Scarred Souls
folder
Harry Potter › Slash - Male/Male › Harry/Snape
Rating:
Adult +
Chapters:
48
Views:
69,327
Reviews:
251
Recommended:
1
Currently Reading:
2
Category:
Harry Potter › Slash - Male/Male › Harry/Snape
Rating:
Adult +
Chapters:
48
Views:
69,327
Reviews:
251
Recommended:
1
Currently Reading:
2
Disclaimer:
I do not own Harry Potter, nor any of the characters from the books or movies. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.
A Sudden Loss
*****************************************************
Title: Scarred Souls
Author: Misty Moonlight/Co-author: QueenBoadicea
Beta: QueenBoadicea
Pairings: Severus/Harry
Published: 12/10/2008
Summary: A widowed Harry must bond with Snape in order to save his daughter’s life. Sev gains a family, for better or worse, and the hearts of two scarred souls will be changed forever.
Warnings: Romance, Drama, Angst, Alternate Reality/Universe, Sexual Situations, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Slash, Anal, Language, Humor, possible MPreg, Bonding, Original Characters, Family, non-canon, OOC, WIP
*****************************************************
Chapter 44: A Sudden Loss
Harry came home from the orphanage happy as a hippogriff in mating season. Since his kidnapping, the parents had been flocking to the orphanage.
Normally quite a few people popped in at the orphanage, ostensibly to look over the choices of children. But he didn’t fool himself. A lot of people came to see the famous Harry Potter. He had firmly secluded himself, telling Corabett that he didn’t have time to pander to nosy fans. They either adopted a child or they could sod off.
But this last month had seen an upsurge in parents wishing to have children for themselves. Perhaps knowing that their Chosen One had been in danger had given them a new appreciation for life…or perhaps they finally understood the reasons behind their champion’s efforts to secure happy lives for others. He didn’t know nor care. The children were going off to good homes and that’s all that mattered.
“Severus? James? Albus? Hello? Anyone home?”
No answer. That was strange. The boys usually either came down at once or scrambled to cover up whatever new mischief they were working on. But this time it was eerily quiet.
“Hello? Is anyone here?” He pulled out his wand. His recent abduction had made him jumpy. Not so much for his own sake—he refused to blight his life with constant paranoia; there was no way he was winding up like Mad-Eye Moody. But the terror that a maniac might target his children was never far from him these days.
Harry proceeded up the stairs, listening intently with every stride. Once he reached the second floor, he cast the Revealing Charm. Nothing showed but he could feel the tug of Severus’s magic coming from his room. Normally, Harry never disturbed him there; Severus was still quite private about his personal space. But the Slytherin might be able to tell him about his children.
He opened the door and was met by such a queer sight, he stood stock still in sheer surprise. Albus was waving a wand and pillows were dancing in the air. James was chasing around a pair of his own shoes, animated so that they danced and ran like live feet were in them. Lily was laughing her head off, entranced by the colored butterflies hovering just above her head.
For several moments, none of the occupants in the room noticed him. Then Severus looked up, feeling himself under scrutiny, and the butterflies disappeared. “Albus, gave the countercharm now.”
Albus concentrated and muttered the countercharm. It took him four tries but the pillows finally dropped to the floor. James tried getting his shoes to stop dancing but it took Severus’s intervention for the footwear to lie still.
“Daddy, did you see? Did you see what I did?” Albus cried.
James added, “Me too. I made those shoes dance!”
“I saw. That was wonderful.” Harry crossed to his husband and kissed him on the cheek. “Hello, Sev. What’s going on? Is that your wand Albus is using?”
“I thought it time to teach your children spellwork, Harry.”
“Really? But they’re so young. They won’t go to Hogwarts for another four years yet.”
“I was managing spells when I was half their age. It doesn’t hurt to ground your children in the basics of magic. Think how far ahead of the other children they’ll be.”
Harry let a slow smile cross his face. “Yeah. Can’t hurt to be ahead of the other Slytherins.”
Severus scowled. “They might very well wind up in Slytherin, Harry.”
Harry thought back to his first year and the choice he’d made. “Then they definitely could use the boost. Thanks, Severus.”
The black eyes regarded him in astonishment. “You wouldn’t mind if they were placed in the House of the Snake?”
Harry shook his head and ran his hands through the twins’ messy hair. “They’re my children and I’ll love them no matter what. I’m not making my affections conditional on what house they’re in.” He stared at Severus, willing the man to understand what he was saying.
Sharp eyes dug into his with such intensity; Harry wondered if he was using Legilimency. He drew up the picture of their last lovemaking, Severus poised above him to keep the weight off his belly. The man had been so hot, his head thrown back, his black hair clinging to his sweaty brows, spilling over his shoulders and back.
A brilliant flush blazed across the sallow cheeks and Severus was the first to look away. Smirking at his husband’s discomfort, Harry called to the twins. “So, boys, what do you want for dinner tonight?”
“Meatloaf!”
“Tuna!”
“What about both?” he asked.
“Harry, you spoil these children too much,” Severus chided. “Just pick one menu and stick with it.”
“Why? They have preferences. What’s wrong with indulging them? I remember what it was like to go without. I want them to have what they want. It’s not like I overfeed them—I don’t want them winding up like Dudley did.” Harry scrunched up his nose in disgust.
Severus appeared about to argue. Then a thoughtful expression crossed his face. “Very well.”
Harry knew better than to question his good luck. It was rare he won an argument with Severus. “If we’re having different meals, it’ll take too much time and effort to fix it ourselves. Kreacher! Kreacher!”
The moments passed and the house-elf didn’t show. Severus said, “I was unable to summon him earlier, Harry. Is this normal?”
“Not since I told him to stop tormenting you.” Harry glanced at the twins.
James shook his head. “It wasn’t us, Daddy.”
“We didn’t tell Kreacher to do anything,” Albus added.
“Well, I’ll go to the manor and see where he is. Hold dinner until I get back, yeah?”
Severus gave him a wave as Harry left the room.
********************************************************************
Traveling by floo is a right mess, isn’t it? Muggle travel is cleaner than this, Harry groused as he brushed the soot off his pants. “Kreacher? Kreacher?”
There was no appearance by the house-elf and Harry began to be a bit worried. The wrinkled Black servitor used to be absent at times during fifth year but that was mainly because of his kowtowing to that wretched portrait.
“Kreacher?” Where could he be? Then Harry remembered the little cupboard the house-elf favored. Harry had offered to let Kreacher have one of the Black rooms. There were so many; it would have been no trouble at all to let the ancient servant have one. He had even said he would re-size the furniture for Kreacher’s needs.
The house-elf had refused, saying that such furnishings were not for him. He would no more dream of using one of his former masters’ rooms than he would becoming Headmaster of Hogwarts. Kreacher had allowed Harry to pad his little cupboard with soft cloth wallpaper and given him a velvet pillow to lie on. More than that, he had categorically rejected.
Harry opened the cupboard. A terrible smell wafted from the opened space and he drew back, coughing at the stench. He knew that rotten-fruit smell, both achingly sweet and gagging sour, all too familiar from Bathilda Bagshot’s home after the old woman had been dead for weeks.
The house-elf was coiled like a little lapdog, the gold locket twined about his neck. He neither moved nor spoke.
“Kreacher?” Harry could barely bring himself to do so but he reached out and touched the little figure. The body was cool, the flesh dry and crackly to the touch. The eyes were closed and the expression oddly peaceful, more so than at any time during the house-elf’s life.
********************************************************************
He wanted to bury the elf quietly. But that had not been what Kreacher wanted. Even when Harry had related how he had buried Dobby, the former house-elf of the Malfoys, Kreacher had stubbornly repeated his request:
“Kreacher’s head must be shorn off and nailed to the wall beside the others. Kreacher wants no other memento of his death.”
“What about your body, Kreacher?”
The house-elf had shrugged as if that were of no importance. “Burn or bury. It matters not. The best part of Kreacher will remain for all time, a shining light to other house-elves.
Shining light indeed. Well, this had to be done and quickly, too, before the flies gathered.
Magic was good for many things, including decapitation, but that didn’t make the task any easier. Harry barely held back the urge to vomit as he created a plaque, complete with Kreacher’s name, and fastened the house-elf’s severed head to it, alongside the other totems. The Slytherin locket was hung about his neck with a Fixing Charm so that it could never be removed.
He wanted to bury the body in the garden back home; there was none at the Black Manor. But it would be too weird to have the house-elf’s head in one place and the body at another. So Harry incinerated it in the fireplace.
There remained one final task and this would be the hardest of all.
********************************************************************
“Harry, what is it?” Severus was alarmed. His husband seemed so grim, silent and white faced. His clothes stank, too, with an odor that hadn’t been on them when he left.
“Have you all eaten yet?” Harry asked, not seeming to hear Severus’s question.
“I wanted to wait for you. But the boys and Lily were hungry and once they started, I found myself terribly famished as well. I couldn’t restrain myself.”
“Oh. That’s good.” Harry paused and appeared to brace himself. “Severus, kids…I have something to tell you about Kreacher.”
There is a particular note the human voice gets when it talks about death. Severus had heard it too often to mistake it now. The twins weren’t as familiar with it, but they shrank closer to Severus’s knees.
“I’m afraid…Kreacher is dead. I’m sorry, boys.”
“Dead?” James whispered.
Albus’s bottom lip turned down and began to tremble. “Like Mummy?”
“It was very quick. I don’t think he suffered.”
They stared at him. Harry didn’t think that they had been very close to Kreacher. Given how reclusive the house-elf had been, they couldn’t have interacted with him much outside of his duties. But there was no knowing just how hard they would take this news.
Then James and Albus ran up to him and wrapped their arms around his legs. “Daddy, are you all right?” Albus asked.
His children would never stop surprising him. They’d just had terrible news and they were worried about his feelings. “I’m fine, Al. Are you two okay?”
They looked at each other. “Did you nail his head to the wall?” James asked.
Harry grimaced. “Yes.”
“When can we go see?” he demanded.
“Merlin, what a bloodthirsty little rapscallion you are,” Severus said dryly.
James squinted at Severus, uncertain if he was being insulted or not. “What’s rapskal?”
“Rapscallion. It refers to an unruly, mischievous child, usually a boy.”
“Oh. That’s a bad thing?” James asked in a small voice.
“He’s just teasing you, James,” Harry answered.
James perked up. “So when can we see it?”
Harry rolled his eyes at James’s persistence. “Maybe another night. I need a bath.” A long one.
Severus murmured, “Mind if I join you?”
“Oh, I don’t need…” Harry saw the gleam in his husband’s eyes. “Okay. I wouldn’t mind a little company,” he said, grinning. “Kids, if you behave yourselves tonight, I will take you to see Kreacher’s head tomorrow.”
That won instant cheers from the twins and they made no fuss about going to bed early. In all likelihood, they would stay up for quite a while yet, talking excitedly about seeing the remains of the house-elf in all his gruesome glory.
For now, he and Severus would have a little alone time to themselves.
********************************************************************
He sudsed Severus’s back, luxuriating in the smooth skin. The cottage bathroom wasn’t as big as the one in Grimmauld Place. But its snugness meant that Harry had to sit very close to Severus. He found he rather liked that. “How have you been today, Severus?”
“Tolerably well. I find the nausea is much abated if I keep active.”
Harry nodded although Severus couldn’t see it. “Poppy said it was a good idea for you to keep busy for the next few months. Have you had any seizures?”
Severus stilled and Harry sensed that the question surprised him. “No,” the man answered slowly. “I have not suffered them for weeks, not since…” His voice trailed away.
“Since…?” Harry prodded.
“Since the night you and I had sex that second time.”
“Oh.” Severus seemed a trifle tense. Why, Harry wasn’t sure.
“Harry, are you all right?”
Harry heard the tender note in Severus’s voice and marveled. Just a few short months ago, Severus wouldn’t have cared about his feelings.
“I wasn’t really close to Kreacher. He wasn’t a friend like Dobby was and…Kreacher was very old. I suppose it was simply his time. I found him curled up in his little cupboard; he must have died in his sleep. In spite of what Hermione says, an old house-elf like Kreacher was fulfilled in doing his duty and I think…he died happy knowing that he’d served us to the best of his abilities.”
This wasn’t a subject Harry wanted to dwell on. “So what did you do today besides teaching the kids spells?”
“We took a little outing to Diagon Alley.”
“Did you? Any problems?” Harry carded his fingers through Severus’s hair, combing out any tangles he found.
“Not a one. I was able to use glamours that effectively hid our appearances. Your children were remarkably well behaved.”
“You mean our children, don’t you?” Harry murmured.
Severus twisted around in the bathtub to look at him. “Our children?”
“Of course.” Harry sighed in exasperation. “I told you, Severus. My family is going to become yours.”
“Does that mean that Ronald Weasley is my brother?”
Harry thought about that. “Well, maybe I wouldn’t go that far.”
“Thank Merlin.” Severus gave an exaggerated shudder of relief.
“Git.”
“Watch your tongue, Harry,” Severus sniffed.
Harry’s face creased in a wicked smile. “Ssssshhhehhhhhasssssa.”
A shiver ran over the fair skin. “Harry, please. Not now.”
He slid a tongue up Severus’s back, feeling his husband shiver in reaction. “Ssshhhhhlllllaahhhhiiiisssshhh.”
“Do you honestly propose to have sex here—in a tub?”
Harry slid his hand down his husband’s front and wrapped it around something slick, hard and firm that wasn’t a bar of soap. “Ssooosshhhh itttsssiiillll…”
“Harry, I refuse…oh…wait…that’s…this is so…ummmm…yes…oh yes…right there.”
They made quite a mess of the floor—inconvenient, with no house-elf to clean it up. But Harry had learned more than his share of household charms, what with three children to rear. And Severus was quite willing to let Harry have his own special brand of medicine should the Gryffindor come down with a cold.
All in all, a most happy end to a sad evening.
TBC
Title: Scarred Souls
Author: Misty Moonlight/Co-author: QueenBoadicea
Beta: QueenBoadicea
Pairings: Severus/Harry
Published: 12/10/2008
Summary: A widowed Harry must bond with Snape in order to save his daughter’s life. Sev gains a family, for better or worse, and the hearts of two scarred souls will be changed forever.
Warnings: Romance, Drama, Angst, Alternate Reality/Universe, Sexual Situations, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Slash, Anal, Language, Humor, possible MPreg, Bonding, Original Characters, Family, non-canon, OOC, WIP
*****************************************************
Chapter 44: A Sudden Loss
Harry came home from the orphanage happy as a hippogriff in mating season. Since his kidnapping, the parents had been flocking to the orphanage.
Normally quite a few people popped in at the orphanage, ostensibly to look over the choices of children. But he didn’t fool himself. A lot of people came to see the famous Harry Potter. He had firmly secluded himself, telling Corabett that he didn’t have time to pander to nosy fans. They either adopted a child or they could sod off.
But this last month had seen an upsurge in parents wishing to have children for themselves. Perhaps knowing that their Chosen One had been in danger had given them a new appreciation for life…or perhaps they finally understood the reasons behind their champion’s efforts to secure happy lives for others. He didn’t know nor care. The children were going off to good homes and that’s all that mattered.
“Severus? James? Albus? Hello? Anyone home?”
No answer. That was strange. The boys usually either came down at once or scrambled to cover up whatever new mischief they were working on. But this time it was eerily quiet.
“Hello? Is anyone here?” He pulled out his wand. His recent abduction had made him jumpy. Not so much for his own sake—he refused to blight his life with constant paranoia; there was no way he was winding up like Mad-Eye Moody. But the terror that a maniac might target his children was never far from him these days.
Harry proceeded up the stairs, listening intently with every stride. Once he reached the second floor, he cast the Revealing Charm. Nothing showed but he could feel the tug of Severus’s magic coming from his room. Normally, Harry never disturbed him there; Severus was still quite private about his personal space. But the Slytherin might be able to tell him about his children.
He opened the door and was met by such a queer sight, he stood stock still in sheer surprise. Albus was waving a wand and pillows were dancing in the air. James was chasing around a pair of his own shoes, animated so that they danced and ran like live feet were in them. Lily was laughing her head off, entranced by the colored butterflies hovering just above her head.
For several moments, none of the occupants in the room noticed him. Then Severus looked up, feeling himself under scrutiny, and the butterflies disappeared. “Albus, gave the countercharm now.”
Albus concentrated and muttered the countercharm. It took him four tries but the pillows finally dropped to the floor. James tried getting his shoes to stop dancing but it took Severus’s intervention for the footwear to lie still.
“Daddy, did you see? Did you see what I did?” Albus cried.
James added, “Me too. I made those shoes dance!”
“I saw. That was wonderful.” Harry crossed to his husband and kissed him on the cheek. “Hello, Sev. What’s going on? Is that your wand Albus is using?”
“I thought it time to teach your children spellwork, Harry.”
“Really? But they’re so young. They won’t go to Hogwarts for another four years yet.”
“I was managing spells when I was half their age. It doesn’t hurt to ground your children in the basics of magic. Think how far ahead of the other children they’ll be.”
Harry let a slow smile cross his face. “Yeah. Can’t hurt to be ahead of the other Slytherins.”
Severus scowled. “They might very well wind up in Slytherin, Harry.”
Harry thought back to his first year and the choice he’d made. “Then they definitely could use the boost. Thanks, Severus.”
The black eyes regarded him in astonishment. “You wouldn’t mind if they were placed in the House of the Snake?”
Harry shook his head and ran his hands through the twins’ messy hair. “They’re my children and I’ll love them no matter what. I’m not making my affections conditional on what house they’re in.” He stared at Severus, willing the man to understand what he was saying.
Sharp eyes dug into his with such intensity; Harry wondered if he was using Legilimency. He drew up the picture of their last lovemaking, Severus poised above him to keep the weight off his belly. The man had been so hot, his head thrown back, his black hair clinging to his sweaty brows, spilling over his shoulders and back.
A brilliant flush blazed across the sallow cheeks and Severus was the first to look away. Smirking at his husband’s discomfort, Harry called to the twins. “So, boys, what do you want for dinner tonight?”
“Meatloaf!”
“Tuna!”
“What about both?” he asked.
“Harry, you spoil these children too much,” Severus chided. “Just pick one menu and stick with it.”
“Why? They have preferences. What’s wrong with indulging them? I remember what it was like to go without. I want them to have what they want. It’s not like I overfeed them—I don’t want them winding up like Dudley did.” Harry scrunched up his nose in disgust.
Severus appeared about to argue. Then a thoughtful expression crossed his face. “Very well.”
Harry knew better than to question his good luck. It was rare he won an argument with Severus. “If we’re having different meals, it’ll take too much time and effort to fix it ourselves. Kreacher! Kreacher!”
The moments passed and the house-elf didn’t show. Severus said, “I was unable to summon him earlier, Harry. Is this normal?”
“Not since I told him to stop tormenting you.” Harry glanced at the twins.
James shook his head. “It wasn’t us, Daddy.”
“We didn’t tell Kreacher to do anything,” Albus added.
“Well, I’ll go to the manor and see where he is. Hold dinner until I get back, yeah?”
Severus gave him a wave as Harry left the room.
********************************************************************
Traveling by floo is a right mess, isn’t it? Muggle travel is cleaner than this, Harry groused as he brushed the soot off his pants. “Kreacher? Kreacher?”
There was no appearance by the house-elf and Harry began to be a bit worried. The wrinkled Black servitor used to be absent at times during fifth year but that was mainly because of his kowtowing to that wretched portrait.
“Kreacher?” Where could he be? Then Harry remembered the little cupboard the house-elf favored. Harry had offered to let Kreacher have one of the Black rooms. There were so many; it would have been no trouble at all to let the ancient servant have one. He had even said he would re-size the furniture for Kreacher’s needs.
The house-elf had refused, saying that such furnishings were not for him. He would no more dream of using one of his former masters’ rooms than he would becoming Headmaster of Hogwarts. Kreacher had allowed Harry to pad his little cupboard with soft cloth wallpaper and given him a velvet pillow to lie on. More than that, he had categorically rejected.
Harry opened the cupboard. A terrible smell wafted from the opened space and he drew back, coughing at the stench. He knew that rotten-fruit smell, both achingly sweet and gagging sour, all too familiar from Bathilda Bagshot’s home after the old woman had been dead for weeks.
The house-elf was coiled like a little lapdog, the gold locket twined about his neck. He neither moved nor spoke.
“Kreacher?” Harry could barely bring himself to do so but he reached out and touched the little figure. The body was cool, the flesh dry and crackly to the touch. The eyes were closed and the expression oddly peaceful, more so than at any time during the house-elf’s life.
********************************************************************
He wanted to bury the elf quietly. But that had not been what Kreacher wanted. Even when Harry had related how he had buried Dobby, the former house-elf of the Malfoys, Kreacher had stubbornly repeated his request:
“Kreacher’s head must be shorn off and nailed to the wall beside the others. Kreacher wants no other memento of his death.”
“What about your body, Kreacher?”
The house-elf had shrugged as if that were of no importance. “Burn or bury. It matters not. The best part of Kreacher will remain for all time, a shining light to other house-elves.
Shining light indeed. Well, this had to be done and quickly, too, before the flies gathered.
Magic was good for many things, including decapitation, but that didn’t make the task any easier. Harry barely held back the urge to vomit as he created a plaque, complete with Kreacher’s name, and fastened the house-elf’s severed head to it, alongside the other totems. The Slytherin locket was hung about his neck with a Fixing Charm so that it could never be removed.
He wanted to bury the body in the garden back home; there was none at the Black Manor. But it would be too weird to have the house-elf’s head in one place and the body at another. So Harry incinerated it in the fireplace.
There remained one final task and this would be the hardest of all.
********************************************************************
“Harry, what is it?” Severus was alarmed. His husband seemed so grim, silent and white faced. His clothes stank, too, with an odor that hadn’t been on them when he left.
“Have you all eaten yet?” Harry asked, not seeming to hear Severus’s question.
“I wanted to wait for you. But the boys and Lily were hungry and once they started, I found myself terribly famished as well. I couldn’t restrain myself.”
“Oh. That’s good.” Harry paused and appeared to brace himself. “Severus, kids…I have something to tell you about Kreacher.”
There is a particular note the human voice gets when it talks about death. Severus had heard it too often to mistake it now. The twins weren’t as familiar with it, but they shrank closer to Severus’s knees.
“I’m afraid…Kreacher is dead. I’m sorry, boys.”
“Dead?” James whispered.
Albus’s bottom lip turned down and began to tremble. “Like Mummy?”
“It was very quick. I don’t think he suffered.”
They stared at him. Harry didn’t think that they had been very close to Kreacher. Given how reclusive the house-elf had been, they couldn’t have interacted with him much outside of his duties. But there was no knowing just how hard they would take this news.
Then James and Albus ran up to him and wrapped their arms around his legs. “Daddy, are you all right?” Albus asked.
His children would never stop surprising him. They’d just had terrible news and they were worried about his feelings. “I’m fine, Al. Are you two okay?”
They looked at each other. “Did you nail his head to the wall?” James asked.
Harry grimaced. “Yes.”
“When can we go see?” he demanded.
“Merlin, what a bloodthirsty little rapscallion you are,” Severus said dryly.
James squinted at Severus, uncertain if he was being insulted or not. “What’s rapskal?”
“Rapscallion. It refers to an unruly, mischievous child, usually a boy.”
“Oh. That’s a bad thing?” James asked in a small voice.
“He’s just teasing you, James,” Harry answered.
James perked up. “So when can we see it?”
Harry rolled his eyes at James’s persistence. “Maybe another night. I need a bath.” A long one.
Severus murmured, “Mind if I join you?”
“Oh, I don’t need…” Harry saw the gleam in his husband’s eyes. “Okay. I wouldn’t mind a little company,” he said, grinning. “Kids, if you behave yourselves tonight, I will take you to see Kreacher’s head tomorrow.”
That won instant cheers from the twins and they made no fuss about going to bed early. In all likelihood, they would stay up for quite a while yet, talking excitedly about seeing the remains of the house-elf in all his gruesome glory.
For now, he and Severus would have a little alone time to themselves.
********************************************************************
He sudsed Severus’s back, luxuriating in the smooth skin. The cottage bathroom wasn’t as big as the one in Grimmauld Place. But its snugness meant that Harry had to sit very close to Severus. He found he rather liked that. “How have you been today, Severus?”
“Tolerably well. I find the nausea is much abated if I keep active.”
Harry nodded although Severus couldn’t see it. “Poppy said it was a good idea for you to keep busy for the next few months. Have you had any seizures?”
Severus stilled and Harry sensed that the question surprised him. “No,” the man answered slowly. “I have not suffered them for weeks, not since…” His voice trailed away.
“Since…?” Harry prodded.
“Since the night you and I had sex that second time.”
“Oh.” Severus seemed a trifle tense. Why, Harry wasn’t sure.
“Harry, are you all right?”
Harry heard the tender note in Severus’s voice and marveled. Just a few short months ago, Severus wouldn’t have cared about his feelings.
“I wasn’t really close to Kreacher. He wasn’t a friend like Dobby was and…Kreacher was very old. I suppose it was simply his time. I found him curled up in his little cupboard; he must have died in his sleep. In spite of what Hermione says, an old house-elf like Kreacher was fulfilled in doing his duty and I think…he died happy knowing that he’d served us to the best of his abilities.”
This wasn’t a subject Harry wanted to dwell on. “So what did you do today besides teaching the kids spells?”
“We took a little outing to Diagon Alley.”
“Did you? Any problems?” Harry carded his fingers through Severus’s hair, combing out any tangles he found.
“Not a one. I was able to use glamours that effectively hid our appearances. Your children were remarkably well behaved.”
“You mean our children, don’t you?” Harry murmured.
Severus twisted around in the bathtub to look at him. “Our children?”
“Of course.” Harry sighed in exasperation. “I told you, Severus. My family is going to become yours.”
“Does that mean that Ronald Weasley is my brother?”
Harry thought about that. “Well, maybe I wouldn’t go that far.”
“Thank Merlin.” Severus gave an exaggerated shudder of relief.
“Git.”
“Watch your tongue, Harry,” Severus sniffed.
Harry’s face creased in a wicked smile. “Ssssshhhehhhhhasssssa.”
A shiver ran over the fair skin. “Harry, please. Not now.”
He slid a tongue up Severus’s back, feeling his husband shiver in reaction. “Ssshhhhhlllllaahhhhiiiisssshhh.”
“Do you honestly propose to have sex here—in a tub?”
Harry slid his hand down his husband’s front and wrapped it around something slick, hard and firm that wasn’t a bar of soap. “Ssooosshhhh itttsssiiillll…”
“Harry, I refuse…oh…wait…that’s…this is so…ummmm…yes…oh yes…right there.”
They made quite a mess of the floor—inconvenient, with no house-elf to clean it up. But Harry had learned more than his share of household charms, what with three children to rear. And Severus was quite willing to let Harry have his own special brand of medicine should the Gryffindor come down with a cold.
All in all, a most happy end to a sad evening.
TBC