In My Mind

Disclaimer: Same as before.

A/N: For my reviewers:

antipyro: Yep!! It\'s the Quibbler!! She\'s running it now. and, thanks for that about Lav. I couldn\'t imagine her getting anything less. lol

KillingProphet: Thanks again for the review, and I do feel very priveleged. =) There\'s a little angst in this chapter, but there\'s oh-so-much more fluff. Hope you like!!

zak and ivan: Yes, I have dubbed it THE CULT OF ZAK AND IVAN. lol and, Ivan, I\'m with Zak, I don\'t like the word \'faggot\'. It rhymes with \'maggot\' and conjurs up images of nasty little things. lol *strokes Zak\'s ego* People love you two, swear. I mean, who wouldn\'t? You\'re like the crazy friends who get the sensible one to do things they would never, ever in a million years do. (Did that make sense?? Probably not. HA!) Can I tell your fans that you have a live journal now?? *helps Zak preen like a peacock* You guys are both just tooooooooo much!! Speaking of, have you visited the live journal group recently?? You should, and you should find my post from 2 days before Halloween. *grins*

raija: I know, I\'m horrible. You\'d think that being someone who HATES cliffies, than I\'d do it less. Yeah, sadly, I don\'t. I suck.

shadowraven113: Thank you for your compliment. When I started writing this, I\'d not seen one like it, and certainly not one so fluffy that it made you want to gag. lol I\'m taking this concept and also maing a dark fic. It\'s cool.

TyRisha: Yeah, I could totally see Harry as a father. I think he\'d be a good one.

Draven: Here ya go!! More!! *squees*





Harry sat there dumbfounded. “I…What?” His face screwed up in concentration as though he were trying to interpret a language that he was not familiar with.

When he looked into Severus’ face, he knew that the man was not joking. Harry suddenly burst out laughing. He was happier than he could ever remember being. Unfortunately, Severus mistook his joviality. He tried to get up off of the bed, but Harry wouldn’t let him. The professor growled in frustration. “Let me up,” he said.

His low tone immediately sobered Harry, who looked him in his eyes. Harry crawled onto the man’s lap and straddled his hips. “No,” he said. “I’m not going to let you run away. You haven’t even gotten my answer yet.”

“If your laughter is indicative of your answer, then I believe you can save me the humiliation,” Severus growled.

Sighing, Harry put both of his hands on his love’s chest. “My laughter is indicative of my joy, and the ridiculousness of your proposal.” Harry pulled one of Severus’ hands up to his large belly. “I laughed because I always thought a marriage proposal was supposed to be romantic, not quite so dry, and serious. I laughed because I accept such a dry and unromantic proposal. I couldn’t imagine not accepting.”

It was Severus’ turn to be puzzled. “If it is, as you say, dry and unromantic, then why agree, Potter? You could always say something asinine like ‘bite me, Snape.’”

“I never thought I’d hear those words come out of your mouth, Severus,” Harry said with a chuckle. “Seriously, though, since I accepted such a proposal, you have to make it up to me by doing two things. One, don’t wear black robes to the bonding and two you have to take me somewhere nice for our honeymoon; the dungeons, here, or London doesn’t count, either.”

Severus wrapped his arms around Harry’s shoulders and brought their foreheads together. “Already making demands, are we my little housewife?”

Harry just smirked and kissed the long nose before him. “I’m going to call Luna and set up the interview for two hours from now. Do you want to be here or will you be going back to Hogwarts?”

“Hogwarts,” the dark wizard replied. “Miss Lovegood has this way about her that simply frightens me.”

Both men rose from the bed and had a cup of tea before Harry fire called Luna and asked her when she could see him. It was just over two hours later when she stepped through the floo with her wand tucked behind her ear and a Dicta-quill and parchment in her hand.

Harry kissed her cheek in greeting. “It’s been entirely too long, Luna,” he said fondly.

She smiled at her friend and touched his large belly. “It has, Harry. You were still in a coma when I saw you last.”

They settled in the sitting room and caught up for a few moments before Harry changed the subject to why he called her over. “I’m sure you’ve seen the article in the Prophet, haven’t you?”

“I have,” she said with a smile. “I still can not believe that the Prophet is just starting to try to figure out who your son’s other father is. Personally, as caustic as Professor Snape is, I believe he’s a good choice for you, not that I didn’t already see the signs before the article.”

“You knew?” Harry asked, disbelieving what he had just heard.

“Of course,” she said as though it was blatantly obvious there was something between Harry and Severus. “I saw it in his eyes as he watched over you day and night in the infirmary. I came to see you a few times with Ginny and Neville and he was almost always there. His magic also felt different to me, almost more open when he was with you. I simply put two and two together.”

“A Ravenclaw you are, Luna,” Harry replied with a laugh. “I actually invited you here so you could do a story on my upcoming bonding. With the article in the Prophet, Severus and I thought it wise to, instead of address that issue, offer up an issue of our own, and we want it published exclusively in the Quibbler.”

Luna’s eyebrows rose. “You honor me, Harry Potter,” she said thankfully. “Where would I be without friends like you?”

“I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for friends like you, Luna, so I suppose we should call it even.”

Luna set up her quill and parchment and Harry began relating the fact that he was to be bonded to the father of his child in one month. At no time did he actually say it was Severus, but Luna knew to be discrete. He explained that there were no concrete plans as of yet, but that he would give her weekly updates to publish and that she would have exclusive rights to the photos, but he wanted to be the one to decide which to publish.

She readily agreed and she returned to her office to finish her article. Harry flooed to Hogwarts to find Severus in his quarters pacing. He looked into amused green eyes as Harry stumbled from the hearth. “Well?”

“Luna already knew,” Harry replied.

This statement surprised Severus. “She did?”

Harry waddled over to the couch and sat down. “She sure did, Sev. Now, I have a few questions for you.”

Severus sat in his chair and looked at the young man across from him. He opened his arms and said, “Ask away.”

“You aren’t doing this out of some misguided since of duty, are you?” Harry asked seriously. “Because if you are, I want you to know that it’s not something you have to do.”

Severus began to laugh. Of all the people he knew, Harry was the one least likely to come across as insecure about something. The almost crushed look on Harry’s face stopped him. He moved over to the couch and gathered Harry into his arms. “I would not have asked had it not been something that I wanted. It’s not about duty or protecting you this time. It’s about you and my need for your presence in my life for eternity.”

Harry smiled as he stared into the roaring fire in the hearth. “Okay, so I suppose that we have a family to tell before they read it in the Quibbler and then flog us for not telling them first.”

Severus tilted Harry’s chin up and looked his love in the eyes. He planted a soft, chaste kiss on Harry’s lips. “You have a family to firecall. Inform them that there will be a celebratory dinner in your garden tonight and that if they want to know what is being celebrated, then they will have to be there. Meanwhile, I have to visit Diagon Alley.”

As Severus stood up, Harry began to look troubled. “What is the matter?”

“I don’t have anything to cook,” Harry replied in a rather lost voice.

“Do not worry about that, either, Harry. I will be back in approximately two hours with everything we will need to the feast tonight.”

Harry was unsure, but he let Severus go anyway. They young man wandered slowly back to his cottage. He called Remus and the werewolf stepped through. “I need some help, Remus,” Harry said as his surrogate father kissed his cheek. “Sev and I are having a celebratory dinner this evening.”

“Celebratory dinner?” Remus asked. “What are you celebrating?”

Nibbling on his lip in indecision, Harry finally looked up at the werewolf and grinned. “It’s to announce our bonding.”

Remus’ mouth dropped open. “You are having a celebratory bonding announcement dinner, then?”

“I suppose,” was the reply.

“Oh, Harry, this is huge. This dinner is a big thing in the wizarding world. Did he tell you anything about what is to happen? The ritual of it?”

Paling noticeably, Harry shook his head. Remus led the young man to the couch and sat him down. “Bonding dinners are a big event in the wizarding world because they are such an old tradition. Only those truly in love can bond, and it is obvious that you and he are because of Duncan. There is also going to be an array of food ranging from turkey and ham to papaya, strawberries, and grapes, each symbolizing something for the couple to be bonded.”

“I’ll never get through it,” Harry whined.

Remus put his arm around Harry’s shoulder. “You’ll be fine, Harry.”

He then began to tell the young man what to expect and what would be expected of him. Being the wizard who was asked, Harry would not be required to actually do anything but follow Severus’ lead, and for that, Harry was grateful.

A/N: Yeh, I know, I suck. I haven\'t updated like I wanted to but I have a really, really good excuse!! You see, that dark fic I threatened to write all summer, yeah, that plot bunny grabbed me by the jugular about 2 weeks ago. lol I\'m going to complete it, though, before I begin posting it.