Be Careful What You Wish For

At the Leaving Feast Harry thought that if Snape looked at him one more time he would burst into flame. Those eyes he had once thought tar pits smoldered with barely-banked emotion; those thin lips that he had so often stared at in Potions class were trembling ever so slightly. He caught Harry's eye again and Harry looked down at his plate, panicked. This is what I want, he told himself. This is what I want.

He had been panicked last year, when he'd figured out that he preferred boys to girls. His friends, he thought, would hate him. The boy's dormitory before bedtime, the shower room in the morning, the locker room before and after Quidditch practice -- when his friends found out that the Harry they'd been casually nude in front of was a queer masquerading as a normal boy, they'd hate him.

He'd finally had to come clean to Ron, after too many thin excuses as to why he kept turning Ginny down for Hogsmeade weekends and after-Quidditch dates, and Ron had surprised him with a sort of rough sniggering sympathy. "So that's it," he had said. "No wonder you and Cho never hit it off."

"Well, I liked her," protested Harry. "Just not like that. And she didn't like me at all. So."

"So who do you like, like that?"

"Nobody who's likely to like me back, that's for sure." Harry wasn't going to tell Ron about his crush on Justin Finch-Fletchley, a crush which would clearly not be reciprocated, since he and Lavender had been an item since the beginning of the term.

"True," said Ron, leaning back in the common-room sofa. "Not a lot of queer wizards. The only one I know about is Snape, and who'd want to shag him?"

"Snape?" Harry sputtered. "How d'you know that?"

"Bill told me," Ron said matter-of-factly. "Said he'd seen him in a pub in Knockturn Alley, and never mind what he was doing there, but he told me I should watch my step around Snape." He snorted. "As if."

"As if," echoed Harry, but his mind was elsewhere.

His new pastime became Snape-watching. Snape, striding down the corridor in a tornadic swirl of black robes and fury. Snape, pacing the Potions classroom, swooping down on one hapless student or another to point out just how horribly the potion had gone wrong. Snape, glaring from the staff table, crooked teeth tearing into roast chicken and potatoes.

As he was now. Harry wondered if Snape would tear into him in that same way. Stained fingers and teeth, scrabbling at his clothing, scraping across his skin. He risked a glance at the staff table again and saw Snape's lips closing around his fork, sucking a morsel from it, licking at the tines as the food slid into his mouth, and he could not repress a shudder. Maybe this was not a good idea.

It had seemed a good idea four months ago, when, drunk with butterbeer and Gryffindor courage he had knocked on Snape's office door. "I've been watching you," he blurted out, then stopped.

Snape did not move. Did not say a word, just looked at him, eyes narrowed, expression neutral.

"The way you move," Harry said. There weren't words for what he wanted to say, but he tried anyway. "Your hands."

"Is there something you want, Potter, or shall I take points for disturbing a teacher with nonsensical ravings?"

"Your hands," said Harry, desperately.

Snape raised an eyebrow. "You want my hands."

"I want," said Harry. "Er. Ron says that Bill says that -- well, er, that you might be -- I mean, I'm not normal, I don't like girls -- I mean, I like girls, but --"

"Mr. Potter." Snape's quiet voice cut through Harry's babbling like a scythe. "I think that you had better close the door."

He went to the door, thankful for the opportunity to turn his burning face away; when he returned to the desk, Snape had his sharp chin resting on his steepled hands.

"So you have decided you are a homosexual, and have come to me for advice." His tone made it clear exactly how absurd he found that idea. "Is that it?"

"Yes, sir. Er, no. Not…advice."

"Then what is it you want, Potter?" Snape asked him sharply.

He forced himself to look up, to meet Snape's eyes, which glittered with the dark fire that he'd last seen during their Occlumency lessons. The look that always held him transfixed, a rabbit in a wolf's glare, unable to move, unable to look away. He noticed that he was breathing rapidly, and with effort he slowed his breaths to a more normal pace.

"What do you want, Potter?"

He looked into those eyes, and made his decision. "You."

"Be careful what you wish for." The fire in Snape's eyes blazed hotter, and Harry squirmed under the intensity of his gaze. "You are very foolish," he continued, in slow, measured tones, "if you think that I would dally with a student under my tutelage."

He felt his face grow red again. "Er, right. Sorry. Forget I --"

"The day will come, Potter, when you are no longer my student." Snape held his eyes for a long moment, then jerked his chin toward the door. "You should go now."

And Harry turned and fled.

Since then he'd been unable to look at Snape for more than a few moments at a time. Snape would catch his glance and stare back, dark eyes growing darker, and Harry would flush and turn away. In Potions class. At mealtimes. It was arousing and it was horrible and it was terrifying.

Ron and Hermione had noticed, and Ron had jabbed him once with his elbow at the Gryffindor table. "D'you think he knows?"

Harry had just mumbled something noncommittal into his porridge, and not looked at either Ron or Snape. Hermione had said, "Knows what? Harry, have you been doing something you shouldn't?" and Ron had sniggered, and Harry wished he were anywhere else, anywhere at all.

And now Harry was at the Gryffindor table again, for the last time. He would finish his pudding and go to his room for the last time, sleep in the bed hung about with red and gold for the last time; in the morning they'd have a quick, cold breakfast in the common room and board the Hogwarts Express, and he'd never, never have to see Snape again.

Except that Snape was staring at him with a rough intensity that felt as though it could knock him out of his chair, and he wasn't sure if it was a promise or a threat but he knew there was a message in it, a message he was probably too dense to understand. Maybe he just didn't want to understand it.

In the end he didn't have to rely on uncertain inferences, because at the end of the meal, as he and Ron and Neville stood, Snape called out to him, his voice quiet but nevertheless cutting through the chatter.

"Potter. A word with you, please."

Despite the 'please' it was an order, and he ignored Ron's and Neville's panicked glances and shooed them on their way as the professor strode toward him.

"Sir?" His voice squeaked a bit, and he reddened.

"Join me in my office. We have something to discuss." And he turned on his heel and strode out of the Great Hall, robes swirling behind him.

Harry stood for a moment, indecisive, his hand on the back of his chair. In the months after that embarrassing night in Snape's office, he had vacillated back and forth, between interest and disgust, between furtive anticipation and sheer desperate terror. He'd see Snape's hands, deftly slicing roots, and think on how elegant and delicate they were; then he'd catch sight of the greasy hair swinging, see the harsh-featured face twist in anger as he castigated a careless student, and realize how fortunate he had been that Snape had tossed him out of his office that night. Until now it had been easy to imagine that this night would never arrive. That it would always be those burning glances, and nothing more.

He could just go back to Gryffindor tower. That would be the easy thing to do, the sensible thing. He should do that, ignore the veiled order -- he was no longer a student, house points didn't matter any more. But it was not just an order; it was a challenge. He had to hear what the man had to say or he'd be thinking about it all night. Maybe all his life.

He caught up with his friends at the doorway. "I told you to go on. I'll see you upstairs."

"He can't give you detention," said Ron. "Classes are over."

"Yeah, I know. It's about my NEWTs," lied Harry, and started toward the dungeons. "I'll see you later," he called over his shoulder.

He could have just gone upstairs with Ron. But his feet carried him in the other direction, past knots of Slytherins talking as they leaned against the walls or walked together to their dormitories, down the stairs and into the corridor that led to Snape's office.

The door was just ajar, and he pushed it open the rest of the way and walked in. Snape sat behind the desk, leaning back in his chair, arms folded. He raised an eyebrow and moved his chin ever so slightly, looking over Harry's shoulder, and Harry flushed and turned to close the door. Of course. He heard the murmur of a locking spell as he slid into the chair facing Snape's desk.

"Mr. Potter." The smooth voice was like a silken cloth draped over a jagged cliff, the soft texture of the surface doing nothing to hide the lurking sharp hard rocks. "Do you recall what you said to me, four months ago?"

Harry dared a glance toward his teacher's -- his ex-teacher's face. Snape wasn't looking at him; he was idly turning a small crystalline sphere in his hands. A Recorder, Harry realized, like the one that had held the prophecy about him. They'd learned the principle in sixth-year charms. Snape must have made a record of their conversation.

When Harry didn't reply, Snape tapped the globe with his wand, and he heard Snape's voice issuing from somewhere inside, the silken quality a bit diminished but still sending a shiver down his spine. "What do you want, Potter?"

And then his own voice, sounding tiny and desperate and scared.

Snape set the Recorder on his desk. "At the time I was not free to grant your -- request. But you are no longer my student." He rose, and his mouth twisted into an ironic sort of smile. "It was extraordinarily foolish of you to approach me. There were several far better candidates, you know, among your class."

Harry desperately tried to think of who he could be talking about. Nobody else that he knew of was gay; they all had girlfriends who they held hands with in the corridors when no teachers were looking. God, if only anybody else had been.

"Far better looking and more suited to your adolescent fumblings."

He finally found his voice. "I don't know any."

"A pity. You might have found someone who actually likes you." The voice was like razor blades, now, the venom unmistakable, and Harry felt the blood rushing to his head. It was a mistake, it had always been a mistake, he thought, fighting the tears of embarrassment and rage that threatened to gather in the corners of his eyes; blindly, he moved to the door. Which was locked.

"Damn it, Snape!" he cried, frustrated, as he worked the unyielding handle.

"I must admit that the idea intrigues me," continued Snape, as though Harry was still sitting in the chair before him.

"What's that, Potter? Have you changed your mind?"

"Yes!" He pulled on the door-handle again, hard, and then Snape muttered something and his hands froze around it. Petrificus, Snape had cast Petrificus on him, the bastard, and he could do no more than stand helpless with his hands fast to the door-handle as Snape strode toward him, a dark shape in the corner of his vision looming larger and larger until it was pressed up against his body.

"But I," Snape purred in his ear, "have not."

One of Snape's hands slowly traversed his chest, sliding down toward his hip, probing at his pockets. "Ah," came Snape's voice in his ear. "You won't be needing this for a while."

Harry stood spell-frozen, unable to resist as Snape plucked his wand from his pocket and disappeared from his sight. He heard footsteps moving away, and he wondered if that greasy bastard was just going to leave him there, a statue by the door. Then the footsteps returned.

As did the voice in his ear. "What shall I do with you?" A hand lifted the hair from his neck, and he felt a finger brush his skin as though through a very thick blanket. Funny, how Petrificus altered the senses, he thought. "Perhaps we should remove to a more suitable location. Mobilicorpus," Snape said, the spell sounding almost like an afterthought, and Harry felt his body lift away from the door and move further into the room.

Unable to even swivel his eyeballs back and forth, he couldn't see where Snape was taking him; he saw flashes of stone wall and high dungeon ceiling, a book-case that swung away and became a doorway, and felt, rather than saw, the bump-bump-bump of a flight of stairs. Eventually they came to a halt.

"It's a pity I couldn't have petrified you during your classes." Snape sounded almost bored as he propped Harry up against a wall, then stepped back and looked at him appraisingly. "No chatter with Weasley and Granger, no making trouble. No mangled ingredients and botched attempts at potions."

I did all right, Harry wanted to say. No thanks to you or those fucking Slytherins. But his lips remained set firmly in the angry snarl that had been on his face when he'd gone for the door.

Snape strode right up to him, filling his field of vision. As much as he wanted to, he couldn't look away; it was horrible, really, looking into those burning eyes. Snape looked on the verge of madness, barely restrained. He looked as though he were going to take a bite out of Harry's nose, and Harry wished he could shrink away or hit him or do anything other than stand there uselessly, paralyzed, frozen.

"As much as I enjoy you silent and motionless, I'm afraid I'll have to release you."

Thank God, thought Harry.

"But not quite yet," Snape continued, and his face was so close that if his senses hadn't been wrapped in blankets Harry would have been able to feel his breath. Then Snape tapped him on the shoulder with his wand. "Movere."

Snape then bent to the floor and he heard another tapping noise, and something felt different, although he couldn't tell quite what it was. Again Snape tapped him and repeated the spell; when he stooped to the floor and tapped it he saw in the corner of his vision that his arm, which had been extended to the door-handle, suddenly became bare. As Snape moved around, tapping and murmuring, bending down so that he was out of sight and then straightening, Harry gradually became aware of the rock wall cold and hard against his back.

So he was naked, naked in front of Snape, and if the blood didn't rush to his face and his groin it was only because the damn body-bind spell had frozen that too.

"Very nice, Potter," came Snape's voice from somewhere to his right. "Laxare."

He felt an odd sort of trickling coldness, as though the bones in his body had melted, and he slumped into Snape's arms. What the hell are you doing now, he wanted to say, but his mouth would still not obey him, and he realized that although his limbs were no longer rigid he was still under Petrificus. Snape moved him as though he were a rag doll, lifting first one limp arm and then the other into shackles high on the wall (and wasn't it just so unsurprising that Snape would have a room with shackles!), then stepping back to survey his handiwork, tilting Harry's lolling head up with two fingers under his chin so that Harry was forced to look him in the eye.

When Snape ended the spell it was like the feeling he had when he drank Skele-Gro in the hospital wing, painful and prickly, but his feet felt firm underneath him and he carefully straightened his body. Experimentally, he cleared his throat, and was rewarded with a hoarse grunt. Good, he could speak.

"You can't do this," he managed to get out, his voice sounding in his own ears like nails scraped on rock. "Dumbledore will sack you." He tried to lift his chin and look straight at him, but his eyes kept sliding away from the mad, hungry expression on Snape's face. He felt like dinner, trussed up and ready for the knife.

Snape's thin lips twisted into a sort of smile. "Dumbledore will not know. And you gave consent. I Recorded it."

"I'll tell him the truth."

"I rather doubt it," said Snape, and a chill went down Harry's spine. He couldn't be meaning to kill him. Could he?

Snape moved over to a padded bench and took off his boots. Harry stared at him for a moment, watching those elegant fingers fly swiftly over the old-fashioned laces, then looked past him, taking in the rest of the room. Bare rock and iron sconces, with candles blazing; there was a wooden table against one wall, a few unidentifiable objects arrayed upon it, and a tall cabinet wrapped in chains against another. Apart from the bench, those were the only things he could see.

A motion caught his attention, and he looked back to see Snape rising from the bench. He'd unbuttoned his robe as well as removing his footwear, and -- Harry gulped -- he wasn't wearing anything underneath. Or so it seemed; the fabric swirled around him and Harry could not catch more than glimpses of Snape's pale skin and the dark patch of hair at his groin as the man strode toward him. And that thought reminded him that he was naked, and Snape was looking at him, and that made his own groin throb and his heart thud so loudly he imagined Snape could hear it in the still air of the dungeon room.

"So, Mr. Potter." He was standing close, very close. "Four months ago you said you wanted my hands." He held them up between their faces and turned them this way and that, as if admiring them. This close Harry could see how long his fingers were, indelibly stained at their ends. His fingernails were cut short and square, and his knuckles seemed over-large, as though his bones were too big for his skin.

"My hands," Snape repeated, and very slowly tilted them toward Harry's face. "Be careful what you wish for." And with that he allowed his fingertips to brush feather-light against Harry's cheeks, then drew them down across his jaw, to his neck, and outward across his collarbone, exerting the same almost-not-there pressure the entire time. A hand slid down his left side, and he squirmed with the tickling sensation; fingernails carved gentle arcs around his right nipple, and he gasped. The long-fingered hands played his body like an instrument, stroking and caressing a slow path down his torso. By the time they reached his cock it was hard and straining for the touch.

Which came for only a moment -- two fingers sliding down the shaft, a palm tucking under his balls -- before it continued down his legs, and he groaned. "Patience, Harry," said Snape from somewhere beneath him, and the shiver that went up Harry's spine came in equal amounts from Snape's silvery-smooth voice and the motion of his hands and the fact that he'd just called him "Harry" for the first time ever.

It felt incredible. It felt wonderful, which was somehow hard to reconcile with the fact that it was Snape doing it to him. Snape, who despised him. Snape, who had ugly features and the tapered fingers of an artist, and a voice that could make him freeze in terror or tremble with lust. He looked down to where the dark head was lowered, lank hair brushing across thighs, knees, calves, the prominent hooked nose bending as if to breathe in the scent of the sweat that he could feel evaporating from his skin. Snape's hands awakened nerve endings he didn't even know he had; they gracefully moved over every inch, he was sure, before slowly stroking their way back up to his groin.

A soft touch on his hard arousal, and he tried to arch into it as far as the restraints would allow. "Please," he groaned, and heard Snape chuckle.

"I don't believe you're in a position to be asking for anything." The fingers pressed gently against his scrotum, then withdrew. "I've granted you my hands, as you requested. What I do with them --" and here his voice sharpened, hardened -- "is entirely up to me."

And Harry could not hold back a yelp as those long fingers pinched cruelly at the soft, sensitive skin of his inner thigh.

"It makes noises. Delightful," said Snape, straightening again so he could look Harry in the eye. "I will enjoy hearing your screams." His fingers shot out to twist a nipple, and Harry bit his lip, refusing to give him so much as a squeak. And hoping Snape would not notice that he had become even harder.

"You bastard," he said, when Snape had released him.

"I would not recommend antagonizing me further, Potter." A slow, unpleasant smile spread across Snape's thin lips before he turned away and walked to the table. Harry couldn't see what he did there, but when he turned back he was holding something large and black. "I will enjoy your screams regardless, but it's entirely up to you whether they are screams of pain or of pleasure."

Snape held his hands out in front of Harry. It was a whip he was holding, a thick-handled whip with a weighted leather strap, and something in the easy way Snape held it caused an unpleasant shiver to slither down Harry's spine.

"Well?" Snape's eyebrow was raised, and Harry realized he wanted an answer of some sort.

As though there was any doubt. "Pleasure," he whispered, his mouth suddenly dry.

"A wise choice," Snape murmured. Turning the whip end-for-end, he began softly stroking Harry's inner thigh with its cool handle. "Although if you wish me to give you pleasure, I expect something in return. Yes?"

His prick was iron, standing ramrod-straight. If he didn't come soon he might die of it. "Yes."

Snape took a step back and pulled the whip from its handle. Now he had two pieces, a leather strap and the short, thick handle, and he looked from one to another with a tiny smile. Bending close to the strap, he whispered a word that Harry couldn't quite hear, then touched the strap to Harry's arm.

Harry gasped as the strap slithered out of Snape's hand to wind around his own arm like a snake. The smooth leather slid across his skin as though it were alive, sometimes squeezing and binding, sometimes barely touching him, but always, always, moving. Up his arm, all the way up to wrap around his neck, then down to encircle a thigh; rippling to his feet, it briefly bound his ankles together before climbing his body once more. When it passed his groin the tip of the whip stroked his cockhead gently, like the flickering kiss of a serpent's tongue, and he groaned and tried to push into the leather.

"Have we agreed, then? You will do as I say?"

The words seemed to come from a distance, through the haze of sensation. He didn't see as though he had much choice, cuffed to the wall as he was, but he nodded, and when that didn't seem to satisfy Snape he croaked out a "Yes."

Snape pulled the wand from his pocket and tapped each of the manacles once, and they released, sending Harry crashing to the stone floor. "Don't bother getting up. I want you on your knees."

As he began to straighten he saw in the corner of his vision Snape moving around him, felt a splayed hand push down on the small of his back. Another muttered Latin word, and the leather strap wrapped one end around each of his thighs, then stiffened and -- pushed. His knees rasped on the rough stone of the floor as his legs were forced apart by the suddenly rigid strap, and the thought that Snape was behind him, watching, made him feel even more exposed and vulnerable.

Then Snape's hand on his back moved down to cup his arse, fingers still spread like a spider, and Harry shivered as a finger tested the crevice between. His legs automatically strained to push back together against the force holding them apart, and Snape seemed to sense it, for he made a low, purring sort of chuckle as he moved his hand down to stroke Harry's exposed ball sac and then slid back again to tease at his hole.

"What a sight you are, Harry, all spread out for me like this," he murmured, and Harry felt a shiver run down his spine just from the words. Snape's voice had always been the sexiest thing about him; his voice, and his hands, which were currently doing amazing things. "I've been thinking about you for a long time, imagining your lovely body open for me, that fuckable arse up in the air. Imagining your moans as I breached you," he said, as something hard and slick nudged at his arsehole, and Harry found himself indeed moaning, pushing back, trying to get more of the sensation.

"Daffodil," whispered Snape, and Harry had no time to wonder what Snape was on about, because he was being filled, thoroughly if not gently, and Harry writhed, trying to get one of those clever hands back on his cock. Then Snape moved, but it wasn't what he expected; he walked back around in front of Harry, trailing his fingertips across his spine and up his neck, and at that Harry realized that what was inside his arse was not Snape's prick but the whip-handle, sliding back and forth on its own under whatever enchantment Snape had laid on it, and the thought made him even harder.

He looked up and saw Snape standing there in front of him, a smirk on his unlovely face, his robes parted and his erection protruding. "You asked for my hands," he said, reaching out and caressing the back of Harry's neck. "In exchange, I would have your mouth."

His mouth was already open and panting, and it seemed natural, as Snape approached, to allow that heavy purple head entrance. Hands fisted in his hair and pulled him forward. The scent of Snape's arousal was a thick musk filling his nostrils, the taste a light salt bitterness that collected in the back of his throat as Snape thrust into his mouth.

So this was what it felt like. He had fantasized, of course. Fantasized about Snape, in the weeks after he had learned that his Potions master preferred men; fantasized about Justin, and about nameless, faceless wizards who he might meet in that club in Knockturn Alley, who might go with him to a room, to some dark corner, where he would learn what it was to have a man's cock in his mouth. He had fantasized, but of course it didn't prepare him for the reality - the heavy scent of Snape's sweat, the smooth hardness under his tongue, the velvet head cushioning the thrusts against his cheek as Snape fucked his mouth, as the whip-handle fucked his arse.

And his fantasies had never included the sounds that Snape was making, soft grunts and intakes of breath that made Harry shiver and think: I'm doing this, I'm doing this to him. Had never included the look on Snape's face, when Harry dared to flick his eyes upward to see it. His dark eyes were aflame, burning into Harry, through Harry, and he was biting his lower lip, and he was breathing heavily; and just then, as Harry drank in the sight, the sounds, at that moment the whip-handle moving inside him slid roughly across his prostate for the first time and he gasped, cool air around the hot cock in his mouth.

"Fuck, oh, yes, like that, oh," he heard Snape say, among the stream of incoherencies, and that was even better, to hear those words from those lips, in a voice urgent and lust-rough. He could hear the desire in Snape's voice, see it in his face; and the hate and the ugliness were gone, burned up like paper. Harry felt as though he were suspended on the sensation, between the heat filling his mouth and the warm slippery whip-handle rocking inside his arse, setting off sparks again and again. There was nothing else, just his mouth and his arse and the fire that stretched between, consuming him from the inside out, and he couldn't help it, he reached down and grabbed his own erection, and it took just two hard strokes and he was coming, wailing his release around Snape's cock.

Snape made another noise at that, and gripped Harry's head more tightly. An ungraceful thrust, then another, and abruptly his mouth was filled as Snape came in a bitter flood, more than he could take, and he was coughing and spitting, making a mess of Snape's robes, he knew, but that was just too bad, wasn't it.

Snape slumped to the floor, his eyes closed and his breathing still rapid, and for a moment neither of them spoke. Finally Harry decided he'd better do something about that thing in his arse, the motion of which was no longer exactly pleasant.

"Let me have my afterglow," Snape muttered irritably, opening one eye. "What do you want now?"

Harry flushed. "This toy of yours is going to wear a hole in me if --"

A sigh. "Buttercup."

He was trying to puzzle out why Snape had said that, then realized the whip handle was no longer moving. "Oh, I see," he said. "That's why you -- oh, I'd better not say it, had I."

"The boy is not entirely as stupid as he acts." Snape did not sound convinced. He was not looking at Harry, and Harry took the opportunity to surreptitiously slide the thing out of himself. The rigid strap between his legs wouldn't give, though, and finally he had to get Snape's attention again.

"The strap, too?" He motioned toward his legs, still awkwardly splayed. Snape silently fished his wand from his robe and ended the spell, and the leather collapsed into softness again and dropped onto the floor.

Snape had resumed his odd, contemplative posture, and was staring off into the corner of the room with an air that suggested he wasn't actually looking at anything. Maybe that was a good thing, Harry thought. Maybe he'd forgotten his earlier threats, forgotten the menacing way he'd loomed over Harry when he'd been helpless, shackled to the wall. His eyes held none of the fire they'd had only minutes before. He was neither what he thought of as Potions-master-Snape, cold and angry and hateful; nor was he the Snape that had caressed his body with slow, knowing hands, who had thrust his prick into his mouth. The Snape who had called him 'Harry'.

Harry stretched and climbed to his feet, not sure what to say. Not sure what to think. He spotted the neat pile of his clothes and silently went over to them, wiping himself with the bottom hem of his robe and then quickly dressing himself. His hand went into the pocket of his robe by instinct -- oh, right, Snape had taken it.

He looked back over; Snape was no longer staring into space but staring at him, not quite looking at his face but clearly looking at him. The expression on Snape's face unsettled him. It had been easy to hate the Snape who had always hated him back. But they'd just had the most amazing sex -- well, it was the first time he'd ever had sex, but he was sure that by any standards it was bloody amazing -- and it was a bit disturbing to realize that he wouldn't mind having another go at it, not at all. Except that Snape was looking at him as though he hadn't just come in his mouth; as though he wanted nothing more than to kick Harry out of this room, out of Hogwarts, out of his life.

Well, then. "Professor," he said, and Snape's head jerked up, his eyes narrowing. "I'd best be back to Gryffindor Tower, my mates are waiting…" Snape didn't move. "D'you suppose I could have my wand back?"

A brief hint of a smile crossed Snape's lips, and he rose to his feet, smoothing his soiled robe closed. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a wand -- and something in his motion, in the way he held it, the way his lips parted as though he was about to speak -- Harry suddenly knew exactly what he had been about to do, and with the instinctive reflex born of years of chasing the Snitch, he dashed across the space between them and threw himself on the other man.

"No!" he yelled, as they both crashed to the ground. Harry was no heavyweight, but Snape was downright skinny, more accustomed to magical than physical combat, and it was easy to overpower him. He scrabbled for Snape's wand hand, trying to pin it before it could come around again to him. It would probably be impossible for Snape to cast a spell like this, flat on his back with Harry on top of him, but he didn't want to take the chance.

"Potter," growled Snape, warningly.

"You were going to Obliviate me, weren't you." He searched the other man's face, which was shuttered, stone-blank. "Don't you dare take this from me. I swear I won't tell, I won't. I want to remember this."

An eyebrow raised just a fraction. "Be careful what you wish for."

"I know what I want. More than you do," he added carelessly, and watched Snape's face tighten. "You won't Obliviate me."

After a moment, Snape nodded. "All right."

"And I want my wand back."

"It's in my office. If you would care to release me, I'll take you there."

Harry frowned. Despite what Snape had said, he was reluctant to trust him. "Give me your wand."

"Are you mad?" Snape looked at him with that same cutting look he'd given him in so many Potions classes, the look that said that he'd just done or said something unbelievably stupid. "I've given my word. I have lived my life so as to ensure that is worth something, whether you choose to believe it or not. Now let me up, or I shall hex you, and it will be nothing so mild as Obliviation, I assure you."

Slowly Harry rolled to the side, and they both stood, eyeing each other with a certain amount of wariness. Snape walked to a thick brass-bound door and unlocked it with an Alohomora; then with a deliberate, nearly ostentatious motion he pocketed his wand, and Harry followed him up the stairs.

When they arrived at his office he indicated the ingredients shelves. "Between the porcupine quills and the puffer-fish eyes." There was the wand, poking out from among the jars, and Harry gratefully slid it into his pocket before heading to the door. "You'll have to unlock it."

Right. He pulled out his wand again and unlocked the door, then looked back at Snape who stood in the middle of the room, his arms folded, his expression neutral. "You know," he began, then stopped. He took a step toward Snape, who backed away, reaching for his own wand. "No, wait. Look, I'm putting it away." The wand went back into his robes, and then he deliberately took another step. Snape watched him warily, not speaking.

"I've got to get back to Gryffindor," he said slowly. "We're celebrating. The last time we're all together, and all that."

"By all means, Potter. Don't let me keep you." The voice was distant.

"But I don't want this to be the last time. I mean, for us." He made a vague gesture; he could feel his face reddening, looked at the floor, anywhere but at Snape. "I had thought I wanted to change my mind but it really wasn't -- I mean, at the time that wasn't what I thought I had wanted -- I mean -- it was, but not exactly that way, but it was still --"

"Are you or are you not leaving?" Snape's words cut through his babble, made him gulp, and he looked up into his face. The dull look was gone, and in his eyes was a hint of that gleam he'd seen before, a fire banked but there nonetheless, and it gave Harry courage.

"I'm leaving," he said firmly, "but I want to come back. To here, or to -- where do you spend your summers, anyway?"

"Right here," Snape told him, and he could see the fire catch, and start to blaze.

"Then I'm coming back here. I start Auror training in a month, but I've got my Apparation license. And there's always Floo. I'm sharing a flat with Ron and Dean --" he could see Snape's face start to flicker closed, and he hurriedly went on, "-- but you wouldn't have to visit there, of course, I'd be happy to come to you here. Er, may I?"

Snape crossed the remaining space between them in a swirl of robes. One long-fingered hand darted out to cup the back of Harry's head; the other snaked around his waist and pulled him close.

And then Snape bent to cover Harry's lips with his own, and all Harry could think was that the flames in his eyes had somehow moved down into his mouth. It was all heat and fire, a searing kiss that made him stumble and lean more tightly into that long body pressed to his. A tongue probed at his palate, teeth nipped at his lips and his jaw, and then he felt cool air as Snape pulled away just a fraction and looked at him with just a hint of a smile.

The hand at his neck slid up and off, ruffling his hair; the hand at his waist spun him around and gently pushed him toward the door. "Be careful what you wish for," Snape said, as he reached for the handle and pulled the door open. Harry turned in the doorway to protest; Snape shook his head lightly, reached out to caress his cheek, then bent close to his ear. "Because you just might get it."

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http://hieroglyfics.net/hp/wishfor.htm | written November 2003 by Isis