Disclaimer: The disclaimer in the first chapter applies to this and all chapters.
A/N: I'm sorry for the delay, but there were exigent circumstances. Also, some of this chapter might be changed or edited after I read HP and the Halfblood Prince.
A/N2: Before I post the next (smut containing) chapter, I want 3 reviews for this story and at least one new review each for my stories "There Are Times", "A Revealed Secret" and "A Moment of Time".
Severus was unbearably nervous. He had a date, his first date in years, and he needed to look good for it. He had on blue jeans, and now he needed to find a shirt that wasn't black, or, at least, not completely black. He found one, at last, in the very back of the wardrobe. It was a t-shirt he'd bought on a whim years ago, at a concert he'd snuck off to see. It still fit him, even if it was tighter than it should have been. He pulled his hair back, and took a scrutinizing look at himself in the mirror. Yes, he was passable. Just one last thing; he smeared a concealing potion on the Dark Mark and applied a glamourie over that. There, perfect.
As he walked out of the castle, vaguely worried about what was to come, he noticed several people looking at him oddly. The Granger girl stared at him, Parkinson did something odd with her eyebrows, and even Minerva blushed and wouldn't meet his eyes. He shrugged. If they wanted to act like fools, it was none of his business.
However, when the usually unflappable Rosmerta began stuttering when he asked for a table near the back, he began to seriously worry that something was wrong. He just didn't know what. He waited nervously for Harry to arrive, and tell him just what was making everyone so twitchy. Unfortunately, when Harry arrived, he did the same thing.
Harry's eyes bugged out. He knew that Snape had, well, not really agreed, but had left open the possibility that he would wear the blue jeans again, but this was something else! Not only was he wearing the jeans, he was wearing a tight t-shirt that left nothing to the imagination. Harry revised his opinion of Snape then and there. He wasn't just handsome, he was a sex god. Harry's sex god, to boot.
He slid onto the bench next to Severus and grinned at him. "You look good enough to eat. How many people fainted when they saw you?"
Severus was bewildered. "No one fainted. Why would they?"
"Well, for one thing, the fact that you like Muggle music is probably a complete shock." He waved vaguely at Severus' t-shirt. "Then you have to consider how tight that t-shirt is. I nearly had a heart attack just looking at you. You look so sexy I'm scared that someone will try to steal you from me."
Severus bristled. "They wouldn't dare, and they'd better not try to steal you from me, either. You're mine!"
Harry sobered immediately. "Severus, there's one thing we need to clear up first."
"What's that?" Severus really hoped he wasn't about to bring up that incident last year.
"Did you ever really resent me, or was an all an act, Severus?"
"I resented you right up until you came back carrying Cedric Diggory. How could I not resent someone who could do at the age of eleven what I couldn't do at the age of 31? I was the one in charge of protecting that damn stone. And then there was your third year. You do know that they'd been offering an Order of Merlin for Black's capture? I nearly had two things I'd desperately wanted for ages, revenge and recognition, and you destroyed my chance at them. I suppose your second year wasn't much fun for me as well. You humiliated my prize student at that bloody dueling club, and through him, me. To top it all of, people thought you were the heir of Slytherin! Wouldn't one of my Slytherins have been good enough to be the Heir?"
"Didn't you ever find it strange that a Parselmouth would be in Gryffindor?" Harry looked at him sidelong, wondering if Severus had the faintest inkling what he was getting at.
Severus gave a one-shouldered shrug. "I suppose I tried not to think about it. Beyond being outraged that a boy with my house's traditional gift was in Gryffindor, it worried me that James Potter's son had such an ability. Of course, we know why now, but we didn't then."
"I was rather foolish as an eleven year old, you know." Severus turned and stared at Harry, not understanding the apparent non sequitur. "The first wizard my own age that I met was Draco Malfoy, and nearly the first thing out of his mouth was that Muggleborns should be banned from Hogwarts." Severus ' eyes widened; he had a horrible idea where this was going. "I'd been raised by Muggles, believing I was one, and what Malfoy said put me on the defensive from the start. When Ron Weasley was nice to me on the train, he was my first friend. Ever. You know what Ron is like about Slytherins, and I'd have done anything for him. And then, after I'd had my head filled with nonsense about the evils of Slytherin, Draco Malfoy, who gave me the creeps, was put in Slytherin. It was nearly a forgone conclusion after that." Severus winced. "All I had to do was repeat what I wanted in my head loud enough to drown out everything else." He stared moodily down at his butterbeer, completely missing the look of awe and irritation that Severus shot at him.
"Harry, that should be impossible." Severus' voice was hushed, as if in the presence of something miraculous.
Harry made a face. "The same way it should be impossible for me to survive six encounters with the snake faced bastard? The same way it should be impossible for a twelve year old to kill a basilisk? That kind of impossible?"
Severus was shocked. "What in Merlin's name do you mean, a basilisk!"
Harry stared at him incredulously. "Didn't Dumbledore tell anyone? That's what was in the Chamber of Secrets! Hell, it's probably still down there."
Severus had a fanatical gleam in his eye. "Do you mean to tell me that's there's an untouched basilisk corpse in there?" At Harry's tentative nod, he went on, "How big a basilisk? Male or female?"
"Umm, maybe thirty feet? I don't know if it was male or female."
Severus nearly went insane. "A thirty foot basilisk! Thirty feet! Do you have any idea, any idea at all, how much it must be worth? The last basilisk killed was ten feet and the man who killed it has been living off the profit for fifteen years!"
Harry blinked in confusion. "What, exactly, would someone use a dead basilisk for?"
Severus looked at him like he was a moron. "Potions!"
"Wouldn't it have decomposed by now?" Harry pointed out.
"Not at all! They're so saturated with venom that bacteria can't survive. How soon can you take me to it?"
"Now, if you want. We'll need to bring brooms to get out of the Chamber, though."
Severus cursed. "Damn, I'll need to borrow one."
"Not necessarily. My Firebolt is powerful enough to hold both of us if we squash together." Harry offered.
"Wonderful."