"Ready?"

Potter let down his glass of water and nodded.

"Focus… Legilimens!"

"You should meet him," said Hermione... Cold air pierced his skin as the Dementors reached him… Dumbledore smiled at him kindly…

Severus stopped and Potter dropped on his knees, his hands buried in his hair.

"You lost control," Severus said.

"I lost control," Potter repeated, angrily looking up from the floor. "I've been succeeding at it for the past two hours and you haven't made a single remark, but now that I'm dizzy I lost control."

"I can lie to you if you want me to," Severus said as he dropped on the couch. "But it wouldn't do any good to you. Your self-esteem would only grow worse." Potter's self-esteem couldn't possibly fall lower. But it was not Severus' business to know that.

Or to worry about it.

Still on the floor, Potter rested his back against the couch and nudged Severus' knee. "Fuck off."

Ah. "And that would be –"

"That would be none of Gryffindor points taken, because you're not supposed to be with a student after midnight and it'd be suspicious."

When had Potter become so cheeky? Perhaps a spanking was necessary after all. He shrugged off the terrifying thought and drank the rest of Potter's abandoned water. "Do try and remind yourself tomorrow morning what you've just said. I'll take these points the moment I'll see you."

Potter let a laughter escape between his panting. His shirt was damp. "You think I'm getting better?"

He knew he was. He was just fishing for compliments. "Your little trick seems to be working," he admitted. Utterly unsatisfied for having to do so. Silently, Severus watched the fire crackling in the dim light of the room. He needed a bath. And privacy.

"Who taught you Legilimency?"

The people he hated. The interaction between them and him on a daily basis and the need to protect himself from the stupidity of the world. Dumbledore's request to know everything and the Dark Lord's madness to have it all. "I'm self-taught."

Potter's head turned and his eyes looked at him quizzically. "Really?"

"I had to. And you have to too."

"You think Dumbledore doesn't know? That I come here?" He brought the hem of his shirt up and wiped his jaw. Facial hair was not something Potter had a few months ago. A fade line was now beginning to take shape.

"He knows," Severus assumed. "He loves the games people think they play behind his back. Don't fool yourself by thinking you're getting away. He's not the Headmaster only for the sake of offering lemon drops."

Potter's head dropped on Severus' knee and Severus had to keep himself from flinching. Loath though he was to admit it, it became harder and harder to protest against every line Potter was crossing.

He should have stopped this long ago. And he hadn't. Crimes already done could only be accepted.

"When are we going to practice again?"

For there was not a crime, there was not a dodge, there was not a trick, there was not a swindle, there was not a vice which did not live by secrecy. Potter was all of that. He considered the question as Potter moved even closer until his body was pressed against his leg. He certainly didn't think the boy needed a daily practice. Once a week was the best they could afford in secrecy.

Once again, he cursed himself for not informing Dumbledore since they began. It would be worse if he did now. "Let's just be pleased that you succeeded today," he said. A sixteen year old boy should think of more insignificant things than sealing his mind. What did other boys his age think?

Fucking, Severus supposed, although his own adolescence was too distant to be sure, and he certainly was not the average role model of how teenagers behaved.

On second thought, Potter had to be thinking of fucking as well.

Not when he was in this room, hopefully. If Merlin was merciful enough.

An optimistic voice echoed inside his mind that Potter had already forgotten the summer madness and had moved on. The head still resting on his knee told him otherwise.

The fact that his pillow smelled like him was another reminder of the man he once was and the depraved beast he had now become.

The years of bitterness and hatred told him that if he wanted to get rid of something he could do it easily. If Potter was still clinging to his life, it was because Severus had allowed it to happen.

I don't want this.

He jerked his knee as though shooing away an annoying fly. "Go." Potter stretched and stood.

"You sure?"

Severus glared at Potter, feeling lost.

Potter chuckled and shook his head. "Never mind. 'Night, sir."

It had become a fixed attitude. A second nature, one would assume. Potter was finding his way to his chambers more and more often. There were no excuses or apologies. He'd knock on the door and Severus would open to meet thin air and feel the swift of fabric sliding past him and into his room.

The fabric of a cloak that once belonged to James Potter. James Potter, whose son was happily inviting himself over into his private space whenever he could. Controversies didn't exist. Harry Potter had been the chosen one to mercilessly skin Severus from his right mind.

He surrendered, because fighting would only make this harder. He held the door open, again and again, waiting for the boy to throw off his cloak and give him a cheeky smile. Or a sad glare. Or both. Legilimency, he told himself strictly, was the reason the boy was here. The reason Potter's scent was rubbing off on his carpet and his couch and his own clothes. It took a lifetime to perfect his attitude towards the evil, and evil had formed itself around him so slowly he had barely noticed it until he could breathe no more. Interesting how this particular evil looked nothing like the evil he'd known and fought and too long ago had adored. This was new, painfully new to him, and it came with the feel of soft grass and the warmth of the sun over his face and heart. It came with the scent he had chosen to name "Harry", although it would be wiser to name it danger, or sadness, or even loneliness or pitiful abjection.

He accepted all of it, and watched it grow around his lungs like a climbing plant with sharp spikes and poisonous roots. His hate was keeping him alive.

It had to be hate.

"I need another parchment."

"You've filled the first one?"

"No. I'm going to rewrite it."

"First drawer on the desk."

Potter nodded and got up from the couch. He returned with two spare parchments and began writing his essay. "It's going to be the best essay of the class, just so you know."

"Pity I'm not going to grade it, then." Severus turned a page on the book he was reading.

"No, I mean it. Just wait and you'll see."

"You may be the next Dostoyevsky for all I care. You should have turned it in twelve days ago. We are three chapters ahead of this already. I regard whatever you're writing there already invalid."

"Jerk."

"Watch your tongue."

"Yeah."

"Insolent whelp."

"I saw Hagrid today."

For although there were other adults in Hogwarts absolutely willing to shoulder the Golden Boy's angst for the time being, it was Severus who got lucky enough to actually have the honour. An unnecessary large amount of possible explanations came to his mind and he was momentarily stunned at the assumption that Hagrid's hideous beast collection was probably less dangerous for the boy than Severus.

"He said I'm never out of the castle anymore. And that he thought I was angry with him. Because I stopped visiting him."

"Fascinating," sneered Severus.

There was a reason he disliked adolescents. There were full of misleading hormones, false assumptions, and wrong decisions.

Are your decisions better?

They most likely were.

He had made up for his errors. Most of them. There were some things he could not fix, and only now he realised that they could be left behind instead. He was surprised at how distant Lily's memory had become. Potter was making him forget.

Her son.

Lily's boy.

The creature born from her and his most hateful, worthless enemy. The proof that James had touched and kissed her and made love to her. The proof that James had managed to steal away from him the only person in the world that didn't think low of him.

Welcome to the wonderful world of jealousy, he thought. For the price of admission, you get a splitting headache, a nearly irresistible urge to commit murder, and an inferiority complex.

He fixed his eyes on Potter who was furrowing his brows as he was writing his essay, and as hard as Severus tried to see Lily or James sitting there, in the far end of the couch, for once, he couldn't. The pleasure of seeing Lily in those eyes and James in the horrid behaviour and cheek, the pleasure of remembering through Harry Potter had been taken from him, because there were now new things to remember. It felt like losing interest in older memories meant losing the memories themselves, as if the things he'd think of Potter in the past were less real and important.

"Fuck."

Severus turned his head to witness the bottle of blank ink spilling itself on the cushions of his couch. He gave Potter a look that hopefully promised death and stood. "Go on, Potter, destroy everything while you take advantage of my generosity, I don't mind!"

"I know you don't," Potter said as he waved his wand over the mess. Severus rolled his eyes. "Do you even know how you were looking at me? You've been frowning and glaring at me for the best part of the last hour. It's not my fault I got distracted." He grinned.

And was denied an answer nevertheless.

Severus sat back down and decided that the moment his eyes would leave his book he'd burn them. He read a page. The contents of which had completely escaped him. Read it again. He felt Potter's eyes boring into him with intense.

"What is it?" he snapped.

Potter shook his head. "Nothing you'd like to hear."

"Then finish your work and get lost. It's late."

"It's been later."

Yes. Do mock me. I deserve all of it.

Therein lays the problem.

"There is that guy," Harry started. "Kevin Entwhistle. Do you know him?"

Snape waved his wand and two glasses of water landed on the small table in front of the couch. "What about him?"

Harry threw his cloak aside and pulled off his sweater. "What do you know about him?"

Snape shoot him a quizzical look. "What do you want to know about him?"

"I've heard he's gay."

Snape raised his brow. "And you somehow assumed that I might be able to confirm that." Harry opened his mouth to respond but closed it again as Snape stepped closer. "You might be surprised, but I do not gain any satisfaction by discussing sexuality issues with my students. More specifically, I resent it."

Harry could tell his cheeks were flushing red and he dropped his gaze. "Right. Shall we start?"

"You came earlier. Sit down and wait." Harry took out a random schoolbook and waited as Snape went over some exam papers. After a few minutes, silence annoyed him.

"You think I should talk to him? I know you don't care and I'm irritating you and stuff, but what's your opinion? What if he isn't gay after all? I'd look stupid."

"My opinion is," said Snape without looking up, "that it would be unprofessional of me to have this conversation. Bother someone else with your affairs."

Not likely. There was a certain amount of embarrassment he could endure yearly, and this year's peak was already sadly close. Better embarrass himself where he was accustomed to being humiliated. "He doesn't even play Quidditch. I can't just go and bother him."

"You can, just like you bother me constantly."

Harry rolled his eyes. "It's not the same."

Snape didn't say anything for a few moments. Then, he carefully released his breath. "And why is that?"

"I feel more comfortable around you." The coy smile he offered was ignored.

Snape frowned. "Your comfort equals my disquiet, I think," Snape said. His voice was suddenly a bit hoarse. You're lying.

"It's only with you that I feel myself." The heaviness of the truth he blurted out seemed to click something inside him; unlocking a fear of judgment he was not aware of feeling; a mark of guilt and a burden of insecurity that were calming down only when he knew he'd see Snape.

"Spare me the sentimentalism or I might vomit," Snape spat. "You are being attached to whomever you can. Hogwarts has seen to it, no one stays lonely for a long time in here." Well. As close to a thank you as he could get.

Harry knew what Snape was talking about. He wasn't sure if it was the castle that was doing it, or if it had nothing to do with magic, but it seemed that there was a place for everyone and that sooner or later everybody fit. Snape had once believed that his place was with the Death Eaters. Harry briefly wondered if things would have occurred differently if Snape had been sorted in another house. It occurred to him that at some point of his life, Snape had to be proud of being a Death Eater.

He watched the pale fingers as they moved over the papers. The quill elegantly clutched between them. The wrist covered with the long sleeve of the coat. Had he ever killed? Threatened? He unclenched his teeth and relaxed. He wouldn't torture himself over this.

He considered Hermione's suggestion and felt rather relieved he hadn't accepted it. "Perhaps Kevin isn't gay. Besides, I don't think I like blonds."

"Touché. Now let me concentrate."

Harry snorted as he shook his head.

He considered practicing Quidditch alone right after, but the sun was still on the sky and Harry had trouble coming all the way down here without sweating. It was a particular hot day for that early in the year. The hearth was unlit for the first time since the beginning of the year, and even Snape had unbuttoned the first button of his coat. It would feel nice to ride his broom again without the pressure of the team.

He leaned over Snape's lap to take his glass. Snape grunted and visibly held his breath until Harry sat back on his seat. It occurred to Harry that these moments were what was keeping him happy for the rest of the day. And the night.

"Are you clearing your mind?" asked Snape cautiously.

"I was actually thinking that this can't be replaced."

Snape blinked. "This?"

"This." Harry waved his hand between them. "I don't care to date someone. This is enough."

And now Snape's eyes were darting in panic between his own hands. Harry wondered if he had gone too far.

"Give me a minute to clear my mind."

"You have it." Snape cleared his throat and took out his wand.