• 1-A Most Trusted Soldier
• 2-2
• 3-3
• 4-4
• 5-5
• 6-6
• 7-7
• 8-8
• 9-9
• 10-10
• 11-11
• 12-12
• 13-13
• 14-14
• 15-15
• 16-16
• 17-17
• 18-18
• 19-19
• 20-20
• 21-21
• 22-22
• 23-23
• 24-24
• 25-25
• 26-26
• 27-Author's Note: update
• 28-Still getting reviews...

Update: seems there was a typo in Ch 21 where Luna was listed as a formal lover, when it should have been "former". THanks to ANON for pointing this out. Still, since Luna told Sev she was no longer sleeping with Harry very early in the story I would hope that I have not made any inadvertent indications that the blonde was, in fact, still having sex with Harry. Thanks again, anon. I appreciate the help.

“Awake again now are we?” Madam Pomfrey chirped as she drew her wand down the length of Severus’ body, quickly taking vitals.

Severus only grunted, pushing himself up into a reclined position in his hospital bed. He didn’t even bother to curse the fussy mediwitch when without warning she began manually manipulating his limbs through he daily physical therapy routine, lifting his legs, stretching and bending them, before pulling each one so hard he thought she’d rupture a hip ligament. Once she finished with all four limbs she forced a muscle-strengthening potion into his mouth, tutting at him when he nearly spewed it back up at her. The only good thing about that potion was that he recognized it as his own creation, but thought perhaps its efficacy wouldn’t be completely ruined if he endeavored to make it more palatable.

“So, tell me, which is it? Shall I endeavor to learn more about Muggle life or will I be shipped off to that quaint little institute over in Holyhead to learn how to live a happy, fulfilling life as a Squib among wizards?” Severus growled, his voice scratchy with sleep.

“Oh, Severus, don’t be so dramatic,” Madame Pomfrey chided, handing the scowling man a glass of water, then spelling him into fresh pajamas.

He sucked the liquid down greedily, humming with elation as his parched throat was cooled and lubricated by the fluid and the remnants of the nasty potion was washed away.

“You are no where near becoming a Squib, Severus,” Pomfrey stated sternly, sucking her teeth when Severus rolled his eyes at her. “Your magic has been a bit crippled I’ll admit, but now that your blood and aura have been sufficiently cleansed of the poison it will return. Give it some time. Perhaps…well, your magical power level may be permanently lessened to a degree, but it’ll be hardly noticeable to anyone but you. You’ll be physically weak for quite some time and I don’t think you’ll be able to mix potions until your magic is back up to snuff.”

Severus just let out an exhausted sigh, not bothering to correct the witch’s assumptions about what he would or would not be capable of once he recovered. He knew without any deep probing scan that even a slight diminishment in his power level could very well make it impossible for him to breed. He didn’t even want to contemplate the possibility that he may no longer be strong enough to even have sex with Harry. With each passing year Harry had come more into his heritage, growing ever more comfortable with it, so much so that Harry was now in seamless symbiosis with his Amoral instincts. And Harry’s power siphoning during sexual encounters had increased to near glutton levels within the last year. Severus could sustain it just fine prior to Wood but he had noticed that he often needed a much longer recuperative period post-orgasm.

He closed his eyes slowly and sighed. What did it matter anyway, he thought, surely even had his magic been perfectly unharmed Harry would have by now concluded that Severus was not worth having had his heritage laid bare for public consumption. The nausea of the day before returned when he thought that even now, Harry might be being interrogated like some potential Dark Lord by some ambitious, ladder-climbing upstart à la Percy who would just love to make promotion on Harry Potter’s back. Severus just knew he was to blame. If only he had paid closer attention to the fictitious Sir. Wrightwood, or even noticed that Webster had been Imperiused, all this could have been avoided. Maybe if he had never hexed and threatened Wood in Hogsmeade, trusted Harry to keep the eager Keeper at bay, or even remembered Luna’s prudent reminder that Harry would not be easily swayed by a mere pretty face, he and Harry would be home now, making slow, tender love underneath the shade of Harry’s great big oak.

“When can I get out of here?” Severus asked, lightly smacking the mediwitch’s hand away when she tried to smooth his hair, which was lank and unwashed, the strands slick with sebum and clumpy in places.

“Soon enough. And when you do I expect you to follow my instructions to the letter. Lots of rest, take your Heart-Ease on schedule, keep your stress level to the barest minimum. Furthermore, up until the time that I deem you fit to resume normal activities, if you dare exert yourself for anything more strenuous than climbing in and out of the shower or bed I’ll put you into a magical coma for the duration. Understood?”

Severus tried and failed to hide the flinch he made when the no-nonsense mediwitch dictated the terms of his release, hoping that he came off as indifferent; yet knowing he would obey. One simply did not challenge Madame Pomfrey when it came to their prescribed medical care. It was an exercise in idiocy to even attempt to thwart the healer when she set her mind on a course of treatment for a patient, and Severus was frankly too smart and too preoccupied with thoughts of Harry to even bother. Thus, the words were out of his mouth before his embarrassment could catch them.

“Has…anyone inquired as to my welfare? Other than Luna, that is?” Severus asked, hating that he sounded so hopeful and afraid.

Madame Pomfrey smiled nervously before answering, her eyes telling Severus that the witch knew very well that he only wanted to know about one person in particular— Harry.

“Oh, everyone has, dear. They entire local wizarding community and of course all the staff have been wishing you a speedy recovery,” Madame Pomfrey answered, turning her back to him and changing sheets on the bed next to his, which had not once been occupied during the entire time he had been a patient.

He arched an eyebrow and pursed his lips at the older woman’s piss-poor attempt at clever evasiveness. Honestly, she had called him ‘dear’. Not in all his days had any one ever called him ‘dear’, not even his own mother. He was no ‘dear’, a fact he tried to sustain as a rather integral part of his personality.

He nodded absently, knowing that the short answer was no, Harry had not been in contact; Harry had not bothered to use his considerable Ministry insider contacts to get word to him or even ascertain his prognosis. Severus gritted his back teeth, realizing that he hadn’t even warranted a look-see from either of Harry’s ever-loyal sidekicks, wishing for the first time that Granger-Weasley would show up with gads of news from her enormous brain. He huffed and crossed his arms over his chest, unable to ignore the pang of abandonment that settled there like a stone.

“Can I see a newspaper, then?” Severus asked, knowing fully well Pomfrey would see to it he didn’t. “I’d love to see what the local wizarding paper has reported about all this well-wishing on my behalf.” He didn’t even bother getting mad as he watched the witch make a hasty retreat into her office, mumbling about having left her copy of the day’s paper in the great hall at breakfast, which he knew was an outright lie. The woman wouldn’t even step a toe outside of the hospital wing when she had a patient, never mind going to the Great Hall for a meal.

He slouched back into the small mound of pillows sullenly and proceeded to spend the next fifteen minutes quietly murmuring innovative invectives about overprotective mediwitches, which was followed by him cursing Albus for unwittingly ruining what little hope he had once held on to for a normal, quiet life.

Not more than a half hour after one of the kitchen elves had come to take away Severus’ lunch tray, the Headmistress entered the hospital ward with two officious looking Aurors trailing closely in her wake.

Severus lay aside the same two-month-old potions journal he had been reading for the past two days, not bothering to mark his page as he had nearly committed the entirety of the periodical to memory at this point. He looked past McGonagall to the two Aurors, recognizing the taller of the two as having been an attendant at Ron and Hermione’s wedding.

The three stopped at the foot of his bed and McGonagall cleared her throat unnecessarily loud, a sure sign that she was irritated.

“Good afternoon, Severus. These two… gentlemen,” McGonagall said disdainfully, almost rolling her eyes, “have been sent by the Ministry. They have some questions regarding your attack.”

Severus nodded slightly, his eyes narrowing. He was getting a strange vibe from McGonagall, which perhaps was nothing more than the woman’s usual dislike for agents of the bureaucratic hell-hole that was the Ministry. Yet, he felt he was about to asked things that were none of anyone’s business.

The familiar looking Auror stepped past the headmistress, coming to stand beside Severus and leaving the other two remaining at the foot of the bed.

“Mr. Snape, I am an Auror assigned to the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. By order of the Minister of Magic I am here to determine the veracity of a full mate bond that Mr. Harry Potter and his agents have sworn he has with you. Please, sir, if this is true, show your bond mark.”

Severus paled and his lips thinned in scorn. He locked eyes with the tall man and said in a voice that pierced the air like steel hitting concrete, “No.”

McGonagall smirked rather smugly, while the two Aurors both gave one another a curious look as though not having expected Severus to deny their request.

The taller Auror, who was at this point brandishing his wand, lifted it slightly to point it at Severus. “Lift your shirt and show us your mark, or by authority of law we shall bind you and strip you until we find it.”

Severus calculated the odds that the two men would actually do so and found them to be quite stacked against him; it also did not help his resolve when he remembered that he had no magic to speak of at the moment with which to thwart their attempts to strip him by force.

Severus did not know the taller man well, but having met him briefly at Ron and Hermione’s wedding he recalled that the wizard presented himself as a great deal more affable at that time. The Auror’s current blustery attitude seemed out of place and poorly acted. Then the Auror winked at him. It was fleeting, like an involuntary tick, but Severus felt a brush of magic against his mind. It was not so much a compulsion, but more like a suggestion, leading him to believe that this particular Auror had not been sent at random. He felt that the man was somehow a friend.

Going out on a limb, Severus lifted the hem of his pajama top just enough for them to see the raised impression of Harry’s oak tree covering his flank. Before he could even protest, the tall Auror placed the tip of his wand to the image and chanted, “Revelio Bond Origo”.

Satisfied by whatever results he saw, the Auror quickly ended the spell and pocketed his wand. “Thank you. That is all, for now.”

Severus lowered his shirt, feeling silly and not a little bit violated.

“What happens now?” he asked.

“Now I file a report,” the familiar looking Auror replied, already striding off back towards the exit.

McGonagall gave Severus’ foot a comforting squeeze through his hospital bedcovers before gliding off after the Aurors, the three disappearing from the wing as briskly as they have arrived, leaving Severus wondering if he had just helped Harry or somehow unknowingly harmed his lover further.

As consciousness crept up on him the following morning, before he even opened his eyes to greet yet another day, Severus mentally calculated that it was now day five without sight or word of Harry. The day had not even truly begun and he was already unhappier than he had been the day before, a state he didn’t think possible until this very moment. He and Harry had been together over four years and never in all that time had they spent more than a single night apart, until now.

The recovering wizard opened his eyes, the dusky early morning light easing him into to full wakefulness. He had fallen asleep facing Madame Pomfrey’s office, which was still dark and closed owing to the early hour, indicating that it was not yet six a.m. and the healer was still resting.

He yawned weakly, rolling from his side to his back, grimacing when he saw the cherubs floating above, their chubby little bodies suspended lazily as they slept, the magic beginning to wear off. Not wanting to stare at the cute little angels as they were in direct conflict with his disgruntled mood, Severus rolled over to his other side facing the entrance to the ward. Settling on his right side, his heart nearly came to a complete stop, because there sitting beside his bed in a hard backed wooden chair was Harry— unshaven and messy haired—staring at Severus through tired looking eyes.

The older man looked back at the image of his lover, afraid to blink in case what could only be a figment of his imagination disappeared. Then the figment spoke.

“Hey.”

Severus hesitated, unsure if his mind was playing tricks on him or not. Then he took a chance. He blinked and when he opened his eyes Harry was still there, smiling crookedly, his bottle-green eyes shimmering with what could be tears. Those eyes, still capable of heartbreaking innocence after all they had seen, were red-rimmed and heavy with lack of sleep. Harry’s jaws were rough with several days worth of stubble and Severus thought he looked somehow older, slightly more worn and exhausted. Harry’s eyelids were dark and his normally proud posture seemed to droop. Severus could only guess that Harry had been denied access to the outdoors during the Ministry’s “investigation”; no doubt the Amoral in his lover had suffered for it.

Despite the lack of grooming, for reasons he would be forever unable to articulate, Severus thought that his lover had never looked more handsome than he did at this very moment. But what to say? How did one greet one’s lover under such circumstances? “Good morning?” “How are you?” “What took you so damned long?” Or heaven help him, “I’ve missed you?”

The potions master stifled any reaction at all when he caught sight of the faint traces of blood still clinging beneath Harry’s short nails; but the evidence of the gruesome murder he had only heard about from Luna was there before him in stark reality, and Severus found that his heart felt full and slightly frightened all at once.

With some effort Severus pushed himself upright and slid to the edge of the bed; he stood on weak, shaky legs and shuffled over to stand between Harry’s legs, which were bent and spread apart lazily. Severus plopped down immediately into the younger man’s open lap, exhaling a trembling breath when Harry’s arms automatically snaked tightly around his waist.

With one arm around his lover’s broad shoulders and a thin pale hand spread wide across Harry’s sculpted chest, Severus lay his forehead against Harry’s and whispered, “Hi.”