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Harry Potter stood on tiptoe, reaching, his entire body stretched to its limits and balance a thing more of wishful thinking than reality. Capturing the snitch was nothing compared to this, but after an hourlong chase through the bowels of Hogwarts, his goal was nearly within his grasp.
Just one ... more ... inch.
“What in the names of all things with names are you doing up there, Potter?”Harry started.The stray flinched, hissed and backed farther into the stone niche as Harry twisted around, saw Professor Snape standing below, and fell off the statue he’d climbed not five minutes before.“Pendero!”Snape was quicker, but Harry couldn’t stop the spell coming out of his own mouth.“Volitaro!”He bobbed upward, toward the niche, the effect of the double spells making him a little queasy, but he reached for the stupid cat anyway, since he was at ceiling level again.The cat slipped past him and jumped to the statue, descending its convoluted stone surfaces nimbly and leaping at Snape.Harry got his feet pointed downward and muttered finite incantatem, hoping the beast hadn’t torn up the potions professor too badly: Snape would certainly take it out of his hide.He hit the floor in front of Snape, only to see the man holding a rather scrawny but docile stray cat in his hands. The little shit was even purring.Harry goggled, betrayed.“Interesting choice of spell,” Snape remarked, looking at the cat. His wand dangled delicately between his fingers.Harry blinked. “Oh. It was the first one I could think of. Thanks, by the way, professor.”“For nearly bouncing you off the ceiling?” Snape asked with a tiny smirk. “You are most welcome, Potter.”Harry shrugged. “You were trying to help. And thanks for catching Scratch.”The brow arched. “I presume you mean this mangy creature?” His gentle hold on the stray belied his choice of words. Scratch lifted his chin and Snape obligingly tickled underneath. Harry didn’t know whether the cat’s sudden mild-manneredness, or Snape’s, was the more astounding.“He’s a stray,” Harry said, probably unnecessarily. “A pretty cranky one, too, but I’ve been feeding him.” He didn’t say the cat was his only real companion since he was here for the summer. He didn’t want to sound like he was complaining — especially to Snape — about Dumbledore’s decision to let him stay. He was glad of it; even an empty Hogwarts was better than Privet Drive. Still, it was lonely with only himself and the professors. Even Hagrid wasn’t quite enough company to keep him from feeling a bit sorry for himself from time to time. He’d even found himself spending time in the library, in an activity suspiciously like learning. “He seems to like me.”Snape glanced up at the statue, significantly.“Well, most of the time,” Harry admitted.“What are you doing in the bowels of this dank and dingy castle on such a bright summer’s day, Potter?” Snape asked as if suspecting Harry was up to no good.“Chasing Scratch, sir,” Harry said promptly. “Once I caught him I was going to take him outside for a little exercise. I’m sorry to have ... um ... intruded.” He gestured around the dungeon corridor. The lower levels were vaguely considered forbidden territory — Snape’s domain, and the lair of the Slytherins.“You understand that Scratch is an old nickname —” Snape smiled a little at his own accidental pun — “for the devil.”Harry blinked. “No, I didn’t. I called him that because it’s what he’s always doing.”Snape knuckled the cat’s forehead. “Not always, evidently.”Harry watched Scratch shut his eyes and butt against the potions master’s knuckle, and didn’t say that Snape had probably just explained his own apparent affinity with the animal. He tried not to think about those clever fingers and the delicate dance they performed over Scratch’s glossy fur.Snape abruptly handed Harry the cat, tucking his wand away. “Take him and get out. Enjoy your three-month respite from the tedium of actually attempting to cram some useful information in that empty head of yours.”Harry didn’t know what to say to that. He took Scratch, worked his jaw for a moment, then decided on, “Have a good afternoon, professor,” which he thought a mature response to Snape’s goad.* * * How is it Snape — Snape! — can guilt me? Harry thought later that day as he found himself in the library, up to his elbows in books. It’s summer, I don’t have to do any of this.But he knew, deep down. If he truly had no respect for the man — or at least for his abilities and his efforts on behalf of the Order of the Phoenix — Snape wouldn’t be able to needle him so effectively.Harry trailed his fingers over the surface of the page, seeing Snape in his mind’s eye, at Order meetings, delivering with cool precision information he must have garnered with the constant threat of a hideous death coiled in his stomach. Snape sitting silent, arms crossed, infinite skepticism on his face whenever anyone — including Dumbledore — offered any suggestions for destroying Voldemort. Only his slowly tapping forefinger betrayed his impatience while he waited for a moment of peace to shoot down, with a few well-chosen words, any outlandish heroic theories. And there were some. Harry, feeling his youth and ignorance acutely, generally remained silent at the meetings, absorbing. Realizing there was a razor sharp mind behind that equally sharp tongue.Thinking. Sometimes woolgathering. Occasionally, in recent months, fantasizing.That worried him.One night he’d bumped into Snape, literally, coming out of the kitchen of 12 Grimmauld Place as Snape was coming in.His memory was of a solid thud, a moment pressed against a warm male body that smelled pleasantly of cloves, less than a moment of some sort of head-spinning tingling in his stomach — then being wrenched away by Snape and set on his feet at arm’s length.“For god’s sake, Potter, even with those spectacles you’re blind as a bat. Can’t you look where you’re going?”Harry’d blinked at the man, surprised at his own reaction, at the way Snape glowered at the floor as he spoke, rather than at the cause of his irritation. He remembered how Snape had brushed himself off briefly, hands unsteady, spots of harsh color on his pale cheeks, before straightening and throwing his head back, lank, glossy hair flipping out of a cool, remote face.Harry remembered muttering apology and watching as Snape brushed past him — no, not brushed, Snape was very careful not to touch Harry — but passed him and went into the kitchen. Harry had gone up to his room and danced around what he knew was the right word as he considered how it had felt to have his body pressed against Snape’s for that moment.Good. He’d sighed. It’d felt good.Ashamed, he’d nonetheless incorporated that moment, the feel and smell of it, of Snape, into his occasional forays into self-pleasure. The shame, he found, eventually wore away. The attraction did not.* * * “Who are you and what have you done with Harry Potter?”Harry started out of his semi-aroused reverie, actually smiling up at Snape as the potions master loomed over him.“I was taking your advice, sir,” he said. “Boning up on a few things.” He bit down on his giggle at the pun, watching Snape run his eye over the various books lying open on the table. The potions professor had doffed his outer robes in deference to the heat and the absence of students; he wore only a long-sleeved shirt over his trousers – all in black, of course, but the result was interestingly casual.“Hm.” From Snape, that was wild approval.“Besides, Hagrid’s gone to London and I got a little tired of wandering the grounds.”Snape snorted. “It occurs to me that were your intellect half so formidable as your recklessness, you would be a true force to behold. A power, as opposed to a walking catastrophe.”Harry tried not to smile. When had those jibes lost their effect on him? “I’m clever enough to still be alive, sir.”“Is breathing your standard of excellence?”“It’s a necessary starting point.”“Hm. True.”“Besides, I’d hate to deprive you of the obvious pleasure despising me generates.”One elegant black brow arched. Harry lived for that reaction. “So you are suicidally thoughtless for my benefit? I’m touched.”“It’s not fair of you to hand me such an easy straight line after impugning my intelligence, professor.”Snape almost smiled. “You are a Gryffindor. Cheap shots are anathema to you.”“Thank you, sir.”“It wasn’t a compliment. It was a warning. Because you will always fight fairly, you will lose, eventually, to someone who does not. And I assure you — many do not.”“Like Voldemort.” This wasn’t news to Harry. “Why do you care?”“That you live? I do not. That Voldemort should die — that, I care about a great deal.”“Oh.” Harry tried to look small and contrite. “Sorry.”“Where is your pet?” Snape sneered. Harry nodded toward the shelf behind the potions master, where Scratch lay on his side in the gap Harry’s research had left. Snape turned and the cat reached out with one grey paw, mrowing a greeting.“He likes you,” Harry said to see what Snape would say.Snape lifted a hand, letting Scratch curl the paw around his index finger for a moment before turning to face Harry again. He touched the corner of one of the books, turned it so he could scan the pages. Scratch got up, eyeing Snape’s shoulders. Harry held his breath.“What are you reading about?”“The history of the Unforgivables,” Harry said. Snape exhaled, a short breath of exasperation.“You should be learning to cast them.”Scratch made the short leap to Snape’s shoulder; the man didn’t even flinch, only rolling his eyes and reaching up one hand to skritch the happy feline’s face.“Who’s going to teach me?” Harry asked, not without some sarcasm. Snape’s head came up, his expression surprised, even approving. In leaving, however briefly, the habitual scowl had taken a fair number of years along with it; Harry considered the look a good one for his teacher.Snape tapped the page with his free index finger, obviously thinking, then straightened. “Come on.” Scratch swayed, took firmer hold, and managed stay in place as Snape turned and strode away.Harry stumbled to his feet and hurried after the man; even though he’d grown to within a couple of inches of Snape’s height, he still had to almost run to keep up with his professor’s strides.He tried not to laugh at the sight of Scratch’s gray tail, wrapped around the back of Snape’s neck like a fur collar as the animal fought to maintain his balance. He was astounded the man didn’t just brush the cat to the floor, but he figured if there was any animal Snape might tolerate, it would be a snobbish, aloof, selfish creature like a cat.* * * They went downstairs, across the entry hall and along a few corridors. Then they came to a far corner of the castle and a circular stair that ascended through a tower. And, to Harry’s increasing surprise and breathlessness, they climbed.Up, up and more up, passing a few heavy wooden doors that positively sparkled with magical wards, 'til they came to one that stopped their progress.Snape laid his hands against the wood and said something Harry couldn’t catch, though he felt the prickle of magic.The door opened and they entered a tall circular chamber – three storeys, Harry guessed – lined to its distant ceilings with bookshelves. Narrow windows directed beams of dust-mote-filled light across the room. Two other doors framed a small fireplace with a couch and a couple of soft chairs before it, and a large and sturdy table occupied the center of the room.“Wow.” Harry looked around at the elegant, comfortable if slightly worn room. “These are … you don’t live in the dungeons?”Snape strode to the fireplace. Shrugging the cat onto a chair with an ease that spoke of feline familiarity, he took out his wand and laid it against the painting over the mantel – a castle perched on a craggy mountaintop, under a storm-ridden sky – then reached into the painting as if it were incorporeal and pulled out a shallow stone bowl. Harry felt the skin at the back of his neck shiver as he recognized a pensieve. Scratch curled up in the chair and prepared to sleep.Snape came back to him, eyes and focus still on the pensieve rather than Harry. “Did I ever say that I did?”“No, but … but the Slytherin common room…”That earned him a glance. “What of it? Does Minerva reside near your common room?”Harry said, “I don’t know –”“I can assure you that she does not.”“But …”Snape set the pensieve on the table. “But what? But I am required to conform to your assumptions?”Harry felt himself smiling. “Well, yes. Sir.”Snape paused, glanced up again. Harry held the faint smile, though with some difficulty. He didn’t have much practice smiling at Snape.The corner of Snape’s mouth twitched sideways, just a little. Only later did Harry think he’d been lucky to get that much, considering what was about to happen.Snape’s eyes returned to the pensieve. He touched his wand to his temple and shut his eyes; a silvery strand drew out glittering from his head and flowed into the pensieve, where it pooled and swirled, shimmering.He shuddered, then, just a faint ripple, and Harry started to get nervous.Snape then waved a hand at the chair closest the pensieve. “Sit.”Harry obeyed.Snape leaned on the back of a chair, peering in a focused, yet somehow distant, way at Harry. It reminded him of Scratch.“Dumbledore does not wish you to see these sorts of things,” he said. “I think you need to. Knowing this, the choice is up to you.”Harry squared himself on the chair and reached out to draw the pensieve nearer.* * * He stood in the fog, in a shallow, tree-fenced, fog-laced valley. Though he had no sense of temperature on his skin, it seemed a chill wintry scene. A man stood at his side, a man he knew had to be Snape, though he was cloaked and hooded as a Death Eater.Other figures moved, the fog parting as they passed, then swirling in to fill the air behind them. More Death Eaters. Even knowing he was only an observer – safe – Harry froze as they converged, forming a silent, ragged circle of which he was an invisible member.Two more of them came forward through the mist, dragging another man, this one wearing well-made blue robes, his long brown hair straggling about his shoulders. They flung him to the ground in the center of the clearing. He landed hard on his knees; the fog oozed away from him, revealing sparse, winter-brown grass.The prisoner knelt hunched in front of Harry, and for one horrible moment Harry thought he would be forced to witness Snape performing some excruciations upon him. Please, no, I don’t want to hate him again …At Harry’s right, the fog began to whirl, a tiny grey tornado that took on size and substance as he watched. Despite knowing he wasn’t really there, Harry felt himself inching backward in alarm.As it coalesced into a tall, black-caped, hooded form, Harry realized the prisoner hadn’t been cast at Snape’s feet, but at the feet of the man he ostensibly still served.Voldemort.Harry knew the incident he was witnessing had to have been within the last two years, as the dark lord was fully corporeal beneath his robe; red eyes gleamed out of a nearly-human face, though Harry thought there was nothing human behind it.He turned those red eyes toward Harry – toward Snape – and Harry watched as Snape and all the other Death Eaters bent to one knee in brief obeisance.“My loyal followers,” Voldemort hissed. “We meet tonight to eliminate one more threat to my continued existence and to our eventual reign over the wizarding world.” He pointed at the man kneeling before him. Harry looked at the prisoner as the other Death Eaters returned to their feet. He was about Snape’s age. He had a kind, plain face, not unlike Remus Lupin’s; the lines in it were drawn taut with effort, and Harry guessed he was struggling against a spell holding him in place.Voldemort looked around the circle at his followers, standing like headstones around the glade. He lowered his eyes to the man.“Release him.”A flash of light enveloped the man and was gone. He climbed to his feet in front of Voldemort, who towered over him by nearly a foot. His blue eyes were pinched with pain but defiant; he met Voldemort’s crimson stare unflinching.“Sherwood.” The word was so sibilant it took Harry a moment to realize it was a name. “Give Mr. Sherwood back his wand.”Said item was produced from within the folds of a Death Eater’s robe and flung at Sherwood’s feet. He bent swiftly to collect it, eyes never leaving Voldemort.Voldemort smiled, started to speak. Sherwood raised his wand.“Imperio!”Harry saw the nearest Death Eaters, Snape included, sway, buffeted by the power of Sherwood’s casting. He was impressed with the man’s gall, that an Unforgivable was the first thing out of his mouth in this situation.Voldemort didn’t move, didn’t reach for his wand or flinch or speak; the spell struck him, enveloped him in light for an instant, and vanished.The Death Eaters surged forward.“No!” Voldemort held up one scaly hand, letting it fall when his minions stopped. “Let him. Let us see what the Ministry’s best can do against me.” He crossed his arms and waited.Eyes wild, desperate, Sherwood raised his wand and cast another curse.Harry watched in growing incredulous horror as Voldemort effortlessly deflected – absorbed? – curses forgivable and un. Without the aid of any of the surrounding Death Eaters, he simply took everything Sherwood had to throw at him – far more than Harry could have thrown. Sherwood was unscrupulous. Talented. Powerful. He cast curses Harry had never even heard of. None of that mattered. The spells hit whatever protection Voldemort had cast about himself and … evaporated.When at last Sherwood paused, panting, exhausted, eyes agape in either fear or simple disbelief, Voldemort drew out his wand, giving it the merest flick.“Icto.”Lightning whipped across Sherwood’s body, flinging him back, opening a great rent in his clothing through which Harry saw, for a second, his sliced and raw flesh. Voldemort didn’t need to repeat the spell; it struck again and again, flashes of white light cracking across Sherwood’s body, slapping him this way and that, cutting into his body until his robes were shredded and spattered with blood.Voldemort held up one hand and the spell stopped. Harry had one painful moment of hearing nothing but Sherwood’s moist, labored breathing. Then Voldemort said:“Occaecaro.”A red flash struck at Sherwood’s eyes. They gaped and turned instantly white. He screamed, dropping his wand to claw at his face.Voldemort waited. Sherwood wavered and dropped to his knees, arms falling helplessly to his sides, white face upturned, sightless eyes wide, as if groping for some hint of what the next blow would be.With shopping-list dispassion, Voldemort said, “Crucio.”Sherwood’s body screwed itself into impossible knots of agony and collapsed to the ground, writhing, too tormented even to scream.Voldemort released him and he went limp, curled in upon himself, air wheezing in and out of his lungs in tiny, hopeless wisps.Voldemort smiled. Whispered, “Avada Kedavra.”Harry’s last sight was of Sherwood’s gaping mouth filling with his own blood. The fog closed around him, turning a terrible bright shamrock green.* * * Harry snapped out of the pensieve and rocked back in the chair, shaken, tear-blinded, sick. He bent his head and simply breathed for a time, fighting down nausea and blinking the moisture from his eyes. The last thing he wanted to do was cry, or throw up, in front of Snape.When he raised his head Snape was watching him, still standing behind the chair, his fingers now clenched in its wooden back.“Timaeus Sherwood was an Auror. One of the best, a member of the Hit Squad. His body was never recovered.” His tone forgave Harry for his reaction, and Harry felt his eyes prickle again.He closed them, chilled to his core. “Fuck.”Snape said, “I entirely agree.”Shaking, Harry looked up at him. “I’m going to die.”“Probably.”Harry stared, betrayed, and Snape’s face tightened.“What did you expect? You have been marked for death by the most powerful dark wizard in generations. For God’s sake, you have faced him yourself. You know what he is capable of. What have you done to prepare yourself for battle against that? When have you thought about anything besides Quidditch and petty rules-breaking with your friends?”Harry was too overwhelmed to answer.Snape shook his head, disgusted. “Not that it is wholly your fault. Dumbledore has refused to tell you what you need to know, refused to teach you what you need to learn to have a hope of defeating the dark lord. His inexplicable delicacy in this situation may well result in more deaths than yours.”Thickly Harry said, “I didn’t know you cared.” He slumped in the chair; Snape’s indifference to whether he lived or died could not, at this moment, compete with his own sudden and devastating realization of the vastness that stood between him and any hope of survival. A vastness made of his own ignorance.He said, “Teach me.”Snape blinked. “Why?”“So I won’t die,” Harry said.“I meant, why should I teach you?”Harry held Snape’s gaze. He’d long thought those eyes cold and full of hate; he’d never really compared them, before, to Voldemort’s.He repeated, “So I won’t die.”Snape blinked, eyebrows arching in what could have been surprise, or approval, or amusement.“We shall have to speak to the headmaster,” he said, a condition.Harry got up on rubbery legs, forced them to hold him, to move. “Let’s go.”* * * “Severus. Harry. Come in.”Both men hesitated at the headmaster’s tone, which suggested they were expected. Snape, predictably, recovered sooner, and Harry followed as the potions teacher strode into Dumbledore’s office.“Were you expecting us, sir?” Harry asked, hearing with some surprise the suspicion in his own voice. Even Snape gave him a sidelong, raised-brow glance for his temerity.Dumbledore, however, merely smiled. “In my position, Harry, I try to expect everything. Sit down, both of you. What can I do for you?”Snape sat on the edge of one of the matching chintz chairs in front of Dumbledore’s desk.Harry planted himself in the other, and, unsure how to start, glanced at Snape, but if he had expected any aid from that quarter, he was disappointed. Snape merely looked back at him, not mocking, not even a sarcastic, “this is your problem, not mine” sort of look.And Harry realized what Snape was telling him with his patient silence; this was his own undertaking, his first step in being responsible for himself. It made him feel, rather than betrayed, oddly liberated.And nervous.He cleared his throat. “Headmaster, I wish to make a request. For special tutoring.”“What sort of special tutoring?”“Defense, sir,” Harry said, gathering nerve as he gathered his thoughts. “Against Voldemort.”“What sort of defense?” Dumbledore gazed steadily at Harry, not giving away anything of what he might be thinking.“All of them, sir. Any sort it might take.”When Dumbledore looked at Snape, Harry knew he’d got an inkling of what Harry was really asking. Then his hard-learnt suspicion reared its head and suggested Dumbledore had known from the start what he was there for.Snape met Dumbledore’s stare as the headmaster said:“I take it, Harry, that you are asking if I will agree to allow Professor Snape to teach you ...” He trailed off and Harry felt a surge of anger. The old bastard wouldn’t give an inch. He knew precisely what Harry wanted.“To teach me whatever it takes to make sure Voldemort doesn’t kill me,” Harry said. “Or at least to make that as difficult for him as possible. It seems to me I’m a bit of a sitting duck for him at the moment. I’d rather at least make him earn it, you know?”“You are more protected than you may realize,” Dumbledore admonished.“That hasn’t stopped him from coming within an inch of killing me every year I’ve been here,” he said. “I need to know everything possible.”Dumbledore eyed him levelly. Harry stared right back, said into that speculative silence:“I’m aware mine isn’t the only life at risk from Voldemort, but mine is the only one I have any control over. Let me learn how to defend myself.”“You have no idea what you are asking,” Dumbledore said softly. Harry steeled himself against the truth in those words as it slithered cold down his spine.“That’s exactly the problem, headmaster,” he said. “I don’t know. I need to know. Not just the pretty stuff and the polite spells. I need to know as much of what Voldemort knows as possible. I need to.”Dumbledore’s eyes held his. Harry didn’t look away, though he soon grew angry. He was tired of being tested without being told what for.At last Dumbledore blinked. “You have the true Gryffindor stubbornness, Harry.”“When I know I’m right,” Harry said. Snape exhaled softly, derisive, and Dumbledore turned his gaze thither.“Severus?”Snape sat straight, tense, eyes glittering.“You know my beliefs, headmaster.”“And you know mine,” Dumbledore responded – a warning, clear even to Harry.“Trusting where others would not,” Snape said softly, “is your choice, headmaster.”Harry looked back and forth at the two men, wondering how he could have imagined for a second he’d be able to understand either of them unless they wanted to be understood. But he was used to being out of his depth – that was the whole point of his doing this.Dumbledore bowed his head. “Yes. And time is short.”Harry bit his tongue; he’d promised himself after Sirius’ death – one of several promises – to never again beg the headmaster for information.“This must be done in the utmost secrecy,” Dumbledore went on, and Snape’s shoulders relaxed, as if he’d been worried the headmaster wouldn’t touch on this point. “No one must have the least hint that Severus is helping you, Harry, or that your relationship has altered in any way from the … er … adversarial state with which we are all familiar.” Dumbledore looked hard at Harry. “Some of the things he will teach you may be illegal. The Ministry of Magic does not and would not approve, and though you would perhaps be forgiven due to your age and … er … position, Professor Snape would face Azkaban for it.”“Azkaban,” Harry echoed, dipping the word in faint, feigned surprise. He had thought of it, but if he affected ignorance he might learn more. Turnabout, he thought grimly, for all the times the headmaster had doled out information to him like bits of cheese to a mouse in a maze.“You know something, I think, of Severus’ past,” Dumbledore said. “I might not be able to protect him from the Ministry if it is learned he is involved with the Dark Arts again, whatever the reason.”Dumbledore paused, obviously to let the importance of his words sink in. Harry looked at Snape. Snape looked back at him, his blank expression somehow clearly communicating the idea of ‘what the fuck did you expect, Potter?’Harry turned his eyes back to Dumbledore, who went on. “Also, and far more dangerously, Professor Snape’s position as a spy for the Order, and more importantly his life –”Here Snape snorted.“ – would be endangered if word of this were to leak out,” Dumbledore finished. “There would probably be no warning before he was murdered. Do you understand me? We would have no way of knowing.”Harry looked at Snape. The idea of Snape suffering Sherwood’s fate – on his account – made his stomach clench. Bleak thoughts of Sirius filled his head. Never again. Never again would he cause the death of someone he …Harry shook his head, startled. “I understand you, sir. Professor, if you don’t wish to do this …”Snape said nothing, and Dumbledore too turned to him.“Severus? Are you willing to undertake this?”Snape turned to Harry. “You understand that I will work you harder than you have ever been worked in your life. I will show you no mercy. If you did not already hate me—” He smirked. “By the end of this, if you live, you would.”Harry said, “I want you to teach me, sir.” He emphasized you, and thought he saw surprise flash in Snape’s eyes.Snape said, “Then I shall.”“When would you begin?” Dumbledore asked, as if still undecided.Snape’s expression softened as he stared into the distance, planning. “I have some preparations to make. Two days, I should think.” He shot Harry a sharp look. “We’ll start on Friday, after breakfast.”“Yes sir.”“Wear comfortable clothes,” Snape said. “And be sure your will is up to date.”“Uh … w-will?”Snape rolled his eyes. “That was a joke, Potter.”“Very well.” Dumbledore stood up – a dismissal. Harry and Snape did the same, and Dumbledore gave them both a parting paternal glare over his glasses.“I don’t need to explain to you how serious a commitment this is. I allow it only as a last resort, and I ask you both to please take care. Do not hesitate, either of you, to come to me with any concerns. And may I add, I’m very proud of you both.” He ushered them out with a slight gesture, and the door thudded shut behind them.“Is it wrong of me to worry when Dumbledore says he’s proud of me?” Harry muttered as they descended the stairs. Snape’s dry chuckle was a revelation.“By no means, Potter.”* * * Harry took a deep breath, telling himself it was from the climb and not fear, and rapped on the door. Then stopped and gingerly laid his hand against the wood. It felt cool, and smooth, and … there. The faintest tingling that spoke of magical wards.He had no doubt the expression on his face was one of foolish abstraction when the door swung open to reveal Snape, wearing black trews, a black undershirt, and a look of surprise already shifting to annoyance.Harry figured they could skip over the ‘Potter, what the hell do you want at this hour?’ part, so he plunged right in.“I’m sorry to bother you, sir, but … I’ve come for the cat.”Snape blinked. “The cat.”“Scratch, sir,” Harry said, adding, at Snape’s scowl, “You carried him up, sir. Earlier. That is, he sort of attached himself—”“Oh yes, the cat.” Snape stood back and let Harry come in.Harry stopped just inside the door, his gaze wandering down Snape’s back as the man walked toward the fireplace.He jerked his eyes up, appalled, blood burning in his face, and stammered, “Professor?”Snape turned around, arching an impatient eyebrow.“About what the headmaster said … if this is too dangerous for you … I don’t want to –”Snape rolled his eyes. “Spare me the heroic self-sacrifice, Potter.”“That’s not it!” Harry snapped. “Sir.”Snape smirked. “You can be trained after all. But it’s too late to back out.”“That’s not it either, professor,” Harry said, gathering calm from somewhere. Snape always seemed determined to either misunderstand or goad him, and he was tired of playing that game, tired of his own knee-jerk responses.“I am scared, but that’s not what I’m talking about. You’re already taking such a big risk ... if you’d rather not add to it –”“Are you calling me a coward?” Snape asked.Harry laughed humorlessly, and the burgeoning anger evaporated from Snape’s face.“Coward?” He chuckled again. “No sir. You’re many things, and I’ve called you a lot of them. But coward?” He sent a significant glance toward the table where he’d looked into Snape’s pensieve. “I think you’re the bravest man I’ve ever met.”Snape’s mouth worked for a moment before he turned away, reaching for one of the easy chairs in front of the fire.“But I don’t want to make things even more dangerous for you.”“There is no one else who can teach you,” Snape said. His voice sounded thick, perhaps only because his back was to Harry.He turned back around, Scratch a content hank of limp fur in his hands. “Take this flea-ridden hairball and get out.”“Professor…” Harry gave up. He didn’t know how to talk about this with Snape. With a friend, he would have had no problem, but Snape pounced on anything like kindness or concern, whether for himself or someone else.He sighed, reached out for the cat. “Yes sir.”Snape shoved Scratch into his hands and Harry started toward the door.“Potter.”Harry stopped. Scratch climbed to his shoulder as he turned around.“You had best be very serious about this.”Harry almost smiled. Realizing Snape might misunderstand, he shook his head instead.“Professor, I’m deadly serious about it. I have to be, don’t I? Not just for my own sake. For everyone’s. Yours especially.”“You are worried about me?” Snape mocked.“Yes,” Harry said. “I don’t want anyone – anyone – to die because of me. Anyone else, I mean.”Snape’s head tilted a little, his hair sweeping across one shoulder. “And I thought you blamed me for your godfather’s death.”Harry swallowed. “I did. B-because I couldn’t face the fact that it was my fault.” He turned, headed blindly for the door. He was fumbling with the handle when the potions master snapped:“Potter!”Harry blinked fast, scrubbed an arm across his eyes quickly, and turned around. Scratch meowed in his ear, protesting the shifting of his perch.Snape stood stiff, speaking as if each word were being forced out of his mouth. “You were fifteen. You were being kept ignorant of things you needed to know.” He inhaled, seeming to steady himself. “You are an ignorant and willful brat. You have done things wrong in the past. You’ll do more in the future, I’ve no doubt. Don’t add to that list unnecessarily.”Harry gaped at the man. I’m dreaming. No other explanation. Snape can’t be standing here telling me it’s not my fault Sirius is dead. He can’t be … comforting me. I’m asleep in my bed and I need to get up and go get my cat before Snape makes a potion out of him.Scratch rubbed against his ear and Harry snapped out of his trance.“P – professor ..?”Snape turned away, waving a dismissive hand at him over his shoulder. “Go away, Potter.”Harry blinked. “Um. Good night, sir.”He left, closing the door softly behind him.* * * Harry pointed his wand. “Conflagro!”Twenty feet away, Snape twirled his own wand in a complex but swift configuration; the water spell that sprang forth dissipated Harry’s advancing fireball; Snape’s countercurse came shooting at Harry through the cloud of steam that resulted.After the split-second of blind panic that two weeks of training had yet to erase, Harry identified the curse and shouted the counter curse, his own wand whipping in front of him. He pulled another attack from his frantic brain even as Snape’s freezing hex shattered into ice crystals upon hitting Harry’s blocking spell.“Tundero!” He sent the hammer-curse at Snape, then flinched and squeezed his eyes shut as the ice shards sprayed into his face, sharp as needles.He heard Snape’s utterly unpanicked “Invertere Incantatem” and his own spell came back at him so fast he had no time to do anything but blink and think shit! before it slammed into his chest.He hit the wall, pain reverberating throughout his body, exploding into his brain and blanking his vision and thoughts.He came to face down on the blissfully thick carpet covering the floor of their dueling chamber deep in the bowels of Hogwarts.He tried to raise his head, moaned as pain thudded along his body. Don’t move. Not moving is a good thing. He breathed in tiny, fearful sips and blinked at the rug, vaguely thinking its pattern had become very familiar thanks to his regularly ending up in this position over the past fortnight.He felt more than saw Snape sit next to him, on the edge of the long dais they used as their dueling stage. Hands grasped his twitching shoulders and he was lifted into a sitting position, where he coughed air back into his compressed lungs, then slumped against Snape, limp, his damp face on the man’s collarbone.“How many times do I have to remind you to keep repercussio on the tip of your tongue at all times?” Snape said, his voice hoarse. Harry simply leaned, gasping for air and letting the tears leak from his eyes. He ached all over, inside and out. Dimly he was aware that he was trembling, that Snape’s hand was on his back, supporting ... no, stroking. Stroking? “You never know when you might have to deflect one of your own spells.”Harry coughed again, almost a sob, and buried his face in Snape’s neck.“Oh. Christ. That hurts.”He felt Snape stiffen for a moment before the man’s arm slid awkwardly around him. He breathed in the scents of spice and magic and the faintest hint of sweat, and mouthed his thought against Snape’s shirt.“What was that?” Snape asked.Harry took a deep, fortifying breath and lifted his head, wiping a forearm across his face. He collected his dropped wand and tucked it into his pocket.“I said you smell good,” he said, and the surprise on his teacher’s face drew a tiny laugh from Harry’s throat, easing the residual dull pain of the spell. Snape too choked out a kind of laugh, shaking his head.“I take it from that irrelevant observation that you are essentially uninjured?” he asked drily. Harry nodded, knowing it would mean the removal of those comforting arms, and so it proved. Snape got to his feet and pulled Harry to his own by means of a firm grasp to his elbows. Neither of them was completely steady on his feet. They leaned mutually for a moment, and their eyes met. Harry thought he was almost getting used to the weird flipflop his stomach had taken to performing when they locked gazes like this. Like this, with calm and respect, unshadowed by their former distrust and hatred.Snape looked away, clearing his throat delicately.“You understand Voldemort will never grant you this sort of respite.”Harry nodded. “Yes sir.” He felt his cheeks flame, and he gulped. “Thank you.”“For?”“For everything. For ...” He swallowed again. “Why did you agree to do this? You could have said no. I wouldn’t have been surprised or anything.” He’d been silent on the subject for days, but he’d been thinking about it – and about other, related mysteries – a great deal.The black eyes flickered with uncertainty for a moment, then Snape pulled away, shaking his head.“I don’t wish to see any of my students die, Potter. Not even you.”That was so patently not the reason that Harry didn’t even bother to pretend to believe it, or to be offended.“How can you do it?” he asked instead.“Do what?”“Go to him. Pretend. Surrounded by Death Eaters. I mean ... I’d be scared shitless. How do you do it?”Snape’s eyes went flat, blank. “Someone has to.”Harry shook his head. “That’s not an answer. How can you be so ... so damned brave?”Snape tilted his head back to stare at the ceiling. While Harry was admiring the lines of his neck, he shut his eyes and sighed. “It’s time to stop for the night.”“Are you trying to avoid answering me?” Harry demanded. Snape looked at him, his lip curling.“I don’t have to try to avoid answering you,” he said tartly. “If I don’t wish to answer, I simply won’t.”He moved tiredly to the door and Harry, just as tired and considerably more battered and bruised – Snape never took a dive in their duels, the cunning bastard – followed.The adjacent dungeon-level room (specially warded, like their dueling chamber, to allow, and contain, all kinds of dark magic) had been set up as a sort of Dark Arts library, lined with books Harry had suspected from the start could get them both in serious Ministry trouble. Snape had insisted Harry understand theory as well as practice; they’d spent a fair number of hours in the big cushy chairs in front of the fire, surrounded by piles of books and discussing arcane details of the Dark Arts and the defense against them, both before and after their bouts.Harry flung himself into his accustomed seat with a sigh and fingered the open book resting on the table next to the chair; the words blurred before his tired eyes. He heard Snape quietly summon a house elf and request tea and something more, something he couldn’t make out, and he shifted his stare to the small fire in the hearth.Then Snape was before him, lifting his drooping chin in one hand.“Are you in fact uninjured, Mr. Potter?” he asked, eyes flickering over Harry’s limp, sweat-suited body. Harry had taken the orders to wear comfortable clothes literally; even Snape wore loose shirts and trousers for their very physical forays into dueling.Harry smiled and nodded. “Just beat. Literally.”“Would you prefer to simply return to your dormitory?” Snape asked. “I’ve sent for tea, but …”Harry shook his head. “Not until you’ve answered my question.”“Which question was that?” Snape asked. “Your ignorance is so all-encompassing I admit to some difficulty keeping track of your inquiries.”“Ha ha, sir.”A house elf popped into the dimlit chamber with tea and sandwiches; this was silently deposited on the table and the house elf disappeared.Snape poured himself a cup of tea and sat down. Harry gave him a surprised glance.“Do I look like a house elf, Potter?” Snape asked, sipping his tea.Harry levered himself out of his chair with a groan and hobbled over to pour himself tea and collect a couple of sandwiches. When he turned back around he saw Snape observing him intently. He smiled when Snape blinked and looked away.“I’m okay, professor,” he said, hobbling back to his chair. “Nothing broken.” He set his food and tea on the side table and lowered his body painfully back into the welcoming soft cushions. He drained his cup and devoured a chicken sandwich in the time it took Snape to sip halfway through his own tea, then forced himself up to refill his cup while Snape rolled his eyes.When he sat down again, Harry said, “Now are you going to answer my question?”Snape blinked loftily, opened his mouth.“It was ‘how can you be so damned brave,’ in case you forgot again,” Harry cut in.“It’s a ridiculous question, Potter, one that cannot be answered.” Snape set his teacup aside and steepled his fingers before him. “You would be better served to ask questions directly related to Voldemort and your intended survival of him.”Harry leaned forward, holding his teacup in both hands. Staring at the brown liquid, he said, “How do you do it?”“I do it because I must,” Snape said. Harry looked up quickly, but Snape’s face was impassive, deeply lined by fire and shadow.Harry started to speak and Snape held up one hand.“Leave it. There are some places you are not welcome, Mr. Potter.”Surprised – that Snape was even remotely implying that there were some places he was welcome – Harry nodded, drained his tea, and got up.“I’d better have a bath and go to bed,” he said. Snape nodded, staring into the fire.“Good night, sir. Thank you.”* * * 
Dear Hermione;

I was glad to get your letter. I hope you and your family are well.

I miss you and Ron and everyone, but it’s much better to be here for the summer than at the Dursleys. They’re probably happy about it, too, not that I care.
 Harry stopped and brushed the end of his quill across his lips. That was the easy part of the letter done. 
You’re probably wondering why I put the oculisolum spell on this letter.
 Harry grinned. It was Hermione who’d taught him the spell last year, to conjure a letter so that only the person for whom it was intended could read it; anyone else saw only a blank page. 
I can’t tell you everything that’s going on at Hogwarts this summer, even in a protected letter like this. But I wanted to tell you a little bit. And it’s top secret. I know I can trust you not to tell anyone.

I’m getting some special training. You can guess what it’s about. It’s hard work, Hermione. You’re probably scoffing right now, since you work hard all the time, and you know I usually don’t.

But I really am. Every day for the past three weeks I’ve been learning more about curses and countercurses and hexes and … well, all the things I should have been learning a long time ago. It’s not easy.
 Harry stopped again, considering and deciding against telling his friends who was teaching him. Even though an enemy who could intercept and decipher the letter would probably be able to guess it was Snape, he didn’t want anything incriminating in print. Still, he found himself adding: 
In fact, sometimes – like today – it’s sodding miserable.
 He sat back again, smiling, looking down at his foot, resting on a cushioned stool.* * * “Think! Do you never think? Do not simply react — think!”Harry got to his knees, wiping his sweaty face with one shaking hand. “I’m trying.” He groped on the carpet for his wand, lost when Snape’s latest counterspell had slapped him to the floor. “You never tell me—”Snape, calm, not sweating – bastard! – simply sneered at him.“Nor will Voldemort. If you imagine the dark lord plays according to the Marquess of Queensberry—”“I don’t! But you aren’t Voldemort, damn it! You’re supposed to help me.” Harry grabbed his wand and climbed to his feet.“I help you best by helping you least,” Snape said.“But you have to tell me some things!” Harry yelled. “I don’t know any of this stuff yet.”“You don’t know anything yet, Potter,” Snape corrected him.“I know!” Harry bellowed, his body blazing with anger. “That’s why I’m here, damn it.”“Then perhaps, while you are here,” Snape mocked, “you might try concentrating for three seconds together.”“That’s hard to do with you bouncing me off the walls every minute,” Harry groused. He was bruised and tired and achy and frustrated with his own inability to keep up. He’d thought he was learning, improving. Today, Snape dashed that illusion.“Then prevent me from bouncing you off the walls,” Snape snarled back at him.“I’m trying!” Harry snapped through clenched teeth.Snape crossed his arms, wand held delicately between two fingers, and curled his lip. “We’ll put that on your headstone.”Biting down on an exclamation that would probably get him hexed for good, Harry turned to stomp away, but his ankle gave out and he crumpled in an ignominious heap onto the carpet, cursing and feeling his face flame.In a moment Snape was bending next to him, lifting Harry’s arm, draping it over his own shoulders and raising Harry to his feet. Startled, Harry leaned on Snape and half-hopped across the dueling room and into the study.Snape dumped Harry into his chair right at the moment Harry’s surprise was turning into a tingly enjoyment of contact with Snape’s body.Snape knelt at Harry’s feet and pulled off his shoe.“Ow!” Harry tried to hold still as Snape slipped his sock off and prodded his swollen ankle with careful fingers.“Oh, shut up,” Snape muttered as he examined the joint. “God help you in Voldemort’s clutches if you can’t deal with a little medicinal aid.” His fingers pressed here and there, warm, cautious – kindly, despite his mocking words.Harry gazed down at him, some emotion he couldn’t define tickling his throat and behind his eyes. Could he ever have imagined Severus Snape like this, hexing the hell out of him, mocking him – then helping him, caring for him, however crankily?Snape sat back on his heels at last. “It’s not broken, but you’ve damaged some ligaments. Accio tape!”A roll of gauze flew to him – from where, Harry had no idea – and he handed it to Harry. “Wrap it. Not too tight.”He got to his feet and went to the sideboard whilst Harry wrapped his throbbing ankle. When he sat up again, Snape had returned, a beaker of something purple in his hands.“Drink it.”Harry did. He shuddered, handed back the phial. “What?”Snape shook his head, blinked. “Nothing.”“No. What was that look all about?”“You drank the philtre.”“Yes, and it was disgusting. Tell me, do you ever taste-test your own stuff?”“Always. That isn’t my point.”“What is your point, sir?”“You just drank it.”Harry thought about it. “I’m sorry, professor. I don’t understand you.”“It might have been anything,” Snape said. “Poison. Anything.”Harry scowled. “Well ... yes. Except that ...” He trailed off as an inkling of Snape’s point hit him. “Except that I knew it wasn’t.”The wonder was back on Snape’s face, erasing years. “You trust me.”Harry shrugged, winced. “I guess so.”“No. There is no guessing. We’d just finished a good five minutes of screaming at one another in a fair approximation of murderous fury –”“Was it only five minutes?” Harry muttered.Snape ignored him. “I could have given you anything. What I did give you was disgusting. And you didn’t hesitate.”“So I trust you,” Harry said, stretching his arms behind him. He hurt all over. “Even when you’re being a complete bastard. Which — with all due respect, sir — is always, last time I checked. So what?”“Ah.” Realization cleared Snape’s expression. “I forget that you are a Gryffindor. Trust is natural to you.”“Try living with the Dursleys,” Harry countered snidely. “I look over my shoulder in my sleep, for God’s sake. I don’t trust anyone ‘naturally’.”Snape snorted, turned away.“What was it, by the way?” Harry asked.“An anaesthetic and a mild muscle relaxant,” Snape muttered. “So you won’t be too sore tomorrow.”Harry grinned.Snape glanced at him, said, “Oh, shut up.”* * * 
I wish you two could come up to Hogsmeade for a day or something. I wish I could see you and talk to you. I’m learning a lot – mostly I’m learning that I don’t know much of anything. But it’s a start.

Anyway, write soon and let me know what’s happening with you.

Yours, Harry
 Harry duplicated the letter, made a couple of minor alterations, added a bit about the Cannons’ off-season training (good), his own occasional Quidditch practices (adequate), and the chances England would make it to the Cup this year (dismal), and sent it to Ron at the Burrow.Scratch jumped onto the stool and began to lie across Harry’s sore foot. He grabbed the cat and pulled it complaining onto his lap, where it deigned to settle with a disgruntled expression.Harry watched, said, “You like him better, don’t you?”The cat looked up at him, clearly calling him second-best. Harry stuck his tongue out.“I like him better too. So there.”He’d awoken that morning to the uncomfortable remnants of yet another erotic dream featuring his evil greasy old bastard of a teacher. He knew, from ‘What Every Young Witch and Wizard Should Know’ by Rowan and Theodoric Calendulum (loaned to him months ago by a concerned and awkward Hermione), that it was normal. He also knew that having dreams about Snape, instead of, for instance, Hermione or Fleur Delacour, was not exactly normal, though the Calendulums passed no moral judgments about homosexuality in their very thorough tome. It was less weird that it was a man than that it was Snape. But Harry’d had so little practical experience that he thought maybe he shouldn’t be surprised his reactions to Snape were so strong. According to the book, he shouldn’t confuse physical reactions, which were uncontrollable, with emotional attachment, which was, in Snape’s case, un-bloody-believable.But … it wasn’t just his body that reacted, Harry thought. Something deeper was responding to Snape’s proximity, something in his head and maybe even in his heart, something different from the surface appeal of Cho or Fleur or even Bill Weasley (and hadn’t that given Harry some disturbing food for thought, last time he’d visited the Burrow while Bill was home?). As much as his scent or touch, Snape’s words, his knowledge and his sharing of it, were awakening something Harry couldn’t name, and it worried and excited him in equal measure.Harry scratched the cat and watched its eyes fall shut in sleepy pleasure.* * * Snape bent over, perspiring, breathing audibly, wand dangling in his fingers, his left hand upraised in a staying gesture. “Potter,” he panted, “Give me a moment.”“I’m not falling for that,” Harry said, trying not to be distracted by a brief but vivid image of Snape bent over and sweaty and panting in very different circumstances.Snape swept a hand across his damp brow – and flicked his wand at Harry.“Stupefy!”But Harry was ready, cursing Snape’s sneakiness even as he blocked the spell and sent it bouncing harmlessly off the wall. Unfortunately, while he was watching that, Snape straightened up and flicked his wand again.“Stiriaperfodero!”Harry writhed with agony as the spell lanced ice through his core, heard his own voice shout a hex without any conscious thought, and shook off enough of the stunning pain to look at his opponent.Snape hit the wall, hard, and his head snapped back. Harry saw the surprise in the dark eyes before Snape slid down the wall into a crumpled pile. Cold clenched in his gut; he was on his feet and running before the man stopped moving.“Professor!” He stumbled to a halt and fell to his knees, his body still keening with pain from the hex he’d allowed through, and bent over Snape, grasping his shoulders to pull him upright.Snape groaned as Harry lifted him.“Thank God.” He’s alive. Not that Harry’s curse would have been enough to kill him, but the way his head hit the wall...Harry cradled the back of Snape’s head and helped the now-conscious man sit up. They both leaned weakly against the wall for a moment, shoulder to shoulder, Harry watching anxiously as Snape blinked his way back to awareness, peering hard at him.“Did you use abjicero?” he asked, his voice dry, hoarse.Harry nodded. “You hit your head on the wall. Are you okay?”Snape chuckled. Harry boggled. Snape leaned his head carefully against the wall and chuckled again. The sour self-deprecation Harry could hear in the laugh didn’t detract from how astoundingly human it made Snape at that moment.“What?” Harry asked nervously.Snape shook his head and looked at Harry again.“Nothing. That was well done, Potter.”Harry found himself grinning in relief. “Thank you. Imagine how proud you’d be if I’d killed you.”Snape said, “I have the authority to award points posthumously.”Harry giggled. Then he realized the bizarre position they were in — sitting on the floor, leaning on one another like a couple of drunks, chuckling like giddy children. It felt good.Snape started to sit straighter and winced. Harry flinched and reached out to gently shape the back of Snape’s head again.“Are you all right?” he asked. “You really hit the wall hard.” He let his hand slide along Snape’s skull, surprised that his hair was silky-soft rather than greasy. His fingertips sought across Snape’s head for any swellings, and for a second he let himself enjoy it.Snape looked at him, opened his mouth, closed it.“I don’t feel a bump...” Harry met Snape’s gaze and became, again, excruciatingly aware of their nearness and what he was doing. He bent his head, blushing fiercely, and got to his feet, needing the wall for support and steadiness. “Do you want to get up, sir?” he asked, extending a hand.But Snape was already standing next to him, brushing himself off lightly. “I think that’s enough for tonight, Potter.” His tone was distant, but not cold. Harry looked up at him, grateful he wasn’t going to rip him up for that moment of ... of whatever it was.“Thanks, sir,” he said. “I’m done in.”He limped into the other room where pumpkin juice, wine, and sandwiches awaited them. He looked at the wine briefly, wondering if he could get away with it, then felt Snape enter the room behind him and poured himself a glass of pumpkin juice, collecting a sandwich and taking his usual chair.He was arranging his food around the book he was reading on cold spells when he realized Snape hadn’t moved; the potions master stood at the sideboard, staring down at the food and drink, his expression hard but his shoulders slumped. He looked as tired as Harry felt. Probably was, Harry thought, not without some triumph, now that he was taking some of what he’d been dishing out for the past few weeks.“Are you all right, sir?” he asked.Snape blinked heavily and raised his head, glancing at Harry.“You really hit your head hard,” he said by way of apology for asking.“It’s not a concussion, Potter,” Snape said, his tone mild, slow, almost honeyed. “It’s called thinking. I’m not surprised you’re unfamiliar with the way it looks.”Harry stuck his tongue out. Then snapped it back in. What the hell was he doing?But Snape only smirked and poured himself a glass of wine. Harry, amazed he’d got away with even so minor an act of disrespect, opened his book, pulled out the letter from Hermione he’d been using as a bookmark, and settled in to finish the chapter, one hand turning pages, the other bringing sandwich and pumpkin juice, alternately, to his mouth.It was interesting reading, though dense. He was proud to think that only a month ago he’d have had no idea, practically or theoretically, about the information he was now absorbing with relative ease. And looking forward to putting into practice.Thanks to Snape. Amazing. Harry shook his head, shoved the last bite of the sandwich in his mouth, and brushed a few crumbs off the page.“Careless slob,” Snape murmured. “Treat my books with respect.”Harry flinched. “Sorry, sir.” He brushed again, more delicately, at the page, and resumed reading, aware on the surface of his skin of Snape moving, collecting a book from the shelves, taking his usual chair.* * * Harry jumped when a book thunked onto the table beside him.He must’ve fallen asleep. It took a second for his tired eyes to refocus. When they did, he read the title aloud.“‘Unforgivables’.” He raised his head to regard Snape, standing over him with his arms crossed. He was trying so hard to make out Snape’s expression that it took him a while to realize Snape was just trying to read his.“It’s time,” Snape said.Harry blinked, closed the book on his lap. “Tonight?” He started to push his tired body out of the chair. Snape’s soft snort of laughter forestalled him.“No, Potter, not tonight. Merlin’s balls, we’d both end up dead or worse.”Harry sat back, putting the book on cold curses on the table and pulling the heavy “Unforgivables” tome onto his lap. “Is there worse than dead?”“Yes.” Snape returned to his chair and sat down.Harry opened the book. “Is this legal?”“No.”Harry smiled. “Will we start tomorrow?”Snape gave him a look, like a silent and very brief detention, and picked up the book he’d been reading.“It’s just that Hermione and Ron are apparating to Hogsmeade to visit me, and …” Harry fingered Hermione’s letter, poking out of the cold spells book.“And you want time off to play with your little friends.” Snape opened his own book. “Or perhaps you wish to complain about your mean old potions teacher and how he’s abusing you over the summer hols.”“I didn’t tell them you were teaching me.”That drew Snape’s attention. “No?”“I didn’t want to. Just in case the letter got … um … intercepted.”Snape’s chin went up, as if he’d been challenged. His eyes narrowed. “How will you explain your bruises?”“Wild sex?” Harry blurted, and giggled. To his astonishment Snape raised an eyebrow and said:“With?”Harry felt his face burn. Hell. Snape was making him blush! “I was kidding, sir. They know I’m training, but they don’t know exactly what, or with whom.”Snape huffed, lowered his eyes to his book. “You show signs of developing a modicum of self-preservation, Potter.”“Between you and Voldemort…” Harry began. Snape cleared his throat.“Sorry, sir,” Harry said immediately.“We’ll begin Monday,” Snape said. “You may have tomorrow and the next day to gallivant about with your playmates.”“Thanks, sir.” Harry flipped to chapter one of “Unforgivables” and started to read.* * * Snape awoke bent stiff over his book. He sat up straight and glanced at the fire, then at Potter, slumped in the other chair. Also asleep, “Unforgivables” open on his lap.Snape snorted softly, set his book aside and got up, silently crossing the rug to look down at the boy. At the lowered, not-quite-motionless eyelids, black lashes trembling in the firelight; the solid curve of his jaw; the faint dark stubble on his chin; the veins and tendons of his right hand, lying square and strong atop the yellowing pages of the book.Snape shivered and pulled out his wand.“Mobililiber.” The book rose slowly at his whispered word, sliding out from under Harry’s fingers and coming to rest on the table.“Mobilicorpus.” Harry himself floated up and drifted like a cloud, with Snape following on the ground like the shadow of that cloud, separate but bound together. His wand unerringly directed Harry’s dormant body out of the dungeons and up, up to the Gryffindor tower, deserted but for the Boy Who Lived.Snape delivered Harry into the silent and cool dormitory, up the stairs and into his room. There Snape found it easy to determine which of the five beds was Harry’s: Scratch lay curled on the nearest pillow. One yellow eye opened to regard Snape and his floating companion.“Move,” Snape ordered. Scratch got up and stalked to the other pillow. Whilst he was kneading it into acceptable form, Snape pulled back the blankets with his nonwand hand and lowered Harry onto the bed. He removed Harry’s glasses – careful to avoid physical contact – and set them atop the nightstand.* * * Harry awoke as he settled into his own bed, feeling the warm blankets being drawn to his shoulder, and peered sleepily up to see Snape bent over him.Harry reached out, catching Snape’s wrist as the man straightened and started to move away.Snape stopped, looked down at him.“Good night, sir.” Harry smiled, already nearly asleep again. He squeezed and let go, saw Snape back scowling into the bedpost, then whirl about and sweep out of the room.* * * Harry walked into Hogsmeade on Saturday morning and met with Ron and Hermione, both newly licensed Apparators, in front of the Three Broomsticks. Hermione popped into existence on the pavement, unruffled, and immediately gave Harry a hug and an approving visual once-over.“You look great,” she said. “I think you’re taller.”Whilst Harry was squirming under her appreciative regard, Ron popped into sight, ruffled, eyes wide, as if surprised he’d done it and relieved he’d done it right.“Whoo,” he exhaled. “That’s just …” He shook his head.“All right, Ron?” Harry asked.“Yeah, mate, just can’t get used to it. No wonder Fred and George do it all the time. It feels incredible.”“Like sex?” Harry teased.“How would I know?” Ron said with an exaggerated sigh.“You two,” Hermione scoffed, though her cheeks were pink. “Let’s sit outside, shall we? It’s a beautiful day.”They took their butterbeers onto the small back porch at the Three Broomsticks, where a few tables overlooked a slight dip into a wooded valley, then across open heather to Hogwarts in the distance.“I’m glad you guys could come up,” Harry said.“I guess it’s been kind of weird for you,” Ron said sympathetically. “Up here by yourself for the summer.”“Better than the Dursleys’,” Harry said, “but yeah, a little.”“When will you get your Apparation license?” Hermione asked.“That’s a good question.” One of the things he’d become swish at – thanks, again, to Snape – was Apparation. He’d also been appreciative of the hike involved in getting off Hogwarts’ grounds to learn it, though the first time Snape had led him into the hills Harry hadn’t been totally sure it wasn’t so the potions master could effectively hide his body. He winced, remembering some of their more … volatile lessons. “Maybe before term starts.”“You’ve been practicing?” Ron asked. “Where? With who?”“Whom,” Hermione corrected. Ron rolled his eyes.“Um …” Harry wasn’t the world’s worst liar, but he had little practice lying to his best friends.“Not Hagrid?” Hermione said, suddenly alarmed.“No!” Harry reassured her. “Um … Snape’s been helping me.”“Snape.” Ron boggled. Then laughed. “That’s a good one, Harry.”Harry smiled. “It’s true.”Hermione simply looked at him while Ron’s jaw dropped.“Snape? Does Dumbledore know?”Hermione tsked. “Dumbledore knows everything.”Harry ventured, “Not everything.”That made Hermione peer even more closely at him. “He doesn’t know Snape’s been teaching you?” Although they were alone on the small patio, she kept her voice down, and Harry was grateful that she’d obviously remembered some measure of discretion was necessary.Harry chuckled. “No. That he knows.” Both of them, now, were staring at him, their faces a mixture of puzzlement and pity. “It’s okay, you guys,” he said. “I’m just getting some extra help.”“Help. Snape.” Ron shook his head. “Nope. Sorry, mate, can’t put those two in the same sentence.” He drained his butterbeer. “Refills?”Hermione nodded. Harry said, “Sure.”Ron went inside and Hermione asked Harry, “Are you really okay with this?”“With what?”“Snape teaching you,” she said. Harry nodded.“It’s … well, it’s not fun, but I’m learning a lot. I feel better about …” He let his own voice drop. “About facing Voldemort, you know?”She searched his face, still looking worried, but nodded. “As long as you’re okay.”“I’m as okay as I can be,” Harry said as Ron came back out. He accepted the butterbeer and thought in silence as he sipped it. He’d wanted to tell his friends about his concerns – to be honest, his fears – that he might die the next time Voldemort came for him. As he watched them smile and laugh and flirt in their peculiar Ron-Hermione way, he couldn’t find the words to open the topic. They cared, and they’d sympathize, but he knew they couldn’t understand.“Hey, mate,” Ron cut into his thoughts. “You all right?”They kept asking that, Harry thought. Are you all right? What would they do, if he said he wasn’t, except worry needlessly? They wanted to hear that he was.“Yeah,” he said. “Let’s order lunch, eh? I’m starved.”* * * That afternoon, back at Hogwarts, Harry went down to the room he thought of now as ‘their’ study.“Professor?” The idea that the man might not be there was strange, though he didn’t know why. After all, it wasn’t as if Snape was chained to the dungeons. He might be up in his chambers. He might even have errands to run, friends to visit.Harry grinned at those images as he walked through the study. He stopped at the head of the unlit corridor at the back. He knew there was a small WC through the first of the three doors along that hall, having used it during their training. He’d never been here alone long enough to explore the farther two rooms.“Professor?” He heard what sounded like a waterfall. Mindful that some parts of the dungeon connected to the lake, he slipped down the dark stone corridor, curious.He passed the WC door and the door after that, both closed. The sound of water against stone, unmistakable, increased. At the end of the hall the third door was partly open, dim golden light and steam coming out, and he crept forward and peered in.Surrounded by stone shelves holding innumerable yellow candles and a few other oddments like towels and bottles, there was indeed a waterfall.Snape was under it. Naked.His back was to Harry as he tilted his head up, rinsing a faintly greenish soap from his hair and body. He stood in a stone basin, steamy water pouring over a wide stone lip, thence onto him. His hair trailed inky black across his back and shoulders as he stroked away the soap, every movement drawing Harry’s hot stare to one or another very nicely shaped body part. Snape possessed a workmanlike layer of muscle over a thinnish body, perhaps not exceptional to the objective eye, but everywhere perfect to Harry.Who would doubtless have realized sooner that his jaw was on the ground had the image of his teacher running his hands down his own body not given him an instant erection. When Snape turned a little — eyes, thankfully, closed against the flow of water — and slid one flattened hand over his own semi-erect penis, Harry melted groaning against the wall. The knowledge that Snape would kill him horribly warred with his hunger to stare, to touch himself as the potions master was touching himself.One hand trailed down, then the other, as Snape stroked himself leisurely, almost as if he were simply washing. Harry, unbreathing, slid his own hands into his loose sweatpants, stroking and staring, biting his tongue as Snape’s hand finally circled his cock, moving now with purpose.Oh, god ... Harry squeezed his own rock-hard erection as he stared at those smooth, elegant hands, not coarse even in a sordid action like this, but it wasn’t sordid. It was beautiful. He was beautiful. Harry imagined those hands on him, imagined rubbing his hands and body against Snape’s wet, languid form...Snape threw his head back and his hand worked faster, the other slipping down his thigh to cup and caress his testes. Harry clenched his teeth, squeezed, and came hot into his sweats at the sight of the semen spurting from Snape’s cock, disappearing into the stream of water that splashed into the stone basin.Harry choked and panicked, fearful Snape would hear him, though the man didn’t seem to be interested, now, in anything other than finishing his bathing. He’d never glanced toward the door; Harry hoped the sound of the waterfall had hidden his own helpless gasps and groans. He darted up the corridor, muttering a hasty purgaro and flinging his clean, if rumpled, self into his chair. He grabbed up “Unforgivables” and opened it, forcing himself to breathe, to calm, to not look as if he’d just wanked off to his teacher’s own hand job. God, Snape was fucking beautiful ...No! Don’t think about it! He breathed. Focused on the book. Innocent. Innocent.Snape came down the corridor in a black robe, toweling his hair. Harry looked up and Snape stopped. Harry felt his face blaze.“What are you doing here?”No anger, and Harry’s embarrassed terror eased a little.“Sorry to intrude,” he said, hoping his voice didn’t sound abnormal. “I know I’m early.”Snape lowered the towel. “I thought you had gone to Hogsmeade today. Surely you are in need of some respite from my delightful company.”“I did go into Hogsmeade, sir,” he said. “I just ...”Snape’s head cocked, eyes narrowed, silently demanding explication.Harry looked at the book in his lap. Unforgivable. “They ... they were glad to see me. We went to the Three Broomsticks. We talked ...” He traced a finger down the page, looked at Snape. “I found that we didn’t have very much to talk about.” Why didn’t it bother him, admitting that to Snape of all people?Snape let his gaze wander. “You won’t find it much comfort when that changes, as it inevitably shall.” He went to the sideboard where a tray of food and drink awaited. Harry thought about Snape’s words, realized what they meant, and shook his head.“I wish it didn’t have to,” he said. “Even if that would mean that there’ll always be this ...” He held up his hands. “...this wall between us.”“The entire wizarding world will eventually be drawn into this conflict, to some degree,” Snape said. He was pouring a glass of something. Harry watched him hesitate, send a hint of a glance in his direction, and pick up another glass. Harry beamed, glad Snape couldn’t see the silly expression. “Your friends may be spared the worst of it, but their days of carefree youth are numbered, rest assured.”He came over to the fireplace with the two glasses.“Carefree youth,” Harry mused. “I wonder what that’s like.”Snape looked at him for a moment, measuring, the two goblets dangling from his hands. Harry wondered. For the past month Snape had begun treating him more and more like an adult, speaking to him with a courtesy and a lack of reserve that Harry cherished. Have I unredeemed myself by that remark? Back to the spoiled Boy Who Lived again? But I never have had a carefree youth. Ignorant, yes, but never carefree.Snape blinked, held out one of the glasses. “Yes,” he said as Harry accepted it. “You are perforce at the forefront.”Harry sipped the drink without any idea of what it was — rather, without any idea of what the glass contained. He knew very well what it was, that Snape had offered him alcohol: tacit admission into adulthood.The drink turned out to be a mildly spicy wine. He looked at the surface of the golden liquid, waiting until Snape had seated himself in the chair opposite. He realized that, had he still been a child, this acknowledgement would have brought him pride and delight rather than a cold knot in his stomach.“Am I going to die?” he asked.When Snape didn’t answer Harry looked up. The man was again watching him, the same measuring look.“What do you think?” he asked.Harry snorted a laugh. “I don’t know. I hope not. Part of me is relying on this luck I seem to have where Voldemort’s concerned. Another part of me — the smart part — and I do have one —” He attempted to forestall Snape’s sarcastic retort.“I’m aware of that,” came the dry, surprising response.Harry blinked. “Anyway, the smart part of me knows I can’t rely on luck, that I shouldn’t rely on other people, that I have to rely on myself. And that that might not be enough.” He chuckled again. “I’m scared, and I hate the way that feels.”Snape chuckled, the sound almost soft, almost understanding. “You have reason.”“Thanks,” Harry muttered. “You’re not very comforting.”Snape smirked. “Really?”Harry sat a little straighter, struck by a thought. “No. I take that back.” He shook his head at himself, wondering, and looked at Snape in realization. “You actually are comforting. Because I know you won’t bullshit me. My friends don’t know, and Dumbledore, the Weasleys, Remus ... people like that won’t tell me. You just throw me in.”“Sink or swim?” Snape said. Harry shrugged.“I’m not afraid of being afraid, if you know what I mean. I just like to know where I stand. I need to know. Besides...” He sipped at the wine, afraid to look directly at Snape while he said this. “You wouldn’t let me sink, really.”Another snorted laugh. “You assume I would be able to prevent it.”Harry looked up. “I notice you didn’t say ‘you assume I would wish to.’”Snape lowered his eyes, took a drink of his own wine.Harry let it go. “I know you can’t do everything. I know I can’t. But thank you for what you are doing. I appreciate it more than I can say.”“If you live I’ll have my thanks,” Snape said sourly. Harry smiled behind cover of the glass he held to his lips, remembering that only a few weeks ago Snape had denied any interest in his survival, pretending to only be concerned with Voldemort’s demise. They sat for a while in silence.Then Snape said, “There is a chance you might.”Harry scowled. “You mean live?”Snape nodded and Harry felt his face stretch into a grin.“Thank you, professor.”* * * On Monday, when Harry arrived, Snape was already in the study, standing in front of the fire, holding “Unforgivables.”Harry walked to within three feet of his teacher, crossed his hands in front of him, and waited. He felt a strange combination of self-confidence and nervousness, now he’d seen Snape naked. He looked at Snape’s hands, spread against the cover of the book, steady and competent as always. Harry found that if he closed his eyes, he could mentally erase Snape’s severe clothing and see the man before him, bare, pale and wiry and fire-warmed …“What are you doing?”Harry jumped and opened his eyes, blushing. Snape was scowling at him, book still lying open in his hands. Harry realized he’d been standing there grinning like an idiot.“Nothing, sir,” he said.Snape snapped the book shut. “I warn you, I won’t tolerate you dozing off during these lessons.”“I can’t see that happening, sir,” Harry said, smiling wryly. “But, warning understood.”Snape gestured with the book. “Did you read this?”“Yes sir,” Harry said crisply. “Read every word.”Dubious, Snape added, “Did you understand it?”Harry held the bright tone. “Yes sir. Read every word.”Snape chuckled, unexpectedly, and Harry felt something warm squirm inside him, like a kitten curling up to sleep.“Sit,” Snape said, indicating the chair. Harry flopped into it and watched Snape more decorously claim his own seat, resting the book flat on his knees. “You have questions?”Harry sighed. “Oh, five or six. Thousand. Where should I start?”Snape opened the book. “At the beginning.” He tilted his head up, black eyes glittering as they rested on Harry.Don’t think of him naked. And wet. Warm water, running down his shoulders, over his hands as he …“Potter.” Snape’s hand slapped the page in front of him, and Harry jumped. “Will you pay attention?”“Sorry sir.” Harry shook himself. “The beginning.”* * * Two hours later Harry stood facing Snape in the dueling chamber, wand aloft and brain frantic, trying to remember everything Snape had told him to remember before attempting his first dark magic.Snape stood with his arms crossed, deliberately taunting Harry with his casual posture.Harry gathered himself, focused, and let fly with the low-level dark spell they’d chosen as their first practicum.“Intraflagraro!”The spell, concocted to deliver a fiery and agonizing death to the recipient, sputtered from Harry’s wand and collapsed with a pfft halfway to Snape, leaving a puff of red smoke and a little scorch mark on the carpet.Harry squared his shoulders, narrowed his eyes at Snape – who hadn’t moved – and tried again.“Intraflagraro!”Harry looked at the second scorch mark, estimating that it was perhaps a foot closer to the target.A few tries further on and the smoke-smudged air stank of singed rug, but Snape remained uninvolved in Harry’s premier dark spell, his smirk a little ragged around the edges but his expression otherwise the same.“What the – what am I doing wrong?” Harry demanded.Snape sighed, a short, cutting sound. “You have to mean it, Potter. You couldn’t light a match with the level of focus and intent you’ve demonstrated so far.”Teeth gritted, Harry inhaled, raised his wand again, gathering focus and intent, as Snape had taught him. Focus: Snape. Intent: Kill.He let his wand arm fall, cursing.“Language, Potter,” Snape said.“So take points,” Harry snapped back. “This is no fucking good. I don’t want to hurt you.”Snape laughed, long enough, and mean enough, that Harry flushed in shame and anger.“Hurting me is the least of your worries, Potter,” Snape said, his voice cold and needling. “I would suggest you spend less of your evidently limited mental resources on excuses and more on focus.” He spat the last word, with, if not hatred, at least a convincing imitation, and Harry felt the anger burn in his throat, the cold clench in his stomach. Jaws clamped, he raised his wand.“Intraflagraro.”He didn’t even raise his voice, but he felt the power shiver down his arm and into the wand. Red fire erupted from the end of the wand and shot toward Snape, who deflected it with a small, ready motion, sending it flaming and sizzling toward a wall.Harry breathed, his anger cooling under the pleasure of having done it right. He glanced at Snape in time to see the potions master’s eyes widen as he stared past Harry at the wall.Alarmed, Harry turned; the fireball, rather than sputtering out, had bounced. It bounced off the wall and came back – right at Harry.“What the –?”He didn’t even realize Snape had moved until he grabbed Harry and yanked him back; Harry felt both their bodies thud against the wall as the spell roared past them in a flare of red-gold magic, splashing against the far wall with an eardrum-hammering boom.He felt Snape tense behind him, felt his own body tight as a bowstring, until the sparking shards of the spell trailed down the blackened stone and sputtered into nothingness on the floor.They both exhaled, relaxed. Harry found himself leaning back on Snape a little, reveling in the fact that the potions professor neither moved away nor released his hold on Harry’s arms.“That was close,” Harry remarked softly, turning his head in expectation of Snape’s snide response. The hands on his arms eased but did not let go. Harry felt Snape’s palms against his biceps, Snape’s chest against his back, Snape’s warm breath against his hair as the man murmured:“The first of many near disasters, I’m sure.”Harry attempted an insulted harrumph. “I don’t get any points for effort?”Snape’s own snort laid Harry’s bare as the amateur attempt it was. “Effort is just a euphemism for failure.”“Hey,” Harry protested. “I did my part right.”Silence.“Didn’t I?” he said, softer.“That was … acceptable for a first try,” Snape admitted, his voice as much a stroke as his words.Harry smiled, leaned a little more; they were breathing in tandem now. Harry resisted the urge to sigh, to close his eyes. To turn into that strong embrace and melt all over Snape like cheese on a hamburger...The image made him chuckle.“You find something about that funny?” Snape asked.“I was … thinking about hamburgers,” Harry said. Oh god. Tingling, he tried to force himself to actually think about hamburgers.“Boys are always hungry,” Snape observed dismissively, pushing Harry away – gently, for Snape.Oh god. If you only knew … if he knew, he’d kill you, Harry.He stammered, “I – I didn’t even know spells could do that. Bounce, I mean. What happened?”Snape rubbed his eyes with thumb and forefinger. “I don’t know. Possibly the wards…”“Hard at it, I see,” Dumbledore’s voice broke in, and they both turned. “Sorry to interrupt, but we have a distinguished visitor.”Harry felt Snape tighten beside him when Cornelius Fudge walked into the room behind the headmaster. Before he could think, he stepped in front of Snape. When he realized what he’d done, he froze, feeling the heat rise in his face.Fudge frowned pudgily at them, but spoke to the headmaster.“Albus, how can you allow this? I must say I’m quite shocked and disappointed to find the rumor was true.”Harry could feel Snape bristling, feel the man’s swelling anger on the back of his neck.Dumbledore answered calmly. “Minister, you are well aware of the threat to young Harry. It was decided he needed additional defense training, over the summer – with the permission of himself and his guardians.”Harry smirked inwardly, thinking that that was true in a roundabout way. In response to Dumbledore’s request to oversee Harry during summer hols, Vernon Dursley had said, quote, “Do whatever you want with him.”“And Professor Snape,” Dumbledore went on, “is, as you know from your many close examinations of his records, fully qualified to teach dueling.”“Albus,” Fudge said. “You know about the man’s ... perversions. How can you allow him to supervise Harry’s training like this? Privately!”Harry stiffened, fought the urge to look at Snape. What the hell?“You have no idea what he might be saying or doing to the boy,” Fudge went on, lower, turning from Harry and Snape to face Dumbledore fully.“I’m fine!” Harry blurted, furious, but no one paid any attention.“Severus Snape has my complete trust,” Dumbledore said in his ‘not another word if you wish to live’ voice, the one that scared even Tom Riddle. “Complete, Minister. If you have any aspersions to cast upon him, you are casting them upon me as well. Is that something you wish to do?”Fudge hemmed and hawed, glancing from under bushy lowered brows at Harry and Snape.“There,” Dumbledore said soothingly. “I’m gratified to see you understand the need to give our young Mr. Potter a little additional … defensive abilities.”Scowling, Fudge began, “Albus, are you—”“Now,” the headmaster overrode him in that way that seemed kindly absent-mindedness from him, though it would have been unacceptably rude from anyone else, “I’ll see you to the nearest Floo.” He gently directed Fudge toward the door. “I’m so sorry you had to come all the way out here …”The door shut behind them, cutting off Dumbledore’s blather.Harry turned around, slowly – and almost jumped to see the way Snape was staring down at him.“What?” he demanded.“You—” Snape’s eyes darted from Harry, to the spot he had occupied, back to where he was now, after jumping between Fudge and Snape. The glances themselves were a wholly mystified query: Why?Snape shook his head as if trying to shake something loose. “Nothing,” he said softly. Which was just as well, as Harry had no idea how to answer that unasked question.The door creaked open and Dumbledore came back in.“My apologies for the interruption,” he said, crossing sedately toward the two younger men. “Fudge heard something about the lessons, evidently, though he wouldn’t tell me where or how. He made his objections clear, however.” Dumbledore gave each man a sympathetic look. “As you heard.”“What did he mean by that?” Harry asked, eyes darting between the two men, wondering if either of them would answer. “By … perversions?”Dumbledore looked at Snape, a silent and not unkind command.Resentful, Snape said, “Actually, I don’t know whether Fudge was referring to my ... political, or my sexual, history.”A faint hint of a smile twinkled on Dumbledore’s face. “Both, I should think.” He looked at Harry.“Harry, as I told Fudge, Severus has my complete trust. If I did not have faith in him and in you I would never have allowed you to pursue something so dangerous as this private training. If, however, after you and Severus have ... talked, you feel unwilling to continue, rest assured no one shall make any demands or ask any questions. Do you understand?”Harry blinked. “Yes sir. Partly.” He looked at Snape. “I’d like the other part, please, professor.”“I’ll leave you two to your conversation,” the headmaster said and swept from the room.“Son of a bitch,” Snape muttered as the door closed behind Dumbledore.“Who?” Harry asked.“It was an observation, not an accusation.” Snape turned from the door. “Come on.”They went to the adjacent study, where Harry stopped in the doorway and watched Snape pace as if he’d forgotten he wasn’t alone.He remembered after a moment. “Sit down, Potter.”Harry said, “Look, don’t be mad at me.”Snape stopped, still stiff, turned around. His hot gaze met Harry’s equally unrelenting stare for a moment. Then he seemed to deflate a little.“Very well. Do please sit down, Mr. Potter, if you would be so very kind.”Harry rolled his eyes. “You don’t have to be sarcastic about it.” But he sat, gaze still locked on his teacher. Snape paced the length of the rug, eyes downcast.Mildly, trying to sound matter of fact, Harry said, “I know about your political proclivities.” He was proud of himself for being able to pronounce the word. “So it must be about your sexual ones.” He felt himself blush. Snape stopped, turned a glare on him, and he blushed hotter, shrugging. “Well...”“The word was perversions,” Snape said.“That’s an assumption I don’t want to make,” Harry said. “That is, about ... you know. The whole Death Eater thing was perverse, I imagine, but that’s in the past.”“No it isn’t,” Snape whispered.“Your willing participation is in the past,” Harry snapped. Then was amazed at his own gall in taking that tone. Snape’s head snapped up, eyes widened.“How do you presume to know that?” Snape asked.“I just know,” Harry said, mentally sighing. Subtract 10 years from whatever age you were trying to pull off, Harry. Good one.Snape rolled his eyes and sighed aloud, but some tension left his shoulders as he moved past Harry to slump into the other chair, and Harry felt slightly better.“Are you gay?” he blurted. “Is that what Fudge meant? Or ... do you like little boys?” He flushed again.“To Fudge it’s the same thing,” Snape snarled, still staring at the floor.Harry forced himself to maintain a reasoning tone. “So Fudge fears, what? That you’ll seduce me sexually in order to seduce me into Voldemort’s camp? Or is he just afraid you and I will ..” He felt his face blaze hotter as Snape glanced up at him. “You know, is he just prejudiced against homosexuality? Even b-between consenting adults?” he added. He’d never imagined having a conversation like this with anyone, much less Snape.The look came back, not angry, considering. “Perhaps. It may well be simply prurient interest on Fudge’s part, although I always assumed he found the two concepts inextricably intertwined.”“Um, wait a minute. You mean he figures ... sexual perversion is a necessary part of being a Death Eater?”Snape said nothing.“Is it?” Harry asked, visualizing rape, bestiality, torture ... Please don’t tell me you’re perverted. Please...“It is not a necessary part,” Snape said, obviously uncomfortable and angry at being made to feel that way. “But it does happen.”“But you aren’t ... I mean, you’re just gay, is that correct?” Harry felt his face blaze anew. “S-sorry,” he stammered. “I know you don’t want to talk about this with me, but I think we should, so at least Fudge can’t blindside either one of us later.”The sneer flickered on and off Snape’s face. “‘Just gay.’” He snorted, shook his head. “If we are discussing preferences, and not those things which I must do to remain undiscovered by Voldemort ... then yes.”Harry said nothing. He felt painfully out of his depth, anxious to not make Snape any more uncomfortable, but needing to know the truth. Aside from his own troubling yearnings, it mattered what sort of man Snape was.“Okay then,” he said finally. “Do we need to worry about Fudge? I mean, can he actually do anything? I’m 16, so I don’t need his permission to do anything.”Snape gave him a level and very heavy look. Harry flushed once more; he felt positively delirious with embarrassment, seasoned with a faint touch of delight.“I mean I don’t need to ask permission for dueling lessons,” he said.“I need hardly remind you that that is only a small part of what we are doing,” Snape murmured, but Harry was already pondering that.“Why did Dumbledore let him in here?” he said, exasperated. “What was he thinking? We could have been doing anything. I mean, we just were. And he’s the one who warned us to keep this secret.”Snape stared at the wall. “The headmaster indicated that Fudge had heard some rumor about this activity. Perhaps he was forced to … reassure him.”“You mean, fool him,” Harry said.Snape shrugged. “Misdirect, at least. If Fudge accepts the headmaster’s argument that we’re doing nothing amiss, he’ll have no reason to come back.”“Good,” Harry said. “Prick.”Snape blinked at him, something like a smile tweaking the corners of his mouth, just for a moment.Harry set his elbows to his knees, gazing at Snape as he thought. “Fudge can’t tell you or me what to do, right, as long as he doesn’t find out about the … er … dark stuff? He can’t stop this, or get you fired or anything?”“You are not so naive as to believe Fudge needs the law on his side to make life difficult for either of us,” Snape said.“But what incentive does he have?” Harry said. “Just hatred of you? Or is he really working for Voldemort?”Snape smirked. “The Dark Lord wouldn’t condescend to using a spineless toad such as Fudge for any but the most menial of tasks. No, I don’t think Fudge is in service to Voldemort.”“He just hates you,” Harry concluded.Snape shrugged one shoulder, an easy gesture. “I’ve been hated by far better men than Fudge.”Harry laughed softly. “So we continue?” he asked.“You aren’t …” Snape visibly sought for a word.“What, afraid that you’ll drag me off to join in Voldemort’s attempt to take over the world? Or, worse, that you’ll drag me off and bugger me?”Snape snorted, almost a laugh.“No, sir,” Harry said, sitting up straight again. “I’m not afraid of either one of those things.”Snape nodded minutely. “Then we continue.”Snape got up and Harry did the same, expecting they’d get back to work, but Snape only went to the fire and leaned on the mantel, one hand fingering the silver candlestick thereon.Harry moved behind his chair and leaned on the cushioned back, waiting, gazing at Snape’s remorseless profile, caught by the harsh lines, so reflective of Snape’s jagged nature. What is it about him? When did I get hooked on those sharp edges?“We ought also to renew your occlumency lessons,” Snape said, thoughtful.Harry gulped. Snape in the shower flashed into his mind, only to be frantically shown the door by a panicked Boy Who Wanted to Live. No, no, no! Think of food, think of Hagrid. Think of Hagrid eating…“If only to ensure you haven’t forgotten whatever tidbits I managed to hammer through that extraordinarily thick skull of yours last year,” Snape went on. Relieved – insults helped him distance his thoughts from his hormones – Harry mentally stuck his tongue out at the man.“I saw that, Potter,” Snape said, and Harry jumped.Snape smirked, and Harry shook his head.“I can’t believe I fell for that,” he muttered. “When did you want to start, professor?”Snape whirled. “Legilimens.”Harry’s vision swam; images from his past, like a sped-up movie, zipped by in vivid, noisy flashes. For a moment he was thrown, but he gathered his concentration and focused. He wrapped his will around the memories, capturing them as in a net, drawing them together, inward, into the center of his brain.He held firm against the pressure in his mind, making the memories smaller, quieter, shrinking them into a ball, into a point, into a whisper, into … nothing.Harry opened his eyes and inhaled deeply. No air had ever tasted so sweet. Triumph. Without flailing or wailing or thrashing about – though not without effort – he’d succeeded. He grinned.Snape was scowling at him, his own wand still half-raised but clearly forgotten for the moment.With faked nonchalance, Harry said, “That was sneaky.”Snape’s mouth opened. Closed. He seemed to shake himself a little, as if to shake away his disbelief.“We’ll try again,” he said. “Legilimens.”But Harry was ready, ready and confident. He saw the flash before his mind’s eye and no more than a second of memory – this of Dudley chasing him at grammar school when he was 9 – before his will clamped down on the intrusion, wrested his memories away from Snape’s spell, and locked them away.Harry blinked at Snape as the man lowered his wand. He had a bit of a headache, now, pressing behind his eyes, but nothing worse than that.Snape took a step closer, so intent Harry almost backed away.“You—”“What?” Harry said meekly, a bit rattled. He hadn’t expected praise, but at least some acknowledgement that he’d performed adequate occlumency would have been nice.Snape put his wand away and moved even closer, looming over Harry, who backed awkwardly into the chair behind him.In the soft tone that usually delivered an eviscerating insult, Snape said, “What emotions do you feel when you face Voldemort?”After a puzzled moment, Harry said, “Fear. Hate.”“And when I first began to teach you occlumency?”Harry smiled. “Fear and hate.” Now, so close he could smell Snape, feel his body heat, that seemed an unimaginably long time ago. He was still a little afraid of the man, but the fear had taken on a strange shape inside him, warm and alive rather than the cold, needling thing it had once been.He met Snape’s gaze, daring at this distance, and felt himself blush. Idiot. It wasn’t as if he could read anything in those black depths, but being so close and looking Snape square on, like an equal, made his skin sizzle.Snape backed away, eyes narrowed. His hands met, thumb tracing the length of his index finger as if he were thinking with his intertwined hands. Able to breathe again, Harry found himself watching, soothed by the slow motion of Snape’s fingers against each other.“We must speak to the headmaster,” Snape said, his voice sibilant, almost suspicious.Harry snapped out of his trance. “What? Now? I’m finally getting the hang of it. Why?”“Now,” Snape ordered, sweeping past him toward the door. Bewildered and a little annoyed, Harry followed.* * * “Severus. Harry. Do come in.”Harry found himself sneering a little; Dumbledore’s relentless benevolence was starting to grate on him. He caught himself when he saw the same expression on Snape’s face. Bloody hell, I’m turning into Snape.“Headmaster, I must speak to you regarding Potter’s occlumency lessons. I can no longer teach him.”Dumbledore waved them to chairs, waited until they’d sat, then said, “Go ahead, Severus.”Snape described what had just happened. Harry, expecting that at least Dumbledore would compliment him on successful occlumency, was surprised afresh when the headmaster only scowled in thought.“Severus,” he said, “Are you saying that ..?”“He …” Snape snapped his mouth shut, tried again. “The boy is no longer afraid of me.”If Harry’s own astonishment wasn’t coloring his vision, Snape actually reddened at the admission.Dumbledore blinked. Smiled. Chuckled.“I don’t know what could possibly be found amusing in the situation,” Snape began stiffly.“Wait a bit,” Harry cut in. “You can’t teach me occlumency any more because I like you now? Is that it?”Snape sighed heavily. “Potter, you’re able to keep me out because you …”“Because he likes you now,” Dumbledore supplied.Snape was, in fact, blushing, Harry realized.“In any case, you cannot develop the mental strength required to keep Voldemort out without dealing with those emotions of hatred and fear which he inevitably – and very rightly – generates in you.”Now Harry had a clue where Snape was coming from. And it made unfortunate sense. “So I need to be scared and angry – and to manage occlumency despite those feelings – if I’m to have any hope of resisting him?”“I never thought I’d use this word in your presence, Potter, but – correct.”Harry gave him a smirk.Dumbledore looked from one to the other of them. “This is inconvenient. Most inconvenient. The only other occlumency expert at Hogwarts is myself, and unfortunately I cannot teach you.”Harry said nothing, recalling a time when he would have leaped at the chance to have Dumbledore, rather than Snape, teach him anything.“Headmaster …” Snape began warningly.“Do I really need it?” Harry muttered.“Are you ready to face Voldemort?” Snape countered.“Almost,” Harry snapped back, knowing it wasn’t true.“Almost,” Dumbledore said mildly, “is as much no as it is yes, as much white as it is black. As much evil as it is good. Don’t make your decisions based on almosts, Harry.”Snape snorted. Harry remained silent, feeling some weight of truth in Dumbledore’s words even while he doubted the man’s sincerity.Dumbledore sighed. “Severus. This is a complication. Not of the sort I would have expected, but a complication nonetheless.”“It’s not funny,” Snape growled, though Dumbledore hadn’t laughed.“We have no one else with your occlumency skills, or your … unique understanding of the dangers,” Dumbledore said. “Therefore … therefore I would suggest you find some way to make Harry angry with you again.”Harry stared at the man, incredulous, but Snape looked positively betrayed.“Such as?” he said softly. “Shall I imply some involvement in his parents’ murder? Perhaps in Black’s untimely demise?”Dumbledore glanced at Harry. “Harry does hold that against you, I believe, Severus.”Harry stared in jaw-dropping disbelief at the headmaster. That Dumbledore would use Sirius’ death like this, use it to drive a false wedge between him and Snape, that he would use Harry’s emotions like that, encourage his anger and hatred based on something untrue …Anger began to boil in his stomach. He felt like a dishrag, used to clean up someone else’s mess, then thrown aside. He held himself silent, seething.“You have shown a real genius for infuriating the boy in the past,” Dumbledore said to Snape with a smile Harry would once have seen as amused. Now it looked cold and insidious. “I imagine you’ll find some way to test his restraint again.”Snape stood up, pale, jaw clenched. He looked exactly as Harry felt, furious and betrayed. “Is that your … directive, headmaster?”“It is.” The pronouncement was calm; Dumbledore glanced at Harry. “You two young men will have to excuse me, for I’ve much to deal with today. I have complete confidence that you’ll manage to find a way to polish Harry’s occlumency skills to the necessary level, Severus. Good afternoon.”Snape whirled and strode to the door; Harry stalked out behind him, tears of impotent rage burning in his eyes.* * * Harry slammed the dueling-room door behind them. Snape didn’t jump, though he turned around to look at Harry, head cocked.“That … manipulative…” Harry felt his hands fist. Bastard.“Are you angry?” Snape whispered, the inviting hiss of the serpent in the garden.“I’m fucking furious,” Harry snarled back.Snape backed away, arms spread invitingly. “Use it,” he said softly. “Use it. Try the Imperius curse.”Harry looked at him, hesitated a moment.“Use it,” Snape said. “Imperio.”Harry focused on Dumbledore. On Dumbledore’s manipulations, his kindly smiles and ensnaring half truths. All in the name of good, of course, all for the greater good, but he used people. He’d used Sirius. He used Snape, Hagrid, Harry – he was still using them, all of them. He’d use them all up, use them ’til they dropped or died, but still he wouldn’t trust them enough to tell them what the hell they were dying for.Harry hoarded his anger, his frustration, his fear. He breathed it, swallowed it, let it fill and engulf him. He felt the heat build in him until he glowed, white-hot with power and anger.“Harry…” Snape’s tone spoke second thoughts, but Harry was too far gone.He laughed. His skin glowed with power, his eyes bled power. He was hard, hard all over, throbbing with power, and it was magnificent.Snape stared at him, rapt. Longing. Afraid.Wandless, wordless, Harry willed the potions master to him. He didn’t need to cast Imperio, he was Imperio. Snape moved, jerky, awkward, until their bodies met. He covered Snape’s mouth with his own, demanding, irresistible.But something, something human in the touch of the soft, warm lips under his, or the willing unwillingness of the taller body against him, snapped Harry out of his imperious rapture. The spell faltered, the fire flickered and died.“Finite … incantatem.” Snape’s voice, scrapingly raw, his breath hot on Harry’s face.Harry shuddered as the power drained from his body, taking all strength and heat and certainty with it.Snape stepped back, ghost-white, eyes horror-wide. Harry felt as if, rather than kissing the man, he’d just spat on him.Shaking, Harry turned away and wrapped his arms around his own body. What the fuck am I doing? What is wrong with me?Snape didn’t move or speak. Harry spared a thought that a normal person would have comforted him. He almost laughed. After what you just did, how can you blame him for keeping his distance?“I’m sorry,” he said finally, feeling the tears well, spill down his cheeks. Cold. They were cold instead of hot.“What … did you expect?” Snape ground out.Startled, Harry turned around.Snape stood as Harry had, stiff, arms around himself, white-faced.He looks like he just saw a Dementor. But it was me. Fuck … it was me.“Did you think the Dark Lord chose this path because it was dreadful?” Snape snarled. “To make himself suffer? Have you never given a thought to the lure of power? The lust for it?”Harry shook his head, whispered, “No. Not like this.”His tone equally strained, Snape said, “Then you have something new to think about, don’t you?”Harry turned away again. I’m going to be sick. Fighting it, he stepped shaky from the dais and sat on its hard edge, hunched and cold. Dropping his aching head onto the heels of his hands, he said to his own lap:“I could have done anything. I could have done anything to you.”“For that instant, yes.”Harry looked up at Snape. “I guess I made the best of all my possible choices, then, didn’t I?” His stomach lurched; acid burned in his throat. You made him. You forced him.“He …” Snape swallowed, coughed as if he were choking, or retching. “He has done that.”Voldemort.Harry stared up at Snape until the tall black shape dissolved behind a veil of tears. He heard a thin wail from his own throat before he curled in on himself, sobbing.God … what are you? You could have killed him … you could have done anything to anyone, and you wanted to. You sick, sick bastard, you wanted to. You had the power, and it felt good, and you wanted it –I wanted it. Harry shuddered, retched, swallowed.– and that was all you cared about. Just like Voldemort. You’re no better than him, you’d do the same horrible things he does if you had the chance – you almost did.He thought of Dumbledore, what he’d said about almosts. He could hear the headmaster’s voice in his mind.You could have, Harry, but you didn’t. You did not. You had the choice, and you chose. Don’t condemn yourself for what you almost did.Harry felt the tears stop, felt his shriveled lungs fill again. His hands knotted before him as he breathed, “I won’t. I won’t. I will not become the thing that killed my parents. I’ll die first.”When he raised his head, Snape was gone. Freezing, Harry got up on weak legs and went into their study.Snape hunched on the very edge of his chair, his hands raised to his face. Harry came closer; Snape was so stiff he seemed not even to be breathing. One hand clutched his forehead. The other was shoved between his bared teeth, as if to prevent his crying out.“No.” Harry flung his arms around Snape’s shoulders, tight, terrified. “That won’t happen.” Fingers twisting in Snape’s shirt, he pressed his face into the back of Snape’s neck, felt the iron tension snap as the man began to shake.“It won’t,” he repeated against Snape’s back. “I swear. I swear.”Snape’s hands came up and wrapped around his forearm, bruisingly hard, each finger digging into the bone, and for a second Harry feared his teacher would push him away in disgust.But Snape held on.* * * Harry opened his eyes with a start. When had he – no, how had he fallen asleep? He blinked and sat up, and a blanket fell away. He was on a couch. Snape sat in a chair to his left, elbows on his knees, watching him, the fingers of his left hand trailing slowly over his own mouth.Fire flickered and crackled in a hearth in front of him. Something moved behind Harry – Scratch, curled up on the couch where his feet had been.“Where are we?” he asked, feeling the dryness in his throat and mouth.“My rooms,” Snape said. “The most private place I could think of, as we shall be discussing … things.”Harry nodded. His head hurt and his eyes were sticky with dried tears. “Did you…?” He waved a hand in front of his own face.“You … passed out,” Snape said, neither admitting nor denying involvement. “Reaction, I should think.”“Oh.” Harry took a deep breath. When he exhaled, everything came out.“I know what you’re thinking. That isn’t going to happen. It isn’t.”Snape blinked at the force of his words and sat back in his chair.“Maybe I wasn’t prepared. I didn’t know about … about it feeling like that. But I know damned well what it feels like to be on the receiving end of it. To suffer at the hands of someone who uses power to hurt people because it feels good to them. Forget Voldemort. Do you think I want to be like my cousin Dudley? Like my uncle? Like Malfoy? People who hurt anyone weaker than they are, just because they can? They make me sick. I know what it’s like to be the victim of people like that. I’m not going to be one of them.”He took another, shaky, breath, and Snape spoke calmly into the ringing quiet.“Are you so certain you can prevent it?”“I’ll prevent it.”“Is this ego?”Harry shook his head, hard. “It’s fear. And anger. And stubbornness. I don’t care what I have to do, even if it means I lose to Voldemort. If I turn into him, I turn into everything I hate. I turn into the fucking … thing that killed my parents.”Snape said softly, “How did it feel?”“It felt good,” Harry said, angry. “It felt good, damn you, you know it did. It felt good to have that power and know I could use it. It felt good to make you come to me and it felt really good to kiss you –” Heat flared in his face and between his legs, and he cursed, covering his face with both hands. To his own knees, he said, “Why are you doing this?”“You cannot overcome it until you can face it,” Snape said.“I’m facing it,” Harry said. “I stared right at it, when I saw the look on your face.” He lifted his head, saw surprise flicker in Snape’s eyes. “I’m sorry.”“For what, exactly?” Snape asked, and Harry heard in his tone that it was not an idle question.“For forcing you,” he said, and laughed sourly. “I’m not really cut out for the Dark Arts, am I?”“The problem is that you are,” Snape said. “At least, you have the power and the potential, if not the … particular bent of mind that longs to force others to your will.”“Is it even possible to study Dark Arts, perform dark magic, and not turn into …”Snape’s level stare chilled him into silence.“That would depend on your opinion of your nasty old potions teacher,” he said mildly.“Oh. Of course.” Harry smiled, clearly surprising Snape. “Well, good then.”“That vote of confidence, whether in me or in yourself, is rather optimistic.”Harry shook his head, staring thoughtfully at the scars on the back of his hand – Umbridge’s legacy. “I don’t think I’m all that good a person, sir, whatever you may think. I’m not specially kind, or strong, or smart. I don’t expect perfection. Not from me or from anyone. Not in Dark Arts, not as a person. But if you can do it and not be evil, then I can at least try, can’t I? I know I’ll mess up, but it’s possible.”Snape let his gaze wander the room. “If I can do it and not be evil.” He shook his head, looked at Harry again, and Harry thought he looked worried. “Are you prepared to keep going?”“I’m game if you are, sir. I’ll … I’ll try not to do … that again.”“You could have done far worse,” Snape said, unamused. “Though I was more prepared for … other forms of attack.”Harry surrendered. He was miserable enough right now that Snape might as well know everything and get the explosions over with. “But I didn’t want to do worse. I did exactly what I wanted to do. What I’ve wanted to do for a while.”“Yes,” Snape said, his tone abruptly tight, almost prim. “There is that issue as well.”Harry waited for the spectacular chewing out.“You…” Snape cleared his throat, shot out of the chair and went to the fireplace. Not looking at Harry, he said, “You have evidently developed some sort of … of romantic …” He stopped, swallowed visibly. “… delusion regarding … our current situation…”Harry laughed weakly. “It’s not very romantic, sir.”Snape shot him an irritated glare – then snorted. “No, I suppose it wouldn’t be.”Harry risked a smile.“That is something else you must … forsake,” Snape said, so awkwardly Harry would have been amused if it hadn’t been his own feelings Snape was dismissing. “The consequences could be disastrous. For you, for me, and, far more importantly, for the battle against the Dark Lord.” He shrugged, like a windblown crow settling its feathers. “No one must perceive that our relationship is less antagonistic than it has always been, if I am to remain useful to the order.”Harry sighed. “I understand you, sir.”“You shouldn’t find it too difficult to .. divert this … interest to a more appropriate … object,” Snape went on drily.Scratch bumped Harry’s elbow, and he took it as encouragement. He got up, the word "no" repeating itself in his head. Snape straightened, wary, moving almost imperceptibly closer to the fireplace mantel – or, rather, farther from him. Harry looked around the room he probably wouldn’t be seeing again – dimlit, elegant, comfortable – then back at Snape.“I’m not going to argue about what I feel, sir. I’m in the unfortunate position of being 16, so I know that’s an argument I can’t win. But if I were 18 –”“But you are not,” Snape cut him off, firm. “Focus on doing your best to ensure that you live to see that birthday, Mr. Potter. Any other considerations must be secondary to that.”“Understood, sir,” Harry said, easing a little closer. He guessed he’d grown to a height about three inches less than Snape’s, but that was a lot, this near – near enough that Harry fancied he could close his eyes and feel Snape’s presence on his skin. “But will you answer my question?”Scratch chose that moment to begin twining rather forcefully around their ankles, first Harry’s, then Snape’s, butting his head on their shins and purring audibly.They both looked down, snorted soft laughs, and raised their eyes again to meet.“The answer is no,” Snape said, hoarsely. “You are … almost a man. But you are not a man. And I am not a molester of children.”“I’m not a child,” Harry said.“Only a child would say that,” Snape replied. “Say that to me in 10 years, and I might believe you.”“Ten years!”Snape shrugged, lowering his eyes but not softening his tone. “Five years, even. The number is beside the point.”“I got it,” Harry said, sullen and, at the moment, not caring. Did you really expect the man to take you in his arms and kiss you silly? Fool. “I’m a child and you are my teacher and never the twain shall meet. But can I ask you something?”“It had better involve your training,” Snape said, his usual biting tone missing a few teeth.“It does,” Harry semi-lied. He bent to pick up Scratch, holding him between them, feeling that, rather than dividing them, the cat linked them. Snape scratched the cat’s head – Scratch wriggled a little to get closer to those fingers – and Harry tried not to smile.“When I … when I made you come to me,” he began, looking at Scratch rather than Snape. This was difficult enough already, and he didn’t want to put Snape on the defensive; a defensive Snape went quickly on the offensive. “When I kissed you—” He felt himself flush yet again. “It … didn’t …”The hand petting Scratch fell away; Harry sensed Snape stiffening, pulling back.“Was it horrible?” he blurted. “Not the Imperius curse. The kiss. Was it revolting?”Snape laughed – a short, unexpected sound. Harry looked up in astonishment.Shaking his head, Snape laughed again, looking at him with wonder. “You’ve convinced me, Potter. You’ll never be like Voldemort.”Despite having no idea what Snape meant, Harry felt his insides shrink in humiliation. He lowered his gaze and backed away, choked with the certainty he’d said something monumentally stupid.“Sorry,” he mumbled, looking around for the door. Scratch struggled to be put down and Harry poured him onto the floor. “I’ll go if we’re done, sir,” he said, cold pooling in his stomach. He turned for the door and heard Snape sigh heavily.“Potter.”He stopped, and, before Snape could speak, said, “You know how when you’re a kid, in the middle of the night, you’d get scared – not scared, petrified, black, heart-stopping petrified – to move or look under the bed? And you figured it would go away when you grew up?”Snape said nothing.“It never goes away,” Harry said. “It changes.” He turned around. Snape was scowling fiercely, but he didn’t stop Harry or tell him to go. “I am young. I don’t know a lot. But … when Cedric was killed, when that happened to me – I mean, I know it happened to him, but it happened to me too – I learned something. In a way different from books, or adults lecturing me. I kind of had it punched into me. Horrible things happen. Real, horrible, right there in front of you, or even to you. No one can stop them. No one can undo them, and no one can take the fear or the pain away. No one. And I realized that, in some deep-down, important way, I’m all alone.” He blinked, cocked his head at Snape. “Is that what happens when you grow up?”Snape exhaled. “Yes.”Harry laughed, a soft admission that he’d been hoping, one last ash of hope, that Snape could make it better. He held the man’s eyes. “Then may I kiss you?”Snape didn’t laugh. He didn’t sneer or smile. He said, “No.” Then bent his head and brushed his lips – cool and soft – across Harry’s. He paused. Harry’s eyes fell shut and Snape pressed their mouths together for a moment, cool to warm to hot, before pulling away.Harry blinked, dizzy with surprise and desire. Snape had once more backed up against the mantel.“Go downstairs.” His tone had gone dry, as if something were caught in his throat. “It’s nearly supper time. We’ll start again tomorrow.”Harry backed up – don’t say anything, don’t do anything, don’t fuck it up! – and bumped the couch. He looked down at the blanket there and paused; he suddenly remembered a hand brushing his cheek, strong arms lifting him, carrying him …Surely Snape would have used mobilicorpus to carry him up all those stairs; why touch him if he could avoid it?But the memory was vivid on his skin, inside him.Harry shivered, nodded at Snape, not trusting his voice, and left.* * * Snape glanced up from his tea when Harry entered, shutting the door quietly behind him.“You’re late.” He didn’t look up again until Harry bumped into the back of the chair across from him.“If you have deluded yourself that anything has changed with regard…” He stopped. “What is it?”Harry squinted at Snape through the haze of pain. “My scar,” he said.Snape stiffened, set his teacup clattering into the saucer, and jumped up.“How long?” He grabbed Harry’s arm, pushed him into the chair, not letting go.Harry let his throbbing head fall into his cupped palm. “About an hour.”Snape’s fingers dug into his other arm. “What did you see?”Harry shook his head slightly. “I’m not sure…”“Potter—” The word came through clenched teeth – precisely how Harry answered.“I know!” He winced, lowered his voice. “I know it’s important. Give me a second.”Snape let go of him, sitting on the ottoman between their chairs.Harry closed his eyes. “It’s not bright, wherever it is, but it’s daylight.” He hissed in a breath as pain spiked his head – then froze when fingers pressed lightly on the base of his skull. They stroked, small firm circles, radiating tingles across his skull, relaxing his tension and easing the pain, just a little.“Soon,” Snape murmured. “Today?”Harry shook his head, minutely, not wanting to dislodge the gently massaging fingers. “Soon,” he agreed. “In a building. Big. Bare. But inside, not outside. Tall windows. Dusty…”“How many?” Snape’s voice was mild, hypnotic, the urgency muted.Harry tried to remember all he’d seen, though it had come, as ever, in pain-blinded glimpses.“Maybe six or seven,” he said. “Not many. I can’t …” The images receded into blackness, though he groped for them. “No!”He sat up, defeated, and Snape’s hand fell away. “I’m sorry. It’s gone.” He watched Snape’s thought turn inward, calculating, and said quietly, “Should I go tell Dumbledore?”“Was he angry?” Snape’s voice was barely audible, and for a second Harry thought he meant the headmaster.Then, “No. Um … eager.”Snape got up, moved about the room restlessly, smoothing his hands down his thighs as if to cleanse them of something.“Then he will be summoning us soon.” He straightened, his expression tightening, calming, and Harry watched him, unnerved without knowing why.Then Snape looked at him, and Harry shivered. ‘Us.’ Death Eaters. That’s why. He turned into the enemy, right in front of you.Harry knew why, knew Snape had to. That didn’t stop the back of his neck from turning cold.Snape took a small step toward him – then stopped and grabbed at his left arm, and Harry’s head cracked with sudden agony. His hands flew up to clasp his skull, as if to keep his brain from exploding. And he saw……Voldemort before him, impossibly tall, distorted from this angle, and Harry realized – Nagini. I’m seeing him from the floor through the eyes of that damned snake. Voldemort stretched out his hands and his red eyes flashed as he summoned his Death Eaters and Harry tried gently to will Nagini to look around, to show him something that might tell him where this was…“Harry!”Something shook him. He blinked out of the vision to feel Snape’s hands pinching his biceps.“Don’t,” Snape hissed. “You aren’t strong enough. He’ll know.”Harry held Snape’s glittering eyes, an instant of defiance, before something there, something that wasn’t contempt or anger, made him surrender.Snape let him go and he slumped back into his seat, his head thumping in pain with every heartbeat. It felt as if something inside wanted out, and Harry wished he could let it out.Then Snape touched his shoulder. Harry looked up at him in astonishment.“Are you all right? I must go.”Harry nodded, still clasping his head as he searched those strangely glittering eyes. “I’m okay. Go. Be careful. Please. I mean…” He trailed off. After all, he meant exactly what he’d said, as foolish and childish as it sounded. With effort, he inhaled, dropping his hands and trying to smooth his face.Snape backed away, still staring at him. “If you need help,” he said, “go to the headmaster.” He flinched, pain in his narrowed eyes, and clutched again at the Dark Mark.“I’m okay,” Harry lied. “Go. He’ll be mad if you’re late.”Snape opened his mouth, snapped it shut, and whirled, striding from the room. Harry knew he had to get off Hogwarts grounds before Apparating, and that Voldemort might allow him a few minutes’ grace for that before getting impatient, but the last thing he wanted was for Snape to draw any attention to himself right now.He curled back up in the chair, resting his pounding head against the cushioned side, shut his eyes, and willed himself to see.He saw nothing, nothing but the blackness of the inside of his eyelids, laced with the red of pain from his headache.* * * Harry opened his eyes with a start; he’d dozed off. He glanced at the clock and realized he’d only been asleep about 20 minutes but that his headache was gone. Along with any link to Voldemort and what he might be doing.Harry got up, a little blurry around the edges, and went to the sideboard, pouring a glass of the pumpkin juice the house elves supplied every morning, along with fruit and muffins. The tea they also brought was cold, but a spell warmed that up. Harry sipped the pumpkin juice and stared at the teapot.His hands were shaking. He was scared. Scared of what might happen to Snape. He tried to think about what Voldemort might be planning against Hogwarts, or the Ministry, or the whole world – or even against Harry himself – but all of that was just words in his head.Maybe he should talk to Dumbledore.Harry considered that, visualized how it might go.He poured himself a cup of tea and sipped. It was hot again, yes, but thick and bitter and horrible. He put it down, collected “Unforgivables” and left the dungeons, going to the wide window on the main staircase landing. He sat in the wide stone window casing, where he could see all the way from the front steps to the gates.He set the book on his knees and opened it.* * * It was a little after noon, by the shadows on the grounds that Harry had been staring blankly at, when a voice snapped:“What are you doing up here?”Harry jumped, dropped the long-forgotten book, and hopped to his feet as Snape came up the last two steps to the landing, scowling at him.“Are you okay?” Harry looked out the window again, then back at Snape. “How did you get back without me seeing you?”Snape walked past him to the window and Harry saw that the side of his face was red and swollen, with a thin, blood-spotted cut across the cheekbone, as if he’d been struck by something harder than a hand. Other than that he looked undamaged.“When going to and from Death Eater meetings,” Snape observed, “it is generally best not to use the most obvious routes.”“Oh.” Harry shrugged; even had he thought of that – and he should have – he would still have spent his day staring at the gates. Worry had left him useless for any other activity. He reached out, then jerked his hands back as if burned by the very idea that it would be acceptable to touch Snape. “Are you okay?”Still staring out the window, Snape said, “Oh yes. The Dark Lord was in a genial mood today.” He touched the glass lightly with the fingers of his left hand; it was shaking, Harry saw. “He’s making plans,” Snape added, then glanced at Harry and dropped his hand.Harry said, “So are we,” in a tone making it clear that he was aware those plans might not be sufficient. “What happened?” He indicated the mark on Snape’s cheek.“Nothing. I was late,” Snape said, and Harry heard the irritation in his voice, directed at himself. “The Dark Lord likes to make an example of the last person to arrive.”“Don’t do that any more,” Harry said. “If he calls again, don’t wait around for my sake. Just go.”Snape gave him a look.“I mean, please,” Harry said. “Sir.”“I have never before been the last to arrive.” Still scowling, Snape raised a hand to touch his own cheek, almost caressing.“It’s weird,” Harry ventured. “It’s like you’re proud of being a good Death Eater.”“I am. If I were not an excellent Death Eater I would be dead.” Snape sighed sharply. “This was the first time the Dark Lord has had to discipline me.”“I thought he … you know, hurt people all the time.”Again a dark look. “That is not discipline, Mr. Potter.”And Harry shuddered. Pleasure. He does it for pleasure. You should know.Snape seemed to steady himself. “I must speak to the headmaster.”“When did you get back?” Harry said. “I thought you’d already…”“I’ve only just returned,” Snape said impatiently. “I went to the dungeons first.”“Why?” Harry asked automatically.“For a change of clothes and a quick bite to eat, of course.”Harry glanced at his clothes. “But you’re…” The soft words faded into realization even before Snape snorted:“Idiot.”Harry felt himself flush. You are an idiot. He was looking for you.“I take it you didn’t go see the headmaster.”“No.” Harry realized, not happily, that his own voice matched Snape’s for dry sarcasm. “Should I have?”“Come on.” Snape started off, dragging Harry in his wake. “If I must report to him, there is no reason for you to be excused the duty.”Harry smiled. “I’m glad you’re okay.” He rubbed his sore tailbone as they walked. “Ouch.”Snape glanced at him. “How long were you sitting there?”“The whole time,” Harry said.Snape shook his head.“Yeah, I know, idiot,” Harry murmured.“If you know it …” Snape said.“Maybe I like acting like an idiot,” Harry snapped. “Did you ever think of that? Maybe I enjoy it.”Snape smirked. “Perhaps it will benefit you in throwing the Dark Lord off his guard at some crucial moment. If it is an act, that is.”* * * Remus was there. So were Arthur and Molly and Bill Weasley and Kingsley Shacklebolt and Mad-Eye Moody. Every one of them looked up without surprise to see Snape come in, then again, with surprise, to see Harry follow him.“Severus,” Dumbledore said. “Harry.”“I’ve just come from a meeting,” Snape said.Dumbledore nodded and began to answer. Mad-Eye overrode him.“Why’s the boy here, then? You take him with you? Voldemort wanted another crack at him?”Arthur and Molly gasped at the idea. Bill and Remus glanced at one another in silence.“He didn’t take me anywhere!” Harry exclaimed. Then blushed when everyone stared at him. He added, more quietly, “I – my scar was hurting. I saw some of it.”“You might consider thinking before you speak, Moody,” Snape said. “If only as an occasional indulgence.”Moody’s eyes, magical and real, narrowed. “I do a lot of thinking, Snape. Never doubt it. I think a lot. Then I act.”“Merlin help us,” Snape murmured. “So you do.”“Please,” Dumbledore said. “Severus, Harry, sit down. If you have information on Voldemort’s whereabouts or plans, we would be glad to hear it.”“Surely Harry…” Molly began anxiously.Harry’s automatic protest was overridden by Dumbledore.“Harry is old enough by now, Molly, to understand more of what he – and all of us – may be facing.”Snape’s soft snort said about time. Harry found himself smirking as he grabbed a couple of distant chairs and dragged them into the circle between Kingsley and Moody. Harry took the chair between Snape and Moody, then looked up to see Remus and Bill staring at him. He looked down at himself, wondering what was odd, then looked back at them with a what? expression.Bill stared at him, then pointedly at Snape, then back at him. Harry glanced at Snape, currently leaning the other way to listen to something Kingsley was whispering to him. Harry looked back at Bill and repeated the what? look, bewildered.“Go ahead, Severus,” Dumbledore said. “You were … called?”“This morning,” Snape said. “I Apparated to a house in Yorkshire, a house that I have been to before, though I do not know its precise location. The Dark Lord had summoned his most trusted servants to impart his latest plans.”“Get to the point, Snape,” Moody growled. Harry glared at the man.“Alastor,” Remus said, quiet censure. Moody muttered but said nothing else.“He is aware that … Mr. Potter is here at the school. He is also aware that a number of the staff are away at this time. He thinks it would be the perfect time to stage a kidnapping, capturing the boy and possibly killing a few of his greatest foes in the process.“I, of course, reminded him of the wards about the castle and grounds, but he seems to feel he has devised a method of getting around them, which, considering the past few years, is unfortunately likely.”“You didn’t mention the newest …” Arthur trailed off, hands clasped nervously in his lap. Snape gave him a glare.“Indeed I did, along with complete instructions for disarming them.” He blinked with a false innocence that even an actor of his caliber couldn’t carry off. “Why, were they meant to be secret?”Arthur froze – then exhaled explosively, smiling. “Sorry, Severus. I’m just a little nervous. They’re untested, after all—”“I think the new wards will be fine,” Dumbledore said, forcefully dismissing that topic. “But if Riddle is planning to kidnap Harry during the summer holidays, we should be prepared for that.”“We should do more than that,” Snape cut in.Everyone stared at him, probably, Harry thought, because of his nerve in interrupting the headmaster.“What do you suggest, Severus?” Dumbledore said politely.“If you believe the boy to be safe here, I think we should take the fight to them.”Surprisingly, Moody said, “About damn’ time, too.”Snape continued. “The house is one of Lucius’, a country estate outside York. It is walled, warded and very secluded. It’s likely that that is where the Dark Lord is hiding in preparation for his next attack. Very few of his Death Eaters are to be involved in this plot, as he believes stealth to be his advantage. It is possible that while his attention is focused on Hogwarts a strike team could penetrate the estate and take him.”The others began talking at once; Harry couldn’t make out whether the general tenor of the discussion was in favor of Snape’s plan or not.Dumbledore raised his hands for quiet, already shaking his head. “I won’t attack.”“There may never be a better opportunity,” Snape said.“Too dangerous,” Arthur said. “He’s too powerful.”“And when, pray, will it not be too dangerous?” Snape countered. “When the Dark Lord has vanquished all and is ruling the world?”“Severus.” Dumbledore’s tone silenced Snape, but he went pale with suppressed anger. Harry stiffened in his chair, expecting some kind of explosion from somewhere.“We have too much to lose if we attack,” Dumbledore said. “Not simply lives. We must have some measure of support from the wider wizarding world if we are to succeed. If word of a sneak attack against an old and honored wizarding family, however warranted, got out at this stage, we would be considered terrorists.”“Better a live terrorist than a dead hero,” Moody grumbled. Dumbledore eyed him over his glasses.“I disagree.”“To what end is all this resistance and plotting and planning,” Snape said, low, angry, “if when it comes down to it we won’t fight?”The silence sizzled as the two men stared at one another.“We will fight,” Dumbledore said. “When fighting will serve us best. This is not that time. We shall instead—” He looked around the room at everyone, and the tension broke. “—we shall instead make ourselves secure, here, and await Voldemort’s next move.”Harry imagined he could hear Snape’s teeth grinding. He opened his mouth – shut it again. They weren’t going to listen to him if they wouldn’t listen to Snape.“Thank you, everyone,” the headmaster said. “That is all for now.” He rose and disappeared through a door at the back of the room.Chairs shifted, murmurs started. Harry took his own chair, grabbed Snape’s when the man stood up, and put them both back where he’d got them.“Harry.”When he turned Bill and Remus were in front of him. He got quick hard hugs from both men, then Bill blurted softly:“What’s up with you and Snape?”Harry said, “He’s tutoring me.” He looked up. Snape was talking with Kingsley, near the door, his posture and face still stiff with anger. The Weasleys and Moody moved past them to leave, also deep in discussion.“Are you all right, Harry?” Remus said gently.Moody paused next to Snape and said something, and Harry tensed.“I’m fine, Remus,” he said.Snape looked surprised at whatever Moody had said – slightly, just a hint of something in his eyes, Harry thought – and responded without anger. Moody went through the door and Kingsley followed. Snape glanced around, caught Harry’s eye.“Are you sure?” Remus asked, a little hesitant.Snape left Dumbledore’s office and Harry looked at Remus.“I’m sure.” He gave the befuddled Remus and Bill a quick smile and pats on the arms, and said, “I’ll see you both later.”He followed Snape down the revolving stair and along the hall, fairly sure the man was too full of anger and thought to see where he was going. This was confirmed when at the end of the corridor Snape bumped a shoulder into the wall beside the doorway and stopped, hands curling into fists.Harry caught up. “Professor?”Snape shook his head, staring out across the sun-drenched courtyard. Harry reached up and laid his outspread fingertips along the cut over Snape’s cheekbone, murmuring a healing spell.Snape tilted his head away, petulant rather than angry. “Don’t.” He glanced around, but they were alone in the corridor. Then, no doubt feeling the tingle of the magic, he reached up to touch his face and turned to scowl at Harry.“I’ve been practicing,” Harry said. “I thought it was a good idea to keep up on healing spells. Easier than Dark Arts, anyway.” Snape moved closer, stare unaltered, his scowl easing gradually like clouds erased by a breeze, and Harry stammered, “I was thinking … this is the only time fixing things is easier than breaking them.”“Broken things,” Snape said softly, “Can usually be fixed. Or replaced.”Equally soft, Harry said, “I’m on your side.”Snape’s hand curled against his healed cheek; he spoke through clenched teeth. “Then don’t do this.”“Professor.” Harry smiled sadly. “I haven’t moved.”Snape seemed only then to realize how close they were, and whose doing it had been. With a snarl he spun away and strode down the steps. Harry hurried after him.“Go away, Potter,” Snape said over his shoulder.“Can’t, sir,” Harry called as he caught up. “Got dueling lessons. Need my teacher.”Snape stopped. Harry stopped, stumbled, caught himself, looked up at Snape.“Fuck,” Snape observed. He looked Harry up and down and Harry heard the Devil himself whisper uh-oh. He shivered.“Come on, then.” Snape set off again. Harry followed.* * * They marched out of the castle and across the grounds toward the gates.“You have your wand,” Snape said.“Of course,” Harry said. “I’m going to need it, aren’t I?”“You are.”Harry grimaced and hurried to keep up with Snape’s long, angry strides.Hagrid came out as they passed his hut, a brace of rabbits slung limp over his shoulder.“Perfesser Snape.” He nodded at the man and Snape nodded back. “A’ right, there, Harry?”Harry made a face. “Hullo, Hagrid.”“Not goin’ inter the Ferbidden Forest, are yeh?” he asked as they passed, their direction answering the question.“Where else can I leave Potter’s body so that no one may find it?” Snape said.Hagrid shot Harry a look, a look saying he wasn’t sure whether to be alarmed or not. Harry shrugged.“See you later, I hope.” He waved and trotted after Snape.They walked straight into the forest; it immediately got cooler and fairly dark. Harry stumbled a few times on roots and debris before his eyes adjusted. He breathed in the moist, complicated forest scent, thinking it reminded him a bit of Snape: dark, mysterious, multilayered, uninviting – fascinating. He smiled and looked around with new interest as he followed the potions master.In an oval clearing fenced with old beech trees, Snape stopped. Turned. Drew his wand.Harry’s was already in his hands. It couldn’t be good that Snape had brought him out here, and he’d thought he was ready for anything.Snape cried, “Crucio!”Shit.Harry blocked frantically and spat out the first counterhex that came to mind, a fireball that Snape deflected easily. The treetop behind him burst into flame, but he ignored it and cast a full-body binding hex at Harry.But Harry had caught his mental balance. He squared himself, dissipating the hex with one swift word and sending back a powerful stunning spell.Snape smiled and Harry’s stomach flopped; the potions master shattered Harry’s casting with a spell Harry’d never heard before, pointed his wand between Harry’s eyes and said, “Avada Kedavra.”Green fire shot toward Harry, but he was ready – and he knew, a sudden exultant realization, that Snape had known he was ready – and he blocked the killing magic with the full force and focus of his own unique power.The spell hit like a giant fist, unable to kill but still potent, knocking him rolling across the grass until a tree stopped him by dint of taking him hard in the ribs.He gasped with pain and raised his wand, pointing it shakily at the advancing black blur that was the potions master. “Crucio!” He felt the burst of power within him.Snape’s body jerked back as if yanked on a string. He hit the ground with a gasp, taut with the pain of the curse, and Harry got to his feet, dizzy, lowering his wand.Snape said through clenched teeth, “Don’t stop.”But the spell was already dying away. Snape rolled over and got to his knees, gasping. Harry adjusted his skewed glasses and stood looking down at Snape, aching in body and spirit.“Fool,” Snape coughed out.“I can’t,” Harry admitted.Snape straightened, glared up at Harry, his face bloodless. “Then he will kill you.”Harry shook his head. “You’re not Voldemort. I can’t … I don’t feel—”“It has nothing to do with feelings,” Snape said, spitting out the word as he climbed to his feet. “It has to do with power. Discipline. Ruthlessness.”“I know!” Harry shouted. Anger and frustration tangled in his throat; the next words came out in a whisper. “But I can’t do that to you.”Snape sneered, flicked his wand. “Crucio.”But Harry was ready, blocking the spell with Repercussio, on the tip of his tongue as Snape had taught him. Even blocked, the impact of the Unforgivable jolted him. This close, it rebounded against Snape in a split second, slamming him backward against the tree Harry’d set afire earlier. He hung there, pinned, stunned, until Harry said:“Finite incantatem.”The magic fizzled to nothingness around them and Snape slumped against the tree. Harry raised his wand once more and put out the fire in the high branches.Then, shaking, he gulped in the damp cool forest air, wand still at the ready, until Snape drew himself up and threw his head back to catch his breath. Closing his eyes, he let his wand hand fall to his side and exhaled one unsteady word.“Enough.”Harry came closer, wary, only putting away his wand after Snape had done the same.The potions master shook his disarranged hair out of his face and let himself slide down the trunk until he was sitting cross-legged at its roots. From there he looked up at Harry.“Well done, Potter.”Harry breathed in long and slow, then out, releasing the tension along with the air. He sank onto the grass, then flopped down on his back with a heartfelt groan.“Is it safe for me to pass out here?” he asked, watching smoke spiral into the sky from the doused tree.“Nowhere is safe,” Snape lectured in a tone that allowed Harry to close his eyes and relax, deep-breathing away some of the worst knots of pain.“Do you feel better now, sir?” he said, not without sarcasm.“I do. As much from your surprisingly adequate performance as from the exorcism of some measure of my annoyance.”Harry grinned at the backhanded compliment. “If that was annoyance, Merlin help me if you’re ever angry. Next time take it out on Dumbledore or Moody instead of me, will you?”“You need the dueling practice. They do not.”Harry rolled onto his side, propping himself on one elbow in the cool, damp grass. It felt good, but he had a feeling he’d get pretty stiff if he stayed lying there for very long. Snape sat with his head leaning back against the tree, his hands splayed on his thighs, an appealingly informal posture.Harry wiped the cooling sweat from his face with his sleeve, then noticed a long tear in it. He pulled the fabric away to reveal a bruise spreading black across his upper arm. When he looked up again, Snape was watching him, and Harry had the weirdest feeling the man was about to apologize. He looked … dismayed.“I don’t…” Snape leaned forward, his tone warm, confused, and his hand shifted as if he would reach out.“It’s okay,” Harry said hastily, letting the torn sleeve fall over the bruise. “I just need to learn to duck quicker.” I don’t want your pity. I’m not weak, I’m not a child. His stomach clenched with frustration. Hadn’t he proven that by his performance today? Eager to change the subject, he asked, “You think Dumbledore’s making a mistake in not attacking?”The brief openness on Snape’s face slammed shut, and Harry indulged in a moment of regret for not taking better advantage of it. But he couldn’t stand the idea of Snape feeling sorry for him.“I do. But he is the head of the Order, not I.”“May I ask you a personal question?” He fully expected Snape to say no.Snape regarded him for a long moment. “You may ask,” he said finally.Harry thought fast, but no delicate words would get the answer he was after.“What is the hold Dumbledore has over you?”Anger pinched Snape’s face, just for a moment, and Harry held his breath.Then the look changed to one of consideration. Harry sat up.“He knows my weakness,” Snape said finally.“Which is?” Harry pressed.Snape shook his head, almost horrified. “No. I will not have you knowing it too.”“You don’t trust me?” Harry said, brushing idly at the dirt and grass stains all over his clothes.“I trust no one,” Snape said. “You’d do well to be the same. Much as I detest agreeing with him, Moody is right in that at least.”Harry thought back to the discussion in Dumbledore’s office. “We probably shouldn’t even be out here, should we, if Voldemort’s after me?”Snape rolled his eyes. “I wondered how long it would take to occur to you that I brought you past the castle wards solely to hand you over to the Dark Lord’s pleasure.”“Oh,” Harry said in a small voice.“I’m not the fool you obviously think me, Potter, to drag you out here where anyone could take you without some assurance that it would not be dangerous. Beyond the danger your own carelessness places you in, of course.”“Okay, okay,” Harry said with a little more spirit. “Give me a break. This thinking thing is new to me, all right?”Snape exhaled a grudging laugh. “Keep practicing.” He shut his eyes and leaned against the tree again.“That reminds me,” Harry said. “In Dumbledore’s office … I never told them what I saw.”“You didn’t see anything important.”“What? Then why did you take me …” Harry realized even as he spoke. To keep you informed and involved, you twit. Arms crossed, Snape watched him expectantly.“Oh,” Harry said. “Okay, then.”Snape uncrossed his arms. “It’s time to get back.” He climbed without any sign of stiffness to his feet and extended a hand to Harry.Harry blinked at it stupidly for a second, then wasted no more time in grabbing it and using it to haul himself upright. He didn’t let go, and found himself bumping into Snape as he overbalanced.“Sorry.” He caught himself by his free hand against Snape’s chest and tilted his head up in anticipatory defiance, waiting for Snape to jerk away, drop his hand, and berate him for his clumsy, ridiculous flirting.It didn’t happen quite like that.Snape’s fingers tightened on Harry’s, one convulsive pulse, and he looked down, eyes churning.“You have no idea what you are doing, do you?”Harry flushed at the mild words, hot and awkward, knowing Snape meant not the flirting but what lay under it, something deeper, more real and more dangerous. He might as well have called him a stupid little boy to his face.But Harry’s chin was almost resting on Snape’s chest, and he could feel the man breathing in short, quick breaths, feel that warm air on his face. His body eased closer, his free hand curling, grasping, against Snape’s chest.“I…” He drank in Snape’s scent, a dark aphrodisiac that flowed straight to his groin, washing away clear thought as it passed. I want…Snape’s eyes flickered to Harry’s mouth and his lips moved, silently confessing what his words denied. Harry lifted his face and the black eyes pinched shut. Snape made a tiny choked sound deep in his throat, turning his head aside.Harry thought his own needy whimper might have been funny if it hadn’t hurt. He pressed his face into Snape’s chest, feeling against his cheekbone the hard ribs, and under that the hammering heart. He fought down the wild urge to bite – to grab, to take and never let go.Snape lowered his head, resting it against Harry’s, and the wildness melted at that gentle touch.“No.” Snape’s word held need, not censure, and Harry wondered which of them he was denying. Snape inhaled, shaky, and squeezed Harry’s hand again – hard, not in comfort – before stepping back.Harry raised his head, ready for a lecture. He wasn’t ready for the hunger seething in Snape’s eyes, and he shivered as Snape let him go and turned away.You have no idea what you are doing, do you?“Come on.” Snape was already striding away. “It’s time to get back.”Under his breath Harry muttered, as he stumbled across the uneven forest floor, “No. I don’t know what I’m doing. But I want to.”* * * They came out of the dim cool forest into warm summer afternoon sunlight. And a bit of an audience, clustered by Hagrid’s hut.Dumbledore, Moody, and Molly and Arthur Weasley were there. Hagrid stood behind them, looking nervous, as if he were in trouble himself.At their expressions Harry remembered what he must look like.“What the hell’ve you been doing to the boy?” Moody, predictably, plunged right in.Also predictably, Snape smirked and said, “Nothing he didn’t ask for, Moody.”Harry rolled his eyes as the Weasleys tiptoed into the fray.“You really shouldn’t take him into the Forbidden Forest…” Arthur began.“With Voldemort after him he should stay in the castle…” Molly said, wringing her hands.“The boy’s in danger every minute he’s outside the wards…” Moody growled.Snape waited in stiff silence.Harry counted to ten. “Will you all just stop?”The chatter stopped as everyone stared at him.“Nothing happened,” he said. “I’m fine. I’m just doing what you all want anyway, getting ready to fight Voldemort.”“We were concerned when you disappeared, Harry,” Arthur Weasley said.“With Snape,” Moody put in.“He’s training me!” Harry exclaimed. “Someone has to. He’s doing a good job.” He looked to Dumbledore, silently demanding confirmation.“It is true,” Dumbledore said, “that Severus is training Harry in dueling.”“You still shouldn’t wander from the grounds,” Molly put in. Harry almost snapped at her, then bit back his anger.“I wasn’t wandering, Mrs. Weasley. I was training.”“In the forest?” Moody asked, still eyeing Snape balefully. “Outside the wards?”Snape crossed his arms and said nothing.“I confess I was myself uneasy to learn you’d left the grounds,” Dumbledore said.“Some spells cannot be cast inside the wards,” Snape said impatiently.“All the same…” Dumbledore went on.Harry insisted, “I’m fine.” The Weasleys’ shocked expressions alerted him to the fact that he’d interrupted the headmaster, but he forged ahead. “Look, I know you’re all worried. I know you all think I’m the last great hope to defeat Voldemort. I know you want to keep track of me all the time, but can’t you give me a break? Some room to breathe? I’m just one stupid teenager.”“Truer words were never spoken,” Snape murmured.“Oh shut up,” Harry grumbled. Molly gasped. Arthur glanced worriedly at Snape.“Do you feel better now, Mr. Potter?” Snape said.And Harry, hearing the words he himself had said earlier, laughed.He met Snape’s eye long enough to see the glint of amusement there, then Snape turned around and strode off toward the castle. No one else seemed to notice; they were all still staring at Harry. Even Hagrid, who’d stayed aloof from the fuss, was watching him worriedly.Harry sighed. “Sorry, everyone. I … just … it’s been a long day for me. Sorry.” He looked to Dumbledore. “Did you need me for anything, sir? I’d sort of like to get something to eat and … maybe lie down.” He adopted a woebegone expression and showed it around the semi-circle of anxious adults.“Of course, Harry,” Dumbledore said. “We were concerned when you could not be found, but as you were safe—”“With Snape?” Moody barked.“Alastor, please.” Dumbledore shot Moody a glare, then nodded at Harry. “You go on, Harry.”“Thanks.” Harry waved to Hagrid and hurried past the clot of Order members, forcing his tired legs to move. Snape was already halfway across the grounds.“Professor.”Snape didn’t stop. He didn’t even slow down. Harry ran up, crossed in front of him.“Thanks.”Snape glanced up as Harry fell in beside him.“Really.” Harry paused, wanting to stop and talk to the man, but Snape kept moving and Harry was forced to dart in front of him again.“I mean it. Thank you for … you know. Everything.”Snape sneered. “Occasional indulgence is necessary with teenagers, if I remember correctly.”Harry considered that. “And I wasted it on arguing?”Snape held up one hand. “Don’t start, Potter.”Harry stopped, then had to catch up again. “But—”Snape stomped to a halt. “If you would kindly stop running in circles around me like a dog delighted to see its master home from work.”Harry stopped. Glanced about. Smiled sheepishly. “Er. Sorry.”Snape snorted and started walking again. Harry fell into step next to him.“Though I applaud your eagerness to get away from that pack of sentimental ignoramuses,” Snape went on.“They aren’t …” Harry began automatically.“No?”“It’s just …”Snape glanced sidelong at him.Harry squinted back. “Well … er … wouldn’t it be ignorami?”Snape laughed. At that rare and unexpected gift Harry grinned.As they climbed the steps to enter the castle, he said mildly, “But you don’t have to be so mean. They do care, you know.”“They don’t care about me.” It was a statement of fact, nothing more.That stopped Harry, and this time Snape stopped as well, watching him seek about in his mind for a truthful rebuttal.“I guess you’re right,” Harry admitted at last. “But I do.”Snape’s face and tone shifted, and Harry realized that he never noticed they were talking like friends until it stopped.“I should think we have finished for the day, Mr. Potter.” Snape glanced up the stairs, a suggestion that Harry go, and if Harry hadn’t been so weary, he wouldn’t have taken it. He turned, stepped on the first step. Looked back.“Are we –” At Snape’s expression he stopped. “What?”Snape shook his head, his startled look giving way to sarcasm. “You look a complete mess, Potter. Have a bath, for Merlin’s sake. Eat something. Then I would suggest you make an early night of it.”Harry smiled at Snape’s version of a hug and a goodnight kiss.“Yes sir.” He turned and trudged up the stairs.* * * Harry awoke at a slight sound, not moving at first, then eased his hand toward his wand.“It’s me, Harry.”Remus.Harry sat up on the couch to see Remus smiling at him from the doorway of the Gryffindor common room.Harry pulled the blanket off himself and said, “Hi. Come on in.”“I see you’re getting that constant vigilance down pretty well,” Remus said, coming around to sit on the other end of the couch.Harry grinned. “With Snape teaching me, I’d be dead otherwise.” He stretched and yawned, glanced out the window. It was dark.“What time is it?”“Past supper time,” Remus said. “But Dumbledore suggested we let you rest a while longer.” His eyes lit on the bruise on Harry’s arm, clearly visible since Harry’d changed into a t-shirt after his bath. Seeing the alarm in Remus’ mild eyes, Harry twisted his arm around so he could look at it. It was even bigger than before.“Must’ve hit the tree there,” he said, remembering. “It’s okay, Remus. Snape isn’t beating me up. At least, not, you know, directly.”Remus pursed his lips, thoughtful. “It’s too much to hope he’s not taking some pleasure in it.”Harry shook his head. “You’re wrong.”Remus leaned his elbows on his knees, glanced at the tray of pumpkin juice and crumbs that had been Harry’s late lunch, then looked sideways at Harry.“I know you’re not very happy with Dumbledore right now, Harry.”“How do you know?”“He told us,” Remus said with a smile. “And I understand why. But his intentions are good, for all of us. He simply has a lot riding on his shoulders.”“So do I,” Harry said fervently. “The difference is I never know about any of it until it’s too late.”Not taking offense, Remus said, “Because you were a child. You’ll find – in fact I think you are finding – that that is changing.”Harry nodded, acknowledging the point.“But what I wanted to say was don’t feel alone. If you’re not comfortable talking to Dumbledore right now, you know you can always talk to me, don’t you?”Harry smiled, warmed by Remus’ genuine concern. “Thanks.”“It’s just that, if you feel alone, you can be … taken advantage of. I don’t want to see that happen. Come to me, come to Arthur and Molly, even Bill or Mad-Eye or Tonks. If you’re worried or have any questions …”Harry sat straighter abruptly. “You think Snape’s doing something to me? I mean, something wrong? Is that what this is all about?”Remus sighed. “Harry. I’ll never be Snape’s friend. There’s too much behind us – and I know not all of it was his fault,” he added, forestalling Harry’s protest. “But Dumbledore has faith in him, and that’s enough for me. I just know his nature. He can be cruel, and I want you to be careful. That’s all.”Harry remembered the forest, Snape pushing him away. “He can be cruel all right. But he’s not mistreating me.”Remus watched him closely. “Harry, you’re not …” He blinked.“Not what?” Harry asked, feeling his face burn. Damn.Remus shook his head. “I don’t know. The way you’re defending him …”Harry jumped up. “Look, I’m there when he’s teaching me. Don’t you think I’d know if he was doing something wrong to me? You’d think since I’m the only witness, someone might believe me …” He paused, raised his arms and let them flop in mock-realization. “Oh yeah, that’s right. I’m crazy Harry Potter. I forgot. The one who imagined Voldemort came back and killed Cedric. I can’t be trusted with the evidence of my own eyes.”“Harry.”Remus’ tone stopped Harry, deflated him.“That’s not fair to those of us who didn’t doubt you,” Remus said.Harry slumped back onto the couch. “I know. I’m sorry. I just feel like … like no one ever listens to me. No one ever hears me.” Except Snape. Fuck. I did not just think that.“All I wanted you to know,” Remus said, calmly, “was that we are here for you. We may not understand, but we are listening. Please don’t feel alone in this.”Harry looked at him. “I am alone in this.”Remus shook his head. “You’re at the center, Harry. You’re not alone.”Harry considered that, thinking of Cedric, Sirius, all the other wizards and witches who had died and who might still die. “Okay. I understand you. And I appreciate it, Remus. I really do.”“All right.” Remus patted his knee. “Hey. How about a little one-on-one moonlight Quidditch before I go?”Harry blinked. He hadn’t flown in weeks. “Yeah.” He grinned. “That’d be great.” He got up, reminded for the first time since he’d awoken of all the aches and pains Snape’s dueling student was heir to.“Ouch.” He glanced over his shoulder at Remus. “Can I have a handicap?”Remus faked outrage. “At your age? Not a chance.”Harry laughed as Remus rose and shoved him toward the door.* * * Harry wiped the warm rainwater pointlessly from his face and walked on, stumbling across the uneven forest ground, peering ahead into the darkness and downpour. He wanted out, he wanted to go home, but the only way out was through.When he reached the clearing, the only thing different was the rain hitting him even harder, absolutely sheeting down from the roiling black sky.Green lightning cracked across the sky. Harry blinked.Voldemort stood before him, the rain sluicing down his naked, scaled, sexless body.Harry froze and Voldemort hissed, “Avada Kedavra.”Harry flung himself – not away, but upon Voldemort, grabbing him, wrestling him to the spongy sodden grass. Snake coils wrapped around his body and he stared point-blank into red embers that flashed green as they held his. Harry fought, but it was a waste of energy; Voldemort was too strong, hopelessly strong.Voldemort squeezed and Harry let out his last breath of air, exhaled the pain and his skin and bones and body and thought, let Voldemort squeeze it to nothing, let the rain wash him into the grass, into the earth.He felt the power – Voldemort’s power – flow along with him into the ground and heard, faintly as his awareness faded, the Dark Lord’s despairing death wail.* * * Harry started awake, heart punching against his ribcage, gasping for breath and sweating ice.“Shit.” The word came out, repeated, as he panted. “Shit.”Lightning snapped outside his window and he jumped, glancing up. Water sheeted down the glass. A summer storm.What the hell … his mind grabbed the dream and held it close. He was out of the bed before he’d had a coherent thought, scooping up his glasses, running down the stairs and out of Gryffindor tower.* * * He knocked. Knocked again. Then again.The door swung open on its own and Snape appeared from across the room, hair awry, wrapping a long black robe about his bare torso as he strode toward Harry. Harry blushed, then flinched, waiting for the inevitable cold explosion of anger at his intrusion.Snape stopped in the doorway and looked him over, his brow pinched. “What is it?”Harry stared, expectations upended. Snape didn’t sound angry. He sounded concerned.Harry goggled for a moment, long enough for Snape to gather his usual icy composure. He straightened up, smoothing his robe in a quick, surreptitious motion.“Spit it out, Potter. What’s wrong?”Harry shook his head, shaking some sense back into it. “Nothing, sir. Nothing. That is – I had a dream.”“Voldemort?”“Yes. No. Not that kind of dream. But listen…” He described it to Snape, watching his calm, faintly derisive expression tighten with interest.“Is that possible?” Harry asked finally.Snape stood aside. “Come in.”He shut the door behind Harry and went to the table, but didn’t sit down. He simply leaned on it, hands braced, while Harry came around one side of him.“Is it possible?” he repeated softly, seeing that possibility in Snape’s face. “Instead of fighting, instead of resisting, if I took the opposite path? Made his strength his weakness. Let him pour his power into me, through me…”Snape was staring at the table as if it held the blueprint for the conjury Harry had just described. “Perhaps. Perhaps.” He looked at Harry, and Harry grinned. Snape afire with nonmalicious excitement was a sight he’d never imagined.“You dreamt this?” Snape said.Harry nodded. “It wasn’t him. Don’t worry. That was the first thing I thought … that he might be trying to trick me. It wasn’t one of those dreams.”Snape tapped his fingers on the table, bit his lip.“Wait,” he said, and was gone, gliding across the room and up the stairs to the gallery level, where he swiftly scanned along his bookstacks while Harry watched, noticing for the first time the man was wearing black pyjama bottoms as well – probably all he slept in.Harry dropped his eyes as his blood suddenly came alive all through his body. Get hold of yourself!He jumped when he heard a meow at his feet. He looked down as Scratch hopped from the floor onto the chair next to him.“What are you doing here?” he asked. Scratch bumped his head against Harry’s hand and he tickled the animal’s ears a bit.Snape came back down with two books, almost more dust than leather and parchment, which he thumped onto the table before sitting down. Harry shoved Scratch onto the floor and sat at Snape’s right, not surprised to see the cat hop immediately into the left-hand chair and peer over the tabletop at them.Snape opened the book and started riffling pages, giving Harry a glance.“It’s dark magic, you realise. Not elemental magic itself, but this sort of use.”Harry twisted around a little to look at the pages as Snape flipped them.“You know what they say, sir, easier to get forgiveness than permission.”Snape said nothing. Harry swallowed.“Of course, whoever said that hadn’t met you,” he muttered. “Sir.”“In this case I shall be the culprit,” Snape said, still scanning. “Or at least the cohort.” He shoved the other book at Harry and said, “Look for canalis exhauriro, in the section marked Illegal Earth Magic.”Harry laughed a soft, nervous laugh and opened the book, watching out of the corner of his eye as Scratch jumped onto the table and curled up into a puff of grey fur next to Snape’s tome. The cat commenced watching Snape’s fingers moving across the pages, and Harry tensed, expecting attack.“Perhaps a combination of spells,” Snape murmured as he scanned. “A power draining spell, something to keep you separate from the influx of power, a way to direct it into the ground … and a way to prevent Voldemort from realizing what it is until …” He glanced up. “What?”Harry looked at Scratch, significantly.“Oh. The stupid hairball came yowling at my door,” Snape said. “I would have left him there, but his racket was disturbing my concentration.” He stroked the cat’s back. Scratch immediately rolled over and curled into a ball around Snape’s hand, setting his teeth to the side of Snape’s middle finger and closing his eyes tight. Harry held his breath, but Snape didn’t react.Harry blurted, “Wow. He’s not scratching you. Or biting you.”“I broke him of that fairly quickly,” Snape said with a smirk. He squeezed Scratch’s belly with his trapped hand and the cat squirmed and began a rough purr.Harry grinned at Snape in surprise and he looked away, his sour expression flickering.“I teach children potions, Potter. Training a cat is nothing.”Scratch started to lick Snape’s finger. Harry quickly averted his eyes, blushing furiously, and returned to scanning his book.Thoughts of licking were put aside when he found the section Snape was thinking of.“Here.” He turned the book so Snape could see. “Is this it?”* * * Three hours later they both leaned exhausted against a table littered with parchments covered with half-written spells and half-formed ideas and impatient ink blots. Scratch had long since given up hoping for further attention and had gone to sleep in one of the chairs by the fireplace.Harry slumped back in his chair and sighed, dropping his quill back into the tray beside the silver inkwell.“It is possible?” he said, staring at the top of Snape’s head, the only thing visible as the man had his face in his cupped palms.Snape nodded, rubbing his temples with the heels of his hands. He flung himself out of his chair with a curse, making Harry start.“It is possible,” he insisted. “I just need to think…” He moved restlessly about the room, frazzled and pale and so intense Harry’s throat clenched as he watched him. “The right ingredients, each in the correct measure …”Harry thought, potions. “Maybe if we experiment? One or two spells together, first?”“It could take weeks,” Snape said, more an observation than an argument. He came back to the table and leaned on it once more, scanning the scattered parchments, the fingers of both hands tapping impatiently as he tried to bring the pieces together.Harry pulled off his glasses, rubbing his eyes. “Professor … I’m sorry, but if you don’t want me to forget that I’m a child and you’re my mean old potions teacher…” He blinked up at the man. “…please close your robe.”Snape glanced down; red tinged his cheekbones.“Idiot.” He pulled the sides tight around himself and yanked at the sash. “What do you expect if you knock someone up in the middle of the night to pursue some harebrained scheme…”“I wasn’t objecting to the view, sir,” Harry said mildly, replacing his glasses. “The opposite, in fact.”“Do be quiet, Potter,” Snape muttered, still red-faced, hands fidgeting at his belt. “I’m trying to think.”Harry smiled at Snape’s discomfiture – at the idea that he could make Snape uncomfortable, even a little, in that particular way. Then a yawn took hold of him, a jaw-cracking yawn that somehow made his tiredness catch up with him all at once.“Go back to bed, Potter,” Snape said. “It’s late. We’re both tired. Rest assured, we shall continue this tomorrow.”“It is tomorrow, professor,” Harry said, nodding toward the grey dawn light outside the window. “And if you expect me to believe you’re just going to go back to sleep once I leave…”“All I have to do is figure it out,” Snape countered. “You’ll have to perform the spell. That being so, of the two of us I should think you need the rest more than I.”“I’d argue the point…” Harry began.“You’d argue the point if I told you your name was Potter.”“…but I’m too tired,” Harry concluded archly. “I’m going to go back to bed.” He pushed himself out of the chair. “I’ll just take the cat, shall I?”Snape slid back into his seat and picked up his quill, dipping it – accurately despite his obvious weariness – into the inkwell. Harry went to the fireplace, collected the drowsy Scratch, and headed for the door. Then stopped.Hair straggling into his face, Snape rubbed the spot between his eyebrows as he glared down at the scribble-covered parchment in front of him. It was amazing, Harry thought, that despite his own tiredness he longed to grab the man, haul him out of the chair and …He shook his head. “Professor.”Snape looked up, impatient, pen hovering.“You will come get me when you have something?” Harry asked.Snape waved him away. “Go away. Go.” He started scribbling, Harry already forgotten.Harry left.He trudged the endless route back to Gryffindor tower and went straight up to bed, putting Scratch on one of his pillows, then closing the curtains against the dawn light.He lay on top of the blankets, stiff with exhaustion, and watched Scratch trample the pillow into acceptability. The cat curled up and looked back at Harry, purring.“What did he taste like?” Harry asked. Scratch emitted a tiny, contented meow. Harry sighed and shut his eyes.* * * Harry was awakened by Scratch trotting across his stomach and meowing loudly, as if greeting someone who had food.Harry blinked up at Snape, standing by the bedside, and fumbled for his glasses. From the edge of the bed, Scratch yowled again, and Harry kneed him onto the floor. “Shut up, idiot.” He got his glasses more or less on to see Scratch winding about Snape’s feet. His gaze traveled up to Snape’s smirk.“You found something?” Harry said, his voice thick with sleep.“Get up, make yourself as presentable as the basic materials allow, and meet me in my rooms.”Snape turned, stepping deftly over Scratch, and departed, the cat trotting eagerly after him with his tail held high.Harry shrugged mentally. “Good morning to you too.” He got up, grimacing at the evidence of yet another wet dream. Thank god Snape hadn’t seen it. Although Harry figured he could silence any snide remarks about hormonal teenagers by telling Snape who it was he’d been hormonal about. Not that that would be news to the man.Harry smiled as he hurried through his morning ablutions (even though the clock told him it was nearly noon) and dressing. Within twenty minutes he was tapping on Snape’s door. It opened on its own and he heard Snape call out:“Come over here and read this.”Snape stood by the table, looking wan and exhausted. Harry went to the chair and sat down in front of a stack of parchment filled with tidy writing. Snape moved away and Harry sighed, feeling his stomach grumble.“You know, I haven’t eaten anything since—”Something banged down at his right hand and he jumped, then looked up to see a platter laden with sandwiches and a flagon of what turned out to be pumpkin juice.Harry grinned and grabbed a sandwich. “Thanks, professor.” He ate and read simultaneously, only becoming aware of Scratch’s stealthy arrival when the beast took delicate hold of the corner of a slice of chicken from his sandwich and started to pull.“Back, you shit.” He pushed the cat off the table and played his lunch closer to his vest until he’d got through two sandwiches and the dense explanation of the spell Snape had come up with. He picked up a third sandwich and ate it much more slowly while rereading the spell, knowing perfectly well he was going to be tested on it.He sat back, picked up the pumpkin juice, and gulped half of it. Then he wiped his mouth and looked around. “Okay. I think I under…”Snape was nowhere to be seen.“…stand.” Harry got up. Scratch jumped into his seat and made eyes at the remaining sandwiches. Harry shook a finger at him. “No you don’t.”The cat gave him the look cats give those who dare attempt to tell them no.Harry looked around the room again, as if Snape was going to reappear magically, then headed across the room to one of the doors by the fireplace, on the theory Snape must’ve gone through one of them.When he passed the couch and glanced down, he jumped. Snape lay there on his back, eyes closed, one knee bent and his face turned toward the back of the couch.Harry stared for a long, silent moment, realized he was asleep. Now what?Harry hated the idea of waking him – mostly because Snape had obviously been up all night and partly because he’d probably hex the life out of anyone who woke him the wrong way. But he surely didn’t expect Harry to read the spell then simply go away for a few hours. Did he?Harry came around the couch quietly, sitting in the chair nearest Snape’s head. He wanted to touch the man’s dark-stubbled cheek, stroke it to waken him, to cup his face in his hands and kiss him ...That would get you killed, Harry.Wincing, he said softly, “Professor?” Then, with a tiny smile, “Severus?”Nothing. He repeated it a little louder and Snape stirred, then turned to look at him, eyes vague with sleep.“Sorry,” Harry said, still quietly. “I didn’t want to disturb you, but I read the spell.”Snape blinked languorously. “Did you use my given name?” Fresh from sleep his voice was gentle and warm; Harry wanted to curl up in it. Instead he shrugged and said:“I didn’t think you’d let me if you were awake.”Snape snorted softly and sat up. “Ten points to Gryffindor for a well-reasoned conclusion.”“Thanks a lot,” Harry muttered. “Points during summer don’t count.”“Really?” Snape’s sarcasm was back to full force. “Did you understand what I wrote?” He glanced over his shoulder toward the table and got up.“I think I did.” Harry followed Snape to the table, somehow surprised and amused to see the man pick up one of the remaining sandwiches and begin to eat it with precise bites, not hastily but wasting no time.“The spell transforms me into a sort of a … a tunnel …”“More accurately a vacuum,” Snape cut in, predictably.“And I draw out the magic that’s thrown at me and let it drain into the earth.”Snape swallowed. “The spell?”Harry touched his wand pocket automatically, then let his hand fall.“Inanoterrapotens,” Harry said. Then winced at Snape’s sneer and worked his mouth around it again. “Inanoterrapotens. Sorry. It’s hard.” He repeated it silently, getting the feel, the shape, of it and what it would do set into his mind.“Wandless,” Snape said. “Why?”“Subterfuge,” Harry said, noticing the smallest of crumbs at the corner of Snape’s mouth and fighting the urge to brush it away himself. “In defensive dueling magic it’s best to give the enemy as few clues, and as little warning, as possible.”Snape nodded, swallowed another bite. Scratch watched intently, hoping for a crumb or scrap, but Snape ignored him.“We shall need some magical objects for you to practice on first,” he said.“So I’m not going to try to suck the magic out of anything living?” Harry said, relieved.“Not at first.” Snape wiped his fingers on one of the linen napkins Harry had disdained during his own lunch. He examined, and accurately interpreted, Harry’s expression.“To know if I have formulated this correctly, you must use the casting on a living magical creature.”“I don’t want to hurt anyone. Or anything.”“Then you were born into very much the wrong time, place and family, Potter.” Snape dropped the napkin onto the platter.Harry sighed.“There is a Muggle saying: If you wish to make an omelet, you have to break a few eggs.”“I’ve never made an omelet,” Harry muttered, resentful, though he understood Snape’s point.“Better an omelet than a hash,” Snape countered, striding past him. “I think we shall need the assistance of both Dumbledore and your friend the gamekeeper.”Harry followed. “Hagrid’s going to love this. ‘Hi, Hagrid – got any pets I can kill?’ He’ll have a coronary.”“Yes,” Snape said, “he will, won’t he? I’m rather looking forward to it.” He opened his door, stood aside, and said, “After you.”Harry gave him a surprised glance. Then said, “Oh. Human shield?”Snape’s mouth twitched, a barely defeated smile. “Go.”Harry walked past him – then grinned when Snape gave his shoulder a little shove.* * * Harry woke early, a strange unconscious once-a-year habit he’d developed in the last few years, and looked around the quiet, cool, dawnlit dormitory.Hedwig, not surprisingly, had taken off for parts unknown (well, known fairly well, really) the day before. Harry smiled to think she’d sort of become trained for this particular series of jaunts.Usually by this time he already had a present from Hagrid at the foot of his bed – it wouldn’t have surprised him, though, if Hagrid had skipped it this year. He hadn’t been at all happy when Snape and Harry had gone to see him three days ago, but had promised to think about, and acquire, some magical animals for Harry to practice on. Only Snape’s ruthless reminder that it was the animals or Harry had made Hagrid give in, and Harry hadn’t failed to notice either the dismay on Hagrid’s face, or the snotty smirk on Snape’s, as they returned to the castle.“You enjoyed that, didn’t you?”“Immensely,” Snape had said.“Hagrid’s a really nice person,” Harry had defended him.“I, however, am not,” was Snape’s cool reply.Harry stretched and sat up to see a big, bulky, sloppily wrapped parcel at the foot of the bed. At least Hagrid wasn’t too mad at him. He probably blamed Snape, anyway.As he was unwrapping the heavy parcel Hedwig swooped in the window and deposited a red-wrapped package on the table, then landed gracefully on her perch.“Hi, Hedwig,” Harry said, and the owl hooted gently back at him.Hagrid’s gift was a pair of black dragonhide boots. Harry examined them, puzzled as to why Hagrid would give him something so expensive and – as far as Harry knew – unnecessary. Only people who worked with dragons, like Charlie Weasley, needed the fire-retardant properties of dragonhide clothing.Still, they were kind of nice, sort of dull-shiny like a live dragon. Harry tried to imagine wearing something that showy. He laughed, then bounced off his bed to collect the parcel Hedwig had brought. From Hermione, of course, with that pretty and tidily folded wrapping paper. The card read “Hope this is useful. Take care. Love, Hermione.”Inside was “The Gay Wizarding World: A History.” Harry stared in amazement. He hadn’t even known such a book existed – typical that Hermione had found it, though. He opened it, not sure at all what he’d find, or what he’d like to find, and flipped through a few pages.Also typically, it was far from a lurid account of sex toys and kinky escapades. From the look of it – from the dearth of naughty pictures – it was a serious history of homosexuality in the wizarding world. Well, that was what he needed.Harry smiled, brushing his hands over the black leather cover. Trust Hermione to manage a gift that was both desirable and practical – and insightful. Even though she was bossy sometimes, she was the best of friends. If Ron let her get away, he was a fool, and Harry reminded himself to remind Ron of that next time they talked.He set the book down next to Hagrid’s gift and headed out, pausing at the door. Pigwidgeon hadn’t come yet with a gift from the Weasleys, and Harry knew Ron wouldn’t forget, but …“Hedwig?”The owl turned her head all the way around to look at him.“If Pig gets here with something for me, make sure she leaves it up here and doesn’t come looking for me, okay? I don’t want to be interrupted while I’m working. Snape’ll kill me.”Hedwig hooted wisely at him and Harry proceeded to the dungeons.Snape wasn’t there yet – it was pretty early – so Harry drank tea and stuffed himself with toast for a while before he went into their dueling room, brushing the toast crumbs onto his sweatpants.A table had been set up in the middle, holding Harry’s current magical nemeses.He looked at the trio of pearlescent white globes lined up on the table, each as big as his head and glowing with power taken from the castle wards. Visova, Dumbledore had called them, power eggs. Snape had made Harry perform wingardium leviosa over them and guide them carefully down to their dueling chamber.Harry was supposed to practice on them, draining each of its power as he hoped to drain Voldemort. So far, two of the globes retained all their magic. The third, after two days of trying, was flickering a little, but far from the dead darkened shell it would be if Harry had succeeded in the inanoterrapotens spell.He didn’t have a hard time focusing the spell. The problem was that every time he tried to unfocus himself from the spell, he lost the spell completely. It was just so different from what he was used to – he had trouble keeping more than one concept in his head at a time. He supposed, sighing, that Snape was right. He must be stupid.“I see you’re looking forward to today’s session,” came Snape’s voice, right in his ear.Harry jumped, spun, caught his breath. “How the fu – how do you do that?”Snape almost smiled. “Practice, Potter, practice.”Harry clutched at his chest melodramatically. “Well, if I wasn’t awake before, I am now.”“And from the toast crumbs scattered liberally about your person, you’ve breakfasted as well.” Snape’s eye traveled down Harry’s sweats-clad form, and he blushed furiously, turning away and cursing the perpetual arousal that seemed to lurk in his stomach, waiting for a word or a glance from Snape to shoot straight to his cock.“So why don’t we get started?”Harry looked back, brushing feebly at his front. “Sorry?”Snape nodded at the globes.“Oh. Sorry, sir.” Harry headed over to the table – and a high-pitched hooting filled the chilly dungeon air.Snape looked up, startled, as something small and fluffy shot across the room.Harry, after a split-second of panic, realized it was Pigwidgeon. She must’ve known he was here, bypassed his room.He waved at the zooming owl as Pig circled over his head, back and forth with dizzying speed. “Idiot. Go!”Pigwidgeon hooted and dropped the small paper-wrapped parcel. Harry caught it, flushing, and quickly bent to set it on the floor out of the way.“Sorry, sir,” he said to Snape.Pig hooted again and soared out of the room.Snape watched the owl go, turned a heavy look on Harry, who scooted the small package farther aside with one foot.“It’s nothing, sir,” he insisted, feeling his face heat. He faced the visova, squaring his shoulders.“Any time you’re ready,” Snape said, motionless behind him.Harry nodded, took a deep breath. No wand, no drama, no hesitation. Simply say the spell and let it work.“Remember to remove yourself from the spell,” Snape murmured. “Your presence is an impediment and a danger to you. Let the spell act on its own. Remove yourself from the path the power takes as it flows from the object into the earth.”His soft words helped Harry calm and focus.“Inanoterrapotens.”He felt the power of the spell gather in him and flow toward the nearest visova. He let it flow, let it leave him –-- and Dobby popped into being, smack in front of him, complete with a small hovering table laden with a birthday cake, a big bowl of ice cream and a stack of plates and cutlery.The spell snapped into nothingness and Harry reeled from the psychic impact, then caught his balance, staring stupidly at the beaming house elf.“Dobby is wishing Harry Potter Happy Birthday!” Dobby held out a small parcel.Oh God.The table settled to ground and the candles flared to life on the cake, singing ‘Happy Birthday’ in tiny high waxy voices.Harry flushed wildly and bent close to Dobby. “Thanks, Dobby, but you need to leave. Right. Now.”Dobby glanced toward Snape, pushed the lumpy parcel (another sock, probably) into Harry’s hands, and said, “Dobby understands. Happy Birthday, Harry Potter!” And he disappeared with a pop.The cake wouldn’t shut up until Harry blew out the candles. Mortified, he turned around to face the unmoving Snape.“I’m really sorry, sir,” he said, a bit sick to his stomach. “I tried to make sure … I didn’t think of Dobby. That is, I didn’t think he’d do this…”Harry flinched when Snape strode over to the table and looked down at the cake. “Seventeen.”Harry flushed anew, but heroically refrained from further apology. Humiliating as it was, he hadn’t asked for Dobby to make a fuss. It wasn’t his fault.Snape looked at him from under his brows. “Happy birthday.”Harry closed his eyes and swallowed. “Sorry. We can get back to work.” Grief, from an inexplicable source, tightened his throat.Snape said, “Accio knife.”A knife sailed across the room from somewhere and slapped into Snape’s waiting palm. He flipped it in his fingers and extended the handle toward Harry, who stared at it blankly.“It is traditional for the celebrant to do the honors,” Snape said, brow arched.Harry transferred his stare to Snape’s face.“Having a birthday is not a crime, Mr. Potter,” the man said. “Cut your cake.”Harry took the knife, gazed dumbly at it. He felt no pleasure in the thought of the cake, or what it represented, at this moment. It seemed unbearably trivial.He set the knife on the table, throat still clenched, and turned back to the visova, wiping his palms on his pants as if to rid them of any trace of childish birthday frivolity. If he were with anyone else, anyone in the world, he knew he wouldn’t feel so stupid, so embarrassed.“Harry.”Harry stopped, startled, and turned around. Snape picked up the knife, holding it out to him, his face stern but his eyes gentle.“I was not mocking you. I think you may be forgiven taking five minutes to indulge in so modest a pleasure as birthday cake.”Harry took the knife, passing it awkwardly between his hands.Still gently, Snape said, “Unless you can think of a better use for the thing.”Harry looked up, alarmed at what Snape was implying, and saw that he was holding in one of his dry chuckles.Harry shook his head, feeling a bit better, and said, “Are you saying you’re a present I can open?”“With a knife? Certainly not,” Snape said, the bite back in his tone. “Enough with the clumsy innuendo, Potter. Cut your cake.”Harry laughed softly. Snape, cheering him up. The world would end next. He bent over the cake. “Will you have a piece?” He glanced sidelong at Snape eyeing the cake.“A small one, perhaps.”Harry turned his head to hide his grin and cut two pieces, equal in size, neither large nor small. He deposited them on two plates, added a scoop of ice cream and a fork to each, and presented one to Snape.“Did you make a wish when you blew out the candles?” Snape asked. “It’s traditional, if I remember correctly.”Harry shoved a mouthful of cake into his face to avoid smirking, but he thought, delighted, now who’s flirting, professor? He used the pretext of chewing and swallowing (as if cake needed that much chewing) to think up a response.“I don’t think a cake is going to bring me the things I wish for, professor,” he said at last.Snape, a forkful of cake halfway to his mouth, paused, looking at Harry. Measuring, not displeased. Pride warmed Harry at that look, though Snape said nothing, merely resumed eating his cake.Happily, Harry devoured his own – chocolate with cream frosting and strawberry ice cream, a far cry from his birthdays with the Dursleys.Once he was done scraping his plate clean, Snape – his own cake only half eaten – smirked.“You eat like a thestral…” He reached out, touched Harry’s face, the corner of his mouth.Automatically Harry caught Snape’s hand, saw the bit of icing on his index finger, and leaned forward.He heard Snape’s sharp intake of breath, felt the tension in the hand he held as he licked the finger clean.Snape’s eyes widened and glazed over at the same time. The arm in Harry’s grasp shivered and drew back, and he let it go, stunned – terrified and excited – at his own temerity. Snape’s fingers curled into a fist and he blinked.“You ... you go too far,” he said, low.Harry shook his head. “I got my wish.” He kept his own voice soft, not wanting Snape to hear how unsteady it was. “I wished I could taste you.”Snape’s eyes closed and he turned away, cursing through his teeth. “Stupid boy,” he said then, glaring back at Harry. “It’s time to get back to work.”Harry took a deep, steadying breath. He knew a no when he heard it, and knew better than to push Snape, of all people.“Yes sir.”* * * Harry and Snape spent the next several days in the stuffy dampness of the castle while glorious high summer proceeded apace without. Harry found himself easily able to begin the spell, easily able to connect with the object in question and draw the power of it out, and toward him, and into the earth below Hogwarts. The one infuriatingly difficult thing was managing to remove himself from the spell.Well, that and he found it impossible to not get a hard-on every time Snape came near him. So two infuriatingly difficult things.As he had done a mind-numbing number of times before, Harry stood and let fly with the spell at the nearest visova, trying not to notice Snape pacing in silent circuits around the room. Knowing the man was doing it on purpose – “You don’t suppose you’ll be casting this spell in complete peace and quiet, do you, Potter?” – didn’t help him ignore it.His irritation made him a little too quick, and the spell snapped back at him, a lash of power he felt in his stomach. He swayed a little and stepped back to catch his balance. Snape, now behind him, laid a hand to his shoulder, probably just to warn him of his proximity.The contact made something surge inside Harry and the spell went wild. The visova burst into a white-light glare that filled the room, then shattered.Hands shooting up to block his face, Harry stumbled back into Snape, who caught him and fell backward himself, catching them both against the wall.They blinked at the fading glare, and the sparkles of magic in the air, falling like glittering raindrops to the floor where the castle wards absorbed them. Then there was just the shattered sphere sitting between its two intact brethren.Unless he was imagining it, which was possible the way his libido was blazing, Snape’s hands stroked his shoulders, just a little, before the man pushed him away.“This happens to you a great deal, doesn’t it?”Harry turned around to face Snape, brushing bits of visova and errant twinkles of magic off his sweatshirt. “What, explosions, or bumping into people?”Snape smirked. “Point taken.”“You’re taking points?” Harry mock-complained.“Potter, if I took points for every mistake you made…””I know. None of the Houses would want me and I’d end up living in Hagrid’s hut with him.” Harry shrugged. “Better than the Dursleys.”“Is it so terrible with your relatives?” Snape asked, more as if he doubted it than as if he cared.“They feed me,” Harry said. “They give me clothes—”“Yes, I saw,” Snape cut in drily.“And I have a roof over my head,” Harry concluded the list of the Dursleys’ generosity. “I guess some have it worse.” He brightened suddenly. “And you know the best thing about them?”Snape crossed his arms. “Astonish me.”“I never have to go back.” Harry grinned.A black brow arched. “You have somewhere else to go to?”“I’d rather live under a bridge, sir, once the law allows me to make my own choices.”Snape looked long at him – long enough for Harry to wonder if the man was doubting him, or feeling sorry for him – before snapping, “Back to work,” as if Harry had been the one standing there, delaying things.Sighing, Harry faced one of the whole visova, realizing he was starting to apply a personality – a cold and malevolent one – to those silent pearly spheres. Cooperate, bastards.He gathered the power and the focus, second nature after having done it dozens of times over the last couple of weeks, and spoke the spell.“Inanoterrapotens.” And he felt the power begin to drain away from the visova, toward him, through him and into the ground.Then the hard part. Calm … separation … absence …“Not through you,” Snape murmured in his ear. “Separate from you. You are not there; you cannot be touched, the spell cannot be broken. Concentrate.”Focus rattled but not broken, Harry said over his shoulder, “It’d be a lot easier to concentrate without you standing so close and whispering in my ear, sir.”He felt Snape stiffen and waited for the cutting response. Instead, Snape backed away with an amused, “My apologies, Mr. Potter. Do continue.”Harry smirked to himself, then reapplied his focus to the visova and to the maddeningly difficult task of stepping aside from the spell whilst still maintaining it. It was something he just couldn’t seem to visualize, though it had come so easily in his dream.He thought back, to how Voldemort’s power had enveloped him, how it had squeezed, how he had let it, let it pass through him, let himself fade from reality like smoke dissipating in a breeze … and then there was only the spell, and the power it seized and directed into the earth until it was gone.Harry let his eyes open and looked calmly at the blackened, but unbroken, shell of the visova. Under his feet he could feel the trailing end of the hum of power being absorbed into the ground, but no trace of it within his body or mind.He inhaled slowly, refilling lungs that felt long empty, and turned his head.Snape stood at his side, almost smiling – no. Smiling.“Well done, Harry,” he said.Harry grinned.* * * Hagrid brought his contribution to the good work down to the dungeon the next day. He knocked on the door to the dueling room whilst Harry was getting rid of the debris of the visova, and Snape let him in.The potions master looked inside the big wicker basket the man had under one huge arm, then glanced with a snide half-smile over his shoulder at Harry.“You’re going to love this,” he said.Hagrid brought the basket to the table and plunked it down.Harry came closer, nervous, hearing a soft chittering sound.Hagrid opened the lid and Harry peeked in to see three fat, fluffy white bunnies gazing up at him, limpid brown eyes alight with trust.Oh god.Harry drew back, rolling his eyes and groaning aloud.“Hagrid …”Hagrid cleared his throat. “Hare-um Scare-ums. Up teh their ears in magic, they are. Change inter all kinds o’ terrifyin’ shapes at night, they do.”Harry had the strangest idea that he could hear Snape laughing, but when he looked, his teacher was simply watching.“Ooh yeah,” Hagrid was saying. “Bogeymen under teh bed, shadows in the cupboard, noises in yer closet … jus’ be sure you get 'em inter the basket – it’s spelled and all – before dark.”“Thanks,” Harry said weakly. The bunnies twitched their noses at him and one reached up a gentle velvety paw toward him, asking to be petted. They had tiny horns in front of their soft floppy ears. Harry gulped.“Well.” Hagrid stood straight, patted the basket, and looked at Harry.“Good luck ter yeh, ’arry. I know y’gotter do what y’gotter do…” He patted the basket again and his face crumpled.“Thanks, Hagrid,” Harry said. “Sorry about this…”“No, no…” Hagrid sniffed and blinked fast. “I understand, ’arry. You … er … take care now, y’hear?”Harry nodded and Hagrid lumbered sadly out of the room, past Snape. Snape sealed the door then came over to the table.Harry looked at the bunnies, then up at Snape. Somehow, his devastation managed to erase the amused smirk from Snape’s face.“Hare-um Scare-ums are vermin, Potter,” he said, not unkindly. “You needn’t think of them with any more regret than you devote to the sweet and gentle cow whose meat graces your dinner table.”Harry made a face. “Ick. Thanks, professor. I think I’ve just become a vegetarian.”“It’s necessary,” Snape said. “A living creature will feel differently to you when you are performing the spell. It will resist, as the visova cannot. And as the Dark Lord, I promise you, shall.”Harry nodded, sighed, and lifted a bunny out of the basket to set it, whiskers twitching, on the table. Snape backed off to observe.Harry looked at the bunny, tried to think of it as an enemy, or, failing that (as he did, spectacularly) as a nonliving thing like the visova.“Inanoterrapotens.”The power flickered in him, like a candle in a breeze, and vanished.Harry cursed. Steadied himself.“Inanoterrapotens!”The bunny hopped toward him and twitched its nose.Harry sighed, glanced at Snape, leaning against the wall, arms and ankles crossed – what would have been a rather fetching pose in some other situation.“Perhaps I should order tea,” Snape said drily. “Clearly we’re going to be here a while.”Harry looked at the ceiling for a moment, then back at the damn’ bunny. He squared his shoulders and the bunny flicked its ears at him.He was going to kill Hagrid for this.* * * Harry crept into the dueling chamber and lit the globes along the walls with the familiar spell. The long, stark chamber lit up, showing the table in the center with the basket of Hare-um Scare-ums sitting innocuously atop it.Harry shut and warded the door behind him and marched resolutely toward the basket.Both resolution and pace slowed considerably when he heard the sounds coming from the basket, which was moving a little on the table.Groans, squeaks, wails … nothing like the sweet little chitterings of the daytime.Harry braced himself, formed the spell in his mind and on the tip of his tongue, and opened the spelled basket.Immediately three huge black batlike things shot shrieking into the air.Harry flinched back, automatically drawing his wand, inanoterrapotens forgotten as the creatures zipped around the room like diving hawks, circling up high near the ceiling, then swooping down toward him.“Stupefy!” He pointed his wand at the nearest and it stopped, stunned, and dropped to the floor like a stone. The other two, though, were still coming at him, too fast and too close to cast a spell on them.Glimpsing red eyes and black claws, Harry backed away, flailing, as the two remaining creatures strafed him, screaming.He bumped into the door to the adjacent study and it opened abruptly. Harry toppled, and a hand grasped his arm and yanked him inside. The door slammed behind him and he spun, still off balance, until two hands caught him and two glittering black eyes caught his.“You are without doubt the most precipitous student I have ever had the misfortune of teaching.” Snape squared him on his feet, ungently, and turned away, striding back to the glowing fire. Harry saw a book resting open across the arm of Snape’s chair, and a glass of clear liquid on the nearby table.“I was … I was just trying to –”“I know what you were trying to do,” Snape said. He picked up the glass and turned to face Harry. “You thought it would be easier to cast the spell upon them once they had assumed a less …” Snape’s lip curled, “… adorable form.” He gestured toward the other room and Harry smiled weakly.Snape sipped his drink and stared into it as he admitted, “The idea wasn’t completely stupid.”“Thanks,” Harry muttered, coming closer to the fire and tucking his wand away.“However … if I remember correctly, Hare-um Scare-ums are covered in Care of Magical Creatures in the third-year curriculum.”Harry tried to remember. “Um … I think so.”“No doubt, then, you can recall their leading characteristics?” Snape crossed his arms and waited.“Er …”“Among other, irrelevant, facts, which also I expect you’ve forgotten, in their nightmare forms they are extremely fast, impossible to make eye contact with, and nearly impossible to hit with a spell,” Snape said.Harry glanced toward the other room.“They’ll be safe in there until daybreak,” Snape said, taking another sip of his drink.“Sorry,” Harry said, gazing embarrassed at his hands, knotted together. Couldn’t he do anything right lately?Silence. Then Snape said, “Your intentions were good.”Harry’s head shot up. He stared until Snape said:“What are you staring at?”Harry shook his head. “I’m just trying to remember … I think that’s the first nice thing you’ve ever said to me.”Snape shrugged one shoulder, a tiny gesture. “I’ve had a bit to drink.”Harry laughed softly at Snape’s excuse.Something – no doubt a Hare-um Scare-um – bounced against the door connecting to the dueling room, and Harry jumped, glancing at it.“They can’t get in,” Snape said. “Anyway, they’re basically harmless.”Harry looked at him, envying his calm, his knowledge.“Professor. What…” He swallowed. “What if I can’t do this?”“You’ll do it,” Snape said, startling Harry. “You are far from the cleverest student ever to pass through Hogwarts, but you do possess an inordinate amount of stubbornness. That at least will serve you in this. You’ll do it.”“Fuck,” Harry said.Snape faced the fire, leaning on the mantel, one hand toying with the glass he’d rested there.“I don’t want to kill,” Harry said. He watched Snape nod, watched those clever fingers lift the glass, set it down again in tiny nervous motions.“Nevertheless,” Snape said, sounding weary, almost kind, “you must.”“Thank you,” Harry said, aware simultaneously that he’d said it a lot, and that he could never say it enough. “For everything. I …” A thousand things jammed up behind his tongue, none of them speakable, though they were all true.Snape half-turned, not really looking at Harry. “You should go to bed.”“I’m not sleepy, sir.” Harry twisted his head to read the front cover of the book lying across the arm of the chair. Something in German. “Why are you still down here?”“I was absorbed in my reading,” Snape said, turning to face him again as if it were now safe. “For the uninitiated, that means –”“I know what it means. Sir.” Harry rolled his eyes at Snape’s smirk. Indeed, his absorption in Hermione’s birthday present – and his subsequent arousal – were the reasons he’d decided to leave off reading about sex and make use of the nervous energy he’d accumulated by tackling the Hare-um Scare-ums again.Unfortunately, now he was here in a warm, cosy room with a dangerously pleasant Severus Snape. Harry’s insides tingled as if he’d downed a glass of firewhiskey, and he knew the safe, smart thing to do was to leave.Bugger it. I’ve never done the smart or safe thing in my life, and it’s worked so far.Snape was watching him, glass steady in his hand. Harry glanced at it, stepping closer. “Not firewhiskey?”Snape’s eyes flicked down to the glass. “Tequila.” He held out the glass, his expression unreadable.Harry tried to blank the astonishment from his face, but his stomach roiled as he accepted the drink, indulged in what he hoped was an elegant sniff (interesting scent, more complicated than firewhiskey), and put the glass to his lips. Snape’s eyes were locked on him, and he shivered at the intimacy of this sharing. He sipped and rolled the liquid around on his tongue, praying he wouldn’t cough or gag or do anything else embarrassingly childish.He swallowed and blinked. “That’s nice.” He looked at Snape, surprised. “That’s very nice. May I?” He held up the glass, asking for another taste, feeling as bold as if he were asking for a kiss.Snape nodded; that silent permission shot so hard to Harry’s groin that he nearly dropped the glass. Clutching it, he took a mouthful and swallowed, feeling the tequila burn smooth and wood-warm, rather than fire-hot like whisky, down his throat and into his stomach, a little tail-end of it trickling down hot into his cock.Shaking, he reached past Snape’s shoulder, feeling the man’s intense focus waver, and set the glass on the mantel.“Professor,” he said, hearing the liquor in his voice. “What are we going to do?” He drew back, now only inches from Snape, inhaling him as he’d inhaled the aroma of the tequila.“About … what?” The words were strangled, half whisper, half growl.Harry said, “This.”He waited, his whole body humming with molten desire, hearing Snape’s breathing accelerate and turn ragged. Harry stared at Snape’s throat – he knew they didn’t have to be gazing into each other’s eyes to feel it – and waited until the man swallowed convulsively.“This,” he repeated. “It’s driving me crazy.”He closed his eyes and pressed his mouth to the spot under Snape’s adam’s apple. Sucked. Licked as Scratch had done, tasting skin and heat and the bittersweet drug that was Snape’s essence. A groan, a soft confession, vibrated against Harry’s tongue. Snape’s hands framed Harry’s body, just touching his biceps, not pushing or pulling.Harry let Snape hold him, breathing in the man’s scent, his face pressed into Snape’s warm neck, Snape’s pulse racing against his lips, his body hard against Snape’s body. He drew back and slid his mouth across Snape’s, his tongue pushing between Snape’s parted lips. He tasted tequila and heat as he savored Snape’s mouth, wet and soft and intimate and so good …Snape stiffened, clutched his arms and pulled back with a gasp. “Harry …” The word was rough as the fingers digging into Harry’s arms.Harry withstood it, letting the thick, honeyed attraction between them speak for itself. He felt it – God, he was drowning in it – Snape would have to be dead not to feel it too.“You ... cannot ...” Snape glared at him, gasping, his eyes blazing, dumbfounded, hurt. Shook him. “Stupid …” Pulled him hard into a bruising kiss. “Stupid ...” The word, breathed hot into Harry’s mouth, punctuated another hungry invasion. Alarming, rough, more desperate than erotic, but Harry hung on, opening himself to Snape’s wild kisses until they were melded against one another, burning, melting, a single delirious storm of desire.They exploded apart, bereaved sounds forced from both their throats as Snape shoved Harry back, bumping in his turn against the mantel behind him.“No…” The word was pure fear, and Harry shivered to hear it. He touched the back of his shaking hand to his wet, tender mouth, choked back a sob.“Gods…” Snape breathed, his voice raw. “Why?”Without any certainty of what Snape was asking, Harry said, “Because … because of everything. Everything you’ve done, everything you’ve said … because I’m out of my mind, maybe. Because I dream about you.”Snape closed his eyes, denying Harry’s words, but his hands reached out, awkward, and Harry moved back into his embrace. His lips touched Snape’s, as naturally as gravity pulls a fallen leaf to earth. Their mouths met, warm, then hot, open and starving. Harry wrapped his body around Snape, aching to get closer, closer, vaguely, shamelessly aware of his hips moving against Snape’s, of his mouth sucking Snape’s tongue deep inside, of the low hungry sound Snape made in his throat.Harry drew back to scrape air into his lungs, to whisper, “Please…”Snape pulled Harry against him, one arm across his back while the other came around to caress his throbbing, screamingly hard cock. No one else – no one – had ever touched him there, and Harry moaned, arching into the touch; when Snape squeezed he cried out and came shuddering against Snape’s body, shattered and helpless, his tear-streaked face pressed into the man’s neck.Snape held him close, his breath rasping in Harry’s ear as he gasped and blinked and shivered and slowly, slowly regained the ability to stand, to think. He raised his head, drunk with release, and Snape pushed him away, averting his face from Harry’s puzzled gaze.“Harry…” The word was rough, muffled, horrified. “Go. Get out.”Harry stepped unsteadily toward him. “But…”“Go.” Snape turned toward the fireplace, hunched, curled into himself, fists hammering atop the mantel. “Get out of here now.”Harry staggered backward, unable to make a decision, to refuse or obey.“Get out.”Like a whiplash the command drove Harry to the door. He fumbled it open and stumbled out into the corridor, panting, ashamed and bewildered. He leaned on the wall a moment, his body still throbbing in the aftermath of his orgasm, then scrubbed an arm across his wet face and hurried for the sanctuary of his dormitory.* * * The next morning Harry awoke to Dobby standing on his bed, wringing his hands, his big green eyes anxious.“Dobby is sorry to have to wake Harry Potter…”Harry blinked at the house elf, grabbed his glasses and put them on. He was sticky faced and his body felt weird, weightless and alien.“Dobby? What’s the matter?”“Professor Dumbledore is wishing to see you, Harry Potter. He is instructing me to tell you as soon as you is waking up.”“Has something happened? Has Voldemort attacked?”Dobby’s hand-wringing intensified. “Dobby is not knowing, sir, Dobby is only doing what Professor Dumbledore is telling him to do …”“Okay, Dobby. Never mind. I’m going. Thanks.”Dobby disappeared and Harry climbed out of bed.In the bathroom he examined his face in the mirror and wondered that he could see none of the changes he felt inside. Although he did look as if he’d spent some part of last night either crying or raging. He’d crawled into bed directly on returning to his dormitory, face shoved into his pillow to prevent screaming and yelling, body curled tight as if trying to erase itself. He’d fallen asleep almost immediately, and had had a night full of dreams of death and blood and helplessness.Harry drew a breath and turned from the mirror, stripping and stepping into the showers to subject his body to a fast wash and brush up. Whatever Dumbledore wanted, it was bound to be important. He had no time to waste on his own … his own whatever this was.Not that that stopped his cock from swelling and the rest of him from blushing wildly as he showered and remembered ...Remembered? It had branded him: Snape’s kisses, Snape’s hands on him, Snape’s taste and scent and the feel of his body and his hand there, tight and sure and …Harry gasped as he ejaculated into the shower stream, then leaned shaking against the wall. It was too much. What the hell was happening to him?“Stop it,” he ordered himself. “Stop it and get moving.” He began a brutally thorough scrubbing, fixing his mind on getting himself to Dumbledore’s office, not thinking about Snape, about how he was going to face Snape, how Snape was going to face him, what the hell were they going to do …Harry shut his eyes, calling up techniques Snape had taught him to clear and focus his mind. There’d be plenty of time to deal with the fallout from last night after he saw Dumbledore.* * * The door to the headmaster’s office was open. Harry entered. Stopped.Dumbledore sat behind his desk, leaning back. Snape stood beside a chair, a statue to anger. His face when he turned it to Harry was white, his eyes unnervingly blank.“Come in, Harry,” Dumbledore said in a dangerously gentle tone. “Sit down. Both of you … please.” The imprecation was directed at Snape, who moved like an old man to sit in his chair. Harry scuttled into another chair, staring puzzled at the headmaster.Dumbledore stared in between the two men for a long moment before speaking.“I’m sorry to have to bring this up, but Professor McGonagall saw Harry late last night, returning to his dormitory.”A faint feeling of impending doom descending upon Harry.Dumbledore continued, sounding a little awkward. “He looked, in her considered and experienced opinion, like someone who had been … er … sexually … accosted.”Oh Jesus fucking Christ. Harry felt the blood drain from his body, almost saw it pooling on the floor.“No one attacked me!” he shouted.“You were coming from your … special lessons chambers, I understand?” Dumbledore said. “Very late?”“I was upset,” Harry said. That much was true enough that he could put some verve into the words. “What we do is upsetting. You should know that.”“I do,” Dumbledore said. “However, Professor McGonagall was concerned that things might be occurring that are … beyond the purview and permissions granted the two of you.”“I don’t understand you,” Harry lied, trying to remember to breathe, to at least appear calm.“You are fortunate,” Snape put in. That drew Dumbledore’s eyes to him.Dumbledore said, “Are the two of you … involved?”Snape’s words dripped bitterness. “Are you asking me if I am sleeping with one of my students?”Dumbledore looked pained. “I am. I regret that I must, but I am.”“The answer is no.”Dumbledore turned placidly to Harry. “Harry?”“Shall I fetch the veritaserum?” Snape inserted the question like an icicle.Dumbledore raised a hand, somehow both courteous and imperious. “I was speaking to Harry, Severus.”Harry felt himself flush. He knew he looked guilty and sought, panicked, for a way to explain it that wouldn’t incriminate Snape. “No. He – Professor Snape won’t. But I … I want to.”Dumbledore blinked, and his severe expression eased. “Ah.”Harry felt the knot in his chest loosen; just to take up the slack, his head started to pound.To Snape Dumbledore said, “And you, Severus? Is it what you want?”Snape was stiff, ghastly pale. “No. There is nothing in the world I want less.”Harry schooled face and body to stillness. He had a pretty good idea nothing would happen to him but a lecture; Snape could lose his job, his safety, and any chance of a future career if what they had done got out. Damn it, why hadn’t he been careful, why hadn’t he thought?“I … um …” he stammered. “I made a pass at him.” He reddened again, let himself go with it. If he was clumsy and stupid and embarrassed, it lent credibility. “He … told me to … er … piss off, basically.” To Snape, sincerely, Harry said, “I’m sorry, professor.”Snape looked back at him, silent, unreadable.“I see,” Dumbledore said. It wasn’t possible to tell whether he saw or not. “Well, that does explain what Minerva saw, I should think. Harry, you must understand that—”“I know,” Harry said brusquely. “I know. Professor Snape made it very clear. I’m sorry there’s been any … misunderstandings. It won’t happen again.”Dumbledore looked sternly at the both of them. “I shall depend on that. The consequences of such a … liaison would be very unfortunate.”“Yes sir,” Harry said. He wanted to stand up, but he didn’t want to look that eager to leave.At last Dumbledore said, “Very well. You may go. Please take care, Severus, Harry.”Snape got up and swept from the room without another word. Harry gave Dumbledore a kind of apologetic parting glance and followed, not catching up with Snape until they were at the bottom of the stair.Snape stopped and Harry bumped into him, then backed away as Snape whirled to face him, his face still pale and set, but his eyes now smouldering.“I’m sorry,” Harry whispered. He turned from Snape, mortified, letting his aching forehead rest against the cool stone wall. “I’m so sorry.”“It isn’t your fault,” Snape said, equally quietly.Harry looked up at him, shaking his head, unable to accept that. “I won’t let you take the blame for this,” he said, still keeping his voice low. “That’s not fair.”“What is?” Snape countered. Then he sighed, turning away from Harry. “Go away, Potter, will you? I need a space of peace and quiet.” He shook his head slowly. Into that, Harry read appallment at the mess he, Harry, had gotten Snape into.To Snape’s back he said, “Yes sir,” then started away, miserable.“Harry.”Harry stopped, glanced back. Snape faced him, looking almost apologetic – for Snape, anyway.“Just … go do something else,” Snape said, dismissive but no longer cold. “Come back before lunch and we’ll start again on Hagrid’s pets. Time is short.”Harry inhaled a relieved breath. “Yes sir.”He went straight out of the castle, not seeing where he was going, walking – Who are you trying to fool? You’re running, just slowly – until he reached the open stretch of grounds near the front gates.God, what the hell had he been thinking? Snape had made it clear from the start that he’d get in trouble if they did …Harry shut his eyes and cursed, fists clenched. God, just thinking about it made him hard and hot all over … that Snape had kissed him, touched him, wanted him …No. Do you want to get him fired? Knowing that would probably get him killed, too?Harry stiffened his shoulders, lifting his head, staring across the cool, dew-damp grounds. Don’t think with your dick like a stupid adolescent. He’s protecting you, the least you can do is not endanger him.Harry forced himself to breathe, to walk, to think instead of feeling. Whatever he felt, whatever Snape felt (did he feel anything for Harry?), he could not do what he’d done last night, not again, not until Voldemort was dead or he was out of school or both – not until it wouldn’t endanger Snape’s position and safety.Harry cursed under his breath as he walked; it helped, a little. He had to do what Snape had been telling him to do. Study. Focus. Work. He had to try to ignore the feelings that –“Stop,” he snarled at himself.“’arry?”The call made Harry stop and look around.“’arry? ’elp me …”Hagrid? Harry looked around wildly at the faint, forlorn voice. It seemed to be coming from the forest outside the gates.Harry went to the gates, where the wards stopped, and scanned the woods he could see.“Hagrid? Are you out there?”He spared a moment wondering what Hagrid would be doing in the forest this early – what was Hagrid ever doing in the forest except indulging his fascination with “interesting creatures”?“’arry…” The voice – definitely Hagrid – sounded a little stronger, but almost afraid. Harry moved to the gates and pushed one open, seeing the bushes at the edge of the forest shift and rustle.“Hagrid? Where are you? I can’t see you.”“Right ‘ere.”The leaves of a bush parted and Harry saw Hagrid’s huge shoulders and hairy, unmistakable head pop out. Hagrid waved an arm at him. “’arry. Gimme a ’and, will yer? I need yer ’elp.”Harry went through the gate, wondering what sort of unspeakable monster his friend was struggling with now.The moment he stepped outside the gates he was hit by the most powerful immobilicorpus spell he’d ever felt or imagined. It slammed into him like a wall, holding him in place before he could even think to reach for his wand. Unable to move or cry out, he watched Hagrid step smiling from the bushes, wand in hand …Wand? Hagrid doesn’t have a whole wand…And Hagrid melted, shifting and shimmering and shrinking into the gleaming, smirking, blond-tressed form of Lucius Malfoy.“Mr. Potter,” he purred as he approached. “We meet again. For the last time.”Harry struggled with mind and body, but the spell – Voldemort had to be helping Malfoy, there was no way he was this powerful – held him firm.Malfoy’s pale eyes narrowed.“Much as I would enjoy playing with you now, you have an important meeting to attend.” He raised his wand, held delicately now in three fingers, and spoke a spell Harry didn’t know.Idiot, Harry told himself, fighting the spell with all his being. Idiot, to fall for a trap when you knew they were out here.Whatever the spell was it swarmed up like water drowning his consciousness. His mind blurred and faded, his body went limp and his vision turned to blackness.Harry’s last conscious thought was if I survive this, Snape’s going to kill me.* * * On the third day, when they pulled Harry to his feet, he went right back down again.It wasn’t defiance, and he had no particular fondness for the feel of the cold damp stone against his bruised bare knees or backside. He’d simply lost the requisite amount of control over his body. Crucio will do that to a person.They picked him up again, by his biceps, one Death Eater to a side, and he raised his head, still certain he would know if one of them were Snape. He looked at the mask on his left and the mask on his right, and let his head droop again, let them bear his weight.Not that the sight of himself was comforting, he thought, as they carried him along, his scraped toes just touching the tiled corridor floor. Cruciatus itself didn’t bruise you, but the resultant activities took place with no regard (internally or by the caster) for collateral damage. He didn’t know why they wouldn’t let him have clothes, since it was bitterly cold in his cell and they obviously wanted him alive for now, but he had a fair view of the myriad cuts and bruises decorating his pale body. He also had a fair sense of his hunger and growing weakness, though they had fed him sporadically since his capture.They’d left his mind alone, after a few fruitless attempts at Legilimency by Lucius Malfoy and Bellatrix Lestrange. He’d known it was them the moment they started, despite that both remained cloaked and masked, and he’d also learned more than he wanted to know from their minds while they tried to read his.That was one thing he’d learned well, at least, and it kept his thoughts clear.Clear enough to know that he didn’t have a great deal of hope.Due to hunger and abuse, as well as a few stupefication spells, he’d spent a fair amount of time unconscious; he’d have had no idea how long he’d been prisoner if he hadn’t thought (he could just hear Snape’s grudging “Five points to Gryffindor for presence of mind”) to conjure a wandless enumerarodies to tally the days on the wall of his cell.Three days. Surely Sn– surely someone was looking for him? Time was his enemy, but until his real enemy arrived he could only conserve his strength. He had to stay alive until Voldemort got there. He had to at least try to end this, once for all.The two silent Death Eaters carried him upstairs, into the lofty hall he’d seen in his dream-vision. At the far end stood a tall chair, a cloaked and hooded figure seated in it, and Harry felt power throb in the chill dusty air. Voldemort.In two rows down the middle, leading to him, stood Death Eaters, perhaps two dozen, gathered to see the Dark Lord eliminate the greatest threat to his domination.Harry laughed inside his head, bitter, at the idea that he was the greatest threat to anything or anyone. He had only the one hope, and it was uncertain.They set him on his feet and he stood, shaking, manacled hands clasped in front of his shrunken genitals in an effort at retaining the faintest whisper of dignity, though he’d been spread-eagled in front of some of these men and women a couple of times in the past few days, bare and open and shrieking from Cruciatus, letting his body take the abuse, grateful (afterward) that at least his mind was still his own.The hooded head lifted, and the red eyes Harry saw in his nightmares glowed at him, in a face almost human. He swallowed – in vain; his parched throat only convulsed uselessly – and tried to stop trembling.“Harry Potter. Always you. You have more lives than a cat.”Harry, jaw clenched to keep his teeth from chattering, said nothing.“I hope you enjoyed your little holiday with my loyal associates.” Voldemort nodded toward his line of Death Eaters, and Harry felt their hum of obsequious amusement along his skin. He shuddered and Voldemort laughed, a low hiss.“I allowed them to toy with you, but their little games were nothing, the merest sliver of a fragment, of the suffering I intend to inflict upon your pathetic carcass before I destroy you.”“I’ve heard this speech before,” Harry said, hearing and hating how unsteady his voice was. “But I’m still alive. Tom.”“Shut up!” Voldemort hissed, waving a clawlike hand at Harry. Harry felt the invisible slap across his face and let his head roll with it, blinking until the pain eased and he could see again.Let it go. Let it go. Don’t antagonize, don’t fight. Let him think you’re weak, cowed. Don’t make the mistakes Sherwood made. Wait for your chance.But would he know his chance when he saw it? Harry tried not to look around, tried to sense if Snape was there.“Looking for your teacher?” Voldemort said.Harry’s insides turned to ice and shattered.The Dark Lord’s fleshless lips stretched in a smile. “Indeed he is no doubt wondering why I have not called him here with the rest of my loyal followers. But I have learned, Mr. Potter, that he is anything but a loyal follower.”Harry tried to keep himself from showing anything, but was shaking harder, and Voldemort had to notice it.“His treachery, his assistance to Dumbledore, have been revealed to me by a truly loyal follower. And for that, he shall pay.”Harry sensed a Death Eater near him shifting, standing a little taller; when he let his senses reach out, just a little, he could tell it was Lucius Malfoy. But how could Malfoy have learned what Snape was doing?“Yes,” Voldemort gloated. “He shall pay. In fact, I have summoned him here, today, to see the results of his handiwork. And to use you, Potter, as the instrument of my vengeance against him for his treachery. It will please me to turn you against your teacher and watch you tear him to shreds under my command.”It’s a trap. Set for Snape.Fear and rage exploded in Harry, burning away his shivers, his bone-aching coldness, filling his body with fire. At first it felt good, it brought him to life, but he realized that he could not lose his temper if he hoped to perform the spell Snape had taught him. It required that he be calm. Now he had a greater motivation: if he failed, not only would he die, Snape would die too, and at his hands.He breathed, let the anger spread through him and leave him, burning off from his skin, like a quick hot shower, clearing his mind and helping him to remember what he had to do. He stared at Voldemort, let himself hate him, let the hate swell and spread and dissipate. Then he formed the spell, the word and the intent and the focus, in his mind. Merlin, let me do this right. For me, for Snape… please …“My dear Severus should be here any moment.”Harry’s head jerked up. Voldemort smiled at him, a forked tongue darting briefly from his mouth.“He’ll get the welcome he deserves. Imperio!”Head bent, Harry held Voldemort’s red eyes with his own and whispered, “Inanoterrapotens.”The Imperius curse hit him in the next split second. He felt the pain, felt the wrenching of control. Felt it, allowed it, let it in, in deeper, all the way into the core of his mind and beyond.Remove yourself. He could hear Snape’s voice, low, soothing, drawing him away from the spell, away from the clutches of Voldemort and his power, now pouring unstopped into Harry, through him.Harry let his awareness fall away, let himself fall away, let the spell, and Voldemort, be the only things that existed.There is only the spell, the earth, Voldemort’s power flowing unstoppable into the earth. Remove yourself. Only the spell and the earth.Spell. Earth.Spell … earth … nothing.* * * Severus Snape entered the hall. Silent, still, lit with diffuse golden light, and scattered with bodies like the trail of trampled flowers after a funeral procession.He stepped into the room and Professors McGonagall and Dumbledore followed, neither with wands in hand, though both were prepared for defense.Never had Severus Snape responded faster to a summons from Voldemort – and never had he imagined bringing Dumbledore or anyone else from the Order along with him. But a lot of unimaginable things had happened this summer.Snape scanned the familiar chamber. He’d never been told its precise location. That lack of faith on Voldemort’s part had cost them three days, every second of which had eaten like maggots into Snape’s gut.Nothing moved but dust motes, high in the chill air. The scent was death, overlaid with magic.No.“Don’t panic, Severus,” McGonagall said behind him, making him aware he’d spoken aloud. “He might not even be here.”“He’s here,” Snape growled and strode into the hall, scanning, searching, not thinking or breathing, not bending or touching. He didn’t need to.In his wake Minerva and Albus moved, bending to check, finding nothing but Death Eaters, nothing but death.“How can this have happened?” Minerva whispered to Albus. “Harry?”Dumbledore narrowed his eyes. “Perhaps. Not directly, I think. Some kind of side effect of the very unusual spell Severus taught him? I don’t know.” He moved to the tall chair, to the form slumped in it. He tilted the body back, saw the dead crimson eyes pointed at the ceiling, the mouth open, obscenely peaceful.“It appears the most gentle killing spell I’ve ever seen,” Minerva said at his side. “Severus and Harry developed this?”Dumbledore shook his head. “Brilliant. Terrible, but brilliant. They’ve saved us all.”“But at what cost?” Minerva whispered. “Where is Mr. Potter?”“Albus.”At the whispered word, Dumbledore and McGonagall turned. Minerva gasped.Snape, eyes screaming, face shroud-white, stood holding the limp naked body of Harry Potter in his arms.“Help me,” Snape said. “He’s not breathing.”Dumbledore laid one hand on Harry’s forehead, the other on Snape’s arm – and the three of them vanished.Minerva shook her head sadly and Apparated to 12 Grimmauld Place to collect a few Order members to help clean up this … victory.* * * Alleged impossibility aside, they Apparated directly into the infirmary at Hogwarts, startling Madame Pomfrey to her feet to stare at the strange sight of Snape gently settling a naked, manacled Harry Potter onto a bed.A word from Snape and the manacles fell clanking to the floor. Then Poppy was treated to the stranger sight – so strange she blinked, unsure she’d seen it – of the potions master brushing the boy’s tangled hair from his eyes before stepping back, turning to Dumbledore, silent, his face furious with fear.Dumbledore eased himself down to the bedside and laid both hands on Harry’s forehead. Snape watched, hunched, hands knotted in front of him, until Dumbledore said softly:“He is alive.”Poppy, coming around the other side of the bed, glanced at Snape when he made a tiny, choked sound, but the man didn’t move or shift his stare from Harry.“What has happened, headmaster?” she asked, touching Harry’s cold wrist. She quickly pulled a blanket over his body, noting the cuts and bruises even as she covered them.“Earth magic, Poppy,” he said, hands still framing Harry’s head. “He’s lost himself in the spell, somehow.” Dumbledore looked up at Snape. “Severus, is there anything you can tell me about the cant that might help bring him back?”Snape’s eyes never left Harry’s face. “Inanoterrapotens. He had difficulty removing himself from the path of the spell.” His tone was distant, colorless.Dumbledore nodded, shut his eyes. “He is not lost in the spell, then, but inside himself. That should make … things …” He bent closer over Harry.“I can—” Snape moved abruptly, then stopped. Dumbledore didn’t look up, and Snape wouldn’t meet Poppy’s curious glance.Endless minutes crawled by with no sound or motion from any of the four people in the room. Poppy felt the magic hum in the air, in the stones of the castle; she could almost see the aura of power from Dumbledore as he sought to pull Harry’s consciousness back to the light. Snape stood taut as a harpstring, so close to snapping Poppy felt herself wincing in anticipation.A surge of soundless, invisible power made them all flinch; Dumbledore made a soft sound of surprise and sat back.Harry’s eyes snapped open and he shot upright. “Voldemort!”“He is dead,” Dumbledore said in a tone both reassuring and commanding. Harry’s wild eyes latched onto the headmaster as Dumbledore caught his shoulders.“He is dead, Harry. He is gone. You are safe.” Dumbledore tried to ease Harry back down, but Harry fought him.Shaking, he said, “Where is Snape? Voldemort said –”“Here.” Snape moved around Dumbledore to let Harry see him, and Harry’s body abruptly relaxed, slumping back onto the bed. His eyes fell shut, tears glittering on his lashes as he exhaled in relief.“Now. Rest.” Dumbledore pulled the blankets up to Harry’s chin and rose to his feet. “You may tend his other injuries, Poppy.”Diagnostic spells on the tip of her tongue, Madame Pomfrey shooed Snape away from the bedside and sat where Dumbledore had sat. Snape moved, silent, toward the door, increasingly slowly. Then stopped. He turned back around and moved, silent, until he was again by Harry’s side. Pomfrey looked up at him and let him stay.She worked in efficient silence for a while; when she finished she laid her hand lightly on the boy’s forehead to check her work.Harry shifted, opening bleary eyes that took in and dismissed her instantly. He looked at Snape and reached out a weak hand to grasp his wrist.“We did it,” he whispered and his eyes fell shut again, but his fingers didn’t loose their hold. Pomfrey gifted him with another very interested look before leaving Harry’s bedside.Snape sat in the chair by the head of the bed, heavily. His arm lay on the bed, away from his body, as if he were shackled to a wall in a dungeon. He listened as Pomfrey assured Dumbledore none of the other injuries was life-threatening; he couldn’t hear what Dumbledore said in reply. The fingers around his wrist gradually loosened, and he forced himself not to move, to reach for them, or to stare at the boy’s pale face.A hand fell on his shoulder, heavy with age and authority.“Go get some rest,” Dumbledore said, his tone brooking no refusal. “He’ll sleep a while, now, and you should do the same. He’s in no danger, my boy.” The headmaster patted Snape. “And I have a rather important meeting to arrange with the Ministry of Magic.”Snape looked up at him blankly, then got to his feet and left the infirmary. Poppy watched him go, shot Dumbledore an anxious glance, and peered out the infirmary doors.In the corridor, Snape nearly tripped over Scratch. The cat darted aside and he scooped him up, tucking the animal under one arm. The cat mewled.“He’ll be all right,” he said, perhaps to the cat, perhaps to himself. “It’s over.”He stopped, leaned on the carven stone wall for a moment. Scratch took the opportunity to climb up his robes to his shoulder, where he swayed, then settled in.“It’s over,” Snape repeated, and continued to his rooms.Poppy turned back to the headmaster, who met her puzzled gaze calmly.“Call me if the boy awakens,” he said, emphasis mysterious but audible, and departed.* * * Snape felt someone penetrate his wards – not an enemy – and opened his eyes to see Harry move warily into the room.He stopped by Snape’s bed, blinking at him in the candlelight, fresh-bathed from the look and scent of him, bruises stark on his pale skin where it showed past the baggy jeans and sweatshirt he wore.Snape sat up, automatically catching Scratch to hold the semi-awakened cat against his bare chest.“Harry.” The whisper escaped from his gut, and he felt his eyes prickle with some emotion greater than relief.“I sneaked out of the infirmary.” Harry looked at him. At Scratch.Snape stood, feeling himself shake, and Scratch opened his eyes to blink at Harry, offering him a sleepy half-meow of annoyed greeting.Harry glanced at the cat, reached out a trembling hand, let it drop halfway and exhaled a kind of laugh. He looked up again at Snape, shaking his head.“Harry,” Snape repeated, stupidly, his entire world in the one word.Harry plucked Scratch from his unmoving hands and poured the cat onto the bed, immediately replacing him, easing himself into Snape’s embrace with a shuddering exhalation of exhausted relief.Snape held him hard, bewildered and at the same time more aware of the perfect rightness of a thing than he had ever thought to be again.“I dreamed,” Harry said. “I dreamed he killed you.”“No,” Snape said. “You killed him.”Harry drew back, searched his face as if unable to believe it.“Do you remember what happened?”“I remember being there. I remember Death Eaters. I remember Voldemort saying he was going to use me to kill you.”“Is that all?” Snape asked, wondering if Dumbledore would make him tell Harry what he had done, if the boy could not remember. And if the headmaster would have the nerve to call it a kindness.Harry’s face twisted. “I remember casting the spell. That’s all.”“Do you recall what Dumbledore told you in the infirmary?” Snape asked.Harry shook his head. “I just remember dreaming. Then I woke up. You weren’t there. I was scared.”Snape shook his head, drowning in his own disbelief, and Harry pressed his face into the potions master’s neck, holding him fiercely.“He knew,” Harry said, the words now muffled. “He was going to use me to kill you. He—”“Stop.” Snape squeezed, then grabbed Harry’s arms and pushed him back. He held Harry’s gaze with his own, making him see the truth there. “It’s done. It’s over.”And Harry yanked him into a frantic kiss. His tongue plunged deep, his hands sliding up to twine through Snape’s sleep-tousled hair.Snape’s body and brain flared into responses confused enough to alarm him. He made a noise of protest and grabbed Harry’s wrists, pushing him back, staring.Harry hissed in pain, eyes pinched.Snape looked down, opening his fingers. Magically healed but still red, marks of manacle-scores circled both wrists. He cradled them in his palms, appalled, and looked at Harry again.I’m sorry, he didn’t say. He turned from Harry’s intent face and bumped into his bedpost, catching it, holding himself down, swallowing all the things he knew he ought to say, or wanted to say.Harry came up behind him, close enough to see Snape’s hands clenched around the carved wooden post.“I want to be with you.” Each word, weighted with meaning, made Snape flinch.“I don’t want to hurt you,” he said, staring blindly at the wall, Harry’s nearness tingling across the back of his neck.“Then don’t send me away.” Harry’s fingers touched his bare shoulder, stroking downward, and he lurched away, circling the bedpost to sink onto the bed.“It’s too late,” he said. His hands lay curled on his knees, palms up. He started when Harry laughed.“I don’t think so.” The boy came around the bedpost, stopped in front of him, and touched the faded Dark Mark. Snape’s head came up, almost defensive, and Harry met his gaze.“That’s over with,” Harry said. “Everything else is just starting.”Snape shook his head, but he knew Harry wouldn’t listen to any of his denials or facts. Even he didn’t want to listen to them. Right now he couldn’t think of a good reason why he should.“You look … naked without your glasses,” he managed to say. Harry smiled.“Glasses, wand. All gone.” He shrugged. “It doesn’t matter.” He laid his hands on Snape’s shoulders, each finger a burning presence against his bare skin.“You found me,” he said.“I had to,” Snape said automatically, and the words changed in midair as if a spell had been cast upon them, turning from statement to confession.Harry stood straight, the familiar worrisome look of determination on his face, and pulled off his sweatshirt, dropping it on the floor. Snape’s protest died in his suddenly tight throat as Harry undid the loose jeans and stepped out of them, standing flushed and aroused before him.“You’re shaking,” Snape choked out, hearing how old he sounded, feeling the blood pounding throughout his body.Harry said, “So are you.” He knelt in front of Snape, his hands sliding up the man’s thighs, stroking, squeezing, exploring. He stared up at Snape, unsmiling.“I don’t want you to make me come, then throw me out. I don’t want you to treat me like a child. Like a nuisance. Like I was Scratch.” He curled one hand over Snape’s erection and Snape shivered. “I want to be with you. I want to make love with you. I want to matter.”Snape squeezed his eyes shut. God. You do. He opened his eyes to watch his own hands creep fearfully out, coming to rest on Harry’s shoulders, the contact so real, so solid, that he started.“I’m not a ghost,” Harry said. “And I’m not going anywhere.”Marveling, Snape let himself feel, let himself explore the taut smooth muscles of Harry’s back and arms. So beautiful. So damned young…And when he would have drawn back, warm palms framed his face, warm breath touched his cheek, warm lips covered his.Snape felt surrender in the back of his throat and opened his mouth to protest. Harry slipped his tongue inside and Snape’s no became an inarticulate demand for more.Snape wrapped his arms around Harry’s body, pulling him onto the bed, and Harry didn’t struggle, didn’t speak, only kissed him harder, deeper, knotting his fingers in Snape’s hair, rocking his hips against Snape’s.Scratch jumped to the floor with a complaining meow; Harry glanced at him and smiled.“Jealous,” he breathed – gasping as Snape rolled him over onto his back and took command of the kiss, took command of his body with kisses that left Harry mindlessly squirming, his hips dancing as he tried to grind his erection against any part of Snape’s body.Snape lay a hand on his stomach and Harry stilled, looking up into black roiling eyes in a ferociously intent face.The hand smoothed down his body to his thigh and Harry closed his eyes, feeling its weight, its promise.Fingers slid between his legs, delicately cupped and massaged his balls, and he writhed, whimpering, clutching at Snape’s shoulders, trying to bring them closer together. “Please …”Snape lowered his head, hair and breath tickling hot and cool along Harry’s stomach, and swallowed down Harry’s aching cock. The sensation was so new, so wet and intimate and incredible, that Harry cried out and came almost instantly, shuddering as the stars filled his sight, his brain, his entire being.When the stars receded Snape was over him, their faces inches apart. Harry gasped in a deep, much needed breath and grabbed the man’s head, drawing him down into a slow, exploring kiss.When they broke for air, Harry reached between them to press Snape’s erection; the man’s head fell back and he moaned.“I want you,” Harry said. “We’re not stopping halfway.”Snape looked at him again, eyes burning, and despite his determination, Harry was shaking. He set unsteady hands to untying the string holding Snape’s sleepdrawers up.“Accio lapsioflos.” Snape’s whisper was harsh with need and control. He eased his hips up to let Harry pull the pyjamas off, and when Harry pressed a wet tongue to his stomach he pushed back involuntarily, then shoved Harry back onto his back with a growl. Harry watched a tiny jar smack into Snape’s upraised hand, watched the lid cast aside, smelt a pleasant spicy scent, saw Snape’s fingers dip in and come out glistening. Then the jar was also flung aside and Snape was leaning over him, his hand again sliding between Harry’s legs, this time to stroke behind his balls, between his cheeks, stroking, slow, firm …“Oh …” Harry shut his eyes and just felt. “That’s nice … so nice …”The slick fingers pressed and he jumped.“Did I hurt you?” Again the harsh, scraping whisper, so eloquent of desire that Harry shivered.“No,” he breathed, forcing his eyes open to look at Snape, flushed, panting, on the edge of control. “No, it’s good …” He reached down to wrap his fingers around Snape’s wrist, guiding, pushing. “Oh … yes … more …”The fingers slid inside and Harry couldn’t keep his eyes open; he trembled and pushed and then something shot through him like lightning and his body nearly left the bed.“Oh … oh … God … please …” Harry’s gasping pleas drew a pained growl from Snape, and the fingers were gone.Without word or warning he lifted Harry bodily, turned him over, holding him tight about the hips as he slid into him, one hard slick slide that forced a moan from Harry; his body arched, bowstring taut, overwhelmed with a feeling so alien he didn’t know whether it was good or bad.Snape was over him, his chest against Harry’s back, rocking slowly, Harry’s name breathed out on every panting exhalation.“Oh … fuck …” Harry throbbed. His ass throbbed, his insides throbbed, everything … and after a while he realized the throb was pleasure, pumping through his veins, skating along his nerves. He tried to remember to breathe, moving as Snape moved inside him and against him, jolted with that mind-blinding stab of pleasure every few strokes. When Snape’s hand left his hip to curl about his cock, he realized he was stone-hard again. He shivered and jerked his hips and Snape groaned into his ear. He moved faster then, sliding hot and hard, in and out, pumping Harry’s needy cock at the same pace, Harry rocking and shivering and heedless of the noises he made as he felt his insides swell toward orgasm.Snape stilled, squeezed, and thrust hard once, twice – and Harry exploded. Exquisite pleasure flared throughout his body, reducing him to ash. He melted, utterly spent, utterly sated, settling somewhere near the warm dark core of the earth.Until he felt Snape move away, a rough awakening, and he pushed himself up with a groan, turning to see the man pressed against a bedpost, heels digging in, eyes pinched and horrified in his flushed face.“No.” He turned over – right, he would be sore there later, for certain – and grabbed Snape, pulled him into an unmistakable embrace. “You didn’t hurt me. God ... it was amazing.”Snape laughed against his shoulder, a muffled sound of disbelief, not unlike a sob.Harry pulled the man down onto the blankets, raised his head to look at him. “I feel like … like champagne. Golden bubbles and sparkles all over. Doesn’t that mean it was good?”Snape’s wide eyes searched his face, fearful and amused and vulnerable, and Harry smiled and pulled him close, stroking his back.“Don’t be like that,” he said. “I’ll want another go in a bit.”Again the painful laugh against his shoulder, but Snape’s arms came about him. “Harry …” The word was amazement, and Harry chuckled in his turn.After a long silence, Snape said, “I will lose my job for this. I will lose everything.”Harry raised his head to look down at Snape.“What is it that Dumbledore knows about you, that makes you do all this for him?” He remembered what Snape had said in the forest. “What is your weakness?”Snape shook his head, this time in surrender, and his fingers trailed along Harry’s jaw. “I am undone by trust.”Harry read the truth in his expression, and a cynical smile tweaked his mouth. “And he trusted you.”Snape nodded, fingertips tickling across Harry’s lips.“That bastard,” Harry breathed, and Snape laughed, like a glass thrown against a wall.“You trust me,” he said, a comparison. Harry shook his head.“Dumbledore’s using you. I just love you.”Snape froze, his hand falling away from Harry’s face. “No.”Harry snorted a soft laugh, hurt but not surprised. “You don’t have to do anything about it. You don’t have to believe it, or say it back to me. But it’s the truth.”Snape held him tighter, not in comfort but in fear, and Harry held him back.* * * Harry opened his eyes, inhaling a just-awakening scent of sex, Snape and himself that made him smile. His blurry gaze rested on the black pillowcase next to his own head, itself unburdened. He sat up, slowly, dazed, as if he’d been sedated.He was alone in the warm, rumpled bed. Snape’s tall windows showed darkness outside, but the chill in the air announced that dawn was near.Sleepy and befuddled as he was, Harry knew he should get back to the infirmary before anyone noticed he was gone.He climbed out of the bed, sore all over, and groaned, then smiled.Voldemort was gone (though the details were still no more than a mist in the back of Harry’s mind) and he and Snape had made love. He could think of no better reasons in the world to be sore.“Professor?” Harry collected his rumpled clothing from the floor and dressed, grateful for the cleaning spell he vaguely remembered Snape performing before he, at least, fell asleep, despite his desire for “another go.”Harry looked back at the bed, wondering if Snape had slept at all. His own memory of dozing off was of lying comfortably in warm, strong arms, his head against Snape’s chest, listening to the man’s heart beat.Judging by the fact that it was still dark he couldn’t have slept more than a few hours, which partly explained his feeling of dizzy disconnectedness. He poked his nose into Snape’s bathroom. Empty. Where could the man have gone at this hour?Unable to think clearly, Harry stumbled through the man’s rooms, seeing no sign of him, and headed downstairs to return to the infirmary. Wherever Snape had gone, Harry owed it to him to not reveal where he’d spent the night, so he needed to get back into the hospital bed before Madame Pomfrey came in for her morning rounds.The stone floors of the castle were like rough ice on his bare feet as he padded along the darkened corridors. His body complained in various twinges and aches, each bringing back either a vague flash of memory of Death Eater abuse or a clear, poignant image of the incredible interlude with Snape.He tried despite that to pay attention to his route, in case Filch were prowling, but in the summer, with Harry the only student, it had seemed that the caretaker hadn’t found patrolling worth his while. Harry made it to the infirmary without sight or sound of another living creature.He eased the door open quietly and crept across the large main room – empty, of course – to the curtained-off bed he’d slipped out of only half a dozen hours earlier. The sky was lightening with hints of dawn as he slipped around the standing curtain.And stopped, his insides turning to rotten-apple mush.Dumbledore sat beside the rumpled, empty hospital bed, his hands in his lap. His blue eyes rose to regard Harry gravely.“Good morning, Harry.”Harry straightened up. You faced Voldemort. You faced Voldemort. It helped.“Good morning, headmaster,” he said.“You really shouldn’t be wandering the castle in the wee hours barefoot,” Dumbledore said. “You’ll catch a chill. However, I am glad to see that you don’t seem to be suffering too many lingering ill-effects from your most astonishing victory of yesterday.”Harry stared, feeling his chin scrape the floor, as Dumbledore rose slowly to his feet and adjusted his robes.“Back to bed with you,” Dumbledore said, his tone mild though the twinkle was gone from his eyes as he regarded Harry. “You have a couple of surprise visitors coming in a few hours, and you’ll have a long day ahead of you.”Harry picked up his jaw. “Visitors?” He sat on the bed, glad to get his feet up off the cold floor.“Mr Weasley and Miss Granger have been given permission to collect you and take you to Diagon Alley,” Dumbledore said. The words rang with bizarre normality. “Term begins tomorrow, if you’ll recall. Though I can well understand it might have slipped your memory. The wizarding world has much to thank you for, Harry.”To hear Dumbledore speaking in his usual cheering tones, but without that everpresent sparkle of cheer in his eyes, made Harry shiver. What was going on here?“Tomorrow,” he echoed. He had indeed lost track of the days.“And for the first time in years, without the shadow of Voldemort,” Dumbledore went on. “Thanks to you.”“And Professor Snape,” Harry said automatically.“And Professor Snape,” Dumbledore agreed.At that moment, Harry longed to ask if Dumbledore knew where Snape was, but he looked into those grave, untwinkling eyes and couldn’t do it.“Do you feel up to a trip to Diagon Alley to purchase your school supplies?” Dumbledore asked. “If you don’t, I’m sure –”“I’m fine,” Harry said, not at all sure if that was true. “I can do it. When will they be here, headmaster?”“Midmorning,” Dumbledore said. Harry thought he looked older, more lined than before. Then he wondered if that was just because the infirmary was growing lighter as the sun rose. “That should give you time to get a little more sleep and have some breakfast.”Harry nodded and lay back on the bed, pulling the blanket over his still-dressed body. He was exhausted, his thoughts still strangely vague.A rustle of robes, and Dumbledore stood by the bedside. “You’re just tired, Harry. You should sleep a little. The wizarding world will know of the great thing you have done, and there will be much to talk about, later, but for now, rest…”Harry tried to keep his eyes open, to speak, but almost as soon as he realized Dumbledore was casting a spell over him, he drifted into sleep.* * * Madame Pomfrey woke Harry with a cold hand on his forehead. He started awake and sat up.“What … where am I?”Unperturbed, Pomfrey said, “The infirmary, dear. Don’t worry. You’re just fine.”Harry looked around blankly. “What … what time is it?”“A bit after ten,” She said, taking his pulse and, with her free hand, waving her wand over him in a diagnostic spell. “Why?”Harry shut his mouth and tried to remember. Dumbledore, talking to him. Putting him to sleep. Snape, being gone when Harry woke up. Making love. Voldemort.“I killed him,” he said. The words didn’t feel real, a report from others rather than a fact he knew for himself.Pomfrey let go his wrist. “You did indeed, Mr. Potter. You did indeed.” She was beaming at him. Harry stared up at her, uncomprehending, blurted the first thing that came to mind.“Where is Professor Snape?”She blinked. “Why, here somewhere, dear, I suppose.”“Have you seen him?” Harry demanded.“Why, yes,” she said, as if she weren’t really sure. “He wasn’t at breakfast, but I did see him in the corridor outside the library after breakfast, carrying an armload of books. Why?”Harry deflated. “No reason. Thank you.” He was here, then, and safe.“How do you feel, dear?” she asked then. “Would you like some breakfast? I understand you have visitors in a little while.”Harry thought about it. He still felt tired and sore, but his head was clearer. And he was hungry.“I would like some breakfast, please,” he said.While Madame Pomfrey fetched his food, Harry sat on the edge of his bed, taking stock internally and externally.He remembered being taken, perfectly well. He remembered the abuse, not quite so clearly, but he could mentally track the days. He remembered, like a nightmare from which he’d just awoken, facing Voldemort. If Dumbledore and Snape said he’d killed Voldemort, he believed them, but he didn’t wholly believe it, because he couldn’t remember. He didn’t remember anything after that until he’d awakened here, in this bed, in the middle of the night, with a desperate need to find Snape, to be near him.And he remembered that. Oh, he remembered it. Harry smiled and hugged his aching body as he remembered every kiss, every touch.And every word. I will lose everything.The warmth of memory iced over at that, as Harry recalled Dumbledore’s face this morning. The headmaster obviously knew where Harry had been. Why he’d said nothing about it, Harry couldn’t guess. Was he cutting Harry and Snape some slack because they’d destroyed Voldemort? Or was this just the calm before the storm? Dumbledore obviously hadn’t fired Snape yet, or he wouldn’t still be here. So there was time. There was hope.The arrival of his breakfast, and while he was wolfing down the last of it, of Hermione and Ron, put off further speculation.His friends were puzzled and worried as they huddled around him while he put his battered trainers on.“Mum and dad talked to Dumbledore on the Floo for a long time this morning,” Ron said. “I didn’t get to hear all of it, but then they said they were going to take the three of us to Diagon Alley today … what’s going on?”“I’ll tell you later,” Harry said. “Are your parents here?”Ron nodded. “Downstairs with Dumbledore. Fudge is there too. A few other Ministry people as well.”“What’s happened, Harry?” Hermione asked. “Voldemort?”“They … nobody told you anything?” Harry said. Both his friends shook their heads.Harry got off the bed. “Come on, then.”As they left the infirmary, he sketched in the kidnap, the abuse, and his confrontation with Voldemort. His friends went white and clutched at his arms.“What happened?” Ron demanded.Harry shook his head. “I can’t remember. They said I killed him. I guess it must be so, since I’m here and alive. But all I remember is casting the spell and sort of … fading away. Nothing until I woke up here in the infirmary.” He didn’t waste a moment considering whether or not to tell them about Snape; even with his best friends he wasn’t up to the amount of convincing and explaining that would entail. Not yet.“Dead,” Hermione echoed thoughtfully. “I can’t believe it.”“Neither can I,” Harry said ruefully.“If he’s dead, why’re all those Ministry and Order people meeting with Dumbledore?” Ron asked. Hermione rolled her eyes.“Obviously they’re discussing it and working out how to tell everyone,” she said. That hadn’t even occurred to Harry, but it made sense.“Think they’ll just release it to the papers?” he said, wincing at the thought of the publicity. Boy Who Lived Again, Slayer of Voldemort. It made his breakfast writhe in his stomach to think of it.Hermione considered. “That would be the easiest way, an announcement from the Ministry that Voldemort’s dead.” She looked sympathetically at Harry. “I’m sorry, Harry. I know how much you hate the fuss.”Harry sighed. “Maybe I can hide out somewhere until it dies down.”“Another eleven years?” Hermione said wisely. Harry chuckled.“Maybe not.”They ran into Arthur and Molly Weasley in the corridor outside Dumbledore’s office tower. Both adults rushed Harry with hugs and pettings and nervous expressions of concern.“I’m okay,” he said, trying not to snap or jerk away from their awkward affection. “Really. I’m fine.”Molly pulled him into a tight, brief hug, then pushed him back at arm’s length – he was taller than she was, finally – to look at him.“Harry,” she said, tearing up. “You’ve grown into a man, and such a brave man. So brave …”“Mum,” Ron chided her, and she blushed and let Harry go. Harry shot Ron a grateful look.“Shouldn’t we be going to Diagon Alley?” Ron said clearly. “Harry’s got to get his stuff for school.”Going along with the change of subject gratefully, Harry said, “I can’t believe term starts tomorrow.”“Well, you had other things on your mind,” Hermione said. Harry nodded, thinking she didn’t know the half of it.“Come along, then,” Arthur Weasley said. “We can Floo from the teachers’ lounge.” He gathered the group together and herded them in the appropriate direction.Harry’s hopes to get at least a glimpse of Snape before he left for Diagon Alley didn’t materialize. He tried to think the best of the situation, to hope that Snape was just going about his day to avoid suspicion, as Harry was trying to do. He tried very hard to think that.* * * Harry stopped in the street in front of Ollivander’s. “I’m going to need a new wand.”Ron and Hermione stopped too. The Weasleys, a few paces behind and happily carrying Harry’s books and supplies for him (despite his protests), didn’t hear, but his friends came closer, concerned and surprised.“Harry …” Ron began.“The Death Eaters took it,” Harry said. “I keep … not forgetting, exactly, but I assume I still have it –” He patted the robe pocket over his heart – “then I go to reach for it and I remember it’s gone.”Hermione took his arm. “No time like the present.” She hauled him toward Ollivander’s. Ron muttered something about her sounding like an old woman, but followed.They banged into the shop and stopped in the dusty silence. There were no other customers, and the shop was cool and dim after the bright summer sun outside.Harry moved away from his friends, toward the high counter and, behind it, the rows of narrow boxes holding wands of every imaginable (and unimaginable) description.Harry looked up and down the shelves, wondering. If every wand was unique, and uniquely suited to its owner, how could he be given another wand? But surely he wasn’t the first wizard to lose his wand? Snape could no doubt have explained it to him.Harry pushed the thought aside and rang the bell.Faint shuffling noises approached from the back of the shop, and Mr. Ollivander came slowly around a tall shelf to stop at the counter and peer down at Harry.“Mr. Potter. What brings you here?”Harry said, “I need a new wand.” Obviously, he thought, then wondered at his impatience. What had Ollivander ever done to him? But he was edgier with every minute he was away from Hogwarts.Ollivander’s brows rose slowly. “A new wand. And what has happened to your old one?”“Voldemort happened to it,” Harry said. “I need a new one.” He heard Hermione and Ron gasp behind him, but the news was going to come out soon enough anyway. He was surprised people weren’t already talking about it. Then again, maybe they were, just not in front of him. As usual.Ollivander looked at him for a long time, but the expression in his eyes was so shrewd, so measuring, that Harry assumed it was for a reason more significant than absent-mindedness. He waited silently.“Yes…” Ollivander said finally, and shuffled off to collect a few boxes from his ancient shelves.He set three boxes side by side on the counter and opened them. Harry saw a light-colored wand, a reddish wand, and a wand of very dark brown.“Now,” Ollivander said. “Shall we ..?”Harry let his hand pass over each wand, stopping at the dark brown one. He glanced at Ollivander for permission to handle it, and the wand maker nodded.Harry felt the thrill of power up his arm as he took up the wand. He smiled and raised it, trying to remember a harmless spell. It had been a while. His eye landed on the bell atop Ollivander’s counter and he pointed the wand at it.“Wingardium leviosa.”The bell snapped into the air, dinging faintly, and hovered for a moment.“This one,” Harry said, knowing it.Ollivander again examined his face as Harry let the bell settle back on the counter.“Mountain ash,” Ollivander said. “Dragonheart core. Fourteen inches, strong and not very flexible. Interesting.” He regarded Harry again. “Most interesting.”“I’ll take it,” Harry said, not interested in Ollivander’s speculations. He knew the right wand when he felt it, and this was it, despite its differences from his old one. Or maybe because of them. You’re not the same Boy Who Lived who came in here six years ago, that’s for certain.He paid Ollivander and slid his new wand into the pocket in his robe, feeling fully clad for the first time all day.“Strange,” Hermione said as they left the shop. “That it should be so very different from your first wand.”Harry looked at her. “Is it?”She didn’t answer, but gave him a look not unlike the wand maker’s.The Weasleys stood waiting outside Ollivander’s. Harry, done with his shopping and anxious to see Snape, was for returning to Hogwarts at once, but the Weasleys offered to treat the trio to a sundae at Fortescue’s, and they all looked so eager and worried when he hesitated that he hadn’t the heart to refuse. Besides, he knew it would look odd if he was in a great rush to get back – what reason could he possibly have for wanting to separate so soon from his best friends?They gathered at a small table in the warm sun outside the ice cream parlor and dug into their sundaes. Harry, recalling the cake and ice cream he’d shared with Snape on his birthday, smiled down at his sundae.“There you go,” Arthur Weasley said. “Just the thing to cheer you up, Harry, a little ice cream.”Molly beamed and nodded.Ron said, “Dad, Harry just killed You Know Who. He’s not a little kid. Ice cream isn’t going to fix things any more.”Arthur looked abashed, but Harry, feeling bad for him, said, “Well, there’s nothing to fix, now, is there?” He forced a smile at the Weasleys, though privately he fully agreed with Ron’s assessment of things. The remark showed Harry that his friends, too, were growing up, and he longed for a way to tell them about Snape.Tell them what? He couldn’t begin to think of a way to explain all that had changed over the summer, not even to himself.“Harry,” Arthur Weasley began, very seriously. Harry looked up from the remains of his sundae.“Yes sir?”“I’d like to apologize.” Arthur flushed and Harry said:“Sir?”“The headmaster explained to me that you had been taking special defense classes this summer with Professor Snape under his orders. I … if I had realized the reason behind it I would have been more careful.”“Sir? I don’t understand you.” Harry dropped his spoon into his empty dish. Ron was finished too; only Hermione and Molly were still eating, though both were also paying attention to the conversation.“I …” Arthur fiddled with his spoon a moment, then straightened and looked Harry in the eye, man to man. “I’m afraid the reason Minister Fudge came to the school to question you and Professor Snape was because of me. Ron had told me about your letter to him, and I made the mistake of mentioning it in front of Fudge.”Harry glanced at Ron, then back to Arthur Weasley. “You didn’t know, sir,” he said, adding, “But … you discussed my lessons with Fudge?”“No, Harry. I was speaking with Kingsley about it, you know, both of us agreeing that it had to be Severus who was teaching you, and when I looked up, Minister Fudge was standing there with Narcissa Malfoy, you know, and I didn’t think it at the time, but now I realize he must have overheard—”“Narcissa Malfoy?” Harry blurted, cold, then heat, flashing over his body. “Lucius Malfoy’s wife heard you?”The accusation in his tone was obvious. Arthur and Molly flinched. “Well, you know, Harry, no charge has ever been leveled against Lucius’ wife. Just because he is a fugitive—”“She’s his wife!” Harry shouted, rising from his seat. Everything was brutally clear, now. Narcissa had heard Snape was teaching Harry; she’d gone to Lucius Malfoy, who’d told Voldemort Snape was a traitor. It all made sense.And Snape needed to know, as soon as possible, that Malfoy knew he was a double agent. Voldemort was dead, but his supporters were not.“I need to get back to Hogwarts,” Harry said, gathering his supplies hastily and shrinking the pile of books, parchments, clothes and bottles with a murmured spell. Another quick binding spell and they all stuck together in a manageable lump.“Harry…” Arthur began, while Hermione, Ron, and Molly stared.“I don’t blame you, Mr. Weasley,” Harry said, clutching his shrunken things under one arm. “You didn’t know. But Sn— Professor Snape needs to be warned.”“Harry, you don’t—”“Harry, wait –”Arthur and Molly jumped to their feet.Harry stepped away, glanced at Ron and Hermione. “See you in class,” he said, and Apparated.He reappeared at the gates of Hogwarts and crossed the grounds, slamming into the great hall and almost crashing into Madame Hooch, on her way out with broom in hand.“Mr. Potter!”“Sorry.” Harry dodged out of her path, depositing his books, supplies and clothes on the floor against the wall, where they’d be out of the way. He unshrunk them – wouldn’t do to have them swept away as a bit of rubbish before he came back down for them – and asked Hooch, “Have you seen Professor Snape?”Hooch blinked. “No, I haven’t. Why—”“Never mind.” Harry moved past her, jogging along the corridors to the tower stairs leading to Snape’s rooms. At the bottom he took a deep breath and started the long climb, anticipation jittering in his stomach as he got nearer to the man he’d wanted to see all day.Assuming Snape’s up here.And assuming he wants to see you.Stop it! Whether he wants to see you or not, he needs to know about Malfoy.Near the top, he stopped, bent over and grasping the railing, for a few great gulps of air – it was a long climb – then stumbled up the last three steps to Snape’s door.It was open.Snape’s door was never open.Harry paused, listened. Nothing. The magical wards he had always felt were gone.“Professor?”He stepped inside and froze, stunned by alarm. The room was empty. Absolutely bare of furniture and carpets, the books gone from the shelves … nothing but naked stone and wood and a couple of paintings left forlorn on the walls. Every thing that had made the chamber Snape’s was gone.Harry moved slowly into the chamber, sick fear flooding his body with every heartbeat. Gone. He’s gone.Harry stopped. He didn’t need to look in the other rooms. The whole bare tower chamber screamed it: Snape was gone.Harry turned and ran.Harry ran from Snape’s tower to Dumbledore’s office, prepared to use any spell in his arsenal to get the door open if the headmaster chose not to let him in.The door was already open. Harry stormed up to Dumbledore’s desk and the headmaster looked up from the parchment he’d been reading.“Where is he?”“Harry—” Dumbledore raised both hands, a frail-looking gesture of placation.“His stuff is gone,” Harry said, not for information. He knew Dumbledore knew it. The words were charges, accusations. “Cleaned out. You sent him packing, didn’t you? You waited until I was gone – in fact, you deliberately got rid of me, didn’t you? And then you fired him.” He was shaking, white-hot with fury, curses of both Muggle and wizarding variety straining to spill from his mouth. His fingers itched for his new wand, and he somehow knew it would respond eagerly to his anger.Suddenly stern, Dumbledore said, “You will calm yourself and listen, Harry. Calm down, and I shall explain.”Harry took a shaking breath. “You can’t possibly explain this away. Where is he?”“Severus asked me not to reveal that to anyone,” Dumbledore said. “You must understand why that includes you as well.”Harry bit his lip. Dumbledore added:“And do not pretend not to know the reason Severus is no longer here.”Hot tears welled behind Harry’s eyes. He shut them and sank into one of the chairs facing Dumbledore’s desk, shaking his head, teeth clenched against the rage and hurt. Screaming and yelling wouldn’t get him the answers he needed, not from Dumbledore.“I had no choice, in my capacity as headmaster, but to ask Severus to leave.”Harry tried to keep his voice steady. He failed. “He invented the damn spell. Voldemort wouldn’t be gone if not for Snape. He deserves the order of Merlin, not the sack!”Dumbledore remained infuriatingly calm. Harry wondered in that instant if the man had ever truly felt anything.“I have not made public the reasons behind Severus’ departure. Nor shall I. However, word of this sort of thing does get around, so you must be prepared that some will learn of it, and believe he took advantage of you.”“I don’t care what people think,” Harry said. “People have been thinking lies about me my whole life. Him too. That’s no reason to fire someone.”“Harry. That is not the reason. I dismissed him, not out of fear of public opinion – although you must understand I am answerable to the parents of other students on that score as well – but because he failed in his position of trust as a teacher.”“It was me!” Harry snapped. “I pushed him. It was my fault, not his.”“It was his duty to refuse you,” Dumbledore said. “As he was well aware. He did not argue with my decision, Harry. He knew and agreed with my reasons.” Dumbledore peered hard at him, said, “He didn’t tell you, then, that he had admitted his actions to me the day you were captured?”“What?”“Before you came to my office that day, Harry. I asked Severus what had happened and he told me. He admitted the truth.”Harry stared, befuddled, his memory of that morning upended by what the headmaster was saying.“He knew that in telling me, he was forcing me to remove him from his position as teacher, but he asked me for one favor – that I wait.”“Wait for what?” Harry blurted without thinking.“For either Voldemort’s demise, or the completion of your special training.”Misery cold in his stomach, Harry said, “For me. He wanted to help me … to protect me as long as he could.”Dumbledore nodded. “For that reason – and also for his own protection, though he did not ask for that – I agreed to maintain the fiction that nothing had happened until such time as it would be safe for me to … to accept his resignation.” Gently, Dumbledore added, “I would not have sent Severus from the safety of Hogwarts while Voldemort was still alive, Harry.”“So once I killed him, it became okay for you to fire him?” Harry shook his head in wonder. “I pushed him into it. Why punish him and not me?”“You are a student. Severus was a teacher. The responsibility was his. He knew from the moment he crossed that line that he would lose his place here. He would have gone immediately had it not been for his concern for you. And if not for that – and my concern for his safety – I would have accepted his resignation that day. There are consequences for breaking rules, Harry. You’ve simply never had to face that before.”“Then punish me, not him!”“Are you not being punished?” Dumbledore asked softly.Harry sat silent as that truth struck him.Dumbledore pushed himself to his feet and began to pace.“I must admit, this … relationship … was not what I feared when I asked him to teach you. I feared you would fall victim to the lure of the Dark Arts. You, for the first time, and Severus, yet again.”Harry shuddered, remembering. It had been possible. When consumed by anger like this, he knew it was still possible.“Why did you have Snape teach me, if you were so worried?” He stared at the clenched hands in his lap.“Because if I wanted to be sure to prevent your turning to the Dark Arts, I had to allow you to feel its temptation. If you were to be … tempted … and to reject that route, you had to understand it. That is something I could not, and cannot, teach you, for I have never felt that desire. Of the two people at Hogwarts capable of teaching you the Dark Arts, only Severus understands the appeal of that power, and the strength it takes to reject it.”“And he taught me knowing there was that risk on top of all the others?” Harry said, his voice building in volume if not steadiness. “And you still sacked him? Threw him to the fucking wolves?”Dumbledore withstood his anger. “He is in no danger, Harry.”“As if you’d care,” Harry retorted.Softly the headmaster said, “You and Severus, Harry, are not the only people in my charge.”That stopped Harry.Dumbledore sighed, every one of his years heavy in the sound. “You should not have gone to him, Harry, not after I had warned you. I had faith in you. Both of you.”Harry exploded. “Faith? Faith? You don’t give a damn about me, or him. You wouldn’t have cared if he’d chained me to a dungeon wall and buggered me stupid every day, as long as he made me into a weapon able to kill Riddle for you. Faith.” Harry snorted. “You’re the reason dark lords come into being.”“Harry,” Dumbledore said, placating.“Why couldn’t you just tell people things?”Dumbledore said, very softly, “Because of the sorts of things I must sometimes tell them.”Puzzled, but somehow calmed, Harry said, “What are you talking about?”Dumbledore closed his eyes for a long moment. “Would you like to read the statement that is going to the press tonight, for release in tomorrow’s newspapers?” He moved behind his desk again, picked up the parchment he’d been reading when Harry’d stormed in, and held it out. “I think you should, and I would recommend that you sit down.”Harry read it. It was short. Some of it he remembered. The worst of it was news to him. News that, in some deep way, he realized was true. He read it over, three times, until his vision misted and he had to blink furiously to clear it.He looked up, sick. “I killed all of them?” His voice came out a harsh whisper.“Indirectly, Harry. Not deliberately. As far as Professor McGonagall and I can determine, they tried to interfere with your spell, in order to save their master, and it caught them as well.”“All of them.”“All of them,” Dumbledore echoed.“I killed 25 people,” Harry breathed, and his stomach knotted and jumped. He swallowed. I won’t be sick in front of him.“You killed Voldemort and his Death Eaters,” Dumbledore said. “Not willfully, not with malice. In complete self-defence, Harry. Please remember that.”“Lucius –” Harry’s throat clenched. “Lucius Malfoy?”Dumbledore nodded. “Was among the dead. You need not fear for Severus’ safety, Harry.”Harry exhaled a horrified, sick laugh. “That’s a relief. I made it safe for you to fire him.”“I’m sorry, Harry,” Dumbledore said. “Like you, I have done the best I could. Neither of us, perhaps, has succeeded entirely.”Harry got up. “The difference is you knew exactly what you were doing the whole time.” He threw the parchment on the desk and left Dumbledore’s office, noting that the man didn’t attempt to call him back.He walked as in a trance, ending up at his goal without the faintest memory of anything or anyone he might have passed getting there.In front of Snape’s fireplace, below the blank spot on the wall where the painting had hidden Snape’s pensieve, Harry sat on the cold stone floor and stared, at nothing, until he could no longer see.* * * Under a storming sky, Severus Snape stood at the topmost tower of his ancestral castle, his gaze sweeping the sprawling, lonesome lands under his dominion. He was master of all he surveyed.Snape snorted. One ancient crumbling castle, all but bare of food and furnishings (but sporting a rich variety of leaks to which this downpour should certainly call attention), and a few hundred acres of bleak heather. And, unless he was mistaken, he could feel the beginnings of a cold in his throat and head.Still he remained where he stood, chill rain running down his face, plastering his hair to his neck and his clothes to his body. It was uncomfortable enough to pass for slight penance.He had long observed the oddity that it was possible to feel simultaneously guilt-wracked and victimized – and had he not already had a predisposition, Dumbledore was expert at finding and pressing those two levers in any man’s psyche.He was rid of it, now, though. Rid of it all. Good riddance. The best of riddance.But when he spotted the small, distant shape toiling up the road to the castle, drenched and determined – when something in his empty, black, desiccated chest leaped – he realized what he should have known: that a man could be rid of something without being in the least free of it.* * * Soaked and freezing, Harry trudged up the long steep switchback road, grumbling out loud about how typically Snape-ish it was to live in such a remote and forbidding place – said grumbling intended as a distraction from the fear coiled in his gut that Snape wouldn’t talk to him, wouldn’t even see him.He passed through the open iron gates, crossed the narrow courtyard, splashing through the puddles created by its uneven paving stones, and climbed the steps to the huge front doors.He rang the bell and waited. A long time. If anything, the rain came down harder.Then the door creaked, groaned, shifted, opening to reveal a slim shape in black – also soaking wet – small in the cavernous doorway, torches lighting a long wide hall at his back.Harry unclenched his chattering teeth long enough to say, “I want my cat back.”Snape half-turned. “Accio cat!”Like a rushing train, a yowl shot toward them in advance of a flying hank of grey fur. Snape caught Scratch, held him firmly until the animal stopped struggling, realized he wasn’t being hurt, and meowed up at Snape in protest.Harry took a step forward, but didn’t reach for the cat. “I was kidding.” He swiped the rain out of his face, pointlessly, and stared at Snape.Snape sighed. “Oh for god’s sake, come in.” He turned and strode into the dimness, and Harry followed. It was drier, but not perceptibly warmer, in the cavernous hall.Snape stopped, dumped Scratch onto a wooden bench seat in the corridor, and turned around. He was ghastly pale, his wet hair hanging in strings about his face. Harry guessed he looked about the same himself.“What exactly are you doing here?”But Harry had been prepared for a cool welcome. “Exactly what you think I’m doing here. Do you have a fire going somewhere? I’m freezing, and you can’t be much better off.”Snape spun and walked away. Stopped at a pair of tall doors. Turned to arch a brow at Harry.Harry stumbled into motion. Snape opened the doors to reveal a sitting room with a decent blaze in the hearth and a paucity of candles scattered elsewhere. The shabby furniture had probably once been fine, and the whole place showed little sign of habitation, or recent cleaning.Harry went straight for the fire. He could have spelled his clothes dry, of course, but he wanted any advantage he could get, and if he looked pathetic, maybe Snape wouldn’t throw him out.Shivering, hands outstretched toward the flames, he said, not looking at Snape, “I’m not welcome, am I?”The silence stretched.Harry smiled.Finally Snape said, “How did you find me?”Harry turned around. Snape – dry now, though ragged – still stood by the doors.“The picture,” Harry said. “The one over the fire. It was the only one you took with you when you left. So I looked it up in ‘Ancient Wizarding Homes.’ Castle Snape.” He shrugged, though he was proud of himself for figuring it out.“Surely term has started.” Snape sounded uncharacteristically gentle, just as he appeared uncharacteristically off-balance as he looked at Harry dripping on his threadbare hearthrug.“So. What.” Harry said very carefully.Snape shut the doors and moved gradually nearer the fire, with idle, sideways motions, as if he were sneaking up on Harry.“What took you so long?” Harry nodded toward the doors.“I was up on the battlements, contemplating the view and the option of making myself a part of it.” Snape’s gaze wandered the dimlit room.Harry started forward, appalled, then caught himself. “Don’t. That’s not funny.”Snape shook his head. “It was a passing fancy, not a serious consideration.”And Harry saw that Snape told him that, not to comfort Harry – when had he ever bothered to do that? – but because he loathed the idea of anyone pitying him.Harry faced the fire again for a moment, more because he felt Snape needed the time to gather himself than because his front was cold (though it was). Then he said, again to the fire, “You just left.”“I thought it would be best.”Harry turned around. “Like that?”Snape shivered, inched nearer the fire. His fingers twisted around one another and he scowled at them as if they were at fault that he couldn’t think what to say.“I thought … if I left without saying anything – particularly when so much needed to be said – that it would be … easier. That you would …”“That I’d hate you, instead of missing you?” Harry finished.Snape said nothing. Then he nodded, still not meeting Harry’s eyes.“It didn’t work,” Harry said.“So I’d gathered.” Snape sighed and sat on the edge of his faded couch, hands pressed together in front of him. “I … didn’t mean to take your cat,” he said, glancing toward the doors. “The idiot beast was sleeping in my trunk and got shrunk along with the rest of my things. I didn’t realize, obviously, until I opened it here.”“I didn’t come for the damn cat,” Harry snapped, then caught himself, realizing Snape knew that perfectly well. “I mean, it’s okay,” he said, swallowing down the emotion swelling in him. He cleared his throat.“Dumbledore told me what you did. That you told him. And asked him to wait before firing you.” Harry shook his head, marveling again. “I can’t believe everything you’ve done for me.”Snape rolled his eyes, a little more at ease now. “Everything isn’t about you, Potter. I also did it for myself, and for the headmaster. And to defeat Voldemort. I had to continue what I was doing for a number of reasons, of which you were only one.”“But why did you tell him the truth about what we did in the first place?” Harry said. “You could have lied.”Snape cocked his head. “You don’t see that that would be worse than losing my job?”Harry thought about it, shrugged. “I thought you had lied. It didn’t bother me. I figured it was none of Dumbledore’s business. We were doing what he wanted, being his obedient little soldiers.”“The correct term is cannon fodder,” Snape muttered, pushing his ragged hair out of his face. He got up abruptly. “It is well past supper time. I imagine I can scrounge something up, if you are hungry.”Harry exhaled, relieved. “I’m starved. Thank you.”Snape gave him a sarcastic sidelong look, almost like old times, and Harry grinned as he followed the man – uninvited – out the door and along numerous bare and dimly lit corridors.“Nice castle,” Harry observed. And flinched when he got another sarcastic look, this one with teeth in it. “Well, if it were a little cleaner, maybe. And better lit. I thought …”Snape kept walking. “You thought I was rich.”Harry shrugged. “You have a castle. I know your family’s old and stuff.” He jumped aside to avoid a drip from the ceiling which Snape had circumvented automatically.“I have a castle,” Snape said. “That is all I have, thanks to generations of Snapes whose profligacy vastly exceeded their income. One drafty, leaky, cold, vermin-ridden castle.”Harry looked around again. “Well, if it’s structurally sound, it could be fixed up …”“With what money?” Snape said – then snapped, “Don’t even speak it.”Harry closed his mouth. In a very small voice, as they descended a short stair and entered a cavernous kitchen, he said, “Not even as a loan?”Another glare. Harry winced. “Sorry.”He stayed back and watched as Snape brought some plain but ample fresh ingredients together and began a stew in a small cauldron. He did most of the work with no magic and great skill, but when Harry caught a whiff of the combined vegetables and spices and his stomach rumbled, Snape cast a quick-cook spell over the simmering pot before stepping back to put away his ingredients. Watching him work, watching his swift expertise in this simplest of acts, Harry felt his eyes well inexplicably. He sat on a long bench at the side of the echoing kitchen, putting his feet up and resting his head on his knees. He couldn’t keep looking at Snape and not cry, and that was the last thing he wanted to do.Snape’s voice, after 15 minutes of silence while he prepared the stew, startled Harry.“What’s wrong?”Harry rubbed the back of his hands across his eyes and lifted his head.Snape stood a few feet away, leaning against a stone support column, watching Harry with intent concern.Harry shrugged, feeling the tears still there, pressing hot at the back of his eyes. “I don’t know what to do. I think I’m in love with you. And –” he laughed, helplessly. “I don’t know what to do.”Snape leaned back against the column, eyes squeezed shut. “Oh, God. What did I do to deserve this?”“Sorry,” Harry said, stung.Snape pushed off from the column and sat on the bench next to Harry.He glanced sideways, said, “I suppose there’s no one to hide from anymore,” and reached out, hesitant, touching his fingers to the back of Harry’s hand where it rested on his damp knee. He tapped, as if knocking to be let in, before allowing himself to cup Harry’s hand warmly in his own.Harry took in a deep, shuddering breath. “I thought, you know, once Voldemort was dead—”“Everything would be sunshine and roses?”“No. But I thought the big problems would be over, at least for a while. That things could be … I don’t know. Good. Not perfect, but I didn’t think I’d …” He shook his head and sighed. “… instantly fuck everything up again.” He stared around the kitchen, at the dusty pots and pans on the walls, the big ovens and long tables, the rows of cupboards that he suspected were mostly empty. “I’m sorry.”“I could have said no,” Snape said calmly. “I should have, and I didn’t.”Harry lifted the hand Snape held and caught it in both of his. “Even though I’m sorry for what happened to you, I’m glad you didn’t say no.” He almost said -- you were my first, and I want you to be my last – but caught himself, thinking it sounded too childish and romantic.Snape’s eyes widened as they searched Harry’s face. “You were a virgin, weren’t you?”“How the fuck do you do that?” Harry demanded, more amazed than embarrassed.Snape rolled his eyes. “Great Merlin, deflowering children. I cannot sink any lower.”“Don’t be an idiot,” Harry said, ignoring Snape’s affronted surprise. “I’m not a child. I wanted you. Everyone’s a virgin at some point. What’s that got to do with anything?”“You’re going to be unmanageable now I cannot take points, aren’t you?” Snape muttered, and Harry smiled, squeezing Snape’s hand.“No more than I ever was. Um … by the way, can I call you Severus?”Snape shook his head, eyes briefly turning toward the ceiling. “Whyever not? That familiarity is only a drop in the ocean of catastrophe around us, isn’t it?”Harry squeezed again. “Are you angry that I came here? Am I … you know, intruding when you want to be left alone?”Snape looked at him, somber, unreadable. “What is it you want?”Caught off-guard, Harry stammered, “I just want … I want to be happy.”“Then you’ve chosen a spectacularly inappropriate object for your first amour.”“I didn’t choose you, you …” Harry quickly substituted the harsher word, “… prat.”“Harry,” Snape sighed. “What in Merlin’s name are you doing here?” The question was clearly metaphorical – which didn’t mean Harry had a clue the right way to answer it. So he told the truth.“I’m 17. I’m in love.”Snape almost smiled. “Idiot.”Harry grinned. “Same thing.”The cauldron emitted a mellow ding and Snape got up, nodding toward a cupboard. “Get the bowls and the bread.”With trays of food hovering behind them, they trudged back upstairs to the long, high-ceilinged dining room – obviously once a splendid room, and now as shabby as the rest of the castle – and Snape laid out their supper while Harry started a fire with his new wand. It felt light and responsive in his hands, and he was struck with the realization that he had no idea, now, what he was going to spend the rest of his life using it for.A gorgeous spicy scent drew his mind off the trivial concern of what he was going to do for a living, and he turned to see Snape had taken the lid off the soup tureen. Harry hurried back to the long, scarred oaken table, of which they and their dinner took up just one end.They ate for a while in silence except for Harry’s complimenting Snape on the stew, which received a mild grunt in response. Scratch crept into the room and sat at Harry’s feet, occasionally rising up to place one pleading paw on his knee. He soaked some bread chunks in the stew and slipped them to the cat, hoping Snape wouldn’t see.When they were down to mopping up the remains with bread and sipping the mild red wine Snape had opened, Harry said:“Dumbledore told me – the day he sacked you – he told me I … that I didn’t only kill Voldemort.”Snape waited. When it became clear Harry wasn’t going to continue, he said, “That is a duty I don’t mind being sacked in order to avoid.”Harry chuckled. “I bet. But I still don’t really remember…”“It is true,” Snape said, then laughed softly. “Imagine. It’s come to this – that you come to me to confirm what Albus has told you.”“I don’t trust him anymore,” Harry admitted. “I trust you.”“You’d be better served to reverse those positions,” Snape remarked.Harry shook his head. “No. No I wouldn’t.”Snape let it go. “I saw the newspaper accounts. It could not have been kept secret.”Harry said, “I know,” before realizing that Snape was, in his oblique way, expressing sympathy for Harry’s latest unwelcome bout of notoriety.“It’s okay,” he said. “They can’t come on campus, and the other students are … they’re pretty good about it. For the most part, they don’t act too stupid.”“A novelty I’m almost sorry to miss,” Snape muttered. “Are you ..?”Harry smiled. “You can’t even say it, can you? You can’t even ask if I’m okay, you’re so scared someone might find out you have a heart. It’s too late, you know.”“Impertinent,” Snape accused. “So are you?”Harry shrugged. “Yes. Well … mostly. I … I suppose I believe it happened, that I killed all those people—”“Death Eaters,” Snape cut in sharply. “Don’t leave out that part of it.”Harry nodded. “But I can’t really remember it, so I sort of … don’t think about it.” He paused, but to his surprise, Snape didn’t offer a snide remark. “And all that savior of the world rubbish … I’m just so fucking tired of being stared at, and whispered about, and … separate. I wish … I wish I could just go somewhere quiet, like here, and hide out until everyone shuts up about it.”Snape said, “You must go back.”Harry tilted his wine glass back and forth and sighed. “I know. I need to finish school. I’ll need to do something for a living. Anyway, if I stayed here people would probably just think you’d Confunded me or something.” Scratch disappeared under the table.“I don’t recall inviting you to stay here.”Harry glared at him. “Everyone – well, not everyone, but anyone who finds out why you were sacked – is going to think you’re a child molester and don’t fucking say it!” His shout made Snape pull back, mouth snapping shut. The words echoed through the nearly empty dining room.Harry cleared his throat. “As I was saying, they’re going to think that unless I can prove otherwise. I don’t think Dumbledore is going to tell people, but things like this get around, so some people are going to think you … you know, took advantage of me. They won’t listen to you, but they might listen to me. So I’m going to be your greatest advocate, at least until the fuss dies down and you can do what you want.” He spotted Snape slipping a bit of broth-soaked bread under the table and tried not to smile.“You mean return to Hogwarts?” Snape sneered. “What in Merlin’s name makes you imagine I would wish to?”Harry glanced around, decided to be blunt. “It seems like you could use an income.”Surprisingly, Snape merely answered him. “I am adept at other things besides teaching.”Harry snorted. “I hope you’re more adept at them. You were a terrible teacher. Of potions, anyway. But then, maybe your heart wasn’t in it.”“You know nothing about it,” Snape snarled.“No? You’re the best teacher in the world when you want to be.”Snape gave him a contemptuous side-glance. “What makes you so excellent a judge?” He drained his wine, poured himself more, hesitated, then refilled Harry’s glass.“I beat Voldemort,” Harry replied. “Or I should say, we did.” He looked around the cold bare dusty room again. “And this is Dumbledore’s thanks for everything you did for him. Fucking bastard.”Evenly Snape said, “Dumbledore’s thanks is allowing me to leave under my own power without revealing to anyone the reason for my leaving, which he was perfectly within his rights – which, indeed, as headmaster he was obligated – to do.”“Oh. But still…”“I was fired for cause, Harry,” Snape said, sounding suddenly tired.“Then why wasn’t I expelled for doing the same thing?” he argued, expecting the ‘Boy Who Lived’ defense for the millionth time.“That you and I may break the same rule and receive such very different punishment for it should bring home to you that in the eyes of the world we are not the same.”In a small voice, Harry said, “We should have waited.”Snape laughed softly, not kindly. “You may now take your place with Hamlet, Oedipus, and Merlin himself as men who wished they’d known something when knowing it would have helped.”It was on the tip of Harry’s tongue to say he didn’t regret what they’d done, but he realized anything along those lines would only make him sound childish, and he refused to forfeit the title of ‘man’ Snape had so unthinkingly bestowed on him a moment ago. Instead he repeated:“I’m sorry.”Scratch jumped up on Snape’s lap, purring, and he shoved the cat onto the floor and put his bowl down there as well. “I was a slave to two masters,” he said as he sat back up. “You freed me from both of them. I never thought that I would live to see it.”Harry laughed. “You’re grateful?”Snape snorted. “I wasn’t at first. Whatever you may imagine, I was an excellent Potions teacher.”Harry refused to argue that point. Instead he said, “You would have made a great Defense against the Dark Arts teacher.”Again a soft exhalation of sarcastic amusement from Snape. “Yes.”“Why didn’t Dumbledore let you?”“Voldemort wanted me in the position, to mold young minds in preparation for following him. I had to at least seem to want it, to follow his orders, but Dumbledore knew he couldn’t put me in that position.”“Why? It would’ve convinced Voldemort that Dumbledore trusted you, and…”“And then I would have to teach children Dark Arts for Voldemort,” Snape said. “That was a little too close to home, both for Dumbledore and for me. It was safer to stay in Potions. Safer for the children. Also, giving the position to less qualified teachers every year was an indirect suggestion that, first, Dumbledore foresaw no great threats, and, second, didn’t wholly trust me, despite his avowals otherwise.”“And that kept Voldemort from being too suspicious of his turnaround,” Harry volunteered. “It wouldn’t have seemed very sensible of Dumbledore to totally trust you. It also gave you an excuse for not knowing some secret Order stuff that you wouldn’t have wanted to reveal.”Snape smiled, and Harry flushed at that rare reward.“Wow,” he said. “That’s…”“The term is Machiavellian, Mr. Potter,” Snape said. “Never underestimate Dumbledore. But that is one lesson I think you’ve learned well.”“And yet you still trust him, don’t you?” Harry said. “You would still do what he asked you to.”“He is manipulative. He can even be ruthless. He is not evil.”Harry laughed angrily. “What’s the difference? The fucking lemon drops?”Snape’s silence acknowledged Harry’s point.But Harry had had enough of talking about Dumbledore; he’d come a long way fueled by a need to know what, if anything, Snape felt for him. If there was the slightest chance of this … this thing they had being … being anything but a disastrous failure … he found himself chuckling sourly at his own lack of optimism.Snape picked up his licked-clean bowl and set it back on the table, and Harry took a deep breath.“Do you …” He cleared his throat, terrified, now it came to it, of asking what he most wanted to know. “Can we …?” That wasn’t working at all. He plunged on. “Once I’m 18 and out of school, I can do what I want and no one can say or do anything about it.”“I suppose I can expect you on my doorstep, yowling like your cat, when that fateful day arrives,” Snape muttered.“I suppose you can,” Harry said. “Unless you go ahead and tell me now to piss off.”“Piss off,” Snape said.Stone-faced, Harry got up and turned toward the door.Snape sighed. “Harry…”Harry turned around, fighting to keep his smile from cracking his face in half. “I guess that answers both our questions, doesn’t it?”“Manipulative shit,” Snape muttered. “Don’t expect me to act like the hero in some Muggle romance.”“I didn’t know you’d read any Muggle romances,” Harry said. He came back to the table and sat down.“I have not,” Snape said stiffly. “But I have heard about them. I’ll not change for you. I cannot. Nor do I wish to.”Harry shrugged. “Who asked you to?”The clock in the corridor chimed, nine hollow, brassy peals. Harry rubbed his hands on his pants and asked, not looking up:“Will you let me stay tonight?” He flinched inwardly at the question, at how selfish and juvenile it sounded for him to ask for this after everything his actions – his desire – had cost Snape.But it isn’t about sex. Or not just sex. I love the hopeless grouchy bastard.Harry shook his head at himself, realized with a start that Snape hadn’t spoken, and looked up.Snape’s head was bent, his forehead resting against his thumb and forefinger as if he had a headache.“I can’t throw you out in the cold and wet,” he said to the tabletop.Harry laughed, a soft, miserable sound. “I expect you could.”Snape glared at him from under the shadow of his hand. Harry got up, came around the table, and took gentle hold of that hand, pulling it away from Snape’s face, wrapping it in both of his. Snape’s pinched eyes went from their entwined hands to Harry’s face.“I want to stay with you,” Harry said. “But I don’t want to make you any more unhappy than I already have. So I’ll leave if that’s what you want me to do.”Very quietly, Snape said, “I’m no longer your teacher.”Harry smiled, refrained from saying that he’d bet Snape could teach him a lot.“And you are past legal age,” Snape went on, a catalogue of permissions. Harry waited. Snape shook his head, his eyes searching Harry’s face as if for further invitation.“I cannot seem to …”Harry drew Snape’s hand to his lips, kissed the back of it, tasted it lightly with the tip of his tongue. Then he bent and did the same with Snape’s mouth, tasting the wine they’d shared earlier, then tasting only Snape. The hand pressed between his tightened around Harry’s fingers, and Snape’s free hand slid behind his neck to bring them closer.Snape’s tongue slipped inside, deep, savoring Harry more hungrily than either of them had savored their food. Harry drowned in the needy, overwhelming kisses, not even aware Snape had risen from his chair until he was crushed full length against the other man, the table edge digging into the backs of his thighs.Snape drew back, abrupt, flushed, and gasped for air.“So I can stay?” Harry panted against Snape’s working throat, knotting his hands into the man’s robes.Snape’s black gaze flickered frantically over Harry’s face. “I … I didn’t expect to see you again.”And for the first time Harry glimpsed that fear in Snape’s eyes.“I’m here,” he said, pulling Snape closer. “I’m not going anywhere.”“You’ll leave,” Snape whispered. “You must leave.” In contradiction to his words, his hips moved in slow, urgent circles against Harry’s.“But I’m not leaving you,” Harry moaned against Snape’s chest. He pulled Snape’s head down for a ferocious kiss, and Snape’s hands slid along his back to cup his ass. Harry’s bewildered brain thought it almost heard a word – the command for Apparation – and the two of them vanished.* * * Harry opened his eyes to the split-second delirious idea he was back at Hogwarts. Then he realized what had happened to the elegant furnishings of Snape’s apartments there.“Nice,” he said, and again fastened his mouth to Snape’s, silencing whatever the man had been about to say in response. Snape made a tiny sound and wound both hands through Harry’s hair, holding him there for a moment – his lips and tongue rendering Harry incapable of protest or speech – before drawing back, glancing to the side, and saying:“Lumos. Incendios.”As candles flicked to life and a fire roared up in the fireplace, Harry smiled at the rough edges in that normally smooth voice.The room wasn’t large, and the fire – no doubt magically enhanced – took the chill away in the time it took for Snape to look down at Harry and say:“I am a possessive, angry, bitter man. Are you certain—”“You left out suspicious and unfair and mean—” Harry put in. Snape shook him gently.“Severus.” Harry smiled at the sound, and his own insides melted at the way the name softened the glint in Snape’s eyes. “It’s not news to me that you’re a bastard. Let’s move on.” Since his own hands were free, though unsteady, he began unbuttoning Snape’s overtunic.“Cheeky Gryffindor,” Snape murmured against his hair, then mapped Harry’s face and neck with quick, harsh kisses, kisses with teeth in them. Harry flinched, startled rather than hurt, but also felt his blood heat up and spread boiling throughout his body. How did Snape – Severus – know better than he did what would arouse him?“Oh, fuck…” he admitted when Severus started on his throat. “I can’t think when you…” His useless hands clutched at Snape’s half-undone shirt as he leaned into the feel of the man’s tongue against his skin.Then Snape stepped back and Harry nearly fell over, catching himself on Snape’s shoulders as the man quickly finished unbuttoning black overtunic and white shirt.Snape smirked and shrugged off the clothes. Harry let his palms explore the pale planes and slight curves; Snape’s body heat beat against his hands and face.“You’re so hot,” he observed, then flushed. “I mean…” Then he smiled at Severus’ still-smirking expression.“Off,” Snape ordered. Harry stopped his hands’ worshipful journey, and Snape grabbed the bottom of his sweatshirt and pulled it over his head.Harry struggled out of it and Snape tossed it aside. Rather than insisting the jeans go the same expedited route, though, Snape’s fingers traveled teasingly over the fabric, tracing Harry’s ass, the lines of his thighs, inside and out … before stroking firm and demanding over Harry’s crotch.“Oh…” Harry again leaned on Severus, shivering. “Don’t … I’ll come right now …”He kissed Snape’s collarbone, chest, sternum, everywhere, frantic kisses, not sure whether he was trying to stave off his orgasm or encourage it.“We have all night,” Severus said in his ear, and rubbed again, chuckling at Harry’s helpless cry.Harry felt a nipple under his mouth and licked, then delicately set his teeth to it, biting when Snape squeezed his cock. Snape gasped and released him.Harry lifted his head. “Too hard?” Only to see a wicked gleam in Snape’s eyes. One of Snape’s hands rose, fingers trailing up his own chest to caress the wet, peaked nipple Harry had abused, and Harry nearly swallowed his tongue.Snape glanced at Harry’s lower half. “Off. Now.”Harry fumbled his jeans open and eased them over his aching crotch, pulling his smalls down with them. He kicked off his trainers and quickly slid his socks off, then stepped carefully out of the rest of his clothes, not wanting to trip.When he looked up, Snape’s mouth was open, one hand still touching his chest, and his pants too were gone, revealing a flushed hard-on that made Harry moan and move against him, his lips and tongue again attacking the sensitive dark nipple.Snape gasped again and clutched at Harry’s back. Harry felt a wet silky cock hard against his stomach, groaned when his own was mashed against Snape’s thigh. Some faint wisp of daring urged him to slip his own hands around Snape’s back and slide them down to the wiry curve of his backside, and Snape jumped, crushing their cocks together for one blindingly good second.Snape drew back his head and looked at Harry, surprise and amusement crowding the lust from his face.Harry stroked. “Nice,” he said. He had touched Severus, of course, but not in this conscious and deliberate way. “You feel good.” He let his fingers slip into the warm cleft of flesh and Snape’s hips jerked against his again.“Potter—”Harry figured later that his fatal mistake was the innocent look and the off-hand, “Hm?”Snape grabbed him, fastening their mouths together in a kiss – no, not a kiss; Snape fucked Harry’s mouth with his tongue, hard, insistent, irresistible, and Harry gave in, head spinning. Snape took him by the shoulders and pushed him backward onto the bed, where Harry flopped, limp except for his explosively hard erection.He tried to sit up, but Snape shoved him back down and pushed himself against the bed, between Harry’s knees. He grabbed Harry’s thighs and Harry looked up, delirious, to see the man bending over him.“Oh … fuck …” His balls tightened and his cock throbbed at the sight of Snape’s mouth approaching his hard-on. Snape let his tongue slide slowly out and draped it over the wet head of Harry’s cock; Harry shuddered, biting down on a most embarrassing plea that had formed in his mouth, his head falling back while his hips yearned upward. He shivered and gasped as Snape covered his cock and balls in long, languorous, generous licks, root to tip, too slow to make him come but keeping him on the agonizing edge of it.Snape paused – Harry dragged a quivering breath into his starved lungs – and Snape said:“Never tease a Slytherin, Mr. Potter.” His tone was cocoa and cinnamon, the heat of desire seasoned with a faint spicy amusement that made Harry laughed and groan at the same time. His cock screamed at him, and he surrendered, reaching to thread shaking fingers through Snape’s hair. “Please. I can’t …” Stand it.Snape engulfed him – God, so hot, so tight, how does he – and sucked hard, harder than anything Harry’d ever imagined, and he bucked and whimpered as stars spattered across his vision and he came and came and …Harry blinked until something resembling sight returned, inhaled the long-absent taste of air, and sighed it back out on a slow breath of purest pleasure. He was limp, his cock lying wet and sticky against his leg, his heart still racing. Even as he reached out, he felt the bed shift next to him and he plastered himself against Severus’ body, kissing wherever his lips landed – chest, shoulder, neck, chin – in a slow ecstasy of satisfaction that drew a chuckle from Snape.“I take it –” Snape began, only to be silenced by Harry’s tongue sneaking in his mouth for a lingering thank-you kiss.“—you enjoyed that?” Snape finished, a laugh still shadowing his voice.“Oh yes.” Harry smiled and trailed his hands down Snape’s body. “Except…” He stroked Snape’s erection lightly, felt the man’s body move in response. “What about you?” He edged back a little and looked down, instantly intoxicated by the sight of his own fingers stroking someone else’s cock – stroking Snape’s cock. Snape’s skin and hair were coarser than Harry’s, his penis a little bigger, a little darker. All of it was new and mesmerizing to Harry. He tickled his fingers over the wet tip, Snape shivered, and Harry thought enough.He took hold of Snape’s wrist and drew his hand down, under his limp cock and testes, to that most-sensitive skin behind. He felt Snape pull back, but didn’t let go.“I want to,” he said. “If you want to.”“Harry. It was your first time,” Snape said. “It’s only been a few days…” Despite his protest his fingers began to stroke lightly, and the hungry gleam in his flinty eyes told Harry how much he did want to.“Two days, 20 hours and 15 minutes,” Harry said. “Not that I was – mmm – counting.” He waited for Snape’s smirk, but the man didn’t oblige him, instead staring at him with an intensity that made Harry’s heart tremble.“I want to feel you,” Harry said. “I want to be as close to you as I can be. Closer. I want you inside me—”“Stop—” Snape groaned, seizing Harry by the hips and dragging him closer. “Gods, is it the destiny of Gryffindors to torment me forever?”“Just give me the chance,” Harry said, lifting his hips, feeling his body stir back toward arousal. “I’ll torment you as long as you’ll let me.”Snape hovered between his knees, flushed, rather fierce and wild-looking, Harry thought, but his fingers touched Harry’s face gently, trailed lightly down his body to caress Harry’s reawakening erection before he called hoarsely for lubricant.The small jar sailed onto the bed and landed with a soft thud next to Harry.“Your aim’s a little off,” he said – flushing when he realized what he’d done.“Is it?” Snape said, pressing inward.Harry cried out and arched up, played like a lute by Snape’s expert fingers. Only when Snape let up could he collapse back onto the bed and gasp out, “I give. You win.” Eyes tearing up, he blinked and watched Snape open the jar, smiling but saying nothing at the way the clever fingers fumbled.“Wait,” Harry said, sitting up to catch Snape’s unguent-coated hands in his. “I want to.”“Harry…” Snape groaned in warning as Harry rubbed the warm potion between his hands and embraced Snape’s erection with both, one after the other sliding almost frictionlessly from base to tip.Snape bit his lip and watched Harry touching him; though he kept his eyes on Snape’s erection, Harry’s awareness that he was being observed sent a jolt of arousal into his own cock.With a guttural sound, Snape grabbed Harry’s legs and pushed him back, urgent but not rough, and leaned against him. His cock slid across Harry’s entrance the first few times, hard, slick, teasing.“God …” Harry gasped. “More …”Hands behind Harry’s knees, Snape braced his curved body and thrust, spearing Harry, overwhelming his body and brain with shards of pleasure-pain that clenched like fists up and down his spine. Then the pain faded and the pleasure drew down, narrowing, focusing into a channel of incredible fire in Harry’s core. He squeezed his eyes shut and felt, just felt, as Severus drove into him, driving them both toward orgasm. Harry’s hand groped for his own erection, found it and –“Harry—” Snape hissed his name on the one last brutal thrust that pushed Harry’s own cock through the ring of his fingers, and he came as well, the two of them gasping and shuddering against each other until they were empty. Snape lay his sweating body against Harry’s for a long moment, and Harry imagined he could hear both their hearts pounding, two prisoners in adjacent cells fighting to reach each other.The bed shifted again, and again Harry rolled over, boneless, to settle against Severus’ warm damp body. The two of them breathed in tandem for a few quiet moments.“Harry?” The voice was against his ear, followed by a brief kiss.Harry hmmed, unable to muster the energy for words.“Harry? Are you all right?”Harry smiled. “I’m perfect. You’re perfect. We are abso – bloody – lutely perfect.”Snape chuckled. “Idiot.”They lay braided together for a while before Harry’s hand left its resting place on Severus’ shoulder and began to wander like a kitten looking for a warm spot to cuddle up. Snape shifted a little, toward the caresses, and Harry smiled.“You don’t plan to let me get a moment’s rest tonight, do you?” Snape murmured, though his own fingers curled involuntarily against Harry’s back when Harry touched certain key areas.Harry sat up, gazed down at the naked body stretched languid below him. Rest meant thought, not sleep, and he refused to waste this precious time on that.He draped himself slowly against Snape’s torso, a very heavy blanket, and licked his former teacher’s lips.“Fifty points to Slytherin for a brilliant deduction.”* * * A damp and overcast dawn saw two weary, silent men descend to the gates of Castle Snape. All that needed to be said had been spoken without words before sunrise, and neither man wanted to say a good-bye, to make it that real.Snape opened the creaking front doors – then stopped, looking around the floor.“What?”“Your cat.”Harry shrugged. “Keep him. You’ll need him for the mice.”Snape looked around again, a sarcastic smirk on his face. “You’re probably right.”They crossed the wet courtyard under black clouds, stopping in the shelter of the gatehouse as it started to sprinkle.Harry hunched his shoulders and pulled his cloak tighter, then looked at Snape.“I thought love was supposed to feel wonderful,” Harry said, raising his head to meet Snape’s stony gaze. “This hurts.”Snape said quietly, “Everything hurts, Potter.”Harry nodded and turned away, looking down the long zigzag path to the road. The road, and, beyond it, Hogwarts and Voldemort’s death and everything else he was going to have to face. Just to make the point, the sprinkle turned to a downpour.Harry sighed and started off. No point in hurrying; even if he flew, he’d still be soaked to the skin by the time he reached the spot outside the grounds where he could Apparate. Anyway, the rain on his face let him cry without shame.He’d trudged about a dozen steps before he heard his name. His first name.He turned around to see Snape – dry – striding after him. Watching closely, Harry saw the drops splashing off some sort of invisible shield above Snape’s head.“It’s a miracle you’ve managed to live 17 years with almost total ignorance of basic magic,” the man grumbled as he came up to Harry. He passed his hands over Harry’s head and murmured, “Umbella.”And the rain stopped hitting him. Harry smiled and Snape looked down at him, his hands coming up to frame Harry’s wet, cold face, thumbs wiping a little of the moisture away.“I love you,” Harry whispered, and the hands pressed closer.“Go on.” Snape nodded toward the road. “Get going.” His hands dropped to Harry’s shoulders, turning him, giving him a gentle shove.Harry started walking again, feeling Snape’s eyes on him all the way to the road. The End