That Place In the Dark

by Dementordelta

Summary:

Severus Snape has survived the war and the Dark Lord but he may not survive Harry Potter.

Something was spooking the chickens. Severus Snape could hear their excited squawking from inside the henhouse he'd spotted from the edge of the dense forest. With any luck the resident in the dark farmhouse he'd seen just across the lane would think there was a fox on the prowl tonight.

Keeping his wand close to his side, he drew himself closer to a large tree, safe, for the moment, in the concealing shadows. Though it had been several years since the fall of the Dark Lord, Snape was glad his survival instincts were still sharp. He had no wish to undo the dubious good Potter had done in saving him. Snape forced his attention back on the swaying treetops--now was no time to let thoughts of the dratted boy distract him.

Perhaps his pursuers hadn't followed him here. There was a rustle in the brush, though whether natural or un-, Snape couldn't tell. Perhaps there really was a fox loose tonight.

Then he heard the bleat of a sheep, then another. Snape didn't need their increasingly frantic cries to let him know he was no longer alone in the night forest. An arc of blue light, so pale as to be almost translucent, shot through the trees above his head. Distantly Snape attempted to categorize the spell. It wasn't green, so it wasn't the killing curse. Perhaps they did not intend to kill him. That idea was not even remotely reassuring. The spell light shot through the leaves again, kicking up debris from the forest floor and leaving the smell of something putrid. A cursed spell all the same, he assessed.

"I think I saw something," Snape heard a gravelly voice overhead call out as something large passed through the branches nearby. They were still mounted on brooms as they had been when they'd driven him out into the night. Snape had barely had time to fire off return spells before Apparating.

"Your own shadow," came the raucous reply, accompanied by another volley of that eerie pale blue curse light. The tree across from Snape lit up, then, as the light faded, the leaves along one branch curled up and withered.

"He's here, I tell you," said the gravelly voice, louder. Closer. "I put a tracking spell on him."

The trees directly over his head rustled as Snape winced. He didn't favor the odds, but with knowledge of the tracking spell, Apparating again wasn't going to help. Another sluice of sizzling pale light split through the trees, nearly deciding him, when he heard a crackle of leaves to his right--someone was nearby, someone on foot.

He'd thought there were only two of them, former Death Eaters who hadn't taken the news of his betrayal of their master or his survival well.

Snape clutched his wand tighter, determined to take out this approaching foe to even the odds a bit. Whoever it was, was being unduly loud if they thought to take him by surprise. Snape peered into the darkness, his eyes unfocused by the intermittent flashes of curse light. Suddenly a woman blustered between the two trees, her eyes wide with fear but determined as she looked up. One of Snape's pursuers skimmed lower in the treetops, shooting random bursts of lesser spells into the foliage. The woman's gaze followed, a frown darkening her young face as sparks hissed and extinguished in the leaves underfoot.

Her hand slid down her front and Snape realized at once that despite her long robe, she was not a witch. And she was very pregnant. Just as her pale face turned up, there was shouting overhead.

"Got 'im!" came the triumphant cry. "Humusmorta!" Angry blue-silver light crashed through the branches.

"God damned useless Muggle," Snape murmured, aiming upward and firing off a Sectumsempra blindly as he dove to knock the woman out of the uncaring curse's way.

Pain exploded down one side of his body, and for a dreadful instant Snape felt one leg might have been cursed off, so violent was the pain exploding through it. Dimly he felt the woman falling beneath him, felt his own weight going down hard. From somewhere he heard a shout, then another and another, but the curse was still sizzling in his ear and he couldn't make out the words. Agony blurred the trees into wavering lines as he crumpled, the world blacking out around him.

~~**~~

"Professor! Professor!"

Snape groaned. Surely that couldn't be--Someone shook him. Of course it was. Potter. It was always Potter. He tried to move, gob-smacked again by pain and the urgent need to sick up. Why couldn't Potter just let him die in peace? Again?

"Oh god, you're alive," came the distressingly familiar voice. Something shifted under Snape's chest, sending fresh spears of pain down his leg. "We've got to--"

But whatever it was that Potter wanted him to do was cut off by another groan, a decidedly more feminine one than Snape's throat had ever produced.

"Who the hell--" Potter was tugging him and the woman was struggling to sit up, making Snape feel as though he was riding a misbehaving flying carpet. The urge to sick up grew stronger and he moaned, trying to clutch his stomach though Potter was holding his arms.

"Who are you?" the woman demanded, pushing out from beneath Snape, righting herself with one hand on her rounded belly. She surveyed them both, as if unsure of what she was seeing.

Potter released his arms; Snape swayed without the support. "Don't worry about us, er, ma'am," Potter said, making a wild grab for Snape's shoulders. Even to Snape himself, his legs felt like dead weight. The urge to be sick wasn't as strong if he stayed still. If only Potter would let him.

"Potter!" he barked, even though the motion sent waves of pain down one side of his body. Potter dropped his arms again. "Why does it always have to be you?"

A cheeky grin hove over his shoulder. "Just lucky I guess," he said, squatting at Snape's back to get a better grip under his arms. Snape tried to shake him off, despite the pain each jarring motion gave him.

"Who. Are. You." The woman scuttled backwards, leaning against a tree, staring at them both as if they were mad.

"I'm afraid I am--" Snape began, then felt himself swaying despite Potter's increasingly ineffectual efforts to move him.

"Fuck!" Potter burst out, then shot the woman a distressed look. "Sorry, ma'am." His gaze was accusing when it met Snape's. "You're hurt! Why didn't you say something?"

"Cursed," Snape pronounced grimly. Now that Potter had given up possession of his arms Snape bent to examine this leg, the center of the pain radiating up his body. The bottom half of one trouser leg was torn, exposing his muck-spattered calf. A silvery blue light shone through the debris sticking to his leg.

"St. Mungo's then," Potter said, sounding more decisive than he looked. He was so close that their arms were touching, leaning forward to get a better look at Snape's leg.

Snape ignored him, leaning over his leg and brushing the clinging leaves away. What he saw did not do his stomach any good. His leg had been split open, though there was very little blood. Instead the blue light pulsed from the ragged edges of the skin. He leaned closer to peer at it, despite the pain that skittered along his nerve endings.

"Saint…Saint what?" the woman asked, wrapping one hand around a sapling and pulling herself to her feet. The hems of her dressing gown had leaves clinging to it. She huffed a bit, keeping one hand protectively over her midsection. "What…what was that? In the trees?" With a defiant look she tilted her head to stare up through the dark branches. Snape was reasonably certain Potter wouldn't be here if he hadn't played hero again and given chase to Snape's pursuers. "I thought it was kids, playing with fire--"

"No time to explain," Potter said in an urgent tone, "The professor is hurt." For some reason, Potter's voice cracked slightly.

"Cursed," Snape corrected, poking one side of his leg near the wound. He waved Potter away impatiently when he started fumbling at Snape's back again.

"Go away, Potter," he growled. Something beneath his skin shifted under his fingertip probing. The bluish light cast a sickly glow down his leg.

"Fuck," Potter said, leaning over his shoulder. "Excuse me, ma'am."

"Is that radiation?" the woman said, spreading her fingers over the bulging robe protectively.

"No, madam, it is not," Snape said, looking away from the sickening light. "It is a curse." He tried moving his leg but it felt heavy and unnatural.

"This is mad," she said, voice rising with hysteria. "Who are you people? What are you doing on my farm?" She pressed her lips together angrily and looked overhead again. "And what the bloody hell was in those trees?"

"Right," Potter said briskly, "St. Mungo's, Professor."

"No, Potter, wait--"

Before he could stop him, Potter had his wand in his hand and had grabbed onto Snape's arm. There was a crack of Apparition and Potter vanished. A pain worse than the Cruciatus curse shot through Snape's leg. It felt like someone was holding a lit candle to his injury, burrowing in deeper and deeper. Snape could do nothing but wrap his arms around his leg and moan to keep from screaming.

"Holy--where did he go?" The woman sounded scared again, which was, Snape supposed, better than hysteria.

"He'll be back. He always comes back," panted Snape, grinding his teeth together, bracing for the second pop a moment later when Potter returned, looking sheepish. The seeming candle flared then flickered against Snape's skin but at least it didn't feel as though his flesh was about to curl up at the edges. Potter blinked at both of them then pushed his glasses back up onto his nose.

"How did he do that?" the woman asked, even though neither of them was paying her much attention. He supposed Potter would have to come back and Obliviate her later, but right now he couldn't be arsed to care.

"Sorry," Potter was saying. "Don't know why that didn't work. Let's try it again."
Potter started tugging on him again. Snape moaned, not intentionally, but at least Potter released him.

"I'm cursed," Snape said plaintively, trying to mask the string of moans building in his chest. How could anyone think with Potter around?

"Well, I see that," Potter said, his hands on his hips, staring down at Snape. He looked like he wanted to tug on Snape's arms again.

"You're both cursed," the woman said, looking like she wanted to point an accusatory finger at someone, but unwilling to take her hands away from the dubious support of the sapling and the one spread over her bulging belly.

"Technically speaking, I was cursed a long time ago," Potter explained. "His is new."

"Stop this infernal tugging on me, Potter and find my wand!" Snape shouted, his voice very loud in the dim forest. He looked down at the hand that had been holding it, realizing only now that his fingertips were blistered and singed.

Dutifully, as if he was still a student, Potter dropped down into the leaves, rooting around on the forest floor. "This looks like part of it," he said, holding up a burnt, vaguely wand-shaped stick.

"Part of…oh fuck." He moaned, not from pain this time. "Excuse me, madam."

Once he'd gathered a half dozen splinters, Potter sat on his haunches, holding the burnt palmful out to Snape. "I'm afraid that's it."

"Who are you people?" the woman demanded again, no longer looking even remotely frightened. Snape had to admit, however, that pissed off wasn't an ideal replacement.

Potter looked down at him and shrugged. "Can't hurt," he said, springing to his feet. "Harry Potter, ma'am, and this is my, um--"

"Sole detractor," Snape put in.

"Former professor, Severus Snape," Harry shouted over him. "We'll be out of here as soon as we can, I promise." He slid the pitiful bits of Snape's wand into his pocket and held out one grimy hand.

Slowly the woman released the sapling and shook the offered hand. "Sabrina McGill," she replied.

"The professor has been hurt," Potter went on with his customary flair for stating the obvious.

"Cursed," Snape said, not bothering to extend a hand since he was currently clutching his leg in agony. He peered into the dim light at the wound. Something black pulsed at the top of the gash, near Snape's knee. Pushing its way out of his skin, a black mushroom unfurled its poisonous looking cap. "Fuck."

Potter squatted again beside him, holding out his wand in classic Lumos position until Snape grabbed his wrist. "No magic," he warned, releasing Potter's wrist quickly.

"What kind of curse is it?" Potter asked with surprising gentleness. He tucked his wand away without argument.

"Are you sure that's not radiation?" Sabrina said, trodding over a little closer.

"Quite positive," Snape assured her. "Whoever it was that attacked me--"

"Nott and Rathbone," Potter supplied. "Chased them halfway to Wales before we caught them. That's why I wasn't here straightaway when you--right, sorry. I'll let you explain."

"Rathbone then," Snape said as another smaller spore sprouted from the first one, sticking out at an angle over the glowing wound. "Nott isn't clever enough by half. He's used a curse that has bound me to the earth. Magic only speeds up the curse."

"Fuck."

Both he and Potter looked up, for the expletive hadn't come from either of them. Sabrina was standing just at Snape's outstretched foot, peering down in horror at the oozing rent in his leg. She looked a bit green.

"I'll bring a Healer here, then," Potter said, looking grim.

Snape was already shaking his head. "I've seen this before." He didn't have to say when. The only people to invent a curse this diabolical had been evil enough to follow the former Dark Lord. "The curse binds the vict--er, the person to the earth where they're struck so they can be captured or tortured and killed at leisure. If the attacker fails to finish the job, the curse simply progresses until the victim dies slowly and in great pain." He pointed to the mushrooms sprouting near the wound. "These will start on my leg but will spread until they cover my whole body, until I'm literally simply organic matter."

There was a moment of horrified silence.

"Professor," Potter said in a strangled voice. "We've got to get you out of here." He looked around the forest in desperation as if expecting to see a coach and four approaching.

"If you move me much further away than this forest, you'll kill me," Snape said. "And you can't use magic anywhere near me without speeding up the curse."

"Magic?"

They both ignored Sabrina. "What do we do, then?" Potter asked. For once Snape was grateful for his unfailing sense of Gryffindor foolhardiness in the face of distressingly overwhelming odds.

"There is an antidote," Snape said, dragging himself upright.

"Magic?" Sabrina repeated, looking, for a woman in her third trimester, quite fierce.

"Can you brew it?" Potter asked, finally seeming to realize that Snape was trying to hoist himself off the damp ground. Snape glared at him. "Right, of course you can brew it," Potter muttered.

"Not, however, on my arse in a forest," Snape said, holding out one hand impatiently to Potter to forestall anymore fruitless tugging. Potter's grip was firm, closing around Snape's hand. Snape shifted, lifting up slowly, trying to get his cursed leg under him without putting any pressure on it. Blinding pain shot up his leg, but didn't stay confined there, infecting every nerve ending he possessed. He heard someone moaning endlessly, the moans rising, approaching a scream.

The forest grayed out around the edges, and the last thing Snape saw was Potter's anxious face.

~~**~~

"So, let me get this straight."

Snape managed to get his eyes open into slits, waiting a moment while they focused on something overhead that was very definitely not a forest. There was also something soft beneath him and, he suspected, leaf-free.

"You can do magic," the woman--Snape struggled against the throbbing pain in his leg to remember her name. McPregnant? "Just not right now?"

"Right, I have a wand and everything."

Of course Potter would be too noble to simply drag him to safety and leave him. And too dim not to begin spilling all the secrets of the wizarding world at random Muggles. Snape groaned. At once he heard movement in the room and forced his eyes all the way open. He was greeted by an unrelentingly spectacled visage above him.

"You're awake," Potter said, looking ridiculously relieved for someone who had leaves in their hair.

"Statute of--" Snape mumbled, appalled that his vocal chords wouldn't obey. Nor his arms when he tried to hoist himself up on them. "Secrecy," he managed but Potter was already shaking his head.

"Buggered I'm afraid," Potter said. "Easy there."

A pillow found its way behind his back, lifting him enough to be able to see that they were definitely not holding congress any longer in a moldy damp wood. Instead they were in a sitting room of what was probably the farmhouse he'd seen from the forest.

"How did I get here?" He looked around and realized he was reclining on a couch. The room was longer than wide, with a tidy kitchen at one end and large old fashioned fireplace at the other.

"Well, er, Sabrina--Miss McGill--seeing as how you were screaming and everything--" Potter tugged on his collar, a sure sign that he was not telling the full truth, only the Gryffindor parts of it. "Offered to let us use her sitting room."

"Us?" Snape shook his head, then winced when even that slight motion sent pain shooting up his side. "I can see that, you dunderhead. I meant how."

He wasn't so befuddled by pain that he missed the look that passed between Potter and the woman. Snape knew, after the intense agony of putting any pressure on the leg, that he couldn't possibly have walked to the edge of the woods, much less across the lane and inside the house, and he didn't see how two people could have dragged him when one of them was in the advanced stages of pregnancy. Potter, for all his lean strength, couldn't have moved him at a dead weight.

"He's magic!" Sabrina put in, meaning, he supposed, to be helpful.

"I'm aware of that," he said, visibly restraining from using the word 'dunderhead' again, "considering I taught him."

"I mean really magic," she said, lumbering out of her chintz-covered armchair to stand beside Potter.

Snape ground his teeth, reminding himself that he could not leave here under his own power. His disposition was not improved by having two smiling young people hovering over him, even if one of them had leaves in their hair.

"What did you do? You can't Apparate me, I'm bound. Mobilicorpus would probably have killed me.

"I, er--" Potter looked sheepish and rubbed the back of his neck, a sign Snape recognized from his student days. Snape narrowed his eyes so much they ended up closing. He opened them wide enough to glare. Finally Potter placed his thumbs at his temples, spreading his fingers like antlers in a children's pantomime. "You know."

"You didn't." Snape fell back against the pillows, moaning. "In front of a Muggle?"

"Transforming into my Animagus form only takes a little magic, since I don't need a wand," Potter explained, dropping his faux antlers. "I couldn't think what else to do, and I could carry you easily as a stag."

"It was really cool," Sabrina put in, not withered by Snape's usually withering glare. "I'll, er, just make tea, shall I?"

Potter smiled gratefully and stared after her until they could both see her leaning over the sink with the kettle. "I couldn't think what else to do," he said quietly. "You were s-screaming."

Snape tried to glare at him but his heart must not have been in it because Potter didn't get that kicked puppy look he usually did under Snape's best glares. Instead Snape looked down at the relentlessly cheerful afghan draped over him. His eyeballs were nearly seared by the yellow and green zigzag stripes. He started peeling it away, moaning almost sub vocally as the movement jostled his leg.

"Here, let me, you stubborn git," Potter said, squatting beside the couch and lifting the cover away gently. The bluish-silver light seemed to pulse under Snape's skin. The wound itself looked no larger but there was another smaller cluster of mushrooms beside the first. "Looks bad," Potter said. At least he wasn't pretending otherwise. Neither of them had ever been squeamish.

"Feels worse," Snape admitted grudgingly, wondering what he would have done if Potter hadn't found him.

Sabrina reappeared with a mug for each of them. Snape was glad to realize that her taste in afghans and upholstery did not extend to her taste in teacups. "Better with tea," she said, going back into the kitchen for her own cup. She patted her belly and sank back into her armchair.

Potter pulled up one of the chairs from the kitchen, dragging it over close to Snape's sofa. "You said there was an antidote," he said, after the first sip.

Snape nodded, "There is--" He shuddered as another spasm of pain bolted through him. "First I need to do something about the spreading curse."

"What can we do?" Potter asked, looking excited and hopeful at once.

"'We'," Snape began with a sarcasm he was certain was lost on Potter, "can find some silver. The older the better. It will absorb the curse--for a time. Iron will do in a pinch, but it won't be as effective."

Potter ran a hand through his hair, which only ever succeeded in mussing it further. "I've got some silver in my vault." He looked toward the window where it was just dawn. "Gringotts will be open in a few hours. I can get as far away as possible before Apparating and--"

"What kind of silver?" Sabrina asked, setting down her mug.

"Anything," Snape gasped, as another spasm sluiced over his nerve endings.

She struggled upright again. Potter leaped to lend her a hand, earning himself a grateful smile. She disappeared down the hall dividing the sitting room from the kitchen and returned a few moments later. There was a silver necklace with heavy links hanging from her hand.

"This was my gran's," she explained. "She left it to me, with this farm." The necklace was the sort of thing that had been in fashion before Snape had been born.

"I cannot promise I'll be able to return it whole," Snape admitted but she was already shaking her head.

"Ugly old thing," she said, pushing it into his hands. He gazed at her for a moment more before she said, "Go on. You did save my life, you know. Least I can do."

Now Potter was gazing at him and that puppy dog look was back but not the one that looked like he'd been kicked. "So, that's why--"

"Help me with this," Snape interrupted sharply, pushing the tattered edge of his trousers apart. Potter hurried to obey, tucking the ends up and taking the necklace from Snape's fingers. "Lay it lengthwise in the wound," he instructed. "We'll have to secure it with something." Potter's fingers were gentle as they laid the necklace, link by link, into the gaping wound. The blue-white light dimmed, and Snape's pain dimmed with it. "Ahhhh," he said without thinking and Potter smiled up at him.

A hand appeared over his shoulder, bearing gauze and tape. Potter took both and set to work, moving Snape's leg only as much as he had to. Once the wound was covered, the blue-silver light pulsed weakly but Snape was no longer having trouble concentrating.

"Thank you, Mrs. McGill," he said. Potter shot him a look that made him look up at their host.

"It's Miss," she said, lifting her chin. "My Ian's away with the army and won't be marrying me until he's home on leave."

Potter leaped in, covering the presumed awkwardness. "Sabrina and I had a chance to chat while you were out cold."

"Very well," Snape said, swinging his legs off the couch, much to Potter's obvious dismay. "I'll need a cauldron--"

"Cooking pot," Potter supplied for the benefit of their hostess.

Sabrina made an indelicate noise. "I didn't have to go to magic school to know what a cauldron is," she said, crossing her arms over her belly.

Snape nodded approvingly. "The largest one you have." He gestured toward the fireplace. "And a fire. A hot one."

With the pain in his leg dulled to a low throb, Snape set Potter to work chopping wood for the fire with only a token protest about having to do it without magic. Testing his foot against the sitting room carpet, Snape listened a moment to the thwack of the axe outside.
The Muggle woman had been dispensed with a bucket, now that it was light outside, to find any remaining pieces of Snape's wand.

Tentatively he pushed off the couch, hissing under his breath at the jarring pain. Compared to the screaming misery he'd experienced when he'd tried to stand up in the forest, this was bearable. Slowly he eased away from the couch, testing each step as he stumbled toward the kitchen. Holding onto the counter for support, his trouser leg flapping around the bandaged lower leg, he began rummaging around in Sabrina's kitchen drawers.

"Professor!"

So intent on his examination of the knives was he, that he'd missed the cessation of the axe. Potter stood in the door with an armload of firewood. It was not until he set them down hastily to the floor that Snape realized he was also shirtless. Sternly Snape tried to make himself look away.

"What are you doing up?" Potter said anxiously, coming up behind him and steadying him with rather more force than required.

"Finding a suitable chopping knife," Snape explained, trying to pull out of Potter's sweaty grasp.

"I can do that," Potter insisted, trying to lead him back into the sitting room.

"As your Potions professor I can assure you that you could not distinguish between a suitable chopping knife and a bludger bat," Snape said waspishly. It was easier to let Potter pull him along than strain his leg by resisting.

"What are you doing up?" came a voice from the doorway and Snape rolled his eyes toward the unforgiving heavens.

"My point exactly," Potter said, trying to make eye contact while Snape was clinging to the counter.

"Enough!" Snape shouted, resorting to his classroom voice. It seemed that the Muggle recognized it as quickly as Potter. "I can't brew a potion from the couch."

"Sabrina and I are going to do the brewing," Potter said, finally releasing him, ridiculously unselfconscious of his bare chest. Snape snorted in lieu of the desire to bark at him to cover himself up. "You can supervise," Potter added, as if they'd actually been negotiating.

"Then I will not be supervising from the couch," Snape insisted, pointing to one of the stools at the counter. "And since I've seen your idea of finely minced in class, I shall be doing most of the chopping," he pronounced then went on when Potter was ill-advisedly going to protest. "You chop like you're plucking a chicken." He pointed the knife at Sabrina. "And you're too inexperienced to leave something like this to."

Potter and Sabrina both closed their mouths and looked at each other, possibly daring the other to overrule him. Snape surveyed the tiny heap of wand fragments in the bucket and added the larger pieces from Potter's pocket. The nuisance himself shrugged and betook his bare-chested self outside to chop more wood.

Sabrina seemed to have recovered and brushed past him into the kitchen. "What are you doing?" he asked, searching his pockets for some spare parchment.

"Making breakfast," she said, glaring at him as if expecting an argument. Snape shrugged, not about to confront a dragon in her lair, then realized he actually was hungry.

The renewed thunk of the axe outside made him say, "Better make lots, Potter eats like a hippogriff."

She let out a short bark of laughter, reaching for a band to tie her hair back.

Snape found a corner of parchment but no quill. He rummaged through a cup of Muggle featherless quills on the counter and eyed one dubiously, testing it out on the parchment.

"Were you really his teacher?" she asked, pulling presumably edible things from the fridge.

"In as much as it is possible to pound any knowledge into Potter's head," he murmured, distracted by trying to think of a suitable substitute for fen beetles.

"He's very--" Something sizzled in the pan on the stove and Snape's mouth started to water.

"Irritating?" Snape said off-handedly.

She laughed. "No!"

"Impossible?" he tried, crossing off sluice beetles and substituting dusky knob beetles.

"No, no," she said, turning sausages over in the pan.

Snape looked up, irritated that it smelled so good in the kitchen. "Bouncy?" he asked, eyeing the dripping sausages with interest.

She laughed again. "Well, yes, but I was going to say 'fond of you'."

Snape stared at her, but she seemed to have a rather unholy devotion to sausage. Potter wasn't fond of him. He was just…irritatingly omnipresent whenever Snape was in trouble.

Breakfast was ready by the time he had the list worked out to his satisfaction. Potter, no doubt led by his nose into the sausage-rich kitchen, came in wiping his neck on his shirt, but at least he'd put it back on.

"Mmm, if that's the antidote, you can curse me next," Potter said, dragging his chair back from the sitting room.

"I may not be able to brew a what do you call it--potion, but I can do a decent fry up," Sabrina said, heaping bacon and sausages onto a plate and setting it on the table. "I made a lot," she said, giving Snape a knowing glance. "Since I don't know what wizards eat for breakfast."

"Dragon tails and gorgon blood," Potter put in with a ghoulish leer.

"Well I hope eggs and sausages and bacon and tomatoes will do," she said, pushing platters toward them.

Snape filled his plate then looked at the glass she'd put at each of their places. There was something white in it. He picked it up and sniffed it before realizing they were both staring at him.

"What is this?" he asked, not certain he ought to taste it without more information.

"Milk," Sabrina said, darting a glance at Potter.

The answer did nothing to reassure him. "From what?"

She looked again at Potter as if he'd produced the milk in question. "A cow," she said slowly.

Snape wrinkled his nose and put the glass down. "I'm not drinking that," he said with a shudder. He too looked at Potter who was holding the glass to his mouth and drinking with relish.

Snape shuddered again.

Sabrina rolled her eyes. "What would you like?"

"Tea?" he asked hopefully, watching Potter smirking between bites of sausage. He had a moustache of the disgusting stuff on his upper lip.

"Kettle's not on," she said with exaggerated sweetness.

"Gorgon's blood?" he tried.

"Fresh out," she admitted, dissolving into giggles.

"Come on, sir," Potter said in what he obviously thought was a cajoling voice. "It's really good." As if to extol the virtues of bovine lactation he lifted his glass and drank again.

Snape must have looked unconvinced because Sabrina, still chuckling, asked, "How about some juice?"

"Pumpkin?" he asked, thinking perhaps there was hope for Muggles after all.

Sabrina blinked at him. "How on earth do you get juice out of a pumpkin?"

Potter mimed holding a large ball, presumably the pumpkin in question, and tapped it with an equally imaginary wand. Then he pantomimed lifting up the top and pouring out the juice. "Magic!"

She looked unconvinced. "How about some nice non-magical orange juice?" she offered, but it was Potter who waved her down and popped up to get it from the fridge. He leaned over Snape's shoulder to set the glass down, smelling sweaty and a little smoky from his exertions.

After breakfast, Sabrina, still reeling, it seemed to Snape, from the amount of food Potter consumed, helped sort out Snape's ingredient list.

"Won't be easy," was Potter's first reaction after reading down the long list.

"Because the rest of this has been?" Sabrina said. She'd scooted her own chair over closer to see what Snape had written down.

Snape exchanged a look with Potter and found that for once they were in perfect accord. "Miss McGill," he began.

"Sabrina--" Potter said. They looked each other again and glared.

"Oh, don't even start," Sabrina replied, glaring back.

"It might be best if we don't trouble you any further," Snape said, folding the list in front of him.

"And you'll go where exactly? Considering you're--" She waved one hand at his bandaged leg. "Bound here."

"We'll think of something," Potter put in. "We usually do," he added in a low voice.

"While I am, unfortunately, not able to divest myself of Potter's presence for any length of time, there is no need to burden your hospitality any further," Snape said, starting to tuck the list away in his pocket.

"You did save my life," she pointed out, still glaring between them, "and probably his." She rubbed her stretched stomach pointedly. "I think that's worth a bit of sausage and some orange juice."

Snape was marshalling his arguments when Potter said, "What do you think, Professor? Slytherin?" He leaned back in his chair, stroking his chin.

Snape felt his lips twitching at the corners. "Unquestionably." He pulled the list back out of his pocket and smoothed it out. "Now, Miss McGill, do you by any chance, have a cat?"

Once he had calmed them both down, explaining that the cat was not an actual ingredient but a means of obtaining one, he sent Potter to chop more wood and Sabrina to fetch one of the barn cats. Potter's protests at not being able to use magic to perform the task were somewhat half-hearted by now, and Snape figured that probably meant he'd have to contend with the boy without his shirt on soon enough.

Working himself carefully over to the couch, Snape lowered himself down onto it and stretched his injured leg out to examine the bandage. His fingers felt gingerly over the bumps of the bilious mushrooms. Still two, he thought, which was good, but no smaller, despite the silver dulling the pain. He had not told either of them that while silver cut the pain, it would not keep the curse from spreading forever. As far as he could tell, however, it was no worse.

There was a shout from outside. Snape looked up in alarm. Potter had informed him that the pathetic low grade Death Eater that had attacked him had been captured, but Potter had been out of touch for more than a few hours. Without the use of magic, he could not Firecall or send his Patronus to let anyone know where he was. Nor could he find out any information from their world.

He hobbled to the window, jerking the curtains aside impatiently. Potter--predictably shirtless again--was kneeling beside the woodpile, reaching into the precariously balanced kindling. Before Snape could open the window and yell at him to be careful before he broke his neck, he saw Potter pull out a squirming bundle of black fur.

Snape was back on the sofa when the pair--or trio, if one counted the cat--trooped back into the house.

"Where do you want him?" Potter said, holding the squirming cat at arm's length. There was already a scratch in the center of his chest. Served him right for having a chest like that. Er, for going about shirtless, Snape corrected himself.

"Here," Snape said, patting the folded afghan.

Dutifully Potter deposited the cat. Both he and Sabrina backed away as if to keep the cat from bolting out of the room. When the cat sat up on his haunches and looked at him, there was silence in the room.

"Cat--" Snape began, addressing the creature directly.

"His name is Archie," Sabrina put in.

Snape sighed expressively. "Very well, Archie, I need to ask a favor of you."

The cat blinked at him and licked its paw. Since there were more unseemly places the creature could lick, Snape was assured of its attention.

"I need some of the black beetles that live under the chicken house. Large ones." He held two fingers apart about three inches. "The ones with the small knobs on their chests."

The cat blinked again.

"About four paws worth?"

The cat put down its paw and jumped off the sofa, heading for the door.

"I'll get him," Potter shouted.

"Let him go," Snape called after him. He and Sabrina heard the sound of the door opening and closing.

"You can talk to cats?" Sabrina asked, looking at him strangely.

Snape sniffed. "All cats are inherently magical. Even Muggles know that."

"Am I a Muggle?" she asked as Potter re-joined them. He was dabbing at the blood on his chest with his discarded shirt.

"It means non-magical person," Potter explained, having the decency to tug the shirt--blood and all--over his head.

"And you lot are all what, wizards?"

Potter shrugged. "And witches. Well, you know, the, er, girls." Snape gave him an exasperated look. "Shutting up now."

"And those men who c-cursed you were bad wizards?" Snape could tell that the wonder of what she'd seen Potter do was wearing off, and she was starting to mistrust what her senses had told her. The wizarding world would never have maintained its secrecy this long if all Muggles believed what their eyes told them.

"The worst sort," Potter replied, pulling his shirt down. Fortunately she didn't require that he and Potter be good wizards, which might have required more explanation than Potter was willing to give. He still appeared to be quite set in his mind that Snape had been always a hero, despite Snape's willing gift of his memories at the last stage of the war to prove the contrary.

"And you can really ride brooms and turn into animals and stuff?" she asked, clearly reliving those moments out in the forest last night.

"When the occasion warrants," Snape said briskly.

He set them both to work, gathering everything from mushrooms to frogs all afternoon, while Snape stayed inside sorting the offerings as they arrived into something called Tupperware. He'd supervised the placement of the cooking pot over the now-blazing fire. He allowed himself to be helped over to the chintz chair as Potter filled the improvised cauldron with water to start boiling. By the time he was finished, Potter was sweating and the shirt clung to his back, riding up just above his trousers. He was about to snap at Potter to pull it down when he turned and sat on the hearth, rubbing his damp face with the beleaguered shirt.

"That would have been so much easier with magic," he said with a grin.

Even Snape couldn't argue with that.

Potter made him eat a sandwich and pushed tea at him that went cold before he got around to drinking it. Snape reached for his wand reflexively to warm it before he realized it was gone, cursed to splinters. At least Potter hadn't seen him do that.

The black cat brought the first beetle and one of its barn cousins, a grey brute with a white ruff around its neck, brought in two more, helped, Snape hoped, by the liberal distribution of leftover bacon from breakfast for the victorious hunters. It was Archie again who brought the last one in, hopping from chair to counter with the still squirming beetle in its mouth.

Carefully Snape pried the beetle out and added it to the Tupperware with its disemboweled fellows. Absently he scratched the top of the cat's head, reaching for more bacon only to find the plate empty.

"I know, how about some nice bovine swill," he asked the cat, pouring some into a saucer on the floor for the undiscriminating feline. The cat jumped down with a hungry meow. "That's all you get--eh?" Snape looked toward the doorway. "Oh, is he?" Snape patted the cat approvingly. "You can come out now, Potter, all the beetles have been dispatched."

Looking sheepish, Potter rounded the corner then stopped, staring at him. Snape looked down to see what could have fixed his regard. They both looked a mess. Potter had at least got rid of the leaves and wood splinters in his hair but his shirt was stained with sweat and blood and something brown acquired while delivering the protesting frog.

Snape himself had shucked out of the long frockcoat he normally wore, and, in deference to the roaring fire, his waistcoat as well. He'd rolled the sleeves of his white shirt up to the elbow. He was grubby, sweaty and limping but Potter was looking at him like a sugar biscuit. Given the state of their dishevelment, Snape tried to shake off the suddenly intimate feeling in the room.

"Go add these beetles," he said gruffly, pushing the plastic bin toward him. Potter nodded, looking guilty for some reason but then Potter always looked guilty of something.

And knowing Potter, he probably was.

Sabrina returned from the village with something called take-away, which Snape discovered was a bit like having house elves who put things in small white boxes instead of on plates.

After dinner he put the last of the ingredients into the simmering cauldron, er, cook pot, stirring it himself twelve times with a long wooden spoon that he'd fastened a silver salt shaker to, saying a small thanks to Sabrina's grandmother.

While he sat in front of the fire, Potter brought over the red bucket with the pieces of his wand and set it down beside him. Snape looked up gratefully and ran his hand over the pieces in the bottom.

"Was it your original one?" Potter asked quietly.

Snape nodded and pulled out a handful of the splinters, tossing them directly under the pot. "We'll need all the help we can get," he said, making sure to get every last scrap. The fire flickered and shot out green sparks.

Snape turned away and tried to get to his feet, unable to suppress a moan when his injured leg wouldn't support him. Irritatingly enough Potter was at hand to help him up, gripping his arm as if they were Apparating together. When Potter released him, his cheeks looked flushed.

"What now?" Sabrina asked from her armchair.

"We wait," Snape said, looking at Potter's cheeks once more. "It should have thickened by mid-morning or so." It was probably from sitting too long by the fire, he told himself, dismissing Potter to the shower, saying he wasn't fit to stay in the same room as a lady.

Potter bowed showily to their host, dragging an imaginary hat off his head before sweeping off to follow Snape's command. Laughing, Sabrina returned with two flowery bathrobes, ordering Potter to throw out his soiled clothes.

The yelp from the bathroom was nearly worth Snape having to put up with him for so long. Nearly.

"Don't be shy, lad," she called from in front of the closed door. "Yours isn't the first sweaty shirt I've washed." She waited. Snape peered down the hallway and saw the loo door creak open a hair.

"You've been around the professor too long," Potter grumbled, handing out his clothes and accepting the flowered bathrobe. The door shut quickly.

Sabrina gathered up the pile of clothes and narrowed her eyes at Snape. "Don't smirk," she warned, "you're next."

"Ha!" Potter called out from behind the door.

"My injury--" Snape began.

"Last I heard, even cursed legs don't dissolve like sugar when they get near water," she countered.

There was something Potter-like in her posture, though her determination was all female. "Tyrant," he grumbled, crossing his arms stubbornly over his chest.

Somehow though he found himself, an hour later, in the loo in a flowered bathrobe while Potter hovered nervously on the other side of the closed door.

"How is it?" he called.

"Flowered," Snape returned, stretching his bandaged leg out in front of him. He'd kept it dry while he took a shower, but wanted to change the bandage.

"What?" yelped Potter, with a noise on the door that was probably his hand, hovering over the knob. "Not the bathrobe, you wanker, your leg."

Snape grimaced at the ooze clinging to the gauze. There were several more mushrooms, smaller than the first cluster, growing along the edges furthest from the silver necklace.

"Distasteful," Snape called back. There was nothing to be done save readjust the necklace and re-bandage it with fresh gauze.

Potter was hovering, his flowered robe flapping around his ankles, when Snape opened the door. "Are you all right?" he asked, offering him an arm that Snape wished he could refuse.

"I want to stir the potion again," Snape said instead. Potter led him haltingly to the hearth. Snape used his makeshift silver rod to stir the thickening brew. He waved the still hovering Potter away, gazing into the flames, welcoming the heat against his leg.

He could hear the low murmur of voices in the kitchen and the occasional pauses while one or the other of them peered out to check on him. It had surely been the strangest day of his life--working with Potter, accepting his help even grudgingly. Being cursed had perhaps shown him his own vulnerability. Even now, several years after the Dark Lord had perished, there were followers of his who hated Snape enough to track him down, try to kill him. If not for Potter--

Snape cut off that line of thought forcibly. Potter had always been an over-eager puppy since learning of Snape's true role in the war. Snape had never encouraged him, and had, in fact snarled at him ever since he'd woken up in St. Mungo's with Potter slumped in a chair by his bed. It hadn't meant anything that it had been Potter who'd saved him--Potter tended to try to save everyone.

The subject of Snape's piteously maudlin reverie whooped in the kitchen. When he looked up to see what the fuss was about, he saw Potter dragging his own clothes down the hall to the loo.

"Your turn, Professor," Sabrina said, offering him the warm stack of his own clothing.

"You may, if you like, call me Severus," he said, taking the bundle.

Sabrina maneuvered into the chintz-covered armchair. "Harry calls you professor," she said.

Snape used one of the andirons to help get to his feet. "I haven't taught him--or anyone else--for a very long time."

"Have you ever told him he could call you by your first name?" she asked, rubbing a hand distractedly over her belly.

Clenching the clothes to his chest, he turned to stare at her. "Why would I?" He saw at once from the angle of her face that Potter had come back into the room behind him.

"It's all right," Potter said brightly, not even pretending he hadn't heard. Snape would have swooped past him had he his vaunted swooping powers at hand. He contented himself with hobbling past without meeting Potter's eyes.

Leaving the horrid bathrobe on a peg beside Potter's, Snape got into his own clothes--shirt and trousers at least--and left the loo door slightly ajar, limping slowly down the hall.

Their voices were low, but he could still make them out.

"I can't," Potter was saying. "I just--" He made a frustrated noise and Snape could just picture him running a hand through that perpetually untidy mop of his. "You see how he is."

"He doesn't even know, does he?" Sabrina said, her voice much quieter than Potter's.

"If he does, he pretends he doesn't," Potter said, sounding miserable.

There was a brief silence and Snape debated going back down the hall. Then, "No one could be that cruel," Sabrina said, so softly Snape nearly missed the words.

He had, however, no difficulty hearing Potter's reply. "You don't know Snape."

Snape hobbled back up the short distance to the loo and very deliberately closed the door loud enough for them to hear. As expected, Potter and Sabrina showed no hint of their conversation when he returned to the sitting room.

"Are you certain you don't mind the chair?" she was saying, in that over-bright manner of all people--Muggle or wizard--who've been talking about someone behind their back. "I could make up a place on the floor."

"Chair? What's this?" Snape demanded, whirling on Potter, regretting it at once as his leg crumpled.

Potter was there, grabbing his arm before he fell, guiding him over to the couch before replying. "I'm staying," Potter said, his voice firm.

"You have a home to go to, once you're far away enough to Apparate. You don't need to stay." Snape sank back on the couch trying not to look as grateful as he felt.

"I'm staying," Potter said again, in a tone Snape recognized. He'd heard it himself when Potter was arguing first with the doctors at St. Mungo's and again during the Ministry hearing that had cleared him. "Someone's got to keep the fire going and to keep you from checking on it a dozen times and maybe falling like you nearly just did."

Glaring, even though Snape recognized the truth, Snape looked at Sabrina as if for reason.

"I'll just get some pillows," she said cheerily.

"You're being ridiculous," Snape grumbled as Potter went to help Sabrina out of the chair.

"Suppose so," Potter said, not sounding regretful at all.

Snape managed to grumble some more while they made up the armchair, accepting the additional pillows and blankets for the couch, but he was certain neither of them was listening.

"Wake me up if you need anything," Sabrina said, still smiling as Potter brought in another load of wood.

"Cheers," Potter called out as if they were competing in a Disgustingly Pleasant contest.

Snape pulled the afghan up to his neck and ignored them both.

It had been a long, difficult day, with little rest the night before, but sleep only teased him, dueling with the low throb in his leg. During the day, when he'd been busy chopping and barking orders, he'd been able to ignore it. Now, with nothing to focus on, it hurt like the devil.

He looked up to make sure Potter was asleep in the armchair before pulling himself up as silently as possible. Sliding his legs over the couch, he glanced at Potter again, sprawled with the blankets bunched around his waist, glasses folded on the table beside the chair.

Dragging several blankets closer to the fire, Snape stretched out over them, leaning on a pillow as he stared into the flames. As before, the warmth felt good on his leg. He had no idea how long he laid there when he heard Potter's voice.

"Professor?"

"Go back to sleep," Snape said quietly.

"Time to stoke the fire, I reckon," Potter said behind him. Snape could hear him stretching as he pushed out of the chair. "Can't sleep?" he asked, squatting just at Snape's head with the iron poker.

"Achy," Snape admitted, hoping to hasten Potter back to his no-doubt back pain inducing bed.

Potter was on his feet again, hoisting a small log and adding it to the fire. "I know something really good for that," he said, poking the log until it met some arcane fire-building standard.

"So do I," Snape said, remembering there was really no good way to shut Potter up when he was on one of his 'saving people' binges. "Unfortunately being unable to use magic renders it inoperative."

"I know a way that doesn't involve magic," Potter went on. His voice had gone quiet and strange. "Let me help."

Snape tilted his head to see what Potter was going on about, but his features were lost in the shadows cast from the flames. "No need to fuss over me," Snape said, turning away reluctantly, sinking back into the pillow.

Potter sprang to his feet with an ease Snape envied. He tried to tell himself that he should count himself lucky that he had got rid of Potter so easily, until the afghan slid up his legs. "What--?" Snape began, unable to quite to jerk out of Potter's reach.

"You're hurting. I can help." Fingers moved over the soles of his feet. Unlike Potter he'd left his socks on when going to bed, only to have Potter start peeling them away.

"Potter, this isn't--" Snape began with a warning note in his voice.

"I know what it isn't," Potter said, sliding his palms along the underside of each foot. Thumbs pressed into his instep, making small circles. "But I don't mind what it is."

Potter followed this extraordinary statement by sliding his hands around Snape's ankles, cupping his heels. "Lay back, let me--" He was stroking each sole with the gentleness Snape had gotten glimpses of before yet wasn't certain he could trust when turned on himself. "Let me fuss just this once."

Snape felt hideously exposed, even though he was properly dressed--if one counted having a rumpled white shirt and torn trousers proper. But the ache in his leg had dulled with every careful stroke of Potter's fingers. Back and forth he rubbed and stroked, just to the bottom edge of Snape's bandage, then down, flickering over the tops of his feet, between his toes, back up around his ankles.

Slowly Snape shifted over onto his back, leveling out his legs, dropping one arm over his face, allowing…whatever this was.

Potter pressed his thumbs into the soles of Snape's feet, eliciting a moan. "Did I hurt you?" he asked, tensing and sliding his hands away.

"No," Snape replied, aware that even his denial sounded like a moan.

"Good," Potter said, his voice gone strange again. "Don't want to hurt you." Then something heated and wet touched the top of Snape's foot.

"Potter! What are you--ohhhh." Potter was kissing his foot, fluttering little kisses that barely had the right to that name save that Potter used his mouth and tongue on bare skin. If Snape had any actual erotic parts, his feet must surely be the least of them.

"Hush," Potter said, still caressing his ankles, sitting with his own legs outstretched, lifting Snape's good leg into his lap. Without giving any sort of warning he sucked one of Snape's toes into his mouth.

The feeling was so extraordinarily intimate without having any actual sex organs involved--well, actively involved--that Snape was rendered momentarily speechless.

"Do you want me to stop?" Potter said, releasing one toe and nuzzling the next promisingly.

"I--" Snape began and for one awful moment he thought his mouth was going to lurch ahead without him. "No." A shiver went through him that had no right to exist this close to the fire. He tried to peer up, to see if he could tell what Potter was thinking, but his features were lost in shadows, lit only occasionally by the twisting flames.

Potter chuckled softly and repeated the action with the next toe and the next, pressing his thumbs into the arch of Snape's instep as he sucked.

Shifting on the afghan, Potter gingerly lifted his other foot into his lap, being careful with the bandaged leg. "Is this all right?" he asked, rubbing his chin over the top part of one foot. Snape could feel the slight stubble along his chin. Somehow that felt even more intimate than having a part of his body--even his toe--inside Potter's mouth. Then Potter started licking him slowly--his ankle, the bottom of his leg, the tops of his toes and all Snape's ideas about intimacy shattered and reformed just on the tip of Potter's tongue.

"Too--oh god--to much," Snape moaned, not certain if he was begging for him to stop or to keep going and never stop.

"Are you sure?" Potter asked as if he'd learned Legilimency in just that moment.

"This isn't--" Snape began, raising himself up on the pillow and trying to scowl through the haze of arousal. "You're making love to me," he stated boldly, expecting Potter to flinch. Or flee.

"I know," Potter said instead. He leaned over, and for a moment his features came into sight. He did not look at all like he wanted to flee. "Will you let me?"

Snape wiggled uncomfortably, feeling vulnerable and exposed. "I haven't much choice," he grumbled turning his head away.

Abruptly his feet went cold. He realized Potter had shifted off them, springing to his own feet. "Yes, you do," he said, his voice gone bleak. "You always have a choice."

"Wait," Snape said, reaching out blindly. Potter was a mere dark shape against the brighter flames. Potter's hand found its way to his, clasping him as if Snape was crumpling against him again in pain.

Potter stepped over him, squatting near his chest, still keeping hold of Snape's hand. The fire behind him made his hair an untidy silhouette, his eyes the merest glints of green as the flames caught in his face. This close Snape had no trouble making out the familiar features, but Potter looked different tonight, unknown and a little unreal.

"We'll wake Miss McGill," Snape said. Potter grinned, the white of his teeth visible even in the shadows. And suddenly he was just Potter again, the boy he'd known, the young man who still thought of him as a hero and always seemed to be there when Snape needed him.

"That isn't what you're worried about," Potter said, voice slightly accusing. "You're afraid you'll enjoy it, maybe even too much."

"Certain of yourself, are you?" Snape rebutted, not addressing Potter's absurd assertions.

"I'm not certain of anything with you," Potter replied, letting his fingers slide out of Snape's hand. Before he could rejoice at having possession of his digits again, Potter was stretching out beside him, one foot rubbing against his own.

"You may not have wondered what it would be like between us," Potter said with that strange catch in his throat. He slid his fingers into the slight vee at the base of Snape's throat, followed it with his mouth, just brushing his lips over the suddenly vulnerable spot. "But I have," he said, voice muffled by Snape's shirt. "for a long time."

Snape felt a button slipping free then a breathless moment when he felt Potter waiting for him to refuse. When he didn't, Potter dragged his mouth into the scant revealed space, the tiny kisses growing longer and longer as Potter lingered over each centimeter of skin.

The pain in his leg was a distant echo, faint against the rising tide of pleasure. Potter unbuttoned each button of Snape's shirt with the concentration of an archaeologist uncovering fascinating artifacts. More of those fluttering kisses followed, no less arousing for being spread across his chest than his foot.

Wet heat surrounded his nipple when Potter pushed his shirt open. Snape wanted to snatch it closed until Potter lifted his own shirt over his head, tossing it behind Snape. Somehow having both their shirts off made him feel less exposed, even though Potter's skin glowed with health in the firelight while Snape's still looked pale. The long scratch from the cat still arced across his chest, and Snape realized Potter hadn't even left him long enough to heal it.

When he could resist no longer, Snape thrust his fingers into Potter's hair, hearing him groan from somewhere near his waist. Potter rubbed his cheek along Snape's belly and murmured something Snape couldn't make out. His hair was warm from the fire behind him.

One hand dragged along Snape's leg, before Potter wiggled down further, brushing the side of his face over the fronts of Snape's trousers. They both groaned.

"I wasn't sure," Potter said, a soft whisper that Snape caught in the silence. "Wasn't sure you'd want--"

"How could you not?" Snape said, his own voice thick with arousal.

"I get by a lot on cheek," Potter said, tilting his face up to look at him. He looked wild and fey in the firelight.

"I've noticed," Snape replied, fingers drifting down the back of Potter's neck. Potter shivered and rubbed his cheek again over the bulge of Snape's erection as if making certain one more time that it existed.

"I mean, I know I could be anyone doing this to you," Potter said, looking up again and there was something uncertain in his eyes for the first time.

"Potter," Snape said, as sternly as he could while keeping his voice low. "I've wondered too." He'd tried to pretend those heated looks Potter had been bestowing upon him were clumsy attempts at friendship. Was it merely a bare chest that had set Snape's imagination barreling down this path, or had it begun earlier, this heat that leaped between them? Probably, Snape realized, rubbing his thumb over the back of Potter's hand, earlier than he'd like to admit.

Potter wiggled up like a shot, mouth moving close to Snape's before he quite realized he was being kissed. His mouth was an invitation Snape hastened to accept, his own mouth not as soft as Potter's.

Potter did not seem to be comparing. One arm wrapped around Snape's neck, bringing their bodies together, chest to chest. Potter kissed him as though he'd forgotten how to breathe on his own and needed Snape to stay alive.

"I don't want to hurt you," he said, barely lifting his mouth from Snape's.

Snape frowned, about to retort that his emotional state did not need Potter looking after it.

"But I think we can manage this if we're careful and we use a lot of pillows."

Snape's mouth opened, but he had no retort for that. He knew Potter was watching him, face full of the cheek he was so used to seeing. The flickering shadows from the fire told a different story, bringing his features into sharp focus. There were traces of the boy he'd been when Snape first knew him, overlaid now with the man he'd worked so hard to become.

"No spells," Snape said quietly, in lieu of the no doubt hundreds of reasons why he should be discouraging whatever it was Potter had in mind.

"I know," the young man said, kissing him quickly before sitting up. He crossed the room and grabbed the pillows from his own makeshift bed as well as the ones on the couch. First he handed several to Snape to put around his head, then tucked the rest around the injured leg.

Then he was on his feet again, stacking another log on the fire. Sparks fluttered up the chimney, fireworks of light playing on his skin. He leaned over and kissed Snape quickly again. "Hang on." He crossed the sitting room again and disappeared down the hall. He was back quickly as if he suspected Snape might change his mind if left alone too long. There was a bottle of lotion in his hand, one Snape had seen in the bathroom earlier.

Potter set it to one side of the pillow, but remained standing, looking uncertain again. His hands went to the fastenings of his jeans and hesitated. Snape folded his arms behind his head and smirked.

"Fantasy not quite up to the reality?" he said, voice harsher than he'd intended. "Not quite as eager as you thought you'd be?" He should have known Potter was all cheek and promise.

Potter looked startled then dragged the zip down and stepped out of pants and trousers at once. His erection was clearly silhouetted against his body, pale and smooth against the fire's light.

"More eager than you know," he said, surprising Snape with the low growl in his voice. He sounded almost…possessive. "I just--" He dropped to Snape's side, stretching out carefully on the blankets to avoid his braced leg. "I don't want to mess this up," he said, closing off Snape's reply, had he the wit to have one, with a kiss as eager as his cock seemed to be.

He dragged more kisses down Snape's body, as if assuring his right to, hand sliding back to the waist of Snape's trousers. "Lift up for me," he urged, working trousers down carefully before coming back for the pants.

Snape had no time to be embarrassed about his body, no time to make excuses for the cock that seemed to be arching toward Potter's mouth. Warm wetness engulfed him, Potter making lusty noises that only encouraged the mindless organ.

"God, I could do this all night," Potter said, lifting his mouth only far off the wet head to speak. The tickle of breath made Snape shiver.

Snape couldn't hold back the low chuckle that went through him. "I suspect you may not be able to do it much longer if you keep on like that," he said. Potter's flush was visible even in the fire's glow.

"There's something I want more," he said with a slow swipe of his tongue that nearly brought Snape's hips off the blanket.

He was, however, unprepared when Potter got up on his knees and tipped the lotion out onto his own fingers. He lifted up and thrust the hand between his own outspread legs.

"Do you mean to--" Snape asked, his prick completing the question, jerking against his belly.

"Unless you tell me you only bottom or something," Potter answered, gasping as he worked a finger inside himself.

Snape shook his head once, eyes fastened on what Potter was doing and the way it made his prick bounce in eagerness. More lotion on Snape's own cock, followed by Potter who squatted over him, grasping Snape's cock as he shifted, seeking his balance. Heat began to spread from his cock as Potter nudged it inside his body.

"Oh fuck," Potter moaned, halting for a moment and panting before lowering himself further along Snape's length. "This is--" His eyes flew open as he pushed Snape in deeper, as if only just realizing he'd been speaking aloud.

Snape could hardly bear to blink, intent on watching Potter, who was so erotic in his purpose, pushing, shifting, then rocking slowly, moaning until he ran out of breath. Snape unfolded his arms from behind his head, reaching out, meaning to steady him. Potter twined their fingers together, leaning to kiss the back of Snape's hand as he lifted up over and over.

There was something almost mysterious in the fire-lit shadows of his face, some secret Snape could almost hear in the whisper of Potter's gasps.

Potter was breathing harder, reaching for his own cock at last. For the first time Snape felt shame wash through him. He'd allowed Potter to do everything to arouse him, to keep him aroused, to make love to him single-mindedly.

His own eyes were half-lidded as he reached for Potter's cock. The young face registered surprise, eyes widening with something Snape had no name for, something beyond lust.

"Oh god, touch me, please," Potter moaned, bucking into Snape's fingers as soon as they touched him. It flashed through his mind that Potter must be extraordinarily easy to please in bed if this simple, albeit delayed attention, brought him to such a frenzy that he was pushing himself into Snape's fingers so hard that there was barely any need to stroke him.

A shudder went through Potter's frame, his thrusts becoming more erratic and frantic. "You know I can't--oh fuck!" he wailed as his prick erupted over Snape's fingers. Potter didn't stop moving, even as pleasure transformed his features, silvery-white in the fire's glow.

"Please, please," he panted, in a chanting plea, shudders still jerking through him. Snape had no wish to resist. He arched up, burying himself deeply in Potter's arse. Heated pleasure thrummed through him, pulses mingling with the excited throb of his heart and the nearly muted throb of his leg.

Potter toppled over his chest but Snape was not in pain. His fingers found their way into the damp strands of the young man's hair, petting him like one of the barn cats. Finally Potter stirred, his breathing less like a mating basilisk's as he lifted his face to peer down at Snape. "Am I hurting you?" he asked anxiously.

Snape could barely feel the rent in his leg, the distant pain of it wrapped in a hazy cocoon of bliss. Such bliss never lasted, Snape knew all too well. "No," he said, shaking his head.

Still Potter looked sheepish as he shifted off Snape's cock and curled himself into Snape's side as if he'd always been doing it. "I'm not leaving you," he said, his words slow and sleepy, probably getting mixed up with their earlier conversation.

Once Snape's fingers had got used to the softness of Potter's hair they sought it again. He heard Potter sigh in the crook of his arm. He turned his head to gaze into the fire and leave his fingers to their mindless stroking unhindered. He realized all at once that he would find it difficult to let Potter go as well.

~~**~~

Snape snapped awake quickly, a habit from his days as a spy, wildly seeking clues to where he was. The warm body curled under the blanket with him brought the sitting room--and what he'd been doing on the floor of it--back with a rush of memory.

"Potter," he said urgently, shaking the young man awake.

"What?" Potter mumbled sleepily, poking his head up from where it had been tucked beneath Snape's arm. His hair looked even messier than usual, eyes unfocused without his glasses.

"The fire," Snape said, catching onto the first excuse he could think of. He pushed the blanket down, then found himself transfixed for a moment at the sight of their bodies nestled together.

Potter nodded with understanding, even if he wasn't quite awake yet and eased over far enough to be able to stand. Still naked, he dragged another log into the fireplace, adding more kindling as the flames swirled and caught. He grinned at Snape when their gazes met, stepping carefully over him and sliding back beneath the blanket.

Snape cleared his throat. "It must be nearly dawn," he said, as Potter's head went unerringly to his arm.

"Most likely," Potter said, stretching and wiggling closer.

"We should get dressed before Miss McGill discovers how we've abused her hospitality," Snape said stiffly, resisting the urge to attempt to straighten Potter's hair.

"Miss McGill already knows what naughty wizards we've been," Potter said, displaying some of the cheek he got by on. Snape gaped at him as he tugged the blanket up. "Where do you think this blanket came from?"

"Nevertheless--" Snape began only to have Potter cut him off.

"Nevertheless," he echoed, rubbing his lips over Snape's, "we still have a few hours before I have to see you to your couch and curl up on my chair and try to pretend none of this happened."

Was that how Potter's fantasy ended? Something bitter stabbed through him. He turned his face toward the fire.

"I'm sorry about your wand," Potter said. He hadn't moved away but was looking into the heart of the flames.

"There wasn't anything you could have done," Snape said without looking at him. Absently Snape's fingers rubbed together as if feeling the heft of his shattered wand against them.

"I could have got those bastards faster," Potter said with a young man's frustration in his voice. "I'm going to find out how they found you when we get back." He sounded very determined.

"Rathbone contacted me," Snape confessed. He felt Potter stiffen beside him. "Two days ago."

"He's on our wanted list," Potter said. "You should have contacted m--the Ministry."

Snape let out a deep sigh. There were things people who had never been on the other side of the war wouldn't understand. "He said he was tired of being chased. That he just wanted a fresh start some place else and Polyjuice to get him there. I didn't know he'd put a tracking spell on me." So much for his old instincts.

"You weren't going to help him?" Potter asked incredulously.

"Of course I was. Do you know how little it would have taken for our positions to have been reversed," Snape said unhappily.

"Rathbone isn't the one who risked his life to spy against the Dark Lord. Or to take a nearly fatal snake bite."

"It was fatal," Snape corrected him.

"Only until the Healers revived you. If we'd been too late--" He shook his head and slid his arm over Snape's waist. "Promise me you'll let me know if any former Death Eaters with grudges against you show up at your door," he said, very earnest.

Snape curled his lip, about to say that he'd done quite well on his own without needing a guardian when Potter kissed him hard.

"Wands can be replaced. Even bloody cursed legs can be replaced," Potter said, when he had breath to speak, "but I can't bear to lose you again."

Snape had no idea how to reply to this so he kissed Potter again, as thoroughly as he knew how.

"How's your leg?" Potter asked, looking slightly unfocused when they parted for air.

"Painful," Snape replied.

"I'd better go see," Potter said, disappearing beneath the blanket. But it was not his leg that came under Potter's less than medical scrutiny.

Snape writhed, finally throwing off the blanket while Potter sucked him. "I think I can manage this if we're careful and use a lot of pillows," he said, echoing Potter's original admonition.

Grinning around Snape's cock, Potter kissed the head of it and stretched his legs beside Snape's body. They were both a bit sticky but since Potter didn't seem to mind the taste of his own arse on Snape's cock, Snape supposed he could deal with a bit of semen on his.

It took a moment to get both their positions correct. There was, because of Snape's inability to move much, a noted lack of finesse. No finesse was needed , however, to bring Potter off, mouth wrapped around his cock as he wiggled in satisfaction just long enough to give Potter a chance to rebound. Snape could not remember the last time he had two orgasms in one night, let alone with someone else.

Potter dragged himself back into the curve of Snape's body, butting one arm until Snape lifted it. "I'll wake you in an hour," he murmured, nearly asleep already.

Since Snape had no intention of falling back asleep, he didn't move again until Potter shook him awake.

"Let's get you dressed," he said, his voice low and urgent. He was, Snape noted, dressed himself and the fire had been stoked before he'd woken Snape up. The sitting room had begun to lighten as Potter helped him into his trousers then onto the couch, exactly as promised. He even folded the afghan and tucked it on the end of the couch before Sabrina emerged. Snape noted that she called out before entering the sitting room.

Snape could not quite meet her eyes, ignoring her cheerful greeting. He hoisted himself off the couch and hobbled over to stir the potion.

"Not a morning person," Potter said in a low, teasing voice to her.

"Not even this morning?" she asked and Snape felt his cheeks grow hot. He ignored them both and stirred the potion again.

"It's all right," Potter said, pitching his voice even lower and taking her by the elbow into the kitchen.

Snape had to refrain from abusing his potion with vigorous stirring. Of course it was all right. Potter had got his fantasy night--ridiculous as the idea of harboring any fantasies about Snape was. How had he let Potter get to him like that?

Soon there were smells wafting out of the kitchen and Snape realized he'd been staring into the fire like some maudlin schoolgirl fire-calling her first crush. Without warning hands slid onto his shoulders.

"All right?" Potter said very close to his ear.

Snape bucked him away. "Get off," he sneered.

Potter jerked back as if cursed. "I--er, okay," he said. Snape turned to see him looking back toward the kitchen where Sabrina was staring at them in confusion. Potter was still holding his hands up as though Snape had just disarmed him.

"Breakfast is, um--" He looked beseechingly toward Sabrina. Her lips had thinned to a disapproving line, reminding Snape of Minerva at her starchiest. She caught his gaze and turned on her heel with the audible snap of dishtowels.

"I'm not hungry," Snape lied, refusing to apologize for his childishness.

Potter squatted beside him, knees on the hearth, still looking confused. "Severus, you should--"

"And I have not given you permission to call me by my given name," Snape snapped.

Potter leapt back to his feet. Snape watched his face go hard and tried to take pleasure in it. "You're going to eat something if I have to Incarcerous your arse and make you," he said, one hand rubbing the pocket where he kept his wand.

Snape narrowed his eyes but didn't challenge him any further. He climbed awkwardly to his feet, itching to refuse any help Potter offered and disappointed when he didn't offer any. Potter nodded tightly once Snape was upright and headed into the kitchen.

Breakfast was a cheerless affair, but, since it suited Snape's mood, he made no move to change it. Despite his threats Potter merely toyed with his own food. Snape found a glass of milk at his plate and ignored it.

Sabrina thrust a bucket into Potter's hand once she'd finished her own breakfast and sent him outside to collect eggs from the henhouse. Potter, looking like he'd rather face a bunch of rogue Death Eaters than chickens, obeyed without question.

She wheeled on him next and Snape braced for battle but she only pointed to the sink. "Wash," she ordered, draping her apron back over her bulging belly.

Snape rolled up his sleeves and likewise obeyed. They got nearly all the breakfast dishes done before she broke the silence. "Harry is only trying to please you," she said.

Snape didn't look up from the sink. "Potter pleases only himself."

"How can you say that when he's been mooning over you--"

Snape handed her a dripping plate. "This doesn't concern you."

"It does when it's in my house," she said, visibly trying to control her temper.

"We'll be out of it shortly," Snape said, plunging his hands into the now lukewarm water.

The dishtowel hit the counter. "How can you be so…so cruel when you know he…he cares about you?"

"All Potter cares about is acting out some belated adolescent fantasy," Snape returned, pivoting as best he could to look at her.

"I've known him less than thirty-six hours," she said adamantly, "and I know him better than that."

"Enough!"

Potter's whip-crack voice turned both their heads. He stood in the doorway looking as pale as the eggs in the bucket. He strode into the room, hoisting the bucket onto the counter. "Sabrina, it's all right," he said, "he's made up his mind." The glance Potter spared him was bleak. "He made it up about me a long time ago."

He waited until she nodded before turning to Snape. "How soon until the potion is ready?" There was no trace of the gentle lover he had been last night in his face now.

Snape dried his hands and rolled down his sleeves. "I can try it now." He held up one hand when Potter started to protest. "No need to linger, Potter, I'm sure I can manage on my own."

"Don't be daft, professor," he said. "I'll have to be here in case something goes wrong."

Snape knew better than to begin an argument he knew he had no hope of winning. "Suit yourself," he said, brushing past them both.

Of course his wretched body chose that moment to remind him of his injury. Without warning, pain shot up his leg. He flailed wildly for something to hold onto, but it seemed the only solid thing in the world was Potter.

Why was it always Potter?

"You stubborn git," Potter said, arms going around Snape. Pain robbed him of the focus to even think about pulling away. He sagged instead onto Potter's shoulders. By the time he got his breath, Potter was holding him tightly. "Let's get you to the couch," he said with gentleness Snape felt nearly ashamed of deserving.

"I can--"

"No arguing," Potter said. Snape remembered the promised Incarcerous and allowed himself to be half-dragged over to the couch. Despite two pairs of anxious eyes on him, he sank onto it gratefully.

"It's time," he said, reaching for the bandage. Despite the silver, the curse was starting to spread. As he unwrapped the bandage, he heard Sabrina gasp. The wound was bad, even by wizard standards. Ooze had nearly covered the silver necklace, which still lay nestled over the worst of the gash. There were several new groups of mushrooms as well as angry black bumps running the length of his wound looking like they were ready to burst forth. Worse, there were bumps several inches away from the wound.

"It's spreading, isn't it?" Potter said. He'd squatted beside the couch, peering down at his leg.

Snape nodded, rubbing his finger over the top link in the necklace. "I'll need you to transform this into a cup, just a simple one; you won't have time to get fancy." Potter nodded. Snape met his gaze and saw the strength in it he'd always known was there but had always chosen to disparage. "As soon as I take out the necklace, go as far away from me as you can and transform it." He didn't tell him to hurry. Potter already knew how bad it was.

"Yes, sir," Potter said, straightening, at the ready when Snape started tugging on the heavy silver links. Every nerve ending screamed against the motion as he drew it out link by heavy link. Snape was horrified to hear a moan from his own lips as the last link cleared his skin. Burning pain flickered over his nerves.

"Go," he commanded Potter, voice hoarse as if he'd been screaming.

"Hold his hand," Potter instructed Sabrina, wrapping the necklace in her apron and bolting for the door.

"I don't need--" Snape began, cut off by another moan. Sabrina's hand grabbed his and held on tightly. Snape knew the exact instant Potter transformed into a stag to get more distance quickly. They both knew that the Animagus transformation required less magical power than Apparition but it still sent ripples searing into his flesh.

"Here, breathe," Sabrina said, squeezing his fingers. She'd taken Potter's place by the couch.

"Not going…to make it," he gasped, shaking with the dagger-like pain every time one of the angry black lumps erupted into clusters of sickly mushrooms.

"Of course you are," Sabrina admonished, squeezing his fingers tighter. "Harry will never forgive you if you die."

"Even he can't--oh fuck--save me twice," Snape said, his grimace mutating into a rictus of pain.

"Breathe with me," she said, not letting go of his hand. "Short little breaths like this." She demonstrated. Snape's head was now throbbing with the overload of sensations. "Come on, it helps," she urged, "I learned it in my Lamaze class."

Snape was willing to try anything, panting without urging anyway, until light exploded behind his eyes. "Potter…the cup," he told her, yanking on her hand, "he's coming." He felt himself slumping back into the pillows. "Coming…"

"Of course he's coming," she said with a certainty that cut through the fog in Snape's brain.

Of course Potter would come. He always did.

The door flew open and Potter sprinted in, sweaty and panting, a shining silver cup in his hand.

"Potion--" Snape directed, trying to motion toward it with the hand not gripped in Sabrina's. Potter was already bending over the pot, ladling potion into the cup, using the balled up apron as he handed it over to Snape.

"Careful, it's hot," Potter cautioned but Snape thought he'd rather die from scalded insides rather than the unrelenting pain crawling up his leg.

The stuff was foul smelling and lumpy, still pulsing slightly, but the moment it hit Snape's tongue he knew the taste would not be the worst part. Without warning his leg began erupting, each angry black lump spouting dozens of tiny mushrooms, spreading over his leg too fast for the eye to follow.

Someone, probably Sabrina, made a sick noise, but kept hold of his hand. Snape's leg seethed with mushrooms and felt about three times its size. He wanted to scream but kept drinking the potion until there was only a gray film in the bottom of the silver cup. Potter's hand found its way into his, slipping the empty cup out of his fingers.

Slowly the mushrooms started withering and evaporating, the ones closest to the edge of the wound first. Other clumps started fluming up in pulse after pulse of dry spores. The wound itself pulsed, first black then dark blue, lightening to silver until the sides of the jagged edge seemed to creak toward each other and seal.

The pain was easing but Snape was at his last reserves of strength, held upright by two firm grips on his hands. He felt himself sway and despite his determination to see the wound closed, his eyelids fluttered. Blackness and relief closed in. The last thing he heard, as if from very far away, was Potter's shout of concern.

~~**~~

Snape woke to the low murmur of voices. His body felt warm and heavy as sleep slipped away. Lying still, he concentrated a moment on his leg, flexing it surreptitiously under the afghan. It felt normal. The potion had worked.

Of course it had worked.

"--don't know what's worse," Snape heard Potter say, "to think you can never have something, never have happiness--"

He was speaking softly, probably perched next to the fireplace.

"Or to think you finally do have it and find it's been snatched away."

Why was Potter blathering about happiness? Why on earth did Snape even care about the dratted boy's happiness?

"He'll come round," Sabrina said from the direction of the chintz armchair.

Potter sighed expressively, sounding gloomy. "You don't know him like I do."

Snape took a deep breath and stirred, as if just arising from sleep, realizing he'd been bracing for pain that didn't come.

"Professor?" Potter was by his side in an instant.

Snape pushed himself up. "I don't believe it's appropriate for you to call me 'professor'," he said, enjoying, for old time's sake, the look of confusion on Potter's transparent features.

Even though Sabrina was watching, he reached out for Potter's hand and gave it a squeeze. "Severus will do." Potter looked down at his own hand as if he expected it to sprout mushrooms.

"You forgive me?" he asked, sounding rather stupid and Snape nearly reevaluated his decision.

"What have you done now?" Snape asked, pulling himself higher on the pillows.

"I don't know," Potter admitted. He looked sheepish for a moment. "But I must have done something. If I promise not to do it again, will you let me Apparate you home?"

Snape met his gaze for a long moment before answering. "I may have, under the duress of pain, misinterpreted your intentions."

The hope blooming in Potter's face was almost comical. He draped his hand over his heart. "Strictly honorable, I swear."

Snape nodded in satisfaction. "We should test the potion's effectiveness." Instantly Potter was all worry again.

"You looked healed!" he said, shifting down to the other end of the couch and dragging the afghan off Snape's leg. Snape was relieved to see his perfectly ordinary, mushroom-free leg emerge.

"As we are both aware," Snape said, shivering slightly at the unintentional brush of fingers over his bare leg, "appearances can be deceiving."

"How do we test it?"

"Perform a spell."

"Oh, are you going to do magic?" Sabrina said. She'd risen from the armchair while Snape had been debating the relative levels of forgiveness. "I want to see."

Harry pulled out his wand, running it down the frayed rent of Snape's trousers. "Reparo." The edges leaped together and knitted, leaving no trace of the rip.

Sabrina made a startled noise and rubbed her stomach. "The little tyke liked that," she told them with a grin.

"Maybe he's a wizard," Potter said, as if being a wizard was much better than being just a regular baby.

"But neither Ian or I is," she said, looking at him oddly.

Potter, no doubt used to being looked at oddly, shrugged. "Doesn't matter. One of my best friends has two Muggle parents." He grinned broadly. "Dentists." He held his wand closer to her protruding belly. "Lumos." The wand lit up and Sabrina's eyes went very round.

"Oh, he really likes that one," she said, still rubbing her stomach.

Potter laughed in delight and for a brief moment Snape wondered if the young man ever regretted not taking the easy path of his life. He could have had the Weasley girl, or any witch for that matter. There could have been children if he'd followed the hero's path, not wandered off it in search of Snape.

There'd been times when Snape had been recuperating in St. Mungo's from what should have been a fatal snakebite save for Potter's intervention, when Snape had heard scraps of heated arguments in the halls outside his room.

Potter had never seemed to begrudge the time he'd spent at Snape's side, nor the time it had taken to clear his name. Snape had never, until now, wondered what Potter had given up.

Potter must have begun his farewells for Sabrina said, "I won't tell anyone about you." She rolled her eyes. "Ian wouldn't believe me anyway."

"He may have to believe it in about eleven years," Potter said, with as much pride as if he'd done the deed himself. He looked around for something and spotted it--the silver cup. After a quick cleaning spell, he picked it up.

"I can change this back for you," he told Sabrina, holding it toward her. "Or I can make it into a rattle." He tapped his wand and transformed it. He shook it several times over Sabrina's belly and squinted at it. "Or a bell." The silver bell gave a pleasant tinkle but Potter still didn't look satisfied.

"Oh wait, I know," he said, brightening. "My friend Hermione taught me this one." He tapped the bell with his wand. "Affectionata." The bell shifted and enlarged, squaring off. It looked like a flat silver box to Snape.

"It's a frame," he explained. "It will show you anyone you care about." He looked down at it and flushed at what he saw. Darting a glance at Snape he handed the frame to Sabrina.

"What do I--oh!" She seemed mesmerized by what had appeared inside the frame. "It's Ian!" Potter looked over her shoulder.

"And you can make it change just by--" Potter grinned broadly. "See, you've got the hang of it already."

She handed it over with a sly look that Snape could not interpret until Potter held it out for him to see.

"It's us," he said, showing it to Snape. It was, unfortunately, himself draped over a stag's back like a sack of coal. As he watched the picture shifted and he realized only Potter's fingers were touching the silver. Now the frame held an image of Snape as he must have looked last night gazing into the fire.

"Try it," Sabrina said quietly. Snape saw through this rather obvious ploy but took the frame.

The picture within shifted again. It took Snape a moment to identify the scene. He had no trouble identifying the scene's occupant for it was undoubtedly Potter. The angle was odd. Snape shifted his head until realized he must be looking up at the young man from his hospital bed. Potter was slumped over a chair, his face unshaven, asleep by Snape's bed in St. Mungo's.

It took Potter nearly as long to place it but when he did the happiness radiating from his face was palpable.

Sabrina was leaning over and said, "See, I told you he'd come round."

"I think he came round long before I thought he did," Potter said, passing the frame back. Snape realized Potter wanted to kiss him sooner rather than later. Since Snape was not at all averse to the idea, he commenced their farewells.

Potter gave Sabrina an exuberant hug, deftly maneuvering around her belly. When it was Snape's turn, she did not seem to expect the same, but took his hand and squeezed it.

"I can't thank you enough," he said.

"Be good to him. That's all the thanks I need," she replied.

He didn't bother pointing out that one couldn't help being good to Potter since he never went away long enough to be missed. Finally though all their farewells were spoken and Potter turned to him.

"Diagon Alley--to get a new wand first?"

Snape nodded, already anticipating what was second. Snape turned toward the door and realized Potter wasn't with him. He'd bounced back to say something to Sabrina that made her giggle, then nod. A quick kiss on the cheek and he was back at Snape's side.

Once they were outside Snape asked, "What did you say to her?"

"I told her not to check the frame for us for a few hours," Potter said, taking his arm proprietarily.

"Or days," Snape added.

Potter, Snape thought, as he heard Potter laugh as Apparition took them both away. Of course it had always been Potter.

Notes:

Written for Snarry Games 2008, grateful beta reading by Cruisedirector and Reddwarfer. Cheerfully not Canon Compliant.