As Close As You Can Get

A sequel to Trick and Treats

By Richan

Disclaimer: Don't own nuttin' but my cat, dog, and a long list of school loans and the one for my house (which is pretty much the bank's). If I have money, it surprises me as much as you.

Warning: More insanity.

Archive: Richan's Sanity; if you want it, just ask!

Note: LOTS of people actually wanted more????? It's nice to know that I'm not the only one who's crazy out there, but it makes me wonder about those who are actually sane.... Scary thought.

Severus stared at Harry, sure that he was out of his mind. Instead, he was standing in the middle of the Great Hall.... Well. He wasn't actually standing. More like looking like the biggest fool in the world for kneeling down on one knee and staring up at the laughing face of his lover.

Fine.

Just what he needed to start the new year with. After he had fought the crowds shopping for Christmas for the ring. Which Harry had bugged him about the package that had been under the tree addressed to him that he couldn't open. All day on Christmas.

"Yes, Severus," came the laughing reply.

Severus put his best scowl on his face and rose as Harry tried to take the ring from him. Moving the box, he pulled his arm away.

"Maybe I don't want to do this now," he said in a low tone of voice.

Harry just smiled at him.

'Cheeky git,' Severus thought. Sighing, he tossed the boxed ring at the man.

He should have realized Harry was planning something when he noticed the sparkle in the green green eyes across from him. Instead, he found himself blindsided by an engulfing hug and a smacking kiss on his cheek, close to his mouth.

Now it was getting better.

Too bad it was in the middle of the Great Hall in the midst of the students the day after the term began. Because if they had been anywhere near Severus' - or Harry's, which conveniently happened to right next door *and* connected by one single door - rooms, he knew that they wouldn't be seen again for a couple of days, classes be damned.

The lips against his cheek crept to his mouth and Severus forgot the cheering students and the smirking headmaster and the growling godfather-in-law-to-be and his happy partner. He'd rather concentrate on those wonderful lips that knew exactly the right spot to rest on his neck and just how to wake him up on those wondrous mornings after they had spent the nights together.

Severus wasn't about to say that they were making love, even though he knew that's what they were doing. There were just some things he wouldn't change, no matter that the man that whose lips were attached to his had wanted Severus to change a lot of things just *because.* It was bad enough that he had just proposed to the brat, and now he had gotten himself stuck.

Not that he didn't mind being stuck to Harry, if it meant he would get kisses like this all the more.

No. No complaining on his end of this arrangement.

Harry pulled back with a loud smacking sound and grinned that foolish grin that suckered Severus into doing things he would normally think were quite insane and no way was he ever going to do such a thing.

Merlin, but he was in for it now.

******

Harry pursed his lips even as he was mentally smacking himself up the head for even suggesting that he get Hermione to help with wedding plans. Maybe it was time to call St. Mungo's like Severus was threatening him with whenever Harry began the conversation with "Guess what I thought that we could do, Sev?"

"You only have two months to plan this wedding, Harry," Hermione was saying.

This was coming from the woman who planned and had her wedding in three weeks due to the fact that her pregnancy was beginning to show. But that was a whole 'nother story.[1] Said baby was now gurgling happily up at Harry, who had been deemed honorary father when it was found that Blythe Dallas Weasley would only fall asleep when in *his* arms. Never mind that she had a doting father and quite family-inclined grandmother very willing to dote on the child.

"Quiet you," Harry whispered to the little girl in his arms before wishing that they weren't occupied so that he really could hit himself in the head as Hermione brought out even more brochures than were already spread on the table. "More?" he asked in a strangled voice.

Hermione nodded. "You said that you wanted this to be nice, Harry," she said, completely ignoring her daughter for the fact that Harry was trying to untangle himself from the little girl to *look* at the damn things.

Harry glared at the baby before turning back to its mother. "Mione, there's going to be a grand total of fifteen guests for the wedding. Do we really need the book on 'Grand Weddings for the Rich and Wizarding Famous?'"

Hermione glared right back. "You *do* want this to be nice, don't you?"

Harry pursed his lips again. "Nice, yes. Broke, no."

Half an hour later, he was relieved when he saw Ron walk into the room. That meant that he was released from this onerous duty and he could go find Sev and do all kinds of wicked things that normal people weren't really supposed to do before they got married. But since neither of them had ever worried about it, Harry shrugged the subject off when it was mentioned. By half the wizarding world.

Unfortunately, the other half of the wizarding world wanted to marry him or to leave Severus or to be the poster boy for the new safe-sex campaign - put out by the Ministry - of abstinence.

No to all of the above. Especially considering just the fantastic things Severus could do with his tongue.

He wasn't going to give *that* up. No way, no how.

His mind wandering down all manner of naughty paths, he almost missed the turn to Severus' office. It being after dinner, he usually was there to help the Slytherins if they had problems, but they usually were only big and were pretty far in-between such occasions that the Potions master spent the time making various potions for Poppy. That trade had slowed down now that Harry was no longer a student, but there was a new prospect of keeping both Severus and Poppy in business with that First Year Hufflepuff who'd done a Dennis Creevey and fallen into the lake on the boat ride to the school.

Now, though, Harry's task was to draw his lover away for a quick snog or shag or a quite long one since he was up to it.

"Hello, lover," he whispered in a sultry tone in Severus' ear.

He was pleased with the shiver that went through the other man's body as he pulled back from his desk. Surprisingly, he hadn't been working on a potion, but on research. Well, that made his job just a little bit easier.

Taking the next step in his plan, Harry nibbled on the ear. Pleased with the little sound that escaped Severus, he ran his tongue around the shell before trailing it slowly, *slowly* along the man's jaw. He was almost to the front of Severus' face before he dipped down, ignoring the lips that called to him to bruise them happily. No, his mission for the moment was to taste all the lovely flesh that was bared by the open neck of Sev's shirt.

Mmm. Tasty.

"Shit!"

The loud shout coming from the doorway had Harry flailing his arms wildly as Severus pushed him back. Landing painfully in a heap, he glared at Sirius, who was the culprit.

Sirius glared at Severus before sending a sheepish look at Harry. "Sorry."

Harry *knew* that his godfather wasn't sorry for interrupting. He was only saying sorry because Harry'd fallen on his arse like the git Severus claimed he was.

As long as he was Severus' git, he really didn't care.

"Sirius," he finally said. "You better have a damn good reason for being here this late."

Sirius shrugged even as he directed another glare at Severus.

"Remy wanted me to bring our photo album over to help you plan the wedding," he said, the last word sneered slightly in a fairly good imitation of Severus.

Huffing slightly, Harry rose off the floor with a hand up from Severus. Brushing his robes off, he practically stalked over to Sirius, but since there wasn't quite enough room he didn't pull it off the way Severus could. Still, he looked menacing enough that his godfather took a step back.

"Thanks be to Remus," he said cheerily, throwing the other men in the room off-balance by his abrupt switch. Harry took advantage of this by grabbing the book in Sirius' hand, shoving him out the door, locking the thing, tossing said book aside, and launching himself at Severus.

"Now, where were we?" he purred.

Severus answered him in the most wonderful way Harry liked - a hot, sultry kiss that led to other things.

******

Severus glared at the woman across from him. He wasn't happy with being surrounded by this many Weasleys, but he would suffer through this because it made Harry happy. He found that he couldn't get mad at the brat for such things anymore, not when the man was limber enough to do... certain things that astonished Severus.

Heh. The joys of having a nineteen year old for a lover.

Well. Soon-to-be-husband.

Oh, Merlin. It would be legal, and for a long time Severus had avoided such things and even now liked to stay far away from that side of things. He preferred to be in the shadows even if a pair of green eyes had seduced him out of them.

He'd rather be in the shadows at the moment as a horde of red-haired people jostled for the best spot to witness Severus' ultimate humiliation. This was even worse than proposing to Harry in the Great Hall. The only consolation to that was that there hadn't been any of the Weasley family when he had 'popped the question' as Harry oh-so-eloquently said.

They would be the first to see him in the robes that Harry had picked out. That weren't black. Severus liked black and he wasn't sure if he could actually were these robes for the length of time it was required to get married and for the little dinner afterwards. By the time he had them on and Molly Weasley was fussing over him, Severus was glaring murderously at the twins, who were whispering in a conspiratorial tone off to one side.

"Misters Fred and George Weasley," he roared, startling everyone, including the Weasley matriarch, who unfortunately was startled enough to poke Severus with a pin she had been using to adjust the fabric. Suppressing the instinctive flinch, he continued, "If you plan to play *any* one of your pranks between now and the wedding, you will be used as ingredients for the next potion I plan to make."

Five pairs of Weasley brown eyes widened at the threat. The three who had blue eyes snickered - meaning Molly (who was clearly used to threatening her identical offspring), Percy (who hadn't even been paying attention the entire time and was buried nose deep into a thick tome on proper etiquette for Ministry workers - a book that hadn't seen the light of day for over three hundred years before Percy had picked it up), and Bill (who as eldest was as used to the situation as Molly was).

Adjusting his glare so that all the Weasley children were included, Severus pointed to the door.

'Point taken,' he thought as the door shut behind the last of them. He was too soon as Molly poked him again.

"If you would stop moving, Severus, I wouldn't poke you," she reprimanded.

Severus opened his mouth to say something and was stuck. The remark was something his mother would have said had she lived to see this day. A somber mood wiped out the somewhat-happy thoughts he'd been having imagining the destruction he could cause to the Weasley twins.

He missed his mother.

**

Harry looked over at Severus. Every since he and Molly had finished taking his measurements for the robe Harry suggested he wear, Severus had been almost... moping. But that couldn't be right. Or could it?

After dating the man for two years, he could recognize most of his moods, and this one Harry had never seen before. It was slightly disturbing.

Well, he had the perfect cure for it.

******

Maybe he didn't. Severus was growling at him much like Sirius had when he was in Padfoot disguise and he found Harry and Severus in that clinch before Harry had gotten the chance to tell him that he was dating Hogwarts' Potions Professor. But that he'd had to do - it was in the guidebook for godsons even in the line of fire.

*This* wasn't looking good. Even more so than Sirius.

"What is it, Severus?" he asked cautiously. Never having seen this before on the man across from him, he wasn't exactly sure just how to deal with this.

Severus shook his head and pulled away.

"Sev?"

Harry was taken aback by the intense look of sadness of his fiancé's face.

"I just realized that my mother won't be here for my wedding," Severus said quietly.

"Oh," Harry breathed. They had talked about their families once, enough for Harry to know that Severus missed his mother. The two of them had been quite close. Harry had been slightly jealous of the fact that Severus had known his mother for the first sixteen years of his life.

Severus looked down at the floor before raising his eyes to Harry's. "I just need some time, Harry, to think about this."

Harry nodded. He'd do anything within reason for the man and if he could help by leaving him alone for the night, he was all for it. Walking over to him, he gently kissed Severus' cheek and made his way through the door separating their rooms.

That hadn't gone as well as he'd wanted it to be.

Harry stood on the other side of the door after closing it for a couple of minutes. He was considering calling Hermione, but as it was late he didn't want to interrupt anything he didn't want to see his best friends doing. Not after the last time he'd called so late. Ugh. He never wanted to see that much flushed-as-the-color-hair-on-top-of-his-head Ron trying valiantly - and quite stupidly - to cover Hermione from Harry's view. As if Harry was interested in the female form. If he hadn't had Sev he would have gawked at Ron. Maybe not. Thoughts of being caught by Molly Weasley in flagrante delicto with Charlie ran briefly through his head. Definitely not. That was just too weird to contemplate.

But thinking of Hermione brought to mind the method she used to solve problems. In other words, The Library. Big capital letters. Much like he was The Harry Potter in some respects, Harry had found the place to be very useful in all his years at Hogwarts. Originally it was a place to take naps, then a quick place to find a suitable spot for a snog. But then, after Harry had graduated and really didn't need to use such a place unless Minerva sent him here when she was too busy, and, being her unfortunate assistant was called to go there quite often, he had discovered that The Library was a wonderful place. He had free access to the Restricted section and had found all manner of interesting things they didn't let students know were there.

An hour later, he was frustrated with his efforts. Maybe there wasn't anything on the subject he was researching and he wasn't about to ask for help. He'd be thrown into St. Mungo's faster than they threatened to do to Dumbledore when he got a truly crazy idea (even though Halloween two years ago had pretty much done the trick with that, though his latest obsession - with the Spice Girls - Did. Not. Bode. Well.). Harry couldn't risk that.

He was almost ready to call it a night since Madame Pince was eyeing him with a mind to close her domain for the night when he caught the title of a book out of the corner of his eye. Intrigued, Harry picked it up. At the title, he nodded. 'Maybe this will do the trick,' he thought as he apologized to the librarian on his way out.

**

Severus was woken up by a sudden scream next door. Automatically pulling his robe over his nightshirt, he scrambled for his slippers and hurried over to the door between his and Harry's rooms.

He was not prepared for what he saw after he opened it.

"Mother?"

The apparition gave a big smile and floated over to Severus. "Baby!" the ghost cried.

Severus hardly heard Harry's snickering as a blast of cold air surrounded him as his mother tried to give him a hug.

"I've missed you so much, honey bear," his mother sniffled. She pointed over to where Harry was trying to hold back his obvious laughter at the glare Severus sent him. "That wonderful young man over there said that you were missing me, and since I was missing you as well and you obviously need help with the wedding, I thought it would be better for me to help in any way I can until then!"

Severus turned to Harry, who shrugged his shoulders. 'Well, the brat really didn't think this one out,' he thought. But he really couldn't be mad at him either, since he thought that this would be a way to cheer Severus up and since that really hadn't happened to him before Harry had come into his life it wasn't worth the hassle of being angry. Holding back a sigh, he slipped onto the couch next to Harry and prepared himself for the mess this could... no, would become.

******

"I can't stand her, Harry!" Hermione shouted at him after pulling him to one side.

Harry rubbed his ear, wondering if he'd ever be able to hear anything but this annoying ringing tone out of it again. He sent a quelling look at his friend and she stopped in the middle of her rant.

"Mione, she's here to help."

"Help?" Hermione screeched.

'Well that blows the theory that I would ever be able to hear anything now,' Harry thought.

"She's messing up everything that I've come up with so far," the woman across from him was half-screaming.

Harry wondered if Hermione was totally ignoring the fact that *she* acted just like the woman her parents named her after even if they didn't realize it. Hermione Snape was one of the bossiest women he had ever met after Hermione Weasley nee Granger. Amazing, really, what a coincidence it really was they shared a name. And personality.

Lucky for Harry, they also shared the idea that having 'premarital sex' as Percy, the perpetrator in the new Ministry campaign, put it was fine by her.

His mind was tempted to drift down the path of dirty thoughts, but Hermione was still ranting over Severus' mother.

"I like her," he said, cutting his friend off mid-word.

Hermione stared at him and it was quite funny to watch as her eyes bugged and her jaw dropped to hang and flap. And by the time she had recovered, Harry was halfway out the door to the dungeons. He would let the two Hermiones fight over the decorations as long as it left him plenty of time with Severus.

**

Severus looked up from the potion he was brewing to find an oddly glittering pair of green eyes staring at him. He looked at the clock and saw what time it was and silently berated himself for forgetting Harry's penchant of traipsing over to his rooms at this time of night.

Luckily he only had one more ingredient to add before it had to sit overnight - at least his subconscious had remembered even if he hadn't thought about it. Severus tried to ignore Harry as he came closer while dicing the shrivel fig. Hm. Too bad he wasn't making a Cooling Potion because he was getting hot under the collar. Quite hot.

"Sev?"

Oh no. It was that voice that made him do terrible, *terrible* things with the man. Well, maybe not that terrible, but it usually ended up with him not being able to look certain people in the eye the next morning. After being caught with his pants down. Literally and figuratively. In the Astronomy tower after he's kicked all the students out so he and Harry can... do things.

Carefully laying the knife down in case he was tempted to throw it at anybody who interfered with the two of them, he made sure the potion was set for the night and turned to Harry.

"Yes, Potter?"

Harry's bottom lip pushed out slightly as he pouted and Severus was *very* tempted to pull it between both of his so he could lavish it with quite a lot of care that it obviously needed. "Hm?" His attention was glued to the lips, so he missed what they said the first time.

"What do you say we forget about the wedding and elope?"

Severus smirked. "Ah, Mother and Granger are fighting again?"

Harry nodded as he slinked up beside him. He laid his head against Severus' shoulder and ran his finger along the edge of his robe. "Yes. I love them both, but two of them are just too much to handle at the same time."

Another smirk crossed his face before it melted into an actual smile - he'd been doing that a lot lately in Harry's presence and the damned brat knew better than to tell anyone else that he did so. Severus wrapped his arms around the body snuggling up to his and relished the feeling he got from the smooth chest muscles against his and warm, strong leg half wrapped around one of his own.

He was glad that Harry liked his mother. He certainly knew that she liked him - she'd been singing his praises most of the day when he wasn't preoccupied by classes when down in the dungeons. It wasn't for anything that Severus had taunted Harry about when he was still a student and definitely underage, but rather how sweet he was and how he treated her in the exact same way as Severus. Yes, his mother kept telling him. Harry was definitely a keeper and if she'd still been alive she would have snatched him from her own son, consequences be damned.

His response had been to tell her that she was such a Gryffindor and would she go bug Harry if she liked him so much. She did and he'd become rather jealous that she could while he was stuck trying to get Fourth Year Gryffindors and Slytherins from going at each other's throats while brewing their explosion-waiting-to-happen truth serums.

He was pulled from his thoughts by a pair of soft lips, slowly making their way along his jaw.

Taking advantage of the quiet evening he'd been having, he pulled Harry towards his bedroom and proceeded to do things that should stay in the bedroom. As if Severus would tell anyone that he made these - annoying to him - little sounds in the throes of passion as Harry made gasping sounds to go with them.

******

Wedding Day.

It didn't seem like the prophecy of Doom Harry had thought it had a week ago. Now all he wanted to do was to get Sev all to himself on the beach in front of their little cabana where they were spending their honeymoon. Still, he wasn't without his doubts as to whether it would go off without a hitch. After all, the ceremony was being presided over by Dumbledore himself, and with the way that man thought it was sure to be a disaster one way or the other.

Oh well. As long as he and Severus were legally husband and husband, he really didn't care.

Next to him, Ron was pulling at the collar of his robe, much like he had at his own wedding. Glaring at his best friend to try and calm him down, Harry waited for the cue to enter the room. He and Severus had decided that neither of them were going to take the 'wife' place in the ceremony and that they would enter the room at the same time from opposite doors to meet at the slightly raised platform where Dumbledore would be standing.

Cue given, Harry opened the door to find that he'd been right to have Severus wear that shade of green. It wasn't a true Slytherin green, it being almost black it was so dark but wasn't. But damn, the man looked good enough to through the entire thing to the wind and swallow him whole. Severus was also wearing the necklace Harry had given him the night before. The serpent's emerald eye glinted in the bright sunlight that drifted through the tall windows of the old arbor room, named so because of Helga Hufflepuff's fascination with the trees planted there.

Looking into Severus' eyes, he saw that he was watching Harry with the same hungry look. He was glad that Severus had picked out his robes, the midnight blue and hunter green robes fit his personality much better than the red and gold Hermione had suggested. The hunter green faded into the blue, which Harry liked very much as it seemed to represent both his Gryffindor and Slytherin sides to blend together into the whole package.

Damn. He should stop thinking up such double entendres at a time like this.

He should have known that something would go wrong. It wasn't as horrible as Harry thought, but the ceremony was still interrupted.

Only by the wail of a ten-month-old girl searching for her beloved Harry.

So that's why Blythe Weasley was scrunched between Harry and Severus in their wedding photo of their kiss (sentimental reason by way of Remus).

The reception had been going pretty smoothly as well until both Hermione had tried to take credit for all the wonderful work.

Harry and Severus ignored it in favor of returning Blythe to her father (who was also not listening to above argument) and quietly sneaking out of the castle to the apparition spot. They didn't need any bags. Where they were going, clothes were definitely optional.

******

End :)

Imaginations are needed from here on in cause this is where I'm stopping.... ^___^

[1] Or, in other words, my story 'White Trash Weddings'