Polyjuice Passion

{one-shot}

A/N: This story is nsfw and a lil explicit but am I posting this while at work? Possibly. Anyways, this was a terrible idea and I love it. It's also cross-posted on ffnet. I should have more holiday themed stories coming soon, and they should be happier too:) Please enjoy!
PS: I thought this posted a couple days ago but I guess not??? So here it is! Day late and a dollar short.

Severus tugged his robe on, squaring his shoulders. The polyjuice would wear off soon, and then he would be alone once again until half nine.

"Thank you," a quivering, feminine voice came from behind him in the bed.

A mention of a dead spouse, he'd forgotten her name, but the man's name had been said at least a hundred times so that he might never get it out of his head. Her mouth always muttered closure but he'd seen this particular witch thrice in the year since her husband died, and he doubted it would be the last.

"You're welcome."

A voice modification additive disguised his own, one he'd worked on for years when the Dark Lord had required more than just intimidation from him. Severus exhaled as the soft pop of disapparation left him alone.

He turned, pointing his wand to the rumpled bed and sorted the sheets, changing the color back to black for his final appointment of the evening. After that it would be a full rest for him as the mental toll had been especially high that night. Not to mention the shifting back his body went through in that moment, the polyjuice wearing off in a mixture of relief and wariness.

Every appointment was the same, a hair or any other identifying part of the desired partner would arrive, he would take his own polyjuice concoction, and then a client would arrive a moment later. Whether it be in the arms of a dead lover they would find themselves, or a self-servicing to a friend who would never return their affections, it was quite clear what he was doing was... deceptive.

All his life it was what he'd known. His mother keeping her identity from his father, then in school having to play the Slytherin when all he wanted was to have companions, ones to say his name the way Lily had when their friendship had been unadulterated. Then the years and endless moments of lying to Voldemort, only the second most dangerous man Severus worked for, and having to stomach down the fact he was lying to himself even about having ever truly loved Lily.

Could he have if he betrayed her so?

No, it was best not to think of it.

He no longer existed in the world that did not want him. His polarizing presence was no place for a school, the ministry, or even Muggle cokeworth, and so he'd found the most remote cottage in the most remote of an English forest and called it home. He could even have adorned his house with lights for the winter hols if the fancy struck him, and no one would be the wiser. Not that the fancy ever struck him. He didn't even have a tree that wasn't twenty-feet tall or firmly planted in the ground outside.

The potions he'd been providing the ministry were not allowed to stop as his presence in the building had, however. As it was his legal source of income, and a pitiful one at that considering the time and effort most potions took, Severus was not allowed to fall completely off the grid. This specific endeavor he engaged in now... well, he could make polyjuice half asleep, and he found after a war there was much to grieve and a niche aspect of the human mind he had yet extorted.

They need never know it was him.

Yet, something in Severus craved almost exactly what they did. It would be nice, just once, to hear his name fall off the lips of a beautiful witch or handsome wizard that he desired, in a tone that meant something, not just passing conversation. He'd heard his name cursed at him once, someone who found the war's fault a fault of his, and he grinned when that same wizard had requested his hand on their throat.