You Know You Are Loved When A Gryffindor Loves You

27

They were straightening each other’s robes, tugging and pulling rough wool into shape. It felt awkward after so long in jeans. They were both nervous. They grabbed each other for a quick kiss of reassurance and with their children held close in side-slings, they apparated back to Hogwarts.

Breakfast was in full swing on the first morning back after the Easter holidays and all were astounded to see Severus Snape walk the length of the aisle in the main Hall with Harry Potter at his side, their hands joined and a small baby slung at each of their sides. The breakfast chatter gradually ceased as the two made their way to the staff table and were seated side by side.

At the end of the meal, Albus rose, “May we welcome Professor Potter-Snape back amongst us”, he made a small bow to his colleague and Severus inclined his head, “Along with his bond-mate, Harry Potter-Snape and their two children, Amanda and Alexander. I welcome you all to Hogwarts”. There was total silence at this announcement. Then the buzz started and grew to a roar in moments, all eyes in their direction. Harry muttered, “Shall we make it official?” and Severus leaned in and smiled against Harry’s lips then they kissed, no tongue but enough to heighten the cheers that Ginny Weasley had started amongst the members of her own house, then the Hall erupted. It was all too weird, and over breakfast, too.

This wasn’t quite how Albus Dumbledore had wished the situation to unfold, but Minerva was grinning her head off at the boys’ method of coming out, the hero and the evil, albeit grinning for Britain, Potions Master. No-one tried to explain Harry’s appearance at school other than as the bond-mate of his lover.

With the inestimable help of Dobby, they slowly settled back into school life. Harry did a few classes with the Seventh year but he was only aiming at passing his practicals. The rest of the time he spent with his children. Severus launched back into a full time teaching role until tiredness overtook him and his lessons were cut, much to Dumbledore’s chagrin. Having children quite took it out of one, as he observed reluctantly as Severus was led away by his husband and Albus realised there was more to life than killing and war as he observed the two with their offspring and the love between the four. Wisely, he decided not to intervene, letting things take their own course. These boys had dictated the pace and he wasn’t about to mess it up now, not now he had them back again.

Harry and Severus commandeered the room of requirement. Sometimes it was done out in mats like a dojo for Martial Arts practice, sometimes there were mats and blocks for yoga, at others the room was an Olympic sized swimming pool. They had swimming nights twice a week and sometimes Harry invited Ginny along for a swim. She couldn’t actually swim so Harry transfigured his rubber flip-flops into blow-up swim-wings for her and taught her while Severus did his lengths, shaking his hair out as he stepped out grabbing a towel.

Ginny had never seen her Potions Master this close to naked before and had to admit he was a handsome enough specimen as her eyes raked over the flat abs and the toned shoulders and chest. Harry caught her looking and commented, “Fucking gorgeous, isn’t he?” She blushed and looked down, “Sorry, Harry, didn’t mean to check your hubby out, but now you mention it....” Harry smiled, “So our little gay Gryffindor still likes the men then?” Ginny laughed, “Harry, I’m bi not exclusively gay and I still have eyes in my head”. Harry smirked, “So how are things with you and ‘Mione?” Ginny sighed, “I bloody miss her, truth be told, and not just for the obvious reasons”, she swatted Harry when she saw the smirk.

“Are you in love with her?”, gave Ginny pause. “Dunno”, was her soft and honest reply, “But we’re good together. She owls me most days. I know she’s loving her Auror internship and she sees plenty of Ron at the Ministry”. This made Harry smile, he missed his two best friends enormously, not to mention his extended family. He knew he had some serious making-up to do with Molly for not being told where her adopted son was hiding out all that time and especially keeping secret from her his wedding and pregnancy. Before she had calmed down a little with long apologetic letters from him, she had sent quite a few howlers admonishing the pair of them for not trusting her. Severus had to write a few mollifying missives of his own to soothe her ruffled feathers.

The children were asleep and Harry and Severus were relaxing after a long day laid out on the big sofa in their rooms, a glass of wine in their hands, “You know, Ginny was checking you out the other night, she said you were a bit of all right actually”, Harry sniggered. Severus kissed his bond-mate thoroughly, “Well, she has a trim little figure but I am definitely not a ladies man, I’m a ‘Harry’ man through and through”, he purred and Harry tipped his head back and lost himself in the ‘voice’.

Then the touches, then the body of the man beneath him as he turned in his lover’s arms. They were both shower-damp wearing nought but their robes which were soon pushed aside and slipped off as bodies slid and moaned together and the familiar sexy heat built between them. Harry rolled slightly as he worked his way along his lover’s luscious body making Severus arch up against him and was teasing and sucking on a deep brown nipple when there was a knock on the door. “Go away”, Severus growled, but the tapping became more and more insistent and could no longer be ignored.

With a sigh they adjusted their gowns drawing away from one another and Harry went to open the door. Feeling woefully underdressed, he ushered Albus and Minerva into the apartment. Harry went to dress but received a shake of the head from his beloved, ‘No, Harry, this is our time’, and simply sat on the sofa with his husband who pulled him back into his arms and they presented a slightly affronted united face to their visitors.

“Good evening, Albus, Minerva”, the Potions Master inclined a polite head at them both in turn and invited them to sit. He could see the tightness around their eyes and the lines of worry in their faces. Albus dived in, “I’m sorry to interrupt your private time together boys, but we have received some rather unsettling news. It would appear that Draco Malfoy has disappeared from view although we have no details as yet, it would appear as if he has been kidnapped. There is a ransom demand. We fear he-who-shall-not-be-named is behind it all, however. The ransom he requires is your son”.

The only sound in the room was the crackling and sparking of logs in the fire. The silence built and Harry moved forward on the sofa gathering his knees to him and sinking his head on them. Severus held him, ‘No-one is taking our child, Harry. No-one, I promise you’, and Harry collapsed sobbing into his partner’s arms. ‘We can’t just let Draco die, Severus. We have to find him and get him out of wherever he is’. Severus just held tighter, “No thinking about heroics, husband. There’s a way around this. Albus, have the Order been alerted?” Albus squinted shrewdly at the two, had they just had some sort of private conversation? He let it go for now, “Yes indeed, my boy. Since young Master Malfoy expressed his wish to come over to our side, we have placed tracking charms on his person and his effects, but everything has gone deadly silent on that score. I have a nagging fear that either the young man has turned again and his disappearance is a decoy or a trap, or.....”. he let his words hang in the air.

“The manipulative old BASTARD”, Harry screamed after the two teachers had left. Severus took him in his arms but couldn’t erase the frown that had taken up residence between his brows, the boy was his godson after all. He soothed his young love’s temper as much as possible but they had borne a child each and the maternal instinct took over with them both, lifting their babies from the large cradle that they shared and holding their children tight. That night they all had a tense night and the only sleepers were their children lying between them in their bed.

Severus held Harry, “Look, this may be a ruse, but it would appear that the Order is taking this seriously. Let’s face it, Draco is a capable Wizard and knows something of the machinations of the Dark side. I trust him to try and stay safe. He could, after all, just be hiding out somewhere with Mr Weasley. I wouldn’t put it past him to have detected the charms and dismantled them himself. He’s a headstrong boy as we both know, and he and Ron could be shacked up in a hotel or something”, but even as he spoke the words, they both knew the possibility of the truth, that Draco could already be dead.

Harry sagged, “No-one’s taking my baby, either of them”, he muttered and passed into an uneasy sleep in Severus’ strong arms. In sleep he was wound tight and Severus tried to soothe the bundle of wired energy he held as his tears fell into that messy brown hair, murmuring, “Oh, god, Draco. Where the fuck are you? What kind of trouble are you in?”.

The morning brought no clarity, just gritty eyes and hoarse throats. Harry tried to relax as he fed the children but his agitation was read by them and they were difficult and fractious sensing the agitation of their parents. They groused and grizzled. Alex was difficult and rejected his bottle. Amanda had a much more calm mien, taking her feed but gazing into her father’s eyes with her all-knowing calm black eyes, a sombre expression on her face as she suckled. It was as if both of them could feel the tension. Exhausted, Harry lay them back down to sleep after winding and changing them both. He felt useless as there was no further news.

He fire-called Ron at the Ministry as soon as he could, Ron was beside himself with worry. “I lost him two nights ago”. Draco had dismantled Dumbledore’s tracking spells but had allowed Ron to link them. Their link was quiescent, no, dead. Ron was pacing the floor in his office in tears, “I want him back, Harry. I love him”. This was news to his best mate, “You’re in love?” Ron just stared at the head in his grate, “’Course I am, Harry, we’ve been together well over a year. If it was just sex, we’d have fizzled out ages ago. He loves me too”. Harry’s disembodied head had eyes that teared, “You know what the ransom demand is, don’t you? He wants my son in exchange. Ron, do you have any idea where he might be?” Ron crouched in front of the grate, his eyes red, “I’ve no idea. The last place he was, was at home at the Manor. That’s where I lost him. Gods, Harry, I want him back”. Harry called his attention back, “Ron, have you ever been to Malfoy Manor. Are there any Magically unplottable locations within it?” This caught the redhead off his guard. “Yeah, now that I think of it. There are a couple of spots in the garden, a summer house and a gazebo, and of course, the dungeons under the House. We used to sneak out to the summer house. Drae use to insist we had sex there rather in the main house as his parents disapprove of our liaison. Fuck, Harry, I’m at my wits’ end here. I miss him”, he was kneeling in the hearth in tears.

“We need to figure out where he is first, Ron, and from what you’ve just told me, this could be an in-house job. I bet he’s still there. His parents disapprove, you know his old man’s a Death-Eater? This is an ideal time to destroy you, me and my son, it’s too good an opportunity to miss. Did it occur to you that he might have gone back over to the other side?” Ron’s, “NO, he’s on this side, he’s been to the Burrow, met mum and dad, been tested by Aurors, put up with my brothers”, was enough to convince Harry but it was the weak and stricken, “Drae loves me, Harry”, that decided him.

They were sitting side by side in the Hall, it was lunchtime. Their conversation was silent and they gave nothing away with their faces as they ‘talked’. ‘I think he’s still at the Manor. I had a chat with Ron this morning and he told me of the unplottable places around the Manor. What I can’t understand is why they want Alex instead of me’. Harry’s head hung over his food which he barely pushed around. Severus glanced sideways at his devastated lover, and, hang where they were, took him into his arms and stroked his hair, ‘Me either, sweetheart. It could be just about hurt, but it is ill-conceived and badly thought out, more of a threat, a ploy, to split us and our family. Think about it, Harry, neither of us has felt the ‘call’ through my Mark or your scar since we got together, not so much as a twinge all the time we were at home. The ‘call’ affects me less while I’m there, but I can still feel it, and nada, all the time we were pregnant. Something is very ‘off’ here’. Harry had to agree as the panic evaporated a little, but he didn’t feel any better about the situation.

Dumbledore watched the two bondees with interest, Yes, they were definitely ‘talking’. He could see by their expressions. He would bet a Galleon to a knut that he had two bonded Telepaths under his roof, but why so secretive about it? He narrowed his eyes but in light of previous actions couldn’t exactly blame them for their secrecy. As they stood to leave the Hall he noticed their easy swagger, despite the tension in their shoulders and the tiredness in each of their faces, both his boys were fit and neither had it from Quidditch, their backs were straight and Severus positively loped from the room, they were in intense physical training and it was starting to show on the outside. Harry had always had an easy grace about him, but Severus had lost his hunched stiffness and Albus wondered at their discipline as he watched them go.