A Private Escape

by cruisedirector, Dementordelta

Summary:

A tropical paradise wasn't the afterlife Snape expected.

Notes:

Written for the Severus Sighs Grand Challenge, Theme: Love and Courtship, Prompt: If this be real. Many thanks to celandineb for beta. We didn't discuss the characters' ages, but this takes place shortly after the Battle of Hogwarts, so you can either assume two months magically passed the way we did or assume Harry took a potion that made him legal all over the world.

"Good morning. Are you finally awake?"

Severus Snape blinked against the brilliant light that surrounded him. Nothing would come into focus. The voice sounded clear yet at the same time far off. And though it was vaguely familiar, he had the sense that he had only heard such tones in a dream.

Wherever he was now, he was surrounded by warmth, softness, and a sweet fragrant scent as impossible to place as the voice. Where had he been before?

Oh yes -- lying in dust, bleeding to death. He could recall the horror of that moment, the filthy room and the stench of his own terror, yet the memory felt like it was returning from the same distance as the elusive voice that was now asking whether he would like some tea.

The absurdity of it all made him smile. Either the Dark Lord had, in the end, destroyed his mind, or else he was in Heaven where his Muggle grandmother had always insisted that he would go no matter what his mother might have believed.

"Professor?"

Whether in Muggle Heaven or some manipulation conjured by the Dark Lord, Professor was not a name by which Snape expected to be addressed. Though he could not yet see clearly, he was becoming more aware of his body, which felt no pain but which he was fairly certain also wore no clothing. As for the voice itself, it sounded more familiar, and the room took shape just as he was able to bring the source into focus --

"Potter! What are you doing here?"

There was a soft chuckle, one that made him feel pleasant in places that were touching sheets softer than any at Hogwarts. "A better question would be how you got here," Potter said, the grin on his mouth the only clear thing Snape could see. "You have no idea how much trouble it is to avoid Ministry paperwork concerning Portkeys. Tea?"

Snape blinked away the fuzzy mist that seemed to drift over his vision. "Why -- what --?" There were so many questions. He couldn't concentrate on any of them long enough to make his mouth form words to ask them. "Yes," he decided, which satisfied his overwhelmed brain enough to make him realize that he was utterly supine in the bed. The sheets clung from his toes to his chest and the pillows under his head were soft and full. A breeze blew across him, lifting a strand of hair over his cheek.

The blur that was the rest of Potter moved out of his direct sight and Snape found his head moving to follow it as if pursuing some elusive dream image. The room was open and spacious, full of light that made Snape's eyes water to look at it. Then Potter was back, as firm as the bed beneath him, sliding one arm under him, helping him to sit. "There you go," Potter prattled with a smile that was echoed in his eyes.

"I can bloody well sit up by myself," Snape grumbled at once, but even that tiny effort made him realize he was out of breath.

"Oh really?" Potter said, resting one hand on Snape's bare skin, peering into his face as if inspecting for something. "Why don't you have some tea first, then you can yell at me." He pushed something into Snape's fingers -- the tea cup. The aroma was more irresistible than the fragrant breezes wafting through the room. At once Snape detected a distinctive undercurrent of flavor.

"What have you put in this?" he asked, ignoring the quiver that went through his fingers when he lifted the cup to sniff the contents.

"Poison, of course." Potter's voice was cheerful. "That's why I brought you here. I thought it would be kinder to off you somewhere scenic."

The tea was strong, sweetened with molasses and coconut. Snape detected mango, pineapple, hibiscus, possibly cassava. "You've botched the ingredients," he informed Potter. "None of the flowers you've added is poisonous."

It was, in fact, delicious, and Snape took several more sips, enjoying the faint tartness of the pineapple under the sweetness. Potter had sat on the edge of the bed and was hovering close, looking ready to catch him if he suddenly tipped over.

"I don't suppose you'd like to explain where we are or how we got here?" Snape asked him between swallows.

"We're in the Caribbean," Potter replied so matter-of-factly that Snape nearly choked on the tea. "Specifically, in Barbados. I already told you -- we arrived by Portkey. Would you like some toast? There's excellent marmalade."

How had been the wrong question, Snape knew. He should have asked why. Carefully, he held out the teacup, letting Potter take it so he could push up on one hand and look around. Even that small gesture winded him again, as well as causing the sheet that had covered his bare chest to slide downward. Self-consciously he grabbed at it and pulled it over him, sinking back against the pillows before he could see much besides the flowers below the window and a small green lizard darting over the sill.

Now that his vision had cleared, he could also see that the boy perched on the edge of his bed was wearing nearly as little as himself.

"I believe I would like toast, thank you," he told Potter, who smiled approvingly and got up. At least Potter had shorts on, though they were tight, and clung when he moved.

"I'll get it. Promise me you won't try to stand. Or do magic."

Snape wondered what had become of his wand. Or if he still had a wand. Potter's was nowhere in sight. Perhaps he had kept Snape naked in order to prevent an escape attempt. "Not until I've had something to eat."

Absurdly, this earned Snape a wide grin. "I'll see if I can find some cheese." Then Potter leaned over and kissed him on the cheek before turning and walking out of the room. Snape waited till he had disappeared to touch the spot where his face was burning.

This was ridiculous. Barbados! He'd heard of the island, of course, but he knew no more about it than Guadeloupe or Martinique except that people spoke English in Barbados. What in Merlin's name were they doing here? He hadn't really expected to survive, let alone to be found in time to recover fully, yet apart from being weak and very hungry, he felt surprisingly well.

There was a mirror on the wall opposite the bed, which he'd taken at first to be another window since it was reflecting the light from above him. Balling his hand into a fist, Snape pushed himself upright again, peering at his reflection from across the room. His chest looked sunken and sallow as always, and a pair of pink scars stood out against the pale skin of his throat. He did not, however, look as though he were dying. Or dead.

He picked up his teacup again and drained it, examining the grounds for traces of the poison he was fairly certain Potter had been joking about. He found only the traces of ingredients a first year Potions student could detect. Now that he had no one to interrogate, questions crowded into his mind, fighting to be the first one out as soon as Potter returned. He blinked a few times, looking down at his own hands, splaying his fingers over the linen. Somehow he'd been healed, washed, transported and...nurtured. He wasn't sure which of those was the most troubling.

Snape heard a cheerful whistle from the corridor and Potter slid in carrying a tray. "You got lucky, the housekeeper left cheese and fruit," he said, setting the tray on the table beside the bed. "Oh good," he said, eyeing the empty teacup before swirling the pot and pouring out another cup for him. "I was hoping you'd like it."

"Why on earth do you care what I like, Potter?" Snape sputtered, trying to pierce the bubble of this dream and get back to whatever harsh reality awaited once he woke up.

To his credit, Potter's smile became shy, as if he did not indeed have all the answers. He sat on the edge of Snape's bed again, fiddling with the cloth napkin he'd picked up off the tray. "Because I've been taking care of you," he explained, "since we got here, well, before then really. I didn't really know what you'd like, even where you'd like to recover, so I had to decide on my own." He smiled again, even though he hadn't actually explained anything to Snape's satisfaction. "And I like that tea, so I'm glad you do." He flipped out the napkin and spread it over Snape's lap. When he looked like he was going to tuck it in, Snape grabbed his wrist.

"Stop fussing over me," Snape snarled.

"No," Potter said, reverting to his disgustingly cheerful mien as Snape loosened his fingers. "Not until you're well." He slid the tray over. Snape noticed there were two plates, another teacup and clearly enough food for both of them. "But I will tell you anything you want to know." Potter tucked a napkin around his own lap, covering most of the small pair of shorts he wore. "I imagine you have a few questions."

Snape had been a spy too long to give over the sputter of outrage this sentiment caused. Instead he leaned back into the pillows, clenching the tea cup. "A few," he acknowledged. He let his gaze roam over the white-washed stone walls. Potter handed him some toast, with marmalade dripping off one side. He ate the triangle, just to prove to himself that he could without flinging it back in Potter's smug face. Like the tea, the marmalade was delicious -- fresh, a bit tart, then achingly sweet.

"The Caribbean is right outside," Potter volunteered. "We're completely surrounded by palm trees, too, so it's very private. When you're feeling up to it, we can go outside."

"The house is not Unplottable?" Snape asked automatically, licking marmalade from his fingers.

"No, but I don't think anyone will be able to find us here. It's owned by a Muggle. Hermione went to a travel agent to bring her parents home from Australia, and I got the number from her."

That had either been the height of folly or really quite intelligent of Potter. "Who does know we're here?" Better to find out important facts before getting into more unpleasant questions like why.

"Just Hermione. I told her she wasn't allowed to tell Ron because if the Ministry made his father ask, his father might make him tell. McGonagall wanted me to tell her just to be safe in case something went wrong with the Portkey, but she's one of the first people the Ministry would ask."

"I suppose she made the Portkey, then," said Snape.

"Actually, it was George Weasley. Want some eggs?" Picking up one of the plates, Potter got a forkful of omelet dripping with cheese. Snape's mouth watered at the smell, but if Potter thought he was going to feed him like a child... "Open up."

"Give me the fork." With a small sigh, Potter obliged. There was something faintly spicy in the eggs, a pepper with which Snape was unfamiliar. The heat of it warmed him pleasantly all the way down to his groin. He handed Potter back the fork before reaching for his teacup, noting that when he leaned forward too quickly, his chest constricted. "You had better tell me at once what you've been giving me for the snake bite."

"No idea, really. Madam Pomfrey made it." This was welcome news, for it hopefully meant not only that Snape had been spared the meddling of St. Mungo's, but that his own anti-venin had worked sufficiently for Poppy to believe he would recover with minimal intervention. "She thought you should be kept warm, though, and it's been rainy and horrible in London. You aren't too warm now, are you? I could turn on the ceiling fan, or give you a sponge bath..."

"Potter!" Apparently Snape's prick had recovered faster than the rest of him -- no, not recovered, perhaps it was bewitched. Or more likely cursed. Snatching at the sheet, he drew his knees up. "You are not going to bathe me."

Potter looked surprised. "Who do you think has been bathing you all week?"

Snape spluttered. He could not think about the primary question. "We've been here for an entire week?" he demanded.

"Just over," Potter replied, not even having the grace to look ashamed of himself for his audacity. "Why, did you have some appointment you couldn't miss?" He made a show of heaving a sigh. "Sorry about that, I never thought to check your calendar."

"Oh very amusing, Potter," Snape scowled, reaching for more toast. He could tell he was going to need to keep up his strength -- well, or at least regain his old strength -- to get any straight answers out of Potter.

"I do think, since I've been sponging you off for a week that you could at least call me 'Harry'," Potter said thoughtfully. He had a bit of egg on the side of his mouth, and rubbed a finger over his mouth to get rid of it. "Couldn't you?"

He looked like he expected an answer, so Snape did what he did best -- he counter-attacked. "You kissed me," he accused, and though he didn't plan to, his fingers lifted and brushed the spot again.

"I did," Potter said, nodding over his tea cup. "I liked it and I'm pretty sure you did too or you'd have tried to hex me."

Snape closed his eyes in exasperation, hoping that when he opened them, he would be back in his dungeon office, with Dumbledore still ensconced in his tower and nothing more to worry about save methods of imparting knowledge into resistant young minds. Unfortunately the Caribbean was quite insistent on blowing fragrant breezes through the room, alerting Snape that perhaps he would have to deal with this barely-clad Potter. "That isn't remotely the point. The question is why?"

Potter's laugh startled a tiny lizard that had perched on the wide windowsill. "I think you know why," Potter replied. "And it wasn't the first time, either."

Seizing on this unlikely fact, Snape levelled a glare at the unrepentant young man. "You brought me here to molest me in my sleep?"

Potter frowned, setting down his fork very carefully. "I did no such thing," he said defensively. "Just hello and goodbye when I talked to you and changed your dressing and helped you down the potion and sometimes when I tucked up your sheets --" The outrage on his features just built with each plank of his defense. "That isn't molesting, that's --"

"Calm down," hissed Snape, glancing toward the window as though the lizards might be massing there to eavesdrop.

Instantly Potter looked distressed, his glance flicking to the still-itchy spot on Snape's neck where the snake had struck. "I should let you rest," he said, sliding off the edge of the bed. Instinctively Snape reached over the tray and grabbed Potter's wrist, though the impulse was so unexpected and unsuited that he simply stared at his own fingers. "Oh," Potter added as though he'd just thought of something. "Voldemort's dead. So you don't have to worry about --"

"What?" Leave it to Potter to have overlooked a piece of information of that significance while fussing over tea. Snape's fingernails dug into Potter's hand, making Potter wince. "You killed him?"

"Not exactly. He tried to kill me and I disarmed him and the spell backfired and killed him. A lot of other people died, too -- I'll tell you, but that hurts." Potter shook his arm a bit, and Snape released his wrist as if it were burning. Sitting back down, Potter ran his hands through his own hair. "Lupin and Tonks were both killed, and Bellatrix Lestrange and most of the Death Eaters. And Vincent Crabbe." The omelet shifted unpleasantly in Snape's stomach. "Not the Malfoys, though -- they're all fine. And all the Weasleys but Fred."

"Was he the one I..." Snape reached up without thinking, touching his ear.

"No. That was George." Shutting his eyes, Potter shook his head slightly, then took a deep breath and opened them, looking at the flowers, bright against the pale walls of the room. "Anyway, it's over. We came back to get you and when the Healers wanted to take you to St. Mungo's, I brought you here instead."

"The battle ended, and the Chosen One disappeared? For more than a week?"

"Just about, yeah." Potter nodded.

It sounded much too simple, but Potter had always been a terrible liar and Snape saw no evidence that he wasn't telling the truth now. "What aren't you telling me?" he demanded.

"Nothing!" Potter rubbed his wrist. "I mean, do you want to hear the details? Neville used the Sword of Gryffindor to --"

Snape waved him silent. While at some point he supposed that he would wish to learn the details of the Dark Lord's fall, that was not what he had wanted to know, though at the same time he wasn't certain he wanted to ask why Potter had whisked him off alone to this -- this romantic locale. Well, certainly Potter didn't see it that way. Likely he felt obligated to Snape, having misunderstood the nature of Snape's role at Hogwarts and among the Death Eaters.

"I can leave if I wish?" Snape asked, shifting his legs beneath the sheet. Potter looked startled but nodded. "I am not your prisoner?"

That brought another laugh. "Oh, right, that's why I poured all those potions down your throat to help heal you, because I have some big grudge against you?"

The ghosts of those who hadn't survived retreated from the brightly lit room. Potter -- whose emotions never seemed to ripple much under the surface -- brightened as well.

"You could have made it a little easier to get the sword out of that bloody freezing water, but I wouldn't have dragged you all the way here to punish you for that." Potter also had no patience of note, fiddling his hands in his lap. "Do you want to leave?" he asked, as if already bracing for the answer.

"Without benefit of wand or clothes?" Snape asked. He was suddenly hyper-aware, in a way that he hadn't been a moment before, of being naked in another man's presence...and, if he was honest, an attractive man.

"You can have those back," Potter said, bounding off the bed -- why did young men always seem to bound rather than moving at a reasonable pace? -- and crossing the room. There was a wardrobe along one wall, which Potter threw open. Inside he could see several sets of clothes, almost none of which looked familiar. "Your wand is in here."

Potter pulled out a drawer and carefully withdrew Snape's wand. When he crossed back to the bed, he looked very earnest, as though he were carrying a holy chalice. "Your old clothes are in one of the drawers too, but they --" Distress clouded Potter's features. "They're --"

"Bloody?"

Potter paled. "More than that."

Snape took his wand, reveling in the feel of it in his hand for a moment before laying it on the table beside the bed. "Such magic leaves...traces."

"So I got you some new ones. Don't worry, they sell black here." Potter brightened again, as though the sun had come from behind the clouds. "I even got you pyjamas."

"Yet did not see fit to let me wear them," drawled Snape, resisting the urge to tug the sheets higher over his chest. He shifted his legs again, aware of the full extent of his body's recovery.

Potter's smirk owed a bit to Snape's tutelage. "Better to molest you that way."

The spot on Snape's cheek where's Potter's mouth had been flared to awareness again, very clearly his body's way of diverting attention from the areas in which it had renewed interest. True, it was warm in the room even with the cross-breezes, but surely Potter could at least have covered up his own chest or those slender, well-formed legs.

"Do you want to try standing up?" The question drew Snape's attention away from the perusal of Potter's displayed assets and from speculating too keenly on those not yet in view. "I bet you have to go to the loo."

Snape blinked. Until that point, he'd been perfectly content to sip tea, and banter with this elusively maddening Potter, and sip tea, and speculate on a world without the Dark Lord, and sip still more tea until suddenly reminded that the inside of his body was recovering as well.

Potter had the nerve to laugh. "I'll take that as a yes," he said, shifting up so that he could angle his arm behind Snape's back. "Draining spell's probably wearing off right about now."

At least Potter had taken the trouble to learn the spell instead of putting Snape in a nappy or something equally humiliating. Snape straightened carefully, but the weakness that had taken his breath away earlier did not return. "I can do this myself," he said.

"Maybe, but I don't fancy picking you up off the floor if you're wrong, so you're going to let me help you." The warm press of Potter's arm around his waist made it impossible for Snape to tie the sheet into place. He yanked on it with one hand, knocking him off balance and forcing him to lean closer to Potter than he'd intended. "Go slow -- I don't want you falling over."

"Might I at least have a robe?" For an instant Potter looked mutinous, but then he held out his hand and Summoned one from the wardrobe. It was black, but it was a short, nearly translucent thing more likely designed to be worn with a swimsuit than by itself. Potter held it up for him as Snape slid first one arm and then the other into the sleeves. He tied it before he let the sheet fall from his waist, dropping what little fabric there was over his lap and hoping it would be sufficient.

"This way." With more care than necessary, Potter tugged Snape forward until his feet touched the soft rug sticking out from beneath the bed. He pulled Snape very slowly to his feet. "How's that?"

"Fine." In fact, the room was spinning, though whether that was due to weakness, the heady scent of the flowers, or the intoxicating closeness of Potter, Snape couldn't have said.

Now that he was upright, he could see out the bright window that overlooked a swimming pool and, past it, a thick nest of palm trees and other plants. Just beyond those was a narrow strip of beach, then the brilliant azure water of the Caribbean Sea. Gazing up at his face, Potter followed his gaze. "Those trees go nearly down to the water," he said, pointing. "The property's very private."

"Have you been swimming?" asked Snape, wondering whether Potter had bothered with a swimsuit. Beneath the ridiculously thin fabric of his robe, his prick twitched.

"I just put my feet in the water a few times while the housekeeper was here -- I didn't want to leave you alone." Arm still around Snape, Potter shuffled toward the window. "There's a tennis court if you like that sort of thing."

Snape had never held a tennis racket in his life, nor could he imagine where Potter might have had that opportunity -- certainly not growing up with Vernon and Petunia Dursley. He snorted faintly, gazing down at the colorful courtyard filled with flowers and palms. "I don't suppose that's a whirlpool bath?"

"There are two, actually." Potter smiled. "The one by the pool outside, and another in the loo right over here." He resumed his shuffle, keeping his arm around Snape, headed toward a bathroom that was half again the size of the bedroom. "I did try that one out."

The idea that Potter had been naked in this bathroom while Snape was unconscious in the room beyond struck Snape as almost painfully intimate. "Let me go," he said, reaching out for the doorknob.

Potter dropped his arm, yet remained in the doorway, hovering. "Are you sure you --"

"I'm capable of using the toilet myself, Potter. Get out."

"Fine, but don't lock the door." As Potter withdrew, Snape took a few tentative steps toward the sink, flattening his hand on the cool marble top. In the large mirror above it, he could see his scars more clearly. He took care of his most immediate need first, glad of the door between them as he leaned heavily on the wall for support. Dropping the robe back into place, he studied the bathroom more thoroughly. Whatever this place was, it looked like the height of luxury. Snape wondered how Potter had obtained it, with his background and his execrable taste from the glimpses that Snape had ever seen.

His eyes veered away from the oversized bathtub and its alluring whirlpool before Snape faced the mirror over the sink again. The wound on his neck would never completely disappear, he suspected, nor did Snape think he wanted it to. Like Potter's lightning bolt, it was a reminder of the closeness of death that made being alive -- what? Worth having? Worth celebrating? Surely Potter seemed to think so with this extravagant villa and his unceasing care of Snape. Snape brushed his fingers over the raw skin, tilting his head to get a better view and having to grab the sink again when his eyes swam.

"Are you all right?" Potter called out with such timeliness that Snape was tempted to check for spying spells he was perfectly aware Potter had never learned.

"Go away," Snape called back, also perfectly aware that Potter wouldn't, but at least with the satisfaction of knowing he'd have to hover outside while Snape took his time. There were other scars, older scars, that never troubled Snape any longer, save that they too served as reminders of the folly of youth and the inevitability of letting down one's guard at just the wrong moment. Unbelting the robe, Snape studied the rest of his apparently recovered body, sparing a probably useless admonition to his prick that it ought not to be so recovered as to be behaving so inappropriately. That he was no longer filthy or bloody or even unwashed from his time spent recovering he owed to Potter, which was both inexplicable and worrisome. What would Potter expect in return? With no one save the mirror -- a Muggle one which would not speak back -- to witness, Snape touched the spot on his cheek where Potter's lips had been.

"I'm not going away," Potter said, still, from the sound of his voice, close to the door. Snape took vicious pleasure in yanking it open, hoping to upset Potter in the act of eavesdropping, but he got another bout of lightheadedness for his trouble. "Stubborn git," Potter mumbled, grabbing Snape around the waist while the world righted but everything else went off kilter.

"Why aren't you going away?" Snape complained even as he accepted the help, gesturing toward the chair beside the panoramic window before clapping one hand on Potter's back.

"Because you need me," Potter said, discharging his burden carefully as, between them, they levered Snape into the chair. Potter sat down in the one beside it while Snape tugged down the robe, trying in vain to cover his bony knees.

"What's to stop me from Apparating out of here?" he asked, refusing the serenity of the view of the ocean so nearby.

Potter leaned back in the rattan chair, his legs looking longer than the compact frame Snape remembered from the rare glimpses he'd allowed himself when Potter was a schoolboy. The shorts pulled taut over the tops of his thighs as he stretched his arms over his head. "Nothing, really, only --" He exhaled deeply and his eyes drifted shut. "Why would you want to?" He kept his eyes closed a moment more -- not that Snape was watching -- before they fluttered open again. "I told you, you aren't a prisoner. You can stay or go or start walking along the beach just to see where it goes. What matters is, you aren't dead." He smiled and there was something sad in it that Snape couldn't remember seeing before. "I'm not dead either," he added, "In case you haven't noticed."

"You talk too much for me to help noticing," retorted Snape, watching as Potter rose and went over to the bedside table to retrieve the tea. "This looks like a very exclusive Muggle resort. Very expensive."

Potter shrugged, setting Snape's cup down in front of him and handing him an orange. "I have plenty of money -- people keep sending me gifts. I'm sure they'd send them to you, too, if they knew you were alive. The Ministry wanted to make an announcement, but I convinced them it would be safer to wait."

"Ah." At least Potter wasn't stupid. "I will, of course, reimburse you for the trouble you've taken..."

Rolling his eyes, Potter dug his fingers into the skin of his orange, peeling it back and sending juice spritzing across the tabletop. "I don't want to be reimbursed," he said. "I want you to get well."

"May I remind you that you dislike me? Don't tell me that you've developed some delusion that I'm secretly a nice man. Or, Merlin forbid, some sort of hero."

"Definitely not," Potter said, tossing the half-peeled orange into the air and catching it as if it were the Golden Snitch. "I know you're not a nice man. And heroes are overrated -- just people doing what they have to do." Tearing at the fruit, Potter bit into a segment and raised his head with the curved side of the orange hiding his teeth, sticking out like a false smile.

He looked ridiculous. Helplessly, Snape felt a smile crossing his own face. "There must be some reason you're being so helpful and...pleasant," he muttered.

"Why would I have brought you here to recover if I wanted to be unpleasant? You aren't making much sense."

"Neither are you. If you haven't deluded yourself into believing you owe me something for so-called heroics, what possible reason could you have for being so solicitous of me?"

"Maybe I'm a nice man." Potter had a real smile under the fake one created by the orange slice. He licked his lips, catching a stray trickle of orange juice that Snape had the absurd impulse to reach out and wipe from Potter's cheek. "Or maybe I'm not, and I just wanted to get away from everything with someone who wouldn't expect anything from me."

To give his hands something to do, Snape tore into his orange. "I expect that you came so far away to preserve your anonymity," he said. "Surely you could have found a local lady if you wanted company who wouldn't expect anything from you."

Potter was laughing. "Ladies aren't exactly my thing," he said. "Didn't you figure that out during Occlumency lessons?"

Snape's thumb pressed straight through the orange, squirting juice over his robe and chest, shredding the segment he'd been trying to remove the way he had tried to remove all memories of those Occlumency lessons after the night he'd sent Potter fleeing. Automatically he raised his hand to his mouth to lick the juice off it, becoming aware as he did so that Potter was watching, squirming slightly in his seat. Snape went still. "I thought you might be showing me those things to torment me."

"Showing you? I was doing my best to stop you from ever seeing anything about what attracted me, or didn't attract me. I thought for sure you were going to tell everyone that the Boy Who Lived was a poofter."

The mess was hopeless without a napkin, and Snape wasn't certain he had the strength to Summon one. He wiped his hand on the flimsy fabric of the robe. "I didn't guess," he said. "You had quite the parade of young ladies -- Miss Patil, Miss Chang, Miss Weasley..."

"You paid attention to who I was dating?"

Bloody hell. "As you said, I was privy to your innermost thoughts. I thought you wished to torment me because you knew I was...that way inclined."

"I didn't guess," echoed Potter. "But I was sure you would. I never thought about Parvati at all, or Ginny, then, and everything with Cho was a disaster." Potter took the orange from him and finished peeling it, handing him an unblemished segment. "But now I'm a little confused because you told Dumbledore you were in love with my mum."

Of course. That was why he was here. Snape had been an idiot not to realize it sooner. He felt his cheeks flushing. For just a moment he'd thought perhaps Potter...oh, that was madness! "Your mother was my dearest friend," he said.

For some mystifying reason, Potter looked crestfallen. "Oh," he said. "Then you were in love with her? And not...that way inclined?"

It would probably have been safe to let Potter go on believing he'd done everything for love of a long-lost childhood friend, but then Potter might have continued this ridiculous charade of trying to repay a debt. "I loved her," Snape grated out. "It grieved me to lose her. It was my responsibility. I blamed myself. But I never desired her that way, so you are under no obligation to reward me for any lifelong devotion."

Potter let out a long sigh. "Oh thank Merlin," he breathed. "I was really hoping you were lying to Dumbledore when you said you only cared about me because of my mum." He got up and crossed the room, returning from the loo a moment later with tissues.

Because he could not think what else to do, Snape put the orange slice in his mouth and took the tissues, wiping his sticky fingers. "Why do you even care?" he muttered.

"Why do you think?"

"Clearly you feel some misguided obligation toward me, or you would not have brought me here." Paradoxically, the more Snape ate, the hungrier he became. Perhaps this was an effect of his recovery.

"It never occurred to you that maybe I just wanted to spend time with you away from all that back at home?" Potter looked hurt, which made him look younger. Much younger. Too young, despite how well he filled out those tight shorts. "Do you just want me to take you back to Hogwarts? Or wherever?"

Whatever Potter might have been up to, Snape could not summon the energy to pretend that he would rather be in the infirmary at Hogwarts with his onetime colleagues either fussing over him or torturing him for his treatment of them during his time as Headmaster. Nor did he wish to face the Wizengamot. Nor hide in his own dingy room at Spinner's End, though by now the Ministry had undoubtedly confiscated the property. Not without some reluctance, he voiced the wish uppermost in his mind. "I don't suppose there's more toast?"

Instantly Potter brightened. "We have fruit and cheese and stuff too. Or want more eggs? We've got loads of those. Let me show you the kitchen." A moment later Snape was being hauled to his feet, aware through his lightheadedness as he stood that the robe had twisted and was barely covering his lower body. "Come sit at the table. This will only take a couple of minutes."

"I should help," Snape protested, trying to tug down the robe with one hand while Potter maneuvered him to the door and out into the hallway.

"You're supposed to be recuperating. Anyway, I'm good at eggs. The Dursleys made me cook them pretty much every morning."

Despite the memories Snape had seen in Potter's mind during Occlumency lessons, he had tried not to think about what Potter's childhood with Lily's horrible sister must have been like. He wondered if perhaps the boy had developed a masochistic streak as a means of coping. "You don't have to cook for me," he objected.

"This is different. I want to cook for you." Smiling, Potter lowered him into a cream cloth-covered chair with a wide, comfortable back. Snape wondered how the Muggles who owned this house could possibly keep such a piece of furniture so clean. "So stop complaining."

"I'm not -- " It occurred to Snape that he had, in fact, done little besides complain. And, watching Potter bend over in the tight shorts to get out a pan and start heating butter, he felt very hungry. "I should say thank you," he said awkwardly. "I still don't understand why you're doing this, but I shall endeavor to be less critical."

Potter smiled a bit as he crossed the room. "You're supposed to be clever. You'll figure it out." Bending, he kissed Snape's cheek again, then opened the refrigerator to take out the eggs and cheese as Snape raised his hand to his face, too surprised to stop himself. "Do you want peppers, or is that too much?"

All of this was too much. "Peppers, yes," he said, unable to do anything but watch as Potter got them out, headed over to the sink, and started slicing, wearing an unfathomable smile. "Potter. Your friends will believe I forced you here instead of the other way around. Especially in such a -- a romantic spot. They'll think I've bewitched you, no matter how innocent..."

Potter cut him off with a laugh. "Since when do you care what my friends think? At least you noticed the romantic spot. Hermione thought you'd probably hex me."

Watching Potter in those tiny shorts breaking eggs into the pan was too much of a distraction to permit rational thought. Snape wondered whether hexing Potter would do any good, and if Potter wouldn't find it preferable to what Snape really wanted to do to him at the moment. "The sea air must be going to my head," he muttered. "How did you choose this place?"

Potter appeared to be blushing a bit, though it might have been the heat from the stove as he scrambled the eggs. "It looked private. I figured that if one of us had some problem with our magic, we should be away from Muggles."

Oddly, Snape had not considered that possibility. Given their recent conflicts with the Dark Lord, there was a likelihood of such issues, though Snape hadn't thought Potter was paying attention in his Defense Against the Dark Arts class when he had explained how repeated exposure to dark magic could influence a wizard's spells. Maybe that was why Potter was cooking like a Muggle instead of using magic. ""Have you had any problems?" he demanded.

Potter shook his head. "No, but I haven't tried anything complicated. Just boiling water and Scourgifying." He tilted the board on which he'd been grating cheese, stirring that and the peppers in with the eggs. "Madam Pomfrey thought you'd recover on your own, but she thought it might take weeks. She wanted to put you in St. Mungo's."

The prospect of weeks locked up in hospital made Snape shudder. "I appreciate that you spared me that," he said sincerely. "Though I expect that the Ministry will send me directly to Azkaban once it is known I have recovered."

"They won't send you to Azkaban. They didn't even send the Malfoys to Azkaban." Snape let out a small grunt of surprise. He'd understood from Potter earlier that Lucius and his family had survived, but he had imagined that all of them, even Draco, were probably in prison. Shutting off the heat beneath the pan, Potter gave the eggs a last stir, then reached into the cabinet for plates, the stretch tightening his buttocks very nicely in the shorts. "Anyway, I won't let them send you to Azkaban. Do you want to eat this in here, or do you want to go outside where you can see the water?"

The view of Potter's arse was too distracting for a moment for Snape to separate the two options as questions that required a reply. "Outside," he decided, figuring the view out there would be more conducive to uncluttered thought. Nodding in approval, Potter gathered up the plates, disappearing for a moment, returning before Snape could attempt to stand again on his own. As if they'd been doing this more than a single afternoon, Potter slid his arm around Snape and helped him up, heedless of the way the robe flapped open as they made their way to the patio.

"Here we go," Potter said, still unendurably chipper as he stood back, allowing Snape the dignity of seating himself. With easy grace, Potter flopped into the opposite chair, his legs sprawled so that one brushed against Snape's. "Perfect," he said on a sigh.

Snape couldn't help but agree. Despite the not-quite enmity between them, Snape felt himself relaxing fractionally. The patio showed the flawless expanse of beach, dotted with postcard-sized palm trees and azure water as far as they could see. It was warm enough to be comfortable in the minimum of clothing they wore, cooled by the unceasing breezes. By mutual if unspoken consent, they declared a truce as they dug into Potter's meal. In this the young man hadn't been exaggerating; the eggs were excellent, and Potter had added a plate full of cheese and fruit. Snape realized quickly that Potter was watching him eat, and trying to look as though he were not.

"You'd have been a terrible spy," Snape said once he'd finished the eggs, swiping up the last of the yolk with a bit of toast.

"What? Oh, sorry," Potter said, though he didn't look the least bit apologetic. "It's nice to see you eat."

Snape gave a snort of disbelief. "You've been playing nursemaid too long."

Somehow Potter's foot had wedged beside Snape's, rubbing slowly along the side. The smile that went along with this action was openly appraising. Snape didn't encourage him but he didn't remove his foot either. "I know you're still recovering," Potter said after a few of the surprisingly gentle strokes, moving his foot away. The notion that Potter was being solicitous of the time when Snape would not feel weak made Snape feel a bit lightheaded.

He slid his foot back beside Potter's, telling himself the surprise on the young man's face was worth the slight -- and pleasurable -- effort. Then the pleased, almost shy smile was replaced by a frown. "You don't have to do this because you feel obligated to me," Potter said, though he did not slide his foot away.

"I don't feel obligated to you, Potter," Snape retorted. "If we are going to remain here together, can we agree to cancel all prior obligations?"

"Absolutely," Potter agreed fervently. "Also, could you please call me Harry?"

Snape felt his cheeks flushing. "Very well," he said. "Harry." The name felt strangely intimate on his tongue, as though it weren't one of the most famous in the world. In all the years he'd known the boy, he'd done his best never to think of Potter as Harry.

"Am I allowed to call you Severus?" Snape nodded, reaching for his teacup. One of the little lizards darted up one of the posts holding the patio canopy in place over their heads. "Listen, I know you probably think I'm too young. And not very bright," Potter continued.

"I think that it is simple folly to waste your attention on someone as unseemly as myself," Snape interrupted. "Once the trauma of fighting the Dark Lord has passed, you will not wish to spend time with a pathetic evil man such as myself."

Potter's eyebrows shot up. "Are you evil?" he asked, in the same tone in which he might have inquired whether Snape had ever attended a professional Gobstones tournament.

"Everyone believes so." Snape took a sip of his tea. "My reputation..."

"Oh yes, I've read the Daily Prophet. Your reputation is almost as bad as mine. Though I've never read that you're barking mad." Potter grinned at him. "But pathetic and evil? That seems odd. Wouldn't it be one or the other?"

Snape reminded himself that Potter didn't know the reasons he'd called himself pathetic. "My point was that you could do much better for companionship. And will, once you return home."

"I'm sure my mail from admirers has been piling up," Potter said testily, swirling the tea in his cup and peering into it as though he planned to read the leaves. "I don't want other companionship. I wanted to come here with you."

This statement seemed so transparent that Snape couldn't help looking for traps. Surely Potter wanted something from him -- well, something other than the obvious. "You realize it sounds as if you're saying you fancy me," he pointed out, tugging at the robe to make sure it was covering everything that most needed to be covered.

"Sounds as though?" Potter huffed a laugh. "Why do you find it so impossible to believe?"

"Because it would make much more sense for you to be attempting to ingratiate yourself so that you can humiliate me later."

"Right." Potter nodded slowly. "It would make a lot of sense for me to go to the trouble of bringing you all the way here, nursing you back to health, and trying to seduce you because I don't like you." The foot stroked over Snape's again. "Now that you've figured out my plan, you can surely see that I'm just as pathetic and evil as you are, so we're perfect for each other."

Snape took a sip of tea and swallowed hard. "I must disabuse you of any notion you may have of me as a wicked sex maniac," he said. "If you came here looking for forbidden experiences, you should have chosen someone who could offer you..."

"I came here with you." Potter's voice had gone husky and intense. It felt as if he were talking directly to Snape's prick, which stirred enthusiastically. "I didn't have any notion other than wanting to be alone with you. To find out what you like when you aren't caught between Dumbledore and Voldemort. I picked this place because it was far away from everything familiar. I was hoping we could leave the past back there and just -- just be together. If you wanted."

Desire swirled and tightened within Snape. For a moment he let himself imagine what that would be like to take Potter up on the promise of his simple words. It was much easier than he would have thought, a spiralling fantasy, more real than the fleeting dreams his subconscious had pressed on him, then yanked away like scarab beetles scuttling away from the sun.

He wasn't sure if Potter was asking him to choose now, nor did Snape truly understand the choices. Potter had kissed him. That, clearly, was one option. He didn't actually doubt that Potter had brought him here for the noblest of purposes -- there was no true guile in him. He glanced over at Potter to see if he was waiting for an answer, but the young man was leaning back in the rattan chair, eyes closed, seemingly enjoying the breezes. After a moment, Snape did the same.

~~~

When he woke up, he startled not only himself but a lizard that was nearly as dark as the wood of the veranda. Potter was no longer in the opposite chair, but there was a lightly woven blanket laying over Snape. He watched the lizard's progress until his stretch sent it scurrying out of sight. He neither saw nor heard Potter, though he was not foolish enough to believe that Potter had left him alone for long. He stretched again, pleased with both the lack of pain and the freedom to move without the watchful assessment of his nursemaid.

Before he could talk himself out of it, he got to his feet, leaning against the railing for support while he reveled in the not-quite fuzzy feeling of his limbs responding. Once he was standing, he realized Potter was sitting in the sand beneath a clump of palm trees. He reminded his legs that they had stood him in good stead for the better part of forty years and he would tolerate no nonsense at this stage.

It was a luxury to gaze unfettered and unobserved at the young man with the prospect of no master able to rifle through his thoughts about it after. Potter looked up in surprise as he approached.

"Hey, let me help you," Potter said, planting his hands as if to leap off the sand. Snape waved him away before he could get up.

"I made it thus far," Snape replied, keeping the robe clenched against one thigh as he eased down onto the sand. Potter looked oddly relaxed, tousled and a bit freckled -- something Snape had never seen in the weak sun of Scotland. Once sufficient peace had settled over him, Snape said, "I am not a prize."

Potter found this amusing. "If there was a contest, you were the only one ever in the running." He stretched out his legs, still wearing only his shorts.

"There were, I believe, several young ladies in your thoughts during our --"

Potter kissed his cheek, the soft chuckle vibrating against Snape's skin. "Mutually traumatic Occlumency."

Despite his resolve to remain unmoved, Snape found his mouth twitching in reply. Leave it to Potter to sum up all the agonized nights, the arguments with Albus, and the simmering resentments that had nearly sent them spinning into opposite camps into a Gryffindor summation.

"Don't you think I might have been trying to throw those images up at you to counteract what I know you saw?" The pause was thick with mutual reminiscence. "You did see --" Potter began uncertainly and Snape realized he was not as unruffled as he let on.

"I saw."

Potter scooped up a handful of sand and let it trickle through his fingers. His eyes were unfocused, and Snape realized that the glasses in which he was so accustomed to seeing Potter must have been left inside. "Did you mind? I mean, that I -- that I wanted you? Want you?" He'd pushed his knees up, leaving furrows in the silky sand, and rested his head sideways on them. "I know you're recovering and I know it might be a while and --"

Mostly to shut Potter up, Snape leaned over and pressed his mouth against his. It wasn't a kiss -- not precisely. Snape had had those, at least. But even this simple press of lips, as unschooled as it was, was already better than a kiss.

Desire coursed through him once more, a bubbling potion in his blood. Potter's groan, vibrating across Snape's mouth, deepened it. He felt Potter's fingers skittering up his arms, coming to rest on his shoulders, holding him steady -- whether because Potter expected him to fall over in his weakness or to try to run away, Snape couldn't guess. "Do that again."

Severus's mind was telling him something else, to slow down and think, but his mouth wasn't in the mood to listen to his mind, and his prick apparently hadn't known his mind existed since the moment he woke up on this island. He leaned in again, and this time it was a kiss: a slow slide of lips, with Potter's hands locking behind his neck, and the first tentative brush of tongue across his own lips. They both moaned softly before their mouths sealed together.

Potter tasted like sweet tea and forbidden fruit and sunshine. He unfolded against Snape, straightening his legs, leaning back in the sand so that by the time they broke apart to breathe, Snape was practically lying over him, breathless and hard and dizzy with it. He watched Potter's eyes open and slowly focus, though the dreamy smile didn't leave his face. "I'm going to assume that means you don't mind," Potter said.

"This is a terrible idea," Snape said, more to himself than to Potter, but it wiped the smile off Potter's face.

"How come? You don't want me? Or -- bloody hell, I knew it was too soon. Are you feeling sick? Do you want me to get you back to bed? Can I --"

Potter was already wriggling under him, struggling to sit back up. Snape knew that there was no way the tiny robe he was wearing was going to hide his erection. "I'm not feeling sick," he said loudly to shut Potter up. "I'm feeling much better. This is a terrible idea because I have no doubt that you have many false assumptions about me."

"I already told you I think heroes are overrated." Potter shrugged a bit. "And that I don't expect you to be a nice person. And I know you're still recovering, so you'll probably be tired and cranky and not in the mood..."

Not in the mood wasn't in the least a problem. Nor, at the moment, did Snape feel either tired or cranky, a situation that would certainly change once Potter discovered how little experience he had with this and either sulked or, worse, decided it was amusing. "I may not be a hero, but you certainly are, in the eyes of nearly all the wizarding world," Snape reminded him. "Whereas I am a middle-aged man with few prospects and even fewer friends."

"Lots of people are worried about you," objected Harry. "The Weasleys, and McGonagall and probably the rest of the Hogwarts faculty." Minerva might, in fact, have admitted to misjudging Severus Snape, but he was certain she was the only one who would express such a sentiment. "Even Draco's all soppy over you. Though you're not allowed to see him when we go back if you return the sentiment."

Was Potter actually jealous? Snape studied him, watching as Potter pressed his lips into a thin line and scowled. "Surely you don't think Draco ever meant anything more to me than as a cherished student," Snape said.

Potter's scowl deepened. "You did take that stupid Vow for him."

Albus had thought that Narcissa might ask Snape to protect Draco, though even he hadn't expected it to go so far as a demand for an Unbreakable Vow. "It wasn't my idea, but it fit in well with the plan Dumbledore had already set in motion," Snape pointed out. "I couldn't have backed down in front of Bellatrix -- not and remained a spy."

"Well, they all think the sun shines out your arse," huffed Harry. "Which you aren't allowed to show them."

"No one has ever expressed any interest in seeing it." Instantly Snape winced at having revealed so much. Perhaps Potter would misinterpret...

Potter smiled, a happy smile, not a laughing-at-Snape smile. "That makes us tied, then."

Snape glared at him. Probably Potter had been too conflicted about his sexuality to risk being exposed as gay, particularly when he was the most famous wizard in the world. "Never?" he demanded, recalling Potter's moping at being kept from the Weasley girl during weeks of detention in the dungeon.

He was fairly certain that the blush on Potter's face was from embarrassment rather than exposure to the sun. "Not really," Potter admitted. "Ginny and I snogged a bit, but I never wanted more than that." Snape must have made a face because Potter hurried to add, "I didn't want to d-- face Voldemort knowing I'd had sex with her just to do it and not with someone I really wanted."

Snape found he could revel in the fact that while Ginny Weasley might have shown him how to kiss, Potter hadn't dragged her off to a remote resort on a lush island paradise.

"Would you kiss me again?" Potter pleaded, looking a bit shy but determined, sliding his hand down Snape's arm. "It's really the only thing I know how to do."

"It seems I must be your instructor once again," Snape replied, shivering slightly as his skin goose-bumped under Potter's finger. He was rubbing his mouth against Potter's and felt the young man's slight startle at these words.

"I thought you said --" Potter stammered, the flush deepening. If Snape had harbored any doubts about Potter's worldliness they were swept away by that blush. "I mean, I don't mind of course, if you aren't --"

Snape employed the same method to shut Potter up with the same bone-meltingly satisfying results. "I have as little experience as you," said Snape once Potter's eyes refocused. "Nevertheless I have a familiarity with the --" He let his hips press against Potter's, bringing their cocks together against the front of Potter's thin shorts. "The necessary course materials and the procedures involved." Potter was smiling, his lips damp from the last lingering kiss, but it was an eager smile, not a mocking one.

"I'll study hard, sir," responded Potter, looking less shy. "I've wanted you to be my teacher for a long time."

"Yes, well," Snape said, a bit nonplussed by this and covering it, as he always did, with feigned confidence. "Now that you've mastered the rudiments of kissing, we can proceed to more advanced lessons." He slid his hand over the front of Potter's shorts, half fearing that the bulge that had been there nearly from the moment Snape had sat down had been a trick of the light or a particularly insidious fold of fabric. The hardness was reassuringly cock-shaped and Potter's groan was reassuringly aroused. Of course, at Potter's age, the sight of two seagulls mating would probably have the same arousing effect.

Then Snape forgot about seagulls and the state of his experience and even the injury that had brought him here because Potter's hand had curled around Snape's non-shorts-impeded cock. "I'm already learning a lot," Potter said, trying a rather advanced move combining kissing and stroking that, while not altogether perfect, sufficed to wrest a groan from his teacher. One finger stroked over the tip of Snape's cock. "A lot more than I expected." His mouth curved against Snape's. "I mean, I bathed you but it's, well, you know --"

Snape reminded himself to include the fact that Potter apparently babbled during sex in his lesson notes. He pushed himself against Potter's fingers, then realized that even the little Potter wore was too much. He concentrated on getting the shorts off. Once Potter realized that all the fumbling wasn't strictly inexperience, he assisted, then shoved the robe off Snape's shoulders. If anyone had spotted them they probably looked much worse than two seagulls mating, but Snape was beyond caring.

"Show me what you like," he panted somewhere in the vicinity of Potter's throat. He felt Potter nod, felt the stroke of his hand modulating. Snape adjusted his own grasp and said, "Like this?"

Potter's reply was little more than a whimper, and nod of the head buried against his shoulder. His hand was moving on Snape somewhat more quickly than Snape would have touched himself, but of course Potter was still a teenager and probably accustomed to wanking as quickly and furtively as possible.

If they continued at this pace, Snape knew, it would all be over in moments. "Are you in a hurry?" he asked breathlessly.

Potter's hand stuttered on his cock. "Am I doing it too fast?"

"Just as long as you understand that I am not as young as you are, and particularly when I am recovering from an injury, it will likely take me several hours to recuperate."

Stilling his hand, Potter looked up anxiously, eyes looking large and owlish without the glasses. "I shouldn't have rushed you. I forgot you've been unconscious for most of a week --"

"Don't stop!" Snape hadn't meant to scold, but Potter didn't look distressed; after a moment of surprise, he looked pleased, and resumed his stroking, more slowly than before, exploring Snape's cock with his fingers. Potter's skin felt smooth and firm, with soft fuzz over his bollocks rather than the wiry stuff that Snape knew covered his own body; he hoped Potter wasn't repelled by the differences in their ages and physiques.

"I just don't want to wait anymore. You make me so hard," moaned Potter.

As difficult as Snape found this to believe, there was no denying that Potter's cock was stiff in his hand. Nor was there any denying that his own cock, which had been interested enough in Potter while he was wearing shorts, was now twitching and thrusting of its own accord. "I want to feel that," Snape growled softly, twisting in the sand to try to press their cocks together. He wanted to lie over Potter and grind down against him, but he had no idea whether Potter would find that too aggressive...

"Oh fuck yes -- get on top of me!" Potter was tugging on him, rolling and grasping his bum to pull Snape just where he wanted to be. "I dreamed about this, waking up like this, when I slept with you..."

"You slept with me?" Snape demanded, moving his hand to keep their cocks pressed together.

"Not with you with you, but the first couple of nights here you were very restless and I fell asleep in your bed. And then it was just easier to be in the same room. And you didn't try to shove me out." Potter raised his legs, pushing up against Snape, who thought for a moment that he would come just like that, without any warning. "I swear I didn't molest you, but I couldn't help thinking about it!"

The idea was at once disconcerting and arousing, but Snape was already a tangled mixture of both. His erection was chiming in with the irresistible need to be on top of Potter, which they managed with a chorus of needy gasps and whimpers.

Oh yes, this felt right. It was not, perhaps, the prescribed way to learn about sex, or even to learn what either of them liked during it except the bare press of cocks but Snape--and his suddenly very demanding cock--had gone off the lesson plan. Potter sprawled back in the sand, his unruly hair tamed for the moment by perspiration and the damp desperate fingers that had raked through it.

"You don't look angry," said Potter, sliding his hands along Snape's arms.

Snape felt so good perched atop Potter's slender hips that he didn't think he could have mustered anger if Potter had told him Voldemort had been the one crawling into bed with him -- but he didn't want to speak that hated name, not now, when Potter was writhing and eager beneath him.

Still, some sort of admonishment seemed called for. "You are not to crawl into bed with anyone again," he demanded, trying to ease a hint of reproach in his voice but belied by the rocking of his hips over Potter's. "Unless invited."

"I'll just have to make sure you invite me," replied Potter, looking not in the least put out.

Purely to emphasize his point, Snape reached for Potter's cock. It surged into his hand, as sure of its welcome there as Potter had been sure of his welcome into Snape's bed. He tugged on it several times slowly, fulfilling some promise their cocks had made without consulting their owners. Potter moaned and dropped his hand toward Snape's own erection.

"I want to try something," Snape said, giving into the urge he'd had to stretch out over Potter and just -- oh yes, this was even better than he'd thought, the contact even more delicious with the weight of Snape's own body pushing them together. He tried to think if it would be a disgrace if he came before Potter did, but he couldn't have pulled away even if he had the presence of mind to make any sort of decision aside from how hard and how fast to rub himself over Potter's body. Potter was wrapped around him like wet sand.

Fortunately pleasure seemed to render Potter incoherent, save the gasped remnants of Snape's name. Snape too had only entreaties to assorted gods forming on his lips and something that might have been Potter's given name drawn from his panting mouth. Between one "Sev" and a "rus!" Potter bucked, his body bent in a long arch against Snape's, flooding the space between them with hot seed. Snape could hardly last longer, bearing down on the firmness, the heat, the silken creature that was Potter, coming harder than he could remember in years, perhaps forever.

"Fuck," grunted Potter with what sounded like great satisfaction. "That. Was fucking. Brilliant."

Snape had heard more profanities from Potter's tongue in the past five minutes than he had permitted in the better part of a decade of being his teacher, but the part of his mind capable of rational thought decided that this was neither the time nor the position to mention it. There was also the fact that his mouth felt too dry for speech. Instead, he nodded.

"Was it okay?" Potter asked, anxiety entering his voice. "I mean, you didn't strain anything or --"

Apparently Potter babbled after sex as well as during. Snape found it strangely endearing. He kissed Potter to shut him up, though he couldn't keep it up long, given his urgent need to breathe.

Potter moaned into the kiss, then moaned again when Snape pulled away. "Was it okay?"

"As I said, I have little experience in such matters, but it seemed rather an improvement on 'okay' to me," Snape panted. Potter rewarded him with a grin, then another sloppy kiss. "I believe that 'brilliant' was a more appropriate description."

The grin grew wider. "But not fucking brilliant?" Snape rolled his eyes. "Or do we have to be fucking for it to be fucking brilliant?"

"Potter!" It astonished Snape to discover that his cock was capable of attempting to respond in its current depleted state. His cock responded to Potter's laughter as well, giving a pathetic little twitch against his wet belly. Sand had already found its way between them, making his skin feel grittier than he would have preferred. "Brilliant and messy," he added, trying to sound cross instead of aroused.

"We have the whole Caribbean to wash off in," Potter replied, gesturing down the beach. "If you feel well enough. I'm not particularly brilliant at swimming so I don't think we should go in past our knees."

As tempted as Snape was to swipe a hand through the puddle on Potter's belly and lick it off, he hesitated. He had never tasted anyone's semen besides his own. Plus there was the sand to consider. "If I was well enough to do what we just did, I certainly feel well enough to walk a handful of steps to the water," he told Potter.

"Brilliant," Potter sighed, apparently his second-favorite word. Wriggling, he got himself out from under Snape, who rolled and sat up cautiously. He did not feel dizzy, just the residual lightheadedness from such an exceptional orgasm. He took Potter's offered hand, standing carefully on the soft, smooth sand.

"Careful when you walk -- you can feel the coral under the beach in a lot of places," Potter said.

Snape's hand stretched out for the discarded robe before realizing how ridiculous his modesty was, especially under Potter's blatantly admiring scrutiny. The water felt brill-- er, amazing around his ankles as they both paused, hands still linked, as they dug their toes in the wet sand.

"You can't get a Portkey for an unconscious person, did you know that? Not a legal one anyway, not without a whole lot of forms and things." Potter hadn't let go of his hand, despite Snape's obvious stability on his feet. Potter was gazing across the gentle swells as he spoke.

"I didn't," Snape replied. "You didn't have to --"

"Yes, I did," refuted Potter. "You'd have done it for me."

The scenario, carrying an unconscious, nearly lifeless, body out of that filthy shack, stabilizing the wounds, acquiring and administering the proper potions, all the while plotting to escape any pursuers, was frightfully easy to visualize. And Snape knew himself well enough to know he'd have done exactly the same thing for Potter. "Well, I might have brought you to Leeds or Cornwall," Snape countered, making Potter laugh.

They were deep enough now that Potter could sink in, wetting the fan of hair on his belly. "I'm not that noble," Potter said. "This is much nicer than Leeds." He sank lower, his hair drifting around the crown of his head like dark seaweed. Snape did not pretend he wasn't watching.

Potter took his hand again when they strolled back to the house. "We can go for a longer walk later if you feel up to it," he suggested, openly ogling Snape's legs. "Though we might want to put on some clothes. This place isn't that private once you get beyond the estate." He hung up the sandy shorts beside Snape's robe on the railing of the veranda. "I should let you get some rest," he went on, brushing a casual kiss along Snape's cheek. "Or you can check out the house." He waved toward the darkened interior. "There's a huge kitchen and even a bit of a library."

Snape could well imagine what sort of books could be found, but he nodded and let Potter lead him back to his room. It felt odd to be naked indoors, so he pulled open the drawers Potter had pointed out earlier, finding neatly folded casual shirts and even a package of briefs. He wasn't quite ready for the shorts that were in the drawer, despite his earlier bout of nudity. There were serviceable trousers and if the fit wasn't perfect, Potter had left him his wand.

Since he was quite determinedly not thinking about Potter, Potter seemed to be all he could think about. The things they had done on the beach were fresh in his memory: the heat of Potter's cock, the breathy moans into Snape's hair as they'd clung together.

"Stop it," he said aloud, not certain if he meant his brain or his cock.

"Stop what?" Snape had forgotten how open the house was. Potter edged into the room, his gaze as appreciative even now that Snape was dressed. Before Snape could explain his own idiocy, Potter leaned against the doorjamb. "I thought I might have a bit of a nap, and I was thinking, since we've already, you know --" He cleared his throat and glanced at the bed. "Well, I was wondering if you might not mind sharing the bed, just for a nap, if I promise not to molest you." He smiled. "Unless you want me to."

Potter had put on clean shorts that clung as much as his previous pair and a t-shirt that fit just as tightly. "I'm supposed to be recuperating," Snape huffed, but he couldn't manage to bring any actual annoyance into his voice. The bed looked large enough for three people. "Very well, but I may snore," he warned.

"You didn't snore much when you were unconscious," Potter replied, smiling at him as he sat on the edge of the bed as if he thought the invitation might be rescinded if not accepted immediately. "Anyway, I might snore too -- Ron never told me."

"You slept with Ronald Weasley?" How very like Potter to have misled him about this most important...

"I shared a dormitory with him for six years and had to share a room with him at the Burrow and Grimmauld Place. Not to mention a tent." Potter looked at him oddly. "You didn't actually think that I slept with him?" He made a face of such genuine revulsion that Snape relaxed fractionally. "For that matter, Hermione never said anything either, all those weeks when we were camping together. She was too busy reminding me to use silencing charms for more important things."

While he talked, Potter had shifted his legs onto the bed and wriggled back toward the pillows, where he now lay back with a happy sigh. Snape sat cautiously on the opposite side, wondering whether Potter expected him to take off his trousers. He expected Potter to go back on his promise not to molest him, but when he lay down stiffly at his side, Potter rolled, wrapped an arm loosely around Snape's waist, and snuggled under his chin like a child.

"Is this all right?" he asked sleepily.

Rather than answering, Snape let his hand rest on Potter's hip. He had never slept in this sort of proximity to anyone. He would have sworn that it was impossible for him to sleep in such a position, but he was a bit drained after being in the water and the sun, and Potter felt very warm against him...

~~~

The room was darker when Snape awoke, though pink and gold light from the tropical sunset dappled the windowsill. Potter was still curled against him -- his fingers had wandered under Snape's shirt. Snape himself had wrapped his arms around Potter so that there was no space between them. Potter's bare feet rested against the tops of Snape's as if they'd always slept this way. Potter sighed in his sleep, his cheek rubbing over Snape's shoulder.

What an odd place to be, Snape reflected, watching the colors along the filmy curtains changing as the shadows moved along the floor. Not just in a paradise such as this, and not just in Potter's arms, but odd even that he'd survived. In the long months since he'd known what was coming with Dumbledore, he'd truly never expected to live, nor, barring the odds, to escape imprisonment.

Potter stirred again and his eyelashes fluttered open. His smile was sleepy but solely for Snape. "Did I wake you?"

Snape shook his head, stretching a bit now that he didn't have to worry about waking Potter. He could feel Potter stretching against him too, though not enough to separate them. "I should make dinner," Potter said, but he burrowed in closer, not moving, save to rub one finger idly over Snape's belly. "Are you hungry?"

"Yes," Snape replied, also making no move to dislodge them from the cozy sprawl their bodies had formed.

Potter made a noise that sounded like an amused purr. "Mmmm so'm I." He tilted his face up, looking at Snape. "I know I promised not to molest you," he began, then paused, looking uncertain.

"But?" prompted Snape, enjoying the obvious inner struggle playing out across Potter's features.

"Well, a kiss isn't really molesting, is it? I mean, we're just lying here and we aren't even naked and a kiss would be like --"

Sliding his fingers under Potter's chin, Snape held him steady, angling his own head down, brushing his lips across Potter's. "Like that?"

Groaning, Potter surged against him, and their lips met again, met and held so that Snape couldn't help sliding his hand around to the back of Potter's neck to hold him when the kiss deepened. "More like that," Potter breathed.

"That was more like molesting," Snape refuted, kissing Potter again.

"Not really." Potter sounded older when he was breathless and urgent. "Molesting would be more like..." His thigh insinuated itself between Snape's, wriggling slightly, trying to find and press against Snape's cock.

After a moment Snape shifted his hips forward, making Potter groan again. "Like that."

"Except I think it doesn't count as molesting if the person you're doing it to is willing." Potter's hands had come around Snape's lower body and were sliding down to his bum. "You are willing, aren't you?"

"I haven't hexed you yet, have I?"

"No, but that might be because you don't have your wand." Snape couldn't remember where he had left his wand. The only long, hard object in which he was currently interested was rubbing against his own cock through his trousers. "Or it might be your, um, weakened state."

Throwing his weight forward, Snape pushed Potter down, pinning Potter underneath and grinding his hips. He raised his hands until he found Potter's arms and pressed them down as well, sliding his fingers to Potter's wrists and raising them over his head. "I feel much stronger," he told Potter. "The tea must have revived me."

With a laugh that was half moan, Potter made a show of struggling, though Snape noticed that most of the movement was in the area of his groin, and his legs had come up and wrapped around to hold Snape's in place. "Now it's more like you're molesting me, except I don't think you can molest someone who really wants you to fuck him," Potter whispered.

Snape shuddered softly. He desperately wanted what Potter was offering, right now, in case the world ended in the next two hours or Potter changed his mind and deprived him forever of the opportunity, but he wanted just as badly not to ruin things. "It may be a bit soon for that," he forced out.

"I didn't mean right now." Potter wriggled under him, making Snape quiver anew. "I know the tea hasn't cured you completely. I thought maybe we could start with something less strenuous. Like, I could suck this." He gave a small thrust of his hips to make absolutely clear which part he meant.

Snape's cock responded with great enthusiasm, having momentarily forgotten its interest in Potter's arse with the promise of Potter's tongue being dangled before it. Oh yes -- losing his virginity could wait if he was going to be allowed to fuck that mouth. If Potter was serious. If Potter hadn't lied about everything. "Have you performed fellatio before?" Snape couldn't help demanding.

"No, but I can guess the basics, like to watch where I put my teeth." Potter smiled, showing off teeth that had always been surprisingly white and straight, certainly in comparison to Snape's. "It's really hot when you say things like 'fellatio.'"

It was quite arousing when Potter said it too, at least according to Snape's cock, which apparently had taken over all decision-making from Snape's mind. "Will you let me suck yours as well?" he asked.

"Ohhfuck yes." Potter moaned, eyes rolling back momentarily as he rocked against Snape. "But I think maybe we had better do it one at a time or I'll never be able to concentrate." He made a visible effort to look at Snape. "I want to go first, all right?"

There was nothing to do but nod, since now even Snape's mouth had been taken over by the urgent demands of his cock. Arching his neck, Potter pressed a kiss against Snape's throat. "You have to let me go," Potter said.

Never. Oh. He loosened the fingers holding Potter's hands over his head, only to be rewarded by the arms that wrapped around him. Potter's hands were not idle, no more than his mouth was or his hips.

"If I had been going to molest you, this is what I wanted to do," Potter said, wiggling down, kissing down Snape's chest, guiding them both onto their sides so he could maneuver down the length of the bed. "But then I thought what if you woke up and I had my mouth --" Snape could tell Potter's cheeks were warming so he looked down to confirm it. Yes, quite pink. "-- you know, on your cock, you might have a seizure and die all over again."

"Say 'cock' again," demanded Snape, confronted by the evidence of Potter's arousal when Potter had to shift around to get to him.

"Your cock," Potter complied, his fingers roaming over Snape's hips, down his legs. "This cock." His voice had gone a bit throaty as if he had something in it, and after a second, he did. Snape hissed at the sheer bliss of it, watching the shape mold against Potter's cheek. He thought he might indeed have a seizure, but he would not have been remotely tempted to die from it, not if Potter was going to keep licking him like that. It was an effort not to thrust at once, the way he would if he'd taken himself in hand for a long, satisfying wank.

"This very fine cock," Potter said, and Snape could not help noting that Potter was likely to babble through fellatio if not given better uses for his mouth. He bent and flicked his tongue over the tip of Potter's cock. "Fuck!" Potter nearly choked, pulling back to look up at him. "I won't be able to concentrate if you do that."

"Just letting you know I'm not about to have a seizure," Snape said, gratified that he could make Potter lose his composure.

"Don't tease." Before Snape could ask whether Potter meant about the seizure or with his tongue, Potter had lowered his mouth again, sucking on the head of Snape's cock as if it were a sherbet ball. That rendered Snape inarticulate and indeed nearly paralyzed; the only part of his body that he could move seemed to be his hips, which he thrust forward. He heard Potter gag softly, then Potter's hand closed around the base of his cock so he could stroke it and suck the head at the same time.

Snape had no idea whether this was proper fellatio technique, but his cock didn't particularly care; it was interested primarily in moving faster, even though Snape knew that meant he would probably go off like Filibuster Fireworks. Mostly to distract himself, he leaned in and licked Potter's thigh, tasting sea salt and warm skin. He felt Potter's shiver over the head of his own cock. Telling himself that this wasn't molesting, precisely, he let his mouth wander, playing with the wiry hair on Potter's legs and the softer fur around his bollocks.

"That's definitely teasing," Potter panted around Snape's cock. Merely the feel of his warm breath was maddening.

"I can't help it. I like the way you taste." Snape returned his mouth to Potter's thigh, sucking on a patch of skin. When he lifted his head, he found that he'd left a small red circle. Potter was sucking him more forcefully, taking in more of his cock, evidently having figured out how to angle his head to avoid choking himself. The tightness in Snape's lower body warned him that he wouldn't last much longer even with the distraction of putting his mouth all over Potter's lower body. "I'm going to ejaculate if you keep doing that."

Potter's cock twitched against his cheek. "Fuck! I'm going to ejaculate if you say 'ejaculate.'"

It would be less embarrassing to go off like Filibuster Fireworks if he could make Potter do the same. "I'd like to make you ejaculate," Snape murmured. "In my mouth."

Again the pressure on his own cock lessened as Potter groaned. Potter's cock was still practically in his face, swollen and hot. Snape kissed it and felt it throb against his lips. "You said I could go first," objected Potter breathlessly.

"Mmm, you may. Any time you like." Snape's mouth closed over the head of Potter's cock, which slid in deeper as Potter shuddered. This was easier than Snape had expected, sucking, letting Potter fuck his mouth, concentrating on relaxing his throat to see how deep Potter could...

Potter did something with his tongue, putting pressure just beneath the foreskin, and Snape forgot everything except that feeling. He had to release Potter's cock to cry out. "You too -- any time you like," Potter told him, then clamped his lips around Snape's cock again and licked and sucked, moving his entire head up and down.

There was, not unexpectedly, some awkwardness about the business, angles and speed and other questions Snape might have pondered how to improve if the basic results weren't already so bloody good. He liked the way Potter's cock smelled, salty and musky even after its dip in the sea, the scent both familiar and infinitely exotic. He let his mouth simply rub along the heavy length, fingers tracing the muscles of Potter's thigh. A quiver went through Potter and his mouth stuttered around the head of Snape's cock.

"Any time might be sooner --" Potter said in a breathy, muffled voice.

Snape gave a little thrust, not meaning to be teasing, and Potter's mouth closed around him again, the soft heat of it making Snape quiver in response. He had always imagined fellatio as something he would not be especially eager to reciprocate, but he could not seem to keep his mouth from licking and his face from rubbing against Potter's cock. He liked the way Potter's hand felt around his cock, so he shifted a bit and added his own around Potter's. Immediately he decided he liked the way Potter moaned around his cock, so he moaned as well, letting his mouth sink lower to cover more inches of the responsive length.

"Fuck!"

Snape wondered -- albeit briefly -- whether they might have had a discussion about swallowing because Snape had no intention of not savoring this in every degree before he felt Potter's hips bucking, much as his own did reflexively and with confidence in his cock's welcome there. Potter came first, with a groan that seemed to reverberate the entire length of his body. He had no time to savor it, though he knew he would want to, if Potter allowed him to later. The taste was so like his own yet still somehow imprinted with Potter's scent and feel. Potter was still quivering yet had managed to keep his mouth around Snape's cock just before Snape rendered the etiquette of swallowing moot.

It was not just the best thing he'd ever felt; it was, just at that moment, the best he could ever imagine feeling.

"Don't blame me if I never learn to do this properly," Potter said between pants, and Snape could not resist a feeble smirk -- he should have known Potter would be loquacious even in the afterglow. Since Snape had never had any sort of afterglow with anyone, he didn't see any reason to object.

"This is, I believe, the one area where enthusiasm will make up for any lack of technique," replied Snape, letting the softening shaft slip free from his mouth. The reverberation of Potter's laugh against his cock tickled.

To Snape's surprise, Potter kissed the tip of Snape's cock as though reassuring a lover he would return. To his utter astonishment, Snape felt the same urge. "Careful, that was almost a compliment," Potter said, still laughing. He stretched, rolling against Snape's leg like a contented seal. "It was all right though, wasn't it? I mean, we both did okay?" He propped his head up on one hand, "Even though you promised you'd let me go first." The look was obviously meant to be a glare, but there was too much satisfaction in it to show any real displeasure. "And I'm talking too much, aren't I? Or you want me to shut up?" He did look genuinely worried now.

Snape's smile was slow, full of the contentment that seemed to have invaded his body, as though the snakebite had opened up something and let venom drain out instead of forcing it in. He studied Potter's eager face, aware that what he was about to say was, in its own way, nearly as intimate as what they had just discovered together. "I enjoy...listening to you."

Potter's eyes widened. "I feel like I should check your fever. You're not teasing me?" The anxiety had not disappeared from his face, though he had the same matter-of-fact tone in his voice as he'd used when Snape had first awoken with hundreds of questions.

"I have made many foolish choices in my life, but I am not so stupid that I would do anything which might make you not want to do this again."

Now Potter smiled. "It was pretty great. Even better than what we did on the beach."

"But not 'fucking brilliant'?"

The sound of Potter's laugh drowned out any unease Snape felt about having confessed to enjoying listening to Potter. "It was better than fucking brilliant. It was fucking perfect."

"Hardly perfect. I'm sure we'll get better as we..."

Potter cut him off, diving up the bed and kissing Snape soundly on the mouth. It was an odd yet not unpleasant sensation to recognize that he was tasting his own semen on Potter's tongue. "If you're telling me things like you enjoy listening to me and making jokes about my bad language, then it couldn't possibly be any better." He paused, pulling back. "You feel better, right? You aren't going to faint or anything?"

Pressing a hand to his forehead, Snape endeavored to swoon. "My delicate constitution has been shocked," he sighed.

Potter burst out laughing again, and kissed him again. "What you need is food," he announced. "There's fresh fish in the refrigerator, if you like fish. I'd never actually cooked fish before I came here -- the Dursleys didn't eat it -- but it wasn't too bad."

Snape's stomach growled. He was hungry enough that at the moment, even kippers would have sounded good. "Anything quick," he agreed.

Grinning, Potter sat up, reaching for his discarded shorts. "Do you want to stay here and rest? Or want to come sit in the kitchen and talk to me while I cook?"

"Will you wear an apron and nothing else?"

Potter's eyes went wide. "Will you put that robe that's too small back on?"

Potter had called his bluff, but Snape had no intention of backing down. He smirked, though he knew it didn't frighten Potter an ounce. "Better for molesting, don't you think?" he countered, earning himself more of Potter's delight -- and another kiss on the cheek.

"I like you like this," Potter said, tugging Snape upright.

"Off-kilter?" Snape suggested, acknowledging his bargain by accepting the short robe Potter swiped up from the chair. Somehow it was no surprise to learn that Potter had picked it out knowing how small it would be.

"I was thinking 'discombobulated,'" laughed Potter, heading, quite naked, down the corridor to the kitchen, "but off-kilter works too." Snape was pleased to see there actually was an apron hanging just inside the pantry. Fitting it over his front, Potter turned and handed the ties to Snape. His arse gave a little wiggle before he looked down at himself. "I don't think my Aunt Petunia would approve, but I like it." Potter opened the refrigerator and bent over with what Snape suspected was rather more stretching than was strictly necessary. "Seems weird, you knowing her."

Snape must have made a face because Potter smiled. "I doubt even a holiday in the Caribbean could cheer her up," retorted Snape, thinking of the sour, bitter young woman he'd known. As twisted as Snape himself had become, he'd at least, at that age, had his juvenile feelings for Lily to make his existence less miserable. He didn't mind sitting down and Potter gave him bread to butter before returning to the fish.

"They had to go into hiding, did you know?" Potter asked, not bothering to repress his glee at this. "And I bet it wasn't all five star resorts and sandy beaches."

"I knew," Snape said quietly, buttering the bread with a bit more force than necessary, "because he was not pleased at not being able to find them."

"I didn't think the Ministry was that good," Potter admitted, doing something with butter that was making Snape's mouth water.

Snape distracted himself by exploring the pantry, handing the tray of buttered bread to Potter. "They weren't."

Potter looked over his shoulder. "You did something?"

The short robe suddenly felt a bit shorter and all of Snape's tugs did nothing to make it feel longer. Since Potter's arse was so admirably framed by the apron, he gave up on the robe and found a pair of glasses to set out on the table. "I was always doing something," he admitted, expecting some sort of rebuke for not doing more.

Another slow bend and the fish was under the broiler. "I thought you must be," Potter said, turning to lean on the counter. "And I bet you were always thinking you should be doing more." Snape shrugged in response. "That's what I thought too, that if only I could have been there, done...something --" His fist clenched once as if clutching a wand.

"You did exactly what Dumbledore intended for you to do," Snape replied. "If you had done anything else, years of planning might have been for naught. I often assumed the Headmaster expected too much of you, but he predicted your capabilities very well."

Potter was still frowning. "I thought you were dying, and I didn't even try to do anything. I took your memories and...left you there."

"You had, as of yet, no evidence that I was anything but a liar and a murderer. And by leaving, you saved my life; if you had remained and tried to revive me, you might not only have interfered with the potions I had taken, but given the Dark Lord a reason to execute me in a way from which there would have been no return."

"I can't believe you're trying to make me feel better about it." There was fresh fruit on the counter; grabbing a banana, Potter began to slice viciously. "I didn't trust my gut feeling, which was that if Dumbledore had trusted you, there was no way he'd been so wrong about you. I should never have believed you were a liar or a murderer."

"Harry. I have been both." That drew Potter's attention away from his ferocious chopping. "I told you before not to delude yourself. I am not a nice person. And I have blood on my hands."

"Not anymore, you don't. Promise me. We start over now." The irony of seeing such profound intensity in a boy wearing only an apron was not lost on Snape, who smiled a bit in spite of himself. When Potter smiled back, it transformed all his features, as though the sun had come out in the room, though it was past dusk and the overhead lights had been switched on. "Speaking of which. Are you planning to go back to Hogwarts?"

"What for?"

Potter's head tilted to the side as he twisted to check on the fish. "To teach."

Even if McGonagall were to invite him back and the Ministry allow it, Snape knew that the students who had been present during his term as headmaster, and those who had been there when Dumbledore died, would never accept him as a professor. "I believe my teaching career is at an end," he said, not without some regret. Hogwarts had been his home for nearly all his life.

"Where will you go, then?" The anxiety had returned to Potter's face. "You'll stay in Britain, won't you?"

Snape imagined that the Ministry had been over every inch of Spinner's End by now, his belongings confiscated -- not that he had anything of value. "If I am pardoned..." he began.

"You're going to be pardoned, or I'm not going back either," Potter interrupted hotly. Putting the fruit down in front of Snape, he crossed the kitchen and opened the freezer. "There's some frozen chips in here, if you want."

"This and the fish should be sufficient." Bemused, Snape waved a hand at the table. "I thought you wanted to become an Auror."

"That was before I realized what the Ministry could be like. Do you really think I'd take orders from someone like Scrimgeour? Or Fudge?" Potter huffed angrily, bending to remove the fish. Again Snape admired his bum. "I'd rather be a teacher. Or something else."

Watching as Potter got down plates and began to set the table, Snape told him, "You should be a travel agent." Letting out a bark of laughter, Potter set the toasted bread on the table before seating himself next to Snape. It had been said and meant as an offhand remark, but the idea took hold in Snape's mind. "Why not?" he asked, inhaling the fragrant roasted scents of the fish.

"Well, for starters, I've never been anywhere," replied Potter, waving his fork at the kitchen. "Except here."

"You picked this place out," pointed out Snape, though Potter was already shaking his head.

"Hermione," Potter said, obviously trying not to talk with his mouth full.

Rolling his eyes, Snape dug into his own dinner. "Doubtless she performed the actual research, but you must have, over the years of depending on her for your marks..."

"Hey!" protested Potter, frowning, "I didn't exactly depend on her --"

"...absorbed some of her research skills. And I did not say she has a superior knowledge of magic, simply the ability to translate that knowledge into superior marks through a series of pedantic maneuvers and memorization."

Potter seemed to be mulling this over. "Thanks, I think," he said at last. "You're serious, aren't you?"

Shrugging, Snape drank deeply of the juice, which tasted as though the fruit had been hanging on the tree that morning. "Only that it occurred to me that if you are discontented by your career choices, that one would be ideal for you." He shrugged again. "Very few wizards make use of Muggle facilities due to cultural differences, and resorts that cater exclusively to wizarding kind are rare. Someone with a penchant for --" He studied Potter's cheek. "Charm and resourcefulness might carve out a niche for himself."

"Or ourselves," Potter put in, flushing a bit at the charm comment.

Snape nearly choked on his bread. "I never meant to suggest," he began.

"Oh no, you don't get to play guidance counselor unless I do too," Potter said, laughing again. "You said you don't want to teach anymore, and I doubt you want to spend the rest of your life making sleeping draughts and acne potions in a shop for wizards and witches who can't be arsed to brew their own."

Snape gave a delicate shudder at the idea. It was true that he had not invested a great deal of thought in future career plans for the simple reason that he hadn't thought he'd have a future to plan for. "I haven't been anywhere either," he said automatically.

"Sounds like we have some, er, research to do, then," Potter said, brushing the crust of his bread through a drip of the delectable butter sauce.

Snape's mouth dropped open. He shut it and sat back in his chair. "You're serious?"

Toes, doubtless Potter's toes, brushed over the top of Snape's foot. "Why wouldn't I be?"

"To begin with, I am entirely lacking in charm, not to mention social graces." Potter only grinned at this, his toes creeping toward Snape's ankle. "I am hardly an ideal candidate for a profession that requires salesmanship."

"You wouldn't have to sell anything -- people come in already sold on the idea of going on holiday. Travel agents just help them sort out what they want and where to find it. Anyway, you wouldn't have to do any of the working-with-people part if you didn't want. You could do all the research that requires books and brochures and writing up itineraries." Cocking his head to one side thoughtfully, Potter let his foot slide up Snape's leg. "If we had clients, we'd have to travel ahead of them to check out places and perform whatever spells were needed to make them right for wizards, like the one I saw Dumbledore use to clean up the place Slughorn was staying before he came to Hogwarts. For that matter, we might have to travel afterward too, to put everything right."

"You'd have to charge a great many Galleons for such a service. Wizards with that kind of money tend to be from old pureblood families -- they would be disinclined to stay at Muggle homes."

"I know some wizards from an old pureblood family who'd stay anywhere right now if it would make other wizards leave them alone." Harry smirked a bit. "Let me tell you, Lucius Malfoy looks pretty ridiculous disguised as a rat-catcher. And Draco won't even leave the house." The toes had found their way to Snape's thigh, where they stroked a bit. "Look, it was your idea. If you'd rather we went to work brewing hair tonics..."

"We?" interrupted Snape.

"...it wouldn't be my first choice, but you have to admit that the Half-Blood Prince did make me a passable Potions student." Potter looked defiant. "You know Slughorn will give me a recommendation. And having my name on your shop would double your sales."

Having Harry Potter's name on any business venture in the wizarding world would likely do far more than that -- in addition to serious customers, it would bring in scheming investors and giggling girls hoping to marry the Chosen One. Despite the toes that were now creeping beneath his robe, Snape found that he was scowling. "It would be very foolish of you to tie yourself to me as a business partner. Even if the Ministry pardons me..." He held up a hand to forestall the assurance that of course they would or the Chosen One would show his wrath. "...I have many enemies, and just as many people, former students and their parents, who simply dislike me."

"Bugger them," Potter said easily, stroking a toe over Snape's bollocks. "Not literally! But what do I care what they think? You make me happy and that's worth a lot more than what anyone thinks. Are you actually worried about my financial future, or do you just not want to work with me?"

Snape closed his mouth and swallowed. The idea of having Potter nearby, working with him, talking with him, touching him, keeping an eye on whoever turned up to cause trouble for him, had a definite appeal. Yet it would hardly be wise for Potter -- it would damage his reputation and his livelihood.

"If you don't want to work with me," Potter shrugged a bit, "I can understand that. I mean, I'm young and just starting out. How about moving in with me? I have plenty of room in that house."

Snape knew he should be used to Potter's easy acceptance of Snape's own grumpy insistence on confronting difficult realities. "You want to live with me?" he asked, fork poised mid-bite.

Potter glanced around the kitchen, then leaned over as if to speak confidentially. "We already are," he said, voice barely above a whisper.

"This is a holiday arrangement," countered Snape. He finished his forkful of fish, barely tasting it. Recovering or not, the beach and the resort had all the trappings of a lavish holiday retreat.

"It could be more permanent," Potter said, looking so earnest Snape could tell he wasn't as confident as he strove to appear. Carefully he set down his fork. "We can work together and live together or just see each other as much as you'll have me." He reached over and took Snape's hand and gave it a squeeze. "Anything you want."

"And if I just want to slink off and sulk somewhere by myself?" Snape said, knowing Potter would see though his contrary response at once.

Potter's appetite had returned, though he laughed before grabbing the last piece of bread. "You know I'll come looking for you. And wear an apron until you stop sulking."

Snape snorted, but the image of Potter wearing a skimpy apron in the kitchen of the Black home, and of the sturdy table in that kitchen, was irresistible. "You may not like living with me," Snape said, eying Potter askance. "I can be a bit...difficult." Potter would look delectable with his arse bent over that table.

Potter rolled his eyes. "Really? You mean you don't wear sexy robes for casual evenings around the dungeon?"

"I don't own sexy robes. I have a temper. I hate being interrupted when I'm reading. I am not a morning person."

"Even if you woke up with your cock in my mouth?" Snape's cock twitched against Potter's toes. "Someone likes that idea." Potter's other foot came up and he pressed Snape's cock between his feet, stroking up and down.

"You'll tire quickly of the novelty of sex with me. You'll have other offers from more desirable partners." The worst of it, Snape realized, was that when Potter did wish to be rid of him, Potter would try not to be cruel as his father would have been. Potter would make the effort to stay, and Snape would have to see the misery on his face every day. Snape could tell with a single glance when Potter was lying to him; he would know the moment Potter was interested in someone else, he would have no extended period of suspicion and adjustment, he would feel every moment of Potter's rejection.

Potter had slid down in his seat to stroke Snape's cock more effectively between his feet, but he was watching Snape's face, and now he sat up, slowly letting his feet slide away. "This is not about sex," he said, shifting his chair around until he was beside Snape and could put his arms around him. "Not just about sex, anyway."

"Guilt, then, and responsibility."

"Did you only come to bed with me out of guilt?" Potter squeezed him around the waist.

"Not my guilt, you little --" Potter was tickling him. "Stop that!"

"Well, I don't feel guilty." The wicked grin on Potter's face as his fingers slid up Snape's side made that very clear. "And I don't feel responsible. It was your choice to look out for me all those years and keep me safe from you-know-who..."

Snape's efforts to grab and pin down Potter's hands were proving entirely unsuccessful. A snort that sounded suspiciously like a giggle erupted from his nose.

"...so you're just going to have to accept the fact that I love you and I want to be with you!"

There were many things that Snape wanted to say, too many things to contain in his mind all at once, but Potter's fingers had reached his armpits and when he opened his mouth, he laughed. And kept laughing as he writhed and slid off the chair, landing with a bump on the kitchen floor that was probably going to leave a bruise on his bare bum, though he couldn't be arsed to care about that at the moment.

Potter followed him down. "Oh fuck -- are you all right? You aren't dizzy or --" Snape was still laughing uncontrollably. Tears leaked out of his eyes and ran down his face, to Potter's obvious alarm. "Oh god, I'm sorry! Let me help you up, or do you want a healing spell, oh fuck I need my wand..."

In Snape's current lightheaded state, even the distress on Potter's face seemed funny. "I'm fine," he managed to pant, trying to catch his breath, wiping at his eyes. "You are impossible."

Potter's arms closed tightly around him again. "I know. You've always known that, though. I meant what I said. I just want to be with you."

"Did you mean the other?" The tears were still coming. Clearly, he had gone completely mad, if he could sit on the kitchen floor and cry in front of Potter.

"That I love you? Yes. Completely."

Snape wiped his cheeks, knowing his fingers would come away wet. "Ridiculous," he sputtered, aware that another laugh was hovering in his chest.

Potter groped overhead for a napkin from the table, handing it to Snape. He sat back on his heels while Snape dabbed his cheeks. "Why is it ridiculous? You don't think I kidnap just anybody and drag them off to a deserted island, do you?"

"This island isn't deserted," argued Snape, letting the laugh bubble into the napkin he was holding over his mouth. Somehow it struck him as important to assert this with Potter

The corners of Potter's mouth were twitching. "It might as well be," he replied, kneeling between Snape's legs. In the journey to the floor the flimsy tie of Snape's robe had come undone, further completing his utter loss of dignity. Potter slid his arms around Snape's waist. His eyes were no longer worried, but twinkling in as un-Dumbledore-ian way as possible. "No one saw us this afternoon and no one will see me do this."

Snape's lips were still upraised though the kiss seemed to change the shape of his whole face as he and Potter wiggled against each other beneath the kitchen table. "You love the idea of being in love with me," he said, trying not to sound as breathless as Potter made him feel.

"Mmm hmmm," purred Potter, "I do, I really do. And I love the idea of you being in love with me back, but I don't mind letting you fall in love with me at your own pace." Potter's mouth was as soft as a tickle along his neck, but Snape didn't feel remotely like laughing. Potter's fingertips were soft on his chest, moving beneath the robe, over Snape's ribs, not tickling, not now.

"Generous of you," Snape acknowledged, letting his head fall back as Potter's tongue wandered lower, pushing the loose robe aside.

Potter tried to look modest, but he mostly managed to look like the rather horny young man he undoubtedly was. "I figure you're probably about half in love with me already," he said, his tongue flickering at the juncture of Snape's arm and chest.

Only half?

"Fairly confident of that, are you?" Snape was leaning back, wedged against his slightly askew chair. "How do you know I'm not just taking advantage of you for sex?" As beguiling as the apron was, Snape unknotted the string, letting it pool in Potter's lap.

"Hmmm, well you could be, I suppose," admitted Potter, around a mouthful of Snape's nipple. "But I could be doing the same thing, couldn't I?" The soft hair on his head tickled Snape's sensitive underarm. "Taking out all my wildly sexual fantasies on you in this romantic spot, pouring out all my feelings for you in the hopes you'll let me fling myself into your arms and --"

"Wildly sexual fantasies?" interrupted Snape, with interest.

Chuckling, Potter nodded. "Wildly," he said, dragging his tongue over to the other nipple. "Wank fantasy level wild."

The hair below Potter's waist thickened rather attractively the closer it got to his cock. Snape let his fingertips brush through it, admiring the flat belly beneath. "I think you need to tell me about these rather inappropriate fantasies you've had about your teacher."

"Former teacher," Potter corrected, "Current lover." He shifted up to rub his mouth over Snape's. "I will, but I have one condition."

"And what is that?" asked Snape, expecting to be told that he would be required to do the same, to admit to every forbidden thought he had ever had about the Boy Who --

"Can we please get off the floor? I don't want to end up too sore to make love on the beach later."

Snape began to laugh again. He let Potter haul him to his feet, leaning heavily on him, robe flapping open and sliding down one shoulder. "We don't even know how to make love in a bed," he pointed out. If only he'd done a sensible job of obtaining the experience expected of a man of his age, he could probably have had Potter over the kitchen table, though it looked less sturdy than the one in the kitchen of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black. Which he supposed was the House of Potter, now that the Blacks were all but extinct.

Potter was grinning at him fondly. "We could go figure that out right now," he said. "Or, if you're too full from dinner, we could take a walk on the beach and figure it out later."

Despite the amount he had eaten that day, Snape did not feel full; he could not remember when he had last had enough to satisfy him the way Potter's cooking had done. "You still haven't told me any of your inappropriate fantasies," he scolded. "For example, who was on top?"

With luck, Potter would never lose that delightful propensity to blush. "That depends," he said, grabbing the dishes and putting them in the sink before casting a cleaning charm. "If it was one of the fantasies where you gave me detention and ended up fucking me over your desk..." Snape groaned helplessly as his exposed cock showed its enthusiasm. "...then, of course, it was you. If it was one of the ones where I snuck into the dungeons and crawled into your bed..."

Again Snape moaned. Buried deep in his mind, he was fairly certain that he had had a similar fantasy, which he had tried very hard to extract and erase. "You've been a naughty boy," he said.

"Yes, but you love that about me." Leaning up, Potter stole a kiss. "I'd do it any way you wanted, though I think I generally imagined that the first time, you'd be on top."

Doubtless Potter had also imagined that Snape would actually know how to make love properly. "I don't want to hurt you," he stammered.

"You won't." The blush deepened as Potter grabbed his hand, tugging him toward the bedroom. "I've, um, practiced stretching things out."

That particular image left Snape breathless. "You may need to show me."

Potter's nod was eager, despite the flush seeping over his cheeks. Snape knew the certainty that Potter would show him anything, likely do anything for him; it was a heady gift. Indeed, "Anything," Potter said, his voice breaking slightly, leaning closer for another kiss as though they were sealing some erotic bargain. "I'll show you how I've used my fingers, wishing they were yours, and how I transfigured a teacup into a dildo and pretended it was your --"

Snape groaned mid-kiss.

"-- cock."

"What a delightfully wicked imagination you have," Snape praised, letting Potter feel the effects of their overstimulated imaginations on said cock.

"I had a lot of time on the run to think about what I wanted," replied Potter, swaying slightly against him, showing Snape that both their imaginations were aroused.

"A teacup?"

Potter nodded, leaning against the bedroom door before pushing it open. "I never got rid of the daisy pattern, but it worked just fine."

They were back in the room in which Snape had awoken, with the bed where they'd napped and made love earlier.

"Then you definitely need to show me." Snape tugged the young man into the room. He felt like he could never kiss Potter enough, could never get enough of this breathless pleasure dancing over his skin. Even Potter's chuckle was arousing. Snape rubbed his finger over his bottom lip; they both groaned when Potter sucked it between his lips. "Did you ever imagine your first lover would be so awkward and untried?"

"Only lover," Potter insisted, "And yes, sometimes, though technically it can only be awkward when we're actually doing something."

"Impatient?" Snape said, watching as Potter flicked the tip of his tongue over Snape's finger.

"Awfully." Another kiss. "I already know I won't last with you and I don't want to come standing up, though I think we should try that sometime." His arms were around Snape's waist, bringing their hips together. "I think what really matters is that we both want this and we both care about each other -- whether you admit it or not you never would have let me be your first lover if you didn't care about me." His mouth was close to Snape's again. "And if it all goes horribly wrong we can get some sleep and try again in the morning."

It was Snape who took his hand this time, leading him to the bed, pushing the rumpled sheets aside to slide in. Potter followed, letting Snape guide him down onto the pillows. Their arms were around each other and Snape knew he would not be able to even pretend to be suave and slow and worldly, not when Potter made him feel like this. His cock had no scruples, pushing against Potter's before Snape had a chance to do more than stretch out his legs.

"I have some stuff," panted Potter, his hips pressing up when Snape leaned over him.

"Stuff?" asked Snape, though he had a fairly good idea to what Potter was referring.

"You know, lube," he replied, Summoning the tube. It looked somewhat crinkled, which only encouraged Snape's imagination, not to mention the flow of blood to his cock.

"You've used this before."

Potter looked so delightful when he blushed, embarrassed and wanton all at once. "Not since we've been here, if you're thinking that while you were unconscious, I was lying next to you buggering myself..."

Shuddering softly, Snape bent down and kissed Potter to silence him. As arousing as it was to feel Potter's lips on his, it didn't make his cock want to explode in the same way as listening to Potter talk about making himself come. His fingers closed around the tube, feeling the indentation where Potter's fingers had squeezed to make the lube squirt out. "There are potions more arousing than products like these, you know," he murmured.

"Unfortunately my Potions professor was too busy teaching us to brew Shrinking Solution to have had time to teach us that one." Potter smiled at him. "I've been thinking of asking for remedial lessons, though."

Snape thumbed aside the cap. "I suppose he might be willing, if you show proper diligence."

"I'm very diligent." Drawing up his knees, Potter wiggled beneath Snape. "Can you feel how hard I'll work?"

Snape's fingers clenched around the tube the way they'd squeezed his orange earlier, pressing too hard, spattering lube all over his hand. "This may be a disaster," he warned Potter.

"It will not. It may be messy and clumsy but it'll feel good anyway, and if not we'll try it another way." Potter's cheeks might still have been pink, but his confidence didn't waver any more than his voice did. "I want to do this with you and only you."

No matter how distressing it would be to demonstrate his erotic incompetence, Snape knew it would be far more distressing to lose the urgent, adoring look on Potter's face. He rubbed a slick finger behind Potter's bollocks. Potter's moan was appreciative and not in the least feigned. "More!"

Potter's begging, too, was gratifying -- and, if Snape had needed any help aside from the notion that Potter actually wanted him, arousing. "Yes, oh just like that!"

Snape knew he'd probably used too much lube; his finger skittered over the taut space between bollocks and arse without a hint of friction, and around the wrinkled skin of Potter's arse with ease. Potter appreciated this too, in ways beyond verbal, but which Snape understood and felt as his finger eased in and out slowly. Potter opened for him deeper and deeper with each push inside him.

His own cock was aching by the time he was satisfied that Potter was ready, though to judge by the moans and pleas, Potter had a low opinion of the shape Snape's near-automatic protectiveness was taking now.

"You know I want you," Potter pleaded. He didn't try to touch his own cock -- Snape had already batted his hand away once with a possessive growl. He gave the upraised pinnacle in question a slow swirl of his tongue, creating a satisfying distraction while he shifted and raised up onto his knees, using more of the "stuff" Potter had brought along. Spread out on the sheets, Potter looked still as though there was no command Snape could utter that he would not obey. And if Snape had doubted the sincerity of the declarations of love, he could no longer, not with the evidence of it plain in Potter's eyes.

"If I hurt you --"

"You won't," replied Potter quickly. His fingers were clenching the sheets, his face full of confidence at Snape's ability.

"If I hurt you," Snape repeated, distracting Potter again with a showy movement of his hand on his own cock with the lube. "We stop."

Nodding, Potter said, "And try again later."

"And try again later," Snape agreed. There would be endless ways to distract Potter if they couldn't manage this, but Snape could admit he wanted this, perhaps as much as he'd ever wanted anything. And Potter would give it to him.

Only half in love?

Potter lifted his legs, letting Snape decide where to settle them. He decided on his shoulders since it left his hand free to guide himself in.

"Oh god," and on Potter's lips the oath sounded like a prayer. The barest tip of Snape's cock was poised over Potter's arse. Concerned and feeling overheated despite the breeze wafting into the room, Snape knew rationally he wasn't in deep enough to cause pain. He looked up. "Do you have any idea how sexy you look doing that?" Potter said.

"I'm sweating, I'm shaking, I'm about to --" He looked down at the place where their bodies were touching.

"Sexy," Potter moaned again, undulating against him. The pressure worked like a demand on his cock, no matter how wary Snape might have been of the first potentially disastrous thrust. He pushed inside, sliding with surprising ease past the tight ring of muscle into tight velvet heat.

He heard Potter hiss sharply. "Am I --"

"Don't you dare stop!" Potter did something with his hips that brought Snape in even deeper. "It burns a bit but it's a good burn and it feels better when you move." Snape could have argued, but his cock was still doing most of his thinking for him, taking over his hips and making him slide partway out and back.

This time the hiss was quieter, and was followed by a soft moan. The boy had known agony -- he had endured the Dark Lord's Cruciatus curse without breaking -- Snape doubted that he would cry out in pain now even if it was not a good burn. "Potter --"

"No!" Snape tried to still his movements. "Oh fuck, don't stop! I meant call me Harry!"

"Harry." The name fell so easily from his lips, as if Snape had always spoken it in desire. His rebellious hips had barely paused in their movements, pulling his cock back, thrusting it in, a bit deeper each time. Harry gave it an experimental squeeze and for an instant Snape thought that would be the end, that he could not withstand such pleasure, but the moment passed and he felt some minute amount of control return. Shifting his weight onto one elbow, he groped for Harry's cock.

"Yes, oh fuck, do that!" The yes still sounded a bit like a hiss, but Harry was moving with him enthusiastically, so rather than pause to ask if he was hurting him, Snape concentrated on giving him pleasure. It was difficult at first to wank Harry and thrust at the same time, the instinctive rhythms were somewhat different, but focusing on that stopped him from ejaculating when Harry clamped down his internal muscles again. "Is that good?"

Good was the most preposterous understatement Snape had ever heard. "Much better than that," he groaned breathlessly.

"For me too." Harry was smiling up at him, panting slightly, looking both adoring and adorable. "Want to keep doing this oh fuck forever!"

Snape doubted that he could last five minutes, let alone forever, but he nodded and tried to make the movement of his hand match the speed of his thrusts. "We can, if you wish."

"You know I wish! I love you!"

And there was nothing else to say, as he plunged in deep, as the room disappeared from his vision: "I love you too."

Snape wasn't shocked to realize he meant it. Harry's eyes, instead of being closed in post-orgasmic bliss, were open and full of eager hope. Snape realized that despite all of Harry's bravado, there'd been enough doubt to put pure wonder there at Snape's admission. As much as he wanted to enjoy that look, he could no longer remain erect in either sense of the word, swaying and collapsing rather gracelessly over Harry's chest.

Harry didn't seem to mind his lack of grace, wrapping himself around him with arms and legs and knees and feet and probably a few strands of Snape's own hair. They would, he supposed, get better at the sorting out of arms and legs and sticky fingers, but his body was still tingling and his brain was still occupied with the happy knowledge that he'd not -- if Harry's eagerness to stay close to Snape was any indication -- disgraced himself sexually.

"You do," Harry said, not making it a question.

"Mmmm," Snape agreed, though he would not have tried to pass the words off as mere heated declarations of passion. "Very much."

"And not just because...because..." Harry's breath was becoming short so Snape stirred off his chest, lifting up on both elbows to be able to look down at him.

"Not because we are locked in a carnal embrace. Such things inspire many emotions but my declaration was sincerely meant. As you knew."

Harry was giggling, though manfully. "If you're going to say things like 'carnal embrace' you'd better kiss me."

Snape did. Post-coital kissing was, he discovered, just as heady as pre-coital foreplay. They managed to sort out various limbs as Snape rolled beside Harry, keeping the young man tucked up against him. To his credit, Harry seemed disinclined to be anywhere but tucked up against Snape. Even the pleasant lassitude of orgasm was made better by the presence of Harry ensconced under his arm. He let himself imagine ending every evening like this -- sated, loved, wrapped in Harry's arms. It was, not too surprisingly, quite easy, right down to the lizard perched on the windowsill, though he supposed there might not be quite so many of them in Britain.

"I'm going to want to do that again tomorrow," Harry sighed, sleepy and content.

"If you're not sore." Snape considered for a moment. "Although I suppose we could switch positions."

"Do you actually want to?" Suddenly Harry sounded much more awake. His head lifted so he could look at Snape. "We don't have to, if you'd rather have me on the bottom."

"Do you want to?" He had always assumed that if he ever chose to have sexual intercourse, he would much prefer the dominant position, but he had not imagined that he would find anyone with whom he actually wished to make love. And he knew that, even inexperienced, Harry would never hurt him.

Grinning, Harry nodded. "Only if you want to. But I think it'd be really, really hot."

Smirking, Snape tugged him back down. Hot was not a word he had ever expected to associate with himself either, once he picked up on the meaning the students were giving it. "I am willing."

He felt as well as heard Harry's hum of pleasure. "We can do it every way you want. I reserved this place for three weeks in case it took that long for you to recover. And then we can do it at home. Will you at least think about moving to Grimmauld Place?"

"Does this mean you've already given up your dream of becoming a world traveler?"

Harry snickered softly. "I told you, I'll be a travel agent if you will. Or I'll run a hair tonic shop. Or I'll go to Hogwarts with you, see if Madam Hooch will hire me as her assistant -- would they let us share a bedroom?"

"Only if we were married." The words were out of Snape's mouth before he had stopped to think. "Though that is irrelevant," he added quickly, "since Hogwarts will not have me back."

"Their loss," Harry replied, giving every appearance of not noticing Snape's mention of marriage. "Though I bet you're wrong about that." He leaned up and gave Snape another kiss. "And we can get married if you want."

"If I want?" sputtered Snape.

"You know what I want -- the future, you." He sounded so confident that Snape began to see what Dumbledore had seen in the young man those years ago when making him his champion. "Forever, always. You. Marriage, everything. I'm not afraid to say it." Snape thought perhaps there was nothing Harry would be afraid of. He burrowed against Snape as though he had not just said the most extraordinary thing Snape had ever heard. "Or we could live in wicked sin," Harry went on, his cheek rubbing against the side of Snape's chest. "Do they still call it that -- living in sin?"

"If they don't, they should," grumbled Snape, "because hearing you say it makes me want to --" He let his fingers trail suggestively over Harry's shoulder.

"Ravish me?" put in Harry helpfully. Snape nodded, though realistically he knew he wouldn't be able to participate in any ravishing until morning. He checked in with his cock. Well, perhaps a couple of hours.

"Ravish you," Snape confirmed in a contented -- no, call it what it was -- a happy drawl.

Harry's mouth was rubbing slowly over his neck. "Ravishment and sin. Or marriage. Or both. We don't have to decide now." He sighed, the breath warm against Snape's neck. "That's the best part, not having anyone telling either of us what to do."

If only he had been this wise at Harry's age. Of course, even with the difficult path Snape had trod, he wouldn't have traded places with the young hero. He couldn't imagine that escaping, even to a deserted island, would be that easy for either of them. "The wizarding world --" he began.

"Can kiss my arse," said Harry, sounding at once amused and sleepy. "Unless you'd like to do it first?

"We don't have to do everything in one night," said Snape, though his cock had checked in with willingness if not absolute ability to handle what would come after.

"As long as we have a future to look forward to where we can do everything we can think of." He yawned. "And probably a few I've never heard of." Snape was petting his fingers through Harry's hair, watching the eyes flutter shut. He went on stroking as Harry's breathing slowed.

"Yes," Snape said softly, letting the word take as much time as it wanted to become audible. Harry shifted beneath his arm, lashes flickering. Snape's arm tightened possessively. "Yes," Snape said again. "I'll marry you."

Harry's eyes opened wide. They were the same green as Lily's, yet warmer; Snape wondered why he had never noticed it before. "Did you really just say that, or was I dreaming?" asked Harry.

"Was I supposed to wait for a formal proposal to say yes?"

"Nothing between us should ever be formal." Harry gave him an exuberant kiss. "Though we can have a formal wedding if you want..."

Snape had a sudden vision of himself in dress robes, surrounded by Weasleys and Malfoys trying to straighten his tie and comb his hair, while photographers from the Daily Prophet lurked outside. "Absolutely not," he shuddered. "We should have a very small, very private wedding."

This statement was rewarded with another kiss. "I still think I might be dreaming, but it's the best dream ever," Harry said.

Snape glanced around the now-dim room where he had awoken -- was it really less than a day ago? The scent of tropical flowers still hung in the air, not quite obscuring the much-nearer smell of Harry's hair, faintly salty with seawater. Snape pinched Harry's bum, heard a yelp, and felt a reciprocal twinge as his skin was gripped between two of Harry's fingers. "Not dreaming," Snape concluded.

With a sigh that was more of a long purr, Harry settled back against him. "Good. Then we can fall asleep just like this." His arm snaked around Snape's waist. "And wake up and make love again, and swim naked, and make love some more."

Helplessly Snape laughed. "I may need a holiday to recover from my recovery."

"In that case," replied Harry, snuggling under Snape's chin, "we should follow our very small, very private wedding with a very, very long honeymoon."