Down, You Lie Down Too

Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at http://archiveofourown.org/works/98421.

Rating: Explicit
Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Category: M/M
Fandom: Harry Potter - Rowling
Relationship: Harry Potter/Severus Snape
Characters: Harry Potter, Severus Snape
Additional Tags: Romance, First Time, Don’t copy to another site
Language: English
Series: Part 1 of Down, You Lie Down Too
Collections: Ink Stained Fingers
Stats: Published: 2002-08-30 Words: 1,046 Chapters: 1/1
 Down, You Lie Down Too
by Resonant

Summary

A brief interlude of peace

Notes
See the end of the work for notes
Over every elm, the half-light hovers.
Down, you lie down too.
Through every shade of dusk, a hush impinges. Robins
settle to the nest; beneath, the deep earth
breathes, it
breathes. ...

Dennis Lee, "You Too Lie Down"

The pallet smelt strongly of camphor and grapefruit, but by now he was used to everything
smelling of healing potions, if it didn't smell of something worse.

The body beneath the blankets was warm and still. Harry pressed his back against it, laid his
glasses on the floor in front of him, and fell into an exhausted half sleep.

"What the devil -- Potter? Are you hurt?"

Harry opened his eyes. An hour or so before sunset, it looked like, from the light coming in
where the wall was missing. "No," he said. "No more than I was this morning." He turned
over.

"I see." Snape's skin was even more unhealthy-looking than it had been in the days before the
war, and there were deep grooves on either side of his mouth. "You couldn't find someone
else to fulfill your sudden need for human contact? Someone who likes you?"

Harry raised himself up on his elbow and pointedly looked around what was left of the
library. "Is there anyone else?" He was confident that most of Lupin's contingent would be
able to get back here from the dormitory wing, but it was going to take some time.

"Not at the moment, no." He was close enough to feel that impatient sigh he'd heard so often.

"Thought not." He smiled a little and hooked his leg over Snape's hip.

Snape's mouth tightened. "The life force, is it?"

"Mm." He smelt of camphor and grapefruit and a tantalizing, nostalgic whiff of tobacco.

"I wish the life force would manifest itself in a more practical manner. Perhaps an irresistibly
powerful desire to provide food."

"If I had any food --"

"Yes, I know." Snape dropped an arm over Harry's shoulders and drew him closer. His neck
was dirty.

Harry undid the clasp at the throat of Snape's robe and dug through waistcoat and shirt and
undershirt until at last he found skin. It was cold in the ruins of the library. He spread his
hand over Snape's breastbone.
Snape unbuttoned Harry's outer robe, which was an odd shade of greenish gold. His mouth
quirked when he found another robe underneath, and then someone's much-too-large
Quidditch reds under that. "Your wardrobe gets more fascinatingly eccentric with each
passing week."

Harry sat up, shook off the robes, hauled the uniform over his head, and pulled the robes back
on quickly. "I expect to set a trend," he said. "People pay attention, you know."

"No doubt." Snape, bare to the waist, pulled him down again. They both inhaled as their skin
touched.

Snape undid Harry's trousers with quick efficiency. His hand was cold, but his grip was sure.
"Ah!"

Harry grasped the moving fist and urged it into a faster rhythm, then held on for a while,
enjoying the feel of the muscles flexing in Snape's wrist. "Yeah ... 's good," he murmured, and
moved his hands down to cradle his balls as he came.

When he opened his eyes, Snape was watching him with an expression of mild interest, as
though he was a well-informed lecturer. Harry grinned at him suddenly and dived under the
blankets, undoing trouser buttons as he went.

There was a very ugly bruise on Snape's hipbone. Harry licked it, and Snape's hips snapped
forward, pushing his cock wetly against Harry's temple and hair. Harry rubbed his cheek
against it and took it in his mouth as far as he could manage.

He wished Snape would say something -- his voice was the only really sexy thing about him -
- but Snape limited himself to sighs and gasps. He was more careful of his depth than most,
though, making only slow controlled pushes even when he was so ready Harry could taste it.

Harry tightened his mouth; there was a gasp above him. He used his fingertips to stroke
teasingly through the dark hair, and got back a sigh. He stroked a thumb over the triangle of
soft, vulnerable skin at the base of Snape's cock, rubbed light circles over his balls, pressed
up rhythmically against the skin behind them.

Snape's thighs tensed and a fine tremble went through the narrow hips. Harry stilled, holding
Snape's cock loosely in his mouth without moving for a breathless, silent moment. Then he
gave a sudden hard suck, and another.

Snape gave a high wordless cry and pulled back as he came, so that Harry had to follow him
quickly to catch as much of it as he could. He didn't know why he wanted to. On a stomach
this empty it would probably give him heartburn.

He stayed where he was, mouth gentle around Snape's cock, until Snape's hand on his head
urged him up. Harry pressed against Snape's slack body and pulled the blankets up around
both of them.

Snape touched Harry's chin with a fingertip, then leaned forward. Harry felt his warm tongue,
probably cleaning up a drop of spunk he'd missed. He closed his eyes as Snape's lips moved
over his jaw, his cheek, the corner of his mouth.

"Did you succeed in tracking the manticore?" Snape laid his head back down on the folded
sack he was using for a pillow.

"Yes." The thing's foul and corrosive blood was the reason he was wearing such an odd
assortment of hastily liberated clothing.

"I suppose you'll be expecting me to take a turn at watch now." Snape pulled Harry's robes
together and fastened them both at his neck.

"You'd just go to sleep standing up in the corridor again," Harry said without opening his
eyes. "Might as well do it here, 's more comfortable."

Snape pushed him over and spooned up behind him, wrapping an arm over his chest.
"Comfort, Potter, is a luxury to which it is unwise to become accustomed."

"If you say so." Snape's hand was resting over Harry's breastbone. Harry put his own hand
over it and relaxed into sleep.

... You too lie

down, the drowsy room is
close and come to darkness.
Hush, you
too can sleep at last. You
too lie down.

Dennis Lee, "You Too Lie Down"

End Notes

My first-ever Harry Potter slash story. Funny; I used to think Harry/Snape was kind of a
perverse pairing.

Dennis Lee writes poetry for children. "You Too Lie Down" is in a little book I read to my
preschooler. I don't know why, but from the first time I read it, the poem felt like a little
pocket of peace in the midst of war. Maybe it's the words "at last."

Much as I love no-kiss stories, I don't think I've ever written one before.

Thanks to Merry and Mia for their reassurances. I was in too much of a hurry to get a Brit-
beta on this one, so if you find any suspicious Americanisms in it, e-mail me and I'll fix them.

Please drop by the Archive and comment to let the creator know if you enjoyed their work!