"The trouble with the entire matter is that he's not safe where he is. I'd be happy just to let the creature rot in his cell, but let's face it - even in the Department of Mysteries he's still under Ministry control. Merlin knows they don't do anything right."

"That's you you're talking about too, Kingsley."

"Bite your tongue."

Kingsley and Remus exchanged brief grins, but the air stayed tense.

"The real trouble is none of us in this room have a bloody clue what to do now that Plan A failed." Tonks punched Kingsley in the shoulder, extending her arm by few inches to reach him. The effect was disconcerting. "If they had the aurors on You Know Who he'd never get out."

Snape snorted.

He was ignored.

"Voldemort is still alive. That in itself is more than enough trouble for us to deal with - let's not bring ourselves more."

"Albus." Kingsley again, but more serious. "Do we know why it didn't work?"

"Not entirely."

Another snort from Snape.

"Then how do we know what to do differently?" Tonks again.

"Voldemort will have to be dealt with as soon as possible, it's true. But for now he is quite safe where he is. The few remaining Death Eaters will gather their strength and determine his location, but we have the luxury of a few days of study, at least. We can determine what went wrong and how to correct it."

"Or you could stop wasting time and ask the one person in this room that knows the Dark Lord better than Albus."

Harry watched with detached amusement as the Order collectively took a moment to acknowledge that they heard Snape's words, then as one organism made the choice to completely ignore the man.

"Really, with You Know Who how he is now, Harry could just go in and lob curses at him until he found the one that worked, couldn't he?" Ron looked around, hesitant as always when speaking up in front of the entire Order.

"Ron. Honestly." Hermione sighed, long suffering, and Ron turned red. "What makes you think every curse he tried wouldn't recoil and hurt him the way the last one did?"

Ron shrugged, dropping his eyes.

Harry looked around the room, waiting for someone else to speak up. Because he himself was a blank, and was unwilling to strain himself coming up with more ways to do something he didn't want to do in the first place.

"I must say I am disappointed in every person in this room." Albus sat up suddenly behind his desk, looking around with sharp eyes. "Severus. Please, share your thoughts with us."

Harry felt a moment of betrayal as he looked at Albus, but he turned to Snape resentfully.

Snape was bolt upright in his chair, a contrast to the various slumps and slouches around the room. He looked decidedly uncomfortable.

"I'm not going to beg for a bloody audience, Albus."

"Severus."

"Fine." He stood up, pacing towards Albus's desk. "You want to know why the curse didn't work. One, because it was an idiot idea that never should have been tried. Two, because the Dark Lord is for all practical purposes made of pure dark magic. He is more than human. He has been reinforced with more magic than most of you know exists. You do not stop a solid mass of dark magic by throwing dark curses at it. Especially dark curses that only work from dark intentions. All it does it direct more black energy into him."

Harry frowned. "He can still die. The curse should have killed him."

Snape glared at him, and Harry couldn't help but feel suddenly like he was twelve years old and answering quiz questions wrong in class. "No. In the way you think about it, he can't die. All the old magic he's absorbed - the unicorn's blood, the immortality charms - were all transferred into this newer body of his. You can't simply knock him off a tower and hope he splatters on the bloody ground, Potter."

"But Harry has to kill him. That's the Prophecy."

Snape snorted, ugly, at the word.

Remus went on, mild but firm. "There was never a chance for Harry to stop him before he created another body for himself. The Prophecy would have foreseen that, yet still maintains either can die at the other's hands."

"The Prophecy obviously has a much higher opinion of Potter than I do," Snape muttered.

Harry rolled his eyes, but didn't speak.

"The Prophecy has created as many complications as the Dark Lord could ever have hoped for. In the attack on Potter as an infant a link was established between the two of them. Lily Evans performed powerful blood magic on Potter. If he is in the presence of one who has the same blood as his mother inside them, he is safe. "

Harry sat up, frowning. Beside him Hermione suddenly breathed in, her face losing color.

Snape glanced at her and gave a small, sharp nod. "I see some of you aren't as thick as the rest. Granger has finally stumbled over the biggest complication yet."

She nodded, a hand rising to her mouth. Her eyes went to Harry.

"Care to let us in on it, or are you going to keep it between the geniuses?" Tonks frowned from one to the other.

"Voldemort used Harry's blood to form his new body," Hermione answered softly.

Snape nodded. "The blood of Lily Evans is in the Dark Lord's veins. Which means that while the spell trying to damage him is weaker than the blood magic protecting him, Harry Potter will never be able to kill him. And as we all learned when Potter was an infant, the killing curse isn't stronger than the blood magic. If it was he would have died then."

"Bloody hell." Ron scratched at the back of his neck, looking around the room. "Then Harry can't be the one to kill him?"

"Harry has to be the one to kill him," Albus replied.

"How the bloody hell does that work?" asked Tonks.

"Simple," Snape answered. "Potter has to learn a stronger form of magic than the spell in his blood."

"Blood magic is ancient. It goes back to Merlin, and before. Is there something stronger?" Hermione straightened in instant interest.

Snape's smug certainty faded for the first time and he shrugged. "I have no idea."

Harry stood up, needing suddenly for this useless meeting to come to an end before he exploded in anger at the unfairness of his life. "Right. A couple of days to discover and learn an unknown and surpremely powerful school of magic so I can kill that bastard before his Death Eaters play sleeping beauty and wake him up. Let's just get right on that."

"Harry-"

He ignored Remus, marching to the door and storming out.

The effectiveness of his exit was only slightly ruined by Tonks and Ron at the same time asking as he left, "What's sleeping beauty?"

Snape shut his door, closing out the tension of that meeting. He looked around his quarters - at least this place was unaffected, no matter what happened outside.

The door to the bedroom was open, which was something he would never have allowed years ago. Living with another person was something he was still getting used to at Hogwarts. He had been used to it in Ireland, because the house they lived in had never been just his. His quarters, though, had only been his alone.

He sighed and tried to shake off the stiffness in his muscles. He could still feel the looks of contempt from the Order, from Potter and his friends. As if Snape created the truth of what he spoke just by speaking it.

Absurd. The lot of them. But they had it now; the truth of it was spoken. They could do with it what they would. He was done trying to convince them. He was tired of being defensive every damned minute of every bloody day.

His rooms were peace from that, even if the peace was no longer solitary.

He moved through to the bedroom and found Seamus just where he expected - soaking in the tub. He smiled minutely. "I'm back."

No answer.

His smile vanished and he was at the tub in a flash. Seamus's eyes were shut and his face was white. Snape grabbed his shoulders, shaking him. "Seamus." He cast eyes around, wondering what best to do. Get a house elf to apparate him to the hospital wing or try to pull the boy onto the bed and figure out without their interfering help

"Oh." Green eyes opened, fuzzy but clearing up fast as they looked around. Seamus shifted and sat up, looking at Snape. "I fell asleep. It was too quiet in here." He smiled, rubbing sleep from his eyes.

Snape released him, straightened and let out a shaking breath.

"Severus." Seamus's grin vanished. "Oh, God. I'm sorry. I scared you."

"For a moment," he admitted, voice scratchy. He drew in a breath. Seamus was fine. Seamus fell asleep.

The water sloshed as Seamus sat up. "I'm sorry."

"For what?"

There was a pause. "Come in."

"What?"

Seamus gestured at the water around him. "It's very relaxing. You look like you need it. It went as badly as you feared, didn't it?"

"Yes." Snape stared at the water for a moment, then began to undress himself. Perhaps a few minutes relaxing his muscles would be welcome. He had potions to brew, but his current stiffness might hurt his ability to focus.

The water was hot enough to steal his breath for a moment, but as he lowered himself in he sighed in something like bliss. His eyes shut and his head tilted back against the side of the stone tub. Warmth stole over him.

To be warm through and through, and relaxed, and safe, was the most luxurious feeling he had ever known.

Water shifted around him, and the solid warmth of a body appeared at his side. He didn't bother opening his eyes, and made a soft noise of pleasure as warm fingers threaded through his hair, running warm water through and rubbing his scalp in firm massage. He shifted as Seamus slid in behind him, moving to lean against the solid muscle of Seamus's chest rather than hard stone. Hands reappeared in his hair, massaging his scalp and temples with deft fingertips.

He breathed in, sighing air out slowly. "Thank you."

"Mmm." Seamus's hands vanished and reappeared through his arms and joining at his stomach under the water's surface. For a long time they sat in silence, soaking in warmth.

Snape could appreciate this in ways that almost pained him to think about. He thought back to his years teaching there, constantly being called away by the burn of his Mark. Or, worse, to his very first few weeks spent there. He came at the end of the leaving potion master's last term, and had spent the summer before his first term hiding, nursing scars and letting Albus weather the storm of complaint owls from parents and concerned members of the Ministry, or of society.

Snape couldn't teach there, those letters said. Because of his arm. Because of his Mark. Because despite Albus's faith in him, he was just another Death Eater.

Strange, that. How Lucius Malfoy could weather the storm and emerge with all his power and privilege intact, while Severus had hidden with nothing left in the world, scarred inside and out in ways that would never fade.

His eyes opened and he looked down at himself. At the marks in his chest and arms. Scars left not by his years of service to the Dark Lord, but by the weeks of interrogations at the hands of aurors. At the end of a war the winning side could get away with anything, and no one had ever cared about the cruelty inflicted upon Snape and people like him. Some of them deserved it, perhaps. He didn't. He had already been spying for months, risking everything. But they wouldn't listen to him, and they wouldn't listen to Albus, and he went through their treatment like any other captured enemy.

His eyes shut again and his head lay back against Seamus.

He craved the solitude of these rooms, when he first arrived and every day after that. He had thought that after the horrors he witnessed and the tortures brought on him once the Dark Lord returned, the best thing he could ever hope for was just a place to get away, a room all his own with whatever superficial comforts he could fill it with.

He never considered having someone there, because the idea was absurd. It was obvious that Snape was a monster to everyone. Obvious too that he didn't have the patience to deal with any person willing to give him a chance.

Some luxuries in the world were so inconceivable that they became laughable, and then contemptible. Marriage and family? Ludicrous. Love? A lie for fools. Warm hands to stroke his muscles when he was tired, to invite him into a hot tub and look at him with concern instead of hatred, and fondness instead of resentment? Idiotic. Absolutely.

A soft voice in his ear that meant him no harm at all? He would have laughed at the idea and hated the one who suggested it.

He sat up, splashing the sides of the tub and turning where he sat, twisting so that he could face the boy behind him.

He had no idea why Seamus was there. He didn't know what about him could be of interest to Seamus, when all Seamus's old friends and teachers hated Snape with equal force.

If Seamus had a rebellious streak he could have believed it was that. Sheer childish defiance. But rebellious was the last thing Seamus was. He was sincere, and he cared a great deal for just about everything. But even the most caring people had never given Snape more than a glance.

He didn't understand. He wanted to, but he couldn't.

Seamus didn't look at him with tolerance, or bemused fondness. He looked at Snape the way Snape felt towards him - as if being there with him was a mystery he couldn't solve. He looked at Snape as if wondering why Snape was there with him.

Seamus met his gaze and allowed Severus to study him without questioning. He smiled, and it grew as the moments passed. If he was reading Snape's intent or his thoughts, Snape wouldn't have been surprised.

Seamus leaned in and slid a wet hand through Snape's hair, holding him in place for a light kiss. "I love you, too," he said quietly.

Snape believed him, which might have been the biggest miracle of all.