Title: To be with the one he loves.
Summary: Hp/Ss, including RW/HG, Albus Dumbledore, the marauders', Lily Evans and the ever popular Lucius Malfoy. Includes M/M relationships. All of consenting age.
Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters, Hogwarts or the wonderful world created by the stupendous J.K. Rowling. She owns all. I simply own the idea.
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Ron frowned when Harry walked back over to them a very silly grin on his lips. "Harry, you barely spoke to him!"
"Yeah, and he insulted me." Harry chuckled, his eyes glowing with more life than his friends had seen in a long time.
"Just like old times then right mate?" Ron sounded amused.
"Just like old times." Harry repeated grinning goofily and whacking Ron on the arm affectionately.
"So what's your plan Harry?" Hermione asked rolling her eyes at the very boy-ness of their conversation.
"Seduce him, of course. Just like the first time."
Harry turned slowly when someone coughed behind him and couldn't help but feel amused at seeing Lucius Malfoy standing there, regarding him a dark, lusty curious look in his eyes. "Um. Hello. Harry Pierson."
Lucius took his outstretched hand and instead of shaking it, raised it to his lips and pressed a light kiss to his knuckles, "Lucius Malfoy."
A little disturbed that Draco Malfoy's father was clearly hitting on him; Harry flushed red and ended up smiling awkwardly. "Nice to meet you."
"You as well. I see that you signed up for Defense against the Dark Arts. Do you need someone to show you where to go?" Lucius smirked, his eyes all over Harry's body.
Before he could answer, Sirius's voice said loudly, "No. He doesn't. But I'm sure he appreciates it, Lucius." Sirius sneered at Lucius and dragged his name out longer and more dramatically then was necessary.
Harry watched Lucius's already cold face, turn even colder. But Lucius merely smirked at Sirius, "Oh... Sirius. Were you planning on walking Harry to class then?"
"Yes. I was." Sirius gritted out, his eyes narrowing on Lucius grey eyes.
Lucius snorted lightly, "I didn't think you were ready for that quite yet."
"I don't know what you mean…"
Harry bit his lip and rolled his eyes at Hermione and Ron who looked amused at his expense. "Actually guy's I think I could find it…"
Both Sirius and Lucius looked incredulous, "How are you supposed to find the classroom on time?" Sirius asked in confusion.
Harry looked desperately at Ron and Hermione, then saw Remus walking by and felt a glimmer of hope. "Remus!"
Remus jumped and looked around in, a shy smile breaking out across his face, "Oh Harry, hi, Ron, Hermione hello as well." He looked curiously between Sirius and Lucius but quickly glanced back at Harry.
"You wouldn't mind showing me where the Defense against the Dark Arts class, is right?" Harry added a note of pleading into his tone.
"Oh. Of course, I'm headed there actually." Remus smiled that shy smile again, which Harry noticed Sirius notice.
"Thank you!" Harry grabbed his arm lightly and steered them out of the Great Hall.
Remus laughed guardedly when they were climbing up the stairs, "Sorry about them. You're sort of the new attraction here. I'm sure Ron and Hermione will receive the same attention. Though likely not as much as you as you, because you're single."
"Ugh. I was hoping they wouldn't notice!" Harry laughed.
"Are you kidding? They're going to all over you until you pick someone."
"Well there is one person, I've noticed."
Remus peeked up a little nervously, behind golden brown hair, "Oh who is he?"
"Well, he's got longish black hair, dark eyes, he's in Slytherin. He's kind of hostile though, friends with the blonde, Lucius."
Harry stopped a few steps after Remus did, mostly because he didn't notice that he'd stopped. Remus stared up at him in shock, "Y-you can't mean…Snape? Severus Snape?"
"Is that his name? Does he not like boys then?" Harry asked his lips twitching as he enjoyed watching Remus's stunned reaction.
"Blimey…Harry I-I wouldn't know. I don't know that I've ever seen Snape interested in anyone, let alone a boy." Remus took a moment to gain his bearings, still looking a little surprised. "You're really interested in him then?"
"Well from what I've seen. He's gorgeous. Is there something wrong with him?"
Remus looked shocked again that Harry had called Severus attracted but played it off well, he just shrugged, "Erm, well I don't know him well…My friends, Sirius and James liked to tease him a bit, but they've thankfully grown up a bit." He started walking again, his head cocked thoughtfully. "From what I do know, he's hostile, not easy to make friends with, adores the dark arts and potions and is very, very smart. I'm afraid that's all I know though, as I've said I don't know him well…"
"That is helpful though. Thanks Remus!" Harry grinned and casually hugged Remus lightly.
"Not at all…I'm just a little, and do forgive me for saying this but, perplexed by why you would chose him over all the other guys that like you. Lucius and…Sirius." Remus strained himself by saying Sirius's name and bit his lip when he looked nervously up at Harry.
"He's got intense eyes. Like he'd be really…Passionate and real. You know, not like Lucius who'd just want a good lay." Harry chuckled as the other boy's cheeks grew rosy. "So…Why haven't you made a move on Sirius?"
Remus squeaked nervously, "What?! M-me and Sirius?"
"Well yeah, it's obvious that he adores you and that you're more than a little smitten with him." Harry smiled softly at the very distraught looking Remus.
Remus gaped soundlessly for a long moment before pointedly deflating, "It's obvious how I feel about him then?"
"Just a little."
"Oh…Bloody hell. I don't really know what to do about him. He's my best friend."
Harry leaned back against the wall outside the Defense classroom and shrugged, "did you ever think about talking to him?"
Remus stopped too looking a bit confused that they were already there, and then shook it off, "I don't know. He'd probably freak out. "
'Wow they are completely hopeless.' Harry thought wryly as he pictured the way Sirius would stare at Remus when he wasn't paying attention, and the way Remus would blush anytime that Sirius would touch him, not matter how innocent it was.
But instead of telling Remus that it was obvious how they felt about each other, Harry just shrugged nonchalantly, "I don't think he would. It's obvious how much he cares about you. You might be surprised."
Remus studied him, "I'll think about it. He often does surprise me so maybe I should…"
"MOONY!" Sirius's booming voice yelled out down the corridor, startling more than a few people. "I missed you my darling!"
Harry raised an eyebrow at Remus who was rolling his eyes and shaking his head with silly grin on his face. A moment Sirius had launched himself at Remus from behind and hugged him hard. "Did you miss me, Remy?"
"Sure Sirius." Remus blushed and avoided Harry's smirking eyes.
"That's not very convincing!" Sirius pouted, shaking back his movie star hair and widening his blue eyes into a perfect puppy dog look. And the look had more than a few girls blushing as they walked by, envy in their eyes as they watched Sirius lavish attention on Remus and not on them.
"Yes, yes I missed you. Not get off you big goof."
"Aren't you just the sweetest?" Sirius crooned, nervously pressing a kiss to Remus's jaw.
"Enough! Everyone in the classroom!" A tall, wraithlike, balding man exclaimed as he clicked over to them. He walked twitchily, like a bug.
Harry looked around nervously and saw that Severus was already there, standing much further down the corridor, Lucius was walking up quickly, and Ron and Hermione were standing talking too James and Lily. A little disappointed that he hadn't used the opportunity to talk to Sev, but pleased that he'd gotten a chance to befriend Remus, Harry walked in and sat in the front row, Hermione and Ron next to him.
The twitchy professor stood in front of the blackboard regarding them coolly, "I am Professor, O'Rourke. Up until last year, I was an auror. I had thought to retire, but instead did Dumbledore a favor and come teach you lot. I take defense very seriously. You will pay attention. You will do what I say, when I say." His voice was no nonsense and he sounded sure that they would follow instructions without question. Harry greatly admired this because it showed that the man was truly in charge and infallible.
Professor O'Rourke nodded once and pulled out his wand, "I will be very unlike your last defense professor, in the way that you will not only learn about defense and offensive spells but use them. You will be paired up with someone who will be your partner for the rest of this term. After Christmas holidays you will be paired with someone new. You will do everything in this class with your partner, homework, class work, dueling, studying. The only thing you will do on your own is tests."
He waved his mind absentmindedly and conjured a hat. "Write your first names on a slip of paper and then come drop them in the hat."
Everyone scrambled to do as they were told and crowded around the professor to drop their names into the plain black top hat. Harry managed to grin at Severus who was trying to stay far away from him.
Once they were all sitting back down, staring at him expectantly, the professor shook the hat, effectively mixing their names. "Okay the first partners will be…"He pulled out two scraps of paper and read them, "Hermione and Lily."
Hermione grinned at Lily, who smiled happily back, both clearly pleased with the arrangement.
"Next partnership is James and Marianna."
James smiled at a busty, brunette, Hufflepuff who batted her eyelashes at him.
"Sirius and Lucius."
Sirius could be heard letting out low curses and Lucius looked equally as disgusted.
"Remus and Shay."
Remus smiled at a blonde, vacant looking Ravenclaw, shyly and then looked immediately down at his desk again.
"Harry and…" Harry crossed his fingers under his desk and stared intently at the hat, wishing with all his might that Severus would be his partner, not noticing that Severus was sitting many desks away, staring just as intently and wishing for the opposite.
"Severus."
Harry let out a pleased sigh and smirked over at Severus, who looked thunderous. He was almost so happy that he missed Ron being paired with a pretty, blonde girl with big mysterious eyes. She looked so familiar that he wondered if she was also in Gryffindor. He vaguely heard her name, Flora.
The girl blinked her big blue, spacey eyes slowly, "Splendid."
"Everyone up." O'Rourke commanded.
Everyone stood and he swished his wand over the perimeter of the room. The single person desks vanished, instantly replaced by small tables that would perfectly fit two people. O'Rourke nodded once and the chairs they had been sitting on slid back into place. "You will sit with your partners from now on, so get to know them. You will see them a lot this term. Go on take ten minutes and get to know them."
The pairs all moved to sit next to each other and most began to talk quietly to each other. But Severus glared at the wood desk the moment he sat next to Harry, after he scooted his chair as far from his new partners as possible.
Harry rolled his eyes and scooted over a bit, "Hi again."
Severus simply narrowed his eyes even more on the wood in front of him.
"You know you're going to have to talk to sooner or later right? We're partners now."
"Unfortunately…" Severus muttered softly, voice filled with shaky venom.
"Why is that such a bad thing? Why are you so displeased with having me as a partner?"
Severus sniffed, "You are…unaware of things at Hogwarts work. I am a Slytherin, you are a Gryffindor. That is enough reason for us not to associate."
"Just because I'm not in the same house as you? Well that's immature isn't it?"
He finally got Severus's attention, because the boy looked up sharply, his lips pulled into a tight line. "It is not! Its how thing work here. You'd better get used to it if you want to fit in!"
"What if I don't care about fitting in?" Harry grinned, noting that they were leaning in closer to each other, in their conversation.
"Fine…Well then that's not the point. And that's not the only reason. I simply do not want to associate with you."
"Why?" Harry asked petulantly, knowing it would get a reaction out of the other boy.
"Why?! Honestly can't you just accept that I don't want to be your friend? Is that so hard to accept?" Severus asked quietly, almost snarling. His black eyes were flashing angrily at Harry in way that he knew and loved.
"Yes." Harry said simply. "I'm interested in knowing you Severus. And I think if you gave me a chance you'd… like me." His voice was thick with implications and he winced at the fact that he couldn't keep them out of his voice. Not when it came to Severus.
He watched Severus stiffen and watched him look abruptly away, "I'm afraid that you are operating under serious misapprehensions if you believe that to be true, Pierson."
"Call me Harry, Severus. We'll be spending a lot of time with each other after all."
"I will not. And stop calling me Severus!" Severus snarled still staring straight ahead.
"Then what should I call you?"
"You may call me Snape."
"But that's so formal Severus. Why wouldn't I call you by your first name?"
"Americans…" Severus grumbled rolling his eyes.
Harry laughed a the hilarity of that, which seemed to infuriate Severus even more, or at least it made him even paler, made his lips go a bit tighter. He opened his mouth to say something more to Severus but Professor O'Rourke interrupted him.
"I hope that you've all gotten to know each other a bit, because your first duel is tomorrow and it's against each other."
Looking around quickly Harry saw that most everyone looked pleased or at least okay with their partners. Sirius and Lucius were sitting stiffly next to each other strong looks of hate clear in their eyes. Everyone gained serious and curious looks at the professor's words and they all sat up straighter.
"I want to know what skills you have and what you don't have. In times such as these, you must be prepared for anything. Tomorrow I'll see how prepared you are." He looked gravely at them and the room got noticeably stiller at the mention of the dangerous world outside of Hogwarts.
Harry felt himself go cold and looked down. He realized that he hadn't thought much about Voldemort since being back. And it wasn't fair to the people who had to deal with the threat that the dark lord flaunted over their heads. It was his duty to kill Voldemort, and too free all the innocent people stuck in such a horrible war.
He had to get go to the spots were the hocruxe's were hidden, destroy them and then confront Voldemort and kill him, again.
When Severus stood suddenly, he realized that O'Rourke had released them and stood too. He made to grab Severus's arm but Ron was suddenly in front of him. "Mate…Does my partner, Flora look familiar too you?"
"Huh? Oh yeah, she looks familiar." Harry watched Severus swoop out of the room in a dramatic fashion. It had his robes flowing impressively.
"You know who I think she is?" Ron asked impatiently, still looking at the spacey girl. She was speaking to their new professor in a chatty and airy way.
"Luna's mum?" Hermione asked finally coming over to them, waving goodbye to Lily.
"Yeah!" Ron said looking only a little disturbed that Hermione had guessed it so easily.
Harry looked closer at Flora and smiled sadly when she reminded him so easily of Luna. It was the airy, light way that she carried herself. She was so sweet and ethereal like her daughter. As though sensing the trio's stare, Flora looked over to them, said something to Professor O'Rourke who looked amused, and bounced over to them.
"Hello mysterious Americans!" She trilled out, getting very close to each of them and definitely breaking their individual bubbles.
"Hi!" Harry smiled widely at her. She had the same sweet way of making him comfortable, just being in her presence, as her daughter would.
Flora tipped her head to the side and regarded his face curiously, before reaching up and brushing his bangs out of his face. She pressed one long, pale finger to his lightning bolt scar and made a tsking noise, "The pain will fade with time you know."
Harry blinked not entirely surprised but just a little perplexed. Flora hummed, stared back and forth between Ron and Hermione and laughed lightly, "She'll love it. Don't worry." She pointedly looked at Ron when she said this, though her hand had absentmindedly reached up to pull on one of Hermione's tight curls.
Ron turned red, "What? She…?" He stuttered for a long moment, but after a moment he stopped and just nodded.
Flora smiled adoringly at them, "Oh I think we're going to be good friends." She hugged each of them tightly before skipping out of the room, humming loudly.
"Definitely, Luna's mum." Harry laughed.
"She'll love what? Who? And what will she love?" Hermione asked, raising an eyebrow at Ron, whose ears were turning red again.
"Huh? Nothing." Ron mumbled.
"Ronald…"
Harry rolled his eyes, "We have charms next and we're going to be late."
"We are!" Hermione gasped, pulling her bag over her shoulder and hurrying from the room.
Ron and Harry followed chuckling in amusement. Ron moved close, "Thanks Harry."
"No problem, Ron." Harry was itching for Ron to tell him what Flora had meant but knew that Ron would tell him when it was comfortable for him.
"Hurry up, you'll be late!" Hermione called over her shoulder, her face alight with panic.
The two friends looked at each other and laughed, it was like déjà vu seeing Hermione like this. And they loved every minute of it!
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