Early Sunday morning found Severus weaving his way to his bedroom potions cabinet, clearly drunk with a smirk on his face. Maybe those infernal Marauders weren’t so bad, he thought. A tad unsteadily, he pulled out an Anti-Hangover potion, downed it and wobbled to his bathroom. He was still considering the potential of making both men allies as he headed towards the shower, and so didn’t see the rather large lump curled up in the center of his bed.

Nearly two hours later (because he had fallen asleep on the toilet, but don’t tell him I told you that), Severus ambled drowsily from the bathroom and stumbled into his bed. Tomorrow he would reflect that for all his grace, he was incredibly duck-footed when drunk, but for now he was quite content to curl up next to the warm bundle of something under his covers, and sleep.

……

Clumsily, and fighting to keep his eyes open, Severus managed to rear back and yank the covers shielding the bed-invader back, ready to curse the offender into oblivion, only to have them reveal a very much asleep and un-curse-worthy Harry.

Absently, he felt all tension leak out of his body, while his brain tried to wrap itself around the fact that Harry Potter was in his bed.

Failing that, he settled for poking the boy soundly in the stomach.

Harry twitched, but remained asleep.

Severus poked his stomach  again. And his ribs. Harry squirmed, then snuggled into the sheets.

This was going to take forever, Severus thought. He shifted onto his haunches, and after a long minute of deliberation, attacked the boys sides, armpits and stomach, reducing said teenager to a sleepily giggling mess.

Once satisfied that the boy was sufficiently awake, Severus prodded him again. “You are in my bed, boy. Why?”

Having wrapped himself around a pillow, Harry answered, “Wanetosaythnkyu”, and promptly slid his eyes closed again.

After translating the mumble the boy had spoken (he was tired and slightly drunk) Severus poked the now dozing boy again. “Thank me for what, brat?”

Harry started awake, and after gazing at his guardian for a full minute (the boy was sleepy) trying to figure out why he was being awoken yet again, replied, “F’my room. And bed, and clothes and shoes and – “ Here he was cut off by a wide yawn, after which he couldn’t remember what he had been speaking about. Gazing up at Severus sleepily, he mumbled, “Go ‘sleep, Sev,” and buried his head in the pillow once more.

Severus stared at his charge for another few minutes. The boy was trying to thank him. He blinked, and stifled a yawn. Thank him for things every child should have. He frowned, then winced, as the action had given him a headache. Or maybe it was the ridiculous mound of boy asleep in front of him giving him a headache. But how could someone give you a headache if they’re asleep?

Grumbling, he decided he could deal with this particular issue tomorrow, after he had had a good nights sleep. Coming around the bed, he picked up the small teenager, who squirmed and furrowed his forehead and tried to tunnel into Snape’s chest, and carried him back to his room.

After settling and tucking Harry into his bed, Severus tramped back to his own, and threw the covers half over him. He would figure out what the devil was going through the boy’s head tomorrow. Right now, he needed sleep.

~*~

Sunday Morning

2:14a.m.

Some time later he swam back to consciousness, blinking heavily drowsy eyes into his dark bedroom, knowing something had woken him up but not knowing what. He shifted, about to rest his head again, when he felt it. A warm presence pressed up against his side.  He didn’t need a lumos to tell him it was Harry. He could feel it down in the back of his mind. He sighed and resigned himself to a few less minutes of sleep. Getting up, he roused the boy, using the method that had worked so well before.

“Up, Harry.” Getting the sleepily smiling boy out of the bed, he led him, half pulling, half pushing, back to his own bed, and saw that he was tucked in. After waiting to see that the boy’s breathing deepened and evened out as consistent with deep sleep, Severus spun on his heel and dragged his weary bones back to bed, sparing half a drowsy thought to curse whatever was troubling the boy’s sleep.

~*~

Sunday Morning

4:27 a.m.

Severus sighed, and pulled the covers back as the barely recognizable shape of his young ward blundered sleepily through his bedroom door. After putting the boy into his own bed the third time he had placed an alarm on the child’s bedroom door. It had woken him up twice. This was getting ridiculous. He was so sleepy, when he tried to open his eyes they rolled back into his head. Well, at least he could know why the boy refused to sleep in his room.

“Why won’t you stay in your bed, Harry?” he asked, voice soft with sleep and fatigue. Oh what he wouldn’t give to sleep.

“Toobg” came the muffled reply.

Severus’ eyebrows furrowed, despite himself. “What is? The bed? How so?” he queried, unconsciously drawing the boy closer to his side.

Harry made a slightly distressed sound as he tried unsuccessfully to press a hand over his ear, though Snape couldn’t see it. “Wide. No walls. Big space.” He pulled the pillow over his head. “Go t’sleep, Sev!”

He tried to glare at the boy for having the audacity to order him about when he was the one trespassing, he really did, but his eyes would not co-operate. Disjointed thoughts of Harry’s cupboard and drapes and his reputation if Black and Lupin ever saw him like this or is life expectancy if Black and Lupin ever saw him like this flitted through his mind. ‘No, no, no, this simply won’t do.’ He thought to himself. ‘I’m thinking too much.’ And with that, he sent himself off to dreamland, determined to affix some drapes to Harry’s bed at the soonest opportunity.

~*~

He rose at six, as he did every morning, and took a moment to survey his room. All of his ebony furniture was in the same place, the magical windows were offering false views of the grounds surrounding the lake, and he was in bed, just as he last remembered.

And there was also Harry. The boy was stretched out in the middle of the Potions Master’s bed, deeply asleep and unaware that he was being watched. Severus snorted. Harry was, much to the older man’s amusement, taking up most of the bed. His arms and legs were spread hither and yon in a way thank Severus knew they hadn’t been since before Lily and James had been murdered some fourteen years ago.

Shaking his head at his own mellow mood, Severus rose and completed his morning abolitions, contemplating effective methods to deal with his two boys in a few hours time.

Some minutes later, the potions master stood before his bed, pondering a problem. How to move the boy back to his bed? He had a personal aversion to levitating any human being, since he had seen some of the more horrid uses of the simple spell. That left waking the boy, something he couldn’t bring himself to do, Greasy Git or not, and carrying him to the child’s room.

After watching the child breath for another minute, Severus bent forward and gathered the boy in his arms. It would have been a simple gesture, really, except the child took the opportunity to press is face to Snape’s chest, wiggling a bit till he was curled around the man’s torso, instead of just laying in his arms.

Severus would have ignored it too, except something passed through him just then, something fierce and strong and burning coursed through every single fibre of his being, and one thought came to his for once, completely un-Occluded mind.

Mine.

~*_____*~

Harry awoke into that blissfully blank state of mind afforded to children and teenagers everywhere. Severus could tell by the blank look in the boy’s eyes when they opened, bright green and still glassy with sleep. The potions master tried his best not to scowl in jealousy, for his mind had a tendency to race before he was even aware that he was awake, if, indeed it stopped at all when he fell asleep in the first place.

The brat was smiling. Involuntarily, he felt a smile tug at his lips in response to the one the boy had now. Of course, what was so nice about seeing him first thing in the morning was beyond him really.

“I trust you slept well?” Severus asked.

Harry smiled, relieved for some reason that Snape was there. He wouldn’t admit it to anyone, but he still couldn’t really believe everything that had happened. He wanted to, even did, mostly, but there was a small part of him that said this was all some elaborate dream, and that any minute he’d wake up to his Uncle’s fist connecting with his head.

Some of that anxiety had filtered through their link, unbeknownst to the boy, and Severus felt his chest tighten. Moving closer to the bed, he attempted to scowl at himself, to no effect. ‘Look at you! Turning into a bleeding heart over a pest that made your life hell for four years.’ All efforts were rendered completely useless as the man sat on the teen’s dark blue duvet, and made a gesture synonymous with the offering of comfort: open arms.

Fighting back tears that had suddenly decided that they wanted to be seen, and seen NOW, Harry scrambled from under his covers and into the man’s arms.

‘Well,’ intoned Three in a voice thick with emotional approval, ‘this is certainly a vast improvement from two days ago.’

‘Yes I much agree,’ Severus replied.

After a few minutes of sniffling into his guardian’s robes, throughout which Severus did nothing more than rub the boy’s back, Harry managed to collect himself enough to pull away and look the older man in the face (albeit with a rather prominent blush).

“Um, morning.”

Severus had to discreetly pinch himself to keep from smiling. “Good morning, Harry. Did you sleep well?”

Harry nodded. He really had had a good night’s sleep; no nightmares or anything. And he felt incredible. He hadn’t felt this good since….. yesterday morning. At this thought Harry grinned sheepishly, and rolled out of bed.

“Breakfast is in fifteen minutes,” Severus said, coming around the bed and pushing the already frowning boy towards the bathroom. “Wash up quickly, or Draco will devour the entire table.”

“Malfoy?”” Harry asked, incredulous.

“Draco”, Severus stressed. “I will not have any of that last name rivalry foolishness in my quarters, is that clear?”

Good heavens, the boy is pouting! “Did you tell Draco that, too?”

Severus eyed the boy fondly. “Rest assured, I did. Now, will you get dressed, or shall we postpone breakfast indefinitely?”

At this, Harry turned and scampered away, even as his stomach gave a loud growl of protest at the potion’s master’s suggestion.

~*____*~

Twenty minutes later, Severus sat at the head of his ebony wooden table, counting the minutes till one of his ridiculous boys broke the silence they had lapsed into since breakfast began.

Harry was practically inhaling his eggs, his nose was so close to the plate, and Draco had become inexplicably fascinated by the interior of his bowl. And not the porridge that was in it. Severus sighed.

“How long are you two going to perpetuate this awkward silence? Should I write this out in my daily planner, or are we going to have some kind of table conversation?” he asked drily.

Both boys had the grace to blush.  Draco had just opened his mouth (probably to point out something scathing about Harry’s attire, which consisted of the pajamas he had worn to bed) when there was loud knocking on the door.

Severus rose, pulling his wand from his sleeve. Surely Dumbledore couldn’t have roused the Aurors already. Or maybe it was McGonagall demanding to know if he had found the boy wandering through the night and had him drawn and quartered in his study. He stalked across his living space, robes billowing behind him, and considered the scroll.

Ronald Weasley

His brows furrows further. What on earth was the Weasley boy doing visiting him at half seven in the morning? Feeling uneasy, Severus opened the door, only to be slammed into the wall behind it as a read-headed whirlwind flew past him.

“HE GOT OFF!! HARRY! LOOK!”

Fighting to see around the stars that danced before his eyes, Severus pushed himself back up using the wall behind him. The sight that met his eyes was one he’d never thought to see in his living quarters. Ever.

The Weasley boy was dancing some jig near the table, or at least he hoped he was dancing, since that  meant the boy was having an epileptic fit in is home, and he would have to help him. Harry was holding, well, clenching, really, a wad of parchment that Severus could recognize as a copy of the Daily Prophet, his copy of which lay still folded beside his coffee cup. Then, to his dismay, Harry let out a ‘Whoop!’ like he hadn’t ever heard before and joined the red headed menace in wiggling like he had something in his pants. Draco, he was mildly relieved to see, had at least some decorum. The blonde child stared at the duo with unmasked incredulity, before reaching across the table to delicately pick up the crumpled paper, to see what all the fuss was about.

Slowly, wary of the flailing limbs so close to his vicinity, Severus resumed his seat, snatching up his paper and sliding his cup of hot coffee away from the exuberant males.

The headline was enough to leave him speechless.

PETTIGREW ALIVE AND CAPTURED! BLACK CLEARED OF ALL CHARGES!

It was shocking. It was mind boggling. It was……quite frankly the very last thing he had expected to see in the paper in all his born days. When had this happened? HOW had this happened? Did the headmaster know? Why didn’t someone tell him? What would Harry want to do? Surely the boy would pack up his things to live with the blasted mutt?

He was interrupted by the beaming, slightly sweaty face of Potter. The brat.

“Sev! Can we call Sirius and Remus? Please? Can we, can we, can we? Please, please, please? I wanna know if he knows! I wanna tell him! Come on!” And the boy didn’t give him a chance to respond, pulling him from his chair and across the living space. Abstractly, in the back of his brain, the potions master noted that Harry was acting, quite appropriately, like an exuberant child. Severus had barely regained his footing when the brat pushed the jar of Floo powder into his hands, and stood looking at him with a blissfully hopeful expression.

Severus wanted to hurl.

 Instead, he narrowed his eyes, making a big deal of straightening his rumpled robes and composing himself. Draco had removed himself from the table, he looked around to see, and had seated himself in Sev’s favourite armchair. The incredible fact that he and the Weasley child weren’t at each other’s throat barely kept him from commenting on the appalling menace’s behavior.

Harry was now, predictably, worrying his bottom lip in apprehension, and the worry and uncertainty pouring from those green eyes quite effectively speared the dour man’s previously cold heart. Huffing slightly, he reached for the jar again, opened it and offered it to the child that was his.

“Your first lesson on Wizard communications, Harry,” Severus intoned. “The Floo system as been around for quite some time, dating back to before the Dark Ages. To reach your intended destination, one simply grasps a handful of Floo powder,” here he nudged the still gaping boy’s hand with the jar, prompting him to do as instructed, “carefully prepared by the Transportation department of the Ministry of Magic, casts it into an already blazing fire,” here his raised eyebrow had a more speedy response, “and clearly state your destination. Keep your eyes closed, arms and legs tucked close to you at all times, and do not move to step out until you have stopped moving completely” he ended sternly. He gave the little boy a prod closer to the fireplace, and watched.

After nibbling is lip for a further minute, Harry decided that “Remus Lupin’s rooms” would suffice, since, Sirius wasn’t an official guest of the castle and therefore had no designated room. The flames flickered emerald, and, after casting a quick look behind him to his guardian, Harry stepped forward, into the flames, and then after what seemed like endless spinning, out into a dark living room.

“Hello?” He called uncertainly. Though his previous excitement had abated somewhat, he still wanted to see his godfather and unofficial godfather. “Sirius? Remus? Are either of you up?” He had been so worried Severus wouldn’t let him come, and that he’d get a really long, biting lecture about disturbing his guardian during breakfast, but he hadn’t gotten it. Instead, Harry had gotten a lesson on how to use the Floo system properly, and though he had seen it used a few times before and had even used it himself, (with less than stellar results) no one had ever explained it to him like Sev had. Well, Mrs. Weasley had come pretty close….

A shiny nose poked out from behind a slightly closed door, and Harry grinned. “Isn’t it a bit early to be sneaking about, you mangy mutt?” Harry teased. There was loud barking as a large black dog came barreling toward him, tongue lolling, tail wagging and claws clicking on the polished stones floors. In a moment, Padfoot pounced, landing squarely on his teenage boy and liberally coating his face with doggie saliva. Harry’s screams of joyful protest and Padfoot’s loud yipping effectively drew Remus from his bed, and he stood for a moment in the doorway of his bedroom, watching the boy and his dog frolic about of the hearth.

On the other side of the fireplace, Severus straightened slowly, rolling his eyes at the green-eyed child’s exuberant squeals through the fire. Really, he thought to himself as he turned to address the two young men looking up at him, must the boy carry on so? Studying the red-head's easily decipherable emotions as they flickered across his face, and the ever-blank features of his godson, Severus posed a question.

“Shall we resume breakfast, then?”