And objects in the rear view mirror may appear closer than they are

(Meatloaf)


Sorry for the delay, including answering to private messages. Life has has been a bit rocky lately, beginning with my youngest' s bright idea to put my laptop on a chair to keep it out of the way. What do you think happened? (One clue: there was a big "crack" involved). Special thanks to Tra8erse who managed to edit this chapter as efficiently as always, in spite of everything.

Oh, and I am properly ashamed of what I did to Jane Austen. I really am. (Blushes).


First thing in the morning, Harry sent Ron his Patronus, although it was his friend's morning off.

The redhead was rather grouchy when he arrived through the Floo, but Harry's message had been urgent enough that he did not linger in bed. A swift glance around the sitting room and at Harry's and Snape's long faces stopped him from making his usual fuss about getting up at what he considered the crack of dawn.

They did not exchange more than nods. Harry was setting up the dicta-quill with grim resolution. Snape seemed more on edge than Ron had ever seen him.

Ron put his hand on the quill to stop it from writing down his words. "Before you begin, you may tell me why you want me to hear this deposition rather than send it to me as usual."

"I will not send this deposition to the Ministry," Harry answered sharply. "You will hand it personally to Kingsley, and only after he consents that you test him for Imperius," he added, pointing at a strange device that Ron had only seen used by the Unspeakables or in St Mungo's for official medical evaluations.

Ron immediately protested. "No way. Kingsley is the ruddy Minister, and you know how strong-willed he is."

"Pius Thicknesse was, too," Snape cut in. Immediately turning to Harry, he pointed at Ron. "Besides, before you send the messenger to get himself killed..."

"I know what we've decided!" barked Harry irritably. Startled by his reaction, Ron let go of the quill but had no time to do more than goggle before his friend put the scanner to his head and he suddenly experienced the uncomfortable heat associated with brain testing for mental curses and mental damage.

"If it makes you feel better," Harry said without looking him in the face, "Constanz has already tested me." Ron closed his mouth without saying anything and waited for the results. He was positive he was just himself.

"Why all the fuss?" he asked more calmly than he really felt. After all, he had heard so many horror stories about mind control and ordinary people committing crimes under influence, or Pius Thicknesse deciding and ordering things he would never have even considered when in his right – and free – mind.

Harry did not answer immediately, as he tried to apply just the right pressure with the scanner, exactly as Constanz had shown him. "Because we're facing an expert in mental manipulation. Considering how he managed to plant all these accusations against Severus at the very beginning of our Auror training, there's no telling who he might have influenced. I don't think any of us had been Imperiused, but he might have been planting triggers or something."

Ron glanced at Snape who confirmed grimly, "Corban can do this."

"Corban… Yaxley?"

"Yes. He sent me a very interesting Christmas gift, and the day before yesterday, the Foe-Glasses Dawlish let Harry borrow carried a trace designed by Yaxley to spy on his own people when he was head of the DMLE. Of course, it might just be a coincidence."

Ron snorted. "Since when do you believe in coincidence?"

"I don't."

At last, Harry put the scanner back down. "Nothing, of course, but I won't have anyone in on the secret of the investigation who has not been tested."

"Hermione..."

"Has already been scanned by Constanz and sent her Patronus right after that to chew me out. Said she couldn't understand why I didn't call you both back as soon as Severus told me… And that she wants all the details tonight."

All three wizards grimaced at the prospect of having to deal with Hermione in a mood – although for different reasons.

Severus kept his particular misgivings to himself but Ron sighed, resigned, "Yeah, I can imagine."

He finally noticed that the dicta-quill had been writing down everything they said since he released it. Without pause, he immediately went back to the subject. "Of course, it makes sense. Yaxley was only listed as 'missing' after the battle of Hogwarts, not officially dead. He was Head of the DMLE for Voldemort, but even more importantly, he's been a Ministry official for years. He would know where to look for files or how to plant false information."

His gaze searched Snape's, seeking confirmation – but the man looked away. His wooden countenance did not fool Ron anymore. He glanced at Harry to make sure that his friend would wait patiently until Snape decided to speak, in his own time.

Finally, with obvious reluctance, the Professor admitted, "Of all my surviving 'brothers', Yaxley's certainly the one who has a more personal reason to feel vindictive."

Ron nodded encouragingly, while Harry felt like pouting – and instantly berated himself for the absurd twinge of jealousy. Interrogating Snape was not his personal privilege, but he had got used to it being just the two of them. Even worse, Ron seemed to understand Severus better than Harry did at times, and it rankled a little. First Neville… Hermione… And now Ron. Harry was left feeling he was missing something about Severus, and he did not like this.

"Amongst the members of the inner circle, we shared a somewhat similar situation."

Snape knew that his former students would have rolled their eyes at his stilted language if they had dared, but he could not help it. It was a defence mechanism so deeply ingrained as to be his second nature.

He stood and took a few steps to give himself the time to gather his thoughts.

"Corban is a Pureblood, of course, but from an impoverished branch of the Yaxleys. Like me, he didn't have much to offer Voldemort in the way of money or relations, but he had a lot of talent and his usefulness as a spy inside the Ministry."

He paused and blinked several times—another proof of the unease he could not repress.

"I would not say that we were friends… Rather that he tolerated me, for my usefulness... The 'misfortune' of having a Muggle for a father came in handy when he needed help with all the questions he had about the Muggle world."

"He was interested in the Muggle world?" Harry's tone was incredulous.

"He strongly believed in 'know thy enemy'… He's the only member of the inner circle, apart Lucius of course, who didn't think it beneath him to mingle with Muggles to learn about them... It was not by chance that Voldemort chose him for the DMLE..."

Snape was slowly pacing now and punctuating each turn in the room with another sentence.

"He was the only one who didn't underestimate Muggles and who seemed able to devise reasonable protection plans against them… Rather than boasting unrealistically about how we could wipe them out in a single wand move if we so wished," he remarked sarcastically.

After a thoughtful pause, he added, "He surprised me more than once with his ability to blend into the Muggle world."

"What do you call 'blend in'?"

"Going down the pub and talking to the regulars without making stupid remarks about 'eclectricity' or 'fellytone'... Visiting exhibitions or attending a concert without attracting undue attention... Going shopping to discover the latest trends and innovations and being able to ask questions without being too obviously ignorant... Things like that."

Harry frowned. "You did all this with him?"

Snape sighed."Regularly, although he's what you'd call an over-achiever. Even between the wars, he was forever seeking me out for clarifications about all kinds of subjects or for 'exploratory expeditions' as he called them… But he also liked to impress me with the things he had learned all by himself." With a bitter little sneer, he added, "He always needed to prove that he was better than anyone else."

"So, he can hide among Muggles."

"Yes. I feel positive that when you find the bookseller who sold him my'Christmas present', they will say there was nothing off or suspect about him… That he didn't wear strange clothes, look or say anything out of the ordinary."

"An impressive feat," admitted Harry.

They both shook their heads. There was even an ironic little smile on Harry's lips that made Ron remember the odd looks he got whenever he found himself in the Muggle world. (Worst of all, it was generally from children or old ladies and for some reason, Harry always found it particularly comical, while Hermione just bit her lip or closed her eyes and chided "Ron!" under her breath – although he could never understand what he had done.)

Mildly annoyed at himself for taking it personally, he asked, "Do you think that Yaxley is trying to infiltrate and take over the Ministry or that his sole motivation is revenge?"

Snape shrugged. "It depends on whether he's on his own or not," he said, "and how many Death Eaters managed to escape and regroup." He raised interrogative eyebrows at Harry.

Ron coughed to catch their attention and looked pointedly at the dicta-quill. They would have to discuss this – and the sooner the better – but it would not do to leave any incriminating evidence of their sharing official secrets with Snape while he was a still a suspect.

Snape smiled wryly before going on. "When he was appointed Head of MLE and I was made Headmaster, he decided that the similarity in our personal histories and careers must have some significance. He began to seek me out again and tell me that we'd shown the others what we were truly made of… Me by killing Dumbledore, and him by Imperiusing Pius Thicknesse... That we were the most brilliant and the most useful." Another sneer. "He had great expectations," he said through his teeth.

"Is he gay?" asked Ron, totally out of the blue where Harry was concerned, if his round eyes were any proof.

Snape considered Ron with grudging respect. "Yes. How did you guess? Not many people are aware of the fact and I'm sure he managed to purge any possible information about his private life from his file."

"Just a feeling. I think I'm beginning to see where you're going."

Harry's gaze travelled between his two friends, surprised to see a faint flush on Snape's face and commiseration on Ron's. His eyes rounded once again as he finally grasped Ron's meaning. No. He blinked.No way.

Snape shifted uneasily, stifling another resigned was annoyed to feel the beginning of a very uncharacteristic blush tainting his cheeks. In fact, he felt it flaming even further as he met Harry's shocked gaze.

It was inevitable that he would have to talk about Lily, but he had always jealously guarded the rest of his private life. There was no way now that he could keep that distasteful episode back.

He resisted the urge to clear his throat. "Yaxley resented my ties with Lucius and Narcissa... That is to say..." He exhaled slowly, hoping he was not too obvious, while trying to formulate a watered-down version of events.

Neither Harry nor Ron seemed inclined to make fun of the situation, which was a relief, but he felt the need to drive the point home as he explained, "There have always been rumours and speculations about my relationship with Lucius. After his marriage, most people expected that Narcissa would kick me out of Malfoy Manor." He snickered softly. "When that didn't happen and even the most obtuse had to recognise that we all peacefully coexisted, many people assumed that we were a ménage-à-troisSince it would be the only way to circumvent their Fidelity vow." He snorted. "Most people have that sort of mind. They find it easier to believe the worst, even if there is a simpler and more plausible explanation. It's too much to expect them to believe that we could feel honest, simple affection and friendship without anything perverse in our relationship. So, we made the most of it."

Harry suddenly wondered how Draco had felt about it. He had no doubt the little ferret loved his godfather, but it must have been pretty embarrassing at times. He could see the convoluted negotiations they often witnessed between the Slytherins in a new light, all of which boiled down to the others offering Draco various kinds of bribes to intercede with Snape for them. He never thought anything about it at the time, except that Malfoy was a cheeky little bastard because he would always, and rather contemptuously, up the stakes until most of his mates gave up or made fools of themselves.

And when you thought of the rest of their happy family...

He remarked cautiously, "I guess that didn't help matters with Bellatrix Lestrange."

"Indeed. She oscillated between insinuating that I was the main reason Draco was the only child and hinting that it was a blessing that Draco's nose didn't look like mine. She wasn't the only one, but as she was always ready to flare up at any imagined slight against her sister, it somehow justified the gossip, at least within the Pureblood circles." Snape pursed his lips unhappily. "It was never a comfortable situation, but all these assumptions were useful… Except when they were not, as was the case with Yaxley."

He glanced as discreetly as possible at his former students and was relieved to see that they still did not look disgusted.

"He tried to convince me that…" He paused in the middle of his sentence and took a deep breath. He did not want to repeat the man's humiliating proposals. Not in front of Harry and certainly not if they were to be repeated in a courtroom.

And not if there was the slightest likelihood that Hermione would hear them. His feelings were already complicated enough where that woman was concerned.

Another discreet cough from Weasley brought him back to the matter at hand. In the end, there was no way to escape this new humiliation.

"Corban wanted to convince me that he had more to offer than Lucius and Narcissa. He insisted quite often that the two of us would be unbeatable if we were also..." He could not help pulling a wry face. "Together."

Harry asked cautiously, because they had to avoid any possible ambiguity in a formal interrogation – and because he wanted to know, even if it was sick, "When you say together, you mean... romantically? As a couple?"

"Yes."

Ron whistled silently but it was Harry's look of disgusted fascination that shook Snape out of embarrassment. "Oh, grow up, Potter! Quite a few people are so inclined, or Lucius and I would never have dared to play that game... But it made things rather awkward with Corban Yaxley, who's the real thing."

Harry rebelled. "It's not your being gay or not that disturbs me," he argued.

No? asked Snape's ironical smile.

"It's... Yaxley. Him… Thinking that he had a chance with you!"

Snape reflected bitterly that not so very long ago, Harry would have blurted, "It's... Snape" with the same disgusted conviction… And that he would very probably still react like that if he knew that Severus had noticed what an attractive specimen of the opposite sex Hermione Granger was.

Not that he would blame him – he blamed himself and did not need anyone's help in doing so. What kind of addictive, pathetic fool was he, to always pine for the brilliant and inaccessible women who would never really love him back?

These bitter musings were interrupted when Harry insisted, in a still incredulous voice, "Yaxley was in love with you all that time?!"

"Apparently. Although he had a strange way of showing it," he said, remembering all the barbs against non-Purebloods he had heard over the years. "He said that he... 'fell in love' with me when Voldemort congratulated me for killing Dumbledore and he remembered how he had watched the old man fall from the tower." Snape faltered a little but confessed, as truthfully as ever, "He said a lot of things... That he'd struggled in vain... That his feelings couldn't be repressed... In short, he said he was willing to overlook my unfortunate blood status at last."

Ron said with a horrified laugh, "He's a nutter!"

As Snape looked daggers at him, he quickly amended, "Hey! I didn't mean it like that! Who would be barmy enough to fall in love with somebody for murdering…" He caught himself when he realised Harry was glaring, too. "Right," he mumbled. "A Death Eater. A sadistic, murdering Death Eater."

"Not to mention how insulting his proposition was," Harry added thoughtfully.

Snape closed his eyes and pinched the base of his nose tiredly. Of all the consequences of killing Dumbledore, that one had really been the icing on the cake, and would probably feed even more rumours and speculations about his love life. Just what he needed, on top of everything else!

§§§

In the end, Hermione took things rather mildly, if Harry said so himself.

She must have been more tired than she let on, considering the dark circles under her eyes, because she dispatched Snape's daily physical summarily. No more than ten minutes after they had entered the kitchen they were already back and taking their seats next to the two Aurors.

Ron kept glancing at them as if something was wrong, which, of course, drew Harry's eyes, too. All he could see was that they were both rather subdued. Maybe a little on edge, which was not altogether surprising.

Hermione crossed her arms and asked, with considerable asperity – a sure sign of worry, "So?"

She looked pointedly at Harry, who could not help glancing helplessly at Ron and Snape for help. Ron kept looking down, like he did at Hogwarts when he hoped the teacher would call on someone else. Snape just sat with a faraway, bitter look on his face. However, he roused himself enough to point at the card and book on the table and tell Hermione, "See for yourself."

As expected, Hermione easily deciphered the French title, read the card and immediately understood the threat. "There must be something else, or Harry," she pointed her chin at her friend, "wouldn't have made a great to-do for a threat in bad taste."

It was not a question.

"There was a message," conceded Snape. "For my eyes only, of course. It was from Corban Yaxley. 'It will be my pleasure to make you pay', it said."

"You're sure it was from him?" she asked, before sighing, without letting him the time to answer, "Of course, you're sure. Forget it."

She tapped her fingers on the armrest, thinking aloud, "The expert in Imperius. Had Pius Thicknesse and a handful of key people under his thumb for months. I see," she said at last, and none of the men doubted that she had already summed up all the implications of a possible Death Eater infiltration inside the Ministry.

She bit her lip briefly before remarking, "This seems a very expensive and convoluted way to send a threat, though. And I'm not sure I can see the wisdom of showing his hand before the trial."

She looked at Harry, then at Ron. "Unless it's just a nasty way of spreading panic and distrust inside the Ministry?"

Harry shook his head sombrely. "No. I brought Foe-Glasses the day before Christmas that turned out to have a trace on them… A trace designed by Yaxley himself." He shrugged. "I found out because Severus here still refuses to admit anything that comes from the Ministry into his home. He said that thing about fearing the Greeks that you're so fond of, too..."

"Timeo Danaos?" Hermione asked, glancing for the first time at Snape with the semblance of a smile. It cheered him up a little.

"Yes, that one. You'll have to write it down for me. I'm sure it's the sort of thing I'll need in the future. You know..." he said with a sigh, thinking of the political training Kingsley had insisted on. Hermione nodded, without comment.

"Anyway, as I was saying, Severus had me return the Foe-Glasses to the Ministry and test them there."

"I expected Harry to find the trace," interjected Snape. "But I believed that Dawlish and the big wigs of the DMLE simply adopted Yaxley's spell because it came in handy for spying on his investigation… Until I received this," he said, pointing again at the book.

Hermione fully turned to Snape, with what he thought was a much too piercing look. "Then, if it's indeed Yaxley, he must have a more personal motive on top of political revenge."

He pursed his lips at Harry's give away gasp and glanced quickly at Ron, who made a helpless gesture, as if to say, "What did you expect? It's Hermione!"

"Corban likes using flamboyant gestures to make his point," conceded Snape reluctantly. "This is his way to let me know, and Lucius, too, in case you didn't guess, that he will strike even if I am under 'the Ministry's protection'… Which reminds me," he said, turning to Ron with suddenly narrowed eyes. "You told me you would negotiate a solution for the Malfoys' protection with Shacklebolt."

Ron smiled a little nervously. "Removing the trace on their wands seemed good enough for Lucius and Draco."

Snape nodded in approval.

Hermione frowned. "Kingley consented?" She sounded dubious, which was excusable when you knew how much the Minister distrusted Lucius Malfoy, however useful he may have found him.

"On a temporary basis." Ron gave her a toothy, totally forced grin as he explained, "But Harry insisted I used the brain thingy on Kingsley himself before giving him the information about Yaxley. I can tell you it helped with conveying the urgency of the situation."

Snape and Harry both snorted, while Hermione's eyebrows shot up. "This I can believe. It had the same effect on me."

"I left all three Malfoys busy strengthening the Manor's wards..."

Snape smiled grimly, while the other two squirmed uneasily in their seats. Knowing what Death Eaters considered a fitting punishment for traitors, it was no wonder the Malfoys were preparing for any kind of intrusion or attack.

"... And activating a few items I chose not to look at too closely,or I might have been obliged to confiscate them," Ron added piously.

Snape smile grew wider and rather nasty. He was obviously satisfied with the solution.

"Right!" interjected Hermione. "But that doesn't tell me why Corban Yaxley feels the need to taunt you," she said, focusing on Snape once more. "It would be much safer to keep the element of surprise. So, is he that kind of criminal who needs to boast and unconsciously wishes to be caught?" Snape shook his head and she finished with what was certainly a pout, "...Or there is something you're not telling me, and I want to know what it is!"

Snape was instantly on the defensive, even though could not help admiring her quick mind. "Is it not enough that I betrayed everything Corban believed in? It's reason enough, wouldn't you say?"

"Please!" She snorted. "There are much faster and easier ways to 'make you pay', as he phrased it, and he didn't need to specify that it would be a 'pleasure' for him... You call him Corban. I take it you were friends, or at least there is a reason he is taking your actions in the war personally. What is it you're not telling me…? And they know what," she said, pointing an accusatory finger at her friends, "because they've been avoiding to look me in the eyes since we started."

Snape leaned back against his armchair, closed his eyes and sighed tiredly. "Of course," he said with grudging approval, "I should have known you'd piece half the tale by yourself."

A muffled sound, like a repressed chuckle, made him glare at Weasley with a clear if mute promise of retribution. The redhead looked down, but too late to hide a smile. A swift glance at Harry confirmed he was doing the same.

Well, best to rip the plaster off.

"If you must know," he told Hermione bluntly, "Yaxley fancied me and convinced himself after Dumbledore's death that we would become a power couple amongst the Death Eaters."

She made an odd sort of noise, gawked at Snape, whose wooden face of course betrayed nothing, then at the boys – but she still failed to catch either Harry's or Ron's eyes because now they were looking at their shoes. Right, confirmation enough.

She swallowed several times, took a deep breath and asked cautiously, "And how… How did you disabuse him?"

Snape's nerves, already frayed, threatened to snap. He clenched his jaws and glowered at Hermione, effectively silencing her. "I didn't. When someone like him is 'willing' to 'overlook' your blood status, he assumes that you are flattered, whatever you may say."

"But surely..."

"There was nothing to do," he said with icy finality, "Short of telling him that he could not have made me any offer that would have tempted me enough to accept it… And I couldn't afford to offend him and make another enemy at the time." He pursed his lips at her stricken face.

That's done it! Angry with himself and with her, he spat, fully aiming to shock, "At first he assumed that I declined out of some misguided loyalty to the Malfoys. Then he decided that it was my inability to 'perform' that made me shy."

He sneered, almost happy to see her blush and shrink under his glare, "He offered to prove to me that he had enough stamina for the both of us. He even made a habit of waiting for me outside every meeting," he was practically yelling now, and viciously, "Even at the risk of incurring the wrath of the Dark Lord who hated being left waiting, just so that we would be seen arriving together and that he could boast..."

"Severus!" Ron's sharp warning stopped him in his track. "There's no need to tell us the details. Hermione never said that you encouraged him."

Snape sat back and crossed his arms in a surprisingly childish gesture, refusing to say another word. Not that any of the trio wished to hear anything more.

Harry was just as crimson as Hermione. Snape's anger reminded him of the only interrogation session he would have been grateful to foist on someone else. In that session, he made Snape tell him what he knew of Voldemort's rape policy and about the neutering potion he had to take when he returned to active spying to avoid being dragged in. Constanz had given him a very detailed report about the effects of the neutering potion Snape had been using, but he had to officially ask the party involved about every symptom, urge – or rather its absence – that he experienced during the years on the potion.

Ron was young enough that he felt his cheeks heat up, too, at Snape's casual mention of his impotence and Yaxley's advances, but he was also worried about the effect Snape's tale might have on Hermione. Would it revive old fears or put her off men? And would Snape's hurt pride destroy any progress they had made towards each other?

A covert glance at Hermione proved she was miffed, which in his opinion was the lesser evil. At some point, she would cool down, as she always did. It would be a different matter if she had crawled back into her shell.

Snape, who was watching her closely but unobtrusively, could not decide if she was peeved about Yaxley's blood prejudice, his own failure to turn him down or his ruddy temper and lack of tact.

"Corban… Cormac… There must be something wrong with these names," she muttered cryptically.

He was close enough to hear but could not make sense of it. Instead, he forced himself to ask, "How many Death Eaters are really missing, Potter? I hope you can tell me now."

It always hurt a little when Severus regressed to calling him Potter, but Harry thought that if that was the only manifestation of his worry and embarrassment, they would be lucky.

Reluctantly, he recited, "Yaxley, of course, but there is also Dolohov, Rowle, Travers, Jugson..."

With each name, Snape's brow darkened a little more and the line of his lips grew whiter and thinner. When Harry did not name them along those who volunteered to take poison to avoid a life sentence in Azkaban, he had made his own list but he had also hoped until now to be wrong. Hermione inhaled sharply next to him, which made it clear this was news to her.

"...Nott, Mulciber and Alecto Carrow."

"Alecto Carrow?" asked Hermione. "But... wasn't she tried along with her brother?!"

Ron cleared his throat. "She was tried and condemned in absentia. People assumed she was in Azkaban because her sentence was announced together with her brother's but when they were arrested, he created a diversion to enable her escape. That's when Dolohov, Jugson and Travers managed to flee, too. The official press release was just ambiguous enough to avoid frightening people by letting them know how many high-ranking Death Eaters are on the run."

Hermione crossed her arms and snorted. "Typical."

"The Brotherhood had quite a number of safe houses," interrupted Snape. "Don't tell me they weren't investigated. I passed on a full, up-to-date list to Lupin no more than a fortnight before the Battle of Hogwarts, with all the passwords."

"Of course, they were," answered Harry, sounding frustrated. "But with everything in disarray after the battle, there were delays for many of the safe houses abroad."

Unwilling to look at Snape's angry face, Harry turned to Hermione. "The Aurory caught most of the lower ranking Death Eaters who knew of only one or two safe houses in the country. They got Selwyn, who was too hurt to travel farther and Crabbe, who didn't want to leave the country without knowing if Vincent was dead or alive. But you know how it is when you need an international search warrant..."

"I can imagine the excuses and delays," Snape cut in again. "It's what enabled the creation of safe houses in countries sympathetic to the Death Eaters cause to begin with."

"Well, Kingsley had to deal with that… And with the fact that many countries behaved cautiously before officially recognizing his legitimacy as Interim Minister."

"Politics!" exclaimed Snape and Hermione at the same time. They locked eyes, shared small smiles and shrugged at each other almost apologetically.

Ron felt like the temperature in the room was returning to normal and sighed inwardly in relief. He had no wish to be caught in a crossfire between those two.

The alarm clock on the mantel buzzed, reminding them that it was football time.

Ron beat Harry to the zapper, while Snape stood up with Hermione. She wished the boys a good evening but they merely waved at her. Snape swiftly checked on the boys, making sure they only watched the screen. He caught her wrist to stop her from grabbing the Floo powder but let go at once. He leant to speak softly in her ear, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to offend you."

She froze. There was an interminable five seconds gap before she could raise her eyes to his face. She hoped he could not hear the beating of her heart, because she could. "I could say the same," she managed to say. "I know how difficult it can be to talk about a situation you never wanted but had to put up with."

And she was gone. He called Moppy, and trays immediately appeared on the coffee table. He turned his armchair for a better view and settled in.

The teams were full of fighting spirit for their final match of 1999. The game was hotly contested and exciting but, even with ManU's hard-fought win 3-2 over Chelsea, neither Snape nor the boys felt much like celebrating in the end. They went to bed almost immediately after the final whistle.

§§§

After all the emotions of the previous days, Harry hesitated to visit Mrs Hathaway but another glance at Snape's tight lips and obstinately knitted brow helped him decide that a few hours away from the brooding wizard could be a good thing. Ron had been rolling his eyes at him and making shooing motions towards the door for quite some time, so he finally announced that he was leaving – but not without Snape giving him another scowl.

His misgivings disappeared when the old lady greeted him in her sitting room. The coffee table was laden with a tea tray, cakes and a pile of photo albums.

Snape had deigned to disclose that Helen Hathaway had been the neighbourhood's social worker for years, privy to everybody's secrets, whether they needed her or not. She knew everyone, even now, and had a lot of friends.

She had been rather close to Harry's grandparents and had been instrumental in their decision to stay in Spinner's End and involve themselves in the community. The Evanses were very much out of place when they arrived because they did not know what they signed up for. The house was simply the only one immediately available on the list the company gave them when Harry's grandfather was sent to Manchester – they discovered why pretty quickly. Other people would have fled at the first opportunity, but not them. Not after they met Helen Hathaway, her husband who was a town councillor at the time, the pastor and his wife, who also happened to be Petunia's schoolmistress.

Mrs Hathaway had a lot of photographs to show Harry, just as she promised: drinks or dinner in the garden with his grandparents, parish activities, since his grandmother had been very active there and always brought along Petunia and Lily, and later on Severus Snape, too, who was always in Lily's tow.

"Oh, I knew every one of Little Tuney's tricks." Mrs Hathaway chuckled. Harry nearly choked on his tea at hearing anyone call his formidable aunt Little Tuney. Then he reflected that Mrs Hathaway was certainly no ordinary woman if she could call Snape 'Our Russ' to his face and survive.

"Your grandparents, too, of course, so none of us believed her when she said she had just 'forgotten' to leave a registration form at the Snapes. She would have been more convincing if she had told us that she gave it to Eileen. The poor woman would surely have put it in a corner and forget everything about it… But Margaret didn't blame Tuney for her little lie, because the man could be rather intimidating, even for an adult." She grinned impishly. "She went herself and shamed Tobias Snape into signing his consent. I wish I had been there to watch! When she had her mind set on something, nobody could resist your grandmother. After that, there was no question ever about Russ participating in the Sunday school or afterschool activities."

Next, Mrs Hathaway showed him the albums full of pictures of children at some kind of sports or cultural activities. His mother was quite the popular girl, while his aunt assisted the adults – a sure way to feel important and to avoid mingling too much with her peers from Spinner's End.

As they were growing up, Snape began to appear in a growing number of photos, too.. He was always right beside Lily, and Harry was surprised to see that not only was he poorly clothed but much smaller than Lily and most other children – in fact, he was practically as scrawny as Harry had been before Hogwarts – until he suddenly seemed to sprout to his adult height in a matter of months.

By then, he and Lily were generally holding hands or had their arms around each other's waists. He was even smiling in three photos, and openly laughing in one, where Lily was performing some wild dance with another girl.

"They were always together,"confirmed Mrs Hathaway. "And best friends, too, of course,"she said with an emphasis that made Harry understand the local meaning of the expression at last.

"They were barely old enough to be," she sighed, "but that's the way it is in Spinner's End. They didn't know any better. None of those young people did. They couldn't. Not here, not when there was nothing to do all day but hang out together and listen to the elder teens bragging."

She paused, looking sad and angry at the same. "We did not have the means to keep them busy enough to stay out of mischief… And in the end, even your grandmother, with all her principles, could not stop her girls once they wanted to be like everyone else and taste the so-called freedom."

She seemed to speak to herself as she mumbled in her teacup, "Many people blamed me, but I never had the heart to refuse condoms to the boys. They were nowhere near adults when they came and pleaded with me… But they would have done it anyway, and they at least tried to be responsible," she said, suddenly looking up and straight into Harry's eyes, almost accusingly. He helped himself to another buttered slice of nut bread and munched on it conscientiously.

"I took the girls to the family planing clinic as soon as possible, of course, but for 'emergencies' the doctors there left me a stock of supplies because there was nothing else to do," she explained, with a fatalistic shrug. "I've seen and tried to help too many girls in an 'interesting condition' to care about what people said… Even the pastor or a good friend like Margaret."

"Are you telling me that my mother…?"

"Not your mother, no. She and Russ were at least careful. Or lucky. When I asked, Lily always assured me that she had all she needed from their school infirmary. I had a hard time believing her the first time she told me, but as nothing happened and she never needed help going to the planning clinic behind her mother's back, I suppose that was true."

Harry filled in the missing dots and deduced that Snape must have brewed the needed potions. He had a hard time imagining Madam Pomfrey handing out contraceptives to the female students. (Ginny or Hermione would know, but he certainly would not ask.)

"And Lily at least did not need maternity benefits to be able to leave her parents."

The former social worker knew everything about the disillusionment and bitterness of teenagers who thought they had no future when they watched their parents without jobs, money or hope. Some of it was difficult to hear, because it was his mother and Severus, but all these revelations about the 1970s and the life in a working class suburb, heavily hit by the economic crisis, kept Harry glued to his seat. In all the years he had spent at Privet Drive, he had never learned even a fraction of this, since his aunt never spoke of her past… And he was beginning to understand why.

There was no way somebody as class-conscious as Uncle Vernon would have married her if he had known that she was not exactly leading the sheltered, middle-class existence her family background as the daughter of a telecom engineer suggested. Aunt Marge already thought him rather daring for marrying his secretary and that the least said about it, the better.

Harry also concluded that his mother may not have been so different from her sister, after all. He had always thought Aunt Petunia must have married Vernon Dursley for his position and the comfortable life he offered her. He wondered whether James Potter's fortune was the decisive factor for his mother's change of heart about the boy she used to call a toe rag, since she was just as eager to leave Spinner's End as her sister.

Snape himself had hinted several times that being magical was their only chance to escape the lack of prospects and social stigma of growing up in Spinner's End and that they would have done anything to leave for good… Even marrying a man you used to loathe, or becoming a Death Eater, it seemed.

It was a very sobering and rather bitter thought that his parents as individuals gave him nothing to be specially proud of, except their deaths, particularly since he had also come to wonder what his life would have been like if Severus had been his father.

He could well have been. Snape had as good as told him that he had been his mother's boyfriend, and Mrs Hathaway offered him even more evidence and the assurance that everybody in the neighbourhood expected Russ Snape and Lily Evans to end up together.

The young boy stayed with the Evanses more often than with his own parents, and no one could blame him for it. By the time the Evanses moved to Cokeworth, Eileen and Tobias Snape were both so broken that their son wandered everywhere after school rather than coming home.

He was not the only one, but all the other boys in the same situation that Mrs Hathaway used to know turned out rather badly. It was a pity, really. Such a gifted, proud man Tobias Snape had been… And so happy when he had brought back home his highbred bride. Of course, Eileen had a hard time adjusting to Spinner's End, even if it had still been rather respectable before the mill closed down… Love Ever After can be difficult to live on a craftsman's income for a young woman who had obviously been used to being served, not to keeping house herself.

"What did she look like? She was no beauty, of course, but there was an intensity in her eyes, a sort of... passion. You always felt like they were as deep as wells and you could fall into them and drown there. Tobias certainly did!" She laughed rather baldly. "And when she smiled, she was just like Russ, or rather he's just like her. He's a different person entirely when he smiles, isn't he?"

Mrs Hathaway was lost in her reminiscences, and did not notice that Harry did not reply. In fact, he did not know how to tell her that he had never seen Severus Snape smile more than a thin, sad or sarcastic half-smile, or that he had never heard him laugh happily until he saw him joke with Linda and Shahid the day before Christmas.

"He's very like his mother… Apart from the nose, of course." This was said kindly, for once – Harry could not help noticing with a twinge of shame. "...That he unfortunately took from Tobias's side, along with his height… And his intelligence."

Why, yes, Tobias Snape was very clever. He may have been working class and could not go higher than his apprenticeship because of the war. (Harry startled and had to remind himself that she was speaking of World War 2, not of Grindelwald.) She insisted that Tobias had ability and proved that he could be his own boss and lead teams. He was very much sought after professionally. In fact, it was not the lack of income that turned Severus into a neglected child, but it being squandered on alcohol and gambling, when Tobias started haunting pubs more often than he was home.

Harry was surprised when Helen Hathaway, who had been sorting through the many boxes for quite some time, triumphally produced several photographs of Eileen and Tobias Snape socializing with their neighbours. They were young, enthusiastic and nothing like he had imagined based on Snape's memories. Severus himself was in his proud father's arms, sporting a great if only partially toothy smile.

He had visibly been a happy baby, with parents who doted on him… But he was still a toddler when Eileen miscarried and drifted into chronic depression.

"Of course," commented Mrs Hathaway, "people did not know anything about 'depression' back then, but it was just that!"

Harry nodded at regular intervals because it was expected of him, but thankfully she did not need more to tell her tales. He told himself that he was happy to just listen, look at the photos and enjoy the walnut bread and the plum cake. He tried not to dwell on the fact that he would probably spend days, if not nights, pondering about all these revelations and wondering what he could keep to himself and what he had to report as evidence for Snape's trial.

"It didn't help that Tobias had to leave her for days. With the mill closing down, there was not much building or renovation work to find around Cokeworth." She shook her head, still regretful about those lives turning so sour. "She really tried to grin and bear it, for Russ's sake, but she tended to relapse regularly, particularly around family occasions like Christmas or Russ's birthday. She would write to her parents and send them photographs of her son that she asked me to take for her."

She chuckled sadly. "She never gave us more than a few hints, but we understood that her parents were rich and very full of themselves. It is not exactly surprising that they never answered, but it would always depress her even further. Most of her rows with Tobias, back then, were about that. It was not just a question of pride for him. What he could not understand was that she still tortured herself by looking for the approval of the 'pretentious arseholes who never cared for her', as he put it."

Harry could not help smiling. Severus Snape had a much better education than his father but he could see where his brutal candidness came from.

"And then, not long after Russ started school, he apparently did something that made her very happy. Probably some intelligence tests because she was insufferably proud. Tobias seemed to be proud, too, but also a little in awe, as if he didn't know how to deal with it." Mrs Hathaway bent forward, adding in the tone of confidence, "She said that 'now' her parents would be happy to pay for his education – probably at one of their posh public schools. You can imagine that Tobias was not happy about that. He declared several times that he was capable of giving his own son proper education, and that Russ did not need help from the people who would always look down on them."

She poured herself another cup of tea and insisted that Harry take another slice of plum cake. He complied just to please her. All this intimate drama left him with his stomach in knots.

"But her parents never relented. They wrote back…" She was fuming. "They may have been important people, but I can tell you, if I had ever met them, I would have given them a piece of my mind! I wasn't the only one. Tobias was furious, too, because their answer was like a death blow for Eileen."

Harry waited with bated breath, but as Mrs Hathaway vituperated against the cold-hearted people who did not deserve to have children, he interrupted her a little impatiently. "Do you know what they actually wrote?"

"Not much but it was so heartless, I'll never forget it. It began with 'We can't have a grandson, since we have no daughter' and it went on with nice things like 'do not bother us any more… We have nothing in common… You chose to debase yourself in mud, so you will have to live with it'… I'm telling you, what kind of lowlife would write something like that to their own child?!" She shook her head in angry disbelief.

"All this was to explain how Eileen and Tobias ended up in the office of that psychiatrist in Manchester. He persuaded them to give those drugs a try. The antidepressants – they seemed miraculous at the time." She snorted. "It was a disaster. Eileen literally switched off. There is no other word."

It was not difficult for Harry to guess that the Muggle antidepressant had seriously interfered with Eileen Snape's magical core.

After that, Mrs Hathaway explained, even Tobias gave up. It is then that he took to spending more and more time in the pubs to avoid his home, and to fighting when people told him it served him right for marrying above his station. And then, when he went home at last, he would lash out at Eileen, and much too often, at their little Russ, too.

Mrs Hathaway sighed repeatedly as she recounted the sad tale.

Fortunately, Russ, and Lily, of course, were different. "But not in a bad way," the old lady hastened to say, as if Harry would take offence. It was difficult to explain – at this, Harry managed to look clueless. They were both very clever. Always playing or studying together, probably because they had so much in common. So, nobody was really surprised when it transpired that they were both some kind of gifted children and would get a grant to study in a special boarding school.

They came back only on holidays, but it was obvious that the school was good for them. Severus, in particular, was much healthier and managed to escape the consequences of his stunted growth as a child. Even the pediatrician at the health centre was surprised when he surpassed all the projections of his growth chart and ended up as tall as his father.

Mrs Hathaway confirmed Snape's description of his mother's death. The police wrote it down as an accident, but it seemed that the entire neighbourhood knew that Tobias had finally managed to kill Eileen in one of his drunken bouts. He paid for it soon enough, drinking himself to death in a matter of months now that he had no one to return to.

When asked, Lily confirmed warily that Russ had left for good and moved South. It was obvious that she did not approve of whatever he was doing now.

"Still, it was a big surprise, I can tell you, when she turned up with another man. It was your Dad, of course, and they were such a beautiful couple!"

They married almost immediately after leaving school.

"The last time I saw Lily and Tuney was at your grandparents' funeral. You can't imagine how many people turned up. They were very well-liked, and the fact that they died together made it even more tragic for the community."

The only comfort was that their daughters were married off and visibly well-cared for by their husbands, even if it was obvious the two couples were not on speaking terms.

"It was years before I saw Russ again. One day, I was in my garden and I hear one of those big motorcycles turning the cornerYou know, the kind that always surprises you because they do not make as much noise as you'd expect, and very low-pitched, although they're so big?" Harry nodded, making a note about asking Snape at last about his bike.

"I didn't expect it to stop, but it did. It was him!" She shook her head with fond exasperation. "'Passing through Cokeworth', he said! On the way to Scotland." She smiled knowingly. "It was easy to work out that a woman was waiting there for him."

Harry thought she deluded herself and mistook Hogwarts for a woman.

"He never said, but we all thought he'd enlisted in the Army and gone overseas."

Harry hastened to take another slice of cake and eat a very big mouthful that would take forever to munch on, because Mrs Hathaway was leaning towards him with an alarming gleam in her eyes. She was clearly hoping he would tell her what he knew.

She smiled mischievously, and he blushed, his mouth full of cake, and feeling very transparent. She settled for the next best thing and proceeded to tell him the things she herself deduced, stopping after each morsel of information to see how he reacted.

"He told me he lived in Wiltshire..." Harry nodded, since Snape considered Malfoy Manor his true home.

"And you know it's a training area for the military." The nod was more reluctant, but it was true, after all. There was an Army training estate near Salisbury.

"And he has that presence, you see, and always so sober and disciplined, when he used to be so wild! I can tell you nobody would dare bother him or his house, even if they were desperate for money and knew it was empty."

Harry quickly finished his cake, refusing to comment on this last part, although it hit rather close to the truth. Before Scrimgeour reformed the Aurory, the Death Eaters had been the only kind of an almost disciplined armed force in Wizarding Britain. (The Order of the Phoenix did not bear thinking about. Courageous as they were, they had no formal training.)

He had to tell Mrs Hathaway at least a few things, though. She already knew he was a teacher in the very boarding school he had attended as a teenager, but she was surprised to learn that he had been Harry's teacher – his chemistry teacher. "In my last year, he even taught us self-defence," he said wickedly.

"Aha!" she triumphed, her guess that Russ must have been in the military before teaching confirmed.

When Harry told her that he had discovered only after leaving school that Snape and his mother had grown up together, she immediately supposed it was due to Tuney being jealous of Russ, because she must have recognised his name on Harry's school reports. Harry did not disabuse her. His relatives may have learned the hard way that you could not stop Hogwarts letters from being delivered, but they never bothered to read them.

He left feeling rather thoughtful, after having been handed the leftovers ("Russ was always fond of my nut bread") and told that he should come back whenever he wanted to talk about his mother, and with Russ, if possible.

Feeling bloated after too much cake and too many revelations, he walked a little without direction, losing his way several times before he could safely take his wand out and cast the Point Me spell.

The door opened as soon as he walked through the gate. "Where have you been?" asked Ron a little impatiently. He would not say it, but he grew quite anxious when Harry did not turn up on time. He knew that they had all been rather careless since Christmas. Orders were still orders, though, and the danger very real.

"Having tea with an old friend of my grandparents, and I will even be able to use some of what she told me for the trial."

Ron sighed, relieved. To cheer him up, Harry handed him a carefully wrapped towel, with the rest of the plum cake and the nut bread.

"The nut bread is for Severus, but you can have the cake."

TBC