A/N: I just thought I'd clear up a few questions from reviews here. Pomona Sprout of Herbology is the Head of Hufflepuff house (I think the name comes from the trading cards but it's a convention) and Davis is indeed the Slytherin Seeker. The head of Ravenclaw is Filius Flitwick, the Charms Professor. Thanks to falconhawk for correcting my Latin - I'm not usually that sloppy, it was just getting late. And yes, First Footing is a real tradition, mainly in Scotland but there are a few of us elsewhere (Scottish family though) who still do it to a certain extent.

As always, thank you very much for all reviews and enjoy the next chapter. I have a feeling a number of you are about to start wishing to murder me . . .

It was a month or so later when he next got any large period of free time. Weekdays he taught, with detentions and marking in the evenings. After that he spent time with Severus, cementing their relationship to the point where it seemed certain to be a long term partnership. At weekends, he made sure to spend at least one afternoon with Alistair. Unfortunately, as attack frequencies were increasing as the new Death Eaters became bolder, the number of Order of the Phoenix meetings and strategy sessions were more numerous and longer. Teachers and older students were walking around with more serious faces now and James was reminded of the impact everytime he saw a Ministry Auror.

Revelling in the chance to take a break and unable to help Severus with his potions, James decided to visit the Malfoys. He hadn't been over to the castle for a long time and was curious to see what had been made of it.

He persuaded the house elves to give him a nice bottle of wine and bought a mobile for Harry's nursery before wandering down to the edge of the anti-apparition wards to leave.

As a member of the bloodline, he was able to apparate directly to the great hall and did so with relief. It was deserted when he arrived but he looked around curiously. The floor underfoot was tiled with great stone flagstones like those used at Hogwarts and the tables and benches had been varnished and polished until they shone in the sunlight. The few slits that had been used for light and ventilation had been replaced with large stained-glass windows that depicted - as far as James could guess - scenes from wizarding history. In the light, he could see that the weaponry on the walls was also polished to an almost perfect gleam.

Spread out on the head table were a few rough maps and sketches. James poured over these curiously, noting the complete illogic in its layout and wondering how his friends had managed to map it in the first place.

"Master Evans is here!" came the high pitched squeal of a house elf from behind him. James spun on his heel to see what was unmistakably Dobby. Even the few other free house elves he had seen had better taste in clothes - wearing different coloured patterned socks on your ears wasn't a particularly reassuring sign.

"Morning Dobby. Do you know where Mr and Mrs Malfoy are?"

"Dobby believes that Master Draco is out flying and Mistress Blaise is in the nursery with Master Harry."

"Could you show me up to the nursery please."

"Certainly Master Evans. This way sir."

"How are you finding it here then?"

"Dobby is liking it very much. All of the other house elves are accepting Dobby's freedom and Dobby is liking Wat very much, even if he doesn't like Dobby's clothes. Dobby thinks Wat is a little bit old-fashioned. He doesn't seem to know what plumbing does."

"How many house elves are there here?" James asked, suddenly realising that he didn't know how many were needed for an estate of this size.

"Dobby is uncertain of exactly . . . "

"Just an estimate will do."

"Dobby thinks there are about fifty that work inside and a hundred that work outside. They is all very happy that Master Evans and Master Malfoy have come because it means they is working properly again. Master Evans has reached the nursery now," Dobby said, ending abruptly in that odd way that seemed unique to house elves.

"Thank you Dobby, I'll call you if I need you."

Dobby bowed deeply and vanished with a faint wisp of smoke. James' smile got even broader. He'd learned over time how to deal with a typical house elf such as most of those that worked at Hogwarts or the University. Dobby wasn't exactly typical, so he'd had to revise his approach a little and the elf seemed to appreciate a little more personal conversation as well as the clear orders and instructions. He quite liked Dobby - he was one of the few that were happy to chatter to him openly even if his grammar wasn't quite as good as say Wat's and grated a little on the ears.

James pushed open the wooden door they'd stopped in front of to reveal a large, sunny room with windows - charmed or not he wasn't sure - covering most of one wall. The floor was carpeted in a dark blue and a cot stood in the corner. The wall behind the desk was full of books that had presumably been gathered from around the house or salvaged from the Malfoy residence. Baby Harry was seated in a playpen with his toys around him like a prince with his subjects around his podgy self, while Blaise sat at a desk, looking over papers and making the occasional note on a sheet of parchment. Occasionally she glanced over at her child with obvious fondness, it appeared that motherhood agreed with her. Unusual in such large place, it seemed the room served as nursery, study and living room to them and he could see why.

He cleared his throat, feeling a little like an unwanted intruder with no right to be there.

"You're back early Draco," she said without turning or even looking up from her reading, knowing that there weren't many others who were permitted to be there and no visitors planned.

"I'm not Draco," James said, grinning. She turned hastily, looking embarrassed as she hastily stood up to kiss his cheek welcomingly.

"Sorry James. We weren't expecting you or I'd have met you downstairs."

"Don't worry - it isn't like I gave you any warning. I just came for a visit, nothing important."

"I'll send a house elf to flag Draco down and then we can show you what we've done here so far.."

"Where is he?"

"Out flying. We're compiling an updated map of the area and of course he volunteered to do the legwork. I have to say that it's been very interesting putting our abilities to good use."

"What do you mean?"

"All of us of a certain standing were trained in estate management and the like when we were kids but the Malfoy property is mostly run by lawyers now and even the house itself is looked after by the house elves. This our first chance to really get into it."

Draco burst in five minutes later, hair unusually untidy and face flushed from the chilly air. Obviously the time of relative relaxation had done him no harm whatsoever, quite the opposite actually - both he and Blaise looked healthy and fit, comfortable in far more informal robes than the unspoken rules of society required them to wear.

"James!" he exclaimed, smiling. "What are you doing here?"

Whilst waiting for an answer, Draco placed a kiss squarely on Blaise's mouth and scooped Harry up to tap his nose with a finger, which the kid promptly grabbed. Draco laughed.

"I just felt like visiting," James replied, watching with envy their comfortable interaction.

Draco paused and took a long look at him. James shuffled uncomfortably but was unable to wipe the grin from his face. It seemed to have been plastered there for a long time and reappeared whenever he started thinking about his life.

"What's happened to you then? You're practically bouncing and for you that really is saying something," Draco said, his smirk telling James that he had at least guessed it already. At University it had always been Bertie and Draco that were the wild ones, with James often being dragged along with them but rarely losing his cool. In fact, making him relax completely had been something of an ongoing challenge for them. James personally felt that it was related to not getting drunk in case he let slip his identity.

"How do you tell if you're in love with someone?" James asked, completely serious. He was a little confused about the whole idea after seeing so many conflicting signs. Certainly he would never have felt comfortable talking to the Dursleys about it and he wasn't sure theirs was an ideal relationship anyway. Abe and Albus were both supposedly single and he wasn't sure he'd get a straight answer from them anyway and Hermione would be likely to give him a textbook definition without really helping him. Severus, one of the few other people he trusted, was a little too close to the issue to discuss it with. As for Remus, well, he wasn't entirely sure that a werewolf was legally allowed to marry or anything, so it might be a touchy subject.

Draco and Blaise exchanged a glance and moved together to sit down on a sofa, pulling James with them.

"Do you respect him and his beliefs?" began Draco.

"Yes."

"You don't mind that he has some secrets?" Blaise asked. Obviously this was going to be like an interrogation. James had to think a bit about that question, the answer not being obvious as he confronted his feeling and applied logic.

"No . . . well a little but I have plenty of secrets that I wouldn't feel ready to tell him yet so I guess I can accept it."

"Do you spend time with him when you're not shagging?" Draco asked bluntly, mouth quirking upwards. James wasn't sure if he was serious or just teasing.

"Of course."

"Other than when you're working, I mean."

"Yes, most evenings actually."

"You wouldn't be here if you didn't appreciate his body, so I won't even ask that. Besides, I don't want details. I'm supportive but completely straight and the mental image of you and my godfather is a little bit weird. Um . . . do you feel you could go to him for advice if you needed it and trust his answers?"

"Yes."

"How about waking up to see him every morning for the next hundred and fifty years?"

"I could live with that," James said with a smile. "Supposing I live that long, of course."

"If there are no other things that we've forgotten, I think you're on the track for love then. It is Severus, isn't it?"

"Who else?"

"Congratulations," said Draco, smiling broadly at him. His face suddenly went stern. "However, if you hurt him I will personally hunt you down - and I'll be telling him this as well - my personal safety be damned. Do you want to have a look at what we've done so far then?"

James blinked a few times, muddled by the sudden change in topic. Draco was pulling out think folders and rolls of parchment. He spread one out on the floor and tapped it with his wand. Immediately a transparent three-dimensional image of the castle appeared. It was a little disorientating but he could see each individual room and staircase. Some areas appeared incomplete and they were merely solid blocks of completely clear air.

"This is what we've managed to map so far," Blaise said, looking at it with a hint of pride. "Most estates have them and it's what we're used to dealing with so we thought it would be a good place to start. With a place like this it's better than a map since there aren't proper floors - each area has its own system. We're here."

She waved her wand and a box-shaped area flashed red for a moment.

"That's been our main project - with the house elves help, of course - and it's been very interesting looking through everything. It's a little like being in a museum. You have some very obscure weapons lying around, you know. We've also been trying to do some modernising - thank you very much for sending Dobby along. He's a little odd but very helpful."

"So far we've done five bathrooms," Draco said, a little sourly. "Blaise insisted that that was the most important thing."

"People are happier sleeping on the floor than they are relieving themselves in the moat, especially ladies."

"I've been doing some work on the room designs as well," Draco continued, glaring mock indignantly at Blaise.

"You?" James asked.

"I'll have you know my sense of colour co-ordination has been trained into me from birth and I have excellent taste. My mother was famous for it - after all, it was her that used to set the fashions among pureblood society."

James wasn't sure it was something he'd be quite that proud of but let it slide. Draco was just a little strange sometimes.

"Since you're here, you can give me a hand with doing what we thought would be your bedroom. Wat said it was the first room you found, which means that the ambient magic there must suit you. Besides, it is one of the more accessible ones for the courtyard and the Great Hall and it is one of the Slytherin ones. Come on."

James stared at him. As soon as he thought he understood the wizarding world, they'd come up with something new to shock him with. Why couldn't they accept that it was just chance he'd picked that staircase, coincidence that it had been Slytherin's room? It wasn't as if anyone knew for certain if ambient magic even existed, let alone influenced your decisions! Shaking himself, he hastily strode after him - Draco might have a working knowledge of the castle but James most certainly didn't and was likely to get lost on his own.

When they arrived at Slytheirn's old room, James noted that it hadn't changed much if at all from his first visit.

"Wat says that no one's used this room since Salazar Slytherin," Draco said, voice quiet and sounding more than a little awed by the idea despite his usually nonchalant attitude. Growing up in the lap of luxury obviously hadn't prepared him to view the personal items of one of the world's greatest heroes. "We thought you might want to keep most of the stuff in here and just give it a bit of modernising."

"I think I'll just go along with your suggestions," James said quickly. He had no experience whatsoever in this sort of thing. Draco's resulting smirk was very worrying and he wondered if he should retract the comment before deciding it would lose him face and be the coward's way out. It was strange how his Gryffindor and Slytherin sides meshed.

"What sort of flooring would you like?" Draco asked. "We can't do it all with magic but we can prepare it easily enough."

"Um . . . carpet?"

Draco seemed to understand that this wasn't a decision he'd ever been asked to make before.

"We've mostly been using wood, carpet or stone with rugs," he explained generously. "Carpet is probably best for your bedroom since you won't freeze your feet off during the winter. Whatever you choose will mean we'll need to get rid of these furs - they smell too much to reuse but I suppose there wasn't much else they could use then and at least they'd be soft to tread on. Heap them up by the window and we'll portkey them somewhere harmless or see if the house elves want them. Wat can get just a little scary if you don't talk to him before you throw things out."

James had to try very hard not to laugh at the idea of Draco being bullied by a house elf given how most purebloods treated them. He wondered what had given him the wisdom to realise this and would probably have given a great deal to see it.

They dealt with that in short order and proceeded to inspect the bed. This consisted of Draco gingerly climbing onto it while James watched and, when it didn't collapse immediately, lying down after muttering a cleaning spell to get rid of the dust.

"Better than most I've found," he said with a superior air of professionalism. "But not exactly comfortable - they simply didn't have the technology. We'll get the elves to get a new one for you and you'll probably want to enlarge the bed if you're intending to share it. You tend to sprawl, especially when you have nightmares."

James blushed but agreed, knowing that it had been Draco send to wake him often enough during his student days for him to know what he was talking about.

Very soon Draco had asked a house elf to fetch them some cans of paint to allow them to finish off what he called the preliminary work. Apparently it was indeed possible to spell your walls a colour but unless you were in a sentient building such as Hogwarts, the effects weren't as good as you got with simple manual labour. Despite having been all too used to this type of work in the past, James found it oddly relaxing and enjoyable but a lot more tiring than he remembered. He was glad when Draco called a lunch break and they returned to meet up with Blaise.

The couple ate in small dining room near to the nursery, a house elf taking care of Harry while they dined. James could see the logic of it - if the Hogwarts Great Hall was uncomfortable with only the staff there, this hall - four times the size and not nearly so welcoming in design - would be even more so for just the two of them. The food served up on the other hand was just as good as anything the Hogwarts elves managed and probably better. The dishes were unknown to him though, given that they were the foods that the elves were used to, centuries out of date.

A week passed and James woke up as usual in his bed at Hogwarts. He blinked a few times and turned his head slightly to look at his dozing lover. It was rare for him to be the first awake or that Severus didn't stir when he did. Years of a strict routine had caused him to be jumpy even in the safety of the school although James thought this was gradually changing and would have liked to call responsibility for it. In sleep, the stern face was softer, the strain gone from it. Pressing a soft kiss to his head, he slid out of bed and padded through to the bathroom next door.

He showered quickly and thoroughly, dried himself and started to shave in front of the mirror to shave. He could have dealt with it with a wave of his wand but both Seamus and Dean had shaved manually on occasion from their fourth year onwards and he found it somewhat relaxing. Absently, he paused to cast a neatening and drying spell on his hair - if he didn't it would dry tangled and frizzy.

He smiled as the door opened behind him, smiling as he looked for Severus in the mirror. Severus smiled easily back. Suddenly he froze and an unreadable mask went over his face. James frowned and turned to ask what the matter was when his lover spun and strode out, whole body shouting anger and hurt. A moment later, a door slammed loudly, the only outlet the harshly controlled man was likely to allow himself.

About to go after him, James glanced in the mirror to see if there was anything obvious that could have caused such a reaction.

He saw it immediately, glaring at him, adverse affects continuing to haunt his life.

His scar, red and obvious against pale skin and quite obviously something Severus would not have been expecting to see.

James' eyes followed the route Severus must have taken as he left, through this door into the main room and through the connecting door, which now appeared to have vanished. There was no way Severus would allow him to explain now, not after that, so he finished shaving mechanically, returned to his bedroom, leaving a note for Albus on the table for a house elf to collect.

Once there he buried himself under the heavy blankets, tears pouring silently down his cheeks, and hugged Severus' still warm pillow to him for comfort, breathing in the lingering scent.

What the hell was he going to do now?