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Don't Tell Me That It's Over	By : starstruck86 Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Snape/Ron Views: 3082 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter nor do I make any money from these writings.

Chapter List
- 1-Don't Tell Me That It's Over
- 1
Pairing:
Ron/Severus (brief Ron/Hermione)
Word Count: ~6,
594
Warnings: Under-age (in some places) Ron
(16), teacher/student relationship, implications of D/s
dabbling, bondage, violence, emotional infidelity, abandonment,
themes of obsession and infatuation. This is canon to the point where
Snape doesn't die, not epilogue compliant.

Don't
Tell Me That It's Over

Present Day, June
1999

I don't know how I ended up like this.

Rising
and falling hips, the scent of sweat and sex, the taste of it on his
lips.

Can't end. It just can't.

The thin body
beneath him, the ache of his shoulders as his wrists chafed against
the rope tying his wrists together at the small of his back. Moisture
gathering beneath them, prickling his skin.

Why the fuck
did I ever get into this?

A loud groan, and another, a cry
and a shout, begging. There was no telling which of them it was.

I'm
not letting you go.

December, 1996

“This has
got to stop,” Severus muttered darkly in his ear. Ron shivered
into the base of his skull as the hot breath tickled. “Do you
think I don't know what you're trying to do?”

The wizard
swept away before anybody could even notice that he had lingered by
Ronald Weasley in the corridor. Ron watched him go, watched the black
robes billowing around ankles which he had held and licked and
rubbed. At sixteen, they were actions he should never have performed
with another man -probably with anybody. He had propelled from
trembling virgin to experienced in a matter of weeks. Though he could
see that Severus hated himself for what they did together, it never
stopped him; it never stopped him from further educating Ron.

He
came back to his senses and followed the man down the corridor. How
it had all begun was ridiculous, the sort of hilarious story that
could only happen to him, because he was an idiot...

////
It hurt more than anything he could remember, even considering the
brains which had tried to tear his arms off in the Ministry a few
months before.

“Please help me,” he breathed,
gripping the back of the chair.
“Weasley, it is not my fault
if you didn't think to check what you were inhaling before you began
cleaning the cauldron,” Snape's voice was too cold, too
uncaring.

In the days which followed, Ron hoped that he would
forget the embarrassing little sob which escaped his lips at that
moment. In his pants his cock was aching to the point of very real
pain.

“You have to help me, you're my teacher,” he
ground out. “And this isn't my fault... it's y-yours! Oh
Merlin!”

Snape stared at him, dark eyes narrowing as he
seemingly considered Ron's plight.

“I don't know what
exactly you want me to do,” the words were low, almost
begrudging. “The effect of this potion is unchangeable and
untreatable with an immediate antidote other than the obvious, so if
you have somebody you would rather help you solve your, uh, problem,
I would go and find them.”
“I can't walk!”

There
came a long suffering sigh and Ron thought he actually might die of
shame.

“So you'd like me to do it? A man twenty years
your senior, whom you have no feeling for at all?”
“What
does it matter?” Ron bellowed across the classroom. “My
cock is actually going to fall off if you don't help me soon!”
“It
won't,” Snape assured him, a ghost of a smile quirking his
lips. “But you... look, this can't happen. I could lose my
job.”
“If you don't help me you're going to lose it
anyway when I go to the fucking Headmaster and tell him that you let
me inhale fumes from a potion to give a bloke a rise and then refused
to help me!”

Ron hoped, at least, that was what he had
inhaled, but he knew there was something off in the way that his own
hand failed to bring him any pleasure at all.

“Fine, on
the desk. If you breathe a word of this, Weasley...”
“Really,”
Ron squeaked, shifting back onto the desk as a hand industriously
wormed in the front of his robes. “Do you really think I'm
going to admit to any of this?”
“No,” the word
was soft and too near his face.

Ron moaned with relief as
foreign fingers curled around his shaft. It didn't matter that they
were the first to do so. It didn't matter that they belonged his
Potions Master who was evil and ugly as hell. All that mattered was
that he was about to come, and his dick might not actually fall
off.

The first pump shattered him, right into his belly and
chest, heightening both the pain and the pleasure. His legs were full
on shaking, along with his fingers. Without thinking what he was
doing, Ron put them onto his Professor's body, feeling the strong
fabric of the man's robes beneath his skin. What possessed him, Ron
didn't know, but he looked up into the man's eyes; what he found
there confused him.

Lust. Desire. Desperation.

The
shock of that prompted his gasp.

“Do you like that,
Weasley?”

The words were too tight and tense to be
seductive, but they were muttered close to his ear and as such Ron
had no choice but to melt at them.

“Y-Yeah,” he
choked, tilting his head back, unwittingly giving Snape better
access. When thin lips caressed his throat Ron jumped. Snape pulled
back. “Don't stop.”
“But this is
completely-”
“Don't stop,” Ron hissed.

There
must have been an inkling of lust potion in what he had inhaled, Ron
decided, as he reached up, grabbed the neck of Snape's robes, and
yanked him down for a kiss. That, at least, was not a first, but it
was completely different to what he had shared with Lavender. Ron had
never tasted anything like it, nor felt anything as strong working
against his jaw. It was delicious, and only made the ache in his
crotch even worse.

“Want to come,” he breathed,
squeezing his eyes shut. He was sure he would never be able to look
the man in the eye again.
“Well, do it then,” the
words were blunt, but the suck on his throat which followed was soft
to make up for it. It was enough to push Ron over the edge, where he
clung desperately to the older wizard's body, legs jerking with the
force of what pulsed out through his cock.

When the pressure
relented he didn't let go, but Snape let go of him. Ron watched that
hand as it emerged, covered in sticky cream. Nothing had ever looked
more erotic. That was his come over another
man's hand. His. It made his mouth dry...

It was
nothing that Ron would ever admit to another living soul. He didn't
even mention it to Severus. Shifting his bag on his back Ron headed
down to dinner, wondering what amount of time to wait would be
respectable before heading down to the dungeons.

That first
night had been the taster. Once the pressure was gone, and he had
stopped sweating and trembling, and Snape had given him a
post-antidote to stop any side effects, Ron had been ashamed. But by
the time he had hit his mattress that night, he was thinking about
it. He had remembered the taste of Severus Snape in his mouth, the
feel of his hand on his cock. Blush after blush had deepened the
colour of his cheeks, making Ron glad it was dark.

The next
night, when he had returned, he had known what he was after, known
exactly what he was doing. The resistance he met surprised him,
considering what he had seen in the man's eyes as he'd masturbated
him to completion. But Ron had managed to melt it. For the first time
in his life he had felt empowered, because after some cajoling, some
gentle touches and kisses, he had won.

“Too easy,”
he muttered to himself as he slipped onto the Gryffindor bench and
grabbed the serving spoon from the nearest stew vat. Ladling it onto
his plate, Ron couldn't help glancing up at the staff table. There he
was, sitting eating his own stew, eyes unreadable, buried in the
paper. Ron knew he wasn't really reading it.

“Where did
you go this afternoon?” Harry frowned, dropping down in the
seat opposite to him. “I waited for half an hour.”
“Yeah,
I'm really sorry,” Ron did the kind of thing of serving Harry
food, too. “I got talking to a girl from Hufflepuff and sort
of...”

He flashed his best embarrassed grin.

You
little liar! He sang at himself.

Present Day, June 1999

He's
leaving you.

Clamping down around the man's body, he
shuddered. He was so close, hanging onto the edge with just a few
fingertips. When he came it would all end. Severus had said it had to
stop. Ron couldn't come when it meant that he would no longer have
the man by his side.

Can't. Won't.

“Stop
it,” Severus viciously hissed in his ear. “I know what
you're doing. I know this is you clinging on. Stop it. Come for me,
now.”
“No,” Ron grunted back obstinately,
shaking his head. Sweat dripped down into his eyes.

He had no
idea how long they had been sitting there together, fucking in front
of the fire which was the most ridiculous idea he'd ever had.

So
much for romance.

“Please,” Ron whispered. It
reminded him of the first night.

July, 1997

Ron couldn't remember
ever feeling as sick as he did at that moment.

“I didn't
think you'd come,” he croaked, but instead of stepping out of
the darkness, he flattened himself against the wall in the
shadows.
“I don't know why I did.”

Ron didn't
have to touch Severus to know he was there. There was a busy thrum
between their bodies which always heightened when the older man was
near. When fingers touched to his hips, Ron didn't bother to jump.
They had touched him too many times for him to be surprised.

“Why
did you do it?” Ron breathed.
“I told you there are
things you cannot ask me,” Severus murmured into his ear. “On
that basis alone I agreed to meet you.”
“But you
can't... do you know how it feels to be in love with the man who
murdered Albus fucking Dumbledore?”
“You do not
love me,” Severus said coldly. “This is not love, this is
teenage infatuation and only due to my own stupidity has it been
indulged.”
“You haven't indulged me anything,”
Ron laughed, surprised at his own bitterness. “You've indulged
yourself, Severus.”
“What have I told you to call
me?”
“I'll call you what I fucking like,” Ron
said hotly. “You're a murderer, and you're a pervert, according
to law. I'll call you what I like.”
“When did you grow
up to be so feisty, hmm?”

Ron felt his hips press back
into the wall as Severus leant on him. A second later there was a
kiss on his lips.

“Somewhere around the time I inhaled
an impotence cure and came to you for help,” he snorted. “And
ended up much more.”
“Who knows where you are?”
Severus idly kissed down the side of Ron's throat.
“Nobody,”
Ron grinned at his own stealth. “We were in the city because
Charlie's here... he wanted a drink... and I just said I was going to
the loo... we don't have long.”
“Not long enough,”
Severus pulled away.

“You can't just leave me,”
Ron gaped, and for the first time stepped out into the ugly orange
light pooling from the Muggle lamp post to their right.

Severus
simply stared at him. “In this light your hair looks
beautiful.”
“Fuck that,” Ron said impatiently.
“I've been hot for you for weeks and now you tell me I'm not
going to get anything?”
“I have to go,” Severus
stepped forward and stroked his index finger down Ron's cheek. “I
cannot be seen with you. They will think you've defected, Ron.”
“And
what about you? Have you defected like they all think? Which side
were you ever on in the first place?” Ron's voice croaked.

He
had sworn to himself he wasn't going to ask any questions.

“Don't,”
was the only thing Severus said before he strode away. “I'll
see you at Hogwarts.”
“I'm not... I'm not coming
back,” Ron swallowed awkwardly. “Or, I don't think I
am.”
“What?”

Ron froze, well aware that
he had stupidly just given away plans that he only even assumed that
Harry had.

“Your secret is safe with me.”

He
was gone then, and Ron shivered in the warm summer air.

“Am
I, though?” he asked nobody in particular, before life kicked
back into him and he hurried back to the pub he had so quickly left
ten minutes before.

Present Day, June 1999

Secrets.
What a fucking idiot I was. He's only doing this because nobody else
knows and it's just me and he can get away with it.

“You
can't leave me,” Ron shook his head, wishing his hands were
free. “This can't end now... we've been through so fucking
much... I... Oh fuck... I love you, Severus, I love you.”
“No,
you don't,” the words were shouted, they hurt his ears.

And
yet, despite the verbal altercation, they kept on moving. Ron had
well and truly had enough, his body was damp with a sheen of sweat
and his joints were sore from his trapped position. He had endured
far worse, and willingly so, for Severus, but he was too wrung out to
keep on.

He slumped forward, cracking their heads together but
neither of them complained. Severus stopped moving and Ron fought
against the ties on his wrists. “Get these off me.”
“No,”
Severus muttered.
“NOW!” Ron shouted, and he saw the
surprise in the man's eyes. “Severus...”
“Alright,
alright, alright,” the man breathed. Seconds later Ron's wrists
were free.

Moving his arms so that the blood could flow, Ron
wrapped them around the man's neck and held on tight.

2nd May, 1998

“You told me
he was dead,” Ron looked down with a wobbling lip at Severus'
laid out body. “You said he died.”
“I thought he
did,” Harry said hopelessly.

Every time Ron thought he
had topped his body's limits, they surprised him. He was numb from
head to toe, covered in battle grit and scars and dried blood. His
brother was dead. Somewhere along the line Hermione had kissed him as
though it meant something.

Perhaps it did. He had no idea. It
had happened before he'd been stuck in the damned tunnel, unable to
get to Severus' side as he lay dying. Neither Harry nor Hermione had
noticed his distress, partly because he had worked hard to conceal
it. Neither of them had noticed the tracks of tears which stained his
cheeks as they clambered back along the dark tunnel. They were gone
by the time they'd emerged back out into the night.

“He
shouldn't have survived,” Harry whispered. “All the
blood... and it all seemed so final... with what he gave me.”

The
memories were another kick in the gut. A whole history about a man he
had thought he loved, which he had never even known. Of course
Severus had never said the words back, not when he was devoted to
another person.

Ron had forced himself to ask several times
exactly what he thought he was to Severus Snape in the course of the
past two years. Was he just the willing sex slave, who turned up when
called and offered his hands up for binding and whatever Severus
wanted to do with him? Ron had certainly been that. He had walked
around the school with Merlin-only-knew what plugging him up, he'd
been spanked and caned and loved it all. Somewhere along the
way he'd stopped questioning it.

Was that all he was, a sexual
release for a man so tense and so wound up -and, Ron now knew, so
used- that he had to look to a student for someone to get
dirty with?

He forced his knees to stop trembling.

“Ron,
what's going on?” Harry asked bluntly. “You look
awful.”
“Nothing, I'm just... I feel a bit...”
he searched for a lie. “You know in the forest... I really hate
that you saw all that stuff,” And have never been gladder
that the damned locket could keep a secret... “Snape gave
you all of those memories because he thought he was dying. You've
seen his darkest secrets and now he might wake up, Harry... and find
he's not dead, and you know everything. I can't stop thinking about
how he's going to feel.”
“He doesn't seem like the
type that's going to be glad he's alive,” Harry
murmured.

Tears threatened as Ron realised his presence would
lead no sway to any joy for the unconscious man on the hospital
bed.

He felt like nothing, and wished Harry would leave him
alone to let him really feel it.

Present Day, June 1999

“I'm
nineteen,” Ron murmured. “I'm nineteen now.”
“And
you were sixteen when this started,” Severus sighed
wearily.
“That's legal in the Muggle world! If we were
Muggles, Severus, there wouldn't be a thing anybody could do because
it would be fucking legal. Sixteen, that's all you need to be to have
sex.”
“Not for us,” Severus shook his head.
“Didn't... it's different, for what they call sodomy. You have
to be older.”
“But I'm older now!”

They
met in a sloppy kiss and Ron whimpered into Severus' mouth.

“Just
because I'm leaving Hogwarts it doesn't mean this has to stop.”
“It
does. Because I'm leaving.”

Ron froze, his spine
stiffening. “What?”
“I've had enough. The law
required me to be here for a year to absolve me of my crimes... under
watchful eyes,” the distaste was blatant on Severus' face. “But
that year is now over and I refuse to stay here to be spat upon in
the corridors any longer.”
“Where are you going? Why
didn't you tell me?”
“Because I knew it would hurt
you, and I knew you would want to follow me.”
“I
do.”
“I can tell you this instant, you aren't. I won't
allow it.”
“Like you could stop me.”
“I
mean it, I want a clean break,” Severus lowered his eyes. “Away
from the magical community. I'm bowing out.”

It was a
slap around the face, metaphorically. Severus had slapped him around
the face before and it had been painfully physical, but there was no
doubt which actually hurt more.

“You mean... away from
me,” Ron whispered.
“Away from you,” Severus
clarified. “And everybody.”

February, 1999

“I've told
you, I don't want to see you.”

Ron's arm nearly broke as
it bore the brunt of the door's weight, which Severus tried to slam
in his face. The bruising would be horrific, as his bones were caught
between the edge and the frame. But he didn't care, all he cared was
that the door couldn't close on him, on their relationship.

Not
a relationship. Not a normal one, anyway.

Since the start
of the school year he had spent every possible opportunity in the
man's quarters, holding him, sleeping with him, doing anything
Severus wanted. Ron had given up so much sleep that it wasn't History
of Magic if he didn't fall conk out on the desks during it any more.
His intention that evening had been to arrive, curl up next to the
older man, and try to get some rest. But it looked unlikely when his
persistence had sparked another argument.

“Why can't you
just let go?” Severus hurled at him, as soon as Ron made it
through the door. “Can't you just let this slide, put it down
to experience: you got to a fuck a man twice your age, take what
you've learnt from it and go out and find yourself a lover. Fuck
Granger, fuck anybody you like, but I'll tell you now, Weasley, you
aren't fucking me any longer!”

“I don't want to
fuck anybody else.”
“You are eighteen, you don't know
what you want.”
“You knew who you wanted at eighteen,”
Ron laughed. “Lily fucking Evans, the woman you loved so much
that you decided to give your life to being a sodding spy, and never
thought to tell me about it.”
“Why on earth should I
have? You were Potter's best friend, you would have ruined
everything.”
“No, I wouldn't have,” Ron
protested.
“Why are we arguing over what is past?”
“Because
maybe it's time someone did,” Ron folded his arms over his
chest. “Maybe it's time I asked you about Lily, and why you led
me on, let me fall in love with you, if you knew how dangerous your
life was, when you thought you were going to die.”
“I
didn't ask you to fall in love with me.”
“BUT YOU
STILL LET ME CARRY ON!” Ron shouted. “And did you think
about her when we were doing it, Severus? Was the red hair longer,
did I have a pair of tits that you've wanted all your life? Is it
just that our hair colour was the same and you could imagine that she
finally loved you back?”

His anger was out of control,
but then it had been building for months. His ridiculous sham of an
eighth year at Hogwarts had gone from bad to worse, and his
friendships, so well built for seven years, were falling apart at the
seams. They were all physically falling apart at the seams.
Nobody was healthy. Nobody could get up in the morning and say they
were glad the war was over because the thought of the people they had
lost still hurt too much to enjoy the peace. He was no exception, but
at least he had someone to help him heal it, with their bodies.

“How
dare you?”

Ron recognised the pallor of Severus' face,
the shake of his lower lip. He had angered the older wizard well and
truly, but then that was what he'd wanted.

“How dare you
talk about what you'll never be intelligent enough to
understand?”
“Or what you were too thick to see you'd
never get,” Ron challenged.

His face was stinging before
he really knew what had happened. The slap had been precise, cutting
through his skin and as the hand rose again, it was not flat, it was
fisted. When Severus hit him again, he felt his cheekbone buckle
slightly; it turned his stomach.

The floor came up to meet
him, but it was fine. There was nothing that would make him fight
back. He had asked for it -if he had been Severus, he knew that he
too would have lashed out. He wasn't about to play the dying swan
when he had openly provoked his lover into hitting out. Yet, the
excuse he had hoped for never came; his feelings hadn't changed.
Sprawled on the cold floor of Severus' office, he was still desperate
for contact, for the man to love him.

“Ron,” his
name was groaned, and he heard the soft thud of knees on the
stone.

Severus touched his back. “I'm... that was
unforgivable.”
“It should be,” Ron mumbled into
the floor, not bothering to lift his face. “But you know I'll
forgive you anyway. You know I wanted you to do it. You know this is
how we work, pushing one another until we snap.”
“You
have never snapped by lashing out at me.”
“I've wanted
to,” Ron felt his heart thudding against the icy slabs.
“God...
I can't...”
“It's fine.”

Present Day, June 1999

“You
can't do this to me,” Ron planted himself in front of the
office door.

Somehow they were both dressed again, neither of
them sexually gratified and neither of them contented.

“It's
not about you, really,” Severus said, frustration pulling at
his tone. “I am surprised, that after everything, you ever
wanted to come back to me. That you want to continue. But I am free
for the first time in my life, Ron, and now I need to make decisions
which are right for me.”
“And what about the poor,
stupid little redhead you picked up along the way?” Ron
sneered. “What about him? Don't you care about how he'll feel
when you leave him behind?”

“I know that he's
strong enough to find somebody who can love him back,” Severus
directed the last of his luggage into a pile by the door. “And
that when he boards the train for the final time this afternoon, he
will look back at Hogwarts and feel nothing but gratitude that he is
leaving.”
“No, I won't,” Ron said flatly. “No.
Not without you.”
“Do you know how ridiculous you
sound? Nineteen, declaring your love for me, wanting to follow me to
the ends of the earth...”

Ron paused. It did
sound over the top. “Nothing less than what you would have done
at my age, if you'd had the chance.”
“Don't bring this
up now.”
“It's the only thing that will make you
stay.”

“Nothing will make me stay.”
“Why
are you doing this?”
“We're going round in
circles.”
“Isn't that all we do?”
“Well,
consider the circle broken,” Severus stepped towards the door.
Ron didn't move. “I will use magic to force you out of the
way.”

Ron said nothing but looked away.

“Please,
move,” Severus asked again.
“I can't let you
leave.”
“Well, If I can't leave, then you will go
first, on the train. I was trying to spare you that, of being the one
trying not to look back.”
“Oh, how fucking kind
of you!” Ron shouted. “Thanks very much. Right. That'll
mend my broken heart.”
“You're being absurd.”
“You
are,” Ron threw back churlishly.

Severus sighed and Ron
held his breath as the man pressed him backwards into the closed
office door. “If I were to say yes, what do you think we could
have, hmm? I am no company. I am nothing, holding myself together
until the moment I can walk out of the front doors of this castle and
fall apart. Do you want to be there for that? Are you strong enough
for it, Ron?”

Throwing his arms around Severus' waist,
Ron yanked him close and took every last ounce of breath that he
could from the kiss he instigated. “This isn't fair,” he
groaned. “It's not, Severus, it's fucking not. You can't just
leave me.”

A deep suck on his mouth was all Ron felt,
and then Severus pulled away.

“I'm going.”
“You
bastard,” Ron breathed, tipping his head back against the door
and closing his eyes with frustration. “What can I do to make
you stay?”
“Nothing.”

Sliding down so
that he sat on the floor, Ron hugged his legs to his body. If any of
his friends and family could have seen him at that moment, they would
have been shocked. It was even worse to know that he could walk up to
none of them after Severus' departure and just be hurt, to admit his
pain. None of them had known anything was wrong.

“I've
got nothing now,” Ron said miserably to his knees.

When
there was no answer but the sound of the Floo rushing, his stomach
lurched.

“Bastard,” he whispered again, but didn't
mean it.

~****~

August, 1999

“What's the
matter with you?”
“Nothing,” Ron sat up
abruptly, and blinked to bring himself back to focus. “What can
I help with?”

His mother fixed him with a suspicious
stare but simply sighed after a moment or two. “Nip upstairs
and change the bed for me in Ginny's old room? She and Harry will be
here soon...”

Getting to his feet, Ron grabbed the
freshly laundered sheets from the sideboard in his arms. The smell
was of summer as it wafted out of the cotton. White, like the ones
that he had lost all sense of dignity on countless times in Severus'
dungeon bedroom. Shivering, Ron made his way to Ginny's old bedroom,
not evening smiling at the faded pink paint and Weird Sisters posters
that he knew Harry hated.

He'd had nothing from Severus, but
he was looking. He had spent hours in the wizard's office when he'd
finally pulled himself up off the floor at the end of term, searching
for any kind of clue as to where the man had gone. There was nothing.
He'd nearly missed the train home for his efforts.

There had
been no sightings, the Prophet hadn't commented on the mysterious
disappearance of Severus Snape. It was as if nobody other than Ron
remembered him, and certainly nobody other than Ron wanted to find
him.

“I sent you up here to change the sheets,”
his mother's voice cut out from the doorway. “Not to-”

She
broke off when she saw his face, and Ron flushed, looking guiltily
away. Molly Weasley walked straight to him and put her arms around
his waist.

“Why won't you talk to anybody, Ron? We can
help if we know what's wrong.”
“Nothing's wrong,”
he lied, wishing more than anything that he could just tell his
mother everything.

March, 2001

Ron rolled over in
the bed, clutching his stomach. It wasn't unusual for him to wake up
with gut ache, where he had been so clenched throughout the night
wanting what he couldn't have. He had told himself time and time
again he was foolish for clinging on, for wanting a man who clearly
didn't want him. There were days when he put his feet on the rug by
his bed, determined that that day he wouldn't think of him, or
anything they had shared at all. He would get up, shower, get
dressed, go to work, and continue training to be a strong Auror. No
room for fantasy in that at all, or at least there shouldn't have
been.

Some days, if he was lucky, he would make it to lunch
before he sat and thought, obsessed about where Severus was, what he
was doing, maybe if he still thought of the redheaded boy he had
entranced at all.

He's forgotten you by now... that was all
he wanted to do, he wanted to forget you because you hurt him too
much...

When he hadn't done anything but give Severus
everything that he craved, Ron felt that was too harsh. He had grown
up since leaving Hogwarts, but his attachment remained. He had
realised along the way that he couldn't let it stop him forming other
attachments, however, or his family would grow suspicious. Looking at
Hermione asleep next to him, Ron felt guilt cut deep into his belly.
He felt wrong for holding her, seeing the smile on her face, knowing
that it was a lie, and that it had been a lie since he was sixteen.

But it didn't make him stop. Ron knew he wouldn't stop until
he had found Severus, at least talked to him, to see if the man had
changed his mind with passed time. He wasn't holding his breath, so
he held himself instead. Ron wrapped his arms even more tightly
around his body and frowned at Hermione's sleeping face. Behind her
on the table the engagement ring he'd given her twinkled in its box
-a family heirloom his Aunt had dragged from the depths of her house
when his intentions were made known. Hermione had been thrilled. Ron
had only been relieved she'd said yes, so he could keep up with the
motions.

Keep up with Harry and Ginny, you
mean.

Relationships had turned into competitions, he
found, and it only made him crave Severus more. There would have been
none of that with him, and a great deal more of sexual
gratification.

“C'mere,” Hermione mumbled in her
sleep. “Cuddle.”

Ron gave it freely, but closed
his eyes, where the person he held was not even a witch.

January,
2002

“Please, can't we work this out?”
Hermione begged, the tears on her face catching in the candlelight.
“Ron, you're... you mean everything to me.”
“I
know that,” Ron hated the shoe being on the other foot.

He
had thought it must have been easy for Severus to pack up and inform
him of his decision to leave, but now that he was the one doing it,
and that Hermione was the one begging him, he thought he might
throw up.

“But this isn't working... I'm not working.
I've just got to get out of here for a while and sort my head out. Do
you understand?”
“But why is it so bad here that you
can't stay?” she sniffed.

Because my heart's
somewhere else, and functioning without that is pretty bloody
hard.

“Because being here isn't right after
everything that's happened,” he lied, and wondered when he had
stopped feeling guilty about lying to everybody.
“But we're
right,” Hermione argued.
“No, we're not... and I'm
really sorry for...” Leading you on, kissing you, making
love to you, trying to distract myself with you. “Making
you think that I was in love with you.”
“You
aren't?”
“Not any more.”
“Then who are
you in love with?”

“What?” Ron blinked, and
the back of his neck crept as Hermione stepped closer to him.
“Who
are you talking to at night then, when you say 'I love you?'”

Ron
felt his cheeks burn with shame.

“Who are you running
away to?”
“Nobody!” Ron shook his head.
“Who
is it that you're talking to so softly when you're asleep, Ron?”
she asked again. “And why do you always jump up and check the
post when anybody who could ever owl you can get you through the
fire?”
“It's... look, I have to go or I'm going to
miss my Portkey.”
“A Portkey to southern Ireland,”
she supplied, without missing a beat. “Who's there,
Ron?”
“Nobody,” he grabbed his bag and hoisted
it onto his shoulder. “I've got to go.”

She simply
stared at him. “I'll never forgive you for leaving.”
“I
wouldn't either,” Ron said matter-of-factly, and slammed the
door shut behind him.

***
Three hours after Ron closed one
door on his fiancée, he knocked on another. It was low and
old; the aged house was pretty but far too small for him.

The
address had come off the back of a contact in the Potions Department
at work. Ron had been searching out information on old poisons, gone
to the department, and found the Head there reading a letter from an
'old acquaintance' who had 'retired' from magical society.

Finest
brewer in the country, so he said.

Ron hadn't been awarded
full marks for stealth in Auror Training for no reason. His heart had
thumped at seeing the signed 'SS' when the Department Head had turned
to consult a book. It had to be Severus, as far as Ron was concerned,
and he wasn't going to let his chance go.

Even though
you've just ruined everything to come to him. You mad bugger.

He
knew that his actions weren't sane or anywhere close to normal. There
was nothing sane about giving up a comfortable life with a well
paying job and a loving girlfriend to chase after a man who had cast
him off and disappeared with no contact for three whole years. Ron
knew that, but it hadn't stopped him from booking his place on the
Portkey, packing up his most treasured possessions, and
leaving.

Hearing footsteps, Ron barely clung on to his
stomach. The wood swung inwards.

Severus Snape looked just the
same, still as tall, as dark-haired, as pale. Just as Ron remembered
him, had seen him every night for months in his dreams.

“Good
God,” Severus breathed. “You...”
“I found
you,” Ron stepped over the threshold.
“I... this
is... why?”
“I've fucked up everything to do
it,” his breath caught in his throat. “Left everything.
For you.”
“I'd... I'd well imagine you have,”
the man stared; he didn't protest when Ron grabbed him tightly about
the waist whilst kicking the front door shut with his foot.

Ron
could have been sixteen again for all he knew, desperate with a
raging hard on. The churning tension inside his body was exactly the
same. The kiss was still as captivating as it had been on that first
night. Severus tasted exactly the same.

Hands coursed
down his spine, beneath his jacket, and long fingers spread out,
forming a web and trapping Ron into place. They stood so closely
together that Ron felt a steady wash of hot, wine-tainted breath
across his face.

“I can't believe that you... after all
this time...”
“Stupid Gryffindor loyalty,” Ron
muttered beneath his breath.
“Stupid indeed,” Severus
kissed him again, squeezing roughly with his hands.

Ron let
his bottom lip go when the other man caught it, and closed his
eyes.

“Foolish, idiotic, ridiculous...” Severus
whispered against him. “Just like you ever were. You let me do
anything I wanted to you, God, when I hit you...” the
dark head of hair shook; with his closer vantage point Ron noticed
some early glints of silver by the temples. “You should never
have come back to me after that. You shouldn't be here now.”
“I
did, and I am stupid,” Ron shrugged. “And I'm here now,
regardless.”

Severus held his gaze, searching his
expression for something that Ron didn't quite understand. But
finally, the man swallowed and said, “Good.”
“Do
you mean that?”

Fingers which snaked into his hair,
holding him steady for the hard kiss which crashed down onto his
lips, formed the answer to Ron's question.

“I always did
love you, no matter what I implied... or...refused to say...”
Severus whispered hesitantly in his ear. “How could I not have?
You were you, and you loved me, probably the first person ever to
bother. Leaving you behind and blaming your youth was just another
mistake in a long, ineradicable list.”

Severus pulled
away, disappearing through an open doorway to their right, leaving
Ron alone on the doormat.

“But I didn't know that at the
time.”

The addition was soft and full of remorse. Ron
didn't need to hear it.

“I'm so glad that you're
here.”

Ron threw his bag on the hallway floor, raked his
fingers through his hair, and swallowed before answering back, “So
am I.”

-fin-
- 1
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Don't Tell Me That It's Over