Bonds of Affection

15 years later...



Living happily ever after means different things to different people.



To Rubeus Hagrid, it means having his wand back, and being able to travel around the world.



To Nymphadora Tonks-Shaklebot, it means being reinstated as a member of the Order. She hadn\'t expected that, not in a million years. But lucky for her, Harry is a very forgiving person... and he also has a little bit of influence with the new Head of the Order.



To Albus and Minerva Dumbledore-McGonagall, \'living happily ever after\' means a contented retirement, with no-one but the select few knowing their very private secret, that is still protected by the Fidelius Charm. Severus visits them frequently – and often wonders who scares him most, the old wizard who can freeze time, or the woman who holds his slave-bond in her hands. However, whenever Severus visits, life seems normal, and the two of them are largely unchanged. Albus Dumbledore is still the most powerful wizard in the world, and he decidedly does not act “enslaved”. The only odd thing that creeps once in a while is a gallant bow to Minerva, or addressing her as “My Lady” with a wink. But that could just be attributed to the old-fashioned Gryffindor chivalry.



To Draco Malfoy, \'living happily ever after\' means knowing that the Dark Lord is not coming back. Nonetheless, more often than not, he wakes up in the middle of the night with a muffled scream, and a vision of a grave closing in on him. But his wife\'s hand is on his shoulder, and she whispers gently, “It\'s just a dream, Draco. Dreams don\'t mean anything, you know that.” He sniffles quietly and says, “Thanks, Luna.” But then he gets up, and walks down the hallways of the Malfoy Manor, and checks his kids\' bedrooms, as if afraid that they might have monsters hiding in their closets, or under their beds. In the wizarding world, you just never know.



To Luna Malfoy, \'living happily ever after\' means singing at her friends\' weddings, rather than funerals.



To Hermione Granger, \'living happily ever after\' means being married to Ron Weasley, raising their daughter (Rose), working on her Doctorate Degree in Transfiguration, being a registered Animagus, heading the Ravenclaw House of Hogwarts, and teaching. She loves teaching. She is patient, kind, and fair – to a fault. She never unjustly penalizes other houses, or favors her own. Her Animagus form is an otter.



To Ron Granger, it means seeing his wife happy, spending time with their daughter, and being close to his friends. The post as an Auror doesn\'t mean quite so much, but he still enjoys it – most days, at least.



To Sybill Trelawney, \'living happily ever after\' means freedom from addiction, freedom from her enormous glasses, and freedom to use her gift – the gift of Divination. They found out soon enough after Voldemort\'s defeat that Trelawney was one of the most powerful seers in the wizarding world. Voldemort was intimidated by her power from the very beginning, and being too scared to kill her, he had bound her gift, hoping to make her look incompetent. He had almost succeeded, and he would have – if not for Albus Dumbledore, who had hired her, and kept her employed, throughout the years, in spite of everyone else telling him he was a damned sentimental fool for doing so. Still, even with her gift bound by the Dark Lord, she had managed to deliver three true prophecies, and that is more than anyone else can say for themselves. She still teaches Divination, and she heads the House of Hufflepuff. If anyone can teach young people about perseverance, that is her.



To Severus Snape, \'living happily ever after\' means finally being able to do whatever the hell he wants. And as the Head of the Order of Phoenix, and the Headmaster of Hogwarts, and the Head of Slytherin, he does exactly that. He still teaches - Defence Against Dark Arts, all levels; he favors his own House shamelessly, and he thrives on intimidating little Gryffindor brats, even if three of them happen to be his own. And intimidation isn\'t all that difficult to achieve, when you are renowned former Dark Wizard. Having a Horcrux of your own doesn\'t hurt, either. Doing whatever he wants is true happiness, indeed. And well... if Severus Snape wants to spend all of his free time doting on Harry-bloody-Potter, who would dare to mock him? No-one with any common sense, that much is certain.



Sentimental fools who thought that love would change Severus Snape, and make him “mellow out” were wrong. All love did was help him let go of his guilt and self-recrimination, and enable him to be himself: an intimidating, sarcastic ogre – even more so than ever before. In fact, just about every day, he summons the young, unruly, insubordinate, and reckless Head of Gryffindor and Care of Magical Creatures Professor to his office and scolds him. Sometimes, for good reasons, and sometimes, just out of habit. Severus mocks him and berates him – for everything. For his tongue-piercing, for his messy hair, for him being idolized by stupid little Gryffindors, and for him somehow managing to become the icon of “coolness” for the entire school.



But the young CMC Professor is the only one in the entire school who can withstand the cutting remarks and the deathly glare of Severus Snape without flinching. He just throws his arms around the Headmaster\'s neck and whispers: “You are too cute when you are trying to look contemptuous.” This elicits a dangerous growl from the throat of Severus Snape – but the young hands already work their way into his hair, stroking it and pulling it (albeit very gently), and the young impudent lips latch onto his mouth – and Severus barely manages to cast a silencing and locking spell on his door, before he is bewitched, and before his conduct becomes completely and entirely unprofessional.. Damn that Harry Potter.



Harry Potter loves many things about his life. He loves teaching Care of Magical Creatures. He loves the creatures that are fierce, indomitable, wild. The wilder the better – he feels a bit of a kinship with them. Severus says that Harry will be the death of him, and that he is worse than Hagrid had ever been. But Harry just smirks. He knows what he is doing, and he even plays by the rules – most of the time. Because, when he doesn\'t, Severus Snape has a very quick , and very private way of correcting it. Harry still remembers being caned for smuggling a Dragon (Chinese Fireball) to Hogwarts grounds; and writing five thousand lines after taking third-year students to an unauthorized field trip to the Hyppogriff colony. But such occasions become more and more rare. In fact, just the other week, when someone in the Knockturn Alley offered Harry a litter of Nundu kittens, at a reasonable price of only five thousand galleons, Harry took one look at their fluffy striped tails, their razor-sharp fangs, their little claws with tiny pods of venom underneath, and their adorable blue eyes... and said, “Another time, perhaps.”



To Harry Potter, \'living happily ever after\' means waking up every morning to the words, “I love you”, and falling asleep to the words, “You are mine.” It means watching his greatest love – his stern face, his deep dark eyes, his black hair that has only a few streaks of grey in it - and being mesmerized by the realization that no person can look so breathtaking, so glorious, so terrifying... and so ... human. And no person can elicit from him this much joy, this much fear, this much desire, this much frustration, and this much contentment, all at once.



To Harry Potter, living happily ever-after also means watching his children – their children, grow up. All of them, little Potters. Harry begged Severus to allow the children to be Potter-Snapes, but Severus just cast him a disdainful look and said that never, in his entire life, he had heard a more ridiculous last name. “Besides,” he added with a contemptuous sneer, “the rugrats were your idea, you take responsibility for them.” Eventually, Harry forced Severus to make full confession: “Potter is an ancient and proud bloodline in the wizarding world... it should continue as such. End of discussion.”



His Master had spoken, and Harry did not argue after that. The details did not matter all that much, he reasoned. All that mattered was that the Dark Wizard and the Savior of the Wizarding World were supposed to live happily ever after, and raise a herd of adopted children, all to be sorted into Gryffindor. It was only fair.



Everybody knew that.



Except the Sorting Hat.



To Be Concluded ...