Harry's glaring at me. I won't dignify that with a look of acknowledgement. Whatever I did to piss him off... he can deal with it. He's 14, it's about time he learned to deal with emotions and not bore other people (basically me) with them. I end class and he comes up to my desk and screams, "How can you be engaged to Snape?!? He's evil! It was bad enough that you were dating him, but now you're marrying him?!?"

I grab my desk, stand up, and just look at him, "My personal life is my business Mr. Potter. I am your teacher. I am not your mother. I am not your sister. I am not even your great aunt Ethel. You have no right to chide me on anything that I do, and frankly. If I wanted your opinion, I'd give it to you. Now get out of my classroom."

He looked upset and said, "You're just like him." He turned to go and I sighed.

"Harry." He turned and frowned at me. I waved at him to come over and I hugged him. He tried to resist for a moment and then he hugged me tight. I smoothed his hair and I said, "Harry, I know that you want to protect me. But it's not your job to protect me. I'm your teacher; it's my job to protect you. You have to trust me to make the right decisions, even if they seem foolish to you. Besides that, you can't just attack me because you think I'm wrong. That's never the right way to deal with someone making a decision you disagree with."

He looked up at me with tears in his eyes, "But I don't understand how you can marry him! Aren't you afraid?"

I looked down at him, raising my eyebrows, "Of what?"

"He's a former death eater! You're Dumbledore's niece! He could be using you!" He says adamantly.

I chuckle, smiling, "Well, that's just a risk I'll have to take."

He frowns, "He doesn't love you."

I smile, smoothing his hair from his face, "Yes he does."

Harry shakes his head, "No, he doesn't. He can't love anything."

I sigh and hug him, rubbing his back comfortingly, "Oh Harry... you have so much growing up to do. Love is more than poetry and fairy tales. It's real... work. Severus loves me very much, and I love him as well. I hope that someday you'll be able to understand that."

He shakes his head and pulls away from me. "I'm sorry, I can't understand this," Harry says before he runs off. I sigh, I'll let him cool off for a bit.

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I see Ron and Hermione; it's been a few hours. They don't have Harry with them. I frown and ask them, "Where's Harry?"

They look at each other, than me, "We thought he was with you..." Ron says.

My eyes go wide, as do theirs. "Stay here." I say firmly.

"We're coming with you!" Hermione says.

I point at her, "No! You're NOT coming with me. You're going to be intelligent and stay in Hogwarts where it's safe! I swear if I find out that you went out looking for Harry, I'll hunt you down and give you detention for the rest of your days!"

They nod solemnly and I go out running to the grounds. If he's hurt I don't know what I'll do with myself.

After running about for a while I finally narrow my search down to the Forbidden Forest. When I find him, I'm going to kill him! Assuming of course that something or someone else hasn't killed him already.

I illuminate everything with my wand and go looking into the forest.

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Severus' POV I was talking with Dumbledore about the other death eaters coming to me with news when suddenly Weasley and Granger came running in unannounced. I frown and stand up, as does Dumbledore. What on earth is the meaning of this?

"Harry's gone missing!" Weasley screams.

I try not to roll my eyes; will that boy ever learn how to stay out of trouble?

"Professor Tingstrom went out to look for him, but she's been gone an hour now!" Granger shrieks.

My blood runs cold. "Katherine..." I whisper. I storm out before another word can be said. If anything has happened to Katherine I'm going to wring that boy's neck!

"Katherine!" I scream, going into the forbidden forest. I've looked everywhere else. By this time I'm furious beyond measure. Not only at Harry for once again making a stupid mistake. But at Katherine for going into the forest to look for him! She should have come and gotten me, or anyone for that matter! She barely knows magic, and she's accident prone! She could get hurt, or worse! From now on, I'm locking her in our room all the time. She's never getting out. Ever. Not if she's going to get herself into trouble.

"Well, I could do that Harry dear. Except... my bloody wand is broken! This is what? The tenth time I've told you?" I hear my sweet Katherine's voice.

"Well, I don't see you coming up with anything! I don't have my wand, and you won't let me call for help..." Potter!

"Harry, we're in the forbidden forest at nighttime. The only ones that are going to care that we're in this hole are creatures that think we'll make a lovely snack. So maybe if you'll sit down and shut up we might be able to come up with a logical plan."

"I've gotten myself out of worse trouble!" Harry says indignantly.

"Don't you dare start with that! I'm mad enough at you already! You're a 14 year old boy; did you actually think that you could take on... what was it? Two death eaters? You've gotten lucky those past times you've gone up against Voldemort. And you certainly wouldn't hurt them without your wand." Katherine hisses. I love her so much. Now, where is she?

"You're starting to sound just like Professor Snape!" Harry whines.

"Just because Professor Snape says something, doesn't mean that it's wrong. You're just like your godfather, you rush into decisions about people without taking a second look at them and it gets you into trouble. But luckily you've got enough people around you that care about your safety that you may not wind up like him if you ever develop any common sense!" There they are! There's a big hole in the ground!

I walk up to the hole.

"Well, if he's so great and he loves you so much that you have to marry him. Then why isn't he here rescuing us?" Harry says like a smartass.

I love this. I try not to smirk as I lean over the hole, "Katherine? Potter?"

"Down here Severus!" I hear Katherine scream.

I lower a rope down to them and after a moment Harry climbs up, seeming no worse for the wear other than a few scrapes and bruises. He looks ashamed and I don't say anything to him. At this point, I just want Katherine back. There are sounds of shuffling around at the bottom of the hole and then a small whine of pain. I go stiff, "Katherine? What's wrong?"

Harry looks worried too, "She didn't say that she'd been hurt..."

I glare at him, "Well she wouldn't now, would she? She was trying to keep a 14 year old boy from panicking."

Harry wrings his hands.

"It's ok Severus; I'm fine I'm just ow... I'm just... Gah. Alright, I'm coming up." Katherine says. After what seems like an eternity I see Katherine come up from the depths. The back of her head's bleeding and she has a twisted ankle that she's trying to work around. I pull her up the rest of my way and into my arms.

I hold her close, reassuring myself that she's safe and with me.

Harry stares at us, seemingly surprised at this show of affection.

I pick Katherine up, into my arms, and glare at Potter. "We'll talk about this later."

He nods solemnly.

"He was just trying to..." Katherine starts to defend him. How she can be so caring at this point to that ungrateful boy I'll never know.

"Trying to be the hero. Again. Although this time he put you into danger. And if you think I'm going to forgive him that, you've hit your head worse than it looks." I hiss.

She rests her head on my chest, "It's my fault that this happened. I was too harsh with him when he came to speak with me earlier, and then when I found out he was missing I went out alone."

"Well, going out alone was foolish of you Katherine. But you shouldn't blame yourself for him getting lost in the first place, which was his mistake." I say, different emotions warring within me. On one hand, I'm so incredibly glad that Katherine is relatively safe and wasn't killed because of that damn Potter. I'm furious at Potter for putting the one thing I truly care about in such danger. I'm furious at Katherine for putting herself in danger, putting our life together in danger. And I wish that I could just let Katherine have her way, let her smile at me and make the problems go away. But I can't do that, this was wrong of her.

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Madame Padfoot fixed Katherine and now we're walking in silence to our room. I insisted that we stay in my room from now on, it's bigger and we're less likely to get her wards knocking on the door at midnight because they're going through an emotional crisis.

Katherine smiles sheepishly up at me and I glare down at her. Why does she have to have such a big damn heart? Even when she's not meddling she manages to get caught up in other people's problems! Why does she have to care? Why can't she just mind her own business? Doesn't she see that I need her more than they do? Can't she tell that I'd die without her? I'd just stop breathing. I sigh and realize that as much as I want to, I can't change her. Part of why I love her is she's so good, so much better than anything I've ever known. In my dark life, she's a light. Why she picked me to love, I'll never know. But I do know that she'd never understand if I told her not to even care about our students. I look at her worried face and say, "Don't do that again. Ever. If you need to go out looking for someone, you come get me. It doesn't matter what I'm doing, as long as I'm not in a death eater meeting come and get me."

She looked shocked, and then smiled softly, "Alright Severus. I'm sorry... I just wasn't thinking."

I narrow my eyes at her, "Yes you were. You were thinking that you were worried about Potter. Next time, focus some of that worry on me and what I'd have done if I'd found my fiancée dead at the bottom of that hole."

She looked down, ashamed.

I sighed and took her hand in mine, "Damn… nurturing… worrying… busybody."

She sighed and lifted my hand up to kiss it, "I really am sorry."

I look down at her and frown, "I know you are."

She tried to smile at me, "Do you plan on being angry at me for a long time?"

I wrapped an arm around her, "Yes, I plan to be angry at you forever for this."

I could feel her smile slightly as she nuzzles close to me, "Oh, I can tell."

I snort and hold her close.

"Well, at least now maybe Harry won't be so paranoid about our relationship." She said helpfully.

I rolled my eyes, "Somehow I doubt it…" Then I thought about it, "Do you care if they disapprove of our relationship?"

Now SHE rolled her eyes, "Severus, if I cared one lick about what other people thought about me I doubt that we would even be speaking… nor would I be the sort of person or teacher I am. I just mentioned it because it might be nice for him not to be so whiney about it all the time."

I chuckled, "Somehow I doubt that we'll be free from that any time soon."

She gave me a crooked smile, "Oh well…"

I looked down at her and couldn't help but smile a little as well, "Yes, oh well… I'm still angry with you."

She smiled at me, "Of course you are."

I shook my head.

She grinned and nuzzled back into me as we walked back to the room.