"Home is where the heart is. We found it one day in the sink. It hums things late at night, but they are not songs."

- Welcome to Night Vale


"Hermione? You around? Oh, hey!"

"Shh!"

"Oops, sorry," Harry whispers, "there you are."

Hermione is by the computers: dark, bushy hair in a silver-edged halo behind a greying computer tower. The tower has coiled its blackened, tentacled cords on the table between the usual pair of monitors and their keyboards. Everything around the grimy box reeks of lemon and Lysol, but the old computer tower smells entirely too much of Arthur Weasley's garage: engine oil and mold.

Harry sneezes and Hermione stares at him forbiddingly. Oops. He covers his nose with his hand until it stops itching, and sidles over to hide with her behind the tall standing desks. The librarian, Miss Pince, is not someone you want to swoop down at you for making noise.

"Are you sure you're all right?" Hermione asks, her words accented by the even click-clack of her typing. "Ron said he hasn't heard from you for days! He's going nuts! When were you planning on talking to him?"

"I will, I promise!"

"When, Harry?"

"Soon!" Harry needs to distract her from that line of questioning. "Hey, whatcha got here?"

"When is 'soon'?"

"This week. Er, tomorrow. Right away!"

"You'd better. You're just lucky he's not in here, again." She rolls her eyes. "D&D campaigns apparently take time to plan."

Behind Hermione, on the right monitor, the usual white dots - stars - zoom by, futuristic and pixelated, but the left screen is now lit up with solid blue, brighter than an AOL CD, surrounding a grey box of text with three shiny-red block buttons.

Harry squints trying to read the yellow title on the left. The colors don't make it easy. 'Mandrake'? Cool! "Huh," he peers over Hermione's shoulder. "Doesn't look like any program I've… oh, Is that for Ron's stuff?"

"No, it's mine. Don't touch ANYTHING!" Hermione slaps his hand away from the nearest keyboard. "It's experimental. Very, very new." Hermione taps something on the keyboard and the focus switches from the first red block 'Disk Druid' to the center one, which is just 'disk', misspelled with an extra 'f' beforehand, and then everything changes to a new screen, not so bright with lots more confusing lines.

Definitely not for D&D, Harry thinks. But maybe it's some sort of role-playing game! Harry peers at the ancient looking box with text. They could put in a bit more effort. All the boxes are so simple and the text is all garbled and there are only five colors. "Um," he squints at it suspiciously. "Doesn't look new at all. Looks pretty old!"

Hermione rolls her eyes. "It's newer than new. Not even out until next month. At least not officially." Her face lights up as she confides: "It'll have the latest kernel by then. I'm interested in seeing how well it works on the older hardware." She punches in a rapid series of keys, navigating through the bright menus without touching either mice on the table. On the monitor, boxes and text change in flashy, cryptic ways and the grimy tower vibrates and hums along. The screen shows a flurry of words (like 'swap' and 'free space') and a lot of very random abbreviations along with some pretty big numbers.

What's this supposed to be anyway? You can never tell with Hermione. A game inventory? A trajectory calculator for those flying stars on the other, the normal, screen? Sometimes geniuses get... well, pretty weird. Hermione'd better not turn out to be some secret hacker sending funds from that one dusty ATM by the bank into her super-secret Swiss account. Judging by those numbers, she'd be rich. Harry squints at the rest of the title on top. Whatever it is below the title, makes Hermione bite her lip in indecision, and spurs a flurry of action from her fingertips on one of the keyboards. The inventory numbers next to mysterious 'swap' suddenly double to four digits.

"Er, so what does a mandrake actually have to do with red hats?" Harry asks, puzzled by the top sentence.

"Think of them as codenames." Hermione instructs. "Red Hat. Singular."

"Codenames. Got it. A Linux Mandrake. Based on Red Hats. Hat." Harry scratches his head, completely lost. "How is this of any use to a library?"

That brings out a geniune snort. "Oh it will be, trust me. Just wait until the stable version's out!"

"Riight. Stable version. Of course, now it all makes sense." Harry suspects this sort of 'stable' has nothing to do with the horses at the Dursley farm, and like a proper farm kid nods along, tuning out the rest. There's no following Hermione's explanations when she gets like this.

"There'll be some changes to the f-disk configuration and the new modem drivers may still improve -" she glances at Harry and rolls her eyes. "Oh, why do I even bother? Honestly!" She shakes her head. "Don't just sit here and stare at my partition table. Did you need something?" Her key-tapping stops, now that whatever-it-is on the screen is content to carry on for awhile.

"Yeah. Actually. I've got all these to find." Harry unfolds Snape's handwritten list, and then peers past the monitor at the shelves in the library. What kind of person reads so much in a week? Besides Hermione. "Looks like I'll need to search the journals section too. Help?"

She glances at the list. "You'll need to check the latest. We haven't sorted them yet. This way."

They gather a sizeable stack of books, working together in companionable quiet broken only by the slow whisper of the overhead fan, before Harry actually lets out a question: something he wanted to ask all along and something so long and so complex, it can't possibly be understood by a computer. Not that asking Hermione is easy, exactly.

"So, um, theoretically speaking. There's this friend of mine -"

"Yes?"

"Not a 'friend' friend, just someone I know. From Brighton. My age. I don't think you've met."

"I see. And?"

"Well… as I was saying, anyway, he's got a thing. A serious thing. For someone a bit older - like you - and really, really smart. Also like you." Hermione's not even a year older than Harry, and scary smart, but in a different way than Snape, but hey, Harry needs all the leverage he can get.

"That's true," Hermione says, chin held high, "But you really don't need to flatter me." Her smile, slightly smug, says otherwise. "I'm already willingly going through all this trouble with the list of these… may I ask, why the sudden interest in theological and missionary research?"

"It's not for me, m'just picking it up." Harry brushes off that question as quickly as possible. "But look, I mean it. You are smart! That's not flattery, it's a fact. But anyway, the thing is... what that friend's got going is serious, like I said and well, what I wanted to ask is, what can that friend - er, this guy I know, from Brighton, do to prove to that someone that he really is serious."

Hermione's eyes narrow. "Serious how, precisely?"

How indeed? Harry's at loss, only he knows that it's pretty damn enormous scale of seriousness here, heavier than all the books in the library. "Like... Serious serious! What would you do?"

"Personally? That's irrelevant, since I'm not doing it. This friend, your age, you said? Hmm..."

She is silent for while.

"... Well?" Harry prompts, impatient.

"It all depends on the specific situation. I can't just hand out advice without knowledge of all the details. What if I'm wrong? Why is this friend asking you for help anyway?"

"Um," Harry sighs. "He hasn't exactly. I just… You know me. I'd like to help this guy out. It's only fair."

"Fair or not, this entire year my purpose in life as a part-time librarian seems to be all about helping clueless teenagers have informed sex," She sighs, rolling her eyes. "Honestly. We have books right here all about that, from A to Z, so why am I the only one who's ever checked them out?" Hermione waves her hand toward the section that always made Harry blush when he peeked at the covers and maybe even flipped through a book or three when the library was empty, but now he's kind of regretting not going over more of them. Strictly for research, of course. What kind of sex is at the Zs anyway? I never got past the Os! "It's all right here," Hermione continues. "Check out a few! Give them to your friend to read. And, if he won't read, at least stay safe. And by 'safe' I do mean condoms."

Condoms. Right. Harry tries to look relaxed, he really does. She pauses and stares at him, unimpressed.

"Oh for Margaret Sanger's sake, you must know what they are and how they work by now?"

Harry practically feels himself turning red but he has to chime in. "C'mon! I've helped you with all of your meetings back in school. How dumb do you think I am? - any of us are. I didn't really mean serious as in sex. I meant serious as in... well... "

Serious like the deep, tolling music of a never-before heard sermon. Serious like "Your mother, she... left." spoken quietly by Severus over Mom's grave. Serious like a field of fireflies, shining under the infinite stars, like that moment in the car when his eyes held all the magic in the world, right when I was just about to kiss him, and then I did kiss him and he kissed me back...

"... serious!"

Hermione shakes her head and blows a stray curl off her forehead with an upwards sigh, but her eyes are warm as she gathers more journals and stacks them on top of the already sizeable mountain of them. "I don't know what else to tell you, except this 'friend in Brighton' ought to be filling out another college application and looking at scholarships. As should you."

"Yeah, tell me something I don't know." Harry sighs, trailing after her like a berated puppy back to the computers.

"I will, since it doesn't seem to stick. It's never too late to consider all the options! Don't underestimate community colleges for your first years of study. You can transfer after your Associate's degree is done. Keep your GPA at a reasonable level and communicate with your teachers and - Do you think you'll end up out of state? That will drastically affect the tuition."

Harry shakes his head. "I don't think it really matters, in the larger scheme of things." Like the entire world outside Snape's small cottage, and the entirely private universe of Harry and Severus inside together, behind the closed doors.

"Harry! It does matter! This is what's actually important in life! For anyone our age, and do tell your friend that, the focus should be on education first until we're at least twenty-five."

"Whoa, whoa! I really don't want to plan out every single thing I'll be doing at twenty-five right this moment." I don't even know what I'll be doing next Sunday! Well, except for one thing: listening to Severus' morning sermon, but then what? "I'm just saying. Isn't being spontaneous a part of the whole experience?"

"Being an adult and showing that you're invested in 'being serious' with someone is demonstrating the ability to plan for a future, a mutual future. As in, not just yours. For example, have you ever thought what your contributions to society would be after high school? This is the best time to start accomplishing something five years down the line! Right now. In this library! And for that you need to plan ahead."

"Hm." Harry sighs. "I guess you're right there. I'm not being serious enough." Plans. College. Contributions. Sounds so boring and adult and sensible, even someone like Snape would find no reason to disagree.

Hermione sets the gathered stack of books down and pauses at the tentacled computer tower, making the red buttons inside the grey box on the blue screen do their magic, and sends some really weird text scrolling madly upwards. At one point, as she types something in, she looks gleeful, as if she just broke the entire internet by pressing an enter key to activate a shiny red button. Only she's Hermione, and she probably planned pressing the enter key over this particular shiny red button for at least a year.

"And Harry…"

"Yeah?"

"None of us should rush into a relationship straight out of high school like it's a D&D campaign."

"Um, I'll try." He doesn't want to lie to Hermione any more than he already has, and answering anything else would expose the 'friend in Brighton' for what it is. A cowardly way out.

True paladins don't lie to friends. Not when it counts.

"I mean it. Good courtships, good books, good plans: they all take time."

'Courtship' sounds so weird, so old-fashioned, coming out of Hermione's mouth. Even if it's courtship with condoms. Harry has to bite his cheek not to grin. The word belongs in print of a Victorian novel, not said over computer desks filled with all of Hermione's weird high-tech gear with its green and orange blinking lights.

Trouble is, Harry can barely picture that with Severus: the courtship bits. It's not like Harry is some pining junior high girl, writing "Harry Snape" surrounded by hearts in the margins of his notebooks. It's not like two students making out on the back seat of the car on a prom night. (Not that Harry had much - or any - experience of dating either.) How can I plan anything with him when I don't know what to do? What can I do? Invite him to a school game and then make out behind the bleachers? Give him my class ring? The whole idea is crazy!

… Would he even accept my ring?

Hermione eyes Harry's apprehensive expression and sighs. "Honestly, I know you're not in a hurry, but just consider checking out a couple more websites: there's a campus or two in Springfield, and maybe a few on the East Coast. You may like them."

"Actually," Harry mumbles. "I'm thinking, what's the rush anyway? I'll stay on around town. Maybe wait a while. Er, like you said, consider all my options." Just like an adult! Who can argue with that?

"Right." Hermione says, tight-lipped. "You better not still be here taking part-time jobs at the diner when I come back to visit Mom and Dad over winter holidays! You need to do more with your education. You're a good student. Just apply yourself to whatever you're most curious about. It's worth it."

It's more than just curiosity, Harry thinks. Or has she realized by now that all those days Ron puts into planning these D&D campaigns are just so he can watch her play them out?


Harry's carrying a stack of books back up the road, and just turns the corner when something traps his arm he is tugged off the path. He jumps, frazzled, and miraculously manages not to dump his entire library hoard onto his attacker.

Said attacker has beady black eyes, and a wiry gray head of hair, and the biggest black leather handbag Harry's seen in his life.

"My my. Jumpy thing, aren't you," says Eileen. "Just in time for lunch. You look like you could use some meat on your bones, and if Abe's cooking won't do that for you, nothing will."

"Lunch?" Harry blinks.

"Not in a hurry, are you?"

"Er," Harry says. "Um, yeah sure. Why not?"

Eileen grins like a cat that just ate the canary.

Some argue that the first watering hole in Pleasant Hope was a bar that used to stand where Dobby's now is, back around the time of the Great Depression, but clearly, as Eileen informs Harry, all of these people are wet-behind-the-ears idiots, and all of them are wrong. The first bar in Pleasant Hope, as any true local will tell you, is Abe's Corner.

Abe's Corner existed even before the two roads which crossed to form that particular corner. It was likely there even before Pleasant Hope was named after any pleasantness or hope significant enough to commemorate. Even the bar's original atmosphere, crowded, dark, and intimate, had lasted decades as is: well-preserved, like a jar of hot pickle, not a day older than that particular sweltering summer day when a firm off-the-vine cucumber was washed, wiped, and thrust whole into a hot glass jar by a well-meaning housewife.

Harry gulps as that particular description spring from Eileen's lips.

"What?" She asks innocently. "Don't tell me you haven't eaten a cucumber fresh off the vine. So juicy! I'm sure Severus has 'em springing up ripe and ready to taste, right behind that church of his."

It sounds like an insinuation of some sort. But it's probably just the way she laughs - a cackle here and there - makes everything she says sound odd and shifty. Harry tells himself he really shouldn't worry. After all, she's just an old lady. Snape's Mom. Old folks can get a bit odd, rambling on about things.

"So, who is your bright young friend over there in the library?"

"Hermione? Oh, we were in school together, she's helped me so much with math, you wouldn't believe. You should see her report cards. Mr. and Mrs. Granger must be so proud."

"Ahha. The dentist's daughter. I've seen too much of that Weasley boy around her. She's far too smart for him, if you ask me!"

"Hey," Harry protests. "Ron has a great mind. He beats me at chess all the time."

Harry wonders if he's too young to be here. It is after all a bar, even if it's not even noon, so the place is pretty empty. He even expects to be asked to leave at the door but no one asks - no one is even at the door. Apparently there's an advantage to being led around by an old lady with a no-nonsense stare.

The bar stools are tall and stiff, their seats wooden blocks carved with an imprint of a very bony butt. The barman, Abe, is as tough and leathery as the cranky-looking stuffed goat head over the shelves full of various bottles.

"Eileen," Abe nods to her and slides a single grubby sheet of paper - a list of bar snacks - toward Harry. "What'll it be today?"

"I'll have The Toby, dear, - oh I do remember my dear deadbeat husband turning his nose up at it whenever I offered to share - and whatever my handsome young chaperone over here is hungry for out of your burnt offerings."

The Toby's not on the menu, but Abe clearly doesn't blink an eye at that. It's probably a drink, Harry thinks, looking over the list of snacks… fries (regular, shoestring, curly or potato wedges), wings (ranch or hot), nachos, fried cheese sticks… His stomach growls.

Eileen's dish turns out to be the biggest sausage Harry's ever seen, a pair of eggs and a wad of extra dark brown curly fries, all topped by a hefty dollop of cream cheese sauce. It's something that would have brought out every inner twelve year old and made them point and giggle. Eileen takes her time to savor the sauce while Harry bites into a wing and takes a big slurp of coke.

"How is my son these days? Getting enough sleep?"

An odd thing to ask, but it's probably natural for a mom to worry. It's not as if Harry had much experience with parents to know. He blinks. "Um. I think so?" He thinks of Aunt Petunia fussing over his cousin. "He's usually up before I am." What would a mom want to know about her child? He volunteers: "He does eat breakfast every day."

"I'm certain Severus can feed himself by now. You on the other hand..." she laughs. "You've got bigger eyes at the sight of decent food than Count Furfur, when he was just a small stray kitten. Oh, don't forget to chew and swallow. Tsk, maybe by winter you'll learn to stop and savor your meals."

Strays or not, she seems like someone who knows what it's like to not have breakfasts, or dinners, Harry thinks. We've got that in common. And that makes even her creepy cackle seem almost friendly and less shifty.

"If it was up to me, I'd break you of that habit in days. Come stay if you want. For the weekend, for a month, more. Severus' old room should go to someone who'd appreciate it. Besides, I could use some company, and any reason to get Severus to drop by more often is a good thing." She stops and releases a worrying cough. "What with my health not being what it used to, maybe having someone to take care of the place and share all the juicy gossip with would do us both good."

The barman just rolls his eyes. "Watch out," he mutters to Harry. "She'll still be whining about her health at both of our funerals. Just between you and me, her own cooking's the only thing bad enough to take her out."

"Ha, you've never tried my canned peppers, have you, Abe?"

"Too attached to my liver for that. You'd get even a pepper pickled."

"You know it!"

It's only when they exit the bar into the summer sun, Eileen rests her long, wrinkled hand on Harry's shoulder.

"I reckon for a stray soul like you or me - or my son - a safe place is a rare thing. Not just a place to sleep, mind, but also somewhere you chose to rest your head. If you ever - ever need a break from the church dwelling and all that self-deluding Bible-thumping nonsense that comes with my son's territory, you're welcome at my place."

"Um," Harry says. "Thank you."

"For as long as you need. No questions asked, no Sunday sermons."

Harry smiles then. "I don't mind the sermons, not if they're his anyway. But thank you. I'll… I'll keep it in mind."


Snape suspects his mother takes a certain gleeful pleasure in naming her pets after a handful of Snape's acquaintances she's been allowed near over the years. With the rate it's gone on, Harry will soon be lending his name to some small stray, who would be let in to share Minnie's cat bed in the house come winter.

It takes Snape a while to procure the original Minerva's Missouri State University's direct phone number. The university switchboard sends him onto another department and they redirect him back, apologizing all along, and afterwards, disconnecting into a series of short beeps. On the second try, Snape is prepared, asking for her department's exact extension in case he won't be redirected properly.

Extensions are a slight annoyance, considering the old rotary-dial phone he has in the kitchen. He is never quite sure he managed to get through, until:

"Professor McGonagall speaking. If it's about the midterms..."

Snape gathers his breath. "Minerva, this is Severus Snape." It's been a while: will she even remember him? Will she be willing to help?

It's not quite as difficult as Snape thought to come up with mostly truth: I know a student. Local. He attends my sermons. What does one need to do to get into university?

"Funds?" He considers. "Er, yes, not an issue."

Snape has some savings, if need be. "So, how soon can he start? August?"

"This August? Severus! You must be joking. Even my spring semester classes are all booked. This student of yours should have really started looking last summer, not now!"

"Minerva, he's… a special case. I can vouch for him. He will be worth your time."

"Oh, very well, I'll speak with the Dean. What is his name? Well, you'd better hope he's prepared his application along with his scores. The deadline is next month."

"Thank you. You won't regret it."

Snape is… surprised by the gesture. It's not often that an acquaintance comes through with a big favor.

On second thoughts, perhaps he should not be so surprised.

Her stoic figure was there for every protest over the years. She fought to keep the women's shelter in downtown Brighton open. She eyed Snape cautiously across the serving tables at the soup kitchen as they were both helping out. She smiled at him first as they sorted the donated piles of clothing and toiletries the following year. She urged her students to turn out for protests. Her no-nonsense approach to petition drives saved many a cause.

Minerva always had a soft spot for heroic causes. She'll come through.


Dinner that Thursday is a couple of frostbitten, questionable boxes of meatloaf-and-mashed potatoes. Snape plops his down, still steaming, on the kitchen counter and shakes his head at Harry's cheerful offer of TV and company.

"Oh, come on. It's not a proper TV dinner, 'til you have some actual TV on with it!" Harry grins and pats a narrow space beside him. At that, Snape feels a physical shiver rushing through his left thigh, as if it wasn't an empty couch cushion Harry's hand touched, but Snape's own knee.

Work has finally caught up with him. I'm days behind, Snape reminds himself sternly, and it will only get worse, what with a week of plans postponed, and several rushed sermons. I absolutely must keep it under control. I must...

He can't look away from the welcoming sight of Harry on the couch, and takes a few steps closer. The couch is a relief for his sore back. Harry's grin is a relief for many other things.

"That's better," Harry nods and takes over the dusty control with multicolor buttons. The screen lights up. "Oh, cool!" he grins, flipping past the local news and the commercials alike. "Xena reruns. It's like Hercules, but better. Ron loves this show!"

Snape, preoccupied with dinner, peers at the screen, and nearly spits out his current mouthful. On it, a pretty woman with conspicuous cleavage and toned thighs all bared by minimal leather 'armor' drop-kicks a few goons. "Really? I cannot possibly imagine why any teenage boy would enjoy this," Snape snarks, dry as dust and disapproving as ever. The scene shifts to a cheering crowd of peasants who don't look particularly Greco-Roman.

"Hey, it's not just Ron. Even Ginny - that's his little sister - last Halloween, she tried to dress up like this one sidekick, in that green - um," he gestures at his chest with an empty fork "- thingy. Her mom wouldn't let her go out like that obviously unless she had a turtleneck underneath and a sweater over it, but it was still cool. She still has an actual staff though, made it herself, could twirl it pretty well by spring, that last time they went mushroom hunting, she could definitely handle it and fight with it. Whacked Ron on the head. That was SO great!"

"Hmph," says Snape, who knows a thing or two about about choosing, caring for, wrapping, making, balancing, carrying, and wielding a staff, and knows precisely the value of remaining silent on the subject. "Have you spent much time with the Weasleys?"

"Here and there. Them and Mrs. Figg too. Some summers even, when Mr. Weasley could convince my uncle to let me off the farm for awhile. But Dudley didn't like me leaving any farm chores for too long, because that meant he had to finally pitch in."

On screen, a metal ring spins and bounces off the walls, the trees, and the occasional human head in a flurry of gravity-defying maneuvers. "Yeah!" Harry's eyes brighten following it like a cat after a bouncy toy. "That's the best part."

"How is this remotely educational or entertaining?" Snape frowns. It's inauthentic, needlessly violent, childish to the point of absurd drivel. Snape knows damn well he should be working. Instead, his TV emits a tooth-grinding scream: apparently some sort of war cry, and shortly after, he observes another enthusiastic, slapstick stabbing. Despite the ridiculous situation, he can't bring himself to get up. Harry's clearly more passionate about it than he is.

"Oh, it gets pretty meaningful, once you watch it from the start and into the second season. You see, Hercules had it all from the beginning, demigod super-strength, instant fame, everything. Xena's not a hero like that: she was a warlord, had to choose to do good for herself to make up for her past. That makes it so much more important!"

No wonder Harry's here with me instead of the Weasleys or Mrs. Figg, Snape thinks. His poor taste in TV seems to extend to poor taste of all sorts, including the company he keeps.

The stabbing is interrupted by a commercial break. Oh joy.

"But that's not even what's really cool," with TV on mute for the ads, Harry waves his hands trying to explain in a spirited manner. "You see, she spent all that time alone, didn't trust many people, but finally, after all this time, let herself have one real friend. And now that she has that friend, she'd do anything to protect her from getting hurt. But even though it's dangerous, they're both happy," Harry smiles. "That's really amazing."

Snape doesn't have much to say to that.


As a suitable punishment for succumbing to all manner of ill-advised distractions, Snape spends a good couple of hours down the church basement with his neglected accounts, and doesn't make much headway.

At ten, Harry shuffles down the steps and pokes his head through the door of the small office. The door hinges squeak and settle. "Need help?" he offers. "It's getting late."

"No." Snape rubs his forehead trying to stave off a migraine. "Nothing you can do here."

"OK," Harry nods, and sidles through the doorway before Snape can shoo him out. He makes a nest, stretching out on a small bench in the corner. "Lemme know if I can help."

"You know, I'll probably be at it all night, you go on," Snape hints when the clock chimes 11:30. "You must be bored here."

"M'fine." Harry grins like a star-struck fool. "M'not bored at all. Look, I've got something to write on and something to write with."

For all his effort, Snape can't chase him off until an idea strikes.

"No sense in us both losing sleep. In fact, take my bed tonight. Rest up. The couch can't be that comfortable."

"Oh," Harry looks like he is contemplating.

"No sense in us both burning the midnight oil. It's likely I won't be done until late into the morning. Go."

"Oh, all right." Harry tries to hide a tired yawn. "But you better promise me you'll come get your bed back once you're done. I want you to rest too."

"Go," Snape waves him off.

"Fine, but I'll check on you at one, and you better not still be here!"

"Good night, Harry."

"G'night."

Snape calls a halt around five, as the dawn breaks through the sliver of glass just under the low ceiling which can hardly be called a proper window. He walks back into the cottage in the dim grey light. Fog blankets the ground in dim swirls from the hills to the highway, and overhead, as the stars wink out, there's a shadow and the distant hoot of an owl. After all night with the books, his mind is muddled, his thoughts slow and tired. He goes straight for his bedroom, on autopilot.

Harry is a still, lightly snoring fixture in his bed, curled up on the side, and taking up barely a third of the space. His notebook is still with him, resting on the pillow, weighted down by a cheap pen with the Pleasant Hope Library logo.

Snape stays long enough to put the spiral bound notebook onto the dresser, pen now securely pinning the pages shut, and to lift a blanket over Harry. Morning hours do tend to get cold.

He glances back at the notebook. It's vitally important that whatever's inside must not be seen by anyone but its owner. ' The anatomical sketches or the angsty poetry? ' he suddenly hears Mother's cackle as if she's in the same room. An annoyed frown masks any flicker of hurt at the invasion of privacy. Harry's privacy will not be invaded - certainly not by him.

He releases a weary yawn and makes himself comfortable in the chair across from Harry's couch, catnapping for a couple hours until the sunlight truly reaches through the windows. Just resting my eyes, he thinks. An hour, at most...


When Snape awakens, it's to bright sunlight and suspicious silence. He's covered by a blanket from the bedroom. The same blanket that he drew last night over Harry. Speaking of, the small cottage sounds far more empty than it should, with a guest. It's a disturbing find, so in less than five minutes Snape is fully dressed and striding outside with car keys in hand, when he spots a tell-tale figure crouched in the garden, past the peonies, over a strawberry patch.

How did that grow here so quickly? I should have made Harry stay on the couch, within the dampening field's influence. Tonight, he'll have to sleep there. Let's just hope there won't be any more manifestations in the meantime.

"Morning! Come here!" Harry turns, and grins, as victorious as ever. "Look at all this!" He holds up a cup of red berries beaming with pride, as if he'd tracked, fought, and wrestled each one down himself. "Want some?"

Even Harry's winning smile is smeared with red juice. It's no surprise if he's sampled more than he gathered. Strawberry season has never made Snape's mouth water like this before. His feet carry him forward into the sunlight.

His hand reaches for red as if it's forbidden fruit. The first taste of summer, brought on undoubtedly by Harry's magic, is sweet, small, and mouthwateringly fresh and fragrant; nothing like the huge tasteless ones from Walmart, mass-produced for crowded cities.

Here, there's the fruit, the red vivid against the grass at their feet, the farmland stretching for miles around them, and in his garden the only two people are Harry and himself.

"Good, innit?" Harry beams. "Weird, I never noticed it before. Your garden's got just enough sun right here. Perfect place for a strawberry patch."

With a sun-warmed burst of flavor on his tongue, with the endless blue sky overhead, everything suddenly seems so sunny and simple. Could this sudden lightness of heart also be Harry's unassuming, unintended magic? Snape hides his smile by popping the last few strawberries into his mouth, and glances at Harry's other hand. Perhaps he's gathered more.

"Um," Harry's free hand is closed around something, something small. "Actually…" he looks far too nervous for a bright summer morning, "This is also for you. If you want."

Harry opens his palm, and for a second, just a second, Snape thinks the flash of red is another strawberry with a bronze leaf crown, until his fingers grasp something hard and round and metal. Only then does he break away from Harry's searching, worried stare, and truly look down.

The ring still has the heat of Harry's palm. Gold and red, brass and glass, massive as far as rings go, and about as crude and gaudy as it gets.

"Harry?" Snape ducks the issue just a little longer, and husks out the completely unnecessary question: "What's this?"

"My senior class ring." For once, Harry's expression isn't bright, unlike his gift. His gaze is serious, even mortified, his eyes dark against an unusual pallor. His hair bristles in the light. "I really shouldn't've spent the money but everyone else was getting them, and I never went to prom, so I could afford it."

This is utterly inappropriate for me to even consider... The mere mention of all those school experiences and school belongings Harry had or did not have in his young student life should have made him drop the suspicious find back on Harry's hand and put as much distance between them as humanly possible, but to his own surprise Snape still holds onto the trinket as if it's 'more precious than rubies', and the entire world shifts around the core of his wholly shocked conscience, round and round like a carousel at the country fair, until the only thing left clear is Harry's wide, trusting stare - dark green and bristly as a strawberry leaf - and the weight of that proverbial brass ring, already in Snape's grasp.

He looks at it. A roguish pirate is stamped on one side and a lion on the other. Harry's name and the name of the high school are in bold capitals around the giant red rhinestone. The stone is not heart-shaped, but it might as well be: the intention behind the gesture is that obvious. Snape lifts it past Harry's strawberry-stained palm and examines it. It looks so innocent in his hand, brash and shiny and impossible to hide for what it is.

A token of a schoolboy crush. This is all it can be. This is all it should ever be.

"It's for you," Harry murmurs. "Not to wear, or anything like that: you don't even have to look at it all that much. I just want you to have it," he continues, confirming Snape's every worst fear, as well as his best treasured dream in one breath.

Harry's hand covers Snape's, closing Snape's fingers over the ring under the weight of Harry's palm.

"If you want, it's yours. For good luck."


"I can't accept it." Snape forces himself to look up, face that deeply hurt stare. "I wish I could but I can't."

"Why not?"

They are inside. Snape's mug of morning coffee cools, forgotten, on the kitchen table. Beside it, Harry's ring is a tell-tale spark of kryptonite. It feels wrong to have it. But now that he touched it, it is impossible to let go of it.

Snape draws a breath, his fingers steepled over his face, to deter any urge to pick it up again. "You must see how inappropriate it would be of me to keep something so significant of yours in my possession."

"It's not like that." Harry shakes his head. "Well, OK, maybe it is like that. But listen, if you're staying here for the rest of your life, and even if I end up somewhere far away - in college or in Canada - and never come back, if we never see each other after today and if I never even kissed you - I'd still want you to have something of mine, and this is the only thing of value I have. There isn't anyone else in the entire world I'd rather have it. So take it, please. No strings attached. It's mine and I want you to have it as a gift. That's all."

Snape is about to say he'd hold onto it for the time being - with the idea of returning it to its rightful owner the first chance he gets - when Harry freezes in the middle of the kitchen and stares at him in that mortified, meaningful way.

"I need to tell you something else and you're not making it easy at all! Please, just take it!"

Gifts are never simple. And with this particular gift, Snape's stomach has a sinking, suspicious feeling. His hand slides to cover the bright trinket. "What else were you planning on telling me?"

"It's been more than two weeks since I've stayed here. I was thinking…"

"Yes?" Snape bites back the instant, instinctive chill. Maybe he's just going to offer to pay rent again, stubborn idiot that he is.

"I really can't impose anymore, and I'd like to find something permanent in the area, so - um, I was looking for a place to stay, and your house really isn't a place for guests, but I think I found someone - it's the perfect solution."

Harry's found someone. Not something - some one- tolls through Snape's mind. I should have known! Who'd ever bother sticking around here, around me!

I just didn't think it would happen so soon.

"Who?" he asks. Quiet. Deadly.

Harry's startled into panicked chatter: "Well, first I was thinking I'd crash at Ron's like I used to, but his brothers are all in town for the summer. And there's really no space, even at the barn. Charlie's there with all those stallions of his. But then, yesterday, your mom was uptown and she wouldn't mind someone staying with her. It's no bother. Your room's empty."

Snape's heart thuds once, hard . His throat tightens in a way it hasn't in many years. ' She wouldn't mind'. Of fucking course she wouldn't!

"Truth is... OK. Wow, how do I say this? I think we're rushing into things a bit and it's all my fault. Because I really, really don't want to rush something so important. So I was thinking, I'll find a place close by, and find something to keep me busy, I see you whenever you'd like company, and we'll take this slow. The proper way things are done. Maybe go see a movie at that old drive-in in Brighton next month. Or check out the fair up in Springfield, and the museums. Spend some time together. Learn a bit about what we both like. And by winter, well, we'll see where we end up."

Harry keeps nattering on and on, but it's nothing but white noise, buried in the rush of blood in Snape's ears. I can't let her have him! I can't run that risk! I can't let her sink her claws into another magical protege, turn him loose on all her books, her scrolls, and her sigils! His mind reels from the image of Harry taking the first peek into the Clavicula Salomonis in the cellar, studying Snape's own childhood notes on the margins of Ars Goetia, or worse yet: Harry drawing his first summoning sigil in his own blood, and not even properly disinfecting the athame beforehand, not bothering to put up a proper protection circle, and shouting out whichever name in the Pseudomonarchia Daemonum seems the coolest! She'll show him everything she's managed to get her hands on without any restraint, any consideration for what he truly needs. Just like she did with me.

Not on my watch! If Harry ever has to find out what he's really capable of, it will be under my supervision. He won't find out like I did. I won't let him.

Snape's fingers close around the ring, chunky and warm and still sticky with strawberry juice. He lifts it reverently and slides it into his pocket as he rises.

"Don't go," he husks, startling Harry into silence and a wide-eyed, searching stare. "I don't want you to leave," Snape speaks the simple truth and lets it hang in the air between them. "My offer to let you stay did not come with an expiration date." Please, he thinks. Believe me. Let it be enough. "You have nothing to prove to me by leaving."

He takes a small step forward. Rests his hands on Harry's shoulders. Meets that irresistible stare and almost drowns, as he leans forward and just touches his lips, briefly, chastely, to Harry's forehead. "Regardless of what you choose, thank you for your gift."

He pauses, breathes an admission. A statement of fact. "It's wanted."

Harry's arms slide around him and he stays still, holding on, for a long, long time. His face is pressed against Snape's chest so hard that Snape can feel the smile against his shoulder, and then a murmur. "Like I said, for good luck."


Harry does sleep on the couch that night. Snape checks on him and feels the faint pull of his own enchantment working. Taking hold. Sinking deep. Saving Harry from himself.

It should stop him from making any magical outbursts tomorrow. And the next night, and the next. I'll make sure he spends as long as necessary within the dampening circle. Just like delivering a long-lasting dose of medicine.

Before he sleeps, Snape stares at Harry's ring, as it rests red and heavy between his fingers before he sets it on his nightstand.

It takes him a while to fall asleep, and when he does, his dreams are full of rusting hulks and unpleasant reminiscences.

No more unintended strawberries sprout overnight.


Authors' Notes:

You may view any relevant links and corresponding two images which illustrate this chapter at AO3: archiveofourown dot org/works/956416/chapters/18328942

The 'brighter-than-AOL-CD' / 'Microsoft-screen-of-death' blue install screen belongs to Mandrake Linux 2.1 (Venice), the 'stable' version was released around Harry's upcoming birthday in 1998, and is still bootable today in qemu, or any other virtual machine manager. Hermione must've researched just the right usenet threads to find it ahead of the official release date.

As of today, Missouri is among 26 states that require abstinence to be stressed in sex education and one of the 37 states that provide abstinence education. Present day Hermiones would be working over time to stock the bookshelves to compensate. Margaret Sanger (and Hermione, and Eileen) greatly disapprove.

'The Toby' is an actual diner food variety among the greater St. Louis (MO) area cuisine. Abe puts his own spin on it with curly fries instead of hash browns: or whatever other brown hairy bits were left in the bottom of the fryer that day.

Harry's senior class ring is actually something you can design online, along with the class keys (pendants), the yearbooks, and all manner of highly-priced paraphernalia. The strawberry-red 'ruby' suggested by the catalog for July was the color Harry liked best. The Pirate is the Pleasant Hope High School mascot. Leo is a constellation Harry wants to see better in the night skies some day. The ring (which would have cost around $100 during his senior year) is the most expensive thing Harry has ever owned. Snape would rather die than either a) be seen wearing such a hideously gaudy bauble, or b) lose it.

The ring is a remembrance token and, as Harry eloquently stated, 'for luck'. That said, the legal concept of same-sex marriages in Missouri was contested all the way until last summer and was actively opposed by members of the clergy and conservative politicians with religious ties. In this particular AU in the late 90's, the concept simply did not exist: so Harry would think of his best case scenario, twenty or so years down the line, as not marrying at all. The Defense of Marriage Act was enacted and would have went into the effect after his sophomore year: section 3 of DOMA would be struck down seventeen years later, about a month before Harry's 33rd birthday. At the time and the place of this story, the only way Harry may have heard of this at all is from someone like Hermione who'd paid attention to the 'adult' federal news.

In the meantime, Harry is a neutral good human paladin in Ron's D&D campaigns. Hermione is a lawful good gender-ambiguous wizard. They are playing the first edition passed down from Ron's older brother Bill: the same 'controversial' original which caused moral panic over 'occult' and 'satanism' back in their childhood. The alliance of their party is, predictably, good.

Pastor Snape's denomination is deliberately unstated and irrelevant. The variety of denominations of every church (also irrelevant, in the larger scheme of things) found on the map of current day Pleasant Hope, Missouri, collectively oppose same-sex marriage up to this day, some more than others.

Eileen wishes to point out that Pseudomonarchia Daemonium contains exactly 69 demonic names, including Count Furfur. Don't try it at home, kids. Try it in her cellar instead.