Chapter 34 – To Die is to Live

As the two men left the Headmistress' office, Snape swallowed past the painful lump in his throat.

So he had cracked in front of Potter.

Severus spent the entire journey back to the dungeons mentally chastising himself. Minerva had seen him like this before, a long time ago. (There had been a reason behind his awful nickname of Snivellus, he had often been far too quick to tears in his first year at Hogwarts.) But Potter – Harry, had not. He was always so careful to act in a certain way around students. It had been so much easier to smooth out, or bury unwanted reactions once.

Once.

He was clearly losing it.

He walked faster, willing Harry to fall behind him so that he couldn't witness the tears still brimming in his eyes; now he'd started crying, he couldn't seem to be able to stop. His funeral, the appearance of a clearly troubled Draco, and the malignant menace of his portrait being forced back on the castle wall through necessity had obviously been far too much for his reduced Occlumency ability to cope with in one afternoon.

Harry let him march ahead, even to the point of dropping back, which, for a moment had Snape woriedly thinking the Gryffindor might stop following him altogether. He had battled conflicting emotions these past months, constantly torn between wanting Harry near him, and being left alone.

But he had been alone too damned long.

Severus cursed inwardly. He had to keep on reminding himself that their relationship was for real, because he just couldn't seem to grasp the hand that fate had dealt them mentally. Their encounters, once passed, took on dreamlike qualities which often had him wondering whether they had really happened, or not.

Fortunately, Harry followed him again, right back to the door of his dungeon rooms. In ways it was like having a faithful dog; the blind, green hopefulness of youth was as flattering to him as it was exasperating.

The Boy Who Lived Twice; who could have any decent, eligible wizarding soul at the drop of a hat if he so wished, didn't appear to want just any eligible wizarding soul. No; he wanted one particularly ineligible, impossible wizard, a former death eater, his former teacher and tormenter.

He may have suffered a splinter of the Dark Lord's soul in his mind for most of his unfortunate life, but that had only seemed to strengthen his resolve to be a fair, good and loving soul. Harry craved love above all else, fairness and truth pure, there was no wonder the Dark Lord had been unable to possess his body back in the Ministry.

Severus the boy had also desperately craved love. Recognition too. That had all turned sour for Severus the man, who after his mistake had taken on the mantle of guilt, bitterness and mourning, had all but given up, had even believed his love to be cursed… His mother had lacked luck in love, suffered so much, and so had he, he feared it was a family trait.

Even in his weakness, even in truth, however, Harry Potter appeared to still want him, and by Salazar he cared about what the boy thought, he cared to the point of his chagrain. Whether the Gryffindor was mad, moronic, or both, Severus couldn't fathom…didn't want to fathom.

But was it all too late to fix his stony, broken heart?

Spelling open the door, he paused just two paces inside the doorway, his breath pluming lightly in the chill underground air. Behind him, he heard Harry step forwards his breath hitching, as if to speak, but no words. The two wizards paused.

The silence stretched and all too quickly became unbearable. Unable to stand it any longer, Severus quickly wiped his eyes dry, and turned around.

What I've felt, what I've known

Turn the pages, turn the stone

Behind the door, should I open it for you...

Harry's eyes were a deeper green than his mother's now he had matured, but were just as amazingly intense. They gazed softly back at him with compassion. As always, Snape found himself transfixed.

"So you want to live?" murmured Harry.

"Yes," whispered Snape. "For you."

Severus watched Harry's mouth open a little in wonder. As his gaze rested on his lips, he was suddenly reminded of the last time he had kissed them, and how they'd tasted.

Harry bit his lip. "Not for yourself?"

Severus gave a wry smile. "I'm working on that bit."

Perhaps it had been there the whole time, slumbering quietly beneath the surface… His sleeping dragon, fully awake now, fire stoking up in its belly, growing increasingly restless and hungry over time. Growing stronger, wishing to break free of its chains and take wing.

Severus saw the playfulness in Harry's eyes, the small smirk at the corner of his soft mouth, and allowed the heat of his dragon-desire to carry him. Darting forwards, he pulled the younger man toward him, and threw him down onto an armchair, kissing him hard. After a gasp and a growl of surprise, the Seeker's fingers flew upwards, quickly tugging at the buttons on his robes, hungrily stripping away formality in search of bare flesh. Harry quickly had him down to his white shirt, Severus broke away from the kiss and helped him with the final few buttons and twisted it off himself, flinging the garment down onto the floor. Soon Harry's shirt was flung away forgotten, too.

As the fireplace glow flickered gently across the hearth, Severus gazed down at his partner, and watched his mouth break into a grin.

"Feeling alive yet, Severus?"

He let his eyes rove approvingly over the Gryffindor's body; slim, smooth, but with a little muscle building up on the arms and chest. The pale white curse scars crackling over one upper arm, the stunning, animated Fawkes preening his golden feathers on the other arm. The young man was reclined splay-legged, relaxed, his hard-on very noticeable through his trousers.

By Salazar…

"Why yes, a little more so than earlier...ask me again when I have torn those tight black trousers off of you and fucked you senseless over my dining room table," He breathed.

Harry's eyes seemed to glitter wickedly back. "Oh really, what makes you think I will let you do that, Mister Snape?"

Snape smirked.

"What makes you think you'll have a choice, Mister Potter?"

When Severus promised, he liked to deliver that promise. Books, scrolls and quills found themselves scattered as the two wizards had their way with each other; they wrestled and grappled, carnally bit, and then flung each other at the promised table. War-survivors, survivors of life and death and no stranger for intense feelings for one another, no raw passion was spared.

Despite the urgency, Severus took his fellow warrior very gently at first, and then gradually harder. Harry's knuckles pressed white onto the table edge as he gasped, and Severus felt a mounting elation like never before. Half-closing his eyes in ecstasy he went deeper and deeper, rocking, his fingers seeking better grip around the Gryffindor's hips.

Unable to keep quiet any longer, Harry moaned hoarsely, long, low, Severus let go.

In that moment all tension was forgotten, all strife and strain. All life condensed to that one blissful feeling, and the presence of the man's body he had just collapsed on top of. Closing his eyes, he pressed his ear into Harry's shoulder blade and listened to the rapid thudding of the man's heartbeat. Quirking his lips, Severus knew he wasn't finished yet; reaching his arm around Harry's hips, he took a firm hold, stroking up and down, bringing the young man's heat quickly back up, and his breathing increasingly ragged. It took less than a minute before the Gryffindor shuddered and let out a keening cry.

The two lay there for a while, content, allowing their combined heat to cool, and the sweat to dry on skin.

Severus was the first to stand, Harry rolled onto his back and raised smiling green eyes to his.

Stuff of dreams.

Severus gave a small smile back, and, without a great deal of effort, lifted his partner gently off the table and then knelt, to lay him down on the hearth. The Gryffindor sought his hand, and he gave it, one enclosing the other in a strong grip.

It was a few moments before Snape realised that Harry's smile had turned into a bit of a bemused smirk.

"What?"

"Nothing." Harry's quick darting glance away confirmed that it was anything but.

Snape put a finger under his chin and turned his head back to meet his gaze, raising a threatening eyebrow. This gesture only seemed to make Harry's smirk grow wider.

"What Potter?"

"I was just thinking…. Perhaps that was worth Ten points to Gryffindor?"

Harry's insufferable grin was back. Snape narrowed his eyes.

"Not amusing, whelp."

Inwardly, however, he was amused. His point-taking from Gryffindor had been so severe some terms that their hourglass would have probably reached down to the depths of the Great Lake in minus figures if McGonagall had not intervened.

Harry seemed to sense his amusement, and was not put off. He sat up, raising one knee and propping his arm on it, to rest his chin upon, and looked thoughtfully at him.

"That was my best experience yet, you know?" He said softly. "The best sex I've had in my life."

Snape was surprised, bewildered, if he were truly honest, these words were beyond unchartered territory, and they made him feel uneasy. Comments such as "Really?" and "How?" and "Surely not?" sprang immediately to mind but they all sounded moronic. He discovered he didn't really know what to say, so he just allowed his mouth to twist into a half-smile, which quickly wilted.

Insidious doubts lingered, despite all.

"Why not someone your own age, Potter - nicer, some half decent Gryffindor with less of a...past?" He tasted his last word as if it was a bitter nut.

Harry gazed perplexedly, then gave a small, bemused laugh.

"Merlin's balls….How many times until you get it?"

Severus glowered then, and went to pull his hand out of his grasp, but Harry held on more tightly.

"I guess I'm just going to have to keep on telling you until you believe me. Why do you think I'd much rather have you, over all those thousands of Daily Prophet readers?"

Snape felt Harry's look intensify, as if he was expecting him to seek the answer. Hoping, perhaps for him to use Legilimency on him, to prove he was telling the truth. The problem was, the Gryffindor was like an open book; he didn't need to pry to find out something that was so clearly etched into every single line of the man's face...!

"Fuck the Prophet readers," he scowled. "I didn't mean them, I meant all the people who know you, Care for you; all your compatriots and followers, generally more decent, non-murdering sorts..."

Harry moved closer, grabbing the Slytherin's other hand so the two of them sat looking tensely at one another across the hearth, arms joined, and the firelight flickering beyond.

"But you are decent! And you know and you care, I know you do." Replied Harry earnestly, gripping Snape's hands firmly. "I want you because of who you are…I'm not interested in anyone who doesn't care to understand the real me, or where I have been or what I have been through. I want someone who cuts out all the crap and tells it straight, who feels things deeply and powerfully, who is brave, who makes mistakes but is not afraid to try to make amends…"

Harry turned his gaze to the fire, his look pensive. "After the war, I wasn't really sure what to do, I went with Ginny for comfort. I thought it was all cut and dried, we clung to each other for a while, getting past the trauma of war. We even got engaged. I should have been so happy, but instead things never stopped being fuzzy, distant, I didn't feel the emotion I thought I would. I felt like I was sleepwalking. I felt I should be happy now Voldemort had gone….but instead I just felt like throwing it all away. But then…you came back and…everything changed."

Snape felt the Gryffindor's gaze on him, so intense it felt as if it should burn. His frown deepened.

"How?"

Harry's cheeks flushed, and he raked a hand back through his hair. "Oh man…Okay…Well, in the first few weeks you came back, I felt…something, but I tried to write it off. Then, over the Summer I began to think back to sixth year when I had your Advanced Potions textbook. I took that book everywhere with me, it never left my sight."

The Gryffindor smiled softly then. "Course, I didn't realise that it was you who had written all those notes in the margins….Do you know, I felt as if I ever met the person who had written them, I would surely be good friends with him…I knew the owner of the handwriting was a guy… but I still couldn't help thinking about him often."

Snape let out a bemused snort. "How very tragic."

"Yes, but you see…" Harry stumbled on. "Thinking about that made me realise that if I put the past out of my mind, I could start over… I wanted to try to make friends at least, I…er…I wanted to be able to talk to you at least, heck, I never dreamed anything more would ever come from it…"

Severus arched a sardonic eyebrow. "Well, more did come from it. Unless, of course, it's customary for Gryffindors to rut one another over a table as declaration of friendship…"

Harry's shot Snape a hurt look.

"Don't begrudge me my sense of humour, Potter, I'm sure there were more than a few crude jokes shared in your common room at many a Slytherin's expense."

"Yeah, mainly about what Malfoy made Crabbe and Goyle do to him."

"Those? Mere rumours." Snape waved a hand dismissively, the edge of his mouth quirking upwards. "However… I cannot speak for the elder Malfoys as regards such behavior…The LeStranges, either."

The flush was back on Harry's cheeks again. "Not really sure I wanted to know that…"

The Slytherin gave a dark smile. "Indeed not."

Harry received an Owl from the Ministry the following morning at breakfast. Severus made him wait until they were back in his private rooms before opening it. As he unstuck the wax seal on the parchment he gave Snape a curious glance.

"Are you sure it's not something bad?"

Severus gave a tight smile, and tapped his fingertips lightly on the chair arm, before leaping up to sweep across the room to his bookshelves. "Bad is a subjective word, Potter."

Severus pulled a book from his shelf and stared intently at a page, but did not focus on it. He licked his lips nervously. There was a rippling sound behind him as Harry pulled the parchment open, then a moment of silence, after which a small slightly-strangled noise emanated from the young man's throat.

"Spinner's End….? Is that…?"

He could almost hear the cogs turning in the young man's brain. Snape felt his lip curl. "Yes, Potter, my ancestral seat. All four rooms and stamp-sized back yard of it. Incidentally, that Will was written some months before my altercation with Nagini, and I would have preferred not to be around on the doling out of it, however, your dear friend being the recklessly overachieving witch she is…"

At these last words Snape turned away from the bookshelf to face Harry, to find him sitting there pale and stunned. Thankfully it wasn't too long before the Gryffindor realised his mouth was still agog and closed it. He still blinked owlishly.

"B-but why…why would you…?"

"You have familial connections in Cokeworth, and the only wizard I know to do so, with exception of my own relations."

Harry looked a little sheepish then, but was still clearly confused. Snape continued, narrowing his eyes.

"Regardless of my change of circumstance and despite my powerlessness to change the law, I am content to pass the property freely to you on two small conditions, Potter; one, that you are civil to my neighbour, and two; that you hand me the entire contents of the small, wooden tea chest stored in the loft. Had I truly been dead I would not have cared a doxy's fart about it, but seeing as I'm still kicking about…"

The Gryffindor gave a quick nod. "Fine, okay, yes I can do that."

"My books in the living room and potions' supplies in the cellar were all left to Hogwarts, so you needn't be concerned about those, either. There are a few wards and hexes I need to warn you about, but other than that, nothing of great note."

"That tea chest…is it? Er…pardon for asking…" Harry stumbled.

Snape stared past him into the flames. "Yes, there are a few things from your Mother in there, Potter," he replied quietly. "Perhaps at some point in time – if you are patient - I may allow you to read one or two of the letters…but at the moment I wish to have them back."

Harry nodded. "Alright."

The two wizards were silent for a minute or so, then Potter spoke again, a determined note in his voice.

"As soon as I can, I'd like to sign the house back into your name…into Pucey's. It belongs to you, and you should have it back."

In spite of himself, Snape was still surprised, and it took him a few moments to answer.

"That may look suspicious."

"In time then?"

The Slytherin studied Harry, looked deep into pools of thoughtful, hopeful green, not too dissimilar to ones which he had drowned in once, long ago. Though Severus had tried his best to feign indifference in passing on his house, the younger man had seen through it. Truth be told, despite all the bad memories he didn't want to lose 31 Spinner's End. Despite all, his mother had loved him there.

"We'll see," He murmured.