"Is still there waiting for you," Harry interrupted before Severus could say something to choke the very life out of him. "You were almost killed. But you're healing now. Every day you're growing stronger."
"The worst of the damage wasn't physical," Severus objected, a cornered expression crossing his shadowed face.
"I know," Harry said in a soothing tone. "I know you've been going through hell these last few months. I also understand that you were hurt so badly that we might never be able to do everything we used to do, but . . . what we had was about more than just sex. When you're better -"
"What if I'm never 'better'? What if I can't ever . . . ."
The fear Severus had voiced was a very real possibility. Harry knew that. Some damage a man never recovered from.
Reaching out, Harry laid his hand on Severus' tense forearm. "Then you never can, and I'll still be here."
Harry didn't make the offer lightly. He knew what he was taking on here. He'd never been any good at seeing more than one person at a time. If he were with Severus, then he was with Severus – exclusively.
It was a lot to give up, even for love.
He could almost feel Severus' utter astonishment.
After a long silence, Severus softly questioned, "You . . . you would stay? Even without . . . ?"
Harry felt something like triumph that his declaration wasn't questioned or discarded out of hand. Severus clearly believed he'd meant what he'd said. If nothing else, the last few weeks seemed to have given Severus some faith in him.
Taking heart from that minor victory, Harry nodded.
"Why?" Severus didn't seem able to keep the word in.
Harry took a chance and reached up to stroke the sleep-rumpled hair back from Severus' face. To his intense relief, Severus didn't flinch or push his hand aside. His expression was wary, but no more so than usual.
"Because just being here with you like this is better than the best sex with someone else," Harry softly admitted. "I love you, not just what we used to do together."
The Severus he'd known his whole life would have voiced some scathing comment on how pathetic his sex life must have been to date, were what he said true. Harry braced himself for the put-down.
But when Severus spoke, his voice was rife with anxiety, not disdain. "But if I can't ever -"
He'd been believed! It was so monumental a development that Harry could barely process it.
"Ssssh," Harry soothed, pulling himself together and trying to get things back on a normal footing. "Let's not worry about any of that now, okay? Let's just try to get back to sleep, all right?"
Severus gave a slow nod. The movement jostled Harry's hand, which was still resting in his companion's dark hair. Thinking that its presence might be making Severus uncomfortable, he reluctantly withdrew his fingers from the thick warmth.
Severus caught his hand in a tight grip before he could pull completely back.
Harry could feel how Severus' entire body was shaking. "What is it?"
"I . . . ."
It was too much for him. Harry could see it in Severus' bewildered expression. But once again, Severus' courage was showing through. He wasn't balking.
Trying to meet it with his own, Harry asked a question he hadn't had the nerve to voice since Severus had left him standing confused on the stairs outside the infirmary in January, "May I hold you?"
Harry knew it might be too soon for this. He'd been so careful the last week to keep everything absolutely platonic and non-threatening. But every instinct he owned was insisting that Severus needed something solid to prove that he'd meant what he'd said.
The uncertainty that Severus couldn't mask told him that Severus was as aware as he was that accepting the offer would irreparably alter their fragile status quo. After a pensive moment, in which Harry fully anticipated a polite refusal, Severus shifted closer in the bed.
Harry opened his arms and Severus settled carefully against him. The hesitation with which Severus moved told him that his friend wasn't sure he was making the correct decision.
It felt like heaven as Severus' warmth and scent surrounded him. How he'd missed the closeness. As his arms slipped around that slim form, his whole body seemed to rejoice at the contact.
As Severus rested his head in its familiar position on his shoulder, Harry found a lot more sharp bones than he remembered. A little shifting fixed that. Before he knew it, Severus was cuddled around him.
Harry settled his hand on Severus' nightshirt covered back and began to rub in gentle circles. He could feel the tension slowly seeping out of that tight-held body, but Severus was still awake. After a few minutes of quiet savouring, Harry whispered, "I've missed this so much."
Severus' response was muffled by the pyjama top his face was resting against as he answered, "My . . . foolishness has hurt us both."
"It wasn't foolish," Harry quickly protested, a fierce protectiveness blazing through him. "No one could bounce back like nothing happened after what you went through. You need to be more patient with yourself."
"And, yet, it is your patience that has been tried the most by . . . my behaviour," Severus said. His arms tightened around Harry as he softly whispered, "I . . . truly regret all the hurt I've caused you."
Unable to help himself, Harry lowered his lips to the crown of Severus' head and pressed a kiss into the warm hair there. Lifting his lips, he answered, "You don't ever have to regret anything with me, okay? We're here together. That's all that matters. Let's not worry about the past anymore, okay?"
"And yet it is the past that has all but ruined me," Severus noted. "It's . . . with me all the time."
Appreciating the honesty, Harry gave Severus what he hoped was a reassuring squeeze. "Is it with you right now?"
He could almost feel Severus evaluating himself.
After a long pause, Severus finally replied, "Not as much. It makes no sense after what was done to me, but . . . when you are close to me like this, the darkness isn't as overwhelming."
He wondered if Severus had any idea how much those words meant to him. That knot in his throat had gotten so tight, he could barely breathe around it. It took a while, but when he felt he had enough air that he could trust his voice to work without breaking, he said, "Then we'll have to make sure we stay close like this as often as possible."
"It . . . is not a burden?" Even now, after everything he'd said to Severus, Severus was still uncertain.
Harry wished he could get his hands on the people who had done this to Severus. While Burke could be blamed for their current crisis, he knew that the bastard had played off Severus' existing insecurities.
"You could never be a burden to me," Harry swore. "This week is the first time I've felt . . . better since January. Just know that . . . if you're in my arms or by my side, I'm happy, okay?"
Trust had always been hard for Severus, especially when it came to anything that concerned his desirability or capacity to inspire true affection. Harry could sense how Severus was struggling to find an answer. He fully expected Severus to make some comment that would question either his sanity or veracity, but whatever he'd done over these last two weeks to convince Severus of his sincerity, it was apparently enough to carry them through this.
Rather than scoffing at his ridiculously emotional admission, Severus responded with a low and shaky sounding, "I will try."
"That's all anyone can ask. Do you think you can get back to sleep now? I'll try not to wake us again before morning."
Severus nodded into his shoulder.
Reaching out with his magic, Harry formed the familiar channels between them that his nightmare had interrupted. In a surprisingly short time, Severus' breathing deepened to that of peaceful slumber.
His mind still whirling from what Severus had said, it was a long time before sleep claimed him.
*~*~*
Early May sunlight spilled through the windows in the Great Hall, creating a dazzling display of dancing dust motes while catching the highlights in everyone's hair and showcasing the grain of the highly polished oak tables. Spring had finally arrived. Everyone at Hogwarts had a touch of spring fever after the long, hard winter. This perfect, sunny Saturday was like a gift from the gods, following all the rain they'd had this week.
Harry smiled as he watched Severus finish off the last of his soup. This past month had done wonders for the man. While Severus would never be hefty, steady meals and rest had put back most of the flesh his ordeal had flensed from him. Looking at that strong-boned, sun-dappled face, he couldn't see a trace of the purple bags Severus had carried from January through April.
Hermione's voice interrupted his musings from his other side as she said, "Ron and I are going to Diagon Alley for dinner and a Muggle movie this afternoon. Would you two like to join us?"
Harry looked to Severus. He was surprised to see that Severus actually seemed to be considering the idea. After a moment, Severus gave a negative shake of his head and said in a voice that seemed genuinely disappointed, "Thank you for the invitation, but I have several potions brewing that will need supervision."
"Maybe next time, then," Hermione said. Looking over at her, Harry could see that she was as startled by Severus' reaction as he'd been. Seeing that she had his attention, she asked, "Harry?"
"Thanks, but I think I'll hang out here and get on Severus' nerves."
"He seems to have a natural propensity for it," Severus offered in the droll tone that Harry loved. For so long, it seemed Severus' depression had all but killed his sense of humour, but lately, that dry wit had been surfacing occasionally.
Once she'd stopped chuckling, Hermione said, "Well, we'll see you later then. Come on, Ron. We have to change."
Ron looked up from the cake he was finishing to give a glum, "We do?"
"Yes. Come along," Hermione ordered.
Harry watched as the Weasleys left, then turned to Severus to ask, "Do you really have potions brewing?"
He'd been with him all morning, and didn't remember Severus visiting the lab.
"I will by the time they get back."
Harry grinned at the very Slytherin response.
"Do you think I could persuade you to postpone the lab for a while?" Harry held his breath. Severus had been a lot better about socializing these last few weeks. They'd been to the Three Broomsticks a couple of times, but he could never be sure from one day to the next how Severus would respond to his overtures. Their interaction wasn't quite dating, but it was more than just two friends stopping in to a pub for a drink. What they'd been to each other was between them all the time. In deference to Severus, he'd tried to ignore it, tried to interact as platonically as possible, but he felt like iron filings trying to resist the pull of lodestone. There was something that drew him to this man. He couldn't tell if Severus felt it the same way. The whole thing was very confusing.
"What did you have in mind?" Severus asked.
"It's a beautiful day outside. I thought we might go for a walk, if you were up to it."
He knew Severus didn't care for bright sunshine at the best of times, so he was fairly sure he'd get a polite refusal. When they'd been sexually involved, Severus had often accompanied him out into the fresh air, but he knew that his lover had done so only to indulge him.
Severus' expression was the same as when he'd contemplated Hermione's invitation, so Harry was pretty sure he was going to get some version of the 'brewing potion' spiel.
To his complete surprise, Severus gave a nod and said, "All right."
"Brilliant!" Harry knew he sounded like a kid about to be let loose in Zonko's for the first time, but he couldn't hide his delight.
Side by side, they left the Great Hall.
The day was just as beautiful as the sunlight streaming through the windows had promised. Professor Dumbledore's rose garden was bursting with colour and scent as they passed through it. The grass was so green that the colour almost hurt the eyes, and, everywhere they looked was awash with wildflowers, bees, and butterflies as they made their way towards the Black Lake and Forbidden Forest.
There were students all over the place, some playing Muggle football, some soaring overhead on brooms, while many of the older ones were stretched out in the grass. The last group all separated with amusing speed as Professor Snape's dark figure came into sight. To Harry's relief, Severus didn't stop to hand out detentions, even though several of the couples they passed were so dishevelled that Harry himself would have felt compelled to say a thing or two about public snogging. But, since Severus refrained, he let it pass as well.
"It seems everyone had the same idea," Severus commented as yet another pair of guilty sixth years scurried up from under an oak tree, wild-eyed as startled rabbits.
Sensing that Severus wasn't enjoying the crowded grounds, Harry suggested, "Would you care to visit the section of the forest you charmed last fall? Do you think it's winter there now?"
"I don't know," Severus answered. "The charm was tied to the life cycle of the cicadas. I'm not sure what would have happened to the flora once the insects' cycle was complete. It would be interesting to see."
So, together, they headed for the woods.
Apparently, the dangers of the Forbidden Forest had scared off the students, for they finally seemed to have lost the noisy crowds of adolescents.
They were crossing the field behind Hagrid's hut, headed towards the trail that would bring them into the forest when Severus said in a low, careful tone, "I think we should discuss what's been happening at night lately."
Dread clenched Harry's stomach in a tight knot. He'd hoped that he'd have another week or two before Severus would tackle the subject, but, obviously, Severus was feeling much better these days. Taking a deep breath, he tried to answer in a normal tone as they strolled towards the woods, "I was wondering when you were going to bring it up."
