Harry stared at his plate. Layers of warm cake and cold ice cream, drizzled with chocolate sauce and whipped topping, was Ash's best attempt to lure him out of his funk. It even had a cherry on top. He appreciated it, but the thought of ice cream put knots in his stomach. It made him long to hold Iece and his mood dwindled from there. A resurgence of shock and anger traveled through him as he relived the moment when she was ripped from his arms. His panicked screams of 'ice cream,' their code word, had failed and strangers took her from him.

"Geesh, you're the first person I've ever put this in front of, who looked like they wanted to take their own life." Ash was already enjoying his. "Dig in, man, it's a celebration. You obviously went a round with him and survived without being hexed into another dimension. The worst part is over. Once he tells you off, you never hurt like that again."

Harry tried to smile politely, but his heart wasn't in it. Instead, he said, "It's my fault. Why do I have to keep trying to fix everything? I'm only making it worse."

"Because you're a good person. And good people try to make things right. Don't let him twist that into something horrible. It's not. He's gonna do everything in his power to push you away and make you think it has to be that way."

"Did you hear us?"

Ash licked his spoon. "I heard stuff I didn't understand. Mostly muffled. I could tell it wasn't good."

Harry looked thoughtful. "How did you get him to stay in one place?"

"You mean when I found him? Over two years ago? He was pretty weak. I guess he couldn't use his magic very well and he was poisoned. By the time he could leave, I must've proven myself trustworthy."

"You kissed him. What was that about?"

Here, Ash's spoon stopped midway to his mouth.

"Was he ever more than a patient for you?"

Ash cleared his throat. "Um, no. Well, kinda, but not like that." If he wasn't mistaking that intense stare, it sounded like Harry wanted to know if they had ever slept together.

"That kiss was pure sentiment. I was just glad to see him back, you know? Like an old friend. He's grown on me. And he's a wanted man in your world. It's a miracle that he's come through yet another dangerous situation. I've already patched him up once, I was just overjoyed that he was okay."

Harry stated flatly, "I've known him for over ten years. I've never seen anyone kiss him. He doesn't seem to allow that sort of thing."

"No, he does not. Well, I hardly gave him any warning, didn't I?" Ash chuckled.

"But why would you do that?"

"I told you." He didn't sound convinced. "What can I say, I'm a kisser. Isn't that how we met?"

Touché, Harry thought. "Well, you're lucky. He doesn't let people touch him."

And I know why, Harry admitted to himself. My father ruined everything.

"Listen, just back off. He'll come around. He's still human. He's already left me twice, and look, I've got him back under my roof. And I've never seen him turn his back on you. You were literally in pieces and he used his marrow to restore you after the train explosion. I didn't know you and I gave you up for dead, but not him. He brought you here and sat with your body all night. He couldn't use that arm for a while. You're in his soul so deep, he no longer gets a say in how little or how much he can and can't care for you. But he needs to feel like he's the one making the decisions or he doesn't trust anything."

Harry thought about it. When he looked like he wasn't going to respond, Ash gestured at his plate. "You going to let that melt on you? You're missing out."

Just to be polite, he picked up his spoon and took a bite. It was lighter in his mouth and tasted better than he expected. He hadn't been in the mood for sugar, but wonderful, rich flavors burst onto his taste buds. He kept eating, then said, "You helped him rescue me."

"I just stood by and watched in disbelief."

"But you went back to the train wreck and helped him deposit my body. You and he both made it look like I'd been thrown from the wreckage. He couldn't use his arm, so he needed your help."

Ash stopped talking, unsure of how much he had told Harry previously.

Harry continued, "He's powerful, but if he used that kind of magic to restore me, and couldn't fix his arm, he was too weak to stage my body all alone. And if he spent even more effort trying to save others that night, he would've needed an accomplice. He's strong, but he has his limits and I must've taxed his magic."

Ash sighed, lightly setting his spoon aside and wiping his mouth. "Yeah, I helped him. I was there. We both got you situated and tried to revive as many as we could."

"You're a doctor. A pillar of your community. What would make you get involved in terrorist activity, following an outlaw, whom you know to be dangerous?"

"I see, you're playing devil's advocate. Well, it's not like I was on the side of the terrorists." He put down his spoon and folded his knuckles under his chin.

"But you're a respected doctor. You should've talked to the police twice. The night you found him and the night of the train incident. How'd you get to be so 'ride or die' with him?" Harry was really enjoying his hot fudge cake now.

"Ride or die?" Ash liked the sound of that, and grinned. "Wow, that makes me sound so… current and urban. I guess I've seen everything a doctor can see in the muggle world, you might say. I've lived responsibly and safely, raised a family, and I saw that he could use a little of that stability. Dare I say, wisdom. While I didn't mind a little excitement. We gave each other something the other lacked, you could say. I'm not keen on getting myself imprisoned or killed, mind you, but he has a way of making all that seem like it's not really a threat. It's like, he convinces you to trust him instead of your eyes. Yeah, I know how that sounds."

"Crazy ex-boyfriend talk if I've ever heard it."

"You got me." Ash clinked his wrists together, mockingly.

"You were in love with him."

"I reckon. It took me by surprise. I think I've said as much to you."

"Be honest. Are you still in love with him? Should I even be here?"

"Why shouldn't you be here? What does that matter?"

"Then you two would have the place to yourselves."

"Not only would we not be any closer, but that might be the worst thing in the world. I don't want that from him."

Harry looked confused.

"Honestly? I have a place for him right here." He put his fist to his chest. "But I know now that he's not the type suited to be anyone's boyfriend or life-partner. He's too much on the run, even when nothing's chasing him. He's too much of an asshole, as you know. I can't take the stoic loyalty one minute and utter abandonment the next. I refuse to torture myself by loving someone who can't love back. So yes, I was in love with him. Was. But I'm good at letting go. I pride myself on being mature and not holding grudges. My ex-wives became best friends, I'm good at moving on. Severus is a fine person, just not compatible with me. Exciting, handsome, but more jerk than is healthy for me. And I'm perfectly willing to let him be that, without needing him to be any different. While he's injured, my door is open to him, but I'm no longer hoping for anything more."

Unsettling emotions kept Harry staring into Ash's face. His bullshit monitor was going off. Quietly, but still alerting him that something was off about Ash's answer. He didn't want to argue the point, but he knew that feeling can't be turned on and off like a switch. Not for the average person, anyway.

He blurted, "It's not his fault that he can't return your affection in the normal way. He'll kill for you. That's his way of showing love. But ask him for a hug, and you'll see skid marks where he was just standing."

"That sounds about right." Ash nodded.

"It's my father's fault. If you know what happened at the trial then you know about the curse. Yeah?"

"Was all that true?"

"Most of it. He was seventeen when four other students from the school, including my father, attacked him. First with a sexual curse that changes his gender, then rape. He says he deliberately put himself in that position in order to curse them, but he got the worse deal. He's suffered with it his whole life since."

Ash shuddered, not exactly braced to hear Snape's history coming so bluntly from Harry's lips. "What became of those people? How did he get back at them?"

"I'm not sure. My dad went on to live a pretty good life, as far as I can tell. He married my mum. They were happy before Voldemort came after them. One of them, Remus, became a werewolf."

"Werewolf?"

"Those are real, by the way. Awful way to live, but he came back to Hogwarts and taught for a year. If I'd known his history with Snape, I don't know if I would've let him get so close to me. Then my godfather, Sirius, he died defending a bunch of us kids shortly before the war broke out. Before that, he'd spent twelve years in prison because everyone thought that he was a murderer. He was set up by Peter, the other kid responsible for what happened to Snape. Peter had to go into hiding, so he lived his life as a literal rat and shape-shifted as my best mate's pet. He got away with it for a long time, and then we all discovered that he'd been working with Voldemort since my parent's deaths. All of them died, and Snape is still here, so maybe he did get his revenge."

Ash listened quietly, unsure how to respond.

Harry reflected, "I grew up with all of that right under my nose, and had no idea. Snape was the scariest teacher at school. We clashed like mad. Imagine finding out that the person who kept you angry enough to kill, humiliated you on a regular basis, and rarely said one kind word to you, repeatedly risked his life to save yours. I don't just mean taking chances, he lived in Voldemort's presence, under his scrutiny, pretending to hate me, while scheming behind Voldemort's schemes, to keep me safe. I'm sure he did it for the other kids too, but I put him in the most danger. Voldemort was after me.

"I'm twenty now, and I met Snape when I was eleven. He was a double agent since before I was born, so he doesn't know what peace and stability is. He doesn't know what it means to show affection. He has a completely different skillset. Hiding his feelings, being the most primary among them. He's still living with what my father and his friends did to him. He's still pretending like it doesn't matter, when it keeps him from grounding himself in human warmth and acceptance. Do you know what I mean?"

Ash wisely kept quiet.

"He pushes me away because he's still suffering, and I want him to know that I've been attacked by that curse too. I can help him."

"I wondered about that…"

"But he won't even give me a chance because he can't even look at me without seeing hatred for my father."

"That can't be right. He certainly looked at you when he stared at your body all night in my basement office."

"Well, apparently, he can look at me when I'm not looking back at him. Every time I'm in trouble, he's always there. He's telling me to let go, but he's always there. It's like he's saying, let me follow you, but don't you dare follow me."

Harry realized something. "Oh hell! Even if I do let him go, he'll always be watching me. He'll always have my back, just like he's always done. Why didn't I throw that in his face? It takes two to really let go."

Ash sighed, "It sounds like stress induced phobia. Reminds of a girl I dated in college. She confused the hell out of me. She always wanted to touch me, but never wanted me to touch her. Not just, not being in the mood, but really freaking out, hysterical, if I tried anything. It was weird. Years later, I discovered that it's a defense the body uses to protect itself. She knew what she wanted to do to me, but she didn't trust me enough to put her body in my hands."

He looked up at the memory, and found an analogy. "Like, she didn't know if she could handle any well-meaning screw up I made. A colleague explained it later, what if I made a face while touching her that she perceived as distasteful or negative? It would immediately make her feel deep-seated inferiority flood her mind with crippling humiliation, so she avoided that insecurity by never allowing herself to be explored the way she wanted to explore me.

"She'd already been through something traumatic. Body shame or something. If what you say is true about his past with your father, it could be a form of that. I don't mean to sexualize it, but it's similar to Genophobia and Erotophobia. I'm no psychologist, but perhaps he's so good at burying his pain, his inability to withstand attention from you, stems from the fear of being that helpless, shamed, and vulnerable at your father's hands. He doesn't hate you, and he can't stop looking at you. He just doesn't know how to handle those feelings when something about you, your direct interest in him, triggers them."

Harry wasn't convinced. "He's not the sort of person to give a shit about what anyone thinks of his body."

"That's what he wants us to think, isn't it? Besides, I don't mean that he literally has the same problem, just that it may be something similar."

Harry said, "I have a husband. I'm still not used to saying it that way. We got married on paper, because of the trial. His name is Draco. We survived the war together and that curse. In a weird way, it caused us to need one another and brought us closer. Draco was there to nurse me through it. He kept me attentive to his needs, my daughter's needs. He didn't let me descend into my own darkness. Snape had no one, and he took on so much responsibility, so young. He didn't have that reinforcement from a loving world. So maybe, maybe he is kind of stunted when it comes to connecting with people."

"How does that curse work? From a medical perspective, is it cyclical, like circadian rhythms?

"What?"

"Like, it runs its course and repeats? Like a woman's menstrual cycle? Or is it pretty much the same on a daily basis? From what I read and heard during the trial, two different experiences can vary greatly."

"Um, it's something that sustains itself. It might be cyclical, I don't know. But it certainly isn't natural." For some reason, he didn't want to go into details about the menstrual part of it. He wasn't even sure if that's what had happened in the early days, with him or Draco. Since Iece's birth, his magic was vigilant in denying the curse expression, but Draco went through a time where he actually had to use those sanitary products that women use. Not anymore, but he had done it.

"I only ask, because when I treated Snape, I saw things I didn't understand. I actually didn't know what his true gender was because of it."

"Did he discuss it with you?" Harry's interest spiked.

"Not really. He basically said, 'It is what it is, I'm a man. Deal with it.'"

Harry smiled faintly. "Different people get different effects. Draco eventually learned to have some control over it. Mine never shows, but it's always there. I feel like I have to use a part of my awareness to keep hiding it. Like I have to stay angry, or my defenses will weaken and it'll become visible."

"Well hell, that explains a lot. You should tell Snape that."

"I should tell Draco that. I've been really reckless."

"What about sex?"

Harry looked at him. "What about it?"

"Does the curse stop you from healthy bedroom activities?"

Harry laughed, "Assuming bedroom activities were healthy in the first place."

Ash kept a straight face. He was serious.

"Sorry, I'm not sure I'd know what that is. I lost my virginity to Draco and the curse, so that was pretty much ruined for me from the start. The only sex I know is cursed sex and there's nothing lacking in the bedroom department. In fact, that's where I can let go and relax. At least with Draco."

"I guess what I'm asking is, do you change your genders with one another? Is it the routine kind of thing, or more like a special favor? Say, for instance..."

"Do we have sex as men, or if I want vagina, would Draco do me the honor?"

"Yes, that. Or vise versa."

"Oh my god, I could never vise versa." He shuddered. "That even feels wrong." As soon as he he'd said it, he heard how hypocritical it sounded. "Holy shit."

It took him a moment to process. "That's really messed up. Draco does that for me all the time. We just got used to it."

A graphic detail popped into his mind, but he bit his lip on it. He remembered discovering that Draco's body responded to him grazing over his bare chest, particularly his nipples, by trailing his tongue over the contours of his chest. It was as if the pleasure pooling inside Draco, converged and poured straight down from his pecks to his groin. That stream of excited cells caused a chain reaction that chemically transfigured the tissues of his genitals, even opening a canal until a fully functional vagina lay receptive and ready.

He had asked Draco about it and learned that it was no longer a painful transformation. Far from it. Draco said that when Harry kissed his chest and sucked at the skin there, noting that the skin of his areolae were very much like the skin of his lips, it was like having a string of nerves attached to his dick and prostate. He felt the stimulus in those places and the centermost part of his core liquefied, as if remelting the cells and turning them into a swollen, aroused cavity that wanted filling. His dick became irrelevant as organs engorged between his legs, releasing secretions without even being touched. He'd taught himself not to look down, not to panic, but instead, enjoy the switch. Harry remembered that Draco wouldn't even let him go down on him while being female because he feared it was too much for him.

He suspected that it had something to do with certain, incestuous memories, but he always respected Draco's wishes. Suddenly, he really wanted to try it.

It came in a flash. Snape, red-faced and panting, grabbing Harry by the hair and pulling his head out of his crotch, not Draco.

The image flared, relayed along the network of his nervous system, as if all the trillions of cells in his body had their own cinematic screens with which to view it, and surround sound. Hairs stood up on his arms. He understood the message. In a kind of mean way, he wanted to reduce Snape to pure emotion by doing that to him. He wanted to make him feel. If Draco was afraid of all that sensation, then it must be something to reckon with. You can't be stoic with your spine arched in orgasm after orgasm.

And below this, an even worse thought came into his awareness. That would be humiliating. That's why it was mean. It would definitely cause him to come, to like it, to hate it, to pull out everything he didn't want anyone to see. You can't hide who you are when you're coming, and Draco's refusal suddenly made sense to him. When a woman opens her legs like that, a modest woman, she equates that face-to-genital contact, with exposing who she really is. She's showing things she doesn't want the world to see. She can't put make up on it. It's raw, it's practically exposing her internal organs. It's only a few degrees from blood and access to her very life-support system. It's literally letting another person walk in off the street and get inside you. The risk was real for her in a way that it couldn't register to a man. It was more intense than face-to-face intimacy, because she has some control over how her face looks and acts, but down there, it's all wet and messy, and she's not going to be able to control how her partner experiences it. Whether he leaves her better off, or desecrates it, or destroys her.

Draco trusted him with that. A woman has to let go of all her secrets, so to speak. And women, by nature, keep their purses closed. It's how their bodies are built, so they're not used to splaying everything open. Men have no choice, so they get used to letting things hang out obscenely, and shore themselves up to be proud of it. But modest women don't know what the hell men are on about. With the curse, Draco had to show what's hidden. Snape thrives on hiding. That kind of exposure would undo him, so he wouldn't even be able to admit there's anything to hide. And Harry himself, never even allowed such a burden to cross his sight, after he was strong enough for his magic to figure out a way to hide it.

He'd gone quiet for a long time and Ash seemed to realize that he was lost in thought.

"Are you okay?"

"It just hit me. What Draco does for me, would really make me uncomfortable, yet I ask him to do it all the time. I expect him to."

Right then, Harry could feel the familiar compression of Draco's chest and stomach as he lowered all of his weight onto him in the darkness of their bedroom. He was stretched out in warm, soft willingness, creating a pillow with his body and welcoming Harry to rest his head in the crook of his neck. There, Harry's breath mingled with Draco's natural clean musk, barely detectable beneath layers of reed-scented, after-shower grooming. He could smell him and almost hold him, and that brought a stream of delight into his heart. Touch was everything. Touch was healing.

Ash weighed this silently.

"I'm a real asshole," Harry said. "I wouldn't do that for him. I wouldn't do that for anyone. Why?"

"Because you're not ready. Don't be too hard on yourself."

"Because I'm still ashamed of it. I look down on it. Why is it okay for me to accept it with Draco and not with myself? What am I really saying about the biological nature of women? Oh, they're perfectly decent people, but beneath me as a man, of course. What, spread my legs, I would never stoop that low."

"I don't think you really feel that way."

"Until something forces them to think about it, that's what many men feel. If I could, I'd go home right now and demand that Draco do it to me. I'd lie flat on my back and open my legs, and let him. I'd face it."

Ash rubbed his jaw. "Sounds like a challenge you're giving yourself. I don't know him, but if what you've told me about him is true, I don't think he'd want you to give yourself to him as a challenge. It's not about facing anything, it's about enjoying him. Enjoying one another. It's not a project you have to succeed at."

Harry knew he was right, and that deflated him. "I've been really shitty to him. I want to make it up to him so bad."

Ash wasn't sure if he was talking about Draco or Snape. "You seem to want to make things up to people a lot. You know, sometimes the best thing you can do, is allow people to have their misconceptions and even misunderstandings. Even moderate pain. It helps them make better decisions."

Harry's stare glazed over.

Ash added, "Leave your mistakes alone. Don't try to fix them. You don't have all the answers and you don't know what's best for someone else. They don't either, necessarily. Chaos knows it's own order and people work out their own solutions as they live life, not by figuring it all out in their heads. I'm not the most religious guy, but that's why people need to believe in something higher than human intellect. Something put the planets in order, gave us this oxygen, these cells that metabolize, and all these digits," he held up his hand and wiggled his fingers, "that build anything we want. And a heart that can beat for over a hundred years if we treat it right. Stop trying to be other people's solution. Things can work themselves out, even if that means life changes.

"If you want to accept a challenge, I challenge you to make mistakes and trust things to work out anyway. I challenge you to let people see that, not only are you far from perfect, you have no intention of pleasing them or attempting to rectify any situation, because it's not realistic to ask you to be responsible for anyone else's ability to cope with life. Life hurts sometimes and that's just a signal from our dashboard to make a change. It doesn't mean Harry has to go back and fix all his mistakes. I challenge you, to see a problem and do absolutely nothing about it, and be happy with yourself."

Harry blinked. Ash was on to something.

"When you were little, you were told that you had to save the world, and that's how you've been earning love and respect ever since. I don't have to live up to those standards. Nobody has to live up to those standards. But you do. What if all of your impulses to fix things and people, are nothing more than an impressionable little boy's way of justifying his worth to the world? If you were a selfish, rat bastard, today's lesson would be about helping others more, but you're not. Just the opposite. So your lesson is about trusting that you're just as valuable to the world, whether you make mistakes or not.

"There's an intelligence that governs it all, so you can stop trying to put out fires and rest. I'm sure Snape needs rest, but if you don't, he can't. He worries about you. Those fires we encounter, are strategic. There's not one great person who hasn't suffered a metaphorical fire or two, that in some way, contributed to the wisdom they've gained. A crisis even. Stop trying to take people's fires away from them. Your family needs you to be focused on your happiness, not your mistakes."

"You sound like Snape."

"Yeah, well, we've both been here a lot longer than you. I didn't raise you, so I can look at you with a little more objectivity. You're a young man. Figure out what makes you happy and let your life be about that, because everything else is just a distraction and you can go to your grave distracted and defeated. Don't waste these years. It's time to do what's best for you."

Harry looked down. His plate was a smudged mess of chocolate and sticky cake crumbs. He felt full and pleasantly sleepy, but something held him to his chair.

He asked, "Are you sure there's nothing going on between you and Snape?"

"I'm sure," Ash nodded.

"Are you happy with that? It's your turn to be honest."

Ash leaned back and folded his hands over his chest. "I told you, we're better off as friends. It's better that way."

Harry pressed his mouth closed, not sure how to express what he was feeling. Ash was such a great guy, he wanted to confide that he felt inspired to do something one might consider reckless. But given Ash's sour grapes attitude towards Snape's affection, it might not be appropriate to mention it. It was too soon, too early in its stage. Even he didn't know how he was going to pull it off, but Ash's certainty that he was not interested in Snape felt key. The thing was, he wasn't convinced of Ash's answer. There was too much kindness in the man's every action concerning Snape. Harry knew that he wasn't here because Ash liked him. He was here because Ash wanted to please Snape.

"Okay. Good."

He bit his lip, not realizing it was a tell and even more oblivious to how he had developed it. All he knew in that moment, as Ash got up and set about washing their plates, was that the conversation had given him clarity and neutralized his frustration with Snape. During their talk he had also realized that Draco's willingness to play a certain role in their sex life, had gone a long way to heal him. Draco's love saved his life, and he wanted to do that for Snape. But he didn't know if he could.

It was best not to tell Ash anything, until he understood it better, himself.