You Know You Are Loved When A Gryffindor Loves You

28

The note was hanging onto the owl’s leg with a tiny piece if cotton that looked like it had been torn from the hem of a shirt, there were two bloodied fingerprints obscuring part of the writing. The note was addressed to Ron and he redirected it to the Staff table at Hogwarts as soon as he’d read it. It said, simply, “I’m being held at the Manor. Help. I’m going to die unless my father and Him get hold of Potter’s baby. They’ve taken my wand. Help me. Love you. Your, D.”

Ron fire-called his best friend immediately after breakfast. “Yeah, we got the note, Ron. This is Draco’s handwriting, isn’t it?” There was a blur in front of the fiery face in the grate as Harry realised his best friend was wiping tears from his eyes. “Oh, Ron, we’ll get him back to you, but we must all protect him from now on, he can’t go back home after we get him out”. Ron’s reply was thick with tears, “I’ll marry him if that will keep my Drae safe from them, but we haven’t a bond like you guys, nothing that the Magical world feels obliged to protect”. Harry’s laugh was hard but it straightened Ron’s back, “Don’t be daft, Ron, love is always worth protecting. Hang on in there, we’ll get him back now we know where he is and that he’s alive”. Ron wept orange tears into the coals and Harry bent into the flames and kissed his best friend’s brow before Ron was called back to his duties.

That evening, there was a tense meeting of the Order at school that Severus and Harry sat in on, but it went so slow, the battle plan relying on Magic alone, until they both stood and bowed curtly before the other members of the Order and demonstrated their new fighting skills, their ability to converse wordlessly as they mock-fought with a ferocity that, frankly, scared the Order members with their speed and agility.

Remus was the first to speak, “Bloody hell, you two, this is awesome”. Harry shrugged, “It’s a last ditch if we lose our wands. We’ve been honing unarmed Martial skills and building up our strength. Albus, you truly have two deadly weapons in your midst, although we would prefer not having to show these skills before the final showdown. We need something in reserve when we take on big V, something he has never seen before”. All were impressed at the demonstration but didn’t put the pieces together in the same way that the Headmaster had, with his canniness. They used a mixture of Martial Arts, Telepathy and the skills that Harry was ingraining into his love, the art of quarterstaffing, where any well balanced branch of wood would do in a pinch.

They leapt and turned and blocked and hit out with nothing more Magical than two lengths of raw tree, feinting and parrying and pushing against each other. Severus’ extra weight and height no advantage over Harry’s natural speed and agility. “Fackin’ ‘ell guys, that’s amazin’”, spoke for all present from Tonks. The two finished their demonstration and finished in front of their audience with their hands in prayer position and bowing over them. In the silence that followed, Albus cleared his throat awkwardly, “You have obviously worked very hard and I applaud your efforts. You are truly fit fighting machines and I am proud of you both”.

Harry grinned, “So send us in after Draco”. There was an uproar at this. No-one wanted to send the pair in together and both saw the point, they neither of them wanted to leave two orphans, but all had to agree on their ultimate suitability, not to mention their awe-inspiring teamwork as weapons. Ron and Hermione were stunned at the display and Harry grinned, “Having kids hasn’t made us total softies, it’s just given us more to defend, more reason to come out alive”, and there wasn’t a single person that could disagree with that.

Dumbledore sighed and Remus, at the back of the group, winked at both of his ex-lovers and grinned, “You two are truly formidable”, he raised his sandy brows at them and they both laughed, any animosity in the past. Dumbledore mumbled, “Choose your weapons boys”. They glanced at each other and grinned. “I want Ron, Hermione and Ginny,”, Harry said. Severus replied, “Remus and Tonks. Alastor too, if you’re game. We do the fighting and you lot get to mop up or babysit the hostage”. And so it was agreed.

Nothing more was done that night, much to Ron’s chagrin, but as the others were at pains to reassure him, they needed more strategy sessions and they would reconvene the following morning after a night’s sleep.

“We have to assume that Voldemort wants our son for a particular purpose as Harry and I are now bondees in our own right”, Severus tried to keep the tremor out of his voice as Harry slipped his hand into that of his husband, “Though I cannot think of anything, just the thought of what that bastard.....”, Harry threw his arms around him, “Sshh, sshh, it doesn’t bear thinking about, try not to dwell on it, love, we can fall apart later. This is why we needed hiding for all that time and why we needed to build back up again”, he glanced at Albus meaningfully, “We always feared something like this might occur and now we are as ready as at anytime to meet it”. Albus nodded, dumbly.

The meeting progressed. Severus and Ron huddled together to pool all the knowledge they had about the wards and protections around Malfoy Manor. Severus was more familiar overall but Ron had been a much more recent visitor. Remus chipped in, “Draco himself told us of a weak part of the wards on the East wing side of the building. Apparently, there’s been extensive restoration going on on that side of the house and there’s a hole through which the restorers can enter and leave. As the team are Muggles, they can’t know or detect the Magic although I’m sure Lucius will have laid some detection wards, especially as we now know of his son’s incarceration. I suspect the note was a plant although I also suspect that Draco really is at the Manor”.

Harry’s brow creased, “Why would Lucius imprison his own son? Why Draco, not some other witch or wizard?” Albus’ tone was soft, “Does Draco have the Mark, Ron?” The redhead shook his head, “No, but he said his Father is anxious for him to take it. Perhaps that’s the deal, unless Harry gives up his child, for whatever nefarious reason, then he will have Drae Marked, whether he wants to or not. Oh, god, we’ve got to get him back”, Ron carded an anxious hand through his hair.

All were in deep thought. “Ron, it’s Draco’s birthday soon, isn’t it?”, ventured Harry. Ron cast him a worried look, “Yeah”. “Then that’s how long we’ve got. He’ll Mark him on his nineteenth birthday, the Malfoys being such sticklers for timeliness and correct ritual. We have approximately two weeks to get him out”. The rest of the morning was spent laying plans and as lunchtime approached, the meeting broke up, Hermione and Ron Floo’d back to the Ministry followed by Alastor and Tonks. The senior Weasleys went back to the Burrow leaving Albus, Minerva, Remus, Severus, Harry and Ginny to continue with their day in school but everyone was antsy.

Harry sat in their rooms and brooded while Severus was teaching, “Why his son?” was the question swirling around in his brain as he gave his children their feed, “Why you, little Alex, son of mine, what does he want with you?” He put them to bed for their afternoon nap and lay back on the bed exhausted.

Severus allowed himself the luxury of looking at his beloved deeply asleep before stripping off and jumping under the shower cleaning the residue from a fourth year Hufflepuff’s exploding cauldron from his hair. He didn’t hear anything so a pair of warm sleepy arms around him made him jump, “Room for two in there?”, Harry’s sleepy voice over his shoulder and a hot erection pushing it’s length in the cleft of his arse and Severus turned and admitted a naked and very aroused Harry into the shower with him.

They held close and kissed gently. Severus could still taste Harry’s recent slumber in his mouth and pulled the boy to him possessively and plundered his relaxed mouth with his needy tongue, “Mine, all mine”, and Harry mewled his appreciation high in his throat as the water flattened the hair to his head and Severus’ arms crushed their bodies together frotting his thick hard cock against his young love’s, but Harry had other ideas, casting a lascivious green gaze into his lover’s eyes, he slowly knelt and pushed Severus’ back against the cold tiles spreading his legs wide to brace himself, then in a single move threatened to swallow Severus’ cock whole. The man cried out and tipped his head back biting at his lower lip. He resisted thrusting with all his might although he wanted nothing more than to fuck that sweet sleepy throat. Harry moved on him instead, opening his throat a little more to the bulbous head of his lover’s aching cock with each descent, using one hand to cup the heavy balls and fondle them, the other in the small of Severus’ back to prevent movement while he sucked him, swallowing around the head and making his throat constrict and release around it. In mere minutes, Severus was coming hard in long pulses and Harry milked every last drop into his mouth before withdrawing and burying his nose in Severus’ pubic hair drinking in the fresh smell of his lover’s come.

Severus held Harry’s head against him as he got his breath back and tried not to collapse down the wall. Harry slowly stood sliding against the sated wet body and kissed his man with vigour, ‘Let’s take this back to bed, I want to fuck you’, he murmured into the older man’s mind and Severus smiled around the kiss. They turned off the shower and dried each other, Severus sitting on the side of the bath as he gently towelled Harry down, stooping slightly to taste his cock, then with a small moan, sucked him down, ‘I love your cock, my Harry, let me taste you. I want to suck you, I want you to fuck my mouth’, as strong hands gripped Harry’s hips and controlled the slow thrusts. Harry braced himself with his hands on Severus’ shoulders, his hips twitching of their own volition but not too hard and Severus relinquished one to toy with Harry’s small pink balls that tightened in his hand, the thrusts didn’t speed up but were allowed in a little deeper, the head of Harry’s cock nudging throat which then opened slightly squeezing and constricting until Harry screamed and came, his face all red and his lungs deprived of breath. Severus held him up as he released a boneless Harry, his voice was all hoarse from the battering his throat had taken, “You are the sweetest most beautiful creature on two legs, Harry”, and he tipped his head right back to receive a sloppy sated kiss from his husband.

They staggered back to bed and had a proper deep afternoon nap twined naked around each other. As they awoke it was looking into the other’s eyes and Severus thought he might drown there, they kissed languidly when a murmur and whimper sounded from the cradle, “Time to go back to being parents”, Harry murmured as he slid off the bed and gathered his daughter into his arms, cooing at her and giving her her bottle, she really was a miniature of her ‘mother’. He gazed into carbon copy black eyes as the baby fed, gently combing his fingers into the soft thick black hair and he tried not to let his eyes cloud at the thought of what the evil one might want with his son who Severus had plucked from the cradle and held against his bare chest, the boy’s little fist clasping and releasing handfuls of daddy’s hair as he fed.

They all dressed and the two decided to go down to the main Hall for dinner for a change. They tied the slings around each other and left their quarters hand in hand, exchanging lazy smiles and chaste kisses as they walked, much to the amusement of the students who saw them, most of whom, to sum up a third year Ravenclaw that they had overheard one night, thought they were ‘dead cute, and have you seen those gorgeous babies?’. This applied mainly to the girls, the boys were a little more guarded although they had been shyly approached by pupils of both sexes who thought they may be gay and were glad to be of assistance where possible, although it was to Harry that these counselling duties mainly fell.

They were often greeted cordially as they walked through the halls and corridors. The older years were sometimes not entirely convinced of the changes in the Potions Master, but the first and second years had actually been known to defend him publicly as, ‘dead cool’, having never known the man previously, this often made Severus’ cheeks burn but they had passed on before it was too obvious. His teaching methods had changed. He had taken Harry’s speech about putting the fear of God into his students very seriously, and would now perform a couple of demonstrations of why exactitude was so necessary to Potion making, usually demonstrating exploding things to the lower years but to the upper years he would poison (with antidote) small creatures to demonstrate the difference between chopped shrivelfigs and ground in the Deep Sleep Potion base. Everyone agreed he just wasn’t the same old grouchy git he had been and the marks in his classes steadily improved.

They sat as usual at the top table, Severus seated beside Albus, Harry to his other side. The house-elves were good, Harry had to give them that. Usually they took the evening meal in their rooms but tonight plates appeared before them including two holding the same meal chopped and part pureed for the children, small teaspoons resting on the plate and the whole at the perfect temperature for the very young. They fed the children in between feeding themselves, a rhythm they were growing accustomed to. Albus glanced at them and felt tears form in his eyes.

Severus noticed, “What troubles you, Albus? Only you are a bit distant this evening”. The old man sighed, “I’m envious of you both. There was never anything like this in my own life and a part of me deeply regrets it. I know, I’ve made my own mark here on the earth, but I wish......., I wish.......”, and he was looking at Alexander with food all round his mouth, messily reaching for the next spoonful. That Severus, watching the older man, handed to him, along with his son. He passed the remains of the plate of food as Albus’ arm wrapped around the boy to hold him as he fed the child, his old eyes tearing as he scooped up the food on the child’s face and fed him the rest of his dinner. Harry watched as Amanda finished her meal by pushing the spoon away.

By the end of the meal all were, or had been, watching the aged Headmaster and the small child as each made each other laugh. Ginny nudged her class-mates, “How cute is that?”, summed it up as Albus handed his colleague back his son after wiping his face which the tiny boy shrank from, “He’s a little Harry, isn’t he?”, the old man smiled widely. Severus returned it, cocking a head in Harry’s direction as he crooned to his serious daughter, “Yes, and madam here is the spitting image of me”, he grinned, pride in his voice.

Albus patted his arm, “Severus, I’m glad that you are not resigned to my fate, sad old bachelorhood. Sometimes, I admit, I do worry about the disparity in your ages, but I realised a long time ago that Harry will always be wiser than his years, and, for what it’s worth, I think you are able and fitting bond-mates for each other”. Severus acknowledged the compliment with a gaze into the old man’s eyes and an incline of the head. In truth, he was too choked to speak just then.

They finished later than most of the hall and the corridors were relatively quiet on the way back to their chambers, the children quietening towards sleep in their slings, Harry and Severus had an arm around each other. Harry leant his head on Severus’ shoulder and they stopped outside their billet to kiss, Harry pressed gently into the wall with Severus’ weight pushing into him. Harry moaned, and was instantly alert as Severus stiffened and stood away from him. They had their wands drawn in micro-seconds, their new training kicking in. ‘What is it, Severus?’. ‘There’s someone in our rooms. I have detection charms all over the place. SHIT!!!’, he burst into the hall and into the lounge, no-one there, then doubled back and round a corner in the hall to find Harry, his wand out, pointing at something in their bed.