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Little White Lies	By : KohakuShadow Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Snape Views: 10820 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or any of its characters, and if I were making any money off of this fiction, then I'd like to know where it is! No, seriously, it's fanfiction, of course I'm not making any money off of it.

Chapter List
- 1-Little White Lies
- 1
This Fic was written as a birthday gift for one of my LJ friends, but - while it CAN stand on its own, I couldn't leave it where it ended, so I wrote two more as well, which will be posted a few days (a week?) apart, to give everyone a chance to read the first one before the second comes out.

For those of you who are interested, I DO have a mailing list. Check my profile for details.

Warnings: slash, bottom Snape, Snarry, some vague hints of Harry being underage (past tense, he's perfectly legal in the 'present' of the story), insertion, anal, rimming, angst (I'm sure there are a few sexual warnings I've forgotten, but nothing outlandish by my usual standards. I've tried to be thorough, but I'm forgetful, dammit!). PWP, essentially. If not for the angst there would be no plot.

Summary: Love. Hate. Lust. Severus has known for five years that the three things have very little to do with one another, but that doesn't change how tangled up they all become when Harry pays him a late night visit.

Story #1 of the 'Words Left Unspoken' Series

Little White Lies

It has been said that the line between love and hate is thin. Severus Snape knew this to be a lie; the divide was great. It was so great, in fact, that the two contradictory emotions could, and often did, exist alongside one another. It was the cruel hand of fate that led Severus to know this so intimately. No matter how insatiable the love, or how irredeemable the loathing, a cruel symbiosis could be maintained indefinitely. Such was the case with Harry Potter, as it had been since the man was a boy, and as it still remained.

The separate matter of lust only complicated matters further. It made him act in a manner that was completely unreasonable and balanced ever so delicately on the line between sanity and madness. Madness, after all, was all about ritual, and this – this was clearly a ritual that instilled a sense of the forbidden that even the Dark Arts could not engender.

Worse yet, the ritual was familiar to him, as familiar as his own visage in the mirror, as now, when he wiped the steam from the glass and glared sternly at his own mangled reflection.

It always started with a note, scrawled hastily on green paper with gold ink, anything darker would be invisible against the emerald parchment. Severus would sit with it beside the fire, telling himself 'not this time. This time, the door stays locked.' Then, he would throw the note, properly committed to memory, into the flames.

10:45. Wear something sexy. :)

Little bastard. No. This could not continue. He had let it go on for five years too long already. The second step of the ritual was when Severus stared at the clock, watched the hands tick off the late hour, and decided – as if it were a new line of thought for him under such circumstances – to take a shower, to calm himself.

He was onto step three already. That was when, after a long shower, he cursed his own weakness, wand dried his hair, after several detoxifying potions to get as much of the brewer's residue out of it as he could, and tried to convince himself – even as he was sliding into undergarments that wouldn't shame him with age and practicality, and robes in much the same state – that there was still time to end this madness. He knew it was a lie. If he truly intended to decline Potter's arrogant demand, he would slip into his nightshirt and go to bed.

As it was, he unlocked the door, glaring at his hand as if it had been the sole perpetrator of some great atrocity which the rest of him had nothing to do with, poured himself a drink to atone for said atrocity, and sat beside the hearth with a book, so that he could at least pretend he was utterly disinterested when the young man arrived with his impish grin and mischievous eyes. In truth, whether he sat there for a minute, or an hour, he never got more than a few sentences read, and failed to absorb even those he did read, such was the state of his distraction.

To make matters worse, Harry was always late. Always. It was just when Severus was wondering if this was a cruel prank after all – he was his father's son – and he didn't intend to show, or was hiding in some corner of the room in that blasted invisibility cloak already, trying very hard not to laugh at his own poor sense of humor...

Just when Severus snapped the book shut irritably, tilted back the last mouthful of his drink, and decided to go to bed...

Just as he approached the door to lock the bloody thing and be done with it all, that is always the moment when it slid open as if of its own volition, and 'nobody' slipped inside.

It was always like this. First, the hand revealed itself, locking the door, then, the head.

Both roused irritation and desire in Severus, and it was in his nature to respond first and foremost to the prior. “Take that silly thing off, you fool boy. I refuse to converse with a floating head.”

“Then it's convenient that I didn't come for conversation,” Harry quipped. He threw the cloak over the armchair anyway.

“You never do.”

“You never mind,” Harry replied.

“It is simply an oversight of my advanced age. I lost track of time reading, or I would have locked you out hours ago,” Severus retorted. They both knew he didn't mean it, not after all the years they'd been at this dance.

“Lucky me, then,” Harry answered complacently. He'd learned long ago not to call Severus on his little white lies. He also seemed to know very well when it was safe to shut Severus up without invoking the Potion Master's wrath, and pulled the snarky old bastard down to his level for a passionate kiss.

Severus returned it, just as he always did; passionate, heavy. The weight of their lust was as much a burden as it was a boon. But, he had taken all the appropriate steps to deny that he wanted this. He had kept his tone curt and his words unkind. That relative distance, he knew, fallacy that it was, was the only thread of sanity he had to hold onto.

Harry wasted no time in pushing Severus back through the open doorway to the bedroom, and toppling him onto the familiar firm mattress with the one squeaky spring at the end that always protested under the weight of Harry's knee, which he always propped on the edge as he pinned the older man down.

Severus hated to admit he liked being pinned down. He didn't know when he'd discovered that about himself. He didn't like to think about it, because it came with several moral quandaries that he didn't care to consider, least of all the age of the boy bending him over when he'd first made the discovery. He liked to tell himself it didn't much matter, even then, since Harry was the one doing the pinning, and thus was clearly acting of his own free will, but that logic – for better or worse – didn't make his compliance to the hormonal urges of an impressionable youth entirely moral. It did, however, make him quite relieved when the youth had grown into a man. It was one less item on the long list of why he shouldn't be permitting this. It was quite a long list, even with that one subtraction.

And, for spite of that list, Severus didn't resist Harry's fevered kisses. He let his jaw be tilted by eager teeth and tongue, he let his eyes close when that tongue found the spot right beneath his ear that made his spine turn to pudding, and forced his lips to part with a meager sigh.

“You didn't wear something sexy,” Harry complained against that spot.

“If you don't like it, then leave,” Severus answered, hating himself for being so breathless already, after only a few kisses and the weight of Harry's hands on his wrists.

Harry sat back, but didn't release him. Emerald eyes bore holes into Severus's flesh. He was still clothed fully from throat to toe, but the way Harry looked at him made him feel so bare he scarcely remembered the self control required not to blush. He did not find it so feasible to resist the need to swallow the lump in his throat or moisten kiss-swollen lips.

“You just like making me do extra work,” Harry chided playfully. “You always have.” He released Severus's hands, if only because he needed both of his to manage the complicated buttons.

“There would have been no need to make you do extra work if you put any effort into the work the first time,” Severus replied.

Harry grinned impishly at the older man, already halfway through the buttons on Snape's robes. After five years he was an expert at getting Severus undressed, and the older man's fashion sense hadn't changed. “I didn't have to. I was fucking the professor.”

“Could you be any more vulgar?” Severus complained, even as he lifted his shoulders off the mattress to allow Harry to get his arms out of the dark robes and pull his tunic over his head.

“I can, but I prefer to reserve most of my vulgarity for after I've got you out of your pants,” Harry retorted. “You wouldn't have failed the guy you were shagging, in any case.”

“Don't be ridiculous. Of course I would have. It was dumb luck on your part that you managed by some miracle to pass the examinations. I suppose you were not completely inept, just unfathomably lazy.”

Harry laughed. “I couldn't help it. The potions professor was an arse.”

“I was trying to teach you something useful. Ungrateful whelp,” Severus groused. If he had any intention of saying more, the words were swallowed up by a moan. It was no easy feat to complain when a handsome young man was making such a concerted effort at providing a distraction.

“Hng..!” Severus tried to bite back the moan, but damn the arrogant little fool for knowing his body so well! The way Harry gripped his nipple between thumb and forefinger and twisted it just a fraction too far to be considered gentle went straight to Severus's already eager cock. He hated his cock for giving him away. It was times like this, when Harry nudged his knee between Severus's thighs and smirked knowingly down at him, that Severus genuinely missed the irritating boy bending him over his desk – at least in that position Severus had been able to hide the evidence of his desire.

“Aah!” But the fingers were replaced by lips and tongue, and Severus's ability to retain his composure under pressure was severely hampered.

Harry bit down on the taut flesh.

Severus bucked his hips up against the younger man's thigh and laced long fingers into perpetually untidy hair. Snape's body, clearly, had a mind of its own, one that was rather at war with the rest of him. It was hard to fight it. The tangled web between them was all the more enticing for its tangles. It had only grown more enticing as Harry aged and grew handsome, less like the spitting image of James. Oh, he still had more than his fair share of the man, but there were the eyes, and not only that. The angle of the jaw, the breadth of the shoulders, the modest height – all of these little things that were clearly not James Potter were those physical characteristics Severus found the most appealing. And, of course, the intimate bits.

“Haah...!” and his lips. His teeth.

“Harry...” His hands, that slid down Severus's pale stomach to pull open the front of his trousers and slip his hand inside.

Severus hated himself for how quickly he became unwound when they were together, but he loved how easily Harry unwound him.

Lips trailed down his abdomen, distracting him so utterly that he didn't notice his trousers being pulled away until Harry's lips found his inner thigh. Tongue. He loved Harry's tongue, too. For the record. It slipped along the sensitive skin of his thigh, down to the back of his knee, then up again. Frankly, it was torture – cruel and inhumane punishment of the most alluring variety. Severus supposed he could reciprocate, but he didn't care to interrupt Harry's rhythm, and besides, Harry didn't want him to. The sounds that pulled past Snape's lips, he'd learned, did more for Harry's arousal than any clumsy attempts he might make to participate tended to. So, he simply lay there clawing at the duvet as his young lover toyed with him. He neither begged, nor complained, though both would be reasonable responses to Harry spending several minutes so near the core of Snape's need, but ignoring it entirely. Then, Harry sat back on again, and the absence of his caress tore a sound from Severus that could only be described as undignified.

Severus bit his lip as he pushed himself onto his elbows. He knew he possessed the ability to breathe properly, but at the moment it was too much to remember how. His narrow chest rose and fell with the great effort of forcing air into his lungs and holding up the weight of his upper body, which felt illogically heavy in his lust-addled state. He was glad for the effort though, as it afforded him a magnificent view of Harry shedding his t-shirt like a snake casts away its skin. He drank in the beautiful young man and wondered again how things had even come to this point between them, or if it had been fated all along. It felt fated, at times, but when more lucid than the current moment, Severus knew that was ludicrous – destiny's hand had far more pressing concerns than his sex life.

Harry Potter, however, apparently did not. He took his time leaning in, keeping Severus frozen with his stunningly emerald gaze.

Severus knew where he was going. It was a dance, after all, the same one they always danced, but one that somehow, never ceased to awe him. His breath hitched when Harry – still holding his gaze – slid his tongue along the bulge in his black silk pants. He moaned when it found and swirled the head. His arms shook when Harry's lips closed around it.

“Mmmn,” Harry hummed through the thin garment before letting the turgid organ slip from his lips. “You wore something sexy after all.”

“Don't be ridiculous. It is merely that they are comfortable. Do not presume I wore them for you,” he snarked.

Harry gave him a placating smile. “Of course not. They're sexy all the same.”

“It is simply practical. They fit well and don't move about during the day,” Severus said, holding back the blush that fought to rise.

Harry slid his hand over the moistened front of the garment, palming the older man's erection through it. “Yeah, they fit brilliantly,” he said, curling his fingers, giving Severus a good squeeze.

“Gghh!” Severus clenched his teeth. He hated how weak he was under those hands, but in spite of his efforts, they still pulled a moan from the back of his throat and forced his lips to part and release it. They still effortlessly coaxed him to lift his hips so Harry could remove the so-dubbed 'sexy' undergarment and leave him entirely bare.

Pleasure rippled up Snape's spine. Left so vulnerable and bound by anticipation, it was troubling to try to maintain some vague facade of calm. So exposed, it was impossible. He knew it. Harry knew it. It was intoxicating, trying to maintain indifference even when he knew he'd already failed to do so, even when his body had long since betrayed him.

His fingers dug roughly into the bedding. He tried to focus his gaze as Harry stepped away from him to finish undressing, but he was already so overwhelmed. To be so desired, to – if only in passing – be made to feel beautiful, was addictive, and he was so easily overwhelmed by it.

Harry's body, too, was addictive. The sharp angle of his hips, the subtle strength in his arms, the dark trail that peppered down from his navel to the source of his desire, which, by this point of their encounter was always quite interested in the gangly mess of limbs that characterized Severus's physique.

“Severus.”

“Whichever way you want, Harry,” Severus answered the unspoken question. Just the way Harry said his name once they were both bare – he'd heard the question so many times it was no longer necessary to ask it. There had been a time when he would decide – magically? Or the more rough and tumble muggle way? There had been a time he had had whims and preferences about such things. That was before he realized he was in love. Now, the answer was always the same. Harry's whims. Harry's preferences. He would utterly submit to them all to please the young man. He hated that submissive side of his personality. He hoped Harry just thought he didn't particularly care, and thus left the decision to Harry out of indifference, or if not that, that perhaps Harry thought he was so skilled at pleasuring Severus, that either way was bliss (which was not untrue, but also not the reason unto itself). He didn't really know what Harry thought of the matter, if he ever bothered to consider it at all, and was not so rude as to invade the young man's thoughts without consent.

“A bit of both, then,” Harry grinned, pulling his wand from his trouser pocket before dropping the garment to the floor. “Lift your legs for me.”

Severus felt his stomach turn over. He knew what Harry liked – he liked to do it facing. He'd stopped telling Severus to turn over years ago. The first time had been a whim. It had been strange. It had been heady and engaging and delicious, but embarrassing. These days, the only time Harry seemed to prefer fucking him from behind was in front of a mirror. There were shops along Diagon Alley that Severus was sure he'd never be able to set foot in again for shame, even if the shop clerks never suspected the indecent acts Harry engaged him in whenever the young man happened to cross his path.

Severus moistened his lips and lifted his legs as his secret lover desired, pulled up and out, arms locked behind his knees, pulling them as close to his shoulders and as wide apart as he could comfortably maintain. He'd become rather more flexible with practice.

He shuddered when Harry smeared his precome, rolling the tip of his wand around the tip of Severus's more metaphorical wand, and collecting what droplets he could. Harry dragged the wand lightly down his shaft, between his balls, and the subtle spark of Harry's magic left a tingling in its wake. Goosebumps formed inside of Severus's blatantly exposed thighs.

Harry smirked as he lifted the wand to his lips and licked the droplets of Severus's desire from the tip.

Severus shivered and moaned at the sight. It was highly disrespectful of a magical implement, making use of it for such a thing! Nevertheless, as Harry returned the wand to his body, dragged it further along, and traced the tip along the Potion Master's anus, Severus knew that, comparatively, a bit of precome was a rather minor offense, compared to the things Harry had done, and would continue to do, to him with that bit of magically enhanced wood.

He cried out when the wand breached him – a finger and a half deep. Harry murmured the incantation against the inside of his thigh, leaving a bruising kiss there as evidence, perhaps, of Snape's submission. The spell was quick to plunder him – cleanse and purify and lightly stretch. Very lightly. Harry wasn't kidding when he had said a bit of both. The cleansing magic was simply a matter of basic hygiene – though he wouldn't admit it was a task he'd already attended to before Harry's arrival – but stretching, well, that just moved things along a bit more quickly. Tonight, Harry was apparently not interested in speed.

Doubly cleansed now, the wand slipped out of him. Severus couldn't contain a sigh of discontent at the lack.

Harry had moved onto the other thigh and chuckled there. “You're so impatient.”

“You dawdle,” Severus snipped, and his voice was harsher with lust than he cared for.

Harry pressed his lips to the older man's hip. “Honestly. You love to complain almost as much as you love to be teased.” His lips narrowly avoided Severus's organ, and instead slipped lower, past his bullocks, sliding along the tender flesh there. Severus felt his breath hitch and his pulse stutter. “It's fine,” Harry breathed against the soft skin. “Complain all you like. Your body cries out louder than your lips and tells me everything I need to know to please you.” His lips continued their attentions, slowly moving further down Snape's body.

...to please you. Those words out of Harry's lips forced the first little bead of a tear to Severus's eyes. It didn't trouble him; he often found himself in tears from lust, and any emotional instability brought on by Harry's words could be easily accredited to that. To imagine that Harry wanted to please him... oh, if only such a thing were true. His battered heart didn't dare to hope. As for his body, it was pleased. Quite intensely. It was so intensely pleased that he had to struggle to bring his mind back to the present moment. When it finally did return, he realized what Harry was up to. 'Surely not... He wouldn't...'

Severus groaned when Harry, in fact, did. His tongue slipped around the taut ring that had so recently been abused by the young man's wand. “H-Harry!”

Harry pulled back enough to laugh. “Don't sound so accosted. I've been meaning to try this for a long time, but you're so sexy that I end up losing sight of my intentions when I'm with you. Let me have a little fun.”

“I think you're having rather a little too much fun,” Severus breathed, but his voice was so harsh with need he could barely keep it stable. Harry's mouth! Down there! It did not seem a task Harry would derive any particular pleasure from himself, so Severus was shocked speechless as the young man dipped his head back down between his thighs. He tried to think it through logically in spite of his current impaired mental faculties. He tried to imagine the circumstances under which one might be inclined to treat a casual lover in this manner, but it was for naught. His mind was already too fogged, his thoughts muddled by Harry's delicate attentions. The tongue swept around the ring of him, lapped at it, and eventually, after Severus was sure he was going mad, pressed inside. Severus cried out quite loudly at that, and could feel Harry smiling against him. 'Of course, he simply enjoys making me scream.' He barely registered that thought past the intensity of being so thoroughly violated by Harry's perfect mouth, but it calmed the apprehension over the new territory their late night games was exploring. Harry derived pleasure from making Snape come unhinged. It was only that, and Harry was clearly willing to go to unexpected lengths to unhinge him.

“Harry...” He couldn't stop the whine from escaping. It felt so good, drove him so close to the edge. “Please,” he gasped through labored breaths. “Please stop...I can't...”

It was a mixture of relief and disappointment when Harry oblighed the request and pulled away. For a few moments, Severus could remember how to breathe, how to open his eyes, and his own name – all things which regularly escaped him during their midnight interludes.

Harry used the edge of the bed to lift himself to his full stature and lean over the older man. It too Severus several moments of careful breathing before his eyes could really focus, and when they did, he could see how disheveled Harry was – hair more tangled than ever, a light sheen of sweat keeping it stuck a bit outward and revealing the scar on his forehead. Severus didn't know what compelled him, but he forgot about holding his legs back for Harry now, as he had a better use for his hands. He pulled Harry down to lay a light kiss on that mark. It was a compulsion he often felt, but never acted on. It was too intimate for casual sex, something he felt belonged in the bed of someone who was more than a lover. He'd always feared the impulse would betray the inner workings of his heart, but tonight, he was too swept away for it to matter. He had to. This part of Harry, the evidence of how he'd suffered, how he'd endured, the trials that made him strong and left him vulnerable. These were things that no one could take from him; things that made Severus want to protect him, even now that the young man had more than proven he was wholly capable of protecting himself.

The look that passed through Harry's eyes at that kiss was one Severus couldn't quite identify, but the kiss that followed was probably the deepest they'd ever shared. He didn't stop himself from wrapping his arms around Harry's shoulders to hold him close. Closer. As close as he could get the silly Gryffindor while permitting them to remain two separate and distinct individuals.

“Severus.” Harry sounded strangely awed when the kiss broke apart. A nervous knot coiled in Snape's stomach. He was waiting for a blow that seemed inevitable, but Harry just smiled and the air lightened between them. “Well, I did want to torment you more than this, but you're so...” He stopped himself before he could use an adjective that Severus would be less than pleased with, even if Severus knew from the look in his eyes it would be a word more suited to a teenage girl than a grown man.

Instead, Harry chose to kiss the end of Snape's hooked nose. Severus wrinkled it in response and opened his mouth to offer a snarky protest that Harry cut off at the source. “I was going to stretch you out the fun way, but I think we'd best go with the faster way after all.” He reached for his wand.

“Don't bother,” Severus answered huskily. “It's good enough as it is.”

Harry's beautiful eyes widened. “Severus, no. It'll hurt.”

“I don't care. I can't wait.” Severus hated his mouth for letting those words spill forth for all the truth in them.

Harry's answer was to give him a surprisingly tender kiss on the lips. “Alright, but just remember that this wasn't my idea when you wake up sore tomorrow.”

Severus made a sound that was vaguely indignant, and Harry laughed again. “You never change. But, that's what keeps it interesting, I guess. You're so stubborn.” He kissed the corner of Snape's mouth and then, grabbing his wand, crawled up the bed to sit back against the pillows.

“I don't want to hear that from you,” Severus said, rolling himself over to face his lover. His gaze couldn't help but be drawn to Harry's hands. The lubricant spell had become such old hat, Harry didn't need to speak it verbally anymore, and he filled his palm with a generous amount of the shimmering liquid.

Severus bit the inside of his cheek as he watched Harry smooth the gel-like substance over his organ, watched the way Harry's eyelashes fluttered and gloried when the young man hissed through his teeth. He was always like this; he always let his own need go until even the barest touch was almost painful in how intense it was. Severus didn't know why Harry was like that. He always got so carried away with the foreplay. All the same, it was quite a view, as abbreviated as it was. Harry lubricated his organ as quickly as he could while still making sure everything was properly coated, then beckoned his lover closer.

Severus complied. He would always comply. He would never admit that he would always comply.

Harry kissed his jaw, his throat, his protruding collarbone. “If you want it that badly, then take it,” he said.

Severus felt his lust spike anew. He knew very well what Harry was telling him, and it excited him. As much as he enjoyed laying back and letting Harry do everything – Harry seemed to enjoy doing it, anyway – nights like this, when he could make efforts to return the favor, were their own kind of bliss.

He straddled his lover's hips, positioned his greased organ, and bit his lip as he pressed himself down upon it. Slowly. Oh so very slowly. Harry wasn't wrong – he hadn't been stretched enough, and the pain of being breached by such a thick shaft, while not significant in its own right, still required care. The pain didn't matter. It reduced the intensity of the pleasure just enough to keep him grounded and prevent him from making a fool of himself.

He had to rise and fall on the organ several times before he could impale himself fully. Yes, he was going to be sore tomorrow. No, he didn't care. They were so close in this position, with Harry seated against the headboard, Severus kneeling in his lap, that Harry's body heat radiated across Severus's erection like a hot summer sun. He breathed heavily, trying to keep his composure. He watched Harry's chest rise and fall with labored breathing to match.

Harry slid his hands up the older man's sides, across his arms, and pulled those arms up to rest around his shoulders. Severus had wanted to embrace Harry like this, but he hadn't intended to. Now that he felt Harry's arms wrapping around his back lightly to pull their torsos closer together, confusion and adoration flavored the lust between them. He followed the compulsion to lean in and kiss the younger man. He rarely initiated this sort of contact between them, but the way Harry moaned into it made it more than worth it.

“You alright?” Harry purred against his lips.

“Brilliant,” Severus replied carelessly as Harry caressed his back.

“Might want to move, then,” Harry smiled into the kiss.

Severus's eyes widened. Oh! How bloody stupid! He was on top. Of course! It's not as though he didn't know that, but the embrace was terribly distracting. Harry laughed warmly.

“Don't laugh, you prat. We've not used this position in ages.”

“Mmn, because you're too easily distracted,” Harry teased.

“I'll show you distracted,” Snape bickered, gripping the headboard behind Harry for leverage and uncoiling his knees beneath him to plant his feet more firmly on the mattress. The shifting made his innards sing with pleasure, and Harry's embrace became tighter. He could tell Harry had wanted to say something from the amusement that had sparked in his gaze, but instead bit his lip, trying not to cry out. Severus became determined – as Harry so often was in his regard – to tear the sound his lover was holding back from his lips.

It was a fleeting fancy. He lifted his hips, rolled them back and down again, and very quickly forgot any particular fancies in favor of the intense pleasure that raced up his spine and tightened in his bollocks. He didn't think his stamina could take much of this. He'd calmed a bit in the brief reprieve as Harry had prepared himself, but now that the reprieve was over, it felt so good to have Harry inside of him that it was as though they'd had no reprieve at all.

Severus, in spite of any intentions otherwise, moaned first. He was the first to whimper his lover's name. He hated how weak he was to Harry's obvious allure. It had been even more troubling when Harry was his student. It was not easy to punish bad behavior in a young man who had you wrapped around his finger like thread.

Harry held him close, dug his fingernails into Severus's shoulders. Severus felt his body begin to quake. As closely pressed as their bodies were, his throbbing erection brushed against his lover's belly with every stroke. It was difficult to endure, but he didn't want to embarrass himself. More than that, he wanted to show Harry that he could engage in sexual activity without completely losing his identity in the process. Severus knew, deep down, that it wasn't Harry he was trying to convince of that, but himself.

All the same, he felt a sense of accomplishment when Harry dropped his forehead into the crook of his neck and moaned “Seevvv...”

He curled his fingers into Harry's tangled hair and pressed his hips down a little harder, a little more energetically, on the next thrust. He thought – for one blissful moment, he thought – that he would be able to survive one of their encounters without being the first to lose himself in it. He genuinely thought, for once, he was in control of the situation, and of himself.

He should have known better. Harry was the one thing he could never exert any true control over. He could keep his calm around everyone else. Even though his life was not his own, he still had his sense of self. Harry stole that from him. With Harry, 'self' was swallowed up by passion; 'pride' was devoured by need.

Harry Potty consumed his very existence. So, it was no surprise when the younger man opened his mouth to drag his teeth and tongue along the scar on Snape's throat. He had a habit of that. The skin there had been so sensitive since that incident, and Harry had taken advantage of the fact ever since he'd discovered it. It was enough. It was more than Severus could endure. He cried out as he came, fingers clutching at Harry's hair and shoulders, anus pulsing around his beloved's engorged flesh as if his excitement could will Harry to fall into climax with him.

It could. Harry groaned against his throat, held the older man's slender form tight against his own, and filled Severus with the evidence of his desire.

It was bliss. The afterglow, as well – those few moments before he remembered himself, and could just embrace Harry lightly, and breathe, those perfect moments before reality crashed in, and he realized they were quite finished, and obliged himself to slide off of Harry's spent organ and crash to the bedding, exhausted – was pure delight. He grabbed his wand – preemptively placed on the nightstand – and cast a quick cleansing spell; Harry was still not particularly good at domestic magic. He lacked the patience for those humdrum little details.

Severus curled on his side and turned his back to his lover, as if to sleep. As wonderful as the intimacy with Harry was, as blissful the afterglow, in the moments after it, reality always returned to him. And, in reality, those moments immediately following their intercourse were the loneliest and most depressing. It was pathetic, he knew; he had far more sensible reasons to be depressed than being able to share a bed with someone he loved.

Unfortunately, at the moment, none of those reasons seemed to matter. The silence stretched between them until Severus found his patience too closely resembling over-extended elastic. “You got what you came for, so get out,” he snipped. So much for pretending to be asleep.

Harry's answer was to roll closer to him on the bed, slide up against his back and wrap his arm around the older man's midsection. Severus knew there was something Harry wanted to say, but he was not so terribly Slytherin as to use legilimency to deduce it without consent. The war was over; there was no excuse for such an oversight of morals – not in the eyes of the government, and not within the confines of his own mind, either.

“For the love of Merlin, Harry, just spit it out.”

“I don't want to,” Harry answered with a petulant tone that irritated Severus. “Not if you're going to be such an arse about it. I was going to say something deep and meaningful.”

Severus scoffed. “Nonsense. You don't have such an aspect to your character.”

“I might,” Harry answered, his tone now clipped and annoyed as he rolled back away. “Not that you'd know. After we shag all you have to say is 'get out'. You're really quite the charmer.”

“Well, there's no reason to let you stay. I loathe you,” Severus snapped defensively, shooting an angry glare halfway over his shoulder. He could feel Harry moving about, presumably getting dressed, but he didn't dare turn to face the younger man. He was afraid if he laid eyes on him now, he might convince himself to let Harry stay, just this once. He refused. There was no such thing as 'just this once' when it came to Harry. The first time he'd bent to the boy's lust he'd told himself the same, and now five years of physical pleasure and emotional turmoil had passed, and each night they spent together only intensified both. No, he would not be letting Harry stay the night – not tonight, or any night.

Harry sighed. “I know,” he answered. “You make sure to remind me often enough, both with your words and your cold shoulder. All the same, you still want me. We've got that much, at least.”

“That's all we have,” Severus answered, but he didn't feel as certain as his clipped tone of voice implied. What was this? What was Harry getting at? Normally, he just dressed, and left. Had Severus, somewhere along the line done something differently? Let something slip? He tried to remember, but nothing came to mind.

The bed rose behind him. Harry had gotten up. “I know that, too,” Harry replied, and Severus convinced himself it was only his own hopeful delusion that made the younger man sound so sad as he said it.

An extended silence passed between them in which Harry didn't leave, and Severus didn't tell him he could stay. Neither option felt entirely plausible, even though there were no others available to them. Severus could feel the shift in the air between them; something had changed, something unspeakable and difficult to identify. There was something else that needed to be said between them. He just didn't know what that something was.

In the end, it was Harry who spoke. He took three long strides toward the door, his steps sharp and clearly agitated, then stopped abruptly, clenched his fists. Severus still didn't dare turn to face him, even if he would only see Harry's back, now.

“Listen, Severus. I don't want to say this more than once, and I don't want you to answer now, but one day, I'm going to ask you why you hate me so much, and when I do, I want an answer that isn't about my parents. Please give it some thought.”

Severus was so startled by the question that no snarky reply formed in his mind. He sat up to face Harry at exactly the moment the bedroom door closed between them, and felt torn between a compulsion to chase him and stop him from leaving tonight, and an equal compulsion to get as far away from his young lover as physically possible. He couldn't decide quickly enough, sitting there clenching the sheets in his slender fingers, and heard the outer door lock. He didn't move even when Harry's footsteps were no longer audible.

It was a simple question that should have a simple, obvious answer, but Severus found his mind blank when he tried to list Harry's most detestable qualities, without tacking the words 'just like James' at the end of each. The realization made his blood run cold.

The End.

(Story Continues in “Breaking the Habit”)
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Little White Lies