My growling stomach finally sent us in search of food. We both dressed in the bare minimum and raided the cupboards and fridge for our supper. I kept sneaking little peeks at Severus. He was so ... so relaxed. I'd never seen him like this before and I had to pinch myself to remind me that I wasn't dreaming.

Yep, it still hurt so we must have made love again.

Of course, I could just keep licking my lips for a reminder. His salty taste was odd but maybe I would get used to it. Popping bread into the toaster, I grinned. I wanted to get very used to him. But what did he want? I snuck another look only to find him smiling at me while he stirred something in the cast iron skillet.

"Harry, it works better if you push the lever down first." He told me gently and I looked back at the toaster to see it just sitting there.

Rolling my eyes, I pushed and watched the slices disappear. "What are we having for supper, besides toast?"

"Scrambled eggs a la Aphrodite and no, I will not give you the recipe. It's a family secret." He went back to stirring while I thought about secrets.

"When we get back to Hogwarts, we have to go back to being ... distant, don't we?" I hated the thought.

"Yes, for both our protection." Severus smiled at me a little shyly. "But we still have six days to make enough memories to tide us over. You'll be starting your fifth year and now that you don't have to go back to the Dursleys for the summer, we can spend some of the summer break together. If ... you want to?"

"Of course, I want to." I decided that he was too far away, stepping over and sliding my arms around his waist. Those little ridges striped his back from his neck down to the waistband of his boxers. They must have hurt terribly and I was determined to not leave an inch of his skin unloved, starting at the top and kissing my way down his spine.

"Harry," he sighed my name and I hid a smile against his warm skin. "I will probably have to be twice as stern and sneering in class to make up for this ... urge that I have to turn around and pounce on you."

I snickered. "That could make for a very interesting class. Hermione and Ron would both have kittens."

"And Draco Malfoy would have some very dangerous gossip to pass onto his father." His voice was suddenly dry and I needed to see his face.

I tugged until he was far enough away from the stove so I could slip under his arm. His eyes were a little frightened but I knew about fear, it sometimes seemed to be a permanent part of my life. "He will not have anything to report. I'll take care of Draco."

Those black eyes, which had once been so cold and hard, were suddenly warm as a summer day. "My fierce protector, I shall leave him to you while I take care of his father."

That sounded like a fair division of labor since Lucius Malfoy made my skin crawl. "Okay, Sev, we'll take it one day at a time and maybe the headmaster will loan us the cottage for a week or two?"

He set me aside so he could stir the golden eggs on one side of the pan and the simmering beans in the other half. I wondered what spell did that. "I expect that he'd be amenable to that request. The toast is done."

"Yikes, have you seen the butter?" I got down a plate and pulled out the first two slices of toast before putting the next two in. The butter dish floated over my shoulder and a knife followed it. "Thanks."

We finished making supper and took our plates into the front room so we could sit by the fire. Severus put another log onto the glowing coals and soon little flames danced higher and higher, lighting the room with their warmth. I mixed everything together on my plate and chased it all with my toast instead of my fork. He chuckled at the resulting mess while neatly consuming everything on his own plate.

Setting the empty plates aside, we cuddled in the little nest from that afternoon. I was content to just lie in his arms and enjoy the warmth but his voice broke the silence. "Harry, we need to talk about where this is going."

Tilting my head a little so I could see his face, I agreed. "Okay, it looks like we could, how did it go? 'The circle be cast in flesh.' We're both fully functioning now."

He chuckled a little and pulled be closer. "Yes, indeed, you've cured my problem with your delightful self. The spell of conception is one with which I am familiar. Part of it is potion based and the rest is a mage-level spell that I can cast."

"What kind of potion?" I had my doubts about drinking any of the potions that I'd learned so far.

"You don't have to drink this one." He blushed a little. "It's one that the person who is going to conceive, ah ... receives."

"Receives? You mean like a bath or something?"

"Not ... exactly." Severus was turning redder and redder.

I pulled out of his arms and sat upright by his side. "What . . . exactly?"

He sat up, too, looking everywhere but at me. "It's a douche or an enema depending on whether a female or a male is being impregnated."

"Wait a minute. Are you saying that male wizards can get pregnant any time they want?"

"Well, yes." He shrugged and finally looked at me. "Same sex pairings among wizards are more normal perhaps, then in the Muggle world. And the need to have a child is not exclusively a female prerogative. I know when my ... son was born, I felt something that I'd never felt before. Not quite pride but something like it."

I'd forgotten that he had had a family. Should I ask about them? Would talking about it hurt him? Suddenly I needed to know. "What happened?"

"Ophelia married me because the Council of Wizards thought our bloodlines would produce a superior wizard." His voice was so dry that it creaked, his eyes so far away that I wondered where he was. "We had ... trouble conceiving since I was impotent. Spells took care of most of it and she never expressed any dissatisfaction until just before she left me."

"But she did get pregnant so something worked." I said gently, not liking the defeated look in his eyes.

"It seemed to. Thomas was born at Midsummer and when I held him for the first time, I couldn't get over the feeling that I'd finally accomplished something good and right." He fell silent again and the terrible despair was there again in his eyes.

I couldn't stand that so I reached out and tugged him into my arms. "Let it out, Severus. I've got you."

He was trembling and his arms held me closer while he buried his face against my shoulder. "We had an argument and she told me she was leaving me, taking Thomas with her. I said he was my son, too. She laughed and told me that she'd used another's sperm because I was sterile. That Thomas was not my son and never had been. They left then and I went into a depression that I might not have come out of except for Dumbledore coming to give me the news about the train wreck that killed them both. He brought me back to Hogwarts and probably saved my sanity."

I hated her.

I wanted to call her out of the grave and tell her just what I thought of such cruelty.

I held his shaking body and wished every torment I'd ever heard of on her. My Severus had really terrible luck with the people who should have cherished him. Even Dumbledore had contributed to putting him into hell. That was not going to happen with me. I'd protect him with everything I had.

But right now, I needed to heal this part of him. "Severus, I love you. I will never, ever lie to you or keep anything from you that you need to know."

"Harry," I'd never heard my name breathed like that before.

I liked it. I liked it a lot but even better, I loved how he showed me his own feelings. His lips were warmer than sunshine and his tongue burned mine with his fire. I was suddenly hard as a rock and moaning into our kiss. He lowered me to the rug and kissed down my body again until he got to my groin where he swallowed me whole. It was fast and furious but glorious all the same.

I exploded down his throat and he sucked me dry. All I could do was lie there panting while he leisurely tongued my skin clean. "Severus, I believe that I may never move again."

"Really? Pity that. I was thinking that a hot bath would be a very nice way to end this beautiful day." He leaned up and shared my taste with me, slowly almost languidly.

That sounded good, too. "I like it. You're going to have to help me up first though. I think part of me melted again."

His chuckle made me smile. "Thank you, Harry. I promise never to lie to you, too. I've never felt like this before so you'll have to excuse my bumbling."

"You do not bumble, Severus." I wouldn't let him speak badly of the man that I now knew I loved. "You do tend to keep everything inside though and you may need to work on that a little. But if you forget then I'll remind you."

He stood and pulled me upright. "I'm sure that you will, love. For now, let's take a hot bath and I'll tell you more about conception spells."

Sounded good to me. Instead of the shower, Severus poured some bath oil in the big claw foot bathtub and followed it with hot water. We were already mostly undressed but I made sure that I slid off his boxers.

I was half-hard again and I wondered if that was normal. When I asked him, he laughed out loud and told me that it was exactly how a sixteen-year old would react and a great compliment to him. We soaped each other leisurely while he told me more about the channels of power that were present in every wizard. In youngsters, they were quite small as big as a pencil. But they would grow in size, the more power that was taken in. Those channels could be shifted to adjust to various needs as the wizard grew in power.

That kind of made sense to me since I'd felt changes in my body the last two years especially. It felt like I was expanding inside and there were times that I was sure that it had to be noticeable. But no one had ever said anything so I'd shrugged it off. I listened carefully to his explanation of how the creation channel ran from the heart chakra to the root chakra. When creating new life, the channels that flowed from the spleen and solar plexus were incorporated into a pouch that nourished the baby as it grew.

"Wait a minute, those channels are the ones we use for protective magic and well-being. The person who's using them for a baby wouldn't be able to defend themselves against a magical attack or fight off sickness." I was lying on his chest half-floating in the hot water.

"True, it's why the person who's carrying the child has to stay in the safety of a magic haven ... like Hogwarts." He cupped my cheek with his hand. "It's why I need to be the one who carries the Child of Love. You need to be free to go where your classes and the war against Voldemort take you."

I didn't like that idea one bit. I'd be footloose and fancy free while he was stuck at the school for nine months. But when I would have argued, those long elegant fingers pressed against my lips and he smiled a smile that I'd never seen before, tender and caring. "Harry, let me do this for the Light. Bring life instead of death into the world."

"All right." Sighing, I kissed his fingers and nodded. "I love you, Severus and I was a little scared about ... um, getting pregnant."

"You would have done it though because that's who you are, Harry Potter, Child of Light." He stroked my cheek. "There's a few new lessons that we need to practice before the full moon next Sunday. I think you'll like them."

"Really, will I have to study hard?" I leaned in and began laying small kisses all over his face. "Will there be homework lessons?"

"Indeed yes, but I think you'll enjoy them." He chuckled and sat up, bringing me with him. "First, we need to get out of the tub before we have one of those bathroom accidents that are so statistically enumerated every year."

We dried each other and decided on my bed this time. We didn't have to bother with pajamas and I was looking forward to the start of my new lessons. Severus brought a bottle of massage oil and a towel with him. I thought a massage would be just the ticket after our strenuous day, but that's when he explained what he'd be massaging. I gulped hard and thought about having part of him inside of me ... down there.

He offered to go first but I didn't want to hurt him and I didn't have the faintest idea how to go about it. I'd wilted the moment he told me about anal penetration. He just chuckled and told me that with a little stimulation, I'd be ready in a moment. I didn't call him a liar but part of me was quite certain that I'd do no such thing.

Well, that will teach me to believe him. I lay down on the towel on my back so I could watch him. At first, I was so tense that he refused to even try because he'd hurt me. That's when I realized that the only memories he must have were of Voldemort raping him. And that thought relaxed me enough for him to slide one finger inside of me. It felt uncomfortable, very uncomfortable but the little flexes also made my penis start to harden again.

Then he touched something and it felt like a lightning bolt had hit me. I moaned and he tensed but I clamped around him to keep him from leaving. "No, Sev, it's all right. It just felt really, really good. What is it?"

He smiled a rather shaky smile. "The prostate gland in both Muggle and wizard males is the pleasure gland. When stimulated, it's supposed to produce feelings of heat. Does it truly?"

"Wow," was all I could say when he brushed against it again. "Yes! Great, better than great. It feels so hot that I'm burning up."

"Excellent. Now just stay relaxed for me while I try for two fingers." He came out slowly and I realized that the tension in my back relaxed, too.

I might be sore later but right now, I just wanted him back inside of me. More of the golden oil and his finger was back, wiggling a little until I relaxed enough for him to slide two fingers in. That felt even more uncomfortable but the fire was back, too. I was hard as a rock by now and he leaned in from between my legs to suck me all the way in. So now, I was on fire both outside and inside.

Clutching the sheets instead of his hair, I could help but thrust up a little. But when I came back down, it seemed to drive him farther inside of me. Talk about a rock and a hard place, I was going quietly nuts when I finally thrust up and came in his mouth. He slowly backed out of me while sucking me dry.

I was a quivering heap but now that I knew how to do it. It was his turn.

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The end for now