The moment my shackles were off, I felt a jolt of magic run through the air and could tell Severus did as well. One shared look and we were running up the stairs to the upper floors, trying not to die. I haven't had to do that recently, so I was a bit out of practice.
We didn't actually encounter anyone until we were almost at the front door, by that time I had my wand at ready. Then we were met by Voldemort himself, along with over a dozen Death Eaters. I growled, they were not going to make it easy.
"Bellatrix, what do you think you're doing?" Voldemort practically foamed. I answered before Severus could, "well it seems like your lapdog has a soft spot for me Voldie. Now if you would just let us pass," I said. He cackled like the mad man he is, "I don't think so Potter. I was going to wait to tear you to shreds, but why prolong the inevitable?" My brain was working over time as I tried to figure a way out of this. Suddenly an idea came to me, bluff my way out of this.
"Why would you want to kill the only person who knows the answer to your problem. I can get inside your head, remember? With your constant moaning and groaning and mood swings, you've gotten pretty annoying." Truthfully I hadn't had a vision since I began living with Severus, but he didn't need to know that.
"What might my dilemma be?" He asked, fingering his wand. I took a deep breath, honestly I thought it took some guts to do this, "your dilemma is you keep getting your arse kicked by a teenager." I threw up a shield against the spells to protect myself and Severus, "I found a way out, but we need to get snake-face and his cronies mad enough to come at us. We need to get him foaming at the mouth." I told Severus over the noise of spell casting.
While he was shouting taunts that I didn't want to know the meaning of, I marveled at how strong and controlled my magic was. Before it was chaotic, I couldn't control it, it was raw power. But now, now I could. Now it all went into my spell casting instead of leaking all over the place.
Finally they just snapped and seemed to forget they were magical, just charging at us, while doing so leaving the door entirely unprotected. Using my new found strength and speed, I grabbed Severus by the cloak and hauled him through the masses, dodging and ducking their blows. What do you know, Harry-hunting came in handy.
We made it to the door, taking off at a dead run to the hedgerow. They finally seemed to remember their wands and began shooting spells at us. I saw that the Polyjuice was quickly wearing off and knew we had to get out of there. Now.
I felt some unknown energy well up inside of me. I didn't know what it was. Our shadows rose from the ground and joined together, creating a seemingly solid wall to block the spells. I was so confused at the moment. I just thanked Merlin for it and kept running. As we vaulted over the low hedges, our hands clasped so the moment we were outside of the wards, we were able to Apparate safely home.
Falling into a heap on the front lawn, we just lay there for a few moments, catching our breath. Finally I was able to gasp out, "it's good to be home." Severus, who was now completely Severus, grinned at me, you could see the pure joy in his face.
Picking ourselves up, we went inside the cottage and cleaned ourselves up. For some reason I just wasn't tired. Usually I'm exhausted after a stay in some mad-man's dungeons.
As I came out of my bathroom, I looked in horror at my small desk, overflowing with letters. I looked over at Hedwig, preening herself on her post, "did you carry all of these?" She made a clicking noise, indicating she had. She was obviously pleased with herself. I gave her some owl treats, "you did a good job, Hedwig." She made some sort of cooing noise in response.
I picked a random one up and opened it. It was from Hermione;
'Dear Harry, I hope you are faring well with your relatives. My summer with Ron is going splendidly, though it was a bit tricky to get him to go skiing. Lots of love, Hermione.' That was from the beginning of summer. I picked up one from a later date.
'Dear Harry, why haven't you written me back yet? Ron and I are becoming increasingly anxious. Hope you are well, Hermione.'
The letters just got more and more hysterical. All of them were like that, from several different people, except the ones from the goblins at Gringotts. There were letters from people I had forgotten about in this entire ordeal. Like Remus and Sirius. Still being a fugitive, Sirius was laying low over in America. Hop across the pond my arse.
As I read Remus' familiar handwriting, I noticed their was something off with them, like they were entirely too preoccupied with something. I shook my head, it was probably nothing. I wrote the same letter back to all of them, it being too vague for them to know anything, yet still assure them that I was alright.
'Relax, I'm fine. I had moved out of the Dursleys and I am currently staying with a friend. Been a bit preoccupied recently, but honestly I haven't felt this happy in a while.' I paused while writing the last sentence, realizing that it was completely true. Staying in this cottage made me just as happy as I was at Hogwarts, even more since there were no classes, no classmates, or constant publicity to deal with. I continued on with my letters.
'Will see you at the Platform, much love, Harry.'
I looked over my letters with satisfaction before putting them in their own envelopes and sealing them. I tied them to Hedwig's leg. Instead of taking flight, she made a cooing noise. I groaned dramatically and gave her a few more owl treats, "you're an extortionist, you know? If you were a witch, you'd definitely be in Slytherin." She did what I can only call rolling her eyes before taking flight.
I stuck my tongue out at her retreating form before closing the window and going into the living room. Severus was already done cleaning up and was making real food. That was good, I missed his cooking so much. I sat at the island in his kitchen while he cooked, breathing in the aromas. You know the saying, the best way to a man's heart is through his stomach? Well I can tell you right now, that's very true.
"Did you get all your summer homework done?" Severus asked, gesturing for me to set the table.
"I did, surprisingly. Why?" I asked, grabbing knives and forks to put on the table. He continued with his cooking, "because I need to move back to the castle to prepare for classes." I couldn't keep the disappointed note out of my voice, "oh." We sat across from each other at his small kitchen table.
"Harry, if you would like to, I would like you to come with me at the castle. I have...grown fond of you, to say the least, in our time together this summer, and not only do I feel like an imbecile for it taking me so long to see the real you, I would very much like you to stay with me," he said awkwardly, poking at his food. It took a moment to process what he had been saying, the words not quite sounding right coming from his mouth.
When it finally donned on me what he was actually saying, I allowed myself a small smile, "I would love to, sir. But wouldn't that mean that my...situation, would become known to everyone there?" He gave me a mischievous smile, "you'd be surprised what you can pass as adolescence." I raised my eyebrows but said nothing, though the questions were welling up inside me.
Finally I had to ask one, "what about the whole, I need to suck the blood of the living in order to survive, thing?" He actually chuckled, "well, maybe I feel the need to start giving you remedial potions? I frowned in thought, "that would actually work. Where on Earth were you six years ago? You could have stopped so many of my dangerous, hair-brained schemes-" I stopped, realizing that I was practically accusing him. Of what, I didn't know, but it wasn't good.
Before I had a chance to apologize, he began speaking, "It's quite alright. But while we're both unoccupied, we need to discuss what happened back there." I frowned, "discuss what?"
"When we were escaping, you somehow made a make-shift shield, did you not? It deflected spells to aid us in our getaway," he said, neatly wiping his mouth with his napkin. We took our dishes to the kitchen, the house elf did them when she thought we weren't looking. After that we sat together on the couch.
I did remember the feeling, "I don't know how I did this, it was almost like accidental magic. I haven't ever felt anything like that. Do you know what it was?" He sighed, seeming extremely weary.
"That was a very, very rare gift that few vampires ever have. It's called Shadow Bending. You have to be extremely powerful and extremely strong in body and mind. It is also very difficult to learn to control. If I remember correctly you've been having random spouts of accidental magic all your life?" He asked.
I nodded, "yes, third through fifth year especially. What does this have to do with anything?"
Severus sighed again, looking for all the world like he wanted to crawl into a hole and sleep there for a very long time. "This power that was given to you, it can be very useful, but it can also be very, very dangerous. If you don't learn how to control it, it can injure or kill those around you. It can make portals deep into the ground that people can fall through and are trapped there, suffocated or crushed to death. Harry you must listen very closely, you must learn how to control this, to control your anger, otherwise it would be dangerous to even be around you."
I felt something heavy drop into my stomach, worry and anxiety. Great, just another perk of being turned into a vampire against your will. I nodded slowly, already trying to figure out how I could control it. I was so preoccupied with my thoughts that I didn't notice Severus had scooted closer to me, laying his hand on my shoulder.
"Harry, I know you don't want to hurt anybody, and I can't blame you for that, but we will learn to control this, together. I can't teach you how to control it, but I can teach you to control your anger, it's something I'm rather skilled at," Severus told my with a wry grin.
I snorted, "could of fooled me." He lightly shoved me, "go on, brat. I believe it is your bedtime, both our bedtimes, actually. We've both had a rather haggering day today." We both stood up, ready to brush our teeth and go to bed.
Before I left off for my room, I did something that took more Griffindor bravery than any of my previous feats, I hugged Severus. Once I let him go, I grinned shyly at the shocked look on his face, "night Severus." Then I practically ran to the safety of my room.
A/N: I almost forgot to update today. Since it's Martin Luther King Jr. day today, I didn't have school. And to those who asked, there will be no slash in this story. It is entirely devoid of that particular aspect. The sequel will not. And as you can tell from the last paragraph, the relationship between Harry and Severus is entirely platonic, it is a father-fic after all.
Next Chapter: Severus and Harry have a heart to heart discussion on romance and strengthen their bond.