Work Text:
Powdered moonstone, five drams exactly. Simmer to melting point, add shredded nettles, raise heat until mixture turns a faint amethyst, stirring counterclockwise all the while. Add—
The door to the laboratory opened and slammed closed with such force that Severus very nearly dropped the whole jar of lemur bile into his cauldron. It was testament to his manual dexterity that he managed to avert the disaster by tipping it down the front of his robes, instead.
“Oh God, Sir, you have got to help me.”
Potter. But of course—who else had the temerity to disrupt Severus’s life wherever he went? Less than six months left of the brat’s schooling, and Severus couldn’t wait to be rid of him. He cast a baleful glare across the room, at messy black hair in wild disarray, wide eyes and cheeks flushed with exertion, at Potter’s chest, heaving as though...
“Do I, now,” he said, and slammed the jar of bile down on the countertop. “How remarkable. I was under the impression that the Sole Saviour of the Wizarding World was beyond requiring help of any kind. Surely in his exalted state as the Dark Lord Destroyer—”
“Oh for crying out—Snape—”
“Professor Snape.”
“—Professor Snape, Sir, this really isn’t the time, okay? You can go back to being bitter about not getting any recognition as soon as you’ve helped me fix this... this...”
“This...?”
“Oh God.” Burying his face in both hands, Potter slid down the door into a rather pitiful heap on the floor. “Something’s gone terribly wrong.”
For the first time, Severus felt a frisson of fear. “This had better be good,” he said, extinguishing the flame under his cauldron with a flick of his wand as he crossed the room. He sunk to his knees before the boy. “Well? Has the Dark Lord returned?”
A weak shake of the head.
“What then? An accident on the Quidditch pitch? In the greenhouses? Have the ghosts decided to stage a revolt? Potter—” he grabbed the boy by the arms and shook him— “you have got to give me something to work with, here!”
“I know,” Potter mumbled, scrubbing at his eyes. “Sorry Sir. I just—wish I could unsee what I’ve seen. Everytime I close my eyes—”
“Perhaps you ought to be looking at me instead, then, hmm?” Severus said, and promptly tore Potter’s hands away from his face. “There. Better?”
“Uhm. Yes, much. Thanks.”
“Liar.” Severus sighed. “Never mind, I don’t have time for your ceaseless dramatics. What happened? From the beginning.”
“Uhm,” Potter said again, flushing scarlet. “So I guess it started when I was taking a bath in the Prefect’s bathroom.”
Severus swallowed and deliberated whether it would be wiser to drop Potter’s hands. No, far too suspicious. “A remarkable feat, seeing how you are not a Prefect.”
“It’s not my fault that they haven’t bothered to change the password since Fourth Year! Anyway, so I was... minding my own business, when in comes Moaning Myrtle. Which isn’t all that unusual, but normally she just flirts a little and it’s uncomfortable, right, but—look, I really can’t tell you this with you staring at me like that.”
On second thought, dropping Potter’s hands seemed entirely advisable. As did getting out of this conversation altogether. “I am not convinced you need to tell me this at all, Potter,” Severus said, rising to his feet. “I believe I have heard enough, and frankly amourous ghosts are somewhat beyond the reach of my—”
“But I do, because that was just... just the beginning! So she started doing... things to herself which I can never, never unsee—” the shudder running through Potter’s body was echoed in Severus’s own— “and I hightailed it out of there, for obvious reasons, except it wasn’t any better in the hallways, because something’s gone terribly wrong, and suddenly everyone in this school is obsessed with sex!”
A pregnant silence fell over the room.
“Everyone but me, obviously,” Potter said. “And you. Er. You aren’t, are you? I mean, suddenly possessed by unusual urges to—”
“I—of course not!”
“Oh, good,” Potter said, with such evident relief that a part of Severus instantly flooded with bitter disappointment. He shoved it resolutely back behind the Occlumency walls he’d designed for that very purpose and took a deep breath. And another.
How truly ironic that whatever urges he felt were far from unusual, so commonplace that they seamlessly wove into his everyday existence. What a grotesque joke at his exp—
“Very funny, Potter,” he snarled, cursing himself a billion times a fool for not making the connection sooner, even as he dragged Potter to his feet by his robes. “Tell me, which one of your precious Gryffindor friends dared you to do this? Weasley? Certainly not Granger; she has enough sense to see the impropriety of a prank of this nature far outweighs—”
“You honestly think this is a joke? I swear to you, it’s not—go out there and see for yourself, if you don’t believe me! They’re all snogging in the corridors, like, like bunnies in summer, or something!”
“You mean I shall witness normal teenage behaviour,” Severus said. “And besides, the rabbit’s mating season spans spring, summer and autumn.”
“Right. I don’t even want to know why you know that, but putting that aside—it’s not just the students. I saw McGonagall snogging Dean! How normal is that, then, on a scale of one to ‘I want to bleach my brain clean’?”
“I...” Severus said. “Very well. Show me evidence of this mysterious affliction which has befallen the entire population of Hogwarts, and I shall believe you.” He sketched a mock bow towards the door. “After you.”
“Uhm,” Potter said.
“Yes?”
“I was... rather hoping I could stay here? Think I’ve just about seen enough for one day.”
Severus eyes narrowed. “And leave you alone in my laboratory? I think not.” He grasped Potter’s arm, a touch more gently this time. “If you are attempting to convince me that this is neither a prank nor a cover to try and break into my private stores—I still haven’t forgotten about that Boomslang skin, coincidentally—you are failing rather spectacularly.”
“Fine,” Potter said. “But if I’m coming, can I at least stay behind you?”
And so it was that Severus strode through the door with one scrawny Gryffindor attached to his elbow like a limpet. “I am not a human shield, Potter,” he said, glancing around the corridor. “Nor do I believe that you require one—everything seems calm.”
“You’ll see,” Potter whispered. “And then you’ll wish that you hadn’t, trust me.”
“I have seen far worse things in my life than—Potter, are you tiptoeing?”
“Yes,” Potter whispered again, a fervent exhalation of breath so close to Severus’s ear that he turned instinctively towards it, catching himself only mid-turn to glare at the brat instead. “What about it?”
Severus stared into Potter’s green eyes, and wondered what Minerva might do to him if she caught the two of them standing thus. “You are deranged,” he bit out, and promptly lengthened his strides. “There is nobody here. Nothing to suggest that—”
“There!” Potter’s fingers tightened convulsively on Severus’s arm, forcing him to a stop. “See?”
Severus did. Five, perhaps six paces ahead, white-blond hair and black entwined in a frantic dance contained by a shady alcove. Even so, the flick of pale fingers up a paler thigh could not be denied; the torn green and silver tie on the flagstones bore witness to its hasty removal.
Severus momentarily closed his eyes, pinched the bridge of his nose, turned towards Potter... and sneered. “How utterly shocking. Why, it is a veritable orgy, a helpless hedonism heretofore unimagined by mankind—Potter, you do realise that established couples in this school at times get somewhat carried away in their first flushes of romance?”
“I...”
Raising his voice, Severus stepped closer. “Mr Malfoy, Miss Parkinson—”
“Shhh!” Potter hissed, fingers turning to claws. “For God’s sake, don’t draw their attention to—”
But Draco and Pansy had already broken apart, glazed eyes turning towards them from the dark.
Severus tore loose from Potter’s grasp and straightened. “I am thoroughly disappointed in this disgusting display which should be beneath either of you. What have you got to say for yourself? —Potter, will you cease clinging to my robes! Well, Draco?”
“Potter,” Draco echoed, and his eyes suddenly gained a sharp focus. He stumbled to his feet, open shirt gaping to reveal lipstick marks across his torso. “Why are you hiding behind Snape? You know you don’t have to hide, not with me—oh, I thought I’d lost you forever!”
“Excuse me?” Severus said.
But Draco didn’t appear to hear him. “Roses are red, violets are blue,”—he moved closer—“my whole family disapproves, but I know I love you!”
“Mr Mal—”
“Gryffindor’s red, Slytherin’s green, just like your eyes, the most beauteous I’ve ever seen!”
“Get out of the way Draco,” Pansy cut in, elbowing Draco to the side. “We both know Potter’s mine.” Tossing her hair, she thrust her chest out—Severus thanked the deities that she was at least still wearing her bra and— “Move, Snape. You can’t have him, he’s mine!”
“I hardly think...”
“Oh God, Snape, do something!”
Contrary to Severus’s earlier assertion, he did turn out to make a decent human shield. In the dizzying dance that followed he couldn’t tell how much was his doing and how much Potter’s swift ducking. But as they stumbled backwards through the corridor, Draco’s and Pansy’s grabbing motions became increasingly desperate and when a sharp slash of fingernails cut into his cheek (“You bastard, he’s mine!”) he saw only one way out.
“Petrificus Totalus!”
“Oh, thank fuck,” Potter breathed, still clinging to the back of Severus’s robes. “What? I told you people had gone completely bonkers!”
“Hmm.” Severus’s eyes flicked down to the two stiff-frozen figures, their hands still outstretched as though in supplication, then back to Potter, his mind whirling through possibilities. “A sample size of two does not equate to sound data.”
“You’re kidding, right? Did you not see how they—and then they—and the poetry! When was the last time you heard Malfoy rhyme anything, let alone something as atrocious as that? That’s it, I can’t—I’m going back to your lab.”
“Oh no, you’re not,” Severus said, immobilising Potter’s arm in a grip made of iron. “You’re coming with me.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m testing a theory.”
And he dragged Potter—against all his protests and struggles—down the corridor and up the stairs, towards the Great Hall.
If Draco and Pansy had been in a clinch, then the most hallowed of Hogwart’s rooms was a sprawling disaster, a cacophony of wet, smacking sounds, a snow-blinding glare of too much winter-white skin. Severus steeled himself against the sight of Minerva—no longer kissing Dean Thomas, but wrapped inside Hagrid’s arms instead—held tight to a squirming, wriggling Potter, and cleared his throat.
“Hello everyone,” his voice carried easily in the cavern of the room. “Look who I’ve brought you. Your favourite saviour, free for all!”
The reaction was immediate, as though people had been waiting like coiled snakes, ready to strike. Even prepared as he was, Severus narrowly avoided the stampede of teachers and students alike as he pulled Potter away. They surged towards them like a wave, breaking against the door of the small broom cupboard he pulled Potter into; in the darkness he felt Potter’s heart race a wild gallop against his chest.
“Are you mad?” he gasped.
Severus finished reinforcing the door with every locking and privacy spell known to him and sent a small globe of light dancing up in the air. “Is there anything you would like to tell me?”
“I—what? Yes, that you’ve gone and lost it! What the hell did you do that for?”
“Why on earth would you withhold crucial information from me, Potter, if you presume to ask for my help?”
“I... I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Really now,” Severus said, and leaned closer, propping one arm against the wall above Potter’s head. “Remarkable, is it not, how they all shot for you as though you had a bullseye tattooed on your forehead.”
Potter swallowed.
“Almost as if their obsession with sex,”—he stretched the shape of the word into an elongated hiss—“is secondary to their infatuation with you.”
“I...”
“What did you do?”
“I didn’t— I swear I didn’t—”
“Liar. How else could it be that you are the only one who remains unaffected? Well. The only one except for me. That, too, is rather remarkable, wouldn’t you say?” He tilted his head, gazing down at Potter, lips curving in a half-smile. “Perhaps the most remarkable thing of all, and, I have no doubt, the one which confuses you most of all, given your original intent.”
“This wasn’t supposed to happen! I wasn’t even going to— I only wanted to—”
“Which spell did you use, Potter?”
“Sleeping Beauty, all right? But it’s not meant to induce anything in anyone; it’s completely harmless! I double-checked and...”
“What was your intention in using it?”
“Oh God, are you actually going to make me say it? Haven’t I humiliated myself enough? It’s obvious that it hasn’t worked on a whole bunch of levels, it was a completely stupid idea. I should have known that you would never—”
Severus swallowed the rest of Potter’s words with his lips. Another theory tested and confirmed in the span of a sigh as Potter startled beneath his mouth and then gave, flowing like silk towards Severus, opening up. Yes, Potter’s lips were just as soft as they looked, his mouth just as warm and wet as Severus had wondered at, in all those stolen moments when he ought not to have wondered at all. He kissed with the same brash honesty that had cut a path into Severus’s life just as surely as the mark burned once burned into his forearm, now faded to ashes: all impatient tongue and teeth and reaching hands which pulled them even closer in the tight confines of the cupboard. It was tempting, so tempting to follow his lead, to let Potter steamroll his concerns away as so often, in the face of his good intentions. Severus had only ever meant for this to be a brief kiss, a confirmation and hopefully cure, nothing like the wet-mouthed tangle of limbs winding ever closer, nothing like the sinful grinding of their bodies—
He withdrew with a sigh, though his eyes still stuck to Potter’s, green devoured by the black of arousal.
“Oh,” Potter said, and cleared his throat. “Uhm. Not that that wasn’t very nice—”
Severus raised an eyebrow, allowing his hips to pointedly surge against Potter just once before he stepped back.
“—fine, nice isn’t the word, but you know what I mean. Anyway, I still don’t get what went wrong.”
“Idiot,” Severus said, and trailed his thumb across Potter’s bottom lip. “You do recall the conversation we had with the Headmaster after you vanquished the Dark Lord? About how the power you siphoned off him was bound to alter your magic for the remainder of your life? About how it would affect any spell you cast from that point onwards?”
Potter nipped at his thumb, sharp sting of teeth soothed by a flick of tongue. Severus promptly withdrew it. “Of course I do,” Potter said. “Like I don’t remember accidentally levitating the top off of Gryffindor Tower. But first of all I’ve got it under control by now—”
“For a given definition of ‘control’.”
“—ha ha. And secondly, that’s not what the spell is supposed to do! It’s meant to bring out an existing attraction in someone, not have everyone else go... nuts.” He cast a glance at the door and squirmed. “What the hell are we going to do about that? I feel really guilty.”
“Just as guilty as you felt about putting me under a love spell?”
“It’s not a love spell!”
“Indeed, it is not. But the trouble with heart-magic, Potter, is that it feeds off emotions, not reason. Therefore, if you felt guilty whilst casting the spell—perhaps in the full awareness that I would never tolerate a relationship with you whilst you’re a student?—it makes perfect sense that it would lead to... magical overspill and affect everyone but me.”
Potter bit his lip.
“As for how to fix it, I believe we already have done so.”
He opened the door. Just as expected, the hallway in front of it was silent—except for the rhythmic snores of a handful of people.
“Oh,” Potter said again. “I guess I hadn’t really considered why it was called ‘Sleeping Beauty’.” He stared at the sleeping masses. “So you only kissed me...”
“To cancel the effect of the spell, naturally.”
“Right,” Potter said. “And you kissed me for that long because...?”
“Shut up, Potter,” Severus said, and straightened his rumpled robes. “I strongly suspect that none of them will remember this when they wake up, but I also suspect that they won’t stay asleep for very much longer. If you would prefer to avoid a thoroughly awkward explanation repeated a couple of hundred times over, I suggest you make use of those magical reserves of yours by fixing everyone’s clothes and moving them to a more sensible location.”
“Oh, fine,” Potter said and with a wave of his hand, the hallway was empty once more. He frowned. “I really hate doing that, you know.”
Severus stared down at him and fought the urge to kiss him again, to never let him go. “Yes,” he murmured. “I’m aware.”
For a long moment, they stood in silence.
“You also realise that it’s completely nonsensical for you not to date me just because you’re my teacher, right? I mean, all that stuff about power differentials hardly applies when I could just click my fingers and...”
“But you wouldn’t,” Severus said. “Not even subconsciously, as today’s disaster has proven beyond a doubt.”
Potter sighed.
“It’s a matter of principle.”
“Okay,” Potter said. “Bloody useless principle, if you ask me, but if that’s how it is then I’m going to respect that.”
Severus didn’t thank him; he’d never quite seen the sense in verbal declarations of gratitude. He did, however, brush the back of his fingers over Potters, just faintly, the briefest of touch. When he gazed down, Potter did not look as disappointed as he’d feared but hopeful, eyes lit up a brilliant green in the light.
Less than six months left of the brat’s schooling, and Severus couldn’t wait to be rid of him. Because now he knew that when Potter returned—and he would return...
Severus’s lips curved upwards in a helpless smile.