How Severus Spends His Summer Hols

DISCLAIMER: JKR owns everything that is in reference to the Harry Potter world if it is in one of my works of fiction. If it is not found in one of her creations, then it is mine unless otherwise stated. I am not making any profit from the writing of this story.

After a day filled with driving and meetings with bankers and Realtors, Harry and Severus were tired and just a bit out of sorts with each other. Finally, once home and settled comfortably in one of Grant’s end chairs, Harry sighed peacefully and closed his eyes and smiled. They were now in the process of buying their first home. He could hear Severus in some sort of heated fuss with Damon about who knew what, the man had been cranky all day it seemed. Raised voices were heard shouting from the kitchen causing him to open one eye warily and look in that direction, his body tensing.

“You are the most pig headed little shit I have ever known Sev. Don’t you ever listen to anyone?” Damon shouted. This was accompanied by the sounds of slamming cupboard doors. The sounds of a kitchen chair being slammed back into the wall came next and Harry rose to sit on the edge of the seat.

“What are you blathering on about, old man?” Sev roared back. Harry could close his eyes and almost sees his husband towering over the older, shorter man, his husband’s face pale and a smooth mask of rage in place. Part of him wanted to run in and get between the two men, he wanted the yelling to stop. Grant wasn’t home yet, he had been held up by a late patient at his office.

Rocking back and forth, his arms hugging his shoulders, Harry waited quietly in the living room as the two fought in the kitchen. Every loud word, every slam, every slap of an open palm on the table causing him to flinch as if struck. He had no idea what had happened to start the argument between them. It had just exploded like gasoline thrown on flames.

“I am not fucking teaching anymore Damon and that is final!” Severus yelled and then the back door slammed hard enough Harry heard the glass shatter and fall to the kitchen floor. The next sounds were of the same door being ripped back open and slammed again with Damon shouting after Severus.

With tearless sobs racking his frame Harry cautiously made his way into the kitchen and went to his knees with a piece of newspaper to clean the broken glass. Almost blindly he cleaned, just letting himself feel for the shards as his mind went numb, instinctively listening for the return of the rampaging men. In his mind he was turning over what he had overheard. Someone wanted Sev to teach again. Severus hated teaching, he always had. He’d only taken the position at Hogwarts because he’d had no other choice other than Azkaban. Harry was concentrating on his task so completely, he never heard Grant’s little car pull in the drive in the front or the front door open. He wasn’t aware the older man was there until he felt a gentle touch on his shoulder which sent him cowering down with his face to the floor between his outstretched palms.

“Harry! Harry, its Grant sweetie, it’s just Grant, you’re okay,” the older man said as he pulled his son-in-law up and into an embrace. Something had obviously happened to scare the bejesus out of him. Harry just looked at him with wide green eyes and pulled back to finish cleaning up the window Severus had broken. Grant looked at his kitchen and looked down at Harry, and noticed no one else was in the kitchen or it seemed the house. He moved to the counter to put away the drink he’d brought with him and noticed a letter laying open beside the toaster. Picking it up, he quickly looked over it and had a good idea what had happened. It hadn’t taken long for the superintendent of the schools in Echo to realize that there was a new professor in town and try to get him on staff. Damn Damon and his meddling ass. Severus had told them he was retiring, that he didn’t want to teach any longer, why did his husband have to prod the boy?

“Harry, honey, I want you to go upstairs. There’s no reason for you to be down here,” Grant said gently as Harry finished up his task with the broom and dust pan. The younger man just looked at him with haunted eyes. Grant reached out to gently touch the young man’s cheek and sighed when he flinched as he watched his hand get closer.

“Did they do this in front of you?” he asked as he led him to one of the chairs at the breakfast tables and went to pour him a glass of milk. Setting it in front of him, Grant sat at a chair across from him and let him take his time to answer.

“No Sir,” he said softly and shook his head. “I was in the living room when they started yelling.”

“You didn’t try to stop them, did you?” Grant asked as he picked up one of Harry’s hands and checked it for embedded glass. Harry’s eyes raised for a moment and then dropped again.

“No, I’m sorry,” he whispered. “Then the window wouldn’t have been broken.”

“No Harry, you should never step in when those two get a case of stupid,” Grant said as he set Harry’s hand down and looked at the younger man sharply. “That window is not important. You are. What if one of those idiots had hit you on accident? Knocked you down while swaggering around here like a couple of testosterone driven morons?”

Harry just looked at him and then drank his milk slowly. In the distance they could hear the two men returning to the house, it sounded as though the argument was long over and they had gotten a couple of beers to have a bonding moment. The look on Grant’s face made Harry chew his lower lip and start to rock in his seat as the older man got to his feet and went to the door and waited for Dumb and Dumber to enter.

Damon didn’t notice his spouse’s mood when he came in the door at first, he turned laughing to Severus and playfully smacked the younger man on the arm.


“I told you that you didn’t know what the hell you were talking about, you need to learn to listen once in awhile,” Damon chuckled, turning to kiss Grant and getting slapped across the face for the effort. His eyes opening wide and his hand coming up to touch his face he looked at his husband, all humour gone from his voice.

“Grant, have you gone insane?” he growled as the Lakhota took one more step and backhanded Severus as well. Damon grabbed his arm and quickly pinned his arm to the wall. Severus just stood there looking at them both like they’d lost what sense they had ever possessed.

“What in the hell are you doing, old man?” Damon ground out as Grant glared daggers at him. With his free hand, Grant pointed over Damon’s shoulder to the breakfast table to where Harry had been sitting. As the other two men turned to look, realization dawned on them and so did the consequences of their earlier actions.

There kneeling on the floor beside the chair he’d been sitting in, was a trembling Harry. His head bowed and his hands behind his back. The young man was one of the more pitiful sights Damon had seen in awhile and he felt like an ogre seeing Severus’ husband cowering like this due partially to his actions.

“Oh shit,” he said softly and turned his husband’s arm loose and crossed the kitchen behind Severus who was now on his knees pulling Harry close to him.

“I’m sorry Husband, I’m so sorry...” Harry whispered over and over with his face pressed against Severus’ chest. His older husband wrapped his arms tighter around him and stood with him in his arms and sat down in the chair Harry had been sitting in. Damon turned and looked sheepishly at his spouse and held his hand out to him.

“I didn’t know he’d heard us Grant. You know we’d never do anything to upset him,” Damon said as he pulled his husband of many years to him and stroked his back. Grant sighed as he kissed the cheek he’d slapped earlier. Sometimes it seemed as though they were walking on eggshells around Harry, and he often wondered if the young man would ever be able to live a normal life with Severus. Or rather if Severus would ever have a normal life with Harry in it. Sighing, he watched as Severus calmed his young husband down.

“It’s alright Harry, Damon and I just had a disagreement, we have them all the time. They are nothing to get upset over,” he soothed as Harry quieted and closed his eyes. His eyes moved down to look over Harry’s bloodied fingers, gathering them in his hand, he brought them to his lips and kissed them gently.

“Who broke the window?” Grant asked as he stood up and began to move around the kitchen to start their evening meal. Severus winced and grimaced as he remembered slamming the door behind him.

“I did Grant, sorry, I’ll repair it,” he said as he pulled his wand out and waved it toward the gaping hole, “Repairo.” Grant nodded as he saw the new glass take form.

“Grant, did you have a long day?” Damon asked as he watched him stifle a yawn while he began pulling saucepans from under the sink. Harry raised his head from Severus’ chest and watched for a moment and then slid off his husband’s knee to go fix dinner. He took Grant’s hand and led him back to the table and turned back to the stove.

“I had a very long, exhaustive day babe. You would think I had been gone for six months instead of ten days,” he sighed as Damon stood and began to rub his shoulders. Grant let his head drop forward with a small moan of pleasure as he let Damon work his stiff muscles. “That feels good, thank you.”

Severus watched as Harry looked in the cupboards and tried to come up with something he actually knew how to cook and have turn out edible. Looking over to Damon, he nodded toward Harry and spoke.

“Why don’t I treat us to dinner down at the bar tonight?”

“That sounds lovely Sev,” Grant said as he sat back up and opened his eyes again. “Let me go change my clothes. I’ll be ready in a few minutes. Why don’t you and Harry go clean up?” Grant and Damon left the kitchen to go down the hall to their bedroom.

Severus stood and went to help the still silent Harry put the pans and the dry goods away that he’d removed from the cupboards. Resting his hand lightly on his husband’s back, he stopped Harry from wiping the counter top down again.

“Talk to me Harry,” he said gently as he turned him to face him and tipped his face up so he could look down into his beautiful green eyes.

“Do they have good food there?” he asked as he smiled and twisted his head down so he could kiss Severus’ hand. Severus looked at him and shook his head.

“You are not getting off that easy Harry. What happened?” Harry took a deep breath and looked down before he answered softly.

“You and Damon got so loud, and then when you started slamming things around...it scared me.”


“Harry, no matter what I say or do, you will never be in danger from me or anyone around me. I am sorry that I frightened you this afternoon. I will try to make sure it doesn’t happen again, but you know I do have a short temper and so does Damon,” Severus said gently as he stroked Harry’s back and tried to reassure him that he had nothing to fear from him. Severus couldn’t very well tell him that the reason he had been in a foul mood was due to the early morning call from Lucius, but at least an end was now in sight for that bastard. Then Severus would have the peace of mind knowing Harry would never be in danger from him again. When Lucius had told him that Draco had begged to be obliviated so he didn’t have to remember what he’d seen of Harry’s living conditions, he knew at that point Morgan Taylor was going to be a poster child for what a wood chipper could do to a human body.

“Okay Severus, I’ll try to remember the next time you are bellowing like a wounded rhinoceros,” Harry quipped and then smiled shyly at his husband.

“How did you hurt your hands?” Severus asked as he lifted one of Harry’s hands to his eyes and examined the little cuts. He had an idea how it had happened, but he wanted Harry to answer him.

“I was cleaning Husband, that’s all. It’s unimportant.” Harry said as he pulled his hand back and started to shove it in his pocket.

“Put both hands on the counter top Harry, I want to heal them,” Severus said as he drew his wand again. Harry did as his Husband instructed and sighed as he felt the cool tingle of healing magic tingle over his fingers and hands.

“Thank you Sir. Shall I go lay out clothes for you?” he asked as Severus put his wand back in his pocket. Severus smiled, kissing him softly as he held him close.

“No Bit, we’re dressed fine for Cutty’s. I thought we might go for a drive after dinner and maybe dance in the moonlight,” he said as he wrapped his arms around Harry and twirled him around the kitchen to silent music. Damon and Grant found them tangled up in a kiss in the corner a few minutes later.

“Come on boys, I’m hungry and it’s not nice to starve old men. We get bitchy,” Grant laughed as he pushed them to the door.


A/N~ I know this is kind of....something...I don’t know. My only excuse is really good pain killers. I managed to have a spectacular crash up in my husband’s truck yesterday, rear ending a huge rv at 60 mph. I’m ok, just bruised and VERY sore. The truck on the other hand is most likely totaled. I’ll try to get another chapter out in the next day or so with Lucius being the oh so genteel host we know he will be.

And I want to say thank you to Joyce....my golden snitch...she was 1000 on my reviews...she’s also my best friend and beta. So if I make mistakes crucify her...LOL just kidding. She’s been so awesome, putting up with me until 2 am letting me bounce ideas off of her. empathic siren is another that has been an absolute gem in helping me work ideas out, keeping me from letting it get too emotional. Without these women, someone may have opened a vein by now...chuckles. My mind is a warped playground.

And I have to wonder how many of you all wonder just wtf kind of music I listen to anyhow....LMAO....I listen to everything. At the moment gospel’s in the deck with Reo Speedwagon following.