You Know You Are Loved When A Gryffindor Loves You

6

Albus Dumbledore wasn’t twinkling. Nor was he offering tea and sherbet lemons. He was pacing back and forth between two abashed people with their heads bent in shame like two first years. He was incandescent with rage and shouting loudly, “And as for you, Severus, corrupting a minor in this way, debauching the child’s innocence, I am ashamed of you. I have sheltered you and protected you and this is how my good offices are repaid and as for this jumped-up excuse of a bond.....”. Harry had had enough and drew his wand and advanced on the old man, with a flick he doused the lights and heard the gasped, “Oh”, in a small quavery voice. Harry could feel his own wrath rise. With an angry flourish, the chamber was alight again.

“I’m fucking sick of this. I’m nothing more than a weapon in your eyes as is Severus. We’ll leave this place, find our own way and you lose your two best chances of defeating that bastard Voldemort. As for the protections you offer us, fair enough, but it was the love in me you claim to protect and I’m never allowed to express it. I’m chased by people who want to fawn over me or dominate the fucking boy who never gets a chance to fucking live and as for debauchery, I haven’t been innocent, as you so coyly put it, since I was fifteen. I am of age, so no longer a child, so BACK OFF on telling me how to live. In a few months time I will be out of here, and if I haven’t killed him by then, then what?. You keep me here? As bait? NOT ON YOUR LIFE. Granted, the Bond thing we didn’t see coming, but it’s happened, so live with it. Severus and I are a unit...”, Harry could feel his anger start to dissipate, “No, a couple”.

He went to Severus and threw his arms around the man, “I’m not ashamed of what we are to each other. I love him, and you, you manipulative old bugger, just stay out of our business and in return, we’ll continue to be discreet, but you won’t stop me, Dumbledore. You may be powerful, but Severus and I could match that anytime, so be bloody careful about crossing us. You need us more than we need you and you know you cannot keep bonded soul-mates from each other on pain of death. Neither of us know the nature of the Bond we have made yet, but it was made from love, and you would be a bigger fool than I take you for to fuck it up for us, since love is my alleged secret weapon. You are over a barrel and it is up to you if that barrel has spikes through the sides and you are tied down fast before it is rolled down a steep hill. Now if you will excuse us, we are going to retire. If you feel the need to come and apologise, we will be in Severus’s rooms. Good evening, Professor”, he spat before grabbing his lover and both left the Headmaster’s study in high dudgeon.

Once in the corridor, Severus slumped down the wall until he was sitting on the floor, his head in his hands. In moments, Harry was beside him with his arms around him, “Sorry, Severus. Actually, no I’m not. I think he’s had this coming for a long while. He’s using us, love, and he always has, with no thought as to the consequences of his actions. I mean, those meetings you have to attend. After what you told me the other day, I realised they must be torture to you, going against your very nature, turning you into some shattered beast and I cannot stand by and watch anymore. Call me stupid, call me whatever you like, but I do not let those I love come to harm if I can help it”, he snorted ruefully, “And you definitely are in that category, Severus. I love you”, he subsided and bit back angry tears.

Severus realised that it was now Harry that was in need and held the boy close, “Harry, I’ll admit that I once thought you insufferably arrogant, but you were magnificent in there and I agree with you, he had it coming and you are right, he is using us. We are just expendable weapons to him, not people at all. I wish there was some way he could be made truly aware of what we go through”, he sighed and tightened his hold on Harry.

Who lifted his head with an evil smile gracing his features, “There is”, he stated simply. “We could swap his pensieve for yours, put your most awful memories into it, stuff his head in if need be. I think he chooses deliberately not to see the agonies we go through to assure himself of our complicity and agreement to maintaining the status quo, perhaps I could add some of my nightmares to the mix”.

Severus’ head came up, “Good grief, Harry. I wish you applied yourself to Potions as assiduously”. Harry smiled and planted a kiss on his lover’s forehead, “Sorry, Severus, I really do wish that I was good at Potions, but, hey, we can’t be good at everything. I am a man of action rather than studied patience. I think we complement each other rather well, actually. When it comes to the crunch, you and I will be formidable together, especially now we are a bonded pair” Severus gazed into Harry’s blazing eyes then drew the lad to him for a long kiss filled with smouldering fire, a slow burn and Harry replied with hot flame, sizzling passion, that made them both moan. As they parted, Severus murmured, “I think we are already formidable, my love. I need to get us both back or we will be caught on the prefects’ rounds and we can hardly let that happen can we?”. Harry laughed and let Severus haul him to his feet, “You’re right, love, take me home”. They kissed again, chaste, with lips not tongues, then parted and set off for Severus’ rooms.

Before the fire and holding a whisky each, Harry brooded as he stared into the flames, “I won’t let this take my humanity away from me, Severus. This war may be brutal and evil but I will not let it rob me of me, if you know what I mean”. He was sprawled along the sofa, sitting back to chest between his lover’s legs. Severus kissed his hair and tightened his free arm around Harry’s middle. “I nearly let it all take mine, Harry. You have saved me, shown me what being alive really means, shown me my humanity again, and now I have a reason to return to being an honourable person, someone fit to love and be loved. I never thought this would ever happen to me”, he murmured into Harry’s hair.

Harry took both of their glasses and placed them on the small table, then tipped his head back and pulled Severus’ face down to his eager mouth that opened slightly to receive a truly bone-melting kiss. They parted, panting slightly with flushed faces. “Take me to bed, Severus. However we do it, I want it fast and urgent, to get to that lovely place where there is just you and I, that little bubble of us”.

They disentangled and Severus led his lover to his bed and they sucked and blew each other to ecstasy then lay in the softness that was the afterglow, wrapped tight in their bonded bubble, exchanging gentle kisses and softly stroked caresses, loving words and long looks into each other’s eyes. Severus moaned, “I’m lost, Harry, lost in you. I never thought this would happen in my lifetime”. Harry smiled at the sincerity in those dark fathomless eyes lit with love, “Me either, Severus”, he held a hand up, forestalling further comment from his lover, “I know, I know, I’m still young and all that, but can you see me falling in love with a Muggle with all of my training? I don’t think so, and by the time this is all over, I am likely to have killed many times. However of the Light I am, my hands will be soiled, my psyche defiled and dirty. I will never be ‘normal’, Severus. I’ve dreamed of a life of putting on my robes and leaving for my job at the Ministry, coming home to a wife and brood each night, but this was never my path, my destiny. I always saw the rest of my life as being lived in isolation, away from the Wizarding world and the Muggle world I grew up in, maybe a grumpy old hermit watching other people’s happiness from the sidelines. It’s not arrogance, Severus, just my rather bleak vision of my future, but now I have you, so maybe happiness is not beyond my reach after all”.

Severus sighed and held his Harry tight as he realised that Harry wasn’t the only one guilty of underestimation. He too was just as guilty, letting his personal feud with his own classmates cloud his judgement, most particularly with the boy’s own father. He had been as wrong as Harry had been and said so, to feel kisses raining down on his face and hair and for the first time in his almost-ruined life he finally knew bliss and something close to contentment, even, dare he think it, happiness. They let sleep claim them as they lay in a tangled pile of limbs.

Harry left reluctantly as the day was freshening beyond dawn. He kissed his lover’s brow and slipped silently from the room, making his way to his dormitory where he slept the rest of the night in his cold bed, a pillow clutched to him, the nightmares replaced by good dreams. He was in a strange place, an Art Gallery and he was going from picture to picture to sculpture exclaiming rapturously before each piece, transmitting his love for the artist’s works to the awed man at his side, to hear him mutter, “Gods, Harry and I thought you had no culture in you”, and his own answering laugh. “The pictures may not move around but they still have the power to move the soul”.