A Virtue In Itself
by
Rating: NC-17, check warnings if you need to know more details than simply "explicit sexual content" is present in this fic.
Pairing: Snape/Percy Weasley
Word Count: 2,365
Disclaimer: All the characters are Rowling's. All the smutty scenarios are mine.
Summary: A put-upon Percy Weasley finds fulfillment... and Severus Snape... in the Muggle world.
Warnings: highlight between brackets if you prefer story warnings: [contains: angst, wanking, top and bottom Snape]
For the first year anniversary of Voldemort's downfall or VOV day (Victory Over Voldemort), Percy stocked up on groceries and tried not to resent that it left him with naught but a handful of sickles after his rent was paid.
As fireworks displays flashed all over both the Muggle and Wizarding World, Percy ate tinned beans on toast and reflected how fortunate it was for You-Know-Who to be killed on New Year's Eve.
~
On the fifth VOV anniversary, Percy neatly and methodically placed all his personal belongings in a box, clearing out his tiny desk at the Ministry in his even tinier office, and refused to respond to the fluttering memo bearing his name. The writing on it was familiar and every time he had felt shut out, belittled or misunderstood by his family went through his head.
Most likely, it was an invitation to humiliation; dinner at home whilst the family feasted on the fact he'd been finally made redundant as he ate better food than he'd eaten in years. His happily married and successful brothers and their children could puzzle over him and his life choices and obliquely imply he was bent.
No, he decided now. His father could try silent disregard and see how it made him feel.
Percy shrank his box and apparated to his flat, acutely aware that if he did not find work within a week, he'd lose his flat, tiny and dismal as it was.
Kowtowing to his wealthy twin brothers, and begging to stay in one of the rooms above their business was simply not on, even if he knew they would not turn him down, and even as the rooms sat gathering dust now that Fred and George had married and bought a huge manor house they shared adjoining wings in.
Nor would he try his luck in France where Bill had followed his pregnant wife after the war. From what he'd overheard, Bill had his hands full raising two boisterous sets of twins whilst Lady Fleur taught Charms at Beauxbatons.
Percy would never bother Charlie and his two foreign Muggle lovers. Word at the Ministry was his father had taken pains to get the trio an official reprimand rather than jail time after they'd all been caught fornicating atop a flying carpet in view of a Muggle beach.
He certainly wouldn't allow himself to become beholden to his younger siblings! No matter how successful a Quidditch player Ron was or how large a house Ginny Potter and her handful maintained. How could they ever respect him if he went to them for help?
No, it was best he found other work, even hard Muggle work, than turn to his family.
~
Percy punched his time card and neatly folded the maroon apron that clashed so badly with his hair. He rather liked it for all that it reminded him of Gryffindor House and better, simpler times. Only a manager could wear maroon. The other counter clerks wore green aprons. He had worked diligently at this job as he'd done at all the others, except this time he'd been able to move up rapidly to a higher position.
It may not seem like much, but it suited him, and he never went hungry. If nothing else, a half-day's wages would buy him a lot of vegetables, even if they weren't quite enough to keep out the Northern cold.
Still, he liked it here in Yorkshire. The people were refreshingly direct, and there were plenty of areas that had rooms at extremely low rates. Muggle areas, it was true, but then he did not have any prejudices against Muggles. He was not a purist snob. He might be particular about some things, but a person's blood did not matter.
He was stepping out of the green grocer's where he'd been working for the last seven years when another was coming in and they butted shoulders.
"Pardon me," said a voice he'd never thought to hear again.
"Professor Snape," he said automatically, then cursing himself for his foolishness.
Snape, he saw, looked unnerved.
"Mr. Weasley."
Percy straightened, but gave him a polite smile. "I'm sure I'd hate being ginger if I didn't have the last name of Weasley. Everyone seems to assume we're the only family like that."
Snape seemed nonplussed.
"It is... distinctive."
Percy nodded, but his innate politeness urged him to state, "Yes, sir. Is there anything I can assist you with?"
Snape seemed even more taken aback.
"Yes." His cheek twitched a bit, but he merely inquired, "Do you work here?"
"Yes, actually. I'm off-duty just now, but I'll be happy to help you."
"Oh. Well, I was going to inquire as to discard vegetables."
Percy's smile widened.
"For potions, sir? I'll be happy to give you a carton of discards. Even the Muggles ask us for them, for composting."
He turned toward the counter again, still speaking. "In fact, that's a good excuse to use in future, sir. If you come back here and I'm not here, just ask the counterperson if they've any discard vegetables for composting."
He squatted and brought up a small carton of discards from behind the counter, which he held out to Snape.
Snape took it, with an odd expression.
"The advice is appreciated, Mr. Weasley, but I'm afraid I really couldn't do that."
"Why not?"
Snape's face twitched again. "Because I don't need them for compost. I need them to feed myself. And because I cannot lie."
~
Percy had not set foot in the local or WAWPL branch of the Witch & Wizard Public Library, and did not, in fact, know where it was located. So he apparated to London on his next day off and got answers to his questions.
~
Ironically, Percy saw him stepping out from a shabby two-up, two-down on the corner of Mill Road the next time he saw him.
Snape was stooped and his Muggle pea coat looked rather the worse for wear.
"Good morning, Mr. Snape."
Snape shrank back, and then relaxed a little.
"No, Mr. Weasley, it is not a particularly good morning," he rasped.
Percy lifted a brow as if amused. "Oh? And why is that?"
Snape's cheek twitched, but he spoke through gritted teeth nonetheless.
"I cannot find nor keep a job. I have nothing to eat. I can't sleep very well. I'm very hungry. I... I'm extremely randy."
Then he squinched his eyes shut, even as a flare of colour surged to his face and he turned around again, trembling as he reopened his front door and stepped back into what was, presumably, his house.
Percy stood there for a long while; the previous look of satisfaction on his face now gone.
~
Snape found the rolled up piece of paper tied to his front door with a rubber band. He unrolled it and read it and frowned.
~
The green grocer's was quite busy when Snape stepped in, and Percy smiled at him from behind the counter, then, to his surprise, threw a green apron at him.
"Hurry along then! We need help here."
He did not ask any questions. He took off his pea coat and hung it on a rack by the door, then slid under the counter and tied on the apron.
"Just answer their questions honestly," Percy muttered to him sotto voce, with a welcoming clasp of the hand to his shoulder, before hurrying to hand an elderly Asian woman a sack of ginger root.
An elderly man pulled on his sleeve and Snape looked over.
"Do you have any turnips, young man?"
~
On his second trip to the library, Percy had found a Muggle disease that the Muggle's he worked with could understand as an explanation. He told them Severus Snape had Tourette's syndrome. He confided that he found it very embarrassing and to not tease him about it, as it wasn't kind and he could not help the things he blurted out. Since he was the manager and they were mostly kind-hearted individuals, this explanation held.
This made Severus a bit of an oddity at first, but the other counter clerks and the deliverymen soon grew accustomed to his inappropriate comments. The fact he had developed a series of facial tics and often scrunched up his face when he said something he'd rather not merely served to convince them of Percy's story.
They would never understand, after all, that Snape did this because of a spell, from some Ministry they'd never heard of, which had been cast on him upon his release from some prison called Azkaban.
~
Soon he was able to take home more than just discards and before too many weeks, Severus stopped looking so gaunt and coming in quite so cold from lack of coal in the bin.
He stopped looking so hunted and haunted. He relaxed and did not stoop when he stood.
He was even seen to smile slightly sometimes, and made small talk with their regular customers. All of them knew of his condition by now. It was a small town; word got around very quickly.
Percy Weasley noted all these things, and was glad. He wished now that he had some other colour hair. He wondered if Severus would ever think of him as more than just another Weasley.
~
One closing time, after a very busy afternoon, Percy removed his maroon manager's apron and folded it primly behind the counter. Snape was sweeping, carefully and methodically as always.
Percy watched him for a while, noting the trim figure and the taut buttocks and swallowed as he went hard. It had been too long with only his hands, only his imagination.
He never visited brothels. He had no idea how much they cost, but he knew going would make him feel so soiled it would not be worth it, no matter how satisfying an experience. He sighed now with a desperate sort of longing. He wondered if Snape was even bent. He wondered how his brothers had known, had guessed; as far back as he could remember.
It wasn't like it showed in any way he could see. The face he saw in the mirror looked no different, aside from being older now. He sighed again.
"Ask whatever you want to ask," Snape said, still turned away from him, sweeping.
Percy swallowed.
"Are you bent?"
"Yes." Snape sniffed a little. He did not vary in his sweeping pattern at all.
"I see."
Percy stepped from behind the counter and headed for the door.
"I'll, uh, see you tomorrow then. Good evening."
That night Percy nearly wanked himself raw. He kept seeing Snape's face scrunched up, not in embarrassment or pain.
In his mind's eye, Severus was ejaculating, too, pulsing warm wetness against his belly as Percy finally learned what making love was truly like.
~
A week later, Snape folded his apron and asked Percy if he cared to accompany him to the pub near his house.
They drank pints and even played a bit of darts. They headed to Snape's house after two pleasant hours and when Snape turned on him as soon as he'd stepped into the house and pressed him to the door and viciously kissed him, Percy did not complain.
He kissed him back, opening his mouth despite the spit and his usual concerns about hygiene and gasped as Severus found his throat and bit and sucked and he arched into that lithe body and found he was just as ready, just as hard.
He scarcely saw the rest of the house. He could only remember the hallway, the dimness, and then the bed.
He was naked then, and Severus was naked, and it was good, oh, so good, and he did not mind when Severus took him first, because he knew exactly what he was doing, and was thorough and careful and it was an incredible experience he would never know again, because you only lost your virginity once, and Percy committed it to memory -- every gasp and sigh and harsh breath.
~
He damned his fair skin sometime later when he softly asked Severus if he would mind being allowed a go.
He relaxed when Severus chuckled and nodded, stroking a warm hand through his riot of hair.
"You remember what I did?"
Percy nodded.
"Just do the same thing, to prepare me."
Percy reached for the tube of slippery gel and demonstrated to his ex-professor just how methodical a student he was.
He learned that Severus did not scrunch his face at all when he came. Instead his expression looked shocked somehow, incredulous, as if disbelieving he could feel such a thing, then his mouth fell open and his eyes rolled back as his back arched and Percy was coming hard as he felt that thick, beautiful cock in his hand spurting over them both.
~
"Was that... all right?"
"Yes. It was quite lovely."
Percy smiled. Lovely was not a word he would have thought fit within Severus Snape's vocabulary.
"I won't be able to treat you any differently at the shoppe, you know."
"I wouldn't expect you to. I know which side my bread is buttered on."
His smile widened as he teased, "Ah. Into butter are you? Sounds rather kinky."
Snape snorted at this, and reached up a hand and brought their heads together so he could kiss him.
When he let him go, he kept their foreheads together and Percy could smell the staleness of the bitters they had imbibed before, and the clear indication of what they had done, which hung redolent in the air.
"How... how did you know?"
"You never once teased me about my admission to being randy."
Percy moved back to study him. Gleaming black eyes stared back at him. They were piercing, thoughtful and somehow, just a touch sad.
He shrugged a little, feeling suddenly uncomfortable.
"Why me, then?"
Snape drew in a deep breath and released it in an equally deep and satisfied sigh. Those black eyes gleamed now with satisfaction, and a touch of pride.
"Because you're beautiful... and you wanted me."
Percy kissed him then.
Soon they were tangled back up in each other, both hungry again, but no longer haunted.
~ FIN ~
Posted: 19 Dec 2006