Commonplace Magic (3/3) by sinick and ac1d6urn (HP/SS, AU, NC-17)

[acid]

Commonplace Magic
(3/3, continued from here)

*

As they climbed the staircase, the absence of the rain only made Severus all the more conscious of the chill of his damp clothing; how much worse must poor sodden Harry have felt? But the drenching didn’t seem to have dampened Harry’s spirits at all, not now that he’d been asked back. As they came to a halt outside his flat, Severus blinked at a plastic bag of food cartons sitting in the hallway by his door. Judging by the scent that had had time to escape, Harry had remembered to bring takeaway after all; evidently he’d left it there after he’d been shut out.

Harry blinked from Severus to the bag, before picking it up. “What’s the matter?” he asked, still a little tentative. “It’s Chinese, is that all right?”

“It’s fine,” Severus hoped it was only the greater warmth indoors that made his face feel hot. “I just didn’t notice it there on my way out.” He cleared his throat as he opened the door, before admitting, “I suspect I left in too much of a hurry to see it.”

The way Harry smiled at him, wet body brushing against his as he slipped past Severus and inside, more than made up for any embarrassment.

After locking the front door, Severus headed straight for the bathroom; he could hear Harry hurrying down the hallway and dumping the bag of takeaway on the kitchen counter. Severus found his second towel - fortunately clean - and held it out to Harry as he appeared in the bathroom doorway. “Get dried off before you catch pneumonia,” he ordered, “And hang your wet things on the rack over the radiator.”

Harry nodded, so quickly it was almost a shiver; his fingers brushed Severus’ as he came into the bathroom and took the towel.

Severus moved to the very corner, shrugged out of his damp coat, and followed his own advice: grabbed his used towel and rapidly wiped the worst of the wet off his face and neck and out of his hair. Harry had scruffled his hair with his towel, making it stick up wildly in all directions. He smiled, lopsided and shy, and shook his head like a shaggy pup, and Severus suddenly found himself not caring if they were, in fact, going to hell in a handbasket. He couldn’t stop himself from reaching out and running his fingers through that irrepressible mop of hair; his hand drifted naturally to rest on the back of Harry’s neck, fingertips tracing patterns on damp skin.

“Er. Did anyone ever tell you you’re really distracting when you do that?”

Severus shook his head, and drew breath to say, ‘I’ve never done that to anyone else’, but realisation blindsided him, and he was startled to find himself saying instead, “I’ve never wanted to do that to anyone before.” He turned away, abruptly flustered, and determined to behave like a reasonable host: which at the moment meant refraining from simply jumping Harry in the bathroom - even if the self-restraint killed him, which it bloody well might - and letting him get dry in peace.

On his way out Severus glared critically at his own towel-rumpled hair in the mirror. The brat’s rubbing off on me already, he thought, anxious anticipation coiling tighter in him, as he headed for the sitting-room part of his bedsit. Impatient with the long, damp strands of hair hanging in his eyes, he clawed them back off his face and combed them flat in a single hasty rake of his fingers. It took him forever to find the matchbox in the dark room; his heart sped almost painfully as he struck a light.

*

Harry paused in the doorway, watching Severus light the candles - more than a dozen of them - scattered amid all the books on the shelves. The shadows came to life with the flicker of tiny flames, and the room turned mysterious, otherwordly in that warm and shifting light. As if he wasn’t in an old flat at all, but in the chambers of the solitary monk from his dream; or of some medieval sorcerer, with his books and his scrolls. Someone who could cast a spell, with just a word in that deep voice, or a single glance from those dark eyes.

*

Severus looked up from the last candle, and there was Harry, framed in the doorway, silhouetted by the brighter light from the hall. Watching from the threshold, as hesitant as a wild bird poised for flight, and wearing only the towel, wrapped tight around his waist.

Somewhere, Severus thought, someone - God, Fate, that smoker on the balcony outside - is either laughing at me or smiling on me, and I wish I knew which. As he drank in the sight of all that bared skin - pink from a vigorous towelling, or was it a blush? - he felt as lightheaded as if all the blood in his body had rushed to his groin; he was going hard with a speed that hadn’t happened in years. Focus! he berated himself, He obviously hasn’t done this before and ogling him is only going to make him even more self-conscious. Stop staring. Now, dammit! Talk to him, you besotted old sod, he seems to like that.

But Harry beat him to it, stammering “I, er. My gear was pretty much all wet, sort of thing, so I, um.” A wave of one arm in a vaguely bathroom-wards direction, “I hung it all up.”

“So I see.” Severus allowed himself one more appreciative glance, this time leavened with amusement, before adding “Sit down; make yourself at home.”

This bit of encouragement seemed to be all Harry needed; with a grin and an “Okay,” he plopped down on the couch, lounging about on it as if he owned the place. Not that Severus was about to object: he was too captivated by the movement of wiry sinew under sleek young skin. He hastened to sit down beside Harry before the imp sprawled any further and took up the entire couch.

When Severus joined him, Harry sat up straighter, shifted closer; as he moved he tugged his glasses off and dropped them carelessly onto a tall stack of books that doubled as a makeshift end-table.

Severus gave a rueful little nod at that. Of course he doesn’t particularly want to look at me.

Harry noticed the change in his expression with worrying ease: perhaps Severus wasn’t nearly as much of an enigma as he would have liked. “S’alright, I don’t need ‘em anyway.”

When Severus raised a dubious eyebrow, Harry shook his head. “I don’t, honestly,” he assured him. “You’re close enough. I can see you. Just ... hold still.” A palm cupped the point of Severus’ shoulder and skimmed upward. Harry’s fingertips softly traced the line of his jaw, turning his face to catch the candlelight, for all the world as if he were some sort of rare statue instead of a desperately plain middle-aged man.

Vaguely unsettled by this scrutiny, Severus fell back on familiar teasing. “Are you drunk?” he inquired in his driest voice.

Harry snorted. “Haven’t had a drop all day.”

“Which would be why you showed up at my door to commit ‘Auld Lang Syne’-icide and demand Scotch.”

“It’s a tradition!”

“Of course!” Severus had plenty to say about such traditions and people who used them as an excuse to...

“Stay still,” Harry murmured, his other hand slipping into Severus’ hair, stroking strands away from his face. With those glasses off, Severus thought, his eyes really are striking: one last glimpse of summer’s green two seasons too late. “Yeah, there,” Harry whispered, as if a louder voice would disturb something fragile and precious. “Perfect.”

There was nothing ‘perfect’ at all about a big-nosed old bugger like him: at least Severus hadn’t forgotten that much when he’d lost the rest of his sanity. “You're hallucinating,” he grumbled, “Clearly you’ve overdosed on acid rain.”

With a low chuckle Harry breathed “Shhh...” and pressed his fingertips gently against Severus’ mouth. Severus’ gaze grew heavy lidded with plans, and his lips curved into a lopsided smirk under Harry’s touch. He returned it, pressing soft, nipping kisses to Harry’s fingers and the palm of his hand. Harry’s breathing caught; his face was naked and vulnerable without the heavy-rimmed glasses, and his eyes were so green and so wide and shining with startled pleasure, and then his hand was gone and he lunged at Severus hard enough to push him back into the couch, and they were kissing and it was hungry and clumsy and hot. Their front teeth clicked as Severus fumbled for an angle that got his nose out of the way, until Harry’s fingers slid into his lank hair and held him still. Severus’ tongue was met with a warm and suckling welcome as Harry “mmm”ed and shifted closer, all knees and elbows and tented towel, awkward and determined to climb onto Severus’ lap and inside his skin. Severus gasped against Harry’s eager mouth and collapsed sideways, stretching out on the couch; Harry followed him down, plastering himself along Severus’ body.

Yes... much better... Severus felt starved, right down to his pores: for touch, for warmth, for Harry. He reached to pull Harry closer, chilled fingers spread across the width of his shoulders, as if holding them out to a fire, warming them with the intense, impulsive energy that seemed to fill Harry’s every move. His hands felt magnetised to Harry’s skin, restless and roaming and impossible to lift away. They slipped down the broad V of Harry’s back until his fingers dipped under the edge of the towel. Harry sighed and lifted his hips, encouraging the towel to fall away. Severus’ hands slid that last bit lower and finally stopped as if moulded there. The muscled curves fit perfectly into the arc of Severus’ splayed fingers; he purred wordless appreciation and rubbed in slow circles.

He parted his knees and Harry wriggled closer, his weight settling between them. His erection nudged against Severus’ shaft, hot and swollen under two layers of cloth. Severus’ breath caught and his hips hitched upward into that teasing pressure, chaotic and maddening and never enough. He arched up again, higher, frustrated, as Harry - propped on his hands over him - searched, hips circling, for that perfect angle. Harry gasped and pressed their groins together, harder still, then pulled back and did it again; Severus guided him into a steady rhythm with a greedy, kneading grip on his arse. He couldn’t look away from Harry as he rocked wildly above him: bright, disjointed images to treasure. Severus wanted to remember everything: that tousled head flung back, eyes squeezed shut, lip bitten in concentration; the feel of hard planes of muscle under sweat-damp skin. Severus peeled one hand off Harry’s arse with an effort and slid it between their bodies, closing his fist around that hot, veined length and green eyes snapped so wide, staring down at him in shock as Harry came with a cry. Oh God, Severus knew if he was only a bit younger - or a bit more naked - he too might’ve come, from that sight alone and not from merely physical stimulation.

As it was, he welcomed the weight of Harry’s collapsing body, wrapping his arms and twining his legs around Harry, holding him close as his breathing slowed. And all the while Severus’ own trapped cock throbbed, still hard with an urgency that almost rivalled Harry’s own. Brought to the very brink of coming in his pants like a teenager: overwhelmed by the feel of a firm arse clenching under his hand, a hard cock spurting at his first touch, and more than anything else, by Harry’s face, flushed with lust, and Harry’s eyes, stunned by sudden bliss.

It didn’t take long for his irrepressible new lover to return to himself. He lifted his head to beam at Severus, eyes gleaming through a bed-head that was already becoming impossible, and this was before they even made it to bed. But then Harry shifted and that instinctive, shamelessly sunny smile clouded over. Severus desperately hoped it was only a wince at the sensation of come or of fabric on an orgasm-sensitised cock. But Harry’s first, softly murmured “M’sorry” tightened Severus’ anxiety to a knot in his throat.

“What for?” he asked carefully.

“Um. This.” Harry turned away, tousled hair hiding his eyes as he glanced down at their bodies. He gestured shyly and continued before Severus could choke out further questions: “I’ve already - I’m like this - and you haven’t even...”

The relief hit Severus with an impact so powerful it relaxed him in an afterglow almost as intense as the climax the imp was worrying about. “Hush,” he interrupted softly, as one hand lifted to stroke Harry’s tangled fringe out of his eyes, “It’s all right.”

“It is?” Harry almost squeaked.

The startlement in Harry’s eyes widened Severus’ smile as he wondered, Can he really be worried that I mightn’t want to? With him?

Severus nodded deliberately, layering his gaze and voice with promises, as he murmured, “Come with me.” Now it was his turn to press a silencing fingertip to Harry’s lips. “...To bed.” he insisted. Some of us are getting a bit old for rolling about on couches all night.

“Oh. Right.” There was that grin again, breaking free like the sunlight from a cloud, as Harry reared up and bounced to his feet.

If Severus followed a little more slowly, it was only so he could give the view the admiration it deserved.

*

The bed was tucked away in a corner of the room. It was certainly nothing much to look at: narrow, plain, thinly padded - just like its owner, really - yet as Harry rounded the dividing wall of bookcases and glanced down at it, his expression was alight with anticipation; a look that took Severus’ breath away when Harry turned around.

Harry reached for him, unselfconscious, fingers fumbling a little with the buttons of Severus’ shirt. Severus captured Harry’s hands between his, stilling them, drawing them away from his clothes. He silenced Harry’s “What? No! I wanna see you...” by climbing onto the bed and over to its far side, holding onto Harry’s hands all the while, tugging Harry down with him, until they were both stretched out, lying together on a bed that had never before accommodated two.

Severus was on his side, leaning back against the wall and propped up on one elbow: a position which provided him with a truly delectable view of the young man beside him. “Whatever for?” he replied, with a hint of a wry smile. “I’m nothing much to look at.” He stretched out a hand, and Harry’s protesting “But...” was followed only by a gasp as Severus brushed a fingertip across Harry’s nipple, teasing it to a peak. Severus poured all the smoulder of his feelings into his voice, as he purred, deep and slow and deliberate, “But you’re amazingly sexual.”

Harry’s breathing turned ragged, and that vivid gaze was fixed on Severus’ face, pupils wide with what Severus realised with a shiver, was lust: pure and open and impossible to fake.

Severus hadn’t been fishing for compliments: he’d accepted long ago that he was an ugly sod, but for some reason Harry liked his voice, and he certainly wasn’t above using any advantage he could. So he rolled up to kneel beside Harry, and let his hands and his eyes roam where they would, and tried to pour everything he was thinking into sultry, seductive speech. It didn’t turn out quite as he’d intended: instead, his feelings overwhelmed his thoughts, until all he was left with was the truth.

“I want you so much. I’ve wanted to touch you for ages.”

And so he did. He slid his palms up Harry’s forearms, paused to knead at the muscles of his upper arms and shoulders, feeling them flex under his fingers and release their tension as Harry responded with a gasp and a slow writhe on the bed.

“Your body. Your skin...” He brought his voice down to a velvety murmur and accompanied it by the slow caress of fingertips, following the sleek, taut contours of chest muscle. “I want to stroke you all over, just to see how you’ll react. I want to find out everything. What makes you shiver, what makes you moan.” A tiny answering whimper was threaded among Harry’s panting breaths. Severus looked up into those darkening, heavy-lidded eyes and was lost. “Let me?”

Harry’s whole expression was alight with sensual absorption as he breathed “Ohyes...”

Severus bent lower until his hair brushed across Harry’s skin, leaving gooseflesh in its wake. Severus drew a deep breath, drunk on the rich, humid scents of sweat and semen and warm flesh. “You’re burning hot.” He exhaled the words across flushed skin, sliding open-mouthed down the line of sinew between shoulder and neck and only just stopping himself in time from biting down. Who knows how he’d react to that. Too soon for such adventures, for now. Perhaps later. He smiled then, glorying in the idea that there might be a later.

He celebrated that thought by pressing a kiss into the warm dimple at the base of Harry’s throat. “Love your taste.” He kept his mouth deliberately close to Harry’s skin, whispering. “Do you taste this good everywhere?” He began to find out, his lips closing around the taut peak of Harry’s nipple, kissing and suckling and teasing with flicks of his tongue and the delicate pressure of the very edges of his teeth.

Harry arched desperately up into Severus’ touch. His hands were wound tightly in the sheets, his legs shamelessly spread apart.

“Oh yes... So responsive.” He stroked one fingertip, feather-light, between Harry’s balls, across that tender skin stretched tight, and smiled as Harry’s cock leapt, pleading for his touch.

So he granted it. “So hard.” As Severus’ fingertip trailed up Harry’s shaft, finding the wetness at its tip, spreading it over the flushed glans with delicate swirls, tension rippled outward through Harry’s whole body, taut as a strung bow. Severus smiled. That’s it.

He marvelled at the sight before him: Harry completely lost in need, quivering on the brink, mesmerised by Severus’ words, by the slightest of touches. “Yes,” he breathed, “So very hard. So long and so thick and So. Fucking. Hard,” he rumbled, smoky-deep, punctuating every word with the pressure of his fingers as he batted Harry’s insistent hands away. Somehow, he continued to speak, though Harry had him nearly incoherent with need in turn. “You want to come, don’t you? You want me to touch you, and I will, oh, I will. My hands, my mouth, anything you want. Later. You don’t even need my mouth on you now. Now, you’re going to come, and oh, you’ll come so hard. Just from this. Oh yes, Harry. Yes!”

*

Harry curled around the bony body lying next to him. He felt so warm, warm all over, radiating heat like a bed of coals. He vaguely remembered reaching for Severus and being stopped, and then Severus drove him absolutely mad with every touch of his hand, never quite where Harry wanted it to be but close enough to make him want more, and there were all sorts of interesting things in between, and then all thought faded before Severus’ murmur, fallen into that bass note that resonated right through Harry’s body and straight to his cock.

“You’re impossible, y’know that?” he murmured to the angular shoulder under his lips. “Are you going to attack me like this every time I want to touch you?”

It was rather unfair, really, what with him like this and Severus still mostly clothed, so Harry reached out and tried to remedy the situation by prying one, two buttons of the man’s shirt loose from their buttonholes. “S’my turn. Please?”

Severus’ hands took over and stopped him. “You don’t have to.”

“Daft git,” Harry smiled; he wasn’t about to get distracted again. “‘Course I don’t have to. I want to.”

That questioning eyebrow rose.

Harry tried to reassure Severus, as well as himself. “I know what I’m doing. I read a book.”

“A book?” Severus smirked archly, “I feel reassured already.”

“Well. Not the whole book, really,” Harry admitted, playing along. “But I tried! Only, it was a bit... distracting.”

Severus gave him a dubious look. “Just what kind of book was it?”

What kind? Does he even have to ask? “A good one,” Harry grinned cheekily, “with loads of pictures.”

“So, you didn’t actually read a book at all, you just ogled it.”

Brilliant! Harry thought, Should’ve realised long ago that teasing me would keep him distracted while I got his kit off. But outwardly Harry just grinned and slid Severus’ shirt off his shoulders, proceeding to peel the rest of the man’s clothing off, layer by layer. Severus shifted his weight slightly to help here and there, watching Harry mutely all the while, with wide, dark, serious eyes.

He’s so tense. Harry ran his fingertips along Severus’ collarbones and down his sides, where he could count every rib. Across his belly, concave between narrow, sharp-crested hipbones, down wiry thighs and back up to his erection, heavy and hot against Harry’s hand. A fleeting touch of Harry’s knuckles and then his fingertips. Severus gasped and his muscles locked tight, as if clamping down on the urge to thrust.

“Yeah, still perfect.” Harry breathed.

Severus hmphed derisively at that, and Harry frowned. It’s not right, he thought. He shouldn’t put himself down all the time.

“Are you rubbishing my taste in men?” Harry teased.

“Don’t you mean ‘man’, singular?” Severus parried, “Or have you done this with other men, after all?”

It was Harry’s turn to snerk. “No, just the one.” he replied, unashamed. “And, to change my mind like this, that ‘one’s gotta be pretty damn special.”

“I’m...” But Harry cut the disclaimer short with another glancing stroke along Severus’ cock, and a quiet, determined, “Shut it. You are special.”

That earned him The Eyebrow, though Severus did remain silent.

“You are!” Harry insisted, as if Severus had replied aloud. And when the dubious expression still lingered on Severus’ face, despite all of Harry’s words, Harry decided he’d have to remove it without words instead.

He craned up, and felt that doubtful frown smooth away beneath his lips as he brushed them across Severus’ brow. He nuzzled into the hair that framed Severus’ forehead in two sleek, thick falls. No worries he’ll go bald, anyway. Harry smiled at the thought of having Severus long enough to be relieved at avoiding baldness. One hand lifted to comb tenderly through the hanging strands - heavy, a little oily after a long day, still slightly damp from the rain - as Harry kissed his way down the soaring line of Severus’ cheekbone, pausing to softly lip and suckle away the tension he remembered lingering about that thin mouth.

Harry shifted a little lower, mouthing at the delicate arch of collarbone, as his fingers stroked through the sparse, coarse hairs on Severus’ chest. His fingers strayed across a nipple then returned to rub and tweak at it.

Severus’ breathing caught audibly; a twitch of tension passed through his whole body. Kneeling where he was, Harry could just see one of Severus’ hands flick in midair: a flinching movement like a bird, startled into flight. He’d seen that twitch once before: at work, when their hands touched on the coffee mug. Wow. Just how sensitive is he?

Harry shifted a little lower, fingertips combing along the line of dark hair that ran down from Severus’ navel, broadening to the base of his cock. He smiled when that hollow belly tightened and the flushed cock twitched at the teasing. Severus was all man, rawboned and gaunt, so far outside his limited experience, and Harry couldn’t help indulging his curiosity, with every touch, every stroke, every kiss. However, his efforts to find Severus’ sensitive spots were doomed to failure: it seemed that Harry couldn’t touch him anywhere without drawing some sort of reaction - even if Severus’ usual reaction was an attempt to hold a reaction back.

We’ll see about that, Harry thought, sliding further down still, until he was kneeling by Severus’ hips. He gave Severus a wicked smile before leaning over Severus’ straining cock. He deliberately pressed the flat of his tongue to its base, right down at the curve of his balls, and licked slowly, wetly, up its full length, ending with a final, teasing flick of his tonguetip, swiping the wetness from Severus’ glans. Interesting, Harry thought as he licked his lips teasingly and glanced up at Severus. Tastes like mine, only not. And at least going down this time, for once I won’t be groping round sight unseen and picking quite so many hairs off my tongue. Warmed by the look of wide-eyed, shocked delight Severus gave him, Harry bent his head again and did his inexperienced best to lick Severus into letting go and believing that Harry wanted him.

Severus was still mostly silent, but Harry took his a-rhythmic, hoarse breathing and the tightening of his hands against Harry’s shoulder and neck as a sign that Harry was doing it right. It should feel more awkward than this, doing this, to another bloke... with another... no, he corrected himself, with Severus, but it doesn’t. It feels comfortable. Harry revelled in the way Severus’ fingers kneaded and clutched at his shoulder, the way his breathing was threaded through with the quietest possible moans...

Until Severus’ grip tightened that bit further and he pulled Harry up and into a licking, lip-twisting kiss, purring at the taste of his precome on Harry’s tongue. Then Severus wrapped a hand round Harry’s wrist and pushed it down between their bodies. It was the first time Severus had ever asked for anything, and Harry gave Severus just what he wanted: faster and harder...

“I remember what happened that night.” Harry murmured, “Your hands, on me. Like this.” He demonstrated with a firm grip.

“Knew it.” Severus smirked.

Harry kissed it away and matched it with a smirk of his own. “Did you always want me? Ever since we met?” Oh yeah, that worked, Harry thought as Severus’ eyes went wide.

“Brat! You- ohh,” Whatever Severus had started to say was lost in a long, low moan. Dark eyes flickered and closed as his head rolled back; precome welled from his cock in a wet surge.

It really wouldn’t do for Severus to snap at Harry and distract himself at a time like this, so Harry pumped faster, rubbing and pressing with his other hand where Severus’ balls had drawn up tight into his body. Now, it was Harry’s turn to tease. “Did you think of me doing this to you?” he whispered against Severus’ mouth. “Is this how you imagined me? Is this how you like it?”

At first Severus answered with actions rather than words: pushing into Harry’s grip until strained, urgent gasps at last became fractured words. “H...Harry, yesss!”

It was so strange, so wonderful, to see Severus like this. Naked, emotionally as well as physically, his constant self-restraint overwhelmed, helpless with pleasure. Coming at Harry’s touch, crying Harry’s name. The fact that he of all people could bring someone as reserved, as controlled as Severus to this abandoned openness was utterly brilliant; Harry’s senses swam with the power of that knowledge. He felt stronger in ways he’d never expected before. In that moment, his old fear that loving a man somehow made him less of a real man himself died for good, and in its wake protectiveness arose.

“S’alright,” he murmured, slowing his strokes as Severus writhed and shuddered and pulsed come into his hand, “I’ve got you.” As the tension eased slowly from the lanky body in his arms, Harry smiled, brushing tangled hair away from Severus’ face, “M’not gonna let go.”

Severus’ gaze locked with his, and Harry thought of a bridge and falling into the dark, but instead of the river there were Severus’ endless eyes. In that moment, he could hear again that deep, intense voice whispering words over and over into his mind; only, this time, Harry thought he knew what it was trying to tell him. Harry gave in and fell, at least this little distance, losing himself in a lazy, unhurried kiss.

When they eased apart, Harry murmured “You weren’t how I imagined you at all.” He felt somehow as though he’d confessed a secret.

“Oh.” The sound was as flat as a disclaimer, but Harry knew enough to catch the flash of worry on Severus’ harsh-planed face.

Daft git! “You’re better.” He smiled and stretched out on top of Severus. Peaceful. Calm. He sighed out his happiness, as Severus’ bony hand slipped gently into his hair and cupped the back of his head.

*

He vaguely remembered Severus getting up a little while later and blowing the candles out one by one before sliding back into bed next to him and drawing the covers up over them both. Severus’ hair smelled like candle smoke.

Harry was thirsty and his throat was hoarse, but he didn’t want to move or open his eyes, so he reached across and draped his arm over a thin waist and burrowed his cold nose between a bony shoulder and the pillow, and wriggled deeper under the covers and closer to Severus’ warmth. He fell asleep then, in an unfamiliar bed, beneath the comforting weight of Severus’ forearm over his shoulder.

He was freezing when he woke up.

No one ever told him that sleeping naked would be this bloody cold. He heard Severus’ snores beside him on the flat pillow and felt around him for a blanket. He squinted. The black curtains in the window were outlined in a hazy grey. The greedy sod had his back to Harry and had the blanket wrapped around him like a cloak. Harry pulled and poked until he managed to get a hold of at least a third. He wriggled underneath and draped his arm over the snoring git. Severus felt warm and comfortable and Harry burrowed closer to that warmth. Not a robot after all, he grinned as he fought against a yawn. Then he slept, lulled by the sound of a morning train fading far into the distance.

*

Severus woke up alone. But the memory of a second person in his bed - snuffling and snuggling, restless as a puppy, arms and legs sprawled over him all night - was quite genuine, he was sure of it. There was a sound of running water from the bathroom. On his way to the kitchen he glared at the faint line of light under the door. The splashing continued for quite a while.

At last, the bathroom door opened and Harry emerged from clouds of steam, with a towel low around his hips. Severus almost dropped the kettle he’d been about to put on for coffee.

“Toast?” Harry chirped cheerfully, nodding at the bread on the counter. “I like mine dark. Almost smoky.”

Severus narrowed his eyes at this nonsense. “Do you really?” he drawled.

Harry’s eyes went glassy for a moment. Then he blinked and a slow smile curved his lips. “Yeah! That sort of smoky.” He padded into the kitchen - no respect for the curtains drawn wide open - and slid his arms, still wet and hot from the shower, around Severus’ waist. “mmMornin’, Sev’rus,” he murmured, nuzzling his ear. “Any plans for today?”

“Nothing that...” It really was getting hard - difficult, it was getting difficult - to keep a train of thought these days, as difficult as avoiding all the unwelcome attention: especially when Severus had to admit that it wasn’t unwelcome after all.

“Brilliant, ‘cause I was thinking maybe...” Harry draped himself over Severus’ back, nudging him with a hopeful erection by way of an ever-so-subtle hint.

“Just so you know,” Severus shifted his weight from foot to foot, partially in vague embarrassment, but mostly wondering whether he could coax another of those beguiling twitches out of Harry’s cock, “I don’t make a habit of doing all this with... well, with anyone, really,” and where the hell did that little confession come from? Severus wondered, even more embarrassed, “...but especially not with anyone your age.”

“Good!” Harry beamed. “Don’t you start doing this with anyone else, either. ‘Cause I don’t want to share you with anyone, my own age or not.” Harry’s hands gripped his own and guided them down to Harry’s waist until Severus felt the edges of the towel. “Here. Hang onto it,” Harry whispered, between pressing kisses into his neck, “It’s slipping.”

“Harry!” Severus gasped, but what Harry did next drove whatever he’d meant to say right out of his mind.

*

After a delightfully delayed breakfast, Harry slung his bag over his shoulder and headed out. He returned that afternoon, his smile undimmed by the day at Uni. He kicked his trainers across the hallway and tugged the obnoxiously red mittens off with his teeth. Severus looked up from yet another article he had to finish reviewing by the tenth, and pretended he wasn’t interested at all in Harry’s whereabouts (no matter how much his morning behaviour had indicated otherwise).

“Here, got something for you,” Harry handed Severus a folded printout.

Marks! Severus swiftly realised. His eyebrows rose as he read. The whelp passed all of his courses. He even did well in most of them: against all odds, Severus thought, since he’s been too busy bothering me to pay attention to his studies half the time. But that’s not the point, Severus scolded himself. The point is I’m with someone who has marks, and a book bag, and exams, and red mittens that he chucks wherever he likes when he takes them off. My life’s never been more ironic, and what with one thing and another I’ve seen a bloody lot of irony.

The next morning, on his way to the bathroom Severus tripped over Harry’s bag in the middle of the floor. He spent his shower having a satisfying grumble under his breath about Harry constantly leaving his things underfoot. When he got out of the shower, he glared from the new towel slung over the doorknob to Harry’s toothbrush and razor left on the edge of the sink. He didn’t even remember Harry bringing any of them in. They’d seemed to simply appear one day or another, along with the scattered collection of Harry’s textbooks and notes and bright yellow and orange highlighters, and Harry’s shirt hanging off the back of his armchair. Were there no limits to this reckless imposition on his privacy?

By the time he emerged from the bathroom, the bag had been kicked under the bed along with Harry’s trainers, and the books had been stowed away on his shelves. Harry, half-undressed still, was eyeing the shelves critically; there was a determined look in his eyes that boded no good at all. Severus hoped that whatever Harry was getting determined about didn’t involve trying to reorganise his books. He strode over and stationed himself between Harry and the shelves, and hoped that his stern glare and forbiddingly folded arms would discourage any further innovations.

They didn’t, so Severus had to unfold his arms and resort to his most sure-fire method of distracting the brat from any nefarious book-shuffling schemes.

After Harry’s failed attempt at rearranging his books, they walked on eggshells around each other until the eleventh. That afternoon Harry told Severus off for not mentioning that his birthday was on the ninth, and a right old telling-off it was, too: Harry yelling at him like mad, with a glint in his eyes and his hands waving about and his hair bristling angrily around his face. Severus had a most invigorating yell right back, of course. After all, he had plenty of things to yell about too: Harry leaving Severus’ books - and his own - in disarray, rearranging Severus’ things and leaving takeaway on the counter overnight and never locking the door properly and breaking his favourite coffee mug.

Harry listened to it all, with an expression that wavered from outrage to outright gobsmack and then, with a shrug and an, “Oh, well, there’s always next year,” Harry pounced. He silenced Severus the only way he knew how, and did his best (which was very, very good indeed) to make up for the lack of belated birthday present with sheer eagerness. Severus was rendered speechless - either by Harry’s intent to be with him next year or by being pounced - he wasn’t sure which, but either way he certainly wasn’t about to object.

They didn’t get out of bed until evening.

It set the pace for the rest of the winter.

*

“Wanna go to the zoo?” Harry asked him one morning, a couple of months later. “Or the museum. I don’t mind which.”

Madness! Severus thought. Bloody lunacy, and just in season, too. Look at what happened on the Ides of March! I know my history; Mum wasn’t obsessed with Romans for nothing. Who else but an obsessive would’ve made me memorise Julius Caesar when I was eleven?

“C’mon,” Harry replied to his dubious look with a cheerful nudge of one elbow to his poorly-padded ribs, “Buy you dinner after!”

Severus refused to go anywhere until they discussed the details of the trip further and he found them satisfactory. They compromised and went to the zoo after all; Severus chose the restaurant. As Harry admired an enormous boa constrictor, Severus prevented himself from acknowledging any double meanings in Harry’s enthusiasm by thinking instead about how well he was coping with Harry’s spontaneous invasion into his life.

Much later they returned home: Harry’s red mittens tucked into the pocket of Severus’ coat and Severus’ spare key in Harry’s hand. The mittens had been left in Severus’ pocket before, but Harry’s key was a more recent development: today’s, in fact. Severus was quite satisfied with the way that discussion had gone; he couldn’t even bring himself to complain about the garish keychain Harry attached the key to.

“Best day ever,” Harry beamed at him. “Magic!”

“Magic?” Severus hmphed. “No such thing.”

“You sound like my aunt. Cheer up!” Harry craned up and whispered then, his mouth soft and persuasive against Severus’, “Course there is. Somewhere.”

For ages Severus hadn’t bothered to look at trees for signs of approaching spring, but the colour of Harry’s eyes reminded him of the time he used to do just that. Many springs had come and gone without Severus’ notice, but Harry was here and now, in his arms and his home and his life, making Severus notice the seasons again, and slowly making him believe that his incredible good luck mightn’t run out after all. What was a mere belief in magic in comparison to the on-going challenge of convincing himself that Harry would still want to be with him tomorrow?

Perhaps magic, Severus thought, is like this unrepentant green-eyed imp: something that went unnoticed for so long right under my nose, just because I never expected to find it. “Yes,” he murmured into Harry’s lips. “I suppose there just might be.”

The full text of Shakespeare’s Sonnet #130:

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damask'd, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground.
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.

A recording of Alan Rickman reading the sonnet can be found here at BritBitsandClips.com.

The Cheshire Cheese is an actual place in London. Here is their website.

The World’s End is a pub in Camden located next to The Underworld.

Here are the panoramas of the Lincoln’s Inn Fields and the Waterloo Bridge (north and south.)

Thank you to prologi for letting us use her photo of The World’s End.