When I kissed the teacher

[danzanelfuoco]

 Harry Potter

Snarry

COW-T #10, w7, m4 (Dark Horse - Katy Perry)

Wordcount: 1905

 

So you wanna play with magic

 

Boy, you should know whatcha falling for

The room was hot as a furnace. The fumes of potions brewing in all those cauldron was making it difficult for Harry to concentrate, the sweat dropping from his forehead, not to mention the sweet smell, almost like putrefaction, provoking him a vague sense of nausea.

“Potter! What on Earth do you think you’re doing?” The snarl caught him unaware, blocking him in the act of adding what Harry thought was the fundamental ingredient to his potion. 

Professor Snape covered the distance between them in two stride and, with a motion of his wand, made the liquid Harry was brewing - with not so much attention as he thought - disappear. 

Harry sighed. Seven year of this and he still wasn’t able to create a decent potion at the first try. Not so good for someone who wanted to became an Auror (but, if he allowed himself to think about it, after everything happened with Voldemort, he had lost the interest. Truth be told, he had enough fighting for a lifetime. Not that he allowed himself to think about it). 

“Adding ginger root?” He asked tentatively.

Once Snape would have taken points from him, even given him detention for just daring to answer, but things between them had changed a little, shifting form the consolidate axis of hate to some obscure and unknown grey zone. You can’t really keep hating someone when you’re showed everything you knew about them was wrong. Harry felt like he had the key to interpret what Snape had done in a new light, and though he couldn’t forgive him everything, he could at least understand him. Seeing Snape’s weakness and pain made him realize he was human and not just a cold hearted son of a bitch. 

On the other hand, Snape must have faced his same epiphany. His behavior toward him changed, too, as if he had smothered his edges. Harry didn’t know what was the cause of it, he had not given Snape some of his memories from which drawing conclusions and he didn’t think saving his life from Nagini’s venom had helped (he knew his father had saved Snape’s life once and that only worsened his hate), but nonetheless something had happened to make the hate in the professor’s eyes disappear, replaced by a cautious investigating look, the same you could have if you were trying to solve a puzzle that could turn and bite you.  

And lately Harry was developing the odd craving to actually bite him - taste him - every time Snape stared at him like he wanted to strip him of his skin to understand what was going inside him. It was a look that made Harry shiver, but it was a thrill, not disgust or hate, that went down his spine. 

“Do you want to blow up the entire classroom?” 

Snape was towering over him, leaning with his frowning gaze at a few inches from his face, and Harry, almost in a trance, found very difficult to remember what he was doing right there. 

“N-no” he stuttered, retreating. 

That were the times when he remembered that as adult as he could be after all that happened he was just eighteen, a teenager that dealt with more than anyone could expect from him and now of major age, but a teenager nonetheless. And having Snape so close to him, when all of his feeling about him where a tumultuous mix of residues of hate and care, anger and understanding (and something else he couldn’t quite define), well that was confusing and definitely not helping.

“Well, Mr Potter, this is not working. I demand a private interview to discuss about your future career.” 

“Is this a detention?”
“If it was so, I would have said detention, Mr Potter.” 

“Yes. Yes of course.” Harry gulped down, feeling his throat extremely dry. 

* * * *

Harry lingered after the end of the class. He had a free period and if Snape wanted to talk to him, it was better to get over with it. 

The professor arched his eyebrow as the rest of the students filed out while Potter didn’t, even if he had already recollected his things and approached him. 

Harry felt again the thrill of anticipation and wondered what the heck was wrong with him and his responses to the man. 

“Mr. Potter?” 

“You wanted to talk to me, right? About my career.” 

“Now?”

“Why not? Do you have another class?” 

Snape pondered if it was better to get over with it or schedule a proper appointment as it would require the protocol. After all, with Potter - and the whole lot of those damn Gryffindor - there needn’t be formalities. 

“I know you have stated you wanted to become an Auror,” Snape started, “but frankly Mr Potter, your Potion skills are abysmal and I cannot, in good conscience, pass you. You would end up dead by the end of the month if you were to start your training in such poor conditions.” 

“And you wouldn’t want me to die, would you?” Harry retorted before he could think better of it. 

“Of course, not.” The ‘I’ve spent my whole life trying to keep you alive, you stupid brat’ wasn’t said, but lingered in the air nonetheless. 

Harry passed a hand in his hair, embarrassed. “Yes. Yes, of course. It was stupid of me.” 

Snape remained silent, his face speaking enough. 

“So what should I do?”

“I would suggest you to direct your efforts toward another profession. I realize your whole life has been dictated by the mad Dark Lord trying to kill you, but that shouldn’t reduce your horizon.” 

“Your life has been as well, and yet you’re still here teaching.” 

“My career is not the topic of this conversation. I’ve been teaching for almost twenty years of my life, I could hardly wish for another job.”

“But I thought you hated teaching…” 

“Mr. Potter. My job - is not - the topic - of this - conversation,” Snape stressed every word, as if it needed to be hammered in his head, “Yours is. And I suggest you a change of career. However, if you are inclined toward becoming an Auror notwithstanding the fact that your Potion skills will never be adequate…” 

“Now, I don’t think I’m a hopeless case!” Harry interrupted him. He had been an amazing Potion student with the help of the Half Blood Prince in sixth year, that should at least vouch for is not complete incapability on the subject.  

Snape licked his lower lip and bite into it as if to restrain himself from saying something very nasty. 

Harry would have wondered about that - once Snape would have spat in his face whatever insult without a second thought - if only he hadn’t be so damn mesmerized by the act itself.

“I am the teacher.”

“Uh -?”

“I decide whether you are a hopeless case or not.” 

“And am I?” 

Snape pinched the bridge of his nose, and Harry looked at him, greedily, wondering if he would lick his lips again. 

“You are not… a complete failure. Your bases are… acceptable. But bases are first year knowledge, and by now you should know better. This is an art that requires precision, your starts are good, but you tend to… wander during the brewing. That’s what spoils your potions. You are not careful enough. What is it that it’s distracting you so much from paying attention to even the simplest of instruction?” 

“You.” 

It was out of his mouth before he could even think about it. 

He could feel heat and blood rising to his cheeks and he wondered what shade of red he had become. 

“Excuse me?” 

“I keep thinking about you and the war and I try to figure you out, and I can’t so I get distracted and -” 

“Potter…” 

“No, no, hear me out, we didn’t talk about - ” 

“Potter, we have nothing to talk about,” Snape grimaced. 

“We do!” Harry exclaimed, before the professor could walk away. “I see how you look at me! And -” 

Snape gripped his collar, his eyes wide, his expression twisted in anger. 

“You should know,” he seethed, bringing their face closer, “that whatever you are trying to say, to imply -” 

“No, no, you don’t understand!” 

“Oh, I think I understand perfectly, Potter. After everything I did for you, you are willing to jeopardize my job on some obscure pretense that I -” 

Harry kissed him, bluntly, sliding his tongue in his mouth. 

He could feel the tension in Snape’s body deflate as he returned the kiss, his tongue pushing his way in Harry’s mouth, the hand still on his collar clutching harder and then - 

Snape pushed him away.
“Why did you do it? What possessed you?” Disbelief and shock and a little of anger, but mostly in Snape’s eye there was the blankness that accompanied the very specific thought of ‘I don’t have the faintest idea of what just happened’. 

“I couldn’t help it.”

“You couldn’t help it?” Snape snarled. “You couldn’t help it! What is this… mockery? If you think that… just because what you saw in my memories about my sexual preference… that this would be an appropriate way to pass your class -” 

“Oh, shut your mouth just for once.” 

And Harry kissed him again. 

This time it took Snape a little less time to snap out of it. 

“Potter! I demand - ” 

“I got it. I knew why you were looking at me like that and why I felt what I did and this… this whole tension thing going on… ” 

“You don’t make sense, Potter.” 

“I think I like you.” 

“Oh, well, should I thank you, then?” Snape scoffed, “The Great Harry Potter likes me. You don’t know what you’re talking about.” 

“Well, why don’t you show me?” 

“Potter…” this time it was a plea - to make sense, or to have pity on him and stop whatever it is he was doing. 

“You kissed me back, so maybe you know I know what I’m talking about.” 

Snape looked ready to give up and emigrate in Mexico - or in another very warm country, where he could buy cheap alcool and forget about the rain and the wind. “I’m too old for this shit.” 

“You’re not even forty and I’m legal. No one needs to know,” Harry chirped, placing a chaste kiss on his lips, so fast the professor couldn’t even react.

With a sigh, Snape gave in. “I’ll be known as the Death Eater who defiled the Harry Potter the Saviour.” 

“I thought you would be more difficult to convince.” 

“I’ve been a spy, Mr. Potter. I know to take advantage of the opportunity served to me on a silver platter.” 

“Aw, an opportunity, is it?”
“Kindly shut up, now, and use your mouth in a more fitting way.” 

“Yes, Sir.” 

Sir. 

Eight years, a war and an almost dead experience, and this was what it took to be called Sir. 

It probably was to be expected, Snape thought. 

And then Harry put his mouth to better use - he kissed him and then… well, you can imagine what happened then -  and Snape didn’t think at all. 

 

'Cause once you're mine, once you're mine

 

There's no going back

“I think the solution should be Potion tutoring. Extra lessons.”

“Are you really willing to apprehend or is this just some poor excuse?” 

Harry smirked. “Both?” 

“Both is acceptable.”