Realized I kind of got away from beginning notes on this story... probably in my haste to finally get it up. But I'll try and make a better effort in that department, I know some of you read these things.

All I can say is lately it was hard for me to get my HP muses to cooperate, what with the last movie on the horizon. For some reason I have this mental block that happens when I know I'll soon be exposed to new material like that. But now that that is all over, I shouldn't have many more issues there. And on the movie subject, I think I cried more than I did with the last book... damn Rickman is a good actor.

Chapter Six

Near to a week passed Hogwarts by since the evening that Harry had gone down to the Great Hall for dinner. Harry had spent the time loading his student's down with work, both practical and written, and was taking great pleasure in seeing their competency grow with each passing assignment. He was determined that they would all be caught up to their true year level well before he passed them off to another professor come winter.

And such goals kept him well occupied. So occupied that he'd found it necessary to constantly choose a new place to review assignments each day, as the students were so prone to wanting to bother him during non-office hours that he was at least guaranteed a few hours alone in whatever hiding place he chose.

Today he'd chosen the docks that had once been the sight of his near-drowning during the Triwizard tournament. It wasn't exactly a popular location with the students, being somewhat removed from the normal student hangouts. So it suited him just fine.

As a spray of water launched towards him, he deftly moved the parchment he was holding out of the way of a soaking so that the water splattered the deck next to him.

It seemed that the docks were suitable to Sahara as well.

"Bit more to the left." He taunted lightly as he circled a correction on the assignment he was reviewing.

Sahara yipped smugly at him before resuming splashing around, carefree.

Harry was on the third to last roll of parchment when a shadow fell partially over him. "Bit more to the left." He entreated the individual, even as he realized who it was.

"Demanding as ever." Severus remarked archly, but moved as directed to cast full shadow over the younger man on the deck.

Harry smiled faintly and kept on grading. This time with plenty of shade to do so in.

Severus pandered for what seemed an interminable amount of time to him, before he swallowed his pride. "About wanting to smash your things –"

"Did you break into my quarters?" Harry asked with a sigh, not pausing with what he was doing.

Severus's words abruptly came to a halt before he glared down at the head of perpetually messy hair. "No." He grated out, biting back against the severe want to snap off a few sarcastic retorts. He knew that doing that would only be a setback to what he was trying to do now. "I was-wasn't thinking when I said that. I was angry, and you know how I am when I get like that."

By this point, Harry had slowly laid down the parchment he was correcting, and now he slowly turned so that he could look up at the towering man. "Yeah… I know." He replied lamely, still trying to wrap his head around the fact that this was as good of an apology as he'd be getting about the incident.

Severus hesitated, torn between leaving now that he'd finally said what he'd been trying to track down Harry to say, and pushing his luck. He chose luck. "I know how you feel about gifts, you were always so happy…" he shook his head, steering himself back away from the memories, "did you… did you keep the things I gave you?"

Harry blinked, feeling more than a little bit shocked at this turn of events. Yet as he was able to focus more on the question at hand, he looked away with a heavy breath building inside him. "Are you wanting them back?"

"No!" Severus replied quickly, startling himself as well as a wide-eyed Harry. "No." He repeated, much more controlled. "I only… never mind. I need to go."

Harry let Severus get only three hurried steps away before he quickly stood. "Severus." He called after the man, who paused after a fifth step. "I've just tried to forget that you gave them to me."

And he could only watch as Severus swept away without a word, wondering just what had possessed the man to come down here in the first place about that. He hadn't thought Severus would have cared enough to apologize, even in his own strange way. It was baffling him to say the least, and he found it very difficult to concentrate on grading after that, such was his attention on trying to figure out what had suddenly gotten into the man.

Needless to say, hours later, he was just as pensive as he was surprised to find himself hesitating at the prospect of going down to dinner. Yet before he could make a decision, a prompt house elf made it for him by arriving with a selection of choice dinner courses, keeping to Harry's normal eating schedule and habits.

Harry sent the house elf away with a distracted word of thanks and sat down to eat with a gusty breath as he tried to push the incident from his mind, and wholly with it, Severus.

But as Harry soon determined over the passing of days, it wasn't so easy. A fact that only served to frustrate him underneath the collected mask he showed everyone else. All he wanted was to forget Severus, short of having Hermione obliviate him.

But he was beginning to suspect the fact that he had been trying not to think about; that until he was free of this castle and with Severus's promise as a guarantee, there was no reasonably logical way he could forget the man existed.

Even in a world filled with magic, sometimes fantasies were still just that, fantasies.

That fact was further impressed on him a fortnight later.

He was sitting in his classroom with one of his tutor students after their lesson for the evening. He himself was straddling the back of a chair they'd cleared out of the way while his student lounged on the floor.

"I need to figure out how to work this…" Harry mused aloud, staring at the stone ceiling.

"Work what?" Came the weary sounding question from the student who was still trying to catch his breath.

"I'm not sure the Room of Requirement will be able to accommodate what I have in mind… and it's what I would have used before. Before Norway." Harry began to lightly tap his wand against the back frame of the chair as he thought.

The student's head tilted a bit, "you're going to have to be a bit clearer. I may have known you for years, but seriously, sometimes you talk without really saying anything."

Harry spared a glare, which only earned him a smirk. "I'm saying that I'm not sure the Room of Requirement will be able to expand enough to allow for the practical defense exercises I have in mind."

"Norway? Like all the other times?"

Harry knew it was a reasonable suggestion, but he had just barely managed to clear it with the advisory board that the students would be coming to Hogwarts for their lessons. Switching the location with the board for only a few days out of the week wouldn't exactly be a headache. It would be a migraine. "Voldemort was more accommodating than the advisory board I work under, even for all they were the ones who wanted me."

"Rather like how you ended up here?" The student waved a hand around at the Hogwarts defense classroom.

Harry gave a sardonic roll of his eyes, "still a thorn in my side. Are you implying I am prone to caving?" But he shook his head, not at all done, "… I suppose you'd be right."

"Well since you're here, we're here, why can't we use the grounds here? Aren't they large enough?"

"More than." Harry sighed, throwing his weight backwards. "I'd have to clear it with Severus though, and that…"

The student gave him a grim half smile. "It's that or the advisory board, and honestly, who will take less time for you to convince?"

Harry flopped back forward, his free hand coming to cradle his forehead. "I'd rather not think about it."

But think about it he did, long after his student had taken the floo home. He thought about it well into the early morning of the next day, whereupon he finally decided that if he were going to get any sleep at all before classes in a few hours, the sleep would be best had in his own bed and not on his sofa with Sahara as an ungainly blanket.

He spent breakfast making his final decision, and then spent the better part of the rest of the day convincing himself that it was the best one.

And for the seemingly endless minute it took him to tell the house elf that he would not be needing dinner in this evening, he reveled in the irony that his inability to keep his two workplaces separate was about to culminate in this.

At least the expressions on his friends faces, and others, would be well worth it.

His arrival to the already filled Hall was not overlooked, and Harry bore with the stares he was getting from students and staff alike as he marched his way up to the head table. He knew that a great many of his fellow professors were eyeing him in surprised concern, and that Neville was looking at him as if he'd taken leave of his senses, but he ignored it all.

Instead he swept confidently up to the empty seat at the end and lowered himself into it.

Madam Pomfrey, in her seat next to the former student who had practically had his own bed in the hospital wing during his school years, looked over at him with reproach and concern. "I do hope that you're not planning to land each other in the ward tonight."

Harry chuckled darkly, and without much humor as he selected a dinner roll and began to drizzle honey over it. "You make it sound as if we have a reputation."

"You do." She confirmed, deadpan.

Harry's answering smile was thin, and as he took a bite of his honey-covered roll sent a look down towards where Severus was sitting, lightly tapping at the steel barriers of the mental wards surrounding that unreasonable mind.

Severus reacted instantly with a glare in Harry's direction. Both for the intrusion into his rather lovely dinner, and to cover over the inane leap his insides had done at the feel of it. Even after all this time he could still recognize the feel of Harry's magic against him.

Harry merely arched an eyebrow towards his hairline in the face of the scowl and turned back to his dinner. He knew nothing further would be needed, Severus wouldn't pass by the opportunity to snarl at him after dinner about what he'd just done, allowing him the perfect opportunity to discuss what he'd come down here for.

Yet when the last of the students had begun to wander away back to their dormitories, and the teachers their own quarters, Harry found himself unable to quickly do the same for more than one reason as Hermione intercepted him before Severus and his temper had a hope.

"House elves refusing to bring you dinner?" She asked as she leaned against the high back of the chair Harry still sat in as he indulged in a crème brûlée.

"I can cook." Harry reminded her affectionately before shaking his head. "I just have something I need to talk with him about, and the sooner the better. So don't worry."

Hermione smiled back before she darted a look to where Severus had gotten up and was clearly making his way over, and she looked back at Harry with a smirk. "Don't destroy the castle." She implored in parting before making her exit.

Severus meanwhile had come to loom over Harry like an ominous cloud. "Your continued disregard for privacy seems to be a permanent fault."

"Technically," Harry began with a flourish of his dessert spoon, "I knocked politely and didn't attempt to shove my way in. If anything, I'm the most polite guest you've ever had."

"What is it you want?" Severus growled, ignoring the remarks.

Harry set his spoon down, dessert gone, and stood himself causing Severus to back away a pace. And his green eyes locked onto black as he looked up at the man. "I want permission to use the grounds after nightfall for a few of my tutor students to practice on. That point in their progress is coming up and I find myself without my own property to use. And I'm not going to make them and myself floo back and forth to Norway every night for practicals after I'm done with instructions here."

Severus sneered elegantly, "you're asking permission and yet demanding you're going to do it at the same time?"

"Would you expect anything less of me?" Harry asked back with a growing smirk.

"I'd expect that if I said no you'd do it anyway." Severus muttered darkly, ignoring the way Harry seemed to brighten in amusement at the comment. "Why do you even bother with asking?"

"Habit to try and go about things the proper way before just doing it anyway. I'm impulsive, you know that." Harry reminded him amiably enough. He had always enjoyed getting Severus in this position, and it didn't seem as if some things ever changed, as much as it made him feel awkward to be enjoying himself even a little bit right now.

Severus let out a world-weary sigh as he tried not to curse those expressive green eyes that showed him just how much amusement Harry was getting out of this. "Have you forgotten that your impulses make things twice as hard on me?"

"Only when you go against them, Severus." Harry pointed out reasonably. "And this isn't anything like before. This is me teaching a few more students, which if you'll kindly remember, you've been forcing me to do for you for several months now. Although if you're having second thoughts about my capability as a teacher to handle even three students maximum, then please, force me to resign."

Severus glared at the impertinent brat that stood so confidently before him. "Please, force my hand in this." He retorted in a sarcastic snap.

"If I must." Harry agreed easily as he turned away. "Just keep Filch indoors on Saturday and Sunday nights. I'd hate for him to get in the way of the wrong hex. Ancient artifacts should be kept somewhat protected."

"Years ago I'd not have minded you ridding me of the man, but you were still a student then." Severus quipped after him. "I'd have had you employed without pay as his replacement, it would have been possible with all the detentions you earned."

"From you." Harry rejoined, half turning as he continued walking. "Strange that none of my other professors had near your track record for being a prat."

"None of your other professors were competent enough to look past your fame or sad sob stories to do what needed to be done." Severus decided as he continued to follow the younger man out into the expansive corridor beyond the Hall.

Harry laughed, "while you would have had me cleaning floors all day, they were actually doing their job and training me as a wizard. For all that you were supposed to be protecting me, don't you think you rather brought some incidents on yourself?"

"Had you obeyed the rules I so diligently punished you from breaking, most of them would not have occurred. Unfortunately, although the students believe otherwise, I am not able to be in two places at once and could not therefore have spent every waking moment giving you detention every time you tried to step toe out of line." Severus informed him haughtily. "But had I been able, I guarantee you I would have slept better at night."

"You wouldn't have slept better even if I had started behaving." Harry said, turning with a humored flicker in his eyes. "You'd have been wondering what I was plotting by trying to lure you into a false sense of security."

"I wouldn't have put it past you." Severus frowned at him, walking up to stop before the young professor. "Put like that, and it's almost a shame I needed to keep you alive."

Harry tilted his head with a smirk. "Almost. But don't worry, Severus, I have a late gift for you in the form of me being gone within the year. You have my full permission and in fact, my full desire that you believe me from that moment on to be dead."

"You have yet to find me a replacement for you." Severus replied silkily, lifting a hand in forgotten familiarity to swat at the unkempt mop that Harry insisted was hair. Only to realize his familiarity too late as he jerked his hand and eyes away. "Just keep your special projects from destroying school property or it'll be out of your salary."

Harry regarded the man with steady eyes as he backed a step away. "As if I've ever been concerned about any of that." And he turned to leave, getting only a few steps before shooting the man a backwards glance. "Goodnight."

Severus didn't say anything, just watched Harry resume walking before he himself turned and swept away.

Harry didn't stop until he reached his quarters, and upon seeing the extra subject in one of his landscape paintings, shook his head as he stooped down to return Sahara's enthusiastic greetings. "I'm sure he'll need you more right now, I rather extorted him and I'm sure he'll want to yell at you for finally convincing me here… even if he thought I was the only one suitable."

From the painting, Dumbledore considered his former student with one of those timeless blue-eyed looks. "He always has... and has always dealt best with some of your more frustrating actions alone. Rarely would he ever discuss them with me even when forced."

"Then you can make sure Sahara doesn't get into too much trouble." Harry sighed as he straightened and cast his robes aside while making his way to the bedroom door. "I need some sleep, before I start wondering if there's any way I can extract money out of a portrait for therapy costs."

On nearly the other side of the castle, Severus was wondering almost the exact same thing as he poured himself a bedside firewhiskey and tried to forget the memories that had resurfaced in the pleasant haze of intoxication.