The Box

Snape hated Harry Potter.

Not all of the time. Just tonight.

Well, it wasn't the first time; there'd been other nights like this one.

Not for the usual reason he might hate someone he'd lived with for ten years. Not because Harry's irritating personal habits had reached critical mass, or because they'd had a row where Harry'd been right and he'd been wrong (which happened quite often), and not because of any of those other things that Harry might be able to change and avoid his partner's wrath (which he had an irritating habit of trying to do, even if Snape was wrong and they both knew it).

Tonight Snape hated Harry Potter because he slept.

And Snape couldn't. Even after a day full of back-breaking work, a good supper and a bottle of wine between them, followed up with two hours (at least) of down and dirty in this very bed. Even then, he couldn't…sleep.

Ever since the Dark Lord had been done in, though, Harry had slept like a baby. All his anxieties calmed, his worst nightmares dealt with, and now he slept like death (although Snape had never understood that simile; the dead don't actually sleep, do they? No, they rot.).

And just because he was perverse and awake, Snape reached out and pinched Harry's nose between his thumb and finger. He sneered as Harry didn't breathe for a moment it, then finally blew a breath from his mouth in a gust of spittle that Snape felt on his cheek.

Snape scowled as he swiped the back of his hand across his face, then pulled himself up to sit against the headboard; Harry, of course, slept on.

He glanced to the bedside table. A book, perhaps? No that would only stimulate him further. A wank? Well, no, that was Harry's job. And besides, Harry did that better than Snape. A glass of wine? Hmm, but then he'd get sleepy and have to get up to take a piss and then he'd be starting all over again, damn it.

His eyes drifted restlessly over the room, wall to door to wall, then back to the wall where Harry's wardrobe stood, the door slightly ajar. It was always ajar because Harry piled the bottom of it full of Quidditch gear and god only knew what else…oh.

The box.

Snape had only noticed it a few weeks before; he'd been curious about it, but hadn't asked; it was in Harry's wardrobe, after all, and was none of his business…

But since when had that ever stopped him? They didn't keep secrets, well, none that Snape knew about. If Harry had expected it to remain his own private affair, he wouldn't have put it there in plain sight, now would he've?

Snape slid from the bed and padded to the wardrobe, going to his knees in front of it. Using his fingertips, he pushed the doors to the side, wincing when they creaked, but there was no sound from the bed, and a quick glance over his shoulder confirmed that Sleeping fucking Beauty slumbered on.

It wasn't a large box—in fact, it looked like Harry's last pair of trainers had come from it. Tipping off the lid, Snape stared down into the contents and frowned.

What's this? Looks like he's turned into a sodding Niffler…bits and pieces of paper, odds and ends of…

The first item he recognized right away. A length of green velvet ribbon, wrinkled in the middle. Snape hadn't seen it since he'd worn it at their bonding ceremony…

A newspaper clipping announcing Snape's newest potions patent, with a picture of the two of them, snapped as they'd exited the Ministry after he'd filed his findings… He was slightly startled when Harry in the picture waggled a reproachful finger at him.

One of his old Slytherin cuff links, its stem missing. He saw of flash of Harry's face in his mind, bending over Snape's arm as he worked to remove it from the sleeve. It'd been part of their 'undressing' ritual. His cock twitched sympathetically as he flushed.

A shriveled up peach pit…what the bloody hell? He had no idea. He dropped it into his lap and dug deeper into the box.

This next one…a ticket stub from a Muggle movie. Snape brought it up close to his face to read it, then almost smiled. Oddly, the whole thing had been his own idea. He remembered the shock on Harry's face when he'd suggested it. It was the first time he'd worn Muggle jeans.

Another piece of paper, a scrawled note in his own handwriting. H. There's a plate in the kitchen. Covered with a bowl so your disgusting feline won't get at it. Yes, I've made dinner, but don't expect it again. S.

The remains of a Christmas Cracker, confetti spilling over his hands as he stared at the tiny, animated phoenix about to let out a squawk. He pinched its beak together to thwart the sound, the same way he'd pinched Harry's nose a while ago.

A glass stirring rod from his lab…. Snape frowned again. Why in the world…?

This next object was familiar, he thought, as he turned it over. My Order of Merlin. He remembered the last time he'd looked at it, just before he'd skipped it out over the lake.

He slowly worked his way through the small, insignificant items, his lap becoming full of the things Harry had saved. More photos and notes, a pressed valerian flower, an empty potions phial, an ornament from their first Yule tree, a class syllabus of Snape's, on which he'd written Harry an impulsive, 'I'd rather be fucking you,' across the front of it. He smiled as he remembered the look on Harry's face, there in the front of his Charms' students…

Why did he have this strange feeling in his chest? And what the hell was Harry doing, pack-ratting such stupid, silly…

At the very bottom of the box, there was one last item. Wrapped in some sort of clingy film was something dark and weightless. Carefully unwinding the paper, Snape stared down, stunned, at a long, carefully coiled lock of his own hair. When did he do this? he wondered. Harry would never have done such a thing without his permission, and yet, here it was… Ah…that disastrous haircut he gave me five years ago….

Snape sat for a moment and let his hands wander over the jumble in his lap, then one by one replaced them into the box, trying his best to put them back into their original disarray.

All evidence of his intrusion set to rights, he lifted the coverlet and slipped into bed, lying on his side to face the still snoring Harry. He studied his face for a moment, then, caught unawares, he succumbed to the urge to move close and wrap the hated sleeper into his arms.

Harry snuffled softly in his sleep, but didn't resist. Snape burrowed his face in the soft hair at Harry's neck, and wondered, Why do you save all these things? You must have your reasons, I'm sure, but…

And then he remembered how important souvenirs were to Harry—anchoring him to his past, to the people and places and things that were most important to him. Didn't the man still have every single jumper Molly'd ever made for him?

And if Snape died before Harry did (and he probably would be, it only made sense, given that he was a bastard who was living on borrowed time, but then again, so was Harry—not a bastard, but living on borrowed time—so who the hell knew?), he could see it so vividly in his mind's eye. Harry, sitting in mourning, with that box in his lap, smiling and crying as he relived each of those memories. With me. Severus Who-Hated-Harry Snape.

He didn't really hate him, he knew. He'd married the man, for pity's sake. Harry was a sentimental fool, who often (in spite of, and probably because of the fact that he knew it made him squirm) told Snape he loved him. At odd moments, at inopportune ones, sometimes predictable (these Snape handled very well), but often at very unexpected times when Snape was at his most vulnerable (He hated the way the words made him feel guilty and flush so that he had to get up and take off his jacket, both to distract from his embarrassment and because he was warm, of course). And Snape never ever had said it back. He supposed that Harry knew, though, because Snape did show it, he was sure, in his actions and deference (rare that it was), but he'd never say it, of course not, no.

As he thought of his and Harry's life and that damnable box and all it represented, his mouth relaxed, he yawned, and he felt a warmth that made his eyelids heavy and his breathing even out.

This was it, then. He was about to fall asleep.

Pulling the familiar body in his arms closer, he knew he didn't hate Harry. He loved him.

He wondered what it would feel like to articulate the words, let them burble up in his throat and roll out over his tongue. But no, he'd never…never….

Swallowing hard, they just slipped out, almost inaudible, mostly a whisper, at Harry's ear.

"I do love you."

He was almost asleep, which is why he was fairly certain he imagined it when Harry shifted in his arms, draping an arm around Snape's back and rubbing a small circle on his shoulder, mumbling, "I know."

fin