AN: Sorry for the delay in posting, but thank you for all of the favorites/follows/reviews. They make me so happy! In this chapter we take a quick break from Severus' list for an interesting talk between Severus and Harry.

Chapter 12 - The Invitation

After having taken up semi permanent residence on the sofa in the living room, he was used to waking up to the warmth of the morning sun streaming in the window. This particular morning, he was woken by a different kind of heat. He opened his eyes, feeling fully rested for the first time in many years, still thinking about the beautiful dream he had been having. When he glanced down to see a mess of brown curls spilled across his chest, the witch from whom they emanated still breathing heavily in her sleep as she sprawled across his torso. Somehow in the night she had snaked her arm across his stomach and tucked her hand between his far side and the couch, turning herself into a de facto seatbelt and preventing him from leaving. As if he would move for anything.

Slowly, as he watched the peacefully sleeping witch on his chest, he played back his memory of the night before. The look in her eyes as her scar disappeared, her hand on his face, her leaning in to kiss him. He had been so unsure of how to handle himself that at first his body froze in defense of his last bit of restraint, not sure what would come pouring out if he allowed himself to breach the internal dam he had spent so many years of solitude building. But the look of insecurity, worry, and desire in her eyes had been too much.

Their second kiss had been…everything, he thought to himself. He could still feel the softness of her lips on his, the smoothness of her skin as she pressed herself to him. Over every physical sensation, the only thing that was playing in his mind was that she wanted him. Him. Severus Snape. He had spent so many years being the bullied youth, the Death Eater, the potion master, the bat of the dungeons, but never once had he been the guy that gets the girl. Smiling, he gently stroked the curls of the witch sleeping across his chest, knowing that she was living proof that his old life was behind him and whatever awaited him in this second chance she had given him would be infinitely better than anything he had experienced before.

Just as he was wishing that time could freeze and he could lie there next to her forever, a snowy bundle of feathers swooped in through an open window and landed on the arm of the couch. With his other arm, he took the letter off of Hedwig's foot, but was unable to read it, for the second she had delivered her fare Hedwig began nuzzling and rubbing her head up against Severus' hand. Every time he tried to move, she would follow him. Amused, he extended this comedic, interspecies dance, moving his hand, watching the owl affectionately sidestep towards his hand and continue trying to convince the hand to snuggle with her.

He was still playing with her, an amused smile on his face, when he was stopped in his tracks by a peel of bell-like giggles coming from underneath the curtain of hair draped across his chest. He glanced quickly down to see her light brown eyes smiling sleepily up at him.

"I think she knows you saved her life," Hermione's voice intoned, still gravely from sleep.

"And she plans to repay me by cuddling my hand to death?" he replied, tough words softened by the perplexed smile still lingering across his features.

"I could think of much worse ways to go," Hermione demonstrated by burrowing further into Severus' chest. Momentarily at a loss for words, Severus simply squeezed her tighter. Feeling her smile, he silently breathed a sigh of mental relief that Hermione had not had any changes of heart overnight. He finally succumbed to stroking the soft feathers around Hedwig's neck, causing her to nestle happily against his hand, shut her eyes, and express her pleasure with an occasional soft cooing noise.

"Are you alright, Severus?" she asked warily into his shirt. "I mean, with last night, and what happened? I didn't mean to… I mean if you didn't want—"

He cut her off, his hand abandoning Hedwig to pull her chin up and angle her face directly at his. "Last night was the best night I have experienced in a very long time. I will not allow you to besmirch it in any way."

Her eyes lit up with happiness at his words. "Besmirch?" The light in her eyes had transformed into a playful grin.

"Besmirch," he repeated resolutely, in mock seriousness. She shifted her body towards him just enough to angle her lips gently up to his. The kiss was slow, long, and chaste. She melted into the shape of his body as he reveled in the feeling of her lips on his. As they slowly broke apart, Severus did not even try to fight the smile building on his face. He could have stared into her chocolate brown eyes for eternity, when they were rudely interrupted by a loud grumbling sound from Hermione's stomach.

"It appears as though breakfast is in order. May I do the honors?" Severus said, disentangling himself from her limbs. She nodded happily. He stood, paused for a moment and planted a soft kiss somewhere in the curls on top of her head, and walked into the kitchen. Hermione sat up and began stroking Hedwig's head absentmindedly.

"What did Harry want?" she called into the kitchen. Severus returned to the couch and picked up the piece of parchment he had rescued from Hedwig's leg. He opened it and read aloud:

Dear Professor,

You have no idea how happy I was when I saw Hedwig at my window, and I was fairly sure it was your doing. Now that Dobby has arrived to confirm my suspicions, I would like to invite you over to talk about some things. Are you free for lunch at 12:00 today? Dobby would also like to cook you a meal as a thanks for saving his life. Send word with Hedwig if you are otherwise engaged, but I hope to see you soon.

Harry

"That's strange. I would assume he would rather get his information from you than me," Severus commented, dropping the note on the table and returning to the eggs that were cooking on the stove.

"It makes sense that he would want to hear it from you," Hermione mused, following Severus into the kitchen. "Plus, maybe he wants to talk about…more than our project." Hermione dropped her eyes to her hands, not liking the thought of what, or namely who, that conversation would feature. She mentally scolded herself for what she wished she could pretend wasn't a slight jealousy at the idea of Lily Evans and whatever feelings Severus has, had, might have for her.

"That's in the past," he said without turning around. She scrutinized the back of his head, wondering if he was responding logically to the idea of what Harry might want to discuss or if he was responding intuitively to the jealous thoughts she had just been having. He had told her he had sworn off legilimancy, but sometimes she wondered at his uncanny ability to answer questions she had yet to ask. Either way, it went a long way towards soothing the feeling she had in the pit of her stomach.

"While you're gone, I think I'll start researching spells for our next mission," Hermione said as Severus was preparing himself to leave for his lunch with Potter. "You wanted to handle the seventh item in a similar manner to what we used on Fred, yes?" she asked absentmindedly as she held his robes up for him to slip on. He smiled at her, wondering silently how the everyday things had become so effortless so quickly together.

"Yes, but it will need to be strengthened somehow to account for the distance back from—" He stopped mid sentence as Hermione had seemed to stand up on tip toes to kiss him, but she had frozen halfway up, revealing that kissing him was more second nature than a conscious choice. Seeing the brief look of panic on her face, he couldn't fight a smile as he closed the remaining distance between their lips. When they broke apart it was clear that the smile had spread to Hermione's face as well.

Still pressed up against his chest, eyes not leaving his, Hermione softly ran her hands through his hair. "Hurry back," she spoke barely above a whisper. He bent and delivered a swift kiss to her nose and apparated away. As soon as he was gone, Hermione flopped down on the sofa and let out the sigh she had unknowingly been holding in all morning. He likes me. He kissed me. It wasn't all in my head! She had so many thoughts going through her head at once she just sat lay there and let them wash over her. When she felt her mind had cleared enough to allow it, she pulled one of the thick books from the table onto her lap and let her mind disappear into its pages.

When Severus arrived at the burrow, he was quite unsure what to expect. He hoped he would not have to face the entire Weasley clan, but he thought the odds that he would be spared a great deal of well-meaning thanks that would only serve to make him more uncomfortable. He was pleasantly surprised when Harry opened the door by himself.

"Come in, Professor," Harry said, his tone full of a sense of respect Severus had not experienced in the six years he spent teaching him.

"Thank you. And in light of everything that has happened, coupled with the fact that I am no longer your professor, I think it is time for you to begin calling me Severus." Harry's face flushed, as he waved Severus in. They sat quietly at the kitchen table, Harry fidgeting with the sleeves of his sweatshirt. All the sudden, there was a crack and Dobby the house elf appeared in front of them. Seeing Severus, he paused momentarily as if fighting an urge, but quickly ran forward and gave Severus' legs a similar hug to that which he had encountered after saving the elf. Severus was momentarily surprised, but much to Harry's amusement, his demeanor softened and he bent to pat the top of the elf's head in a gesture of affection.

"Hermione is rubbing off on you, sir…er…Severus," Harry said, poorly concealing a laughing smile. Severus straightened, but not with the grimace Harry was expecting at having been caught patting a house elf. Instead, his features were lit with a strange half smile that seemed to radiate from somewhere deep inside his being. "Perhaps you are right, Potter," Severus said, half smile still firmly in place.

"If you expect me to call you Severus, it only seems fair that you call me Harry. Plus, given your, er, history with my father it might be better for our relationship…" he trailed off, sensing the sudden change of mood that seemed to have swept over the room.

"I assume this is why you wished to speak with me?" Severus asked, his voice matching the timbre he used to use when instructing a potions class.

"Not primarily, no, but if you don't mind I did have a few questions," Harry politely tested the waters to gage how freely Severus would speak with him.

"I would have thought my memories would have made things abundantly clear," he paused, sighed, and seemed to relax slightly with whatever internal discussion had just concluded in his head. "I will answer any questions you have…Harry." The last word sounded odd and strained coming from the same mouth that used to spit the word Potter, dripping with so much distain.

"Your memories were quite clear, sir…er…Severus. I understand what happened, why you did what you did, and, well, I just wondered how you feel now?" Severus' head jerked to regard Harry with close scrutiny, obviously surprised by the direction the conversation was taking.

"How I feel now? In what regard?"

"I mean, how you feel now…about my mum," Harry finished with an embarrassed tone to his voice, but his eye contact remained firm as he waited for the answer to his question. Severus closed his eyes, as if rewatching an event play across the inside of his eyelids. He sighed deeply, and when he opened his eyes, Harry saw a relaxation in his body posture he was quite sure he had never seen in his time at Hogwarts.

"How I feel about Lily has shifted several times over the course of our lives. As you know, she was my first friend. I valued her at first for her comfort and kindness. She was also, how do the students put it, my "childhood crush", pardon the phrase. I loved her as best as I knew how, but she and I were too different. She saw that and eventually married…your father," he tried to keep any animosity he had for James out of his voice, though doing so was not without difficulty.

"When they married, I knew it was improper for me to have continued feelings for another man's wife, yet I continued to idolize her as the paragon of kindness, goodness, and virtue I had known as a child. She had taken my awful childhood and turned it into a bearable, even often enjoyable adolescence. As my only true friend, I felt a duty to protect her, even after she no longer considered me to be a friend of hers. When she died, I took it upon myself to carry on her legacy, and her last wish was for you to remain safe. That became the way I would repay my debt to her for saving me as a child." Severus finished and looked to Harry for a reaction. Again, it was not what he was expecting.

"So you don't still love her then?" Harry's sincere and burning insistence raised Severus' instinctual red flags a bit. Why was this such a concern to the boy? He answered regardless, "I will respect her. Always. However, in reflecting back I believe what I thought to have been romantic love in fact held a greater resemblance to respect, loyalty, and admiration. These feelings of appreciation for her nature will always be there. Her memory will always inspire me to be a better person. However, I would not qualify it as "love" in any way. Why do you ask? He stressed the last question and paused, searching Harry for an answer.

"I have been friends with Hermione since our first year," Harry began. This is about Hermione? Severus thought. Not much could surprise him anymore, but the words coming from the green-eyed boy across the table from him surely had. "I have seen her devote her time to books, her studies, and helping keep me from getting myself killed," he tried to inject some humor into the situation. "Not many people see the side of her that is fragile, because the front she puts up is either so intimidating or so easy to overlook that people generally don't look at her twice."

I can't imagine who these people are. Only a blind person wouldn't see her beauty. Severus dragged himself out of his thoughts to continue listening to Harry's words, but none came. "What does this have to do with my feelings for Lily?" Severus decided to cut to the quick.

"I saw the way Hermione looked at you when you two were here to bring Fred back. Profess...er…Severus," Harry paused and looked directly into his eyes. "Hermione does not do things in half measures. When she decides to do something, she throws her entire weight, heart, and soul into it." Severus was, for the first time in his relationship with Harry, stunned into silence. "She saved your life, and from what I can tell she has yet to leave your side since then," Harry paused one last time, now looking at Severus with the face of a father regarding his teenaged daughter's first suitor. "She has already decided on you, but she is not as strong as she seems. As the consummate bookworm, she has been overlooked so many times she is afraid of showing her emotions. She won't tell you how she feels, so you need to take the lead." Harry appeared to finish, but before Severus could respond, he quickly added one more statement, "and if you do not feel the same devotion to her she has shown towards you, please do her the kindness of removing yourself from her life as carefully and expeditiously as possible. She has gone through enough this year."

Harry was finally finished. Severus took a few seconds to gather his thoughts. Did this former student of mine just sit me down and ask my intentions with Hermione? Severus' thoughts jumped to the most important piece of information Harry had divulged. He said that she had already decided on me. Is this true? His thoughts danced through the events of the past few days. Hermione trusting him with her scars. Hermione leaning up to kiss him. Hermione clutching him as she slept as if she was scared he would escape. Hermione on her tip toes to kiss him goodbye. Hermione's thick curls. Hermione's bell-like laughter. Hermione's light brown eyes. Hermione. I am in love with Hermione Granger. His thoughts sputtered to a halt with this sudden, uninvited, yet irrevocable fact. When he spoke, it was slow and deliberate, yet with a warmth that shocked Harry.

"Hermione has become everything to me. I have no plans of removing myself from her life, and can guarantee I will safeguard her happiness with every ounce of dedication I possess." And with this, Harry appeared satisfied. The rest of their visit was speckled with the awkwardness to be expected given the dramatic and drastic turn their relationship had recently taken, but as Severus walked away from the burrow, he felt a strange feeling that his relationship with Harry would develop into an actually enjoyable friendship, over time.

When Severus apparated into the living room of Hermione's family house, he immediately smiled at the head of curls draped unceremoniously across a thick book as the witch to whom they belonged slept peacefully on its pages. However, as soon as he took a step, she woke with a start. Her face was frightened at first and he saw her eyes dart toward her wand, but when she recognized that it was only him her face immediately warmed and lit up into a heartbreakingly beautiful smile. How could anyone overlook this woman? He returned her smile as he began removing his outer robes.

"How was it with Harry?" she asked, folding up the book that had been serving as her pillow and stood up to stretch.

"Unexpectedly well, I must say," Severus noted the happiness in her face upon hearing this. "He cares about you a great deal." Hermione's face changed into one of mild confusion.

"What makes you say that?" Hermione asked.

"Just an observation." He sensed that her inquisition was about to begin, but by this time he had gotten close enough to reach down and pull her lips to meet his. Mirroring her behavior from earlier, he pulled only far enough away from her to free his lips to speak, keeping his hand on the small of her back, holding her to him as they spoke. "I have something I would like to show you. Would you mind taking the rest of the evening off?" Her unspoken answer was clear as he saw her eyes begin to sparkle in excitement.