AN: Here, this one didn't want to get broken down, so it's a little longer than usual! Thanks for reviewing, you lot, and I hope you enjoy the chapter!

Rose


Chapter Nine: Fish

The following morning found both Harry and Snape walking towards the front of the grounded ship, dressed in conduction shirts and overcoats. Harry had discovered that Madam Malkin had done a wicked job with his clothes; he'd found four of the shirts carefully packed in a box, interleaved with packing paper. Two were the dark blue he had seen, with forest green panels down from under his arm, over his waist to the hem at his hip. The remaining two were short sleeved, coming down to where mid-bicep would be if Harry had any defining muscles; one with the same pattern in dark red as the long sleeved ones, and one plain, both in an inky black fabric. He'd chosen the plain one for now, feeling that the coloured ones were a little special for just exercising in.

Besides, Snape was wearing plain black.

His overcoat was also damn awesome, he thought. It was made of stiff black fabric in the general design of a military uniform, knee length flair, lapels and epaulets. It had the Poseidon emblem stitched onto his right shoulder and a small, metal patch on the right breast where his official insignia would go. The professor had his rank on the left lapel and his Poseidon insignia on the right... Harry felt inordinately proud; it was getting easier to believe that his life had changed completely, for the better. Hedwig was hugging his shoulder, where the epaulet had been modified so she could cling to it comfortably.

Snape, striding out just ahead of him, was somehow making his uniform snap every time they turned a corner, Harry's just flapped pathetically. Still, he felt very official in his uniform.

Snape was taking him to the Hydroponics bay, to teach him to swim.

Ah. He was rather nervous, having never encountered or entered a large body of water before, but his breather was firmly attached to his belt and his professor had promised to be... thorough. Though a little daunting, this was also reassuring.

The Hydroponics bay was a long way from the fighter deck, down long corridors with sloping floors and take-hold's every few feet. Occasionally they would pass a hatch to the outside world and brilliant blue sunshine would come in through the glass and blind him for a moment. Since this place wasn't designed for gravity it was a little... strange; the main floor was metallic, Harry assumed for the magnetic pads in his boots to cling to, though they weren't active then. Their feet made a sharp thunk with each step which echoed back softened in the long space, it was almost musical.

Doors led off the corridor at indeterminate intervals, some with glass windows in, some without. Once, Harry saw the control room for one of the Thrace's gun emplacements, labelled "Dorsal Spine Armoury". At the next hatch to the outside, he leaned close to the glass and looked back the way they had come; the barrel of the gun was just visible, sticking out into the ocean. It was bigger than he had expected, the barrel was easily as big around as his head; more of a cannon that a gun.

"Step lively, Mr Potter!" Snape called from down the corridor and he scrambled to catch up, jogging lightly. He knew they had passed the habitat ring by that point, he had seen it arching up through the water and over their heads, so he guessed that they were at around the midpoint of the ship.

Snape was standing at a large set of double doors that bisected the corridor with his hand on the release panel. Once Harry had reached him he typed in a short code and the big doors slid open with a hiss. Beyond was a small, white room and another set of doors.

"This is the waterlock, it is not so important while we are in gravity, but aboard the Poseidon it is incredibly significant that one door always remain closed." He lectured to an attentive Harry as the doors closed behind them. "Beyond that door is a garden full of water, three thousand cubic meters of fluid, plants and fish."

Harry was stunned, that was big. Not just school-swimming-pool-big, that was... bigger than Harry could really imagine.

"At the moment, it is all resting, like you would expect, gravity-wards, in a pool, with a pocket of air above. However, in zero-g the water is free to move around the entire space. As a result it is kept full, with very little air, to prevent agitation." Harry was looking overwhelmed so Snape amended, "Sloshing."

"Right, sir... So this room?" Harry said, gesturing around at the white cube.

"Indeed. One set of doors is always closed. Always. So water and livestock cannot escape, and cause havoc in zero-g. It is also where dry-wear is stored. Uniform jacket, boots and trousers, please." Snape ordered, opening a locker in the wall containing a drawer and some shelves. "You have your shorts?" He asked, already shrugging off his own uniform and putting it in a second locker.

"Yes sir..." Harry said, taking out the green swimming shorts he'd found with his clothes from his bag. He felt weird about getting undressed in front of someone else, Aunt Petunia had always... no. He had promised himself he would not go there. He had looked up "Hence" in the end, and was satisfied with his conclusion:

If Aunt Petunia would think it was indecent, and she is all... weird about the whole VC thing then she's probably weird about this too, hence, I should ignore it. Her.

Besides, the professor was being perfectly polite and had his back turned. Harry shrugged out of his uniform jacket, folding it in the locker. He changed quickly to try and avoid displaying his scrawny little body too much and was soon comfortable in his short sleeved conduction shirt and some perfectly respectable, forest green shorts. If his knees were knobbly, well, Snape would just have to deal with that, Harry didn't own any conduction trousers. Hedwig looked a little confused and a bit put out; the conduction shirt didn't have any hand-holds and though her hands stuck nicely to it, it wasn't quite enough to hold her weight. Eventually, Harry scooped her up by hand and put her on his head, it was inelegant, but it left his hands free to pick up his breather and fix it to his waistband. She seemed pleased with this and Snape was waiting for him by the door, wearing black shorts over full length conduction trouser thingies and his conduction shirt. Harry noticed that his feet were like his hands, long and thin, and decided that it was weird to be seeing his professor's bare toes.

"I'm ready sir," He said, his trepidation returning,

"Very well. Welcome to Hydroponics, Mr Potter."

The doors opened almost silently, as if the sound was being absorbed by an immense space and Harry caught his first glimpse of the water. It stretched the length of a vast chamber, smooth and undulating and a brilliant blue. It was sunlit in that same tinted light that had greeted him that morning, the brightness of it was a little shocking. Looking up at the 'ceiling' he let his mouth fall open; the roof was a great arched dome of clear glass, over which fish were swimming quite happily. The dome was only some six feet above the surface of the water but the space felt cavernous because the glass and seawater above it were so clear.

A firm hand between his shoulder blades pushed him through the door and it closed behind them. Once through the doorway they immediately stepped down into the water, standing on a ledge that ran around the waterlock. Harry watched, mesmerised as the ripples from their feet spread out over the calm surface. Looking into the water, he could see things moving, swimming around and drifting in unseen currents, plants, and fish and... other things. Green things and red things and orange things seemed to be growing in abundance, sitting apparently stationary on the pool floor in ordered patterns, arcs and curls.

The water lapping around their ankles was warm, though cooler than bathwater, and not unpleasant; Harry wiggled his toes and looked down, discovering that a small fish was investigating his foot. It was only a few inches long and had purple skin? Scales? He didn't know...

"Thrace, command authorisation Sierra Whiskey." Snape raised his voice and appeared to be addressing the air, it made Harry jump a little. "Barrier; X-ray naught, Yankee minus one-point-two, Zulu two-point-five, Elevation; Yankee zero."

As Harry watched, the little fish darted away and a glowing blue barrier emerged from the side of the bay, about a meter down from where they stood and extended the width of a broad corridor into the pool. It was level, well, compared to gravity, anyway, Harry thought to himself, still trying to get his head around how this place would look without gravity.

Snape lowered himself down into the water with a hand on the ledge and stood on the barrier he had requested. To Harry's relief, the water only came up to his waist so he knew he'd be able to stand up too.

"Come, Mr Potter." He said, beckoning with one hand. Harry looked around for some way to climb down but there wasn't a ladder or anything... after a moment he sat down on the edge of the ledge, in about ten centimetres of water, and dropped his legs off the edge. It was comfortable, as warm as the water was and he cautiously shuffled towards the edge, letting his legs dangle deeper and deeper.

"Oh for crying out..." He was most of the way there when Snape's patience gave out and the man picked him up bodily and plunked him in the water. Harry scrambled, his mouth tightly closed, and struggled until he realised that his professor was not letting him go and that he could, indeed, touch the barrier. He calmed down after that, though he still held on to Snape's arms just in case. He realised that he was getting a funny look again and blushed,

"Sorry sir..." He slowly, carefully, let go of him, making sure that he had his balance before giving up on his steadying hold, the barrier felt pretty slippery.

"Do not mention it. You do realise that there is a Lemuro on your head? She appears to have made a nest..." One of Snape's narrow eyebrows rose almost to his hairline.

"Yes sir."

"This does not bother you?" He asked, a little incredulously, giving Hedwig a gimlet eye as he drew his hair back into a pony tail. She had curled up on Harry's head, gripping a tuft of hair in each paw and curling her feathery tail over her back.

"No sir." Harry said with a little smile. Hedwig was staring back at Snape with a solemn expression on her little pink face. He sighed,

"Very well, Lemuro's are very capable swimmers, no doubt she will enjoy this..."

So the lesson began, first was holding one's breath under water, because it would not do to be too used to using a breather, just in case it malfunctioned (unlikely, Snape said,) or you had to go without. Harry discovered that the new glasses Snape had given him functioned a little like goggles; the refractive barrier expanded to seal a patch of air in over his eye and he could see with excellent clarity when he ducked his head under the water. Looking over at Snape, he realised that he was either wearing something similar or had that rare ability to keep his eyes open underwater. Harry felt Hedwig let go and float off his head, her tail stirring the water by his ear. She dived down, patting his cheek with one hand and touching his glasses with the other; he gave her a massive grin, getting a little water in his mouth. It tasted weird and slightly fishy but was fresh. He took a moment to look around, the creatures and plants filling the Hydroponics bay were numerous and colourful, huge beds of weed that looked a lot like the stuff that had been in his dinner the night before stretched out to one side and a bank of blue-green vines grew wildly below the barrier they were stood on. Underwater, he felt very light, like there was nothing pulling him down and he wondered if that was what zero-g felt like.

He stood up once his air ran out, breathing out as he reached the surface to get the water out of his nose and mouth, like Snape had told him.

Hedwig was sliding happily through the water; her fur had flattened down and made her sleek. She was obviously holding her wing membranes tight against her sides with her front arms tucked up under her chin and was kicking out using her legs. Her tail was beating the water and steering and Harry noticed that if the feathers ever came out of the water, they were perfectly dry.

Snape talked him through floating on his back, and then had him turn over onto his front and copy Hedwig with his arms and legs, kicking and pushing the water to keep his head up. It was hard work and a little frustrating, he kept getting splashes of water in his mouth or it would get up his nose and make him sneeze and choke. They took a break after about half an hour, since Harry was shaky and breathing hard. As much as Snape had said he would be a hard taskmaster, this was nothing compared to the harshness of the Dursley's; Snape was watching him, always, his hands supported Harry's back as he tried to float, grabbed his shoulders when he sank... Harry really, really, couldn't care less if he was tired, or aching, or that his throat stung from panting; he sat slightly slumped on the ledge, his legs in the water and tipped his head up to see the ocean. If his eyes watered a bit, Snape didn't notice, or perhaps, simply didn't comment.

Hedwig took the chance to take a break too, as they sat on the ledge, dripping. Snape quiet and content to watch the fish swimming about under and beyond the barrier intently, so inevitably, the little lemuro got bored and went back to swimming and chasing fish again. She never caught anything however, because as she reached out to grab something, her wing membranes stretched out and slowed her down. Harry did notice something interesting though, when she dived, she changed how she used her legs; instead of kicking one at a time she beat them together in tandem with an undulating flick of her tail.

Since he had his breath back, Harry thought he'd try it.

"I'm just going to practice underwater for a bit, sir." He said, dropping off the ledge and into the not-so-scary-anymore pool. He took a deep breath and let himself sink down. His lungful kept him mostly at the surface, bobbing a hand span beneath it. He kicked off after a second and tried to copy the Lemuro's waving motion, keeping both his feet together like a dolphin. It propelled him more quickly than what he had been doing before, but he couldn't raise his head above the surface without having to stop. All the same, it felt much more natural and he could steer. Just to prove it, he swam away from the waterlock and did a tight turn to swim back. Admittedly, not taking a breath was probably a problem. He stood up again with a gasp after a few feet, smiling broadly. Snape had followed him and was treading water just off the side of the barrier.

"Yes, yes, well done, Mr. Potter, you can now swim." The man quirked an eyebrow, "This was the easy bit, you realise?"

Harry grinned back at him at the praise, as sarcastic as the tone had been,

"Now you have learnt how to not drown, we will be pushing even harder, for fitness and stamina."

There was splashing and ripples spread out as Snape clambered onto the barrier beside him, his shoulders coming up out of the water. Fiddling with the breather still attached to Harry's waistband, he flipped open the cover of the controls and adjusted the settings. Harry watched carefully, trying to remember what the man did so that he could check the settings himself and holding his arms awkwardly away from his body.

"This controls whether the extractor is optimised for air or water, or the feed from a ship." he explained as he flicked a slider towards a small printed 'W', as opposed to the 'A' it had been set to before and the as-yet-unused 'F'. "Oxygen content, filtration level..." These two he set to '21%' and '0%' respectively.

"Do not change this yourself until you have had the proper training. It is covered in the first week of real term and I will supplement that for the additional high-oxygen functions; we need not waste the time now. Here," The professor handed Harry the mask, which he dutifully put over his nose and mouth. As he was wondering how Snape had secured it last time, the plastic around the edge shifted slightly and he could feel it gripping his skin. It was sort of sticky... and sort of like Hedwig's hands. He gave it a brief tug to make sure it wouldn't come off, and then looked up at Snape again,

"Thank you, sir." His voice was a little muffled and hollow sounding but it was still understandable. Snape appeared to be in the process of fitting his own mask, which was different to Harry's in that it was opaque, in a dark gunmetal gray colour, and hugged his jaw a little more. Harry found it slightly disconcerting that he could not see the man's mouth but it was his eyes that spoke the most about what he was thinking anyway, he realised. At the moment, they looked calm. It was good enough for Harry.

"Now, it will feel unnatural to take a breath underwater, just try to breathe normally." Snape's voice was muffled too, but perfectly understandable.

Swimming completely under water was much better than having to constantly come up for air; Harry dived, leaving Hedwig behind at the surface. He felt much less awkward under water, but it was still pretty hard to get all his limbs moving together. Eventually, he made it down past the barrier to have a look at the vine-thingy that was growing there and was happy to discover that it was covered with the berries Aaron the Neptunian had introduced him to. He touched one lightly and it was dislodged from its vine. It floated loosely for a moment, and then took off, swimming automatically. He caught it so he could have a good look and its tendrils tickled his palm.

This place was officially awesome.

Eventually he let it go, by which point he had floated back to the surface, and pointed it sideways so that Hedwig could chase it if she liked, he figured it would be a little easier to catch than the fish.

Snape allowed him to explore a bit and he gloried in all the varied things that were kept in the bay. He recognised a fish that Aaron had been selling, as well as some he had cooked for the Dursleys, and investigated the algae Snape had fed him last night. He was, in turn, investigated by various inhabitants of the garden as a potential food source; a cleaning shrimp had tried to clean between his toes; a distinctly unusual and startling sensation.

Eventually, Snape reminded him why they were there and they began to swim the length of the room. The varied nature of the things grown and raised there kept it interesting, but Harry had to work hard to keep up with Snape, even though he was sure the man could swim a lot faster. He was soon panting into his mask and swimming with a concentrated single mindedness that could, by a long stretch of the imagination, be called peaceful. It certainly cleared his head.

By the time they reached the far end of the bay, Harry needed a rest, and was informed of this fact by a stern Snape, his voice sounding weird and distorted through the water. He let himself drift to the surface and looked up through the clear ceiling to the sea above. The sun was still shinning, and the surface, all that way up, was bright. After a minute he dived again and found a spot against the wall where he could tuck himself in to stop himself floating away. The floor appeared to be made up of gravel that had been glued together to make a porous seabed for the various seaweeds and molluscs to grow on. He watched from there, sitting with his back against the bay wall, as Snape pulled out a net bag from his shorts pocket and began to collect some freshwater mussels.

Harry was a little envious of the smooth, economical movements of his new friend... Was he allowed to call someone so much older than him a friend? But he really did want to be Severus Snape's friend... He was kind and strong, and the way he had dealt with Harry's health problems had been honest and to the point. There had been no ridicule, no teasing about passing out, just warmth and help.

Harry was more than aware that his current shortness of breath was unnatural, it still had not faded, even after Snape had collected a meals worth of mussels and was taking a small hooked knife to the bed of weed. His limbs felt slightly shaky when he moved them, like when he had offered his palm to a fish as it tasted his skin. Still, if exercising would help him get better, he wouldn't begrudge it, especially since the hydroponics bay was so cool...

Looking around, he could see quite a few of the unidentified vegetables he'd seen in his stew at the Leaky Airlock, growing vigorously under water. One strongly resembled an onion, only its leaves looked nothing like the wilted tops he'd seen occasionally and the bulbs formed in a progressive sequence up the plant's stem, instead of just having one at the bottom. The leaves fanned out in kelp-like ribbons, think, dark green and rubbery. Harry smiled as he looked around at this garden, he could see all sorts of vegetables that he recognised, but didn't, at the same time! Like the carrots, the tubers of which grew sideways, up out of the parent plants' base.

"Why grow all this stuff in water? Why don't you just have a garden?" He asked as Snape came over to gather some of the vegetables with his special knife.

"Do not forget, this place is usually in zero-g, soil and such would be a decided nuisance. The hydroponics bay also allows the growth of animal protein in a way far more convenient than taking a bovine into space." Snape spoke calmly and with authority, Harry thought it sounded very pleasant and he laughed at the image of a cow floating around freely, chewing cud.

"I see what you mean, sir. It's cool, too." He wriggled his toes at the fauna, "I like it here. Is everything edible?" He said, thinking of the little, brightly coloured shrimp that had tried to clean his foot earlier, it had been practically transparent apart from the red stripes down its flanks.

"No, a portion consists of regulatory species..." Harry's politely questioning expression pressed him to elaborate, "They maintain the ecosystem, improving the stocks of useful organisms." He paused in his gathering, his bag was nearly full by then, and searched briefly for something,

"Ah, this, for example." He shook out the fronds of an onion-weed and a fish darted out, flashed a yellow and blue flank at him in irritation and disappeared again. "A wrasse, they remove parasites and keep the other fish healthy." As he said 'other' the gestured up into the water, where the large majority of the fish swam in leisurely shoals. These were the fish that Harry recognised from cooking them, though he was pretty sure most of them were supposed to live in salt water.

"You've made a lot of changes, haven't you? To the fish and plants and stuff... it's like another world." He commented slightly dazedly as he drifted on his back, looking up at the shoal of what looked like mackerel.

"Indeed, you will study them in Hydroponics classes and Aquaculture, that's plants and animals respectively." Snape said as he closed up the string bag and tied it to his waistband. That started another discussion of Harry's upcoming education as they made their way back to the waterlock and Hedwig. They did not strike out this time, going at their leisure, as Snape taught Harry the basics of the ecosystem kept on the Thrace, explaining how it was different from the one on the Poseidon, since the Thrace held very few people.

He went on at some length about the experimental organisms he had established, with a view to refining out medicines; he mentioned salicylic acid at one point. It was interesting and Snape's reserved nature made the hint of enthusiasm all the more entertaining.

Before they surfaced, Snape had Harry help him fill a second bag with the strange blue shan'tic berries, they squirmed alarmingly but Harry had great fun snatching the things out of the water as they began to swim off.

They were greeted by an ecstatic Hedwig when they were done, she had blue streaks on her chin and Harry realised that she must have caught the shan'tic he'd sent her way. He was rewarded with his first view of her flying; she had perched on the 'emergency disengage' lever on the door and leapt off it. Harry prepared to get splashed, watching with amusement and then wonder as she, instead of landing, belly first, in the water, she spread her arms and glided gently onto his head. The soft skin of her wings, furry on one side and velveteen on the other, brushed against his face and her feathery tail briefly obscured his vision. She soon settled and he brought a hand up to stroke her back; she really was incredibly light, he thought, and perfectly dry, though his stroking fingers left a streak of water on her back.

There was a hiss as Snape disengaged his mask, standing up on the barrier below the door, his ponytail dripping and water flowing off his conduction shirt.

"Um, Sir? How do I...?" Harry gestured at his mask, since tugging on it didn't seem to shift it. Harry was feeling a bit fuzzy, and didn't think to look at the module on his waistband. Snape was looking at him like that again, like a doctor, as he waded towards him and Harry shrunk slightly under the inspection.

"The release is a concealed button, here." Snape took the module off his waist and tipped it up so the tubes came out of the bottom end. He pointed to a clear shield covering a thumb sized button on the uppermost end. "It will release upon a single press in air, a double tap under water, and two long taps when in a gel-system fighter." He flipped open the cover and presented the button to Harry, who took the module and pressed the release with his thumb, catching the mask with his free hand. "This is a safety feature, to avoid your unfortunate demise."

Harry looked thoughtfully at the small device, carefully winding the two tubes as they had lain, clipped to the side of the module, when he bought it.

"I can see the logic, sir... it'd be a bit crap if you pressed it by accident under water, but you might want to get it off quickly..." He said, staring off into the middle distance.

"Indeed; a trade-off between convenience and safety. Come now, we are finished here." Snape said, placing his hands on the ledge around the waterlock and hauling his long legs out of the water. Easy for him... the ledge was at chest height for Harry. He dithered for a moment, while Snape was giving the door the release code, before turning his back on the ledge, getting his arms up on it and hauling himself up. With a bit of kicking he got his bum on the ledge but once there he was shocked to find his arms shaking and his head very heavy indeed. He slumped forwards, resting his elbows on his knees.

"Oh..." It didn't feel like fainting, that was a light headedness and a darkening of vision, this just felt like all of his body was very, very heavy. A firm hand gripped his shoulder and prevented his near tumble back into the water proper.

"Stay calm, Harry, you have done a lot of exercise this morning, it would be strange if you did not feel the effects. You have been on restricted activity for far too long..." Snape's deep, calm voice was infinitely soothing and he was able to analyse what he was feeling a little more logically. It did feel a bit like the evening of a very hard day, like when he had to cut the edged of the lawn with the hand-clippers, it had taken forever and the clippers were rusty and stiff and his hand hurt... He shook his head clear and smiled weakly at Snape,

"Sorry sir, I'm fine, just... a minute?" Looking up, he realised that the man had already knelt beside him, when had that happened?

"An hour, perhaps, and some glucose. That is what the shan'tic is for." Without further fuss, Snape gathered Harry up and stood, carrying him and Hedwig into the waterlock. Harry tipped his head to Snape's shoulder so that Hedwig could climb off, since she was shifting about restlessly, and if his head stayed there, well, that was his business. Harry soon found himself wrapped in a large towel and being rubbed down. It invigorated him a little and he managed to get dry and dressed without needing any embarrassing help, though it was accomplished mostly sitting down on the floor. He thought that it would have been useful to have a bench, but corrected himself; what would the point be in zero-g? His hair, once again, ended up in a vertical nest, though Hedwig chose to cling to his uniform jacket instead this time.

Snape had finished long before Harry and he could hear the soft clatter of mussel shells and some dripping as he sorted the produce out. Once the mussels and vegetables were dry and stored in a satchel, he could feel the professor's eyes on him again. Harry was still fussing with the jacket's double breast and failing spectacularly to get it fastened, but at least he was decent. Snape's shadow fell across him and he felt so very small, smiling wryly up at him and giving up on the buttons.

How was it that Snape managed to look so very proper? With his black uniform buttoned smartly and high boots zipped and laced. The magnetic toe of those boots clicked against the floor as Snape crouched next to him and dropped the bag of now-dry and still berries in his lap before picking him up like a child. It was nice to be treated like one, for once. Like the night before, when Snape had stayed until he was nearly asleep...

He felt safe, held against Snape's chest like that, despite the lurch the world made as the man stood up.

"Eat, Mr Potter."