Better Than Life

Part 4: Life III

A year was a very long time, Snape thought to himself as he let himself into his small moorland cottage. Only a year ago the wizarding world was at war. He ignored the small niggling thought that told him that they still were. Only a year ago the Ministry was the same way as it had always been. Only a year ago he had been completely and utterly alone.

Snape had a vague uncomfortable feeling that things weren't as perfect as he thought. Or as perfect as he wanted them to be.

As he walked into the kitchen, Snape felt two arms encircle his waist and a kiss pressed on his neck. "Insatiable brat," he muttered. He had no idea how this whole... relationship had happened but obviously it had and he was going to take full advantage of it.

There was warm laughter. "You know you love it, Severus," Harry said.

Snape shrugged as he always did whenever Harry said anything like that. Expressing emotions verbally was never something he was particularly good at. "Let go," he said, as he walked over to the cupboard.

Harry let go, walked around Snape and looked at him with a quirked eyebrow. "Bad day?"

"I'd say," Snape replied.

Harry leaned forward and pressed a soft, comforting kiss on his lips. "Don't worry, I'll make it all better," he said with a grin.

Snape rolled his eyes. His lover could be quite trite at times, and he wouldn't admit it, but he did find it adorable. At times, anyway. Now wasn't really one of those times. His day at the Ministry had been rather trying. He was glad that he didn't have to go often. Most of his work could be done from home.

"What happened?" Harry asked.

"The Programs aren't exactly going to plan," Snape said, as he took out his kettle - one of the few Muggle foibles allowed in the wizarding world nowadays. Freshly brewed tea - not speed-heated - was a luxury. "There have been problems."

Harry frowned. "Problems were anticipated, though," he pointed out.

"Some of the participants in the Program aren't as willing as we hoped they'd be." Snape stared at the chrome kettle as it slowly whirred to life.

"Convince them, Severus," Harry said, as he laid a hand on Snape's arm. "I'm sure you can."

Suddenly, Snape's throat felt tight and he swallowed rather loudly. "I'll try," he said.

Harry lifted his hand and used it to turn Snape's face towards his own. "I have faith in you, Severus."

I have faith in you, Severus. Snape knew he had heard those words before. Different context, different situation but they still haunted him.

"But don't think about it now," Harry continued, as he took a step closer to Snape so that the older man could feel the heat coming from his body. Involuntarily Snape shivered. Harry's eyes were dark green. "In fact, don't think at all."

The buttons on his robes were always in the way, Snape decided as he watched Harry's fingers fumble - endearingly - on the tiny buttons. But then again, he suspected that Harry liked them that way. As Harry got down to the last button, Snape could feel himself hardening in anticipation. There was something beautiful in watching somebody else undress him slowly, with gentle fingers.

As Snape moved to drop the robes on the floor, Harry looked up. "Don't," he said, in a rough voice. His fingers moved to the elastic of Snape's boxers.

Snape's breath caught in his throat as a warm tongue slid along the line of his boxers, over the line of hair tracing its way from his navel. His hands came up to thread in Harry's hair. "Playing, Harry?"

Harry looked up, with a smirk on his face. "You like this, Severus, you know you do."

Slowly, teasingly, Harry edged Snape's boxers off, over his burgeoning erection, until they dropped onto the ground. Then he knelt down, on the kitchen floor. Snape couldn't help a small gasp escaping him as Harry licked. "Tease," he managed to get out.

Harry laughed. "You love it when I do this."

Snape did. He admitted that much to himself at least. He loved watching Harry's head moving rhythmically as his lover knelt before him. He loved coming for Harry, the look on Harry's face as he watched Snape lose control (not completely, but almost).

Harry opened his mouth and Snape just saw a glimpse of that tongue before he felt a warmness envelop him.

The sounds. Oh god, the sounds. Snape almost laughed at what the people at the Ministry would think if they knew what they were doing here and now. The soft moans escaping from his throat. The unbearably needy sounds. The look of Harry's pink lips enclosed around him. His black hair, messy.

Snape felt his hands clenching in Harry's hair, knuckles white, as Harry scraped his teeth, just slightly, very slightly, against the sensitive underside. His breath was raspy and uneven as he thrust, thrust, thrust into that wonderful mouth until he felt himself teetering on the brink and coming with a small moan.

He slipped from those pink lips, limp and watched Harry give him a smile with his slightly swollen mouth.

Everything is perfect, Snape decided as he pulled his lover up and gave him a thorough kiss, tasting himself on those lips.

-

Peter knew that everybody underestimated him and he was glad for it. It meant that he made a perfect spymaster for the new Ministry. That and his natural aptitude for hiding and concealing things. There were some issues at the beginning to be smoothed out, but Peter found that sometimes pretending that some people didn't exist worked well for everybody.

It was in his capacity as spymaster that he was currently questioning the suspected traitor. He ran his silver hand across her hair and was gratified to see her shiver.

"You lead us to believe that you didn't pass information to the Muggles during your frequent ... dalliances in Muggle London."

The woman spat blood out of her mouth and onto the stone floor. "Are you delusional?" she finally managed to get out. "I was visiting my parents."

Peter smiled at her, seeing the fear shining clear in her eyes. "Surely such a smart witch as you would know of Muggle Law 13. Perhaps you would like to tell me what it says," he said with a sneer.

"I'm sure you don't need me to tell you," she said, eyes narrowing.

"I'm sure I do," he said. "Crucio!"

Her body arched in the chair where she was shackled to. Peter was pleased to see the sparkles of electricity in her hair. The material of the chair was a new invention and was conducive to Dark Magic. Very effective for questioning, he thought.

When he thought she had enough, he lifted his wand and she sank down into the chair with a gasp. A line of blood trickled out of her mouth and he could seen the veins in her eyes.

"T-tell me," he repeated again, nicely this time, "what is Muggle Law 13?"

"N-n-no w-w-witch or w-wizard," she managed to get out through the blood pooling in her mouth, "m-may speak to an M-Muggle without e-express Ministry p-per-permission."

Peter was amused that a side effect of the questioning was stuttering. Let her see how it's like, he thought with no small amount of vindication. "Correct," he said, smiling brightly at her. "Now what were you doing? Speaking to Muggles, of course! Surely you know that is punishable under the Muggle Laws."

"P-punishment, not torture," she said.

He couldn't help but feel a twinge of admiration for the woman, much like he had felt so many years ago when she was still a child. She was obviously very strong. All the more fun to break though. "Is there a difference?" he said mildly.

-

Harry was gratified to see the looks of respect as he walked through the Ministry. Getting to his office door, he opened it and saw that there was already somebody inside. A glamour really does a lot for somebody, he thought with faint amusement as he looked at the other person. He heard the door click shut behind him.

"Tom," he said. "What are you doing here?" He saw the scowl on the other man's face and smirked slightly. "You surely don't expect me to call you 'my lord' do you?"

Tom Riddle shrugged. "No," he admitted. "I hear they've begun calling you lord nowadays."

"Only some," Harry said. "I don't encourage it."

Tom's eyes gleamed. "But you don't discourage it either."

Harry shrugged. "I can't stop people saying things." A part of his mind disagreed loudly but he quashed that part. "What are you doing here anyway?" He was faintly annoyed to find his co-leader here. It was part of the agreement less than ten months ago, where the wizarding world was fumbling for direction under the control of Arthur Weasley, that although the new Ministry would be run by both Harry and Tom jointly, the public face of the affairs would be Harry's domain. Of course, Harry reflected, the reasons behind that had disappeared once several researchers had discovered a way to keep a glamour running all the time without draining a wizard's powers.

"I thought we should discuss policy," Tom said smoothly, his long thin fingers tapping a beat on Harry's table.

Harry sat down, a little annoyed at the position of authority Tom had as he was sitting in Harry's own chair. "And what would you like to discuss?"

Tom raised an eyebrow. "Surely you are not that disconnected from the world in that little cottage of Severus's." A small smirk played around his mouth. "Surely you have heard of our newest traitor?"

"I have," Harry said shortly, nodding curtly. He didn't particularly like the insinuation in Tom's voice regarding him and Snape. So what if he spent much of his time in the Scottish moorland? There was something comforting about staying in the cottage with only his lover for company. It wasn't as though he didn't have his own informants. Peter wasn't the only spymaster in wizarding Britain.

"What do you think we should do with her?"

A small frown furrowed Harry's forehead. "Surely that is a job for our spymaster," he pointed out.

"We wouldn't want Peter to make any mistakes," Tom said. "Since she was your... friend. After all, it wouldn't do for my spymaster to be killed for insubordination."

"I thought it was our spymaster."

"What's mine is yours. What's yours is mine," Tom said softly and Harry felt a shiver of cold running down his spine.

Hermione, he thought with a mental shake of his head, why must you be so difficult? She had never accepted the peace created by him and Tom. She insisted that it was fragile, like walking on eggshells. The entire wizarding world is walking on eggshells, she had told him. They're going to crack sometime and we're going to fall.

Ridiculous, of course.

Everybody said that the past ten months had been the best in years. Everything was looking brighter. There was peace. Prosperity lingered on the horizon. Mothers let their children play in Diagon Alley without fearing curses from the darkness. The number of deaths had dropped dramatically.

Hermione's words were simply ridiculous. And now she was a suspected traitor under the care of Peter. Harry had never cared to inquire into Peter's methods. He rather thought he didn't want to know. All he knew was that nobody ever got let out of his custody. Once a suspected traitor, a person simply disappeared.

"I feel sorry for her," Harry said thoughtfully. "But perhaps this was for the best. She didn't like the peace and prosperity we created. She wouldn't have survived in our world."

Tom's eyes gleamed. "So I shall tell Peter..."

"Tell him that he may do as he will," Harry interrupted.

"Excellent."

-

"How many," Snape asked one day as Harry came back to the cottage.

Harry blinked his green eyes over-bright. "You'll have to ask Peter," he said quietly. "He's in charge of these matters."

Snape didn't want to think about it. He didn't want to think of the dissidents being killed. He didn't want to think of the price of peace. And he especially didn't want to see the expression in Harry's eyes sometimes.

He wondered whether this was what he had always feared would happen. And then he wondered whether their world would have been better off any other way. At least now, he thought, there's peace and prosperity.

Peace and prosperity.

"I love you, Harry," he said suddenly.

Harry turned surprised eyes towards him. "That's the first time you've said it."

"I love you, Harry," Snape repeated and hoped that his lover understand what he was trying to say. Don't lose yourself. Don't destroy what we've worked so hard to make. Don't, don't, oh don't listen to Tom. "Be careful."

"I love you too," Harry murmured and buried his face in Snape's robes. "And I'm always careful."

-

Peace, Snape thought.

There was always a price to pay for it.

He hoped this price wouldn't be too high.