Would you let me sleep here tonight, Professor?
The chair, the floor, it doesn't matter. I can curl up
anywhere. Just don't turn me out of this wonderful
room that's all soft light and hot tea. The night
outside seems terribly cold, and after giving up all
of my secrets to you, I'm not sure that I have enough
in me to weather it.
But what can I say to convince you to let me stay?
That I'm a 19 year old spy who's afraid to go...home.
That I've nothing waiting for me but a draughty flat
haunted by the few sticks of furniture not yet
sacrificed for heat, and a fridge full of the odds and
ends of Indian take-away. You'd likely pack me up for
St. Mungo's psychomancy ward if I tried to explain how
the ceiling is white and the walls are cream and the
carpet is beige, and some nights that alone is enough
to tempt me into bloodletting, just to see some
colour.
And besides, I don't want your pity. I may be your
bloodhound by day, but I'm not going to beg for a spot
at the foot of your bed at night.
I only...
I want this secret safety of our meeting to hold just
a little longer, letting me pretend that I'm one of
the children you're protecting from people like me. I
want to lie down with my back to the door and fall
asleep knowing that I'm doing the right thing. I want
just a few hours more where I don't have to be
terrified of tripping up on my own paranoia.
I know. My addiction to the sanctuary of your company
is going to be the death of me. And perhaps the death
of you as well.
But...
Just for tonight, if I can bring myself to ask, would
you let me rest easy?
Please.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"There we are, my boy. All settled in?"
"Mmm - ahem, yes...thank you, Professor."
"Not a bother, not a bother at all. In fact, with the
temperature dropping so quickly, I wouldn't feel right
about letting you take the boat across to Hogsmeade
alone. Are you sure the cot is all right for you?"
"Yes, yes I'm good."
"I know you are, Severus."
"..."
"Goodnight, Severus."
"Goodnight, Professor."
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I want to stay the night.
I know, I know - I've slept over as often as pride and
circumstance has allowed in the past year, but even
you must know that "stay the night" means something
else entirely with us young ones. Not to insinuate
that you are -
I only mean that -
I'm terrified.
I'm terrified because it has been so long since I've
had another's hands on me that I don't think that my
body is my own anymore. I...I dream about sharp metal
that glitters and...His favourites...how they gaze at
Him with such burning adoration even as the milk-white
venom oozes from their wounds. And I wake up with the
sheets sticking to my thighs, not knowing what
attentions my body may soon force me seek out.
And you - you look at me sometimes when my hands and
voice are shaking from trying to pretend that the
things I'm telling you are nothing but fiction. You
look at me as though you want to comfort me as you
would a child, and then think better of it. And then
your fingers twitch where they lie in your lap.
I think that you want to touch me.
I think that I want you to.
Listen to me - I I I - me me me. But I would make it
good for you too, Albus. I would do anything that you
wanted me to. I would take anything you doled out. I
would lie back and let you take a whip to me, if
that's what does it for you, and then I would beg for
more because I know that afterwards you'd smooth back
my hair and let me fall asleep at your side.
But.
There is always a "but" in the life of Severus Snape.
Because once upon a time I was a student here,
unbearded when your own had already greyed, and you
are a good, decent man to whom that means something.
And so you smile at me sometimes as if you regret and
accept all at once.
Do you fancy I'll be your ruin?
Strange that, when I'm so certain you could be my
salvation.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"I didn't mean the cot. I meant the bed...with you. If
you'd like."
"Ah, Severus, I think... Well, that's..."
"Albus Dumbledore, at a loss for words. Is an indecent
proposal all it takes?"
"It's much more complicated than that, Severus - "
"But it doesn't have to be. You and I, nothing leaving
this room. No one else would ever have to know."
"I am not in the habit of taking to my bed anyone of
who I am ashamed."
"...Ah. Very well. Of course. I apologize, please,
just forget - "
"Severus, hush."
"...
"...
"...oh."
"Oh, indeed."
"...mmm...oh...just...Albus? You know you needn't
be...you needn't...be so gentle with me."
"Severus, I would grant you that if I thought for a
moment you truly meant it."
"I do mean it. I'm not - "
"Severus, it's all right. It's all right, now."
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
So leave.
Leave me alone.
I don't want to see you, or anyone, tonight. I don't
want to celebrate with the masses and I don't want to
mourn with you.
There is life once again, you say with that look in
your eyes. And I know that like the foolish crowds who
rally outside, you too have fallen in tragic love with
history rewritten to cast men as martyrs and infants
as saviours.
Don't touch me. Just leave me be. I can't even stand
the sound of your breathing right now.
So go. Go take care of it, that *child* who has
accomplished more in an instant that we could in over
a decade. Oh, he's James's son all right, with the
adoring eyes of the world upon him, and while I can
pity him the loss of doting parents like James and
Lily, the boy will never be wanting for love.
Little bastard - our mudblood messiah.
It doesn't matter if it was Lily who sacrificed
herself for her child; this shining new era will need
its golden calf. And an infant vanquishing the Dark
Lord just makes that much better a story at the pub,
doesn't it.
They truly believe that Voldemort is gone. They *need*
to believe that He's gone.
Well, my tattoo may have vanished from sight, but I
can still feel it under my skin, alive in my blood,
waiting to resurface. I'm not naïve enough to believe
that it will be any different with Him.
Go then, Albus. Take care of your Boy Who Lived. Leave
behind your boy who survived.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Severus - "
"Just go."
"If you will listen for just a moment - "
"Go, or I will. And I do not know if I will be coming
back."
"Very well, then. May I return in the morning?"
"...I..I apologize, Albus. I had no right to say that.
Hogwarts is your home, not mine."
"You know that's not true. Sit back down; get some
rest if you can. I will see you in the morning, my
boy."
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tell me who he is, and why he's better than me.
Who is this...Quirrell, whom you believe to be more
qualified to teach Defence Against the Dark Arts than
one who survived as a traitor to the Dark Lord
himself.
What is it? Are you afraid that I'll be...tempted,
surrounded by reminders of what a gifted wizard can
do? Or are you afraid for yourself, that people will
notice that it's a very short walk from your bedroom
to the DADA classroom; that they will wonder just when
Severus Snape made the transition from student to
lover, and if the two ever overlapped.
Well, we both know that's rubbish, and that's always
been enough for us.
Do you know that when I was young, we called Defence
Against the Dark Arts an owl class, because you could
just glide right through it? Granted, the textbook had
the requisite gory pictures that kept us up at night,
but when exams came around, it was a pure
cut-and-paste memory job. None of us cared. None of us
really believed in it, save a foolish few who were
blinded by the shine of romantic glory in the old
tales of Aurors.
And look what became of us.
So tell me truly, Albus, which is worse? To raise a
generation of wolves, or to turn out yet another flock
of lambs to be led to the slaughter. Propriety ill
suits you, Albus. Cast it aside and do what you know
is right.
Will you do that for me?
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"We are not discussing this again."
"Albus - "
"Severus, I have never used my authority as Headmaster
over you as a lover, so I wish that you would not use
your authority as a lover over me as Headmaster."
"*Headmaster*, you know that no one can teach that
class as I can."
"I do know that, but terrifying the children into
paranoia will not erase the past."
"That is not what this is about."
"It is, whether you realize it or not. Severus...if
you ever had penance to fulfill, you did so long ago.
You have a rare gift with potions and you will make a
fine teacher. But you must remember, teaching is a
profession as well as a calling. There must be a line,
even a dotted one between your professional and
private lives."
"And if I said that it was Defence Against the Dark
Arts, or I look elsewhere?"
"Then I would tell you that I love you, but that I
truly believe the children will be better served by
another teacher..."
"..."
"Severus?"
"...And if...if as Potions Master, I were to demand
exclusive use of the east dungeons?"
"Then I would happily give you the west as well."
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
And if I asked you to fuck me in the transfiguration
classroom...?
If I asked you very nicely?
Would you keep me after class; sit me down and peer
over your spectacles at my grades? Lay your hand on my
thigh...bend me over teacher's desk?
Yes, I know that it's dangerous ground for a fantasy
to tread, ground that just may resemble the checked
carpet outside of your office where generations of
children have stood wringing their hands with thoughts
of juvenile crime and punishment.
Has five years of working as your peer at Hogwarts
been enough time for you to realize that this has
nothing to do with you as Headmaster or me as your
student, and everything to do with the two of us as
lovers? Can you play your part with that twinkle in
your eye and with enough heat that we might forgo the
guilt?
Because...because I got my first real hard-on in that
very classroom, aged twelve years, with the textbook
draped strategically over my lap...deadly certain that
if my cock didn't explode then my head surely would.
Because the pleasure and the shame of that memory
stayed rooted in me through the years, tangling up
with fantasies of young Professor Shaheed - only a
substitute for one term, and yet I can still remember
the low flush that filled me every time he leaned over
my desk - and with excerpts from the dog-eared copy of
"Lights Out at St. Peter's" that Jay Crowley sold me
for a month's worth of Arithmancy homework in third
year.
Because when I look back on the Severus who smiled
sometimes and even blushed on occasion, who thought
the world would end over paltry adolescent concerns
and yet never fathomed the gravity of a Faustian deal
sealed with a tattoo...I don't hate him so much
anymore. And when you wake me from my nightmares,
kissing away the itch that burns just under the skin
of my forearm, I know that you never hated him at all.
Because I've never told any of that to anyone but you.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Stop it."
"...Stop what?"
"Stop laughing at me, Albus."
"I'm sorry, my dear, I'm - ahem, terribly sorry. I've
just never had the pleasure of seeing you...fall off
of a desk before."
"I remembered it being a lot bigger."
"We *are* still talking about the desk, aren't we,
Severus?"
"Wisecracking doesn't become you."
"Do you need a hand up?"
"I'm fine where I am."
"Severus...you do realize that Minerva is going to
turn us both into stoats."
"Most definitely."
"Severus..."
"Yes, Albus?"
"...Would you like me to...look over your report card
again?"
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
And would I die for you?
Not, "Will I align myself with your cause?" Nor, "Will
I give my life for yours?"
But would I walk into certain death, just because you
asked it of me.
That is the question.
Because this will be the death of me, whether I
survive it or not. I will take everything that I am,
everything that I've become, and hide it in the deep,
dark shadows behind the mask of who I once was. And I
may never be able to get it back. That is what you are
asking of me.
Would I die for you, Albus?
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Severus...you know what I must ask you to do. If you
are ready...if you are prepared..."
"I am."
"Then, good luck."
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
How could I refuse you? You, who have never denied me
anything.
Title: Acquiescence
Author: Delphi
Email: squibke@yahoo.ca
Rating: PG-13
Category: Drama/Angst, Romance
Disclaimer: All characters described herein belong to
JK Rowling who - despite not letting them have
graphic, sweaty, kinky sex - does a fine job with
them. My intent is not to infringe on any copyrights,
nor to make money from these portrayals. I'm only in
it for the aforementioned kinky sex.
