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Bad Hair Day
Harry washed his hair, thinking about how to spice up his love life. Tonight Snape was taking him out for his thirty-fifth birthday, and Harry wanted to make it a steamy night. He had been with Snape for a long time, and the man seemed to be getting bored. He was easily distracted, and not around much.
Maybe it was because Harry wasn’t as young and handsome as he used to be? He’d gained a few pounds, he didn’t fly as often, and he’d developed a few little laugh lines around his eyes.
Harry bit his lip, rinsing his hair. Snape used to brag about his virile young lover. Perhaps Snape just wasn’t interested in older guys?
Feeling worried, Harry got out a flannel and began drying his hair. Maybe he should do something exciting. Something crazy. Hell, these days their romantic evenings usually consisted of turning off the lights when they watched the telly. Not exactly a wild good time, really. Talk about a lack of magic in the relationship.
Sighing, Harry dropped the flannel into the laundry basket and turned to look in the mirror.
And screamed.
oOoOoOo
Draco Malfoy strode up to the front door with a bottle under his arm, whistling softly. He would have preferred to Floo in, but Potter and Snape were notoriously paranoid and didn’t even have a Floo. And because they lived in a flat in a crowded London neighbourhood surrounded by Muggles, Draco had to look ‘normal,’ whatever that meant.
He knocked on the door, frowning when he heard screams.
Edging away, he drew his wand. Draco wondered if he should Apparate out of there, but before he had a chance the door was yanked open and Harry’s hand darted out, grabbing him by the shirt.
“Get inside before someone sees me like this!” Harry screamed.
“Er—” Draco was wrenched forward and the door slammed behind him. Harry leaned back against it, panting heavily, his eyes wild. “Good God, Potter. What is your issue now?”
Harry gave a great shudder. “It’s—it’s—it’s a—oh, Merlin! Get it off me! Get it off me! Get it off me get it off me get it OFF me!” He was dancing about waving his hands in the air.
Now Draco was starting to nervously shift from one foot to the other as well, filled with an inexplicable dread. It had to be a spider or something. Draco hated insects. But he couldn’t see any, so what was Potter on about? “Where? Where is it? I don’t see anything!”
“How can you not see it? It’s on my HEAD!” Harry howled.
Draco still couldn’t see anything. Perhaps it was some kind of invisible beast? On the off-chance that it would help, Draco grabbed up a nearby vase and broke it over Harry’s head.
“OW! WHAT THE HELL DID YOU DO THAT FOR?”
“Did I get it?”
“Get what?”
“The thing! Whatever it is! The monster!”
Harry stared at him, his body finally completely still, his eyes distant. “It’s not a monster,” he croaked. “It’s worse. It’s worse.” Harry grabbed Draco by the shoulders and started to shake him, then suddenly stopped, sagging. “Snape’s going to leave me,” he groaned. His head fell on Draco’s shoulder, and Harry’s frame started to tremble.
Draco was horrified. This was going to ruin his new silk shirt. It wasn’t even as though he even liked Potter. It was just that he’d been friends with Snape forever, and Snape had made it clear Potter was part of the package. And now the maniac was crying on him! “Potter!” he snapped. “Stop emoting all over my jacket!” He grabbed Harry by the shoulders and shoved him back. “Now look, you’re being an idiot. What’s this nonsense about something on your head?”
Harry gave him a watery look and pointed to a spot just above his ear. “There. Can’t you see them? There.”
Draco looked closely. “What? I don’t see anything but a few gray hairs.”
Harry keened and fell to his knees. “I knew I wasn’t imagining them!”
Blinking, Draco looked down at Harry. “Is that what you’re going into hysterics over? And people act like I’m some kind of drama queen. Get up.”
Harry was still sadly looking at the carpet, big wet tears rolling down his nose and dripping off the end. “Snape doesn’t want an ugly old man,” he said hoarsely. “He won’t want me anymore. I won’t be cute and lithe and sexy and he—won’t—lo-oove me,” Harry sobbed.
Draco rolled his eyes. “Snape doesn’t even have to know.”
Potter’s head jerked up. He wiped his nose with his sleeve, still sniffling and hiccupping a little. “How?”
“A hair-dye draught, that’s all. A little potion in your hair and no one would be the wiser.”
Harry brightened considerably, getting to his feet. “Really?” Then his face fell. “But I don’t know how to brew one.”
Draco smiled. “Don’t worry. I can make one for you.”
“You’d do that for me?” Harry asked, suddenly suspicious.
“It’s your birthday, isn’t it?” Draco said.
And that way, he could keep the bottle of Clos Du Mesnil for himself.
oOoOoOo
“Are you sure this is going to work?”
“Stop fretting,” Draco ordered, happily massaging the potion into Harry’s hair. With any luck, it would take really well and couldn’t be easily gotten rid of.
“It’s just . . . what if it doesn’t help?” Harry said in a small voice.
“What do you mean? I tell you, it’ll cover the gray right up.”
“Not that. I mean—I mean—” Potter bit his lip. “Snape and I just don’t seem to have much in common anymore,” he murmured sadly. “He used to come storming home from work and I’d leap on him and then he’d throw me over the arm of the couch and strip my pants off and—”
“Please,” Draco interrupted. “I don’t want to hear about your naughty nuptial activities.”
“But he used to want me,” Harry pointed out. “And for the past month or so, he’s hardly even been around.” Draco watched Harry’s Adam’s apple bob and his eyes fill again. “I think he’s been seeing someone else,” Harry whispered.
“I don’t know,” Draco said doubtfully. “He seems to go for obnoxious cretins. Where would he find a more obnoxious, more cretinous cretin than you?”
Harry scowled. “You’re a big help,” he grumped.
“Oh, please. The man has been with you how long? And every time I turn around he’s bragging about how sexy you are or how adventurous you are or how loyal you are. If Severus Snape is having an affair, I’ll eat my wingtips.”
Harry shrugged. “All I know is that he hasn’t done that lately. He’s hardly been home at all.”
Draco echoed Harry’s shrug with one of his own. “In any case, your new hair will turn things right around.”
“I thought the point was that he wouldn’t know I was going gray!”
“That’s true. It’ll totally wipe the possibility of gray straight out of his mind,” Draco said with total honesty. “But you’ll also probably look different, erm, in some small way he can’t put his finger on.”
“Better?” Harry asked skeptically.
“Oh, worlds better,” Draco agreed. “But then practically anything would be an improvement.” He spun Harry around and did a quick drying charm. “There!”
“Does it really look better?” Harry said anxiously. “Do you think Snape will like it?”
“Trust me, you look . . . amazing,” Draco said. “Really. You’ll bring a smile to his face the moment he sees you.”
“Yeah, right,” Harry answered.
There was a noise from downstairs.
“Oh, no! He’s home early! I haven’t even had time to change!” Harry cried.
Draco patted his shoulder, beaming. “Trust me, you look perfect,” he said.
“If you’re sure . . . anyway, we’d better go down.”
“Oh, I’ll just Apparate out,” Draco replied.
“You don’t want to say hello?”
“It’s your special day,” Draco pointed out. “And I’d like to, er, let the two of you . . . I mean, I think it should be a private thing. Especially considering what his reaction is likely to be.” And yours, he added mentally.
“Wish me luck,” Harry said, sounding nervous.
“No worries,” Draco replied cheerfully. “It’ll all come out in the wash.”
oOoOoOo
Harry thought carefully about how to maximize his sex appeal. Should he go shirtless? Yes, definitely. Take off the trousers as well? No, that would be sleazy. Maybe if he just unbuttoned his trousers and unbuckled his belt . . . the buckle could sort of dangle there, inviting Severus into the confines of Harry’s trousers, as if to say The Garden of Eden is currently un-gated and awaiting your grand entrance.
And of course there was the hair, but he didn’t want that to be too obvious. Harry ran his hands through it vigorously and determined not to mention it at all unless Snape happened to bring it up.
Harry slipped downstairs. Severus was in the kitchen, putting away a few groceries. Harry positioned himself with great care, lounging in the kitchen doorway. He was sure everything was perfect—his hip jutted just so, his lips arranged in an I-will-suck-you come-hither sort of way, his hands resting casually in such a way to draw attention to his sensuous bare chest. “Hi,” Harry said, the word thick and heavy and hoarse, dripping with carnal insinuation.
Severus turned, arching a brow, then stopped dead. “Potter—” he began, then seemed to choke. “P-Potter—” he tried again, stuttering off into laughter.
Harry planted his hands on his hips. “Why are you—?”
Snape managed one more look at him, then collapsed into a kitchen chair, hooting with mirth. Harry had seen the man do a number of unexpected things over the years, but hooting still came as a shock. Resting his head on the kitchen table, Snape began to thump the wood in time with his undignified blorts and snerfs of laughter.
Harry drew himself up to his full, if still diminutive height. “And what exactly is so hilarious?” he asked coldly.
“Your—hair!” Severus managed to gasp.
Harry stared at him for a moment, then whirled and ran for the loo.
Harry sprinted into the bathroom, going so fast that when he hit the slippery tiles he couldn’t stop—he slid straight past the mirror and toilet and ended up falling headfirst into the bathtub.
“Bloody fucking hell!” he spat.
There was another burst of laughter from the doorway, this time almost the honking of a large, rather hysterical goose. Harry glared at Snape through the crook of his arm, upside-down and wedged in the bathtub. “You could lend me a hand instead of gloating over my every misfortune,” Harry griped.
“It’s hardly in my nature,” Snape pointed out. Still laughing, he flourished his wand and with a popping noise, Harry was upright and standing in front of the mirror.
Harry gaped in horror. “Oh, no. Oh, no!”
Oh, Gods. No wonder Snape was having a complete breakdown. Harry’s hair was about twelve different colors, most of them electric pinks and vivid purples. He looked as though his barber had been a four year old girl.
Harry turned to Snape. “Oh, nooooo!” he wailed. That damned Draco! He’d ruined everything! Now instead of a nice romantic, playfully sensual birthday, Harry’d be stuck trying to undo the potion. And worst of all, Snape was laughing at him.
Feeling furious, Harry pointed at the door. “Get out,” he snarled.
Apparently Snape could tell Harry was serious, because he backed out. “I thought you’d want to go to dinner for your birthday,” he protested.
Harry glowered at the man. “I have plans.”
“Really?”
“I have to wash my hair,” Harry said as icily as he could manage, then slammed the door.
oOoOoOo
There was a bottle of wine Harry kept stashed in one of the bathroom cupboards in case of spontaneous romance and bath sex. There wasn’t going to be any of that tonight and there hadn’t been any lately, but that only meant it was a decent vintage and anyway, the situation called for a strong red wine.
Unfortunately, two-thirds of a bottle and seventeen shampoos later, neither Harry’s mood nor his coiffure had improved.
Finally, after midnight, he gave up and went to bed.
To his surprise, Snape was waiting for him, the bedside lamp glowing softly.
Harry scowled. “Waiting for one last laugh at my expense, huh?”
Snape heaved a sigh. “For heaven’s sake, don’t be so melodramatic all the time.”
“Said the pot to the kettle.”
“The difference between the two of us is that I can pull off melodrama. You just seem bratty and petulant.”
Harry rolled his eyes.
“Anyway, it isn’t that bad.” Harry had to give the man credit for managing that with a straight face.
He crawled into bed and immediately turned on his side so he wouldn’t have to face Snape.
“What possessed you to do such a thing?”
“You think I turned my head into a tower of fairy floss on purpose?” Harry yelped. “I didn’t do anything! Draco did it! I just let him . . . fix my hair,” Harry said, trying to explain.
“And what on earth possessed you to do that?”
Harry didn’t answer right away. How could he put the growing gap between them into words? How could he make Snape see that they had something special, something worth holding onto? To his shame, Harry felt a tear roll down his face. “I just wanted to make you take an interest,” he said sadly.
“You certainly did that,” Snape agreed.
Harry said nothing.
After a few minutes, he felt Snape lightly touch his back. “Harry?”
Harry swallowed hard, but didn’t answer.
“So now it’s the silent treatment for me? An ineffective tool against someone who values peace and quiet.”
Harry jerked away from Snape and got out of bed, snatching up his pillow. “Fine!” he yelled. “You can have as much fucking peace and quiet as you want! I’ll just stay on the sodding couch!”
He caught a brief glimpse of Snape’s astonished face before he spun on his heel and began marching away. Before he could leave the room, the door slammed shut.
“Potter, what the devil is the matter with you?” Now Snape sounded downright angry.
Harry turned to glare at him, and found Snape out of bed as well, his arms crossed over his chest, returning Harry’s fierce and furious look. “What do you care?” Harry threw back.
“You’re acting like a spoilt child!”
“So let me take my tantrum elsewhere and you won’t have to fucking deal with it! I’ll go downstairs! Or I’ll get a hotel! Or stay with Ron and Hermione!” Harry shouted. He turned and tried to yank the door open, but a hand shot out and banged it shut again.
“Not until you’ve faced me like a man!” Snape snarled in his ear. “If you have a problem, you tell me what it is!”
Harry turned and was shocked to find the man so close. He sucked in a surprised breath, trying to take a step back and coming up against the door. “You don’t care,” he choked.
“Potter, if you say that one more time . . .”
“It’s true! You don’t care at all! You’re not even home anymore! You hardly pay attention to me and you’re always busy and you barely touch me and you’re always out until all hours doing Merlin knows what!”
“I don’t touch you?” Snape growled. He raised his hand and Harry, thinking the man meant to strike him, flinched a little. To his disbelief, he instead felt long fingers thread through his freakish hair.
Feeling his face turn hot, Harry leaned away from the touch. “Don’t.”
“You feel neglected?” Snape’s voice wasn’t angry, but rather amused. “Such a stupid boy.”
Harry’s head snapped up and he felt a crackling fire inside. It had been a long time since Snape made him this angry. “Shut up!”
“You shut up,” Snape replied.
“Make me!”
Suddenly Snape’s mouth was on his, hot and open and pulling a startled whimper from somewhere deep inside Harry’s chest. Harry made to shove the man away, but found his treacherous hands clutching at Snape’s robes and pulling him closer.
Snape broke off just long enough to give Harry a gleaming look of triumph, then swooped in for another breathtaking kiss. Harry could feel the man’s body heat only inches away.
Then Snape had his fists balled in Harry’s robes, and he was suddenly hauling Harry across the room to the bed, Harry’s feet stumbling and tripping over each other as he tried to keep up. Harry was thrown to the mattress with a thump, ending up sprawled and spread-eagled and staring up at Snape in surprise.
Wow, he wanted to say, but instead rasped, “Fuck me. Fuck me right now.”
Snape loomed above Harry. “Say please,” he demanded.
Harry felt something suddenly flare in his stomach, like a flame licking along a bit of wood before suddenly roaring to life, hot and snapping and consuming. This was what he’d been missing; this was the passion he’d almost forgotten. This was the fury and challenge and simmering need he’d been craving.
“I won’t say please,” he said through gritted teeth.
Snape’s dark eyes flashed. “Oh, won’t you?”
Without any warning, Harry was naked, his feverish body cooled by the unexpected rush of air from the banishing of his clothes. He grinned.
Snape smiled back, rather fiendishly, but Harry didn’t mind.
Snape came to the edge of the bed, kneeling on the mattress, dipping his head to kiss Harry’s bare knee. Harry caught his breath as the man’s tongue flicked out, a ticklish warm path being blazed up his sensitive thigh.
Harry began to squirm, then buck and writhe as Snape’s mouth engulfed him. No, Harry wouldn’t beg. He quite possibly couldn’t beg—he was well beyond begging and into babbling like some kind of complete jackass.
Snape didn’t seem to mind. He calmly, wordlessly and wandlessly summoned a jar of lube and began to stretch Harry. He seemed surprised to find Harry so tight. “I guess it’s been a while, after all,” the man noted, letting Harry’s prick bob free.
“And I’ve been doing exercises,” Harry admitted.
Snape laughed. This time, Harry smiled back, confident that the man was laughing with him rather than at him.
Severus gently turned Harry onto his stomach, briefly kissing the small of his back before mounting him. Harry could feel Snape’s hands on his hips, the burn and stretch, the steamy breath on the back of his neck, making him shiver.
It was good. It was better than good.
It was the perfect birthday present.
Afterward, Harry drowsed in Snape’s arms, feeling sweating and sticky and spent. Snape feathered Harry’s unusual locks.
“You wanted my attention so badly you dyed your hair pink?” he said, still sounding a little disbelieving.
“No! I told you, Draco did it. I was only trying to dye it dark brown.”
“It was already dark brown.”
“That’s the whole point!”
Snape sighed. “Potter, speaking to you is like reading an advanced potions book with half the pages missing. Stop being a cipher and tell me why you dyed your hair.”
Harry huddled down, pulling the covers up to his ears and trying to hide his face. “. . . there was some gray,” he finally said in a small voice.
“Is that all?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know what ‘all’ it is. All I know is that you don’t seem interested anymore and you’re too busy for me, and maybe it’s because I’m getting fat and old and ugly and you—want someone—handsome and slim and better than me.”
For the first time that evening, Snape sat up, looking serious. “There isn’t anyone better than you,” he said softly. “Of course, in a variety of ways I’d have to say there’s no one worse either, but that’s hardly any reason to go and allow Draco Malfoy carte blanche to alter your appearance.”
Harry looked at him dully. “I had to do something,” he said. Harry lowered his eyes. “I wanted you back.”
Snape let out a long whoosh of air. “Well, I suppose I should tell you the truth, even though it’s really too late to do much about it.”
Harry pinned him with a suspicious eye. “What truth? You were hiding something? I knew it! You’re seen someone else, aren’t you? You’ve been keeping things from me!”
“I most certainly have been keeping things from you. That’s what a birthday surprise is all about.”
“What?”
“I arranged for both of us to take time off to celebrate your birthday in Paris, where, this weekend, your friends would arrive to throw you a surprise party. I’d planned on taking you tonight so we could have some nice intercourse for an appetizer the night before your friends Floo’d in for the real dinner, but naturally you had to ruin everything by allowing Draco to do anything and by dying your hair outrageous and unflattering colours.”
Harry’s mouth opened and shut. “Paris? Really?”
“It was a desperate and bloody campaign convincing your boss to give you time off. And apart from that, it’s not such an easy secret to keep.”
“You were taking me to Paris,” Harry repeated. “If only I hadn’t mucked it up.”
“Hell, I’d take you now, if it didn’t mean the histrionics that would go with your being seen in public like that.”
Harry hopped out of bed and ran to begin packing.
“What are you doing?”
“I don’t have a problem with anyone seeing me, as long as we get to fuck on the Eiffel Tower. Or near it.”
Snape got up slowly. “I find this unexpected, I must say.”
“Yeah, well I find you offering to take me to the most romantic city on earth a little bit suspicious as well. Definitely not your usual thing.”
“Nonsense. Anyway, you’re the one out of character. I never thought I’d meander through the door and find you looking like a misbegotten strawberry shortcake.”
“That was more red. Anyway, you laughed. That was weird.”
“I defy anyone to look at your hair and not succumb to the convulsions of the truly deranged. It’s hysteria, and it catches.”
“Either way, I didn’t know you could laugh like that. All stupid and endless and braying and honking and giggling. You were like some freak of nature.”
“Pot, kettle,” Snape replied, gesturing to his head. “At any rate, it just so happens that once in a great while, something will be worthy of my laughter.”
Harry smiled slowly, then sank down beside Snape on the bed. “I really never heard you laugh like that before.”
Snape returned his smile. “I never saw you panic so badly over a few measly grays.”
“I guess we both learned something surprising about each other tonight.”
“Indeed. It brought a whole new, rather disturbing perspective to our relationship. I know now that when threatened, you revert to hair metal and histrionics.”
“And I now know that whenever you get snarky and bugger off for lengths of time, you’re actually being a snugly-spoo who’s trying to arrange a sparkly party for me.”
Snape made a sour face. “I would not go that far.”
Harry laughed and leaned his head on Snape’s shoulder. “But is it fair to say we’ve still got some interesting things to learn about each other?”
Harry looked up and found Snape’s eyes dark and unfathomable, his lip curled smugly. “Yes, I think that’s safe to say.”
“Oh, good,” Harry replied. He pushed the trunk off the bed and crawled back under the covers. “Come on.”
Snape joined him. “I thought you wanted Paris tonight. I thought you wanted to have a fuck suspended in L’arc de Triomphe.”
“I didn’t say that, though it’s a good idea. No,” Harry said, fluffing up the pillows. “I think tonight I’d like a nice evening at home.”
“Ah. Well, I can’t argue with that,” Snape agreed, sliding between the warm covers towards Harry’s warmer body.
“Besides,” Harry added brightly. “This way we can get straight to the fucking without stopping to pack!”
Snape laughed that dark little laugh that always set Harry tingling. “It does sound like a good, solid plan.”
They fell back into a delicious cycle of kisses and struggles and panting.
“And you have to admit,” Harry breathed, “That I did make things seem new and interesting.”
“Indeed,” Snape agreed, biting Harry’s earlobe hard enough to make the boy sing out in pleasure. “But I never mind a night or two at home.”
“Yeah?” Harry said skeptically.
Snape eyed the boy. “Yes,” he promised. They smiled at each other, then went back to the kissing and grinding and routine of sexual fulfilment. “Besides,” Snape whispered. “I do rather like you the way you are, idiotic and infuriating though that may be.”
Harry half sat up. “So you don’t mind that I’m going gray?” he asked, his shoulders curled, head ducked. “You don’t mind that I’m not young and sexy?”
Snape kissed his nose. “Potter, I still find you sexy. You're perfect.”
“Seriously? Even like this?”
Snape touched his cheek. “Not a hair out of place,” he swore.