Trials and Tribulations

“So this is Snape’s house.”

Harry looked around in interested wonder. As with wizard tents, the seemingly small countryside cottage was actually a lot larger on the inside. He was currently stood in a Victorian period-decorated entrance hall. The floor was made up of a pattern of dark red and black tiles, while the walls were painted a rich dark wine colour. A mahogany staircase swept up before him and doors to either side of the staircase seemingly led into the rest of the house.

Now, if I were a library, where would I hide?

Harry kicked the door shut behind him. Even if the house were warded, Harry didn’t want to take the chance of someone walking past and seeing in. On the logic that the library at Hogwarts was on the ground floor, he took the door to the left of the staircase. Twisting the handle and pushing it open, he put his head through the door.

‘Living Room,’ Harry though. The room was painted dark Slytherin green and adorned with two large leather sofas, a few table lamps and a whole wall of full bookshelves. Harry shook his head. It was just typical for Snape to keep books everywhere. The room was filled with light from a large set of French windows leading out into what must be the garden.

Harry closed the door again, knowing enough of Snape’s anally retentive need for order that if the book was in his living room he would have said as much. He walked around the staircase to the other door and pushed that one open. He looked into the new room and took in the gleaming black marble worktops, large rough-pine dinner table and neatly arranged row of cookbooks. Kitchen.

Harry closed the door again and looked at the sweeping staircase. “Upstairs it is.”

Harry placed a hand on the smooth wooden banister and started up the staircase. Each step drew a creak from the aged mahogany. Harry stepped onto the landing and looked in either direction. Two doors. Harry shrugged. Right.

He turned to the right and walked to the end of the landing. Harry turned the handle once again and pushed open the door. He was immediately hit by a familiar smell of books and rosemary – Snape smell. He grinned and stepped inside. This room was different to the other rooms he had seen. Instead of dark, rich colours the walls were painted a pale shade of sky blue. He stepped into the room, leaving the door open behind him. A large oak four-poster bed dominated the room, hung with cream canopies and a darker blue coverlet. In one corner stood a large oak wardrobe and a small vanity with a mirror. Again, the walls were lined with full bookshelves. The bedside table held three pillar white candles and one book. Harry frowned. It was unlike Snape not to put things away when he was done with them. Walking over to the bed, he turned his head to read the title of the dark red leather-bound book. ‘Living Journal – Severus Snape, October 15th 1976-‘.

A slow smile spread across Harry’s face. “Snape keeps a diary?” He gave a short chuckle. “That’s just so…gay!” Harry then realised what he had said and frowned at himself.

“Ooh. Door.” Harry walked away from the bed towards the small, white-painted door. He pulled it open and smiled at the wrought iron spiral staircase that led down into a wood-panelled room lined wall-to-wall with books. “Jackpot!”

Harry practically skipped down the spiral staircase into the large library. He stood in the centre of the room with his hands on his hips looking around the room full of shelves. “Now it would just help oh so much if I could find the book!”

Then he heard Snape’s voice in his head. “Potter, can it be possible that you attended school for seven years without even developing the ability to perform a simple summoning charm?”

Harry gave the half-smile half-grimace he always gave Snape when he didn’t want to admit that he had been an idiot. He pulled out his wand. “Accio ‘Potions of the Mind’!”

A book slid out from one of the top shelves and flew towards him. Harry held out his free hand and caught the book, turning it over to check the title. Satisfied, he walked back to the spiral staircase, dodging various worktables and desks. One of the titles of the books scattering the work-spaces however, caught his attention. He paused and picked up the book. It was a thick one with a white cover and silver writing on the title, which read, ‘Elves: Myth or History?’. Harry put the book down and glanced at the others. ‘House-elf History’, ‘Elf Forests of Great Britain’, ‘Elven Legends’. Harry wondered when Snape had become so interested in Elves. Most wizards didn’t even believe they existed any more and those who did were treated with the same bemusement as Muggles who believed in aliens.

Harry shrugged to himself and, leaving the book on the table, he walked back to the spiral staircase. He took the stairs back up to the bedroom two at a time. Harry couldn’t say why but it felt like a breech of Snape’s privacy to be snooping around his house un-accompanied.

He walked into the bedroom and closed the door to the library behind him. Harry walked straight for the door back to the landing…then paused. He turned slowly and regarded the diary sat on Snape’s bedside table. He cocked his head to one side and walked towards the bedside table slowly. Well, it would probably throw some light on the case, he thought. And Snape would never have to know. He brushed a finger over the cover, tracing the lettering to Snape’s name.

And you’d just love to see what Snape really thinks of you, said a treacherous voice at the back of his head. He frowned, shooing the voice away and picked up the book, dropping it into his magically-enlarged back pocket. Harry smiled and patted the pocket.

He never has to know.

*****

Harry smiled and nodded to the barman as he set his pint of bitter down on the counter top. Harry handed over some money for it and sipped the drink, half turning on his stool to look around the room. In a booth were the boy and girl he had encountered earlier, along with a few other kids who looked too young to be served. At the other end of the bar were a group of grey-stubbled men in green Wellington boots and rain macks speaking in rapid-fire Welsh. If Harry listened closely, the language wasn’t that different to Scottish Gaelic and he could translate the odd word or phrase. However, most of the conversation seemed to be based on sheep, according to his translations. That couldn’t be right, could it?

Harry had booked into one of the pub’s rooms for the night. When he had left Snape’s house the sun had almost gone down over the mountain and the air had turned sharp and cold. He could have apparated home, even if the portkey station wasn’t open but it had been a hard week and he’d needed a drink. Besides, he didn’t want to go home just yet. Plus, here he could get a look at that diary without feeling too guilty…

“Penny for your thoughts?”

Harry frowned and turned his head sharply. The deep voice and its American accent were vaguely familiar. A tall, lanky figure slid onto the barstool beside him, dressed in jeans and a Tshirt. He brushed a long fringe of dark blonde hair out of his eyes and grinned at Harry. The smile triggered Harry’s memory. “Ah. From the station.”

The man raised his eyebrows. “You were thinking about the station?”

“Oh, no. I just…I ramble.” Harry frowned and quickly took a gulp of his pint. There was a voice inside his head laughing at him very loudly and it sounded a lot like Ron. “It’s Dave, isn’t it?”

“Yup, that it is,” Dave nodded to the barman and ordered a pint of ‘whatever you guys drink around here’. He turned back to Harry, “Now, about that penny for your thoughts…”

“Oh, I wasn’t thinking anything.”

Dave raised a sceptical eyebrow. “I’ve seen a frown like that before. It’s about a girl.”

Harry smirked into his glass. “Believe me, it’s not about a girl.”

Dave picked up his drink and regarded Harry for a moment over the top of his glass. “So, what did he-she-it do?”

Harry looked up through a dark fringe of eyelashes and held the older man’s eyes for a moment. “There isn’t a ‘he-she-it’,” he gave a bashful smile and looked back down at his drink. “I mean, I’m not with anyone. I just like to brood for no reason.”

Dave nodded. “I can relate.”

They sat in silence for a moment, each staring into their respective glasses. “So what about your ‘he-she-it’?”

Dave smiled again, lop-sidedly. “Oh, I don’t have one. No one’ll put up with me.”

Harry finished off his pint and turned back towards the bar. “Well, if we’re both young free and single, allow me to buy you a drink.”

Dave smiled and handed Harry his empty glass.

*****

Harry yawned loudly and kicked the door closed behind him. He smiled lazily and wandered over towards the bed, flopping down onto it and closing his eyes. He sighed happily and tried to remember the last time he’d had a halfway decent snog-fest. Probably not since seventh year, when Snape had caught him in a side-corridor of the dungeons with Gary Farnday, a dark-haired Ravenclaw from the year below him. “Must be theraputic,” he muttered to himself.

Harry sat up and began stripping his clothes off for bed, running over the past hour in his head. Dave had led him outside to a small shack attached to the side of the pub. It had been cold and damp outside but neither had really had that much time to notice. Harry grinned, remembering the man’s lips, his hands – Oh Merlin, his hands! Unfortunately, their ‘therapy’ session had been cut short. Dave was only in the area for that day. He worked for the Canadian Ministry’s International Affairs Department and had a meeting in the morning.

Harry unbuttoned his jeans and slid them down off his hips. He stepped out of them and picked them up to fold and place on the end of his bed. Something slid out of the pocket and landed with a soft thud on the floor. Harry bent and picked up the small, red diary. He had almost forgotten about the ‘Living Journal’. “Bedtime reading.” Harry tossed the book onto the bed and lifted off his T-shirt, dropping it lightly onto the floor. He pulled back the covers and climbed into bed, leaning back against the soft pillows.

“Now then, Professor Snape,” he said, picking up the journal, “let’s see how this thing works.”

Harry opened the journal to the front page. He brushed his finger tips over the cream parchment and watched as neat black writing began writing itself across the page:

‘Instructions:

The Living Journal ™ is configured to its owner and only its owner. Only one recognised as him will be allowed to ‘read’ or add to the journal. To write in the Living Journal ™…’

“Blah, blah, blah. How d’you read it?”

‘To read back over your Living Journal ™, simply turn to the dated page you wish to view, tap the page with your wand and say ‘revello’.’

“Well, that sounds easy enough.” Harry flicked through the pages and stopped at random. He bent over the side of the bed and reached into the wand-pocket of his robes. Sitting upright again he tapped the page (Dated June 18th 1979) and intoned, “Revello!”

Harry felt a tingling rise up through his wand hand. The Journal was checking him. Then it receded and black, sketchy lines began to draw themselves onto the page. “Thank Merlin for the Sanguinis Charm!”

Harry grinned and watched in fascination as the sketchy lines turned into a picture of a large bedroom holding three four-poster beds and several trunks. There were two occupants to the room. One Harry recognised as being Snape – a much younger, half-naked Snape. He sat on the floor next to one of the beds, leaning back against it. His legs, clad in a pair of black trousers, were spread and between them sat…

“Lucius Malfoy? What the…”

Harry stopped abruptly as sound filtered out from the diary. Voices. He sat in silence and watched the diary like a film clip.

“We should go. It’s almost time for dinner.”

Snape wrapped his arms around Lucius’ waist and dropped a kiss on his shoulder. “You may go, if you wish. I however, have absolutely no wish to allow the rest of the school to observe me eating topless.”

The blonde haired boy lent back into the embrace, covering Snape’s arms with his and turning his head to the side so he spoke into Snape’s neck. “No, you never were an exhibitionist. As I think last week proved.”

Snape frowned slightly and raised his left arm, turning it to look at a blood red tattoo surrounded by swollen, enflamed skin. “It still hurts, you know. Is it meant to hurt this long?”

Lucius regarded the arm. “Baby. It’ll just be sore for a while. But it was worth it, wasn’t it?”

Snape raised an eyebrow. “Well, it’s ugly as sin…”

Lucius nudged him lightly in the ribs with his elbow. “It’s beautiful,” to emphasize the point he leant forward and brushed a soft kiss over the red mark. His lips trailed on up the arm until he was half-turned in the embrace and placing kisses on Snape’s shoulder.

Snape smiled down at him and pressed a kiss on the top of the younger man’s head. “Much as I would love to spend the next few hours allowing you to explore the rest of my body with your mouth, I’m afraid you were right,” Snape pulled Lucius up and lent their heads together. “We should go to dinner before anyone starts coming to look for us.”

Lucius pouted lightly. Snape grinned and sucked Lucius’ lower lip into his mouth, gently pressing his shoulders until he was laid out on the floor with Snape poised above him…

“Gah!” Harry snapped the diary shut and tossed it to the other end of the bed, looking at it accusingly. Of all the things he had expected to see, a teenaged Snape making out with Lucius Malfoy was not it!

“Well…I suppose that was karma.” Harry retrieved the diary, holding it gingerly from the corner lest it should open and force him into watching a home-made porn film starring his ex-Potions Professor. He dropped it on top of his robes on the floor and turned out the lamp on his bedside table. He settled down on his side, curling his arms around a pillow and closed his eyes.

But sleep did not come for some time. Images of black hair and silvery blonde laying over each other afflicted his eyelids.