The Usual Disclaimer: Thank you, Jo Rowling, for letting us play with your boys... I make no money from this - just love thinking of possibilities. If you have feedback, please feel free...

"More tea?" he asked when they reached his door.

"You're going to drown me in tea, aren't you?" Potter laughed, following him to the kitchen.

"Better for you than the other," Snape said, waving the kettle full and then warming it.

"We don't need to go through that again."

"As you wish."

"I don't have a drinking problem."

Snape hesitated then nodded. "Let's sit a spell." He handed the man his tea, led him back to the sofa, and took up a chair next to it. "What kind of problem do you have, Potter? Other than what you told me – I don't mean to minimize that…"

Potter laughed, looked down at his scarred hands for a long moment, and looked up at him. "I think I have an identity problem."

"Identity problem?"

Snape understood that. He had a bit of an identity problem himself – especially after the war, when he was no longer a Death Eater, a double agent, no longer Potter's protector… and for a year, no longer a professor. Once he'd started to teach again, he had started to rebuild a sense of who he was, a sense of purpose. But it felt strangely incomplete somehow… undirected or unsettled. It was one reason he had taken to studying astronomy. Not for Divination, but just to have a sense of where he was in the world… in the universe.

"I should have thought you knew who you were. 'The Boy Who Lived', the man who killed Voldemort… the hero… the Auror… the Order of Merlin First Class…"

"You've got one, too."

"Yes… well… not sure how that happened, exactly."

"You deserved it. Kingsley and McGonagall and Arthur… The Wizengamot… They all agreed."

He waved that off. He was no hero. His award was "in protective custody" in Minerva's office, as she put it. He'd been inclined to banish it… or throw it against the stone wall in his quarters and watch it shatter into a thousand satisfying pieces. He'd donated the award money to a fund for the survivors of the Battle who had lost parents or spouses.

"You deserved the Merlin," he said.

"I didn't kill him, you know."

"I know. I understood that the first time you told me."

"I didn't know you even heard me."

"I was unconscious, Potter, not brain dead." He'd known when the boy was there, even when he was unconscious. Some part of him had sensed it… been reassured. And then the boy had left, just as he was recovering his strength enough to sit up, to be aware, to talk about things other than carefully neutral topics like potions… He'd missed him, immediately… intensely… painfully.

"… Yeah… I guess."

"So… what's your identity problem?"

Potter looked at him strangely. "Aahh…"

He waved a hand. "You don't have to tell me. None of my business."

Potter shook his head. "It's okay. I should probably tell you anyway."

He frowned at the boy, confused. "Why?"

Potter looked at him out of the corner of his eye. "Well, if I'm gonna tell the truth to anybody in my life, it ought to be you, don't you think? You spent your whole life – well, half of it anyway – trying to save me. I probably owe you the truth, somehow… I think…" He trailed off.

"You don't owe me anything, Potter," Snape said. "I should think it would be the other way around."

"We're gonna have to get over that, you know."

"Over what?"

"Owing each other anything."

Snape looked at the boy for a moment in astonished bewilderment. How in bloody hell am I supposed to get over owing you anything? But he nodded. "As you wish."

"Why do you do that?"

"Do what?"

"You know. Defer to me that way. 'As you wish'… 'Whatever you need, Potter'…"

Snape was uncomfortable at the question, unsure how to answer. "I don't know. Maybe to make up for six years of torment," he said with a twitch of his lips.

Potter snorted and his eyes twinkled. "Well, I did give you a bit of a hard time, as I recall."

"Yes – you did. You were a rather insolent boy," Snape drawled.

Potter laughed, and it sounded genuine, maybe even healthy. Better. Snape felt something in him relax at that. "So what do you want to tell me?"

"You asked me about Ginny."

Snape nodded. Ginny. No matter how he felt about the boy… the man… he didn't want heartbreak for him.

He stretched out his long legs and tented his fingers under his chin. Potter leaned back and stretched his legs out as well, absently tapping his toes against the soles of Snape's shoes. It sent small shock waves up Snape's legs to the small of his back. He allowed it. It kept warming his heart… thawing it out. Why are you letting him do this to you? Potter, damn it! He allowed it anyway, needing it… wanting it… Stop!

"Ginny and I… ah… were never gonna work out."

Snape frowned and shook his head. "I don't understand. Why ever not? The two of you looked to be 'a match made in heaven', as they say."

Potter looked at him and laughed. "Okay. If you say so." He said nothing for a while.

"She's a very pretty girl," Snape said, finally.

"Yes… she is… So was Cho Chang."

"Cho Chang?"

"Yeah, I… I dated her briefly before… before Ginny."

"I thought Chang was dating Diggory."

"She was. I asked her to the Yule Ball, but Diggory got to her first and she accepted, so… But after he died, after Pettigrew and Voldemort killed him… we kinda worked our way around to it. We only dated a couple of times though, and then that girlfriend of hers… Marionette? I can't recall her name… after she ratted us out – the D.A. – to Umbridge…"

Strange that it didn't hurt to hear Potter talk about this. Why was that? Maybe just because… if they were talking, he was here. Snape tried to let himself feel it… fill up on it, so that after the boy left… He shook his head against that. Focus.

"Is that why you got caught?"

"Yeah. So… it was kinda' hard to hang out with Cho after that, and in the summer… after Sirius died… I spent most of the summer at Ron's house, and ah… and I thought… Ginny… And Ron and Hermione were, ah… I mean that was clear… so, ah… So it just made sense to me…"

"Well, they're both very pretty girls, Ginny and Cho… smart, too."

"Yeah…" The boy was silent a moment, then looked up at him. "Did you ever kiss a girl?"

What? Snape laughed, startled. "No. Can't say that I have." Oh gods, Potter…

"Not even my mother?"

Snape grimaced. "No, Potter, not even your mother."

"Why not?"

He sighed. "I don't know." Coward! You know damned well why. "Couldn't get up my courage, I guess."

"Yeah, I can understand that."

That didn't make sense. Snape looked at the boy curiously. "I don't know if she would have kissed me anyway… if I would have kissed her anyway, by the time I was old enough for kissing."

"Why not?"

He froze at that. Yeah, Sev… Go ahead and tell him. Why not? Coward.

"I don't know, Potter." He waved a hand irritably. "It was a long time ago."

"It's Harry."

"Right." The turn of conversation was making him uncomfortable again. "So – Ginny," he said, narrowing his eyes at the boy.

Potter sighed. "Yeah. Ginny. So… then, seventh year, of course, we were on the run the whole time, and so… and it was… it was a whole nine months, you know… and we didn't see each other. After the Battle… everyone was expecting us to… and she expected… and I… I don't know. Maybe my head was just not in the right place because…" He trailed off a moment.

"You'd been through a lot, Potter. You needed time."

"Yeah… maybe… So I went and stayed with the Weasleys after – you know, after you got better a bit…"

Somehow the emptiness of that still echoed hollowly in Snape's heart. Potter had left… just as he got better enough to… What? Better enough to what, Sev?

"And… and Ron and Hermione were there, except when Hermione went off to Australia to find her folks. Ron didn't go with her. The Ministry wanted a member of the Order to go, so Arthur went, and Ron stayed back to take care of George. And… ah… I spent more time with Ron than I did with Ginny…"

"He's your best friend." He didn't understand. Where was this going?

"Yeah. Yeah, he was."

Snape frowned at Potter's use of the past tense. What on earth could possibly have happened? They were best mates… how could they not be? He didn't understand it. If Weasley had abandoned the boy… He found himself getting angry again.

"Anyway, ah… then Hermione came back, and she and Ron picked up right away again, and… um… and so… so, of course, I started hanging out with Ginny and, uh… You know, everyone just made assumptions and… Not that they didn't have any right to. They did. I mean it looked… looked perfectly clear. I mean – you thought we were a good match, right?"

Snape nodded. "You were." He remembered that. They'd looked good together… like James and Lily, in fact. They belonged together. Be honest, Sev. Accept it.

"Well, yeah, I… You'd think so, but, uh… I don't know. I just couldn't… couldn't ever take it to the next level for some reason. I wasn't sure what was holding me back. I didn't understand it myself, really. I just… I just... I just couldn't… and I thought…"

Potter paused for several long moments, then sat forward and leaned his elbows on his knees, staring at his clasped hands. "I told her I just needed time. And she told me it was okay, but I think I was lying to her. I was probably lying to myself. I just… I wasn't ever gonna make that work."

But… she was the right girl - Ginny. If he'd had to pick a girl for the boy, he couldn't have chosen better for him. Granger. Maybe it was Hermione Granger. "Maybe she wasn't the right girl for you…"

Potter laughed. "Yeah. Yeah, you could say that."

What? What on earth had gone wrong? Not that it was any of his business, of course, but…

"So… I got busy with the Ministry. Robards, um… recruited me pretty hard, and of course that's what I wanted to do – be an Auror… And I got myself, ah… quite busy at work, and ah… threw myself into my training, and then threw myself into chasing down Death Eaters and Snatchers and whatever bad guys the Ministry appointed me to chase down… until… until McKinnon…"

Potter stopped for a moment, and clenched his eyes shut, shaking his head. He rubbed at the scar on his forehead and wiped at his eyes with the cuff of Snape's sweater. Snape's heart twisted painfully. Gods, I wish I could fix it! The memory of the boy clinging to him echoed in his mind, and he had to stifle the impulse to reach out to him… to draw him into his arms again… protect him.

"And, ah… I made excuses not to go to the Burrow on weekends. I kept busy. I volunteered for long term assignments and surveillance. I saw Ron, of course, because he worked at George's… and we'd get together at lunch if we could, sometimes, or after work if I could, for dinner or a drink… I liked that. He kept asking me to come to the Burrow, but… I kept making up excuses… why I couldn't."

Snape grunted at that. What was that about? But he just shrugged and nodded for Potter to go on when the boy looked up.

Potter laughed hollowly. "And, ah… and then Hermione would show up and we'd… you know… change the topic. Sometimes she brought Ginny with her, if school was out for holiday, and… that was always uncomfortable and eventually we stopped that, too, and, uh… That's what everyone expected. Me and Ginny, or me and Cho, or me and Hermione, or me and somebody…"

Well… yes… Snape thought. "That seems… reasonable, don't you think?"

Potter looked at him, shook his head and shrugged. "Maybe. But… I… found myself… uncomfortable. I was always awkward and I… I just thought it was me. I thought I… just didn't know what I was doing, but… that's not what it was." He sighed and looked away. "That's not who I am."

I'm not following this, Snape realized. Maybe he wasn't paying attention. He tried to focus, think about what the man was saying rather than what was going on inside him, just sitting here listening to the boy, still stuck in a war between warmth and fear. But that was about him, not Potter. He focused on Potter.

The boy took a deep breath. "Then last year, the thing with that Death Eater happened. And I… ah… Ron was working for the Ministry… the Aurors… by then… and… I went to work drunk…" He laughed hollowly and shook his head. "I really don't have a drinking problem."

Snape shook his head doubtfully. Couldn't prove it by me. Potter caught his expression and shrugged one shoulder, but did not protest.

"But, ah… I… I couldn't handle it… the… his death… his daughter… the hearing at the Ministry… I'd just… gotten drunk the night before… right into the morning… right after it happened. And… they put me on leave and told me to go home… and I didn't have anywhere to go, really. I mean, I could have gone to Grimmauld Place, but… Ron told me to come to his place – his and Hermione's. They were in London by then… so I went." He inhaled deeply and let out a long, slow breath. "And one night, ah… they had Ginny over, thinking, I think, to get that going again…"

He paused for a long time this time. Snape just sat and waited. He couldn't figure out where this was going, what could have gone wrong… especially if the boy had been with Weasley and Granger. He should have been safe. He'd always been safe with them… in the long run, anyway. What the hell, Potter? He tried not to shake his head, to just sit silent and allow the man to take his time.

"Ginny wanted to kiss, or snog, or something, and I… I couldn't do it… I just couldn't do it. And I made my excuses and I left, and I went to the Leaky Cauldron, and I sat there until Tom threw me out and then went back to their place… And Ron was waiting up for me."

Potter stopped and looked uncomfortable… more uncomfortable, anyway. He stared down at his hands and cleared his throat. "And I… I got to telling him how important he was to me… how much it meant to me that he stuck with me all those years…" He choked out a laugh. "And I, ah… I tried to kiss him," he said hoarsely.

You what? Snape's mind froze. He held his breath, then thought, Drunk. He almost shook his head, but caught himself in time. Potter did not look at him.

"And he pushed me off, of course, and just about bat-bogey hexed me. Asked me what the hell I thought I was doing."

Well… what the hell were you doing? He snorted, and the boy looked up, then back down at his hands, reddening.

"Hermione was asleep and I don't think she heard anything, but I don't know if he ever told her. I slept on the couch. Ron… he looked at me so strangely the next morning." The man gave an embarrassed shake of his head. "And I, ah…" He looked up at Snape, reddening further, but looking him in the eye. "It's amazing how sober you can be when you're drunk. I remembered exactly what'd happened. And I, ah… and I… left. He looked at me like I had three heads… like I was that damned three-headed dog of Hagrid's. I left and… and… that's it." The boy kept his eyes on Snape's, desperate, Snape thought.

"So… you were… drunk… and you hit on the wrong person," Snape said carefully. Potter just looked at him, saying nothing, as if waiting for him to connect the dots. "If Ginny had been there, would you have hit on her?"

"No," Potter said, almost in a whisper. "No, Professor... No."