.Drabbles.
Author: ThreeSidedOrchid
Pairings: Various
Rating: Any and all
Summary:
This is just a page on which I can put any drabbles I write. I'm not
going to give separate header info/warnings for every drabble, so be
preparred for anything. A quick note that 'caged', 'Given', and
'Broken' can stand alone, but are kind of intended to be read together,
in that order.
Disclaimer: The Harry
Potter universe and its characters belong to JKR and Warner Brothers,
not me. I'm not making any money off of this - it is done soley for
love of the characters and fun.
| Unasked | Of Snitches & Shadows |
|||
| Broken | ||||
Title: Unasked
Challenge: 310, the Unwritten Pairing
“If I’d known--” .
Severus watches him, giving Harry time to finish as he never would have before.
Like a father Harry thinks. He blushes hotly to think that Severus is treating him like a child.
“You might have asked,” Severus says, stroking Victoire’s back as she watches curiously from his arms.
“You hate children!”
“I would have l--”
“Severus? Alright?” Bill doesn’t look at Harry.
“Yes, fine.” Severus answers, gently. He passes Victoire off, hand lingering against Bill’s shoulder.
Harry looks out at the yard, at Ginny studiously changing James.
“The point, Harry, was that you might have asked.”
Challenge: 162, Cauldrons and Snitches
"Do you miss it?"
Startled, Harry looks up, meeting Severus' eyes as the man steps into their small circle.
"What, Quiddich?" He asks. Ginny's hand in his suddenly too hot, confining. The din of the hall seems distant.
"What else?" Snape takes a sip of champagne, his long throat working. "Don't you miss the feel of a broom between your legs, anchoring you as you speed forward, ever faster in pursuit of that elusive snitch?"
"I -- " There's a red flush staining his neck, he can feel it. "It was too risky."
"That never troubled you before." Severus' flings the words at him.
The others are watching, and Harry stabilizes himself beneath their polite curiosity. "I've grown up, a family is more important than games."
Severus looks at him a long moment, and Harry can see hurt, anger, desire, and a host of other things he has no right to see in this man any longer. He looks down at his glass, seeking answers in its patina of bubbles.
"So I see."
Closing his eyes, Harry lets the finality in Severus' voice wash over him. He squeezes Ginny's hand, waiting for the shadow of Severus' presence to pass them.
Title: Broken
Challenge: 191, favourites
“No more.” Harry’s fingers move over the blindfold, damp with his sweat and tears.
“Don’t be foolish,” Severus says, reaching out.
Standing before the touch can land, Harry goes for his clothes. Severus follows.
“You little slut--” He growls. Already the fresh bruises spangling Harry’s hips are not enough. Severus’ fists curl, itching with the desire to mark the delicate flesh.
Harry keeps out of reach, quick as a sparrow. He looks up, and Severus wants to slap him.
“Why don‘t you let me look at you?"
Into Severus' silence, Harry whispers, “You’ve broken your favorite toy,” and is gone.
Title: Given
Challenge: 54, wrath
“Severus,” Harry rasps, and the hand at his throat tightens.
He shuts his eyes, but Severus’ thumb presses against his jaw anyway, forcing Harry to turn his head away.
It is always like this. Harry has grown used to the bruises, impressions of Severus’ fingers rising an angry blue-black, lingering as love-bites.
Legs wrapped around Severus’ waist, hands seeking tenure against the stiff, black robes, Harry whimpers.
“Shut up.”
He doesn’t hear the words so much as feel them, formed against his throat like a kiss. Fingers at last finding purchase, Harry swallows back another cry and gives himself over.
Title: Caged
Challenge: 55, Lust
Severus looks down at Potter, sprawled beside him in a tangle of cloth
and flesh, asleep. Reaching out, his fingers trail over the scratches
and marks, ley lines of his lust picked out in red and purple. He
follows them, as if they might lead him somewhere other than skin.
A sigh, soft as a secret, draws his attention up.
Potter is watching him, gaze coming to rest on Severus' face in tentative flutters, like a bird uncertain of its perch.
It hurts, cages him.
Severus pulls away, fingers brushing Potter's skin once more, inadvertently.
“Get dressed, and get out.”
Title: Costs
Challenge: 46, Sacrifice
Potter doesn‘t pull back. His lips trail after Severus'. A small noise of frustration, a quiet, “again.”
“It was a mistake.” Severus' words have little power when his hands are still wrapped tight in the fabric of Potter's robes.
“Wasn‘t,” Potter murmurs. “C'mon, costs nothing.” He is relentless,
forming each word against Severus' lips in soft curves and warm breath.
Severus pulls back, seeking perspective. Potter is bright eyes and young skin; hope rendered in flesh and bone.
“It costs more than you know.” His last word is cut short as he brings their mouths together again, sealing the bargain.
Title: Saturday
Challenge: 43, Stormy Weather
The sound of Severus settling his teacup, a thump dull as distant
thunder, stirs him. Harry opens his eyes to the landscape of sheets
and, beyond, the window. It is still raining -- fat drops obliterating
the view.
He turns over, pulling the sheets tighter about himself.
However, movement breeds dissatisfaction; Severus is propped against the headboard, book in hand, now tantalizingly close.
In slow inches Harry closes the distance, until their bodies align and
he can worm his head beneath Severus' arm to rest against his chest.
“Slug,” Severus remarks, without rancor.
Harry hmms in contented agreement and presses closer.
Title: First Date
Challenge: 38, New Beginnings
“We're not very good at this, are we?” Potter's smile is wistful and a little bitter.
Severus inhales deeply, silently.
“No,” He acknowledges, recalling stilted, uncomfortable conversation, “we're not.”
“Hm.” Potter frowns.
“Well. Now we know.”
“Don't--” Potter starts, then runs out of words. Reaching
forward, he closes his fingers around the edge of Severus' sleeve.
“What would you have me say?” It sounds weak, distracted as he is by
the intimacy of flesh and cloth, at once too light and consuming.
“Touch me, Severus. Just touch me,” Potter answers, stepping close, letting his fingers move from sleeve to skin.
Title: Orpheus' Mistake
Challenge: Number 34 "Apologizing"
It is months of Severus looking right through him, months of haunting the staff room, before Harry approaches cautiously.
“Severus --”
“Harry,” he breathes, closing his eyes tightly, “please.”
Hovering, Harry waits, certain that now , at last, Severus will face him.
But he doesn't.
“Don't you understand? If I look back now, I may never look away.”
Severus opens his eyes then, but his apology is directed at the wall.
Harry opens his mouth, but hasn't the breath to speak. He chokes on
absent words, sinking back. He doesn't understand, not Severus, and not
how a heart without flesh can hurt.
Title: Some Things
Prompt: Snarry100 #26 Promises
It took a year, and innumerable fights, for Harry to understand.
“Wow,” he breathes, when the flames have ebbed from green to yellow.
“It's about time.”
Harry smiles at the response. He watches Severus gathering up their glasses, hands ever careful with the delicate stemware.
“Yes, but, married . Ron and Hermione. Promised. Forever.”
Severus doesn't answer, and Harry follows him into the kitchen.
Handing Harry a glass to dry, Severus lets their fingers brush, lingering until Harry looks up.
It took a year, and innumerable fights, for Harry to understand; there are some things Severus cannot give him in words.
Title: Cloak
Prompt: Snarry100 #27 Touch
It has never frayed, the little square, for all his worrying it.
Beneath his fingers the cloth has no smell, no color, only the weave of rough fibers and the spaces between.
Sometimes, Harry imagines the spaces are growing, expanding, absorbing
the threads until he has to slip it from his pocket to ensure that it's
still there.
Sometimes, Harry thinks maybe, maybe he should leave it on the dresser for the day.
Usually he just touches, recalling taking the fragment in the heat of
battle, and the way he used to remember the feel of Severus beneath the
cloak.
Title: Intoxicated
Prompt: Snarry100 #25 Intoxication
He paces himself until the edges of his vision begin to tremble.
Sprawled drunkenly across the bed, wanton pictures tumbling through his
thoughts; faces, limbs, images that aren't images -- breath at his
neck, rough hands, taste of skintonguecome -- fragments of strangers
and fantasies that tighten, coalesce to his breath, his hands, his skintongue --
Harry gasps, arches up, comes.
Collapsed against the sheets, hand smoothing the last, languid strokes,
he imagines fingers sliding over his in an intimate caress. Harry
sighs. It's no good. Snape is in his system like a poison, a toxin that
cannot be expunged.
Title: Erised
Prompt: Snarry100 challenge 24 -- Image. Inspired by Yukipon's illustration for chapters 17-20 of If You Are Prepared.
He felt when Snape would pull away.
The hand that had touched down so tentatively against him tightened, fingers curling.
“No.”
Harry isn’t sure what it means when a word sounds so crushed, what it means when a word aches.
“Please,” He answers, because it doesn’t make sense, but he thinks,
maybe, if he can reach past Snape’s furrowed brow, past the eyes closed
against him --
He lifts his hand and brushes his fingers hesitantly against Snape’s,
anxious of the sharp exhalation and tightened brow the caress causes.
“Please,” he says again, afraid to touch, afraid not to touch.
Title: Home is Where the Heart is
Prompt: Snarry100 challenge 24 -- Image. Inspired by Chupachup's illustration for the Snarry_games, Home is Where the Heart is.
In winter the days become measured in absence, unwinding in the space
between each dull tick and tock. Thoughts dissolve, drift, and pile
neglected at the corners of his mind.
Severus waits, half-asleep, listening as his heart slows to a sympathetic beat.
The grind of the old clockwork, the heavy wood and metal inhalation before the chime strikes, wakes him.
Time.
Stairs beneath his feet, cold blast of air and a moment of blindness.
There, a light, a hint of color, growing, resolving to sunlight and flushed features.
Harry.
“You're home,” he breathes, an exhalation of warmth against the cold.
Title: Goodbye
Prompt: Snarry100 challenge 23 -- Firsts
Unbearable, all-consuming awkwardness, this.
Mr. Weasley looks at him, brow furrowed.
“I'll be back in a few days,” Harry says, between them, shifting his weight foot to foot.
Severus nods, resisting the urge to slam the door to prevent his escape, uncertain which side Harry will settle on.
Harry stops, licks his lips, glances at Weasley. Quick, he steps
forward -- hands on Severus' cheeks, lips pressed almost chastely
together, whispered words -- and steps back.
“Harry, what --”
“We've a lot to catch up on, Ron.”
They say goodbye for the first time, kiss still drying on their lips.
Title: Magic
“They'll hear--”
Slip of a button, glide of a hand.
“Shh.”
I don't know how it is that I became so tame beneath you. There are
times, when we are not secreted away in the pockets of hidden seconds
and shadows, that I suspect trickery.
“Say the magic word.”
Times when it all seems a well-rehearsed illusion.
“Please -- want -- need --”
Then I remember pulling from you whispered endearments and obscenities,
strung together in a rush like a magician's flags. I remember the way
everything vanishes, except breath and touch and now, now, now.
“ Yes. ”
And I know it's real.
