Thank you again for all the reviews! This is the last part of Stargazer.

Silver Serpent

The huge gift arrives on Harry's seventeenth birthday, with a coal-black owl that Harry hasn't seen before. Asphodel hoots sleepily from the windowsill. She was out all night flying with Hermione's gift; Hermione asked to borrow her since she has no owl of her own. And then Harry was up late with the book on fundraising that Hermione sent him.

Harry sits up and examines the package in surprise. There's no note on the outside, and the paper is reflective silver that's neutral in color and anyone might have bought. Harry finally rips it open, wondering if this is from Sirius, another attempt to buy Harry's affection. (He can't help thinking of it that way even if Sirius does sincerely want to make up for the horrible mistakes he's made).

But the gift that tumbles out of the package to the bed is definitely not one that Sirius would send him. Harry finds his mouth hanging open a little, and closes it with a hasty swallow.

It's a gleaming serpent, made of silver, with tiny eyes that Harry highly suspects are emeralds instead of the beryls that they look like they are on first glance. It coils around in loose spirals, with the tail forming a last loop. Harry studies it for a second. He wonders if it's meant to curl around his shoulders or climb up the front of a robe before he figures it out. He can wrap it around his arm, and the head of the snake will rest on his shoulder and the final tail-loop will curl around his wrist.

It's—

He thinks he knows. He never read about this specifically, but it's very similar to the information that he got from some books in the library.

Harry licks suddenly dry lips and reaches for the note that he knows should be there. And yes, it is. It fell out of the package when he removed the serpent. He only hopes it's from the person he wants it to be from.

It is.

Happy birthday, Harry.

I told myself I would not do this, that I would hold off until you were out of school and no longer a student under my marking, but I find that I cannot. There is too much possibility that someone else would approach you, win you, and perhaps even convince you to marry before you are out of Hogwarts, given how many of our kind marry young. I will not touch you until the end of your seventh year, but I cannot resist staking a claim now.

My mother's family, the Princes, used this serpent as a means to mark betrothal. It will remain out of sight under a shirt sleeve and is adjustable. You may wear it as openly as you want, or as quietly as you wish. The serpent is enchanted to heat up a similar ornament I wear if you are in a dangerous situation.

Do not ask me yet to write words that I would rather speak. But I value you. I wish to wed you. I admire your intellect. I treasure your smile. I find I cannot bear the thought of you with someone else. I wish to claim you as my betrothed.

Severus Snape.

Harry's hand is trembling as he reaches out again to stroke the serpent. It turns its head slowly towards him, emerald eyes flaring open for a second. Then it loops forwards and waits expectantly in front of his hands.

Harry takes a deep breath, and chooses his left arm. People look more often at his right hand when he's teaching them, since that's his wand hand, and for right now—for right now, he wants to treasure this as a wonderful secret.

Someone values him.

Harry closes his eyes against the burn that shouldn't be there, and lets the serpent climb up to wreathe its head and neck around his shoulder. The cool weight turns subtly warm against his skin, which Harry hopes is the magic's way of letting Professor Snape know what he's chosen.

Because someone should.

Even though there was never any real doubt that he'd say yes.

Dangerous Situations

"Why won't you go to Hogsmeade with me, Harry?"

That is Justin Finch-Fletchley. Severus knows every tempo of a whining student's voice by now, when he's had them running around his school for seven years. He pauses to calm his breathing and his temper both before he looks around the corner.

Harry is standing with his arms crossed loosely over his stomach in front of the staircase that goes down to the Hufflepuff common room. Finch-Fletchley leans across him, one hand on the wall, as if he wants to pin Harry but knows how unwise that would be. His eyes are wide and hungry and fixed on Harry's mouth.

Harry flicks an eye towards the corner where Severus stands, and the ghost of a smile crosses his lips. Finch-Fletchley seems to think it's for him, the intolerable swine. He moves towards Harry and lifts a hand as if he's going to caress his face.

Harry cants his head back and says only, "Because I don't want to."

"I don't understand, though. There's not anyone else! I asked everyone I knew, and they said that you either don't date or that you'd refused a date from them, too."

"But that doesn't mean there's not someone else."

Finch-Fletchley starts. "Do you mean—you're dating a Squib, Harry? Or a Muggle?"

"I'm dating someone who prefers not to be exposed to the judgment of the wizarding world." Harry's voice drops, and Severus feels a shiver unfold in his stomach. "I can hear the judgment in your voice just saying those words, Justin, and you're Muggleborn. What the hell would you do if it was a Squib?"

He does not say I am. No one would ever look to hear him lying. Severus sighs. The end of Harry's seventh year cannot come soon enough, no matter how much time they get to spend together as he helps Harry revise for his NEWTS.

"I didn't mean—I'm sorry, Harry. But God, you're brilliant and handsome and powerful—"

"No, I'm not."

"You are! Everyone can see how brilliant you are now—"

"That doesn't mean I'm powerful, Justin. You've also attended my lessons and you know what I say about power. Does it all leave your head the minute you walk out the classroom door?"

Finch-Fletchley is silent in what seems like consternation. Severus stretches his lips in a sneer. Harry was right when he told Severus in the letter thanking him for his betrothal gift that he values Severus because Severus is one of the few people who sees him. Others looked past Harry when they thought he was a Squib, and now they think of him as powerful instead of what he really is because power is so linked with intellect in their minds.

"I'm sorry, Harry."

"Apology accepted. But that automatic blindness is one of the reasons I don't want to date you, Justin. Can you move out of the way now? I want to go downstairs and think about that mock exam we have in Charms tomorrow."

Finch-Fletchley makes a confused, apologetic noise, and moves out of the way. Severus Disillusions himself to follow Harry down the stairs, which also gives him a good opportunity to see the look of longing Finch-Fletchley still follows Harry with.

Harry waits for Severus around the corner of the first wall at the bottom of the staircase. His smile is gentle as he reaches up and smoothes his fingers down the skin under Severus's eyes as he becomes visible again. "That wasn't a dangerous situation, you know."

Severus removes the charm that keeps people from noticing the small, snake-shaped cuff around his wrist most of the time. It's made of hammered silver to match Harry's serpent and has diamonds for eyes. "This heats up whenever I think you are in danger."

Harry rolls his eyes. "Danger as defined by Severus Snape."

"Exactly," Severus breathes. His hunger is increasing the longer he stands near Harry, and he no longer knows whether it's Harry's brilliant green eyes that inspire it or the cool disdain he uses to shoot down people like Finch-Fletchley, whether it's the slender body that Harry keeps toned with dueling or the unapologetic pride with which he walks through Hogwarts's corridors.

Harry gives him a regretful smile and steps back. "I really do need to get back to the common room, sir."

Severus restrains himself from reaching out and only nods, hiding his cuff again. Harry's smile turns wistful, and he reaches out to caress it once before he turns and makes his way down the corridor.

Severus watches the slight ridge of bumps that the silver serpent makes under Harry's sleeve, and tells himself that it is only seven months from now that he will be able to claim the man who's chosen to be his. And that Harry needs the time to study. Severus is determined to see Harry score all Outstanding marks on his NEWTS, as much as Harry tells him it's impossible.

Finding Out

"Harry, that's beautiful. What is it?"

Harry glances down. Alicia sometimes comes to meetings between him, Severus, and Hermione when they're discussing the Squib school and the ways they're going to fund it. Harry has found a few buildings that he thinks would suit, one of them a huge house that a half-blood family bought from a pure-blood family just before most of them got slaughtered by Voldemort, and the other a hall that the Flint family has been planning to renovate for generations and never got around to. It takes his mind a minute to come back from the discussion to what Alicia is pointing at.

The tail of the silver serpent has slipped out of his sleeve and is visible where it grips his wrist.

Severus's tension is visible from the other side of the room. Harry is careful not to look at him as he smiles at Alicia. "That's a gift I got on my birthday." He pulls up his sleeve, content in the knowledge that neither Alicia nor Hermione will recognize that it's a betrothal gift from Severus's mother's family, even though they might recognize it as a betrothal gift in general. "See?"

Alicia gasps when he reveals the head of the serpent, and Hermione leans over to look, but doesn't touch. Harry isn't sure if anything bad would happen if someone touches the serpent besides himself; he just knows he doesn't want it to happen at all.

"It's incredible," Hermione whispers. "And I can feel that there are enchantments on it, but I don't know which ones."

"Protective enchantments," Harry says blandly as he lets his sleeve fall back into place. It's true, after all. "My betrothed didn't want me in dangerous situations. The serpent is charmed to let him know about it."

"Him?" Hermione goggles at him.

"There are plenty of wizards who date other wizards," Alicia says impatiently. "Plenty of them in our House, even, Hermione. Oh, Harry." She's looking up at him with eyes full of delight. "I can't believe that you got betrothed the first out of all of us. I mean, I know you're oldest, but Sol is fussing and fussing about just asking Ginny Weasley out! A betrothal is a big deal."

Hermione nods. "And most people don't get married until a lot later in the Muggle world. Are you sure that you want to marry this person, Harry?"

Harry turns his head a little, enough that he can watch Severus's expression from the corner of his eye. "I've never been surer of anything," he says.

He doesn't miss the relaxation in Severus's face, although of course he won't actually smile. Not yet.

Harry can wait for that.

"Alicia," Harry hisses as he finds his little sister just entering the Great Hall for breakfast. He drags her into a corner of the entrance hall where most people won't see them and casts a privacy charm, then glares at her. "Why did you tell Mum and Dad that I'm betrothed?"

"They deserve to know that someone values you."

Harry continues glaring at Alicia, but she just meets it with a scowl of her own, and he finally rolls his eyes and gives in. There's absolutely no way he's going to convince his stubborn Ravenclaw of a sister, that much is true. "Now they're sending me letters hounding me to know who it is and what it is." At least Alicia apparently didn't describe to them what Harry's betrothal gift looked like, just that there is one.

"I didn't tell them that it's a man courting you, or that it's a snake, or anything else," Alicia confirms. "But they deserve to know that someone is going to marry you."

Harry is quiet for a moment then. He doesn't know if Alicia realizes this, but he had—there were a few years when he just sort of assumed that he'd never marry, when he thought about it, which wasn't often. A lot of Squibs don't get married. Or they marry Muggles and have children who sometimes are aware of the wizarding world and sometimes aren't. Pure-bloods shrink from Squibs, so do half-bloods raised in the wizarding world, and even Muggleborns become concerned about what would happen if they had to hide magic from their spouses and children. Or they grow concerned their spouses would be jealous.

Harry wouldn't be surprised at all if his parents and his godfather maintained some of the same attitude even after they knew he was on the low side of average instead of a Squib.

But someone does want to marry him. Someone does value him. And his parents don't know who.

Harry begins to smile.

"See?" Alicia grins back at him. "That's the way you should look. March around with your chin in the air and know that you're better than everyone else, because no one else here has such an expensive betrothal gift and no one else is going to be as great as you are when you found the school." She pokes him in the shoulder, on top of one of the serpent's coils. "You should be proud, Harry! As proud as a swan!"

Harry laughs. His sister makes odd comparisons sometimes. "I don't want a big head," he says, wrapping an arm around her shoulder and escorting her into the Great Hall. "I can be great without that."

"You already are," Alicia tells him, with utter seriousness.

"Harry. We came all this way to speak to you. And you still won't tell us anything?"

Severus slows at once. The snake cuff on his wrist heated up to the point where he had to leave class five minutes ago, and part of him is still thinking on the kind of chaos that third-year Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs will cause without supervision. But the last voice he expected to hear was Lily's.

He halts inside the shadows at the top of the staircase to the dungeons. Lily and Potter are standing in the receiving hall, Potter flushed, Lily pale. She has her hand extended to Harry, who is watching her with calm, devastating politeness.

"Harry, who is this person you're betrothed to?"

"We want to keep that secret for now."

"That means it's shameful." Potter has a deeper voice than Severus remembers. "Who is it, Harry? Someone who followed You-Know-Who? A Slytherin? Someone older than you are?"

Severus holds onto his laughter viciously. Potter managed to get all the "terrible" things right in one guess. From the slight waver in Harry's voice as he replies, he is thinking the same thing. "He's a private person."

"Is he ashamed of marrying you because you're almost a Squib? That's not good." Lily shakes her head, her red hair sliding over her shoulders. "You shouldn't marry someone who views you as shameful, Harry."

That is not the woman I knew, Severus thinks, but with detachment. He shouldn't be surprised by that. Lily has been married to Potter and living around Black and Lupin for far longer than she and Severus were friends. Of course she wouldn't be the same. His vision of the past is shattered like a mirror now, and has less power to hurt him.

"You're the ones who spent years being ashamed of my power." Harry's voice now matches his face. "Stop looking into the shadows and jumping at your own fears."

"You haven't been very respectful to us in the last year, Harry." Potter's voice is firmer now. "We're still your parents. We still deserve your respect, and we want to know who you're marrying."

"I'm a legal adult." Harry's voice is lower still. "I don't owe you anything. And you spent years pitying me and worrying about what people would think of you for having a child with lower than average power. I don't care what you feel right now. I don't care about inviting you to my wedding. I don't care about telling you my secrets. You were the parents you should have been to Sol, and Romulus, and Alicia. They love you. That's the only reason I haven't told you exactly what I think of you before now."

"H-Harry." Lily is the one who moves away from Potter, who just looks like he doesn't know if he should weep or explode. "What do you think of us?"

Harry draws himself up. Severus moves a little to the side so he can see Harry's face. This is the moment that the moment when Harry revealed his power should have been, he thinks. Lily and Potter weren't nearly shocked enough then. They will be shocked now.

"I think that you're far shallower than you want the world to believe." Harry's voice is smooth, and still cool and polite. Severus thinks on how often he has seen Harry lose his temper, and realizes it's almost never. Maybe he learned it didn't work when he was a child. "You care too much about the good opinions of people whose good opinions aren't worth having, like the Malfoys and the rest of the Blacks besides Sirius. You care about how you look for having a Squib child. You wanted to predict how I would behave, and you were so sure that I would be jealous of Sol and Romulus and Alicia that you never looked at me. You just wanted to be normal. Normal for pure-blood wizards, anyway."

He shifts his gaze to Potter. "You wanted sons like you. Gryffindors and hot-tempered and powerful at magic and pranksters. Sometimes I wonder how you deal with Romulus. I suppose Alicia's different because she's a girl." He shrugs. "The minute you realized that I wasn't going to be like you, even though it was based on a lie, you gave up on me.

"And you let your personal experiences influence you too much, Mother." Harry faces Lily, and their identical eyes meet, and Lily's are the ones that waver and drop. "You were so sure that I was going to be your sister all over again. That made Sol and Romulus and Alicia the victims, and you decided you had to be the heroic one who saved them.

"Did you ever think that even if I had been jealous of them, it wouldn't have been the end of the world? What one child feels about another never is. But you spent more time talking about my possible jealousy than I ever did feeling it, and magnified it to the point that Sol thought the worst insult in the world was calling me a Squib."

Silence echoes around this part of the receiving hall when Harry finishes. Some students on their way to lunch—by now classes have ended—pause to watch. Severus sees Granger among her fellow Ravenclaws, sees her narrowed, angry gaze fixed on Lily and Potter.

"I would still have been alive if I was a Squib," Harry adds. "I would still have had feelings. But you spent all your time fretting about what I might feel, what I might be. I have someone who loves and values me. I don't need you or the shadows of you.

"That's what I feel," Harry ends, with an impatient little toss of his head that Severus adores. Then he turns and follows the crowd to lunch.

Severus lingers long enough to feel the heat die out of the snake cuff around his wrist and see Lily turn to bury her face in Potter's shoulder. Then he goes back to his classroom, wondering if Harry was right to accuse him of overprotectiveness, and that most of the "dangerous" situations his own snake might warn him of are ones Harry can handle with ease.

Of course, dangerous situations still exist for other people. Like the students in his third-year Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw class once he sees the mess they've made.

Brilliance

"This really is going to work."

Harry turns around to smile at Severus. They're in the building that Harry finally decided to purchase to build the school, the house that the half-blood family used to own before Voldemort killed so many of their relatives in it. As Harry thought, they were willing to sell it for a pittance compared to what the house is worth.

They're in what looks like a cross between an entrance hall and a sitting room, given the huge fireplace on the wall. There's still a pattern of violently golden paper on the walls, but Harry is watching the high, arched windows and the skylight, thinking of how it'll look when it's made over into stained glass symbols of learning.

He isn't going to have Houses in this school. They don't need the divisions.

"A magnificent place," Severus concedes, folding his arms. Like Harry, he can't fold them comfortably all the way across his chest, but his cuff is a smaller obstacle than the serpent bound about Harry's arm is. Harry smiles at him as he watches a beam of grey light from the windows trace over his cheekbones. "You—meant what you said."

"I say a lot of things. I mean most of them. Tell me which one this is, Severus."

His voice dips lower without his permission. Severus glances at him, eyes full of heat, but inclines his head. "You meant it when you said that I would be welcome as a teacher in this school."

"Administration staff," Harry corrects him. "I know that you can teach well when you want to, but there are few kids you'd be patient enough with."

"That much is true. Do you know why I became Potions master at Hogwarts in the first place?"

"No." Harry leans comfortably against a wall where he can look through one of the arched doorways that leads out from this room. "Tell me."

"I had a flirtation with the Death Eaters. There were few people who would hire me. Albus Dumbledore was kind enough to offer me a post."

Harry jolts and looks up at him. "And now—you must realize that's not true anymore. That you could have made your own place and your own career even when the war was more recent in everybody's minds."

Severus glances away, eyes flitting over the hearth, the skylight, and down yet another corridor beyond an arched doorway. "I—did not allow myself to think about it. Much like your parents, I did not allow myself to see the wider situation. And at the time, I was young and too afraid to think I could establish myself on my own."

"Don't compare yourself to my parents. You're nothing like them."

"There are ways in which I am." Severus shakes his head when Harry tries to speak. "No, let me say this."

Harry subsides enough to nod.

"There were students before you who had potential, I'm certain. But I ignored them, or mistreated them. I never should have become a teacher. It is not where my talents lie. Well, perhaps some students especially skilled with Potions might have appreciated me. I convinced myself that this was fine, because I had to make a living, and I also convinced myself that I was helping you only to get my revenge on your father."

Harry nods. "Yes, all right. But you did wake up, and I know that you haven't been as foul to anyone in the last few years as you were before me. So come away from Hogwarts and help me run my school. I know that you can be diplomatic when you deal with idiots. And you'll enjoy proving idiots wrong about Squibs and inventing potions that non-magical students can brew."

Severus takes a step forwards and lets his hand hover in the air for a moment before pulling back. He takes his prohibition against touching Harry while he's still a student seriously (even when Harry wishes he wouldn't). He coughs and says, "I can do that. I will be—with you, even if I have to work on my administrative skills. And that is worth a great deal to me."

Harry lets his face relax into a smile. "You never asked what I was going to call the school, you know."

"I did not," Severus admits. "I assumed you hadn't decided on a name." He pauses, his gaze holding Harry's. "What will you call it?"

Harry glances upwards again at all the light washing the corridors. "Brilliance."

Wedding

"Well, this is certainly a surprise, Severus."

Severus shrugs and pushes the resignation letter a little closer to Albus. "It's probably something I should have done years ago. I am temperamentally unsuited to being a teacher."

"Hmm." Albus looks at Severus instead of touching the letter. Severus only calmly looks back. He has Occlumency skill strong enough that nothing Albus tries can get through it. Albus relaxes after a moment and smiles. "You are making the right decision for you, my boy. At least, I hope so."

Severus lets the condescending reference pass. He won't have to listen to it much longer. "Yes, I am," he says. "Thank you for giving me the chance that led me to my new life."

"Now I am more curious than ever," Albus says with a light chuckle, but doesn't try to press. Instead, he waves Severus ahead of him, and Severus leaves the Headmaster's Tower with a light heart.

This is the night of the Leaving Feast for the seventh-years. The NEWT exams are finished, and Severus knows that Harry will have achieved all Outstanding's (or he will know why not). Harry will spend one more night in the Hufflepuff dorms with his yearmates, who he remains politely distant from.

And then tomorrow, at dawn, they will be wed.

Harry feels the silver serpent on his arm shift as he finishes dressing in the shimmering golden wedding robes. He reaches up and smooths the head on his shoulder. It calms down and relaxes a moment later.

Harry smiles. He knows that Severus will be placing a cuff of his own around Harry's wrist in a few minutes, but he hopes that Severus doesn't intend to take the betrothal gift back. Harry has grown used to the reassuring weight on his arm.

He adjusts the robes one more time, and then steps out of the small silken tent Severus set up here two days ago. It's dawn, the soft red and gold colors streaking along the horizon, and the gardens of Brilliance House rustle with equally soft green around him. Sunrise weddings are unusual, but it was a tradition in Severus's mother's family and one Harry is eager to adopt.

There are so few Potter traditions that he wants to keep, after all.

As he walks across the gardens, Sol, Romulus, Alicia, and Hermione fall in behind him. Alicia is as calm as always, wearing her own red dress robes, carrying a bouquet of flowers, and smiling at him. Hermione has stopped shooting dark scowls at Severus and now wears a neutral expression. Romulus is smiling, too, although from the faraway look in his eyes, he's probably daydreaming about magical theory. Sol still looks as stunned as he did when Harry told him, last week, who he was marrying.

But none of them have blabbed to Mother or Father or Sirius or Remus. That's good. Harry doesn't need them here, doesn't want them.

Severus is almost alone, but in the end, he did invite two people: Sirius's brother, Regulus, who used to be his friend at Hogwarts and who apparently is a Potions brewer of some renown outside Britain, and Minerva McGonagall. Harry barely knew they were friends. Professor McGonagall gives Harry a stiff smile and moves around in front of Severus. She has some kind of official Ministry dispensation that allows her to marry people.

"We are gathered here today to celebrate the joining of Severus Snape and Harry Potter," Professor McGonagall says. She gives Harry a smile that has less strain in it this time. "You are accepting the proposal made to you last July in good faith, Mr. Potter?"

"I do," Harry says. He hears Sol mutter something behind him, but he can't hear it, which means that he doesn't need to listen. All of his attention is fixed on Severus, who holds out his hands. Harry clasps them. Severus shifts Harry's left hand a little so that the tail of the serpent around his wrist touches the cuff Severus wears.

A soft silver glow promptly encases them. Regulus Black blinks. Harry is sure Hermione is standing on her toes to look, and probably storing the information in her mind to look up later.

"You intend to honor that proposal you made, Mr. Snape?" Professor McGonagall continues. Her voice sounds calm and confident now.

"I do." Harry holds Severus's eyes and watches the heat and the hesitancy in them. This is a new thing for both of them. But Harry is as confident as Professor McGonagall sounds right now. They are going to do this.

"You promise to love each other?" Professor McGonagall prompts, and adds, "From now on, all your responses should be spoken in unison."

"I do."

"You promise to treasure each other?"

"I do."

"You promise to defend each other from all threats, to stand together without doubt or denial, to present a united front to the world?"

"I do."

"You promise to bind your fates and your futures together, until the moment of death comes, and continue in hope that not even death may put them asunder?"

"I do."

Harry watches as the silver glow rises higher, and higher, shifting around them, and then melts into their skin. Severus hasn't reached for the cuff that he said he was going to wrap around Harry's wrist, and Harry wonders why until he realizes that the light itself is forming the cuff. The one on Severus's left wrist grows visibly thicker, while the one that coalesces on Harry's wrist is entirely made of light. Harry shivers at the slight weight and lifts his eyes to meet Severus's again.

Severus's face is shining with far more than the light: with possessiveness, strength, delight, and love. He reaches out and draws Harry's left arm, still encircled by the serpent that he evidently doesn't intend to reclaim, through his. He turns to face their audience. Regulus Black's eyebrows look to be permanently raised, but at least he doesn't look disapproving.

"You need to now present your new names to the world," Professor McGonagall says from behind them.

"Severus Prince," Severus says, a breath before Harry adds, "Harry Prince."

"Harry, you didn't," Sol says, blinking so fast that Harry can't tell if he disapproves or if he's just startled.

"I have no reason to love my name," Severus says, as if the question was addressed to him, his head lifting high. "And Harry has no reason to love his."

"I'm not really a Potter," Harry tells his siblings, seeing the understanding in Alicia's eyes and how Romulus is entirely focused on the moment. "I haven't been since Peter lied about me. Maybe that's not the way it should be. But I want to face reality, not comfortable lies."

Severus tightens his grip on Harry's arm. Harry smiles up at him and leans against him. For a moment, he visualizes how his parents and Sirius and Remus will react when they find out, then dismisses the notion.

Today is not about them. Today is about him and Severus.

The wedding feast was a breakfast outside in the gardens, managing to be raucous despite the presence of so few people. But now their guests have gone, and Severus and Harry are in a bedroom in what will be the administrative wing of Brilliance House, repaired and cleaned by the house-elves.

Alone.

Harry pins Severus against the door and kisses him aggressively the minute Severus shuts it behind them. Severus would like to kiss back, but honestly, all he can do is open his mouth and let Harry's tongue do what it wants. For a virgin, a virgin Severus knows has never kissed anyone else, Harry is surprisingly talented.

Then again, he is in love.

And so is Severus. Even if today was the first time he managed to admit it.

Eventually, they do undress. Eventually, they do move to the large bed that some house-elf has covered with far too many frills and flounces. Harry squirms into the middle of it, his eyes brilliant and wide and his legs already open. He closes his eyes, squinting, and then smiles. At the same time, Severus sees a gleam form around his hole.

"Harry," he says, breathless, unable to keep his eyes from the entrance to Harry's body even as he finishes removing his socks. "Did you just—you never mentioned that you had learned wandless magic."

"It's just the one spell. And I didn't mention it because it was embarrassing how many times I'd practiced it."

"I love you," Severus says, hardly noticing the words falling from his lips as he climbs onto the bed and bends over Harry.

"I love you, too," Harry says, opening his legs further, until he winces and has to close them a little. "Now, come on, I've been dreaming about you fucking me for months. Make it better than the dreams."

Severus does. Or at least he tries. The warmth surrounding him, holding him, when he slides within Harry makes him unable to be as slow and gentle as he always pictured. Then again, Harry is baring his teeth at him and challenging him to go faster, and there is always later.

Always until their futures and fates may be parted, and perhaps beyond that.

Severus plunges into Harry as hard as he can, and Harry wraps his legs around Severus and fucks himself backwards with as much determination as any young virgin eager to abandon that state. Severus tries to touch Harry's cock, but honestly, he's doing all he can to make sure that they don't fall off the bed. It's incredible, and draining, and Harry still somehow manages to come between them with a shout of pleasure.

Severus can finally release the hold he has on himself, and fall.

Harry opens his eyes later—it must be hours later—to find evening light coming in through the windows. He yawns in a leisurely way and turns his head.

A whole row of owls are lined up outside the window nearest the bed. They start pecking on the glass when they see Harry's open eyes.

But Brilliance House is warded. Harry specifically wound in spells that would allow owls to arrive but not deliver their letters if Harry didn't want to read them right then. They can either drop them in place for Harry to collect when he wants to—and see them be destroyed utterly if they're Howlers—or they can bloody well wait.

It took even longer to learn that spell than it did to learn the Shield Charm, but it has its merits.

Severus is still asleep beside him. Harry traces the lines of his face, around his mouth, around his eyes, and around his jawline, before he settles against him and closes his eyes again.

Secure in a way he's never been, Harry Prince falls asleep next to his husband for the second time.

The End.