Snape's back was still ramrod straight, as though someone had stuck a broom up his arse years ago. Harry refrained from speaking until the old bastard realized ignoring him, in favor of gazing up at a thoroughly ramshackle old house, wouldn't work. They'd both been invited here after all.
Slowly Snape turned, as if just hearing the pop of Apparition. "So glad you could join us, Potter," he said, with that expression that could almost be a smile, except that even Snape wasn't pretending it was.
Harry put on his most ingratiating smile. "Us?" He looked around the empty steps in front of the large, old house. "Using the royal 'we' are you?"
"Miss Granger is inside," he informed Harry, with a nod toward the door, which was leaning half-way off large iron hinges. "I told her the house would likely collapse if she so much as sneezed, but she is ever determined to ignore good advice."
"Like you've ever had her best interests at heart," Harry said, treading up the first level of moss-covered steps to the second landing where Snape stood, arms behind his back as though contemplating art in a gallery, instead of an old ruin.
"I'm only thinking of the difficulty Minerva would have replacing her on the staff if a house fell on her," Snape said. Harry looked at him sharply, but if there had been a smile there, it was gone now.
Just then the front door opened, or attempted to, and the sound of lady-like swearing drifted down to the two men. "For heaven's sakes," came Hermione's voice, as half her face appeared through the wedge in the doorframe. "It's jammed."
"What did you expect?" Snape said with a sneer, as both he and Harry started up the stairs. Two sets of hands clamped onto the thick wooden door, sliding it open with a squeal of rusted hinges.
"Thanks," she said, patting her robes as dust rose up in a cloud. Then, "Harry!" and arms wrapped around his neck, heedless of the noxious cloud of dust. "You made it."
"You didn't think I'd miss it, did you?" he said. "Though I'm not sure why it has to be here." He took a few steps back and looked up at the crazy old structure.
The middle section of the house was bowed out in a semi-circle, with wings extending out in either direction. Five windows lined each side of the uppermost floor, in sets of geometric figures. The mullions of each window matched the overall geometric pattern, though several panes in the windows were broken out. The whole thing was sandy-colored stone, and the roof sagged slightly. Even from this angle, Harry could see where one spot in the roof had been patched with a spell. The glow of magic brightened and dimmed in no discernable pattern, glowing blue, then slightly purple. Harry thought he heard a slight sizzling sound as well.
The steps where they stood ran across the entire front of the house. There was a semicircular drive in front, though like most wizard houses, it had no lane leading from the road. The haphazardly affixed front door had its own little porch, and ornate stone balustrades fanned out from both sides, curving around the first landing.
"Minerva will explain everything when she arrives," Hermione said, still holding onto one of Harry's arms. "Her duties as Albus's executrix have been keeping her busy, but she promised she'd be here --"
As she spoke another figure popped into being at the foot of the crumbling stone steps. Minerva McGonagall had settled into her new position as Hogwarts headmistress with aplomb, giving into the Scottish leanings she'd kept subtle when Harry had been a student. Now she favored tartan robes. Her hat had a sprig of thistle in it, and several strands of heather twining down the back.
"Ah, Harry, you made it after all," she said, climbing the steps, holding her robes up slightly.
"Potter managed to drag himself away from whatever foreign clime currently capturing his attention," Snape said.
Harry shook his head, ignoring Snape, and held out his hands to Minerva, brushing a light kiss on her cheek. He hadn't seen her since the funeral, nearly a year ago, but he'd made it to every Weasley family Christmas since he'd left school six years ago. "Why did everyone think I wouldn't come?"
McGonagall shot a look at Snape but didn't answer. "Now we're all here, why don't we go inside?"
Hermione cleared her throat. "Actually, the door sticks."
Snape took out his wand. "Lubricus," he said, then tucked his wand away. Harry kept his expression neutral as he followed the ladies inside, trusting that Snape would follow.
It was just as gloomy and decrepit on the inside, but they didn't stop to look around. The front hall was lit by the largest of the geometric windows, one with diamond-shaped panes, cracked in enough places to give the sunlight a wavering pattern as it fell across the plain stone floor. Beside him Hermione sneezed, and Harry heard Snape mutter something that had the word 'collapse' in it. Harry glanced at the stone walls, but they seemed sound.
There were staircases leading up from each side of the rounded front hall -- stone, like the rest of the interior -- and without any pretensions to safety such as railings. They took the right hand one. There were two sets of footprints in the dust, one going up and one coming down.
"I've set up the reading on the balcony," Hermione said, "There's more light up there." She shivered once, and Harry realized it was chilly inside the old place. They trooped up the stairs, their footsteps echoing in the deserted house. Whatever furniture had been there was long gone, judging by the uniform layer of dust on the floor.
The balcony was at the back of the house, through a circular room that echoed the rounded entrance hall. Once they were outside Harry could see that the balcony stretched across the entire width of the house, with entrances similar to the one they'd just used set along each wing. At least there were parapets out here, Harry thought, looking over the edge. Beyond the house, a tangled garden spread out for several acres at least. On the end of the balcony furthest from them, it looked like two bright orange Muggle traffic cones had been set up, with rope stretched between them.
Four chairs were set up, along with a wooden folding table. A leather scroll pouch rested on the table. McGonagall gestured for them all to sit down. "Again, gentlemen, my apologies for the delay in your bequest. The documentation for this particular one has had many delays." She unstoppered the end of the scroll pouch and pulled out the contents.
Harry made himself comfortable in the chair. It was a large, squashy armchair, the kind Albus had favored. He wondered if that were part of the ceremony, if Albus's will had spelled it out. He noticed that Snape was sitting up rigidly upright in his chair. Hermione had picked the one closest to McGonagall, leaving him beside Snape.
"I still don't see why you had to drag us out here to the middle of nowhere," Snape said, his first intelligible sentence since entering the house. He wrinkled his nose as though fresh air smelled bad.
"You may blame your former employer for that," McGonagall said, unrolling the scroll. "I'll skip all the items that do not apply to you two gentlemen, if you don't mind," she said, as the parchment kept unfurling until it reached the floor. She looked at them pointedly over her spectacles. The parchment had draped over one of Hermione's feet. She kicked it back, without looking down.
Harry nodded, seeing Snape doing the same thing, though more impatiently, out of the corner of his eye. "Fine by me," he said, feeling something more formal was called for.
McGonagall cleared her throat and began to read, "I, Albus Dumbledore, being of sound mind --"
Snape snorted, and both Hermione and McGonagall glared at him. She continued reading the preamble, then traced one finger down the list until she came to the particular passage that applied to them.
"To Severus Snape and Harry James Potter," she read, and a prickle of unease ran up Harry's spine. They were listed together? He avoided Snape's gaze just as firmly as Snape was avoiding his.
"I leave to each of you --"
Harry relaxed a bit. That sounded more reasonable.
"This house."
"The old bastard, may he burn in hell."
Harry thought he'd said it out loud before he realized it hadn't been himself but Snape who'd said it.
"Now, gentlemen," McGonagall said, letting the scroll curl back naturally to the place she held with her finger.
"This is a falling down ruin," Snape said, sneering at their surroundings, "that hasn't been a proper house since Albus was a boy."
"Exactly," McGonagall said. She set the parchment on the table and looked around, her expression softening. "This house has been in the Dumbledore family since it was built. He grew up here."
Harry looked around again, trying to picture the aged wizard he'd known as a child scampering among the curved railings. It was surprisingly easy to do.
"He always meant to come back and fix it up after he retired," she said, then bit her bottom lip. Wordlessly Hermione pulled a handkerchief out of her robes and handed it to her. Harry looked over to see if Snape had some cutting remark, but he'd sunk into his armchair, arms folded over his chest.
"Why both of us?" Snape asked, drawing the other two pairs of eyes in his direction.
"If you'll let me finish," McGonagall said, rattling the will like a saber. She adjusted her glasses and tucked the borrowed handkerchief into her sleeve.
"Severus," she read, "I can picture your face from whatever happy place I now reside." McGonagall favored him with one of her frosty smiles. "But wherever that may be, it cannot compare to the happy hours I spent where you are right now, in this house."
It was McGonagall's voice, but the echo of Albus Dumbledore came through plainly. A breeze wafted over the balcony, ruffling the trailing length of parchment at Hermione's feet. Harry stared out over the expanse of tangled garden beyond the railing. Leaves from the hedgerows had blown over the out-of-control flowerbeds. If it had ever been beautiful, it had been a long time ago.
"And Harry, so restless since you left school. I cannot help but think your lack of a proper home has set your feet wandering the globe to find one. I hope you may find it here."
"This house is called Pendleberry Grange, and has been in my family since it was built. Alas, there are no more Dumbledores around to make it a home again. It is easily large enough for even two such disparate souls as yourselves to share. And the bequest includes a fair sum to be put into restoration and furnishings."
Beside Harry, Snape was growing more and more restless. At the mention of the amount of galleons available to be put into restoration, he sat back again, mouth agape. It was indeed a fair amount.
"If neither of you choose to live in the house," McGonagall went on, "and wish to sell it, the money may be evenly divided between the two of you. I will of course --" Here, McGonagall broke off and looked at Hermione. "Do I really have to --"
Hermione nodded tightly. "You have to read it as written or it isn't considered binding."
With a much put upon sigh, McGonagall continued, "I will, of course, haunt you until you both die. Ha ha."
Harry thought of a restless spirit in that empty, echoing hall and nearly shuddered. The former headmaster had no true reason to come back as a ghost. Much to everyone's surprise, he'd died peacefully in his sleep, nearly a year ago. It had been the last time Harry had seen Snape.
"If a consensus cannot be reached between these two choices," McGonagall read, "The deed may only be transferred from one party to another via the traditional method."
Snape sat bolt upright in his chair.
"That's preposterous, " he said, looking at McGonagall as if she'd said he had to dance naked upon a moonlit moor.
"Traditional? What?" Harry said, looking at Hermione for an explanation.
"It's perfectly logical, Severus," McGonagall said, though it took Harry a second to realize she was speaking as herself, and not Dumbledore.
"What's he talking about?" Harry asked, not sure if he meant Dumbledore or Snape, but needing an explanation of why Snape looked like he was going to explode.
"The traditional method means one of you has to Court the other one for the property," Hermione explained, and, just as when they were schoolchildren, her lecture voice irritated Harry. He pitied her Transfiguration students.
He laughed, but no one else did. "Court?"
"Woo," Hermione supplied, shooting a glance at Snape that made Harry look too. "Vie for one's hand."
Snape no longer looked angry; that more than anything made the back of Harry's neck prickle.
"There's the way out, then," Snape said, satisfaction flavoring his words like cream in coffee. "All Potter here has to do is produce a girlfriend, and we're not bound by the courting stipulation."
Three pairs of eyes turned to Harry. "I haven't got a girlfriend," he said, eyes shifting away from the most piercing of the stares.
Snape made a noise that drew Harry's attention back. "Any evidence of heterosexual leanings will do, Potter," he said, as if expecting him to produce a scantily dressed harem from his backpack.
"Haven't got any of those either," Harry admitted. Hermione already knew; he didn't think he could shock McGonagall, and he didn't care if Snape knew one way or the other.
"Why don't *you* produce a girlfriend," he asked, once he realized the onus of sexual normality had been laid squarely at his door.
Silence. Harry shifted in his chair. "Oh." He wiped his face with his hand. "Look, I don't know if this has occurred to anyone, but we're both men."
This time the noise was an all-out snort. "You'll sleep with men, but you won't marry one?"
"Marry?" Harry said, bolting up himself. "No one said anything about --"
McGonagall cleared her throat. It had the same effect it had always had in class, stilling everyone within earshot. Including Snape.
"We may be able to avert all of this if you gentlemen can amicably agree on the disposal of the property," she said, peering at them over her spectacles.
"We're going to keep it," Harry said.
"We're going to sell it," Snape said, at the exact moment.
Glares were exchanged.
"If you can't agree, we have to abide by the will," she said, though it was clear she had no hope of that. She thought a moment. "Severus, you will have to do the Courting since you'll be taking your name off the deed." She ignored the glare Snape shot her and looked at Harry over her spectacles. "And Harry, you'll have to pay Severus fair value for his half of the house after the Courtship."
"What possible reason can you have for wanting this horrid old ruin?" Snape asked Harry.
"Because Albus wanted me to have it," Harry countered, liking the idea more and more. His answer had been spontaneous, but he'd clung to odder notions with less cause and saw no reason to change now. "Why don't you want it?"
"Because I am not landed gentry, nor do I have any pretensions to be," Snape said. "I am a schoolteacher." He sneered at the house behind them. "I don't need this tax-sucking albatross tied round my neck the rest of my life."
"I think we have our answer," McGonagall said, straightening the parchment. She looked down to find her place. "To this end," she read, "I have appointed Hermione Granger as my representative to insure that the Courting Ritual is adhered to."
Harry was looking at Hermione, but she was looking at Snape who'd nearly risen out of the chair, glaring at her.
"I *trusted* you!" he said, fury darkening the sliver of his face Harry could see.
"You still can!" Hermione said, before she bit her bottom lip. "It's just that he asked me to do the research on the Courtship Ritual, you see. He's -- he *was* -- ridiculously old fashioned." Harry wished he could have been at a better angle to see what was passing between them. Whatever it was, Snape finally eased back down into the chair, but it was plain he wasn't happy.
McGonagall took out her wand and waved it over the scroll. It began rolling up, not crinkling the edges. "Well, now that that's settled," she said, drawing both Snape and Harry's disbelieving stares. "You two were my last duty as executrix. I'm glad to get this done. Some of the bequests were *really* difficult."
Snape's voice was dry. "Imagine."
"But, it isn't settled," Harry said, standing up when she did. Beside him, Snape did the same.
"It is as far as the actual will is concerned. If you both can't share it, or agree to sell it, there's only one way to transfer the deed between you," she said, sliding the will in question back into the leather pouch. She arched her gaze over the facade. "It was a fine old house once. I trust you two will honor Albus's memory by doing right by it. Even if that means selling it to someone who will treasure it," she said, putting up one hand to quell the protest forming on Snape's lips.
She nodded to Hermione who'd also gotten to her feet. "I'll see you back at school." With a swirl of tartan she was gone.
Silence settled over the balcony. Harry was trying to catch Hermione's eye, but she was still looking at Snape. Who was ignoring them both.
"I don't follow any of this," he said at last, earning him another of Snape's snorts, but he got Hermione's attention at last.
She pulled out a folded piece of parchment from her robes. "I've got the Courting ritual here, if you'd like to --"
"No, we would not, Granger," Snape said, whirling on them in a flare of robes that suddenly made Harry feel twelve again. But only for a moment.
"I would," he said, reaching for it, but Snape charged on him.
"We will not be conducting this farce," he said.
Harry had worked out at least part of it. "Then you'll be living here too, then," he said with a false smile.
"No, we're going to sell the house. To anyone unlucky enough to want it," Snape insisted.
Harry was gathering up his self-righteous anger when Hermione cut in. "Harry doesn't want to," she said.
Snape's eyes narrowed. "Give me five minutes alone with him and he will," he said, taking a step as if to implement whatever promise lurked in that dark gaze.
"Which is, I believe," Hermione said, stepping between them. "The exact reason the headmaster specified these particular terms." She was easily a head shorter than Snape, but Harry had seen her in full indignation mode with Ron who was about Snape's height. For just a moment, Harry felt sorry for both men.
"What terms?" Harry asked, again reaching for the folded parchment. Hermione, however, thrust it into Snape's fist, forcing him to take it.
Snape looked down at it as though it were an especially loathsome potion ingredient. "He hasn't learned anything since he left school either," Snape sneered. His fingers flexed over the parchment as though he was going to wad it up.
"That isn't fair," Hermione said, squaring off in front of her colleague, and Harry had to admire her tenacity.
"Neither is trying to win the boy's affections," Snape said. Harry got the feeling they'd forgotten he was here.
Affection? For Snape? That really was a farce. Harry thought about what he was letting himself in for, agreeing to fix up an old house to which he had absolutely no emotional ties. Participating in a false courtship just so they could transfer the deed between them. Settling in one place for more than a few weeks.
Harry looked around again at the graceful arch of the back of the house. Overhead was the jut of what could only be a bay window in one of the bedrooms. One of the mullioned panes was cracked, and there was ivy trailing through the hole. Harry tried to think of how the sunlight would look slanting inside that window, sparkling through a hundred octagonal panes.
"Why can't I just buy his half outright without going through the courting nonsense?" he asked, and both Snape and Hermione turned toward him, as if just remembering that he was still here. He'd kept careful tabs on his Gringotts' vault, and had been traveling the last few years on the interest alone.
Hermione flushed and stepped away from Snape. The tension had been thick between them, and Harry wondered if it was like that at school, whether they fought like this over everything. He'd got the impression, from her letters, that she was getting on well with all the teachers, even Snape.
"If this were a normal sort of bequest, you could," she said. "But the will specifies the Courting ritual first. It was the way most of the families in the old days assured themselves that their daughters --" Her face softened, "And sons weren't being coerced before land transactions of this magnitude took place. These terms imply that the headmaster thought of you as a son, Harry." Then she looked at Snape. "You both, really."
Snape made a rude noise, but Harry was now very interested in what Hermione was saying. "How long does it take?" he asked.
Hermione looked again at the parchment in her hands. "That depends. The ritual has a lot of steps that don't, er, really apply today. But a few months at least. That way, families could be assured their children weren't rushing into things with so much property at stake." She looked back at Harry. "I'm guessing Albus wanted both you and Severus to be absolutely certain if you weren't going to share the house as he wanted."
"Why can't I just take Veritaserum to swear I'm not being coerced?" Harry asked.
"Because if you *were* being coerced, you'd believe it utterly, you idiot," Snape said, the expression on his face clearly indicating he wanted to use something stronger than 'idiot'. He leaned back against the stone railing, arms folded over his chest.
"Then why can't you take it to swear you aren't coercing me to buy your part of the inheritance?" Harry asked, gratified by the look of surprise on Snape's face.
"Because that isn't in the will, Harry," Hermione said. "Veritaserum is relatively new," she said, her glance sidling over to Snape. "The Courting ritual is much older."
"If I don't want to be courted?"
"You forfeit, and Professor Snape can keep the stipend and sell the house." She paused a moment. "Or whatever he likes, even tear it down."
Harry huffed in exasperation. Snape spoke next.
"What if I forfeit?" he asked, in what passed for a normal tone.
"You lose any claim to the house, the land and the stipend that goes along with it," Hermione answered. She thought a moment. "And the headmaster might haunt you anyway."
Harry could tell he was actually considering it, and felt perversely that he'd been found wanting somehow.
"So, what happens if we go through with the, er, Courtship? We go on a few dates?" He didn't look at Snape to see how he was taking it. "You check us off the list, both of us get what we want."
Hermione took the unopened parchment from Snape. "It's more than a few dates, Harry," she said, unfolding it.
Harry saw the first line, in Hermione's bold hand. It read, "Declaration of Intent".
"You and Professor Snape would have to adhere to the Courtship ritual, and I'd have to supervise," she said, looking down at the paper.
"Well, that's it then, you're my friend; you can just swear we've done it, and bob's your uncle. I move in, and Snape can retire to wherever sadists go for their happy golden years."
This time both Snape and Hermione looked at him as though they wanted to use a word stronger than 'idiot'. "You know I won't -- won't *lie* about it," Hermione said, obviously aghast. "It was what Professor Dumbledore wanted."
Harry wondered if Snape were as frustrated as he was. But he knew better than to try to overturn Hermione's sense of morality. Snape's face gave away nothing.
When no one spoke, Hermione went on, "If you both complete the Courtship, you go through a, well, a marriage ceremony, for all intents and purposes." Harry sputtered and looked at Snape again. His gaze was fixed on Hermione. "You pay Professor Snape for his half of the house, both sign the transfer papers, and the marriage will be annulled. Two days, perhaps."
Harry exhaled in frustration again. "What's the point of that? A sham ceremony? Just to transfer a property? It doesn't make any sense."
Hermione's expression was kind. "It wasn't a sham to most of the couples who went through it. Courtship marriages had a very high stability record and were popular until just a generation or so ago. The annulment is just for you and Professor Snape's benefit."
A suspicion was growing in Harry's mind. "Can I see you for just a moment," Harry said, nodding toward the opposite end of the balcony. "Alone?"
Snape just rolled his eyes, so Harry led Hermione over to where the incongruous orange cones stood guard. Harry looked down to see what they were warning against and found himself looking directly down onto the ground, a storey below. The balcony had a hole large enough for a house-elf to fit all the way through it. Not for the first time did Harry wonder if he wasn't being a bit preemptory in not selling this old wreck.
"Look," he said, leaning against the railing, "If Professor Dumbledore knew Snape and I were both --" It was too horrible. "Both the way we are, how do we know he wasn't trying to, get us together somehow? That's coercion too."
Hermione's smile was wistful. "He always hoped the two of you would get along," she said, then, at Harry's clouding face, went on hastily, "Er, not like that. But as friends. Or at least not enemies. He used to talk about it, especially when he heard you were back in the country. I'm sure that's why he set it up this way."
They both paused a moment, looking out over at this side of the park. There was a fence marking some boundary, the same stone as the rest of the house, broken and pitted, even from this distance.
"Do you think I'm being stupid, wanting this place?" he asked, turning away from the weed sanctuary of the lawn. Snape had his back to them, gazing out over the tangled garden. A breeze caught his long hair and blew it into his face. Harry watched as he brushed it back impatiently.
"Of course not!" Hermione said, so fiercely that Harry turned to look at her. "Professor Dumbledore wanted you to have it. To have a home. That's a great gift, when this place meant so much to him." Her gaze swept the crumbling pile that Harry was thinking of restoring. "I'll bet it was a lovely old place once." Her hand slid into Harry's. "It might even keep you around more."
He looked down at her. He wasn't much taller, not nearly as tall as Ron or Snape. "Maybe it is time to come home." He sighed as he looked at the house, imagining that he could almost hear it crumbling from here. He heard a noise and turned to see Snape approaching them.
"I don't have all day to waste," he said. His glance at the hole in the balcony said everything.
"I'm willing to go through with this if you are," Harry said, giving Hermione's hand a squeeze.
He expected a sneer and more argument. Snape nodded once, somehow making it look like a formal gesture. Hermione pulled out the folded parchment again and thrust it at him.
"Come on," Harry said, tugging on her hand. "Let's go see my house."
~~**~~
Harry saw Snape next from a broomstick. He was hovering over the east wing, peering down into what had only turned out to be the largest of the holes in his roof, the one that had been patched using some sort of spell. Yesterday Harry had climbed into the attic, being vaguely disappointed not to find it crammed full of old trunks and antiques. The attic had been, if anything, even emptier than the rest of the house. Except for the bat. Harry had ducked out quickly and had decided to check the hole in the roof from the other side.
Distracted and disheartened by the size of the hole, and the inexplicable spell holding the surrounding slates in place, Harry didn't see the black blot on the stairs below until a protective sizzle of the spell sent him tumbling backward, gripping his broom before he fell off. His trajectory took him over the front door, and he caught sight of Snape.
He landed on the broad expanse of stone portico, hopping off his broom. He'd only been alone here for three days, but even Snape was a welcome sight. "You don't have to knock," he said, angling his broom against the wall. "It's your house too."
Snape turned, taking in Harry and broom with one sweeping look. "I wouldn't presume," he said. "Miss Granger said you were actually living here."
Harry laughed and inclined his head toward the sagging door. Once again they cooperated to lift it aside so they could enter. "Not quite as secure as Hogwarts is it?" The front hall had a bucket in it and nothing else. Harry had discovered, his first night there that the large hole in the roof wasn't the only place it leaked. "Oh hey, I'll get you a key." Snape still hadn't said anything, though he didn't look interested in the house. "I've been using the back door."
For just a moment, something like amusement flickered across the severe features, then Snape rallied and said, "I've come about the Declaration."
"Oh, right." Harry suddenly didn't know what to do with his hands. He'd opted for old work clothes, and the pockets were ripped. "What do we have to do, sign some forms?" He didn't have a quill in the place and hoped Snape had brought one.
But Snape was looking at him oddly. "There is nothing about this process that requires forms, Potter. We have to be seen in public, together as a --" He frowned. "To be seen in public. To that end, I've decided that the fund-raising event for St. Mungo's ought to be acceptable. I don't usually attend, of course, but the cause is worthy and there will be suitable number of dunderheads there to fulfill Granger's requirements."
"Right, I got an invitation," Harry said. "War orphans or something like that?"
Nodding, Snape looked him over critically. "You do have something appropriate to wear? No costume is required, but you'll need decent robes."
That's right, it would be Halloween. "I clean up all right," Harry said, then frowned. "Look, are you asking me to this thing, or telling me we're going?"
Snape's face took on a calculating air. "Are we selling this house?"
"We are *not* selling this house."
"See you at seven." Only Snape could look unruffled edging sideways through a stuck door. "And get this door fixed!"
Harry fumed about Snape's high-handed treatment all day, and thought it must be the reason he nearly got knocked off his broomstick again when he tried to undo the roof spell. Magical backlash had washed over him again, and he'd landed on the lawn, barely clutching his broom.
He was still fuming about it that night, hunkered in the bay window of his room, looking out over the unbroken blackness of the garden below. He'd set up base in the room he'd spotted from the balcony. It was a large corner room, in the back of the house. This wing had been modernized, though probably a few generations back, and one of the smaller adjoining bedrooms had been turned into a water closet and bathroom. What he'd taken for ivy had turned out to be devil's snare, and, for a few tense moments he'd debated whether to decamp to one of the other rooms. He still needed to fix the pane, but the devil's snare had been banished to the garden, and Harry had stuck a thick sock in the hole.
He was not going to let Snape intimidate him. And he was not going to fix the door until he was good and ready.
Harry was dressed properly when Snape showed up on time Halloween night. "Come round to the balcony," he called out from the diamond-shaped window overlooking the front hall. Each of the windows opened now that Harry had spent a day oiling the hinges. Snape disappeared before Harry got the window closed. Harry met him on the balcony. If Snape noticed his appearance he gave no sign of it.
"I told you to get that door fixed," he said by way of greeting.
"I haven't gotten to it yet," Harry said. "In case you haven't noticed, there are one or two other things around here that need doing first."
"If you're having difficulty finding the proper contractors, I'm certain Granger could supply you with an annoyingly well-researched list. With footnotes," Snape said. Harry noticed Snape seemed to have taken just as much care with his appearance as Harry had. He still wore black, but the robes were clearly dress ones.
"That would be lovely if I were using a contractor," Harry said, with exaggerated sweetness.
Snape's mouth opened. Then his brows drew together. Harry cut off the impending diatribe. "Think how much money we'll save if I do the work myself." It felt weird to say we, meaning himself and Snape of all people, but he supposed he'd get used to it.
"I believe the terms of the will provide a more than ample stipend for the work. Albus would not have intended for you to shore up this dangerous old wreck yourself," Snape said, clearly making an effort to keep his voice even.
"Half that stipend belongs to you," Harry said, having gone over the figures his first day here. If he did all the work himself, and used his half of the stipend, he could afford to buy out Snape's half, and still put furniture in the place. He'd still probably have to get a real job in the next couple of years, but he didn't mind that so much now that he'd had a few years to see a bit of the world.
"The stipend is for the house," Snape said, looming now over Harry as though he thought that trick would still work. Harry shivered, but it was just the chilly October air.
"Which you don't want. It isn't fair to spend it where you won't see any return," Harry said, resisting the urge to move away. Snape had looming down pat. "Besides, I like doing it myself. Makes me feel like I'm doing something worthwhile."
"Ridiculous, stubborn --" Snape began, but Harry cut him off.
"Don't we have to be somewhere?" They glared at each other. Snape looked like he was reconsidering it.
They Apparated to the Ministry gala, where Snape promptly stalked off. Harry snagged a drink and spotted him talking to Draco Malfoy. Harry hadn't seen Malfoy since the funeral and had no desire to now. He was looking around for the food when Hermione stormed up to him.
"What have you done?"
"Me?" Harry said, glaring over at Snape.
"Why aren't you together?" she asked, as Ron came up behind her, giving Harry a 'what are you going to do' shrug. "I thought you were going to Declare your intentions tonight."
"He wanted me to fix the front door!" Harry said, taking a much-needed swallow of his drink. He realized some further explanation might be necessary. "He *ordered* me to fix the door." There, that was obviously grounds for a non-declaration of intent.
"You mean to tell me you *haven't* fixed it?" Hermione said, looking up at Ron.
"Aren't you in the middle of nowhere out there?" Ron asked, wrapping his arms around Hermione from behind, as though to hold her back.
"Well --" Harry began, only to see the exact same diatribe forming on Hermione's face.
"Harry, it's dangerous out there. And you aren't exactly an unknown tenant. You could have every celebrity hunter, matchmaking witch, and fortune hunting con-wizard out there as soon as this news hits the Prophet." She angled her chin over Ron's arm, and looked at Snape. "Besides, it's his job to protect you. It says so in the Courtship ritual."
Ron snorted softly. "He's right good at that."
It was Harry's turn to glare. "I'm not twelve anymore, Ron; I think I can take care of myself."
Hermione blew out a breath. "That isn't the point. Once the Courtship begins, he's entitled to protect you, whether you need it or not." Her tone indicated Harry clearly needed it.
"Doesn't look like we're going to declare anything tonight," Harry said, taking another sip of his drink and looking around. "In fact, if I can find a cute waiter, I'll be needing a whole different sort of protection."
"Harry!" Ron and Hermione said at exactly the same moment. Hermione looked up again and something passed between them that clearly said 'let me handle this'. With a nod toward Harry and a final squeeze to Hermione, Ron was off.
"Harry, you can't form any other attachments while the Courtship is taking place," she said, coming to stand beside him.
He grinned at her. "Oh don't worry, the 'attachment' won't be long-lasting." He looked over her head at a passing candidate and smiled warmly. The waiter detoured toward them, caught sight of Hermione's scowl and backed away, bumping into someone in his haste.
"Hermione! He was cute!" Harry's gaze tracked the waiter till he lost sight of him in the crowd, somewhere near where Snape and Malfoy still had their heads together.
"You can't have any attachments of any kind while you're being courted, Harry. Surely you see that."
"Not any?" Harry felt his knees go weak. Then a suspicion flashed into his mind. "What about Snape?"
"You can't, er, be with him either," Hermione said, two bright spots of color blooming in her cheeks.
Harry rolled his eyes. "No! I mean does he have to stay unattached while all this is going on?"
"Oh!" Hermione said, "Yes. Certainly." She wasn't looking at Harry.
Harry eyed the cute waiter again. Snape was taking a drink off the tray. "What if I, er, fall off the wagon?" Really, what could Snape and Malfoy have to talk about so long?
"You either forfeit the house, or you have to do the Forgiveness Ritual." A delicate shudder went through her. "You do not want to do the Forgiveness Ritual, Harry. Trust me." Harry was about to ask when she caught sight of Snape and frowned. She laid a hand on his arm as if to prevent him from going over. "I'll have a word with Severus."
Harry's mouth closed. "Hang on. Why are you calling him Severus?"
Hermione looked up and him. "That's his name." Then she caught his drift. "Well, we work together ten months of the year. I have to call him something. He's really --"
"He calls you Granger," Harry interrupted, "Like you were still a student."
The hand on his arm smoothed down his sleeve, and she laughed. "To him, we're all still students I suppose. I'll probably feel that way when my students move on." She looked over to the small knot of people around Snape. "You should talk to him, get to know him. He's really, well --"
As if aware of the scrutiny, Snape looked up, and his eyes narrowed. Harry untangled himself from Hermione and gave her a determined look. She looked like she was going to give him more instructions, but instead had to content herself with watching him make his way across the room.
Snape had turned back to the group. Harry slid his arm through Snape's. "Severus," he said brightly, closing his fingers on the suddenly tense arm, sidling in beside him. "Don't we have something we need to do tonight?" He looked up into Snape's closed off face until he nodded tightly and made his excuses.
They made the rounds of the room. Harry, not unexpectedly, was exclaimed over, asked frequently where he'd been and what he was up to. More than once, at the news of his Courtship, a speculative gaze slid to his companion. Harry didn't think Snape unclenched the whole time. As Declarations went, he thought it went fairly well, capped off by Hermione's nod of approval as they left together.
Once outside, Harry let go of Snape's arm for the first time, feeling slightly bereft without it. "Not bad for a couple of solitary blokes, eh?" he said. It wasn't late but Harry had been doing more physical labor than he was used to. He stifled a yawn with his sleeve.
Despite Harry's protests, Snape saw Harry back to the Grange, and declined Harry's admittedly lukewarm invitation to come inside. Well, it wasn't like he was expecting a good night kiss, Harry thought, then laughed at his own foolishness and went inside.
~~**~~
He was fixing the front door the next day when Snape returned. He heard the air displacement of Apparition, but had his head bent over the ornate iron hinge, trying to get it exactly in place and didn't look up until a potion-stained hand slid in and kept the hinge straight while Harry fitted the heavy iron screw to it.
"Thanks," he said, waving his wand over it and watching the screw whirl around in place. "Didn't expect to see you today," Harry said, since Snape hadn't said anything.
"I'm anxious to proceed with the next step," Snape said, and Harry nodded, testing the hinge to see if it held. It did. He tested his work by opening and closing the door a few times under Snape's watchful gaze, but if he was expecting praise, he was disappointed.
"Of course," Harry said, wiping his face with his sleeve. Even though the season was late, he'd been working hard and felt rumpled and sweaty next to Snape.
"I've checked with Minerva, and this place is listed with the National Trust as a Not Especially Picturesque ruin." He looked up to the broken window on the second floor. "Which isn't far from the truth. If you get any Muggle tourists out this far the wards are similar to those at Hogwarts, save that the visitor will suddenly have a craving to take tea in the village."
Harry smiled. He thought there was a road beyond the fence border, but hadn't walked the entire property yet to check it out. He'd been too busy making it marginally clean and livable. "Good for tourism in the village," Harry said.
"Albus's touch, no doubt," Snape agreed, and Harry looked over, surprised to see an almost fond look on Snape's face. Snape had been stone-faced and distant at the funeral.
They hadn't even spoken.
"There is a potion," Snape went on, "That can be added to whatever wards are still in place, to strengthen them." He paused then went on as if reciting something. "The next part of the Courtship requires that I see to your welfare. Miss Granger assures me this will fulfill my obligation."
Obligation. Right. "Sure, go right ahead." He waited expectantly.
Snape sighed. "The potion is better if brewed on premises, from local ingredients. If I may have your permission --?"
Harry tucked his wand away. "What do you need?" He had a brief image of setting up his kitchen as a potions lab with himself reverting back to student days, slicing and dicing.
"Room to set up a fairly large cauldron. Preferably someplace with a stone or brick floor. Access to the grounds to hunt for ingredients."
Harry had just the place. "This is your house too," he told Snape as he led him downstairs to the kitchen floor. "I told you that." Harry had brought in a small wooden table, donated from Mrs. Weasley when he'd visited there last week to collect a few of his things he'd left before he started traveling. She'd also loaded him down with meat pies and loaves of bread, two flasks of pumpkin juice -- one of which he suspected was charmed to refill every night. The wooden counters in the old kitchen had the remnants of Harry's largesse, but little else.
"Will this do?" he asked, stepping into the kitchen. The floor was red brick, uneven in places.
"It's adequate," Snape said, peering into the fireplace and up the flue. "Have you lit any fires since you arrived?"
Harry colored slightly. "No intentional ones," he said, but Snape just nodded, looking around the bare kitchen.
"This is below ground?" Snape asked.
Harry brightened. "Mostly." Then he made a face at the grime-encrusted windows. "Haven't gotten the windows quite cleaned off yet. There's a whole maze of little rooms down here." He beckoned Snape to follow. "I reckon this was a larder," he said, pulling his wand out again and lighting it as they progressed down the low-ceilinged corridor. "And a smoke room." He peered into the room at the end of the hall. "I don't know what this one was."
Snape was very close beside him, following Harry's gaze. Harry found himself looking at Snape for just an instant, thinking again how odd it was that they were in this situation. "It's a wine cellar," Snape told him, pointing to the built-in fixtures Harry seen, but not recognized.
All the doors down here were Dutch doors, and Harry had kept the top halves opened when he'd come exploring down here. He and Snape were leaning on the bottom half, their shoulders very close. As Snape's hand dropped onto the wooden edge it brushed Harry's, reminding him again of the farce of intimacy they had projected last night. And how surprisingly strong Snape's hands were. All that chopping, he supposed.
He was looking at Snape's hand when he realized Snape was looking down at him and that they were wedged very snugly in the doorframe. It didn't feel as odd as it should, considering this was Snape, bane of his childhood existence. It should have felt awkward, and it was, for a moment. Then it just wasn't.
Then Snape stepped away. "I'd like to ramble a bit in your garden, to see what I can use from it, and what I'll have to bring from my stores."
"Our garden," Harry said stubbornly, leading the way back down the slightly uneven brick floor. The kitchen had normal windows and was brighter. He'd gotten most of the dirt off them. "Do you mind if I come with you? I've wanted to see what's out there."
There'd been paths once, though most of them were covered by the wild tangle of what must have been a well-tended garden at one point. There were still spots of color, buried deep in the brush, of late season roses, Harry was sure, and a few other flowers he recognized, trying to recall his Herbology. He thought he'd spotted pumpkins from his window, so there must be a vegetable patch somewhere too. In the mornings, when the dew was fresh, he could smell herbs from his window.
"Is that a fountain?" Harry asked, seeing Snape bent over a thick branch, pulling it out of the way. Harry caught a glimpse of sandy stone forming a rounded basin.
"I believe so," Snape said, scowling as the branch tried to slip out of his grasp. Harry added a hand and together they peered into the weed-choked basin. A tendril of ivy -- real ivy and not devil's snare -- wound around the figure at the top.
Harry squinted at it. "A cherub?" He thought he could pick out wings poking out from the greenery.
"Or a hinkypunk," Snape said dryly. "It's hard to tell with all these bloody weeds."
They'd got far enough along the broken path for Harry to be able to get a fairly good view of the back of the house. He tried to imagine the view from there once all this underbrush was cleared out, and couldn't. He tested the rim of the fountain basin. Sturdy. He was halfway up before Snape realized he was climbing onto the edge.
"What on earth are you --" he said, as Harry's foot slipped on a bit of crumbled stone.
Harry wobbled, but two hands caught him around the waist, steadying him before he could fall. "Thanks," he said, pulling at the ivy clogging the plinth. He felt pretty secure on the ledge now, but Snape still held onto him. Two wings lay revealed.
"That's --" Snape began as the figure perched atop the plinth was uncovered, bits of ivy clinging to the bulbous shape.
"Hideous," Harry said, dropping the denuded ivy into the dry fountain. It was a bronze bumblebee, about a meter long and half that tall, green with age. It looked as though the mouth might form the spout. Harry made a face and turned to hop down, stayed by Snape's hold on his waist. When he looked down, Snape dragged his gaze away and steadied him while he leapt down lightly.
Snape didn't quite let go once he was on the ground. Harry turned so he was facing Snape, looking up, puzzled, and still laughing about the tasteless bronze. Just for a moment Harry felt a little breathless at being held so close. But…this was Snape. As if they both came to the same conclusion at the same time, Snape released him and turned away.
They wandered the remains of the path for a while, Snape pointing out a few of the things he would be using in the potion of protection. He was telling Harry about bringing in a cauldron next weekend to begin work, when Harry spotted something over a rise.
"What's that?" He pointed. They climbed over the slight hill, as the grayish stones came into view. It looked like the remains of a tower, walled up, save for an arched open window at the very top facing them. "It looks ancient," he said.
Beside him, Snape made a noise and bent to examine the crumbling stones. "It isn't," he declared. "It's a folly."
Harry followed him around the building. There was no ground-level entrance. He stepped back while Snape continued to examine the wall. There was a weathervane on top, probably cast from the same mold as the fountain ornament. Even though there was a slight breeze the bumblebee appeared frozen, pointing toward the house.
"A picturesque architectural detail to add interest to a landscape," Snape explained, straightening. "Quite fashionable several centuries ago. They probably built it out of the stones from an older building; that's why it looks older than the house."
Harry shrugged. "What's it for?"
"Follies have no practical purpose," Snape said, his tone clearly indicating what he thought of such pursuits. "Most stand as a testimony to eccentricity."
Harry gazed back and could still just barely see the house. "I bet Albus loved it out here as a boy," he said. "I would have. I'd have tried to get inside, maybe ridden my first broomstick up there to look in the window." He was thinking of riding out here on broomstick himself.
For a long moment Snape didn't say anything. They had never talked about Dumbledore. Harry had heard a rumor that Snape had got stinking drunk after the funeral.
"We should get back," Snape said.
It was nearly a week before he saw Snape again, bearing, as promised, the large cauldron. Or more properly, supervising the four house-elves who bore it on their shoulders.
"Watch your feet!" Harry called cheerfully, sluicing more Mrs. Scowers All-Purpose Moss Remover over the front steps with a long-handled broom. The barefoot house-elves squeaked, and nearly lost their grip on their big black burden. It wobbled on four sets of shoulders, before one of them barked a command, and they trooped up the stairs in unison.
"I'll be back out," Snape called over his shoulder. "Mind the door," he said to the house- elves, "I don't want it to get broken again and set Mr. Potter back in his renovation schemes."
Harry listened to the thumps and bumps all the way down the kitchen steps, the swish of broom over stone very loud in the sudden silence that followed. Then Snape was back, scowling, neatly avoiding the puddles along the top steps. He was carrying a black valise.
"I'd like to begin at once, if you don't mind," he said, trying to find a dry spot to set down the bag. Finally he set it down on the balustrade closest to the door. Harry was nodding, about to consent, when Snape went on. "It will take some time to prepare, most of the two days allotted to the weekend, and I was wondering if I might stay."
Harry stopped scrubbing. "Overnight?" Snape immediately looked uncomfortable, as though he were about to rescind the request. "It's your house, too," Harry said, setting the broom against the wall. "Come on, I'll show you your half."
The house was large but not especially grand, no manor house by any stretch of the imagination. There were two wings off the front entrance hall on the ground floor, and overhead several sets of bedrooms on the first and second floors. Snape picked out the corner room in the opposite wing, along the opposite side of the hall. "This is as far away as you can get from my room," Harry pointed out. "That ought to make Hermione happy." There was even a hole in the triangular window. Harry bent down to examine it. "I'll put a sock in that for you."
Snape pulled out his wand and cast a spell. The air around the hole sparkled like ice crystals, then funneled and sealed over the hole. Harry was about to put his finger on the newly healed breech when Snape said, "I wouldn't."
Harry didn't. He'd been around magic long enough to heed warnings. Even from Snape.
"It's very cold. You might burn your finger," Snape explained as Harry studied it safely from a distance.
"I was wondering if it might be the same spell that keeps shorting out in the attic, but I suppose not," Harry said.
He didn't see Snape the rest of the day, and got the steps de-mossed to his satisfaction before taking coffee up on the balcony. It was chilly with the onset of autumn even as far south as they were, but Harry didn't mind. He spotted Snape out in the garden, as he sat down. The comfortable armchairs had been returned to Hogwarts, but Harry had found some wooden loungers to replace them, and a small table. He'd set up his coffee area as far away from the orange cones as possible.
Snape had set aside his robes to collect his ingredients. Harry saw the heavy outer robe draped over the edge of the fountain. Now that he knew where to look, Harry could also see the very top of the tower folly over the rise. The older man stretched, obviously unaware of Harry's scrutiny. Funny how he'd never noticed how graceful Snape was. Harry shifted in the chair, laying his head back, closing his eyes.
The sun had shifted when he opened his eyes again, stretching the sleep out of his limbs. And something heavy was draped over him. Harry inhaled deeply, pulling the black fabric away from his shoulders. It was a robe, slightly warm from his body, smelling of wool and something more elusive.
Harry looked out over the garden, but it was devoid of human life. Careful not to trail the robe in the dusty floor, Harry stood up and gathered up his mug. Snape was below in the kitchen, down to his shirtsleeves and a waistcoat. His heavy outer coat was hanging from the row of pegs in the kitchen wall. Harry hung the robe beside it.
"Thanks," he said.
Snape had looked up when Harry had come in, then went back to his chopping. "Don't mention it."
Harry worked some of the sleep languor out of his shoulders, absently watching the slow steady cuts of the knife. "Want some help?"
Snape didn't look up this time. "No."
"Come on, I got all right there at Potions, toward the end," he said, trying to figure out why he felt hurt at the abrupt dismissal. He leaned back against the wooden counter, crossing his arms over his chest.
Snape wiped his damp forehead with his sleeve. It was hotter in the kitchen now that the fire had been lit. The large cauldron hung in the fireplace, the bottom flickering red from the flames. "Passable," Snape admitted, then gestured with the knife to the pile of plants heaped up on the counter. "I've got to do all this myself."
After a few minutes Snape asked, "What are you staring at?" He held one hand up, wiping away a bead of sweat from the side of his face.
Harry didn't answer. Instead he asked, "Why don't you tie your hair back when you're working?"
Snape didn't look up when he answered. "I'm a creature of habit." He gave the stalk under his fingers a particularly violent jab.
Harry pushed away from the counter. "Let me tie it back for you. I can do that much, can't I?" He'd already started a knick-knack drawer, mostly full of odd screws, but he thought -- yes, there it was, a bit of twine that had come off a package. He didn't know why he was bothering except that he'd always wanted to tie it back in class when Snape had taught him and had never been able to until now.
He let his fingers comb through the thick stuff once, then did it again because it felt nice. As he looped the twine around the nape of Snape's neck he thought about saying something. But how do you tell someone his hair is a lot nicer now he's started washing it?
He brushed the moment off with what he hoped was a manly slap on Snape's shoulder. "There, isn't that better?"
Some people, Harry reflected, didn't know where to put their hands. Snape looked like he didn't know where to look now that his hair wasn't hiding his face. Harry leaned back against the counter again. "Ever think we'd end up like this?" he asked, chuckling. "Nearly cordial?"
That expression that promised a smile but never quite delivered settled around Snape's mouth. "Nearly, eh?"
"Wouldn't want the earth to stop spinning, now would we?" He looked over the kitchen. "All over a house."
"A ruin," Snape said, clearing away a small pile of something purple.
Harry ignored the gibe. "Did you ever think that if we'd met now, instead of when I was a kid, we might be --"
Snape had gone still, though Harry didn't puzzle it out until he missed the rhythmic sound of the knife. "Might be what?" he rasped.
"Friends."
Another stalk lost its head as the chopping resumed. "No, Potter, we will never be friends."
Harry's good humor remained despite Snape's bad one. Harry had supplemented Mrs. Weasley's largesse with provisions from the village, so they had a cold supper at the only table, the one in the kitchen. Afterward Snape resumed whatever chopping and brewing he needed to do while Harry took a book up to his room. He only had about three books in the place, but he was proud of the fact that none of them had the word Quidditch in the title. He grabbed "Home Repairs You Can Do From A Broomstick" and went upstairs.
Snape was in a better mood the next day. Harry noticed he'd left off the twine and offered to tie it back for him.
Snape was back in shirt-sleeves, but he'd left off the waistcoat as well, this close to the fireplace. "The timing on this is --" he began, throwing a handful of something into the pot. A blast of steam rose up. "Oh, very well."
He was patient while Harry gathered up the coarse strands. "The potion will be stronger if we include a bit of sympathetic magic -- a bit of hair would be best," Snape said.
Harry was used to such magic and rummaged again in his odds and ends and came up with a pair of scissors. He rolled his eyes upward, toward the rim of his glasses as though he could see someplace to snip in his fringe. "You'd better do it." Warm hands ghosted at his nape as Snape gathered his sample. "Hadn't you better add some of your hair too?"
"This potion is for your house," Snape explained, from behind him.
"But until the Courtship is over, it's your house too." He turned suddenly, and realized the action brought him very close again to Snape. He'd never noticed the way they just seemed to fit together, like this. Maybe he'd grown a bit since he'd left school. Harry took the scissors from Snape's unresisting fingers. "You'd better bend down a little," he said ruefully. Both their locks went into the cauldron with a hiss.
Snape left that afternoon, leaving the potion to simmer, and strict instructions for Harry not to touch it. Even though Snape hadn't made much noise while he'd been there, the house seemed very quiet after he'd gone.
He set about getting the place ready for winter, but admitted defeat when it came to cleaning out the Floos. Mr. Swope, of Swope's Chimney and Floo Sweeps, brought a team out right away, once he learned the identity of his client.
"My dad used to do this place," he informed Harry, peering into the kitchen fireplace where the potion still simmered. "Before the family scattered and died off." He had a little flip pad that he made a note on. "This one looks all right, but better come check it after, er, dinner is done?" He eyed the enormous cauldron.
"That's a potion," Harry said, "Should be done next week. For the wards."
Mr. Swope nodded and made another note. A young man skidded into the kitchen, then stopped when he caught sight of Harry. If they'd been in a bar instead of Harry's kitchen, Harry would have thought he was being cruised. "Sitting room's done, Dad," he said, then looked again at Harry. Harry had seen him arrive with the cleaning crew. A little younger than Harry himself, slim, with wide brown eyes, and a nice mouth.
"That's good then, Luke," Mr. Swope said, "How's the upstairs coming?"
Luke shifted, turning sideways in the door, giving Harry a nice view of his arse. "I'll just run check on the crew." He inclined his head. He had an earring in one ear, a tiny gold hoop. "Maybe you could show me around upstairs, Harry?"
Harry shook his head. He should have felt more regretful at turning Luke down. Oddly, Snape's disapproving face came to mind. "Got some work to do down here, thanks all the same." Luke shrugged off being turned down with equanimity and left.
Mr. Swope nodded toward the kitchen fireplace. "Should have this one checked out after the potion's done," he said. Then he inclined his head toward the door when Luke had just gone. "I could send the boy back out here next week. Alone."
Harry pictured Hermione's face if he was caught reneging on the Courtship agreement. "That's all right, Mr. Swope, I'm being Courted. " Harry said.
"Heard something about that," Mr. Swope said, with a shrug. "Nice to see young people taking up the old ways again."
After the noise and bustle of the Floo cleaning team, the house was too quiet again, so Harry was actually looking forward to Snape's return over the weekend. When Saturday passed with no sign of him, Harry felt ridiculously disappointed. He checked the potion several times, though he had no idea what he was looking for.
He decided to have another go at the hole in the roof, and dragged out his broomstick. Fall was heavy in the air as he kicked off the ground. He did a lazy lap around the house, peering into his own window as though looking into a doll's house, before arching over the slate-covered roof where the hole gaped.
The spell on it brightened, glowing vibrant blue before dimming to purple. This close Harry could see that faint yellow sparks shot out from around the edges. The hole it covered was about a meter wide, and Harry noted that the eaves beneath the surrounding slates had rotten away. He was leaning over, taking a closer look when the loud crack and sizzle of the spell sent him spiraling backwards again.
He came to, being shaken awake, with Snape's face over his.
"Ennervate, damn it, Enner --" Snape said, as Harry's eyes fluttered open.
"I'm awake!" Harry said, closing his eyes as rapidly as he'd opened them. "I think," he added, taking stock before opening his eyes again. The brief flash of concern on Snape's face was quickly replaced by anger.
"What were you trying to do, boy?" he said, bringing his face up close and staring hard into Harry's eyes. He held up two fingers. "How many fingers am I holding up?"
"Enough to be rude in a pub," Harry said, pulling himself up. His broomstick lay under his ankle and looked unharmed. He squinted up at the roof, where the blue corona seemed to brighten, then sizzle deliberately in a taunt.
Snape was sitting back on his heels, the long drape of his robe fanning out behind him. "Are you hurt?"
Harry shook his head. "I don't think so. Can you help me stand?" Together they stood up, Snape's arm around his waist. He didn't let go until Harry had tested both ankles and bounced a few times to prove he was all right.
"Let's get you inside," Snape said, but Harry waved off the offered arm this time.
"I'm fine, really," he said.
"You're still chilled," Snape said, closing one hand over Harry's to prove his point. Snape's hand was much warmer than Harry's. He let Snape help him down to the kitchen, then sat down harder than he'd intended in the chair. After a sharp observing look Snape put the kettle on, and Harry didn't even bother his usual affirmation that he preferred coffee. From the look in those black eyes, Harry was one remark away from a blistering lecture.
There weren't any proper teacups, so Snape settled for one of Harry's chipped coffee mugs, glaring at it as though it had no right to hold tea.
Harry took the cup gratefully, feeling warmer already. At least Snape's tea was heartier stuff than the insipid stuff that he disdained.
"I know lecturing you won't do a damn bit of good, but will you at least let *someone* know when you go joy-riding on that broom of yours?" Snape said.
"I wasn't joy-riding!" Harry protested immediately, wrapping his fingers around the warm mug. "I was trying to fix that hole in the roof."
Snape straightened up from examining the fire. "Did it never occur to you such repairs are usually best accomplished from the inside?"
"There's a bat --" Harry began but Snape interrupted.
"A bat?" The thin lips twitched at the corners. "*One* bat?"
"All right, it was an excuse to go flying a bit, and yes, I'll let you know in the future," Harry said, eyeing those corners.
"Any responsible party will do, though I don't suppose you know too many of those do you?" Snape peered into the cauldron. "I suppose since you haven't managed to ruin this, I could check the attic for you." The thinly-veiled smile was back. "For the purposes of bat removal, of course."
Harry stood up, glad that the minor dizziness had passed. "I'll go with you."
They trooped up to the attic, standing close together in the narrow landing outside the door. Harry started to sidle past Snape to go in first, but Snape was already opening the door. Harry peered over his shoulder as the solitary bat, disturbed by their entry, flew out the blue-ringed hole in the roof.
Snape turned to Harry, his expression arch.
"It looked a lot bigger when I came up here by myself," Harry said, following Snape into the now empty loft.
"I'm sure," Snape said, but his attention was no longer focused on baiting Harry. He'd moved under the gap in the roof, standing a respectful distance away. While Harry watched, he sniffed the air. "Probably a Repelling charm, on top of the one binding the slates," Snape said, pulling out his wand. "Albus's work, no doubt." He glanced at Harry. "It will probably take both of us to undo it."
"Er, right, better run get my wand then."
Snape lowered his own wand. If Harry had been spared a lecture on the ill-advisedness of broom riding alone, it was nothing compared to the blistering pre-invective glare he got now.
"Even an idiot like you can't possibly be running around this firetrap without so much as your wand," Snape said, stepping away from the hole. "What are you thinking -- oh, I forgot, not your strongest suit, is it?" Before Harry could even reply, Snape went on, "What happens if you die out here?"
Harry had had enough. "That'll be one less courtship you have to endure, won't it?"
Snape's nostrils flared. "You ungrateful little wretch. Albus is trying to give you something here, and not this ridiculous old ruin."
That caught Harry up short. He'd been turning on his heel, about to storm off in what he hoped looked like a dramatic exit. "What do you mean?"
Really, no one could roll his eyes like Snape. "There are few rituals as old as the Courtship. And fewer still that have so little in common with Muggle culture."
Harry frowned, thinking again of his sneaking suspicion that Albus had been trying to manipulate them with the conditions of his will. "You think he knew we wouldn't agree about the house?" Harry looked around at the empty loft.
"Of course he knew we wouldn't agree about the house. I've lived at Hogwarts for nearly thirty years as student and teacher; what possible reason could there be for me to ever move out?" Snape folded his arms over his chest, his still-drawn wand held at an angle.
"That manipulative old sod," Harry said.
Snape smirked. "Of course."
Harry thought about it as he went to fetch his wand. The bat had returned when he got back to the attic. Snape looked a little guilty, shooing it away with exaggerated impatience. It took two tries but they managed to get the Repelling Charm down. The hole looked a little forlorn without its blue outline as Harry poked his head out of it.
"Thanks," he said. "I'll get the tarp out this afternoon, then board it up tomorrow."
"I'd like to finish the ward potion now, if you don't mind," Snape said.
"Oh, right. I was expecting you yesterday," Harry replied.
"This shouldn't take long," Snape said, looking far too unruffled for an early Sunday morning. Save for the fact that Harry had seen him in his nightshirt, he'd swear that Snape never took his perfectly pressed robes off. "No sense burdening your entire weekend with an unwanted visitor."
Harry stopped short and Snape nearly ran into him. "You aren't unwelcome." Snape gave him a look, obviously perfected over years of listening to 'hippogriff ate my homework' stories. "Even after you sign over your half, you'll still be welcome here. You said yourself, it was what Dumbledore wanted."
He surprised himself with how vehement he felt about this, and Snape as well, to judge from the unguarded surprise reflected there. But Harry sensed the rightness of it and wouldn't be swayed.
Together they checked the potion, though Harry still wasn't certain what he was looking for. It looked green, and thick as though it had boiled down to a syrup. Snape made little pleased noises while he decanted the potion into a large flat-bottomed vial.
"That's it?" Harry asked, when little more than a liter came out of the huge cauldron.
Snape held it up so that it caught the morning sun. The deep green was swirling with dark shades of other colors. Something almost sandy-colored like the stones of the house. Red, like the bricks of the cellar.
"That, Potter, is enough to strengthen the wards around this place for your lifetime." He eyed Harry over the vial. "Provided you do not attract the attention of any more dark wizards with a grudge against you. In which case, this will keep whomever you designate as your own heir safe until you and I are long forgotten."
The mention of the word heir gave Harry an odd feeling. He followed Snape out of the front of the Grange. He'd never really owned much aside from a broomstick and an owl. Something he'd have to pass on. Being not of the breeding population limited his options on that front. Briefly he wondered if Snape had an heir, and how he had solved the problem of not having any children. Harry didn't know if Snape had any family or not; perhaps he had a whole bevy of nephews and nieces to settle things on. He felt momentarily discomfited that he didn't know these things about Snape.
Snape had taken out his wand and now laid it on the ground. He murmured a spell over it and it quivered. Harry wondered if they were going to chase it, but it simply turned, compass-needlelike. Snape picked it up again and repeated the process several times until the wand remained still when he cast the spell.
Snape set down the vial and tucked his wand back into his sleeve. They were still in easy range of the Grange, a little off center. Snape kicked a divot out of the grass where the wand had been. "It would be better if you were in some sort of physical contact with me," he said. He looked uncomfortable but went on. "I will endeavor to make the contact as brief as --"
But Harry slid his hand over Snape's arm, the way he'd done at the Ministry event, then further down when it looked like that would not be quite enough. His hand curled around Snape's. For just a moment the other man went rigid, and Harry wondered if he'd presumed too much.
Then Snape cleared his throat, picked up the potion and poured it into the shallow hole he'd made in the dirt.
"That's it?" Harry asked, when nothing happened. He started to let go.
"Give it a moment," Snape said, squeezing Harry's hand. Suddenly it looked as though the turf was infected with hyperactive gophers. Raised lines in the lawn raced away from their feet, five of them in a fan-shaped arc, ending at the front steps. Then the hillocks flattened and the lawn was smooth again. Still Snape did not release his hand.
Harry was about to ask again when sparks shot up, as if from the ground itself. Dark green ones, laced through with red and yellow. They arced over the house, racing to connect, forming into long strands, bending and wrapping around each other, forming a perfect outline of the Grange itself, done in shifting sparks. The outline shimmered for a long moment, hovering over the house before dissipating in a shower that drifted gently over the house.
"You can let go now," Snape said while Harry was still staring after the sparks.
"What? Oh, right."
"I'll send the house-elves back for the cauldron, if that's acceptable," Snape said, collecting the empty vial.
"Er, yeah, sure," Harry said, becoming aware that Snape was preparing to leave. "You, er, wouldn't like some tea or something?" He forged ahead despite the skeptical look from Snape. "I mean, you came all this way." Harry preferred coffee but he kept tea on hand for visitors, who'd mostly been Ron and Hermione so far.
"So desperate for company already?" Snape said with a sneer that nearly erased all their earlier felicity. "It will only get worse as the weather changes."
"No, I just thought --" Then he shook his head. "Never mind." So, now of course, it looked like Snape was considering it. "Look, I want you to feel at home here. And I'm not lonely. I got used to being on my own when I was traveling, and I don't mind it." He was debating on whether to add a please, when Snape nodded.
Once inside the kitchen, he gestured to Snape to sit, then put the kettle on. "Look," he said, "I'm not an idiot. I know Dumbledore didn't expect us to get married and live happily ever after, but he obviously thought maybe this would help us, you know, get along." He pulled the lid off a tin of biscuits and dumped them onto a plate. Then he sat down and looked at Snape. "I'm willing to try, for his sake, if you are." The kettle boiled, and he jumped up to finish their tea.
"I'm willing to concede that this is not the most ridiculous idea Albus ever came up with," Snape said, when Harry handed him his cup.
It wasn't much, but it was a start. "So, what's next on the Courting schedule?"
"That depends," Snape said, accepting the change of subject without protest. "Do you have any relations I should attempt to contact for permission to woo you?"
Harry laughed and shook his head, trying to imagine Aunt Petunia's face if Snape showed up on her doorstep. "All alone in the world," he said, trying one of the biscuits.
Snape leaned back in his chair. "Granger assures me I can leave off composing a ballade in your honor if I can render one compliment and mean it." The black eyes fixed on Harry's face as if searching for some feature to praise.
"This should be interesting," Harry said, a pleasant thrill of anticipation going through him.
"You are not as annoying as an adult as you were as a child," Snape said, hiding even the slight smile behind his teacup.
Harry laughed. "I'm pretty sure that's not what Hermione meant."
Snape's mouth twitched. "I'll have to give it some more thought, then."
In the spirit of their newfound harmony, Harry said, "Come on now, it can't be that difficult." He pretended to think it over. "What about my mouth?" He stuck out his lips and flattened them.
Snape cocked one eyebrow at him. "It always makes me think something impudent is going to come out of it. Like now, for example."
Harry batted his eyelashes. "My eyes? Always good for a compliment, even the insincere sort."
Snape took a slow, considering, sip of his tea. "Much too mischievous by half. Always made me think you were up to something."
Harry pretended to look hurt. "You're crushing my ego," he said, giving a mock pout.
"You'll recover," Snape said, finishing his tea and standing. "You always did."
Which may, Harry considered, as Snape Apparated away, the most sincerely meant compliment of all.
~~**~~
He had quite a different sort of visitor the next weekend. He was lying in bed, debating about having a lie in for another hour, when he heard something outside his window, then something directly on his window as several pebbles skittered across the heavy glass.
Harry leaped out of bed and grabbed his wand before he threw open the sash.
"There's the lord of the manor," a familiar voice cried from the balcony below.
Harry scrubbed his face and realized he didn't have his glasses on. "George!" he said, once he slid them in place, "What are you --" He squinted. "All of you doing here?" Two more red heads lounged about his balcony. Was that -- ? Harry's face broke out into a wide grin. "Neville? Is that really you?"
Neville, talking to Hermione, and pointing out over the garden, waved up at Harry.
"Get your arse down here, mate, there's work to be done," Ron said.
Harry wasted no time getting dressed and down to the balcony. He'd seen Fred and George when he'd gotten back to the country, but hadn't seen Neville since the funeral last year.
"We're going to do something about this garden before winter sets in," Neville said. "It's a shame how neglected it is."
"I know," Harry admitted. "It's on my list of things to tackle." His gaze swept the sagging roof. "When I have time."
"Good thing for you we have the time," George said. He threw something between the orange cones on the balcony, then cocked his head as if listening.
"You lot don't have to do this," Harry said, absurdly grateful that they were here.
"Of course we don't," Fred said.
"If we did, we'd make all manner of excuses not to," George said.
"Stop taking your Floo calls," said Fred.
"Maybe even leave the country," said George. He'd given up on the hole in the balcony and cuffed Harry around the neck. "Like some blokes who ought to know they can never get away from Mum that way."
"Speaking of Mum," Fred said, gesturing toward a canvas rucksack. "She's sent provisions."
"Harry," George interrupted, peering out across the lawn. "Is that fountain really as horrible as it looks?"
"It really is," Harry said with a grin.
"What is it?" Fred asked, coming to stand beside his brother.
"Muggles have these things called mutations," George said, tilting his head to study the copper ornament. "Reckon it's one of them."
Harry rolled his eyes. "It's a bumblebee, you dolts."
They spent all morning working, Neville directing them like a general commanding his troops. "No, not that one, Ron," he said, "That's part of the border." Ron dropped the cabbage-like plant and looked around. "Why don't you start clearing away those pumpkin vines?"
"I've got pumpkin vines?" Harry asked, dismounting from his broom. He and Hermione had just pulled something particularly nasty out of the ground from aloft and Hermione was adding it to the pile of brush they were going to burn.
"You do," Neville said, pointing. "See there, along the border of the octagonal garden?"
"I've got an octagonal garden?"
Neville rolled his eyes heavenward as if appealing to the gods of good gardeners everywhere. "You're standing in it," he said. "Over there, around the fountain, is the round garden, and there -- " He pointed to where George was writhing, trapped inside some devil's snare. As they watched, Fred stopped laughing long enough to help his brother out of the tangle. "Is your triangle garden. It's got herbs in it." He looked over at Harry. "There's five all together, to match the windows in front. You didn't know?"
Harry sighed. "I guess I never really looked before."
They broke briefly for lunch and put a huge dent in Mrs. Weasley's offerings, then got back to work. Now that they'd got a lot of the thick underbrush cleared away, Harry could see the pattern of it. Furthest from the house was the diamond-shaped garden, with the folly nearly at the pointed tip. Closest to the house was the half circle that mirrored the center window in the front of the house. Harry felt like an idiot for not noticing before now.
Harry heard shouting and let himself be dragged into an impromptu Quidditch match, using pumpkins for bludgers. Hermione made a good Keeper, guarding the folly that stood in as the goalpost with steely determination. Even Neville got on a broom, using one of Mrs. Weasley's apples as a snitch, throwing it at Harry then Accio-ing it back so he couldn't catch it. They were all laughing at the vegetable carnage as splattered pumpkins piled up on the brick paths below. It wasn't until Ron threw a particularly rotten one at his brother, sending up a stench none of them could ignore that the game broke up.
They cast a desiccation spell on the huge pile of brush, then stacked cordwood around it and set it alight. Hermione Scourgified the pumpkin-splattered path and before Harry knew it, he was looking at a garden. Or the rudimentary outlines of one.
"This one will start blooming first, come spring," Neville said, pointing across the park. "By high summer you'll have roses as tall as you are." They were on the balcony, the best vantage point to see the outlines of the shaped garden borders. "If you're going to stay here, you should put in an orchard, just there, to balance it all out."
Ron called them from the kitchen, through the hole in the balcony. The rest of their group had gone down to the kitchen to transfigure more wood into chairs so they could all sit at the table.
"Of course I'm staying," Harry said, trooping into the kitchen. Even after feeding the lot of them, Mrs. Weasley's rucksack was still mostly full. "Why else go through this Courting nonsense?"
Hermione looked like she wanted to say something, but George said, "We had an uncle once who was Courted by a bloke."
"Great Uncle Heinous," Fred said, piling cheese on his sandwich.
"Uncle Dill gave him a square cut emerald," said George, adding one more slice of cheese than Fred.
"I think he sold it when that investment scheme went bust," said Fred.
"What did Snape give you?" George asked. "For a token," he added, when Harry looked blank.
"He doesn't have to give me anything," he said, feeling at sea as he usually did when he'd been away from the twins conversational style too long.
"Actually, he does," Hermione said, "It's part of the ritual."
"I don't want anything," Harry protested.
"It's just a token." She settled back in her own chair. "Really."
Neville helped himself to cold cuts. "How did you get involved in all this, Hermione?"
She shrugged. "Professor Dumbledore asked me to look into the Ritual, though I didn't know he was planning on using it on Harry. I suppose he trusted me to be fair. To carry out the spirit if not the actual constraints of the ritual." She nibbled on one of Mrs. Weasley's pumpkin rolls.
"And doing a fine job," Ron put in, patting her arm before he sat down.
"Has he done that French thing, Harry?" George asked, waggling his eyebrows.
"Er, pardon?" Harry asked, having a brief but surprisingly vivid image of he and Snape doing something with the word French in it.
"The ballade," Neville put in. Everyone looked at him. "My Gran was Courted. By my grandfather, I mean, not, er -- "
"That's a fancy French poem, isn't it?" came Ron to the rescue.
"I told Professor Snape he could skip that part if he complimented Harry and really meant it," said Hermione, nodding.
It was suddenly Harry's turn under the spotlight of their regard.
"Did he tell you what a cute bum you have?" said George.
"Or that your eyes are like limpid pools of diced dung beetles?" said Fred, batting his eyelashes at Harry.
"What *did* he tell you, Harry?" asked Neville, amid the laughter.
Harry's expression was wry. "That I'm much less annoying now than I was when I was a kid."
"That's Snape all right," Ron said. Hermione frowned at both of them, but remained silent.
"So, no token, no ballade," George said, taking a sip of butterbeer that had not been sent by his mum. "Seems to be you're getting the short end of this Courting business."
Fred made a comment under his breath that made Neville blush, but Harry ignored him.
"What about the wild boar then?" George pressed.
Harry was about to get uncharacteristically defensive on Snape's behalf when Hermione cut in. "I told Professor Snape he wouldn't have to slay a wild boar and roast it in Harry's honor if he took Harry out to dinner." She made sure to look Harry straight in the eye. "In public, mind. Don't let him off too easy."
Harry nodded, because it seemed the thing to do.
Fred snorted derisively. "You're making him miss out on all the best stuff, Hermione."
Privately Harry thought there were worse things than missing out on a boar roast.
"He won't have any fun this way," Fred went on, elbowing Neville suggestively.
Harry's gaze swiveled to Hermione. To his chagrin, she looked indecisive.
He cornered her later, while the twins were paying penance by cleaning the kitchen. They were leaning over the half-door that led to the still mostly empty larder. "Look, shouldn't I have a copy of this ritual?"
Hermione looked thoughtful. More thoughtful. "Well, technically the maiden -- don't look at me like that, I didn't make up the ritual -- the maiden isn't supposed to know what's going to happen. To maintain the polite fiction that this is a romantic endeavor rather than a business proposition."
They both flinched as something crashed in the kitchen. Fred's head popped around the doorframe. He smiled too brightly then yelped and ducked back inside.
Hermione shook her head. "I suppose I can get you a copy if you want one. The ritual is a matter of public record."
He sighed heavily as another crash and a word that had never been heard in Molly Weasley's kitchen drifted out. George's head poked out this time. "Either of you seen Neville?" He looked nervously over his shoulder.
"Nope," said Harry.
"Not since dinner," Hermione said. "He might be out on the balcony with Ron."
George nodded and ran up the stairs.
From inside the kitchen, Fred's voice shot out. "You can't just leave me with --" Fred skidded into the doorway, looking down the corridor where his brother had vanished. "Er, Neville?"
"Balcony," Harry and Hermione said at the same time.
"So anyway, Harry," Hermione said. "I'm trying to adapt a lot of the original ritual to suit your particular needs. For instance, you don't exactly need him to settle a bride-price on your aunt's family, so we skipped that part. I don't think Dumbledore would mind."
There was another noise in the kitchen, despite it being currently unoccupied. Something was moving around in there. Something big.
"I don't want you to feel short-changed," she said, raising her voice slightly over the noise.
"I don't," Harry assured her. "I mean, this isn't as though we're actually --"
A clatter arose on the stone stair. Neville, followed closely by Ron and Fred then George, was running down the steps, sparing barely a glance at Harry and Hermione across the corridor as they pounded into the kitchen.
"Lumos!" Neville shouted and something sizzled. Harry smelled ozone.
Harry leaned on the edge of the door. "I suppose I'll just wait and see how it all plays out." He smiled at Hermione over the shout of spells inside the kitchen. "Wouldn't want my life to be too predictable."
~~**~~
He didn't see Snape until Sunday afternoon. The house had been deadly quiet since the impromptu party's departure this morning. Harry had spent most of the day scrubbing up the scorch marks in the kitchen.
When the doorknocker sounded, Harry grabbed a rag to dry his hands and met Snape by the door. "Come see the gardens!" he said, tugging Snape by the sleeve out onto the balcony. He was pointing out the uncovered borders before he realized he'd never let go of Snape's arm.
"I don't suppose you've come to look at the gardens," he said ruefully before releasing Snape's arm.
"They do look better than I expected," Snape admitted, leaning one hip on the stone parapet. "Actually my next requirement is to slay a wild boar and roast it in your honor, but Granger assures me that if I make a suitably cutting remark to Hagrid, I may be excused."
Harry laughed, wondering if he'd just always missed the dry humor in Snape's voice, or if this was new. "She never said any such thing. She said you have to take me out to dinner and I accept." He looked at his watch. "Where are we going?"
Snape looked disconcerted. "You want to go now?"
"Why not? I'll even eat a pork chop if it will help square you with the Wild Boar Overlook Committee." He looked down at the sorry state of his clothes. "Let me just make myself presentable."
Halfway through dinner, Harry realized he was having a good time. He'd already made a note to tell Hermione that Snape hadn't tried to cry off with a private dinner, but had taken him out. He was lingering over dessert when he realized he didn't want the evening to end. Unlike their only other public outing, Snape's attention was clearly focused on Harry. And unlike that other event, Harry was very much enjoying it. It was probably some requirement of the ritual, Harry knew, but it was the only serious attention he'd had from a man in a while. Even though it was Snape, it was nice.
Once back at the Grange Harry invited Snape in for coffee, which he refused, then tea, which he accepted. Harry dragged out the rough drawings he'd made of the changes he wanted to make in the floor plan once the structural repairs had been finished.
"You are planning on staying," Snape said. His long robes trailed over the bricks in the floor, and Harry was glad he'd swept up this morning.
It was the second time in two days someone had questioned his motives. Harry considered his reply carefully. "Sometimes fate or destiny or whatever hands you what you need at exactly the moment you need it." His gaze swept the solid stones of the kitchen. "A house-sized sword of Gryffindor."
Snape looked like he was considering that cutting remark when Harry forged ahead. "Why don't you want this place?" he asked, sitting back in his own chair.
Snape looked like he was choosing his reply carefully too, which surprised Harry. "It would be impractical," Snape admitted at last. "I've no need of a house when I live at school nearly ten months a year."
Harry wanted to ask what he did the rest of the year but asked instead, "Why do you think Albus left it to you then?" He leaned forward over the table, noticing he'd missed a tiny scorch mark. "I mean, he, of all people, knew you didn't need a house."
Snape set down his teacup very deliberately, not looking at Harry. "Just another of Dumbledore's follies."
He kept looking for Snape all the next weekend, and was vaguely disappointed when no knock sounded at the door. He was stoking the kitchen fire, trying to decide between soup and a sandwich or just a sandwich when the great boom of the knocker sounded through the house. Harry had oiled it first thing Monday so it no longer squeaked.
"You're just in time for dinner," Harry said, shutting the heavy door behind Snape. "Unless you'd like to go out again?" he added hopefully.
"This shan't take long," Snape said, stepping inside. "I won't keep you from your dinner."
"Oh," Harry said, disappointed. After last weekend, this week had been very quiet, and even Snape would have been welcome company.
Snape was pulling something from his robes. It was a bottle, and for just a moment Harry thought it was an odd-sized potion bottle.
"I'm required to present you with a token of our pending --" Snape looked down at the bottle then thrust it into Harry's hand.
For once though Harry was thinking like a wizard, not a Muggle. It was a bottle of wine. "Thank you," he said, peering at the label. There were no words on it, just a simple drawing of the lake as seen from Hogwarts.
Snape seemed to be waiting for something but Harry couldn't think of anything besides a thanks so he repeated it. Then he thought of something. "Oh! I have something for you too." He clattered down the steps to the kitchen then came back up quickly. He thrust something into Snape's hand.
It was a brass key.
Snape stared at it.
"For the front door," Harry said, then when Snape still didn't say anything. "I thought this way you, er, wouldn't have to knock."
Snape looked up finally. Harry got the feeling a mask had slipped into place. With a tight nod, Snape turned and left in a flutter of robes.
Now Harry got the feeling he'd really fucked up, only he couldn't imagine how. One way to find out.
He materialized in Ron's kitchen. Ron, as he'd hoped, wasn't alone.
"Oh, yes," Hermione said, her voice breathless. No wonder, with Ron bending her over the counter like that, fingers fumbling with the buttons of her blouse. Harry cleared his throat.
"Wha --?"
"Harry!" Hermione blinked a few times and attempted to straighten up. Ron finally got the message, though his lips were still frozen in a pucker poised over Hermione's neck.
Doing up the top buttons of her blouse, Hermione stepped away from the counter. "It's good to see you," she said, giving him a quick peck on the cheek.
"Sorry, hope I'm not interrupting anything," he said, trying to look innocent and knowing he was probably failing.
"Actually --" Ron began.
"Of course not. We were just, er, fixing dinner," Hermione said. Really, she was awfully pretty when she blushed. "You'll stay of course?" She began doing dinner-y things, as if to give her hands something to do. "I heard Severus took you out last week. One step further along."
"I've brought the wine," Harry said, as Ron began dumping pasta through the strainer. "Actually, that's what I wanted to ask about."
Hermione peered at the bottle. She gave Harry a quick inscrutable glance. "What have you done now?"
"I knew it!" Harry said, shoulders slumping. "I've cocked this up somehow, haven't I?" He told them about Snape's brief visit and the persistent feeling that he'd disappointed Snape.
"He gave you a bottle of his wine?" Ron asked, as they settled around the table. He Accio'd a corkscrew and set it to work with his wand.
"His wine? Does he collect it?"
Two sets of pitying eyes turned in his direction. "He doesn't collect it," Hermione said, patting his arm. "He makes it."
"Grows the grapes at school, right?" Ron said, wiggling the cork free at last. "Though I hear Sprout's not happy about the loss of one of her greenhouses and all the charms needed to keep grapes going so far north."
The wine was just about the best Harry had ever tasted. They finished off the bottle between heaping plates of pasta then he looked at the bottle. "So, what did I do wrong? Am I supposed to give him a token too?"
Hermione looked thoughtful, but she nearly always did. "No, you're just supposed to receive it."
Harry still thought he was missing something. "What is it you aren't telling me?"
"I've told you all I can about the ritual," she said, giving Ron a grateful look as he began clearing away. She exhaled loudly. "I suppose when you said you had something for him he might have, I don't know, got his hopes up."
"Hopes for what?" Harry asked, thinking there was something he didn't understand about the Courtship.
"Still a bit inscrutable, isn't he?" Ron said. "Never gives anything away." He held up the empty wine bottle. "Except this. Think maybe you could get us a few more bottles before Christmas? Mum would like that."
"Oh, Ronald," Hermione said.
When Harry got home he sat down to write a thank you note to Snape.
"Dear Sir," it began until he scratched it out. They were getting *married*. He was not some Regency maiden, quivering for a kind word from her master. Master gave him an odd tingling feeling that he didn't want to analyze, so he wrote, "Dear Severus," instead.
It looked odd to write the man's name on paper. Harry studied it, then bunched up the writing paper and started again.
When he'd penned something he was pleased with he studied it again. Then he added, "I am leaving this week to purchase rugs for the stone floors." He wasn't sure why he wanted Snape to know that, but he didn't want Snape to show up and not find him.
He left the dreary gray skies of England, after putting down a depressingly large number of buckets in case the roof leaked while he was gone, for the clear sunny skies of the mid-east. He gave himself time to wander through Egypt's version of Diagon Alley -- an open-air bazaar -- before meeting up with Ali Al-Kaoud, purveyor of fine rugs and linens of all sorts.
He'd missed this. No worries, no responsibilities beyond those of deciding which patterned rug would look the best in each room. He took thick coffee with Mr. Al-Kaoud while they poured over tassels. Selim, Mr. Al-Kaoud's oldest son, cornered him behind a loom, asking if he'd like a private rug inspection. Harry smiled and declined, thinking he'd missed that too, though it wasn't until his last day as their guest that he realized with his hooked nose and long hair, Selim could be a younger, swarthier version of Snape. The thought sent an unaccustomed wave of homesickness through him, though it was the first time he'd ever had a real home *to* long to return to.
Once back at Pendleberry Grange he was relieved to see that none of the buckets appeared to have been needed. He unpacked the things he'd bought at the bazaar. A few days later the house-elves from Mr. Al-Kaoud's staff arrived to install the rugs. They wore tea towels woven in the same extraordinary patterns as the carpets, bound round their waists with silk tassels. The head elf wore a tiny green fez with a matching tassel. There were several more packages along with the carpets, things Harry had ordered or had not been able to bring back by himself.
He went inside to fix himself some of Mr. Al-Kaoud's coffee. Once evening fell he went from room to room again, admiring his new carpets. He was especially proud of the one he'd picked out for what he thought of as Snape's room, though the man had only spent one night in it. The carpet had a cunningly worked snake border, with green predominating in the rest of the rug. Harry had no experience buying furniture, but he thought a heavy canopied four-poster, the sort they had at Hogwarts, would look all right in here.
He feasted on thick lentil stew, though it tasted odd washed down with pumpkin juice and not the hibiscus tea he'd enjoyed at the Al-Kaoud table. Then he wrote letters to let everyone know he was back.
The next night he was sitting down to leftover lentil stew when he heard a sound he'd never heard before. The key turning in the lock.
Harry jumped up from the table and ran to the front hall just as Snape was letting himself in. Snape's hair was in disarray as though he'd been running a hand through it, but both his hands were full. One held the brass key and the other a crumpled piece of paper.
"Are you dying?" Snape asked, looming over him and squinting down into his eyes. "Do you know what's causing it?" He crammed the key in one pocket and reached over to Harry's face, pulling down the lower lid of his eye.
"Hey!" Harry yelped.
"How long do you have? Why didn't you come to me earlier?" Snape released his eyelid with a snap.
"I'm not dying," Harry said, but he wasn't sure Snape had heard. "At least not faster than anybody else."
"What's all this, then?" Snape asked, brandishing the crumpled bit of paper in his fist.
Harry peeled it out of Snape's hand. "An invitation to dinner?" He looked up at Snape curiously. "Do I have to be dying to invite you over?"
Apparently he did. Snape did not look happy. "I wanted to show you the carpet I got for your room," Harry said, knowing now why Hermione had always complained that his letters home were too terse. Snape still wasn't saying anything, so Harry just grabbed him by the arm and led him up the stairs.
"I thought it was perfect," he said when they got to the doorway of Snape's room. Harry stood back. "I know you don't really live here, but I thought maybe if you, you know, had a place --" He sighed. "This was a stupid idea, wasn't it?"
Snape, whose gaze had dropped to the lushly patterned snake rug, finally looked up. This time the unguarded look lasted longer, but not long enough for Harry to puzzle out what lay behind it. "There's one almost like it in the Slytherin common room," he said.
"That's where I'd seen it," Harry said softly, earning himself a stern look.
"The one there is dreadfully faded. Probably hundreds of years old. This looks like it just came off the loom."
Harry's days with the weaving family had rubbed off on him in a newfound appreciation for the complexities of the art. He strode into the otherwise bare room and squatted. "This year, Mr. Al-Kaoud said." He ran a hand over the thick pile. He cocked his head up at Snape who took the few steps over to join him. "See how thick it is. They have this fantastic technique for doubling up the threads." He pulled some of the tightly-woven strands apart and looked up again. Snape was kneeling beside him, actually listening to Harry's explanation of what he'd learned.
A sudden whisper of Selim Al-Kaoud's offer of a private carpet inspection shot into his brain, and he had the mad vision of himself and Snape engaged in the sorts of activities Selim had been proposing. You've been alone too long, Harry, he told himself sternly, if being this close to Snape --
But it wasn't awful. It was nice. Harry could smell hints of sandlewood on the other man, that reminded him of his recent trip. Nothing else about Snape though could ever remind anyone of clear blue skies and heated winds. Harry shook off the sudden creeping languor that presaged arousal. He shot to his feet, then extended a hand to help Snape up, which was refused with a disdainful glare.
"So, how about that dinner? I'm having leftover lentil stew but you're welcome to share. Mrs. Al-Kaoud could give a few lessons to Mrs. Weasley --" He turned toward the door, but Snape stopped him with a touch to his arm. Harry turned back.
"Thank you."
Pleased embarrassment flooded through him. He nodded and Snape released his arm.
Once Snape got a look at the stew, he decreed that they should go out. Again, Harry enjoyed himself, only a bit uncomfortable when the management of the restaurant sent over a complimentary bottle of champagne with their dinner with a note congratulating them on their Courting and impending nuptials.
The champagne was dismal, but Harry took a few sips to be polite. It seemed to placate the watching staff, and when he raised a glass toward them, pleased smiles broke out all around.
Harry leaned over the table. "Your stuff is loads better," he whispered.
"How did you know I made it?" Snape asked, but before Harry had a chance to answer, he answered his own question. "Hermione," he said, nearly under his breath.
It was the first time Harry had heard him use her first name. "It isn't a secret, is it?" he asked, thinking he'd told Ron, which meant the whole Weasley clan would know by now.
"It isn't well known," Snape said. "The vintages are very small."
"I, er, might have mentioned it to Ron as well," Harry confessed, though he wasn't sure why it felt like a confession.
Snape made a dismissive gesture. "Miss Granger has already asked me for a bottle for the Weasley Christmas gathering."
Smiling with relief, Harry asked, "Just one?"
"She knows better."
They Apparated back to the Grange after dinner, and when it looked like Snape would simply leave, Harry invited him in for coffee again. "I brought this back from Egypt," he said, "At least give it a try."
"Heathen stuff," Snape said, but allowed himself to be led down to the kitchen where Harry put the kettle on. Once it was done, Snape pronounced it merely passable, but he drank the whole cup.
"Oh!" Harry said, "I nearly forgot." He apologized before running upstairs for one of the cloth-covered bundles he'd brought back from Egypt.
Snape was standing when Harry got back down to the kitchen, but turned around when he heard Harry. "I didn't know if I would see you for Christmas, so I thought I could give it to you a bit early." He thrust the package into Snape's hand.
It was a carving of the folly. The tip emerged from the cloth first, the tiny window perfectly proportionate to the tower. Snape turned it over in his hand.
"There was a carver in the Khafir bazaar who could do anything. I described our folly to him, and he sketched it out in the sand while I watched, then carved it for me. For you, I mean." Harry leaned in to show him how exquisite the detail was. For a moment they got their arms tangled up, and Harry started to laugh as he looked up.
Then, he was leaning up and Snape was leaning down and their mouths met somewhere in the middle. Harry felt the carving poke him as Snape wrapped his arms around him, as though trying to hold onto Harry in case he changed his mind.
Harry was changing his mind about some things, but kissing Snape wasn't even remotely on the list. Snape's lips were warm against his, but Harry felt like shivering, straining toward him. Asking for more.
Suddenly, Snape was pushing him away, staring at him as though Harry had grown boils.
"I'm sorry," he said, pressing his lips together as if to dry them. His whole face had gone pale.
"Why?"
"We can't, even if you wanted to. We can't." He stared down at the carved folly in his hands and tucked the cloth back around it. "I can't."
Harry's hand closed over the gift. "Take it," he said, letting his fingers brush Snape's. He wanted to linger there, to examine this moment, but Snape was straightening, even though his back had to be broomstick straight already.
"I'll relinquish my claim to the property at once," Snape said, voice rough. "I'll send the papers over as soon as I return to --"
"No!" Harry said, fingers gripping Snape's wrist.
"Let go."
Harry did. "You don't have to give up your claim because of -- of a kiss." Even a kiss as good as that one. Parts of him were only now getting the message that they would not be needed as expected.
"I was trying to coerce you, sedu -- manipulate you into doing what I wanted."
Harry laughed. He couldn't help it. "No you weren't." He could tell the kiss had taken Snape off guard as much as it had Harry. "Were you?"
Snape didn't answer. Instead he looked at the carving in his hand. "I don't have anything for you."
Harry lifted up on tiptoe and brushed a very light kiss on Snape's cheek. It wasn't as natural as their earlier one, but it was less awkward than he'd thought. "Let's just say we caught each other off guard tonight."
Harry thought he needed a bit of space to sort this out. Or a long talk with Hermione Granger.
He got his chance at the Weasley family Christmas. He'd been fussed over and grilled by various Weasleys according to interrogation technique and was nursing a truly horrible eggnog when Hermione leaned up and kissed him on the cheek.
"That was very sweet, what you did," she said.
"What? Me?"
"I heard what you gave Severus for Christmas."
A slow grin settled onto his face. "You two are awfully chummy. Did he tell you what he gave me?"
A puzzled look replaced her approving one. "He said you caught him off guard," she said as if wanting to take back her earlier kiss.
"Didn't stop him from kissing me for it," Harry said with a smirk.
Hermione gasped loud enough to stop several cheerful conversations around them. She smiled distractedly and grabbed Harry by the elbow until they were beside Mrs. Weasley's potted fern. "He kissed you?"
"It was fairly mutual," Harry corrected. "Er, is that allowed? A kiss I mean? I don't reckon he meant to. It just sort of happened."
"Of course it's allowed," she said. "As long as he doesn't, er, compromise your virtue."
Harry chuckled and took another drink of his eggnog before he remembered how horrible it was. "I don't think it'll ever get to that, not the way he feels about me."
Hermione didn't say anything for a moment, and Harry looked over to make sure she was still listening. "He doesn't hate you, you know," she said, looking down at the fronds of the fern.
"Well, he isn't fond of me," Harry said, but he couldn't think of any examples where Snape had been openly hostile since learning about their mutual inheritance. Well, Harry did have something he wanted, after all.
Hermione pressed her lips together, the way she always used to when she wanted to answer the question in class, but had already answered all the others and had been directed to give the other students a chance. "He did kiss you," she said.
Harry had given that fact a great deal of thought. It had seemed of great import at the time, the easy way he'd slid into Snape's arms, the blending of their mouths. The answer had come to him though. "Hermione, we've both been, er, without other outlets for several months now due to this Courting thing. Unless he's cheating, he's got to be feeling pretty hard up by now." He shrugged. "I've been a port in a storm before. Never thought I'd be Snape's though."
He didn't see Snape again or let himself think about the kiss until both Snape and Hermione showed up one Saturday morning, not long after term had started again. Hermione had a piece of parchment in her hand.
"Hallo, Harry," she said, giving him her usual kiss on the cheek in greeting, then looking at Snape as if to ask if he wanted to go next. Snape glared at her, and she looked down at her parchment. "We've got a point of procedure we need to ask you about, if you have a moment." She stopped and took a deep breath and wrinkled her nose. "What smells?" She leaned closer to Harry and sniffed.
"Must be me. I've been working in the smoke room." He wiped his forehead off and got a bit of grit on his sleeve. Wordlessly Snape handed him a spotless handkerchief. Harry smiled his thanks. "Shoring up the brick work below stairs." Hermione was looking at him blankly, and he sighed. "Come on down."
Hermione took over making tea, poking her head in Harry's newly re-bricked larder, before shooing them away while she put the kettle on. Harry looked at Snape and shared an amicable look at the inexplicableness of women. They could hear her clattering in the kitchen so Harry dragged Snape down the stone corridor to show him what he'd been up to.
When they got to the wine cellar Snape unhooked the half door and pulled the single empty bottle from the diamond-shaped holder built into the wall. "Why do you still have this if it's empty?" It was the bottle Snape had given Harry as his token.
Harry ran a hand through his hair and shook a bit more grit out. He was still holding Snape's handkerchief. "You gave it to me as part of the ritual." He tried to give the handkerchief back but Snape's withering look made him twist it his hands. "Seems like something I ought to keep."
"Nonsense," Snape said, but he put the bottle back in its solitary spot. "I'll get you a full one, as many as you like."
"No," Harry said, earning himself another glare. "Er, that is unless you'd like to come by and share it with me for dinner, I mean."
Snape nodded and seemed just about to say something when Hermione popped her head out of the kitchen and called down the corridor. "Tea's on!"
Once they settled around the table, Hermione drew out her list again. "We've been having a --" She cast a glance over at Snape, "friendly disagreement on one of the requirements."
Harry had been wondering what came next. "Which requirement?"
"Severus has to prove that he can defend your honor against all comers. In the old days of course they'd just hold a tournament, and he'd have to defeat all challengers."
"Or kill a dragon," Snape added, "which is a perfectly acceptable alternative."
"No dragon killing," Hermione said with a slight shudder. "The proviso is horrible."
"What proviso?" Harry asked, though he had a feeling he'd regret it.
Snape made a negligent gesture. "The proviso is that I'd have to present the still-beating heart of the beast to your ladies in waiting. Since you have none, the option is hardly practical. Pity. Dragon parts are useful in potions."
Harry made a face. "What would ladies in waiting *want* with a dragon's heart?"
Snape crossed his legs, letting his robe drape along the floor. "It's best not to question the motives of ladies in waiting too closely." He pointedly avoided looking at Hermione.
Who cleared her throat, clutching her parchment. "The point *is* that we need to adapt this particular requirement to everyone's satisfaction. I've proposed a Spell Duel, -- which Severus has agreed to. Since I'm one of the judges, I suggested a Transfiguration duel, which Severus has also agreed to." Here, her chipper expression faltered. "It's the nature of the champion where we disagree."
"Just pick someone, let them duel it out and move on to the next requirement," Harry suggested, already knowing Hermione would be aghast at his suggestion.
"We can't pick just *anyone*, Harry," she said, suitably aghast, holding the parchment like a shield. She saw his attempt at hiding his grin and relented. "You aren't taking this very seriously," she said reprovingly.
"Potter doesn't take anything seriously," Snape said, only now Harry felt color rushing into his face.
"I do!" he said. Impulsively, he reached over and gave Snape's arm a squeeze, knowing he'd get a glare for it, but figuring it was worth it. He did, and it was. He put on his 'responsible home owner' expression. "Why don't you tell me what point I'm not getting then?"
Hermione looked at him with approval, but the Snape's expression clearly said the Wizengamot was still out. "Well, I think we should pick someone for the job, whether they're any good at Transfiguration or not. I mean, the point is just to show that Severus is willing and able to defend Harry, not that he's some sort of Dueling Champion."
"And I say, if I don't get a shot at a dragon, you may as well make it challenging," Snape said, though Harry saw the amused glint in his eyes.
Harry shrugged. "Why not then?"
Hermione's gaze slid over to Snape then looked at the parchment again. "Well, suppose he, er, loses?"
Harry saw by the thinning of Snape's already noticeably thin lips, that this was the point of contention. Taking a page from Hermione's book he said, "What does it say in the ritual?"
Hermione sighed. "The ritual assumes that the Supplicant -- that's Severus -- either is killed or incapacitated in the quest to prove himself. We're modifying that of course, but I'm not sure --" She peered down at the parchment as if it would produce the answer.
"We agreed to let Harry decide," Snape said to Hermione, and Harry tried not to let his surprise at being mentioned by his first name show. Snape seemed to avoid calling him anything except Potter.
"You aren't going to try to lose on purpose to try to get out of finishing the Courting are you?" Harry asked, and got his answer in the expressive roll of Snape's eyes. He leaned over the table, almost daring to lay his hand on Snape's, but not sure he could get away with it again. "You won't lose, will you?"
"No."
Harry leaned back in his chair, satisfied. "That's settled then."
"Well, we still have to decide on your Challenger," Hermione pointed out.
"How about Ron? He's not bad at Transfiguration," Harry said.
"We've dismissed him," Snape said, leaving Harry to wonder exactly how much Snape and Hermione talked about this when he wasn't present.
"That would hardly be fair since I'm one of the judges," Hermione pointed out. "Though someone else in the family is really fierce at Transfiguration." She looked to Snape, and Harry saw something pass between them.
"Just so," Snape said, leaving Harry unenlightened.
"Ginny," Hermione explained, nodding. "She's as fierce a competitor as any Slytherin, and she'd do it for Harry. In a little sisterly sort of way," she hastened to add, and looked like she wanted to pat either Snape or Harry on the shoulder but wasn't sure which. She gave it up and said, "Glad that's settled then. I'll get to work on the arrangements, though I think we should wait till it warms up a bit to hold the contest."
Snape was about to stand up, and Harry did lay a hand on his arm. "About that dinner," he said, "How about tonight? I've got a decorator coming in this afternoon. Maybe you could come by early?" When Snape looked unconvinced, Harry went on, aware that Hermione was watching them avidly. "You can help me decide what to put in your room, what would look best with the new carpet." Under the table he gave Hermione what he hoped was a 'get lost' nudge.
She straightened up in her chair, blinking. "I, er, should go take a look. At the carpet, I mean. Be back in a bit." She pushed away from the table. "Though not *too* soon of course." She stood up abruptly, and both Harry and Snape shot to their feet. "Right then. Carry on."
Harry made sure he heard the click of her heels on the stone floor. "You will come to dinner, at least, won't you? I mean, we are supposed to be getting to know each other, and we've hardly done more than --" He'd been going to say 'done more than kiss' when he realized how close they were standing, how much it looked like Snape wanted to kiss him again, and how much Harry wasn't minding. Was it simple curiosity, to see if that sweetness was merely a fluke? Then the moment passed, and Harry felt almost disappointed.
"All right," Snape agreed, "But I'll make dinner here."
"You can cook?"
"If you aren't too fussy."
"I'm not." Harry made a face. "I've been living on bread crusts and moldy cheese since I moved in."
"I see your talent for exaggeration has not decreased in the years you've spent not having to make up excuses for why your Potions essay wasn't on time."
"Hey, a hippogriff really *did* eat my homework that time --"
They met up with Hermione in the front hall just as she was coming down the stairs. She looked at Harry curiously. "I'll see you this afternoon then," he said to Snape, then headed back down to the cellar and his bricks and mortar.
Snape was just letting himself in the front door with his key as Selkirk Fettes, the decorator Harry had consulted, was admiring the front entrance hall.
"I'm thinking of a hunting theme here," the interior designer was saying, waving his hands to encompass the curve of the hall. "Perhaps hang a wild boar's head over the stair." He glanced at Snape. "That of course, will have to go." It was a moment before Harry realized he was talking about the bumblebee-shaped doorknocker and not Snape.
"Really you have such an amazing space here, Neville," Fettes said, taking half a step onto the stair as if posing. The wizard was about Snape's age, but preferred a more colorful style of dress, to judge by his yellow and turquoise robes. He'd referred to Harry's 'space' at least a dozen times since he'd arrived. Fettes had come highly recommended, but Harry had only spent ten minutes with him and was already certain he'd made a mistake.
Closing the door behind him, Snape cleared his throat, silently mouthing the word, "Neville?" Harry smoothed his fringe down over his scar and made a face he thought Snape would understand. Snape nodded and headed downstairs to the kitchen.
"We can do so much with it, now that I'm here to give you a firm hand," Fettes went on, giving his arm a squeeze.
It was also not the first time Fettes had made a subtle attempt at a pass. Harry ignored this one as well. One purple boot nudged the lively red and gold runner Harry had put up the stairs. "This of course, will have to go. Carpets only interfere with the sense of open space we're creating here."
Fettes minced up the stairs, and Harry followed with a sigh.
"Such an ascetic life you're leading here, Neville," Fettes said, peering into Harry's room. There wasn't much in it. His old school trunk, a cot on loan from Mrs. Weasley. A few personal items. "We need to find things to reveal your true personality for this room. Bright colors, bold lines. I'm thinking tea cozies."
"Tea cozies?" Harry asked, not following.
"You should collect them, display them all over the house. As an example of your true personality," Fettes explained, as if to a child.
"I hate tea. Coffee drinker myself."
Fettes waved a hand. "We could put in some custom-charmed display cases to hold them. They're very hot right now on the collectibles market." One elbow jabbed Harry in the ribs, and he instinctively reached for his wand. "Get it, hot? Tea cozies?"
Fettes was still giggling over his own joke as they left Harry's wing and detoured into the basement. Harry was glad to note that Snape had made himself at home in the kitchen, once again in shirt sleeves, bending over the counter. Harry had to resist the urge to offer to tie his hair back again.
"What about the kitchen?" Harry asked. "Any ideas for in there?" It was really just an excuse to see Snape for a few minutes and get away from the decorator, but Fettes made a dismissive gesture.
"I don't do kitchens. No one spends any meaningful time in kitchens." He crossed the hall and leaned into the smoke room. They continued on down the hall to look into the wine cellar. "How quaint!" was his decree. "We'll knock out a few of these walls and turn this into a nice entertainment area, I think."
Harry sensed movement behind him and looked over his shoulder just in time to see Snape duck back into the kitchen. Harry turned around and poked his head in. "We're about to head up to the other wing. I'd really like to see what you think would look good in your room." He held his hand up against the forming protest. "My Champion would do it for me," he said under his breath.
Snape followed them up the stairs.
"A series of paintings along this wall, I think, to open up this space," Fettes was saying. "Landscapes." It was the first reasonable suggestion Harry had heard. "Not real landscapes, of course," Fettes went on, "*so* passé. We'll commission planetary scenes, Mars, Pluto." He stepped back as if admiring the view on Neptune.
Behind him, Harry heard a distinct snort.
When they got to Snape's room Fettes put his hand over his eyes as if they bothered him. "I suppose this is your father's room," he said, and Harry was about to correct him when he realized Fettes was looking at Snape. Who was scowling back.
"Right then," Snape said, stepping up beside the much shorter Fettes and looming. "Thanks for your time, but we won't be needing you after all. You can just be on your way."
Fettes sputtered. "I've been consulted. I'll have charges --"
"Send them in care of Neville --" He looked over at Harry.
"Snape," Harry supplied sweetly.
"Care of Pendleberry Grange," Snape continued, placing his hands on Fettes shoulders to guide him out of the room. Fettes protested all the way down the stairs, and looked affronted until Snape slammed the door on his back.
"Right then, dinner's almost --"
Harry brushed a kiss across his cheek. "My Champion."
Snape scowled. "Might as well ruin the place with your own bad taste as his."
They shared another bottle of the excellent wine over the shepherd's pie Snape had prepared. "You know I've no idea how to acquire furniture," Harry pointed out. "I've never bought a stick."
One of Snape's brows shot up. "Why tell me?"
"You fired my decorator." Harry would cherish the memory for a long time to come.
"You'd have done it eventually," Snape said with a shrug.
"Seems only fair you should help me find stuff to put in this place," Harry went on, helping himself to the pudding.
"I thought you couldn't afford contractors and decorators," Snape said, accepting a smaller serving for himself.
"No, just that half the stipend for it is yours." He spooned up his favorite part, the cream, and licked it. "I've no objection at all to spending the other half."
Snape leaned back in his chair, taking a slow sip of his wine. "Why are you doing this?" Before Harry could pretend to misunderstand, he went on, "Having me for dinner? Asking me to --" His puzzled gaze swept the bare kitchen.
Harry paused, mid-pudding. Snape looked as though he expected an answer as precise as which ingredient went into the cauldron next. "We've been getting on fairly well, I thought," he said.
"Getting on is not the same thing as inviting further intimacy," Snape said. For just a moment Harry had a flash of that sweet kiss, then realized that wasn't what Snape meant.
"He was right you know," Harry said. "Neither of us has ever had a proper home."
Snape didn't have to ask who 'he' was. "You've inherited his house. Not his mantle of saviour of Severus Snape."
Harry hadn't realized Snape was angry until he stood up abruptly, grabbing his plate and shoving it in the sink. He stood with his back to Harry, holding the edge of the sink. Harry stood up, aware of approaching where others might fear to tread. "No," he said, "It's just that -- that you kissed me and I thought --" He put one hand on the tense knot of Snape's shoulder.
Snape shrugged him off. "Thought I'd do it again? I won't." Harry was backed against the sink as Snape loomed over him. "I can't release you from the Courtship. I can't be one of the beguiling, pretty young men you invite to your bed. And I can't be saved."
A strange undercurrent thickened the air between them. Harry hadn't seen Snape on this ragged edge for years. "I don't want out of the Courtship," Harry said, not sure if he should kiss Snape or curse him. "And I think you saved yourself a long time ago." There was a fleck of spittle on Snape's cheek. Harry reached up one finger to wipe it away, though he had to do it while Snape all but flinched at his touch. "You don't have to kiss me again, if you don't want to," he said quietly.
"If *I* --?"
"Hermione said it was allowed," Harry said.
A reluctant smile played at the corner of Snape's mouth. "Someone should save you from yourself."
"You applying for the job?" Harry said, perfectly aware of how flirty that sounded. He knew Snape wouldn't take him up on the flirt and he was right.
Snape gave a mock shudder. "It seems I'll be busy in the next few months picking out furniture and knick knacks for this draughty old mausoleum."
"Hey!" Harry protested, retrieving his pudding from the table and eating the rest of it standing up. "I fixed nearly every draft except that one from the attic stairs, and I'm hoping that one's a ghost."
~~**~~
"Oh! It's you." Harry opened the door to Hermione and stepped aside so she could come in.
"Lovely to see you too," she sniffed, then took in the front hall. Harry couldn't keep the smirk off his face. "You've done wonders in here." There was a large tapestry dominating the circular front hall now. The lush and varied garden-scape had reminded Harry of how he wanted his garden to look one day, but the reason he'd chosen this one, over Snape's eye-rolling protestations, had been the knot-work bees that had been enchanted to flit endlessly from flower to flower. There was room on the opposite wall for another tapestry, and Snape had suggested commissioning one of the Grange.
"Can't take all the credit." He looked at his watch. "In fact, Severus is coming by this morning to help me pick out stuff for the parlor. Or, let's see, how did he put it? 'Might as well have one comfortable room in this mausoleum'."
"I heard he was helping you -- not that he has time to talk to me much anymore," she said, a calculating look in her eye. "Nearly every weekend, isn't it?"
Harry pantomimed wiping his brow in exhaustion. "Who knew picking out furniture was such hard work?" He ran a hand along the cherry-wood sideboard at the foot of the stairs. "His taste is *nearly* as bad as mine." He thought of something. "Let me show you the library! Severus found this bookshop that imports stuff from all over." He dragged her through an impromptu tour of the downstairs while she made appropriately appreciative noises.
"Would you like some breakfast? There's plenty since I do extra on the weekends in case Severus' Slytherins aren't acting up too much for him to get away early." He had a kettle on and had a cup poured into one of his new teacups as she wandered around the kitchen exclaiming over his new things.
He smiled as she picked up a tiny Sevres vase. "We got that one in Brighton," he said. He'd been captivated by the tiny bumblebee design. Snape had tried to argue him out of the pattern, but had pointed out several pieces in the shop when Harry had been determined to get it. "Deserted due to the season, so the shop keepers were practically giving stuff away. Ended up staying overnight --" He cleared his throat at her piercing look. "Two rooms, very proper." He stood over her shoulder with the tea. "He's even picked out some things for his room upstairs. I think he might, you know, visit, once all this Courting business is over." A flush of pleasure went through him.
"Would you like that?" she asked.
"I know this sounds weird, but we're…getting on. Dumbledore might not have been as cracked as I --" At her quelling look he backed away. "I know you didn't stop by just to hear me run on about Severus."
"Well, it is about the Courtship," she said, nibbling on some toast. "Severus is, er, being difficult about the next step."
Harry poured himself some coffee and joined Hermione at the table. "The Spell Tournament? I thought that was settled?" He got a weird feeling that Snape was hesitating over performing one of the requirements.
"Oh, it is! Ginny's agreed to do it, and Minerva's going to help me judge. We're only waiting for the weather to warm up." As if to prove her point the wind rattled the kitchen window. Thanks to Harry's hard work with a caulking gun it was warm and toasty in the kitchen. "No, it isn't the tournament," Hermione said. "It's the next requirement."
"What is it?"
"A waste of time." Snape stood in the doorway, his expression severe. Harry no longer questioned the distinct pleasure he got from the fact that Snape felt at home enough here to always use his key.
"It's required," Hermione said, putting down her toast.
"It's ridiculous."
"What *is* it?" Harry asked again.
Hermione turned her attention from Snape. "You both have to meet with a Seer, a Divination specialist."
"A charlatan," Snape put in.
"For a prediction about your, er, union," she went on, as though Snape hadn't spoken.
Snape stalked into the kitchen and helped himself to tea. Harry watched him for a moment, then turned back to Hermione. "That doesn't sound so bad."
Hermione glared at Snape's back. "Tell him that."
Snape glared over his shoulder as though he'd seen Hermione's matching look. "It's no good. I won't do it. You know how I feel about Divination." He resumed staring out the window, as if trying to wither the entire garden.
Hermione gave Harry a 'what did I tell you?' look.
Harry got to his feet. Snape ignored him as he joined him by the window. Without looking over Snape said, "It's an absurd requirement and a complete waste of time."
Harry leaned back on the sink, his hip nearly touching Snape's. "You're probably right." He looked up at the severe profile. Over the last few months the jumble of angles had become familiar. Snape had stuck to his word and hadn't kissed him again, save for the brushes along the cheek that he allowed Harry.
"Still," he said, bumping his hip slightly into Snape's. "It wouldn't take too long, and we can shop the rest of the day." He let his hip rest where it was, in the folds of Snape's robes. "I'll even let you buy me lunch." Snape was ridiculously rigid about paying for meals on their excursions. Harry was forever trying to think of ways to treat.
Snape finally looked down at Harry, his eyes very black. "It's ridiculous."
Harry smiled. "No more so than you and Ginny dueling over my hand." He slid his hand over Snape's, enjoying even this minimal contact. Eventually the tension in it started to ebb away. "We could go back to Marseilles afterward, and you could impress me some more with your French." He was perfectly aware that he was cajoling now.
"I don't want to." Snape was equally petulant.
"Don't want to what? Impress me or go to Marseilles again?" His index finger was rubbing along the back of Snape's knuckles. "You could take me to that winery in Ipswich you told me about. Maybe we could get another cutting to bring back."
"You'd just be bored." Wavering now.
"I wasn't bored at the last one, was I? It was nice seeing you so interested in something." It had been. Harry had thought he'd have to feign interest, but they'd ended up spending all afternoon there, Snape explaining the difficulties in cultivating grapes in English soil.
"The cutting we took is up in your room. I check it every day." He gave Snape's hand a squeeze. "Why don't you go up and look in on it so you can tell me all the things I'm doing wrong?" He leaned in closer, so that his mouth was close to Snape's ear. "We'll just get this silly requirement out of the way, then do whatever you like the rest of the afternoon, okay?"
Something glittered in Snape's eyes, but he nodded tightly and swept out of the kitchen. Hermione, her jaw nearly on the table, watched him go. Harry was almost surprised to realize he'd nearly forgotten she was there.
"I've been trying to get him to agree to this requirement for months," she said. She shook her head as if shaking off a Confundus Charm. "He's put me off every single time. Even started avoiding me. Now you -- you --"
Harry shrugged, hiding his pleasure as he rinsed out his coffee cup. "You just have to know how to talk to him."
~~**~~
The sign read, "Madame Francesca, Seer, Medium, Tarot Card Readings, Crystal Ball Gazing, Auras Read, Fortunes Told". Beneath it had been written in, "Fish messages".
"Fish messages?" Harry asked, releasing Snape's arm after they'd Apparated in front of Madame Francesca's whitewashed cottage.
Snape, clearly not happy to be here, made no reply. They trundled up the few steps and rang the old fashioned pull bell.
Madame Francesca turned out to be a tiny, turbaned woman, though still slender for a woman no longer in the prime of youth. She took one look at them and dropped whatever showy gesture she'd been poised to make.
"Wizards! Come in, come in, don't loiter on the doorstep." She ushered them into the front room of the cottage. The large window overlooked this end of the tourist-y street.
"What's a fish message?" Harry asked, just as Snape opened his mouth, to make what Harry figured was a cutting remark about their hostess.
"Fish entrails can be great predictors," Madame Francesca said, pulling her wand out of one voluminous sleeve of her purple robe. "'Course it depends on the catch of the day." With a sweep of her wand, she lit several of the lamps in the room, exposing a cheerful sitting room, cluttered with the tools of her trade.
Madame Francesca tucked her wand away then stopped, mid-tuck, peering at Harry. "Aren't you --?" Without so much as a by your leave she took a step closer and swept his fringe aside, revealing his scar. Beside him, Harry felt Snape tense and reached out and put one hand on his arm.
"I am," Harry said, "And this is Severus Snape. We're here --"
But Madame Francesca had shifted her regard to Snape. "Young Snape, eh? I went to school with your mum." She looked up at him, gaze going higher than it had for Harry. "Pretty little thing."
Harry saw Snape's lips go white and gave his arm a reassuring squeeze. "We're here about a prediction, Madame," Harry said.
Madame Francesca nodded, "Call me Fran, Fran Bass." She patted Harry's arm, "What kind of prediction do you need, young man? Starting a new job?" She gave Snape another glance, "At Hogwarts, perhaps?"
Snape straightened, "We need a divination concerning a Courtship."
Fran's deeply inset eyes widened. "A Courtship? Don't get too many of those these days." She gestured toward the table in the back of the sitting room. There was a gauzy spangled cloth covering it, and right in the middle sat a crystal ball. She smiled and rubbed her hands together. "Let's sit down and then we'll see what we shall see."
They sat according to her directions, Snape on one side, Harry on the other, with Fran in the middle. She reached for their hands, tugging once on Snape's to bring his white-lipped regard forward. "Focus!" she said, lowering her own gaze to the crystal ball.
White vapor swirled around in the center, but Harry had seen this effect before in Divination class. And just like Divinations, Harry just saw the endless sworls of smoke within the sphere, without the spark of knowledge that could be actually useful. He darted a glance at Snape. Who wasn't looking into the crystal ball. Harry gave him a 'what are you going to do?' shrug.
"Focus!" Fran snapped again, tugging on their hands until both men were gazing into the featureless crystal.
Except it wasn't quite so featureless any more. Harry blinked behind his glasses, wanting to push them back into place but not wanting to look away. Something dark wavered into view, something upright and angular. The white mist cleared for a moment, and Harry saw clearly that the shape inside the crystal was familiar. It was the folly, the tower just beyond the gardens at Pendleberry Grange. As the image took shape he could see the heavy stones, the bumblebee weathervane, the tiny window set too high to get in from the ground. So perfect and so tiny it could almost be the carving he'd given Snape trapped inside the crystal.
Just as he started to say something, Fran released both their hands abruptly. The folly in the crystal vanished. She looked over at Snape. "You said this is about a Courtship."
Snape claimed his own hand and folded both in his lap, not looking at either of them. "What of it?"
"Then I don't understand," Fran said, nodding toward the now-blank crystal. "Why are you denying --?"
"The Courtship is for the purposes of a deed transfer," Snape clarified.
Fran stood up. "I'll need to speak with you alone," she said, draping one hand on Snape's shoulder. She smiled over-brightly to Harry. "Won't be a moment."
Harry watched them go, unsure what the stony expression on Snape's face meant. The door out of the sitting room closed firmly, and Harry was tempted to go over and lean one ear on it. He was still deciding when he heard the voices behind the door raised in shouts, though he still couldn't make out the words. That settled it, he was going to listen in. Abruptly the noise sliced off, exactly like someone had put up a Silencing Charm. A long minute ticked by, then the door was flung open.
"Come on, Harry, we're leaving," Snape said, striding out with Fran right behind him.
"But what --"
Snape grabbed his arm. "Thank you very much for your time, Mrs. Bass, but we won't be making use of your services."
"This is folly," she said warningly, arms akimbo. "You can't go on forever --"
"I'll be the judge of --"
"We didn't even get a prediction," Harry said, bewildered. "We'll just have to start over now, or -- or forfeit."
Fran's small mouth softened into a smile. She stroked his chin, then let her hand drop. "Here's your prediction, lad. Love is never folly. Only love denied."
Which left Harry feeling exactly like he always had at the end of Divinations class at Hogwarts. Frustrated. And hungry.
Back out on the street, he tilted his face toward Snape's. "You aren't going to tell me what that was about, are you?"
"Silly romantic claptrap," Snape sniffed as Harry hurried to keep up with him.
It began as a theory over lunch, and as Snape became more and more withdrawn during the day, slid into an unbreakable notion over dinner. But no amount of cajoling would induce Snape to tell him what Fran Bass had told him.
Harry was certain something had rattled Snape when he left Harry that night with a distracted kiss on his cheek. Harry was so surprised he put his hand over the spot as if to preserve it.
Snape never kissed him first.
He thought about his theory all night, then, as soon as the hour was decent, fire-called Hermione.
"Harry!" she said, peering owlishly into the flames. She rubbed her eyes and drew her bathrobe around her before settling onto the hearth.
"Sorry, did I wake you?" he asked, pulling his legs up under him. "Severus isn't there, is he?"
"He bloody well better not be!" came Ron's voice over her shoulder.
Harry told her all about their visit to the medium and about the prediction, such as it was. "Hermione, is Snape…seeing someone?" It was the only answer that fit all of his facts.
But Hermione was chuckling. "Of course, silly, he's seeing you."
Harry shook his head. "No, I mean someone he has real feelings for. And can't express them because he's stuck Courting me." It would also explain why Snape was going to so much trouble for the Courtship, if he wanted the money from the sale of the house to start a life with someone. Someone else.
Hermione looked thoughtful for a moment. Or at least as thoughtful as a person could be with bushy bed head. "I can honestly say you're the only one he's seeing at the moment."
"Okay, but someone he's interested in, maybe a new teacher or something?" He shifted on his haunches on the cold hearth.
Ron handed Hermione a cup of something that steamed and sat down beside her. She thanked him and turned back to Harry. "Well, he doesn't exactly have time to form any other attachments, does he? Spends every weekend with you," Ron said. He took a sip from his own mug.
Harry felt stricken. Maybe Fran had meant there was someone Snape might be able to develop feelings for, if only he weren't spending so much time with Harry.
"Besides, it's against the rules, innit?" Ron said, shrugging.
He could see Hermione start to fill them all in on the rules when Ron went on. "Harry, mate, you're not seeing the obvious." Two sets of eyes turned in his direction. "Everything in divination means something else."
Which left Harry feeling again like he felt after every Divination lesson. Frustrated. And hungry. "Thanks, Ron, that's a big help."
Ron beamed. "Don't mention it."
~~**~~
Snape was in a better mood the next weekend when they visited the winery he'd been too surly to take an interest in the week before. He even listened, or pretended to, when Harry told him about his ongoing battles with the leaky roof. Harry didn't want to ruin the tenuous affability by bringing up the enigmatic prediction.
Harry had been quite surprised to find there were wineries dotted all over the south of England. There was a notice on the door of the pressing room. "It's for sale?"
"Apparently."
Harry got the feeling Snape had known before they saw the notice though. "Are you thinking of buying this place?" he asked, stopping suddenly. Love denied, he thought, thinking he ought to thank Ron after all. Perhaps it was Snape's love of making wine that the prediction had referred to.
Snape backed up and looked down at him. "I'm hardly in a position to afford a place like this."
"After you get the galleons for your half of the Grange?" Harry began but Snape was shaking his head.
"Not nearly enough." He looked at Harry curiously. "So anxious to have me stop teaching?"
"No!" Harry burst out. Then when several heads turned in their direction, lowered his voice. "I just thought maybe that's why you were doing all this." He lowered his voice even further. "Courting me."
Snape pretended an interest in the huge barrels full of fermenting wine in front of them. "We are engaging in farce because we were directed to do so by a dead man." He paused. "And Hermione Granger. Neither of whom I wish to face in the afterlife." He leaned against the heavy cask, facing Harry.
Harry gave a mock shudder. "I'm with you on that one," he said. He leaned on the opposite edge of the rounded cask. "Do you want to know why I'm doing this?"
"I confess to a certain curiosity," Snape said. The dimly-lit cellar had slowly emptied of people, day-trippers whose mild interest was easily satisfied by a glimpse of the large barrels.
"I always felt there was something left undone with you," Harry said. "After I left school." Snape was frowning, one of those frowns that would rapidly descend into a scowl. "You have to admit we were getting on all right that last year or so, after that --" He searched for the right word. "Disagreement."
"Row, you mean."
Harry nodded. "Row. I was a prat, you dressed me down, and we both did what we had to do." He rubbed his hand over the old oak of the cask. It was smooth with age. "But it never felt like --" He was rotten at this. "Like we finished up." He looked up but Snape wasn't looking at him. He was looking out the small window, nearly at ground level, just above the barrel.
"After the annulment and the deed is transferred, we need have no further contact." Something moved in Snape's throat, his Adam's apple bobbing. "If you wish. Will that be finished up enough for you?"
"Right then," Harry said, "I'll get some other Slytherin to stay in your room. Malfoy, maybe." A smile flirted with the corner of Snape's mouth. "Of course, I'm sure the Grange is like a gardener's cottage to a Malfoy, right?"
"Considerably less," Snape said dryly as Harry's jaw dropped.
"You're joking!"
"I never joke," Snape pointed out and Harry laughed.
"You joke all the time." At Snape's scowl, Harry added. "Well, not so anyone else would notice, not unless they knew you like I do." He looped his arm around Snape's as they emerged back onto the grounds of the winery. "Don't worry, your secret is safe with me."
~~**~~
Harry dabbed another of the sandy stones with mortar and fixed it to the base of the fountain. It was still chilly, but now there were crocuses and daffodils bordering the newly leveled garden path. The sun was glinting weakly on the refurbished bumblebee ornament atop the fountain. Harry hadn't quite figured out how to get the fountain unclogged -- he'd spent one morning peering uselessly down a copper pipe -- but when he did get it to work, he wanted the base to be watertight again.
He sat back on his heels and saw a spot of black on the balcony. He waved, heedless of the heavy latex glove, and got a raised hand in return. Which was as good as a snog from anybody else. Not that they'd done any more of that, aside from the kisses on the cheek that Harry had quite got used to. But now that he had them, and Snape didn't mind bestowing them any more, Harry wondered how he'd get along without them once all this Courting business was over.
Harry Apparated straight onto the balcony, leaning over for his customary kiss while he took off the thick gloves. "I had a note from Hermione this week," he said, draping the gloves over the railing.
"Only one?" Snape asked, "I get at least one a day. More, if the Slytherins do something she perceives as cheating in her class."
"She said I do have one thing to do for the Courting ritual," Harry went on, crossing his arms and leaning back on the railing. He could tell by Snape's expression that the news wasn't a surprise. "I'm supposed to sew your wedding robes." He smiled. "Hermione says I can purchase them since my sewing skills are sadly not up to the challenge."
Snape huffed, "I told her new robes weren't necessary, but she was --"
"Insistent. I'll just bet." Harry had got used to the almost fond look in Snape's eyes when he talked about Hermione. "We could try to get that done today if you don't mind a quick trip to Diagon Alley."
"I'm not allowed to see your offering until the ceremony," Snape explained.
Harry made a face. "Right. Okay, then." He looked Snape up and down appraisingly. "Accio tape measure," he said, summoning the length of tape he'd been using on the fountain. It fluttered into his hand from below. Luckily it was the type that recorded measurements on a tiny pad at the tip. "Turn round." Harry guided him around then measured across his shoulders, smoothing the fabric down under his palms.
"Hm, not bad." He looked at the number. "Not bad at all. Let's see your waist." From behind he whipped the tape measure around Snape's midsection, nearly pressing his whole body against him. After the chill of the morning, Snape's warmth felt good.
"You're being ridiculous," Snape complained, but he didn't move away when Harry pulled the tape in tighter on the pretext of taking the measurement, letting his hips settle into Snape's backside.
"Still trim for your age. Traditional robes, right, you won't be wearing clothes underneath?" Harry said, not fazed. He pulled the tape from around Snape's waist, then, still facing the black-clad back, positioned Snape's arms into a T position. "Let's see about sleeves." He wrapped one hand around Snape's wrist and slid the tape along the underside of Snape's arm, fingers lingering on the tiny bit of skin where the sleeve ended.
"I'll tell her to keep things snug, eh?" Harry said, hearing Snape sputter in protest as he propelled him around so they were facing. He waggled his eyebrows and dropped to his knees. "Not too snug though." He zipped the tape measure up to unnecessarily read Snape's inseam.
"Stop," Snape said, and Harry was close enough to suddenly recognize the pleading tone in Snape's voice. He turned his head. "Harry, please, stop." Clearly outlined in the well fit trousers right in front of Harry's nose was Snape's cock. Snape's aroused cock. For just a moment Harry felt the urge to bury his head there, to plumb further mysteries, to see where this led.
Harry got to his feet. Two faint spots of color had bloomed in Snape's cheeks, reminding Harry of the crocuses in the drowsing garden below. Again he wanted to lean in, to taste, to explore, to know at last what lay beneath the layer of reserve. It didn't even surprise him any more that he wanted to go down that path with Snape.
And that idea was having its own sort of pleasant effect on Harry's cock.
What he wanted to say was, "Hermione would never have to know."
What he said instead, after a deep steadying breath, was, "I'll visit the robe shop this week then."
~~**~~
Harry heard his name off in the distance and lifted his head toward the tiny open window in the folly wall overhead. "In here," he called.
"Harry?" Snape's voice was closer now.
"Yeah, inside this thing."
The cursing was muffled but creative enough for Harry to be appreciative. "Come in, I want to show you something."
"Is there room in there to Apparate?" Snape must be right under the window.
"It's tight but we'll fit." His own broom was up against the corner. He'd left early this morning to explore, but he'd told Snape over breakfast where he was going. There'd been just enough room to squeeze himself through the tower window. He backed up against one stone wall of the folly as Snape popped in with a whoosh of displaced air.
Snape looked around, then at Harry. "Granger is here. She says the Weasleys are on their way." Harry nodded.
The folly was about two meters square at the base, with a stone floor. Light filtered down from the square window overhead. It was utterly featureless inside except for one thing. "Look at this," Harry said, pulling Snape's arm toward the wall. Carved into the wall, about half a meter off the floor was the name 'Albus' and a date from the last century. "I told you he probably liked this place."
One yellowing finger traced the numbers. "Before he would have been at school. Precocious even then."
Harry forced his gaze away from those caressing fingers. "You loved him, didn't you?" he surprised himself by asking.
Snape didn't look up. "Not in the way you think." His finger dropped away from the carving. "Not -- not like that."
Harry tucked a bit of hair behind Snape's ear so he could see his face. Snape turned and met Harry's eyes, then straightened up. Harry started to deny it, then realized he had been curious. "Know how I think, do you?"
Snape smirked, and Harry knew he'd walked right whatever was coming. "When you choose to do so."
Harry just rolled his eyes and ignored the barb. "I think Dumbledore loved us both. The sons he never had, maybe. That's why he gave us the Grange." The floor was empty of the debris Harry had expected. There must be a repelling charm on the tiny window, still working long after the wizard who cast it was gone. Harry managed to scuff up a bit of dust anyway. "I guess I'll never understand why you're rejecting his gift."
The smirk faded as though it had never been. "Albus gave me the only gift I even wanted -- from anyone -- when he took me back. To take more would be --" He braced himself against the wall with the carving, as though the admission had made him weak. "So, I suppose you could say I had strong feelings for him."
A shiver ran through Harry, as though the sun had gone behind a cloud outside. "You loved him, in exactly the way I think. You're allowed, you know." He wondered, in one of those rushes of inspiration that felt like they ought to leave a person breathless, if Snape had ever told anyone he loved them.
"Now you're an expert on love, as well as home improvement," Snape said, in that languid drawl that told Harry he was not taking their conversation seriously. Harry looked up into eyes half-lidded and dark in the dim interior of the folly. Save for the glitter in their depths, Harry might have thought they were closed.
"What happens if you lose today?" he asked, knowing Snape would not tell him any more about who he did or did not love.
"I won't lose."
Harry laughed. "Just for the sake of argument, then. Pretend I was raised by Muggles with no knowledge of wizard culture."
That reluctant smile was tugging up one corner of Snape's mouth. Harry watched it, intrigued, as he always was, to see if it would bloom into a genuine smile. "I forfeit my suit." Then, "I lose my claim on the house."
"And Ginny gets it?" Harry asked, outraged. "That's hardly fair."
Snape shook his head, and the ghost of a smile fled as though it had been shaken off. "You get it. Free and clear." He flexed the hand lying against the stone wall as if testing his wand hand.
"That's --" Harry began. "Why on earth did you agree to Ginny then? She took a NEWT in Transfiguration."
The tiny bud of a smile was back. "So did I."
Harry scooted under Snape's raised arm, so that their bodies were very close, leaning in, but losing his courage at the very last moment so that the kiss merely brushed the corner of Snape's mouth. "For luck," he said, voice barely above a whisper.
The hand on the wall dropped away, but landed on Harry's shoulder, joined soon enough by its twin. There was a moment when Harry knew he could refuse, but he didn't want to, couldn't even remember why he'd ever refused anything. Then Snape's mouth covered his own, warm, softer than it had any right to be, as though the harsh words that often spilled from it should have given it sharp angles.
Harry tried to get closer, wanting his whole body to experience the aching bliss at this small juncture, but Snape's hands on his shoulders held him back. There was only one thing to do then, to reap full measure. Harry let his lips part unbidden, felt Snape surge inside his mouth as though stumbling.
There was nothing planned or controlled about the way their mouths meshed, though Harry thought Snape had meant for there to be. Once that thought would have startled Harry enough to break away, to get his bearings. To stop. Only Harry never wanted to stop.
With a noise that might have been a groan if he could have gotten enough oxygen to it, Harry slid his arms around Snape's neck, letting the strands of thick black hair slide down his arms.
"For luck," Snape said, into the side of Harry's mouth, not far enough away to break the kiss. For just a moment Harry thought Snape might break away. He opened his eyes dreamily, feeling a haze around him as though he were inside Fran's crystal ball. "For luck," Snape said again, and moved his lips over Harry's own, sheathing his tongue inside the welcoming sanctuary of Harry's mouth.
"Harry?"
For just a moment Harry thought it was the seer, Fran Bass, calling to him from outside the crystal ball. Then he recognized Hermione's voice, somewhere outside near the folly. Snape had heard it too, sliding reluctantly away from Harry's lips.
"Better answer," Snape said, mouth ghosting over Harry's ear, voice gone thick.
"In --" Harry's voice broke, and he cleared his throat, fascinated by the way just-kissed lips could still smirk. "In here," he managed at last.
"Is Severus with you? The Weasleys are here." She sounded as though she were just below the window.
"We'll be right out," Harry said, letting his fingers trail through the thick hair at the back of Snape's neck before letting go.
"I'll Apparate straight there," Snape said, but he didn't quite move away. "Come when you're ready."
Harry nodded and Snape finally let go. "Good --" He smiled. "Good luck."
~~**~~
Back at the house, Harry was immediately surrounded by a phalanx of Weasleys. To his surprise not just Ginny and Ron, whom he'd expected, but Mr.and Mrs. Weasley, whom he had not, were admiring the view from his balcony. Fred and George were there as well, both leaning over the hole in the balcony Harry still had not got around to fixing.
"The house looks lovely, dear," Molly said, beaming at him. "And it looks like you're getting enough to eat." She patted his stomach.
Harry smiled. "Severus usually leaves me a pot of soup or stew or something during the week." He looked around for Snape but didn't see him. Beside him, Molly exchanged a look with her husband that Harry would have to interpret later. The twins were coming up to join their group.
"We could fix that hole for you, Harry," Fred said, clapping him on the back.
"Surprised you haven't done it yourself," put in George, sidling between his father and Harry.
"Had a few other things to do, and no thanks. I've just been waiting for the weather to turn." The thought of trusting the twins with home repairs sent ice into his veins.
"Come on, we have this new quick-drying resin we're dying to try," said George, trying to lower his voice so that his mother, who was glowering at him, couldn't hear.
"You can try it someplace else, boys," said Arthur Weasley, looking up as Snape joined them on the balcony. Harry caught his eye, amazed at how intimate that felt, as though more than a kiss had transpired.
"Good to see you settling down," Arthur said. It took Harry a moment to realize Mr. Weasley was talking to Snape. It hadn't occurred to Harry that any of the Weasleys were not aware of how the Courtship had come about.
He got ready to interrupt in case Snape chose to dole out some scathing remark about the true nature of their relationship, but all Snape said was, "It should be interesting."
Ron had broken away after his initial greeting and was leading a floating parade of pumpkins, making for the stone stair that led down to the garden. Fred immediately tried to grab one out of the air. With a flick of his wand, Ron levitated it further out of reach. George tried to capture one over Fred's head, leading to an impromptu game of keep away, that had even Harry leaping to get his hands on one of the flying pumpkins.
"What are the pumpkins for?" Molly asked, standing back against the house with her husband and Snape.
"For the duel. To be transfigured," Snape answered, just as Harry lunged for a twirling pumpkin, felt himself trip, and nearly crashed into their little group.
"Sorry!" he panted, laughing, as Snape caught him. Strong fingers spun him around and pushed him back into the fray in one smooth movement.
"Children!" Molly said, obviously torn between cheering them on and calling them on the carpet.
Harry looked quickly at Snape and saw something bleak pass over his features. Harry wanted to stop, but a pumpkin whizzed over his head, with Ginny hot in its wake. She leapt for it, coming down hard on his foot.
Harry yelped just as Hermione's voice rang out. "Ronald!" All six pumpkins plummeted. Arthur caught one in his hands. Harry and Ginny both caught one with their wands. Fred and George caught one between them and Ron kept control of the other two. Sweat broke out on his forehead, whether from effort or at the prospect of getting a scolding from Hermione, Harry didn't know.
"Those go downstairs," Hermione said just as Minerva McGonagall arrived with a loud pop of Apparition.
"I'm not late, am I?" she said, with the air of one who knew she was indeed late but with a good excuse. "A slight bit of difficulty with the Slytherins," Minerva said, dusting off her sleeve and avoiding Snape's eyes, Harry was sure. The Slytherin in question frowned but Minerva went on. "Just some pre-Quidditch pranks between the houses. No smoke damage, thank Merlin, and the offenders are getting quite a bit of practice on their drying charms." She turned to greet the Weasleys and Harry before turning to her fellow judge, Hermione.
"Where is the contest to take place?"
Hermione led her down the stone steps, followed by Snape while Harry and Mr.and Mrs. Weasley went over to the railing so they could get a good view of the proceedings. Ron joined them as soon as the stairs were free. His look clearly said he was avoiding Hermione's tongue for as long as possible. Harry made room for him at the stone railing overlooking the patio below.
Snape and Ginny stood on either side of Hermione. Minerva and the twins found places to the left of Snape, though Harry wasn't quite sure why the twins were down there, rather than up here. He'd just assumed they were onlookers, like Ron and their parents.
Ginny looked fiercely determined as Hermione explained the rules, and again Harry hoped Snape knew what he was doing in agreeing to face her.
"The theme is transportation. Contestants will be judged on speed, creativity, originality, meaningfulness to Harry --"
That last bit brought heat into Harry's face, but he listened, ignoring Ron's punch on his arm.
"And functionality. Wands out."
Both Snape and Ginny drew their wands. Harry, despite the circumstances, felt his pulse speed up. Hermione nodded to the twins who brought over a pumpkin apiece and set one in front of Snape and one for Ginny.
Minerva moved up, pulling out a tartan handkerchief. "The first object will be --" She lifted the handkerchief. "Broomsticks!" She dropped the handkerchief. Before it could hit the ground, two broomsticks had taken the places of the pumpkins. Molly made a squee of approval and applauded. Arthur clapped his son on the back.
"Look at Ginny's! That's a go-er, that one is."
Harry looked at the two brooms, both now being examined critically by Hermione and Minerva. Ginny's did indeed look like a go-er, made of some light-colored wood, willow perhaps. The twigs were bundled tightly, wrapped with orange ribbon. Orange ribbons dangled from the handle as well. Snape's looked to be oak, stout and straight. It was unadorned, though Hermione was rubbing her thumb over something on the handle, near the front. She called Minerva's attention to it. The older woman looked at it and smiled at Snape.
Snape ignored her.
Ron leaned over to Harry. "It's a lightning bolt," he said quietly. Harry felt himself flushing again, peering through his glasses.
"Testers!" Hermione called and Fred and George leapt to action again. Fred took Snape's broomstick and George took Ginny's. "To the folly out beyond the garden and back." Both young men nodded once to her, then to each other before they took off. Harry watched breathlessly as both brooms rose into the air, spurred by two enthusiastic riders. Fred made a loop de loop around the bumblebee fountain, then trailed along behind his brother till they were both out of sight. Then, back, growing larger, both leaning low over their respective brooms, clearly racing now.
George took it by a nose, landing tidily by his sister. "Excellent work, Ginny." He gave Hermione a mock salute. "Flies true. Ribbons are bit distracting but couldn't ask for better."
Fred dismounted by Snape. "Straight flier. Bit heavy on the turn."
Hermione and Minerva nodded at the reports and put their heads together. Harry studied Snape, wondering if the other man was as nervous as he was. What would happen if Snape lost? Surely Harry wouldn't be forced to disregard Dumbledore's wishes and disinherit him? He remembered the confidence Snape had exuded in the folly.
"First point to Ginny Weasley," Hermione announced, though she looked at Harry apologetically. Harry looked at Snape again, but the news didn't seem to come as a surprise to Snape.
The twins brought over another pumpkin and laid the broomsticks with them in front of each contestant. Again Minerva lifted her handkerchief. "Second contest will transform not just a new pumpkin but the original one as well." She paused, eyes shifting to each duelist, before calling out, "Flying carpet!"
With a sound like a crack and a low rumble, smoke swirled up, getting in Harry's eyes. He leaned over the balcony anxiously just as the smoke was clearing. Two carpets lay on the grass by the stone patio. All three Weasleys leaned over beside him, and Harry was very glad he'd spent some time out here repairing the stone work.
"I'll never understand why the Ministry banned flying carpets," Molly said.
"Dead useful for families," her husband agreed.
She smiled up at him. "Romantic way to travel."
"Mum!" Ron protested.
"Young people think they invented --" Molly began but Ron was turning an alarming shade of red.
"Do these really fly?" Harry asked. Both carpets were flat on the ground. He'd only ridden a flying carpet once and had to agree, though silently, that they were very romantic.
"They'd better," Arthur said. "Theme's transportation, isn't it? No sense just transforming pumpkins into carpets if they can't fly."
Both carpets were about the same size, clearly for a single rider. Ginny's was predominantly orange, and Harry could make out a pumpkin pattern in the design. Even the tassels had tiny pumpkins hanging from each corner.
Harry was about to get really nervous on Snape's behalf until he recognized the pattern on Snape's carpet. Even from here he could see the serpents twisting through the weave. He blinked. It was an exact replica of the carpet in Snape's room, the one Harry had purchased for him.
All four onlookers on the ground were studying the designs. "This seems familiar," Fred said, cocking his head at Snape's carpet.
George grunted in agreement, then snapped his fingers. "Slytherin common room!"
Fred was nodding, "Of course," he said, beaming until he saw the expression on Snape's face.
"Testers!" Hermione called, a tad louder than really necessary. Fred took Ginny's carpet this time, avoiding Snape's suspicious glare. George settled himself on Snape's carpet, which rose promptly on his command. Fred's lifted slightly, then wobbled until they were the same height, floating over the group's heads.
"Same as before," Hermione said, and they were off, both clutching the sides of their respective carpets.
Harry worried his bottom lip while the twins flew off, then, when they were out of sight, took the opportunity to study Snape. From this angle, he looked calmer than before. Harry wondered again how he could be so certain of victory.
Fred's carpet was still wobbling, trailing behind George's as the pair came back in sight. As they got closer Harry could see that Fred was still holding the sides of his carpet, while George had his arms crossed over his chest like a genie. Again they made brief reports to Hermione and McGonagall, though the two judges took much less time to confer.
"One point to Professor Snape," Hermione said to the assemblage on the balcony. Harry let out a little cheer, aware that Ron gave him an odd look.
"Next point takes it, right?" Arthur said, his hand on his wife's shoulder. Molly was leaning over the balcony, waving to Ginny.
"Right," Ron said, sidling over closer to Harry.
Down below, George was making a show of offering to help Fred off his carpet, while Ginny looked on with amused tolerance. Ron took a moment to turn toward Harry, taking a step away from his parents, who were now scolding the twins.
"It was weird when Hermione first started teaching," he said, not really looking at Harry, but at his brothers' antics below. "First it was 'Snape this' and 'Snape that'."
Below, Fred was maneuvering his carpet so that George, who was making a grab for the pumpkin-shaped tassels on one corner, couldn't get hold of one. He nearly spilled off though when he lifted up one corner to avoid George and overdid it.
"Next thing I know," Ron went on, "It's 'Severus says' and 'Severus just needs me to pop round for a bit'." He smiled when George leaped onto the carpet behind Fred, causing the carpet to dip dangerously toward the ground. Since they were a scant meter off the ground the descent was fairly quick. "And you won't see me making any jokes about greasy gits or it's a night on the lounge." He sighed and looked over at Harry. "I suppose you'll be the same way now."
Before Harry could respond, Minerva was calling for their attention again. "If we can proceed without further interruption," she said frostily. "The final round may begin."
Righting themselves, Fred and George grabbed the two final pumpkins, the largest of the lot and put one apiece on the carpets, now resting on the grass.
"Contestants are reminded that this round is not judged on speed, but on creativity and suitability." She nodded at both Ginny and Snape. "Are you both ready?"
Ginny had her hand in her pocket, and her wand drawn. She nodded. Snape inclined his head.
"The category, as you know, is freestyle," Minerva went on. She raised her handkerchief again. "Duelists may begin --" The scrap of tartan fluttered as it was released. "Now!"
Both Ginny and Snape pulled small boxes out of their pockets. Snape's was smaller, and from here, looked remarkably like an Altoids tin. He flicked it open with one finger. "Ennervate!" he cast, then, very quickly, "Animus!"
Four short, swarthy men stood blinking on Harry's patio. They wore identical loose-fitting trousers that tapered down to wrap snugly around their ankles. The trousers were a deep emerald green in some sort of gauzy material. Short fitted jackets, open in front, were trimmed in gold. All four wore matching gold armbands and tiny green hats with gold tassels. As if on cue, they linked arms and nodded at Snape.
Snape closed the lid of the tin box with a satisfied click and turned to the pumpkin and carpet.
Ginny had dropped to a squat, her own larger tin box also receiving an "Ennervate!" spell. Four brown mice lay twitching before she cast, "Animalus!" The four mice began to swell, to change shape. Bright red sparks shot up from their feet, joining in mid-air overtop their snouts before sizzling out. Smoke puffed up in a great cloud that momentarily covered both Ginny and the mice. When the smoke cleared, a horse, exactly the brown shade of the mice, stood in their place.
Beside Harry, Mrs. Weasley clapped her hands. Then she turned to Harry, "Oh!" She pinked slightly. "No offense, dear."
"That looks like old Brower," Arthur said, peering over his wife's head. "Didn't think Ginny remembered him."
Snape had not been idle while Ginny had been creating her horse. With his wand, he directed the four men to each of the four points of the carpet. They each took a corner, then, at Snape's instruction, folded the carpet around the pumpkin in the middle.
Ginny patted the brown horse on the nose, then turned to the carpet. She tapped the pumpkin in the middle and murmured a spell Harry couldn't hear. The pumpkin began to grow.
Snape's spell was also too softly uttered for the onlookers to hear. The carpet began to fold and twist in upon itself, like a Moebius strip. The four little men holding onto it looked unruffled though, merely holding on tightly as the carpet rolled itself around the pumpkin until it looked like the fruit by all rights should be squashed.
On the other side of the patio Ginny's pumpkin was now as large as one of Hagrid's. The carpet was wrapping around the bottom half, shifting in shape as well. Up on the balcony Harry could feel the ripples of magic radiating around them. They both must be using very powerful spells.
The serpent carpet was expanding now, as though the flat surface was warping space itself, forming a rectangle, large enough to fit a man inside. The outline could be seen now, and it looked strangely glittery from here.
The other pumpkin was growing wheels and axles, forming something they all finally recognized -- a carriage. The top was rounded like the inspiration, the sides curved sensuously. The bottom half owed more to the carpet, which had stretched to form a door and a coach box. Ginny beamed in pleasure then, pulled out one of the ribbons she must have saved from the broomstick transfiguration and conjured reins, hooking up the horse to the carriage.
Snape's creation was nearly done as well, though it took Harry a moment to figure out what it was. It was a little over three meters long and about two meters in width, forming a rectangle with elegantly curved sides, richly patterned like the snake carpet. Snape pulled something out of his pocket that looked like broom straws and conjured two long, sturdy poles from them. Immediately the four men picked up all four ends of the poles, fitting them to the litter.
"It's a palanquin," Harry said, leaning over the balcony at such a dangerous angle, he felt Mr. Weasley's hand on the back of his belt. Sheepishly he pulled back until he was on sturdier footing. "I've seen them in India. Maharajahs ride around in them." He grinned. "Never been in one though."
"Looks like you'll get your chance," Ron said as Hermione called up for Harry.
"We want you to test these, Harry," she said. Harry wasted no time scrambling down the stone steps to the ground. Since Minerva had her head inside the palanquin, he turned to the carriage first. The horse looked over his shoulder at him and Harry thought he could see whiskers on its muzzle, betraying its mousy origins.
Ginny was holding the reins. She gave him a little wink as he climbed in, and he thought again what an awfully good sport she was being about all this. She really had nothing to gain but the satisfaction of beating her former teacher if she won. Harry rubbed one hand along the crushed velvet seat. And she was going to be tough to beat.
There was a single bench inside the carriage. The opposite side, nearest the driver had a small brazier, and a sideboard with a teapot on top. The teapot had a pumpkin patch design on the side. Overhead a lamp, connected by a swag that looked like a trailing vine, glowed softly, lighting the interior. The seats were golden, nearly orange but not quite. There was a thick carpet on the floor.
When the horse took off, to cheers by what could only be the twins, Harry held on for a lap around the fountain and back. The ride was smooth. On the way back, he figured out how to open the curtain and looked out. Mr.and Mrs. Weasley and Ron had come down from the balcony and waved as soon as Harry stuck his face out.
Harry waved back and looked for Snape. He was easy to spot, the only bit of black, standing near the waiting palanquin. While Harry watched, Minerva said something to him, obviously out of range of the others. Snape shot her a look that would have curdled acid and shook his head. She looked over, saw Harry and summoned a smile and tiny wave.
Feeling a bit self-conscious, Harry swung open the door of the carriage, noticing for the first time that it had a crest on it. He squinted at it and made out a lion and something else, picked out in gilt.
"How was it?" Fred asked. "Feeling a bit like Cinder-fella at the ball?"
George punched his brother on the shoulder. "That's atrocious." He pushed Fred out of the way. "Harry's more the Sleeping Beauty sort, waiting for true love's kiss." He nodded his head in the direction of the folly. "You've got the tower for it and everything."
Ginny rolled her eyes at the both of them. On the other side of the carriage, Minerva and Hermione were opening the half door, peering inside, talking in low tones. Harry walked around to them to see if he should test the palanquin before they finished consulting.
"It's lovely," Minerva was saying.
"Right, so if Harry were a fairy *princess*, it would be perfect," Hermione countered. Harry chuckled and left them to their deliberations.
Snape was standing apart, the palanquin held at the ready by his four transfigured men. Harry made his way through the Weasleys to stand beside him. "What did you use for the litter bearers?" he asked. "I couldn't make it out from the balcony."
"Bees," Snape said curtly, and Harry looked up in concern. He draped one hand onto Snape's arm, but Snape seemed to be ignoring him.
"Is it all right if I look inside?" Harry asked, looking up into Snape's tense face. Where had all his confidence gone? Harry let his hand slide up Snape's arm, into the crook of his elbow, letting his hand lead him closer until Snape had to look down at him.
"Suit yourself," Snape said at last, folding his arms against his chest, so that Harry was forced to let go.
Harry arrived at the litter the same time Hermione and Minerva did. The head litter-bearer made a slight bow and lowered the poles so that Harry could climb in easily. With one hand, Harry parted the green curtain and climbed inside.
Only the palanquin was larger on the inside than outside. Harry nearly tumbled into a pile of cushions. He grabbed hold of a large one to steady himself and looked around. The ceiling seemed much further away than the scant meter and a half it looked like from outside. Overhead the fine, soft material glowed with the light of what looked like dancing fireflies. Their soft lights formed an image of the night sky as seen from the Grange's balcony. Harry himself had struggled to recall his astronomy lessons from there.
Below him the cushions were supported by a plush couch, done in a green so dark it looked black. Each pillow had a bit of the same shade of green in it, but otherwise no two looked the same.
The litter had begun to move, the sway barely noticeable as Harry got his bearings. Across from the couch was a fireplace, laid for a fire, with a cauldron suspended over the tinder. As Harry watched, a thin thread of vapor oozed out from between the cauldron and the lid.
Across from his couch was a draped bay window, nearly a match to the one in his room, done in the same green velvet as the couch. There was a low sideboard beside it, with a few books stuffed on top. Something that looked like the Sevres vase they'd picked up in Brighton sat atop as well.
A stream of vapor from the cauldron brushed past his eyes, and Harry noticed that it smelled not of smoke but of cloves and cinnamon and all the things he associated with potions. Potions and Snape. Harry looked again toward the fireplace, wondering if he ought to be alarmed at the soft tufts of steam wafting from the small cauldron. Perhaps it was tea brewing, he thought, just before one of the tufts seemed to shape itself into a hand.
Harry stared. An arm, pulling from the vapor, formed from the hand, then doubled as it slid into another tiny cloud of steam. White shoulders appeared, as more and more vapor swirled together, lengthening, shifting, forming more and more of a body. The smoke thickened into a loose robe, darker than the rest, shifting to dark, dark gray.
The smell of cloves was stronger now, and Harry's eyes stung. He wiped them away, and when he looked up, the figure was no longer amorphous. It was Snape. The moon-pale body was only loosely clad in the robe as it crossed the floor.
"Severus?" Harry asked in confusion, not quite able to look away from the long limbs, ones he'd only just realized he'd imagined.
The figure did not answer, only smiled slightly as it crossed the room. Without a word it, or he, lay on the couch beside Harry. One pale, pale hand stroked down Harry's face, fingers that felt real, felt strong sliding into his hair, behind his ear. When the kiss came, Harry had no more thought of incubi and other dark creatures, for this was his Severus, and he gave himself over to it.
Dimly Harry could still feel the sway of the litter, hear the cant of the bearers, but Snape had never kissed him like this, with a greedy possessiveness that Harry had only ever imagined in a lover. He took no time to think how Snape could have conjured himself inside the pumpkin, only how long they had to kiss like this, stretched out on the couch, legs stroking against one another, feet making dents in the brocade pillows.
Harry sucked in his breath, moving closer, feeling Snape move deeper into the shadowed recesses of the palanquin. He slid his fingers down the nearly-open robe, pulling the other man into a more heated embrace.
Harry had no notion of when the litter stopped moving. He heard someone call his name, someone distinctly female and opened his eyes. He was alone on the couch. The tiny lead bearer was blinking through the curtains, Ginny right behind him.
"Say, this is nice," she said, peering around in the gloom. Harry grabbed for one of the pillows beneath his head, shoving it down in front of his crotch, before realizing there was no wet spot there.
"Uh, yeah," he said, swinging his legs over the edge of the couch and shaking his head. No wet spot and no Snape. The fireplace was cold, the cauldron unlit. He shook his head, then followed the slice of light left by the curtain outside. Half a dozen Weasleys stared back at him. And two very curious females. And Snape -- the real Snape. Who looked angry about something.
Harry summoned up a smile and slipped out of the palanquin. "Great way to travel," he said, with a small, embarrassed laugh. He looked over at Snape but the other man wasn't looking at him. He found himself shaking hands with the lead bearer, then all down the line of them while Minerva and Hermione consulted. Harry looked over at the carriage. The horse had bitten off a bit of the door.
Minerva cleared her throat, tucking the tartan hankie into her robes. "That's an additional point for Professor Snape, and the victory," she declared. Snape merely nodded and stalked off, toward the kitchen. Harry started after him but got rounded on by the twins who wanted to look inside.
They were all still chattering happily over lunch, which Harry busied himself laying out. He hadn't wanted Snape to do any cooking this weekend, to keep himself focused on the duel, so he'd stocked up on cold cuts, bread and cheese. Still, his guests -- his and Snape's he amended, surveying the ruins of the kitchen -- went through everything like a ghost through the wall.
Everyone had scattered after lunch. Hermione took Minerva and Ginny around the gardens. Molly and Arthur were following the twins out to the folly. Ron had fallen asleep in one of the chairs on the balcony.
Harry held onto the stone lintel of the kitchen door, staring at Snape, who had let himself be cornered during lunch, Harry was certain, by Minerva, to avoid talking to Harry. Snape was quietly wrapping the packages of meat and cheese from the butchers as though each package were a potions ingredient, robe off, sleeves rolled up.
His expression had been smugly confident when he'd won, but now Snape's face was nearly blank. Harry watched the careful rhythm of it for a moment then crossed the room, leaning one hip on the sink beside Snape.
Snape ignored him.
"Congratulations," Harry said. Snape merely nodded once then reached for the loaf of rye bread that was merely two heels and some crumbs now. Harry put out one hand to stop him from wrapping the scraps. "On your win, I mean," he said, not used to Snape in this mood. He'd expected him to be smug and regale them all with tales of Slytherin superiority, but Snape had spoken only briefly to Minerva, and had been all together quiet around Harry.
"I know perfectly well what you mean," Snape said, pulling his hand from beneath Harry's and folding the wax paper around the bread.
Never easily deterred, especially not by Snape, Harry slid over closer, until his trousers brushed Snape's, just at thigh level. "I thought we might -- " He let his gaze linger over the curve of Snape's delicately arched mouth. "Celebrate."
Snape slammed the barely wrapped loaf down on the counter, sending crumbs skittering across the counter. "Is this not farce enough without false sentimentality clouding what should be a simple business arrangement?" He glared at Harry, who recoiled as if hexed.
"I -- I just thought you might want -- " Harry pressed his lips together, uncertain.
Snape whirled on him. "Perhaps you have had so many kisses you can simply turn off your body's desires, but I have not. If I'm to maintain even my regrettably diminished decorum, I must decline."
Harry had moved away from the pummeling force of the words, each harsher on Snape's breath. "But, but this morning, in the folly --"
Snape closed the small space between them. "Did you think you were safe there? That I would be able to stop after a few kisses?" His gaze slid down to Harry's mouth, eyes narrowing to slits.
"Oh, come on, Professor." For some reason the name "Severus" wouldn't form. "You wouldn't --" Part of him, the part that would always be twelve, wanted to shrink from the evil intent in Snape's words. The other part, the part that screamed that he was a man grown, dug his fingers into the counter and gave back as good a glare as he got.
"Wouldn't what? Kiss you until you forget I'm a man you hate?" Before Harry could point out that he hadn't hated Snape in a very long time, Snape went on. "I wouldn't stop with kisses, you know that? I'd want to taste you, all of you." His eyelids drooped a bit, as if already in the throes of some passion Harry could only imagine. "Savor the sweetness of your youth, heedless of the violations I would make to your body." He slid closer, nearly daring Harry to move away, but Harry was rooted to the spot as though the devil's snare had broken into the kitchen again. "You'd be mine," Snape said, voice low, smoky with desire, as though rising from the cauldron in the litter again. "I couldn't accept any less, not from --"
"You, you don't --" Harry tried, the hazy images from this afternoon blending seamlessly with the seductive tapestry of Snape's words.
Strong fingers grasped him by the front of his shirt, closing even the slight gap between them. "Yes, Mr. Potter, I do."
Harry stared up into the unfathomable black eyes. Was this his incubus? "What if I --" He frowned. He had, or had he? "I wanted--"
Snape released him as if from a spell. "You don't." Poison, richer than any potion, dripped from the simple syllables. He started to turn away, but Harry grabbed him by one sleeve. This Snape was warm and solid. Real.
"I know what you're doing. You tried to do it during Occlumency, when we got --" Harry tightened his fingers, feeling Snape start beneath his hand. "I let you do it to me as a student, because I had to, let you be a bastard."
He caught the tiny dart of fear in Snape's eyes, knew for certain now this was no incubus. "You've been doing it so long you don't even realize it. Pushing people away when they get too close." He tightened his grip on Snape's sleeve. "I'm pushing back this time." They were very close now, close enough to see tiny beads of sweat on Snape's upper lip. If they'd been inside the palanquin, Harry would have licked them off, then slipped his tongue inside to see if there was more.
Instead Harry released his hold on Snape's white sleeve, but didn't step away. "How about if I let you be a bit of a bastard, if you let me be a bit of a prat?"
Snape sprang back in surprise, nearly alarming Harry. The soft drone of voices outside came back into focus, as though his senses returned all in a rush. "Have you been talking to Albus?"
Harry smiled sadly. "Albus Dumbledore is dead. Hence our current predicament." A Lumos spell went off over his head. "Never tell me you tried this with the headmaster? Tried to push him away?" He could tell by the faint spots of color staining Snape's cheeks that he was right. "What did he say?"
Their voices sounded odd at a normal tone, but the almost-intimacy lingered in the way their bodies angled toward one another. "That he could put up with me being a bit of a bastard if I could put up with him being a meddling old man." A pause. "And that there would never be a time in my life that I was too old for detention."
Harry laughed, too loudly, he knew, but it felt good after the unexpected tension of the last few minutes. "You'll have to work harder than that if you really want to get rid of me, especially after you won a duel for my hand." He batted his eyelashes in mock flirtation, finding his gaze sliding back to Snape's mouth, cause of so much of the trouble between them.
Snape half turned, as though to finish up with the dishes and Harry slid his hand over the white shirt sleeve, not grabbing this time, but holding on all the same. He pulled himself closer, brushing his mouth across the side of Snape's mouth, along his cheek.
"What are you doing?" Snape asked, frowning, Harry was sure, though he was too close to tell for certain.
"If you won't kiss me properly anymore, I'm trying to see if I can make do with kisses on the cheek. Hold still a moment." He mouthed small kisses along the smooth edge of Snape's jaw. A small noise, nearly unnoticed but for the silence in the kitchen told Harry he was on the right track. He tilted his head and left a trail of kisses along the underside, feeling Snape relaxing under him, leaning back now on the sturdy counter. Harry spared a glance, and saw Snape's fingers digging into the counter, elbows back.
"Tell me," he said, mouth very close to one ear, using his tongue to brush the long hair out of the way, "why were you so certain you were going to win the duel?"
An amused sound rose from Snape's chest. Without opening his eyes, he said, "I adjusted the odds in my favor."
Harry smiled, before his lips closed over the pale lobe of Snape's ear. "You cheated," he said, though Snape said nothing. His lips were parted slightly, head back, tilted slightly in Harry's direction. He licked higher on the ear. "The cauldron. I should have known." Then back down, tugging on the lobe with his lips.
There was a bit of tension that hadn't been there before, but Harry slid his mouth down over Snape's jaw, down the suddenly tight cord of his neck. There was a slight gap where the shirt didn't quite lay flat and Harry let his tongue trail over it, to the edge where the undershirt began before starting back up the pale column of Snape's throat.
"Did you have an…interesting experience?" Snape asked, voice a low rumble in his chest.
Harry laughed softly, swirling his tongue back beneath one ear, one hand brushing the drape of hair away. "It certainly was vivid," he admitted. "I wasn't sure if it was an incubus," he said, exploring new territory with his tongue. "Until it turned into you."
Snape started and pulled away. Color ran high on his face, flushed with arousal, though his eyes were questioning. "You saw *me*?"
Harry ran one hand down the front of Snape's shirt as if parting the loose robes of the ghostly figure. "Of course." When Snape didn't say anything, Harry leaned in for another kiss on the cheek but Snape pulled away.
"You could not have seen me."
Puzzled, Harry studied Snape's face. It made you look at a person differently, he thought, when you knew how they tasted. How they looked aroused. Harry's brain followed that thought to its inevitable conclusion, and felt a bit of a blush creeping up himself. When Snape didn't say anything else, Harry leaned back in, more slowly this time, and Snape didn't pull away.
"Well, he looked like you," he said, nuzzling that sweet line along the knife edge of his jaw. "He kissed like you." Another sweep of his tongue, just tipping the underside of his jaw." "And he tasted like you." Harry's hand stayed where he'd left it, on the front of Snape's shirt, as though caught by two conflicting directions. "Is there such a thing as an incubus potion?" he wondered aloud.
"It wasn't an incubus potion," Snape said, and Harry smiled to note that his eyes had drifted closed again, leaning back on the counter while Harry mouthed kisses along his neck.
He had no idea how many times Hermione must have cleared her throat before he heard it. From the look of the thundercloud on her face, quite a few. Minerva stood beside her, both of them silhouetted in the kitchen door. Minerva had her hand over the lower part of her face, and her eyes glinted with amusement.
Hermione, however, was not amused. She looked from one man to another, then her gaze fixed on Snape, just opening his eyes. The long line of his body was still leaning against the kitchen counter. Harry noted with languid satisfaction, that Snape turned unhurriedly aside, shielding his body with Harry's from female eyes.
"Harry!" Hermione said, "Stop bothering Severus." She turned. "Is he bothering you?" she asked Snape, taking a step into the small kitchen.
"Very much, yes," Snape said, voice no more than a drawl. He turned toward McGonagall, pushing away slightly from the counter.
"I'm ready to return to the school," she said, lowering the hand away from her mouth. "I'm sure you'd like to come back and make sure I haven't damaged your Slytherins more than necessary." She cleared her throat. "If you can tear yourself away."
The scowl didn't even begin to reach the heights of ferocity it could attain. Then his face softened, or what passed for soft after the scowl but which most people would simply call smug. "It would be such a shame if the Gryffindor Seeker found himself at odds with young Gibson again and found himself in detention on the day of the match."
Far from being cowed, Minerva put on her frostiest smile, which just for a moment cowed him even more than any one of Snape's scowls ever had. "As it would be a similar shame if Gibson found herself in a similar predicament," Minerva said. Her mildly interested look at Hermione, then back at Snape fooled no one who'd ever sat in her class. "I don't suppose you'd like to make a small wager on the outcome?"
Snape mirrored her deceptively mild glance, directing it toward Harry as though they were co-conspirators. "On which? The Quidditch match or young Basilton and Gibson?"
"The match, of course," Minerva said, pulling her robes close to her body, "Anything else would be improper." Terms were agreed upon so quickly Harry had no doubt this rivalry was as hotly contested as that of their house teams. Minerva took the arm Snape offered. "You're heartless to take advantage of an old woman so," she sniffed, ignoring Snape's snort of disbelief. "But since you'll be coming into a large number of galleons soon, I don't mind seeing you part with a few."
It took Harry a moment to realize she was referring to the money Snape would be receiving for the house. It diluted his enjoyment of the scene for just a moment until Minerva went on.
"Perhaps Harry would like to attend the match, to assure himself his erstwhile galleons will be going to a proper home?"
Harry sputtered, and looked at Snape, realizing that everyone else was looking at him. "If you like," Snape said. Then he looked at Hermione. "There are guest rooms in the dungeons." She had the grace to flush slightly.
"I'd like that," Harry said.
Snape and McGonagall started toward the kitchen door, then Minerva looked over her shoulder at Hermione.
"Coming, dear?"
"I'll be along. I want a word with Harry."
Curious, Harry turned, shaking off the nebulous plots in his brain to sneak in a good-bye kiss before Snape left for the week. Realizing he'd been thwarted didn't put him in a better mood. Hermione waited until Snape and McGonagall Apparated before rounding on Harry.
"What *was* that?"
Harry crossed his arms over his chest. "You're a grown woman, you should know --"
"Don't pretend you don't know exactly what I'm talking about." There was a moment of mutual loud exhalation in the suddenly too quiet kitchen. Outside Harry could hear the twins shouting something out in the gardens, and something that sounded like a pumpkin hitting the stone path.
Hermione clutched the back of one of the wooden chairs around the kitchen table. "Look, Severus isn't one of your, whatever you call them, tricks."
Harry frowned and opened his mouth to defend himself but Hermione went on. "You think you can just…toy with his affections, and that it won't mean anything, because it won't mean anything to you."
It would mean something. Harry already knew that. But he wasn't about to tell Hermione what it was yet until he figured it out for himself. He found his fingers digging into his arms, and dropped the casual pose. "Look, *you* wanted us to get along. Don't complain when we do."
"Get along as in not kill each other during the Courtship. I know you've both, well, become sort of friends. I don't want you using that friendship just because it's convenient."
Harry scrubbed his face with one hand, trying to think how to explain to her. "Look, it's more than --"
"No, *you* look," she said, interrupting. She pressed her lips together, exhaling harshly. "Just go -- find someone. Go cruising or whatever it is you do. Just make sure I never find out about it." She had the look of a Victorian maiden, offering to loosen her corset for the wedding night.
The part of Harry that was touched, deep down, by her concern for Snape was quickly overruled by the part that was outraged on his own behalf.
"What? Are you saying I'm just --" He deliberately lowered his voice. "That I have to be hard up to go for Severus?" His voice turned bitter. "Don't think much of me, do you?"
She was immediately contrite, crossing the small space between them and putting one warm hand on his arm. "No, Harry, no. I just don't want you to hurt him."
The realization that he could hurt Snape struck with the suddenness of Polyjuice potion. Almost he could feel his skin rippling in the transformation from Harry before the Courtship to the Harry he was now, the Harry who'd just been plotting how next to kiss Snape. The Harry who would never ever take Hermione up on her suggestion to find someone else just for a night.
"Does he ever talk about when we were students?" He kept his voice low, not wanting to compete with the drowsy sounds outside. "What he did for me?"
Hermione studied his face, seeming to recognize they had shifted ground. "What he did? Aside from saving you a few times when we thought he was trying to harm you? No, he never talks about that."
He didn't think so. The recent time he'd spent with Snape had been relatively free of references to their teacher-student antagonism. "It took me a little while to put it together," Harry said, then chuckled depreciatingly. "Not the fastest broom in the shed. And Snape was such a bastard sixth year when we tried Occlumency again." He could tell by her face that Hermione remembered. It had been hard to escape the glowering during nearly every encounter that year while Harry had struggled to learn what the other man was trying to teach him.
It had been so bad that he'd gone to the Headmaster, to see if there was another way. Dumbledore had looked at him sadly, as he had nearly that entire year, and said that Snape was doing what he had to do. Harry had understood immediately that he himself was *not* doing what he had to do. But the more he tried, the more of a prick Snape had been.
He looked toward the door as if checking to see if Snape had reappeared. "That Christmas, Dumbledore wanted me to stay at Hogwarts. Do you remember?"
Hermione nodded. "We all thought you were being punished for not catching on. I spent the break researching Occlumency to see if I could find anything to help you."
"Maybe I was being punished." He smiled without any real humor. It was hard even now, to face the prat he'd been. "The point off all this sad reminiscence is that Snape and I got into a screaming row. I called him all sorts of names." He could still hear his voice echoing some of them. He'd known he was being hurtful, but he hadn't cared. He could hear Snape's voice -- it was easier in his mind to think of Severus as Snape. Snape hadn't been kind either.
The voice was so clear in his head he looked toward the door again. "Snape dragged me down to the dungeons, made me help him make a potion. The one for Pensieves. We had to put the potion in a small cauldron, because he didn't have a rune bowl. Made me keep it in the dungeons. Made me use it."
Hermione was frowning. "You have a Pensieve?"
"I did," Harry said. "I put it in my Gringott's vault before I left the country. Haven't used it since sixth year." They could still hear the sounds of the twins playing whatever game they'd invented with the de-transfigured pumpkins outside. Ron must have woken up for his voice could be heard chiming in an 'oi' every now and then.
"Funny things, Pensieves. They really can help you see patterns. I kept seeing all the times Voldemort got through me, into my head." The long dead dark wizard's name sounded strange in the peaceful little kitchen. "The times he would have gotten into Dumbledore through me, if he'd been the one teaching me."
"He could have gotten into Snape. Taken him over," Hermione said, and Harry nodded.
"All it would have taken would have been for Voldemort to check up on his old servant while we were having lessons," Harry said.
"He must have been terrified the whole time," Hermione said, the idea giving her a little shiver.
Harry grunted. Terrified would not have been his first description of the way Snape had been acting. "I had to hate him, hate Snape, so Voldemort wouldn't tumble on. Once I understood that, I worked hard to hate him. And he worked hard to make sure I did."
Hermione put her hand on Harry's arm again, and slid it down to take his hand. "It was the only way you could save him," she said, giving his hand a little squeeze.
Wordlessly Harry gave her a kiss on the top of her head until he could speak. "So you see, much as I love you, you have to trust that I know what I'm doing. Severus and I are grown men. And if I want to find ways to get him to snog me, then that's my business."
"Have a heart!" Ron's voice broke in. Both Harry and Hermione's heads swung in his direction, standing in the kitchen door. Ron's face was scrunched up as though he'd eaten something unpleasant. "I don't mind having a poof for a best friend." He opened one eye. "I don't even mind when I catch said best friend pawing my girlfriend." He opened the other eye. "But if you're going to snog Snape, I really, really don't want to hear about it."
Harry tilted his head at Ron. "We *are* getting married."
Ron finally made it all the way into the kitchen, sidling between Harry and Hermione with casual possessiveness. "And I never, ever have to hear about any of it, right?"
~~**~~
Harry had never watched a Quidditch match from the Slytherin stands before. And when Gryffindor scored the first point, he grabbed Snape's arm and saw no reason to let go. As the match wore on, he could feel the muscles beneath his hand relaxing, and by the end of the match, his fingers were firmly entwined in Snape's, released only when they stood to applaud the well-deserved Slytherin victory.
Harry hadn't been back to Hogwarts since the funeral, and had arrived with just enough time to be shown a perfectly ordinary guestroom down the corridor from Snape's room. He had yet to be invited into his fiance's room, but Harry wasn't without hope on that score.
"I'll have to attend the victory party," Snape said, as they filed along with the rest of the crowd in various stages of triumph and despair, back to the castle. "Just long enough so that the kitchen raid that I have no knowledge of can transpire." Harry smiled as Snape looked down at him. "Perhaps you'd like to visit your friends this evening?" he suggested.
"Can't I come to the victory party?" He used a slight jostle of the crowd to take hold of Snape's sleeve, then tucked his arm inside the crook as they picked their way up the well-worn path.
Snape looked uncertain, and Harry gave his arm a squeeze. "I'll be good. No snogging."
One of the students in front of them turned around, eyes wide with shock. A Slytherin. Snape sent her scampering with a well-placed glare, and Harry gave his arm another squeeze.
The party was in full swing by the time Snape and Harry arrived. The room went dead quiet as soon as they cleared the stone lintel. Harry had let Snape precede him, and emerged into a sea of stunned faces. Snape cleared his throat. Harry took a step closer to him.
A girl, still in her Quidditch robes, walked to the foot of the stone steps. "Aren't you Harry Potter?" she asked.
Harry smiled. "I am. You must be the seeker. That was an incredible catch today." She flushed with pleasure, and conversations around the room picked up, though more than once Harry heard his name over the din. He was duly introduced to Deanna Gibson, the seeker, then promptly abandoned with a bored yawn as Harry and Deanna began comparing snitch stories.
Accepting a drink of something that wouldn't be butterbeer until the commandos returned from the kitchen, Harry looked around for Snape. He was by the huge fireplace, deep in discussion with one of the older boys. A slight frisson of awareness went through him as Snape turned, catching his gaze at the same moment.
They spent another three quarters of an hour at the party, that had grown so loud that Salazar Slytherin himself would have to walk in to quiet this bunch, when Snape inclined his head toward the door. No one noticed their leaving.
Once outside in the corridor, Snape cleared his throat very loudly, then said, in a normal tone, "I'll walk you back, shall I?"
Harry heard the echo-y sound of scuffling and a muffled giggle down the opposite end of the corridor, the direction they were very pointedly not heading down.
"So, ever raid the kitchens yourself?" Harry asked, to cover the furtive sounds behind them.
"As a student?" Snape asked, offering his arm then almost pulling it back when Harry took it, as though just realizing where they were. "A time or two."
"And as a teacher?" Harry looked up curiously, trying to visualize either one.
"A time or two as well." Before Harry could ask for details, Snape asked him how his quarters were.
"Not bad. Not as drafty as the Gryffindor guest rooms." Snape paused at the door of the guestroom but Harry looked down the corridor. "Come on, you've seen every inch of where I live. Why don't you let me see where you live?"
Still, Snape hesitated. "Say," Harry said, taking his arm and steering. "Have you collected your winnings yet from Minerva? I saw her shooting you the evil eye from the Gryffindor stands."
"Tomorrow, at breakfast," Snape said, leading them through the arched doorway into his quarters. He stood to the side, eyes hooded while Harry looked around.
The first thing he saw was a large key hanging from a brass holder, right by the door. It was the key to the Grange. There were other things around the cozy room -- the scarf Harry had made him buy when the weather had taken a nasty turn unexpectedly one weekend was draped over one end of the sofa. A piece of the Sevres china, with the same bumblebee pattern, that Harry had bought him the same time he'd bought his own for the kitchen. The carved folly Harry had given him stood on the mantelpiece, beside a flat-bottomed vial with, what Harry's newly expert eye determined was a grapevine cutting.
Over some of Snape's excellent wine Harry settled comfortably onto the lounge. Snape took the armchair next to it. "What potion did you use in the palanquin?" Harry asked with affected casualness.
"I won't tell you that," Snape replied, settling back into the chair. "You have some scant knowledge of potions; figure it out for yourself."
"Hermione thinks I'm toying with your affections," he said, changing the subject rather than admitting he hadn't a clue.
"What makes you think I have any?" Snape countered, crossing his legs so that his robes draped along the sides of the chair.
"You've made a tactical mistake in the Courtship." He paused while he sipped his wine. "You've let me get to know you. And I think you like me a little." He waited to see what effect this pronouncement had on Snape. Harry had done a lot of thinking about the little scene in the kitchen.
"Then why have I not confessed this liking that dare not speak its name?" Snape asked.
"I think it's taken you by surprise," Harry said, "Just like it has me." When Snape didn't say anything, Harry looked up.
"You're flirting with me," Snape said, the wineglass up close to his face. His nose looked bigger in the glass's distortion. "Why?"
Harry rolled his eyes as if Snape had missed an obvious point. "So I can coax you into more than a good night peck on the cheek."
Harry knew Snape well enough now to judge the expression on his face. Not dangerous, he categorized. Not yet. "Think you're safe here, do you?" Snape asked as if he too liked the direction of their conversation.
"Being safe has never been high on my list of priorities," Harry said, liking the slow tendrils of arousal the conversation was creating in him.
One elegant brow lifted into his hairline. Considering Snape's hairline, it didn't have very far to go, but Harry watched it all the same. "So, your amorous adventure in the litter wasn't enough for you, and you've decided to settle for me, is that it?"
Harry chuckled. "I told you, it *was* you in the litter." He ran one finger along the edge of his wineglass. "What did you put in that potion?"
"I'm as likely to tell you as you are to tell me what you really saw," Snape countered.
The wine felt nice in his system. "Look, everyone thinks I'm hard up because of this Courtship." He leaned forward on the couch, so that he was leaning over one of Snape's knees. "Like I need sex every day and twice on Sunday." Snape looked like he wanted to say something, but Harry went on. "I'm okay with all this. I'm not hard up, and I'm not cheating on the Courtship because I'm not even tempted to." He dropped one hand casually onto Snape's knee. Snape looked down at it pointedly, but Harry simply gave his leg a squeeze and let go.
Despite his protests, Snape walked him back to his quarters after a single glass of wine. The noise down the corridor was quite loud now. "I'll have to break it up soon," Snape said, looking down the corridor in the direction of the noise.
"And discreetly not find the empty butterbeer bottles?" Harry replied, remembering stashing a few under the armchairs in his student days. A loud crash deflected any reply Snape might have made. They both waited, just outside Harry's door to see if the sound was repeated. The corridor had grown suspiciously quiet.
"I'll see you at breakfast," Snape said, placing the slightest of pecks on Harry's cheek, and turning as if to walk away. Harry caught him by one sleeve. Snape looked at it, where Harry's work-roughened hand threaded into the unrelieved black. "You said you'd be good," Snape said, eyes narrowing when he read Harry's intent.
"I lied," Harry said, pulling Snape close. Almost he thought the inducement wasn't strong enough and he'd have to rethink his conclusions. Then wine-flavored lips met his own, and the only conclusion he had was that he needed more of *this*, the needy heat, the grasping wetness that spoke of pleasures yet unsampled. The wooden door hit his back with a thud that rattled the heavy iron lock, but Harry was still pulling Snape close, by fistfuls of robe and then closer as one hand slid inside the robe, around Snape's waist, up against his own.
He heard the word 'foolish' but whether it fell from his lips or Snape's he could no longer tell, so close were they. It was as thought the incubus had been conjured back, ghosting into Harry's own robes, finding places to touch that made Harry groan into Snape's panting mouth. It was Snape who broke away, since Harry was regretting his earlier remark about not being hard up. Right now he was very hard up. Harry tilted his head to resume the kiss but Snape drew back.
"You're a very foolish young man," Snape said, cupping his chin.
Harry grinned. "So you keep telling me."
~~**~~
Harry was just finishing his morning coffee the next weekend when he heard the key in the lock. He put down his cup and dashed down to the front hall just as the door was opening. Despite the promising beginning to his weekend at Hogwarts Snape had left him with only a chaste kiss on the cheek.
"Come see my orchard!" he said enthusiastically. Snape sputtered something Harry didn't catch as he grabbed one sleeve and dragged him outside. Harry slowed down once they were outside, leading him over the ridge behind the folly. He stopped and stood back in triumph.
Snape looked over the space. "Harry, that's one tree."
"Yeah, *now*," Harry said. "It's an apple tree. Remember you were talking about trying to make apple brandy? I mentioned it to Neville and well, he got it for us as a wedding present."
Snape turned his attention back to Harry. "Longbottom was here?"
"Stopped by this week to drop off this." He stepped up beside the sapling, stroking the bark possessively. "He's got a great planting spell." He pointed. "Then he marked off the corners where the rest of the orchard should go." Snape's eyes flickered where Harry pointed, then back to Harry.
Harry smiled and looked up at his tree. The branches were thin of leaves but Neville had assured him it would bloom come summer, and produce apples in the fall. "I like the idea of an orchard here," he said, when Snape was silent. "Neville also said we've got great soil for other stuff, being this far south. Grapes for instance." Snape looked up at him sharply. Their gazes held for a long moment until Snape looked away.
"I know what you're trying to do and it won't --" he began, but Harry cut him off.
"Just think about it," he said, taking Snape's hand only to be shaken off.
Snape clasped his hands behind his back. "There's something I've been meaning to talk to you about," he said, looking down into the newly turned earth beneath the tree.
Harry shaded his eyes and looked back toward the house. "Look! There's Hermione." Relief surged through him. He had a feeling he didn't want to hear whatever it was Snape wanted to talk to him about.
Snape cleared his throat and nodded. He didn't pull away when Harry took his arm for the walk back to the house.
Hermione had helped herself to tea. "Inspecting the garden?" she asked cheerfully when they climbed the staircase to the balcony.
"My new orchard," Harry said enthusiastically.
She drew beside him while he pointed toward the rise where a single tree held the promise of a fruit orchard. Snape was quiet until they got down to the kitchen table to discuss the business at hand. From her robe sleeve she pulled out a battered leather-covered calendar.
"I've circled some possible dates for the wedding," she said, spreading the calendar open so they both could see.
"These are the NEWT and OWL review dates, aren't they?" Harry asked, running his fingers over the dates.
They discarded several other dates, getting nearer to the end of term. Harry hadn't wanted to wait quite that long and said so.
"It appears we have little choice," Snape said, finger stabbing into the last weekend of term.
"Unless we wait till the summer break, have a bit more time," Harry said. Snape had been withdrawn during the selection, so much that even Hermione had given him a few questioning looks.
"No, let's have it over with as soon as possible," Snape said, then sat back on the wooden chair.
"Suits," Harry said, though he suspected Snape wanted it over with for reasons Harry didn't understand.
Hermione smiled and closed the calendar. "Have you two thought about where to hold the ceremony?"
Harry started to open his mouth, because he had thought about it. But Snape said, "Civil service at the Ministry." He looked over to Harry, who still had his mouth open. "I won't stand for any of that romantic nonsense." He glared at Hermione who snapped her mouth shut as well.
There was silence in the tiny kitchen for a long moment. Then Hermione gathered up her calendar. "Well, that's settled then." She stood up abruptly, scraping the chair over the stone floor before turning to Harry. "You've got the robes ordered?" He nodded, not looking at Snape. "All that's left then is to settle on the price of the house." She bid them both goodbye before leaving them alone, casting one last worried look before she went.
Harry pushed away from the table too. Snape had his head tilted to one side, arms crossed over his chest. For lack of anything better to do, Harry put the kettle on. "I don't mind a civil ceremony, Severus," he said quietly from the stove. When Snape said nothing, he went on, "I mean, I had thought it would be nice to have it here at the Grange, out on the balcony, with all our friends --"
"No."
Harry turned away, staring out the small window over the sink. "All right," he said at last, when the kettle began to rattle. He didn't really want tea, and Severus probably didn't either, but he needed something to prevent him from running his hands soothingly through Snape's hair and he didn't feel like getting his head bitten off any more this morning.
He set out two cups and saucers. "So, er, what would you like to do this weekend? I've still got a few bookshops I want to hit if you're --"
Snape stood then, turning toward Harry. "I've been meaning to talk to you about that. I don't think we should continue to spend our weekends together."
"But --"
"It's time we started resuming our normal routines again. Our *separate* routines," Snape went on, ignoring Harry's bleak little 'but'. His gaze took in the whole of the Grange. "This is your life, not mine."
Harry had been conscious of Snape withdrawing from him, ever since the Spell Duel. Unlike Snape's other moods, Harry didn't know how to counter this one. "But you're part of my life. A large part." He looked around the kitchen, seeing memories in every nook.
"I won't be after the annulment. You -- we *both* -- should start getting used to that."
There was an air of finality about the words that chilled Harry. "Look," he began, sliding the little cups and saucers aside. The slight rattle sounded very loud in the kitchen. "You have a room here; you're welcome to come back anytime, even spend the summers here if you like."
Snape was already shaking his head. "I won't be coming back. It was foolish of me to let you --"
"Why are you doing this?" Harry asked, feeling like he'd been hit with a Stunning spell. He tried to take Snape's arm, but got shaken off. "You're pushing me away again. Only there's no reason for it this time, I told you."
"I told you we would never be friends," Snape said, as if that were any way to settle the argument.
Harry's brow set in a stubborn line. "And I'm telling you we already are." He wrapped one hand around Snape's sleeve and refused to shaken off this time by anything less than a hex.
Snape glared down at Harry's hand but instead of the anger Harry expected, Snape put his hand over Harry's. "This has been -- " He looked away, out the window toward the garden. "An arcadia." He looked back at Harry. "But it isn't real, any more than your phantom in the palanquin."
It was the first time in a long time that Harry had seen Snape as he'd once been, his teacher, distant and unreachable. No longer his friend. His champion. It wasn't what he wanted, but he didn't know how to get that Snape back. Something must have shown on his face, and for just a moment he thought Snape would stroke it and make everything all right again.
But he didn't. He merely lifted Harry's hand off his arm and straightened away from the counter. "I'll expect your owl this week," he said. Puzzled, Harry frowned. "About the purchase price of the house. We'll have to register it with the Ministry as part of the annulment proceeding," Snape clarified. A moment later, and without so much as even a chaste kiss on the cheek, he was gone.
Harry had never thought the Grange could be a lonely place. Even when he'd been there by himself, he'd never been lonely. Until now. He moped around all day Saturday trying to figure out where he'd gone wrong. Sunday he sat down with the deed and all the attendant paperwork that had come into his possession with his inheritance and figured up the price of the house. Then he added the improvements he'd made. Then he came up with a figure he planned to buy Snape's half of the house and looked over his budget. He certainly couldn't afford his peripatetic lifestyle anymore, but that was all right now he had a home. But he couldn't live off his Gringotts vault for the rest of his life.
Several times the next week he caught himself wanting to tell Snape something when he came for the weekend. The unfairness of it rankled.
The next week he finally got the hole in the balcony fixed to his satisfaction. He took down the now-faded orange cones and stored them away in the pantry. The cottage-shaped tin he'd bought for Severus's tea was sitting on one of the shelves. Harry stared at it for a moment, nearly reaching for it to inhale the scent of it. Then he closed the door.
When he got an owl that the wedding robes were ready, he went into Diagon Alley to pick them up. Madame Malkin herself, looking not a day older than when Harry had first come in when he'd been eleven, came out to wish him all the best on his marriage.
"Excellent match," she said, running a hand over the open boxes sitting side by side on her counter. Harry wasn't sure if she meant the colors of the robes or the wedding participants, so he just smiled and thanked her. "Oh, and one more," she said, tucking the lids on the robe boxes before reaching under the counter for a smaller third box. "The other item we discussed." She patted him on the arm with a smile that nearly made him blush.
Once he got his purchases home he shook the robes out, feeling the satisfying ripple of an Anti-wrinkle charm on the backs of his hands. Like Madame Malkin, he ran his hands over the robes; his was a dark, forest green, and Snape's a deep charcoal gray. Then he went to hang Snape's in his room.
Harry had hardly ventured into this room, treating it as an extension of Snape himself, not prone to invasion by over-eager former students. There were a few knick-knacks in here from their excursions, but Harry resisted the urge to touch anything. He hung the robes on the front of the armoire. He debated about whether to leave the second package, but dropped it on the neatly made bed and left before he could change his mind.
The week before the wedding he had a sympathy dinner with Ron, who hadn't seen Hermione for several days. Harry remembered his own NEWTs and took pity on his moping friend.
"It'll all be over soon," he said, over a pint at the Muggle pub near Ron and Hermione's cottage.
"Hermione says Snape's been a right terror this year," Ron said. "Even taking points off Slytherins."
"Maybe he'll retire on all the galleons he'll be getting for the Grange," Harry replied, expecting Ron to grin at that. It had been a favorite fantasy of theirs, for Snape to retire, preferably after some horrible disease. A horrible disease caused by a potion gone wrong. The delicious irony of it had made many a Potions essay easier to bear.
"She also said you haven't filed your paperwork at the Ministry on the house," Ron went on, looking at Harry curiously. "Not trying to skive off at the last minute, are you?"
Harry smiled softly. "Nothing like that. Tell Hermione I'll make sure it's in on time."
Dutifully he sent an owl off with the paperwork.
Snape arrived on his doorstep the Saturday of the wedding, clutching a thoroughly mistreated piece of parchment. "What's the meaning of this?" he bellowed, just exactly as though they hadn't seen each other in nearly a month.
"You look like hell," Harry said, frowning. "How long has it been since you've eaten?"
"My health is not the issue here, Potter," Snape said, thrusting the parchment into his hands.
Harry took it. "Well, it certainly should be. People will think I'm not taking care of you like a proper wife or husband or whatever --," he said, unfolding the crumpled note.
"Husband," Snape said suddenly, and Harry looked up from the words, though he knew now what this was. "The proper term is --"
"I know very well what the proper term is for the thirty-six hours or so I'm to be it," Harry said.
"You won't be anything at all unless you can explain this," Snape said.
'This' was Harry's own selling price for the house, in his own handwriting. "That's a ridiculous price for this crumbling old ruin," Snape said, looming over his shoulder.
"It's what I think it's worth," Harry countered. He'd done his homework and come up with a very fair price for Snape's half of the house. Then he'd doubled it.
"I won't take that much," Snape said, taking a step away from Harry.
Harry folded up with paper carefully. Without looking up he said, "You can buy that winery we looked at, the one that was for sale." He tucked the paper back into Snape's unyielding fist. "Look, I didn't spend even a third of the stipend Albus left for fixing up this place. The rest of it belongs to you."
Snape exhaled at him a few times. "I don't know why anyone even *tries* to do anything for you, for your own good, I really don't."
They were still arguing about it, though on Harry's part the argument consisted of a lot of expressive shrugging, when Ron and Hermione arrived.
"Why aren't you two dressed?" she asked immediately, shooing them off to their respective rooms.
Alone in his room, Harry slipped into his robe, then sat in the bay window and looked out over the garden. True to Neville's prediction, it was an explosion of roses. He could see the barest tip of the folly from up here, but there was a solid carpet, laid out in geometric design, of flowers and healthy hedgerows as far as he could see.
The knock at the door was too hesitant to be Snape. Hermione pushed open the door at his invitation.
"It's time," she said, closing the door behind her.
"You left Ron to fetch Severus?"
She laughed softly. "No, I've just been to see him. He looks dashing in his robes." She cocked her head to one side, studying him. "Don't you look handsome too?"
Harry covered up his embarrassment at the compliment by sliding his legs over the edge of the window cushion. It was faded velvet, worn thin and nearly white. He'd meant to get it replaced but hadn't got around to it. "How is he?"
"Pacing. He isn't very happy with you." She crossed the room and sat on the edge of his bed, bracing herself with her hands.
"I'll just bet," Harry said.
The silence stretched just a tad thin before Hermione said, "He hasn't been himself."
"He's been *exactly* like himself," Harry said, sliding his hands down his legs. The nap of the green robe turned nearly black. "We've been…friends for months, no matter that he denies it, and all of a sudden it's all business, a quick handshake, and have a nice life." He shook his head. "I just thought --"
Whatever it was he'd thought had no place in the business transaction they were about to undergo. "Never mind." He stood up and took her hand. "It was a foolish idea anyway."
The wedding was every bit as cold as Harry had imagined, little more than the signing of a few documents, Hermione and Ron as witnesses. He invited them back to the Grange for the wedding supper, but after a nervous look at Snape, who already looked as though he'd eaten something bad, Ron declined for them both.
Dinner itself was interminable. Harry had no head for light conversation, and Snape seemed disinclined to bring up the weighty topic of the price of the house. They kept on their wedding robes, adding a dour note of solemnity to the suddenly cheerless kitchen. Harry wondered if Snape would leave his robe in the room he was never coming back to, whether he'd found the wedding gift Harry had bought during happier times.
Whether he'd ever see Snape again.
The final requirement was for Snape to spend the night at the Grange, before filing the annulment papers Monday morning. Harry began clearing away his own plate, joined almost immediately by Snape, a pale mockery of their earlier amity.
"I'm just going up to my room," Harry said, needing to escape this dreadful silence between them. Snape nodded without looking at him.
As Harry trudged up the stairs, he thought he heard a sound like crockery smashing.
He hung up his own wedding robes and put them in the very back of the wardrobe. It was too early in the evening to even think about sleep, though the thin curved smile of a moon showed the garden in a riot of gray tones. Harry curled up once again in the bay window in just his pajama bottoms and shivered as his back touched the cool glass.
Despite his contention that he wasn't sleepy, Harry began to feel drowsy, staring off into the darkness. When something shadowy moved across the balcony below he had to blink to make sure it wasn't part of some dream.
The scant moonlight gave Snape intriguing shadows, and for just a moment Harry wondered if it wasn't Snape as incubus returned to taunt him.
This Snape had on pajamas beneath the loose robe though, Harry noted with a wistful smile. So, Snape had not just found his wedding gift, but had chosen to wear it as well. A soft breeze blew his dressing gown back, showing bare feet, pale and gleaming in the soft light.
Harry put a hand up to the glass, tracing the distant profile, smiling again as his finger made the bump of the nose before dropping his hand in his lap. Then he put on his own dressing gown and went outside.
Snape looked resigned to see him but didn't move away when Harry stood beside him against the balustrade. It was nice out here, warm enough that he didn't quite mind that he'd forgotten his slippers, chilly enough that the body heat from Snape felt good.
"You were brilliant in the Spell Duel, by the way," Harry said, voice coming out scarce louder than a whisper. The night air seemed to require quiet of its visitors. "I don't think I told you before."
"Faint hearts never won fair gentlemen," Snape replied, in much the same tones.
The moon slipped partly behind a cloud, and Harry felt a shiver run down his back. The last lonely month fell away as he slid beneath Snape's arm, letting his back rest against Snape's chest. After a moment Snape made a circle of his arms, hands meeting in the middle around Harry's waist.
The garden was never still, never quiet, but it was peaceful out here, and Harry let the aching restfulness of it seep into his bones. Remembering one of those endless things he'd wanted to tell Snape in the last month he tilted his head back to look up only to find Snape looking down at him, expression unreadable. Their mouths met somewhere in the middle. Harry felt hands slipping into his dressing gown, roving over his chest, then down over his back stopping just short of his arse as he turned in the circle of Snape's arms.
Kiss followed kiss, breathless with the need and desire they produced. Kissing Snape was like coming home, something Harry had never known he'd really needed until it was his. Snape sucked his mouth greedily, as though Harry were not perfectly willing to follow where he was leading.
His hands clenched in the gentle silk of the dark grey pajamas. "These look great on you," he said, conscious of the damp state of his mouth, how good a similar state looked on Snape. "Let's get them off." He started to unbutton the top button, which of course, Snape had done up.
A hand, worn yet still familiar, stopped him. "Harry, we can't."
Harry got the top button undone anyway and pressed a kiss to the tiny V of pale skin there. "We can, we're married. Even Hermione can't say it's improper now." He started to see what the next button would reveal.
Snape's hand slid off his own, cupping, then lifting Harry's chin. "We can't. It would…complicate things."
Harry shrugged and moved onto the third button. "We'll uncomplicate them," he said. Snape's fingers were warm on his chin but Harry shivered a bit anyway. "It's my wedding night, the only one I'm likely to have."
"I can't be --" Snape began but Harry stopped him with another kiss, long enough to steal breath and thought away.
"You already are. That potion you used," Harry said, "for the Spell Duel?" Snape's face immediately went guarded. Harry had experience getting through those particular defenses. He got another pajama button, the last, undone while he slid his mouth down the heated column of Snape's throat, licking the rapid pulse beating there. "It was Heart's Desire, wasn't it?" He could only feel the slight nod of Snape's head as he parted the gray silk with his nose following that enticing pulse with his tongue.
"You're a bit more fit than the potion-you was, though," he said with a dreamy smile, licking the flat nipple, feeling it crinkle beneath his tongue.
Snape started, fingers digging slightly into Harry's shoulders. "You -- you saw me naked?"
Harry looked up, not averse to having Snape see his smirk. "I told you it was rather vivid." He bent down and swiped his tongue over and over the taut nipple, liking very much the noise Snape made when he did. "You were angry that day because you thought I was in there having it off with someone else." He let his tongue trail over the slight dip of Snape's sternum, into the scant patch of hair there. "And you were sure you were going to win because you had given me what I wanted most."
He teased at the nipple with his teeth. "But it was you I saw." The pajama bottoms hid nothing; Harry cupped Snape's cock, letting it settle against his hand. "Though I don't think I really did you justice." He looked up again. "I want the real thing." It didn't take the firming cock beneath his hand to tell him Snape wanted it too.
They kissed across the balcony in a strange dance choreographed by that need that comes in such moments to be closer, touch everywhere possible, yet still move. Harry savored the aching, comfortable familiarity in kissing Snape again, and the raw hunger and excitement in the idea that they could do more at last.
Once they reached the edge of the balcony closest to the house, Snape let himself be pushed up against the stone wall, guiding Harry's mouth across his chest.
Here, in the shadow of the house, Harry took more time exploring the sleek planes of Snape's chest. When he started to go lower , Snape tugged him away, maneuvering them around to change places. The uneven stone was rough on the back of his head but Harry could not keep still as Snape's mouth explored his neck, his shoulders, damp trails gleaming softly in the dimness.
Neither of their pajama bottoms were any sort of barrier to their arousal. When Snape's fingers closed around his cock through the cotton bottoms, Harry's head dug so hard into the stone he thought it would crumble.
"My room," he said, when he could think of anything to say that wasn't absolute assent. "Yours is too far."
Almost primly, Snape lifted the elastic waistband of Harry's pajamas back into place. It was darker here in the lee of the house. Even the muted light from the moonlit garden dappled in shifting pools over the balcony. But Harry could see Snape's face plain enough.
He put his palm over the damp lips before they could speak. "Yes, I'm sure." Chagrined recognition crossed the severe features. "Let yourself have something," Harry said, when Snape kissed the flat of his hand. "Let yourself have *me*."
"I am no one's heart's desire," Snape said, with a growl that sent heat into Harry's blood.
"You can't tell me you don't believe in your own potion?" he said, sliding the other hand over the gratifyingly rapid beat of Snape's heart. "It gave me what I wanted. What I've wanted for a long time."
For just a moment he thought Snape would call him foolish again, would deny this thrumming desire between them as he'd denied it all the other times. Then Snape took his hand, following him up the stairs, pausing along the hall to slide his hands over the curve of Harry's backside, then again just outside Harry's door to kiss him as though reassuring them both he was no incubus.
"Oh yes, these will look much better off," Harry said, sliding the dressing gown and open pajama top off in one motion once they were inside his room.
"I never thanked you --" Snape said before his mouth was full of Harry's.
Harry dropped his own robe to the floor. "Don't mention it."
"I didn't get you anything," Snape said, when Harry let him speak again. Harry simply grinned and pulled them both onto the bed.
Snape's hands slid down his back, over the plain cotton of his pajamas, pulling them together until their hips ground together. Heat pooled between them, the languorous sort that would keep them warm long after their bodies stopped touching. They were moving against each other, cocks sliding over cotton and silk. Kissing, touching, exploring not just bodies but the freedom to do all of these things at last.
"Harry," Snape said, eyes glazing over slightly just the way Harry had imagined. Had Snape ever said his name in exactly that way? The one with the needy undertone, the one that made Harry shiver from the raw desire in it. Snape stroked his face between kisses, pushing his hair away from his face and looking as though Harry's features weren't already utterly familiar.
Harry kissed his hand before tugging it over his erection. Snape's smile was heated and pleased. "So impatient." But he licked and kissed his way down Harry's body, as though it were blueprint of their passion. Harry's cock was as erect as the folly in the back garden, a single column in the landscape of Harry's body. He could only lift his hips when Snape finally peeled his pajamas away, then come to rest on the bed, staring between his upraised knees at this man who'd become his lover.
Harry's fingers tangled in the thick strands of Snape's hair, felt it slide though his fingers as his cock slid between Snape's lips. No incubus would ever know him like this, savoring every dusky centimeter, parting Harry's thighs to delve deeper. He couldn't move, couldn't breathe when the mobile tip of Snape's tongue flickered inside him. The flats of Snape's hands rested on the tops of Harry's thighs, sliding over the angle of his hipbones, then back. The silk rustle of Snape's pajamas was like the moonlight over the garden, hiding the mysterious loveliness beneath.
Harry wanted to see what lay beneath. Propping himself up on his elbows, watching for a moment, he sucked in his breath as Snape's tongue swirled over the head of his cock, collecting the pearly fluid there. "Hey," he said softly. Snape, eyes gratifyingly unfocused, lifted his head. "This is one thing you *don't* have to do all by yourself."
Snape kissed his way back up Harry's body, tracing little flower patterns as if strewing petals with his tongue. As soon as he was close enough, Harry slipped one hand into the waistband of his pajamas and started sliding them down. Snape hissed as the slippery stuff slid over his cock, and Harry grinned.
"I knew you'd be beautiful naked," Harry said. The moonlight wavered in a silvery line down the bed, a sliver arcing between them, the ice whiteness of it pooling in the only slightly darker valleys of Snape's body.
"I'm not," Snape said, averting his face until Harry's fingers dragged it back.
Harry didn't know how exactly to express what he meant, that there was beauty in clean lines and elegant proportions, and the steadfast ability to last, despite always-changing circumstances.
"Not like a pretty girl," he said, then laughed slightly. "More like this house." He licked one nipple, letting their legs entwine and rub together. Then, before he let himself be distracted, went on, "Just in need of the proper attention." Snape's eyes had narrowed at the mention of the Grange.
"Not that you aren't fit enough in your clothes," Harry went on. His fingers trailed down the side of Snape's jaw, thinking he must have shaved, as Harry had done, before the ceremony. "But it all comes together better, somehow, when you're like this."
"An expert on naked men are you?" Snape said, voice gone low and rough. His legs started to slide away on the bed.
"Hardly." His hand dropped around Snape's waist, holding him, before sliding down, smudging over the abrupt jut of his hipbone. "Never one as beautiful." Before Snape could refute this, Harry dropped back against the counterpane. "How about me -- worth waiting for?"
Though he'd meant to be flip, Harry was suddenly, inexplicably shy, until the low roar of Snape's "yes" made him shiver. The kiss that followed stole away any more flippancy, though the next one was gentle, and the next, and the next.
Snape touched him as though he were one of the Sevres china pieces in the kitchen until Harry sidled one leg over his hip, bringing their cocks together. "I can't wait, Severus," he moaned. "Not anymore." Something sad flickered over Snape's face, but before Harry could think to pin it down, Snape nodded.
Harry was begging in ways verbal and non-verbal but Snape was not to be hurried, carefully coating them both with the slippery stuff from Harry's nightstand. Even then, his cock poised between Harry's legs, Snape seemed about to ask for an invitation before Harry gave him a key. "Please, Severus, *please*." Harry concentrated on opening his body as he'd opened his home, making room, making a haven. The groan as Snape sank inside him sent a ripple of pleasure up Harry's spine.
"Harry," Snape said in low wonder, and Harry wanted to bottle that exact tone, and keep it for always.
"So beautiful," Harry said, though he thought he'd been about to echo Snape's name. He reached up, brushing the hair away from the side of Snape's face where it always fell to hide his features.
"Foolish even now," Snape said, kissing away any reply, moving them both, as Harry clung to him. The passion was as easy as summer rain, light and thirsty at first, then roaring unexpectedly into a storm that by rights ought to have rattled the rafters. Harry thought for a moment lightning was flashing on Snape's face, but it was only the slim arc of moonlight, turning his eyes to rainwater pools as something glinted deep within them.
There was nothing languid left in their movements, Harry's to be closer, Snape's to be deeper, even as Harry's body drew him in. His head thrashed into the pillow, fingers digging furrows into Snape's back, yet still wanting more, *more*. And somehow, without Harry realizing he'd asked, even if he had at all, Snape gave him more, as though some tiny part of himself had been holding back.
"Fuck, Harry -- *Harry*," Snape panted, no longer any part of the elegant, correct Potions master, shaking with his need, and his pleasure, buried deeply inside Harry's body.
"God, yes," Harry said, on nearly the same breath. He'd been struggling to hold back, to hold onto the moment, but he held onto Snape until he joined him in the haven they'd created.
Harry let go only as much as he needed to -- to breathe, to have Snape untangle their bodies. There was something wondrous in Snape's eyes that Harry could not look away from. He smiled with the delight of it. "I don't care what Hermione Granger says," Harry said, when he trusted his voice, "we should have been doing this ages ago."
Something dimmed on Snape's face, replaced by the burgeoning sharpness that covered up the emotions Harry had been looking at. "So glad I could end your long drought, Mr. Potter," he said, pulling away, though whether to escape to the other side of the bed, or out of it completely, Harry never gave him a chance to implement.
"Do you know the first time I thought about us doing this?" Harry asked, closing the space between them as though Snape had only meant to settle more comfortably in the bed. He ran his finger over the curve of one shoulder, pulling him back, down onto the bed beside him. "The first time as a grown man that is?" The sharpness was fading slightly and Harry went on. "It was that day I showed you the carpet in your room. I had this mad vision of us writhing like snakes on that carpet." Even his sated brain could spin a pretty good facsimile of that one, and he let it unwind a moment. Then, sliding his hand over the dampness collected in the center of Snape's chest, he rubbed one foot along Snape's leg, feeling it untense and relax.
"As a grown man?" Snape asked sharply.
Harry colored slightly. "You know, awkward teenage years. I had fantasies about every fit specimen at Hogwarts for a while there."
Snape snorted delicately. "Your definition of 'fit' and mine must differ greatly if you found adequate fodder for your adolescent hormones at school."
The hand in the center of Snape's chest wandered, finger trailing across one nipple. The hair there was sparser than Harry's own, matted down with sweat. Though they were lying side by side, Snape wasn't really touching him except where Harry's body overlapped his.
"Ah, the lure of the forbidden, the thin line between love and hate and all that." He chuckled, perfectly aware that Snape was looking down at him now. Harry picked up the hand closest to him and draped it over his hip.
"I should go back to my room," Snape said, but he didn't lift his hand up.
"It's your wedding night too," Harry said, more fiercely than he'd intended, looking up. Snape's eyes held his until he nodded and settled back against the pillow.
Harry awoke with that overall sense of well-being he'd always heard he should have after a really good shag but had never really had until now. He knew at once that Snape wasn't in the bed with him. He'd woken earlier, sometime before morning light, to find Snape wrapped around him like ivy. Whatever inhibitions Snape had when awake had fallen easily in sleep. And when he'd woken Snape up with soft whispers and lapping kisses, Harry had ended up on his belly, Snape's hands grasping his shoulders. He'd said Harry's name again, in that tone he'd never heard from another throat, over and over again as he thrust into him.
Harry shivered at the memory, trailing one hand over the pillow where they'd both rested their heads. He hoped Snape was downstairs, brewing up the coffee he made only for Harry. He'd probably have a sharp remark about the efficacy of tea. Maybe they'd have breakfast then come back to bed, make love --
Make love.
Fuck.
Snape had made love to Harry, had let himself have the one night Harry had coaxed him into. But he still hadn't believed it could be real, could be what Harry wanted. Cold panic shivered up his spine, and he knew instantly Snape would not be in the kitchen. Nearly falling out of bed, Harry threw on his pajama bottoms, snagging his dressing gown on the way down the suddenly endless stone steps.
The kitchen was empty and cold. Even the dishes from last night had been put away. No trace that a wedding supper had ever taken place.
It couldn't be too late, it couldn't, Harry thought as he ran up the opposite staircase to Snape's room. Snape was just --
But he wasn't there. The door stood ajar, and even though Harry dreaded to go in, he knew he had to. Then nearly sagged in despair at the sight inside. Neatly folded up on the bed were Snape's wedding robes. On top, lay the shimmer of the gray silk pajamas Harry had taken such delight in removing last night. Weighting down the pile were two objects--the heavy brass key to the Grange, and the carved folly Harry had given Snape.
Harry picked up the folly, without really knowing why. It felt slightly warm in his fingers. Pulling his dressing gown closed, Harry did the only thing he could think of to do. He Apparated to Ron's cottage.
It was dark in the bedroom; the curtains were closed but there was enough light to see both Ron and Hermione were there, sleeping still. The covers had slipped off both their bodies, leaving only one of Ron's legs covered. One of Hermione's small, rounded breasts peeked out from beneath the duvet.
"Hermione!" he whispered loudly. She stirred, and he called out again.
"Harry? What?" She opened her eyes blearily.
"Severus is in love with me!" Harry said.
That brought her into focus. "I know," she said, clearing her throat and rubbing her eyes.
"Harry?" Ron mumbled, moving so that his cock flopped over his other leg.
"Why didn't you tell me?" Harry said, pacing beside the bed.
Hermione looked over at Ron then back at Harry. "Because Severus trusted me not to," she said.
Ron's eyes opened and he yelped, yanking the covers away and squashing them over his lower half. Then he reached over and tucked one remaining corner over Hermione's breast. "Harry, for God's sake, what are you --" Ron began, staring up at his friend. "What's happened?"
"Severus is gone! He's left me." Harry looked at them helplessly.
Hermione's face softened. "Well, he was never going to stay."
Despair pounded through him, like a second heartbeat. "I just thought, after last night --"
With a groan, Ron flopped back onto the bed and dropped a pillow over his face.
Looking exasperated at them both, Hermione turned her attention to Harry. "How did you find out?"
Harry looked over her shoulder at Ron, then back to her. "Er, maybe I'd better tell you later."
From beneath the pillow, Ron's muffled voice said, "Thank you."
Harry paced again, then crouched beside the bed. Hermione, still looking tousled, pulled the covers more firmly around her and squeezed his arm. "How did you find out?" he asked, "How long have you known?"
"Since the night of Albus's funeral," Hermione said. "Severus disappeared right afterward, and Minerva was worried, so she went down to see him. She came back and told me he wouldn't let her in." She looked over at Ron then went on. "So, I went down and, er, persuaded him to let me in --"
"Tricked him into letting you in, you mean," Ron said, coming out from his pillow-induced isolation.
"Well, anyway, Severus was, er, a bit worse for wear --"
"Drinking, you mean." Harry had heard the rumors.
"And he's got no head for it at all. Kept going on about how you had dared to show up at the funeral."
"Me?" It gave him a weird feeling to think Snape hadn't thought he'd had any right to be there.
Hermione nodded, then pushed her thick hair back away from her face. "I said you had every right, that you loved Albus as much as we all did." The expression on her face was far away for a moment. "He said, and I'll remember it as long as I live, he said, 'Harry Potter doesn't love anyone'."
It was as if Snape had walked between them. Harry fought the urge to look over his shoulder to see if he was standing in the door, listening.
"I couldn't have that," Hermione said, matter of factly. "I said you loved me, and Ron, and the Weasleys, well, most of them anyway." Her face softened again. "And that you'd loved Albus too." She combed her hand through her hair again. "He looked sort of stricken. You know that expression he gets when anyone finds out he's human after all."
Harry nodded.
"I suppose he saw I'd put it all together," Hermione went on. "He made me swear never to tell anyone." They were quiet for a moment, as Harry took it all in. Then Hermione said, "Harry, why does this matter to you? Are you in love with him?"
Before Harry could answer, Ron snorted. "Of course he is!" Harry and Hermione both looked over at him and he shrugged. "Known you a long time, mate." His eyes narrowed. "That doesn't mean I want to know any details, ever." He fished around on the floor for his pajama bottoms. "So, what's the problem then? Snape admits maybe perhaps to having feelings toward Harry, and you say you're in love with him." While he was talking he slid as fast as humanly possible into pajamas, giving Harry a brief flash of pale Weasley arse.
"He's gone," Harry said, feeling a stab of misery.
"Well, it isn't as though you don't know where he lives," Ron pointed out, sitting back on the bed, stretching out his long legs.
"It's too late. He's left me." Hermione squeezed his arm again. "I didn't tell him last night because he'd think I was just swept up in the, er --" He looked over at Ron, who put on his bravest face. "Heat of the moment."
"Are you sure you weren't?" Hermione asked.
Harry looked down and shook his head. "I knew he wouldn't believe me though, knew he'd think I just wanted --"
Ron made an indelicate noise. "Harry's been loopy about the git for months." Hermione looked between sharply. Harry felt his face heating as though she'd caught him skipping History of Magic.
"What are you going to do?" she asked.
Harry shook his head. "I don't know."
What he ended up doing was going back to the Grange. It seemed quieter and more isolated than it had ever been. For the first time in a long time he wondered if he would really make his home here, whether Snape had been right, that this old ruin was no place for someone with no other ties to it than that Albus had wanted him to have it. Wanted *them* to have it.
Harry got cleaned up, and put on fresh clothes, throwing the pajamas he'd worn last night into the hamper. Even the kitchen seemed colder, and smaller than it ever had. He hadn't gone back into Snape's room.
He waited for the coffee to brew, helped along by heating charms he was usually too scrupulous to use, and took his mug out on the balcony to think.
It was a morning made for daydreaming. The garden lay like a lush carpet, divided into precise geometric patterns that matched the windows in the front. The fountain splashed so softly it was no more than a whisper on the breeze, the hideous bumblebee weathervane on top of the folly, creaking with the shift in the wind, pointing back toward the house.
Something black moved at the corner of his vision, coming round the side of the house. Harry froze. It was Snape, head down, making his way up the stone steps from the garden. He paused when he caught sight of Harry, leaning by the balustrade. His heart was pounding beneath his ribs, but Harry forced himself to take a nonchalant sip of coffee.
"Good morning," he said. Even though he was trying to keep his voice flat he was surprised at how emotionless it sounded.
"Is it?" Snape said. He had something in his hand, a sheaf of papers. Before Harry could respond he went on. "I've brought the papers for you to sign."
"What papers? If this is about the price of the house, my offer stands. I'm giving you every galleon you deserve. I won't lower the price."
Snape didn't say anything, just looked at Harry with that hooded gaze Harry hadn't seen for a long time. "No, this is a bill of divorcement."
"I don't want a divorce," Harry said, wrapping his fingers around the warm mug so hard he was afraid it would shatter in his hand.
"It's too late for an annulment," Snape said, as if lecturing in class. "Though the Ministry will not question your word on -- on the grounds for divorce, they will surely question me. For such an unusual request, I'm likely to be given Veritaserum. They'll know an annulment…isn't possible any longer."
Very carefully Harry sat down his coffee on the stone balustrade. "I don't want an annulment. I don't want a divorce. I want to stay married."
Snape's voice was a whip crack in the still summer air. "There's no possible reason --"
"You made love to me last night," Harry said.
"It's too late for your regrets," Snape said, voice low.
"I don't regret it. I'm only sorry that's what it took to show me how you felt." He was watching, waiting for Snape to say something. "Only you left. Why did you do that?"
Snape brandished the sheaf of parchments. "I wanted to get this nonsense over as swiftly as possible." He looked down at the brown bundle as if it could provide more answers. "A divorce will take longer than an annulment would, but neither of us will have to appear before the Ministry."
"I won't divorce you," Harry said, digging in his heels.
"You *will*," Snape snarled, taking a step closer, the sheaf held in front of him like a Shielding Charm. "I won't be bound to such a craven, young man who's simply using this -- this unforeseen complication to hold onto his property."
Harry laughed, though there was no merriment in it. "You think I'm doing this so I can keep the house without paying you for it?" Unknowingly he'd taken a step closer too, nearly nose to nose with Snape. "Accio Deed." He looked over his shoulder at his bedroom window as the scroll came sailing into his hand.
"Here," he said, thrusting it into Snape's hand. "It's yours. I'll sign it over right now. I don't want to live here without you, so there's no point in staying."
"You think I won't call your bluff. That I won't take this." Snape snorted, his eyes gleaming with malice as his fingers curled around the deed.
"It's yours," Harry said, stepping back. He glanced out over the garden. "Keep it or sell it. Burn it down for all I care." He turned, not expecting Snape to call him back as he walked away. He wasn't disappointed. Slowly he climbed the stairs to his room, looking out of his window to see if Snape were still on the balcony. There was no sign of him. Probably Apparated directly to the Ministry so he could be there as soon as they opened Monday morning, Harry thought, sitting down hard on his bed. He hadn't bothered making it up this morning.
It had been ridiculous to take on this ruinous cavern of a house. And even greater foolishness to risk his heart on Snape.
"Harry."
He looked up. Snape stood in the doorway. "Young men are given to flights of romantic fancy and grand gestures," he said, proffering the scroll. "I won't take this."
Harry shrugged, not making any effort to take the deed. "Why not?"
Snape waved the scroll impatiently. "Come on, your point is made, take it."
"I don't want it," Harry said stubbornly. "I fixed this place up for you. Everything in it, we bought together. It's just a monument to impracticality. Like that silly folly out there. Pointless."
Snape huffed in exasperation. Then his expression turned sly. "Will you take it if I tell you what that ridiculous charlatan told me she saw in her crystal ball?"
Harry gripped the edges of the bed, leaning forward slightly. "I might."
Snape looked down at the scroll. "She said she saw us both in the folly kissing."
Harry frowned. Her reaction had seemed a bit more dramatic than if she'd just caught them snogging. "We did kiss there."
"Then she saw me pushing you away, leaving you inside the tower." Snape looked at the deed in his hand again, then back to Harry. "She dragged me off to tell me I had to tell you how I felt or dire things would happen."
"Why didn't you?" Harry asked.
"Sharing the Courting ritual with you was all I would allow myself," Snape said. He straightened and held out the deed again. "I won't put you out of your home," Snape said, still in the doorway. "You love this monstrous ruin."
"I love *you* more." There, he'd said it, and it could never be unsaid. "I've been trying to get you to fall in love with me."
"You didn't have to try," Snape admitted quietly.
"I knew there was something unfinished between us," Harry said. "I was just too young and too stupid to know what it was."
"You saved me. You didn't have to do that." Snape looked at the divorce parchment in his hand as though wondering how it had got there. "I didn't think it would matter to me that it was you, but it did. Only you and Albus ever thought --"
"Then let yourself have this," Harry said, not worrying about the pleading tone in his voice. "We can live anywhere you like. Sell this place, open it up for tourists. I don't care." He saw the hesitation flickering over Snape's face. "You can't tell me you don't like this place a little?"
Snape took out his wand. Harry watched, puzzled until Snape said, "Incendio," and the bundle of divorce papers went up in a carefully controlled burst of flame.
Harry smiled. "I love a man who understands the grand gesture."
Snape was tucking away his wand, careful of the tiny sparks that glowed and dimmed as they drifted downward. "Let's not forget the flights of romantic fancy."
"I want to be married on the balcony," Harry said, standing up and taking the deed again at last. Their hands brushed as he set it aside.
"We already *are* married," Snape pointed out, watching as Harry began undoing his coat buttons, but not objecting.
"I want a real wedding," Harry said, stopping his task long enough for Snape to lift his shirt over his head, then it was back to unbuttoning. "With all our friends coming to wish us well."
"To gape at the spectacle and drink my wine, you mean," Snape said, sliding out of his coat while Harry began on the snowy white shirt beneath. Their fingers were moving faster over each other's clothes, so that for a few moments there were rather dangerous elbows flying.
"We can call it a house warming," Snape said, into the already damp place behind Harry's ear as they pulled each other onto the bed.
"A house warming with vows," Harry said agreeably, not really in a frame of mind to object to anything Snape said in that breathy, licking-Harry voice.
"We've been married once, and quite properly," Snape said, running one hand over the slope of Harry's shoulder, then down onto his chest, then lower into the tangle of hair between his legs.
"Formality," Harry said, having nearly lost the ability to form complete sentences while Snape was palming his cock like that. "Balcony." Despite its brevity, the statement must have made some sort of sense to Snape, who was strewing more of those flower petal kisses down his neck.
"I'm allowed to choose the honeymoon destination then," Snape said, between languid licks and increasingly urgent strokes to Harry's cock.
Harry had instant visions of a tour of wineries in France but figured he could endure it for the sake of a man who tongued his navel with such absolute devotion to the art. "Fine," he said, watching his cock disappear between smirking lips. "Oh, very fine," he managed, then for a long time he lost the desire for speech, the desire to do anything but give himself over to those heated lips.
With great sense of purpose he speared his fingers into Snape's hair. "No, wait, stop." Snape stopped without lifting his head. "I'll come."
Harry watched breathlessly as Snape released his prick, centimeter by centimeter, mouthing at last along the ridge below the head. "Yes," he said, as if concentrating on a particularly difficult spell.
"Come on now," he said, tugging Snape's head off his cock. "Let me see you all over." He pushed himself up on his elbows. Snape was sprawled over the lower half of the bed, one leg curled under him like a nesting dragon. Obligingly the other man shifted position, crawling up beside Harry, bodies entwining as easily as they'd done last night.
"Do you remember I told you the first time I thought about us doing this?" Harry said, running his lips down the pale plinth of Snape's neck. He could feel Snape's nod. "Do you know when the next time was?" He looked up, into Snape's face, liking the blissfully rapt expression there. "Every day since then," he said, before Snape could reply. There was a flare of desire in the ink-dark eyes, like the Incendius spell, showering sparks over them.
Fleetingly he'd thought Snape might be self-conscious about his body, now they were in the light, but Snape sprawled beneath him, urging him to explore. By the time Harry got the knack of those flower-petal kisses, Snape was pushing his head toward his prick. The scent was like stepping off a train in a foreign country. Lush and exotic, underlain with something familiar, something of Hogwarts and sturdy British soap.
Harry gave himself time to explore this new destination. He hadn't really had much of a chance last night. He let his tongue dart over the soft, tight balls, nuzzling into the dark places beneath. Snape made a noise that let him know he was on the right track so he kept exploring, kissing his way up Snape's cock.
Snape was propped up on his elbows, head thrown back, hair dangling on the pillow until Harry started working his way back up his chest. He could see Snape's fingers flexing into the sheets.
"I think we should fuck," he said, from just below Snape's jaw.
"Do you now?" One black eye opened lazily.
"In case the question of an annulment ever comes up again," Harry said, unable to hide his smirk, and seeing no reason to, really.
"You are going to find that amusing for the rest of your life, aren't you?" Snape replied, both eyes open now and narrowing, but not with malice.
"You'll just have to stay around and see, won't you?" Harry's smirk bloomed into a grin. He spent several productive minutes that both he and Snape enjoyed equally until he lifted once more, straddling Snape's lap, so he could lower himself down properly onto the gratifyingly upraised cock. Harry's eyes widened in appreciation, both at the sensation, and for the way Snape's face looked in the morning light.
"Oh, that's nice," he said, meaning both. He needed to move, and managed it, Snape's strong fingers holding his hips, guiding him. He found an angle where they could kiss, wanting to taste the desire directly from the source inside Snape's mouth. It was heady stuff, and he offered some of his own, until they were tangling everywhere they could touch, moving as if no force could stop them.
Harry's arms wound around Snape's neck, holding on fiercely. One hand was working his cock, in awkward counterpoint to Harry's rapid rise and fall, but Harry thought it might be the best he'd ever felt until he felt exponentially better, racing where Snape beckoned.
He wanted to come very hard and to hold onto this moment as long as possible, the one where Snape called his name exactly like that, and moaned so deeply that Harry could feel it where their slick chests slid over one another. It was his body that cast the deciding vote, his brain slowly settling into the realization that there would be many more moments like this to hold onto. A lifetime's worth, enough to fill a home.
Snape held him for a moment, while Harry shuddered against him, heedless of his fingers digging into Snape's back. Then he wrapped both hands, one still wet with Harry's come, back around his hips, moving Harry again, moving them both. Harry dragged his head up, out of his torpor, wanting to see the bliss catch up to that face, smiling when it was as lovely as he'd thought.
"Beautiful," he said with a contented sigh as Snape petted and stroked him, holding him until they slipped apart with a liquid noise. Harry bore him back onto the bed, down into what should have been an awkward tangle but wasn't, at least not for Harry. If his weight bothered Snape he gave every appearance of being too sated to complain.
"The next time you fall in love with me, let me know," Harry said, nuzzling the soft hair lying in damp spots on Snape's neck.
Without opening his eyes, Snape said, "That would be now, then."
He let his fingers stroke over Snape's jaw and face until he opened his eyes. "Why didn't you just tell me?"
Snape kissed the tips of his fingers. "To love you is folly."
Harry cradled him close. "There's a place in the world for folly."
Author's Chapter Notes:
Based on a Challenge from Painless_J, Mused by Aubrem, beta read by Cordelia_V, Serpentsgarden, and Painless_J.
