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The first time Harry Potter found himself compelled to rush to Severus Snape’s aid was that horrible night in the Shrieking Shack. Through sheer force of will, Harry kept silent, heart pounding, as Snakeface’s treasured sidekick dropped from her enchanted enclosure.
Dumbledore’s favorite living chess piece had his neck forcibly pierced by the sixth Horcrux of the Heir of Slytherin, as his second favorite wizard chess piece and seventh Horcrux looked on in abject terror. (Boo, hiss, Dumbledore! Gratuitous snake reference very much intended!). At the precise moment Voldemort made his dramatic exit, Harry practically trampled over the practically paralyzed other two thirds of the recently returned migratory Golden Trio (what a word full) to get to the dying man. The other two thirds snapped out of their decidedly unhelpful stupor to render first aid. Hermione delivered a conveniently clean, empty potion vial to Harry, to collect Snape’s rapidly escaping memories. (You’ve gotta hand it to Hermione, she was a committed recycler, a much more useful endeavor than forcing freedom upon perfectly happy Hogwarts House Elves, but this writer digresses. Again. Whoopsies!).
Harry felt the pull again, with far more urgency, after Voldemort had been vaporized. This time, he was delivered, via Fawkes himself, back to the Shrieking Shack, where both Harry, then Fawkes, cried their manly tears, snatching Snape from the jaws of Death, despite Death’s best efforts to separate Snape’s ethereal essence from his mangled body. One wave of the Deathstick, and Death released its grasp. Rather anticlimactic, but the Deathstick had power that Death knew not (Reaper-Be-Gone repellent, another fine potion developed by Severus Snape, the cleverest Wizard of his Generation, applied surreptitiously at mandatory gatherings with Sir Snakeyface and his henchmen.).
[Snarky aside number, sh@t, this writer’s lost count. In lieu of the term “Death Eaters”, I choose “henchmen”. First off, c’mon, where does that term make any sense? They are not zombies. How does a living magical being eat death? Okay, unless one a vegan, one does not eat death. Wait, not true - plants are alive. And omnivores eat previously living animals, as well as a few live ones - Oysters, anyone?
Secondly, Death Eaters are hardly an elite force of highly-trained duelers. One look at Stan Shunpike (human slime mould), Bella LeStrange (nuttier than squirrel scat) or Barty Crouch (nuttier than squirrel scat with Daddy issues) is proof enough that these Wixen are an assembly of drones following an egocentric megalomaniac with his own Daddy issues. I’ll Silencio my inner monologue now. Until I don’t.]
Okay, where were we? Shrieking Shack, two wizards, one critically wounded, and an incendiary rooster. Let’s continue. Fawkes materialized smack dab in the middle of the horribly understaffed infirmary, having used his “never failed yet” pearlescent phoenix tears to seal Snape’s wounds and purge Nagini’s Horcrux-tainted venom from the blood-depleted Headmaster. The insistent, irresistible urge to remain by Snape’s side kept Voldemort’s Vanquisher (the latest moniker foisted upon the beleaguered and reluctant hero by the Wizarding press) firmly planted at Snape’s bedside.
Repeated courses of blood replenishers and a rigorous physical therapy regimen later, Severus Snape was released from the infirmary, and Harry got as far away from the eviscerating tongue of the recovering wizard as he could, before he himself required blood replenishment. He chose to spend what would have been his last year of study at the Romanian dragon preserve, a much more pleasant environment to risk evisceration than one more second in the presence of the irascible Snape.
The years that followed saw Harry: complete his Hogwarts education by Hogwarts newly minted Owl Post correspondence school, complete his Auror training, and complete his undercover Muggle liaison training. He was now a Wizard Special Agent, specializing in diffusing crises involving Wixen living in Muggle communities. His involuntary overwhelming urge to save a totally unappreciative Severus Snape had laid dormant for nine years, until Harry was abruptly awakened in a blind panic. Without time to properly awaken, Harry was Apparated to the Forbidden Forest, just as the Headmaster was about to be attacked by a rogue Vampire. Even half-asleep, Harry and his trusty Deathstick dispatched the creature before Snape joined the ranks of the Undead.
One would think that this time, the infamous Wizard in mortal peril would appreciate yet another rescue from the literal jaws of death, but one would be wrong. “Save me from bumbling idiots with hero complexes,” he snarled. Harry countered with “Forever the drama queen,” before he was whisked away from the incandescent with rage, obviously dangerous Headmaster, and safely returned to his still toasty warm bed.
It was two years later, and Harry was surveilling a pair of Wixen drug dealers, gathering evidence of their manufacture of mind-altering potion pills, and their sale to unsuspecting Muggles, when he was snatched by the pull of apparition to Snape’s private dungeon laboratory, just before Snape was about to add four drops of the wrong component potion to his latest innovation, “Lie Be Gone” (a milder permutation of Veritaserum, suitable for use in children), saving Snape from an explosive final exit. Snape paused to look at the dropper bottle in his hand, understanding just how close to death he had been, before facing Potter. The Agent Who Lived was again whisked back to his undercover surveillance before Snape could hex Harry a new arsehole.
Another year passed before Harry was Apparated from a “mandatory meeting” (their monthly steak dinner with Kingsley Shacklebolt at an exclusive Muggle steakhouse), knife and fork in hand, to a dinner at Malfoy Manor. “How delightful of you to join us,” Lucius purred, as Severus was about to take his first forkful. “Drop that fork, Snape, the food is poisoned,” Potter exclaimed, and surprisingly, Severus obeyed. Harry grabbed Snape’s right forearm, and the two were deposited, safe and mostly sound (Snape was speechless), back at the sumptuous steakhouse. A chair materialized for the blessedly silent Potions Master, and Kingsley, acting as if Severus was an invited guest, asked Severus how he took his steak.
“How in Merlin’s name do you repeatedly extract me from almost certain demise?” Snape demanded. “Do you have tracers secreted upon my person?” Kingsley chuckled in his signature basso profundo. “Severus, as Harry already knows, you two are soulmates. When one soulmate is in peril, the other will Apparate to him, regardless of distance.”
“Harry Potter, the Pest Who Lived, why did not think to tell me of this development?”
“I value my life,” he exclaimed, before realizing his life could very well already be in danger with that admission.
“Relax, Harry, he cannot seriously hurt you; he can fire off some relatively harmless hexes, but those are nothing to a trained Auror with Seeker reflexes. And Severus, you can’t convince me that you were unaware of your status, your rescue from the Shrieking Shack was only possible because Harry here was compelled to save you. During the Unspeakable module of the Academy training, soulmates are discussed ad nauseum. Most soulmates never discover their status, the Wizarding wars uncovered several pairs. And despite the public perception soulmates, they are not automatically fated romantic pairs.”
“Are you absolutely certain that they are not, Minister Shacklebolt? Mister Potter’s sudden appearance in a stylish Muggle suit makes him a most desirable romantic companion,” Snape declared, before he could stop himself.
“You scrub up rather nicely yourself, Headmaster, although the effort is wasted on the likes of Malfoy Senior. And before you ask how Lucius slipped poison into your dinner undetected, you couldn’t scan for a lethal dose of a novel, Muggle-manufactured sedative with which you had no prior experience.”
“Gentleman, I suspect I am now what the Muggles call a third wheel. Enjoy your date, the first of many, before you settle into boned, oops, BONDED bliss.” Charlie Weasley popped in, puzzled to find himself in a British steakhouse, adjacent to a frightened looking Minister for Magic. “Watch out for these two, they’re packing cutlery,” Kingsley stammered, as his just-revealed soulmate whisked him off to a relatively safer location, a Romanian dragon preserve chock filled with fire breathing dragons.
Happily ever after is so much more satisfying when it’s interspersed with spontaneous microbursts of wickedly inventive hexing. Thusly, they lived their version of happily ever after.
Nox.