Chapter Text
Severus
Severus stood in the shadow of a narrow alcove, the stone cold against his back, his robes absorbing the draft that slithered through the corridor. From here, the window framed the Quidditch pitch like a cruel stage, the distant cries of students faint but unmistakable. Seven scarlet-clad figures darted and swooped, laughter and shouted commands echoing across the crisp February air.
He had no eyes for them. Only for one.
Harry Potter.
Severus’s lips pressed into a thin, bitter line, but his gaze refused to turn away. Potter’s broom cut through the grey sky with reckless ease, his movements fluid, instinctive. His hair - Merlin, that hopeless hair - was whipped by the wind until it was even more unruly than usual. His cheeks burned pink with cold, his training robes clinging just enough to reveal a body no longer boyish. Gone was the half-starved child with haunted eyes; what remained was a young man, broad-shouldered, jawline carved sharp, stubble shadowing his cheeks as though to announce his passage into adulthood.
Severus’s chest tightened. He sighed quietly, though the sound caught in his throat, ragged, as Harry executed a tight spiral. A Wronski Feint. Foolish, arrogant - so very Potter - and yet his heart lurched, his pulse hammering when the boy pulled up at the last second, grinning with exhilaration.
Not a boy. A man. He had to remind himself of that.
Severus closed his eyes for the briefest moment, the cold seeping through his eyelids, chasing away images that had no business being there. He could not pinpoint when the shift had come - when Lily’s eyes had ceased to haunt him each time Harry looked his way, when James’s shadow had stopped standing between them. Somewhere between the Horcrux hunt, the Shrieking Shack, and that strange, impossible moment when Harry had pulled him back from the brink of death, something had altered. Hatred had thinned into reluctant respect. Respect had deepened into admiration. And now - Merlin help him - affection. Yearning.
Love.
Pathetic. The word spat itself in his mind, acidic and sharp. He almost sneered aloud at himself.
He had told Minerva he returned to Hogwarts because someone had to restore discipline to the dungeons, because no one else could manage the intricacies of the curriculum. Lies. The truth was far simpler, and infinitely more shameful: Potter would be here. Potter, repeating his seventh year with his cohort, as if the world owed him one last taste of normalcy. And Severus had been unable to stay away.
Fool. Weak, pathetic fool.
He opened his eyes again. Harry had landed, laughing with his teammates, one glove tugged off to push sweat-damp hair from his brow. Severus’s chest twisted with something too complex for words - something sharp as longing, soft as hunger, and bitter as despair.
Of course, none of it mattered. He was Severus Snape. The bat of the dungeons. Hook-nosed, sallow-skinned, unpleasant in countenance and more unpleasant still in personality. Not a man to be loved. His father had told him so, sneering over every drunken meal. His classmates had told him so with their laughter and curses. Lily had told him so, not in words, but in the way she had turned from him.
Not lovable. Never lovable.
And yet… in his weakest moments, when night pressed heavily against the castle walls and silence left him defenseless, he imagined. He imagined the weight of another body beside his, the warmth of a touch meant for him, lips ghosting his name not in fury or disdain, but in want. He imagined Harry - Harry’s hand in his, Harry’s mouth against his throat, Harry’s skin, golden and hot, sliding against his own. He touched himself to the thought, to the image of Harry’s green eyes darkened with desire, until his breath broke and his body trembled. And afterward - always afterward - the revulsion descended, bitter and choking.
Pervert. Old, ugly pervert. Weak. Weak. Weak.
He punished himself as he always had. Scourgify would have been swift, but he forced himself beneath freezing water instead, until his teeth rattled and his skin burned from the cold. He scrubbed until his flesh stung, until red blotches marred his arms. But no matter how he scoured, the thought remained. The ache remained. The love remained.
With one last glance, he saw the Gryffindor team disperse, Harry slinging an arm around Weasley’s shoulders as they made their way off the pitch. Severus pushed away from the window, the shadows swallowing him whole as he retreated into the depths of the castle, his heart heavier for having let it glimpse the light.