"Don't be stupid, Potter."
"To hear you tell it, I'm incapable of being any other way." Harry waited, but Severus' scowl did not lessen. Comparing eyes with daggers had always seemed like hyperbole to Harry until he and Severus had got involved. Fortunately, Harry was more or less impervious to his glares. "Oh, come on, that was supposed to make you laugh."
"Sod off." Severus turned toward the window and stood there, pointedly staring into the trees as though ignoring Harry would make him go away.
Harry stifled a sigh. After a moment he walked slowly over to the window and stood just behind Severus, close enough to embrace him but not touching. Yet. "There's nothing to be jealous of."
"I'm not."
"Bollocks." He felt Severus stiffen, but no words followed, so Harry plowed on. "You're jealous and you're possessive and you're being a right prat about this."
"You're wasting your breath."
"It's just a Christmas gift."
"To the man you wish you were sleeping with instead of me." The words sank in the room like heavy fog.
Harry closed his eyes and reminded himself not to say anything he would regret. "Now *you're* being stupid," he said, finally.
Severus didn't dignify that with a response.
"I have no interest in Remus Lupin." Harry measured the words carefully. "I never have had."
"And yet you bought him a red silk—"
"The kimono belonged to Sirius!" Harry's voice was louder and angrier than he intended. "When Sirius—" Harry still couldn't say 'died;' he rephrased in mid-sentence. "I was sixteen, I was wrapped up in my own misery—"
"As though I could forget."
Harry ignored Severus' ascerbic tone and ploughed on. "I was too wretched to see how much worse it was for Remus. I finally understand what he lost when Sirius went through that veil. I was trying to give him some of what you and I—oh, never mind, you're not listening anyway."
Harry turned, fighting the lump in his throat, resolved not to cry until he was safely out of the room.
Before he got two steps away, Severus' hand was on his shoulder, and then Severus' arms were around him, and then Severus' mouth was opening for his tongue, a wordless apology.
Severus kissed the side of his neck.
"You're a jealous bastard," Harry muttered.
Severus bit, then sucked the spot his teeth had marked.
"He doesn't have what we have, anymore." Trying to explain.
Severus moved to kiss his mouth again, but Harry held him at arm's length.
"Don't envy him, Severus." There was a pause.
Severus' eyes closed and he nodded sharply, once. Assent. Maybe even understanding.
Harry smiled ruefully and wrapped his arms around his lover, grieving again for what Remus had lost, what Harry knew he himself could lose with a flick of Voldemort's wand.
(475 words)
The End