I'm a little late uploading these chapters, which is why you're getting two at once! I tend to keep to my deadlines better on AO3 since the interface doesn't annoy me as much, so you might want to keep an eye on there if I'm ever late again ;)

TWELVE.

The kitchens were warm and dim. They felt to Harry like that short time just before falling asleep, when you felt ready to go and you could feel yourself going but were not quite gone yet. He always became drowsy when he ate here, and every meal tasted like supper. The kitchen staff milled about, carrying vegetables and meat and soapy plates, and then all sorts of other people would come in: some walked in smelling of sled dogs and frost, others of wood and ash, others yet only sweet like perfume and wine. Sometimes, students would come in, too, and they would complain of hunger and cold until they were given cake or brewed a fresh pot of hot chocolate. Once, three upper-years came and pleaded with one of the cooks until she opened the spirits cellar for them and lent them wine glasses. Harry was fairly sure she hadn't been meant to do that, but when someone admonished her for it, she only shrugged and said, 'Oh, come now. It's New Year's.'

He ate in the kitchens a lot. Students had now begun to return to the castle after the break, but for a number of days the dining room had been divided up between small groups of friends and it had been very awkward to sit apart. Harry was glad that Ella had brought him here when she found him in his room at dinner time. He thought the amount of empty chocolate wrappers left in his bed had contributed, too, though she was careful not to say anything about them.

It was especially lucky now that he didn't eat his meals with Snape anymore. Since they'd argued, they'd been avoiding one another, or maybe it was just Harry avoiding Snape and Snape either not realising or not caring enough to do anything about it. Harry almost wanted to starve just to spite him: Snape would find him dead in his room one day, diminished in size to a sack of bones, and would have to come to terms with having contributed to this sorry end—and even in death, Harry would still be holding the Firebolt he'd got for Christmas in his skeleton-like hand.

The back door to the kitchen burst open, wafting in the clear scent of snow. Startled, Harry dropped his bread into his pumpkin soup, and by the time he'd fished it out with burning fingers the new arrivals had been greeted and settled at the opposite end of the table.

They'd been exclaiming things in Russian, which was why Harry hadn't recognised Inna's voice until he lifted his head to look. She was still wearing her outwear, furs trailing behind her and gloves coming off stiff fingers, and with a face red from the shock of warmth in the kitchen she was relating something excitedly to the servants, who were forcing on her heaping plates and steaming mugs. Beside her sat a smaller boy, eyes even blacker and narrower than hers, but the same mouth on him and the same sort of brow. Harry thought he'd heard someone say Inna had a younger brother.

'What's his name?' Harry asked Ella when she was passing by his end of the table. She always knew all sorts of things like that.

'Bogdanova's little brother?' She leaned toward him so their faces would be level, ready for confidence. 'That's Antosha. And you see there? That's her older brother Kusma.'

Harry followed her gaze to where a tall man was laying out forks and spoons for Inna and Antosha. He had a focused face that didn't seem like it would have looked good smiling. When he reached over to take Inna's gloves from her before she dropped them into her meal, she batted him away without looking.

'He's a squib?' Harry asked, surprised.

Ella nodded. She slunk down to the bench next to him and whispered, 'Yes. Not everyone knows. Obviously, Inna and Antosha don't like to talk about it. It's not the sort of thing you want to publicise.'

Harry frowned. 'Isn't Inna's family like, really rich? Why is he working in the kitchen?'

'A lot of the squibs here have siblings or relatives who study at Durmstrang,' murmured Ella, her eyes trained on Inna and her brothers. 'It's a way to stay close to your family. You know, to look out for them. In any case, it's usually better than home.'

Harry thought about asking if it was the same for Ella, but decided it was too private. They didn't really know each other, aside from her giving him gossip sometimes, which she only did because he listened.

'Are you talking about me, Ella?' said Inna in English. She hadn't even been looking their direction, but she must have sensed their gazes on her because a moment later she turned in her seat to fix them with a glare. She was always glaring, though, so Harry could not say if she was offended.

'Who else would we talk about?' Ella shrugged. 'Now that you're here, of course we're all talking about you, and you alone.'

Inna bit down a smile. Harry supposed she wasn't really offended then.

'I bought some fantastic things in Hong Kong,' she said. 'We took a trip there over the break. Can you bring them to my room?'

'I'm eating now,' Ella said, though she wasn't.

'After you eat.'

'I can go,' Kusma spoke from above her. He had a low voice that sounded like Inna's glare felt. 'No point troubling Ella.'

'It's no trouble,' Inna said sharply. 'Go do something else if you're bored.'

Kusma said something in Russian, softly but with feeling, and Inna shoved at him.

'I said leave it,' she spat. 'Or are you deaf now as well as muggle?'

Throughout the exchange, Ella and Antosha and everyone else in earshot kept their eyes fixed resolutely on the table or the floor, whichever was easiest. Harry felt he should have followed suit, but he was too curious.

Kusma did leave it. He disappeared into the adjoining room where the washing was done. Inna turned again on Harry and Ella with a forced smile, resuming the conversation as though they had not been interrupted.

'And how was your Christmas, Ella?'

'Peaceful,' Ella said. 'Quiet. No one to pick up after.'

'Boring answer,' judged Inna, waving a hand at her dismissively. 'How about yours, Harry?'

Unsure of why he was suddenly included in the conversation but wanting to earn his place now that it had been offered, Harry thought quickly of something, anything interesting he might share. 'I got a Firebolt for Christmas,' he said lamely.

Inna's eyes lit up. 'A Firebolt? Really? Oh, this is it—it's our year like I said! Ella, is Viktor back yet?'

'Yes. Harkusha and Blom, too. A couple more from Krum's team I think.'

'Perfect. We're flying tomorrow bright and early! We need to give this Firebolt a test run, correct?'

Harry nodded weakly. His stomach was twisting.

It did not stop twisting for much of the night, and when tomorrow bright and early came, though it wasn't bright in the slightest and it was not even as early as all that, Harry found himself hesitating over the new broom. He had not flown it yet though it had been more than a week now since he'd got it. He'd told himself it was the darkness and poor weather which had decided for him, that he was only being reasonably cautious with his own neck for once. Now that he stood here, dressed for flying and with the minutes on the clock ticking by, he had to admit to the lie.

When he joined the small gathering downstairs, their excited breaths hanging like puffy little clouds in the sooty night-day, no one paid him or his Nimbus much mind until a deep voice spoke behind him,

'I thought Inna said you had a Firebolt?'

Harry turned, fighting the blush threatening to break out on his cheeks. Krum stood in the snow, eyes circled purple and cheeks unshaven, his own Firebolt held securely in hand.

'Yeah,' Harry stuttered. 'Yes, I mean. I got it for Christmas but I'm not sure I'm going to keep it.'

Krum frowned. 'Not keep it? Why?'

Harry stared at his feet, wishing he were having this conversation with anyone else. Even Inna would have been preferable. 'It's just that I don't know the person who sent it to me very well, and if I accept it, he might think—I'm not sure.'

'I understand.'

Harry looked up sharply. He didn't think he'd been making himself clear at all.

'I get many things sent,' Krum said musingly. 'Sometimes it's fans. Sometimes the fans are rich or important. Sometimes they're strange. Sometimes it makes me uncomfortable, and I don't know if they understand something from the gift more than I understand. With a gift like this, so expensive and so kind, I would worry, too.'

Harry hadn't really been thinking this way: he'd been thinking mostly of Snape and how Snape felt about the broom, not how Lamotte felt about it or even Harry himself felt about it. But now that Krum had explained, the hurt and doubt had shifted in Harry's heart into a place where they made suddenly more sense.

He smiled at Krum. Krum didn't smile back, but he said, 'We are going to Danila's dorm after practice to eat. Will you come?'

And suddenly Harry didn't even care about the Firebolt anymore.

After practice, it turned out that Danila could not have them in his dorm because his dormmates were back in full force and there would not be enough room. Inna's dormmates disliked her friends. Krum's solitary dorm had no room for guests, Inna said, because people acquired possessions relative to the amount of space they were allowed. It fell to Harry, then, to tell them he had a near-empty dorm at his disposal, and all of a sudden everyone became friendlier with him.

'Can I see your records?' Inna exclaimed the moment her eyes landed on the gramophone, then proceeded to go through his records without waiting for an answer. 'Did anyone tell Blom we're here?'

'I told him,' Krum said. He transfigured the stool Harry had just snatched his dirty socks from into an armchair and dragged it closer to the fire. 'Do you mind?'

'No, no—uhm, go ahead.'

Kai Blom, the Keeper on Krum's team, joined a little later. He brought food: heaps and heaps of it, plates and platters and hot cider and potatoes for roasting in the fire.

'I thought we weren't allowed to take food out of the dining room,' Harry said without thinking. 'Because of the voles?'

'Did Nutt get to you? Just ignore her,' Inna gave a dismissive wave. 'If she catches you sneaking things out, tell her Viktor's not feeling well. She won't believe you, but it's not like she cares enough to go to war with Karkaroff over it.'

They ate. Harry sat on the rug close to the fire and occupied himself with tending to the potatoes buried among the embers, only half-listening to the conversation he could not entirely follow, especially over the music Inna continued to blast from the record player. She changed her mind about the song every other minute and with a flick of the wand sent vinyl discs zooming and spinning in the air above their heads. She tried to get Danila to dance with her, but he told her something very rude and very sharp in answer, so Blom volunteered instead. There wasn't nearly enough room: they knocked into Harry's bed and nearly trampled Danila, who'd sat next to Harry on the floor and was working on an assignment. When they crashed into the armchair where Krum sat, he startled awake for a moment to tell them sorry, then fell asleep again.

'Shouldn't we turn the music down?' Harry asked Danila, throwing a glance at Krum.

'He doesn't care.' Danila shrugged. 'He was in Bulgaria all break training in the day and studying in the night. And he's too stupid to ask me to do anything.'

'Do anything—like what? Oh, you mean his homework?'

Danila's smile was off-angle. 'I do all of Bogdanova's anyway. It wouldn't bother me. But he's proud.'

His tone was warm. Admiring, even. But Harry sensed in it some hurt or offense that Danila would not voice, and he couldn't help but wonder if the boy even much liked Krum in the first place.

'How do you like Durmstrang, then?' Danila asked, never stopping to write across the parchment laid out in his lap. Despite the awkward position, his handwriting was surprisingly neat.

'Oh,' Harry said, then tried hard to think of anything at all positive to say. 'I—uhm, it's alright I guess.'

Danila laughed softly. 'What do you hate about it most? The cold? The snow? The useless fucking teachers and the asshole students? The night that never breaks?'

Harry felt himself relax a little. 'All of those, pretty much,' he chuckled. He didn't add that he would have included on that list that his friends were not here with him. It would have only sounded pathetic. 'I can't really decide. But—you like it? Durmstrang, I mean?'

'Sure. I love Durmstrang.'

'Why?' Harry could not keep the incredulity out of his voice. 'That is—I don't want to offend you or anything—'

The corner of Danila's lips tugged up. 'Why do I love Durmstrang? Hmm.' He touched the end of his quill to his chin, as though really thinking about it. 'I would say it's mostly the cold and the snow. And the useless fucking teachers, and the pretentious assholes in my year, and the night that never breaks.'

He looked over to Harry and met his eye. Harry saw then that he wasn't making fun of him.

'You have to see the real Durmstrang,' Danila decided. 'We'll show you.'

True to his word, Danila knocked on Harry's room first thing the next morning, rousing him from a half-sleep he'd fallen into waiting on him. Already dressed, Harry tiptoed down the corridor after him, dread and excitement warring for reigning place in his chest, through the anteroom where they donned their furs and boots, and out a back door that led to the doghouses. Here, Krum and Blom were readying two sleds, the hounds barking and whining and leaping at their chests. If one of them decided to greet Harry so, he would fall back into the snow and perhaps be mauled. No one else seemed concerned, but there was a might in the dogs' barks, a growl hidden just under the surface sound, a warning etched into their shiny teeth. Harry had never seen dogs so big, and he did think they must have had magic on them to grow them so.

'Harry,' Inna greeted him, face set with determination. 'We are going to see a sea serpent today. Agreed?'

Harry laughed nervously, hating how it sounded. 'Yeah, uhm—agreed.'

He was packed with Inna into Blom's sled while Danila climbed in behind Krum. The dogs gave a communal howl at the moon that hung above them, full and swelled on the night—and they were off.

If this was to show Harry the real Durmstrang, Harry would have preferred the fake one. They skidded on snow mounds too tall for belief, they avoided at hair's breadth crags of rock that would explode from the ice before them, they raced the wind that howled horribly in their ears. In his mouth, Harry tasted blood and ice, and a scream that he would not let out because he did not think he could open wide enough and not lose his teeth.

How long the torture lasted, he could not be sure. He knew only that after what felt like eternity the shore dawned on the horizon, the ice dropping off and into a deeper black that ebbed rhythmically like a hallucinated shadow. The night fell away a little here, light reflecting off the water, and Harry saw as they drew to a halt amid huffs and harks the faces of his companions, illuminated an impossible blue.

'Look up,' Inna said.

And when Harry looked up, he saw magic itself.

It was not natural magic—the word felt stilted now, strangely academic, artificially tamed. What lay above them was neither tame nor natural, and Harry knew because he'd seen some of the world in his life and he'd heard if not experienced first-hand much of what it was supposed to be about, and yet he had never seen nor imagined this: a shifting wraith of a myriad hues of green, of purple edges and blue peaks that fell deep into the sky and yet grew forward from it, reaching out to where they stared back. It seemed like another world might have started and ended where the light lay, and Harry felt just looking at it such a power alighting his every bone that he could not think to be cold or doubtful or natural ever again.

'It's wild magic,' he said to Blom when he helped him off the sled and led him to where they all stood, silent and awed. 'Can you feel it?'

'I don't know,' he said. 'How is it supposed to feel?'

Like this, thought Harry, feeling as though he'd only just understood something that he had been puzzling over his whole life. It's supposed to feel like this.

He had never been as erudite as Hermione or as good at quips as Ron, so he knew he would not be able to find the words to explain it to them. Instead, he showed them.

He lay his hands on the ice where the light fell and flickered, and when they trembled with cold and emotion, he let them tremble. He let his legs grow weak under him and came to his knees, breathing hot air over the flakes of snow that had settled on his gloves. He did not need to remove them—he didn't think he needed to touch the ground at all for this to work, but doing so helped steady him, helped him feel what he was doing as he did it.

'Is that an earthquake?' Inna asked anxiously, glancing around. Her hands came up to Danila's shoulder to steady herself, though the ground shook only gently, not enough to dislodge her from her spot. 'What—'

But then she heard it. One of her hands climbed higher to rest against Danila's chest, feeling at his heart, just as everyone else went to find their own beat—in their chests under layers of fur, in the strong pulse of their necks or wrists.

The earth under their feet trembled to the rhythm of their heartbeats.

When they looked, the ice lit up in branching arteries from where they stood, widening and narrowing as they pushed blood and life across the land, as far as the eye could see, out into the darkness where the ethereal blue fizzled out and down into the depths of the black sea. Their blood and life and awe came into Harry, too, through the hands he kept steady on the ice, through where his feet and his heavy boots touched, and he laughed with the disbelieving joy of it—

The sea parted, water falling onto shore and beating against their heads and backs, just as from within erupted a monster: its long body undulating toward the sky where the lights hung, its silvery scales so bright in the glow that they looked to be made of light, its mouth opening in a half-howl, half-cry that was mournful and bone-deep and louder than the wind.

'En sjøorm!' Inna cried, mad with furious joy, gesticulating wildly at what would have been impossible to miss. 'A sea serpent! Choke on that, Krum! We're going to ruin you on the field this year—we are going to win—we are going to be kings of the bloody world!'

Harry and Danila followed Inna's lead as they hooted and bellowed this into the night, and soon Krum and Blom joined in, screeching and howling as though it were a battle of screams, 'Kings of the world! Kings of the world!'

The serpent collapsed back into the sea, again sending waves crashing over them, its tail slithering behind it as though a wave goodbye. They answered in kind, waving and laughing like maniacs. The ground beat loudly, faster and mightier, and the light that flowed as blood in the mirror of the ice grew brighter and more shocking.

'More, more, Harry!' cried Inna, and Blom took and spun her around, and he spun round Danila and Harry and stumbled and fell when he tried to do the same to Krum, heaving choked breaths of hilarity, and Harry made it so the wind sounded like their breath, and the sea swelled and rose with their laughter.

They did not ride back to the castle: they flew. Krum and Blom urged on the dogs, yelling insults and laughs at each other in Bulgarian and Russian and Danish, and the wind made Harry feel so weightless that they rose a couple inches off the ground. They sped into the night like dragons, like sea serpents scaling the depths of the ocean, like wraiths made of arctic light.

When Harry made it back to his room, lungs aching and so hungry he might have eaten a troll, he pulled a piece of parchment from the stack by the bed, grabbed the quill and ink from where he'd abandoned them on the rug, and wrote:

Mr Lamotte,

Thank you for your gift. It's very generous and I can't possibly accept it. It was good of you to think of me, but in the future you don't have to send me any presents. I don't need or expect them.

Regards,

Harry Potter.

He'd flung open the door, the re-wrapped Firebolt and the missive in hand, when he nearly walked right into Karkaroff.

Harry jumped back, clinging to the broom and the magic he still felt beating in his muscles.

'Mr Potter,' said Karkaroff. 'May I come in?'

It made sense that as headmaster, Karkaroff would know where Harry's dorm was. Harry hadn't thought of it before, and now it made him feel strange, as though someone had violated an unspoken rule.

He nodded lamely.

Karkaroff closed the door behind him with a flick of the wand. The lock did not click. He surveyed the room with a cool gaze, tapping his wand against his side in deliberation. Harry swallowed.

'Not very clean,' Karkaroff said. 'You must work on being more orderly, Mr Potter.'

'Yes, sir,' said Harry oddly.

'The new term begins tomorrow. When the students return, the school will resume its ordinary march. This means it will be unacceptable for you to eat down in the kitchens with the squib servants. I hope you realise this.'

Harry gaped a little. He had not had the time to try and guess the reason for Karkaroff's impromptu visit, but never in a million years would he have guessed that.

'Uh—but the other—' he stopped himself. He did not actually know if Karkaroff was aware that many students dined in the kitchens, and Harry did not want to get anyone else in trouble. 'That is, I didn't realise it wasn't allowed.'

'It isn't that it's disallowed,' Karkaroff drawled, looking now at the spider web in the corner where the far wall met the ceiling. 'It simply is not good. The walls have ears and every dark corner has a pair of eyes, Mr Potter. There is nothing that goes on in this school that I do not find out eventually. I have tolerated your bad habits over Christmas because they were hurting no one except yourself. Now that other students are arriving, and you can take my word for it that many are only a little less inquisitive and a little less all-seeing than I am, it simply cannot continue.'

He reached out and lay his hand on Harry's shoulder. His palm was cold even through the fabric. Harry did his best not to flinch.

'You may not be Viktor Krum, Mr Potter, but your name still means something to many students and teachers here. Let's make sure you earn that regard. Can you do that for me?'

Harry looked at him. There was too much in his head to lend any mental capacity to schooling his expression or even recognising what was written in it—but whatever it was, it made Karkaroff's set face change a little, though whether good or bad Harry could not say.

'Yes, sir,' Harry said again. It sounded different from when he'd said it last. 'I can do that.'

Karkaroff nodded. Once he had left, Harry allowed the grin to spread fully on his face. He wasn't sure why the encounter would have made him so happy, but he thought it had something to do with knowing he'd definitely be going to have dinner in the kitchens again tonight, and with the magic he'd seen earlier, and with the energy in him that rose when he thought of either.

When he opened the door into the corridor, he found it gloomy and dim as ever. His eyes were drawn suddenly to where his wand rested against his thigh.

He drew it out, breathed, chuckled, and then he said, 'Lumos.'

And the tip of his wand shone like always. It only felt different.

Awfully, much of the energy aborted him once he'd seen the ptarmigan disappear into the sky with Lamotte's Firebolt. He felt suddenly weary and not at all up to any of the missions he had been frantically setting himself on the way to the dovecote. He'd intended to go down to the kitchens to eat again, he had intended this to be a statement made for his own sake if not Karkaroff's, but at once he found he could not bear the thought of it. He did not feel up to carrying beacons now, or setting examples, or performing acts of magic, or even spiting Karkaroff. He wanted to do very little and be very little, too—but he was still hungry.

The way to Snape's rooms was as dank and ill-lit as ever. Harry heard a vole scurrying around the corner when it sensed his footsteps, and he gave mock chase to hurry it along, then felt a little bad about it.

After everything that had happened today, after the wild magic Harry had felt and wielded and made dance for them, after seeing the real Durmstrang and the real lights of the night, Harry didn't see much sense in arguing over stupid things. He knocked.

The door screeched open for him. The fire was burning high; Snape was always complaining about being cold. Even now he was wrapped in a blanket, hunched over parchment. There couldn't have been any essays to grade yet, so probably he was drafting schedules and notes for the new term. The scratch of his quill was angry like Harry remembered it.

He almost laughed at himself out loud. He was talking in his head as though he hadn't seen Snape for many years when not even two weeks had passed. Something had changed, though, and he couldn't help but think how odd it was that this was where he came when he was hungry and tired of the world, and yet when he did come, he felt only that he did not belong here—because he had been born someone else, and had grown up somewhere else—and because it could never be real.

He didn't know what to say, his throat gone dry and tight, so he said, 'I'm hungry.'

Snape did not look up from his scratching. 'When are you not,' he said, doing that thing he did when he was acting extra dismissive because he was feeling odd. At least they were both feeling odd, then, even if it was for different reasons. 'I will finish here and order you something. Sit.'

Harry sat in the chair across from him. He peered at his notes but couldn't make them out upside-down. He dallied for a moment before saying, as lightly as he could manage it, 'I sent the broom back by the way.'

Snape stilled. 'If you were under the impression that you weren't welcome here until you've done so, it is entirely your own fault for assuming something I have not said.'

'God!' Harry exclaimed. 'Why can't you just—I did what you wanted, and it doesn't even matter!'

'You're putting words in my mouth again. I did not say it didn't matter—'

'Everything I do is always wrong! I don't know what else to do to make you—' here he broke, a weight pressing down on his tongue that made it impossible to speak the words he wanted to. 'You tell me I should accept that I'm famous and that I have a say, and to be this better man whatever that means, and I go and decide I want to try and do that, and all you can do is criticise me again!'

'That is not what I—' Snape drew in a breath. He closed his eyes briefly. When he opened them, he did look at Harry at last. 'My opinion of you is beside the point. Everyone's opinion of you is beside the point. If you do wish to wield the power you have chanced into, you must use your own mind, Harry. You must decide for yourself whether to keep the broom and whether to listen to my suggestions. I don't—it is not as if I am an authority on making the right choices.'

Harry groaned, then hid his face in his arms. 'That's not how it works,' he mumbled into them. 'It isn't beside the point.'

'What isn't? Everyone else's opinion?'

Harry nodded, then shrugged.

'My opinion?' Snape translated. 'If you truly believe I am criticising you unjustly, then you should not listen to me. I don't—I don't always know what to say, Potter. You must know as much by now— What? I can't hear what you're mumbling. Speak up.'

Harry lifted his mouth an inch off the crook of his arm. 'Maybe you live in a fantasy world where things that shouldn't matter don't matter just because you say so. But the rest of us have to live in the real one.'

Snape snorted. 'Hilarious. See—that was almost praise. I do not always criticise you.'

'That was sarcasm,' Harry pointed out. Then, apropos of nothing, he added, 'I don't think wild magic is bad.'

He heard Snape consider his words.

'I know you do,' Harry said quickly. 'A little, even if you don't say it. But I get what you're talking about—I still don't think it's bad even if you do sometimes. I used to, but today, I—I felt it again and it's not—I don't think it's good either, really, I think it's just whatever you make of it. I wanted to think it was bad, though. I wanted to think I would never use it and then nothing bad would happen because I wanted it to be the magic's fault, what happened during Quidditch. But it wasn't. It was mine.'

'It was the fault of whatever idiot at the Ministry decided to let Dementors into a school full of children—'

'Yeah,' Harry allowed. 'But also it was mine.'

Snape was silent for a while, so he risked a glance at his face. When he caught his eye, Snape smiled at him, a little sad and a little faint but nevertheless, which Harry didn't really understand in the circumstances.

'Committing a wrong,' Snape said quietly, holding Harry's gaze, 'can feel as though it leaves an indelible mark on you that everyone can see. It does not. I look at you and see nothing wrong, and since I am so happy to criticise you, you should trust that it's true.'

'Okay, but—'

'Don't interrupt me. I was going to say that what it leaves instead is a wound that only you can see. Some wounds close and are forgotten, others leave a scar to remind you of what you have overcome. But no wound can heal if you keep prying it open, Harry. You can trust me on that, too.'

A shadow passed through Snape's face. Keeping his eyes trained somewhere to the left of Harry's head, he reached out and encircled Harry's wrist with his fingers. Harry thought it was the kind of hold that you'd keep on a toddler's hand when crossing the street. He thought it was a little too firm, like Snape was trying to keep him from running away. He didn't know what else to think beyond that, and so tricked by some strange instinct he let his head drop again so his forehead rested against Snape's knuckles.

The moment he'd realised what he'd done, he felt all the air leave the room at once. He straggled back, shamed, looking everywhere but Snape's face or hands or any other part of Snape's body.

Snape cleared his throat. 'Don't do that,' he said hoarsely.

'I'm sorry,' Harry said quickly. 'I don't know what—'

'You are not to prostrate yourself before me, Potter,' Snape interrupted. Harry wasn't sure what he was talking about, so he stayed quiet. 'I do not require this—this faux reverence, this—this put-on subservience.'

'I'm sorry,' Harry repeated, though he didn't know what he was apologising for now.

'Alright,' said Snape weakly. 'Go back to burying yourself in your own arm the way you like. Go on.'

Eyebrows riding up at the strangeness of the request, Harry obeyed anyway, and lowered his head to the crook of his elbow like he'd had it before. A moment of terse silence later, he felt Snape's hand in his hair, hesitant first, then heavy and warm.

'These wounds don't heal unless you are strong enough to take responsibility for what occurred,' Snape's voice above him said. 'Not all of it, but just enough. It sounds to me like you've managed as much, so well done.'

Harry bit his lip. He was going to start crying if he didn't do something soon to stop himself. 'Did you just say that so I can't say you only ever criticise me?'

'It would be a little disingenuous to accuse me of it now,' Snape agreed. 'And since you have such a healthy appetite—more praise, you'll notice, that could not possibly be misconstrued as criticism—I will go sort out dinner.'

'Okay.' Harry took a breath. He couldn't decide if it would be too embarrassing to say it, but he knew if he didn't now, he wouldn't later as much as he'd like to. 'I know I'm not normal—I mean, I'm not like everyone else because of my name and scar and magic and all that. But can we—can we just pretend like I am sometimes?'

The fingers in Harry's hair tightened minutely.

'Yes,' Snape said, releasing a breath. 'We can pretend.'