The snow outside the inn had started to melt into gray slush, but the room they’d taken was still cold. The fire in the grate hadn’t caught properly, spitting more smoke than warmth, and the sheets smelled faintly of damp wool and spilled ale. Severus sat on the edge of the bed, shirt half-buttoned, hunched forward with his elbows digging into his knees. His hands hung between them, pale fingers flexing absently as though he might wring something out of them—anger, shame, anything that would settle the crawling sensation under his skin. His arse was sore.

Behind him, James bloody Potter sprawled like he owned the place. He wasn’t asleep, though he had the audacity to snore anyway, his nose pressed into Severus’s back like some overgrown dog. Severus stiffened at the contact, jaw tightening. Of course Potter couldn’t just leave. He had to linger, had to turn even this into another performance.

“Get your bloody face off me,” Severus muttered, voice flat but sharp enough to cut. James didn’t move, though the fake snore hitched into what might’ve been a laugh.

Merlin, how Severus hated him. Hated his warmth, his ridiculous smell of broom polish and peppermint, hated that he could even pretend to be comfortable in this moment. Severus felt raw, flayed open under the weight of what they’d just done—again. It wasn’t as though this was new. They’d been sneaking off like this for months now, tangling themselves up in the kind of ugliness neither would admit to. But it was worse tonight, somehow. Maybe because of the snow, the stupid holiday cheer hanging over Hogsmeade like a curse, or maybe because Severus’s mother had signed that blasted permission slip so eagerly, as if giving him this one day of freedom would mean something. As if it wouldn’t end exactly like everything else.

“You’re insufferable,” Severus said, low and venomous. “A strutting, brainless ponce who thinks snoring counts as charm. Do you honestly believe this little routine of yours makes you clever? Merlin forbid Potter do anything without an audience—even if it’s just me.” His lip curled as he stared down at his hands, as though they’d betrayed him by touching James at all. “You’re not special, you know. Just loud.”

James shifted behind him, stretching like a cat, but didn’t bother to answer. That was worse than a retort; at least Severus could fight a retort. This—this silence, this lazy ownership of the air between them—felt like salt rubbed into an already festering wound.

Severus swallowed hard, bitterness coating the motion like bile. “One day,” he said suddenly, voice tight, “I’m going to make sure you regret every second of this.”

It wasn’t a threat, not really. More like a curse whispered into the room itself, as though saying it aloud might anchor him to something—anything—other than the humiliation simmering through his bones. James’s snore faltered again, and Severus could almost hear the smirk in it.

Outside, students were still milling through Hogsmeade, laughing, drinking butterbeer, living lives that felt painfully far away from this room. Severus straightened a fraction, shoulders rigid, and tried to convince himself that he didn’t feel the faint prickle of warmth where James’s nose pressed into his back. He told himself it was disgusting. He told himself he hated it. He told himself he hated him.

And maybe, if he said it enough, it would be true.