“Potter!” Harry jumped and blinked. He dragged his eyes away from the single stone in the wall of Severus Snape’s dungeon quarters. He had been trying to drill a hole through it with his intense stare for the past fifteen minutes.

Harry looked at Severus, his eyebrows raised and his eyes opened wide in question. He shook his head slightly and raised his hands, palms up, as if to ask, ‘What?’

Severus rolled his eyes and shook his head. He pushed himself away from the large table with its piles of books, rolls of parchment, scattered quills and bottles of ink. He stalked to the fireplace and reached for a handful of glittering green powder from a tarnished bronze urn on the mantel, threw it upon the merrily crackling flames and called for the kitchens.

Harry half listened as his companion ordered refreshments. He put his hands behind his head and stretched the bunched muscles in his upper back and neck while he wearily focused his gaze on the top most sheet of parchment half covered in fresh writing. He idly pulled it towards himself. Severus had crossed to one of the numerous bookcases flanking the walls in the crowded, dark apartment and began leafing through a pile of yellowing newspapers.

“I don’t know what your problem is today Potter, but I had thought–hoped beyond measure actually–that I would never again be subjected to that nauseating gormless look that used to grace your uninspiring countenance when you were my student. But it appears it was not lost, only misplaced.”

“Sod off, Snape,” said Harry, but his voice was without heat. In fact, it sounded lifeless.

Severus returned to the table and began thumbing through the tattered newspaper he had secured from the pile. He glanced over the top of the yellowing pages and studied the young man sitting opposite him. Harry was staring at the recently written words covering half the length of parchment but it was obvious to Severus that he was looking but not seeing.

Something was definitely troubling the boy; Severus still viewed the fresh-faced young man as a boy–in fact, it boggled his mind that Harry did not look twenty years older than he actually was, considering all that he had been through in his short life, including his own less than stellar treatment of the young Gryffindor student he had been programmed to loathe on sight.

Occasionally, out of long-standing habit, Severus still tried to convince himself that Harry was the same boy he had loved to hate throughout his six years at Hogwarts as a student, but even though he usually spoke as if he was still bedevilled by James Potter’s progeny, the truth was no longer so black and white.

Both their lives had changed irrevocably on that fateful May day nearly two and a half years ago when Harry had fulfilled the prophecy and disposed of the Dark Lord a couple of hours after he, Severus, had almost been disposed of himself.

When he had awoken in St Mungo's two weeks later, he had learned that within an hour of Harry having killed the Dark Lord, he had managed to escape the adoring masses celebrating his victory over evil to return to the Shrieking Shack to retrieve Severus Snape's body, only to discover that he was still clinging to life–barely.

The next months had been far easier than Severus could ever have imagined, if he had ever been able to imagine that he would survive the war. He had never envisioned a life free of the Dark Lord, unless it was to see himself rotting away in Azkaban until he drew his last harsh breath or the Dementors sucked his soul.

But he had not reckoned on Kingsley Shacklebolt being the Minister for Magic and he had certainly never imagined that Harry Potter would be his advocate. At the time, Potter speaking out on his behalf had rankled, but it had not been long before common-sense had prevailed; Severus was not stupid, if it was a choice between being beholden to Harry Potter or being imprisoned until he drew his last breath, he would owe the brat.

Regardless of Severus’ mixed feelings, Potter’s acclaim and his newly cemented position as the Hero of the Wizarding World had inevitably made the powers-that-be sit up and listen when he had proclaimed Severus Snape’s innocence.

The dinosaurs who had been members of the Wizengamot since time began had hemmed and hahhed, unable to see past Severus' past unsavoury reputation, despite the pensieved memories that Harry had kept safe and Albus' portrait's corroborating testimony. They had tried to insist that the memories could have been tampered with, but Harry had been able to inform them that he had seen memories that had been altered and that it was impossible not to be able to detect such tampering.

Pensieves were not an everyday commodity in the Wizarding World and few of the members of the Wizengamot had ever seen one, let alone accessed memories with the aid of one. Three of the older members–friends of Dumbledore’s–had seen his pensieve because he had shown it to them a short time after he had invented it.

Harry was not surprised that the beautiful shallow stone basin was a Dumbledore creation. The pensieve now resided in Severus’ bedroom; the headmaster had bequeathed it to his friend and ally, in the hopes that the young man would survive the war.

As Dumbledore had already disposed of Horace Slughorn’s altered memory, Harry had dragged the very unwilling Potions Professor before the Wizengamot to testify that he had indeed altered an incriminating memory and he had, reluctantly, shown exactly how he had done it and what an altered memory looked like. Of course Slughorn had baulked at showing how he may have aided and abetted the sixteen year old Tom Riddle, but the ‘Boy-Who-Defeated-the-Dark-Lord’ had proven to be a much more determined and persuasive figure than the ‘Boy-Who-Lived’, or the previously purported ‘Chosen One’ had ever been.

The clincher had come when Dumbledore’s portrait had backed up everything that Harry had told the Wizengamot, and then to reinforce their grudgingly made decision, Harry had shown them his memories of the horrific scene he had witnessed in the Shrieking Shack, of Voldemort’s attempt to murder Severus by means of his snake, even though he had always been convinced the wizard was loyal to him.

They were suitably shocked, those witches and wizards who held the power of life and liberty over the magical community in their hands but who on the whole, kept themselves safe and well away from any conflict. Many of them had their homes protected by the Fidelius Charm in an effort to shield them and their families from the unsavoury elements they often had to deal with.

Kingsley had taken advantage of the stunned atmosphere to wrap up the week long proceedings, and while Severus was still more or less semiconscious in St Mungo's, the Minister for Magic had directed the Wizengamot to declare that Severus Snape did not have a case to answer in the matter of the death of Albus Dumbledore.

Kingsley had also refused to consider the wishes of the few remaining die-hards determined to bring down the young man who had made a serious miscalculation when he was seventeen years old; they wanted him imprisoned for one crime or another and his Death Eater activities had been, once again, dragged to the fore. Kingsley had, by this time been seriously displeased and he had stated unequivocally that Mr Snape had previously been tried for those crimes and had been cleared by this august body of witches and wizards; Kingsley was not above pandering to over-inflated egos.

Ignoring the continuing geriatric rumblings of the mostly over ninety brigade who had made up much of the Wizengamot at that time, Kingsley had gone on to refresh their faulty memories. He reiterated that Severus had, since his relatively short tenure as a Death Eater–a mistake his teenage self would lament for the rest of his life–worked as a spy for Albus Dumbledore. Then, following the seeming disposal of the Dark Lord by the infant Harry Potter, he had continued in the prestigious position of Potions Master at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry until, with the rebirth of the dark wizard proclaiming himself Lord Voldemort, he had resumed his spying duties.

Kingsley emphasised that during that time, Severus Snape had freely, and knowing full well the inherent danger, acted as a spy for Albus Dumbledore and his secret organisation, the Order of the Phoenix, a group of witches and wizards recruited by Dumbledore specifically to fight the dark wizard, Voldemort, and his minions.

Kingsley and Harry had finally won the day and Severus Snape had remained a free man whose name had been wholly cleared, and though there were those who would never forget that he had once been a Death Eater, because of Harry’s heartfelt testimonial, the majority of the Wizarding World was willing to give the man a second chance.

Severus remembered how ungrateful he had been when all of these happenings had been related to him, first by Kingsley, and then Harry. Kingsley had not felt Severus’ wrath, but the Chosen One had. That Harry had had the audacity to show his, Severus’, private memories to all and sundry had infuriated Severus to the point of violence, and if he had been strong enough, he would have likely strangled the little sod–or, at the very least, thrown an empty potions vial at him.

Instead he had expended the small amount of energy he had venting his spleen in vociferous terms, abusing Harry up hill and down dale for exposing his deepest desires and regrets where they concerned the woman he had loved since his earliest days.

Severus remembered that Harry had furiously and hurriedly cast a Silencing Charm over the single ward at St Mungo's and then he had stood silent and allowed hurricane Severus to rage around him. It wasn’t until he had collapsed back against his pillows, totally done in by his loud and vocal calisthenics that Harry had approached the bed and placed two vials on the bedside cabinet. Severus had eyed them suspiciously before turning his glare back upon the boy.

The following exchange had bored into his brain like a termite boring into wood and Severus remembered it word for word because the feelings of shame it had engendered were as fresh today as they had been then.

“And what, pray tell are those?” he had asked scathingly.

“Those,” Harry had replied, his voice carefully blank, “Are the memories you gifted me with as you lay dying in the Shrieking Shack.

“These...” Harry picked up the slightly smaller vial, “Are all of the memories that contain any reference to my mother. I carefully separated them from the whole before I showed the rest to the Wizengamot.”

Severus remembered his brow had settled into deep lines and his glower almost had the power to occlude the sun that shone through the small window and fell across the foot of his bed. “And why would you do that?” he asked in as scathing a tone as his ruined throat would allow.

“Because I no more wanted my mother’s and your relationship with her becoming the subject of speculation and gossip than you did.” When Severus had remained silent, Harry had continued.

“All the rest of your memories are in here...” he shook the second, larger vial, “Except for your distressing first meeting with Dumbledore. And...” Harry had paused and Severus had been intrigued to see the boy’s face redden.

“And what, Potter?”

“Umm, well, I’m afraid that I did tamper–in a fashion,–with one of these remaining memories.”

“What, the saviour of the Wizarding World isn’t quite as pure as the driven snow as he would have people believe.”

“I never pretended to be pure as the driven snow, Snape,” Harry had bitten out, his temper fraying for the first time since the beginning of their meeting. “I didn’t try to alter the contents of the memory, I just removed the bit where you and Dumbledore are talking just after...just after my mum and dad were killed. I didn’t think you would want anyone seeing your grief. I’ve returned that section though, so the memory’s intact again.”

Severus remembered that he had not thanked the boy. His glower had remained in place as Harry replaced the vial on the cabinet; Severus had known he had no occasion to glower because Harry had not been guilty of the crime he had accused him of. But it was just easier to act in the manner he was used to around the boy.

Harry had left the bedside and crossed to the door; when he opened it, he had turned for a final word. Severus remembered he had braced for a verbal onslaught, but Harry had remained calm and quietly respectful, a regard he had known he did not deserve.

“Professor McGonagall has asked me to tell you that she will be visiting you herself as soon as time permits, but in the meantime, she gave me leave to tell you that you are welcome back at Hogwarts any time you wish to return, be it as a visitor or a member of staff... she would however, prefer the later.”

And finally. "I won’t inflict my presence on you any longer; I accept that you loathe me and only helped me because of a promise you made to Dumbledore. But without you, I wouldn’t be standing here now and I just want you to know I am grateful.

“I can’t tell you that I’m sorry my mum and dad ended up together, but I am sorry that you suffered and that your love for her came to nothing.”

“I don’t need your sympathy or your gratitude, Potter!”

“I know you don’t. But you have them all the same.”

And Severus remembered he had turned away from the intense young man and ordered him to remove himself from his sight. He remembered the door had shut quietly, leaving him with his increasingly sober thoughts, the least of them being, ‘when had Harry Potter become so level-headed and mature?’.

Severus came back to the present when Harry placed the tray containing afternoon tea on the table. He watched as the boy sure-handedly poured their tea. Harry did not need to ask how he took it; they had been intimates for a long time now.

Severus had stewed on his hateful words and unfair treatment of Harry for months after that encounter in St Mungo's. He had surprised himself by accepting Minerva’s offer of employment at Hogwarts and he had taken up his old position of Potions Master and the new school year had recommenced amidst the rebuilding of the ancient edifice. Horace Slughorn had happily left to resume his interrupted retirement.

Being in regular contact with Hermione Granger who had returned–heroine status notwithstanding–to finish her studies, increased his ever-present feelings of guilt over his treatment of Harry Potter.

The fact that she did not once give him the evil eye–in fact, she was open and friendly to an annoying degree despite his standoffishness –told Severus that her best friend, Potter had not told her what had transpired the last time he and the hero of the Wizarding World had met in St Mungo’s.

Now, even watching the boy drink his tea with a return to his previous blank-eyed stare could not make Severus sorry that he had finally conquered his demons and turned up at Grimmauld Place to make his peace with his old enemy. It had taken nearly as much nerve to face Harry Potter again, as he had always needed to dredge up every time he had found himself in the presence of the Dark Lord.

He needn’t have worried though that Lily’s son would not extend the hand of friendship; the boy was as forgiving and open-hearted as Albus had always professed him to be.

And now, here they were. Severus had thought he would try his hand at writing and as well as composing an intensive guide to Defence Against the Dark Arts, specifically directed towards protection from dark wizards, he was also, with Harry’s help, writing a treatise on the ‘The Rise, the Fall, the Resurrection and the Final Destruction of a Dark Lord’. The title remained a bone of contention between Severus and his collaborator... Harry hated it.

Getting Harry to help at all had taken some persuasion. Harry had systematically refused to speak to any journalists or biographers since the final battle, but there had been a number of unofficial biographies written, all of them highly colourful and, Severus knew–though Harry had still not revealed the whole story to him–full of inaccuracies and even outright lies.

Severus knew this because he had conversed with Hermione who had read them all, though the many colourful version of events and the even more colourful takes on the relationship between her, Ron and Harry disgusted her. But she needed to know what was being printed about their ordeal. Harry refused to read any of them or listen to Hermione’s rants about what was being printed; it frustrated the young woman almost beyond endurance that Harry allowed the lies to be read and digested by all and sundry.

Severus had approached him and after an initial and adamant refusal, they had argued back and forth until Severus had convinced Harry that he had no interest in writing about him and his closest friends and allies and their heroic deeds, but that he wished to present an account of Tom Riddle and his determination to dominate Wizards and Muggles alike and how–despite Harry’s ultimate victory over him in the Great Hall that had ended the Battle of Hogwarts–he had been partly responsible for his own downfall.

Severus had pointed out with unfailing logic that now that Dumbledore was dead, he, Harry was the foremost authority on Tom Riddle and was therefore most likely the only person who really knew the truth of the evil, half-bloods history.

Harry had listened to Severus’ proposal in irritated silence and then had sent him away, promising, though reluctantly, that he would think about it. It had been a month before he had knocked on Severus’ door and told him he would collaborate on the work but that he did not wish to be a co-author. Severus did not think he would ever understand Harry’s total reticence and need for privacy, especially after he had spent all of the boy’s school years convincing himself that the boy was an attention-seeking glory hound.

Severus had now been working on the book for twelve months; it was slow going but he was in no particular hurry; the endeavour was more an exercise in exorcism than it was an attempt to present the Wizarding World with a weighty historical tome. Harry had turned up several hours a week when it was convenient for both of them. But today had more or less been an exercise in futility because it was more than obvious that Harry’s thoughts were elsewhere and wherever that was, it was not a happy place.

Severus drained his cup and reached for the teapot again. Harry remained oblivious and Severus decided he had to act. In the process of reaching for the sugar, he knocked the small milk jug over. The cold liquid penetrated Harry’s jeans and he jumped up, his chair skidding backwards and tipping over and his half-full cup of lukewarm tea slopping over the edge of the cup and soaking the cuff of his sleeve. “What the hell?!”

“Oops!” said Severus in a patently unconcerned voice. He crossed his leg and flicked at an imaginary piece of lint, before taking another sip of tea. “Sorry.”

“You look it!” said Harry shortly. He scowled as he plonked his cup down on the table before removing his wand from its pocket in his jeans and waving it over himself to banish the milk stain and dry the fabric. “If I didn’t know better, Snape, I’d say that you did that on purpose.”

“I assure you it was an accident.”

Harry dried off his sleeve, his jeans, then the floor and the seat of his chair. “Bullshit,” he said without heat as he sat back down and reached for the teapot. “You are the least clumsy person on the face of the Earth. Don’t try and tell me that was an accident.”

Severus shrugged. “Very well, I won’t.”

Harry put the teapot down with a little more force than necessary before he took a sip of the perpetually hot tea– the teapot was charmed. “So, are you going to enlighten me?”

Severus put his own cup on the tray then sat forward and began to organise his notes. “It’s quite simple, Potter. You needed a wakeup call. You have been a total waste of air today.”

“There are other ways,” grumbled a clearly nettled Harry.

“I have tried to call you to order several times but you just float off again,” said Severus matter-of-factly. I thought a bit of a shock was in order.”

“Consider me shocked.”

Silence fell as Harry finished his drink and Severus continued to shuffle parchment and make the odd notation. When he picked up a fresh quill and began to sharpen it, Harry stood and idly began to pace about. Severus was conscious that Harry was slipping back into introspection and after fashioning the quill-point to his specific requirements, he banished the tea tray back to the kitchens and leaned back in his chair with his arms crossed over his chest.

“Potter, you can either tell me what the problem is or you can go home. Your presence today is stultifying to say the least.”

Harry threw him a dirty look. Severus continued to look bored but in actual fact, he hoped that Harry would confide in him. Remarkably, considering how impossibly difficult and dark his earlier years had been, Harry was rarely morose or even bad tempered. Severus could hardly admit it to himself and he certainly would never admit it to anyone else but he did not like to see the boy like this.

Harry was standing staring into the fireplace with his hand over his lower face, rubbing his stubbly cheeks and jaw; it didn’t seem as if Harry was going to open up. Severus sighed and stood up. “Let yourself out, Harry,” he said over his shoulder as he headed for his bedroom. “Owl me when it’s convenient for you to return.”

He stopped with his hand clasped around the edge of the bedroom door and turned back to face harry. “Don’t bother though until you’ve totally cast off this fugue. You’re even managing to bring me down and we both know that’s not a very long journey.”

He began to push the door shut but stopped when Harry spoke. “I do have a problem, but I don’t know if I should talk about it.”

Severus sighed and turned back into the living room. He sat down in his old and cracked leather armchair and putting his elbows on the arms, he interlaced his fingers in front of his mouth. “Have you ever heard the saying, ‘a problem shared is a problem halved’?”

“Of course I have. But this isn’t just my problem to share.”

Silence fell again. Harry threw himself down in another, mismatched armchair. Severus waited but Harry didn’t elaborate any further.

“Whatever this is, have you spoken to the Weasleys about it?” Severus was surprised when Harry’s face coloured.

“No.”

“Perhaps it would be easier to speak to your friends rather than try to talk to me.”

“The Weasleys are the last ones I can talk to about this,” admitted Harry. “Besides, I thought we were friends, too.” Severus waved the comment off.

“You know what I mean. Anyway, it’s obvious you don’t want to talk to me either.”

“It’s not that I don’t want to,” said Harry a little desperately.

“If it makes a difference, Harry, I can assure you that I would never betray your confidence.”

Harry stared at Severus then shook his head a little. “I’m not worried about that.” He leaned forward in the chair and clasped his hands between his knees. He began to speak, but he kept his eyes on his hands.

“You knew that Ginny Weasley disappeared at the end of the school year of 1997? After Dumbledore died.” Harry’s voice had faded away to almost nothing when he spoke of Dumbledore.

Severus frowned. He too did not like to think of that time, nor the year following. But he had known that Ginevra Weasley had disappeared; it had been common knowledge even throughout the Dark Lord’s newly risen ministry and of course, the girl had not turned up for her sixth year at Hogwarts, even though attendance had been mandatory.

He had heard many theories spouted during the hellish year he had been headmaster; the Gryffindors, especially Longbottom and the girl’s classmates had been particularly subdued right from the beginning of the year. Of course, all of the students had been subdued, including a substantial proportion of Slytherins.

He had not had a lot of time to consider what had happened to the girl, though he had known she had not been captured by any of his fellow Death Eaters. He had been deeply uneasy when he had first heard of the disappearance because he knew she had been attached to Draco Malfoy for a time and he also knew that Malfoy had not seemed overly perturbed about the girl’s fate. This attachment had not been common knowledge though; he would not have known about it himself if he had not heard Malfoy boasting to Crabbe and Goyle that he had ‘landed’ the delectable little redheaded blood-traitor.

Severus looked at Harry. “I did know,” he said carefully. “Has there been some word of her fate?”

Harry sighed hugely and sprang to his feet to recommence his pacing. Severus’ eyes widened when Harry said, “I found her.”

“You found her? What, she’s not...”

“She ran away. She left the Wizarding World and was living as a Muggle. She hasn’t even got a wand anymore.”

Severus was stunned. Why would a member of such a prominent pure-blood family up and leave the Wizarding World to live as a Muggle? The girl had been intelligent. She could not have possibly thought she would be safe from the Dark Lord because she had decided to leave her magical heritage behind to live as a Muggle. She would have known that no Muggle would be safe under the Dark Lord’s regime. True, when she had first gone missing, the Dark Lord had not yet overthrown the Ministry, but everyone had known it would only be a matter of time. And at that time Muggles were already being slaughtered indiscriminately.

Ginny Weasley had never struck Severus as being a coward. She had always been as foolishly gung-ho as the rest of her family. More so, really; being the youngest and the only girl, it was like she had had something to prove.

After a few seconds of shocked silence, Severus spoke. “Did she tell you why she ran away?”

Harry looked even more torn, and Severus thought he would think better of his decision to confide in him. But when it seemed that nothing further would transpire, Harry suddenly began talking again.

The words came rapidly but in an undertone and Severus had to concentrate hard to catch the whole of the tale. Finally, with a look of supplication, Harry said in a pained voice, “What in the hell can I do? I’ve totally bollixed everything! She can’t keep living like this, being afraid to venture out anywhere. I should have set her up in her own home and left her in the Muggle world. I could support her so there would be no need for her to worry about money or having to go to work.”

When Harry had finished speaking and fixed those green eyes on Severus, the older man didn’t quite know how to respond; it was obvious that Harry wanted him to come up with a easy solution. Severus didn’t have any wise words to offer him, not really.

Ginevra Weasley had a child! And she had felt that her only recourse had been to separate herself from her family because she was sure they would have washed their hands of her anyway.

Molly Weasley! Severus could scarcely believe that the woman he had always thought of (more often than not contemptuously) as the quintessential Earth Mother would be so hard on her daughter that the girl had felt her only recourse was to leave everything she had ever known behind because she had gotten herself pregnant out of wedlock.

Severus knew that the Wizarding World was not as free and easy from a moralistic point of view as the Muggle world, but still, it was nearly the end of the twentieth century and Ginevra Weasley was certainly not the first witch to find herself with a child but without a husband.

“Severus?”

Severus blinked and focused on the worried young man standing in front of him. Severus was reminded forcefully of the look that had always graced Harry’s face when he had turned up for his Occlumency lessons in his fifth year. But then he blinked again when he realised that Harry’s expression wasn’t quite what it had been back then; fear was not shadowing the boy’s eyes now, just worry.

“Have you any suggestions?” asked Harry his voice a little more desperate than it had been when he was telling his story.

Severus didn’t, but he was not looking forward to telling Harry that. To put off the moment, Severus rose and crossed to the bookcase where one of the shelves housed his modest selection of alcoholic beverages. He ignored the half dozen bottles of Butterbeer and the Oak-matured Mead and reached for the Firewhisky.

Harry looked vaguely at the glass Severus handed him; he really was a mess, Severus thought. He tilted Harry’s elbow with a finger to guide the glass to his lips. “Perhaps a shot of Firewhisky will give your synapses a jolt.” He took a large sip from his own glass. “Mine too,” he mumbled.

“Can’t hurt,” agreed Harry. He held his glass up in a one way toast. “Cheers.”

Fifteen minutes later, Severus had to take Harry’s wrist between his long fingers to prevent the boy from pouring a third measure of the potent liquor. “If you keep this up, you’ll drown your synapses, Harry. That will do neither you, nor Ginevra any good at all.”

“No, but it’ll help me forget what a first rate plonker I am.”

Severus took Harry’s glass and put it back on the shelf. “You don’t need a hangover on top of the headache you already have.” He pushed Harry into a chair and stood over him.

"I haven’t got a tidy solution for you, Harry. But while you are berating yourself for creating the current situation, just remember that Miss Weasley agreed to the arrangement. If you had set her up by herself, she would still have the problem of her daughter’s frequent accidental magic; she would still have virtually been confined to her home because of it.”

Harry closed his eyes and rubbed the back of his neck. “There is no solution,” he said.

“All I can tell you is that you and Ginevra need to sit down and talk this through. She is in an untenable position, but so are you. She has isolated herself away from her family for three years and now you are also isolating yourself away from the closest thing to family you have.”

Harry sighed deeply and put his head back against the chair back. “She’s too bloody scared she’ll be rejected if she exposes herself to them.”

“Can you see that happening, Harry?” asked Severus. “The Weasleys are the tightest family I have ever known.”

“I can’t see them rejecting her, of course I can’t. They’ve never recovered from the fact that she disappeared. But Ginny is... .” Harry didn’t need to say it again. He pushed his fingers under his glasses and rubbed his eyes vigorously.

Severus watched him for a silent minute. Then he clapped Harry on his shoulder; the boy was just as slender as he ever had been but he had grown several inches in height since his sixth year. He was not, however, a tall man. Just a boy really. A boy who had lived through hell in his short lifetime and who deserved a peaceful life. At the moment, Ginny Weasley was preventing that from happening.

“You need to go home, Harry. I cannot help you other than to tell you that you and the girl need to talk long and hard. If I remember Ginevra Weasley correctly, the girl is very far from stupid. Nor was she a coward. She might be too scared to fix the mess she has made of her own life, but I would be willing to bet that she will not be comfortable seeing you ruining your relationship with the people you consider family.”

As he spoke, Severus walked to the door and opened it. Harry looked a little sick, but he stood and moved to the coat stand. He put on his coat and scarf in silence then crossed to the door. He looked up at the man who had once been an enemy. “Thanks for the drinks. And thanks for lending an ear.”

“You’re welcome, though I’m not sure how helpful either has been.”

Harry shrugged. “As you said earlier, ‘a problem shared is a problem halved’.” He exited the room and began striding along the dungeon corridor, his long coat flapping in his wake.

“Potter.” Harry turned but he kept walking backwards. “Good luck.” With a wave to acknowledge the sentiment, Harry turned and strode on.

Severus shut the door and leaned against it. He would dearly love to know what Ginny Weasley’s daughter looked like.

Ginny was worried. The day had crept by at a snail’s pace after Harry had left but it was now dark. She knew he had gone to see Snape, but she had thought he would only be gone for a couple of hours; that had been the usual arrangement since she had moved in.

Ginny had fed Bonnie her dinner and bathed and dressed her in her pyjamas. Now they were in her bedroom and Ginny was reading to her daughter. Bonnie refused to get into her own bed until Harry got home. Ginny really hoped that would be soon. Apart from the fact that Ginny knew that Bonnie was unlikely to settle without Harry tucking her in, she desperately wanted him to walk through the door. It was the longest time he had been away from the house since she and Bonnie had taken up residence.

Why?

Was Harry regretting their arrangement? Was he having second thoughts? Just as she was. Well, not second thoughts per se, Harry had been wonderful to her and Bonnie; overall, she had been happy and relatively content in this really beautiful home. When Harry had told her he lived in Grimmauld Place, she had been secretly horrified. She could never have imagined that such a miraculous transformation could have been wrought upon the mouldering pile of Slytherin memorabilia she had once lived in for the summer holidays all those years ago.

Powerful magic must have come into play because Ginny was sure that nothing short of demolition would have transformed the dark, dank rooms, hallways and stairwells into the fashionable, light and airy house she now resided in.

Ginny smiled to herself. Of course powerful magic had been used; Harry was a powerful wizard. And from what he had said, Kreature had suffered a change of heart and had eventually accepted Harry as his master and had served him unswervingly until his death. House-elf magic was very powerful, Ginny knew and between the wizard and his elf, potent magic had transformed the Black family residence into something any witch or wizard... any Muggle for that matter, would be thrilled to call home.

Half an hour later, Ginny looked down at her sleeping daughter and smiled. She had been wrong, Bonnie had fought hard but Hypnos had won the battle. Once asleep, Bonnie always became practically comatose so it was easy for Ginny to transfer her to her own bed without waking her.

Deciding that a mug of hot chocolate would help her settle for the night, Ginny was making her way down the stairs when the front door opened and the lights lining the walls sprang to life.

Harry quietly pushed the front door shut. He yawned as he began to unwind his scarf, and when he idly glanced up, his hand stilled; Ginny was standing on the stairs, looking down at him. They gazed at each other for a tense moment, then Harry carried on removing his outer clothing and Ginny continued on her way downstairs. Silently, she waited for Harry at the top of the basement stairs. Harry walked towards her

“I was beginning to wonder where you had gotten to,” said Ginny quietly. She hoped her voice was matter-of-fact rather than worried.

“Sorry,” said Harry, but he didn’t elaborate about where he had been for so long. He gestured down the stairs. “Were you heading down?”

Ginny nodded and turned away; she felt a little flustered as Harry had been standing very close to her and her back tingled as he followed close behind her down the stairs.

Get a hold of yourself you hopeless woman!

Ginny crossed the room and reached up for a small copper-based saucepan hanging from a rack above the table. “I’m having a hot chocolate. Would you like one?” She set the saucepan on the table and turned to get the milk. She almost ran into Harry who was standing with the milk in his hand. Her hand shook slightly as she took the carton from him.

“I’d love one,” he said, and while Ginny prepared the drinks, Harry pulled out a chair and sat down. He was beyond tired, but he and Ginny had to talk, and the sooner they did, the sooner he would be able to go to bed and relax.

When Ginny passed Harry a mug full of frothy chocolate, she sat down opposite him, reassured by the wide expanse of timber between them, though she wished she had the nerve to sit right next to him. Harry sipped his drink, trying to dredge up the courage to speak. The only noise was the quiet rustling of feathers from the two owls and the soft clunks of the mugs being placed back on the table between sips of the delicious drink.

Both Harry and Ginny were looking into their mugs when they spoke at the same time.

“I want to tell you what happened,” said Ginny.

“I think we should get married,” said Harry.

TBC...

A/N: Hypnos is the God of Sleep, according to Greek mythology. He is the brother of Morpheus, the God of Dreams.