For the thirty-seven years he'd been here at Hogwarts, one day had been very much like the next to Severus Snape. There had never been anything to distinguish them from each other, except perhaps the degree of ostracism he might experience. His routine as a teacher had been set before most of his co-workers were even born. There were times he was busier than others, but on the whole, his life had always been quiet and predictable.

Until Albus' post-mortem meddling had turned his world on its proverbial heel last Boxing Day. Now his life was inextricably woven with that of Potter and the Weasleys'. He never knew from one day to the next what demands would be made on his time by the strange family he had acquired. He should have been snarling and spitting at each interruption of his routine, but . . . hypocrisy had never been one of his many faults. When Harry showed up at his lab after dinner to help him prepare whatever potion the infirmary needed or when Hermione poked her head in his office door during a shared free period, he couldn't even feign irritation. He was grateful for their presence in his life, even if he didn't always know how to deal with them.

He remembered how on his first visits to the Weasleys' quarters as an adult, he had felt he was making a terrible mistake in coming there, how he'd believed that there was too much history between them to initiate a civil relationship at this late date. He'd thought himself too set in his ways. He was too old to fit in, too unfriendly, too . . . Slytherin. But somehow, despite all expectations to the contrary, they had made it work. For the last five weeks, he'd been a regular visitor to this tower. While most nights it no longer felt strange for him to be walking through Gryffindor Tower's corridor after supper on his way to the Weasleys', tonight's visit was a little more unusual than most, for tonight he walked this hall alone.

The paintings of scarlet and gold clad Gryffindors all muttered and tssked suspiciously as the Head of Slytherin passed below them.

"Professor Snape!" a translucent passer by acknowledged.

"Good evening, Sir Nicholas," he greeted the nearly headless ghost, holding his breath as he waited to be questioned as to his presence here in what was traditionally enemy territory.

But the tall Gryffindor house ghost in his timeless lace and blue satin just smiled and said, "Pleasant evening, is it not?"

"I suppose," Severus allowed, watching out of the corner of his eye until the wraith turned the corner. He shook his head in disgust. Even when dead the damn Gryffindors were too trusting. Although the Bloody Baron rarely made his presence known, Severus knew for a fact that the Slytherin house ghost trailed Potter to his door every time Harry descended into the dungeons.

Finally at the Weasleys' door, Severus took a deep breath and knocked.

"You're right on time," a grinning Ron Weasley said by way of greeting as he opened the door.

"You did say seven thirty," Severus answered, adding a droll, "And good evening to you."

"Good evening." Ron laughed and waved him in. "Come on in. And thanks for coming."

"How could I refuse so desperate a plea?" Severus replied. He still hadn't recovered from the shock of having Ron ask him at dinner if he'd visit with him while Hermione was out tonight.

"I hate when they all run off and leave me on my own like this," Ron said. "Hermione will be ever so grateful to you as well. You'll keep me out of trouble. The last time she left me alone like this, I painted the bedroom. It was a week before she forgave me that."

"Painting the bedroom was a problem?" Severus asked as he stepped into the sitting room.

The chess game was already set up on the table with a silver tea service and something that looked suspiciously like nut bread beside it.

"I painted it orange. It was Halloween week and I got carried away. She said it clashed with my hair . . . and everything else in the room," Ron said in a woebegone tone.

"She might have a point. Is there any colour that doesn't clash with your hair?" Severus questioned in what he hoped would be received as a joking manner. He still wasn't completely sanguine about the difference between friendly teasing and mockery. He had a natural talent for the latter, but the former often confounded him.

To his relief, Ron just laughed. "Green, actually, but seeing as that's a Slytherin colour . . . ."

"You have my permission as Head of House to borrow it anytime," Severus allowed, thinking that even a Weasley in Slytherin colours had to be preferable to Ron in the maroon robe he was currently wearing.

"Thanks, I think. This robe is as bad as I thought it, then?" Ron questioned.

Severus stared into those waiting brown eyes and gave a sombre, "Fully. Whatever possessed you to buy something that colour?"

"Mum made it for me," Ron grinned.

"Ah, another social gaffe." Severus sighed. "My apologies."

"None needed. It's hideous. There's no getting around that."

"So where has Hermione gone tonight?" Severus asked, still not completely at ease. This was the first time he'd been alone with Ron since his restoration to adulthood. He was accustomed to interacting with Hermione and Harry on a one to one basis as an adult, but Ron and he were rarely alone together.

"It's Hogwarts' Young Witches Professionals meeting night. She runs the club. Now that she's given up on House Elf Emancipation, she's crusading for equal rights for witches," Ron said.

Severus tried not to say anything, he really did, but finally, he couldn't hold back another minute and had to point out, "Don't witches and wizards already have equality under the law?"

In the Wizarding World, it was rarely a question of gender or even rank that held one back. Rather, it was the power an individual could wield.

"Not to hear Hermy speak of it." Ron gave an oddly philosophical shrug. "You know how she is."

"Yes."

"Why didn't you go with Harry to help Neville harvest that root in the Dark Forest?" Ron asked. "Harry told me he asked you."

"It's a flower that they are collecting. Moonshade, to be precise. I thought Longbottom would have enough to contend with out there without having to deal with me as well."

"Neville's not afraid of you anymore. He told me just yesterday how much he enjoys those debates that you've been having on the uses of herbs in the Dark Arts. You could have gone. What?" Ron prodded after reading whatever was in his expression.

"Perhaps it isn't Professor Longbottom who is uncomfortable these days," Severus admitted.

"What do you mean?"

"It is . . . difficult to be constantly reminded of one's . . . past transgressions."

Ron didn't seem shocked by his confession. Sounding as though it were no big deal, Ron simply suggested, "So apologize."

"Just like that? How could an apology ever make up for the way I . . . ."

"It'd be a start." Seeming to sense how uneasy he was with the topic, Ron asked, "You feel like a game?" and gave a hopeful glance at the chess set.

"Why not?" Severus said, taking his usual position behind the black king and queen.

"We might actually be able to get in some decent playing tonight," Ron said as he seated himself behind the white pieces. "Do you fancy some tea or maybe a cognac?"

Inhaling the scent of the rich brew in the silver pot beside him, Severus said, "Tea, please. Is that nut bread?"

Ron grinned and passed the dessert tray over.

The next few minutes passed comfortably enough as they sorted out mugs, milk, and sweets. Then they started to play. Though this was hardly the first time they'd begun a game as adults, it was the first time they had any chance of concentrating enough to enjoy the challenge. Normally, there was a roomful of people here on Monday nights when they'd try to play and the interruptions made it impossible.

Severus was stunned by how quickly he found himself playing a defensive game. From a seven-year-old's perspective, he remembered how good Ron was, but he'd dismissed those evaluations as being those of an impressionable child. But Ron really was as accomplished as he remembered; perhaps even better, since Weasley wasn't modifying his game to accommodate the fragile ego of a sulky child.

In a lull between moves, while Severus was studying the board, attempting to save his remaining knight without losing a bishop or another rook, Ron asked, "So how are you doing?"

"In what respect? As you can see, I am in good health," he answered. Finally finding a means of saving his knight, he tried to sacrifice a pawn – only to have Ron ignore the offering and move one of his own pawns on the other side of the board to effectively lock in the black queen. He couldn't move her out of imminent danger without placing her in immediate jeopardy. Ron couldn't take her just yet, but if he didn't get her out of there, Ron's knight would have her in three moves.

"Are things going better for you now?" Ron asked.

"If you mean am I no longer descending into a melodramatic funk every time someone mentions the word quidditch, then the answer is yes," Severus replied as coolly as he could manage without being rude. He really didn't want to discuss this.

"I wouldn't call your reaction to what happened to you melodramatic," Ron said as he moved his rook to close his net around the black queen.

"That's because you're a Gryffindor. Your house always tries to look on the bright side," Severus all but sneered.

A year ago, those same words would have caused an eruption of volcanic proportions, but Ron simply grinned and answered, "That's Hufflepuff, not Gryffindor. We're the judgemental pricks, remember?"

Caught in the act of sipping his tea, Severus nearly spewed the milky brew all over the chessboard. He swallowed the mouthful with difficulty and tried to glare at Ron, but the utter lack of repentance in the strong featured, freckled face made the corners of his lips twitch.

"I had managed to forget for the moment," Severus said at last in a dry tone.

"I'll remind you, then," Ron promised and then said, "And you never answered my question. Is it any better for you now?"

The open concern that Ron wasn't even attempting to conceal threw him. Severus was tempted to dissemble, but this man was the closest thing to a father he'd ever had. As much as his pride smarted, he was unwilling to tell an outright lie to Ron. He wasn't certain how he should answer, but finally settled on a soft, "Yes."

"Good," that was all Ron said as he closed in on Severus' queen.

Severus sighed as she fell with a bang and a shriek.

After another quarter of an hour of silent jousting on the chequered board, Ron remarked, "Hermione made me promise to subtly enquire as to how things are going with you and Harry. She suggested that I work it into the conversation while we were doing our male bonding thing."

"That's your idea of subtle, is it?" Severus asked, as appalled by Ron's lack of pretension as he was by the question. He couldn't understand how anyone could play chess this well and yet be so hopelessly obtuse. The obvious answer was, of course, that Ron wasn't naïve at all, and that the blunt approach was a conscious choice.

Ron shrugged and gave a long-suffering sigh. "Sometimes I wonder if she knows who she's married. I mean, me – subtle?"

Severus stared at that earnest face. "I believe Hermione knows precisely who she married and it is the rest of us who are in error."

"Oh?" Ron said and moved another pawn with lethal results.

"Yes, no one who plays chess as masterfully as you could possibly be this . . ." he stopped. The word 'dense' was not likely to go over well, even if it were accurate.

"It's a different issue. Chess is a game. I like to keep my real life as uncomplicated as possible. So, how are things going with you and Harry?" Ron returned to the former topic with the persistence of one of Hagrid's pets returning to its littermate's corpse.

"We seem to have managed to rise above our former differences," Severus said at last.

"That isn't what I meant." When Severus made no move to further the conversation, Ron carefully commented, "A little bird tells me that Harry's been spending most his nights down in the Slytherin dungeon."

"That little bird wouldn't be named Zabini by any chance?" Severus angrily demanded. Harry had told him about Zabini seeing him leaving his quarters on several occasions. It worried him. Harry wasn't concerned about their reputations, but Severus was very conscious of how much damage even one Slytherin's whispers could cause.

Not that there was anything going on between them. After that first night Severus had seen the danger of moving Harry to his bed. Potter simply fell asleep most nights on his couch and Severus hadn't the heart to interrupt the insomniac's undrugged sleep, but he knew how it would look to outsiders were Potter spotted leaving his room every morning. Harry seemed unconcerned about the repercussions, but Snape knew that propriety had to be maintained.

To his shock, Ron quickly denied, "No, it wasn't Blaise." At his disbelieving, stony silence, Ron nervously offered. "If you must know, Harry told me himself last week. I stopped by his rooms early last Saturday morning to drop off the tests he left in our place and found that his bed hadn't been slept in. He said that he'd fallen asleep on your couch."

"You didn't believe him?" Severus asked, trying to figure out how Harry and Ron's relationship really worked.

"I was hoping he was being discrete. He is capable of discretion, you know, unlike me," Ron added with a self-deprecating smile.

"You were hoping that he was lying to you?" Severus questioned, totally confused.

"Well . . . not lying exactly, just . . . putting off telling me the truth," Ron said.

"Which is lying," Severus said in his best teacher's voice.

Ron sighed and nodded. "If you insist."

Still bewildered, Severus asked, "You seriously hoped that your closest friend had . . . taken up with a former Death Eater? Why would you wish such a thing for him?"

It was beyond his comprehension how either Ron or Hermione could possibly encourage Harry's friendship with him, let alone anything deeper.

"Not just for him. For you both," Ron quickly corrected.

Severus stared down at the chessboard where this man he'd always considered a mental incompetent was destroying him. He felt the same on an emotional plane.

"Severus?" Ron waited until he looked back up at him before continuing. "I know this situation is weird as hell for us all. When Hermione and I look at you and Harry these days, we don't just see the men you are. We see the boys we still miss. We want those boys to be happy – both of them, not just Harry."

"If you want him to be happy, then why would you want him to tie himself to – something like me? I'm not that boy anymore, if I ever was."

Ron's entire face grew hard. "Don't talk about yourself like that. You're still the same person we knew. We can see it, even if you can't."

"Then you're delusional," Severus said.

"Are we? The Severus Snape we knew six months ago would have holed himself up in his dungeon and never acknowledged the time he spent with us. That Severus Snape wouldn't be part of our lives. He would never have joined our Monday night get-togethers or gone with us to the Three Broomsticks every Friday night, and he sure wouldn't have come to play chess alone with me," Ron argued.

Severus met those passionate brown eyes and said as coolly as he could manage, "I would never have been asked or welcomed before Harry befriended me."

Seeing the pain that flashed through those open eyes, Severus instantly regretted his candour.

Silence stretched between them for what felt like forever. During it, Severus wondered if he'd managed to alienate Ron completely. The man was as still as death.

Finally, he heard Ron release a long exhalation. "You're right. It never would have occurred to any of us that you might actually want to spend time with us." A long-fingered hand reached across the chessboard to give his forearm a quick squeeze. "I'm sorry. You're right about the past. But you're wrong about the present. Every fine quality that that little boy had is still there inside you."

"What qualities?" he rasped. Common sense told him that Ron had to be lying to him, only . . . his faith in this man's integrity insisted that Ron wouldn't do that. Gryffindor's Head of House was nearly as blunt as he was. Even now, Ron was always the first to tell him in no uncertain terms when he was out of line in his treatment of a student. Ron wouldn't candy coat anything or tell him an outright lie . . . not unless he had a damn good reason for doing so. Sparing the nasty Potions Master's feelings certainly didn't qualify as such.

"Loyalty, honour, concern, love . . . they're not dirty words, so stop scowling at me," Ron said. "You hide those qualities behind that sneer and your sarcasm, as if they're something to be ashamed of, but you've got them all the same. They're what draws Harry to you so strongly."

Unable to process Ron's statement, Severus decided to deal with their former topic. "It's not what it looks like. Harry really is just sleeping on my couch. He . . . it appears that I've become – what did Hermione call it? – his security duvet."

"Security blanket," Ron corrected.

"Security blanket, then. He needs to sleep and . . . ."

"You don't have to explain it to me," Ron said in a gentle, patient tone. "I know how little sleep he gets without that potion you made up for him. And even with it . . . it's still better for him to sleep without aids."

Severus took a deep breath and another sip of his cooling tea.

After a moment or two of munching on a custard tart, Ron softly asked, "Don't you think the fact that the only time he sleeps well is when you're in the room tells you something about his feelings for you? Harry and I shared a room for over seven years and he still walked the night like a bloody vampire."

Severus sighed. "Feeling safe in someone's presence does not equate to sexual attraction. The only person I ever felt safe with when young was Albus Dumbledore, yet I never once felt anything like desire for him."

"Professor Dumbledore was old enough to be your great-grandfather," Ron said.

Albus had been old enough to be a good deal more than that, but Severus didn't think this the time for such a digression. "And I'm old enough to be Harry's father. He doesn't think of me . . . like that – nor should he."

"I think he could," Ron argued.

"Why would you want him to?" Severus snapped, a heartbeat away from stalking out of the room.

"Because he's happy with you. I know you don't see your relationship with him as anything extraordinary, but you haven't been as close to him as we have for all these years. You don't know how . . . lonely he's been."

"I am not the solution to his problems," Severus insisted.

"Aren't you? Seems to me like you've already solved most of them," Ron remarked in that matter-of-fact tone that always made Severus feel seven again.

"The very idea is obscene," he hissed, averting his gaze.

"Why? Because you're a few years older? Because you made a mistake over thirty years ago? Maybe those things don't matter as much to Harry as they do to you."

Severus' eyes squeezed shut. Having no answer but the truth, he replied in a low, pain-filled whisper, "Because he deserves better. You all may hold some . . . affection for me now, but . . . I know who and what I am. Harry is . . . all that is bright and good in this world. He needs someone like himself, not a reformed Death Eater."

"Harry needs someone who loves him. That person is you," Ron insisted.

"Why are you doing this to me?" Severus whispered, hating the raw emotion in his voice.

"Because I want to see you both happy."

Ron meant well, Severus realized. What's more, his former foster father obviously believed every word he was saying. As much as he wanted to just strike out and end this conversation, he couldn't. No one had ever loved him enough to see past his faults before. Severus knew what a gift this was, even if the other man were totally mistaken. So he simply sat there in this unbearable state of exposure, staring over into the fire blazing in the hearth because he couldn't bear whatever emotions might be in Ron's face.

"Do you think I don't know what it feels like to consider yourself unworthy of someone?" Ron questioned at last in a soft voice.

That drew his attention back. "What?"

Ron gave a rueful smile. "Like you said, I know who and what I am. Hermione could have done much better than the sixth son of a dirt poor wizard."

"You are a pure blood wizard from two of the oldest, most respectable families in the Wizarding World," Severus said, confused. "How could she have possibly done better than you?"

"Do you think bloodlines are all that matters?" Ron snapped.

"They matter when you don't have them," Severus answered.

"Hermione's blood's as good as mine any day!"

"It wasn't Hermione to whom I was referring," Severus quickly interrupted, recognizing how his words might be taken as an insult. "My father's Muggle blood has always been a sore point."

"Oh," Ron flushed. "Sorry."

"No matter. You were saying?"

"It's just that . . . sometimes you have to let the other person decide what they want. Like Hermione and me. She could have married someone smart like you or successful like Harry. Hell, Victor Krum courted her. Talk about unfair competition. I never thought I'd have a chance. He was as smart as her. He had a castle, money, fame. He could wine and dine her on the Riviera and I could barely afford to treat her to the Three Broomsticks for lunch. All I had to offer her was a trunk full of hand-me-down robes and a demented owl."

"You neglect to mention a heart filled with love for her. Hermione was always astute when it came to prioritising," Severus said, not liking the shadow of doubt in Ron's eyes.

The very act of consoling was nearly alien to him, but Hermione and Ron were the rock that had held Harry and his world together when everything had fallen apart. He would see no harm come to either of them, nor would he sit silently by when a word or two from him could lighten their burdens. He owed these people, for what they'd done for him as a child and for what they were attempting to do now.

"Thanks, but . . . can't you see it's the same for Harry?"

"No, it's not. I appreciate the effort you are making on my behalf, but . . . the situations are not comparable. Hermione always saw you in that light. Harry will never see me as anything but a friend – and that is for the best."

"Severus . . . ."

"Why are you pushing this issue?"

"Because I want to see you and Harry happy," Ron repeated with childlike simplicity.

Severus wanted to kill him for it. It was fully as irritating as when Harry did it. He sat there in the heavy silence, trying to figure out a means of ending this conversation without bringing discord between them.

"And because I owe it to Harry," Ron said into the stillness after too long a quiet.

Severus' nose almost twitched as he scented weakness. "For?"

"Eleven years ago, I ruined something that was very special to him. It wasn't something I could ever make up for, even though he forgave me for it."

Eleven years ago would have put Ron in his last year at Hogwarts, Severus realized, once again brought up short by the recognition of how young these people who had parented him were. By contrast, eleven years ago he'd been a teacher here for nearly twenty years.

Reading Ron's sudden uncertainty, as though he thought he'd said too much, Severus took a guess as to what they were obliquely discussing. "You are referring to Harry's relationship with Blaise Zabini."

"He told you about it, then." Ron appeared almost disheartened as he went on, seeming to speak as much to himself as to him, "Of course, he'd've told you. It was probably the cruellest thing anyone ever did to him. And I was solely responsible for it, as I'm sure he mentioned."

Almost preferring the meddling well-wisher to this glum and guilt-ridden version of Ron, Severus quickly assured, "All Harry ever told me was that Zabini and he didn't work out due to house pressures."

Ron looked thoughtful for a moment before he mumbled, "Maybe he really has forgiven me, then."

"May I enquire as to what you're talking about?" Severus asked before he thought better of it. Sometimes when he was with Harry, Ron, or Hermione, he would forget that he wasn't the seven-year-old child they'd loved when he'd ask this kind of personal question and the expression in their eyes would remind him anew that they were seeing their abusive potions master as well as that beloved child. Slamming up against that reminder again, he lowered his gaze and softly said, "Forgive me. I shouldn't have asked that. It is none of my business."

After an awkward silence, Ron said, "No, it's all right. It's just . . . I'm not very proud of what I did back then, so it's rather hard to talk about it."

"Shall I tell you some of the things I did as a Death Eater before I came to my senses? I assure you that no matter what you did to Harry, it will not come close to matching the level of those offences."

"No, that's not necessary. I guess you do understand." Ron's entire body seemed to relax. "You remember what it was like in the school back then. Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle were still here. The Death Eaters were making almost weekly attacks on the families of the members of the Order, so everyone here had lost someone close to them."

"It was a difficult time," Severus said, not really wanting to drag up those memories. The times might have been difficult, but Albus was still alive then, and his house's prefect hadn't yet become a killer.

"Yeah, it was. And in the middle of all that insanity, Harry figured out that he wasn't really drawn to girls, after all. He, ah, started seeing Blaise. They were incredibly discrete about it all. If Harry hadn't told me, I never would've known, though I think Hermione had guessed. But you know Harry. He couldn't live a lie like that indefinitely and he . . . he told me."

"And?" Severus prompted when Ron fell silent.

"I hit the roof, of course. It wasn't that Blaise was another man that upset me. It was that he was Slytherin." Ron looked him right in the eye and softly confessed, "I couldn't see how Harry could possibly risk involvement with someone who'd slept in the same room with Draco Malfoy and company for seven years."

"Zabini and Kerrigan were never part of Malfoy's inner circle," Severus said.

"I know that – now. All I could see then was that Harry was sleeping with a Slytherin, and that it would only be a matter of time before Zabini betrayed Harry to Voldemort. I . . . lost it, totally. Called Harry a traitor, made such a stink that everyone in the dorm knew what had happened. They followed my lead and gave Harry the cold shoulder for months that year. It was horrible. Hermione was the only one who supported him throughout it all, and she wouldn't speak to me for the entire time. I nearly lost them both because of my hate and stupidity."

"I never knew any of this," Severus said, amazed. Whenever there was discord between the three most famous Gryffindors, it had always been apparent.

"We weren't goin' to advertise it. It was bad enough Harry was sleeping with a Slytherin without us letting Malfoy know about it," Ron said.

"What happened?" Severus asked.

Ron gave a mirthless laugh. "I won. You remember the last quidditch match that Gryffindor and Slytherin played before Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle joined the Death Eaters?"

"I'm not likely to forget that particular game," Severus answered. A scuffle had broken out after a particularly offensive Slytherin play, and before it was over, there was an all out riot, with the forces of Darkness and Light battling it out in the stands as their parents were fighting outside of the school. Quidditch had been cancelled for the rest of the year after that.

"Blaise ended up in the thick of it. He barely got out alive," Ron said.

"If I remember rightly, you were the one who pulled him out of the fray," Severus remarked, more curious than ever now.

"He'd never done anything except date Harry . . . and everyone was ready to kill him because of that. It wasn't right." Ron looked down. "And it was all my fault. But it was too late to change anything at that point; the damage was done. Harry broke it off with Blaise the next day."

"Why?" Severus asked, thinking that if he were in Potter's place and going to sever ties with anyone, it would be the friends who had turned on him.

"It wasn't like we could ever really talk about it, but . . . I think he was still blaming himself for Cedric Diggory's death. To have someone he cared about almost murdered because of his relationship with him was more than Harry could probably handle back then."

"It must have been hard on him," Severus said without thinking.

"Yeah. The day he told us he'd broken it off was awful. It was the saddest and bravest thing I've ever seen. He just walked into the Common room after he'd ended it with Blaise. His face was still streaked with tears. He told us that he and Blaise were through, and that Blaise wasn't a target anymore. He warned us that if any of us ever went after Blaise again that he'd take it as a personal attack and deal with it accordingly. Then he turned on his heel and went up to our dorm room. We were all already feeling guilty over what happened, seeing how we'd hurt Harry only made it worse. Everyone tried to make it up to both Harry and Blaise, but . . . it was too late."

Severus took a deep breath, feeling as though he'd been released from a Siren spell. Finally, he asked into the quiet, "How did you . . . get past all that? It sounds like the kind of thing that would end a friendship."

Ron looked down at the board. "It nearly did. Harry didn't even act mad at us. It was like . . . he was dead inside, which was so much worse. Hermione wasn't speaking to any of us. Blaise wouldn't even look at us, let alone accept an apology, not that I blame him. We probably would've gone on that way until we finished school, except . . . ."

"The attack on Hogwarts," Severus supplied.

"Yeah. Blaise, Hermione, and I ended up defending the first year Gryffindor dorms together. The Death Eaters really wanted to take Blaise out because he was Slytherin and hadn't joined them. We spent as much time defending him as the dorms. I guess that helped Blaise get over what I'd done to him. As for Harry . . . do you remember when Gryffindor's main corridor caved in under the Death Eaters' final assault? Harry thought all of us were dead at that point."

"I remember. When we saw the Gryffindor Tower wall come down, Harry lost his focus and they nearly got through." Severus nodded. "He wasn't quite sane for the remainder of the battle. But, then, who among us was?"

"Professor Dumbledore?" Ron suggested with a sad smile.

"Yes, I suppose that when you begin a battle as a lunatic, very little that occurs during it is likely to unhinge you," Severus said.

"Severus! It's not right to speak ill of the dead," Ron chastised.

"I wasn't speaking ill of him. His thought processes were never what anyone would call logical; that was what made him so great. But you were saying about Harry?" he returned to the one subject that was never far from his thoughts these days.

"When he saw that we weren't all dead, he burst into tears and held on to us . . . I think it's the only time I ever really saw him cry. After that, it was like all that other stuff never happened. He was just so happy to have us back. Since Blaise was friendly with us after that, it made everything easier all around. I kept hoping that Harry and he would try again, but . . . ."

"So you think encouraging Harry to . . . take up with me will somehow make up for what happened eleven years ago?" Severus asked. He was trying not to be judgemental, but his heart was aching for Harry. It didn't help when he remembered how hard he'd worked back then to make Potter's charmed life as difficult as possible. Yes, what Ron had done was terrible, but recalling some of the things he'd said and done to Harry hardly put him in a position where he could throw any stones.

"No, I know that nothing can ever make up for what I took away from him, but . . . if I can help him find happiness, I'll do anything I can."

"Then you need to encourage him to find some nice young man who will – " he broke off as the sitting room door banged open and the object of their conversation swept into the room in a flutter of midnight blue robes.

Ron and he both started like thieves.

"I know you can't be plotting my surprise party, it's months away. What's with the guilty faces?" Harry laughed, coming over to the table. He paused beside Severus, reached out and collected his buttered nut bread, and promptly gobbled down the piece. "I don't know how you can stand this stuff. It's awful."

"I notice you didn't leave me any," Severus remarked.

Harry laughed. "This moonshade gathering's thirsty work."

"That was food, not drink," Severus pointed out.

"Oh, right you are," Harry said, and then finished off Snape's tea as well.

"Too milky," Harry complained with a crinkled nose.

Ron was chuckling as Severus tried to decide how he should respond to the audacity.

"So, what are the pair of you up to? Bedroom hasn't got polka dots now, does it?" Harry asked Ron with a mischievous grin.

"A nice tartan, actually, in orange and pink," Ron answered, slapping Harry's hand away as it made a grab for the remaining custard tart.

"You've got to live with her, mate, not me," Harry laughed and snitched the tart with his other hand.

"Some of us mightn't live at all if they don't mind their manners," Ron said.

"Sorry," Harry said. "You want it back?"

Both Severus and Ron stared askance at the half eaten tart as Harry offered it back.

"No, of course I don't want it back. That's not the point. Hermione and I raised you with better manners than that," Ron complained in an elderly sounding voice that set Harry off into spasms of laughter.

"You had fun tonight, didn't you?" Ron said when the merriment calmed.

"Yes. Poor Neville. We'd gotten half the moonshade he needed when a couple of unicorns showed up and started to help us look for the flowers. He's still nervous out there," Harry said.

"With good reason," Severus said. "The forest isn't forbidden on a whim. It is dangerous, sometimes lethally so, as you of all people should know."

"Yeah, but it smelt good tonight. All fresh and growing. We should go for a walk out there tomorrow night," Harry said. He glanced over at the chessboard and asked, "Who's winning?"

"That's a sore point at the moment," Ron said with a grin.

"Severus is just baiting the trap, lulling you into a false sense of security," Harry replied, sitting down in the chair next to Snape's.

Severus attempted a glare. "I am three moves from finding myself checkmated."

"Four, but it's close enough," Ron corrected.

"There you have it," Severus said. "I have no choice but to concede to a greater power."

"You give up too easily," Harry complained. "Here, try this."

"Harry!" Ron chastised as Harry moved Severus' remaining bishop three places over. "Put that back."

"No, it's all right," Severus said. He hadn't seen the move, but it did delay the inevitable. And if Ron didn't move his queen, Severus' bishop would have her with his next move.

Startled, Severus watched the white queen retreat, postponing the threatened checkmate by several moves.

Harry reached for one of Severus' two remaining pawns. Before moving the piece, he asked, "You mind?"

Intrigued, Severus gave a wave at the board. "Feel free. I've already all but forfeited. Unless, of course, Ron feels put at an unfair advantage."

Ron grinned. "What – you two? Dream on."

Severus watched with amazement as Harry tore apart the web Ron had thrown over him with several seemingly unplanned moves. Each time Severus was sure Harry was going to lose the piece he'd moved, but in each case, Ron couldn't take the black player without sacrificing a more important piece of his own.

They spent the next forty-five minutes that way, with Ron chasing Harry around the board, but neither of them losing a single piece.

Harry was about to move their black rook out of danger when Severus reached out to stop him.

"No, wait. This one instead," Severus suggested, moving an adjacent pawn forward.

Harry glanced at him and grinned.

Ron moved his last pawn forward to block this new threat to his queen.

Severus took the pawn with his bishop. The white queen would have the piece with her next move, but Harry had positioned their rook in a straight, unbroken line with their bishop. If Ron took the bishop, he'd sacrifice his queen – and lose his king in the next move, Severus excitedly acknowledged. "I believe you're in check."

"Try mate. Bloody hell," Ron exclaimed in an incredulous voice as he stared at the board. "Brilliant game!"

"Hardly," Severus said. "Together we were barely competition."

"No, you were fantastic. Tell him, Harry," Ron urged.

"He's right. You were fantastic. Ron hasn't lost a game since we were sixteen – to anyone," Harry said.

"I was in defeat before you joined me. The credit must be yours," Severus acknowledged.

Harry laughed. "No way. The only thing I'm good at is being chased around the board. I play him enough to know how to keep out of immediate danger, but eventually, I get bored and he starts picking off my pieces. You at least are able to see his strategies."

"It was sheer luck, I assure you," Severus said, still not sure how they'd won.

"Guess we're just an unbeatable team." Harry smiled as he reached out to cut another slice of nut bread off the loaf and butter it.

"That's what I've been trying to tell him all night," Ron said.

"Huh?" Harry enquired mid-chew.

"Ron," Severus warned.

To his immense relief, Ron blushed and quickly muttered, "Nothing."

"The pair of you are starting to worry me," Harry remarked as he refilled Snape's teacup.

Severus' eyebrows raised as Harry filled the cup until it was pale with milk, instead of the darker brew Harry preferred. Potter passed it over to him. Severus took a sip and then straightened up in his seat as Harry repossessed the cup and guzzled down half of it before passing it back to him again.

"Why's that?" Ron questioned, sounding every bit the guilty conspirator.

"The idea of you two joining forces chills my blood. No one will be – " Harry's words broke off as the door opened again.

"Ah, my three favourite people in the world!" Hermione grinned. Her pale purple robe with its black velvet trim complimented her colouring perfectly.

She came over and gave Ron a fast kiss, ruffled Harry's hair as she would have done two months ago when they were seven, and gave Severus' shoulder a brief touch in passing as she took the seat near Ron. She glanced at them, shook her head, and said in very much the same motherly tone she would have used weeks ago, "Harry, give Severus back his mug and get your own."

Her admonishment might have gone over better had she not reached out and taken a sip out of Ron's cup immediately afterwards. Harry and Ron broke into immediate laughter. It was all Severus could do to keep from joining them as a totally confused Hermione asked, "What?"

Harry calmed himself and said, "Do as I say, not as I do, hmmm?" as he pointed to Ron's cup.

"Ah, well . . . ." an abashed grin lit her face.

"Did you have a good meeting?" Ron asked.

"Oh, yes. Madam Malkin advised the girls on how to start their own business," Hermione answered. "Is there nothing but nut bread?"

"Well, we weren't expecting you lot back this early, were we?" Ron said.

"There's this," Harry said, once again offering the half-eaten custard tart he'd filched off Ron.

Hermione stared at it for a moment.

As she started to reach for the thing, Severus stopped her. "Honestly, do none of you ever use magic outside of the classroom? Accio scones, sweets, and biscuits."

The words were barely spoken when a gold tray of raisin scones, custard tarts, and various biscuits floated through the nearby window into the room.

Hermione and Harry fell upon them like starving wolves once the tray settled on the table.

Severus shook his head as he watched the pair.

"I really can't understand how the three of you have survived in the Wizarding World this long," Severus commented as his companions' sounds of enjoyment declared their delight with his choices.

"You mean why we don't summon stuff like this?" Harry asked, gesturing with the cherry tart in his hand.

"Well, yes. For a start," Severus said.

"It's easy to explain," Harry said, but instead of explaining, he asked, "Where'd you get this from?"

"What do you mean – where did I get it from? You just saw me summon it," Severus spoke as if to an idiot.

Harry just grinned. "You didn't create it out of whole cloth. Nor did you transfigure it from crumbs. Where did you summon it from?"

Severus opened his mouth and closed it. After a moment's thought, he said, "From the embossing on the tray, I suspect the sweets came from Hogwarts kitchens. Is there anything wrong with that?"

"Not in this case, no," Harry said. "The house elves always make enough to feed an army, plus the school, but in other cases . . . summoning what you want can be a problem. Hermione and I did some research on it."

"On summoning? Isn't that rather like a Muggle researching walking or breathing?" Severus asked. "It's something a wizard instinctively does to make his like easier. Why would you need to research it?"

"Most times when we summon something, it's an article we already own. Most times, that is. But during the Triwizards' Tournament, I was tempted to summon a pair of aqua-lungs before I figured out how to use magic to breathe under water." At Severus' pointed stare, Harry amended, "All right, before Dobby told me how to breathe under water. The point being, had I summoned those aqua-lungs, where would they have come from? Exeter? Paris? Australia? I didn't have any, so they would have had to come from somewhere."

"Presuming you had the power to call something from that distance," Severus said, allowing his tone to convey his feelings on that matter.

Harry simply smiled at his scepticism. "I was desperate; they would have come."

"I still don't see what you're getting at," Severus said. Harry's expression was making it plain that he believed his point to be obvious.

"Well, if Harry had summoned those aqua-lungs, he would have been stealing them from someplace," Hermione said.

Severus looked at her as though she'd lost her mind. "What?"

"Well, he didn't own any and he wasn't old enough or skilled enough to transfigure a pair – not that I'd want to trust my life to a pair of transfigured aqua-lungs – so he would have called somebody else's aqua-lungs to him," Hermione explained.

"But he didn't do it," Severus said. "He used the house elf's advice."

"That's not the point," Harry and Hermione said in unison.

Severus looked to Ron, who just shrugged. Obviously, this was more of an issue for Muggle-born wizards than those raised in the Wizarding World. Trying to make sense of this issue that Hermione and Harry were quite passionate about, Severus asked, "So what sort of research did you do, and what did it show?"

"I planted a number of unusual objects around the school and gave Harry a list to summon," Hermione said. "They all came to him."

"And this was a surprise because?" Severus tried to keep the sarcasm out of his voice.

"And then I gave him a list of very common objects to summon," Hermione said.

"This is fourth year homework," Severus said.

"Yes, it is. But normally, the students are summoning something they own," Harry said. "When I used Hermione's list of common items, the closest object that fit the description responded."

"I still don't understand what the problem is," Severus said, taking another slice of nut bread.

Harry raised his eyebrows, crinkling his lightning bolt scar in a totally compelling manner, and said, "Accio brocade jacket."

Severus gasped in surprise as all his buttons popped open. His jacket peeled off him, incidentally getting smeared with butter as it flew from his body over to Harry, who collected it out of the air with a smirk.

"Now do you see the problem?" Harry asked.

"Unless you specify whose jacket or scone you want, the spell retrieves the nearest one," Hermione added, heroically stifling giggles at whatever was in his expression. "That's why we don't use summoning charms unless absolutely necessary."

"Or unless we're being very specific about the object we're calling," Harry said.

"Point taken. May I have my jacket back, please?" he asked with as much dignity as he could muster while sitting there with butter all over his hand and sleeve.

This time there was no attempt made to hide the laughter as it spilled out of everyone. Even Severus felt his mouth twitching.

Unable to credit how much he was enjoying simply sitting here with these three people, Severus relaxed back into his chair after performing a quiet cleaning charm on himself and his jacket – much to the further amusement of his companions.

*************

The one thing that neither the press nor the history books had ever mentioned about the Boy Who Lived was the fact that Potter would forget his head if it weren't tied onto his shoulders. Severus didn't recall Harry being this forgetful as a student, but now that he had such close contact with the man, he was seeing how absent-minded the young DADA professor could be. The latest example of Potter's forgetfulness was typical. Harry had come down to Severus' laboratory last night to grade his fourth period students' reports and keep Snape company while he worked on a Cold Ease Potion for the infirmary.

Severus' hadn't even felt surprise when he'd looked down from his podium this morning during second period and seen Potter's pile of papers sitting there on the empty desk next to Stanton.

Fortunately, they both had third period free today, so it was only a matter of tracking the nitwit down. By Merlin's beard, he'd never seen anyone as bright as Potter who could be so aggravatingly absentminded.

Severus figured his best bet for finding Potter was the staff room. He never frequented the place himself if he could avoid it, but he knew that most of his co-workers stopped in there to commiserate when they had a break between classes. It was actually one of the easiest rooms for him to access, as there was a hidden passageway between his potions lab and the break room storage pantry.

Severus dimmed the lumos light on his wand as he eased the hidden panel open. As always, the pantry was dark and empty. He closed the panel behind him and approached the door to the break room proper. It was ajar, as usual. The few times he'd used this route, he would use his invisibility charm and then slip over to one of the wing backed easy chairs before he would reappear. But today a grey robed Neville Longbottom was reading in one of them. The bright green robe draping the arm of the other was very familiar.

Well, at least he'd found Harry. The lavatory door was closed, so Potter was probably in there.

Severus was about to step back into the passageway and enter the room by a normal means when he heard his name mentioned further into the room. Actually, it was being mentioned at the break room door where he could see the curly headed Callis Miller and small, blond Alicia Crenshaw just entering the room.

"I tell you, I saw Potter sneaking out of Snape's quarters Saturday morning with my own eyes," Miller insisted in the malicious tone that seemed common to all gossipers.

"Oh, really, Callis. Don't be absurd. Harry Potter and Snape? For heaven's sake," Crenshaw wisely dismissed the very idea. "I told you before I don't want to hear anymore of this nonsense."

"But it's true, I tell you!" Miller insisted.

"So what if it is? What business is it of ours? They're full-grown men, Callis. Keep your nose out of their business," Crenshaw advised.

"They've been inseparable since they were restored to adulthood. It can't be voluntary. Who in their right mind would even speak to Snape unless absolutely necessary? You know how trusting Potter is and what a bastard that Snape is. Who knows what a former Death Eater is capable of? If he even is former. He's got the boy under Imperius. Why else would Potter hang around with that greasy bastard?"

Severus bit his lip. How often had Harry warned him that eavesdroppers rarely heard anything good about themselves?

To his shock, Neville Longbottom snapped his book closed and jumped to his feet. His cheeks were bright with colour, his eyes hard with rage. "I don't think you should be talking about Professor Snape like that."

Callis' laughing blue eyes swept over Longbottom and were understandably unimpressed, for it looked as though it were taking every ounce of Longbottom's courage to stand there, but it was more than Snape had ever expected of the man. "Why ever not?"

"Because it's not right. He wouldn't talk about you behind your back like that. Whatever he had to say; he'd say it to your face," Longbottom admonished with all of Godric Gryffindor's piety.

"Oh, please. Just because the blackguard's stopped kicking you for the moment, you're going to lick his boots?" Miller laughed. "Grow a backbone, Longbottom."

"I don't need to grow one. I've got spine enough to deal with the likes of you," Longbottom shot back, sounding very much like Harry at the moment.

"Oh, you and whose –" Miller's words cut off as the bathroom door opened and a white-lipped Potter emerged.

Harry was nearly five inches shorter than Miller, who was only slightly smaller than Snape himself. It also didn't help that Harry didn't have his robes on at the minute. Those old blue jeans and powder blue sweatshirt looked good on him, but they made Harry look like a Muggle schoolboy.

"Ah, so this is where your courage comes from," Miller said.

"Neville doesn't need me to find his courage. He's got quite enough of it on his own. You mightn't know it, but Neville took out two Death Eaters in a fair fight when he was only fifteen. Not to mention the six he dealt with during the attack on Hogwarts, but you wouldn't know about that, would you, Miller? You weren't involved in that battle," Potter had learned something about the art of implication in the time he'd spent with him, Severus acknowledged, hearing, as everyone else in the room doubtless did, the unspoken insult.

"The Order of the Phoenix was a secret society. It didn't have open membership," Miller stiffly replied. "And don't get your back up with me just because I've told it like it is."

"Told it like it is, did you? And what was it you were saying? Or is it something that you'll only whisper when there's no one there who can dispute it?" Harry did a passable imitation of his sneer as well, Severus acknowledged.

"You want to know what I said? Why not, it's the truth. I was just telling Alicia here –"

"Leave me out of this, Callis. I told you it was all nonsense," Crenshaw quickly interrupted.

"At any rate, I was just telling her how I saw you sneaking out of Snape's quarters on Saturday morning. And how that the only reason you'd be caught dead boffing that Death Eater bastard would be the Imperius spell," Miller spat.

Severus had to hand it to Miller, even as his blood ran cold at the open accusation. He never would have had the nerve to say anything that crudely inflammatory to Potter, even when the boy was in school.

For a heartbeat, Harry's expression twisted with rage, and Severus fully expected Miller to crumble into ash under whatever spell Potter unleashed. But Harry seemed to get control of himself with an effort. In a tight, angry voice that was familiar to Snape from the dozens of squirmishes they'd had with Crater and his cronies at the Hogsmeade school, Harry said, "Severus Snape is my friend and you will not speak of him that way. In or out of my presence."

"Your 'friend', is that what you call it?" Miller laughed. "How do you think the students' parents will feel about your cozening up to Voldemort's henchman?"

Severus braced himself, trying to be prepare himself to hear Harry announce to the world once and for all how absurd the very suggestion that there could ever be anything sexual between himself and Severus Snape was.

"Severus Snape was never Voldemort's henchman. He was fighting the dark wizard for years before anyone in this room was even born," Harry answered, his cold anger far more frightening than the hot rage of moments ago. "You will not speak of him in that manner."

Severus swayed as though he had taken a physical blow. Harry hadn't denied the accusation. Hadn't acted like the very idea was repulsive to him. All Potter had taken issue with was the insult to Snape's name.

"Or?" Miller sneered.

Harry just stared at Miller for a second. Then the older man gasped and stiffened. No wands were drawn, but then, none were needed when Potter was involved. Miller would have done well to remember that.

"Harry," Longbottom re-entered the conversation, "what did you do?"

Fury in his malignant eyes, Miller opened his mouth to spew out whatever poison he had planned. The raucous, sharp tones of a crow filled the stone chamber, nearly deafening them all.

"That'll last until you learn some manners," Harry said. "I expect we'll all have to get used to it for a while."

As though he were no longer worthy of his interest, Harry turned his back on Miller and returned to the armchair beside Longbottom's.

Miller stood in the doorway, his hands clutching his throat as increasingly more hysterical crow calls emanated from his open mouth.

Severus could see Alicia Crenshaw trying very hard not to laugh as she looked at the fool in the door and said, "I suppose I'd better take you down to hospital. Madame Pomfrey isn't going to be able to do anything about this, is she, Harry?"

Harry looked over at Alicia. "I wouldn't think so. Not unless she has something in her potion bottles to impart manners."

"Well, Severus makes them. That's not likely, is it?" She said with an approving grin. Turning to Miller, she said, "Come on, Callis, before class lets out. You don't want everyone to see you like this."

Though, from her tone, it was quite clear Professor Crenshaw wouldn't mind.

A silence fell over the staff room as Crenshaw escorted the croaking Miller away.

"Are you all right, Harry?" Longbottom questioned once they were alone in the room.

Harry shrugged. "I just get so tired of living in a glass bowl. By the way, thank you for what you said to Miller before. You didn't have to do that."

"Yes, I did. I know he'd deny it, but . . . Professor Snape is my friend," Longbottom said with the conviction of a hopeless Gryffindor.

Funny thing was, absurd as the very idea was, Snape knew that he would never refute the claim or say another unkind word about Longbottom, no matter the provocation. What Longbottom had done was extraordinary. Severus had come to expect that kind of loyalty from Harry Potter, but to hear this man whom he had victimized for nearly seventeen years defend him on the grounds of a few weeks' kindness was incomprehensible.

He felt . . . humbled by what he'd just witnessed.

"Harry?" Longbottom said after another silent moment or two in which Harry simply stared into the fire in the hearth in front of him with absolutely no expression on his face.

"Yes?"

"What Miller said before about seeing you leaving Severus' rooms early in the morning – was it true?" Neville asked.

Harry released a loud sigh and then simply said, "Yes."

No explanation or denial of guilt, just 'yes'.

"Are you and Severus dating?" to Severus' eternal shock, there was no judgement or disgust in Longbottom's tone or expression. He seemed merely curious and not the least bit put off by the idea.

Harry started in his chair, looking up at Neville as if he'd only just taken in what they were discussing. For the longest time, Potter said nothing.

Severus thought that he'd sit that way forever. Stony silence, not even justifying the accusation with a response. Perhaps it was another manifestation of the Gryffindor obscure code of honour that Snape had never comprehended.

Finally, Harry sagged back into his chair. "I don’t know what the hell we're doing, Neville. All I know is that I'm not alone anymore. Is that so wrong?"

"Of course, it's not wrong," Longbottom assured, reaching across the space between their chairs to pat Harry's arm.

In the hallway outside, the bell that marked the end of a class sounded. Fourth period would start in ten minutes.

Harry gave another sigh and rose to his feet. "Guess we'd best be off. Thanks again, Neville."

"Any time," the chubby Herbology teacher answered with a smile. "Oh, and, Harry?"

"Yes?"

"Good luck."

"With?" Harry sounded as confused as Severus felt.

For the first time in memory, Neville Longbottom appeared almost sagely. "Whatever. See you at dinner."

Severus waited until Harry started for the door before he slipped back into his hidden passageway. It wasn't until he exited the dark and dusty path into his lab that he noticed the sheaf of parchments he still held in his hand. If he hurried, he might be able to drop them off at the DADA classroom before the fourth period bell sounded.

But that would require that he face Harry Potter, and he wasn't quite sure he was up to that right now. He had a lot to think about.

The door crashed open and a red and gold robed brunet hurried into class.

"Mr. Skipper!" Snape barked.

The heavyset boy jumped, looking as though he were about to wet himself. "Yes, sir?"

"Run these up to the DADA classroom and hand them to Professor Potter," he ordered.

Appearing relieved, the dark haired boy nodded. "Of course, sir. Right away."

As the rotund student nervously moved to collect the papers from him, Severus was put in mind of another Gryffindor student of his who'd seemed equally ill at ease in his own body as Skipper.

"Oh, and, Skipper?"

"Yes, Professor?" the resigned expression in those dark brown eyes declared that the boy knew he'd gotten off too easily.

"Ten points to Gryffindor," Snape said.

The parchments dropped out of the hapless Skipper's hand to cover the floor at their feet. "Sorry, sir."

Severus bit his tongue as the nearly apoplectic student scurried about on his hands and knees to gather the papers up. The boy was shaking all over.

Once he was back on his feet, Skipper quietly asked, "Professor Snape, did I really hear you just award ten points to Gryffindor?"

Snape nodded. "About a dozen years too late. On your way, boy."

As several of his own house students arrived, Severus made a conscious effort to collect himself. One could never reveal weakness to a Slytherin. Just like Slytherins could never expect fair treatment from Gryffindors?

Hardly. Harry was right. His world wasn't the same anymore. Not by a long shot.

Barely able to suppress a sudden wave of gratitude that washed over him, Severus turned to the board to list the ingredients needed for today's lesson. He took special glee in writing 'crow feathers' on the chalkboard.

***************************

"Harry? A word if you would."

Harry Potter froze as he stepped from his DADA classroom after fourth period, wincing at Minerva McGonagall's tone. She sounded very much the Headmaster at the moment.

"Hello, Minerva," he greeted.

"I've just had the most extraordinary interview with Madam Pomfrey. Am I right in believing that one Hogwarts professor has just cursed a colleague?"

Calm was everything at moments like this. Maintaining an iron control over his voice and expression, Harry softly said, "We both know it's true."

"I suppose there is an explanation for this?" she asked.

"Of course there's an explanation. He said some things he shouldn't have said. I lost my temper. I didn't intend to do it – it just . . . happened. I know it's terrible and I should never have done it, but I'm just happy it wasn't an Unforgivable."

"These sort of things do not 'just happen'. Harry, you do understand the severity of this? It isn't something I can simply ignore. Callis is threatening to take it as high as the Ministry."

"I know. I wasn't thinking."

"What did he say? You've never been rash like this. I expect this type of thing from Professor Weasley, not you."

Harry sighed and glanced around the now empty corridor.

"I'm sorry, Minerva. It really wasn't intentional. Callis was calling Severus a Death Eater and implying that he had me under Imperius. Severus fought too long and hard to take that kind of abuse from someone who never even lifted a wand during either war. I lost my temper and cursed him," Harry said with legitimate regret. He wasn't really sorry about what he'd done to Callis. He simply regretted the inconvenience the consequences of his rash action would cause Minerva and the school.

"I see." For a minute she just stared at him. "Well, kindly go up to the infirmary and remove the curse."

"I'm afraid I can't," he declined.

"Harry, this is no time for pride. If the Ministry becomes involved – "

"I meant what I said, Minerva. I can't remove it. It was a self-limiting spell."

He sensed that she was working as hard as he to maintain her controls as she asked, "And the limitations were?"

"That Callis would stay like that until he learned some manners," Harry answered.

For a moment, she just stared at him in shock. "Learned some manners? Callis Miller? Oh, dear."

"I know. I'm sorry. If you want my resignation – "

"Don't you dare even think about resigning. It's bad enough I have one position to cover because of your lack of control. I expect you to cover Callis' third and fifth period classes until he 'learns some manners'. Is that understood?"

"Yes, ma'm," Harry felt like a chastened schoolboy. "What about his other classes?"

"I'll worry about those."

"Do you really think the Ministry will get involved?" Harry asked.

"Were the wizard who laid the curse on him anyone but you, I'd say yes, but we both know what will happen once they hear you're involved," Minerva said. She seemed a little relieved, but such outright favouritism couldn't help but rankle any Gryffindor's spirit of fair play. "Still, I would expect a call from the Minister were I you."

"Yes, Minerva," he answered. Once again, all was to be forgiven because he was the Boy Who Lived.

She stared at him for a moment and then counselled, "I'm sure it will be all right, Harry. Both Alicia and Neville insisted that you were provoked beyond reason. We'll figure something out."

She gave his arm an encouraging pat and left him standing in the hallway. Wondering when he was ever going to really grow up, so that he would stop getting into these types of messes, he turned back into his classroom.

***********

Once again, Albus Dumbledore's philosophy on Hogwarts was proven true. What had happened between Miller and him in the break room should have been a complete secret, so naturally, the entire school knew. Not the reason for the cursing, but the outcome.

Depressed about the entire idiotic thing, Harry chose to skip dinner that night. He'd already told Hermione and Ron what happened when they'd shown up to chat at his classroom door after fifth period. He didn't want to have to explain the whole thing to Blaise at dinner tonight with Severus sitting right there beside him.

He was sprawled on some cushions in front of the fire in his sitting room trying to grade homework when a knock on the door interrupted him. A glance at the clock on the mantel told him that dinner would be over by now. It was probably Hermione and Ron bringing him something to eat. Sighing, he climbed to his feet and opened the door.

The black robed man standing outside it seemed to fill the entire doorway. Harry blinked up at Severus. Every aspect and nuance of Snape's long, chiselled face was familiar to him now. He could see how uneasy his friend was the second he saw his eyes. This was the first time Severus Snape had visited his quarters. Up until now, he hadn't even been certain that Severus even knew where his rooms were.

Martin, the red bearded old wizard whose portrait hung on Harry's door, was watching the head of Slytherin with open suspicion.

Warmth overtook his shock as he noticed the covered plate and goblet Severus carried on a tray before him.

"Hi," he greeted, feeling a grin take his face in spite of his troubles.

"Hello. You missed dinner," Severus said.

"Come on in," he offered, wanting to get Severus away from Martin's prying gaze before the portrait said something to make his friend even more uncomfortable than he already was.

Severus followed him into the room. He watched the dark eyes scan their surroundings, passing over the pictures on the mantle, the bookcases, armchairs, couch, coffee table, and end tables before finally settling on the cushions and schoolwork on the round Persian rug in front of the fire.

"I thought you might be hungry," Severus said at least, thrusting the tray out at him.

"Thanks," Harry said, taking the tray. "Come on in and sit down."

Severus followed him in and sat on the end of the brown couch nearest his cushions. After a moment's thought, Harry wordlessly levitated the coffee table between Severus' position and his cushions so that they could face each other and talk while he ate. They both watched the books, parchments, and clutter on the coffee table scatter to make room for him to put his tray down before he reclaimed his seat on the blue velvet cushion.

Harry lifted the gold cover on his meal. The fragrant scents of roast beef instantly assailed him. He stared down at the food. Mashed potatoes, peas, carrots, and gravy – all his favourites. Severus certainly knew what would tempt him. Suddenly ravenous, he dug in, feeling those dark eyes upon him the entire time.

Not that that was unusual. Severus always seemed to be watching him. At first Harry had thought that his new friend was waiting for him to betray him in some way, but now he knew it was just something Severus did.

"You want some?" he asked, offering a forkful of gravy dripping beef up to the man across from him.

"No thank you. I've already eaten," Severus softly denied.

While Harry attacked the rest of his meal, Severus seemed content to watch him eat and stare around the place. Finally, Snape commented, "Where are your World Cups?"

"Hmm?" Harry asked around a mouthful of peas.

"None of your quidditch trophies are on display. I thought you'd have cases of them."

Harry swallowed his food and softly said, "There were only the two World Cups. They're in a trunk in my bedroom, along with the rest of that stuff." Sensing the question Severus didn't ask, he answered, "It was never about the trophies. At least, not for me. I just liked to play."

Severus nodded, and a quiet fell between them again.

When he'd swallowed his last bite, Harry wordlessly vanished the empty dishes back to the kitchen.

"That's quite a talent you've got there," Severus remarked, staring at the empty space on the coffee table where the tray had been seconds before.

"Yeah, but you were right about it at Christmas," he admitted.

"Right about what?" Severus asked.

"Wandless magic getting a wizard into trouble. I do too much automatically without taking the time to consider the consequences."

"Ah, Miller," Severus remarked.

The lack of artifice was one of the things he loved about this man. There was never any beating around the bush with Severus. When he wanted to talk about something, he was blunt to the point of rudeness.

"You heard, then," Harry said with a sigh, unconsciously drawing his knees up to his chest in a defensive pose.

"Did you think I wouldn't?" Severus asked in return.

"I didn't think at all, obviously," he glumly admitted, wishing he'd kept hold of his temper. He braced himself for the inevitable questions – the why and where of it – but Severus remained silent. Looking up at his visitor, Harry asked, "How much did you hear?"

"Everything," Severus answered.

Harry knew that tone. It was the same one Severus would use when they were seven and got caught doing something wrong, something that the adult questioning them hadn't known the right questions to ask. He could almost hear Neville's voice asking, "Did you see who broke the sunrot vine, Severus?" And Severus' honest, if misleading answer of, "No, sir, I didn't see anyone else near it," when he'd broken it himself.

"Everything being?" Harry asked, sharpening his gaze.

Severus met his stare and replied, "You cursed Callis Miller with a self-limiting spell you can't remove."

Harry knew that much was general knowledge right now. He also sensed Severus was still lying to him, but he couldn't figure out the nature of the lie. Having no patience with Slytherin word games right now, Harry decided to let it pass.

"Hermione wasn't happy with me. Have you come to lecture me on controlling my temper, too?" Because if he had, he could leave right now, Harry decided, in no mood for anyone else telling him how stupid he'd been when he was still smarting from his loss of control himself.

"Hardly. Miller is a fool, who no doubt got what he deserved. It's a miracle it hadn't happened to him years ago," Severus said with honest relish. "I came to bring you food."

"Oh. I'm sorry," Harry said, ashamed of himself. "I'm afraid I'm not very good company right now."

"It isn't a requirement you ever made of me," Severus said.

"What?" Harry asked, confused.

"You never required me to be good company to be your friend. I'm not so hypocritical to demand what I'm unwilling to give myself."

"I never found your company lacking," Harry protested. Though it wasn't always easy being Severus' friend, it was always worth the work.

"Your tastes always did leave something to be desired," Severus replied in that droll, dry tone of his.

Harry couldn't keep his laugh in. It spilled out of him like river water cascading over a fall – wild, uncontainable, and ultimately purifying. When he finally calmed, he wiped his eyes and said, "God, that felt good. Thanks, I really needed the laugh."

The smile didn't touch Severus' lips, but it was there in his glinting eyes as he replied, "You are most welcome. Anytime you feel in need of an insult, please feel free to call on me," which, of course, started him laughing again.

This time his outburst didn't last as long. Belatedly recalling his manners, Harry asked, "Do you want something to drink? I've got brandy, whisky, and butterbeer."

"Brandy, please."

Harry got up and made their drinks by hand. Returning to the couch, he gave Severus his snifter and sat down beside him.

"What is it that's got you so upset?" Severus asked after a few sips and a few moments of silence. "Something that fool Miller said?"

"No, I mean, yes, he upset me at the time, but he's an idiot, who cares what he says? I just . . . hate losing control like that."

"Well, it could be worse. You could have used an Unforgivable."

"Is that supposed to make me feel better?" Harry demanded.

"Hermione is good at making people feel better. I'm just being realistic. Miller has been provoking his colleagues since his arrival. It was inevitable that sooner or later he would push the wrong person too far."

"I just wish it had never happened," Harry lamented.

"And I wish I hadn't been born ugly, but we have to deal with reality," Severus shot back in that dry tone that was normally so amusing.

This time the words weren't funny. Harry stared at the sharp features of his friend's face that had once seemed so homely to him, but were now simply a part of who Severus was. "You're not ugly. Don't talk that way about yourself."

"I own a mirror, Harry. I know what I am," Severus said in a tone completely without self-pity, "But I didn't come here to address my shortcomings. We were discussing what happened with Miller today – "

"I don't care about Miller," Harry snapped, confused by the maelstrom of protective, almost angry emotions churning through him at Severus' casual put down of himself. It was all a holdover of the abuse Severus had suffered growing up, Harry knew. He faced those same demons himself every day. If a child's caretaker and peers tell him he's worthless often enough when little, sooner or later he would come to believe it. But that didn't mean it was true, not in his case, and certainly not in Severus'. Slapping his brandy snifter onto the coffee table, he caught hold of Severus' shoulders and nearly shook him. "I care about you and you are not ugly!"

He read the alarm in Severus' eyes, even though the other man's expression was carefully blanked of emotion. He knew Severus wasn't comfortable being touched, but that rule hadn't applied to him for a long time. Still, he could see he'd worried his friend, but he was too upset to know how to reassure. All he knew was the wild feelings rushing through him and, somehow, Severus was the heart of it. He'd cursed a man on Severus' behalf today. There was no way in hell he was going to sit here and listen to Severus spout the same nonsense Miller had.

For a horrible eternity, it felt like something was going to break inside him or that he was going to explode under the emotions, but then he pulled Severus to him and buried his face in the older man's bony, narrow shoulder and instantly felt better. When those long arms closed around his back, he nearly felt calm again. Or at least sane.

He breathed in that sweet, spicy scent that was Severus Snape and tried to get a hold of his emotions.

Just as had happened last month after their first Friday visit to the Three Broomsticks, Severus was stiff as a board in his arms, every inch of the Potions Master seeming to descry his discomfort with the embrace. But, after a frozen moment, Harry felt his friend's right hand give his back a tentative pat.

"I'm sorry," he whispered, trying to find the strength to pull away. "It's just . . . I screwed up something terrible today, Severus. I can't remove the spell. I can't fix it. When am I ever going to grow up for real and stop doing these kinds of things?"

"Ssssh," that lush voice of Severus' soothed as his long hand rubbed his back. "Growing up is overrated. We both know that."

Harry snorted and took another deep breath of Severus. "I messed up so bad."

Words he never expected to hear spilled out of Severus' mouth, "It will be all right, Harry."

His entire body stilled in shock, even as something wild and triumphant screamed 'Yes!' through his soul.

"It will?" he asked, unable to believe what he'd just heard. This man, who saw his own life as an endurance test, was telling him that things would get better?

"Yes," Severus' tone was firm.

"How?"

"We'll fix it, somehow," Severus promised.

Harry expelled a deep breath, letting it cleanse him. He tried to let go of his anxiety as he rested there in Severus' embrace. He knew he should get up and give his touch-shy friend some room, but he couldn't. He needed this too much.

He racked his mind, trying to recall the last time there had been someone here for him like this, and came up blank. Hermione and Ron had always been there, of course, but that was different. They were family, but they were a couple, neither exclusively his to call his own. The anonymous encounters of the last few years had been fun, in a desperate kind of way, but there was no solace in any of it, just physical relief. And before that? This time, he forced himself to really examine what he'd had with Julius, and recognized that even with what he'd thought had been the love of his life, this kind of supportive intimacy had been lacking. The sex had been great, but when all was said and done, he'd still felt lonely inside, even before Julius started playing the field behind his back. If he were searching for something that felt like this, it would have been what he'd had with Blaise back in school. There was that same fumbling innocence to Severus and his relationship. Only, it wasn't that kind of relationship – or was it?

Abruptly, he remembered Neville's question this afternoon as to whether Severus and he were dating, and his own uncertain response. He didn't know what they were – that was the gods' truth. Everything inside him rebelled at the idea that he was actually dating Severus Snape, but what else could he call it? He asked the man out every Friday and Saturday night, and spent every hour conscience and Severus' sufferance would permit haunting the man's lab and rooms. Every day, he kept pushing to get closer to Severus, and Severus wasn't pushing him away anymore. But was that the same as dating?

He didn't know. All he knew was that it was important to him, more important than anything had been for a long time.

He tried to figure out why, but there was no single answer. All he knew was that whatever it was that he had with Severus, it had real meaning. If he was in any doubt about that fact, all he had to do was think about tonight. When had anything his dates said ever moved his soul the way hearing Severus tell him everything would be all right had?

He wondered what their relationship meant to Severus. His only friend, Severus had said, but that was weeks ago and no longer true. Hermione, Ron, Blaise, and even Neville were his friends now – whether Snape would admit it or not.

Did Severus think they were dating, he wondered.

Whether it was a holdover from their being children together or something else, Severus allowed him liberties he permitted no other person. Take their present position. Who else would Severus allow to hang on him like this? Hermione and Ron, perhaps, but it wasn't the same with them. Both he and Severus saw them as parents as much as friends these days. Their relationship with the Weasleys had become confusing as hell.

It was more than just this, though. There were a million little things that Severus allowed him that no one else would dare do to the dour Potions Master. But was that because everyone else feared Severus too much to be casual in his company, or was it because Severus actually made allowances for him that he did for no one else? And, even if Severus did make those allowances specifically for him, did that necessarily mean anything sexual? Couldn't it just as easily be friendship?

Harry didn't know. There were ways to find out, of course. But those methods could endanger what he'd already found with Severus. Beyond that, there were his own desires to consider. Did he really want to take on Severus Snape, the nasty Potions Master of his childhood, as a lover?

Six months ago the very idea would have been viscerally repulsive, but lying here with those strong arms around him, his head rising and falling with the steady rhythm of Severus' chest, breathing his friend in with every breath as that long fingered hand rubbed reassuringly at his back, the idea was not repulsive. It wasn't even unthinkable.

But it was dangerous, because if he were mistaken, Severus would never forgive him. Still, this felt so good. He knew more would feel better . . . .

Harry sighed. Whether his mind could view Severus Snape on a sexual level was obviously irrelevant. His body and heart were making some decisions here and leaving his brain out of the loop – as usual.

Only, this wasn't going to go as usual, he decided. He wasn't going to muck this up. He wasn't going to risk their hard-won friendship on a hormonal crapshoot. Before he jumped this time, he was going to make damn sure those arms were there to catch him. The way Severus was holding him, it seemed almost a promise that they would be, but . . . flesh could lie. That was the one true thing Julius had taught him. Before he made a move on Severus, he was going to be damn certain that his friend felt exactly the same way about him.

So, he lay still and let Severus hold and rub him, adjusting himself to the sharp bones and lean muscled body supporting him, trying to imagine what it would feel like being naked with that body.

He stayed there for more than an hour. Finally, he couldn't hold the position anymore and had to move. It was either that or fall asleep in Snape's arms again, and, while it wasn't an unattractive idea, he wasn't ready to inflict himself upon Severus like that just yet. Perhaps if he could introduce the concept to Severus slowly, he might be more open to the idea.

"Thanks," Harry said, pulling back a little self-consciously.

"None are needed," Severus dismissed in a rough sounding voice.

Harry stared into those eyes, so deep and dark. He could see twin images of himself reflected back at him. There was no displeasure in that gaze, no sense that this had been an unpleasant task for Severus. To the contrary, Severus appeared as flushed and cosy as he felt.

Taking a deep breath, Harry decided to test the grounds a little, to see how far Severus' forbearance actually went. Severus would let him drink out of his cup and eat off his plate without asking. Would he let him do more than that?

Before his better sense could kick in, Harry followed his impulse and reached up to place a quick, chaste kiss in the centre of Severus' forehead. The skin was warm and dry beneath his lips. It felt good.

Severus gave a gasp and went very still beneath him.

Holding his breath, Harry drew back and waited for all hell to break loose.

The shocked silence that followed stretched uncomfortably long, but nothing horrible happened. Severus didn't yell at him, punch him out, or do any of the other things a disinterested party would do to make it plain that his attentions were unwelcome.

"I have an early class tomorrow," Severus said at last into the silence. "I must go."

"Yeah, me, too," Harry said, sensing how flustered his friend was beneath that imperturbable outer control. What he couldn't tell was if it were a good flustered or a bad one. Never able to just let something go, Harry quickly asked, "Will you come with me to the Three Broomsticks tomorrow night?"

With me, not us. Usually, he voiced the Friday night invitation as a group event. He could see that Severus was conscious of the distinction.

Severus met his gaze, gulped loudly, and nodded. "Yes, if you wish."

"I wish. And . . . thanks for tonight. I feel better," he said, giving a shaky smile, because he was suddenly scared down to his bones by what he was doing. Severus Snape was not a man you trifled with. Harry had the sudden vision of his cock erupting into pustulant boils every time he got a hard on if this did not go well.

"It will work out, Harry," Severus said, in regard to the Miller situation, no doubt, but Harry's hopeful heart couldn't help but read more into it. "Good night."

Then, Severus was up and out the door before Harry could even reply.

Staring about the suddenly empty room, Harry got up from the couch and stumbled to his bedroom – to deal with a raging erection that didn't care if it was headed for pustulant boils.

**************