Disclaimer: The world of Harry Potter, the characters, the settings, and the details are not my own. J.K Rowling holds the rights to these wonderful things, and I am in awe of her talent. I own only my original characters, and of those there are not many.
Chapter Eleven: Hallowed Ground
"What is the price to be a bargain beggar/ So lonely but always free/ What did you mean when you said it's destructive/ And sank yourself right into me"-Manchester Orchestra "Tony the Tiger"
Snape stared through the doorway quietly. Finally he turned to Harry, and his face was sad and serious. "Sit down Potter. We are going to have a calm discussion now."
Harry moved to a seat without argument, and turned the chair so he was facing Snape. He watched as Snape took a deep breath, settled himself, and then said, "She will not remember the song. I would suggest you do not remind her. That was an oracular fugue state, and it is an occurrence that has not happened in quite some time. She will go to sleep now, and when she awakens she may not remember anything since breakfast."
Harry chewed on that for a moment before responding. "Whose future was she telling?"
"I could not say. Yours, ours, one of those choices. I have seen her in that state once before, and the information is always piecemeal. Her connection to our lives makes it so that she cannot clearly see our future, but she can receive bits and pieces she has no direct part in. I imagine she was receiving the anger we were showing each other, and the fugue descended upon her. Which brings me to the next point Potter. I-"
Harry cut in, "Snape. I'm not going to force you to do anything. If you want to take it slowly I can handle that. I'm not desperately in love with you, and I'm not going to leave if the sex is bad. I just want to see where this could go. Ok?"
Snape closed his eyes and lowered his head. Then he lifted his face up to Harry, and Harry saw all the things he hadn't seen the night before. Uncertainty and fear, and wanting, Harry saw a desire that matched his own written plainly on Snape's face. The older man cleared his throat once, and gruffly he said, "Yes. We will be better prepared and more informed for the next encounter, and I will give it a fair chance."
Harry tilted his head and considered this, "Are you giving me homework?"
Snape laughed.
When Neruda woke Harry and Snape were finishing sandwiches for lunch, and she walked into the room to hear Harry saying tersely, "I just don't see why we had to demote it to a dwarf planet. It's sort of insulting. First we take its title and then we mock its size."
Neruda stopped in the doorway staring at the two of them, and Snape pointed to the table with his knife before returning to slicing a tomato. "Potter. Pluto is an object in space. It does not care what we classify it as. Personifying it is ridiculous."
Harry winked at Neruda, and saw the trembling fear she had entered the room in slowly seep out of her. She managed a small, tremulous smile in response to Harry's wink. Harry finished breaking off a pile of lettuce, and as he placed the remainder back in the crisper drawer he stated, "How would you know? Have you asked it? Is there a spell I am unaware of that allows you to tap into the feelings of poor, abused Pluto?"
Snape's look of incredulity was perfectly priceless, and Harry had to fight to keep his poker face. Neruda broke into giggles, and Snape shot her a look before realization dawned on his face. He cut his eyes once to Potter, and then back to Neruda. "You are both incorrigible."
Harry noticed though that when Snape sat down there was that same controlled little smile of his. The three began layering sandwich ingredients on bread, and the air was lighter than it had ever been.
Neruda rifled through the owl post on the table as they ate, and she pulled one thick envelope out of the pile and smiled broadly at it. "Father, do you have your new frame handy?"
Snape opened the swinging door and summoned it casually, but his eyes darted once to Harry before he handed the frame to her. She opened the envelope, and Harry watched as she pulled a packet of animated pictures out of it. She flipped through them quickly, and when she landed on the one she wanted she pulled it out and carefully placed it into the frame.
Neruda looked up at Harry and turned the frame slowly to show him the photo. "Where should we hang it Harry?"
In the frame Neruda had placed the last shot Hermione had taken before she left. Harry, Neruda, and Snape were linked together, arm in arm. Harry watched his own image as it shifted in place grinning broadly at the camera, his arm around Neruda. In the middle of Snape and Harry Neruda looked back and forth between the two with a broad smile. Snape's image was the one that caught Harry's attention the most, as he watched Snape's eyes cut to the right, taking in Harry and Neruda, before his small grin appeared.
Harry found himself speechless, and he swallowed hard before his eyes met Snape's. "Can we hang it in the study? Next to the one of the two of you at the zoo?"
Snape nodded once, and took another bite of his sandwich while he considered the photo.
After hanging the picture Neruda disappeared for a moment, and returned with a Cluedo box. Harry stared at it in surprise, but Snape let out a sigh of resignation before sitting at the table. Four hours later Harry threw down his pad in disgust and announced he was going to make dinner. He had lost every game to one of the two Snapes, and he was unwilling to lose any more face in front of them.
Neruda offered to help him, and left Snape to clean up the mess they had made playing the game. "It's more fun with three people. Father always insists after one game that we should play something more suited to two players. Like chess. I'm sick of chess."
Harry laughed while he carefully prepared the salmon and poured the oil into the pan.
"Harry," she said tentatively as she washed the vegetables he had handed her to slice, "Mrs. Weasley mentioned that they were hoping you'd stop by the Burrow sometime soon. Do you think you'd be interested in doing that?"
Harry continued to carefully filet the fish, "I think I could now. I think things have changed enough that I'd be comfortable seeing them."
Neruda placed the zucchini and potatoes on the cutting board, and began to carefully chop the potatoes for the mash. "Will you tell them about us? Father and I?"
Harry glanced at her, but she was looking only at her vegetables, and Harry saw the line of tension in her shoulders. "Of course I will. Why wouldn't I?"
Neruda still didn't look at him. "Well it's just…I know Father's reputation with them, and I know that I have many moments where I'm strange. If you were embarrassed it would be ok. I wouldn't blame you."
Harry laid the prepared filets down beside the pan, and placed a hand on her shoulder. She looked up, but not around. "I am very proud that the two of you have invited me to be part of this family. I like both of you a great deal. The Weasleys don't hold Snape accountable for George's ear. They know it was an accident, and they're not the type of people to hold grudges. If anything they'll be angrier with me for being gone so long. Either way, I'd never be ashamed of you, or your father."
He felt the tension leave her shoulders as she nodded and went back to chopping.
Harry carefully placed the salmon in the hot oil, and then he turned as the bottoms cooked to look at Neruda thoughtfully. "Can I ask what exactly it was that you saw that made you so sure your father and I would get along? How that worked around your restriction?" What Harry really wanted to ask about was the vision she had had earlier, and what the song had meant, but Snape had said it was better not to remind her. Whatever she had originally seen to invite him to dinner it was a vision she both remembered and was unfazed by.
"I can see things that don't necessarily include me. They're choppy, and unsure sometimes, but they still have weight and import. I saw the two of you laughing together. In all the time I've known father he's never been close enough to someone to let himself go like that. I was very excited at the prospect of him having a friend who could put him at so much ease."
Harry didn't know if he should smile or frown. She had seen them being friends? Did that mean their attempt at a more intimate relationship was doomed? Or had she just been unable to see that much? He considered this a bit, before asking carefully, "So you wanted me to come so your father could have a friend?"
Neruda looked up from her vegetable chopping slyly. "Well I also saw you two kissing naked in bed if that's what you're trying to find out."
