"It is seven o'clock ayy emm."

"It is seven o'clock ayy emm."

"It is seven o'clock ayy emm."

"Thank you," Harry said, automatically. It was the only way to get the bloody clock to shut up. "Severus, are you awake?"

"It is seven o'clock ayy emm, Potter." A deeper and less tinny repetition from the other side of the room was the only answer he received.

"Yes, thank you, someone did mention that." Harry sat up in bed, rubbing sleep from his eyes. Not that it would do him a lot of good; the bedroom was always dark and he couldn't see a thing at the best of times. "Any idea what the weather's doing?"

"None whatsoever. Does it matter?"

"I suppose not, really. Have you been awake long?"

"An hour or so." He sounded tired, though, and Harry wouldn't mind betting it had been a great deal longer than an hour. Insomnia could have been Severus's middle name; he often sat up half the night. "I've been reading."

"Oh, good." Cautiously Harry extracted himself from the bed, took two steps over to the table by the window, rested a hand on the back of his usual chair and eased himself into the seat. Outside there were sounds of movement in the corridor; the staff were getting busy with the day's routine, and the breakfast trolley should be arriving before too long. "How are you getting on?"

"Slowly," was the quiet response. Then, with that hitherto unsuspected frankness which could still disarm, Severus groaned. "Everything seems to take so bloody long these days. I never considered myself to be impatient, Potter, but this eternal planning and preparation is so … draining."

Harry's hand fumbled across the table-top, caught Snape's sleeve and clutched in a tight grip of reassurance.

"You'll get the hang of it," he said. "You're an intelligent man. You'll be perfectly capable of teaching again when the new school starts up. Chemistry, or something, I imagine."

"Yes indeed," came the distant response. "And fortunately for me there are very few opportunities for sighted infants to exploit the limitations of a blind Chemistry teacher. They would not, for example, substitute acid for alkali and destroy the laboratory."

"As I understand it we're supposed to have sighted teaching assistants," Harry mused, squeezing the arm beneath his grip, "but I do see your point. Figuratively speaking."

"Quite so. It could hardly be any other way in the circumstances. Could it, now, Potter?"

Harry had showered and dressed by the time, twenty minutes later, the door opened and the wheels of the breakfast trolley could be heard negotiating the entrance.

"Morning, Ron," he called out cheerfully, as he always did.

"Ha, fooled you," came a light-hearted response. "Ron called in sick this morning, so you've got me back for a while. Morning, Harry. Severus."

"Mr Wood." A courteous acknowledgement.

"Ollie, you poor sod!" Potter did not attempt to conceal his delight at the return of their former regular carer. "What did you do to get sent back to the salt mines? Isn't this the equivalent of detention for you?"

"Believe it or not, Harry, I volunteered," laughed Wood. "I wanted to see how you were all getting on. Coffee, Severus?"

"Yes. Thank you. Black … "

" … no sugar, I remember." The sounds told of Wood busying himself with the urn, identikit cups and saucers, coffee and tea in industrial quantities.

"What's the matter with Weasley?" Severus asked, accepting his cup.

"Supposedly toothache, but between you and me I think he may actually have an interview for another job. You know he hates this place; I think it's the way you guys treat him. Anyway, he won't be back until after the weekend."

"Ah yes," Snape recollected, with difficulty. "It's Saturday."

"Saturday the twenty-first of February," Wood supplied. "It's raining but the sky looks brighter, and there are daffodils and crocuses out in the garden. Should be nice enough to go for a walk later, if you like."

"I hope so. The air in this place is extremely stale."

"Oi, Severus, I hope that's not a comment on my personal hygiene," Harry grumbled. Wood had placed a cup in his hand and he was sipping experimentally; tea, two sugars, mercifully hot and sweet and strong enough to revive him for the day.

"Perish the thought. However in agreeing to share my accommodation with you, I was not aware that I would also be giving house room to your footwear. Presumably that was the reason the other residents had already blacklisted you?"

"That and the snoring," Harry admitted, cheerfully. "Too late to worry about it now, Severus, I've been here eight months. 'Course, if you'd been on better terms with Ron he might have warned you, but he probably thinks we deserve each other."

"I may have my limitations, Potter," shot back Snape, "but I don't recall doing anything quite evil enough to deserve you."

"I – "

"All right, gentlemen, time out," Wood told them, abruptly. "I haven't got all morning, and entertaining as it is to be treated to yet another instalment of The Snape and Potter Show, Albus is waiting for his porridge. Breakfast is bacon, scrambled egg, mushrooms, hash browns and toast. Is there any of that you don't want?"

"Mushrooms," Severus put in quickly. "They always taste like toe-nail clippings."

"What he said," Harry echoed. "And extra toast, please, Ollie. I'm a growing lad."

He ignored the muttered comment from the other side of the room that he had better not grow any bloody further if he knew what was good for him.

"And the egg's reconstituted and the hash browns contain even more cardboard than the bacon," Severus grumbled, after Wood had left.

"Why don't you just stick to the toast, then?"

"I would, Potter, if I wasn't so certain the toast would stick to me. The quality of the alleged food in this place leaves a great deal to be desired."

"Aren't you always telling me blind wizards can't afford to be too choosy?"

"Ex-wizards, Potter. Very ex. Surely you remember - one last final surge of elemental magic ripping through everything, Dark Lords dropping dead, Malfoys blasted to vapour, all the witches and wizards in the world losing their powers simultaneously?"

"And those of us who were still conscious losing our sight as well," Potter completed, knowing this speech rather too well by now. "All I meant was, it's free, and we're lucky to get it. It's not as if we're contributing much to the economy here."

"Speak for yourself. Nothing is free, and as for contributing I consider I've already paid for my accommodation a dozen times over."

"What, by destroying Malfoy? You can't live on that for the rest of your life, Severus."

"No, brat. By turning over what little remained of my family's estates and possessions in exchange for my keep."

"Oh." Silence fell, during which more than the breakfast was slowly digested. "Does that mean you're broke, then?"

Severus sighed, pushing away the greasy plate on which the remains of his breakfast egg had congealed. It was just as well, he reflected; it had been a little like eating chilled gorilla snot anyway.

"Not entirely." As usual, Snape's answer was frank and truthful without giving anything away. He seemed to realise this himself, and after a while he elaborated. "There's enough to live on - as long as I don't plan to live more than a hundred and fifty years, that is. Fortunately, that's not likely to be possible unless the magic is restored to us. I was also able to donate a small amount to fund a bursary for an impoverished student."

Harry was shaking his head slowly; even without the benefit of sight, non-verbal signals were such ingrained behaviour that he had forgotten he was giving them and sometimes had to be reminded when speech was necessary.

"I know what you're thinking," Snape went on. "That it doesn't sound like me. You didn't really know me at all, Potter, did you, until we found ourselves in this room together?"

"No, I don't think I did," was the honest acknowledgement. "Not that I didn't see through your Queen of All the Fairies routine pretty quickly, mind you."

"Yes, well, being bent as a corkscrew yourself would have helped there, wouldn't it?"

"I didn't know I was," came the subdued response. "One look at you got up like Elizabeth Taylor on a bad hair day was enough to do it, though. I fell like a ton of bricks. Thought you were wonderful. Still do," he admitted, with cheerful unconcern.

"Very flattering, I'm sure."

But the tone of Severus's voice was discouraging, to say the least. Somehow he had never quite been able to bring himself to accept that Potter's protestations of a past attachment were anything but a figment of his imagination, no matter how often he alluded to it. In any event it was irrelevant; as he had so often reminded the boy, the simple fact of both being unattached gay wizards who through no fault of their own happened to be sharing a very small living space and developing a kind of mutual dependency did not automatically make them either compatible or attractive to one another.

"Most of the opprobrious epithets directed at me during that period are to be re-interpreted as ham-fisted endearments, then, I suppose? You may find it difficult to believe, Potter, but students have been known to have crushes on me in the past; your behaviour, however, most certainly did not fit the template. For future reference, a few drivelling poems and an attempt to waylay me in the corridor are usually considered more appropriate than accusations of treachery."

"I don't do poetry, drivelling or otherwise. And if I waylay you in the corridor it will probably be with the intention of tripping you up."

"Something for which I'm certain I'm profoundly and eternally grateful," Snape told him, rather pointedly and exceptionally unpleasantly.

"I don't suppose Albus and Minerva will venture out today, do you?" he asked rhetorically, a couple of hours later. The umbrella was jammed so far down that its spokes were resting on the crown of his head, and Potter was so close to his side that he might have been welded there.

"Not in this weather, with his arthritis. He wouldn't even be able to hobble as far as the bench." Harry's arm threaded itself familiarly through Severus's. "Ready?"

"Yes."

One steady pace, completely in unison, from the ridged slabs of the entranceway to the crisp gravel of the wide path. This was a routine, indulged in time and time again as they had become accustomed to their altered circumstances. The gardens had been laid out specifically with blind wizards in mind, and even in the depths of winter there were things out here to entice those brave enough to tackle the walk. Slow careful paces across the gravel helped them judge their location; wind chimes, an Aeolian harp, the tinkling of a small fountain, ridges and patches of different-textured stone and wood along the way gave them points of reference. Always the same, even in the most extreme weather; always side-by-side, huddled together for protection and reassurance as if each was the only constant in the other's world, their morning walk had become something of a regular feature in the environs of the Hogsmeade Hall Rehabilitation Centre. Staff who were not too preoccupied with their duties often took a moment to pause and observe the two dark heads pressed close together, the expressions of cussed determination on the faces of the two wizards, and those who had known the pair before frequently struggled to suppress a smile of incredulity at the sight.

"So," Potter began, challengingly, as their pacing fell into its regular rhythm, "students used to waylay you in the corridors? Anyone I know?"

"As if I would tell you that," was the scornful response.

"Oh, you will. You just want to be persuaded. I bet I can guess, anyway."

"Can you, indeed?"

"I can. Draco Bloody Malfoy. I always thought he was hot for you."

"Hmmm. Well, yes, he did make the attempt."

"I'll bet. Did he take the whole trip? Poetry? Pouncing?"

"The works," Severus confirmed, with a weary sigh. "The worst verses you can possibly imagine, comparing my eyes to stars and my hair to a raven's wing."

"And your nose to an eagle's beak?" Potter giggled.

"I think he managed to omit that one," was the good-humoured concession. "But actually the tone of his verse was rather disturbing – aside from its artistic inadequacy, that is. The idiot child clearly wanted to be exposed to the worst kinds of sexual humiliation, and he thought I was the man to do that for him. He would have done better to apply to his own father."

"You didn't tell him that, I hope?"

"Do I look like an imbecile, Potter?"

"Not from where I'm standing." But Potter squeezed his arm and waited until he had recovered his composure before urging him to take the next measured step. "What did you do, then?"

"What … what I always did in similar circumstances. Looked him right between the eyes and said; 'Unfortunately, Mr Malfoy, as tempting as your proposal is, you are already several years too old to interest me.' As a rule, I found their enthusiasm for the project tended to diminish sharply after that."

"I'll bet it did! And how old was Malfoy at the time?"

"Fourteen, I think."

"And you told him he was too old? No wonder he was put off."

"To judge from the expression on his face, I would imagine he ran away and threw up immediately. I would hope he did, wouldn't you?"

"Yeah." A companionable silence fell between them, the crunching of their boots on the gravel and the chill distant song of a few hardy birds providing a soothing aural backdrop for thoughts which were far less attractive and infinitely more distressing. "You never could tell with Malfoy, though. Were you ever attracted to any of your students?"

"Very few, and the ones I picked were almost always straight. Some subconscious attempt to protect myself from them, or them from myself, I have no doubt."

"Who, then? Not me, I know that."

"Unfortunately not. It would have been a tidy solution, but life is rarely that convenient."

"I suppose it would," Potter conceded thoughtfully. "Bill Weasley, then?"

"Not really. I'm old enough these days to prefer my partners straight-acting, at least in public."

"Then who?"

Severus shrugged. "Well, the last one should amuse you, at least. I fell rather heavily for the charms of Oliver Wood – at roughly the same time you did."

"Ollie?" An incredulous squeak. "You fancy Ollie?"

"Fancied," Snape told him repressively. "Very definitely past tense. You may not have noticed, Potter, but Mr Wood is devoutly heterosexual."

"Yeah." Silence fell steadily in time with the rain, and momentarily Potter shuddered. He was sure it would not have been a good idea for Albus and Minerva to try and get out into the garden today; with their reduced speed of movement and their many physical infirmities they would have done themselves more harm than good under the raw sky. "So, did you try?"

"No. Did you?"

Potter's feet stopped moving. "I don't want to talk about it," he said, very softly.

"Then don't." Blanket dismissal, uncaring shrug, olive branch withdrawn. Then Snape seemed to recollect that they were all they had and his arm squeezed Harry's so enthusiastically as to be almost painful. "Perhaps I can guess. You were so much in love with him you thought you were going to swoon. You were certain it was irrational and he wouldn't be interested, but you owed it to yourself to try. Idiotic, self-sacrificing Gryffindor that you are, you pounced and he rejected you. Am I warm?"

"Cold, Professor Perfect. Cold as ice."

"Thank you, Potter, I'm glad you noticed. No pouncing, then? Or no rejection?"

"No pouncing. It never got that far, and I don't think I would've done it anyway. Not with Ollie looking after us and all. No, what happened was that Ron found out and had him transferred, but I couldn't work out why until Hermione told me Ginny and Ollie were engaged."

"Ah. So the oaf Weasley was afraid you would attempt to steal his sister's fiancé from her?"

"Apparently."

"He must have an exaggerated idea of your attractiveness, then. Charming as you undoubtedly are, in your way, I doubt whether you're really pretty enough to turn a straight boy gay if he doesn't want to be turned."

"Thanks. But Ron thinks it's something you catch, like measles. He's still hoping Bill will grow out of it one day and settle down with a wife and kids."

A dry chuckle from somewhere a little above Potter's ear. "The last time I saw Bill Weasley he seemed more inclined to settle down with four or five leather men and a large can of Crisco," Snape told him, without malice. "Poor deluded Ronald. Don't you detect just a touch of panic about his reaction? Perhaps he fancied you and hated himself for it?"

"That's what Hermione says," Potter conceded ruefully. "She says if Ron ever makes his mind up what he wants he could be happy enough, but he's scared to make a decision about anything in case he misses a better option. He's going to spend the whole of his life wavering about what's best to do, until it's too late to do it."

"Which, presumably, is why she declined to marry him?"

Harry shrugged. "Pretty much," he agreed, with a sigh.

Snape considered this revelation for a second or two before eventually delivering his verdict.

"How very sensible of her," he remarked, approvingly, effectively putting a stopper to the topic and consigning it to the back of the shelf for the time being.

Returning to their room shortly afterwards, damp and chilled and both in dire need of a restorative cup of something, it soon became clear that they were not alone.

"Good morning Harry, Severus. I hope you don't mind, Oliver let me in."

"We have no secrets," Snape said, politely enough but without warmth. "Good morning, Headmaster."

"Oh, for … you know, coming from you, Severus, that sounds just plain wrong. After all this time, couldn't you learn to call me 'Remus'?

An awkward silence, while Snape considered the proposition. "I suppose anything is possible," he allowed. "Eventually." But the implication was 'Don't hold your breath waiting'.

"You should have accepted the post yourself," Lupin told him, waiting until the two had taken their seats and then plumping himself down on the foot end of Severus's bed. "You know the Governors were very keen to have you."

"Thank you, but I made my position clear at the time. I have no wish to spend my declining years completely enmeshed in paperwork and subject to the whims of some committee of vacillating non-entities."

"That'll be a 'no', then, will it?" Harry asked, chirpily.

"If I had wanted the job myself I would scarcely have recommended Lupin, now, would I?" Severus responded, in an even tone.

"Good point. Is there something we can do for you, Remus?"

The tone of Lupin's response made it apparent that he was doing his best to suppress a chuckle. He had once unwisely voiced the opinion that these two were the best comedy duo in town and nothing much had happened recently to change that view.

"I've been visiting along the corridor, and I thought I'd drop in and let you know the latest from Myrtle House. Sybill Trelawney's going to do Art and Music and Hebe Sprout's decided on Domestic Science or Home Economics or whatever we're supposed to call it these days."

"'Life Skills?'," Harry suggested, ignoring a scandalised muttering from the opposite side of the table.

"'Life Skills'. The only 'Life Skill' you need is staying alive. Everything else is incidental."

"I'm inclined to agree with you, Severus," Lupin vouchsafed, "but I'm afraid we're rather constrained by the set curriculum. This isn't Hogwarts, unfortunately. I'm sure you regret that as much as I do."

"Given that you're finally free of your curse, Lupin, I should think the decline of magic has worked in your favour rather more than most. And you could hardly have hoped to be Headmaster under the old regime."

"Very true," Lupin conceded modestly. "I still feel as if it must be a clerical error, but we'll just have to try and make the best of it for the time being. Actually what I really came by to ask is whether either of you has any experience with those computer-things? I've bought six of them and they're still sitting in their boxes up at the school waiting for somebody who knows what to do with them. I'm told children these days know all about the wretched things, but I'm not sure I can face the embarrassment of asking one of my new First Years how to plug them in."

"Does you credit," Severus growled, unexpectedly. Then; "No, I try to avoid all contact with them."

"Harry?"

"Well, yes, I've messed about with computers a bit," was the subdued response. "I'll do what I can, but no promises."

"You wouldn't want to take a training course, I suppose?" Remus asked, almost hopelessly. "I could do with an in-house expert."

"Oh. So that's what this is about." Harry's tone sounded infinitely weary and put-upon, and Snape did not need to be able to see the bored expression on his room-mate's face to know that they were about to be treated to yet a further example of his retarded teenage petulance.

"I'm sure I don't know what you mean," Lupin challenged, mildly. "I merely suggested … "

"Come off it, Remus, this is the fourth different subject you've tried to interest me in. First it was Mathematics, then it was History, and then it was Modern Languages – as if having once been a Parselmouth meant I could automatically speak German! Even assuming I was willing to take up teaching again, the only subject I'm qualified in is sport – and Quidditch at that. With anything else I'd be starting from scratch – probably way behind my students, even. It would be years before I'd be any use to you."

"I've got years, Harry. I want you on my staff. There's a place for you at Myrtle House whenever you're ready for it."

Harry groaned. Remus kept on insisting, but although he had honestly tried to apply his mind to the question it always seemed to elude him. Struggle as he might, he had never yet identified one single solid good reason for doing anything other than staying just exactly where he was, enlivening his days by sniping at Severus and being sniped at in return, safe and secure and in no hurry to engage in any further commerce with the world outside their cosy walls.

"All right," Remus said, thoughtfully. "Back burner. I understand. But I would like you to consider it, all the same."

"Do I take it," Severus asked, his tone scrupulously emollient as befitted his unwonted role of peacemaker, "that you have been visiting Albus and Minerva? How did you find them?"

"Very frail." Lupin seemed grateful for the unexpectedly tactful intervention. "He is deaf as a post, she hears banshees wailing."

"Banshees?"

"The Aeolian harp. It's very close to their quarters, and when the wind's in the right direction it howls all night."

"Ah. So much for the masterly strategy of putting all the deaf wizards in that corner of the building. It would have been easier to move the harp."

"You know that and I know that, Severus," Lupin chortled. "Easier, but not nearly so satisfying to the bureaucratic mind."

"Hmmm. Perhaps Potter and I should simply sabotage it one morning when we're out for our walk."

"I'm game for that," Harry told him, delightedly. "It's not as if we won't be able to find it."

"I should think even we could manage that," Snape conceded.

"It's a deal then. So, apart from the banshees, Remus, they're all right?"

"It's difficult to tell. When I dropped your name into the conversation, for instance, I discovered that they think you're still a baby and living with your parents."

"You're kidding?"

"Unfortunately not. Everybody we lost in the war is still alive in that room, Harry; your mother and father, Hagrid, Poppy Pomfrey, Sirius – if you want to talk to any of them, you only have to wander along to Albus and Minerva's. I should have realised it sooner; Severus told me weeks ago he couldn't get any sense out of either of them any more."

"You sound depressed."

"Wouldn't you be? I'm only grateful Hermione was able to get the sale of the Hogwarts site out of the way while they still possessed most of their faculties. I can scarcely imagine how complicated the paperwork would have been otherwise."

"Considering that most of the other Trustees had either been murdered or discorporated in the blink of an eye, you might have had difficulty in obtaining the signatures you needed," Snape put in with devastating practicality.

"Yes. We'd've been down to you and Cornelius Fudge, and I understand his mental state is nothing to boast about," Lupin closed, cheerfully. "Well, I had better be on my way, I suppose, or Oliver will be wanting to throw me out. Oh, Severus, three crates of books have arrived for you at the school. Would you like to come up some time and inspect them? Your classroom should be ready by the end of next week."

"Thank you, Headmaster, I'll make myself available."

"Good show. Cheerio, Harry. Give it some thought, will you, like a good chap? Wouldn't really want to try and do this without you, you know."

"I … "

But Potter's brain was churning far too slowly to produce any kind of coherent result in the limited time-frame the headmaster allowed him, and a moment later they heard him bounding cheerfully along the corridor greeting the cleaning staff and the odd stray resident who happened across his path. Remus Lupin, these days, often bore more than a passing resemblance to a whirlwind; his enthusiastic management style, reminiscent of an excitable Labrador, was such a contrast to the gentle sagacity of Albus Dumbledore that the few returning staff would have no difficulty whatever in accepting that they were in an entirely new establishment – a descendant of Hogwarts, certainly, but not a continuation of it.

"Books, Severus?"

After Remus's departure they had sat for a while, not speaking. They did a lot of not speaking these days. There seemed to be little left to say, and they had both cultivated the art of listening to such an exaggerated degree that sometimes now they could spend entire hours just listening to one another listening. It was not a comfortable silence, but one to which they had become accustomed. As usual, however, it was Harry who broke the stalemate; eternally restless, lacking Snape's inner resources, he would frequently cast back to an earlier conversation in search of a topic his room-mate had long considered closed.

"What?"

"Books. You've accepted a post at the school, haven't you?"

"Certainly. In fact I have accepted two; Lupin has asked me to be his deputy."

"Knowing that I'm still struggling with it, you went ahead and accepted anyway?"

"Certainly." Maddening blandness was Snape's best defence against one of Harry's all-out attacks of irrationality.

"Without consulting me?"

A weary sigh escaped the older man, and there was a sound which told of him setting aside whatever he had been doing.

"We are not joined at the hip, Potter, and nor are we a committee. I am of mature years and used to making my own decisions. I'm sorry you feel you should have been consulted, but I recall giving no such undertaking."

"Pompous git."

"Irreverent child. If name-calling is the best you can do, perhaps we should just settle down and wait for lunch. In silence," he added, barbedly.

"No chance. Books and a classroom, Snape? What are you going to be doing?"

"Nothing that would interest you, Potter, I assure you. I haven't stolen any plum post from under your nose."

"History. You're taking History."

"No. Although I admit I was tempted, there are other subjects I'm better qualified for. And if you wanted the History post, you should have spoken up at the time."

"Oh, right. I could have told them all about Nelson defeating the Dutch at the Battle of Agincourt, but that's about the limit of my knowledge."

"And most impressive it is too," was the suave response.

"Thank you. I just assumed that whatever you did would be Potions-related, but it sounds if you've got something else in mind."

"As a matter of fact, I have. At the time I qualified, it was considered advisable to have a Muggle degree as well as a Wizarding one - for the more able students, at least. Our parents supplied us with time-turners for the purpose."

"Oh. So you went to a Muggle university, did you?" This was news to Potter, but fortunately for his sanity there seemed always to be some new nugget of information forthcoming about his cell-mate. "Which one?"

"Oxford." The tone of the reply blatantly questioned whether there were, in fact, any others in existence. "Of course."

"Oh, of course." But the answer might have been 'Chelmsford' for all the effect it had on Harry. He vaguely registered that it signified money and prestige, but such considerations were far from relevant to him. "Studying what?"

"If you want to know that," came the reply, as soft but deadly as a rattlesnake's warning, "I suggest you come over here and find out. Or are you afraid of exposing your manifest inadequacy with the reader?" Harry's attempts to master the tactile alphabet in which books and other printed materials now reached them had been far less successful than his own, but then Harry was not nearly as conscious as he was of the passage of time and often preferred to spend the midnight hours asleep while Severus drove his restless fingers across page after page in text after text.

"You're already well aware of my manifest inadequacy," Potter shot back. "And as for being afraid of anything … I live with you, don't I?"

"On sufferance, and only for the time being," he was told heavily. "If even a competence-impaired idiot like Weasley can put his pride in his pocket and re-train, surely it should not be beyond the capabilities of the great Harry Potter?"

"Ron trained as a carer," Harry reminded him, "and he hated it. And he's not blind."

"Only towards certain persuasions of men."

"Yes," Harry conceded, with a sigh, "I'll give you that. In fact, I sometimes think Ron sees less with his sight than you do without yours."

"Thank you. It is always flattering to be compared favourably to a Weasley. Now, are you going to come over here and satisfy your curiosity about my alternative choice of subject, or shall I close this machine down?"

"No, I'll give it a try. Hold out your hand."

"I have."

Harry got to his feet, both arms raised in front of him in the direction of Severus's voice, and a moment later his left wrist was caught and held firmly. Severus moved, vacating his chair, easing Harry down into it. "Now," he said. "Read." He gripped Harry's right hand, forcing his fingers into the correct position and placing them on the dots and ridges of the textured page.

It was a slow, laborious business; his fingertips were too calloused to be particularly sensitive and it was taking his brain a long time to acquire the facility for translating these tiny symbols into letters and the letters into words. Nevertheless at the third pass he began to understand what he was reading and had amassed sufficient confidence to be able to speak the words aloud.

It's a poem!"

"Marvellous! There's no fooling you, Potter, is there?

Harry shook his head. "I don't get it," he confessed, bluntly. "Why would a Death Eater be reading poetry?"

"Former Death Eater, if you don't mind. And I'm reading it because I happen to like it."

"Is it dirty? It sounds like Whitman or something."

"If by that you mean 'is it erotic', the answer is no. And it is not Whitman, so there are no boys bathing later in the verse. I'm sorry to disappoint you."

"Boys aren't exactly my thing, you know, Severus."

"I'm relieved to hear it. Shall we continue?"

"Don't you want to know what I do like?"

"Is it in some way relevant to the subject under discussion – which, incidentally, is poetry?"

"Not really."

"Good. Then it can wait for another time. Try the last verse."

"Not until you tell me why you're doing this. How come you could be such a bastard in Potions but now you're all sweet and gentle and patient with me? Don't I exasperate the hell out of you sometimes?"

"All the time." The reply sounded as if it had been forced out through gritted teeth, between jaws permanently locked into a disappointed growl. "I seem to be doomed forever to waste my life encouraging brilliant but lazy young men to achieve their full potential. Have you any idea how frustrating that is? But in my Potions classes I had to contend with thirty or forty young dunces, a room full of dangerous ingredients and a limited amount of time. Here I have you, and Stephen Spender, and the rest of eternity at my disposal. My retribution can be slow, surreptitious, Slytherin, and extremely satisfying."

"Ah!" Potter told him, cheerfully, "alliteration's artful aid."

"Absolutely," conceded Snape. "You have acquired a modicum of culture along the way, then?"

"I believe somebody threw some at me once. Probably in a Potions class."

"Indeed. Then my time has not been wasted. Mr Spender, on the other hand, will no doubt be wondering why he made the effort if his work is not to be appreciated. The last verse, if you please?"

"This is what you'll do?" Harry prevaricated, fascinated. "Teach poetry?"

"English literature more generally, I think. You should hear me on the nineteenth century novel some time. I have some remarks on the subject of Jane Austen that I think you'd find enlightening."

"Not now."

"No."

"You said 'our parents'," Harry told him, veering abruptly from one topic to another with the kind of impulsive alacrity that would have done credit to the driver of the Knight Bus.

"What?"

"'Our parents supplied us with time-turners'. Did Malfoy's father do a Muggle degree at Oxford too?"

"Yes. He would have been a more than passable engineer, if he had ever applied himself."

"Was that what you meant by brilliant but lazy young men?"

"Yes."

"Then you think I'm brilliant?"

"I think you're lazy, Potter. Can we return to Mr Spender, do you suppose? You were going to attempt the last verse."

Too confused for further argument, Harry was astonished to find himself capitulating quite readily.

"'Near the snow, near the sun, in highest fields

And left the vivid air signed with their honour.'"

"You see, you can do it if you try."

"I suppose so. It's lovely, isn't it? 'Left the vivid air signed with their honour'."

"It is indeed. I'm glad you like it."

"So you and Lucius Malfoy were at Oxford together? Did he write you poems?"

"No. Although I do recall receiving an obscene engineering diagram on one occasion."

"You were fucking each other." Not an accusation, nor a recent conclusion, so much as a bland statement of fact.

"At school, and at University," Snape conceded. "Enthusiastically and often. I can tell that as usual your mind has firmly descended below the level of your belt-buckle, Potter. Very well, then, by all means let us have this conversation before Wood arrives to bring us our sawdust pie and blotting-paper salad. You want to know about my relationship with Lucius Malfoy, I take it? Not that it's any of your business, I might add."

"Relationship? Was it a relationship? Did you live together? Did you love him?"

The sounds told of Snape switching off the text reader and its fan slowly whirring down to stillness. It made the silence in the remainder of the room all the louder, somehow, and the distant bronchitic chirping of some misguided bird seemed lonelier and more forlorn than ever.

"If living together is your benchmark for a relationship," Snape began quietly, "then no, it was not. Did I love him? That's rather less straightforward. I certainly loved the experience of being with him; he was stunning and he turned heads. He could walk into a room and make everyone hold their breath just looking at him. I adored showing him off, but at the same time it could be acutely embarrassing. Believe me, by the time you set eyes on him he was a comparatively sober dresser; at one stage he had a nasty habit of turning up to school functions in backless Slytherin green silk and emeralds. No-one could compete, particularly not the girls; the only sensible solution was to go the other way entirely. Black, black and more black. One expresses oneself through cut, in tailoring, rather than colour. Remember that, Potter, if you should ever be tempted to disport yourself in silk and emeralds."

"Yes, Professor. Do you think I should?"

"Silk and emeralds?" A moment of consideration. "They would suit your colouring," Snape conceded, "but I'm afraid the effect would be rather lost on me in the present circumstances. Do let me know if you decide to do it, though; I can give you an introduction to Lucius's dressmaker."

Severus had a regular Saturday evening date to play dominoes with Albus in the Lounge while Minerva had her hair done. As usual, he had been gone only a few minutes before Hermione turned up, exhausted after a long journey but still cheerful as she strapped Harry into the passenger seat of her little hatchback and drove him off to their local hostelry, the Hanged Man, for curry and chips. Given the shortcomings of the Hogsmeade Hall catering, it was often the only decent meal Harry had during the week.

"Are you seeing Ron this weekend?" Harry asked, when they were eventually settled in their familiar fireside corner.

Hermione groaned. "Bad choice of subject," she told him, sadly.

"Still not talking to him?"

"Waiting for him to grow up. I don't suppose you've heard the latest? He's trying to stop Bill bringing his boyfriend to the wedding."

"Bill's got a boyfriend?" Harry echoed, an incredulous smile on his face.

"Well, I don't know why you're so shocked. It's not as if there was any doubt about his sexuality, is it?"

"No. I'm just surprised that one man's enough for him." Severus's remark about the can of Crisco, while scathing, had been accurate in its way. "No reason why he shouldn't bring his 'Flavour of the Month' to the wedding, though, is there? I can't see what business it is of Ron's."

"When has that ever stopped him, though?"

"Good point."

"I love Ron dearly," Hermione began, in a cautious tone, "but he can be such a pain in the arse. I'm sure it's mostly to do with frustration about work, you know? He can't change that, so he interferes in things he can influence – whether he's welcome or not. I feel very sorry for him in a way; he always thought he was going to be an Auror, and suddenly not only are there no Aurors any more but there's no magic either, and he has to start all over again learning who he is and what he can do. And it's not as if he had much experience of the Muggle world before; if Ollie hadn't helped him get the job at the Hall, I think he'd still be sitting around at home feeling sorry for himself and getting under Molly's feet."

"He's not exactly a natural for one of the 'caring professions', is he?" Although hard-working enough, Ron Weasley could never be accused of an over-abundance of sympathy towards his charges. "I'm sure he does his best, but he's in the wrong job. You should hear some of the rows he has with Severus, when he forgets who he's dealing with. It doesn't do to underestimate Severus."

"It never did," Hermione acknowledged wryly. "You're fond of him, aren't you?"

"Ron? Or Severus?"

"Which one is your best friend?"

Harry set down his fork. He thought he still had some rice left somewhere on the plate but it was difficult enough to chase even when you could see it.

"I wouldn't be sharing a bedroom and a bathroom with Ron," he said, slowly. "We'd kill each other inside a fortnight."

"A lot of people thought that would happen with you and Severus," Hermione reminded him.

"Only people who don't know us. Ron would have driven me mad. Severus is … In a funny sort of way, I think he's keeping me sane."

"I know," Hermione told him. "I hoped it would work out that way. But I must admit I'm surprised you've realised it, Harry."

Harry's mouth twisted. "Don't let the tough Quidditch-player exterior fool you; I'm sensitive enough, in my way. Only this morning I was reading poetry! Of course, Severus made me do it," he conceded, reaching carefully for his pint.

"I'm amazed he got away with that," Hermione laughed, "but then he is Severus Snape! So why aren't you and he a couple yet, Harry?"

It was all Harry could do not to splutter his beer halfway across the table. With a supreme effort he swallowed it, coughing a little, setting the glass down where it could be in no further danger.

"Trust me," he said, "I'm not his type. I'm too out, I'm not out enough, I'm too notorious, I'm too faceless, and since I don't ponce around in silk and my hair isn't long enough to sit on I don't think I even register on his gaydar."

"You mean Lucius Malfoy, don't you? You think Severus misses him?"

"I doubt it. I don't think there was a lot of affection involved. They were a habit, that's all. A bad habit, too, by the end."

"It sounds to me as if you're defending Severus."

"No. He doesn't need my defence, H, he can stand up for himself."

"I wonder what he saw in Lucius?" Hermione mused, idly. "Or what Lucius saw in him?"

"I think it must have been pure sex," Harry told her, with a dismissive shrug. "Severus hinted as much. Anyway, whatever the attraction was, it obviously ran in the family; apparently Draco propositioned Severus when he was fourteen and Severus sent him packing."

"Quite right too." Hermione shuddered at the very idea. "Didn't he know Severus had been – or still was - Lucius's lover?"

"Probably didn't care one way or the other."

"That's hideous. It's like incest."

Harry shrugged. "We don't know anything about the way Malfoy was brought up," he said, calmly. "For all we know it could've been dinner-table conversation at home, Lucius boasting about what he got up to with Uncle Severus. Draco may just've thought he'd like a piece of the action for himself."

Hermione shifted uncomfortably in her seat. "You're very philosophical about it all," she remarked. "Don't you feel even the slightest degree of resentment towards Lucius?"

"What about? The clothes? Or the sex?"

"The sex."

"You think I want to screw Severus?"

"Don't you?"

"No." Harry shook his head determinedly. "And, considering he wouldn't let me even if I did, it's a bloody good job it's never likely to be an issue between us, H, isn't it?"

"Pick those up, Potter, and put them somewhere tidy," Severus growled, a couple of hours later, as Harry swam sideways across his bed and wriggled carelessly out of his shoes. "If I need the bathroom in the middle of the night, I don't want to be measuring my length on the floor because you were too idle to put your shoes away."

"Yes, mother," Harry giggled, obediently tucking them under the edge of his bed. "Done it."

"Thank you. Kindly award yourself a pat on the head."

"I thought you were asleep."

"So I gathered, from the way you were shushing yourself as you came in. I take it the brew at the Hanged Man met with your discriminating standards again?"

"You mean 'am I pissed'?"

"It's curry night at the local boozer, Potter; of course you're pissed. And it disappoints me to see you stumbling about so badly on something with the specific gravity of tap water. The beer they serve up there is a very inferior product."

"And of course you're the expert on beer," Harry returned, snidely.

"Beer is a potion, Potter; ingredients, liquid, brewing, it's a scientific process."

"You brew beer?" Somehow that just wasn't the surprise it should have been.

"Of course," Severus sighed, wearily, as though explaining yet again that one and one, when added together, have a tendency to equal two. "I brew, distil, and bottle – when I have the facilities – all manner of alcoholic delights. I also make jam and marmalade and preserve fruit, not that any of this is of interest to you."

"And there was me thinking the only things you preserved were shrunken heads." Harry hiccuped, hauling off his trousers and throwing them in the general direction of his chair. His jacket was there already, and his tee shirt soon followed. One last battle with his socks, and he squirmed into bed in his underpants.

"How was Hermione?" Snape asked, eschewing further comment on his room-mate's habits; they would be best saved for the morning, when Potter would no doubt be mildly hung-over and his malice would go that much further.

"Bitching about Ron as usual. I don't think she'll ever marry him now. They've grown too far apart."

"As in, she's grown up and he hasn't?"

"As in."

"She could do much better," confided Severus. "I've always thought so."

"She asked me why we aren't a couple. Why aren't we a couple, Severus?"

"Perhaps neither of us is interested in the other sexually, Potter, had you considered that?"

Harry's heart gave an unexpected lurch somewhere deep in his chest, like a lift cabin suddenly wrenched from its mountings which begins a precipitous descent whilst still fully loaded.

"Aren't we?" he asked, bemused. "I absolutely adored you at school, you know."

"You most certainly did not."

"Did so."

"I don’t believe a word of it. But fortunately for both of us I didn't absolutely adore you. I don't make a practice of adoring my students, I consider it bad policy. And we've both seen how corrosive that sort of thing can be; I might mention the name of the late unlamented Gilderoy Lockhart, for example. No, I prefer to maintain a healthy distance from my charges, thank you."

"So you didn't feel anything for me? Back then, I mean?"

"I can't say that I ever looked at you and thought 'There is a boy I'd like to roger as soon as he's old enough', no. Pretty little boys are the stock-in-trade of an establishment like Hogwarts, and pretty little boys with reputations are more numerous than you might imagine. All I was concerned with at that stage was keeping you alive."

"Oh." Harry thought about this for a while. "And now?"

"Disappointing though you may find it, my goals are still the same. I long ago came to the conclusion that I would be more use to you as a teacher than a lover. I do hope you're not going to tell me I was wrong?"

"No," Harry mumbled. "You weren't wrong. That was what I needed, then. Nowadays, though, I'm not so sure." He shivered, the cold night air cutting right through him. "Can I come over there and warm up?"

"No, you may not."

"Thought not, but it was worth trying." From the casual equanimity in Potter's words it would have been impossible to tell that a sexual advance, however oblique, had just been made and rejected. Neither of them, in fact, had departed from their usual tone of semi-affectionate squabbling; it sometimes seemed as if they never would. "You thought I was pretty, though, did you?"

"Fishing for compliments, Potter? From me? How are the mighty fallen!"

"Answer the question. Did you think I was pretty or not?"

"Passable," Severus conceded. "Just. In a good light."

"Bastard. You don't give a thing away, do you? You wouldn't piss on me if I was on fire."

"I might have to weigh up whether the effort required would be exceeded by the potential benefit. Of course you could burn to death in the interim."

"I'll bet." But Harry ignored the insult, his mind occupied with another image entirely. "You don't know what you're missing. I'd have been sensational in silk. I could've dressed twice as well as Malfoy on half the money, and don't pretend you don't know it."

Annoyance was beginning to creep in to Severus's voice, and this time when he spoke his words were slightly more clipped and forceful. "If this is some transparent ploy to get me to buy you emeralds, Mr Potter, you had better dream on. And Lucius Malfoy was nothing but a gold-digging size queen who looked good in taffeta; there wasn't much about him you should envy and a great deal you would do well to pity."

"But you loved him, Severus, didn't you?" As though that somehow excused a great deal of what had happened between them.

A long, disgusted pause, and then, in tones so icy as almost to freeze Harry's breath upon the air; "As usual, Potter, you know bugger all about it, so I'll thank you to shut your mouth and go to sleep while you're still capable. One more misplaced word from you tonight and I may just have to consider coming over there and, in the vulgar parlance, punching your bloody lights out."

Severus's gloomy prognostications about the hardihood of his middle-aged bladder were borne out a little before five the following morning. Resignedly he scraped an inquisitive hand across the front of his tactile clock, then pushed back his bedclothes and swung his bare feet to the floor. Fortunately Potter had left neither footwear nor any other obstruction in his path, and he was able to get to the toilet and relieve himself without even having to wake up fully. As he left the bathroom, however, he became aware of the low-level hum of the text reader's fan and the slight warmth and electrical-component smell which emanated from the device when it had been working hard for some hours.

"Aren't you cold, Potter?" he asked, in a normal tone of voice. It seemed pretty pointless creeping about trying not to wake the boy, when he was obviously sitting up working for once.

"Bloody frozen," Harry admitted, civilly enough.

"Why don't you put your bathrobe on? Oh, that's right, you haven't got one."

"No, but you have. Thank you for the loan."

"Not at all. Be my guest." Severus climbed back into bed, arranged his pillows behind him, and propped himself upright with the blankets drawn up to his chest. Even that brief excursion had left his legs and feet cold; the Hall was furnace hot during the day but quite arctic at night, and Potter must be in some danger of turning into an icicle. "What's so fascinating, anyway? Finally catching up on your homework?"

"No. Yours. Finding out what makes you tick."

"I do not tick. I am not a bomb."

"No, but you require nearly as careful handling."

"You have a point. Very well, is there anything I can explain to you? What stage have you reached?"

"Actually I'm just struggling with a line. 'With love's light winds did I … over-something these something'."

"Ah, Shakespeare, thou should'st be living at this hour! Wings, Potter, wings. 'With love's light wings did I o'erperch these walls'."

"Wings. Right. And what was the other word?"

"O'erperch. Climb over. Not a word, I think, which appears anywhere else in the English language. A coinage of the bard's own."

"Right. Coinage. O'erperch."

"Romeo has climbed into the orchard to make love to Juliet," Snape explained. "In the poetic sense, that is."

"Naturally. Since she's on a balcony and he's underneath it."

"Quite. Continue."

"Hmmm. 'With love's light wings did I o'erperch these walls; for stony limits cannot hold love out, and what love can do, that dares love attempt'."

"Adequately translated," Snape approved, "but you speak it like a shopping list. One quart toad's rue, one dram of spider venom, three parts gin, one part vermouth – and what love can do, that dares love attempt. Just take that down to the pharmacy and have it filled, will you?"

"Oh, and you can do better, I suppose? I never realised you had a thing about verse-speaking, but I suppose the whole drama-queen persona should have given me a clue. Are you a frustrated actor, Severus? Or just frustrated?"

A deep, heartfelt sigh from somewhere across the room. "Frustrated only by your obtuseness and reluctance to get to grips with technology which has been developed to help us," Severus groaned. "One need not read Shakespeare, Potter. There are plenty of mindless thrillers available if that's what your soul craves. I should imagine there's even gay pornography to be had, somewhere. Perhaps Wood will get hold of some for you if you ask him nicely."

"No fear. I'm not asking him any such thing."

"Ah. It shows a spark of common sense at last."

"It," Harry responded waspishly, "has learned the fine art of self-preservation over the years. Potions classes were always good for that, I seem to recall."

"Touché."

"Threeché. Tell me how it should be spoken, then, since you're so bloody clever?"

"Very well." A pause, a breath, and then:

"'With love's light wings did I o'erperch these walls;

Therefore thy kinsmen are no let to me.'"

The reckless passion of the verse-speaking was a revelation. The words sounded as if they were being said for the first time ever, by a young man almost overwhelmed by desperate love. The nightshirted middle-aged ex-Potions master and their echoing, institutional surroundings had evaporated into nothingness, to be replaced in Harry's imagination by a handsome suitor on bended knee before him, taking his hand and gazing up into his eyes.

"Potter?" A tone of devastating normality.

"Huh?"

"The line, Potter? You will have to be Juliet."

"Oh." And his fingers flew to the page. "'If they do see thee, they will … murther? … thee.'"

A satisfied grunt from his unlikely Romeo. "'Alack, there lies more peril in thine eye than twenty of their swords! Look thou but sweet, and I am proof against their enmity.'"

"You say the nicest things," Harry told him, regretting the inappropriate urge to humour as soon as it reared its ugly head, but somehow sincerity between these two had always held the edge of a peril he had struggled to address.

"There is another line, I believe," the sardonic tone reminded him, Snape switching from bedazzled lover to acerbic tutor in the space of a heartbeat.

"'I would … not … for … the world … '" Harry began gamely, then found himself grinding to a halt with the words beneath his fingers displaying a maddening obstinacy to co-operate. In frustration he clicked the 'off' switch and the hum of the reader dwindled to silence. "I owe you an apology, don't I?"

"You don't owe me anything."

"Save me the martyr act, Severus," Harry demanded, into the uncompromising silence. "Just tell me again why we're not a couple, and make me believe it this time. And not a word about us not fancying each other, because we both know that's a lie. I would, and I know you would, and everybody else thinks we are – or at least that we should."

"And the opinion of the world is sufficient reason for you to ruin your life, is it?" Severus asked him, gravely.

"I don't see it that way."

"You don't see anything at all. You're blind."

"So are you."

"Not so blind that I can't see what a disaster it would be, Potter. Just think about it; you and I share a room, we're used to each other. If something happened to upset our domestic arrangements we'd both have to start our lives all over again. And, frankly, I've done that too many times already. I don't need the aggravation, and I'm sure you don't either. What's that charming Muggle metaphor, again; 'If it ain't broke … ?'"

"Don't fix it," Harry completed gloomily. "Meaning you're reluctant to risk what we've got in favour of something that might not work?"

"Meaning precisely that."

"And what we feel for each other, whatever that may be, is outside your comfort zone?"

Severus sighed deeply. "Potter," he said, "I'm dangerously close to starting to believe that I may not actually despise you after all. In fact I'm almost on the verge of not disliking you completely. Anything more is going to take me a great deal of time, and since we are likely to be going our separate ways in September, if not before, I doubt whether any relationship between us would have a chance of getting off the ground, don't you agree? Far better to leave things as they are, to continue to tolerate one another's company, and to shake hands at the end of it and part on civil terms. You really do not want to handcuff yourself to someone with the same record of marital fidelity as a Black Widow spider, I can assure you. Like your friend Hermione, you could do a great deal better."

"Whoa, hang on a minute. Never mind about whether I can do better or not, I think that's my decision to make … what was that about September? You mean you're moving out?"

"Headmaster Lupin has offered me quarters at Myrtle House," Severus informed him, quietly. "Rooms specifically adapted to my requirements. On the basis that the food will certainly be better than it is here, I could hardly refuse. Did you imagine I'd commute to work every day?"

"No. It's just that I've hardly had a chance to get used to the idea that you'll be teaching again. The practical side of things never even entered my head."

"Well, the simple fact is, I could do with the money," Severus confessed, without emotion. "My capital is diminishing rapidly, and although I probably could afford not to work, life will be a lot easier if I do. Besides which, think of the boredom of having to spend the rest of my life in idleness! I don't believe it would suit me."

"Of course it wouldn't," Harry acknowledged. "I know that. But like you said, this arrangement of ours seems to be working. I've got used to you being around. Is there any reason why I couldn't go with you?"

"As what? My kept boy?"

"I'm not a boy. I'm a legal adult, as well you know."

"That's only a technicality. You're half my age and I wouldn't allow it even if I could. As it happens, the regulations are very clear; accommodation at Myrtle House is available only to members of staff, their spouses and their minor children. You are none of those things, Potter, therefore you are simply not eligible. I would imagine you'll be able to remain here, and you may even have a new room-mate in due course. I hear Shacklebolt isn't getting on too well with Longbottom; no doubt either one of them would be glad to move in here."

"Over my dead body. Severus, you can't do this to me!"

"Do it to you, Potter? Do it to you?" The tone now was velvet, dangerous, a tiger's deadly purr. "I am doing nothing to you, my dear idiotic child. I thought that was the whole trouble."

The morning brought sheeting rain and a scything wind, and the breakfast trolley carried both the acidic tomato-substitute and the heavily institutionalised excuse for marmalade that they so despised. Bitching about the food and the weather, therefore, kept them entertained whilst Wood bustled to and fro in their quarters dispensing, along with the rations, such relentlessly upbeat gossip about his wedding plans that they could both cheerfully have strangled him.

"I'd have thought he was a bit ordinary for your taste," Harry said, thoughtfully, when the door had closed behind the carer and they could hear him trundling towards Albus and Minerva's lair. "A bit of a come-down after the dazzling Ms Malfoy."

"Possibly," Severus acknowledged thoughtfully. "But we're all victims of our hormones from time to time, Potter, even those of us who consider ourselves civilised. Unfortunately as a mere human being I lack the capacity to lead an entirely celibate life."

"So Quidditch players do it for you, then? Is it just the taut thighs on the broomstick or the whole beefy, sweaty, macho-games-in-communal-showers scenario?"

"Neither. Nor is it Quidditch players per se, thank goodness. Actually I don't believe I have a recognisable 'type'; my tastes are reasonably inclusive."

"Any port in a storm, then?"

"Sometimes, when one is desperate, one forgets to discriminate."

"You got too horny to care?"

"It happens. I don't doubt that it's happened to you, too. And besides, I was under the impression that you'd fallen for our handsome Gryffindor Captain yourself. Or is he repulsive to you now because he didn't want you? If so, I dread to think what my fate will be, being repulsive in the first place."

"You don't have a lot further to fall, then, do you?" Harry sniped back. "But if you think I'm going to trash you for turning me down, think again. I've been rejected often enough to know what it feels like. I just thought … well, it could've worked."

"No, it could not."

A heavy silence cloaked the room as these words fell away. Out in the corridor Wood's voice could be heard very clearly, advising someone that it was raining steadily and the garden would not be a pleasant place at the moment. That gentle, half-bantering tone seemed so warm and familiar that it had been difficult to understand that Ollie was the same with everyone, sighted and blind, female and male. Confusing affection for love, or attraction, or whatever, had always been Harry's problem. He'd given his heart away enough times already to understand that it was not always received with courtesy; in fact, sometimes it simply wasn't noticed at all. Far better to keep it protected in future, so that it could not be damaged again.

"I really thought I loved him, you know," he said, scarcely registering any more that he was not alone.

"I know."

"I poured my whole heart out to him when we were at Kents and he was fantastic about it – holding my hand, letting me cry on his shoulder. I imagine he was the same with you too?"

"Do you suppose I actually cried?" Severus sounded mildly scandalised.

"Yes, I do. I think it was just as tough on you as it was on me and Neville and Kingsley and Albus and Minerva and all the others. We were suffering, and I know you were too. You just chose not to share it with anyone."

"Except Wood."

"Except him. Was that why you fell for him, d'you think? Because he was so compassionate and caring?"

"Possibly. But it may also have been because he was safe, and would never for a moment consider me as a potential lover. It enabled me to indulge my emotions without risking anything important."

"Wasn't meant to be, though, was it?" Harry shrugged. "For either of us."

"No. I'm sorry you were hurt by it, though."

"So am I, believe me. But we live and learn, Severus, don't we? And I wouldn't take him away from Ginny even if I could; if he's what makes her happy, that's fine with me."

"But you think he could've made you happy instead? And you him?"

"Maybe. Never going to find out, am I?"

"Apparently not."

"You're such a comfort."

"One does one's little best," was the arch response. "Broken hearts are two a penny, Potter. Loving someone means giving them the power to hurt us. Nobody forces us to make that commitment."

"I know." Harry let the words sink in for a moment, and then said; "So who broke your heart, Severus, as if I couldn't guess?"

"As a matter of fact my heart has not been broken," came the calm response, after a thoughtful pause, "yet. Not in any meaningful sense, at least. When it inevitably does occur, I expect to learn something of value from the experience."

"You almost sound as if you wanted it to happen."

"Perhaps I do. Did you think that somehow I would be immune from the sufferings other people endure?"

"I don't know," was the grave response. "Maybe I just thought you were above that kind of stupidity."

"Well, now you know that I'm not."

Silence descended again, and then Harry said, unexpectedly; "I borrowed a pair of wire-cutters from the tool-kit in Hermione's car."

It was such a startling non-sequitur that it left Severus almost completely dumbfounded. However he had soon recovered sufficiently to enquire; "For what purpose, if I may ask?"

"The Aeolian harp. A little gentle sabotage to work up an appetite for lunch, I thought. If we cut the strings, it will take a lot longer to fix than if we just tip it over or turn it round."

"Ah, Potter, you never cease to amaze me. Yes, by all means, let's to it while the weather is still foul enough to keep other people out of the garden. I'm perfectly willing to risk a drenching if it will save what little remains of Minerva's sanity – and I consider virtually anything to be allowable in the name of a good night's sleep."

"If we succeed in this," Harry began, digging his arm through Severus's as they started their side-by-side perambulation, "how do you fancy sabotaging the wedding for an encore? Apparently Bill wants to bring his latest conquest and Ron's not keen on gay couples cluttering up the place."

"Oh? Why do I have the impression I may not like this plan of yours very much?"

"You'll like it. It's very sneaky. Very Slytherin."

"You intrigue me strangely. Continue."

"Well," Harry began, cautiously, "assuming I get an invitation to the wedding – which I'm almost certain to, no matter how much I piss Ron off - how would you feel about going along as my partner?"

"So that you'll have someone to dance with at the reception? A fine pair we'd look, blundering into the furniture together."

"You wouldn't actually have to dance. I'm hoping I won't, either, as it happens. I'm not Best Man or anything."

A snort of derision sounded somewhere very close to his ear. "'Best Man' at a Weasley wedding is something of a nebulous concept. It's not as if there's likely to be much competition."

"Oh go on, Severus, you'll enjoy it. You can bitch about the food and the music and anything else that takes your fancy. Even about me, if you want."

"That's a given, Potter," Snape conceded. "But given the anti-homosexual bias of the hosts, why should I expose myself to their contumely by accompanying you, of all people? No, you'd do far better to escort Hermione to the wedding to protect her from the egregious Ronald."

"Doesn't work that way, unfortunately. She's a bridesmaid, so she's automatically got to be with Ron or it spoils all the arrangements. She's not very happy about it, believe me, and that's even before you take the dress into account. We're talking pink and frothy here; Lucius wouldn't've been seen dead in it."

"Well, no, he did have very good taste."

"So I've heard."

"Very expensive taste, if it comes to that. Far beyond the Weasley exchequer."

"You should know."

"I should indeed, since it was almost all at my expense."

"Really?" Harry was more than a little surprised to hear it. "I always thought the Malfoys were seriously loaded?"

"Poor as church mice," Snape told him derisorily. "His family may have had the breeding all right, but it was mine who had the money."

"So you paid for everything? The gowns, the jewels, the lot?"

"The couturiers, the hand-made shoes, the beauticians, the stylists, the manicurists, the mud packs, the cosmetics and the personal fitness trainer he had the almighty nerve to fuck in our bed? Yes, everything. The whole works. That was the reason he kept me around; he liked to have someone to pay the bills. My sole attractive quality, in his eyes - apart, of course, from the fact that I'm spectacularly well-endowed physically."

"Oh, are you, indeed?" Harry laughed, recognising the note of self-deprecating humour in the comment. "I wouldn't dream of contradicting you."

"You'll have to take my word for it, since you're unlikely to get close enough to find out." They had stopped in front of the shrubbery which housed the shrieking Aeolian harp. Dripping laurel leaves tipped delicate rivulets of water down the backs of both necks and Harry shuddered involuntarily. "Would you care to enlighten me as to the next phase of your cunning scheme, Mr Potter?" That wonderfully frosty classroom didacticism seemed to Harry to be only too appropriate in the howling, sodden garden; set Severus Snape against any number of banshees, real or imagined, and one would have to end up feeling sorry for the banshees.

"There isn't a next phase," Harry confessed, with a light laugh. "I'm just making this up as I go along."

"Ah, then I suggest one of us keeps watch while the other cuts the strings. I'd flip a coin with you, but we'd lose it and the result would be academic anyway since we both know I'm going to be the one getting wet here. Why don't you just pass me the wire-cutters and be prepared to warn me if you hear footsteps?"

"Wire-cutters." Harry groped for Snape's hand and slapped the cutters into his palm like a nurse handing an instrument to a surgeon. "I don't suppose you happen to remember the spell for cutting wires, do you?"

"It wasn't one I needed to use very often. 'Scindere', I should think, would probably do it. I suppose you try the occasional spell, now and again, just in case?"

"I can't quite lose the habit," Harry told him, without self-pity. "There are days when I'd almost sell my soul for a good 'Lumos'."

"Yes," Snape told him, shouldering his way into the soaking shrubbery. "Ironic, isn't it, that the destruction of magic – the very thing we were so desperate to prevent Voldemort achieving – should have turned out to be the only possible means of stopping him? A cynic might suggest that we had won his battle for him, in the end."

"Except that he wanted to destroy magic for everyone else and to retain it for himself. And you may have noticed that he's no longer around to enjoy his victory."

"Allowing, as you say, Potter, for those trivial and insignificant details." There followed a series of metallic 'pings', and by slow degrees the high-pitched ghostly whine which had led them to this exposed corner of the garden died away to silence, and there remained in its place only the grateful sighing of the trees. "For this relief, much thanks," Snape murmured, blundering back out of the shrubbery and returning the wire-cutters to Harry. "Hide these carefully, for heaven's sake. Give them back to Hermione as soon as you get an opportunity, and then the pair of us can plead ignorance."

"Everybody'll know we did it," Harry told him, mildly.

"Of course they will," came back the testy response. "But knowing it and proving it are two entirely different things, and they'll never get a conviction if the material evidence goes missing at the relevant time. I wasn't appointed Head of Slytherin house on the strength of my good looks and charming manner alone, you know, Potter."

"I'm not going to ask what you two have been up to, I don't want to know," Wood told them good-humouredly, accosting them in the corridor some way from their room. "Although I might just add that, whatever it is, Minerva seems quite pleased about it. The pair of you look like drowned rats and you, Severus, look as if you've been dragged through a hedge backwards. A laurel hedge," he added, slyly. "You've got laurel leaves in your hair."

"It's a crown," Harry laughed. "He's just appointed himself Emperor."

"'I am more an antique Roman than a Dane'," muttered Severus, enigmatically. "But I think I may have ruined my last half-way decent set of robes. Are there any of my clothes still in storage, Wood?"

"A couple of Muggle outfits, I think. I'll go and see what I can find."

"Thank you."

As they parted from him and continued their progress, Harry said; "You realise you're probably the last wizard in the place who actually wears robes? Apparently even Albus has gone into trousers and cardigans, and Minerva has a fine collection of sensible skirts."

"She used to envy Lucius his wardrobe," Severus commented, between chattering teeth. "She frequently told me she wished she could afford to dress as well."

"That's an image I didn't need in my head," Harry moaned. "McGonagall and Malfoy as sisters under the skin."

"And the day I take fashion advice from Albus Dumbledore you may seal me in a box and shovel earth on top of it, Potter; the man has all the sartorial elegance of a corpse on a park bench."

"You'd better take a hot shower, Burglar Bill," Harry advised him. "Warm yourself up a bit. I'll get Oliver to bring your clothes straight into the bathroom."

"No thank you." They had reached their room, and Severus was slowly unpeeling himself from acres of dripping bombazine. "You bring them," he added, in a more benign tone. "I'd prefer not to expose my hideous nakedness to someone who can actually see it, if you don't mind too much."

Wood brought a holdall full of clothing, which Harry transported to Severus in the bathroom. The moment he had left the room again the door was locked behind him, and there followed forty-five minutes during which Snape could be heard pronouncing some of the vilest imprecations ever uttered in such a genteel wizarding establishment. At the end of this time he emerged, somewhat out of breath, and said, in a very small voice; "Potter, I believe I will require a second opinion."

"All right." Harry had been perched on the end of his bed listening to the unfolding drama on the other side of the door, but gamely stepped across with both hands held out before him. Any touch taboo had been banished during their first weeks sharing this room when each had needed to learn, separately, how to interpret the world in new ways. They had begun by learning to touch one another, and it had long ceased to be an occasion for comment, either between them or among their friends and carers, since elsewhere in Hogsmeade Hall and throughout the wider wizarding community there were plenty of other people learning the self-same lessons. "Oh! That wasn't at all what I was expecting!"

"What's the matter?" Snape's response was lodged somewhere between irritation and alarm.

"This sweater you're wearing. It's … well, it's fluffy."

"It most certainly is not fluffy. Hairy, perhaps?"

"Fluffy. Definitely. I presume it's black?"

"I have no idea. Your friend Weasley obtained it for me."

"Ron? Ron got you a fluffy sweater? Is it one his mum knitted?"

"I can't imagine she has much time for knitting these days, what with the wedding plans and everything."

"Thanks for reminding me of that, Severus. I'd unaccountably managed to forget for almost five minutes that the man I thought I was in love with is just about to marry one of my best friends. What else are you wearing?"

The etiquette they had developed between them meant that explorations below the waist required specific permission. With a sigh Snape detached Harry's hand from his sleeve and brought it down carefully to his outer thigh. The fingers investigated, finding a ridged seam and a familiar texture, lingering to rub a little and make absolutely certain they had not been deceived.

"Jeans?" Harry asked, bewilderedly. "You're wearing jeans?" He wondered why on Earth a Potions master at Hogwarts would need to possess such a garment, but this did not seem the time to press for an explanation.

"Is there a reason why I should not?"

"None. And every reason why you should. Are they ordinary blue ones, or don't you know?"

"They're blue. I used to wear them, occasionally, before the war. And what are you wearing, anyway, my fashion-conscious friend? Whatever it is, it fits you like a second skin."

"That's because it's my first skin," Harry told him, cheekily. "I got drowned out there, too, you know."

"I do hope, Potter, that you're not standing here absolutely naked?"

"Boxers. Blue, I think."

His hand returned to Severus's sleeve, and patiently he traced the outline of the garment. A high round neck, a plain knit, a soft, hairy texture. Very simple, if not altogether severe. "Jeans and a black sweater. Yes, I think that would look quite reasonable on you."

"Knowing your friend Weasley it could be lime green or pink," was the mildly accusatory response. "I wouldn't put it past him."

"Nor would I. It could be yellow with a kitten on the front, for that matter, or it could be striped in thirty-seven colours like that archaeologist wears on the television."

"It could."

"And you wouldn't really care, would you?"

"Hardly. It's not as if my appearance or what I wear has any significance any more. Whether or not people find me imposing is completely irrelevant if I'm unable to see their reactions, wouldn't you agree?"

Harry thought about that one for a second. "You'll always be imposing," he said, comfortingly. "Just don't cut your hair. You haven't, have you?" His hand flew upwards instantly, burying itself in damp collar-length strands.

"No. I have thought about growing a beard, however, simply because shaving is such a chore."

"Hmmm. That would take some getting used to." Fingers trailed slowly down Severus's smooth cheek.

"I had one when I was younger," was the surprising revelation. Potter's hand was caught, squeezed firmly, and then put aside with gentle finality as Severus took a determined step backward. "It was considered the grown-up thing to do as soon as one left school. But Malfoy disapproved; he had sensitive skin."

Harry's eyebrows rose, and he allowed frank incredulity to colour his tone. "Oh really? The only thing about him that was sensitive, then. He was a bastard, and his son was worse."

"And you, of course, would never speak ill of the dead."

"Perish the thought."

"Naturally not. I think it's probably about time we changed the subject, don't you?"

"If you insist, Severus."

"I do, Potter. In fact, I'm afraid I absolutely must."

Harry had just about succeeded in climbing into jeans and a sweatshirt when Wood returned.

"Are you decent?" he called out, cheerfully, from outside the door.

"No," Harry told him. "Actually I'm stark naked and Severus is buggering me through the mattress, but come in anyway."

"Okay." The door swung open and Wood joined them in the room. "Ah now that's a shame," he said seeing the two of them resolutely at opposite ends of their quarters both firmly engaged on individual projects. "It would certainly have improved the standard of gossip in this place."

"I'm sorry to disappoint you," Severus told him, although his tone said otherwise. "Is there some particular occasion for this visit?"

"Actually I've just had a telephone call from Hermione. She says Harry's aunt will be in the area this afternoon and she's wondering whether it would be all right for her to visit."

"My aunt?"

"Mrs … Dursley?" Wood did not sound quite so sure of himself now, as though afraid that he had garbled the information somehow.

"Aunt Peculiar," Severus put in, blandly.

"Petunia." The correction was automatic. "Are you sure you've got that right, Ollie? She lives hundreds of miles from here, in Little Whinging; what on Earth would she be doing in the area?"

"Visiting you, Potter?"

"I doubt it, Severus. We never exactly got on, you know."

"I must say, this isn't particularly convenient. I have work to do this afternoon and I can't be expected to turn out of my accommodation just because you happen to be entertaining a lady. Can't you take her into the Lounge or something?"

"Nobody's expecting you to turn out, Severus," Wood put in, soothingly. "In fact, it's probably best if you stay. The Lounge is always full of people in the afternoons anyway; it would be far too noisy to hold any kind of a private conversation. Besides, Harry might be grateful for a little moral support - even from you."

"Ah, Wood, always so respectful of my age and status," Severus growled, with heavy irony. "It seems I have very little choice in the matter."

"None at all," Potter informed him. "Thank goodness you're wearing something that could pass for normal; Aunt Petunia never could stand wizards, and I should imagine she'll be freaked enough at walking into an institution for damaged ones without having to be confronted by you doing your Queen of All the Fairies impression."

"I will concede that I used to dress somewhat flamboyantly, Potter, but you must recall that I was in a flamboyant profession. One merely wore the uniform the job demanded."

"Flamboyant? Camp, more like it. I just thought it was the gay thing," Potter told him dismissively.

"It was not, as you put it, 'the gay thing'. Unless, of course, you want to accuse Albus as well; some of his purple lamé nightshirts made even Lucius look frumpy, I can promise you."

"Whatever. Just tone it down around Aunt Petunia, all right?"

"And there was I thinking you didn't like the poor woman," Severus commented blandly. "Very well. I shall be as tame and biddable as any house elf."

"Yes," Harry told him, pointedly. "That's exactly what I'm afraid of."

Aunt Petunia arrived shortly after lunch, a little ahead of what was usually considered visiting time. Severus, with a grunt, detached himself from his text reader long enough to hold out his hand docilely to be shaken when introduced. She took it in cold, uncertain fingers.

"Mrs Dursley."

"Professor Snape. I've heard a lot about you."

"Mutual, madam, I'm sure." He sat back down and rather ostentatiously turned his back towards the conversation, as though to screen it out and concentrate on his book.

"Severus lives here with me, Aunt Petunia," Harry said. "Please make yourself comfortable. Would you like a drink or something?"

"No, thank you, er, Harry. I had one with Mr Wood in the office. He was telling me about you all moving here from St Kentigern's last year."

"Oh, that was fun." Tactfully Harry ignored her slight stumble over his name; he could never remember her uttering it before, but he wasn't going to make a big fuss about it now. "We were all mixed up together at Kents - all except Severus who was so poisonous nobody could stand to be with him. Unfortunately there aren't any single rooms here so everybody has to share, and I drew the short straw."

"I think you'll find I drew the short straw, Potter," he was told, in tones of chilly disapproval from close at hand.

"Whatever," Harry continued blithely. "We haven't killed each other yet, so it seems to be working."

"Yes."

A lapse into embarrassed silence, and then Snape said acidly; "Perhaps you could just tell us why you're here, Mrs Dursley? As I understand it, you and Potter were never particularly close. Is there something, perhaps, that we can do for you?"

Harry noted the 'we' but did not comment on it. It was impossible to tell whether or not it had registered with his aunt at all.

"I wanted to thank you, Harry, for the card you sent when Vernon died." It came out all of a rush, under great pressure, a line too-often rehearsed to sound anything like natural. Having spoken it, however, Petunia seemed to relax a little. "I didn't expect anything from you and I don't suppose I deserved much, but, well … it meant more to me than I thought it would. You see, Dudley … " She stopped. "I don't really know what's happened to Dudley. He was living with a girl and she was pregnant and then they both just disappeared. He owes money all over the place and people keep turning up at the house and asking me to pay them. And I think he took my car. I had to hire one to come here." Another long pause, and then she said; "I'm not really sure why I wanted to tell you this, except that … I suppose you're all I've got left. And then I happened to bump into Hermione Granger … "

"I didn't even realise you and Hermione knew each other," Harry told her, bemusedly.

"Well, I'm selling the house, you see, and I was recommended to her. I didn't know she was a friend of yours, but we got talking in her office and it clicked that she'd been to school with you, and she asked me out to lunch and we just talked about you for ages. She told me all about the fire and the explosion and how so many of your friends had been killed and injured. You know I never could get on with all that magic stuff Lily was so keen on, but when Hermione said you couldn't do it any more I was … I was sorry to hear it, Harry."

"Thank you. But did she explain properly that the magic has all gone? For everyone? That's why she's working as a solicitor, selling people's houses for them."

"Yes. She told me some of you are re-training so that you can open a new school at Myrtle House. Is that what you'll do, Harry? Teach?"

"Probably. If I can ever get to grips with the text reader," Harry conceded. "I'm really bad at it, and Severus bullies me all the time."

"Severus," said Severus, "wishes that you would concentrate on your studies and not waste time with trivialities, but he has been wishing that for almost twelve years now with a steadily diminishing degree of success. You are too easily distracted, Potter."

"And you, Professor Snape, are a driven man," Harry responded, without malice. "We don't all have your single-minded determination, you know."

"What subject?" To her own amazement, Petunia Dursley found herself cast in the role of referee, and stepped in quickly in an attempt to defuse the argument before it could really take hold. "What subject will you teach, Harry?"

"I don't know. Whatever it is, I'll need to go on a course. Remus is holding a position for me, anyway."

"Remus?"

"Professor Lupin. He'll be headmaster of the new establishment," Severus informed her. "In his favour, he has turned out to be a rather exceptional administrator."

"Oh. And will you teach again, Professor?"

"Yes. Like Potter, my former field of specialisation is closed to me since my disability, but fortunately I have more than one string to my bow. I have been spending the last several months updating my qualifications in English; that is the subject I have chosen."

"Oh." Petunia seemed impressed. "I do hope you'll teach them proper grammar and punctuation," she observed. "So many people these days can't write a coherent sentence."

"I will endeavour to instil a certain standard of competence," Severus told her, unctuously. "But as I have so far failed even with my captive pupil, I'm afraid I don't hold out much hope."

"Oi, that's enough. No trashing Harry while Harry's in the room," Potter told him, mildly. "Aunt Petunia, maybe you can help us out with something? Solve a little dilemma for us?"

"I don't … "

"It's simple enough," Harry ploughed on. "Severus would like to know what colour that sweater is he's wearing. We've been taking bets on it all day. He says it's black, I say it's lilac with lime-green polka dots. Which of us is right?"

Petunia made a bewildered little sound. "I … ?"

"Potter's friend Weasley obtained it for me," Snape explained, although the words made little sense to their intended recipient.

"They're not on the best of terms," Harry supplied in turn, the mildest of understatements for the state of all-out civil war which sometimes persisted between his room-mate and their regular carer. "He's afraid Ron might've put him in something unspeakable and nobody's got the courage to tell him."

"Oh, I see." And could that possibly have been a note of humour in the voice of a woman who had hitherto been a complete stranger to such innocent pleasure? "Well, it's not black and it's not lilac. It's a kind of dark red. A clarety or maroony sort of colour."

"Gryffindor red!" Potter crowed, loudly enough to be heard out in the corridor. "He's put you in Gryffindor red! The bastard!"

There was a moment of stunned contemplation, and then Severus said, calmly; "A warm and serviceable garment is a warm and serviceable garment, Potter, and I have no radical objection to the colour. You, on the other hand, should be asking yourself whether your sweatshirt is not pale peach with a logo reading 'Hot Stuff'. I, after all, did not attempt to poach away his sister's fiancé."

"Not that you wouldn't have, if you could," Harry shot back.

"To the contrary, Potter, I would not have attempted to seduce Oliver Wood if he arrived at my door bollock naked and begging for it. There are limits, boy, and the sooner you recognise them the better we will all get on."

"Oh, there are limits all right," said a very cold voice from the direction of the doorway, "and you two are getting very close to overstepping them. I could hear you all the way over in Albus and Minerva's room, for heaven's sake! If you don't cool it immediately, I'm going to have to ask Mrs Dursley to leave. Is that clear?"

"Yes, Wood."

"Sorry, Wood."

"Excellent. Now calm down, the pair of you. Is there anything you'd like, Mrs Dursley? Another cup of tea, perhaps?"

Stunned, but recognising the inherently soothing qualities of the national beverage, Petunia Dursley capitulated without further struggle.

"Thank you, Mr Wood," she said, with a wavering smile in her voice, "that would be lovely."

"Well," Harry said, much later, after Petunia's departure, "I thought that was a spectacular failure. You and your bloody mouth."

"On the contrary, Potter, it was a great success. If your aunt goes ahead with her plan to buy a house in the vicinity of Hogsmeade she'll be able to visit you more often, and you'll be able to stay with her from time to time if you wish."

"I can see that she's selling up to pay off Dudley's debts, but why would she want to move all this way north? It can't just be because of me."

"Whyever not? Her husband's dead, her son's a disappointment – and her potential grandchild has vanished from the face of the Earth. Maybe she feels isolated and has decided it's time to try and build bridges with the nephew she spent so long ignoring. Perhaps she's just begun to realise what she's missed all these years. And then again, with the relative property prices in Hogsmeade and Little Whinging, it could work very nicely in her favour. She might be as much as a hundred thousand pounds better off after the move."

"If Dudley hasn't already spent it on fast cars and slow horses."

"As you say."

"That's very pragmatic of you, Severus. I never really thought of you as the practical, materialistic type."

"After eight months of living in one another's pockets I can still surprise you? Be still my heart."

"Berk. And you just had to start all that stuff about Oliver, didn't you? I've never even got round to telling Aunt Petunia I'm gay, although I suppose Hermione might've mentioned it."

"She didn't seem particularly surprised."

"How could you tell? I think the whole thing freaked her completely, if you really want to know."

"Shame," agreed Severus. "I could've worn the Elizabeth Taylor outfit and done the job properly."

"And that's another thing. You didn't just out me, did you? You outed yourself at the same time. Did you intend to do that?"

A moment's pause for consideration. "I didn't intend not to, certainly. But it's never really been a secret, Potter. I imagined everybody knew."

"Not Muggles, Severus."

"There are no Muggles any more. We are the Muggles, and they are us. Since there isn't enough magic left in the universe to boil a kettle, it seems ridiculous to make any distinction between us and them."

"Not the point, as well you know. You were pretty explicit about what you'd like to do to Ollie. I'd be surprised if he ever darkens our door again, and it'll be all over the Hall that you fancy him. What do you think Ron'll say to that?"

"'Unhand him, you greasy git', I imagine. Your friend Weasley's command of invective has always been something of a disappointment to me."

"Hypothetically, Potter," Severus began again, much later, after the tea trolley had been and gone, the evening's festivities had died down, and the pair of them, in common with most of the other residents, had taken the institution's official 'lights out' as a cue to retire to their narrow single beds. It was often a time when the business of the day could be discussed without an excess of emotion, and when rational decisions could be arrived at.

"Hypothetically, Professor?"

"In the remote eventuality that one ever considered attending this Roman orgy of a Weasley wedding, that is to say."

"Ah, that kind of hypothetically." Harry could barely suppress a triumphant chuckle. He had been fairly certain that the notion of subverting the Wood-Weasley nuptial festivities would exert its appeal on his iconoclastic room-mate sooner or later, and he had merely sat back and waited while it filtered slowly through the sand-bed of Severus's consciousness. "In that remote eventuality, Severus, you say?"

"Go ahead, Potter, extract all the entertainment value you can while you have the opportunity, and when you have recovered tell me what – hypothetically of course – "

"Of course."

"What one would wear."

"Ah. Well, this one is considering wearing his suit, which is grey, and his best shirt, which is blue, without a tie if he can possibly get away with it."

"You are aware that I don't possess anything remotely resembling a Muggle suit? Jeans and a sweater are as close as I get. Otherwise most of my clothes are older than you are, and I can hardly go in threadbare twenty-year-old academic robes!"

"No, of course not. I'm assuming Lucius didn't leave the backless green number lying around anywhere?"

"Unfortunately not. And you should know that I have never been remotely tempted to cross-dress. Aside from my obvious disadvantages – being over six feet tall and bearing more than a passing resemblance to a vulture – I felt that being not only a wizard but gay into the bargain I had embraced more than enough subcultures for one lifetime already."

"Pity. You could probably have carried it off. Your eyes are like stars and your hair like a raven's wing, you know."

"I was aware of that, but thank you for mentioning it. Do you have any serious suggestion to offer?"

"Only one. We'll ask Hermione. She's got a better idea than anyone what sort of do this is going to be, and if there isn't anything appropriate in your wardrobe we'll get her to take us shopping. You'd trust her, wouldn't you? She wouldn't put you in Gryffindor red."

"Very well."

"And you won't really grow a beard, will you? I don't think I'd like you with a beard. I think you'd look evil."

"As you cannot see me, Potter, nor indeed anything else, it can hardly matter to you what I look like."

"If you're going to be my escort, I want you looking presentable."

"Then perhaps we should have matching outfits, and give some substance to all those rumours about our private life."

"His and his bathrobes, in House colours? That's my Severus. Always keep the opposition on the wrong foot."

"One aims to do so, Potter. Except, of course, that for ninety percent of the time you are the opposition, and I would hardly describe myself as your Severus."

"No, you may not," Potter told him, with a half-satisfied chuckle, "but there are plenty of others who would."

"And their opinion carries so much weight with me."

Potter yawned. "You've never explained to me why you had those jeans in the first place. They're the last things I would've expected to find in your wardrobe - unless, of course, you've got a pair of leather trousers skulking around?"

"Hardly."

"Pity. I can imagine you in skin-tight … "

"I used to visit certain Muggle establishments, from time to time," Snape informed him quickly, feeling that a change of subject was somewhat overdue.

"Clubs," Potter concluded, intrigued.

"Clubs," came the acknowledgement. "In cities. Where I would not be known."

The implication of this remark was not lost on Harry. In fact, he could picture it all too readily. "That was what you used to do, was it? Anonymous sex with strangers? Hence the jeans?"

"Hence, as you say, the jeans."

"Sounds lonely. No real warmth or personal contact."

"Indubitably. Safe, though. No fellow Death Eaters, no former pupils, no current colleagues, no recriminations."

"So who was the last person you had sex with? Apart from Lucius, I mean."

"I have no idea. I didn't ask his name, and he didn't ask mine. He was available and he was cheap. He was also riddled with disease, which presumably is why he was cheap. I came and went again in rapid succession. That was several years ago; I haven't bothered since."

"Gruesome," Harry said, sympathetically. "Put you off sex for a while, then, did it?"

"As always, Potter, you are a master of understatement," Snape acknowledged, without rancour. "After that experience, I must admit I didn't much care whether I got it up anything ever again. Sex is just too bloody complicated, especially for one with our disadvantages."

"True. I'd hate to think you'd been turned off for life, though. Still, if you fancied Ollie as recently as last year, presumably you've recovered a bit?"

"Only enough to embrace the theory," was the reply, with something that sounded remarkably like a rueful chuckle beneath it. "Not the practice."

"Wouldn't you have liked to settle down with someone? The right someone, I mean?"

"The idea never crossed my mind. One lusted, occasionally, people whom one knew … but that was usually transitory. The physical urge could always be contained until a suitable opportunity presented itself."

"Wish I'd known."

"Indeed. And you would have done what, precisely?"

Potter sighed, conceding the point with the best grace he could muster.

"All right," he admitted. "Nothing."

"Quite."

"But didn't you ever have a relationship that lasted longer than your money?"

"You must remember," Severus told him smugly, "that there was, at one time anyway, a great deal of money. While it lasted, it bought a lot of loyalty - and a lot of sex. And if you pay people to service you, you are not obligated to them in any way."

"You can use them up and throw them away?"

"Precisely. Which you can't do in any so-called relationship."

"So if your thing with Lucius wasn't a relationship, what was it then?"

A sort of bitter half-laugh was emitted; a sound as intimate and painful as sandpaper scraping across erect flesh, it made Harry wince to hear it.

"Convenience. I had the money and the other assets he desired, and he gave me the social cachet which otherwise I would have lacked. It pleased me to imagine people wondering what he could possibly find attractive about me, and to know that I still had a vault full of it at Gringotts."

"But it was passionate as well, wasn't it? Was he red-hot in bed?"

"He was very demanding, in every possible respect. There was not a thing Lucius ever had or experienced that he did not want again, bigger, longer, or harder. Over a period of years, as the things which had once satisfied him began to pall, he started to crave pleasures I was unable to supply him with personally."

"So after that you pimped for him?"

"In a manner of speaking. I obtained the things he wanted, and had the added privilege of paying for them out of my own funds. And in case you're wondering, Potter, I continued to finance his lifestyle right up until the day he died. Everything you ever saw him wearing – or that son of his, for that matter – was paid for by me."

"You were his sugar daddy?"

"What a loathsome expression. But yes, I was the source of his wealth."

"Then you must have been completely crazy about him," Potter concluded, quietly, "for years and years and years. I'm sorry, really sorry I didn't understand that. I never imagined it went so deep, Severus. I thought it was just fucking, but I get it now; you loved him with your whole heart and soul, and killing him tore you apart. No wonder you were such a mess afterwards."

"One did not love Lucius Malfoy, Potter. That would have been a very foolish thing to do."

"But … "

"However, it would be honest to say that I was in thrall to him. Completely bewitched. Accurate, too, in that he was more witch than wizard."

"You wanted to own him," Harry concluded, sadly.

"Wanted to, and did," came the bleak confirmation. "Lucius Malfoy was the closest I shall ever get to possessing a trophy wife. I doubt whether I'd want the same from any other relationship I might or might not be misguided enough to enter into in the future. I think I would prefer to settle for a rather less extravagant passion next time."

"If there is a next time."

"If, as you say, Potter, there is."

Potter was wandering around the bedroom in the wee small hours of the morning again, and the third flushing of the lavatory in as many hours left Snape wide awake and filled with more irritation than he knew what to do with. He had experienced very little difficulty in empathising with Minerva's plight when, saddled with an oblivious room-mate, she had been kept awake by the unearthly howling just outside her window; now, however, having beneficently cured what ailed her, he found himself completely unable to appreciate the delicate irony of being prevented from sleeping by Potter's relentless parading.

"Is it too much, roomie, to ask you to stay in one place for more than five minutes at a stretch?" he asked, without the least attempt at subtlety.

"Sorry." Harry's subdued tone immediately alerted Snape that something was amiss; that this wasn't merely his normal inability to settle during the nominal hours of darkness. "The first time it was the rain that woke me, but then my guts starting playing up."

"Bladder or bowels?" Brusque practicality cut to the metaphorical heart of the matter.

"I – uh – well, neither, exactly. But I feel queasy, and when I do manage to sleep I have the most awful nightmares."

It was apparent that any ideas of further slumber would have to be abandoned for the time being. Sighing deeply Snape wriggled upright in bed, marshalling a considerable reserve of medical instinct picked up over years of interrogating malingering schoolchildren, and prepared to be as intelligent and sympathetic as the present circumstances would allow.

"Any other symptoms?"

Harry groaned. "I'm sweating like a pig and my pulse is racing about twice its normal speed. Otherwise I'm just a bit dopey."

With unaccustomed self-restraint, Snape somehow managed to eschew a dozen or more variants on a cheap line about Potter's median intelligence quotient during the course of their acquaintance. Even he would not stoop quite so low as to insult the man when he was so obviously suffering. One did not, after all, waste energy savaging a wounded gazelle; one waited for it to recover, and then savaged it all the harder.

"Come here. Let me feel your skin."

A few stumbling footsteps, a muttered curse as Harry fell over something he himself had left on the floor – Severus's idea of poetic justice – and then the lurching shape dropped down and secured one buttock on the side of the bed.

A professionally-cool hand assessed the temperature of Harry's brow and the rapidity of the pulse at his wrist. "I believe you had the meatloaf at tea-time," Snape observed.

"Yes."

"More fool you."

"I'm beginning to think it may have been a mistake," Harry acknowledged.

"Indeed. Repeat after me, Potter; 'Meatloaf in this place is never a good idea'."

"Yeah, I know, you're right," came the exhausted concession. "I won't touch it again, if this is the effect it has. Why does the food have to be so bloody awful, anyway?"

"To discourage people from outstaying their welcome, of course," Snape told him, gently. "Apart from those who will be here for the rest of their days, like Albus and Minerva, the aim is to turn us loose on the world again at the earliest possible opportunity. 'Rehabilitation' means restoring us to usefulness, enabling us to return to society in some way that will benefit both it and us. The last thing anyone wants is for a witch or a wizard to become so institutionalised that he or she is afraid to go; therefore the management try to make leaving the more attractive option."

"And you reckon they make the food bad on purpose, so we can't wait to escape?"

"I choose to think so. It's preferable to imagining that such foulness is only a matter of incompetence; think how appalling that would be."

"It's all right for you," Harry told him, wistfully. "You've got a home and a whole new career waiting at Myrtle House."

"Oh yes," came the unenthusiastic response. "'Romeo and Juliet' with spotty adolescents. Can you honestly imagine how bad one's life would have to be for that to constitute an improvement?"

"As bad as it obviously is, since you seem to be willing to do virtually anything to get away from it. Or from me."

"Is that what you think?" Disturbed, Severus shifted in the bed. "That I'm running away from you?"

"Aren't you?"

"No. Difficult as you may find it to believe, not everything in my life revolves around you. Unfortunately," Snape continued, in a more expansive, explicatory tone, "although I could probably afford it, I'm simply not constituted for the sybaritic life. I find it necessary to be of use, in some capacity or other, and having a considerable fund of knowledge it would be wrong of me to hoard it like a miser. What would be the point of dying without ever sharing the lessons life has taught me, if someone else could benefit from them and have a chance of avoiding my mistakes?"

"Oh. I had no idea you felt like that."

"It's a regrettable fact, Potter, that for me teaching is not a choice but an obligation. As your generation is wont to say, it's who I am."

"A born teacher," Harry speculated, softly. "I always thought you'd just ended up in the wrong job by accident, but it wasn't that at all, was it? You have to teach, or you'd stop existing."

"Hideously enough, I'm afraid that's true. And if you're honest with yourself, in the past eight months, has there been a day when you have not learned at least something from me?"

"Not one," Harry told him, his mind ablaze with the sudden conviction that what his room-mate was saying was absolutely correct. "They've all been full of new experiences. And I don't want it to end, Severus. I don’t want you to be at Myrtle House and me to be here on my own. Couldn't you stay, if I promise to try a lot harder with the text reader? I realise you don't actually want me – as a lover, I mean – but, like you said, what we've got already is more important than that."

A long, thoughtful silence followed this outburst, and then at length Severus said, in tones almost too deep for Harry to hear; "I have no recollection of saying that I didn't want you."

Stung beyond logic, Harry was momentarily unable to make the mental adjustment the words required, and instinctively continued to fight his corner. "Yes, you did! You said it was outside your comfort zone and it was bound to end badly."

"Ah. Yes. I did use those words, I must admit. Also that I doubted very much whether we desired one another sexually."

"Which we now know isn't true!"

"And never was, for my part."

"Then you lied to me," Harry whispered, wounded. "You lied about not wanting me. Wanting … us, I suppose."

"I know," Snape soothed. "Difficult to believe, isn't it, that a Slytherin Death Eater Spy would sully his mouth with a falsehood, particularly in the cause of protecting his own rather battered heart?"

"You lied."

"Get over it, Potter, of course I lied! What kind of life do you imagine I could offer you? My only experience of love has involved worshipping for far too many years at the shrine of Lucius Malfoy; I was utterly devoted and entirely faithful, and what was my reward? Surely you don't blame me for exercising greater caution after that?"

"You did love him, then?"

"Abjectly and eternally, but he managed to cure me of it in the end."

"Bastard."

"Certainly. I would prefer you not to make the mistake of shackling yourself to me - but being uncomfortable with the concept is not quite, you understand, the same thing as not wanting it. And as you seem so desperately determined not only to repeat my mistakes but to make a whole lot of new ones into the bargain, perhaps it's time for me to step outside my comfort zone."

"I ... " Harry shivered. He was perched awkwardly on the edge of the bed, his bare feet swinging backwards and forwards in childlike distraction. "I was right, wasn't I? When I said that I would, and you would, and we should?"

"I doubt very much whether we should, Potter," Severus told him, as though trying for the umpteenth time to dissuade him from thrusting his hand into the fire. "For one thing, we would make ourselves even more enemies than we already have, and your friend Ronald Weasley would be at the head of the queue. If he learned at breakfast that we were lovers, he would have a contract out on my life before lunchtime."

"Surely the great Severus Snape isn't afraid of pathetic little Ron Weasley, is he?" jeered Harry. "Tell me you're not going to let Ron, of all people, make such an important decision for you?"

"Don't be absurd. But if I take your happiness into consideration – which, for some unaccountable reason, I appear inclined to do – then it hardly seems sensible to begin by alienating your oldest and closest friend, does it?"

"Oldest and closest?" The conversation Harry had had with Hermione in the pub suddenly came back to him. Which one is your best friend? she had asked him; knowing already, of course, what the answer would be, but determined to make him recognise and acknowledge it for himself. "I won't deny that Ron's my oldest friend, but he isn't the closest, Severus, and he hasn't been for a long time now. Not for eight months at least. Maybe a lot longer than that."

"Oh?"

"No. You're my best friend, and you know it. You're probably the best friend I've ever had. You understand me better than anyone who ever lived; better than Ron, Hermione, Dumbledore - even my parents, because they never had the chance to know me. Ron just wants me to fit into some preconceived ideal of what his best mate ought to be, and I can assure you 'gay' doesn't feature anywhere in his requirements, whereas you ... "

" ... suffer from a similar affliction." Just enough wickedness in the tone to save it from sounding apologetic.

Harry paused, considering. "I was going to say you see me as I am and accept me in spite of it, but you're right. There's a lot to be said for sharing your imperfections with someone who has plenty of his own."

"You're talking about a quid pro quo." Severus did not trouble to deny the imputed imperfections; he knew he would have been wasting his breath. "I accept you as imperfect, you accept me in the same way."

"No. I'm talking about a relationship. A real relationship, the way I understand it; people who stay together not just because they're having sex, but because being together is a lot less painful than being apart. Either one of us could have walked out on the other at any time during the past eight months, Severus, but we haven't, have we? We've stayed here instead, and grown closer, and started depending on each other. Is that a relationship, or isn't it?"

"How would I know?" came the soft response. "There are so many reasons why this shouldn't happen; youth and age simply do not belong in the same bed." But it was such an effort, somehow, to maintain their time-worn roles of teacher-student, mentor-pupil, tyrant-oppressed at whatever bloody god-forsaken o'clock in the morning this was. Snape could no longer recollect clearly why he had been so desperate to oppose this; Potter was over twenty-one, avowedly gay since puberty, almost certainly more experienced than Snape himself, and had seen his fair share of the vicissitudes life had to offer. He was right, too, in that they had trusted one another over the past eight months – and for some considerable time before that, if they were honest about it – not only with their lives but with their mental and physical health as well. It had seemed to work so far, and he had no intention of rejecting a shivering and suffering Potter if there was some small crumb of comfort he could offer.

A movement like the shifting of tectonic plates, and then without preamble the bedcovers were lifted back and the warm space within exposed.

"Get in."

"What?"

"In, Potter, are you deaf as well as blind?"

"Are you serious?"

"Why not? And could you make up your mind, please, before I freeze my bollocks off? It's not exactly tropical out there, you know."

"All right. Thanks." And Harry had inserted himself into the narrow unoccupied space in the bed almost before Snape had been given a chance to rationalise his emotional decision to himself.

"Your feet are like blocks of ice," he muttered, irritably, as Harry squirmed beneath the covers. "And take that bloody bathrobe off. It takes up too mu