April 29th, 1999.

He had failed.

'You what?'

With the way Snape was staring at him, you would have thought Harry had just confessed to murder.

'Kindly explain to me how one fails their Apparition Exam after spending two years illegally apparating up and down the country? No, do explain, Potter, because I find this genuinely impressive.'

Harry wished he could explain. His brain was a live of static. He had splinched, leaving behind a good chunk of the skin over his right shoulder blade, and he hadn't even realised until someone gasped, and the hand he'd used to feel at the wetness down his back had come away red.

'I've asked you a question, Potter.'

Another Harry could have made it all into one big joke, he thought. He would have laughed as he recounted the story in Snape's kitchen, because of course he'd never splinched himself apparating before, but he tried it once during the exam and immediately screwed up. 'Clearly I am meant for a life of crime,' he'd have told Snape, and then he would have said he'd signed up for a retake soon, and then Floo-called Ron to joke about how much the skin off the Chosen One's back would go for on the black market.

'Gee, thanks,' he said instead through clenched teeth. He'd pushed his hands into his pockets to hide their tremble. 'What happened, Harry? Did you splinch anything, Harry? That sucks, Harry, I'm sure you can get it right next time—'

'I was sure you could do it the first time,' Snape echoed his mocking tone. 'Excuse me, I was under the impression I was dealing with an adult wizard long-experienced in the delicate arts of apparition and exam-taking, not a five-year-old. Were the examiners too strict, Harry? Were the other children mean? Do you need a nap to recover?'

'Why do you have to be such a dick?' Harry yelled, because Snape had it right, actually: the other students had stared at him, and the examiners had stared, and Ron and Hermione and Snape and everyone expected Harry to pass with flying colours, and yeah, he could go in for a nap right about now, since he'd spent much of last night battling insomnia.

'You do not swear at me, Potter. That is your first and final warning, is that clear?'

'Crystal.' Harry pushed his way to the entry hall and yanked open the closet door. The ironing board inside shifted and screeched against the wall.

Because he didn't understand the concept of reading the bloody room, Snape had followed, and he was still talking. 'When is your retake?'

'Wait, let me think,' he shoved the board away until he managed to find grip on the handle of his broom. 'I think it was—right, none of your fucking business. I'm going flying. Maybe you can try to be less of an arsehole when I get back, though I doubt you'll manage it.'

Snape slammed the closet door shut.

'Thank you,' Harry said courteously. He winced as the weight of the broom pulled on his back, where the wound ached steadily despite the Dittany, like an itch he couldn't scratch. If he flew high enough, maybe he could freeze the feeling away.

'You are one step away, Potter—'

'What, from getting another warning? I thought you'd given me the final one?'

Snape's fingers dug into his arm. If he wasn't feeling so miserable, he might have appreciated the physicality of it: Snape was usually too much of a coward to get anywhere near him when they argued, lest he frighten the poor trauma victim. Though Harry hadn't ever pushed him quite as hard, he supposed. Well, good. Snape was bloody hopeless at the careful and considerate act, and it was satisfying to force him into dropping the façade.

'It will be storming later tonight,' Snape managed without shouting, which chipped away some at Harry's satisfaction.

'The instrumental words being later tonight.'

'I will also remind you that you're making dinner this evening.'

Harry's blood boiled. He never forgot dinner when it was his turn. He never forgot lunch on the rare days Snape allowed him to touch his precious non-stick pan. He no longer even forgot Snape's milk, for Christ's sake's.

'I'll be back in time to make you your bloody dinner, alright?'

Snape released him with more force than necessary, almost like he was suddenly repelled by his mere proximity. 'Fine, go,' he said darkly. 'Hopefully you'll not have forgotten how to fly, too.'

Harry barged out the door, smacked it closed behind him, cast a quick disillusionment charm, heard Snape turn the lock as he mounted his broom—and then he was off.

He'd been sure he'd start crying the moment his feet left the ground, but his eyes stayed resolutely dry. He flew over cliffs, unable to think of a single thing, only half-aware where he was going. The crags beneath him were painted with heather and young grass in patterns that seemed uncanny to him, unreal, like he was in a dream he couldn't wake up from.

He took a sharp turn and flew out onto the open sea.

Soon, the shore was a thinning line drawn in charcoal between two planes of blue, and the wind on his reddened skin was beginning to burn. He imagined all the things he could have said to Snape. Hey, did your father start drinking before or after he first saw your ugly face? Do you have any tips on how to get better at hurting anyone remotely close to you, or is that a skill you need to be born with? What does it feel like, to have killed the only two people who might have ever loved you?

Once he'd run out of scenarios, he felt sick. If Snape knew even a fraction of the abject horridness that Harry's brain came up with, he would sever all ties and likely go straight into witness protection, and Harry wouldn't blame him. If any of his friends knew of the things that went through his head, they would do the same.

He had to stop. But the more he tried to stopper the horror, the more it pushed at the edges of what little space he'd allowed it, until it spilled over uncontrollably, inescapable.

He angled his broom north. Time swept by him like the sea, dark and unmeasurable. Clasped on the handle of his broomstick, his hands were frozen still: he wasn't sure he would be able to move them if he'd tried. He couldn't have said how far out he'd flown, but the air tasted different, and the sky was overcast with brilliant clouds, the glow from their linings blinding.

If he kept going, he would eventually get to the North Pole. He wondered if he'd starve before he reached it; he had no real sense of geographic distance. Maybe it didn't matter. Surely, he'd fall from his broom from sheer exhaustion long before that.

He understood that he should be turning back by now. He just couldn't make himself stop.

Time and space sped past him. Harry didn't think about either. He flew.

And then, in the corner of his eye, he saw it. First, a crease in the black water, building and cresting. Then, a solid mass, glistening in the setting sun, larger than anything he'd seen in his life, like a dark cloud once drowned, rising from the depths.

The whale spouted a column of water. It caught the sun in its rainbow mist.

Harry laughed breathlessly, drawn to a halt mere feet above the apparition, too surprised with the sheer wonder he felt to put words to it.

Marnie had said he would never see one in spring. Well, Marnie had another thing coming. Was it too late to go and tell her now?

He glanced at his watch and immediately felt lightheaded with panic.

His first instinct was to disbelieve. Surely it couldn't be this late, he couldn't have been out that long? But now that he took stock, he became aware of the fast-fading sun, the ache in his thighs and bum, the chapped lips frozen stiff on his tightly-pulled face. The world and Harry's watch were in agreement, and the night storm was brewing heady between him and the distant shore, hidden behind the thunderheads he was going to have to pierce.

It was safe to say that dinner would be late.

It was one thing, he thought to himself bitterly as he sped back the way he came, now trembling with cold, to be stupid enough to fail his Apparition exam; it was another to be so stupid as to turn full-on suicidal because of a failed Apparition exam. What had he been thinking? He was supposed to have left this whole mess behind. This wasn't him anymore. It should have taken a little more for him to unravel than one failing grade.

The wind rocked him in all directions. The first drops of rain pattered on his head, then ran down his back like a shiver. He thought about casting an Impermeable, but he feared that if he so much as loosened his hold on the Firebolt, he would be tossed into the depths.

Thunder growled overhead. At a particularly potent gust, Harry's hands on the wet wood slipped, and he jerked his broom off-balance as he threw himself forward to find purchase. One of his feet dipped below the surface of the rolling waters. The sea boiled with waves, coming up tall enough to lick at him, but he didn't like the idea of pulling up into clouds rumbling with unspent electricity. Shame burned in his stomach. This was all his fault, and entirely stupid, and all he wanted was to be back in Sandsend and buried under the duvet, but now he would miss dinner because he couldn't even do that one thing right.

The shore was sunk into darkness, the houses etched into one black mass. Why were none of the lights on? He had the insane thought some calamity had struck in his absence and upon his return, he would find only ruins and crumbling skeletons. He leaned forward on his broom, willing it to go faster, faster.

When his feet reconnected with the ground, he almost didn't believe it. He felt as if he'd been gone for years.

He ran up to the porch, spelled the door open, shook off the glamour and then shook off some of the fear, when he heard the crackling of the fire and caught the glimmer of candles suspended in the air. The power must have gone off, that was all.

The sense of relief was short-lived: heady scents of meat and cranberry drifted in from the darkened kitchen, and when lightning struck, he saw in the flash dirty dishes waiting in the sink. He'd missed dinner.

'Potter!'

Snape emerged from the stairway, looking haunted in the low glow that slipped through the crack to the sitting room. Thunder roared outside and Harry felt the floor shake under his feet. It was like a scene from a gothic novel, he thought, and any minute now, Snape would bare his teeth and demand a blood sacrifice.

'Do you have any idea what time it is? What in—' he seemed to struggle with his words, throat spasming around them in odd twitches of muscle. 'I have had it with you today, Potter. I don't know where you've got the idea that you can act however you please, with no thought to how your actions impact those around you, but—'

'That's not true,' Harry whispered.

'No? Did you not tell me you would be back well in time to avoid the storm? That you would make dinner tonight?'

Harry said nothing. Snape sighed, then stepped to the side to let him through onto the stairway.

'You're dripping water on the rug. Just go.'

When Harry didn't move, he gave him a push. 'Go upstairs, Potter.'

'I don't want to,' Harry said softly. He wanted to stay in the sitting room and have something to eat and warm up in front of the fireplace, and he wanted Snape to not sound like that anymore.

'Well, I don't want to look at your face anymore. I suppose we can't always get what we want.'

Harry went upstairs.

He peeled off his clothes, dark and heavy with water. He shivered in the shower, the hot stream bruising his skin, his eyes closed against the beat of anxiety as the pipes stirred to life. He brushed his teeth, combed the salt out of his hair, then wrapped himself in a blanket and collapsed face-forward onto the bed, heart racing in his ears and legs twitching with exhaustion. This shouldn't be such a big deal, he tried to tell himself. The storm would pass. Snape would get over it. Harry would apologise, and he wouldn't fly out into the night anymore, and he'd retake the stupid exam, and stop being cruel and thoughtless, and have a big breakfast in the morning.

This time, the tears came easily.

Rain continued to sheet outside as Harry's pillow swallowed more and more wet. He might as well have been back in Privet Drive, he thought. Achy, trembling with lingering cold after getting caught out by bad weather when working in the garden. Yelled at and told he wasn't a welcome sight downstairs. Trapped in his bedroom. Hungry.

'Potter, how long does it take to—' the voice sounded like it was coming from another place. Harry rolled onto his back, squinting through tears to make out the outline of the figure planted in the grey rectangle of the doorway. It seemed odd to him to see Snape there. He knew he was in Sandsend, not at the Dursleys – but just then, it felt wrong.

'What?' he asked wetly, then sat up and wiped at his cheeks, too tired for embarrassment.

A beat of silence. 'What's wrong?' Snape asked back.

'Nothing.' Harry watched his fingers splayed on the light sheets. They seemed off to him, too. 'I'm okay, it's just—it's been a rubbish day and the, uhm, the Dursleys used to send me to my room without food when—this isn't the same thing at all, I know, because then, well, I wouldn't eat for days sometimes and this is just one stupid meal, but it's just reminded me, that's all.'

He risked a glance up, but it was too dark to make out Snape's expression.

For a while, it was silent again. Harry shouldn't have mentioned the Dursleys. They didn't talk about the Dursleys.

'Come,' Snape said finally, reaching out with a hand. 'Come on, get up.'

His body moved of its own accord, numb and malleable. He let Snape lead him down the stairs, fingers dug into his shoulder right above where he'd splinched skin, the needling pain the only thing that felt real. Lightning struck again and Harry counted in his mind until thunder followed. The storm was drawing away.

Snape halted in front of the sitting room table, where a plate with rice and a spicy-smelling stew had been set out in the penumbra of the floating candle. Harry stared at it for a moment without comprehension, then his mind caught up to the facts. He instantly felt horrible.

'I expected you to come down after you've changed,' Snape was saying from just behind him, hand still on Harry's shoulder. 'I came up to see what was taking you so long.'

'Oh,' Harry said stupidly. 'Sorry.'

Snape turned him around and pulled him close.

Harry's breath stuttered out of him. Snape's sweater was worn and scratchy against his cheek. He twisted his hands in the fabric until it rode up Snape's back, revealing the old shirt underneath. 'Breathe,' a voice in his ear reminded. 'It's alright now. Breathe.'

He tried, though with Snape squeezing the life out of him, it wasn't easy. The man held on like he was tackling a rabid animal.

'It's alright,' Snape was murmuring again. He clearly didn't have the vocabulary for this. 'It's alright.'

'Yeah,' Harry mumbled into his shoulder. 'Just stop being angry with me for a minute.'

'It's a little hard to be angry with you when you tell me I'm giving you flashbacks to your abusive childhood.'

'They're not flashbacks—'

'Less talking, more breathing.'

'I'm breathing between the words.'

Snape shushed him. He must have decided Harry wasn't a flight risk, because his arms had fractionally loosened their hold.

'Do you want to try eating now?'

The question sounded tentative, like Snape was trying hard not to suggest which was the appropriate answer. Harry's chest no longer felt like it was crushing his heart, so he could probably manage it, but his stomach was in knots. 'I'm not really hungry,' he confessed.

'You're not—for heaven's sake,' Snape said, then laughed into Harry's hair.

It was a bizarre sound, uncouth and awkward and too normal. Harry realised he might have broken Snape. All these weeks of tension and the man had finally snapped; if he had to see Lockhart every time he came to visit Snape in St. Mungo's, he would really have to kill himself.

He smoothed out the fabric of Snape's sweater, then sniffed to try and avoid getting any more snot over him. A handkerchief was pushed into his face. Snape let him lean back a little to blow, but never lowered his arms.

Suddenly, Harry couldn't stand it, and not because it wasn't nice, to blow your nose half into someone's chest. He couldn't stand it because he'd needed this years ago.

He disentangled himself from the clutches, gaze kept low to hide this new emotion from Snape. He pulled the quilt off the back of the sofa and tucked it around himself as he sunk down by the fire, just like he'd wanted when he was out in the storm. The sense of peace he'd fantasised about didn't come.

Snape disappeared into the kitchen, then reappeared with a plate and a mug. It was one of the nice, top-shelf mugs. He must have been feeling guilty as hell.

'Toast,' he announced when setting them down on the coffee table.

'This is all your fault,' said Harry.

'You've made that quite clear.'

'No, I mean—I don't normally have freak-outs like that. Maybe we don't talk about it, but ever since I've told you, I can hear you constantly thinking about it. And that makes me think about it.'

Snape gave a nod. He'd sat down right next to where Harry had planted his feet. It felt awkwardly intentional.

'It is a challenging thing not to think about,' he said.

'Well, I was managing fine before you started to think about it.'

Harry tore off a piece of toast. He deliberated whether he would sick up if he had it. 'I feel like you're feeling guilty about it and I don't want you to feel guilty.'

'It would be virtually impossible for me not to,' Snape said simply. 'So I suggest you make your peace with it.'

'Well, I think it's stupid,' Harry drew his knees closer to his chest, bracing himself. 'And it makes me feel guilty that I'm making you feel guilty.'

'I hope you realise that is idiotic.'

'Yeah, but it doesn't make me not feel it.'

Snape sighed. The dark stain of tears on his sweater drew attention away from his face, making it difficult for Harry to focus. 'Obviously, none of this is your fault. I will not have you taking on the responsibility for helping me sort through my own feelings on the matter.'

'It's not your fault either! I will not have you taking on the responsibility for how my own family treated me—'

'That is not nearly the same thing.'

'And Dumbledore knew,' Harry bit his cheek. 'He knew I hated it there and wanted to stay in Hogwarts every summer. Remus knew that, too. Mrs Weasley sent me extra food because she knew they weren't feeding me. Mrs Figg knew—'

'And I blame all of them,' Snape hissed. 'But none of them treated you the way I treated you, either.'

Harry's stomach knotted more. There was a reason, of course, why they didn't talk about this. He set the toast aside. 'No. They didn't.'

Snape didn't look at him. Harry had some of his tea.

'Did he know about the cupboard?'

'Huh?'

'Albus.'

'Oh. I don't know.' Harry had sometimes wondered that himself, though he tried not to. 'I don't know if he knew the details.'

Snape jerked his head in a nod. His face was a grimace.

'I'm not sure which would be worse. That he knew everything, or that he didn't want to even try and find out. But it doesn't matter either way,' Harry breathed carefully around the concession. 'Because of the blood wards, he couldn't have done much anyway.'

'Blood wards,' Snape scoffed. 'He knew exactly what environment you were growing up in and he chose to let it happen, not because of the damn wards, but because it was convenient. If your guardians had any care for you at all, you wouldn't have been going after bloody stones and basilisks, or you'd be out of Hogwarts and off to Argentina in record time. He wouldn't have got away with training you up to be his little child soldier and he knew it.'

Harry said nothing. Snape had hit precisely where it hurt, though the man was too taken up by his own anger to notice.

'He knew no one in their right mind would approve either,' he carried on, ignorant to Harry's own pained fury. 'Merlin, the number of times I came in, raving about how arrogant and spoilt you were, and he'd use every argument under the sun to convince me otherwise, except to tell me that.'

'You wouldn't have believed it anyway,' Harry bit out.

'Coming from you? No. Coming from him, I would have.'

Harry's stomach seized. He leaned forward, breathing through the hurt. Snape kept his eyes on the fire, then chuckled without amusement, 'At least I got to kill him, I suppose.'

He saw then the torment on Snape's face, and his own pain and anger dissipated as if by magic. He didn't want to tear down the memory of a man Snape had cared for. In what Harry had seen in the Pensieve during the battle, it seemed as though Dumbledore had been the only person Snape had felt close to over the years, and that relationship must have been fraught on its own, without Harry now scratching at old wounds.

'It doesn't matter,' he repeated quickly. 'None of it matters, okay? He thought he was doing the right thing. Maybe he was wrong, maybe he was right. Maybe if he'd done anything differently, I wouldn't have defeated Voldemort, right? I'd say that's worth one crappy childhood.'

'You don't know what would have happened. Albus couldn't have known either and that is not a gamble he had any right to make—'

'It doesn't matter!' Harry exclaimed. 'Voldemort's dead! Dumbledore's dead! My childhood is over. I'm not getting it back, and I'd rather believe it was all for something, you know, and that Dumbledore actually cared about me—'

'I never said he didn't,' Snape interrupted him. He drew a breath, then glanced away. 'There is no doubt that he adored you. I despised you all the more for it, so I should know. But loving someone and hurting them aren't mutually exclusive, Harry.'

Harry thought about Teddy.

'Yeah,' he said quietly.

'I understand it might be—helpful—to frame this as a meaningful experience. I will not stop you. But I cannot agree with that view.'

Harry nodded lamely. 'Okay.'

'I don't know what to do with this,' Snape confessed after a beat of quiet. 'I don't know what to do to make this better.'

'There's nothing you can do,' Harry said, because it was true. 'It's too late. I needed someone to do something years ago. Window's gone.'

Snape watched him for a flicker before nodding. Harry felt at once like a weight had shifted off his chest, and like another had pulled at his neck: he wanted to do something to make this better, too, for Snape, only he had no idea how.

'I'm sorry,' he whispered. Snape smiled drily.

'Have your toast,' he instructed, his voice coming out strained, and higher than usual.

Harry had his toast and the rest of his tea. Then, Snape accio'd him a vial of Pepper-Up Potion, which made Harry feel even warmer and fuzzier than he'd been already. He buried himself deeper into the quilt, nudging a foot against Snape's thigh in what he hoped would be understood as another apology.

'I'm not moving,' he told him. 'I'm just going to sleep here.'

'You'll be sore in the morning.'

'I'm already sore from flying through a bloody storm,' he argued. His eyes had drifted shut. He was worn out in every possible way, and though he didn't think they had resolved a single issue, really, he felt exactly the kind of peace that would send him into a fast and heavy sleep.

He heard Snape move around the room: the clatter of plates, the sizzle of embers in the fireplace as the flames were extinguished, the shuffle of slippers. The darkness beneath his eyelids deepened with every candle spelled away.

'D'you know I saw a whale?' he asked the darkness.

'You did?'

'Hmm.'

'Perhaps next time you might consider hunting down sea mammals during better weather. It wouldn't knock quite as many years off my life.'

''Kay,' he agreed.

He thought about saying goodnight, too, but sleep swallowed him before he got it out.

I am rather fond of this chapter, so I hope you've enjoyed it, too.

On the previous chapter, I completely forgot to reply to my lovely guest reviewer from October 4th. Forgive me for the delay, Lovely Guest Reviewer! I thought Harry training Snape on proper name etiquette was a cute moment too, so I'm glad it's made you laugh! Thank you for taking the time to leave a comment 3

Snape's POV on Sunday!