Salvation

Okay, I have posted this before and this time I am so hoping I have done everything right. If not, please let me know and I will ammend the situation.

So...for all of those who have read this before I apologise for making you read it again, I will upload new chapters soon. For those of you who have not read this yet, I hope you enjoy it.

Harry walked down the brightly lit street in Muggle London, not a thought in his head but making it to the Leaky Cauldron to meet the Weasley’s. Hermione and Ron were getting married in a few weeks time, just before they all returned to Hogwarts for their sixth year. Both of the sixteen year olds had gained the permission of their parents to marry before they turned seventeen and Dumbledore had arranged for a private room for them in Gryffindor Tower, for after the wedding. No one, not even Harry, had seen it coming when Ron proposed. No one had even known that they were dating but Hermione explained that, because of the war, they had thought it best to keep it quiet. The Dursleys had been convinced to let Harry go to London today under the strict threat by Sirius that they would suffer some very unpleasant things if they did anything but bow down and kiss Harry’s arse. So far, the summer was going pretty well for Harry.

After defeating Voldemort just before the end of his fifth year Harry was feeling pretty confident. Every now and then Harry was stopped by some passer by, congratulating him on his success, thanking him for saving them. He knew he got some strange looks for being covered from head to toe in an August heat wave but it was how he felt most comfortable. The mere thought of uncovering himself terrified him. If anyone were to find out… well the mere thought was enough to force him into hiding himself. Only Ron knew, and that was only because he had caught him in their third year. Ron had always said that it didn’t matter, that he didn’t care that Harry was different. But Harry knew that Ron found it weird, found it gross. Harry knew that if anyone else were to find out, Dumbledore, Mrs Weasley, even Sirius, they would be disgusted with him, with what he was.

Suddenly, Harry found himself grabbed from behind, his wand slipping out of his pocket to clatter to the pavement. He was being dragged into a darkened alley, a hand over his mouth and a strong arm around his waist. He could see the Leaky Cauldron, see the salvation that was the fully trained witches and wizards, that was Hermione, brightest witch of her age. His bushy haired companion was emerging from the pub, looking up and down the crowded street for her friend. How could no one see him? How could no one realise something was wrong?

He felt the sudden sensation of being squeezed through a straw; the person holding him was Apparating him somewhere. He closed his eyes against the pressure, hardly wanting to open them when he felt himself touch firm land again. He opened them and found himself being dragged to a large opulent manor.

‘Okay, don’t panic. Think,’ Harry thought to himself, trying not to let the rising panic take over. ‘We Apparated, my captor is magical. Stronger and taller than me, no breasts, so my captor is a wizard. They’re rich if this manor is anything to go on. Okay, that about covers just about all of the Death Eaters.’

As Harry tried to remember which of the Death Eaters hadn’t managed to pay their way out of Azkaban, he was half dragged half carried through the front door and up the marble stairs, barely noticing how lavish the place was. He was in a corridor, being led to a dark oak door. It was opened and he was thrown inside, his head slamming against the wall. His last thought before he passed out was ‘Malfoy.”

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Severus Snape watched as the other members of the Order paced, each giving suggestions on how to find Harry. His wand lay on the table, as if it were a shadow of their missing saviour. Sirius and Remus were frantic, was were the Weasley’s. Severus knew, all of them knew, that the two men and Molly and Arthur all felt like Harry was their child. And, right now, they all felt a part of themselves was missing. They were all panic stricken, all of them having relaxed after the fall of Voldemort. They had all assumed that the danger had passed, that Harry was safe. To have him suddenly vanish was devastating for them.

Severus was very careful to keep his face a blank mask, keep his feelings close to his heart. They would think him a pervert, a paedophile if they knew. If Albus only knew that the hours he had spent with Harry practicing Occlumency, the memories he’d seen, had caused something to grow in him that he had never before felt, never had any experience of knowing. It was so far out of his frame of reference that he did not even have a name for it. All he knew for sure was that he was terrified for what had happened to Harry, terrified that he would never see him again.

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When Harry regained consciousness he found that he was naked and had his hands chained together by heavy manacles, connected by a thick chain to the wall of the luxurious room. What scared him the most was that the room seemed to be dominated by the huge four poster bed that he was lying on. His head throbbed and it was hard for him to make out anything else other than the bed without his glasses. He knew it was night by the darkness that filled the room, which meant that he had been there for a good few hours.

He blinked at the sudden bright light that hit him full in the face as the door was opened. A tall figure entered and Harry curled his legs up towards his chest, trying to cover himself. But he knew it was too late, he knew that the figure had already seen all there was to see of him. The figure lit a few candles and then came to sit on the bed beside him. He smelled of cologne.

“Good evening, Harry,” said the figure in a smooth silky voice. “I would call you Mr Potter but I think we’re past formalities now. And besides, Mister isn’t quite right is it?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Harry replied coolly.

“Now now, don’t lie, it’s rude. Now, are you hungry?”

“What?”

“I wouldn’t be much of a host if I didn’t feed you before we get down to the matter at hand.”

“What matter at hand? What are you talking about?”

“All in good time. Now, are you hungry?”

Harry kept his mouth shut but his stomach rumbled loudly and he felt blood rush to his face. He looked away in embarrassment but was sure his captor was smirking at him. Harry jumped as his glasses were placed carefully on his face. He looked up into the grey eyes of Lucius Malfoy.

“Now, food,” Lucius said, holding up a plate of what looked like toast with marmalade.

“I don’t want any.”

“Why? It’s good food. I could get you something else if you like. Anything at all.”

“It’s all the same. I don’t want anything from you.”

A look of comprehension crossed Lucius’ face. “Ah, I see. You fear I will poison you. Well,” he said. He lifted a piece of toast and Harry watched as he tore off a piece and popped it into his mouth. Harry waited a few minutes, watching for any sign of poison. “See? No harm has come to me. It’s not poisoned. Will you eat now?” Lucius asked calmly.

Harry nodded and had to have Lucius feed him the toast as his hands were chained in a way that held them above his head. After the third helping of toast from the self refilling plate Harry turned his head away from Lucius’ hand.

“Enough?” Lucius asked, setting the plate down at Harry’s nod. He gently wiped the crumbs from Harry’s face, taking longer than was necessary.

“Why am I here?” Harry asked after Lucius helped him drink some pumpkin juice.

“I think you know already.”

“No, I don’t. Why don’t you tell me?”

Lucius smirked at him. “Very well. You are here because of what you are.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You are a hermaphrodite.”

“What’s a hermaphrodite?” Harry asked and Lucius looked at him with a new interest.

“Could it be, perhaps, that you don’t know the name of what you are? Could it be that no one knows of you, that you have discussed this with no one?” Lucius asked with a hint of amazement. Harry looked at him confusedly. He didn’t like where this was heading. “Harry, a hermaphrodite is a being who is both male and female, in varying degrees. A magical hermaphrodite has an equal amount of both gender, a complete working set of both male and female genitalia. When I removed your clothing I examined you. You have both male and female genitalia, both full and complete. You are a magical hermaphrodite.”

“Is that what I’m called?” Harry asked, momentarily distracted from what was happening to him.

“So I was correct in assuming no one knows?”

“No one except Ron. I was, am, embarrassed about it. I’m enough of a freak without people knowing about this. I never told anyone about me, about what I am, what made me different,” Harry said, turning his head in shame.

“How does Mr Weasley know if you have never talked about it?”

“He was there when I started to bleed. We were in third year, it was late at night. I woke up and I was sitting in a pool of blood. Ron helped me hide it from the others, helped me figure out how to deal with it.”

“You menstruate? Have periods like a woman? You bleed once a month from between your legs?” Lucius clarified at the look of confusion on Harry’s face.

“For three days.”

“When was your last menstruation? When did it end?” Lucius asked conversationally.

“Two weeks ago. I’m due again in two weeks.”

“And have you experienced male arousal?”

“This is getting very personal. And I feel very uncomfortable being naked in front of you,” Harry said defensively, wishing he could cover himself. Lucius pulled the blanket from the bottom of the bed and covered him to his chin with it.

“I realise that you have grown up wanting to hide your body and feeling ashamed of it. I am only trying to help you understand what you are.”

“Why?”

“Because the legend of the magical hermaphrodite has fascinated me ever since I was at Hogwarts myself. Through you I can understand it more fully.”

Harry felt like his head was spinning. Legend? There was a legend? Now he knew he was right to have hidden himself for so long. He decided the best course of action was to keep Lucius talking, keep him busy so that he didn’t decide to get a better first hand look at him and what made him different.

“So, what do you want to know?” Harry asked calmly, hoping satisfying Lucius’ curiosity would be enough for the time being.

“Have you ever had an erection?

Harry felt himself flush. “Yes.”

“Was it painful?”

“No. I suppose it must feel the way yours does, except….”

“Except?”

“I…I g-get…w-wet, be-between the…the l-legs.” Harry was sure he was glowing like the embers of a dying fire as blood rushed to his face, spreading down his neck and chest.

“Where your female counterpart is located?”

“Yes.”

“Female arousal. I’ve heard that can be quite powerful,” Lucius said, looking slightly impressed. Lucius let his eyes rake down Harry’s body, momentarily stopping at where Harry’s privates were covered by the blanket. “Is it pleasurable?”

“I don’t know. I suppose it feels good when it happens, like when you take a hot shower when you’re tense. I never really thought about it.”

“Have you never pleasured yourself?”

“No. I…erm…I…”

“You don’t know how?”

Harry shook his head and Lucius let one of his fingers trail down Harry’s pale arm, smirking as Harry flinched.

“You said there was a legend,” Harry said quickly.

“The legend of the hermaphrodite says that someone like you will bear the male child of the first wizard who beds you, and that child will be very powerful. There are rumours that the Dark Lord’s mother was a hermaphrodite that passed as a female, and Dumbledore’s mother as well.”

“What else is in this legend?” Harry asked, not liking the sound of this.

Lucius stood and began to remove his robes, Harry becoming more nervous. “Just that a hermaphrodite is born roughly every fifty years. The law, however, is more informative on creatures like you.” The robe hit the floor and Lucius began to unbutton his white shirt.

“What laws?” Harry asked, starting to squirm as the mans broad shoulders and back came into the dim candlelight. He had defeated Voldemort, most terrifying wizard of all time, and yet Lucius was scaring him more now than Voldemort had ever managed to.

“The law passed over a thousand years ago and enforced by the Ministry.” He reached for his belt.

“What does it say?”

“It says that the wizard who takes your maidenhead owns you.”

“Maidenhead?”

“Your virginity. The wizard who first has sex with you owns you.”

“Why does that matter?” Harry asked. “Why is it more informative?” Lucius’ trousers were removed and Harry noticed that the man had not been wearing shoes or socks.

“It matters because I intend to be the one to own you. Your child will be mine, Harry.” He turned and looked at Harry as he pulled the black ribbon from his hair, smirking through the curtain of the long pale waterfall.

“I don’t want to be owned. I…I’m not ready to have sex with someone, anyone. Mr Malfoy, I barely know you,” Harry said. “Please, don’t do this.”

“I know you’re scared, the first time is always difficult. I will be gentle,” Lucius said dismissively, pulling off his boxers and moving towards the bed.

“When they find me, they’ll lock you away. Someone will find me. I defeated the Dark Lord, they won’t let you keep me.”

“Oh, Harry. You don’t understand. The law is very clear on this. Once I bed you, I will own you, I will be your master. They will not be able to take you from me, to do so would be to land themselves in Azkaban. And you are mistaken when you think someone will find you,” Lucius said calmly, turning back the cover, exposing a trembling Harry. “This wing of the manor has not been used, not even stepped in, since my father died ten years ago. No one will find you, my little legend.”

“Please, don’t do this,” Harry begged as Lucius climbed onto the foot of the bed. He kicked out as he touched his leg, fighting against the hands as they travelled up his body to rest on his hips, the older wizard sitting on his shins and using his strong thighs to keep him still. “I’ll leave, if you unchain me I’ll leave and I’ll never tell anyone about this. I’ll keep my mouth shut, it’ll just be our little secret.”

“I’m not going to let you go, Harry,” Lucius said, caressing Harry’s sides.

Harry began to panic, felt his heart pound. The plate and glass beside the bed exploded as his magic soared out of control. He felt Lucius’ cold hands on his skin, felt the man kiss his face, his neck.

“Please,” Harry whispered. He opened his tear filled green eyes to see Lucius looking down on him in amusement.

“Take deep breaths. Try to stay calm. If you begin to panic too much I will render you unconscious,” Lucius ordered. Harry looked into his eyes and grasped that the man was serious, and Harry decided that he would rather know what was happening to him than have it done while he was out cold. He glanced down and saw the mans thick erection. It looked too large to fit inside him, he had never even been able to use tampons. He looked into the serious gaze of his captor and decided to save his panic for later, for when it was over. He had no way to stop the man. He took a deep shaky breath and nodded at Lucius. “Good. Now, I will try to be gentle, but I have heard that for a female to lose their virginity can be somewhat painful. Feel free to cry out, no one will hear you. I’m going to continue now. Feel free to ask me anything along the way.”

Harry realized that Lucius only cared about using him. It was slightly disconcerting to have Lucius reassure him in such a cold manner. He didn’t believe him for a second when he said he would be gentle. The man was a Death Eater, they thrived on causing pain. He only knew of one that didn‘t. He let his mind turn away from those kinds of thoughts. It wouldn‘t do him any good to think of that particular man now. He felt Lucius stroke his thigh, kiss his neck. His breath hitched as his hand moved to his inner thigh, dangerously close to what he didn’t want touched.

Lucius pulled back and ran his hands over his chest. Looking at Lucius’ chest, Harry realized that he was made differently. His chest wasn’t hard, it was softer, kind of like what Hermione’s looked like when she and Ron ran around in bathing suits last weekend at the Burrow. His were small, barely there, almost flat breasts, but they were definitely breasts instead of male pecks. Lucius’ hands moved lower, pressing gently on his lower abdomen.

“What are you doing?” Harry asked, deciding he’d rather know than guess.

“Just admiring you, the wonderful way the gods put you together.”

“Oh. Lucius?” Harry said timidly. The blonde’s hands stilled.

“Yes?”

“I don’t want this to happen. I don’t want you to do this. But you’re going to anyway and I realize I can‘t stop you. But I do want you to do something,” Harry said, his voice bolder than he thought he could make it sound.

“What’s that, Pet?”

“I want you to tell me when you’re going to do it.”

“Which part?”

Harry flushed but looked the man in the eye. “The part where you’re inside me.”

“Very well.”

Nothing more was said after that. Harry fixed his eyes on the canopy of the bed above him. As hard as he tried he couldn’t shut it out, couldn’t shut his mind off. Tears began to fall down his face as Lucius’ hands travelled.

His thighs were opened and cool hands touched him in places he had always been disgusted by. He flinched at the hand on his penis, stroking him, the other hand on his testicles, caressing them. He gasped as a finger brushed something just behind his balls.

Lucius smirked as Harry gasped. It mattered nothing to him if Harry enjoyed this or not. He had used pretty words to try and control the panic. Exploding glass was not what he desired. He didn’t want to do this with Harry unconscious, it was less enjoyable that way. Harry seemed to respond to the threat well enough. He just hoped Harry screamed for him.

Lucius spread the thin thighs further, looking down at the tender flesh. Incredible. Harry was fully endowed with both a penis and testicles, though they were located a little further forwards than his own. On the loose skin at the back of Harry’s scrotum was the small nub of his clitoris, below that the folds of his labia. Lucius parted the lips and saw the small hole of Harry’s vagina, then his perineum and, finally, his anus.

Lucius stroked Harry’s clitoris, watching the lithe creature jerk at the new sensation, smirking. He let his fingers trail down over the lips, slip between them. He found Harry wet, despite his fear. The sprite began to sob and Lucius ignored him. Lucius forced his finger inside, felt the muscle clench tight around his digit. He was going to tear the young hermaphrodite and, quite honestly, he really didn’t care. In actual fact, it kind of excited him, the thought of the blood.

Harry felt the finger removed and buried his face in his arm. He knew that this was it, that he was about to be violated. He felt so helpless but he found a slight silver lining.

At least it wasn’t Voldemort doing this to him.

He cried out as something hard and slick slid into his arse without warning. It was smooth and solid, definitely not flesh. He felt himself tighten immediately around it, so excruciatingly painfully. He tried to lift himself away from it and heard Lucius chuckle. He looked down momentarily and saw Lucius’ cane in his hands, sliding back and forth. He let his head fall back and tried to angle his hips down, make it harder for him. It was forced into him a few more times, deeper and deeper, and then Lucius seemed to grow bored of watching him fight against the pain. It was yanked from him and he gasped.

There was nothing for a few moments, no touches, and then his fingers probed his anus, slick and firm. He groaned as his sore anal tissues were pressed. He felt the sting of damaged flesh and knew that he was bleeding. The cool hands moved to his male genitals again and Harry cried out as something was tied tightly around them, cutting into the delicate skin. They were pushed up and a spell was uttered, his penis and testicles staying against his stomach as the hands were removed. Fresh tears fell down his face, this time from humiliation.

“Harry, it’s time. I’m going to take you now,” Lucius said as the pale hands pushed his thighs further apart, opening him. Harry nodded and waited for it to happen, his face buried in his arm as he sobbed in mortification. It felt like an eternity before he felt something hard and thick try to push into him. A growl of frustration from his captor. His thighs were pushed even further apart, his feet losing contact with the mattress as his knees were supported in the crook of the mans elbows. Strong hands gripped his waist and it was forced inside without any more warning, buried to the hilt in one rapid stroke, Lucius‘ hips flush against his skin. Harry was screaming in pain, fighting against the chains and the man inside him as he felt the blood slowly trickle down from where Lucius was inside.

“Please! Please take it out! Please stop!” Harry screamed. It was to no avail as it was pulled out and thrust back in, the pain getting worse, Lucius moaning in pleasure. He was being ripped in two, he was dying, he was sure of it. Over and over he begged the man to stop but it didn’t work, he kept on fucking him, brutally using his body, time stretching out into an eternity. He screamed and cried, each moment worse than the last. Suddenly, teeth sank into his nipple and he felt the flesh tear. The same treatment was given to the other nipple, Harry feeling the blood trickling down his chest to the sheets beneath him.

“Help me! Someone please help me!” Harry screamed at the crack of something breaking in his hips, or maybe his legs. Lucius chuckled above him, his sharp fingernails ripping the pale flesh. The sound of Harry’s screams went straight through him, making him impossibly harder, making him thrust into him violently, feeling the blood coat his cock. Lucius surged forwards and sank his teeth into the sprites shoulder, groaning out his release as his seed spilled into the sixteen year old, Harry feeling the snap of one of his wrists breaking. The older wizard lay there, gasping for air as Harry sobbed, his cock still inside him. He withdrew and let the slim legs fall.

Harry lay there, his tears still falling as his screaming body protested at Lucius’ weight on him. “It’s over. It’s done,” Lucius moaned into his ear. “Just one more thing and I shall leave you be for the time being.”

Lucius sat up and looked proudly at the blood staining the pale skin, the damage his passion had caused. He reached over to where his cane lay on the bed and picked up the item lying next to it. It was a small cork shaped piece of pewter, wider than it was long, its edges pitted with holes through which spikes would emerge. He took it in his fingertips and pushed it into Harry, pushing his seed up with it. Once it was in as far as he could get it and Harry was sobbing again in pain, Lucius removed his fingers. He withdrew his wand from his cane and pushed it into the sprite, muttering a spell.

Harry sobbed in pain as something hard was pushed up him, surely it could get no worse. But it suddenly did. Harry screamed as the hard thing inside him suddenly embedded itself in his passage, sharp blades stabbing his abused internal tissues.

“To ensure conception,” Lucius said offhandedly as he dressed once more. Harry watched him dress, and leave the room, hearing the door lock, before curling into as much of a ball as he could and letting the pain and panic engulf him, letting himself cry.

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Sirius lay on the bed and let Remus pull him back into his arms. Sobs wracked his body, he couldn’t breathe, couldn’t see, couldn’t feel anything but the pain of his missing godson. He had gotten him cleared, Harry had gotten him cleared of all charges, he was a free man and Harry was meant to be moving in with them permanently at Christmas. This wasn’t supposed to be happening, not this, not Harry. Sirius felt the loss of his godson so clearly that suddenly he was transported back fifteen years, back to the loss of his best friend, of the man he considered his brother, of his brothers wife.

“I can’t do this, Remus! I can’t lose him, not him, not Harry,” Sirius sobbed.

Remus let his own tears fall, gathered his husband closer to him. Sirius cared about Harry so much. He felt his husband cling to him, grasping at him as if he could keep the pain away, as if he could bring the boy back to them.

“We’ll find him. I promise, Siri, we’ll find him,” Remus soothed, not sure if he even believed himself the way he needed Sirius to.

He and Sirius would never have their own child. Male pregnancies were possible, though rare, in the Wizarding world but with Remus’ lycanthropy it was not an idea they could entertain. Remus knew that the Ministry would never allow them to adopt or use a surrogate, the Werewolf restrictions made it impossible. They both wanted so badly to be parents but it wasn’t an option, not with Remus as a werewolf and Sirius as a recently cleared ex-convict. But Harry was their chance to be the fathers they had always wanted to be, the chance to help the young man set himself right after all of the neglect the Dursley’s had put him through.

They had only been allowed to adopt Harry because he was Sirius’ godson, and he was the Boy-Who-Lived. Clearing Sirius’ name and securing himself as their adopted son had been the only things Harry had used his fame for, so the Minister had agreed without question.

Sirius cried himself to sleep and Remus let himself slip from the room, let himself travel the stairs and hallways until he found himself in Harry’s room. It was the same one that Harry had shared with Ron the summer before but it looked completely different. It had been painted in the deep rich blue of Harry’s choosing, held the extravagant bed that Sirius had insisted on, the extortionately expensive sheets and ridiculous amount of pillows. Sirius had been so excited to hang the new curtains, put together the brand new chest of drawers, clear out the closet. Harry’s things had already begun to fill the room. His Gryffindor posters were on the walls, pictures of his friends and of Lily, of James, some of his books and clothes were already in their proper places. Good god, it looked like Harry had just stepped out momentarily.

Remus felt his own loss crush him, let it force him to his knees, let it force the gasping sobs from him. Harry was missing, their Harry was missing.

Sweet Merlin, their son was missing.

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Lucius only spoke to Harry once more, three weeks after the first time he raped him to tell him he was pregnant. During that brief conversation, Lucius also told him that it was September first. He had been missing for almost month and Harry came to realise that maybe Lucius had been right. No one would find him. In all honesty, Lucius confused him more than anything else. He fed him and bathed him, all in complete silence but with amazing tenderness. Unfortunately, the meals from Lucius became fewer and farther between the longer he was kept there. As the snow began to fall outside the window Harry realized that it had been more than three weeks since he had eaten. He supposed it must have been something resilient in him that kept him alive still. Lucius continued to take him roughly, each time a little more cruel and inhumane than the last.

The only thing Harry could be glad of was than no one could see him like this.

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Severus gazed at the page in front of him, not even seeing it. He couldn’t clear his mind, couldn’t forget the pain of the ache in his chest. He had realized some time ago that what he felt for Harry was stronger than he was, that it was taking him over. Severus paused in his pretend reading to notice Ronald Weasley slowly enter the library. He looked around and, on spotting Severus, moved towards him.

“Professor Snape?”

“Yes, Mr Weasley?”

“There’s something you should know about Harry, something the Order should know. Well, I don’t actually know if any of you do know. But if you don’t…”

“Mr Weasley,” Severus interrupted. “Whatever it is you think we should know, you should tell me. Harry has been missing now for three months. Anything you have to tell might help us in locating him.”

Ron sat down opposite him. “Well, that’s the thing. Harry’s not quite a him.”

“What do you mean?”

“Harry has periods, like a girl. He bleeds once a month.”

“How do you know this?”

“I helped him hide it. I was there the first time it happened.”

“Why didn’t you tell anyone this before now?”

“I wasn’t sure if it was important. Harry made me swear never to tell anyone about him. But the other day, in the meeting, we were all trying to figure out why he might have been taken, and when Mad-Eye mentioned that Harry might be a plaything for a Death Eater it kind of played on my mind. It made me think that Harry bleeding like a girl might be the reason he was taken.”

Severus sat there stunned. It couldn’t be, could it? Harry couldn’t be a….no, it wasn’t possible. It couldn’t be. But doubt played in his mind. Of all the memories he had seen in Harry’s mind the ones that suddenly stuck out were the ones of Harry in the bathroom. He hadn’t meant to go that far, get that deep in Harry’s mind and Severus had tried to forget them, give the youth a semblance of privacy. One in particular of Harry holding a squashy looking package as he entered Moaning Myrtles bathroom struck him.

“Mr Weasley, tell no one of what you have just told me. If you tell anyone, I will personally see to it that you and your wife never have marital relations again, am I understood?” Severus snarled as he gathered up his things. At Ron’s terrified nod, he sped from the library and straight up to the deserted girls bathroom.

“Myrtle?” he called out.

The transparent girl floated out to him and gave him a wary look. “Yes, Professor?”

“Myrtle, I need to ask you something and I need you to answer me honestly, no matter what anyone has made you promise.”

She continued to float there, looking at him suspiciously, and he took that as a sign of her agreement.

“Myrtle, does Harry Potter come in here a lot?” She nodded. “How often does he come to see you?”

“Every month.”

“Does he come just to spend time with you, Myrtle, or is there a reason other than that that brings him here?”

“Maybe.”

“Myrtle, is Harry special?” She nodded. “Myrtle, you know Harry’s been taken, don’t you?” Another nod. “Well, he might have been taken because of him being special. Myrtle, I need you to tell me why Harry comes here. I need to know how he’s special.”

“He made me promise. I saw him and he said if I didn’t tell he’d keep coming to see me. So I didn’t tell and he kept coming, once a month all school year since his third year. He sits and talks to me afterwards,” Myrtle said, sounding rather proud that Harry had chosen her to confide in, chosen her bathroom to deal with his problem.

“Myrtle, someone has taken him. They might be hurting him. I know you promised and I find that very admirable, that you want to keep that promise. But Harry is in trouble and I need to know, Myrtle. I need you to tell me what you know about him.”

“Promise you won’t tell him I told you?”

“I promise.”

“I suppose if it’s to help him then he won’t mind you knowing. He said some very nice things about you. What do you want to know first, what he said or what he is?”

“That is entirely up to you, Myrtle.”

“Well, he told me that he thinks you’re rather nice. That he feels safe with you. That if he was going to tell a teacher, well, anyone really, about himself that it would be you. He told me things he couldn’t tell his friends.”

“That’s very nice of him to say about me. And very nice to say about you, Myrtle. It sounds like he values you and your friendship very much. You must be very special to him if he trusted you with his secret,” Severus said, watching her cheeks become cloudy and as she swayed side to side, an embarrassed sort of smile on her face. He smiled inwardly. Very few females could resist flattery, even dead ones. “Now, can you tell me why he comes here? Why does he need to hide, Myrtle?”

“Oh, that one’s easy! Harry comes here because he has both bits.” The information was coming more easily now and Severus was hanging on her every word.

“I don’t understand.”

“He has boy bits, all wrinkly!” At this she let out a high pitched giggle and Severus smiled at her in spite of himself. “Oh, and he has girl bits, like I used to have! He has them both, and he comes in here when he gets his monthlies. That’s what’s special about him. He’s a little bit of both. When he gets his monthlies he doesn’t sleep very well, he gets terrible cramps, so he comes and sits in here, talking to me. He told me some very rude dreams he’s had about you, Professor! Harry likes you! You know, like his red head friend likes the Granger girl?”

“Is that so?”

“Yes. He said that you were different than everyone thinks you are. He told me things he’s seen in your head, that you were nice to the little girl.”

Severus hoisted himself onto a windowsill, settling his feet on the rim of the sink below it. He let his mind travel back to the memory Harry had inadvertently discovered that fated Saturday evening in his office when he had accidentally entered his professor’s mind. It wasn’t the first time he’d done it, but it was the first time he had seen something different in Severus.

Her dark hair flew out behind her as she ran from his drunken yelling. Her pale skin was marked by dark bruises. She tripped over her own feet and went tumbling to the floor, crying out in pain as her knee connected with the stone floor. Sudden hands grabbed her and carried her with them, the two dark haired figures locking themselves in the antique armoire near the kitchen.

Severus looked into the dark eyes of his three year old sister, Solarin. He was home for the Christmas holidays in his seventh and final year. He wouldn’t have come back if he didn’t fear so much for her safety around their violent alcoholic father. Her small body trembled and shook as she sobbed silently, her tiny fingers clutching at his t-shirt.

“Sevus,” she mumbled. He held her closer and wiped at her bleeding knee with a tissue from his pocket, wiped away her tears. Professor Dumbledore had promised Severus he would help him get custody of her as soon as he turned seventeen in July. Solarin was the only person that meant anything to him and he would be damned if he let his father destroy her.

Severus looked at the young ghost and smiled sadly. “My sister. She’s in her early twenties now, she lives in London, working at a Muggle store selling toys. She enjoys it.”

“She’s very young.”

“Yes. A late surprise for my mother. My mother died when I was seventeen, Solarin was about three, maybe four, the details escape me now. I took custody of her, raised her. We’re very close.”

“I never heard you had a sister.”

“Very few people know about her. Solarin is special. She has a gift. If people found out about it they would use her.”

“I told you how Harry’s special. Tell me her gift. I promise I won’t tell anyone,” Myrtle said. Severus looked at her. She had kept Harry’s secret until it was needed to help save him. But Solarin was all he had, all that he held dear, apart from Harry.

“You promise?” Severus asked and the little ghost nodded. “Solarin is empathic and a telepath. She can read peoples thoughts and emotions without them knowing she‘s doing it. She can also see the future. She is a true Seer. It makes her very powerful.”

“That sounds like fun,” Myrtle giggled and Severus smirked.

“Solarin didn’t think so at first, she had terrible trouble learning to control it. But once she got a handle on it, she had great fun. Myrtle, do you think Harry’s all right?” Severus asked her, finally admitting that he was desperately worried about the young man.

Myrtle looked at the usually stoic professor, suddenly so unsure, so worried, and wanted in some way to comfort him. She floated to the last stall, the one Harry always used, and pulled out the small battered book. She floated over to Professor Snape and passed him the book. It was all she knew to do. She knew her hug would just chill him to the bone, and her words would not comfort him the way he needed.

“It’s Harry’s. He hides it here. If someone starts to get close to it I begin to wail at them,” Myrtle admitted.

“Thank you, Myrtle. You’re a very good friend to him.”

“Professor, I’m sure Harry’s all right. Harry defeated the Dark Lord. He’s tougher than people think, like you.”

Severus knew that most people wouldn’t take comfort in the words of a teenage girl that had been dead for fifty years, but it was all he had.

He smiled at her.

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Draco Malfoy flopped back onto his bed, Pansy Parkinson lying beside him. He huffed in frustration.

“It doesn’t matter, Draco. It happens to every guy. You’re probably just stressing about something,” she soothed, rolling onto her side to rub his bare arm with her soft hand.

His skin crawled at her touch but he didn’t let on. Pansy wouldn’t be so supportive of his impotency if she knew the truth. He sat up and sat on the edge of the bed, his elbows on his knees, his hands dangling between them. He hung his head and sighed. Pansy’s hands slid along his bare back and he inwardly shuddered. He hated being touched, he was just thankful that it wasn’t just her who caused this reaction in him.

“It’s just the stress your father is putting on you. Once we go through with this arranged marriage all the pressure will stop,” she said, laying her head on his shoulder.

“And after the marriage comes the pressure of us producing an heir. It won’t stop, Pansy,” Draco countered.

“I can deal with them.”

“I’m suddenly struck by the thought that you have no idea what you’re getting into,” he scoffed. She kissed his shoulder and scrambled off the bed, buttoning up her blouse.

“Maybe not. But I know that me and you are going to get married. And then I’ll be Mrs. Draco Malfoy. That’s all that matters, right?” She kissed him on the top of his bent head and walked to the door. “Just try to relax. I’ll see you later.”

He heard the door close and he breathed a sigh of relief. He locked the door and stepped into his shower, letting the hot water run over him. It wasn’t that he didn’t like Pansy, he did. As girls went she was one of the less insipid ones. She had her moments where she was overly emotional but they were few and far between. He was thankful, in his own way, that it was her he was destined to marry.

For as long as he could remember she had been there, the two of them had known that they were going to be married. And it terrified him, the thought of marriage. The thought of consummating it.

Draco could not remember a time when he hadn’t hated being touched, hated the feel of another on his skin. As for himself, his skin had always felt a little too tight, a little too wrong on his frame. He had always felt off, like there was something about him that was too different to be ignored. He had once asked his father about it, told his father of his unease in his own skin. His father had told him that all young men felt that way, that it was normal to feel like you were different and didn’t fit in, that it would pass. But it hadn’t, it had just gotten worse. Draco had just become better at hiding it.

He let his hand travel down, supporting himself against the tiled wall with his other arm. He began to stroke it, trying to arouse himself. He let his mind wander through all the fantasies his friends had told to him over the years, but nothing struck him. He kept stroking, letting his mind wander aimlessly. He stood there for nearly an hour, his hand working while his mind travelled. He couldn’t do it.

His cock lay limp in his hand.

The thing that worried Draco the most was that he had never had an erection. He was sixteen years old and he had never had an erection, never had a wet dream, never even got hot under the collar.

He growled in frustration and finished up his shower quickly, dressing and beginning to pack for when he went home for Christmas tomorrow. Maybe he would talk about it with his father.

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Molly Weasley looked over the kitchen of Grimmauld Place, surveying the hoards of people. Her whole family had come for Christmas this year, Hermione’s family joining them as well. The Order and their various family members had joined them as well, even Dumbledore had brought along his brother Alberforth. They had decided that Grimmauld Place would be better suited for the large numbers and the old house was full to breaking point.

She was in her element cooking for them all, being a mother hen on overload. But she couldn’t help but notice the space that Harry would have filled. She viewed him as some sort of black haired Weasley, viewed him with the same love and care she viewed her own boys. Her heart was broken at his absence, broken for what might be happening to him while they searched for him, while they celebrated without him. Her eyes landed on Sirius, Remus talking to him quietly. The two of them looked so lost without their boy to make their first uncomplicated Christmas complete.

Molly set Harry’s pile of gifts aside and turned to her family and friends, ready to celebrate Christmas Eve with them, pasting a fake cheery smile on her face and burying her guilt.

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Severus stood at the back of the smoky overcrowded bar, sipping a cold beer from the bottle, his eyes fixed on the stage. It had been years since he left Hogwarts for Christmas, finding solace from the darkness of his dungeons. This year, however, he had felt the inexplicable urge to see her. He had spent the last few days decorating Spinners End with gaudy decorations, buying presents and other festivities, all in preparation for this moment. He knew the small rundown house in the bad area would never be as cheery as it should have been at this time of year, but it was the best he could do. He wanted to give her the best he could, he had always wanted the best for her. He had even donned Muggle clothing for the first time in over a decade so that she wouldn’t be embarrassed in any way by his sudden presence.

She was a powerful authority on the stage, her dark clothes making her dark hair and eyes so startling in her pale face. She brandished the microphone in the same way she brandished a wand, with cool calm confidence. She owned the stage, owned the song, owned the crowd. Her dark eyes momentarily fixed on him and he smiled at her look of surprise, her sudden shock at seeing him there watching her but she didn’t falter in the song. She let the mike drop and danced on the stage, laughing at something one of the other players up there with her had muttered in her ear. Severus grimaced at the glint of the thin silver hoop through her left nostril, rolled his eyes at the tattoo that peaked at him as her shirt rose a few centimetres.

‘Why on earth would she do that to herself?’ he thought, his eyes focussing on the dark eye makeup and lipstick. ‘What is her obsession with looking like death?’ He grit his teeth as she let one of the players grope her in some semblance of dance, though Severus considered it something akin to a clothed form of fornication. He suddenly wanted to decapitate that Muggle touching her.

At the end of the night, when most of the patrons had left to rejoin their families, she made her way over to him.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“Why should anything be wrong? Do I need a reason to see you?” he asked defensively.

“Well, you haven’t been to see me at Christmas since I was seventeen and fresh out of Hogwarts and, as I remember, you only came so you could check up on me. You never even left my flat. That was four, no five, years ago, in case you’d lost track. You like your dungeons where you can be Scrooge. So why are you here?”

“I wanted to see you.”

“Why?”

He sighed and looked into her dark eyes, eyes that matched his own. “I felt that, this year, I didn’t want to be alone. If you’d rather be with your friends I can go back to Hogwarts,” he said quietly, hoping she wouldn’t send him away.

“I didn’t say I didn’t want you here, that I didn’t want to spend the holidays with you. I just wondered why.”

He let her envelope him in a hug, taking comfort in her slim weight in his arms, his tears threatening to fall. She pulled back suddenly, looking him in the eye.

“Sweet Merlin! What the hell is going on inside your head?” she exclaimed.

“What?”

“Sevus, I haven’t gotten a wave of emotion like that from you since dad died when I was eleven. Something’s happened to you. Spill it.”

“Sol, I really don’t want to talk about it right now.”

She quirked an eyebrow at him. “All right. But pretty soon, me and you are going to have words.”

He smiled and took his sisters hand, leading her out of the bar, Apparating them to Spinners End. He smiled genuinely at her child’s excitement of the decorations and gifts, let her try and guess what was contained in the packages. He took comfort in the ritual of tucking her into bed, took comfort in the fact that he could at least keep one of the people he cared about safe.

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Draco sat in the sitting room staring into the flames of the dying fire. His parents had gone to bed and he was to return to Hogwarts in a few days, just after the New Year. His Christmas vacation had not gone as he had planned. Once again his father had assured him that all young men felt out of place, reassured once again that it would pass, that he would grow out of it. He hadn’t had the courage to tell his father of his inadequacies in the bedroom. How did one tell their father that they couldn’t get an erection?

Draco sighed and decided to walk through the manor, decided that it might clear his head. He let his mind wander as he walked, feeling his stress pound with every step. Before he knew it, he had no idea where he had wandered to. He had never been in this part of the manor before. It had been closed off since his grandfather passed away when he was six. Draco looked around interestedly at the ornate tapestries, the antique statues. Nothing like these were displayed in any other part of the manor and he supposed they must have been his grandfathers choice, something his mother had never liked.

He let his curiosity lead him further into the disused wing. That was strange. He could hear screaming. The sounds that reached his ears terrified him. Someone was in true pain, in agony, begging for mercy, for freedom. It sounded scarily like the sounds Voldemort had elicited from his victims, and that was what scared him the most, that he was suddenly reminded of that evil man.

Draco padded towards the sound, the sobbed pleas getting louder and more horrific with every step. He approached an ornate oak door that was slightly ajar and looked in through the gap. He clapped his hand over his mouth to keep himself from screaming.

His father was brutally raping someone chained to the wall behind the bed. The obviously starved figure was screaming out in pain, begging his father to stop. Draco felt tears spring to his eyes at the sight of the blood gushing from the place his father was slamming into, the blood pouring from the sprites chest, from everywhere really. There wasn’t a part of her that wasn’t bruised, bloody or scarred. Draco had to shove his hand into his mouth as the figure turned it’s head, the bright green eyes turned towards the door, unseeing.

Harry.

His father let out a groan of release, stopped moving, pulled off of his schoolmate. This was impossible. Harry had been here in his home for all these months and Draco had never even thought of it, never even considered that his father might have had something to do with his disappearance. Draco saw his fathers hand move between Harry’s battered legs and heard the scream from Harry, his stomach suddenly threatening to give up everything as his father stood to dress.

‘Good Merlin, Harry should be dead,’ Draco thought as the emaciated body was revealed, broken bones poking against the skin too tight on the too slim frame. He quickly padded round the corner as his father emerged, striding off confidently to the other parts of the manor. Draco didn’t know how long he had but he knew he couldn’t just ignore what he’d seen.

He hurried back down the hall, slipped into the room, his eyes darting about for any sign of his father. He rushed to the bed, Harry trying to scramble away.

“Harry, it’s me, it’s Draco,” he whispered, watching the gaunt figure stop trying to scramble away from him.

“You come to take me too? Your father decided to share me with his heir?” Harry said, his voice barely a whisper.

“What? No! Harry, have you been here all this time?” Draco asked as he tried to remove the chains from the mangled wrists.

“Yes. Help me, please,” Harry begged, looking up at Draco as his schoolboy nemesis gently put his glasses on his face.

“I’m going to get you out of here.”

They remained like that for the next hour, Draco struggling with the manacles. Finally Draco sighed.

“I’m so sorry, Harry. I can’t get them off.” Draco looked at the door and then down at Harry. “Harry, I’m going to go and get someone, get some help. I need to take off your glasses, he can’t know I know you’re here.”

“Please, don’t leave, don’t leave me! Please,” Harry begged, his voice rasping.

“Harry, I’m coming back. I’ll be back as soon as I can, I’ll be back with help, I swear. But I can’t get the manacles off and I can’t get you out of here without getting them off. I’ll be back as soon as I can. Hang in there,” Draco said, gently pulling off the glasses and putting them back where he found them. “I’ll be right back.”

Draco hurried to the door and then, with a final glance at the crying figure on the bed, he padded quickly to the dying fire in the living room. He grabbed some floo powder and chucked it into the flames, calling out the first thing that had come to his mind.

“Spinners End.”

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Severus looked at the battered book Myrtle had given him. He had not told anyone except Solarin of his discovery of Harry’s true anatomy, deciding that it would not help them find the sprite and that Harry would probably want it kept secret. Solarin had only been told because of his inability to keep something that important to him from her. He glanced at Solarin, asleep on the sofa. He smiled at her. He had spent most of the night pouring out to her everything he had been keeping inside. As usual, she displayed a maturity that still surprised him. She had rationalised that if Harry was ever found then life was too short to wish it away on wasted dreams. She told him that if it was true that Harry felt the same for him then he should let him know. She said to him that a life half lived with missed opportunities and forgotten dreams was no life at all.

So he opened the book. It turned out to be half diary, half scrapbook. There were many entries on Harry’s own views on what he was, most of them revealing that Harry felt himself to be some kind of freak of nature, an abomination. There were other mundane entries on Harry’s day to day life, his lessons, his friends. None of this was of great interest but Severus found himself drinking in every word, revelling in the fact that he could picture Harry performing as mundane a task as doing his History of Magic homework.

Into the book Harry had secured several pictures of his friends and himself, all Muggle developed so they did not move. Alongside these were snippets from newspapers and magazines, and a few drawings that Harry himself had done.

Finally, at the very last page that was filled in, Severus found a diary entry that made his heart leap.

‘Professor Snape looked at me differently today. I look into those dark eyes and I feel for sure he knows. Mind you, if I was going to tell anyone about my deformities it would be him. I wonder how he’d react? Would he be horrified? Disgusted? Or would it not matter to him? Doesn’t really matter, he’ll never know, I’ll never tell anyone. Myrtle tries to help in her own way, and Ron helps as well, but it’s not the same. Myrtle’s a ghost (though she’s a great friend) and Ron’s marrying Hermione. Who would want me? Like this? Maybe he would. Maybe Professor Snape would want me, if he knew.

Sometimes he looks at me and I feel for sure he knows that I want him. I look around at all the people who praise me and it seems so hollow. Even Sirius and Remus. They try their best but it still feels false. He seems to be the only one who doesn’t give a damn about me being a saviour. Somehow, strangely, that makes me feel better. Normal.

I look at him and it doesn’t bother me that other people say he’s ugly. Oh, he’s not handsome, but there is something. Besides, they say that a pretty face doesn’t stay that way for long. I keep thinking about that memory I saw, the one with the girl. He seemed so different in that one, so different with her. So tender. Sometimes I wish he was tender with me. I find myself having these dreams where he touches me, where I like it. I wake up and I wish that they were real.

If anyone knew they’d probably think I was insane. But I know I’m not. I like him. I want him. And I wish he wanted me too.’

Severus read that one over and over, and when he next looked up he was startled to realise that it was three in the morning. He placed the book on the coffee table and prepared to put Solarin to her own bed instead of the couch before settling into his own bed. He had just stumbled to his cold feet when the flash of floo startled him, Solarin jerking awake.

Draco Malfoy emerged from his fireplace, a look of absolute horror on his face. Tears were falling down his godsons face as he dropped to his knees.

“Draco? Draco, what’s wrong?” Severus asked, kneeling before him and gently forcing the young mans gaze.

“I found him, uncle Severus. Oh gods, I’m going to be sick!” Draco cried and Solarin passed him the wastepaper basket. Draco heaved and heaved until there was nothing left in his stomach. Solarin vanished the vomit and passed him a glass of water.

“Draco, talk to me,” Severus urged, hardly daring to believe his hopes.

“Harry. I’ve found Harry. But I couldn’t go to Dumbledore, I didn‘t know who else to ask for help. He’s such a mess, uncle Severus. Dumbledore would send him to St Mungo’s and I don’t think Harry could take that.”

“Where is he, Draco? Where is Harry?”

“At the manor. He’s chained to the wall, I couldn’t get him loose. I need help. I promised him I’d be back, I swore I would, with help.”

Severus looked at Solarin and then Draco, formulating a plan. “Draco, I need to know, you have to tell me. Has your father touched Harry?”

“I watched it. Tonight, I watched it, watched him rape Harry,” Draco said, his voice betraying the fear of his father he felt at that moment.

“Solarin, I need you to ward this place with everything you’ve got. Once I have Harry, Lucius will come looking. We‘ll also need one of the spare rooms for him.” His sister nodded and he felt momentarily sorry for the man who married her. She could be downright terrifying when she wanted. “Draco, take me to Harry.”

Severus followed Draco through the floo, silently moving along the hidden passages and darkened hallways until Draco stopped before a door.

“In there,” Draco whispered. Severus entered, Draco keeping a watch for him outside. He felt his heart break as he spied Harry on the bed.

“Oh God,” Severus breathed. He crossed to the bed, the young creature shying away from him. “Harry, it’s Professor Snape. I’m going to get you out of here.” Severus slipped the glasses gently onto the sunken face and began to work at the chains. Twenty three spells later, the heavy locks snapped and Harry’s hands were freed.

“Harry, can you walk?” The starved figure shook his head. “Is it all right if I carry you?”

Harry nodded and Severus wrapped him in a robe he had transfigured from a handkerchief. As gently as he possibly could he cradled the impossibly light figure to his chest, hearing Harry whimper.

“Harry, I am so sorry but you are going to have to be silent. If he hears us he will keep you here and I won’t be able to get you out,” Severus whispered to him as he crossed to the door. Harry nodded.

“Where are we going? Not Hogwarts? Please, Professor, not Hogwarts,” Harry asked, terror filling his voice.

“We are going to my house. You’ll be safe there.”

“Please, help me,” Harry asked.

Severus nodded. “Silence now, Harry.”

Harry was silent as Severus carried him through the manor, Draco close on their heels. With Harry disappearing so suddenly in the night Lucius would certainly know that Draco had helped in some way. Draco would need as much protection as Harry. The three of them tumbled through the floo and Severus saw the look in his sisters eyes as she looked at the figure in his arms. He knew that she was thinking of the damage their father had done to their mother, the damage that had caused her death and, quite honestly, Severus couldn’t say that Harry looked any better than their mother had.

Solarin led Severus to the spare room next to his own, the room clean and fresh sheets on the bed. Solarin led Draco to the room across the hall next to hers and settled the blonde to sleep as her brother performed a miracle.

Severus lay the shaking young wizard on the bed, lighting the lamp on the bedside table. Solarin had brought in all the medicinal potions she could find. Severus perched on the bed beside the young creature.

“Harry?”

“Professor?”

“Harry, I know you’re tired and in pain but I need you to talk to me right now. I need you to tell me what you can about what Lucius did to you.”

“Why?” Harry rasped.

“Because I’m going to try and heal you as best I can. I need to know, Harry.”

“I don’t think I can.”

“Just tell me what you are able to.”

Harry nodded and Severus set to work.

“Harry, I need to remove the robe. I need to see you to help you.” Harry looked away in resignation as Severus removed the robe from his abused body.

Severus swallowed as he took in the damage. He started by resetting Harry’s broken jaw and healing his broken nose. He repaired the partially severed earlobes. Harry began to cry in embarrassment as Severus rubbed a healing salve into the infected bite marks on his shoulders and arms.

“I promise I will never tell anyone of what I see here tonight,” Severus said quietly.

“Thank you, Professor,” Harry whispered.

“You may call me Severus, if you feel more comfortable.”

“Thank you, Severus.”

“Harry, if at any time while I heal you you wish to stop, tell me and I will do so. I will not force this upon you.”

Harry nodded and Severus returned to the broken body, reattaching Harry’s nipples, resetting broken ribs, healing bruised internal organs. Both of Harry’s wrists were snapped clean in two, and the wounds from the manacles were infected. Severus found Harry’s hips to be dislocated and he reset them, along with both of Harry’s shoulders. He continued along the pale skin, healing minor breaks in his legs and arms until he felt Harry tense.

He looked up into the dark gaze of his sister, standing in the doorway. “Should I call the Order, let them know he is safe?” she asked.

“No. Not yet. It can wait until the dawn. Harry needs us to help him now, not a load of frantic witches and wizards all clamouring around him, scaring him half to death. How is Draco?”

“Out cold. I gave him a sleeping draught.”

“Who is she, Severus?” Harry asked his professor, terrified of the new face but there was something soothing about her presence, something incredibly familiar about her.

“Harry, this is my little sister, Solarin. With your permission, I would like her help in healing you. Would you feel comfortable with that?”

Harry looked at the young woman and was surprised to see that she had the exact same eyes as her brother. “I suppose so.”

Solarin crossed the room at her brothers beckoning and helped him to sit Harry up, the young witch letting him lean against her as Severus poured some potions down his throat. The young being’s genitals had been covered at some point by Severus and Solarin felt sudden apprehension at what lay beneath the blanket. Lucius had never struck her as the most gentle of people. The one and only time she had glanced into his mind had left her in no doubt that he was dead inside, that he cared for nothing and no one but himself. She dreaded to think of what Lucius had done to this poor young soul. She held Harry as Severus leaned him forward to heal the infected wounds on his back, hearing him whimper in pain, before letting him rest against her once more, her hands laying gently on his shoulders.

“Harry, I need you to tell me some things, as best you can. I’m sorry to have to ask them but I really do need to know,” Severus asked as he waited for the potions to do their job inside the young body, sitting gently beside him but not touching him. Solarin let her own hands fall, following her brothers lead.

Harry nodded and Severus glanced at Solarin before he continued. He was counting on her to read Harry as they spoke. She nodded slightly and Severus looked at the dulled green eyes.

“Harry, was it only Lucius who touched you? Were there any others?”

“No. It was just him. He said something about me belonging to him, that he was my master, because he was the first to…to…”

“It’s all right, you don’t have to say it, I know. So it was just him. Harry, were you in that room the whole time? He never took you anywhere else?”

“No. Just that room. He kept me chained there.”

“The chains, did he ever take them off, maybe for the bathroom?”

“No. He got me a pan to use, for when I needed the bathroom.”

“When was the last time you ate?”

“I don’t remember.”

“All right, we’ll get you something soon, as soon as I’ve finished healing you. If you prefer, I can send for Madame Pomfrey for the rest of your injuries,” Severus suggested gently, seeing the young man back further into Solarin at the suggestion, her hands coming up to steady him, her touch light on the pale arms.

“No! No one else! Please! Just you! I can‘t, please! They can‘t know, they can‘t ever know! Please, Professor! Please!” Harry begged. Severus had always protected him, always treated him just like everyone else, he was the only one Harry trusted at the moment. He couldn’t even stand the thought of Madame Pomfrey seeing what Lucius had done to him, especially not the damage and deformities down below.

“All right, Harry, it’s all right! Just me then.” Severus paused. “Harry, I need to look at you down below.”

“No, you can’t. Please.” Tears of shame began to make their way down the sunken cheeks. Severus would be disgusted at what he saw, at what Harry was, he was sure of it.

“Harry, I already know what you are. I know that you are both male and female,” Severus confessed softly, seeing the accusing green gaze look at him. “Ronald Weasley came to me, he wasn’t sure if it would help us to find you or not. I was the only one he told, I have not told anyone other than Solarin of this.”

“Ron told you?” Harry asked, half betrayed at Ron, half relieved at finally having Severus know about him. He barely registered that Severus had told Solarin but it seemed quite logical that he would tell his only family of something like this. The two of them seemed close.

“Yes. We were trying to figure out why you may have been taken and Mr Weasley felt it would be wise to tell someone of your bleeding once a month. He was trying to help, Mr Potter. He never meant it as a way to betray your confidence.”

“Does anyone else know?”

“Draco may have seen some things when he found you, but apart from that, no one but Solarin and I.”

Harry nodded and took a few deep breaths. It really didn’t matter if Severus was disgusted by him now. If he wasn’t now he surely would be when he examined him down below.

“Harry, if you like we can leave the examination until the morning,” Severus suggested, hoping to ease the young creatures pain.

“No, it’s all right. Now’s fine. You will make it stop, right?” Harry asked, his eyes fixed on Severus’.

“Make what stop?”

“The pain. I’m in so much pain. And the baby…”

Severus looked at Harry in confusion. “Harry, I will stop the pain, I promise you. But I’m confused. What baby?” he said, looking at the flat stomach. Surely in such an emaciated frame, the child would be visible. There would be some sign of pregnancy.

“He told me I’m pregnant and I haven’t bled like usual since he took me. At least I don’t think I have. I haven’t had any cramps so I think I’ve missed them for the last few months.”

Severus pulled out his wand and ran it gently over the taught skin of Harry’s lower abdomen. His jaw dropped in shock when a floating bubble showed him that Harry was in fact pregnant.

“Harry, when did he tell you that you were pregnant?”

“Three weeks after he took me. September first. He joked about my education.”

“Harry, that means that you are four, nearly five months pregnant.”

“Is it alive?”

“Yes, it is alive. It is tiny, extremely undersize. Probably from the starvation forced upon you. I fear the child is only sustaining itself on your magic. I am almost certain it will grow once you begin to eat again, regain your strength and put on some weight. It will be fine. It looks healthy, even though it is small.”

“Oh.”

Severus took one of Harry’s hands in his, feeling the sprite flinch and then grip his fingers slightly. “Harry, have you given thought to what you want to do about the child?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, it’s not too late for a termination if you don’t want it. Or there is adoption if you want. Or you could keep it. It is your choice and, no matter what you choose, no one will think any less of you,” Severus said gently.

“I don’t know.”

“All right, Harry. Have a think about it. There is no pressure.” Severus took a deep breath, calming his pounding heart and churning stomach. “Are you ready for me to examine you?”

Harry nodded and tensed as Severus lay him back down, his head in Solarin’s lap. Her pale fingers ran through Harry’s hair and he took comfort in the fact that she didn’t look at him with pity. She looked at him with kind eyes, and he had the impression that she had never said an unnecessarily harsh word in her life. He found himself focussing on the thin hoop in her nose as he was uncovered, wondering briefly what Severus made of the sliver of silver. He heard a gasp from Severus and half expected Solarin to look down but she didn’t. She kept her kind dark eyes fixed on Harry’s face and he found that somehow settling, that she was more focussed on him than his injuries. He reached up to grip her free hand as Severus’ fingers removed the tight thing around his penis and testicles, as they were released from their place against his stomach. Harry moaned in relief as Severus healed the wound he knew was on his manhood. So far so good. If only Harry could forget the last few horrific months it would be all good.

Severus fought the urge to floo to Malfoy manor and do some very painful things to Lucius. Harry’s testicles were both ruptured, damaged beyond being usable ever again. Severus worked for an hour alone on his balls, trying to save them. He managed to do it, though Harry would never father children he would still be able to keep them. He felt that it was somehow important to Harry to keep his male genitals as Harry had always identified as male. “Harry, you can choose what I see to next. Your back passage or your female genitals, it is your choice,” Severus asked gently.

“Back.”

“All right, Harry. Roll onto your side for me.”

Harry rolled and buried his face in Solarin’s taut stomach, suddenly surrounded by the sweet comforting scent of her. She didn’t smell like potions like her brother. She smelled of cookies and flowers and snow storms and all the good things that Harry associated with being happy. He gripped at her as he felt Severus’ gentle slick fingers probing him, slipping into him. They paused as he tensed and together the siblings helped him to relax. He cried out in relief as Severus eased the hard moving thing out of him. Harry heard it hit the floor, felt the spell healing his damaged anus and felt the gentle hand of his Potions Master stroke his hip, urging him to roll onto his back when he was ready.

Severus looked down at the disgusting device that no longer moved as he cleaned his hands. To leave it in Harry was truly horrific, truly a sadistic act of madness. The Dark Lord had once filled Severus with one of the self fucking magical dildoes but he had removed it when he was done playing with him. Even the Dark Lord had not been that cruel. Severus tore his eyes away as Harry rolled onto his back once more.

“Let me know when you’re ready, Harry,” Severus whispered. Harry nodded his acceptance. “You need to spread your legs for me.”

Severus helped the lithe being spread his thin thighs, helped him to get as comfortable as possible. This was going to be bad enough without Harry tensing up.

“I’m ready,” Harry said, his voice stronger than he felt. He felt Solarin grip his hands and heard her whispering soothing nonsense in his ear as Severus warmed his hands.

“Try to relax. Tell me if you need me to stop,” Severus instructed, waiting for the nod of confirmation before moving his hands. He let a finger slip into the excruciatingly damaged passage. Harry was still incredibly tight, even after the months of rape. It was a wonder Harry had managed to make it this far without blacking out. He felt Harry’s breath hitch and he paused, looking up into the green eyes. Harry nodded and he continued. Severus pushed in a few millimetres more and withdrew his finger.

“Harry, did he put anything into you?” Severus asked softly, reaching for his wand. Harry nodded, his eyes willing Severus to understand. “Did he ever remove them?” Tears leaked from Harry’s eyes as he shook his head. Severus took a deep breath. Right now, he would happily face Azkaban if he was just allowed to kill Lucius, slowly and very, very painfully. “They are called Cervix Shields, Harry. They’re used to ensure conception of a child and to cause pain to a woman being raped by a Dark wizard. They use them on their captives. I am so very sorry but it is going to be incredibly painful for you if I remove them. I can give you a sleeping draught and do it while you sleep if you prefer.”

“No! No, please! He threatened to do that, to render me unconscious if I didn’t stop panicking.”

“All right, Harry. I won’t put you under. But you must understand that this is going to be very painful for you.”

“I understand. Just take them out, please.”

Severus nodded and glanced at his sister. He saw her hands tighten in Harry’s. “Harry, I need you to try and keep very still for me. If you move while I release the blades they will damage you further.” Harry took a deep breath and Severus inserted his wand into the tight passage, just far enough to touch the tip to the base of the lowest down of the devices, some inches in. He muttered the spell to release them and watched as Harry fought not to scream, not to move, as Solarin’s arms wrapped around him, his hands gripping at her. Severus placed his hands on the slim hips, holding them still. He saw the blood begin to trickle out of the opening. “Harry, push down for me. Push them out.”

Harry pushed down, feeling the hard things slide down, slide out. He gripped at Solarin as the pain continued to rule his thin body.

Severus saw three of them pushed out of Harry and felt disgusted. “I’m going to pull out the others for you, Harry. Hold on to Solarin,” Severus instructed, seeing the pained nod from Harry. He slid his fingers in and removed no less then five more of the appalling barbaric devices. He slid his fingers in once more, feeling all the way to Harry’s swollen cervix, making sure he had missed none. “It’s done, they’re out, Harry. It’s over, I’m done now.”

“Oh gods,” Harry moaned through his tears, still gripping Solarin.

“How about a healing bath, Sev? It might help,” Solarin suggested, looking up at her brother as he wiped his bloodied hands on a cloth, pushed a towel to Harry‘s genitals to mop up some of the blood. He nodded and she lay Harry on the bed, moving to the bathroom down the hall to fill the tub and add the necessary herbs to the warm water.

“Thank you,” Harry whispered.

“You’re very welcome. I just wish we could have found you sooner, saved you this pain,” Severus replied honestly, spelling away the blood and other bodily fluids from the sheets. “There is no spell that I know that can heal your female genitalia, Harry, but the bath will ease your pain, help speed your natural healing process.”

Harry nodded and lay there, staring out of the window at the rising sun. He was safe. He was safe.

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After the healing bath Severus dosed Harry with as many healing and painkilling potions as he felt were safe. He helped him to eat a shockingly small amount of food and then gulp down a nutrient potion. Severus administered Dreamless Sleep and then went in search of his sister. He had to know what she had heard and felt from Harry.

He found her standing in the overgrown back garden, staring out at the overcast sky.

“That is a disgusting habit,” he said as he approached her, noticing the cigarette between her lips. “Why you insist on doing these things to yourself I will never understand.”

“Well, it’s my life and my choice. Do you want to reel off the things you don’t like about my life first or hear what I know from his head?” she answered, not looking at him. They had both known that this conversation was coming, both known it since he had come and found her on Christmas Eve.

“I think I want to reel.” She indicated for him to continue and he calculated his next words. He folded his arms and looked down at her, using his best scary professor glare. He knew he was taking his fear for Harry, his pain at the damage done, out on her but she really had asked for it with the cigarette. “Well, first off, you let some butcher put a hole in your nose, let some barbarian tattoo you. Your clothes are far too revealing, it makes you look too available to young men. And the make up! Why do you insist on looking like death? You’re a beautiful young woman, you don’t need it at all. That rat hole you insist on living in is completely unsuitable, you could catch anything, and the neighbourhood! I keep waiting for the day I get an owl post telling me that you’ve been molested or stabbed or something worse. I don’t like you up on that stage, being ogled by all those clearly unsuitable young men. And letting that guitarist grope you like that was behaviour completely unbecoming of a lady. And the cigarettes are a death wish.”

She smirked at him. “Are you done?”

“For the time being,” he grumbled, waiting for her reply. He knew his sister too well to expect she would take all of that without complaint.

“We go through this every time,” she muttered. “To begin with, I like my piercing and my tattoo. You have a tattoo, I don‘t berate you for it.”

“I gained mine through no choice of my own, as you well know.”

“You joined the death eaters so that Voldemort wouldn’t one day use me, I know that. I know you got yours keeping me safe. I understand that and I‘m grateful to you, I really am. I know you made a lot of sacrifices to raise me and to keep me safe. But I chose mine. I like it and it’s staying, it and the nose ring. My clothes and make up are also my choice. I like my clothes and happen to think that I look good in them. A vest top is not a whores wardrobe, Sevus. I am not too available to men, they’re too goddamned scared of me to even think about it. My flat is mine, I choose to live there, and I like it. It is perfectly clean, thank you very much! And we both know that I’m too scary a witch to have anything happen to me in that neighbourhood. I can take care of myself, you know that. I like singing, and being admired by all those men. They paid good money to see me perform, to hear my voice!”

“It wasn’t your voice they were ogling,” he interjected.

“They weren’t ogling, they were looking and entertaining their wildest dreams, because that is the only place that I will go anywhere near them. The guitarist wasn’t groping me, we were dancing. And the cigarettes are, as with everything else you don’t like about my life, my choice.” She sighed and ground the cigarette under her heel, turning to look at him. “Sevus, I know what you want from me, and I’ll tell you once again that it is not going to happen.”

“If you would just consider the idea. The Dark Lord is gone, you could return.”

“What, and have some other maniac try to use me to further themselves? Be registered by the Ministry again so they can try and find out how my gift works? I’m sorry, but I’m not returning to the wizarding world. I like it in the Muggle world where no one knows that I’m special.”

“But you’re so far away,” he complained. He knew he was being petty, but she was all he had, he couldn’t help it.

“I know. Sevus, I know that if you could, you would wrap me up in cotton wool for the rest of my life. If I were to let you, you would happily lock me away forever, so no man could ever get near me, so no one could ever use me. But I’m not a little girl anymore. I don’t need you to protect me,” she said, holding him by the shoulders even though he turned his head away.

“I’m your big brother, worrying about you is what I do. I’m not ever going to stop. And I will always consider you in need of my protection,” he admitted, smoothing back a chunk of dark hair that had fallen into her eyes.

“I know, and I adore you for it. Sev, you know that you’re the best man in my life. There is never going to be another man ever that is as good as my big brother in my eyes. But I don’t need saving. Not anymore. We’re not kids hiding in the kitchen closet anymore. He’s not chasing me, drunk and angry. I don’t need saving. I’m already saved.”

“I know that. I know that he’s not chasing us anymore. But I still want to save you, and lock you up where I can always keep you safe from any harm. I’m not going to stop. Ever. Can’t you just let me worry and be overbearing in peace?”

She laughed. “I suppose.” She let him hug her, let him take comfort in the fact that she wasn’t three years old and running from their father anymore. Severus would always be her hero, and she knew that he knew that. For her, there would be no other man that could possibly enter her life that could ever be a greater man than her Sevus. But he could be so damn worried sometimes. She wished he knew how to relax, just a little bit.

“Do I get to criticise your life now?” she asked, still cradled against him.

“No. I am the big brother, you don’t get to criticise me,” he said childishly.

She laughed. “One day, you won’t be able to stop me. I’m going to go to town on your life.” She could feel the unease in him and she sighed. He was such an easy target to annoy.

They pulled back and moved to the kitchen, Severus pouring them both tea. “So, do you want to know what I got from Harry?” she asked as he placed the mug in front of her.

“Of course.”

She took a deep breath. “I don’t think he’ll ever fully heal from this. I know that it’s a prospect we don’t want to consider but a part of him will always be locked in that room with Lucius.” She looked at her brother, watched his face drop. “Physically, he’ll heal right?”

“Physically, I believe so. I don’t think ‘him’ is quite right though.”

“Harry has identified as male. Harry’s a him.”

“Good point. Continue.”

“Well, he’s terrified, but you didn’t need me to tell you that. Right now Harry only trusts you, only feels safe with you. You’re the only one who has treated him just like everyone else and he is clinging to that. He is so ashamed of what he is, Severus. He sees it as a deformity, as something wrong with him. He doesn’t understand that this does not make him ugly, that it makes him beautiful and rare. And what Lucius has done to him has just reinforced his ideas of being repulsive.”

“Can he be made to understand?”

“Yes, I think so. There is the potential there for acceptance of what he is. I think you were right though, when you told me not to call the Order. Harry just isn’t ready to see anyone yet. I think that if he were to suddenly be confronted by all the people who care for him he would shatter. If they all were to arrive and try to help they would damage him further. Maybe, in a few weeks or months, he will be ready. But not yet. To see them has to be something he asks for.”

“And the child he carries?”

“He’s confused. He’s always wanted children, a family of his own to care for. But it is Lucius’ child, a child Harry conceived through such horrific methods. I don’t think he quite knows yet how he feels.”

“Time is running short if he wants to terminate the pregnancy,” Severus offered.

“Somewhere inside he knows that. But he’s not ready to make that decision.”

“Anything else I should know?”

“I know what you’re thinking. Harry has been so terribly treated that he’ll probably never let another touch him again.” She watched the pain of lost love flit across his face, though she knew he would never admit to it being love, not to her anyway. “Let me finish. I said I know what you’re thinking. But that is not how Harry feels.” He looked at her with sudden surprise. “I kept hearing the same thing over and over. ‘It can’t be like this, it must be better.’ Harry knows that sex isn’t supposed to be like that, that it isn’t supposed to involve pain and humiliation and degradation. He knows that sex is supposed to be good. Well, if it wasn’t why would Molly Weasley have had so many children? The point is that, at some point, I think Harry will ask to be shown how good it can be. I think he will ask you to show him.”

“Me? Why me?”

Solarin suddenly wished for a camera, the look of shock, disbelief and embarrassment on her big brothers face was priceless. She could make a mint with a picture of the fearsome Potions Master blushing. She managed not to smile at him, though how she had no idea.

“For the same reason that he tolerated me in that room with you. He trusts you implicitly, without question, trusts you to keep him safe, to only let people who won‘t hurt him near him. He questions how he knows it but he does know that he can trust you. For him, you are everything that is right in the world.” She smirked at the dumbfounded expression on his face. “Somewhere deep down, I mean really deep, he has feelings for you. And sooner or later he’ll work up the courage to act on them.”

“But he is so damaged, so destroyed. How on earth could he ever reach that point?” Severus asked in disbelief. Surely she was wrong. Harry would never want him, not now.

“Through your actions. This morning you waited for him to be ready before examining him and healing him, you were truthful about what you could and couldn‘t do for him. Over time, reveal things to him, be open and honest always with him. He will take courage from it.”

“I don’t think I’m a suitable caretaker for him. I don‘t think the Order will consider me suitable either.”

“Severus, of all the things I learned of Harry this morning the only thing that I am so sure of that I would bet my life on it is this. If Harry is forced to leave here, forced into the care of another, taken away from you, the only person he trusts right now, he will shatter, what little there is left of him will be destroyed, and he will let it. Harry must stay with you, he must, or you will all lose him.”

“All right, you have convinced me. But how do we convince the Order, his parents?”

“Leave it to me. You just concentrate on getting him better, physically. The rest will come. The two of you will work it out.”

Severus sat there in silence, turning over all the information in his head. There was no one on earth, in either wizarding or Muggle world, that he trusted more than Solarin. She was his reason for fighting, the reason he had made so many decisions that had led to this point. When he had gained custody of her he had been determined to become someone she would be proud of, and in the process of becoming that man he had found it became his way of being. He had become a better man because of her, for her. And now she was guiding him again. He knew her experiences with her gift and their father had instilled a maturity in her that was virtually unheard of in someone as young. But they had helped form who she was. And Severus was eternally grateful for her presence in his life.

“Did you have a chance to read Draco?” he asked after a long time; both of their cups were empty.

“Not really, I got a brief glimpse. I don’t quite think he’s ready to talk or be read,” she admitted as she poured them more tea.

“Understandable. His parents never let him see the horrors the Dark Lord performed. He heard them, I know of that much, heard the screaming of agony and aguish of the Dark Lords victims. He has never seen something like what happened to Harry before. It must be hard for him to deal with.”

“He’s scared, I didn’t even need to read him to get that. What I did get, though, confused me, quite frankly.”

“How so?”

She leaned against the kitchen counter. “Well, he is confused by his experiences of his father and what he saw his father do, for him they are conflicting. He wants to stay here, at least he does right now. But it’s not that which confused me.”

“What then?”

“It was his white noise.”

“White noise?”

“In every mind that I’ve read, in every person I’ve read, there is always a background noise. I call it white noise. It’s in the background and never really serves a purpose. But Draco’s white noise was loud.”

“I’m trying not to sound like a first year Hufflepuff here but what do you mean, loud?”

She openly laughed at him. “Well, all other white noise I’ve ever heard is kind of like a hum in the background, something I can ignore. But when I went into Draco’s head it was deafening. It was like a buzzing, like a swarm of bees. It makes no sense what so ever, I’ve never come across anything like it. It was like there was a partition in his mind, and what ever is behind it there is no way I’m ever going to read.”

“You can’t get through it?”

“Not a chance.”

The two of them sat there contemplating what all these things meant and Severus couldn’t help but get the feeling that there was something important in it all, something he was missing.

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Sirius, Remus, Molly and Arthur sat around the kitchen table at Grimmauld Place and waited. Albus Dumbledore had sent them a message telling them to meet him here, that it was important. All of them felt that it must, surely, have something to do with Harry.

They were all silently praying that it wasn’t the news he was dead.

Albus flooed in with Solarin in tow. He chuckled at the sudden anger radiating from Sirius. The girl really did look far too much like her brother for Sirius to take her appearance in his kitchen well.

“Albus, what is going on? Who is she, why is she here?” Sirius asked, his temper rising. He knew those eyes. God, he hated those eyes.

“Sirius, this is Solarin Snape. She is here with information for us all on Harry. Please, remain calm and we will explain everything,” Albus said calmly, the two of them seating themselves at the table and given tea by Molly. He looked at Solarin and the girl nodded.

“Before I start I need to ask you to let me explain it all before you do anything. I will answer any questions you may have but you must listen,” she said and waited for all of the older wizards and witch to agree before she continued. “Harry was found this morning. For reasons I will explain it is not possible for any of you to see him yet. In time you will but right now he is not ready for it.”

“Where is he? Is he all right?” Sirius asked.

“He is in the care of Severus, he is in a bad way but he is alive,” she admitted.

“Why? What happened to him?”

“You must understand that there are things I cannot tell you, I have been asked not to reveal certain things. Harry is…damaged,” she said delicately. The four of them looked at her confusedly, apprehension in their eyes. She took a deep breath. “Harry was… tampered with.”

No one needed her to elaborate or explain, the simple statement said it all. Molly and Remus let their respective husbands pull them close as they recoiled in horror.

“How is he?” Remus whispered.

“Terrified. He is very weak, and in a lot of pain. He will recover. Molly, Severus asked me if you would put together some things that Harry likes to eat.”

“Of course, but I’m sure Severus is a very good cook,” Molly questioned.

“Harry has been starved. We think it might be easier to help him start eating again if he is offered things he likes, things he knows. He is very thin.”

“I want to see him,” Sirius demanded. “He’s my godson, you’re not keeping me from him.”

“No one is denying you access to him, Sirius. All we need you to do is to wait until Harry is ready to let people near him.”

“What do you mean?”

“Harry has been put through hell. He has been humiliated, suffered shame, beyond anything any of us could ever imagine. He was violated in the most horrific ways imaginable, and then some. All of his privacy, self respect, even basic human decency has been taken from him. If you force him to see you, see anyone, before he is ready you will cause more damage. You will lose him. I understand that you care for him and want to help him, but you must wait. Please, Sirius? It really is for the best. As soon as he asks for you, you can see him,” she explained.

“As soon as he asks?”

“The very moment he asks you will be called, day or night.”

Sirius nodded and let her continue to answer their questions as his mind conjured up horrific images of what had befallen his godson.

“Who did this to him?” Remus asked.

“Lucius Malfoy. But you must understand that we cannot have him arrested. The law condones what he has done. Besides, if we were to launch a vendetta against Lucius we would expose Harry.”

“What do you mean we can’t have him punished! That is the most disgusting thing I have ever heard! He has done this heinous thing to Harry and we just sit here and do nothing!” Arthur exploded.

“Arthur! Please, calm down and I will explain!” She waited until Arthur was slightly calmer before continuing. “No one outside of this room can ever know of what I tell you now. It must be your most closely guarded secret. To reveal it would be to endanger Harry, do you all understand me?” They all nodded. “Harry is not a him. Harry is a hermaphrodite.” They all gaped at her. “According to the law, Lucius, as the wizard who has taken his maidenhead, owns Harry. We cannot have him arrested. According to the law, Lucius has acted well within his legal standing. There is nothing we can do but to keep Harry hidden.” She watched their mouths drop open in shock and decided to cut them to the quick. “Listen to me, Harry has guarded this secret with his life. If anyone were to find out he would not only be endangered but also mortified. He cannot know that you know about him, and neither can anyone else. You can tell no one in the Order, no one in your families, no one, and he cannot know that I have told you. You must wait for him to give the go ahead for you to know before you reveal what I have said.”

“We understand,” Sirius said. Dear Merlin, how the hell did he not know? Why didn’t Lily or James tell him?”

“Sirius, you were closer to Lily and James than anyone else. Did you know of Harry? Did they tell you?” Sirius shook his head. “Well then, it looks like they didn’t tell anyone. They didn’t tell me,” Dumbledore said.

“There is one more thing I need from you,” Solarin said.

“Anything. Name it,” Remus said.

“Some of Harry’s clothes. Some of his things, to make him feel more comfortable. And some things that would fit Draco Malfoy.” They looked at her in confusion. “Draco is the one that found Harry. He is the one that came to my brother and I and told us where he was, allowing Severus to rescue Harry. Draco cannot return home, Lucius must know it is him who helped release Harry. If Draco is found by Lucius, he will kill him. Unfortunately, we have no clothes for Draco. He is stuck in his pyjamas.”

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Solarin leant against the kitchen counter with a mug of tea and surveyed the chaos of Molly Weasley that had overtaken the impressive kitchen. Remus had decided that it would be him who would collect the things for Harry and Draco, so he had disappeared somewhere upstairs; Albus had drawn Arthur aside, talking to him quietly in the hopes that Arthur could use his contacts at the Ministry to both run interference in the Auror’s search for Harry and find out information on the laws surrounding a being like Harry; Molly was cooking up a storm and Solarin had no doubt that Harry would never run out of food for the rest of his life if she kept going like this, thank Merlin for preservative charms. But by far the most interesting sight in the room was Sirius.

The Animagus was sitting at the table nursing a mug of tea laced liberally with Firewhisky and staring at her over the rim. His eyes held something she had seen too many times before and something she didn’t like a single bit. She saw the calculating glint in his eyes, something she was all too used to when she encountered a new magical acquaintance. She had been getting those looks since school and it no longer bothered her the way it used to. But the other look, the one she saw in her nightmares, was the one that made her feel cold. She felt the smell of alcohol catch in the back of her throat and suppressed the rising nausea.

“Must you drink that?” she enquired. His eyebrow arched in sudden surprise. He smirked.

“Tea bothers you?” he replied.

“No, alcohol does.”

“Tough. My house.”

Sirius quickly learned that she took a challenge about as well as her brother did. She pushed off of the counter she had been leaning against and strode over to him quickly, snatching the mug from his hands and dumping its contents down the sink. He pulled his wand on her, only to find she already had her own pressed against his throat. Albus and Arthur looked at them curiously. They were used to Sirius having an increasingly short temper since Harry’s disappearance and were not surprised to see a Black and a Snape at each others throats once again.

“I wouldn’t if I were you,” she warned.

“And what makes you think you’re good enough to beat me, little girl?” Sirius challenged as Remus slipped into the kitchen.

The next thing Sirius knew he was on his knees, blood pouring from his nose, his eyes, his mouth. His skull felt as if it were about to crack open and she was looking down on him in disgust.

“SOLARIN! Stop! You will kill him!”

The pressure was gone, the pain over. Sirius knelt on the floor, cradled by Remus as Albus pulled the young witch away. Arthur stood between the two, trying to figure out what the hell had just happened.

Sirius let Remus help him to his feet, let his husband try and mop up the blood. “What the fuck was that?” Sirius asked, fear filling him. Her wand lay forgotten on the floor. “Some disgusting Dark Art Snivellus taught you?”

Albus had to physically restrain her and force her to look away.

“Sirius, stop goading her,” Remus warned. “Just stop being such an insufferable prat.”

“Me? She did this to me and I’m being a prat?” Sirius asked, turning on his husband.

“Yes. What did you do?”

“Nothing!”

“Albus, maybe the two of you should leave,” Molly suggested, the witch clutching at the table in fright.

“No,” Albus said firmly. “Solarin and I will explain. Solarin, you will control yourself. Sirius, you will keep your temper in check and your thoughts to yourself.”

“I didn’t say anything that bad!” Sirius protested.

“But you thought it!” Solarin screamed. “How could you do that to Severus? You foul loathsome Pureblooded bastard!”

“What the hell is going on here?” Arthur asked. “What is she, Albus? She is no normal witch.”

“Sit and we shall explain.”

The four wizards and two witches sat at the table. Solarin had an end of it all to herself, Albus seated close enough to run intervention.

“Solarin, are you going to tell them or am I?” Albus asked gently.

“Who cares?” she replied.

Ah. How helpful. Albus recognised these moods in her, he had witnessed enough of them to know that they would burn themselves out. In time.

“Very well, I shall do it.” Albus took a deep breath. “Solarin is an augur.”

“A what?” Sirius asked.

“See? What’s the point in trying to explain to him? He’s so god damned narrow minded that it just won’t get through! He doesn’t even know what the bloody word means!” Solarin said, jumping to her feet.

“Sit down, Sol. Now,” Albus ordered. She gave him an angry little glare but did as she was told. “Remus, you were a Defence teacher. Care to explain what an augur is?”

Remus nodded and appeared to be searching his memory for a moment before speaking. “In history, an augur was a religious official in ancient Rome who interpreted natural phenomena, such as the flight of birds, as signs that the deities favoured or disapproved of actions proposed by the city. In more simple and modern terms an augur is any soothsayer, prophet, or diviner. In the wizarding world it is taken to mean any being who has been granted the ability to read minds, a natural Legilimens. The only danger is that when an augur enters your mind they do it painlessly, without your knowledge. They can also have the ability to predict certain aspects of the future, though that is usually a latent power, rarely developed or used. They possess a great deal of power. They are monitored and controlled very closely by the Ministry, more specifically, the Department of Mysteries.”

“At least one of you has a brain. At least one of you knows how to pick up a book,” Solarin commented. Remus smirked in spite of himself at her betrayal of her own youth.

“So why isn’t that little health hazard locked up in a Ministry cell somewhere?” Sirius spat spitefully. Remus was relieved to see Solarin shy away from the question and not attack his husband again for it.

“You live in the Muggle world. The Ministry has no jurisdiction over you if you left willingly. In fact, they cannot touch an augur unless the augur consents to it. You would have to hand yourself over to the Ministry willingly,” Remus said, taking in the Muggle clothing.

“Then why don’t you?” Sirius said, some of his anger abating.

“I did once. It didn’t take,” Solarin said calmly, her tone leaving no space for questioning.

“Why did you do…. What was it you did to me back there?”

“I lost my temper.”

“Why?”

“Severus told me once that one of his classmates found it funny to feed him to a werewolf. He never told me who it was. When you looked at me that memory popped into your head.”

“You had no right to go into my mind!”

She looked at him coldly and he felt fear flood him again. “Do you think for one single second that I delight in this? That I chose for an instant to enter that flea infested perverted mind of yours? I slipped. Your thoughts were too loud, I couldn’t block them. Believe me, it won’t ever happen again.”

“Damn straight. I’m going to find a spell to keep you out.”

“You can try. Many have. Severus, Albus, Mad-Eye. At one point most of the Department of Mysteries was trying to find one. They never did. There is no spell to stop what I can do.” She sighed and Sirius was suddenly struck by how very young she looked. “Remus, where did you put the things for Harry and Draco?”

“In the living room.”

“I’ll go pack them up.”

She left the room and the older wizards and witch sat in silence for a moment.

“Why did she leave our world, Albus?” Remus asked.

“I do not actually know. She may have told Severus but I cannot be certain of that.”

“Who cares?” Sirius said bitterly. “So she’s an aggy thingy. So what?”

“So, she is the reason that Severus became a Death Eater,” Albus replied. They all gaped at him in shock. “Severus made a deal with the Dark Lord. He would become a Death Eater, he would do as he was told, basically selling himself into slavery, if Voldemort never went near her. Severus has a brilliant mind, and is a very capable wizard. He was very tempting to Voldemort. Severus joined Voldemort to keep him away from Solarin.”

“So she’s a weakness in him. Again, who cares? I don’t want her near my godson, Albus,” Sirius demanded.

“You do not have a say.” Albus held up his hand as Sirius began to protest. “It is Harry’s choice. He has chosen, for the time being at least, to stay with Severus. Whether Solarin intends to stay with them or not has not been made clear to me yet. Personally, I believe that she will return to the Muggle world very soon.”

“Why does she live there?” Remus asked, interrupting Sirius’ next protest.

“I have never asked.”

“Snape is not fit to care for Harry,” Sirius blasted. “That slimy bastard will do more harm than Malfoy ever did. Harry needs to be with his family, with us, his place is here. Snape is a low down dirty Death Eater. Harry is probably defenceless right now, Snape will use him to practice some disgusting dark curse.”

“That is not your call.” They looked up to see Solarin standing in the doorway, her arms loaded with the things Remus had prepared for her to take with her. Sirius had the audacity to look at her accusingly. “Harry is perfectly safe where he is.”

“And why should I trust anything you say?”

She shrugged her thin shoulders. “Fine, don’t trust me. After all, who am I to tell you all of this? Why should you trust me to tell you the truth, why should you trust Severus to put Harry back together again?”

Sirius glowered at her. Remus laid a cautionary hand on his arm. “Leave it be, Siri.”

Sirius glared at his husband. “No, I won’t. I want our son home. Now.”

Solarin placed the pile in front of Albus so he could pack them neatly for her and faced Sirius. “Harry doesn’t want you near him.”

“What the fuck are you on about? We’re his adoptive parents, the men who are raising him. He loves us.”

“Are you sure you want to know this?” she sighed, her hands on her hips.

“Yes.”

“Very well. Harry is ashamed, both of what he is and what has been done to him. He views himself as some kind of freak, some kind of deformity. In his mind, you represent his old life, all of you do. You represent the life he had before, before the abduction, before the implications of what he is became clear to him. In his mind, this wouldn’t have happened to him if he wasn’t so disgusting. He doesn’t yet understand that he is something beautiful and rare. If he were to be ripped away from Severus, what little there is left of the Harry you knew will break, you will lose him.”

“Why Severus?” Arthur asked. “Why is Severus the one he trusts?”

“Because, for Harry, Severus represents normalcy. Severus, unlike everyone else in his life, has always treated him in exactly the same way as he would any other student. Severus has never endorsed his celebrity, never made exceptions for him. If anything, Severus has been harder on him than any other, given Harry the grounding that he needed. Severus was so harsh on Harry because no one else was, he needed to make up for all the allowances everyone else made.”

“I don’t understand,” Remus said.

“Remus, when you were Harry’s teacher, you treated him with certain privileges that you didn’t give to other students. Minerva McGonagall, Lockhart, Flitwick, even Albus. All of you allowed him to skip classes, to miss homework, to break school rules. Severus was overly harsh on him, was hard to the point of ridiculousness. Harry is clinging to that. He doesn’t want to be different, he wants to be like every other sixteen year old boy.”

They were all silent, lost in their own thoughts. “It’s not that Harry doesn’t care for you two. He does, more than anyone else. He’s just not ready to admit that he’s different. That is what I meant when I said Harry isn’t ready to see you yet.”

“How do you know all of this?” Remus asked.

“When Severus was healing Harry he asked me to read him, to see what I could find out of Harry’s mental and emotional health. Remus, you haven’t included Harry’s wand.”

Remus reached into his own pocket and handed over the holly wand.

“Albus, we should be leaving,” Solarin said, picking up the two large packages, one of belongings, the other of food. Obviously her tolerance for the situation had ended and Albus looked at them regretfully before he followed her out of the floo.

Sirius watched the two of them leave, watched Molly and Arthur take their leave soon after. He knew he had to let Snape handle this, that he had to take a back seat if he ever wanted Harry to heal.

It didn’t mean he had to like it.

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Harry awoke in a panic, thinking that he had dreamed of his salvation. He cracked open his eyes to realise that he was warm and comfortable in a large bed. His hands were unchained and he was clothed in a thick soft flannel nightshirt. He sat up gingerly and slipped on his glasses, looking around. The room was dark, indicating night, but someone had left the light in the hall on. The door was open, giving Harry the chance to examine the small room. To his shock, he saw his own things scattered around the room. His books, his pictures. Where had they come from?

The room on a whole was small and cluttered but in a comfortable sort of way. It was clean and someone had left a vase of winter flowers on a dresser under the window. He eased himself out of bed and padded to the window, leaning on the dresser for support and looking out into the dark street below. By the street lamp outside shining dimly orange Harry understood that he was in the Muggle world. It looked like a rather run down area, and Harry could make out a sort of dirty stream, maybe a river, littered with rubbish. He opened the dresser and pulled out some of the clothes he found, realising that they were his own as well, before making his way shakily from the room.

The house was still and calm. Harry supposed that everyone else who might be here was asleep. He closed himself in the bathroom and started off the shower. He caught his reflection in the chipped mirror above the sink as he turned to undress. Merlin, he looked like death. Scarily pale, his eyes had gone from startling to disconcerting. He felt his throat close slightly at the lack of light in them. To him, his eyes looked empty and lost. He turned away and dropped the soft flannel nightshirt, gently moving his sore body into the hot water. He knew that the woman, whatever her name was, had helped Severus bathe him before he fell asleep but it wasn’t enough. Harry grabbed at the soap and began to roughly scrub at his skin, only easing his treatment when he dipped his hand between his legs. It was no longer a pain that threatened to render him unconscious, but it was enough for him to hiss in pain as his fingers moved, gritting his teeth and pushing his head against his other arm, which was supporting him against the tiled wall.

His whole body ached, some areas still acutely painful when the soap slid over them. His chest was particularly sensitive and the bruises that covered his skin had not faded. His fingers began to shake as he passed the bar over his abused genitals, a few tears of agony washed away by the stream of steaming water. He looked down to see his own blood slipping down the drain.

Disgust. He was sure he had seen it flit across his professors face last night. Or was it this morning? No matter when it was, it had still been there, he was sure he‘d seen it. How stupid he had been. As if even Severus could accept what he was. No one would. Maybe all he was good for was to be used, like Lucius had done.

Harry was startled out of his own mental berating by a gentle knock on the dark wood of the closed door. “Harry?”

Severus. Probably coming to see if he was topping himself in the mans bathroom.

“Harry, are you all right?”

The man sounded genuinely concerned and Harry felt shame swell inside him. Even the usually acidic Potions Master felt sorry for him.

“Harry?”

Harry felt his eyes sting with tears. Why was the man being so nice? Harry didn’t deserve it. He was just a freak, like his aunt had said, just a disgusting deformity, like he had convinced himself, just a whore, like Lucius had called him in that room. He let out a choked sob. Who would ever want him again, in any way? Severus must have let it slip somewhere, or at least he would sometime in the future. Not even Sirius and Remus would want him then, not once they knew. Harry couldn’t blame them. Who would want some hideous misconstruction of nature? He let the soap fall and sank to his knees, letting his shame and repulsion at himself take over, letting himself fall into self-hatred.

Suddenly, the water stopped and a warm soft towel was wrapped around him. Harry fought against the strong arms, his eyes closed through the burning tears.

“Harry! It’s all right, it’s just me!”

He blinked up at his professor, looking at him with worry and compassion and something else Harry couldn’t quite make out.

“Please, just go away,” Harry begged. “Please.”

“No.” Harry glared at him. “Not until you talk to me.”

“I don’t want to talk.”

“I know that. I know that you want to shut yourself away and slip away into oblivion. But I will not let you do that. You may hate me, if you so desire, but I will not let you waste away.”

“Why? Why do you care? I’m not worth it. I’m not worth the effort.”

Severus lifted him easily, placing him gently on the counter that housed the sink. Severus grabbed a smaller towel and began to tenderly dry the dark unruly hair.

“Harry, you are worth the effort. You are worth it,” Severus argued vehemently as he wiped away a few tears from the young beings face.

“No I’m not.”

Severus sighed. “You’re stubborn, I’ll give you that,” he joked. Harry didn’t smile. “Harry, tell me what is going on in your head. If you don’t tell me, I can’t help.”

“You can’t help.”

“Not if you don’t tell me.”

Harry looked down at the faded linoleum on the floor, noticing the bare feet of his professor. He glanced up at the black pyjamas before letting his gaze drop again. He must have just gotten out of bed. He couldn’t tell him, not that he didn’t have the nagging voice in his head telling him to spill it all. He couldn’t. He couldn’t find the words, they just kept getting lodged in his throat.

“What time is it?” Harry asked, trying to compose himself.

“A little after five,” Severus replied, letting the subject drop. For now.

“How long did I sleep?”

“A full 24 hours.” Severus handed Harry his clothes and softly helped him to dress, all in complete silence. Severus briefly noticed that Harry had no body hair, nothing but a light scattering on his thighs and between them. Severus was waiting for Harry to speak, waiting for some sign of how to proceed. Solarin may have had faith that Harry would heal, that Harry trusted Severus but he himself had his doubts. Things went smoothly until Harry began to fight against him. Severus looked up in alarm as Harry’s hands began to push against him, a look of desperation on the thin face. Severus looked down at the black boxers he had been trying to help Harry into.

“Am I hurting you?” Severus asked in confusion.

“No.”

“Then what is it? Would you rather I left you to dress alone?”

“I can’t,” Harry admitted brokenly.

“Harry, you must explain. I don’t understand.”

The sprite took a deep breath and looked anywhere but at his teacher. “I don’t want you to see.”

“See what?” Severus asked, his confusion growing by the second. He had already seen it all.

“See…that.”

“Harry, I’m not looking. I’m simply pulling them up for you.”

“But you’ll see! You’ll see again and…and…you…”

Severus could see Harry getting more and more worked up. He straightened, looking at Harry’s face and pulling the boxers with him. Those startling green eyes fixed on Severus’ black ones and Harry held his breath until the waistband was against his skin.

“You believe I will be horrified at what I see?” Severus asked kindly and felt relief at Harry’s somewhat hesitant nod. At least this fist hurdle he knew how to handle.

Solarin squirmed in his arms. She was barely four years old, far too young to be able to dress unaided.

“Let go, Sevus! Let go!” she screamed at him and he relinquished his hold in surprise at the panic in her voice. He watched as she stomped to the other side of the room and stood shaking, wrapping her towel closer around herself.

“Sol? Sol, sweetheart, what’s wrong?”

“You can’t! No looking!”

“Sol, you can’t do this by yourself,” he argued reasonably.

“Want mummy do it,” she grumbled, her dark eyes wide and glistening with unshed tears, her hair still dripping.

Severus sighed. Only two days had passed since Severus had gained custody of Solarin, it was bound to be trying. How he wished his mothers body had not given out. She should be here with them, away from him. She should be the one giving Solarin her bath. Of course, he should have anticipated Solarin being difficult the day after the funeral.

“Sol, mum can’t do it. You know that. Mum had to go away, she went to be with the angels. You have to let me do it,” he explained, growling in frustration as she shook her head and ran out of the bathroom. He got to his feet and went on search of her.

He found her in the small bedroom they were both sharing for the time being. With his limited funds the tiny bed-sit type flat was all they could afford. She was trying to wrestle on her pyjamas without success, only succeeding in tangling herself up in the blue fabric and falling on her face. Severus crossed the room and bent to pick her up.

“Sol, is this about the bruises?” Severus asked at the sight of the dark, vicious looking bruises on her impossibly young skin. She nodded at him as he wrapped her towel around her again. “Sol, it doesn’t matter. You’re still my beautiful baby sister. Bruises don’t matter.”

“But it was my fault, daddy said so.”

Severus felt anger spark inside him. “Daddy was wrong. Even grown ups can be wrong and he was wrong this time. The bruises are not your fault. And they don’t matter to me.”

It was a quiet evening after that. Solarin let Severus wriggle her into the pyjamas, let him brush her hair and tuck her into bed. Solarin told him that night that he was her Superman.

“Harry, you do not disgust me.”

“Please don’t lie for my benefit,” Harry whispered.

“I am not lying.” Severus forced Harry to look at him. “Harry, have I ever lied to you when it was important?” He shook his head. “Why would I start now? Harry, while you are here I will never lie to you. I will always tell you the truth. I’m starting right now. I do not find you disgusting, repulsive, repugnant or any other adjective that amounts to me turning away in horror.”

“You don’t?” Harry asked in disbelief. It had to be a dream, it just had to.

“No.”

“Why?”

“Harry, a hermaphrodite is what you are, what you have always been. It is as much a part of you as your black hair and your green eyes.”

“But it’s disgusting,” Harry whispered.

“No more disgusting than my penis.”

In spite of himself Harry snorted in amusement.

“When you really think about it, no genitalia can be considered beautiful,” Severus said with a slight smile. “Yours is no more disgusting than anyone else’s. Yours is just different.”

Harry looked thoughtful. “I never really thought of it like that.” Harry allowed Severus to help him into sweatpants and socks before he attempted to stand on his own.

Severus helped the shaky teen to his feet, stepping away to hang up the damp towels. He looked up in alarm as Harry threw himself at the toilet, retching for all he was worth. Severus rubbed soothing circles on the thin back while Harry emptied his stomach.

“Oh God,” Harry moaned. “What the hell is happening?” Harry asked as he panted.

“Morning sickness. Perfectly normal.”

“Hardly,” Harry managed to croak before it overtook him once more. Finally, it seemed to pass and he pulled back, rinsing his mouth with the water Severus handed to him. The taller man helped him to his feet and guided him to the sink. To his surprise, his own toiletries occupied some of the limited space.

“Where did my stuff come from?” Harry queried as Severus handed him his toothbrush.

“I sent my sister to gather some of your things. She also informed certain people of your safe return while she was there. Molly Weasley was kind enough to cook up some things for you also,” Severus replied carefully as he began to shave.

Harry brushed his teeth in silence, his mind churning along with his stomach. Why had she told them? What had she told them? Did they know what he was, what Lucius had done? Why hadn’t they burst in and snatched him from Severus’ grasp? He rinsed his mouth and sat down on the closed lid of the toilet, his chin in his hands.

Severus took his time shaving and making use of his own toothbrush, hoping to prolong the inevitable outburst from the youth. Harry had a history of losing control of his tongue while around Severus and he was already preparing to keep his own acidic tongue under control while Harry was in his care. Severus quit the bathroom and returned to his own room to dress quickly before moving to collect Harry. The lithe being had not moved from his position.

“We should eat something. Would you like to eat in the kitchen?” Severus asked quietly.

“Kitchen’s fine.”

Harry found that he had to allow Severus to help him down the narrow hallway. Severus left him propped up against the doorframe as he entered another bedroom, the one directly across from Harry’s own. He glanced in and saw Severus straightening the covers Draco had managed to throw off. ‘Of course,’ Harry thought, feeling guilty. ‘Lucius will know he helped me.’

Severus then led Harry to the doorway of the room next to Draco’s. The young woman from yesterday was asleep in here, and Harry watched as Severus straightened the covers and smoothed back her sleep-tangled black hair. He noticed that she and Severus didn’t share the same hooked nose and her features were softer than the mans. He watched Severus drop a light kiss on her forehead, the woman mumbling something about ‘being a big girl now’, before Severus led him gently down the stairs.

They entered what he assumed to be the living room through a hidden door behind a bookcase. In fact, the walls of the whole room were lined with shelves filled with books. The sofa and arm chair looked warm and cosy, if a little battered, and the room was littered with loose pages of scribbled handwriting. The front door was right next to the fireplace. He was led through another hidden door into a light and airy kitchen. The sudden change of feeling in the two rooms was a bit of a shock to the system. This room was a light yellow, the early mornings winter sun filtering in through a small window beyond which Harry could see a slightly overgrown garden. Severus sat him at a moderate sized oak table and moved to the Muggle refrigerator.

“What would you like?” Severus asked.

“Not sure what my stomach can handle right now,” Harry replied truthfully, his stomach rolling again.

“How about some toast?”

“No! No toast! Not now, not ever!”

Harry couldn’t breathe, couldn’t see, couldn’t move. He was suddenly back there, chained to that room with Lucius feeding him toast….covering him….stripping….threats ….pain…screaming…

Severus was at his side in an instant, kneeling down and forcing the sprite to look him in the eye. “Breathe with me, Harry. Come on, just breathe. In and out, slow and steady. Slowly. It’s all right, Harry. You’re here, in my house. You’re not there anymore, you’re here, you’re safe. You’re safe with me.”

Harry began to take slow shaky breaths, his white hands gripping at Severus. He toppled off of the chair and into the strong arms, clinging to them as if his life depended on it. Severus would keep him safe. He said he would never lie, he would keep him safe.

Severus held the young man to him, his back against his chest, wrapping his arms around the thin figure. He took long slow breaths, forcing Harry to copy him. He let the wasted fingers grip at him, let Harry anchor himself.

“I’m sorry, Severus. I didn’t mean to panic,” Harry admitted a few minutes later.

“It’s quite all right. Would you like to talk about it?”

“He…toast is…” Harry stumbled.

“It’s all right, take your time.”

“He gave me toast, that day. The day he grabbed me…before he…he…”

“I see. No toast.”

Severus helped Harry back to his seat and then moved to the cupboards and fridge to see what Molly had sent. He needed something light, something that would be easy on Harry’s delicate stomach. He opened one cupboard to find a garish Muggle box.

“These must be Solarin’s, Merlin knows they‘re definitely not mine. Corn Flakes?” Severus said uncertainly. He examined some of the other long thin boxes. “There are also Wheat-a-bix, Rice Crispies and something called Cocoa Pops.”

“Corn Flakes are fine. Thank you. Are you sure she won’t mind?”

“Not in the slightest. Might force her to actually eat some herself if she thinks someone else might finish them off,” Severus remarked with distain as he fixed a bowl.

Harry smirked. He ate slowly in silence as Severus busied himself with letting in a postal owl with a copy of the Daily Prophet and making himself some tea.

“Oh sweet Merlin, it’s too bloody bright in here.”

Severus smirked as Solarin padded into the kitchen and plonked herself down at the table, holding her head and shielding her eyes. “You shouldn’t have drunk so much,” he commented lightly, his voice filled with amusement, catching Harry‘s curious looks at his sister. ‘This must be strange for him, meeting her,’ Severus thought to himself.

“Oh, go boil your head,” she spat.

“Now now, be nice,” he scolded, seeing Harry’s lips twitch.

“Sod nice. And sod you. ‘Be nice’. Like anyone could be nice feeling like this.”

“You know where the hangover potions are.”

“I don’t have a hangover. I just feel a little ill this morning,” she said defensively, moving slowly to one of the cupboards and grabbing a green potion, chucking it down.

“I believe you. Millions wouldn’t,” Severus smirked as he handed her a cup of coffee, letting her lean in for a hug and groan into his chest, watching Harry‘s slightly raised eyebrows before he returned to his cereal. It looked like Harry was doing his best with it but he had barely managed half a dozen bites and was looking full already.

“Come on, it was a party, Sev. I’m allowed to go to a party. It was New Years. There were a lot of minds there, I couldn’t help myself. Their drunken thoughts were funny. And yes, I know I get a hangover from doing that, don’t gloat,” she said as she added sugar to her coffee, returning to her seat as she stirred.

“New Years?” Harry asked quietly.

“Yes. It is the first of January and someone, what is the phrase? Ah yes, ‘partied like a rock star’ last night,” Severus answered. He chuckled as she glared at him.

“I was taken on August third. Have I really been gone nearly five months?”

“Yes, but you‘re safe now.” Severus looked suddenly uncomfortable. “Harry…I know that you haven’t really had a chance to think about it but time is running short if you wish to terminate the pregnancy. If you wish to terminate, it has to be done soon,” he said delicately.

Oh God, the baby. How could Harry have forgotten? He sat and pondered, the rest of his uneaten cereal suddenly forgotten. Did he want the baby? He honestly didn’t know. He had always wanted a family, though he had considered it a moot point with his…condition. Part of him wanted it, wanted to go through with it. But there was that other part, that more logical side of his brain. He was only sixteen, he was still at school. Oh, school. He’d missed half the year already. If he had the baby, he’d never be able to study for his N.E.W.T.’s. But a family of his own. A child, someone of his own to care for, someone to give all the attention a child deserved.

A child of Lucius Malfoy’s.

How could he do this, have the child of that man? Even if he wanted a child, would he ever be able to look at the child and not see the man who had held him captive? The man who caused him so much pain? The man who now owned him?

And what about Sirius and Remus? What would they say? And the Weasley’s? Oh God. His head started to spin with all the possibilities, all the reactions, all the issues. In the end, his mind boiled it down to one single question.

Could he stand going through an abortion?

He remembered overhearing Aunt Petunia describe the procedure to a friend of hers who had ‘gotten herself in trouble’. The thought of someone between his legs, doing something to him, something on the inside. He swallowed against the sudden nausea.

“I can’t,” he whispered.

“Can’t what, Harry?” Severus questioned, sitting down opposite him.

“I can’t go through with an abortion. I don’t know if I want the baby, but I know I can’t go through…that.”

Severus took a deep breath. He could understand Harry’s resistance. It was an invasive procedure, one that could have a huge emotional and psychological ramification, especially for someone like Harry. “Well, in that case, you don’t have to decide if you want it or not. You’re not due until May, so you have time to make up your mind.”

“What if I don’t want it once it’s born?”

“There are options. You could consider adoption. There may also be the option of Molly Weasley or another Wizarding family taking in the child until you feel more ready to deal with the situation.”

“Oh.”

“There are options open to you.”

Harry nodded. Right now, he just wanted to run far far away. So he did just that. He slowly left the room, heading up to his bedroom where he lay on his bed, staring out of the window, letting his mind go blank.

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“You’re being too soft with him, Sev,” Solarin said firmly, ignoring his start at a protest. “You need to be the same way with him as you always have, strict. Right now, you’re confusing him. He needs structure, stability.”

“And what do you propose I do? I mentioned the word toast and he dissolved!” Severus seethed. She was right and he knew it. And he hated that she was right.

“You go up there and you lay down the house rules to him!”

“What?”

“You go up there and be the professor you are! You go up there and lay down the law. Lay down that he has to be at the days three meals, that he needs to take his potions and that he needs to pull through this. Lay down what you expect of him. And don’t back down. He’s not dad or the Dark Lord. He’s sixteen, Severus. You’re bigger than him,” she stated simply before leaving the room.

He growled. Merlin, she could be annoying when she wanted to. And right. He knew she was right and that just served to make him even more pissed off. He had been too gentle with Harry this morning. He had let his own fatherly instincts take over the rational part of his brain. He had comforted Solarin enough times over the years to know that her presence wasn’t helping him any. He needed control. He needed to get a grip and do as she said.

He made his way quickly up the stairs and stopped at the open doorway of his sisters bedroom, watching her pack, noting briefly that she was suddenly fully dressed.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“Packing. I need to get back to my life, Sev, and Harry needs you right now. I’m distracting you, bringing out all these protective comforting instincts in you,” she answered as she packed her belongings from the dresser into her duffel bag.

“But I want you to stay.” Part of him did honestly want her to stay, but he knew deep down that this was the best solution for all.

“I know. I know you want me to stay here, and that you’re harbouring the hope that I will change my mind and return to the Wizarding world. I adore you, Sev, but my mind is made up. I told you at Christmas that I would leave after New Years. I’m just following through with that.” She zipped up the bag and slipped on her coat. “I’ll be in touch. And I’m on the other end of a phone or an owl if you need me. I’ll see you soon.”

She calmly kissed him on the cheek and moved to the top of the stairs, turning briefly. “Tell Harry and Draco that I said goodbye. And just remember to keep your temper,” she said before skipping down the stairs. Severus heard the front door close and watched from the landing window as she Apparated away.

He stood stock still before taking a deep steadying breath. Harry needed stability.

He would give it.

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Harry didn’t move as he heard the almost silent entry of his professor into his bedroom. He didn’t trust himself to speak so he just lay there, waiting.

“Sit up, Potter, and look at me.”

Harry slowly sat up and looked at his host. The man was leaning calmly against the dresser. Even without the bat-like robes, the man was still intimidating and Harry felt a sudden apprehension.

“Professor?”

“You need to understand the rules of staying here, Potter. I’m sure Sirius and Remus would be thrilled if they found out I had let you whither away into oblivion.”

“Rules?”

“Yes. There are certain rules to this house and I expect them to be followed, is that understood?”

Harry nodded.

“Firstly, you are expected at every meal. I expect you to, at the very least, attempt to eat what is put in front of you. If you have a problem with what is served, I expect you to speak up.”

“Yes, sir.”

“It is expected of you to take your potions with breakfast.” He drew out three vials and placed them on the bed. “You did not this morning.” He watched as Harry dutifully gulped them all down without complaint, though there was a slight grimace. “Very good, Potter. Those potions are to help you to heal faster. One of them is a nutrient potion to try and get you back up to a healthier weight.”

Harry nodded and Severus felt his Potions Master persona slipping at the absolute trust Harry granted him. He took in a deep breath to regain control. Damn it, he was Severus Snape, ex-Death Eater, fearsome Potions Master. He would not be beaten by a pair of disarming green eyes.

“I expect you to tend to your own room. I have no house elves and I will not make your bed for you, Potter. I will not pamper you. You will do it yourself. I also expect full understanding that I will accept no kind of payment whatsoever from you in return for my shelter and aid. You are here because it is what you want and because I have agreed to it, not because I expect any kind of compensation.”

Harry nodded and Severus searched for how to keep his persona and say the next two rules. It was impossible. With the first it could be done, it was workable. But the second was more personal, more intimate. He couldn’t be Professor Snape. He had to be Severus.

“Two more things, Potter. The first must be followed to the letter. If I, at any time, tell you to do something such as to hide yourself or to stay silent, you must do so. Solarin warded the house and I have reinforced her magic but I cannot be sure that Lucius will not come looking here. I have certain ways to conceal you should he come. I need you to do as you are told and not panic if such a situation arises. Am I understood?”

Harry looked at him with fear in his eyes but he nodded none the less. Severus felt the weight of his students trust and felt dwarfed by it. But he had to say the last one. Solarin said to lay down ALL the rules and, damn it, he would do just that. He trusted her guidance in helping Harry heal.

Severus moved to the bed and sat down, facing Harry. He took a deep breath. “Harry, this last rule is very important, probably the most important of them all.” He paused. “Harry, if you want to talk you must do so. It can be at any time, day or night, but you must come to me. I cannot help you if you do not talk to me. If you have a question, ask it. If something is wrong, tell me and I shall try and fix it. If you are bothered by memories of what has happened to you, then you can tell them to me. I will help you heal, Harry, but you must talk to me.”

“Yes, professor.”

“As I told you yesterday, you may call me Severus. Now, I promise to keep you safe and to help you, Harry, and I intend to do just that. But there are some things I need to know, so you must answer me honestly.”

“Okay.”

“Do you want to stay here? If you would rather be returned to Sirius and Remus, or maybe to the Weasley’s, it can be arranged.”

“I want to stay here. I mean, if that’s all right?”

“You may stay, if it is what you want.”

“I want to.”

“Very well. Would you rather I sent for Madame Pomfrey? She could treat you much better than I. I have limited training in the field of healing. She would do a much better job.”

Harry paled, if it was possible. He shook his head. “No. I want you. Please?”

“It is what you want?”

“Yes. I want you.”

Severus’ voice failed momentarily at Harry exclaiming twice in quick succession that he wanted him, though not in the way Severus wished he did. “Then that is what shall happen.”

“If you don’t want to…” Harry began.

“Harry, you have asked for my help. I will give it. I want to make some things clear to you.”

“All right.”

Damn it. He knew he was giving in, that his control was slipping. It was those damn green eyes, throwing him off guard. When had they started affecting him so?

“I will always answer you honestly, to the best of my abilities. I will never keep any information from you that I feel you should know or have a right to know. If, at any time, you wish to leave, I will not stop you. But you will be welcome here for as long as you want to reside in this house. There will never be any pressure on you to do something you are not ready for, or to reveal something you are not ready to reveal. I will try to be understanding and to keep my temper. And, finally, if you want to see someone, tell me and I shall make arrangements for you to do so, any time day or night.”

“You’re going to do all that for me?” Severus nodded at Harry‘s astonished question. “Why?”

“Because you asked.”

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Severus closed himself in the bathroom after dinner that night and tried to regain composure that had once again slipped. Harry was getting to him. That feeling that had threatened to overtake him before taking charge of Harry had once again risen in him. He barely managed to think straight during dinner.

He stepped into the shower, letting the hot water soothe away some of his tensions. He wrapped his slim fingers around his aching cock, hissing. He rarely indulged in pleasuring himself but he couldn’t deny himself tonight. Harry had affected him in ways he didn’t know how yet to ignore. He brought himself to a rapid and unfulfilling climax, biting his lower lip to keep from crying out Harry’s name. He swiftly forgot his passions and proceeded to scrub himself clean.

This was going to be impossible. How could he care for Harry and keep his instincts in check? All he wanted to do was gather the smaller creature in his arms and worship his petite body. He wanted to kiss him, to hold him, to use his touch to sweep away any memory of Lucius and what he had done. But Harry would panic, Harry would shatter.

All he had to do was to keep himself in control until Harry was stronger. Then maybe he could let his student know that he wanted him in more than a scholarly way.

For the first time ever in his life, he hoped he was wrong and his sister was right.

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Lucius prowled naked towards the bed, his eyes glinting with lust. Harry found himself wishing the man would leave him be for a few days, just a little time, just enough to heal a little. He was in so much pain. He didn’t want to scream and give him the satisfaction but he knew that he wouldn’t be able to hold it in.

The bed dipped with the mans weight and Harry whimpered at the pain, biting his lip to try and squash any more noise but he knew it was too late. Lucius looked down at him in triumph and Harry hated himself. Fear rose up in him at the sight of the black cloth bag in his masters hands.

“Please,” Harry begged.

Lucius inclined his head slightly.

“Please, Lucius. I’m so sore. Please, leave me be for a few days. Just let me heal a little.”

Lucius chuckled and reached for the drawstring of the bag. Harry closed his eyes in defeat. It had worked last time, Lucius had held off using his body for a few days and performed some healing spells. Harry felt that he had been very foolish to think that Lucius would repeat his performance.

He gasped as he was flipped over onto his front, the smooth sheets feeling unnaturally rough on his damaged chest and constricted male parts. His broken legs were shoved wide open, Harry pushing his face into the sheets.

He screamed as something cracked on his previously untouched back, feeling the skin split. Over and over the thing, whatever it was, was slashed across his skin. It seemed endless, just like every other thing that was done to him here. After what seemed an eternity, the slicing blows ended and Harry heard the sigh of appreciation from the man above him.

He was just a whore, just like Lucius had called him when he told him about the baby. He was only good for one thing, to be used like this. His hot bitter tears began to fall. He groaned as slick fingers roughly entered his arse, stretching him in painful ways. All too soon, that hard moving thing that Lucius had used on him before was thrust into him. A muttered spell had it moving brutally inside him, making him gasp in some attempt at control over the pain.

His hips were gripped harshly and he was impaled, screaming as he once more began to bleed. He screamed and begged for mercy, for freedom, for a saviour as the mans penis shoved against the hard things embedded deep inside him, tearing him.

It dragged on but eventually, Lucius groaned his release and removed himself from his abused body. Another hard thing was added to the ones inside, Harry had lost count after the third. He heard his master leave the room and cried in agony as the thing inside him continued to move.

Someone save him, please, someone, anyone. He found himself thinking about Professor Snape, about how disgusted he would be.

He was nothing but a whore.

Harry sat up in bed, his heart pounding. He managed to make his way to the toilet before his stomach gave up his dinner. He sat kneeling in front of the toilet, shaking, his whole body covered in a cold sweat. He slowly and shakily got to his feet, rinsing out his mouth and brushing his teeth in an attempt to rid his mouth of the horrible taste. He made his way back to his room and stood in the doorway, looking at his bed, the image blurred without his glasses. The thought of returning to it terrified him. One nightmarish memory was bad enough, but to spend the rest of the night like that? He worried his lower lip between his teeth.

Severus had said that he could go to him, that he should go if he wanted to talk. But how well would the man take being woken? He briefly considered going to Draco in the room opposite his but that thought was quickly pushed out. He had only seen Draco briefly at lunch and dinner, and the conversation had been painfully difficult. Draco may have helped him gain his freedom but years of animosity between them was hard to forget.

Harry sighed. Severus was so confusing it made his head hurt. The man seemed to have two completely different personalities. The first was something Harry was used to. Harry mentally labelled it as Scary Professor Snape. Scary Professor Snape was harsh and demanding, cold even. It was someone Harry had experience of and made him feel decidedly normal. Even without the bat robes he was still Scary Professor Snape.

But then there was Severus. Severus was emotional and kind and caring. The way Severus was with Solarin was something Harry would never have expected in a million years. The man was…for want of a better word, tender. He even joked. How could two completely different people exist in the same man? Severus was the ultimate opposite of Scary Professor Snape. Severus was calm and collected, accepting a situation and letting it play out before he reacted. Scary Professor Snape was angry and tense, rushing in headlong with some scathing comment or other. Harry wondered how the same man could be so poles apart.

He sighed in defeat and made his way to the open door of his teachers room. The hall light had once again been left on. He tried not to think too much as he made his way over to the bed. He had been as quiet as he could but somehow the man knew he was not alone and sat up slightly in the bed.

“Harry? What’s wrong?”

The mans rich baritone voice was sleepy but worried and Harry decided that the best course of action was to be honest. Severus had said he would always be honest with Harry, so he might as well return the courtesy. Besides, he had promised that he would talk.

“I had a bad dream.”

He sat up fully, beckoning Harry to sit on the bed. “Would you like to talk about it?”

Ah, Severus instead of Scary Professor Snape.

“It was just a memory.” He paused and took a deep breath. “I was in that room and he was there. He had no clothes on and he pushed me onto my front. He put that…that thing in me…that thing…the one…th-that moved,” he finished quietly. He sat down on the edge on the bed, feeling the dark gaze boring into his skin. But it was different than when Lucius had looked at him. This gaze was patient, comforting. It gave Harry the strength to continue. “He…took me…and he…” A warm comforting hand on his shoulder rubbing calm circles on his damp skin. “He used…one of those…those…things. The ones you talked about.”

“Cervix Shields?”

Harry nodded. “He left it in…the thing…the moving one.”

“I see.”

They sat in silence and Harry only noticed he was gripping the bedclothes white knuckled when gentle fingers opened his fists.

“Would you like a potion to help you sleep?”

Harry shook his head. “I don’t want to have to use potions every time I close my eyes. I want…”

“What is it you want?”

“You’ll probably say no.”

“You don’t know that until you ask.”

He looked up into the dark eyes. “Can I stay here with you? I don’t want to be alone,” he whispered. A pause.

“You wish to sleep in my bed with me?”

“If it’s not okay, I understand….”

“It’s okay. If it is what you want?”

Harry nodded and let his host pull him into the bed, warm from Severus’ own body. The long nimble fingers tucked the blankets around him in a cocoon. He found himself gripping the mans pyjama shirt, the long thin arms wrapped around him. One hand rubbed soothing slow circles on his back while the other stroked his hair.

“You’re safe here. I won’t let him take you again.”

“Thank you, Severus.”

Harry let his calm words with his deep voice and the soft gentle touch lull him into sleep. This time he didn’t dream of Lucius. He dreamed of Severus carrying him away to some far distant place where no one could find them, where he was safe with his knight in shining armour.

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The next few weeks passed, either amazingly fast or excruciatingly slowly, Severus couldn’t quite decide. The three of them had fallen into a comfortable routine. Severus would be the first to wake, dealing with his morning needs before waking his companions, making breakfast while they dressed and made their beds. The two younger wizards would spend the morning in lessons with Severus, Harry needing a bit more attention with his classes than Draco as he had missed a whole half a year. Both boys were making good progress towards successful N.E.W.T.’s. Severus had placed a dampening field around the perimeter of the house so that the practicing of his students would not be detected by the Ministry. There were days that Harry‘s magic wouldn‘t work at all, and others where it was erratic, but these usually coincided with Harry‘s shaky days. The three of them would have lunch and then Severus would retreat into his lab, situated just off the kitchen, leaving the blonde and brunette to their own devices. He would emerge to a dinner that the boys had concocted together. It was usually edible. Their evenings were quiet, Draco retreating to his room, leaving Harry and Severus to talk alone in the living room.

Draco remained quiet and withdrawn and Severus made a mental note to call Solarin about how best to handle the blonde. Draco was at every meal, but the conversation was spotty at best. Any free time he had Draco spent shut away in his room.

Severus had tried to engage the young man several times and found his attempts met with Draco shying away, drawing further into himself. He had finally reached the decision that Draco would come to him when he was ready.

Harry, on the other hand, seemed to be making good progress. He had put on weight and there was now the small bump of his pregnancy, far smaller than it should have been but the child it held was healthy. Madame Pomfrey had sent him a book on how to handle a pregnancy in someone like Harry, telling her it was research for a project he was working on. He had found it extremely helpful. Harry was still sore but Severus kept assuring him that it would pass in time, once his body had convinced itself that it was safe from further attack. Harry attended every meal, managing to finish at least a third of his portion, if not half. He took his potions without complaint every morning, though there was that grimace at the taste. His afternoons he spent reading the material he needed to regain his place with his classes. He continued to confide in Severus, telling him of particular memories that happened upon him. Most nights saw Harry creeping into Severus’ bed to cling to the older man in fright, revealing more horrific details each time of what had happened to him in that room. It seemed to help him more than anything else, Harry gaining a little more strength and confidence with every outpouring, taking comfort in Severus’ reassurances.

But there was the bad side, the rough moments that sometimes stretched into two or three days. Days like these had Harry silent and twitchy, jumping at the slightest things and locking himself away in his room rather than sitting in the living room after lunch, though he took his books with him. Those nights were spent alone, Harry staying in his own bed rather than creeping into Severus‘ arms to cling to him in fright. Severus came to realize that neither of them got any sleep those nights. He quickly learned that Harry felt himself repulsive once more and lay awake, shaking and crying silently in fear and self hatred. Severus felt it best to leave Harry be during these nights of his self imposed solitude, telling himself that these were something Harry had to handle on his own. Severus lay awake those nights too, waiting.

When Harry had first crept to him and asked to sleep in the same bed as Severus, he had felt apprehension rise in him. Was it right to let Harry sleep with him? Was it appropriate to cradle his student to him, to soothe him, to lull him to sleep with promises of protection and safety? What would Albus think? What would Sirius and Remus say? But the trusting, unsure green eyes had worked their charm on him once again and he had caved, letting his protective instincts take over. He had tucked Harry into his own bed as tenderly as he had Solarin all those years ago, when she was still small enough to believe that her big brother hero Sevus could make anything better. He had let Harry grip at him, encased that slim frame in his arms and muttered soothing words, stroking his hair, rubbing his back. Was it right? Was it wrong? Did it matter? In all honesty, if it was what Harry needed to feel better, to heal, did it matter if it was right or not?

He was pulled out of his rationalisations as Harry stirred against his chest. The past few days had been good, Harry opening up more than he had before and even, one or twice, offering a shaky sort of smile. That it didn’t reach his eyes didn’t matter to Severus, just that Harry had attempted to smile.

“Are you all right?” he whispered into the dark. If Harry was simply moving in his sleep it was soft enough not to disturb him. Harry could also choose to pretend he hadn’t heard him if he was in one of his silent moods.

“Yes.”

The two of them lay in silence for what seemed to Severus to be a long time before Harry spoke again.

“Severus?” came the quiet hesitant question.

“Yes, Harry?”

“Can I see Sirius and Remus?”

“Of course. I can go and call them now if you’d like.”

“No, the morning is fine. Is it okay if they come here? I want to see them.”

“That is fine. You know you don’t have to see anyone until you’re ready for it.”

“I know. I want to see them.” Severus could feel the hesitation in the sprite and he lay patiently, waiting. “How do I tell them?”

“Tell them what?”

“What I am. What happened. The baby.”

Severus searched his mind for some way to reassure without revealing that his sister had already told them of Harry’s condition, as he dubbed it, and of Lucius’ abuse. He couldn’t find one so he decided the truth was, once again, the best option.

“Harry, when Solarin went to collect some of your things she had to answer a few questions. She tried to do so in a way that would keep your privacy but she was forced into a corner by your godfather. She said he was being unreasonable, she got the impression he was going to rush in here and take you from my care. She had to reveal some things to them.”

“Who?”

“Sirius, Remus, Albus, Molly and Arthur. No one else was told and the five of them were sworn to secrecy, though they did want to enact their own brand of justice for you.”

Harry sat up and leaned his elbows on his crossed legs, Severus coming up to sit in a similar fashion beside him.

“They really left her with no other choice, Harry,” Severus tried to reassure.

“I understand. What do they know?” The quiet voice was calm, vaguely interested, but mostly unsure.

“They know what you are. They also know of what you went through. They do not know details, no one but you and I know those as you have only confided in me. They do not know of your pregnancy. At the time you had not expressed whether you wished to continue in the pregnancy, so she felt it wise to omit that piece of information.”

“How did they take it?”

“From what Solarin told me when she returned, they were exceedingly angry. They wished for punishment of Lucius. When they objected to her telling them they had to leave it be she was forced to reveal your condition, as you call it.”

“And?”

Severus needed no explanation as to the meaning of the one worded question. “They were shocked, obviously. Even Sirius had no idea of your condition. They were upset that Lily and James never told them. But they showed no repulsion. None of them were disgusted by it. They are your family, they care for you the same way they have always done. They were all told not to mention it until you do. I believe they will hold to that. They all agreed not to tell anyone of your return, the abuse you suffered or of your condition. As far as I know, they are the only ones besides Draco, Solarin and myself, that know of your return.”

“Oh.”

Severus sat there silently as Harry’s mind worked. He knew what was coming next, he would have to be Neville Longbottom not to. He just hoped he could remain calm enough to deal with it.

“Family is important, isn’t it?”

“Yes. For some, like Sirius, family is the most important thing in the world.”

“What about you? Is family important to you?”

“In a way.”

“If you don’t want to talk about this, I’ll stop asking,” Harry offered.

Severus took a deep breath. Was he comfortable talking about this? To Harry, to anyone? Yes, to Harry he was. He just wasn’t sure he could find the right words.

“I am uncomfortable but I will answer your questions. I find it difficult to talk about my family to anyone. It is not you, it is me.” He sighed. “I suppose my behaviour when Solarin was here has prompted this?”

“I guess. You seem different with her. More relaxed. I don’t really understand.”

“I raised Solarin. I took custody of her, with Albus’ help, when I was seventeen.”

“That’s a lot of responsibility to have fresh out of Hogwarts.”

“It was better than the alternative.”

“What do you mean? What was the alternative?”

“A few days after I graduated my mother was killed. The choice was either to leave Solarin with my father or to raise her myself.”

“Severus, I’m sorry, but I don’t understand.”

“Harry, my father was an alcoholic. He was…abusive. He killed my mother.” Severus pushed back the memories of his mothers broken body on the cold hospital gurney, of Solarin clinging to him while she cried, of his fathers drunken slurs and ranting. “My father abused my mother until, one day, her body just couldn’t handle anymore. The police believed that she died trying to protect my sister from him. My father was incarcerated for the murder of my mother. He died in prison seven years later. Solarin would have ended up in muggle foster care, people hardly able to handle her. My father hated magic. My mother was one target, a Pure Blood. When I was young, I was another. But Solarin.” He laughed bitterly without humour. “She managed to provoke his rage better than any of us.”

“Why?”

“Because of what she is. She is an augur.”

“What’s that?”

“An augur is a natural Legilimens. She can enter a mind without the target knowing it. It’s quite painless. She prefers to use her skills to read someone’s emotions, though. She can also predict the future, though it is something she doesn’t do very often. She is a very powerful witch. When she was young she would do certain things, summoning a toy from another room, levitating a jar she couldn’t reach, see into other peoples dreams. My father took offence at a two year old doing those kinds of things.”

“Oh.” Harry was silent for a few moments. “Did she do it to me?”

“Do what?”

“Go into my mind.”

“Yes, Harry, she did. When I was healing you. I asked her to,” Severus replied carefully.

“Why?”

“Because there were things I needed to know and you were in no fit state to tell them to me. I apologise for having her do that.”

“It’s okay. I don’t suppose I would have done any different if our roles had been reversed.”

They sat there in silence for a while before Harry lay back down, Severus joining him and wrapping his arms around the sprite.

“Severus?”

“Hmm?”

“Why do you have my journal? I found it in the living room.”

Ah. Suddenly it occurred to Severus that perhaps he should have returned the diary to Myrtle, or at least hidden it. How well would Harry take the news that he had read it?

“Myrtle gave it to me.”

“Oh. Severus? Have you read it?”

Damn it. Harry seemed to be gaining confidence a little faster than Severus had anticipated.

“Yes, Harry, I have. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have.”

“Oh.”

“Are you angry with me?”

“Depends. When did you read it?”

“Before we found you.”

“Then no, I’m not angry.”

“I don’t understand,” Severus said warily.

“It’s not like you were trying to invade my privacy. You were trying to find me. It might have given you some clues or something. I understand why you read it. But you didn’t let anyone else read it, right?” Harry stated simply, leaving no room for argument.

“No, I didn’t. Actually, no one but Myrtle knows I have it.”

They didn’t talk after that, Harry letting Severus soothe him to sleep.

Severus lay there, feeling the sprite breathe and cling to him, even in sleep. Harry had accepted him, accepted his sorry story of his sorry childhood without offering any kind of emotion, somehow knowing that those emotional responses were unwanted. And the trust. The trust Harry showed him was slightly overwhelming. It wasn’t the same kind of trust that anyone had ever shown him before. Could it be possible? Could she be right? Could it be possible that Harry still had some kind of romantic interest in him?

Or was he simply reading too much into this?

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Sirius sat in his kitchen nursing a cup of strong black coffee. He’d left Remus sleeping after an intense, almost violent, coupling. They had been doing more and more of that lately, losing themselves in each other to try and forget the ache of their missing son.

He stared darkly into the inky liquid as certain thoughts crept in once more, thoughts that had plagued him almost daily since that strange girl in his kitchen had nearly made his head explode.

He wanted to see Harry, wanted to hold him and know that he was safe and whole. But that was just it. Harry wasn’t whole, he wasn’t safe. Logically, he knew that Albus would never leave Harry somewhere that would be harmful to him. But Harry had been raped, brutally if the girls vague explanations were anything to go by. Harry would probably never let anyone touch him again, never be safe again.

Owned by Lucius Malfoy.

What would Lucius do to get him back? Was Snape really a good enough wizard to keep Harry safe? Why the hell hadn’t Lily and James told him?

That one plagued him more than most, like a constant ache in the back of his mind. The answer was always hot on the tail of it: They were trying to protect him.

Logically, Sirius reasoned, if he had been in their position, he probably wouldn’t have told anyone either, the risk of Harry being abused was too great. It didn’t stop him from being angry at them.

He dropped his mug as the fire sprang to life, Snape’s head appearing in the flames.

“Snape. What do you want? Going to set your sister on me again?” Sirius asked while he used his wand to clear away the mess of coffee.

Snape looked momentarily confused. “Ah, yes. Solarin did mention something about losing her temper. I apologise. She never has had good control over it.”

“So, what do you want if it’s not to have her force me to my knees in pain?”

“Harry has asked to see you and Remus.”

Sirius sat there, momentarily too stunned to speak as the news sank in. Weeks since Harry was found and he was finally asking for them? And Snape was taking his snide remarks very well. Better than he ever had, in fact.

“Really?” Sirius asked, disbelieving.

“Yes, he asked last night if I would call you this morning. He wishes for you to come here and have lunch with him.”

“Will you be at lunch?”

“If it is what Harry wants. If not I will find some way to occupy myself while you visit.”

Sirius got to his feet. “We’ll be through soon.”

“Very well. The address is Spinners End. Lunch will be at one but I see no reason why you cannot spend the morning with him.”

Snape’s head disappeared and Sirius bounded up the stairs, glancing at the hall clock. Nine am. He had four hours before lunch but he was desperate to see Harry. Well, he reasoned, he and Remus could find some way to occupy time in the shower. And then there was the gathering of things that they wanted to take to Harry, like the Christmas presents Molly had stacked neatly in one of the kitchen cupboards.

He slipped into his room, the space darkened by the thick curtains. He disrobed and eased himself into bed beside his nude husband, sleeping soundly on his front, his slim muscular arms wrapped around the pillow under his head.

“Remus…Remus,” Sirius called gently, running his fingers in ghost like caresses across the smooth expanse of pale flesh that made up his lovers back, the illusion of perfection slightly marred by the raw looking scratches he had inflicted last night. He dropped gentle kisses on the mans shoulders until he felt him move.

“Mmm, what time is it?” Remus asked sleepily, rolling into the warm arms.

“A little after nine.”

“Uhh, why the blazes are you waking me?” Remus grumbled, turning over so he could bury his head in Sirius’ chest.

“Because Snape just fire called. Harry wants to see us.”

Sirius smirked at the amazed, slightly befuddled sleepy look on the werewolf’s face as he raised his head.

“Really?”

“Really. He wants us to come for lunch, which is at one. Snape said we could go and spend some time with him before that if we wanted. I say we kill time until twelve, so we don’t look too overbearing. We don’t want to scare him.”

“Is he sure Harry’s ready?” Remus asked, slipping into concerned parent mode.

“He said Harry asked for us last night. He said that Harry wanted us called this morning and invited for lunch. It seemed as if Harry had specified that we’re to go there and not the other way round.”

“But he’s bound to be fragile still. It’s only been a short time, Siri.”

“I know. But I want to see him. You can stay home if you like…” Sirius teased. He was rewarded with Remus pinning him to the mattress.

“Don’t. Even. Think. About. It,” he growled between kisses. “You’re not going to see him without me. You said Snape said he asked for both of us. If that’s what he wants, then I’ll be damned if we don’t give it to him. Are you really going to be the one who holds back on giving our boy everything he wants?”

“No! Well, maybe not absolutely everything, that would be a bit ridiculous. But I’m going to give him this. So we should really get showered and dressed.”

The two of them moved swiftly to the bathroom where they thoroughly enjoyed their usual routine of sharing a shower. Before too long they were gathering Harry’s gifts and moving to the fireplace, noticing that they had lingered long enough to only make themselves half an hour early.

Remus stepped forwards first, kissing Sirius gently before stepping into the flames.

Sirius watched his husband whip out of sight before grabbing his own handful of floo powder and following him through.

“Spinners End.”

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Harry watched as Draco practically inhaled his sandwich before disappearing to his bedroom once more.

“You know, Draco’s becoming more and more hermit-like every day,” Harry commented as Severus slid the pie into the oven. It was one of the ones Molly had sent unbaked and Harry was sure it would taste just as good as all the other food she had sent for him. “Is it okay for him to spend so much time alone?”

Severus sighed and leaned against the kitchen counter, his eyes scanning the slim form of his charge as he wiped his hands on a tea towel. Harry had convinced him to magically conceal his pregnancy. Severus had agreed for one reason and one reason only: to avoid unwelcome questions should Harry decide not to reveal his condition today. “I am unsure. I assume he will talk when he is ready. Draco never witnessed any of the Dark Lord’s atrocities, seeing you in such a bad way must have had an effect on him. I think he just needs time to sort things through in his head.”

“I guess.”

“Molly’s instruction’s claim the pie requires an hour to cook. Shall we amuse ourselves?”

The two of them moved to the living room and engaged themselves in a game of chess, Harry’s heart not really in it as he kept glancing at the clock. Severus let himself fall into stupid mistakes to try and draw it out, waiting for Harry to speak.

“Severus, are you going to be joining us for lunch?” Harry asked after his seventh peek at the clock.

“If you want me to. If you don’t I’m sure I can find some way to amuse myself while you spend time with your adoptive fathers,” Severus replied, putting one of his bishops in the way of Harry’s queen, asking to be taken.

Harry let his nerves rule him for a moment. He wasn’t ready to do this without his lifeline. “Stay?”

“If you insist.”

The two of them were silent until the floo roared to life, startling Harry so badly that one of the glass ornaments on the mantle shattered with his uncontrolled magic. The Animagus and werewolf stepped through, Remus slightly ahead of Sirius. Severus greeted them politely and turned around to look at his young companion, only to find the room behind him empty and the door to the stairs open.

“Give me a minute. Stay here,” Severus said calmly before making his way up the stairs. He found Harry in the bathroom, sitting on the lip of the tub, shaking.

“Harry?”

“I’m sorry! I just…I…”

Severus crossed to him and knelt before the terrified Gryffindor. “It’s all right. You panicked. Quite understandable. How about we chalk this one up to a momentary lapse in sanity, hmm?”

Harry smiled shakily before his panic enveloped him once more.

“Severus?” he whispered.

“Yes?”

“What if they hate me?”

“Why would they?”

“Because of the baby, because I couldn’t get rid of it?”

Harry didn’t quite know why he was admitting this fear he had to Severus but he suddenly had the uncontrollable need for his reassurance. He watched the dark eyes, the pale skin, waiting.

“If they do then I will make them leave. But, Harry, they adore you. You are their boy. Well, not exactly, but you get the idea. They still feel the same way they have always done.”

“But will they once they know?”

“Harry, if Solarin was to come to me right now and tell me that she had been treated in the same way you were and she cannot go through with a termination I wouldn’t hate her. I would continue to adore her in the same way I have always done. With the exception of a limited few, a parents affection is unconditional. I’m sure that Remus and Sirius will not reject you.”

“But if they do?”

“If they do, then I will make them leave and they will not return. I will protect you, Harry, just like I promised.”

He didn’t know what made him do it but he couldn’t stop himself. He was sure a rational person would have been able to keep control but he was hardly rational. All he knew was that he needed it, needed it more than anything else in that moment, more than anything in his whole life.

Harry leaned forwards and kissed Severus.

They were still for a moment and then Severus kissed back. It was nothing like the forced kisses from Lucius. This kiss was sweet and gentle and almost hesitant. Severus’ hands came up to grip his own, their fingers entwining, and Harry found himself relaxing into the unexpected intimacy. The gentle lips tenderly moved against his own and he happened upon the sudden understanding that he didn’t feel ugly at all, not when Severus was kissing him back, that there was no fear of this mans touch. That he trusted this man to be honest and to never hurt him and to keep him safe. He reluctantly broke the kiss and looked into the dazed and confused dark eyes, marvelling at the way his control had slammed back into place.

“I’ve wanted to do that since the Occlumency lessons. I just…I…I figured….” Harry stuttered.

“You thought I wouldn’t want you.”

He looked at him in surprise.

“I read your journal. Harry…” Severus trailed off uncharacteristically. “Harry, I’ve wanted you since the lessons too. But after he did those things to you, I never thought you would ever let anyone near you like that, especially not me.”

“But I trust you the most.”

Severus smiled a shy sort of smile and Harry was fascinated by the faint blush that stained the older mans pale cheeks. Severus straightened and Harry watched as the blush disappeared, Severus regaining his control and his composure.

“I will be downstairs. Get yourself under control and come join us,” Severus said, the command leaving no room for argument or any idea of disobedience in Harry, but the tone was gentle.

Severus swept from the room and Harry looked himself over in the mirror.

Severus wanted him.

He felt better than he had in months.

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Severus paused at the top of the stairs and allowed himself a brief smile.

Harry wanted him. Harry still wanted him.

He regained his common sense. ‘Don’t let his parents see this,” Severus thought. ‘Don’t let them see how much sway he has over me. They’ll probably kill me for it.’

He descended the stairs to be greeted by the two men snapping their attention on him as soon as he entered.

“He had a momentary bout of panic. He’s all right. He’ll be down in a minute,” Severus explained, seeing the relief spread across their faces. ‘Please don’t prove me wrong,’ he thought.

“How is he, generally?” Remus asked.

“He’s doing much better. There are still a few quirks but overall he is making excellent headway into good health all round. However, saying that I must tell you of what he won’t tolerate, of what will panic him and make him retreat.”

“We were expecting as much,” Sirius answered and Severus found himself surprised at how calm the man was.

“Well, he knows that you have been told of his condition, as he calls it, and of what Lucius Malfoy did to him. He is aware that you know none of the details. Do not talk about either his status as a hermaphrodite or of Lucius unless he embarks on it. Do not touch him unless he initiates it, as it is he is very reluctant of physical contact. Try not to lose your tempers if he suddenly grabs my hand. Harry has been using me as his anchor, he will only do it if he feels panicky or needs reassurance.”

“We understand,” Remus answered.

“Try to keep the conversation light, let him lead your choice of topic. Above all, no matter what he tells you, no matter the details, you must not recoil from him. He is unsure of your affections towards him.”

“But we love him! He’s ours,” Sirius argued.

“On some level, he knows that. But he is unsure. His doubt and his experiences have him questioning your affection for him. He needs reassurance more than anything from you.”

The two men nodded and they could hear slow footsteps on the stairs.

“One more thing. Harry has identified as male. Try to refer to him as such.”

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Lunch went smoothly, Molly’s pie going down well. The lunchtime conversation was light and inconsequential, Remus and Sirius talking about potions and the state of the Ministry with Severus, letting Harry take his time. After they had eaten, Severus served up coffees and teas in the living room, waiting for Harry to join the conversation.

Harry noticed that Severus had transfigured the room to accommodate them all comfortably, something he had been too nervous to take in before his adoptive fathers arrived. Instead of the rickety sofa and battered armchair huddled around a fragile looking coffee table, there were now four squashy armchairs gathered around a round table. The overall effect made the room seem easier, somehow. He contemplated asking Severus to keep the room like this permanently.

He glanced at Severus, sitting beside him, for courage before finding his voice.

“How’s Ron?”

There was a fraction of a second where the room was silent.

“He’s fine. He and Hermione are expecting their first child in July. Molly will care for the child while the two of them complete their final year. They miss you. All of us do,” Remus answered.

Harry reached out to grip Severus’ hand.

“I need to tell you something,” Harry said quietly. Instantaneously, he couldn’t find the words. He looked at Severus and took strength in the reassuring nod. “When he…Lu-Lucius…when he…to-took me, he…um…he…”

“It’s all right, Harry. Whatever it is, you can tell us,” Remus reassured.

“You can tell us anything, Harry,” Sirius chipped in.

“I’m pregnant,” Harry blurted, hardly daring to look at their faces. Severus’ fingers squeezed his.

“Oh. Well…um…” Sirius was floundering. He looked at Remus.

“Have you given thought to what you want to do, Harry?” Remus asked quietly, wishing he could hug Harry and show him that they didn’t care, that he was still theirs, but he restrained himself.

“I’m going to go through with the pregnancy. I couldn’t…get rid of it…I just…” He took a deep breath and let it out slowly, as if he was blowing steam away from a bowl of soup like Severus had taught him. “I couldn’t do that, have someone…touch me…there. I don’t know what I want to do but I couldn’t do…that.”

The room was unnaturally silent. Harry dared to look up from the faded carpet and saw Sirius and Remus looking at him. They looked like they were in deep shock, Sirius even had his mug of coffee halfway to his lips, suspended in midair.

“All right, Harry. If that’s what you want,” Sirius said calmly, his mug still hanging there, but his eyes were honest as he looked at Harry.

“You’re okay with it?” Harry asked in disbelief.

“Oh pup, of course we are. You’re ours, our boy. Why would we feel any different because of this? Harry, we love you and nothing whatsoever could ever change that,” Remus said, his eyes kind and sincere.

Harry let go of Severus and reached out a shaky hand, letting Remus and then Sirius grip his fingers. He wasn’t ready at that moment for the boisterous hugs the two of them usually bestowed upon him but he wanted to touch them, wanted them to know that he was all right. He had Severus remove the concealment charm on his small baby bump.

Harry relaxed into the conversation after that, even inserting a few light jokes though his smiles were forced. He opened his gifts and let out genuinely pleased responses to the thoughtful presents, telling his thanks to his adoptive parents to pass on to the gift givers. At the end of the afternoon when it was time for Sirius and Remus to leave, Harry surprised everyone when he briefly, and very lightly, hugged each of them.

Severus let out a breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding.

Damn it, he hated it when she was right.

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Severus awoke in the dead of night to the sound of sobbing. He first thought it was Harry, but then his sleep haze lifted and he remembered Harry was in his bed, sleeping soundly in his arms. He smiled briefly at the memory of Harry’s quiet kisses as they slipped into bed. The day had gone well, Remus and Sirius visiting for the second time. It had been a week from the first and Harry handled their presence much better this time. Only one tiny panic.

“Where are you going?” Harry mumbled drowsily as he eased his arm out from under him.

“To check on Draco. I thought I heard something. Probably nothing. Go back to sleep,” Severus replied, dropping a light kiss on his temple, wrapping the covers around the teen. He smiled. Harry had wriggled down, gripping at Severus’ still warm pillow, already claimed by slumber once more.

Severus slipped from the room and into the dimly lit hallway, following the badly muffled sobs to Draco’s room.

“Draco?” Severus called softly. “Draco, are you all right?”

The sobs met him as his only answer and Severus steeled himself before he slowly opened the door, not expecting for a moment to find what awaited him.

Draco, sitting on the floor naked, carving up his arms with his potions knife, tears streaming down his face.

Severus crossed the room in quick strides, wrestling the blade from his godson. He snatched up the blanket from the bed and draped it over Draco, pulling out his wand from the pocket of his bathrobe and casting healing charms.

“Draco, what…why did you do this?” Severus asked when he had finished, the pale boy still sobbing brokenly.

“Severus?”

He turned to see Harry standing in the doorway, unsure of his welcome.

“Harry, go back to bed. It’s all right, I can handle this.”

“Is he okay?”

“He will be fine. Go back to bed,” Severus urged, gratified when the young being left. Severus turned his attentions back to Draco. “Talk to me.”

“I…I c-can’t!” Draco exclaimed between sobs.

“Yes, you can. Come on, Draco. Whatever it is, you can tell me.”

“Oh Merlin!”

Severus gripped the slim shoulders, startled by the flinch and the look of repulsion on the teens face, snatching his hands away.

“Draco, what happened to Harry…did it ever happen to you?” he asked quietly, hoping that he was wrong, startled by the fiercely accusing glare.

“No! Oh, but that’s the problem!”

“I don’t understand.”

“I…uncle Sev…I can’t…it won’t…” Draco stuttered.

“Take your time,” Severus urged, using the same gentle coaxing he had employed with Harry.

“I can’t get it up,” Draco whispered brokenly, looking away in shame.

“What do you mean?” Severus asked, genuinely confused.

“I…I can’t get an erection.”

“You mean since you found Harry?”

“No, I mean, I’ve never been able to.” Something like a dam seemed to break in Draco with the statement. He looked imploringly at Severus. “Oh Merlin. I’ve never been able to. And my skin, when someone touches me it’s so mortifying, it feels so horrible, my skin crawls when someone touches me, even when I’ve got clothes on. And I don’t feel right, I never have. It’s like my skin is all wrong, my body is all wrong. And I talked to my father, he said it was normal, but it’s not, is it? He said it would pass, that everyone felt this way, that I’d outgrow it, but he lied, didn’t he? It didn’t pass, and others don’t feel this way, and I didn’t outgrow it,” Draco said in a rush, his eyes willing Severus to understand.

“Slow down. For me to understand, I need you to answer my questions. Is that all right?”

“Yes.”

“You have always hated the touch of others, even when you were small? It has always made your skin crawl?”

“Always.”

“And you have always felt that there is something wrong with your body, that you don’t quite fit into it?”

“Yes.”

“The erections. Have you honestly never had one, maybe first thing in the morning?”

“Never.”

“Never felt aroused, never felt heat build inside you when you are near another?”

“No. I don’t feel any of that. I’ve never felt that for anyone.”

“No sexual feelings at all?”

“No.” Draco sighed. “It’s not right is it? He lied, didn’t he, my father, when he said everyone felt this way, when he said it would pass?”

“No, Draco, it is not right. And yes, he did lie to you.” Severus sighed. “I don’t know what it is, Draco, but I will help you. I will try to find some way to make this right, to make this better.”

“Honestly?”

“Honestly. But you must promise me that you will never do something like this again,” Severus demanded, holding up the knife.

“I promise.”

“All right. Now, there is nothing that can be done tonight. You should try to get some sleep,” Severus said as the pale figure pulled on his discarded pyjamas. He held back the covers as Draco climbed into bed, draping them over, careful not to touch him. “I will call Solarin in the morning, see if I can get her to come and do a reading for you. Is it all right if I talk to Professor Dumbledore of this?”

“I suppose. You…you won’t tell anyone else, will you?” Draco asked, his voice suddenly sleepy, the revelations draining on him.

“For the time being, I will not. But if it comes to the point where I need to talk to a healer of this I will have to.”

“All right. But for now we can keep this quiet, right?”

“Of course.” Severus crossed to the door. “Try to sleep. I’ll see you at breakfast.”

Severus noted the slight nod, the boy already halfway to sleep, before he stepped into the hallway, closing the door so it stood ajar. He leaned against the wall. There was no way it was all unconnected. Severus didn’t believe in coincidence, life was just too complicated for that. Draco’s ‘symptoms’, the abduction of Harry, Lucius’ behaviour in the weeks that followed the Dark Lord’s downfall. Lucius had become positively disgusting to be around since the Light sides victory. He had always been a bit obnoxious, a bit too full of himself to be stood in anything but small doses. But after Voldemort’s fall he had become worse, even up to the point where he had alienated all around him, including his wife. Narcissa had left him, travelling to somewhere in the south of France to reside with a friend until she could get herself in order.

While Lucius had always been cold and cruel, he had never before sunk to these new lows. Lucius had indulged in rape when the Death Eaters had gone on raids, something Severus had always been excused from, but as far as he knew the Malfoy patriarch had never sought out prey for himself.

How had he found out about Harry’s condition when the teens own godfather had never known? Why had he been so brutal, so savage? What was wrong with Draco? Why had Lucius lied to his son?

And then there was always the slight remembrance of what Solarin had said to him about Draco’s ‘white noise’, about it being loud. He had never heard of his sister finding a mind she couldn’t read. There were those she didn’t want to read, those she didn’t enjoy reading, but never one she couldn’t read.

They were all connected, he was sure of it. He just didn’t know how. He pushed off from the wall and made his way back to bed. He slipped into the warm covers, startled when Harry didn’t roll to him in his usual way. Maybe the sprite was genuinely asleep.

“Severus?” came the quiet, fearful question.

“What’s wrong?” Severus answered immediately.

“Nothing. Well…I don’t know…”

Severus felt sudden worry rise in him. “What is it?”

Harry’s hand hesitantly gripped his own and brought it over to the smooth uncovered skin of the slight bump of his abdomen. He felt the hard hit of a limb and allowed himself a brief smile.

“What is that?” Harry asked, his voice full of worry.

“That is the baby. It’s kicking.”

“Really? That’s all it is?”

“Yes. The child is just letting you know it’s there. Did it frighten you?”

“A little,” Harry admitted. “I didn’t know what it was. It’s why I came to find you, when you were with Draco.”

Harry’s voice sounded resigned and Severus wanted to comfort the young hermaphrodite. He rolled onto his side facing Harry and let his fingers move in a gentle caress across the warm flesh beneath them.

“It’s perfectly normal. Is this the first time you have felt it move?”

“No. I just thought maybe it was me, because I was so sore, so I ignored it. Will it stop soon?”

“Maybe.”

There was a long silence in which both of Harry’s hands came down to rest upon Severus’.

“Severus…I…I…”

“It’s all right, Harry. You can tell me.”

“I want…I…” A frustrated sigh. “I want it.”

“Want what?”

“The baby. I want the baby.”

Severus couldn’t quite form a sentence and he made a few spluttering sounds. ‘Smooth,’ he thought to himself. “Are you sure that is what you want?”

“Yes.” A quiet sigh. “At first I just kept thinking about what he’d done to me, about how I ended up pregnant. But then this thought kept creeping into my head.”

“What thought?”

“That maybe I’m meant to have this child.” A humourless laugh. “I sound like Trelawney. But he starved me, he beat me, I lost so much blood that you had me on blood replenishing potions for days on end. But I lived and so did the baby. That’s got to mean something. Maybe it means that I’m meant to have it, that maybe the baby is special.”

The hushed thought worked it’s way into Severus’ head, ‘just like you.’ Out loud he replied, “Maybe.”

“And I kept thinking about it, and thinking about it. The thought of giving it away, of knowing that someone else was raising my child. It just made me think of the Dursley’s. And then it came to me that I want it, I want this baby…Is that foolish?”

“No. Not in the slightest.”

“I don’t even know the first thing about babies, and I’m only sixteen, and my N.E.W.T.’s…”

Severus leaned in and silenced the young being with a gentle, fleeting kiss.

“And then there’s you,” Harry said shakily.

Severus looked at him in confusion. How had a rant about the pros and cons of keeping the baby become about him?

“Me and you…being together…I can’t…expect you to…accept…another mans child,” Harry stuttered, his gaze fixed on the ceiling, his fingers gripping at Severus’.

Severus let his swirling thoughts take over. Could Harry possibly be saying that he wanted a long term relationship? That he wanted Severus to be around permanently? That he wanted Severus to help him raise his child, to be it’s father? Until this point, Severus had assumed that Harry was merely using him to gain some sort of confidence in physical contact, the assumption always hastily followed by the assertion that Harry would never use someone like that. He pondered it. If it were up to him, he would claim Harry forever, use his touch and his words to sweep away any memory of Lucius. But it wasn’t just up to him. It was up to Harry.

And then there was the child.

Could he do it? Could he bring up another mans child? Accept it as his own? No, his mind supplied, but it didn’t really matter. The child was Harry’s regardless of the other father. He considered it logically. Biologically, Solarin was his sister, that being the only way the two of them were related. But in his mind, and his heart, he recognised that she had been more his child than she had ever been his parents.

Blood didn’t matter…

“…only love,” Severus mumbled. He looked up to find Harry slowly slipping on his slippers and moving to the door. Ah. Maybe he had contemplated for a tad too long?

“Harry, come back, I was thinking, not ignoring you or pushing you away,” Severus cried softly as he sat up, causing the younger man to turn and look at him. Damn those green eyes. His response to them had only gotten worse since Harry had convinced him to repair them, finally ridding himself of his glasses. “Come here,” he said, holding out a hand. Relief spread through him as the slim fingers slipped into his, the sprite allowing him to pull him back to the bed. He sat Harry down on the patterned comforter, facing him.

“You went quiet…I…I…th-thought…”

“You thought I was pushing you away. I’m sorry, I lost myself in thought for a moment back there. Forgive me?” Severus explained, dropping a light kiss on Harry’s knuckles.

“I forgive you.”

“Harry…Merlin, I promised myself I wouldn’t do this,” Severus mumbled to himself more than Harry. “Harry, what I feel for you is not lust, it is something else. Something deeper. I’m sorry I can’t give you a name for it but I have no experience with it, I don’t know what to call it. But I know this: I will never leave you.”

Severus watched as a few slow tears trickled from the green eyes and he tenderly wiped them away.

“You…you’re talking like…you lo-love me?”

“I suppose it must be love, in consideration of the general concept of the word. But all my experience of that word and the emotion attached to it are of something bad happening to those involved. I do not wish that for you.” Severus sighed. “My father claimed he loved my mother and he killed her,” he whispered.

A gentle hand curled around his cheek, slipping into his hair. “You are not your father.”

“Are you sure? He had a terrible temper, and he liked a drink, and he was a bully. How can you say I’m not him? I verbally abused you for five years, I was harsh to the point of being cruel. I lose my temper far too easily. And I like the occasional drink. How can you trust that I am not like him?”

“Severus, have you ever hit anyone?”

“Not with my fists, but I have done terrible things.”

“As a Death Eater, and to stay hidden as a spy.” Harry sighed and Severus realized that it was Harry’s turn to save him. “Will you hurt me?” Harry whispered.

“Never. I would sooner die.”

“Then that’s all I need to know. This thing between us, whatever we choose to call it, is all I need to know.”

Severus looked down at the small bump of Harry’s abdomen. “You mean this thing?” he asked with a smirk as he laid a careful hand on it.

Harry smirked back. “No, I meant this emotion between us, but yes, there is this thing as well,” he replied, laying his hand on top of Severus’. “If you can’t accept the child…”

“I cannot bring up another mans child, Harry, but that is not an issue here.” Confusion in the emerald gaze, all traces of the smirk gone. “This is not Lucius’ child, Harry, it is yours. That is all that matters. I can and will raise your child with you, if it is what you want.”

Severus suddenly found Harry crawling into his arms, wrapping his slim arms around his shoulders. He slowly let his own arms make their way around the thin torso, the swell of the child between them as they held each other.

“I love you,” Harry whispered against his neck.

Severus pulled back, looking Harry in the eye. “Harry, I…I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You won’t. I trust you. You are not your father, we are not your parents. I love you,” Harry whispered.

Severus looked deep into the trusting emerald eyes. “I love you,” he whispered, his voice barely above the silence. Those sweet lips joined his, the chaste kisses deepening slightly as Harry displayed his emotions.

All other thought vanished from his mind. Nothing else mattered, not in that moment. Draco could wait, the whole world could. To hell with it all.

Harry loved him.

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Dear Sevus,

I wish I could come sooner but the earliest I can come is the first week of April. It is not convenient for me to keep disappearing. People are still asking questions about Christmas and, besides, I’m not at your bloody beck and call.
I can imagine the look you’re giving me right now and I know what you’re thinking, ‘It would be easier if she lived in the Wizarding World’. See? I know you too well.
I am worried by Draco’s symptoms, though. I’ve never heard of anything like he’s describing, but I will look it up in the meanwhile. It sounds like a hex or something, but I don’t know of any hex that could cause all that, and, as you well know, I know more hexes than most. Tell him that I will do my best for him.
How is Harry? You seemed to have glossed over that bit of information quite a lot in your letter. Seems that I may have been right, big brother. Not wanting to gloat but I told you so. Allow me it just this once.
Stop scowling, Sevus, I can see it as I write. You know that you like it. You like that I was right about this, admit it to yourself. By what you did put I can see that he is getting along fine with you. Merciful Merlin, you even seem to have come to a truce with Sirius. Oh, will you tell him sorry again for me? I know, I know, I shouldn’t have lost my temper like that, I could have done him some real damage. But you, of all people, know what I’m like.
I’m getting off track. Tell Draco not to worry, whatever this is, we will fix it. I will see you soon. That’s the first week of April, in case you’d gotten distracted earlier in the letter with your, how did you put it? That’s it, ’disarming green eyes’. I know I’m pissing you off but it’s a sisters prerogative. I have to go anyway, I’m already late for work.

See you soon.

Love Sol.

XXX

“Damn girl!” he exclaimed as he slammed the letter down on the table, making Harry, Draco, Sirius and Remus jump. The four of them looked at him strangely as he sat down in between Draco and Sirius. The seating arrangements were a test of how well Harry could handle an increased number of people in the small space of the kitchen. Harry sat near the door, Draco to his right and Remus to his left. Severus was sat at one end of the table, making it clear that he would not tolerate being more than one person away from Harry with his stoic body language.

Of course the letter would arrive during Remus and Sirius’ third visit, of course her wording would piss him off. He really should have postponed reading it. He folded it and slipped it into his pocket.

“Sorry.”

“It’s okay. What’s she done?” Draco asked. He had gained confidence since his cathartic outpouring to Severus. He had even agreed to join them for the visit and was engaged in a close game of chess with Sirius. The Slytherin had been spending hardly any time in his room over the past few days. He and Harry had come to a shaky sort of friendship, the two of them spending an hour or two each day together in the sitting room, talking more often than anything else, yet Harry still remained clueless as to what had happened between the blonde and Severus.

“I send her an owl asking for her help, it takes her a month to reply and she sends me this! She says, and I quote, ‘it is not convenient for me to keep disappearing. People are still asking questions about Christmas and, besides, I’m not at your bloody beck and call’. She says she can’t come until April! Typical. You know, if she lived in the Wizarding World this would be a whole lot easier,” Severus griped, the end of his tirade more to himself than any of the others, as he began to make more tea.

Harry noticed Sirius’ look of amazement and Remus‘ barely concealed smile. Of course, they had only ever seen Scary Professor Snape, they had never witnessed Severus. But Harry had. He glanced at Draco, the pale boy looking completely unconcerned of the outburst, strategising his next move, determined to win against his cousin.

Harry let it all wash over him. Severus had become more open, just short of being completely laid bare, over the last week. Ever since they had admitted to each other how they felt it had become so much easier. Severus still had his moments of Scary Professor Snape, but they were apologised for most times, Severus realising that he was a little too cold. He and Harry had gone no further than kisses and caresses in areas Harry deemed ‘safe’. His hands, face, back and arms were the safe areas, his neck and stomach joining the list only last night as Severus had shown him how nice kisses there could be.

“What are you smiling at?”

Harry snapped out of his mental imagery of Severus nibbling and kissing his throat last night, Harry’s fingers in his hair as he caressed Harry’s spine, at Remus’ gentle question. Severus was watching him, waiting for the danger signs.

“No-nothing,” he muttered, feeling the blush heat his face. He daren’t look Severus in the eye. How on earth would he explain to his parents that he was smiling because Severus had made him feel pleasure last night?

“Okay, you don‘t have to tell us, I was just curious. It’s just nice to see you smile again.”

“Oh. Well, I seem to be doing it a lot these past few days.” He paused. No time like the present. “Remus?”

“Yes, pup?” Remus asked as he accepted the tea from Severus.

“I’ve made a decision about the baby.”

All eyes were on him and Harry could feel the heat of Severus as the man moved to stand behind him, the reassuring touch on his shoulder ghost-like. To Harry’s quiet shock, Sirius didn’t seem to want to decapitate Severus for touching him. Strange, those two seemed to be getting along awfully well. Maybe they had reached a truce of some kind. Oh right, everyone staring at him, waiting for his decision.

He took a deep breath and mentally reminded himself to stay calm, to not stutter if he could help it.

“Um, well, you see…I…ah…”

“Harry,” Sirius interrupted. “Whatever your decision, we’re all behind you.”

That made it a lot easier for Harry to speak. He quickly checked that no one was still holding their mug. “I’m keeping it.”

“Are you sure that’s what you want?” Remus asked after a moment of shocked silence, his eyes searching Harry’s and then Severus’.

That was odd too, Remus was looking to Severus for reassurance about Harry, as if he trusted that Severus had not coerced him. Something was definitely up.

“I’m sure. I want it. It’s mine, it doesn’t matter about Lu-Lucius, all that matters is that it’s mine.” He still had a little trouble getting that name out. His hands rested on his slight bump and he let his eyes fall upon it too. “It’s my baby.”

“He,” Remus said quietly, making Harry look up in surprise at him. Severus slowly reclaimed his seat, sitting lightly in case of the need to rush back to Harry’s side.

“What?” Harry asked.

“The baby. It’s a boy.”

“How do you know?”

“My research.”

“Oh Circe, here we go again,” Sirius groaned, earning a slap on the arm from his spouse. He chuckled slightly “Arthur dropped off the material he found on what you are just after we visited the first time. Remy has been going through it for days, bestowing me with various little titbits.”

“How is Arthur?” Harry asked, Sirius taking over the conversation as Remus dug out an extortionate amount of paper from his bag.

“He seems to be holding up. He’s doing well, keeping the Aurors busy. Amazing, really, the sheer amount of stuff he managed to dig up, and get it out without being caught. Really incredible.”

“Why incredible?”

“Well, before we learned about you, we had never even heard of one, not a magical one anyways. We never knew the rumours of Dumbledore’s mother, or the Dark Lord‘s. We had no idea, any of us, of all the things the Ministry know about your kind. Plus, this is Arthur we’re talking about. He’s smuggled things out of the Ministry. He’s guilt ridden.”

“Well, reassure him that Muggle officials nick things from the office all the time, might help. He might actually feel proud of himself for this. What have you learned?” Harry asked as Remus plonked the last small stack of papers on the table. He could see Remus and Sirius searching his face for panic but he felt surprisingly calm. He found that he really was interested.

“Well, there is a Legend…” Remus began.

“I don’t like that word,” Harry interrupted swiftly, trying not to let his mind force him back. His calm was rapidly fading. Too rapidly.

Oh God, he couldn’t breathe.

“No one will find you, my little legend.”

He felt himself falling off of the chair, landing in a warm embrace. It was the same as that first morning, those strong arms wrapped lightly around him, the calm breathing forcing him to follow it, that deep voice in his ear.

“Breathe with me, Harry. Come on, just breathe. In and out, slow and steady. Slowly. It’s all right, Harry. You’re here, in my house. You’re not there anymore, you’re here, you’re safe. You’re safe here with me, I won’t let anything happen to you.”

He opened his eyes. He was in the kitchen, not in that room. Severus held him safe, not Lucius approaching the bed. He was safe.

He let Severus help him back to his chair and gripped Remus’ fingers gently, looking shakily at Sirius.

“It’s okay, guys, I’m okay now. Just don’t use that word,” Harry reassured.

“Sorry, pup,” Remus said.

“It’s okay, you weren’t to know. Carry on, please, I want to know what you’ve learned.”

Remus took a deep breath and Harry could see his hands tremble as they reached to straighten the stack of paper, see Sirius’ tremble as he reached for a pawn, his fathers trying to act like it was an everyday occurrence to see their son nearly pass out. In Harry’s opinion they were doing a pretty fair job of it, and he was impressed by how well they had handled their first real taste of his panic.

“Well, in this…er…fable, it claims that the first child you have will be a boy. Your child is male, according to this.”

“Dumbledore is male, as was the Dark Lord, so I think we can safely assume it is accurate,” Severus interjected, standing protectively behind Harry. Sirius looked up at him and silently moved to Severus’ chair, turning the board so he could continue the game. Remus moved up to Sirius’ seat, pulling his papers to him. Severus sat down in Remus’ chair with a quiet ‘thank you’ to Sirius and Remus. They played a game of musical mugs as tea was passed to its respective drinker. Harry scooted his chair closer to Severus and gripped at the mans thigh, Severus’ hand rubbing reassuring circles on his back.

Amazing. Not even a single dirty look from Sirius. Maybe they’d been bewitched or something.

Remus sifted through the mountain of parchment, pulling out what looked like an official Ministry decree.

“Did Arthur steal that?” Severus asked, his voice slightly impressed.

“No, this is a duplicate. He made quite a few of them, hoping maybe I could piece together centuries old legislation. He couldn’t take the older ones, so he made copies. He did actually bring me some genuine ones that had been written in the last century or so. Now, this decree states that you are ‘owned’, but I’m guessing you knew about that part already. It’s pretty cut and dry but there is a loophole, though it’s complicated,” Remus explained.

“A loophole? You mean I could be freed?” Harry asked.

“Yes. There are two ways to do it but I’m not sure how eager you’ll be to do either.”

Harry felt a sudden hope rise within him, something that only happened when he had Severus’ physical contact, making him forget about Lucius with his touch, with his kisses. He knew Severus could feel the change in him and decided to test his boundaries a little. He slipped his hands a little higher, just a tad, just a bit closer to the mans crotch. He felt Severus’ hand on his back still for a fraction of a second before it continued on its circular path, the older mans face giving away nothing. Wonderful thing, years of being a spy. A momentary glance at Remus, the man still fumbling with bits of parchment, trying to find the right one and organise himself.

Severus’ thigh was warm under his hands, and he didn’t feel the revulsion he had thought he would. ‘This isn’t so bad,’ he thought to himself. Severus’ hand slipped from his back and came down to gently pull Harry’s pale hands away, holding both of them in his one hand, calmly taking a sip of his tea.

“Well, the first option,” Remus said, pulling Harry’s attention away from Severus for the time being. Remus was scanning a piece of parchment. This one looked official too. “This says that if you remain away from your…um…” The man faltered, looking at Severus. “Which words should I not use?”

Ah, a slip in the pretend ignoring of the panic attack.

“Harry, cover your ears,” Severus ordered. Harry covered his ears and watched as the mute conversation took place, his eyes wandering to land on his godfather. Draco and Sirius both seemed determined to win the game of chess, the too complicated strategies making the moves come hard and fast, the speedy game play making Harry slightly dizzy. He felt a light tap on his hand and he let them fall, slipping them back into Severus’ hand.

“Right,” Remus began again, a look of determination on his face. “This says that if you remain away from your subjugator for a period of no less than three years then he will automatically lose his legal standing over you.”

“Three years?” Harry asked. He couldn’t stay hidden for that long, it couldn’t be physically possible. Mind you, Sirius had done it for nearly that long.

“Yes, and not a single day less. This states that he must not even see you for that period, so effectively you couldn’t leave the house. He could claim that he spotted you at a bus stop or something.”

“I think that is a very limiting option,” Severus added. “There must be another?”

“Well, there is option two, but you won’t like it.”

“What is option two?” Harry asked warily. Severus laid his other hand over his suddenly freezing extremities.

“Option two is called an ‘Overriding Claim’.” The man took a sip of tea, glancing at Sirius. “This legislation states that if another wizard of legal age…claims you, then he will take…um…”

“Lu…Lucius,” Harry supplied. “It’s okay, I don’t mind you saying that one. I can deal with that one, just don’t say it to often.”

Remus’ face held a look of relief and he allowed a brief smile to cross his lips. “Right. Well, if another wizard of legal age claims you then he will take Lucius’ place as your subjugator. The second wizard would have control.”

Harry was confused. Claimed? What the hell was claiming? “What do you mean, ‘claim’ me?”

“It means to be intimate,” Severus supplied gently.

Oh. That. “Is there any other way?”

“I’m afraid not. Those are the only two that I can find.”

“But what’s to stop me being transferred from wizard to wizard to wizard for the rest of my life? Is that what I’m doomed to, a life of being someone’s…toy?” Harry asked, his panic rising once more.

“There is a way to stop that from happening,” Remus supplied, trying to help, but Harry could no longer hear him.

Opinions of his fathers be damned, he needed it, he needed it now. The memories were starting to flood in, starting to take control. He stood up and walked from the room, up the stairs and into Severus’ bedroom. He sat on the bed and waited. He had to come, he had to.

Sure enough, there he was, Harry’s own personal hero. Severus was kneeling before him, forcing him to look at him. Harry’s white-knuckled hands reached out, threading through the inky hair. Harry felt Severus let him pull him forward until he was kissing Severus, the older man taking over.

Severus’ lips were gentle, his hands moving, one laying on the base of his spine, the other on the gentle swell of his pregnancy. Harry tentatively licked Severus’ lips. The older man moaned slightly and returned the gentle caress with his own tongue, swiping it across Harry’s, letting Harry’s into his mouth, letting Harry take control.

Harry broke the kiss and leaned his forehead against Severus’.

“I didn’t think it wise to calm myself that way with them watching,” Harry whispered.

“Probably not.” Severus waited for the seemingly unconnected conversation that usually followed these bouts of Harry calming himself with kisses. Severus had to admit, it was a really enjoyable way of being used by Harry to help himself regain his composure.

“What the hell happened to them? Sirius seems almost like he accepts you in my life.”

There it was, a question seemingly out of nowhere, not really leading anywhere, absolutely nothing to do with his panic. Severus had come to understand that Harry said the first thing that popped into his head during these moments of conquering his anxiety. Harry’s fingertips were stroking the back of his neck, sending shivers down Severus’ spine.

“He accepts that I am caring for you, he trusts me to help you get back to your old self, or something near it. He seems to realize that you need me. However, I’m not sure he would take kindly to this way of you calming yourself,” Severus said, his voice amused by the end.

“You talked to them, didn’t you? You explained it all. That‘s why they‘re so calm with you touching me.”

Another random thought escaping Harry’s mouth. This one was actually connected to the current topic. Harry was regaining his control.

“I laid down the ground rules for them to follow when around you. I did so when you had that panic and hid in the bathroom during their first visit.”

Harry groaned. “Severus, I don’t want that to be my life. I don’t want to be a plaything for wizard after wizard.”

Ah, the real problem. Calm Harry was running the show again.

“Do you really think I would let anyone take you from me where you didn’t want to go?” Severus added a look that plainly said ‘Harry, you’re having an unintelligent moment.’

Harry giggled slightly at the look before he kissed Severus once more and then the two of them made their way back downstairs, resuming their seats.

“I’m okay now. What were you saying Remus, I didn’t catch the last bit,” Harry said calmly, though he gripped Severus’ hands.

Remus looked uncertain for a moment before he responded. “There is a way around you being the continual object of endless claims. You could marry someone.”

Sirius actually tore his eyes away from the game at this point. “Excuse me? You never mentioned that bit when you were babbling about this, Remus,” Sirius said, Remus looking at him incredulously.

“I ‘never mentioned that bit’? Babbling? Sirius, I told you at breakfast yesterday, at lunch, dinner, before bed, and this morning! See? I knew it, you never listen. And I don‘t babble, I inform.”

“Remus, come on, I do listen. It’s just you’ve been going on about this for days, I just tuned out for a bit. And I know you don’t babble, it was just a bad word choice,” Sirius said, a tone of pleading in his voice.

Remus turned his back on Sirius with a look that plainly said ‘you’ll pay for this later’ and continued on, Sirius returning to his game with a resigned sigh. Harry smirked.

“If you were to marry someone then, legally, you would be, what is that phrase? Ah yes, ‘off the menu’, so to speak. It would be illegal for anyone but your husband to claim you if you were married. They would land themselves in Azkaban if they touched you. However, there is a problem with this solution to that particular problem.”

“What problem?” Harry asked.

“Well, the way to get married is the problem. For you to marry you must be free of Lucius first, or he could dispute the marriage. So, again, you would need to either stay hidden for three years or choose another to claim you before the marriage. Saying that, there is a piece of good news. No matter who you belong to your child cannot be legally obtained by anyone without your permission. Lucius has no ruling over him, even if he owns you. Because of the ease with which your subservience can be obtained any child you bear will always be the legal child of you and no other, regardless of your owner. I’m sorry, pup, but that really is the best news.”

Harry couldn’t believe how limited his options were. At least no one could take his baby from him. A numbness spread through his body as his mind worked. Stay hidden for three years. He couldn’t do that. Never take his child to the park, never walk down a street for fear of being seen, never go to Diagon Alley? Three years of staying inside four walls? He liked Spinners End but he was already starting to feel a slight cabin fever. Harry tossed that option out. He wouldn‘t hide.

All right, the second option. Could he do that? Was he ready? Let someone claim him, let someone override Lucius’ hold on him? The thought of it had a strange notion entering his mind. ‘Don’t I already do that, though? Don’t I let Severus do that?’

His second master needn’t be like his first, his second was of his choosing.

Severus.

Harry let his mind supply him with memories of the mans gentle sweeping touch, his careful kisses, his gentle building of Harry‘s pleasure, managing to always make him moan, even if it went no further than that. He let it travel to imaginings of what Severus would be like if he took him, his mind giving him a gentle seduction to think about. He already knew Severus would never hurt him, he knew the man loved him.

But could he let himself be touched like that? Could he bear to attempt it?

He let his mind go blank, turning back to his companions. The rest of the visit went very smoothly after that. Remus and Severus regaled Harry with tales of their own days at Hogwarts, surprising Harry with the information that the two of them had been study buddies for their first few years. But then things had changed, Sirius and James had claimed Remus’ time and Severus had found it easier to concentrate when alone. Severus quietly added that he had withdrawn from social interactions when Solarin was born, round about the end of his third year.

Harry was beginning to realize how much Severus had done for the girl. How much he had done for him.

He was falling deeper into these feelings for the man.

“Yes!” Sirius yelled triumphantly, Draco shaking his head, his mouth hung open in amazement.

“Tough luck, Draco. Maybe you can beat him next time,” Harry consoled. He too was secretly amazed that Draco had lost. He had always lost to Draco in the games they had played while here, but, then again, he was a terrible player.

“Yeah, maybe,” Draco agreed dazedly. He was snapped out of his stupor as Sirius reached out his hand to shake in friendly competition. Harry watched as Draco stuck both of his hands under the table.

Sirius looked confused and hurt. “Draco does not like being touched,” Severus said calmly. Sirius nodded. He looked around the table and settled for pushing the last of the biscuits towards the blonde. Draco smiled shyly and accepted a cookie as his losers compensation.

“Sirius,” Severus said calmly. “Solarin asked me in her letter to relay her apologies once again. She did not mean to lose her temper like that.”

Sirius sighed and then, to Harry’s utter amazement, he nodded, actually shaking Severus’ hand in acceptance. ‘Doesn’t that mean there’s like an apocalypse or something on its way?’ Harry questioned silently. In the end he decided this new development was for the best and let it slide.

The day drew to a close and Harry let Sirius and Remus hug him before they left, reassuring them that he would be fine with them telling Molly and Arthur about the baby.

Then Draco went upstairs to shower before dinner and he and Severus were alone.

“Severus?” Harry asked, gathering all of his Gryffindor courage.

“Yes?” Severus replied, gathering the used mugs and plates and depositing them in the sink. Harry stood behind him and wrapped his arms around the man, his forehead resting against his spine.

“Will you claim me?” he whispered, the man stiffening in his arms. He loosened his hold and Severus turned round to face him.

“Is that what you want?”

“Don’t you want to?” Harry asked, his courage slipping, suddenly uncertain. What he really wanted to ask was ‘don’t you want me’, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to ask it aloud.

“Harry, I want to more than I can tell you, I want you. But are you sure?”

“Yes. I don’t know when I’ll be ready to have you claim me but I want it to be you. I want to be yours.”

Severus sighed, pulling Harry into his arms, settling his head atop the smaller figures. “You know, I keep finding myself wondering what on earth I did that was amazingly wonderful enough to deserve you. You’re too good for me,” Severus admitted quietly. “Why on earth would you want me to be the one to touch you like that?”

“Because I forget.”

“What do you mean?”

“When you kiss me, when you touch me, I forget. I forget about him, about what he did. I think of no one else but you, the way you make me feel. Your touch is distracting.” Harry faltered but determination made him carry on. “I know sex isn’t supposed to be like that, like the way he made it, but it’s hard to believe it. But when you touch me, I do believe. The way you make me feel, it’s so much better than I ever thought it could be. I never thought I’d ever enjoy having someone touch me, even before. But I do. I want you to be the one to show me how good it can be.”

Severus pulled him tighter to his chest, Harry feeling those strong arms encase him further. “I love you.”

Harry smiled at the whispered admission. “I love you, too.”

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

Sirius and Remus landed in their kitchen to find Molly and Arthur sitting gravely at their table with Albus. Bill and Charlie Weasley were leaning side by side against the kitchen counters, Charlie sporting a spectacular black eye.

“Hope you saved some of him for us, Charlie,” Sirius joked, Remus elbowing him in the ribs. “What happened?” he asked.

“Lucius took it upon himself to track down my sons. He seemed to think that we would stash Harry with one of them for safe keeping,” Arthur said wearily.

“Why would he think that? We don‘t have Harry,” Remus asked, feigning innocence, looking at Albus accusingly.

“You can drop the act, Remus. Albus told us everything,” Bill interrupted. “We know Harry was rescued. We know what he is, what happened to him and where he is.”

“Albus!” Sirius exclaimed angrily.

“It was for the best. We couldn’t lie to them, Sirius. Lucius revealed too much to them,” Albus placated.

Sirius and Remus sat down at the table, the two younger men joining them. “What did he reveal?” Remus asked.

“He told us a few choice snippets of Harry’s time with him,” Charlie said quietly, his eyes fixed on the glass of Firewhisky in his hands.

“It was either obliviate them or tell them. They are not a threat to Harry’s safety, I can assure you,” Arthur guaranteed, the two men sighing in defeat.

“Lucius is starting to become dangerous, even more so than before. We’re unsure what has prompted the sudden change but it is clear that we can no longer let this situation continue the way it has been. We need to change things before Harry’s safety, and that of all concerned, becomes a real issue. We need to act now,” Albus said.

“How does this work, the two of them suddenly disappearing?” Remus asked.

“I’ve been given compassionate leave from Gringotts. Once Lucius left my office I told the goblins I had a family emergency and needed some time away. They have granted me an indefinite absence, paid leave,” Bill said calmly. “I’m free for the foreseeable future.”

“What about you, Charlie? How are you going to explain your absence?” Remus asked.

“I quit,” Charlie replied smoothly, though his hands trembled still. The other men gaped at him but Molly’s eyes remained fixed on the wood of the table. “I was growing tired of dragon taming anyway. It was a high risk job for lousy pay which meant that I was too far away from home for too long. Nah, not for me anymore, I think. Maybe I’ll turn my hand to writing research books on dragons or something. I don’t actually know yet, but I’ve got some money put away. It’ll last me until I get myself sorted.”

Remus had to admire the younger men, they had acted immediately. In fact, they had acted a little too fast, a little too smooth. “This was planned, wasn’t it?”

“During the war, when he came back, we put our plans in place. According to You-Know-Who, we were the biggest blood traitors out there. We were likely targets. We needed a way to be able to be where we were needed when the time came. I guess forward thinking finally came in handy,” Bill said with a wry smile.

“So, what do we all do now, Albus? Who else is he likely to target?” Charlie asked.

“Assuming he is going by who Harry is closest to, the rest of the Weasley brood is a likely assumption. Seeing as he was removed from the board of Governors at Hogwarts when his Death Eater activities were revealed, and Draco is no longer at the school, we can rest assured that Ron and Ginny are safe, though we should implement a quick escape plan for them. We may need to remove them from the school at a moments notice. I will ask Minerva to keep a close eye on them,” Albus rationalised. “The next likely target is Hermione. I will include her in our escape plan for the other two. Percy is unlikely to be a target, Lucius is aware of the familial rift, I’m sure of it, but I will owl him to be wary of Lucius. I will word it so it seems that these are completely unfounded accusations. I shall also visit Fred and George in Diagon Alley, warn them of Lucius. I will be discreet and keep them unaware of Harry’s return.”

“Thank you, Albus,” Molly said.

Her voice was shaky and Remus could understand exactly how she felt. To feel that your child was in danger was one of the worst things he had memory of experiencing. Molly had several children, her worry must have been at a fever pitch.

“What about Harry? Is he safe where he is?” she asked.

“Perfectly. Severus is more than capable of handling anything Lucius could throw at him. He has already begun to put together their escape route, should it come to it. He has been preparing for the worst since Harry was liberated. Harry is in very capable hands.”

“We know that, we witnessed it today. Severus is taking very good care of our boy, isn’t he, Siri?” Remus interjected.

“Snape seems to be doing his job well. Harry is fine where he is,” Sirius admitted. He and Remus were perfectly safe, having left the Fidelius charm on 12 Grimmauld Place intact with Albus still the Secret Keeper. They had originally meant to remove it but had let it fall down their to-do lists; they were thankful for that fact. Harry and Severus could move in with them if they needed.

“What happens when Lucius discovers who it is that Harry is with?” Bill asked.

“Then it will only be a matter of time before he gets inside Spinners End,” Albus said sadly. “While Lucius is still in his current state I see no reason to move the three of them to a safer location. However, if Lucius starts to become a bigger issue then we may be forced to.”

“Let’s cross that bridge if and when we come to it,” Remus said quietly. “Harry doesn’t need a new reason to panic, he has enough of them already.”

Silence ruled the room as the guests gazed at him curiously. Remus felt Sirius’ hand slip into his own under the table, his skin smooth and warm, reassuring.

“What about the girl?” Sirius asked, distracting them all from Remus‘ statement.

“Which girl are you referring to?” Albus asked, his blue eyes betraying his relief at the change of subject.

“Snape’s sister, the aggy thingy one.”

“Ah, Solarin.”

Remus saw Bill’s attention focus on Albus. The younger man had been looking at his mother, his attention only barely on the conversation. The curse breaker suddenly looked stunned.

“Solarin Prince?” Bill asked, a sudden light in his eyes.

“Yes, though she goes as Solarin Snape now,” Albus replied. “You were at Hogwarts at the same time, were you not?”

“I was the year above. She was a Slytherin.” The redhead paused, obviously selecting his words carefully. “We were friends, despite the difference in Houses.”

“I remember her now. She came to visit you at the Burrow one afternoon, the summer before your sixth year. I knew I’d met her before,” Arthur interjected.

“Yes. Everyone called her Solly. Solly Prince. We lost contact just after Hogwarts. She’s related to Snape?”

“His baby sister,” Remus supplied and, to the surprise of all, Bill began to laugh. It took a few moments for the wizard to compose himself, though his smile lingered.

“No wonder. I should have guessed. Now I come to think of it, she did look like him. Those dark eyes, that dark hair. She was always getting amazing grades in Potions. None of us could figure out how she was so good at the damn subject. Makes perfect sense now, with him for a brother,” Bill explained, all the other wizards breaking into smiles. Molly even managed a weak grin. “Is she in danger?”

“Not to my knowledge. However, if Lucius turns his attentions to Severus as the one hiding Harry then we should consider moving her to a safer location,” Albus mused.

“Where is she now?”

“Muggle London. She has lived there since she was eighteen.”

“She left the Wizarding World?” Bill asked, but Remus noticed he displayed only a light interest in the answer. Maybe Bill knew more of this particular witch than he was letting on. He took the decision to leave it be for the time being.

“Yes, though no one quite knows why. It is of no matter. She is a powerful enough witch to take on Lucius,” Albus replied, his tone light.

“But Bill’s a curse breaker. If Lucius beat him in a fight then what makes you think Solarin will fare any better?” Remus asked. Severus was helping his son, the least they could do was to protect the mans sister. Merlin, Harry had even smiled at them all today, though he had no idea for the reason behind the dreamy grin. Severus deserved their utmost admiration and respect.

“Solarin has her own defences,” Bill supplied. Remus felt Sirius shudder next to him.

“Still, one of us should check in on her, let her know what’s happened so that she can be prepared,” Remus suggested.

“Agreed. Solarin will need to be on her guard. Lucius knows who she is, he could assume that she is helping us in Harry’s recovery. He could seek her out and attempt to force some information out of her. She should be warned,” Albus approved.

“Me and Remus can go,” Sirius supplied and Remus watched the glimmer of disappointment that flickered across Bill’s face. Something was missing in this scene. Something else was going on. Bill was definitely hiding something.

“That seems reasonable. I shall talk to Severus tomorrow, appraise him of the situation. He will probably know where Solarin is, Muggle London is, after all, a very big place for her to hide in.” Albus momentarily looked his age. It only lasted a moment before his twinkle was back in place. “So, how is Harry?”

Remus allowed himself a smile. “He’s not so jumpy, though he did have his moments still. He really seems to be doing well. He even smiled today.”

“Really?” Molly asked, her attention finally fixed on the conversation. Charlie moved from the table to fix everyone drinks and replenish his own alcohol. “That’s a good sign, right?”

“It was certainly encouraging. Snape seems to be getting somewhere with him. His hug was a little tighter than the one at the end of last visit, and positively rib crunching compared to the first,” Sirius joked. He glanced at Remus, his uncertainty clear in his blue eyes. Remus decided to take pity on his husband. Sirius still wasn’t as good at social situations as he was before his imprisonment, and delivering potentially bad news was a tricky area for the Pureblood.

“We have some news for you all,” Remus began, feeling under the spotlight when all attentions fell on him. There were suddenly five pairs of eyes fixed on him and it made him nervous. No, he told Harry they would tell them all for him. He was going to say it, whether he wanted to or not.

Remus cleared his throat. “Harry returned to us in a rather more…delicate condition than we had originally thought. During our first visit he told us that he is pregnant.”

He tried not to laugh as even Albus’ jaw dropped. He could feel Sirius shake in silent hidden laughter beside him and that just made it harder to keep a straight face.

“That’s new,” Bill deadpanned and Remus suddenly saw the influence the Snape girl had weaved on him in his youth. This was getting more and more intriguing, and Remus just itched to try and solve the puzzle.

“Indeed,” Albus said. Remus bit the inside of his cheek at the shock on the old wizards face. It occurred to him that he had never seen this reaction in the man before and he felt slightly chuffed to have caused it.

“Well…uhh…” Arthur tried. Charlie didn’t look like he could even form a thought, let alone a coherent sentence. He had stopped dead in his preparation of drinks, water overflowing from the glass he was still continually pouring into from his wand, the clear liquid trickling off the draining board and into the sink.

“That’s an interesting development. Has he given thought to what he wants to do about it?” Molly asked. Remus found he wasn’t surprised that she was the first to regain her cool. Having so many children made her virtually unshakable, especially with Fred and George around.

“Yes, he made a decision and told us of it today. He has chosen to keep the child.” He watched as Arthur made a move to protest but interrupted him. “Listen, it has taken a lot for Harry to reach this decision, and we may not like that he is carrying the son of a Death Eater and rapist but it is his decision. As far as I’m concerned, it’s Harry’s child, no one else, and that is what matters. He is made his decision and I’m with him all the way.”

Only Sirius’ thumb stroking across the back of his hand kept him from completely losing it at the man. The full moon was only a week away, making him cranky and irritable all of a sudden.

“If you can’t accept our sons decision then I ask that you please leave and don‘t come back until you can. Harry is finally healing, I can finally see something of the boy he used to be. I won’t have anyone ruin that, not after he worked so hard for it. We won’t let you cause him to fill with doubt again because you can’t accept this,” Sirius continued.

The conversation ground to a halt at that moment, Arthur clearly wanting to argue back but Albus and Molly both shot him quelling looks and he kept his mouth shut. The seven inhabitants of the room looked around at each other, weighing up the options. It was Charlie who broke the silence.

“If it’s what Harry wants, so be it,” the redhead said firmly, earning a shocked look from his father.

Albus, Molly and Bill all voiced their agreement with the dragon tamer, but Albus felt it necessary to end the evening there. Molly dragged her husband through the floo, her sons following her out after muttering their apologies for their father. Albus assured the two men that he would try and reason with Arthur if he didn’t come around before he too took his leave.

Sirius and Remus stood in the kitchen, taking in the days events.

“I won’t let this be ruined by Arthur, Remus,” Sirius admitted after nearly a full hour of silence, the two of them having polished off almost a full bottle of Muggle vodka between them and now sitting unsteadily at the table.

“We won’t let him, Sirius. This is what Harry wants.”

Remus hated to admit it to himself but he kind of agreed with Arthur’s need to protest. He didn’t like the method of conception of Harry’s child, and he found the thought of Harry raising the child of a Death Eater and rapist didn’t settle well with him. But it was Harry’s choice. Maybe he would feel differently once the babe put in an appearance. He found himself briefly amused at the fact that he trusted an ex-Death Eater spy with Harry’s safety, when an ex-Death Eater had hurt him and he let out a drunken giggle, despite the topic of conversation. Sirius didn’t seem to notice the laugh.

“And we’re going to give him everything he wants,” Sirius said, waving the bottle at him, his voice slightly slurred.

“Maybe not everything, Siri. Everything within reason sounds better.”

Sirius snorted at him. “You have a point there,” he said, pointing the bottle at Remus. The Animagus sighed. “I still don’t like Snape around him.”

Remus smirked. Sirius really did never change. He hadn’t liked Severus around Remus when they were in school either. “I know. But I must say that you handled yourself beautifully today. I think Harry really believed your act,” Remus encouraged. Maybe if Sirius spent enough time pretending to like Severus he would find it to be true. Well, as true as could be possible between the two of them.

“I did it for Harry’s sake. And I can’t say that I’m thrilled about this theory of yours.”

No, of course Sirius wouldn’t be. But it was better than the alternative, wasn’t it? “I know you’re not, but think about it, Sirius. Harry trusts Severus. He is doing more than using him as an anchor now. Think about it. Our options are limited. If Harry doesn’t allow himself to be claimed he will have to hide for the next three years. And if he’s claimed he can enter into a marriage, ensuring his safety. Consider it, Sirius. Harry being free from constant threat of rape.”

“And you trust Snape not to rape him?” Sirius asked honestly.

“Yes, I do. I don’t think Severus has ever been like this, not to my recollection anyway. It’s as if he’s a completely different person. I trust him with Harry. That’s all I need right now. Thinking too deep into it only leads me to want to do some painful things to Lucius Malfoy.” Sirius smirked, raising his glass in salute of that plan. Remus took a deep breath. “Sirius, I don’t much like the idea of Harry having to be claimed, of him having to put himself through that just to be safe, but I like it a damn sight more than leaving him under the control of Malfoy. And if he must be claimed, it must be someone of his choice. He will chose Severus to claim him, I’m sure of it. Better to start accepting now. It’ll make it easier.”

There was a long silence between the two, Remus watching with an air of indifference as Sirius’ face betrayed his thoughts. Sirius was easy enough to handle, if you knew how. Remus had years of experience under his belt, giving him an advantage over the easily manipulated ex-Gryffindor.

“Doesn’t mean I have to like it,” Sirius grumbled, polishing off the last of the vodka.

“No, it doesn’t. It just means that you have to accept that Harry is a big boy now…kind of.” He frowned at himself. Maybe the vodka was getting to him. “Anyway, he is old enough to make his own decisions about this.”

“When did you become the rational parent?”

“About the time you became the possessive one.”

“Oi! You cheeky beggar! I am not possessive!” Sirius half yelled, but he was grinning as he replied.

“Are too. You are the possessive one. And I love you for it,” Remus argued back, his own smile wide as he got to his feet, a little unsteady.

“Good. You know, I think it’s about time for bed. I’m knackered.”

“What a good suggestion,” Remus replied, pulling Sirius to his feet and claiming his lips.

They moved to the bedroom and ended up laughing at each other as they struggled to strip down, the alcohol affecting them more than they had first thought it had. They finally giggled their way into bed, laying facing each other.

“You know, I think young Bill has a few secrets,” Remus said.

“What about?” Sirius said distractedly, running his fingers over the bite mark scar on Remus’ arm that marked him as a werewolf.

“Solarin. He knows more than he’s letting on. He was barely interested in her living in the Muggle World. It was as if he already knew. And he was disappointed when you suggested we be the ones to go and talk to her.”

“Is this one of those times where you tell me I should have kept my big mouth shut?” Sirius asked jokingly.

Remus pushed against his shoulder, allowing his inebriation to take over momentarily and make him laugh at Sirius’ childish tone. “No, not this time. I’m just saying that I think something went on between the two of them. Albus said they were at Hogwarts together, and Bill admitted they were friends, though he took his time deciding to call their relationship friendly. Maybe they were more than that.”

“Have you found yourself another project to attack, my little bookworm?” Sirius said with a sly sort of smile.

“Oh shut it. You wouldn’t like me half as much if I wasn’t so into my puzzles and my books,” Remus said defensively.

“Good point, love. I wouldn’t. I like you just the way you are,” Sirius said, letting his fingers wander, Remus arching immediately under his touch, his own need growing too fast for him to stop it.

They let themselves give into their drunken need, Sirius giving up the battle and letting his wolf play alpha and dominate him. Remus knew that Sirius would never admit it, but he liked it when he was like this, all half crazed and animalistic just before the moon took her sway.

When it was over, when they had cast cleaning charms and some of their intoxication had worn off, Sirius kissed Remus’ sweat slicked shoulder, claiming his attention for one more point to discuss before sleep claimed them.

“That was weird with Draco, wasn’t it? The way he doesn’t like being touched, it is odd right? It’s not just me?” Sirius asked.

“It is odd, love, and I don’t think it’s just you. But I’m sure Severus can handle it. Stop worrying and go to sleep. We’re going shopping tomorrow,” Remus replied sleepily. He lay there waiting for his words to sink in.

Three…two…one…

“Shopping? What for?” Sirius asked, his voice suddenly worried.

“Baby things for Harry.”

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

Charlie watched as his mother slammed her fists down on the table, his father shrinking into his chair in fear. They had been hashing this out for hours, his father refusing to relent.

“You will not interfere, Arthur!” Molly yelled.

“How can they let this happen, Molly? How can they let Harry subject himself to that?” Arthur countered.

“Dad,” Charlie intervened, finally taking pity on his father, feeling his own fatigue but wanting to watch the fireworks still. “Put Ginny in Harry’s place.” His father paled slightly, his eyes narrowing. “Would you really force Ginny to give up a child? Would you really force her into anything if she had been through what Harry has suffered?”

His father seemed to deflate. “It’s wrong. He’s just a child,” Arthur reasoned. “He’s too young to understand what a responsibility being a parent is. He’s too young to have to deal with this. Why should he, if he doesn’t have to?”

“He is not a child anymore, Arthur,” his mother cut in, her voice softer. She sat down heavily opposite her husband, taking his hands in her own. Charlie knew his mother wanted to treat Harry like he was eleven years old still, and he was impressed by her calm measured handling of the situation. ‘Must be experiences of us shocking her’ he thought.

“He is sixteen and has been through more than any of us could ever begin to understand. I appreciate your upset at Ron and Hermione being careless, getting themselves into the responsibility of parenthood but Harry wasn’t careless. He did not choose this, dear, but he is choosing his path now. No one has forced him into keeping the child, he has reached this decision on his own. He is not a child, Arthur. He stopped being one the moment that man forced himself on him,” Molly said firmly.

Arthur looked around the room and he seemed to Charlie to appear unexpectedly older than he had ever thought his father could look.

“I will respect Harry’s decision. I don’t agree with it and I don’t like it but I will go along with it. You are right, this is his choice and it would be wrong of any of us to force him to do anything. Damn what Malfoy says, we’re better than that bigot Pureblood,” Arthur said wearily, the closest Charlie had ever heard his father come to snapping over Lucius‘ comments about their purity.

The night drew to a close and Charlie found himself sharing with Bill in the twins old room. He could have taken any of his other brothers empty rooms but he found that neither of them wanted to be alone just yet, not after what Lucius had told them.

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

Severus felt the bed dip with Harry’s slight weight, the younger man slipping into his arms. Harry had closed the door behind him as he came back from relieving his bladder, an organ Harry said the baby took sadistic delight in kicking. The room had been plunged into darkness.

“Severus.”

“Yes, Harry?”

“I want you to touch me.”

Severus froze momentarily, his cock twitching minutely. He took a deep breath, gaining restraint over his self-neglected libido. “Excuse me?” he said gently.

“I want you to touch me.”

“Harry, I know you said you wanted me to claim you this afternoon but there is no rush, love. We’re taking this at a pace you can handle.”

He heard Harry chuckle. “I know that. I just want…I want to know what I’m okay with at the moment. I want to know how far I can go.”

“Ah, I see. I understand now.” He paused. “So, what would you have me do?”

“Can we light the lamp? I want to see you. I don’t want anything in the dark,” Harry replied after a moments thought. Severus got the impression that Harry had not expected him to agree so easily. Severus rolled away from the adolescent figure and flicked on the bedside lamp, the dim bulb bathing the room in a faint warm orange glow.

“You lead the way, Harry,” Severus encouraged softly, looking at the thin face bathed in the warm light. There was no trace of panic in the impossibly young face but Severus knew all too well that, with Harry, it could all change in an instant. Harry’s eyes raked his body.

“I want to see you,” Harry whispered.

Severus sat up, pulling Harry with him and arranging them so Harry was sat facing him, the two of them cross-legged. He slowly unbuttoned the fastenings at his throat and wrists, pulling off the worn nightshirt. He dropped it to the floor, his attention focussed on Harry. He decided that, for now, it would be best to leave his black silk boxers in place.

Harry’s hands moved from his own knees to Severus’, letting them travel slowly up the older mans thighs, the small hands shaking slightly. Severus put the small tremors down to nerves and decided to ignore them unless they got worse.

Harry’s touch was ghost-like and he felt himself respond accordingly, his blood rushing south.

Harry looked at the slim man, the flesh now bared for him. His body was different to Lucius’, more lean, more lithe strength than actual muscle. He let his hands travel up the supple thighs, feeling the dark hair beneath his fingers. He knew his hands were trembling but he wasn’t quite sure why. He supposed it must just be because he was testing his boundaries as he found he wasn‘t really all that nervous, his trust in Severus taking over.

He pulled his hands back down, letting them travel to the larger hands of his companion. The mans fingertips were surprisingly smooth, not calloused like he had always thought they would be after years of working with hot cauldrons. The supple feel of the hands still surprised him after all the times they had touched him. He let his fingers trail up and trace the faded Dark Mark on his forearm, watching the man, observing him for any sign that this area was off limits. Apparently, no area was and the idea that this man would just sit there and let him explore all of him filled him with a new confidence.

He slid his hands higher, resting them on the strong shoulders and pulling the man forward into a kiss, feeling the safe hands come to rest lightly on his ribs. A new area he deemed safe as of that moment.

He broke the kiss and looked at the man, reaching for his pyjama top. He unbuttoned it, slipping it off and letting it join Severus’ nightshirt, ignoring his urge to cover himself. He silently reminded himself that Severus had seen all there was to see of him. Severus was not disgusted. Severus wanted him.

“I want you to touch me,” Harry whispered once more. He felt Severus’ hands travel along his arms, felt them rest on his shoulders. Harry nodded at him and the hands continued, sweeping across his collarbone, down across his nipple in a feathery caress.

“You are so beautiful,” Severus whispered, his hands now resting on his distended abdomen. He reached for them and pulled them back up, settling them on his chest. He pulled Severus forwards once more, kissing him gently.

“I want you to show me how good it can be, how good being touched by another is supposed to feel,” Harry asked, his voice strong.

“Harry, if you feel like this is too much, if you begin to panic and can’t continue, tell me. I promise you I will stop. We will only go as far as you want, you are in control here,” Severus advised, his tone gentle and reassuring, his hands motionless on his chest.

“I’ll tell you. Please, show me.”

Severus moved his hands to Harry’s hips, pulling the young man to him, settling him on his lap. Harry wrapped his legs around the older wizard, the two of them still. Harry become conscious of his lack of panic, that he felt safe and cherished in the slim strong arms.

“I’m okay,” Harry whispered.

He felt Severus trail his fingers along his spine as he kissed him, Harry making it go deeper, experiencing the first feelings of true desire rise in him, slowly. He wrapped his arms loosely around Severus’ neck, needing to touch the man. He threaded his fingers in the dark hair, the glossy strands tickling his fingers. Severus had washed his hair recently. His hair felt like silk.

“I love you,” Severus murmured, one hand coming to rest on the small of Harry’s back, the other moving to his front to stroke the sensitive skin of his chest. Harry gasped at the alien sensation running through him from such a small touch.

“I love you.”

Severus’ fingertips found his nipple, stroking lightly, the new sensation of pleasure continuing to course through Harry’s body, making a quiet moan tumble from his lips, falling onto his lovers. He felt something new: the blood rushing to his cock. It wasn’t much but it was definitely there. It felt different to when it had happened by accident.

“Severus, more, please.”

He felt the older mans surprise at his plea and kissed him in encouragement. Severus rolled his nipple between his fingertips in response. Harry’s expected panic seemed to have packed its bags and disappeared for the night. This felt right, so right. To have Severus touching him like this had Harry puzzled. ‘Why would you get something like this wrong when it feels so good done right?’ Harry thought as Severus afforded the other nipple the same treatment, their kisses becoming a little wilder.

Harry suddenly stiffened at the feel of something pressing against his thigh. He shrank back, not quite panicked but certainly apprehensive. “Stop,” he said, needing more air than he could take in.

Severus stopped touching him, lifted him out of his lap and to the mattress, let his hands land on Harry’s safe area of his legs.

Harry knew he was shaking outright now, but he couldn’t quite figure out why. He wasn’t quite scared, more nervous. Then he figured it out. He hadn’t seen all of Severus, hadn’t seen what was beneath that black silk.

“Are you all right?” Severus asked him quietly.

Harry smiled a little. He had stopped, no hesitation at all to pull back. Severus always kept his promises.

“I just had a wobbly moment.”

“Perfectly all right. If you want us to stop for the night we can.”

“No, that’s not what I want.”

“We can stop for a few moments,” Severus offered.

“No, I don’t want to stop at all. Severus, I want to see all of you,” Harry said, his hands going forward to stroke the waistband.

Severus looked at him in surprise. “Are you sure?”

“Yes. I think that’s why I pulled away. I think I need to see it, I need to know.”

“All right.”

Harry watched as Severus left the bed, standing before him, bathed in the ginger light. He looked at Harry, waiting until he nodded before pulling down the boxers, leaving them in a pile on the floor as he rejoined Harry. He permitted Harry to push him back so he was reclining against the headboard, giving Harry a clear view of ‘all’ of him.

Harry looked at the man and saw immediately how he was different.

“Why don’t I have any hair, like you do?” Harry asked, toying with Severus’ chest hair. His eyes skimmed over the hair on his legs, under his arms, between his thighs. He let his stare land on the light stubble on Severus’ jaw. He didn’t shave like Severus had to, no hair grew on his face. In fact, all he had was a light scatter on his thighs and between them. It seemed a little unfair to him.

“I think it is just the way you are. It doesn’t really matter, it’s a part of what makes you what you are,” Severus replied reassuringly and Harry nodded.

‘How does he do that?’ Harry thought. ‘How does he always know the right thing to say?’

Harry let his eyes land on the mans nether regions and swallowed. It was slimmer than Lucius’. Somehow this made it less threatening, its smaller girth. He reached his hand forwards but pulled it back. He looked up at Severus, finding those black eyes watching him patiently.

“Can I touch you?” Harry asked.

“If you want to,” came the quiet reply, the voice calm and reassuring, conveying to Harry that it was fine if he didn’t.

Harry’s eyes landed on the mans half hard member. He laid his hand on his thigh, taking it slow. He moved to a kneeling position beside the mans slim hips. He let his hand slide up slowly, let his fingertips brush it. It twitched and he pulled his hand back, looking to the dark gaze for reassurance.

“The twitch is a sign that I like your touch,” Severus explained, laying his hand on Harry’s back to restore confidence in him.

Harry landed his hand on the mans chest, directly above his heart. “Am I in here?” he whispered, his green eyes locked with black.

“You have my heart. It is all yours, all of it. You are in here,” Severus replied, settling his free hand over Harry’s briefly before laying it at his side.

Harry let his hand slide down, feeling the warm skin beneath his fingers, the trail of coarse hair starting from the mans navel. He slowly let his hand rest on top of the organ, feeling Severus stiffen slightly at the contact.

“Does it feel good?” Harry asked, genuinely curious.

“Yes. Has it never felt good for you?” Severus replied.

“No. I never knew how to…to…” Harry struggled to find the word.

“Please yourself?”

“Yes. I never quite figured out how to do that. I guess it came from my opinion of my own bits.”

“And now?”

“I wonder if it could feel as good for me as it does for you, if you could carry on what you did to me last night,” Harry murmured, letting his fingers wrap around it, smirking slightly as Severus worked hard to suppress his moan. The penis in his hand seemed to become harder. He didn’t think his had ever done that. He had gotten hard but he had never found any gratification from it, it was simply something that happened every now and again. Though there was the reaction Severus’ touch had caused in him those times he had devoted himself to sweeping touches over his skin. ‘Is he feeling something like that?’ Harry wondered. Severus’ hand slipped from his back to rest on his hip, the grip the slightest bit tighter than usual but still light. If it really did feel that good then he was amazed at Severus’ control. He released the penis and let his fingers trail over the sac, cupping it and marvelling at the velvety sensation. Severus had bunched up the sheet in his free hand but the one on Harry’s hip was still light, and his face was calm. Harry let go of the pouch and rested his hand on Severus’ stomach.

“Do you enjoy it, my touching you?” Harry asked.

“Very much so. I find your touch to be very enjoyable,” Severus replied, his voice possessing the slightest quiver.

“Can you show me how to do it?”

“Do what?” Severus breathed, obviously fighting for control.

“Make it feel good. Can you make me enjoy it?”

“Are you sure that is what you want?”

“Yes.”

“Would you like me to pleasure you with my mouth or my hands?” Severus asked, watching Harry’s face as he considered it. Personally, he wanted to pleasure him with his mouth, wanted to taste him, but tonight was about Harry’s wants.

“Your hands.”

Severus sat up and pulled him in for a gentle kiss, slowly laying Harry down on his side. His fingers skittered over Harry’s skin, sweeping away any thought with his touch, making Harry’s mind switch off with the sensations. It was what he needed, to forget, to lose himself. Severus’ fingers teased his nipples again, Harry moaning into the deepening kisses, Severus coaxing him into his mouth with his tongue. The fingers slipped down and Severus toyed with the elastic waist of his pyjama bottoms.

“Yes,” Harry breathed between kisses. Severus left his lips to pull down the soft cotton, slipping it slowly off of his legs and dropping it with their other clothes. Severus’ lips attached themselves to his neck, nipping and kissing, as his hand landed on Harry’s thigh. Harry let himself go with the sensations, his hands on Severus’ shoulders. The older man pulled back and studied his face as his hand moved higher, sweeping it round to rest on his backside.

“Yes?” Severus asked, kissing Harry as he nodded.

Severus scooted closer and entwined them, pulling Harry’s leg up to rest on his hip, Harry’s hands coming up to lie on the mans chest. They lay there, unmoving, Severus waiting for Harry to get used to the position. Harry decided that this wasn’t a bad way to lie down and nodded. Severus kissed him, the most possessive kiss he had ever given him, and Harry found himself enjoying it thoroughly.

Severus’ hand slipped between their bodies, a lingering caress on his bump before it went down between his thighs. Harry let out a startled moan when Severus’ long nimble fingers wrapped around his cock. The hand was motionless, just a gentle pressure on his skin, but it felt good to have it there, to feel Severus touch him.

“More,” he breathed and Severus kissed him on the tip of his nose before stroking him, setting a leisurely pace.

“Oh God,” Harry moaned. “It feels good.”

Severus chuckled at the surprise in the declaration. “See? You’re not so different from the rest of us. It feels good if done right. This is how being intimate is supposed to feel,” Severus assured.

Severus found himself determined to make it feel good for Harry, determined to erase the memory of anyone else ever having touched him. Harry was his. Harry’s inexperienced touch on him had made his passions ignite but he took it slow, watching Harry constantly. He was amazed at the ease with which Harry handled this new aspect to their relationship. He listened to every sound from the soft lips, waiting for the word no, waiting for some sign that he should stop, but it didn‘t seem to be something that was likely to happen. Harry was definitely showing his acceptance with his breathy moans, those green eyes fluttering. His cock was painfully hard but he ignored it, his attention fixed on the beautiful being experiencing his first pleasures of the flesh because of him.

Harry’s lips latched onto Severus’ and he began to move his hips slightly, experimenting. He had never felt anything like these new sensations coursing through him, never felt the searing heat burn within him, never felt his nether regions were good for anything. Until now, until Severus’ hands and lips. He gasped as Severus pulled away, watching as the man fumbled in his bedside cabinet for something. The hand returned a moment later clutching a tube.

“What’s that?” Harry asked uncertainly.

“Lubricant. It will make my touch smoother, if you are all right with me using it,” Severus answered lightly, his dark eyes fixed on Harry’s face.

“Will it still feel good?”

“I use it when I pleasure myself. It will feel better than good, I promise.”

Concern flitted across Harry’s face and then his calm was back in place. Severus was honestly staggered by the trust the younger wizard had bestowed upon him and impressed by his calm. Harry nodded at him and watched as Severus squeezed some of the slick gel into his palm, manipulating it with his fingers to warm it, his other hand threaded through Harry’s hair, massaging his scalp. His hand travelled back down and he resumed his stroking once more, Harry letting out a full throaty moan at the gliding strokes.

“More. Please, Severus, I need more,” Harry pleaded, one of his petite hands sliding across his chest to grip him about the ribs. Severus’ slick fingers moved down, caressing his balls, stroking his clit and Harry arched into the touch.

Severus faltered as Harry’s hand, slick with lubricant, wrapped around his cock. ‘When did Harry take hold of the tube?’ he wondered. He moaned as Harry began to stroke him, the touch light, hesitant but gaining confidence as Severus thrust slightly into his grasp. Severus kept hold of his senses, not forgetting who he was with even though that touch was exquisitely distracting. What Harry needed was for this to go slow, for this not to spiral out of his control. He sucked Harry’s earlobe into his mouth and caressed it with his tongue, letting his fingers trail down to his vagina.

Harry stiffened at the finger poised over his entrance. He removed his hand from Severus’ member, something he had felt strangely confident about doing, and grasped at the mans arm. “Yes,” Harry whispered and tried to stay relaxed as Severus slipped a finger into him. It was so different from when Lucius had touched him there. It felt kind of good. Odd, but good. After a moment the finger slid deeper, Harry finding it felt right to have Severus touch him inside, that it felt nice. He pushed down against the finger and felt another join it. He thought he felt Severus’ fingers trembling slightly.

“Severus, I want…” Harry whispered. The fingers were withdrawn and Harry found that he missed them, missed that gentle touch. He didn’t know why but he need it. He decided not to question his desires to closely. Severus loved him, he wouldn’t hurt him. The hand came to rest on Harry’s thigh and those dark eyes were fixed upon his green ones.

“What, love? Tell me what you want, Harry,” Severus whispered to him.

“I want you. I want you to claim me.”

“Tonight?” Severus asked cautiously. “You want me to claim you now?”

“Yes. I want you to have me, have all of me tonight.”

“Are you sure?” Severus asked, his eyes kind and searching.

“Yes.” Harry paused. “I don’t know why but I’m not panicking. I want this, I want you. I feel fine, better than fine. You make me feel wonderful. Severus, I…I…”

Severus reached up and caressed Harry’s side, letting Harry take his time.

To Harry it seemed as if Severus would wait forever like this for him and it gave him the conviction to carry on.

“I never knew it could be like this. I never thought I could ever feel good like this. Thank you. Thank you so much.”

“You’re welcome. You make me feel good too.”

“I want you to claim me,” Harry repeated and gasped as Severus rolled them. Harry found himself straddling Severus, the mans gentle grip on his hips. “I get to be on top of you?” he asked in surprise.

“Yes. This way you are in complete control of how deep I go, of the pace and the strength. This way you can simply roll off of me if it gets too much for you.”

Harry admired the amount of thought the man had put into this. His hands were resting on the broad chest and he could feel his heart pounding, the only sign the man was struggling to hang on to his discipline. Harry leaned down and kissed him.

“You think of everything,” Harry said, amusement in his voice, and Severus giggled. Well, as close to a giggle as you could get from Severus Snape. “How long has it been for you, since you last did this?” He suddenly needed to know, though he wasn’t quite sure why. It was clear in his gentle seduction, his sweeping touch, that he had done this before. But how long had it been?

Severus had to actually think about it, it had been that long. “I was not long out of Hogwarts, I think. It’s been a while, more than a decade since I was last with someone. It was a brief encounter, I believe. Why do you ask?” Severus replied easily, not seeing any potential problems with sharing the information with his lover.

Harry smiled at the honesty. “Just wondering.” A unexpected unpleasant thought happened upon Harry. “Severus? Will we hurt the baby if you claim me?” Harry asked, worried about how his actions could affect his child. He wanted Severus, but not at the risk of hurting the baby.

“No. I will be gentle with you, and it will all be at your pace. We won’t hurt the baby, love, I promise,” Severus reassured, laying a gentle hand on the swell of the infant.

Harry smiled and nodded, leaning in for a gentle kiss. “Claim me,” Harry whispered against his lips.

The man reached between Harry’s thighs, his hand slick with renewed lubricant, and stroked his own organ, coating it. His hand travelled up and smeared it around Harry’s opening, slipping his fingers inside, Harry gasping at his teasing stroking of the tender flesh. Harry was wet in anticipation but he wanted this to be as smooth as possible, with very little chance of Harry feeling any pain. His gentle touching of the petite being had shown him just how tight Harry was. Severus gripped his thigh with one hand and used the other to place the tip of his penis in position, poised, waiting, before gripping the other thigh as well.

Harry let himself sink down extremely slowly, taking it easy. He came to rest in the cradle of Severus’ hips, the hands on his thighs reassuring as he hissed in discomfort. They were at a halt, and Severus seemed to be content to stay like that forever, joined but unmoving. Harry leaned his head down and leaned on the broad chest as he rode out the soreness. It didn’t hurt exactly, he just felt impossibly stretched. Harry found himself focussing on the black eyes, on the hands on his thighs, on the sensation of being filled. ‘Lube is wonderful stuff,’ Harry contemplated to himself. ‘It made that so much easier.’ After a few moments Harry sat up and moved experimentally, gasping at the jolt of pleasure that ran up his spine and caused him to move on the man in an unsteady rhythm. The grip on his thighs moved to his hips and Severus guided him, helping him find his pace.

“It doesn’t hurt,” Harry moaned in surprise, moving a little harder onto the man below him, leaning his weight on the mans shoulders to give himself more pull, gasping at the feel of the new angle within him, at how that part behind his balls rubbed against Severus.

He didn’t feel ugly or repulsive, he didn’t want to pull away in fear and shame. Right then and there, Harry felt beautiful, cherished, loved. They moved slowly for a long time and Harry let himself relax further, let Severus lead him in this lovers dance. It started to build in him, that heat, and Harry pulled Severus into a messy kiss, the older man moaning, the two of them moving faster.

Severus groaned as Harry kissed him, the kiss more demanding than anything Harry had ever shown him before. His knees came up of their own accord to give him more leverage. He began to gradually move his hips up to meet the measured thrusts on him, helping Harry to reach his peak. The pressure around his member was incredible, so hot, so tight. It felt so right to be like this, the two of them making their own world, righting the wrongs of Harry’s past with their desires. Harry was moaning deliciously at the deeper penetration, gripping at his hair, his body moving in fluid arching, breathless. ‘So beautiful,’ he thought as he brushed his fingers across one pebbled nipple, earning a pleasured cry from his lover.

“Severus…please…I need it…please…help…I don’t know…I can’t…I need!” Harry pleaded incoherently, the last word drawn out and insistent. It was the least clear Harry had ever been in his life but Severus understood.

Severus disentangled one of Harry’s hands from his hair and pulled it down, wrapping it around his cock, guiding it as he stroked himself for what Severus knew to be the very first time. Once Harry had found his own rhythm he let his fingers slide back, stroking Harry’s clit for him. His other hand reached up and toyed with his nipples, moving from one to the other, rolling them between his fingertips, caressing his breasts.

Harry felt Severus guide him in stroking his own cock before pulses of bliss screamed through him, soft fingertips on that bit of his female parts that felt so good, stimulating it again. Pleasure shot through him and his release hit him like a battering ram. He heard himself scream out and felt Severus stiffen beneath him and then there was nothing. No seeing, no hearing, just pleasure scorching through every inch of him, shocks wracking his body and strong arms pulling him down, encasing him as he rode it out, this powerful pleasure that he saw himself easily becoming addicted to.

Severus felt him stiffen, felt the warmth of Harry’s release coat his skin, Harry screaming as it hit him. He was very glad of the permanent one way silencing charm he had placed on his bedroom, for he felt sure they would have woken the world. But then all thought fled, just Harry clamping vice-like around him, forcing Severus’ own release from him. He cried out, screaming Harry’s name before surrendering to it, letting Harry’s body force his own climax along with him like a force of nature. He had never felt his orgasm hit him so hard before and he lost himself in it, filling Harry with his seed. When he regained a margin of competency he slipped from the body above him, laying the sprite down and encasing him in his own arms as Harry yielded to the last tremors of his climax. He tossed the tube of lubricant aside, switched off the light, and pulled the blankets up around them, trapping their warmth.

Harry’s next conscious thought was of being warm and safe, the blankets tucked around them as he lay in Severus’ arms, his back to the mans chest.

“Severus?” Harry asked, surprised by how raw his voice sounded.

“I’m right here, Harry. Are you all right?” Severus replied, a slight tightening of his arms, his warm breath ghosting over the skin of Harry’s shoulder.

Harry considered it. He was slightly sore down below, but he decided it was a good kind of sore. There was no panic, no fear. For the first time he felt completely and utterly free. It took him a moment to figure out why. He was free, finally and absolutely. He wasn’t Lucius’ property anymore. Was he okay? Yes, he decided he was. And incredibly sleepy all of a sudden, sleepier than he had ever felt in his life, his limbs like jelly.

“I’m okay. Are you?” Harry replied, fighting the rising tiredness.

“Better than okay.”

“This means that you own me now, doesn’t it? This means that I’m yours,” Harry asked, his tone as light as he currently didn’t feel. His sated body felt heavy and weak, the lure of sleep pulling at him.

“Yes, it does.”

“Severus?”

“Yes?” Severus replied, amused at the exhaustion in his lovers voice. He let his thumb stroke across the soft skin of the small baby bump, feeling Harry entwine their fingers.

“What Remus said about me getting married…” Harry trailed off drowsily, snuggling further into the embrace, hoping Severus would do his trick of always knowing what to say, of always knowing what Harry was on about.

“Would you like to marry me, Harry?” Severus asked, trying desperately to keep his fear and uncertainty a secret. ‘Oh Merlin, please let him say yes,’ he thought desperately.

“Yes, I want to marry you, to be yours forever.” He moaned sleepily at Severus’ smile against the skin of his shoulder. “But not right now. Maybe later. I’m tired,” he replied, letting his eyes close, enjoying the warm embrace and, strangely, their nudity and stickiness.

Harry’s tired reply elated and amused Severus. Remus’ information on what Harry being married meant had given Severus a glimmer of hope that maybe he could keep Harry, that maybe he could claim him forever. He let his mind gloss over the speed of this union with Harry, reasoning that they had gone at Harry’s pace, that it had been all Harry’s choice, he was just along for the ride. Well, mostly. That glimmer of hope had now filled him with happiness he could barely contain. He kissed the pale neck and then the shoulder before he settled himself around his lover, grinning like a madman.

“No, not right now. We’ll figure it out in the morning.”

“Love you, Severus,” Harry mumbled.

“I love you, Harry,” Severus replied, but Harry was already somewhere else, off in his dreams. He kissed the pale skin of his neck once more and settled himself, letting the pleasures of the night and his relief at his accepted proposal bring him to the same state as his fiancé.

‘Forever,’ Severus thought as he surrendered to slumber, a smile etched on his lips.

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