TWENTY-ONE.

Harry's footfalls were soft on the stone floor. His furs slipped off his shoulders with a whisper; his socked feet stepped out of the dirt-smeared boots with no sound at all. He was struck suddenly by the memory of shivering in this room on the first night he'd arrived at Durmstrang, too afraid to tell Ludvig he'd been cold. It seemed silly now to not have said.

The corridors were quiet, too. By the time Harry had pulled the stolen sled to a halt with trembling hands, hardly believing he'd managed it and wanting never to get within biting distance of a dog ever again, breakfast had finished and morning lessons begun. As Harry walked, teeth chattering and knees on the verge of buckling, he had to keep reminding himself that everyone was simply hidden away from view in classrooms and reading rooms. His brain was not keen on this reality and supplied him continuously with other explanations: everyone was dead or disappeared, they had been murdered by Peter Pettigrew or eaten by the voles he reigned over, or they had never been here in the first place because Harry had all along imagined them, turned mad with the cold and isolation of the empty castle he'd been given for his exile from magical society.

He stopped at a corner to catch his breath in the morning light from the slanted window. He did not have a clear idea of where he was going. He wanted to go to Snape but knew this was not right. Childishly, he was clinging onto the idea that Snape might help him fix it—Sirius, Pettigrew, the truth and the lie, what had happened out there on the ice, and the caving, exhausted hunger in the pit of Harry's stomach—but he knew Snape would not help him now and Harry would not be able to ask. He needed to fix it himself.

The task ahead felt so monumental Harry could feel his breath quickening with it. He thought of going to his dorm instead of to Snape's; of hiding under his duvet until he woke into a different day. But that never worked. He had tried.

He turned into the narrow stairway that led whimsically across three floors down and then up again to the kitchens. The school had not been built to facilitate the students' reaching the kitchens, Inna had once told him. Harry had observed it did not facilitate the squibs who worked there getting out of the kitchens, either, and she had laughed even though he hadn't meant to be funny. It seemed like forever ago now.

When he pushed open the door, he was assaulted by smells and voices that quietened immediately his brain's stupid fancy. The long table was beset by servants taking their second breakfast now that the students and staff had been fed. Laughter and rows blended perfectly into a uniform buzz Harry did not need to understand to be comforted by. This had been the right choice. He would eat and get warm, and ask after Ludvig and Snape, and through the gossip mill he would find out everything he needed to know before doing anything else.

'Harry?'

Ella was staring at him as if she'd seen an apparition. No one else paid Harry much mind, used as they were to seeing him down in the kitchens. Had none of them heard anything of what had happened? Had Snape and Ludvig kept it all a secret?

Ella was dropping her food and running to him, hands searching on his shoulders and face before she realised what she was doing and pulled herself away. She did not apologise for touching him, though Harry had for a moment a strong presentiment that she might.

'You're back,' she said in wonder. 'I have to tell Inna—oh, I have to tell Ludvig! Did he find you?'

Harry frowned, trying to make sense of the question. 'Ludvig? No—did he get back okay yesterday? Is he hurt?'

Ella shook her head. 'No, well, he'll live. I meant Professor Snape. He didn't bring Ludvig with him the second time he went out looking for—'

Harry's lungs seized. His throat closed. This couldn't be happening. Snape had been supposed to go back to the castle once Harry had brought the bear and the geysers and the cracking ice—he'd been supposed to stay put, nursing his anger, not go back out to— 'Where did he go?' he demanded. 'Where was he going?'

'I don't know. He didn't talk to me about it, did he? Maybe Professor Vernyhora knows—Harry, wait!'

Harry did not wait. He sprinted past a young boy carrying a bowl of porridge and took the stairs three steps at a time, teetering dangerously on every other edge but unmindful of gravity. He needed to find Snape. He needed to find him before Snape found Sirius again, before he'd seen that he didn't have Harry with him and jumped to the worst possible conclusion—

He did not watch where he was going; he didn't need to. The corridors were empty, and he knew the way to Lisa's office. He knew the way everywhere. He would know exactly where to look for Snape here in the castle, but out there was infinite, it was teeming with magic, it was impossible to canvass—

He collided with a body just as he was passing by the big dining hall no one ever used. The momentum took his breath away, making his ears ring. Through the noise, he heard the body mutter a curse.

'Where on Earth are you running to now?'

Harry blinked up at him stupidly. Snape stood before him, cheeks red and the hands he'd used to steady Harry cold as anything. He must have just got back. Had he found out somehow that Harry was here—or had he given up?

'What happened to your lip?'

Harry felt at the congealed blood with the tip of his tongue. He'd forgotten it was there. 'Nothing,' he said. 'It was an accident.'

Snape said nothing. Harry realised only now he'd been looking him in the eye, and that felt very wrong. His head snapped toward the floor so fast his neck hurt.

'Did it hurt you?' Harry asked.

'What?'

'The bear.'

'Ah—no. I was fine.'

'You didn't kill it, did you? Because they're endangered. It's illegal to kill them.'

'I didn't kill it.'

'That's good.' Harry took a breath. Reflexively, he bit into his lip, which immediately erupted again with a renewed bleed. Through the hot wet, he said, 'Look, I really don't think he did it. I know you don't believe me, but what he said about Peter Pettigrew all kind of made sense, and if we could just find him—'

'Peter Pettigrew is currently in Ministry custody.'

Harry's head snapped back up again. He stared. 'What?'

This time, it was Snape who looked away. He cleared his throat. 'I—he's been found.'

'You found him? You've found Peter Pettigrew?'

'Yes. He will be questioned under Veritaserum. If his testimony matches Black's, he will be sent to Azkaban and Black will most likely be exonerated.'

Harry was too shocked for joy. 'I have to tell him!' he exclaimed. 'He's out there, thinking that I—I have to find him—'

'Black is with Lupin. They have left for a secure location.'

'Lupin? But—a secure—will someone be there? Will they heal him? Because he's been shot—'

'He's already been healed.'

Harry nodded, then asked, 'He's been healed?' and watched Snape nod the affirmative. He knew he was being slow. He wondered why Snape hadn't called him out on it yet. 'But what—so what am I supposed to do, then?'

Snape's lip quirked up, just for a flash of a second. 'I will give you a balm for your lip,' he said, 'if you come to my chambers with me.'

That still sounded like something that Snape would be doing, not Harry, but Harry was suddenly too anxious to say so. He imagined following Snape to his rooms and felt only dread. He'd rather drown in his own blood, he thought as he swallowed half a mouthful, disgusted with himself as he did. But what was he supposed to do? Spit it out onto the floor, with Snape there to see and wince at him?

He had left it too long. Snape's gaze was on him, burning. He was trying to see what he could get Harry to do and what he couldn't. He was trying to understand. At once Harry didn't want him to understand anything. It was too late. It was hours and hours too late.

'Or I could bring it to your dorm. Would that be agreeable?'

No, thought Harry. Piss off, thought Harry, leave me alone and die, and don't speak to me and don't listen to me, and don't ever look for me again or come to Durmstrang for me or do anything like that, because now I can't—but he didn't say any of that because he didn't want Snape even angrier with him than he was already. So, he nodded.

He thought they would go their separate ways at the stairway, but Snape walked him to his dorm first before going to fetch the balm. He didn't speak. That silence made the new silence Harry had been left in seem greater and more horrible. It pressed in on him where he sat on his bed, worrying his bloodied lip between his teeth and waiting for whoever Snape would be when he returned. Harry hoped he would yell. He hoped he would accuse Harry of all the things Harry felt guilty for and all the things he didn't, and then Harry could yell back and stop feeling like he felt now, so quiet and strange, his tongue heavy in his mouth. He was so afraid Snape would yell.

When Snape came back, he didn't yell. He did something worse, which was sit on the opposite end of the bed to Harry's and reach out to put the balm on him. Wound up tight, Harry startled back, hitting his head on the wall and making lights and shapes swirl for a moment before the eyes he'd shut in pain. He could tell Snape was hurt by this because he didn't even ask if Harry was okay, he only stared at his own hands and said not a thing.

He gave Harry the balm to apply it himself. It was glittery in Harry's fingers and cool on his skin. It made the cut close up quickly, though the taste of blood lingered.

He gave Harry his wand, too. He must have taken the time to pick it up before bringing Ludvig back to the castle. After the bear had come.

Harry pocketed the wand. He screwed the lid of the jar back on and handed the balm to Snape.

'I'm sorry,' he said quietly.

'You are not.'

It sounded definitive. Harry swallowed. 'I am—'

'No. I will not allow you to act out being sorry for preventing me from killing a man who'd done little to deserve it.'

Harry almost got up and left. The only thing stopping him was that he might brush against Snape as he did. Everything was made worse for being spelled out like that, in that voice, with no argument or excuse. 'I'm not sorry for that,' he admitted. Quietly, he added, 'I thought you'd be angry with me.'

Snape made a sound that wanted to be a laugh but couldn't quite get there. 'I am not angry with you.'

And Harry wasn't really angry with him, either. How could he be, after what Snape had done for Sirius?

So why did it feel like nothing had been fixed?

'I tried to explain,' he said softly. 'I didn't want to leave you there with the bear. I'd wanted for you to come after us and help me, but then you wouldn't listen to me—'

'I know.'

Nothing was right anymore, nothing— 'Why wouldn't you listen to me?'

Snape's voice took on a tinge of annoyance. 'I listened to you eventually, didn't I?'

'Yeah, but why not then?' His voice hitched. 'Why did you have to ruin everything?'

Snape opened his mouth. He seemed to come to some decision within himself, because when he next spoke, his tone was flat and emotionless. 'I hadn't planned on telling you this anytime soon,' he said, 'or perhaps ever. But I suppose it doesn't matter now.'

Harry's throat twisted and tugged. Whatever it was Snape was going to say, he wasn't sure he wanted to hear it.

'When I was still in the Dark Lord's service, I overheard a prophecy which spoke of a child who would come to acquire great power alien to the Dark Lord.' Snape hesitated. 'The child was to be born at the end of July to parents who had defied the Dark Lord thrice.'

Harry stared at him. 'I was born at the end of July.'

'Yes. As were many children. But when I took the intelligence to the Dark Lord, he became convinced the prophecy spoke of you. Perhaps it was the Potter name. Perhaps it was the fact you were a half-blood like him, I do not know. In any case, he resolved to kill you before you could come into the great power the prophecy spoke of and threaten him.'

A cold thing was waking to life in Harry's chest, a dread and a resignation both. 'But why—'

'The Dark Lord is threatened by any power that is not his own. Even if it resides in a child. When I understood I had sentenced your mother to death, like a fool I tried to plead with him to spare her. When he would not, I went to Dumbledore.'

Snape looked at him. His face was unlike Harry had ever seen. It scared him. 'I am the reason your parents are dead. It comforted me to think that Sirius Black was, too. Here was a man I already despised, who had warned your mother off associating with me, and he bore even greater responsibility for what had occurred than I did. When you threatened this reality, I lost control of myself.'

Harry could hear his breathing in his ears; could feel his heart beating wildly in his thighs and his ankles.

'You wanted an explanation. That is the best one I can provide.'

'He wasn't going to kill her,' Harry heard himself say. There was so much in his head, and somehow this felt the most pressing to say. 'When that Dementor attacked me on the Hogwarts Express, I heard Voldemort killing my mum. It was a memory, I think, because I've dreamt something similar before, too. He kept telling her to move away from me. He was going to spare her like you asked him to. She only died because she was trying to protect me.'

Snape didn't say anything, but Harry could tell that he'd stopped breathing.

'So, the only thing you did was trade our places. You should have just left well enough alone and stayed a Death Eater. If they hadn't been warned ahead, maybe I'd be dead and she would be alive. I bet you regret that now, don't you?'

'How dare you—'

'I need a shower,' Harry stuttered, fighting to hold in the tears for a couple seconds longer. 'I'm grimy.'

The bathroom door shut with a thud. Harry undressed, each item of clothing increasingly blurry as he removed it and dropped it to the floor. Snape hadn't called after him. What would he have called? Sorry your parents are dead because of you?

Steam wafted off the floor tiles as the hot stream of water struck. One good thing about Durmstrang was that the water was always hot right away. At the Weasleys' and at Moody's, you always had to wait a minute before it caught up, and back at the Dursleys' there never had been much hot water left by the time it was Harry's turn in the bathroom.

As he sat curled up, water flowing freely down his hunched back and dripping from his nose, he wondered what the shower situation would have been like at his parents' house. Would the water pressure have been something their overnight guests commented on, like Aunt Marge always did at the Dursleys', or would the water have dribbled reluctantly from the showerhead and made it impossible to ever wash out all the shampoo?

Harry had once thought that in some alternate reality he might have known; that he might have lived a different life entirely. Now, he wasn't so sure. It seemed increasingly as though he'd been doomed from the start. If Snape hadn't overheard that stupid prophecy that didn't even make sense. If he hadn't brought it to Voldemort. If Voldemort hadn't fixated on Harry. If Sirius hadn't insisted on making Pettigrew the Secret Keeper. If Pettigrew hadn't betrayed them. How many other chances for his parents to survive had been lost?

If Harry hadn't been born in the first place. That was another. But he had been, and everything else had followed, and Harry hated himself for it but still he thought, in the lonely safety of the shower's heat, that his own life mattered more to him than the lives of Lily and James Potter.

And that meant he couldn't very well judge Snape for what he'd done, could he? Harry did not even care enough about his parents' death to go on the big avenging killing spree that all the characters in books and Dudley's action movies went on. Could he blame Snape for failing to risk his own life to protect a random baby? Would Harry?

He didn't know. It didn't matter. It hadn't been a random baby, it had been him, Harry, and that made it all different in his mind, even if it was stupid.

He stayed under the shower until his skin had gone red and his fingers so wrinkled and soft that he worried they would be scraped off on the towel. He didn't have clean clothes in the bathroom except pyjamas, so he put those on even though it was early and even though he didn't think he could sleep.

When he opened the door back into his bedroom, Snape was inexplicably still there.

He hadn't moved a single inch, still planted on the edge of Harry's bed and still flat-faced and strange. Harry thought for a moment he might have fallen asleep, because he looked exhausted and because his eyes were shut loosely, but when he roused to look at Harry his eyes were alert.

'I have another issue I must inform you of,' Snape said formally. 'Then, I will go. Sit.'

Harry sat on the bed on the opposite side of the room.

'If Black were to be exonerated, he would likely be re-established as your guardian. The godparent role holds an important place in magical tradition, and with Black's resources, I do not expect his claim would be contested. The committee would be dissolved. Do you understand?'

Harry did. He wasn't stupid.

'I'm not stupid,' he said.

Snape did not comment on his tone. He wasn't even looking at Harry anymore. 'Black may not be an ideal candidate for a parent, but it has become clear that not all members of the committee have your best interests at heart. It is preferable that your guardian be less involved in politics and more in your welfare. And we have other means of influencing Black should the necessity arise. If he cannot care for you adequately, he will remain guardian in name and you will be allowed to stay with the Weasleys for the time required.'

Harry should be happy. He knew that. Sirius was a little terrifying, but then so was Harry, and he had the benefit of washing and eating and having spent time with other people over the last thirteen years. Given time and those same advantages, who was to say Sirius wouldn't be a great dad? Harry imagined he might be a little like Lamotte, forgetting the important things but making up for it with charm and presents. He might be like Moody, ravaged by anxiety but knowing all the best stories to tell. Like Mr Weasley, boyish but warm. He might be, in some way Harry couldn't define but that Sirius would be able to define for him, a little like James Potter.

It was all Harry had wanted for as long as he remembered. He was taken by a fear that nothing of what he'd ever want in life would make him happy when he got it.

'Sirius told me the same thing you told me.'

Snape sighed. 'What?'

'That he was the reason my parents are dead. Because he convinced them to make Pettigrew their Secret Keeper and then Pettigrew betrayed them. You two should get together and talk about it, because I am sick of hearing it.'

'We are not discussing it anymore,' Snape said tightly. 'We have moved on to more immediate concerns. Are you going to comment in any way on what I have arranged for you, or—'

'Yeah. Go to hell.'

Snape pursed his lips. His hands, previously flat on the bed's mattress, tightened into fists. When he exhaled, he straightened the fingers out. Harry hated that he could stay calm. He suddenly wanted Snape to strike him, hex him, at least to curse him out properly—anything to make Harry's hurt feel earned.

'You are free to be angry with me, but you will control yourself.'

'No, I won't! And you know what happens when I don't control myself: things fall from the skies! So that's great news for you, because I will bring the whole castle down over our heads and then we'll all be dead, and then you'll be happy!'

Harry stood. He thought for a moment he was storming out, but something prevented him from reaching for the doorknob. Effectively, he merely paced, brimming with energy and not knowing what to do with his hands.

'It's just so stupid because you both make it sound like it's some big thing,' he started rambling, already halfway to breathless. 'Like I should care about it so much that it changes everything in my life, like my life is just how my parents died and why and what for and—and it's not. I don't even care. It was years ago, so what does it matter anymore? If things had been different, if anything had happened differently then I wouldn't be here. My life wouldn't exist. So how am I supposed to want—and I do wish, I guess, yeah, I'm sad my parents are dead, but it doesn't—it doesn't help me or change anything or—and I don't obsess over it like you do! Like both of you! All you care about is what happened back then, like what's happening now doesn't even matter at all!'

'That is not true.'

'It is so!' Harry shouted. The tears in his throat made it impossible to swallow. 'I didn't even matter to you more than getting revenge on some guy who bullied you at school!'

'Now you are completely misrepresenting the situation—'

'If I mattered to you, you wouldn't be hoisting me off onto the first person who came along.'

The tears came from his throat up his nose and down again. His cheeks were sticky with them. It was a strange, ugly but quiet sort of crying, with short sobs and more liquid than anything else, and it did not go on for very long. All too soon, Harry wasn't crying anymore, and if he wasn't crying he didn't know what to do with the feeling inside of him.

'Harry, sit down.'

'No.'

'Heavens, I am not hoisting you off—'

'Right.'

A hand on his shoulder. Snape turned him around roughly. It was startling and unpleasant, but also good because it gave Harry no say in whether or not he was going to be touched.

'Listen to me,' Snape demanded. He was using the sort of voice Harry couldn't really avoid listening to. 'I have done this for you, because I believe it will be good for you, and because you need someone else you can trust when you cease trusting me. Don't argue. We have just witnessed this is a real possibility. But in that respect, it is a precaution. It changes nothing for you and I. We are still—you can depend on me in the same way you have so far—'

'But it won't be real,' said Harry on an exhale, and right then he understood this was the problem. This was what had been wrong all along, the truth of wanting he hadn't put into any of his fantasies because it hurt too much.

Snape hesitated. He gazed at Harry searchingly, like he thought the right thing to say would be written in the jut of Harry's chin or the crease in his brow.

'I don't know how to make it real for you,' he spoke eventually. 'I don't know that it's possible.'

Of course it wasn't possible. For that split of a moment when Snape had been thinking, Harry had had a flash of hope he might conjure some answer Harry had not anticipated, that he might reveal a solution Harry had missed. Stupid.

'Is it true what you told me about your mother?' Snape asked suddenly. 'That the Dark Lord was willing to spare her?'

Harry flinched. 'That's how I heard it in the memory. If it even was one. But why would I have made it up?'

'Yes.' Snape drew in a breath, sharp like a cut. 'Thank you for telling me.'

Harry peered up at him. It wasn't the sort of thing he'd expect Snape to want to know about, especially now that all this hindsight could be put to little use except regret and endless ruminating. Although maybe Snape liked that.

'I have always—' Snape broke, searching for a word, so uncertain suddenly that Harry almost didn't recognise him. His eyes were glassy, and Harry didn't want to think of why. 'In my memory, that night—that whole year, in fact, when I changed allegiances, gave up dignity and prostrated myself like a dog before any master I thought would aid me—I always remembered it as the time I failed to save Lily's life. You cannot imagine how—what it means to be able to look back on it and think that perhaps I was instead saving yours.'

Something stuck in Harry's airways. He blinked quickly, clutching onto and then desperately trying to expunge the hope. He didn't know what to say. You're welcome? Or thank you? But Snape wouldn't like that.

'Hang on,' he said instead, pretending like everything was normal and like he didn't want to cry again. 'Dumbledore said I'm so good with wild magic because of my mum's wild magic spell. You know, the love sacrifice thing. But that wouldn't have worked if she'd been going to die anyway, because it wouldn't have been true sacrifice, would it? So, if you hadn't asked Voldemort not to kill her, would I have died anyway?'

'I don't know.' Snape sounded sceptical.

But Harry suddenly really liked this idea. 'And I wouldn't be able to use wild magic, so I wouldn't have any of the power from the prophecy anyway. All Voldemort had to do was leave it well enough alone and I wouldn't have any power for him to worry about ever.'

'I think that is the irony of it.'

'Huh,' said Harry. 'Karma.'

Snape gave a wet chuckle. There were no tear tracks on his cheeks, but Harry was momentarily bolstered by knowing he wasn't the only one who'd got emotional, even if it was weird to think of Snape crying. Did he ever, in the bathroom when he was alone or when he lay in bed at night? Harry had thought once adults never cried, but he knew now that was probably a little naïve.

Harry said, 'Do you know that I drove the dogsled back to the castle on my own?'

'Yes, Black told me. Very impressive.'

Harry grinned. It felt a little strained, a little painful, but those weren't things that could be changed.

'Would you like to know what I rode back to the castle?' Snape asked conversationally.

'What? A dogsled?'

'Viktor Krum's Firebolt.'

And Harry decided that he hated Snape after all.