ELEVEN.

'—and Inna says if someone sees a dragon that year, then that means the Drager, that is, the Dragons, that they will win. And if they see a sea serpent, then we win. Because we're called the Sea Serpents, see, only I don't remember what that one is in Norwegian. But everyone obviously knows it's because of Viktor Krum that his team have been winning year by year, it's just that no one tells Inna because she gets really annoyed—but she says this year we stand a chance because no one has seen any so far and the dragons here hibernate over winter. And Viktor Krum told her he'd take her to look for sea serpents when the weather is better. And everyone's arguing about who should come with them, and if we should even miss a good flying day for it—'

Harry could carry on in this manner for quite some time. Severus knew by now all the usual characters and could often predict the finale of any little story: there was the stubborn and superstitious team captain, the complacent and uncoordinated seeker in reserve, the hulking keeper from the opposing team who stole everyone's food. It had taken Severus a while to identify the individuals in question from the boy's worshipful ramblings. He had two of them on his Advanced Potions rota. Final-years Bogdanova and Harkusha came in every other week to work on their collaborative paper on ingredient substitution in healing potions. The boy had aspirations to be a healer and displayed the sort of diligence that made up satisfactorily for a lack of natural brilliance. He did all the actual work. Bogdanova hovered over him and pretended to help in exchange for taking half the credit. Severus could see how she would make for a fine team captain. In any case, they both treated Severus as though he were air.

'Don't talk with your mouth full,' Severus said to win himself a minute of blissful silence, regretting it immediately when the boy's face fell. He stared down into his plate, poking at the food. It was a worse spectacle than the earlier sauce-speckled barrage, especially as Severus had done a poor job concealing that it was the content of the conversation rather than the content of the boy's mouth that had irritated him.

He should not have been irritated. It was not as though this was anyone's fault but his own. He had encouraged the boy to join the Quidditch team despite his own reluctance, and so he was reaping the rewards: all that the boy aspired to do now was to entreat himself to Viktor Krum's acclaimed gang of pureblood imbeciles. Severus knew where this road led and he did not want Harry walking it to find out for himself—but if he remembered one thing from his childhood that was remotely applicable, it was that warning a child off pursuing an idolised friendship would have only the opposite effect.

He could not fault the boy for clinging onto fantasies of companionship, either. He had anticipated Durmstrang would be a lonely place, but he had thoroughly underestimated just how much. Severus felt as though he had been denied presence in the world entirely; as though something essentially human in him had altered and others no longer recognised him as such. He had never been one to strike up casual conversation with students, so his supervisory sessions crawled on in silence interrupted only by the occasional question on measurement or technique. Sometimes, he felt from the students a cold indifference, and this was best. Other times, he sensed an underlying resentment for his daring: daring to be here though he was no one, daring to think himself qualified to assume a role of authority over his betters. Whether the instructors held similar sentiments, Severus could not be sure. They existed apparently separate from one another, drifting through corridors like ghosts at odd times of the night-like day, and nodding their heads silently at those they passed. If they ever did get together in the evenings to try and combat the loneliness of the endless dark, Severus was not invited.

'What did your parents do for a job?'

The question startled him. He stared at the fire, trying to find a grip on emotion.

'Bizarre that you would suddenly take an interest.'

The boy shrugged.

'Don't shrug,' Severus said.

'I've heard some people talking about it.'

Of course he had. The shame thickened in his stomach, hot and awful.

'Let me guess: your dear Viktor Krum and his friends enjoy picking apart the family trees of their least worthy teachers.'

Harry blinked. 'No. Not them, they don't—I mean, I don't really know what they talk about, I guess. But that was someone else. And I was just curious—'

Severus inhaled through his nose. He almost let it go. 'My mother was a housewife,' he said. 'For a short time, she used to write for a Potions magazine, but she did not keep it up. My father was intermittently a factory worker. He is a muggle.'

The boy straightened. 'Wait, he's alive? I mean—' He coloured. 'I don't know why I thought he was dead. I guess he's retired now. Does he live with you at your house? Or—'

'I haven't seen him in fifteen years,' said Severus.

In his last memory of his father, he'd been sixteen. It was not the last he'd seen of Tobias Snape, but it was the last he remembered him speaking, the last moment that had held onto anything more than merely a vague shape in his mind. He had spent that summer sequestered in his room, warded from his parents and their rows, planning for his bright future and writing spells to gift to Lucius Malfoy and Quentin Lamotte and anyone else who would deign to read them. And one day, his father had caught him on his way back from the bathroom and ordered him out the house.

He'd taken Severus with him to the factory that day. He'd introduced Severus to his friends there and he'd bought him a lunch so greasy that it had forced him into bed the whole of the next day.

'See that man?' he'd said. 'He's the shift manager. If you're good with numbers and put in a couple months of good work, you can do that job. And then it's a straight path to their cosy offices if you're clever about it. You won't be stuck doing manual labour with your brains, not if I can help it.'

Back then, Severus had thought the whole thing hilarious and pathetic, and could not decide whether he wanted to share the story with Valerian and laugh at his father's gall or bury it within himself and pretend nothing so shameful had ever happened. To this day, he did not understand what extraordinary self-deceit had convinced Tobias Snape to pretend his son might graduate to become his co-worker at a muggle factory. But perhaps today Severus could better understand what might have driven him to grasp at such a measure—because if Severus, with his dirtied bloodline and unappealing presence, felt isolated here among students looking to him for counsel and squibs serving him meals on golden platters, how alone would Tobias Snape have felt in his own home?

On the other side of the desk, Harry was mulling over a question he didn't think Severus would like.

'You not seeing him—it's not because he's a muggle, is it?' he asked finally.

Severus had to fist his hands white around his knife and fork so he could avoid saying something he would regret. 'No,' he managed. 'And I resent that you would accuse me of it.' Least of all here, after weeks of the same, with who your new friends are—

At least the boy looked appropriately embarrassed. 'I didn't think—but I guess it's just because of how you talk about the people in the kitchens sometimes. And then one time when Ludvig came to look at the window—'

'Who on Earth is Ludvig?'

'Uhm, tall, blonde hair, kind of scary—he takes care of the dogs—' recognising the blankness on Severus's face, Harry lowered his voice and added, as though it were some dirty secret '—he's got these scars on his face.'

Ah, right. Severus didn't much like the squib. He made him feel on edge. 'I don't recall ever saying anything vicious about any of the squibs working here,' he said harshly.

Harry did not appear convinced, but clearly did not wish to draw this out into an argument. Briefly Severus appreciated it, except then the boy went and said something much worse.

'Maybe you should go and see him.'

Severus said nothing. His ears thudded with the sound of his heart, knocking against the ribcage entirely off-rhythm.

'I know it's none of my business, but I was just thinking that—what if he dies? He's old, isn't he? And then, what if you regret that you've never—' the boy stumbled, fearful. 'I get that he's probably not a very nice person if you've not spoken to him for so long, but that doesn't mean you can't ever see him, or even—even like him a little because he's still your father. It's like you said. You can't choose who your family is.'

No. Severus could not choose. But what the boy failed to understand was that Severus would rather tear his own gut and flesh from his body, that he would rather burn his hair and dissolve his teeth, than accept that Tobias Snape had any part in who Severus was or had been—that he had passed down any resemblance, that he had infected any organ—even if it was right, even if it was true, even if Severus knew full well—but to accept it so would mean to let him win this final game, the one that in the end mattered to Severus the most.

'Eat your dinner,' he said dry-mouthed, fork clinking against the plate. There had been nothing sharp nor threatening in the perfect flatness of his voice, but the boy heard past it and was smart enough to hurry through the rest of the meal in silence.

He was still thinking about it the following morning when he made use of the mellow weather to venture out of the castle and visit the dovecote. The narrow stone steps were sheened with ice: a death trap. The uneven door teetered open into a domed space whose walls had been carved into sheer rock, with shelves for the birds emerging naturally between the sharp black teeth. One wrong step and Severus would have found himself slipping on faeces and being impaled. Another death trap. The whole bloody school had been designed to winnow out those with weak immunity systems or clumsy limbs—or perhaps only those with inferior blood.

He was tying his Christmas order to the plumaged leg of one bird, beady-eyed and stupid-faced, trying not to think about the time Tobias Snape had brought home a discounted sapling that wouldn't stand straight and had dropped it on Severus once he'd got impatient with it, when the door behind him whined open once more, admitting a gust of papery snow and a woman wrapped in furs.

He gave her a nod. She only looked at him. Between the fur cap and the scarf, it took Severus until she was whispering softly to a bird on a low ledge to place her.

'You are Lisa Vernyhora,' he said. 'Is that right?'

She didn't turn from where she'd hunched by her bird, but her shoulders rose minutely. For a moment of stretching silence, Severus wondered if Harry might have failed to mention the woman didn't speak English. He would have never known otherwise. Either he'd been supremely unlucky in his attempts at chancing upon her or she'd been avoiding him. It would be little wonder: she was a Vernyhora, and even back in Britain that had meant something.

'Professor Snape,' she finally said. 'I'm glad to meet you.'

Her tone belied her words, though Severus wasn't about to call her out on it. He needed something from her. Though he resented it, he'd had ample experience forcing congeniality with those who thought themselves too important to give him the time of day.

'As am I,' he said. 'I was hoping to discuss Mr Potter's education with you.'

The woman had the gall to sigh audibly. 'I teach Russian-speaking students,' she said, still without deigning to look at him. 'You would do better consulting with a teacher who has Mr Potter in their class.'

'I was led to understand Headmaster Karkaroff assigned you to tutor the boy in natural magic. Though I wonder now if we have different definitions of the word.'

'Which word?'

'To tutor.'

'I have given him books to read. Has he read them?'

Severus was confident he had not, but this was beside the point. 'As you are an expert on the subject, I am sure you could gauge whether or not he has completed his assigned reading within the first three minutes of conversation.'

'He hasn't read them,' she concluded, standing up and brushing dirt off her furs. 'Didn't need three minutes of conversation.'

Severus fisted his hands in his gloves. 'The boy is thirteen,' he hissed. 'Appropriately for his age, he is wholly disinterested in academics. What he is in desperate need of is understanding how to practically apply—'

'I am an academic!' Vernyhora whirled around, birds taking startled flight in her wake. 'I am here to do my research on the evolution of magics. I am here to read and not be disturbed. I am not here to explain complex magical theories to children who lack the knowledge to understand them—'

'You are here to teach,' Severus interrupted, 'unless that is also a word whose definition we disagree on?'

'I am not here to teach Harry Potter!'

Her chest was heaving. Her pupils had blown wide. Severus had the distinct impression now that he hadn't been unlucky after all. She really had been avoiding him, though perhaps not entirely for the reasons he had suspected.

She exhaled, trying to get a grip on control again. She fixed her eyes on the ceiling. 'I am an academic,' she repeated. 'I don't—I have no interest in Harry Potter beyond that of a theoretician and historian. I don't want to get involved in—in anything to do with—that is not my world. It is not my business. Professor Snape, I am not a fool. I recognise what Harry Potter's talents mean to you. I recognise what they mean to Albus Dumbledore, or even to Headmaster Karkaroff. But they mean nothing to me.'

Severus regarded her. She was red-faced but determined.

'You say it is not your world,' he said. 'But you have been born into wizarding society in a time of crisis. You have a skill that can be useful to Harry Potter. I would say it is now decidedly your world, Professor Vernyhora.'

She met his eye. 'My world is my books,' she said softly. 'That is the world I have chosen. Though I do respect you for choosing otherwise.'

'And what a pleasant dream that is, to be left alone with one's books,' Severus sneered. 'But most of us have to wake up and live in the real world come morning.'

She coloured again, then looked away quickly. Severus would have enjoyed her shame had he not known that shame alone was a poor motivator. 'Your boy hero won't even cast regular spells,' she snapped. 'Maybe you should worry about that first of all.'

And didn't that shut Severus up rather successfully? It took only a little asking around to discover Harry had indeed failed to cast a single spell since arriving at Durmstrang, which made Severus doubly furious that he had neglected to learn of the issue before Vernyhora rubbed his face in it. But how would he have known if the boy refused to tell him? Should he have interviewed every last of his teachers, demanded reports on schoolwork, interrogated the boy on his grades? Severus would provide any aid and protection he was capable of providing, and he was confident that by now Harry was aware of this. If he hadn't come to him with this problem, it was because he did not want his help.

Severus would not encroach where he was not wanted. He was not the boy's parent and never would be: this simple truth meant that there were boundaries to respect, and where these lay surely no one could determine better than the child in question.

And so, Severus did nothing with the information. In any case, he did not know what he would have done. It made sense for the boy to be traumatised. If he didn't wish to discuss the matter with Severus, it would simply need to be waited out until summer came, or until Severus thought of who best to rope into speaking with him.

The castle emptied for Christmas. The dank corridors echoed silent, the fireplaces were kept dead and cold. Severus completed his final tutoring session of the term the night before Christmas Eve, then spent the evening cleaning out cauldrons and taking stock of ingredients. More would need to be ordered and prepared for the new year, and this needed to be done soon if he wanted to ensure no blizzard prevented timely delivery from Ireland. It would perhaps have made sense to procure ingredients from an apothecary in Norway or Russia, but he did not know anyone to ask for an address.

On Christmas morning, Harry's favourite scar-faced squib—Ludvig, Severus reminded himself, because Harry always scowled when he forgot—delivered a feast of bread, fruit and chocolate into his bedroom, then returned with a tree that he pushed between Severus's bed and the wall. The pine's branches swept over the sheets, dropping needles that Severus would have to dig out of his skin every morning for weeks to come. Still, the room swelled on the fresh scent of it, and when Harry came in later, newly dressed in a Molly Weasley signature sweater and already halfway through the box of chocolate cauldrons he'd brought to share, he made big eyes at it and declared in an awed voice it was so big.

'Yes, so I've noticed,' Severus said critically.

'Are you going to decorate it?'

'No.'

'Can I?'

He abandoned the cauldrons for Severus to eat and climbed onto the bed, which was the only place from which it was possible to reach the green beast. He hadn't wanted to go down to the kitchens to ask for proper decorations, so he made do with the fruit and biscuits from the breakfast spread and the candles Severus had spelled to blink different colours. By the time he started hanging teacups on the heftier branches, Severus had resigned himself to being written off as a lunatic by the next squib who came in to collect the plates.

Post came irregularly to Durmstrang, in bursts between one blizzard and another, so it was not until they had eaten much of the sugar feast that birds began to knock on Severus's window with Harry's Christmas haul. There were more sweets, there were Quidditch magazines, there were clothes, books and inanities. A suit of playing cards exploded in Severus's face. A figurine of Viktor Krum performed a stunt that ended with him spraying Severus's shirt with whipped cream from Molly Weasley's home-baked chocolate cake. Severus was of the opinion that children should be satisfied with a single gift per occasion and anything else was only detrimental to their character, but apparently no one else shared this view.

'Hold this!' Harry exclaimed, shoving a crystal globe into his hand. It turned misty white inside and hissed when Severus's fingers closed around it, like a kettle letting out steam.

Harry consulted the corresponding letter. 'Guess what?' he said, grinning. 'This says you're probably not going to try and kill me.'

'How illuminating.'

'It's supposed to turn black if you have, uh, intent to hurt me. But Moody writes I should never trust what any magical artefact says and that I need to keep up my guard anyway. Oh—there's one for you here, from Dumbledore. Can I open it? Ha, let's see, it's—it's a book.' Harry sighed disappointedly. 'I thought it would be more exciting.'

Severus took the tome from him and examined it. He could see why the boy would dismiss it so quickly—there didn't seem to be anything much to it, the covers plain and the spine uncracked. A Beginner's Guide to Muggle Studies, read the front page. Severus frowned, bemused, before he noticed in fine print at the bottom of the page, with an introduction by Lisa Vernyhora.

Who would have thought? The child of an illustrious family whose name had become synonymous with the heritage of Lviv wizardry, and here she was writing for a publication on understanding muggles? Was Karkaroff aware of this interest? Were her family?

'What's that?'

'Hm—yes. That's for you,' Severus said distractedly, caught between theories.

'But—there are so many! Oooh—have you listened to this one?'

Severus hadn't been able to think of anything truly useful to gift the boy, so he'd ordered a selection of records. He listened to music only occasionally himself, but he remembered a few titles Lily had forced on him when they were at school—every single one a screaming ode to death and fury, which he rather thought the boy would appreciate—and the rest he'd told the clerk to choose for him.

'I'm not doing anything today,' Harry was saying as he laid out the albums in front of him for better perusal. 'I'm just going to stay in my room and listen to all of them one by one.'

'I will have a headache potion ready for you, then.'

'Oh, maybe I'll bring the record player back here! Then you can listen, too. Fred and George have sent me this charm you put into the speaker and then it makes it way louder—'

'Give me your crystal ball,' Severus said darkly, 'so I can show you what I think of the idea.'

The boy was still sniggering into his hand when a knock sounded on the door.

A squib appeared the other side. Harry hadn't got offended on her behalf yet, so Severus couldn't have guessed what her name was. What he could guess quite easily was the sort of item that might be concealed in the packaging she was holding.

'For Harry Potter,' she said curtly. 'And the note.'

Harry snatched the gift first, the note fluttering to the floor in the wake of his excitement. When the handle of the broom shone its golden lettering from between the packing paper and the boy drew in a sharp breath, the squib threw one look at Severus and decided to make her escape.

'It's a Firebolt,' Harry said breathlessly. 'It's a real Firebolt—'

'Who sent it?' Severus gritted out.

Not letting go of the broom, the boy hunched to pick up the note. 'Dear Harry,' he read. 'Igor Karkaroff tells me you'll be playing against Viktor Krum himself this year. If that is the case, I think you're going to need this—oh. It's from Lamotte.'

Of course it was from Quentin bloody Lamotte.

Severus took in a measured breath. He braced himself. Then he said,

'You will have to send it back.'

Harry spun around to gape at him. 'What? No! Why?'

'Why do you think? Do you know how much this broom costs?'

'Yeah, but—so what? Lamotte is rich, and it's not even like I asked him to buy it—'

'It doesn't matter whether you asked him. By accepting it, you are entering into an implicit agreement. You do not wish to be indebted to the sort of man Quentin Lamotte is.'

'That's not how gifts work,' the boy argued, voice high and whiny. 'It's not like a transaction—'

'If you have a pre-established relationship, perhaps it is not. But there is a reason why politicians are wary of accepting presents from rich and powerful men. He wants something from you—'

'What could he even want from me? And we do have a pre-established relationship! He's supposed to be like my guardian, isn't he? Legally—'

'You know very well this isn't about legalities! For heaven's sake, Harry, Lamotte does not care about you beyond what benefit he can extract from building a rapport with you. And it may seem to you right now like you have little to offer him in return, but that is precisely why you must be cautious. Someday, you will find yourself in a position where he can ask for a favour, and you have no way of knowing what that favour will be—'

'Then I'll just say no!'

The boy had paled a little. Severus didn't see why: he tended to lose colour when he was afraid, but they had barely raised their voices. Still, he tried to soften his tone a little when he next spoke.

'It isn't that simple. And I would rather expect you to have a little more sense of honour than that, Harry.'

That gave the boy pause. For a second, he seemed as though he might shake free of stubbornness and give the matter some actual thought—but then the moment passed.

'No,' he said. 'I didn't ask him to give it to me. He bought it. And he's got lots of money, so I don't even care.'

'Harry,' Severus said, a warning in his voice.

'It's not fair. I bet half the students here are going to get presents that cost even more money. Everyone else—'

'You are not everyone else.'

'Well, I want to be!' Harry yelled. 'I don't want to have influence and I don't want to have favours to give, and I'm not a politician! Who cares what I do?'

'The rest of the wizarding world cares what you do, you idiot boy! Do you think anyone cares that you do not want to be special? That you want to be like everyone else? Do you think the world cares?'

'It's not fair!'

'No.' Severus swiped a droplet of spit from his cheek. 'It is not fair. A better man would accept that these were the cards he'd been dealt and use that power to make a difference. But I see you are determined not to be that man.'

For a beat, they glared at each other, the words hanging in the still air.

Then, Harry started gathering up the presents he'd left scattered on the floor.

Records and sweets tumbled from between his arms and rolled away. Harry made no sign of frustration, only picked them up again. He wiped at his face twice, though from where Severus stood he could not see if it was only hair getting in his eyes or if he was crying.

'Leave it,' Severus said hollowly. 'I will get the—I will get Ludvig to bring it to your room.'

Harry let everything drop then. The crystal orb struck the floor with a sound like thunder and disappeared under the bed.

'I'm keeping the broom,' he said without looking at Severus. 'I don't care what you say.'

'Fine,' said Severus. 'Keep it.'

Minutes stretched after he left, empty and quiet. A teacup fell from the tree onto the mattress. Severus returned it to the table by the samovar. He didn't know what to do with himself. The argument echoed in his head. A better man. Who said such nonsense to a child? Who carried so much bitterness and regret in them to feel only disdain when faced with a thirteen-year-old's naïveté?

The window glass shook. On the other side was a cream owl, full and fluffed, a thick envelope tied to its leg with a hemp string.

Severus hadn't thought to read the name on the envelope before breaking the seal, so it was only after scanning through the short paragraph that he realised the letter had been meant for Harry. The owl must have been confused by the cold if it hadn't realised he'd already left the rooms.

Dear Harry, it read.

I know we haven't had much time to get to know each other and that to you I am a stranger, so I do hope you will not be taken aback by this letter. But I remember that some time ago Professor Snape asked me if I could share with you some photographs of your father, so I thought you might also be interested in what I have recently dug up from the attic. These are letters your father wrote to me shortly after we had graduated Hogwarts. I am sure you have heard many stories of him from the people who knew him, but I think these letters reveal a different side to James that would have been lost in the telling. I hope you enjoy them.

Merry Christmas,

Remus Lupin

P.S. I have cast a protective heating spell on the owl before sending her your way. Would you please make sure it is recast for her trip back? I am sure any teacher will be able to help you with this. Thank you.

The letters James Potter had penned were faded in colour, the parchment crumbling at the edges. The scribbled words were set close together, messy if decipherable, a lack of care to them that reminded Severus of Harry's handwriting. Just holding them, he found that the James Potter who lived now only in his memory sharpened, that he took on shape and colour. Severus remembered at once his wide grin, his glistening saliva, remembered fantasising about clutching him by the back of the neck and ramming him grin-first into his school desk until he was spitting blood and bits of white teeth.

He knew he should send the letters to Harry's room immediately, now, before he gave in to the masochistic compulsion to read them. But he only stared at them, at these smears that James Potter had left on the world, and at the cautiously polite words with which Lupin wanted to entreat himself to Harry.

He hesitated. He could see himself stepping into the corridor, could feel himself shifting away from the dark, swirling feeling in his chest and looking at the problem with clear eyes, he could see himself letting this go.

Then, the moment passed.

Severus put the letters into the bottom of a drawer, hidden under folded night things like a disgusting little secret. No one would look here, but still he cast a warding spell on them as a precaution, making sure they evaded the gaze of anyone not knowing what they were looking for.

He would not let them have him, he thought, disgusted with himself as he thought it but unable to stop. He would not let Lupin have him, he would not let Lamotte have him, he would not let Sirius Black have him or even Viktor Krum—

—and he would certainly not let James Potter have him. Not again.