Title: Any Microbiologist Worth His Salt
Author: lesyeuxverts00
Beta: Thanks go to angela_snape and gingertart50, who are both entirely awesome. :)
Word Count: 5,200 – give or take a few
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Harry/Severus
Prompt: Snape as a grumpy microbiologist and Harry as his assistant
Warnings: chloroform, Koch's postulates, and a "brothel" – all dangerous to Snape in one way or another.
Disclaimer: Not mine.
AN: A very, very, very belated ficlet for svartalfur's birthday ... sorry this is so late, hon!


Potter was late, and Severus waited for him, burning his tongue on substandard coffee and rustling the flimsy Muggle newspaper. The very first day of this charade, and already it had not begun well.

Severus dropped the coffee mug when Potter hurtled down the stairs, and the hot liquid splattered all over his khaki trousers.

"Are you all right, Professor? Did you burn yourself?"

Bumbling, babbling Potter was wearing the tightest, bluest pair of jeans that Severus had ever seen. His green eyes glowed, brought out by the bright colors, and his arse was perfectly outlined by the taut fabric. Severus swallowed.

"Sorry I'm late, Professor. I couldn't find any clothes that fit."

"As we are not going to a brothel, that is entirely unsuitable attire, Mr. Potter. Go upstairs and change at once."

Potter bent down and began to mop up the spilled coffee, his arse in the air. Severus brushed him away with a wave of the paper when he reached to blot at the spills on Severus's trousers. "These were the only things I could get into, everything else was too tight."

Glaring at him, Severus snapped the paper shut and put it in his briefcase. "We're late, Potter. Your dilatory attitude and unalloyed impertinence are –"

"If we're late, shouldn't we be going?" Potter grabbed the coffeepot, pouring himself a cup of coffee and gulping it. Coffee splashed over onto the table when he slammed the mug down, spluttering.

"That's vile, absolutely –"

"You're too young to drink coffee." Severus brushed past him to the door, their elbows bumping together. Potter was sharp and bony, thin as an overused dream and half as useful – late on the first day, and because he was determined to squeeze into the most outrageous, provocative outfit in his wardrobe.

He dragged Potter out the door and down the street to the Tube station – Potter spluttered and resisted, struggling to free his wrist from Severus's grasp. "Be still," Severus said. "Are you trying to ruin our disguise?"

"You don't think that our disguise would be a little more plausible if it didn't look as though you were kidnapping me?"

"If you would come willingly ..."

Potter glared at Severus, yanking his wrist free and pushing his way through the silver turnstile. "I am coming willingly, Professor, but I'm not willing to be bruised."

Severus glared at Potter's perfect arse as he followed him down the stairs to the platform. He pinched the bridge of his nose, willing his headache away, and was caught up in the mad push of the morning commuters onto the train.

Grabbing Potter's shoulder, he held onto him as they were shoved down the aisle – jostling, polite pushing, a mad jumble of humanity crowded into the narrow steel compartment. Potter, pushed into his side, looked up at Severus with the hint of a smile on his soft lips.

"Don't worry," he said. "I won't let you lose me, so there's no need for you to cling to my shoulder like that."

"I do not cling, Mr. Potter." The effect of his scowl was ruined in the Muggle environment, by the ridiculous Muggle costume and by the sudden acceleration of the train that sent him stumbling, Potter falling into his arms.

"Mr. Potter," Severus said. The train rounded a sharp corner, and he tightened his grip on Potter, catching him when he lurched and almost fell. "This is entirely inappropriate, and liable to get us both killed. What do you think you're –"

"Relax, Professor. I know the Tube is a bit alarming, but I doubt we'll be killed. Come on, this is our stop."

Fighting their way back through the mass of people, commuters with their papers and coffee, Muggles with their oblivious, fatuous smiles, Severus endured the jostles and bumps. He kept one hand on Potter's shoulder, gripping him tight enough to bruise, and followed in his wake.

"Here we are, Professor," Potter said with his bright grin.

The laboratory was far from the orderly, pristine environment that Severus had expected. Bottles, tubes, and electronic machines scattered everywhere on the black benches – the lab was full of this chaos.

A bustling woman with a graduated cylinder tripped, splattering water on the floor and catching herself on Potter's shoulder. She scurried away when Severus glared at her, returning with a stack of paper towels and bumping up against Potter as she knelt to clean the mess.

"Where's the chloroform?" a man called out. "Bloody hell, Lucy, where'd you put it? I'm ready to start the beta-gals now, for heaven's sake. Where are you?"

The woman kneeling by Potter's feet squeaked and quailed at Severus's glare. "It's in the cabinet under the fume hood, where it belongs," she said. "Do I have to do everything for you?"

"Excuse us," Severus said, glaring at her when she stepped closer to Potter. The boy, heedless of his own safety, grinned back at her, and Severus elbowed him, whispering "Constant vigilance" in his ear.

"Professor Evans, on sabbatical here – and this is my assistant Harrison. Could you help us get set up?"

----

Potter proved to be the most incompetent technician ever inflicted upon a laboratory. He fidgeted and fussed, slopping solutions onto the lab bench and mismeasuring chemicals. He wore his lab coat with a slapdash flair, twitching the collar until it was crooked and grinning at Severus.

"What are you doing?" Severus hissed in his ear, pinching his elbow. "You'll ruin our disguise. The Death Eaters will find us, and you'll escape with the breath of Lady Luck rasping over your shoulders, and I'll be left six feet under. The weight of my death will rest on your conscience, you wretched boy."

"Don't be silly," he said, grimacing at Severus. He raised a graduated cylinder to the tap and filled it with distilled water, eyeing it to gauge the volume. "Now you're the one who's giving us away – stop hissing at me as though I were the bane of your existence. No Death Eater with half a brain would ever figure that out."

Severus glared back at him, snatching the cylinder from his hands. "You haven't half a brain, Potter, only the remnants of gray matter that give you the wit to defy Dumbledore, and nothing more. Don't presume to dictate anything to me – you'll do my bidding, here. Make a litre of media so that I can start some experiments."

There was a lock of hair, hanging over Harry's eyes, and he blew it out of his way, glaring at Severus. "What?"

"A litre of media," he repeated. "Don't bother with adding any antibiotics or carbon sources, just make a litre of rich media and pour the plates for me. Set them to dry as soon as the agar's solidified, I'll want to use them as soon as possible."

"Don't be such a wanker," Harry said.

"Don't break our cover," Severus said, and he whirled out of the room, cursing the absence of the impressive robes to billow behind him.

Severus found Potter, the media still unmade and his tasks still undone, as he was simpering over a girl that looked like Hermione – curly brown hair, large breasts, a know-it-all attitude and an engaging smile. "Look, I don't know what you think you're doing," she said, "but you should not breathe on the Petri dish."

"What do you mean?" Harry asked, leaning closer. Severus leaned in as well, looking down at the Petri dish left open between them and sniffing. She smelled like vanilla and almonds, sweet and insipid, and the odor from the plate was wafted up to Severus's nose. The distinctive smell of tryptone and salt, the earthy smell of media – he inhaled deeply.

"I don't see what the big deal is," Potter said. He smiled at her, and Severus ground his teeth together. "It's just air, right?"

"It's not just air," she said, closing the dish and setting it down on the lab bench with a plastic click. "It's the millions – billions, really – of microbial flora that are associated intimately with your mouth and respiratory tract. You're contaminating the plate every time you exhale."

Potter gaped at her, lack-witted and helpless, and Severus stepped in to intervene. "If you don't mind, Miss –"

"Just call me Lucy," she said. "Everyone does. I'm very pleased to meet you, Dr. Evans. We're all glad to have you in the lab."

"Yes," he said. "Thank you. I'll just have a word with Harrison, then – I need to speak with him about our project."

Potter leaned into Severus's personal space, spitting into his face as he spoke. "I didn't need you to rescue me," he said. "I knew perfectly well what she was talking about. Why do you always assume that I'm incompetent?"

"You are incompetent," Severus said, twitching the collar of his lab coat as he stared down at Potter. "You don't have the faintest clue, do you? Do you actually know what she was talking about?"

"Does it matter?" Potter crossed his arms in front of his chest. "I'll bet you don't know what she was talking about either – you were just jealous that the cutest girl in this whole magic-forsaken place was willing to talk to me and not to you."

"Potter," Severus said, and then stopped, staring at the white ceiling. "The threat of the Death Eaters and the meddlesome ploy of the Headmaster were not set up in order to insure that you would be laid."

"You just wish that someone would set up an elaborate scenario to ensure that you would get some action, Snape."

"This is not about you sleeping with a cute girl," Severus said. "This is about preserving our anonymity in the Muggle world – and trust me, Potter, any microbiologist worth his or her salt knows the basics of sterile technique. In other words – you fail."

"Shove it, Snape. There's no need to be jealous – Lucy's not my type. Go chat her up with some intelligent remark about microbial flora and she's all yours."

Severus grabbed Potter's shoulders and forced him down into a chair. He leaned over him, twitching his jacket to make it billow, and Harry laughed at him.

Glaring at him, Severus said, "This is not about sex. You need to preserve our cover better than this, Potter – you're a microbiologist, so act like it."

"Don't be such a –"

Severus reached down and put a hand over his mouth. "I doubt that you want to complete that sentence," he said. "I may not be able to inflict detention or cast hexes on you, but I will make you suffer.

"Now, the basics of sterile technique are the same as the techniques you've been using in the Potions laboratory for the past seven years, so I trust that it isn't too much for your Snitch-sized brain to understand. Everything – measuring ingredients, making solutions, washing glassware – is the same as it is in the Potions lab at Hogwarts. If I catch you making another ridiculous mistake in front of the Muggles again –"

"You'll make me suffer, I know." Harry stood and flung the chair back against the lab bench. "That's all well and good, Snape ... if you'd ever taught me sterile whatsis, then maybe you'd have grounds to complain, but as it is, I think you're just as bad as I am. Think about everything that you've just said – Muggles, Hogwarts, Snitch, Potions. You're no better at blending in than I am."

"At least I'm not making a fool of myself over a woman."

"Like I said, Snape, she's all yours." Potter shrugged Severus's hand off his shoulder and went off to the break room without looking back at him. He walked with an insolent, swaggering stride, his arse displayed in the tight jeans.

----

The stairs creaked, and Severus set his book aside, taking a gulp of brandy to fortify himself against Potter. "Don't even think about it," he said.

Potter gave up all pretense of stealth and came down the stairs like a galumphing herd of elephants. He wore heeled leather boots that stretched up to his knees – Severus watched them appear, taking another gulp of his brandy. "What in Merlin's name are you wearing?"

"For someone set on preserving our cover, you ought to watch your language better than that." Potter wore tight denim shorts and a tighter shirt, one that had gaping rents in it. One was just below his nipple, and Severus blinked, closing his eyes to the glimpse of pale flesh.

"Did you conspire with Albus, Potter?"

"What?"

"Is this all one grand plot to drive me absolutely barking mad? Where do you think you're going at this hour of the night, tarted up like a common whore?"

Potter flashed him a grin and turned to show Severus his outfit from all angles. "Hey! I'm not tarted up like a common whore, at all. Look at this ... Isn't it great? I had no idea that Albus would know to give us clothes like this."

"He clearly didn't think that you would actually be able to wear them," Severus said. "Did you undo all of the seams, crawl in, and then stitch them together again? Has the lack of blood circulating to your brain impaired your already limited intellect?"

"Look, there's a really pointy stick up your arse but that's no reason why I can't have any fun. I'm going out clubbing, and before you say anything – it is perfectly in keeping with our cover. Only unnatural, repressed or crazy people spend a Friday night at home, reading Microbe Hunters ."

Severus drained the last of his brandy, setting the glass down on the table with a clink. "Any microbiologist worth his salt would appreciate this book, and just because you are unable to –"

"I do appreciate it," Harry said. He rifled through the bag of 'necessities' that Albus had left them, coming up with a spare pair of keys, several Muggle bank notes, and a handful of condoms. He opened a box of sherbet lemons and popped one into his mouth. "I'm not as dumb as you think. I appreciate it, but not on a Friday night, okay? Some of us are young enough to want to live a little."

"Live a little?" Severus rose and snatched the condoms out of Potter's hands, shaking them in his face. "You may want to live a little now that you've defeated the Dark Lord, but you won't live for long if you can't keep your prick in your trousers. You'd be easy prey for the Death Eaters, rutting away in some insipid, disease-ridden Muggle wench with bad teeth and stale perfume for brains."

Potter snatched the condoms back. "Yeah well, I'll live a sight longer if I have protected sex and don't get HIV, okay? Get your big nose out of my business already, Snape. The Death Eaters are not going to be trolling Muggle clubs in search of me."

He blew Severus a mocking kiss and stuffed the condoms in his pocket, turning to leave. "Don't wait up for me."

Severus waited before the sound of his boots had faded before grabbing the black trench coat Albus had given him. Without spells to mask his presence, he kept to the shadows, stalking after Potter.

With thudding boots and an off-key, droning hum, Potter announced his presence to the world. Any Death Eater worth the ink for their tattoo would have caught him within the first minute, haloed by a street lamp and looking like a prostitute. Without magic, Severus was helpless to stop him, unable to do anything except watch him waltz to his own slaughter.

He slipped through the door after Potter, stuffing a wad of Muggle money into the bouncer's hand. Severus found a spot to stand sentinel, a place along the wall where he had a view of the room. He froze when he caught sight of Potter again.

Downing a lager like water, Potter licked the last of it from his lips and leaned in to talk to his companion, a burly Muggle man with a set of tattoos stretching from his collarbone down to his wrist. Potter smiled, reaching over to finger the collar of his leather jacket, looking up at him with a glint in his eyes.

Not a brothel after all – Severus's hands clenched into fists at his sides. Potter was risking his life to chat up strangers in a Muggle gay bar.

The man towered over Potter, making him look frail and defenseless. Severus took a step toward them, stopping when he saw Potter move away from the bar, joining the hordes on the dance floor. His Muggle friend watched him go and ran a finger along the glass where Potter's lips had been, before shouting for another round.

The last of the brandy burned its way out of Severus's system, hot in his stomach and searing through his veins, as he watched Potter dance.

His hips thrusting, his body moving to the beat, he was sweaty and adored, caught up in the crowd of dancers. He moved from partner to partner, pressing his body against them and letting them paw at him.

Severus caught him when he broke away from the throng, going to the bar and slamming back another lager. He grabbed Harry's shoulder before he could turn to the next flirtation, and dragged him out of the club. "Home," he said, "and now. You've had your fun for the night."

Harry glared at him, struggling to slip back into the club. "What right do you have –"

"What right do I have? I've been entrusted with your safety," Severus said. He pushed Potter against the wall, looming over him. "I will not allow you to throw your life away for a night of dancing and debauchery."

Docile for the first time in his life, Potter followed Severus back to their flat in silence. He flung the Muggle money and the condoms on the table, stopping at the base of the stairs and turning to Severus. "Good night," he said.

"Good night, Mr. Potter," Severus said, and watched him go up the stairs.

----

Severus feared a mutiny if he tried to force Potter to work in the lab on a Saturday, even at the pretext of maintaining their cover. Letting him sleep late, Severus busied himself in the kitchen, making a full breakfast. The work – chopping, measuring, stirring – was close enough to brewing that it steadied his mind, calming his thoughts for the day ahead.

A day spent amusing Potter, keeping him out of trouble and out of harm's way – Severus sighed, flipping the omelet out of the pan. Harry would chafe at being restricted indoors, insisting that it would be normal behavior to gad about like Muggle mayflies and suspicious behavior to stay inside the safe, carefully warded flat.

Potter stumbled down the stairs, silent in his mismatched socks, and Severus poured him a cup of tea. "Milk or sugar?"

"Yes, please." Harry pushed the floppy locks of hair out of his eyes, looking blearily at Severus.

"Did you want bacon? Toast? An omelet – or, if you like, I can make eggs some other way for you?"

Potter downed half of his tea and cursed. "Fuck, that's hot. You didn't need to make breakfast –"

"I know," Severus said. "Would you rather have coffee?"

Potter wandered into the living room after breakfast, a third cup of coffee cradled between his hands. He blew on it, the steam coming up to mask his face, and settled into the large armchair. Looking at Severus through his lashes, he said, "So ... Koch's postulates.

"Any microbiologist knows them – any microbiologist worth his salt, as you'd say. I never thought you'd use such a Muggle expression," Potter said. He twisted his fingers around the handle of the coffee mug, watching Severus through the haze of steam that he blew up from the hot liquid. "So have you ever thought about how to apply these principles to magic or potions?"

Severus walked to the far side of the room, looking out the picture window. The wards shimmered in the glass, visible when he blinked at them – a rainbow iridescence, like warping or bubbles in the window. Barely there, the wards were the only thing that protected Severus and Harry from the Death Eaters.

Potter, reflected in the window, squirmed. He was shadow-hazy, a dream caught within a dream, a bubble in the wards. Severus frowned.

"Right. So you don't want to talk about science. Sure, it's the weekend," Potter said, running his hands through his hair. "So, umm ... philosophy? Literature? Potions? Current events?"

"Silence?" Severus asked. He ran a finger along the glass pane, the vibrations of the ward running through his bones and jarring his teeth. He turned to look down his nose at Potter.

"You may as well tell me now what mischief you intend to attempt," he said. "I won't be distracted by whatever paltry attempts at conversation you try to make."

Potter ran his hand through his hair again, glaring at Snape, and then he looked down at his hands before sitting on them. The spiky, tousled locks of his hair bobbed in the air, shaking with his movements. "Why are you such a bastard?" he asked. "I'm trying to be nice."

"You're a Gryffindor, I'm a Slytherin," Severus said, whirling around to face the window again. Without his robes, the dramatic billow was gone, his motions stale and flat without their usual flair. "We have different definitions of the word 'nice,' in case it had escaped your notion. I've no interest in anything that falls under your definition of the word."

"Okay," Potter said. His reflection in the window wavered as he stood. "I'll just take some books up to my room and read then."

He was gone before Severus turned to catch him with a protest still unspoken. "Blast," Severus said to himself. "There's no telling what mischief he'll be up to now."

Severus sat sentinel by the stairs, but Potter did not reemerge from his room or make any visible or audible attempts to destroy their cover or otherwise ruin their plans – nor did he eat lunch. Severus frowned, and when the afternoon shadows began to lengthen, stretching his silhouette into a grotesque caricature, he gave up his post, going to the kitchen to make dinner.

He refused to fall for any of Potter's conversational gambits, ignoring both compliments on the food and efforts to discuss current events. His silence drove Potter into a sulk, and he stopped eating, instead shoving the green beans on his plate into abstract and ugly patterns.

Potter sat in the living room again after dinner, his sulk forgotten. He grabbed a Quidditch magazine from the table and curled up in the armchair with it.

Severus poured himself a brandy, pointedly smirking at Potter and refusing to offer him one. "It's a pity that we can't do magic while we're hiding from the Death Eaters," he said. "You could charm that magazine to make it look like something more intellectual than Quidditch – that would do something towards proving your claim that you aren't all that stupid. At the very least, I'd know that you knew a charm and be able to determine whether or not you had some modicum of taste."

"Bugger off, Snape. Are you trying to drive me away? Do you want me to do magic and alert them to our presence here, or leave the safety of the wards and get myself killed? Are you itching to be free of the odious burden of my company?"

Severus swirled the brandy in his glass, savoring the sweet-bitter aroma. "Polysyllabic words do not impress me, Mr. Potter. If you'd had the wit to find and open a dictionary a decade ago, I might have some respect for your vocabulary – as it is, you sound like a pretentious twat."

Potter was on his feet, knocking Severus's brandy to the floor. The glass shattered, spiky shards spinning and landing in the amber pool on the dark wood. "What do you think you sound like, then?" he demanded, and then rushed out of the room.

Severus heard the thump of Potter's footsteps as he stomped up the stairs, and poured himself another brandy. He left the wreckage of the first on the floor, watching the play of the firelight in the glass fragments.

----

Potter refused to go to work on Monday. Severus waited for him, tapping his foot on the floor and grimacing at the heat of the coffee. At last, he stalked upstairs, flinging open the door to Potter's room. "What is the meaning of this sulk? Get dressed and downstairs immediately – we're expected in the lab."

A lump in the blankets stirred, and Potter's spiky hair peeked out at Severus. "I'm sick," Potter said, his voice muffled, almost inaudible. "You don't need me there anyway. Get Lucy to make the media and solutions and everything."

"I never knew a Gryffindor to shrink from a problem before," Severus said. He strode over to the bed and pulled the covers off Potter, dumping them on the floor. "You're afraid that Lucy will do a better job than you? Then try harder, you imbecile. You are not entirely incompetent when you apply your mind to your work."

Potter huddled in on himself, wrapping his arms around his knees. He was still too skinny, all bones and angles. His hipbones jutted out, visible through his boxers, and the bumpy ridge of his spine showed where his T-shirt had bunched up. Severus stared at him, at that patch of exposed skin and the knobby vertebrae where he could lay his fingers, fitting between the bumps.

"None of this malingering," he said, putting his hands behind his back. "We have a cover to maintain, and you are endangering that. You gave your word that you'd do everything to make this work –"

"Sod off," Potter said. "You gave your word, too."

Severus knelt by the bed, putting a hand on Harry's shoulder. The heat of his skin soaked through the thin T-shirt, warming Severus's fingers. "What's wrong?" he asked.

Potter pulled in on himself, jerking away from Severus's touch. "Go – just go," he said. "Don't pretend to care. Just get out of here."

Potter's sulk stayed with Severus throughout the day, a worry hovering in the back of his mind as he started a set of experiments. He let his hands work for him, only stopping when Lucy approached him.

"You've run your samples off that gel three times," she said. "Reckon you'd be more productive if you sorted out whatever was bothering you?"

Answering her with a glare, he reached over and shut off the power supply, donning a pair of gloves to pick up the gel and dispose of it.

"Does it have something to do with your assistant's illness?" she asked, leaning against the lab bench and watching him. "You don't have to be here, you know. If he's unwell, if you need to be there to help him –"

"You know nothing," Severus said. "I advise you to keep your mouth shut in order to appear marginally less foolish than you already are – and I advise you to stay away from my assistant. He's no business of yours."

She looked him up and down before sauntering away. "By the way," she said over her shoulder, "you've made those plates wrong. The antibiotic's at the wrong concentration, and you've used the wrong salt. You wanted a gram of ammonium chloride, not sodium chloride."

Severus threw the plates away before he left, fuming all the way home on the Tube. He slammed the door behind him and stormed upstairs, finding Potter still in T-shirt and boxers, curled up in the window-seat with a book propped up on his knees. "Stop it."

"What?" Potter blinked at him, pulling his knees up and pressing his chest against the open book. He tensed up, leaning against the window and glaring at Severus.

"Stop it, whatever you're doing to me."

He had the audacity to smile, the blasted boy, and his book fell to the floor as he stood, advancing toward Severus.

"I knew you were functionally illiterate, Potter, but that doesn't give you license to treat books –"

"Call me Harry," he said. He radiated heat, the sunlight streaming around him and the sleepy look gone from his eyes. He backed Severus against the wall, putting his hands above his shoulders and trapping him there.

He leaned toward Severus. Potter's lips were red and full, his chin dark with stubble and his eyes were huge, dilated and dark. "Do you want me to stop?" he asked.

Severus's heartbeat thudded in his chest, suddenly too loud. He licked his dry lips, watching Potter's eyes darken further. "No," he said.

"Are you going to keep ignoring me when I flirt with you? Are you going to treat me like a stupid schoolboy, your odious responsibility?"

Severus shook his head, his throat closing up as Potter leaned even closer. Their lips brushed together, the dry swipe of skin against skin, and then Potter pounced.

He pressed his body against Severus, pinning him to the wall and capturing his lips in a deep kiss. Their tongues met with none of the hesitancy of a first kiss, Potter moaning into Severus's mouth and thrusting against him, his cock hard against Severus's thigh.

Harry pulled back at last, his lips swollen from the kiss, and Severus reached for him, tracing the outline of his lips and saying, "I suppose that you're able to learn some things, and perform them with a remarkable degree of competency."

"You suppose?"

Severus kissed him again, running his fingers up and down Potter's spine. "I might need a few more experiments, just to make sure."

"All right." Harry hesitated, and then pulled away from the wall, freeing him. Severus pulled him back, leaning against the wall and holding Harry to him.

"I won't ignore you anymore – even when you're trying and failing to impress me – if you stop this lollygagging. Come to the lab again with me tomorrow."

"You are home awfully early," Potter said, smiling against Severus's neck. His lips were a crescent curve, his tongue sneaking out to taste him. "Experiments not working without me?"

"You're no microbiologist," Severus said, and then he relented, rubbing Harry's back and learning the curve of his vertebrae. "No, not so well without you. Will you come?"

"Sure," Harry said, pulling away from Severus and offering him a hand. "But I'm still sick, you know – I'll need plenty of rest, if I'm going to be well enough to work tomorrow."

Severus let Harry lead him to his bed. Potter fell onto it, bouncing on the feather comforter, and Severus lowered himself to cover his body. They lay together, warm and pressed close, learning the lines of each other's bodies with their hands.

"Feeling better now?" Severus asked, murmuring into Harry's ear and smiling when he shivered.

"Much," Harry said, squirming against him.

"Then I trust you won't be late to work again tomorrow."

Harry bit his earlobe, hooking one leg over Severus's and drawing him closer still. "I won't keep you waiting again," he said.

Severus kissed him silent. "Brat," he said. "I knew you did that on purpose – at least you were worth the wait."