In the Dark

In theory, at least, they could have gone anywhere, at any time.

As Head Boy, Bill was trusted with all student passwords. And as Severus Snape was, technically, a visitor to Hogwarts, Albus Dumbledore's guest, he had whatever access Dumbledore cared to grant him.

But the Head Boy was still a boy, still a student, and when a teacher expected him, he appeared. And a guest, evidently, was subject to the demands of his host, and where the host sent him, he went. All in all, finding enough – or even any – time to be alone together, alone and undisturbed, had turned out to be far more difficult than Bill had expected.

He rocked back and forth on his heels outside Dumbledore's office. It wouldn't do to give in to his impatience and pace. He'd been selected as Head Boy in part to set an example for the younger students. Of course, to listen to his mother, there were two sorts of younger students at Hogwarts: Charlie, and everyone else. His brother wouldn't go sending owls home immediately if Bill's behavior were less than exemplary, but Bill was sure his mother would hear about it all the same – and then so would he.

Guinevere was doing a much better job setting a good example at the moment; she'd conjured a three-legged stool and was reading a book (a Muggle play in an annotated wizarding edition, it seemed) while she waited for Dumbledore to call them up. But of course she had nothing on her immediate agenda other than the weekly Head Boy and Girl's meeting with the headmaster.

True, it wasn't as though Severus could be annoyed with Bill for the fact that their rendezvous – weeks overdue to begin with, and now even more delayed – was being pushed later and later, as Bill's meeting with the headmaster couldn't begin until Severus' had ended.

But Bill was always anxious when Severus returned from his errands for Dumbledore, whatever they were, and he'd never had to wait so long between learning that Severus was back and being alone with him in some side passage or disused broom cupboard, able to reassure himself that Severus had come to no harm while he was away. For Severus to return on the evening of the weekly Heads' meeting – it raised Bill to a whole new level of tension, and of course he couldn't say so, which only made it worse.

Guinevere turned another page in her book.

Finally, nearly an hour after they'd been supposed to arrive, the stone gargoyle shifted and the spiral staircase descended and Severus emerged, looking – the way he always looked in public, naturally. Back straight. Head high. Tiniest hint of what could be a sneer coming on. Bill tried not to smile.

"The headmaster is waiting for you," Severus said, and his voice was what had first drawn Bill to him, and Bill nodded politely and didn't watch him walk away down the corridor. He waited for Guinevere to mark her page and dissipate her joint-stool, and let her go first up the stairs to Dumbledore's office.

Bill wouldn't hear a word against Albus Dumbledore, but surely the man didn't need to meet the Head Boy and Girl every week. He hurried back toward Gryffindor Tower, just shy of actually breaking into a run. He'd no doubt Severus was lurking in some shadow along the way; and sure enough, not six steps after Guinevere had turned down the corridor to get to the Hufflepuff dormitories, the man himself stepped out from behind a potted fig tree.

Bill stopped short.

"Mr. Weasley." Severus' hands were folded in the sleeves of his robe.

"Mr. Snape." The sleeves of Bill's student-style robe were too short for him to do the same without looking ridiculous.

"I wonder –" Severus' glance flickered quickly up and down the corridor, and he cocked his head for a moment, listening. "It's a long time since I was a student here, as you know."

"Yes," Bill said, for the benefit of anyone who might be able to overhear them.

"I wonder if you might remind me of the way to the library?"

"Certainly," Bill said, hoping that anyone who did overhear them wouldn't wonder how on earth Severus could forget the way to the library in a mere four years. "Follow me."

Forty-five seconds later, they were in the darkest corner Bill knew: under a stairwell, shadowed by two suits of armor Bill had bribed to keep quiet, and protected by the light of a wall sconce with a reflector behind it.

Severus kissed as intensely as he did everything else Bill had ever seen him do. Bill tried to speak, tried to push him away long enough just to ask him if he was all right, but Severus was having none of it – he wasn't much bigger, and he wasn't much stronger, but he was evidently far more determined, so they kissed and kissed until Severus had had enough.

His hands were in Bill's hair, and when he'd kissed Bill's mouth and kissed his cheekbones and his throat and his mouth again and his closed eyes, finally, Severus pressed his forehead into the curve of Bill's neck and let out the kind of shuddering breath Bill usually heard the night before he had to go away again.

Bill stroked Severus' shoulders, and bent his head to kiss Severus' ear, which was all he could get to without making him move. "Severus?" he whispered.

Severus lifted his head and moved as if to lean in and kiss him again, but Bill got a hand on his chest this time and held him away for a moment. "We can't stay here," he whispered. "It's dark, but it's not safe."

Severus raised one eyebrow. "None of the Gryffindor daring this evening, I see," he said. There was a faint smile in his voice, though none was evident on his face. "No, indeed, William, you needn't point out the obvious to me. It hasn't been that long since I was a student here." He changed his tactics and lifted Bill's hand from his chest, pressing a kiss into the palm.

"It's been getting colder," Bill whispered, "so everywhere I look, indoors, either someone's there or someone would see us going there."

Severus kissed the inside of his wrist and ran a thumb over Bill's left eyebrow. "Not good enough for tonight," he said. "We'll neither of us be able to keep quiet for long." He cocked his head in thought for a moment, then closed his eyes and leaned in for another kiss. "It's twenty past eight, by my watch," Severus said. He rested his forehead briefly against Bill's. "Be as close as you can get to the Whomping Willow by a quarter to nine." One more kiss, a careful glance out of the shadows, and he straightened up and swirled away in a billow of black robes.

It took Bill most of the next twenty minutes to get back to his dormitory, fetch an outdoor cloak, give those who asked a song and dance about going for a walk to think about the future, and get back to the main entrance of the castle.

The autumn wind blew in chilling gusts; he pulled his hood down over his head, and belatedly realized that this made it far less likely that anyone who happened to see him from the castle would recognize him. So much the better for the wind.

He slowed his step as he drew near the Whomping Willow, but curiously enough, he got closer and closer and it didn't even try to Whomp him. He looked over his shoulders a little nervously. Just as he reached the point where the grass gave way entirely to the tree's great roots, and he was sure he'd be pulverized if he went a step further, Bill heard Severus hiss his name. He was never sure how the man could hiss a name with no sibilants in it – but he managed.

Severus was beckoning to him from a hollow in the trunk of the tree. "It's all right," he whispered. "Tread on the roots. It won't hurt you."

Bill hurried to the hollow and grasped Severus' extended hand, let himself be pulled inside. "How did you –"

"Never mind," Severus interrupted. He drew his wand and stepped briskly away into the tree trunk. "Follow me."

Bill kept up with Severus easily, but he had no idea where they were going. In the light from their combined Lumos, he could see nothing before him but a dark, narrow passage. They followed it downhill for a long way before it turned up toward the surface again.

They finally emerged in a small room with boarded-up windows; Severus led him past the ruined furniture to a stairway, and up the stairs into a room with a four-poster bed much grander than any in the students' dormitories. Bill had scarcely time to look around the room (dim; also boarded up) before he was tumbled to the bed, Severus pushing his cloak off his shoulders.

He gave as good as he got. Bill shrugged out of his cloak and robe and kicked off his shoes, all of which he could do easily without his hands, which were already busy on Severus' seven thousand damned buttons.

It was hard to undo the buttons – coat buttons and waistcoat buttons and shirt buttons and cufflinks and trouser buttons, for Horus' sake – lying on his back with Severus leaning over him and bending down to bite his neck as though he weren't in the middle of something. After the second interruption, Bill snarled and hooked a leg over Severus' hip and flipped him over, which he could do on this bed and not fall on the floor, and straddled his legs and pinned his shoulders and wouldn't let him up.

He undid the cufflinks first, because he was sure he'd forget about them later, and he heard Severus' shoes hit the floor behind him. After that, it was just a matter of getting the rest of the buttons undone without wrenching any of them off. Bill thought Severus was smiling up at him, but when he spared him a glance, Severus' eyes were closed and he was biting, hard it looked like, on his lower lip.

Bill leaned down to breathe in Severus' ear. "You said we wouldn't have to be so quiet here," he reminded him.

With a growl, Severus threw him over again. It was as if he didn't care that they were both still mostly dressed. He traced Bill's eyebrows and cheekbones and jaw with his tongue, ran the palm of his hand down the front of Bill's shirt, smoothed Bill's hair back from his forehead. Bill squirmed until he got a hand free, and pressed it flat against the placket of Severus' trousers; Severus' breath caught, and he narrowed his eyes at Bill, though Bill knew it was only a mock-glare. Bill grinned and took care of his own buttons while Severus finished with the last of his. The moment they were both out of their shirts, they fell together with kisses and groans and skin pressed to skin, and it was a very near thing that they managed to get out of their trousers at all.

"I missed you," Bill moaned, holding Severus' head between his hands while Severus licked at his collarbone. "Why're you always going away?"

"Miss you every time I leave," Severus muttered. He never did answer when Bill asked that question, even when Bill asked it when Severus was two breaths from sleep. "Wish I didn't have to go."

Severus' hair had been tucked behind his ears, but it swung down on either side of his face, now, as he shook his head free of Bill's grip and slid down his body. He bit Bill's hipbone, and Bill cried out as his back arched involuntarily. "But at least," Severus added, "I have the benefit of –" he pushed Bill's hips back down onto the bed – "homecoming."

The first time they had ever done this, Severus had leaned in from the side as he took Bill's cock into his mouth, and it had been about three seconds before they both realized that was a terrible idea and should never be repeated. No matter how hard he tried, how tightly he gripped the sheets in his fists – and he'd come away with fingernail marks in his palms, even with a duvet to grab onto – Bill couldn't relax his legs enough not to kick. Severus had to lie on Bill's knees, with both arms wrapped around his hips, in order for Bill not to hurt him at times like these.

They knew this by now, and when Severus licked Bill's cock and began to suck, Bill felt his hips and his knees jerk, and he felt Severus' grip tighten. It didn't leave Severus a hand free, but he didn't need it; along with Severus' weight on his legs, and the bedding in his hands, and the strain in his neck and shoulders from throwing back his head, Bill felt Severus' nose touch his body just for an instant, and then again, and then once more.

Bill's breath caught, and his toes curled, and Severus swallowed once and sucked once more and pulled off enough that Bill was coming into his mouth instead of straight down his throat. Bill shouted himself nearly hoarse, and his left leg was still twitching when Severus pulled off and crawled back up to lie down next to him, smiling – Bill tried to focus his eyes; no, it was a genuine smile – with satisfaction.

Bill smiled back, and raised a hand to stroke Severus' chest, and turned his head for an exhausted kiss. He started to turn over onto his belly, but Severus pulled him back by the arm. "No hurry," he murmured, then knit his brow. "Is there?"

"Mm-mm," Bill admitted.

"Then it can wait," Severus said, bringing Bill's hand back up to his lips and kissing the knuckles. Bill smiled drowsily, and Severus propped his head on his right hand and looked at him, and Bill closed his eyes, and he felt Severus stroking his collarbone and his chest with his left hand, and Bill wanted to say something but had to yawn first, and he heard Severus chuckle softly.

Bill must have dozed off – hardly surprising – but he woke up rather suddenly, on his belly after all and with Severus' teeth in his shoulder. "Waited long enough," Severus muttered, with a quick kiss to his neck.

Bill shivered and spread his legs, and Severus murmured an Accio and Bill felt his fingers, coated with something cool and smooth. And Severus was groaning with every breath now, and it sounded to Bill like he was gritting his teeth, and then Bill felt his cock, coated with the same smooth stuff but getting warmer by the second.

Bill pushed up onto his knees. Severus was draped over his back, holding his hands down on the mattress so he couldn't touch his own cock. He could hear their skin peeling apart between every thrust, along with Severus' groans and his own panting breaths and the faint persistent thump of two of the bedposts against the wall. He hooked his shins over Severus' ankles and arched his back to brace for Severus' orgasm; when he came, Severus tore his hands from Bill's and wrapped his arms around Bill's chest, sobbing into the back of his neck. Bill lifted his hand and pumped his own cock just twice to finish himself off, so he could collapse onto the bed with Severus still on his back, one arm still pinned between him and the mattress, and feel the warm trickle between his legs as Severus softened inside him.

He moved one leg and felt his skin rasp against Severus'. After a moment, Severus rolled off his back; Bill always regretted losing the weight of him, but he couldn't both have that and lie curled together, arms wrapped around each other. He settled Severus' head against his shoulder with a sigh.

Severus woke him the next time with a much gentler kiss. "Mmm-phmm-mmmph," Bill said, trying to stretch and rub his eyes and keep kissing Severus all at once.

Severus smiled, which broke the kiss. "I'm afraid so," he said, stroking his thumb along Bill's eyebrow. "Head Boy you may be, but they will notice if you're not in your bed in the morning."

"Where will you go?" Bill yawned.

"I do have rooms, William," Severus smirked.

Bill shook his head rapidly to clear the last of the muzziness. "Then why have we never –"

"Walls have ears," Severus interrupted, kissing him and sitting up on one hip. "It's not just Albus Dumbledore who would know every last thing that happened in those rooms – though even if it were, that would be quite enough." Severus shuddered slightly, then poked Bill in the ribs and began to Accio his clothing. "Up, William," he said again.

Bill sat up and dressed – finishing, naturally, long before Severus did, with his stupid buttons. He draped his outdoor cloak over his arm and watched Severus fasten his cufflinks. "Who else knows what happens in your rooms?" he asked.

Severus' face seemed to cloud just slightly, but he raised his eyebrow as though Bill had asked him who he knew who enjoyed a game of Quidditch. "Who doesn't," he answered, straightening Bill's tie and kissing him lightly. "Come along – better let me go first, to stop the tree attacking us on our way out."

Bill followed Severus out the way they'd come in, but laid a hand on his arm just as they reached the opening back through the hollow in the tree trunk. Severus pulled his arm away sharply – annoyed? Just startled. "Will I see you again tomorrow night?" Bill asked, remembering to whisper.

"I hope so." Severus pushed a lock of hair behind Bill's ear and cupped his cheek in one hand. "I never know when the headmaster will send me away again."

"Not when you've just got back!" If they were always going to be apart more than they were together –

"He may. It depends where he needs me."

"Doesn't matter what you need," Bill muttered.

"Ahh. Careful, now, William," Severus said, drawing his cloak around his shoulders and straightening up to step outside. "That sounds like Hufflepuff loyalty. Admirable in its place, but ill-befitting a Gryffindor, don't you think?" He stepped out, reached around the trunk to brace himself, and extended a hand to help Bill balance as he followed. "Hurry back to your dormitory, now," Severus murmured, lifting Bill's hood over his head himself. "If I'm still here tomorrow, I'll find you. Watch for me at dinner."

"All right." Bill wanted to lean in for one more kiss, but he wasn't sure if they dared. He looked over both shoulders, then turned back and smiled at Severus before pulling him close. They kissed slowly and softly. All Bill's urgency was spent; he simply took comfort in the warmth and softness of Severus' lips on his, Severus' smooth teeth, his gentle tongue, his sweet breath.

It was a long moment before he finally pulled away. Severus' hand was behind his neck, his own hand at Severus' collar. "There's that Gryffindor foolhardiness," Severus whispered.

"Please don't go tomorrow," Bill said.

"Hush. Get back up to the castle."

Bill pulled his cloak tighter around his shoulders and stepped away from the Whomping Willow into a gust of bitterly cold wind. As quickly as he could go without running, he hurried back to the castle. When he reached the entrance and turned back to look at the tree, he couldn't see Severus at all. He didn't have the first idea where the man had gone.

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