Title: Something Borrowed
Author: Arsenic
Rating: PG-13
Fandom/Pairing: HP, HP/OFC, SS/HG, RW/DM
Disclaimer: All canon characters and concepts owned by JK Rowling, Bloomsbury, Scholastic and Warner Brothers.
Summary: Harry has a few things to figure out

AN: Sequel to Body of Knowledge and Origins of Myth. Antipodes is my bastardized form of Antipodean Opaleye.

For Murmur, happy birthday girly. Hope you get why I chose this one for you.

*

Prologue : : Originally written as a cheer-up drabble for Allecto

Severus has seen what feels like millions of children in his life. Children of all sizes and shapes and colors and even species. No matter what combination of these traits, they've never been something that provoked a terrible interest in Severus.

His colleagues think that he doesn't like children, that he despises them. It's not really true. Severus is far from foolish enough to spend that sort of energy on beings that aren't even fully formed.

He worries about this mentality of his when watching Hermione weave herself through the house, less facile than he's seen her but somehow more elegant, the odd shape of her body not much of a deterrent in the way he'd have thought it would be. The skin that stretches over his unborn child is hard and Severus is completely sure that it should be repellent, but nothing nothing nothing about Hermione makes his fingers skitter away, his stomach clench, his mouth pucker, any of those things that he would expect to do at the mutation of a body he knows so well. Loves so well.

Hermione sometimes grabs his hands, puts them over her stomach and then there's the roiling that she swears is kicking and he believes her but it just all seems a bit...well, unimpressive. He doesn't mention this to her.

It turns out for the best that he keeps his mouth shut, because when the baby is born, five pounds, seven ounces, already sprouting black curls, ten fingers and ten toes all in working order, thank you very much, well...Severus has no words. Because he's created Potions before, perhaps more than any living Potions Master, things that have changed the world, changed people, changed him.

He's never done something like this before.

Caroline Lu Snape (Hermione insisted, and until this point Severus didn't think he cared. Still doesn't, just because she's named something doesn't mean he has to call her that.) looks up at him with black eyes that are familiar and completely unknown all at the same time. Looks up at him, smacks her mouth a little, and slides her eyes shut, drifting off to sleep in the safety of his arms.

There's only one other person in the world who will do that.

Severus kisses the forehead, soft and smooth and oh-so-beautiful. He's seen millions of children, he thinks.

Not one of them has looked like this.

*

Harry wishes Tchtch and Long Tail and Flipped Scales a good evening. Snakes, he has long come to understand, "name" each other in terms of characteristics. They call Harry "Scar." As Harry knows them not to put the same significance in designation that humans do, he allows for it. Tchtch is a rattlesnake, and that odd conglomeration of letters is the closest thing he's ever managed to describing her name for Nell, who does not, as it turns out, speak a word of Parseltongue. On the other hand, she seems to find it a handy skill, sort of like if Harry spoke Italian or Vietnamese, rather than a sign of possession by evil forces. He appreciates her nonchalance.

Long is a type of Boa, and he is long. Feet and feet and feet worth of long. Flipped is an Asian breed with scales that shimmer oddly when the sun shines on them, making them look inside out.

Flipped is also upset with him this evening, and so unwilling to wish him a good evening back. Tchtch says, "Have fun with your humans," and Long says, "If you found me a mate, Scar, watching you go home to yours wouldn't be so upsetting."

Harry says, "I've been talking to them, Long. They're not entirely sure about a breeding program. This is sort of a small. . ." Since snakes don't keep animals on exhibition for their own kind, there's no word for zoo. Harry finishes, ". . .habitat."

If snakes could roll their eyes, Long would. "Trap."

Harry sighs. Sometimes he thinks he should talk to Nell about his getting a job studying snakes in the wild, where he wouldn't have to sympathize with their knowledge of incarceration all the time. In the end, though, he always thinks that the snakes with that sense need someone to talk to all the more. "I'll talk to them some more."

Long winds himself around a rock. "I know. We all know."

Harry knows they know, too. They are his friends, even if Flipped isn't talking with him at the moment. He apologized for having to leave early, but he's the only person she's got to talk to all day and when he does things like this she takes it personally. Still, as much as he loves Flipped, Hermione asked him to meet her and Severus for dinner with Nell, and it's not exactly often that Hermione formally extends an invitation. In fact, that most likely means that she told Ron and Draco to find something else to do for the evening and that she needs to speak to Harry about something.

Hermione denies it stringently, but Harry owes her, time and time over. His loyalty and dedication to her was actually the topic of the only truly humongous fight him and Nell have ever had. They have small ones of course. Harry doesn't really like the color she's dyed her hair at the moment, and Nell doesn't want him adopting a pet snake. Harry doesn't like that it takes Nell an hour to get to work every morning and wishes she'd let him connect her into the floo network instead of depending on a car. Nell wishes Harry would learn to drive a car. Mostly, though, it's small stuff. Now the Hermione thing is too, now that Nell gets how it is between Harry and Hermione, Harry and Ron, Ron and Hermione, Hermione and Severus, Harry and Severus, the list goes on. But that took a long time and several fights where Harry said things that he shouldn't have and Nell said things that were perhaps even worse.

Which is how Harry learned that sometimes when you love someone, there are hundreds of unforgivable things that can be forgiven.

Harry Apparates home to a jumpy Nell who's still in a work suit from her day as the curator for one of the art museums in Cambridge, with her hair in a stiff bun that he desperately wants to unclasp. She barely looks at him, used to the noise of his appearing and disappearing. "You're late."

"The snakes weren't very happy with my getting out of there early. I had some mollifying to do."

Nell smiles at that for some reason that Harry doesn't particularly care about, so long as she keeps smiling. She kisses him. "You smell like zoo, go shower so that we can leave."

"Yes ma'am."

As he's heading to the shower she calls, "Have any idea what all this is about?"

Harry answers honestly, "Not a one," and then turns the water on too hot to allow for his brain to consider anything other than the scorch.

*

When Harry comes back downstairs his hair is still wet, which causes Nell to say, "You're going to catch your death."

Harry learned in one of his biology classes in undergrad that going out in chilly weather with wet hair actually has nothing to do with how one contracts the viral sniffles otherwise known as death. To please her, though, he points his wand at his head and Charms the hair dry. She giggles the way she still does almost every time he does some small bit of magic. He kisses her for it. And takes one of the pins out of her hair.

She smacks his shoulder for this, but takes the rest out, allowing her hair to fall down nearly to her waist. Harry grins at her. "Much better."

"Yes, yes, we're late."

"We're always late."

"Yes, but usually I'm the one to blame, and Severus isn't quite so willing to scowl at me all night."

"You have a point. Hold on tight." Harry pulls them into the fire place, scrapes a bit of floo powder from the mantle above and calls, "Snape Manor!"

Nell doesn't cling to him like she did the first few times they did this together, but she doesn't let go either. Harry, like the gentleman he can sometimes be, pulls her out of the fireplace at their destination. They walk quickly to the dining room, where Severus and Hermione are already seated.

Hermione says, "Hello, how are you?"

Severus says, "Did the invitation not explicitly state six o'clock?"

"I was convincing my wards not to eat you for taking me from them," Harry says without much concern as to the scolding, pulling a chair out for Nell and then seating himself next to her.

"How's the job?" Hermione asks through a not-so-stealthily hidden grin.

Harry considers a few responses, tossing them aside for, "Perfect."

"And you, Ms. Kudri?" Severus inquires ever-so-politely.

Nell shrugs. "It will hold for the moment. Really looking to find something that's more interactive with the public, particularly children."

Harry loves that she never says things like that with an edge, never places too much expectation on him. He knows she wants things from him. He knows and he even wants to give them to her. He's not ready, though, and they both know it. She never asks him to be ready, and more than anything, Harry knows that's why he one day will be for her.

Vizja comes with the meal then and Hermione waits until the plates have all been set to say, "That proves a perfect segueway, as it so happens."

Severus's bland expression is the closest thing to pure evil Harry's ever seen. And Harry's seen a considerable amount of pure evil. Harry understands where the expression is coming from a second later when Hermione continues, "See, I'm pregnant again, and Severus and I were hoping that as Ron and Draco are Caralu's godparents, that the two of you could perhaps accept the responsibility of being so to this second child."

Harry blinks and then steals a surreptitious glance at Severus. Who must catch it, since he says, "Yes, Harry, I did agree to this."

Harry wants to say, "Never crossed my mind that you didn't," only, it did cross Harry's mind, and he's never been much good at lying to Severus, despite loads of practice in the arena. Instead, Harry looks at Nell, since of course he's going to accept, Hermione isn't someone he could ever say no to in the first place and well, she's asking him to protect her child which is something he can't even help doing with Caralu, who's not technically his responsibility.

Nell looks right past him, at Hermione and Severus. "Harry and I?"

"You are at this table, are you not?" Severus asks.

Hermione shoots him a look before answering. "Yes, the both of you," and not complicating the matter any more so than that.

Harry wouldn't blame Nell if she asked a million questions at that moment. After all, Harry has made her no promises, and Severus and Hermione have not saved her life time and time over. She doesn't, though. She just looks over at Harry for a moment, flicks her eyes to Hermione and lands them on Severus. To whom she says, "I'd be honored. We both would be."

It's a testament to how well everyone at the table knows him that nobody asks for a verbal confirmation on Harry's part.

*

Harry is always careful to knock on all the doors once he's flooed into Ron and Draco's place. He's made the mistake of walking in on them in fully compromising positions in just about every room and Addy and Maddy have proven themselves all too amused at Harry's missteps. It doesn't bother Harry, not really, he's not exactly prude after all those years of dorm living, it's just that Ron has a tendency not to speak to him for several hours afterward, which generally ruins the point of any visit. Harry enjoys Draco's company enough but it's not quite the same.

He's lucky this evening, as Ron is in the kitchen harassing Maddy when Harry pops through the fireplace. Addy is cooking something and looking vaguely amused at her twin's antics, and Harry gives her a tip of his head. She grins at him. Harry claps Ron on the shoulder, "Where's Draco?"

"Teaching Caralu to drive."

As Draco tends to be the more responsible of the pair, Harry says, "She's two," without much concern.

"I would quote him on the manner, but it had something to do with me being a horrid driver and him not wanting her to end up so disconnected from Muggle technology and was horribly impugning in a way that I feel no need to repeat."

"Did you call him a Pureblood Git for me?"

"Am I not your best friend in the entire world?" Ron looks hurt for all of a moment before continuing, "But he responded with something about a pot and a kettle that I had to go and look up, the bastard."

Harry looks away to smile, as he's nearly one hundred percent positive that Hermione taught Draco that particular Muggle bon-mot just to annoy Ron.

"Enough about me," Ron says, as though they'd really been speaking of Ron, "where's the only reason I let you in this house anymore?"

"Work. There was an opening. I said I would go but she very politely let me know that last time I went I was clingy and did not help with the gallery's reputation for putting on fine shows at all. Which I believe was her way of being merciful, but don't quote me."

"He never quotes you anyway," Draco says by way of hello, "you're not witty enough for that."

Harry ignores this and reaches his hands up to Caralu, who is riding on Draco's shoulders. She takes the invite and allows him to pull her down, twirl her around a bit. She smiles prettily for him but doesn't make noise. At first this was startling to everyone, Hermione perhaps most of all, but it became apparent that there was nothing wrong with Caralu, she is just painfully quiet. Harry wonders if the second child will be as well, or if all the noise stored between Hermione and Severus is waiting for this next offspring of theirs. "How was your day, miss?"

She doesn't answer him. Instead she says, "Snakes?"

Harry says, "They're doing well." Caralu's been to the zoo with him more than a few times, she likes the quiet of the reptile house. The snakes understand that she is important to Harry, although they aren't quite clear on how. Harry suspects they think she is his child and that he is holding out on them. Harry doesn't really mind them thinking that.

Caralu nods at this as if to approve. Harry can feel Ron smiling behind him. All Ron says, though, is, "C'mon down, Car, Addy's been making all your favorites."

Harry lets Caralu down and she toddles efficiently next to Ron, who has stolen her hand up in his. They're in the next room when Draco says, "Think there's any non-Dark Lord Trying To Kill Innocent Young Boy type of way to transfer the gift of Parseltongue? Maybe she just needs the right language."

Though Ron is Harry's best friend, and nobody will ever replace him, Draco and Harry have developed an ease with each other that stems from Draco having missed Harry's slightly crazy years and Harry having missed Draco's two-yuan-whore years. Draco is willing to say things to Harry that nearly everyone outside of Nell won't. Draco is willing to say things to Harry that Nell wouldn't know to say. "Maybe we should mention it to Severus."

At that Draco laughs. "I'm certain that would go over well."

Harry can just imagine. "I’d do it if I could."

"That's why they asked you, you realize, for the second one."

Harry looks over at Draco. "So you know?"

"Severus sent me a lovely missive. Then Hermione sent me an amusing one. Together they make an interesting and heart-wrenching tale." Draco's lips twist. "I'm glad you said yes, both of you."

Though Draco never says it to him, probably never will, Harry knows that he still misses magic, still wishes that he could help Caralu come to understand it in ways that he'll never again be able to. He senses that Draco thinks Nell evens the score for this second child a bit. Harry asks, "Mind if I stay for dinner? I didn't feel like cooking."

Draco looks at him askance and Harry wonders what he has let slip. Draco shrugs, "Her favorite is macaroni and cheese."

Harry, along with every else in Caralu's life, knows this well.

*

Harry can smell new paint the minute he walks in the door. He knocks on the door to Nell's studio. If she's feeling up to being interrupted, she'll answer.

"Uh, sure, come in," is what Harry gets this time, so he pushes the door open and lets himself inside. Most of the time, this one being no exception, Harry doesn't get Nell's art. He likes it, enjoys it on an "oh, pretty," level, but if he were asked to explain it, he'd probably stutter for a bit before wondering off to get another appetizer. At least, that's what he's done at several of her showings.

This bridge between them doesn't seem to bother her and it certainly doesn't bother him. Nell doesn't understand parseltongue or magic. She rather likes the convenience of the latter, but she doesn't understand it. This sort of makes things even between them. Harry looks at the canvas and says, rather inanely, "You're home."

Nell doesn't call him on it. Instead she motions toward her work in progress, "This is crap. My mind's not much on it."

"Where's your mind?"

"Thinking about whether Severus and Hermione will let me paint another nursery."

Harry grins. "Maybe you should just talk about what you plan to do before you actually complete the project this time." As last time the two of them had walked in on a fully painted scene from early Irish folklore and been a bit on the overwhelmed side.

"I was thinking the legend of Persephone." Nell turns from the painting that's not going anywhere. "But I don't want Severus thinking that I consider him Hades. Might put a bit of a damper on our friendship."

"There was a time when that would have made you positively his favorite," Harry informed her, straight-faced.

"Before fatherhood?"

Before Hermione, before Draco, before Harry's trip to Madville, population one. "Have any other thoughts?"

"I thought about dragons, but the dragons I grew up believing in are nice, and as I understand it, that's not so much the case with your type." Nell runs a hand through her hair, which leaves part of the blonde streaked with a thick blue. "If it was Caralu I'd do snakes, but who's to say this child won't be afraid of snakes? That is perfectly common."

"So I've heard," Harry says wryly. He appreciates Nell working through her own fear of snakes for him.

"Doesn't your kind have any sort of mythos?"

"My kind?" Harry asks lightly.

"You know, the sort with bad hair and an astonishing knowledge of films made for ten pence or less."

"Ah, in that case, there is the story of Mr. Comb Over, the two-in-the-am-adult-movie-nympho."

"I don’t think that's likely to get approved by the future parental unit," Nell says with apparent thoughtfulness.

"How about winged horses?"

Nell lifts an eyebrow. "Winged horses? Like Pegasus?"

"Nothing so beautiful. The kind I'm thinking of are often mistaken for Dark Creatures."

"Yes, I'm sure Severus and Hermione will jump at the chance to have me scare the wits out of their youngest child."

Harry's smile is nothing more than the yearning of his lips to move upward. "Oh, I think you'd be surprised."

Nell shifts her weight from one foot to another. "Mind telling me why you think that?"

"Because it is part of a Thestral that lies at the core of my wand. The wand that saved our world. The wand that Hermione and Severus came up with the idea for, together, in the beginning of their creation story."

"You, not your wand, saved your world," Nell says. She's said it before and she'll probably say it again. The first time she ever did Harry had asked, "How'd you-" and she'd cut him off. "I asked around, since you obviously weren't going to be the one to explain." And then, even though it had been too late, he had. She'd listened and said, "Unsurprisingly, I believe what Ron and Hermione and Severus told me more." But she'd still believed him.

"Winged horses, Nell."

She shakes her head slightly, but Harry can tell that it's with amusement. "It's a good idea."

Harry tilts his head at her. "Want help cleaning yourself up?"

"No magic," Nell says, not warns, just says.

Harry agrees, "No magic." Nell has taught him to love magic again, mostly through no intent of her own. Still, there are times when the efficiency of magic, the thoroughness of it cannot compare to human touch, to the softness of suds between the webbing of fingers, to the smell of whatever conditioner was cheapest when Nell last stopped by the market. Harry whips around, calling behind him, "Race you to the shower!"

Nell, several steps at a disadvantage, follows, yelling, "No fair, wanker!"

*

Flipped slithers up Harry's back as he's attempting to clean the air filter in her exhibit. She says, "You're thinking very hard," which is the parseltongue equivalent of 'brooding.'

"No," Harry says.

"Yes," Flipped argues, and proceeds to point out that it's taken him an hour longer to do what he is currently doing than it does on an average basis. Harry just keeps at his task.

"Is it about your mate?" Flipped has now twisted herself around Harry's midriff and is happily leaching his body heat.

"No, Nell's safe."

"Odd answer, Scar."

Harry shrugs. "Safety is important."

"And not something you find easy to take for granted."

"I don't think I find taking anything for granted easy." Harry finds it amusing how it's come to be easy, talking about the damage inflicted upon him by the Dursleys, how he still can't much talk about those two years after Hogwarts. Luna.

"Is she happy?"

"My mate?"

"Yes."

Harry thinks about the truly horrendous cup of coffee he had this morning because she brought it to him as a wake-up present, the scrunch of her face as she tried to figure out which suit to wear, the way she reminded him as he was running out to bring hand soap home in the evening. "For the moment."

"Are you?"

Since Harry has always measured everything on a relative scale, he answers, "Yes."

"You don’t seem happy."

Harry says, with no small awareness of the irony in the statement, "I've become afraid of the things I can't do. Again." That, of course, had always been the problem at first, when he'd shown up with his wizarding world famous scar and no clue of which end of the wand pointed where. How could Harry not have feared not being able to kill Voldemort, not being able to save the world, not being able to live up to expectations?

Only he had done all those things and then, only then, had he learned to be afraid of the things which he could do. Flipped's weight against his stomach is a dull reminder of all the things he gave up, put aside to sit in that little video shop and advise bored patrons on the merits of blockbusters from across the ocean. Only Hermione's determination, Severus's scorn, Ron's loyalty, Nell's quiet wonder and Draco's resilience had brought him to this point of reclamation, of fighting the fear in a way that he'd forgotten to do in those years after the final killing.

"What can't you do?" Flipped asks, and though snakes aren't much for inflection, Harry's pretty sure he can feel her confusion.

Harry begins to screw the lid to the filter back in its proper place. "Move forward."

*

"Harry." Hermione's voice is just a bit impatient, drawing Harry back.

"Sorry."

There's frustration in her eyes for a moment before she shakes her head slightly, dispelling it. "Look, why don't you just tell me where it is that you keep wandering off to this evening?"

Hermione and Harry have stolen away to the sitting room after a dinner together. Severus is putting Caralu to bed and Nell is surveying the room that the couple has given her permission to paint. Harry's eyes settle on the soft swell of Hermione's abdomen, barely enough to even notice a difference, and doesn't answer immediately. "You like the Thestral idea? She had other ones."

"I didn't figure that one being hers, and yes, I think it will do quite nicely. I'd half a mind to do Caralu's in werewolves for the sheer purposes of accustoming her to something that other people will tell her to fear, but Severus most likely would've had fits. That's not really what you were thinking."

"Flipped thinks I'm unhappy."

"Flipped is a snake, love. I'm more interested in what you think."

Harry mumbles, "I think I might still be crazy."

Hermione shifts slightly. "You still talk to Luna?"

He does, but he doesn't actually think she's alive when he does it anymore, which he's pretty sure is what Hermione's asking. "No."

"Pulled any unintentional wandless magic lately?"

And though Harry can often feel the pull of it beneath his skin, he always catches it beforehand and finds a safer way to handle it. "No."

"Sleepwalked several miles from where you started?"

"Maybe not crazy," Harry admits.

"Then what, Harry? What is it really?"

He hates that she has to be the one to walk him through this, when her and Ron near to suspended their lives in certain ways to come get him on those nights when he woke up in places he didn't recognize and refused to Apparate home, came and cleaned up after the accidental magic--Ron constantly making sure that the Ministry would stay uninvolved--held him when he realized that Luna was dead and that the only person he could be talking to was himself. He hates that it's his turn to take care of her and hers, and he's failing. There was a time, he knows, when he did take care of that, but he's been at ends to do it since and that fact eats at him every bit as much as Nell's smile every time she plays with a child that isn't hers. "What if it comes back? What if I hurt you or Nell or Caralu? My godchild? How can I- I can't make any promises anymore, I'm never able to keep them."

"Nobody expects-"

"They should. Severus certainly thinks so."

"Severus remembers when you were whole, and for all that it disconcerted him then, this disconcerts him far more."

"We're in agreement on that as well, then."

"Personally, I'm somewhat heartened."

Harry looks at her, attempting not to ask, "are you mad?" with his eyes. He evidently does anyway, as her smile is so fond it hurts. "Don't you see how much you are like the boy you were before in some ways? Harry, we all make promises we can't keep. Severus and I certainly have, to each other and to others. It's not desirable, I grant you, but it is human, a concept you've never understood. Making a promise is just about trying one's best Harry. And sometimes, perhaps most of the time, that's enough. Sometimes it's not. You just have to hope that when it's not the consequences aren't dire."

Harry leans back into the cushions. "I'm afraid of consequences."

Hermione pokes at him with one of her feet, well-swathed in the socks that Molly knitted for her when she got pregnant with Caralu. "You've better reason than most."

Harry shakes his head slightly. Hermione nods as a counter-measure. "And you're braver than most. You'll face the fear, when you're ready. Gryffindor."

Harry laughs. She says it like she isn't twice the Gryffindor he could ever be.

*

Harry comes home to his girlfriend cavorting in the kitchen with his childhood arch-nemesis and says, "Oh, how's it?"

Draco doesn't look away from the blue flame that Nell has made appear with a small twist to one of the hob's dials. "Liao's thinking of purchasing a gas stove. I promised her I'd do a bit of looking into it."

"She have an electric?" Harry asks. He's never dealt with one himself, but he's heard that gas is far easier to control.

"Wood-burning," Draco says.

Harry's never once met a Muggle who still used a wood-burning stove, but then, he's never visited rural China. He supposes maybe he should someday, see the parts of Draco that Harry can't yet piece together. The idea is mildly overwhelming, as Harry knows he will have to see things that are in part his fault, no matter how stringently Draco denied that the one time Harry saw fit to apologize. He's wanted to apologize again so many times since then, but the first time upset Draco so much that he's held off. "Oh. Like what you see?"

"Yeah. I just don't know how easy it's going to be getting gas lines run out to her house. The town has them, but they probably stop several miles before Liao's place. I can't decide if it's worth the investment or not."

Nell flicks the knob off. "To hear you tell it she doesn't spend on much of anything else. Might as well splurge a bit."

Draco nods at this piece of wisdom. "Speaking of splurging, I'm contemplating purchasing a motorbike."

Harry's mind floats to the one he's got sitting in his garage, the one he only takes out at night when the stars are more than enough cover for an unusual flying object. He'd actually offer Draco its use, but he found when he finally began using it--one of the first uses of magic he'd chosen to reinitiate--that it is hard enough to control with full use of his powers.

"What type?" asks Nell, who doesn't really know much about cars but appreciates the aesthetics all the same.

"Not a clue. Haven't mentioned it to Ron, since I'm still debating whether that will really be such a good role model type thing to own with Caralu around so often and he'll just encourage me." Draco blushes in a way that Harry doubts has anything to do with Ron's continued love of Muggle machinery and everything to do with the way Harry once accidentally found them arching over the backseat of the Mini.

"You could always talk to Severus," Harry says.

"Because there's an unbiased opinion for you." Draco snorts.

Harry ducks his head. "Good point. Hermione?"

"Probably best," Draco agrees. "But I brought it up in front of you."

Harry thinks for a second. "C'mon, I'll show you something." He doesn't have to look back to know that both Nell and Draco are following him. He Lumoses the garage once they're there, bringing the bike into the light.

Draco says, "Wow. My cousin's?"

Harry nods. Draco walks to it, around it, a single finger dragging over the surface. "You ever ride her?"

"Occasionally. At night."

"Ever take passengers?"

Harry took Nell once. She'd said, "I like hanging onto you, but I don't like the need to hang on," and he'd understood. "Not very often."

"Think you could make an exception?" Draco's voice is soft. Harry thinks that most of the time, he still expects rejection.

"Show up when you're ready."

Draco smiles at him then. "Ron's gonna be so jealous."

*

Draco pokes around a couple of days later. Nell's in her flannels, the ones that Harry likes to scrunch up in his fingers while he kisses at her stomach, but the night is clear and Draco is looking oh-so-hopeful and Nell, evil queen that she is, laughs as she pushes him out the door. "I promise not to change."

Draco, kindly, does not laugh at the obvious meaning behind the words. Instead he nods solemnly. "Ron has silk pajamas."

"And, if I know the man at all," which Harry flatters himself that he does, "a penchant for torture."

"I was probably better off in China," Draco agrees with an air of mournfulness. It's so well done that Harry finds himself covering his mouth as he laughs. Draco flashes him a grin, then. "Too much?"

"Definitely edging along the line." Harry hands Draco a helmet.

Draco looks at the item in his hands as though trying to comprehend it. Finally he puts it over his head. Harry's already on the bike by this time, so Draco slides on behind him and, with only the tiniest of hesitations, tucks himself firmly behind Harry. Harry can't help asking, "All right?"

"Yes, fine." As though to prove it, Draco tightens his hold on Harry's abdomen ever so slightly. Harry doesn't squirm. Draco's still not always so at ease with human touch, barring Ron, Hermione, Caralu and Severus. For a while Harry took it personally, but that had been before Draco spent a day hiding from all of them after Ginny touched his shoulder without warning.

Harry guns the engine and takes them out of the garage. The first part of the journey, of course, must be taken by road. The bike rumbles over pavement, its noise hidden by a Quietus that Harry renews every once in a while. When they've moved past the outer limits of the city Harry takes them up, checking carefully for witnesses before ascent. Harry won't Obliviate people, it’s on his list of spells never to do again. There are a lot of spells on the list.

Harry levels off far below the clouds, high enough to be well over trees and houses but low enough that the wind isn't bitter. Draco asks, "Why do you worry that you can't keep her as safe as you're keeping me?"

Harry nearly brings them crashing to the ground in shock. "Erm."

"Sorry, a warning wouldn't have gone amiss, I'm sure. Just, she's no more or less Muggle than I am."

Harry's not really sure that's true, even if Draco's abilities would indicate it being so. Draco has knowledge that Nell will never have, not even if--when--Harry explains it. "I've seen your scars."

Draco somehow managed to catch chicken pox from Caralu last year after avoiding infection until that time. Caralu's bout with it had been, of course, mild, given her age. Draco's had been horrendous, and Ron had called on everyone available to help out at one point or another. Harry hadn't escaped duty and, underneath the riot of itchy red bumps, he could see the legions of places, short and long, skinny and wide, jagged and clean, where Draco's skin told stories. Even worse, Harry knows from his own experience that those places are only the parts that stuck around for posterity. There are whole layers, Harry is sure, that only Draco and maybe sometimes Ron ever sees.

"You didn't put them there," Draco says.

"Might as well've."

"No, don’t allow me any credit in the whole scenario, please. Nor Persephone, for that matter."

Harry tilts the bike upward a bit, into the fierce wind. "Just taking my share."

"The lion's share?"

"Ha. Ha."

"Simply attempting to make a point."

"I. . .know."

"Because I am very safe up here, and I couldn't be, not on my own."

"She's not exactly riding motorbikes in the sky."

"You'd be surprised, marriage is a bit like that. Fucking cold at times, and with a long drop at the bottom if someone screws up, but mostly just nice to hold onto, safe because you're both there."

"But if I don't hold up my end of the bargain-"

"You will. You always do."

"Did Hermione tell you that?"

"No, I figured it out on my own."

"Oh." Draco's pretty smart, so Harry doesn’t exactly doubt him. It would just be nice for Hermione to have said it. Then again, Hermione's sort of been trying to say something like that, Harry thinks.

"She'll love you even when you fuck up."

Harry knows that. "It's scary."

"Petrifying."

Harry hears the "but worth it" at the end of Draco's unfinished thought. He takes the bike down a bit and begins to head back. "Nightcap?"

"Think you can keep your hands off Nell that long?"

"I'll try my best."

*

Harry's feeding Long when Nell shows up, her hair braided into pigtails the way he likes best, and wearing a sweater that declares her to be an Elvren. Harry doesn't get the reference, but he doesn't doubt that it's something oddly feministic in a sort of backwards way. Hermione and Nell have had more than one three-day argument over the meaning of female agency in a male-driven society. To Harry it always sounds like they're running along parallel roads and just don't see each other, but as he's had screaming matches with Ron over the importance of the third Chaser position, he's hardly one to talk.

A length of mismatched belt falls down just below the hem of the sweater and Harry tugs at it. "You're supposed to be at work."

"Called in sick. Needed to spend the day with you."

"What'd you show up here for? Nobody'll believe me if I tell'em I'm sick now."

"Thought I'd spend the day here."

Long, having made short work of the mouse Harry'd released into the cage, asks, "Is she your mate, Scar?"

"Yes. Erm, sort of. And she's afraid of snakes, so right there is just fine if you don't mind."

"I can smell that. What else is she afraid of?"

"Sorry?"

"The other fear I smell. Is your mate afraid of you?"

"No." Harry frowns. "Of course not."

Nell puts a hand to Harry's shoulder. "What's he saying? It is a he, yes?"

"Yes, yes. He. This is Long Tail. And he says that you're scared of something besides the snakes."

Nell tilts her head. "Curious. Does he say what?"

"He thinks it's me."

"It's not you." There's an emphasis to the statement that Harry can't quite figure out. It sounds as though it might be anger, but Nell isn't particularly quick to anger so he doubts that she's somehow gotten there in the past ten seconds.

"I told him as much." Harry leaves the obvious question unasked. "Why. . . I mean, not that I don't appreciate the company, or love having you here, but what are you doing here?"

"I'm trying-" Nell drops her hand, walking away from him for a bit before spinning around. "I'm trying to let you see that I care more about you than the things I'm afraid of. I'm trying to be the one who doesn’t let fear destroy us. Maybe that's what your friend smells."

"If I had a mate," Long adds to the conversation, "I would not upset her the way you do yours."

For some reason, the statement makes Harry laugh. He knows he shouldn't, but he can't help it. Even more illogically, Harry's laughter gives way to Nell's. When he can, Harry says, "C'mon, I'll introduce you to Tchtch and Flipped, and then I'll take you out for an exotic lunch in the café."

"How did I ever find myself such a prince of a man?"

"If I remember correctly, by very wisely ignoring the attentions of his hapless roommate."

"Ah, the quirks of fate."

Harry turns to her and steals a kiss, one that she gives over without much fuss. He says, "I do love you."

She says, "Yeah, you're a pretty easy read."

Harry only wishes that were true.

*

Nell sips at her tea. "Don't spread the word that I said it or anything, but Flipped is quite pretty."

"She is, yeah. There are actually prettier."

"Look, I'm making strides here."

"Ye're a brave bonny lass, y'are," Harry says with a completely straight face.

"It's nice that snakes are tangible. Easy."

Harry sips at his cola. "I know you see how Severus and Hermione are, how even when they laugh there's something-"

"Harry, my love, I know you. All right? Shockingly, I am aware that you are an emotionally stunted, at times horrifically scarred shadow of a man. Hermione told me about your parents and this Voldemort guy, and how you killed him, and you went sort of crazy, which I could've figured out by myself from the sociology major. Ron then filled me in on this Luna girl, that I know you loved, because, um, you've called her name out before, at times when you really shouldn't have."

"Why didn't you-"

"Because you would've taken it to heart, and you weren't doing it to make me feel bad. Every once in a while, though, it wouldn't go so amiss for you to just up and tell me things, even small things, because I would listen. I would listen and I wouldn't, I dunno, do whatever it is you fear I'll do."

"I've never-" Harry rubs his fingers against the top of the table. "I've never taken you into, erm, my world."

"Hermione says they treat you a bit like Beckham." Nell smiles. She hasn't missed a major football match since she was nine and her father first took her out to watch her brother play at the local club.

"I suppose that's as good as any other sort of comparison. I'm obviously not quite as glamorous."

"I doubt he is either when you get behind the legend. Besides, maybe you're just missing the glamour."

"Maybe that's it," Harry says softly.

"I just think that you should trust that I'll be who I am. And, not to sound conceited, but I think you chose me for being that person."

"Who's to say you didn't choose me?"

"It was a mutual choosing, Harry Potter. That's why we work."

"Do we?"

"Oh for fuck's sake," but she laughs as she says it. "You're bloody high maintenance."

"But we do?"

"Well, I still want to marry you. I think that's a definitive statement on my part."

"I should show you, um, tell you, things."

"That'd be good. For me."

Harry looks at the table. "Right. Right."

*

Harry drops by the Ministry the next night, since that's generally the easiest way to find both Ron and Hermione without too much effort. He corrals a protesting Hermione, "Viktor just sent me all that material on Durmstrang's founding, can't this wait?" into Ron's office.

Ron, on the other hand, takes one look at Harry's face and puts down his quill. "Did someone die?"

"No, Ron, someone did not die. Harry and Nell had a Talk," Hermione says, with the exasperated air of someone who has been married far too long to put up with the minutiae of couples not yet settled in matrimony. Or perhaps it’s the air of relief at something having finally happened. Harry suspects it could go either way.

"Finally asked her, then?" Ron grins.

"No, not that talk," Harry says, glaring at Hermione and wondering once again if Severus has been teaching her Legilimancy. She doesn't seem the type to use it with impunity, but. . .

Ron tilts his head. "I thought you already agreed to be the unborn's gods."

"Godparents," Harry says absently, not comfortable with the idea even as an abbreviation, or, more likely with Ron, a joke. "I told her I'd take her into wizarding territory."

"Ah." Ron, blessedly, just nods understandingly. Hermione puts a hand between Harry's shoulder blades.

Harry continues as though he hasn't stopped. "And I was hoping, see, as you've always allowed me to take advantage of your positions as my best friends and basic family status, that you might be willing to make a night of it with us."

When neither of them says anything, Harry keeps going. "I didn't tell her it would be a date. I wouldn't be dragging you into that. And I know that eventually we'll have to face it just the two of us. But I don't think that's a good idea the first time. She hasn't really any clue of what she's walking into to begin with, and while I don't think she'll run screaming--she's really hard to scare that one, other than the snake thing, which has to do with a childhood incident that's really best left unmentioned--but I do think it'd be best if we had some cover. Just a bit. So, um, please."

Ron shrugs. "Sure. Draco's had a list of ingredients hard to get anywhere but Diagon for a month now. He'll probably be glad for the excuse."

Harry knows that for the lie it is. Draco's had that list for that long because he despises Diagon, feels vulnerable in its corridors and a kind of furious need for the things--Thing--he's lost that isn't there most of the time otherwise. Hermione, wisely, covers over Ron's glaring untruth with, "Can we bring Caralu? I'll talk to Severus about a sitter, but he generally refuses to trust anyone but the two of you with her for an evening."

"Nell adores Caralu," Harry points out. "It's fine. Like I said, this isn't about me and her. Well, I mean, course it is, but not in a wine-first-tumble-later sort of way."

"Thursdays are usually good for us," Ron says, "And that ought to be less painful than Saturday, I should think."

"I'll see if Severus has any plans for this coming," Hermione says, and Harry can see her mentally writing it down, knows she will as soon as she gets back to her own space, where the meticulous calendar she keeps is filed neatly in its place.

"I appreciate it," Harry says, just in case they missed that part.

"You absolutely should. Hermione and I are brilliant friends, I'll have you know."

"I noticed." Harry smiles. They follow his lead.

*

When they finally manage to get to their table--they were smart enough to agree to meeting at the restaurant, but hadn't really considered that their reservation might be at the back of said restaurant--Nell says, "I maybe didn't exactly believe you."

Hermione winces, Severus helping to lower her into a seat. "We haven't done this in a while. I think we'd all sort of forgotten. Proper operating procedure at the very least."

Nell looks over at Harry, who's positioned himself so that his back is to the rest of the room. She sneaks a hand over his, which is resting on his lap. "I suppose if I saw someone that I knew had saved my world I'd want to give him a hello."

"Then they should get on giving hellos to everyone else at this table," Harry says, trying his best not to be irritated. The attention still overwhelms him, though, the fact that they don’t seem to notice that he had to kill to do what he did, that had he done what he did in any other circumstance, they would have locked him away for it.

Severus smiles a bit, sardonic enough to soothe Harry slightly. "Fame hangs on you much more glamorously, Mr. Potter."

"Stuff it," Mr. Potter says, although it's half-hearted, and more by way of thanks than anything else.

"That's your rather eloquent way of saying 'why thank you, Professor, dinner is on me, as I've dragged you all out into this miserable atmosphere and feel the need to compensate,' is it not?" Severus says while looking down at his menu.

Harry actually has planned on paying for this, particularly as Draco is just barely covering his need to get the bloody hell out of there with his lifetime of practice. It seems easier than throwing hexes at everyone who's watching him, whispering things like, "Malfoy," when they think he isn't paying attention. As such, he doesn't answer.

Hermione does, though. "Oh no you're bloody well not, Harry Potter." Harry's not sure, but he thinks she kicks Severus's leg for good measure. That's his girl.

"Ron, do you have any suggestions?" Nell asks, before they can really start arguing over it. Which means that they'll just have to throw hexes when the bill comes. Harry can wait.

"Erm." Ron fumbles with his menu.

Nell frowns. "Didn't I hear correctly that you recommended the place?"

"Anything with the fish is excellent, and the beef stands for itself quite well. I wouldn't go with anything of fowl-origin. Of course, it's been some time since I've had any of it, so my word might not be so good as it once was," Draco says all of this quietly, without looking up from his menu.

Harry mentally promises Draco a ride on the bike that lasts all night and into the next one should he so desire it. Or anything he asks for, really.

Severus, most likely just to relieve a silence that is probably eating at Draco says, "Dessert is really where they shine. Their treacle is not to be missed."

Harry wonders if Severus knows that Nell's sweet tooth originates largely from her love of treacle. Draco is smiling down at his menu, and Harry realizes that if nothing else, Draco probably does. Draco, who recommended the place. Harry resists the urge to turn around and zap everyone who bothered to look sideways at Draco while they walked in with a particularly painful version of bodily warts. Especially the young couple now making doe eyes at each other. Serve them right.

Another diner comes up to the table, though, distracting Harry. "Excuse me, sir, but- I mean, you are Harry Potter, aren't you?"

Harry wishes he could lie, but he thinks the entourage he's got with him is pretty much a dead giveaway. "That's me."

*

Hermione is tired and Severus, though he won't say it, quite obviously wants to get back to Caralu, whom Hermione has managed to persuade him to leave with Dumbledore up at the school. Caralu isn't particularly fond of this arrangement, hence Severus's reluctance, but she will accept it, as she often spends full days at a time there with Severus. Dumbledore hasn't lost her or turned her into some sort of wizarding world savior yet, so Hermione and Severus have decided, after much conferring, that a few hours alone with him is relatively safe.

Also, Harry suspects they plan to nip back to the manor and take short advantage of the fact that the tiniest member of the family isn't in residence just at this moment.

Harry has the grace not to say this. Ron, however, has no such inhibitions. "Anybody else planning on abandoning us in favor of a quick shag?"

Draco hides a snicker behind his hand. Even now he has the remnants of what was a rather societal upbringing. The hand that isn't at his mouth, Harry knows, is safely ensconced in Ron's, and has been for the last half-hour. Harry says, "Let's at least abandon this place, yeah?" He's pretty sure everyone in the restaurant has approached him by this point, but he's not really interested in waiting to find out. And Draco's liable to go straight to hand-to-hand combat if one more person looks at him the way most have all evening.

"Our place?" Draco asks. There's a note of pleading to it, so Harry just nods in accession. Beside him, he can see Nell doing the same.

They floo out the same way they came in, Ron and Harry sending Draco and Nell first. Draco doesn't even say anything, make a point of the fact that he will make it, for fuck's sake, Weasley, which is testament to just how very much he wants to get out of there.

Addy and Maddy aren't there when they arrive. Draco calls out to them but when they don't answer he shrugs, "Must've upped to the school. Want something to drink?"

Nell perks up. "Martinis?" She has taught all three of them how to make basic martinis, along with about thirty-eight alternate versions. Her love of martinis is, by her words, "long-standing, and very well documented," by which she means the mounds of rather trippy journaling art that she's archived, done while well-sloshed on martinis.

Draco heads toward their bar but stops himself. "You want the honors?"

Nell grins and gets busy. Moments later she hands out her final creations. Harry's is plain, but Draco's has an apple slice decorating the side, which most likely hits at an apple sour add-in, and Ron's looks to have a bit of Godiva liqueur polluting it's purity. Nell's smells of banana liqueur and possibly something else, and Harry thinks she probably pulled whatever she's drinking out of thin air. She likes the act of creation, even when it doesn't go well.

Just when Harry thinks they're going to sip at their drinks and enjoy the fact that nobody can bother them in this place, Nell says, "I went to this exhibit once, I think it was while I was in France, but that time gets a bit fucked in my head, so maybe just around then. Anyhow, it wasn't anybody of note, but I'd been interested in the concept. See, the artist, it was a girl, woman, she conceptualized the world as a set of Russian dolls, and all her work was based entirely on the idea that layers within layers of something, perhaps the same thing, but perhaps something completely else, was how the world was constructed."

Nell pauses to take a sip and Ron asks, "The Russians have different dolls?" Draco looks equally mystified.

Harry says, "It's a term. They're a set of wooden dolls that open, each doll having another one inside of it."

"Are they Russian?"

"I think that's where the craft originated," Nell says, then waves a hand, "Anyway, so these pictures, they were all. . .existence within existence, world within world, color within color. It was excellent, one of the best exhibits I've ever seen, and I thought I got it, right? Because that's how we all are, with the things that people see, and then what's underneath and then the underneath of the underneath and so on, but it never occurred to me, in all this time, that perhaps that was what you were trying to tell me."

Harry takes another sip. "I was trying to tell you something?"

"That your world was a world within my world, and yet something completely apart from it. I didn’t get that. I didn't even get what Draco missed, because there didn't seem to me to be much to miss, just this, I dunno, mythology of something."

"It was your boyfriend that was crazy," Ron says, "not mine," at the same time that he tucks his feet into Draco's lap. Draco doesn't move, but his shoulders unwind just the tiniest amount.

"Nobody would show me," Nell says in her defense, "and very few people would tell me. And even then. . .I think in visuals."

Harry says, "Sorry."

"That's the thing," Nell finishes her drink with a large sip and gets up to go for another, "now that I've seen, I think I get why you wouldn't show me before."

Harry cringes. Nell starts pouring herself what looks to be a plain martini and says, "You're still stupid, but that's part of the charm."

Across from him, Draco nods casually, Ron, fervently.

*

"I know I've never explicitly mentioned this, although I felt that it was sort of implied, but I'm not, y'know, wedded to traditional narratives of heternormative family building. Pardon the pun."

Harry's pretty sure he's missing more than just the pun. "Huh?"

Nell shuts their bedroom door upon both of them walking into the room despite the fact that nobody else is in the house. "Well, I dunno, you've been a bit more edgy than is really usual for you since Severus and Hermione did the big, 'oh, we're incubating another,' and I thought you might be hung up on something like asking me to marry you."

"You don’t want to get married?"

"The idea certainly holds possibilities with you, and I have my moments of old-fashioned longing, but mostly I don't really feel that the state, government, nation, however you want to think of it, I don't think it defines my relationships. Maybe economically, but even then, there are different ways of approaching shared assets."

Harry doesn't bring up the Church. Nell's relationship to her native Catholicism is complicated and at times distinctly painful. If she wanted to talk about it, that's what they would be talking about. Nell's much better about saying things than he is, even if she claims that her only real place of expression is in her hands. "I thought you wanted children."

"I do. How can I resist? A whole generation completely mine to inculcate and drive marginally insane." Nell grins and takes off her shirt. Harry's glad they've been together so long because there was a time when that would have been all it took for his mind to gather up and leave this room of conversation completely. It's still somewhat distracting, and Harry has to wait until she's thrown her pajama top on to formulate his next thought.

"What are you going to do then? Find someone that will marry you?"

"Sometimes you aren't very imaginative, Harry."

"You’re the crazy artist in the relationship," he reminds her dryly.

"And you're the video-store clerk, soc student savior of the world. Really, I don't know why I should have to do all the work." She brushes past him on her way to the bathroom, kissing his cheek. "Anyhow, there's millions of ways for me to have children without your help, and it's not like you don't like children, you're just terrified of being responsible for bloody anything. We could make the kids your godkids. You seem to do well with that."

"I think I might be sort of old-fashioned."

"You do, hm?" She doesn't sound surprised.

"I mean, if this non-marriage, radical kid-raising thing is something you need to try out for your own-"

Nell pops her head inside the bathroom door frame. "Are you trying to ask me to marry you?"

"Not very well," Harry admits.

"You're lucky I'm not very traditional. And that I want to pick my own ring out."

"Is that a yes?"

Nell rolls her eyes and pops back out of sight. "Bloody hell, Potter."

Harry takes that as a yes. "I'm pretty lucky in general."

*

When Harry tries to tell them about it, he discovers the essential difficulty in trying to explain engagement to a bunch of snakes. Tchtch refuses to understand the concept no matter how many ways Harry explains it, Flipped tries offering a sort of congratulations in a way that makes it clear she doesn't really understand either, and Long tells him in no uncertain terms, "Humans are weird."

In principle, Harry doesn't exactly disagree.

He does, however, need someone he can talk to about this. He calls Nell as his day is winding up. "How long you plan on being there?"

"I could get out if you needed me to. Christian owes me one. Or six." Christian, her hapless Finnish co-worker who makes both Nell and Harry laugh and has an uncanny eye for what will draw people in, is also notoriously unreliable.

"Meet me at Snape Manor when you can?"

"Show you the ring when we get there, will I?"

"You already have it? I thought-"

"I have a design. You remember Angela from when we were in school?"

Harry sifts through memories of people who meant nothing to him because he didn't want them to mean anything. He settles on one of a tall, lanky girl with buzzed hair and surprisingly blue eyes. "The footballer?"

"Yeah, that too. She's a metalsmith, works with all kinds. She'll make me anything I want."

"I see being a starving artist has its perks."

"More when you're not actually starving," Nell says. "I've got to run. Some of us have jobs where we do things like work."

"Next time you skip out to spend time with me, we're mucking out the cages together."

She laughs. "See you in a bit."

Harry Apparates over to the Manor. Severus is already home. He says, "Were we expecting you?"

"Haven’t you come to just generally do that? It isn't like you to be so constantly unprepared."

Severus smirks. "Hermione's still at the museum."

"How's the new exhibit coming?"

"She won't let me see it. She never will until they're complete." He doesn't seem upset by it. With her, he's surprisingly good at sitting back and letting things happen.

Harry touches on a slightly more risky subject. "And how does she feel?"

Severus doesn't snap, though. "Second trimester's much preferable to either of the others."

"It's still sort of scary, though, isn't it? I mean-"

"You worry too much, Potter."

But Severus very rarely calls him Potter anymore, so Harry really doesn't think he does. "I worry just about as much as everyone else. I just have more things to worry about."

"Arrogant little snit." There's acceptance in the statement, though, almost agreement.

"I don't know that I'll handle it quite so well as you do when it comes to Nell."

Severus looks at him then, truly settles his gaze on Harry for several seconds before saying, "You'll handle it as she sees fit."

Severus, in truth, is rarely ever wrong.

*

Nell shows up in what she calls her "professional drag," a pant-suit with pinstripes that Harry thinks looks quite smart for all that Nell would much rather be in cords. Her hair is actually loose, something he doesn't see very often and he can't help running his hand through it when she comes over to kiss him hello. "How was your day?"

"Busy, yours?"

Harry thinks. "There's a rumor that we might be starting a breeding program. I'm not telling the snakes until I know the truth. I think false hope might kill them. Literally."

"Sometimes I'm so very glad that paintings don't have feelings."

"Artists do," Harry points out.

"Nobody's job can be perfect." She spots Severus and smiles. "Have anything on hand to drink?"

"Irish Whisky?"

"If you weren't already married, Severus Snape. . ."

"You'd still be fawning over the resident tall, moderately dark and-" Evidently Severus can't bring himself to say "handsome" as he just cuts off and goes to the sideboard to pour drinks. He pours a third for his not-handsome guest, which said guest appreciates, despite his dislike of Irish Whisky. While Nell and Severus swirl the liquid a bit, nurse it as a pre-dinner treat, Harry shoots his back in a succession of three swallows that leave him gasping awkwardly and hoping that he hasn't actually burnt a hole through the walls of his intestines. When it settles, though, and the muscles of Harry's back unfurl just a bit, Harry remembers why that was all worth it. Of course, by that time, the immediate memory of the trauma has faded as well. Nell and Severus, for their part, spare a quick, not-terribly concerned glance for him and then go back to conversing when Harry raises a hand in the international signal for, "yup, fine, right on top of it I am."

Hermione comes in soon after all of this. She sniffs at Severus's glass and then smiles a smile that Harry purposely does not decode up at her husband. "Shall I tell Vizja I'm home? I'm starved, I don’t know about anyone else."

"Go sit at the table," Severus says with a sound of deep annoyance that Harry has learned to understand is actually concern. "I'll find Vizja."

Of course, Vizja is a house elf, and so doesn’t need to be found, but Hermione is looking a bit bruised around the eyes and her declaration of hunger is a little lacking in force. The four of them make their way to the dining room, Severus throwing off a bit of magic to warn Vizja of their readiness. Nell falls in next to Harry while rumishing through her business tote. Finally she finds what she wants, an eight by eleven piece of paper with a sketching on it. Harry takes the--more than slightly crinkled--sheet from her. On it there's a three dimensional drawing of two rings that fit together, the top and base sliding up into each other. The bottom ring wraps around the finger twice, the top as well. On the top the head of a snake rests lazily on the bottom level of metal, on the bottom, the tail deviates away slightly. Both tail and head contain gems, which Nell has labeled. The top says, "aquamarine," which is Nell's birthstone, the bottom, "ruby--pink, I know they’re more common, but I like pink more than red, and well, it matches the other stone better. And while we're talking color, I know you're not big on silver, because it has, I dunno, connotations or something, but I like it better, so we're going with silver."

Harry asks, "White gold sound like a compromise?" and thanks every deity existing that Nell wasn't born in May, month of the emerald. Severus and Draco would never let him hear the end of it. Never.

"Platinum," Nell says. "It's stronger."

Harry likes the sound of that. He doesn't like the sound that Severus is making, his deeply impatient sound. Harry pulls out a chair for Nell and then seats himself in the one next to it. Food appears less than a moment later and Harry lets small talk take hold of the conversation until the first pangs of hunger have been overcome and everyone has slowed in their digestion process. He looks at Nell before saying something, because she might want- But she shakes her head a bit and Harry gets it. They are, after all, his friends. She's already told her father and brother without any help from Harry whatsoever. Harry takes a sip of water. "Nell and I are going to get married."

Hermione smiles, wide and contented. Severus says, "Good," as though the matter was decided long ago. Harry wonders if, like everything else in his life, it was.

Nell says, "My da wants the ceremony outside, but I was always hoping to walk down the aisle barefoot, y'know?" and Harry realizes that for the first time, he doesn't really care.

*

Nell shows him the sketch of his ring that she did, one ring, four coils of snake. It matches the two of hers when combined exactly except for his being gemless, and the designated metal being gold. Harry's only quibble is, "I thought you were afraid of snakes."

"I've been thinking about that a lot, and I've come to the conclusion that my fears may be based on vague Judeo-Christian notions of evil ingrained into my consciousness at a very young age."

The Dursley's weren't real big on religion of any kind, but Harry knows the story of Genesis. "Or you could just have a fear of reptiles that are known to strike out defensively against humans from time to time with tactics such as poisoning and asphyxiating."

"Hm, maybe. Doesn't change the fact that they're your friends. And you were totally afraid of my pomo artist friends, but that hasn't kept you from coming to the potluck every third Tuesday of the month."

Being that the people involved are all artists, it's more like every third someday-of-the-week a month, but Harry's hardly compulsive. "Not sure it's quite the same."

Nell shrugs. "Also, I like that you're bilingual. It's sexy."

"You missed your game with Draco. He's multilingual."

"Yes, but he can only talk to other humans."

"You know your whole Judeo-Christian thing?" Harry asks.

"Sure. Want an apple? I'm sort of hungry."

"Funny, look, I'm just pointing out, wizards largely see snakes as evil too. It's one of those things that people prefer to ignore about the Famous Harry Potter, that he speaks to snakes, something that makes them worry that I'll go batshit and try to take over the world. People with the ability have a history of sorts."

"Lucky for them you're not much like anyone that anyone's ever known, yeah?"

"That apple's starting to sound good," Harry says, thinking that if she's going to be his downfall, he'll be following her munching along happily.

Nell smiles, her face soft and understanding. "I don’t believe in evil, Harry."

"I know, but you haven't seen it."

"I've seen plenty that looks like it. But I learned to call it by other names. Pain. Disease. Hunger. Rage. Human. Me. Giving things names sometimes lessens their power."

"I-" Harry can't help it, he smiles. "One of the many things Voldemort taught me."

"So I've been thinking about Flipped and Long and Tchtch that way. With their names. Makes them sound more like, I dunno, friends. And as friends aren't evil, they must not be either."

"But they are predators."

"If I'm going to start condemning the cycle of life, I'd best stop eating meat now. Which I don't plan on doing. Not even when I'm fat, just so you know. Probably would've been best for me to mention that before the engagement, but I figure we can still get out clean."

"Kind of you to offer, but I'll just have to get you out on the football pitch more often when that starts to happen."

"I'll kick your scrawny behind."

"I don’t doubt it for a moment."

*

Ron says, "Congratulations," and Draco says, "Takes you a bit, doesn't it, Potter?"

Harry shrugs. Draco's not so action-oriented these days either. "I'm just not easy." Luckily he remembers who he's talking to and leaves the, "like some people I know," off.

Draco just smirks. "It's cheap, not easy."

"It's neither," Ron says with a small growl in the words, glaring at Harry and kissing Draco somewhat more forcefully than most likely necessary.

Harry tilts his head. "It's odd that I always thought the world would end with me facing off Voldemort, and here it has suddenly, with me wondering what I can do to maintain a relationship as solid as yours."

"Indeed," Draco says, "Somebody should go check that the dead aren't roaming the earth."

"Nah, I always said you were short considerably more knights to a full deck of wizards chess than I," Ron says, even though he's never said anything of the sort. In fairness to him, he's probably thought it a long time. Then again, that conclusion wasn't so hard to come by when Harry was spending whole weeks at a time with people who were very very dead.

"When's the wedding, then?" Ron asks, evidently not wanting to dwell on his last comment all too long.

"After the baby's born," Harry says. "We wanted our godchild there."

"Yeah, and I'm sure Hermione's complaining about having to get into formal robes for the occasion had nothing to do with that decision." Ron snorts.

"Nor Nell's father wanting to plan the fete of the year for his darling little girl," Draco adds drolly. Draco actually has no problem with Nell's father, except maybe a little bit of jealousy that he didn't get one like him, but the man can be a little. . .well, Nell's his only daughter, and it shows. "Church wedding?"

Harry nods. "Catholic. Let us all pray that neither I nor anyone on my side of the aisle does anything unwittingly horrifying and scandalous in the eyes of the Papists."

"Papists. Classy. Does anyone born after 1703 still call them that?" Draco asks, evidently as a matter of course.

"Um, Nell, which is where I picked it up, I'm sure. Probably shouldn’t say that to their faces, huh?"

"Maybe you shouldn't talk at all once you pass over the vestibule," Ron suggests. "Wouldn't want you to get hit by a stray lightning bolt or anything."

"Although," Draco says with a good dose of consideration, "admittedly, the irony would be thick and lovely."

"Thanks," Harry says, laughing. "Yeah. But half the church wouldn't get it."

"We'll just have to save it, then, I suppose, for a more appropriate occasion." Ron looks as though it's fine by him one way or another.

Harry's still laughing as he asks, "The two of you'll stand up for me, of course?"

Draco just blinks at him as Ron says, "Of course," in his "wow, you didn't forget to take your anti-moron pills this morning, did you?" voice. Harry thinks that Draco's eye acrobatics are a little more about surprise than Ron would give credence to, however.

"Well, that's one thing crossed off the list." Harry mimes crossing the task off an imaginary list. "Only three katrillion more to go."

"Take your time with that," Draco advises solemnly.

Harry gestures rudely. "Yeah, thanks."

*

"Sometimes," Hermione whispers, "I think she's a natural at Legilimancy."

Harry looks over at Severus helping Caralu to put a beginner's puzzle together. The object is to help her learn her colors.

Harry's not sure he's ever seen the two of them say more than three words in one sitting to each other. Not that Caralu knows tons of words, but enough that if she and Severus wanted to speak, they could. Hermione speaks with her. Generally Hermione speaks and Caralu listens, but she'll answer when compelled. "I think she's just very much his daughter."

Hermione smiles. "She wrinkles her nose when he comes home smelling like his potions. It upset him so much at first."

"Now?"

"Now he does things like brews the school's cleaning formulas before he leaves."

Hogwarts uses formulas that smell of natural things, pine and dirt and air. Harry often nicks them out of Hermione and Severus's personal stores, since the ones in Muggle supermarkets never live up to the scent the way his do. "Tricky little bastard."

"Yes," Hermione says fondly. "She likes it though. She puts her face in his robes, and-"

Harry raises an eyebrow. Hermione shakes her head but says, "His face. It's just. I always thought that there were certain moments that would never be surpassed, like his face when he saw I was alive after- afterwards, or the first time we woke up next to each other, but I was so very wrong."

"You have some pretty good faces yourself around her." Harry nudges Hermione's knee with his own.

"I can only imagine." Hermione twists up her face. "I'm a complete sap when I'm around her. I'm only lucky that Severus is so taken as well or I'm sure words would have flown."

"What, they don't?"

"Well, right. But as neither of us has a leg to stand on the exchanges are rather more civil than I could've imagined."

"You've just summed up the entirety of your relationship for me," Harry tells her.

"Hush you." Hermione shoves against him lightly, using the momentum to stand. She walks over to her husband and daughter with a, "Well, much progress?"

Caralu points to something, a piece of the puzzle and says, "Gold."

Hermione seats herself slightly behind Caralu, her feet resting alongside one of Severus's legs. "If you're going to get specific, I suppose," there's humor and not a jot of pride in her voice. Harry's willing to bet the puzzle says the color is yellow.

Caralu points to another piece and looks at her father. "Silver."

Severus puts his hand gently atop her head and leans over to kiss his wife quickly. Harry thinks, shouldn't be right, but he knows it is. He knows.

*

Antipodes Granger Snape bursts into the world a month early, weighing in at four pounds, six ounces, and giving everyone a fright. Later, when it's clear that both mother and child are going to be fine, only then does Severus say, "Takes after his namesake."

Draco, said namesake in a sort of roundabout way, glares. Ron, ever quick to defend those he loves, says, "My boyfriend does not go around scaring people out of their- Oh."

Nell smirks and gets away with saying, "They're never gonna forgive that little trip to China, sweetcheeks," which is something none of the rest of them would dare say. Mostly because Draco doesn't take well to pet names.

For a moment, Draco looks like he's thinking about throwing something, possibly his shoe, as it is the nearest chuckable item. Then he shakes his head and asks, "When're we going to get to see the boy everyone's talking about?"

"When the healers proclaim his immunities up to handling the stress. I will tell my wife you were more anxious to see some child you don't even know than her, mind you." Severus looks exhausted even as he tries to hold a sternness behind his eyes.

Ron says, "I wanna see her, can I see her?"

Draco says, "Thank you for the love, Galahad."

"She still sleeping?" Harry asks, before this can turn into an all-out snarkfest that Severus will enjoy only too much.

"Probably, but you can go in if you want."

They all do, of course. Nell straggles behind, because, "I'm not really-" but Harry just pulls her along behind, "Yeah, you kinda are." He realizes it's the "kinda" gradient that she's pointing out, but he's pretty sure that will disappear after awhile. She just has to keep intruding on the spaces where it exists.

Hermione is sleeping, so Ron kicks off his shoes and climbs onto the bed on one side of her with a meaningful look at Harry, who follows his lead and takes the other side. It's odd to be doing this with Draco and Nell and even Severus, who's now followed them into the room, to see. Before, in Gryffindor tower, in those days and weeks previous to the Falling Apart of Everything, then it had been the three of them, safely hidden by the curtains.

Only, for once neither Draco nor Severus is smirking. If anything, Severus looks like he wants to nod in approval but that the antithesis to everything he has believed for so long will undo his very being and he will cease to exist on this plane. As Hermione probably needs him right now, Harry's glad he has the sense not to nod.

Nell, Nell tilts her head and says, "Wow, lucky girl."

Ron mumbles something that Harry can't understand, but he knows what it is all the same. Harry whispers to Hermione, who can't hear him, "We're here." Her breath hits his nose and he smiles but doesn’t move. He'll stay until she wakes with them there, all of them. He'll stay until she knows she's safe.

He'll keep her safe.

*

Despite the driving role it has played in his life, love has always been an odd concept for Harry. The first eleven years of his life it was an abstract concept, something he wanted, sensed existed, saw in the form of Petunia's relation to Dudley, but didn't know in any concrete form for himself. He neither loved nor was loved, and not knowing anything of his parents, had no sense of their love for him.

The wizarding world at large taught him about things that he thought were love and found to be the worship of false idols. Never mind that the idols were almost always some form of himself.

Hermione and Ron, somewhat through trial and error, taught him about friendship and the types of love that can be constructed through friendship. Those types, Harry now knows, are often faulty, at times harrowing, but always solid.

Still, the love of friendship has a different type of solidity to it than that of a lover. Harry learned this the first time he touched his lips to Luna's neck and she didn't move, not an inch. Nell moves, always, squiggles and squirms, but when he's done, somehow, she's always still in the same place in relation to him. Luna was his teacher and Harry thinks she would have been his forever. He also knows that she wouldn't be bothered by his moving on, learning more, because Luna was a perpetual Ravenclaw, curious as a kitten and as undeterred by the danger inherent as, well, Hagrid.

Hermione and Severus, Draco and Ron teach him about what love means in its formal terms, what supporting each other and compromising with each other and living for each other translates to. He appreciates it, as Harry is not so bold as he once was in finding these things out for himself. He's no longer the eleven year old who took Hagrid's affection on faith and rejected Draco on instinct.

Antipodes teaches him what Harry's mother must have known. Whereas Ron was the first to hold Caralu after her parents, Harry receives that honor with the second child. Hermione hands him over like she often does a book that she's been perusing, with a sort of offhand reverence. Harry takes the offering as it is given and cradles Antipodes to him.

He's tiny, so tiny, and Harry wonders if he can get away with calling him "Ant" or if Severus will curse Harry in his sleep. Probably the latter. Harry is most likely willing to risk it anyway. Ant makes silly noises with his mouth and opens his eyes sporadically, looking at Harry with wide, dark eyes that are a blank (innocent?) version of his father's. His skin is wrinkled and ill-fitting, but Harry's pretty sure he'll grow into it. Harry's even more sure that it doesn't matter. Wrinkly or no, Harry's going to do everything in his power to teach Ant the things he had to wait until much later to learn.

Harry isn't sure how much time has passed when Nell leans up against his back, her chin resting on his right shoulder. "You're hogging the baby."

Harry wants to say something clever to that. Instead he turns his face and smiles at her. He can feel himself looking goofy, but he's at ends to help it. She laughs at him, which only feels good, solid. He whispers, "That's Nell, Ant. She's pretty, huh?"

Ant makes a smacking noise. Harry takes it as agreement.

Severus asks, with an imperial arch to his voice, "Ant?"

*

They hold the wedding in the courtyard at Snape Manor, the aisle lined with a temporary roll of white velvet for Nell's unshod feet. Caralu throws rose petals this way and that, looking somewhat mystified as to why she's doing all of this. Harry wears formal robes, a choice he probably should've discussed with Nell's father, who has an equally flummoxed expression on his face to that of the flower girl's. Despite the details, though, (or perhaps, Harry thinks, due to them), the wedding goes off without a hitch and Harry kisses his girl and is suddenly a husband. After all the worrying, it doesn't actually feel that different.

The ceremony and reception are relatively small. Harry finds Severus at one point in the melee and asks, "You re-work the wards for the weekend?"

Severus is busy burping Ant, which is most likely why Harry has been able to get him alone. To Harry's surprise, the man smiles. "You could say that."

Harry really doesn't want to know. What's more, he doesn't want to be there for the fight that Severus and Hermione will have over whatever her husband has done to the outer defenses of their house. He nods. "Well, thanks."

Ant finally burps. Severus murmurs something in the baby's ear that Harry suspects might be, "good boy." Harry does not call attention to this fact. Severus, by way of appreciation, nods. "Congratulations, Harry. Truly."

Harry takes the congratulations and runs with it, off to find Hermione. He finds her pawning Caralu off to Draco so that she can dance with Ron. Harry says, "All right, but I've got you next dance."

Hermione leads Ron onto the dance floor, and doesn't stop with the leading once they're there. Draco says, "Dance with us." He puts Caralu down on the floor and she holds her hand out to Harry, Draco having grabbed the other one. Harry takes it and puts his other hand in Draco's so that they form a circle.

When they're moving, round and round and round, Draco says, "We're thinking of adopting. Only, we thought we'd time it, y'know. So the kids could be playmates and all."

Harry knows how nearly impossible it is to adopt a child of magical heritage. The community is small enough as it is, nobody sees any reason to go around giving up babies. Which isn't to say there aren't miscarriages and abortions and occasional "personal" adoptions, that is to say, an adoption between two parties that know each other. There are even "undesirable" adoptions, of older kids with something "wrong" with them, werewolves and vampires and squibs being among the main ones. "You've already looked into it, then?"

Draco doesn't answer directly. "Weasley of course wants trillions. I told him we'd most like have to Muggle it, then."

Harry wonders if it was more a fight than that. "And?"

Draco shrugs. "Plenty of girls up for the going in China. I like girls."

Harry looks at him. Draco smirks. "As kids." Then realizes how that sounded.

"Rather-"

Caralu is still standing between them though, looking up curiously, so Harry says, "Caught your meaning."

Hermione comes then, steals him away and leads him through a dance. He only steps on her feet twice and she laughs both times and says, "Who did the catering? It's quite nice."

Harry mumbles something because Nell's father really took care of all those details. Hermione kisses him on the cheek as the music ends. "I think there's someone here for a dance."

Harry turns to see Nell behind him. The blue flower-dress she chose for the occasion is flowing all around her, her hair loose with orchids strewn into it. She asks, "May I have this dance, Mr. Potter?"

Her waist is warm and steady under his hand as he pulls himself toward her. "You can have every dance, Mrs. Potter."