Title: Between The Lines

Author: is Hidden Away

Giftee:  Who_la_Hoop

Word Count: Approx. 23,000

Rating: Adult

Pairing: Severus Snape/Harry Potter

Warnings: Massive spoilers for Book 6 & 7, though the story goes happily astray sometime in Book 6.

Disclaimer: Not mine, though some of the dialog, as necessary, is from the published books.

Summary: Harry discovers a secret in his Potions text and a friend in the Half-Blood Prince.

Notes: Based on a plot bunny provided by maeglinyedi, gratefully beta-read by CD

Between the Lines

~~**~~

Harry lay back on his pillows, the battered copy of Advanced Potion-Making propped up on his knees. He'd left his bed curtains open, but the boys were used to his oddness regarding this particular book. Since it was only this one book, and not, say, Goblin Rebellions of the Renaissance, they didn't tease him about it any more. Well, at least not much. The book was very thick and heavy; the writing was wedged in from many different angles, depending on the potion printed on the page.

Harry was squinting at one that might be improvement to Draught of the Living Death, or simply a really cracking recipe for brownies, when Ron came back from his shower.

"You getting dressed?" he asked, toweling his ginger hair.

"Oh, right," Harry replied, dropping his legs to the bed and blinking up at Ron. He started to slide out of bed but the heavy book went toppling off its perch. He made a grab for it, and several pages flipped past as he laid the book back on his bed. He started to close it when he noticed that, unlike most of the early pages, which were crammed full of tiny writing, this one had a single notion in the upper right hand corner.

"Memorius Potion," it said, with a line drawn down the page that faded and spluttered as though the quill had lost nearly all its ink, and a number. "447." Harry stuck one of his own quills in that page and shut the book before rushing off to class.

That evening when he dragged out his Potions text, he'd forgotten why he'd marked the page with a quill, then smiled sheepishly to himself. A memory potion, if that's what it was, might be really useful, he thought. Especially if it could help him memorize the instructions in Advanced Potion-Making itself so he didn't have to keep peering at the instructions during class.

Only when he turned to page 447, it was blank. Harry flipped back to his quill marker making sure he'd got the page right, then turned back to the page in question. Blank. In fact--

Harry frowned. Page 447 was a blank page in between two pages of regular text. Why would someone put a blank page in the middle of a book? Suspicious, he got out his wand and tried several simple spells. The page remained stubbornly free of text. He hadn't forgotten his idea that his dad might have been the original owner of the book. "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good," he muttered over it. Nothing.

But the idea of the Marauder's Map brought about another idea. Snape had tried some spells on it when he'd caught Harry with it in third year.

"Reveal your secret," he tried, touching his wand to the page. A faint ripple of magic trickled up his wand, setting off tiny red sparks and making one of his fingers feel as though he'd slept with it in an awkward position. "You are hiding something," he said, more elated that he'd been right than downcast because he still didn't know how to unlock whatever secret was concealed on the page.

He tried to remember what else Snape had done to prod the Marauder's Map. "I command you to reveal the information you conceal," he intoned, as though that was an actual spell. To his amazement a faint black mark appeared in the upper left hand corner. With growing excitement Harry watched it form letters from an invisible quill, then words, in writing he was already familiar with from his frequent study of his Potions book.

"Property of the Half-Blood Prince."

Harry sat back in his bed and stared at the words. True, he knew no more than he had a few moments ago, but he was on the right track, surely. Mindful of his experience with Tom Riddle's diary, Harry kept his wand on the page, thinking how best to proceed. Unlike Riddle's diary, the words didn't sink away into the page.

"Who is the Half-Blood Prince?" he asked it, feeling a little ridiculous talking to a book.

Words formed again and the hairs on Harry's arm prickled. "Why should I tell you?" it wrote.

Harry cleared his throat. "Because I command it." He tapped his wand on the page as though working a spell.

For a moment he thought nothing would happen. Then, "Looks like it's not your day then, is it?"

Even through his frustration, Harry smiled. It sounded exactly like something the person who'd written "Just shove a bezoar down their throats," would say. Then he thought of something. "How come you answered before when I commanded you?"

"As if anyone could command me in my own book." A pause, then, "Still haven't worked it out, then?"

Harry frowned at it, feeling as though the book was smirking at him. He re-read what the book had written, noticing again that the words remained put, and didn't sink away like his other experience with books that wrote back. Having a sudden inspiration, he laid his wand in the crease of the pages, and fumbled over the side of his bed for some ink and a quill. He thought a moment, then wrote:

"Are you Tom Riddle?"

The reply was quick. "Who?" Then, "Worked it out, did you?"

Instead of responding to the mild taunt, Harry wrote, "It works when I write in it?"

His question was ignored. "How did you get my book, anyway?"

Harry grinned. "Why should I tell you?"

"Because I developed the potion that makes it work. And I'm writing in my book right now. Therefore you must be writing at a different time than me." A pause where the quill seemed to leave a scratchy blotch before going on. "Unless you've developed the Memorius potion too."

Harry wasn't sure how to respond to that. He'd never heard of that particular potion, but he wondered if it might be the same sort of thing his father had used on the Marauder's Map. He decided to be honest, and try to find out.

"I haven't," he wrote. "I've been using your book in Potions. It's dead brilliant. The comments I mean."

"You must be from after my time, then," it wrote. "The book was clean when I got it and no one's ever written back before."

"Won't you tell me then, who the Half-Blood Prince is?" Harry wrote, holding his breath a little as he wrote.

"I am, stupid. This is my book."

Harry didn't like to think his father might go around calling strangers 'stupid' but he supposed he might do the same if he found someone snooping around in his own stuff so he tried again. "I mean, what's your name?"

"You first."

It didn't seem like a request, but just in case, Harry wrote simply, "Harry."

"Hello, Harry."

He waited. "Aren't you going to tell me your name?" he wrote finally.

"Why should I?"

Harry nearly threw down the quill. If this was his father, he was just as arrogant as the memory in Snape's Pensieve suggested. "I didn't know being brilliant in Potions gave you the right to be an arrogant bastard," he wrote, nearly closing the book. But he'd left his wand in the center, and was pulling it out when a reply started scratching out.

"Do you really think I'm brilliant in Potions?"

Harry nodded, forgetting the writer on the other side couldn't see the gesture. Then he wrote, "And jinxes."

"Thank you." Another pause and Harry was beginning to think the conversation, which had gotten down nearly to the bottom of the page, was over. Then the words wavered slightly and seemed to scroll up so that the top few lines disappeared, leaving the last few lines with more space.

"If I tell you my name, will you tell me how you came across my book?"

"Yes," Harry wrote, aware that his heart had started to pound.

"My name is Severus."

The words seemed to magnify themselves on the page as Harry stared at them in horror, sounding out the syllables as they were being written, his brain refusing to accept them until they formed the complete name. It couldn't be--

An old potions book. Brilliant if sarcastic comments scribbled in the margins. Jinxes and hexes that Hermione had warned him might be dark. Snape's book. And Harry had taken it to bed with him. He slammed the book shut and scuttled away from it like a crab left bereft by the sea. He came up fast against his own headboard, still staring at the battered old book lying in the center of his bed.

He felt worse than he'd felt when he'd found out the secrets lurking within Tom Riddle's diary. At least he'd never cherished the old diary the way he'd cherished this book. Never defended the author of the diary as he had the original owner of his potions text. God, he'd even--

Horror oozed into his gut, so thick he could nearly feel it filling his nostrils. Had even thought of the book's owner might be his father, someone he'd actually like. Harry hated Snape, and always would. Extending one leg, Harry pushed the book to the edge of the bed, but couldn't reach far enough to make it go over.

He thought about yelling for Ron to come over and yank the offending book off the bed, but then he imagined having to tell Ron that the prince was really Snape, and Ron would get that look and he probably wouldn't touch it either.

Nearly smacking himself in the forehead, Harry grabbed his wand. The first spell on his lips was Incendio, but he wasn't sure he could get the fire out before waking up his dorm mates or catching his own bed on fire. He settled for a simple Wingardium Leviosa to ease the horrid thing off his bed, then frantically swiped at the duvet to make sure no lingering bits of paper remained. Leaning over the bed he stared at the rubbishy old copy of Advanced Potion-Making before shoving it a few more inches under his bed with the tip of his wand.

When he did finally get to sleep he dreamed he was falling into Tom Riddle's diary again, only it was Snape in the Chamber of Secrets, hanging upside down by his ankle but still laughing at Harry for being so stupid.

Unfortunately the next day was Potions, but Harry was not about to retrieve the book from under his bed. He didn't even bother asking Hermione to share her text, crowding in with Ron, who looked at him questioningly but budged over so they could share with a "you owe me one" expression. They both did horribly on their Boil Remover Potion, and Harry could tell that Professor Slughorn attributed Harry's failure directly to Ron.

He and Ron both lagged behind, but Harry waved Ron on ahead, not ready yet to explain why his textbook was under his bed--and all too likely to remain there. He gathered up his supplies and made his way to the front of the classroom.

"There's no need to apologize, my boy," Slughorn said, eyeing him sympathetically from beneath his brow. "Even your mother had an off day or two. Why, I remember something as simple as Beetle Juice Potion threw her off her game. Never perfected it, as I recall--"

"Er, thanks, professor," Harry said, though he'd had absolutely no intention of apologizing. "I wondered if I could ask you something."

"Of course, of course," Slughorn said, looking like he was about to launch into another reminiscence about Harry's mum asking him something too, so Harry cut in.

"Can you tell me what a Memorius Potion is?" he asked.

Professor Slughorn's mouth closed with a snap. "Memorius Potion? Can't say I've ever heard of one called that," he said, rubbing the side of his chin. "Certainly there are potions for enhancing memory, or suppressing them--is that what you mean?"

Harry shifted his books. "I'm not sure. I heard about this potion and just knew you'd be the one to ask about it." He nearly winced at the suck up, worthy, surely, of Malfoy, but Slughorn did indeed look flattered. "I, er, forgot my textbook today, and I was just wondering if a memory potion might help me, um, remember stuff."

"Well, there is the Memory Enhancement Potion, but I'm certain a bright lad like you mastered that in fourth year." Slughorn looked very much like he wanted to pat Harry on the shoulder, so on the pretext of shifting his books again, Harry took a slight sidestep.

He had a very vague memory of the potion Slughorn was talking about, but that didn't seem like something the pr--Snape would have been concerned about in a sixth year text. "Any others? More complex ones? Say to preserve the memory of someone in a diary for example?"

Slughorn looked intrigued. "Preserve someone's memory in a diary? Odd notion, that, but I can't say I've ever heard of such a thing. Or at least not a potion for it." He studied Harry through shrewd eyes. "Thinking of inventing one? It could be useful, very useful. I remember your mother talked once of inventing--"

But whatever potion his mother had wanted to invent, Harry did not really want to hear about. He thanked Slughorn, and under pretext of making his next class, dashed away.

Only Defense Against the Dark Arts was next and Harry was late. Snape took points, of course, but Harry nearly always lost points in Defense, so at least they'd got that out of the way early. He tried not to look at Snape during the lesson, tried not to think of any version of his most hated professor as a young student, one whom Harry had adm--

Harry looked down at his text again, focusing on the lesson on avoiding counter-hexes. Snape never called on him in Defense unless he was sure Harry didn't know the answer anyway. It wasn't as though Harry didn't know for sure what kind of young man Snape had been. He'd been inside his Pensieve after all. That memory made him squirm in his seat, so he shot a glance at Snape to see if more house points were in the offing, relieved that Snape was criticizing Neville's wand technique.

Unbidden Harry watched Snape's fingers curling around Neville's wand, and he thought of how many times he'd wondered about the prince writing in his text, testing his jinxes and revising the potion instructions. Angry with himself, Harry looked away. He did not admire the young man Snape had been. Even if his own father had bullied him into creating defensive spells. Even if Harry himself had seen what sort of young man he had been.

He must have made some noise shifting in his seat, because Ron looked at him strangely, as though expecting Harry to lose them more house points. Luckily Harry got through the rest of Defense without attracting anymore attention.

He was not so lucky with Ron. "What's with you?" he hissed, as soon as they were out in the hall. "Where's the prince's book?"

Harry schooled his features to look blank. "Just forgot it," he said, wondering how he was going to explain conveniently forgetting it for the rest of the term. Maybe he should look into Memory Altering Potions; that way he could make Ron forget Harry had ever had a second-hand text. He knew Hermione would know, and Harry slunk after Ron glumly, trying to think of a way to destroy the book in various spectacular ways, but always getting stuck on the necessity of having to drag it out from under his bed.

Though he didn't mean to, Harry ducked his head to see if the book was still there before he went to bed. Maybe he'd get lucky and the cleaning elves would have taken it away and--

But the book was still there.

Harry had another bad dream--this time it was his father laughing at him. To his horror, Harry realized he was now the one dangling upside down, feeling as he had during the Tri-Wizard Tournament when he'd been nearly befuddled into thinking the ground was sky. His robes had fallen around his shoulders and his mum was looking thunderclouds at his dad. For some reason, Harry looked around wildly at the laughing students, looking for another familiar face. He was looking for Snape, but couldn't find him, just as his dad said, "Who wants to see me take off Harry's underpants?"

He awoke in a cold sweat and checked to make sure he was still wearing the pants he'd gone to bed in. Softly he addressed the book beneath his bed, which he visualized was like a bomb ticking away under there, the glowing numbers slowly counting down to Harry's doom.

Tomorrow, it's Incendio for you, he thought.

But the morning came and Harry still didn't want to touch the book even though he knew how irrational his antipathy was. He'd touched Tom Riddle's book, hadn't he? And this was no worse, surely. He waited until the dorm had emptied out, and tipped his wand under the bed, sliding the book toward him.

It looked the same as ever, if a little dustier. Harry rubbed his nose, looking around for something to wrap it up in, not knowing how he was going to survive Potions, or explain to Ron, but knowing he had to get rid of the book. Somehow getting rid of the book was tied up in forgetting who the book had actually belonged to, and Harry very much wanted to forget.

When he didn't see any convenient clothing lying around to wrap it up in, he huffed and touched the end of his wand to it. Nothing happened. Suddenly he felt ridiculous. It was just an old book. Just because Snape had once owned it, didn't make it any less just a ratty old book.

Had owned it, written in it, had made Harry laugh with the clever jinxes and hexes, had gotten him top marks in Potions, had--

Stop it, stop it! As though the book were already on fire Harry picked it up with just his fingertips and tossed it on the bed. Again, nothing happened. Nothing except it opened. Harry saw the familiar scrunched up notes in the margin, and moved closer, as though the notes would start writing back to him the way the Memorius Potion page had.

Using his wand, he flipped a few pages, then, overcome with a curiosity he couldn't explain, turned to page 447.

He half expected it to be just as he'd left it, or even blank. Instead he saw at once that several things had changed. Just under the place where the pri--Snape had written "My name is Severus" was a blacked out line. Not just crossed over, but completely obliterated. And just under that was just one word in the prince's handwriting. "Bastard."

Harry looked toward the door, as if he expected Snape to be standing there, watching him though if the head of Slytherin were to suddenly appear in the Gryffindor boy's dorm, there would be more at stake than Harry's Potions' text.

Without thinking it through, he picked up his quill and ink and wrote two words quickly, before he changed his mind, then shut the book and shoved it back under the bed.

That evening he told himself he would just check the brief message and hide the book away again, delaying its fate until he was faced with what to do about Potions. Sure enough, there was a new line beneath his own brief, "I'm sorry," was "You're still a bastard."

His quill was in his hand and he pressed it to his lips once before writing, "I'm really sorry. I shouldn't have left without answering your question." Only this time he didn't shut the book. It took only a moment before a reply appeared.

"So?"

He read up a few lines, skipping the blacked over line. "I got your book from my Potions master," he wrote, in answer to the question left hanging. "I didn't have one when I got to school, and your book was in the classroom."

There was a pause, and Harry felt himself tense up, hoping that the prince, young Snape, didn't ask for more of an explanation. "I wonder why I left it there," came the reply.

"I don't know," Harry answered honestly. Then, before the person on the other end, wherever that other end was, undertook that line of questioning again, Harry wrote, "Did you invent the Memorius Potion?"

"So, you're curious again, is that it?" came the prince's response.

Harry could practically hear the sneer in the words. "No one here has ever heard of it," he wrote. He waited but there was no immediate response. As before, the words wavered slightly and edged up the page, leaving more room at the bottom. Still, no response. He tried another tack. "It's really clever."

"I know." The prince's reply was terse.

"How does it work?" Harry wrote. He was rather forcibly reminded of who he was writing to when the reply came back.

"Why should I tell a bastard like you?"

Harry sat back on his bed, quill hanging limply from his fingers. This wasn't the prince he was writing to--not his friend. This was Snape, his most hated teacher.

The only advantage he had, then, was that Snape didn't know that, though that point made a lot more sense in Harry's head.

"Fine," he wrote, "Look, I'm not asking for the bloody recipe; I just want to know how this thing is working." He stared at the words, thinking about closing the book and shoving it back under the bed, but it might be too late for that. Then he added one more question.

"You haven't put a piece of your soul in here, have you?"

The response was immediate. "Are you mad? What sort of dunderhead would put a piece of their soul anywhere but where it belongs?"

Harry was just about to respond with a vehement denial when the words began scratching furiously across the page again. "Have you put a piece of your soul in here?" the words asked, and Harry could just picture Snape peering at him suspiciously.

"No!" he wrote. Then underlined it. "It's just something I heard about once."

Almost, Harry could hear the writer on the other side sniffing in disapproval. "I don't want anything like that in my book," it said, as if that settled the matter.

"Your book?" Harry wrote. "I think it's my book now."

"You ungrateful beggar," the book wrote.

Furiously Harry dipped his quill and wrote, "For all you know, you could be dead in my time." He resisted the urge to underline the word 'dead' maliciously.

For a moment he wondered if the prince--if Snape--had closed the textbook. Then words began scratching themselves across the page. "There are some boys here who've already tried to kill me once. Maybe they succeed and that's why you've got my book."

Suddenly Harry wanted to write back that young Snape wasn't dead, wanted to reassure him somehow. But telling the prince that he'd lived to grow up into a cruel sadistic prick would only lead to questions Harry didn't want to answer.

Before Harry could think of a way out of the hole he'd dug with his quill and his cruelty, more words appeared. "I have to go." Just that, and no more, though Harry waited to see if any more words appeared.

He lay awake a long time. He hadn't even meant to write in the bloody book again--how had he allowed himself to go so far, even being deliberately cruel? No amount of, "It's only Snape"'s assuaged his conscience. He remembered vividly the Snape he'd seen in the Pensieve last year, so very young and alone. And just as much of a prick, something inside him whispered.

Blowing a breath over his face that blew his fringe up, Harry climbed out of bed, digging once more for his quill. He wrote, "Why did they try to kill you?" He wasn't expecting an answer, so after waiting a few moments to make sure, he closed the book and finally managed to sleep.

He checked for an answer before dashing off to breakfast, but his words were still the last ones on the page. Since he had Potions that afternoon, he stuffed the book in his backpack. He didn't bother checking for a reply before class, but, having his text back, got high praise for his Concealing Potion, thanks to the prince's notes scribbled in the margin.

"You found it!" Ron whispered.

"Yeah," Harry said, through he didn't go into any details with Hermione scowling at them both. It wasn't until he was packing up his things, letting Slughorn's praise flow over him, that he flipped Advanced Potions Making to page 447. There was something written under his own question. Harry shut the book hard without reading it, afraid that if Ron saw it, or worse, Hermione, that he'd have to do more explaining than he was ready for.

He made sure he had his quill and bottle of ink stashed away under his pillow before he went to bed, finally pulling open the book.

"Because I tried to find out their secrets," the prince had written.

Harry felt a small flush of triumph and wrote back, "What makes you think their secrets were any of your business?" Since it was late, he didn't quite expect an answer, but apparently young Snape was as much of a night owl as his elder counterpart.

"Because they made sure I knew they had secrets worth knowing," appeared under Harry's question. "It was a trap."

Harry worried his lower lip, trying to figure out a way to get more information, without revealing how much he already knew. "You're so clever," he wrote, "Couldn't you have got away?"

The reply was swift, and to Harry's eyes, angry. "I was outnumbered!"

Harry was trying to figure out a reply when another sentence scratched itself on the page. "Why do you care?"

Because you're alive and my father is dead, Harry thought, sitting back in the bed and staring at the book. Finally he wrote, "I'm just curious. Do you think we've ever met?"

"I don't know anyone named Harry," the prince wrote. "There's a Harriet in my house, a first year."

Despite himself, Harry laughed softly. "I'm not a girl," he wrote. "And I've never heard of anyone else called 'Severus'." Which was perfectly true, he told himself. Aside from Snape, he'd never heard the name before.

"Mum wanted a proper wizard name. After she married my dad."

Harry licked the end of his quill thoughtfully. Finally he wrote, "Your dad wasn't a wizard?"

The reply, when it appeared was underlined. "Half-Blood Prince, stupid." There was a pause, then, "Mum was named Prince before she got married."

It was weird to think of Snape having a mother, let alone being ordinary enough to call her 'Mum'. "I thought all Slytherins were purebloods," he wrote back huffily, not liking being called stupid.

The reply was so slow in coming that Harry thought young Snape had gone off to sleep. Then, in careful letters, "How did you know I was a Slytherin?"

Harry's anger had made him careless. He thought a moment and wrote, "Only Slytherins bother about bloodlines anymore."

Luckily the return words weren't long in coming. "What House are you in?"

Harry decided to be honest, lest he trip himself up again. Even as a boy, Snape was probably suspicious enough to quiz him on what color the carpets were in the Slytherin boy's dorms or something if he tried to lie.

With a flourish, he wrote, "Gryffindor."

The response was immediate. "A bloody Gryffindor is using my book?"

Harry wished there was a magical means of writing a smirk on paper. He wrote, "My book now," and closed it quickly and went to sleep, tonight without dreaming at all.

The next time he had Defense Against the Dark Arts, Harry sat in the back. Though that was not unusual, his thoughts today were. He wondered if Snape's mum was still alive. He wrinkled his nose, trying to picture a happy Snape family Christmas, complete with festive swags of deadly nightshade and a nip of arsenic in the eggnog.

It was no use. Snape--this Snape--had never been a boy. He must have sprung fully formed out of rooks and ravens from some dark defective dream.

A shiver went through him and he looked around, realizing suddenly that Snape was no longer at the front of the classroom at the same time that a silky voice sounded beside his ear. "Perhaps, Mr. Potter, you would care to share whatever is amusing you with the rest of the class?"

"Just thinking how glad I am that class is nearly over," Harry said quickly, eyeing the huge hourglass at the front of the room just as the sands ran into the bottom and the bell sounded. He gathered up his books and scrambled out of the room in the hurried exodus but didn't miss Snape, arms crossed and glaring, watching him leave.

He checked his Advanced Potion-Making text before dinner. Underneath his own remark, something had been blacked over. Harry grabbed a quill and wrote, "Can't take a little cheek?"

No answer came back right away so he added, "Going to dinner, be back soon."

When he got back to his room he saw that he had a reply. "I don't call rubbing my nose in it, cheek."

Harry frowned, not sure what he meant, so he wrote, "Rubbing your nose in what?" This time he didn't have to wait for his answer.

"I can't think of any other reason why you'd have my book except that I must be dead wherever you are."

Harry suppressed a brief flare of contrition. "That's just morbid," he replied. "I can think of loads of reasons you might have left it behind at school."

A blot ran briefly down the page, then was swiped away before the next line appeared. "Like what?"

Harry, who hadn't actually thought it through, licked the end of his quill again before writing, "Suppose you're a really rich and famous wizard now and you've donated all your books to charity."

"I wouldn't donate this one. It was my mum's when she was at school."

Harry's eyes narrowed thoughtfully. "Did she invent the Memorius Potion?"

The reply, not unexpectedly, was acerbic, "Don't you think I'm smart enough? I'm loads smarter than you."

Almost…almost Harry wrote something to refute his earlier assertion that the prince might not be dead. He suspected that Snape had a rather morbid streak and didn't want to aggravate it further.

"Don't get huffy," he wrote. "It's pretty advanced magic."

The reply was grudging. "My mum did teach me a lot of stuff before I came to school but everything in my book I've invented on my own." There was a pause and Harry wondered whether the prince nibbled on the end of his own quill as well. "Have you told anyone else about it?"

It was easy to be honest. "Just about some of the other spells in the book. Not this one."

"I'm still working on it," the prince wrote. "Not that it isn't really good already."

It sounded so much like something Snape would say, the real Snape, that Harry laughed.

"You okay there, Harry?"

For one wild moment he thought it was the prince's voice that had spoken, that perhaps the Memorius Potion could do more than enhance writing. Harry whirled toward the sound to see Ron standing in the door.

"Yeah, sorry," he said, as Ron crossed to his own bed.

"Good thing it was only me," Ron said, glancing at the heavy book in Harry's lap. "Laughing at homework is, you know, sort of weird."

"I won't do it again," Harry said sheepishly. Ron didn't exactly look convinced. He looked down again at the book in Harry's lap and Harry resisted the urge to close it. Instead Ron pulled out his own Transfigurations text and settled back on his pillows.

"Why are you still working on it?" Harry wrote, but almost before he got the question out, a sentence was coming back.

"What took you so long?"

"One of the boys in my dorm came in," Harry wrote.

"How many in your year?"

"Five," Harry replied.

"There are twelve in mine," the prince wrote.

Harry had often wondered why there were so many unused classrooms and an abundance of squashy armchairs in the common room, until that summer he'd seen the Order of the Phoenix photo and seen how many others in his parents' year had lost their lives.

"It must be nice to have so much privacy," the prince went on. "I could get so much more done if I had a room of my own."

"What are you trying to do?"

"For starters, I want to use the Memorius Potion on two things so they can remember each other and not just the writing on one. "

Harry thought about this for a moment, then wrote, "Isn't that what we're doing now? Writing back and forth?"

"In the same book, though," the prince replied. "I've been trying to charm composition books and lecture notes to do the same thing but they don't work properly."

Harry kept writing as Neville and Seamus and Dean wandered up to their beds, studying in between replies until his quill sputtered and he looked round to realized he was the only one still awake.

"Nox," he wrote, and closed the book.

Harry thought about what the prince was working on, the potion to use in a composition book, when he probably should have been paying attention in class. Thinking how cool it would be if he, Harry, could come up with the solution Snape was searching for and present it to him, he had several scenarios of oh-so-casually presenting the prince with just exactly what was missing from the spell. Suddenly he felt an elbow in his ribs and looked around. He hadn't followed along in Transfiguration, but hoped Ron had so he could copy his notes.

They filed out of the classroom with the other students, and Ron gestured down their shortcut, down a deserted corridor to avoid clumps of girls angling to get Harry to invite them to Slughorn's party.

"Looks like you dozed off in class," Ron said, once they reached the empty corridor. "Stay up late?" Ron swept aside the tapestry guarding their private short cut, interrupting two students--two students who very much looked like they didn't want to be interrupted.

"Oi! Do you mind?"

Harry blinked. It was Ginny and Dean, who, until he and Ron had come along, had been snogging in the out-of-the-way alcove. He wondered how Ginny's marks were in Potions, whether there might be a way to ask her about the prince's potion without alerting her why he wanted to know, and wasn't Dean looking awfully embarrassed? Harry turned to point this out to Ron, perhaps make a joke out of it, when he noticed Ron's face was beet red. For that matter, Ginny looked angry enough to send off sparks.

Perhaps he'd better ask Ginny about her Potions marks some other time. He grabbed Ron by the arm and started dragging him off down the corridor. "Let me go," Ron was protesting, as they took the turn that would lead them back to Gryffindor tower.

"Look, she's got a right to snog whoever she wants, hasn't she?"

Ron finally shook off Harry's arm. "She's…my sister," he said, as if that explained everything.

"At least she wasn't snogging Pansy," Harry said slyly, watching as Ron's face screwed up with horror.

"Harry! That's just--" He pantomimed being ill, tongue lolling out for effect.

"Yeah, you're right," Harry said, pushing open the portrait hole. "Be terrible if she was dating a Slytherin." He ran for the stairs to the boy's dorms, ignoring Ron's outraged howls.

Once safely in his bed, he pulled out his Potions text, and opened it to the diary page, checking in while he did his homework, trying to look innocent when Ron finally made it up the stairs.

"Borrow your Transfiguration notes?" he asked when Ron glared at him.

"Yeah, 'course," Ron said, obviously still grumpy as he sat on the edge of his bed. "Look, you know it's not because Dean is, well, you know--"

Harry sat up on his own bed, tucking his legs up under him. "I never thought it was."

"It's just that she's my sister," Ron said, in such obvious distress that Harry felt sorry for him. Then he brightened and Harry felt his stomach clench. "Say, mate, you're not bad looking--why don't you make a play for her? She's always liked you and you'd, you know, respect her honor."

Harry's sympathy evaporated. "Ron! She's your sister!"

"That's what I thought you'd say," Ron said and they sighed in commiseration.

~~**~~

Harry shoved a quill into the diary page as he always did, then thumbed through the rest of his Potions text. "Say, you don't know a good tummy ache remedy besides a potion that takes three hours to brew, do you?" he wrote.

The reply came back quickly. "Do you have any ginger root?"

Harry looked in his Potions kit and wrote back. "I've got the dried stuff."

"Suck on it."

"Hey!"

"No, you dolt, ginger is good for the stomach. That's why it's in the bases for so many potions that have to be taken internally--protects the stomach while the rest of the potion works."

"Oh, hey, thanks, sorry."

"Don't mention it."

They'd become, if not cordial, then at least less adversarial, in the weeks that followed, save that the prince seemed to revel in calling him names. They did their homework together nearly every night now. Harry was delighted to find that the prince wasn't all that good in Transfiguration and bartered Potion help for Harry's. There was a pause, while Harry chewed on the spicy ginger root.

"So, why does your stomach feel bad?" the prince wrote.

"Hogsmeade weekend," Harry replied, stretching out on his bed with his head toward the bottom, propping the book up with a pillow. "Ate too much at Honeydukes."

"You had a Hogsmeade weekend?"

"Yeah, why?"

"I was in Hogsmeade today," came the reply and Harry got a funny feeling, as though pigeons had landed on his grave. "Didn't eat too many sweets though," the prince went on smugly.

It was something he'd noticed before, how night and day and days of the week seemed to correspond whenever they were writing.

"What's the date there?" the prince wrote after a long, breathless moment.

"Just after Christmas," Harry said as he wrote.

"Here too." Then, "What year?"

"1996," Harry wrote. There was another long pause.

"You're joking," the prince wrote finally.

"No, why would I?"

"That's nearly twenty years away. You could be my son or something."

Harry felt his stomach clench in a way that had nothing to do with his tummy ache. "I don't think so."

"Well, not really, of course," came the response, "I don't think I'm going to have any children. You're…longer away than I thought."

Harry sometimes forgot that the prince--that young Snape--knew so much less about him than Harry did about Snape. He wasn't quite sure what to write back, chewing on the end of his quill, then realized the prince hadn't written anything either.

"You still there?" he wrote at last, feeling weird about the silence.

"Yes," came the immediate response. "Just…thinking."

Harry didn't want the prince to puzzle out exactly who he was--he'd made up all manner of fictitious last names in case Snape got too inquisitive. But aside from their initial exchange of names, there'd been little in the way of personal information--a state Harry suspected the prince was as loathe to break as he was.

"Why don't you think you'll have any children?" Harry wrote, not liking the continued blankness of the page.

"Oh," the prince replied, "don't like children much."

You can say that again, Harry thought with a smirk. "Any brothers or sisters?" Harry asked, not sure why he was suddenly curious.

"No, you?"

"Me either."

There was another long silence. If they'd been in the same room, talking instead of writing, the silence would have been awkward. He'd rather have the prince hurling insults at him than this puzzling silence.

"I don't…like girls much either," the prince wrote and for a few moments, Harry was so glad that he was writing that he didn't realize the import of the sentence.

"I think…" Harry started to write then stopped. "I think I might not either." It had the air of a confession, though the words themselves were innocuous. "I went out with a girl once but it wasn't like I thought. It was…weird."

"Did you snog her?"

"Yeah," Harry wrote, "A couple of times. After the way everyone talked about it, I thought I'd like it but it was just odd." He thought about finding Ginny kissing Dean and had a brief flash of himself in that corridor, only instead of Ginny, it was Harry kissing Dean, and Ron's horrified face at finding out his best mate-- He shuddered. "How about you," he asked, fairly, "Ever snog a girl?"

The reply was slower in coming than his own had been. "Sort of," the prince wrote. "A girl kissed me--does that count?"

"I think it does, yeah," Harry wrote, trying to imagine the angry young Snape he'd seen in the Pensieve ever being kissed by anyone. "Did you like it?"

"She kissed me on the cheek first, then laughed and asked why I didn't hex her for it," Snape wrote. "I lied and told her I'd been kissed lots of times and that I really couldn't tell if she was any good with just a kiss on the cheek."

Harry couldn't help it, he laughed. "You didn't!"

"I did."

Even with just the words on paper, Harry could feel a smirk radiating from them. "Was she any good at it?" he couldn't resist writing.

"Passable. Boys are better, I think."

Harry pounced, quill scratching furiously across the page. "You think?"

There was a pause before the prince wrote, "How many boys have you kissed, then?"

Harry went, "Ha!" out loud, then wrote back. "I asked you first."

"You haven't asked me anything," came the reply, and if words could sniff with disapproval, these did.

"Okay," Harry wrote, "If you think you like boys, why did you kiss that girl?"

"To see if I liked it, dunderhead," the prince wrote back. "Okay, your turn. How many?"

"None yet," Harry admitted. "But I want to."

"Would you kiss--"

The words stopped and Harry waited, but the quill started scratching them out.

"Hey!" he wrote quickly, adding another exclamation point. "What were you going to ask?"

"Nothing. It was a stupid question," came the prince's reply.

Harry scratched his chin with his quill. "Was it about me?"

"You're stupid now, are you?" the prince wrote back.

"Hey!" Harry said, reading back over the last few lines.

"What?"

"Yeah," he wrote simply, holding his breath for a moment.

"Yeah, what?" the prince wrote, but Harry thought he knew.

"I would."

The pause was longer this time. "Really?"

"I said I would, didn't I? Wouldn't you like me to?"

"Yes."

Harry stared at the single word, seeing the young man Snape was as he was writing. Had he just admitted that he'd like to kiss Snape? After he'd put away the text book it was a long time before he got to sleep.

~~**~~

It was only a few days later that he found Draco Malfoy crying in the girl's bathroom, and only a few moments to do the most reckless thing he'd ever done in his life, cast an unknown spell to defend himself. When Draco lay bleeding and Snape had swept in, Harry had never been more relieved. It wasn't until Snape returned from taking Malfoy to the Infirmary, that cold dread closed over him.

"Bring me your schoolbag," said Snape softly, shutting the bathroom door, "and all of your schoolbooks. All of them."

When Harry didn't move, Snape closed the space between them, water splashing onto Harry's trainers. "In my office, ten minutes. Go!"

Harry ran. He already knew he was going to disobey, already knew what he had to do. He ran as fast as he could and collected his Potions book then ran all the way down to the dungeons to Snape's office.

Snape held out one hand, his eyes narrowing suspiciously when Harry handed him a single book.

"You don't need the rest," Harry said, heart pounding from exertion and terror and remorse. "This is the one you want."

"This is--" Snape said, flipping through it. He looked up, his eyes narrowing"How did you get this?"

Harry explained how Slughorn had given it to him, and how he'd decided to keep it after his new one had arrived. Snape seemed to be listening, but he was still paging through the book, pausing sometimes to read the notes in the margins.

"How did you discover the Sectumsempra spell? It isn't anywhere near the Sixth Year lessons," he asked, once he'd come across the page Harry had folded over.

"Are you kidding? I've looked through the whole book." Snape's knuckles seemed to whiten on the edges of the textbook. "Especially page 447." He felt like he'd been holding his breath for a long time.

"You!"

Harry's wand was still in his pocket. He wasn't sure he'd even have the heart to reach for it when Snape hexed him. "Me."

Snape's whole demeanor changed, but at least he didn't look murderous. The pale fingers flipped to the page in question, reading the last few lines, written last night as Harry had gone over his Potions homework with the prince--with…It was an eerie feeling to think he'd been discussing anything calmly and in a friendly manner with the man before him, no matter the gulf of years between them.

The thin shoulders straightened, pulling Snape up to his full height. "You should know that there are very few things that go on in this school of which the headmaster is not aware."

"What?" Harry said, utterly confused. Was Snape trying to tell him that Dumbledore knew about Harry's--Snape's--book?

"So, if your intention was to get me to reveal something about myself--something you think you know--I must tell you, I'm quite certain he already knows. Your little plan has failed." Snape closed the book with a snap, but he didn't give it back to Harry.

"You think I planned this? I told you, I didn't even think I was going to be able to take Potions this year, thanks to you being a sadistic prat with a grudge against me." His temper, ever on edge these days, flared in his chest.

"A grudge that's gone on for much longer than I ever dreamed, apparently," Snape said and then he did something Harry was not expecting--he turned away.

Harry stared at the erect carriage, the slight greasy spot on the back of his robes just where his hair ended. "You--you have a grudge against me from the book, too?" he asked. "I thought you liked me when we were writing. I mean, you insulted me often enough, but you always wrote back."

"He stopped writing. I thought it was because--well, never mind." Snape spoke without looking at him. Harry could tell that his hands were still holding the book, and from the angle of his head, he thought Snape must be staring down at it.

"Because you're queer?" Harry said, suddenly realizing what Snape was going on about with the headmaster. "I can't exactly turn you in, can I, when my confession is on the same page."

Snape made a dismissive gesture, turning partly back around and glaring at Harry. "You're a young man, and young men are forgiven such indiscretions."

"So were you, when you told me. And if Professor Dumbledore already knows you're bent, why are you worried?"

Finally Snape put down the Potions text on a workbench. "I am not worried, Potter," he said, and his manner had changed again, to one of, if Harry was not mistaken, weariness. He wondered if the healing spell he'd performed on Malfoy had taken a lot of out of him. "I have and will have greater transgressions to be forgiven." He sank onto the bench beside the book. "So, this explains your Potions marks, but not your intentions. You must have realized to whom you were writing. You can't know many people with my first name."

"I don't," Harry said, feeling, well, not quite as good as when he'd taken the Felix potion, but feeling instinctively that he needed to be honest, that Snape would see through any lie he manufactured. "I knew it was you. I thought…at first, that I could ask you about my parents, find out more about them."

"My Harry never asked me about--of course." His eyes narrowed again, but Harry didn't feel the ripple of Legilimency through his brain. "You knew I'd work it out, that I'd think it was your father writing to me." Harry nodded. Almost he felt as if he was on trial again at the Ministry, alone against charges he had no wish to refute, knowing his own motives had been, if not pure, then at least satisfactorily unmuddied.

"Why on earth would you think the ramblings of a sixteen year old, a sixteen year old who hated them both, would be any good to you?" Snape asked, his familiar sneer back in place.

"I couldn't think of any way to ask," Harry admitted, "Any way that wouldn't have made you suspect my dad of being the one writing to you."

A faint smile played around the edges of Snape's mouth, gone almost before it had begun. "The thought did cross my mind. I wasn't so smitt--engrossed in our conversations that I wasn't alert to the possibilities."

Harry took a step forward, barely lifting his feet as he shuffled closer. "I had a crush on you too," he said, very grateful that his voice didn't crack.

Snape looked up immediately. "You had a crush on him," he snapped. His fingers, that had been resting on the worn cover of the book, leapt away as if burnt.

"I wrote my last entry yesterday," Harry said, taking another small step closer. "In fact, if Malfoy hadn't tried to Crucio me, I'd be writing in it right now."

Harry knew it was coming and didn't even attempt to block it. "Draco tried to use an Unforgivable on you?" Snape asked, rifling through the memory without finesse, as if realizing that Harry wasn't blocking it.

"He tried," Harry said, with a grim expression.

"That does not give you the right to attempt murder on him," Snape said, withdrawing from Harry's mind. "However, the headmaster will have the final decision on your expulsion." He sighed, still looking and sounding to Harry, who, over the years had unwillingly formed a habit of Snape-watching, tired. "Though I wouldn't pack my trunks just yet. Like as not, he'll insist on keeping you at school for your own protection." He waved vaguely in Harry's direction. "Dismissed. I'll give you the details of your detention after you've met with him."

"What?" Harry said, astonished at the abruptness of his dismissal. He thought it unlikely Dumbledore would expel him either, but hated to face the disappointment on the headmaster's face when he confessed. "Can--can I have my book back?"

Snape's expression was beatific. "It's my book, Potter."

Harry huffed into his fringe. "What are you going to do with it?" He had no hope of getting through Potions without it, even supposing Hermione was still speaking to him after she found out he'd used one of the prince's--one of Snape's--curses.

"I'm going to burn it," Snape said. He wasn't touching the book now, hand sliding down to his wand pocket as if already contemplating how hot the fire had to be.

"What? Why?" Involuntarily he took a step forward, his knees brushing against Snape's legs, but knowing he had no chance of snatching the book from the bench without being hexed solid.

"I should have done it long ago," Snape said, not looking up at Harry, but not looking at the book either.

"Tell me then," Harry said, hating the desperate edge in his voice. "Did I ever write back, after last night?"

Shaking his head, Snape said, "No, he never did."

"You can't burn it," Harry said. "It was your mum's. Did you ever figure out a way to write to her using the Memorius Potion?" He knew he should take his dismissal and go, but his curiosity was too strong.

"Not before she died," Snape said, sliding back on the bench so that their legs were no longer touching. "She would not have approved of me working on it, of anyone knowing things about me, about her."

This close, Harry could see the lines etched into Snape's face, the ones that disappeared when he was smirking. "Don't worry, I don't know all that much more about you than I did, except you're incredibly morbid." His own smirk slipped out before he could stop it. "Oh, and that you're gay."

All the weariness seemed to flee Snape's frame as he straightened up, eyes nearly level with Harry's despite the fact that he was sitting down. "There isn't anything even remotely gay about me, Potter--"

Harry's mouth dropped open, about to give about a hundred examples to the contrary if he could have Advanced Potion-Making back for ten seconds when Snape went on.

"Just because I prefer men as my sexual partners."

Harry had never wanted to hit anyone so badly so he did the next best thing. He swayed forward, lips brushing against Snape's. There was a moment when he thought he was going to get away with it, when surprise would let Snape kiss back, even for a moment but very quickly that moment passed. Snape curled his fingers around both of Harry's wrists, pushing him upright.

"I said men, not boys," Snape said, not releasing Harry's hands.

"You know just as much about me, things I've never told anyone else," Harry said. He didn't try to pull away.

"That's usually the point people stop kissing, not when they start," Snape said, one finger rubbing against the pulse in Harry's wrist. Harry wasn't even sure he was aware of what his finger was doing.

"I don't want to stop," Harry said, trying to step forward again, thwarted by a foot against his.

"I know exactly what you want, and I didn't get it at your age either," Snape, not looking away. Harry didn't look away either, seeing again the young man Snape had been, the young man in the Pensieve, face unlined, but eyes still the same fathomless black.

Boldly, Harry stepped over his foot, pushing squarely into the open V of Snape's legs. "Come on, you can't tell me you aren't--" He thought he could say it, but found, when faced with the slight crinkling at the corner of Snape's eyes, that he couldn't.

"The state of my erection has nothing to do with this conversation," Snape said, releasing Harry's hands at last.

Something fluttered in Harry's chest. "I'm old enough," he said, sounding, even to his own ears, a little petulant. "I wasn't happy about having a crush on you after we started writing, but I--I couldn't help it."

"Your crush will wither; they all do. And there's something I have to do that will turn your boyish feelings back into hatred." The awful certainty of his words tightened in Harry's belly.

"Does it have anything to do with what Malfoy is up to?" Harry asked, not certain what he would do if Snape denied that Draco was up to anything.

"It is the same task, ordered by different masters," Snape said, and the weariness was back in his voice.

"Dumbledore does know," Harry said, feeling indignation rising up in his chest. "He told me he didn't."

"The Dark Lord would peel your mind open like an orange for the secret of this," Snape said, his voice gone low and cold. "Oh yes, the headmaster knows and won't tell you. Aren't you sorry you didn't try harder to learn to block your mind?" This was not the prince, Harry reminded himself, feeling as if he'd written goodbye to a friend he knew he'd never see again.

"Dumbledore could have taught me himself, after you failed," Harry spat, breathing hard down into Snape's upturned face.

"He believes you too pure, too good to learn it properly," Snape sneered. "I wonder what he'd say if he could see you mewling between my legs like a kitten?"

Stung, Harry stepped back. "What is it that Malfoy is trying to do?" he asked, not really expecting an answer. "If he's trying to kill me, he's not paying very much attention to me to do it."

Snape stood up, suddenly very close to Harry, but Harry didn't back away any further, even if he had to look up. "No, Potter, the Dark Lord is going to save you for himself."

"If not me, then what on earth is so important that Malfoy is crying--" He felt himself go pale, literally felt the blood draining from his face. "No--not." The idea--no, the certainty of his knowledge was too vast. "It's impossible."

There was neither confirmation nor denial in Snape's face. "The Dark Lord knows it's impossible. That's why he's asked Draco to do it."

Harry felt like running up to the headmaster's office and blurting out what he knew, what Snape had confirmed by not denying it. But he was learning more about what was going on around him than Dumbledore trusted him with, and had no intention of not trying to learn more. "We--we have to stop him," he said indignantly.

"What do you think we've been doing all term?" Snape said, running a hand through his hair.

"Wait--you said, the same task, only different masters," Harry said, the same sort of horror filling him as when he'd realized what the Sectumsempra curse did. "If Voldemort's told Malfoy to kill--then, that means Dumbledore's asking you to--"

He felt the room spinning, like a broom gone out of control. Strong arms gripped his shoulders, but he shook them off. "I won't let you," he snarled up into Snape's face.

"If Draco fails, and I do not, then Dumbledore's death will be in vain," Snape said, and there was an edge to his voice that Harry had never heard in a human voice.

"That's mad!" Harry shouted, wheeling away from Snape, sorry now that he'd ever thought the prince was his friend, or that he'd ever thought Sna--the prince could be more.

"Listen to me, Potter," Snape said, coming up behind him. "You've seen the curse that's killing him." Snape yanked Harry's arm, hard enough to hurt, and stared at his hand as though it too was blackened and burnt.

"Let Malfoy do it then," Harry said, feeling desperate and wishing somehow that he'd never opened the prince's book, never tried any of the spells within it.

"Dumbledore does not want, nor do I, for Draco to become a murderer." He let go of Harry's hand, but they were still very close. "What would you do, Potter, if Voldemort told you to kill the headmaster and if you refused, he would kill Mr. Weasley or Miss Granger for your disobedience? He has threatened Draco's parents, and Draco himself, should he fail." He turned away again. "And I have sworn that I will do it when Draco cannot."

They stood unmoving for long moments, with only the sounds of ragged breaths between them. Harry stared at the rigid back, hardly aware of when he started moving toward it. He didn't stop until he was close enough to feel the edge of Snape's coat brushing his legs.

"What if…" He paused and thought a moment. "What if you gave me the book back and I write in it to the prince, to your younger self, I mean, about what's going to happen?" Excitement quickened his tongue. "You could change everything. Maybe even convince Professor Dumbledore never to open that ring…."

Snape was already shaking his head, turning slowly around to face Harry. "We risk destroying anything good that has already happened. That kind of knowledge, in the hands on my sixteen year old self--" He shuddered. "I was already well on my way to becoming a Death Eater. Who knows what havoc I could wreak with that kind of power. I could tell the Dark Lord what would happen if he tried to kill your parents, convince him to choose someone else, even ignore the Prophecy entirely."

The hope that had bloomed in Harry faded. "I've got to do something," he said plaintively. "Can't I even try to stop you from becoming a Death Eater?"

Snape's face was a smooth mask. "Nothing could have stopped me--not even a boy I had a crush on."

They stared at each other, as Harry gradually became aware of the nearly non-existent space between them. He could tell when their proximity impinged on the private hell inside Snape's brain for his eyes darkened. "You should go."

Harry nodded, not certain what to say, even if he could speak. Then he turned away, not sure where he found the strength. "I won't tell anyone--about any of this," he said, not looking back at Snape.

And he didn't. Not McGonagall, who lectured him on the shamefulness of his actions in the bathroom, and assigned him detention every Saturday until the end of term. Harry, who knew he deserved it, merely nodded until she added, "With Professor Snape."

"No! Professor, please--" he tried, but her look was unforgiving. The worst thing about his detentions was the fact that the big match against Ravenclaw was coming up on the very first Saturday. He took Ginny aside and asked her to play Seeker, patting her confidently on the arm.

He sat in the back during Defense lessons as always, but Snape didn't pick on him, or take points, or even look at him at all.

He reported for detention with renewed determination--though to accomplish what, he wasn't exactly sure. But at least Snape would have to look at him.

He missed having his Potions textbook, missed being able to figure out how to make potions correctly, missed leafing through it, smiling at the odd comments. Most of all, of course, he missed writing back and forth with the prince.

"You know," he said, after Snape finished explaining his task, copying over old misdeeds of his father and godfather, "this isn't exactly on par with our previous detentions." He gestured toward the stacked up boxes. "I mean, it's not as exciting as sorting rotten flobberworms without gloves."

"Forgive me for not properly anticipating your excitement level, Potter," Snape said, but his sneer was not as convincing as it would have been a week ago.

After an hour or so of sifting through his father and godfather's past detentions, Harry realized that he'd stopped straining for noises--noises that he knew logically he wouldn't be able to hear in the dungeons anyway--from the Quidditch match. He'd have to trust that his team would do its best and that Ginny, who was as close to him as a sister, would also do her best in his place. With all that Snape had given him to think about, he couldn't help feeling a little guilty that he still cared about Quidditch at all.

He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. When he put them back on, Snape, still bent over his desk, came into sharp focus. Neither of them had spoken again. Harry stretched slowly and when Snape still didn't look up, stood and wind milled his arms a few times.

Finally Snape looked up, scowling. "Am I to be treated to your entire physical fitness regime?"

"Just stretching a little," Harry said. "My hand is cramped with all that copying. I think I've got the point that my dad wasn't exactly an altar boy, in case you want to let me go early." He didn't really have any hope of any such thing occurring, but it never hurt to try.

"No, he was not, and no, you may not." Snape threw down his quill impatiently.

"And I suppose you were a saint at school," Harry said, not quite certain he wouldn't get hexed for his cheek. Leaning over the desk, he pushed the "P" boxes aside until he found the "S" boxes. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Snape rising from his desk but rifled through the Smiths and the Smothers until he came to the Snapes.

"Let's see what you got up to," Harry said, holding up the first card with Snape's name on it. "Looks like a detention for--" He squinted then grinned. "Snogging after curfew." He heard Snape moving and turned, shielding the card with his body. "I think you told me about this," he said, "Or the prince did. You didn't tell me you got detention for it."

"Give me that."

Protectively Harry brought the card closer, still trying to make out the faded writing. "Let's see who the lucky girl--or boy--was," he said. "Narcissa Black," Harry sounded out, grateful at least that it hadn't been his mum but wrinkling his nose all the same. "Ew! You snogged Draco's mum!" In his disgust he let his guard down just as Snape snatched the card out of his fingers. Before Harry could grab it back, it disappeared into the folds of Snape's robes.

"Would you rather it had been your mum," Snape said snidely, "Or perhaps…your dad?" Harry suddenly felt a little nauseous. "Not so anxious to learn about my misdeeds now, are you?" Snape went on with a smirk that Harry wanted to slap off--or kiss off--his face.

"More than ever," he growled, ducking under the outstretched arm and diving for the card box.

"Give me that," Snape said, more forcefully this time, arm thrusting beside Harry's, just missing the box.

"What is it you don't want me to see?" Harry said, whirling around, the box clutched close to his chest. Snape pressed in against his back from shoulders to knees, pushing Harry against the desk.

"Anything else about me," Snape said, fumbling around Harry's waist for the box, missing the box, but brushing against Harry's legs.

Harry could feel Snape's breath on his neck and the reaction was so horrifyingly arousing that he almost dropped the box. "Fuck!" he groaned.

"I think we agreed that was not an option," Snape said, hand wiggling under Harry's elbow, making another play for the box but only succeeding, as far as Harry was concerned, in making Harry's condition worse. Or better--his cock couldn't decide.

Harry groaned. "If you're trying to get me to think of something else besides sex, this isn't really helping."

"The very last thing I'm trying to achieve is to help you, Potter, in any way," Snape snarled, so close to his ear that Harry shivered.

"Then get off me," Harry said, shoving the box down as Snape's fingers fumbled blindly against his shirt.

"Give me that box!"

"I'm going to give you something else if you don't stop pawing me!" Harry shot back a little desperately. Behind him, Snape froze.

"Control yourself, Potter," the icy voice said, but Snape's mouth was still close enough to Harry's ear that he could feel the warmth of his breath. He tried to take a deep breath, but even that slight movement seemed to shift Snape's mouth closer to his ear, lips just brushing the other shell.

"I will if you will," Harry said, not certain if he was disappointed or relieved when the weight shifted from his back. Harry looked over his shoulder. Snape was giving him a strange look but at least he was just looking and not practically laying on him.

Slowly Harry turned around, still holding the dusty box tightly to himself. "I'll give you half," he said, knowing he had no chance at all if Snape went for his wand.

"How do you know there's more than one?" Snape said. He'd taken a scant step back but was still very close.

"Because you already told me about the time Slughorn gave you detention for experimenting in the Potions lab without authorization," Harry said.

"I told you? You mean he told you--the prince," Snape said, making an angry gesture.

"You are him!" Harry said, yanking the top off the old box. He found the next card with Snape's name on it and thumbed through the ones behind it, pulling out a stack of about a dozen. Many less than his father and Sirius, or even Lupin. "Half." He waved the cards at Snape.

"Half, then," Snape said grudgingly. Harry hesitated a moment and then divided up the cards and thrust the small pile into Snape's hand. Immediately Snape's wand came out and the tiny cards burst into flame. Snape swirled them up into the air until they were ash, banishing the glittering embers before they hit the stone floor.

"What'd you do that for?" Harry wailed, tucking his own cards away into his robes. Snape didn't answer and turned away before Harry could see his face. "Did you burn the book too?" he asked.

Snape had taken one step toward the desk as though he wasn't going to answer, but then he said, "No."

Harry rubbed his hand over the pocket with the detention cards in it, wondering what misdeeds awaited. "Why not? You said you were going to."

Snape looked like he was going to turn back, but only his head turned far enough for Harry to see. "Why do you care?"

"The prince was my friend!"

Snape did turn around at that, giving Harry that strange look again. "Do you really call him that?"

"He's you and yes. Because I knew he was you but I liked him--"

"And hated me."

"I don't. Well, not so much," Harry said, though he'd only just figured most of that out just now.

"You will again soon enough," Snape said, turning away again.

"Because you have to do what Dumbledore told you to do? I've got news for you--we're both doing what Dumbledore asked us to do."

"Damn it, boy, he hasn't asked you to commit murder," Snape said, looking thunderous.

"Oh, yes, he has," Harry said, equally hotly. "Or did the whole sending me against Voldemort thing escape your notice?"

"The Dark Lord is not your friend!" Snape said, his voice rising.

"The Prince is though," Harry said, "Or he was." He pulled the detention cards out of his pocket. "He didn't worry about breaking the rules sometimes." He rubbed the cards together between his fingers, watching as Snape's gaze followed. "You want these back?"

Snape's eyes were fixed on the cards, but he was still scowling. "You know I could just summon them?"

"You could," Harry admitted, involuntarily gripping the cards tighter, even though he knew that was no deterrent if Snape really did use magic against them. "Or you could ask me what I want for them."

He had Snape's full attention now. "Those are Filch's property," Snape began, sounding very teacher-ish.

"Then he won't like you burning some of them," Harry said. They faced each other across the office floor.

"What…what do you…"

"A kiss."

"A what?" Snape's face had actually paled, though Harry would have sworn there hadn't been much blood in it to start with. "Nights so lonely for the Chosen One that he continues to nurture an affection for an inappropriate subject?" he sneered.

"Yeah, they are. I used to write to the prince but you've taken that away." Since he was watching Snape so closely Harry saw the beetle-black gaze drop, just for a moment to Harry's own mouth.

"Just one…or six?"

"Just one." Harry was certain it was his imagination that Snape's face fell for just a second. "A really good one though," he added.

Snape made a face, looking like Harry imagined the prince, an amalgam of the Snape he'd seen in the Pensieve and boys Harry knew when they talked about girls or tests or any of the other things that dominated sixteen year old boys' lives. "How do you know I can make it really good?"

Harry felt as though they were circling around each other or as though the room had slowly begun to spin around them. "I don't really." He felt like putting his arms out to keep from swaying, off balance. Then he had a thought. "You have kissed someone since Draco's mum?"

The smirk was somehow less maddening when Harry was wondering how the lips that formed it would feel against his own. "Once or twice."

"Good," Harry said and Snape's brows rose up in surprise. "The only ones I've had have been--" He wrinkled his nose in distaste. "I want to know what the fuss is about."

"You haven't--"

"You know I haven't," Harry said, not as embarrassed as he might otherwise be admitting this because in his mind, he'd written to the prince only a few nights ago, and the prince knew all of his secrets. He took a step closer in case Snape backed down now, now when Harry could practically feel the faded smirk over his own mouth. "I would have written the prince about it and he would have laughed at me and called me a name but it would have been all right."

For one horrid moment Harry thought he might have to stand on tip-toes to get his kiss. Snape always towered over him, but Harry himself had grown, if not as tall as Snape, then at least within kissing distance.

"Take these off," Snape said. Before Harry could comply, Snape reached for his glasses, sliding them off his face. A rustle of robes and they'd vanished. "Harry--my Harry, the one I imagined was writing back to me--didn't wear glasses."

Harry blinked up muzzily. The lines of Snape's face blurred, softening the harshness.

"He was also a bit taller," Snape went on, his voice dropping even though his mouth was moving nearer. "But I don't suppose we can have everything." There wasn't even space between word and action for a heartbeat as Snape's mouth dropped onto his own.

Unlike Harry's other kisses, this one wasn't wet or soft. There wasn't, as Harry suspected, anything soft about Snape. Even as his brain kicked in, linking words like 'soft' to the rest of his body--which didn't feel soft either--Harry groaned. He felt his fingers pulling into the heavy fabric of Snape's robes, striving to get closer though it didn't feel like Snape was in a hurry to let go.

"My Harry didn't know how to kiss either." The voice was no more than a soft drawl now, lips moving against Harry's own. Embarrassed outrage rose up in his chest but before he could quite let it out, Snape's tongue slid over the seam of Harry's mouth, parting it and slipping inside with a noise so extraordinary coming from that mouth that Harry groaned again.

The part of Harry that was glad his friend the prince had learned such pleasures in life dueled with the part of Harry that was utterly jealous Snape had ever kissed anyone but him.

Snape's tongue slid over his like a snake charmer coaxing a snake out of the basket. Harry tried to find the way into Snape's robes, tangling in folds as he tried to get closer to that tempting heat.

"Oh god, oh fuck," he panted.

"Still not an option," Snape said.

Harry's eyes flew open, his vision still blurry. One thumb rubbed against Harry's cheek. "Did that qualify as really good?" Snape asked.

Harry's heart sank. He thought about lying, just to prolong the moment, but they were close enough that Snape wouldn't even have to use Legilimency to see how much Harry liked it.

"Yes--" he admitted, shifting to reach for the cards pinned between Snape's arms.

"Good. This one's just for me, then."

Before Harry could even process these words Snape was kissing him again. Heat flowed between them and Harry discovered that 'wet' was not necessarily a bad thing when it came to kisses. He was sure he was moaning, sure he was going to fall into Snape's robes and be swallowed up by that warmth. His arms went around Snape's neck just as Snape's mouth lifted slowly from his. Since he didn't move away, neither did Harry, blinking up at him.

One hand worked its way down Harry's side, over his hip and Harry's heart started to beat very fast. But before that hand could glide down any lower--could make contact where Harry really wanted it--Snape was pulling away. Without a word he was sliding Harry's glasses back onto his nose.

"Dismissed."

"What--"

Snape took a step backward, Harry's hands fluttering at the folds as the heavy robe went back with him. A small ball of flame--the detention cards--ignited just to Harry's left, burning brightly before Snape swirled his wand around it to smother the flames.

Harry felt like a Snitch, quivering, wings beating frantically, dancing just before a Seeker's nose then darting away, uncaught. He blinked behind his glasses, acutely aware that he'd set the terms himself. Snape hadn't moved any further away, still staring down at him.

"Next week?"

Snape blinked. "What?"

"Detention." Harry swallowed, wondering how long he could taste a kiss on his tongue. He glanced over at the hardly diminished stack of boxes. "Next Saturday. And every Saturday until the end of term."

This close he could see the play of emotions across Snape's face, mostly the tightening of his jaw. Harry guessed that on one level Snape might be afraid to enact this sort of scene again but equally unwilling to let Harry out of such a well-deserved detention. Never one to back down from inflicting punishment, Snape nodded tightly. "Next Saturday."

As Harry made his way up to Gryffindor Tower, his Quidditch anxiety returned. It had been easy not to think about the match down in the dungeon, while he'd been kissing Snape.

Harry felt a goofy smile sliding back onto his face as he slid open the portrait hole. He'd been kissing Snape.

He could tell at once that there was no commiseration taking place in the common room but a celebration

"We won!" Shouts rang out from various parts of the room as Ginny ran up to him, her face aglow. Still thinking about Snape he slid his arms around her, hugging her quickly and letting go, punching her lightly in the arm.

"Great job," he said.

"Couldn't let you down, Harry."

Harry tried not to look forward to the that week's Defense lesson, but he couldn't help looking toward Snape as he came in, expecting-- But it might have been that nothing had transpired between them for all the attention Snape paid him during the lesson.

Harry was five minutes early for his next detention, loitering in the corridor before the door to Snape's office swung open. "Get in," Snape barked. If he was hoping to have to squeeze past Snape in the doorway he was disappointed. Snape was already striding toward his desk, whirling on Harry once he'd reached it. "Shut the door."

Obeying more slowly, Harry turned once the door was behind him, reluctant to leave it.

"You're been to see the headmaster," Snape said in evident displeasure.

Harry heaved a sigh and crossed the room under Snape's glare. "He isn't very happy with me," he admitted.

"He isn't--" Snape sputtered. "Did it ever occur to you that I might not be very happy with you either?"

"Well, of course." Harry shrugged. "But you're never very happy with me and I had to try to see if there was anything I could do about, well, you know."

"Did you ever stop to think--" Snape began, then stopped, shaking his head. "No, of course you didn't, but if you had, wouldn't it occur to you that you had no right to try, no right at all, to repeat any part of our conversation." During his tirade, Snape had stalked closer so that he was looming over Harry. Harry was too used to this trick to be intimidated. In fact, his close proximity was having exactly the opposite effect.

"I suppose this means you won't be kissing me this detention?" he said, not meaning for his voice to sound husky but not minding when it came out that way.

"Your impertinence will not absolve you," Snape snapped.

"It's all I've got, really," Harry said. For just a moment he thought Snape was going to throttle him. Then for another more breathless moment he thought Snape might just kiss him. Before waiting to see which tempest broke first Harry fisted the front of Snape's robes and pulled him down against his mouth.

Harry was so new to kissing that he didn't know how to keep from whimpering. He certainly hadn't whimpered during that kiss with Cho, trying to adjust to the strangeness of rubbing his lips against hers.

Kissing Snape was nothing like kissing Cho, nothing like kissing a woman at all. For one thing, his cock hadn't stirred and stiffened, faster even than it had the first time he'd seen Oliver Wood naked in the Quidditch changing room.

He wanted--no, needed--no, craved something against it and pulled Snape closer, robes and all, opening his knees so that Snape practically fell between them. It was only then that he realized Snape wasn't struggling to get away, was, in fact, practically falling that way without Harry's help at all.

Snape was breathing as hard as he was, breath acrid with anger, mouth trembling as though there was one last retort in there, one final insult forever unspoken.

It was not an insult, nor any word at all that slipped past Snape's lips, but a sound, a moan ghosting over their tongues as they twined. There was more of Snape's robes than there was of Snape, the weight of them pooling over his cock and not enough to help the thudding erection trapped in his pants.

The hand holding Snape's robes slid down, though he wasn't exactly sure whether he meant to touch himself or Snape. The choice was taken away when Snape pushed against his hand, pulling away from the heat of the kiss to look at him in surprise.

Harry tried to look as though he'd meant to touch him but didn't think he fooled Snape for a moment. Pushing his robes aside, Snape ran both hands down the sides of Harry's legs, digging his fingers under both thighs.

Harry's legs went around Snape's waist faster than they'd ever mounted any broom. Of course he'd never kissed anyone while riding a broom, but he thought that might be something to try if it felt as good as this. He cock was pressed against Snape's, heels meeting somewhere around his back and it felt good, so good to rock against something hard that pushed back against him, harder, harder, shoving him back onto the desk.

The prince--no--Snape, god Snape was thrusting against him, moaning between kisses--kisses that were more thrusting things now too. Harry surged up into both, clutching frantically at robes to pull him closer just as his cock decided that closer was just about the best thing ever. Pleasure--so much better than the solitary sort he'd always found before--shot through him.

He felt Snape stiffen, in surprise again or shock, Harry didn't know. He only knew that Snape jerked harder against him, rubbing into the spreading dampness before he stiffened again and shuddered with a low groan.

Harry went still. Partly because Snape was nearly crushing him back onto the desk and partly because he had to absorb the idea that he'd just made Snape come. Or at least he was pretty sure he had--the sticky wetness spreading between them wasn't neatly labeled.

He could feel Snape breathing hard against him, held in place by Harry's legs. He knew the minute he moved them Snape would stir, but couldn't hold this position long no matter how much broom riding he'd done. Snape, as Harry predicted, pulled away, looking at him. "You're impossible."

"I'm impossible?" Harry said. He'd been expecting something more venomous. "If I was any more possible, we'd be naked."

"We are not getting naked," Snape said and it was clear his voice was recovering as much as Harry's. "In fact, we are not doing this again." Harry felt the tingle of magic and knew Snape had cleaned them both up. He shifted so that his legs were dangling off the desk.

"The prince would do it with me," Harry said, undaunted.

"Undoubtedly," Snape replied, tugging on his robes to set them to rights.

"Really?" Harry said, taking the hint and tucking the stray ends of his shirt back in. It was amazing how rumpled they'd both got when they hadn't even taken anything off.

"Really," Snape said, pulling the fronts of his robes taut. "Fortunately the prince grew up." He fixed his eyes on Harry's. "A feat I think he'd be pleased that I am helping you accomplish."

Harry worked out that it wasn't an insult and grinned. "I like you too."

"You do not. You like the prince."

"You are--" Harry sighed and slid off the desk. "Never mind."

"I am--" Snape's voice was hoarse and he cleared his throat before trying again, "still displeased with you."

"I had to try," Harry said again. Still Snape barely moved, staring down at him.

"Did you tell him about the book?" Snape asked.

Harry shook his head. "I told him we got into a screaming row during detention and I pushed my way into your memories."

Snape moved around him. "You may--possibly--not be as hopeless as I thought," he said.

Harry pushed away from the desk. "I have my moments."

He lingered that week after Defense, certain that Snape would ignore him as much after class as he did during class.

"Potter, a word."

Harry shrugged his bewilderment to Ron and Hermione and made his way to the front of the room while everyone else filed past him. Snape waited until everyone else had left, though the door remained steadfastly open.

"The headmaster told me he's going to allow you to accompany him on one of his--" He glanced toward the open door before continuing, "--excursions from school."

"That's right," Harry replied.

"You are aware that I made a similar request?"

Harry didn't and his face must have shown his surprise. Snape neatened up the stack of parchments on his desk. "And was summarily refused." He looked up at Harry as if Harry had been the one to say no.

"Er--" Harry began since it looked like Snape wanted some sort of response. "Do you want me to--" To kiss you? "Talk to--"

"Don't be stupid. We both know he's made up his mind. What I want is for you to report for detention this Saturday prepared to defend yourself."

And Dumbledore Harry heard clearly, as if Snape had spoken aloud.

Harry missed his Advanced Potion-Making book more than ever as Saturday morning dragged nearer. He'd like nothing more than to impress Snape with a really corking jinx but he'd never written any of the prince's spells down.

He settled for showing up on time after having a wank in the shower beforehand so he wouldn't be tempted to interrupt their lessons with sex, or whatever it was they'd had before.

Unfortunately as soon as Snape yanked open the door Harry's cock forgot all about that leisurely wank, forgot all the images Harry's brain had fed it with of kissing and coming and like the needy little beast it was, wanted more.

"Get in," Snape barked. "Get out your wand."

Before the door had closed Harry felt the sting of a curse sluicing between his shoulder blades. "Ow! Fuck!" he yelped.

"Still not an option," Snape hissed.

Harry had his wand out before the next one hit, sending Snape staggering back with a well-aimed Impedimentia.

Curse followed curse, until Harry was breathing hard and his Protego charm was punching him in one kidney before Snape dropped his wand and held up a hand. At least he was breathing hard too.

"I see you've managed to learn something in my class this year," he said, running fingers through his already mussed hair.

Harry grinned. "Don't flatter yourself. I learned more from the prince than I ever learned from--" He made a face. "Now you've got me doing it too."

"Again," Snape said, blasting him with something that might have hurt if he hadn't been blocking it. They threw hexes at each other until they were both out of breath again. At least knowing that Snape looked like he didn't mind slicing Harry open with a curse had kept any ideas about sex--with anyone--at bay.

"You know, when you aren't hating me, you're pretty good at Defense," Harry said, leaning on a desk during their next break, trying to catch his breath.

"What makes you think I don't hate you?" Snape replied, his own chest rising suspiciously fast.

"You're trying to keep me alive, aren't you?"

Snape wrinkled his nose. "Do you have any idea how many forms teachers have to fill out when a student gets killed?"

There weren't any kisses this detention, but Harry didn't mind.

Their next session went much the same, Snape throwing curses at him that Harry had never even heard of. He was panting and sweating by the time they finished and wanted nothing more than a hot bath or a long nap or both at the same time.

"A moment, Potter," Snape said, tucking his wand away and leaning over his desk, his back to Harry.

Harry came over behind him, peering over his shoulder trying to make it look as though he wasn't deliberately pushing his hips against Snape's arse.

The black curtained head swung around to peer at him suspiciously. "Do you have any concept of personal boundaries?" Snape asked.

"Hexing makes me hot," Harry said, his body warring between tiredness and arousal.

"I know a potion for that," Snape said with a smirk, righting himself and sliding out of frotting range. There was something slim in Snape's hands, a moleskin composition book. "It is my belief that the headmaster is close to his goal of discovering the location of another Horcrux," he said.

"That means--" Harry said, forgetting the notebook and studying Snape instead.

"Perhaps," Snape replied, looking at the notebook in his hands before thrusting it at Harry.

Harry looked down at it, but it still looked like a plain composition book. He flipped through the blank pages, then looked up enquiringly.

"I believe, very soon, that it will no longer be safe for us to communicate in the traditional manner when…if…"

For a moment Harry thought Snape's voice had gone hoarse but it was gone in a moment. "I can write to you…with this? Like the Potions textbook?" He flipped through the pages again as if they were already full of Snape's cramped handwriting. "I thought you never worked it out."

Snape leaned back against the desk. "Not in time to write to my mother, no."

Harry didn't even make the decision to move--he flung his arms around Snape's neck and aimed for his mouth and hoped that what he was doing was enough like a kiss not to get him hexed. He wasn't sure whether Snape's arms went around him because he was trying to keep them from falling backward or because he wanted to hang onto Harry.

"Potter--mmph!"

Harry stopped what he hoped was a token protest with his mouth. Snape's hands clenched on his shoulders. For a heart-pounding moment he thought Snape was going to push him away. Then the hands slid down his back, tugging the notebook out of his fingers and dropping it onto the desk.

"Foolish--"

Harry made sure to tangle up Snape's tongue before either of them could take another breath. He knew now exactly where he would feel Snape's arousal and whimpered when the cant of his hips assured him he wasn't the only one keener to get closer.

Something--probably lack of air--was making him feel light-headed so he pulled away enough to take a breath, braced for another rebuke.

"Harry, fuck--" Snape's eyes were half-lidded with arousal while Harry knew his own must be as wide as saucers.

"That's on offer," he said, surprised by how low his voice sounded.

"We mustn't--"

"What can they do to you--sack you?" Harry asked, sliding his fingers up the back of Snape's neck. The hairs on his neck were damp; they'd both been sweating hard. "It isn't like you can stay after this year."

"You're too--"

Harry didn't want to hear any more objections, so he kissed Snape again.

"--irresistible," Snape finished, when Harry let him speak again.

"Don't resist then," Harry murmured, smiling into lips that--finally--smiled back.

Snape didn't reply, not with words, but with another kiss, easing Harry back, reversing their positions so that it was Harry now leaning back against the desk, Snape kissing along his jaw, his throat, yanking open the buttons of his shirt with a fervor Harry had only seen with he was hunting for contraband.

Harry forced himself to surface through the layers of arousal to realize he could be doing more than receiving kisses. His fingers pulled at Snape's robes, confounded by rows of buttons.

In desperation Harry yanked up his own shirt and shrugged out of it, diverting Snape's fingers to the bottom row of his own buttons. Harry started at the top and by the time they met in the middle, they were both breathing hard again and not a hex had been cast.

Underneath the robes was a plain white shirt but Harry didn't waste time with more buttons, yanking the shirt free of his trousers and sliding his fingers underneath. Snape gasped and kissed him again, the heavy strands of his hair tickling Harry's nearly bare shoulders. Harry took the opportunity to wriggle further back on the desk, knocking off one shoe before Snape's mouth claimed his own again. Kissing as fervently as he hexed, he followed Harry back, kissing and touching, hands sliding over bare skin, rubbing one nipple through the front of Harry's undershirt.

Harry arched forward, sending something toppling off the desk. His legs wrapped around Snape's hips, desperate for more of everything--more heat, more friction and definitely more kissing.

With a desperate jerk Snape's groin ground into his and they both gasped, mouths locked until they broke away, panting. Harry stared at Snape, who looked as though he wasn't sure how he'd gotten between Harry's legs.

Sinuously Harry rubbed back. "Need more," he said. If Snape had indeed come to his senses, his next words belied it.

"You need a spanking," Snape said, nudging Harry's chin with his nose and licking down his throat. "Or a fucking."

All at once Harry was shivery with need, not above begging, if Snape would just let him think long enough to remember what words were. "Been…telling you that for weeks," he managed, mussing Snape's hair with his fingers. Teeth scraped over his nipple, heedless of the undershirt blocking his mouth. Harry moaned and rubbed one foot over Snape's arse.

Like this, splayed out on the desk, he was as tall as Snape and he took advantage of it, rubbing his cock--regretfully still trapped in his jeans--against Snape's. A moan rose between them. One hand slid around his back and the other worked at the fastenings of Harry's trousers.

When Snape's hand touched the front of his underpants Harry nearly exploded, unable to imagine the feel of warm hands against skin. He dug his own fingers against Snape's scalp and hung on, whimpering breathlessly when Snape's hand burrowed into his pants.

He needed a breath, took it, and pushed himself against Snape's hand. "Need--fuck!" he panted, licking his wet lips.

"You need to come for me," Snape said, in tones so silky they might have been given form and flesh and were wrapping around Harry's cock.

"Want you--" Harry began.

"Lie back," Snape directed.

Harry swayed, whimpering when the hand lifted, then whimpering harder when it was replaced by Snape's mouth, warm and hot. "Oh god, oh fuck," he moaned, nearly lifting off the desk in a frantic effort to get closer. His fingers loosened on Snape's hair as he moaned, finally able to open his eyes and watch Snape's lips sliding down his cock.

"Fuck!" he said, pleasure knotting inside him, clawing frantically for a way out, roaring through his balls as his body cheered it on. Snape made a noise but kept his mouth clamped around Harry's prick until Harry's hand fell away, slack.

Harry couldn't have looked away if Voldemort had appeared in the room, offering Horcruxes, six for a shilling. Snape's mouth slid slowly back up his cock, licking through the wet slit as if savoring every drop before he looked up.

"If you say 'dismissed' I'll hex you," Harry said, watching the corners of Snape's mouth curl up.

"Presuming you could find your wand," Snape said, his gaze lingering on Harry's mouth as though he wanted a kiss but wasn't sure how to ask. Harry took away the doubt and kissed him.

"I want to--you know--for you," he said, but before he could make it more clear, Snape shook his head. "What? Why not?"

"Appreciated but not necessary," Snape said, lifting Harry's shirt from where it had fallen on the desk, holding it open.

"I want to--" Harry began, sliding his arms into the sleeves.

Snape finished doing up Harry's buttons and thrust the notebook back into his hand, working his trousers and pants back over his arse before he spoke again. "I have something to tell you first." He pursed his lips. "Well, that's not true. I have something to write you first. If you still want to after that…" Snape's look clearly said that he didn't expect it, which only made Harry more determined.

"When are you going to write me?" he asked, feeling put out as Snape leaned down and retrieved something on the floor that turned out to be his trainer, which Snape slid onto his foot.

"Tonight," Snape said, firmly. "I don't know how much time we have left."

~~**~~

Harry couldn't help stealing glances at Snape during dinner as if he expected him to have a sign over his head reading, "I sucked Harry Potter's cock."

Just the idea of what his own sign would say was making it hard to concentrate, especially since he still had the notebook with him and was itching to find out what Snape had to tell him.

When he finally got out his quill that night, however, he stared at the blank page of the notebook for a few moments. The prince wasn't waiting for him on the other end; no span of time now separated them. Just a few stone walls and whatever Snape wanted to confess.

"Are you there?" he wrote at last.

"Yes," came the immediate reply.

Harry waited but no more words appeared on the page. Finally he wrote, "It's something bad, isn't it?"

"I'm afraid so," Snape wrote back and Harry braced himself. "The Prophecy--"

Cold dread clutched at Harry's insides and with a few rapid quill strokes the truth was on the parchment.

"I told the Dark Lord about the Prophecy."

Harry pushed the notebook away in horror. The damning words still gleamed on the paper, searing into his brain. Furiously he tightened his grip on the quill until he felt it start to bend. "Bastard!"

"I won't ask your forgiveness," Snape wrote.

"Good!" Harry scrawled back quickly, even as more of Snape's words were forming on the page.

"I recanted at once when I saw what--" There was a pause, then Snape started again on a new line. "You must believe that your mother was…very important to me."

Harry frowned at the words, still torn between slamming the book shut and morbid fascination about what Snape had to say. "You said you hated them both," he wrote, recalling the conversation of just a few weeks ago.

"That's what I wanted you to think," Snape replied. "I never wanted anyone, save Albus, to know the depth of my betrayal."

"I saw that memory in your Pensieve," Harry wrote messily. "You called her filthy names. You didn't even like her!"

There was a pause, and Harry could picture Snape sitting at his desk, perhaps he was even sitting at the one in his office, the one where they'd-- Shame and anger burned in Harry's belly as words formed at last below his.

"It was because of that, because I was stupid and arrogant, that she stopped being my friend."

Harry stared at the last word, unable to comprehend it in the context of Snape and his mum. "She was never your friend," he fired off.

"She was," Snape stated, as if it was the most fundamental truth he knew. "We grew up together. Practiced magic together before we came to Hogwarts."

Several peculiar things his aunt Petunia had said niggled at Harry's brain. 'That horrible boy' for one when Harry had thought she was talking about his dad. "Then you killed her," he wrote, still too angry to think too deeply on the truth.

"I know."

Harry waited for any kind of defense or qualification but the bare words just sat there on the page, damning in their stark simplicity. Finally he wrote, "Why are you telling me this?"

"Very soon I believe I will have to leave Hogwarts, perhaps even the wizarding world. I'll have to rejoin the Dark Lord as his most trusted agent."

Harry thought about the moment Snape would brand himself a murderer and swallowed against the horror rising in his throat.

"I may, however, be able to aid you in your mission," Snape went on, "though normal routes of communication will be closed. The Dark Lord doesn't know about this one."

It didn't really answer the question so Harry wrote, "Why should I trust you?"

Snape's answer was swift. "Because the headmaster does. With his life. And his death."

Harry kept to his usual spot in the back of the Defense classroom for that week's lesson. He didn't think Snape would call on him or try to call attention to his silence. The few times he glanced up Snape seemed to be avoiding looking in his direction.

He seriously debated skiving off his next detention. Before he could decide, however, another note arrived from Dumbledore. He was with Ron when the small scroll arrived. They stared at it then each other after Harry opened it and read it. Ron wished him luck and Harry set off.

The corridors were mostly deserted this close to curfew. The only person he ran into was Professor Trelawney, who told him about hiding her sherry bottles in the Room of Requirement, only to find someone else already in it.

Harry looked wildly to the room's hidden entrance. It was Draco. It had to be. For a moment he was torn, but the idea of finding a Horcrux with Dumbledore was too strong.

He had to trust that Snape would take care of Draco.

Did he trust Snape?

He still wasn't sure when he bounded up the stairs to the headmaster's office. Dumbledore stood by the window holding a dark traveling cloak. "Professor--" he burst out, "I think Draco found what he was looking for," he finished, panting.

"I believe he has," Dumbledore said calmly.

"Do you--are we--"

"We are still going to try to find a Horcrux, if you still wish it," Dumbledore said.

Harry swallowed hard. It was obvious that Draco had a plan and Harry wasn't sure that even Snape was privy to it. "I do, only--" He took another deep breath. "Only I wanted to know something before we go."

Dumbledore regarded him as if he already knew what Harry was going to say, but nodded.

"Snape--Professor Snape told me that he was the one who…who told Voldemort about the Prophecy," he said, bunching up the last words all in a rush.

"I see," Dumbledore said gravely. "Professor Snape has not often confided that information to anyone." He strode around his desk, his beard flying out behind him. "In fact, I believe Voldemort and myself are the only ones who know."

"And now me," Harry added, painfully aware that he hadn't actually asked any questions.

"And now you," Dumbledore repeated looking at him over the rims of his spectacles.

"I hate him for that," Harry blurted out.

"You hate him for many things," Dumbledore replied.

Harry looked down at his hands. "Maybe not so many any more," he admitted quietly. "But he killed--"

"Voldemort killed your parents. Never forget that. What Professor Snape did was terrible but his remorse--" He shook his gray head.

"He said…he said my mum was very important to him," Harry said. He didn't want to care about Snape's remorse, only he remembered how he'd felt when Sirius had died and he'd felt responsible.

"She was, I believe, his greatest friend," Dumbledore said.

Indecision tore at Harry. Dumbledore had been fooled before. "All right," he said, still not sure how he felt. "Let's go."

~~**~~

Harry would remember that night as long as he lived--the cold splash of the sea, the horror of the black lake, the unrelenting misery of forcing Dumbledore to drink the potion in the basin. If those images hadn't already been branded into his brain, the horror that followed would underscore them--of dragging the headmaster into Hogsmeade, the glittering Dark Mark hovering in the sky, the desperate flight to the Astronomy tower.

Now, he was pinned, invisible, while Dumbledore tried to reason with Draco Malfoy for his soul.

In desperate gut-wrenching horror he saw Snape arrive and knew in the space of a breath that now was the time, the moment he'd been dreading ever since Snape had told him what he had to do.

It was over in a flash of green light. Dumbledore's body was blasted over the ledge, hanging like an ornament on a holiday tree before it fell out of sight.

It took a long moment before Harry realized he could move again. He knew what that meant immediately, knew Dumbledore was beyond holding him.

The Death Eaters who'd come with Draco made their escape, clattering down the stairs past him. There wasn't much time. Snape had Draco by the wrist, both of them outlined by the fading Dark Mark in the sky.

"Come on, we must--" Snape began as Harry threw the cloak off. "Potter!"

For a moment they all three seemed back in the spell that had paralyzed Harry for such crucial moments.

"I can't let you kill me," Snape said warningly, his wand still in his hand.

Harry shook his head. Down below he could hear the sounds of spells being cast in many voices. "I'm not going to."

Draco looked between them, his face pale.

"I've still work to do," Snape said, his wand lowering to his side.

"I know," Harry said, nodding. "Make your escape look good." Some burden inside him dissolved as the decision to trust Snape cemented. "I'll give you ten seconds then give chase."

Snape nodded tightly but something unclenched in his posture as well.

Harry wasn't conscious of taking a step, nor another, already knowing he'd chosen correctly. Then he was in Snape's arms and all doubt fled. Snape kissed him with pent up urgency, lips sliding over his own as if afraid to let go.

Down below a spell rang out in an unfamiliar voice, going awry and pinging on the stone of the stairs. Snape pulled away, staring down at him, looking dazed.

Behind him Draco cleared his throat. "Excuse me? What the hell was that?"

Harry and Snape turned at the same time, looking at Draco, then each other. Snape nodded.

"Come, we've got to go," Snape said, raising his wand again and ignoring Draco's sputters. Snape's eyes met his once more before they were away, hurrying down the stairs.

Harry gave them ten seconds, then followed.

~~**~~

"Did you get it?"

Harry stared at the words scrawled across the first page of Snape's notebook, the first since he'd last seen Snape all those months ago. He didn't know what instinct had prompted him to open the notebook tonight. Fishing through his meager possessions, he found a quill and some ink.

"Get what?"

"The sword."

Harry stared at the simple reply. He was still chilled from his dip in the icy water, relieved and happy that Ron had rejoined them and that they'd destroyed one Horcrux at last.

"I got it," he wrote slowly, his mind whirling. "If this is really you, tell me what we did during my last detention."

At first, he'd looked into the notebook nearly every night. Then, as his questions and demands remained unanswered, they gradually faded away. Eventually he'd stopped asking new questions.

"I sucked your cock until you came down my throat," came back the reply promptly.

"It's really you?" Harry scrawled, missing a few letters as he wrote but not caring.

"Has anyone else sucked you off during detention?" Snape wrote.

Harry grinned. "No one else, detention or otherwise." He didn't seem to be able to stop smiling until a little laugh escaped--muffled quickly since Ron and Hermione were still asleep in their bunks. Then he remembered something. "Wait, your Patronus is a doe?"

"So was your mother's," Snape wrote back. Harry wasn't sure how he hadn't known that but it made sense to him at once.

"Why haven't you written?" he wrote in the pause that followed.

"I'm watched, everywhere. By the Dark Lord's orders and by those jealous of my position. Even by some of the portraits in the headmaster's office."

"Aren't you the headmaster now?" Harry asked. He's suspected Snape had talked Voldemort into the job to keep the conditions at Hogwarts from worsening under the Carrows. The reports of the detentions Snape had ordered had given him a clue.

"I didn't have a choice about that," came the reply. "I'm doing what I can, but--"

"I understand," Harry wrote back and he did. A lot of people had expected him to gather a resistance and fight openly against Voldemort, so he knew he'd disappointed a lot of people.

"Where are you now?" Harry wrote after a moment.

"A tent, the same as you," Snape replied. "In a different part of the country. And I won't

be here long. I can't raise any suspicion."

Harry did not envy him this task, of hiding his true loyalties from everyone. Well, everyone except Harry. "How did you find us?" he wrote.

"Phineas finally heard where you were. I've had him trying to find out for months so I could give you the real sword," Snape wrote.

"Why on earth did you drop it in a frozen pool?" Harry scrawled back, tugging the blankets around his shoulders a little closer. "You could have just given it to me."

"And miss the chance to watch you strip off?"

Harry pressed his lips together to keep from laughing again. He suspected it had more to do with Ron lumbering around in the woods. "Perv," he wrote.

"You object?" Snape said.

"No."

A pause, then, "I've got to go."

Harry pulled the blanket tighter, wishing he could think of a way to get him to linger. But the dangers around them both were very real. "When will I be able to talk to you again?" he asked.

"I don't know," Snape replied. "There are informants everywhere."

Harry heaved a sigh. He'd been so isolated himself it was hard to imagine life on the outside as being restrictive as well. "Write when you can," he said, trying to feel very adult.

Snape replied, "I will."

"I miss you," Harry said, flinging away the thin mantle of responsibility.

"Don't be foolish," Snape replied, then he was gone.

Harry checked the notebook every night after that but no further words appeared until long after the others faded. He'd left little notes in it himself, only to watch them fade away, unanswered. Stuff like, "Just checking" and once even "I miss you" again.

One night, in his room at Shell Cottage, Harry opened the notebook, almost wistfully, expecting to see the blank pages.

"Don't tell me where you are."

Hastily Harry grabbed one of Fleur's pretty glass quills and wrote back, "I won't."

The same sort of synchronicity that had governed the Potions text seemed to be in operation here, for it was only a few moments before Snape wrote back. "Didn't fancy a stay in the Malfoy dungeons?"

"Not much, no," Harry said, grinning as he wrote.

"Are you trying to frighten me to death?" Snape replied, "I spent half an hour trying to think of some reason to have you brought to Hogwarts."

"Sorry, I couldn't wait for you," Harry said. He'd have liked to have seen Lucius Malfoy's face if that had happened but he was still glad they'd escaped. "Would I have been safer there?"

"You aren't safe anywhere until you've accomplished the task Dumbledore left you," Snape replied.

Harry laid to rest his own lingering doubts about whether to pursue the Hallows or the Horcruxes. "You don't sound too safe yourself," he wrote.

"I am…taking precautions. Nothing is certain against madness, but there are things I can do, potions I can carry with me…"

All of Harry's fears about Snape's safety boiled to the surface. "You don't think he'll--" He could barely write it.

"Of course he will," Snape wrote back, "It's just a question of being ready."

Harry checked the notebook every night he was at Shell Cottage but he never got another reply. The night before they were to set out to raid Gringotts he left a brief message. "Wish me luck tomorrow. I expect you'll find out why soon enough."

There was no answer by the time he, Ron and Hermione were ready to leave the next morning so Harry tucked the notebook back into the pouch around his neck. And afterward, as events spiraled out of control, he had no time to check it.

What seemed like hours passed, accomplishing their mission at Gringotts but having no time to celebrate, being thrown into the thick of the urgent race against Voldemort. Destroying the Horcrux in the diadem and watching friends die and enemies live while there was nothing to do but fight their way out, Harry, Ron and Hermione followed the trail to the Shrieking Shack. More horror waited at the end of the tunnel, where he knew Voldemort awaited. No, his mind roared, as he heard Snape's voice in the dusty old room. He wished there was a way to shout at Snape to flee, but all he could do was let the scene play out, crouched behind a crate at the back of the room where Nagini hovered just over Voldemort's shoulder.

Harry heard Snape pleading to go find Harry, to bring him to his master. If Harry hadn't been certain of his loyalties, he might almost have believed it himself. He saw Snape's face go pale from behind Voldemort's eyes--so intense was the pain in his scar--heard the catch in Snape's voice as he asked to be allowed to find Harry.

Harry cried out when the snake struck, unable to move as Snape's lifeblood drained away. A second, two, then Voldemort was gone and Snape lay dying. Scrambling out of the tunnel, Harry ran to Snape's side. He could see his fingers, red with blood as Snape tried to staunch the flow of blood.

Terrible awareness dawned in Snape's eyes when he saw Harry. "Foolish--"

"Kreacher!" Harry shouted, kneeling in the widening pool of blood. Gathering Snape's own robe, he pressed it onto the wound. Something silvery was leaking from Snape's eyes and mouth but Harry could only stare and hold the robes, already wet, to his throat.

"Master?" came a croaky voice beside him.

"Kreacher," Harry said, relief washing through him, though he had no idea why. "Save him, Kreacher," he said, still looking at Snape, though the dark eyes seemed to be glazed and fixed. "He has potions in his robes. You can save him. I know you can," he added more to himself than because he thought it was true.

Something cool touched his fingers, a flask full of the swirling silver strands. Hermione knelt beside him, wordlessly pulling stoppered vials from the depths of Snape's robes and handing them to Kreacher.

"Harry…" came the low croak from the floor, "Look…at…me." Harry's gaze locked with Snape's, barely able to see through the haze clouding his eyes.

"Don't leave me," he pleaded, as Kreacher forced something into Snape's mouth. Another vial emptied over the wound. Hermione thrust a vial from her beaded handbag at Kreacher, the last of their dittany, Harry thought. He hadn't moved, kneeling in the blood, still clinging onto Snape's hand.

"Don't leave me," he whispered again, something hot slipping down his cheeks.

Kreacher was singing softly while he poured another potion into Snape's slack mouth. The sound was almost like the song Snape had sung over Draco's body after Harry had cursed him.

The house-elf was the only thing moving in the dusty room. Behind him, Ron seemed to have frozen in place. Hermione was sitting back on her heels, the beaded handbag open on her lap. Snape's eyes had closed and didn't open again, not even when Voldemort's unnaturally amplified voice rang out his ultimatum for Harry to turn himself in.

"You have permitted your friends to die for you," the high cold voice rang out.

It took Ron and Hermione both to pull him out of the blood-soaked room. He cast one last look at Snape and at Kreacher, who smiled at him vaguely through yellowed uneven teeth. As he lowered himself into the tunnel after his friends, he heard Kreacher say, "Kreacher couldn't save Master Regulus, oh no, but Kreacher will save this one."

Feeling stunned and empty Harry followed Ron and Hermione down through the tunnel into the all but silent castle. The dead were laid out in the Great Hall but Harry couldn't bear to look at them, imagining Snape's body lying among them, seeing the snake strike over and over again in his head, praying that Kreacher hadn't given up.

He clutched the vial of Snape's memories and ran toward the headmaster's office, bolting up the stairs to see what Snape had wanted him so desperately to see. Pouring the memories into Dumbledore's Pensieve, Harry fell into the basin as they swirled around him.

First, Snape, younger than himself when he'd come to Hogwarts. His mother, a pretty little girl, then both of them older, learning magic together. The fight that drove them apart. Then Snape begging Dumbledore to help save Lily--and, when he was too late, Dumbledore asking Snape to help protect Harry.

As he'd done all of Harry's life, Harry realized, not knowing if he was feeling Snape's shame or his own.

The memories unwound faster, of Snape--always Snape--protecting him, defending him all unseen. Showing Dumbledore the silver doe as a token of his affection for Lily, to put him off, no doubt, what he and Harry were doing during those detentions in the dungeons.

He even got a flash of that last time, of himself sprawled over Snape's desk, ecstasy writ on his face as Snape's mouth plundered his cock.

The last memory formed more slowly, inside an unfamiliar room. Snape was murmuring charms of protection, much as Harry had done every night in the forests to protect their tent. Then, pulling something out of his robes, Snape sat down.

With a start, Harry realized that it was a notebook exactly like the one Snape had given him. Looking over his shoulder one last time Snape opened the notebook up, smoothing out the pages until he came to Harry's last message, written at Shell Cottage what felt like a hundred years ago.

"Wish me luck tomorrow. I expect you'll find out why soon enough."

Snape's own smile was sardonic as he reached for a quill. Harry moved closer, peering over his shoulder as he wrote.

"Good luck."

Harry came back to himself in Dumbledore's office, leaning hard against the desk as he took out his pouch, fishing around for the notebook, flipping frantically to find the last entry.

"Good luck."

It was there. Harry stared at the words, comforted somehow that Snape had written them, even when both of them were far beyond luck now.

Harry knew what he had to do. The irony of trying to save Snape only to offer himself up as sacrifice did not escape him. Time rushed past him all the rest of that endless night, too little before he would have to die, and too much when he arrived in the half life that awaited to find Dumbledore and not Snape waiting there for him.

He went back because he knew he had to. And defeated the Dark Lord because he knew he had to.

Despite the victory, despite the sure knowledge that Voldemort was gone at last, Harry could take no joy from it. So many had died, and the fate of others--the fate of Snape--was still unknown.

Making his way back to the Shrieking Shack--above ground this time--he passed dozens of villagers coming from their houses, watching his silent passage.

No sound stirred as Harry Apparated inside. "Kreacher?" he called out and heard a rustling at the top of the stairs.

The house-elf shuffled onto the landing, though Harry could tell nothing from his wizened face.

"Is he--" Harry began. Kreacher bobbed uncertainly on his feet and Harry's heart froze. "Did you save him?" he asked, bounding up the stairs.

"Yes, Master," Kreacher said with maddening slowness.

Harry slid past him and peered into the gloomy bedroom. There was no body on the sticky wet floor, no patient in the dusty bed.

"Where--? Harry shouted, whirling to find Kreacher just behind him. "Where is he?"

"Gone."

"Gone? Gone where?" Harry asked, losing his patience quickly. Snape--alive but missing. Unless Kreacher was lying. "You just let him go?"

Kreacher looked distressed. "Kreacher could not stop him." He heaved his tiny shoulders. "Kreacher is told that Master Harry must look into his notebook. Kreacher is not to leave until he has found Master and told him this."

Frantically Harry dug into his pouch and pulled out the notebook, flipping through the pages, finding the last message, right under Snape's 'good luck'.

"If you're reading this, Kreacher has served us both well today. Much as I'd like to recuperate here where I've almost died not once but twice, I have decamped under my own power. If you live, and should wish--"

Harry was already fumbling for a quill. "Where are you?"

Time seemed to freeze again. Only dust motes moved in the guttering light while Harry stared at the page, holding his breath.

A blob of black ink appeared just under his words, swirling a moment before it drew out into a word. "Let…Kreacher…bring you."

Harry whirled on the house-elf. "Can you take me to him?"

Kreacher nodded, his rheumy old eyes wide. "Kreacher can."

Harry grabbled his arm, trying not to shake him, remembering the lesson Hermione had taught him about kindness. "Take me, Kreacher, please," he said pleadingly.

Kreacher nodded, gripping his arm. In a rush of dark wind, the broken down old room vanished. It felt almost like Apparating, but without the sickening jerking sensation behind his navel.

A room formed around them as Harry and Kreacher landed. There was a large bed in the room but Harry didn't notice any other details except that Snape was in it. "You're alive!" he said as Kreacher's arm slipped away from his.

"Apparently," Snape said, though his voice was hoarse and low.

"Thank you, Kreacher," Harry said, "thank you for saving him."

"Kreacher is happy to serve the young master." With a soft crack, he was gone, leaving Harry alone with Snape.

"You're alive," he said again, not looking away, in case his glasses fogged up and Snape vanished.

"You look dead yourself," Snape said, closing the notebook in his lap and setting it on the nightstand.

Harry came closer, resting his hands on the bottom rail of the bed. "Haven't slept in--well, not sure, really." He ran a hand through his hair, which was still singed a bit. Had it only been a day ago that he was nervous about breaking into Gringotts?

"Come up here, then," Snape said, pulling aside the heavy quilts.

Harry could think of no better place in the world right then, climbing into the high bed, leaving only his trainers on the carpet. Snape was in a long white nightshirt, a snowy white bandage on his neck.

"Are you really all right?" Harry asked, sinking onto the pillows.

"Probably a sight better than you at the moment," Snape said, sliding down wearily beside him.

"That bad?" Harry said, making a face as he looked over himself. In addition to being singed in the vault, he'd also climbed through an earthen tunnel several times, been dragged into a battle, knelt in blood more than once. And that was all before he died.

"Mmmm," Snape said, his eyes drooping with sleep.

"You don't mind if I--" Harry said with a yawn, hardly able to keep his eyes open himself.

"Not at all." Snape slid an arm over Harry's chest but Harry was too tired to do anything but fall fast asleep.

The light looked different when he awoke. Snape had rolled away, facing away from Harry, the bandage hidden now by pillows. Harry draped his arm around his waist, wriggling in close before falling asleep again.

The smell of food woke him, as he darted up through layers of sleep, suddenly starving.

Kreacher perched at the foot of the bed with a straw hamper as big as he was. Beside him, Snape stirred, his eyes fluttering open.

"Master is sleeping a long time," Kreacher said in his low growl as he started unpacking the hamper. He uncovered a shepherd's pie, then a heaping bowl of potatoes, stacks of carefully cubed cheeses, and a plate of fruit. There were even two bottles of butter beer and a pie with a perfectly latticed crust.

"I hope you're hungry," Harry said, spreading the tablecloth right there on the bed.

"Ravenous," Snape said, his eyes aglow as he unwrapped Black family silverware from a linen napkin.

Harry ate as if he hadn't eaten for days, which might not be far from the truth. He noticed Snape kept up with him until the only thing left was half a pie and a few cheese squares. They hardly spoke except to say things like, "More potatoes?" and "Have some pie?" and "Where's the loo?"

Snape had repacked the hamper, leaving it on the bed when Harry returned from the facilities. Harry slid in against him, one arm snaking over his waist.

"Where are we?" he asked, even though Snape's eyes had closed.

"Your mother's old house," Snape replied sleepily.

"You're joking," Harry said but Snape had fallen asleep again, and after a moment, Harry followed.

The next time Harry woke up he was very glad to know the way to the loo. When he came back to the bed he realized Snape was awake too, and watching him.

"You're still here," Snape said, his voice still hoarse.

"You're still alive," Harry said, rich joy suffusing him at that knowledge. It had felt perfectly natural to keep climbing into bed with Snape when he was sleepy but it took on another meaning when, suddenly, he wasn't sleepy at all.

"What are you doing in my mum's old house?" he asked, compromising by sitting on the edge of the bed. The bed was high enough that his feet didn't quite touch the floor.

"My house now," Snape said, still watching Harry. "I bought it a few years ago when it came up for sale. No one knows about it except you."

"And Kreacher," Harry added, turning so he could see Snape better. He'd propped his head up on one hand. "She really meant that much to you?" he asked, looking around the bedroom now that he was actually awake.

"She really did," Snape said. "I don't expect you've ever been alone and friendless--"

Harry pulled his legs up under him, facing Snape. "I have," he said. "Ron was my first friend ever. I didn't have anybody before I came to school."

Snape slid his hand out across the rumpled sheets and Harry took it, wrapping his own fingers around it.

"Are you going to kiss me?" Snape asked, so casually that Harry needed a moment to realize what he'd said.

"Do you want me to?" Harry asked, already half-aroused.

"Very much, yes," Snape said, his dark gaze warming.

Harry scrambled back under the covers, practically flinging himself into Snape's arms. Sometime while Harry had been sleeping Snape must have visited the loo because his breath still smelled like toothpaste. With a moan, Harry leaned further in to see what the rest of his mouth tasted like, parting his lips immediately.

Snape felt thinner in the nightshirt than he ever had in his layers of robes. Harry's hand ran up his back until his fingers brushed hair, using his leverage to pull them closer. He could feel Snape groaning, feel the thrum of it against his own chest. One leg thrust between his and Harry gasped, breaking off the kiss to pant into Snape's mouth.

"Should you--" He took a breath and tried again. "Should you be doing this?" he asked, darting a glance to the bandage on his neck. "You did lose a lot of blood."

A lazy smile pulled Snape's mouth upward. "I think I found it again," he said, "Guess where it's gone." He pushed his hips into Harry, unmistakably hard.

"Oh fuck," Harry moaned.

"I thought you'd never ask," Snape said, urging him down into the sheets. Together they tore at Harry's clothes, losing a few buttons along the way. By the time he wiggled out of his jeans and pants Snape had straddled him, the nightshirt bunched around his thighs.

"Your turn," Harry said, grinning up at him.

Snape lifted the shirt over his head, tossing it away before bending over Harry for another kiss. Their cocks brushed as their lips met but Snape didn't let either touch linger, moving down his jaw, his throat. Kiss followed kiss, as Snape moved lower, though each touch was more like a caress.

There was no doubt in Harry's mind that he would come the moment Snape took his cock into that determined mouth. But he couldn't help groaning when Snape avoided the upraised pinnacle all together, shifting downward and sliding Harry's legs apart.

"You haven't spent the last few weeks having sex, have you?" he asked, reaching up to pull open a drawer by the bed.

"Hardly," Harry said. He'd never felt so exposed, not even when he'd stood alone against the most powerful dark wizard in a century, but there was a thrilling sense of anticipation that was present with Snape. "I've been waiting for the prince to come around."

Snape's fingers were slick and warm as they slid behind Harry's balls. "He's not such a fool not to have noticed." One finger swirled around his entrance before easing in. Harry knew Snape was watching him and he focused on relaxing, opening up, moaning softly when another finger joined the first.

"Oh, god, hurry," he said, hoping his prick wouldn't burst without even being touched.

"You'll thank me not to," Snape said. Harry, who could feel the gentle stretching movements of his fingers, knew he was right but that didn't lessen the need to find release that was keeping his prick hard.

"The prince would just plunge ahead," he replied desperately, his cock twitching as Snape brushed against something inside him.

"The prince had the worst first time ever," Snape said, "and he's going to make sure you don't do the same." He didn't speak for a few moments, face taut with concentration and Harry didn't beg any more.

Finally the fingers pulled out with a wet sound and Snape shifted up, his own cock glistening now as he rubbed the tip of it down Harry's painfully erect shaft.

Harry whimpered unashamedly and lifted his legs, wrapping them around Snape's hips. "You can hurry now," he pleaded.

"Just--oh--" With one hand grasping his own cock Snape fit himself to Harry, sweat breaking out on his forehead as he made shallow thrusts, pulling back, going deeper until Harry was nearly mad with need.

"Oh--" Snape moaned as his prick slipped inside, slid in deep and stayed there.

Harry's eyes flew open. "That's--oh fuck."

"Mmm hmm." His fingers had trailed away, sliding up Harry's legs as his hips moved, again with maddening slowness, then faster.

"Can't--" he tried, reaching out at last for his own cock, only to find Snape's hand meeting his. Together they pulled on Harry's cock, rocking, stroking, moving in frantic bursts. It was everything he needed, everything he wanted, and the prince was giving it to him, the prince, oh god, Snape--Snape--

Harry's release fountained out of him, hard and hot. His fingers didn't stop moving, or Snape's fingers didn't--Harry wasn't sure now as thrust after thrust rocked him. A long moment as Snape's head snapped back, a wordless cry on his lips as the bed shook, or Harry shook or the world shook, Harry didn't much care. Snape was swaying, toppling over him, groaning in that hoarse voice.

"Harry." A muffled sound came from around Harry's shoulder as Snape turned his head. Harry looked down at him, combing the sweaty hair away from his face.

"Are you sure we aren't both dead and this is some paradise?" Harry said, trying to make his fingers unclench in case he was hurting him.

"I don't think they have loos in paradise," Snape said, voice still slightly muffled.

"I hope there's sex," Harry replied with a grin.

"We can have that right here," Snape said, shifting slightly as his prick slipped out of Harry. Harry pressed his legs together, savoring the sensation. Snape settled just below his chin, fingers resting on Harry's chest.

Harry let his hands drift down Snape's damp back. "I think you were right," he said, "You are feeling better."

"Better than I think I can ever remember feeling," Snape said, "even when I was a child and had a crush on a boy who was writing to me."

"I had a crush on the prince too," Harry said, rubbing his cheek in Snape's hair.

"I'm hardly a handsome prince," Snape said quietly.

"I'm not much of a fair maiden," Harry said with a chuckle. His fingers brushed the white bandage.

Snape sighed, and shifted in Harry's arms, running a hand over his belly. Then he looked up at Harry. "If this is happily ever after, I can live with that."