sev. If I can cope with the indignity of actually liking you, I’m sure you can cope with wanting a cuddle from time to time.”

“Indignity? Liking me? You’re not supposed to like me, Potter! That’s not what I’m for!”

“I know. Believe me, it upset me for a while, as well. You’re witty, intelligent, bloody-minded, a total bastard, and damn shaggable. Surely I shouldn’t have to settle for that when half my friends are probably nearly as shaggable and much nicer. I think I’ve learned to cope by now, though, sir. I mean, compliments and liking me and House points and all that sort of stuff are all very well, but I can do without them. I was kept in a cupboard until I was eleven, sir, so if I can cope with that I can cope with a bit of unfair and insulting treatment.”

“Back to 'sir’, I see.”

“I’m trying to take my cue from you, sir,” Harry said politely.

Snape sighed. “Too complicated. The shifting registers of social intercourse are confusing me. I’ll try the following mnemonic: 'Potter when perpendicular, Harry when horizontal’. That ought to be simple enough for both of us.”

Harry settled back and let his mind go blank, combing his spread fingers through Snape’s—Sev’s—plentiful if messy hair.

“I see the Truth Serum’s worn off early,” Sev observed mildly.

“Mm?”

“'Kept in a cupboard until you were eleven’,” Sev quoted derisively. “As if anyone would treat the great hope of the wizarding world’s future that way.”

“Unless they were a family of Muggles who thought magic was an appalling social disease,” said Harry. “Ask Dumbledore if you don’t believe me. He sent my Hogwarts acceptance letter to 'The Cupboard Under the Stairs’ at my Muggle relatives’ house.” Sev didn’t say a word. Harry wriggled round.

Sev had an expression of perfect blankness on his face. Harry rather thought it was his way of looking upset.

“Dumbledore can do that to me very occasionally. Make me want to cut my tongue out for some of the vile things I’ve permitted it to say. It’s unnerving to get that reaction about someone less than half my age,” said Sev. Harry wasn’t quite sure whether he looked furious at having more-or-less apologised or furious at the things he’d said. He did guess that Sev wouldn’t have said such a thing if not for the Truth Serum.

“It’s all right, Sev. I’ve got over it. I didn’t really want to hit you over the head after the first few times. Not with anything particularly heavy, anyway.”

There was a pause. “I think the immobility spell has worn off,” announced Sev, stroking his long fingers through Harry’s hair as if it fascinated him. “Your hair’s a mess, Harry.”

“Well, whose fault is that?”

Another pause. Harry watched an expression of peaceful, sleepy contentment settle over Sev’s face. He hated to disturb it, but:

“When you were telling the truth about everybody, we only got so far as discussing that you wanted to shag me,” said Harry. “Not that I’m complaining, but I’ve always wondered what you think of me. Well, in the last year or two since I’ve started to find you interesting, anyway.”

“Most irritating boy in my entire teaching experience. I have no idea why I like you, and you’d never know I did if you weren’t taking advantage of the Truth Serum. Excellent natural ability: brain and talent, ruined by tendency to piss away said natural abilities in practical joking and assisted suicide...”

“What?”

“Leaving the well-warded Hogwarts grounds in search of mischief. Likely to find Dark wizards, Dark creatures and murderous psychopaths. Assisted suicide.”

“Anything else?”

“Ability to be a natural Gryffindor and a natural Slytherin to practically the same extent. That’s fascinating. I assume you confused the Hat to some extent, considering how long it took.”

“I was sitting there for five minutes gritting my teeth and thinking “Not Slytherin! Not Slytherin!” as hard as I could,” said Harry.

“That explains it. But you’ve been able to be too devious for me once or twice. That rarely happens.”

“Any other descriptions?”

“That’s it, really. Irritating, loyal, devious, honest, dishonest, intelligent, thoughtless and fuckable. I’m just waiting around to get some sort of understanding of these interesting character dichotomies, and then I’ll get bored, of course. It may take years.”

“Do you think I’m fuckable, Sev?” I’m seventeen. I’m allowed to be shallow. And I know he likes me.

“Very.”

Harry wriggled against him.

“I do not have any intention of fucking that luscious arse of yours until three weeks and three days are up,” Sev went on.

“Oh god,” Harry muttered, “if I have to wait that long I think I’ll explode. I mean, I don’t need it now,” he added hastily as Sev groped him and found him only halfway up. “It’s just, four weeks.”

“Three weeks and three days. I shall make myself up a calendar and cross off each day to encourage myself,” said Sev.

“It’s all right for you, you’re older.”

“If the desire gets strong enough to distract you from your work, you may—discreetly cloaked—crawl into bed with me at the dead of night, if it is clearly understood that sodomy is off the menu. I’ll set my locks to let you in.”

“Assisted wanking?”

“If that’s how you choose to put it,” said Sev. “It should also be understood that I would regard once a week as reasonable, and once a night or more as unreasonable, and that we should both practice complete discretion in our working days. Is that quite clear?”

“Absolutely,” said Harry, yawning, thinking once a night or more is perfectly bloody reasonable, but try telling Sev that. He wondered if it was worth trying telling Sev that, but decided Sev would probably get obstinate. Instead, he pulled the blankets up, determined to go to sleep before it occurred to Sev to throw him out.

He succeeded. In fact, Sev fell asleep before he did.

When they woke up, Sev glared at Harry, who was wriggling, and said, “We’re not going to fuck. I’m trying to keep to my principles.”

Harry smirked at him, and said, “We could get away with it.” His stomach rumbled, interrupting him. “Damn,” he said. “Missed dinner.” He certainly didn’t want Sev to miss any more meals, anyway; he had plans which would be severely curtailed if Sev wasted away to a shadow.

Sev muttered something unintelligible and went back to sleep.

Dressing hurriedly, Harry went to the kitchen to tell the house-elves that he’d missed dinner and could he have a sandwich or something please. As he’d expected, that resulted in enough hot dinner for at least two people being put on a tray and handed to him. He thanked the house-elves, snagged some cutlery on the way out, and put a minor heat-retention charm on the food that would last out for the long walk between the kitchen and the dungeon.

He was not too surprised to notice that Sev was still in a sleepy sticky heap on the bed, and increased the lighting.

Sev dragged an arm over his eyes to keep the light out, and swore at him.

Harry went to the bathroom and threw Sev a wet flannel.

Sev was not grateful, but wiped up.

“Sit up, give me room to sit down,” said Harry.

Sev did, with a put-upon sigh.

Harry brought the tray over to the bed, picked up one of the spoons, and began to dig into the big bowlful of stew-and-dumplings, talking loudly between mouthfuls about how savoury and good the stew was, how light and herby the dumplings.

“Shut up, boy. I can already smell the food, I don’t need you drooling about it.” A narrow hand grabbed a spoon, which plunged viciously into a dumpling and plundered the stew.

Sev didn’t say anything else, but he accounted for about half of the food.

After the belated dinner, they had showers. One after the other, to Harry’s disappointment: Sev did know locking-spells that kept him out. Harry considered staying in bed naked, and asking Sev for a good snog to remember him by, but decided that would probably not work, so he put his clothes on and stood by the door.

“What are you doing still here?” Sev said when he came out of the shower, fully dressed.

“It’s not polite to leave without saying good night. Good night, sir.” He paused. “We should be all right. As long as nobody asks me what, or who, I’ve been doing to miss dinner.”

“Whom,” Sev corrected crossly.

“What, or whom, then. And as long as Ron doesn’t start wondering about why I’ve been letting out his big secret, and as long as Hermione doesn’t ask me who it was Ron Polyjuiced into for me. Should be all right: there’s not much time before the Truth thing wears off.” He put a hand to the door.

“Shut up, Potter,” said Snape’s voice, very close behind him.

“Only about two-and-a-half hours. Wouldn’t be time to reveal it to more than about half the school by then...”

“If you won’t shut up...”

“Will you make me?” Harry licked his lips suggestively.

“If you want me to kiss you, Potter, you’ll have a long wait.”

Harry kicked his shoes off and dived onto the bed. “Call me Harry. I want a decent snog to remember for the next few weeks.” He licked his lips. Slowly.

That expression was cool, uninvolved. The look in Snape’s eyes was anything but. Removing his shoes calmly, Sev sat down on the bed, leaning over Harry. He did not move.

Harry reached up and took a handful of dark hair, stroking and caressing it.

Sev didn’t move.

Harry fondled the back of his neck, making Sev pant.

“I don’t kiss my students.” Sev’s face—his mouth—was almost close enough to touch. “Harry,” he breathed, and stayed there, lips slightly parted.

“That’s all right. You don’t have to,” Harry murmured in his turn, pulling a lock of hair away from Sev’s mouth. He didn’t really know how to do this. He removed his glasses—he’d heard that was important—and not bumping noses, so he’d have to move his head like this. Sev, being nearer the bedside table, took the glasses from him, and he heard them clink softly down somewhere safe. He brushed his lips across Sev’s, gently, and drew back.

“I don’t really know how to do this,” he admitted. “Tell me what you want.”

“Somehow I find I don’t like the thought of corrupting an innocent under my care,” said Sev, quietly. “All right: focus on my voice and shut your eyes. Imagine I’ve been insulting you all day, as usual. You often love my voice and hate what it’s saying, perhaps. Imagine that I’m telling you I can’t stand you—but you get a look at my erection, just for a second against the light, and I’m hard for you, and you’d do anything to have me.”

“Anything,” Harry murmured. God, all those times he’d looked at those concealing clothes, and thought he’d give anything for Snape to be hard for him...

“Then imagine the class leaving at the end of the day, and I’d start insulting your lack of virility, telling you you’re a little boy and not up to satisfying a man. I think you’ve got too much spirit to take that sort of insult lying down. Too much...spunk, one might say.”

Harry massaged his own cock, which certainly didn’t want to take that little story lying down, and was throbbing with ersatz rage and real lust.

“Imagine I’m such a bastard you don’t have to take any care about treating me properly. Imagine you just grab me and kiss me, and you don’t give a damn about getting it right, you’re just proving you can give me a thorough tongue-fucking, get your mouth on mine, sucking and licking and going at it hard. Imagine...” Sev’s voice trailed away.

Harry pulled him down, clumsily, and set about making Sev’s fantasy come true. The freedom of knowing he didn’t have to be perfect made him wanton. Their noses bumped, just a bit, but he just swore and hauled on a knot of Sev’s hair to pull him into place. The last lash of the manufactured rage melted the second his tongue met Sev’s. Sev’s tongue fought his—fought to get more of his—and Sev growled into his mouth. Slipping, gliding, shoving and grunting, and making a lot of wet crude noises that did nothing to diminish Harry’s erection, they kissed.

Sev collapsed on the bed, panting and looking particularly debauched.

“Adequate for a first kiss?” he asked.

Harry looked at his mouth, which certainly looked well-kissed.

“You snog like a demon. Pity you’re the older one and the bigger one, or I’d fuck your brains out.”

There was an odd expression on Sev’s face. “Can it be that you’ve been reading inadequate sex-manuals? I knew that the library wasn’t adequately supplied.”

“Well, there’s not much. Most of them just tell you what parts there are. But everything with stories or pictures—even those old Greek things, the dirty vase pictures—it’s always the man fucking the boy.”

“There’s the issue of aesthetics—some people find it distasteful to think of a Chihuahua trying to mount a Great Dane, you might say.”

Harry figured that out, and blushed.

“Apart from that, in ancient Greece the roles were culturally-determined, but in modern times it’s a matter of individual preference.” Sev raised an eyebrow. “Is this excursus into the realms of comparative sexuality meant to imply that you like the idea?”

“Take all your clothes off and lie down,” Harry said, thinking, he can always say no if he doesn’t want to. He removed his own clothes.

Sev didn’t say no. Harry was surprised at how quickly all those fiddly buttoned-up clothes were over a chair, even without the use of magic, but he supposed Sev had a bit of practice with them. He liked the thought, and the reality, of Sev stripping, even if Sev made it quite practical and not at all teasing.

Harry put a silence spell up for the second time that day. If they were going to do this at all well, they’d need it.

Instead of lying down flat on the bed, Sev put a pillow under himself and raised his bottom in the air.

Harry swallowed.

“Fetch the Lubricus,” Sev said quietly.

Harry nearly knocked the cauldron over in his attempt to fetch it without taking his eyes of Sev’s naked body. He placed it in easy reach—knocked his glasses off the bedside table putting it down, but he hadn’t heard anything break and he wasn’t going to worry about it now.

“Prepare me.”

Harry did. His wet fingers worked back and forth inside Sev. He thought he wasn’t causing pain: it was difficult to tell because Sev kept nearly silent, but he kept going. A light sheen of sweat came over Sev’s face, and he started to pant as Harry began to thrust suggestively inside him. Harry felt around for the little rough spot that was Sev’s prostate and caressed it mercilessly. Sev seemed to like that as much as he did. Good.

Sev’s mouth opened on a long low moan. “I’d forgotten how good that feels,” he said, slightly breathlessly. “I don’t usually bother with it on my own.”

“Are you ready?”

“Don’t ask stupid questions.”

“'Yes’ is a lot less verbose, Sev.” He pulled his fingers out, and Sev moaned again, this time sounding...needy. Harry admired the sight of Sev writhing restlessly.

“Do it!” said Sev.

Harry put a wet handful of Potion on his own cock and rubbed. Then he spread Sev open, rather admiringly, and lined himself up as best he could.

“Keep still and give me a chance to get in, Sev.”

Sev went quite still. Must be seriously randy if he won’t answer back.

Gently. Gently. Easy now, just... Harry told himself. Halfway in, millimetre-by-millimetre, he was interrupted by Sev’s hands clamping down on his hips hard enough to leave bruises, as Sev forced Harry down and in, so that Harry just started doing it hard.

Not that Harry was complaining. Not that Harry had enough mind left to complain. His hips were moving entirely without intervention from the rest of him, now, as he settled into the serious business of pounding Sev through the mattress. Every stroke brought his tight balls to nestle against the heat of Sev’s arse, and then he’d pull out a bit—which made Sev whimper, invariably—and then he’d cram himself in again, hard. He pushed hair out of the way and bit Sev on the neck. Sev made a noise that was practically a yowl, and clenched.

“Up on your hands and knees,” Harry ordered.

Sev did, plastering himself up against Harry and begging for more.

Harry felt a moment of reverence for the power of sex: he couldn’t think of much else that would make Sev unhesitatingly follow orders from someone twenty years younger.

He shoved in one last time, hard. Achingly hard. Quite still. He could feel the heat and the sweat where they were pressed together, and if he weren’t so hard the pressure on his erection would hurt. Sev whimpered again.

“I’m not going to move,” Harry said.

“Fucking...bastard!” said Sev indistinctly.

“I’m going to get the last of the Lubricus—must be at least a handful left—and I’m going to scoop it up in my hand, and slap it onto your nice big prick, and stroke you off very, very slowly,” Harry told him. “And you’re going to feel very, very good, which will make me happy, too.”

Silence.

He reached out very cautiously—his vision wasn’t too good without his glasses, and he didn’t want to knock the last of the Potion to the floor—and got his handful. They’d gone through quite a bit of it, but he didn’t regret the use of a single drop.

Harry applied the stuff, very gently, and stroked slowly up and down.

“How does that feel, Sev?”

“Nearly...there...” Sev said, between wordless cries.

Harry just-about managed to lean on Sev’s back and get his own hands free. That meant he could have one hand caressing Sev’s balls and the other giving his prick a good hard seeing-to.

“What would you like me to do now, Sev?” Harry nibbled the back of Sev’s neck.

Sev arched up against him, bellowed loudly, came and came and came—good idea! Harry thought, letting the excitement and gloriously-tight pressure finish him off as well.

Both of them collapsed on the bed, sweaty and gasping for breath.

“I loved that,” said Harry. “It’ll give me something nice to remember for the next few weeks.” He kissed a lock of Sev’s hair, because it was trailing near his mouth and he could. “Will you remember it too, Sev?”

“Probably at the most inconvenient moments,” Sev muttered.

“Pessimist.”

“Optimist,” said Sev darkly.

Harry kissed him to shut him up—not the ravening-beast snog of earlier, more of a friendly gesture. Not that anybody else would think of friendly gestures in the same breath as thinking of Professor Snape.

He handed Sev his wand. “Clean us up, it’ll be faster if you do it.”

“You are just coming to the end of a very extensive wizardly education. You know how to clean up after yourself,” Sev told him.

Harry sighed, and cleaned up.

“You missed a few splashes,” Sev pointed out.

“Considering that’s yours, you needn’t sound so smug about it,” Harry grumbled quietly, erasing the evidence.

“That’s your turn for this week,” said Sev. “No more crawling into bed with me until next Thursday.”

“Oh? Are you absolutely sure you won’t want me sooner than that?” asked Harry.

“Not as sure as I would like to be,” said Sev, with his calmest and most uninvolved expression, as if to suggest that the words coming out of his mouth were the purest accident.

“You do realise that due to circumstances we could shag in the Astronomy Tower without being disturbed?” Harry asked him. “I mean, the reason the students use it is that Professor McGonagall rather than Filch tends to patrol it at night.” Harry grinned as evilly as he could manage. “Considering she’d think you were Ron, we could do whatever we liked.”

Sev groaned quietly. “The Sorting Hat was right. You are a monster combining the very worst qualities of Gryffindor and Slytherin.”

“Not the best?” asked Harry.

“The worst qualities and the best. It makes you very difficult to resist.”

“I intend to take full advantage of that,” said Harry.

“I’d be disappointed if you didn’t,” said Sev dryly.

“Compromise,” suggested Harry. “We don’t shag in the Astronomy Tower, and you don’t make me wait a whole week.”

“Is it my nasty suspicious mind that leads me to think you neatly manoeuvred me into that?”

“No,” said Harry. He kissed Sev gently. “Night, Sev.”

“Good night, Harry.”

He got up and dressed carefully. “I’ll go and polish my broom. Doesn’t need it, but if I get back to the others before the Truth thing wears off, it’s something I can tell them I was doing.”

Pausing by the door, he said softly, “Good night, Professor. Monday night suit you?”

“Good night, Potter. Yes. But remember the cloak, and be discreet.”

“I will.”

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