Harry walked out, feeling lightweight, like he'd eaten a cloud and could fly. He was walking slowly because Severus was walking slowly, and although there was a shock of guilt or something that went through his heart every time he heard Severus's step, it wasn't loud enough to overcome the cloud-feeling.

Then the Aurors came. He registered them dimly, faint static in the corner of his mind. They'd been marching around Hogwarts in groups of two and three and doing all kinds of things since Voldemort fell.

Then the Aurors marched up to him, and he blinked and thought that perhaps they wanted to ask him something.

The one at the front said, "We have orders to take him."

Even then, he didn't get it.

"Uh?" he asked, and then seized on the only explanation at hand. "To St Mungo's? I thought—Madam Pomfrey said he was fine—"

"A warrant for his arrest."

Uh, went his brain again, and now it struck him on the head and he could speak again.

"Arrest?" he screeched. "A warrant by who?"

"It's more of a holdup, really," the Auror said, looking like he was trying very hard to be bold and confident. "He is a Death Eater and he was working under You-Know-Who's orders, so—"

"Merlin, didn't you hear what I said to Voldemort?" The Auror winced—barely, but it was still there—and Harry wanted to call him out on it, perhaps a little meanly, but that wouldn't help his case. "Look, let me talk to Shacklebolt—"

"It's all right, Harry."

Mouth still half-open, he looked back at Severus, and whatever he'd been planning to say died on his lips at the strange, soft smile on Severus's lips.

"Severus—"

"Don't, Harry. Use your celebrity status for more important things. I believe this will pass soon enough."

"But they're taking you to—!"

"Not Azkaban," the Auror offered. "Just a holding cell. It is temporary, just until we sort this out. And Shacklebolt—he thought perhaps this would prevent any possible retaliations from escaped Death Eaters."

Severus's lips curled, but "I see" was all he said. Then he turned fully to Harry, and there was a steely look on his face that told Harry that whatever protest he had would fall on stone walls. "Take care of yourself, Harry."

"I'll come see you," he said, fervently.

Severus nodded, and there was another soft smile on his face as he leaned forward and put a hand on Harry's shoulder. "Don't do anything stupid," he whispered quietly.

And then, because Harry had wanted to do this all year and also perhaps the Aurors would make sure to take good care of Severus if he knew how important he was to Harry—he looped his arms around the man.

It lasted mere seconds, and then they pulled apart, and the light feeling was replaced by lead as Severus walked away, led by four Aurors.

It took eight whole days before he could come visit (his schedule was packed to near-breaking), and with every passing day he felt increasingly guilty. This also made him increasingly nervous for when he would actually go, because Severus was in prison and all alone and he'd promised that he'd come visit and he hadn't yet. And what would he talk about? Did Severus get the news, did he hear that Malfoy was arrested, that over a dozen Death Eaters were on the run, that Bellatrix Lestrange attacked Narcissa Malfoy at the Manor and was killed by Sirius, who was the only other Order member around at the time—

He handed his wand over with some trepidation to the guard—he'd never been without it, and he sort of hoped that they would make an exception for the Boy-Who-Lived, but they didn't. He had a packet of food in the other hand, feeling almost physically small at the measly offering.

He was led to a grey steel door with a barred window, and the door was opened for him.

Severus was sitting at a table, the light over him and framing his face oddly. He watched Harry, and Harry stood in silence for a moment at the doorway as the door shut behind him.

Harry thought Severus looked like he was going to say something, so he waited. No comment was forthcoming. There was a chair on the opposite side, which Harry slid into carefully. He placed the package on the table. "For you," he said.

Severus smiled. It was just barely mocking, like Severus didn't know how to smile without infusing some teasing or insulting element into it, but it was one of the nicer ones. "Thank you."

This made Harry feel doubly guilty, as if it had been a particularly magnanimous gesture on his part that Severus didn't deserve. He shook his head frantically. "Thank you. I never got to say it, before. And now you're here, and it's the worst possible way to—"

"You didn't sign the warrant; I am perfectly well taken care of here; and I am alive. There is nothing for you to work yourself up into a fit over." Severus spoke evenly, as evenly as Harry had ever heard him speak before, and it suddenly hit Harry that Severus didn't have to be mean to him ever, not for the Slytherins or Voldemort. "How are you?"

"Tired," he offered with a chuckle, and when Severus's eyebrows knotted, he hastened to reassure him. "I'm sleeping and all that, of course. I just know a lot of things, important things—and there's interviews and they're preparing for the trial, and they need everything I know. They're coming around to you now. I talked to Shacklebolt; a bunch of Aurors will be coming to you any day now and then you'll probably be free to go."

"Yes, he dropped by."

"O-oh. I didn't know that. Did he—? I told everyone about your Pensieve memory, not the details, but the gist of it, but people are still inclined to think that you're, well, faking it."

"He seemed guardedly convinced of my innocence."

He still seemed calm, and Harry couldn't believe it. "Well," he said, "he'd better."

Severus smiled again. "Indeed. Or he'll have one very angry Boy-Who-Lived to deal with."

Harry chuckled again, weakly. He felt all out of place here, though he tried not to think on it—Severus ought to be in a Potions lab or something, working, doing something good, not stuck here doing— "What are you up to?" he asked, and instantly regretted the cheeriness he'd forced into his words.

Severus didn't seem to mind. "Nothing particularly. I read the news."

"Oh, you do?" he broke in. "Umbridge has been arrested, did you know that?"

"Yes," he said, and his lips curled again. "I got the distinct impression you were angling for a stint in Azkaban."

"Well, yeah," he said. "I saw her in the Ministry conducting the investigations, Merlin—she's right up there on the top of my list, next to Malfoy and the other Death Eaters."

"Got a bit side-tracked that day, didn't you."

Harry stared in silence at the man, wondering if he was angry. "I couldn't just do nothing—"

"Pardon. I didn't mean to imply I was judging you. I was simply stating fact."

Harry stared a bit more. This was Severus being nice, and he wasn't sure he was entirely used to it. "Okay?"

A slow lift of an eyebrow. "You seem confused."

He chuckled nervously. "You're usually annoyed when I stick my neck out to save people."

"That, I believe, was when you were a child. You were an adult. And I," he stopped, seemed to choke silently on some word in his throat, "I have lived for three years watching people die and being, for the most part, unable to help. I certainly do not begrudge you one moment of—saviour fervour."

Harry remembered what Severus had said in his Pensieve memory. Lately, only those I have been unable to save. "I'm sorry," he said, and Severus looked like he was preparing to let loose with some angry comment about ridiculous apologies, so he hastened to explain, "I mean, it must have been hard, and I—I can't imagine what it must have been like, so—I'm sorry."

Severus's face looked frozen. "Well," he said, and cleared his throat. "We all had our troubles to bear. I am sorry about Dobby," he said, out of the blue, and the unexpected mention hit as hard as a curse. "I was informed he was hit, and Shacklebolt confirmed that he died. It must have been hard."

Harry was breathing quickly, shallowly, and he gave a jerky nod. I was informed—by Bellatrix Lestrange, he knew. Severus was holding back the name out of kindness, and he was grateful for the small thought. He could imagine it all too well—Lestrange, gleefully talking about how she'd hit the elf—

Not too gleefully, he realized, as he struggled to breathe. Voldemort had tortured her for failing to capture him, so Dobby would have been the least of her concerns—

"Harry?" Severus asked, voice swirling in concern, and he reached out a hand, hovering an inch away from his own clenched fist, before seeming to hesitate—for the Aurors, Harry realized. He made the decision for them, reaching out and clasping Severus's hand; the Aurors would hardly dare to tell him to keep his hands off of a Death Eater, would they?

Severus's other hand came over his own, and then Harry's other hand joined the fray, and by now Harry did have his breath back under control and he grinned a little foolishly at Severus. "This is nice," he managed.

He looked just a little surprised, and Harry braced for a sassy comment. "I apologize," Severus said instead. "I should have been more careful in mentioning him."

"No, it's fine—you just caught me off-guard, that's all. It's still sinking in, slowly. All the people—everyone who—" died, he thought and didn't say. He'd read the lists—muggles, muggleborns, half-bloods who got caught up in the fray.

"They—they kept saying it could have been worse, a whole lot worse—" he nearly choked on the words, he couldn't even imagine it. "But I can't just forget everyone who—"

"And you shouldn't have to."

Harry fell silent, overwhelmed, again, by the depth of Severus' understanding.

"Hedwig is dead," he said.

Severus nodded solemnly.

"Ted Tonks is dead, too."

Severus nodded again, and his hand tightened over Harry's.

"I'm Teddy's godfather. Teddy is—"

"I know. Congratulations."

He laughed, a hollow laugh that sounded most unlike him. "I can't—I know nothing about children, I can't even hold a baby—"

"I knew nothing about children, either." And then one of his hands left the sandwich and passed over Harry's forehead, pushing back a strand of hair—a futile gesture, and Harry felt it had more to do with simple skin contact than any desire to remove any hair from sticking into his eyes. "I don't think I did a perfect job, but then—"

"You were amazing," he declared, a little thickly.

"You are far too optimistic in your praise," he said quietly.

"You are incredible."

Severus looked up at him, and Harry was surprised right out of his impending desire to cry by the wetness in Severus's eyes. Um, he wanted to say, except his vocal cords staunchly refused to make any noise, and his muscles refused to move, so he simply turned to stone as he watched a teardrop fall down Severus's pale face.

And another one, and another, and that was it. Harry let go of his hands so he could wipe at his face, and looked away as he did so, wishing to give the man a little privacy, though it was an odd thought. He stared at a spot on the floor where a bit of rock had been chipped away.

"I have never used my handkerchiefs in twenty years, and yet it was second nature to slip one in anyway. I see why now."

Harry decided it was safe to look back. Severus looked normal, like he hadn't dissolved into tears—well, dissolved was putting it a little dramatically—and he was smiling again, a little shamefacedly.

"I've used your handkerchiefs before," he pointed out, simply to keep the conversation going.

"Ah, yes. That is the only reason I carry them around."

Harry grinned. "I think I've only ever cried in front of you."

The admission leaped out of him, unexpected, and he slumped a little. But Severus's eyebrows raised. "Indeed? I shall write that on my epigraph. The only man who made the Boy-Who-Lived cry."

"Don't be silly," he said, "you never made me cry."

Then it registered in his head that he'd just called Severus silly, and he swallowed, but Severus was smirking again. "I have failed, then."

Harry wondered idly if this is what it would be like for them from now on—free conversation, not about Dark Lords or plots to kill Harry or broken curfews, just…talk. The thought blossomed in his chest and he nearly wanted to cry again, a happy cry this time, but he couldn't explain it to Severus, so he tamped down on it. "What else have you been up to?" he asked instead, because he wanted to hear Severus's voice again, forever.

Severus leaned a little in his chair and crossed a leg. He still looked a bit thin, and Harry wondered if he'd eaten at all last year. He hadn't asked what it was like, being Headmaster under the Dark Lord's watch. He hadn't asked Severus anything about the past year, and there was so much to talk about. And he hadn't told Severus about his year, about going to Godric's Hollow or about the Hallows, though Severus probably knew a lot of it anyway, but he hadn't heard it from Harry's perspective—

But he had time. He had all the time in the world. It was the greatest feeling ever.

He nearly missed the first few words of Severus's reply.

"I requested for some Potions journals and they were delivered to me promptly. Five days ago, some potions ingredients were delivered to my room, along with the basic essentials for potions making. I believe they are short on adequate potioneers and there is a dire need for healing potions. I am, in effect, doing just about everything that I would be doing even if I were not in holding."

"Yeah, St. Mungo's has a lot of patients. Hermione's helping out, you know—she learned healing techniques last year."

Severus looked at Harry, and a muscle jumped in his jaw.

His eyes looked sad, and Harry didn't like it. "Like you said," he said, bracingly, "We all had our troubles."

"Were you injured?" he asked, a bit sharply—he seemed to realize it too, and faint regret suffused his eyes.

"Not really—Nagini tried to attack me, once, but apart from that—" Ron had been Splinched and Hermione tortured, and he'd been perfectly fine, he realized, feeling guilty all over again. Well, he'd died, temporarily at least, so perhaps that counted as enough injury.

He found himself looking before he knew it, glancing at Severus's high collar, for a glimpse of the bite. "Neville killed the snake."

Severus smirked, a proper smirk this time. "Indeed. I must think up an appropriate method of repayment."

"Oh." Harry didn't think Neville would appreciate that at all. "He's even more properly Gryffindor than me, you know," he said instead, trying to convey what he couldn't put into frank words: that Neville, with his selfless bravery, didn't want to be thanked—

"Indeed. I was joking. Perhaps I will try to undo the effects of the Cruciatus on Frank and Alice Longbottom and we can call it even."

"You can do that?" he gasped.

Severus cocked an eyebrow. "I can try. And if I fail—I can at least do something for the effects of the Cruciatus, familiar as I am with its effects. I have prepared a few potions to alleviate them already." He smiled thinly, perhaps at the look on Harry's face. "Ah, I didn't tell you."

"You never told me anything like that!"

"Ah, well, we have time to catch up, don't we?"

And Severus smiled at him again, and Harry knew that Severus had been thinking along the same lines as Harry himself—so much time to talk.

He leaned back. Severus opened the package and pulled out a sandwich. "You start," he said, and began to eat.

Harry pulled out the bottle of butterbeer, and started.

Severus was holed up with three Aurors for four hours, after which two more Aurors and an Order member joined in, and then after two more hours, the Minister himself stopped by, sick of the growing pile of updates on his desk all marked S Snape: Interrogation, 1997.

Harry stayed with him throughout, first in a corner of the room, trying to keep out of sight, but Severus glanced at him ten seconds into the interrogation and asked what he was doing prowling in the dark, and he dragged his chair out and sat beside Severus instead, in a position where he could watch Severus's face.

The interrogation—though towards the end it was more like a witness' testimony—went on for a total of nineteen hours, excluding bathroom and meal breaks and a nap for Severus, who was still recovering from the injury. He didn't want the break, but Shacklebolt insisted and Harry declared that if he wouldn't sleep, they'd just get up and leave and come back the next day. And then grinned at Severus's glare.

Pensieve memories were taken and watched. Harry watched one—it was the Death Eater meeting in which Charity Burbage was killed by Voldemort—and then elected to sit with Severus as the others perused them. There were quite a few. Severus quietly summarized the memories, carefully choosing more neutral words over things like 'tortured', or 'killed' or 'burnt alive'.

A day later, he was absolved of all charges. He returned to Spinner's End, where Harry came to visit, and they cleaned up the house. The next day, the Weasleys and Lupins dropped by, together with Ron, Hermione and Sirius. Tonks handed red-haired and hook-nosed Teddy to Harry as Andromeda sat with Severus. Teddy's eyes went green, and Harry tried not to cry, tried to hold his head up, wriggled around to keep his glasses away from questing fingers, and went red when Tonks laughed at him.

"I bet Sirius was worse with you," she teased, and he went even redder.

Three years later, Ginny walked down the aisle with her arms looped through Mr Weasley's hands, and Ron, Severus, Sirius and Lupin stood behind Harry.

Six years after that, when James was born, Harry asked Severus to be godfather. Severus shook his head and refused, but Harry said it was either that or having James' middle name as Severus, and how would Severus like that?

And so Severus formally accepted the title of godfather to James Sirius Potter.

And then Arthur came along, and Harry kept his middle name as Severus anyway. He originally considered keeping Severus as his son's first name, but Severus threatened to tell the child about every single one of Harry's exploits as a student— "Let's see how you will maintain any semblance of authority over a teenage son after that, Harry"—and so a compromise was reached.

Severus never went back to Hogwarts, though he agreed to take on apprentices for NEWTS-level students. He sold the house in Spinner's End and bought another, ten minutes down the road from Harry's own. Sirius' offer and spare house thus stayed woefully untouched until someone ("Really, absolutely no clue who") had the grand idea to turn it into a home for free elves.

Remus and Tonks moved into Grimmauld Place—the newly established Lupin Werewolf Asylum, gleefully and raucously inaugurated by Sirius. ("Congratulations, Pads, you are now an eccentric millionaire, I knew you had it in you.") ("Did there have to be quite so many deer?")

Severus spent hours painstakingly ("Very painstakingly, Lupin, and don't you forget it.") teaching the Wolfsbane potion to Potions geniuses ("You could set your standards a little lower, though, Severus." "Oh, why not. Why not just add a whole tumbler of wolfsbane too, while I'm at it?" "Why, what does that do?" "Po-tter. It kills.")

Sirius spent his time gallivanting about the country and continent doing absolutely nothing and oh, occasionally catching a dark wizard or two.

Three months after Albus's first birthday, Alice and Frank Longbottom walked out of St. Mungo's wards, and Dumbledore's Army was vanguard to the six Longbottoms—Augusta, Alice and Frank, Neville and Hannah, and little Frank in his great-grandmother's arms. Within months, the inpatient count of the Magical Maladies ward had decreased by a dozen, as other victims of the Cruciatus Curse were pronounced fit to leave. Severus Snape received a plethora of Potions awards and an Order of Merlin, First Class.

"Which he should totally have gotten right along with me," Harry declared at the award ceremony.

They celebrated birthdays, every single one, with a passion that bordered on fervour. Severus's house was solemn and free of anything but the barest essentials, but the effect of having a young adult determined to spruce up life became slowly evident—a red duvet here, a painting there, a figurine of swans— "Swans, Harry? Really?" "It was that or Snitches!"— a rocking chair for all the times that Severus would babysit—which wasn't often, but Harry liked seeing it in the spare bedroom and Severus didn't have any other use for a spare bedroom so he didn't object.

The Dark Mark never left entirely, and nor did the scar on Harry's forehead. Severus never wore anything less than full sleeves, except on rare occasions in the house, when he was alone or with Harry. In more sober moments, they would each look at the others' marks, permanent reminders of their past lives, and sit in silence, perhaps with a butterbeer or two handy.

Three times, Harry was sent to the infirmary after being injured in his work as an Auror. The first time, when he was twenty, Severus was the first at his side and the first to heal him. The second time, when he was twenty-five, Severus was the second, after Ginny. The third time, Severus told him that enough was enough, and if he still wanted to save the world, teaching Defence at Hogwarts was a perfectly acceptable way of doing it. When Harry protested, Severus threatened to join the Auror force just to keep an eye on 'your idiot little self, Harry.'

That September, Minera McGonagall announced a new faculty member. Not that she needed to, since the Daily Prophet had devoted three whole pages to the fact that Harry Potter would be joining the Hogwarts faculty, complete with personal, family and professional history, and an assortment of pictures dating all the way back to the Yule Ball.

He sat next to Neville at the staff table, looking out at the sea of little, pale faces staring at him, and reflected on how he was about the same age that Severus was when Harry joined Hogwarts. He tried to put himself into the man's shoes, half a lifetime away and across the table at the other end.

So long ago.

The first boy to be Sorted into Slytherin looked up at Harry as he sat. He grinned and waved a hand.

AN: Well.

Well.

Thank you all, so so much. You've no idea what your comments have meant to me. This has been awesome.

78 chapters and 289k words. Whoa.

I originally thought I'd stay true to canon and have Molly kill Bellatrix but I decided to do what my heart has always wanted to do and have Sirius do it instead. And it makes more sense for him to be at the Manor-perhaps he finally coughed up the courage to go and meet his cousin and perhaps thank her for saving his godson's life? (Yeah, no, definitely not.)

I've read a lot of tumblr posts about how silly Harry's naming of his sons was. I hope the slight change makes it better. Personally, I didn't mind James Sirius.

And, for those who are interested in my future plans, I regret to inform you that I do not have any concrete plans as of now. I had a very recent. very long and kind reviewer telling me that they expected me to cover HBP and DH and they were disappointed it didn't happen-I could cover that, but, don't hold your breath! tbh I've spent so long on this, reading, writing, for the past year and half... I need a wee little break. Perhaps half a year.

Farewell, my fellow sailors! May the winds blow strongly on you! or whatever