The trip was uneventful, although Snape had been prepared for trouble if intercepted by local yokels. He had made good time and arrived just after lunchtime. The address was that of a little cottage, cutesy and domestic-looking in a distinctly feminine way - he wondered if Potter had married that Weasley girl in the end. It looked like just the sort of stupid thing she would have made the boy purchase.

Composing himself, he rapped on the cream-coloured door.

"Coming!" someone shouted from the depths of the house. It didn't sound quite like the boy he remembered, but when the door was opened a minute later it did in fact turn out to be Potter. Snape had not thought about the passage of time during his sentence, except in the vaguest, most immediate day-to-day sense - to do so would have been pointless self-torture - and although he did not show it on his face, it surprised him now to see Potter clearly all grown up. In his memories the boy was still a teenager, still a child. Counting back now, he realised that the "boy" must actually be about twenty-five.

"Professor!" Potter said, smiling. "Come in!"

Snape shook his head but entered. "You're still calling me 'Professor'?"

"Force of habit," Potter said, waving in the direction of the living room which Snape could see through an arch on the left. "Do sit down, please. Tea will be ready in a minute."

"And now you're serving tea to a convicted War criminal," Snape said quizzically, suppressing the reflexive pang he felt when Potter waved his wand to levitate the tea-things in from the kitchen. He found a chair and sat down with a faint sigh of relief. His current pair of shoes - provided three years ago - were almost worn out and the long walk up had been painful, even though he had tried to stay on the grass as much as possible along the way.

Looking around, he noted with approval that the living room - mostly in tones of dark wood, ivory and cream - was neither frilly nor flouncy. Perhaps there was no red-headed shrew in the offing, after all. He refused to think about the dirt and grass stains he was probably leaving on the spotless upholstery. Besides, the boy had a wand. He could easily do a Scourgify if needed.

"First things first," Potter said, and handed Snape a rolled-up length of parchment. "Read that, then we'll talk." He busied himself pouring out the tea and setting out biscuits and sandwiches while his former teacher scanned the scroll. It was Snape's purchase contract and it set out in no uncertain terms all the rules and responsibilities of the parties involved.

No wand, no magic, no illegal activities or back to the slave pens it was. Obey all orders and instructions. Constant supervision. Basic minimum needs to be met. Blah blah blah. For the remainder of the sentence, thereafter to be freed. A hundred thousand Galleons. A hundred thousand Galleons.

Snape backtracked and re-read the line again. And again. He looked up - Potter was still fussing with the food, arranging and re-arranging the plates and bowls.

"You paid a hundred thousand Galleons for me?"

Potter shrugged and looked mildly embarrassed.

Snape found himself at a loss for words. After all the years of controlling his tongue, he finally had nominal free rein of it, and he didn't know what to say. Before he could come up with anything, the boy - the young man - spoke.

"Let me explain a couple of things first, now that you've read the contract, and then we can talk after that and you can ask me whatever questions you have. Go ahead and eat while I speak."

The former Death Eater shook his head, still speechless, then gorged himself pragmatically on the sandwiches. Slowly, of course, and as politely as he could manage it, but he polished the lot off nevertheless. It was probably not a good idea - after so long on subsistence rations, his stomach had shrunk and he was not sure that his body would even be able to digest some of the food if it was too rich, but he could not stop himself. It was food. And besides, he thought perversely again, Potter had a wand.

"I'm sorry I didn't find you sooner," the young man said. Snape, mouth full, didn't get a chance to interject, but his eyes widened in surprise.

"You probably didn't know, seeing as how you went straight from combat to Azkaban, but I was in a coma for a long time after the final battle. Some side-effect of the last spell I used on Voldemort. They weren't sure what to do about it so nobody dared to try waking me for ages. They put some kind of stupid preserving spell on me and left me in this bed in St. Mungo's. For about three years or so, I think it was."

Snape choked on his last bite and reached, coughing, for the tea.

Potter grinned wryly, looking slightly apologetic. "Yeah. I was snoring away the whole time you were breaking your back carrying shit. When they finally figured it out and woke me, I was a little out of it, to say the least. It took me almost a year to get back to normal - I had to recover from the spell backlash, and then just the normal everyday stuff - catching up on all the changes and all the news. I didn't find out what had happened to you until about five or six months ago. I couldn't believe what they'd done! Then I went looking everywhere - no one would to tell me where you were, I don't know why. Maybe they were afraid I'd be mad."

The green eyes flashed angrily for a moment, and Snape suddenly remembered that this was the boy who had killed the Dark Lord.

"And then yesterday I found you. I had had all the papers and things ready for months. I contacted my solicitor and he pushed everything through - they didn't argue too much because I paid the full sum up front without quibbling."

"You!" Snape gasped. "You were the person watching me at the construction site yesterday!"

Harry nodded. "Yes. I'm sorry I didn't say anything at the time; I didn't want to draw any attention to us. I couldn't go to get you today for the same reason. It was a bit of a gamble putting my name on the papers like that, but I was hoping the staff at the labour camp might not notice if I just used my initials. If I had turned up in person they would probably have kept us there for ages and then all the reporters would have shown up. This way we'll hopefully get a little quiet settling-in time before they find out and start hounding me again."

Potter made a face, rolling his eyes at the idiocy of people, and Snape surprised himself by half-smiling in response instead of saying something about attention-seekers.

"Did you.. did you know that Professor McGonagall..."

"She's dead?" Snape said hoarsely, his face paling.

"Yes.. that's why, you see. She and I were the only ones who knew about you, and with me in a coma, there was no one to speak for you at your trial. I'm so sorry..."

The older wizard leaned back in his chair and passed his hand over his face. When he realised it was trembling, he lowered it to his lap. The long fingers, now tanned, their once square nails ragged, dug into his thigh.

"I had wondered... I did not allow myself to think about it, after the sentencing. It would have been pointless. But.. well. Now I know."

Potter nodded, still looking contrite. "I'll make it up to you. Getting you out of the pens was just a start. Now I'll begin the paperwork for clearing your name."

Snape shook his head again. It was too much to absorb, after all this time. Potter seemed to sense this. He said, "I'm sure you want to clean up and rest and all that. If you have any questions feel free to ask them now, or we can continue again later after you've had a break."

"Yes.. I think I might like to.. wash and lie down for a little while," Snape said slowly. "I need a little time to think about everything first before I even know where to start asking questions."

Potter nodded. "This way, then," he said, leading Snape out of the living room and down the central hallway. He paused at the second door to the right, pushing it open and walking in.

"This is your room for as long as you're staying with me. There are some clothes in the dresser and the wardrobe - I wasn't sure about your size so I had to guess, but if anything doesn't fit I can just shrink or enlarge it for you later. And we'll buy more in future, as well. These are just to start with for now. The bathroom is here -" he pointed to another door set in the wall of the guest bedroom. Take your time, I'll be around the house all day so just call for me when you're ready to talk. I'll show you around the rest of the place tonight or tomorrow."

He made to leave. Snape said, wonderingly, "... Thank you."

Potter smiled self-deprecatingly. "Too little too late, Professor. Don't thank me. Everyone should be thanking you. But I'll make sure they know that before this year is out." He nodded at Snape and left, shutting the door quietly behind him.

Snape looked at the bed. With a superhuman effort, he forced himself not to sink limply onto it. The bathroom door was ajar and he walked in. The shelves were stocked with toiletries and there were fresh towels on a warming rail by the tub. He did not cry, he would not cry. He slipped the tattered shirt off his shoulders and threw it into the bin under the sink. Same for the filthy trousers, although he took the little folded piece of parchment out of it first, laying it carefully aside on the countertop. He did not know why; he had never been one for sentimentality.

Shower first. The slaves did not get baths or showers - they lined up for quick Scourgifies every other day, and then only because their hirers would have complained about the smell otherwise. He got under the stream of water slowly, almost reverently. When the hot spray hit him and ran over his body, he could not stop himself. A sob emerged, then another and another. He covered his eyes with one hand and leaned against the wall, choking on five years of ugliness and despair, then he let it all go. Down the drain with the swirling water, down to join the muted past.

It's over now, he told himself firmly. Over.

After he had showered and washed away the physical dirt, he ran the bath and lay in it, letting himself soak, eyes closed, in the scented oils that he had added to the hot water. He did not fall asleep, although he had thought he might. Fragments of the contract (a hundred thousand Galleons!) and things Potter had said flowed through his mind. Minerva was dead. They had got along, in their fashion. She was dead. Who else, he wondered. Who was left?

The water was cooling when he pulled himself up and reached for a towel. Another luxury he had not seen in years. It was a day of shocks. The soft cotton was soothing on his skin. He felt almost feverish. It was a strange and half-forgotten feeling - he had not been ill in all this time, had not allowed himself to be. In the pens, it would have meant his death.

When he was dry he hung the towel up carefully on the rail, heading naked for the bedroom. He almost made it, but in the end he was unable to resist looking in the mirror. It was bad, but not as bad as he had feared. No longer lean, he was now stringy, though the muscles were still there, courtesy of all the days of drudge-work. His hair was shot through with grey, of course. Time in the sun had turned him brown - not dark; his natural pallor saw to that, but tan, almost olive. The lines of his face were more pronounced, and new scars from the years of poorly-healed injuries dotted the landscape of his body. It was in the eyes, however, that he had changed the most.

His students had thought them fierce and piercing in the past. Now they were something else altogether, something far beyond that. He understood suddenly why he had garnered such a reputation in the camp, why so few people were able to meet his gaze directly for long. His eyes were like those of a dying man, all power and life-essence concentrated and focused into a single unbearable force, an unnatural brightness that few could face directly.

Potter had looked him in the eyes without flinching, he thought suddenly. He felt a strange warmth he did not understand. Turning, he went to the dresser and found a pair of pyjamas. He pulled the bottoms and shirt on - they were dark green satin with silver-grey piping, he noted, his chest and belly glowing warmly again. The bedclothes were the reverse, silvery-grey wave patterns with dark green edging. He slipped under the coverlet and fingered the clean-smelling sheets, pushing his fingers into the springy mattress. There was a pillow under his head, soft and cushiony. He touched it gently, almost lovingly; he had forgotten what pillows felt like.

He sighed. His eyes closed; he fell asleep without intending to, without realising that he had.

Harry peeped in quietly on Snape half an hour later. The wizard was lying on his back, very straight, as if he had to be controlled even in his sleep. His mouth was closed, his breathing steady and even, the lines on his face smoothed out and softened. He looked tired, even asleep, but younger, less worn down. The sight made Harry feel hopeful. They would reverse everything that had been done to Snape, they would! He swore it to himself once again, just as he had been doing every night and every day for the last half year.

He pulled the door to and tiptoed away. In his study, he threw a handful of powder at the fireplace and called his solicitor.

"I have him," he said tersely. "Start the other paperwork now, please."

His solicitor, a capable and efficient man by the unfortunate and entirely undeserved name of Humbugge, nodded briskly and cut the connection. Things were now in motion, or would be soon. Whistling softly under his breath, Harry made his way to the kitchen and began preparations for the evening meal.

Snape did not make it to dinner. He slept through the rest of the day and night, and did not wake until the bright sunlight fell on his face through the open window the next morning. Harry, amused and understanding, had set the older wizard's portion of dinner aside to keep in the pantry under a preserving spell.

When Snape finally emerged from his room, he was fully dressed in shirt, trousers, and robe, all black. His hair was tied back with a black silk ribbon that Harry had left for him on the top of his dresser, his feet encased incongruously in bedroom slippers that he had found by the wardrobe. The first thing he had done upon waking up was to retrieve the scrap of parchment with Harry's address on it from the bathroom counter. He had slipped this into the drawer of his bedside table. He did not know why he was keeping it, but it was to remain one of his most treasured possessions for the rest of his life.

He found his benefactor in the kitchen making breakfast.

"Oh good, they fit! I thought I'd stick with a safe colour scheme," Harry said, nodding at his outfit and grinning. "We can get you more in some other colours later if you prefer."

"This is perfectly acceptable, thank you. I do not need any more clothes," Snape said, his manner awkward and a little stiff, as though he wasn't quite sure how to behave around Harry now.

"Suit yourself," Harry shrugged. "If you change your mind at any time, or if you need anything at all, just let me know. For now, however, how does bacon and eggs sound?"

"It sounds very good," Snape said, a little less stiffly. "May I assist in any way?"

"Mmm, I'm almost done here. You could lay the table if you like. Everything's in those drawers and cabinets over there," Harry said, pointing with his chin to the left.

They ate in near silence, both of them hungry enough to do the hot meal justice. The previous day's indulgence apparently had not done his stomach any harm, so Snape allowed himself to eat as much as he wanted. Fortunately, Potter seemed to have been prepared for the onslaught. There were more than enough rashers and fried eggs and toast slices on the table to satisfy Snape's appetite.

He looked up and caught Potter grinning.

"What?"

"Nothing, it's just funny to see you eating like a student. You always used to pick at your food."

Snape raised his eyebrow. "You watched me eat?"

Potter turned faintly pink. "I notice things."

"Hmm." Sparing him any further commentary, Snape returned singlemindedly to his bacon.

"Tea?" Potter said when they had both had their fill, brandishing the incredibly ugly pink teapot at Snape. It was emblazoned with raised grapes in a particularly putrid shade of purple.

Shuddering at both vision and alliteration, Snape said, "Yes, please." Picking up a slice of lemon, he added, "Is it convenient for us to talk now? Do you have to go to work?"

"Sure, we can talk now," Potter said. "I don't have a job, exactly. Have my own business, sort of, but I run it from here, so I don't need to go anywhere unless I have meetings or something."

"I take it you're not married?" Snape said delicately. "I haven't seen anyone other than you in the house so far.."

Potter laughed as though he had said something funny. "I was engaged, for about a minute and a half. Bought this cottage for us to live in after the wedding."

"Ah?" Snape said, thinking, I knew it.

"Yeah, she said she liked this place, that it was cute. You remember Ginny, Ginny Weasley?"

I knew it! "Yes, I remember Miss Weasley."

"They said she waited for me the whole time I was in a coma. She was sitting by my bed when I woke up. What's a chap to do, right?" Potter scratched his head, looking simultaneously helpless and ingenuous. Snape snorted.

Potter grinned. "So I proposed, and she accepted, and we were going to get married really quickly because she'd already waited so long, you know. And then I woke up one morning two days before the wedding, and I thought, what the fuck am I doing?"

Snape raised his eyebrow again.

"I told her I didn't love her the way she deserved to be loved, all that rot. We called everything off. I paid for the cottage, so I got stuck with it. And this teapot," Harry cocked his head at the fruit-bedecked monstrosity with a grimace. "Please don't think that's a sample of my taste. She left it behind, for revenge maybe. But it works, so I never bothered to get another one."

The green eyes twinkled unrepentantly. "The Weasleys were furious! The only reason why I'm still alive, I think, is that I'd barely emerged from the coma and the clan, even mad as they were, couldn't bring themselves to put me back into one. Oddly enough Ginny got over it pretty quickly, but that could be because she turned around and married someone else almost immediately - you remember Justin Finch-Fletchley? Yeah, they're pretty happy together, I think. So really it was all for the best. Any rate, it's been ages and Ron's only just now starting to talk to me again. Not sure Molly ever will forgive me."

"There was no one else?" Snape said, wondering why he was asking.

"No... no one to speak of," Potter said, his cheeks turning slightly pink again. Rallying, he said, "What about you?"

At the incredulous look on Snape's face, he backtracked, flushing even more. "Sorry, stupid question. I suppose there wasn't exactly much opportunity or anything these last five years..."

"Oh, there were opportunities," Snape said, now wondering why he was volunteering so much. "But I didn't take any of them."

He watched the expressions chase each other across Potter's face, saw the moment when the boy remembered that the pens were segregated by gender.

Potter surprised him by asking, "Why not?"

"There were many reasons. No one caught my eye, for one. I wanted to keep all my energy and attention focused on survival, for another. And after a while in that environment, you lose all interest in sex and things of that nature. Too tired, too hungry, too injured..." He shrugged.

"I'm so sorry," Potter said, his expression sincere and miserable. "You have no idea how sorry I am."

Snape shrugged again. "What's done is done. It's over, and at least I'm out of there now. Frankly I never thought I'd make it this long. Most of the others died their first year."

"I knew you'd survive, you tough old bastard," Potter said, eyes flaring greenly.

"Old bastard, am I?" Snape said mildly, feeling oddly complimented.

"Well, maybe not old," Potter grinned, recklessly choosing Scylla over Charybdis.

"Old enough to be your father," Snape said, with a touch more acid than he'd intended, but the young man merely laughed and said, "You look younger when you're asleep, did you know that?"

"You were watching me sleep?" Snape said, astonished. First eating, now sleeping. Was the boy going to say something about his bathroom habits next?

"Oh...," Potter said, floundering and flushing again. "I stopped by your room yesterday to check on you and make sure you were okay. You were asleep so I left you to rest. I didn't.. sit there and stare at you or anything, if that's what you're thinking."

"I wasn't," Snape said, frowning and raising his eyebrow at the same time. He had a feeling as though an invisible river was flowing under the solid floor, as though there was a completely different current beneath their words. Potter was saying something and he wasn't hearing it.

He felt like he was missing something, but didn't know what it was. It had been too long, Snape thought. Too long out of 'normal' human company. If he had ever had a dictionary, it was probably outdated now. And missing a great many pages to boot. Suddenly, he wanted his wand with a sharpness that felt like a stab to the heart.

Legilimens, he thought to himself longingly. Legilimens.

"I take the only desire one can really permit oneself. Freedom, Alvah, freedom."

- "The Fountainhead", Ayn Rand