Adult-FanFiction.org : Harry Potter

Onward into the Breach	By : QueenB Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Snape Views: 8401 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter in anyway, shape or form. The rights of such belong solely to J.K Rowling. I do not make any money or accrue any monetary benefit on this story.

Chapter List
- 15
- 16
Severus strode quickly through his sanctuary in Spinner’s End. The house was much shabbier than he remembered it. The smell of musty pages hung in the air and the whole place held the sad aspect of neglect.
It had been torture to wake up and feel Harry’s slumbering form next to his. Severus hadn’t dared create a light lest it wake the sleeping man. So it had been dark, as always, in the dungeons, but Harry’s warm body had been a brand against his side.
Severus had brushed the bare tips of his fingers over that sleeping face, aching to kiss the parted lips, trembling with Harry’s breath. Endless moments had passed while he hovered there, caught between the desire to remain and the equally frantic urge to leave. In the end, prudence had won out and he had slipped away silently, leaving that precious body sleeping still.
Severus thrust the image from his mind. He opened his bag and quickly muttered the Summoning Charm to gather the various books he wanted. Severus had no doubt that this Dumbledore knew exactly where he lived. It would be only a matter of time before Harry got the bright idea of talking to the portrait in order to track him down.
Would the adolescent actually pursue him? Severus had no way of knowing for sure but if this Harry were as tenacious as the other, he wasn’t about to risk it. He had to get away and he needed a head start.
His salary at Hogwarts had never been large. But he had been frugal – and so had his counterpart. He had checked on his account when he’d gone to Gringotts to hide the fake sword and had been gratified to see there was a tidy nest egg secured in his name. He had silently thanked the other Snape for his thrift and withdrawn it all that very same day. He’d had the uncomfortable certainty every single knut would be required.
There was a “whoosh” from behind him and the floo erupted in green flame. The next moment, Harry tumbled gracelessly from the fireplace and staggered upright, brushing the soot from his person.
Severus grimaced. So much for the head start.
Harry gave up on brushing himself and simply cast the Cleaning Charm. Emerald-bright eyes glared at Severus and his heart thudded faster at seeing them. “Where the hell do you think you’re going?”
“I must demand you amend your language, Potter. Do you think that’s any way to talk to a man after you’ve invaded his home?”
“Don’t you get all high and mighty with me, Severus Snape!” Harry snapped. “What is wrong with you? We went through hell together to bring down Voldemort and then you just up and leave without so much as a word!”
He let a sneer twist his lip. “What did you expect? Gushing praise for the Boy Who Lived? Bowing down like a sycophant before your feet? I helped you rid this world of a vicious tyrant. Now I am taking a well-earned sabbatical for myself. It is the least that I deserve.” He turned back to his packing.
Harry darted in front of him. “Don’t give me that! Don’t act all mean and nasty now, after everything that’s happened! You’ve done your best to take care of me. Now you expect me to believe that you’ve turned into the Snape I know overnight as if you didn’t give a toss? I’m not stupid, you know.”
“Your intelligence is considerably less than that of the Harry Potter I knew. But that’s neither here nor there. I’m under no obligation to stay so I’m taking my leave.” All of his books were packed now. He tapped the heavy valise with his wand and it shrank into a small bundle that he tucked into an inside pocket.
Harry grabbed at his arm and Severus steeled himself against the warmth penetrating his robes. “What is it you want, Potter? Congratulations? Tears of gratitude? A medal?”
“I want to know why you took off like that. Cowardice like that isn’t like you.”
“It wasn’t cowardice, Potter. Merely a strategic retreat.”
“And what’s with calling me Potter? You called me Harry.” He paused and spoke in a lower tone. “And you kissed me.”
“From now on, none of that signifies. You will finish your last year of school. I will resign as Headmaster. Minerva will be all too happy to take on that role, I’m certain. We shall live out our separate lives.” He paused and then resumed with apparent indifference. “Now that the Dark Lord is dead, you have nothing to stand in your way of achieving your vision of perfect domestic bliss.”
The Gryffindor looked down at the rug, but Severus saw his embarrassment. Relieved that he’d caught Harry out, Severus whipped out his wand.
Harry caught hold of his arm again. “No! You’re not simply going to Apparate out of here! Not without a decent explanation!”
“I have already given it and in any case there is no reason for me to justify my actions to you.” Severus shook himself free and glared. “This was not supposed to be my fight. For me, the struggle ended 16 years ago. I was unfairly and unwillingly tossed into the midst of this fray. Yet I rose to the challenge and fulfilled my obligation – again. I have more than earned my rest. What right do you have to demand more of me?”
“When were you going to tell me you and I were hand-fasted in that world?”
Who…? That meddling old goat! To his annoyance, Severus could feel his cheeks getting warm.
“So it is true? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“To what purpose? So you could shy away in horror and bleat that you weren’t gay? So you could tell me once again that you were going to wed a Weasley and raise a passel of red-haired brats? To once again have you perched at the edge of the bed lest the nasty pedophile molest you in your sleep?”
“So that I wouldn’t have spent every night we were sleeping together wondering if you hated me!” Harry shouted.
Harry turned beet-red then. Severus eyed him narrowly, uncertain and startled by this revelation. Harry scuffed his shoes on the rug, but he didn’t avoid his gaze this time.
“Why would you think I hated you?” Severus asked, his voice softer but no less probing. “Why would you even care?”
“Because…I don’t know. You wouldn’t touch me again and I thought maybe you were…I didn’t think you found me too awful but you kept away from me like I had the plague or something. Then you kissed me in Hogwarts.” Harry sighed then frowned. “So why’re you running away?”
“Potter, did you miss what I was saying just now? There is no reason for me to stay. You are not…my Harry. You have a life and dreams waiting for you that have no place for me in them.”
Harry grabbed at Severus’s robes, yanking the man’s face down to his. “You have no idea what my dreams are,” he hissed.
Then he kissed him.
He sucked and breathed Severus in, tangling calloused fingers in his hair. Harry’s heart pounded against his own in a frantic, escalating rhythm and Severus nearly moaned when the hands swept down over his shoulders to encircle his back. The lad was ardent, yes, but woefully inexperienced. Severus could tell that by the eager, messy way he kissed. But heat sparked between them, flowing from that kiss until it scorched him.
Severus could have lost himself in that male hardness. But reason struggled to assert itself. He grabbed Harry’s upper arms and forced him back.
“What do you think you’re doing, Potter?”
The man had the audacity to smirk at him! “I was kissing you. What, a whole day is so long you’ve forgotten already what it’s like?”
“Don’t play games with me, boy.”
“Don’t call me ‘boy’. You know I’m anything but,” Harry retorted. “Calling me stupid names isn’t going to get me to run so you might as well quit it.”
“Are you telling me… What are you telling me, precisely?”
“That I want you, you git. That I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you. That I woke up this morning and found you gone and it hurt so much, I could barely breathe.”
Severus released him and stepped back. He looked so much like the stony-faced professor Harry had known that it was terrifying.
“Potter, listen to me very carefully. What you feel now will pass. You and I spent a great deal of time together in a tense situation. Our enforced…closeness undoubtedly engendered feelings in you that wouldn’t have existed under any other circumstances. Such ill-considered liaisons often happen in wartime. Your reaction is normal but it must not be mistaken for anything deeper. Give it time and I assure you your feelings will dissipate.”
“It that was true, I would have had a go with Hermione. Or Ron.”
“They had a well-established relationship even a blind man could see. Your Gryffindor sense of honor would have been enough to stifle any such untoward emotions. It would have been detrimental to your friendship and damaging to your cause. Naturally, you wouldn’t have touched either of them or even allowed such feelings to emerge.”
“You make it sound so logical, like those were the actual thoughts going through my mind!” Harry retorted. “‘Hermione and Ron are an item so it’d be a bad idea to shag either of them. Best steer clear.’”
Severus’s lips twitched. “I doubt very much whether you had actually considered the prospect of engaging in illicit relationship in such a clear-cut, rational manner. You have made it very plain that introspection is not your forté.”
“Oi! That’s not fair. Like I said, I’m not a kid. I know my own mind.”
“Anyone can know your mind, Potter. There’s not much going on in there, is there?”
Harry took a deep breath. Severus could tell he was holding on to his temper but only just. If Severus could provoke him, he might have a chance of sending Harry away, licking his wounds.
“This isn’t about lust. This isn’t just because I was forced to work with you. It was because I came to know you. To like you. I don’t feel that way about Ginny.”
“Of course not. You told me yourself you were in love with Ginevra Weasley. You say now that you merely like me. There is a world of difference between the two.”
“Yeah, I did love Ginny.”
Did? Severus kept his expression blank. He would not hope. He would not.
“But I never thought about her the way I did about you. Even when I hated the other you, I often thought about him. It was scary the way he would occupy my mind sometimes. There was a lot I admired about him, even if I’d cut my tongue out before I said so.”
Harry stared at the floor before looking up again. “But I saw all that and more in you. I saw the decent person you became without the shadow of Voldemort hanging over you. I saw the good man who must have been hidden underneath all that annoyance, frustration and anger. I saw…you. And I liked what I saw. After awhile, it was more than liking.”
“And what is it now?”
Confusion filled the green eyes. Perhaps Harry hadn’t thought this out as much as he’d claimed. He spoke slowly, feeling his way with every word. “I know that…I thought about a future with Ginny. A vision of…husband, wife, children, house. The sort of games little girls play with dolls. It wasn’t really about people at all.”
Those emerald green eyes bent on his, steady and without doubt now. “But when I think of you, I imagine a life. Laughing over a joke you’ve told me. Talking with me about your day. I could learn about potions from you and maybe you could actually teach me this time without picking on me.” Harry grinned ruefully at that.
“I found myself thinking about you all the time. I missed you after you’d been out of the room for two minutes. I was worrying more and more whether you thought about me, cared about me the way…” He swallowed. “The way I care about you.”
Severus became aware of many things: the way the dust motes stirred by his disturbance floated on the air, the threadbare quality of the rug they were standing on; the way the little light streaming in from the unwashed windows caught Harry’s hair in a radiant nimbus; how those verdant eyes shone with a hope that was almost painful to watch; the way the silence grew thicker, waiting for one of them to break it.
“Potter…”
“Harry. You’ve been calling me Harry for so long. You wanted things to be what they were in that other world, didn’t you? That’s why you stayed here. You could have just chucked everything and left. But you stayed…to protect your bondmate. Right?”
He bared his teeth. “I stayed to rid this world of the Dark Lord.”
“Bullshit,” Harry said bluntly. “If that were all, you would have just chucked that bloody sword into the pond and gone back to Hogwarts. You wouldn’t have stayed to be with me.”
“You were drowning.”
“Then why stay afterwards? You could have just Apparated out.”
“With two wands on me?”
“The other you fought off three wizards in a narrow corridor and escaped from Hogwarts. Don’t tell me you couldn’t have got away from two junior wizards who hadn’t even completed their schooling ‘cause I won’t believe it.”
There was a pain in his jaw. Severus found he was clenching it and consciously relaxed. “It became clear to me that you and your little Gryffindor comrades needed help. I stayed to train you.”
“That’s what that talk on the beach was about? Training?”
“You needed to understand that I wasn’t…”
“The Snape I knew. Yeah, got that the first night you showed up. Why did you need me to understand that, anyway? I didn’t need any further talk about that to fight Voldemort, did I?’
Harry stepped closer. “You wanted me to know you.”
“Do not read anything into it, Potter.”
The Gryffindor took another step, his eyes never leaving Severus’s. “You wanted your bondmate back.”
“You are not he. I accept that.”
“No, I’m not. But do you accept me?”
This house really needed to have the windows opened. The air was too dry in here. He swallowed, hating the motion, knowing that Harry had caught it. “I accept that you are different, yes. I don’t need to take you from your life.”
Harry was too close. The wood of one of his bookshelves was digging into Severus’s spine; he had backed into it without realizing he’d moved. “I need you to be in my life, Severus.”
Harry kissed him again. This kiss was softer, more deliberate. Harry’s tongue came out to trace his lips. The kiss went on and on, like the youth wanted to learn Severus through his mouth alone.
A hard length was pressing into Severus’s thigh. Harry was slowly but steadily grinding against him, letting him feel it. A small hand ran over Severus’s cheek and down his jaw to linger on his neck. This touch too was considering. When he didn’t push it away, it caressed in a slow circle down over his chest.
There were thick layers to his heavy jacket. He shouldn’t have been able to feel anything through it. But the light pressure of Harry’s touch caused his nipple to pucker and scrape against the fabric until it ached. When he gasped, the tongue seeking entrance slipped into his mouth.
Severus held Harry close, breathing him in with every pull of his lips. His bondmate was here, wanting him and demanding that Severus give no less of himself. His resolve was weakening by the second, if he’d ever had it. Holding on to one shred of decency, Severus broke the kiss to look Harry in the eye. “Harry, are you sure?” he whispered hoarsely.
“Yes, damn it, yes,” Harry snapped. “Do I have to write it out on a chalkboard for you?”
He spun Harry around. Now it was the youth pressed to the shelf, panting between every swift kiss Severus landed on his mouth. Severus plucked off those ridiculous glasses and set them down blindly on the nearest surface. There, now Harry’s whole face was his to explore and he let his lips travel all over the bristly cheeks, the hard curve of the jaw. The scent of Harry was curling into him and the sensation of the younger man’s lean body arching against his was driving him out of his mind.
Harry shoved him away a little. “Severus…”
“What?” he growled. “Don’t tell me you want to stop.”
“No. But let’s take this somewhere more…”
It was hard to think when Harry was giving him that heavy-lidded stare. But Severus gathered his wits enough to nod towards the closed door. “Through there, up the stairs.”
__________
They could have Apparated but they both preferred to walk upstairs – stagger, really – their hands busily tugging shirts out of trousers, brushing against the heated skin beneath.
In the bedroom, the low light barely leaked through the drawn curtains. Impatient with the dimness, Harry gestured and the curtains flew open. Severus blinked at the sudden glare.
“I want to see you. All of you,” Harry said in a voice gone suddenly urgent and low.
Severus had the same idea in mind. Garments were unceremoniously discarded, tossed to the floor (and didn’t that seem familiar?). Because of the confounded myriad buttons on the clothes favored by his wretched counterpart, Harry was soon naked while Severus was still fumbling with his waistcoat. He gave a much put-upon sigh when Harry laughed and finally removed the rest of his clothes with an impatient swipe of his wand.
In the sunlight, Severus could see clearly the damage recent travails had done to that youthful body. He was not as skinny as he’d been by the pond but he was seriously underweight. His paleness was undeniable as were the tousled mane and the sharp cheekbones.
But there was the smattering of hair on the chest, exposing two flat, dusky pink nipples, scattered on his legs and around the weeping cock. Harry wasn’t a child any longer and the hunger in his eyes couldn’t be mistaken for anything but a man’s desire.
He evidently knew the changes circumstances had wrought in himself. “Look at you,” he murmured softly. “You look ten times better than I do now.”
“I am willing to make allowances, given recent events. I’m sure once you’re properly nourished and rested, you’ll fill out nicely.” Severus sank on to the bed, brushing a hand down Harry’s chest over the furred nipples. A sharp breath followed that action and Harry panted, falling back to the pillows. Severus followed him down and began kissing him again, letting his lips trail everywhere. He licked at the hollow at the base of Harry’s throat and heard the adolescent gasp.
“Oh! Wow, that felt…really good.”
He lifted his head and smiled. “It’s a sensitive spot for you.”
“How do you…? Oh.” A red tide flowed over the man’s face as realization hit. Severus had wondered how far Harry’s blushes went. He was glad to have his curiosity satisfied. Severus proceeded to re-acquaint himself with all the parts on Harry’s body that reduced him to a writhing mass in the sheets.
Harry cried out when the older man brushed his tongue down across one path on his ribs. “Oh Merlin! Please…”
“Please what, Harry?”
“Um, you know. I want you inside me.”
Severus’s eyes narrowed at the tentative request. “Harry, you have done this before, haven’t you?” The green eyes shifted. Oh, for the love of… “Were you going to tell me or just let me bugger you while manfully hiding your winces?” he snapped.
“I-I didn’t want you to stop out of guilt or something. And I didn’t want you laughing at me because I hadn’t had sex before.”
Severus sighed, his exasperation vanishing in the face of his partner’s confession. He was aware of those green eyes watching him anxiously. “Severus, I really do want you to. Don’t stop because of this.”
“I won’t stop. Actually, your other self was inexperienced as well.”
“Really? Why? He didn’t have a Voldemort around to attack his loved ones.”
“No, but he wasn’t the randy bugger many Slytherins are. And from his early youth, he was quite enamored of my person. When I finally took him to my bed and discovered his pristine state, he claimed to have been saving himself for me.”
“Bloody hell.”
Severus grinned. “This has got to be a most unique experience – taking the virginity of the same lovely young man twice.”
“Severus, I’m glad it’s going to be you.” He ran his hand down Severus’s chest, tangled his fingers in the chest hair that was so much thicker than his. “Hurry. Please.”
“We must take things slowly, Harry. I’ve no wish to hurt you.”
“Not too slowly, I hope. I’m about to explode here.”
“No exploding. At least not yet.” He gave Harry a searing kiss that left him breathless. Then he murmured, “Accio Severus’ Salve.”
From his nightstand, a drawer opened and a small brown jar of clear salve floated through the air to land in his outstretched hand. Harry peered at it. “Wow, you were prepared, weren’t you?”
“Not quite. Before we were hand-fasted I spent many a solitary night in these walls during the summers. The salve was a way of…easing my distress.” Harry sniggered, causing him to frown in mock disapproval. “I assumed my counterpart would be in even greater need of this than I. As it turns out, I was right.”
He resumed kissing Harry, sensing when the taut body relaxed, pressing those receptive spots until that lithe body was shaking again in desire, not fear. All at once, he was fiercely glad Harry had never had carnal knowledge of the Severus of this reality. There would be no comparisons in the lad’s mind, not about this.
Severus deftly unscrewed the lid of the jar with one hand and set it aside on the mattress. He wanted to try something.
He trailed over the heaving chest, flicking playfully at the nipples along the way. Yes, these nubs were as he remembered, becoming diamond hard with the merest brush of his tongue. Harry squealed and bobbed in the bed as he tongued, lapped and bit at the rough pebbles.
“Oh shit, more, so…what are you…unggghnn.” His voice died to needy whimpers as Severus stroked down his sides in slow circles. By the time he was at Harry’s waist, the thick cock was pulsing madly in a shallow puddle on the heaving stomach. He breathed on it and pulled away as the hips arched.
“Severus, please!”
He paid no attention to the wretched whines. Severus grasped Harry’s legs, bending them and pushing them until the youth was bent nearly double. Bypassing the straining member, he let his tongue trace the wrinkled flesh beneath it.
His tongue lifted the balls. Severus sucked deeply at them, thrusting his nose against the base of the cock. The sweaty taste here was delightful. He had never tired of it before and it was gratifying that it hadn’t changed. Even tastier was the lamb-soft skin behind the balls, couched as they were over the source of Harry’s bliss. Closing his eyes, he laved at it without mercy.
All the while, Harry was letting out those primal, ferocious cries, his body shuddering in wanton pleasure. His hands scrabbled and clawed at the duvet while his hips thrust up into Severus’s face with every quaking spasm.
Leaving the sweet skin at last, Severus found the secret clenched bud beneath them. He lapped and bit at it lightly. Then he inserted the tip of his tongue.
Harry went deathly still. No part of his body moved save the rising and falling chest. Severus knew what this stillness meant. The other Harry had been profoundly shocked when he first did this, not understanding why anyone would find this appealing. It was going to be fun proving all over again what was so arousing about this particular act.
He narrowed his tongue to a point and pushed hard against the rosebud until the flesh gave. Thrusting farther, he swirled his tongue inside, pressing deeper and deeper. He probed as far as he could, loving the wild noises above his head as Harry shuddered.
The hips were bobbing again, in tiny, fast heaves. Speech had returned to Harry – speech and curiosity. “Severus? What…oh…oh fuck…ohhh…”
The calloused hands were buried in Severus’s hair again, the fingers digging into his skull. It was no quick matter to free himself from that grip but Severus managed. Harry looked at him between his bent legs, the green eyes twin pictures of distress. “Why’d you stop? Please, I can’t take it.”
Reaching into the jar beside him, Severus liberally coated his fingers, Harry’s eyes following his every move. When the first finger was inserted, those eyes grew almost comically wide while the mouth became a little “o” of surprise.
The passage was slick from his tongue and he spread the salve thoroughly, his finger crooking, searching until…
Harry’s head slammed back into the pillow as he shouted. He cried out again and again as Severus kept rubbing on his the rounded node inside, reducing his partner to a squirming bundle in the sheets.
“Oh, Merlin, yes, yes, fuck, right there…more of that…PLEASE!”
Severus couldn’t take his eyes off the straining features. Circe, Harry was breathtaking like this. He continued adding fingers, licking his lips at the brilliance sparking in the eldritch eyes, turning them to shining emeralds in the light.
The hole was clenching rhythmically around his fingers now while Harry pleaded with him. “God, Severus. That’s…so good. Want you, want you now. I want you to fuck me,” he hissed.
“Hold on to your knees, Harry,” he murmured. Ideally, Harry should have been face down for his first time. But Severus wanted to look into his eyes, wanted to see Harry’s face when the moment of completion caught him. Groping for the jar, he liberally slathered his cock, gasping at the touch of his own hand. Merlin, he’d better hurry or he was going to cum right now.
He nestled between the spread thighs and made the first careful thrust. Harry gasped a little and his fingers clutched the sheets. When he couldn’t hold back on a whimper, Severus stilled. “Harry, are you all right?”
Harry’s hands flew up to grab Severus’s shoulders. “No! I mean, yes. Don’t stop. Just… I want to do this. Help me. Show me how.”
Severus closed his eyes and breathed deeply, in and out. When he’d regained a measure of control, he whispered, “Try opening up your sphincter muscles, like you’re sitting on the loo.” Harry flushed at his graphic instructions but he could feel the snug passage around his cock loosen just a little. He nudged farther and drew back. “Better?”
The green-eyed youth nodded, a tremulous smile creasing his face.
He reached down and grasped the softened cock, tugging at it, running his fingers over the shaft and the dripping head. When it lengthened and grew firm in his hand, Severus pressed deeper. His cock passed over the prostate. That was what he’d been searching for and he nudged back and forth a few times, experimentally.
“Fuck!”
As you wish. Severus didn’t say that out loud. He merely smiled at the dawning delight on Harry’s face. He slid deeper into the warm flesh and saw Harry’s eyelids flutter.
What followed next was an aching dance of progression and retreat, as he pressed deeper with every lunge forward. Soon this was not enough – for either of them.
“Harder, oh god, that feels so good, Severus. Severus, Sev…”
The pointed nipples were rasping against his own. The slight arms had banded around his shoulders in an unbreakable grip and Harry was panting, keening while his arse clamped around Severus repeatedly.
Sweet god above, he had missed this: the heart galloping against his; the heat around his cock; the warm body trembling in his arms; the voice of his beloved crying, babbling, sobbing, a song without words, in his ear. He buried his face in the untamed hair, breathing in that intoxicating scent of leather, cedar, flight…of his Harry.
Tenderness was no longer possible as he plowed the man thoroughly, fucking him until the air wheezed out of his body with each plunge. The younger wizard wound his legs over his back, urging him on with every wordless cry.
Severus groaned, peering down at Harry while he rained kisses and nips over that beloved face. He was melting in flame, consumed and consuming, as his lover welcomed him home.
Harry’s voice hitched. Severus knew that sound, could recall it from dozens of encounters like this. “Let it out, beloved,” he whispered, scarcely aware of what he was saying.
The green eyes squeezed shut and Harry wailed as his cock spurted warmth between them. Severus shuddered from the pressure around his cock but maintained his frantic pace until he too was overcome.
It was incredible. He cried out with his release and Severus swore white spots appeared in this vision for a second. He collapsed over Harry, dreamily registering the heavy breathing from his dear one. When he’d recovered somewhat he pressed a deep kiss to the parted lips and murmured in gruff tones, “I love you, Harry.”
Harry blinked nearsightedly at him. Then he kissed him back, hard. “I love you, too, you crazy git. I’d never have forgiven you if you’d just disappeared on me.”
He wasn’t sure he could have forgiven himself. Why had he tried to run away from this, this bliss, this absolute joy? He could only assume some temporary madness had gripped him.
Severus shifted to the side. “No, don’t move,” Harry murmured.
“I must be heavy.”
“Nuh uh. Just right.”
Severus feasted his eyes on his bedmate. Harry had always looked delightfully disheveled post-coitus and this one was just as pleasing. This close, the ravages of his time on the run were even more apparent. But they were all the dearer to him for they were signs of the man this boy had been forced to become.
This would never be the old Harry but he didn’t need to be. Severus loved this youth for himself alone, for the unbridled joy this Harry brought to him, for the soothing of the almost-forgotten ache that had settled into Severus’s being. But now…now he had lost his heart and come to his senses.
Harry’s scrutiny was no less intense. “What happens now?” he whispered.
“Well, first, I’m going to see what is in the larder. If my counterpart kept this place well stocked, there will be enough for a morning repast. You need it, especially if you were silly enough to come here without stopping for a meal.”
“Oi, I woke up to find you gone! I wasn’t going to take time to stuff my face, not when you were probably planning on buggering off to France or wherever! I didn’t even have time to put back that damned Elder Wand,” Harry groused.
Severus grimaced. “I’m sorry about that. You were right about that wand. The sooner it is laid to rest, the better.”
“Just another bit of nastiness to lay at Voldemort’s door.” Harry peered at Severus from behind his messy fringe. “Weren’t you supposed to be making breakfast?”
“Do not try my benevolence too far, brat.” Nevertheless, Severus got up. Harry lay back, ogling his bare flesh. Pleased with his obvious appreciation, Severus didn’t dress completely but settled for a dressing gown loosely tied around his waist.
“Get up, Harry. I refuse to act like a house-elf and feed you in bed.”
“Too bad. Sounds like breakfast in bed could lead to other things.” Harry grinned and jumped out of the bed. He really looked deliciously rumpled after sex and Severus seriously considered throwing him back on the mattress for another round. Harry must have divined his intentions because he began dressing quickly.
“Forget it. You had your chance. Besides, I could murder a rasher of bacon and eggs.” When he was dressed, he wound his arms around Severus. He was suddenly quiet, shadows in the corners of his eyes.
“What is it now, Harry?”
“We have some talking to do.”
“No doubt. However, I would prefer to delay conversation until after partaking of breakfast.”
He nodded. “But we’ll try to make this work, yeah? You won’t just take off while I’m in the shower or something?”
Severus brushed his forefinger over the pursed lips. “We will talk, Harry, and there will be no running. It appears that I am saddled with one stubborn, pestiferous Gryffindor who is not content to let me live my life in peace.”
“And I’m stuck with a duplicate Severus who loves me, making him a hell of a lot smarter than the bloke he replaced.”
Severus chuckled at that description. He wound his arm around Harry’s waist and nudged him towards the stairs.
“So, do you take pumpkin juice with your breakfast or tea?”

THE END
- 15
- 16
You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.
Report Story

Onward into the Breach