Chapter Text
October 1999
Harry returned from the village with groceries and a jar of chutney he had not paid for.
The chutney was an apology.
Mrs Bell had spent several increasingly uncomfortable minutes telling him about her sensible, pretty niece who worked at the ironmonger’s, liked proper books, and apparently required a husband. She had only stopped when Harry pointed out that the ring on his left hand was not a family heirloom.
Eileen had witnessed all of it, which was why Harry tried to put the chutney directly into the cupboard. She took it from his hand before he could hide it.
Harry stared at her.
“Must you?”
“Yes.” She placed the jar in the middle of the counter. “It is not going in a cupboard before Severus sees it.”
“Why?”
“Because I have earned my entertainment.”
Severus’s voice came from the living room.
“What am I supposed to see?”
Harry winced.
A moment later, Severus appeared in the kitchen doorway. His gaze moved from Eileen to Harry, then to the jar on the counter.
“What happened?”
“Nothing.”
“Mrs Bell has a niece,” Eileen said.
There was a brief silence.
“A niece,” Severus repeated.
“Yes,” Eileen said. “Sensible. Pretty. Good with ledgers. She thought Harry might appreciate quiet.”
Severus slowly turned his head towards Harry.
Harry gave him a weak smile.
“It was just awkward. She didn’t know I was married.”
Severus’s gaze dropped to Harry’s left hand.
“Yeah, she saw the ring,” Harry explained. “She thought it was something else.”
“It is not.”
“I explained that.”
“And then?”
Harry hesitated.
Eileen took the tea and soap from the bag with unnecessary patience.
“Then she gave him chutney.”
“How generous,” Severus said flatly.
Harry pressed his lips together.
Severus looked back at him.
“You find this amusing?”
“No. Eileen does.”
“Moderately,” Eileen admitted.
“There is nothing amusing,” Severus replied, “about being offered to a woman.”
“I wasn’t offered to her.”
Severus’s eyes narrowed.
“You were presented as available for consideration.”
“She was embarrassed,” Harry said, failing to stop smiling. “She wasn’t cruel.”
“How gracious of her.”
“Severus.”
“If anyone else in the village mistakes you for available, you do not allow politeness to trap you.”
Harry’s smile returned before he could stop it.
“You sound territorial.”
Severus’s face went blank in the way that meant Harry had hit something squarely. Harry leaned back against the counter.
“I don’t mind. It’s nice when you get like that.”
Eileen paused with the soap in her hand. Severus’s gaze flicked to her, then back to Harry.
The kitchen became very quiet.
Harry should have regretted it. He did not.
Severus stepped farther into the room. Harry’s stomach tightened in a way that had nothing to do with fear.
Eileen picked up the soap.
“I am pleased that the marriage is no longer purely theoretical. Kindly keep the evidence out of communal rooms.”
“Do hallways count?” Harry asked.
“Yes.”
Harry laughed, and Eileen looked between them with dry amusement that did not quite hide her fondness.
“You may continue being young and ridiculous. Only do it where I am not.”
The words were gentler than Harry expected.
“Noted,” Severus replied, very quietly.
Eileen nodded once, satisfied, and carried the onions towards the pantry.
Harry watched Severus watching her. Something passed across Severus’s face and vanished before Harry could name it. Perhaps it was only embarrassment.
Severus caught him looking.
“What?”
Harry shook his head.
“Nothing.”
“Another suspicious nothing.”
Harry smiled.
“Probably.”
Severus’s mouth tightened, but not enough to hide the answering flicker at the corner.
That evening, Harry discovered that Severus’s objection to Mrs Bell’s niece had not ended in the kitchen.
“You’re still annoyed about the niece, aren’t you?” Harry said, far too pleased with himself.
Severus, who had been doing an excellent job of ignoring Harry’s mouth against his neck, stopped pretending not to listen.
“I was correcting an error.”
“You were jealous.”
“I was correcting an error with appropriate severity.”
Harry smiled against his skin.
“Because I’m taken.”
Severus’s hand tightened at his waist, and Harry’s smile widened with exactly the wrong amount of satisfaction.
Severus lowered his head and bit him, not hard enough to hurt and not gently enough to be mistaken for anything else. Harry’s breath caught under his mouth. Severus kept his teeth there until Harry’s fingers curled in his robes.
“You enjoy being smug far too much,” Severus murmured in his ear.
Harry’s voice had lost some of its smugness.
“You enjoy shutting me up.”
“You have yet to make it easy.”
Harry laughed.
“The books said enthusiasm was important.”
Severus closed his eyes.
“Harry. If you quote instructional literature at me again while attempting to get under my robes, I shall confiscate it.”
“You’ve been threatening that for a week.”
“I have been patient for a week.”
“You like chapter four.”
Harry was flushed, shameless, and pleased enough with himself to deserve another bite.
“Chapter four,” Severus said, “has made you unbearable.”
Harry’s mouth curved.
“You haven’t been complaining.”
Harry slid lower, still smiling as if he had found an argument worth winning.
Severus looked down at him.
“Harry.”
Harry’s hands settled at his thighs.
“Yeah?”
There were several sensible objections available. Severus could not, at that moment, remember any of them.
Harry's smile turned cheeky.
Chapter four was going to be the death of him.
By morning, Harry had two new marks, Severus had lost another argument to chapter four, and Mrs Bell’s niece had proved useful after all.
20 October 1999
Two weeks later
Severus heard an owl land at the kitchen window, then Harry moving around while talking quietly to the bird. A cupboard opened, shut, and then the house went quiet. Harry came into the living room with the newspaper folded in one hand. His lips pressed tight.
Severus immediately set aside the letter he had been reading.
“What is it?”
Harry gave him the paper.
Severus read the headline.
ONE YEAR SINCE THE RESTORATION
THE THREE DEATHS OF YOU-KNOW-WHO
Under it, in smaller print:
Questions remain over the final defeat of You-Know-Who, the role of Harry Potter, and Severus Snape, the man now credited with ending him twice.
Severus read on. They wrote about Godric’s Hollow. The graveyard. The Ministry. The Restoration. Thicknesse freed from the Imperius. The Dark Mark fading. Questions about whether the Dark Lord was gone for good this time. There was nothing new. Only the anniversary had made it printable again.
Then he reached the paragraph near the end.
Old rumours have also resurfaced regarding a supposed prophecy linking Harry Potter and You-Know-Who. The existence and wording of such a prophecy remain unconfirmed. Sources close to the Ministry have declined to comment, and Potter himself has made no public statement on the subject since the attack at the Potter-Snape residence.
Severus folded the paper and set it on the table.
“They are guessing about all of it.”
Harry sat on the sofa.
“Yeah. Especially the prophecy…”
Severus tensed, and Harry looked down at the folded paper.
“So are you,” he said after a long pause. “About the rest of it, I mean. You know the beginning. I thought… maybe you should know all of it.”
Severus did not answer at once. He had no right to hear the rest of the prophecy, not after what he had done with the first half. He wanted to know anyway, and hated that he wanted it.
“That is your choice.”
“I’m choosing it,” Harry replied.
“Then I will listen.”
Harry lowered his eyes, then began.
“The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches. Born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies.”
Severus knew those words. He had known them for nearly twenty years. Hearing them in Harry’s voice made the old dread sharpen before the unknown half arrived.
“And the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not and either must die at the hand of the other, for neither can live while the other survives.”
When he finished, he sat back.
“That’s it,” Harry said. “That’s the whole thing.”
Severus remained silent. The last part was not a surprise; Dumbledore had been blunter, in the end. Harry must die by the Dark Lord’s hand.
But the prophecy had not killed Harry’s parents. Severus had helped do that when he carried the first half to the Dark Lord. He had given the Dark Lord a target, and Harry had paid for it before he was old enough to know his own name.
Yet Dumbledore would have found his own use for the full prophecy. Severus could see that now.
“No wonder Dumbledore used it as permission,” Severus said finally.
Harry gave a short, bitter laugh.
“That’s one word for it.”
“When did he tell you?”
“After Sirius died. He’d avoided me all year, and then he told me the power was love.” Harry’s mouth twisted. “I wasn’t in the mood to hear that. Later, I understood what he meant. I still hated the way he said it.”
“He had a talent for turning love into an obligation.”
“I don’t think it was only about what I was supposed to feel. It was everyone who chose to help when Voldemort thought they’d run, or give up, or look after themselves first. My mum. My dad. Ron and Hermione. Sirius.” Harry lifted his head. “And you.”
Severus did not answer.
“I’m not saying the prophecy was about you,” Harry added quietly.
“I should hope not.”
“Or that it makes everything all right.”
“I did not assume you were.”
Harry held his gaze.
“But Voldemort thought you were his. He was wrong.”
“Not at first.”
“No. Not at first. But in the end, he was wrong. That matters to me.”
Severus took a moment before answering. He wanted Harry’s words to comfort him, but he had no right to use them that way.
“If it matters to you, I will not dispute it.” Severus averted his eyes. “I do not want you to turn my part in this into something better than it was.”
“I’m not.”
“You have a habit of being generous.”
“I also have a habit of being angry,” Harry said. “I can do both.”
“Yes,” Severus said, quieter than he intended. “You can.”
Neither of them spoke for a moment.
Harry looked at the article again.
“They’ll probably keep asking for years whether he’s really gone.”
“They will.”
Harry folded the newspaper so the headline no longer showed.
Then he tilted his head, and Severus knew he was preparing to say something ghastly.
“No one would have guessed it anyway.”
“Guessed what, precisely?” Severus asked, eyes narrowing.
“The power he knows not.” Harry glanced at him. “Unexpected husband.”
Severus stared, appalled by the logic, the timing, and the joke.
Harry visibly tried to suppress his smile.
“Too soon?”
“By several centuries.”
Harry gave a quiet laugh. It faded after a moment, but he looked less tense than before, more thoughtful.
“I didn’t like that you only knew the part that sent him after us. It felt wrong. Now you know.”
Severus stopped himself from touching the paper.
“Yes,” he said. “Thank you for telling me.”
Harry’s shoulders eased a little.
“All right.”
The newspaper stayed folded on the table.
Neither of them reached for it again.
November 1999
One month later
The letter came by Muggle post, which meant Harry brought it in from the lane under his coat.
“It’s for you,” he said, holding it out to Eileen.
She took one look at the envelope and set her tea down. Severus watched her open it with a table knife. She read the first page, then the second, and then went back to the first.
“Well,” she said.
“Bad?” Harry asked.
“No.” Eileen folded the letter once. “The insurance is finally paying.”
Severus looked at the envelope and the Muggle company name printed across the top. Spinner’s End had become an assessment, a claim number, and a sum of money.
“Enough?” Harry asked.
“Enough that I have to decide what to do with it.”
Severus knew better than to ask first. Harry, unfortunately, did not.
“Will you do anything with the site? Rebuild, or sell it?”
Eileen folded the letter again, more carefully this time.
“I am not rebuilding it. That place is better left in the past. There is nothing there for me now.”
Harry hesitated.
“What about Mrs Green?”
Eileen put the letter back in its envelope.
“I rang her last month. She told me not to do it again.”
Mrs Green had been Eileen’s friend for years. Severus had not always understood the friendship, but he had known what it gave her: tea in another kitchen, ordinary conversation, someone who remembered her as more than Tobias Snape’s wife.
And Spinner’s End had burned because the Dark Lord’s followers had come for Harry and him.
“I am sorry,” Harry said.
“So am I,” Severus added.
Eileen looked between them.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake.”
Harry shut his mouth. Severus did the same.
“She was entitled to say it,” Eileen said. “People are allowed to be done with me. I did not tell you so you could sit there and compete over guilt.”
“Then why tell us?” Severus asked.
“Because I am not going back, and now I have to decide where I am going instead.”
“You mean to leave Holloway?”
“Not tomorrow,” she replied. “Not next week. But eventually, yes.”
“You don’t have to,” Harry said.
“That is precisely the point. For once, I would like to leave a house because I chose to.”
Neither of them answered.
“I have time to decide.”
Severus had not expected to want her to stay. Not permanently. But the thought of Holloway without her unsettled him more than he wanted to admit. He also knew better than to mistake his discomfort for an argument.
The money was not freedom by itself, but it gave Eileen choices she had not had before.
Severus found, uncomfortably, that he wanted her to have those choices, even if one of them took her away from Holloway.
25 December 1999
One month later
Harry had meant to make Christmas look effortless.
By eight in the morning, the living room looked as if he had been trying very hard indeed.
There was a tree by the window, slightly too large for the corner he had chosen. A box of baubles sat open on the floor. Three stockings hung from the mantel. Harry had bought them in the village before he could think better of it, and now he was trying to decide whether names stitched in gold thread made the whole thing worse.
Severus stood in the doorway in his dressing gown, studying the mantel as if it had committed a minor but deliberate crime.
“Stockings,” he said flatly. “With our names on them.”
“That is how stockings work.”
“I see.”
Severus took in the tree, the candles, the parcels, and the ribbon Harry had charmed into place three times before deciding it looked too cheerful and removing half of it.
“Did Christmas attack while I slept?”
“I wanted it to be nice,” Harry said, rolling his eyes.
“It appears to have been nice with unusual force.”
“It’s not finished.”
“That sounds like a threat.”
Harry turned back to the mantel before Severus could see his smile.
Last Christmas, there had been no tree. No stockings. No argument about ribbon. Instead, Eileen and Harry had been in the bunker, and Severus had been in a Ministry cell.
From the hall came the sound of Eileen’s bedroom door opening. A moment later, she entered with her hair pinned badly and her cardigan buttoned unevenly. She stopped at the sight of the room.
Harry braced himself as she took in the tree, the mantel and the stockings.
“Did you buy the village out of Christmas?”
Severus’s mouth tightened in satisfaction.
Harry pointed at him.
“Do not look pleased.”
“I am merely relieved another witness has arrived.”
Eileen came further in. Her eyes passed over the stockings again, slower this time. Harry had put hers in the middle without thinking. Or perhaps he had thought too much and then pretended he had not. She read her name. For once, she did not immediately comment.
“I can take them down—” Harry began.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she cut in. “You have clearly spent money on them.”
“That’s your objection?”
“My objections are numerous. Expense is only the easiest to prove.”
Harry hung a bauble on the tree, then adjusted it when it slid too low.
Eileen watched him.
“You need not make up for last year in one morning.”
Harry’s hand paused.
“I wanted it to feel different.”
“It does.” Eileen's tone remained dry, but not unkind. “There is a tree blocking half the window. That is certainly different.”
Severus made a low, amused sound.
Harry looked back at the mantel.
“I just wanted us all here.”
Eileen sat in the armchair with more care than usual.
“We are.”
“For now,” Harry said, then wished he had not.
Eileen’s search for a house had become difficult to ignore. She had spent the past fortnight studying notices in the village shop. Last week, when Harry had tried to ask whether she wanted somewhere close, Eileen had said she preferred close enough for supper and far enough that she no longer had to discover Harry’s marriage occurring in corridors.
Harry had gone red. Severus had gone silent. Eileen had looked pleased with both results.
Now she gave him a dry look.
“I am not leaving this week either. And when I do, I will still be within reach of your overdecorated tree.” Eileen turned her attention to Severus. “Do not look so solemn. You will gain privacy.”
“I had not complained.”
“Your eyebrows did.”
Harry choked on a laugh.
Severus gave him a narrow look.
“You have forfeited my support.”
“I had your support?”
“No.”
Eileen reached for the nearest parcel and turned the label towards herself.
“You are meant to wait until after breakfast,” Harry said.
“That is an invented rule.”
“It’s not.”
Eileen weighed the parcel in one hand.
“This is a book.”
“No, it’s not.”
She gave him a pitying look.
“It is shaped like a book, Harry.”
Severus leaned back in his chair.
“He wrapped mine so badly I could identify the bottle by silhouette.”
“I hate both of you,” Harry said.
“No,” Eileen said, setting the parcel carefully beside her. “You don’t.”
Harry’s attention returned to the stockings. Three names, ridiculous and bright against the mantel.
No bunker. No custody cell. No one missing from the room. Only a tree too large for the room, mince pies enough for a minor siege, and Eileen pretending not to stare at the stitched letters of her name.
Severus followed Harry’s gaze.
After a moment, he said:
“The ribbon on the left is uneven.”
Harry threw a bauble at him.
Severus caught it.
Eileen sighed.
“And this is why I want my own house.”
But she stayed in the armchair, and when Harry handed her tea, she took it without saying anything about leaving.
Late December 1999
Three days later
Harry came back from the Burrow through the Floo with soot on his sleeve and a basket from Molly hooked over one arm.
Severus was in the living room, reading beside the fire.
“You have been provisioned again,” he said without looking up.
“Mince pies and stew.”
Severus turned a page.
“For how many households?”
“Only this one.”
“Uncharacteristic restraint.”
Harry set the basket near the doorway so he could take it to the kitchen later. He meant to say something about Molly sending enough food to survive a siege, or Ron trying to steal half the mince pies before she packed them.
Instead, he stood there too long.
Severus lifted his eyes from the book.
Harry crossed the room before Severus could ask. Severus shifted without comment, making room beside him, and Harry sat close enough to lean in and kiss the corner of his mouth.
Severus accepted it. His gaze stayed on Harry’s face afterwards.
“What is it?”
“Fleur’s pregnant.”
“I see.”
Harry huffed.
“That’s all?”
“I am deciding whether there is a required response.”
“You could try saying it’s good news.”
“It is good news.”
“You sound as if you’re reading from a card.”
“I have never owned such a card.” Severus returned his attention to the book. “I assume Molly Weasley survived the announcement.”
“She cried a lot.”
“Then barely.”
Harry leaned against him, shoulder to shoulder first, then more fully, settling into the space Severus had made for him. The fire was warm on his face. The Burrow’s noise seemed to have followed him home: Molly’s voice, chairs scraping, Ginny laughing, Ron being told not to say whatever he had clearly been about to say.
Bill had looked frightened and pleased. Fleur had looked pleased too, but in a calmer way.
Harry was happy for them. Something else had come with it. He did not know what to call that part.
Severus turned another page. After a moment, his hand settled in Harry’s hair, fingers combing once through the mess at the back of his head.
“Infants,” Severus said, “are loud, fragile, damp, and unreasonable.”
Harry’s mouth twitched against his shoulder.
“That your professional opinion?”
“My charitable one.”
“Good thing it’s Bill and Fleur’s baby, then.”
“Indeed.”
Harry closed his eyes.
He should have left it there. He did leave it there, at least aloud.
But he kept thinking of the Burrow after Fleur said it. How the room had changed. Molly had started talking about blankets. Arthur had asked if they needed anything done to the cottage. Ginny had wanted to know whether Fleur felt sick. Ron had gone pink because Hermione had kicked him for being Ron.
There was no baby yet. Not in the room, not in anyone’s arms. Still, everyone had begun making plans around it.
Harry opened his eyes and watched the fire.
Severus’s fingers moved slowly through his hair again, absent and steady.
Harry did not say that the thought had followed him home. He did not say that, for one strange moment at the Burrow, he had wondered what it would be like if he and Severus ever had news of their own.
It was not a wish, not properly.
It was only a thought he had not expected to have.
“Are you falling asleep?” Severus asked.
“No.”
“Liar.”
Harry smiled.
“Maybe.”
“The stew will need putting away.”
“In a minute.”
“That is not a unit of time in which you have ever shown discipline.”
Harry pressed his face more comfortably against Severus’s shoulder.
“You do it, then.”
“I am under house arrest, not domestic command.”
“Shame.”
Severus made a soft, disapproving sound and turned another page.
Harry listened to the fire, to the rustle of the paper, to Severus breathing beside him.
He left the thought alone.
25 January 2000
One month later
Rowley and his entourage left at half past four.
The dining room still looked like a hearing room. A stack of Ministry forms sat on the table. Four cups of tea had gone untouched. Clarke’s quill had left a smear of ink near the edge of the table, and one of the Council representatives had stacked his papers so neatly that the room looked less like a home than an office.
Harry hated how quickly the house could be made to feel like it belonged to someone else.
“Well,” Eileen said as she stood from her chair. “That was ghastly.”
“It was a judicial review,” Severus said. “Ghastliness was implied.”
“I object to strangers sitting at my table and rating your behaviour.”
“Their house, according to the terms.”
“Don’t,” Harry said.
Severus’s mouth closed.
Clarke had said it was a good result. Harry believed her. He still hated that a good result meant being grateful for less intrusion, not none. Two check-ins a week. Broader brewing permissions.
Harry could still hear the questions. Confirming the visitor logs. Reviewing the brewing records. Asking Harry, again, whether he remained at Holloway voluntarily. Asking Eileen when she intended to leave the household. Asking Severus whether he understood that the reduced checks could be revoked.
Harry stayed beside him.
“It’s not much, but it’s still better than yesterday.”
Severus looked away.
“It is a reduction in inconvenience.”
“It still counts,” Harry insisted.
Eileen moved to the tea tray and began collecting the untouched cups.
“It matters because two Ministry visits a week are less irritating than three.”
Severus said nothing.
“And because,” Eileen continued, “if you pretend you are not pleased about the brewing, I shall pour this tea into your cauldron.”
“That would be an act of vandalism.”
“It would be a correction,” Eileen shot back before leaving with the cups to the kitchen.
Harry laughed, brief and startled. Severus finally sat back down.
One year. A whole year since the sentence had begun. A year of reports, schedules, approved visitors, approved brewing, approved movement, approved everything.
Two weeks earlier, Severus had turned forty and treated the event as an administrative error. Eileen had marked it with a nice dinner, Severus with a warning that no one was to make speeches, and Harry with an enthusiastic demonstration of Chapter Six.
Today felt more like the real marker: one year of the sentence survived, three still ahead.
Harry moved behind Severus’s chair and rested his hands on his shoulders. Severus did not reach up, but he leaned back into the contact. Under his hands, some of the tension left him. Harry bent and pressed his mouth to Severus’s hair.
“You’re allowed to be glad about it,” he murmured.
Severus was quiet for a moment.
“They did not give much back.”
“No,” Harry said. “But they gave something.”
“It is not enough. It should not require gratitude.”
“Then don’t call it gratitude.”
Harry’s hands tightened gently on his shoulders.
Severus covered one of Harry’s hands with his own.
February 2000
One week later
Eileen’s new house was smaller than Harry had expected.
It sat near the edge of the village, behind a low gate that stuck halfway unless lifted first. Harry had already decided to come back with tools. There was a narrow front room, a kitchen with yellowing cupboards, one bedroom, and a back garden mostly made of winter mud.
By late afternoon, the boxes were inside. Harry had carried the last one upstairs, checked the bedroom window, struggled with a curtain rail, and been told twice to stop fussing.
Now Eileen stood in the kitchen with a mug of tea in her hand, watching Harry straighten a stack of plates that did not need straightening.
“Leave them,” she said.
“They’re leaning.”
Still, Harry took his hands away.
The kitchen looked newly assembled rather than lived in. Two boxes of groceries stood by the wall, along with a crate of second-hand plates, pans, and tea towels Harry had helped her buy in the village.
“You’ll tell us if you need anything?”
“I have told you three times.”
“You’ll actually tell us?”
Eileen gave him a look.
“I am capable of asking for help, Harry.”
“You’re capable of avoiding it too.”
“And you are capable of hovering. We all have flaws.”
Harry put his hands in his pockets, took them out again, and looked towards the hall.
The house was quiet. Eileen had already made it less empty by putting her coat on the peg and her tea on the counter. But it was strange to leave her here. It felt too much like abandoning her, even though she was the one who had chosen it.
“I can stay for dinner,” he said.
“No, you cannot.”
“I can.”
“You can, but you will not.” Eileen set her mug down. “You have done enough.”
“It doesn’t feel like enough.”
She sighed.
“I am five minutes away.”
“Seven.”
“Only if you walk like a martyr.”
He gave a small laugh despite himself.
Eileen’s mouth softened at the corner.
“I will come by tomorrow.”
“I’d like that. And you can come whenever you want.”
“I will give warning first. For my own protection.”
Harry laughed once, and the room felt easier.
Then Eileen stepped closer and touched his cheek, brisk and brief.
“Go home, Harry.”
Eileen took her hand back and, because she was Eileen, immediately reached for the mug as if nothing had happened.
“Tell Severus I expect him not to sit staring at my empty chair.”
Harry snorted.
“I’ll try.”
“Do not try. Succeed.”
“Yes, Eileen.”
Harry left before she could give him another order.
The walk back to Holloway was cold and damp. The village windows were beginning to glow. Someone had left a winter wreath over a door, brown at the edges now. Harry passed Mrs Bell’s shop, turned onto the lane, and tried not to think too hard about Eileen alone in a kitchen that still smelled of dust and cardboard.
She had wanted it.
It did not make Holloway feel any less strange when he came in.
Her shoes were no longer by the door. Her coat was gone from the hook. The small stack of property notices had vanished from the sideboard. Nothing important had changed, and everything had.
Harry found Severus sitting on the sofa with a book in hand.
“How is she?” Severus asked.
“Settled enough to order me out.”
The ache of Eileen’s empty hook followed Harry into the room.
Severus put the book aside and made space for him without asking for more.
Harry moved before he could start thinking too much. He climbed onto Severus’s lap and kissed him. Severus made a low sound of surprise against his mouth, then caught him by the waist.
“Harry.”
“She’s fine,” Harry said, and kissed him again.
“I had not finished asking.”
“She’s five minutes away. And she’ll be here tomorrow.”
Harry smoothed one fold of Severus’s robes, then another, and realised he had already undone the top fastening.
“Is this part of your report?” Severus asked.
Harry’s face warmed, but he did not move away.
“We don’t have communal rooms anymore. Well. I mean, we do. But they’re ours.”
“They were ours yesterday.”
“No, yesterday they were supervised by Eileen’s catastrophic sense of timing.”
Harry leaned closer and opened another fastening.
“I’m not saying I’m glad she’s gone. I miss her already. And I’m happy for her. And I’m happy we’re alone.” He paused. “All at once… It feels rude.”
“It is not.” Severus touched his jaw. “She wanted this. You are not abandoning her.”
Harry kissed him again, slower this time.
“So?”
“So?” Severus repeated.
“Should we take advantage?”
“Your grief is unusually directed.”
Harry huffed. He bent and kissed Severus before he could say anything else. Severus’s hand slid from his hip to the back of his thigh, then higher, firm enough to pull Harry closer and stop the next words in his throat.
Harry smiled against his mouth.
There was no careful cough from the hall. No dry voice telling them to move elsewhere.
This time, Harry did not move elsewhere.
14 February 2000
Two weeks later
Harry was on his back on the living-room sofa, one hand twisted in Severus’s robes and one foot braced against the floor. His jumper had disappeared somewhere near the hearth. Severus was over him, hair fallen loose around his face, his mouth at Harry’s collarbone.
When Severus lifted his head, Harry kissed him and reached for the fastening of his trousers.
His fingers had just found it when a voice called from the corridor.
“Ministry check-in.”
They froze.
Gladpy appeared in the living-room doorway, stopped, and whirled around so quickly that Pike nearly walked into her.
“What—”
Pike looked past her shoulder and spun around too.
Harry made a strangled noise and buried his face against Severus’s shoulder.
Gladpy spoke to the opposite wall.
“We announced ourselves twice. We received no response.”
Severus took one breath.
“So I gather.”
Harry’s shoulders shook once.
“Do not,” Severus said, his hand tightening at Harry’s waist.
“I’m not.”
“You are.”
“I’m dying.”
“That would complicate the inspection.”
Harry made another muffled sound against his shoulder.
Pike cleared his throat.
“We’ll… wait in the kitchen.”
“An excellent idea,” Severus said.
Gladpy and Pike retreated to the kitchen. Harry needed another second before he could make himself move.
“Where’s my jumper?” he whispered.
“Near the hearth.”
Harry scrambled off the sofa and immediately stepped on a fallen cushion.
Severus closed his robes while Harry retrieved the jumper, pulled it over his head and discovered it was backwards. He yanked the jumper off again. Severus looked as if he intended never to acknowledge the last two minutes of his life.
By the time they reached the kitchen, Gladpy had opened her folder, and Pike had developed an intense interest in the cupboard above the sink.
The routine check proceeded with awful professionalism. Gladpy read through each point without looking towards the living room. Pike kept his eyes on the visitor log. Harry stayed in the doorway, still red.
Gladpy ended the check as though nothing whatsoever had happened. Before stepping into the Floo, she glanced back.
“Surprise visits will continue.”
“Yes.”
“The arrival signal is functioning correctly,” Pike added.
Severus stared at him.
Pike finally looked up.
“Just confirming.”
“Thank you, Pike.”
Harry made a small choking sound.
Gladpy’s mouth moved very slightly at one corner. Then she was gone.
Pike cleared his throat.
“Good afternoon.”
Then he stepped into the flames, and the Floo flared empty.
Harry passed a hand over his face.
“Do you think they know it’s Valentine’s Day?”
“I imagine they have calendars.”
Harry started laughing.
“Don’t,” Severus said.
“I’m trying.”
“Try elsewhere.”
Harry just laughed harder.
Severus sighed.
“This is not amusing.”
“You should’ve seen Gladpy’s face.”
“I was occupied with Pike’s.”
That made Harry worse. When he could breathe normally again, he wiped at his eyes. His grin returned cautiously.
“So that’s the end of Valentine’s Day?”
Severus considered it.
“I did not say that.”
He caught the front of Harry’s jumper and pulled him closer.
Harry’s hands settled at his waist.
“Upstairs?” Harry asked.
“Absolutely.”
Harry laughed again. When Severus gave him a warning look, Harry took two steps towards the stairs, then glanced back.
“So much for Eileen moving out improving our privacy.”
Severus pointed towards the staircase.
“Harry.”
Harry went, still laughing.
Severus followed him upstairs and closed the bedroom door behind them.