Chapter Text
Harry began pacing, something that he did when he was nervous and that he had picked up from Severus. Ah, Severus. Harry couldn't help the smile that grew on his face whenever he thought of the man. While there had been some rough spots before the got together (namely Harry being a cat and then avoiding Severus once turned back), but it all turned out all right in the end. Or, mostly.
While Harry loved being with Severus, and he truly, truly did, there was still something missing. He couldn't quite put his finger on what was missing, but he knew that there was. The dark haired wizard had reviewed his current life in his head while trying to put his finger on it, because he knew what was missing, but – well, he didn't. It was complicated.
So far, Harry had been getting along pretty well. He had been turned back into a human and his transformation had gone better than he had hoped. While there was a small problem of not being able to balance to well with out a tail, Harry had attempted to fix that using a fake tail that was attached to the back of his pants, but he only looked silly and it didn't actually work.
"What are you thinking about love?" Severus asked, walking through the door that led to his private room's. While no one else knew of their relationship except for Luna and Neville, Harry often spent a lot of time in Severus' private rooms; a place that he had gotten used as a cat. Though everything did seem a little strange as now everything was so much smaller than before.
The potions master's arms wrapped around him and he looked up and smiled at the man he cared greatly for, "Not much. How was your last class?" Severus had been teaching his final class, some Hufflepuffs, if Harry's memory served. Harry had the period free because his classes for the day had ended earlier.
"Fine." Severus told him, leaning down to give Harry a kiss that soon became heated. The taller man pulled away as the shorter pouted, saying, "They were only Hufflepuffs. Mostly they just squeak when they're scared. Nothing like you when you were their age..."
Harry continued pouting, "Hey! I wasn't bad in class. I just didn't understand."
"You didn't want to either," Severus muttered, "come on, we should get to dinner."
"Do we have to? Can we not just stay here? I can think of some more fun things to do..."
Severus rolled his eyes at the younger wizard. Teenage hormones run amok, surely. "I am sure you can. But yes, we have to. People will wonder where we are otherwise."
Harry scrunched up his nose but he didn't say anything. They're beginning had been rather bumpy, but Harry loved Severus deeply and the feeling was recuperated; something that Harry wouldn't change for anything.
The dark man sighed and pulled his arms away from Harry, instead taking his hand and leading him to the door. Once outside Severus was forced to let go of the smaller hand because they didn't want to chance anyone else seeing them to compromise their secret.
While they couldn't hold hands walking down the long corridors and hallways of Hogwarts, the two were often seen next to each other. After Harry was changed back from that of the cat that was kept by the dreaded Potions Master, they had needed to come up with some sort of explanation; or so the headmaster had told the duo.
So they decided to tell everyone that there was a mess up by Harry in Transfiguration that had him transfigure into a small midnight black cat, and that the teachers knew of this the entire time (which was a lie, for the most part the teachers were frantic). Harry was purposefully put in the care of Snape for some reason of the headmaster.
This was important to tell the students (or so Harry supposed) because the headmaster felt that the black cat that had made appearances in Severus' classes needed to be explained, both the sudden appearance and the sudden disappearance. The reason Harry had appeared was because at the time Severus hadn't known that the cat was a Potter, and instead took him to the classes to see if any of the students would claim him.
Thankfully no one had and that brought them to where they were now. Every one knew or summarized that as the two had been living together (while one was a small animal) for some time that the duo would have gotten close.
The two seperated at the doors of the Great Hall, nodding to each other as Harry walked down right side of the Gryffindor table to sit next to Neville, Dean and Seamus, whereas Severus walked down the left side of the table going up to the staff table. Most of the time staff members used the special door by the staff table but Severus prefered walking with Harry instead.
"You know I still have trouble believing it," Dean muttered to Harry, watching Snape's back walk up to the front table.
"Believe what?" Harry asked, turning to look at the friend on his right.
The boy shook his head, "Just the two of you. What happened. It seems so unlikely, you know?"
"Yeah," Harry agreed. He and Neville shared a look, Neville sitting on his left. Neville knew of his relationship with Severus because of Luna, who was Luna so Harry didn't question how she knew. He was worried it would drive him insane.
Harry hadn't told anyone else though, including Seamus and Dean. Those were pretty much all of his friends. He and Draco had talked a bit when they ran into each other a few days ago, but the blonde Slytherin still didn't know about Harry and his godfather just yet.
"I can't believe it either sometimes," Harry said a little louder, "have you seen Luna lately Neville?"
Normally Luna would sit with Harry and the other three at the Gryffindor table even though she was a Ravenclaw; the headmaster had said that there was no rule against it and Luna didn't have many friends in her own house so she preferred it. Harry saw the seeds of something more sowing between her and Neville.
Said boy nodded, "She was helping Flitwick with something the last time I saw her. I passed her walking the other way in the hallway and asked where she was going, she said that something was going to happen to the Charms teacher that she could help with." Ah, so she was doing one of those things.
"Basically," Seamus decided to add as he had been eating, "she's doing one of those things that she knows 'bout but we don't know why she knows 'bout it."
Neville nodded. Harry began to eat the food he had arranged on his plate, looking up to the staff table. Severus was talking to Minerva and they turned to look at him as he did so, being Harry he blushed and looked back down at his plate.
He didn't know why when in public looking at Severus made him blush so much. When speaking to Luna of this Luna simply said that he was a 'blushy person'. Whatever that meant. The raven haired wizard would have complained about his face heating up more but Severus told him that he looked cute when he did it, so Harry hushed up about it.
Then again, all telling Severus about how much he made Harry blush did was compel Severus to want to make Harry blush even more, which he never failed in doing. He was very good at it, as Harry informed him often and of which Severus already knew.
"So, Seamus and I wanted to, um, tell you guys something. We'd wait for Luna but we're pretty sure she already knows. Her and her ways," Dean told them nervously. Neville looked between Seamus and Dean while Harry had an idea of what he was going to say.
It looked as though Dean was waiting for Seamus to say something, so he muttered through a food laden mouth, "Umm, yeah."
Apparently that was enough contribution for Dean because e continued with, "We're, uh, together. And have been for, like, a few days."
It was silent for a few seconds before Harry slapped Dean on the back saying, "Good job then Dean, it was about time."
"Wait, what?" Dean asked, the adrenaline that caused his nervousness before was still running through his body as his hands were shaking slightly as he continued eating. Seamus simply continued eating, but that was normal for him to do. You couldn't split that boy from his food for anything.
"It wasn't too hard to see," Neville told him softly, "the sexual tension between the two of you sometimes was capable of being cut by a knife."
Harry nodded and Seamus swallowed the food in his mouth to say, "But the only reason there was tension was because he said no sex!"
Dean blushed and stuttered, "Because we share a room with three other boys!"
"There is something called silencing charms!" Seamus informed him, "Besides they don't seem to care, do they?"
Dean looked at them and said, "You two do seem to be taking it rather well."
"Well duh," Harry said, "We basically already knew about you two. And while I thank the thought Dean, I do believe this is exactly what Silencing charms were created for."
Dean blushed harder, deciding to take the spotlight off his own relationship, "What about you Neville?"
"Huh?" Neville asked, confused.
"What about you and Luna? When you're gonna ask her out?"
"Uh, I um – don't, know what you're, uh, talking of?" Neville stuttered out.
"Yeah yeah," Dean said, "don't you agree Harry?"
"I do," Harry smiled, as Neville looked to him for support to find none, "you should just ask her out Nev. She probably already knows you like her anyway."
Neville continued to stutter and Seamus laughed. Neville came up with an idea to get back at Harry though, "Well how about you then Harry?"
Harry stiffened slightly. Neville of course knew of Severus and Harry was hoping he wouldn't say anything about it, "What about me?"
"How about you and that guy you like, huh?" Neville waggled his eyebrows at Harry. "Don't think I forgot that night a few days ago when you came back late."
Now it was Harry's turn to blush and stammer as he remembered the night in question. It had been a few days after the start of their relationship and Harry had stayed a little late at Severus' and they got – frisky. While they didn't have time to do more than snog Severus had still taken advantage of the time that they did have.
Namely he attacked Harry's neck with his mouth and made Harry make quite a few mewling sounds and blush hard. When Harry finally made it back to the Gryffindor common room where Neville and the others had been playing a game of Exploding Snap there were red marks all up and down his neck and there seemed to be a slight blush permanately on his cheeks.
There had been wolf whistles and such from Seamus and Dean, whereas Neville had known exactly who it was who had put each of those marks there. Harry had gone straight to bed, being tired out by Severus and his ministrations, but Neville would not let him forget that night.
Neville's bringing it up now seemed to refresh the night in the other two's mind, and Harry blushed once more. "Oh yeah Harry," Seamus slurred, "who was that anyway? You're special little man?"
"Not so little," Harry muttered to himself as he blushed, and Dean chuckled as he heard what Harry said.
"Not so little Harry? What would you mean by that?" Dean waggled his eyebrows at Harry in the same way Neville had earlier, trying to suggest an innuendo.
"In two ways. One in which you are probably thinking and the other way in that he is actually quite tall." Harry retorted, shoving Dean lightly with his shoulder.
"Oooh!" Seamus said, "Harry and someone sitting in a tree, S-N-O-G-G-I-N-G. It's Harry and someone sitting in a tree -"
"You know that doesn't work while we don't know his name," Dean pointed out, "which would be useful to know." he winked at Harry.
"Yeah right," Harry told them. "Like I'd tell you guys."
That's when it hit him. Maybe that was what was missing? The others went on to laugh and talk of Quidditch but Harry stayed in his thoughts. Maybe this was what he was missing from his relationship with Severus, this banter with his friends.
Not that in his relationship with Severus stopped his talks with friends, obviously, but that he wanted to tell them about his relationship. That they could joke about Dean and Seamus being together or get on Neville's back about his not-so-relationship with Luna was something that Harry wanted to do with his relationship with Severus.
And while they were technically joking about it and talking about it, it wasn't something they could actually do because, as Dean pointed out, they didn't know who his 'boyfriend' was. And Harry hadn't been planning on telling them because he was afraid that they wouldn't like it, who he was going out with that is.
But Harry wanted to. He wanted to tell them so that they could talk about their relationship and so they could just be open about their relationship when they were together. He also wanted to come out and say it because he wanted to be able to tell his friends that he was going to see Severus when classes were over and be able to show off Severus as his lover.
Perhaps that was the biggest thing that he wanted, though it sounded very conceited; he wanted to show Severus off to the others and show how he and Severus were great for one another. This was something that Harry figured only someone in a relationship could really understand, wanting to show off the other that is.
The raven haired wizard nodded and muttered something under his breath as he noticed the others looking at him as if they had asked a question he hadn't heard. Harry looked up to the staff table where he noticed Severus looking at him again. The other raven haired wizard raised an eyebrow as if to ask what he had been thinking about; and Harry nodded his head in the way of the front doors, as if to show that he wanted to talk.
Severus nodded and said something to Minerva, and Harry quietly excused himself from the others. They said bye to him and he stood up, walking out the front door as he saw Severus going out the staff door, so Harry headed that way while also going on his way down to the dungeons.
Harry and Severus met up halfway to the Potion Master's quarters, and as he walked in Harry heard Severus shut the door behind him. "Well?" Severus asked, knowing there was something on Harry's mind.
"I thought of something during dinner." Harry told him, taking Severus' hand and kissing it lightly. "I want to tell the others of us."
Severus was quiet for a moment before he kissed Harry lightly on his scar, "If you feel like you want to, go ahead Harry."
"Are you sure?" Harry asked, surprised that Severus was so fine with it.
"Of course," Severus told him, looking deeply into his love's eyes. "I know you would not have said anything without thinking it through. And I trust your friends because you do. But are you not only telling Thomas and Finnegan?"
"Yeah," Harry told him, allowing himself to be lead to the sofa where he was pulled down into Severus' lap; something that Severus liked to do a lot. "They actually kind of gave me the idea of telling them."
"Oh?" Severus muttered into Harry's neck. That was another thing Severus loved doing: nuzzling into Harry's neck and sucking on it, giving Harry any number of hickeys.
"Ye- ah." Harry's voice broke as Severus began to suck on his neck, starting just behind his ear. "They came out as together today, even though Neville, Luna and I pretty much already knew."
Severus' mouth moved farther down Harry's neck and continued sucking. Harry moaned, his eyes fluttered shut. "We were poking fun at Neville for not having asked out Luna yet when he brought up that one night from a few days ago."
Severus paused in his showing how much he loved Harry's neck to say, "That one where we had not much time and I-"
"Yes, that one." Harry broke him off.
Severus chuckled and smirked into Harry's neck before moving down on it again and sucked on his collarbone instead. Harry tilted his head a little farther the other way so Severus could more easily get at his neck.
"Any – ah – way," he stammered as Severus did something particularly sensitive to his neck, "I thought I should tell them, maybe tonight."
Severus stopped his ministrations at that, "Tonight?" he asked, "Why not tomorrow? Or the next day? Now I can find something more fun for us to do. Tomorrow's Saturday."
"I know love," Harry pulled back to look at Severus, "but I want to tell them as soon as possible."
"Fine," Severus said, "but I am putting it off for as long as possible."
With that he began attacking the other side of Harry's neck, giving him even more hickeys. Harry sighed and let him, knowing that he would simply have to tell the others later. As one of Severus' hands began to slide around him and started to sneak under the back of his shirt he thought, 'They can wait.'