O, that you were yourself! but, love, you are

No longer yours than you yourself here live:

Against this coming end you should prepare,

And your sweet semblance to some other give.

So should that beauty which you hold in lease

Find no determination: then you were

Yourself again after yourself's decease,

When your sweet issue your sweet form should bear.

Who lets so fair a house fall to decay,

Which husbandry in honour might uphold

Against the stormy gusts of winter's day

And barren rage of death's eternal cold?

O, none but unthrifts! Dear my love, you know

You had a father: let your son say so.

William Shakespeare, Sonnet XIII

"Nothing's enough," Harry said, his head lolling backwards, his feet stretched toward the telly.

"How do you mean?" Hermione answers, putting her fingers in Harry's hair from her position above him on the couch. Hermione provided this kind of friendly, caring, physical contact sometimes (once she new Harry liked her too much to rip her head off) and Harry would admit it to no one, but he liked it. He swallowed. "I dunno, don't listen to me. Listen to Gary," he said, pointing to the BBC anchor on the telly.

Hermione paused, her fingers still moving. "I can hear you thinking about whether to let that go or not," he said.

"Sorry," she said, laughing in a breathy, nervous way.

"It's okay," he said. "It's sweet."

She breathed deep. "How was work?"

"It was okay. Dropped a lot of things, but no one really cared." Harry has started working at bar in town, within walking distance of Hermione's flat. He didn't know he would have gotten the job if Hermione hadn't exploited the crush that the owner had for her. "My feet fucking hurt," he moaned, pulling one into his lap.

"Well," she started, sliding down to the floor next to him, "At least you can start buying things for your room."

"True," he said, yawning.

"Harry?"

Harry didn't like the sound of that. It was never good, never ever good. He pulled his legs in toward his chest and rested his head against his knees. "Yes?"

"I needed the white pages for something today and I found them in your room."

Harry snorted. "Just say it, Hermes."

"I'm not accusing you of anything, I'm just asking." Her voice was gentle, soft. She wasn't as nervous as she used to be when she talked to him, and for that Harry was proud of her, in a way.

"Well, I'm not hiding it. I'm looking for him," he said, avoiding the name, the damn name.

"What do you plan to do if you find him?"

"I have no idea. Apologise, I suppose, but I don't even know if he'll give me the chance."

She didn't say anything, and she didn't need to. Harry knew she'd come to the same conclusion; not bloody likely. "Maybe you could write him a letter, just in case he doesn't let you."

Harry felt his heart swell with affection for her. He turned to look at her, grinning. "So you think it's a good idea?"

Hermione smiled. "I think if you're ready to face him, than yes, it's a good idea."

Harry folded his legs under him, like a little boy. "I'm glad you feel that way because unless he lives in Edinburgh, I have no idea how I'll find him in the white pages."

Hermione's eyebrows raised. "Oh, I see."

"Please, Hermione," he begged before she had the chance to say no.

She shook her head but she was still smiling. "Harry, all that stuff is supposed to be confidential, I can't just hand it over."

Harry sighed, and pretended to frown. "Oh, shut up," she said laughing. "You know you'll have it by tomorrow."

If Harry knew how to be as friendly-intimate, if it came to him as naturally as it did to Hermione, he would have done something. He didn't know how to touch anyone in a way that wasn't sexual. It was once-in-a-while musings like that that sucked all of the color out of things, like Hermione's smile, and the delicious domesticity of the couch and the telly.

"You're the best, Hermione," he said instead, staring at nothing.

"I know."

Harry spilled more beer than usual as he handed one man his drink. "Sorry," he muttered.

"No worries," the man replied, giving Harry a look that Harry knew all too well. He wondered if this would be the first night he'd have to tell someone he wasn't interested.

He should have expected this, to feel this way, to have to deal with it, but he hadn't and he wondered how many more men and women there would be like this one, how many nights. How many nights?

When Harry got home, the first thing he caught sight of was the back of a fiery, red head.

"Harry!" Hermione barreled out of the kitchen and into the hall way.

"Hermione!" Harry mimicked, staring at Ron Weasley as he turned to face him. "Ron!" Harry said, mock-cheerfully.

They stood in silence. "Harry, you know Ronald," Hermione said sheepishly, stuffing her hands in her jean pockets.

"So, you two are fucking?"

"Harry!" Hermione practically shrieked, her eyes widening. Even Weasley blushed. "We're just, hanging out," he finally said, very awkwardly.

"Oh my God," Harry laughed, "I've never seen you this nervous. It's actually sort of cute."

"Oh shut up, you git," Ron said, flustered and getting redder by the second.

"Anyway," Harry said, turning his attention toward Hermione. "Did you get it?" He was impatient.

"Yes," she said nodding. She took out a piece of paper from her pocket. Weasley looked at it, obviously curious, but neither provided an explanation.

"Thanks," Harry said, practically snatching it, and hurrying to his room.

As he went to bed, words spun in his head: Cokeworth, Spinner's End, Severus Snape.

Harry had to work for a week before he had enough money to take the trip to Cokeworth. He spent most nights drafting a letter that he wasn't even sure he would show the man, that he wasn't even sure the man would read. He rehearsed what he would say, over and over. The letter was inarticulate:

Dear Severus Snape,

I don't deserve the right to have you read this letter, but I love you; sometimes vaguely, at best remotely, but always painfully. That is the only explanation, the only justification, the only excuse. I guess if I could choose one thing I wanted you to know after all of this, it would be that I meant everything. Every word, every moan, every tear. And that every day, I struggle to remember what it was like to touch you, to hear you speak to me. I'm forgetting, and it scares me. The way loving you scares me.

Trembling and yours,

Harry

What else could he possibly offer?

The train ride was awful. He could still feel the kiss Hermione had landed on his cheek as she dropped him off at the station. Stop after stop after stop.

"Cokeworth," a lazy, bored man announced on the intercom, and Harry imagined him saying "Your stop, Harry, your fate Harry, good fucking luck, Harry!" As he got out and looked over the gloomy town, mist hanging over the neatly lined, brick buildings, he felt like he needed to be sick. His hands were shaking as he pulled his map out of his rucksack to figure out how far he'd have to walk.

The route was fairly simple, but it took half an hour to reach Spinner's End. Harry wished it would take half an hour more. When Harry finally stood in front of Snape's door, it looked just as he expected it would judging by the view from the train; a house made of solid, brown brick, in the ground to stably that it seemed almost apart of it. There was one window in which Harry was at eye level with, and it was curtained, of course. There were three, small, steps to the door, and for a long time Harry couldn't bring himself to step onto them, thinking they might burn him or swallow him whole, or chew his legs off.

But in three, three steps, one, two, three, he was there, and knocking. His heart pounded him.

Snape opened the door, his face almost shocking a gasp out of Harry. He looked much the same. He was wearing black jeans and a gray, collared shirt. Harry stiffened, waiting for pain.

Snape didn't look surprise. He furrowed his brow and he...laughed. An incredulous laugh.

"Hi," Harry let out.

"Let me guess," Snape said lazily, opening the door a bit more, leaning against the doorjamb. "You were hoping we could talk?"

Harry shivered, finally feeling the cold. Snape seemed unaffected. He didn't, couldn't say anything. Snape stared at him, and pushed the door open even wider with the tips of those long, fluid fingers; an invitation. Harry stepped inside, his heart pounding even harder as he brushed passed Snape.

The door led immediately into a small sitting room. It walls were covered by books entirely, the furniture was old and leather bound. Snape had a fire going, and there was a saucer of half-finished tea on a small table in front of the brown armchair.

"Help yourself to some tea," Snape said. "Might as well, you see, I don't know how long I'll be able to afford it. You can take what's left."

And so it began. Hurt blossomed in between Harry's ribs like an oppressive heat, but it was so, so much, better than the nothingness of the passed six weeks. Snape-less, aching days.

Harry took a deep breath and turned to face him. "I'm so sorry," he said, knowing it sounded pathetic, that it wasn't enough, would never be enough.

"It's quite alright," Snape sneered, his face cruel, hands clasped to the armchair in front of him. "My only regret is that I served time in jail and I didn't even get to fuck you."

Harry's rucksack feel from his shoulder to the floor. His hand, trembling, went to his stomach. Spit gathered in mouth, and he swallowed. He wanted to double over and spit, but his eyes were fastened to Snape.

"Why'd you say that?" his voice managed to hitch out.

"You want so badly to be the victim, I'm just helping your own worthless cause," Snape spat at him, as if he weren't worthy of the words. He was leaning over the armchair, as if he were keeping it between them, keeping from hitting Harry.

Harry gave in, and doubled over. In a flash, Snape was near him, too near, crouched so that his face was in Harry's, centimeter apart. "This is what you wanted me to be," he whispered, a harsh sound that reminded Harry of blood. Snape looked mad, like an enraged animal. "So this is who I will be. Anything to get you out of my SIGHT," Snape yelled, and Harry felt the spittle on his face. "What?" Snape's voice was soft again. "Are you not satisfied? Have I done a bad job?" He looked away from Harry, gesturing to nothing, "Were you expecting to see some semblance of the fool that believed you?"

Snape straightened and moved away from him, and Harry missed him, however terrible and cruel he was, he wanted to be near that face, in those hands that surely bled with want to tear at him, to destroy him.

The next time Harry looked up, Snape was gone, the door that Harry just noticed swinging closed behind him. Harry heard a loud crash, and it propelled him forward rather than scared him.

"You don't understand how badly I feel about what happened," his voice shook. "I don't even know how I did it, it was like it wasn't even me-" He pushed the door, made of painted wood, open and it led into the kitchen, where Snape stood, hands pressed against a table, head hanging, breath short. A chair was lying face down on the floor.

Snape laughed. "Oh, but it was you," he said, not looking at Harry, the cloth over the kitchen table bunched up in his fist now, his rage haunting the room, quiet and dangerous.

Harry pushed on, it was all he had. "After I left Hogwarts, I realised how much I cared about you," he rushed. "I was so confused because I expected you to be like the other men in my life because you just fit the type that I always chase, and when you weren't, I was afraid, I was really fucking scared and I've never cried in my entire life as much as I have in these past two months without you-" Harry nearly lost his breath, lost everything. "You see straight through me," he said, remembering the words from what seemed like a distant path, but he was hopeless.

"Apparently not," Snape said, staring out the window and Harry wished with everything in him that Snape would just glance at him, "You do!" Harry insisted. "I knew I made mistake I made when I couldn't go back to you and tell you how much I hated myself for what I'd done!" Harry could hear the hysterical edge in his voice now.

"You still don't have that privilege," Snape intoned.

"Please, Severus..." Harry begged, coming closer.

"You lost every privilege when you decided to betray me," he said over Harry's plea, finally turning to look at him. "When I first came to Hogwarts, it was with the intention to teach a reckless, irresponsible group of boys that the choices they make have consequences. When I came to know you," he hissed, "it became very clear to me that you had a pattern, and it became my goal to teach you that you had choices."

He stood straighter, coming out of his lean against the kitchen counter, and Harry prayed that he might hold him, but he made no move forward. "You had a choice, Harry," he said, and Harry breathed hitched from the sound of his name coming for Severus's lips, "you made a decision," he stopped and Harry waited, his body caught and hanging on every syllable. "And that decision," he continued, shaking his head slowly, "had consequences."

Then it was quiet...so quiet. Harry stared at the fallen chair, breathing slowly, he looked at the old wall paper, and the brown, wooden cabinets, the sink on his right with the window over it, frosted over with cold, the teapot on the hob, a lone fork on he counter beside it, and the door from which he'd came into this hell of a room, this room where his last pathetic reach for something real and sustainable, for something like love, something valuable, had been rejected and sequestered back into the place inside of him where he had hid it. Not for the first time, he thought of Uncle Vernon and Mr. Bloom and Mr. Crouch, everything flooding back to him, everything he'd denied and thought he could forget, the bruises, that time, being eleven and used, the shame in the sheets. He looked up at Snape, who was staring at him now, and his love hurt inside of him at the sight, and Harry doubted he'd ever forget this as well.

"You know," he said, his voice thick and clumsy, "I said I don't deserve for you to forgive me," he closed his mouth and his eyes and shook his head. "But, you know," he continued, "I do deserve something. After everything I've been through, I deserve something!" Snape shook his head, looking speechless. "I always hated when people felt bad for me, even when I felt bad for myself, I hated it. But I'm done being ashamed," Harry said, suddenly feeling powerful. "You taught me that, in your own strange way, you know."

Snape still said nothing. Leaving empty handed seemed imminent. Harry sighed, resigned. "There's just one more thing," he said, and exited the kitchen, going to the sitting room for his rucksack. He heard Snape following him, his footsteps, the door swinging closed behind him. Harry knelt to the floor, opening the rucksack with shaking hands, searching for the letter.

"Where is it?" Harry mumbled, digging, searching.

Severus watched him, eyes fixed to that narrow back, those knobby elbows, the back of that shaggy head of hair. He watched as the boy slumped, suddenly, over his bag. His hand had stopped moving, all of him had stopped moving. "Oh, no..." he whispered. It was almost like a sob.

Severus wanted to say something, but he was caught in a spell of silence; it would surely hurt too much to speak. The boy raised his head. He turned and rested his back against the armchair. He put his head in his hands. "Fuck," he said softly. "I had...I wrote a letter. I wrote you a letter, and it's- I forgot it. Fuck, of course I forgot it. The universe has been fucking me over since the day I was born, why stop now? Fuck!" he said, louder. His foot stomped the floor, and his hands looked as if they were tearing at his hair.

"You wrote a letter?" Snape broke the silence.

"Yes." Harry's shoulders tensed and relaxed, tensed, and relaxed. Then, he was still.

"And you forgot it?"

Harry laughed, short, harsh. "Yes. Fuck"

Moments ago, Harry was his biggest adversary, the animal to be hunted and killed, the monster. Now, he was a scared little boy, and Severus was the monster that aided him in his disease.

"I owe you an apology as well."

Harry practically gasped and his head shot up to look at Severus. He almost couldn't bear to be under that viridian gaze again. "What?" Confused.

"I'm a monster. I gave in to my desire for you. There is little else in my life I regret more."

"Don't say that," Harry whispered, his head lolling forward and for the first time sounded as if he might cry. "You can say anything else, just don't say that." A pause. "I'm older than I am."

"It's not about your age."

"Then what?" he said, desperately.

"You know what."

Harry sighed heavily, exasperated. "How many times do I have to tell you that you're not like them? That your different? I'm the one who went through it, I would know."

"You can never be sure."

"I've never been more sure of anything."

"It's not fair for me or for you. Just go." The first dismissal. Severus had been waiting to issue it, but hadn't wanted to lose sight of his boy.

Harry's head shook slowly. When he looked up at Severus, there was something in his eye akin to what he'd seen in Harry moments ago, when he'd said those words he knew he'd dream about, I deserve something.

"No," he said, defiant as ever, and Severus was reminded of those torturous early days of Harry's blatant and proud disrespect. "I'm going to stay here. You can't ask me to leave, I'm not going to let you avoid this. If you want me out, you're going to have to drag me out by my hair.

Severus tensed, ready for battle.