In the Red

by Dinkel

Summary:

Severus was happy that he survived the war, he really was. Mostly because that meant no more life and death situations, no more looking over his shoulder and waiting for the other shoe to drop, no more Harry Potter. Of course that was before Potter invited himself for tea...

Notes:

Disclaimer: All the characters, places, spells, potions, creatures and objects you recognize from the Harry Potter universe are the intellectual property of J.K. Rowling. I mean no offence to her or to anyone else. I make no money with this.

Author's Note: This is a challenge to myself more than anything else and I'm not quite sure yet what to think of it. I set out to fulfill three requirements: 1. no shifting perspectives because I have a tendency to jump erratically from one person to the next; 2. no temper tantrums because "my" Harry often loses his temper, pouts, sulks, shouts, cries and usually gets his way; 3. a Severus/Harry pairing because I always said I'd never write that and the one time I tried it misfired completely.

Warning: This is an experiment, so scale down your expectations and enjoy!

Chapter 1: Step One

 Step 1

"I have been in love, and in debt, and in drink, this many and many a year."
-Alexander Brome-

As the room spun in lazy circles around him, Severus Snape concluded that quite possibly he was drunk. But it was a pleasurable sort of drunkenness with the sharp-edged reality of his life becoming fuzzy and the flickering flames of his fireplace producing a quite impressive myriad of colours. Even his memories, painful as razor-blades when he was enjoying the dubitable merits of sobriety, were dimmed and too fragmented to do any harm.

The war was over, and he, Severus Tobias Snape, was for all intents and purposes still alive. He was almost certain that sooner rather than later the ugly downside to his fate would be revealed, but he was drunk, for the first time since he had been a teenager, and he was content not to overanalyse this unexpected stroke of luck. He was alive. He was a hero, Order of Merlin, first-class and all. His life was perfect.

His thoughts were swirling, puzzles that he had been agonizing over for years suddenly solving themselves, connections appearing where previously there had been only dots and everything becoming crystal clear.

He should definitely get drunk more often, now that he didn't run the risk anymore of the Dark Lord ransacking his mind. Dumbledore must have been drunk quite often – that man had been a genius. Rest in peace, yada, yada, yada. A scowl appeared on his face, but the expression seemed to require an unnatural amount of concentration so he let it slip again. He would miss the old coot, but Merlin, would it be nice to have some quiet after all this. What was this again? They were celebrating something, weren't they? Something important...