Note: While I don't intend to cover anything explicitly, there will be mentions, discussions and implications of a number of topics throughout this story that people may find uncomfortable. This includes: nuclear war, earthquakes, rape, torture, psychological trauma, eating disorders, disability, injuries, self-harm, death (a lot of death), abusive relationships and neo-nazis. Maybe more. In this and the next chapter, some of these points are casually referred to in conversation.

...

Harry was vaguely aware of Ginny saying, "Luna's out sketching," but her voice seemed to be far away as his eyes fell on the figure standing by the ugly yet practical kitchen cabinets. Every detail seemed almost timeless, familiar but shifted away from the memories he had once had. Plain grey slippers made perfect sense given the chill of the tiled floor, and ordinary nondescript black trousers. Harry smiled slightly in amusement at the fact that he was wearing a T-shirt bearing the Slytherin crest, assuming it to have been a gift. The man himself was slender as he always had been, though without the darkness or the rustling bats that had once cloaked him he seemed smaller and more vulnerable. Human. His hair was still jet black, falling to his jawline, his skin still the same pale brown. His face seemed almost unchanged from when Harry had first laid eyes on him twenty-six years ago, the nose still proud, the dark eyes still unfocused and unseeing.

A faint smile played across Severus's lips, as Harry said softly, "I'm home, Severus," before walking the few feet across the room to take his hands. They were almost exactly as Harry remembered them, strong with dextrous fingers. He raised them to his lips, pressing a chaste kiss to them. Severus copied him, likewise drawing their joined hands to his own lips and touching a brief kiss to both of Harry's hands.

"If you'd told us, I'd have come picked you up in the car," Ginny pointed out wryly, not really expecting his full attention anymore. Severus laughed slightly at that, and Harry had to smile. He felt his eyes swim slightly with tears and bit his lip in an effort to control the emotions within him.

"I know," he told her, his gaze not leaving Severus, "I wanted to walk up,"

"You always do," Severus spoke quietly, his voice as rich as Harry remembered from his childhood and dreams, in person now rather than the crackled video call that depended so much on the quality of connection and the insufficient speakers, "How long are you staying for?"

Harry hesitated, "I don't know," he admitted, "I left my cases with Petunia and Vernon, and I sent a couple of boxes by ship. Right now I only have my rucksack with me,"

"You know you're welcome here as long as you want to stay," Ginny told him, carefully folding some grated courgette into her large bowl of batter, "You always are," Harry realised he had no doubt interrupted them in the middle of baking.

Harry swallowed, releasing Severus's hands. Severus let them go without protest, leaning against the counter with a faintly sorrowful expression filtering across his usually expressionless face. Harry marshalled his emotions, fighting between saying what he truly felt and what he felt able to, ultimately settling for saying weakly, "I'd like to stay a while. Sometimes I think, maybe even forever,"

His admission was greeted with silence, Ginny pausing in her mixing though Harry chose not to meet her eyes. He kept his vision focused on Severus's hands.

"If that's what you want," Severus told him softly, his hands unmoving, which Harry huffed impotently at.

"Tea?" Ginny asked simply, breaking through any awkwardness or discomfort skilfully, to which Harry nodded gratefully.

"I'll make it, I don't want to interrupt your baking too much," he answered, hopeful that something productive and useful, even something as basic as making them all tea, would sooth his restlessness to an extent. He could feel all the varied feelings, so much more clear than they had been for years. The walk up the hill had been important, but now he was standing in their kitchen he felt more emotions than he cared to.

"Sit down," Severus commanded him, and Harry obeyed almost instinctively. The commanding tone was one he had not heard for decades, but still the promise of power resonated through his very being despite knowing that there was none. He took a seat at the kitchen table, on a cushioned wooden chair. He watched, almost enchanted, as Severus carefully put the kettle on. Of all of them, Harry knew it was Severus who made the best pot of tea. It was, undoubtedly, a consequence of the extraordinary talent he had had with potions, that allowed him to judge the amounts and brewing time so well. The familiarity with the kitchen layout meant that even sightless he could still smoothly find everything. The kitchen felt lighter than it had the first time Harry had sat in it, all those years ago when he thought none of them would ever smile again. The whole house had been awash with dark despair then, which had gradually lifted. A grieving sorrow remained, permeating every inch of the landscape, but there was an easy calm, a peaceful contentment that Harry was glad to let wash over him.

"Hermione and Draco will be here in time for lunch," Ginny spoke, spooning batter into the fairy cake tray with a practised ease, "We didn't know when you'd be arriving. You know they would have been quite happy to have picked you up along the way, if you'd wanted that. And Draco says if you want them to fetch your case or something on their way up it'll be no problem, they'd been planning on calling in on Petunia and Vernon on the way up or down so if it saves a trip they'll do it today,"

Harry gratefully took the mug of tea that Severus placed on the table in front of him, the tea just the shade he liked it. He was half amused half horrified to note that the mug he'd been handed happened to have an illustration of a doe, accompanied by the words 'After all this time' and 'Always'. Guiltily, playing slightly with the mug he replied, "That would be nice, thanks, if it's not too much trouble," as Severus took a seat besides him, placing a mug emblazoned with Coniston clearly intended for Ginny on the table along with his own, which was bedecked with green lilies.

The trays of fairy cakes were placed briskly in the oven, and Ginny took a seat by her mug of tea. She typed quickly away at her phone, before setting it down.

"Done," she informed him with a smile, which Harry returned bashfully.

"I'm sorry for not being in contact better," he apologised, but Ginny brushed it off with a casual shrug.

"I guess your phone doesn't work here, does it?" she asked him.

"No. I cancelled my contract when I left Japan anyway, but I'm going to have to get a new one at some point. I'm entirely reliant on wifi for the time being," he responded, blowing on his tea.

"The wifi password is still 'wormwood', all lowercase," Severus informed him quietly, taking a sip of his own tea, which made Harry smile. The silence which fell was a comfortable one, for all that it was full of words unspoken. Words that should have been said years ago, words that lingered on the tips of tongued, choked back, words that needed saying yet without a word they were already accepted, understood and acknowledged. They drank their tea, and Harry appreciated the way in which Severus could still brew him the perfect cup, just the right strength with the just right amount of milk, no matter the lengthy gap of time. Maybe, he considered, it wasn't so much that Severus brewed tea so perfectly for him but that he had grown accustomed to the deep comfort associated with his tea to the point that even tea he made for himself seemed substandard.

As they drank their tea, Ginny kept an eye on her fairy cakes in the oven, her quick glances speaking of a casual confidence in her baking skills. Into the peaceful lull, where Harry began to allow his thoughts to relax and unravel, he heard the sound of a door opening and then closing. Ginny swallowed audibly, and Severus called out in a firm but confident voice that undoubtably carried throughout the house, "Harry's home,"

There was no response. Without a word, the door to the kitchen was pushed open and in slipped Luna, keeping herself pressed firmly against the wall. She wore a blue summer dress covered in yellow fish, slipping off her shoulders and showing the frail form beneath. Her skin was no longer the palid translucence that it had been, the days in the sun having given her a hint of colour. Her dirty blonde hair was braided in a messy braid, strands of hair straggling around her face. She was barefoot, not seeming to care about the coolness of the tiled floor. She regarded the three of them with wide eyes, and Harry was careful to remain seated, his face neutral.

"I got some duck eggs," she said faintly, holding out the carton she was grasping in her hand, still not moving from the wall, her eyes fixed on Harry.

"Thank you," Ginny said softly, standing to go to her. She took the proffered carton before turning to consider the two men at the table, "Severus, why don't you show Harry the garden and the living room while we lay the table. He hasn't seen it in a while, it's probably changed," she suggested.

Harry nodded in understanding, standing slowly. Luna edged away from the doorway, a look of anguished guilt on her face as she hovered awkwardly by the sink. Carefully, with slow steady movements, Harry left the kitchen. Severus followed him out a few moments later, but not before Harry caught a glance through the doorway of him receiving a hug so brief it could barely be called a hug from Luna as Ginny shooed him away. He lent against the wall of the hallway, resting his head back and sighing.

"Let me give you the tour," Severus intoned sardonically, letting his fingertips rest gently on the wall. He walked confidently along the hall towards the living room, leaving it up to Harry to follow him. Harry did so, feeling a wave of nostalgia for being led along other corridors in the same fashion, many years before. The difference was that then there had always been bats circling their master. Severus carefully made his way into the living room and strode across the room towards the large french doors, which he opened with a flourish. He stepped cautiously out onto the small patio, gesturing to the garden at large, "As you can see, this is the garden. Allegedly it looks rather nice, and there is some scenery. I wouldn't know. If you would like to use your vision to regard the living room, I'm certain you will be able to see it far better than me,"

Harry gave the garden a cursory glance, before returning his attention to Severus. The man before him held his interest in a way a garden or mere furniture never could. As always, his face was impassive, utterly unreadable. Harry wondered if he sensed a hint of melancholy in his expression, or if that was just his imagination playing with his mind. Pausing he looked once more out at the garden and asked almost hesitantly, "Do your bats still roost in the eaves?" and Harry was sure there was a hint of sadness in the blank gaze.

"Yes," Severus replied, "Though they aren't really my bats anymore. I don't…" he stopped to take a deep breath to steady his voice in an unusual hint of emotion, "I don't even think the ones I used to know are still alive. It's likely their descendants in our eaves,"

"I'm sorry," Harry whispered, almost inaudibly, knowing that his words would carry.

Severus moved from the french doors, leaving them open to welcome the gentle breeze wafting scents of the hills in. He sat down on the comfortable red sofa with a sigh that seemed to speak of an unspeakable grief. Harry looked at him, the familiar figure at once so unchanged and yet almost unrecognisably so, there on a simple sofa. The room was light, the sun pouring in through the windows to illuminate it with a soft warm embrace. In addition to the sofa, there were two matching red armchairs either side of it, curving around a small coffee table on which there lay a sketch book Harry knew belonged to Luna. A few of her pictures were stuck on the cream wall, the ones that weren't of the landscape around but from old memories. Hogwarts looming in the mist, the Burrow in all it's chaotic glory, the shores of the lake covered with corpses. His eyes lingered sorrowfully over a small illustration of Severus, his figure obscured in a cloud of bats, with only his face clear amongst them. Bookshelves, filled with a variety of books on all manner of subjects covered the rest of the walls. Harry could see the Harry Potter series jumping out from their place on the shelves to grab his attention.

"I knew," Severus said quietly, "I knew what would happen when we removed all the magic from the world. I always knew I would lose my psychic link to my bats, but it was right. Voldemort had to be stopped. The endless wars had to be stopped, and that was the only way. We all paid a price. I cannot say I paid the highest,"

Harry took a seat on the sofa with him, not quite close enough to be touching but near enough that he could with little effort, should he want to. He felt a crushing despair, the stresses of the world weighing down on him, combined with memories of a time when he'd held the future of everyone in the palms of his hands.

"Sometimes," he said sadly, "I wonder if we really did. We just ended magical wars, but now all I can see is muggle wars and muggle violence. A countdown to armageddon. A threat of nuclear war. Was it always like this, or were we just too busy watching the magical world tear itself apart to see the muggle world doing the same? Is this going to be how it all ends, humanity driving itself to the brink of destruction and plunging over the cliff?" he implored his former teacher for an answer, seeking wisdom, but all Severus could do was shrug. He hadn't been a teacher in a long time. He no longer needed to have an answer.

"All I could think," Harry continued slowly, "When I was leaving Japan, was how if it all ends in a nuclear apocalypse then I want my bones to be incinerated with yours,"

Severus gave no initial response to that, long legs crossed as he leaned back into the sofa. After a moment, he started speaking, his voice sorrowful, almost desperate with a restrained anguished passion, "I can understand the sentiment, though I never thought you would be the one to feel it. I have to believe that everything will get better, otherwise what is the point? What was the point? What did we fight for, for so much of our lives? I have to believe that this is merely a bad moment, that soon, any moment now, everything will get better and there'll be peace. No more bad news or suffering,"

He stopped, pausing with painful memories before continuing in a low, hesitant voice, "I… When the news of the earthquakes broke last year… I did not like our separation. I couldn't bear for anything to happen to you,"

Harry looked away, thinking back. He started uncertainly, "I was fine. Ultimately, it was fine. I have weathered far worse, I was in a relatively safe area. I can speak Japanese just fine, that helped," he sighed heavily at the memories, "And yet, I felt so helpless. The ground never stopped trembling. I stopped noticing it, it became the new normal. It was only once I got to Fukuoka that I realised. It just hit me, this weird shocking sensation of the ground not constantly shuddering. I almost didn't know what to do, with the still earth. My poor, beautiful Kumamoto…"

Severus raised a hand, hesitantly searching for Harry, and stroking his fingers through his hair when they made contact. Harry shifted closer, resting his head against Severus's shoulder and allowing himself to be held.

"Without magic, I was helpless," Harry continued, "At the mercy of chance, the tectonic shifts, whoever brought clean drinking water," he drew strength from the strange wiry strength that Severus had always exuded as he went on, admitting, "It brought it all back. The helplessness, the overwhelming feeling of powerlessness. When I wasn't actively helping out or volunteering, my mind kept drifting back to the war, to everything. To the constant danger, the deaths. The pain and suffering. Everything so out of my control. I kept seeing us on the tower, hearing you and Dumbledore face off…"

Severus's grip tightened momentarily, a subconscious flinch at the memory. He swallowed, stroking Harry's arm gently, "I'm sorry," he said.

"No," Harry responded firmly, "No, you did the right thing. Thank you, for killing him. Have I ever told you that? Thank you, thank you, thank you so much,"

Severus paused in his caress of Harry's arm, before snorting gently in mild amusement. It was not a night he liked to remember, and an action that few would greet with gratitude.

They sat in companionable silence, before Harry asked almost reluctantly, not really needing the confirmation, "Luna still has difficulty with me,"

Severus sighed heavily, "She knows it wasn't you. She's better than she was. She wants to be alright with you again, she just needs to adjust to having you here, in person,"

"I'm sorry for leaving," Harry said, meaning it.

"You did what you had to do," Severus answered calmly, the wisdom of age and the years spent thinking it over resonating clearly, his fingertips moving to comb through Harry's hair, "We all reacted differently, needed different things. You needed to escape,"

Harry closed his eyes sadly. He knew, that amongst those varying desires they'd all had, Severus's priority had been the same as always, to care for and protect him. In his absence, he'd done his best for those left behind.

"I couldn't bear it," Harry admitted, "Luna… it's neither of our fault, but I couldn't bear the way she would flinch, the fear. I couldn't bear the suffering I would unintentionally inflict on her. I couldn't face Ginny. She looks too much like Ron, like all her family. I could see all that she'd lost, and so much of it felt like my fault. Hermione too, left with nothing. Her family as good as dead to her, Ron and the Weasleys dead too. And Draco, the only world he'd ever known gone, knowing that magic would have fixed his spine if there'd still been magic, if we hadn't removed it all. The awful horror of not knowing how much Minerva knew, if there was still something of her left,"

He swallowed, guiltily, "I needed to forget for a time, to see other things. I knew that everything would be alright here, because you were here. I'm still sorry for leaving you to pick up the pieces. You've always been too good at that. And I'm still sorry for everything you lost, too. Even knowing beforehand, it must have hurt,"

Severus had no reply to that, staying silent and letting the bird song and gently buzzing of bees drift into the room. Harry let his gaze wander from the greenery outside to the books on the bookshelf. The colourful Harry Potter covers held his attention as they often did. The seven original books had been joined by a copy of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, which his eyes rested on idly.

"Sybil never did know when to leave well alone," he grumbled, well aware that he was almost certainly being unfair.

"She didn't know it would become so big," Severus said, calm and perfectly rational, "She thought it would be just a book, a simple series for children, a way for her to rewrite reality to provide release and an illusion of a happy ending. She asked our permission, and it's a blessed relief that she altered all our names, skipped on the details. None of us ever imagined that her choice of therapy would permeate the world to this extent," Harry could tell by the tone of his voice that Severus had no doubt spent a lot of time thinking about the subject, coming to terms with everything in his own private way.

"I know," Harry admitted, reluctantly, "I know, but some things I struggle to forgive her for,"

Severus leaned back, unconcerned. Hermione had theorised that it was because Severus had spent so much of his life subsumed in magic that had left him almost ageless. Harry felt a twinge of guilt, the misery and shock of the loss of magic had been agony for him, and he knew it had hit all of them far harder than they ever could have imagined. For Severus, he thought, as he often did, surely the pain must have been so much more. Until magic was removed from the world, Severus had lived a life of pure magic virtually since birth. He had given up the deep connection with his bats, a fact that Harry found painful to even consider, a reality that must have been far worse for Severus.

"It seemed petty, the way she often described you. She went out of her way to describe you as ugly for no good reason," Harry continued petulantly, but Severus just laughed.

"Harry," he said with great amusement, "What does that matter? I'm blind, I always have been. I've never seen my own face. I've never known what I look like, I've never cared. What did you think she would write, the man covered in bats? She was aiming for a hint of reality,"

Harry laughed at that, "I know, I know I'm being unfair. But I can't help it. When people say stuff about me, about the Harry in the books I just brush it off. Nobody's perfect and Sybil wrote a sensationalist, fictional version. When it's the rest of you, either the way it was written or the way people then go and talk about it online, then it can hurt. Petunia cried so much with the first book, it took all I had to reassure her that I had always been happy with them and it was just artistic licence. But with you I get angry, really angry. And I know that it's stupid, but I can't help myself. I just want everyone to acknowledge you and your fictional counterpart to be as amazing as I think you are,"

Severus shrugged. He had after all known Sybil for far longer than Harry, even if the two of them had never been particularly close, "She was a Seer," he reasoned simply, "She spun tales based on a reality few of us could see. Sometimes she embellished. Making up a story of some kind was always in character. To write an innocent story of a reality the world doesn't know about made sense to her, just like leaving worked for you. Just like art helps Luna. We all heal in our own little ways. With such an eager audience, why should she not continue?"

"I haven't even read Cursed Child yet," Harry confessed, "It wasn't really a priority. I wasn't even sure if I wanted to. Dudley suggested we go see it, but what with the jet lag and everything, it wasn't really practical,"

"We've a copy," Severus informed him, "For if you wish to read it, at your leisure,"

"I think I will," Harry answered slowly, "I've been spoiled anyway, I mostly know what happens. I think. Well, I sort of know some scenes and stuff like that, from tumblr. But it does seem fair to read it at the very least,"