Title: Taken to the Unfettered Sense

Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.

Pairing: Harry/Snape

Rating: R

Warnings: Angst, established relationship, rituals

Wordcount: 3000

Summary: Harry and Snape might be able to see a way to being happy—with help.

Author's Notes: This is the first of my Advent fics, written for lj user="facecat", who asked for Harry/Snape and gave me the prompt "A time for us at last to see, a life worthwhile for you and me." The title is from George Meredith's poem "The South-West Wind in the Woodland," and the lines

"For every elemental power
Is kindred to our hearts, and once
Acknowledged, wedded, once embraced,
Once taken to the unfettered sense,
Once claspt into the naked life,
The union is eternal."

Taken to the Unfettered Sense

They stood on either side of the crystal. Harry tried to calm his frantic breathing, and the hold of his hands on either side of the crystal he held, the smaller one that had been hewed from the great one in the center of the cavern.

On the other side of it stood Severus, his eyes dull and hooded, and implacable. His longer hands enfolded his own crystal entirely, hiding it from view, making Harry wonder for a second if it was there at all.

But he and Severus had both agreed on this ritual, to try and catch a glimpse of a future when they could be together. The crystal, a variation of the globes that Seers like Trelawney used so ineffectively, would tell them the truth, whether they could succeed or if they would fail—as long as it had the use of the two smaller crystals that had been infused with the essence of Harry and Severus. A night spent sleeping curled around the crystals had sufficed.

And both of them wanted to know whether it was worth doing anything about this relationship or not.

A low drum began to beat. Harry took a deep breath. These were people Severus knew, and had approached. He knew nothing about them other than that they regularly conducted rituals like this, and were willing to help Severus.

Luckily, the ritual was simple enough, which meant that he wouldn't mess it up.

The drumbeats became faster and faster. Severus stood there like one of the pillars that supported the cavern in the distance, and only lifted his head as the drumbeats began to approach the crescendo that Harry had been told to expect. Harry's breath caught as he stared into those eyes that had been emotionless.

They raged now.

He and Severus cast their crystals at the same time, surprising Harry, who had thought that he might lose the right moment in staring at Severus. The filtered glow, with shimmers of opalescent color on the edges, of the crystal in the middle brightened almost intolerably as their two little crystals smashed into it.

And then it flashed out, and beams of light caught and pinioned Harry and Severus.

Harry felt himself floating free from his body for a moment, as though he was leaving it. Then reality was gone entirely.

Severus opened his eyes.

The world around him was dark, misty, stained. He could not tell where anything was, and he thought for a moment the ritual had not worked and they should simply give up.

But then a shape shifted next to him, and he understood. It was dark here, as it had been in the cavern, and the shadows and figures were hard to understand until Severus placed the only light in the room as coming from a hearth, the way the only light in that other place had come from the crystal.

And he could only see, nothing else. There was no sound and no sensation of touch. Severus felt himself settle as he accepted it. It was, after all, how the ritual was supposed to function.

He was watching a scene from above the shoulder of a pair of entwined figures—Harry and himself. Harry was lying on his chest, one hand stretched towards the fire as if longing for its warmth. Severus lay beneath him, staring up. Harry was asleep, as Severus could see from the shudder of his hair from his breath.

This scene was familiar. It had happened perhaps half a year ago, right before they had begun to experience serious problems—Harry claiming that he wasn't open enough and he could never be sure that Severus loved him, Severus being bothered by the childish irritations that came along with Harry much more than he had been before.

Severus had seen it before. Except that he had not seen his own expression from the outside, and he had not known that he looked—

Pincers grabbed his heart and squeezed.

Like that.

So calm, so contented, so wondering, as though he did not know what he had done to deserve this good fortune.

Severus stared, and stared. Of course, he could do nothing else as long as this part of the ritual lasted. He had believed that he was closed, along with Harry. And the moment this memory-Harry opened his eyes, they would be back to their partially uncomfortable relationship where Severus sometimes snapped things he did not mean and Harry did things he did not think through.

But for now…

If I look like that, I love him.

Then sight was gone entirely.

"That's like it…that's more like what I want…"

Harry wished he could feel his cheeks flame. But inside this memory, there was only the sense of hearing. He had known it would be like that, but he hadn't expected how intimate it would be—the sense of being nothing more than an ear that confidences were poured into. He licked his lips uncertainly.

Tried to lick them. He had no lips here, either.

The words spilled over him, words spoken in Severus's voice, orders for him to go faster, demands that Harry meet him thrust for thrust as hard as he could, and accompanying them were small creaks as the bed shifted beneath them, the sound of skin rasping on skin, and a strange, muted noise that Harry finally recognized as tongue on flesh. He knew it was one of the lovemaking sessions he and Severus had had in the past, although he didn't know exactly which one. There had been so many.

Isolated like this, without Severus's face to watch for cues or the distraction of his own pleasure and the thrusts inside him, he could recognize what he had not been able to tell before: that Severus was not only striving for satisfaction, but satisfied right now.

He wanted Harry in that bed with him. He wanted to be able to touch him, hold him, be with him as more than a body seeking pleasure. Harry had started to wonder about that, lately. Severus wanted so much of him sometimes, and other times turned away and said something about how Harry, someone like Harry, could never satisfy him. So that meant that sometimes, he was lying?

Harry felt a quiver in the center of himself. If Severus wasn't always telling the truth, then perhaps their relationship was doomed…

But the sounds were still there, the voice that shuddered with passion, the tongue that muted it sometimes, the hands that held. Harry listened, and drew a breath deep enough to make himself shake. So. He could do this, he could think that Severus was sincere in the way he spoke if nothing else.

Then hearing was gone entirely.

Smoothness.

That was the first thing that Severus came back to awareness of, after that particular time in the darkness—that, and wondering whether he remembered accurately the expression on his own face.

Apparently he did. That memory burned in his mind where there was nothing else to see here, only something to feel. Severus suspected the memories from this ritual would be unnaturally edged and etched no matter what, but his own desire to cling to them helped.

And now, for what he could feel.

Smoothness, hovering in the blackness and scaring him at first with how detached it was from normality. But then Severus remembered times that he had lain in bed and let his hands wander Harry, without opening his eyes and without speaking. This might be a memory from one of those times.

Roughness, of hair under his hands. The touch continued to trail down, and found the bump of a nose, and the soft flutteringness that Severus identified as eyelashes after a moment of thinking about it. Then he touched Harry's eyes themselves, quick, alive, darting around beneath the eyelids that closed in deference to his pressure.

He didn't want them shut. He wanted them alive and looking at him.

But he couldn't have that right now, so he continued stroking, continued focusing. Now there were lips beneath his hidden fingers, and they opened, so that Severus could brush the wet silk of Harry's tongue.

He thought for a second he could kiss, because the tongue could feel as well as the hands, but apparently that was to be reserved for the moment that he spent in taste memory. What he did get was the skin, the piled fleece of their blankets giving way to the jut of hipbones, and Harry writhing beneath him, the little tremors flicking in his muscles and down his legs as he opened them, the way all those happened when he was eager.

Willing.

Severus breathed out. Harry was eager that way—not all the time, but enough that Severus could recognize it for a treasure when he thought about it. And he hadn't flinched when his own hands encountered Severus's scars or limp hair or the place where he had cut himself with a Potions knife when he was eighteen, although Severus himself hated the mark as a sign of his own carelessness.

Or, for that matter, the slimy stillness of the Dark Mark.

If touch was a way that each of them could accept the other fully, Severus thought, he could do no less than Harry.

Then feeling was gone entirely.

Shit, something smelled good.

Harry tried to open his eyes, then remembered that he didn't have any for the duration of this ritual. He shifted around, focusing on the smells since they were the only things that would bring him out of the intense darkness and silence that had closed around him.

Fiery red peppers. The crushed scent of seaweed, which Harry had never thought could taste good in food, but had turned out to be the perfect treat for the end of a long day. Smoked fish, and ham wrapped in cheese, more subtle in its flavor than Harry would have expected.

He could…

He could remember this meal he and Severus had eaten. Harry had brought home the peppers intending to make something with them, but not sure what it would be. He had set them aside for now and left the house for an hour to have a drink with Ron and Seamus.

When he got back, Severus had found the peppers and added them to several other ingredients he'd found somewhere, maybe resurrecting them from the cupboards stuffed with supplies from the war that Harry barely looked in. Severus had had several safehouses stocked with food and clothes and ingredients, and had moved all those things, although not the safehouses, into their new home with him, making liberal use of Shrinking Charms and wizardspace.

And he had made dinner with Harry's peppers and his own ingredients even though he hadn't had to, even though it hadn't been his night to do so.

Harry's nose stung from the peppers. It inhaled the unexpectedly sharp odor of the seaweed, and the glittering, still-living scent of the fish. It paired all that with the memory of the dinner, and Harry would have nodded if he had a head.

Severus did love him. He might have made the dinner partially for himself, because he had known the peppers would combine well with some other ingredients he had, but he had given Harry a gift, both at the time and in memory, that he never would have if he had a heart as cold as Harry sometimes accused him of having.

If Harry had had eyes at the moment, he would have cried, and not because of the way that the peppers could stir tears.

Then scent was gone entirely.

Oil rolled down the back of Severus's tongue.

This time, he managed to keep himself from starting—or rather, doing the odd equivalent of starting that was the only kind he could manage without a body. He concentrated on the taste instead, wondering if this was to be an unpleasant memory, and why, if so. None of the others he had experienced—perceived—so far had been unhappy, perhaps even happier than he had thought them.

But he swallowed against the oil, as he seemed to have a throat here along with lips and teeth and a tongue, and recognized it. It was the kind of oil that that little Italian restaurant Harry was so fond of put into their food, or on the flat dishes they laid out for dipping bread in. They had eaten there on their first official date.

The date where they had admitted that they were dating each other instead of meeting sporadically to argue over books and Potions and the morality of the Dark Arts, that was. And that had only occurred after Severus had accused Harry of standing him up because he had chosen to work instead of attend one of their meetings.

Harry had retorted that work came between him and his friends all the time, and they didn't resent it that much. And Severus had retorted that he was not a mere friend, and Harry had blinked at him, and they had had to realize some things together.

So Severus savored the oil, a thin coating that broke to be followed by the bread, flavored more by the oil than anything else but still with a flitting, distinct taste of its own beneath.

After that came the ravioli, with spinach and cheese tucked inside, and Severus swallowed it eagerly down, the warmth that broke into more differentiated tastes once it was inside his mouth, and remembered the way that Harry had paused in eating to watch him. When Severus had asked him what he was doing, Harry had replied with seeming honesty that he liked seeing Severus enjoy food.

There had been a kind of sweet wine that Severus normally despised, but which had suited the meal. He suspected the owners of tampering with the vintage with magic until it complemented what it would ordinarily not complement.

And yes, there was the wine, dazzlingly sweet, bringing with it memories of tasting Harry's mouth that night. They had gone home alone—for about two streets. Then Severus had swung around, and Harry had Apparated back to the side street where they had left each other.

There was the kiss.

The slickness, the warmth, of it, rolled over Severus, and left him sure that he would be getting hard if he had a body here. Well, a body here other than the parts of him that could taste this sheer deliciousness.

They were bound together by more than sex, although the memories had chosen to concentrate mostly on that. There were the arguments, and Harry's pleasure in Severus's pleasure, and the shared food, and the companionship that grew out of those meals. Severus had wondered sometimes what they had in common. Those were some of the things.

But that kiss did remind Severus, too, of how good the sex could be, and often was.

He put out one hand as if he would touch Harry—

And taste went away, but light replaced it. Once again, he stood in the cavern with the crystal in front of him, the big one that shimmered with opalescent light, and Harry stood on the other side, raising his eyes to Severus's. Severus blinked, the shock of the light, his breathing, the hardness of the floor beneath his feet, the smell of dust, the taste of dry air, all his senses returned to him, hitting him hard enough that he wanted to sit down.

But Harry stood there, his hands clutching air, and Severus wanted to go to him more than he wanted to rest.

Harry stumbled as he came out of the memory. And it really had been a memory, not the future that he had been promised, implicitly, when they began this ritual. The crystal was supposed to show them glimpses of the future, not—

But Harry wanted to snort. Of course. The crystal had shown them only that they could have a future, by reminding them of all the times they had spent together that were not hasty or angry or upset. It couldn't see into the future in the ordinary way. Damn lying Unspeakables, or whoever they really were, Severus's contacts.

But Severus was coming to him now, and when Harry dared a glance into his face, he saw that the ritual had worked in at least one aspect. He choked, and put out his hands. Severus took them, still gazing intently down into his face.

Then he bent down, and his kiss reminded Harry of others they had shared, impatient and leisurely and passionate and angry. They were more than their arguments—and sometimes even their arguments could be pleasant, when they weren't personal. The truth had been waiting for them there, all along. Being bereft of their senses had simply concentrated it, the way that ingredients, or was it bases, sometimes did in Severus's potions.

Severus paused. His kiss asked a question, and Harry realized that he hadn't responded to it yet.

He reached up and hooked a hand behind Severus's neck, and gave his response unmistakably, openly, unfettered.

The End.