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Take Me As I Am	By : KohakuShadow Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Snape Views: 7655 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or any of its characters, nor am I making any money off of it. It's called FANfiction because I DON'T own it, right? Right. Good that we're clear.

Chapter List
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2.

In spite of their graveside encounter, Harry thought his fascination with Snape would fade by the time the school year started. He'd been wrong. What had started as dreams of kissing and idle caresses had quickly turned pornographic. He didn't think he'd wanked half as much as a hormonal teenager as he did now that his mind was so consumed.

It wasn't just the dreams that had Harry so riled. He wanted to talk with Severus again the way they had talked in Godric's Hollow. He wanted to sit with him and enjoy a cup of tea. He wanted to know everything there was to know about him – all the things that no one else had ever cared enough to ask. He wanted to be both a lover and a friend, but he doubted the feeling was mutual.

Even so, he was daring enough to take the seat beside Snape in the Great Hall. He hoped it might give him the chance to start a conversation.

"...Professor," he said cordially, trying to gauge Snape's mood.

Snape answered with a curt nod but offered nothing more as his gaze scanned the crowd. Harry. He didn't know what to do about Harry. He'd been unwell and let too many of his personal opinions slip that day. Now he wasn't sure how to deal with the situation, but deal with it he must, as Harry seemed to have drawn his own conclusions as to how their relationship should proceed henceforth. Snape still wondered what was for the best. Should he pretend it never happened? That seemed to be the safest route, but young Professor Potter obviously had other intentions.

"Your health is..?"

"...improved," Severus answered curtly. "Thank you for asking."

Harry frowned. The conversation was stiff and cordial. He was afraid that might happen, but he didn't have any plan for how to combat it. He tried to be observant. Snape didn't have the walking staff beside him, but Harry didn't know if that was because he didn't need it, or a matter of pride. Knowing what he did about Snape, Harry figured it was probably the latter, but couldn't think of a good way to bring it up. He ate in awkward silence when his former Professor offered nothing else to fuel a continued conversation and the longer the silence stretched out the more irritated by it Harry became. 'Stubborn bastard. Why can't you just admit we had a...a...I don't know, a fucking moment for god's sake!'

"Harry."

Harry jumped and spun owl eyes to the seat to his left. "Huh?"

Professor Sprout quirked a brow at Harry's plate. He'd impaled his roll and made quite a mess of it with his fork. "Everything alright, dear?" she asked.

"Oh, I, yes, sorry," Harry blushed, quickly putting the fork aside to try to recover a scrap or two of his dignity. "Just, er, a bit more nervous than I thought I'd be, I s'pose," he lied. Nerves had nothing to do with the gamut of emotions he'd been running through of late, unless you counted the nerve Snape had for ignoring him like this! And that, Harry thought, was quite a bit of nerve, more than the Potions Master's fair share, even.

"Nothing to be nervous about," Professor Flitwick said, leaning forward to be seen as well as heard past Professor Sprout's girth. "Just like when you were a student, really. Except that you'll be on the other side of the detentions this time."

Harry answered with a sheepish smile and brushed it off as best he could. By the time he'd turned back to his plate, Severus was halfway to his feet, excusing himself on the grounds he had 'several things to prepare' before morning lessons.

'He only gets away with that because no one wants to ask what ingredients he's dissecting for the first years over dinner,' Harry thought sullenly as Professor McGonagall said 'of course, Severus. We all know by now how much preparation is required for your lectures. You won't let us forget.' She obviously added the latter as a jibe, but Snape either didn't notice, or pretended not to.

Harry knew he wouldn't be so lucky in making an early escape. He was saddled with showing first years around campus and to their dorms once the meal was over. In the spirit of inter-House cooperation, that was now done in two large, co-mingled groups, rather than a task for the Head of House, and Harry was just lucky enough to be chaperoning one of those groups with Professor Trelawney. He tried to think of a few of the woman's finer qualities to help motivate himself for the daunting task of playing chaperone to fifty pre-teens who would be interested in everything except what he had to say, but found himself coming up terribly short. 'Nice enough old bat, just...hasn't got much in the attic, is all,' he thought, glad she wasn't a real (or at least not a reliable) psychic, or he'd be getting some pretty dirty looks about now. As it stood, he wasn't convinced that Snape wasn't cursing his name on the way back to the dungeons. He decided to confront the man after tour duty, whether Snape liked it or not.

Harry sighed and started picking at his demolished bread. 'It's going to be a long night...'

*

Severus leaned against the wall and raked his fingers through his hair. Thank Merlin it was the first night of school. Any other night, he could expect students wandering the halls until curfew (and a few well after), but tonight they were all in their dorms, settling their possessions for the year ahead. It left him with his dignity.

He had had quite enough of being unwell. He knew grave injuries took time to heal, but he thought he'd allowed this one time enough, and while usually he felt fine, he was sometimes overcome by exhaustion and dizziness. Both had overtaken him on his way back toward his rooms from his potions stores. It was the ladder, he told himself. He should have spelled the potions to him instead of climbing to get them, but he always worried that he might lack care and knock something over. It was far safer to retrieve them by hand. Up and down the ladder thrice, however, seemed to be too much on this particular evening and he found himself clutching the jars carefully to his chest as he leaned against the wall, trying to make the world stop spinning. Even alone, he was humiliated by his impotence. Surely, the time would come when he could manage such simple tasks again. He loathed asking for assistance and couldn't bring himself to admit when he needed it. He had always been that way, he reminded himself. Perhaps his self-sufficient nature was as much a curse as it was a blessing.

There were several of his co-workers he could have, theoretically, asked who would have been willing to help, and one in particular who would have been happy to do so. 'Harry,' he thought with a sigh. What in Merlin's name was he supposed to do about Harry? Maybe nothing – he imagined the young man was probably furious with him for the way he'd ignored him at dinner. 'I shouldn't have. There was no reason to. I could have managed a simple conversation, small talk. I could have steered the conversation away from anything questionable. He would have understood that I was willing to come to a truce with him, but that there were certain matters which I prefer to keep to myself. Surely. In spite of all evidence to the contrary, he is not that daft. And yet, I did what I always do – I panicked and acted in a regrettable manner. He is Lily's son. Perhaps he will not forgive for that weakness. Lily never did.' He didn't know why it felt so terribly important that Harry forgive him. He'd loathed him terribly, and he didn't know where all the hate had gone. He supposed he'd just exhausted it, and now there was nothing left. Though he liked to believe it was the promise he made to Lily's grave that saw it evaporate, he was not so naïve as to believe words spoken to oneself in a cemetery had any real meaning.

What did have meaning was that he felt terribly weak. He needed to sit down, and badly, but he didn't dare risk the ingredients in his arms in his current state. It was just as he was contemplating how in the hell he was going to get back to his office without fainting that he heard footsteps on the stairs. Cold dread filled him as he lifted his gaze. His dark eyes lost focus and his vision swam. 'No, not now. Please not now!'

He squeezed his eyes shut in an attempt to fight the woozy feeling that he'd come to associate with losing consciousness, and when he next opened them, he had the dull sensation of time having passed, but no memory of how much or what had happened. He was staring at shadows chasing one another across a darkened stone ceiling. 'Where?' Oh, his office, but he wasn't at the desk. He seemed to be laying on the floor, propped up against something. He risked rolling his head and instantly regretted it. It was Harry. Harry was sitting against the wall and had rested Severus's head in his lap. The young man offered a meek smile and Snape felt something stop moving against his cheek. Something. Oh for pete's sake! It was Harry's hand. On his cheek! "I didn't know the password to get you into your quarters, and you didn't seem like you could sit up on your own," Harry explained quickly as if he were afraid Snape would give him hell. He was right to worry – Severus wanted to give him hell, if only to conceal his embarrassment as he carefully sat up.

"Are you feeling alright now?" Harry asked. When Snape didn't answer right away he put the hand that had slid away from the man's face against the back of his shoulder. "Severus?" he asked tentatively.

"I fainted," Severus grit out, as he put the situation together.

"Little bit," Harry offered with a tiny smile. If he was talking, he must be better, right?

"And you...brought me back to my office."

"Didn't seem right to leave you in the hallway," Harry tried. "And your potions stuff. I didn't catch the newt eyes in time but I managed to rescue some of them." He gestured to a broken glass jar sitting in a bowl on the desk. "But the others seem alright. The lid on the...er...slimy looking pink stuff..."

"Monkfish bladders," Snape answered.

Harry wrinkled his nose. Why were so many potion ingredients so incredibly gross? "Uh yeah, well, the lid's a bit cracked, but they're all in there. You..." Harry hesitated. It wasn't like him, but he didn't think Snape would take too kindly to being told he was overexerting himself and was hesitant to say anything that might bring the conversation to another abrupt halt.

Snape shifted so that his back was to the wall. "You think I am pushing myself too hard," he observed. "I will not admit that there may be a degree of truth in that." Which really, was pretty much admitting it. Harry waited, because it seemed like the older man wanted to say something more and was rewarded for his patience. "Most of the time I am well enough, but at times I become unexpectedly weary. You happened upon me in a moment of weakness."

Harry knew that Snape wasn't the type of guy to let 'thank you' fall readily from his lips. He took it for what it was and said, "maybe the biggest weakness is not being willing to ask for help when you need it. I've been there." 'A few too many times,' Harry thought. 'And a right arse most of them.'

Snape scoffed. "You are far too young to have been so many places."

Harry shrugged. "Life happens whether you want it to or not. Sometimes it happens fast, sometimes slow. I guess I'm just the type who isn't much good at taking things slow."

Maybe he was reading into Harry's wording too much. He was most certainly thinking too hard about how the young man sat with their shoulders pressed lightly together. But whatever was going through Snape's head had nothing to do with his sudden decision to lean in and kiss the young man he'd spent so many years terrorizing. It was a snap decision, and he was relieved when Harry kissed back. It made him feel like a bit less of a fool.

Harry didn't know what miracle had just occurred, but he wasn't about to complain about the way Snape's lips collided with his own, or the way the kiss deepened when he laced his fingers in inky hair. Severus dropped his hand to Harry's hip and Harry responded eagerly, leaning in closer and opening his mouth to Snape's hot tongue. The kiss was magic, plain and simple. It was everything magic should be and a few things magic fell short of. It answered all of his questions about the world and his new found attraction to the sexy, dark haired man.

"Harry," Severus started to say as he pulled back. What were they doing? He shouldn't be doing this. Not with Harry, not with the son of the woman he'd spent his life loving.

Harry put his finger to Snape's lips. Shh. "Do you want to stop?" he whispered.

But the boy was so alluring. It was so easy to be swayed by his green eyes and his tousled hair. "No," Snape admitted, unable to bring forth a lie with those earnest green eyes staring at him with such obvious desire.

"Then don't," Harry answered, caressing his cheek as if they'd been lovers for years.

Severus couldn't help a small smirk. "You really don't know how to take things slow, do you?"

Harry answered by adjusting position to straddle Snape's hips and kissing him again. If Snape analyzed that, he thought maybe Harry was subconsciously driven by the knowledge that anything good in life could be lost in an instant. Maybe he was still subconsciously driven by the memory, deep in his childhood, of his parents being so suddenly taken from him. But more than Harry, his own desire to take his time with things troubled him. If he hadn't been so hesitant, so careful, if he had taken some chances when he was young, perhaps he would not have spent his adult life chasing the ghost of a woman he had never had a chance with in the first place. Perhaps, if Harry needed to learn to slow down, Severus needed to learn to speed up – take some chances. Perhaps, he was meant to take that chance on Harry. 'And perhaps my brain needs to bloody well shut up and just go with it for once.'

Really, when it came to kissing Harry back, there had never been a choice. He just had to stop denying what had probably been sparking in the air between them for several years. He let go of his reservations and coiled his arms around the young man's back. It felt wonderful to hold someone again. It had been so long since he had given himself over to such basic desires as a kiss, an embrace. They were simple things. He imagined most men took them for granted, but he treasured the contact. He just didn't know if his current state of health could handle it. He was certain, at least, that he was no longer a young man and would regret going any further on the cold dungeon floor.

"Harry, stop," he rasped, pushing the young man back a bit to give him some air.

Harry frowned at first, but just as suddenly remembered that Snape had only just regained consciousness. "Sorry," he moped a bit. "Got carried away."

Severus caressed Harry's cheek. "This is not the place for it. I don't think my old bones can survive the floor."

Harry grinned playfully. "You're not that old."

"I feel that old," Snape answered. "Help me up. I need to look at those ingredients for tomorrow morning's classes."

Harry climbed off of his lap, albeit reluctantly and pulled him to his feet. He knew even this much was a huge step in that small, subtle Severus sort of way – the way the older man held his hand out and let Harry pull him up, but that was a small consolation to the heat that had pooled in the front of his pants.

Severus made his way to the desk and inspected the various jars. "Harry, come here. Look," He waved the young man over. "I need to put these bladders in a new jar or they will spoil before morning. You see, it is not air-tight, and the preserving potion is leaking out."

Harry opened his mouth to apologize for not catching them fast enough, but he never got the chance. "Please go to my storage room and retrieve another jar of newt eyes for me. They are on the far wall, second shelf from the top. Unlock the door by drawing this figure on the wood with the tip of your wand." He scribbled down a simple pattern of lines and circles and handed it to Harry.

Harry felt awed. Now that was saying something. Severus was trusting him with the password to his potions room and asking for his help. Now he knew he'd made progress. And if he wasn't sure, Snape held his hand a moment longer than strictly necessary when he handed the parchment over and even leaned in to kiss him again before sending him on the errand. Harry's stomach fluttered. He felt like a stupid teenager with a childish crush all over again. 'Cho doesn't even hold a candle to Snape, though,' he thought bemusedly.

"If I get a kiss every time you ask me to do an errand, then I hope you keep me pretty busy," Harry joked.

Severus rewarded him with a faint smirk and moved around the desk to pull a new jar down off the shelf. "We will see," he answered. "Eye of Newt, Harry. One of the small jars will be sufficient. ...and be careful not to break anything."

Harry laughed. Snape just couldn't help but throw that last bit in there. He stole one last kiss before leaving the room and hurrying down the hall. He felt more light at heart than he had in ages. And okay, so maybe he would have to wait a bit to get anywhere with the walking, talking, wet dream that was Severus Snape, but it would probably be good for him to not have his every desire instantly gratified. 'Well, as long as there's plenty of snogging while he makes me wait,' Harry decided.

To Be Continued...
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Take Me As I Am