He wasn't expecting anyone.
So when the knock sounded on his door he put down his potions journal, stood up only reluctantly, stretched, and made his way to the front room. He could barely discern a shape outside the opaque glass of the porch windows and quickly pulled open the door, having already decided to be annoyed. In the six years he'd lived in this cottage, he could count on one hand the number of times someone knocked on the door. Flooed in, yes. Owled—certainly. But knocked like a common muggle?
The man on the porch turned slowly from the window toward him, a vague smile on his face. Severus started.
"Potter…." The name escaped his lips unbidden.
It has been eleven years since the defeat of the Dark Lord. Ten and a half since Potter, Granger and Weasley had testified—on his behalf—at his trial. Potter had voluntarily submitted to Veritaserum. When it was over, when Severus Snape had been sentenced to four years of Wizarding Community Service in Patagonia instead of being interred in Azkaban, Potter had pushed through the press to reach him, his Ministry guard on his heels.
"Good luck, Professor," he had said quietly, his eyes saying the good-bye that did not come from his lips. Severus had met his eyes and inclined his head. His throat, barely healed, was tight with emotion. Words would not come.
And that was all. The Weasley girl materialized next to Potter and put a possessive arm around his waist. She eyed Severus appraisingly and gave him what could only be called a careful smile. She guided Potter away. Severus' eyes followed them as the press crowded in around Harry, badgering him for a statement.
Which he didn't give, Severus had noted even as he was being led away.
And now that boy was on his doorstep. That boy who no longer looked like a boy.
The four years abroad had changed Severus Snape. The constant exposure to sun and wind had erased the dungeon pallor from his skin. His outlook, freed from the clutches of Voldemort and the duty to Dumbledore and the Order for the first time in his adult life, had broadened. Still, he missed his potions while he was gone. When he returned, he bought a cottage in Hogsmeade and started an owl-order specialty potions business. He found people amazingly willing to forgive him, though he often wondered if most even remembered him at all. He had a variety of clients, but Poppy and the Hogwarts infirmary, along with George and Ron Weasley and their shop, accounted for half of his business. He was busy. He made enough money to be comfortable. And while he could not claim to be happy, he at least spent his days pain-free. The faded mark on his arm no longer burned and the persistent headache he had endured in his spying days eased now that he no longer had to constantly occlude his mind.
Ron and George Weasley, with whom he occasionally enjoyed a drink and a meal at one of Hogsmeade's three pubs, delighted in giving him up-to-the-minute news on all the goings-on in the family. Their delight came mainly from his sour expression, feigned disinterest and the way he would roll his eyes. He didn't have to read the Prophet to follow Ginny Weasley's Quidditch career and Potter's rise to the top of the Magical Law Enforcement Department, though he sometimes would watch the tiny figures on brooms whiz dangerously about the feature photos in the Prophet's sports section which, in the lazy years after the war, took up at least half of the paper each day. He saw the announcement of the return of Ginny Potter to the Harpies following the birth of the last Potter baby. In this case, George and Ron had already plied him with annoying baby photos and details about nappies that made him scrunch his prominent nose. But when Ginny Potter was killed in a muggle car accident and Harry Potter seriously injured, he didn't find out about it through the papers or from the Ron and George. He had stumbled on it accidentally no more than two hours after it happened, when Bill Weasley failed to come to him for his Wolfsbane potion. Bill, while not a full werewolf, still suffered during the full moon and took the potion to ease the symptoms. His wife took the children to the Burrow every full moon, leaving Bill to his moods and fire whiskey. That night, Severus had flooed over to Shell Cottage to deliver the potion in person, already sporting an attitude, and a distraught Bill, drinking alone on the screened-in porch facing the ocean, told him that Ginny and Harry's muggle taxi had been hit by a commuter train. That Ginny had died instantly while Harry was barely hanging on. Snape quietly pushed the potion over to Bill and snagged his glass of whiskey, downing it in a single swallow.
"Where is he?" he had demanded.
Minerva had come to his cottage several days later, face looking older than ever. "He's going to pull through," she told him quietly after accepting his offer of tea and biscuits. "But it will be a hard road back for him."
Severus stared at his tea, feigning interest in the cup in his hand.
"Hermione told me what you did," continued Minerva, putting her teacup down and meeting his eyes. Hermione Granger-Weasley was the current Transfiguration professor at Hogwarts.
She doesn't know anything, he reminded himself.
"No one else was equipped to do anything," he responded out loud after a long pause, when it was clear to him she was waiting for him to say something. "All I did was get him out of that muggle hospital hell hole." Getting him out had involved obliviating a dozen muggle medical personnel, an illegal port-key and a pending Ministry investigation over the use of magic around Muggles, but he had done what had to be done.
Minerva gave him a thoughtful look. "Well, he owes his life to you." Severus raised his eyebrows. Minerva sighed. "I expect Hermione will tell him."
That had been six months ago, and he'd heard little about Potter since then. The press, in an unbelievable show of compassion, left him and his young children largely alone. He had seen George and Ron several times since the accident, but they'd been understandably more subdued after the loss of a second sibling and weren't as inclined to while the evenings away in a pub. He hadn't seen them for more than a month now.
"Ron told me we're neighbors now," said Potter, bringing Snape back to the here and now. "I bought a cottage 'round the corner, across from their shop. Thought I'd drop by to say hullo." He smiled slightly and shifted, looking a bit uncomfortable. Severus suddenly realized he hadn't said anything yet in reply.
"You're looking better," he said, realizing that Potter could be half dead and missing his nose and still look better than the last time he had seen him. "Come in, then." He stood back from the door and the boy picked up the plain brown cane leaning against the porch wall.
He led Potter through the house to the enclosed patio in the back, acutely aware of the sound of the cane tapping the wooden floor. When he sat down across the table from him a moment later, Severus noted that Potter's hair had grown long in true wizarding fashion and that the unkempt look of his youth was gone. He saw, for the first time, that the adult Harry Potter reminded him as much of Lily as of James, and that observation disquieted him.
"You've changed," said Potter, speaking first as he settled himself in the chair. He straightened out his left leg and rested it on the small ottoman Snape automatically scooted across the floor to him with his foot. He surveyed his former professor closely for a moment then gave a half-smile. "It suits you."
"What suits me?" asked Severus, lifting an eyebrow.
"The sun," answered Potter. He looked around the small room and back at Severus. "I didn't mean to stay long; I know you work here and are probably in the middle of…."
"No, I've nothing brewing, if that's what you mean," cut in Severus. He knew he sounded too abrupt, but he was disused to casual conversation…no, to any conversation…with Harry Potter.
"Oh. Good then," commented Potter. He looked around the room again, his eyes coming to rest on a small painting beside the door. The silence, though not uncomfortable, wore on.
"I'm sorry about your wife," said Severus, awkwardly breaking the silence and kicking himself internally for blurting it out without preamble.
Harry stirred his tea. He looked uncomfortable but not surprised. "Thanks," he said. "I appreciate that." They were both quiet a moment, Severus waiting for the inevitable.
"Actually, I wanted to thank you….for what you did after the accident." Harry stopped stirring his tea and looked up at Severus. His green eyes looked bigger in an older face, the absence of glasses making them even more prominent. Severus noticed a new scar receding into Potter's hairline from above his eyebrow. "You realize I have my legs because of you. The muggle doctors were getting ready to amputate. When Hermione told me…"
Severus carefully set down his teacup.
"The Weasleys and Granger were incapable of rational thought," he said. He realized, of course, that his actions hadn't exactly been rational either. If Bill hadn't been half out of his head on a fire whiskey binge, he'd have realized it too and would have eventually told Harry. Harry looked at him warily. Severus sighed and changed direction. "Your testimony kept me out of Azkaban," he said after a moment's pause, a moment spent looking out the window behind his visitor. "The years abroad helped me. After everything that happened…everything that I did… I admit I was surprised that you bothered."
Harry looked up from his tea to meet his old potion master's eyes. "I thought we made our peace with each other," he said, his voice dropping to an almost-whisper. "That final night before your trial." After being released from St. Mungos, weeks before his trial, Snape had been housed at Grimmauld Place. Potter had vouched for him personally, vouched for him upon his magic, keeping him out of prison while awaiting his trial.
Snape held the gaze. Determined, as always, perhaps duller than he remembered, shadowed with pain. He frowned as he noticed for the first time the faint shadows below his eyes. Potter noticed his frown and quickly turned his head away.
Snape reached out and touched the young man's hand. Potter recoiled slightly, then bravely—or perhaps stoically—looked up. Snape spoke again, back to the leveled, clinical tone he had perfected these past years, leaving behind the uncomfortable topic.
"You are in pain."
Potter laughed. Rubbed his hands on his eyes as he shook his head and laughed.
"I've been in pain for years, Severus."
The name…the first time he'd used it since he arrived…. Snape frowned again. He understood that Potter wasn't speaking of physical pain alone.
"I would have waited." Potter caught his eye, held it.
Ah. This, then. Severus stood.
"Waited for me? Waited for me to return so you could have the peace you wanted? The family? The career? She offered you the life I could not. A family. Children." He looked at Harry pointedly, daring him to protest.
Harry stared down into his tea. He sighed. Severus knew he had abandoned the argument. Merlin knows they'd been through it time enough at Grimmauld Place. He'd lived there three months after leaving St. Mungo's and a week before the trial they'd finally succumbed. An argument about Snape's planned guilty plea, a slammed door as Harry pled with him not to give up, Harry chasing him up the stairs, grabbing his shoulder. The touch…that touch…. There was no going back after that but he'd regretted it immediately, told Harry the next morning that no matter the outcome of the trial, he was to forget him and marry Ginny Weasley, have a half dozen green-eyed red-headed children….He watched now as the boy squeezed his eyes shut and rubbed his forehead.
"I haven't felt like myself in a long time. And Ginny…" he looked up at his old professor, his first lover, and his eyes showed his loss, his sorrow….and something more. Guilt, decided Severus. "I guess it turned out that I . . . I wasn't the same guy she fell in love with."
Snape scoffed.
"She knew you had been through hell, Potter," he answered, reverting to the boy's surname out of habit.
Potter stared down into the dregs of his cold tea. "She waited for me. She didn't come after Ron, Hermione and me when we took off after the horcruxes when I turned 17. It practically killed her. She deserved to get what she wanted after all that. I tried to tell her that I was damaged goods. I didn't think I'd be a good husband. She didn't seem to care. She thought we could put it all behind us and make a new life. Hell, she convinced me."
Severus raised an eyebrow.
"I fulfilled my obligation to her…and more. I was always faithful. But…" He looked up again at Severus, clearly uncomfortable. "You have anything stronger than this?" he asked, holding up his teacup.
Snape regarded him a moment then drew out his wand and summoned a bottle of scotch and two glasses. He pushed a half-full glass across the table at Harry and leaned back in his chair, watching as Harry raised the glass and downed a swallow with a practiced air. Harry stood, favoring his left leg, and walked around the table, over to the screened wall and looked out at the garden. He lifted his glass again, his eyes far away.
Severus turned to regard him. Intense green eyes, long and tousled hair, muscles still shaped from an Auror career only recently ended. Only the limp and the shadows on his face belied the pain Severus was sure he was living with, growing accustomed to. He pushed his chair back and stood. He walked over to stand beside Harry, not close enough to touch him, and looked out over the garden. Harry was watching the butterflies on the columbine.
"Have you thought about me over the years?" The question was voiced softly, and Harry still did not turn to look at him.
Nearly every day. Definitely every night. "Of course," he answered. "It would have been impossible not to."
Harry looked over at Severus and sighed.
"It was only one night, Severus. Eleven years ago. But I can't forget it. When Ginny was alive, I….I didn't dwell on it. But now…"
"That was a long time ago, Harry," said Severus carefully. He was nothing if not disciplined. He chose not to ruin the boy's life eleven years ago. He'd pushed him away, back into the arms of the family he'd grown to regard as his own, into the arms of the girl who he thought could give him the love and stability he needed. He'd made for himself a peaceful life, if not a particularly happy one, satisfied, he told himself frequently, with the freedom he never thought he'd have. He'd convinced himself that he saw only Lily in Harry, and that Harry sought absolution through him.
Something in Harry seemed to shut down.
"Listen, I appreciate you taking the time to visit with me." Potter set his empty cup on the table. He forced a smile. "I'll be starting at Hogwarts in the Fall. Madam Hooch is finally retiring and Minerva has asked me to take over the flying lessons and Quidditch coach position. The leg doesn't bother me when I'm on the broom for some reason. Perhaps I'll see you around?"
Severus, however, was not ready for Harry to leave. He reached out and caught one wrist in his hand, pulled it toward him, forcing the young man to take a step forward.
"Why did you come here, Harry?" he asked. His other hand traveled up Harry's other arm to his elbow, grasping it lightly. His body sang at the remembered touch.
"To thank you," answered Harry, quite softly, raising his gaze from Severus' hands on his arms to Severus' eyes.
Severus released his elbow and Harry's arm dropped bonelessly to his side. He took a step backward, still facing his former student.
"You've thanked me already," said Severus. "Is there anything else?"
Harry gazed at him wordlessly for a moment then shook his head slightly as he turned to leave.
"How old are you, Harry?" he asked.
"28," he answered, his back turned on Severus.
"Old enough to know what you want," said Severus. "And that what you want isn't always good for you. You have children, Harry. A grieving family. A reputation to maintain."
Harry paused with his hand on the door knob. "You'd be good for me," he said. "But I'm not sure I'd be good for you." He gave Snape an apologetic look and opened the door.
Severus let him go. It was too early. Too soon. The demons that haunted young Harry Potter could not be banished so quickly. If Harry had come here to find out if Severus remembered, he had his answer. Bur Severus Snape had learned to live for the day. Severus Snape did not hope.
