Chapter 8: Silence


Snape's been silent lately and I can't stand it. In the mornings it's the same old routine: him waking up, me watching him in the kitchen, him boiling the water for coffee and then sitting down at the table, blank-faced, his fingers curled around the warm mug as if it's the coldest day of December instead of a bright June morning. He's hiding something, or hiding from something. Is it something I did? Didn't do? Well, whatever it is, I get enough of his silence when he's asleep; I don't need that same silence during the day.

He never tells me about himself, his past. About anything, really. And I'm sure he has loads to tell, and there are times I think he'll say something but he always stops himself at the last second. Although maybe that's just as well, in a way, 'cause there are lots of things I don't tell him either. Like how I watch his dreams, or how sometimes I just want somebody, anybody – but mostly him – to walk up to me and put his arms around me and hold on tight and keep holding on till it hurts: so real and so painful that I can feel I'm alive.

Only I'm not and it's pointless to even wish for it.


Dumbledore told me once that it doesn't do to dwell on dreams and forget to live. And now I keep hoping that if I spend enough time in Snape's dreams I would forget. Because I can't live, not anymore and not like I want to, and it'll be so much easier to forget it.

His dreams repeat themselves a lot, now that I'm not trying to change them anymore. His and Malfoy's younger selves lurk in the corner of his mind instead of the corner of his eye, especially before the real nightmares begin. I don't know what's worse, watching Snape when they start or seeing him with Malfoy beforehand. I feel like I'm taking another uninvited look into his pensieve, but I can't stop myself. I should, but now that I've crossed the line it's so hard not to do it again.

The first time it happened I watched Snape sleep, as usual. I could see him stir, felt the change in his breathing. I kept telling myself I'd look in on him just this once, to check in case it was the tunnel again, because a quick check on a nightmare like that wouldn't be the same thing as spying. So I looked, and it wasn't the tunnel after all, but somehow I stayed, when I shouldn't have been watching at all.

It was Diagon Alley, and that arrogant bastard was standing right next to him. Snape seemed awfully young in his Hogwarts uniform, and awfully happy in Malfoy's company. He was looking for something, peering into a narrow alley beside Slug and Jiggers.

"And you call yourself a Dark Arts expert," Malfoy drawled. "You can't even find your way into Knockturn."

"Just tell me what you did!"

Malfoy laughed. "You can't bear to leave something unexplained, can you?"

"It has to be a passageway," Snape muttered under his breath. "What opens it?"

"Nothing. The place just knows the right person. And you aren't one yet."

Snape was frustrated. He bit his lip and glared from under all that lank hair. "Show me again."

"Very well, but this time I won't be back."

"I'll find you!"

"You can try," Malfoy smiled lazily and cast a Disillusionment Charm.

Then he disappeared; and I was pretty sure I knew where to. I'd bet anything he used the passageway to Knockturn, that narrow one that Snape used when he saved us from the house elves, the one that moves from place to place in Diagon Alley.

And Snape was left behind, searching, walking up and down the street, skirting round the passers-by, nervously picking his way like a daddy longlegs spider. His wand was drawn and it looked like he was trying to follow a tracing spell but without much luck, so he stopped every time on the same spot. As time went by the street filled up with more and more people, and no matter where Snape searched, Malfoy never came back for him.


The dream left Snape edgy and restless the next day. As he drank his coffee, he still had the same absorbed look in his eyes, as if he was searching for someone or something, and couldn't work out how to find them again.

I tried to catch his eye. It didn't quite work.

He really shouldn't trust me. I'm the most selfish bastard I know. I lied when I said I'd keep my word. What kind of person does that? If he ever finds out I've been spying on him in dreams there'll be hell to pay, but I can't stay away from them. And maybe I'm a coward, but dreams are the only way I can avoid all that silence in the dark.


The second time I looked in on his dreams, I didn't see the tunnel either. But by then, I'd stopped hiding behind excuses. I just watched, and kicked myself for being weak. Snape was in the Hogwarts dungeons. He was at the door to his Potions classroom; only it couldn't have been his yet, 'cause even though he wasn't in student robes, he still looked too young to teach.

"Thanks, Professor Slughorn," he called. He had a phial in his hand, and he was smiling: it was faint, but a real smile, like it was his birthday and he'd just got the present he'd been hoping for all year.

"Good luck, Severus, my boy," the genteel voice chuckled behind the closing door.

Snape ducked his head and his hair fell over his face hiding everything but his nose. "That's exactly what I need," he whispered, and his eyes shone in the gloom, almost as bright as the ornate phial. "Luck: the simplest and most expensive of commodities."

He drank the potion and then he grabbed something small hanging on a ribbon around his neck and squeezed it tight. Portkey, I realised, as the dream pulled me through as well, into a spinning, dizzying, broomstick stunt of a ride that dropped us both in a the middle of a familiar hedge maze. I could smell roses everywhere. Snape hopped over the hedges with a newfound lightness to his step and strode down the gravel path to the Manor.

Whatever he drank worked like a love potion, only the Snape I know hates love potions. Was that why he hates them? 'Cause he used one on himself once? Only aren't you supposed to make someone else drink it instead? Whatever it was, I hated it, just because it worked and I had to see that blond tosser swoop in like a predator. As soon as Snape walked through the door he was pressed against it. I wanted Snape to push Malfoy away, show that prick that he didn't need him, but he didn't… He enjoyed it. He looked like he was hurt and content all at once and there was a half-smile, half-grimace on his lips. He held onto Malfoy like he was everything Snape ever wanted. I hated watching it but I stayed and watched the entire kiss. Perhaps the Dursleys were right: I'm a freak.

Sometimes it felt like I was watching my own pensieve memory repeating over and over and I swear that I knew every time Malfoy made him gasp. That nip on his throat, the fingers clenching in his hair, and finally, the deep kiss that made him hold on helplessly to that bastard's neck.

It took an abrupt knock on the door to prise Malfoy off. "There's someone I'd like you to meet," he whispered, pulling back and rearranging his rumpled clothing back to immaculate perfection. Git! He opened the door to the Manor and welcomed Tom Riddle in, but Riddle walked past him as if he didn't exist, his eyes flickering red as they focused only on Snape. Snape stepped back warily and looked as if he wanted to Disapparate on the spot, but his gaze locked with Riddle's, just for a second, and in that second Snape's eyes went wide with shock. He blinked and looked down, hair falling over his face, as if hiding from the attention. But Riddle kept staring at him, like a snake watching a rat. He had an intrigued expression, the same look Malfoy had when he opened the door to Snape just a few minutes before. "Lucius," he hissed, without shifting that stare from Snape for a moment, "Introduce us."

Then I worked out what that potion did. It gained attention. It worked on Malfoy – he barely remembered to shut the door before he pounced – but I bet Snape never expected another visitor that day.

And if it took all my strength to stay still when I watched him with Malfoy, it was even harder to stop myself from jumping right between Snape and that evil fucker, or yelling at Snape to get away from there and hide till whatever he drank wore off... But I couldn't! It was just a dream and it happened before I was born, too long ago to be changed, even if we all had our magic back. I knew that for sure, and what I saw next only confirmed it...

Snape seemed tired in the next dream, and maybe that was why he looked so much older in it than the last one. This time he was in that narrow passage, the back way into Knockturn Alley. And he was clutching his forearm, like I've often seen him do for a moment, only that time he didn't let go: his fingers dug deeper into his arm like it was burning. He staggered to the corner, looking around wildly, and collapsed against the brick of the alley wall.

That was where Malfoy found him. He pulled up Severus' sleeve, baring the Mark: fresh, swollen and red. "It gets better," Lucius said. "Give it a few days."

"Better?" Snape looked up and his eyes were so black in his pale, big-nosed face. "How can it?"

"You're right," Malfoy answered after a long pause. "It doesn't."

"Then why the hell did you do it?"

"Why?" Lucius snorted. "Why should I not support the most powerful wizard of our time?"

Snape shook his head. "I know exactly why you took the Mark. I just don't know why you asked me to do the same."

Malfoy didn't say anything at all to that. Neither did Snape.

I've been thinking a lot about that last dream. I used to believe the worst way to hurt someone is with words. But it's not. You can hurt someone just as much by being silent. Screaming matches are no worse than the things people don't say to each other. Like now, when I don't mention I've seen Snape's nightmares, and he doesn't mention other things: everything, really. And the silence fills the air worse than the darkness hour after hour as I sit by his bed: it builds up and gets thicker, till it's like a wall I can't walk through to reach him ever again. And that hurts.


Harry's been silent lately. When I ask him to stay behind as I leave the flat, I can tell the request shocks him, but even then he doesn't say much.

"It's just a simple errand." I refuse to feel guilty. Instead I try to sound upbeat. "I trust you'll be all right for the next two hours."

"What kind of errand?" he asks warily. He is beginning to suspect something.

"I'll explain when I get back." Not everything, of course. There are no right words to explain everything to him. Perhaps, the bothersome voice in my head whispers, my heart will fail once I'm away from home and I won't have to explain anything at all. I refuse to acknowledge the possibility.

The glass-sheathed tower at 30 St. Mary Axe is impossible to miss. Even if I didn't know the address one can see the building itself from afar. The 'Erotic Gherkin' is an ironically apt name for it, if upthrust cucumbers had snakeskin and housed a hive of Muggles with a fondness for heights and the London skyline. Harry might enjoy it if he were here; it's different enough to gain his attention.

I confront the receptionists and the lift and a few minutes later reach the thirty-second floor. The waiting room is as empty as the secretary's desk. The phone, disconnected, with its cord wrapped carefully around the base, is placed in the corner next to a dried up plant. The nametag – Pansy P. in plain letters – is the only thing that still remains on the bare surface. The name is familiar yet I barely recall the hard-faced, methodical girl from Draco's year now that she isn't present. The door to the main office is unlocked, so I walk through it.

The slender man shuffling stacks of papers behind the flat, dark screen is just the same as I remember him. He blends into his clothes: sharp, dark-grey eyes the same colour as his expensive suit, his slicked-back hair the exact pale shade of his shirt collar. He is surprised to see me enter, but I can only tell that because I know his mannerisms, resembling his father's too closely for comfort.

Behind him, the London skyline spreads as wide as the Thames, sliced apart by its bridges and the triangular frame of the window.

Draco hides his surprise well by searching through the papers on his desk in pre-arranged piles. He pulls one out, making a show of flipping through the pages and adding up the numbers. "Severus," he says, not looking up. "Just the man I wanted to see. Perhaps you can finally explain to me how one can survive on £500 a month."

We've been through this before. In fact, I've heard this question from him in one form or another so many times, it's almost become a running joke. "By finding other means of support, rather than charity."

"It's not charity!" There it is, that cultured, refined, perfected Malfoy scowl. "My father…"

"What Lucius wanted and what he did were two entirely different things."

"Not with you."

"Draco," I approach the desk. "You are not responsible for my well-being. I can take care of myself."

"Fine." His face hardens. "You want to convince me you're working, go ahead. I'm willing to pretend that your facade of an editing job pays more than my estimate. What I don't understand is how a man who has a small fortune at his disposal can't even spend the interest it generates."

"Easily. It's not mine to spend."

"Just look at yourself!" he cries; the papers slide across the desk, sharp-edged and heavy. "Stubborn bastard, jump off a bridge if you must, just don't starve to death!"

His outburst makes me conscious of the way I must look to him, tired and gaunt. I've stopped noticing certain things in the mirror long ago, but Draco pays more attention to appearance than I; nothing gets past those sharp eyes of his, from one rare visit to the next. I suppose the change in me worries him because unlike most other people in his life, I do not bend according to his wishes. And, while I appreciate the concern, this time he's gone too far. "That's enough. Stop it, or next month you'll find deposits instead of withdrawals on those bank balances of yours, and they'll continue until the last brass farthing's repaid."

That gets his attention. His shoulders sag and he looks away for the first time. He turns from the desk and rubs the bridge of his aristocratic nose, as if warding off a headache. "Fine. I knew better," he gives in. "I'm sorry. It's just… it's been a bad week."

Now that he isn't looking me in the eye and isn't hiding behind his papers, I notice the shadows beneath his pale eyelashes, the less-than-absolutely-immaculate state of his grooming. I remember the time when this man I depend on, deny it as I might, used to look to me for guidance. "What's wrong?"

For a moment he is not a chameleon, easily fitting in among people years older than him because it makes him appear more trustworthy to them, but a young boy asking whether he can just bypass the Sorting and move into the Slytherin dorm two months before the start of term. "Pansy left," he says simply.

I remember the empty secretary desk in the other room. "Did she find a more advantageous position?"

He shrugs, his arms crossed tensely over his chest, as if he's physically cold. "Maybe. I don't know. She left a note. Said she didn't want to get in the way." He pauses to look through the wide window at the London skyline.

Besides a prestigious degree that certainly wasn't earned, there are two other framed pictures on the pale, bare walls of Draco's sunlit office. One is a family photograph: a man, a woman, and an infant, the frozen continuation of so many portraits I remember on the walls of Malfoy Manor. Underneath it is a childlike scribble of crayons and paint, fresh and unprecedented. Both of them look more genuine than the degree ever could.

There is no image of the snub-nosed, dark-haired girl who used to sit behind the desk in the other room. There never was: her presence outside was expected and taken for granted. I nod carefully and examine the calm gaze of the woman in the picture. "Will your wife…"

"No, Anna wouldn't do anything." While he can't be anything other than his parents' son, his wry chuckle sounds oddly like my own. "Whiskey, cigarettes… and the secretary. She prefers to keep an eye on my weaknesses rather than destroying them."

His eyes search for something in the distant structures on the other side of the river. "Sometimes Anna reminds me so much of Mother," he mentions. "She's frightening… for a Muggle, that is." After this confession he is quiet for a long time. I let him have his moment of contemplation in silence.

"Sir?" I haven't heard him call me that in years.

"Yes?"

"Mother always treated you the same way, didn't she?" He looks up, and Lucius' eyes on Narcissa's delicate features still stun me with their impact. "As Father's weakness."

His gaze searches my face for something he obviously hopes to find in my reaction. Reassurance perhaps that it isn't so. But I owe him better than lies. "Your father wasn't weak." There is no sense in hiding any of it from Draco, not any more, so I admit softly "If anything, he was my weakness; I was never his."

"Was that why you left?" I know the precise day he must be thinking of, even though I didn't actually leave then. At best I began leaving that day, one foot out the heavy front door of the Manor, though I don't think I ever truly finished walking away from Lucius. Not until he Portkeyed me out of his life; right before he ended it.

"Draco, I did not…"

"Yes you did!" he interrupts. "It's hard to forget a thing like that. You used to come and see us all the time, and then you just stopped. Disappeared. I didn't see you again till Hogwarts."

I recall a desperate owl from a boy wanting to come to Hogwarts a year early. "I didn't want to be in the way, Draco." It's not until I've spoken that I realise my choice of words has echoed Miss Parkinson's after all.

"Whose way?" he cries. "Mother's?"

I look at the photograph again: Draco's attention is all on the infant his wife is holding in her arms. Another photograph, smaller and more current, sits on his desk: Draco alone is holding up his son. They are both smiling. The boy is about four.

I'm surprised Pansy lasted this long. One can't compete with a child. It's a hard lesson to learn but a necessary one. "No, yours." I murmur. "You deserved a family."

"You are my family!" he exclaims. "I always thought of you as part of it. I liked you! I would've liked to see you more, before Hogwarts. And now that I mention it, I still would."

I look at him in surprise, wondering what he expects of me. Godfather or not, I never really stood in loco parentis. I did much better as a teacher; at least Draco had enough skill in Potions that it wasn't as onerous to teach him as most. Perhaps he wants my company these days, simply because his parents are gone and I remind him of the time they were still alive. In either case, it seems that my condition will soon cause disappointment to yet another of my former students. I cannot be the person Draco expects me to be. Yet, as an apology, or perhaps because it's the last time I'll see him, I try nonetheless. "Have you eaten yet?"

He blinks at the clock in the corner; it's about two. "What? No. I had a case to look over." His cuffs show his wrists – all skin and bone – as he reaches for a stack of papers and manila folders.

I arch an eyebrow at him. "You're a fine one to accuse me of starving myself to death. Why not leave it be? Just for a while."

It's not until he smiles at me that I'm sure it was the right thing to ask.


We go for lunch. An expensive place at the very top of the building beneath the domed roof, nearly empty of building tenants at two in the afternoon. It makes me feel more trapped than ever: an insect under a luminous glass sphere. There's nowhere to hide from the sky and the sunlight In the lounge bar, a young man holds a mobile phone to his ear with his shoulder as he devours a sandwich. "No, Mum," he mumbles into the phone, "Not this weekend. End of the month perhaps?" I turn away from him in favour of the menu. The place offers cocktails as well as food. Draco orders both, in abundance. He insists on paying. That seems to satisfy him so I allow it, just this once. I wouldn't be able to afford this place anyway.

He is happy enough at this outing, enough to stop me from wondering frantically about what a parental figure is expected to do in cases like this. A reassuring clap on the shoulder? A stern glare and a suitable warning to take care of himself?

The young man at the bar protests as the mobile buzzes into his ear, "I've got work, commitments! I can't just snap my fingers and magic myself there and back overnight! You tell Dad…"

Draco gives him a mildly amused, mildly irritated glance. "Magic never resolved family quarrels. Neither did Apparation." He sighs and shakes his head. "No use talking about magic now, of course." He gives a shrug and drains his glass. "Though, listen to this, you'll never believe it..." He pauses for maximum effect before delivering the punchline, "...Magic is supposedly back!"

I raise my eyebrow at that. Well, well. News does travel fast. "Do tell," I manage.

"Nothing to tell," he replies. "Daft Muggleborns! They're searching for magical children. Next week they'll be resurrecting Potter!"

Resurrect Harry? Ah, if only that were at all possible, I would've done so already. I hold back a sarcastic chuckle and imagine myself sharing the story of Harry invading my flat, just to see Draco's face grow paler than his collar. "It's true," I tell him instead.

"What?" He looks up, blinking.

"It's not just the Muggleborns. A few weeks ago, I saw Ginny Weasley cast a spell, powered by her foetus' magical energy."

His eyes narrow. "Are you certain it was a spell?"

"Absolutely."

Draco doesn't say anything. The man in the corner appears properly chastened and finally gives in with a feeble "Fine, I'll catch the next train." He snaps his mobile closed, nearly dropping it in his drink.

Draco is unusually silent for the rest of lunch. When he pays the bill, I notice that his wallet has another picture of his son.

We return to his office, and the three framed images that can almost summarise his present life: Draco Malfoy, a Muggle among Muggles. He motions toward the third frame: cheerful scribbles of green and yellow underneath the photograph. "Luc drew that," he informs me with pride. "Give him paints and he'll occupy himself for hours."

"I see," I nod at the abstract splash of green, as vivid as if someone threw a jar of floo powder into flames. "It brightens your office."

He smiles proudly, as Lucius would have, if the painting were an eighteenth century original worth a small fortune. But Draco sobers up quickly, and gets right to the point, finally voicing the worry that I can tell has prevented him from enjoying his meal, though not in the way I expected. "Is it different for half-bloods?"

I blink. "Is what different?"

"Do they not show magic as early as pureblood children?"

"Half-blood, Muggleborn, it doesn't matter. The first signs of magic make themselves known in early childhood for everyone."

"If there was any magic in him, I would've noticed it by now? Right?" he asks, and waits, expecting me to produce a logical counterargument, wanting me to prove his fears are baseless. But I can't.

"Most likely." It's hard not to notice a young child's bouts of accidental magic. There are always exceptions, of course, but Draco shouldn't rely on false hopes. "How old is the boy?"

"He'll be five soon." When Draco looks up, his expression is stubborn and proud and not at all excited despite all his attempts. "You should come and see him, Severus. He's memorised the Malfoy bloodline up to the seventh generation, and he tells me stories about Father. And already he paints better than some crooks in the galleries down the street. The rest doesn't matter." he says with a determined look and it sounds as though he's trying to convince himself, more than me. "I don't care if he starts levitating things tomorrow or won't cast a single spell in his life, my son is perfect and no one will convince me otherwise."

It's only then, as Draco talks about his son, that I realise how much he's changed over the years. How much he's not his father. Lucius would've been absolutely livid at the very idea of having a squib for a son. Yet in a different place and time Draco has managed to deal with that – and so many other disasters – better than Lucius ever could.

"Your father would've been proud of you," I murmur before I have a chance to change my mind. I know I'm proud of him, and I'm certain Lucius would have been, if only for slightly different reasons.

His eyes widen, but then his lips twist sarcastically. "Right! I would've been disowned the moment I married a Muggle."

"Why did you?" Out of everyone who survived the ruin of our world, Draco seemed the least likely to associate with Muggles, yet here he is, adjusting and getting by better than any of the others might've hoped to. I have my suspicions why, yet I've never heard his version of the story. Why a Muggle?

He shrugs. "Anna's family has influence, money, and this." He motions around the office. "It was the best match for me, given the circumstances."

It's just as I expected. The famous Malfoy ambition, not only to survive but to have the best life possible, won over. "You see," I tell him. "Long ago, your father did the same thing. He can't fault you for following in his footsteps."

I take a thin, sealed envelope out of my pocket and slide it over the desk. Perhaps it won't be as difficult as I thought to get him to accept it.

He picks it up and examines it. "What's this?"

"My will. In case of emergencies."

He snorts. "Paranoid! You'll outlive us all. And I know what you're doing; I don't need your money. Keep it!" His hands grip the envelope, about to tear it in two.

My heart skips a beat. "It's for Luc," I say swiftly, "Perhaps someday he'll use it."

A variety of expressions flash across his face but in the end he sets the envelope aside. "All right," he nods. "But meanwhile, spend some of it yourself. Luc won't need it for a long time."

I give him a token agreement, though we both know I won't really follow his advice. Only as I leave does Draco say something that sticks in my mind for a long time. "I think you're wrong," he says levelly. "About not being Father's weakness."

I pause and look back.

"You were; more than you know," he says. "When I was home for the hols, every time I mentioned you to him he'd get this look in his eyes – possessive as hell – like he was jealous that I got to see you more often than he could."

While I smile at that image of Lucius – it must've frustrated him so – at the same time, I assure myself that it still means nothing. Meant nothing. It still doesn't change the fact that Lucius is gone. Though maybe… perhaps…

Will I see him again when I die? A thought worthy of Harry's senseless reasoning appears unbidden, and my untrustworthy heart skips a beat: whether in fear or anticipation, I cannot tell. I push the thought to the very back of my mind and flee from it like a fugitive.

"Just take care of yourself, all right?" Draco asks as I step through the door. "Till I see you again: probably when I'm old, though not at all grey and finally a billionaire."

I nod. I'll do my best, but it won't be good enough.

"And how can you live without a telephone!" he calls out from his office door as I pass by Pansy's empty desk. "You're nearly impossible to contact."

I smile. Draco isn't even aware how closely he's channelling Miss Granger. "Send me a letter," I tell him. "I trust you haven't forgotten how to write."


After Draco, there's only one person left to visit.

I leave the train at Tottenham Court Road, and walk along the station, past the wall mosaics, searching for the one that looked a bit like a phoenix. Whenever I met with Dumbledore, somehow it always clarified my perspective on things, and right now I don't know what else to do. I know better than to expect advice or guidance from him, but perhaps a moment in silence in his company is all I need. Even though I still can't help but wish to hear "I know you, don't I? Severus?" spoken in that familiar quavering voice, or perhaps to see a spark of recognition from eyes once as clear and mischievous as Harry's.

When I finally find the mosaic, I see the shabby shape of a woman leaning against the wall alone: 'Minerva'. There are no marbles next to her and no unfolded newspapers on the floor. She's rocking back and forth, her metal arm clinking against the wall, glancing at the trains but not really watching them go.

When I finally gather the courage to ask her, she only stares at me blankly, and shakes her head in confusion.

Just like that, Albus is gone, as if he was never here. Now I can't help wondering if he was real, or if the one-sided conversations I've had with him over the years were just the hallucinations of a loneliness-addled mind.

Now, there is only silence. I've learned to rely on silence and converse with it over the years. It's as good a listener as any: the one thing I can trust to wait for me to return to it, over and over again. It's as familiar as the walk along Camden High Street, and the pub filling the wedge between it and Kentish Town Road. Even The World's End is unusually silent today.

That silence follows me out the pub's door, through the empty streets and alleys I choose to get home, up the stairs and into the flat, for once unbroken by Harry's voice. It's as if he isn't even here. As if he was never here at all. As if I dreamed him, along with Albus. At that thought, the silence turns deafening and shrill at the same time, like the sound of a scream, turned to a liquid gurgle in the throat of a bottle.


Even if he wasn't real, Albus was right to warn me off spirits. Spirits – both the ones in a bottle and the ones haunting the living – make you remember strange things. Things that are better off forgotten, like a narrow kitchen and my father, drunk, and singing in a voice like a boozy lion's roar, In the Tower of London, large as life, the ghost of Ann Boleyn walks, they declare….

As I climb the familiar staircase, I realise that the song reminds me of Harry. That's what he must've done for years: walked the towers and staircases of Hogwarts all alone, while I walked my own gauntlet of life among Muggles. Damn his curiosity! Why does he have to question everything? Why can't he make it easier for me to lie to him? It's not as if I want to, or as if I've got any other choice.

When I was too young to know whether I'd go to Hogwarts or a Muggle school like my father, he used to howl out that song after he staggered home from the pub. A poor mechanic in a rundown house and a breaking-down household in Spinner's End would bellow a song about a solitary ghost haunting her murderers, a cold tower, and its ignorant modern guards; and now thirty years later I've found out for myself what it feels like to be haunted. It hurts to realise that no matter how hard I've tried, I've turned into my father after all: a broken, useless man hiding from my sorrows in a bottle. I wonder if Dad was ever haunted by anything himself, or if he just liked the irony of royalty falling to a lower fate than his own.

With her head tucked underneath her arm, she walks the Bloody Tower…

Merlin save us all from stubborn ghosts, whether their heads are in place or not. My laugh comes, harsh and sudden, echoing down the stairs. What else can I do but laugh? In the teeth of despair, it's better to laugh, or to sing, even silly melodrama tunes like that, than to break down and cry.

Isn't it?

Harry's there after all. Is this sudden pang in my chest relief, or the beginning of the end? He's waiting for me, outside my door, sitting in the corner next to it. His head is, of course, properly attached to his neck but everything else is oddly fitting the situation.

He stares at me, gaping in disbelief. I fight the urge to ask him whether my head's still attached properly: all of a sudden it's started to pound badly enough that I might have put it through a windshield somewhere back there, as I was wandering the streets like a lost soul.

"Where have you been?" he cries, glaring as if he's planning to incinerate me on the spot.

I don't owe him an explanation. Or do I? I suppose I promised one. "To see a friend."

"Which one?" his voice hitches. "Do I know them?"

No sense in hiding really. If he doesn't want to hear the answer, he shouldn't ask the question. "Draco."

His eyes go wide. "Malfoy? He was your bloody errand?"

"Don't sound so surprised. I told you, I went to see a friend."

"Some friend!" He looks me up and down. "What'd he do to you?"

"Nothing. You're talking rubbish."

"Maybe if you'd told me you were going to see that pasty little ferret in the first place instead of running off like a coward…"

"Don't call me that!"

"Fine!" he yells and turns away, collapsing into a small, huddled shape on the floor.

I put my key in and turn. The door stays locked. I twist it again. The key only turns so far. Coincidence? I don't think so. Harry's face is far too focused to be innocent. Just a small twist of the internal mechanism should be enough to… the bastard's controlling the lock!

"Let me in."

Slowly he raises his head, resting it against the wall. "No!"

Preposterous! "This is my house."

He ignores me completely. "You were gone for hours. Not two hours, at least five!" he glares up at me. "You never break your promises. I thought you'd been in an accident. I thought of going to look for you only I didn't know where to look and I was afraid you'd show up just after I left."

I let go of the key in shock. Harry's energy! How the hell could I have forgotten that? I didn't keep track of time at all, and the last time I left him alone in my flat, he was barely visible when I came back!

"Don't bloodywell start. Just don't."

I wasn't going to apologise. Was I? Instead I take a step closer to him. He probably needs proximity now more than ever.

Harry turns his head away and curls in on himself, arms over his knees, as if shielding himself from my energy, even though the shape of his fingers and his hair dulls and wavers.

Stubborn sod.

I think of the old chants used to summon ghosts, to give power to them, as I slide down on the floor next to him. I can't remember a single chant, but perhaps anything will do: anything to create the right atmosphere, to relax him, to stop him from fighting the energy flow. So I begin humming instead. Not a chant. An old familiar song. I can't carry a tune and I've forgotten most of the words. When my father sang it was loud and melodramatic with a long drawn out chorus, but I can't fill my lungs enough to imitate him well, so the words come out in choppy, panting bursts. "Along th' draughty corridors, f'r miles'n'miles, she goes; She often catches cold, poor thing, et's cold there, when et blows; An' et's awf'lly awkward, f'r th' Queen, t'ave t'blow 'er nose; Wi' 'er 'ead toocked, oonderneath 'er aarm."

It certainly isn't much, especially with Dad's tyke accent surfacing in my voice as it hasn't done since I were a lad, but at least it fills the silence.

Harry gapes at me. For a second I even think it's worked: he's found something funny in the situation, he's going to reach out and accept what he needs from me. But he doesn't. His face turns harsh. "You're drunk!" he finally snaps ever-so-observantly. "Just perfect!" He jolts to his feet and storms off through the door.

When I try to follow him, I almost bash my nose into it, forgetting it's not unlocked or opened yet. Then I resume my struggle with the key.


Drunken sod. I watch him stumble in the dark through the hallway and into his bedroom. I've seen him walk that path too many times to count, but never like this: I hate the way the drink has made him clumsy. He flops down onto the bed with a creak and groan of springs. With a sigh he lets his head fall back onto the pillow. Wait, did he say something?

"Harry."

He did. The tosser's sorry now, is he? About time, too! Well, I should let him be sorry. He deserves it.

"I know you're here."

Oh, yeah? Doesn't mean I'll appear on command. He can't expect me to be at his beck and call. Things don't work that way.

"Wish you'd show yourself." His voice is low, tentative. His eyes are searching the room. Well, I've got things I wish for too, loads of them. And just 'cause I wish, it doesn't mean any of them'll ever come true.

"You're not going to answer, are you?"

Damn right. Finally he's starting to get it. I trusted him. I really trusted him to be all right, to make his life better. I thought he was doing so well and then he had to go and make a right balls-up of it all, just when I started to believe in him. Lying prick. He can bloody well be sorry now. Serves him right. Serves me right for believing in him.

He starts again, soft and hesitant. "There was a young man who wanted something he could never have…"

I don't need a bedtime story to make it all better! As if that's going to help anything!

"He thought that potions could solve all of his troubles. If he could bottle fame and brew glory by just following the correct procedure, why couldn't a potion change his rotten luck? So he studied hard for seven years, and one day he got a hold of a single phial of the most perfect luck, luck that would last a day from sunrise to sunset. He thought one lucky day would be all he needed to turn his life around."

I remember reading something about luck potion back in seventh year, when I thought I could impress Snape into not failing me. Felix something or other.

"He drank Felix Felicis, expecting that everything would go his way," Snape's voice echoes my thoughts. "That finally he'd impress everyone he met, be recognised for his achievements, be appreciated for once instead of ignored. And he was, to some extent. The potion did everything he expected of it, and more. But that extra luck didn't prevent him from impressing exactly the wrong person."

That dream at Malfoy Manor, with Snape, Malfoy, and Voldemort at the door. Is that what he means?

"It didn't prevent him for making one terrible mistake after the other. Mistakes he realised only too late. He'd spent years wanting to be more than someone's hanger-on, but instead he learned that no matter how hard he tried, his life wasn't going to turn out as he'd wanted, and all he could share with that someone was a mutual mistake."

When he speaks this softly it always makes me listen. Even if I don't want to, even if I'm trying my best to ignore him. I learned that long ago, back when he was still teaching. He always makes me listen, and now that I think of it, it must be Malfoy he's talking about, or partly about Malfoy, but mostly about himself: that gangly boy I've seen in his dreams and the man that boy became.

"The man grew old, still wanting. He made mistakes and then he made sacrifices. He learned to survive at all costs."

And Snape did survive, in all of his nightmares I wasn't supposed to see but saw anyway. All those horrible things he's lived through, and he still came back snarling and glaring. And now that there aren't any bad things left, suddenly he's giving up? How can he give up now, when I'm here? He can't do that!

"Then I met you, and at last I realised that I'd stopped wanting the same dream I'd wanted all my life," he whispers and I have to creep closer just to understand his words. "Now, I can't help but want a new one instead. You changed my luck, Harry. God, how I wish I could've known you when I was still young."

He stares and stares into the dark and I know he can't possibly see me, but I still can't help wondering if he does, all the same.

Finally he folds back the covers and slides underneath them without even changing into his ratty nightshirt like he usually does. And even then in the dark I can feel his eyes on me, blindly searching the empty room.

"I still want that," he breathes, and it's the last thing he says tonight. But instead of words, his hand reaches out into the dark. It would almost go through me if I didn't step back in time.


He fell asleep long ago. His face is still and calm with that great big nose sticking out, his bony chest is moving under the thin blanket as he breathes in and out, and his outstretched hand is still dangling over the side of the bed. It's absolutely still, just like the books on his shelves or the candlesticks left on the floorboards, so still that if I reach out I would probably be able to touch him and feel it – just another part of his flat: the walls, the doorways, and Severus Snape.

I still want that. That's what he said, and I can't get it out of my mind. Damn him! Damn the greasy bastard for giving me that bloody frustrating near-invitation to his bed. Or to his dreams, more likely. Either way, it's an offer, even I can see that! He wants me in his dreams, and it only took a bottle of booze and a dirty great row for him to admit it. He wants me.

So how can I refuse this? He'll sober up in the morning and never ask me again. I can't turn down an offer like this: it's everything I want. It's like a birthday present when I wasn't expecting a birthday at all. It's like magic returning or Hogwarts reopening or a chance to live my life like a normal person again. Just when I think something like this will never happen, it does and he said it and his hand is still here reaching out in the dark.

I hate him for that, for another almost-an-offer.

After that last dream I used to think I'd do absolutely anything to have him say 'yes', for just one chance to find him in dreams and show him everything: how sorry I am that I can't touch him and just how much I need to touch him. And then he wouldn't care if it was only dreams, I'd make it good. I'd make him love it. I'd make him want it just as much as I do.

But that'd be a lie. 'Cause it wouldn't be all right. Not now, not this way. 'Cause when the dream was over, I'd still have to face him in the morning and explain what I did to him.

It's bloody ironic, the only time he's weak enough to say 'yes' to me, I can't act on it, and I hate it that I can't. 'Cause I've seen enough of his dreams and found enough excuses to sneak into them. And if I do it again tonight, what am I going to do tomorrow when he isn't drunk anymore, and says that he didn't mean it and I thought completely wrong? I've made enough mistakes. And this'd be one very wrong, very bad mistake to make. If I go now, I'll lose all respect for myself. I offered everything I could offer him once. And if he ever says yes, I want him to know exactly what he's agreeing to. That's the right thing to do. It all comes down to that, and I hate it.

The night has just begun and it'll be long enough to decide and change my mind a thousand times over. As I sit here and watch him sleep I know that most likely I will change it, 'cause I'm not that strong. I'm not. I'll give in the same way I always give in, and move from the kitchen into the hallway and through the doorway into his room at night. Whether the journey takes a whole hour or half the night it always ends at his bed. But at least I can try. That's what I'm good at after all: trying and failing over and over.

I still wonder what he sees in his dreams when I'm not in them. Perhaps I shouldn't; that's what got me into this mess in the first place.


The darkness feels warm and solid, like him. In it, Harry wraps around me, breath hot and limbs heavy. I close my eyes against the unfocused green and simply breathe in, as the images of him flood my mind.

"Said I'd do something drastic." His hand glides between us, his touch heavy and slow. Stops.

I nudge it further down.

"Oh," he exhales. Even his hair smells like the sky, the crisp, fresh smell of heights, as if he'd just swooped down on a broom with it all windblown and tangled. Ever the Seeker.

I relax my hold on his wrist. "All right?" Why do I feel as though I am the one with the Snitch in my hands, an elusive, shining victory still trembling and hot from hours in the sun? I can only hold onto him, still unable to believe the catch, unable to let go for even a second.

"Yeah, perfect," he sighs against my shoulder.

"Brat." Foolish, irrational, impossible brat. "Finish what you started."

"Wanted to for ages," he murmurs his agreement. And his mouth – warm, gentle – his scent, his roaming hands, the tantalising contact of skin-on-skin strips me of the last shred of coherency. The movement of his hand, the pressure of his body against mine is suddenly too much to bear. "Wanted you."

A gasp. Mine? His? I don't know. All I know is that his hands are determined, and that his stubborn mouth slides lower down my neck, across the Apparition scar on my shoulder, crossing it like another discarded boundary between us, and moving on: tasting my sweat (until I too taste salt from the inside of my bitten cheek); exhaling shallow breaths against my skin (until I cannot breathe at all). With every touch, every sigh he is determined to drive me completely out of my mind, push the limits of 'drastic' with his spontaneous kisses and that astoundingly slow descent down the length of my body, make me forget everything but his mouth: so close it should be warm, but it only sends shivers down my skin, he'll make me…

"What do you like? Tell me."

You. This. More… just do something! "Harry… Yes."

"Snape?"

I look up. Harry's in the doorway, and at first my mind is blank with surprise that he's over there and fully dressed and not here with me. Then I notice his eyes, wide and worried, and his hair, tangled but not windblown. His transparent form glows slightly in the darkness of my room.

"What is it?" he asks.

The reality sinks in soon enough – just a dream – along with the all-too-real shock of awakening. Insanity must feel like this.

Did Harry hear me? Did he create this dream too?

He couldn't have. He didn't. His face was far too calm, which was more than I could say for myself. He wouldn't dare enter my dreams uninvited, not after I asked him not to, but… I've watched you sleep for hours. That's what he said to me back in Diagon Alley; and knowing him, he does watch me sleep, every night. Sometimes I've wondered what he sees that keeps his focus for so long. It surprised me, back then. When I still thought that I had all the time in the world, I could still afford pleasant surprises.

"Did you dream of Remus again?"

Again? Oh. The tunnel. He meant the tunnel. The nightmare. "Lupin wouldn't have lost me a moment's sleep. His 'monthly indisposition' is something else."

"That's what I meant!" he stammers out. "Though you haven't dreamt about the tunnel for a while. I… I saw your dreams."

My heart jumps. "WHAT?"

"I spied on you. I'm sorry! But your nightmares are worse."

"Which ones did you see?" I ask, surprised I can still keep my voice level through it all.

"A few. You and Malfoy. Do you remember?"

Unfortunately. "Don't trouble yourself about them." I say it far too quickly, and still I'm not fast enough.

He steps back through the doorway. "I'm sorry. I said that already. I'm just... Look, I'm worried, and I really didn't mean to watch at first but that b…"

"That's quite enough!" I override him, loudly, trying to get him to stop.

I really don't expect it to work, but he does fall silent. Guilt is obvious on his face as he disappears through the wall before I can stop him.

In a way, it's a relief, but hiding never works, so I too head for the kitchen, caught between anticipation and dread at the prospect of facing him once more.


My kitchen. Neutral territory, middle ground. I drink my coffee in silence. He is silent too, savouring the smell of my toast as it cools rapidly on a plate. He doesn't act awkward, and I'll be damned if I will.

We can only get so far without words. Finally, I put the empty mug away. "I'm not angry," I tell him levelly. "And you shouldn't worry about me. Everyone has nightmares. It's nothing."

"Nothing? It's not nothing," he cries. "Nightmares and silence and you were drunk yesterday. Sounds familiar? It does to me. What's next? M'I gonna be banished to the loo next time I speak up?"

I take a deep breath. How badly can I spoil things in one night? "I apologise, for yesterday."

"It's fine. Just fine!" He shrugs with a cold glare. "S'not as though I can stop you from going out and getting plastered if you want to."

"It's not fine."

"No, it's bloody not." he snaps. "But I can't fix it now."

"Do you even want to fix it?" The words hang in the air between us, heavy with released and dissolving anger. Until Harry runs his fingers through his hair awkwardly and looks up at me, calmer than before.

"What kind of question is that? 'Course I do."

"Then perhaps breaking one of your promises while expecting me to keep mine isn't the way to go about it." His wince at my words brings me a pang of guilt from my own long-forgotten conscience. Such a hypocrite. What about my own promise to myself to take care of Harry? The tacit vow I made when I allowed him to stay here. I'll never be able to keep that promise.

"I'm sorry 'bout the dreams. I am!" he cries. "I just wanted to help! Look, I don't have to see them, I know that now. I can just wake you up from them, like this morning."

"All right," I sigh and gather all of my control to leave it at that. What good would it do to tell him now that it wasn't a nightmare? Is it normal to be concerned, not with the invasion of my privacy, but with the fact that today's supposed nightmare had Harry truly worried about me? Perhaps I'm concerned because I can still fix this, at least: one tiny, inconsequential thing in face of the bigger, irreparable problems.

"What? All right?" His eyes widen. "That's it?"

"Yes. I… have something to confess." I pause. I don't have to confess anything.

He frowns. "Well, go on."

Only I do. I lift my head and look him in the eye. "You shouldn't worry, because I didn't have a nightmare today, nor did it have Lucius in it."

He stares, blinks in confusion. "Then why'd you…"

I fight the urge to drop my gaze.

"Oh," he murmurs.

I can feel the unruly blush spread across my face, just when I thought I'd got it under control. Harry stares at me and then a slow smile spreads, signalling that he's jumped to the right conclusion, making me wish I were completely invisible.

"I've never seen you turn that colour before," Harry snorts, looking awfully smug. "Your nose's still sort of white," he adds matter-of-factly, "but the rest of your face is red," and I can still almost feel that slow, teasing touch, the enthusiastic attack, can almost smell his sun-warmed hair.

"Stop it." This is insane.

"Oh, come on!" he waves his arms to emphasise the point. "You stop it. Relax! Look, I spent seven years in a dorm full of teenage boys; and if any of them'd woken up with a face like the one you're wearing right now, we'd've teased him for weeks."

Relax? "I doubt any of those nitwits dreamed of The Boy Who Lived to relieve their hormonal urges."

"Ugh," he scowls. "I hope not… I slept right next to them. ...Hang about!" His eyes go wide. "Did you?"

Fuck! Those heavy, roaming hands were certainly not a boy's. At least when I will deny it, that part will be correct.

But he doesn't even let me try to deny it. "You did! God, if only I'd realised it in time!"

"Oh, and what would you have done then? Taken advantage of the situation to assault me in my dreams?"

He smiles, worry lifted from his face, replaced by a mischievous quirk to the corners of his mouth that's impossible to miss. "Well, y'know. Ever since you said it, I wanted to see if ghosts are different from incubi and that would've been the perfect time to find out…" Then his grin fades and he stares at me, absolutely serious if only for a flash of a second. "Would you have let me?"

I should never have joked about incubi in his presence. "It's a pity you've missed your chance," I drawl. "You'll never get to find that out now."

The glint in his eyes screams 'I'm never letting you forget this'. "You could at least let me know," he adds mock-casually, "Was I any good?"

Yes, damn you! "Appalling," I grumble. "Why do you think I kept calling your name?"

It's useless; the whelp grins from ear to ear.

What would Harry have done if he realised it in time? I can't stop asking myself that question. I can't help answering it in the same foolish way. Such a daft notion; impossible, irrational, confusing thought, but I can't get it out of my mind and I can't help wanting it to be true. I keep thinking back to the dream. It wasn't real. He wasn't real. It was a dream, but not his dream. About him, yes. But not with him. Through all the confusion of the past day, only this is perfectly clear: that dream left me wishing the real Harry was there.


Of all the daft things I've done, absolutely convinced they were the right thing to do at the time, this has to be the worst!

What do you do when you miss your chance? If I was alive, if I could touch him just once, I'd've known exactly what to do. I wouldn't've let a chance like that just slip away. I wouldn't have to wait for a dream before I could do all the things I want to do with him.

Snape confuses the hell out of me. First he tells me to stay away from his dreams, then he says something like this, drops hint after hint that he wants me there after all. And half the time I don't know what to think, and the other half I'm bloody sure it's an invitation.

It would be so easy to find out if it is, if I could only walk up to him and kiss him and go on from there. But I can't do that; all I can do is watch him for more vague clues.

He's quiet, staring at the row of empty bottles lined up against the wall. "I'll get rid of those tomorrow," he mutters. "Or today, if you want. They're only taking up space."

I shake my head. "Your call." And really, it doesn't matter. What with all the other things on my mind this morning, I managed to forget about his drinking.


"Um. Snape?"

"Give me a moment." There are only a few bottles left under the table. I bend down to reach for them, and then, by chance, I look up, amid the cobwebs and dust, and notice something that wasn't there before.

There are scratches on the underside of the table. Only now when I squint at them, and run my hand over them, I realise they're not just scratches. They're letters: an H, etched into the soft wood, the smooth line gleaming, as if someone polished it in with a needle tip a thousand times over, followed by an A almost as clear. The next one, R, is fainter and the second R after it is just a line and the Y at the end is barely noticeable. I look around and sure enough, there's an empty biro I discarded once, dropped and forgotten in between the floorboards.

"I just want to ask..."

"Harry. What is this?" It had to be him. Who else would do such a thing?

"What did you mean when you said… What?" Harry pokes his head right through the table, and peers at my hand resting over his name. "Oh, er, that," he stammers sheepishly. "I didn't think you'd notice it. I needed something to do at night, and I really didn't think it'd be visible. Couldn't press on the pen hard enough to leave a line."

I run my hand over the letters again before settling into a chair and facing him in wonder, this time across the top of the table. I shouldn't be surprised, but I am. This name scratched into the wood is a valid, substantial proof that Harry still affects the world with his presence, that he still exists. Even though I see him every day, this is something I've touched and felt under my fingers. I can almost imagine Harry, suspended like a fly under the table, trying to will the pen into writing his name, repeating each stroke a thousand times over. It must've taken him forever. "How long did you spend on this?"

"A while, I guess. Started it one night, ages ago, just to prove I could." He shrugs. "It's nothing. I had a lot of time on my hands, and I reckon I'm too stubborn to quit halfway."

"You could've just saved yourself the trouble and asked me for a pen and paper," I grumble.

"Ha," he snorts. "And let you know I could write? Do I look that daft? Knowing you, you'd've wanted me to re-submit all the essays you marked Dreadful in all my seven years of Potions, and that would've taken ages."

"And rightly so. You'd've only had yourself to blame for not writing them correctly the first time around."

When I stand, he's hovering right behind me, a transparent presence that I usually take great care not to walk – literally – into by mistake. "Uhm…" he mumbles something barely loud enough to make out the words: "Can I ask you something before we… er, anyway. Was I really that appalling?"

Appalling? "Let's just say I'd prefer to deal with your entire Gryffindor year, Longbottom included, than to put up with another one of your…"

"What?" he cries. "Oi, no! Not that. I didn't mean in class." He shakes his head. "Today. In your dream. You said it, and I can't tell if you're joking or meant it."

The dream? He wants to know about that? "You can't be serious!"

He smiles wryly. "What can I be serious about then? It's not like I'll ever have anything else or even… that."

I don't have an answer for him. I doubt anyone has.

"I reckon it's true when they say you can't have everything you want," he finally shrugs. "In life, or after it, in my case."

"Harry, believe me, if it were in any way possible, I would…"

"S'all right," he stops me. "At least you're here, and we're talking. That's what matters. I think I can live with it, with you." He flashes me a grin, "If you promise not to ask me to rewrite my old homework."

Impossible Gryffindor. Must he always look for the bright side?

His eyes flicker mischievously as he tilts his head. "You smiled just now."

What? "No I didn't."

"Maybe not," he concedes, "But you wanted to."

I do want to. So when my mouth curves into a smile in response to his words, for once I don't fight it.

"Y'know," he is smiling as well, "If I wasn't a ghost, I bet you'd be horrified at the thought of me in your flat. Sometimes I'm glad I'm not alive, 'cause you'd probably never let me stay with you otherwise. You don't like people."

While I contemplate that particular bit of information, he moves in closer. "Or maybe, if I really tried, hard enough and long enough, you'd let me after all. Hold still." And then he reaches out to me, still wearing that contagious grin of his, which I absolutely refuse to respond to. I would step back, but my elbows press against the wall.

"You're warm," he murmurs. "When you're this close." Then he looks up and his expression holds childish curiosity mixed in with adult sombreness.

I doubt he has the slightest idea how those expressions of his affect others.

I duck my head, habitually hiding behind my hair. He reaches up and tries to push it out of my face. It doesn't work, of course, but in between his spread fingers and through them, I see wonder in his eyes. "Yeah," he whispers, "if I was alive, you'd never let me do this."

I've changed my mind. Now I think he knows precisely what he's doing, that he's following some sort of plan when his hands come to rest against my chest. For a second the dream flashes through my mind and I expect them to be heavy and warm. They're neither. I can feel nothing, no matter how much I wish I could.

Meanwhile, Harry is still so close to me. "Perfect," he grins.

There is nothing perfect about this. Though I can't even feel that frisson I get when he passes through me, I suspect that he can feel me. He must be able to sense something at the point of contact with material things, the same way he can lean against a wall or sit on a chair: by concentrating on their presence hard enough that their surfaces become real to him. I wonder how it feels to him to touch me.

This shouldn't unsettle me so. It's only Harry; but recently he's had a hunger in his eyes. I've seen squibs stare into Ollivander's shop window like that: an insatiable fixation on something precious, something impossible to obtain, yet impossible not to want. It's a hunger I understand, all too well. I don't want to give him up either.

"Stay still, just for a moment." He closes his eyes and then leans in against me, chest to chest, his hands on my shoulders, his face against my neck. I have to stop my hands from digging into the flat surface of the wall, and tell myself to relax. If I stay still like this, how long will he continue to chase shadows of sensation? How far will he take this search for phantom feelings, if I let him?

I look down, and his mouth is just a little bit away from mine: so very close. Unreachable. "If I can't move," I tell him, "neither can you." If I am to play this game, I'd like to be the one setting the rules. He can't expect me to let him come this close, without any warning whatsoever, and just passively wait for him to do even more unexpected things.

"Not fair," he points out. "At least I've got a good reason to ask. I can't concentrate enough to touch you when you move."

"It's not supposed to be fair. I can't touch you at all."

"Fine. But is this all right at least?" He rests his forehead against my shoulder again and simply waits. It takes all of my concentration to stay still as he asked and not to lean against the contact – even non-existent – not to raise my arms and grab him by the shoulders to pull him close. I have to tell myself again and again that it can't happen like that. My hands would go right through him like a mirage. I'll never be able to hold him, no matter how much I want to.

And yet I agree to this madness. "It's ...acceptable." I murmur softly. I shouldn't even let him get this close. It will accomplish nothing, so why am I letting him – letting myself – do this now?

Out of the corner of my eye I can catch a glimpse of Harry's face. He keeps still, just as I asked him. So close. And somehow having him this close is less awkward than I expected. Perhaps it's because we aren't dreaming and everything's so real. Now that I've had time to get used to the idea, it seems almost ordinary to stand like this, five steps away from my kitchen, to have Harry's unruly hair under my chin, to hear Harry's voice whispering a few inches below my ear, mixing with the distant rattle of the trains.

"Say something," he asks after a long, silent pause.

"What do you want me to say?"

"I don't care." His shoulders twitch. "Just something. My name."

In my mind's eye, I can still see his name scratched underneath the table. The deeply etched H and the fading train of letters after it. Harry, I repeat it in my head, and it sounds so personal, so intimate. 'Harry' implies a connection, belonging. I never would've thought of calling him by his first name when he was alive, but now I seem to do it too often. Perhaps it's time for a little more distance. "Harry Potter," I tell him at last, trying to fall back into the indifferent tone of reading a class roster. "Satisfied?"

"No, not that," he persists. "Just the first. Please?"

Stubborn imp! I give into my instincts then and allow myself this one comfort; slowly I turn my face to him and murmur into his transparent fringe: "Harry."

At once, the faint aura around his head flares brighter; so does the rest of him. That's what he wanted, isn't it? Connection. If I'm honest with myself, it's what we both want.

Harry grins and I suspect that my face brightens as well. "I like the way you say it."

"Why?" What's there to like?

"I dunno." He blinks and glances down. His hands on my shoulders fidget nervously. "It's distracting. Sometimes I listen to you and forget what I was thinking."

I suspect that there's more to that confession. I watch him and wait. He grows more nervous, but his eyes – oh his eyes – are dark and heavy-lidded.

"Like this?" I rumble, deliberately dropping my voice even deeper than usual.

"Ah." His gaze flickers down to my mouth, then back to meet my eyes. He bites his lip. Even though I can't feel it, his fingers clutch at my chest and it looks painful.

"Still distracted?"

"Yeah. Frustrating."

"It doesn't have to be. Step away."

He shakes his head.

"Why not?"

"I don't know!"

Harry can't lie at all. It's written all over his face, along with frustration. His expression is intoxicating. I wonder if he realises that. "Yes you do."

"Why are you asking me?"

"Tell me. Or I'll stop."

"Fine! It's your voice."

"What about it?"

"It's warm and it's yours and I can't stop listening and I can't focus and you're driving me insane," he whispers all at once with a quirk of a smile on his face that seems to convey: there, I said it. What are you going to do about it?

"Insane." I echo him. Precisely so! "Now you see, don't you?" I lean close to him, making sure to keep that deep timbre, the one that turns his eyes unfocused and makes him bite his lip and turn his head, exposing the line of his neck and the curve of ear to me just so. "To have something so close, yet never have a chance to touch it. Are you willing to spend your existence not having?" He doesn't deserve that; he deserves so much better.

He makes a sound, incoherent.

"Didn't hear you," I drawl, louder and in my normal voice this time.

"Bastard!"

"Quite. Look at me."

His eyes snap up.

"Why weren't you ever this attentive in Potions?"

I miscalculated. What I'd hoped to be the final straw to promptly drive him away doesn't faze him at all. His eyes narrow and he peers up at me through his glasses with a dry, perfectly executed version of my own sneer. "I don't think you would've wanted me to have the same reaction to your lectures, Professor."

It takes all of my concentration not to sidestep and get away from his direct glare. I can't run. I'm cornered; so it only makes sense to make sure he's cornered as well. "Oh? And what sort of reaction would that be?"

He holds the sneer for a while longer but then just drops his head down against my shoulder and lets out a defeated groan. "You know what sort, y'bloody tease!"

I take a deep breath. I shouldn't enjoy this so. I probably shouldn't even encourage this, but I can't help it. Not when he reacts this way to the mere sound of my voice. Not when I can hear his own voice hitch simply because I lean over and look at him. Not when he's this close to me. "You're aroused just by listening to me, aren't you?"

"No." He shakes his head, frowns. "Maybe. What are you doing?" His look is harsh and questioning.

That look of his – confused and determined at the same time – shouldn't affect me so: nor should the nearness of him, of his mouth to mine. But it does and it brings to mind endless possibilities and all manner of reckless and impossible actions. "Hush." I lean my forehead into the space taken up by the bright halo of his hair. I murmur his name again, deep and soft, just the way he asked for it. "Harry, it's all right."

It works like a charm. His expression calms; his whole aura brightens.

I consider reading to him later on. I thought of doing so before, after The Canterville Ghost. I should read to him. And it's not just the brief image of Harry reclining against me as I turn the page or his heavy-lidded look and his parted lips that convince me of it. I can't give him much else, but that's one thing I can give him: a couple of books and some peace of mind, at least for a little while.

"That was a question." A harsh voice breaks my reverie and I realise he is glaring at me with similar harshness. "Answer it."

What am I doing? I'm drunk on this feeling of closeness to him, on the way he's holding on, on the way he's staring at me and reacting to the sound of my voice. Perhaps it's not too late. I retreat silently, pulling back and keeping a neutral expression. What have I done?

"I can't answer it." I don't know how.

"Ah." Surprise flashes in his eyes, but it's quickly replaced by the same harsh, thin-lipped expression. "Then you should stop," he says – his voice level, final – and then he steps away from me.

I lose my death grip on the wall and let go, desperately trying not to follow. Slowly I exhale. It's like watching an ampoule of Ignis Alba crack: another second and he'll shatter into a million pieces with my next breath.

He doesn't. "Stubborn git," he says in the same grim and level tone that he can't quite keep from breaking. "I wish you'd make up your mind and let me back into your dreams or go on like before, but don't tease me. I can't take it. Not from you."

His glare is pure ice, but it's ice that is slowly starting to melt around the edges. And all I could think of is, if he wants this – we both want this: something real – who am I to deny him a memory that will warm him, in those nights yet to come, when he'll feel cold without human company.

Perhaps I've been wrong, but it's not too late yet. There's still time to make it right.


After his outburst we watch each other all day. Cast each other sideway glances and wait for something, anything to happen. The air is thick with tension: electric, like the oppressive hush before a thunderstorm. At nine I can take it no longer. I walk over to the window where Harry sits, and draw the curtains open. He jumps off the ledge and looks at the window, then at me in surprise.

"I have a request."

"Yes?"

"I'd like your company tonight."

His eyes light up. And he freezes, as if he's not actually sure he should nod or shake his head and break the illusion of the offer.

"No dreams," I clarify. "I think I'd like to be awake until morning."

His head drops. "Snape, I told you…"

I step forward and watch him until he trails off in the middle of the sentence and looks up. Then I respond, my voice level and low: "I'd like this to be something real."

He looks at me, as disbelieving and confused as if I'd told him he's alive and everything else has been a dream. I reach out, knowing my hand will go through his own hand resting on the window sill, but reaching nonetheless. "Is that all right?"

His gaze shifts and he finally moves, nodding frantically. "'Course. Yes! It's… I'd like that." He smiles tentatively. "A lot, I think."

His movement brings us closer and suddenly I discover that we're standing face to face against the open window. Déjà vu. Such a familiar dream, only now it's real and it feels as though in another moment I'll reach out and take his glasses and he'll look up at me with that determined gleam in his eyes and lunge forward. Did Lucius ever do this?

By the unease in his expression, I can tell that Harry's realised it too.

I count the lights in the distance and hope that my own awkwardness is not as obvious as his. When Harry turns I step right behind him, not close enough to touch his opalescent form but close enough to feel as if we'd touch any moment now. "If I could, I would take your glasses off," I murmur. "And then, perhaps I could show you that foolish Gryffindors do not have a monopoly on 'something drastic'."

His lips part and his fingers dig into the edge of the window sill. "Didn't we agree that dreams are bad?" he murmurs, a reminder and a warning rather than a question.

Leave it to him to remember that at a time like this. "They are." I breathe against his transparent hair and watch it flare up brighter in the dark. "But right now neither of us is dreaming."

"What do you have in mind?" he simply asks.

"Anything you'd like."

"Really?" I can just see all those ideas hiding in the corners of his eyes. But he grins and requests something entirely mundane. "Open the window?"

I reach around him and do so. It's dark outside but I can smell the ozone scent of heights, fresh like his hair in my dream. It must be about to rain, one of those wild June showers that strike without a warning, travelling down the Thames, setting the river bubbling up mile by mile. The kind that, were Harry outside right now or in one of his dreams, would make him look up and spin, his mouth wide and his arms spread, trying to catch the drops amid the rumbling downpour.

I can hear the distant sounds of traffic, but more than that, I hear the wind rustling the leaves in the tree tops. The damp gust of it swirls through the window at us, warm but refreshing nonetheless. Although there's no possible way Harry can feel it, he smiles and tilts his face toward it, all the same. A few raindrops fall right through him and splash, heavy and cold, onto my skin.

Eventually I leave him to enjoy the view of an upcoming storm and strike a match, lighting a candle. Then I light more of them, one from the other, my usual, nightly reaction to the darkness outside. The flames quiver in the breeze, sending the shadows scattering across the walls. I remember doing the same thing months ago, when I thought Harry had left me and wouldn't return. That time it was a gesture of honouring the dead, but now it's all about life, seizing the moment and holding on for all it's worth, while it lasts. Perhaps it's time for unusual things, and no one is better than Harry at doing the unusual.

I first question my decision to follow his plan when we sit on the floor and fill out a crossword. Harry crouches over the page, reading the clues line by line and tracing the corresponding empty squares with his finger.

"Wormwood," I suggest for the next one, leaning over the unfolded newspaper and failing miserably to keep my distance from him.

"Ah," he nods. "Yeah, looks like it'd fit."

I'd planned to read to him, perhaps, but instead of a book Harry asked for a nearly-decade-old Daily Prophet from the dusty stack of papers in the corner. He's the reason why I had to turn the fragile pages to find the crossword and start writing words on the yellowed paper. There's a photo of him on the front page – unmoving, the charms animating it worn out long ago.

It reminds me of my first summer in London when one could still occasionally see a wizard on the streets trying to make the old robes pass as an overcoat, when the entrances to the magical world – St. Mungo's, the Ministry – still gathered quite a crowd futilely attempting to find a way in. It was those places that first attracted the Muggle officials to them.

It was a block from one of those places, away from the eyes of the gloved, uniformed Muggle police putting wands in plastic, that an old woman I didn't recognise approached me with a Daily Prophet in her gnarled grasp. "Keep this, son. It's our history. Don't let them have it all." I took it and hid it out of sight for three years until the charms animating the photos no longer worked, but even after that I couldn't bring myself to look at it often. So it remained unread, hidden between the pages of Muggle newspapers.

"Firebolt," Harry says, pointing. "There. Seven, across."

I write it in. "Is your broomstick still with your Muggle relatives?"

"Why d'you ask?"

"No reason. Is it?"

"What're you planning?" His eyes narrow suspiciously. "Is that why you've been all secretive lately?"

I allow my mouth to quirk into an amused smile. "Whyever would you think I'm planning anything?"

"'Cause you are," he parries. "I reckon you're planning to pinch my old broomstick from the Dursleys', fly off to Hogwarts, and leave me all alone here to explain to everyone where you went."

I smile and let him believe it. After all, I've found an easy way to distract his mind from wandering where it should not. I lower my voice, murmuring "Is Hogwarts all you ever think about, or does that wild imagination of yours occasionally produce other fascinating thoughts?"

"Sometimes it does." He looks up and freezes. Something flickers in his eyes, a craving. "Right now, I'm thinking I'll never listen to you speak the same way again." Then he ducks his head down, awkwardly. If he wasn't transparent I'm certain his face would be quite red.


"Severus," he says.

Hearing it startles me more than my own name ever ought to.

"There," he points. "Nine, Down. Severus."

Thankfully he doesn't notice my surprise. "It can't be." I check the clue nonetheless.

"Well, now it is," he declares. "And 'Four, Across' is Harry."

"It certainly isn't." Although Fifteen, Down does ask for The Boy Who Lived, surname. The crosswords in the Prophet always used to be laughably simple.

"Write it down anyway!"

I look at him and the only thing I can do is regret the countless evenings and nights wasted in silence when I could've spent them like this, with him. Then I do write it down: his name, then mine. They share a consonant.


The crossword is filled out, corrected, argued over, and finally laid aside.

I hold the tip of my pencil over a candle until the wood chars around the graphite. Harry leans closer to it, over the faint ribbon of smoke stretching up.

"Can you smell it?"

"Yeah," he grins. "Try something else?"

I plan to do just that. "Give me a minute."

"What? Why?"

"Be patient and you'll find out."

I return from the kitchen with a saucerful of different things: coffee and sugar, pepper and cinnamon. I ask Harry to close his eyes, and then I burn pinches of each of the spices one by one, over the candle flame. The procedure feels strangely familiar, like any other experiment that kept me awake for nights, only this one is not in my laboratory and I am not alone.

Harry sneezes at the pepper, and grins happily at the burnt sugar as I drop another pinch of it over the candle. "More?" he asks. I remember watching him eat in the Great Hall – even then, I'd noticed his fondness for treacle tart – and I recalled the way he'd always taken Dumbledore's sherbet lemons. I sprinkle the rest of it over the flame and let it burn, then watch the flowing wax cover the cinders.

To my surprise he names the substances correctly one after another. "What, it's easy," he shrugs at my questioning eyebrow. "They all smell different."

"I taught you for seven years and I know perfectly well you can't tell sage from ammonia unless someone thrusts the labels under your nose and spells them out for you."

He just snorts. "I can taste them from their smoke in the air, that's all. You're still a terrible teacher."

Impossible brat.

The smoke from so many different substances gives the air a strange, mixed scent, like kitchen cupboards afire. Harry reaches out for the flame; it flickers every time his fingers touch it. "I used to think you were like a candle," he says.

"Why a candle?"

"Here. I'll show you." He stands up, closes his eyes and takes a spin around the room until he looks disoriented enough to fall. "First you can't tell if it's warm at all, but if you hold your hand over it long enough, it burns." He does just that, holding out his hand and feeling the air around him. After just a second his head instinctively turns to me, his eyes open and he smiles. "That's exactly how you are."

I watch him circle around the room. He looks like an odd sort of predator, still learning to hunt and not quite ready to pounce and grab, but instead going in wide circles and pretending to direct his attention to this and that: the books on my shelves or the candles, never quite approaching me closer than five steps away. Casting me obscure glances and never taking them further than a fleeting look.

One of these detours takes him past the bed; he sits on it and sheds his cloak. It disappears in flecks of white before it ever reaches the ground. The collar of his shirt is unbuttoned and crooked; his sleeves are crumpled up past his elbows.

He looks awkward and small, somehow, sitting on the rumpled bed. "Funny how things turn out," he says. "I thought I knew every corner of your flat by now, but this is the first time I've ever sat here."

I merely watch him: his grey hands against the worn grey sheets.

"Haven't had a bed in years," he lets out a sombre chuckle, "Sort of forgot how it feels like." He gestures at the pillow. "Can I?"

I nod.

He kicks off his boots first. Just like his cloak, they melt away after they leave his feet. Then he reclines carefully on top of the covers, facing me, his arms folded around himself. His wispy hair is a halo around his face. My pillow holds no weight where he rests his head.

He closes his eyes. "Last time I did this, I was still alive. I spent the entire evening trying not to look at Ron's empty bed next to mine, but what I really wanted to do was crawl under the blanket, cover my head with his pillow and pretend that the last few months never happened. But I didn't. Instead I finished Hermione's letter."

It takes a while until the realisation hits. He's talking about his last night before dying. Ever since he first showed up in my flat, he's never really talked about the circumstances of his death. This, now, is probably the closest thing to it I'll ever hear.

I was wrong then, when I mistook his behaviour for awkward flirting. Perhaps there was no second meaning at all behind his actions.

"I thought then: what if tomorrow is it? What if they'll finally attack Hogwarts and it'll all end? I just remember thinking: good, at least there won't be any more waiting. I was so tired of everything – the war, the attacks, and more people dying every day – and angry at myself and everyone else, but most of all at Voldemort. So fucking angry at that bastard that I just wanted to track him down right that moment and snap his neck. I couldn't even sleep. I knew I needed rest but no matter what I tried, I couldn't. Maybe if I'd known then that it was my last chance for a good night's sleep, I'd've tried harder."

There are dark circles around his eyes. I haven't paid attention to them before. I used to think they were just a part of him being a ghost, but perhaps the explanation is much simpler. He didn't get a good night's sleep before he died. I would've let him have my bed long ago – covered him with my blanket and let him sleep for days – if only that would've helped. But that's just one more thing I can't do for him.

"It was almost morning and Hedwig returned, but without a letter." He smiles softly. "I miss her. She used to make those crooning noises and they'd put me to sleep. She was really good at that."

It starts raining. I get up to close the window.

"No," he stops me. "Leave it. I like it like that."

"All right." On my way back, I blow out the candles leaving only the one on the floor by the bed still lit. "What happened the next day?" I ask trying my best to keep my voice level, although I'm anything but calm.

He shrugs. "It wasn't much of a day. Just morning." For the first time I remember, the look in his eyes is not quite human, but one of a ghost.

I sit down on the edge of the bed and place my hand next to his on the pillow. Not quite touching but there.

"It was raining. I didn't get much sleep. Dumbledore woke me."

I search his face for a glimpse of what he leaves unsaid, and instead of the words of consolation I want to say, what escapes instead is the question that's been preying on my mind for weeks. Before I can stop myself, I whisper "What's it like?"

He tenses up. "I... I don't know. I don't remember."

"That's all right." I slide my hand closer to his and reach across his shoulders, resting my arm on the opposite side of the bed. The candle flickers in the breeze from the open window. Outside the rain turns into a heavy downpour.

He looks up at me, and looks away, his expression indecipherable.

I wait.

"Our wands locked," he murmurs looking off into nowhere, "I was just trying to hold on to it, to keep the aim right, and then the spell felt wrong and everything went white and quiet, and I thought: it worked! So I ran to finish off the bastard but he was gone and everything else was gone too. It made no sense at first. All that quiet… the silence. Silly, huh." He smiles, so painful it might as well be a grimace. "Took me a while to realise: that's it, no more fighting. And then, the only thing I wanted to know was if I'd managed to kill Voldemort or if he'd killed me. I had to know what happened, to Hogwarts, to everyone. It didn't even sink in till later that I was really dead, for good. I still felt alive."

It's not exactly what I expected to hear. I know better than to hope that my own end will be that quick and painless, but I'm relieved to know that his was. I should probably thank him for an honest answer, even though it's the truth that hurts the most, or do something to reassure him, comfort him, but instead I just nod and let him speak.

"I was so scared of dying. Turned out it wasn't as bad as I thought. I hardly even noticed it. Not at the time. Then, I just wanted to kill the bastard."

When I reach out, I'm not quite certain whether it's for my own comfort or his. I make the first move, but it's Harry who turns his head and all but presses his cheek against my fingers, as if by pretending to feel them, he can make it happen for real.

Perhaps it's the haunted look in his eyes; as ironic as it sounds, I never expected Harry to have it. Perhaps it's the small, miserable note in his voice that he tries to hide under his usual cheer. I don't waste time wondering why. Instead I pretend as well, and lean down, closing the last bit of distance between us, until my mouth almost – always almost – touches his forehead. It's a gesture of comfort more than anything else. Something I never got from anyone. Something I learned not to want from Lucius when I was Harry's age.

He's been through so much for someone who never lived past seventeen. He's achieved so much as well. In a way, I envy him for still being able to smile and dream and exist as if nothing happened.

"Oh," he whispers. I expect surprise written all over his face but when I look down, his expression is clear, with a small, warm smile. "That's... really nice." He lifts his head from the pillow, supporting himself with his elbows, turning toward me as instinctively as a sunflower toward light. "Again?"

Again, I hide my nose in the unruly mess of his spider silk strands as my own hair falls down around my eyes, shielding everything else from view except Harry's bright eyes and the familiar quirk of his mouth and his faintly glowing features. I don't attempt the kiss he probably expected, but he doesn't seem to mind.

"I could almost feel you, I think," he says in tones soft with surprise; his hands lift to my face when I lean back. "You're so warm."

'… like a candle,' his previous remark springs into my mind and I smile at the comparison only Harry would manage to make sound logical. It doesn't help that my mind conjures up a small, nearly transparent moth that keeps seeking out the flame against all sense and reason. It never ends well for the moth. "Don't burn yourself."

"I won't." He snorts. "Um. If I ask you something, promise you won't be mad."

"That will depend entirely on what that 'something' is."

"Yeah. I s'pose." He nods. "At least try not to?"

"All right."

"Then will you... Do it again? Like before, only…" he tilts his head up, finishing that sentence without words.

I look down at the line of his bare neck and shoulder revealed by his unbuttoned collar. At his lips, slightly parted. "Will you feel it?"

He shakes his head mutely, ruefully. "But I still want you to."

I calculate the angle required to keep my nose out of the way. Then I dip my head down past that tempting mouth and to the corner of it, very much like he did to me in a dream. And here I stay, holding my breath, keeping still.

The moment stretches... he doesn't move.

Eventually, I pull back. His eyes are serious, wide, enough to make me ask, "Anything?"

"Almost," he lies. The corners of his mouth curl upward, wistful and sad. "Thank you."

I give him an amused look. "If you expected me to be angry over this, then you certainly…"

Whatever I was about to say is lost and I can only stare as the fabric of his shirt shimmers and melts away like a mirage, leaving only his smooth body beneath, skin as clear as his face or his hands, lit by its own soft glow.

Of all possible things, I certainly never expected this. "Harry?"

His eyes are frantic over the half-moon lenses; and since Harry never does things by half, his glasses are probably the only thing he still has on, though I daren't look to verify. "Please. Um. Just... talk! You've got the best voice. I like it. Just listening to you talk." He stops, just as suddenly as he began and just looks at me. His eyes speak volumes.

I try, I really do try not to stare. But my gaze slips unobstructed down the line of his bare neck, over the curve of his shoulders, down the smooth planes of his chest, and every contour is a revelation. Something this wonderful does not happen – should not happen – to me. "What do you want me to say?"

"I dunno. Anything. Whatever's on your mind."

"The only thing on my mind," I lie barefaced as always, "is the improbability of someone like you, in my bed."

He smiles awkwardly. "D'you mean it in a good or a bad way?"

"An impossible one."

"Not impossible, just… unusual." His fingers stroke up my arm, up to an elbow, stop. "Hang on." His glasses shine in the flickering light.

He reaches over the edge of the bed for the last candle, forming a fist around the flame. It turns smaller and fainter and finally winks out in a puff of smoke, as if it had been left to burn under a glass turned upside down. Darkness falls, and in the gloom the only thing I can still see clearly is his glowing body, still bright before my eyes.

"There." He shifts toward the wall, making room. His face is tense, just like the rest of him. "Lie down?"

I rise and take a quick step away.

He sits up. "No, please, I just want…"

I unbutton my shirt and for once let it slide off my shoulders instead of hanging it up; I don't even glance at it when it hits the floor. "It's all right," I answer carefully, trying not to let the panic show on my face or in my voice. "Give me a minute."

As I start on the rest of my clothing, he pushes his glasses up, runs his hand through his hair, and bites his fingernail in quick succession. He probably never expected me to listen to him, and now that I have, he's as lost as I am. I hope he can't see too much in the dark. As I finish undressing, I feel sure he would want to see me about as little as I want to be seen. What else could that flash of uncertainty mean: that near-wince as his gaze shifts from me to himself?

"I probably look like a fright to you."

What? Me? Oh… him? "What are you talking about?"

He chuckles bitterly. "I'm blue and I glow."

He can't be serious. "Ghosts are supposed to frighten," I remind him. "I don't have even that excuse."

The breeze from the window sends shivers down my spine. I reach for my nightshirt.

"Leave it. Come here."

I'm cold and tempted to slide under the blanket. Perhaps under the covers, I won't be so painfully aware of the Mark on my arm, of the scar through my chest. I can hide my thoughts with a mask of indifference and I can hide my past with long sleeves and silence, but I can't hide when I'm like this. But then, Harry doesn't have the option of hiding at all, and so I sit down on the bed, and watch him watching me.

There is no way to hide now, just as there is no wand under the pillow to reach for comfort, but I'm past wishing for it. This isn't about my comfort; it's about Harry, about giving him something real to remember, something more than a handful of fabricated dreams. When he remembers me, I'd like it to be a good memory.

When I saw a ghost for the first time in the Great Hall, I was eleven years old and fascinated. Now, decades later, I face another ghost as if I've never seen one before; I take my time and give every detail its due, making the most of this one chance. But this is not just any ghost. It's Harry, my Harry now, a study in impossibilities: unruly heart and unruly hair.

The conclusion of such a study is laughably simple. "With that mop, you'd fail miserably at frightening anyone."

"Um," he asks, tentative, shy. "Is that a good thing?"

In reply I give him the dry huff of amusement that's easier on my chest than an actual laugh. "A very good thing indeed."

He nods then and tugs his glasses off, letting them fade away like the rest of his clothes. Then he shuts his eyes, tense and unsure whether to move closer or jump away. "I must be dreaming," he murmurs through a growing smile.

For a second I consider doing just that, against all sense and logic: surrendering to a dream and finally allowing myself to touch him and feel it. Then I think of what I wanted for tonight. Something real.

"No dreams." It's a warning and a reassurance. "Just this."

He looks up. "D'you mean it?"

Every word. "Anything you want."

"I want your hands." His own hands reach for me as if in demonstration, tracing the contours of my forearms briefly before he lets them fall again. He whispers defiantly, "Want you to touch me and I want to touch you back, but I can't unless you're..."

"Look at me."

He stares, nervous and desperate and ready for all manner of drastic things.

"Come closer." I lean back and settle my weight on one elbow. He follows me, stretching out, cat-like, and resting his head against my arm, as casually as if it was clean of the bruise-dark, faded silhouette of a skull and a snake.

I focus on Harry's face first, running my fingers through the fine mess of his hair, reaching for but not quite touching the tip of his nose, the plane of his cheek, the curve of his lower lip. His hand, a glowing blue shadow of mine, trails and catches up, passes through my own, lingering over his mouth. He smiles and the fingers concealing it give that smile an air of mystery.

My fingertips trace the line of his jaw, slipping down his neck and across his chest, pointing out the path for his own hand to follow, and it does, just a step behind, his fingers spread wider than mine, pressing just a bit harder, thumb a bit further to the left of my fingers: brushing a nipple. His eyes widen at the sensation. "Oh."

That flash of surprise makes me smile. I can't help myself then; I trail my hand down his tense body in a wide, sweeping arc – no lower than his waist – before drawing it back up, to his other nipple. His hand shadows mine, skimming over muscled contours, always a beat behind.

He truly is a beautiful sight. This close I can see every hair: fine and sparse, but just as messy and untamed as on his head. It's as if he was struck by lighting once and it's been bristling with static ever since. I run my hand down his chest again just to see if his hair will rise to meet my touch, the way his cock already has. Now instead of stopping at his waist, my hands slip further and further down his body, easing ever closer to that eager erection. After refusing to let my attention linger there before – out of politeness or shyness or any number of other awkwardnesses – now at last I look without shame. Utterly tantalising: his cock strains toward me, its tip already gleaming with wetness I can never taste. Saliva gathers thick and warm under my tongue: the thwarted urge to lick and suck and and savour every inch and every drop of him is a physical ache, as real as thirst.

I swallow and tear my gaze up to Harry's face, afraid I've been staring too long or with too much hunger. His pupils are so wide, his face so open, so painfully honest, one glance tells me all I need to know. And what I see there eliminates every lingering doubt I had. There is no turning back from this, no stopping now and I won't; even though all I can ever do is tease him with the promise of something more.

So I do; I slip my hand in slow, glancing circles, around his thighs, the hollows of his hipbones. Teasing him. "Keep up."

"Uh-huh." Yet his hand is still.

Perhaps it's cruel of me to tease, but I've been far more cruel for far less reason. "I don't think you need my hands. I don't think you need anything at all, but my eyes on you and my voice in your ear like this." I murmur into the silver strands of his hair and know that it won't be long until he forgets all about wanting my touch, distracted by his own. If there's one thing I excel in, it's persuasion.

I can't touch him, but sight and hearing are powerful senses, and it's fascinating to watch the transformation of his face, the way his eyes glaze over and his lips part as he takes in my words like air. "Ohhyes!"

I smile and wonder if he'd agree with me if I told him the earth was flat. "Shall I keep you like this all night?"

"I asked, didn't I?" His hands twitch, he arches up and the look on his face screams: undone. "Please," and that last word, merely a whisper, is my own undoing as well. Because what comes next is a desperate need to take him all in, to stare him down, to edge my way in between the thoughts lurking behind those expressive eyes and remain inside him for eternity.

Somewhere between me reaching out and him trying to hold on, he places his hand flatly against my own, palm to palm, matching the positions of each fingertip. His fingers illuminate mine with a faint blue glow, seen but not felt. It's fascinating how quickly this can become familiar. Like the wrist motions of a wand hand: cast a spell once, and the hand will remember how, for years after the magic is gone: lighting a match in the swift curve of Incendio, shielding against unexpected flashes of light with the wide arc of Protego. Just like the spells, this too, soon enough becomes instinctive: going through the motions, pretending we can touch.

"Pay attention." Good. Like that. I pull my hand away and slide it down, following the bend of skin at his hip down toward his groin, my touch slowing as I draw closer, until I pause and simply wait: for the time when won't be able to stand it anymore and his hands will lead instead of follow.

I realise that he's more stubborn than I thought: his fingers dig into his thighs but he refuses to move them. So aroused, yet so trustingly, achingly still. "Snape."

"Severus," I correct him. So many have used my given name uninvited and unwanted. He's the one I actually want to use that intimacy.

"Severus." The smile lights up his face.

Yes. Like that. As I bask in his smile I know that this is what I want him to remember, when he remembers me: "...exactly what I want."

His eyes – so wide – slip closed, and he surrenders.

I cannot take my eyes off him: his head, fallen back, his whole body arching up as he thrusts into his own hand. In my mind's eye I see him, sitting in the window of a train: how he leaned out, nearly falling in total abandon, his eyes shut, his entire body reaching for the sun. Only now it's not sunlight, it's me he's reaching for, with that arousal on his face, that absolute need; and then, with astonishment in his eyes when he realises a moment too late that he can't hold back any longer.

"I'm here, Harry. I have you."

I am addicted, there is no other way to explain it: to his voice, his need, this urgency and closeness, to Harry. To that look in his eyes and that lost and wanting smile. I put it there. I've given him this pleasure; I've roused him to this peak. That thought alone is nearly enough to have me writhing in desperation for a touch I won't feel, blissfully oblivious, just like him.

When he collapses next to me, his forehead is against my chest, one hand against my shoulder, unmoving but still unable to let go. I wish for a brief second that this was a dream, just so that I could hold him.

He doesn't say anything. Neither do I. There is nothing more to say.


"Sleep," he murmurs. "I wanna meet you there."

I shake my head.

"Stubborn git. You're gonna make this as difficult as you can, aren't you?"

"You don't have to do anything."

"Shh." Two fingers against my mouth prevent me from adding anything else. "Lie back."

I refuse to be silenced so easily. "Harry, I don't expect anything, given the circumstances."

"Yeah, and which circumstances are these?"

Wordlessly I run my fingers through his wrist suspended over my jaw as if it wasn't even there. But the light of the accepted challenge and a million ideas already gleam in his eyes.

"I'll manage," he smiles. "Just like you did."

Impossible Gryffindor. I hmph and roll my eyes before my body betrays me any further, communicating my agreement in an entirely different way.

He tilts his head and leans down, brushing his next words against my mouth. "And I think you'll like it. A lot." His look promises a number of drastic things.

"Do you now?" But he's right. I do like it, enough to let him take this so-called conversation as far as he wishes, enough to let him do anything.

Conversation. What a pallid little word, far too bland for what we share. My only other experiences – teenage encounters with Lucius – were wild and hungry, without a single word exchanged or needed. Now all I have with Harry is words, and yet it's still as passionate as anything I've ever known.

"Tell me," Harry murmurs. "What did you dream about?"

"Just you."

"Oh, it must've been more than that." That mischievous glint is impossible to miss. "Tell me everything." He moves from his place along my body and sits up, throwing his leg over mine and straddling my hips. "Was I doing this?" His fingers glide up my forearms, and down my chest. "Or this?"

I can feel every fingertip punctuated by shivers in the places where they would've touched. Both. Neither… Focus!

"Hmm?" He leans over me and all but breathes the next question into my mouth. "This too, huh?" And my mind automatically supplies the feel of his sun-warmed skin and the weight of his roaming hands. I didn't really make a sound this time, did I? I said nothing to prompt that devilish grin on his face, though it certainly hints that I did. "What part did you like the most?"

How can I say 'the part where it was you' in a way that doesn't sound obsessed or incredibly naïve? It isn't quite the truth. It wasn't really Harry in my dream. But now it seems I have what I wanted.

"Wish I could fix this," he murmurs as his fingertip traces a slanting line across my chest.

At his offhand remark my throat goes tight. For a while he made me forget all about the scar, so much so that the sudden reminder blindsided me. I reply sombrely, "So do I." He has no idea how desperately I want that.

Or perhaps he has some idea: he must've noticed something in my expression. "You worry too much," he frowns, his forehead against mine, like a stubborn colt trying to push down a fence. "Stop it. S'all right."

Breathe. Just breathe. I can't afford a breakdown now.

I focus on his eyes and try to hold onto this moment – here, with him – rather than the past or the future which I cannot change. This present is ours, and we'll make of it what we want. And I want him.

"You're brilliant, y'know," he whispers. "Perfect. I never thought I'd have you like this."

If there is a fitting word to describe what he does to me, the way he looks right now, it would probably be 'brilliant'. The way he responded to every word I whispered in his ear, the way he makes me react. No dreamscape could compare to the simple sight of him, all of him, pure and primal and impossible to look away from. No dreams, no distractions, just Harry. Only Harry.

What does he see when he looks at me that way? Surely the person he sees right now cannot be real. No one's ever looked twice at the real me.

"Everything'll be fine now. We're going to be fine," he murmurs and there's that familiar hunger in his eyes. "I'll make sure."

I nod, mesmerised, and allow myself to believe it, just for a moment.

"Severus," he lets my name roll off his tongue, tasting it, syllable by syllable. "Severus." He smiles. "See what you do to me? So good. Can't get enough."

You. I'll never get enough of you. But my throat is too tight to let the words out, so I just look at him, storing up memories, while I still can.

"Your turn." His hand traces my jaw. "Don't you want to?"

He pulls away and sits back. I follow, without even realising it at first. "Yes." Anything. With him.

"Good. So put your hand" – in a determined rush he leans over me and his mouth descends. I can only stare, mesmerised at his parted lips, at the tip of his tongue following the exact line of where he'd drive me insane in seconds with the touch of it – "here, before I possess you and do it myself."

If it was anyone but him I'd probably never let them – let myself – get this far, would never agree to this, but he is right, I do like it, more than like it, this not-a-dream with him. Enough to fall back against the sheets, craving as much of it as I can, even the revealing, raw, and open torture of eye-to-eye and not quite contact. The moments of struggling to keep my eyes open, to keep my eyes on him, on his face, on his lips over my mouth, steadying my heartbeat and dreading the pain in my chest (No, not now! Please, not like this!) gasping for every breath like it's my last, exhaling against him and inhaling through him. His unfelt hands and unfelt mouth – so close and yet so far, his 'yes, like that' and 'brilliant' and 'beautiful' and 'Severus'. His tousled hair and the ozone filled gust of wind from the open window, sudden and chilling against my skin – the scent of it and the way he leans over me resurrecting the images of that dream. There's need and confusion: Harry, dipping his head down for almost a kiss, and I can almost feel my lips tingle with the intensity of it. Every breath I take is charged with energy, the shock of it resonates down my spine as the light of him flares brighter. There's thunder, somewhere far away, for the last time, and then the stillness of the sky after the rain takes over and drowns out all thought.

Afterwards, despite my aching limbs, my dry mouth and my eyes raw from insomnia, I feel so damned good. Better than I have in years.

Grey light and the sounds of the city beginning to wake spill through the open window. It's already dawn and I didn't even realise it. I am content to lie back against the headboard and let Harry curl up against me, in a nest of rumpled bed covers, resting his head against my shoulder.

"You look tired," he whispers. "Get some sleep."

"I will." I say to reassure him. "Stay here?" I ask to reassure myself.

"'Course! M'not going anywhere." He smiles, sated and peaceful. It suits him. "Got all I need right here. G'night."

My mouth twitches in automatic response before I even realise it. "Good morning, Harry." For the first time I've managed to beat him to saying it. It feels like quite an achievement.


Take away the curtains and this place looks brand new. I can hear the trains and the cars outside more than usual, but even with all the noise Snape's – no Severus', it's Severus! – breathing is still calm. Stubborn git only fell asleep when it was already light outside.

In this light he looks older than usual. No, not old, just older. Worn out, tired maybe, but not old at all. It has to be just 'cause of the sunlight coming through the window like that. All that bright light brings out faint wrinkles around his eyes and mouth and a bit of grey at his temples – it's the first time I've noticed he has any grey, but the rest of his hair is still black. Usually he doesn't even look his age. And grey hair doesn't mean he's old, it just means that he's been through a lot.

Sodding hell, I'm turning into him, what with all the worry and the doubt: thinking that something's got to be wrong all the time and expecting something to go bad every time something good happens. But it isn't wrong. And it won't be. Things are fine – just perfect. They're finally turning out for the better.

I can't believe I ever doubted him. We're going to be all right. We are! I just have to believe it and in time it'll be all right. 'Cause this is only a good thing, how can it be bad if it feels so good? He'll see. I'll make him see that.

After all this time, he still managed to surprise me. I don't know what I expected, but I definitely didn't expect this. Not his bed or his hands or his voice. Oh, his voice, I didn't even know before just how much I like hearing it! How could I miss a thing like that? And his face: I like it when he smiles. His face isn't harsh anymore and his eyes get this spark. It's brilliant! He should do it more often.

We should do this more often. Tomorrow night, or before then, when he wakes up. Why wait? And I'll talk him into dreams too. He'll come around. There'll be more dreams for us, no matter what he says. Eventually. I can be patient; we've got all the time in the world. There's so much to look forward to now.

And the best thing of all is: I know now what he's hiding. I know what's on his mind. It's why he's been so worried and silent lately. He can't help making it all into this big complicated secret, when really it's as simple as it gets: we're going to Hogwarts, and together we'll get Hogwarts going again.

Funny thing about the silence: I used to hate it, but then a moment like this comes along, and now I don't mind it. I love the quietness when the time seems to pass by twice as slow, as slow as the first bright rectangles of orange light climbing across the ceiling and down the walls. It's peaceful.

It's dawn. I'm almost tempted to wake him up early and show him how much more bright and warm and alive this place looks now, with the window open and the curtains not shut tight for once.

But no, not now. He's tired; I should let him rest. Plenty of time to show him later.


1.
The song Snape heard from Tobias is called Ann Boleyn by R.P. Weston and Bert Lee, 1934.

In the Tower of London, large as life,
The ghost of Ann Boleyn walks, they declare.
Poor Ann Boleyn was once King Henry's wife -
Until he made the Headsman bob her hair!
Ah yes! He did her wrong long years ago,
And she comes up at night to tell him so.

With her head tucked underneath her arm
She walks the Bloody Tower!
With her head tucked underneath her arm
At the Midnight hour.

2.
The 'upthrust cucumber' which contains Draco's office is a skyscraper located at 30 St. Mary Axe, in London.

3.
This chapter is inspired by the following songs.

Silence and I by Alan Parsons.

If I cried out loud over sorrows I've known, and the secrets I've heard,
It would ease my mind: someone sharing the load, but I won't breathe a word
We're two of a kind, silence and I. We need a chance to talk it over.

Ghost by Indigo Girls

Dark and dangerous like a secret that gets whispered in a hush.
When I wake the things I dreamt about you last night make me blush.
And you kiss me like a lover, then you sting me like a viper
I go follow to the river, play your memory like a piper.
And I feel it like a sickness, how this love is killing me.
I'd walk into the fingers of your fire willingly
And dance the edge of sanity – I've never been this close
I'm in love with your ghost.

Flames by VAST

Close your eyes. Let me touch you now.
Let me give you something that is real.

Surround Me by 3-11 Porter

Hello? Can you hear me?
Please don't go. Where are you going?
Conversations go over my head.
Isolation has an ugly face.
Surround me with your love
Understand me, I need you now
Surround me, with your words…