Snape ran his fingers through the tangled hair and bowed his head low, barely refraining from snarling in despair. All his life he had been scoffing at the notorious Gryffindor recklessness, but he himself now behaved like a model of representatives of the Lion faculty. Poppy Pomfrey was busy making an apple pie, inadvertently slipping Snape a dish of apples so that he would not only suffer in vain but also get down to help her with a dough.
"Mom, I failed everything!" Snape cried sadly, grabbing the knife and thrusting it into a, particularly ruddy, apple. Poppy pretended not to hear: the long years spent in trying to communicate with Severus taught her that he should not be pestered with questions. She just had to let him lead a meaningless monologue for a while, occasionally inserting leading questions.
"It seems that everyone, absolutely everyone, except my wife, already knows about this damn Time-Turner! You and Minerva took advantage of Flammel's creation and dragged into the past after me! What if we've already ruined everything?"
Poppy shrugged: in her humble opinion, they were not able to spoil this world more than it had already suffered from the past two wars. Therefore, no matter how the deeds of Severus turned out, she was sure of his unconditional victory.
"Peacetime has completely ruined my espionage skills," Severus continued, chopping apples and mixing them with sugar.
Poppy tied up her apron and looked at Snape, as sternly as when he was a child when he tried to feign stomach pain so as not to meet with the Marauders again. And now these same Marauders practically helped him save his own wife.
"Severus, I know you hate being sympathized with, but weren't you the one who embarked on this wild adventure to save your wife and child to atone for your own guilt? What do you want to hear from me now? That you can get killed if someone finds out about the Turners? You know that you might. Tell me?"
"I don't know. For the first time in my life, I don't know what to do next," Snape sighed, dreading his own confession. Poppy pressed her lips together.
"You're not just helping me bake a pie instead of taking Hermione and Apparating to the Scottish Highlands to watch the house you recently looked at in the property sales column?"
"Mom, it is definitely not the right time to look for the property!"
"It is high time for it, Severus!. Or are you going to live permanently in the North Tower of Hogwarts? The school year is drawing to a close and you should consider your own home."
Snape handed her a bowl of dough and went to the window.
"I don't recognize myself: I am friendly with the Malfoys, for some reason, I contacted Black, persuaded him to save Regulus, helped Remus a couple of times with his treatise on the Dark Arts. They even know about the Time-Turner."
"Severus, tell me, was it better to live all the past years alone and friendless? Have you been happier when you functioned solely on coffee and rage? All these years you have been waiting for a stab in the back, and even having managed to survive, you continue to wait for a catch."
"Because there will be a catch!" Snape raised his voice as he closed the curtains in annoyance and sat down on the countertop.
"Why? Aren't you, Sirius and Lucius working on reform? Didn't Hermione take care of the kids? Leave your eternal pessimism, for Merlin's sake!"
"Pessimism has saved my life countless times. I must atone for my sins."
Poppy barely resisted the urge of throwing a towel at him.
"Severus Tobias Snape! Your own twisted morality made you agree to the old goat Dumbledor's order to take his life! Your nobility made you take an Unbreakable Vow to Narcissa!"
"Draco is my godson!"
"And you have once again confused loyalty to your own ideals with common sense!"
"You might as well start reproaching me for taking the Mark!"
"You wanted to be accepted, you wanted to find your place in the world, but you always had it, Severus," Poppy said softeningly. "Since childhood, Narcissa considers you to be something like a little brother. Lucius helped you get your Master's degree. With Remus, you could make friends a thousand times on the basis of mutual love for books and long scientific research. And aren't you continuing to work on improving the Wolfsbane?"
"I'm doing it because Remus teaches in a School full of children! And not from some considerations of nobility!" Severus boomed.
"Hush, I won't be scared of your angry voice. Who arranged for Sirius to be interrogated on an Animagus topic? You are firmly convinced that lycanthropy is a dark form of animagy, and if you can isolate the correct magical element, Remus will be able to turn into a wolf and back into a human without any loss to his own health. Can you imagine what a sensation it will be?"
"I rub shoulders with my own enemies!"
Poppy laughed.
"Severus, you are forty-three! Stop looking at the world over the youthful strife! Besides, who, if not Mr. Black, can help you find the information you need at the Ministry? You still don't know who's Hermione's enemy."
"I don't know anything anymore! This whole adventure with the change of time has done such a thing here that I was completely confused."
"So what? You got to know your wife better, you managed to create a relationship built on mutual trust and, I think, on love. What could go wrong? Are you afraid that you will be erased from this reality? So you know yourself, you did not interfere in the key events of history, did not resurrect the Dark Lord, did not save Dumbledore. Black was brought back to life, he never died, he just got stuck in the Arch. You do not change fate, you smooth out sharp turns."
"However, if the Turner falls into the wrong hands..."
"Firstly, we have two more, mine and Minerva's, and secondly, you, together with Sirius and Malfoy, warded them with such protective spells that the Great Merlin himself would not be able to steal them."
"Then what is wrong with me?"
"You're scared, Severus. You are afraid to open up to someone, you still think that you have to atone for your sins. Stop blaming yourself for not being able to save Lily."
"What does Lily have to do with it?"
"Despite the fact that you warned her. You, and Black, and even Minerva had warned her about the danger. But she believed in her own omnipotence."
"Which, however, did not prevent her from taking a blood oath and a promise to protect her offspring from me."
"So you answered your own question. Stop living in the past, Severus."
"I can not."
"We must learn from our mistakes, son. You have a family. You have Ministry reforms. You have new projects. You make plans for the future. Take a vacation, for Circe's sake! Travel to Scotland. Let Black get down to business at least once in his life, his irrepressible energy needs to be put somewhere, so let him be engaged in unraveling intrigues against the Muggle-borns."
"I can't just stand up and leave."
"Then I'll ask Minerva to make a port key, and the next time you and Hermione come to visit, I'll just shove it in your hand and send you both away. By the way, what about Australia and Mr. and Mrs. Granger? Are you going to meet your father-in-law and mother-in-law anytime soon?"
Severus rolled his eyes.
"Hermione, it seems, is mentally ready to bring back their memories."
"So fly to Australia! Get some clothes and go right away!"
"But what about these enemies?"
"The conspiracy will not wither without you, I assure you. Stop being a spy, a Headmaster, and an eternal pessimist. Allow yourself the right to be just a husband. When was the last time you were on vacation?"
"I was not."
"Sorry?"
"I've never been on vacation in my entire life," Snape snapped.
"Even more so. Pack your things and go!"
"Mom, I can't ruin everything. Not this time. I won't be able to live through this if Hermione dies."
"You don't have to. Just tell me: when are you going to tell your wife about your little adventure?"
Severus looked at Poppy in utter bewilderment.
"Why should I do such a thing?"
"Severus, you amaze me. That is, she will find the Time-Turner with you, and you tell her that this is a little memento that you bought in Diagon Alley?"
"How can I tell her about this? She will think that I have been manipulating her for almost a year, using her for my own purposes!"
"Severus, she is your wife. She has a right to know what you are trying to protect her from. You've been trying all your life to find freedom from manipulators. And now you do the same to her."
"Don't compare."
"Why not? Dumbledore fought for the greater good, Voldemort sought to save the ideology and traditions of the purebloods and the fact that a couple of thousand people were killed in the process, so any war is always famous for bloodshed."
"She'll hate me if she finds out."
"At least try to talk to her. You keep forgetting that Hermione is not Lily. And your wife, unlike your childhood friend, forgave her friends much greater sins than meddling with time or an insult thrown out of stupidity. Hermione has a right to know the truth, no matter how overwhelming it is."
Snape shook his head.
"Perhaps, but only after we return from vacation."
Poppy smiled with satisfaction; that was exactly what she wanted.
And in the evening, the mediwitch received a word from Sirius: he managed to find out that a certain Medea Umbridge was somehow involved in intrigues against the Muggle-borns. She avenged the death of her sister.