Fandom: Harry PotterShip: Harry Potter/Severus Snape
Rating: NSFW
Challenge: COW-T #11, w6, m6
Prompt: Relazione forzata tra due protagonisti che si odiano, ma poi l'amore troverà la via.
Previous chapters
The first day Harry was actually relieved.
Snape was giving him space, or so the vial of Suppressing Potion left on the table along with breakfast and the study program for the day implied, and Harry thought that was really a smart move.
He didn’t know what he was thinking when he had asked Snape to use Legilimency on him - maybe that he would make up his mind about Harry, maybe that their strained relationship would ease… For sure, he wasn’t expecting the professor to Mark him on the spot, but at least he could give him some form of recognition. Instead Snape had retired from his mind with an unreadable expression and had excused himself telling him he need time to think.
Which ultimately was what Harry wanted, wasn’t it?
For Snape to think and re-think what he (thought he) knew about him.
Yes, a little bit of distance was what they needed and then they could sort that mess out.
Except Snape didn’t return for lunch, nor for dinner and Harry waited all evening on the couch, only half reading his copy of “Quidditch through the Ages” while putting out an ear for Snape’s approach until he fell asleep.
When he woke up, Snape’s door was closed shut and he was tucked in a blanket, the book he was reading delicately closed on the coffee table with his glasses folded over it.
So the second day, it was weird.
Snape was avoiding him, Harry realized.
He was the one who had laid his whole existence bare in front of the man who had made his life’s goal to hinder him at every possible chance - and Snape was the one avoiding him.
Harry repressed the need to write back a big “fuck you” on the daily study program and downed the potion.
By lunch time anger had subsided to the more rational thought of ‘maybe he needs time to process the fact that he has been an asshole for four year and he was wrong all along’. Wishful thinking, he knew.
What ever went on in Snape’s mind, he was curious.
But the third day though, he was beginning to feel itchy.
The Suppressing Potions were doing what they were supposed to do in replacing the Alpha’s touch, but they just… they just weren’t enough. Snape had to know, because he was the one who told him in the first place that a minimum of contact was required.
And Snape was denying him that contact, out of what? Spite? Or was it because he couldn’t face him? What was his problem?
Harry hadn’t allowed him on his mind just to be completely ignored afterwards.
So Harry didn’t take the third potion in a row.
No, Harry waited and gathered his well known Gryffindor courage, and when he woke up again on the couch under that damn blanket, he didn’t go to his room feeling betrayed.
He reached for Snape’s closed door and knocked.
* * *
Snape closed his eyes and pushed the blanket away.
He couldn’t sleep.
He kept seeing the same scenes, again and again, as if they were carved in the back of his eyelids.
Harry Potter, sleeping in a cupboard for almost ten years of his life, the darkness, the cobwebs, the solitude.
Harry Potter, being chased and kicked and punched, just because it was funny to his cousin, that little pathetic boy crying on cue and blaming Harry just because he could, and Petunia and Vernon taking it out on him, closing him in that cupboard, denying him food, forcing him to work in the garden and in the kitchen, cooking breakfast he wouldn’t be able to eat, washing dishes he didn’t use.
Harry in a room and bars at the window and a cat flap on a locked door, segregation, imprisonment, that’s what it was, and Dudley asking him if Cedric Diggory was his boyfriend, mocking him without even knowing what was happening in the world outside his little pretty white muggle house and neighborhood.
Harry facing Voldemort in a dark graveyard, his blood spilled, and clutching Diggory’s corpse as he escaped.
Harry being an Horcrux and having to die.
Then back to Petunia trowing a frying pan at Harry and Harry dodging it.
He watched and he knew Harry would dodge it, Petunia knew Harry would dodge it, Dudley knew it and Vernon too because this kind of things happened when Harry was involved. But still, she threw a fucking frying pan at him.
Then the gaslighting, his parents dead in a car crush, his father belittled, his mother a freak, he himself just a useless brat they got stuck with.
Harry starving, his stomach grumbling, eyeing leftovers and wondering if he could get away with stealing them. Stealing leftovers.
Now he knew why Hagrid had tried to turn the other boy in a pig the first time he had met the Dursleys, Severus would have done the same. Oh no, Severus would have done so much worse. He would have killed and maimed and burned because they dared… they dared touch Harry, his beautiful boy…
His.
Severus wanted to laugh ‘till he was deemed crazy and interned at St. Mungo’s.
Any decent human being would have feel sorry for Harry, appalled, enraged for his mistreatment.
His.
But Snape had known a long time ago that he was not a decent human being. He was not, and that was proof enough.
His.
God, sometimes he just wanted to tear his chest apart and rip out his heart, check how black it had become.
How much more could he take?
Oh, everything.
He would take everything, because that was his punishment and his atonement.
And while a part of himself was asking him why - why had he accepted to voluntarily use Legimancy on the boy? Why did he have to open his eyes about what was happening, why when it had been so easy to blame it all on the spoilt offspring of James Potter and hide behind his anger and bitterness? - another biggest part of him was demanding another kind of why - why didn’t he realized what was happening sooner? Why did it take him more than four years and Legilimency to understand that Harry was being abused, when it was so obvious?
He should have known.
Hell, the signs were all there for everyone to see, and he had ignored them.
The boy had asked Albus to stay at Hogwarts in the summer, for fuck’s sake. Who ever asked to spend his summer at Hogwarts?
(Snape, that’s who. And Voldermort, even thought only Albus Dumbledore knew of this. And now Harry too.)
Severus should have known.
Instead he had seen what he had wanted to see, a Gryffindor spoilt little brat who didn’t even bother to open his books before going to Hogwarts - and why would he?, pampered as Snape had expected him to be, he surely couldn’t have the craving for knowledge on the magical world he already took for granted. Snape couldn’t imagine it was because those hideous muggles didn’t allow him access to his books and belongings, - but he could, oh, of course, he could. Hadn’t he known Petunia for years, almost a decade? How could he tell himself, in all honesty, that that woman would respect her sister’s memory?
He had been so willingly blind - but that had always been his sin, ignoring what didn’t fit in his preconceived idea until it was too late and he had to face the consequences of his selective blindness.
Snape knew he was breaking his own rules - because self-pitying wasn’t helpful, because feeling guilt didn’t change the past, but he was doing all those things nonetheless, because sometimes he couldn’t help himself.
Then there was a knock at his door.
* * *
Snape opened the door, even though he didn’t want to.
He knew it would happen, it was bound to, one could sustain oneself on Suppressing Potions only for so long and Snape had long reached their limit. Three days - what was he even thinking, after so long together they were addicted to each other scent. He himself was itching to touch him, to bury his nose in his neck and trail his finger over his skin, and for the boy the effects of the withdrawal must have been worse than for him.
So Severus opened the door even though he didn’t want to and “Potter,” he greeted him - curt and detached, as he should have been since the beginning. “How may I help you?”
Harry stared at him, bewildered.
“How may you help me?” he scoffed incredulous. Of all the reactions he had expected, politeness was not one of them. A sneer, perhaps a cutting remark about knocking at his door at this hour. Or on the other hand - even if he knew it was too much to hope for - guilt and shame for having thought so ill of him in the previous four years.
This… detachment, this pretending there was nothing wrong in completely avoiding for days the person you were living with, was just maddening.
And to think Harry had had this half though of just throwing himself at the man and avoid talking things out completely - after all actions seemed to work way better than anything else with him. It was like they were two different people, the Snape he could feel with his senses and the Snape he had to endure with his mind.
“You know what?” Harry spat angrily, “Never mind.”
The boy turned to leave, but Severus’ hand reached for him, stopping him in his track, before the man could even realize what he had done.
“You need to be scented,” he said, relenting the grip on his wrist but not letting him go.
“Yes,” Harry nodded, and gulped down, suddenly hyper-aware of every inch of skin in contact with the other. “Yes, I need it.”
The boy could feel the anger in his chest retreat, turning from a bonfire to glowing embers, and it wasn’t right. He clutched to the last remnants of what he was feeling, refusing to let the touch on his wrist soothe him. It wasn’t fair, it didn’t work like that. Snape couldn’t just ignore him for days and then solve everything with a little contact.
“It would be unwise to do it right away,” Severus tried to reason, tried to convince himself the best course of action wouldn’t be pulling the boy in his arms and inside his bedroom where a very comfortable mattress was laying. “We’ve gone too long without… doing it. The consequence of exposure after such a withdrawal would be -”
“And whose fault is it? If we’ve gone so long without doing it,” Harry interrupted him, not yelling but still harsh enough, because he needed to twist the knife, he needed to have it spelled out loud and acknowledged, even if it meant delaying the scenting. By now the only thing keeping him from just saying to hell with everything and embracing the man was his sheer will, even if he didn’t really expected Snape to own it up.
“Mine,” the man said instead, “I take responsibility for my actions - or inactions, as it is. It was foolish of me, trying to delay the inevitable by avoiding you, and I apologize for it.”
“You… apologize? So you admit you were trying to avoid me?”
“Yes, Potter, though I think that is hardly the point.” He sounded strained, regretful. He sounded in pain, and Harry just couldn’t stand it.
“Hardly the point?” He scoffed, “Hardly the point? I need you! I feel sick when you’re not there and you tell me it doesn’t matter? I need you and you don’t want me, I get it, you’ve changed your mind or maybe you just didn’t want me from the start and but -”
“Potter… Harry,” Severus growled and stopped him, tightening the grip on his wrist, bringing him a little closer, enough that he could feel the warmth radiating from his body, “It’s not that I don’t want you,” he said, trying to restrain himself, trying to not take advantage of that little contact to drag him closer. Harry could feel it too, that pull, Snape could see it in his hazy eyes as he tried to focus on the words even if they didn’t make sense, “The point is…” Severus forced himself to let go of him without much result, “The point is that I want you too much for both our own good.”
Harry almost laughed at that. Their own good. Snape couldn’t be for real - Harry was going mad, the only thing he knew was that Snape was so close, still touching him, and yet keeping studiously his distance and it was so frustrating, frustrating because he was in control and because he shouldn’t be and that, after everything that had happened to them in little more than a month, that was just the most pathetic excuse he had ever heard.
“Who even decided what was my own good, uh?” Harry twisted the hand in Snape’s grip so that he could touch him in turn, seizing him. Snape hissed at the contact, but Harry didn’t care, he didn’t care for consequences, he didn’t care about anything at the moment.
“Why?” The man asked, and he looked truly bewildered, “Would you really still have me?”
Harry looked at him and almost laughed again - but didn’t, because he might have being going crazy, but not that much, not to enough to not know that laughing in Snape’s face could only be counterproductive. He also didn’t yell at him, ‘Yes, you idiot, yes! Why do you think I’m still here?!’ for the same reason - and mostly because Snape would have replied to him that ‘it was because he didn’t have any other choice’ after been done with hexing him for calling him an idiot.
So Harry simply nodded instead.
“How could you?” Snape asked, because apparently nothing was ever simple with him, “How, when I keep failing and failing you, again and again.”
“You aren’t made up only of your mistakes, Severus.”
And then Harry kissed him.
It was a jolt of electricity, striking him on the spot and running down his spine, all his senses hyperaware but completely focused on the other, and then there was relief, his whole body screaming ‘finally!’, leaning on the touch, trying to take more and more and more.
“Harry…”
Harry looked at him from under his lashes, pupils blown by lust and desire, and Severus felt a shiver running down his spine. No one had ever looked at him like that. Can’t I be allowed just this thing in my live? Just this once? Haven’t I payed enough for my mistakes?
It’s just the hormones, a vicious part of himself reminded him. And this is just another mistake you’ll have to atone for, later.
Severus shook his head and gripped his hands to stop him.
“No. No, I can’t. We won’t.”
“Why?”
“You’re underage, for fuck’s sake.”
“Much good it did me when they were set on selling me, didn’t it? You don’t get to cherry pick if I’m old enough to be sold, old enough to die, but not old enough to have sex.”
“You aren’t old enough for any of those things.”
“And yet.”
Severus stalled, trying to find an argument to take apart his logic, but in the end, he was forced to nod. “And yet.”
Harry kissed him again and this time Severus let him, the need taking over whatever moral reservations he had left.
He opened his mouth, ran his tongue over Severus’ lips, prompting him to part them and Severus did, too obnubilated to put up any sort of resistance. It had been too long and now they were paying the price.
‘He’s Lily’s child,’ he tried uselessly to remember himself, except Harry was just so much more - he had always been so much more, Severus had just never seen it, pointedly looking the other way whenever the truth threatened to overcome his own lies.
He couldn’t look the other way now, not as Harry pressed his body against his. Severus’ hands ran to his shoulder, to his nape, caressing the skin as he brought him closer. They stumbled back, inside the room, tugging at each others’ clothes, pulling and pushing until they were able to send them sprawling on the floor.
The boy pushed him against the bed and Severus let himself fall, sitting on it.
Harry, still standing, took a moment to look at him even if his whole body didn’t want anything else but more contact - he wasn’t fighting the sensations and so the sensations allowed him a moment to breathe.
Snape looked up at him and no, Harry would never think him handsome, he wasn’t after all, but disheveled like that - his dark eyes wide and his hair ruffled, an unguarded expression finally donning his face, allowing him to see the desire, the need, and hint of fear of been refuse as the seconds dragged and Harry wasn’t moving… - Harry found him appealing. Desirable. Human.
He wanted him.
So Harry climbed in his laps, kissing him again and then grinding against him, riding him in a mockery of what they really wanted, the impediment of their underwear the only thing still separating their erections.
It was blissful and still not enough and Harry felt like it would never be enough, he would never be sated.
He released Severus’ mouth, just enough to breath, and then he began kissing the edge of his jaw, licking at his neck, his rhythm ragged as he tried to coordinate his lips to the trusts of his hips. He was enthusiast enough to make it up for the inexperience for Severus was moaning, his throat vibrating against Harry’s mouth with little chocked cries that were sending Harry over the edge.
And as he came, Harry was the one who bit him, even if it didn’t hold any significance, deep enough to leave white marks and reddened skin, but not to cut.
The pain of the bite sent a jolt of pleasure down Severus’ spine and he trusted upward, trying to increase the friction in frantic movements. It was too much and too little, Severus felt overwhelmed, his control slipping, and the boy was still grinding against him, even after he was spent, trying to help him reach his peak.
Severus could feel his shoulders burning where Harry was still gripping and clutching them, nails sinking in the skin. He would draw blood, and Severus wouldn’t care in the least. As he felt himself getting closer to his own release, he pulled him up in a kiss for if he was kissing him he couldn’t bite him, and then came with a startled cry, muffled against Harry’s tongue.
Gracious goodness, the last time he had come in his briefs like a teenager, he had actually been one.
“I get now why they talk about sweet kisses,” Harry chuckled against his mouth, licking his lips, “You taste of sugar.”
“Ah, yes, that would be the serum,” Snape replied still fazed in the afterglow, an absentmindedness that wasn’t usual in his tone.
“The serum?” Harry asked, not particularly interested in the conversation, tracing abstract patterns on his chest.
The air was warm, their hot breath almost cold against the dampness of their skin, the smell of sweat and sex permeating the room and the bed. He felt… content. Hazy and glowing.
“Poison, venom, call it as you please,” Snape offered, playing with the moist locks of hair on his nape, “It’s the substance that gets injected during the bite.”
“Uh uh,” Harry mumbled his assent, kissing him, wet and open-mouthed, dragging his tongue over his sharpened teeth.
Severus shivered, holding him tighter, and, pressing his body against his, he could feel his erection growing.
Ravenous brat.
Harry shifted, his hands reaching for the band of his underwear, trying to pull them down and he could feel himself getting harder again under his touch. It shouldn’t have been possible, not so soon, he wasn’t that young anymore. But they were in a frenzy, he realized, they had pent up so much sexual energy that their body now needed the release, again and again.
“Harry, what are you doing?”
“What does it look like, Severus?” He slurred his name, and it shouldn’t have sounded so… eliciting. Dirty. His name had never had that sound in anybody’s mouth.
“Harry…” he tried to stop him, but it sounded more like a plea to continue and it wouldn’t do. “Potter!”
“Aren’t you done fighting this?” Harry asked, stilling his hands but not removing them from his hips. “Where do you draw the line? All this is already past your-”
“If we had sex, I would Mark you.”
“Then so be it.”
Harry kissed him again, silencing any further protest, then he trailed down his neck, sucking a bruise were there still was the mark of his teeth.
“No. And we won’t have sex,” Severus repeated, trying to not be distracted, but he was already caving in. He was bargaining and as such, he had already lost. Inch after inch he was been slowly pulled over. It was just a matter of time.
“What do you call this, then?”
“Technically ‘not sex’,” he felt petulant, childish in a sort of way. But he was right anyway, this was something he could still hope to retain a minimum of control over.
“Is there some other ‘technically not sex’ that we could do?” he asked trying to be playful, but he couldn’t mask his tone, so eager and hopeful. Severus was long past having the ability of refusing him anything - well, except the Mark - so he twisted under him, sending him sprawling on the mattress, before placing himself on top of him, careful to not put his weight on him.
Harry let out a surprised gasp and looked at him almost affronted, but his breath staggered as he exhaled. Severus was framing him with his body, looking at him as if he was edible, a mouthwatering delicacy he was ready to savour, and Harry felt a shiver of anticipation spiraling down to his throbbing cock, wetting him even more.
“A lot of things, Harry. A lot of things.”
“Well, then, you should really start teaching me, Professor.”
* * *
Waking up tangled in Harry Potter was something he should have foreseen. Not feeling the need and urge to fuck him senseless was completely unexpected, though.
Severus panicked, just for a few seconds, but then his pragmatism kicked in. No need to panic before assessing the situation. Cautiously, he propped up on his elbow, silently enough to not wake up the boy, and shifted the blankets.
The blue stripe of the Omega’s collar was still there, tightly sealed on his neck, intact and unbroken.
He hadn’t Marked him - yet.
No, not yet and not ever.
But why was he feeling like that, then? Why was he feeling so extraordinarily… blissed, and satisfied?
“Is it morning already?” Harry rolled on his side to look at him, yawning.
The familiarity of it, the coziness, Snape felt something in his chest constricting and thought he would never survive something like this again.
“Yes, I suppose breakfast is about to end,” he said instead, his mouth so dry his voice cracked.
“You have to go, then,” Harry pouted - pouted! - as if he really wanted him there.
“You know I have to.”
“Stay five more minutes?”
Severus should have said no, he had never indulged himself past his clock, but today was already an exception for his clock hadn’t ring at all. He had forgot to set up the spell the previous night, but fortunately he never had much need for sleep.
“Only five. I can’t be late, or my students will think I’ve been replaced with Polyjuice and throw a party.”
“A Death Eater in incognito is better than you, actually.”
“Potter, I am a Death Eater in incognito.”
“Sure enough. And don’t be too gentle, or they’ll know you’ve had some last night.”
Severus scoffed, “I am never gentle.”
“I beg to differ,” Harry stretched against his side, pressing all the right parts of his body against him. Severus felt a surge of interest from his neither regions, but not the incontrollable and tantalizing urge to act upon it as he had always felt in the previous months. Odd, and maybe off putting. But he would have to worry about it later, if he did want to make it to his lesson on time.
“You said five minutes, and that takes way more than five minutes.”
“I had to try,” Harry blushed, but didn’t deny him, “You’re no fun.”
“You’ve known me for more than four years, Potter, when had I ever been fun?”
“Last night?”
“Do shut up.”
Severus dressed up quickly and left him to enjoy the warmth of the bed a little longer.
Outside the door, he shook his head, trying to drive away a haze that wasn’t there.
It didn’t feel real inside and now that he had left the room it was even more evident. The homeliness, the familiarity, the easiness they had fallen into, mocking tones as jabs from life long partners when they had hated each other from the start.
It was surreal.
Snape headed to his classroom, lost in his thoughts. He was waiting for the other shoe to drop, for the moment when he would fully realize the extent of his mistakes, all the lines he had crossed and intentionally this time. He spent the day waiting - for the awareness, for it to hit him with guilt and regret, for the moment when he would feel sick of himself.
He was still waiting when he reached for his chambers in the evening and Harry was there, ready to show him his progresses for the day in Transfiguration, not regretting a single thing.
“Do you need to be scented?”
Harry lifted his head from the pincushion he was trying to vanish.
“What? No. I mean, do you need to?”
Severus shook his head, and went back to grading essays.
Harry however hadn’t moved, still standing with his wand up and his faded pincushion trembling in and out of existence. “You could kiss me anyway, though.”
Dumbstruck, Snape carefully laid down his quill. It was something he hadn’t thought about. Somehow he had been so wrapped in considering what had happened before that he had overlooked what was gonna happen after.
“Let me be clear, you don’t need physical contact right now, but you still want it?”
“Yes? Why wouldn’t I?” Harry rolled his eyes, “I thought we were already past all the ‘we really shouldn’t even if we want to’ because really, Severus, do you see anyone here giving a damn but you?”
Severus refused to admit he was right. No one cared what he did with the boy, no one would bat an eyelid if he were to Mark him and bind him to himself - some people might even consider him stupid for not having done it already. No one would see anything wrong in an Alpha fucking his Omega.
It felt like the only moral compass left in the world was his, and now he was beginning to doubt it worked at all.
“Very well,” he said instead, and leaned over him, cupping his cheek and making his intentions very clear. He would kiss him, even if they didn’t need it and Harry had all the time to backpedal from his bravado and refuse him.
But Harry didn’t pull back, no, he closed the space between their mouths, throwing his wand on the table to have his hands free to roam over Severus’ body.
It was thrilling, exhilarating, it was making him feel bad but in a sort of good way… naughty, yes, that was the word. A kid with his hands in the cookie jar, straining his ears in case someone was coming.
Harry deepened the kiss, and Severus nibbled at his lower lip, dragging it between his teeth before releasing him.
“Do you need more?” he asked, his voice hoarse for desire and Harry almost fell off his chair in the attempt to get closer to him.
“God, yes!”
But Severus shook his head, “No, no, I didn’t ask if you want more. You’re a teenager, of course you do. I asked you if you need it, and you know what I mean with need.”
Harry wondered how childish would it make him sound to protest the ‘you’re a teenager’ dismissal, and realizing it would just prove Snape’s point, discarded the idea.
“No. No, I don’t need it. But I wouldn’t be opposed in having it nonetheless.”
“Greedy brat,” maybe Harry was imagining it, maybe it was the hormones, but there was fondness in his tone.
“Yeah, well, teenager here, remember? And after all you’re…” Harry stopped, struck by his own thoughts and then, so sudden he could almost feel the backlash, he began to laugh.
“What?”
“No. No, it’s just stupid,” he shook his head, but kept laughing, not really capable to stop himself.
“What, Potter?”
“I’ve just thought it, but you’re…” he said between laughters and hid his face against his shoulder, “You’re basically my… boyfriend?” And by then he was just bordering hysterics, because. No. Just no.
Snape grimaced. “Never again,” he spat out.
Still hiccuping from his laughing fit, Harry nodded. “Yeah, no, sorry, I’m gonna have nightmares about this.”
“At least this rules out the question about need,” Snape let go of him to rub his temples. “If you can make silly jokes, you are not feeling it either.”
Harry suppressed the pang of loss at him pulling away - after all he had been the one to ruin the mood - and tried to be useful. “Why is it, though? Before I couldn’t be in the same room with you without needing to touch you and now this?”
“Yes, the compulsion is not there anymore.”
“Maybe we’ve done it enough that it will last longer than the normal scenting?”
“Perhaps.”
Yes, saturated receptors and negative feedback in the hormones production, that was probably it. The effect wouldn’t last forever, and they would be back at square one in a matter of days, but still, one could always appreciate a bit of respite, Severus told himself. Maybe he was so used to worry about everything that now that something just for once was going well, he found it worrisome in itself.