Title: Within These Walls.
Author: pekeleke
Characters: Harry Potter, Severus Snape.
Rating: PG
Warning(s): None.
Word count: 365
Disclaimer: Don't own these characters. No money is being made out of this work.
Written for: hogwarts365 Prompt #54 – 'Kreacher'
Summary: Within these walls we live. We laugh. We... love.

Within These Walls.
read on rue16

Kreacher isn't allowed to touch master Severus' things.  He can't wash his dark robes or cook the special, easy to swallow meals he's been eating since the near fatal snakebite that damaged his throat.

Master Severus' already tidy office is out of bounds for old Kreacher, along with the man's personal laboratory, the herb garden and the recently upgraded library that has replaced old Mistress Walburga's Dark Arts collection.

Although Kreacher himself has been forbidden to look after them Master Severus' possessions are unfailingly tended to with the most bewildering devotion.  His serviceable boots are hand-polished every Friday.  His outer robes get brushed weekly to a velvety shine and even the offensively cheap quills he often uses until the stubs are too smooth to produce the sharp lines of his elegant script are dutifully sharpened not by the house-elf born to serve the Noble House of Black, but by the Black heir himself.

Despite how long they've been together Harry Potter often struggles to remember that his forbidding husband chose to belong to him when he'd agreed to their bonding.  Master Severus is always so formal, so reluctant to both offer and accept public shows of affection that poor Master Harry is left seeking further intimacy in performing all these little, menial tasks for his benefit.

Kreacher watches his young master so busily polishing, cooking and cleaning after his bonded and often wonders how is it possible to love someone so fiercely.  To have such need for contact that hand-holding isn't enough and neither is lovemaking.  It must be exhausting to feel such hunger, such want, such desperate possessiveness towards someone so damaged that he can't even bring himself to say the words 'I love you'.

“But he does, master.  He does.  He loves you every time he swallows your terrible food without telling you it's unsalted.  He loves you when he wears the wrong shoes just because you've polished them and uses the sharpened quill he'd been thinking of discarding because his long fingers can't hold it anymore.  He loves you just like you love him, and it's wonderful and humbling and... strange... to see such pure devotion thrive inside number 12's love-starved walls.”