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Potter snored.
This was something Severus should have been made aware of before letting himself fall into this… casual liaison? Accidental tryst? He struggled for the right words to describe this new situation between himself and Potter, to convey both the secret, sexual nature of their entanglement and the messy, impulsive actions that had brought it to life.
Potter snored on beside him, making it very hard to think on anything but the long, loud snorts coming out of the man.
Severus stared at the canopy, making out only the vaguest impression of fabric and wood in the near-darkness, and considered his options. Spend a sleepless night here, snug and warm underneath Potter's duvet, deafened by Potter's night symphony, or go through the trouble of getting dressed in the dark and spend a restless night in his cold bed down in the dungeons.
No, best to leave under the cover of night. No colleagues to whisper even more rumors behind his back, no students to gawk at greasy old bat Professor Snape creeping out of Professor Potter’s rooms early in the morning.
Professional integrity aside, Potter was… Potter, and Severus had yet allowed himself to begin making sense of their… unexpected dalliances? This was too new, too… peculiar to expose to public scrutiny, too overwhelming for private contemplation.
And if Potter felt a tenth of the irritation and bitterness Severus had felt four nights before, after Potter disappeared into the night after their second assignation without a word of goodbye, then small price to pay for a cold, lonely bed. Severus might have tumbled face-first into this… unplanned affair, but he had still exposed himself. His heart was still left raw, sensitive, and aching for some sort of lingering warmth to reassure it.
Potter snorted hard and jerked awake before rubbing his face into his pillow. "Wha' waz tha…" he mumbled out of the corner of his mouth.
"What?" Severus whispered back.
"That noise…"
Severus's jaw dropped, his thoughts racing and tripping over themselves. How… Was there a way to explain to his… unintentional fuckbuddy that the only sounds that could have possibly woken him were his own dragon-grade snores? Without, and this was key, enraging said fuckbuddy and unraveling this still very new arrangement.
Could it even be called an arrangement when all three of their sexual encounters had been, more or less, unplanned?
"Severus," Potter said, his voice soft and sleep-warm, making Severus's name sound like the last, wispy touches of a dream. The very faint light marked only the edge of his cheek, the tip of his nose, the corner of his mouth as he gave Severus a lazy smile.
The hairs on Harry's leg brushed against Severus's. "Harry," he rumbled back.
Harry's breathing evened out as sleep settled back over him. A bit of a snort escaped his lips.
A sigh escaped Severus's. He considered his options again as he watched the hidden, shadowed shapes of Harry's face slowly reveal themselves in the near dark.