Alliance

Alliance Part III

by Leni Jess

Oral Tradition

Harry watched bemusedly as the students scuttled off holding hands; they classed him with Snape as an authority figure. He supposed if he was going to stand beside the Head of Slytherin while he penalised misbehaviour, he shouldn't be surprised at being thought to be on the staff side of the divide. It had never occurred to him that might happen, or that he should then see its justice.

"I shall speak to Mr Derrick in the morning," Snape said dourly.

"You're not going to tell him off for taking up with a Gryffindor girl?"

"That would be unfair."

Harry grinned, relieved. "When did you ever worry about 'unfair'?"

Snape did not smile back, but he closed the door and reached for Harry, who went readily. They kissed, open-mouthed, eager for regained intimacy after the stressful evening. Soon Snape was clumsily wrestling with Harry's trousers, frustrated by the unfamiliar Muggle zip.

When Snape gave up and started fondling him through the cloth Harry gasped, "No bed here. Your place is closer. Though the Room of Requirement must be nearby."

Snape stepped back. The expression on his face was probably regret, but he spoke with determination. "Come, then."

Harry sighed, straightened his clothing, and accompanied him out the door.

To distract himself from their interrupted pairing he murmured, "Maybe I'll tell Miranda about the Room."

"Don't interfere with school discipline, Potter! You did enough while you were a student."

"If they love each other - a Gryffindor-Slytherin liaison might need some help. In principle it should be encouraged."

Snape scowled. Perhaps he was torn between assenting to a proposition that would once have revolted him, and risking offending his lover by demanding he keep out of Snape's affairs. Harry thought Miranda Bell, as a Gryffindor, was his own business, after a fashion.

Harry tried to make it easier for him. "Your students need to be accepted, not made outcasts. If one is open-minded enough to fall for a Gryffindor, and she strong enough to respond, shouldn't they be encouraged? I'm not saying you have to tell them about the Room, or put a bed in it, either! But don't forbid me to tell them."

"Neither you nor I should be encouraging students in rule-breaking."

Harry tried not to roll his eyes. Snape should be coaxed out of his rigidity, not made fun of.

He put his clinching argument. "There'll be students in the other three houses who heard about the Room from older brothers or sisters in Dumbledore's Army. The tradition won't fail, even if I say nothing to Miranda. But does any Slytherin know about it, except you?

"Being fixated on school rules isn't always enough - in the war knowing about the Room of Requirement saved lives. Some day one of yours may need to know."

Snape muttered, "Gryffindor brat!" adding, "Before you make Miss Bell free of it, be sure she's serious about Derrick."

"And he about her," Harry retorted, but he touched Snape's hand as they walked.

Viewpoints

Snape found himself torn between anxiety to get Potter into bed, now, at once, and, since that was impossible, thinking about the implications of his proposal to share knowledge of the Room of Requirement with a new generation of students. It would be foolish to do what he wanted, pulling Potter into the nearest dark corner to make him forget he had thought a bed necessary, when another five minutes would assure them privacy and comfort.

In the event it was morning before he devoted much thought to that outrageous suggestion; Potter moved very close indeed and told him, softly, enticingly, what he wanted.

Snape said between his teeth, "Quiet. Gryffindor, always making trouble."

"Yes, Professor Snape. Detention again?"

Snape was surprised into a snort of laughter, but replied as menacingly as possible, "No, I thought I'd fuck you silly."

Potter's soft gasp and subsequent silence pleased him.

They said little after they reached his rooms. Potter did not approach him, but stripped hastily. Snape watched, to see how to get those wretched trousers off, while shrugging out of his own robes.

Later Potter asked provocatively, "Thought you planned to fuck me?"

Snape had hesitated to follow up on that, unsure whether Potter would be willing, remembering how much at Potter's age he had disliked being used for another's pleasure; but that was clearly an invitation.

He shunted aside his reservations and pushed his partner into position, only at the last moment recollecting how essential lubrication was. He thought Potter was laughing, but he didn't care. That stopped soon enough; hands, voice, and quivering, weeping cock all declared Potter's eagerness. Snape found almost forgotten skills could be resurrected and their use enjoyed.

He slept contentedly, spooned behind his lover, but soon after he woke was sobered by remembrance.

Potter did not take his wand to bed - quite - but he came as close to it as Snape himself. Beneath the well-groomed Quidditch star with the company manners was the veteran warwizard still.

Snape's instinct with a secret, after what seemed a lifetime as a double agent, was to bury it ever deeper. Potter's was to share it, judiciously, taking the riskier course, hoping to save lives. Snape had committed himself to gathering information, and sowing misinformation and confusion; Potter had been fated, unasked, to be Voldemort's slayer - and how oddly that had worked out! - but his choice was to protect others.

So Potter would trust what Snape regarded as a state secret to two children, expecting them to share it with others. Terrifying. Provident.

Maybe each of them was warped beyond recovery by the war, but Potter's attitude was more likely to prepare others to survive the next one. Each assumed there would be more war, even if not in his time. Potter's method might reduce the number of innocents slaughtered when some other vainglorious madman decided he was fit to rule the world.

Snape should consider what additional advantages Potter's viewpoint might offer another man determined to protect his own.

Compatibility

Harry woke to the warmth of Snape's body pressing against him. Instantly he felt his own readiness, and his lover's, for more of the enjoyment which had preceded sleep, and nudged back gently.

He became aware Snape was thinking, quite loudly. Wondering whether last night had been a bad idea? Harry had invited being fucked, quite explicitly, he thought.

He murmured, "I liked that. You did too."

"I wasn't sure you wanted me to have you that way."

Harry said crisply, "I know how to say 'No' if I don't want something." More warmly he added, "There are many ways to pleasure."

For a moment Snape went very still.

His school-masterly avoidance of any appearance of coercion was hardly appropriate now. Harry knew all about pressure; in bed, and on the Quidditch pitch, it was something he could withstand. Better say so. Or give Snape something else to consider.

So he said cheerfully, "I hope you think turn about is fair play. I'd like to fuck you, too, though not necessarily now."

His lover tugged on his shoulder; Harry obligingly rolled over so their eyes met. There was a small smile on Snape's mouth, with no twist in it at all.

"I have no problem with equal time, Potter. Or something like it. If you can do it right. Can you?"

Harry grinned. This might be fun. He asked, "Is it something you forget? Oh no, you remembered how. I think my memory's as good as yours, Professor."

"No one could've deduced it from the classes you took with me. I suppose I could make allowances."

Harry managed to demonstrate that he had not forgotten those other long-ago lessons, though he had no wish to remember the teacher, not in Snape's bed.

That ghost leaning over his shoulder might have made him even more tender for Snape's pleasure than he already wished to be, but Snape was as eager as Harry had been last night, and rather more demanding. Harry thought someone had trained him to an unlikely compliance, but he seemed to be getting away from that by himself.

"Now!"

Harry held back no longer, moving between Snape's thighs, thankful he was already prepared, after all Harry's play with his hole. It was wonderful to probe Snape even more intimately than with his fingers, to slide into a welcoming heat and a different pressure, to thrust harder, deeper, more insistently. To drive Snape over the edge and to follow him with a shout of triumph.

Drifting up afterwards, Harry hoped Snape would indulge his wish to help the other Gryffindor-Slytherin pair. Rather, he hoped Snape would decide he approved of sharing information about the Room of Requirement as a matter of policy. If not, or not yet, Harry would be patient. Patience was something he had learned, however reluctantly; its utility in all sorts of situations was proven. How very pleasant that he had not needed to practice it earlier, any more than Snape had needed to make allowances.

Equality

Snape waited until they were dressing for breakfast in the Great Hall before he asked, "You meant what you said, you'll tell the Gryffindor girl about the Room of Requirement?"

"If they're serious about each other. Unless you strongly object." Potter grinned at him. "Then I'll drag you back to bed and persuade you."

Snape said derisively, "That's been tried by better manipulators than you'll ever be, Potter."

Potter shrugged. "Whatever, we'd enjoy ourselves; didn't you?"

It was a relief to hear his lover abandon the threat so easily. Snape had come to prize honesty between lovers, and to think it something he would never have. So far Potter had given it, open-handed, without hesitation; he had not liked imagining Potter's trading him sex for consent to something he disapproved of.

"No." Snape added cautiously, "I won't object - if they're serious. You were the one, though, who insisted Slytherins must be treated just like other students - not favoured, and not disadvantaged, either."

Potter nodded, suddenly as serious as himself. "Dumbledore will never do it."

"I know. You weren't going to do it either."

"But I want Derrick to know!" Potter protested.

"And you'd give the information to Miss Bell. Allow her to control it. Think, Potter, how a Slytherin would see that."

Potter looked truly disconcerted. After a moment he said softly, "I'm sorry. You're right. They must be told together. I hadn't thought; Derrick probably would wonder what else he didn't know about. I don't want to create a divide between them; I want to help them."

He smiled ruefully. "I hope he's not your typical suspicious Slytherin."

Snape said firmly, "Slytherins aren't taught to have unrealistic expectations."

"Thanks, Snape! But so long as he listens, it doesn't matter whether he doubts my information, or my motives, for that matter. The next time they want a private place Miranda will test what I say."

Potter nodded decisively. "I'll speak to her after breakfast. If she and Derrick aren't just flouting conventions for fun, I should be able to speak to both somewhere people won't be surprised. In this weather one team or the other is bound to be on the Quidditch pitch early."

"And a Slytherin spying on the Gryffindor team would be welcomed."

"Same the other way round," Potter retorted.

They went to breakfast in accord; Potter spoke quickly to Miss Bell at the Gryffindor table before he went up to the staff table.

He murmured, "She mustn't be put in a position where she could run roughshod over his feelings. Gryffindors are taught to value fairness and sharing; while she probably wouldn't hold it over him that she knows how to access the Room, he mustn't think she might, however much he'd cheerfully take advantage of anyone else."

Primly Snape said, "My Slytherins are taught better manners between themselves than that, Potter."

Potter grinned. "But the rest of the world doesn't count, right? Perhaps I'm not the only one who needs to think about what he's doing."

TBC