Harry woke on the morning of his sixteenth birthday with one thought and one desire consuming his mind:

He must present himself to Severus Snape.

He immediately got up, dressed, and began packing, concentrating only on his desire to get to Severus Snape and present himself to him. He was methodical and quick, and had everything in his school trunk within five minutes. He snatched up Hedwig’s cage, not having time to wait for her to return from her nighttime hunting, stuck his wand into his jeans’ pocket, and made his way briskly down the stairs and to the front door, dragging the trunk and cage behind him. He ignored his aunt and uncle’s confused looks and annoyed shouts, marching down the front steps after he had closed the door behind him and sticking out his wand hand for the Knight Bus.

His aunt and uncle had finally roused themselves and he could just hear them angrily opening the front door as he handed a few coins to the conductor and the doors to the Knight Bus closed behind him.

“How far do you go?” he asked.

“Domestic on’y,” was the reply.

“King’s Cross then.”

With that, he moved to one of the chairs that were scattered about the bus and took a seat, arranging his belongings under his legs and gripping the wall firmly as the bus took off with a bang!

xxXxx

Severus Snape awoke feeling surprisingly lighthearted, a sensation he had yet to grow accustomed to. It had been a month and a half since the battle in the Ministry of Magic, a month and a half of being free from a duty in the course of which he had fully expected to die, a month and a half of seeing the unblemished skin of his left forearm, a month and a half since the combined power of Albus Dumbledore and Harry Potter had finally and irrevocably brought down Lord Voldemort in the atrium of the Ministry.

He stretched languidly and then padded over to the window, looking out over the city of Rennes bathed in early morning sunlight. He had moved to the city two weeks after the battle, finally agreeing to pursue a relationship with Aurélie Dufour. She had been a newer recruit to the Order, one of Albus’ foreign contacts, and they had grown close over a shared love for potions. She had practically pestered him for months about beginning to date, unwilling to accept that Severus would not risk seeing her while he was still a spy. It had taken her only a few days after Voldemort’s final demise to ask Severus to move in with her and her teenaged son in their small house in Rennes. And it had taken him only a few more days to decline the offer, but agree to find a small flat nearby. The way he saw it, he had been given a new and unexpected chance at life, and he was doing his best to take advantage of it. However, he had explained to Aurélie that he felt improper moving in with her before they married, particularly considering she had a son who had not yet been told that they were together, given that they had only just decided it themselves. Besides that, he was still a fairly acerbic and unpleasant man, and he did not want to be living with her when -- if -- she realized it and broke things off.

His reverie was broken by a purposeful knocking on the door to his flat. Knowing that Aurélie would only be up this early if forced, he drew his face into a scowl, wondering who could possibly have business with him at such an hour. Reaching the door, he checked that the wards were intact before checking the peephole. Puzzled at seeing no one, he swung the door open, and his scowl deepened at what he saw.

There was a man -- no, a boy -- kneeling in the hallway just outside his door, his legs folded under him, his hands on the floor before him, and his forehead bowed so low that it nearly touched the ground. On further inspection, he nearly groaned when he recognized that familiarly skinny build and messy black hair. A trunk with an owl’s cage on top was on the floor next to him.

“Potter,” he snapped, temper flaring, “what on earth are you doing?”

To which he heard Potter’s slightly muffled voice answer, “I present myself, Harry James Potter, to you, Severus Tobias Snape, as your slave. Please accept my service.”