Thanks once again to all you wonderful readers and reviewers. You give me hope and much needed encouragement.

SutekhSnape: Wave 7 was to be posted on March 31. I don't know what the delay has been, although Kira has been under the weather. The list now purges after each Wave, and registration supposedly opened again on April 1. Try Kira's site for further.

USA-Jeanette: LOL! I can't do MPreg (one of my few squicks), but there are ways around it. I guess I'll have to wait and see.

This is, properly, two updates, but as I've got to return to work tonight I thought I'd throw both of these up here now. And really, if the course of true love always ran smoothly, I'd need to find another hobby….

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Snape forced his mind back to the article he was reading for the fourth time in the last ten minutes.

He sat in his own comfortably appointed study, his favorite magazine on his knee, a glass of fine brandy next to him. His meal at the Cauldron had been—forgettable. Roast pork, some kind of over-cooked greenery and an indifferent pudding. He'd eaten it at a small table in the corner, as was his habit, keeping his back to the wall. Even the wine, one he normally enjoyed, had seemed…flat.

Most likely not corked properly, he thought sourly, attempting for the fifth time to concentrate on the article in hand.

Odd, though, that when he ate there with Potter, the food was always quite good. On the other hand, he had been eating there with Harry Potter; no doubt they put out their best just for him. Likely the boy hadn't even realized they were treating him differently.

He snorted at the thought, pausing to sip at his brandy. If there was one thing he'd come to accept about his young partner, it was that Potter neither sought, nor expected, special treatment because of who he was; that he considered, in fact, the ordinary courtesy one man extended another to be treatment above and beyond what he deserved. That the reaction had persisted into adulthood Snape had found admirable; that it was still genuine, nothing less that amazing.

An attitude he'd gotten, Snape had learned, from being raised by some of the most disgusting muggles Snape had ever had the displeasure of rescuing from Voldemort. May he rot in hell for all eternity. And that damned Dursley with him

The feel of slick paper sliding down his leg jerked Snape back to reality and he lunged for the magazine, snatching at it just too late. Liquid sloshed across his hand and onto his slacks before he remembered the glass he still held.

Frustration and rage flashed through him, a hot flood of blackness, and with a growled curse Snape flung his glass into the fireplace. The sudden flare from the brandy and the music of shattering glass soothed something in him and the heat washed away as quickly as it had come. Pained embarrassment filled him at his lack of control, and he snatched up his wand to wave away the mess.

The last of the glass safely disposed of, he turned his attention to why he'd suddenly become so angry. Long years had made any sudden change of mood in himself or others suspect. But Voldemort was safely dead, the last of his followers imprisoned or fled, and of those who had fled none were strong enough to influence him so without help. Which left…

"Potter," Snape growled, pacing the length of the study, the ruddy light casting a demonic glow across the long planes of his face. "Undoubtedly it's this mess he's gotten himself into, and pulled me in to help." Snape sneered at his reflection in a side mirror. "If the man—boy—hadn't waited until the last minute, by now the whole thing would have been peaceably settled and whatever whey-faced, pug-nosed chit he'd chosen would be whelping the first of their ten brats. Well, I'm done with it," he announced to his mirror self. "Potter has had the last bit of help from me he's going to get."

Casting around for a distraction, Snape's eye fell on the fallen magazine. "A bit of brewing should do the trick," he said, sneer softening. At that moment his head chose to give him a sharp warning pang, the sure follow-on of strong emotions. "Something to calm the nerves, as well as ease this damnable headache," he said. Snatching the magazine from where it lay he headed out the door and down to his basement lab.

"This will turn the trick in no time."

"Master Harry! You must come! Master Harry!"

Startled from sleep, Harry shot bolt upright, half springing from his bed and bringing his wand to bear before he'd blinked twice.

Squinting slightly he half-focused on Dobby, crouched by his pillow and wringing his hands. The second thing he noticed was a distinctly blackened house-elf that wasn't one belonging in Potter Manor.

"Accio glasses," he commanded, sliding them on when they landed in his hand. "Dobby, what's going on? Who is this?"

"Oh, Master Harry, Dobby is bringing you Tate, from Master Harry's friend's house." The head elf of the Potter household shoved the sooty figure forward.

"Tate?" Even knowing who it was, to Harry the elf was barely recognizable under the soot and grime. Severus never allowed his elves to wallow, no matter how much they craved punishment. The singed elf was obviously in extreme distress, so Harry pulled his slacks on while he waited for the elf to explain.

"Please, Master Potter, sir! Master is in trouble! Big trouble!"

"What trouble, Tate?" Harry demanded, although from the elf's state he could easily deduce what was wrong. "Was there an explosion?"

"Explosion! Yes, exactly, Master Potter is so quick in his mind! So amazing!" The elf wrung its long-fingered hands together.

"Never mind that, Tate! Did the lab blow up?" Harry threw on a jacket over his bare chest, hastily buttoning it as additional protection from—whatever.

"Yes! Yes, Master Potter, and Tate cannot get through the wards to his master! Master Severus could be dying! Could be a deader, like, like last week's fishes! Oh please, Master Potter—"

"Hush, now! I'll bring him back. Dobby," he said to his own elf, "get a message to Poppy Pomfrey to come here. That Severus has been in a lab accident of unknown origin. I'll be back as fast as I can Apparate. The wards will be down until I get back, so be careful!"

Suiting actions to words, Harry dropped the wards around his own house and disappeared, only to reappear less than an instant later outside the open front doors of Snape Manor. Neither smoke nor flames were visible in doors or windows, but there was a very distinctive odor, that could be nothing but a potion gone wrong.

Charging up the steps and through the doors Harry felt the prickle down his spine that was the Snape wards noticing his passage and allowing him through. A stranger would have had bits removed and tossed into a variety of dimensions. A most excellent way of keeping used broom salesmen away from one's door, Severus had once remarked in passing; the smirk had told Harry the man spoke from experience.

Left, right and down, two rights then down again, Harry ran through the house he knew almost as well as his own. At the end of the last hallway was the reinforced door to Severus' lab, tiny wisps of purple smoke escaping from popped wards and hinges, the door itself bowed outward from the force of whatever blast had happened. There was a sweetish odor on the air, almost like…

Lilac? What the devil were you brewing with lilac? Harry wondered. In too much of a hurry to finesse his power by drawing his want, Harry brought raw power to bear and blasted the door into its component atoms. Dark purple smoke rolled out and over him through the enlarged hole in a rush. Sickly sweet and choking, one breath was enough to start his eyes watering and lungs burning. God knew what shape Severus was in.

Harry went in low to the ground, covering his mouth with his sleeve. Even then the fumes were so thick it was impossible to see. Closing his tearing eyes, Harry began sweeping his other arm from one side to the other, trying to draw the lab as he remembered, from long nights watching—and sometimes helping—Severus with some batch of potion needed for the War, or the occasional bit of research.

Sinks and vents to the rear, why aren't they working? Shit! That stings! Glass! Alambrics and other distillings to the right, storage on the left. Workbenches…ah!

His hand swept across something that was neither glass nor wood but cloth and lumpy. Finally! Unthinking, Harry took a deep breath against the coming effort, feeling it rip at his lungs like London on a smoggy day. He choked and gasped, trying to inhale again while he fumbled to grab what he knew was Severus. Heaving the taller man over his shoulder he staggered for the door, lightheaded and desperate for clean air.

The air in the hallway was only slightly clearer, but enough that Harry could hack the last of the tightness from his chest. A whoosh came from the ruined lab and the smoke and smell finally started to fade.

Oh, of course now the bloody vents kick in!

Harry gave the older man a quick once over, finding that the smears of blood on Severus' face and back of his hands were superficial, and the reddened spots would no doubt heal quite nicely on their own. But it was Severus' limpness that worried him the most, even more than the single serious injury, a black-edged burn on the potion master's left palm.

Pulse and breathing are steady, if a bit shallow, Harry thought, but he's so limp, it's like he's…ah!

Asleep. That would explain the lilac smell, Harry realized. A Sweet Dreams potion. Harry frowned; Sweet Dreams wasn't normally volatile. What could have caused such an explosion? This was a potion Severus could have brewed even while under its influence, what could have happened that the man would slip so?

"Tate!" Harry called, knowing the house elf's name would summon him.

In an instant the bedraggled elf appeared, tear tracks making clean streaks down his cheeks while he continued to wring his hands. "Oh yes, sir, Harry Potter sir! Master!"

The little elf squeaked when he spotted Severus on the floor behind Harry. He threw himself on Severus' inert form, wailing his misery. "Oh he's dead! Dead! Dead, and Tate is without a Master! What shall he do? What shall Tate do?"

"Get a grip on yourself, Tate! He's not dead." Harry shoved aside the urge to shake the elf back to his senses. More gently he continued. "Tate, go and pack a bag for Master Snape and bring it to my house. Madame Pomfrey will be there to make sure he recovers."

"But he looks so…so…dead-like," Tate dropped the hand he'd been chaffing. It hit the floor with a thud.

"Tate!" Harry exclaimed. Pulling his wand he quickly cast a levitation charm and began maneuvering Severus' limp body to the front hall. Except for the pervasive smell of lilac, the air was clear of traces of smoke.

I'll have Dobby come over and check the lab tomorrow, see what needs to be repaired or replaced. It's the least I can do for—. Harry cut himself off. He's going to be fine. It's just a sleeping potion after all. He refused to linger on the number of sleeping potions that were just one step short of death; potions that, misused, were a cause of death.

Outside in the chill air Harry felt a lethargy he'd not noticed slide away. He shook himself like a dog coming out of a pond, then gasped at the wave of dizziness the move engendered. Once the world stopped rocking he waved Severus' body into an upright position and wrapped one arm around the unconscious man,

"Keep the wards up, Tate!" he called to the little elf still wringing his hands while standing on the portico. "I'll send Dobby by with word as soon as there is one." Before the elf could start bemoaning his fate yet again, Harry Apparated.

And reappeared with a small poof! of displaced air and a gasp as the displacement cancelled out his levitation spell, dropping Severus' full weight in his arms. Within seconds though that weight was lightened and he caught a glimpse of the ever-capable Poppy Pomfrey over Severus' shoulder.

"Let me help you with him. That's it, one arm for each of us; now onto the stretcher," she continued briskly. The two of them managed the taller man onto the nearby stretcher where it floated patiently. "Very good, Mr. Potter; now tell me what you know while we get him inside." She tapped the side of the stretcher with her wand and made a little shooing motion at it to set it drifting along.

"He was in the lab...brewing…something with lilac. I think it may have been a Sweet Dreams potion."

"Couldn't have been," Madame Pomfrey declared. "Severus Snape hasn't exploded a Sweet Dreams since he was five."

Harry stopped dead on the steps. "Five? Really?" He shook his head again to clear it, wondering why the world looked so hazy, although the lack of rapid spinning was an improvement. "How do you know that?"

"He never told you?" She looked back over her shoulder before pointing the stretcher through the doorway. "All wizarding families are related to one degree or another, although sometimes you have to go almost back to the line founders. Severus and I are a little closer than most, since I'm his second cousin thrice removed; I grew up with his mother. Come along now, Mister Potter, it won't do him any good to have the both of you down ill. Nor me, either," she added, the tails of her apron disappearing into the foyer.

"His cousin?" Harry started to follow Poppy inside then stopped dead when the porch decided to slide three steps left just before he stepped on it. And really, he thought to himself, it should know better.

Wait a minute! I never enchanted the porch to do that! he realized, studying the slowly swinging steps intently.

He could just hear the medi-witch asking him something from too far away to hear the words clearly, when the world faded out to a violet-grey blur.