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tarrion

n. An odd interval of blankness you feel after something big happens to you but before you feel the resulting emotional reaction, like those tension-filled seconds between a flash of lightning and the thunderclap that follows, which gives you a hint of how near you are to the coming storm.

If anyone had cared to ask Harry when he was eleven years old, shiny-faced and wide-eyed and the smallest boy in his year, about the kind of man he envisioned himself to become, he would have described to them some version of what James Potter had been in the Mirror of Erised. Tall, with messy, fly-away hair, a shadow of stubble on his jaw and fierce, dark hazel eyes, James Potter had cut an impressive figure, and Harry, in his little boyhood, had wanted so badly to emulate everything his father was and had ever been.    

It was only in the years that followed that he realized that to be an adult wasn’t about being handsome and strong. Experience had taught him that the sum of a man’s worth was in the words the people who loved him could use to describe him. Forgiving, even when the actions of others made it difficult; trusting, even when he had no trust for anyone, not even himself. Resolute, to stand steadfast by his word, and compassionate, even when all the world had gone dark, and him with it.    

He'd gathered those words, and many more besides, a hoarded collection that was more idealized vision than logical reality. Ephemeral these days, the shapes of the words were vague, like fish in a pool. He could see them, just make out the vibrancy of their colors through the shimmering water, proud and brave and selfless, but he couldn’t catch them. They were just out of reach, no matter how hard he tried.     

Rain pounded against the metal roof of the Hogsmeade Train Depot and the thin glass windows in heavy torrents. He’s reminded eerily of Third Year, the way the storm that had towered over the Scottish Highlands had masked the Dementors flying towards them. How cold it had gotten. 

The storm had darkened the sky so much that Harry could just make out their reflection superimposed in the depot’s grimy windows, across the way from where they sat and waited for the Hogwarts Express to arrive. There was Ron, tall and lanky but for the way his shoulders had filled out in the last year, and Harry himself, who’d come into his height late, and which grief had kept skinny. Beside him, legs crossed, Hermione was all hair, the smart leather of her school loafers shiny even in the glass, Crookshanks and orange smear in her arms.

“Bloody strange, this is,” Ron mutters, scrubbing his fingers through his hair the way he only ever did when he was nervous. He’d kicked out his legs and crossed them at the ankle, the trousers he wore under his robes a navy blue. “I still say they ought to have given us our NEWTs without having to sit anything, seeing as how we took out the Dark Lord and all. Applied learning, and all.”

“Ah yes, of course. NEWTs in Tent Pitching, Gringott’s Burglary, and Cooking Wild Mushrooms, what useful subjects for a variety of job prospects,” Hermione replies. Crookshanks gives a sleepy mrr of annoyance from her lap where she’d cradled him like the biggest, ugliest baby. 

“Harry’d be able to do something with Cooking Wild Mushrooms. And I’ll bet the Goblins would hire me to tighten up their security. They need it, considering three half-starved Sixth Years robbed them blind and stole their manky dragon.”

“He wasn’t manky!”

“He was manky, ‘Mione. He was fully one-hundred-percent mank. His mank had mank. Harry, tell her.”

“Manky,” Harry agrees. Lightning cracked across the sky, briefly illuminating the castle’s turrets in the distance, before thunder crashed moments later and echoed across the valley. “It was half-starved and had been trapped underground for Merlin knows how long. I’m surprised it wasn’t completely mad.”

Ron leaps to his feet and shoves his hands into his robe pockets, striding up to the window for the fourth time in the last hour. The Hogwarts Express was late, but not surprisingly so, with this rain. “I still say we should have gotten some credit. This, this going back to school lark. It feels bloody strange.”

Tyros they were being called, or at least that was what Professor McGonagall had called them over the summer, when she’d offered them a chance to finish their education as apprentices. Hermione kept calling it an honor. In Harry’s quieter moments, the kind he’d never let on to, he thinks it more like a life vest thrown to someone who’d already drowned.   

“It does feel strange. I’ll be the oldest student of everyone.” Hermione scritches Crookshanks along the ears, a funny little smile at the edge of her mouth, and Harry’s reminded that she’d be twenty in just a few short weeks. 

“Practically a grandmum,” Ron says, and snorts a laugh at the stinging hex she sends his way with a little flick of her fingers. “Let’s look at the evidence. Bottomless bag filled with supplies, of which I’ll bet you’ve got toffies. Grandmums always have toffies.”

“I do not have toffies,” Hermione snips, prim and proper despite the tinge of pink rising up on her cheeks. “They’re strawberry bon-bons.”

“Oh, excusez-moi,” Ron replies, hands up in mock surrender. “You’re always giving us tissues you’ve got secreted all over yourself like a bloody lunatic, and, and,” he added, dodging another hex with a chortle of laughter, “just last week, I told you I wasn’t feeling well and you slapped the back of your hand against my forehead and pursed your lips like this.” He puckers his mouth in an exaggerated mew of concentration. “The evidence speaks for itself, the defense rests.”

“The defense is an idiot. I appreciate you, Hermione, especially your knitted hats and tea cozies,” Harry says.

“You both think you’re so funny,” she replies, glaring at them in that way she has that isn’t a glare at all. Ron’s eyes crinkle up with amusement. He absolutely had no clue what a besotted idiot he looks like, and Harry isn’t going to be the one to tell him. “But I seem to remember a certain winter where you both caught a cold and spent two weeks moaning pitifully and going through twelve boxes of my tissues and all of my cough drops.”

“We were in the Black Lake for an hour. In February.”

“I was there too!”

“You had Krum to keep you warm,” Ron says darkly, and Crookshanks purrs loudly at the name, almost certainly just to piss Ron off. He glares at the cat and Crookshanks licks his paw and glares right back. “All I had was Harry, who was even more of a stringbean than he is now.”

“Oi!”

“Well you were. You probably weighed eighty pounds even soaking wet.”

Harry’s not about to take the disparagement of his (tiny) Fourth Year self lying down, but before he can defend himself Ron says, “Ah, fuck, finally. They’re here.”

And they were, at that. The Hogwarts Express had finally appeared around the bend leading down into Hogsmeade Valley. The sound of the horn was nearly lost under the torrential downpour, smoke billowing from its smokestack as it began to slow down as it approached Hogsmeade Station. 

He could just see the shadow of Hagrid near the tree line. Hagrid had seen them, of course he’d seen them, illuminated as they were by the lights inside of the Station, but he hadn’t approached. He hadn’t even looked at them, rain flattening his coat and hair and beard. Something heavy and dull and lifeless in Harry’s being had twisted when he realized Hagrid wasn’t going to say anything to them, leaving an awful aftertaste that filled the back of his throat with sour metal. 

Something touches his hand, and he flinches, but it’s only Hermione, her cold fingers gently curling around his hand where it had bunched up in his robes. He lets go immediately and she laces her fingers through his. “It’s going to be alright,” she says quietly, and he closes his eyes and sets his head against hers for a moment. He feels more than hears Ron sit down on his other side, big hand on Harry’s shoulder, and he’s overwhelmed, as always, by how much they loved him. By how much he loved them. 

“You can’t know that.”

“Of course I can. Smartest witch of my age, or isn’t that what you both keep saying? Going to my head a bit.” She squeezes his hand. “We made a promise, remember?”

They had. They had, that night when they’d all sat together at the Burrow and talked out McGonagall’s offer of tyroship and somehow agreed to this insanity. We try it for one month, Hermione had said, a strange look in her eyes that Harry still hasn’t been able to figure out, but he’d seen it more and more whenever she looked at him. And if at the end of the month one of us can’t do this, then we all leave. 

The quality of Harry’s memories of the Battle of Hogwarts were tinged in a strange grayness, not unlike the haze that settled over fields and forests on a wet and humid morning, but for spots of violent color. The red of blood gone black on dirty, tear-streaked faces. The reflection of purple and yellow and blue hexes flying from a hundred wands against black roiling clouds of ozone and smoke. The green flash of Avada Kedavra, so bright and numerous that there was a sound to them, subhuman and clenching like a fist around his heart. 

There had only been the blood that had soaked through his canvas shoes, the metallic smell of it that clung to his clothes, and his hands. He could still smell it, sometimes.

Harry’s long past the point where education, tyroship, can help him. He keeps putting one foot in front of the other for want of anything else. He isn’t going anywhere, and likewise, he had nowhere to go. But he knows that Ron and Hermione wouldn’t have agreed to the tyroship without him, and he’s long past the point where he’d stand in their way. 

Here, at the end of days, it was his turn to help them see this through; it was his turn, now, to sacrifice so that they could have better. 

One month, Ron had said, looking at Harry as he’d said it.

“I remember,” he says, and Hermione squeezes his hand. 

The train finally rolls into Hogsmeade Station, coming to a stop in a cacophony of whistling and squealing brakes and torrential downpour. They watch as the children pour out of the train and scarper to the carriages, as Hagrid comes to collect the littlest ones, bedraggled and just about drowning. His lamp bobbed in the darkness and the children followed him like little ducklings. They wait until nearly all of the carriages had gone, until only one remained, the eerie glow of the thestral’s eyes like lamplight even through the pouring rain, and them Hermione squeezes his hand and they step out of the Station.

They got soaked, regardless of the many stay-dry charms Hermione applies to their clothes, and Crookshanks yowls from his basket, hissing and swiping through the little slats as if he could beat the rain back into submission. The carriage, at least, is covered and warm, though it smells just a bit mildewed, even over the heavy animal-smell of the thestrals. 

The carriage takes them up the familiar path to Hogwarts, through the Main Gates flanked on either side by winged hogs and guarded by a low hum of magic that prickles along his neck when they come through. Harry can almost see where the dead bodies of the giants had torn out the foliage and trees, though the forest seemed to have begun to recover in the year and a half since Harry had been here. 

In the light of the full moon and a thousand twinkling stars, Hagrid is crossing the lake with all the little boys and girls making this journey for the first time. If he closed his eyes he could almost smell the water, feel it splash against his face where he grasped the boat’s edge. The little lights from the boat cast an orange glow on the still water.

The last of the children are racing up to the Great Hall doors when their carriage stops, holding their backpacks and cloaks over their heads and screaming with laughter, while still others held their faces up to the pounding rain, walking with leisurely purpose as if to say well, I’m soaked already, so might as well enjoy it. 

Ron’s knee is bouncing again. 

“Well,” Hermione says, though she doesn’t move to step out of the carriage. Neither does Harry. 

“Well,” Ron echoes, his voice a low croak. He clears his throat. “We’re doing this, then. It’s a thing we’re going to do. As adults. Go to classes and play quidditch and all the rest, like we didn’t break into Gringotts and go horcrux hunting and bloody murder Voldemort. Just. Go to Transfiguration and write essays and sneak about the castle under Harry’s Invisibility Cloak.”

“...Reckon so.”

“It’s absolutely bloody ridiculous,” Hermione says, and bursts into nervous giggles when Harry and Ron turn to stare at her. “Well it is! Though I won’t be sorry to get to use the Hogwarts Library again, the Ministry Library doesn’t hold a candle to it, really.”

“And there she is,” Ron says, rolling his eyes with a smile pulling at the corner of his mouth.

A thousand wet footprints took them through the Entrance Hall, where hundreds of trunks, suitcases and backpacks were waiting to be taken to the dorms. The doors of the Great Hall stood wide open, the last of the kids scampering through with only a few double-takes at Harry. The children were laughing and shrieking and running from table to table as kids did, greeting friends and shouting across the hall to one another. As Harry once had, in another life. 

The ceiling was eclipsed by a stormy gray, lightning cracking through the enchanted candles, but over the Head Table the clear, colored streaks of the Milky Way hung like a masterpiece against the backdrop of black velvet night sky. The four tables, done up in Welcome Feast colors and golden goblets, glowed against the shining marble floors marred by wet footprints. Oddly enough, three long tables stood empty between Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff, and the Great Hall had been expanded to fit them.     

At the end of the hall, under the massive golden windows that looked out to the Quidditch Pitch and the northern grounds, the Head Table had been done up in the traditional dark purple Welcome Feast table coverings. Silver goblets and plates glittered against the rich velvet of the runner, the mahogany of the table itself. Silent and still and unobtrusive on its old stool just in front of the Head Table, the Sorting Hat – singed now, a bit more battered, stained dark in places but whole and well and silent – waited for the First Years to arrive. 

The professors stood just behind it in their finest robes, talking to one another in small groups. Standing out amongst them is McGonagall, wearing Dumbledore’s enormous, purple Welcome Feast wizard’s hat, despite how clearly irritated it’s making her, but wearing it, even when she had to poke one of the silver stars repeatedly with the tip of her wand as it tried to escape the hat and down onto her purple and black tartan robes.  

Her smile, when she sees them, fans a dozen wrinkles around her eyes. She nods, gently, towards a small round table near the front and to the right of the Head Table, done up the same purple velvet. Harry hadn’t expected to sit at the Gryffindor table anymore, not really, but there’s a pang low and deep inside of him for lost chances and a past that can never be.

The noise in the hall had reached a crescendo, hundreds of little voices grating and scraping against the back of his skull. At the Head Table Professor McGonagall, and indeed all of the teachers, began to find their seats, the signal to the students to do the same. She’d lost the fight with the star on Dumbledore’s ridiculous hat, which had inched down to her shoulder and is making quick work of zooming cheerfully up and down her sleeve.  

A tall, dark-haired young man turns from his conversation with Flitwick to hold out McGonagall’s seat for her, and the air seizes in Harry’s chest.

He’d been in the destroyed remnants of the Music Hall, bolstering up the destroyed wall when Snape had been found, the night of the Battle. He’d heard the shouting, seen the red sparks calling for Aurors followed almost immediately by the electric green for Mediwizards, but by the time Harry had made it down to the Great Hall they were already gone to St. Mungo’s.  

Fawkes’s doing, Kingsley had told them in the weeks after the Battle, when Harry was putting more firewhiskey into his body than food and his limbs had slowly, steadily grown numb, like a dying creature folding inward. We don’t know how, Phoenix magic is badly understudied. None of the Healers at St. Mungo’s can tell us one way or the other, and the Unspeakables are bloody being unspeakable about it. 

Harry had known what to expect, had been told explicitly by McGonagall, but being told, he now understands, is a different thing to seeing with his own two eyes what had become of Severus Snape.     

He still stood tall and proud, still wore those ridiculous, billowing teaching robes, but there the comparison to the man Harry had known ends. Fawkes healed more than the snake bites, McGonagall had told them, and here, now, was the evidence of that.

If Harry didn’t know him, he would have never guessed that the young, healthy man standing next to McGonagall, twenty-five years old at most and just entering the prime of his life, is Snape.   

Snape glows, like a light had flickered on somewhere deep in his being. There was warmth to his complexion now that was never there before, good health pinking his skin from a sallow sheen to olive tones, and his long hair fell in dark, soft waves around his face. He’d always been tall, and that breadth and strength in his shoulders remained the same, but there was something about the way he carried himself, a taper of his waist under his robes, that gave the impression of capability and power. His eyes, once so deep and sunken and tired, were bright chips of obsidian that brought out his hair, his complexion, the quality of his mouth, no longer tight and lined with stress but relaxed and soft.

As if sensing his attention, Snape turns to look at him. Harry thought he’d known every nuance of his face, had spent seven years picking up on every sour micro expression, every curl of those lips, the tightening around those eyes.     

He can’t read him, now. Snape’s face, perfect porcelain and unlined, is blank and closed to him. Like they were nothing more than strangers.  

McGonagall claps her hands and the room falls quiet, but for the rustle of five hundred robes and sets of shoes and nervous hands. “Welcome back to Hogwarts, students and friends. A long year has passed since I last had the honor to stand before you. We are all of us older, and wiser, and changed from the people we were. The new children who begin with us this year will soon be sorted, and so too with them begins our new legacy. As we embark on this, our nine-hundred and forty-seventh school year, we stand in remembrance of our friends and loved ones, old and new, still with us or now gone.”     

McGonagall’s voice trembles, and she pauses. The room is deathly silent and Harry lets himself remember that these kids had gone through the war too. They’d been here when Dumbledore fell to his death, and when Death Eaters attacked Hogwarts. They’d been here when their classmates turned on each other, when the boy they’d eaten breakfast with, the girl they’d walked to class with, had turned their wands against them. 

They’d been here when Harry’s supposed dead body had been brought back by terrifying figures in black, by Voldemort, the creature that haunted their dreams, and with his death all the hope of the Wizarding World gone.    

“We are beginning a year not quite like any other in living memory, the wounds on our school equal to the wounds in our hearts,” McGonagall continues, her voice shaking once before growing stronger. “Each of you have lost a year while Hogwarts was rebuilt, while your friends and teachers healed, and while the Wizarding World once again found its footing. We will be rebuilding and healing for many years to come. You are not alone in this brave new world we are now facing, in life plans disrupted. We are here, facing it together.    

“How we move forward now will be the making of us, and will be felt for all the generations to come. Headmaster Dumbledore believed in love, above all things. I ask that you look at those around you not in judgment or anger, but with forgiveness and compassion. Each of you here, no matter your House, are the beloved children of Hogwarts. Bigotry, fighting, and anger only serve to divide us. I have no tolerance for cruelty, or for heartlessness. All who call this castle home are deserving of an education, of friendship, of respect and love.”    

As she says this, she looks to the Slytherin table, the barest of all the Houses, not even a hundred students left across the seven years. They look wounded, some with hunched shoulders and averted eyes, others with heads thrown back, proud, jaws set. 

Just kids. Thirteen and fourteen-year-olds. Children.     

“I set you forward with a task this year,” McGonagall says, and even the star, which had been inching its way down her wrist, pauses at the tone of her voice. “Find time in your day to practice kindness. Not just to a friend, or a housemate, or a teammate, but to the boy in your Charms class you’ve never spoken to, the girl in your Herbology class who keeps to herself. We are not our house colors, and to live life in that vein is a disservice to the soul behind the yellow, the red, the green, or the blue.”    

She waves her wand in a complicated arc, and suddenly all the house colors at the tables fade to the rich velvet purple of the professor’s table, of the round table Harry, Ron and Hermione were sitting at. The three empty tables do as well, and Harry realizes what McGonagall intends moments before she does it.    

“We will no longer attend classes by House, nor will we sit by House while attending our meals in the Great Hall. Each of you will sit by your year level,” McGonagall says, and with another flourish of her wand, sparks gather into numbers above each table, indicating the year group that was to sit there. “I ask that you move now, please.”    

A low, shocked murmur echoes through the Hall, the students looking at one another with wide eyes, but when McGonagall just stands there patiently, they seem to realize this isn’t a joke. The sound of hundreds of children on the move, the scrapes of benches, echo through the hall. 

Even separated by age, the Slytherins had been set apart, or maybe kept themselves apart, going by the ferocious glare of a dark-haired little boy who can’t be older than thirteen and who looks like he was one bad word from bursting into furious tears, or the hunched shoulders of a seventh year, who had sat near the end of the last table and kept her head down.     

McGonagall nods sharply. “Deputy Headmaster Snape, if you would, please.”    

The shocked gasp that tears through the student body almost makes Harry smile. Almost. At another time in his life, he'd have been one of those children. They should have seen it coming a mile away – Snape is sitting in McGonagall’s old seat, after all. How could it be anyone except Snape?    

Snape rose to his feet and came around the Head Table. Whatever Fawkes had done to him had only made his movements even more liquid and graceful, and Harry would never stop being impressed how he could make his robes do that, like they had a life of their own, flowing out behind him in a swirl of black fabric. 

He learned how to do it Seventh Year. Scared the little ones, but that was the point. Even with his giant stack of books under his arm and his satchel over his shoulder carrying god knew what, he could whip around, his robe swirling dramatically around his calves, to pin Harry with a glare that –

“Alrigh’ there, Firsties, no need to be worried now, it’s just a bit of business we’ve to get to,” Hagrid says, the massive, dripping bulk of him coming up between the tables, followed by little Firsties that resemble half-drowned ducklings more than anything else. “You just be nice to the – ah yes, there it is, the Sorting Hat, didja know it’s under a Fidelius? – and give it the respect it deserves, it won’t hurt a bit. Alright then, Professor Snape, we’re ready for yeh.”

The First Years were terrified. They usually were, in Harry’s experience, though there was an edge to them this year that’s new. There were fewer of them, the fewest Harry’d ever seen in his time at Hogwarts, especially a double class such as this. He’d expected over a hundred eleven and twelve-year-old's, but as they file past he sees that this new class barely counts forty.  

Snape eyes them as they finally sway to a stop. The power of that ferocious gaze hadn’t changed, at the very least, and in his teacher’s robes he looks all the more intimidating.   

“When I call your name you will come forward, I will set the Sorting Hat on your head, and you will be sorted into your House,” Snape intones, and the only thing recognizable about his voice was the controlled menace.     

Before, when Harry – before, Snape’s voice had been deep, rumbling at times. It was still deep, but there was something about it now, like the life of pain that had been washed away from his skin with Fawkes’ tears had also healed something in his throat that none of them had known was damaged. 

Harry wonders, fleetingly and not for the first time, how many times Snape had suffered the Cruciatus Curse to have caused his voice to become so gravely. It was a pain unimaginable, like his very bones were trying to come free of his skin; as if white-hot knives were being driven into every part of him, worst in his core points, the hollows of his armpits, the nape of his neck, the tender flesh of his groin, the arches of his feet, and the small of his back. Worse still, to have had it cast on him by Voldemort, who had pushed such power through the curse that Harry had experienced tremors in his limbs that whole summer. 

He’d found a book about the curse at Grimmauld Place. Behind the exceedingly rude painting of one of Sirius’s dusty old relatives, who called him half blood and hurled obscenities about Harry’s parentage on the regular and his cock when he was feeling particularly vulgar, was a wizardspace hiding a massive library that made the Forbidden Section at Hogwarts look like Aunt Petunia’s Modern Housewife Monthly. There were books that dripped blood into an unending pool on the threadbare green carpet, books wrapped in what could only be human skin, books that shuddered and shook when he got too close to them, and an entire section of books chained shut, a wretched moan emanating from them that set all of Harry’s hair on end.     

Harry was brave to the point of stupidity, but even he couldn’t tolerate the room for longer than a few minutes at a time. Still, aside from the blood books and the screaming books and the books that wafted with that same oily, dark haze that beckoned him to the kitchen at midnight, there were others that he felt safe enough to bring out into the house proper. One, a slim volume by Jonathan Simdee, was the most interesting of all. 

Despite its long winded title, The Cruciatus Curse: The History and Ramifications for Eighteenth Century Magical Britain, it had turned out to be fascinating. Simdee had dug into the origin of the curses, which was fascinating in its own right, but it was in chapter nineteen that Harry had felt a pull somewhere deep of understanding. Impossible though to describe, this author endeavors to help his readers appreciate the mental and physical ramifications of those who have suffered the Cruciatus Curse. To describe it simply as ‘pain’ is a disservice to those unfortunate wixen who have felt the weight of this curse. The mechanics of the Cruciatus, as described in chapter fourteen, are simple: the curse attacks the neurological network of the human body, disrupting the signals of the nerves to the brain and causing a feedback loop. Often resulting in neuropathy, the –  

“Harry,” Hermione says quietly.    

He becomes aware of the sound of cutlery first. Clink clink against the fine silver and white plates, forks and knives and spoons.     

The swell of voices comes next. The muted roar of hundreds of children speaking and laughing with one another.    

The weight of his brain in his head comes after. The stiffness in his shoulders from staying so still so long. The pounding pain of a headache behind his left eye. The ache in his left foot that hasn’t been right since the Battle of Hogwarts and made worse by his disapparition accident.     

The Sorting was over, and the feast had begun.     

At the new First Year table the forty children all sit together, green and yellow, blue and red, all intermingled and chattering as they fill their plates. The fear of the Sorting now over, they’re happily giggling with one another. There’s a boy double-fisting chicken legs not unlike Ron used to do as a Firstie, and it brings a smile to Harry’s face for the first time in a long time.     

There are no chicken legs at their small round table, or simple vegetables palatable to young people, but platters of roasted squash and potatoes, cutlets of pork and chicken, dark grainy breads and flagons of beer and juice and tea and coffee. There’s enough to feed twelve, not three, and Harry wishes he had an appetite for it.     

He can remember the joy of so much food, how shocked he’d been to find it so plentiful and hearty and available, and how he couldn’t quite trust it. He’d often smuggled rolls and apples in his pockets and hid them in his trunk, just in case. It would take nearly a year to break him of that behavior, and a series of summer regressions to have the habit continue well into Third Year. Even now, alone at Grimmauld Place and a man grown who could buy whatever he wanted to eat, he’d carry biscuits in his pockets from room to room without quite thinking about it.    

Hermione had begun serving the three of them while Harry was lost, a habit she hasn’t broken from their days on the run. He serves her right back, making sure she gets an extra helping of chicken that he remembers she likes, and then breaks one of the dark brown loaves in half, smearing butter on it and handing one end to Ron. Ron, meanwhile, pours them all juice, something tart and refreshing that Harry can’t quite name, and vanishes the beer back to the kitchens. They’d gone down that rabbit hole, he and Ron, and worse bedsides, and it wouldn’t do to retread those steps.    

The food is as delicious as he remembered it to be, and the salty gravy, rich and dark, is enough to wake up some synapses in his brain gone quiet. He feels more present in his body as he eats, and he’s able to follow the conversation Ron and Hermione are having, still an argument (always an argument), but a bit more than that, these days.     

Puddings and pies, cakes and torts begin to replace the food, but Harry had lost his taste for sweets like this some time ago. Coffee, though, had become synonymous with his life after Hogwarts, and the dark, rich, bitter flavor of it eases the tightness in his throat, the tremble in his hands.     

It was always during the afters that Dumbledore would begin his series of reminders, but it’s Snape who stands, with a nod from McGonagall, and Snape who raises a hand for silence. He needn’t have – the entire student body falls silent as soon as he stands, because the man is fully one-third vampire and could scare children with the single arch of a brow.    

He looks out across the seven tables, and then casts his eyes to where Harry, Ron and Hermione are sitting. “You’ll have noticed we have some… unexpected additions to our student body this year. In light of their sacrifice to Wizardkind, Headmistress McGonagall and the Ministry of Magic have extended Ms. Granger, Mr. Weasley, and Mr. Potter the invitation to finish their education, to which they have agreed.” Snape says this with an air of as they would been idiots to decline, but Harry thinks he’s the only one who picks up on it, knowing Snape as he does.     

“Let me make plain how you are to proceed,” he continues. “You will not pester them. You will not ask them inappropriate questions to sate your infantile curiosity. Should I hear of any inappropriate conversations occurring, detention will be the least of your concerns.”   

At this McGonagall coughs and Snape full on sneers, and some cold, aching place in Harry goes warm. If Snape is sneering, even in this new, strange shape on this new, strange day where Snape is defending their privacy, then all is right with the world.     

He goes on to announce Quidditch try-outs the following week (“A concussion for fully half of you would be an improvement”); the new lab schedule for Potions and Transfiguration, as well as the tutoring schedule for the Triple-A Threat: Arithmancy, Alchemy, and Astronomy; and reminds students that the Forbidden Forest is called forbidden for a reason (“Though should you chose to disregard this warning, six potions of my own devising use the blood of fresh corpses”).    

McGonagall stands, eyeing Snape with pursed lips, and he smirks, completely unrepentant. “Thank you, Professor Snape. Now, if there are no questions, off to bed with all of you.”  

The roar of that many children suddenly on the move makes Harry flinch, fingers tightening to white on his cup of coffee: calls from Prefects and the Head Boy and Girl, the Firsties screaming when the Bloody Baron and Nearly Headless Nick appear near them, the laughter from the older students. Most of the professors, including Snape, follow them, grim-faced at the prospect of the next hour.     

Hermione squeezes his wrist, a counterweight and a lifeline. Ron, too, leans over the table and unobtrusively blocks Harry’s view of the herd of hippogriffs cheerfully making their way out of the Great Hall, in such a way that Harry doesn’t appear the absolute nutter he has become.    

How he loves these two people.    

He must say it aloud – he does, sometimes, say things aloud that he doesn’t necessarily mean to – because Ron just chuckles and Hermione sets her chin on his shoulder, beaming at him. Harry sighs, shaky, and tugs on one of Hermione’s curls.    

As quickly as the noise started the Great Hall empties, but for a handful of professors and the three of them.     

“Get louder e’ry year,” Hagrid grumbles as he comes around the table, an enormous smile on his blotchy face, like they can’t see the big teardrops glistening in his beard. Like he hadn’t been at the Station, pretending he couldn’t see them. He can’t quite meet Harry’s eye. 

Hagrid had loved him – still does, Harry knows – but Hagrid had carried Harry’s lifeless body back to Hogwarts, and that had left a scar on him as obvious as the one on Harry’s face. “Alright then? Make it to the train okay? Packed your cauldrons and your socks?”    

“I do believe he’s taking the micky, Harry,” says Ron with a smile, squeezing Harry’s knee under the table.  

“Me? Why I never saw a greater smirch against my name,” Hagrid says, blowing his nose into his curtain-sized handkerchief. His smile is wobbly at best, trembling at the corners and as red as his eyes. “Dumbledore’d be so proud that y’took the chance to come back. He’d’ve wanted you to finish, proper-like.”    

“Did, and has, insisted upon it,” Professor McGonagall says from behind them. She’d lost control of the stars on her hat, and they’re zooming cheerfully from tartan to purple velvet and back again. She looks far less tired than she had in June when she’d asked them to Diagon for tea, the lines on her face eased. Harry can’t imagine what the stress of the castle’s reconstruction must have been for her, compounded by trying to set up classes for a double-cohort of First Years. “I take it the trip didn’t cause any undo trouble?”    

“Not at all, Professor. We’re so grateful to be given this opportunity,” says Hermione as she stands, he and Ron following suit. “The work you’ve done in the last year is amazing – the castle looks almost back to normal.”    

“As it should. The Board has a great many failures to make up for, and patching up the castle is but one.” Professor McGonagall eyes them sharply, assessing the three of them with pursed lips. “You’re not eating enough. We’ll remedy that this year. In the meantime, make sure to visit Madame Pomfrey before week’s end for a full check up.”  

“Blimey, Professor,” Ron says. McGonagall peers at him over her spectacles. Sense seems to come back into that red-headed brain, because he pales. “I mean, sorry – we’re alright, honestly we are.”    

“T-too skinny by half,” Hagrid says, mopping his eyes again and pointedly not looking at Harry. “Got to f-feed you lot up.”

“Quite so,” McGonagall says, and pats Hagrid’s enormous forearm kindly. “Off to bed with you Rubeus, you have an early morning. I’m taking them upstairs now.”

“You’re n-not needing any help with the portraits, Professor?”

“Not if they know what’s good for them,” she says grimly, and rolls her eyes when Hagrid lets out a snort of teary laughter. “To bed, there’s a lad. You three, follow me.”

McGonagall ushers them across the Great Hall to the door to the left, off the professor’s dais, to the Trophy Room. He’s expecting the glinting silver and gold cups, the pillars that held the plaques with all the Quidditch teams for the past thousand years, but when McGonagall opens the door it isn’t the Trophy Room at all. It’s an enormous, windowless antechamber, perfectly square. Cavernous and echoing, the only light comes from a massive fireplace with a stone hearth that sweeps up into the darkness above, lit only by a ring of floating candles. He thinks there might be wood paneling covering each wall, but he can hardly tell, because crammed into every available inch of space are hundreds upon hundreds of portraits.     

He's never seen this many portraits at Hogwarts or anywhere else. Some big, some small, some figures dressed in medieval garb, some with the poofy necklines popular from Shakespeare’s time, some –   

“‘Allo there, Minnie!” calls a voice from somewhere above, and a chorus of voices ring out from the portraits. 

“Good evening all,” Professor McGonagall says, closing the door behind her. “Welcome to the Hall of the Professors.”

“Is that Nearly Headless Nick?” Ron asks, eyes wide, as a man in a velvet doublet with a poofy white ruff winks at them from a long panel with a bowl of fruit in the foreground. “It is! That’s him. Young though, he doesn’t have the mustache yet.”    

“Professor de Mimsy-Porpington, before he was knighted,” McGonagall confirms, a little smile on her face. “He taught Charms here for a year, badly, before going to Henry the Seventh’s court.”    

Hermione points to a small, black frame, hardly larger than a piece of parchment, where a portly woman in mismatched pink and yellow robes is sitting in front of a window overlooking the Great Lake. “Is that Bernie the Babbler?”    

“Excuse me,” the woman in the portrait says, eyeing Hermione furiously. “Presumptuous cheek!”    

“Bernilda Babbling,” McGonagall confirms with a sigh. “My Ancient Runes professor, blathered on for hours if she had a mind for it, with nothing much of substance to say.”    

Bernie gasps, quite literally clutching her pearls with outrage, and for the first time in nearly a year, Harry laughs. It’s a rusted and broken thing to his ears, but Ron spins to him with a huge smile on his face, and Hermione’s eyes suddenly go very wet.     

McGonagall, not realizing the commotion she’s caused, glares at Bernie properly. “Oh, you know it’s the truth, no need to lie at this late date. Has the vote been made? Who’s working the door this year?”    

Bernie sniffs. “I am mortified, mortified I tell you, to my very soul!”    

“Oi,” says someone from a lower portrait near the floor, a broad, red-faced man in burgundy professorial robes and an incongruous pork pie hat on his head. He has the thickest cockney accent Harry’s ever heard. “That’s cruel that is, getting her in a lather and then leaving us to her shrieking the rest of the night. You considered our proposal yet, Minnie?”     

“This is the Hall of Professors, Jenkins, and here you will stay,” McGonagall says tartly, to an overwhelming chorus of boos and fully one-third of the portrait figures throwing up their hands in disbelief and making as if to leave. None of them actually do, nosy numpties that they are, but Harry supposes it’s the principal of the thing. One of the stars from Dumbledore's insane hat sits perched at her shoulder, shaking one star-point in what is clearly outrage on their behalf. “Really Bernie, I apologize. You’re above such rubbish.”    

“Perhaps in life I was, but I’ve decided to speak my mind in the afterlife,” she says with a sniff and a haughty air. “Oh, fine. It’s Viridian this year if you must know.”    

“I must,” McGonagall says, and spins on her heel. A handsome older man in a Victorian suit, with a close-cropped, salt-and-pepper beard, slicked back gray hair, and a genial expression gazes back at her. He’s nice to look at, if a bit strange with his bat-wing eyebrows and pointy beard, except the smirk he gives Professor McGonagall is at best shit-eating, and at worst, downright gleeful. “A happy Start-of-Term to you, Headmistress,” he says cheerfully in a sing-song voice. “My, my, how the tables have turned.”  

McGonagall pinches the bridge of her nose. “Oh, Bernie. What did he promise you?”    

There’s a flurry of portrait voices, all shouting to be heard over the other, and Ron turns wide eyes at him. “Mental.”    

Harry can’t help but agree. He’s seen the portraits at Hogwarts do some wild things in his time, but all the figures keep rushing through each other’s portraits to be a part of the action. At present they’re all gathered between the three portraits nearest Viridian, speaking over one another and waving at McGonagall to get her attention.    

“Enough,” snarls a voice from Harry’s left, and he turns and looks right into Professor Snape’s face.   

It’s a great likeness of him, Harry has to admit, and far from the youthful man who had been in the Great Hall not ten minutes before. Tall and regal in his black robes, with his dark, sunken eyes and waxy complexion, the painted depiction of the man Harry had known for nearly a decade is doing more of an impression of a raven than of a person. Even the background of the painting is black, making his face stand out in ghostly relief.     

Hermione gasps and Harry has a terrible moment where he thinks Snape has died, he can’t go through it again, but McGonagall catches his arm, gently squeezing. “Peace,” she says, and the portrait voices quiet nearly at once. “Yes, it’s Professor Snape as he was – no, we don’t know how. The painting became animated in the minutes after he died, or so this lot told me, and stayed animated even after Fawkes – even after. It seemed ill-done to put the portrait in a closet or in storage.”    

“Very much so,” the portrait Snape answers, haughty and annoyed, and pierces McGonagall with a look. “The child charlatan?”    

“At this very moment indoctrinating the First Years into Slytherin House,” McGonagall says, and looks upon her old friend with a little smile on her face. “I thought better of you, Severus, really. Why didn’t you stop him?”    

The portrait of Snape studies his nails, indifferent. “You know why.”    

“Potioneers – and Slytherins – stick together,” Viridian says, smirking, and straightens his cravat with a fastidious little tug. “It was decided that the return of Harry Potter to Hogwarts in this new capacity warranted a prestigious voice for the Hall of the Professors, though I fear we’ve left him with a poor impression already.”    

Harry silently agrees, but he’s seen firsthand what happened when someone was rude to the Fat Lady, and he isn’t about to fall down a similar trap here, even if the portrait of Snape makes him feel as if someone is trampling over his own grave. He can’t imagine what it feels like for Snape, the living and breathing one.    

McGonagall sighs. “Fine, then. If all are in accord, then I will allow it, but I will have my eye on you, Vindictus.”    

Viridian beams, positively radiating innocence. “Outstanding. This year’s password is novis initiis.”    

“A bit on the nose.” McGonagall eyebrow arches as she gives the incantation, and Viridian grins smugly.    

With a metallic click the painting swings open to reveal a spiral staircase. They follow McGonagall up the winding tower, and through a set of double doors, until they come onto an extremely familiar hallway. To the right, through a long line of enormous, curved windows, lays the sprawling view of the Great Lake and the Forbidden Forest, Dumbledore’s grave and the Quidditch Pitch. It’s the winged Gargoyle, glowering fiercely out at them from its tower hollow at the end of the hall, that makes Harry’s heart pound.    

McGonagall, however, doesn’t take them to the Gargoyle and up to the Headmaster’s -- now Headmistress’s -- office. There’s a curving hallway to the right of the Gargoyle that Harry is certain wasn’t there before, and which leads to a pair of wide, ancient double doors engraved with runes and sigils Harry can’t read. “Wands out,” McGonagall says, and they each of them have their wands in hand almost before she finishes speaking. “Tap the doors twice please, and say, liceat hic ingressum.”  

They do so, and the edges of the doors glow the soft, minty green Harry recognizes as the ancient magic Hogwarts prefers, before settling once more. The doors creak open to a cozy, sprawling common room, nothing like the lived-in mess of Gryffindor Tower, or even the cold elegance of the Slytherin Dungeon. 

The room, oblong in shape, holds a massive meeting table on the left that could easily seat thirty, with the brother of the headmaster’s chair in the Great Hall sitting at the center. To the right, a dozen sofas and squashy armchairs are scattered before a huge fireplace. Among them are tiny side tables with bowls of sweets, several copies of the Daily Prophet, and a host of journals and magazines. 

There aren’t any portraits in the room – rather, every inch of wall space is lined with bookshelves near to heaving with their spoils, thousands of books that stretch from floor to ceiling, accessible with a number of rolling ladders. Two equally large windows on either side of the fireplace overlook the grounds. In a chair before the window, right where Harry assumes there’s a nasty little draft, sits Binns, snoring.    

A beautiful grand piano, mahogany brown and gleaming with care and age, stands just beside one of the windows to Harry’s right and makes his fingers itch. He can’t play a note, but the visceral sensation of tapping a key and hearing the sound, high or low, has always captivated him. They’d only had a week with keyboards in his primary school music class, but he can still remember the pleasure at the way he could make that little electric instrument play music notes, one after the other after the other. He’s always thought that, given half the chance, he would have loved the piano, and played it well.     

Directly across from the entrance door, on the far side of the room, is a kitchen with an 8-burner hob and a huge, L-shaped island Aunt Petunia would have killed for, with twelve stools lined up along it. There are two hallways to either side of the kitchen, but Harry can’t quite see what’s down there from his vantage point.

McGonagall steps through the room like she lives there, which clearly she does. Harry had never really thought about where the professors lived at school, had assumed that they had rooms near their classrooms, or off their offices, but this is a home as much as Gryffindor Tower ever was. The detritus of life, from the empty sweets wrappers next to one of the sofas to the bowls of fruit on the island, to the chess set with a game half-done, speak to this space being lived in.    

“Let’s get you settled, just a few signatures and we’ll be done.” McGonagall motions for them to sit at the meeting table, as she takes the plain chair at the head of the table. It’s strange that the ornate chair should be at the center of the table rather than the head of it. She taps the hat with a finger and the stars vacate her tartan, swirling into the familiar pattern on the purple velvet. Removing the hat sends her curls askew, and reminds Harry of the times when she stood outside marking student names for Hogsmeade weekends, telling them to be careful and not eat too many sweets as the wind ruffled her robes.

She looks at each of them for a long moment, and suddenly her eyes are too bright, and filled with all she found so hard to say. “It’s very good to see you three here. Very good. It is my deepest regret that I could not extend to you a Seventh Year last year, that it took so long to bring you back. I am so sorry.”

“There’s no need to be sorry, Professor,” Ron says, rubbing the back of his head awkwardly. Never did do well with emotions, Ron. “Even if you could’ve, we weren’t in a great place to have taken you up on it. Mum says things happen the way they do when they should.”

“Molly is a very wise woman.”

“Don’t let her hear you say that,” he replies, smiling a little. “I argued with her, about coming back.”

“I expected Ms. Granger to take me up on it, but I would have been very surprised if you and Mr. Potter hadn’t had reservations about returning. I am more pleased than I can say to see you both sitting here before me.”

‘Reservations’ was one word for the agonized indecision Ron had been going through for the past two months. For Harry it was different. Going back to school had been just as good as anything, to fill the days. 

She taps her wand on the surface of the table and a ledger appears, scrolls and quills beside it. “As you know from our conversation this summer, the school charter allows for any number of apprenticeships and advanced study courses, though only to students of appropriate age, seventeen and no older. As you’re all beyond the limit of Hogwarts attendance now, it was decided by the Wizengamot to reinstate the tyro apprentice program, which is how I was able to extend to you not only a NEWT year, but a course of advanced study that meets the requirement of tyroship.”

From what McGonagall had told them, taking on adult students had been more than just a ‘spot of conversation’ with the Wizengamot. They’d agreed, of course they’d agreed, regardless of which side they’d been on during the war – Harry, Ron and Hermione were the liberators of the Wizarding World and to be heralded for all time for their bravery, or so Rita Skeeter had written in her long-winded exposé, The Golden Trio: How Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, and Ronald Weasley saved the Wizarding World. 

Besides, the Wizengamot knew better than to villainize him, not now. Voldemort had died, and Harry had won, and overnight he’d become the most powerful political player in Wizarding Britain. Harry had the Potter and Black seats by birthright, and the seats of sixteen former Death Eater families by conquer rights. He controlled fully one third of the voting bloc. 

There are a lot of forms to sign, Harry realizes. They’re being brought on as apprentice quasi-professors, which came with it a modest salary, but which necessitated they set up their Gringotts vaults to receive their pay. They had to sign medical and magical powers of attorney for Madame Pomfrey to care for them in case of injury or illness. All meals would be covered by the school, including the full kitchen in the Professor’s Hall where they currently sat, but anything extra would need to come from their own pay. Alcohol was permitted but discouraged during the work week, smoking was at-will, and any type of dalliance with a student, regardless if that student was at their majority, was strictly prohibited.     

Harry signs where McGonagall points, over and over, as the professors begin to arrive. They don’t interrupt except to give the three of them beaming smiles, and Harry feels something squirm in his belly. 

Flitwick had sat himself by the fire and was extolling the virtues of a properly chosen Prefect pair, to which Sprout was agreeing, her face lined and tired. Sinistra and Trelawney had gone straight to the hob and the kettle, and Vector passed them by with a smile and nod, headed towards the hallways at the back of the room behind the kitchen proper.    

“Yes, I daresay, that is more than enough for this late hour,” McGonagall says, and stands. “Come along. Pleasantries and introductions with your colleagues can wait until tomorrow evening. We’ll be having our own start of term festivities here, as is our tradition, and I expect you’ll have many questions at that time. For now, it’s time to bed.”    

She leads them to the hall, stopping only for Binns to float past them and through a brick wall. She sighs. “He hasn’t quite gotten used to the changes yet. I moved the apartments to the right a few meters to deal with the morning sunlight on this side of the castle. Horrendous on weekends. Professor Binns is now Professor Emeritus and no longer teaches in the classroom; Professor Hooch has taken on History of Magic. You’ll meet my replacement as well as the new Defense Against the Dark Arts instructor tomorrow, as they’ve had a spot of trouble with their portkey from the United States. Here we are.”    

The hallways to either side of the kitchen let out into a sort of vestibule, where a massive wooden door served as a sort of keystone, the point of a V between two lengthy corridors to each side. “These are my apartments. You are welcome to visit at any time, simply knock. To the left is the women’s hall, to the right is the men’s hall. Each apartment has an ensuite, sitting room, bedroom, and ample workspace. Gentlemen are not to venture into the ladies’ hall unless invited. Cohabitation between unmarried adults is strictly prohibited.” She pins both Ron and Harry with a look. “Am I clear?”    

Ron goes red at the implication, the flush creeping up his neck and into his ears, so red that his face matches his hair. Far more telling is how Hermione has also flushed, pinking her cheeks. Professor McGonagall eyes him over her little half-moon spectacles, and he withers. “Yes, Professor,” he mumbles.    

“Good. Ms. Granger, your luggage has already been delivered, your door is three down on the left. I’ll be with you presently to discuss the subject of your letter earlier this week. Gentlemen, come along.”     

The other hallway, where the men live, is identical to the women’s hall, though a bit more cluttered. An enormous message board hangs between the doors earmarking Filius Flitwick and Ralston Steward that wouldn’t have looked out of place in the Gryffindor Common Room, with advertisements for books for sale, a smoking pipe club, a bird watching club, and even a marking support club. A long wooden monstrosity done in the gothic style takes up the wall under the notice board. On it were mailboxes as well as canisters of what looked like some kind of herb, a lost and found basket with all manner of nonsense, and a full set of quidditch equipment that had seen better days on the bottom shelf.     

Ron’s door is halfway down the hall, where McGonagall leaves him with a stern glance he wilts under. “I’ll make you proud,” he mutters, and McGonagall says, “You already make me proud, Mr. Weasley,” and there comes the blush again, even worse than before.    

“Night, then, Harry,” Ron says, as McGonagall leads him past, and Harry hears everything Ron doesn’t say, tell me if you need anything and it’s safe here and no seriously, tell me if you need anything. Best mate around.    

Harry’s room is at the end of the corridor, the last on the right. McGonagall taps it as well, and it creaks open with a barely perceptible hum of magic. “Here you are, Mr. Potter. I trust this is satisfactory?”    

“Yes, Professor. Thank you for this,” he says, because it needed saying. “For letting Hermione and Ron come back.”  

McGonagall eyes him, shrewd as is her way. “I do not need thanks. It was the right and correct thing to do, and I’m only sorry that it took an entire year to arrange.” She studies him from over her spectacles, and sets a gentle hand at his shoulder. “I’ll expect you in my office tomorrow morning at eight sharp. You’re piqued, Mr. Potter. Go to bed.”    

Later, when he thinks on this moment, he’ll only have the impression of a big, sprawling space, worn hardwood floors and the wall of windows that reflected the room back to him with the light from the sconces, with the pitch black darkness of the grounds beyond. The man reflected back at him looks tired and drawn and old, heavy bags under his eyes and a face lined before its time, grief in the puckered crease between his eyebrows, in the heavy weight of his mouth.     

He looks like a man who cheated death, and realized too late he shouldn’t have.   

He sits down in one of the squashy armchairs, and stares into the dark fireplace grate, and inexplicably, impossibly, falls asleep. 

Chapter Text

fardle-din

n. A long-overdue argument that shakes up a relationship, burning wildly through your issues like a forest fire, which cleans out your dry and hollow grievances and reminds you that your roots run deeper than you think.

Darkness loomed like an unending maw, a deep and unrelenting sort of blackness that swallowed sound and light. The reaching branches of the trees threw shadows on shadows, spreading darkness like an oily pool. It was so quiet, not like any forest he had ever known. There wasn’t the low creak of the wind pulling the tree boughs, or the sounds of insects or birds or crawling things; just his own footsteps in the dead forest detritus, and the sound of his own heartbeat in his ears. 

His old canvas shoes were soaked through with blood that wasn’t his. It stuck between his toes, in his sodden socks. The mineral smell of the blood rose up from the ground with every step he took.

The light of their souls filled the forest. Mum, her eyes filled with tears. Dad, tension tight in the corners of his mouth, sorrow and love naked on his face. Remus and Sirius, who he knew so well, who he’d argued with and been angry with, who he had loved so very much. They’d tried, done their absolute best, and that was all anyone could ever hope for.

Does it hurt?

Dying? Not at all. The cydgyfeiriant… oh, Harry. It’s peaceful and still and full of love, Sirius says softly, and Harry wakes with a gasp to the cold emptiness of the room.     

He breathes, clenching his fist in his robes over the ringing hollow in his chest, the rattle of grief shaking through each exhale. If he unfocused his eyes, lets his mind go blurry, he can almost hear the raspiness of his godfather’s voice when he whispers, we’ll be with you, Harry. Until the very end. He can almost smell his mother’s perfume.    

He rolls his head on the back of the chair where he’d fallen asleep last night, to the wall of windows. The rising sun has lit the sky in dreamy streaks, purples and blues giving way to oranges and fiery reds as it crested the thrusting mountains of the Highlands, scattering its light across the school grounds.    

He thinks that Hedwig would have loved it here. The owl perch next to the window, scratched and scuffed from so many claws over so many decades, would have been her favorite spot. He could almost see her, smell her, the lanolin of her feathers, the pine-scent of her when she spent the night roosting in the trees. The big window would have let her come and go to her heart’s content, close enough to be near him, to croon at him and nuzzle his cheek, and still keep the grounds and all the tasty meals scampering through the grass in sight.     

Hedwig’s gone, and has been for over a year, and he’s alone. But for a moment, the thought of her perched there, hooting low and throaty, almost made him smile.    

He’s aching from his night in the chair, sweaty and itching and hot in his robes. He stands, joints cracking and popping like an old man’s, and lets himself look at this new place he’s going to live in for the next year. 

It's nice, by a wider margin than Grimmauld Place, which despite taking its reputation for Dark Wizard Chic very seriously was elegant in its own terrifying way. The apartment has a small kitchen with a cold box and two-burner hob, and the little dining table sat two. The spacious bedroom, just off the kitchen, had a full-sized bed and the gray and white linens, cozy and plush, match the drapes, the bed curtains, even the dark rug on the floor. The bathroom just beyond the window is done in blue and white tile, with a sunken marble tub, a shower, and a wide sink. A small mountain of fluffy towels beckons him in.    

He makes use of the loo and the shower, padding damp and naked into the bedroom. It’s the matter of a moment to get the wardrobe out of his over-robe and unshrunk. All of the clothes inside are new, the most new clothing Harry has ever had in his life, courtesy of two uncomfortable days at Madam Malkin’s and Hermione’s sharp eye. Clothes had never really had much appeal for him, aside from keeping him warm and dry, but even he can’t deny how he feels when he shrugs into the crisp shirt and gray blazer, the dark navy-blue robes and tie. A bit more human, anyhow, and a sight better than what he’d been wearing to fuck around Grimmauld Place, which Hermione had informed him were rags that ought to be burned.     

He unpacks the little he’d brought with him. Shoes and boots and his muggle sneakers in the shoe closet at the door. Teddy’s crib when he stayed over with Harry, and which he’d be aging out of soon enough, beside Harry’s bed. Muggle toiletries in the bathroom, pain potions in the cabinet by the kitchen sink, the few books he’d brought from Grimmauld Place on the shelf by the fireplace in the living room, next to a strange door that opened to nothing, just the smooth blankness of a stone wall. Parchment and inkwells go on the desk under the big row of windows, and then it’s done; the sum total of all he had in the world.  The poorest of rich men.     

There’s still some soot in the furthest edges of the sitting room fireplace from the last professor who’d kept these rooms, though Harry has to reach pretty far to get at it. It has an oily texture to it when he rubs his fingers together, a mix of Floo powder and magical residue and something else, something that smells almost salty. It should be good enough, he supposes. 

A part of him feels stupid to even be doing this. Tell anybody and they’d be half-convinced he’d imagined the entire thing at Grimmauld Place, that Potter really had gone round the twist like the Daily Prophet had been saying all these years. Harry would be half convinced of it himself, if he hadn’t experienced it firsthand.

Days had bled into nights into days again, though awareness was a fleeting thing. Hermione and Ron were there at times, but after they’d left Harry couldn’t recall a single thing they’d talked about. He didn’t seem to get hungry, but thirst was a constant. It felt that no matter how much water he drank, he couldn’t get enough. He moved from room to room, because sometimes when he looked up he was in the kitchen, and sometimes he was in the drawing room, and sometimes he was in the doorway to Sirius’s room, staring at the red Gryffindor pennant moldering on the wall opposite the door. He slept wherever there was a flat surface, sometimes in the parlor where the three of them had slept those many months ago, and sometimes in the old bedroom he’d shared with Ron.

Three months into his stay at Grimmauld Place, he’d woken up to a voice whispering in his ear and screamed, because Voldemort was dead he was dead he was dead. He'd struggled against the heavy covers until he’d fallen in a heap to the floor, cracking elbows and his cheekbone and his knee, and then proceeded to have what Healer Pollywot gently called an episode. Like a child wetting the bed Harry had lost all control over his magic, bursting from him in awful, pulsing waves that demolished two tables, caught the drapes and the wall on fire, and terrified fully one-third of the arachnid population who called Grimmauld Place home.     

When he’d finally clawed his way to some semblance of rational thought, skin buzzing and the lingering scent of burnt plaster in his nose, he’d realized a voice was crying out to him. 

He should have Floo-called Hermione or Ron. He should have left. Instead, Harry – in a breathtaking showcase of Gryffindor stupidity – had followed the voice calling his name into the dark kitchen. More specifically, to a kitchen cupboard with a false bottom. It had belched black magic like petrol fumes, oily against his skin and along the roof of his mouth when he breathed it in. 

He’d had no idea why the damned thing had come to life at that precise moment (the witching hour, Harry), but it hadn’t mattered. He’d attacked that false bottom with a kitchen knife, ripping up chunks of wood when the seam wouldn’t budge, not even for an unsticking spell.     

Nestled in the dark little groove of the cupboard, innocuous and innocent, had been an antique, black satin drawstring pouch, bulging along one side. As he’d watched, breathless in the grungy kitchen light, the grotesque lump under the black satin had twitched, and Harry had disapparated before he even knew what he was doing, landing in the Weasley’s front garden without one of his legs.     

Later – later, after St. Mungo’s and a baker’s dozen of blood transfusion potions and a telling-off from a tearful, hysterical Molly Weasley, after three weeks bedrest and a series of promises to her that Harry only half intended to keep – he’d returned to Grimmauld Place and began the slow, methodical process of ridding his house of the dark magic that permeated its very heart.     

Destroying the furniture and pulling up carpet clearly wasn’t enough. He’d taken to task and ripped out walls and floors, doors and windows, stripped the place down to the sticks, to the old pipes and old electrical work and old insulation, and was glad he had. Beneath the floorboards in one of the bedrooms he’d discovered a collection of silently screaming shrunken heads, the white eyes rolling in terror and insanity. Behind the plaster wall of the downstairs bathroom he’d found an innocuous glowing dark sphere, and knowing better than to touch it, he’d Flooed to Borgin & Burkes to see if that collection of scoundrels might know what it was.     

They had. Borgin had told him it was the Black traiceret pila, exceedingly rare, likely originating from a European royal house and used to transport armies across the field of battle like some sort of giant portkey that only lost people a third of the time to the black void. Licking his lips, he’d asked if Harry would sell it at what he must agree was above fair market value.    

Harry hadn’t hexed him, but only because he was tired and had a headache.  

Through it all, the house had whispered to him, gentle instructions that Harry had realized he’d always been able to hear, he just hadn’t known how to listen. But it was only when he’d drawn symbols on the four corners of the house – north, south, east and west – that he’d heard the house speak. 

He hadn’t told a soul, half-afraid it would prove he’d gone around the twist. He had gone around the twist. Except – except – 

Without letting his own uncertainty talk him out of it, he touches sooty fingertips to each wall of the room. Not for the first time, he wishes that he’d been smart enough to take Ancient Runes. It would have worked better, with runes. Trying to catch up now without a teacher had proven to be beyond him, but he knows enough to understand that the symbols didn’t matter more than the intent behind them.  

A little depiction of a Floo powder explosion goes over his mantle. A pair of owl wings on the wall of windows. A heart with an arrow in the bedroom because it makes him smile to himself, and a stick figure Snape with his wild black robes and his etched scowl in the kitchen, next to the cabinet with all the potions.     

The last is a pentagon on the wall next to the weird door that opens to nothing, because it’s proper wizardly and Vernon would hate it, which Harry appreciates.    

Yes. Good.     

He lays his palm over the pentagon.    

Hello, he thinks at the aura of his rooms, and feels them shudder in surprise.     

HELLO! his rooms shout at a pitch just short of supersonic. New person! New person!!!!!!  

Grimmauld Place had been the same, though for them, surprise had led to gratification, and a funny sort of smugness, as if they’d been proud to have such an intuitive wizard be their master. These rooms, in comparison, are the equivalent of a child at Disney World. Well, most children at Disney World; Dudley had been the mummy my popsicle isn’t red enough type of kid.    

“Hello there,” Harry says, warm with the sensation of joy that poured through the connection. “I’m Harry Potter, I’m very pleased to make your acquaintance.”    

Hello!!! I have never been able to speak before!!! Though – though that’s not right, I have been able to speak but no one has ever heard me!! You can speak to me!!!     

“I can, yes,” because how to explain to a sentient room that he didn’t used to be able to speak to buildings, but his brush with death had freed up some unknown, suppressed pocket of something inside of him and Weird Shit had been happening ever since?     

He’d tried to tell Ron and Hermione about this just once last year, how Grimmauld Place had warned him about the cursed lump in the kitchen cabinet. To be fair to his friends, Harry hadn’t exactly chosen the ideal time to do this, flat on his back at St. Mungo’s and delirious from blood loss from his splinched leg. Ron had looked at him with that drawn, grief-stricken expression that he got when he thought Harry wasn’t looking, and Hermione had waved his gibbering away and fluffed his pillows and pretended she wasn’t silently crying.     

He hadn’t had the heart to bring it, and all the other things that had been happening to him in the wake of Voldemort, up again.    

Just one more thing that made him different. 

Though really, what did it matter at this point.     

“I was hoping I might be able to speak to you. I felt you, when I walked in.”    

Yes!!! I am Professor Mickle’s Room!!!!! And Professor Kettleburn’s Room!!! And Professor Slughorn’s Room!!!! And Professor –    

“You were once all those things, but now I’m here,” Harry interrupts, very gently. It isn’t Hogwarts speaking to him, he doesn’t think – she feels different, like a stately matriarch, or an elderly countess who would feed you your wand if you caused anything to befall her children. This apartment feels like being bombarded with licks from an over-excited puppy. “What’s your name?”    

Name???? What are names?? Do I have a name???    

“I’m certain you do. It’s what you call yourself, or what others call you.”    

YES! I have a name!!! I am Professor Mickle’s Room!!!! And Professor Kettleburn’s Room!! And Professor –    

“Alright,” Harry says, smiling now. “But how would you like me to refer to you? You’re not Professor Slughorn’s room anymore, are you?”    

No! I am not!! I am your room!!! I am yours, Professor Potter!!!!!!!    

“You are, for the next little while at least,” he replies, and pats the wall. “But I’m not a professor. I’m a student here now – again, really. An apprentice. I’d like to be your friend, and have you help me set up some protections.”    

I can help!!! I am good at that I think!!!!!    

“I thought you might be. Think about what you’d like your name to be, alright? We’ll only be able to talk when my fingers are on the symbols, but I’ll still feel you, I promise. See?”    

He lifts his hand from the wall and is instantly washed through with the joy of the rooms, the gratifying love, the pride.     

“I’ll be back later today,” Harry says aloud, and feels the puppy licks in the back of his mind again.     

.  

The professor’s common room is deserted but for Ron, sat at the kitchen island drinking a cup of coffee and looking like death warmed over. Without so much as opening his eyes he pushes a mug over to Harry, not slopping any coffee over the rim only by practice alone, and grunts. Harry grunts back and takes a sip.   

Hot. Bitter. Black as his hair and so strong he feels it in the back of his teeth. “What the hell did you put in this?”  

“Coffee,” Ron rumbles. 

“More than coffee, mate. I think my tongue’s grown hair.”

“Mmm.” He cracks open an eye to look at him. “Didn’t feel real, until we had to sign all those parchments for McGonagall last night. Being a tyro, I mean.”  

Harry, having learned the Language of Ron many years ago, hears everything Ron doesn’t – or can’t – say. The uncertainty of accepting the tyroship, paired with the certainty that he didn’t deserve it. The responsibility, and the fear that he wouldn’t rise to the occasion. 

He knows, because he feels it too.

“Yeah,” Harry says, because what else is there to say? “Feels proper wizardly.”

“That is not grammatically correct and you both have to stop saying it, it’s embarrassing,” Hermione says from behind them. She’s infuriatingly awake and chipper, her hair at about a three on the Glorious Yet Terrifying Witch O’Meter (or GYTWOM for short) which was actually fairly tame for her.   

Harry budges over to give her a place between them, and Ron pours her a mug of hot water for her tea, eyes closed. “Wizardly said of you, ‘Mione.”

She rolls her eyes and stirs a spoonful of sugar into her tea, taking a sip with the spoon still in the cup, as she had done every morning for all the years Harry had known her. “I read that the professors lived in their own tower, but not that it was set up like this. It’s just like our dorms.”

“Where’d you read – ah never mind, that bloody book is a bloody menace.”

That book, the book, which had been heavily annotated by Hermione, her tiny perfect penmanship in the margins, or else had entire parchments sellotaped into their appropriate locations; that book, that had more than once saved their lives during their year on the run. 

It was a piece of living art as much as it was a book at this point. Not unlike the Half-Blood Prince’s copy of Advanced Potions, in fact.  

“Hogwarts: A History is a priceless guide to Hogwarts that you should have read years ago. At this point, it’s just silly to continue to avoid it.” She gives him her patented I’m disappointed but unsurprised look. It’s matured along with the rest of her, and Ron actually winces. “You never wondered about the number of towers in the castle?”

“No? Why should I have?” 

She rolls her eyes. “Oh never mind. This is quite a bit homier than I thought it would be. And our apartments are so lovely. Crookshanks already found his favorite spot on the windowsill.”

“Anything for Crookshanks, little man-eating monster,” Ron mutters. 

“If you didn’t insult him, he wouldn’t try to bite you.”

“Well I like that! Me the injured party and you take the other guy’s side!”

“He is an innocent animal, Ronald. Honestly!” She huffs, throws her hair over her shoulder, and after one last swallow of tea walks off in the direction of the Headmistress’s office with all the airs of a reborn Dicaeosyne. Ron does a very poor job of pretending he isn’t watching her walk off. 

Harry stands, unable to hide how amused he is, though to be fair he isn’t trying very hard. “So that’s how it is, then.”

“Shut up, Harry,” Ron mutters, red-faced, and joins him.    

The Headmistress's office is much changed from Dumbledore’s time. The office resembles McGonagall’s classroom office now, with big heavy carpets overlapping themselves on the stone floors, and enormous bookcases filled to the brim, on both the top and bottom floors. The desk is big, sturdier and less golden than Dumbledore’s, but the chair is magnificent, rich brown leather and plush. It’s there that McGonagall sits, scribbling something quickly with a long-plumed quill.   

The portraits of the old headmasters line the wall on either side of the office, Everard and Derwent, Phineas Nigellus and Dippet. Dumbledore’s portrait sits in its place of honor just to the right of McGonagall’s desk, on the same wall where the Pensieve sits. 

The portrait is a stunning likeness to him, Harry has to admit, flawlessly capturing the curve of his cheek, the warmth that exuded from him no matter what form he took. Harry had spoken to it just once before, but that was when it was all so fresh and Harry was numb. He’s had time with the horror of the Battle of Hogwarts now, and it's sunken into his bones, clawed right into his marrow and bitten down with rabid little teeth into all his inflection points.     

He thought he’d been ready to see him, and finds now he’d been foolish to assume so. Dumbledore, who had let Harry face horrors no small child should ever face, who had let him – newly fourteen and nine stone soaking wet – compete in a championship for adults. Dumbledore, who had sent Harry back to Little Whinging and the Dursleys after he’d seen Cedric murdered in front of him, after he’d fought for his life in that graveyard. Dumbledore, who had stood aside and watched Harry implode throughout Fifth Year, then shatter in the wake of Sirius’s death. 

Dumbledore, who had let Harry witness his murder, then had taken Harry by the hand and walked beside him to both their deaths.    

“—tter? Mr. Potter.”    

McGonagall has come to her feet behind her desk, her face drawn into tight lines. There’s a mountain of parchment and books on her desk, and her eagle feather quill even now is working independently of her, scrawling quickly in the familiar penmanship Harry had seen all over his essays since he was eleven years old. She glances up at Dumbledore’s sleeping face, and there’s a complicated expression on her face, one Harry can’t read. “I should have warned you, my apologies. The portraitist was gifted, and Albus trained it well. Come.”    

McGonagall steps around her desk and leads them down the steps into a comfortable sitting room with a large fireplace. The fire is cold, sunlight streaming in through the large curved windows facing out towards the lake and the horizon beyond. Harry had sat here once before, the night he destroyed Dumbledore’s office, rage like a firebrand in his chest. “I trust you slept well, and the rooms are satisfactory?”    

“They’re lovely, Professor,” Hermione says, sitting on the sofa nearest the fireplace next to Ron. 

“Never had so much space to myself before,” Ron says, scratching his cheek. “I thought we’d be back in Gryffindor Tower, but I suppose we’re not really Seventh Years.”

There’s a funny note of grief in Ron’s voice that Harry doesn’t think anyone else would be able to hear. The comfort of their dormitory, Neville’s whistling snores and Seamus’s constant trips to the loo, the sound of the wind buffeting the tower and the little rattle of the window on blustery nights, was a memory now, a home they would never return to.   

McGonagall, as if sensing Ron’s quiet grief, waves her wand and the tea service by the fireplace drifts over to them. The lemony scent of chamomile with honey flowers in the air. Harry takes a cup, if only to warm his hands. “The Hogwarts Charter makes explicitly clear how we are to govern the school, and allows for any number of circumstances, except this one. Students, once they leave the school of their own volition, cannot return, and shockingly there is no provision for ‘leaving school to search for and destroy the shards of a madman’s dismembered soul before he takes over the world’.”    

“Oversight on their part,” Harry says.  

“As so much is, these days.” She looks over the three of them. “As you know from our meeting in June, I scoured the bylaws for something I could exploit, but it wasn’t until Albus reminded me of his own tyroship that I realized the answer had been there all along. Tyroships were once a long-standing tradition at Hogwarts, though they’ve fallen somewhat out of fashion over the past fifty years.” Self-satisfaction colors McGonagall’s tone. “While there are many rules around how the tyroships are to function, there is no provision that states students who have left school a year early to do battle with an evil madman can’t become tyros if the program should be offered to them.”    

“A loophole,” Ron says, but something about his tone makes the hair on Harry’s nape stand up. “That’s what you found for us.”    

“After a fashion,” McGonagall says, her gaze on him. “Though I would not have extended the offer if I thought you weren’t more than capable.”    

“I am honored, really I am Professor. I’m just also aware of my limitations, right? It’s Harry who’s got Defense Against the Dark Arts, and Hermione pretty much everything else, smartest girl in our generation and all that, she could figure out the Riddle of the Sphinx if she had a mind to. I just carry the bags. Honestly I shouldn’t have come, and the only reason I did was –” He looks at Harry, helpless. All of his freckles are standing out on his chalk-white skin. “I didn’t want him to be alone. But this is a special thing and, and there are so many other people more deserving. You’re making a mistake. I’ll muck it all up, and leave you embarrassed to have ever brought me along when I don’t –”    

Harry socks him, hard, in the arm.    

“Bloody hell!” Ron bellows, and socks him back, missing Harry by a hair because once a Seeker, always a Seeker. “What was that for!”    

“For being an ass,” Harry shoots back. “That’s my best mate you’re talking about, who bloody well is talented and smart, so shut up about it already.”    

McGonagall stares at them with shock. Hermione presses a hand to her face. “Sorry, Professor. They’re like feral cats who’ve lived on the street too long. It’s going to take a while to reacclimate them to polite society. Sit down Ron.”    

“Tyroships are rare, and rarer still to have one offered, let alone three. It is not, despite what you may think, charity,” she says waspishly, eyeing Ron as he collapses back onto the sofa beside Hermione, rubbing his arm and glaring at Harry. “You accomplished deeds grown wizards and witches could have not, and this without your capstone year of education. You are unique in our world, and such must be answered with a unique opportunity. To be a tyro comes with it a variety of benefits, including one’s choice of career and station. There is also significant prestige in being a tyro’s mentor, and doubly so for the three of you. Many hundreds of wizards and witches have petitioned the last months to be your mento—”    

“To be Harry’s mentor, you mean,” Ron mutters darkly, and this time it’s Hermione who socks him. “Bloody ow, Hermione! Look, I’m sorry alright, but this is just – everyone’s after Harry because he’s the Boy Who Lived Again or whatever rubbish Rita Skeeter is calling him now, and I’m not just going to – to stand by and let it happen, people using him all over again.”    

“Mr. Weasley, do you truly believe I’d let that happen?”    

“Not on purpose, Professor. But people have hidden agendas, no matter what they say, and Harry’s been through enough.”    

“While I am pleased that you have finally learned nuance, please understand that I share your concern. I have conducted a thorough review on the tyro mentor applicants over several months, including a lengthy, six-step interview process, to be certain that they were not prestige hunters who wanted one of you in their trophy case.”    

“...Oh.”    

“Yes,” McGonagall says, peering at Ron over her spectacles, “Oh.”    

He has the grace to look chastened, and shrinks on himself, but McGonagall surprises them by reaching out and patting his hand. “Your concern, while doing you credit, is misplaced. Of the eight-hundred or so who applied to be your mentors, I narrowed the list to just over ten for each of you who are, in my opinion, good people with good intentions who will help you thrive. The top three potential mentors of each list will be considered first, during the Receiving, where they will petition you on what they would like to teach you. Each of you will have mentors from different backgrounds, including Charms, Defense Against the Dark Arts, Transfiguration, Arithmancy, and more. I ask that you be prepared with questions on what you wish to learn, what the expectations are of the relationship, and so on. Filius, Pomona and I will chaperone each visit, to be certain that your potential mentor does not use the opportunity to sway you unduly to them. A list of sample questions can be found in Tyroships Through the Ages, which you’ll find on your desks in your apartments.”     

McGonagall hands them each a forever-expand portfolio, the kind Harry has seen Hermione use for years to store her classwork. “You’ll find dossiers of each of your potential mentors within, their applications, their successes and exploits, as well as my reviews, which I hope will arm you with questions for them and help you make an informed decision. I recommend that you spend today looking through Tyroships Through the Ages to give you a better understanding of what you can expect from a mentor, and yes, Mr. Weasley, reading chapter nineteen of Hogwarts: A History, should Ms. Granger do you the courtesy of lending her copy.”    

Hermione is just about bouncing in her seat, she’s so excited. “We’ll have that night to make our decision?”    

“Yes, Ms. Granger. On the night of the Receiving you will have the option to choose one of the mentors, or decline all three, which will then trigger the next three potential mentors and another Receiving, the week after. Once your choice has been made and accepted, you will have a week to petition a Hogwarts professor most in line with your chosen area of study to be your faculty advisor, and arrange for your mentor and advisor to meet so that a proper schedule of study can be drawn up. All of this, of course, will be in addition to your seventh-year coursework, your preparation for your NEWTs, and in the spring semester, you will also take on two first-year classes each in your chosen area of study as you work on your thesis project. I believe you are more than up to the challenge.”    

And it is going to be a challenge, no mistake. More work than Harry has ever done for his studies, without question. McGonagall regards them each solemnly, but her eyes stray to Ron more than once. “You’ll have questions, many of them, as you go through this process. I am always available to you. But know this, first and foremost – I would not have fought for you to have this opportunity if I did not feel you were equal to the task. You have accomplished before breakfast what witches and wizards twice your age could not even fathom at the height of their powers. You are each of you capable, intelligent, and gifted. Let me help you, in this way. Let me make the years to come brighter ones.”    

And truly, what is there to say, in the face of such kindness?   

.    

They go back to Hermione’s apartment, because of course they do.   

“She is stark, barking mad,” Ron says, yanking at his hair like he used to when it was short, but only succeeds in pulling it out of its ponytail now. He paces Hermione’s apartment, fireplace to kitchen, kitchen to desk, desk to the door to her bedroom, and only realizes what he’s doing too late. He blushes, does an about-face, and marches back to the fireplace. “Teach classes! Me! Us! We’re idiots!”    

“You’ll find no disagreement from me there,” Hermione says, and Ron groans and collapses into one of the armchairs beside Harry. “You’re too smart for your own good, Ron, which makes you procrastinate and not apply yourself to your studies the way you should. But now you’ll have no choice, will you?”    

Ron glares at her amusement but it’s half-hearted at best, because they all know she’s right. Ron’s intelligence is in his capability to see fifteen steps ahead of everyone else, how he could chain logic together to arrive at the best circumstance well before they could. It had saved their lives during their year on the run.     

“You didn’t just carry the bags,” Harry says, suddenly.     

Ron closes his eyes and groans, sprawling out in his chair with his head tipped back. “Can we not.”    

“In front of McGonagall, so yeah, mate, I think we should.”    

“Look, it’s my thing to deal with. We’ve all got things, yeah? We’re all trying, and this is just something I’ve got to manage. I didn’t mean to say it to McGonagall, though,” and at this, finally, he looks unsettled. “Just – got me worried, this thing about mentors coming out of the woodwork.”    

“I’m worried too,” Hermione says, surprising them both as she sits on the sofa next to Harry. “I mean, we’re all a bit – well, a bit famous now, aren’t we? You were right to ask, Ron. There’ll be loads of wizards and witches wanting a bit of your fame, Harry.”    

“That’s so stupid. I’m a mess.”    

“You are,” Hermione says, ruthless if kind about it, “but that doesn’t lessen the prestige of being your mentor. I’m glad Professor McGonagall vetted all of these people for us. I can only imagine the glory hounds.”    

Suddenly bursting into laughter, Ron says, “Can – can you imagine –” but he’s laughing too hard, and squeaks, “Lockhart.”    

“He wasn’t all that bad, Ronald!” yells Hermione, as Ron nearly cries with laughter. “He could have taught us a lot about – about – which…frocks go with… which boots,” and Ron falls off his chair, so loudly that Crookshanks squirms out from under Hermione’s bed and peers at them huffily from the doorway of the bedroom.    

Hermione rolls her eyes down at him. “I can’t imagine how difficult it was for Professor McGonagall! You know how she is, she doesn’t tolerate nonsense, so anyone she would have chosen is going to be like that too. We’ll have to be very careful and ask a lot of good questions.”     

She climbs over Ron, now sprawled out beneath them on the hearthrug pink-faced from giggling, and fetches a very familiar book from her desk. She doesn’t sit next to Harry again, but plops right down on top of Ron’s chest, who oofs and groans but doesn’t shove her off, a choice that comes back to bite him in the arse when he realizes what she’s about to do. “No! I won’t! I swore it on Uncle Bilius’s saggy bollocks and I won’t back out on it now!” but Hermione just rolls her eyes, digs her elbow into his armpit to keep him still, and opens her ragged, priceless copy of Hogwarts: A History.    

A half hour later, Harry understands why Hermione keeps calling them idiots. This is because they are.    

Even Ron, after the first ten minutes of bellowing, had calmed, and he’s got the shocky, glazed look of someone who had taken a left instead of a right and found themselves at the precipice of a canyon.     

“So. So when they say binding contract,” Ron says blankly.    

“As in binding. As in contract. As in, if you go back on this binding contract you’re signing for the next year, your tyro mentor can sue you for damages, take half of everything you own for the next ten years, and ban you from your chosen field for any time they deem worthy,” Hermione says primly. “Which is exceedingly dangerous for all of us, yes, but more so for Harry, because Harry has more to lose.”    

He squirms, uncomfortable. It’s true – he’s the sole heir of the Potter and Black fortunes, and had been gleefully informed by a smirking Gringotts goblin that he had more money than all of the great houses combined. He’d inherited a number of properties, including houses and parcels of land all over Wizarding Europe, a castle in Ireland that had once belonged to Ashor the Black Knight, and more gold than he could spend in ten lifetimes. It’s the three vaults filled with gemstones that the Goblin’s were most interested in, though. Collected by one of Sirius’s shady old relatives six hundred years ago, dragon-hoard style, the rubies, sapphires, diamonds and emeralds were worth eighty-nine million galleons in today’s market, and would he be thinking of trading them by any chance?  

He’d give it all back, in a heartbeat, to have Sirius hug him one last time. To have him bury his face in Harry’s unruly hair, his thin arms hard and strong around Harry’s shoulders. To kiss him, there, on the ridge of his scar, as Sirius had only ever done once and which Harry could still feel, some nights when the pain became so bad he thought he’d never feel the sun again, when he had to remind himself that at one time, he’d been loved.     

Hermione says, very softly, “Harry.”  

He looks up. “Sorry, I – yeah. We have to be sure, then. Really sure.”    

“Yes,” she says, and shifts up to squeeze his hand. Ron groans, breathless from where Hermione is now sitting on his ribcage, and Harry smiles. “I think we should do this privately. Get our bearings. You know how we work each other up.”    

“Oi,” Ron wheezes, and grabs Hermione’s hip to shove her off of him, down onto his thighs where she could do less damage to his spleen, then flushing, further down onto his knees, which isn’t a great improvement. “I do not work people up.”    

“You all but yelled at McGonagall, Ron,” Hermione says, and bops him lightly on the head with Hogwarts: A History. “I’m buying you each your own copy for Christmas, see that I don’t, and it’ll be the only thing you get from me, with a loving inscription, For my two idiots.”    

“Hermione,” Ron whines, and Harry gets to his feet.    

“Forget it Ron, you’ve lost this one, she’s right.”    

“I know she’s right! She’s always right!”    

“Which is why you should listen to me when I tell you something,” Hermione starts primly, and Harry knows better than to stick around when the rowing begins. He closes the door behind him to Ron’s yell and Hermione’s laughter.    

The professor’s common room is still empty, save for Binns, who had taken up his spot by the drafty window with a copy of the Daily Prophet. It doesn’t matter that the newspaper is as transparent as Binns because he’s deeply asleep, and doesn’t so much as twitch when Harry passes down to the Men’s Hall.  

Morning sun is pouring into his apartment now, glorious from the doorway. The entire expanse of the southern grounds are laid out like a picture, dotted with the tiny moving forms of students making their way down to Hagrid’s hut, or coming back from the greenhouses, little black robes and the flash of red or blue ties. 

In the far distance, two thestrals amble out of the line of the Forbidden Forest just enough to nose at a patch of wildflowers, the smaller of the two stretching out its massive wings, before they fade back into the brush and are gone.    

Maybe it’s the way that light cascades in through the open windows, dust motes dancing in the light cutting through the fluffy clouds gathering that promised a mid-afternoon shower, but Harry’s apartment feels massive, certainly bigger than he’d realized last night. These rooms had seen hundreds of professors in their time, wizards who had slept and eaten here, made love here, marked papers here, laughed and cried and had families here. Now they were his, with the puppy licks in the back of his mind, joyful at his return.     

Grimmauld Place, while not what anyone would call warm or even hospitable, was in its own way a bastardized version of home. For the most part he’d known what to expect there, shrunken heads and bleeding books aside, and it was welcoming in its own cruel and sadistic way. He could easily see himself devolving there, fading away in little strokes until he was gone, just one more ghost in the tapestry. 

It's the only reason he’d agreed to come back to Hogwarts, and the one thing he could never share with Hermione and Ron: the certainty that not only would he be alright with that fate, he welcomed it.     

Ron’s right. They’re in no fit state to teach children.    

A little breeze catches his fringe just right, bringing with it the sound of laughing students and the cries of birds there in the sun-dappled light, and draws him to the massive desk. Pockmarked with a thousand quill marks and owl claws and rings of coffee, it makes him feel almost at home, as if he isn’t so alone here. He sits, with a sigh, in the old desk chair, leather creaking beneath him.    

He has a weird moment where he doesn’t want to open the portfolio, because he’ll never be in this moment again. Right now, right at this very second, he has no idea who the three wixen are who wanted to be his tyromaster. If they were old, or young, rich or poor, men or women or something in between, what culture they came from or what language they spoke. He doesn’t know if they want to teach him just because he’s Harry Potter, the fucking Boy Who Lived, or if they’ll be able to see beyond the scar to the broken man beneath. He doesn’t know if this experience will prove what he already intimately believes: he is already beyond help.     

His only saving grace is that he’d already taken the left path at the crossroads. He’d chosen Hogwarts over Grimmauld Place, chosen life over the slow and inevitable death in that house of horrors. He had chosen to take the hand McGonagall offered him with both of his.     

If he looks back he can see the signpost at the crossroads, but he’s too far down the path now to turn back.     

He’s glad.  

He unlaces the tie of the portfolio before he loses his nerve.     

The immense packets of parchment, bound together by magic, are in each of the first nine compartments of the portfolio, three each per applicant. They’re tabbed with McGonagall’s loopy script, Application and Interview Notes and Background. At the beginning of each applicant section is a photo of the tyromaster, taken in McGonagall’s office.    

The first is of an older witch, Constance Watson, Head Auror, Ret., with a kind face pockmarked with scars from an old injury. An old fashioned Auror’s badge sits pinned prominently on her lapel, her gray hair done in a curling sort of bouffant that Harry has seen on some older witches in Diagon Alley. She’s smiling a little, though it looks foreign on her face. He can tell she’s someone who hasn’t smiled much in her life.     

The second photo is of an old, wizened wizard, with a beard nearly to his knees and an expression of distaste on his wrinkled face, as if he found photographs unseemly. He looks like a wizard from a storybook, from the enormous, dark blue velvet pointed hat, to the heavy matching robes with a white fur trim. The budgie on his shoulder is making a nest in the fluffy ear hair poking out from under the wizard’s hat. Cottismore Croyne, Supreme Mugwump Wizengamot 1804 – 1972, is written beneath and Harry realizes that this man is over two hundred years old. No wonder he looked like he’d sucked a lemon.    

The third photo is of a gorgeous wizard far too young to be offering his services as a mentor, barely out of boyhood himself. Dark, glossy hair falls around high cheekbones, and his shadowed eyes burn with intelligence. He’s glaring at someone who could only be the photographer, and whatever they’re saying makes him roll his eyes and lean back in his chair. The width of his shoulders, the lean angular line of his frame, the strength of his posture and the heavy darkness of his eyes makes something foreign swoop in Harry’s belly and settle deep beneath his belly button.     

He sucks in a sharp breath, so fast he gets dizzy, when Snape scowls, says something cutting to the photographer, and stalks out of the photo in a huff, his teacher’s robes billowing impressively behind him.    

“Fuck,” Harry says.  

.

Harry does not leave his apartment that afternoon. Instead he walks back and forth across them, shaking out his hands and wondering if nineteen-year-old wizards are prone to strokes, because it certainly feels like he’s having one.    

The absolute bloody nerve of him, the unmitigated gall of that twice-cursed son of a bitch and really, really, Harry should have seen this coming. Go to Hogwarts, Hermione had said. Take the chance to finish your education, take a break from knocking around that old, haunted pile full of curses. See your friends. Talk to people who aren’t spiders or screaming shrunken heads.    

Fuck.    

What had McGonagall been thinking? Hundreds of applications, she’d told them, and Snape had been the best she could find for Harry? What did that even say about everyone else? Were they just as Ron had said, power-hungry and out for the glory of having the Boy Who Lived in their trophy case?    

“Bugger,” he gasps, and shoves his head down between his knees.    

What could Snape even want to teach him? Harry is well and truly awful at potions, the Half-Blood Prince’s book, Snape's book, aside, and – okay, okay so he didn’t do half bad with Six Year potions while following the altered recipes, even found it a bit fun, even began to understand the process of it after a fashion, but that doesn’t mean Harry is a Potioneer. The absolute bloody opposite in fact. He’d scraped together an E on his O.W.L.S. out of pure spite, not any real skill. 

He’s terrible at reading the recipes and bloody awful at following the directions, especially the fiddly ones that required the preparation of ingredients immediately before they’re added to the potion, not before. And that’s not even counting rune script, Jesus Christ, when they’re written in rune script it makes him want to gouge his eyes out. 

He doesn’t understand why ingredients went into the mixes in the order that they did, and trying to attach the same kind of understanding he had of cooking didn’t work. In baking, dry ingredients mixed and then you added the wet, and he’d thought potions were the same. How many times had Snape made him throw out all of his ingredients and start over, or worse give him no credit for the day, just because he’d mixed his dried beetle wings with the daisy pollen before dropping them both into the cauldron? They were supposed to go in together, at the exact same time, but they couldn’t be mixed to go in together? It made no sense.    

Harry is long, long past thinking ill of the man. Snape had given his life so Harry could succeed, and the war could be won. That he’d come back is of no consequence. Snape had died on that battlefield for Harry, had given up everything so that they might win, and Harry knows he’d do it again without hesitation. Whatever debt Snape thought he’d had, whatever atonement he was looking for, had been paid with his last breath. 

So why this? Why now? This can’t be personal gain – Snape hates Harry and all of his Gryffindor nonsense, loathes him for daring to have her eyes in James Potter’s face. It doesn’t matter that Harry doesn’t look much like James anymore, that too many years of suffering have shot Harry’s hair through with premature gray, sunken her eyes in his lined and tired face. Harry had had the audacity to be born a Potter, and that was enough.     

His throat is suddenly painfully tight.     

He can’t do this. He can’t spend the next year with a man who hates him, who could slice him to ribbons with a few words, because it’s going to be Snape. This – this Receiving or whatever McGonagall had called it, is a farce, at least for Harry. How could it be anyone but Snape? To choose someone, anyone, over him, the hero of the Battle of Hogwarts, the man who with his last breath had set their victory in motion, is ludicrous.     

The world owes him everything, and for Harry to deny that, to deny him, would dishonor Snape’s sacrifice in a way Harry could never do, not and still live with himself.     

Snape is going to hurt him in a thousand ways, with a thousand cuts. Harry isn’t stupid enough not to realize he deserves it.     

He collapses back at the desk, head in his hands, and opens the packet of parchment dully.    

University of Magical Britain, Oxford. Potions Mastery, bioalchemic specialization with sub specialization in futhorc script potionography. Holder of sixty-six patents, including the Nerve Blocking Draught, the Elixir of Induced Euphoria, and the Ammi Majus Poison and Counterpoison. 

He'd apprenticed nine new potion masters over sixteen years at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, including Amaryllis Birch, who under his tutelage developed the Silva Sanguis Potion to stop postpartum hemorrhaging brought on by magical core depletion. Her work had saved the lives of over five hundred wixen. Snape had published thirty-seven times, and his work had revolutionized modern medical neuropathy practice with the development of potion therapies to counter the host of nervous system disorders triggered by the Cruciatus Curse.     

Harry leafs through past recommendation letters – the words genius and gifted leaping out at him –  McGonagall’s notes, and the extensive curriculum vitae, to the application.     

There’s a sealed letter addressed to him, tucked between the sheets. Harry stares at it, uncomprehending.     

Snape’s illegible cursive, bane of Harry’s existence throughout his schooling, is scrawled across the parchment in tight little lines, ink droplets and all. He almost smiles. A tap with the tip of his finger and the letters reorganize themselves, straightening up like little soldiers and smoothing from taut cursive to print Harry can read.    

Potter,    

Professor McGonagall has insisted I write a personal letter to you in addition to this ludicrously extensive application, and despite my better judgment, I have acquiesced to the wishes of the Headmistress. She thinks it very possible you will be quite shocked at finding I have applied to be your tyromaster, and while I know that is most certainly true, do be intelligent and read through the enclosed application before you make any leaps of “logic”. You’ll find my patience, long worn thin by the inability of youth to think before they act, has evaporated to nearly nothing, and that was before my inelegant demise by overgrown talking lawn snake.     

While I have often taken on apprentices during my tenure at Hogwarts, which in truth has made teaching the barely sentient children who have stumbled through my classroom doors somewhat bearable, it is rare that I take on a tyro. Tyroships are built on ancient magic, and I have found I have a distaste for the strictures of them, their inflexibility and the presumptions they make on both parties. To force a tyroship onto one who would chafe at its limitations or fall short of its expectations is the worst disservice one wixen can do to another.    

It is just as well, then, that you have an unexplored aptitude for potions that could serve you decently well in the future, should you apply what limited brain cells you possess to the task. At the very least, it will keep you from the Auror career you think you want but which you will despise.     

In the unlikely event that you decide to accept my tyroship, I have stipulations and rules that will govern this time, and by which I will expect you to abide. It will not be easy, this work, nor should it be. I will not be easy, either. Do not expect my personality to change at this late date. I do not suffer fools, Potter, and though it galls me to say so, while once I would have easily classified you in that cohort, your actions – ill-advised though they may have been – during our last encounters have proven that you have a mind between those ears capable of more than just Quidditch statistics.  

If you cannot see past our mutual dislike to the opportunity I present you, then you are beyond hope, and not worth the time and effort I would devote to making you some semblance of a productive member of society.     

Severus Warrick Tobias Snape, PMpR    

.    

Harry has no idea what’s on his face, but it's a passing period when he storms out of the Professor’s Tower and through the Great Hall, and the kids part for him like water at the bough of a ship. He hears whispers in his wake, gasps and nervous laughter. Even the ghosts jump out of the way as he passes. 

He thinks he hears Flitwick call his name, and that’s good. Someone needs to come find him at the scene of the murder he’s about to commit, if only to help him hide the body.    

He thunders down the main dungeon staircase, past children in green and silver who stare at him with enormous eyes, around the corner and down the second flight of steps that lead under the lake. The Potions classroom, across from the enormous window the Giant Squid favored in the springtime, is filled with very small Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws just leaving, the lot of them looking a bit shocky as one so often did when leaving Snape’s classroom. The entire hall smells of billywig slime.    

They stare up at him, and he jerks his gaze twice to the right. They scuttle out of the way, and Harry shoves open the door.    

The classroom, pungent with fumes Snape is waving away with his wand, is as dark and depressing as Harry remembers. He has his back to Harry, the long, lean line of him moving under the teacher’s robes as he vanishes the slime smeared across the worktables.    

“Ms. McCarthy, as I have explained twice, I will not – ”    

At another time in his life, Harry would have felt a grim satisfaction at the way Snape freezes when he catches sight of Harry in his doorway.    

They stare at one another across the classroom, across the chasm between them that Harry intends not only to cross, but conquer. He plans to take no prisoners.    

Furious, Harry kicks the classroom door shut behind him, and slams the letter down on the nearest worktable. “What, in the fuck,” he bellows, pointing at the man, who has begun to gather outrage around himself like a raven with ruffled feathers, “is this.”    

“What it very clearly is, or did your brush with the Beyond decimate your ability to think?” Snape snarls back, and it would be a lot scarier if he wasn’t so insultingly beautiful now. Harry has never hated someone so much in the entirety of his godforsaken life. “An offer for a mentorship which I am rescinding this very instant. How dare you come into my classr—”    

“Nothing. No word, no letter, no response. I sent you four owls last year while you were in hospital, and you never answered them. Not one.”    

Something, then, in his voice. Something he doesn’t want to admit to, but which is there, clear as day, if Snape’s sudden surprise is anything to go by. Harry clenches his jaw shut, but it’s too late.    

“I understood. You were dealing with,” Harry waves a hand at Snape’s everything, “and I get it, I do. You don’t owe me anything, you don’t owe anything to anyone, and I wanted you to have that, to have your – to have your privacy, and I realized the letters weren’t helping that, so I stopped. When I saw you last night and you couldn’t even look at me, I knew I’d made the right choice. But then this.” Harry slaps a hand against the parchment. “This.”    

At least the thumping vein in Snape’s forehead hasn’t changed, even if it looks weird on his youthful face. If he knew how appealing the smoldering sneer looked, he’d die of mortification. Harry makes a mental note to tell him at the first opportunity for maximum embarrassment, preferably where McGonagall could hear him. “I have one more class to teach today,” he says evenly, striding up to him like the great bat he is and snatching up the letter and Harry’s arm besides, “and you are hysterical. Let’s go.”     

He hauls Harry to the back of the classroom and into his personal space. Harry has a passing view of Snape’s office, and then through a door at the back that Harry had always thought led to his personal rooms. He isn’t wrong.    

It’s the barest tickle of magic, and Harry’s belly flops over in his gut, because – because they’re back in Harry’s apartments in the Professor’s Tower. The door in Snape’s office has sent them across the castle and they’re –     

No. It’s the same wall of windows overlooking the greens and the Forbidden Forest. The same small kitchen, the same door leading to the bedroom, but that’s where the similarities between Harry’s new apartments and these ones end.     

Floor-to-ceiling bookshelves cover every inch of wall space, filled to bursting with books of every imaginable type, and wizard contraptions Harry couldn’t hope to name. An enormous owl is sat on the perch at the windowsill, grooming its feathers disinterestedly. It’s one of the biggest owls Harry’s ever seen, with mottled brown and gray feathers and gorgeous rippled plumage down its breast. The back of the huge, sagging sofa in front of the fireplace is covered with a green and silver knitted blanket, and a lanky calico kitten lays curled on one of the sofa cushions, blinking sleepy green eyes at them. Crammed under the window the entire length of the apartment is a worktable covered in parchment, ink, books, and so much miscellany that Harry doesn’t even know where to look.    

Snape glares at him, and points at the sofa. The kitten stares at him with interest. “Sit.”    

“No.”    

“Sit.”  

“No.”    

“You are the most infuriating human being I’ve ever had the misfortune of dealing with,” Snape snarls, and stomps to the kitchen, slamming a silver kettle onto the hob and pointing his wand at the burner furiously. “Sit!”    

Harry glares at him, and sits on the sofa. The kitten jumps off her cushion and slinks under the tea table, glowering at him. Snape, still clutching the letter, shakes his fist at him. “How dare you come storming into my classroom like a bellowing hippogriff.”    

“How dare you send me a letter like that, like we’re strangers,” Harry snaps right back.     

“Just because you saw me at the most indelicate time of my life means nothing,” Snape growls, and – 

Wait. 

Wait.  

Is Snape embarrassed?  

Oh God. He is. 

He’s embarrassed he died in Harry’s arms.    

“Oh my God, you’re such a wanker,” Harry moans, slapping his hands over his burning hot face. He wants to laugh, or maybe cry. Maybe both. “I can’t believe it, you’re supposed to be the adult.”    

“Have you not seen Fawkes’s immaculate work?” Snape sneers, and shoves a cup of tea under his nose. The homemade tea bag is just starting to cloud in the hot water. It’s, at most, a cup of hot water passing itself as a tea-in-training. Harry wants to throw it in the bastard’s face. “Drink that.”    

“It isn’t tea.”    

“It’ll be tea soon. Drink.”    

Harry drinks. It’s honey flavored hot water. It’s actually not so bad. His hands are shaking so hard he has to hold the cup with both hands. Snape drinks his own water, and glares at Harry over the rim of the teacup. “You’re not taking this well,” he says, implying with his tone that it’s Harry’s fault Snape is a bag of shit. “Minerva did say you may not. Do you know how long it took me to write this letter?”    

“You called it an overgrown lawn snake!”    

“That’s because she was. Also, we are not talking about my near death.”    

“‘Near death’ my absolute arse. You definitely and without question died, I know because I was there, you son of a bitch.”    

Snape growls at him. “Ten points from Gryffindor for your abhorrent language.”    

“Eat me. I’m not a Gryffindor anymore,” Harry snaps. “Ten points from Slytherin for being a wanker.”   

Snape rubs his mouth suddenly, and Harry realizes that he’s almost made the man laugh and he’s trying to hide it. It’s so absurd and out of character that Harry chokes on his own extremely inappropriate giggle, burying it in his not-tea.     

The tension breaks, and Snape sinks into the side chair across from Harry. The little cat crawls back out from under the tea table, peering at Harry for a long moment before scurrying behind Snape’s leg, burying herself in the folds of his robes.     

“Ask, then,” Snape intones, as if the very weight of the world has settled on his shoulders. As if Harry exhausts him. Harry exhausts everyone, this is not a new thing.     

“I am absolute crap at Potions. Why in the hell did you apply to be my mentor?”    

“Ask any question but that. Did you even read the application?”    

“I want to know.”    

“We don’t get everything we want in this world, you should know that well enough by now,” Snape says snidely. “I am not permitted to answer such questions before the Receiving. We shouldn’t even be talking.”    

He had Harry there. “Okay, then what are your motivations for wanting to be my mentor?”    

Snape’s eyes narrow. “You’re seeking sentiment where none exists,” he replies, and maybe once he would have gotten away with it but that was before Snape literally died for him. This relationship, despite everything, despite it all, has irrevocably changed, and they can never go back to the people they were.    

“A wanker and a liar.”    

“If you call me a wanker again, I’m going to hex you into next year,” Snape snarls.     

“If you lie to me again I’m going to choose that ancient old bastard to be my tyromaster and you as my faculty advisor, so you’ll get to watch someone take on the position you yourself want,” Harry snarls back.   
Snape’s face changes. If only he knew what he looked like when he was Slytherining, he’d be mortified. Especially, Harry thinks, because this ridiculous young face can’t hide a damned thing. He gets to his feet and strides to the bookcase, the little cat clinging to his robes with all four paws. He searches for just a moment before returning and dropping a book into Harry’s lap. The hot water now doing a passing imitation of tea almost follows.     

The book, old and small, has a cloth-on-wood binding, the worn title almost unreadable. Linfred, the Potterer of Stinchcombe. “Read that before the Receiving. If you damage it, I will damage you. Do not behave in this atrocious manner when we meet with Minerva, she’s had enough shocks to last a lifetime,” Snape says, glaring at him. “I have a class. Get out.”    

“I’ll behave in any manner I choose,” Harry says, not because he truly wants to, but because it makes Snape growl and that’s worth the price of admission all on its own. He hands Snape back the teacup. “This was awful. Thanks so much. Can I have my letter back?”    

“No,” Snape says, and when Harry doesn’t move, glaring up at him, he sighs and digs it out of his robe, rumpled, and shoves it back at him. “Get out, you impertinent dunderhead.”    

“Happily, you overgrown bat,” Harry says, and slams the door on his way out.    

That’s when he understands that Minerva McGonagall has the worst sense of humor in the known world.    

Snape’s apartment door is directly across from his own. 

He and Snape are next-door neighbors.  

.    

Instead of tearing his hair out, or pitching the kind of temper tantrum that would put Dudley to shame, Harry calmly goes into his bedroom, shuts the door, shoves his face into a bed pillow, and screams until he’s hoarse, then a bit more just because he feels it prudent. If he bellows himself out of a voice, he won’t stomp back across the hall and punch that wanker in the face as he so richly deserves.    

Once he’s calmed, he calls to the kitchens for real tea and all the raspberry jam biscuits they have. The house elf who’s assigned to his room, a tiny thing called Mipsy, misunderstands him and brings him a plate of biscuits. He explains that he wishes for all the biscuits. She brings him two plates.    

Needless to say, after call number three, Harry now has a handsome crate of raspberry biscuits taking up half of his kitchen counter, and two very concerned house elves.     

He’d lived in a haunted house for an entire year, alone, he explains, with the hopes that they’ll forgive his eccentricities. This does not do anything to ease their alarm, but Harry now has biscuits, so the outcome is alright.     

The other two applicants didn’t write a letter, because McGonagall didn’t want him to choose either of the other two applicants. Likewise, their applications are not nearly as involved as Snape’s. Harry has actual copies of Snape’s published papers, and some of his students had even vouched for their mentor personally. George Chambers, who graduated the year before Harry started at Hogwarts, called him the greatest mind of his generation. Aya Shafiq, Snape’s first mentee when he was only twenty-six years old, was now a senior healer at St. Mungo’s, and her letter was even more glowing: Master Snape is an intellect unsurpassed.     

Dumbledore had even written him a recommendation letter, open-ended and some years ago, that McGonagall had added to the package. That familiar scrawl makes a knot in Harry’s throat ache terribly, and he has to close his eyes and breathe before he can read it.    

There is no doubt in my mind that Severus will succeed in anything he should put his mind to. His is a spirit undiminished by the hardships of his life. Just as stones are polished by the sea, the difficulties he has endured have exposed the diamond underneath.     

He could hear Dumbledore’s voice in the words, the softness of him, the love he’d had for Snape. The complicated tangle of feelings that rushes up in Harry’s throat makes him ache.    

The thing Harry doesn’t get is why Snape had applied to be his mentor. Harry knows that the man is a soft spot for McGonagall and always has been, which makes him wonder if she’s looking at this clearly. Harry is the antithesis of a potioneer. The recipes, when written in runic form, don’t make sense to him, and he’s too sloppy and disorganized about his ingredients. He’d been a diligent enough student, reading through the directions of upcoming potions when he had the time, in an effort to help out his future self by puzzling through the order of ingredients. He’d always gone into the creation of each potion with the best of intentions. Things had always just somehow gone wrong, especially if the Slytherins lobbed something into his cauldron he didn’t know how to counteract, or he added something too early or too late, or he didn’t allow the right number of turns or he did it clockwise instead of counterclockwise.  

And Snape knew all of this. The man had taught him for five years. He knew Harry’s failings in the subject better than anyone. So why now? Why this? Why put himself, and Harry, through the misery of the next year? Harry is never going to get better at the subject, too incapable and untalented. He owns that, why couldn’t Snape?     

Why do this to him, when it would only hurt them both?    

The book, which he had certainly not dumped an entire cup of tea on out of spite, is air drying by the open window. He glares at it and crunches through a biscuit.    

Linfred, the Potterer of Stinchcombe. Who was Linfred? Why did he kind of have Harry’s family name? Why did –     

“Oi, mate,” Ron says from his doorway. “This is bullshit. I’m packing and leaving back to the Burrow tonight.”    

Ron isn’t leaving back to the Burrow. If he was leaving back to the Burrow he’d already be packed and not announcing he was going to pack. Ron is looking for a reason to stay and Harry slumps in the desk chair, closing his eyes. “Hermione?”    

“In literal raptures. Are those raspberry biscuits?” Ron asks, and sits on the desk near Harry, reaching across him for a double handful like the biscuit hog he is. Harry growls, and Ron thumps him on the back of the head with his elbow. “I told her she wasn’t allowed in the Men’s Hall. That’ll hold her off for about five minutes. Are you coming with me? We could say we’re going to the Burrow, but then go backpacking. I’ve always wanted to see the Great Wall of China.”    

Trusty old Ron. “We’re not going to backpack to China. It’d take months. Also, we don’t speak Chinese.”    

“There are loads of translation spells. Besides,” he adds, spraying crumbs everywhere when he shoves an entire biscuit in his mouth and tries to talk around it, “it’s called backpacking. Bill did it through Egypt and the Goblins ended up keeping him. What do you think, mate? We could be Chinese curse breakers!”    

“We could not be Chinese curse breakers. Neither of us could puzzle our way out of a paper bag without Hermione, and she won’t go,” Harry reminds him. This is not the first time they’ve had this conversation. “It’s bad, then.”    

Ron shrugs, face pinking. He licks his fingertip and taps at all the crumbs on his shirt, then licks his fingertip again. “Pretty much, yeah.”    

“Who are they?”    

Ron closes his eyes as if in pain. “Head of the Wizard Tactics office from the United Nations. The ambassador of the Magical Congress of the United States of America. And some bloke who apparently owns half of the dragon preserves in Romania, including the one where Charlie works.”    

Harry stares at him. “Blimey.”    

Ron cringes, nodding. “Blimey.”    

“What’re you going to do?”    

“Die in a hole. What about you, then?”    

“Retired Head Auror. Head Mugwump before Dumbledore.” He closes his eyes. “Snape.”    

Ron’s breath catches.     

“O-oh. Head Mugwump, huh. I didn’t know old Croyne was still alive. Met him once, at some reception at the Ministry that Dad dragged us to. The man had one foot in the grave even then.”    

Harry clenches his eyes until he sees stars. “Ron.”    

“He had a little budgie that used to live in his hat. Barmy old wizard. Must be nice, to get that old and just say – you know what? I don’t care what anyone says. I love having a budgie in my hat, who’s going to tell me no?”    

“Ron.”    

“Head Auror, though, that might be interesting. What’s his name?”    

Good mate, Ron. Always has been. Harry almost smiles. “Her. Her name is Constance Watson, but we’re not talking about her, we’re talking about Snape wanting to be my mentor.”    

Ron sags like a popped balloon, scrubbing his cheeks. The rasp of his stubble against his palms reminds Harry of their year on the run, the days that would go by when they couldn’t bathe, let alone shave. “I mean. Harry. What the fuck.”    

“What the fuck!”    

“What. The fuck.”    

“Fucking what the fuck.”    

Ron points at him and nods. “Fucking what the fuck.”    

“He wrote me a letter.”    

Harry doesn’t want to hand it over, which means that he certainly should. He gives it to Ron, a bit smeared with raspberry jam now and still wrinkled to hell, and lets his head fall backwards over the back of the chair, crunching on another biscuit even when crumbs fall into his hair. He stares at the ceiling as Ron reads it, and doesn’t think about the little kitten in Snape’s rooms, sleek and healthy and well looked after. How he can picture Snape brushing her, feeding her, petting her. How he didn’t mind that she’d sunk her claws into his robes to be chauffeured around the apartment. Did he let her nuzzle him when no one was watching? Did she ride on his shoulder from room to room?    

Ron folds the letter closed, and sets it carefully back on the desk. Harry eyes him. “Yeah.”    

“Wow.”    

“Yup.”    

“He’s impressive, as far as gits go. I mean, next level stuff, yeah? Arrogant prick.”    

But Harry shakes his head, staring at the ceiling. “It’s not arrogance. He’s had tons of apprentices, and every single one of them have invented potions that have saved people’s lives. One of them made a potion that stops bleeding after birth and has saved like five hundred people. Another one is all into anti-venoms and invented the first counter to a boomslang bite. They’ve all gone on to be potions masters all over the world. One of them is the Potioneer of the Vatican.”    

“Blimey,” Ron says, staring at him.     

Harry sets his elbows on the table and his head in his hands. “He taught here because of the war effort, because of Dumbledore, but Snape is apparently some kind of potion genius. And now he wants to -- oh.”     

He wishes he wasn’t so jaded, but if nothing else, Harry is a pragmatist. Snape has always manipulated the truth to fit his own ends, as any true Slytherin would. He’d petitioned to be his mentor for a reason, and Harry realizes that he should consider that reason had nothing at all to do with Harry. 

Voldemort might be dead, but his pure-blood ideology was alive and fucking well. The Wizengamot had called him to testify against known Death Eaters old and young, but even more were out there, gathering forces to continue the fight in Voldemort’s name, manipulating and scheming at all levels of the government. Kingsley’s term as Minister if Magic was ending next year, and who knew what idiot would take over from him. 

It only made sense that Snape was re-hitching his banner to Harry’s. He had made enemies, powerful enemies, among those Death Eaters who were still loyal. Why else had Snape stayed at Hogwarts, and entered into this farce of a tyroship? The person who got to mentor the Boy Who Lived would be untouchable, spoiled for choice in post and position, but they would also be safe. 

It had been Harry’s own arrogance that had made him assume his ability or inability at potions had any bearing on Snape’s pursuit of this tyroship.    

“You were right, Ron. This was a mistake,” Harry says, to himself as much as to Ron, digging the heels of his hands into his eyes. “I should have stayed at Grimmauld Place.”    

“No, you shouldn’t have. Nothing living should stay at Grimmauld Place,” Ron replies, nudging him. “That place was eating you alive, literally I think, we still don’t know where that severed arm came from. We couldn’t stand you being there anymore. It was killing you, mate.”    

It’s a kindness he can’t take, and he shudders, shaking his head and scraping his fingers back into his hair. Wet heat aches in his nose, the back of his throat. “I did my part. But it doesn’t matter. It’s never going to stop.”    

“Harry,” Ron says quietly, and comes to his knees beside Harry’s chair. He knocks his forehead against the side of Harry’s, wrapping his arm around Harry’s back. He’s shuddering like he’s going to shake right out of his skin, but Ron just holds him even more tightly. “It’s alright, mate. You’re here, with us. You’re taking a chance to do something for yourself for the first time, yeah? Not just what others want you to do, but what you want to do. You don’t have to choose Snape, or Croyne and his barmy budgie, or the Auror lady. You can interview all bloody six hundred of them if you want.”    

Ron gives him a little shake, and Harry looks up. Ron’s freckles stand out on pale skin. “Say it. Say you’re in control.”    

“I’m not.”    

“You are. You’re bloody Harry Potter. You could literally ask for Excalibur and the Ministry would fund an expedition to go hunting for it. Or! You could ask to become the head manager of the Chudley Cannons. Reckon they’d play better if they didn’t have that stooge McDaniels running the team, their offensive line is pants.”     

It’s such a Ron thing to do, make him laugh. Ron doesn’t seem to mind that it’s choked and wet and Harry has to run the heel of his palm over his mouth and nose. He brightens anyway. “I’m serious! Orange would be a good color for you, and maybe they’d have a chance at the World Cup for the first time in three decades.”    

“Orange would be an awful color on me,” Harry says hoarsely, and squeezes his arm in silent thanks.   

Ron gives him another little shake. “Come on, then. Hermione’s got to be beside herself by now, and while we absolutely could subsist on raspberry biscuits, we probably shouldn’t. Dinner’s in an hour, and then there are activities in the teacher’s common room.” He shudders theatrically. “Apparently, Sprout sings and everyone smokes and there’s a flute? I don’t know, I stopped listening after the words poetic readings started getting thrown around.”    

“Blimey,” Harry croaks.     

“Blimey,” Ron agrees grimly.    

.    

When Dudley was eight years old, Aunt Marge had gifted him with a first edition copy of The Fellowship of the Ring.     

It had been a beautiful book, the creamy cover offsetting the burgundy binding and the off-white pages. The simplicity of the font, of the cover art with its strange curling script and the red eye in the center of the black sphere, had called to Harry almost immediately. He could remember never wanting something more in the whole of his life, to get to touch the soft-edged pages. Uncle Vernon didn’t much like books or the people who read them, had called Harry a pansy freak for bringing home Shiloh and The Rats of Nimh, and it had only been Harry’s quick thinking that had saved those library books from the bin. They’re assigned reading, he’d told Uncle Vernon, and the man had sniffed and muttered about the travesty of the state school system and that had been that. It stood to reason that Dudley would follow in his father’s footsteps, out of self preservation if nothing else.     

It hadn’t seemed to much matter that it had been a gift from Aunt Marge. Aunt Petunia usually made her Diddykins keep up appearances for auntie, but she’d assumed, correctly, that Aunt Marge wouldn’t know or care what became of the book. Within a month, the soft, creamy cover had been turned into a paper airplane, and when Dudley had grown bored with sending it flying into Harry while he was trying to cook dinner, he’d snipped it into a thousand little pieces and thrown them in the front entrance like confetti. Uncle Vernon had walked in before Harry could clean it up, and given him a hiding for making a mess at the front door. What if I’d been bringing someone important home, he’d demanded, though he rarely brought anyone at all. It never seemed to matter, with Uncle Vernon.    

It had taken a year, painful though it was, for Dudley to forget about the book, and another few months still for Harry to plan how to sneak it into his cupboard. To this day it remains one of his least thought-out plans that had had the best possible outcome, a sequence of events that began with Dudley’s ninth birthday party at the roller skate rink, a fender bender accident at the corner stop, and Uncle Vernon dropping hollandaise sauce all down his tie. It had ended with the book tucked under Harry’s mattress.     

The book had been nearly destroyed by the time Harry stole it. The cover was long gone, of course, and so too were the maps, peeled off of the cardboard front cover in awful strips. The first pages of the book, including the title page, had been graffitied with naughty words, which Harry had taken great pains to turn into flowers, stars, and moons. The words had been written in marker, and Harry only had a few broken crayons, but he’d done a decent enough job to make the words disappear.  

For all it had suffered, the pages of the book, a bit bent, a bit wrinkled from water damage, were still readable. And read them Harry did.    

How he loved The Fellowship of the Ring. He liked the mysterious Strider who wasn’t really a ranger at all, and Gandalf the Grey and his wizard’s hat and staff, and even the terrifying Nazgûl who were the scariest villains he’d ever read about, scarier even than Captain Hook -- and Harry hated Captain Hook. But it was the Hobbits, and their tenacity and bravery, that Harry fell in love with. Their funny feet and fluffy hair, their cheerfulness, their pipes, and their songs. Harry had giggled for days over The Bath Song, because who sang while taking a bath, other than Uncle Vernon when he’d had a second glass of sherry? A Drinking Song, too, had made him smile, but it was Tom Bombadil's songs, the ones he sang with Samwise and Frodo in the Old Forest, that Harry loved best of all. Tom was such an eccentric creature, full of magic and splendor, and his love of life had made Harry feel as if he was right there in the forest with Frodo, in awe of the magical being before him.     

It's been a long time since Harry thought about that summer, nine years old and reading The Fellowship of the Ring for the first time by the light of the slats in the cupboard door. If only nine-year-old Harry Potter could have known that a decade on he’d be sitting in a room of witches and wizards smoking like chimneys while a half-Goblin with a handlebar mustache played a merry tune on the flute, the lot of them ruddy-faced from laughter.     

It’s surreal to find out that his prim, proper teachers should, in secret, be just like the rest of them. Trelawney is doing some sort of Luna-esk interpretive dance to the music, complete with gauzy scarves and neck thrusts which Harry could have lived without seeing. There’s a rowdy, cutthroat game of gobstones being played by Sinistra and a young lady professor Harry doesn’t recognize by the fireplace. Vector is reciting horrible elvish poetry in the poshest accent she can muster, complete with a flowery monstrosity of a hat at a jaunty angle on her head, while Babbling and Steward heckle her mercilessly and Pomfrey nearly cries with laughter.     

Hermione can’t stop giggling, hand over her mouth. Ron, sat next to him, keeps muttering, “Blimey,” under his breath, and Harry absolutely understands the sentiment.    

Perched like a bloody great vulture on the sofa across from them, puffing away on a pipe, sits Snape, stone-faced like his colleagues aren’t making merry all around him. It’s almost as if he chose the spot just to be in the prime glaring zone, the full weight of his dark eyes on Harry even when he wasn’t looking at him.  

The song ends with a drum solo from Hooch, and the teachers, save Snape, burst into applause and laughter. McGonagall stands from where she’s been playing cards with Sprout, raising her glass of pumpkin juice to the musical duo. “Thank you, Rolanda and Fillius, for that outstanding performance. It was well worth the wait. Colleagues and friends, thank you all for a wonderful first day of term. To have you in this room once more after such a long and hard year brings joy to an old woman’s heart.” She presses the glass to her chest, eyes suddenly bright. “I do not flatter myself to know what Albus would say tonight—”     

“Surely fizzing whizzbees could be considered part of a balanced breakfast,” says Pomfrey, to loud laughter amongst the teachers,  

“It’s Start of Term! Nine chocolate cauldrons is just the right amount on this happy day,” Sprout adds, to raucous mirth,     

“—but I do know he would be elated to see all those he loved here, together.” McGonagall smiles at them all, a bit watery around the edges. “After so many years of conflict, to find ourselves at this moment of peace is a gift. Changed, yes. Wary, yes. But equally so, we look to the future, to the shadows pushed back and the sun warm on our faces, together.”    

And then McGonagall does the funniest thing. She crosses the room, around Flitwick’s cushion and past where Harry, Hermione and Ron sit, and sets her hand at Snape’s shoulder.     

The room falls absolutely silent. And Harry understands.    

They’d all done things during the war that would haunt them, but Snape’s sacrifice trumped them all. Dumbledore had asked Snape to kill him, and Snape had done so, out of love for him, out of mercy and compassion, even knowing the road it would put him on. Especially knowing the road it would put him on.     

The wizarding world called Harry a hero, but he’d just been a boy with a death wish. Snape had given up his career and reputation, destroyed all of his human connections, and willingly gave his life, so that they could win. And if Harry hadn’t been there when Nagini attacked, hadn’t seen Snape’s last memories, heard his last words, that was how the man would have been remembered. Evil, treacherous. A name to be spit on.   

He'd told Snape so, in one of the letters he sent when Snape was still in St. Mungo’s and Harry was petitioning for the man’s Order of Merlin, First Class. He’d said so, and Snape had never replied, and Harry knows why, now, staring at the man sitting across from him. How he’s pulled into himself, face white as death.     

McGonagall looks at Snape until he raises his eyes to her. It is only then that she raises her glass. “To Albus, who taught us long after we thought we’d learned. And to Severus, who taught this old Gryffindor a new meaning for the word courage. May we follow in their footsteps, and be honorable and brave in this new world we are forging for the children in our care.”    

“To Albus and Severus,” Professor Flitwick says, beaming through his tears, and the teachers echo him. They’re the lot of them smiling. Snape silently lays a hand over McGonagall’s smaller one, there on his shoulder.     

For the second time in Harry’s life, he feels an odd lurch in his heart, as if all the pieces of his world were realigning themselves into a new picture.    

If only nine-year-old Harry Potter could have known what was to come. If only he could step back into time, touch that little boy’s hair, his small and dirty face, and reassure him that his life wasn’t to be confined to that small cupboard, to that small world on Privet Drive. That this place was waiting for him, here with these warm and caring people, who would always make room for the broken among them.   

Chapter Text

la gaudière

n. the glint of goodness inside people, which you can only find by sloshing them back and forth in your mind until everything dark and gray and common falls away, leaving behind a constellation at the bottom of the pan—a rare element trapped in exposed bedrock, washed there by a storm somewhere upstream.

For as long as Harry could remember, Aunt Petunia had been obsessed with the BAFTAs.  

He couldn’t say exactly why, really. Aunt Petunia saw maybe one movie a year, and it usually involved explosions and car chases, as Uncle Vernon’s tolerance for namby-pamby was historically low. Anyone who wasn’t Arnold Schwarzenegger, in Uncle Vernon’s eyes, fell into that category.    

Still, the BAFTAs were her event, and it was an event. She’d invite all the lady neighbors to the house because of course Vernon had gotten the latest television, fifty-five inch and wasn’t it amazing? There’d be hors d'oeuvres, which Harry usually made, and three bottles of champagne, the fancy ones that Aunt Marge brought with her if she didn’t manage to drink them all on her yearly visits, or the next best, if she did. Uncle Vernon and Diddkykins would be sent off to the cinema or a rugby match or whatever it was that manly men did, Harry would be locked in his cupboard, and then the lady neighbors would descend.     

That one night a year, all squabbles about bushes and watering schedules were put to rest. They’d flock like wintering birds, cheek kisses and high heels, squealing laughter and oh Tuney the house is beautiful and my goodness what a delicious spread!     

Harry could just see the telly from his cupboard, through the slats in the cupboard door. He loved the pre-BAFTA red carpet coverage the most. The glamourous gowns and sharp tuxedos, the jewels and surprise visits from American movie stars. So many familiar faces, faces he’d seen on the side of buses or on the cover of magazines at the grocery, in the flesh. They’d been so beautiful, and part of a world Harry had no concept for.     

It was funny how life worked out, because Harry had a concept for it now.    

Later, when Harry thinks back on the Receiving, he’ll wonder just what he’d been anticipating. Muggleborns, Harry had learned, spent their lives playing catch-up to what their wizardborn friends had known nearly from birth. The surprises didn’t come so fast and furious for him anymore, until something caught him so off guard that he felt as if he was back to square one, eleven years old with a wand in his hand for the first time.    

The funny thing was, he’d read the book, or at least as much of it as he could read in a few days. Tyroships Through the Ages went on, for a while, about the rules around tyroships, famous tyros, and more. While it had described the process of the Receiving, it had cheerfully glossed over the ceremony itself, aside from saying it was steeped in tradition and each institution offering a tyroship did it differently.    

He'd have liked old Salvador Manweri to go into a bit more detail. Apparently, there was an entire book in the spaces between those words, and that book included the wizarding BAFTAs.    

Harry can’t be mad at McGonagall for her careful omission of the truth, because it had been a kindness. If he’d been in her shoes, he wouldn’t have told them either. After all, Hermione had taken to vomiting in wastebaskets as the mood struck her, including twice in McGonagall’s office. She’d dragged Harry and Ron back to her apartment the night of the teacher’s party and then spent the next hour having what could only be classified as a walking panic attack. She’d easily done six miles in circles around the room talking nonstop, but Harry understands – her potential mentors included Hiroko Takahashi, headmaster of Mahoutokoro Wizarding School in Japan, Gellert Godfrey, Secretary of Charmswork for the Magical Congress of the United States of America, and Shah Şimşek, of the Büyücülük Kazakh Khanate. Harry had a grumpy old mugwump, an ex-Head Auror, and Snape. Literal heads of state wanted her to be their tyro. If he was her, he’d be a mess too.    

And that, of course, didn’t even take Ron into account, who’d bitten his nails to the quick and taken to flying one of the school brooms out on the grounds for hours at a time, which just set Hermione off because she felt he wasn’t taking the time to think about his questions when in fact that was all Ron was doing.  

In comparison Harry is actually very calm, and had been so as he’d written down his list of questions, as he’d put on his sharp black dress robes with green velvet lined lapel and matching tie, as he’d tried to press down his hair into some semblance of order and gave up when it just sproinged back into its customary field of cowlicks.     

He’s calm as he steps out of his apartment and walks to the teacher’s common room, calm as he takes a seat next to Ron, who was wearing the dark blue dress robes that Fred and George had bought him after Fourth Year. For a second Harry sees why girls have started to sigh when they pass, why that waitress dropped an entire tray of butterbeer last time he and Ron were at the Leaky Cauldron, when Ron had propped his boot on his opposite knee, strong forearm over his calf. The dark blue of his dress robes sets off the long wave of his hair caught at the nape of his neck with a black silk ribbon, and compliments his complexion, the tanned glow under his freckles.    

“Did you see the Quidditch Pitch.”  

Ron’s voice has a dull quality to it. All panicked out, his mate.    

“Yep.”    

“There’ve been people walking out to it for the past half hour.”    

“Yeah.”    

“Wonder why?”    

He lays his head back on the back of the sofa. “Couldn’t tell you.”    

“Maybe there’s another ball. Like a – a beginning of term ball.” 

“Ron.” 

“Or a Quidditch Game!” 

“At nine in the evening?” 

“Stranger things have happened!” 

A door opens and closes from the Women’s Hall, and then there she is; striding towards them in a robe of periwinkle blue, with brocade lace flowers in white that start in her hair and cascade down her gown and to the floor, looking like a fairy princess come to life.   

“Hermione,” Ron whispers. 

She stops in front of their sofa, lips pulled to one corner with amusement. They must look a right pair of idiots, but she’s blushing, so that’s alright then. “Well?”   

It isn’t a vision, nothing so Seer-y as that. Harry can do things now that he couldn’t before, but that doesn’t mean he’s come round Trelawney. He just gets feelings sometimes, that he can’t always explain.     

He has a second, just a second, of another time, another place. Hermione in a white and silver dress and a veil made of flowers. Ron, tears streaming down his face as he watches her walk to him, as they wait for her at the altar in front of all their friends and family. She sets her hand on his forearm just so, smiling up at him with laughter in her eyes. They’d known Ron would be the one to fall to pieces, and he’s proven them right.    

He blinks and he’s in the teacher’s common room again. Warmth like he’s never quite felt settles in the hollow place around his heart, and he smiles. “Wow.”    

“Wow,” Ron echoes, and Hermione rolls her eyes, that little smile still on her face. “I mean. Blimey.”    

“Remembered I’m a girl, have you?” she asks, not unfairly because Ron is well served getting the piss taken out of him once in a while. He’s a bit of a block of wood when it comes to picking up nuance, but equally so, he can’t hide anything to hide his life.     

The way his eyes follow Hermione whenever she’s in the room, the way he gets all tongue twisted when he wants to impress her, the way he helped her get her trunk off the Hogwarts Express and positively glowed when she thanked him – yeah, Ron isn’t subtle.    

He remembers she’s a girl, alright.   

"One time. One time! That’s me told for the rest of my days, is it?” he says, throwing his hands up in the air and collapsing back on the sofa. “I was fourteen. And an idiot! You should have told us!”    

"That I was a girl?”  

"Yes that you were a girl, and that you were going to the Yule Ball with Viktor bloody Krum.” Ron’s face darkens. “And how is he, then? Since you’re such great mates, I’m sure you know everything he’s been up to, all the snitches he’s been seeking while traveling the world.”  

“Who I am mates with is none of your concern Ronald,” she replies tartly. “But since you asked, he has been traveling the world. With his wife. And their two children.”    

That takes the wind right out of his sails. “Oh.”    

“Yes,” she huffs, “oh. He’s decent and kind and we write to one another because we are friends. And before you even say it, boys and girls can so be friends, look at us!”    

“Yeah, alright, suppose so,” Ron says, a strange note in his voice, and Harry wants to sort of bash their heads together. He wisely changes the subject. “I thought we were just going to meet our tyromasters and then choose. That’s what it says in the book.” 

“Nope. Looks like it’s the Wizarding BAFTAs,” Harry says sagely.  

“Wizarding BAFTAs,” Hermione echoes, snapping her fingers and pointing at him. “You’re right! Oh no, you’re right,” and her face goes pale. “Oh my God!” 

“What are BAFTAs?” asks Ron. 

“I don’t have a speech, was I supposed to have a speech? At the very least something to thank them all. Oh, God! I thought we were going to meet in Professor McGonagall’s office or something, I didn’t go for the fancier dress robes, I should have gone for the fancier dress robes!” 

“Ms. Granger, calm yourself. You look beautiful,” comes a voice by the door, and they turn to see McGonagall, in her plush green robes and velvet witch's hat, striding towards them. “Gentlemen, you clean up very smartly as well. Mr. Potter, I suppose the hair…? Well, never mind now. Come, sit here and I’ll tell you how the evening is going to go.” 

McGonagall pours them each a glass of sherry in a fine, tiny little glass and lays out their evening, which is the Wizarding BAFTAs and they’re all up for Best Actor and Actress of the year. She’d capped it at three hundred attendees, most of whom were family and friends, the entourages and spouses of the collected group of famous wixens trying for their tyros, the professors, any Seventh Years of age who wanted to attend, and the Press.  

There would be photos – Ron goes absolutely gray at this – then they’d be brought into private rooms to speak with their three potential mentors. They’d ask their five questions, one at a time, and all three of the mentors would respond, and then they’d have one-on-one time with their potential mentors immediately after. At any time tonight, they could choose.    

“It is of vital importance you choose wisely. You will serve your tyromaster in any capacity and whim, as apprentice, as student, and even as an assistant. However, let me make plain what your book glosses over. You will not, in any way, have your dignity sullied by the tyromaster. This is a collegiate relationship, not a personal one, and at no time is your tyromaster to engage in any unwanted or coerced contact. To do so is an illegal and immoral act.”    

Not that Harry thinks he’s going to be sullied, necessarily, but there’s Ron to think about. Hermione could hold her own, and Harry would help her hide the body, but Ron was strangely innocent about things sometimes. He wouldn’t even know he was being sullied until it was too late. Harry’s glad McGonagall said it aloud, even if Ron turns bright red.    

“Declining all three of your mentors is permitted. Declining the tyroship is not,” McGonagall reminds them, but her eyes linger on Harry. “You are not beholden, in any way, to the three mentors I chose for you. I simply narrowed down a very large list. It is up to you to decide if you want any of them. If you don’t, you will not hurt me or your standing here in any way, and we will have another Receiving in a week.”    

McGonagall studies them, Hermione’s twisting fingers and Ron’s pallid face and Harry’s everything. Her eyebrow pops up. “You’re nervous.”    

“Yes,” Ron explodes. “We didn’t know it was going to be, be, this!”    

“I’m well aware of that, Mr. Weasley. I didn’t want to cause you undo distress before the event, and now it’s happening and it’s far too late to be concerned. You’re to go downstairs and put your best foot forward. The Press Corps will take photos–”    

“Photos,” Ron moans.    

“—and then it’ll be done, and you’ll get to speak to your potential mentors and afterward eat what I have been assured are exceptional canapes.” She claps her hands and stands, no nonsense, and Harry remembers why he likes McGonagall so much. “Off we go. Shoulders back. Head held high. Remember: confidence.” 

“Channel Draco Malfoy, Ron,” Hermione says as they stand.  

“Channel Malfoy,” says Harry, pointing at her. “There it is, mate, listen to Hermione.”    

Ron sighs and thinks for a minute, before he throws back his shoulders, puffs out his chest, angles his chin just so, and narrows his eyes to half-slits. It’s remarkably Malfoy-ish and what’s more, a devastatingly good look on him, even if Harry would have to sock him twelve times a day if he actually adopted this as a look. “If you would be so kind as to be my escort tonight, Madam Granger. Come along Potter, I know you get easily distracted by shiny things but do make an effort, will you. Some of us have potential allies to impress.”    

Definitely a shoulder shake from McGonagall, and pinched lips to hide her laughter as she shoos them out the door. Ron beams, then takes on that bored rich-boy expression again, rolling his eyes haughtily at them all as he sweeps out the door with Hermione on his arm.     

.  

They’re met in the Great Hall by several professors, including Sprout and Flitwick, the Minister of Magic and three of his undersecretaries, a lot of official looking wixen in official looking robes, Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, and –    

“Ree!!”    

His heart lurches, a bathump he feels down to his knees, because there’s his baby godson, taking jerky, toddling steps towards him through the sea of robes, with Andromeda rushing after him. There’s his baby godson, shrieking at the top of his voice, hands outstretched towards him with all the joy in the world made manifest on his perfect little face.     

He’s wearing a tiny set of blue wizard robes with a bow tie to match, his hair flashing from flaming blue to emerald green, and Harry laughs out loud, scooping him up and lifting him over his head. Teddy shoves his fingers into his mouth, squealing and kicking with glee, and Harry pulls him close, hugging him tight. That baby smell of him, soap and powder and vanilla and something inherently Teddy, is as familiar to him as his own skin. 

“Edward Remus!” Andromeda pants as she rushes up to them, pushing the curls out of her face. “He’s fast! Oh dear, don’t you look lovely,” and kisses Harry’s cheek. Teddy babbles and does the same, a smacking wet kiss on Harry’s other cheek, and Harry scrunches his nose up and rubs it against Teddy’s cheek, just to hear him giggle, just to feel those little hands pat-pat-pat against his jaw.     

“Merlin, how can we compete with such a greeting?” Kingsley says, laughing, and Harry grins across at him as Teddy immediately shoves the corner of Harry’s collar into his mouth. The wixen with Kingsley look a bit poleaxed and a lot smitten, and Harry remembers that he’s a celebrity.    

“It’s very nice to see you again, Minister Shacklebolt,” he says, smiling his public smile and shifting Teddy to his hip so he can shake Kingsley’s hand.    

"He’s a charming little lad, isn’t he. Edward Remus, was it?” he asks, as if the entirety of the Order of the Phoenix hadn’t been at his estate during the summer for Solstice; as if Teddy hadn’t chased Kingsley’s dog around the yard for two hours shrieking arf! arf! “He wouldn’t be the son of war hero Remus Lupin?”    

“Werewolf Remus Lupin turned the tide of the southern flank during the Battle of Hogwarts,” Kingsley’s undersecretary, Allison Grumble, tells one of the wixen with their party, a short man in violet robes with a fez at a jaunty angle on his sweaty-looking head. “Without him, the battle would have surely been lost. Posthumous Order of Merlin, First Class.”    

“Gadzooks,” replies the man in a thick, American twang, moping his brow with a kerchief. Allison, who’d graduated Hogwarts when Harry was in second year, and who had gifted the first and second year Gryffindors a crate of chocolate frogs on her way out, winks at him. “What an honor. What an honor.”    

“Mr. Potter, Ms. Granger, Mr. Weasley, let me introduce the Secretary General of the Magical Congress of the United States of America, Warlock Gibby Humbleward,” Kingsley says, and Harry offers his hand.    

“Very pleased to meet you, sir.”    

“Pleasure’s all mine,” the man gushes, pumping Harry’s hand. Teddy giggles around Harry’s collar. “We’d like to meet – ah yes, Mr. Weasley, there you are, how could I miss you, you’re a tall one, aren’t you, your charming mother did say,” and the man pumps his hand as well, despite Ron’s pole-axed expression, as Mrs. Weasley beams with pride. “Ducky can’t wait to meet you, he said you’ve shown some of the most awesome charmswork he’s ever seen.”    

“Now, now, Secretary Humbleward, you know you aren’t to speak of the potential tyromasters before the Receiving,” admonishes Professor McGonagall sharply.    

Humbleward winces, though to Harry it looks a bit forced and not entirely sincere. “Right, right, sorry about that ma’am.”    

Kingsley introduces them to the gathered wixen, fourteen in all, and leaders of the free wizarding world. The deputy headmistress of the Mahoutokoro Wizarding School in Japan, a tiny woman in a beautifully embroidered silk pink robe; the man who owned the dragon preserves in Romania, who apparently was himself descended from the royal line of Hungary and carries himself as such; the representative for Shah Şimşek, in flowing red velvet robes and a lustrous black beard to his chest. The current Head Auror of the Ministry, Gawain Robards, is also in attendance, and he smiles at Harry kindly. Harry remembers him from the hours after the Battle of Hogwarts, tall and handsome with thick curling dark hair just beginning to gray at the temples. He has an air of strength about him, of authority, tempered with a mildness of manner that sets Harry at ease.     

The rain that had threatened all afternoon booms in the distance as they step out onto the grounds for the Quidditch Pitch. The sun, hidden behind the thick storm clouds, is setting over the Highlands, and what little light could break through scatters in all directions. The sheeting columns of rain to the east promise a deluge when the storm finally reaches Hogwarts.     

Professor McGonagall casts a preemptive forever dry charm over them and their path down to the Quidditch Pitch, but Teddy still begins to whimper as the electricity of the coming storm tingles against their skin. Harry tucks him under his dress robes and the little boy presses his face to Harry’s neck, whining when a crash of thunder sounds in the distance, closer than before.     

Harry has always loved this kind of weather. He can remember being very small, four or five at most, and in trouble for something or other. Uncle Vernon had shoved him out the door to the back garden, his giant walrus mustache quivering. It had been hot, he remembers, and windy, whipping his fringe over his forehead. The air had felt so heavy, suffocating and wet, and the thunder booming in the distance had made his teeth ache.     

He’d sat on the back stoop, breathless with anticipation, and when the clouds finally opened, he’d felt it like a crack in his being. His fingers had tingled, his hair had stood on end, and he’d giggled as the rain came pouring down in relentless waves. He’d played with the rain, made it sway and dance on his fingers.  

When Vernon came to get him later, and found him sitting on the stoop completely dry, he’d screamed himself hoarse and Harry had spent a lot of days afterward in the darkness of his cupboard.    

He can’t believe he’d forgotten about that. It must have been the first time he ever did accidental magic, but he feels now exactly as he did then. The anticipation of the storm rolling in, of the magic in the air, between his teeth, caught in his armpits and belly button and knees. He feels it and tickles Teddy until his little godson looks up, eyes filled with tears and chin wobbling even as he tries to smile. “It’s alright,” he murmurs, looking up. “See? The rain is coming but it smells so good. Smell?” He takes a big, exaggerated sniff, wriggling his nose. “Ahh. So nice!”    

“Ahh,” Teddy agrees, and Harry gently thumbs away the tears that have escaped down his little face. He giggles wetly when Harry kisses his cheek, his hair flaring dark blue.     

“He’s missed you,” Andromeda says, looping her elbow through his.   

He likes Andromeda so much, and there’s something between them, warm and simple, that he appreciates. He wishes that he’d taken the time to tell her about his tyromasters, about what he’s walking into. But he hadn’t, and now isn’t the time, with the collective power of the wizarding world walking down to the Quidditch Pitch in front of them.    

“I’m sorry,” he tells her. She rolls her eyes, with a single gesture telling him just how ridiculous he is, and Harry laughs a little, ducking his head. "Well, I am.”    

“I’ll be happier to let him stay the night with you now that you’re at Hogwarts. Grimmauld Place should be condemned,” she says. “Did you get rid of the traiceret pila?”    

“Not yet,” he says, as if he hasn’t been using it as a paperweight in his screaming blood library. He hadn’t found anyone to destroy it, and as much as he likes Kingsley, he doesn’t trust it in the Ministry’s hands.     

It would be just like them, to store it for a rainy day.    

“That’s it, then, the worst of it?”    

“Have you not told Mrs. Tonks about the body parts, mate?” Ron asks, eyes wide as he catches up to them. “Or the doll?”    

“Doll?” Andromeda demands. “Body parts?”    

"A severed, mummified arm with a black ring that grew tentacles through the decomposed flesh,” Hermione says. She tickles Teddy’s chin just to hear him giggle and pointedly ignores Harry’s attempt to catch her attention. "Oh, and a human tongue, nailed to the brick inside the fireplace.”    

“The doll,” Ron says, shuddering.   

He winces. “Margaret follows me around the house. Not where I can see her, just – she just kind of pops up in unexpected places. It’s not a problem, really.”    

“Liberal application of the Incarcerous spell lad, that’s the ticket,” Arthur tells him from Ron’s other side. “It’s how I was finally able to catch Grandfather Weasley’s boots in the act. What a racket they made every night, tromping up and down the stairs!”    

“Bit past that now, Dad. It was waiting for him on the stairwell a month or so ago,” Ron tells his parents, and Molly gasps. “He nearly took a header down the steps.”    

“And you with your bad leg!” she exclaims. “Harrison James Potter!”    

“My leg is fine. It’s fine!” he assures Andromeda, when she gives him an identical look of disapproval currently gracing Molly’s face. He is going to kill Ron. “I found a tapestry made of human hair in one of the bureaus that sort of writhes when I touch it. That’s much more interesting than a haunted doll.” At Andromeda’s horrified expression he adds, “Well, I mean, maybe not haunted. More alive than I’d like, sure, but it hasn’t actively tried to smother me or anything like that.”     

No need to mention it had been sitting at the foot of his bed his last morning at Grimmauld Place before he came to Hogwarts, or that its eyes had followed him throughout the room as he’d gotten dressed.     

Andromeda gives him a look that tells Harry he hasn’t gotten away with it. "And the shrunken heads?”     

“Burk told me the Brazilian Ministry of Magic might know how to properly bury them. I sent a letter through the international office, just waiting to hear back.”     

"Did you store them like I told you to?”    

“In a box with the Black coat of arms drawn on the lid,” he confirms, hiding his smile, “as per your Howler.”    

“I was there that morning. Impressive lungs,” Ron says approvingly. “Went white as parchment, he did.”    

She harrumphs, giving him a look. “The sheer embarrassment, to survive the Dark Lord only to be taken down by a haunted house with a vendetta.”    

“It isn’t haunted,” he says, because it isn’t. At least not much. A bit strange, yeah, after so many years exposed to so much dark magic, but decent all the same, even funny. He likes his house, despite – or maybe in spite – of the fact that it was at times actively trying to kill him. “Well, maybe a bit. But I’ve got it nearly down to the studs now, at least parts of it. The wall around the library refuses to come down.”    

“What library?” Andromeda asks sharply, but Professor McGonagall, who’d been walking ahead with the Minister and his entourage, stops long enough for their little group to catch up to her.  Kingsley and the others step inside, but not before Kingsley gives them a wink and a little smile.  

"Alright then,” she tells them, then startles when Teddy whines and reaches for her. Before anyone can say a word, McGonagall plucks him right out of Harry’s arms, settling him at her hip. Teddy ducks his head, fingers in his mouth and his big eyes shining with happiness as he gazes up at her.     

McGonagall does not melt – she’s far too Scottish for that – but a little smile curls her lips, no matter how hard she tries to school her face. “Remember. While it’s fine and good to have been respectful of your elders in school, this is no such time to be tissue-mouthed. Speak up, and don’t let wixen who think far too highly of themselves make you feel silly or small for your questions. The decision you make tonight will affect the rest of your lives, after all. Ms. Granger, Professor Sprout will be overseeing your Receiving. Mr. Weasley, you’ll have Professor Flitwick, and Mr. Potter, I’ll be sitting in on your meeting, as requested by one of your potential tyromasters.”    

No need to ask which one.    

“Remember,” McGonagall says again sharpish. Teddy mimics her, looking at them sternly with his tiny eyebrows curled. When she glances down at him he suddenly grins, hair flaming pink with cheekiness. It is adorable. “Be strong. Be smart. And know we are all of us – your family and professors and teachers and friends – proud of you.”    

. 

The Quidditch Pitch is no longer a sports arena, and it doesn’t like it one bit.    

He feels its ire the minute they pass through the huge wooden doors, greeted not by the grassy playing field and its familiar hoops, but by a long corridor, chandeliers hanging from a twenty-foot ceiling. Portraits of notable wizards line the walls over white wainscoting, and the thick, plush carpet is dark blue and decadent.  

They arrive in a grand, sprawling reception room, a circular room with a curved dome above. The ceiling beams are decorated with intricate wooden filigree, and a chandelier with a thousand glittering diamonds throws sparkling light. A crowd of reporters stand off to one side, three or four dozen, with enormous cameras. Rita Skeeter stands at the front of the pack, looking like a cat who got not just the canary but the whole damned flock, so smug that Harry catches Hermione’s arm before she can march forward. Three golden doors sit recessed into the wall on the far side of the entrance, before which sit the tyromasters, in heavy, ornate wooden chairs not unlike the Headmistress’s chair in the Great Hall. The tyromasters are in identical dark red velvet robes lined with black lace, matching the banners hanging from the walls, the podium at the front of the hall, the fabric of the reception chairs before it.     

He’s never seen Snape in anything but black, so to see him now, in that dark red, almost makes Harry smile. He can only imagine how mad Snape must have been to know he’d be facing them all decked out in Gryffindor style, and would surely be furious if he knew just how good he looks in it. The red, almost as dark as blood, suits his complexion, the dark wave of his hair and the obsidian of his eyes. He looks royal and refined, princely, as if all he needed to complete the look was a crown, and Harry likes it.     

He'd like it a whole lot more, however, if the bloody pitch would bloody stop bloody screaming.  Like a two-year-old throwing a temper tantrum, the Pitch is wailing, just about kicking its feet and mashing its fists against the ground. It’s a sensation more than a sound, extremely immediate and taking Harry’s considerable control not to flinch at.  

Three empty chairs wait beside the podium, and McGonagall whispers, “To the front now. Shoulders back, heads held high. You’ll have the chance to be with your families after the Receiving, say goodbye now.”    

Andromeda takes Teddy back from McGonagall, and the both of them give Harry a tight hug. Teddy starts to whine, little fingers plucking at Harry’s hair, but he gently shushes the little boy, kissing his forehead and tickling his cheek until his godson gives him a tremulous smile. He ignores the pop pop of cameras going off behind him, and Andromeda squeezes his hand. He thought he’d be okay, that he’d face this as he’d faced all the rest since he was eleven, but somehow in his year of self-imposed exile he forgot the queasy nausea of being famous.    

Hermione has gone white, but Ron’s done her one better and gone green, sickly pale against the red of his hair. Molly and Arthur hug the two of them, then trade with Andromeda to hug Harry. Arthur claps him on the back, and Molly’s lined eyes fan at each corner with a smile.  

Music begins from somewhere and Ron jerks an elbow out, offering it to Hermione. She takes it, and then she does the same to Harry, offering her other arm.     

The three of them, together.    

The wailing from the pitch takes on a new and violent fervor and Harry ignores it. He ignores it as he shakes Kingsley’s hand at the podium, as they pose and smile for the cameras, as the three of them take their seats. He ignores it as Kingsley gives some sort of speech, droning on about international cooperation and most gifted wixen of our time and honor and privilege, but the sound of the Pitch’s rage is overwhelming him, thumping inside of him.     

He ignores it as the tyromasters each stand, introducing themselves, and ignores it as the flurry of the cameras and journalists move around the room to capture each moment, making striations of color echo in his eyes with each pop of the wizard cameras. He ignores it even when the screaming makes his ears ring, when his eyes start to burn and the tension in his neck sends jolts of pain down through his shoulders and back.     

It's when he tastes blood at the back of his throat, feels it spill hot down his face from his nose, that he can’t stand it for one more second.    

There’s no fireplace, of course, so Harry makes do. In the corner of the room next to another discreet door, likely leading to the facilities, is a potted plant with big, leafy greens. Harry gets to his feet in the middle of one of the tyromaster’s speeches, says, “Sorry, I really am very sorry,” but he can barely hear it, for the clamoring fury battering him. The audience gasps and McGonagall, who had been sitting in the front row, stands quickly, but he ignores them all.    

As he’s crossing the room, he hears Rita Skeeter say, “And in a sudden move, the pressure of a tyroship becomes too much for young Harry, who takes flight from the reception hall as if the very hounds of hell were at his feet,” and Harry almost laughs. Almost.    

He drops to his knees beside the plant, and digs his fingers into the dirt at the root. Dry, but easily fixed. An aguamenti spell is beyond him right now, so with a wave of his hand Kingsley’s glass of water from the podium comes sailing towards him.     

He thinks he hears McGonagall say, “Mr. Potter!”, but his eyes are burning and his heart is skipping beats. He dumps the water into the plant and mixes the dirt quickly into a muddy paste, then scoops up a dollop into his palm.    

On the wall next to him he draws a quaffle, a drop of brown water sliding down from the image. Instantly, the sound of the Pitch rises in fury. He sees McGonagall crossing to him, and several of the tyromasters have stood as well, but Harry’s got just the one shot at this.    

On the wainscotting opposite the entrance door he draws three hoops. On the wall behind the journalists, who scatter to let him through even while the flash of their cameras nearly blind him, he draws a banner with a lion mane in it. Behind the tyromasters and between the golden doors goes a tiny snitch with wings. On the door frame of the grand entrance he draws a broom.     

Harry smacks his palm against the broom, and the voice of the Quidditch Pitch comes screaming out, startling everyone in the room.    

-- DIDN’T WANT THIS, DIDN’T WANT THIS, NASTY OILY DIRTY, MY GRASS, MY GRASS, MY GR –     

“Oi!” Harry bellows, and the voices of the tyromasters and all their gathered entourage die. Rita Skeeter stares at him like all of her Christmases have come early. Just beyond her, Ron slaps a hand to his face, and Hermione’s mouth falls open. “Enough then! What is all this carrying on about!”    

“Merlin,” one of the tyromasters gasps.    

MY GRASS, SEEKER, MY RINGS MY STANDS, THEY’RE GONE THEY’RE GONE THEY’RE GONE THEY’RE—    

“Nothing is gone!” Harry says, and the walls thump, a nearly imperceptible burst of magic that make them bow out once before settling, vibrating, under his hand. He looks to McGonagall, who seems to be standing at the end of a long tunnel. Her face is as white as a sheet. “Is this the spellwork that makes tents bigger on the inside, Professor? It tastes like it.”    

But McGonagall is staring at him and Harry realizes he’s acting like a nutter, and he winces. “I’ve never – she’s having a fit.”    

“She?” McGonagall asks weakly.    

“The Quidditch Pitch.”    

One of the elderly tyromasters starts to laugh, a thick and dusty sound, and thumps into his seat again, his feet popping out from under his red tyromaster robes. He’s wearing striped hose in orange and yellow. “My word. Of course Harry Potter is a Stone Talker.”    

The journalists practically fall over in paroxysms of pleasure and yeah, maybe the old man is right. Harry can’t do anything by halves.     

“It’s the same magic,” says another of the tyromasters, a small witch with an American accent, her dark hair done in an elaborate knot at the nape of her neck. She’s staring at Harry like he’s water in the desert, a naked hunger that makes something in his belly crawl.     

He turns away from the witch and instead focuses on the walls, following the threads of the Pitch down to the heart of it, beating deep somewhere under the ground. He’s gentle in his approach, carefully gathering her in close to the core of his magic as she shudders and shakes and fights, just like Teddy does after a nightmare. “Hear that? It’s temporary magic. In a few hours, you’ll be right back to normal. We just have need of you for a bit, like this.”    

SAME SAME when the maze came and the oily blackness monsters gnashing blood SAME--  

A great, awful knot in his throat, then. “Shh. It’s not like the maze. There are no beasts here, I promise. We’ll take care of you. I don’t think any of us knew what you experienced when we cast this magic. Are you in pain?”    

The tearful screaming has stopped, at least. No pain Seeker, just wrong, so wrong and awful my grass my grass MY GRASS--    

“Okay! Okay, would it feel better if your grass was back?”    

That stops the Pitch in her tracks. He feels the hesitancy, as if she can’t trust him, and that won’t do.    

He kneels down and touches his hand to the plush, thick carpet and tugs ever so gently on the magic. The walls flicker for just a second, enough for Harry to see the shadow of the pitch stands beneath the enchantment, but then the magic beneath his hand gives way. The carpet becomes turf, the scent of green growing things flowering from his fingers to every corner of the room. It smells like Quidditch matches and fun and outside, the smell Harry will always associate with his childhood at Hogwarts.    

He stands again, giving the wall a little pat. “Better?”    

Better, better, says the Pitch, happy as a little kid wearing cozy socks without the seam. Better!!!!     

“Alright then. It’ll just be a bit longer, I promise, and then you can go back to normal. Okay?”    

Yes, Seeker, she says, and he can feel her love for him. Thank you, thank you, thank you!    

The collected wixen stared at him for one, two, three seconds, and then: pandemonium. The clamor of voices all want to know what just happened, but as Harry pushes his way through the crowd of reporters, the Ministry officials, his family, he only has eyes for one person.    

Harry grew up in a household where he had to dodge frying pans and meaty left hooks. He’d learned early on to pick up the micro expressions of the adults around him, when to run when Vernon got that little wrinkle at the corner of his eye, when to duck when Petunia’s face went very still. When to be wary when Dumbledore’s eyes twinkled at him, and when to know he’d overstepped and asked for too much when Sirius’s gaze went far away.     

He's always been able to read Snape, or at least the Snape he had once known. How the creases between his eyebrows signaled certain death, how the little curling snarl at the edge of his mouth meant evisceration. But that was then, when Harry was a boy and molded by the life he’d lived. He wasn’t a boy anymore, and Snape wasn’t the man he once was.    

He can remember being terrified of Snape’s dark eyes as a child, because in them were the unforgiving truths of the world, the pain that came to some people in such quantity while others flitted through life without a care in the world. Harry sees those shadows on his own face at times, late at night when he’s haunting Grimmauld Place, room to room in endless meandering paths.     

There are no shadows, now, on Snape’s face.

Just a kind of surprise Harry’s never seen before, and a curiosity that burns in that dark gaze. 

.  

They take… a lot of photos.    

Photos with the whole group, the three of them sitting in front of the nine tyromasters standing just behind them. Photos with each country’s delegation. Photos with their three tyromasters. Photos with each tyromaster individually, even before they’ve been properly introduced. Harry takes a photo with Auror Watson, finding her much shorter than he imagined her to be, and a photo with Warlock Croyne, who is far taller and smells a bit like bird shit, likely due to the budgie that continually tries to eat Harry’s hair from its precarious perch on Croyne’s shoulder. Harry takes a photo with Snape, too, though he can’t quite meet his eye as they’re posed by Rita Skeeter’s smarmy assistant. He can feel the heat of his body next to Harry’s, the controlled strength too.    

And then it’s time for the Receiving to begin. Hermione’s crying and Ron’s pale as a sheet, and Harry hugs them both, tightly, in a way he hasn’t for a long time. Hermione clutches them just as tightly back, and whispers, “Good luck, my idiots. Ron, don’t throw up, you’ll be fine. Harry, don’t think for one instant you’re going to get out of explaining what just happened, I read about it in—”    

“Hogwarts: a History,” they both say in unison, and she glares and cuffs them both along the back of the head. Ron coughs a laugh, looking wild around the edges, but it’s enough to cut through the tension, for him to go loose in their arms as he hugs them both back.     

The tyromasters are with their entourages, spouses and friends, assistants and colleagues. Harry sees Auror Watson give a woman and child a kiss, and Croyne speaking to an elderly woman who must be his wife, handing over the budgie. Professors Vector, Sprout and Flitwick are with Snape, speaking low to him, and Vector gives him a short, tight embrace that puts an expression of such shocked surprise on his face that Harry nearly laughs.    

Finally, Kingsley waves his wand to catch their attention, the blue and green sparks quieting the crowd. “As a famous wizard once said, ‘The secret of getting ahead is getting started.’ And so, onward!”    

Laughter and applause, and each of the golden doors creak open for Harry, Ron and Hermione.    

Behind each golden door is a quiet and insular world. Harry’s room is a warm study with a merry, crackling fire and heavy leather chairs arranged in a circle. It feels like a rich parlor in some grand old mansion, if the owner of said mansion was a bit barmy and had carpeted his house with turf grass. On the far side of the room, an enchanted bay window faces the sea. Harry’s only been to the seaside once, and it doesn’t bear remembering. Still, the sound of the waves feels calming.    

“Well, Mr. Potter,” McGonagall tells him as she closes the door behind them. “You’re never without surprises, are you?”    

“Sorry, Professor.”    

“Sorry!” the old wizard, Croyne, snorts. His voice is higher than Harry thought it would be, and his eyes a strange, luminescent lilac that are nevertheless beautiful against his white hair and beard. “You should never be sorry for such impressive power, Mr. Potter. A Stone Talker indeed! And you’re a Parselmouth as well, aren’t you? It’s rare to have one or the other, but both, my word.”    

“A lot of applications for that kind of talent,” Watson adds, smiling at him. She’s small, as small as Umbridge had been, but there’s nothing of that odious woman’s bearing in the auror before him. She’s got a shrewdness in her face that speaks to her profession, but it’s tempered with a kindness in the curve of her mouth, her eyes, which have laugh lines fanning from each corner. “We had a Stone Talker at the Ministry years ago, but she couldn’t communicate with rooms like you can. Have you studied runic symbology? Is that how you got the Pitch to speak?”    

“Not exactly,” he says, because how to say that he just sort of figured it out? That made him sound like an idiot, and while he was an idiot, he wasn’t prepared to let on to that particular truth.    

“It isn’t the first time you’ve done this,” Snape says, and it isn’t a question.    

“No. I first spoke to Grimmauld Place. I thought I was being haunted, at first. Well,” he adds, when Snape smirks, “I know houses can be haunted, but the ghosts usually make themselves known, for the most part.”    

“An outstanding ability for an Auror,” Watson begins to say, but McGonagall interrupts her with an eyebrow.    

“Let me remind you why we are here,” she says, and motions for them to sit. Harry is guided to a seat to the left of the fire, with McGonagall at his side. The tyromasters sit across from them. Croyne offers Watson her pick of seats first, and Snape likewise does the same for him. It’s such a small courtesy, but somehow just seeing it sets Harry at ease in a way he didn’t think he’d be able to tonight. It’s healthy competition between them, Harry can see that clear as day, but there’s respect there, and that does more to tell him about who they are as people than anything else. Watson sits closest to the fire, like Harry, Croyne in the center, and Snape to the far right, across from McGonagall. It’s a nice symmetry and Harry doesn’t quite know why, but it settles something in him.     

“In accordance with tyro custom, Mr. Potter has prepared a list of no fewer than five questions, and no more than ten questions, and will present them in the order he chooses,” McGonagall says, official-like. “Follow up questions to his prepared list are permitted, but I will remind you we have a two-hour time limit. You are here to answer his questions, and then present your offer.”    

She waves her wand, and a house elf pops into view, with a full tea set. The little elf pours a cup for each tyromaster from the steaming tea kettle, and McGonagall reaches into her own robes, presenting a vial of clear liquid.    

“As per protocol for the Receiving, this is a Ministry-sanctioned vial of Veritaserum, from batch TR-221. It has not been brewed by any present here today. Each of you will receive six drops in your tea, which you must drink in full before we are to begin.”   

“Is that really necessary, Professor? Occlumens can resist Veritaserum, Aurors are taught how to resist it in the same way as the Imperious Curse, and Warlock Croyne – well, I don’t know about him, but something tells me he can fight it off just as easily.”    

Watson beams at him, and Croyne cackles. Even Snape looks, for a flash of a moment, almost pleased.     

Well. Harry isn’t a complete idiot.     

“You’re absolutely right, Mr. Potter,” Watson tells him, smiling. “But we discussed it before your arrival, and decided that to give you the fairest showing, we would not exercise our abilities to resist the potion.”  

At this, McGonagall dispenses with the Veritaserum carefully, six drops in each cup of tea. Croyne winks at him and downs it all in one go, and Watson and Snape follow immediately after. It takes a minute for the potion to work, but Harry can tell immediately that it has. Something softens in Croyne’s face. Even Snape isn’t so tense anymore.     

“Ooh, that’s the stuff,” Croyne says with a sigh. “Hats off to the brewer, that goes down smooth. Alright, then, Mr. Potter. Ask us something. Anything.”    

“Favorite song.”    

“A Cauldron of Hot, Strong Love by Celestina Warbeck,” Watson says immediately, and then bursts into laughter. “I didn’t mean to say that! Don’t judge me, Minerva.”     

Harry smiles, and looks at Croyne. “And you, sir?”    

He beams, folding his hands over his belly and crossing his leg at the knee. His stockings are blue with sparkling gold stars. “Madame Bletchley, La Sorcière du Mercure.”    

He has no idea who that is, but it sounds like opera. Aunt Petunia had loved operas, and she listened to them almost exclusively while cleaning house. She only tried to hit the high notes while vacuuming, at least. Ugh.    

He looks finally to Snape, and arches a brow.     

Snape arches one right back. “Hey Jude. The Beatles.”    

Harry’s eyes get very, very big. Snape rolls his. “Alright.”    

“The Beatles?”    

“The greatest band of all time,” Snape deadpans and Harry rubs his mouth with the backs of his fingers.     

McGonagall does that pinching thing with her mouth, trying not to smile. “Does that suit then, Mr. Potter? Would you like to proceed?”    

“Yes, ma’am.”     

“Well, then,” she says, and leans back in her chair. “The floor is yours.”    

His hands are shaking a bit as he digs into his robe for his questions, and maybe some of the nerves he’s feeling are on his face because her mouth softens, and she gives him the barest hint of a wink. “Okay. So, you’ve each had apprentices. What made you decide to offer them a chance to learn with you?”    

“Well, that’s simple enough,” Croyne says. “Raw magical talent.”     

Each of the other two nodded as well, staring at him expectantly. 

Shit. Harry’s off to a bad start.     

“Can you, uh. Expand on that?”    

“Magical talent is inborn, not made,” Watson says. “Some can work at a skill and become experts in it, even go so far as to improve upon it, but raw talent is at the basis of someone’s being, something they’re born with. Oftentimes, the most talented don’t even know they have a gift until someone like us recognizes it and helps them develop it.”    

“Take your Parseltongue, Mr. Potter,” Snape says, fingers steepled before him. “There are wixen who’ve studied the language for decades, who through hard work and tenacity have learned enough of snake language to be able to communicate with them at a rudimentary level. However, should a snake utter one parselword that isn’t in their carefully curated lexicon, those wixen are right back to square one. For you, a new word is just a new word – you’ll continue to understand what the snake is saying regardless.”    

“And you all take apprentices in your areas based on raw talent?”    

“Indeed so,” Croyne says, eyeing him shrewdly. “I see in you an immense capacity for elemental magic.”    

“I see in you my own profession, Defense Against the Dark Arts and Aurorship,” Watson tells him.    

It’s only Snape who takes a moment to speak, and Harry feels the awful lump from before in his throat. “You, Mr. Potter, have an untapped talent in potion making,” he finally says, eyeing him boldly, and Harry feels that same anger that took him to the dungeons swim up in his blood. “Despite your… shortcomings in the school subject, there is something raw about your interaction with ingredients that I mistook for ineptitude. A classroom setting may have not suited you or allowed you the proper room for exploration. I wish now to make amends for that, and help you realize your talent.”    

At the very least, it will keep you from the Auror career you think you want but which you will despise.    

McGonagall touches his wrist, and Harry realizes his fingers have clenched on his parchment, wrinkling it. He smooths it shakily on his thigh, nodding without meeting Snape’s eye. “Thank you. So... so, I’m a godfather. My godson’s parents died during the Battle of Hogwarts, and his grandmother and I are sharing custody of him while I get my feet under me. Teddy’s life and needs come before mine. Will you be able to tolerate that?”    

Maybe it’s his own view on it – he was an orphan who grew up unloved, who was shuttled from place to place, who never had an adult he could rely on and who he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt wanted to keep him. Sirius had tried, and had loved him, but Azkaban had damaged him in ways Harry thought would have become more and more apparent as the years went on. Remus, likewise, hadn’t allowed himself to get close, and had kept Harry at arm’s length. Even Dumbledore, especially by Harry’s Fifth Year, had established a distance between them that was as much for his own sake as Harry’s.     

He'd had no one to turn to for guidance, by circumstance but also by design. At some point he’d just stopped looking to the adults around him for help, and that decision had taken him down a path that had led to the end of his life. That he was here, that he was still breathing, didn’t negate that simple truth.     

Harry had made a vow that his godson would never feel that loneliness or terrible despair, not ever. Not while Harry was alive and there to take care of him, to love him as he ought to be loved.    

“It isn’t often that tyros with children are taken on,” Croyne says, stroking his beard thoughtfully. “I see that this is a special case, of course. The boy is orphaned. His grandmother has custody, you said?”    

“We share custody. I usually have him every other week.”    

Croyne’s gaze turns almost apologetic. “I don’t believe you understand what the next year is going to entail, Mr. Potter. How do you expect to conduct your tyro studies, your coursework, studying for NEWTs, preparing for and teaching classes, while also watching a youngster? The next year is one of sacrifice, unending work and study, to give yourself the best possible future moving forward. You cannot expect to do this while also fulfilling your duties as godfather.”    

He stares at the man. “You’re saying that you wouldn’t be able to tolerate it, then.”    

“It isn’t about tolerating or not tolerating the boy, Mr. Potter. It’s about the draw on your time. You have no idea what you’re about to experience, but I do. I was myself a tyro, many, many years ago, and yet I still remember the endless days without sleep, the timetable that no matter how I shifted it, would not mysteriously make more hours appear. I worked seven days a week, twenty hours a day, and this was after my time at Hogwarts.” At this, Croyne frowns at McGonagall. “You haven’t prepared them properly, Minerva, if he thinks that he’ll have the time to visit the child, much less have him here at Hogwarts.”    

Harry’s fingers are tingling. There’s a lump in his throat. “Parents shouldn’t leave their kids unless they’ve got to.”  

“He’s your godson, not your blood,” Croyne says, though not unkindly, “whose grandmother is caring for him, and who understands as well as the rest of us how important it is for your future that you devote all of your time and energy to this tyroship.”    

Frowning sharply at Croyne, Watson says, “That’s quite unfeeling Cottismore, even for you.”    

“Do you deny the truth of the statement?”    

She sighs, and gives Harry a gentle, compassionate look. “No, I don’t. Mr. Potter, despite being so bluntly put, Warlock Croyne is correct. Your life is about to be turned on its head. I can’t imagine trying to watch a child with that kind of workload, much less a toddler who has just learned to walk. Little ones that age are jobs unto themselves, and you’ll need every moment of your day to devote to your studies and to your tyroship. Something has to give.”    

He hears a rattling, and when he looks down, it’s his hands shaking on the parchment. He lets go, lacing his fingers tightly together instead. “I see.”   

“Do you?” Snape finally says, studying him. “When you imagine yourself caring for him, what do you see?”    

“How he runs to me when he sees me.” His tiny, perfect face, the way he was bashful when he got picked up and cuddled, the way his hair flamed blue when someone he loved kissed him.      

“Picture him beyond these early years, to when he is walking and talking, when he is in primary school, when he is sharing his art with you or telling you of his day. What do you see for yourself, then?”    

Harry doesn’t have to picture it. He can see it already, in his mind’s eye. “I work during the day. I pick him up at school, we go home, and I cook, and he does his homework.”    

“You don’t need to work, though, do you, as heir of the Potter and Black fortunes.”    

“No.”    

“Then why put yourself through this?” Snape demands. “Why accept the tyroship to begin with, if you have no need to work to live? If you are independently wealthy, you could live from your inheritance.”    

“And just do nothing?”    

“Whyever not. It’s a dream for many of us. The Malfoys have been doing it for generations.”    

The very thought is miasma. “I don’t want to be like the Malfoys. I want to contribute something beyond all of this. I want to be more than the Boy Who Lived.”    

“You want your godson to be proud of you.”    

It cuts him to the quick. He thinks if he touched a hand to his chest, it’d come away red, and damn Snape to hell for it. “Yes.”    

“Then understand, Potter, that doing better, being better, means sacrifice. Anything worth doing in this world comes with it a measure of pain. Sometimes, more than a measure. Separation for a year, in these early days of the boy’s life, will not be felt. And should he ask one day, you can tell him with honesty that you sacrificed this time to give him a better life. For that is what this is – a sacrifice, to give your godson the life that you yourself did not have.”    

The lump in Harry’s throat is awful, so painful he can barely swallow around it.     

“He’s everything to me.”    

“As he should be. He’s an innocent child in need of someone to care for him, a task Lupin – despite all his failings – knew you were the equal of. If you put yourself through the paces of the tyroship, you will be in an even better position to guide him, to teach him the honor and dignity of a hard day’s work, the sacrifices we must make to be sure there is food on the table and those who depend on us are cared for and safe.”    

“Here here,” Croyne says, slapping his thigh. “Well put, Severus, well put indeed.”    

“It’s a year,” Watson says, with infinite gentleness. “A year. And it doesn’t mean you can’t see him, or won’t get to visit. You just can’t be a caretaker to him right now.”    

McGonagall squeezes his arm, and Harry looks across at her. She’s worried, he can see it all over her face, and he sets a hand over hers. “It’s alright, Professor. Thank you. For being – for being honest.”    

“That’s the point of the tyroship relationship,” Croyne says, kindly. “You’re young yet. Lived a life none of us would want, filled with danger, hunted by a madman and his army of human monsters. You’ve seen things that would turn my hair white all over again, laddie. But you’re young, and you haven’t lived nearly as much life as we have. With time, with age, viewpoints change, and you come to see the world differently.”    

“Yes, sir.” Harry looks down to the sheet. He feels cold, off-center. It takes him a moment to find his place. “What accomplishments are you most proud of, and why?”    

This time, the two men look to Watson, and she nods. “I was the first female Head Auror the Ministry of Magic ever had. I paved the way for other witches to follow in my footsteps. Professionally, that is something I’m immensely proud of. I’m also very proud of the fact that I arrested six Death Eaters in the First War, five of whom went to Azkaban.”    

“I am most proud of my work during the time of Grindelwald,” Croyne says quietly. “I was Supreme Mugwump of the International Confederation of Wizards during those hard times. Not unlike Voldemort, Grindelwald held fast to blood purity and wanted the world under his control, to subjugate Muggles and kill any Muggle sympathizers. Worse in some ways than Voldemort, he was infinitely powerful in divination and seer magics. He often knew we were coming before we had even made our plans. It made it difficult to fight him, and add the chaos of the Muggle world in a world war, it became nearly impossible. Thank Merlin for Albus. Without him, I have no idea what we would have done.”    

Harry knew a little bit of Grindelwald, of what Dumbledore had done to protect them all, and he thinks he can understand. They turn their eyes, collectively, to Snape, but he isn’t paying attention to his fellow tyromasters. He’s studying Harry thoughtfully, consideringly.    

“I am gratified to have accomplished my life’s work,” he finally says, and Harry doesn’t have to ask what that is.    

Watching over Harry. Defeating the Dark Lord. Avenging Lily Potter’s death.     

The only answer a hero of Snape’s caliber could give, and a bullshit Slytherin lie.     

Harry could call him out on it, except Watson is giving him sad, sympathetic eyes, and even Croyne is looking a bit misty.     

What a wanker.      

“What traits do you value in others?” Harry asks, almost before he’s ready to. “Professor Snape, I’d like you to answer first.”    

Snape’s eyebrow arches. “I value, above all else, a logical mind. One which can puzzle through and untangle the threads of a problem and come to the answer using analysis more than experimentation, though oftentimes the latter informs the former.”    

“And traits you don’t value?”    

“Foolhardiness. Recklessness. A disregard for the self. I would never insult Professor McGonagall in pointing out that these are Gryffindor traits,” and at this he smirks at her, and she rolls her eyes in response.  

“Here here,” Croyne says sharply. “Foolish wizards come a dime a dozen. It’s a cunning mind that separates the leader from the pack.”    

Watson nods. “A problem solver, who leverages intellect, not their fists. You’d be surprised how rare that is,” she adds, smiling at Harry a little. “Even among the Aurors.”    

“The ability to think for oneself,” says Snape, “is an art long lost among many Ministry officials.”    

She looks for a moment like she wants to take offense, and then suddenly laughs. “You’re perfectly correct, Severus. I’d argue with you, but until just recently Cornelius Fudge held the Ministry, and that man was barely one evolutionary step above an amoeba.”    

Croyne bursts into laughter, and even Snape smirks. “Just so.”    

“So, someone who isn’t necessarily smart, but logical?” Harry asks.    

“Logic and intellect go hand in hand, Mr. Potter,” Snape says, with an air of keep up, idiot. “To be logical is to apply your knowledge and understanding to a problem, and to recognize the gaps in one’s knowledge and rectify the situation. You yourself have been doing this for nearly a decade.”     

“No, I haven’t,” Harry says. “I mostly just got lucky, and I had a lot of help.”    

“Mr. Potter, I hardly think defeating Voldemort was luck,” Croyne says sharply.    

No. It wasn’t. 

He'd been raised for the task, molded into the perfect weapon – not a blunt instrument, but a knife, so sharp that his victims didn’t feel the strike. He’d been forged in the Riddle graveyard, in the Chamber of Secrets, on an island surrounded by Inferi and in his little cupboard under the stairs, until he was nothing but sharp edges. Until his sense of duty brought him to the veil of death and guided him through it.    

He’d stood there, alone in the dark gloom of the battlefield, the acrid scent of a thousand spells still lingering in the dank, humid air. He’d stood there, blood dried and dark in pools, smeared brown into the grass, black on crumbled cobblestone, as the sun finally, exhaustedly, crested the horizon and sank under the hills in the distance.     

It was then that the nettle vines of his failure had snaked through his body, tearing sensitive tissue and twisting muscle in their sharp burrs at every joint, watered with the blood of the people he was supposed to protect.    

He should have been one of the shrouded dead, a body for his friends to grieve over and bury. He should have been one of the shrouded dead because then it would be over, for him and for them. Time would dull the sharp pain until they could remember him as he’d been, the boy who loved Quidditch and going on illicit adventures under the Invisibility Cloak, who ate chocolate frogs like they were on a clearance sale and who had a pretty, snowy owl named Hedwig. Not the knife turned inward, striking, striking, like a snake’s piercing bite, until his body was bloated with the blood it was spilling, caught under the tight drum of his skin.     

“—tter? Mr. Potter.”    

They’re looking at him. Staring at him. McGonagall’s mouth is pinched.     

He doesn’t know how long he’d gone away for, but his hands are ice cold.     

It’s best this happened now, he reasons. Best that Snape should know just who Harry has become, while there’s still time to pull back. 

And he will, Harry knows. He should.     

McGonagall had said it was his choice to deny the three tyromasters, but not if they beat him to it first.     

He doesn’t expect to get better. This half-life he’s entered is the best work of a year. There’s no one left who could come close to understanding. No one who knows what this shame is, this guilt, this certainty that every breath he drew was robbed from someone else.     

The gall of him. How could he sit here, entertaining a tyroship, when Remus and Tonks had died? When he’d watched Molly collapse, screaming, over Fred’s body, her hands wet with her son’s blood? All the people who had given their lives because Harry hadn’t been strong enough, or smart enough. Because he hadn’t applied logic and intellect to these problems, and instead rushed in blindly.     

McGonagall lays a careful hand on his forearm, even when he flinches like a whipped dog. Perhaps especially so. “Should we take a break?” she asks quietly.  

No. No. He doesn’t want to stretch this out any further than he already has to.    

“No, Professor. I’m sorry.”    

“You apologize with frequency, for things that are neither your fault nor in your control,” Watson says into the silence. “You shouldn’t. This world owes you a great debt. You do not in return owe the story of your suffering. When we get too close to your line, you tell us so, and you don’t apologize for it. Understand?”    

It’s novel, for all that Harry can’t trust it. “Yes ma’am.”     

“Minerva told us that you have a mind healer that you see regularly.”    

“I had my last session a few weeks ago.”    

This isn’t met with the relief he expects. Instead, all three of the tyromasters, as well as Professor McGonagall, look at him like he’s gone mad. “Absolutely not,” Watson says, very firmly. “You must continue to see your mind healer.”    

“There aren’t enough healers,” he says, and stares past Watson’s shoulder at the enchanted window to the sea, gently crashing along the shore. “Healer Pollywot has done his best by me, and I’m grateful. There aren’t enough mind healers at St. Mungo’s. They’ve pulled him away a lot.”    

“Enough healers!” says Croyne sharply. “You, the Boy Who Lived, who saved –”    

“Mr. Potter,” Snape interrupts. Harry doesn’t want to look at him, he really doesn’t, because in Snape’s voice is just what he thinks of Harry’s idiocy. “You’ll find that none present will, in any way, tolerate your ludicrous self-sacrificial nonsense. There may be some in the Wizarding World who look at you as the vaunted hero of the War, the very picture of fearless Gryffindor courage, but those who sit before you know far better.”     

“What Severus is saying, badly, is that we know you’re just a person,” Watson says, leaning forward towards him. “Someone who has lived through something terrible, who had to make decisions wizards twice your age could not have made, but a person. You must continue to see your healer. How often were you seeing him?”    

“As often as he could get me in.”    

A tense silence falls over the room, and he feels like a child who’s done something awful and needs to confess. “It’s my fault. I had an accident and I was in hospital for a while. And when I healed and got back to my house I started tearing out the walls – it’s had ten generations of dark wizards, there were, uh, things in the walls and – anyway, that’s another story. So I started tearing it up and sometimes… sometimes I just lost track of the days. I’ve put him out a lot, that’s on me.”    

Watson looks like she’s about to cry. “Minerva, I believe I need a break. I’m very sorry.”    

“That’s on me,” Harry says again, but Watson is already striding from the room, not to the golden door they’d come through, but another one on the opposite side of the room, near the enchanted window. Croyne rubs his mouth, staring at his lap, but Snape comes to his feet, nearly vibrating as he strides across the room to the enchanted window. He laces his hands tightly behind his back, fingers clenched on each other until the skin around his knuckles goes white.     

“I didn’t mean to upset her,” Harry says quietly to McGonagall, but she’s gazing at him in such a way that he can barely stand it.     

“It’s alright, Mr. Potter,” she says gently, and pats the back of his hand, squeezing it carefully in her own. “Do you understand why she's upset?"    

“No.”    

“Because,” says Snape, whirling to face him, “the Wizarding World has done nothing but fail you. When does it end?” he demands, but not of Harry. “Did no one check on him, Minerva?"    

“Molly Weasley—”    

“Molly Weasley was dealing with the death of her son, and was in no fit state to look in on the boy. Did Hagrid not see to him? Pomona? Fillius?”    

McGonagall’s lip trembles, before her face hardens and she raises her chin. “Please, Severus. Do not cast blame. You weren’t here.”    

“No, I wasn’t,” Snape snarls. He seems to understand what his anger is doing, though, because almost at once he stops shouting. “Auror Watson is upset, Mr. Potter, because Professor Dumbledore had strict instructions for the Ministry and for the Order of the Phoenix on what your care would entail after the war.”    

Harry – he laughs. Awful, broken, like glass crunching underfoot, grating in his throat. The laughter peters off almost at once. Dumbledore had left instructions? Why would he do that, when he’d known Harry had to die? When he’d taught Harry how? “Oh.”    

The door on the far end opens again, and Watson steps back through. Her face is splotchy, her fringe a bit damp, as if she’d splashed water on her face. She sits and meets his gaze unflinchingly. “I apologize for leaving the room.”    

“It’s quite alright,” says McGonagall. “Are we ready to proceed?”    

“No,” Snape says, from his spot by the window. “I would like to ask my own question, now. Mr. Potter, what future did you see for yourself, during your Fifth-Year career counseling session with your Head of House?”    

“Severus,” McGonagall says warningly.    

It seems so very long ago. A lifetime, by the standards he’s lived by. “I... An Auror. I wanted to be an Auror.”    

“And in your Sixth Year?”    

It’s fuzzier. Bookended by grief, Sirius and then Dumbledore, in a year’s time. The beginning of the end. “I’m not sure. Things had changed by then.”    

“Severus,” McGonagall says again.    

“And the year on the run? During your search for the horcruxes? Did you have a plan for the future, after the Dark Lord’s death? What you would do?”    

“No. There wasn’t time to plan for the future, with all we were dealing with. There wasn’t time, and there wasn’t – it didn’t matter, by then.”    

And that was the terrible truth of it, wasn’t it? Deep down, Harry had always known his connection to Voldemort wasn’t normal. A scar that had never behaved as a scar should, the visions, the flashes of rage that came and went and weren’t his own. And when he learned of horcruxes, it made sense for the first time. Why he felt what he felt. Why he had always been alone. Why the Dursleys hated and feared him, why Dumbledore began to pull away from him, why Remus couldn’t get close. Why his own friends looked at him in fear sometimes, when they thought he couldn’t see.  

It had all made a terrible sense. 

The poison in Harry had been real.    

“You saw no future for yourself,” Snape says, finally, into the silence.    

What else was there to say, but the truth? “No.”    

Snape doesn’t look surprised at all. He looks instead to the other tyromasters. They each give him a nearly imperceptible nod.     

“We are in agreement. We are changing something in the tyroship contract, as stipulated under section 4,” he informs McGonagall, and strides back across the room towards his empty chair. He doesn’t sit down, but grasps the back of it. “He will be required to see a Mind Healer, unconnected to St. Mungo’s, while under the tyroship program."    

Rage funnels up in his chest like a storm, twisting and turning around his thundering heart. “I don’t need a Mind Healer.”    

“You have no idea what you need,” Snape snarls, hands clenching on the back of his chair. “The role of the tyromaster is to take care of all of the tyro’s needs, financially, academically, and medically, as the occasion warrants. Are Mr. Weasley and Ms. Granger suffering as you are?”    

“I’m not – I’m – they’re fine. We’re fine.”    

“That you are sitting here before us having an intelligent conversation speaks to your resilience and fortitude,” Croyne says, very gently. “You are coping, patching yourself up each day to get on with it, but take it from an old hand. That doesn’t work long term.”    

“Mr. Potter. Harry,” says Watson, quietly. “Cottismore is right. We haven’t experienced what you’ve experienced, but we know how you feel.”    

“You don’t,” Harry says, nearly voiceless. “You have no idea.”    

“That’s precisely why Minerva chose us for you, because we do know,” Snape says, his voice thick with an emotion Harry can’t name. “An Auror who lived through the first rise of Voldemort, who fought on the front lines for nearly ten years. A Warlock, the Supreme Mugwump, who during his time saw a wizard use the second World War as the backdrop for his own global wizarding war. A hundred thousand wixen died in the conflict, nearly a quarter of our world population. Myself, an ex-Death Eater turned spy. I have seen things, done things so terrible that you would not deign to look at me if you knew, for any scrap of information that could turn the tide of war. You do not have the market cornered on pain, Potter. Far from it. We have lived with it longer than you have, have learned how to survive it. You will let us teach you to do the same.”    

He doesn’t realize he’s shaking until McGonagall covers his hands with hers. He looks up at her and there is such compassion in her face. He’s not sure what he expected from this, but he feels flayed open, all of his tender bits on display. Vulnerability like this has never felt safe, but he feels safe now, with her beside him, with these three people in front of him.     

“We are nearing the end of our time,” McGonagall says quietly. “Each of you will have time alone with Mr. Potter to discuss your plan for his tyroship. I will of course be present, but will not speak unless Mr. Potter requests it of me. Auror Watson, you will remain; gentlemen, please step through to the antechamber now.”    

Croyne stands, and Snape, who’d never sat back down, leads the way. The door clicks with a strange finality, and Watson smiles at him. She has such a warm smile, lit with a sincerity that Harry has found to be rare in the wizarding world. The kind of smile that sets people at ease, and normally, people like that put Harry on his guard.   

“Mr. Potter,” she says, with infinite gentleness, and Harry knows what she’s going to say before she even says it. “I cannot be your tyromaster, young man.”    

It hurts more than he thought it would; a dream dying on the vine, shriveling into nothing. But before his heart can break, she reaches out and clasps his wrist, squeezing very gently. “You no more want to be an Auror than you would want to be Minister of Magic.”    

“According to Rita Skeeter and the Daily Prophet, I’m setting my campaign in motion with this tyroship,” he croaks, and she smiles.    

“You have done this world a great service, but it’s time for you to set your sword down. If I were to take you on, by Merlin you would make a fine Auror. One who was just, and fair, and kind in a way many have forgotten how to be. You would do very well. And it would kill you within a year.”    

He knows she’s right. Of course she’s right. But it still hurts to hear, his one last childhood dream dashed against the rocks, shattering into a million pieces.     

“You need peace, Harry. To make something with your hands that is good, to do work that heals. Something that excites you because you know it will help others. You need to surround yourself with people who are on this earth to do well by others, not sink into the depravity that is human nature and brush up against criminals all the day long.”    

“You – you do it. Did it.”    

“I did. And it nearly cost me my marriage and my daughter.” She squeezes his hand again. “You are a good man, and I am ecstatic to have met you. You are everything Albus ever said you were, and so much more. No matter which path you take, with Cottismore or with Severus, you’ll be in good hands.”    

He thinks, after they stand and she gives him a hug, after she leaves the room with a last goodbye to McGonagall, that it’s the last rejection he’ll have.     

It isn’t.    

Croyne is very gentle when he declines the tyromaster position. He tells Harry he is too old to fully understand where Harry’s at in his life, that he would do more harm than help. That Harry isn’t ready for the rigger of the work Croyne expects from his apprentices, that his obligations to his godson, to his health, must come first and Croyne expects to be first in the lives of those he takes on to teach. It’s gently put, but Harry hears everything the man isn’t saying.    

He's too broken, to be Croyne’s student.    

He’s unseeing, as he shakes the man’s hand, as McGonagall shows him to the door. When she returns, she says softly, “Mr. Potter, it’s alright.”    

It isn’t unexpected, this. Painful, to be rejected outright, but not unexpected.     

He doesn’t know what he’ll do if Snape turns him down too. Leave, certainly. He won’t be able to stay at Hogwarts, to face Snape in the Great Hall, in the Teacher’s Common Room.    

The man comes into the room at full billow, and how, how he can make those velvet tyromaster robes do that is a mystery. It feels like Harry’s entire childhood was spent watching for Snape’s robes in the hallways, the wisping sound they made against the flagstone.   

Snape takes a seat in the chair Croyne vacated, peering at Harry sharply, then glances over Harry’s shoulder at McGonagall. “He looks ill.”    

“I’m fine,” he says, though he isn’t. “What’s your cat’s name?”    

“I beg your pardon?”    

“Your cat. The kitten who was riding your robes. What’s her name?”    

The man’s eyes narrow. “Minnow.” But then Snape pulls a small blue vial from his robes. “Drink.”    

“No thanks.”    

“It wasn’t a request,” he snaps, and well, Harry’s spent too long taking orders from that voice not to comply now.  

The soothing notes of peppermint and lavender tickle his tongue, and almost immediately a sense of calm descends over him. He sighs, something unclenching inside of him that had been tense and hurting. A Calming Draught. Why had Snape been carrying a Calming Draught in his pocket? “Am I allowed to take something like that while going through the Receiving? Won’t the Ministry say you drugged me into compliance or something?”    

“Or something,” Snape says darkly. “Why didn’t you ask that before taking it?”    

“I trust you,” he says easily, and sees something cross Snape’s face that he’d once thought the man incapable of. Like the foundation of his world has been knocked slightly off center.     

“You trust me.”    

“I do.”    

“You’re a fool.”    

“Yes. Why do you want to take me on as a tyro?”    

“Finally,” Snape sighs, leaning back in his chair. “Closer to the right question.”    

“Hey. I asked great questions.”    

“‘Great’ is debatable.” But Snape’s got a little tick in the corner of his mouth, and it takes Harry a moment to recognize it as amusement.     

He feels a wild recklessness, as if the Calming Draught had been laced with Veritaserum. He can’t keep the truth behind his teeth. “You smile, now. In a way you didn’t before, I mean.”    

“Impertinent.”    

“Honest. It’s nice.”     

“Nice.”    

“On the other hand, you’re a lot more monosyllabic than I remember,” he says, just to watch Snape scowl at him.     

“You’re veering the conversation away from the matter at hand, and to what end, I do not know. Ask me what you really want to know.”  

“What’s your owl’s name?”    

“Potter.”   

“What! I really like animals.”    

“His name is Atiq. Ask.”    

“What’s in it for you?” he says. “This tyroship, I mean.”    

At this Snape steeples his fingers, staring at him over them. “Did you read the book?”    

“You aren’t supposed to ask a question with a question. It’s bad form, even I know that and I was raised by the worst sort of Muggles.” But Snape just arches a brow and he sighs. “I’ve had the book for less than a week. It also had an unfortunate run-in with a cup of tea. It’s air drying.”    

“Potter!”    

He scowls. “I’m not sorry.”    

“That book is over four hundred years old.”    

“Then you should have known better to give it to me when I was in a state,” Harry snaps. He thinks he hears McGonagall choke on a laugh, and almost looks around at her, but Snape’s eyes have narrowed to little slits, he’s gone full Bat Mode and Harry thrills in it, in getting to rile this man up like this. In being allowed to get under his skin. “Who was Linfred?”    

“You would have known if you’d read the book instead of destroying it,” Snape says furiously, crossing his arms. “Linfred was the founding patriarch of your family. He was his village’s medicine man, and as such was an avid herbologist and perhaps the most gifted potioneer of his time.”    

“Wait, are you serious?”    

“He is credited with the invention of Skele-Gro and the Pepperup Potion. Which you would have known, if you’d read the book instead of giving it a tea bath.”    

“That’s great and all,” and it is, a little morsel that Harry didn’t have before, that warmed something soft inside of him, “but I am pants at potion making. My patriarch or whatever may have been a potioneer, but I’m not.”    

“Give me some credit, I have graded your essays. What you’re telling me is not news.”     

“So what, then? Help me understand.”    

Snape goes curiously silent for long moments, tapping his mouth with his steepled fingers as he thinks. “He must have noticed,” he says, almost to himself. “But the thought was so ludicrous – you, of all people.”    

“You aren’t making sense.”    

“It galls me to say this, but you have always been creative in your interpretation of potions. You often turned in concoctions that were… whimsical. I thought, most especially in your younger years, that it was a way to show off, to prove that your potions skills – rudimentary though they were – were above your peers.”    

And damned if it doesn’t make Harry laugh for the first time tonight, since he’d held Teddy in his arms. “Did you just call me whimsical.”    

“I called your potion making whimsical, please keep up,” Snape snaps, glowering at him like a bird with ruffled feathers, one which regretted everything about their current circumstances and would bite whoever got close. The apples of his cheeks had gone pink in a way Harry has never seen from this man. “You add odd ingredients, in odd combinations, and what you create is never quite what is expected. Powdered moonstone in a scar reduction draft, for example, from your third year. The iron in the moonstone is intensified by its powdered state, which helps the production of red blood cells, which in turn help create the collagen that is the basis of tissue creation. Powdered moonstone isn’t part of the recipe because it has no purpose – several of the other ingredients do the same thing just as well, if not better – but what powdered moonstone allows for is a pleasant soothing sensation, a coolness around the afflicted area as it heals. I believe instinct from prior use of the ingredient told you that it might be a good idea to include it.”    

“Maybe I meant to grab powdered unicorn horn or something, and got that one instead. You’re giving me credit where none is due.”    

"You used trumpeting beetle carapace liquified in daffodil oil for an anti-inflammation potion in your Fifth Year – utilizing the unique chitin of the trumpeting beetle in a slow-releasing floral oil through ceration, which acts as a bonding element to the afflicted person’s magical signature and eases pain. The potion called for daffodil petals and crushed carapace, which provide entirely different effects.”    

“I copied Hermione. It’s her you should have offered a tyroship to.”    

“To think, I once thought you arrogant,” Snape says, and scowls at him like he’s decided Harry is the reason for all his ills. “Do you simply enjoy opposing me? Do you get some sort of twisted thrill out of going against everything that I say?”    

“Of course not, but what you’re saying doesn’t make sense. I am pants at potion making.”    

“Your essay on the magical properties of re’em oxen, from your Fourth Year. Without a shred of evidence or research, you hypothesized that the plasma of the animal’s blood could be used, in its midsummer sun-dried and hardened state, as the slow-releasing base of an antivenom for the Draught of Living Death.”    

“Was I right?”    

Snape arches a brow at him that says please do us both a favor and keep up. Loquacious, those eyebrows. “And this continued to happen, not often, but at times, over the years. Likely more than I picked up on. I didn’t recognize the pattern until your Fifth Year, but by then it was too late.” He doesn't need to explain why it was too late; the cold shame of the Pensive incident, of Harry’s decision to violate Snape’s trust, is a weight between them and likely always will be. His belly squirms with shame, but Snape doesn’t look angry, or at least any angrier than usual. He wouldn’t, not in front of McGonagall. "Do you understand now why I have chosen you?"    

Of course he does. Harry’s a bit thick about things sometimes, but still, he was nearly sorted Slytherin for a reason. Snape’s trying to impress on McGonagall why this is a good idea by showcasing some kind of hidden mystical potions ability that he certainly does not have. He knows he owes Snape everything, and Harry will be his willing accomplice, but this – he needs Snape to understand just what it is he’s taking on. What he’ll need to do, how he’ll need to teach Harry, if they want this farce to succeed.     

“I don’t know how to read rune script recipes.”  

As this was a skill taught to First Years, and the basis of all the rest of their potion education, Harry figures it’s alright that Snape looks so shocked. “What.”    

“I don’t know how to rea—“    

“I heard you the first time. Explain.”    

“Nothing to explain. I never learned how to read rune script recipes. When I tried on my own, the symbols kept getting jumbled up.”    

He half expects the man to blow up, to call him the worst kind of dunderhead, but he surprises Harry by instead leaning back in his chair and studying Harry over his fingertips. “Jumbled how?”    

“I don’t know. Jumbled. Unreadable squiggles. They don’t make sense – antimony shouldn’t have the line at the top, and why is it always paired with astrology symbols, and what is a scruple.”    

“Antimony's symbol alludes to its gaseous structure, it’s paired with the astrology symbol that correlates with the potions purpose – fermentation with Capricorn, or sublimation with Libra, for example – through which further processing of the antimony must then proceed, and a scruple is one-fourth of a teaspoon, or one-third of a dram, which you very well know.”    

“But why are scruples attached to things like, like lavender stems. A lavender stem doesn’t fit on a teaspoon and the potions scale only measures in grains. Oh God,” Harry says, slapping his hands to his face. This was going to be the next year. Of his life.     

Snape peers at him. “Why shouldn’t antimony have ‘the line at the top’?”    

“Because it doesn’t like it,” Harry says, and he knows right off he’s said something wrong. Snape and McGonagall both pause, nearly imperceptibly. Like they’ve caught their breath.     

The man waves his wand and a quill and parchment appear on the tea table between them. “Write it down.”    

“Write what down?”    

“The symbol you’d use for antimony. It needn’t be a rune, just something that is meaningful to you. As you did with the Stone Talking.”    

“It’s not the same thing,” Harry says, picking up the quill. He already knows what he wants to draw, knew it before the conversation even started. He’d done this a lot, at the beginning in First and Second Year when he was trying to learn potions. Sometimes, he even brought his own drawings of the recipes to class and hid them between the pages of his textbooks. He’d stopped when Snape had accused him of cheating in Third Year and never went back to it, but by then it was too late. He couldn’t catch up to his peers, who had been building on three years' worth of rune recipe knowledge.     

Snape stares at the little drawing Harry made as if he’s seen a ghost. “Why the Eye of Horace?”    

Harry looks down at it, traces his fingertip along the wing of the eyelash. He didn’t know that it had a name. “I don’t know what that is.”   

“Antimony has another name, a more common name. It becomes a fine powder through sublimation. Called from the Arabic al-kuhul. Kohl. The ancient Egyptians perfected and popularized the techniques in creating antimony into a cosmetic, an eye shadow.”    

“Oh.”    

“Did you know that?”    

Harry, who had only ever been an average student and certainly not one of history, shakes his head. “No. Why is it called the Eye of Horace?”    

“Mm. The story is a good one. Warring gods, usurping uncles, great battles. I’d lend you a book on Egyptian mythology, but you destroyed the last one I gave you.”    

“I didn’t destroy it,” Harry says, though he might have done. He looks up at the man. “Is that something you’d be willing to teach me? How to write runic recipes?”  

"I will identify the gaps in your education, yes.”     

He looks at Harry over the parchment, and Harry realizes they’re both leaning very close to one another. This close, the changes in Snape's face are extraordinary, more than the porcelain skin over a hard, strong jaw. There’s a scent about him. Something woodsy, that flowers in the air between them when his hair falls over his shoulder, brushing the lean shape of his face. It’s unlined, that face, the plushness of his mouth not yet pinched tight from years of stress, but full, and so soft looking. His eyes, dark and heavy, are a deep brown, nearly black. That strong roman nose fits the angular lines of his face, even if it looks even bigger than it did before, his face not yet filled out enough to provide the balance.     

He is still obviously, totally himself, but there’s something different about him that Harry can’t put into words. Something different in his bearing, in the way he holds his body, in the fiddling of his fingers and the flex of his shoulders as he leans forward. Something that draws Harry in, despite himself.    

“You said that the spell smelled right.”    

He realizes that he’s been staring at Snape’s mouth for a half-second too long. He blinks, meeting the man’s gaze. “What?”    

“Earlier. You said that the magic used to create these rooms within the Quidditch Pitch smelled the same as a tent-expansion spell.”    

“It does.”    

“Explain.”    

"I... I don’t know how to. I’m not being difficult,” he says quickly, when Snape’s brows crease in the middle.     

“How long have you been able to do this?”  

 “Smell spells?”    

“No Potter, smell your sweaty Quidditch socks. Of course the spells.”    

Harry can’t smell the spell in here; his nose is filled with Snape, instead. “I don’t know. A while.”    

“Before the Dark Lord’s demise? After? Somewhere in-between? Did you hit your head at that dank little hovel you call a house? Though honestly, that would be the best explanation for all of this,” he adds, almost to himself.    

“Hey!”    

“Well?”    

“Well what? I don’t know.”     

It’s a lie. He does know. The rush of feeling that swamped him when Dumbledore sent him back, when Harry came back to his body and some indescribable part of himself, as sharp as the pages of a new book, had bloomed within him. As if all the space the horcrux had taken up in his soul was now filled with power the likes of which he’d never experienced or knew himself to be capable of.     

He knows it, feels it inside of himself, but he’s not ready to put that into the world. The Stone Talking is bad enough.     

“Tell me what it would be like. With you as my tyromaster.”  

He hasn’t gotten away with the subject change; Snape’s eyes narrow at him. "You will do as I instruct you, and you will listen to and study everything that I say.” When Harry opens his mouth to argue, he glares. “Everything. You will eat, live, and breathe what I teach you. You will work hard, or you will fail. But, if you apply yourself and allow me to take you on this journey, you will learn things about yourself you never thought possible.”    

“Like how to bottle fame, brew glory?”    

“Like how to apply what you learn to heal, to solve problems that only a skilled potioneer can solve through our art,” Snape replies, brow arched, and Harry feels something in his belly turn over, reach down into the cradle of his hips to fist in a place he’s never paid much attention to and which he can’t stop thinking about now. “And perhaps a bit of fame and glory to go along with it. Not that you need either.”    

“No, I suppose not,” says Harry. He leans back, studying Snape silently for a moment. “What would a normal day look like for us?”    

“We wake at four-thirty, and — and,” he says, over Harry’s moan of horror, “check any projects in stasis, especially those temperamental potions that consider stasis charms a suggestion only. We shower, eat, and then go back to the lab until eight thirty. At that time, I go back to my classroom and prepare for the first lessons of the day, which begin promptly at nine. I have a rota of six classes a day to accommodate the number of students in each year level, with double-lessons every three weeks. Thursdays are seminar days for my NEWT students, with lab time in the afternoon for them. You will be a part of my Thursday class.     

“Fridays are the busiest day of the week, where I work on any number of potions for the Hospital Wing, St. Mungo’s or the Ministry in the morning, and which will now be devoted to your education. I usually spend the afternoon marking, though once I am satisfied that you are up to snuff, you will mark for me, and I will work on the medical potions for Hogwarts’ use. My former apprentice, Anise Dollyward, has offered to assist me and I have accepted, until such a time that you yourself are ready to do so in her stead. Despite the inevitable headache it causes, I am required at the Friday evening activities in the Teacher’s Common Room, where my colleagues entertain themselves through any number of creative pursuits and I smoke myself into a mild stupor to deal with the secondhand embarrassment. Saturdays are spent on lesson review for the next week, and weather permitting, sourcing ingredients. Friday and Saturday workloads are interchangeable dependent on need and weather.”    

“You work six days a week?”    

“Until our Headmistress deigns to get me an assistant – one more capable than a tyro – yes,” Snape says, with a pointed look over Harry’s shoulder.    

Harry glances back at McGonagall. The look on her face is hilarious, part indignation and part amusement at Snape’s gall. “Must we have this discussion each year, Severus. If the tyros weren’t being funded by the Ministry, we wouldn’t be able to bring even them on board. The school is barely breaking even, there simply isn’t space in the budget for another full-time professor, assistant or not.”    

“And I have told you more than once that there are plenty of departments to be cut. Divination, for example. Or that class Steward teaches, where he bangs on drums and calls it art.”    

“I am not cutting Magical Music Theory to get you an assistant,” McGonagall replies tartly, mouth pinched like she wants to laugh. “And I’d get Pomona an assistant before I got you one, laddie.”    

“I’m forty and tired.”    

“You’re twenty-four, with twenty-four-year-old joints. You don’t know what the meaning of the word ‘tired’ is.”     

Twenty-four. Snape is twenty-four, and Harry doesn’t know why he’s so surprised, why his brain jerks like he’s missed a step off a sidewalk. He’d known Fawkes had taken Snape back at least a decade, he has eyes, but twenty-four is just five years older than Harry.     

He could have been at school with Harry.   

He could –     

“Don’t worry about that pillock, Malfoys will always be Malfoys and that one’s a prize,” the older boy says, as he helps Harry down from the train. Harry’s so much smaller than the other First Years starting at Hogwarts, but the older boy doesn’t tease him, not like that nasty blond boy had. He brushes his long, dark hair from his face, revealing the shining Prefect badge pinned above the green Slytherin house patch.     

That ginger boy, Ronald, had told him how evil Slytherins were, but this prefect was the only one who’d seen that Harry was too little to jump off the train, and he didn’t laugh or tease him about his ugly, too-big trainers or the mess of his hair. He’d just gotten off the train with one step of his long legs, reached back for Harry, and got him down onto the platform without a word.   

He’d done it in such a way that no one even saw, hidden in the billow of the boy’s dark school robes. Preserving Harry’s dignity as much as he could, as if that meant something. As if that was important.    

“Thank you,” he says, throat tight, but the older boy just nods, his dark eyes creased a little at the corners with his not-a-smile.     

An hour later, when the Sorting Hat tells him, “You could be great in Slytherin,” Harry remembers the kindness of that boy, and agrees.     

"Sybill could teach interpretive dance and Divination, then,” Snape is saying, and Harry’s fingers clench in his robes. “That would cover the ‘arts’ credit. I’ve been assured she has a number of scarves she’d be willing to donate for the cause.”  

“No, Severus,” McGonagall says, laughing now, as Harry blinks away that other universe, that other world he can feel just on the edge of his awareness. Severus, who gives the Firsties a talking-to when Theo tries to set Draco’s bed-hangings on fire, who confiscates Blaise’s Foe Glass because it’s giving him nightmares, who hexes Lockhart when he tries to Obliviate them in the tunnel leading to the Chamber of Secrets. Severus, who hugs him when Harry finds out that the mass murderer Sirius Black is his godfather, who tries to help him even though he’s knee-deep in his NEWT studies and barely has time to sleep, let alone look after a wobbly Third Year. Severus, who comes back after Cedric’s death and doesn’t let Harry sink into that terrible despair graying the edges of his mind. Severus, who doesn’t let Dumbledore send him back to the Muggles that summer, and takes him home instead.    

There’s an inevitability of this moment that he can’t understand, like his ankle has been caught in a tether and it’s pulling him along. Like the universe is trying to right itself, putting pieces back into the right order. He’s so surprised he doesn’t know how to fight it, doesn’t even know if he should.     

Harry doesn’t believe in fate, in preordained destiny or the reading of tea leaves or the fucking Grimm, but it certainly believes in him. And if fate is going to drag him along without his say so, push and pull him to where he needs to be, he has a responsibility to one person he refuses to leave behind.     

He’d told Remus, once, that parents shouldn’t leave their kids.    

“I can’t do this, if I can’t see Teddy. It’s a dealbreaker for me.”    

Something in Snape’s face changes. Harry would never say it softens, as the man’s face is usually incapable of anything other than a snide glare, but there’s a quality to his lips, his eyes, as he regards Harry that makes him think this is what Snape’s version of that is. A boy on a train, studying him with the only gentleness he’s capable of. “While I do not understand the appeal of children in general, the boy seems to be more tolerable than most. So yes, Potter. Let us come to an accord in this matter. You will see your godson as time permits it, and I will see mine.”    

A great weight comes off his shoulders, one he didn’t even know he felt, heavy and suffocating on his ribcage.     

“You have a godson?”  

“I do.”    

Oh – oh no.     

“It isn’t Malfoy, is it? Please tell me it isn’t Malfoy.”    

“Lucius would have rather gargled bat eyes than make me godfather to his precious little dragon. Thankfully, Narcissa had more sense than her husband and chose me despite his protestations.”    

"Why wouldn’t Lucius Malfoy want you as his son’s godfather? I thought you were, uh. Close?”    

"I see a lesson on blood purity politics will be first on our agenda,” Snape says musingly. “That is, if you should decide to show some semblance of reasonable intelligence and accept me as your tyromaster.”    

And that was the thing, wasn’t it? The place where all paths converged, the scattered threads of Harry’s life meeting in this one place, with this one person, tangling him up in the tapestry being woven. What came after this moment would define the rest of his life, the soil in which he would grow, or wither away like fruit left too long on the vine.     

No, Harry tells Snape, and he sees a man, blond and very tall, older, though not so advanced in years as McGonagall. Another tyromaster. An artisan, a magical clock maker. Harry’s life unfolds in Paris under the man’s tutelage, on a little canal street where he has coffee and biscotti every afternoon. There’s a girl – the man’s daughter. Blond with eyes like eddies of a river, a dark blue-gray brilliant against the dark tan of her skin. Harry is supposed to feel something for her, and he makes it so, believes it into creation, the heat and want for her. Callouses grow on his hands from working the wood, and the tyroship comes and goes. He decides not to take his NEWTs, to stay in France. He’s apprenticed. He’s engaged. Ron and Hermione come to see him. There’ll be a baby soon to play with Teddy, Teddy who beams and him and cries joue papa! and lait s'il vous plait. He never returns to England again, and reasons with himself that it’s the right choice – his family is in France, his life and livelihood are here too. England never did anything for him but bring him pain, and if there is a wistfulness there sometimes, deep inside, it is no more and no less than what others carry.   

Yes, Harry tells Snape, and these images are different. It isn’t like a movie behind his eyes, it’s like a kaleidoscope, a million fractured pictures scattering color and light in every direction. Pewter cauldrons bubbling cheerfully, the low hum of the potion’s workshop speaking to him in his ears, Hermione and Ron cozy in his apartment, eating chocolate frogs until they’re sick and giggling and groaning. Standing in front of a classroom of First Years, the lot of them staring at him with enormous, terrified eyes. A house even more decrepit than Grimmauld Place, a feat Harry didn’t think possible, but homey anyhow, not because of the peeling wallpaper or crooked cabinets, but because of the dark eyes gazing back at him, music on the radio and sunshine streaming in through the old window above the kitchen sink.     

There are no children in this future except Teddy, who he loves with all of his heart. There are no children except Teddy, but Teddy isn’t Harry’s son alone, in that little house with the peeling wallpaper.     

The braid of threads around him, the tether pulling him, goes slack.     

He realizes, then, that this isn’t about making the duty-bound choice and ceding to the inevitable, it isn’t about doing what’s right. It’s about the tide-rush inside of him, the certainty that no matter where this road will take him, no matter what has brought him and Snape together again, it’s going to bring him to a place he never considered or thought possible for himself.     

The road right here, sitting in front of him, waiting for him to step forward.    

“Yes,” he says softly.     

“Pardon?”    

He looks up into dark eyes. “I choose you to be my tyromaster, Professor Snape.”    

And oh, such is the expression that comes over Snape’s face that Harry almost laughs when he sees it. There’s triumph, along the sloping lines of his sharp cheekbones, and satisfaction curving one corner of that gorgeous mouth. There’s a childlike glee, too, in the little divot that wants to appear in his cheek, but it’s the pride, the pride that makes that fisted something in Harry warm, makes his heart pick up its pace.     

It’s all quickly schooled, there and gone again as if it never was, how dare you insinuate such a thing Potter, and Harry rolls his lips inward, so he won’t smile. Why Fawkes brought Snape back to this age, this year in Snape’s life that was the lynchpin for everything that came after, is not a mystery.    

"Finally, a showing of intelligence and foresight, qualities I truly thought you incapable of,” says Snape, eyebrow arched. Then, not hesitating but nearly so, asks, “Are you certain this is what you want?”    

What he wants has no bearing on this decision. Harry’s made a life of doing what’s right, not what’s easy. “Yes.”    

“And you’ll enter into the Unbreakable Vow with me?”    

“Yes.”    

If anything, that seems to please Snape even more, and he pulls his wand from his sleeve, swishing it in a complicated pattern until he conjures a red haze, haloed by blue and green, shining suspended in the air between them.     

“I accept you as my tyro, Mr. Potter,” Snape says, his words quiet and full of promise. “I promise to develop you, sustain you, encourage you, care for your welfare and your growth, and honor you as you should be honored. I promise to stand sentinel in the path of your foolish ideas, and be the counterbalance to your Gryffindor tomfoolery. Should I renege on my promise, I will forfeit all of my degrees, my holdings, my home, my wealth, and my standing in wizarding society. So mote it be.”     

He extends his wand, the very tip glowing gold, like Nox, only softer. Harry takes out his own wand, and though he’d had the ritualistic words memorized, that was before tonight’s events. He finds he can’t remember them at all, and so does what he always does: wings it. “I promise to respect you, do what’s right and work hard, and not get into too much trouble, though there might be a bit because it seems to follow me no matter where I go. I’ll mess up sometimes, and I hope that’s alright, but I won’t ever do it on purpose, and I’ll work to make it better. I accept your tyroship and hope I’ll make you proud. So mote it be.”    

Their wand tips flash a brilliant red, connecting in a spikey string of light for one second, before releasing with a shower of gold sparks.     

“Well done.” McGonagall beams at them. “Well done, Harry, Severus.”    

Snape, looking absurdly pleased with himself, rolls his eyes at him. “‘You might get into trouble sometimes’? Really?”    

“Well, I might!” Harry says, as they all stand. “It’s never on purpose.”    

“Trouble does find you, doesn’t it.”    

“Like a magnet,” Harry agrees, and then, taking his life into his hands, asks, “Do we hug? This feels like a hugging moment.”    

The man gives him a look of such profound horror that his entire face puckers. It is, as Fleur would put it, magnifique. Snape’s eyes skip over Harry’s shoulder to McGonagall for a fraction of a second and Harry doesn’t laugh through sheer willpower.    

Harry’s backed him, neatly and precisely, into a corner, and Snape knows it.     

“Do you want to hug?”    

He absolutely does.    

“Merlin preserve us,” Snape growls, and shocks Harry by folding him into what is the most uncomfortable, hard-edged hug of Harry’s life. He’s all sharp lines and hard planes, bones and joints without a spare inch of flesh, shoulders like boulders and arms like vices. It’s like being hugged by a mountain that wants to crush the life out of you.    

He loves it.     

He doesn’t laugh, he doesn’t, but he wants to and Snape knows that too. He lets go and glares at Harry from the inches of height that separate them, a look so curdled that Harry almost loses his fight with his laughter. “Satisfied?”    

“Yes,” Harry says, smiling. “And now that we’ve broken the ice, I should probably tell you that red is your color.”    

“You’re my tyro now, Potter – do not think your outrageous cheek will be tolerated. I’ll have you scrubbing cauldrons until New Year.”    

“You do look quite fetching, Severus,” McGonagall says, winking at Harry as they make their way to the door.  

Just beyond, Harry can hear laughter, celebration, the whirring of cameras, but Harry’s not paying attention to that. He’s paying attention to the blush staining the apples of Snape’s cheeks even as he growls, “I will not be insulted in such a manner.”    

Red really is his color.   

Chapter Text

nyctous

adj. feeling quietly overjoyed to be the only one awake in the middle of the night—sitting alone with a laptop and a cup of tea or strolling down the center line of an abandoned street—taking in the world like an empty theater between productions, stripped down to a simple black box, open to be whatever you want it to be.

The funny thing about life at Hogwarts is this: time seems to both slip through his fingers, and cease to pass.    

Hogwarts has always felt like a world removed from the outside, and Harry supposes that’s on purpose. The ancient spells that have been layered over the castle by countless thousands of teachers and students have left a sort of presence in the air. There’s a taste to the magic here that’s different to Diagon Alley, the Ministry of Magic, and even Grimmauld Place. 

He can sense it in a way he never could before the Battle, thicker in places and thinner in others, tangy and ripe along certain corridors, and as fresh as spring dew in others. He likens it to the way carbonated bubbles stick to the sides of a glass, gathering up in cheerful little pockets, glossy with rainbow striations. It feels like that on his skin, light as a breeze brushing his fringe. 

(He thinks he could get drunk off of the magic here if he sipped at it, as he sometimes so desperately wants to do; could get lost in the berry-bright sparks of its flavor, the florals in the corners of his mouth, the clean rain water along the back of his tongue, and he doesn’t know what to do about that knowledge.)   

He doesn’t say a word about it, not to anyone, not after the Receiving. He has no interest in drawing further attention to himself, not when his friends, for the first time, get to enjoy it instead. Hermione’s potential tyromasters had fought over her, bitterly and furiously, and Harry’s glad of it. She is a light in the world and perfect in her imperfections, so stubborn he has no idea how she stays balanced on two feet with that hard head of hers, and so beautiful it makes something in his ribs creak with love for her. Her tyromasters had fought over her and she was worth the battle, the Helen of their Troy.     

In the end, she’d chosen the tiny headmaster of the Mahoutokoro Wizarding School in Japan, Hiroko Takahashi, the preeminent Arithmancy Master in the world. She was already amazing, but under his tutelage she was going to become something that the world had never seen. He’s humbled to know her, to have grown up beside her, to get to call her his friend. One day, in the not-so-distant future, her light is going to overshadow them all, the myth of his own life buried under the glory of hers. He’s grateful beyond anything that she gets to have that future, that his choices hadn’t extinguished that before she got to live.    

Ron, too, had gotten to choose between two masters. The prince that owned the dragon preserves in Romania had wanted him with a single-minded focus, and in hearing Ron tell the tale, it seemed as if the git was looking to collect a menagerie of Weasleys, convinced that they were from a line of ancient dragon tamers. Ron had thought it bloody hilarious, and Charlie – smug and laughing in his letter to Ron afterward – had used Ron’s absolute disinterest to wrangle a raise for himself. Brilliant, Charlie was. The other wizard who’d fought for Ron’s tyroship had been the ambassador of the Magical Congress of the United States of America, Clarence Duckstein, who recognized Ron’s keen mind and outstanding charmswork and had all but promised him New York City on a platter, if only he'd agree to be his tyro.    

Ron, mortified, had agreed, sans New York City. Terrible oversight on his part, and Harry had told him so.     

Flitwick was to be Ron’s faculty advisor, and Professor Vector had delayed her retirement by a year to take on Hermione. Harry’s situation was a little bit stranger, and McGonagall herself had requested to come on as his faculty advisor, to which Harry had agreed.     

Neat. Tidy. And Harry doesn’t trust it for a second.     

He doesn’t know what McGonagall’s end game is, but she’s not nearly so good at subterfuge as Dumbledore had been. He doesn’t think she particularly wants to be, granted, but she’d had it all very well in hand, almost too well. As if she’d known what Harry would decide all along, though of course she’d always known him better than most. 

The first morning of Harry’s tyroship dawned cold, the first indication that fall was losing its grip on Scotland and winter was starting to take hold. Before too long he’d have to unpack his heavier cloak, his sturdy boots and thick undershirts. As it was, he was grateful for the jumper Mrs. Weasley had gifted him last year, even as nerves kept rearing up to remind him that his shivers were from more than the cold.     

He has no idea what to expect, or how Snape would treat him as a tyro, let alone in class. He’d been decent during the Receiving, only proving that he could be when he was employing the full breadth and scope of his Slytherin ambition, and not that he was suddenly feeling magnanimous about Harry’s Potterishness. He’d won, and Harry had signed his life to this man for the next year, for better or for worse.     

As a boy, Harry had been able to withstand being in Snape’s class because they shared a mutual hatred for one another, fed by misconceptions and watered with the vitriol they spat at one another. That hatred was, if not gone, then much receded, leaving a hollow gap between them which scared him more than hatred did. Harry doesn’t know what would be filled in its place. What he does know is that he’s a different person from the boy who had left these halls to go hunt for horcruxes. That boy is dead and gone, and he’s been trying to piece together what’s left for the last year.      

He looks up from his cup of tea to the door of the apartment. The clock over the mantle ticks over to four-thirty-one, and sure enough, before he can finish the thought there’s a sharp rap at the door.  “Right on time,” he mutters, curling his fingers in the air to help the door lock turn over.     

Snape in the early morning, sleep still heavy at the edges of his eyes and in the somber curve of his mouth, is a sight to behold. Like Harry he’d foregone his full robes at this early hour, wearing instead black trousers tucked into dark boots, a dark green knit sweater, and his heavy, black outer robe to ward off the chill of the castle. He’d pulled his hair back into a half tie, freeing the angular lines of his face to the firelight. It’s amazing the changes it makes to his face, how exposing the high, sharp cheekbones, the square line of his jaw, the long line of his throat, can make him look like a completely different person. Like a stranger. That is, until he opens his mouth.     

Snape gives Harry a critical once-over. “You’ll need to do something about the hair.”    

Harry, who had worn his hair much longer than this as a youth, and had brewed quasi-successful potions while doing so, has no idea what the man is talking about. “What?    

“Are you going to invite me in, or must I loiter in your doorway like a bashful maiden?”    

Harry waves him in sharply, crossing the room to close the door behind him. The move puts them in a proximity Harry is not going to allow himself again, the smell of the man this early, sleep-rumpled and grumpy, plucking at something inside of himself he doesn’t understand. “I see early morning doesn’t do anything for your disposition. Tea?”    

“Are those raspberry biscuits?”    

Harry glances over at his crates. “Yes?”    

“Are those all of the raspberry biscuits? The very same raspberry biscuits I have been enjoying with my afternoon tea for eighteen years, and which have mysteriously gone missing?”    

“I have no idea what you’re talking about. What about my hair? Use small words.”    

“Potter.”    

Harry sighs. “It’s too early for this.”    

But Snape is glowering at him. He reaches into his pocket, pulls out a black ribbon, and thrusts it forward. “Go, tie your hair back. You will be giving me these biscuits before the day is out.”    

“I don’t think I have enough hair for that. Also, those biscuits are mine.”    

“Tie it back or shorten it so this will not be an issue in future. Your choices.” Snape wiggles the ribbon in the air.    

He snatches the ribbon, and goes.    

He has barely, barely, enough hair to tie back, and the knot is much higher on his head than Snape’s is. It sticks out like the back end of a crup, pointed in two different directions as the cowlicks like.     

He looks like an idiot, and he means to say so, except Snape is sat at Harry’s kitchen island on one of the stools, drinking Harry’s tea and fucking eating his biscuits. “Oi!”    

“You have no leg to stand on,” Snape says, dignified in his treachery. “And you look like an idiot. Either grow it, or shorten it.”  

“I’ll grow it, thanks,” he says, because he likes his hair longer – helps with the cowlicks, certainly.     

Snape looks at him. Harry looks back.     

“What?”    

“Grow it.”    

“I said I will. Now, are you just going to sit here all day eating my biscuits, or are we going somewhere at this miserable hour of the morning?”    

But Snape has risen from Harry’s kitchen stool and stalked up to him. He’s got biscuit crumbs on his sweater. He peers at Harry like he’s a particularly interesting insect, scanning over his face as if trying to figure out if Harry is taking the piss.     

“There’s gray in it,” Snape says suddenly.    

How funny, and how strange too. Professor Snape’s hair had been shot with gray, but this Snape’s is as dark as ebony, glossy and shining around his shoulders. It’s Harry’s black hair that’s going gray, now, little sparkling threads throughout. His stubble is, too, when he shaves in the morning.    

“Yes, I know.”    

Odd, how discomfort looks on Snape’s face. It makes him look like a stranger.    

“You don’t know the spell to grow it out.”    

“What are you talking about?”    

“I’d told Albus, for years, that the half-bloods need more than an hour with Poppy in Second Year,” Snape says absently, and Harry’s entire body flushes with mortification. It’s too early to be thrust head-long back into that trauma. He can still hear the way the elderly mediwitch had said, “And let’s everyone say the incantation very clearly now. One, two, three - Oleum,” and had taught them the wand motion that made a slick, sticky substance come pouring out of the tips of their wands. At the time Harry hadn’t a clue what it was for or why the mediwitch was teaching them the spell, or why so many of his classmates had collapsed with hysterical laughter, or even why Seamus had blushed crimson and wouldn’t look at anyone for two days. It would be nearly two years before Harry understood what the spell had been for and why Madame Pomfrey had been the one to teach it to them, and then he’d promptly wished there was a spell to open his skull and take a wire brush to his brain.     

“There are spells, Potter, that are taught from one generation to the next, most appropriately in the home,” Snape is saying, as if Harry wasn’t still stuttering over that nightmarish and confusing afternoon when he’d learned, for the first time, about witches and wizards and what they did together. “The Muggleborns are required to take a hygiene class with Poppy before their first year that gives them instruction on such tasks as cleaning one’s teeth and hair, applying cosmetics, cleaning one’s body, and so forth. For those students with magical parentage, the class is not offered.”    

Harry had always wondered why the others thought him so strange to go into the bathroom with his kit. Granted, he wasn’t the only one who did it – Seamus used a liquid soap sold at the apothecary in Hogsmeade, and Neville had an old-timey shaving kit he used religiously. Maybe they didn’t have the full complement like Harry did, toothpaste and deodorant and soap and shampoo, but surely they had something of it, surely they –     

But they didn’t. He couldn’t remember a single time when Ron had gone into the bathroom with anything other than a towel, and when Harry had looked at him funny once, in their first year, he’d said, “I just like the way it feels, alright? Drying spells make me cold.”    

Harry had never asked again, and that had clearly been his mistake.     

Would he never feel settled in the wizarding world? Would there always be something new to learn, something new to feel stupid about?    

“So there’s a haircut spell, is what you’re telling me.”    

“A hair lengthening and hair shortening spell, yes,” Snape says mildly. “You so often looked like a shaggy sheep at the end of the school year. This was, of course, chalked up to your devil-may-care attitude and your constant need to be the center of attention.”    

“I looked like that because I hadn’t gotten a haircut all year, not because I wanted to look cool,” he replies hotly, in defense of his younger self. “How was I to know? Are you seriously saying there are spells for the lot of it?”    

“Surely you know some of these spells – you’ve never smelled any more unpleasant than other pubescent boys your age, even with Quidditch.”     

“Well yeah, that’s because I use antiperspirant.”    

“You what.”    

“Antiperspirant.” Harry frowns. “Do you know what – that is to say – ”    

“I know what antiperspirant is, Potter, I just never thought you so idiotic as to use it,” Snape snarls, and then gets in really, really close to him, heaving a big sniff through that beak of his. “Are you wearing it now?”    

“Yes?”    

“Merlin's bloody beard.” Snape waves his wand and Harry feels a rushing tingle run across his skin, scraping along his nerves, the fragile insides of his arms and his armpits, even his back, chest, and neck. He recognizes it for the cleaning spell that it is, the same Mrs. Weasley sent over them when they came into her kitchen after playing Quidditch all afternoon. “Of all the foolish, idiotic – Potter, do you understand the chemicals used in these products? Muggle products are for muggles, who have no magic that could be affected by slathering chemicals not found in nature upon their person. You, impossible though it may seem, are a wizard, and willingly putting aluminums and phthalates onto your more sensitive areas could be catastrophic for your magical core.”    

“How could I have known that!”    

“You could have, if you’d ever stopped to consider why your classmates weren’t bathing in chemicals that made them smell like an Irish garden,” Snape snaps at him. “Do not use any more muggle products, especially on the mornings we brew, do I make myself clear?”    

“No, you do not make yourself clear. I have to wear antiperspirant, I can’t just go without, I’ll – I’ll smell like a hippogriff,” Harry says, more embarrassed than angry now. He hates feeling off-center like this, hates that he’d missed something so glaringly obvious.     

No one had ever cared enough about him to show him these things. The only memories he had were of Aunt Petunia, shoving a gray washcloth in his clumsy toddler fingers, and dumping buckets of tepid water over his head until he thought he’d drown.     

He’d taught himself how to wash, how to put on lotion when his skin got too dry, how to clip his nails, and when he got older, how to shave. And now, to find out that he’d somehow been doing it wrong this whole time makes him feel like a child in his father’s too-big shoes, clomping around the house playing pretend.     

“Yes, I suppose you would,” Snape says, almost to himself, and shame licks at Harry’s bruised heart. Snape, though, just raises his wand. “Watch my wand motion. Olfacies nova siccis.”    

The sensation takes him by surprise. He feels something under his arms, yes, but also in his groin, in his feet, the small of his back, the nape of his neck and the folds of his knees. It’s icy-cool but pleasant, even in the chill of the room. He shivers. “What in the hell was that?”    

“That is a stay-fresh charm, to deal with the humanness of the human body. It serves as deodorant, antiperspirant, and cleaning charm all in one. It must be refreshed every day, though it is recommended in the morning, as it leaves a tingling sensation for a short period. It will keep you cool and dry, even in the hottest months or the most exercise. It is not recommended to be used instead of bathing, but rather in conjunction with it.” He tips his head, studying him. “You’re flushed. There’s no need for embarrassment.”    

“I’m nineteen years old and you just taught me something I should have been doing since I was eleven. Of course I’m embarrassed.”  

Snape, though, waves a hand in dismissal. “That is a ridiculous emotion ill-suited to our current circumstances. You are my tyro. I am your master. Why should you feel embarrassed of that which you do not know? I have sworn to teach you, and teach you I will, whether it be potions recipes or life guidance. Do not use antiperspirant again.”    

Harry rubs his arms back and forth a little. The sensation has faded, but he can almost feel something still in his sensitive areas. “Okay.”    

“Swear it.”    

“Okay, I said!”    

“Cheek,” Snape snaps, and whirls on his boot heel. “Come.”    

“Coming,” Harry sighs, and closes the apartment door behind them.    

.    

Snape’s personal lab is nothing at all like what Harry expects.    

Harry, who had spent more than his fair share of detentions scrubbing cauldrons in the dungeons, has never actually seen this part of Snape’s offices. It’s similar to the potion’s classroom in that there are cauldrons, beakers, and glass jars filled with all manner of disgusting things, but that’s where the similarity ends.     

Harry’s never seen a science lab outside of the telly, but he thinks that this one probably qualifies. Floor-to-ceiling shelves of cauldrons in every discernable size, shape, and make face opposite the door. Harry didn’t even know that they came in so many different materials, aside from gold and pewter, but there’s silver, bronze, marble and copper; there’s even a cauldron that looks like it’s made of bone, though what animal could have produced a bone that big, that could be hollowed out to make a cauldron, is lost on Harry. There are cauldrons made of iron, and made of glass, and he thinks that a very small one, tucked up high on the shelf, may be a hollowed-out ruby, a blood red so beautiful that it catches all the light in the room. An array of mortar and pestles sit on a shelf next to the cauldrons, small ones and big ones, some made of wood, some made of marble, some made of stone.     

Bracketing the wall of cauldrons, a hundred or more glass shelves sit crammed to bursting with thousands of ingredient jars. Insects, seeds, animals, flowers, plants; they all float in stasis potions, all carefully labeled in the same spidery scrawl. Six floor-to-ceiling alchemist’s cabinets, with thousands of drawers like Harry’s card catalog at his old primary school, sits in a place of honor just to the left of the jars.    

Occupying the center of the room, a square worktable easily twenty feet long stretches from wall to wall, with just enough space to walk around it. Atop it are over a dozen cauldrons, all currently in use. A huge pewter cauldron is being continuously mixed by a stirring stick; a smaller copper one is bubbling menacingly. One of the smallest cauldrons, a burnished silver, is lit from beneath by a purple flame Harry has never seen before. Dozens of instruments sit alongside and in between the cauldrons, everything from scales to test tubes, tongs to ladles.     

“Wow,” he says slowly as Snape brushes past him, shrugging out of his cloak at the same time he waves his wand. The bubbling cauldron hisses almost angrily, and Snape hisses back. Harry chokes back an extremely inappropriate giggle. “This is – wow.”  

  “Did you think I produced medical-grade potions in the classroom, between the melted cauldrons and scorched desks?”     

“I didn’t even know you made the potions for the Hospital Wing, until the Receiving.” Harry shrugs out of his own outer robe and hangs it on the hook beside Snape’s. “Have you always?”    

“What do you know of Potions Mastery?”    

“Nothing,” he admits. “Also, I’ve recently been told that answering questions with a question is rude.”    

“Cheek,” snarls a voice from behind him, and Harry jumps, whirling around.    

Hanging across from the worktable, on the wall between two doors, is an enormous portrait easily five feet tall. In the foreground, a bubbling cauldron blurts pale smoke, painted in dark strokes of gray and blue that depict the sheen of the metal, the delicate fumes of the smoke. Viridian stands just behind it, in his heavy green cloak and his weird pointy eyebrows, and beside him, scowling down at them, stands Professor Snape.    

“Come now, Severus,” Viridian says cheerfully, as he peeks into the painted cauldron and then winks at Harry. “He isn’t wrong, you know, answering questions with questions is particularly rude. You were much less refined as a lad, if memory serves, so it’s not much of a surprise.”    

“I told you both that you’d be banned if you interrupted today,” growls the Snape in the room with Harry, glaring across at the painted men like he could throttle them both. “Don’t push me, or I’ll move the portrait out of here and into the men’s toilet down the hall.”    

“No you won’t, child charlatan, and five points from Slytherin for your impudence,” the elder Snape says silkily, eyeing the younger. “Minerva told us you’d won your prize, such as he is, and we wished to come and say a… friendly hello. And to tell you that the Mineral Infusion has another ten minutes or so before it’s unsalvageable, which you would have known if you’d come down to the lab on time. Sleeping in, little one? Needed a rest?”    

If Harry wasn’t seeing this with his own two eyes, he would have never believed it. As it is, he stares at the elder Snape in all of his bat-like glory, and then at the younger. He doesn’t think he’s ever seen the man, in any iteration, as angry as he is right now, the sharp lines of his young face pulled into a rictus of fury.     

With himself.     

“Oh my God,” Harry says faintly.    

“While you were cuddling your teddy bear, your experiment has bubbled on the brink of disaster,” Snape the elder continues ruthlessly. “Fourteen days of labor and two hundred galleons worth of ingredients would have been wasted because you have allowed yourself, for no discernable reason, the kind of distraction you can ill afford. What could have possessed you to do this?”    

“I hardly think my choices are any concern of yours,” Snape the younger replies, haughty with disdain.     

“Yes, but Potter.”    

Feeling that he should at least pretend some semblance of outrage, Harry says, “Oi!”    

“And yet,” says Snape the elder, eyeing him sharply.    

“Yeah,” Harry admits with a sigh. “Alright.”    

“My choices are none of your concern. Do not say later that I didn’t warn you,” Snape the younger replies, and snaps his wand at the portrait.     

Across the way, the portraits, though still moving, have been struck mute.     

Viridian catches on to what’s happened first, and looks on, gleeful, as the elder Snape’s painted face flushes red with rage. He turns and stalks right out of the portrait at full dramatic whirl, his robes briefly obscuring the cauldron before flapping out of sight. Viridian winks at the two of them and follows.    

Snape looks at Harry and points a finger at him. “Not one damn word, Potter.”    

Harry, who has never heard the man curse, and who decides that it’s the second-best thing to happen to him today, rolls his lips inward. “Bit of a bastard, isn’t he.”    

“Potter.”    

“Makes you feel like a dung beetle, huh.”    

“I will end you.”    

“No,” Harry says, with more warmth than he intends, “you won’t. Can I ask you a question?”    

“Can I stop you?” Snape demands, even as he lowers the temperature on the silver cauldron and adds a drop of something yellow from a tiny vial. The potion immediately comes to a full boil, nearly overboiling, before making a high sound like a tea kettle, whistling ominously. Apparently that was precisely what it was supposed to do though, because Snape’s shoulders relax and he sets a stirring stick moving counterclockwise. When Harry doesn’t say anything, he snaps, "Well?"    

“Has it been strange? Having him here and talking to you?”    

“Has it been strange having a person who is me, who I was until a year ago, who represents all the worst and best of my qualities, decide to spend his ample free time following me about the castle portrait to portrait, heckling me? No, it’s been grand,” Snape drawls, and Harry chokes on a laugh. 

The surface of the potion is clear as glass, with a very fine yellow tint to it. It smells like brine water after a rainstorm, tickling the fine hairs inside his nose. “What’s this?”    

Snape eyes him for a long moment before glancing down into the cauldron. “An experiment which may yet prove fruitful, and far beyond your current scope. We will be starting our work with a student cauldron,” and with a precise flick of his wand a pewter cauldron comes sailing down to the worktable on the far end nearest the window, “as well as an early potion learned in Third Year, one the children are currently learning: the Wideye Potion. It’s one of the simplest potions to make, and will help establish our baseline.”     

"Okay,” Harry says uncertainly. He vaguely remembers the potion but Third Year had been, in a word, stressful. “Is there a runic recipe?”    

“There is, but as you’ve already expressed difficulty in reading them, we’ll focus instead on the simple recipe.”      

A battered copy of Magical Drafts and Potions comes sailing across the room from a bookcase shoved into the corner, and sweeps open to page 142. On the page, a pictograph of a cauldron flickers cheerfully in black ink.     

He knew this was going to feel strange, but as Harry looks at the recipe, and then picks up one of the baskets piled in a neat stack beside the table to go gather his ingredients, it takes on a surreal quality. He’s pants at potions but he’s not Neville levels of bad – he’s got some ability, enough to have scraped an E on his OWLs, anyway, and he didn’t do half bad with Slughorn. Those accomplishments, small and thin though they were, had been accomplishments. Still, as he gathers ingredients, he feels not unlike he did in Grade 2 when he’d gone back to school without having written anything all summer and somehow, had forgotten how to form his G’s. The pencil had felt foreign in his hands, clumsy, scraping against the rough calluses from yard work and chores.    

He feels like that small seven-year-old again, trying to get his fingers to grasp his pencil.    

The recipe calls for making Standard Ingredient fresh, and Harry tries to remember how to make it. Dried mistletoe berries, he thinks, lionfish spines, bay leaves and house fly wings, ground finely to a dust without large particulates. He needs a mortar and pestle, not stone but marble, which would – do something with the ingredients, though he can’t remember what. Snake fangs, but there were twenty different varieties in front of him, each worse than the last. Did it matter if it was ashwinder or rattlesnake? Billywig stings, at least, were easy enough, and the alkaline water too, though he had to guess on which Essence of Citrus he might need – orange, lime, grapefruit? Who bloody knew.     

The recipe doesn’t clearly state how much water was needed, and – and he remembers this fiddly little beast, because it required that the dried ingredients be ground down in the same mortar without touching one another and how was he supposed to do that? Everything was in measures and Harry feels a cold sweat break out along the nape of his neck as he tries to remember what a measure is, because Hermione had a differently shaped set of cups than he did and he always had to convert her measures into his. Now he has Snape’s old ones, but he can’t remember – had he divided her portions by thirds for himself? Or was it three times doubled?    

The recipe called for the water to be on medium, which he had always struggled with. It wasn’t like Aunt Petunia’s gas range, where he could turn the knob and get it to medium straight away. He cheats at this, just a bit, silently begging his wand to please ask the fire nicely to hit the right temperature, and he thinks he may have gotten it, at the very least.    

He can feel Snape watching him, and it makes him want to squirm. The man had a way of making him feel like he was one of the slimy things he was chopping up, no matter his age. Harry hates it, even as he works to grind the snake fangs (he’d settled on cobra) without letting them touch the standard ingredients, which had to be reduced to a fine powder, and how was he –     

“Shit!” he yelps, as the alkaline water gives a mighty glug, but the Billywig Stings had to reduce, except that they were causing a reaction with the water and the water was not having it. It was, in fact, doing its level best to escape, and Harry fumbles for his wand, reducing the heat instantly. His snake fangs and standard ingredients had helplessly, awfully mixed in the mortar, and frustrated, he dumps the lot into the cauldron, furious with himself. The water instantly turns a muddy green, and stinks to high heaven.     

Scrambling, he looks back to the recipe and realizes he’d added too much, that once the ingredients had been ground they had to be mixed and then he had to take four measures of that mixture. He had way too many fangs, but didn’t something counteract it? Slug paste? He races over to the glass jars, half remembering something he’d read and something Hermione had said, but it was no going, now. He grabs the jar with the slugs and scoops out three into his mortar, squashing them until they squirt bug juice all over the place, including his fingers. He spoons out what he hopes is a dram of it and throws it into the cauldron in three flicks, because it won’t come off the spoon properly and because he always tries to do things in threes while making potions, something he read somewhere and had stuck with him ever since.     

He feels the pull of magic on his core, as he always did at this stage, the tingling in his fingertips telling him some sort of magical reaction has occurred. Immediately, the mixture begins to groan, bubbling up in one, two, three heaving waves, not at all the slow roiling the book describes. He turns the heat off straight away, stirring clockwise three times, then counterclockwise twice just to be safe. It would need time to brew, Harry knows, and he waves his wand over it, murmuring the incantation to get it to settle, lowering the heat to almost nothing.    

He hunches his shoulders, instinctively, against what is about to happen.    

Snape doesn’t let him down.    

“That was,” the man says, in a low, calm, silky tone that makes all the hair on Harry’s nape stand on end, “the most ridiculous showing of wizardry I have ever witnessed. Truly, Potter. I have seen the Dark Lord under a tap-dancing jinx, and even that – which to this day serves as the most hilarious moment of my godforsaken life – was more graceful than what just occurred in this room.”    

Harry flinches, feeling his belly go to liquid and his insides squirm. “I told you I was pants at this,” he barks, shoving away from the counter. “I told you this was a mistake! I am awful at potions, and I get it, I get it, I’m going to do my best by you, but you could have just asked! Not subjected us to a year of, of,” he waves a hand to encompass the cauldron, the mess of ingredients, “this farce!”    

"As usual, all that’s escaping those flapping gums is gibberish,” Snape sneers, but comes around the table to peer into the cauldron. The contents glug again, even more ominously than before. "Why on earth did you add the slugs?”    

“I don't know,” Harry snaps back, and crosses his arms over his chest. His heart is racing. He knew he wasn’t going to be able to turn this out, but this is much worse than he thought it would be. “I read something about – about slugs counteracting too much Standard Ingredient.”    

“The juice of the slugs you chose, Wood-eating Sluglets, cause severe paralysis. As your patient – or in this case, your victim – is suffocating, unable to expand their chest because their muscles have locked and frozen, the cobra fang poison will have mixed with the lemon essence and your prey will begin vomiting uncontrollably. Do you know what happens when a paralyzed person tries to vomit?” Snape hisses. “The unfortunate soul who drinks this sludge will be subjected to a slow, suffocating death, while wide awake to experience it.”    

Harry, who had progressively shrunken in on himself, feels a terrible, familiar pang at the center of his chest. There had been hope – small, fragile, stupid – that this would all be different. Fred had once teased him for being a glutton for punishment, and he’d had the truth of it. “I -- I made a poison. Is what you mean.”    

“An excruciating way to die,” Snape agrees, and though his voice is still cutting, some of the anger has drained away. 

He sits suddenly at the stool nearest Harry. His sweater pulls a little on one side and the rib of his collarbone pokes through, along the ridge of shoulder muscle, his hair falling over his shoulder in a wave. He looks like a lanky spider, all elbows and knees, fingers laced between his knees, and it’s a pose so uncharacteristic of the man he once was – stiff, stern, dignified – that something shifts in Harry’s mind, the same way a page is turned in a book. “Did you mean to make a poison?”    

“Of course not!”    

“And yet. Your mind was not on the potion. Your nerves cost you.”    

“My nerves helped me survive Voldemort. Forgive me if I don’t see them as a hindrance.”    

Snape peers at him. “We are done here. You are to report to my apartments tonight at six.”    

“What?”    

“You heard me. You are not to attend your potions seminar today. I want you to spend the block period reading about your ancestor, if the book is still readable, a debt you will repay in raspberry biscuits. Bring the crate with you.”    

“No.”  

"You’ll find that wasn’t a request,” Snape says, and climbs to his feet. “Get out, Potter. Shower, and eat something. Do not put on antiperspirant.”  

Harry, because he is intrinsically a shit, asks, “What if I do, though?”    

“Then I will tell Poppy, and she will be obliged to give you the thorough lecture she gives First Years before they attend Hogwarts. I believe she calls it, Your Changing Body and You.” The man has the gall to smirk when Harry sucks in a breath. “As I thought. Get out, Potter.”    

He gets out.    

.    

"But I mean, Harry, you made a poison, and that’s better than nothing, isn’t it?” Ron tells him from his sprawl across Harry’s bed later that morning.     

Harry towels his hair once more, trying to ignore how it makes his damp hair stick up in fifteen directions. He combs it down, but as with all things to do with the mop he inherited from his father, a baker’s dozen of cowlicks sproing to life all around his head. “Oh yes, an accidental poison to inflict the worst kind of death imaginable.” He glares at his best mate where he’s eating some kind of pastry and getting it all over Harry’s duvet. “How come you never thought to tell me about all of these cleaning charms?”    

Ron rolls his eyes. Harry doesn’t actually see him do it, but Harry’s known this man for near on a decade. It's all about the shoulders at this point, honestly. “Because you grew up Muggle, didn’t you? I thought you preferred Irish Spring.”    

“No one prefers Irish Spring, Ron,” he growls, poking at his fringe and shoving it down over his forehead.    

“Yeah, well,” Ron says, and rolls over onto his back, then his front, then his back once more, until he rolls clean off the bed and to his feet. Bastion of grace, Ronald Weasley, and Harry feels a swell of affection for his idiot friend. “Wasn’t about to get into your hygiene mate, there is a line and that’s it. Besides, the girls liked it well enough, didn’t they?” He raises his voice to a falsetto. “Oh, Harry’s so fanciable, he smells so nice, oo la la,” and Harry, who has never taken such nonsense lying down, lobs his Mitchum’s at him. Ron ducks, then nearly trips over his trunk. “Oi!”    

Harry glares pointedly at him.    

“Yeah, alright,” Ron agrees, grinning, leaning over the side of the bed to pick up the antiperspirant. “I always wondered what you used this for. Who knew Muggles had a solution for the pit gremlins?”    

Pit gremlins, Ron had told him an hour ago between snorts of laughter once Harry had told him the whole, sorry tale of the morning, had been what Bill used to call what was born under a man’s arms when he existed outside of the shower for longer than ten minutes.     

“I did, and I wish you’d said I wouldn’t have to slather myself in it just to leave the dorms,” Harry says, as he steps out of the bathroom. The charm is still tingling a bit, especially in his more sensitive areas, but it’s nice. Nice, also, to know he won’t smell like a troll in half an hour. What he would have given for the charm when he played Quidditch. “Did McGonagall say anything to you about this meeting?”    

“Something about the first year teachers. Not us, but not not us, I suppose. Honestly, who’d trust us with classes,” Ron says again, sighing, as they leave Harry’s apartment and head to the Women’s Hall. “She’s mental, she is, thinking we’re qualified to instruct. Well, I mean, you have the experience, but me. I’m going to muck it all up and those children will one day look back at me like we look back at Lockhart. I’m going to be Lockhart, Harry.”    

“Not even on your worst day would you be Lockhart. This is Sixth Year all over again mate, and the trick with the Felix Felices isn’t going to work twice. Your problem is confidence. I don’t know how else to get through your thick skull that you’ve got talent enough for three people. You tell him, Hermione,” Harry says, when she opens her door for them.     

"You should have taken an O.W.L. in whinging,” Hermione says like the true friend she is, eyeing Ron. “How was that?”    

“Perfect,” Harry says as Ron glowers at the two of them. “He isn’t listening to me.”    

“What is he complaining about this time? Is he on again about teaching?” she asks, closing the door behind herself and following them out to the teacher’s common room, then to the gargoyle guarding McGonagall’s office. “Abyssinian. Honestly, Ronald. You have a perfectly respectable intelligence when you decide to flex it and not let your crippling self-doubt take over.”    

“Well that’s nice!” Ron cries.    

"You’re the Lion of Ottery St Catchpole.” The Prophet hadn’t let it go for months, and even now every time the Weasley name popped up the phrase got thrown in. Ron goes pink. “You've literally got nothing left to prove, mate.”    

“Yeah well, tell that to a bunch of snotty--” but Ron doesn’t finish his sentence, because McGonagall had thrown open her door and was looking down her nose at them. How she could do that while being a foot and a half shorter than him and nearly two from Ron is a mystery. “Good morning gentlemen, Ms. Granger.”   

The other two new First Year teachers are waiting for them, a stately, long-limbed witch and a wizard with rich, golden blond hair, enormous blue eyes, and a movie-star kind of smile. He is easily the most attractive bloke Harry’s ever met in his life. It actually hurts to look at him, like inadvertently looking into the sun. 

“Hi there! I was hoping we’d meet before you attended our classes!” the man says cheerfully in a thick, twangy American accent that made Harry think of cowboys and long nights on the range. The man, blind to the stir he's caused, pumps his and Ron’s hands firmly, and Hermione’s too. "I swear I'll only say it the once, but holy smokes, the Golden Trio. The Golden Trio, honey!” he tells the witch next to him.    

“I see them,” she says, shaking her head good naturedly. With her tightly coiled black hair and her almond-shaped eyes, she’s a more approachable kind of beautiful, but no less stunning for it. Her accent is very Queen’s English, fancy like Malfoy’s. “Excuse my husband please, his manners leave something to be desired. This is Garrick Jigger, and I am his long-suffering wife, Enid.”     

“My wife!” Garrick says, beaming. “We’ve been married for four months, still gives me chills, and also that means you aren’t long-suffering. Yet!”    

"Yet,” she agrees, but she’s smiling. “We have indeed been looking forward to meeting you.”    

“Enid has taken over my post as Transfiguration teacher,” McGonagall says, ushering them to the sofas by her fire, where a tea service is waiting. “Garrick has taken over Defense Against the Dark Arts.”    

“Apparently the job is cursed!” Garrick says, eyes enormous, less like he’s frightened, more like he’s thrilled. “I’ve got nine months to figure out how to uncurse it. Fun!”    

“My husband is, ah, enthusiastic,” Enid says, as she takes on the tea service and pours for them all. “It’s best you found out now.”    

“I was a Curse-Breaker for the MACUSA for six years, had to leave when a curse ricocheted off Uncle Sam – the diamond, not the patriotic symbol – and I got hit. It’s not serious!” he adds, when they all look just a little poleaxed. Harry gets the feeling this is a normal occurrence around this man. “Nearest the best magical medical minds can figure, it’s a version of the Cordis Affectu curse. Makes me super emotional at the worst times, and everything kind of tastes like grapes, don’t ask me why. We’re betting that a cursed person can’t be doubly cursed, but I’m not taking chances anyway. I’m confident I’m going to get to the bottom of it regardless, no matter what Severus says. I thought we’d see him here, Professor,” he adds, to McGonagall. “Isn’t he a first-year teacher?”    

“Severus has deemed himself prepared for teaching, having done so for eighteen years,” McGonagall says with a low sigh. Overhead, one of the portraits of the old Headmasters snorts. “While I do not necessarily agree with him, I also cannot take for granted his long tenure here and the number of children he has educated.”    

“Yes ma’am, but that’s not what this is about. I don’t want him to feel left out,” Garrick says, frowning. “Solidarity, you know? I’ll talk to him tonight at dinner. He’s really good at avoiding me, but I’m going to be his friend whether he likes it or not. He’s a great guy, just a little shy.”    

Harry chokes on his tea. Hermione thumps him sharply on the back, and Ron shudders next to him, suppressing laughter. Of all the things Snape has been accused of being, ‘shy’ did not apply.     

McGonagall, looking a little overwhelmed by her Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher and clearly trying not to show it, moves on. “I have called you all together to give you a chance to meet, and to discuss the next several months. As you know, Misters Potter and Weasley and Ms. Granger will be taking on first-year courses in the new year, as part of their tyroship program. They’ll have two first-year classes each, and will need to plan lessons, develop activities, assign homework, and so forth. I felt it prudent, therefore, to include them in these weekly sessions. Due dates for lesson plans for you three will come later this winter, and I’ll ask Mr. and Mrs. Jigger to assist you. In the meantime, I’d like to open the forum up to discuss any issues occurring so far.”    

“Yes ma’am,” Garrick says. “The kids are great! Everybody’s hungry to learn, which is nice. The year away from Hogwarts has thrown a wrench in it though, like we already talked about.”    

McGonagall nods. “Students received tutoring by owl last year, once it became obvious that the school was uninhabitable until the goblins could finish repairing the charmwork on the castle,” she tells the three of them. “However, despite the lifting of the Statute of Underage Wizardry so that spellwork could be cast in the home, many of our students have fallen disastrously behind. The Muggleborns, especially, struggled throughout the year to keep up. Many children aren’t suited to learning by owl, least of all those already struggling with other issues, and not discounting the horror that war wrought on every wizarding family in Britain.”    

Harry had known some of this already – Ginny and Luna had been learning from home, as much as they’d been able to. Seventh Year classes weren’t well-suited to learning on one’s own, but Harry couldn’t even imagine what it must have been like for the First Years. It was no wonder that the class consisted of two year’s worth of students. But to hear it like that, from the other side – to know what the teachers were now facing in getting the kids back up to speed – was a lot.     

“I didn’t think I’d have to employ a trauma-informed approach to my teaching to this extent, but it’s been necessary,” Garrick continues, a note of sadness in his voice. “Fifth Year Hufflepuffs are looking to be my biggest problem, the end-of-year exams have them so freaked out that they’ve been kind of – uh.”    

Enid sighs. “You won’t offend me, love.”    

“I don’t want to besmirch your House!”  

Enid just gives him a look and he winces. “They cry. A lot. The entire class. And it’s random – one minute I’m talking about hinkypunks and the next they’re wailing. Apparently there used to be a colony of them in the Great Lake and they were killed off during the Battle of Hogwarts.”    

“There used to be an infestation of them in the Great Lake, and it’s likely that the Merpeople used the Battle as cover to do away with them once and for all, without Rubeus realizing what was happening,” McGonagall corrects.

“I’m worried about the Slytherins,” Enid says softly, touching her husband’s wrist. “We both are. It’s only the first week of class and they’re already defensive, unwilling to answer questions when called upon, unwilling to be partnered with anyone not a Slytherin. It has not crossed over into outright disrespect, but if pushed I believe it will get to that.”    

"Severus has already expressed the same,” McGonagall says, her eyebrows drawn and her mouth tight. “I’ve already spoken to the teachers about not taking undue points from them. What is happening is what we anticipated would come to pass. Of all our Houses, they are the most like the animal Salazar Slytherin chose for his emblem. They strike when in pain, attacking any who would dare get near. And make no mistake, they are in pain, terrible pain, carrying the weight of the choices the adults in their lives have made on their small shoulders.”    

It’s so strange to hear McGonagall say it like that, but it’s true, of course it’s true. They’re all a bit like that, Slytherins, and Harry feels a well of pity for the children suffering under a prejudice most of them had no hand in. He vows, then, to talk to them, to let himself get close to them. After all, his tyromaster is their Head of House. Didn’t that, in a way, make him an honorary Slytherin?     

Talk passes to lesson planning, Hogsmeade Weekends (“As First Year teachers, chaperoning will of course fall to you,” McGonagall says smugly, to a healthy chorus of groans), and the first classes of the year. They talk about some of the struggles they’re having with clinging parents, their fears about the coursework being too rigorous, and Enid even brings up her worry that she will never live up to Professor McGonagall’s aptitude for teaching her subject. 

Her honesty helps Ron speak up about his own fears about teaching, and McGonagall does them the courtesy of not dismissing their fears. “It’s natural to feel apprehension,” she tells them, “most especially with the first class you ever teach. Fear, however, should not stand in your way. Harness your fear and let it drive your efforts, and remember: each of us here were once in your shoes, new to the profession and uncertain of ourselves. If we can do it, so can you."    

And really, what more was there to say?

.  

Linfred, the Potterer of Stinchcombe, was a barmy old codger, and Harry had fallen in love with him by the third water-logged chapter.     

The book Snape had given him to read isn’t the dusty, academic tome he was expecting, but Linfred’s diary, interspersed with passages from his biographer explaining dates and places, events and people, and who had also translated the diary from Old English into modern vernacular. Linfred reminds Harry so strongly of Mr. Weasley that something Harry had thought dead and wilted in his heart blooms from the ash, filling him with warmth.    

Baby Ronan once again has watery bowels. Her mother asked for a second draught of Leech-craft; I told her toadstools would grow from the baby's ears if I acquiesced. Low and behold, Baby Ronan is now enjoying my hospitality as I rid her ears of the pestilent little mushrooms. Useful plants, baby-ear-mushrooms! Or so I assume. I think they may have their place in a skin treatment ointment.     

The next six entries are all about how he transplanted the baby ear mushrooms, watered with a little spit (supplied, graciously, by Baby Ronan herself), and how they’d promptly taken over half his garden.     

He’d started using them in salads. Good with olive oil! he'd said.     

Lady Matilda has visited again. She brought me the most exotic food I have ever had the pleasure to eat, a fruit from Burma called orange. I enjoyed two delicious morsels before harvesting the rest for ingredients. How my mind is racing! Perhaps the missing ingredient in my fever reducing potion? 

I have no idea how she came across it, but long have I suspected Lady Matilda to be of my leanings. She stayed for a spell (hah) as I regaled her with all of the possible applications, and she seems very interested in my work. Possible assistant? Small hands, good for dicing, and Harry laughs out loud in a way he hasn’t in a very, very long time, there in the quiet of his apartments.    

“No, but seriously, listen,” he tells Hermione and Ron, as they’re eating in the Great Hall that afternoon. Hermione’s rushing to shovel something down before she has to go down to the apparition point at the school gates. She and Professor Vector were visiting her tyromaster’s home for her first astronomy seminar. “Star shower tonight! Collecting moonbeam stones with Lady Matilda. Maiden-collected moonbeam stones: good for pain potions to deal with the afflictions of womanhood. Linfred-collected moonbeam stones: good for spending time with Lady Matilda.”    

Hermione snorts just as he’d expected, and Ron grins, shaking his head. “Smooth operator, wasn’t he?”    

He was. He was also a kind spirit, whose mother despaired of him because he was forever giving out free medications, ointments and tinctures to anyone with a sad-enough sob story. He loved rhubarb pie, babies, mice and springtime, wept when he couldn’t save someone, and was beloved by his entire village, even if they couldn’t understand him half the time.    

It seemed right, that this man should have been the founder of Harry’s name. That Lady Matilda should have given him seven children. That Linfred had bounced his eldest son, Hardwin, on his knee, and taught him about all the plants in his garden and how to mix them together for the betterment of the people in his care.    

That Snape had read this book delights Harry even more than the book itself.     

Snape throws open his door promptly at six. He’s still in full professorial regalia, right down to the ruffled white collar. The scowl he bestows on Harry is, he’d readily admit, epic, but Harry thinks anyone would look like that if they’d been prowling the castle since four thirty that morning.     

“Biscuits,” he demands, and Harry, smiling, says, “Linfred was a barmy old coot, wasn’t he?” and hands over a dessert plate of raspberry biscuits.    

Before Snape can open his mouth to give, what Harry knows, will be an epic bellow, Minnow streaks through the door between his legs, making her bid for freedom. Snape darts out his wand and the kitten rises into the air, her four little legs akimbo, yowling madly. She lashes out a paw at Harry as she’s floated past him, bestowing upon him a look of utmost disgust when he grins.     

Like kitten like owner; Snape looks like he’s smelled something gone off when he glares down at Harry. Harry’s grin widens.    

“And a good evening to you as well, how was – bloody hell,” he blurts, when he catches sight of the state of Snape’s kitchen. 

Heaped across every conceivable surface are bowls, jars, boxes and baskets of different foods, fruits and veg, bottles of wine and sherry, and an open breadbox with four different types of loaves. A rack of spices is sitting on one of the kitchen stools.    

It’s like Snape opened his cupboards and upended all its contents onto his counters. Harry blinks at it all, then at Snape as the man deposits the kitten onto the sofa. She hisses her fury and streaks down under the tea table to sulk. “Is this a bad time?”    

“I said a crate, not this ridiculous tea plate,” Snape replies, ignoring him completely and shaking the plate at him. Nevertheless, he sets it on the desk, next to an old timey-radio set to the WWN. The new song by Devil’s Snare Harry’s been hearing everywhere comes on and Snape’s lip curls at it. “How much do you know of the scientific method?”    

“There’s a method to being scientific,” he parrots immediately. Devil’s Snare howls your end, the beginning of it all behind them and Harry bites his lower lip so he won’t smile. “Is your portrait counterpart still in time-out?”    

“Does your mind always leap from subject to subject like this? Is it truly in such disarray?”    

“It always was, I just hid it better when I was a kid. I’m older now, and no longer give a shit,” Harry says, peering at a squashy pink artichoke looking thing. “Is that dragon fruit?”    

“Focus,” Snape hisses, poking him in the forehead with his pointer finger. “Scientific method.”    

He scowls, rubbing his head, and flops uninvited onto the free stool next to the one holding all the spices. Minnow shuffles over just enough to keep him in line of sight from her spot under the tea table, so her glare can reach him unimpeded. “I don’t remember very well. Primary school was a long time ago. I know it’s the method scientists and researchers use to experiment.”    

“And would you agree that potion making is a science in and of itself?”    

“Of course.”    

“How, then, do potioneers experiment?”    

“Well, they’ve got to have a good grasp on their ingredients, right? What different things do, interactions and such, and in what quantity. I can only guess—”    

“Postulate.”    

“What?”    

“The word you’re looking for is postulate. Potioneers never guess. We make informed, scientific decisions that may not work, but thought is behind every interaction and new ingredient we add to potions. For many potioneers, this is a long process. But for those gifted few, it’s second nature.”     

Harry straightens up, giving the man a look. He’s such a swot. “You know, that little speech might have worked on someone who didn’t spend a year with the Half-Blood Prince.”    

To his absolute delight, Snape flushes, the color working up from his neck to his cheeks. It’s – it’s nice, not that he wants to embarrass the man, but because it reminds him that Snape can be embarrassed. He’d have never believed it of the elder Snape, but this one is raw, like an unmined gemstone.     

“Thankfully, the Half-Blood Prince was a child, and you are not,” Snape says regally, nose in the air. “You will not simply throw things into a cauldron to see what happens, do I make myself clear? Or will a practical demonstration be necessary? Do let me know, so I might have sufficient blood regeneration potions on hand.”    

“Nope, not necessary,” Harry says, grinning, and Snape rolls his eyes at him.     

“I am gathering evidence towards a hypothesis. You’re to make me a pasta dish. Something you’d make for a special dinner.”    

The kitchen explosion makes sense now. “Okay. What kind of sauce?”    

“A sauce of your choosing. The condition: you’re not to taste any of it.”    

Snape had clearly never cooked before, dragon fruit and weird bougie black pepper crackers aside. “What! I can’t cook without tasting the food, how am I to know it’s done, or if it has enough salt?”    

“Use that watery meatloaf you call a brain between your ears,” Snape says, and waves a regal hand. “Proceed.”    

Bloody Snape.    

There’s a smell to Snape’s apartments, something like vanilla and cedar, cinnamon and sage, that clings to the man’s robes, to the sofa cushions, to the air itself. Professor Snape had never smelled of anything much at all, which Harry now knows were the protective enchantments the man put on his person before stepping into a volatile classroom. This smell, it’s new, and nice, and makes Harry wonder at it.    

He takes off his outer robe and his blazer, rolling up his shirt sleeves. There is a lot to choose from on the counter, and Harry really does think Snape turned out his cabinets. There are also far more biscuits than there ought to be, and with a little flick of his fingers he sends them floating back to where they came from. He arches a brow at Snape as they sail past into the cupboard by the cold box. “You do know that biscuits aren’t a food group, right?”    

“You will keep your opinions about my eating habits to yourself,” Snape growls, and yeah, Harry touched a nerve there.     

“Sorry,” he says, a little more gently. “I’m not much one to talk. Hermione despaired of me a bit at Grimmauld Place. She kept sending my meat pies and treacle tarts, even when I told her to stop. Why do you like The Beatles? The band, not the ingredient.”    

Snape rubs his face tiredly, and Harry grins.     

“Well?”    

“Has anyone ever told you it’s bad form to question someone’s answers given under Veritaserum?”    

“No, actually,” Harry says, as he organizes the heaving mess of food into some sort of order. He sends more things sailing back to their cupboards, potatoes and apples, some sort of cereal, and a bag of crisps that nearly makes him laugh.     

He’s left with things that might become a pasta dish, though it’s slim pickings. He’d have liked a red sauce of some kind, but there hadn’t been enough tomatoes, just one sad half he’d sent back to the cold box. He sniffs at a little glass container with a soft cheese. It smells like gorgonzola. There’s also a wedge of some kind of hard cheese Harry can’t identify, but smells a little sharp and salty, and would probably be delicious melted into a sauce.     

The dish forms then, instantly – a heavier pasta, maybe a penne, melted cheese, creamy and delicious. He’s got everything he needs – no ready-made pasta like Aunt Petunia preferred, but flour and salt enough to make his own. Milk and cream, salt and pepper. No meats that he can see, a bit of chicken would have been nice, but this would have to do. Comfort food.    

Mrs. Weasley had taught him some basic cooking spells when he first moved into Grimmauld Place, despairing of any man left to his own devices, and he sets to work now guiding his magic to begin making a pasta dough. It needs to be worked for a bit before he'll be happy, so he lets the spell have at it as he gets one of the ancient saucepans from Snape’s collection. “Has this been used for potions?”    

That is met with a look that would have flayed the skin off his bones if he were a normal wizard. “How many times did we discuss cooking and potion making in class, Potter,” he says snidely, moving around the kitchen island like a big, winged bat. It’s a move meant to intimidate, but Harry thinks they’re long past that at this late date. Once you’ve held a man dying in your arms, intimidation was no longer possible. Snape, whatever his iteration, hasn’t figured that out yet — and Harry isn’t going to be the one to tell him.    

“Wixen far more intelligent than the rabble before me have made the mistake of brewing a PepperUp in their kitchen, and paid with their idiot lives,” he intones, in a fairly decent imitation of Snape’s rumbling voice. The elder Snape’s, anyway, not so much the young one before him who – while still having the deepest voice Harry had ever heard in a man – didn’t have that rockslide quality to his consonants that came with age and the Cruciatus Curse.     

For a fraction of a second Snape looks scandalized, all but clutching his collar. When Harry bites his lower lip so he won’t laugh, his face clouds over in fury. “The utter cheek of you, you ungrateful wretch. Mock me again, Potter, and I’ll –”    

“I wasn’t mocking you, I promise. I know your dignity means a lot to you. You actually said that, in Third Year. I remember because Mrs. Weasley makes potions in her kitchen right next to the soup and I thought Hermione was going to have a stroke when she saw it. She tried to explain you’d told us never to mix potions and food, and Mrs. Weasley said that you – well, never mind. Haven’t you ever heard that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery?”    

Snape sneers. “The full quote is, “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery that mediocrity can pay to greatness”.”    

“Ouch,” Harry says, snorting a laugh. He directs a scouring spell at the pot, getting it as clean as it’s likely to be, and then gets to dicing his garlic.     

Snape’s in full ruffle, and Harry delights in it. It’s odd how much he wants to tease this man. He wants to get under his skin, tug on all his nerves, irritate him into spinning circles, suicidal though it is. That’s half the fun.

The hatred he had once felt for the man seems alien, the emotions of another person. He remembers what it had felt like, but that was before. So many things were, really. That boy he was, idealistic, reared to one goal, a knife sharpened with care, is long gone. When he died he left all those pieces behind.    

He thinks Snape would understand that, maybe better than anyone. He’s no more the man he was before than Harry is, and isn’t that something?    

“I didn’t mean to offend you,” Harry says, very gently. Navigating Snape’s prickly exterior had always been a lesson in futility, but Harry wasn’t just anybody. “You should be pleased. Your lessons have probably kept a lot of wixen from crossing cauldrons. Do many wizarding houses have potions labs built in? Ron told us the basement at the Burrow once did, but they’d converted it to Mr. Weasley’s workshop.”    

Snape grumbles something low in his throat Harry can’t quite catch and sits on the stool in front of the kitchen worktable. He still looks annoyed, his back up and his face twisted into a scowl, but at least his glare has come down from nuclear to just murderous. Standard operation, then. “Most wizarding houses are not built, they’re inherited, and yes, most have a potion’s lab in the basement.”    

“What about Muggleborns? Or Half-Bloods who didn’t have a house to inherit?”    

“Then, should they choose, a potions lab can be installed on their premises. Understand, Potter, that most wixen are not like me – they purchase their medicinal potions from an apothecary, or else receive the more highly-controlled substances from St. Mungo’s. Some decades ago, the Ministry subsidized a class of potions deemed common essentials. Simple medicinal potions such as PepperUp, cleaning solutions, certain cosmetics, and so forth. Before that time, apothecaries could charge whatever they chose, and there was a vibrant black market trade across most of Magical Britain.” Snape eyes him. “Even those potions we would assume to be recreational began as a medicinal. Take the Wideye Potion you botched this morning. What problem do you believe the potion maker was attempting to solve?”    

Harry has a half-dozen snarky retorts on his tongue, but he stoppers them and lets himself think. “Something where you had to stay awake and aware for long periods of time. A doctor, maybe? Doing surgery?”    

“Wizards do not perpetrate surgery on one another,” Snape says sharply, but Harry, who’d been apparated to Emergency at St Mungo’s by Mr. Weasley, all the blood in his body pumping out from his severed leg, knows that isn’t entirely true.     

“What makes you like the Beatles so much?”    

Snape starts, opening and closing his mouth for a moment. “Merlin’s sake, Potter. Why does it interest you so much?”    

“Lots of reasons.” He finely chops some of the garlic scape petals, because he’s always been partial to their onion-y flavor, and he thinks that it’ll taste nice with the sharp wedge of cheese, even if it’ll be the cause of their dragon breath tomorrow. “Mostly it’s not something you’d ever admit to under a truth potion, which I’m about ninety-percent sure didn’t actually work, though you get high marks for faking it, so I’m wondering why you told me so anyway.”    

“One cannot fake being under Veritaserum,” and oops, he has hit a nerve, but Snape carefully unbuttons his robe and jacket, shucking them much as Harry had, until he was down to his shirtsleeves. It's surreal the difference it makes, though Harry supposes that’s the point, really. In those robes, Snape is Professor Snape, big, intimidating, barrel-chested, dark eyed and sneering. When he takes them off he’s slender as a pole, big shoulders and narrow hips, not a spare inch of flesh on him under his white shirt. “Truth, however, comes in many forms.”    

“There it is.”    

“It is hardly my fault if the questions asked are poor ones,” he says, haughty and dignified. “Are you familiar with the band?”    

“Am I familiar with The Beatles?” Harry grins. “I mean. I’ve heard of them.”    

Snape rolls his eyes and Harry’s smile broadens. He can remember the first time he’d heard Snape's favorite song, in Aunt Petunia’s kitchen one morning, cooking breakfast. He'd gone so still he’d almost burnt the bacon, John McCartney’s beautiful, perfect voice warning him that it’s a fool who plays it cool by making his world a little colder.    

Harry knows this has been hard, that it’ll continue to be hard, on Snape. He’s a brutally private man, as the year of silence could attest to, and that he’d invited Harry back into his life means a lot. Means more.     

Snape had loved Harry’s mother. Loved her with a totality that informed the rest of his life, loved her with every fiber of his being, and Harry knows that because he’d seen it in Dumbledore’s Pensive. And Snape knows Harry had seen it, which had mortified him to the bottom of his soul. It seems fair, then, that Harry offer something of his own.     

“When I was growing up, there were these teenagers who came to stay with their grandparents every summer at Number 9, right down the road from my aunt and uncle’s house,” he says. “I’d sneak out sometimes, at night after the Dursleys went to sleep, and those teenagers would be sitting in their grandparent's garage, smoking and listening to music. I guess they felt bad for me, because they’d invite me to hang out with them sometimes. I did, mostly because Aunt Petunia hated those awful London hoodlums, which at the time was enough to speak quite highly of them, honestly.”     

The cream slowly comes to a boil. Normally he’d taste at this point, but Snape had said he couldn’t, so he leans in close and sniffs, picking up the notes from the mixture that has slowly come to a boil. He waits, patiently, adding in a little black pepper, a little ground onion, a little salt, until he’s satisfied.    

“They gave me my first drink. Vodka and coke – a thimble’s worth of vodka in an enormous plastic cup of coke, right, but it was enough to set my hair even more on end than it already was. They played Bon Jovi and the Beatles on this ancient turntable. A world of music I hadn’t known existed. They only came back to Privet Drive two more summers, and by the time I started at Hogwarts they were already at University. Still, those summers were precious to me.” Slowly, slowly, he begins grating in the block cheese, checking the consistency over and over so it doesn’t thicken too quickly and burn. “The oldest were a set of twins – Angela and Josie. They each had pink hair and a nose ring. Drove Aunt Petunia mental whenever she’d see them walking up and down the street. The youngest of the lot was Ricky. He gave me his leather jacket that last summer they were there, though Dudley stole it nearly right after.”     

He dips a spoon into the boiling pasta water and tests one of the little tubes against the side of the pot. Normally he would have popped it into his mouth to determine done-ness, but Snape had said no tasting. He thinks the little pasta tubes are done, the look of them plump and soft, so he directs them into the saucepan with a wave of his wand. They plop into the sauce one after the other, and he spoons them through until they’re evenly coated, and to make sure they don’t stick to the bottom of Snape’s awful pan. Some of the pasta water follows, to help with the thickness of the sauce, then a little more. Once he’s satisfied, he immediately covers the saucepan, until the glass lid steams up and he can’t see the contents.    

“He was my first crush, I think,” he tells Snape’s wine bottles with all the bravery he can muster. He selects a white wine, though he knows nothing about wines, but this one says it has a buttery finish and he thinks that’ll pair well with the cheesy sauce. He doesn’t dare look at Snape, opening his cabinets until he finds plates. “Ricky, I mean. I didn’t much know that at the time, but hindsight, you know.”     

He checks the pasta and yes, perfect. In goes the gorgonzola, and the smell that flowers from the pot makes Harry’s knees weak. Delicious. He’s always been a deft hand at cooking, learned at Aunt Petunia’s knee – or maybe the back of her hand. But he’s good at making simple food, likes the ways ingredients can come together.    

He chances a look up. Snape is staring at him like he’s never seen him before.     

They’re even, now. Harry knows about Snape’s – Snape’s everything, and now the man knows Harry likes blokes as well as girls. A secret for a secret, and though the scales are still off, at least now they’re a bit closer to center. He hopes, anyway.    

“Do you like wine?” he asks, and Snape seems to startle out of whatever line of thought he’s been snared in.     

“Why would I have wine if I didn’t like wine, Potter,” he says, and Harry can tell he’s trying to sneer but he can’t quite achieve it.     

“Potions ingredients? Antiseptic? To look more posh? People do daft things, I stopped trying to puzzle them out a while ago,” he says, and grins when the man rolls his eyes.    

The meal doesn’t look like much, Harry decides, as he serves them both. Could have done with some mushrooms, maybe some brazed chicken or shrimp. But for a simple meal that’s half-experiment, he decides it’s not so bad. He does think some crusty bread would go a long way to finishing off this dish, and selects a round french loaf from Snape’s breadbox. It slices unevenly, thick and soft inside, and the smell of that yeasty bread makes Harry’s mouth water.    

He sets the plates on the little table that’s the mirror of Harry’s own, though by far the more loved of the two. Snape had sat here, eaten here, every day for almost two decades, and the table reflects that use. That he’d likely done it all alone makes something in him hurt, and that’s strange, isn’t it, to feel that. Not pity, but a softness, almost.     

Harry’s always liked taking care of people, and when Snape sits across from him, stares down at the plate, Harry feels his own blush work up his face. “You don’t – I mean, you don’t have to eat it. This was an experiment, right? What were you trying to figure out?”    

But Snape isn’t listening to him. He dips his fork into the pasta, and lifts it out again. The cheesy sauce clings to the pasta, and yeah, delicious. It’s what he’d hoped it would be. The garlic brings out the tangy flavor of the block of cheese, the scapes had added an onion-y undertone that another kind of cheese would have provided. The consistency is perfect. “Needs chicken,” he says, but Snape is too busy eating to answer him.     

He likes it, Harry can tell. He hasn’t stopped staring at Harry, and Harry doesn’t know what to do with his eyes, so he takes a drink of the wine. He loves the cooking at Hogwarts, he really does, but sometimes one got a hankering for meals just like this, simple fare that was warm and filling and tasty. He hadn’t done a lot of cooking at Grimmauld Place; forgot to eat, some days, or went to the pub down the corner and got something greasy when he could be arsed. He could make good food when he had a mind to, Ron at least was always asking him to cook for them, and he decides that he’ll make this more of a routine. He’d need to get groceries down at Hogsmeade, but he thinks Ron and Hermione would like it, to eat something like this, maybe once a week.     

“Where did you learn to do this?”    

Harry looks up. Snape is sopping up the remainder of his sauce with the bread, and Harry hides his pride with effort. Patsy Cline’s Walkin’ After Midnight is playing from the WWN, which means they’ve transitioned into what the older crowd favored in the later evening hours. “Not sure, really. I had to cook for the Dursleys, but simple things, toast, bacon, that kind of thing. I’ve always liked the way flavors mixed.”    

“You’ve made this dish before.”  

“No.”  

Studying him like he’s a particularly interesting insect, Snape says, “No?”    

“Nope. Though I will again. I like cheese sauces.”    

Snape sits back in his seat, twisting his wine glass at the stem and studying him. He’s cleaned his plate, and Harry feels that warm pride again. “I need time to think. You’re to report to the lab by four-thirty, Monday morning. We’re going to try a different approach.”    

Harry, whose good mood had drained as Snape spoke, looks down at his own plate. “You’re not going to let it go.”    

“If you think, after this showing, that ‘letting it go’ was even a possibility, you are more deluded than I’ve always thought you were.” He taps the table. “We are done for the evening.”    

He knows a dismissal when he hears it. Snape waves away his attempt to clean up, though Harry insists on packing the leftovers appropriately and tucking them away in Snape’s cold box. It’s only when he’s satisfied that Snape opens the door for him, Minnow under his arm. His face is curious, an expression Harry can’t quite place creasing the corners of his eyes. “Thank you for the meal,” he says, with a formality and stiffness that reminds Harry of the Snape he’d once known. “And for sharing your – your private life.”    

“It isn’t a secret, really,” Harry says, shrugging.     

“Even so.”    

“I guess so, Jude.”    

Snape glares and Harry doesn’t laugh, he really doesn’t, though he wants to.     

“Night, Professor.”    

“Yes, it is,” Snape replies tartly, and slams his door shut.   

He’s smiling as he closes his apartment door behind himself, and smiling as he makes a cup of tea, and flat-out giggling as he toes out of his boots and collapses onto the sofa the twin of Snape’s, though this one was still new. Snape’s sofa looked like a troll had sat on it, sagging and awful and broken in and comfortable.    

“What a bastard,” Harry mutters, and closes his eyes, at peace for the first time in ages.  

Chapter Text

keir

n. an ill-fated attempt to reenact a beloved memory years later, returning to a place that once felt like home, only to find it now feels uncannily off, like walking through a wax museum of your own childhood.

Harry enters into what can only be described as the most ridiculous argument of his life on Tuesday: a shouting match, via owl, with one Severus Warrick Tobias Snape, PMpR.

It had started simply enough. He’d already been scheduled for the Potions Seminar required of his tyroship, as well as Advanced Charms, Transfiguration and Artificery, and Advanced Herbology. The rest of his schedule was wide open, to allow for a minimum of two electives and one additional course. And so, like a good student, he’d read through the offerings, met with McGonagall to select his courses, and submitted them to Snape for final review Tuesday morning. 

And there, the Argument had been born.

It started at breakfast. There Harry had been, innocently eating his innocent eggs (innocently), when Snape stalked up with a swoosh of his robes, glared down his nose at him, and said, “Minerva has informed me of your course requests, and I have come to realize your questionable life choices must either be the product of some sort of brain injury, or you truly are that much of an idiot,” before spinning on his heel and dramatically stalking off.

Ron had stared at him, mid-bite of his toast. Harry had shrugged and sighed.

Truly, for every infinitesimal glimpse of a brain cell I can sometimes see lurking behind that vacant expression of yours, there is a second one, floating limp in that watery meatloaf between your ears. Do not talk to me about this today. There is only so much I can handle on the day I have two double-classes with Fifth Years, and I cannot have your lack of common sense infecting me, had come at noon in a tidy little scroll tied with a black ribbon, delivered via a terrified looking Third Year Slytherin boy who’d called him Mr. Potter. Ugh. 

At times I have wondered if there is perhaps something in your family tree, had been at one in the afternoon via a school barn owl, who’d flown into Greenhouse 1, swerved neatly around the Venomous Tentacula’s attempt to catch and eat him, and landed on Harry’s shoulder with a tighter squeeze of his claws than was warranted. Harry, knee-deep in marsh water, could only sigh. I would say it couldn’t possibly be from your sainted mother’s side, but your grandmother did produce Petunia, who we can both agree is a stupid cow of highest order. Also, if I recall correctly, your grandmother on your father’s side was a Fawley, whose brother died young while attempting to out-run a train on a magical carpet he bought from a flea market stand in Diagon Alley. Ergo – you come by your idiocy honestly, which I knew, but somehow the evidence as laid out before me is still shocking.

Harry had waded through the marsh water to fetch his bag, flipped the letter over, and scrawled, ABUSE

At one-thirty, the barn owl returned to the greenhouse, letter tied around his leg, clutching a dead mouse in his beak and glaring murder at Harry. I see you are not denying my assertion. I am pleased we are of an accord. 

At one-thirty-six, Harry sent back, I fail to see what your problem with Divination is. I could be the next, or probably only Potter Seer. You’re harshing my chi.

At three-fifteen, a red squirrel Patronus comes scurrying into his apartment, parks itself on top of his desk where he’s working, and opens its adorable whiskery little mouth to tell him, “Does it please you to know you’re going to give me an aneurysm?” in Snape’s deep voice. It even had the glare down pat on its tiny face.

And Harry, first and foremost a consummate shit, glances at the clock on the wall and then calls Prongs forth to deliver the scathing retort of, “Sure Professor, no problem, I’ll bring them right down, are the polka-dot socks okay or do you want the purple ones with the owls?”

Twenty-six seconds later, the door next to Harry’s fireplace bangs open and there Snape stands in all of his cantankerous glory. Harry had timed this well – just behind him, the door to his classroom is wide open and Harry can hear the kids giggling. Prongs prances gleefully among them, tossing his massive head to oo’s and ah’s. “I will end you.”

“You won’t, though,” Harry says, pleased, swiveling in his desk chair. “I think the polka dots go better with your whole,” he waves a hand at Snape. “Fancy and elegant.”

“You are an idiot of the highest order. In!”

A tingle of magic chases its way down his spine as he steps through the door and down into Snape’s dungeon office. The kids are still giggling, though clearly trying not to, and Harry winks even as Snape slams the door between the classroom and his office shut with a snarled, “If your vials aren’t on my desk in the next ten minutes you will receive a zero for today’s work and Saturday detention,” and that lights a fire under them quick step.

“You knew this would upset me, and yet you purposefully did it anyway,” Snape says, arms crossed and glaring.

And Harry, who knew plenty well what Snape was talking about, still says, “It was just a joke. Who doesn’t like toasty socks? Especially purple ones,” and watches the red flush up onto Snape’s face with amusement.

“This is not about the socks, though you will pay for that, and dearly,” Snape growls. “How did you select your courses? Did you simply just close your eyes and point to a class and hope for the best? Were darts involved? There is simply no other explanation. I would ask if you are truly that thick but the evidence speaks for itself.”

“Hey! Also, since when is your Patronus a squirrel?”

“My Patronus is none of your business. Transmutation and Alchemy is one step below Divination, and is only offered at all because Nicholas Flamel gave one hundred million galleons to Hogwarts on the stipulation that the class be offered.”

“And you teach it.”

“Through no choice of my own. I take only the minimum ten students a year and – I am sure this will shock you – not once in eighteen years has a student been able to transform lead into gold. It has been an exercise in futility and tears and at least three breakdowns. By mid-year it usually turns into lab time for Advanced Potions.”

Harry cannot believe what he’s hearing. “You teach a blow off class?”

Snape sniffs. “Professor Babbling only accepts students into her Abjads and Abugidas course who took an OWL in Ancient Runes, as it builds on the knowledge of segmental writing systems in which consonant–vowel sequences are written as units, and how that correlates to spoken word. Even if you, by some miracle, were able to catch up on two years of Ancient Runes coursework, you still can’t take it. You may lose the ability to Stone Talk, Potter,” he clarifies snidely, and off of Harry’s blank look adds, “or a far more likely outcome, lose the ability to speak English. While that may be a blessing for all, really, I’d rather we didn’t have to grind rocks together to have a conversation.”

Harry glares. “What’s your problem then, with International Wizarding Law?”

“International Wizarding Law is a mistake.” Snape’s glare spikes, but rather than verbally eviscerate him as Harry half expects him to do, as the elder Snape would have done if he’d even deigned to entertain such a conversation, he sits on the edge of his desk and crosses his arms. “It is under the umbrella of Defense Against the Dark Arts, and deals primarily with crime-based law, and you aren’t taking it for a host of reasons. As for Divination,” at this his lip curls into a sneer and Harry’s belly swoops and fucking fuck, “should you choose to waste your time on such pointless, idiotic drivel, I will have no choice but to tell Sybill that I have seen in you a glimmer of the Sight.”

Harry gasps. Snape looks so pleased with himself and god, it’s both hilarious and absolutely infuriating. “You wouldn’t.”

“I would personally deliver you into her tender mercies. I’ve heard her office is somehow even more noxious than her classroom, but I would happily – cheerfully, even – bear the contact high for the pleasure of watching you try to stutter your way through a denial she would not accept.”

“You’re a shit, you know that, right?

“And you’re an idiot. While professional courtesy prevents me from denying your course choices unless they harm you or pull too much of your time meant for your tyroship, I strongly advise, as your advisor, to take my advice. Have I made myself plain? Do you need a diagram?”

A shit and a bastard. 

A shit and a bastard who is, as always, fucking right. 

He’d dropped the other courses, even as morbidly curious as he was about Transmutation and Alchemy and the blow-off culture Snape – Snape, the toughest teacher at Hogwarts, the Bat of the Dungeons, Snape – was perpetuating. He’d added Ancient Runes, and wasn’t that a kick in the teeth, to be in a class with twenty thirteen-year-olds who all took turns staring at him and calling him Mr. Potter (ugh). Divination was a hard pass, which in a way made him a bit sad, though to be fair climbing the ladder to Trelawney’s classroom with a bad leg seemed like an equally bad call (and also Trelawney), and instead added a second Herbology course, Medicinal Flora of Europe, because he liked working with his hands in the dirt.

The only class he’d fought for, despite McGonagall’s misgivings, had been International Wizarding Law. He doesn’t know what it is he’s trying to prove to himself with the course, especially because becoming an Auror wasn’t on the table anymore. It was literally a useless class in a degree plan that had somehow put Potions at center-stage, but he’d fought, bitterly, to include it, and pretended he hadn’t seen the sad look in McGonagall’s eyes when she’d finally agreed.

Maybe Snape had the right of it, and he was, in fact, an idiot.

Three years ago International Wizarding Law would have filled him with excitement, but it isn’t excitement he feels as he gets dressed Friday morning and gathers his school bag; it's a strange and sudden emptiness, a great well of it that is as surprising as it is familiar. He hears Ron and Hermione sniping at one another as they go down to the Great Hall together, the muted sound of hundreds of children trying to wake up and eat their breakfast, the clink of cutlery and the flapping of wings as dozens of owls fly in with the day’s post. He eats what’s put in front of him, drinks his coffee, and pretends that he doesn’t feel a great well of panic building inside of him.   

It seems so long ago, a lifetime really, that Remus had stood at the front of the class, with his shabby robes and his soft, soft eyes, gentleness in his manner and his face and his smile. If Harry closes his eyes he can see him, smell him, the grassy scent of his robes from his long walks on the grounds as he moved among the students, steadying wand hands, lifting elbows, adjusting stances. Now all that was left of Remus was his little boy, Harry’s little boy now, who had the same soft eyes, the same gentleness of spirit, who Harry was raising to be brave and tough and kind.   

It’s a small seminar, only eleven students. He can feel their eyes on him as he enters the classroom, the by-now familiar hush that falls when they see him. A tall Slytherin girl sits at the front of the class nearest him, hunched over a parchment she’s scribbling on. He thinks it has less to do with being focused on what she’s writing and more a defense mechanism against the other students, who have given her a wide berth. There are fully five desks around her currently unoccupied, and by the way her eye keeps darting to the corner, she knows it. Every time another student walks in and makes the choice not to sit next to her, her fingers tighten on her quill.     

That, he decides, won’t do.     

Harry plunks his bag down onto the desk beside hers. “Hi.”    

Her quill stops on her parchment. She looks up at him, as if not quite believing he’s said anything to her. She really is a plain-looking girl, with dark, mousy hair in a tangled plait down her back, wisps escaping and falling into her deep-set hazel eyes. She’s a prefect, a shining green P on her wrinkled lapel, and Harry thinks of that half-memory, of a dark-haired boy who’d helped a child off a train. “What do you want, Potter?”     

“Did you know that Professor Snape’s got a cat? Well, a kitten, more like.”    

The girl’s eyes track him, her gaze darting all over his face as if trying to get a read on him. As if trying to figure out if he’s making fun of her, or if he’s a nutter. Or both. “What?”    

“Her name’s Minnow,” Harry says.     

“Fuck off.”    

“I swear I’m not lying. She's dark brown and white with a splotch of black on her face around her left eye. She fits into the palm of his hand and she’s adorable.”    

The girl studies him, fingering her quill. Her expression is heartbreakingly suspicious. “Minnow?”    

“Like the fish. She glared at me for a full hour yesterday, it was really impressive. Only Snape’s cat could focus that much vitriol at me for that long without blinking.”    

She ducks her head, but it’s too late; he can see the smile dimpling her cheek. She's really rather pretty when she smiles, he thinks. “You’re a lying sack of shit.”    

"Usually, but not about this. Has he not brought her to your common room? She rides his robes, just climbs on and lets him carry her around his living room. I’ve seen it with my own eyes.”    

Her shoulders shake once with a laugh quickly swallowed, and Harry is pretty sure that everyone’s staring at them, but sometimes that’s all it takes. Someone to reach across the aisle first.  “What’s your name?”   

“What’s it to you?”    

“I like making new friends.”    

"Who said I wanted to be your friend?”    

“That’s the great thing about friendships,” Harry says reasonably. “Sometimes they don’t have to be reciprocated.”    

The suspicious look is back, but tempered now with he’s fully a nutter so that’s alright. “Leonora. I’m called Leo to the people who know me.”    

“Your friends?”    

“Anyone ever told you you’re obnoxious, Potter?”    

“Frequently. What made you decide to take this seminar?”    

He knows, immediately, that he’s asked the wrong thing. Her face darkens, a sneer that would have put Snape’s to shame curling her face into heavy, sharp lines. Gone is the smiling girl, and in her place is an angry, vengeful witch. Her voice cuts, as sharp as a blade. “Because I fucking well wanted to, and I deserve to be here just like anyone else. Is that alright with you, mighty Chosen One? Or should I go slithering back to the dungeons?”    

There’s a terrible wildness in her eyes as she snarls at him. He’s been where she’s at his entire life, a rage that had given way to antipathy, to emptiness. To this half-existence he’s living right now, trying to remember how to say the right thing and missing the mark. “I didn’t mean to offend you,” he says gently. The anger freezes on her face like a mask, distrust in her dark eyes. “Of course you deserve to be here. I was just wondering what your career plan was. I’m sorry if that didn’t come across. My conversation skills got rusty in the last year.”    

"Oh I’m sure your world tour has been a dreary nightmare,” she sneers at him, and oh. This.    

Ron and Hermione had descended on Grimmauld Place like a hurricane, Hermione sobbing, Ron cursing a blue streak. When they’d discovered Harry up to his knees in carpet removal, the air foggy with dust and dirt, Hermione had yelled at him for ten minutes, shaking the Daily Prophet at him as tears streamed down her cheeks, because he’d been photographed skydiving in Germany.    

“You shouldn’t believe what you read in the Daily Prophet, much less what’s reported by Rita Skeeter. I haven’t been gallivanting across Europe. I’ve never even left the UK before.”    

“There was a picture of you in Paris.”    

"Yes, there was. That doesn’t make it real,” he clarifies gently. “Though I’ll grant you, that was some fancy spellwork to make it look that real. I’ve sued them twice for libel.”    

Clearly, it’s not what she expects him to say. She’s studying him again, the same way Snape does. Finally, she snorts, the fallen wisps of her hair falling into her eyes as she hunches over her parchment. “Whatever you say, Pott – fuck.”  

Harry watches the full power of Garrick’s ridiculous good looks cascade over the class, as he steps through the door from the second-floor office. The man looks like he ought to be on the cover of magazines or strolling down red carpets, muscles on muscles, square jaw, that hair.   

“The Ever Dance Jinx,” Professor Jigger opens, his deep voice filling every corner of the room, and one of the girls sitting just behind Harry gives a shaky sigh. “It killed a hundred and fifty-nine teenagers in Liverpool in 1857, at a debutante ball. The target was sixteen-year-old muggleborn Rose Richards, who had rebuffed the advances of a wizard a year ahead of her at Hogwarts.”    

He comes down the steps, his navy blue robes brushing each step down. His waistcoat, a hunter green, does nothing to hide the breadth of his shoulders, the wings of his collarbones that press through his white button-down shirt. His shirt collar is hanging onto his wide, strong neck for dear life. 

Gone is the puppy-like exuberance of the man Harry had met. This, here, is the Auror cursebreaker that McGonagall had hired to teach her students Defense Against the Dark Arts.     

“It’s an insidious curse, because it takes something lovely and fun and innocent – music and dance – and transforms it into something horrific and vile. A hundred and fifty-nine teenagers danced for nine days straight. They danced their way out of their shoes, and then the skin on the bottom of their feet. They danced until their bones broke and their hearts gave out.”    

He stops in front of the classroom. Harry thinks he could have heard a pin drop.     

“And every single one of those hundred and fifty-nine teenagers would have been saved, if the adults responsible for their protection had followed International Wizarding Law and warded the ballroom as is required for any gathering of over a hundred wixen,” Professor Jigger says, into the silence. “Tell me why they didn’t.”  

Ten seconds. Fifteen. Twenty. Finally, one of the boys near the back, with rich honey-colored hair and big blue eyes, tentatively raises his hand. Professor Jigger shakes his head. “No. We don’t raise our hands in this class. You’re all adults, seventeen years old or more. We’ll converse as adults, because that’s the way the rest of your lives will be. When we, as adult wixen, are confronted with problems, we talk about them as rational beings. We don’t wait to be called on, we don’t hesitate and raise our hand hoping to be noticed. Hesitance could cost someone their life. Be okay with speaking your mind, even if it’s wrong. Speak.”    

The boy – a Hufflepuff Harry takes Herbology with – clears his throat. “Wards are regulated, through the ICW. It’s expensive to get a permit.”  

Professor Jigger studies him. “You’re correct, Mr. Bowen. Why are they expensive?”

Bowen shrugs, his dark hair falling into his eyes. “I don’t know. Only, my Da tried to get one last year and they told us it’d cost a hundred and fifty galleons, so we–” He stops, and colors.

Jigger arches a brow. “You went ahead and did it anyway.”

Bowen shrugs again, squirming. “Well, yeah. We’ve got a farm, and where we live there’s a bad wild boar problem, and the chickens kept getting gored. So Da just did it.”

Professor Jigger crosses his arms behind his back, the buttons on his waistcoat crying for mercy over the heavy muscles of his chest. “Your Da used the tools at his disposal to guard his farm, as any wixen would do, though I must say, he sounds very gifted.”

Bowen squirms worse. “Is he going to get into trouble?”

Jigger huffs a low laugh. “No, Billy. He isn’t going to get into trouble. He used a local hag as the corner stone?”

Bowen shrugs, then nods, then shrugs again. “She didn’t actually say she was a hag, but she had the look.”

“For the class: why a hag?”

“Well, they’re earth magic users, aren’t they?”

Jigger smiled, and the class laughed. “We’re all earth magic users.”

“I know! I mean, more like, well, she sort of just talked at the ground and walked around the perimeter and then that was it, we had wards against wild boars. Da even tested it, the next night, and found them trapped and dead in the ward lines when we got up in the morning.”

“Mmm. Your dad sounds like an enterprising sort of fellow,” Jigger says, smiling at him as he walked down between the desks. Beside Harry, Leo was sketching a cactus on the side of her syllabus. He saw Jigger glance at it, and then at her face, and keep walking, and Harry remembered what he’d said at the new teacher’s meeting, about the Slytherins and trauma informed approach. “The ICW made warding a protected class of magic a hundred years ago, and requires not only a permit, but a warding license. The license process is expensive as well. Why are there so many regulations around it?”

“Because they’re controlling. That’s what the Daily Prophet says,” a girl remarks from the back.

Jigger chuckles low in his throat. “The ICW, controlling? Say it ain’t so,” he says, and the class laughs with him. “The ICW is many things, both good and bad, and I will allow you to make your own opinions without bias. I simply want to know - why did the ICW regulate warding?”

The class gets quiet, and beside him, Leo looks up. She glances behind her, something disbelieving in her face, and then says, “Are you all fucking kidding me right now?”

“Ms. Rowle.”

“No, look, I know that the education in this piece of shit school has been subpar, on account of the whole Death Eaters for teachers thing, and Dumbledore ran this school on a platform of Light Magic, and Umbridge fucking hell, but sometimes I swear to Merlin it’s exactly what my uncle has always said, this place is churning out mindless Ministry stooges who don’t read.” 

Jigger slowly, slowly takes a breath. Harry can feel the tension in the air as the other students wait to see just what this outburst is going to bring. 

Jigger surprises him though. He puts his hands in his pockets, and arches a brow. “Sounds like you know the answer to my question.”

“The answer to your – Jesus Christ,” Leo snarls, and comes to her feet and stomps up to the front of the room, snatching the chalk up from the board. She draws a straight line across the board, then an X below the line, and an X above. She tap-tap-taps the X above the line with the chalk and glares at them all. “Light magic.” She tap-tap-taps the chalk on the X below. “Dark magic.” 

She draws a circle between the two X’s, and slams the chalk onto the tray. “Light Magic feeds Dark Magic. They are two sides of one coin. The magic that comes from the air and the magic that comes from the earth. Warding requires a balance between the two, and if you fuck it up it’ll fuck you up, and claim your magic as payment.”

The loamy earth squishes damp between his toes, cool and pleasant. The scent that flowers beneath each step tickles something at the core of his being. He’s felt it on and off for weeks now, since the solstice, since his king’s return from Mercia with all of his limbs still attached. He’s always been able to feel the veins of magic under his bare feet, sense it in the air, but for the first time he thinks he could get drunk on the flavor of it, peaty and satisfying, like mead at a harvest feast. 

New, fragile, this tender little knowledge that he’ll be fed, that the earth will satiate him, has eased some unnamed part of his being that had been hungry from the moment he opened his eyes in this world.    

“Do you feel it?” he asks the young man, the mage-child, following him. He’s barely out of boyhood, for all that he has a man’s exhausted eyes, stunning green and gifted with the all-seeing.

He kneels and brushes his knuckles gently along one of the veins, deep under the earth and soil and crawling things and buried things, to the beating heart of the magic that fills this land. “Like eddies of a river, swirling in circles but flowing always. You see?”    

The child’s eyes glow in the light of the forest magic, and when he touches the vein his hair flutters back, exposing the scar on his brow. “Oh.”    

“You feel it?”    

“Yes,” the mage-child breathes. “What kind of magic is this? I never – we never learned this at Hogwarts.”    

"Our professors taught us fancy wand-work and charms, bless them,” he says, shaking his head. “There aren’t many who sense what we can sense. You feel this, under the earth?” and their fingers twine there in the wet mud, the tickle of life prickling at his awareness, setting fire to his blood. “Do you feel it?”    

“Yes. Yes, I feel it. Oh, God. What is it?”    

“I don’t know.” How it delights him that he shouldn’t. “My master doesn’t understand when I ask him to explain it – these eddies, these rivers of magic. I don’t think he senses it, not like we can.”    

“Your master?”    

“I’m a tyro, as you are. Though my Master nearly didn’t take me. I was born of regular folk, you see. Well, I mean regular – my father was a dragonlord, but that’s another story. Oh, look, here,” and he guides the mage-child's hand to the little skip in the current under their fingers, and all of their hair stands on end.     

He laughs out loud, tasting pumpkin and the color blue, starlight and the most profound joy, and the mage-child laughs too.     

The morning sun is in his eyes. 

In the far distance of the grounds, through the dappled, ancient glass of the windows, he can just make out Hooch and her class, little First Years learning what a broom is. One of the smallest, in a yellow-lined robe, starts jumping up and down when their broom comes flying up straight away into their hands. All of the other children, green and red and blue, cheer.    

“Already skipping class,” says a voice from his right, and Harry turns and blinks at the portrait Snape.     

He — he’s in the South Tower, nearest the library. He recognizes the patterns on the stone walkways, the colorful tapestries depicting the parable of the Witch and the Snowflakes. The sun cascading in through the window at the end of the corridor is higher in the sky than it was in Garrick’s class.   

It’s nearly lunchtime, he thinks. His seminar was at nine this morning. He has no idea how he got here. 

Professor Snape glares at him from one of the portraits of rural Wales, cows dotting the landscape behind a small stone cottage with a cheerful brown chimney. The art style of the painting is much more fluid than the realistic style of wizarding portraiture, and he finds he likes the softness it brings to Snape’s harsh lines. Through that lens, the young man who is now Harry’s tyromaster is more evident in the painted cheekbones, the lines of his wide shoulders, the severity of his countenance.     

He thinks he says hello, but several seconds go by and Snape’s painted eyes search him, scanning him. Harry’s certain that if Snape were still alive – in that form, anyway – he'd be performing Legilimency on him.     

He sinks down the wall, opposite the portrait. The stone is icy-cold under his backside, and his hips ache when he crisscrosses his legs. 

The knees of his trousers are wet with mud. 

He stares at them, and then lets out what can only generously be called a hysterical giggle. 

Professor Snape’s frown sharpens. “What are you doing?”    

“Tired. Have you been following me?”    

“I’ve never heard something so ridiculous,” Professor Snape says, but Harry hears the Slytherin between the lines. “Why did you leave your class?”    

“I don’t know.” No more and no less than the truth, as painful as it is to say. “Snape – your younger self – told me it was a bad idea to take the class.”    

“Youth has not been kind, as it has brought back a frankly alarming amount of idiot qualities I had forgotten I ever inflicted on the long-suffering people around me. That he was right in this case is a fluke,” Professor Snape says sharply, if uncomfortably. He has gathered his robes around himself as he so often did in life, bat-like and imposing even in portrait form.    

Harry picks at a loose thread in the knee of his trousers for a moment. He can smell the forest, the green scent of growing things, in the dried, muddy fabric. “You know you don’t have to take care of me anymore, right?”    

“It is the great burden of my life – and my afterlife, apparently – to forever be tied to the Evans line.” Had it been anyone else delivering those words, Harry thinks it would have been awful. But Professor Snape doesn’t sound upset by it, and Harry doesn’t quite know what to think about that. “I don’t care for this maudlin side of you.”    

He almost smiles. “You don’t like any side of me.”    

“Truer words have never been spoken. You spent far too many months locked away alone in that house of horrors if this is the result.”  

He hadn’t had a choice, at least not at first. His assets had all been frozen because he’d been declared an Undesirable. It took the Ministry a while to work it out, and he hadn’t wanted to impose on the Weasleys, not during their mourning, not when Fred’s death was his fault. He’d had no place to go, and Grimmauld had seemed as good a place as any to lay his head down.     

“Potter.”    

He looks up. Snape – his Snape, Tyromaster Snape – is standing in the empty hall, wearing denim and gray wellies and a familiar blue sweater and a scarf under his black outer robes, and the look is so incongruous that Harry bursts into laughter. His face is wet and his snickers are awful and choked, but oh god. The look Professor Snape gives his younger self has Harry collapsing back against the wall. Snape returns a halfhearted sneer before approaching. He’s shedding mud into the carpet in big wet clumps, a gray bucket in hand. “Why did I receive word from that idiot Jigger that you’d left his class after having, and I quote, ‘an episode’?”  

Harry would rather let a Griffin eat him before admitting to Snape that he had taken a friendly stroll through an enchanted forest with a young and shabby-looking mage, a mage with worn robes at the elbows and hair a sticking-out mess worse than Harry’s with ears to match. A mage who had beamed at him as they touched the veins of magic that encapsulated the Hogwarts grounds.     

Harry knows he’d come back from King’s Cross wrong, but this was something else entirely. That little piece of Voldemort’s soul in Harry had been keeping it all at bay, but like an uncorked bottle, magic he could never imagine had been spilling out of him through the wound Voldemort had left on his core, taking whatever semblance of his mind he had left.     

“I didn’t have an episode,” he says, having fully had an episode, and Snape gives him a once-over that clearly says pull the other one. “I just needed to take a little break.”    

Snape glares back at his portrait. “You upset him.”    

Professor Snape sneers. “He upset himself, urchin.”    

“I did,” Harry agrees, oddly touched. “Is that a Puddlemore United sweater?”    

“I’m sure I have no idea what you mean,” Snape says. “Up. You’re coming with me.”    

“I like this spot fine.”    

“In roughly ten minutes this corridor is going to be filled with students making their way to lunch. There are few words in the Queen’s English that can fully convey what that spectacle is, but I believe stampede comes closest. Let’s go.”    

He isn’t being a shit this time; he can’t move. He looks up at his tyromaster. “Did you ever read the Lord of the Rings?”    

“I’ve had enough Lords in my life, thank you.”    

It almost makes him smile. “It’s a fantasy story, about elves and dwarves, hobbits and wizards. There’s this evil ring that – well, it’s a long story. But in the end the hero finishes his quest, and the elves invite him to the Undying Lands, because they know that he can’t keep living the life he left when he began his quest. It doesn’t fit him anymore."    

The last thing Harry expects the man to do is sit on the floor next to him, but that is precisely what Snape does, setting his bucket down on the stone between them. A half-dozen green and yellow leafy twigs that Harry thinks might be wormwood are at the bottom, in a murky white film Harry recognizes as the preservation agent Snape favors. “Your life from before is not over, Potter.”    

But it is. He wasn’t supposed to have more time. He wasn’t supposed to be sitting here next to a twenty-four-year-old Severus Snape wearing a fucking Quidditch sweatshirt, and trying not to cry.     

Professor Snape leaves the portrait. Harry wishes he could leave too, get on a thestral and fly and fly until the world went golden bright and beautiful, until there was nothing left but the thestral’s heart pounding between his legs, the wind in his hair and stealing his breath.    

He can hear the man speaking, but everything’s gone blank and staticky. Spindly fingers close on his shoulder, tugging, and Harry doesn’t know what’s happening until he feels a bony shoulder under his cheek and the entire world takes a step to the left.     

The man is built like the side of a mountain; it’s like leaning up against craggy rock. It actually hurts where Snape’s sharp bits collide with Harry’s. He chokes on a laugh, and doesn’t have to open his eyes to know Snape is rolling his.  

He’s dizzy, and he doesn’t want the kids to see him like this. When he mumbles so, he hears Snape say, “Use your mouth for breathing, not speaking.”    

“Stampede.”    

“Hush,” and well, when Snape said things in that tone, one listened.    

He closes his eyes, and hushes. He can hear the whisper of wind from the open window at the end of the hall, the far-away laughter of students, and the smell of coming autumn at Hogwarts. It makes him think of fall Quidditch games and Halloween, boots and mittens and scarves. Innocent things from his childhood, bright spots in a bleak darkness that only got bleaker as the years went on, until the darkness was all there was, a sky clouded and murky with the aftereffects of a thousand spells. Bloody mud under his sneakers, soaking in through the canvas, caking between his toes. Rusting his skin red. He can smell the dirt-grime of dark spells, that strange scent that lit up something foreign inside of him and prickled along the backs of his ears. If he turns his head he’ll hear the screams of the wounded, the way their voices echoed in the valley, rising in a single, terrible cry.     

"Don’t,” Snape says, harshly. “Whatever you’re thinking about, stop.”   

“I’m sorry.”    

“Your new-found propensity for apologizing for things that are not, in any way, your fault is frankly tedious and a habit I will break you of,” Snape rumbles from close to Harry’s ear. 

His throat is filled with razorblades. “I am, though. I didn’t listen to you. I shouldn’t have signed up for the class. There’s this part of me that wants to be like I was before. I have this gift for defense magic, and I just kept thinking - what good am I if I can’t use it? All the suffering everyone went through, it should mean something now.”    

“And there is your problem,” Snape says sharply. “‘What good are you’? Did Dumbledore’s machinations damage you so extensively, that the only value you’ve seen fit to assign your life is whether you can be useful to someone else?”     

Trust Snape to find his weak spots and flay him wide open. The pain of those words, of the unvarnished truth of them, makes him feel naked, exposed, a bug pinned to a board with all of his tender bits on display. And Snape, relentless like a dog with a bone, chases it. “You, who carried the world on small shoulders, a child, a young boy, made to feel responsible for all the ills that had befallen wixen kind; you, who Dumbledore raised to the slaughter, who spoke of love and showed you none. You consider your propensity for defensive magic a gift, and I consider it a noose around your neck. You have done for the Wizarding World, a thousand times over, and righted the mistakes of those far older and wiser than you. Enough. Enough, I say.”    

Harry thinks, then, of Tom Riddle. Not of the man Harry had killed, but of the little boy in that orphanage, wild around the eyes, unloved and hungry for acceptance. And Harry thinks, too, of the way Dumbledore had looked at him, not with kindness and understanding, but wariness and dislike.  How so much could have been avoided, if Dumbledore had opened his heart to that child.    

“You owe nothing to the Wizarding World,” Snape hisses, his voice thick with anger. “The Wizarding World owes you, Potter, and the sooner you realize that, the sooner you can realize your fullest potential. You are nineteen years old and have experienced horrors that would send those far older than you running screaming. For all that the pain has shaped you, those horrors are behind you. If you don’t want to defend against Dark Magic anymore, then don’t. If you want to be a potioneer or an artist, a professional stone talker or a teacher, or if you’d like to take the route of the Malfoys and take up ‘opulently rich’ as a career choice, that is for you to decide.”    

Harry feels a sensation, nearly gentle, under his sternum, like something had wrapped around that tender bone and tugged. He presses a hand against it, feels his fingers tingle, and despite himself tears spring to his eyes. “They expect me to be an Auror. What are they going to do, if I decide to – to open a shop or something?”    

“And who is ‘they’?”    

“They – the big they. The Wizarding World they.”    

“Fuck them.”    

It startles a wet laugh out of him, especially when across the way, Professor Snape, who had returned to the portrait, clutches the neck of his painted robes in horror. These Slytherins were going to be the end of him. He lifts his head to look at his tyromaster. “You’re a teacher. You’re not supposed to say ‘fuck’.”    

“I am a thinking being first, and the sentiment stands. Fuck them all, the whole miserable lot of them. You don’t owe them anything else. You were used by two great and terrible men. They are dead and in the ground and you are not, despite their best efforts. The Wizarding World has no say in how you decide to live your life now. Or,” Snape says, the tone of his voice changing to something almost condescending, “are you so mired in your own celebrity that you feel you owe it to your adoring fans?”     

He snorts. It’s weak, but Snape still looks fair pleased to see it. “Potter, to carry the metaphor awkwardly forward – the story is not over, but that chapter of the book is.” He hesitates, and then adds, with a little curl at the corner of his mouth, “All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us."    

It takes him a full minute, but when he realizes what Snape’s said it feels like dawn blooming up in him, the heat of a thousand suns warming him from the inside out. He looks at the man, this ridiculous man, and says, “Did you just quote Lord of the Rings to me?”    

“I’m certain I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Snape says with an imperious sniff, and comes to his feet in a whirl of fabric, turning on his heel and stalking off. At the end of the hall he spins back around, his cloak flapping so dramatically that one of the suits of armor flinches away. “Well? The wormwood will not pick itself, and you’ve found yourself with a free afternoon. Let’s go.”    

What else is there to do, really, but follow?  

.

He receives the summons from McGonagall before dinner that evening. A tiny Second or Third Year boy, with a cherubic face and a messy fringe, hands him the scroll nervously and calls him Mr. Potter. Christ.   

He hears several voices coming from McGonagall’s office just before he knocks, but Harry remembers that being the case before, when he was summoned to the Headmaster’s office. Just as that time, when McGonagall calls, “Enter,” she’s alone at her desk.    

“Good evening, Headmistress.”

“Ah, Potter, good. Sit, I’ll be with you momentarily,” McGonagall says, pointing the end of her quill to the squashy armchairs near her fireplace. The many faces of the old headmasters and headmistresses all look down at Harry, beaming, but he’s gotten better at ignoring them, even Phineas Nigellus Black, who glares at Harry from his spot nearest the curved window going up the stairs to the telescope. Harry had remounted the man’s portrait at Grimmauld Place, but not in its old spot. No, Phineas now faced a window overlooking the muggle park just off the back row of houses, where hordes of screaming children enjoyed it every day.       

Vindictus slips into Derwent’s portrait behind her high-backed chair, knocking her forward as he passes and earning him a smack on the rump. He bows to Black, waves at Burke, sticks his tongue out at Trimble, and sidles through three more portraits, including an elderly witch’s portrait who says, “Really Viridian,” and scowls when he drops a cheeky kiss to her head. Finally, he plunks down into a portrait of King Arthur’s round table where Professor Snape is already waiting, his arms across his chest. Harry considers being embarrassed that the man witnessed his (relatively tiny, in Harry’s recent experience) breakdown this afternoon, then decides against it. No use crying over spilt milk.   

Folded on the corner of McGonagall’s tea table is a copy of today’s Prophet. He can just make out the title, Carrows Indicted on All Charges, Face Dementor’s Kiss. The Wizengamot had called him back to vote last week, but Harry had made Neville proxy to his coven of seats for the case. Neville had been at Hogwarts when the Carrows were torturing students, and could speak to the horrors they’d inflicted more than Harry could, and with the full power of Harry’s seats to back him.   

“Apologies for the wait,” says Professor McGonagall. She sighs and takes off her spectacles, setting them on a stack of precariously balanced books. “Tea?”      

“Yes, please,” Harry says, and she rises to join him at the fireplace.     

A tiny house elf in a sparkling white tea towel arrives bearing a tray of tea and biscuits, raspberry Harry is pleased to see. She beams at him as she curtsies low. “Mr. Harry Potter sir, Simmy is being pleased to see you! Mipsy tells me yous loves the raspberry biscuits, so I be bringing them!” she squeaks, laying out the tea. “You are to be calling if you needs anything!”      

“Thanks very much,” Harry says, and her great big eyes fill with tears even as she bows to him once, twice, three times, the tip of her nose brushing the floor.       

“Alright, Simmy, calm yourself,” McGonagall says, and she hiccups a sob of joy before disappearing with a pop. “Sugar?”      

“Please,” he says. He knows she prefers it strong and is glad for it, after the afternoon he’s had helping Snape crush lizard testicles. It’d made him a bit queasy, and the way they burst made it hard to think about anything other than the disgusting work he was doing. They were, Harry was horrified to realize, a key ingredient in Wolfsbane, which the Seventh Year seminar was set to brew in November and the testicle membranes needed time to dry before they could be ground into fine powder.      

“Well, Mr. Potter,” McGonagall says, peering at him. “As your faculty advisor for the tyroship, I’d like us to carve some time each week to discuss how the week prior went, if you’re amenable.”      

A ball of tension rises inside of him. “That – yes, that would be fine.”      

“Your teachers have reported to me that you seem attentive, if half-present in their classes, and while that is something you can manage in the first month of your NEWT year, soon the work will be such that it will be quite impossible to catch up.”      

He looks down into his tea, but McGonagall tuts. “I did not intend that as a rebuke, merely an observation. You were always a diligent student, between your adventures.”      

He doesn’t tell McGonagall that the boy she’d known, with far too many inkblots on his essays and perpetually untidy hair, is dead and gone and buried in the loamy earth of the Forbidden Forest. The ragged, lightning scar that runs down his chest from his collarbone says so.      

“The classes are interesting,” he tries. He doesn’t know how to explain that the thought of schoolwork, of essays and childhood things, fills him with a terrible sort of apathy.      

“And International Wizarding Law?” she asks. He drops his eyes to his teacup, and McGonagall sighs. “What happened?”      

The last thing he wants is to get Garrick in trouble, when it hadn’t been his fault. “It wasn’t Garrick’s doing at all, Professor. He’s a gifted teacher. Please don’t be upset with him.”      

“I struggle to see how it wouldn’t be something he said.”      

“A few years ago, sitting through his lecture would have been fun – exciting. But as he was talking I started to – something is wrong with me. It has been, ever since – ever since that night.” He stops. Swallows. “You see, it wasn’t Garrick at all. He just reminded me of all the things I can’t be anymore. I think Snape was right. You were right too, Professor. I need to drop the class."   

“My boy,” says a quiet, musical voice from the dark shadow of the alcove near the head desk. “Do you think it wise, to squander such a gift as what you have?”      

He remembers how cold he’d been. The frantic way his heart had pounded, as if it had known, even in that moment, that its beats were numbered. He remembers pressing his face to the dusty, worn carpet, the knowledge that he was not supposed to survive filling him with a terror so complete that it had felt as if that was all he was, bones and sinew and rabbiting heart. He remembers, too, the moment when he saw Dumbledore’s machinations for what they were, when he realized how little the man had cared for him, or poor Severus Snape.       

He'd experienced total clarity, gasping against the carpet. Why Dumbledore had let him grow up in a cupboard under a staircase. Why he’d let a young boy fight a basilisk, and battle a dragon. Why he had sent Harry back to the Dursleys weeks after Cedric Diggory had been murdered in front of him. Why he’d sent Harry back to the Dursleys days after Sirius fell through the veil.       

What did it matter? He, Harry, had simply been a tool in an arsenal. Nothing more.       

I’m Dumbledore’s man, he’d told Scrimgeour, once.      

Fingers tighten on his, and he looks down. The teacup had fallen to the floor between his boots. McGonagall is holding his hand so tightly, Harry’s skin has dented white. Someone, somewhere, is breathing like they’re suffocating.      

“You will keep your insufferable opinions to yourself, Albus Dumbledore,” she growls, the echoes of the lion of her House so clearly etched on her pallid face. The look she throws the portrait is all venom and spitfire, her lips pulled back from her teeth in a snarl of rage. “Should I wish to hear them, I will ask. Until such a time, you will keep your mouth closed, or I will toss your portrait into the Black Lake and have done with it. Am I fully understood?”      

And Professor Dumbledore, who Harry had never seen quail at anything, replies with meek softness. “Yes – of course, Minerva, my apologies.”      

Harry stares, first at Dumbledore’s portrait, and then to McGonagall, whose eyes – to Harry’s horror – have filled with tears. Her own cup is rattling on her tea plate, and she sets it down abruptly. Her hand is ice cold, gripping his. “You’re hyperventilating, Harry. Slow,” she says, and Harry realizes the gasping he’s hearing is him. His head swims but he does as she tells him, and slowly, the iron bars around his chest slacken.       

He thinks, in some way, that he will always live in that pocket of time, trembling on the floor of this office, the full weight of the terrible sacrifice he had to make pressing all the air from his lungs. That McGonagall knew in a way no one else did – no one else could – helps him understand why she had continued to owl him throughout the restoration of Hogwarts. Why she had set up the tyro program, despite Harry and Ron’s less-than-outstanding academic record.       

Why, too, she had set Snape in Harry’s path. Why she had set Harry in Snape’s.      

“I don’t want to fight anymore,” Harry confesses in a raw whisper, and McGonagall gazes at him with red eyes. She’s cradling his hand between hers now, and he understands. “I almost took Kingsley up on joining the Auror program, but by the time he owled I wasn’t – I wasn’t in a good place. I’m glad I didn’t, now, but I felt like a failure then. I suppose I feel like a failure now, but Snape gave me a verbal thrashing about that already.”      

“The foulmouthed toddler was shockingly articulate, a feat I had not imagined him capable of, as he seems to think traipsing about the castle in jumpers and wellies a perfectly acceptable afternoon pursuit,” says Professor Snape, from the portrait he’s sharing with Vindictus.       

It breaks the tension, and Harry can’t help a watery laugh. McGonagall can’t either, and she finally lets his hand go. “Oh Severus, we both know your elegance came with time, though articulate you have always been,” she says, more the woman Harry knows now, and not the vengeful witch who had just cowed Albus Dumbledore into silent submission. She repairs the broken teacup between his feet with a wave of her wand but sets it aside, pouring him a fresh cup. They both pretend not to notice that her hands are trembling. “I knew Albus for over forty years. He was my mentor, my colleague, and my great friend. I trusted him blindly, and for that – ” Her voice catches. “For that, I am more sorry than I can say.”    

He rubs his face, over his scar. There’s no sensation around the familiar bumpy texture of it anymore. “You had to. We all did. I try to remember that in the end, we won because Dumbledore did what had to be done.”    

“Albus’s great failing was that he considered himself to be the most intelligent wizard in any given room he was in. To give him credit where it is due, that was often the case. Albus had a brilliant mind, and in his lifetime only two would match him for intellect. But with intelligence comes arrogance. He isolated himself as a leader, stopped hearing the voices of those under him. Stopped, in a way, seeing them as people. This made it very easy, I think, to let the guilt of what he was doing go. To sacrifice Severus’s life, to set him on a path to his own destruction without care of the consequences. But it is for you, Mr. Potter – Harry. For you...”     

Her voice breaks, and for just a moment she looks old, worn and tired and every one of her years. “When I saw the memories in the Pensieve, and finally understood why Albus encouraged all of the qualities in you that so infuriated both Severus and I – bravery to the point of foolhardiness, self-sacrificing in the face of unbeatable odds. I couldn’t understand why he let you compete in the Triwizard Tournament, why he sent you back to those awful Muggles again and again, why he would not teach you Occlumency when it became clear the connection you had to Voldemort. Clarity came at a terrible price.” Her jaw clenches. “And I can’t argue with him. His portrait believes, with the full certainty of Albus Dumbledore’s steadfast conviction, that what he did was correct, that the only way to remove Voldemort’s blight from the earth was to set you as a sacrificial lamb before him, and is quite comfortable with his actions. In his arrogance and certainty of his own infallibility, he believed that there wasn’t any other way. If he could have trusted us, we would have found a way through together.”

“It isn’t your fault, Professor.”

“But it is. One of the great failings of our elders is that love can blind them to what their years of experience tell them is true. I will spend whatever years I have left regretting that I did not question him, that I did not ask why.”

“You know perfectly well that you could have asked him until you were blue in the face,” Dippit pipes up from the portrait over the desk. “Really, Minerva. Do you believe that such a man, so righteous in his convictions, would have ever deigned to say a word? You can’t continue to tear yourself down, we all knew him and we all knew who and what he was.”

“Here here!” Derwent cries. 

“Terribly certain of his own cleverness,” Burke says, and when Dumbledore gives her the gimlet eye from his portrait, she cries, “Well you were. Most of the time it was warranted, but really, Albus. That isn’t to say that events wouldn’t have unfolded just as they did, but we all wish you’d said something. We could have convinced you what a bad idea it all was, especially that summer when you went hunting for Horcruxes alone. Honestly.”

“I thought for certain that was it, when you came back with the cursed fingers,” Phineas says, with far more glee than is appropriate. “Terribly lucky that Severus was here, or else you’d have had to chop off the whole arm. Can you imagine the fountain of cursed blood! Not enough Phoenix tears for that, now is there?”

All of the headmasters start to yell and Phineas, pleased as punch, salutes them and saunters out of his portrait. The man is nothing if not a showman, Harry has to give him that. 

It takes some doing for the headmasters to pipe down, especially because their carrying on brings the portraits from the upper levels down to see what all the commotion is. Phyllida Spore, who Harry recognizes as the author from the book One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi, parks herself next to Viridian and Professor Snape, leaning half into the portrait to the left so she can argue with Dippit, while Dexter Fortescue flops down into Phineas’s empty seat and leans in so close that he’s all eyeball, looking down into the room. 

Harry probably shouldn’t find it as amusing as he does, especially when McGonagall gives them her patented look of Exasperated Disappointment, but he can’t help it. Behind her, Dippit winks, and Harry knows they’ve done it on purpose.

He chuckles and McGonagall rolls her eyes, but she’s smiling just slightly when she pats his hand. “Have a biscuit, Potter.”

He does, and touches a fingertip to his tea cup to heat it back up. “Do you actually believe it?”

“Believe?”      

“What Snape said. At the Receiving. That I’m some sort of Potions prodigy.”      

Professor McGonagall looks at him for a long moment, before coming to some sort of decision. “Severus was a very small child when I met him for the first time. Extremely slight for his age, with his curtain of dark, unkempt hair and his ill-fitting, secondhand robes, I had, just by looking at him, some idea of the life he was leaving behind – after all, he is not the first child I have seen with that hunger in their eyes. What I did not expect from that skinny, awkward boy was the sheer talent he had.”      

It’s so strange to hear McGonagall speak of Snape – both the portrait, scowling at McGonagall, and the younger one who is Harry’s tyromaster – like that. She offers the portrait Snape a smile, and touches one of Dumbledore’s gold instruments sat on the tea table. It shivers, ringing quietly. Whatever it means has Snape scowling all the harder, a touch of pink in his cheeks.       

“You don’t quite understand, I think. Severus is and remains the youngest wizard to ever attain a potion’s mastery, at just twenty. He also is and remains the only student in the last fifty years to take all Outstandings in both his OWLs and his NEWTs, though I anticipate our Ms. Granger to take the title from him at the end of this year. He was already taking courses at the University of Magical Britain by Sixth Year, and I imagine he’d have taken more if they’d permitted it before he completed his NEWTs. By the time he left us he had two patents to his name, and would go on to take sixty-four more.” She ignores the portrait, where the man in question is glaring at her with utter mortification. “When he returned to Hogwarts to teach at twenty-two, he had already pioneered his specializations, and opened up entirely new fields of medical bioalchemic potionography. Under his tutelage, dozens of apprentices have gained their mastery, and gone on to save countless lives. His is one of the most brilliant minds that this school has nurtured, Mr. Potter. And so, when that man came to me, and told me that he had seen a shard of brilliance in you, I listened.”      

“He never saw it before. When I was in school.”      

She snorts, something quiet and funny and sad all at once. “Mr. Potter, Severus told me this in your Fourth Year,” she says, motioning a hand towards the portrait. 

Forget mortification. Professor Snape is nearly apoplectic, hand over his eyes. Viridian makes a sound like a whistling teakettle, clapping his hands together and bringing them under his chin. “Oh my. Ohhh my, Severus, you poor bastard, I’ll never let you live this down. And you, blaming the urchin! Hah!”

Harry, despite everything, is oddly touched, especially when Professor Snape can’t quite meet his eyes. “Was he drunk when he told you this? Don’t answer right away -- I’ve seen what happens on Friday nights in the Teacher’s Tower now.”

“I was not drunk, though I wish I was right now, as I told you this in confidence Minerva.”

“You’re dead, why should you feel embarrassed?” she asks, sipping her tea with a look so self-satisfied that Harry can’t help but smile. “While I don’t believe that you and Severus could have worked together then, this is a brand new day Mr. Potter. He saw your talent, and Severus – as he is now – sees it as well. The question is, do you?”      

Harry thinks on this. It’s true that he had always found potion-making interesting, but a lot of the shine of the subject had burned off over the years of bullying and unfairness in that class. He had missed building blocks in it, like reading and understanding runescript, that had set him back and never quite allowed him to catch up to his peers. It frustrated him, flustered him, in a way nothing else quite did.       

He thought he’d known why Snape wanted him as tyro, and a part of him is still convinced that Snape only brought him on to guard himself against the horde of Voldemort’s followers still out there. But there is another part of him, a part he can’t quite admit to, that is telling him that maybe there’s something to this. He’d flourished with the Prince’s book. Potions had made sense for the first time with the Prince there to guide him. Essays had come easily, and he’d been interested, interested enough to read Priya Treadwell’s book on moss species of Scotland and their uses in medicinal potions. He’d never finished the book, because Snape had killed Dumbledore in front of him and robbed Harry of whatever last glimmer of childhood he had left before he could.

If he can get something out of this…if he could do something with it, make something of himself that wasn’t tied to death and destruction, didn’t it bear exploring? 

Auror Watson had been right. He likes the idea of helping people, of finding some way forward, of using whatever skill Snape thinks he has in that effort. In trying, and failing more than likely, but trying all the same to forge a life for himself now, here at the end of days and on borrowed time.       

“I’m trying to understand him, and accept what he’s saying,” he says, finally. “He makes it easy in some ways, and hard in others. He’s very different from the man I knew.”      

“Less refined. Far less elegant, certainly,” she says with a little smile. “But more outgoing with his kindnesses. Freer with his opinions and thoughts, and dryly funny. I’d almost forgotten he was like this as a lad. It’s been… nice. Trying, at times,” she says, rolling her eyes when the elder Snape huffs, “but certainly an eye-opening experience. I trust that he wants the best for you, that he wishes to nurture that skill into something that could be wonderful. And you’ll forgive me for the impertinence in saying so, but right now, at this moment in your life, you need that.”      

He looks across at McGonagall, and sees her strength. Sees her exhaustion, too, the pain of all she’s endured in the lines in her face. Sees her love for him. It’s an answered love.      

“Okay,” he says. 

“Okay,” she replies. “We look forward, now, instead of back. No more trying to fit yourself to that old mold. It is a new day.” She eyes him. “One we are going to face by accepting help from all quarters, including a Mind Healer.”

He’d half-thought that this was where the conversation was headed when he’d gotten the summons, but hearing her say it makes embarrassment flush up his throat. “I didn’t have an episode.”

“You certainly did have an episode,” she says archly. “And apparently, not for the first time.”

Bloody hell. “Hermione?”

“Of course Hermione.”

Harry has never loved anyone more, but there are days. He tries a different tack. “I’m managing it. Healer Pollywot gave me a lot of tools to–”

“Healer Pollywot did you a great disservice, of which I have had a lengthy discussion with his supervisors at St. Mungo’s,” McGonagall says sharply. “He was a scatter-brained boy who grew up to be a disorganized man, a detriment to his profession in a time where Mind Healers are thin on the ground. I do not deny that he gave you tools on managing your pain, but it is not the full picture. Regardless of these facts, it is stipulated in your tyroship contract that you will see a Mind Healer, unconnected to St. Mungo’s, at a minimum once a month, and so it will be.”

Harry had half-hoped they’d forget that part of the contract. “I’m fi–” 

He stops. He isn’t fine. He knows it. She knows it. The portraits all giving him varying looks of pity know it. 

He sighs. 

“Okay.”

“Okay,” she says again. “Have a biscuit, Potter, and tell me about your week.”

Professor McGonagall always did have the best jammy dodgers.

.    

That evening at the Friday night activities in the Teacher’s Common Room, Garrick drops down onto the sofa beside Harry, takes one long look at him, and bursts into tears.    

This, Harry comes to learn over the fifteen minutes it takes Garrick to calm down, is not an isolated incident. The man looks like Indiana Jones and Luke Skywalker had a rugged outdoorsy adventure baby, all gorgeous blond wavy hair and muscles on muscles, but apparently this was the Cordis Affectu curse, on full display. "You should have seen him at our wedding. We haven’t a single decent photo, all of them are with his ridiculous blotchy face and wobbling lower lip,” Enid assures them, and she pets Garrick’s head as he tries to get ahold of himself. Garrick beams at her before his face crumples all over again.    

“It’s really alright,” Harry assures him, and awkwardly pats Garrick’s shoulder. Ron, who had just emerged from the Men’s Hall and caught sight of the sobbing Garrick, turns right on his heel and beats a hasty retreat. Coward. “I get it. Unique curses I mean. I’ve had a lot of requests from the Ministry for study. Me, I mean. They want to study me.”    

Snape, puffing on a pipe like it’s done him some personal offense, glares daggers from his vulture-like perch on the sofa across from Harry. Directly behind him, Trelawney is doing an interpretive dance with her many scarves to Berlin’s Take My Breath Away currently playing on the WWN.    

“I told them no,” Harry tells Snape, rolling his eyes.    

“I should certainly hope so. You’re not a rat,” Snape says sharply.    

“Hi, hi, hi, oh sorry Professor Sprout didn’t see you there, hi!” Hermione says from behind them, pulling her satchel from over her head and plunking down on the other side of Harry. She smells like lilacs and the outdoors, and she kisses Harry’s cheek, squeezing his hand when he smiles at her. “So sorry I’m late. Did I miss Professor Flitwick’s flute sol--” She freezes halfway through pushing her hair up into a ponytail, staring at Garrick’s tear-smeared, stricken face on Harry’s other side. “What happened?”    

“Cordis Affectu,” Enid says on a sigh, and Hermione gives the poor man a commiserating look as she finishes shoving her hair up into her ponytail. “Garrick had a lesson on warding and Light and Dark magic today.”    

“Dark – oh, Harry.” Hermione says. She’s always been quick to connect the dots, Hermione. “Professor Snape tried to tell you.”    

“Never did I think I’d see the day where I agreed with Ms. Granger, and yet here we are, at the edge of Hell’s frozen plane,” Snape intones, ducking an errant scarf seconds before it would have whipped him over the head. It’s a practiced move; his pipe doesn’t even wobble. The women explode with laughter behind him, and he closes his eyes for a fraction of a second, as if seeking strength.     

Hermione, who has blushed bright red, squeaks, “Ron?”    

Harry points his chin at the men’s hall and she rolls her eyes again, marching around the sofa and down the hall. Harry watches her go, helpless affection welling in him, as Enid helps Garrick straighten, drying his face with the edges of her shawl. It’s such a gentle thing, and it fills Harry with a wistfulness he’s not in a good place to feel.    

He's saved from trying to parcel that feeling out when Celestina Warbeck’s Cauldron Full of Hot, Strong Love comes on the radio and fully one half of the staff loses their collective minds. McGonagall lets out a cackle as Vector shrieks with laughter and Flitwick squeaks, “No! We were so close!”    

“All bets must be paid, Pomona,” McGonagall says, smirking, and Sprout stamps a tiny foot and spins around to Flitwick. His look of long-suffering acceptance is hilarious and even Garrick is startled out of his tears when, with nary a by your leave, Flitwick takes Sprout into his arms and begins the kind of dance Harry thought only happened in the movies. It’s the Lindy, he thinks, or the Boogie Woogie, and Flitwick is actually good, which makes up for the fact that Sprout really, really isn’t. She is fully glowering at McGonagall with every twist and turn, stomping all over poor Flitwick’s feet. The teachers are clapping and roaring with laughter.     

Harry looks across at Snape and finds the man already staring at him, horror commiserating horror as Celestina begs them to give her a taste of their lurv potion.     

Every week. For eighteen years, says Snape’s long-suffering expression.    

Flitwick curses a blue streak as they knock over a tea table and send fully thirty biscuits crashing to the ground, and Sprout yells, “I’m a Master Herbologist, Filius, not a bloody ballerina!”    

He bites the side of his cheek so he won’t laugh. When he turns back to catch Snape’s eye, the man is gone.    

The only thing that keeps Snape from disappearing into his rooms, and allows Harry to catch up to him at all, is Minnow. She’d tried to make a break for it as soon as Snape opened the door, and when Harry reaches him it’s to hear him having a hissed conversation with the kitten, who is glaring at him with an expression of profound disgust.    

Snape takes his life into his hands when he tucks her under his arm, but like a pouting child she struggles once before wailing in outrage, then dissolving into the kitten equivalent of temperamental tears. Harry doesn’t laugh, but only out of sheer effort. “You’re going to have to let her out eventually.”    

“Eventually, once she’s learned not to try to eat everything that moves,” Snape says, as somewhere behind them something else breaks and McGonagall starts laughing so hard she snorts. Snape closes his eyes as if looking for strength. “We’re done for today.”    

“We are,” Harry agrees.     

They stare at one another.    

“You certainly have things to do. Homework. Correspondence with your adoring fans. A shower that does not involve muggle chemicals.”    

“Yup.”    

They stare at one another some more.     

Somewhere in the teacher’s common room, Trelawney says, “Has Severus left before I could read his tobacco leaves?” and Snape grabs Harry’s wrist and hoists him into his flat, slamming the door shut behind them.     

There’s some kind of ward on Snape’s door, because as soon as he closes it total silence falls. No one would know there’s some kind of dance-off grudge-match happening in the common room. 

Snape stares at him with an expression Harry could only reasonably describe as slightly constipated and trying not to show it. “While I recognize the fragility of your feelings after this afternoon’s episode – instigated by your stupidity in not listening to me about your coursework, but far more by that pretty boy oaf of an American passing himself as a professor – I value my precious few hours of peace and rest in the evenings, often-interrupted though they are by students and my duties as Head of House and deputy headmaster. I am tired, Potter, and now I must play host to you as it would be bad form to kick you out in light of your afternoon’s panic attack.”  

The flash of mortification comes on as quick as oil popping in a hot pan, and stings just as sharply. He hadn’t been lying to Leo; he has a hard time with social cues now. A year alone has damaged that part of him, irreparably he thinks, and embarrassment burns up his throat and into his face. He’s taken a step back without quite knowing he was going to do so. “I didn’t have a panic attack. I’m fine.”

“Oh, do shut up. Am I supposed to offer you tea? Ugh.”    

“I don’t need tea. I’ll go.”    

“Of course you need tea. Niceties,” Snape sneers, as if that’s the most distasteful thing he’s ever heard. He bangs the kettle onto the hob and waves his wand at it. “Don’t touch anything.”    

Harry tucks his hands behind his back, feeling off-center. “I shouldn’t have presumed.” He won’t, not again.    

“Since when did that ever stop you?” Snape pulls a wooden tea box out of the cupboard and gives the kettle another poke with his wand. “If you show your face out there again, there is every chance that you’ll be roped into whatever other nightmare version of fun Minerva has planned, and no one, not even you, deserves that fate.”    

Whatever else he’s going to accuse Harry of gets lost with Atiq’s return through the open window, his enormous wings nearly silent as he lands, delicately, on his perch. He ruffles his feathers, getting them back into order with a nip under one wing joint, and a terrible lump rose in Harry’s throat at the sight of him. Unbidden, he could suddenly smell Hedwig’s lanolin scent from her roosts in the pine trees, the silkiness of her feathers against his cheek as she nuzzled him. The way her little beak clicked as she nipped gently at his ear, and the way she preened when he called her the most beautiful owl in the world.     

Harry takes a step closer to Snape’s desk. The enormous owl immediately goes still in the middle of adjusting his wing feathers, studying him with sharp yellow eyes. “He’s lovely,” Harry says, very softly. “How long have you had him?”    

“Atiq has been my familiar since I began teaching at Hogwarts. Tea,” Snape says, and proves once and for all that he is pants at making the national drink by handing him an atrocious cup of whatever this is passing itself as tea. Random bits of foliage float unpleasantly at the top, and it’s gone yellow, from wherever it is that Snape procured this forest detritus. There is fully a dead insect floating in the center, its little antenna drooping and its pincers akimbo in the air.     

Harry peers down into the cup. “You’re apparently some kind of world-renowned potioneer, right?”    

"You will find all elements of tea present in your cup, including honey,” Snape says, telling Harry with a sneer just what he thinks about people who take tea sweet. That accounts for the yellow color, but that’s about it. He takes a gulp from his own cup, because he is apparently a glutton for punishment.     

“Is this something you scraped off the bottom of your boots this afternoon? Aunt Petunia would have a coronary if she saw this.”    

“And I remain astonished that harridan made it to the age of forty without choking on her clutched pearls,” Snape says. “It’s herbal, and yes, I made it myself. The beetle carcass juices help with healing and muscle strength.”     

God help him, beetle carcass. “Is it a family recipe or something? Your mum was a witch, right?”

"Did or did we not just have a conversation about boundaries?”    

“It’s personal to ask if your mum was a witch?”    

Snape gives him a hard look. “In the wizarding world, it is always presumptuous to request such information. Pure-blooded wizards need not discuss their family histories – it is a matter of public record, and family pride. To be found asking a Pureblood wizard about his family automatically equates them to lesser-born, Half-Blood or Muggleborn. Likewise, to ask a Half-Blood or Muggleborn smacks of blood politics. It is a great insult.”    

Even if he lives in this world for a hundred years, he will never understand the way wixen think. “That is the most idiotic thing I’ve ever heard.”    

“And yet,” Snape says, eyeing him. “Such a question to a foreign wixen would be permitted in a social setting, though uncouth in the extreme. It simply isn’t done.”    

“So how do you find out about someone?”    

“Through the natural paths of conversation."    

“What about when that person won’t discuss it, or bring it up, or calls you cheeky?”    

“Then perhaps you take a hint and stop fishing for information.” Snape gives him the kind of irritated look Harry’s been on the receiving end of nearly all his life. “I am a British citizen, but my mother’s family is from Cordoba. The Prince name lives on there in the generations of wixen who call that city home.”    

Suddenly, the nose, the dark hair, and the eyes make sense. “Spain? Huh. Wasn’t Cordoba a Roman settlement once?”  

“Long ago. It was under Muslim rule for far longer.” Snape eyes him. “I didn’t peg you as a student of history.”    

“I’m not, really.” He considers the wisdom of what he’s about to say, then realizes he doesn’t have to. That he – he trusts Snape, after a fashion, and isn’t that a strange thought? “People used to give my cousin Dudley books all the time, for birthdays, Christmas, that kind of thing. I don’t really know why – I’d be surprised if he could read, really. When we were seven his friend’s mum gave him a book about Ancient Rome for his birthday. After he took a pair of scissors to it a week later, Aunt Petunia threw it out. I – liberated it from its fate.”    

“You nicked it.”    

“From the garbage, yeah,” Harry says, smiling a little. “Had a bit of cheese sauce on it, but I got it cleaned up. I loved that book. The history of the major regions was always my favorite.”    

“My mother lives there now,” Snape says, and freezes, as if he hadn’t meant to say it. As if he’s shared too much. Harry, though, feels an aching tug inside of him, and tries to imagine not the skinny, sallow girl in Gobstones Club, but the woman she would become.    

“Your mum’s still alive?”    

“For now, and purely out of spite, I assure you. I have to go back once a year and resolidify the leylines, and this year will likely be over Christmas,” Snape says, and something huge and unnamed shifts in Harry’s being.     

He can almost hear the mage’s voice, low and deep, the feeling of his fingers over Harry’s, guiding him in the forest’s undergrowth.     

“What are leylines?”     

“You wasted four years on Divination, Potter.”    

“I know. But I like to think I wouldn’t have gotten to see all of Trelawney’s scarves in action if I hadn’t. She has ever so many.”    

“You’ve only seen her contemporary collection. She has one with blinking eyes that got her banned from the common room when she debuted it.”    

It’s a joke. Snape told a joke, and it’s so absurd he wants to laugh for that alone. “Sinister. So what are leylines, then?”    

"A complicated topic for another day.”     

Harry isn’t stupid – he knows when to push, and when to back off. Something about this conversation is upsetting Snape, and when Snape gets upset he starts yelling. Harry understands family well enough. Sometimes it’s best left alone. “I’ve always wanted to try Spanish food. I’ve heard paella is quite good. Aunt Petunia used to make it, but she only ever let me eat the rice, not any of the seafood. Still, sounds like it’d be tasty. Do you speak Spanish?”    

“Your mind, Potter. It’s no wonder you couldn’t learn Occlumency. Your mind flits about like a hummingbird from topic to topic.”    

Harry couldn’t learn Occlumency because Snape had made it impossible. He’s grateful for it now – if he’d closed his mind to Voldemort, Wizarding Britain would be enslaved by now. But still, the agony of that year on the run, the way Voldemort had split his head apart... knowing a bit of Occlumency in those early days would have saved him a lot of pain. Even now, Harry was prone to migraines that made him feel as if he’d gladly die if anyone so much as whispered to him.     

“I have a lot of thoughts, who can blame me. And I infer from our conversation that you aren’t going to tell me if you speak Spanish, which just makes me want to know even more. Mysterious. Can I pet Atiq?”    

Snape snorts, but steps to the side a bit to let Harry closer to the owl. “Carefully. He hasn’t bitten anyone’s fingers in some time, but that isn’t to say he won’t.”     

Gently, Harry reaches out and strokes the backs of his fingers over Atiq’s head. His dark yellow eyes close with pleasure when Harry scritches, carefully, along the same spot that Hedwig used to love, just near his temple. “Aren’t you a handsome one?” he murmurs, and Atiq’s eyes slit open just enough to bump his head against Harry’s hand when Harry stops petting him. Snape huffs a low snort when Atiq chirrups with pleasure, and Harry looks up at him.     

This close, he can study that sharp, angular face, the aquiline nose, the cupid’s bow of Snape’s mouth and the dark heaviness of his eyes as he gazes down at Harry, amusement written across the lines of his face. It really is as if a light has flickered on inside of him – or maybe, the light inside of him had never gone out, as it had done in the iteration of Snape Harry had grown up with.     

That smell Harry had caught the other night tickles at his senses. Not the horrendous foliage currently filling the cup in his hand, but something of Snape. Vanilla and cedar again, but stronger notes of cinnamon and sage, and another smell he can’t quite place, something sparkling, tickling his nose. It’s stronger tonight, brushing against the base of his skull, trailing fingers down his spine.    

Minnow jumps up onto the desk, startling Atiq with a ruffle of feathers, and then up higher onto Snape’s shoulder. She swipes a paw out at Harry and he laughs, stepping out of the way. Her glare is unimpeded as she rubs her face against Snape’s bristly cheek, and Harry laughs again, louder, because wow, message received.     

“Temperamental beast.” Snape reaches up to scritch her under the chin. “I have fulfilled my obligation as unwilling yet gracious host. Tea has been served. Conversation has been had.”     

Something soft and warm fills Harry’s belly, and makes him smile. He can’t help it. “Hint received,” he says, and sets the horrible cup of tea down on Snape’s kitchen island. “Thanks for helping me this afternoon. And for not saying I told you so as I know you desperately wanted to.”

Harry knows, even as he says it, that it’s the perfect opening for cruelty, but somehow he doesn’t think Snape is going to take it. He’s proven right when the man gives him a look that says clearly, you’re an idiot but what else is new, and Harry smiles. “Is there anything you want me to do this weekend before Monday’s lesson?”   
“Leave me in peace. Take a shower, without aid of muggle chemicals.”    

“You really aren’t a fan of aluminums and phthalates.”    

"Chemicals. Smeared on the body,” Snape growls.    

"Like a fresh Irish garden,” Harry agrees, and opens the door behind him. The sound of raucous laughter and pounding music filters in. “Have a restful weekend, Professor.”    

“Unlikely. Do your schoolwork,” Snape barks, and slams the door shut behind Harry.    

.    

He dreams, that night, in striations of green and gold.    

Even on the last day of his life, he’ll remember the smell of his cupboard; unfinished wood, Aunt Petunia’s lemon cleaner that she kept in a bucket near the door, the metallic scent of the cheap washing powder she used for Harry’s clothing and blankets when the smell got too bad. The overhead light isn’t on, and when he reaches up he finds his lightbulb gone. They took it, sometimes, when he was in trouble. When he’d done something freakish. Still, the light coming in through the slats of the door gives his little space a soft patina glow. In that dim light he can see his little soldiers lined up on the wooden staircase, the crayola drawings on the wall, the stack of broken books. He can see the boy, too, lying on the thin crib mattress.    

He’s very small, the boy, and so skinny that Harry can just make out the line of his ribs through his dirty t-shirt. His little face is sunken in, and when Harry brushes his cheek, he’s cold to the touch.     

"They took our blanket too,” Harry whispers, and the small boy opens his eyes. They’re a wet, brilliant green, even here in the dark. “Can I give you mine?”    

The boy nods, lip trembling, and Harry takes his own off his shoulders. It’s the blanket from the back of Snape’s couch, soft and warm. He wraps it around the child, who barely waits for Harry to do so before burrowing deep under it. Harry’s heart aches for him, but it isn’t pity or anger that stirs him. It’s love he feels, when he gathers that child into his arms to share his body heat. Love, when he takes out his wand, and waves it at the door, and it snicks open without a word. And when he sees the Dursleys sat at the dining table, gorging themselves on turkey and roast and bread pudding, while this waif of a child lays on a dirty, bare mattress not ten feet from them, he understands that love can move mountains.    

He opens the door to Number 4, the child on his hip, and steps out – not onto Petunia’s manicured lawn, but onto the wild Hogwarts grounds.  It’s as familiar to him as his own beating heart, the rolling green mountains, the blue sparkle of the Black Lake, the early morning mist clinging to the Forbidden Forest. Home.     

The boy in his arms giggles, but he isn’t that dirty, trembling child anymore. It’s Teddy who smiles up at him with his one teenie tooth, happiness drawn like paint strokes on his perfect little face. He ducks his head shyly when Harry grins back, tucking his face against Harry’s neck, his little hands up under his chin and squeezed as tightly to his godfather as he could get.     

Just across the way, coming over the sun-dappled hill, strides a figure. A man. Dark, tumbling hair falls in waves down his face, his robes billowing out around him in the morning breeze. His face is in shadow, the light of the morning sun burning in a halo all around him.     

A million complicated emotions burn in his chest, but first, first, is a feeling so foreign, so unimaginable, Harry didn’t think it would ever be possible for himself.     

They’ve been waiting for him to come to them for so long.     

.   

He opens his eyes.    

It’s dawn, and he’s alone on his hard little sofa in his cold little flat in the Teacher’s Tower at Hogwarts. He hasn’t made it to his bed yet since he got here, but for the first time, he isn’t waking up stiff and aching and freezing to the bone.    

Stretched over him, warm and cozy, is the knit blanket from Snape’s sofa.  

It smells of vanilla and cedar.  

Chapter Text

drisson

n. an unexpected twinge of attraction for a friend; a flutter of desire you don’t necessarily want to feel, that didn’t even seem possible up until this point, when it suddenly becomes a problem you have to deal with.

During his year’s sequestration at Grimmauld Place, Harry’s mail hadn’t been kind enough to bugger off from whence it came; no, it had the poor form to start gathering at the Undeliverable Magical Mail office at the Ministry in heaving (somewhat literally) piles, delivered by bewildered owls, beleaguered mail pigeons, and he’d been told on one alarming occasion, a crow that shouted his name for six hours before exploding into gray mist and black feathers. 

Being as how he never left the house, and he’d blocked the floo to everyone but Ron and Hermione, the witch who ran the office had no way to get into contact with him to explain to him the many and sundry ways he was driving her to drink. 

By the time she’d tracked him down at St Mungo’s in the days after his splinching accident, he’d had thousands of letters, howlers and packages taking up an entire magically expanded room of her office, and could he please come and take care of it at his earliest convenience. Normally, Harry would have told her to bugger off as well, but she had said this with her hands fisted in her hair and her mascara streaked down her face in uneven lines, and even he wasn’t that much of a shit.

It had taken them three days to go through it all. The sheer amount of boobytrapped packages, love potions, and – to his horror – live animals had been nearly enough to put Harry off the Wizarding World for good. The mailwitch, Marie, either taking pity on him or more likely worried for the state of her office, had asked an Unspeakable to bring up a medium-sized wooden box to dump all of his unwanted mail into. 

The box had opened into a blackness of such total darkness that Harry couldn’t see the edges. They’d been told not to reach into the box lest they break the space-time continuum. 

Ron had laughed. The Unspeakable had not. 

He’d gotten hundreds of boxes from stores begging him to sponsor their many and various sundries, from new brooms that wouldn’t be out until next year, to dragonhide boots, to colognes that deepened the voice. Fully one third of the mailroom had to be evacuated when a stink bomb went off, and some of the packages stunk of such foul magic that Harry had taken the chance and dropped them into the Terrifying Black Death Box (TBDB) unopened. He’d also apparently gotten increasingly frantic requests for comment from Rita Skeeter, so many of them that when Hermione charmed them all to fly right into the TBDB they had been like a flock of birds taking flight from his mail pile.    

He’d also been named in dozens of estates in the last year, and had been bequeathed land, houses and money, so much fucking money that it made his stomach writhe in shame. Harry had the passing thought to be worried about Ron's reaction, as historically he was a bit shit when it came to the unwanted material wealth that came along with being the Boy Who Lived, but Ron had proven once again that he’d grown as a person. The jealousy Harry had half expected never came; instead, it'd been a quiet sort of pity for Harry. 

It was only when Ron started using his Talking to Babies and Puppies voice that Harry lost his patience. It’d been worth the bloody nose and bruised knuckles to get Ron to stop treating him like glass.   

In all that claptrap there were letters from friends and not-so-friends, too. Neville asking him how he was, well into his second year at University and his Herbology Mastery. Seamus and Dean, inviting him to visit them at their flat in Dublin. Professor McGonagall, asking after him and his health, updating him on the castle repairs, asking him not to isolate himself. A letter from Parkinson, asking him for forgiveness, the ink laden with a charm that could have sent her to Azkaban if it had worked and not just brushed harmlessly against Harry’s magic. A letter from Mrs. Crabbe, calling him the worst kind of monster. A letter from the Creevey’s, asking Harry to be at their son’s funeral. Four letters from Hagrid, on increasingly tear-stained envelopes.  

A letter from Malfoy, on creamy parchment. It was still unopened, at the bottom of his trunk.   

It was then that Harry, on advice from Mr. Weasley, had gotten a solicitor. He’d charmed all of his correspondence to go through Mr. Drake from then on, who in turn had hired his wife to be in charge of managing it. Mrs. Drake was the great aunt Harry wished he could have had, no-nonsense and with even less patience for tomfoolery than Professor McGonagall. She was of the opinion that people who were not in his immediate circle of friends needed to leave him the bloody hell alone, a sentiment he heartily agreed with, and so he left her to it. All of his approved mail came through with Patience, her horned owl with a single tawny streak through her dark feathers, once a week on Saturdays, along with a listing of unapproved correspondence he could have delivered to him the following day should he so choose. 

He never so chose. 

So it is that Harry, that particular Tuesday morning at breakfast, isn’t paying attention to the owls arriving with the morning post, not until the murmur coming from the tables grows louder. The mail had just arrived, and with it the Daily Prophet. Harry looks up just in time to see a girl at the Sixth Year table burst into tears. The kids had huddled together around copies of the Daily Prophet up and down the seven tables. Someone’s mum had sent a howler, shouting Don’t even think about Hogsmeade while this nonsense is happening! 

“What the hell?” Ron asks, and Hermione shuffles her post aside to get to her copy. She’s barely opened it before she gasps, and he and Ron lean over her shoulder to read.    

MORSMORDRE IN PORTREE  

By Rita Skeeter    

Robin and Presimius Belfrey were found morbidly injured under the Dark Mark Tuesday night, according to Head Auror of the Ministry, Gawain Robards.     

The cursing occurred just before midnight in the Wizarding village of Portree, at the Belfrey home. Witch Connie Bagpilp, out picking moonstone, spotted the Dark Mark over the house and raised the alarm. Ministry Aurors arrived promptly and discovered Antonin Dolohov still in the home. A battle ensued, but Aurors were unable to apprehend Dolohov before he apparated. (For more on The Disgraced Dolohovs, turn to page 3)   

Patriarch Presimius, at 139 years of age, was the most affected by the Cruciatus Curse cast on him by Dolohov, and is in critical condition at St. Mungo’s. Retired Auror Robin Belfrey, at 131 years of age, has partial protection due to Terminant’s Law, but was injured during the battle with Dolohov and also taken to St. Mungo’s for observation.    

“I thought it was over. Young Harry Potter killed You-Know-Who, and that was supposed to be the end of it. What do they think they’re on about, trying to stir up the old trouble?” said Auror Belfrey in a statement.    

This marks the ninth such attack on the Wizarding public since the new year.     

Harry Potter, The Boy Who Lived, The Chosen One, The Man Who Triumphed, killed You-Know-Who over a year ago. Mr. Potter had been conspicuously absent from the public eye until September of this year, when he was chosen for the reinvigorated Tyroship Scheme at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. He has not issued a statement on the violent killing spree that the Death Eaters still at large have been perpetuating against the Wizarding public for the past eight months, leading this author to wonder why that is. Is all as it appears? Is You-Know-Who gone, or biding his time as he did once before? Is there more to the story than Mr. Potter has shared?  

“She’s bloody mental, that one. She thinks she’s still living under Fudge’s Ministry. Kingsley’s going to rip her apart,” Ron says darkly. “Think he’d let us watch?”    

“Ronald Weasley!” Hermione snaps. “Two people nearly died!”    

“Yeah,” he says, and some of the dark pleasure slid off his face. “Sad news, that is. Seeing the Dark Mark must have been awful.”    

He hadn’t known it was this bad, and maybe some of it is on his face, because Hermione eyes him sharply. “I don’t have to say that this isn’t your fault, right?”    

He stares at her helplessly. He could be doing something about it right now, if he’d only shaken off the malaise long enough to take Kingsley up on his offer of joining the Auror program. Ron would have followed him, he thinks, and that would be two more people to help. To fight. Not spending a useless year as a useless student, trying to recapture a time in his life that was over.    

Hermione has that look that Mrs. Weasley gets sometimes, when she’s trying to make the men in her life understand that they're idiots and could they please see sense before she shook them. “Macnair, Dolohov, and Rookwood are desperate men, and desperate men do desperate things when they’ve been cornered. It isn’t anyone’s fault but their own. They could have turned themselves in, or gone on the lam to the Continent and disappeared. They made the choice to continue sewing fear and discord. I am absolutely certain Auror Robards will catch them, especially after this.”    

“What the bloody hell are they after?” Ron asks. “They can’t honestly think anything of You-Know-Who is left. We all saw him die.”    

“Kingsley asked us not to speak of the –” She lowers her voice to a low whisper, so the younger children wouldn’t hear. “You know. He doesn’t want to put those ideas into the world, where the remaining Death Eaters might hear. Right now they don’t know how Voldemort died, and from their perspective, there is every chance that he’ll return like last time.”    

“But there isn’t,” Ron says, and there isn’t a question in his voice, except Harry has known Ron since he was eleven and he can sense Ron wants to ask. That, more than anything, helps Harry understand just how real the fear of Voldemort is and will probably always be, how he’d mythologized himself into something inhuman. He was, a bit, in the end.    

If only Ron knew that it was Harry he should fear, now.     

“No, there isn’t. But that’s the thing about desperation,” Hermione says, folding the newspaper as across the way, Professor Sprout pats the Sixth Year girl gently on the shoulder and offers her a handkerchief. “It isn’t usually fueled by anything resembling sense. They saw Voldemort collapse in front of them, but to them, their master will never die. That makes them dangerous, but Auror Robards is smart, and Kingsley isn’t allowing the Ministry to stick its head in the sand. They’ll be caught, just like the Carrows and all the rest.”  

She sounds so sure, which Harry appreciates. The problem is that Harry’s a realist, and he doesn’t think it’s going to be as quick and easy as all that. 

.

Harry develops Poison #2 Monday morning.

The upper dungeon window lets in a shaft of gray morning light, the bit of sun struggling to break through gray storm clouds. It’s absolutely pouring, the storm that had been threatening since the morning bombarding the window with waves of rain. Snape’s lit all the lamps on the walls and the ceiling besides. The better to see Harry’s death-in-a-cauldron, he supposes.    

To be fair to him, it isn’t his fault. Well, that’s not entirely true – it is his fault, he chose to subject himself to the tyroship program, to living in the castle and being a student again, despite not having stepped into a classroom in two years. But, he hadn’t woken up that morning and decided that the one thing missing in his life was a sleeping beauty poison, and intent was nine-tenths of the law.     

“So you understand why this isn’t my fault,” he tells Snape.    

Snape stares at him, and then flicks his eyes down to the mess in Harry’s cauldron. And it is a mess, no mistake. “I told you to think about the ingredients, Potter.”    

“You did, yes.”

“I told you to consider how your ingredients came together in your pasta dish, and apply that same technique here. Only, instead of cooking them in a pot, you needed to suffuse them through congelation into a semi-hardened state. After which you were to mix in four belts of water and stir counterclockwise for eight and a half minutes. Not unlike baking a loaf of bread.”    

“Uh huh.”    

“Wet dough. Apply heat. Bread.”    

They both look down into the mess of his cauldron. What bits of it were liquid were a fermented pink, like watered-down blood. The rest of Harry’s cauldron – and he was very certain of this – was a lost cause. The mixture had crystallized and hardened into some sort of rocky substance in a shocking shade of pink, with tiny white granules that smoked puffs of vapor.    

Snape stares at the crystalized mess, and then up to him. Harry thinks he ought to be proud that he’s struck Snape dumb, but, well. One of the granules belches between them, and the edge of the cauldron begins to smoke. Snape takes an ampule and with a wave of his wand, corks a test of the liquid.  

The rest of it he vanishes, along with Harry’s cauldron.     

“Hey!”    

“Believe me, Potter, as much as I’d love for you to scrub that monstrosity out by hand, you’d likely not have hands left when you finished,” and, well, fair. The ampule is starting to wobble a bit, and Snape summons one of the iron cauldrons from the wall, uncorking the potion and pouring it out into the base. Almost immediately the iron begins to sizzle, and Harry smells strawberries and river silt and the year 1478. “Suffice it to say, you did not make a Calming Draught, a Calming Elixir, or a Rest-Easy Potion.”    

Harry’s face burns. “I’m sorry. I just wanted to be calm. You said get into a calm mindset, and that’s what I did. Channeled calm.”    

“To a coma?”    

“You didn’t specify!”    

“Not to put yourself into a coma?”    

“Oh my God,” Harry says, “stop saying coma.”    

“Impossible, as this is a coma potion that may actually dissolve the lining of the stomach, if your victim is lucky,” Snape snarks back, and the potion sparks purple electricity in the basin of the iron cauldron. He waves his wand and the vapor coming up from the cauldron freezes, as the stasis spell takes hold. “If anything, it’s an even worse way to die than the first miscreation that you somehow brought into the world last week. How are you doing this?”    

He scrubs his forehead, hard, and plunks down into the stool nearest him. “I don’t know. I don’t want victims. I don’t want to make poisons that dissolve stomach linings.”    

Once, the misery Harry was feeling would have been a playground for Snape to play in. Now, he just looks a little discomfited, and a lot annoyed. “Walk me thr—”    

“I can’t do this.”    

Snape looks up at him from the contents of the cauldron, eyebrow arched. “‘Do this’?”    

“This. Being your – being your student. Your tyro. I think this was a mistake.”    

He doesn’t look up. He doesn’t think he can bear the judgmental expression surely on Snape’s face.

Guilt sweeps up his throat. This has been such a waste of time and effort. He wishes, fervently, that Professor McGonagall had left him be. That he hadn’t responded to her letter. It was safe at Grimmauld Place. Well, the place was trying to kill him, but no one judged him, and certainly no one bothered him. It was just him and Margaret and the severed hand and the dusty corpse of Dumbledore, and he’d been – not happy, Harry would never be happy again. But comfortable. At ease.     

Snape comes around the table, and Harry doesn’t flinch, he doesn’t, but Snape pauses nearly imperceptibly for a moment before drawing nearer. Harry’s always been aware of Snape’s body, his physicality, the space he took up in a room, and Snape’s filling it now to the brim.     

“Look at me, Potter.”    

He can’t. He really can’t, except he’s never disobeyed before and he may be nineteen and a father and an adult but there were some things one just didn’t do, and that was ignore Severus Snape when he spoke to you in that tone. He lifts his head, and there Snape is in all his furious glory, his lips pulled back in a snarl. “I’m sorry.”    

“Do shut up. You don’t even know what you’re sorry for.”    

“I do! For – for wasting your time.”    

“You’d be wasting my time if I intended to release you from the magical, binding contract you signed the night of the Receiving. It’s called an Unbreakable Vow for a reason. Since I don’t intend to do so, we are going to have to find a way forward, whether you like it or not.”    

Oh, God. “You aren’t going to let me out of it?”    

Snape sneers. “Not even if you begged. And while I would find that immensely satisfying, for the sake of our working relationship I do not wish you to see this as a prison sentence, though in truth it is closer to that than not. You are mine for the next year, Mr. Potter, and I will teach you – kicking and screaming, if I must. So, my answer is no. You are not going to slip out of this so easily. You have given your word, or is that as worthless as I have always assumed?”    

He knows the man is goading him. He hates that it’s working. “My word isn’t worthless!”    

“Then prove it.”    

“You… you don’t understand.”    

“I certainly do understand. As usual, you did not think your plan of action through, throwing yourself into the metaphorical deep end without any concept on how you would keep yourself afloat. Why you did it – out of consideration for Minerva’s feelings, your own malaise, sheer boredom – does not matter. You are mine, and you will be mine, for the next year. I recommend you get used to that.” His lips pull back in a curl of disdain. “Thankfully for the both of us, you carry a seedling of ability, tiny and malformed though it is, that needs to be tended and watered for it to blossom. I am a master gardener, and I will succeed in helping it grow, no matter the cost.”    

Harry doesn’t even know how to unpack that, so he reaches for the lowest hanging fruit. “What the hell do you mean malformed?”    

“Perhaps we should better describe you as a paradox, for we have surely slipped through into some sort of pocket dimension where you are the kind of raw power that only comes through the profession once every generation. To think you never nurtured it,” Snape says, but not to Harry – he addresses this last bit to Professor Snape, glaring murder from his portrait. He’s still on probation and under a silencing spell in the lab, but thankfully, Professor Snape has always been able to articulate just what he thinks with his face. Harry’s only seen that expression once before, and it entailed fourteen exploding cauldrons, a shrieking Neville covered in boils, six sobbing girls, and a black burn on the classroom ceiling.    

Snape doesn’t allow Harry or Professor Snape to scrape together some kind of response to that, though, instead vanishing everything on Harry’s work surface, and sending all of the jars of ingredients back to their respective places. “Attend me,” he barks, and Harry’s on his feet before he knew he was going to get up.     

Snape waves his wand again, and a half-dozen jars fly from the shelves, stacking themselves neatly on a rolling cart next to them. Three drawers in the alchemist’s chest open and close, little packets sailing across the room to settle into small stone pestles. “Ingredients.”    

It takes Harry an embarrassingly long moment to realize what Snape is asking. His heart feels lodged in his throat. “Uh. Salamander blood. Lionfish spines. Mucus… probably flobberworm – okay, definitely flobberworm, sorry,” because Snape had glared so sharply at him that Harry had winced under it. “Honey. Dittany. Bark. Black berry juice.”    

“And what concoction do these ingredients make.”    

“I’m not a complete idiot.”    

“Doubtful,” Snape says snidely. “Well?”    

“Wiggenweld. That bark is from the wiggen tree.”    

“Wiggenweld. A First Year potion, the most elementary and basic of all potions. And yet, the most powerful and the most rooted in the human experience. Pain relief, healing. Yes?”    

Harry stares at him. “Yes.”    

And then Snape, Severus Snape, goes through each and every single step with him. From the chop of the lionfish spines, to the fermentation of the salamander blood, to the dicing of the dittany. He doesn’t guide Harry so much as follow along with his steps, correcting Harry as he goes. Granted, that part is still the Snape Harry remembers, and he gets the flesh nearly flayed from his bones when he tries to add a dollop of honey to the cauldron rather than a drop and Snape yells that it’s a potion, not afternoon tea, but by and large, by the end of it the potion looks just as it should. It’s a brilliant turquoise, and the last step, fourteen twenty-eight second clockwise stirs, and the incantation, are all that’s left.    

“Tell me what the incantation is, Mr. Potter,” Snape says. “Let me be clear. Do not push your magic through the words. Simply tell me.”    

“Cura te ipsum.”    

“Correct. It’s meaning?”    

“Heal yourself.”    

That eyebrow arches at him. “Close enough. And then?”    

“When we cast, we have to mean it. To want it. To want the outcome of what the potion will be. Intent.”    

“Correct.” Snape stirs. How he’s keeping track of the twenty-eight seconds Harry chalks up to years of experience, and a little showboating. Twice more, and Harry’s fingers are a little damp with sweat on his wand. A terrible feeling of foreboding is creeping up his spine, and he winces, looking into the cauldron. “Now, Mr. Potter.”    

Harry lifts his wand.     

“Good,” he says into the mage-child’s ear. The boy is so nervous, and he understands why, but Wiggenweld is about healing and growth and life, and nothing terrible could come from it.     

The cauldron begins to glow, something soft and green and life-giving. Pearling buds of flowers open and blossom in the dark corners of the room, then under their feet, a carpet of green that tickles his own bare toes. The professor, so dreadfully young, is speaking to the mage-child, a hint of triumph in his dark eyes. And why not? It isn’t everyday a mage-child is born or comes into his power, and rarer still to have that mage-child as a tyro. The professor has a terrible responsibility, now, but he can see that it will not be forsaken. Severus Snape is a good man.      

“Very well done,” he says, into the child’s ear. The potion is like nothing that has ever been made before. Life-giving, rapturous healing, to heal broken bones and torn flesh and bleeding wombs. It would change the face of wizard kind. And none could brew it, but this child before him.    

Dangerous.     

He’s on his knees. He can hear birdsong, the buzzing of insects, the gurgling of the stream that leads to the lake.     

Something obscures his vision. A man. For a minute he thinks it's – 

But no.     

Snape. He squats down in front of Harry and –     

Behind him, the cauldron is overflowing with vegetation, flowers, leaves, greenery, life. As Harry watches, the flowers spill over onto the table, then trail down to the flagstone, bursting in red and yellow and purple and pink like bubbles, before fading away. In their place the cauldron – a normal pewter cauldron, bubbling normally, a perfectly normal apple green and smelling like heaven – cheerfully burps a bubble. Normally.    

Snape glances back at it, then at Harry. Harry winces and scrambles to his feet, and Snape takes a step back, allowing it. “Did it… uh. Did it work?”   

“Do I seem the type to allow volatile potions to come to a boil if there is even the slightest chance that they’ll explode? Yes, it worked, Potter.” Snape considers him. “Tell me how.”    

“How it’s – alright, don’t bite my head off,” Harry snipes, when the man scowls at him.     

The potion is off, though how it can be when Snape had breathed over his shoulder the entire time, he doesn’t know. It’s thicker than it should be, Harry thinks, and the smell, it’s a little bit like heaven in a cauldron. It smells like outside after a rainstorm, fresh and clean and dewy. The wiggen tree that had given the bark for this potion grew from an outcropping over the sea, and the salty air infused it with a little something extra. One of the flobberworms had called its roots home, before giving its life to be reborn as this potion. Even the – the dittany –     

Harry sucks in a startled breath. Snape looks at him from across the worktable, arms crossed, and Harry stares back through the vapors wafting up from the bubbling liquid. “The ingredients. They’re from the same place.”    

A little tick at the corner of Snape’s mouth. “Continue.”    

“The tree. The worms. The dittany. It’s all from the same spot. The tree grows in an outcropping looking over the sea. The salamanders and lionfish were caught there. The only thing that isn’t from that spot is the honey.”    

Snape glances at the portrait of Professor Snape, and smirks. “Continue.”    

“The honey. You took it with you, so that it would pick up the salt from the sea.”    

“Good. What else?”    

What else was there? “Uh. I don’t – I’m not sure.”    

“It is best to keep ingredients fresh. With live specimens, I often will kill and butcher the animals here in my lab. I did not do so with these ingredients, specifically. Why?”    

He can almost see Snape, knelt over a boulder on the rocky shore. The crashing waves, icy cold winter wind slipping under his scarf. Snape’s careful, steady hands, as he ended the lives of the flobberworms, the salamanders and the lionfish.     

“You gave back to the earth. You took the parts you needed to make this potion, but you buried the rest.”    

“From the earth, new life,” Snape agrees, quietly. “Why?”    

“It’s important. For healing potions.”    

“Why?”    

His head is beginning to pound. He can almost smell the brine of the sea, the tangy iron of the blood of the creatures. “Balance. You take and you give. The balance of life. You can’t just take and take, because if you do your potions won’t be right. Won’t work, or be strong. Nature will know you’re putting it out of balance, and take that balance from your core.”    

And in that moment, a look crosses Snape’s face that Harry will remember, always, tucked into a secret pocket of his heart. It will be months before he can name it, before he can assign words to the little tick at the corner of Snape’s mouth, the way his eyebrows soften, the dark, glittering chips of his eyes.     

He’ll look back on it often, years from now, and know it for what it is. The unseating of their world and everything they thought they knew about one another.     

Snape studies him, and taps a finger on the edge of the cauldron. “Ten points to Gryffindor.”    

Points? To Gryffindor?     

Shock nearly keeps him mute, but his world has taken a step to the left. Harry had been a student at this school for seven years and not once, not once in that time had Severus Snape ever willingly given points to a Gryffindor. “I – I’m not a Gryffindor anymore.”    

“Once a Gryffindor, always a Gryffindor, Potter. Don’t let it go to your head. I’ll take them back as quickly as I gave them, likely in the first Fourth Year class today,” but the threat is beyond useless, with the way he’s trying not to smile. The man is nearly bouncing on his toes, and Harry is shocked anew by how different he is.  

This man, who is Snape and not Snape at all, who is the vile potion’s master and who wears quidditch sweatshirts and has a kitten named Minnow. This man.    

Harry’s heart lurches once, painfully, and then again.     

.    

“Points,” he tells Hermione later that evening. “To Gryffindor.”    

Dinner has come and gone, and they’re tucked into Hermione’s sitting room. It’s become their favorite place to do homework together. Unlike Harry (or Ron, or Snape for that matter), she’d reconfigured her space. He doesn’t think she intended it to look and feel like the Gryffindor Common Room, all the way down to the red drapes and squashy chairs in front of the fire, but for the first time in two years Harry feels at home. It’s cozy when it has no right to be, comfortable in a way he’d forgotten living could be. Even the big bookshelves she’s installed on either side of the fireplace, packed to overflowing, set him right at his ease.    

Ron has made himself at home, anyway. He’d toed off his boots at the door and collapsed, groaning, into one of Hermione’s armchairs. They hadn’t gotten him to budge an inch before he’d fallen asleep, and Harry had pretended not to see the softness in Hermione’s eyes when she’d looked at him sprawled in her armchair, with his hair falling over his eyes.     

They’re sat together on the floor, at the tea table in front of the fire. Ron’s foot is comfortably next to Harry’s knee, a hole worn at the toe, and Crookshanks has made himself at home in Harry’s lap.      

Hermione hums, marking something on his essay. “At this point, your allergy to commas is almost,” and she flicks her eyes up at him, “whimsical.”    

“Her-mione.”    

“Ha-rry.”    

He wrinkles his nose. “Points!”    

“Well, were they deserved points?”    

“I made a Wiggenweld potion, which any eleven-year-old can do, but I guess I just made it extra Wiggenweld-y, I don’t know.”  

It’s a lie, he does know. He had felt the magic of each potion ingredient gather in his belly as Snape gently clipped dittany from the wild brush, as he carved the bark from the tree. The smell of the sea-air as he murmured a quiet thank you as he ended the lives of the flobberworms, of the lionfish, of the salamanders, and buried what he could not use in the dirt under the tree.  

“And then he gave me points. He isn’t the git we remember.”    

“Never did I think I’d see the day where I agreed with Ms. Granger, and yet here we are, at the edge of Hell’s frozen plane,” she says, in a passable imitation of Snape’s baritone. “Also, he called Trelawney a troglodyte, to her face, yesterday morning,” she adds, amused, eyebrow arched.  

“I think he only said that because it makes him laugh. Not on the outside. On the inside,” Harry says dismissively, and plunks his elbow on the table and his head in his hand. Behind him, Ron gives a snoring sort of huff, and Harry pets his foot soothingly where his toes curl under his holy socks.   

“Inside laughter.”    

“Uh huh. He does it a lot. He has this little smirk he gets.”    

She ticks three marks on Harry’s essay. “He does look very different, doesn’t he? I wouldn’t have guessed that he’d been so attractive when he was younger.”    

Harry’s elbow skids on the table and nearly off the edge. “What?”    

“Apparently, it’s been the talk of the Seventh Year girls. I overheard them in the girl’s toilet last week gushing about how he takes off his outer robe when he’s about to demonstrate a technique. Wixen have such strange ideas about shirt collars, I swear the Victorians were less prudish,” she says, amused, and then laughs outright. “Harry Potter, your ears have gone red.”    

They have, he can feel it. It only embarrasses him worse, because Snape has worn the hunter green sweater twice more, threadbare at the shoulders, the wings of his collarbones pressing out the knit, and Harry hadn’t known where to look. Oh Merlin, is he no better than a gossiping Seventh Year girl? “I hope you put a stop to it.”    

“I did. I told them I’d take points if I heard them gossiping about the Deputy Headmaster again, but that doesn’t mean anything.” She sets Harry’s essay down on her knees and leans back against the other armchair. “He’s very handsome.”    

“Hermione.”    

“I’ve got eyes. The wide shoulders, the dark brooding look. Even his hair – it’s really very soft-looking. He’s got a bit of a tortured poet about him, which only makes him more appealing.” Her lips curve up at whatever his face is doing. It can’t be good, Harry thinks, to make her look that much like a cat who got the canary. Or a Minnow who finally won her freedom. “Oh Harry, I don’t mean to embarrass you.”    

“You didn’t,” he says quickly, which might have worked on someone who hadn’t known him since he was eleven years old. “So, is the essay bad?”     

She allows the messy, awkward way he’s trying to change the subject, and Harry pretends he can’t see how it amuses her. “The essay is great. Clear conclusion, everything wraps up neatly. You’re two inches shy of four feet, but honestly I don’t know what else you could add about runecasting hover charms that won’t open the door to other topics that don’t fit into the confines of this assignment, so I don’t think Flitwick will mind.” She pushes it back over to him, and he’s grateful to see she’s added the commas with black ink, not red. There used to be a time she’d punish his lack of grammar by marking in red, green or purple, and then he’d have to recopy the essay fresh.     

“Thanks, Hermione. What time are you leaving, then?”    

She leans forward against the coffee table, stars in her eyes. “Professor Vector and I are leaving by international portkey at two tonight. It’ll be morning in Japan, and Sensei Takahashi has the next three days planned for us. We should be back by Thursday.”    

There are days when he’s so proud of her that his insides feel like they’ll burst. “Are the teachers at Mahoutokoro still calling you Prodigy in Japanese?”    

“It’s so embarrassing,” she huffs, leaning her elbows on the tea table. “They bow at me and give me this reverence, and I know it’s just part of their culture but it’s very embarrassing because I don’t deserve it. I wasn’t even the best in our year at Arithmancy.”    

“It isn’t just about the Arithmancy, though you actually were,” he tells her softly, and gets a bit of his own back when her cheeks flush pink. “You should let them honor you, Hermione. You deserve to be honored.”  

“Yes, well. They had a dinner in my honor, which was mortifying, but then they took me around the grounds and Harry, Mahoutokoro is spectacular. It’s a smaller school than Hogwarts, but the grounds are just – it’s like a storybook. Did you know that in Japan, there is a mastery on flowers and grounds keeping? Not only is it a career choice, it’s one of the most honored professions for a wixen to have. The master florist professor oversees the grounds, and you’ve never seen anything like it. Babbling brooks, archways just heaving under thousands of lilac flowers. There are these little spaces to sit and read or reflect. I could live there the rest of my life and be content.”    

Something deep in his chest aches to hear her say so. “They’d be lucky to have you.”    

Some of the dreaminess in her gaze fades, and she pins him with a look. “You aren’t going to get rid of me that easily. Besides, my life is here. You and Ron are here.”    

“You know we’d relocate to Japan for you, right?”    

Her eyes crinkle with amusement. “You’d look good in Japanese wizarding robes, but,” and she glances over at all six feet of Ron sprawled in the chair behind Harry. Bloody handsome bloke he is, but just trying to imagine him in those fussy Japanese wizarding robes is enough to have Harry biting his lip so he won’t laugh.     

“He’d learn Japanese for you.”    

“Alright.”    

“He’s already obsessed with the Japanese National Quidditch team. He’s got a picture of Tamotsu Iwamoto on the wall at the Burrow.”    

“Harry.”    

He snorts. “Doesn’t feel so good to be on the other end of it, does it?”    

It is, quantifiably, The Wrong Thing to say. Hermione zeroes in on him like a laser, and he only realizes the cascading problems he’s just dumped onto his own head when she smirks. “His hair really does look very nice now.”    

Hermione’s snorting laughter follows him out the door.   

.

Harry’s next Potions seminar would be Thursday, but after his less-than-stellar showing that week, the man had gotten it in his head that Harry needed more exposure – what with his track record of creating toxic substances and blowing shit up – before he rubbed elbows with NEWT-level students in front of an actual cauldron.     

“You are not to help, touch, stir, or breathe anywhere near the cauldrons,” he had said sharply, when he’d told Harry his plan. “You are to observe.”    

“I won’t touch, aid, or abet any of the Third Years, got it.”    

“Give me the definition of ‘observe’.”    

“The act lowering Professor Snape’s blood pressure.”    

Snape had sniffed. “This year is already proving to be trying enough without you bumbling in and teaching impressionable youth how to create poisons.”   

Harry had known that the kids were behind – how could they not be? Hogwarts had spent a year being rebuilt, and coursework had occurred by owl. At-home learning wasn’t exactly conducive to a hands-on class like Potions. Harry just hadn’t realized just how behind they were.     

He’s observing a Third Year split class, Slytherins and Ravenclaws, and almost immediately picks up the problem. While students brewed potions in First Year, Second Year was where the baseline techniques were taught. How to slice rather than cut, how to measure drams and grams and everything in between, how to change the temperature of the fire and how to calculate heat loss. These kids acted like First Years, either terrified of their cauldrons, or behaving with a bravado they lacked the skill to back up.     

Harry knows potion making is dangerous, but he never fully realized how dangerous until he was in a room with sixteen incompetent thirteen-year-olds and open flames.     

Harry had thought Snape’s whole demonstrating techniques thing that he was doing was just for the older students, but it becomes clear immediately that this isn’t the case, when Snape shucks off his outer robe and waves his wand, sending a table screeching over the flagstone to stop in front of the board.   

Demonstrating how to prepare the potion isn’t because he wants to, it’s because it’s necessary. Snape spends the first ten minutes of the class demonstrating the techniques they would be using in the potion for this lesson, Girding Draught. He shows them how to toast their dragonfly thoraxes, how to split their measures of doxy eggs into two bowls to make their rapid addition to the cauldron easier. He teaches them how to heat their cauldron, what color the pewter bottom must be, and even how to stir, scraping the bottom of the cauldron where the doxy eggs always sank.     

He is not kind during his demonstration, but then if he had been Harry would have been shocked. He barks at them to toast, not burn their dragonfly thoraxes, to take some measure of care with how the dragonfly’s remaining bits are gathered. Harry had always wondered what Snape did with all of the unused wings, legs and antenna, but now he knows.    

Snape hates it when a living being who gave its life for a potion is used badly. What remains, Harry knows, will be returned to the earth.    

Harry, in his role as observer, observes observingly that Snape has a new favorite. And by favorite, of course, that means a new Neville. The boy is young for a Third Year, probably putting him in the cohort like Harry, with a late summer birthday. He’s got shaggy blond hair, wide darting eyes, and is, in a word, fucking pants at potion making.     

Snape’s zeroed in on him from the moment he comes into the classroom. The boy is a Fawley, who by Harry’s understanding usually sorted Hufflepuff. The kid’s got a blue tie on, though, and while it may be well deserved in other classes, in Potions it is very much not. Snape’s paired the kids up, a Slytherin with a Ravenclaw at each table, and Fawley’s partner, a tiny Slytherin girl with dark blond hair, is the only reason why they’re keeping up with their classmates at all. Fawley has so far used whole dragonfly wings instead of the powdered fairy wings, burned one of his two thoraxes, burst one of the doxy eggs, the smell of which makes Harry’s eyes water across the room, and has – oh, no – scalded the bottom of the cauldron.    

Snape, who’s been walking around the class making sure no one’s sleeves have caught fire (again, apparently), zeroes in on the smell and gives what Harry has dubbed a Classic Snape Sneer, complete with curled brows and clenching fists. He’s going to eviscerate this poor kid, and everyone in the class knows it.     

“Mr. Fawley,” he says in that silky, dangerous tone of his. One of the other Ravenclaw boys across the room looks positively thrilled, and Harry makes it a point to ask who he is, later. He doesn’t like bullies, for all that his tyromaster is currently playing the part of one. "Did you add a dash, or three scruples of fig, as the instructions say? Hmm? Was that a pinch, or seventeen drachms of powdered moonstone? Do you need a refresher course on how to add ingredients to potions? I’m sure even you could remember it. Perhaps if we got you a very clear flow chart?"     

There’s a sound, a glug where there shouldn’t be a glug. Snape and Harry both whirl around, and the Ravenclaw boy who’d been snickering at his housemate is backing up quickly from his cauldron.     

Almost immediately, as if sensing it’s being watched, the potion turns a shade of neon green and the cauldron bulges, like a soda can left in a hot car. It dips in and then out, like a heartbeat, and Harry feels the tug of magic low in his core. It doesn’t feel like a tickle, it feels like a siphon, which shouldn’t be possible with what’s happening in front of them.    

The potion gives a menacing belch, a thick, roiling evergreen that smells of death.     

Time slows down, and Harry knows what’s about to happen before it does. He sees it all in slow-motion: the kids scrambling backwards, screaming, tripping over their bookbags; the cauldron groaning as the potion eats through the side of it and spills onto the countertop, where it begins to smoke.    

He was supposed to be observing, Harry knows. He hopes Snape will forgive him this once.    

He catches sight of Snape’s dark, unreadable eyes as he roars, "Get back!" from the sickly green substance overflowing from the kid’s cauldron, and Harry only has time to vault the desk and shove the children behind himself before the cauldron goes off like a rocket.     

The boom feels like it knocks his eardrums clear into the back of his head and he stares, dazedly, as the liquid sloshes in slow motion. It’s a graceful arch of frothing acid, and almost seems to take on a mind of its own the seconds before it falls all over him.     

The pain is instantaneous.     

He knows he’s making some kind of very loud and awful sound and he hates it – he doesn’t want to scare the kids, but oh God, this hurts. The kids are hysterical, and Snape has caught him and oh, he’s on the ground now, except the acid is burning through his clothing and yeah, yes, his robes have been spelled away, his shirt and undershirt too, and this is how he dies, shirtless and screaming on the floor of the potion’s classroom, in front of sixteen tearful, terrified children.   

Snape is shouting for something and one of the kids brings him – oh, it’s water, he’s pouring it over Harry’s chest. The pain is unbelievable, but Snape ignores his scream, sets Harry more firmly into the crook of his arm, and pours another canister of water over him, then another, then another, no matter how much Harry thrashes. He barks something at one of the kids and they race out of the room, and Harry almost wants to ask the kid to bring back a snorkel.    

“Shut up, Potter, now is not the time for your puerile humor,” Snape snarls at him, and pours yet another canister of water over him, and his nerves are absolutely on fire. Another, and another, and Harry wonders where he’s getting all this water. “He’ll need a metabolic conversion potion, Anise brewed fresh this week for St. Mungo’s. It’s in my lab,” he says, almost to himself, but nope there’s McGonagall, also staring at Harry. When did she get here?   

“You’re going into shock,” Snape informs him, with an undercurrent of you idiot, and yes, Harry thinks that’s a valid assessment. Behind Snape’s head, in a starburst design on the ceiling of the classroom, is the black explosion mark from Neville’s botched potion in Third Year that had landed fully half of them in the hospital wing with second degree burns and the uncontrollable urge to caw like a raven. He’d certainly left his mark on the place and – oh. Oh.  

“You’ve got two Neville’s,” he breathes, and Snape makes a sound like a snort, even as he runs another canister of water over him, his neck and ear and oh, that hurts.     

“I have nine of them this year. This class has two of them, and you have unfortunately been the unsuspecting victim of their utter ineptitude.”    

Harry’s started to shake like he’s been hit with Crucio, though to be fair, nothing hurt as badly as Crucio. That helps him put his agony into perspective, somehow. He doesn’t look at the kids, he doesn’t, because it’s embarrassing but also because he doesn’t want to make them feel worse than they already do. “Not their fault.”    

“It is certainly their fault. If they had been focused on their potion instead of indulging in their ridiculous preteen drama, my tyro would not currently be on the floor of my classroom with acid burns over fully half his torso.”   

He hears one of the children burst into tears and yeah, Snape’s laying it on a bit thick but Harry’s losing his ability for speech so there’s that. Thankfully, before he can stutter out a don’t be mean to the kids, McGonagall returns. Snape barks at the children to get back, and then says, “This is going to hurt, Potter.”    

He knows. “Yeah.”    

“Ready?”    

Turns out, he wasn’t ready at all. No part of him would ever be ready for the pain of the potion, and Harry – Harry has never been that brave.     

The last thing he sees, before he lets go of consciousness, are the tearful faces of the children, huddled together and staring at him just over McGonagall’s shoulder.    

.    

“Your idiocy truly knows no bounds.”    

He groans. It’s like swimming in jello, trying to come back to the waking world. He has the sense that he’s attempted it a few times, and he’s proven right when he opens his eyes and the windows on the other end of the Hospital Wing are dark.    

“You remain fortunate that you still have your vision, your hearing, and your skin, you unbelievable fool.”    

A poke, in one of his tender bits. Said tender bit is the line of his ribs to the left of his navel. He twitches away from it and groans again. The voice says, “Deserved. What the fuck were you thinking, Potter?”    

Harry has the passing thought that the voice isn’t supposed to say ‘fuck’ where impressionable ears might hear him, but when he finally turns his head and looks his tyromaster in the face, decides mentioning that small detail would probably get him murdered.    

Snape is furious, and whatever differences he and his older self may have, in this they are the same. Rage prickles his brows, pulls that soft and full mouth into a sneer the likes of which Harry has not yet seen on this young version of Snape. He’s so angry he just about has smoke coming out of his ears, and Harry doesn’t remember what he’s done to piss Snape off so badly, until he abruptly does.    

“Did I, or did I not, say that you were to observe?” Snape continues without prompting. “If you had used those mashed potatoes you dare call brains, you’d have remembered the many, many times I have cast Contineo when a cauldron is in danger of exploding. I cast it last week, when your potion tried to burn through my worktable, and I cast it at least twice a month when Longbottom inevitably made something that would have eaten a hole through the fourth dimension and killed us all. I would have cast it today, but you – you, you stupid, foolish, arrogant fool – were in the way.”    

Snape’s in full lather now, that much is clear. He stands abruptly, chair skidding backwards, and paces just to the left of Harry’s bed. It’s very dizzying. “Not only did you endanger those children in that room, you nearly did irreparable damage to yourself. If Anise hadn’t made the metabolic conversion potion this week, you’d have found yourself at St. Mungo’s getting your skin regrown. Did I, or did I not, make it very clear that you are mine for the next year? That means you are not to act like a bloody Gryffindor and throw yourself onto your sword at the first opportunity that presents itself! Much less knowing you are doing so without proper undergarments!”    

Welp, that he won’t take lying down. He shifts up, and groans when it pulls on the skin over his chest. He’s got striations of fresh pink skin that look weeks healed coming out the top of the hospital smock. A peek under the smock shows the same. The hair on his chest is patchwork at best, what with the lightning bolt carving his chest in two, and the burn from the Locket of Slytherin that won’t allow for any hair to grow in the spot, but the rest of him looks more or less alright, just more….stripey. “I was wearing proper undergarments, thank you so much, also how do you know about my undergarments?”    

“I had to strip you in the middle of the classroom once it became very obvious that the acid was eating through your trousers, and rather than find the appropriate braies, you –” and at this Snape whirls around, he’s gone Full Bat and Harry is fucked, “were wearing y-fronts like a toddler!”    

He tries to parcel out this bit, and wow, he didn’t think it possible he could blush twice in a week but here he is. Harry’s shuffled right past mortified and slipped into whatever comes after. Clearly, he can never show his face in the Teacher’s Common Rom again. “You took off my trousers? In front of McGonagall?”    

“Headmistress McGonagall!”     

“Severus Snape!” Madame Pomfrey yells from the doorway to her office. “Stop bellowing like a raging bull in my infirmary!”    

Snape collapses back into the chair beside Harry’s bed, head tipped back to stare at the ceiling like he can’t conceive how his life choices have brought him to this moment, yelling at Harry Potter about his pants. The Harry Potter in question can’t believe it either.     

Madame Pomfrey gives him one last parting glare and goes back into her office. Harry shuffles to sit up a bit more. “I’m sorry.”    

Snape gazes morosely at the ceiling. “What have I told you about apologizing for things beyond your control.”    

He plucks at the covers a bit. “I can never look Professor McGonagall in the eye again.”    

“That beleaguered woman has seen you, a grown man, in children’s underwear. At this point, you should consider moving to Canada and be done with the whole affair.” Snape lifts his head and glares at him. “Are you truly that thick? How could you not have noticed that the boys in your dorm wore braies?”    

“I didn’t go about looking at my dormmate’s pants!”    

“It isn’t about looking. You and Mr. Weasley practically live in each other’s back pockets. You slept in the same room over the summers. You lived in the wilderness with him for an entire year. How did you never notice?”    

Harry – well, Harry had noticed that Ron wore weird white shorts with tied fronts, but he had chalked it up to another wizarding custom, not what Harry himself should have been doing. “I – I thought it was just what he preferred.”    

“What he prefers or doesn’t prefer has no bearing on this conversation, they are appropriate underclothing for wizards and that is the end of it.” He pins Harry with the sort of look that bodes ill for him. “Do you have chemises? Chausses? Stockings?”    

Harry mutely shakes his head, and the top of Snape’s looks ready to pop off. He mutters something darkly about Arthur Weasley, and climbs to his feet. “We will rectify this situation tomorrow, after your last class.”    

Harry would rather – and of this he is quite certain – fight a dragon, again, than have a second conversation with Snape about the state of Harry’s underwear. “That’s a hard no, but thanks so much.”    

“My apologies for making it seem as if you have a say in the matter,” Snape says, wearing his outrage like a cloak around his shoulders. “I promise you, if you are not waiting for me at the Front Entrance by five o’clock, the consequences will be both dire and severe.”    

Oh, God. This wasn’t going to be another conversation, this was going to be a – a –     

“Where are – no.”  

“Yes.”    

“No. I am a grown man, and if I want to wear y-fronts that’s my business!”    

Snape leans in until they’re almost nose to nose. The dark, smoky scent of his anger fills Harry’s head and robs him of speech, worse when the man hisses, seething, “If you think, for one iota of a second, that I will have my tyro traipsing about unlearned, unclothed, and uncouth, you have quite a lot to learn about what being mine actually means. We will go to Diagon Alley tomorrow, which will undoubtedly be a mortifying affair for the both of us, but you will return to this castle outfitted as a proper wizard, or so help me, Potter, you will learn what it is to earn my ire. Do I make myself plain?”    

He stares into those dark eyes and thinks he could drown in them. Something has leapt, hard, in his belly, tugging downward in a sensation unfamiliar for all of its familiarity. He nods helplessly, and Snape straightens, pinning him with a look. “Tomorrow.”    

“Okay.”    

“Tomorrow, Potter.”    

“I said okay!”    

“Cheek,” Snape snarls, and leaves in a whirl of robes.    

Harry collapses into the hospital bed, all of his fresh new regrown bits whining with discomfort, and takes his turn to stare, horrified, at the ceiling.    

.    

Seeing as how he (mostly) doesn’t have a death wish, Harry arrives at the Front Entrance at five o’clock the next afternoon.    

He’d had no idea what one wore on a trip to buy underwear with one’s once-hated, crotchety tyromaster. Ron, after he’d stopped laughing, hadn’t known either, and Hermione was still in Japan, so Harry had opted to just go in what he’d been wearing all day. Life had been so much simpler when he just had to put a school robe on, where no one knew or cared about the state of his underthings.     

He considers, briefly, taking a long swim out to the center of the Great Lake and letting the Giant Squid snack on him.    

Snape arrives in all his bat-like glory, wearing a scowl like a hurricane and sending children scattering in the wake of his billowing robes. He is truly the most dramatic person Harry has ever met in his entire life, and he’d lived with Aunt Petunia.     

He tries not to grimace and doesn’t quite succeed, when Snape reaches him and stares down that honker of his at Harry like he’s a particularly interesting specimen. “I had anticipated needing to drag you from Hogwarts kicking and screaming. I am both disappointed and pleased,” he intones, and without waiting to see if Harry actually is, in fact, ready (he isn’t), he waves his wand and the massive Entrance Hall doors open with a creak.     

“We will be apparating to Twilfitt and Tattings for this endeavor,” Snape says, striding down the hill towards the front gates. He walks with such purpose. Harry doesn’t think the man has ever taken a leisurely stroll a day in his life. “Madame Twilfitt will be discreet.”    

“You mean, my buying underclothes isn’t going to be front page news tomorrow?”    

Snape comes to an abrupt stop and whirls around. Harry, who had not been expecting this, nearly bounces off him. Thankfully for both Harry’s healing skin and peace of mind, Snape catches him around the biceps before he can roll down the hill, pushing him back a step to regain his balance.     

Harry’s belly swoops again, just as it did last night. He can feel the impressions of Snape’s fingers on his arms even after he’s let go.     

“Most certainly not,” Snape says. “Professional courtesy dictates that —”    

“I splinched myself.”    

“—it’s always good form to – pardon?”    

“I splinched myself. Badly. I landed at the Burrow without one of my legs. I was at St. Mungo’s for a while.”    

Snape’s eyes dart all over him, face and arms, chest and down. “Your ‘accident’ last year.”    

Harry nods jerkily. In for the penny, in for the pound, now. “I don’t have a license, but it isn’t my fault. I’ve tried going to the Ministry three times now, but each time they just wave me away and tell me I don’t need a license, you’re Harry Potter, blah blah. I owled Kingsley and he told me that the last thing I want is to fail my apparition test. Embarrassment for the Ministry, Harry, you understand.”    

“What have I told you about mocking your elders?” Snape rubs his face. “Why did you not insist?”    

“Kingsley is the Minister of Magic. I wasn’t going to argue with him for a piece of paper. He might have also told me that because I’ve splinched myself, I would be fined as I was apparating without a license, which doesn’t matter, but that I wouldn’t be able to apparate out of the country for a year, which does. I didn’t want to limit myself. Constant Vigilance, you know.”    

“The first semi-intelligent thing you’ve said in the last week.” He thrusts out his arm. “You will attend me side-along.”    

Side-along apparition is, in a word, intimate. Also, Harry is nineteen, the savior of the wizarding world, and a father. Nineteen-year-old wizard savior fathers didn’t side-along.     

“Can’t we take the Knight Bus?”    

“No.”     

“Floo?”    

“No.”    

He shifts his weight to the other foot, and Snape glares at him, jerking his outstretched arm. Harry sighs, grabs hold of his wrist, and gets sucked through a straw.     

No matter how many times he does this, he doesn’t think he’ll ever get used to the feeling of apparition. He doesn’t stumble or get sick like he did when he was young, but his hip gives a single, warning throb, right along the line where he’d been splinched. As soon as they land he knuckles it to work out the muscle.     

Snape, thankfully, doesn’t comment, but he does look at Harry like he’s the biggest idiot he’s ever met, so all’s well then.    

Harry hadn’t been to Diagon Alley since he’d inquired at Borgin and Burkes about the traiceret pila. There’s a desolation about the place that hasn’t quite gone away, though from what he can see Fortescue's is one of the only shops still boarded up. The street is quieter, more than it should be for late afternoon.  

Wanted posters for the Death Eaters still at large are tacked up everywhere. It feels as if just yesterday it had been Harry’s face all over Diagon Alley, Undesirable #1, but now it’s Walden Macnair, Antonin Dolohov, Augustus Rookwood. Macnair in particular looks feral, spittle foaming from his screaming mouth, insanity raging in his dark eyes.     

He tries not to look into that face, and tries not to feel guilty that he’s not the one hunting them down. He fails in both respects.    

Harry had never shopped at Twilfitt and Tattings before, a bit too highbrow-pureblood for the likes of him. Everything is very hushed when they enter, a soft tinkling classical music playing from somewhere, with lush, if careworn, green carpet underfoot. Shelves of bolted fabrics and trimmings line every wall, and a raised dais stands before a three-way mirror.     

“Professor Snape, Tyro Potter. Welcome.”     

Harry’s never quite understood why women were sometimes described as handsome, but there really isn't another word for the witch who emerges from the back and lets Snape take her hand and kiss the back of it. She’s elderly, with dark gray hair around a lined and wrinkled face, but she’s impeccably dressed, pearls in her ears and around her neck. Her face is a little too severe for grandmotherly affection, but she’s pleasant in a way that sets Harry at ease.     

She waves her wand and the shutters on the windows fall, the little ‘Open’ sign flipping to ‘Closed’, and Harry realizes that she’s shut down her shop for him. To help him with –     

His ears and neck burn hot.    

“Thank you for your discretion in the matter, Madame Twilfitt,” Snape says in his very best Impress the Purebloods voice, which isn’t half-bad actually. “Mr. Potter, I have other tasks to attend to in the Alley. You will meet me at Corkitt Market Square once done here. Let us say, in forty-five minutes?”    

He asks this, not of Harry, but of Madame Twilfitt. It’s very embarrassing and makes Harry feel like the child he isn’t and has never really been.    

“That is plenty of time, Professor Snape,” she demurs, and Snape nods to her, gives him a glare that seems to say behave yourself if you’re even capable of it at this point (it’s all about the eyebrows), and then whirls out the door.    

He’s like a hurricane, old Snape is. Madame Twilfitt, at least, doesn’t look put-out. “Mr. Potter, going by your current smart dress I assume you’ve had some assistance in this matter? I recognize Madame Malkin’s expert eye in the cut of your robe.”    

“Yes, madame. My friend Hermione helped me get ready to come back to Hogwarts.” He’s so embarrassed he feels like he’s going to implode. “I appreciate your assistance, but this – it isn’t necessary. Professor Snape is just being traditionalist about this, but I’m not exactly traditional. I’m fine with what I have.”    

Madame Twilfitt studies him with shrewd, dark gray eyes for long moments, before seemingly coming to a decision. “Tea?”    

“Uh, sure,” he says, and she leads him not to the center of her shop, but to her back space. Where the front of the shop is expensive elegance, the back of her shop looks like a hurricane went through it. There are two dozen projects being worked on at the same time, bolts of blue and gray fabric rolling and unrolling in the air, needles flying through lace and scissors swishing through silk. A man’s formal robe set in eye watering pastel green is currently assembling itself around a mannequin. A wedding gown’s bust is being sewn, shimmering pearls lining the long train.  “Wow,” he breathes.    

Madame Twilfitt smiles and beckons him to her fireplace, where a tea set is already waiting. There are loose threads all over the armchairs, and the air smells like linen and fabric. For all of the spellwork currently happening all around them, it’s nearly silent, except for the snip of scissors through fabric, the rustle of wool on wool. “You’re surprised.”    

“Madame Malkin has assistants. Do you do all of this by yourself?”    

“Eleanor’s specialty is in school robes for students and professors. I can’t imagine she’d be able to take on that amount of work without assistance. While that was once my clientele, I transitioned into more specialized clothing some years ago. High society, Mr. Potter,” she adds, when he stares at her uncomprehendingly. “The society season requires gowns, robes, waistcoats, slippers. It wouldn’t do to be seen at a ball in anything but the highest fashion, or to be seen in the same dress twice. Do you see?”    

He doesn’t. Madame Twilfitt smiles.     

“Society season is the marriage season for eligible wixen. Debut balls, courting balls, summer balls, dinner parties and garden parties and of course the Dragon Call. And so, I have made my little niche providing the highest fashion for these events. That means I am very, very busy from October through February in preparation for the Spring Season, a spot of bother in August when most wixen marry, and delightfully idle the rest of the year.”     

It’s like another shaft of light on his understanding of the wizarding world. Mum got so angry because Charlie didn’t want to come out into society, Ron had once told him between shovels of kidney pie in the Great Hall. They couldn’t have been more than thirteen or so. She ended up dragging him to a debut and he pitched a screaming tantrum right there by the punch.    

“High society or not, every wizard needs proper kit,” she says, kindly. “When he wrote requesting my services, Professor Snape mentioned you were raised by Muggles.”    

‘Raised’ was stretching it. “I lived with my aunt and uncle, yes.”    

“One thing you must remember about wizards, Mr. Potter, is that they are traditionalist in every sense of the word. What would be acceptable, and expected, of a contemporary young man’s attire in the Muggle world is sacrilege in the Wizarding one. Most young men of my acquaintance wouldn’t mind being seen in Muggle style, but they are not twice-Lords of Ancient Houses as you are. And sometimes, to play the long game, you must give ground in the short one.”    

“You’re talking about power.”    

“Aren’t we always? That’s what clothing embodies in our world – prestige, honor, respect, and yes, power. How we dress and carry ourselves is our calling card to the rest of wixen-kind. To be seen in anything less than wizard ideal calls into question your ability to run your Houses, to manage your staff and funds, or to sit your Wizengamot seats. Some understanding would be had for your upbringing, but the longer you are in the Wizarding World, and the longer you do not conform in this regard, the more difficult it will be for you.”    

He feels a painful surge in his gut at the blatant unfairness of the statement. How could Muggleborns, or in Harry’s case, muggle-raised, ever catch up? None of this was taught at Hogwarts, and he’s suddenly furious at Dumbledore. While he agreed that all the pureblood rhetoric was just a sanctioned way of practicing prejudiced bigotry, in this one, small regard, Harry had to admit he could understand their point of view. Muggleborns came into the Wizarding World ignorant of their birthright, and nothing was ever done to teach them about the society of their world. So much of Harry’s childhood would have made more sense if he’d just known.   

Madame Twilfitt touches his wrist, gently. “With you at the helm now – with you, as one of the most powerful and wealthy men in our world – maybe you can change it one day. For now, to move in the circles you must move in, you must look and dress the part. Your Ms. Hermione has done an excellent job in helping you assume the role of a proper student, and I can help refine the rough edges you still have. But with time, once your tyroship is over, you must consider further refinement. Not necessarily with me, Mr. Potter. Any clothier on this street would be pleased and honored to assist you.”  

“It’s unfair. This. That anyone who isn’t a pureblood – that we’re not told.”

She squeezes his wrist. “Yes, it is. So, let me guide you now. Let me show you, Mr. Potter, that which you should have always known, so you may one day do the same for others.”

Forty-five mortifying minutes later, Harry is the owner of: three white linen nightshirts, one banyan in green silk brocade, one pair of dark gray wool chausses, two pairs of white silk stockings and six pairs white linen; ten chemises; and ten pairs of braies. Madame Twilfitt had shown him how to put the braies on, how to cinch them so they wouldn’t come loose, while still being comfortable to sit. She hadn’t laughed at his y-fronts or his droopy, rolling-down old socks, though Harry had finally understood why Snape had been so horrified.     

Once he has the kit on under his robes, he realizes – as he had done when Snape had shown him the olfacies nova siccis charm – how such a small thing could better his life in such a significant way. He’d been worried everything would feel a bit free down below, but the braies are comfortable, fitting his waist well, and the silk made everything feel cool and soft.     

“Dumbledore could be a real twat sometimes,” he tells Snape once he’s found the bastard on Corkitt Market Square, interrupting his hissed conversation with a witch selling ostrich eggs which are probably not ostrich eggs. The tiny witch squeaks when she sees him and falls backwards off her stool and out of sight.     

“And water is wet, this is not news,” Snape says, and points at the witch as she climbs back onto her stool, her enormous eyes magnified behind her spectacles. “Twelve knuts and not a single more, you harridan.”    

“Th-thirteen, you pompous bore!” she squeaks, eyes darting to Harry.     

“Twelve, woman!”    

“Thirteen!” she shrieks, and Snape growls and digs his hand into an inside pocket of his robe, slamming thirteen knuts onto the countertop. “Absolute grave-digging robbery. Same day next week?”    

“I’m off on Thursday, grandson’s birthday, I’ll be back Friday,” the tiny witch replies, as if they’re fast friends and hadn’t been a step below murder not a second before.     

“Mmm, children,” Snape replies, and takes the egg handed to him, slipping it into his pocket. “Good day, Madame Agre.”    

“What was that,” Harry asks, as he follows Snape’s long strides off to a side-street he’s never been down before. They pass a jellied eel shop, which – what kind of market was there for the stuff if there was an entire shop? – the Globus Mundi Travel Agency, and a muggle curio shop with what looked like deflated footballs and rusted strips of copper wiring in the window.     

“Madame Agre sells the best hippogriff products in the region. The amniotic fluid in non-viable eggs is useful in regenerative potions,” Snape says, not answering the question as they cross the street to Lizen Deeg’s Glass Imperium, a small shop with a colorful, oversized lunascope rotating in the window. “When was the last time you got new glasses? Stop – don’t answer that, I’ll just want to throttle Tuney until her pearls pop off. Let’s go.”    

“Glasses?” Harry says faintly, but follows Snape in.     

The place is quiet and empty, though Harry attributes that more to the time of day and the day of the week, rather than the quality of the shop. Cheery, with beams of sunlight falling over the lovingly polished wood of the countertop, the wares the shop offers rotate silently on large metal stands. Telescopes, omnioculars in every shape and size, lunascopes, and a fine selection of wizarding glasses were among the wares.    

There’s a funny tightness in his throat. When Snape leads him to the glasses, he has to swallow against it.   

“Professor Snape, my goodness. I almost didn’t recognize you,” says a voice behind them. It’s a witch, and a pretty one, with dark ringlets of auburn hair and blue eyes. There’s warmth in her face when she offers Snape her hand. "What a pleasure to see you in such good health, sir.”    

Twin spots of color pop up on Snape’s pale cheeks, and Harry stares at him. “Hardly ‘sir’ any longer, Madame Deeg, though I thank you. May I introduce my tyro, Harry Potter. Potter, Madame Deeg is a former Head Girl at Hogwarts and the last Slytherin who held the post, though her accomplishments at Hogwarts pale to her advancements in lens and glass crafting. Her work on the Oxford Lunascope revolutionized phasiological equations in planetary drift.”    

“Professor Snape is far too kind. I made a cool moonscope,” she says, winking at Harry. “I am glad to see you in my shop, though I doubted I ever would. Those are the most famous spectacles in Wizarding Britain.”    

Harry touches the edges of his glasses. They were the only kind that could be gotten for free through the NHS, and Harry remembers, vividly, the first time he’d put them on. He could see, blessedly, for the first time in his life, but they would fall apart if he wasn’t careful with them. The tiny screws got lost and the lenses popped out; the bridge broke more than once during Harry Hunting. The nose pieces were made of cheap plastic and cracked. He’d had a little sore on the bridge of his nose for over a year, before Mrs. Figg had taken pity on him and replaced the broken nose piece with one of her own. The little spot on his nose had scarred.    

They were awful, cheaply made, and Aunt Petunia hadn’t cared.     

Free NHS glasses, the most famous in all of Wizarding Britain.    

“Wizard spectacles are quite different from the Muggle sort,” Madame Deegs tells him. “One well-made pair should last you for most of your life. Once we have a good prescription, the lenses will automatically change as your vision changes. It is unlikely you’ll ever need another pair, unless these are damaged, but each pair has anti-break, anti-shatter charms placed on them. You would need to get hit in the face by a dragon for these to break, and at that point you’d have other more pressing concerns.”    

Madame Deegs takes him into the back for the exam. It’s fairly quick and entirely painless, just a series of spells Madame Deegs casts on him, everything from pupil measurement to the amount of magic his eyes need to maintain his vision. She asks for his old glasses so she can run diagnostics on them, and whatever they tell her isn’t good, Harry knows, just going by her expression. “They’re not great,” he says quickly.    

“Mr. Potter, there is ‘not great’ and then there is this. Your eyes are badly strained, but once the new glasses are done you’ll feel a world of difference,” Madame Deeg says quietly, and Harry feels something sharp in his chest. She offers Harry a small smile and leads him back out to the floor, where Snape is looking at student telescopes, and leads him to the display of glasses in all shapes, sizes and colors. She looks through them for a moment, studying them and him, before she lifts a pair of light, gold-rimmed glasses from the display, square-shaped and sturdy looking. “I think it may be time to let the old style go, don’t you think?”    

“Yes,” he says, and takes off his own glasses, hooking them into the neck of his robes to try on the new pair. It’s just as she said – they’re blurry, but just clear enough that he can see how they transform his face, when he looks into the mirror behind her.     

It’s almost as if he isn’t wearing glasses at all. They seem to fade into his face, catching the light just so, but it’s just his messy fringe and the color of his eyes. They’re his eyes, he knows they can be startling, and more so now since he – since Voldemort. But still, he isn’t quite expecting just how startling they are without the barrier of the black frames in the way.     

He turns to look at the fuzzy shape of Snape, where he’s wandered over to look at the magnifying glasses. “Sir? What do you think?”    

Snape is too far away for Harry to see clearly, and the man doesn’t reply. The dark blob of him has gone still, though. "Professor? Sorry, I can’t see you if you’re nodding. What do you think?”    

“Yes,” Snape replies. Stops, and clears his throat. “They’re quite adequate and fit you fine.”    

“They’re unbreakable, as I said,” Madame Deeg says, smiling. “Even if you sit on them, get blasted in the face, tumble from a broomstick.”    

“Frankly wise when it comes to you, Potter,” Snape says. He sounds weird, but when Harry takes the new glasses off and puts the old ones back on, he’s scowling, so that’s alright then. “You do get hit in the face much more often than is judicious.”    

“Thanks,” Harry says dryly. The glasses don’t resize themselves when he takes them off; obviously he’d already gotten attached. “I love them.”   

“Then it would be my pleasure to sell them to you,” Madame Deeg replies, and takes them from him with a little smile. “I’ll apply the spells and charms as quickly as possible. Expect them by owl tomorrow morning.”    

It’s a strange mood Harry finds himself in after the glasses shop. He’s angry – furious even – at the tiny and not so tiny injustices that have filled his life. The small kindnesses that have sustained him, and the ones he wishes that the people who’d loved him could have shared with him.     

Snape, at least, seems to have picked up on it. They reach the apparition point and he stops them, giving Harry that thousand-mile stare of his that makes Harry feel terribly exposed. Granted, he’s never been very good at hiding his thoughts and feelings, but still. “You have a considerable amount of homework.”    

“Yes.”    

“I have papers to grade, and potions for the Infirmary to finish, and detention to oversee.”    

“Don’t be too hard on the kids.”    

Snape sneers, and yeah, that had been a waste of breath, but still. “Are you hungry.”    

“What?”    

“Food, Potter.”    

Harry’s body had long stopped giving him the cue for hunger. It’d gotten better since he’d been back at Hogwarts, but he only ever really ate when it was expected of him, or when he got dizzy. Some days, it was just biscuits. Some days, it was nothing, without him even noticing it. It isn’t for Snape to know, though, so he just shrugs. “I could eat.”    

Snape stretches out an arm again and Harry, mortified, takes his wrist.     

When he opens his eyes, they’re in a storage room filled with crates and jugs, and there’s music and the dull roar of a lot of voices somewhere from the staircase leading down.    

“Where are we?”    

“Kent,” Snape says, like the helpful bastard he is. “Come.”    

Where they are, it turns out, is a Quidditch sports bar. It’s a thing Harry didn’t think even existed in this world, but when they come down through the doorway from the stairs, it’s like he’s stepped into a Quidditch museum. There are pennants and memorabilia all over the walls, and an old-style broom from the thirties sits in a place of honor above the bar. Two massive, glowing silver orbs in each corner of the room are showing the highlights from last week’s match between the Holyhead Harpies and the Tutshill Tornados. A regulation-sized goal hoop is mounted to the wall on the far side of the room, and posters of teams through the ages pose with their brooms. The crowd is heavier than Harry expects for a weekday. There’s a family with two small children in miniature Puddlemore United jumpers, a group of grans shouting at one of the orbs and each other, and four men a bit older than Harry at one of the booths, playing Fantasy Quidditch complete with miniature flying players zooming about the table.     

A wizard with curly ash-blond hair, a bright yellow Wimbourne Wasps jumper, and a shit-eating grin shouts, “Sev, mate! So sorry about last week, you must be devastated,” and Harry’s entire world takes a violent step to the left.    

Harry realizes that this man is Snape’s friend, that Snape has friends outside of Hogwarts, that he had a – a life, somehow, away from the school. That he’s bringing Harry into it, letting Harry take his arm and literally walk them over the line between whatever they are – tyro and tyromaster – to something else.     

It sets something to aching in Harry’s belly, something he’s never really quite understood or felt before, but he feels it as it bubbles up under his heart, then higher still to his throat, which burns suddenly.     

“Casimir,” Snape intones with his usual gravitas, which is hurt by the ungodly snort from one of the men sitting at the bar. He’s an elderly man with a short gray beard, wearing the type of fluorescent blue robes men of Dumbledore’s generation favored.     

“Oi, he’s brought the Boy Who Lived, don’t tease him about Puddlemore,” the elderly man says, and winks at Harry. “Well met, Potter. We’d wondered if Sev would bring you ‘round once you got settled a bit at Hogwarts. You’re a skinny thing, aren’t you? He’s a skinny one, Cas.”    

“Stop embarrassing him you old todger, he’s gorgeous,” Casimir says with a salacious wink. “You’ll want a table then, Sev? We’ve got stew tonight, fair hardy. It’ll help the sting of defeat go down a bit easier, anyhow.”    

Snape scowls. “Craich should have been fouled.”    

“Craich should have been, but he wasn’t – and even if he had, we still caught the Snitch eighty points up. It wouldn’t have mattered a whit, not with Shafiq.”    

“Oi!” the older man says. “I’ve seen what happens when you devolve into this argument, and I won’t have you comparing the bloody carnage of last week’s game with the 1969 match again, not where my bleeding ears have to hear it. Merlin’s saggy balls, Cas, have pity and feed the boys, why don’t you.”    

Casimir points two fingers at his eyes, then jerks them at Snape. “We aren’t done.”    

“Hardly, as I am right and you are wrong,” Snape says, smirking. “Is the stew Esmie’s or Annalise’s?”    

“You hear Annalise talking like that and she’s liable to skin you,” Casimir tells him, and grins. “Granted, she’d only get the chance because we’d all be at St. Mungo’s with the trots if we ate her cooking. It’s Esmie’s stew tonight.”    

“That would be fine, then,” Snape says, nods at the older man (who grins like a shark), and takes Harry over to a booth near the back. No one’s paying them much attention, but Harry’s old hat at this by now, and he can tell that everyone is paying attention and trying not to let on. He hears a little girl, who can’t be more than six, gasp that’s Harry Potter mama!     

Snape studies him, and then rolls his eyes. “Ask, then.”    

“This is a Quidditch sports bar.”    

“That isn’t a question.”    

“You. You. Are a regular. At a Quidditch sports bar.”    

Snape studies his nails. “Minerva began bringing me some years ago. It became routine, more than anything.”    

There’s a lot to unpack there, number one being that the Headmistress of Hogwarts also frequents a Quidditch sports bar, but Harry is too deep now because Snape is a lying liar who lies. “These are your people.”    

“I hardly think so,” Snape says airily, but he’s enjoying this, Harry can tell. He always was one for knocking people off-center, but scrape the years of pain off of him and Harry realizes Snape likes being mysterious. He likes throwing people off their game, and what better audience than Harry?     

It’s bloody charming is what it is, a concept Harry never thought to equate with Professor Snape, but there he is sat across from Harry, smirking with glee, and yeah, charming is right. Downright endearing, if he’s being honest. Even edging into adorable, a word that does not suit but what else is there, but to call it for what it is?     

“So, it was a Puddlemore sweatshirt, then.”    

“Of course,” Snape says, as if this is a bygone conclusion and only the thickest of people wouldn’t realize it. “They’ve been top of the league for seventeen years. They put in the practice time in a way no other team in the league does. Twelve of their players have gone on to play the International League.”    

“Oliver Wood is on the reserve team, you know.”    

“Gifted Keeper, but needs to work on his peripheral vision,” Snape says at once, ignoring Harry’s grin. “He’ll likely play this year. Fischer won’t be able to put off the shoulder procedure much longer, and if they can rally and beat the Appleby Arrows next month, there’s a solid chance that they’d be able to progress to the European Semifinals.”    

“Not likely to happen, but keep dreaming Sev,” says Casimir from behind them. He’s brought them mugs of foaming ale. “The Pride of Portree got pushed out by the Arrows two months ago – not exactly surprising, with that blood feud they’ve got going.” He adds for Harry, “The Portree Seeker used an illegal jinx on the Arrows’ Seeker after they hit mid-air.”    

“McBride turned Cotton’s head into a cabbage. That’s a bit beyond illegal.”    

“He didn’t suffocate and they got it set to rights, so no harm done. So then after Portree, the Arrows took out the Cannon’s, it was mercifully quick – ninety second match. Pathetic. Gudgeon was the best they could find in all of England to play on that crap team and he’s basically part salamander. Literally, I think, there’s been talk.”    

“That’s an insult to salamanders,” says a witch carrying two big bowls. She’s breathtakingly beautiful, and so pregnant she’s using her belly to carry spare napkins. Casimir takes the bowls from her and she smiles at him, then beams at Snape. “And when love speaks, the voice of all the gods make heaven drowsy with the harmony.”    

Snape snorts at her. “What is love? ‘Tis not hereafter: Present mirth hath present laughter.”    

She snorts right back. “Thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings, that then I scorn to change my state with kings.”    

“Why, some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrown upon them.”    

“What is happening,” Harry whispers.     

“They only speak to each other in Shakespearean couplets, it’s their thing, I long ago stopped asking,” Casimir says, rolling his eyes. “Alright Othelo, stop flirting with my wife. Eat up, so Esmie can tell you how very wrong you are about Puddlemore once you’ve got enough fuel in that big brain of yours to argue.”    

Esmie winks at Harry, and Casimir guides her off back to the bar where a group of witches just a bit older than Harry and Snape are arguing at the top of their lungs about the Broadmoor brothers’ move to the Falmouth Falcons, and what that was going to mean with their father’s violent legacy on the team.    

The enormous bowls are filled with chunks of potatoes and carrots and beef in a simmering brown stew. It smells delicious, and Harry forgets that his body has forgotten how to be hungry. They tuck in at once. Casimir had also brought them a huge loaf of crusty bread, which Snape tears in half and hands over, and Harry is reminded, painfully, of how he and Ron are together – silent communication in the face of this much good food in front of them.   

They eat their fill, and then a bit more, before Snape asks, “I trust that you received the appropriate assistance with Madame Twilfitt?”    

“Nope. You were just throwing Shakespeare around like that’s a normal thing you do. Explain.”    

Snape sops up some of the gravy with his bread. He likes doing that, Harry’s noticed. “I understand you didn’t take Magical Literature as an elective while at school.”    

“Shakespeare was a wizard?”    

Snape gives him a look. “Magic in his time was very different than today. There wasn’t a Statute of Secrecy – Wizards and Muggles lived quite happily together. Magic plays a heavy role in nearly all of his works, from the Three Witches in Macbeth, to Prospero in The Tempest.”  

“And you’ve studied them.”    

“I enjoy his works,” Snape replies, a touch defensively.     

He considers the wisdom of what he’s about to say, and then says it anyway. “Aunt Petunia liked to say she read Shakespeare, until a new family moved into Privet Drive. The mum, Alice, was an English professor at Surrey Community College, and I think she just wanted to make a new friend. Aunt Petunia is good at pretending she’s a decent sort.”    

“I can’t imagine that ended well.”    

“They moved away when I was nine. Her husband had gotten a professorship at the University of Surrey, but I don’t think they moved because of that.”    

“Petunia always did know how to make someone’s life a living hell. I always thought she would have made a decent Slytherin.”    

Harry barks out a laugh. “Aunt Petunia wouldn’t have been a Slytherin. She always had something to prove but nothing to back it up. No brains for underhanded politics or schemes. No, she would have been a Gryffindor, and the worst sort. I think so, anyway, but it's hard to tell. What Voldemort did to me – what he made me. I think it affected them.”    

“How so?”    

He pushes the last bit of potato around his bowl. “Professor McGonagall told you about the --?” He taps his scar.  

Snape jerks his head in the negative. “Dumbledore left me a letter explaining all that he knew and what you and he had uncovered from Slughorn. It allowed me to provide aid once I understood why you’d left Hogwarts and what you were searching for.”    

Harry can’t even imagine the kind of letter that must have been. “Wow.”    

“That was not the word I used when I read it.”    

It’s such a non sequitur that Harry can’t help but smile . He turns his mug of ale in a circle, the glass slipping in the condensation gathered on the table. “Ron, Hermione and I found the Locket of Slytherin first, but we had no way to destroy it. We realized right away that we had to trade it back and forth. It was awful, when we wore it. We’d have these terrible, dark thoughts, our tempers would fray, we’d get so angry. They were our real emotions, but it was as if the Locket brought them closer to the surface and made them worse.” He thinks about how to say this next bit, then decides it doesn’t matter. None of it matters. “I wonder, sometimes, if that’s how it was for the Dursleys. They hated me for as long as I can remember, but maybe it wasn’t me they hated. Maybe it was the piece of him that made them act the way they did.”    

The thousand-yard stare Snape is giving him makes him feel about an inch tall, such is the man’s ability to fill his gaze with you are an idiot, Potter. “You don’t truly believe that.”    

“I do, actually.”    

Snape leans back in the booth, studying him from across the table. “You are trying to find forgiveness where none can or should exist. Petunia Evans was a nasty, spiteful little girl who grew up to be a nasty, spiteful woman. She took you in because Albus threatened her, but that he had to at all speaks to her wretched countenance, not to you. That the – that what was in your scar further damaged her is possible, I won’t insult you by saying otherwise, but don’t believe for a moment that it caused her to be the way she is. She was a shrew long before you graced this earth.”     

It makes Harry laugh, as he thinks Snape intended, if the smirk is anything to go by. “That’s rude.”    

“That’s fact.” He gives Harry one of those long looks. “We will have a discussion about that year. Soon.”   

He nods. “Yes.”    

“You will be truthful with me.”    

“Yes.”    

“But not yet.”    

He smiles a little. “No. Not yet.”    

Snape taps a finger on the table, but he isn’t angry. Merely thoughtful, Harry thinks. “You don’t trust me.”    

“I trust you more than most,” he says quietly. “That has to be enough, for now.”    

“I will do what I can to earn that trust. It is the least of what you deserve, and more than you have been given.” Snape taps his finger on the table again, studying him. “Did Madame Twilfitt assist you appropriately?”    

“She was kind,” Harry says, because she was, at that. “I just wish you hadn't needed to tell me. I feel foolish, you know? I’m nearly twenty years old and only now learning how to clean myself and put on the proper clothes, and it’s a lot.”     

“My mother was a witch, who forswore magic when she married her muggle husband – a folly of infinite proportions. Like you, I did not know how to properly care for myself when I came to Hogwarts. It took me some time to understand what to do and how to do it, what to wear and how to wear it, even long after I left school. You’re hardly unique in this, and blaming yourself for that which you don’t know is the height of foolishness.”    

It's far more than Harry could have ever expected Snape to tell him about his life. Harry had known, from their failed Occlumency lessons, about his father and mother, but to hear him say it just like this makes him feel – not so alone.  He remembers, too, what Snape told him, about how it was rude to ask a witch or wizard about their family line, their history. How these things needed to be freely shared. He swallows, until he can speak around the knot in his throat. “Thank you. For telling me about—for telling me.”    

“Well, a degree of familiarity wouldn’t be remiss. After all, I have seen your y-fronts, and you have seen my throat ripped out. This has opened a new avenue of understanding between us that neither of us wanted, and yet, here we are.”    

Despite himself, Harry bursts out laughing. It’s so sudden, so loud, that there’s a pause in the argument happening at the bar, before the witches laugh too. Casimir gapes at him from the back of the bar, pretending to swoon, and it just makes Harry laugh even harder. “You’re such a bastard.”    

“Mm. Yes. So, in the spirit of,” his lip curls, “familiarity, I’ll ask that you call me by my wixen name.”    

“Your wixen name?”    

“Yes, Harrison.”    

Something heavy and deep and warm fills him, rushes into those cold spaces around his heart. “Okay, Severus.”    

“Oh, that’s going to take some getting used to,” Snape mutters.  

Chapter Text

soufrise

n. the maddening thrill of an ambiguous flirtation, which quivers in tension halfway between platonic and romantic—maybe, but no, but maybe—leaving you guessing what’s going on inside their chest, forced to assume that at any given moment their attraction is both alive and dead at the same time.

Ron, in a show of utter brilliance (a shock to everyone but Hermione and Harry, really), makes his first major Charms breakthrough the second week of October, proving to anyone who might have doubted him why he was an international tyro to the largest wizarding congress in the world.    

Ron came by his tinkering bone honestly, what with Mr. Weasley’s fascination with all things that moved, magical or otherwise. Unbeknownst to everyone, Ron had spent the last year studying the Deluminator that Dumbledore had gifted him. The Deluminator was a fascinating little gadget, capable of taking and giving light, tracking people who used the owner’s name, and slipping in and out of a mirror dimension, which made Harry’s head hurt when Ron tried to explain the spellwork behind it.    

So, Ron had tinkered. And after his tinkering was through, he’d added an ability to the Deluminator that shouldn’t have been possible by all the laws of magic.    

“I don’t understand what the uproar is!” he’d yelled at Hermione, whose hair had surpassed its standard topiary look and gone full Fanged Geranium from the way she kept yanking on it. Ron had also been full-on sobbing, tears streaming down his face because apparently he’d stumbled into a new branch of magic and such was the mortification of being known.     

“The uproar is that you’re performing wandless magic over distances impossible and unheard of!” Hermione had shrieked. “You’re breaking the Third Fundamental Law of Magic, which states that a wixen’s magic cannot pass through three consecutive elemental standards. What you’re doing shouldn’t be possible.”    

But it was. Ron had, in his words, thought it’d be cool to use the Deluminator to pull light in over a vast distance (say, all of the light around the perimeter of Hogwarts), infuse the light with the Protego charm, and send it back out on its merry way, creating a shield across a distance of 30 acres. Then, because he couldn’t have stopped there, he created an infusion charm to allow the caster to grow and shrink the Protego along that light stream, depending on what one was trying to protect.     

Not only had the experiment not killed him, as it should have done, but it hadn’t pulled from his magical core at all. When asked how he’d done it and where the magic had come from, he’d yelled, “It’s created a feedback loop because light travels by time, doesn’t it? I just told it where to travel!”     

Harry had pretended very, very hard not to notice the love bites on Ron’s neck the next morning, but it was rough going, especially when Ron limped over to him, said, “Not one word, mate,” and sank, groaning, into his seat.    

Likewise, Hermione was off being beautiful and brilliant with her tiny Japanese tyromaster, was single handedly reuniting the British Wizarding World and the Japanese Wizarding World in harmony and teamwork, and had graduated from protégé to red lotus protégé. This was apparently the highest honor a student witch could receive in Japan, which tracked. She had ideas about Arithmancy that Harry couldn’t understand but pretended to for her sake, when she started talking about numbers and jumping up and down.     

Harry loves them both so much. And it’s because of that love that he knows he can’t tell them what had been happening to him since they’d returned to Hogwarts. 

That he could see the eddies of magic that existed just under the castle, and they became clearer each day.

That he had gotten blackout drunk when the temptation had finally been too great and he’d sipped at the magic gathered nearest the moving staircase leading to the Gryffindor Common Room, the sparkling champagne bubbles tickling his throat.

That if he let himself drift away, lose focus and daydream, he could see echoes of the last days and weeks and months, the ghostly shadows of goblins repairing Hogwarts, McGonagall walking the empty halls with tears in her eyes.

There are limits to friendship, and to what he could ask of them. Ron and Hermione had already given him so much. They had followed him on a path that had nearly ended in their deaths, and had given up their families, their education, their ties to home, and even themselves. They’d been brave and true, Gryffindors until the very end. But now, Voldemort was gone, and they’d won, and they needed time to thrive outside of Harry’s shadow. They needed to build lives for themselves, to be the wixen they were always meant to be; not because of Harry, but in spite of him.     

It doesn’t make it easier to know that, the first time he goes to the Owlery and one of the school owls calls to him, “I’ll take that for you, mage-child. To Mrs. Tonks again, shall I? Would you prefer I wait for a response, or return forthwith?” and Harry has to sit down right there in the middle of the Owlery and put his head between his knees.    

.    

Snape – Severus, God that really is going to take some getting used to – had decided, in what Harry thinks is absolutely piss-poor judgment, to leave Harry brewing in the lab while he went to go teach Fourth Years.     

Granted, Professor Snape was present in the lab’s portrait and the talking ban had been lifted (and had been nearly reinstated, after Professor Snape blistered their ears on his feelings about being muted in his own lab), and Ron – who should have been studying – was sitting across the way from him eating his way through a box of Honeydukes Finest Chocolates for elevenses. Not that Ron was much help, of course, but he could run and get help if Harry accidentally blew himself up. Which was a distinct possibility.     

Over the past five weeks, Harry had set himself on fire once, been burned by Third Year potion slop, had melted two cauldrons, and had perhaps developed a new life form (it had kept moving even after Snape – dammit, Severus – had Petrificus Totalus-ed it, which had freaked him out so much he’d sent a Bombarda at it and they’d called it a day).     

“What was he thinking,” Harry says, staring at the recipe for the Draught of Peace that Severus had left for him on the board. His new glasses were superb and he could see with a crystal clarity he couldn’t before, which made the recipe that much more daunting. At least before, with his old set, everything had a softened blurry glow about it.     

Because he was a right arsehole, Severus had thrown in the caveat that this potion couldn’t contain the syrup of hellebore due to a patient allergy, and a substitution needed to be found and experimented with before the final brewing stage could begin. Harry isn’t blind to the fact that it was the syrup of hellebore he’d forgotten to add the last time he brewed this potion in Fifth Year, and received no marks for that day’s work. Severus is, after all, first and foremost a vindictive shit.    

“He’s thinking that any tyro worth their keep can and should be able to find a substitution that won’t kill someone,” Professor Snape says from his portrait. He’s fully in a dander, Professor Snape is, pacing back and forth in front of the bubbling cauldron in the foreground of the portrait. He stalks towards them, getting so close that all Harry can see is his chest and the million buttons of his robes, before he kneels down and wow, that’s a very big Professor Snape face in a very big portrait, glaring at them.     

“Bloody hell,” Ron yelps, and nearly falls back out of his stool. Harry hooks his foot in the rungs before it can topple and gets him back to rights.     

“Well?” Professor Snape barks.    

“Well what?” Harry asks.    

“Let us forego the argument about your disrespectful address, you ill-mannered creature. What is hellebore and how is it used?”    

“Linfred talks about it in his diary. He grew it on his property, but in the back, where the kids couldn’t get to it. It’s toxic in flowering plant form, but dried or ground it can be used for a lot of different potions. He used it for people who’d had a stroke to help with their paralysis, but he also used it for gout, so who knows.”    

Professor Snape gives them Full Eyebrow and Ron gulps. “Bloody hell Harry, how’s he that scary as a painting?”    

“Because I commissioned this portrait at the height of the war, when detailed, meticulous plans for assassination were all that sustained me,” Professor Snape says, ice-cold. Ron goes white as a sheet. “How would we circumvent the patient’s allergy for ingested hellebore while still producing a viable potion?”    

One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi comes sailing across the room to him, opening to the page he needs with a little shiver of its spine. He didn’t actually ask it to, and makes sure to set his wand on the counter to make it seem like he did because the last thing he needs is Professor Snape’s giant face catching wind of what’s just happened. “We look for something in the same genus that has similar effects but doesn’t irritate the patient’s allergy. But we won’t know what won’t irritate the patient without their blood.”    

“For our purposes, consider it is a stomach issue that we are circumventing.”    

He isn’t a specialist in plants by any means, but he considers the aspects of hellebore plant, the roots and leaves, the inflorescence. “It has to be another plant in the Melanthiaceae family, something similar. The closest thing that causes similar effects without being so poisonous is black false hellebore. But if we use it, we’ll have to add another element to mitigate the cyclopamine and tie it together with the doxie livers.” He thinks a moment. “Rowanwood shavings liquified in wormwood essence, and then put through fermentation, should neutralize the cyclopamine without dulling the effects.”    

“Bloody hell Harry, you sounded proper potion-y right then,” Ron says, staring at him with awe. “You actually understand all of this?”    

He shrugs a shoulder, embarrassment burning in his throat. “A bit, yeah. Snape’s had me reading. It’s just building on what we learned in Sixth Year.”    

“I didn’t learn a whit in Sixth Year,” Ron says, and Professor Snape’s look clearly says tell me something I don’t know. Harry smiles reflexively. “But it seems you understand it now.”    

“I don’t. Not really.” Most days, it was like smoke. If he breathed too hard on it or looked away it would disappear, and he’d lose it all. He looks down at the ingredients on the cutting board before him. “We never got to do this sort of thing in class, but I think it’s because Professor Snape didn’t want to teach us how to ferment plants.”    

The portrait sniffs. “You were idiotic enough without adding alcohol to the mix.”    

Ron snorts. “Hermione’ll be jealous she missed this,” he says, peering into the cauldron as Harry adds in the flowers, the oily surface of the water turning slightly pink. “Her timetable’s bloody mental mate, have you seen it?”    

Harry had. He’d think Hermione had a Time Turner again, except they’d accidentally destroyed them all in Fifth Year during the battle at the Ministry of Magic. “She’s loving it, you know.”    

“I know. No one can keep up with her.”    

No one else would have picked up on the note in Ron’s voice, but they’ve been friends for near on a decade and Harry understands him better than anyone else. So, he gives his friend a bit of side-eye, because taking the piss out of Ron Weasley is one of his favorite pastimes. “She was pretty excited about the Deluminator.”    

Just as Harry expected, Ron turns red, clashing terribly with his freckles and the hair falling into his eyes. “Well, I mean, I tried to tell her it was an accident, but she wasn’t hearing it.”    

Harry sets the block of rowanwood and the enchanted knife on his cutting board. “It wasn’t really an accident though, was it?”    

“Of course it was,” Ron says immediately, and then hesitates. “I mean, it was more like an experiment. And it kept working so I kept making it bigger and bigger, when instead I should have stopped and told somebody. Foolish, and Ducky told me so.”    

“It’s absurd he asks you to call him Ducky.”    

Ron’s tyromaster, Clarence Duckstein, was as American as they came – far more so than even Garrick, and that was saying something. He seemed to forget he was the ambassador of the Magical Congress of the United States of America and should carry himself with some level of gravitas. To date, he and Ron had gone sightseeing at the Grand Canyon, visited Yellowstone National Park, and played forty-nine games of chess.     

“He’s absurd full out, but I like him. Can’t really hate a bloke who quacks at you when you’ve said something he finds funny,” Ron says, grinning. “I was surprised that he had it in him to yell at me like that.”    

“You broke magical law, Ron. You could have drained your core, or opened a black hole or something.”    

“Yeah.” The tips of his ears burn.     

“Hermione’s influence, I expect. All that time with your, you know. Heads together.”    

“Mate.”    

Harry grins. It takes a lot to get Ron to squeak like that, and this one is a personal best. Optimal squeak. “What did Kingsley say?”    

Ron groans. “We’re going to Oxford University next week. I’ve got to present the experiment to the Council of Archimedes, and walk them through what I did and how I did it, and then recreate the experiment in a controlled environment, and then Kingsley is going to let me patent it right then and there.”    

Pride, warm and tender, aches in Harry’s heart. “Brilliant. Are they going to name the discovery after you?”    

Ron jerks a nod. “Think they might, yeah. Hey, fermentation, that’s a thing you’re doing.”    

He laughs, and takes the change of conversation for what it is. “Yeah, I am,” he says, and gets on with it.    

.    

This is what Harry discovers in his first six weeks living in the Teacher’s Tower: the staff is rife with interpersonal office intrigue, and the instigator is one Sybill P. Trelawney.    

He’d cottoned on to this state of affairs when Trelawney had announced, in her wispy, ridiculous voice, “The moons of Jupiter are in retrograde, which herald a great rifting of alliances, due to… dare I say, a peach pit, fourteen sparrows, and a lute?” and it had been like a bomb had gone off in the Teacher’s Common Room. Madame Pomfrey had started yelling and Sprout had shrieked something about a pie, McGonagall had shouted for order and by the end of it, fully half the staff had stalked out and Ralston Steward, who taught both Muggle Studies and Magical Music Theory, had launched his hurdy gurdy into the Imperial Theme from Star Wars.     

Severus, being a purveyor and connoisseur of all things schadenfreude, finds this all hilarious.     

“Septima and Aurora were fast friends until your Sixth Year, when Septima finally got published in Arithmancy Overhead Quarterly and neglected to credit Aurora for part of her research on the effect of Neptune’s orbit on equatorial solstice equations,” Severus tells him one morning in the Potion’s Lab, while they’re waiting for Harry’s Burn Salve to either eat through the cauldron or make it through the cessation process and Harry had finally shaken off the second-hand embarrassment enough to ask him what the hell. “Which was ill-done of her surely, but Aurora has not deigned to have her research put through peer review due to an ongoing problem with her equation for the vernal equinox, and so it’s hardly fair to argue the fact.”    

Likewise, everyone knew Hooch and Sprout were in love except for the two of them (“Minerva has been knocking their heads together for ten years, at this point it’s never going to happen, or it’s been happening all this time and they’ve kept up the fiction; if that’s the case, they’re far better liars than I thought and I owe them an apology,” Severus tells him). Babbling and Steward had gotten into the habit of speaking to one another in schoolyard taunts and refused to end a conversation until one or the other left in tears. This was where the pie had come in, apparently there had been some kind of competition and someone had added mince instead of cinnamon? Harry wasn’t too fine on the details, but after that, there’d been sketches of peaches left all over the Common Room and Babbling had snatched them all down, looking not only like she was capable of murder, but would embrace it.    

The teachers played a lot of games, card games mostly, with imaginary winnings, of which the score was kept on the wall behind the staff meeting table. Professor Flitwick was in the lead this year with six castles, a tropical island, a herd of unicorns, and a muggle sports convertible, though there was talk that he would trade his Lamborghini for House Golden Assam tea which was near impossible to source outside of India. A flurry of owls had left the following morning at breakfast after this announcement, with Vector smirking at Sinistra across the Staff Table.   

It was truly the most ridiculous thing Harry had ever seen. These grown adults smoked like chimneys, drank gallons of tea, and gossiped about one another like it was the national sport of England. They also, and this was painfully true, loved each other and their students more than anything else in the world.    

“It’s getting worse,” Sprout says from her place at McGonagall’s right. Harry had realized right away that there was a pecking order about the staff meeting table, with Professor McGonagall right in the center, Flitwick to her left, Sprout to her right, and Severus directly across from her. The required subjects flanked Severus, with Enid and Garrick bookending him to either side. Hooch – who now taught both Flying and History – sat next to Garrick and Sinistra sat next to Enid. After that, the professors who taught the electives filled in the remaining seats, with Hagrid taking up four spots by himself. Harry, Ron and Hermione were shuttled to the far end of the table, with Madame Pomfrey, Madame Pince, and Binns.     

“It isn’t outright bullying, though there has been some of that,” Flitwick says, his mustache quivering. “Especially for those children who are related to known Death Eaters. Astoria Greengrass broke down in tears on Wednesday while we were revising Sixth Year charms. The Reductor Curse,” he says, and some of the staff sigh and shake their heads.     

Madame Pomfrey, seeing their confusion, leans over and whispers, “Madame Greengrass was found in Bristol earlier this year. Someone turned her into a marble statue, and then took a hammer to her. She’s been at St. Mungo’s ever since, but there is little hope.”    

Hermione’s hands fly to her mouth. “Oh, that’s awful.”    

“Has the Ministry made any headway in their negotiations with America?” Enid is asking. “Surely the Congress would be willing to help, now that Mr. Weasley is their tyro.”    

“It has helped,” McGonagall says, giving Ron a nod down the table. “Mind Healers are in high demand right now, but any I’ve spoken to would be willing to make Hogwarts a home for a period of time. That is not the problem.”    

“The School Board won’t budge, will they,” Hooch says furiously. “I bloody well knew it.”    

“There are those on the Board who find Mind Healing to be, in their words, ‘useless and contrived’, and refuse to allow their children to be exposed to mind therapies or techniques. Each parent has the right to determine what they want for their child, but they have taken it upon themselves to make the decision for all of our families.”    

“Don’t make sense not to help them where we can, but that’ll be the Board for you, barely enough brains between the lot of them, and scared to boot,” Hagrid says, uncharacteristically angry. “It’s all the children who’ve suffered, in all the Houses. Crying in the bathrooms and when they think no one can see them. Like little ghosts.”    

“Night patrols have been difficult,” Severus says, and Harry stares at him. He was patrolling at night, then up at four in the morning to make potions with Harry? Did the man sleep? “I am used to night owls, or children whose nightmares have disturbed them from their beds, but I am encountering far more than normal. Mr. Whitlock is at present the worst of the problem.”    

“The boy can’t keep his eyes open,” Hooch says. “Falling asleep over his quill. Understandable when Binns taught it – no offense meant, Cuthbert – but I don’t teach it like that.”    

“The reenactment of the Battle of North Umbria has been a particular favorite of mine this year Rolanda,” Flitwick says, with a little smile. “The spelled swords were a nice touch.”    

“He certainly is like a little ghost,” Sprout says softly, and when McGonagall touches her shoulder she shakes her head with a self-deprecating laugh and wipes her eyes with her shawl. “Like he’ll vanish if we look at him too hard. I’d forgotten eleven year olds could be that small.”    

“He lost his entire family,” McGonagall says, quietly. “I don’t expect that it’ll get better for a long while. Has he said anything else, Severus?”    

He shakes his head. “My prefects are keeping an eye on him. He has yet to make any substantial headway into making friends, though I’ve seen him speaking with Josey Lockhart. Not the friend I would have selected for him, what with her uncle’s reputation, but she’s an extroverted girl and that makes up for what he’s missing right now. I expect with time that they’ll be fast friends, but it can be hard at that age when the person you’re speaking to won’t make eye contact.”    

“And Lienke and Kingren?”    

Fully half of the staff groan. Enid blows out a slow, careful breath. “Out of control, Headmistress. No amount of cajoling or punishments seem to work, and I’m concerned about the influence on the younger children if this goes on much longer.”    

“Mr. Lienke’s father refuses to see reason, and of this my tolerance is waning thin,” McGonagall says. “In his eyes, his son is doing no wrong. Richard has had fourteen detentions in the last month, and has been banned from Quidditch and Hogsmeade for the rest of the year.”    

Flitwick shakes his head. “He was such a good boy in his Fifth Year. Top of his class, kind, intelligent.”    

“Children react to pain in different ways. In this, however, he and Lawrence Whitlock are very much the same. Where Mr. Whitlock’s pain is focused inwards, Mr. Lienke’s pain is faced outward. I’ve tried to explain this simple fact to his father, but he insists that his son is doing just fine. I have, over the past year, come to understand Albus’s frustrations about the parents far better than I ever anticipated.”    

“Has he spoken at all, about what happened the night of the Battle?”    

McGonagall shakes her head, her lips pinching tight. “No, and that’s part of the problem. We have no idea where he and Mr. Kingren were during the battle. Only you saw them when they returned to the castle proper, Bathy.”    

Babbling, who had been quiet throughout the meeting, nods. Even from here, Harry can see her eyes are red with tears. “They were bloody, but we all were, by then. Kenneth was crying, but Richard was expressionless. Blank. I should have known then. He had always been a good boy, but… but…”    

Madame Pince puts an arm around her, and Babbling’s face breaks open, crumpling with grief. Her breath catches and she presses a handkerchief to her face.     

Harry had always known their professors cared about them, but he can see now that it’s beyond that. These people really did love the students in their care. He wonders, with a flash of guilt, how many conversations were had around this table about him.     

“I should have known, then,” Babbling says, after she’s calmed herself enough to speak. “There were so many students in need, everywhere I looked. But I should have known.”    

“We anticipated that some of the children would react like this, and we’ll do what we can,” McGonagall says softly. “Seventh Years lead from the front, but this year they’ll need us to lead with them. I ask for your patience as we find ways to help Kenneth and Richard, and the other children lashing out. And I ask, always, for you to continue to teach them kindness towards Slytherin House.”    

The conversation turns from the behavioral problems among the students to coursework. Harry had never really thought about all that the teachers did outside the classroom, so the amount of work that went into running a school comes as a surprise. Lesson plans and coordination for NEWT and OWL students were a given, but all the rest of it shocks Harry. The teachers had to coordinate and manage the yearly Apparition classes, Quidditch games and the Gobstones League, Choir and Music practices, the yearly Art Show in the spring, and the dozens of clubs, activities, and tutoring groups.    

“Which of course brings me to Hogsmeade,” McGonagall says, to a chorus of groans from the teachers. “While normally we all so enjoy those leisurely Hogsmeade Weekend trips making sure the children don’t fall into McCavern gorge, wander into the Hogshead, or find little corners through which to be alone with their paramours, this year we have been graciously afforded the opportunity to bring on six new Twenty-Firsties.”    

The chorus of groans becomes a chorus of cheers.     

“Twenty-Firsties are, of course, the name we use for our first-year teachers,” McGonagall continues, pitilessly. “While I know Mr. Potter and Mr. Weasley aren’t quite twenty yet, in this case the sentiment still stands. And so, for our first rotation, Ms. Granger and Mr. Potter will chaperone over Halloween weekend. Mr. Weasley and Mrs. Jigger will take the end of November, and Mr. Jigger and Professor Snape will chaperone in December the week before Yule.”    

The look of absolute, gob smacked betrayal that comes over Severus’s face is so hilarious that it startles fully half the staff into laughter. Garrick beams at Snape like Christmas did, in fact, come early. McGonagall’s smirk becomes a Cheshire grin. “Anything to add, Deputy Headmaster?”    

He opens his mouth. Closes it. Then, lifting his head and pulling his shoulders back, says with all the dignity and gravitas of his station, “Nothing at all, Headmistress.”    

She smiles. “Excellent. Shall we sing the school song?”    

“No, for the love of Merlin, please let that tradition die,” Sprout says, but she beams at McGonagall. “Your hat is crooked.”    

“You have lettuce in your teeth and you owe me two galleons,” McGonagall says, and squeezes Sprout’s hand.     

“Whoever has paid off the Wireless to play Celestina on Friday nights, I will find out, and retribution will be swift and merciless,” Flitwick squeaks, which is hilarious because he’s giggling as he says it.     

“And I, as always, hate you all,” Severus intones, which sets half the staff off again, made worse by the scowl on his face. McGonagall looks like she’s ten seconds away from patting his head. “Are we done?”    

“We’re done,” McGonagall says, and smiles at them all. “Be good and kind, prudent and patient. And come to me if you need help.”    

.    

“While I know thinking is not a celebrated Gryffindor trait, this is truly a new low, even for you,” Severus says not two days later, with abject disbelief.    

To be fair to him, it is like something out of a horror movie, if blood came in this particular shade of neon orange. What had begun as an innocent attempt at an Oculus Potion, with the caveat that the patient had a mugwort intolerance, had concluded with this nightmare.     

There’s orange goo everywhere. Goo on the walls, on the floors, and dripping from the ceiling; splattered across the hundreds of glass jars containing ingredients, and even flecked all over Professor Snape’s portrait. It smells like Teddy’s diaper after he’s eaten chickpeas, and has the consistency of troll bogies.     

Harry gags, and Severus points a finger at him. “No.”    

“Sorry,” Harry mumbles. He is, himself, covered head to toe in the stuff. Not even his glasses had been spared. Severus, who’d been standing behind him, had only gotten half-bogied.     

Severus flicks his wand at him for the third time. The goo seemed to be resistant to the standard set of cleaning charms, outright laughing at Scourgify, turning its nose up at Purgato, and not even blinking with Extergimus, which Harry had seen Mr. Weasley use to degrease the rundown lawn mower that was at the heart of his Muggle collection. Severus had already yelled for a battalion of House Elves, who had come armed with buckets, scrub brushes, and gumption.     

Harry sneezes three times in a row. That, so it seems, is all it takes for Severus to grab his arm and drag him from the room.     

They’re leaving orange footprints in their wake all down the corridor. Professor Snape is following them from portrait to portrait, his robes at Full Billow, and it’s really amazing how they can do that as they are painted, and huh, was that funny niche with that weird statue always there? It looks like a shark-person, half shark, half person. Was that a thing? 

He’s a bit dizzy, he thinks. Or maybe he’s hungry? Harry sneezes thoughtfully, four times in a row, then twice more for luck. “Where are we --” Sneezes number seven, eight and nine, “--going?”    

“Fortunately for you, my misspent youth has proven to be far more advantageous than I considered when last I was this age. In!”    

In is the nicest bathroom Harry’s ever seen, so nice that it must be the Slytherin Prefect Bathroom. It's palatial, with marble fountains, a luxurious wading pool of a bathtub, and huge, ornate shower stalls with snake-themed filigree slithering up towards the ceiling high overhead. Harry wishes he could see more of it, but the sneezes are coming fast and furious now. He expects it when Severus unceremoniously shoves him into a shower stall. What he does not expect is for Severus to follow him in right after, reach around him, and turn on the cold tap as high as it will go.    

The sound that comes out of Harry. Half raging bull, half six-year-old girl falsetto. Mortifying. Severus barks out a sound that might be a laugh and then begins stripping, which is a thing happening in front of Harry’s innocent eyes. “Undress quickly. It’s caustic. First come sneezing, then dizziness, and then – Harrison! Are you listening?”    

“You’re taking off your clothes!” Harry yells, and Severus rolls his eyes and plucks Harry’s glasses off, setting them somewhere on a marble shelf nearby, then promptly yanks Harry’s jumper and t-shirt up over his head, nearly strangling him. “Oh no,” Harry moans, and stares up, up, up, because he’s half-blind without his glasses but he isn’t fully blind. He sneezes four times in quick succession, then three more times for good measure. There’s a weird raspy wheeziness in his chest that probably isn’t good. His jumper lands with a splat next to Severus’s, and Severus is tugging his own belt loose and oh God, this is where his choices have brought him, nearly naked in a fancy shower with a Severus Snape liberally covered in chickpea potion shit.    

The laugh bubbles up from somewhere in his gut, and maybe Harry too had come by his love of schadenfreude honestly because this is, without question, the most hilarious situation he has ever found himself in.    

“Strip!” Severus bellows at him, and Harry laughs so hard he honks, and Severus says, “Merlin’s bloody beard, Potter, you are truly and profoundly an idiot,” which would have landed better if Harry hadn’t heard the exasperation in his voice. “I refuse to play part in The Drama of the Regrown Skin: Part Two. Take off your trousers.”    

“Scandalous,” Harry snorts, hiccupping as he wiggles out of his trousers until he’s down to his new pants, and does not look at Severus past collarbone level, which is not good because Harry’s seen them under Severus’s favorite jumpers and now he’s seen them without a jumper at all and – wow, his eyes are moving downwards without his meaning them to, abort, abort! “Huh. You’ve got a lot of freckles.”    

“You are also, without question, the cheekiest monster I’ve ever had the misfortune of knowing,” Severus says in a conversational tone, shoving a washrag on him. His pants are as black as his soul, and throw the sharp wings of his hip bones into even sharper relief. They are very nice hip bones, as far as hip bones go. “Soap comes from the spigot beside you. Wash before the symptoms progress, and mind that you don’t get any into your eyes.”    

Dutifully, Harry gets a dose of soap from the spigot, and then promptly gets the worst case of the giggles of his entire life. He’s giggling as he scrubs his neck and face and arms and bumps into Severus’s wide chest taking up more than his fair share of real estate in the shower, as they have to shuffle-shuffle around so Severus can get some soap and take a turn under the ice-cold water. He’s flat-out choking on laughter when a House Elf pops into their shower, squeaks with horror, and pops out immediately with their ruined clothes.    

“You’re as slippery as a damned eel,” Severus growls. “Stay still!”    

“This is the most absurd situation of my life, and that’s saying something.” He’s breathless with laughter, as he leans back against the cold marble wall to let Severus have a turn.   

“It happens more often than you might think.” Severus ducks his head under the spray to get the goo free from his long hair, cascading in a black, inky stream down his back. He should look like a drowned rat. He really, really doesn’t, and huh, isn’t that interesting filigree on the ceiling? So ornate. So fuzzy. Where did his glasses go? “We deal with chemicals as part of potion making, which can have detrimental effects when experiments go awry. We’re high, Potter,” he says, exasperated, when Harry blink-blinks at him. “Or, you are. My years of exposure have perhaps protected me from the brunt of it. Which of our ingredients today have caused this effect?”    

Harry purses his lips and thinks about it. As he does this, he begins to tip to one side, but thankfully Severus is there to keep him from doing a header. Also, he’s nearly naked. They are both nearly naked. In a shower. Together! He can never tell Ron and Hermione this happened, not ever.    

“I agree, if nothing else because the top of Mr. Weasley’s head would pop like a cork. Are you even listening? For pity’s sake,” and Severus drags him back under the water, and coincidentally, right up against his ice-cold, hard body.    

He really is like a mountain, Severus Snape. Carved right out of marble. There isn’t a spare inch of flesh anywhere on him, from the triangle of his shoulders leading down to that tight, small line of his hips, the sharply muscled thighs Harry can feel against his own. He’s covered in dark hair and all of those intriguing freckles and moles, the olive shade of his skin darkening at his nipples, at the hollows of his elbows. Harry can’t look down, he can’t, because if he does it’ll rewrite his entire world, but suddenly it all isn’t so funny. Suddenly, he can’t stop looking at Severus’s mouth.    

“I see we’ve reached the next phase of exposure,” Severus says, but it’s rough, low. They’re close, close enough that he can see the way Severus’s pulse leaps in his throat, and the way they're – the way they’re pressed –     

“It will pass. Breathe,” Severus says, and Harry gulps air under the icy driving water. He’s never felt anything like this blazing, terrible want, building in the core of him where his magic lives. He jerks forward, but Severus was waiting for it, he thinks. He spins Harry around, grips his wrists, and crosses Harry’s arms over his chest before yanking him close, his back to Severus’s front.     

He loses his knees but Severus is there, holding him up, pressed shoulder to ankle, arse to hips, back to chest. Harry’s never – it’s the first time in his life he’s felt all of that skin up against his, and it overwhelms him. He jerks against Severus’s hold, the hot ember blazing hotter and hotter in his chest. He feels like he’s going to burn alive, and the sound that comes from him is something Harry didn’t even think possible, that he could ever utter such a thing, a wailing sob, and Severus presses his cheek to Harry’s temple, holding him steady as he thrashes, as he writhes to get free, the weight of whatever is happening to him building inside of the cage of his ribs, pulsing like it’s trying to burst free. “I’m sorry,” he says heavily, holding Harry’s crossed arms tightly against his chest, right over the lightning bolt scar.     

It isn’t like – it isn’t like pleasure. At least he doesn’t think it is. Harry’s not felt much of that in his life, and after the graveyard and Cedric’s death not at all, not for years, not until he and Hermione were on the run. The night Ron left. The hollow in Harry’s heart had been like a wild thing, lined with razor blades, and he’d touched himself to try and feel something other than pain. It hadn’t helped. He hadn’t even been able to come, and he’d dissolved into terrible, aching tears. Certainly, he hadn’t tried again, not in the year since.     

Sex is a foreign concept. But even so, this doesn’t feel like that.    

He feels a twist somewhere deep in his being and Severus holds him, and holds him, and holds him, his voice a low whisper, and just when Harry thinks he can’t stand the burning anymore, it pops, like a bubble.    

Euphoria. 

A satisfaction like he’s never felt in his life cascades through him, prickling behind his ears, at the hollows of his elbows and knees, in his chest and thighs and groin, yet somehow strongest in the core of him, where his magic lives. Pleasure that makes his magic sing. He hears himself making the most embarrassing noises, cries and shouts and sobs, and through it all Severus holds him tight.     

“—easing even now,” Severus is saying, and Harry comes back to hear himself breathing like he’s been sprinting, panting, his heart racing. “It’ll pass, keep breathing. Can you hear me?”    

He’s shuddering like his skeleton is going to shake right out of the cage of his skin and walk away, but Severus is holding him tight, holding him together. Pulses of that pleasure-pain race down his legs. “Misspent youth?” he gasps.    

“Terribly,” he says, but it sounds like relief. “Granted, I’ve never made it in quite this way – the mugwart added an extra something. My teenaged self would have loved it. Ah, the grief of a lost business venture.”

“Oh my God,” Harry gasps, “I am not living in a world where you sold recreational potions as a student.”

“I had to pay for my books somehow. Any numbness in your extremities?”    

“I don’t think so.”    

“Numbness in one’s extremities is either apparent or not, Potter.”    

“No ‘Potter’, you said.”    

“A little distance would not be remiss.”    

“Because you’re holding me very tenderly in a shower after I had a weird potion-induced magical-core not-orgasm? Also, how come you got black ones? Madame Twilfitt would only sell me white.”     

A weird rumble against his back, and it’s – fucking Severus is laughing at him, and Harry glares as much as he’s able to at the shower wall. “Yes, hilarious. Can you let me go?”    

“Dizzy?”    

“No. Some,” he amends, when Severus’s silence goes on for a second too long. “Embarrassed, mostly. Glasses?”    

“Above you on the shelf, de-bogied.”    

Harry looks up at them. He can just make them out, fuzzy though they are. He’s not in a real hurry to get them, though, and when Severus doesn’t make a move to let him go, decides that’s alright. “Any chance of you explaining what that was?”    

“Aside from – how did you say it? A shitshow?”  

“I thought the potion called for mugwart.”    

“It did. We’ve identified another gap in your knowledge. If I let you go, are you going to fall down?”    

“No. …Maybe. My head is muzzy. Hazy.”    

“That would be the endorphins.” Carefully, Severus loose ns his grip on Harry’s arms, but doesn’t let him go entirely. He comes round him, and wow, Harry isn’t nearly so high now and that is – that is a lot of nearly naked Severus Snape in front of him. Harry had showered with other boys for most of his time at school, so he figures a little bit of locker room etiquette wouldn’t be remiss. He reaches up to get his glasses, pretending his entire body isn’t buzzing, that he isn’t so embarrassed that he feels like he’s going to fly away into a thousand little pieces.     

Severus comes back into crystal-clear sharpness as he puts his new glasses on. He really is covered in moles and freckles, along the expanse of his olive skin, and the collar bones are really – wow, they’re a thing.     

Shit.     

“Your face is red,” Severus says.    

“Thanks for stating the obvious.”    

“There’s no need for shame, Harrison, certainly not for a biological reaction to a botched potion. I’m shocked we nearly made it to Halloween without making use of this bathroom for this very purpose.”    

Harry crosses his arms over his chest. His wrists are tingling. “Blow up potions on yourself often, do you?”    

Severus sniffs. “Potion Making, like any science, requires experimentation. It is not incompetence you have experienced this morning, it is a hypothesis that did not bear fruit, leaving you instead with new data to review. I may have a solution.” He eyes Harry sharply. “Turn around. I will disembark this trauma train first.”    

Harry bursts into laughter, real laughter this time, and Severus smirks. He turns around dutifully, and Severus gets out of the shower. Less than a minute later he calls Harry’s name, and when Harry peeks out, it’s to Severus’s back in a dark green dressing gown, the long tangle of his black hair dripping wet. A second one, as well as a matching towel and slippers, wait for Harry on a settee.    

Severus turns back around when Harry tells him he can, and eyes him. “Come,” he says, and leads the way back, not to his lab – which they can still smell from the hallway – but to his office, and then through the magic door at the back that takes them up to the Teacher’s Tower. Minnow leaps from her spot on the sofa when she sees them, giving Harry a perfunctory, sleepy hiss. “Go, dress,” Severus says. “Meet me back here in ten minutes.”    

“Haven’t we had enough for today?”    

“Ten minutes. Go.”    

Harry goes.    

It takes a bit longer than ten minutes, but only because he loses the first five minutes to having a (very small, really) breakdown in his bathroom, flushing pink to red to white so fast he gets dizzy and has to catch himself on the sink. He splashes cold water on his face, which makes him remember he just spent the last half hour in a freezing shower, nearly naked, with Severus Snape, and the complicated tangle of emotions that brings up in him makes him dizzy all over again.     

When he emerges from his bathroom, Severus is sitting at Harry’s kitchen island like he owns it, with a cup of tea and a plate of toast waiting for him. He’s wearing a dark gray jumper Harry’s never seen before, the thin knit heavy but stretched out, comfortable. He gives Harry a considering look. “That was longer than ten minutes. Eat.”    

“I’m not drinking your foliage tea,” Harry says, and hears the shake in his own voice.    

“It isn’t foliage tea. It’s Twining’s, since you prefer heinous muggle-grown weed. English Breakfast. Eat your toast.”    

The toast is one step above charred. Harry stares at it, then at Severus. The man sniffs at him.     

Harry drinks his tea, and eats the burnt brick passing itself as toast, and feels a strange welling of emotion in him he can’t place, or name, only that it’s one of the strongest things he’s ever felt, and the intensity scares him.  

The feeling is centered not on Hogwarts, not on the smoldering wreckage of his own life, but on the unknowable, unnamable thing inside of him for the man sitting at the counter across from him. This man, who’d made him terrible toast but not completely terrible tea, with a little dollop of honey.  

He has no frame of reference for it, no way to catalog why the feeling is like a flock of birds in his belly, how they flutter up and down behind his heart, deep into his gut, out to his limbs. They rake their claws along his tender insides, but it isn’t purposeful. It’s like – like Hedwig, when she’d land on his shoulder and dig her talons gently into his shoulder to keep herself upright, and then nibble at his ear.   

Severus takes him, not back to the lab as Harry had half expected, but to a familiar hallway, on the Seventh Floor. Barnabus the Barmy ducks out of the way when Professor Snape strides into the portrait, and the dancing trolls stare at him with horror, cowering from his glare.    

Even now, the hallway smells slightly smoky. Or maybe that’s the toast crumbs clinging to Harry’s jumper.     

“Professor McGonagall got the Fiendfyre out.”    

“It took time, but yes.” They stare at the flat plane of brick wall before them together. “I want to show you something, if the old room is accommodating today.”    

Harry looks up at Severus, at the darkness of his eyes. “Okay.”    

And so, Severus walks back and forth before the door. Once, twice, three times, and then there it is, the familiar outline of the wooden door, a bit damaged now, a bit crispy, but still the same as it’s always been.     

“Harrison.”    

He sucks in a sharp breath, looking up. “Sorry. Yeah, let’s go.”    

But Severus pauses, imperceptibly, hand at the doorknob. “It will not open to the warehouse room any longer. Minerva has password protected it. The Fiendfyre is no longer active, but the space is still volatile. She was able to recover Vincent Crabbe’s remains.”    

Harry hadn’t wanted to know that, but he’s glad for the knowledge, anyhow. “Was there anything left?”    

“A bit. Enough for burial.” Severus peers at him. “I don’t have to say that it isn’t your fault. You are not responsible for the choices of those around you.”    

He isn’t. He knows he isn’t. Knowing that, though, doesn’t make it any better.     

The door opens, not onto the huge warehouse of odds and ends, or to the DA room, or to the refuge of hiding students, but a dark, cavernous space. It’s nearly pitch dark inside, but for dim wall sconces lining one side of the room. It’s so cavernous that Harry’s trainers echo on the stone floor underfoot. “What is this place?”    

“A space of my own design,” Severus says, and closes the door behind them. They’re thrust into near pitch-black darkness, but as their eyes adjust Harry can make out the wall sconces, the outline of the light falling on Severus’s face. He’s amused to see that beak of his throws a shadow. “I’ve used it often when working out problems. Have your eyes adjusted?”    

“I think so. How will we find the door again?”     

“Are you, or are you not, a wizard?”    

“Lumos won’t be much help when the room decides to eat us.”    

“Hogwarts is a vegetarian. Be quiet and let me concentrate.”

It starts with a little seed of color, a rotating, fizzing blue-gray-purple, like a sparkler on New Year’s Eve. Except the sparkler is Severus, centered heavily in the core of him, and Harry can - he can see his magic, as it travels along his arms and legs, drawn up from the magic eddies running under the castle. Gold-yellow flows through Severus’s feet and up to spin and twirl with the fizzing blue-gray-purple in Severus's core, mixing together, playing together.

Like a pictogram of the nervous system in a medical book, the magic lights all of the nerves in Severus’s body on fire, building in his hands then traveling up, up, into his wand. 

Blackthorn, dragon heart string, fifteen inches, inflexible. Good for defensive spells, loyal. An unusual wand, suited only to warriors.    

The cluster of blue-gray-purple nerves in Severus’s head light up with a fierce, bright white as he casts, and it’s the most beautiful thing Harry’s ever seen in his life. He could spend the rest of his days watching this man think through his spellwork, reaching within and casting so effortlessly, wordlessly, the starburst of his power dazzling in the dark.     

The room is suddenly overtaken with riotous color, and Harry blink-blinks in the shimmering light, surrounded by Severus's magic. They’re standing in a forest glade, though of course they aren’t, really – everywhere he looks, magic shimmers, from the white yarrow to the blue cornflowers, to the cottongrass underfoot. The trees, too, sparkle, and when Harry reaches up to touch the leaves from a low-hanging bough, his fingers pass through the image with a tingle of magic. Still, he thinks he can feel the waxy silkiness of the leaves for just a moment.    

“This is called the Deaurabis Imaginem spell,” Severus says. He steps through the shimmering thread of a trickling stream, and Harry can smell the water, the green scent of growing things at its bank. “Potions Masters and Herbology Masters use this spell to teach fundamentals beyond what can be done in a classroom. It is imperative, in both of our professions, that we understand living things and their connections.” He waves a hand. “What we are experiencing is not born from a wixen’s mind, but pulled from a grimoire. It will only function in wizarding spaces such as the Heart’s Desire Room.”   

It charms him, utterly, to hear Severus call the room this. The Room of Requirement, was, after all, at the center of the heart’s desire.     

“We use the Zygmunt Budge grimoire, England: Sourcing Locales, ninety-sixth edition, as it has the widest set of locations and has been the most continuously updated grimoire over the past five hundred years.” He reaches into the neck of his sweater, and tugs out a chain with a little blue orb at the end of it. He unloops it from around his neck, pulling his long hair free of it, and then sets the orb and its chain in Harry’s hand. “My expectation is that you care for it as well as you do that broom of yours.”     

Harry doesn’t say it’s been over a year since he’s flown. That he'd lost his Firebolt and Hedwig in his final escape from the Dursleys. The beginning of the end of his life.     

He looks down at the orb in the palm of his hand. It bears a strong resemblance to the Pensive, swirling gently in its little glass prison, and when he loops it around his neck, he can almost feel the warmth of Severus’s skin through the chain.    

Severus doesn’t realize what his words have brought, and Harry’s glad for it. He stops next to a tree, where a bird is twittering at him for getting too close to her nest. Severus reaches up and carefully, takes one of the eggs in his hand. Harry can tell it isn’t real, with the glow of magic, but when Severus hands it to him, it feels real – the heft and weight of it in his hand, the texture. “The grimoire allows us to explore different locations and different ingredients. The ingredients aren’t real, but the locations are. Or perhaps, once were.”    

“That’s why there are so many editions?”    

“Mm. As plants and animals evolve, or go extinct, the book is updated by the Budge Family. The youngest daughter of the family is a student here.”    

“This is – it’s incredible.”    

“It’s a useful tool,” Severus corrects, and takes the egg back from him. It shimmers and falls away into magical dust. “As potioneers, we use the grimoire to help us determine how to find the proper ingredients, how and where to source them, and also, how to determine substitutions. You chose mugwart this morning. Why.”    

“You said we had to find a substitution for wormwood, that the patient couldn’t tolerate it. I chose mugwart because it’s in the wormwood family.”    

“Follow my wand movement. After reciting the spell, speak the ingredient’s name. Deaurabis Imaginem.”    

Harry repeats it, and the image of the forest glade fades, another taking its place. They’re in a meadow now, heavy with flowers and insects, with a mountain in the distance. The grass grows knee-high, bushes and brush breaking the flat plain of wild grass. Harry spots the mugwort immediately, but it feels wrong. He kneels down next to it. Beside him, Severus does as well. “Do you see?”    

“Everything else is from the forest.”    

“Mm. Continue.”    

“Wild mandrakes only grow in the outcropping of caves in dragon-held mountainsides surrounded by deciduous forest.” Harry’s mind is racing. “And, and unicorns can also live in those types of places – especially where ash trees grow. But this mugwort, it’s too far from the forest. Can it grow closer?”    

Severus nods. “It can, but not normally. Not often. And not this species.”    

He waves his wand, and the scene changes. When Harry blinks his eyes open, they’re in a thick, dark forest, near the mouth of a cave. Harry can hear the chittering of anxious mandrakes inside, and smell rain in the air. He realizes the brush plants growing right against the rockface are mugwort too. “This is mugwort, but it’s – it’s not like the mugwort I used this morning.”    

Severus smirks. “I can, categorically, say it is not.”    

Harry sits in front of the plant and plucks a little stem from it, the magic fizzing against his skin, and studies it. The leaves are further apart, and the stem is thicker. It has a stronger smell, almost minty.    

“A great boon of the grimoire is that the plants and animals can be better explored,” Severus says. He joins Harry on the ground, sitting cross-legged in front of him. “Touch your tongue to it.”    

“Really? After all that ‘make me food without tasting it’?”    

“A helpful exercise that will keep you from death.” Severus sniffs imperiously. “The plants and animals in the grimoire are not real, and thus cannot harm you. Well?”    

Harry touches his tongue to the little leaf, and it’s like a little shock of magic crawls right up his spine. Immediately, he knows this is the right one. He can almost sense the unicorn watching him from the forest, hear the ash tree whispering to him. “This one. This will work. This is what belongs.”    

“Artemisia arborescens,” Severus hums. “A similar, yet distinct, plant from its cousin.”    

“Why did that other mugwort do what it did to me, this morning?”    

“Because the mugwort you chose is also used to make absinthe. When distilled it has hallucinogenic properties, and when further agitated with powdered unicorn horn, causes a period of glee, followed nearly immediately by a burning sensation, and then finally the last stage, which is ecstatic euphoria. This usually only occurs when it is imbibed orally. Unfortunately for us, you decided another type of ingestion would suffice, through our skin.”    

Harry stares down at the wormwood in his hands. “I’m never going to remember all of this.”    

“You will. This is why the grimoire exists. Not all Potions Masters are experts in Herbology or Magizoology. Once you begin to use the ingredients, you’ll slowly remember types and sorts, colors and shapes. It simply takes time. I have not needed to use the grimoire in some time, but I have been studying and crafting potions since I was five years old.”    

“What about potions that have ingredients from different biomes? Mermaids and bluebirds don’t exactly share the same habitat, and their scales and feathers are used in wit-sharpening potions.”    

“An interesting question. The answer is, thankfully, a simple one. Don’t be concerned, there will be a pressure sensation.”     

Severus waves his wand and suddenly, they're at the bottom of a body of water. The grass beneath them has turned into sand, and little fish and creatures dart around them, orange and blue and green. It’s deep, and he can just see the surface far above. It’s also strangely familiar. “Wow,” he breathes.    

“Do you know where we are?”    

He does, suddenly, when the Giant Squid makes its cheerful way across the water, in the far distance. “The Great Lake!”    

“The Great Lake,” Severus agrees, and points behind Harry.    

The mermaid settlement behind them looks similar to Harry’s experience, but Harry can tell that this version of the grimoire is slightly out of date. The settlement before them was smaller, more rustic; the one Harry had seen in the Triwizard Tournament was grander, with large spires, streets, and a pavilion. A group of mermen swim into view, carrying enormous spears, where –     

Where birds of all types, including the bluebirds who called the forests around Hogwarts home, have been caught for dinner.    

Harry laughs out loud, and Severus smirks. “Not all mysteries are mysterious, if one sets their mind to it.” A small merchild, barely a toddler, swims awkwardly towards their father. He smiles and brings the child close, exposing a mouth of razor-sharp teeth, and tucks a bluebird feather behind the child’s ear. “The natural world is built on relationships, and so too is our magic. The infusion that brings potions to life is the same that fills our core, renewed every day when we wake in this world and touch our feet and hands to the earth.”    

He thinks on this. “But what about – mugwort doesn’t grow in Africa, or Brazil, or Japan. Do those wizarding communities have different types of Pepper Up? They must do. Are there different types of Pepper Up, then, dependent on the region of the world? Are they stronger than ours?”    

Severus waves his wand and the scene slowly fades, to the black of the Room of Requirement. The sconces flare gently to life, light rising until Harry can see Severus’s face in the gloom, the outline of his body as he sits there on the ground in front of him.     

He hears something in Severus’s voice. Something almost soft. Something Harry thinks could be pride. “Ten points to Gryffindor, Mr. Potter, for a well-reasoned analysis.”    

The hot blush races up Harry’s face. More points? He’s clearly crossed over into a parallel dimension, where twenty-four-year-old Severus Snapes give Harry points and feed him toast.    

“We call this the concept of multiple discovery, a phenomenon well-documented in both muggle and wixen history. There is a core of medical potions that were invented more or less at the same time, across vast regions of the world that had never interacted, let alone knew of each other’s existence. Skele-Gro is one of those core potions, of what we call the Potion Framework. It is called Sanar Huesos in many Spanish-speaking countries, Hosti Liečiť in Slavic countries, Been Genees in Afrikaans. The potions use a host of varying ingredients and preparation, different vessels, and different heat levels, with more or less the same effect – the healing and growth of bone in a matter of hours.” He looks at Harry thoughtfully. “You have learned, of course, about Magical Will. The force that wixen impart on the nature around them.”    

“I have, but I didn't realize that this is what it means.”    

“I have a book for you to read on the topic, that I think you’ll find interesting. Magical Will is how wixen bend nature to our whim. Not entirely, not enough to push the balance of the world out of sync, but enough that the Japanese can use gobo root, the hooves of a kirin, and the bark or the yōkai tree to make what is, essentially, Skele-Gro, with a somewhat woodsy after-taste.”    

Harry stares at him. “That’s brilliant.”    

He gets treated to a little smirk, rather pleased though it is. “More often than not, primary school systems raise children on a framework of ethnocentric taxonomy – in other words, a world which is viewed through a cultural lens with limited scope. My curriculum requires broader thinking, and serves as the catalyst to wider and deeper analysis of the world. Practical application, while also building on a revised visualization of taxonomy framework, can make the difference between an average potioneer and a great one.”  

“I doubt I’ll ever be anything other than average, Severus.”  

Severus studies him. “There exists within you potential, untapped and unutilized, waiting to be set free. You lack discipline, and your confidence is shaky at best. What you have, however, are creative problem solving skills, a curiosity for the natural world, and a wish to help others. I can easily see you as a Medicine Maker, like Linfred.”    

Harry – he likes the sound of that, the feel of it in his mouth, as impossible as it is. Medicine Maker. The way the words settle on his soul and sink in, slowly, seeping through the cracks and settling warm and soft at the center of himself. 

Somehow, without his say so at all, the first flush of hope sweeps up into his throat. 

The dark, midnight blue magic swirling in Severus is mesmerizing in its volatility, striations of darkest gray flashing in little starbursts with his heartbeat, a striation of trust me, trust me, trust me, and Harry can hardly do anything else. 

“You really believe that. That I could be a Medicine Maker.”

Severus shakes his head, once, muttering something low about McGonagall, and then flicks his fingers at the sconces. The light comes up a little, brightening the room, and there Severus is, in all his lanky glory, with his wide shoulders that Harry now knows the exact shape of, his tumble of dark hair that he’s now seen wet and streaming down his strong back. Severus gives him such a look that Harry almost bursts out laughing. “Did you just bring the lights up to glare at me properly?”

“The magnificence of my disappointment must reach you unimpeded,” Severus says, with the kind of scowl that would have once frightened him. Now, it just yanks at something low in Harry’s belly, a something he has no name for, or concept of. “Yes, Harrison, I believe you could be a Potioneer, and a Medicine Maker, like myself. Why else would I have taken you on?”

“Self preservation.”

Severus looks distinctly unimpressed. “I hardly need the protection of a nineteen year old wizard with a hero complex and a bird's nest for hair. Stop changing the subject. There is a quote from one of Shakespeare’s lesser, though in my opinion one of his greatest plays, Measure for Measure. ‘Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win by fearing to attempt.’ Doubt, fear of the unknown, is a type of internal betrayal that can and will prevent you from achieving your fullest potential. The man I once was could not, for so many reasons, help you realize that potential. But I can. I will.”

Warmth blooms in his chest, until Severus adds, with the kind of savage glee that makes Harry remember that he is, actually, speaking to Severus Snape, “Even if it kills us both.”

.

At the end of October, on a nondescript and cold Tuesday morning, Anjelica Mutton receives an owl from home.    

Anjelica is small for her age, and has a late summer birthday, making her one of the youngest Second Years attending Hogwarts. She wears her hair in long, messy plaits – not because she doesn’t care, but because she’s still learning the skill of brushing and plaiting her hair by herself. Her mum has done it for her all this time, and last year Anjelica had done her First Year schooling at home, so it hadn’t mattered.     

She hasn’t been doing well, Anjelica. She misses home terribly, and has gone to Professor Sprout three times already, begging her to call Mummy to come get her. She doesn’t like Hogwarts – it's so big, and there are ghosts and mean kids who laugh at her, and Professor Hagrid’s big dog, and she has to sleep in a room with six other girls, including Tammy, who’s the only person in her family to sort Hufflepuff in six generations and has spent the last two months crying because she isn’t in Gryffindor with her sisters. The classes are hard to find, and the food isn’t good, and she has to walk outside to go to the Herbology classroom in the Greenhouses and Anjelica knows going outside is bad because that’s where the Death Eaters are.     

Mummy thought Anjelica didn’t know about what they were saying in the Daily Prophet, but she had heard her talking to Daddy late one night. They weren’t safe, because Daddy worked at the Ministry and last year all of the Death Eaters had been there, had forced him to do terrible things. And if Daddy, who was the strongest wizard in the world, wasn’t safe outside, none of them were.     

Anjelica had tried to explain this to Professor Sprout, but Professor had just gotten so sad looking, and told her that everyone was perfectly safe at Hogwarts because Headmistress McGonagall would never allow Death Eaters at Hogwarts. It’s a lie, Anjelica knows – Tristan was a Fifth Year and he had been here when the Death Eaters were at Hogwarts, teaching students and hurting them. Headmaster Snape hadn’t been able to protect them then, so Anjelica doesn’t think Headmistress McGonagall is going to do much better now, not when those evil Death Eaters were hurting people.     

Seeing River had been a surprise, that morning at breakfast. Anjelica had been trying to be brave, and she'd sat with Tammy so that they could hold hands. River had been their family’s owl since Mummy had been at Hogwarts, and when she sees him fly in, with his big mottled brown wings and his patchwork face, carrying a parcel, Anjelica feels her spirits lift.     

He’d never been good at landings, though, and he lands half in Georgiana’s tea, spilling oatmeal and pumpkin juice everywhere. Her classmates laugh, though, so that’s alright. “River!” she calls, and the big owl turns and thrusts his leg out at her, trying to croon and rub his head against her cheek at the same time. She laughs too, and even Tammy stops crying for a moment to smile at him.    

“It’s Mummy’s handwriting!” she tells Tammy, as River takes off with a great beating of his wings, breakfast sausage clasped in his beak. Mary and Tristan have both gotten up from their tables, and she beams as her brother kisses the top of her head. “Look, Tristan!”     

“I hope Mum sent gingersnaps,” Mary says, sighing longingly. “Open it, Anjie.”    

It is, in fact, gingersnaps for Mary, chocolate and oatmeal biscuits for Tristan, and marzipan for Anjelica. Mummy has written a long letter for each of them as well, and underneath it, tucked softly in packing paper, is -- “Sleepy!!”    

Her stuffed rabbit, lopsided and patchworked, sits at the bottom of the parcel with one eye and an unevenly stitched mouth. She immediately gathers him into her arms, hugging him tightly. The familiar weight of his little body, the softness of his floppy ears, makes her throat catch. It doesn’t matter that she’s twelve and ought to be beyond stuffed toys, because the scent of him, lavender and sage, makes something relax in her that had been clenched for months. Under Sleepy is Floppy, Mary’s bunny, and Tristan’s lion too. He snatches it up and puts it in his pocket, but Anjelica thinks she catches him smiling, and that’s so nice.    

She knows the others at the table are going to make fun of her, but she doesn’t care. For the first time since she got to Hogwarts, everything is alright.    

What Anjelica doesn’t know is this: her parents had spent two and a half months discussing whether or not to send their children back to Hogwarts that year. They’d come out to Teacher Night, in the weeks leading up to the new school year, and met with all of their children’s professors, as well as Headmistress McGonagall. Samantha Mutton, nee Rableston, and her husband Richard had both gone to Hogwarts, had both been taught by Professor McGonagall, Professor Flitwick, Professor Sprout. Their children, including their oldest Tristan and their middle child Mary, had both been at Hogwarts during the Battle, had hidden in the secret passageways under the castle while the battle raged above them. The fallout of this had been exponential, more than they could have anticipated. Their son hadn’t spoken a word for nearly seven months, while Mary, as a Third Year, had screaming night terrors so bad that summer that they’d had to set up wards just for her room, to keep her from bringing the house down. They hadn’t realized just how much little Anjelica would suffer, seeing her siblings go through the aftermath of the Battle.   

It was Richard who’d thought to send the girls their stuffed toys, and Tristan the little lion figurine that Richard’s father had carved for him the long night of his birth. It was Richard who worked at the Department of Magical Travel and Relocation Office, who prepared ward circles for the flotsam that travelers tried to bring with them into the country.    

And it was Richard, who didn’t realize that the family returning from Romania the week before had brought with them two dead blowflies in the bottom of their luggage. He couldn’t have known that these blowflies had lived their short lives in the paddock of a Peruvian Vipertooth, before flying to a picnic site where a family of six was enjoying their day on the banks of Zetea Lake. 

Chapter Text

flashover

n. the moment a conversation becomes real and alive, when a spark of trust shorts out the delicate circuits you keep insulated under layers of irony, momentarily grounding the static emotional charge you’ve built up through decades of friction with the world.

Despite what people believe, Harry fully understands the political clout that comes with being the Chosen One, scion of the houses Potter and Black. He just hates it. 

He’s never used his fame for money, or to get the newest broom, or cut the line at Flourish and Blotts. He has used his name to get Severus an Order of Merlin, and a new wing of St. Mungo’s built, and to mitigate the Malfoy’s sentence from Azkaban to house arrest.     

It made sense, after all, for Severus to get a posthumous – and then, uh, humous – Order of Merlin for saving the Wizarding World from a fate worse than death. It made sense that St. Mungo’s would need a new wing to care for the wounded from the war, and in its own way, it made sense not to allow Narcissa Malfoy to hold a life-debt over him. She had saved him from Voldemort, when she’d lied that Harry was dead. He had saved her in return, when he had spoken up for the Malfoys at their trial. That Lucius and Draco had been saved from Azkaban had been a boon for her. He owed Narcissa nothing, but Lucius and Draco Malfoy owed him tremendously, now. That, and that alone, would hopefully keep them in check. He had no intention of ever calling in the debt, but that he had it in his back pocket made him feel safer in a world where too many Death Eaters were still at large.  

Wednesday afternoon, when he goes down to the Great Hall for breakfast, he just sort of bypasses the tyro’s table without realizing he’s going to. Hermione and Ron are with their tyromasters for the rest of the week, so he’d be eating alone anyway. His feet carry him past the chair he’d determined as his, and take him right up to the no-man’s land that had emerged at nearly every table in the Great Hall, but is most prevalent at the Seventh Year table. On one end: the Gryffindors, Ravenclaws, and Hufflepuffs. On the other: the Slytherins.   

Leo, who’d been hunched over her soup, freezes when he plunks himself right next to her. She stares at him, as does one of the boys across from her. He’s got a scar leading out from the corner of his eye that looks relatively new.     

Whispers start across the Great Hall, but Harry’s old hat at being the center of attention by now. He ladles a bowl of soup from the tureen next to Leo, peeking inside. “Lentil soup is one of my favorites. It was the first soup I ever had that hadn’t come from a tin. Can you pass the bread?”    

“What are you doing?” Leo hisses. On Harry’s right, the other Seventh Year Houses are shifting uneasily. The whispers aren’t exactly whispery at this point, but Harry’s alright with that too. Gits.  

“Eating. Are those water crackers?”    

She shoves the basket at him. “You shouldn’t be here.”    

“Why not?”    

“You aren’t a Seventh Year, for one, and also, you’re the Boy Who Lived, and also, a Gryffindor,” Leo says. He pretends her eyes aren’t a bit red around the edges. “It’s weird!”    

“Well, I’m technically a Seventh Year, even if I don’t look like one,” Harry says, and laughs at the utter outrage on her face. “I almost got sorted into Slytherin. I’ve thought many times I ought to have been. I’m not really like most Gryffindors, you know?”  

Leo stares at him, as does the boy across from her, and the five others further down the table. “You’re acting like one right now.”    

“Am I? Huh. I wouldn’t think so, but what do I know about cleverness.”    

One of the girls snorts with laughter, covering her mouth with her hand and the crackers she’d nearly sprayed across the table. He smiles, which makes the boy with the scar chuckle with a deep, low voice. The tension breaks then and Leo rolls her eyes, introducing him to the rest of the table, if he insists on staying. He does, and so. Seven Slytherin students are left at the Seventh Year level, Allanna, Geoffrey, Adam, Sid, Elvis (“My mum is muggleborn and you can guess who her favorite singer is,” he says, lifting his chin warily), Moira, and Leo.     

“Excellent. I’ll be down in your Common Room this week to say hello, and if anyone might be willing to tutor me on Third Year runes, I’d appreciate it. It’s very embarrassing to sit in a classroom of Third Years, and they’re good sports about it, but I can’t exactly study with thirteen-year-olds, that would be too weird. I’ll bring biscuits,” he says cheerfully, spooning the last of his lentils.     

Adam’s eyes narrow, and Allanna, beside him, smirks. “Good luck getting the password, Gryffindor.”    

Harry’s lips curve up, as he sets his napkin down. “The snake guarding your door likes me. He’ll let me in. Oh, hello sir,” he tells his tyromaster, who has stopped by the table and is looking down his beak at Harry as if he’s one marble short of a set.     

“Did I hear you promising my Seventh Years biscuits, Potter? My biscuits?”    

“They aren’t yours if they’re on my kitchen counter.” From the corner of his eye he can see Leo mouthing biscuits? to Adam. “Time to go pick?”    

“Time to go pick,” Severus says, and thrusts a pail at him. “Edge of the thestral paddock to the south. Bring a scarf.” He nods sharply, eyes his students, and prowls off like he’s ten seconds away from murder.  

They watch him go, all robes and hair and barely contained menace. 

Elvis mutters, “Knew you had a death wish mate.”

“Snape eats biscuits,” Moira says, eyes wide.

Leo shakes her head, seemingly impressed despite herself. “And you stole them. I’m with El, you’ve got a death wish.”  

“Eh. He’s a prickly pear, all barbs on the outside and squishy -- actually no, he's just all barbs,” Harry says sagely, and considers his afternoon a success when they all burst into laughter. 

.  

Hogsmeade is decked out for the season, pumpkins at each stoop and shop stall, orange and black bunting crisscrossing the stone walkways and decked out with floating candles spinning cheerfully in the air. Shop windows, filled with festive robes in eye-watering purple, with little stitched spiders chasing each other across the fabric, heave with shoppers. Even the great tree in the middle of the square is lit up with fairy lights, and a family of black kneazles have made it their temporary home, leaping from branch to branch.     

Halloween falls on a Sunday this year, and so Saturday at Hogsmeade is a step above the normal chaos. There are Hogwarts students everywhere. Kids running from shop to shop, shrieking and chasing one another in the square, or ducking into Madame Puddifoots with blushed cheeks. There are a crowd of kids staring at the Shrieking Shack, and Hermione grins up at him when they pass, the kids whispering about all the ghosts who called the Shack home.     

Hermione has her arm tucked through his, to ward off the first chill of winter. The weather had turned some weeks ago, edging out of fall and giving them their first taste of winter with a wind storm that had cut through the castle. The seasonable weather had returned for a short spell, but today had been the first true taste of what their winter is going to be like. There’s an icy nip to the air that he feels at the tip of his nose.     

It's a strange mood Harry has found himself in, in the weeks after the grimoire. Severus was still Severus, salty to border on bad-tempered, but no more and no less than before. He’d had Harry pickling salmon eyes for three hours the day before, expounding on the little nerve-capillaries he wasn’t to sever as he separated the salmon heads, as if this was normal conversation and not absolutely disgusting. Harry tried to remember that the creatures he was dissecting had once been thinking, breathing beings, and that made it bearable, as did the way they buried the trout heads and bones in the sand beside the Great Lake.     

He looked at Harry sometimes, though. Studying him, but not like a puzzle he was trying to suss out. It was almost – almost warm, a thing Harry had never thought to equate with the man before, but there it was. He’d ordered Harry to his rooms on Tuesday to discuss the newest journals, or rather to introduce Harry to the key players, ninety-percent of whom were “Idiots of the highest magnitude, and I say this having had the misfortune of teaching Longbottom,” which made Harry laugh for the first time in a week. Harry had almost been able to ignore the two barn owls who’d delivered Potion’s Quarterly and The English Cauldron discussing the relative merits of hunting after a rainstorm for the chance at juicy frogs, versus hunting before a rainstorm for a chance of salamanders running for cover.   

By his own admission, Harry had never been what anyone would call a sparkling conversationalist, but the last year had beaten his words out of him as surely as a Smeltings Stick to the face. Conversation just doesn’t come as easily to him anymore. The tangle of his emotions feel like a gridlock in his throat, caught in the brambles of guilt and regret, so that by the time they come to his mouth they can only escape as breath.     

But somehow, it comes easily with Severus. Severus, who had shrugged on curmudgeon like a well-loved dressing gown, who hunted children wandering the castle past curfew for sport, who never missed an opportunity to call Harry an idiot. Severus, who was as much the man Harry had grown up hating, as he was a stranger.     

“It’s so silly, how being here makes me a little sad,” Hermione tells him, ducking her head into her scarf when a particularly sharp gust of wind pulls at their hair.    

He knows what Hermione means. Once, not so very long ago, they were these screaming kids, running and laughing, having a butterbeer at the Three Broomsticks or trying to figure out how they were going to get all their sweets back to Hogwarts. They’d been innocent, in their way, though Harry always least of all. Harry doesn’t miss those years, not really, but he does miss those small moments, precious in their rarity, of innocence. Running and laughing, joy leaping in his heart at getting Hermione to giggle, Ron to snort. Hedwig, landing on the windowsill and tipping her head, her soft black eyes shining with love. Mrs. Weasley, the softness of her gaze as she hugged him at King’s Cross.    

“Ron’s been acting strangely, ever since he went to Oxford,” Hermione tells him. 

When he looks down at her she sighs, averting her gaze. Her eyes are wet, but Harry knows all about that, so he tucks her arm closer into the hollow of his, and puts his hands into his pockets to give her the clutching hold she needs. “How do you mean?”    

“Ron Weasley doesn’t have an arrogant bone in his body, but it’s like he doesn’t have any idea of what a brilliant wizard he is. He keeps telling me they’ve gotten it all wrong, that they’re making him into a fraud.”    

“Always has been an issue of confidence,” Harry says. Ron was Ron, and he loved him, even when he wanted to give him a hard shake. “I couldn’t have done what he did with the Deluminator. I wouldn’t have even thought to. He’s brilliant at charms, always has been. He just never applied himself to it.”    

“When they pulled the paperwork at the Magical Patents Office, they found out that Dumbledore had bequeathed it to Ron as well. Ron owns what is possibly a new branch of magic.”    

He smiles. He can’t help it. “Turned apoplectic, didn’t he.”    

“Purple, Harry. I thought he was going to eat a pillow.” He snorts, and it’s worth it for the grin Hermione shoots him. “I wish he’d just understand how huge this is. I think a part of him does, which makes it worse.”    

“It’s only going to get worse from here.”    

Patents, especially new ones, got reported in the Prophet, but anything that Dumbledore had invented and then been improved upon was huge news. Rita Skeeter had sent Ron fourteen owls in the past two days begging him for an interview. Even now, they were all on their guard against buzzing insects.     

“He’s so brilliant, but he puts himself down so much. It’s like he doesn’t understand what a strong wizard he is, or what he can do.”  

Guilt bubbles up in Harry's throat, no matter how he swallows against it. She and Ron had set their own lives aside for years to help him, and in doing so had nearly ruined them. They’d played sidekick in the drama of Harry’s life, the nightmare of hunting for Horcruxes, the pain of a war they didn’t ask to be involved in, and had nearly been killed for it. It was because of him that Hermione was only just now getting her Seventh Year when she should have already started University. It was because of him that Ron lacked the confidence to recognize just how gifted he actually was. 

It had been innocently meant, but Hermione’s words reinforce what he already knows: he can’t tell them what’s happening to him. He knows they’d drop everything to help him, and Harry can never allow that again.   

He’s jolted out of his thoughts when Hermione says, in a dark voice, “That Amanda Doolittle isn’t helping matters.”  

“Amanda Doolittle?”    

“You’ve seen her. Looks like a Veela, if Veela’s had long auburn hair and blue eyes.”    

Ah. That Amanda Doolittle. Ravenclaw girl. He shared Herbology with her, and the Seventh Year boys fell over themselves to be her lab partner. She had the air of a girl who was beautiful and knew it, and Harry had never much liked anyone who was that smug about their own perfection.    

“Don’t tell me Ron’s been making eyes at her. I’ll never believe it.”    

“Of course not. He isn’t the problem.”    

Harry stares down at her. “No.”    

“Yes. Oh, Mr. Weasley, can you show me that wand motion again?”    

He slaps a hand over his eyes. “Hermione.”    

“Oh Mr. Weasley, can you help me move my desk away from the window? I’ve gotten a chill, and you’re ever so strong.”    

He snorts with helpless laughter. “Has he even noticed?”    

“Of course not, Ronald Weasley is as thick as a tree stump. In this case, to his benefit. If he’d noticed this child all over him I would have slapped him twice and cursed him to bark like a dog every time he saw her.”    

“You shouldn’t be surprised, Ron is a very eligible bachelor,” Harry says, because he is first and foremost a shit. “Handsome bloke that he is, with the long hair and the eyes and the earring. Doesn’t hurt he’s so tall and broad now, either. I’d be surprised if they didn’t notice.” He gives his elbow a shake, and she glares. “The thing about Ron, though, is that he’s got taste. He’s only had eyes for one girl since he was fifteen. And what a girl. Beautiful, intelligent, patient enough to deal with his nonsense but not so patient as to let him get away with it. Entirely out of his league, and in another life, would have never given him the time of day.”    

Harry knows that intimately. He didn’t need to come over Trelawney to know that if Hermione had never come into their lives, he and Ron would be much poorer for it, and very likely dead. Without Hermione, the Wizarding World would be Voldemort’s. She was the loadstone that had kept their world whole.     

She’s got tears in her eyes, and he laughs out loud. “Hermione. The Amanda Doolittles of the world don’t hold a candle to you. I love you so much, but he loves you. You know that. I know that. He’s an idiot, but I trust you’ll get him sorted eventually.”    

“She is rather pretty.”    

“Gorgeous. Dim, though, in the light of your star.”    

She laughs and whacks him in the arm. “Oh that’s awful.”    

“Wait, wait, I’ve got one better. Is she kind as she is fair? For beauty lives with kindness. Love doth to her eyes repair, to help him of his blindness.”    

“Is that Shakespeare?”    

“Trust you to recognize it. That one’s from Romeo and Juliet.” At her incredulous look, he grins. “Severus likes Shakespeare. He quotes it a lot and I’d never read the plays, so I figured I should start.”    

“Professor Snape quotes Shakespeare?”    

“I know,” he says. “Weird, right? He’s such a swot, I have no idea how we never realized.”    

Hermione’s looking a bit gob smacked, and while normally Harry loves getting one-up on her, as it happens so rarely, in this case it feels a bit like he’s showing his hand. “I barely understood a word, so I owl-ordered an annotated copy of the major ones.” 

“Was Shakespeare a wizard?”    

“That’s what I asked. Apparently not, he was just wizard-adjacent most of his life. Madame Pince told me that there were rumors he might’ve been a squib, but it was never substantiated.”    

“And Professor Snape reads Shakespeare. And quotes him.”    

“A lot.”    

Her lips roll inward and suddenly she looks terribly amused, which is not a good sign, really. “So you... you got some books on Shakespeare.”    

“Yeah.” He looks at her. “You can borrow them, if you like.”    

“Oh, I’ve read Shakespeare, my parents insisted,” Hermione says, waving a hand. “I just didn’t think that might be something you’d enjoy.”    

“I’ve got to keep up with him somehow.”    

“You’re enjoying your time with him, then?”    

“Well, I mean, it’s more interesting than – oi!” he yells, and the Fourth Year who’d been trying to scamper up the Mother Tree that grew in the center of Hogsmeade freezes. “You’re a wizard, Voggel, not a monkey. Get down!”    

The kid blushes crimson and all his friends burst into laughter. Harry jerks his head and the kid gives him a cheeky grin, climbing back down.     

When he looks back to Hermione, she’s smiling in that way she does when something has finally come together. A bit triumphant, like the world finally makes sense. “What?”    

“Nothing,” she says quickly, which means, categorically, something. “He seems very different from the man we remember.”    

“He is,” Harry says immediately, and then stops to think about that for a second. “He is,” he says again, more sure. “He’s happy, I think. Happier. Which for him means just growling less, but you know what I mean.”    

“I think I do,” she says. “Do you know he's only the second wixen on record to ever be bestowed with the Admirari? Everyone thought it was just a myth, but apparently not.”    

"Admirari?” 

“How Fawkes saved him. It’s in the Historia Regum Britanniae, most specifically book 8. The stories of Merlin,” Hermione explains, and Harry’s world compresses and expands.    

He can almost just see a wizard walking next to him, in his ancient robes, with his big ears and even bigger smile. Can almost hear him whisper, Your friend is rather sharp, isn’t she?     

“Merlin,” Harry parrots back, icy cold sweat springing up along his neck and down his back. “Merlin was saved by a Phoenix.”    

“He was. The story goes that he gave his life so that Prince Arthur could live and become King of Camelot, bringing forth the next age of magic. A Phoenix nearby saw his sacrifice, and was so moved that he flew to Merlin’s body and landed on his chest. The bird shivered and shook until fire bloomed between his talons, consuming Merlin’s body whole. When Arthur looked back, half-blinded from the light, it was to Merlin, alive and well, with a tiny bird chick on his chest. In a moment, the chic was big, then bigger still, until great feathers sprouted all over him and he was an adult again. He crooned a song and then took flight, and he was never seen again.” Hermione suddenly laughs. “It was one of my favorite stories when I was a little girl. I just didn’t know it was real.”    

Oh, it was very real, says the wizard from the corner of Harry’s eye, bouncing on his heels as he beams at Hogsmeade in all its Halloween splendor.     

He doesn’t know how to say this without coming across as barmy, then realizes that train left the station a while ago. Somewhat literally. “I don’t think he remembers everything the way that he says he does.”    

“What do you mean?”    

"I think Professor Snape – the portrait I mean – has been coaching him about certain things. The other day, we were in the lab peeling bezoars and I told him that the Half Blood Prince had saved Ron’s life that night, when we drank the wine intended for Dumbledore. And Severus just stared at me. Professor Snape piped up from the portrait and called me eight-times an idiot for drinking, blah blah, you know how he is. It gave Severus time to recover, I think.”     

He glances into Honeydukes, finding it packed with laughing, shrieking children, but no one's bleeding so that’s alright then. They patrol on, towards the Leaky Cauldron. “He’s also...kinder, in some ways. He’s hugged me three times. Well, the first one doesn’t count, but still.”    

“You are eminently huggable,” Hermione says, hugging his arm that she’s got hers looped through. “But yes, I can see why you’re -- well, are you alarmed?”    

“That Severus Snape died and came back as some Twilight Zone version of himself? No, I feel great about that,” Harry says, deadpan, and she laughs. “He made me toast. I mean, it was burnt and tasted like ashes, but – toast. And when I told him his foliage tea was foul, he made me English Breakfast.”    

“After the Shower Debacle.”    

Ron had laughed so hard he’d had to race to Hermione’s bathroom when he couldn’t hold his bladder. Hermione hadn’t been any better, red-faced and gasping, eyes wet and wide as Harry recounted the entire sorry tale.     

“After the Shower Debacle,” Harry agrees, wincing. “I don’t want to catch him out in the lie, if Professor Snape is helping him. He just makes it so hard. He got in trouble the other night, did I tell you?”    

“In trouble? What does that even mean?”    

“He and Professor McGonagall are having some kind of argument, where she smiles a lot and he kind of tips his head at her respectfully. I’m not explaining it right – it’s so sarcastic, I swear his head is going to fall off his neck and McGonagall looks like a cat who got the canary. So, that’s been going on since the staff meeting and the Hogsmeade stuff, right? Well, he usually comes to get me at four-thirty so we can go down to the lab, but on Thursday he didn’t. When I stuck my head out the door, McGonagall was stood there in the hall with her curlers and her dressing gown, yelling at him, because apparently they share a bedroom wall between their apartments and he decided to play Motley Crew at the crack of dawn without a silencing charm. It’s worse than having a seventh year next door! No offense, Potter,” he says in his best Scottish brogue, and Hermione bursts into laughter.    

“Motley Crew?”    

“I know. And Severus just stood there, eyes wide and innocent, all, I beg your forgiveness madame and I thought McGonagall was going to claw his eyes out. He smirked for a good hour after that, it was ridiculous.”    

They do the circuit, around the Leaky Cauldron and down towards the bridge leading into North Hogsmeade. Zonko’s is as filled as Honeydukes, and two girls come out of Gladrags, giggling under their sparkling new pink scarves. Harry watches them head back down towards the Mother Tree.     

It’s only as they turn the corner that the smile slides off of Hermione’s face. On the notice board, beside the Auror Office, hang familiar Wanted posters. Macnair, screaming with rage. Dolohov, laughing hysterically. Rookwood, ice-cold, still. Murderous.     

The posters are superimposed over another place. Another time. Sirius, screaming from the Wanted posters, insanity in his dark eyes.     

The grief isn’t fresh, not like it once was, but a trusted friend, with him always. Now, though, it isn’t the last of Sirius he sees in his mind’s eye: his handsome and wasted face, expression torn between laughter and terrible surprise as he falls back through the Veil. Now, it’s Sirius as he was in the Forbidden Forest, so young, his black hair dark and glossy around his shoulders, standing next to Remus, and James, and Lily. The man he could have been if he’d been given the chance, gazing at him with so much love in his gray eyes that Harry had been overwhelmed with it.    

Hermione squeezes his arm, and he looks down at her. Whatever she sees on his face makes her sigh, and lay her cheek on his shoulder. He kisses the top of her head, because she’s traveled this path with him and she understands.     

They continue their walk.    

.  

It isn’t a nightmare that wakes him up that night, for once.    

Harry’s sleep hasn’t ever been the best, but since coming back to Hogwarts the tension he didn’t even know he was carrying tight and drum-like in his chest has eased, like a valve flipped open to let trapped heat escape. In that hazy place, that world between sleeping and wakefulness where all his doubts and worries live, is his lake. He’s safe there, and clean, and whole. There isn’t pain, just an endless starry peace, carried on ripples of water along the furthest banks and cocooned by oak and ash trees. Nothing could happen to him, in that soft and safe world.    

No, it isn’t a nightmare that wakes him up at almost two-thirty in the morning, but the certainty that he’s forgotten to do something important, the hazy sensation of dream-Harry realizing he hadn’t done his Transfiguration essay for Professor Lupin because he’d been playing Quidditch with Ron and Mrs. Norris and lost track of the time. He's sitting on the edge of his bed before he’s fully awake, trying to calculate how many hours he has before he has to be in Charms class to get the essay done, when the rationality of the waking world reasserts itself.    

“Bollocks,” he groans, scrubbing the heels of his hands into his eyes.   

His kitchen, while well stocked on the biscuit end, is mercilessly without tea. He considers asking one of the House Elves to bring him some, mutters, “Don’t be a wanker, Potter,” and pulls on his new banyan and slippers.     

The common room looks different at night. Moonlight spills in from the windows by the fireplace, the low, warm orb-light from under the kitchen cabinets and the low crackling fire the only light in the room. There’s someone sat at the piano, their back to him, but Harry would recognize those shoulders, that hair, anywhere, and not just because of the kitten sat on his shoulder, frozen with terror, crouched low and looking at everything with huge eyes.     

He makes his tea, studying that spine, the long legs under the piano, pressing the pedals at different intervals. The flex of his forearms and shoulders as he plays, the shadow of those long fingers on the keys. Focused, single-minded, on the music in a way Harry hasn’t seen him be with anything or anyone else.     

It’s beautiful, he thinks.     

He is.  

He –     

Severus is beautiful.    

Harry can only just hear the music under the Muffliato, and it isn’t the classical music he expects. Nothing about Severus is what he’d expected, in this brave new world they’re facing.  

How could he guard himself, keep himself safe, against a man who hugged him even as he glared at him? Who called him fourteen kinds of idiot, while his hands so gently moved Harry’s away so he could show him how to measure a dram? Who had a kitten he doted on and the love and respect of his colleagues, and who looked at Harry as if he wasn’t beyond saving, but someone still worthy, still worthwhile?    

Those long fingers pick out the notes to Across the Universe and Harry’s entire world turns upside down.    

He doesn’t know what he’s feeling, can hardly name it, though it has echoes of what he feels for Ron and Hermione, for Mrs. Weasley. The flavor is different, caught in the back edges of his heart, rooted in the ravages of that wounded organ and holding it steady. The feeling seems to flutter up his throat and settle in the hollow right under his adam’s apple, so much bigger than what he thinks he can contain.    

“You should be asleep,” Severus says. Muffled, but Harry can hear him. Harry thinks he’ll always be able to hear him.  

"Do you ever sleep?”    

“Rarely.” Severus doesn’t pause in his playing, but he slides to one side on the bench, and Harry takes it for the invitation it is.    

When he steps through the Muffliato spell, he realizes just how loud the piano is, the rich, earthy tones that seem to take up the entirety of this little world Muffliato contains. The bench is narrow, but not so narrow that Severus can’t play if Harry sits next to him.    

Severus’s hands, as long and thin as he is, play expertly, not a single note out of place, not even when Minnow jumps down lightly onto his thigh, all the hair on her back standing on end, and crawls tentatively into Harry’s lap to hide under the edge of his banyan.     

He grins down at the kitten, and Severus snorts. “Freedom, and she’s terrified of it.”    

“Aren’t we all?”     

“Leave philosophy for the daylight hours,” he scolds, his eyes half-closed, so Harry quiets and lets himself listen.    

Across the Universe sounds beautiful on a piano, as if it was always meant to be played on an instrument that could lend that earthy texture to the notes. The dreaminess of it is at direct odds with the man playing it – Severus, so grave in his manner, so serious and scientific, who could talk for an hour straight about the difference between fixation and sublimation processes. Severus, his face relaxed and softened and open, his long, dark eyelashes throwing shadows on his cheekbones; his mouth, the bow of it soft and parted as his fingers pick out the notes. Even the freckles on his cheek and jawline seem to have been dotted there by an expert painter, to break up the perfect plains of his face, but had failed. His hair, pushed back in sleepy, pillow-rustled waves around his ears and neck, make Harry want to run his fingers through it, to turn Severus to face him. To see if that perfect mouth would open, or take control. If those dark eyes would widen in shock, or shudder closed.     

He wants, with sudden, aching ferocity, and the feeling is as unfamiliar to him as it is familiar. He’s wanted, before – a family, a kind word from his relatives, and when he came into the wizarding world, he’d wanted to be just another unknown face in the crowd, a nameless boy with green eyes and wild hair. Those wants, deep in his wounded heart, were nothing to the feeling that suffuses him now, next to this man who is no longer a stranger, just as he is no longer the professor who made Harry’s life hell for so many years.   

He considers having an existential crisis, but just for a second. He's already experienced a lifetime’s worth of pain and suffering. Adding any more to his over-full plate seems silly in the grand scheme of things. He wants, and worries that want like a tongue at a sore tooth, until the pain eases.

Severus wasn’t the man he’d been, and neither was Harry. They’d been reborn into a world that hadn't had a place for them after the story of their lives ended, but they’d elbowed their way through anyhow. Here they were, for that bravery and strength. Here they were, sitting in this room, at this piano, together.  

This moment, suspended in quiet, uncertain vulnerability, is as fragile as fairy glass. One wrong move, one wrong word, and Harry knows their paths will deviate and they’ll never make their way back to this place.     

So he sits, and pets Minnow until her shivers subside, and listens to Severus play. He plays beautifully, and Harry’s no musician but he knows expertise when he sees it. Maybe it’s years of muscle memory, of playing this instrument for nearly two decades for his colleagues, or late at night just like this. He wonders, too, if the music left Severus as the war progressed, or if this was something he always came back to.     

He’s got a bit of tortured poet about him, Hermione had said, not so long ago. She was right, of course she was right, but Harry thinks its more than that, he thinks --     

The setting sun streaming in through the window lights her hair on fire, a flame of orange and red a halo around her head. Her smile, just a little crooked with uneven front teeth that made her face even more beautiful for its imperfection, widens when he freezes still. “Sev, I’ve been looking for you.”    

He hadn’t told her where he would be – the days where he bears his heart to anyone, let alone Lily, were behind him. “How did you find me?”    

She waves a hand and he knows, right off, that it was one of them. The self-proclaimed Marauders. If they knew he spent his time here then it wasn’t safe anymore, it wasn’t --    

“I just came from Slughorn’s office. I mentioned I was going to look for you, and he told me you liked to spend afternoons here sometimes,” Lily says, and Severus’s heart climbs back down from his throat. “Why didn’t you ever tell me you were still playing?”    

There may have once been a time where he could have told her, when they were close enough that he could have trusted her with this little piece of himself, but that was Before. Before Sirius Black tried to kill him. Before Severus understood, with painful clarity, that his life was worth less than Black's in the eyes of the teachers who were supposed to take care of him. The teachers he had trusted, once.     

Severus was very, very good at reading the faces of adults, and hadn’t there been disgust in Headmaster Dumbledore’s eyes, in the little pinch at the corner of his mouth, when Severus had demanded Black’s expulsion? Revulsion for Severus, for the skinny, repugnant thing he was, greasy-haired and sallow-faced, bitterly poor with a temper like a firecracker.     

He had schooled it quickly enough, of course he had, but something unnamable and fragile and necessary in Severus had broken nevertheless, rendered him mute with the terrible understanding of what was happening. That Headmaster Dumbledore, who knew how the Marauders tormented him and hurt him, who had nearly killed him that night, would not expel them; that he expected Severus to thank James bloody Potter for saving his life.    

The Headmaster made Severus vow not to speak of what Lupin was, and explained what would happen if Severus were to renege on this vow. He would be forced to expel Severus from Hogwarts, thus ending Severus’s education. His family didn’t have money for school – they didn’t have money for food. It was only Grandfather Prince’s pity that had allowed Severus to come to school at all, seven years of paid tuition the most he would ever give his half-blood grandson. If he were to be expelled, his education would be over.  

It was only later, numb with terror in his bed, that he understood what that unnamable, fragile thing in him had been, broken now beyond repair: the last embers of hope, that he could find a safe place for himself here at Hogwarts.     

Two weeks later, it was still as fresh and terrible as that night. And now Lily, who had been trying to separate herself from him since the school year began, was in his one sanctuary. The one place all of it was quiet and still in his head.     

"Why are you here?”     

A flash of hurt crosses her pretty face. “I wanted to be sure you were okay.”    

The words ring truthfully, but Severus has gone beyond his ability to believe that. Not when Lily sat with them at lunch and laughed with them in the halls. Not when she had spent the last year standing by, watching what they did to him. When she’d avoided Severus’s eyes, and stopped partnering him in Charms. When she hadn’t sought him out in the terrible days after Black nearly killed him, when the rumor mill was working overtime, and everyone knew that the Marauders had done something terrible to Severus but not actually what had happened.     

The school tie around his neck was like a noose, strangling him, and in his death throes the people around him had averted their eyes.     

It was only Dumbledore who looked at him and understood what he was. Pathetic, and wretched, and -     

“Kill your dark thoughts, Sev,” Lily says softly from just beside him, and his heart lurches in his chest.    

It’s what she’d been saying since they were eight years old, since she first met him and saw through to the darkness that he struggled to keep at bay. She’d always known when his thoughts were spiraling downward, just as she’d always known how to bring them back up. He looks up at her and finds her smiling, her eyes shining and red, and when she sits beside him it’s as if some terrible, missing piece inside of himself was finally sliding back into place.     

She takes one of his hands in hers, so small compared to his own, and squeezes, brushing the knobby knuckles with her thumb. She brings his hand to her mouth and kisses the back of it, with a tenderness that isn’t a goodbye, but feels like it. And when she brings his hand back to the piano, he understands.     

He plays for them, until the sun crosses the sky.    

Harry breathes in, and out, and only when Minnow butts her head against his hand does he realize he’d stopped petting her. He strokes her ears gently, that world fading from his mind's eye. He stares at Severus’s long fingers, his sleeves pushed up just enough that the edge of the faded Dark Mark, the curled tail of the snake black as midnight, lays like a shadow marring his olive skin.     

The song comes to its end, and Severus gazes down at the keys with an almost quiet reverence, stroking his fingertips along them carefully. It clutches at Harry’s heart, squeezes it tight. “That was beautiful,” he says quietly. “You play very well.”    

“He that loves to be flattered is worthy of the flatter.”    

It takes him a minute, then a minute more, before he places it. “Mr. Flourish said it would be a comedy, but if The Two Gentlemen of Verona is what constitutes a Shakespearean comedy, then I’m not sure I want to start the dramas. Is it awful that I kept envisioning Lockhart as Valentine?”    

It’s the first time that he’s surprised Severus into laughter, and Harry vows it won’t be the last. He’s stunning when he laughs, the darkness that lingered at the edges of his face fading away, smoothing to something soft and amused and startling. “A prime example of the relative intelligence of wixen in Great Britain, that such a charlatan should have made his millions from fiction he tried to pass as truth. Truly one of the biggest idiots I’ve ever had the misfortune to come across, and deserving of his misfortunes.” He side-glances Harry. “You’re reading Shakespeare.”    

He shrugs, a little bashful. “I’ve only read a few, and didn’t understand most of them, to be honest. I just started Much Ado About Nothing, though, and I like what I can understand of it.”     

Amusement, then. “You like Beatrice and Benedick.”    

“They’re hilarious. ‘What, my dear Lady Disdain! Are you yet living?’ Classic. It’s very Jane Austen. I kept wondering if she used them as a template for Elizabeth and Darcy.” Severus turns to stare at him, and Harry rolls his eyes. “Does it surprise you that I’ve read Pride and Prejudice?” 

“For a devoted student of literature, no. For a teenage boy, however...” 

"The Dursley house was light on reading material. Aunt Petunia had a little collection of books she kept in her bedroom, bodice-rippers mostly, but someone must have given her a collection of Austen at some point. She never even noticed it was gone.” 

“You nicked it.” 

“Mm.” 

“A pattern emerges.” 

He grins. “I like to read.” 

“So I’ve come to understand.” 

Severus taps out the first bars of something appropriately Victorian, Mozart he thinks, and if Harry lets his eyes unfocus he can almost see the shadow of the professors from that time, in their gowns and cravats, sitting in this room. A lady with pin curls winks at him. “Have you been playing for a long time?”    

“My mother insisted on musical education. For a time, it was the one thing my father could not dissuade her from.” Severus glances at him. “Why are you awake?”    

“I dreamt I’d forgotten to do my homework and woke up trying to figure out how many hours I had before class to write my essay.”    

Those big shoulders relax minutely. “In other words, a guilty conscience.”    

He considers getting offended, can’t, and snorts. “Yeah, probably. I was never much one for essay writing, you know. I prefer the practical stuff. Show, not tell.”    

“What startling and unexpected news,” Severus replies, deadpan. “Your allergy to commas has somehow manifested into an overuse of semicolons. Why.”  

“Makes me look smart,” Harry says matter-of-factly, and watches Severus try not to laugh again.  

Maybe it’s the little world behind the Muffliato. Maybe it’s Minnow, licking the edge of Harry’s banyan. Maybe it’s Severus, the boy he’d been and the man he’d become and now this youth again, with a face like smooth porcelain and the ruffle of his hair and his big, proud nose. The little smile around his mouth. Maybe it was all those things combined, but Harry knows that if they stay here, he’s going to do something neither of them are ready for.  

He picks Minnow up and gently sets her back on Severus’s shoulder, where she promptly buries her face in his hair and curls her little tail around her hind quarters. “Want to go play in the lab? I’ve got an idea for those pickled daisy roots I’ve been wanting to try. I started the base for the Memory Sharpening potion yesterday, but I can use it instead for my experiment.” 

“We do not play in the lab Harrison, potion making is a --” 

“Delicate art, potential for injury, yeah yeah. Want to?” 

Severus considers him, and then closes the lid on the piano keys. “Meet me in my quarters in ten minutes, we’ll take the door down.”  

.  

The portrait of the massive basilisk at the entrance to the Slytherin corridor insists on being called Hamza.    

He’s a gentlemanly chap, asking after Harry’s day and extending heartfelt congratulations on the tyroship. He and Harry have a very nice chat about the under-classmen, and it turns out – through careful prodding on Harry’s part – that Verdelite, the enormous stone basilisk guarding the Slytherin Common Room door, has been bending the rules a bit, letting the little snakes into the Common Room when they get ‘close enough’ to the password. “Traumatized, the lot of them,” he tells Harry matter-of-factly. “Normally Verdelite enjoys letting them cower, but they’ve been through rather enough of that, wouldn’t you say? Besides, what difference does it make, viridis aestu or viridans aestu? It means exactly the same thing. At that point, it’s just rude.”    

That was far, far easier than he’d anticipated, and Harry rubs his face with a little laugh. “That’s very kindly done of him.”    

“Well, they’re ours to protect, aren’t they? Professor Snape chose us.” At this he seems to puff up a bit, in his ornate basket. “It used to just be Basil – oi! Basil! Wake up, you great lump.”    

The pillar to Harry’s left seems to ripple and Harry realizes, as it lifts its massive head and blinks its eyes open, that wrapped around the pillar is a stone snake. The snake motif really carried throughout this part of the castle. The corridor leading up to the Gryffindor portrait hole wasn’t all roaring lions, that’d make for trash security. Salazar Slytherin had clearly not gotten this memo. “Yeah, what?”    

“Tell Mr. Potter here about how we’re a team, then.”    

The stone snake lifts its enormous head, flicking its stone tail. “Severus the Younger attached this hanger-on to me like a limpet this year, for no reason I can deduce other than to annoy me.” Harry can swear the thing smirks when Verdelite hisses. “I’ve been here for over a thousand years. Now I’ve got this portrait who tries to engage me in conversation all the long day, about everything from egg-laying season to weird smells. It's infuriating and frankly, beneath my considerable esteem.”   

“We’re mates,” Hamza tells Harry with a little bob of his head.     

“We are not mates,” Basil says.    

“Okay, let's review. Who went to go get Severus when that Fourth Year graffitied the tip of your tail? Who woke you up when that Seventh Year snuck back to the Common Room and Verdelite was so deeply asleep that he didn’t hear him calling out the password? That was a great day for you. Verdelite was so mad!”     

Basil gives a little sniff. “Well he should have been paying attention. It was past curfew, but that doesn’t mean we let our guard down.”    

“And he whined, remember! About it being late and how he needed his sleep. Hah! He’s made of stone, mate, what does he need to sleep for? Then there was that time that the Bloody Baron came by to chat and Verdelite told him to piss off. If he could have, the Baron would have ripped him off the wall, he was so angry.”    

“He wasn’t angry! He can’t understand us, you idiot.”    

“If you think being able to understand someone begins and ends at what they say, you’ve got a lot left to learn about communication,” Hamza says, and Harry bites his lip so he won’t laugh. “Besides, he was angry. His chains rattled more ominously. He and Verdelite don’t get on. I’m telling you, one more bad turn and you’ll be up to guard the door, I can smell the opportunity, and when it happens you ought to bring your friends along. Namely, me.”     

"Who are you talking to?”    

Harry startles, looking down. Most of the Firsties this year seem even smaller than he remembered when first he was a student here, but this Hufflepuff, with messy plaits and a wrinkled skirt, seems smaller than most. “Hullo. Where’d you come from?”    

“Potions. Professor Snape let me go to the restroom.”    

Professor Snape had never, in all of Harry’s schooling, ever let anyone go to the restroom while in his class. Severus, however, was a soft touch, and Harry smiles down at her. “You should get on that, then.”    

She takes a step closer to him, staring up at the portrait. “I didn’t really have to go to the restroom. Though I went a little anyway!” she’s quick to add.     

“Oh?”    

“Professor Snape’s classroom is scary. All the – the floating things, and then he yells at people when they might catch themselves on fire.”    

“He does do that. Though, I wonder what would happen if he didn’t yell at people who might catch themselves on fire.”    

“There would be people on fire everywhere,” the little girl tells him seriously, as if this is a foregone conclusion. “There are some really stupid kids in my class.”    

She isn’t wrong. He likes this kid. “What’s your name?”    

“Anjelica Anastasia Mutton,” she chirps. “You’re Mr. Potter.”    

That one lands right in the solar plexus. “Just Harry, if you please.”    

“Okay, Mr. Potter,” Anjelica says, and looks up at the snake. “Were you having a chat with the snake, then?”    

“I was. He’s called Hamza.”    

Hamza, recognizing his name, preens, turning his glistening, lush green scales into the sunlight of the portrait so that they sparkle. Anjelica provides him with appropriate tribute, ooing and ahing as he shows off. “Is he nice?”    

“Very nice. He makes sure students don’t get lost, and reports any wrong-doing to Professor Snape.”    

The little smile on the girl’s face slips off like water. To Harry’s dismay, Anjelica’s enormous eyes film over with tears, and she lifts her chin, swallowing hard. “Would he know? If there were people here who weren’t supposed to be here?”    

“How do you mean?”    

She swipes the heel of her hand over her face. “If Death Eaters got in.”    

“Who told you Death Eaters can get into Hogwarts?”    

“No one had to tell me. They got in the last time and broke the castle walls and hurt and killed students. My brother and sister were here. Mummy didn’t want me to know but I saw it in the Daily Prophet. Mummy would throw them away but I would get them out of the bin because no one ever tells me anything, and I saw the pictures of what happened after, and the list of all the people who died. It was a lot of students who died.”    

The acrid scent of spellwork. The sensation of dried blood caking his feet, soaked in through his canvas sneakers. The scratchy carpet under his cheek, in Dumbledore’s office.     

Fred's terrible, unnatural stillness.     

She should be figuring out how to get to the Astronomy Tower and making friends with her year mates, not staring at him with a wobbling chin, asking if Death Eaters are going to storm the castle again. He sits down, there against the flagstone wall, and beckons her to join him. "You know about Voldemort? About how I killed him?”    

Anjelica nods. She’s so small, just a little girl, and he suddenly feels very old, and so very tired. “Though Mummy doesn’t like when we say his name.”    

“A very smart witch once told me that fear of a name increases fear of the thing itself. And since we don’t fear Voldemort, why shouldn’t we use his name?”    

“He’ll -- he – "    

“Is very, very dead.”    

She ducks her head, wipes at her face again. “The Daily Prophet said that his body was here. That everyone saw it.”    

Harry had moved the body himself, into the chamber off the Great Hall where he had once been a terrified First Year, waiting to be Sorted. That little boy, with his broken glasses and all of an eleven-year-old’s hope in his heart, could have never known that seven years later he’d be placing Voldemort’s body in the very place where he once stood. 

“Yes, it was. And when he died, all of his followers ran, like rats escaping a sinking ship.”

“Some of them escaped. Macnair a-and Rookwood and Dolohov.”    

That she knows their names helps him understand just how front-and-center this terror was in her mind. How much this was affecting the younger children, and Harry – Harry had lived with that fear for all of his younger years, worse after Cedric died. A low-level anxiety that seemed to find its home in his chest, just at the base of his throat, and would keep him up at night. “Yes. Minister Shacklebolt has a whole department of Aurors chasing them. But they can never come back here. There are wards now, against them. You know what wards are?”    

She gives him such a look that, once matured, would be fully on par with Professor McGonagall’s. He tries not to smile. “Of course I know what wards are.”    

“My apologies, madam. The wards don’t allow any who wish us harm to cross onto the Hogwarts grounds.”    

Harry doesn’t say how he knows that, but he does. He can feel it in the magic around them, sense it in the magic that keeps the castle secure. Hogwarts was closed to any who had made war on the school, and could never enter again.     

He tries to imagine a world where he could not return to Hogwarts, and something awful twists in his gut. That he has precious little more time here fills him with a kind of anticipatory grief, of the pain he is going to go through seven scant months from now.     

Another little First Year girl with yellow ribbons in her hair comes skipping – literally skipping – down the hall. Hufflepuffs. “Anjie! Professor Snape made me come get you. He is so mad.”    

“I had to pee!” Anjie squeaks, jumping to her feet.    

“You’ve been gone for ten minutes. You’re skiving!”    

“I am not skiving!” she says, and stamps her foot. “Don’t say that! I was coming back from the bathroom and started talking to Mr. Potter.”    

The other girl freezes, staring at him. “Oh.”    

“He was telling me about the castle wards and how the bad people can’t get in. See! Not skiving.”    

“Not skiving,” he affirms, even if she had, absolutely, been skiving.     

“We aren’t going to have time to let the eel spleens come to a boil if you don’t come on!”    

“Gross,” she moans. “Bye Mr. Potter.”    

“It’s Harry.”    

“Okay, Mr. Potter,” she says, and the other little girl grabs her arm, dragging her back down towards the Potions Annex.   

Chapter Text

 desante’ 

n. The brooding delirium of being sick, which makes time slow to a trickle and turns even the most pathetic of tasks into monumental struggles, until the act of lifting your head from the pillow feels like trying to climb a mountain, wondering if you’ll ever find your way back again, or even catch your breath.

Once, when Harry was very small, he’d gotten very, very sick.    

He’d been going to Church Nursery in the mornings, because it was free through the NHS and, in Aunt Petunia’s words, it’s fifteen hours that I don’t have to deal with you. Harry had loved Church Nursery. They’d given him breakfast and lunch, and let him run outside and play. The Sisters let them fingerpaint, and make sculptures from flour dough, and read them stories before naptime, which was Harry’s most favorite of all. Jonah and the Whale, and Noah and his Ark, and Daniel with the Lions; Harry had loved every single one of them. He’d always beg for more, and the Sisters would only laugh and kiss him on the cheek and tuck him in on his mat.    

He’d felt so warm there, warm in a way he never had at the Dursleys. The other children liked him and played with him, and sometimes the Sisters gave him new socks from the Rummage Room, and he got to eat as much as he wanted, seconds sometimes, and even thirds.  

Harry’s mistake had come in the form of a quiet question, one fall morning, when he’d asked Sister Christine if he could go home with her. Sister Christine had looked at him with such love, and asked him questions about what he ate at home, and if he had clean clothes to wear, and where his bruises came from.  

A man with a black coat and a white collar had come to speak to him, and Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon had been called, and that had been the last time he’d ever gone to Church Nursery.    

He remembers many, many days of darkness after that, light barely coming in through the slats of the cupboard door. They had taken his light bulb, and his blanket, and had given him a bucket for loo. Aunt Petunia only ever opened the door once a day, using the stick end of the broom to push him back, before sliding a plate in, bread slathered in greasy peanut butter, and a single cup of watered-down milk.   

It had been getting cold outside, the leaves turning orange and yellow and red, when Harry had gone into the cupboard. The cold seemed to seep in through all the nooks and crannies, the whispery wind breathing pinholes of ice in through the slats in his door and between the wooden stairs. The nights were the worst, and he could remember crawling under his cot, upsetting the spiders, to huddle under his mattress. Even that hadn’t been enough. The cold had seeped into his hands and feet and legs and arms, settling into the hollow of his chest. That was when Harry got The Cough.   

The Cough was insidious, and cruel. It flared up when he ate his bread, and when he drank his milk, and when he huddled under his cot and tried to pretend he was under a tree, warm sunlight on his face. It attacked at night, all night long, even when Uncle Vernon came thundering down the steps and pounded on his door. He coughed until he tasted something metal, until he couldn’t cough anymore even though his body tried, shuddering and jerking and jolting.    

Aunt Petunia had come, then, and grabbed him by the hair, and dragged him from the cupboard and up the steps. He’d been blinded, dazzled by the sunlight pouring into the house, legs barely able to hold him up. She’d shoved him into the toilet, into the bath, into scalding hot water. He hadn’t had a voice to scream by then but he’d tried, he’d tried. 

She’d stripped his clothes off of him and took a scrub brush to him, the kind used to clean loo’s, prickling plastic. Nothing in his life that came after would ever be close to the pain he felt that day, all of his nerves on end, choking on blood and phlegm and covered in his own mucus and sickness.    

Aunt Petunia had scrubbed him until her brush came away pink, and then lifted him from the bath by the arm and roughly dried him with a scratchy gray towel. It was only then that she had taken him by the shoulders and shaken him with such force that something had given way in his chest, and screamed at him, cold madness in her eyes. He couldn’t understand what she’d shouted at him, in his terror and illness.  

She’d dragged him back downstairs to the cupboard and sat him on the floor just outside it, and then taken his crib cot out, dragging it through the back door to the garden. Harry could remember sitting there on the cold lino, naked under the grotty, damp towel, pain like fire in his chest, sobbing for his cot. He didn’t have a blanket or a pillow like at church school, and now he wouldn’t even have his cot, the only warm thing in the icy cupboard.    

It had only been when Aunt Petunia brought in another mattress, thick and plush, new with the tags still on, that he understood. She had given him a yellowed pillow, a fitted sheet, and a blanket, a dark green woolen thing like Harry had sometimes seen the old homeless man who lived at the corner of the church school wrapped in.  She had put him in something of Dudley’s, a jumper and fleece-lined woolen trousers and awful pants too big for him, and shoved a spoonful of something in his mouth that had made him gag.  

When she shoved him back into the cupboard and locked the door, he collapsed onto his new bed and cried himself catatonic. 

He lost his thread on the world, that day. It would be a very long time before he found it again.     

He’d gotten sick again, of course he had. He’d been more sickly than most, and seemed to catch everything that went around at his primary school, from the sniffles to strep throat, the flu and even the measles once. It was always the same. He’d be locked in his cupboard, a bucket for toilet, his blanket if he was lucky, left alone to sweat it out.

After he started at Hogwarts, and he had a warm bed and his choice of plentiful food, it had seemed as if the illness that had followed him throughout his life finally let go. He had rarely gotten ill as a teenager, not even during their year on the run, sleeping in that cold and drafty tent and not eating nearly as much or as well as they should have been.  

It’s for this reason, he’ll later reflect, that he hadn’t picked up on the signs right away. He’d been more tired, but honestly, he’d been spending all of his waking hours in Severus’s lab, or in class, or working on his school work and planning lessons for the spring. His days were packed to the limit, and at night he’d lay in bed and stare at the ceiling and will his body to rest, even knowing that his mind was ready and waiting to share a whole host of horrors that he watched like a movie each night.  

He’d lost his appetite, though he’d never had much of one to begin with. His body ached, shoulders and neck and back, but that was normal too, in its own way. Spellcasting took a lot out of a person, though he wasn’t necessarily casting overly much as of lately. His wand just did what he asked it to do, without any fancy waves or Latin. His hands were just as good, most days.  

So Harry doesn't really pick up on the signs, until Tuesday afternoon after his last class, when he sits down in his armchair in front of the fireplace and finds that he can’t get back up again.  

He tries, he really does. Only, he’s very, very tired, and the fire is very warm where he’s so cold, and it doesn’t seem like that much of an issue to spend the night in his armchair. He can’t quite bend down to get his boots off, and his belt is rubbing against his belly where his skin feels strange, and he’d really rather get his blazer and robes off, but it all seems too far away to deal with, when he could just close his eyes and sleep. 

He hears a voice say his name, from somewhere deep in that silence, a voice he recognizes, who had spoken to him at the end of the world. 

He can sense her, smell her wildflower and honeysuckle perfume. 

Another voice, somewhere behind him, and Mum says, “...need to...fessor Snape...” which is such a funny thing for her to say, though Harry supposes not, actually, considering how close they’d been as children.  

He wishes Professor Snape had told him about his mother. That Snape hadn’t been so bitter, by the time Harry had met him. He wishes, sometimes, that he hadn’t inherited his father’s coloring. If he’d taken after his mother, maybe Snape wouldn’t have been so cruel to him. 

“...long...this?” 

“I don’t know.” Mum touches his cheek, pushing the hair out of his eyes. Her dark, bushy hair has fallen out of its braid over her shoulder. “Harry? Harry.... can...hear me?” 

“Hot,” he says, but he isn’t, really. It’s very cold back behind him, he thinks. The fire in the grate is the only thing keeping him warm. 

“Shh,” she whispers, touching his cheek again. He’s sweating, badly, but he knows it’s because of the blazer. If he could only get the blazer off. “....burning up...onagall....” 

No. Professor McGonagall doesn’t know about Grimmauld Place, she shouldn’t -- Dumbledore, the curse Moody had cast. Dumbledore had been her friend, she shouldn’t see him like that, shouting and pointing at her, blaming her for killing him. Oh, God. 

He tries to get up, even when his mother presses him back into the chair. She’s so small and slight, she shouldn’t be able to, but he’s so tired and his legs are trembling badly. The weakness of his body is starting to scare him, and his eyes are burning, wet and scratchy. “No,” he gasps, shaking his head. “Please, it’ll only hurt her.” 

“What? Harry, we’re not hurting her. Calm down.” 

“No,” he says again, struggling against his blazer. It’s tangled around his back, and his skin is so sore. “She’s the only headmaster we’ve got now.” 

“She is,” says Mum, and gently pulls his arms free of his blazer, first one side, then the other. The weight of it coming off of his chest and shoulders is heaven, but the cold slip of air that sneaks in under his collar makes him start shivering uncontrollably. He makes a terrible sound, something he didn’t think he was capable of, but then Severus is there. 

 
Severus is there. 

He can smell him first, cedar and vanilla, the soap he prefers, and something else, something undefinable and unique to him, the scent of his skin. His dark eyes search Harry’s face, while his work-rough hands scrape against the skin of his forehead, his throat. He touches the glands around Harry’s throat, behind his ears, then quickly undoes Harry’s tie, opening the first buttons of his shirt collar.  

He says something, and Mum gasps. A voice with a Scottish accent asks, “Are...certain?”  

“Of course I’m certain, I just came from the Hospital Wing. Six children from Hufflepuff in the past two hours,” Severus says. He’s very close. His eyes are beautiful, framed by long, dark lashes. “Before coming to Hogwarts, did Petunia take you to St. Mungo’s to get your inoculations?” 

Harry, who had never been to a doctor before he came under Madam Pomfrey’s tender mercies in First Year, mutely shakes his head. Severus growls something low and unkind and puts his arms around him, and then suddenly Harry is moving. He sees the rush of ceiling, the glaring light from the windows, a glimpse of the hall where Flitwick and Sprout and Vector are standing, their faces pulled in tight lines of fear, and then – and then –  

Warmth. Warmth like Harry has never known. It’s a bed, but not Harry’s impersonal, cold one in his rooms. This bed is sumptuous, thick covers and duvets, a pillow so soft and comfortable that it seems to envelope him. He turns his face into it, nearly brought to tears. Someone is doing something below, and oh, his boots are finally off, the belt digging into his belly is gone, his wretched tie and shirt blissfully undone. The blankets feel even better against his prickling bare skin, and seem to warm him down to his aching bones. Minnow leaps onto the windowsill across the way, mewing shrilly. 

It is the last comfort Harry will see in some days. 

In one of his more lucid moments, he comes to understand that he’s caught Dragon Pox, as had fifty-six of the children. He knows this because Severus, when he isn’t tending to Harry, is in the Dursley’s front parlor frantically working several cauldrons at the same time, and which Harry can just see each time Severus comes back to the bedroom with a new vial, slightly steaming and a horrendous shade of puce green. Uncle Vernon is left watching the cauldrons, furious and red-faced, his walrus mustache quivering. Severus tells him that St. Barts had been called and had set up a triage in one of the little-used towers, but no one had the expertise to brew the Dragon Pox Elixir and topical cream quite like Severus, not with his modifications that eradicated the pockmarks and the green tinge under the skin. 

Harry hadn’t looked down at himself, he couldn’t, not after his first look. The pox was scaly, puss-filled, green and sparking just under the skin, and hurt like when he’d accidentally stepped into an ant hill one summer while mowing. The ants had bitten him so many times his leg had swollen like a balloon, and the fiery pain had been so severe that he’d gotten a fever. The Dragon Pox was like that, though much worse. The pox burned like real dragon fire, and nearly brought him to tears.  

"Caught it once. We all did. Outed me properly as a wizard, which was just embarrassing. Arthur never let me live it down, anyway,” says a voice. Harry looks up from his schoolwork and across the room, where a young wizard with wild black hair and sticking-out ears is sitting under the window showing the green-light of the water under the Great Lake. The scarf around his throat is a fiery red, complimenting the dark brown of his tunic and leggings quite nicely. He beams at Harry. “This was my favorite spot when I was a student here. Back then anyone could come to Hogwarts, no matter their age. Lots of older wixen who hadn’t properly been given the chance to receive schooling came here. This used to be Slytherin’s Common Room for the adult students. All of the children were up in the Turris Medius.” 

Harry swallows, willing the heavy lump in his throat to recede. “They were?” 

“Mmhm. That was where the masters lived, too. Professor Slytherin was very protective of the children under his care. It would be a long time before things leveled out, and then this would become the children’s dorm room. I’m glad they got to have it, it’s a wondrous place.” The young wizard smiles at him. “Happiest years of my life, being here, after hiding my magic for so long. I loved being a tyro.” 

“What did you specialize in?” 

“Oh, this and that,” and the wizard laughs and waves a hand. “Magic is organic, and it should grow along with its castors. It has been nearly a thousand years, after all. Times change.” 

Hearing the wizard say it is almost worse than the gentle, knowing smile he gives Harry. “You’ve been visiting me.” 

“I have!” 

“Why?” 

“Because there’s never been anyone strong enough to sense me, of course. You’re the Master of Death, the first in many, many generations. It only stands to reason that you can see me.” 

“Are you a ghost?” 

At this, the young wizard’s smile becomes more fixed, not quite genuine. His blue eyes are sad. “Nothing so exciting as that. I made Arthur a promise, an Unbreakable Vow. I have to wait, that’s all.”  

It sounds as if there is much more to the story than that, but equally so, Harry knows better than most what it feels like for others to pry into his pain. “How can I see you at all? Not just here – but everywhere. I can hear your voice.” 

“The leylines, of course.” He leans forward, insistent. "You've got to keep following the leylines. They’ll take you to where you need to be, to what has been done. It’s all unraveling now, but they need you to help them along, Harry. It can’t be finished without you.” 

He could sense the lines now, could see them as they filtered up from the ground, how they bolstered a wixen’s magic. Had seen it in Severus, when he’d cast his spell in the Room of Requirement, the beautiful explosions of blue and gray and purple, the white light of his wand.  

He knows, without a doubt, where the lines converge. Knows that his lake would still have an important part to play, and that he’d have to find it, very soon. He just –  

“Open your eyes,” says the wizard. 

“What?” 

“Open your eyes.” 

“My eyes are open.” 

“They certainly are not.” 

The familiar, red bed hangings of the Gryffindor dorms make a terrible, hot lump rise in his throat. Hedwig is sat at her perch, arranging her feathers with precise little twitches of her head as she nibbles them into order. He stares at her, willing himself not to cry. “What are you doing here, sir?” 

“Attempting to tend to you in your illness, though you’ve done a fine job fighting me,” says Severus, with his too-young face and his beautiful eyes and his hair, tied up into a knot on top of his head that should look ridiculous and instead makes him look like a rugby player. His face is drawn into exhausted lines, sweat damp all around the collar of his Puddlemore United t-shirt.  

Despite himself Harry smiles, and Severus rolls his eyes. “Yes, please tell me once again how funny you find my clothing,” he says, as he sits at Harry’s side and loops his arm under his shoulders, lifting Harry up so he can drink from the disgusting and foul potion ampule. 

The Dark Mark is on full display, black along his forearm, moving over his muscles and tendons as he tips the ampule into Harry’s mouth. They’re very, very close to one another, close enough that Harry can pick up on the vanilla and cedar of Severus’s skin, under the sweat and exhaustion.  

“Not just your clothing. You like Quidditch and biscuits and make terrible tea,” Harry says, because it is indeed incredibly hilarious. Certainly damaged the Professor Snape mystique, anyhow. 

"I make exceptional tea, Harrison; your tastes are just too pedestrian to enjoy the full breadth of flavors,” Severus replies, the rumble of his voice echoing through Harry’s chest, before laying him back down on the pillows. 

“I think I’ve been talking to Merlin.” It seems very important that Severus know that.  

“Have you?” 

“He’s very kind. Skinny, though.” 

“I imagine he is.” With a care Harry’s only ever seen the man employ with potion’s ingredients, Severus pulls the blankets down, just enough to free Harry’s arm. “The inflammation is going down. Does it hurt?” 

He nods. It all hurts. “Merlin told me about the tower, how the Founders used to keep the children there with them. That magical education used to be for everyone, not just children.” 

“That is certainly true,” Severus says, and mutters a spell that makes something yellow and shiny cascade over his fingers and wrists. Harry had seen it once, at St. Barts, when he and Ron had gone to visit Lockhart. He dips his fingers into a shallow bowl, into something wet and grainy and gray, and begins to gently smear it over Harry’s arm, where the worst of the pox gathered at his elbow. It’s ice-cold and feels like heaven on Harry’s burning skin. “What else did he tell you?” 

“He’s waiting for Arthur.” The grief in his voice had been overwhelming. Harry’s eyes fill, despite himself. “That’s so sad. To be waiting for someone for so long. Do you know he’s a tyro, like me?” 

“He was. The very first.” 

“He said his magic isn’t practiced anymore.” 

Severus hums, dipping his fingers into the bowl once more. The nodules at Harry’s neck pulse in time with his heartbeat. He knows he must look absolutely disgusting, but Severus doesn’t seem to mind. "Many branches of magic have gone out of use as advances have been made, similar to the way cooking has evolved from campfires and hot stones to modern hobs, but to say any more would be a disservice to you, as you’re not following a word I’m saying.”  

“I am so.” A shudder runs through the bed, and Harry realizes that this horse’s arse is laughing at him. Rude. He scowls. “Hey!”  

“Apologies for besmirching your flawless memory, clearly it is without equal. What were we talking about?” 

“How we visited Lockhart at St. Barts,” Harry says with certainty. 

"Ah, of course. When did we visit?” 

“Christmas, the year Remus fell through the veil.” Guilt swamps up his throat, and a quiet, unshakable grief for all that he and Remus never were to one another but could have been. “His boy is my boy, now. I love him so much. I promised I’d take care of him, and I will. I’d never make him sleep in a garden shed, or let Dudley chase him.” 

“Dudley?” 

“My cousin.” 

Severus gently sets Harry’s elbow on his leg, to smear the ice-cold, grainy potion on his inner arm. Something in his armpit hurts, a thumping, far-away pain. "Petunia’s sprog.” 

“He wasn’t so bad, in the end. I saved him from dragons once.” 

“The terrors of Little Whinging,” Severus agrees solemnly. Harry narrows his eyes at him, trying to figure out if the man is teasing him, but he looks deadly serious as he carefully coats Harry’s sensitive inner arm in the potion. “Did they make you sleep in the garden shed often?” 

“No,” Harry says, and sees his crayola drawings on the walls, his little plastic soldiers lined up in a row over Severus’s shoulder. “I slept in the cupboard under the stairs.” 

Severus goes still, studying Harry carefully. Whatever he sees makes him tighten up with fury. His hands are gentle, though, when he coats the gray potion on the ball off Harry’s shoulder. “I’m very sorry you endured that.” 

“Did you know?” 

“Know?” 

“I thought – with the Occlumency lessons.” 

A million emotions cross Severus’s face in a fraction of a second, before smoothing out once more. “I don’t believe so. I like to think he wasn’t the type of man to allow a child to return to a home like that.” 

A voice calls out from the other room. It sounds like Professor Snape, but how could that be, when Severus was right here with him? "Speak of the devil and he doth appear,” Severus mutters, and carefully folds the yellow film over his hands back, muttering a word so that they disappear with a little pop. “I’ll return momentarily. Do not try to get up again.”  

“Again?” 

“Never mind. Don’t move.” 

With that he quickly strides out of the room. From Harry’s spot on the bed, he can just see the cauldrons brewing on every available surface blurting thick fumes. Severus sounds like he’s arguing with himself, and it’s awful. Harry wishes he’d be kinder to himself.  

A long time seems to pass, and Harry stops paying attention to it. Lucidity, what small grasp he had on it, is gone. What takes up all of his thoughts is growing pain, how the tincture cools the fire down from a roaring inferno to a hot flame, but never seems to last as long as it should. Waves of agony trickle down from the base of his spine, fanning out along all the pathways of his nerves, until he’s brought to the brink of tears. His green blanket is so scratchy, the cot’s fitted sheet sodden through with his sweat and pus and blood. The measles aren’t supposed to be this bad, but Aunt Petunia hadn’t dragged him to the bath this time, and he knows that it’s because of the pustules, that she’d rather he die than touch him, much less to help him.  

He had a nice teacher this year, Mrs. Turnplak. She didn’t call on him in class, ignored him really, especially after the Dursley’s had gotten to her at Teacher Night, but she hadn’t been cruel, not like Mrs. Smithe had been. She ignored him, but she was fair, and she didn’t always take Dudley’s side either. 

Surely Mrs. Turnplak would have called the Dursley’s to ask after Harry. It’s been a long time, now. Harry’s certainly missed the book fair, and a great lump rises in his throat that he won’t get to look at the new books. He doesn’t have pocket money, of course he doesn’t, but he likes to see the new books, and maybe read the backs of them if the librarian doesn’t mind his grubby fingers.  

It’s in the worst moments, when Harry would gladly peel his skin off himself to get away from the pain, that he hears the voice speaking to him. It’s melodic and soft, there in Harry’s cupboard, but if he concentrates he can just hear the man. The words are incomprehensible, but it’s not about the words, anyway. He can hear care and concern in the voice, concern for Harry, and he doesn’t know how that happened. No one cares about him. No one sees him. 

“I see you,” says the voice, and oh, he isn’t in the cupboard at all, because the cupboard isn’t big enough for two grown men.  

Severus is there, he can feel him, sense him. The soft touch of his hands on Harry’s skin, as familiar to him as his own beating heart. The smell of him, vanilla and cedar, cinnamon and sage. The concern in his voice as he speaks to Harry, tells him stories, feeds him cool broth that dampens the fire licking hot under his skin. The sharp bite of the tincture that does what it can to ease Harry’s pain, and the potion, which is like ice down his throat, putting out the flames.  

Severus as he is, as he was, as he will be.  

It’s enough, and he can sleep.  

. 

He’s aware of the warmth, first. Light pours over the bed, early morning sunshine that whispers of a new day, new promises and new adventures. It warms his face, his cheek turned into it, and lets his eyes crack open just a bit.

He isn’t alone. Asleep on the bed beside him, eyelashes throwing shadows on his cheeks, is a man. 

He stares at the man just beyond the curl of his inner elbow. He’s on his side, face half-turned into the pillow, in a sweat-stained shirt. The big, heavy swell of his shoulder has pulled the shirt taut at his upper arm, the line of muscle over his ribs on display in a way Harry didn’t know he could find appealing. Stubble that was threatening to become a beard has come up all over his lower face, the tangle of his unwashed hair a halo around him, falling over his ear. He looks exhausted and drawn, skin pale and eyes creased even in sleep. 

The king would be furious if he could see his son like this, for a lowly servant. It was enough that he’d gone to get the Morteaus flower at all, but to have been brought here, to the prince’s rooms? To be laying in his bed?  

He has the irresistible urge to reach out and touch that face, that profile. The scruffy stubble, the strong jaw. Wants to trace his finger down that Roman nose to the soft lips, parted just slightly in sleep. Makes to do so, until one dark eye opens.  

They look at each other, there in the quiet of the bedroom, in the light of the new sun, and Harry comes back to himself.  

Hogwarts. Morning. He’d been – he'd been ill. Was still, though he thinks he’s recovering now. Familiar stone even in this unfamiliar room, with its dark blue bedding and gray sheets, the double-wardrobe along the back wall, the bathroom the mirror to Harry’s own just beyond the door on the opposite wall. 

The man in the bed beside him, in a sweaty t-shirt a size too small with a hole in the neck, is Severus. 

“Eighty percent less poxed this morning,” he says, voice deep and exhausted, and Harry feels a pull below his navel, insistent and near painful in an ache he barely understands. 

“Come to Grimmauld Place with me and Teddy,” Harry says. His own voice is like gravel. “For winter hols.” 

“No, you and the child are coming with me, to my house at Spinner’s End. It’s a decrepit old hovel on a hill, you’ll feel right at home.”  

Joy funnels up into his heart. This man, who argues with him and calls him a brat and doesn’t give a single iota of a shit that Harry’s sort of a big deal. He smiles. “My house has shrunken skulls under the floorboards.”  

Eyebrows jump up in interest. “I have a doxy infestation so severe that they’ve evolved a civilization.”  

“Eyeballs in velvet satchels in cupboards.”

“Evil garden gnomes that bite.”

“Hidden secret bleeding dark wizard library.”  

“Hmm. Well. I suppose spending a day or two in that shithole wouldn’t be remiss.”  

His laugh is whispery and dusty, and the corner of Severus’s mouth quirks. With a low groan he sits up, pulling the blanket Harry’s wrapped in down just enough to look at him. A throb knifes down his gut, but Severus just checks his collar and chest. He’s glad for the gray paste he seems to be covered in, which helps hide the blush.  

“Your recovery has been difficult, but I don’t anticipate any resulting effects,” Severus says, studying his collar, his neck, his chest. “Healers from St. Mungo’s are here, they’ll see you today. Sit up, if you can, of your own power.” 

He does, though it’s slow going. He's not prepared for the strange sensation in his back and shoulders, like cracking through a thin layer of ice on a cold winter’s day. “Oh. Weird.” 

“There will be a crystalized sensation in your major muscle groups,” Severus says, watching him shrewdly as Harry slowly leans back against the headboard. “Tell me why.” 

“Dragon Pox makes you feel like you’re burning alive, though you aren’t actually. It’s just the way the virus interacts with the nerves, so the potion mimics ice to soothe the body’s reaction to it. I–I thought I was going to catch fire, Severus,” he says around a sudden lump in his throat. “I thought I was going to burn away.” 

“I know,” he replies nearly gently, which isn’t very gentle at all. Still, Harry knows him now, and he can read the concern in his dark eyes. “You don’t feel heat anymore?” 

“No. Just an ache, all over. Are the kids okay?” 

“No fatalities. The worst of the cases were transferred to St. Mungo’s two days ago. We thought we’d need to send you with them, but you turned the corner unexpectedly.” There’s an odd note in his voice, but Harry doesn’t know how to ask after it, and Severus doesn’t explain. “I didn’t -- the scar. The pox seemed to gather around it most heavily. I did what I could to mitigate it, but I expect you may have a few marks around it despite best efforts made.” 

The jagged lightning ripped from his collar to below his sternum, a near-perfect match to the one on his face. It stood out on his pale, gray-tinged skin, like a child had taken a red marker to his chest. The perfect dividing line between the before and after. Childhood and adulthood. Life and death. It’s covered in paste, but he can see what Severus is saying. The pox had gathered around the scar tissue, as if drawn to the dark magic that had put it there. “Oh.”

“My sincerest apologies,” Severus says stiffly, but Harry waves it away. 

“No, it’s - it’s alright. It really doesn’t matter.” 

Severus studies him, his hair every-which-way, his eyes bruised and exhausted, and the bubble of affection in Harry is warm and sweet. “I must really insist that you bathe. You smell – how did you so eloquently put it? Like a hippogriff. One that has just hibernated for five months in a cave.” 

He really, really does. “Manly.” 

“Nauseating,” says Severus, like he has any room to talk, and helps him swing his legs over the side of the bed. “A bath, tepid and not too warm. You are not attempting it on your own, as I will not be responsible for the thrashing Poppy would surely give me if you fell and cracked your fool Gryffindor head open.” 

“My modesty’s just not a thing we’re going to worry about, then.” 

“Mm. A rag in the face of the last days. Be glad that I ignored it, or you would have found yourself with a green-tinged undercarriage for the rest of your life.” 

Harry closes his eyes. “Oh my God.” 

“You have nothing to be ashamed of Harrison,” Severus says, as if his reaction is utterly ridiculous and he’s an idiot. It’s all about the arched brow. “The human body is the human body, in all of its awkward and wondrous glory. What are potions, if not to help ease the suffering of being human?”

“It’s still embarrassing!” 

“Would you have rather had Poppy treating your nethers?” Severus demands, sliding his arm around Harry’s waist as they move to the side of the bed. 

“No, but – " 

"Then the appropriate response is ‘thank you’. Left foot first.” 

Harry stares at him, then down at his feet. He’s standing, which is a surprise. He can’t quite track when that happened. He is also very naked, and the full length of him is covered in crusted pustules and gray flaking potion. He gags, and Severus barks, “Absolutely not. I have not been brewing for a week straight for my precious work to end up splattered on the floor. Left foot.” 

“I am moving my left foot!” he yells, except he looks back down at his feet and oh. Well, he hasn’t moved, has he. 

Severus growls low in his throat and then, with nary a by-your-leave, sweeps Harry up into a bridal carry so completely mortifying that he wishes the Dragon Pox had just done him in. “No, this is not on, I am not a princess, put me down. I’m getting pox bogeys on you!” 

The daft wanker laughs at him, but he does take Harry through to the bathroom and sets him down, carefully, on the side of the bathtub. “You’ve gotten far worse on me in the last days, Potter,” he says, smirking, as he gets the bath going. “It’s just potion residue, your pox is mostly gone. Your skin will feel sensitive for a few more days yet, but otherwise you’ve healed.” 

“Physically, maybe. What about the trauma train, huh?” he demands, as Severus helps Harry swing his legs into the tub, then scoot down into the water. It’s blissful, and he swallows the moan because oh, this was a good idea. This was the best of good ideas.  

He loses track of time for a bit, but when he opens his eyes again Severus is there, knelt at the side of the tub, with a towel and a few old scraps of t-shirt and the most naked expression Harry’s ever seen on his face. It’s gone in a flash, but Harry had seen it, and oh. Oh.  

Oh. 

“Unfortunately, we'll be residents of the trauma train for a while longer,” Severus says, and Harry feels a great welling of emotion knotting up his throat.  

“Thank you. Really, Severus. Thank you for – for all of it. I wasn’t exactly lucid, but I know you brewed all of the potion for the school. I saw it in the front room. How many cauldrons did you have going?” 

"Irrelevant. I did not trust any other to brew it.” He dips one of the old scraps of t-shirt into the bath water and hands it to Harry. “Too many potion masters follow the old recipe by Grant, which only focuses on the external scarring, not the internal. I have seen victims of Dragon Pox lose sensation in their extremities, or suffer debilitating nerve pain, due to his slipshod work. I have been trying for over a decade to get my formula widely adopted, but my use of valerian root has long been a source of contention.” 

Harry considers that, as he runs the cloth up his neck. It feels strangely abrasive, even though he knows it’s soft as butter. “It’s the binder and neutralizer in fire and heat potions. It makes sense it would bind to the nerves and protect them from Dragon Pox. 

“It does, but when has sense ever factored into anything the Ministry does? Sit forward, let me wash your back.” 

Slowly, carefully, Harry sits up in the bath, leaning forward. He feels as weak as a newborn kitten, elbows shaking where he grasps the edge of the tub. “Were you serious about the hols?” 

“Have you ever known me not to be serious?” 

Harry had seen him not be serious plenty of times, but he knows better than to say so. He’d rather not ruffle Severus’s feathers this early in the morning. “Grimmauld Place is in a bad way. I’d appreciate it if you could help me de-Dark Magic the place a bit. I had to bring some of it down to the studs, and I still don’t think it’ll be enough.” 

Severus huffs. He’s very gentle, where he’s rubbing the cloth around the nape of Harry’s neck, trying to unstick some of the potion, and the feeling is at once alien and soothing. Aunt Petunia had never touched him if she didn’t have to, even when he was very small, and had certainly never bathed him with the care Severus is showing him. It makes a strange lump rise in his throat, even as the sensation cascades down his chest and back, making him shiver. 

“Why are you insisting on keeping the place? Surely not for any sense of sentimentality. Black hated that house.” 

“I don’t know, it’s growing on me.” 

“Like a life-sucking fungus.” 

“I mean, it only sucks my life a bit,” he says. “Even if I did get rid of the place, what’s to say that the magic wouldn’t seep out and escape into the other houses on the lane? It’s too dangerous. Something’s got to be done about it first.” 

“You’ve had the child there?” 

Harry, whose eyes had closed of their own volition a while ago, snorts. “Yes. It likes Teddy. He’s far more a Black than I am. It sort of croons when he’s around, and everything works, and it’s all rather merry and beautiful. When I’m there alone, it isn’t nearly as pleasant.” 

“You were serious, about the skulls.” 

“Oh yeah. Eyeballs, too. Lots of body parts, if I’m being honest. The Blacks weren’t the most cheerful bunch, were they?” 

“A cut above the rest, to be sure,” Severus replies dryly, and runs the washcloth down Harry’s shoulder. “Stay awake.” 

He can’t. “I am.” 

“You aren’t. The bathtub isn’t the place to sleep.” He presses the washcloth into Harry’s chest, and Harry catches it. “Wash. I’ll get you some clothing. Be aware that it will feel very strange, even painful, for a period, but the sensation will fade.” 

That, as Severus was so keen on saying, was an understatement. When Harry finally drags himself out of the tub, cleaned and feeling fifty-percent more human, he endures a drying spell from Severus and then enters the next phase of his convalescence: The Horror of Clothing. He groans in agony when Severus helps him pull on a pair of black brais, which Harry recognizes to be very, very old and washed into buttery softness, but which feel like a potato sack on his skin. The t-shirt nearly ends his will to live, and he’s fully in tears by the time Severus pulls it down over his chest. Severus is murmuring to him, something low and understanding, and helps Harry sit in the chair by the window, completing the ensemble with socks that should be outlawed by the Wizengamot. “My apologies, Harrison,” Severus says, tugging the socks gently up Harry’s ankle. “I know it’s painful. Let your body acclimatize to it.” 

“This sucks,” he sobs, and gets to see Severus smile a little.  

“You know why it hurts.” 

“Nerves.” 

“Nerves,” he agrees. “Everything’s standing on end, but it’ll calm down as your body remembers what clothing feels like. It did with the bedding, and it will with clothing. It may be a while before you can wear shoes, and anything heavier than what you have on now is out of the question, at least until the end of this week.” 

Severus calls for the House Elves, who come five-strong to strip the bedding and begin taking care of the towels and sick cloths. Now that Harry can see the room in the light of day, he realizes just how long he’s been here. There are dishes piled up on a table next to the bedroom’s fireplace, towels in a heap – tidy, but still a heap – in the bathroom. Likewise, several sets of sheets and blankets had been stripped over the days he’d been here.  

The front room is no better, he discovers, when he finally hobbles into the entryway. Severus had brought several worktables from his lab into his flat, but it hadn’t been enough. The countertop, desk, and dining table had been conscripted into service, and the living room furniture had been shoved away to make room for student work tables from the teaching lab. It’s strewn with bowls of ingredients, mortars and pestles, and all of Severus’s equipment. The massive portrait from the lab is hung haphazardly on the wall by the window, and Professor Snape’s face is buried in the painted fold of his arms, deeply asleep.  

All told, there must be twenty cauldrons in the room. Harry turns to stare at Severus, hovering in the doorway of his bedroom.  

He has the good grace to look mildly embarrassed. He sniffs. 

It comes on Harry completely, like the flick of a switch. It’s a bright sparkler of sensation in the heavy canvas of his life, a feeling that grows stronger and stronger, burning away the darkness and filling him with nothing but light. The feeling is laced through with a joy that fills all his bones hollowed of their marrow, all of the dark pits of his soul scraped clean and left bleeding. As if all the missing bits of himself have finally found their compliment, in the dark-eyed man standing in the doorway. 

He knows what this feeling is. Can name it for all that it is. Quiet and ecstatic and –  

“Fuck,” he croaks. 

And a certainty, now. 

 Severus rolls his eyes, as if Harry’s entire world isn’t being torn down and rebuilt in front of him. “I wasn’t about to let those idiots from St. Mungo’s use – " 

“--Grant’s formulation, yeah, yeah I get it,” Harry says, nearly breathless as he stares at the room, unseeing. The feeling bubbles in him like champagne, and he wants to giggle and also run away screaming. “No wonder you look like you got run over by a truck. How did you do this?”

“With help,” says Professor Snape, head raised from his arms just enough to glare at them both. His hair is sticking up every which way, and Harry sees the resemblance between the elder and the younger. “Do you mind, Potter. Some of us haven’t had rest in a week.” 

“Sorry,” he says, and stares at Severus again. “What -- what day is it.” 

“December third.” 

When he’d sat down in his chair in his rooms, it had been November twenty-eighth. Severus had been alone and brewing and caring for Harry for six days. “How are you still standing?” he demands. 

Severus’s rooms, which until now had not spoken to him, suddenly come alive. In his mind’s eye, he can see the man scrambling from cauldron to cauldron, Professor Snape barking orders from the portrait. He watches Severus jerk his wand and twelve sets of ingredients fly to hover over their respective cauldrons as he mutters under his breath and then sends them all into the boiling liquid at the same time. Sweat runs down his face, the dark bruises with their own bruises under his eyes, as from the bedroom Harry sobs out, piteously. The swamping feeling of helplessness in Severus’s eyes makes Harry’s heart nearly break for the exhausted man standing in the doorway glaring at him. The man who had selflessly and tirelessly worked for days, to make sure Harry and all of the sick children would be whole and healthy on the other end of this illness. 

“With careful application of steel nerves and stubbornness,” Severus replies, haughty with disdain, and Harry’s heart gives a lurch of feeling. “Back to bed with you.” 

His legs put a timer on just how long they’re willing to keep him upright. He urges them not to lose their nerve now, and pins Severus back with a look. Harry’s been told this particular look is pretty scary, which is confirmed by the startled expression that crosses Severus’s face, like he can’t believe he’s being accosted by eyebrow at this hour of the morning. “I will go back to bed. And so will you. Shower, first.” 

“Are you giving me orders in my own rooms?” Severus demands, but he's gentle when he catches Harry’s arm after his knees give a particularly dramatic wobble, and guides him back into the bedroom. His hands are so careful, long fingers dry and rough, one of his thumbnails bruised from where he’d caught his finger on something, and gentle on Harry’s skin.  

"Correct,” Harry snipes back. He sits, carefully, on the edge of the fresh, soft bed. The elves are still bustling about the place, but it smells clean now, the window open just the smallest bit to let in cool air. “I’ve been de-hippogriffed, but you still stink of sweat and questionable, if brave and selfless, life choices. Go and shower.” 

“The unimaginable cheek of you,” says Severus with some awe, as if he’s only now catching on to what an arsehole Harry can be. He gathers up a change of clothes, put-upon and miffed, and disappears into the washroom, nearly immediately popping his head back out. The man is all sticking-out hair, stubble, and sweat. He looks absolutely horrible. Pure affection burns in a lump in Harry’s throat. “If you get up from that bed, I swear I will curse you to bleat like a sheep for the next month.” 

“Nice to see that even your ability to make threats diminishes when you’re exhausted, though I’ll give you points for using the word ‘bleat’. Go.” 

Severus sniffs, and goes. 

As soon as the shower comes on, Harry carefully lays back, burrows his face in a pillow, and does his best to suffocate himself with it. 

Chapter Text

heartspur

n.an unexpected surge of emotion in response to a seemingly innocuous trigger—the distinctive squeal of a rusty fence, a key change in an old pop song, the hint of a certain perfume—which feels all the more intense because you can’t quite pin it down.

Harry’s given the official green light from St Mungo’s to go back to his rooms not two days later, as he is no longer in imminent danger from the Dragon Pox. All told, sixty-eight students, and Harry, had come down with the Pox, and not a single one of them had died, which the healer told him was a miracle but which they both knew was Severus’s exceptional potion making. 

“I’m going to look into his Application for Change again,” one of the St. Mungo’s healers had told Harry, as she’d checked his neck and throat. “Reynolds told me Professor Snape has submitted it several times, but it was never accepted because of the valerian root substitution. In hindsight, a fairly stupid reason. One of the Second Year children in particular was in a very bad way, we think she may have been one of the first to catch it. His potion saved her life.” 

Of course it had. Severus is brilliant, passionate, dedicated, and Harry –  

Oh, God.  

In hindsight, it makes absolute sense that he's feeling this; he’s been feeling it since Severus clomped his way down the hall in galoshes and a Quidditch sweatshirt, with his pail of slimy potion ingredients. Or maybe it had been earlier than that, the first time he’d seen Minnow grab hold of Severus’s robes and the man had just walked about the flat with her hanging off him like a limpet. Or maybe, maybe it had been that first night, when Harry had looked across the Great Hall at the stranger wearing Professor Snape’s best black robes.  

He thinks on it for days, through the week of classes and homework he isn’t truly paying attention to, and brewing sessions with Severus. The man looks at him a little differently now, though Harry supposes a degree of familiarity isn’t remiss, not when one has seen the other’s green and poxy undercarriage (oh, God). He worries at it through meals in the Great Hall, where Ron and Hermione shoot him concerned looks when they think he isn’t paying attention, and at night in the Teacher’s Common Room, where Severus does his best imitation of a vulture as he grades term papers in front of the fire and drinks gallons of his horrid beetle tea Harry is very pleased to see everyone turns down.  

For a long time, longer than he wants to admit, Harry had thought something was wrong with him – that what he’d suffered at Privet Drive had damaged him in some irreparable way. His body had never given him much problem, not like his dormmates in Gryffindor, or even Ron, who had spent their younger years getting stiff when the wind changed direction. Harry had never experienced those sorts of issues, and pleasure, while pleasant enough, had never done much for him. 

It had been a growing concern for him, but then the world burned and he hadn’t had time to worry about it, certainly not when Cedric, and then Sirius, and then Dumbledore, died, and not while chasing down horcruxes, and not in the year’s aftermath of grief and pain. 

As it turns out, there’s nothing wrong with him, aside from the very simple fact that he just doesn’t find girls that interesting — a fact he’s mortified to admit, at least to himself, is a revelation. He’d liked Cho and Ginny well enough in school, but he realizes now that what he’d felt for them, even in his adolescence, wasn’t attraction, not really.

What he does find attractive? Severus’s smooth, strong wrists. His neck, when he leaned over Harry’s cauldron. The wings of his collarbones pressing out his knit sweaters, and the tumble of his long hair. His fine and beautiful mind, and the richness of his inner life that Harry only got to see glimpses of, like when Severus found something funny that no one else did, or the way that, when they argued about potion philosophy, Harry got to see the degree and depth of his intellect, the way he could puzzle things out and tie threads together in ways Harry had never seen before. 

He knows he’s got Hermione and Ron concerned, so soon after his illness. He can see them trading glances when they think he’s not looking, and Hermione sits a little closer to him in the Great Hall, her elbow brushing his, a warm and steady presence. Ron, too, makes excuses to come over to Harry’s room, brings him sweets Ducky’d brought from the United States, or flops onto Harry’s sofa to expound on the myriad ways Hermione was driving him mad.  

Harry gets it. He spent a year devolving in Grimmauld Place, sinking into blank emptiness until it had nearly consumed him as Ron and Hermione looked on, terrified for him.  

But this – this isn’t that awful, echoing emptiness, the drumming hollow of his chest, the ache behind his eyes. This is something else entirely.  

Whatever is happening between him and Severus has a strange sort of inevitability about it, as if the universe had exhaled after finally setting itself right, and was gently ferrying them along to the place where they should have been all along. 

As impossible as it felt, Severus had always been that boy who had helped him down from the train, shining Prefect badge on his chest. He had always been that man, who had given everything for Harry in the Shrieking Shack. Who had died in front of him, gasping and gagging on his own blood. 

Severus is like a scar on Harry’s life, one he doesn’t understand or can wrap his mind around, but it’s there, a ragged wound barely healed over, stitched together with poor skill. It feels like they’d stepped into a book at the wrong chapter, but were picking up the threads of the story anyhow. 

There’s an inevitability of their lives together, at this time, in this place, as if he and Severus had lived this together already, and had settled into long-forgotten patterns that had always been there, just waiting to be rediscovered. He doesn’t know how he knows this, but he does, with the sort of unshakable certainty he had only felt about the true facts of his life: his parents had died to protect him, Dumbledore had used him, his aunt and uncle hated him, and Severus Snape had always been meant to be right here, right now, with him.

They're on the cusp of something bigger than the two of them, he feels it in a pounding echo down to his bones. For once in Harry’s miserable bloody life, the feeling isn’t predicated by fear, but is instead intense and tender, growing in that hollow place behind his heart.  

. 

The holidays arrive at Hogwarts, as they always do, in the full breadth of their splendor. 

It seems as if one minute Harry’s recovering from the Dragon Pox, and trying to get caught up on his homework, and living in the full understanding that he has fallen in love with Severus Snape, and the next there’s snow on the ground and Hagrid is dragging Christmas trees into the Great Hall. 

There’s the end-of-term feast, complete with puddings of all stripe and roast venison, and the kids put on a Christmas recital complete with a Weird Sisters cover of Holly Jolly Yuletide. Then, just like that, they’re scampering through the Entrance Hall doors with luggage in tow for Hogsmeade, morning sun sparkling off of new-fallen snow. 

The castle feels very, very empty after that, but for the first time in many long years, Harry has plans for Christmas too. 

"Ree!!” Teddy shrieks, when Andromeda steps out of the floo in the Teacher’s Common Room in a swirl of green fire and squirming baby. They look positively Dickensian, smeared with soot from the fireplace, and Harry laughs out loud and takes Teddy in his arms.  

His godson beams, clapping wildly and peppering Harry with sooty kisses, as Andromeda coughs and waves a hand in front of her face, her wand following immediately after. “Merlin’s beard, Harry, he’s been asking after you since last night. He tried to jump out of the Network at the Leaky Cauldron!” 

“Ree,” Teddy agrees, and grins when Harry taps his own wand on his tiny head, clearing the soot with a little whirl of air, and kisses him once, twice, five times hello, and Teddy’s little arms wrap around his neck and squeeze him in a tight hug even as he squirms and giggles from Harry’s stubbly smooches. Teddy had gotten so big in just the few months since he’d seen him, tall and filled out from giggling baby to bouncing toddler, squealing for him and pat-pat-patting his cheeks. “Ree, hi! Gurma, hi!” 

“Hi!” Harry chirps and Andromeda rolls her eyes, and kisses his cheek, and says, “Hello, Harry,” which sends Teddy into paroxysms of giggles.  

Flitwick, who’d been coming down the hall with his own luggage floating behind him, laughs as well. Harry would dare anyone to hear Teddy and not laugh. “Andromeda and little Edward! My dear, you’re right on time.”
 
“Hello, Filius,” she says, and kisses him on each cheek as well,  and Harry pretends not to see him blush. “It’s so wonderful to see you. I can’t thank you enough for the invitation to the symposium.” 

“Good one this year! Master Ignus is giving the keynote on his newest developments in transmutational charmswork, which is going to set the tone for the entire conference. It’s going to be an absolute bibbity bang, I’m certain! Oh Harry, are you sure you won’t come?” 

Harry bops Teddy on his hip, and his godson grins. “Thank you very much for the invitation Professor, but we’re going to have a great time, Teddy and I.” 

“You will be safe, won’t you dear?” Andromeda says, smoothing Harry’s lapel where Teddy had grabbed it and immediately shoved it into his mouth. “You’ve only just gotten well.” 

“It’s been three weeks,” he says, and squeezes her hand. “I’m better, honestly.” 

She searches his face, and then sighs, patting his chest. “Gave us all a fright, you did. If at any moment you don’t feel well enough to continue on, you floo-call me straight away, you understand? No nonsense from you, Harry Potter, especially if you insist on your ludicrous plan.”

The ludicrous plan in question was this: he, Severus and Teddy would spend the week leading up to Christmas at Severus’s house, on Spinner’s End. Andromeda would join them on Christmas day, and then they’d all head to the Burrow and have Christmas supper with the Weasleys, Ron and Hermione. It had taken Harry some effort, and only a minimal application of guilt, to get Severus to agree. From there, Andromeda was taking Teddy to visit the elder Ted’s parents in Kensington, Ron and Hermione were headed to Sydney to see Hermione’s parents, and Harry and Severus would spend the remaining days before the new term at Grimmauld Place, trying to get an idea about what could be done about the house.  

Harry had been insistent he could make the repairs on the house himself, but it was one thing to lay new carpet and put up new walls, and quite another to rid it of the Dark Magic that Harry was sure would only get worse the longer the house sat vacant. It didn’t help that Harry had decided, after much back and forth with Ron and Hermione, to ask Kreacher to come to the house and help them. No one else knew the extent of the horrors it contained like Kreacher, and as much as Harry didn’t want to have him along, for the elderly elf’s own sake, he can see the wisdom of it. 

“Madame Tonks.” 

Standing in the doorway to the Men’s Hall, still in full Professor Snape kit from seeing the kids off on the Express, is Severus. Those billowing black robes do nothing to hide his youth, his shoulders, the nip of his waist. Harry’s heart turns over in his chest. Teddy stares at him, his little eyes wide and his hair flickering from yellow to orange to yellow again. “I promise you, the first order of business will be to ascertain what can be done about the house.” 

Andromeda’s eyes are suddenly very bright. “It’s a creeping sort of darkness, Severus, though I hardly need tell you that.” 

“Indeed you do not.” 

“It’s worse, now, with them all gone.”

"So Harrison has told me,” Severus replies carefully. “We will come to an accord and determine how to proceed, you have my word.” 

“It’s a hateful old house filled with hateful old memories. Remember that.” 

He bows his head. “Yes, Madame.” 

“Enough with this ‘madame’ nonsense, you silly boy, I’ve known you since you were eleven,” she says, and kisses him firmly on the forehead. He blushes crimson, which is an extremely good look on him Harry finds, and submits to his own forehead kiss with far more grace. Teddy, of course, goes shy when she gives him a dozen kisses and cups his little face, beaming at his grandmother with all the love in his heart right there in his big blue eyes. “You’ll floo call if you need anything.”
 
“I will, I promise,” Harry says, and holds her hand over his cheek.  

“I know how these wild bachelor holidays go.” The Look she gives them both would put Molly’s to shame. “Make sure you eat enough, and get some sleep in between all of the carousing.” 

“Only the best Nik Naks and chips with vinegar for dinner, I swear.”  

“I’m serious!” 

“So am I,” he says, grinning. “We’ll be fine, I promise. Don’t worry about us, and try to enjoy the Charms conference. We’ll see you on Christmas Day.”

Almost as if on cue, as soon as Andromeda and Flitwick Floo to the Ministry to catch their international portkey, and the flames fade from green to orange again, Teddy asks, "Gurma? Gurma go?”, his eyes wet and hair already a deep purple.  

Harry knows how this goes. He gives Teddy a smile, turning them away from the Floo so his godson won’t see where his grandmother has just gone. Severus hasn’t moved, statue-like and still, and Harry rubs Teddy’s back gently. “Teddy, love. This is Severus. Say hello.” 

Teddy sniffles, giving a wobbling sort of smile, and Harry isn’t sure but he’d swear something stiff in Severus’s face eases. “Hi hi hi. Ree!” 

“Hi hi hi,” Harry tells Severus dutifully, and is warmed by Severus’s snort.  

"Good afternoon, Edward,” Severus replies, eyebrow arching when Teddy ducks his head shyly, burying his face in Harry’s neck. “I take it you’re packed and ready, Harrison?” 

Harry pats his pocket. He’s got their luggage, Teddy’s crib and toys, enough clothes to last them a fortnight, and all of Teddy’s gifts. Andromeda had sent hers through the Floo early this morning, so Harry would have enough time to shrink them so Teddy wouldn’t see. “Minnow?”

“I took her by Floo this morning to Spinner’s End, where she immediately hid under the nearest sofa, coughing and spluttering like she had just emerged from the coal mines. She will, I can only imagine, require sufficient homage and treats before she deigns to grace us with her royal presence.”

“As is right and proper for a princess.”

“Her retribution for the indignity of the Floo will be merciless,” Severus says with a sigh.

Harry had asked Severus if they could walk down to the ward line at the edge of the Hogwarts grounds, rather than Floo, and he had readily agreed. The grounds really were spectacular this time of year, cold and crisp and stunning, and Harry had felt that funny, stirring nostalgia to give this little pocket of time to Teddy, this quiet world that so few had ever appreciated quite the way Harry did, or suspects Severus does.  

The silence of the grounds after the stampeding herd of children this morning, the fresh-fallen snow, even the bright winter sun, remind Harry of all of the many Christmas holidays he’d spent here as a boy, and what they meant to him. To be free from the Dursleys had been important, yes, but more than that, he had felt as if he could take a breath for the first time. The sheer volume of nature here, away from the concrete muggle world, had felt funny and strange to Harry at first, to live here in the wildness of land untouched, the old castle as much a part of the landscape as the cliffs surrounding the lake, the forest, the sloping hill leading down into Hogsmeade. In time he had come to appreciate the importance of it, the magic of this place, the leylines he can see now, far under them, teeming with life. 

The bright sun cascades through the tree boughs, cutting through the branches of Scots Pine and Alder trees, as they approach the massive front gate bookended by forest and snow drifts. Teddy stares all around them, his eyes enormous as he looks from the tree line of the Forbidden Forest, to the Great Lake, then back over Harry’s shoulder at the castle. He keeps sniffing, nose wrinkling adorably, at the strong scent of pine, the freshness of the snow and the cold, biting air.  

For his part Severus only looks slightly uncomfortable, though Harry can tell he’s trying to hide it. He knows Severus doesn’t particularly like children, for all that he teaches them nine months a year, but he’s never seen Severus around a child this young. Harry himself had never been around babies at all, not until Teddy, so he understands probably better than most.  

“Hoo!” Teddy suddenly cries, pointing, and Harry looks up at the owl soaring overhead, great brown wings spread wide. “Hooo! Ree, hoo!” 

“A northern long-eared owl,” Severus says. “Of the family Strigidae and the genus Asio. They are the most common of all owls in the magical world. Their wingspans are also among the longest, nearly fifty centimeters for full-grown adults, making them exceptional long distance flyers.” 

Harry bites his lip so he won’t laugh because Teddy is staring at him, looking for all the world like he’d understood every word Severus just said. Severus brings them to a stop. He folds his hands together, one over the other, thumbs meeting, and then raises his head and whistles through the little space between his knuckles. It sounds exactly like an owl’s call, and they watch as the owl turns around, gliding towards them and circling once overhead. Severus does the call again, and of course it’s Atiq, Harry recognizes his plumage. He lands with a great billowing of wings and feathers on Severus’s shoulder, talons lightly gripping Severus’s robes. The scent of him is indescribable, of an animal just on the cusp of wildness, whose master keeps him tethered to the wizarding world, but only just.  

Teddy, eyes wide with wonder, look back and forth between Severus and Atiq, as if he cannot comprehend how the man had called this owl to come down and sit on his shoulder. He looks up at Harry, his hair flaming bright yellow, and Harry lets himself look appropriately shocked as well. If Severus had waved his wand and made dancing penguins appear, Teddy would be less stunned. “Whoa!” he cries. 

Atiq, without missing a beat, tilts his head, bright yellow eyes blinking, and says, “Your hatchling is very handsome, Mr. Potter.” 

“Long-eared owls such as Atiq are specialized predators, meaning that their diet consists almost entirely of rodents such as mice and voles,” Severus tells Teddy in full Professor mode. It doesn’t seem to matter to him that Teddy is only nineteen months old. Harry would find it adorable, if he wasn’t blindly panicking.  

“Celia tells me that you’ve gained the ability to speak to our kind, is that correct?” says Atiq.  

Harry chances a glance at Severus, who is explaining why the mottled patterns of Atiq’s under plumage are gray and grown, and then nods, nearly imperceptibly.  

“Ah, I see. Heed me, Noctua – the time for you to speak to him of all that you are becoming draws near. You will need him, when it is time to find the Cydgyfeiriant.” 

A lake, in the forest of shadows. Pristine and untouched, where amaryllis and white chrysanthemums grew in bunches along the rocky shore, and the crack willow trees reached heavy boughs out across the water towards one another. The surface of the crystalline water, still as glass and reflecting the sky like a mirror, hid all that dwelled below it, the light that danced along each vein of magic leading to the Cydgyfeiriant, the – 

“I would not recommend petting Atiq at present,” Severus tells a giggling Teddy, and Harry comes back to himself all at once: the cold air nipping under his coat, Teddy’s weight there in the crook of his arm, and the scent of winter pine. The magic in the air that fed the core of him, the music of it on the wind and under his feet, pulses in time with his heart, with his pumping blood. He can taste it in the back of his mouth, warm and sweet, can smell it behind Teddy’s ear, can hear it in the timber of Severus’s voice.  

Severus’s voice. Deep and warm as he speaks to Teddy, as if he expects the baby to understand him. And maybe Teddy does, because when Severus says, “He’s on the hunt, looking for something to eat before he treks to Spinner’s End. You may pet him once he arrives and has a rest,” Teddy shrieks, “Bye bye hoo hoo! Ree!”  

“Goodbye, Atiq. We’ll see you soon.” 

"Not before I find my supper, but certainly before daybreak on the morrow. Safe travels,” Atiq says, and takes off with one heave from Severus’s shoulder, beating his wings heavily until he’s high enough to catch the draft over the trees.  

“Hoo hoo bye bye,” Teddy tells Severus, beaming. 

“Indeed,” Severus replies, and if Harry wasn’t looking for it he’d have missed the pleased little something in his voice. He meets Harry’s gaze over Teddy’s head. “Ready?” 

“As I’ll ever be. You know I can apparate, right?” 

“As I am sure you wish to set a good example for the boy by not breaking the law, you will attend me side-along.” Severus reaches out to take Harry’s wrist, and Teddy’s as well, but before Severus can send them hurtling through apparition, Teddy drags Severus’s hand up to his mouth, squashes his fingers together, and calls, “Hoooooooo,” as if Severus’s hands had the power to call owls down from the sky at will.  

It’s bloody adorable it is, and Severus smiles, a real smile, as he gazes down at Harry’s godson blowing raspberries on his knuckles and looking expectantly up at the sky with his little brow furrowed. It’s incredible what that smile does to his face, the dark edges of his expression giving way to a warmth Harry would have never believed Severus Snape capable of.

“Five points to Ravenclaw for deductive reasoning beyond your years,” Severus tells Harry’s little nugget of a boy, and Harry’s heart squeezes painfully. 

He gently untangles his fingers to get a better hold on Teddy’s little hand and wrist, and with one last glance at the two of them, Apparates. 

They land on a dirty, destitute cobblestone street.  

Teddy looks around once, beams, and with a solitary, adorable hiccup, projectile vomits all over the both of them. 

. 

Later he’ll be mortified for the way they blow into Spinner’s End, covered in vomit with a baby who only looks mildly perturbed at the ruckus he’s caused, because as it turns out, cleaning charms only go so far when a baby has been on a course of preventative potions for seasonal allergies.  

Severus is kind about it in his own gruff way, leading Harry up the old wooden staircase to a bedroom with an ensuite that they'd be using during their stay. “Be sure to wash all of the vomit out of his hair or his skin will become inflamed. I believe that this is Milton’s Formula.”

“You seriously know what that vomited potion looks like?” Harry demands, setting Teddy fully clothed into the empty bathtub, where his godson blinks owlishly at him.

“This is a common reaction to that substandard swill St. Mungo’s attempts to pass off as medication,” Severus says darkly. “Wash his hair, and yours, thoroughly.”

Harry hadn’t anticipated having to bathe Teddy and himself two minutes after arriving at Spinner’s End, but he’s not altogether surprised – Teddy had developed something of a panache for ill-timed blow-outs, regardless of what end they came out of, so this tracked. 

Still, he feels a bit sheepish when he comes back downstairs with Teddy fifteen minutes later, the both of them in fresh clothes with a bit of soap still behind their ears, and gets his first real look at Spinner’s End.  

The old but well-maintained wooden floors appeared to be original to the house, the honey oak worn yellow in some spots from the countless feet that had walked to the kitchen to the door, the door to the living room. The threadbare furniture was clean if a bit careworn, and that unique scent of old Persian rugs made Harry feel like he’d stepped back in time. Enormous bookshelves lined the walls, overflowing with leather-bound and cloth-bound books, some with the titles worn clean from age and use, and some brand new. The swish of a black tail tucks itself under the sofa with a low, annoyed hiss.

Likewise, the kitchen had more than one crooked cabinet door and a fridge that sounded like it was going to rumble its way out the garden door, but it was tidy, not a speck of dirt or dust anywhere. Grayish light from the overcast day streams in through the window over the huge, white sink. 

Severus, his hair still damp from his own shower and curling at the ends, in his black jeans and a gray knit jumper, is stood at the counter making tea – Twinings, thank God. He glances over his shoulder to them. “I trust you found the bathroom satisfactory?” 

“Yes, it’s great, thank you. Sorry about Teddy.” 

“What have I told you about the normal mechanisms of the human body? Sometimes one must simply vomit, especially when one weighs less than a Christmas ham and is taking substandard medication that I will be correcting for Andromeda.” Severus sets the tea service on the table, little digestive biscuits and – oh. And an old blue sipping cup, with a faded image of Mickey Mouse on the outside of it. Teddy whines for it immediately, so Harry takes the invitation to sit at the table, Teddy on his lap. “It’s unsweetened pumpkin juice. I did not think milk a wise choice at present.” 

“Probably for the best,” Harry says, as Teddy shoves the spout of the cup into his mouth and drinks noisily. He grins, rubbing his nose gently into the blue curls of Teddy’s soft, damp hair. “So, this is your house, then.” 

“Such as it is,” Severus replies, sitting across from them. He doctors the two cups of tea with five spoonfuls of sugar, and Harry doesn’t wince out of sheer politeness. 

“Where in England are we?” 

“The Midlands. The town is called Cokeworth.” 

“It seems – uh. Nice.” 

“As ever, the degree to which Gryffindors will go to not cause offense is just shy of a Hufflepuff at their very worst.” Severus rolls his eyes. “I can assume Petunia never talked about it.”

There was a whole library of things Petunia Dursley had never discussed, and top of that list was where she’d grown up or anything to do with her parents or sister. Something of it must show on his face, because Severus snorts with disgust. “It may not seem such in its destitution, but the area was once cared for. There was a religious order of nuns, the Community of St. John the Divine, who served as the midwives, business owners, teachers. Then the Blue Flour Mill closed, and within a few years the Order was moved to Brighton.”  

“Blue Flour Mill?” 

Severus tips his chin towards the window. In the distance, just beyond the row of red roofs, he can see an enormous smoke stack, silent against the cloudy winter sky. “For a time, the largest in the UK.”

“Is it still used?”

“Not for nearly thirty years now, since the dissolution of the national bread subsidies.”

Harry could remember reading about the bread shortage in primary school, during history class. Millers were unable to keep up with the cost of production, and Parliament could not agree on the reinstatement of national bread subsidies. In a year the majority of mills in the UK had closed, and those that remained went on strike. 

In those days, food of any stripe was difficult to come by in the Dursley household, but there were always bread ends he could sneak from the bin when Aunt Petunia threw out the bag. Sometimes it was all he was given for days, or even weeks, on end, if he was on punishment. 

He remembers being sat there in his primary school classroom, a terrible sensation of panic in the hollow of his belly, at the thought of not even having that. Of there not being bread at all. 

“Did your family work for the mill?” 

Severus inclines his head, setting a little plate with two vanilla digestives in front of Teddy. His godson double fists them, beaming at Severus and chirping, “Tan oo!”, but Harry catches him before he can shove the entire thing in his mouth. He snaps one biscuit in half, then in fourths, and Teddy grins at him and pushes one of the pieces – and three of his fingers – into his mouth. “Your family did as well, on your mother’s side. Your grandfather, and great grandfather both. Your great grandfather was a foreman for many years, before he passed.” 

Harry’s heart leaps, as it always does, when someone speaks to him of his family. “I didn’t know that.” 

“Most of the working-age men and women of this town were employed there. Your great aunt – that is to say, your grandmother’s sister – ran the bakery that would sell to the grocery chains across the country, during the second World War. When the men returned, she refused to give up the post. For a time, she was the only woman in her position in Great Britain.” 

“I had a great aunt?” 

“Petunia is an indecorous cow,” Severus says, anger narrowing his eyes even as Harry grins. “Yes, Harrison. Her name was Beatrice Collins. She lived for many years in the same nursing village as my father, across the river.” 

In the wizarding world, it is always presumptuous to request personal family information, Severus had once told him. 

Harry bites his lip, and the corner of Severus’s mouth ticks up. “He can be taught.” 

“Alright.” 

“A shock to all concerned, really.” 

“If people only knew how much you like taking the piss,” Harry says, taking the second, soggy and forgotten biscuit from Teddy’s other hand, where it’s melting and causing a mess. “McGonagall does, I’d wager, but only because she likes it too.” 

“Minerva is a lady, first and foremost. That she has the power to roast the flesh from your bones with a single observation of your idiocy is simply a byproduct of her glory,” Severus replies, and Harry laughs. Teddy grins at him, bouncing cheerfully. “Ask, then.” 

“Your father, he’s alive?” 

“Purely out of spite, I assure you. If you’re amenable, we’ll stop in on him this afternoon. My mother is expecting us after the holiday.” 

It felt big, to be invited to see Severus’s parents. To meet them. For Severus too, Harry thinks, by the sudden way he finds the tea cup so interesting. “Your mum is in Spain, right?” 

“Mm. She went back after she and my father divorced. She calls Seville, the seat of her family power, home now.”

“If your mum’s in Spain, won’t we need an international portkey from the Ministry? It took Andromeda over a month to get one.” 

Severus gives him a look of such withering pity that Harry smiles reflexively. “The Omen Days begin on the twenty-sixth. The twenty-ninth would be ideal. I will need to see my brother, as well.” 

“Your – you have a brother?” 

“Half-brother. Adelardo. From my mother's first marriage.” Severus takes a sip of his tea, wrinkles his nose, and abruptly sets it back down. “How can you drink this swill?” 

Harry’s brain is going to explode. “Severus.” 

He huffs. “My mother was married for a very short time to the Wizarding House of Spain, the product of which was my brother. The marriage was arranged, but her husband did not... approve of her practices. My mother, in turn, did not appreciate being kept from the brujería of her birthright.” 

Severus’s accent is flawless, though Harry wouldn't have expected anything less. “Brujería?” 

“My mother is the Bruja de Cataluña, an ancient line of witches. Her specialty is catoptromancy paired with rune stones.” At Harry’s blank look, he adds, “She can See through mirrors.” 

Trelawney had made them work with scrying mirrors for two months in Fourth Year, and Harry had always left those classes feeling like someone had walked over his grave. “Oh, uh. Oh.” 

“Having seen my mother ensnared in a mirror, speaking to what lies beyond it, I can wholeheartedly agree,” Severus replies dryly. “Adelardo is twelve years my elder – more, now, I suppose – and Heir to the Houses of Escara and Prince. From what I understand Rein Escara will likely pass before the summer. When he does, my brother will rule Magical Spain.” 

“Rule? Like a king?” 

“Mm.” 

Forget exploding. Harry’s brain is going supernova. “So you’re a Prince but also, like. A prince.” 

“Hardly, my brother –" 

“Bitik Ree!”  

Harry startles and looks down at Teddy, who is beaming at him expectantly and making grabby hands for the other half-melted biscuit. Harry hands it over and Teddy wiggles with joy, holding out his biscuit for Severus to see. “Bitik. Tan oo!” 

“You are most welcome, Edward,” Severus replies solemnly. “If only I could teach your godfather such impeccable manners.” 

“Bitik tan oo bitik,” Teddy agrees sagely.

Harry runs his fingers gently through Teddy’s hair, tugging on his ear to make him giggle as he happily bites into the melted biscuit. “I most humbly apologize for my egregious oversight of manners, your royal highness.”

To Harry’s delight, color suffuses Severus’s face. “Yes, very funny. Your humor, as always – pedestrian.”

“Funner Ree funner,” Teddy agrees, grinning.

. 

They head out into Cokeworth proper later that morning. 

It seems as if the good weather from Hogwarts had followed them here and it's a rare sunny winter morning, pristine and perfect. Under the sun, the age and disrepair of Spinner's End was more obvious, as was the gentrification Cokeworth was currently experiencing. 

High Street was dotted through with as many new storefronts as boarded up ones, fresh new shops and cafes wall-to-wall with graffitied windows and muddy street corners. Construction was being done on two row buildings, additions it looked like, and crews of workmen were dotted up and down the street. Likewise, some of the row houses a few streets down from Severus’s home had been repainted, with new shutters and new doors and little patches of fresh grass out front. The river that cut through the town seemed to improve as it got closer to downtown, so much so that a coffee shop had set up little tables river-side, cheerfully optimistic of the draw of the old river and the work that had been done to clean it up. 

Harry had hoisted Teddy up onto his shoulders for their walk to the nursing village, and his godson was having the absolute time of his life. He had, so far, pointed out an arf and a cheep-cheep, and was now lecturing the two of them on the varied reasons why they should stop for ice cream at the little shop on the corner of Timings and River Front Road. 

“Eye keem yum,” Teddy explains sensibly, patting Harry’s head. “Verlila!” 

“What! Vanilla! But Grandmum told me you like strawberry now,” Harry says, stopping at a crosswalk. 

“Mmm, bury,” Teddy agrees. “Verlila bury!!” 

“Ask Severus what flavor he likes.” 

Teddy giggles, suddenly shy, and buries his face in Harry’s bird’s nest, his little hands pushing the arms of Harry’s glasses. Severus huffs a sound, something not quite a laugh, but it could hardly be anything else. “What?” he asks, cross-eyed through the glasses wobbling on his nose. 

“I do not recall Draco having such a discernible personality at this age.” 

Harry takes that verbal volley for the absolute gift that it is. “Malfoy is the human equivalent of a cooked noodle. I’d be shocked if he could wipe his own arse before the age of ten.” 

Those big shoulders jerk, and Harry feels for certain that Christmas has come a week early. “No.”  

“Draco was a coddled infant who grew into a coddled toddler, and then a spoiled young child. He had family and servants to take care of him. I have often thought that wanting for nothing left him in deficit, both in social skills and in practical ones,” Severus replies, which is yes in Slytherinese. 

The crosswalk signal flickers to white, and they cross the road. Even without the robes Severus has a commanding presence; people step out of his way automatically, which is both dead useful and utterly hilarious, especially when a lady in heels wobbles alarmingly when Severus passes. 

“Have you seen him? Malfoy, I mean. Since they went into house arrest.”

“We correspond.”

Harry bounces Teddy a bit as they come up onto the crosswalk again, holding onto his little ankles. “He wrote to me, over the summer. I didn’t read the letter. It’s still in my trunk.”

“That is certainly your choice.”

“Yes it is,” Harry says sensibly, glancing at him out of the corner of his eye. “Go on then. Give me all the reasons why I should.”

“It… amused the Dark Lord to set Lucius’s son an impossible task, to watch him squirm and squeal as would a cat batting a dying mouse. The decisions Draco made were driven by the bigoted ideology he was raised with, but also fear for the lives of his parents. A fear not unfounded. This does not excuse him – he had a choice not to commit violence. It was simply at a terrible cost, one he was unwilling to pay.”

“He chose to let the Death Eaters in, Severus.”

He inclines his head. “He did.”

“He would have let me and Ron and Hermione die by Fiendfyre in the Room of Requirement.”

“I know.”

“He saved my life.”

Severus opens his mouth, then closes it again. “He…saved your life.”

“There’s no life debt between us. Technically, he owes me, a fact he is well aware of,” Harry says. “We were caught by Snatchers, and they took us to Malfoy Manor. Hermione hit me with a Stinging Jinx to try and disguise me, but Draco knew it was me. Who else would be on the run with Hermione and Ron? But he wouldn’t tell his father or Bellatrix it was me. I knew – it’s like you said. He was caught between impossible choices. If he was the shit I’d always thought him to be, he would have crowed that he’d found Harry Potter and called Voldemort and things would have had a very different ending. But he didn’t. He refused to. In some ways, Draco’s choice saved us all.”

Severus’s lips curve, just slightly. A kernel of courage, did Draco Malfoy have. “There may be some hope for him, at the end of this.”

God, he hopes so. “I did what I could for him and Narcissa, during the Trials. They wanted to give him time in Azkaban, but I think – Kingsley called it the Death Eater Pipeline. Draco got the mark that summer before Sixth Year. He was only fifteen.”

“A child.”

“A child, and more naive than most. Five years of house arrest was better than following Lucius to Azkaban,” Harry says, and wonders at how Severus could have ever hoped to hide the fact that he didn’t remember great swaths of his life. He decides not to press, not right now, though the time was coming. “Have you spoken to him?”

“The events of the final battle, and my unfortunate return as the Ghost of Youthful Indiscretion, have seen to it that we have remained distant.”

He laughs, despite himself, and Teddy chirps, “Ha ha ha! Funner!”

“Severus is very funny, lovey.”

“Funner Rus,” Teddy agrees, and claps his hands, beaming. “Eye keem yum funner!”

“You’ve got a one-track mind, kid,” Harry says, tilting his head back to look up at his godson. Teddy grins and slaps his palms against Harry’s forehead. “Ask Severus what his favorite ice cream is.”

“Eye keem Rus?”

“Maybe Severus likes… blueberry?”

“Burbury ew,” Teddy says, face scrunched in a tiny mew of disgust.

“I must agree, Edward. Burbury is very ew,” Severus intones with such sophistication that Harry snorts out a laugh.

“Verlila? Verlila yum?” 

“No.” 

“Bury?” 

“Absolutely not.” 

Teddy pat-pat-pat's Harry’s head and hmms thoughtfully like an old man. “Chokit?” 

“No.” 

Even upside down Teddy’s expression of horrified confusion – as he has run out of his favorite flavors – is adorable. “Ask him if he likes caramel.” 

That tiny mouth purses as he thinks it through, and then he explodes into giggles. A family passing them on the sidewalk laugh as well, the mum waving little fingers at Teddy. “Gurma curmel eye keem! Rus curmel eye keem?” 

“I do enjoy caramel ice cream,” Severus says, and Teddy claps his hands, then laughs even louder when Harry ducks them both down under a low-hanging shop sign and pretends to wobble. 

The nursing village is nestled in its own private spot a bit away from the hustle and bustle of midtown, with a gorgeous view of rolling hills and valleys, the river cutting through the landscape and going wild again. The view of the dreary smokestack and the abandoned mill are behind them, which Harry supposes was intentional. A freight train cuts a swathe through the countryside in the far distance, which Teddy points out at the top of his not inconsiderable lungs, shrieking, “Choo choo!!”  

The tidy, neat grounds of the village are dotted with elderly and their accompanying nurses enjoying the winter sunlight. Several of the elderly smile when they see Teddy, and he goes shy again. When Harry swings him down from his shoulders and onto his hip, carefully tugging his hat down over his ears, he buries his face against Harry’s neck and tucks his thumb into his mouth.  

The nurse at the front desk greets them politely, and when Severus tells them they’re there to see Tobias Snape, asks to see an ID so she can sign them in. Harry’s CitizenCard is badly out of date, and Severus’s has a face even younger than the one he’s sporting, but then the cedar and sage scent of Severus’s magic flowers in the air and just like that the nurse is guiding them back to the visitor’s room. 

Several residents are in the room already, watching the television, or playing card games. At the far end of the room a group is doing handicraft, something involving school glue and wooden discs. It’s to them that Severus leads them. 

Sat with the crafters, like a crow among songbirds, is a man with long, white hair that has receded into a severe widow’s peak. He has the ruddy complexion of a habitual drinker, and nicotine stained fingertips. In fact a cigarette, unlit, is hanging from the side of his mouth. It’s the nose, though, that gives him away. Harry would recognize that roman profile anywhere, though the man’s chin and jaw are weak imitations of Severus’s own strong, hard lines. 

“I am gluing the ribbon correctly Brenda,” he growls to the nurse heading the craft in a thick, Midlands accent. He peers up at Severus, and Harry is surprised to see his eyes are a sharp, vivid blue. "Well, don’t just stand there gawping,” he snaps. “I can’t get this bloody thing to stick together. This glue is for fekin’ school children.” 

Severus glances at the art project in front of his father, then to him. “What is it you’re making?” 

“I don’t bloody well know, Christmas ornament I think, to stick on our fake trees and inspire peace on Earth or some hogwash. Oi,” he snaps to the elderly lady beside him, pulling his paper plate of fake gemstones and tiny sprigs of garland towards himself. “You’ve got your own, leave mine be.” 

Teddy giggles, and the man’s gaze zeroes in on him and Harry both. “Who might you be, then?” 

“Harry Potter, sir,” Harry says, as politely as he can. “This is my godson, Edward.” 

“Edward, eh? That’s a good, strong name. You’ve got to give children strong names. Mamby pamby names and they grow up to be artists or musicians, prancing about and suckling from the teet of society like it’s their due because they can put their colors together. Who’re you here to visit?” 

“You, actually. Do you mind if we sit for a while?” Severus asks. 

The man jerks his head to two empty chairs. “Might as well. Laura never came out of her room today, you can give the lad her share of the crafts, mind he doesn’t try to eat them.” He frowns, suddenly. “How do you mean, visiting me? Who are you? I’ve not got two coins to rub together, if you’re from the city council. I paid my bloody taxes on the property, can’t very well go out and get a paying job while I’m stuck here, can I?” 

It dawns on Harry, then, why Severus’s father is in a nursing village. Severus was the most private person he’d ever known, and here he was, exposing a part of his past to Harry. He looks up and finds Severus’s eyes already on him, dark and fathomless and filled with a million things they had yet to say to one another. 

Severus takes the empty seat beside his father, and it’s startling the difference between them. Where Severus is tall, broad shouldered and square jawed, his father is frail, and small, swimming in an oatmeal sweater. “We’re not from the city council,” he says, and reaches across to the paper plate the elderly lady keeps trying to steal from, setting it on his father’s other side. Now that Harry’s looking for it, he can see that Severus’s father doesn’t use that side of his body, and he’s got a strap around his hips, to keep him in his wheelchair. Teddy, sat in Harry’s lap, immediately reaches for the pipe cleaners and stickers, whining for what he can’t reach. One of the residents sat at the table, a lady so elderly her hair is nothing but white cotton wisps growing from her bald head, beams at him with a toothless smile. “Harry is Lily Evans’ boy.” 

“Evans!” Mr. Snape says, eyes wide. “Well why didn’t you say so, then? I worked with her father’s brother, Dudley. Good bloke, on the dumpy side but what can you do,” he says, and Harry smiles reflexively. At least Aunt Petunia hadn’t come up with Dudley Vernon Dursley on her own. “And her father, George, he was as kind a soul as you could ever meet. A bit naive, but that was George for you. Beatrice too, bloody loudmouth that one, but got things done that no one else could. No offense meant to your great aunt, of course,” he says to Harry. He looks from Severus, to Teddy, and frowns. “Did you get your mother the milk on the way home? We’ll need more with a baby in the house. You’ll need to go out to the shop again tomorrow.” 

“I will,” Severus says easily, and hands his father the glue. “And butter and eggs as well.” 

“A growing boy needs milk, not sweets,” he says, frown sharpening. “Make sure you remember. There’s a few quid in my wallet by the door. Make sure you get it. If it goes over, tell Rufus I’m good for it.” 

“There’s no need to worry. I’m working now. I got the job,” Severus replies, and the look that comes over Tobias Snape’s face is something Harry will never forget. Shock, then pride, then something deeper, richer, warmer. It’s love, Harry thinks. Love, he knows, when Tobias claps him on the arm, his knobby knuckles squeezing tight. “Well, will you look at that. You’re a teacher at that fancy school of yours?” 

“I am,” Severus says softly. 

“Well. Well, boy. That’s something, isn’t it? You do yourself proud then. You do me proud. You tell your mum yet?” 

“I haven’t been home yet, but I’ll tell her,” Severus replies, and the knot in Harry’s throat threatens to choke him.  

“Pays well?” 

“Pays a teacher’s salary,” he says, somewhat dryly, and Tobias snorts. “It’s decent enough. I'll be living at the school for most of the year, and won’t be able to come home as often.” 

“That’s alright, boy, you’ve got to do for yourself, haven’t you? Make your name in the world. You’re smart, smarter than your old man. I always was a day late, my whole life, but you – you've got your mum’s mind, thanks be.” He looks at Teddy again, and Harry, and when his eyes meet Severus’s again they’re fathomless. “They’re yours?” 

Severus freezes, but his father reads something in his silence because he squeezes Severus’s wrist again, tightly, shaking him with all the strength in his frail hand. “You forget what an old man ever said about it. I was wrong, and if they’re yours, then you hang onto them with all you’ve got. You hear me?” 

Teddy hiccups, his tiny face crumpling and his big blue eyes swimming with tears. “Oh Teddy,” Harry says softly, lifting the baby up into his arms and rubbing his back. Teddy buries his face in Harry’s neck, whimpering. “It’s alright, shhh.” 

“Sensitive little boy. My son was like that, when he was very small,” Tobias says, his yellowed smile just a little crooked. “Are you here to visit someone?” 

“We came to see you,” Severus says quietly, and squeezes his father’s wrist. “I’ll be back to see you soon.” 

Tobias gives him a confused look, from Harry and Teddy, then back to Severus. “Alright, then. That’s kind of y – woman, stop taking my bloody glue!” 

He hadn’t realized how loud the activity room was until they step back out into the relative quiet of the hallway. Sniffling, Teddy wipes his face on Harry’s sweater, resting his cheek there on Harry’s collarbone. So expressive, Teddy – all he’s feeling is right there, in those big, wet eyes, a direct contrast to Severus, who is standing tall and straight and blank, his expression like polished stone. 

“My apologies for upsetting the child,” he says stiffly, and Harry makes a choice. 

Without giving Severus the opportunity to say no or turn around and run away, he plunks Teddy into his arms. 

He wishes he had a way to immortalize how Severus goes from Professor Snape to Stunned Guppy as he blinks down at Teddy, awkwardly pressed against his chest, one arm under his rump and the other hand across his tiny back. He looks like he’s holding a particularly lumpy bag of groceries. Teddy blinks up at him, wide eyes shiny wet with tears. His little trousers have rucked up his legs, bright orange socks over his blue trainers. 

“Arm was getting sore,” Harry says, like a liar, and tugs Teddy’s cap down a bit over the wisps of yellow hair escaping around his ears. “Take a care, but he’s not especially fragile like when he was a baby.” 

Severus opens his mouth. Shuts it again. Teddy looks up at him thoughtfully, sniffling, then opens his hand. He’s clutching a fistful of sticky gemstones and a sprig of fake evergreen that’s left a streak of green dye on his palm. “Pree,” he says of his treasures, and gives Severus a wobbly smile, offering his hand. “Have?” 

“Very handsome, but yours,” Severus says, and Teddy hums acknowledgement as they are, in fact, his. “I’m holding your child, Potter.” 

“Heavy little bugger, isn’t he?”  

Severus takes a cautious step, then another. When Teddy doesn’t do anything but grab hold of his coat collar, something relaxes in the line of his shoulders, though he’s heartbreakingly careful regardless. “Why am I holding your child?” 

“Because my arm hurts, and if we put him down there’s a solid chance we’ll lose him. Teddy’s a runner.” 

The man’s arms flex around Teddy. “What.” 

“Mm. Takes off on you if he sees an arf, a cheep, a hoo. Likes animals, he does. Trains. Cars. Bikes, even. Sees absolutely no danger in any of it. Remind me to tell you about the Great Tesco Hunt last summer.” 

Severus looks down at Teddy like he’s never seen him before. Teddy looks up at him and beams, a smile breaking out on his little face like a new morning for all that his eyes are still shining wet with tears. “Eye keem?” he asks hopefully.  

“You, Edward, have a voracious sweet tooth,” Severus says sternly, and Teddy giggles and shoves the collar of Severus’s coat into his mouth. 

.

(They do stop and get Teddy an ice cream on the way back to Spinner’s End. He squeals so loudly that the shop owner, a short, pudgy man with a large and luxurious mustache, laughs and gives him a big scoop of strawberry vanilla swirl for free. Teddy eats it, and half of Harry’s fudge, and the last spoonful of Severus’s caramel, because there’s no saying ‘no’ to those big, adorable blue eyes when they’re trained on you and your ice cream with all the hope in the world.)

.

It’s unexpected, just how quickly they settle in at Spinner’s End. 

By Tuesday evening, Teddy’s toys are spread everywhere: Bun Bun in a place of honor on the sofa, his stitched floppy ears akimbo, the rainbow-colored xylophone Harry had bought for his birthday on the baby blanket in front of the fireplace, and his silver muggle robot that he and Andromeda had grimly agreed never to replace the batteries for on the cold hearth. 

Teddy, little magpie that he is, had spent the first two days of their holiday at Spinner’s End bringing all sorts of treasures to his blanket, including a dusty quid he’d found under the tea table, a Potions Quarterly with a steaming cauldron on the cover, an unripe lemon from the fridge, and most hilarious of all, one of Severus’s extremely well-loved slippers, which he’d tucked under his arm like a newspaper and carted throughout the house. Severus had been mortified at this unexpected turn of events, but Harry, who had lived through two months with Slipper’s predecessor, Manky Old Trainer of Mysterious Provenance, was just grateful that Severus was such a cleanly sort.

He had also, and this was painfully true, fallen head over heels in love with Minnow. The little princess had deigned to provide them with her presence on the second day, nose up and tail flicking her disapproval over the current state of affairs, and Teddy had actually shivered all over when he’d finally realized there was a cat in the house. It had only taken half a day for Harry to find Teddy on his blanket, Bun Bun in one arm and Minnow in the other, stoically tolerating his pudgy toddler pets, tale flicking as she purred against his chest. The expression of such ecstatic joy on his little face had made Harry laugh aloud and Minnow had leapt to her feet, gave him her best I hate your guts Potter expression that was all Snape, and raced up the stairs. 

Spinner’s End begins to come alive around them, like a bear waking from winter hibernation. The sensation grows day by day, but he begins to feel her personality, her curiosity, the third evening of their stay, the magic tickling at his fingertips, the nape of his neck, the base of his spine. He’s making them tomato soup and cheese toasties that befitted a true bachelor’s holiday when the old radio on the windowsill comes to life of its own volition halfway through the fry-up, and the opening drums of Electric Light Orchestra’s Mr. Blue Sky fill the kitchen. His sous chef, who’d been raised on a steady diet of Muggle pop music as was only right and proper for an Englishman of Sirius Black’s line, warbles high and off-key, and Harry, ever the wingman, chimes in. 

Stood in the doorway to the kitchen, with his other slipper and a book and a little potted shrub, Severus presses a hand over his eyes as Harry sings, “And don't you know, it’s a beautiful new day!” and Teddy cries out “Hee-ayyyy!”  

He can feel the amusement in the walls, in the floors, in the air, tied to Severus but also separate from him. Can sense it in the way that the kitchen hinges stop squeaking, and the wallpaper seems to brighten, and the overhead lights go from harsh and white to a soft, golden glow. Even the fireplace is cheerier, flames popping and cracking merrily, with the joy of the old house filled with magical blood again. 

They put up a Christmas tree, though calling it so is a kindness. It’s very Charlie Brown, lopsided and thin with branches that stuck out every which way except the way they needed to. The baubles were staying on by sheer hard-headedness and a touch of magic, but Teddy doesn’t seem to mind. When he and Severus finally get the lights on, he shrieks, “Hap Curmas!!!!” on top of his little lungs, and tries to hug the tree. It takes them fifteen minutes to untangle Teddy and get the thing back standing, though Harry just finally jabs a sticking charm at it and lets the fireplace mantle do the work. 

In the evening, when Teddy finally begins to droop and Harry knows it’s time for a bath and bed, Severus brings him extra towels while Teddy splashes happily away in the tub, sending rubber duckies careening into one another, and lingers in the doorway to the bedroom as Harry rocks Teddy gently before laying him down in his crib. It’s domestic, and simple, and the threads of whatever it is that so often ensnared Harry these days tug at his clothes, the soles of his feet, the sensitive place behind his ears as if to proclaim: this, this, this. 

Severus, the scent of him, the magic in him, the unexpected tenderness etched in the lines of his face as he gazes across the room at Teddy, pulls at Harry in a way no one ever has, or he thinks, ever will again. He’s beautiful; sarcastic and giving, snarky and imperfect, with a profile like a roman statue and a heart too big to contain him. Clever and fearless and Harry’s match, standing there in the doorway to the bedroom, watching Teddy fall asleep.

The living room seems to soften, to glow, when they go back downstairs. The lamps flood the room with a gentle golden light, the fireplace that never seemed to need new wood crackling merrily. Severus must feel it too because the lines of his face, normally so carefully composed, are slack and open in the same way they were the night Harry found him playing the piano in the Teacher’s Common Room. 

Their evenings for the past few nights had consisted of a good book in front of the fireplace with quiet conversation over what they’re reading – Harry, Linfred, the Potterer of Stinchcombe, Severus, Congelated Herbal Infusions in Neuroplasty by Druesella McClaggern – but it’s three days before Christmas, and Severus crosses to a cabinet near the bookcase that holds several glass bottles and fine glassware. “Would you like a drink? I have port and wine.”

“Pretend I just said something really sophisticated about my favorite drink and give me whatever you like best.”

“There’s no shame in not drinking, Harrison.”

Harry accepts a glass from him, the alcohol a rose color and sparkling through the thin glass. “I’m nineteen.”

“And? Merlin save us from the worldliness of youth.” 

“Oh yes, ha ha, funner, Rus.” The bubbles go right to his brain and a cool sensation cascades down his throat, something sweet and almost fruity that leaves a lovely aftertaste. “Oh, huh.”

“Do you like it?”

He really does. “What is it?”

“It’s called Cava. It’s a traditional wine from Spain, for this time of the year.” 

Harry takes another sip and sits himself on Teddy’s blanket on the floor, closest to the fire, as Severus settles into the armchair across from Harry with his own wine glass. He can just see Minnow under the armchair, the golden lights from the Christmas tree reflecting off of the buttery-soft leather of the chair and her little lamplight eyes. “You give me fancy wine, and all I made for you were cheese toasties.”

“To your credit, they were very good cheese toasties.”

They had been, but it still warms him to hear Severus say so. “I told you I was a deft hand at cooking.”

“A skill that should have developed naturally, not been thrust upon you far too young.”

He’s right, of course he is, but tonight is not a night to be thinking about the Dursleys. “Mrs. Figg used to let me experiment in her kitchen the weekends I got left with her. I always made a point to get a cookbook from the library when I knew I would be staying with her, and I’d try different things. She always seemed to know what I’d need, even if I didn’t know myself. I’d open her cabinets and there they were, tins of evaporated milk, or saffron, or ground anise seeds. It was almost like magic.” Severus hums, low and amused. Harry grins reflexively. “I’d make cakes and pies and pastas, all sorts. We’d eat like royalty. She always asked me to remember her when I became one of those star chefs on the telly.”

She’d known about Harry - known who he was and the life destined to him. But still she’d told him he could do something with himself. Still, she’d encouraged him, and meant it, and that made all the difference now, at the end of days.

“You could, you know.”

“What?”

“Be a chef. Open a restaurant.”

He snorts helplessly, nearly spilling his wine. “Be serious. I can make cheese toasties, Severus.”

“The pasta you made was astonishing.”

A little well of pleasure opens up in him, as vibrant as the first sip of wine had been. He liked feeding people, and knowing Severus likes his food so much made something go off like fireworks in his belly. “Really?”

“It was a meal I’d pay for.”

Heat creeps up his face, accompanying a squirm of pleasure. “I like to cook. Still, that’s fairly different from starting a business. And I’d never know if they actually liked my food, or wanted to be seen liking Harry Potter’s food.”

Severus frowns at him, dismayed, for all of the lassitude of his body, his long legs stretched out and crossed at the ankle. The pose bares the long line of him, the concave hollow of his belly under his sweater, his slender thighs. “Is that how you plan to live out the rest of your life? Knelt down at the altar of your own celebrity?”

“Hey!”

“What would it matter, Harrison? Anything you do will come with sycophants and simpering fools. To let them control your life is folly. Do you want to be a restaurateur?”

“No,” Harry says, when he thinks he means maybe. “Did you always know you wanted to be a potioneer?”

“From the moment I was tall enough to look into a cauldron. Before then, perhaps.” He rolls his head on the back of the sofa, looking towards the fire behind Harry. “My mother would brew right where you’re sitting. It drove my father crazy. She’d have me, little more than knee high, slicing flobberworms and parceling out grams of flaxseed. She’d sell to the apothecaries of Knockturn Alley. She had a particular affinity for witch brews.”

“Witch brews?”

It’s breathtaking, the way amusement lights up Severus’s face. The way the hard lines of his jaw soften, his eyebrows curling together. The way his mouth curves along one corner. 

That something deep in Harry gives a single, warning throb, sharp and insistent.

“Witch brews are potions for women, Harrison. Just for women.”

“Potions for – oh.”

“Yes,” Severus says, “oh. Are you blushing?”

“No, just suddenly back in a classroom with Second Years while Madame Pomfrey lectures us on menses potions, so thanks for that.”

“That woman may single-handedly be responsible for the low birth-rate in Magical England,” Severus says musingly, and Harry almost chokes on his mouthful of wine, laughing despite himself. “My mother’s lineage being what it is, her potions always had a little something extra. Not unlike your potions, in a way, though she never tried to poison anyone into a coma. At least not often.”

“I didn’t try to -- alright,” Harry complains, and Severus smirks, looking rather pleased with himself. 

The WWN flicks on in the kitchen, and the first notes of a song Harry doesn’t recognize comes on the radio. 

When he tilts his head to listen, trying to pin the song, a teenager steps out of the kitchen, the long length of him coltish and unsteady, hair a flame of turquoise under a Santa hat. 

Teddy, it’s Teddy — Teddy as he’ll one day be, his beautiful and beloved little son grown into this lanky and awkward teen, a roguish grin that’s all his mother’s on his sweet face. He’s carrying a tray of drinks, lights and mistletoe lining the old doorway. Shadows of shrieking children race past him, chased by Arthur, his hair white and his face lined by decades of smiling. He can make out voices laughing just outside of what he can see, and Hermione shouting, Rose Granger-Weasley! Victoire, always Victoire, the long flow of her blond hair over her shoulder like a beacon of light, laughs from beside the fireplace when Teddy almost drops the eggnog, caught just at the last moment by her quick step.

“She really likes it when we play music,” Harry says faintly. He’s certain Severus can’t see this, proven right when a little girl no older than five runs right past him, chasing Minnow as she’ll one day be, long and elegant and fat with care. “Your house, I mean.”

Severus looks up at the ceiling, eyebrows furrowed. Just beyond him, two men sit at the piano, dark heads nearly touching. “What is she telling you?” 

“She can’t really speak, not like the rooms at Hogwarts can. It’s been a long time since she was awake.” 

Severus turns his gaze to him, studying him like Harry was a puzzle he was missing pieces to. “You haven’t always been able to speak to magical buildings.”

There were so many things he hadn’t been able to do, once, but it seems very long ago, a million years between those terrible last moments of his first life, terror sending blood pounding through his racing heart, and then that last, curious numbness standing before Voldemort, as if his mind was folding inwards, shielding itself from what was about to happen. 

He looks at Severus and something shifts, easing from a painful clench inside of him, and he says what he should have told Severus months ago. 

“After Voldemort – when he destroyed the horcrux in me.” He presses a hand lightly over the lightning bolt running down from his collarbone to below his sternum. “When I woke up I could feel where it had been ripped away. It healed, but ever since… I have these abilities I didn’t have before.” 

Severus sits up slowly, studying Harry’s chest as if he could ascertain the wound himself. “Do you still have the sensation of it being ripped away?” 

“Sometimes.”

Severus stands so abruptly he nearly tips his glass over. The man is all fury as he crosses to him, sinking down to sit cross-legged on Teddy’s blanket in one graceful, if pissed off, movement. “You are truly and profoundly an idiot. You didn’t seek any medical attention, did you?” he demands, waving his wand in a complicated pattern Harry unfortunately recognizes for a health check. It won’t do any good for core injuries, but Harry supposes it makes him feel better. 

This close, their knees touching, puts them into a proximity Harry hadn’t dared since waking up in Severus’s bed. He can count the freckles on his face, on his nose and cheeks and chin, his forehead and down the left side of his throat; tiny imperfections on a perfect face. His spellwork explodes like fireworks under his skin in the dim and cozy room, and the gray and blue wisps emanating from his wand feel warm, like the pleasure of putting on toasty socks on a cold morning. 

His long hair has fallen over his shoulder in its thick, dark waves, and Harry longs to touch it, to sweep it back, to trail his fingers along the nape of his neck. 

“Well, doctor?” 

“This is no laughing matter Potter,” Severus growls, concentrating so sharply on his spellwork that he doesn’t seem to notice when Harry shifts just that much closer. He smells so good, and Harry, Harry is a glutton for punishment sometimes. “Why did you not present yourself for treatment, in the aftermath?”

“There were a lot of injuries that night,” he says, which is an understatement of fullest fucking magnitude. The triage in the Great Hall had turned into surgical suites all along the first floor corridor, for those who couldn’t be Apparated or taken by Floo to St. Mungos, to treat the hundreds of injuries from spells, explosions, falling debris. Students had died, as young as First Year, waiting to be tended to, and Harry – Harry, who was in every way responsible for it – was to take precedence before them? No. “We didn’t know you were still alive, not for hours.”

Severus’s gaze flickers from whatever the conjured parchment floating next to Harry’s head is telling him, to Harry himself. “Do not start on your self-flagellation. You did plenty of that in your letters.”

His heart squeezes once, tightly, then again.

“You… you read them.”

The look he receives makes Harry’s belly squirm. “Of course I read them.”

“I didn’t mean to send so many. I wanted you to understand -- to know what I was doing to clear your name.”

Slowly, Severus lowers his wand to his lap, the parchment he’d been studying vanishing, and simply looks at him. “A kindness unasked for and undeserved, but I am grateful, regardless. Do not change the subject. When the horcrux came free of your core, you said you felt a sensation, as if something had been ripped away. Has it recurred?”

“I wouldn’t necessarily say that. How do you mean, undeserved?”

“What aren’t you telling me?”

“How do you mean, undeserved?” he asks again.

“I am not a good man, Harrison.”

“What you did won the war,” he replies, tenderness aching in his chest. “You took care of the kids as Headmaster. If I hadn’t been there when – when Nagini -- you would have been remembered as a traitor, when it’s because of you that Voldemort was defeated. Good, Severus? You’re the best person I’ve ever known.”

“You’re a fool,” Severus says gruffly, and cups Harry’s head in both hands. He presses his thumbs to Harry’s corepoints, behind his ears, at the base of his skull, down his jaw to his throat. Sensation cascades down his shoulders and back and chest, but Severus doesn’t seem to realize just what his touch is doing to him. “We’re going to St. Mungo’s.”

“We aren’t,” Harry says, and stops Severus’s hands before they can work their way down his throat and take with them the threads of remaining good sense Harry’s got. “I couldn’t speak to buildings before, and now I can. I can also speak to owls, as well as snakes. I don’t know why, and I don’t know how.”

Severus’s eyes dart all over his face, studying him – or maybe sensing this half-truth Harry is giving him. “Owls?”

“Atiq is the epitome of a gentleman.”

Slowly, Severus lets his hands fall into his lap. “Owls.”

“Hoo,” Harry agrees. “It’s a new development.”

“We’re going to St. Mungo’s tomorrow.”

“No,” he says, half-laughing. “What are they going to do for me at St. Mungo’s? It isn’t as if there’s a book on how to treat human horcruxes.”

“The arrogance of you. Did you not pause to think that there might be similar injuries that mediwizards may know how to treat?”

“It wasn’t an injury. A part of Tom Riddle’s soul was attached to mine. I grew up with it, and it fed on me to keep itself alive,” Harry says, as gently as he can. “I can feel where it was, the space it took up inside of me.”

“How much more must you endure?” Severus demands furiously. He’s stunning in his outrage, the rushing striations of magic under his skin like a firebrand that only Harry can see.

Just beyond him, the man at the piano glances over his shoulder directly at where Harry’s sitting. His spectacles catch the light from the Christmas tree, and suddenly Harry can hear the music the man beside him is playing on the piano, he recognizes it, it’s – it’s the Beatles, of course it is, Happy X-Mas, War is Over, and his heart leaps up into his throat.

The man sets his hand on the shoulder of the man next to him, and his cheek on the back of his hand, and smiles with warm contentment. Shadows of children, laughing voices, music, music, and the Harry of a host of tomorrows looks at him, and smiles, and mouths to him, be brave.

Harry’s always been a collector of words, but he doesn’t have a single one in his lexicon to describe the feeling that flickers into existence down deep in his chest. Like wind blowing through tree boughs it sweeps through him, his itching fingertips and curling toes, his suddenly shaky elbows and shivering sternum. It’s everywhere, this feeling, making his heart skip and his knees like so much jello.

In the end it’s the simplest thing he’s ever done, to lean forward into that small, intimate space between them, and kiss Severus's scowling mouth.

It’s a touch, a petal-soft brush of their lips, and whatever Severus was going to say dies in his throat with a low sound that Harry charitably decides not to call a gasp. It’s so out of character for him that Harry can’t help but smile. Color flushes up into Severus’s face, and he’s staring – staring at Harry in a way he hasn’t before, surprise so bloody beautiful on that young and angular face.

Severus makes a noise deep in his throat, and his hands clench into Harry’s hair, but not to push him away. No, Severus grips the back of Harry’s head, fingers threaded tightly through his hair, and kisses him back.

That’s Severus’s clever Slytherin tongue, in Harry’s mouth; those are Severus’s clever fingers, in Harry’s hair, pulling him in, pulling him close. That’s fire tripping down Harry’s body, behind his ears where Severus’s thumbs are holding him, down his throat, his chest, then low, low into his belly. 

He hears himself make a sound he never thought he’d ever make – a half-mad, wanting thing – and Severus lets go as quickly as he’d grabbed him. His dark eyes are blown wide open, his mouth wet and red, and Harry makes the type of snap decision that isn’t really one at all, driven by instincts and this feeling inside of him, for this ridiculous man. 

“Kiss me.”

Severus, frozen like lake water in winter, stares at him. “Potter –” 

“You said no more ‘Potter’ and ‘Snape’,” Harry reminds him. “Kiss me.”

“You’ve had too much wine,” Severus says. Tension has pulled like a bowstring through his body, hardening the line of his frame, but Harry understands why.

His skin is warm to the touch, soft, and when Harry cups his neck, pulls him gently closer, it brings Severus into a proximity Harry had hardly dared of himself, since the night with the piano. He’s like a mountain, Severus Snape, his long eyelashes framed by the color high on his cheeks, those flashing dark eyes darting all over Harry’s face. Perhaps especially then. The long tumble of his hair, the breadth of his shoulders stretching out his knit sweater, and that mouth, oh, God, that lush mouth, soft and full and open. 

Shock slackens his face as Harry slides a hand up to his shoulder, the wings of his sharp shoulder blades. “What are you doing,” he croaks, and Harry brings him closer, and closer still, the two of them here on the edge of a precipice, the world as it could one day be all around them. Magic lights up between them, in the warm and tender spaces between their bodies. How could he have ever thought that Severus was stone? Their valleys and edges fit against one another like landmasses, softness in the chest shuddering against his, warmth in his shoulder and neck under Harry’s hands. His pulse is racing, Harry can feel it, but that’s alright. There’s a reason Harry had been in Gryffindor, and he’s stupidly brave enough for the two of them. “What are you doing?”

“If you have to ask, then I’m doing it wrong,” Harry says quietly. “Please, kiss me again.”

“We can’t do this,” Severus tells him, even as his hand slides around Harry’s waist, up his back, into his hair, gripping softly, then tightening. Tingles race down Harry’s back, slacken his mouth, and he makes a noise he didn’t think he could make. Severus shudders, eyes closed, cupping his hand over Harry’s on his cheek with such aching tenderness that Harry feels it in his stomach. “I’m your tyromaster,” he says, like a benediction. Like a prayer. 

“You’re so much more than that,” Harry murmurs. “Kiss me, Severus.”

He does. Severus kisses him, there on the temple. On his cheek, down the slope of the bone. And then – and then –   

 He kisses like he speaks. Eloquence in the brush of his mouth across the trembling line of Harry’s lips, in the way he brushes his tongue along Harry’s, in his fingertips just gently stroking through the hair at Harry’s nape. In the way he tilts Harry’s head up, just enough, for him. In the way he leans down, just enough, for Harry. The heat of it lights a fire in him, somewhere terrible and beautiful and deep, and the core of his magic wakes up and sings.   

The kiss ends as softly as it begins. Severus leans back, his thumb tender along Harry’s cheekbone, and there, in his eyes, is what is going to set them both free.  

He comes to his feet, and for a lifetime of moments they look at each other. Severus, barefoot in his favorite green sweater, standing above him; Harry on the floor, cross-legged and pink-cheeked and wanting, staring up at him. 

He watches Severus’s throat bob, as he swallows.

“Good night, Mr. Potter,” he says, gravel-rough, and goes upstairs without looking back, leaving Harry in front of the fire.