"All hail the glow cloud!"

-Welcome to Night Vale


Psalms

It's odd to sleep somewhere so quiet and so closed in: the room feels like an empty cellar. Harry can count on the fingers of one hand the nights he's spent away from the Dursleys' farm. The barn doesn't count as 'away' of course. That was where he spent most of his nights in the summer: in his makeshift hideaway amid the bales of hay, lying on an old horse blanket and falling asleep to the rustle of stirring livestock.

Snape's living room is small, with a leaky faucet in the kitchen just round the corner, and a creaky elm tree outside. A couch spring digs into Harry's side and he shifts away from it, throwing off the cotton sheet. Not that he really needs it; the night's warm enough. There's the distant wail of coyotes, far-off and lonely. An occasional faint hum of cars driving down faraway roads reminds him that there's more to life than this wilderness. It makes Harry miss his radio: left behind under the Dursleys' stairs, along with the rest of his childhood.

The match to the tinder that had been building for years, was the way Uncle Vernon abruptly forbade Harry to attend church anymore with the Dursleys. "What business can an abomination like you have in Church, with good, God-fearing folks? And just what sort of prank are you trying to pull, eyeing Pastor Snape the way you did! Answer me, boy! Up to no good again, are you? Well, you can forget about it: no mischief on my watch! No sir!" The smug, self-righteous look on his uncle's face was the last straw. Harry stormed out with a hastily packed bag and slammed the door behind him for good. The wide unknown stretched past the three wooden stairs was far more welcoming than the Dursleys farm ever was to him.

One thing is clear, at least: Snape doesn't believe Harry's an abomination. Maybe it's even true, and Harry's just as human as the rest of the world as far as the Bible's concerned. After all, a pastor would know the truth better than Harry's uncle.

He listens, trying to figure out if Snape's asleep or awake; but all is quiet, as if there's no one else there at all. Harry holds his breath, strains his ears even harder in the silence, tries to listen past his own heartbeat, and he thinks he hears breathing in the next room. He isn't sure if he's imagining it, but it's slow and steady and as he tries to match his own breathing to it, his mind quiets at last and his eyelids grow heavy and his thoughts dim.

At the Dursleys', Harry woke early, to feed the chickens, but there are no chickens to feed here, so he lies quietly, waiting as the early sun paints the yellowed wallpaper pink. Until he hears the creak of a bed and the sound of steady footsteps, and knows it's the start of a new day. Then he jumps up and folds up the cotton sheets, stacking them over the pillow, eager to make a good house guest impression on his first day.


After breakfast, Snape finds Harry out in the cemetery by his mother's stone. The surface is freshly cleaned and a wreath of wildflowers rests on top of the granite.

"Guess I was wrong, huh," Harry's head is lowered, his expression hidden behind that mop of hair, eyes downturned behind shielding lenses. "I told you before that it's pointless to talk to someone who doesn't answer, but that's not true." He reaches out to arrange the little spray of blossom on the stone. "I know she won't answer, but it's good to be here."

Snape is silent: the careful, cautious silence of an avid listener. It's the best way he knows to honor deep, personal loss.

"There are places in the world that matter. That mean something. More than a dot on a map or a name. Like right here. Or right there too." He lifts his head for the first time, nods in the direction of the church and Snape's cottage alike, as a faint, reminiscent smile dawns. Only then does that vivid gaze flick to Snape's face. "Does that make any sense?"

Snape peers against sunlight at the road to Pleasant Hope. "Your home must matter to you in some way."

Harry makes a face. "It's my uncle's farm! Nowhere I'd call 'home'. They can have the place all to themselves, just like they've always wanted. It's not like I'm ever going back!"

Snape sifts through all the things he admired about Lily, trying to settle on something particularly relevant to her son. When at last Snape offers up the memory, his voice is halting, a slow murmur so quiet it barely disturbs the hush. "Your mother, she... left." Snape bows his head, turns his gaze away; giving Harry privacy, hoping the straggling strands of his hair hide his own expression. "Out of all of us, she was the one who was brave enough to actually leave town. For good. Never came back 'till they brought her body here. To rest in the family plot." Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

"What was she like, in school?"

A lot like you, Snape thinks. A seeker. He shakes his head and smiles, brief but honest. "She wasn't much for praying either."

I am incredibly honored to have known her.


Sparrows scatter from the lilac bushes, dusty feathers and heart-shaped leaves all a-shiver at the victorious, diesel-smoky roar of the ancient lawnmower piloted by Snape's unexpected houseguest. Snape can't help but wonder if his tomato seedlings have all been cut to the root, sacrificed to a wandering turn of the mower going round the peony plants. He winces, worries, but doesn't look out the window. He certainly hasn't lived this long without other people making him abundantly aware of his many faults: he knows perfectly well he can be demanding. Perfectionistic. But he knows even more clearly that it won't do for Harry to think that he isn't trusted with his work, especially now, when Harry's still so uncertain of his welcome.

The smell of gasoline and freshly cut grass has filled the cottage in equal measures by the time the lawnmower suddenly goes quiet. Harry ambles in, loose-limbed with exertion, mopping his flushed face with one of Snape's old T-shirts (the one with the seminary logo, the irony!) Harry is tousled and sweaty and wearing perfectly ordinary jeans; but that bare torso, skin pink with sun, and the even sunnier smile Harry turns his way, make a picture worthy of the wondering gaze usually reserved for timeless artworks. Had Snape still been the same impressionable seminary student who'd once spent an hour staring at a chapel ceiling's timeless fresco immortalizing human skin, life and youth - he wouldn't have been able to tear his gaze away.

Harry is just as untouchable as that chapel ceiling, and Snape tells himself that it makes a bit of silent appreciation permissible: so long as it's carefully hidden, of course. He bites his lip and does not acknowledge the heat on his face as anything other than a momentary reaction to the current weather. It is, after all, rather hot for May.

He forces his hand to unclench behind his back, and passes Harry a pitcher of iced tea. Wordless, calm, Snape is the picture of restraint. (It's not as if he's rushing to offer to apply lotion to all that pink skin!) He certainly doesn't comment on the sweat beading on Harry's body. If he watches a drop slide down Harry's chest as Harry gulps down the drink, it's only for a moment. If he does momentarily consider swatting that tempting backside to send the brat to shower - alone! - it's only for the sensible and fully justifiable reason of teaching him not to clutter up Snape's kitchen with his sweat-sheened self.

"Lawn's done," Harry announces, wetting his hand under the faucet and running it through his hair. "Anything else you need?" He glances back at Snape, splashes water on his cheeks, and blinks. "What? Have I got something on my face?"

"Do you have to ask?" Snape says, casting what can pass as an assessing look. He steps forward. After a moment of deliberation, he allows himself to reach out and pluck a blade of grass from that mop of hair, right above Harry's forehead. It would be so easy, Snape thinks, for a less honorable man to lie, and use that excuse to brush Harry's face, and then let the touch linger, follow the trail of droplets of sweat, down, down, down. Harry should really be more careful in strangers' houses. Someone with far less scruples could so easily take advantage of his trust.

Even as Harry disappears into the shower, that blade of grass, green as Harry's gaze, still seems to weigh heavily against Snape's palm.

Every now and then, Snape's traitorous primal nature sweeps him up like a summer storm past tornado season, and when it hits with all that energy and need, even the reclusive refuge of the church's walls is no real escape. He thinks of Harry, separated from him by a thin wall, slim and supple as corn stalks in spring, face upturned toward the shower's spray the same way growing shoots face the warm summer rain.

The blade of grass in his hand is no longer than a pine needle. Snape doesn't have any excuse to hang onto it, but instead of throwing it out, he brings it to his face and inhales, catching the faint, evocative scent of summer.


They go out to Dobby's for dinner, at Harry's insistence. It's the only diner in town, unless you count the place at the gas station which offers nothing more appetizing than stale pizza slices or hot dogs off the heating rack.

At this hour, the near-empty brick-walled room is abandoned by regulars in favor of Abe's Corner - the local bar next door. The two of them are taking up a narrow booth next to the neon-yellow window sign. Snape spears spaghetti on his fork as Harry takes a sip of lemonade and lets out a teeth-grinding crunch, which means another ice cube had put up a fight and lost. He even crunches along to a tune on the radio. Country station, as usual. Mediocre at best. Snape prefers choral music, and not just because he's always been lead baritone in any choir he's ever sung in.

Now that Harry doesn't wolf down every edible piece, he is rather amusing company to observe. The second helping of paired meatballs in the center of his plate nests in a noodly pile spreading its saucy tentacles toward the edges. It's a masterpiece of sorts. Harry looks at Snape, leans in, sticks his nose in between the meatballs, nearly kissing his food and slurps in a stray noodle with a mischievous whistle. The tail end of it smacks him in the nostril with a splatter of tomato-red, reaching all the way up his forehead like a zigzagging flesh wound.

Snape can see the audible 'oh!' of unexpected disappointed display so clearly on that face.

"Bleargh," Harry says, licking his finger and then wiping the streak of sauce off his brow. "That's probably so not what they mean when they say 'Touched by His Noodly Appendage'."

Snape sighs, bites the inside of his cheeks - the temptation is too great to go along with the game and mouth "Ramen!" - and lets out a nondescript groan instead. A priest, unfortunately, has his reputation to maintain.

"Where did you hear that?" he asks. In this town. From whom?

Harry shrugs. "Oh, here and there. On the net. And from my friend at the library."

"Just who is this friend?" It can't be Pince; that woman hasn't befriended another human being since the Great Depression!

"She helps out there. You probably don't see her often."

I won't see her in church, he means. Her. Not him. Certainly a young man with Harry's looks would attract enough of a female following to fill his head with empty Internet chatter. Just what else is this librarian girl teaching him between the stacks? Snape makes it a point not to ask further questions, but he suddenly remembers that his books are due this week, so it will be his sincere pleasure to make a trip to the library and stare down his nose at the meager collection. Just for the fun of making intelligent inquiries and watching the assistant librarian squirm in exasperation at the state of the town library.

Perhaps he'll even ask for recommendations on his reading; after all Harry here seems to be receiving such useful advice.

"She's great, you know. Last year, right around Homecoming, she tried to start this thing at school called a GSA - um, that's Gay-Straight Alliance."

Snape nods. He is perfectly aware of what those three letters stand for, but he lets Harry explain. The animated way Harry's hands move shows how much Harry cares about this topic.

"The Principal didn't approve, of course. Hermione got in trouble: got herself suspended for three days! But if there's one thing about her it's that she doesn't give up. Never-ever. So in those three days, she looked up all sorts of laws and rules on the web, and apparently she's right and Umbridge's wrong, and even ACLU's site says it's illegal to stop GSAs or punish her for it." Harry beams. "Her mom and dad got involved. That showed them! And we're still meeting. Twice a month, after school. In secret, for now, but it's sort of an open secret. Everyone's welcome."

Snape smiles. He can't help it, Harry's youthful enthusiasm is contagious. "Sounds like quite an adventure."

"Yeah! Hermione always has these Brilliant Ideas! Poor Ron. I can't see how he can keep up with her, I really don't."

Snape's mind carefully maps out Harry's everyday existence from his ramblings. Ron, Hermione. Must be quite a pair... Good! Harry can do better than a bookish small town nerd.

"What do you think of them?" Harry asks.

"Of whom?" Snape can't help but feel just a bit out of place here - out of place and time - in this Harry-dominated space and their conversation sprinkled with 'open secrets' and random 'noodly' appendages slithering off Harry's plate.

"Gay-Straight Alliances. In schools. Necessary or... just incredibly important?"

It's surreal! It really is, as if the universe turned inside out, sideways and onto itself, sharp abbreviated corners thrust through the center in complete disregard for space, for age. For order. In Snape's world, there were no GSAs. There were the bars, the baths, the closets... There was the easy societal acceptance of the seminary school. Of belonging: somewhere. Anywhere. Of being given absolution: a place and a chance to change the world.

Snape gives the thin-lipped, stubborn smile of a survivor who's fought the world since the day he was born. "Any alliance is usually a good thing." … for someone like you, and like me.

Outside the seminary walls there was so much left unexplored for Snape. But the death announcements in the papers discouraged exploration, as did the ignorance, the stench of stigma, the fear of ostracism, the plague that did not have a name - did not need a name spoken aloud. There was always that terror of loving someone, anyone, on the back of Snape's mind, because the mere act of love however brief, could spell death.

It's not the same nowadays, Snape knows. There is no easy solution: only the ignorant and the power-hungry tell their flock that prayer cures all ills. But there is greater awareness, there are treatments and medicine. There is a name now. He prays that Harry will never feel the crippling fear and guilt of causing death - his own or his loved ones' - simply by the physical fact of love. That Harry will never have to resign himself to a life without closeness, simply so he and anyone he ever cares about can survive a deadly plague.

Maybe I am a coward after all, Snape thinks. Perhaps it comes with being a survivor.

He takes a deep, shaky breath, but knows better than to ask for serenity at a moment like this. The more trials Snape survives, the more serenity seems like an unachievable dream, fading further from his reach.