Just Always Be Waiting For Me

Chapter 8

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter and all rights go to their respective owners.

Sleeping with Severus hadn't been as bad as he had imagined, and he could only be grateful for that. The man had this massive bed, and he wasn't sure if it had always been this big, or if Snape had magically enhanced it in order to accommodate both of their reservations about sleeping with the other one. Either way it wasn't that bad at all, it was if they had slept on opposite sides of the room from each other and a carefully placed line of pillows divided the bed between them. The best part was that he had had the first full night's sleep he'd had in disappointed weeks and wasn't suffering from the fogginess that Dreamless Sleep often came along with. It was really refreshing to wake up and know that he'd slept all night without any help at all.

When he'd woken up that morning Severus had already gone and his side of the bed was made and Harry took that as a hint that he should do the same for his. He was a tad bit disappointed that the man had left before he woke up, then again he also felt incredibly guilty, like he was imposing on the man's personal space. This was the one room of their quarters that Harry had yet to invade, and here he was breaking that barrier.

Severus' rooms weren't as interesting as a lot of the students, and even he had once thought they would be. There was the massive bed in there and a closet for his clothes and a few more bookshelves. There was a door that Harry suspected led to a bathroom, and there was a chair and footstool accompanied by a table with a lamp on it and judging from the books on the table this was where Severus liked to read in peace. It was a very welcoming environment, and really Snape like. The room was done in blacks and dark greens, the color scheme was very reflective of the man's attitude and personality. It was an oddly inviting place.

It was strange seeing how much easier classes were when he'd actually had a night's sleep. When he was fully rested enough to pay attention to the notes that were flying onto the board as his professors lectured. He came to dinner at the end of the day excited to even have the energy to eat. He sat down at the end of the Gryffindor table, but was soon tugged up and drug out into the Entrance Hall by Draco. He didn't even have a chance to speak as the blonde dragged him towards the main doors of the castle.

"Where are we going?" Harry demanded, wrenching his arm free of Draco and stopping on the steps of the castle.

"We are going to Hogsmeade," the blonde shrugged.

"You could have asked. I have to run it by Severus."

"He's your husband, not your father," Draco said completely unimpressed.

"Still," Harry said crossing his arms.

"You here," Draco said to a first year Hufflepuff and the scared boy scurried over to the pair of them. "You will go find Professor Snape and tell him that Harry Potter has gone to Hogsmeade, clear?"

"Y-y-yes," the boy stammered nervously.

"And if I find out that you didn't do this, there will be a price to pay," Draco scowled at him. "Comprende?"

The boy nodded frightened and they both watched as he ran off into the castle.

"You didn't have to be so mean to him," Harry said following Draco down the path towards Hogsmeade.

"We have an understanding with the Hufflepuffs I told you Potter."

"Why are we going to Hogsmeade then?"

"To have a decent, well decent-ish meal," Draco said parading along in front of him.

"And why do I have to come?"

"Food is always better with company," Draco shrugged without looking at him.

"So does this mean that we're friends now?" Harry grinned at the back of his head.

"We can't be friends, we are enemies, even you should know that," Draco wheeled around to stare at him.

"It's not like there's a rule that says that we can't be friends. Like there's not magical decree floating around that says that Draco Malfoy and Harry Potter can't be friends," Harry countered.

"I have my own rules about it, why do you want me as your friend anyways? Don't you have a million that are also members of your little fan club?"

"I don't have a fan club," Harry scowled.

"Oh, you do. You can buy a membership in Witch Weekly," Draco laughed at him and Harry shot him a glare.

"Look around, it's not like surrounded by friends."

"Just the Weaslette and the annoying American girl."

"Leave Holly and Ginny alone!"

"Holly, how absolutely barbaric," Draco feigned disinterest.

"You can be a right prat sometimes!"

"Good, that means that I'm doing my job."

He was quite pleased that his friendship was blossoming and that he had someone he could talk to other than Severus. Ginny and Holly were great and all, but he couldn't quite talk to them about Severus without the immediate assumption that he had married a prat or that they felt sorry for him. He didn't want that, well he wanted to be able to complain, but he wanted to just talk about stuff, and if anyone could ever come close to understanding it was Draco. Draco who had been arranged to marry another pureblood girl since the day he was born, and who had only escaped the same fate as he when the girl had died in the war. He hadn't known this until Draco had told him this between classes one day, he told Harry and he shrugged it off as if it weren't a big deal. It had been shocking to have his arranged marriage sprung on him, but it would have been even worse spending your entire life knowing you were meant to marry this person. That no matter what, this was going to be the person you had to spend your life with. It was saddening to say the least. He was suddenly very happy that he hadn't known about his marriage in advance. That he got to lead a somewhat normal life, well besides the Voldemort ordeal, without a marriage looming over him.

"Why are you in therapy anyway?" Draco asked as they sat down in a booth at Madam Puddifoot's.

"I have nightmares, you know this. Like they completely fucked up my life," Harry frowned.

"What's therapy going to do to fix that?" Draco asked skeptically.

"Kester, says that I have to learn to forgive myself," he shrugged and watched as the waitress placed glasses of water in front of them and a set of menus.

"How do you do that?"

"I dunno, suppose that's why I'm in therapy."

Draco was overall unimpressed by the presence of Kester in Harry's life. He had explained that it wasn't the proper thing to do when you were from a pureblood family. They were taught from a very young age to internalize it and move on, because your enemy would certainly jump on the chance to use it against you. To Harry this kind of explained the amount of crazy that also ran through pureblooded lines, well, that and inbreeding of course. He couldn't help but wonder when inbreeding became a better option than just marrying a half blood. There had to be other half bloods out there like him who were heirs to some of the biggest pureblood lines in Britain. It was silly to him that they couldn't make concessions when it came to this. Surely it was the titles that they were truly after and not who had the purest family trees. He was glad that he was raised in a world without those expectations, even if it had meant living with his aunt and uncle.

Sharing a bed with Severus had been going well for a few weeks now, well as good as could be expected. The awkwardness had finally started to wear away when the dreams started happening. For the last couple of days these dreams had been pushing at Harry's patience. He wasn't having nightmares anymore, but he was suffering from a new kind of dream. He would wake up panting and covered in sweat in the middle of the night from these dreams. Dreams of he and Severus kissing, and sometimes it would even progress into something more. The dream this particular night had been particularly strong and as he struggled to get out of bed, he quickly became entangled in the bed clothes and tripped and smacked the cold floor of the dungeons.

To make things worse, all of the commotion had managed to wake Severus up. The man was up and out of the bed with his wand in his hand and pointed at Harry in a matter of seconds. Even months after the war his spy reflexes hadn't faded in the least. Any after effects of the dream were fleeting and Harry was left red faced and embarrassed on the floor.

"Potter, what on Earth are you doing?" Severus asked wearily and helped him to his feet.

"Sorry," he murmured, embarrassed by the entire thing. "I had a crazy dream and was just going to the loo."

"A nightmare? Are they back?" Severus asked, studying his face for an answer or any sign that he might be formulating a lie.

"Oh, um, no. It was just a bit weird and I needed a moment to collect myself is all. It just felt very real."

"Do you need anything?" Severus asked and Harry kicked himself for even daring to blush.

"Um, no thanks, what time is it?" He asked rubbing his elbow.

"Just now 6," Severus said without even glancing at the clock on his bedside table.

"Right, well I think I'm going to have a quick shower. See you at breakfast," Harry said darting out of the room a bit too quickly to avoid further suspicion.

His sessions with Kester were becoming less about his nightmares about the war and more about the issues that these dreams were bringing into his life. He just couldn't understand what had brought them on. If sleeping as far away from each other as possible was enough to kickstart his subconscious he couldn't help but worry about the state of his sanity. Yeah, they were married and had been for a short amount of time, and most newlyweds were all over each other, but they were far from your average newlyweds. Theirs was a marriage of convenience and not of love and mutual respect. To make things worse, he wasn't sure if this was a normal teenager hormones thing or something that was happening on its own accord.

"You are married to the man, correct?" Kester asked him at their next session.

"Yeah, I am, but like I said there's nothing going on between us. There's not even the faintest spark there," Harry said frustratedly. "I don't know why this is happening."

"You're magically bonded. Have you done any research into the type of bond that the pair of you entered into?" Kester questioned him and looked defeated when Harry just shrugged.

"I didn't know there were different types!" He tried to defend himself. "There are different types of marriage bonds?"

"Yes, did you not read the details? There would be the details of the bond and then there would be separate guidelines set by each family."

"I think I remember Severus giving me these papers, but I didn't really read them. I didn't really see the point when it was get married or lose your magic. It's not like there were a lot of options," he groused at the man.

"Yes, but it is important to know what you're getting yourself into, and even more important now."

"This is why I need Hermione on standby, she lives for this stuff."

"Perhaps, you should ask Hermione for help in this matter."

The minute Harry returned to Hogwarts he raced to the owlery with a letter to Hermione. If anyone could help him sort out his priorities it would be her. She could have this looked over and sorted for him within the week knowing her. Maybe not sorted, but she could explain to him what was happening. He was too embarrassed to even think about asking Severus or Draco because they were both prone to calling him out for his stupidity and not letting him live it down. Yes, Hermione was definitely the person he needed at a time like this. He should have asked her more about it before the wedding, but he wasn't thinking about it, it was kind of hard to think about anything else but being married to Snape. If Hermione couldn't help him out then he didn't really think anyone could, she wasn't the brightest witch of her age for nothing. It was just going to be waiting for her response that drove him batty for the next few days. He really did hope that she got back to him sooner rather than later.

A/N: Sorry if this chapter is a bit all over the place haha. Thanks for reading and reviewing!