Chapter Text
Severus blinked down at Harry’s hand, his mind somehow churning furiously and perfectly blank, both at once. Because that was definitely a ring, resting there on Harry’s palm. One-hundred-percent, unassailably, absolutely a ring, and a proposal, and Harry was even on his knees. One knee was traditional, of course, but… that was. Definitely. A ring. An engagement ring. And it looked like platinum, too. Like… it matched.
“...Severus?” came Harry's uncertain voice, barely breaking into the sudden hurricane of fog in his head. Though it did, in fact, break in. “Are you…?”
Severus pulled his wand. “Accio ring,” he said, and Harry looked down at his own palm like he was expecting his offering to fly out of it. But of course Severus wasn’t accioing that ring - no he certainly WASN’T - and his bedside table scraped open, releasing the black velvet bag to hurtle into his hand. Numb, he pulled open the drawstring, took out the Cherry/Brass Occasion Gift Box Size Small, turned it towards Harry, and opened it.
“What’s that?” Harry asked.
“Secrets number three, five, six, seven and eight,” Severus answered breathlessly. “The Mysterious Hermit - he’s a jeweler.”
“What?” Harry asked, reaching out to touch it. “But… you had that? You had that? Why didn’t you-” Severus launched off of the bed and slammed him straight to the floor.
It wasn’t even remotely premeditated as far as that sort of move went, and though his brain did suggest that he perhaps insert his hand between Harry’s skull and the threadbare carpeting, it came too late to be at all helpful.
Thwack!
“Fuck-” Severus gasped, cupping the back of Harry’s head - way too late. “Sorry. Careless - I’m sorry.” He kissed him and pulled back. “Are you-”
“I’m fine,” Harry answered at once, seizing the front of his shirt. “It’s fine.”
He jerked Severus down into another kiss - hooking his legs around his hips - so Severus decided to leave it for the moment and just kissed him. And kissed and kissed him until Harry pushed him back again with a little snarl of frustration and hurled the spectacles off of his own face.
“Fucking-” Apparently they were in the way. And, apparently, so was Severus’ shirt. “Take this off,” Harry demanded into his mouth, fumbling with it, yanking the hem out of his trousers. “Jesus fucking - buttons. Off off off buttons OFF.”
Severus propped himself up to help, but immediately found that it wasn’t necessary as his offending buttons sprinkled out onto the floor like pearlescent hail. And that was fair. Skin - was fair.
He rucked Harry’s t-shirt up under his arms, wanting it too, but when Harry declined to stop trying to kiss him long enough for him to make any meaningful progress, he pinned him to the ground.
“I’m trying to undress you,” he sneered. “Merlin, let me.”
“Hurry UP then,” Harry answered, arching up off the floor, and Severus obeyed, yanking his shirt over his head and his pajamas off of his hips until there wasn’t a stitch left on him. Harry surged up to kiss him again as soon as it was done - sinking both hands into his hair - and Severus splayed one palm wide and flat across his lower back to hold him steady, using the other to undo his own belt and fly as best he could with a wild animal in his arms.
“I can’t believe you,” Harry was muttering, biting at him, pulling his hair. “Secretive fucking masochist. Fucking box in a bag you fucking - fucking - get your cock out for god SAKE.”
“It’s out,” Severus answered breathlessly, spilling Harry onto his back. “It’s out.” He raised a hand for his wand, but Harry slapped it right out of the air.
“I already did it,” he said, grabbing for the dangling ends of Severus’ shirt. “I did it. I’m ready. Fuck me.”
He was ready. When Severus reached between his legs, he found him already slick with lubrication, and pressed a finger into him as easy as you please.
Which Harry did not like.
“If you waste time stretching me I’ll DIE!”
“Be patient you little beast,” Severus sneered down at him, not changing what he was doing one iota. His head was starting to catch up with his hands - thank god - and he was not going to do any damage. Or… any more damage. The carpeting there in the Master Bedroom of Number Twelve Grimmauld Place was not very plush. Not much potential for shock absorption. He should replace it. “You’ll take what I give you.”
“NO,” Harry snarled, trying to drag him back down - lifting his hips like he thought he might be able to make Severus move faster - and Severus slapped him. Twice, in quick succession - crack, CRACK - and covered his mouth.
“I said be patient,” he hissed, and Harry’s breath huffed out over the back of his hand with a whine of complaint. “Ah - no.” He pressed his head back against the floor. “That is quite enough out of you.”
Bearing down still harder with his palm, Severus crooked the single finger inside him, triggering another, much threadier whine, and then a pathetic little tug from Harry’s hands where they were tangled in his damaged shirt.
Severus just twitched one shoulder.
“Off,” he said, and then again - “OFF.” - and Harry’s arms dropped back to the floor. And that was better. Severus said so, easing some of the pressure over his mouth to stroke the edge of his jaw. “Better.”
His cheek was hot - pink, and developing into red where he’d been struck - and Severus stroked that, too. Focusing on it. The color, and the heat, and the body pinned beneath him, heaving with breath.
“Calm,” he purred, curling his finger once more before easing in a second. “Calm, love. Easy.” He scissored them gently, watching Harry’s eyes squeeze tight shut at the stretch, and dropped his voice still lower. “Easy, now.”
He gave him a little more, calling attention to, and resisting against, the tension in his body. There was quite a lot. He was wound up tighter than a clockwork toy, really, and he thought he just wanted cock? Dangerous. Too excited for his own good. But Severus was used to that. He was used to it, and he could fix it. Could temper it, and bring it - him - to heel. He’d learned that much, at least, since he’d last been in that house telling Harry absolutely not.
“Easy,” he continued. “That’s good. Breathe for me, now. In and out. Ah - no, no. Much slower than that. If I use you when you’re like this, you’ll need healing charms.” Another huff of breath, hot over his knuckles, and an involuntary spasm around his fingers. Delicious. “Mm. And I think you know that, too. How very reckless and irresponsible, treating my property so callously.” He curled his fingers and then separated them again, and Harry’s hands twitched on either side of his head, but did not reach for him. Didn’t dare, maybe.
Good.
“There you are,” Severus murmured. “What an angel. Now. You belong to me, and I decide how much you can take. Yes?” A yes-adjacent noise, and Severus turned Harry’s face towards the lamp and hardened his voice. “Open your eyes.”
His pupils were huge. Great black wells of want, seeking the thing he wanted. And while Severus lusted after that look - daydreamed and obsessed and schemed over how to get it - it wasn’t what he cared about right then. What he cared about right then was whether or not those beautifully blown pupils would constrict normally when exposed to light.
Which they did.
“Very good,” Severus said, and at the little noise Harry made, glanced down to see a bead of precome pearl at the tip of his cock where it was flush against his belly. “Oh, my. Shall I say out loud that I was concerned I’d concussed you? Hm? You precious, fragile thing.”
That whine was the most pitiful yet - like a wounded animal - and around his fingers, Harry’s body flexed tight and then relaxed, releasing a drip of molten -please- to trickle down Severus’ spine. It left a trail of tingling heat in its wake, and there was a pause like Harry’s magic was waiting to see if he’d be reprimanded for it, and then another please, and another: -please- -please- pooling together in Severus’ belly like mulled wine.
“How polite,” he said, withdrawing his fingers and sliding them home, curling them just so. Just the way Harry liked. “Is that what you want?” He did it again, a little more firmly, lighting up a tracery of gold and green behind his own eyes. Twin lightning strikes of yes and more. “Well, isn’t that pretty. Is that for me?”
There was a little swirl of frustration - a tiny, wordless ripple of fear and excitement - and then his name. Or… was that his name? It was him, certainly, but it felt closer to brushed steel than the crystalline gold Harry’d shown him before. His title, maybe. But it was hard to tell, like Harry himself wasn’t sure whom he was addressing.
Those pleases, though - those were clear.
He was absolutely sure he was begging.
“More?” Severus asked, tucking his ring finger in against his index and middle, and when Harry moaned shallowly under his palm with a flash of grass overgrowing a fallow field, beckoned with them.
“Mm,” he murmured as Harry’s cock jerked against his belly with another little drool of precome. “Lovely. And are you going to behave yourself?” Harry nodded under his hand, his hips twitching up off of the floor and against his knuckles. “Are you sure about that?” He just nodded again, harder, with a little shiver of -calm- -still- -promise- -swear- “There’s a good boy.”
Severus withdrew his fingers and lifted Harry’s hips with that one slick hand, keeping his mouth covered with the other. Not that he thought Harry needed to be muffled, particularly, of course. Not only was it quite pointless with the steady trickle of desperation leaking out of his magic, but Severus wouldn’t have wanted to silence that even if it were possible. No, he kept that hand over Harry’s mouth for one reason, and one reason only: Harry wanted it there. Harry wanted to feel contained, and Harry liked it, and Severus could see that he liked it in the twitch and flex of his hands, and hear that he liked it in the sound he made as Severus began to press inside. He could see it. Hear it. Feel it in the spasmodic squeeze of Harry’s body yielding to him, and in the touch of Harry’s magic - grasping - pulling - tugging at him - (want-need-need-need) - though his hands stayed just where they’d fallen. Limp, and docile, on either side of his head.
So Severus kept his mouth covered, and instead of kissing him - which was what he really wanted very badly to do - he shifted to get his knees further under himself, and under Harry’s hips, and leaned over to rest their foreheads together.
“Shhhh,” he whispered over Harry’s yelp at the sudden depth of penetration - over the flash of purple-white that came with it - and pressed a kiss to the back of his own hand over Harry’s mouth. “Shh shh shh. That’s it.” He shifted a little more, rocking his hips up, and up, and up, feeling the heat of Harry’s breath across his face, and then its loss as he sucked it back in with another flash of color.
Purple-white-green.
Hurts. More.
Severus gave him more - snapping his hips forward - stifling Harry’s cry under his palm.
“That’s it, love,” he purred. “If you’re patient, I always give you what you want, don’t I? If you can manage to wait for it, I always do. So take it, hm?” He did it again - harder - scraping him back against the carpet. “Take it. Color?”
A streak of anemone. Purple and green.
“Oh,” he cooed. “And what happened to my white, hm?” Taking his hand away from Harry’s mouth at last, he used it to get a good grip on his shoulder. “Have I lost it? Pity.” Jerking him back into place against his next stroke, Severus held him there, and without his hand in the way, that cry was loud, and it cracked, and white burst across Severus’ field of vision like an electrical storm.
“There it is,” he snarled, slowing to a grind, dropping his mouth to the crook of Harry’s neck and speaking against his pulse. “I always take care of you when you let me.”
Sucking at the hammering heartbeat under his lips, he squeezed Harry’s body in tighter against his lap, shifting his hips from side to side, and Harry’s head curled up off the floor and then dropped back with a rapturous moan and a string of blurry sirs over a background of buzzing silence. And yes, that brushed steel - that was definitely Sir. His most preciously held honorific: Sir, out of Harry’s mouth. Or, right then, out of his magic.
“That’s right,” Severus continued, closing his eyes, wanting to burrow into that static. To roll and luxuriate in that velvety, hard-won nothing. “I always take care of you.” God, to be able to feel it that way - to lay hands on what Severus could reduce him to - like running his fingers through warm fur. “When you let me.” It would have driven him mad if they’d shared the magic sooner. Surely it would have. At school? Seeing him there, sitting in class, suffering the drag of days, knowing what was inside him? Or - Merlin help them both - while they were apart? The obsession would have been insurmountable. Uncontrollable. But now, after everything? “Will you let me? Hm?” It wasn’t enough.
Turning his face into the dark hollow of Harry’s neck, Severus bit at him - at his collarbone, and shoulder - holding him to the floor and rutting up into his body - and Harry shook and cried out in his arms - and it wasn’t enough. Not nearly enough. Nothing ever would be, of course, but now that he knew what was possible - what lay beneath the blank, shimmering bliss he’d laid over Harry’s mind like a cloak-
“Let me.”
-the breadth and depth hidden by that sea of satiny grey - he wanted it. Wanted to see it - to devour it - to be subsumed within it - the way he had that night. That awful, miraculous night, with Harry’s blood sticking his shirt to his skin, and his ruined belt cast to the floor. With Harry’s terror torn out and Harry’s grass and ivy climbing the bedposts. That cavernous gulf of spirit. He wanted it. Needed it, on this day of all days.
“Let me. Let me take care of you. Let me take care of you.”
That was what he was saying with his mouth, anyway - that unstructured, inelegant hemorrhaging of the wish that was behind all wishes - but he hadn’t the faintest idea what Harry was hearing, and he realized it when the vast field of static he was clawing at suddenly shifted beneath him. Rippled, and blurred, and shifted.
It was the feeling of sir that changed first. The cold, hard, unyielding edges of it melting like a chocolate shell under heat. Transforming from shale grey, to charcoal black, and then past bronze, to copper, and to a rich, deep, liquid gold. But that wasn’t all. It was not just gold - did not stay gold - and as Severus slowed still further, trying to see, the vision twisted, narrowed, split, and lost its luster. Becoming not precious metal, but… sunshine. Saffron dye on linen. But no, not saffron - honeysuckle. The flower itself: tiny, and fragile, and suspended. It hung there alone, severed from any stem, but before Severus could open his mouth to ask, or respond at all to something so sweet, the honeysuckle - it was honeysuckle, too, he could see the delicate stamen, and the fine grains of pollen - multiplied. A great spray of the blossoms first, and then of leaves, and then finally the creeping vine, twining down and across his field of vision and connecting it all together. And as that incongruous vine crawled along, a low stone wall began to materialize behind it. Supporting it. Perfect in its details, right down to the very cracks in the grey, weathered mortar, it meandered from the foreground and away into the empty distance.
Severus went entirely still.
“What?” he breathed, trying to understand what Harry could mean by this solitary wall. The honeysuckle was clear, and so was the gold varietal, but -
A tree appeared. Just one, and in full flower - pink and white and bark so dark it was nearly black - and then ten flowering trees, and then twenty, and then the upended bowl of blue sky. It was a garden - his garden? Where was the mallow? - or an orchard, maybe - and then there, in that perfect dome of blue, an isolated wisp of silver smoke. And then the chimney that had issued it, and then finally, the corresponding structure. Windows with a cream frame, and then window boxes, bursting with life, and then the door and walls and roof of a little stone house. And then a feeling of questioning, laid under it all like groundwater.
And then finally, finally, a word.
-care-
Gentle, and hesitant, over that delicate undercurrent of questioning. Making all of it a question. The picture, and the thought, and all of it.
-he takes care-
And then Severus did understand.
His breath left him, and he buried his face to block out the light as the vision populated itself with wildflowers - mercy, all those flowers - and as Harry’s hands very tentatively came up to touch him. To slip, warm and dry, under his ruined shirt, and slide over his back. Over his scars, and the ridges of his spine - almost shy, like they’d never touched him before. And Severus wanted to speak. To answer him. To tell Harry yes, that was what he meant. To say, that’s right, that’s just right, or to apologize for thinking - even for a moment, and even only out of fear - that Harry would need anything sanded down, or smoothed, or minimized. That he wouldn’t be able to see straight into the depths of Severus’ terrible longing, and still want everything. Still understand everything.
Yes, Severus wanted to say.
Yes.
But he couldn’t say anything. His throat had closed. Spasmed shut around the magnitude of that little stone house - torn out of his own imagination, right down to the rust-red door - and around the stars that started to fall like snow to scatter out over the flowering orchard of their impossible future.
But Harry could speak. His voice restored either by the sudden stillness, or by the sudden spike of emotion that had surely pierced straight through Severus’ body, and through Harry’s, and into the floorboards like a spear.
“Stars…”
It was hardly a whisper, and Severus nodded against his neck, trying to control it. To breathe. To process what Harry was showing him as the vision first animated with a gentle breeze, and then still further - coming to life before his very eyes. A blizzard of shed petals from the trees, and then the fruit. Green and immature at first, and then blushing and ripe, and then falling along with the leaves to rest among the thousands of sparkling puffs of light. The branches and ground first sparse, and then barren, and then flocked with white. And then the thaw, and the flowers again, growing between and beneath and around those constant stars.
“Mm…” Harry murmured, his fingertips tracing the goosebumps that had erupted all over Severus’ body, and slowly finding their way out from under his shirt and up to his hair. “I thought-” A little click in his throat as he swallowed. “I thought it was that. Your wish. Our house. I thought… maybe…” He stroked his fingertips against Severus’ scalp - gently, at first, and then a little more firmly - and shifted under and around him with a squeeze and hum. Reminding Severus that he wasn’t just imagination and magic. That he was a man, and he had a body - even an occupied one - though he felt very far from it right at that moment. “Maybe you were trying to find it, or build it. To take me there. But… Oh.” Harry’s hands tightened, and he turned his face into Severus’ hair. “Hey. Don’t cry.”
Was he crying? Severus had no idea. He was blinded by the cycle of seasons. The great garland of years Harry was showing him. Years upon years upon years, all in a row, revolving around that little sanctuary. Their house. Their cottage. Their place.
“Hey,” Harry said again, and lifted Severus' head from the crook of his neck to kiss him. His touch gentle, but insistent, as the vision faded. As he took it back, secreting it away into whatever private well housed his most closely held dreams. “Sorry. I think about it, that’s all. I just… I think about it. Sorry.” Another kiss, and another, as Severus blinked slowly back into the room - back into his bones - back onto the floor with Harry’s legs wrapped around his waist. And as Severus looked around, disoriented, he saw that the threadbare carpet was strewn with puffs of light, just the way the vision had been. Dozens and dozens of them, scattered like foreign constellations and clustered around Harry’s head like a halo.
He looked down at that, and then at Harry’s face. At his red cheek, and green eyes, and the pink scratches on his neck and across his chest, and at the tiny quirk of a smile at the corner of his mouth that read more like concern than anything else.
“Back with me?” Harry asked. “Didn’t mean to take you on a trip, there.” Reaching up with one hand, he brushed a smeared tear from Severus’ left cheek, and then his right. “Sorry. You ok? I’m really doing a lot of shit to everyone today, aren’t I? Jeez. I’m sorry.”
Are you ok?
What a question that was. And not even the question that mattered, which Severus hadn’t answered, either. Not with his mouth, anyway.
He should do that. He’d - meant to.
“Yes, I will marry you,” Severus said, and kissed him, and when Harry laughed shallowly into his mouth, rocked his hips forward to turn it into gasp. “No laughing.”
“Sorry,” Harry managed to repeat, flexing his legs. “And good - I’m glad - and I want to - just - please for the love of god finish fucking me first. I - really - really didn’t mean to make you stop - and - we can go to the Ministry - or - or - whatever you want. We can go in the morning. Just-”
“No,” Severus interrupted, bracing one palm next to Harry’s head, trying to shake off the lingering impression that he was not, in fact, that closely associated with his body at all. Amazing that Harry could turn him so fully inside out that he could forget he was mid-coitus. Merlin.
Tingling, he started to move again.
“I don’t want to go to the Ministry,” he continued. “I want a wedding. And stop apologizing.”
“Ah - ok-” Harry’s hand came up to his wrist - clutching tight - and that felt good. He concentrated on it. “Whatever you want.”
“I want an arbor,” Severus continued, narrowing his attention down to the anchor of touch, the way he’d tried to before. To Harry’s grasping hand. The heat of Harry’s body squeezing around him. Harry’s knees against his sides - his heels hooked over his back. To Harry, tethering him to physical reality. Which was where he lived. Where they lived together - in a house together - no matter how perilous it had been before, or how surreal it felt now, or how much it all seemed like a beautiful dream, not to be trusted.
Giving his head a single, sharp shake, he reached between them to wrap his fingers around Harry’s cock. Hot, and hard, and real. Right there, in his hand.
“Flowers and people everywhere,” he said. “Objectively too many. I want - ivy and honeysuckle boutonnieres. How does that sound? Hm?” He squeezed. “Anything I want?”
“A-anything,” Harry managed. “God. And I - saw the - oh-” He broke off with a moan, turning his face away, his breath fogging Severus’ bracelet. And that was real, too. Harry’s breath, clouding the silver and prickling against his handprint. And his voice. Yes. “The ivy thing. I was - trying so hard not to - but - I saw it. Like a pin, or - Christ. A-a-”
“A boutonniere,” Severus repeated. “And I’m sure you’ve seen all sorts of things. I’ve been driving myself mad.” He dipped his head to bite at Harry’s chest, wanting to taste him, too. To smell him. The salt of his sweat. The delicate perfume of Fleur’s bath soap clinging to his skin. “Keep talking.”
“What’s - mh-” Harry tried, bringing his hands up to Severus’ head to hold him in place. “-Grey? Like woven - dark grey. Sort of - f-folded. Or draped, like-”
“Slate,” Severus hissed against his skin. “And you are. Your dress robes. Slate.” He bit again, and Harry’s hands around his head tightened.
“You’re gonna marry me,” he breathed, flexing his legs, digging his heels against Severus’ sacrum and urging him in deeper. Faster. Harder - Severus - harder.
“Yes,” Severus answered, following the pressure and the whisper of thought alike, fucking Harry’s cock up into the circle of his fist. “Yes I am.” It came out with a little edge - a little snarl at the peripheries - and Harry’s fingernails bit into his scalp.
“Gonna be my - husband.” -more- -more-
“Yes,” Severus repeated, resisting against his grip and trying desperately to summon it - to rally - to locate himself - and Harry let out a little gasp and dug his nails in deeper.
“What - fuck - what kind of cake do you like?” he asked over Severus’ hiss, raking at him, clawing. “Black forest?” -like this?- Harder, still - spider-webbing sweet clarity out from those bright points of pain. -gold?- “You like cherries, right? The - the dark ones.”
Severus had absolutely no idea what kind of cherries went into black forest cake, and also he didn’t care. Could not care less about that under pain of death, really. Cake?
“You choose,” he growled.
“German chocolate?” Harry continued, his fingernails carving brazenly into the last of the detachment cleaving Severus from his own body. -gold?- -gold?- It was vicious, merciless, and Severus abruptly snapped back together like he’d been hit with a reparo.
“Gold,” he said.
“Red - velvet-” Like Harry didn’t even hear it.
“That’s enough.”
“Chocolate gâteau?”
“Potter.”
“Potter- Snape.”
Severus reached up, tore Harry’s clawed hand out of his hair, and forced it to the floor. “I said ENOUGH,” he snarled, and Harry let go entirely.
“Oh, thank god,” he breathed, a tangle of black hairs twisted around his fingers. “Sir.”
Sir, indeed.
Severus pulled him apart. Swept the debris out of the way, flipped him over, and made him scream into the floor. Left bite marks all over the rug burn on his back, and all over his neck and shoulders, and sucked speckled bruises at their centers. He did not stop - nor even slow - until he felt well and truly seated back in firm reality, and Harry had been returned to whimpering putty. And once Harry had come - squealing his pleasure into that awful carpet - Severus made him come again. Held his legs apart with his knee, and pinned him down, dragged his head back and made him beg for it. And beg for it, Harry did. Mouth, and magic, and body - out loud, and in grasping tendrils of power, and streaks of brilliant color - in a gush of desperate relief - Harry begged for it.
And after, lying in Severus’ arms on the floor in a scattering of luminous wishes, Harry shook for a long time. It wasn’t with any particular violence, though. Really, it was quite weak - a fine tremor in his core that persisted long past being draped in a blanket and wrapped in body heat - and Severus, stroking his hair and waiting for it to pass, wondered vaguely if it wasn’t the whole day making him shake that way. The last few days, maybe, if not weeks. Weeks spent suffering under Severus’ anxiety while loyally blocking out any details. Asking if he was sleeping alright from under an avalanche of stars, and hoping - apparently - that it was their home he was searching for in the wilderness outside. Hoping, perhaps, that it was a key secreted away in that box in a bag in a bedside table drawer, awaiting only his birthday to be presented, though surely, deep down, he knew that it wasn’t. Surely he’d known all along that he was spinning himself a tale, and only needed to believe it, and that was a tried and true method for Occlumens the world over. Replacement. Severus had taught it to Draco: that you couldn’t just hide a thought, or hide from it. That you had to replace it - draw something over it - or forever be susceptible to it.
And what a natural talent he had slowly settling to stillness in his arms. Slowly, slowly, slowly settling back down. He was brilliant, really. In so many ways. And Severus should get up and put him in bed - clean up, and find his wand, and… the rings - but he could feel a bit of that tremor in his own bones, too. A perilous, sated exhaustion in his legs and behind his eyes, and in the hands occupied gently guiding Harry back home. A clumsy weakness in his fingers as they curled around a ringlet of damp hair at the nape of Harry’s neck, and a tingling lightness in his head. And no great shock, really. He’d been in those weeks too, and it was a wonder he didn’t just fall asleep right there on the floor where he lay.
But he wouldn’t. He’d get up, and put Harry in bed. Check him over, and tidy up the mess they’d made.
He would.
Just… later.