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Hopes Refuge	By : vbollman Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male Views: 22637 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 5
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor any of the characters from the books or movies. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 1-Hopes Refuge
- 2-two
- 3-Three
- 4-Four
- 5-Five
- 6-Six
- 7-Chapter seven
- 8-Eight
- 6
- 7
- 8
A/N I have had this chapter back from my beta for awhile now, but ran into computer problems so I couldn't post it....my apologies to everyone...

Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by J.K Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Warner Bros, Bloomsbury. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

Once again many thanks to Periculum for her beta work. Without her I’m sure everyone would be out for my head.

Chapter 7

Tio sat fiddling with the cup of tea he had been handed by Snape moments after he had knocked on the study door. His thoughts still sat on the meeting he had had with Rosa not even a half hour before. Harry did understand what Rosa had been trying to say about how much magic it took for him to fly, he even understood why allowing his magic to recover before he used it again was a good idea, but the thought of no flying at all almost made him sick to the stomach. He had explained this reaction to the Healer and Rosa did say that she understood what exactly flying meant to him, but she was holding firm to her decision not to allow him to fly for at least a week, maybe more, which led Tio to believe that she didn't really understand after all.

“Drinking the tea while it hot is usually the way to go, Tio,” a soft voice said.

Startled, Tio looked up into the dark eyes of his professor, and barely managed to hold back a flinch. “Yes Sir, sorry Sir,” he mumbled before taking a small sip.

“What did Rosa have to say?”

Tio glanced up through his bangs trying to figure out what exactly the man wanted to hear. “She said that I was overall healthy, but my magic still was pretty low, though it seems to be recovering faster than she expected but not fast enough for me to fly anytime in the next week or two,” he replied, keeping it simple.

“You do understand why she said that, correct? Even you have to admit that at times you go from simply death defying acts to completely suicidal while you are on a broom.”

“Of course I understand what she was saying, I'm not an idiot!” Tio exclaimed, jumping to his feet and starting to pace, letting his frustration out. “What I want to know, is why we couldn't compromise. No flying above a certain height, or past a certain speed. Hell, I would even be willing to fly with a buddy, but when I mentioned it, she got this look in her eye that reminded me entirely too much of Mrs. Weasley about to give the twins hell,” Tio finished, breathing hard, not noticing the moisture in his eyes. “I know it's dangerous, but surely something could be done to make it safer,” he pleaded.

Severus suppressed a grimace at the look the teen threw his way and forced himself not to move from his chair to wipe the tears from those pleading eyes. “I'm sorry, Tio, but Rosa's word is law when something like this happens. I'm sure she's going to insist on seeing you every day, so she'll be able to give you a better idea on when exactly you can be up in the air again.”

Tio nodded his head in defeated understanding, slightly embarrassed to have broken down in front of the man like this over such a stupid thing as flying. Curling back up in the chair he had been sitting in earlier, he reached for his cup of tea, and took another sip, grimacing slightly when he found it cold, and placing it back on the table. “What do I call you?” he mumbled after a few minutes of silence.

“Excuse me?” Severus asked, not understanding what the teen was asking.

“I mean I can't keep calling you Professor or my whole identity of being Horatio Black will be called into question, and calling you Snape is disrespectful. So what do I call you?”

“You don't seem to have a problem with being disrespectful and calling me Snape while in school,” Severus couldn't help but point out.

“You're also not the nicest person going while there either,” Tio retorted back softly. “And it would look odd if I didn't call you that in front of the others. At least I refrain from calling you any of the other names the students come up with.”

“Indeed Mr. Pot...Black,” Severus corrected himself. Couldn't the brat have picked something other than Black as a last name? “I have a feeling that calling me by my other honorific would be a problem.” Seeing the confused look, Severus smirked at the boy. “I am a Potions Master. It is my right to have everyone use the title Master, when they don't use Professor.”

Tio stared at the man in horror, before shaking his head sharply. “There is no way in hell I'll ever call someone Master!!” he stated with a shudder.

“For the same reason I don't want to be called it except under certain circumstances within the Potions Guild.” Severus agreed. “You could call me Severus or, if you don't have a problem with it, 'Uncle Sev' as the other brats do,” he offered, watching as the teen paled slightly when he mentioned 'Uncle.' “If that is too familiar you may call me Sir or Mr. Snape, as those both are used by others that come to the estate as well. At this point, Tio, I'm not going to push for anything other than what you are used to or are willing to call me,” he informed the teen gently.

Tio nodded his head gratefully, and watched as his tea cup disappeared, before a new one took its place. Taking a sip he sighed and let the silence stretch, extremely glad that Sn...Severus (wasn't sure about that one!) was letting him set the pace for this meeting for now. After a few minutes, he took a deep breath and continued with what he needed to say. “I've already apologized to Rosa for today, and I wanted to apologize to you as well. My words and actions earlier were rude, disrespectful and undeserved,” Tio stated nervously.

Severus sat his own cup of tea on an end table and relaxed back into his chair, hiding his surprise that the boy was starting the very conversation he had had in mind when he called for this meeting. “Your reaction when you saw me this morning was completely normal for your situation. You saw a threat to you new found safety and tried to run in order to protect it. You magically pushed out at a lesser 'threat' that was attempting to hold you down, although it wasn't that strong of a push, before you went into full panic flight mode. What I would like to know, Har...Horatio, is why you didn't lash out at me magically. I'm very much aware that you could have stopped me and everyone else around you long enough to get away. So why didn't you?” he asked, keeping his voice soft so as not to put Tio on the defensive.

Harry rubbed the back of his neck in embarrassment and mumbled something under his breath, before saying a little louder, “I wasn't exactly thinking clearly at the time, Sir.”

“And you are now?”

“Yes, Sir, or at least clearer than before.”

“How do you know that you weren't thinking clearly before?”

Harry looked down briefly before meeting those dark eyes once again. “I would never have left my Aunt and Uncle's house with a complete stranger via Portkey if I had been thinking straight.”

“Cal could have convinced you to leave with him. He has a talent for doing that.”

“Yes, Sir, he told me, and really it wouldn't have taken much to convince me, considering how badly I wanted to leave. The sticking point would have been the Portkey. I'm actually surprised that he got near me with one at all.”

Leaning forward and lacing his fingers together under his chin, Severus was the picture of sharp intelligence. “Explain!”

Swallowing heavily, Harry leaned away from his professor slightly. “The headmaster gave Remus a Portkey to take me to Surrey from the hospital wing, but my magic destroyed it as well as the two after it that Professor Dumbledore attempted to make. Madam Pomfrey had to give me a calming draught before they could even get near me with one, let alone get me to take it.”

“Why don't you like Portkeys, Tio?”

Shuddering slightly, he tried to explain. “My first experience with one was fine, but everything else after that...” Closing his eyes, Harry tried to calm himself. "Portkeying away from the attack at the Quidditch world cup, being taken to Riddle for his rebirth, bringing Cedric back afterwards, Nagini's attack on Mr. Weasley, being Portkeyed back to Hogwarts after Sirius was killed and...” Here he managed to cut himself off.

“And what, Harry?” Seeing the teen startle from the use of his true name, even as he shook his head in the negative, Severus knew he had made the right choice in using it this once. “I cannot help you if you don't tell me what it is you need help from.”

“You'll have to ask the Headmaster,” Harry stated, his whole body shrinking into itself in an attempt to protect whatever secret it now held.

Knowing he wouldn't get anymore information from Tio on this subject, Severus changed it to something else, hoping to get back to the the reason behind asking Tio to come talk to him once more. “You started to say something else earlier, instead of the fact that you weren't thinking straight. What was it?”

Tio blinked in confusion for a second before blushing and looked away. “I knew you wouldn't hurt me, Sir. Yell and try and force me to leave, yes, but you wouldn't physically hurt me.”

Looking at the young man in stunned disbelief, Severus tried to wrap his mind around that little nugget of information. “You would have been perfectly within your rights to lash out at me, as a direct threat to your physical, mental and emotional well being, but you didn't because you knew I wouldn't hurt you?”

“Yes, Sir.”

Stunned disbelief turned calculating as Severus hoped to at least confirm verbally by Harry the abuse he suffered. “What about your aunt and uncle? Did you lash out at them magically?”

The colour drained from Tio's face, leaving his a pasty green, and he swallowed heavily a few times with the hope of keeping his stomach firmly in place. He could only shake his head in response.

Hoping that he wasn't pushing the issue too hard, Severus pointed out the flaw in the teen's logic. “Why not? By your own reasoning, if you knew I was going to 'hurt' you, you would have used magic against me, why wouldn't that hold true for your aunt and uncle as well?”

Tio stood and moved jerkily around the room for a few moments before heading towards the door. Looking over his shoulder just enough to see the man still sitting in his chair, with a look of concern in his eyes, Tio whispered, barely loud enough for Severus to hear, “Lashing out physically was bad enough when they caught me again, I would have never survived if I had used magic,” and slipped out the door.

“Well, damn,” Severus sighed softly, summoning the bottle of brandy and a glass.

~~oOo~~

Watching from the shadows as Tio paced up and down the balcony outside his room, Hissie perched on his shoulder, Tony couldn't help but notice by the way the younger teen moved, that there was a whole lot of pain and anger wrapped in that little package, and if he wasn't mistaken it was close to blowing. Making a mental note to have Stephen talk to Tio later, he allowed his magic to reach out to Tio and wrap around him in a warm hug, slowly, so as not to startle the younger teen too much. “Tio?” he questioned softly.

Tio stiffened slightly when he felt magic not his own wrap around him, and relaxed again when he 'tasted' it to be friendly. He started to turn towards the source even before he heard his name being called, while scrubbing the beginnings of tears out of his eyes. “Hey, Tony,” he whispered.

“Are you alright, Little One?”

“Yeah.”

“If you're sure?” Seeing Tio nod his head, Tony dropped the subject for the moment. “Stephen is starting the bonfire if you want to join us. Be warned though, if you decide not to join in, Yeo and Mikal are probably going to come and hunt you down, to drag you to the pit.

Tio laughed softly and allowed some of his earlier tension to drain out of his body. It seemed that Yeo and Mikal had decided that he was their little brother, and had taken it upon themselves to make sure that he didn't miss out on anything. They rather reminded him of the Weasley twins, which if he thought about it could be a scary but wonderful thing.

“Should I be worried?” Tony asked with a smirk.

Blinking in confusion, Tio finally looked up at Tony fully. “I'm sorry?”

“You had this wicked little smile on your face, I was just wondering if I should be worried,” Tony explained.

“Maybe. You see, I was just wondering what would happen if I introduced Yeo and Mikal to two of my best friends. You may have heard of them? Fred and George Weasley?”

Groaning in dismay, Tony sank to his knees. “Please don't, I beg of you. Those four together would cause the end of the world!” he pleaded, hands folded just under his chin.

Tio laughed softly, before turning back to watch the sun set with a smirk on his face. “I'll think about it.”

Getting to his feet, Tony heaved a sigh. “We are so doomed.” Wrapping his arms around Tio from behind, he felt Tio stiffen. “I'm not going to let go so you might as well relax and enjoy the sunset,” he whispered in Tio's ear.

“Why?” Tio whispered, honestly confused.

“Two reasons. If I'm correct and I know I am, you haven't been touched in anything but anger really for most of your life. You need to learn that not everyone will hurt you. This is one of the ways that we will all help you. Expect it. Accept it. Enjoy it.”

Tio thought about that for a while, as he watched the sun paint the sky in a brilliant array of colours. Ever so slowly, he allowed himself to relax and enjoy the warmth of the other body. As the last of the colour became muted in preparation to fade, he tilted his head back to look up at Tony. “You said there were two reasons.”

“I did, didn't I?” Smiling, Tony glanced down to meet the green gaze being sent his way. “The second reason is really, really simple.” Dropping his voice to the soft silky tones that all the men in the Prince Family seemed to have, he watched, waiting for the blush he knew was coming and that he would just be able to see to appear. “Holding you like this, just feels right.”

He was right. Tio's blush outdid Nature's display a million times to one.

As the last light of the sunset faded from the sky, their gaze was caught by a column of flame shooting up to light up the dark. “Come on, Little One, before the others eat up all the s'mores on us,” he exclaimedwith a smile, already walking the younger man towards the pit.

Stepping out of Tony's arms, Tio let a smirk cross his face. “Oh no, we can't have that,” he cried in mock horror, “whatever shall we do? Oh I know! Invite the twins over for payback!” he finished with a laugh, the look of horror on Tony's face all he needed before he took off running.

Tony allowed Tio a few seconds head start before starting off after him. “Get back here, you little horror!”

Tio's laughter was all the answer he really needed.

~~oOo~~

Cal watched as the two teens raced each other to the bonfire. Tio's bright laughter held just a hint of wickedness that made him wonder just what it was that he found to tease Tony over. Especially when you considered the gentle teasing/flirting that Tony had been using on Tio all day. With a slight shrug, he turned away from the window. The rest of the household would figure it out sooner or later.

A shadow detaching itself from the gathering dark caught Cal's eye, and he waited for Severus to draw up beside him. “How did your talk with him go?” he asked softly.

“I found fewer answers than I wanted and a million more questions,” Severus snorted in disgust. “Nothing is ever simple with that young man.”

“At least he's willing to talk to you,” Rosa pointed out as she joined them.

“He told me that you said his magic was returning faster than you expected,” Severus directed to the Healer.

“Yes, but still not fast enough for Tio, I expect. He wants to fly now!” Rosa said with a shake of her head.

Severus nodded his head, without mentioning the conversation he had had with Tio on the subject. No need to break the young man's trust over such a minor issue. “I have an Order meeting tonight, so you'll both have to watch over him. You know how to summon me if you need my help,” he informed them both.

“Don't worry, Severus, I don't think they'll let anything happen to him tonight. Especially with Hissie around,” Cal said softly. “And Severus, try not to lose your temper to much with them tonight.”

“No promises, Cal, no promises at all.”

Cal and Rosa shared a look. It looked like it was going to be a really long night for their Boss.
- 6
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- 8
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Hopes Refuge