A Saint Valentines Day Surprise
by Reiko Katsura

Pairing: Snape/Harry

Word Count: ~4,415

Rating: High R

Summary: Severus Snape hates Valentines Day. No surprise there. But someone giving him a Valentine? Shocker.

Author's Notes: Sorry this took so bloody long! So many distracting things have happened, and I've been in a bit (or a lot) of a writing slump, as well. It doesn't help any that my laptop caught a very nasty virus and I've spent ages doing damage control. I do apologize for the tardiness of this chapter. This is the second to last installment of this fic. Comments (and writing tips) are always welcome =) Thanks so much to those who've left reviews!

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. No copyright infringement intended.

A/N 2: Chapter was not beta'd, so I apologize in advance if you come across any typos or errors that've managed to slip me by. Nasty buggers they are.
A/N 3: On that note, if anyone is interested in beta-ing this story, I'd really appreciate it ^^"

ETA: Breaks have been fixed! Sorry if there's been any confusion!

.Part 4.

"Class dismissed," Snape intoned to his group of seventh year Gryffindors and Slytherins. At once his students began cleaning their work stations and filing out. He glanced up towards the open door, already crowded by a rushing horde, just in time to see Potter's back disappear from his line of sight. Scowling, Snape dropped his head, his lengthy fringe concealing his face from any onlookers, and stared blankly at the incomplete stack of marked reports before him.

When the last student scurried out of his room—and he made sure of it by indulging in a quick glance around—he tidied the reports into a neat pile and placed them in the wide pocket of his satchel.

To say that the relationship between him and Potter was strained would have been an understatement of the millennia. Gone were the days of unprovoked tension, of innate loathing and antipathy. It was as if the air between them harbored icicles even from a good distance away. Things were not, and would undoubtedly never be, the same as before he received Potter's love letter. Before, the frigidity they entertained together was something overlooked by both students and staff as a festering hatred that had been borne many years before, bilaterally. It wasn't uncommon for either of them to avoid the other, especially not in Potter's case as exposure to Snape inevitably lead, when Potter was concerned, to the deduction of Gryffindor House Points and detention with Filch.

There was a difference to that tension now, however, and just as Snape could see it, others were beginning to, as well. Minerva had already started pestering him, during breakfast earlier that day, about the alteration in his and Potter's relationship and the cause of it.

Snape had glared her into silence—not denying that there had, in fact, been a change—and left the Great Hall before rumors could be spread amongst the Head Table.

Snape re-corked his ink bottles and stuffed them into his satchel, then wiped his ink-coated fingers, luckily black, against his dark robes. He stood up from his chair, shrunk the bag and placed it in his pocket, then walked towards the door.

As he stepped out into the hall and locked the door to his classroom with a quick Sealing Charm, his thoughts reverted back to Potter. At least he and boy-wonder were no longer at each other's throats, as they had been the week prior. The imbecile Potter was, he had unwisely taken to talking back to Snape, ignoring Snape when he talked to him, and sloppily handling Snape's potion ingredients, causing more cauldron explosions in a week than Longbottom accomplished in an entire month, without a measure of care. Potter's insolence in his class had risen to an extreme height, so much so that even his "friends", Granger and Weasley, had beleaguered him about it—a cause that was both futile and detrimental, as Potter would explode at them each time they tried, resulting in additional loss of points for his behavior, and then the cycle would repeat itself again.

Gryffindor had lost a total of two hundred points in the last week alone. It was a wonder Potter's classmates continued to consult with him. But then, Snape thought dryly, only Gryffindors (and Hufflepuffs) would.

Already arrived at his office, Snape opened the door and walked in. Shutting the heavy wood behind him, he shook his head—determined to get the damned Potter brat out of his thoughts—and moved for his desk.

The debacle with Potter was already causing weariness to his mentality. Snape was further behind in paperwork and marking essays than he'd ever been during his duration as a teacher.

He fished out the stack of bound parchment from his haversack, which he'd already enlarged and placed on his desk, untied the loose knot that secured them together and grabbed at the first report on the very top.

Snape refused to let the Potter brat invade his thoughts and obstruct his priorities any more he'd already done.

Irritated at having to even tell himself what should have been an effortless matter, Snape glanced at the essay in his hand— A report on the effects of spider legs to healing draughts, by Ginevra Weasley—and began to mercilessly read.

When the dreams started, Snape hadn't an idea.

It was a nightly occurrence, however, at least on the nights when he couldn't take Dreamless Sleep. On those nights, Snape would lie in bed for a long time, staring up at his dark green ceiling, dreading what he knew was to come.

Nightmares. Nightmares of Harry Potter.

The dreams had began normally enough. While it wasn't usual for Potter to appear in his nighttime visions, he thought it couldn't be helped with the recent tension between the two of them. Whether Snape liked it or not—and he didn't, truly didn't—Harry Potter was endlessly in his thoughts, consciously or otherwise. Even though things had calmed down between them—which, aptly put, meant they both completely ignored the other's existence whenever possible—the boy was never far from his mind. It was hard not thinking of a boy when everything you did constantly reminded you of him; when he was your student and it was your job to pay him mind.

In the beginning, Potter's appearance had been a brief one. He was in Snape's dreams for no longer than a few moments, never saying a word, never doing a thing; just a presence that lingered at the back of his thoughts, haunting as a sense, sometimes an image, rather than a 'physical' being.

But then the Potter in his dreams started getting bold. He'd grown a form, one that was corporeal and could touch as he wanted. And Merlin, did Potter touch. Wherever Snape was, Potter was there, tugging at his hair and brushing their hands together. He smiled at him when Snape failed at ignoring him, hovered over him whatever chance he got. It was when Potter had taken to pressing his lips against his—and Snape did nothing to refute him—that he began taking the Dreamless Sleep.

But as with most potions that contained Graphorn parts, continuous use had its disadvantages: namely addiction.

Staring at the purple vial that sat across from him on his mahogany wood desk, Snape wondered which was worse— forming an addiction to a remedy that could put an end to both his wellbeing and, if found out, his career, or having dreams of snogging the boy-who-lived.

He grudgingly admitted that the latter, while wholly unpleasant, was the lesser of two evils, and turned his gaze away from the alluring potion and back onto the dark green ceiling of his four-poster canopy bed.

When his lids began to droop, Snape reluctantly let them close all the way and allowed himself to succumb to sleep.

.

.

.

When Snape awoke hours later, it was with his body trembling in arousal, his hair damp from sweat, and his pants drenched from something else entirely.

"Is there something you need, Mr. Malfoy?" Snape looked up at the hovering dark form of Draco Malfoy from where he sat at his desk. The rest of the students, including Potter, had already left his classroom, ten minutes before class was scheduled to end since all the labs had been completed, contrary to his expectance, and he was in no mood to be around them any longer than was entirely necessary. Draco, apparently, hadn't gotten the clue.

Draco nodded slowly, and pushed a loose strand of blond hair out of his face and behind his ear. "I wanted to know if you're alright, sir."

Snape narrowed his eyes at him, more suspicious than anything else of the boy's inquiries. "I assure you, Mr. Malfoy, that I am no different now than I've ever been. Now, if that is all…?" he trailed off, glancing pointedly behind his top student towards the classroom door. When he looked back at Draco, however, he realized that the boy had no intention of leaving. The expression he was sporting was frighteningly familiar to Lucius' when he was being stubborn. It was a Malfoy trait, he knew, and he was unfortunate enough to be accustomed to it.

"You've been acting oddly," Draco persisted. His nose was wrinkled in determination, and Snape recognized it as a particular habit from the Black line. He'd seen both Narcissa and the Mutt do it countless times throughout his years. "Your lessons don't make sense anymore, and you're always getting distracted by Potter."

At that, Snape rose from his chair and gave Draco his most menacing look. Favorite student or not, the boy was going too far. "Mr. Malfoy, whatever misconceptions you perceive about our relationship notwithstanding, I am still your—"

"Please, Severus," Draco interrupted impatiently. "I know you want Potter. It's obvious with the way you look at him during class like you want nothing more than to jump his bones."

Snape's fingers twitched, and he had to hold back both a growl and an urge to pull out his wand and hex his godson into oblivion.

"I promise you, Draco," he said coldly, "that no one would believe—"

"I wasn't going to tell anyone anything," Draco snorted, interrupting him once again. It was a habit he'd formed when he was no older than two years old, and had never been able to successfully break. Snape forced himself to think of the repercussions of killing a student, of killing the Malfoy heir specifically, and reigned his bad temper in. "The only reason I even brought it up is because your lessons have been practically rubbage lately—," Snape let out a hiss, and Draco pointedly ignored it, "—and I have no intention whatsoever of failing my Potion's N.E.W.T."

Glowering, and still adhering to his initial decision that killing Lucius' spawn would benefit him in no way whatsoever, Snape slumped back into his chair and folded his arms. "And you wouldn't care…," he started sardonically, staring hard. Snape made sure not to reveal even a sliver of his curiosity by his tone.

Draco snorted again. Definitely, Snape thought, fighting the urge to strangle him, a Malfoy characteristic. "I don't care who you want to shag, Sev. Hell, I'd even support the damn thing if you got your shite together. I won't be pleased if I failed my Potion's N.E.W.T. because you were too busy ogling Harry-bloody-Potter's arse to teach properly."

"Draco," Snape warned him. The boy had never quite been able to help himself from stepping over boundaries. That was the consequence of being a Black.

Draco rolled his grey eyes upward. "Sorry," he said unapologetically. He paused for a moment, and then gave Snape the look he used to give him when he was three and wanted to eat sweets before dinner time.

"I have a favor to ask. I'd like permission to use your private lab and stock every so often." He said easily.

"I owe you nothing, Draco," Snape hissed at him.

Draco grinned impishly. "Of course not, Severus."

Snape stared at him for a long while before he closed his eyes and shook his head. He'd gotten in trouble countless times from Narcissa for sneaking Draco candy when he wasn't allowed it. Apparently, old habits died hard.

"Fine," Snape conceded, narrowly. "You may use my lab on the mornings of your weekends." Before Draco could say anything more, he threatened, "If any word of our conversation gets out, Draco, rest assured the Malfoy bloodline will die with you and your consequentially nonexistent parts."

Draco, as expected, paled. "I won't tell anyone," he said.

"Good. Now leave, Draco."

And because Draco was a Malfoy, he couldn't help but have the final word. "If only to have a front row seat when news gets out and shite hits the fan, as the muggles say."

By the time Snape pulled out his wand, a particularly painful hex at the very tip of his forked tongue, Draco was already gone from the classroom.

Snape stared at the slightly parted door for a second before he dropped his wand to his desk and buried his face in his hands.

He wondered, and not for the first time, just what he'd done in his past life to warrant his current hell.

"If it's alright, sir, I'd like to speak with you after class."

Snape held onto his quill with a tighter grip so that it wouldn't slip from his fingers. He nearly blurted, in the heat of his astonishment, for Potter to repeat himself, but caught himself just before the words tumbled out. Snape, with great control, put a reign on the emotions and thoughts that were beginning to tumult in his head and purposely closed his open mouth.

Potter hadn't so much as looked in his direction in weeks. Twenty-seven days, to be precise. Snape had been, for the most part, fully prepared to leave their relationship, if it could even be called that, as it were until Potter left the school—a mere three months away. He'd been quite convinced that distance from Potter—far enough that they never set eyes upon each other again—would be the remedy to his particular crisis. With Potter gone, there wouldn't be a need for Snape to fixate on the situation as it were. Potter would get on with his life, and Snape would be able to, as well.

Potter confronting him, however, was not at all what he expected.

Snape looked at the defiant expression on Potter's face, the hardened look that dared Snape to refuse him, and allowed a scowl to overtake, letting Potter know just exactly what he thought of his proposition.

He wanted to the tell the impertinent brat no. Wanted to tell him that any further discussions between the two of them, especially ones held privately after class, was a disruption of his plans, and further more, just not a smart action to take. Potter had once again, just as he was prone to doing, obstructed Snape's designs. He was, in lots of ways, like a rash—appearing at the worst of times, wholly unwanted and despised. And like with any bodily eruption that caused irritation, there was a need to pick on it. To scratch it.

Snape wanted to, despite all rationality, figure Potter out.

He was nodding his head before he was aware of it. He stopped abruptly the moment he realized what he was doing, sent Potter another glare, and dismissed him with a wave of his hand. Potter mumbled something else that he couldn't quite catch and hurried off. Snape waited a moment more before he lifted his head and raked his eyes across the room.

As the assignment today required groups of three, Potter sat between his two pets, Granger and Weasley, hunched over their smoking cauldron. He shot Potter a nasty glare for good measure, sure that the idiot would feel it even if he couldn't see it, and continued his assessment over the room.

The potion they were making today was a simple calming draught. Nothing precarious enough to garner mass explosions or deserved accidents. Even Longbottom had a fair chance of concocting something passable. With that in mind, Snape was quite sure that it would be a quiet lab.

He took a moment to glance at Malfoy on the Slytherin side, situated between Zabini and Parkinson, and sent another glower in his direction when he realized he was being watched from that end as well.

Snape brought his attention back to the work at his desk and, resolute to let his eyes wander no more, sustained his attention on Ginevra Weasley's poorly researched essay on the one-hundred-and-one uses of Vampire blood. Strumming his fingers along his desk in irritation (and knowing the distracting effect it had on his more nervous students), Snape began to read.

The entire class had already left, all except for Potter, who stood at his standard spot three yards from Snape's desk, squirming on his feet and sending Snape indiscreet uncertain looks.

"Where I can hear you, Potter." Was all he Snape said.

Potter noticeably braced himself before moving three steps forward.

Snape didn't bother fighting the urge to roll his eyes. "Speak, Potter. Unlike certain indolent Gryffindors, I actually have work to get done."

Potter exhaled deeply and swallowed, and Snape had to, to his utter humiliation, force himself to look away from the long, moving throat and not stare.

"Professor—," Potter started, then paused, first seeming at a loss for words then visibly draining of courage. He stuttered when Snape shot him a low, impatient look.

Whoever claimed that Gryffindors were brave, Snape thought contemptuously, were idiots.

Snape looked away from the desperate expression on Potter's face and onto his desk. His hands were folded loosely over a small stack of his Potion journals and his thumbs were fidgeting, moving against one another in a clumsy, agitated dance. Snape, disdainfully, forced them to stop.

"If you haven't got anything else to say," Snape snapped, setting his hands far apart. Proximity with Potter had already taken its toll on his senses. He'd started getting jittery, for Merlin's sake. It was taking every ounce of control Snape had to refrain himself from looking too hard at Potter; from raking his eyes down the boy's body and staring intently on the roundness of his full, peach-colored lips.

Snape cursed his dreams, cursed the provocative Potter that starred in them, and opened his mouth to tell Potter to leave. He was interrupted, however, by words that he'd never thought to hear.

"I love you!" Potter blurted out.

Snape, despite doing his best not to react uncharacteristically, froze.

Potter was wringing his hands together, leaning forward on the tips of his toes. His eyes were wide behind his thick glasses, and small beads of perspiration had begun to form on his bare forehead, an alarming feat considering the cool temperature of the dungeon rooms. He collected a shaky breath, an action that made his shoulders tremble in turn, and continued to speak.

"I love you," he said again, more steadily. "I know… I know you don't like me very much," he faltered, then chuckled nervously, "or at all, really. But I just—I just wanted you to know."

Probably realizing that Snape was in no position to give a reply, Potter hesitated for a moment, bit his lip, then quickly turned around. Snape had barely mustered enough wit to open his mouth and say something—say anything, really, to keep himself from looking like a floundering idiot—when Potter turned around again in one quick movement, eyes narrowed and jaw set in fierce determination, and stormed the three yard difference between the two of them.

Potter moved close enough that his legs hit the edge of the desk, and yet he still continued to inch forward, his small frame hovering over Snape like a Dementor. He inhaled deeply and then, far more quickly than Snape's whirling mind was currently able of catching up with, cupped Snape's cheeks with his hands and leaned in.

It was like one of those muggle telly shows, Snape thought, as Potter's face bore down on his own and his fingers brushed against the hair on his face. The ones in black and white where the screen blurred and moved in slow motion. In one moment Potter's lips were ghosting over his, eyes open and looking at Snape with nervous resolve. In the next a pair of dry, warm lips were being pressed against his own, and any hope of mental coherency gone out the floo.

Potter's hands roamed over the side of his face. His lips pressed deeply against Snape's. His eyes were closed, his breathing suspended, and for a moment it seemed as if time had stopped, frozen in a moment of fuzzy detachment.

And then Potter's lips began to move—slowly, at first, cautiously and tentatively. And then faster, even despite Snape's own immobility. They roamed softly over Snape's closed lips, brushing the upper one and nibbling the bottom. It was when a hot tongue pressed between the crease, when a wet line moved across the fold, that the disconnected haze in Snape's head altered and turned into something completely else and he gasped.

Potter took the startled movement to push his tongue between Snape's parted lips. He quickly circled Snape's tongue with his own, slid the fleshy organ above it, and brought his hand from Snape's cheek to wrap around his neck.

It was blissful— the feel of tongues moving against each other, of lips pressing together. That, on top of the long forgotten feel of fingers running through his hair, of another person's breath mingling with his own, was enough to have Snape completely lost.

Snape forgot everything else that wasn't Potter's mouth, wasn't Potter's hands. He forgot that he was being kissed, was kissing back, hisstudent. Forgot that he was snogging a boy young enough to have been his own son. He wrapped his fingers around Potter's slim shoulders and tried to bring them closer.

Potter was making the most delicious sounds imaginable against him. They were sounds of need, sounds of desperate want, and they ran straight down Snape's stomach and sank to his hardening cock. He moaned when Potter hoisted himself on the desk and pulled him to stand, then brought their clothed chests flushed together. Groaned when the fingers playing with his hair descended to the dip of his back.

Everything was faint, from the lightness in his head to the cotton feeling in his chest. It was faint, and hot, and hurried, and he wanted moreof it. More of the skin Potter had revealed in his dreams, more of those strong hands on him.

Potter's lips detached from his and Snape nearly made a whining sound before they traveled down and began sucking on the wings of his collar bone. Snape brought his head back, groaning as Potter's tongue moved up toward his neck and began lapping at the exposed skin of his throat. His hands slid down Potter's sides, along his stomach, across his chest. They bunched into the thick fabric of his robes and didn't let go.

When Potter's hands moved down his back and tightened around his arse, Snape jutted his hips forward and hissed.

It had been too long since he'd last touched another person or last had someone touch him. Entirely too long.

Potter was all mouth and skin and hands, and Snape never wanted to let him go. Despite the fogginess in his head, he imagined tearing the boy's clothes off, imagined laying him naked on the top of his desk and doing things to him that should never be done in school.

Potter hiked Snape's robes up and slipped his hands onto the bare flesh of his middle back. Snape groaned again, uncaring how it made him seem, and sharply bit Potter's lower lip.

"Oh God, Snape." Potter cried loudly.

And just like that, the haze ended.

Snape gasped and forced himself backward, nearly causing Potter, who'd been clinging to him, to fall off the desk. He stared at Potter with wide, astonished eyes, and tried to control the heavy breathing that was making his chest ache.

"Bloody hell," he swore.

Potter stared at him, flushed and panting, eyes dark and large and open. Snape briefly wondered where his glasses—or tie—had gone.

"Snape—" he started, but Snape lifted a single hand to shut him up.

He abstained from making a further fool of himself by slumping to his knees or covering his hands with his face, and did his utmost to collect himself. When his heart had calmed down, and his breathing eased, and the hardness of his cock the only thing left to worry about, he stoned his features and told Potter in a voice he hoped was steady, "Leave."

Potter opened his mouth, ready to argue, but promptly closed it at the glare that was sent his way.

"Leave now, Potter!" Snape roared, chest trembling with too many emotions to keep up with.

Potter's eyes narrowed angrily and he quickly crawled off the desk. He walked towards the classroom door and opened it, then paused before he even took a step out.

"You liked it too, Snape," he snapped at him, and slipped out of the room, shutting the door with a harsh snap, before Snape could say anything else.

With his classroom empty, and no one around to witness him, Snape allowed himself to fall into his chair and bury his face in his hands.

What had he done?

He'd snogged Harry Potter. He'd snogged his student. He'd snogged the son of the man he hated most in the world.

And he'd liked it.

It had been a long time since Snape had wanted so desperately to break something. He'd matured of such inclinations after his first year of teaching at Hogwarts, the last time being when some foolish child, one whose name he could not even remember, had dropped lizard eyes into an Nocturn Potion and set his entire classroom. That time, Snape had shut himself away in his chambers and had shattered everything he could get his hands on—using both magical and manual methods. He bit down on the urge to walk towards his cabinet and slam his ingredients on the floor—something he knew he'd regret immediately after— and settled for digging his nails into his palms and with heavy dissatisfaction watching as red, moon-shaped indents appeared on his flesh.

When one of the marks began to bleed, and the tips of his fingers had gone numb, Snape forced himself to stop and stood up.

He'd go to his chambers and change into sleeping robes, despite it being only midday. He'd set his work aside for the night and take a sleeping draught—the fact that he'd taken one only yesterday be damned—and settle for a good ten hours of calm, dreamless sleep.

Nodding to himself Snape adjusted his robes, clenching his fists in disgust of the control he'd lost and in the damage he'd done, and walked towards the door that Potter had only moments before gone through.

He determinedly forced all thoughts of Potter from his mind and, as quickly as he was capable of without actually running, escaped for his rooms.

A/N: *Bites lip* I'm really not sure if I like this chapter or not. Thoughts on it will be seriously appreciated. Thanks for reading! Everything IRL has calmed down a lot, so I do think the next chapter will be up a lot sooner than this one. The next is already half written. 'Til next time, then.