Something significant shifted from that afternoon when Snowdrop had been brought by Snape & Son alone. Harry found himself perplexed by the change in his relationship with the girl, who, while still as prickly as a hedgehog, was at least more inclined to sit still and listen to him on occasion without being first tempted to bite his head clear off.

Or perhaps it was merely the fact that he was being made to spend more time with her. After her disappearing act, whenever Gammy had cause to be elsewhere she now took to foisting Snowdrop off onto the Snapes, which Severus might have minded more had Snowdrop not been forcing Harry to do better on his own homework with her high-handed competitiveness in coursework. When Snowdrop Hill was occupying the front office, he could at least rely on the girl to browbeat Harry into practising his spelling with her or doing just about anything besides spending every last second of his time fiddling with Lady Godiva, as he'd taken to doing whenever he had a spare moment alone.

In this way, Severus' acceptance of Snowdrop seemed rather conditional, and her own begrudging presence beneath their roof was equally so, which was most evident when Snape took it upon himself to leave a box of fresh biscuits or some other such morsel he'd picked up on an early morning run to the bakery on the far side of town. Snowdrop was in much better moods on days where the mauve cardboard container was set on the stainless-steel front office counter, and Harry didn't have to wonder at why when she began pilfering scratch-made jammy dodgers from the belly of the box.

Snape knew well the price of keeping her peace, and Snowdrop seemed to at least respect Harry's kuya for his frequent concessions.

Harry was simply grateful that they could afford such indulgences. Snape & Son was proving to be an unexpected success, which had turned Tobias into an insufferable braggart. Of course, he still spent far more time outside of the shop than working within, but whenever he returned, he would make a beeline for the scheduling clipboard and pencil in a new appointment or two (or on one occasion three), and Severus was made to button his lip and swallow any complaints he'd voiced privately to Harry in the hours before his father's return.

They were making far more now—particularly with the low overhead of having custom, hand-machined parts and the benefit of magic—than Severus had made at The Yow, and Severus had confided in Harry that he'd begun diverting some of their extra income toward repaying the loan against the mortgage at a faster rate, to make up for the fact that they were now a bit housing insecure.

Cumbria was showing signs of thawing, although it wasn't near enough to spring outside for Harry's tastes. Yet there was certainly a difference in the air that spoke to a new chapter. Or perhaps to a different story altogether. It only bothered him that he couldn't pinpoint what or why things had begun to take on a different tone.

Nicky and Snowdrop were still frequent visitors at Snape & Son. Harry still spent at least one afternoon a week on the farm, milking Babs, locating hidden clutches of chicken eggs, and cleaning out sheep's poo from the musty stalls. He saw Joe once a week for lessons and had passed his first test on naming his notes, which encouraged the bald guitarist to begin introducing more scales and arpeggios for the boy to practise.

School was... well. It was school. Oliver Twist was now over, and parents must have complained once more about the complexity of the book (and of Richard III), for Mr. Fowler's latest reading assignment had been introduced to them as 'a book about bunny rabbits,' which Mr. Fowler sarcastically informed them would likely satisfy the demands of those voices who had chorused together in requesting child-friendly reading assignments.

Harry could not really agree that Watership Down was any better a choice than the novel and play which had preceded it.

And when he'd told Severus about it over supper one evening, he'd noticed that upon mentioning the rabbit warren in his book, the man had turned a bit green.

Of course, Harry hadn't forgotten entirely about Bertie's truncated story regarding Mrs. Murray's sons and the rabbit warren, but Snape's reaction to the mere mention of an unrelated rabbit warren, he thought, bore investigating.

Still, he didn't quite manage to work his way to the discussion he wished to have with Severus as smoothly as he would have liked, for when he'd begun to lament the ridiculous Lapine language that Adams had created for his novel and also the impenetrable prose (words he'd not, of course, used. Rather, he'd complained about how very boring the first assigned chapter had been and how he could barely understand what was happening besides that there were rabbits in a warren), Severus had frowned and risen from his chair, stalking over to the entryway and digging through Harry's school bag himself until he unearthed the novel.

He brought it back to the table with him and sat down heavily, flipping through the publication information and dedication to reach the first chapter. If his rapidly darting black eyes were any indication, he was reading it at a breakneck pace, and indeed he speedily flipped through the pages while his food sat untouched before him.

"How far have you read?" Snape asked, his fingers engaged with turning the pages while he flicked his eyes up at Harry rather absently.

"Only chapter one and parts of chapter two... I don't understand everything," Harry complained. He budged a bit of banger through the cooling mashed potato that was beginning to congeal in the corner of his plate, no longer interested in finishing the rest of his meal. "They keep using weird words for things and I have no idea what they're supposed to mean."

"Rather like our world, one could say," Severus challenged him. He finally scooped up a bit of carrot and potato onto his own fork and ate it, but then made a face when he realised that he'd allowed his food to grow cold.

It was one of the nights where it was again just the two of them. Tobias spent just as many evenings at the pubs with people he'd referred to as his friends. When it had finally occurred to Harry to wonder aloud to his guardian whether Tobias might have been indulging in drink again, Severus had shaken his head, seeming convinced that his father hadn't fallen to the bottle this time around.

Harry only wished that he could be half as confident about that, but then, Severus did seem to have a sort of sixth sense about such things.

Just like when he'd surmised the direction of Harry's thoughts when Harry had imagined his grandfather as some sort of Spanish Lothario modeled after Don Juan, and also as he'd done a mere week or so before when he'd needled Snowdrop over her ill-advised trip out to a men's prison at the furthest end of the country.

In fact, it rather reminded Harry of the way in which Fiver seemed to think that something catastrophic would be visited upon the warren in Watership Down, which had been one of the only scenes in the first chapters which had made any sense to him.

Perhaps Severus was, himself, psychic. It made more sense for a wizard to possess such a power than for a rabbit, in any case. And from Severus' own version of events about what had precipitated his parents' deaths, he knew that prophesies were, indeed, real.

"I don't know what half of those words are either, Severus, but I can ask you, can't I? And the more I know, the more the other words start to make sense. Just like I saw in the Prophet the other day that there were om-omin... er... bad headwinds in the goblin markets, and I didn't quite understand, but they trade in dragons' eggs and people fly on brooms, don't they? So, of course I knew they meant that it must be because the dragons were blowing too hard to fly against—"

Severus scoffed and set the book down, his index finger wedged between the pages to keep his place. "That's not at all what it means!"

"It's not?" Harry asked, feeling crestfallen. He'd been rather proud of himself for having pieced that together. He'd been listening to reports from Ganymede's Gaffes and Guesses—which he tuned in to nearly every morning—and had created his hypothesis through what he'd considered to be masterful deductive reasoning. Ganymede had been quite insistent that the dragons were becoming, in his words, "broody" (a concept which Harry understood from having worked with Gammy's flock of perennially discontented fowl). Part of their broodiness was evidently taking to the skies and enforcing their territorial boundaries with unmatched ferocity.

That must have meant a lot of winging about. Who knew how far the air currents their wings generated could travel?

"Headwinds aren't a uniquely magical concept in finance, Harry," Severus drawled, the spine of the book tapping the table as he regarded the boy opposite him with a tired expression. "Whenever a paper—or someone like your fellow Ganymede—are talking about them, they mean forces that are opposing. In this instance they're talking about reasons why the goblin market—our financial market, or at least the primary financial market—might be less profitable in the coming months or years. It's the same when the Financial Times talks about it."

"But there are other words I bet I know now!" Harry argued, feeling a bit desperate. He'd been rather proud of himself for having figured that one out, and to be told that he was so wildly off base was discouraging in the extreme.

"Doubtless. I'm certain you've learned a great deal from your little radio and from reading the paper as diligently as you have done," Severus soothed, his diplomacy slightly out of character for him.

Harry chalked it up to the man's enduring exhaustion. It either made Severus extremely tetchy or more agreeable than was his usual wont. Sometimes, it would result in severe agitation immediately followed by periods of regret where Severus would attempt to make amends to the boy by being far more accommodating than he'd usually allow.

"But there are limitations to how much one can glean from context alone. Hopefully you'll see that now?"

Glean. That meant to reap. It was one of Gammy's words, particularly when it came time to bring in the harvest the previous autumn. Harry nodded along, proud he understood.

He'd prove Severus wrong yet.

"In any case," Severus continued, "I can't think that this—" he held the book aloft and shook it, so that the pages and cover fanned out with the movement, "is appropriate for where your reading level ought to be at the ripe age of eight.

"What's your teacher had to say about it when he was introducing the material to your class?" Snape asked, not able to hide the antipathy he felt when referring to Mr. Fowler even in passing.

"He said we ought to enjoy this one, 'cause it was about bunny rabbits and if Oliver Twist and Richard III were too hard for us, then we were in luck."

Snape stared at him, blinking even as his face registered as utterly impassive.

Harry thought he might have recognised a definite twitch in the man's nostrils however, which never boded well. Indeed, moments later, Snape's irritation crested when he broke into a snarl and began cursing at the book in his hands.

"Oliver bloody Twist! He had you reading Oliver bloody Twist!?"

"Er... yeah, Severus," Harry rolled his eyes at the dramatics. Where exactly had Severus been for the past several months? Harry had kept his copy of the book around at all times and had been trying to read it for ages. "What's wrong with it?" He asked, knowing that he himself found many many things wrong with the book. That wouldn't, however, help in his argument with Snape. "You gave me Oliver Twist for Christmas—"

"I gave you a heavily abridged version! It'd been dumbed down considerably so that it could be read by school-aged children—"

Harry knew his face must have fallen at that, but Severus continued on undeterred.

"—I'd never have given you the real version! Not this year at least! I saw your marks recently; how did you manage your scores in reading comprehension? Hm?"

"I... I read the version you gave me," Harry admitted.

"Did you even touch the school's version?"

"Well I tried, didn't I?" Harry retorted, his temper rising into hot pools on his cheeks. He crossed his arms and scooched away from the table, glowering down at his half-eaten plate, for he knew better than to glare directly at Snape himself. "But it didn't make sense... I figured you'd rather I brought home a better score, so I did my best, Severus—"

"Not everyone had access to an abridged copy," Severus growled. "How did the rest of the class fare?"

Harry's mouth wavered a bit. "I... probably not good, I suppose," he conceded, feeling a bit of guilt over having had his own special copy of the text. "I mean, if Mr. Fowler got a bunch of parents complaining about it, it couldn't have been 'cause they thought he should have made us read it."

"I myself lodged a complaint with Headmistress Shaw after Richard III. Your scores were abominable."

"I thought you loved Richard III!"

"I do!" Severus declared, pressing a hand to his breast for emphasis. "I also remember reading it at thirteen and struggling mightily with much of the language. I did my best to help you and to give you my own copy because it contained my notes, but again: not everyone had that privilege. And even with the additional notes, you still scored in the failing range for reading comprehension. At no fault of your own, might I add, but because your teacher is a fucking numbskull!"Harry winced. Severus had gotten much better at controlling his language since he'd come to live with him in July. If he was spitting off such epithets now, it was only because his cauldron was well and truly boiling over.

"We read it aloud in class," Harry admitted. "And while I was reading it, I could say everything just fine, you know? But I didn't understand anything that was happening even after I'd said it. I might as well have been reading it out loud in... er..." he fished for a language. Any language. "Latin or something."

"Yet another part of your education I shall have to address myself before you start at Hogwarts," Snape commented as he directed his glare out the kitchen window. "If ever I bloody well have the time to do anything again.

"It might help if I could at least trust the vaunted educators at Rowky Syke to do their damn jobs, so that I might be able to focus on more prosaic concerns," he mused aloud, his gaze distant. "Such silly trivialities as food, and a roof over your head, and enough money to purchase your uniform. Goodness knows I'm a fool for imagining I might be left in peace to do the one damn thing it seems I'm good for anymore."

Harry's fingers drummed a tattoo against the laminate tabletop and his brow fell. He hated when Severus got all mopey.

"Come on! You're good at lotsa stuff—"

"If that were true then I'd not have been so handily manipulated into running a business I hate for a man I despise, after having had to take a job as a low-skilled bar keeper for months on end." Snape finally released his hold on the book to bring his elbows up onto the table. His head dropped into them and he speared his long fingers through the inky, oily fall of his hair.

"You're..." Harry hesitated and ducked his head a bit to try and catch a glimpse of Severus' foreshortened profile. He couldn't see him through his hair and his hands, however. "You're brilliant."

Snape's perfunctory and sardonic reply emerged muffled through the press of his palms over his nose. "Snenk nyou, Herr-aye."

Harry nodded, his eyes darting around the room for something else to talk about. He'd laced his fingers together on top of the table in what he thought to be a rather business-like fashion, as he'd sometimes seen people do on the telly or in films, and he looked again at his copy of Watership Down.

"So... er... what else did you think about the book?"

"Eh-bou th' bewk?"

"Yeah."

Finally, Snape dropped his hands from his face and used them to push his hair back, which made it look rather more like a rats' nest than usual. Unfortunate, but at least they were at home where no one would see, Harry thought with a bit of pity.

Usually, he felt as though Severus were cool enough that no amount of his being unkempt could matter, but on other occasions, for example when the older wizard turned up at school to speak to the Headmistress about something or other, Harry found himself feeling a bit embarrassed over Snape's slovenly appearance. He hated that he felt that way, but he couldn't quite overcome the sense of shame he felt, either.

"I think that Mr. Adams thinks rather a lot of his own writing," he scathed, retrieving the book and flipping back to the first portion he'd read.

"What's that mean?"

"I find the whole thing a bit pretentious," Snape told him with a frown. "Why rabbits? Why allegory? Who does he think he is? Aesop?"

"Er..."

"Perhaps I am being uncharitable," Severus granted then, drawing a tired hand over his eyes. "I could leverage a better complaint—perhaps even pay the blasted man a compliment—if only I had it in mind to read the full text. Which, for your information, I may, should I ever find the bloody time—"

"That's okay, Severus—"

"It's not okay! It's bloody well not okay that I'm shortchanging you on your education because every waking hour of my life is spent bent over a damn car!"

"Would it be better if it wasn't rabbits?"

"What do you mean?" Snape asked, his eyes pinning Harry with a wary look.

Harry decided he'd be best served to tread carefully.

"Well... what if it were foxes? Or frogs or something?"

Snape drew himself up and narrowed his eyes at the boy, their black depths growing flinty and slightly dangerous. Harry gulped.

"What do you imagine it means to me that they're rabbits?"

"I don't know—"

"You're absolutely useless when it comes to misdirection, Potter," Snape interrupted him, breaking eye contact. "Just ask what you want to ask and spare me the impromptu book-club."

Harry flexed his fingers a bit as he stared down at his hands. He wished he were still eating so he'd have something to better occupy them.

"Bertie Tibbons told Snowdrop about the rabbit warren," Harry informed him in a halting undertone.

"Yes."

Harry sighed. Snape wasn't going to make this easy for him.

"What happened with the rabbit warren, Severus? What did you do to Mrs. Murray's sons, really?"

Taking a deep breath through his nose and releasing it just as slowly, Severus regarded the child opposite him with a steely look. "I... it wasn't my intention to do more than to frighten the living daylights out of them. If... if I'm being completely honest, I don't even know that I thought it through that far ahead.

"But as for what actually happened...?" Snape continued, "I'm afraid it was far more damaging.

"I beg you to understand, Harry... I really meant no actual harm..."

It was... it was a joke. It was always just meant to be a joke.

In those days, anyone who thought they could get away with it thought it was just fine to play a joke on me. And for many years after, in fact, but let us not allow that to get in the way of telling things here.

I believe I must have been a year six student at Rowky Syke. It had to have been that final year, because months later I was packed away to go to Hogwarts. In those days I had but two friends in the entire world.

There was Lily Patrice Evans: she was the angel on my right shoulder—

"And Bertie Tibbons on the left. He was the devil?" Harry asked aloud, earning a scowl from Severus, whom he'd interrupted.

"Bertie was no such beast. Not back then, anyway. No. The devil on my shoulder was always of my own making. Perhaps even there by my own invitation," Severus mused.

He cleared his throat. "Don't interrupt again."

I have fond memories of that year. That was the year I'd finally managed to work up the courage to speak to Lily. Oh, I'd known her for long enough. We'd been in the same class since we'd entered Rowky Syke: her from her nursery school, and me having been "educated," if one could call it that, from home by my mother.

She didn't have a clue who I was. Not even after I played the donkey in the school Nativity a year or so before our departure for Hogwarts. Possibly she knew my name—in fact, her older sister did, by reputation if by no other means—but she didn't know me. In any case, while I would have dearly liked to have known her, my own ability to form friendships was... limited.

Bertie was closer. Easier. Perhaps he even reached out to me first, I can hardly recall. I've known him from some of my earliest memories. For a while he was the only child, until Tabitha came along, and with the added responsibility of another child to care for, Bertie was turned out onto the streets more often than not. Left to his own devices. Most of us boys in Cokeworth were. It was the done thing in those days.

In any case, by making Lily's acquaintance, I certainly hadn't shed myself of Bertie's friendship, and while we were at school Lily still had her own friends—the girls, naturally—and I had... well. I had Bert.

"Hey," Harry interjected, raising his hand a bit as he might have in class. "Snowdrop said that Bertie remembered you going to Mum after the Nativity and apologising then, and that she wanted you to stop talking to him."

"He may be misremembering things. I certainly went to apologise after, but she didn't object to my friendship with Bertie until she and I became proper friends in year six. I think after the apology she did mention that she thought the two of us annoying idiots, but nothing changed in our friendship until a couple of years later.

"Probably that was for the best, because I certainly had no scruples about doing things that Lily would have turned her pretty nose up at..."

On the other hand, Bertie still thought it was funny when I could manage to lift something here or there from some of the stalls that would get set up on Swift Street back in those days. There used to be an open-air market there some afternoons, many years ago.

I'm not sure if I managed to keep from him the fact that I was already performing petty feats of magic, or if he merely thought it a bit of clever legerdemain. Either way, he admired me for my light fingers and I admired him for the sheer size of his bollocks. He was brazen. In everything. I'm not sure I ever saw Bertie apologise for anything he ever did, even when caught red-handed.

Not that I was that disposed to apologise either, but... needs must. At that point in my life it helped to have a few insincere words to excuse myself if need be.

Bertie was so confident in all he did that half the time the person he'd just stolen from assumed that he must have been mistaken in confronting Bertie at all. Most petty sneakthieves showed at least a bit of embarrassment, if not a sense of contrition. I'm afraid it likely worked more to his benefit as a small child, anyway. He got away with less and less as he got older.

I wouldn't say we were necessarily hated by the other children at Rowky. Our circumstances were not unique. We were not the poorest children in Cokeworth, nor the worst turned out. Our parents were still united in matrimony and our fathers, at that time, remained employed at Reckitt. Even so, every small boy will find himself an enemy in one way or another, and Bertie and I found ready enemies in the Murray brothers.

Or, more specifically, I found an enemy in Neil Murray, and Bertie and Neil's brothers were pulled into the bray as though by gravitational force. There was simply no avoiding it.

Neil was of an age with Bertie and me. His brothers were both older. I think they were called Peter and David, but it's just as probable that they were called something like Richard and Sylvester. After all these years, I can hardly say.

Neil was, as one might expect from a child whose mother was on the staff, a tale-bearer of the worst kind. Given that Bertie and I hardly ever kept our noses clean, it led to frequent confrontations. Judith hardly needed an additional reason to dislike me by the time it all happened. She'd already found enough cause in all of the tattling that Neil did on the two of us.

If I so much as farted in the wrong direction—or rather, within his hearing—his mother was sure to know, and after years under the little brattlecan's scrutiny, I thought that before I left Rowky, I ought to do something about him. Back then I'm sure I told myself that it was simply time for his comeuppance, or something to that effect. Now...? I can admit that it was merely my pride, which had, by then, suffered enough abuse for me to excuse just about any action I might take against Murray.

"Why didn't he like you?" Harry asked, unable to suppress the rising tide of curiosity before it had him interrupting Severus' story once more. Although he wasn't sorry for asking, he still sought a diversion from his disobedience by snagging another round of banger off his plate and offering it to Curry, who was nosing his way underneath the table in search of scraps. The dog scarfed it down from his fingers and wove his way underneath the chair legs, settling down with a loud huff and sigh.

"Why does anybody like anybody," Severus posed aloud, as though such a dull ponderance could be considered broadly philosophical. "Why does anybody dislike anybody?"

Harry only barely restrained himself from answering with the obvious: people were generally well-liked when they were kind and largely agreeable, and bullies or mean-spirited people found ample ground to sow discontent amongst their peers.

Then again, Harry himself had never been unkind or disagreeable at his old school in Surrey, and he'd been hated near universally...

Dudley had everyone thinking Harry was a freak of nature, and worse, that if they allied themselves to the bespeckled boy that they'd be subject to Dudley and his gang's bullying.

Perhaps it was more along those lines then...

Sighing loudly and with great impatience, Severus leaned back in his chair, tipping it so that it balanced on its two back legs as he rocked to and fro. "I believe he found cause to hate me in our first year at Rowky, because I'd made the mistake of calling his mother something unsavoury within his hearing.

"Wait! What did you say about Mrs. Murr—?"

Anyway. He'd never liked me, not from the start, and found frequent cause to either report my misdeeds to his mother, or to the headmaster at that time, who was fond, in those days, of employing the cane. I took my stripes from Mr. Hargrave enough times that I learnt to despise Neil Murray. I think by then I figured that a bit of revenge wasn't outside the realm of being fair.

His brothers I rarely saw. Perhaps it was the case that the younger of the two was still at Rowky when Neil and I started in year three, but they were both away to secondary school by several years at the time I was to leave Rowky for Hogwarts.

It was bad luck for them that they were there that day at all, although it turned out to be incredibly fortunate for me.

For months by that point I'd taken to carrying my mother's wand around with me wherever I went. I'd barely worked up the courage to use it, but I had been reading spell books since I was old enough to sound out words on a page. I devoured most everything in the house. My mother was a prodigious reader in her day, and she'd amassed a large collection of magical texts which she never seemed to think it necessary to keep an eye on. Due in part to her negligence, I familiarised myself with spells far outside what would have ever been taught in the halls of Hogwarts. Useful things, mostly. Practical charmcraft for both technical and tedious tasks alike... and lower forms of magic. Dark spells.

I learnt hundreds of them. Jinxes, hexes, and curses, all. Nothing was too banal for me to commit to memory.

Of course, learning and performing are two separate cauldrons of fish. Since it was the wand of an adult witch—and one which had been passed down through the generations—it didn't have the trace on it as most wands purchased for eleven-year-old children would. Even so, whenever I worked up the courage to try a spell or two, I found that my magic didn't behave in any way predictable or consistent enough to make me a confident young wizard. It was a rather significant blow to my youthful ego.

Yet, she didn't notice it missing. In truth, Mam didn't notice much of anything, ever. She was what one might term the "scatterbrained sort." It became worse later, before her passing, but in those days, it was mere absent-mindedness, or at least that's all it seemed to me. She'd not used her magic in years, in any case. Da' didn't care for it—although, before he can be judged too harshly, he never expressly forbade its use, either.

I think the truth of the matter was that she no longer found it useful. Merlin knows the house could have used a few more cleaning charms directed into the corners, but it wasn't quite a priority for her. Take that for what it is, as I have no further comment on why my mother behaved as she did.

Or perhaps that's me being cagey, is it? Maybe I was merely that bad of a child. That I urged the woman on to despair and summarily to complete and total apathy.

Tobias used to find it sort of funny that I'd summon things to myself that I wanted, and Mam was, of course, suitably embarrassed (and terrified of discovery). It is possible that my frequent bouts of kleptomania drove her to dispassion in all things. In any case, she never asked if I'd absconded with her wand, and she never bothered to buy me one when it came time for us to go to Hogwarts, so on some level she must have known where her own had gone.

Despite my embarrassing lack of finesse, I still had enough raw ambition where here and there I'd practise petty spells. I was at least canny enough to know not to do so in front of Bertie. I didn't even demonstrate wanded magic to Evans, and that was after having revealed the truth to her. The fact that I had early access to our birthright I withheld even from Lily, my dearest friend, because I was already jealous of that knowledge and the power that came with it.

I think that I imagined myself some manner of grand sorcerer, even at the tender age of eleven, which was why my failures hurt so badly. No sooner did I hold the wand in my hand than did I decide that should Neil ever cross me again he'd be dealt the full weight of his antagonism towards me back with interest. Perhaps I wouldn't manage to curse him, but the wand—the power that came with the wand, rather—inspired me to, at the very least, contrive some method of payback.

The only trouble was that at that age I was lacking in creativity. Or, if I wish to be the responsible adult I'm meant to be at this juncture, I suppose I ought to disclaim that that probably wasn't the only trouble with my vow of vengeance. In any case, things went too far for lack of planning, and also because every possible thing which could have gone wrong did.

I never did find out why Neil's brothers weren't at their own school that day, but for whatever reason, they'd been holed up in the administrative office with their mother for the morning. When it was break, it must have been that she allowed them out into the yard for some air, elsewise I can't imagine why they'd have been present for the events.

Neil had the worst habit of following Bert and me. I didn't even have to tempt him. It was enough for him to see us sneaking off beyond the line of trees out into the field, and he was only too eager to go and find some way of getting us into trouble.

That might have worked had I not planned to go out into the field with the express intention of paying his meddling back to him. I expected him, so his hiding place fifty paces off behind some scrubby brush wasn't remotely convincing.

Weeks earlier, Bert and I had found a rabbit warren that had had its population decimated some time before. Probably hunting or trapping was what we figured, but who could rightly say? It was a large den, with a wider than average antechamber, and I was... diminutive. It wasn't at all difficult for me to wedge myself back into the hole and to cover myself with rushes.

Bertie was only too happy to herd Neil out toward me, except, of course, by then the two other Murrays had joined their brother on his hunt. Like as not out of sheer boredom or curiosity.

For weeks I'd imagined it what it might be like to exact my revenge. I'd grab his ankle from underneath the brush and pull him down, or some such thing. Maybe I'd even scream a bit or throw some of the dead grass in his face. Sure, he'd live to tell on me one more time, but I figured I could withstand at least one more caning. It would have been well worth it.

It was sound enough as plans went. There wasn't an enormous amount of room for catastrophic error… excepting things beyond my control. Certainly, Peter and David Murray's presence wasn't something I'd accounted for, and had it merely been that, Bert and I might have been outmanned by one, but we all could have left the field with shiners and our pride intact.

All such plans were laid to ruin after the first thirty seconds where I lay still beneath my cover.

I heard Bertie loping off through the underbrush: his legs moving through the overgrown grass made a loud swishing sound. Whether he was coming or going I wasn't sure, and really it didn't matter.

All around me I smelled the wet earth. My head was, thankfully, not inside the warren. Had it been, I would have choked on dirt when the damn thing collapsed over me. As it was, when I first felt the sensation of something curling around my ankles and endeavouring to pull me within the tunnel, I still managed to grab hold of some of the long grass around the entrance. It saved me from being lost inside.

I thrashed.

I screamed.

I tore with my nails at the ground underneath me and I felt rocks ripping through my skin. I was as violent and terrified as any weak animal in a trapper's snare, and whatever had me by the ankle seemed to grow stronger with each attempt I made to free myself.

When Bertie and the Murrays finally came to me, they stood around for long moments not doing anything to help. I recall reaching for them and they stepped back from me, not understanding that something was very, very wrong.

The grass was tearing out of the ground beneath my hands, and it fell in heavy clods on my face, into my eyes. So too jagged rocks and small stones, unearthed in my panic. I'm not sure how many pelted my face but I could feel the damage being done and the fact that my nose and eyes were swelling up. When there was no more grass, I reached desperately for whoever's leg was nearest to me, and only when they saw my hands grasping for them did any of them move to help me.

I think Bert was the first to realise that I wasn't putting on a show. I'd told him some sketch of an idea I had in mind at the time, and this mustn't have resembled any such plan I'd explained to him.

I was too panicked to listen to anything they were instructing me to do to save myself and by that point they must have been trying to reason with me. All I was aware of was that whatever was within the tunnel was pulling harder with each inch I gained in escaping, and beneath my fingers and chest the dirt was running to mud as an early summer storm had set in, turning a bright afternoon darker than twilight.

I slapped a hand down into the dirt before me, and pushed up to my elbows, hoping I could drag myself out by sheer will, using any leverage I could gain through levering myself up, but a violent tug backwards destroyed my progress in an instant and knocked the breath out of me.

There was no purchase I could find anywhere until I finally hit a layer of roots, which were stripping of their skin beneath my hands, and taking the top layer of my palms off with them. I was losing strength and hope, but Peter and David—if indeed that was what they were called— finally got it in mind to stand at either side of the mouth of the warren and to dig beneath the debris that covered me. They looped their arms underneath my shoulders and pulled until whatever was at my ankles felt as though it were losing.

The older Murrays were bigger and stronger than Bertie or Neil. Sufficiently so that they managed to get me far enough out that I was no longer trapped within the den. Instead, I was lying in the furrow which led down to its depths, the lower part of my calves and feet still within the mouth of the warren and the rest of me belly down in the mud.

Bertie and Neil joined in and attempted to haul me out by the back of my shirt. I choked violently and spat to the ground, ejecting a mouthful of dirt and desiccated plant matter. The collar of my shirt pressed deeply against my windpipe and I couldn't breathe through the mud in my teeth and on my tongue. I must have eaten a pound of grass during the struggle.

I barely cared that I was suffocating, because if it hadn't been for them pulling me out, I know I would have died… an offering to slake the hunger of that force which was determined to have me under the ground. In fact, in my salvific hope of being hauled forward, I nearly forgot about what was around my ankles.

I took a breath of sweet, sweet air, and my airway cleared.

The older Murrays screamed and released me.

The grip around my ankles tightened into a vice and I was yanked backwards. It worked its way around both of my legs, the scoping tendrils crawled their way up to my knees, and from there gained ground. Bertie, the thrice blessed fool, jumped on its arm. Its tentacle? It's... root?

It released me with a bellow of inchoate rage, and its strange, branching appendages flailed in the corner of my vision as they scrambled below, into the darkness of the underground den. It was a minor miracle that Bertie thought to jump on the unprotected parts of its body as it held me fast, but he'd succeeded in angering the monster and inviting the thing's hatred.

We should have run when it began screaming—a shrill, claxon-like sound that saw each of us covering our ears—but we were paralysed. Rooted to the spot like a deer caught in the glare of a lumos charm.

I clambered to my feet once its hold released from my legs, and gripped around my knees, pitched over so that I could try and drag in a deep breath. I took one... then another... and then lost my head again to yelling when the entrance of the warren collapsed entirely. The muddy maw churned anticlockwise, seemingly eating the sludge, brush and stones that lined the furrow leading into its depths.

We couldn't see anything for the muck. It hid itself down deep and was determined to drag us underneath the field with it.

Neil let out a frightened squeak and turned tail for the school yard. He made it all the way back to the copse of trees and scrubby brushes that he'd initially hidden behind and then slipped and fell on a partially buried stone. His voice rose over the fallow field in a horrific crescendo. Screaming. Screaming his bloody head off. As though that should help matters. His face was bloodied from his fall, dripping down his forehead and into his eyes. From the corner of my eye I saw him flailing, the length of half a football field away—screeching like a pig who's sensed his impending slaughter.

His brothers hadn't moved. They still stood a few feet off from the mouth of the warren, to either side of the entrance. I myself was inching my way backward, as far from the mouth of the trench as was possible, and Bertie was a few yards off further. We stood with silent caution, waiting for whatever the monster's next move would be, mistrustful of the lapse in action.

The loud cry of the beast came again, closer this time. Whatever was hiding within did not seem to need air to supply its steadily deepening growls and squeals. It ought to have suffocated from lack of oxygen, or at least have been silenced. Apparently, it didn't need to breathe.

Through the haze of terror, my shaking hand reached back into the waistband of my trousers, where I'd begun hiding my wand along my right thigh. It was hard to pull it out from the jerry-rigged harness I'd concocted, but after a moment of struggle, I worked it free and gave it a swish, hoping to feel the comfort of magic humming along my veins.

I felt nothing. The wand felt dead in my hand, giving no quarter.

I glanced to my left and behind, my wide eyes taking in Bertie, who had crouched to find some kind of weapon for himself amongst the brush. He emerged with a brutish-looking stick, which he whacked a few times against his palm, testing the weight.

The stillness, which should have been reassuring, was anything but. It felt as though I were feeling tremours underneath my trainers, coming from the buried tunnels used by the rabbits. I took a deep breath, then another. I had to be imagining it. Nothing I knew of was powerful enough to shake the ground like that...

I took another laboured breath.

It was all in my imagination...

Yet the form of a great muck-beast shooting forth out of the warren with all of the momentum of a cannonball was anything but imaginary.

It stood as tall as a man, with the posture of a hunchback. Perilously stooped, even as it found its feet. It balanced on two feet, looking like an emaciated bear, and then it snarled and shook violently from its arms and shoulders down to its hips and tail, as would a dog after getting wet.

Mud splattered us all and blinded me temporarily. I cried out in a panic and wiped it away as best I could, hoping against hope that it wouldn't move while I was sightless.

When I opened my eyes I regretted wishing that it would stay stationary, as I got an eyeful of its mouth of wicked teeth, a face whose shape seemed to move and shift with each tiny movement, and great, empty eye-sockets.

Where it wasn't dripping mud, its fur was silver and matted. Though it had no eyes, I knew it was staring at me. I felt it staring at me.

We stood off against each other. Us four boys and it. Not one of us moving, and the monster standing stock still as well. Neil's frenzied screams in the field far behind us were all we heard, and after a minute, his theatrics drew its attention.

It glanced up and to the side, directing the lion's share of his focus on Neil, and I raised my wand. My hand shook so badly that I knew my aim would be off.

"R...r-iddikulus..." I stammered, watching with dismay as a terribly weak flash of light left the end of Mam's wand and washed ineffectually over the beast's arm.

Nothing happened. It certainly didn't shrink down to the size of a miniature poodle as I'd hoped.

The spell worked, only... this wasn't a boggart.

Non-corporeal, yes. Some manner of shapeshifter, yes... but not a boggart.

A piteous whine left my mouth.

The head turned toward me and its sightless eyes seemed to sharpen.

A terrible scream rent the air, and with shock I realised that it was coming from me. My throat strained with the force of the air leaving my lungs.

All went to hell. I took off running and after a cursory check over my shoulder, I saw that Bertie, Peter, and David had too. All of us had split for different directions, with no guarantee of safety.

When I tried to find the beast to check its progress, it was nowhere to be found, and didn't seem to be chasing any of the other three boys over the expanses of open field that stretched before them.

My treacherous legs were propelling me in the direction of the school, carrying me almost faster than I could manage to balance atop them. I came close to where I saw Neil still yelling for his mother and was fortunate enough to trip as well.

I ate my second faceful of mud and the slippery mess kept me from climbing back to my feet. With the chaos of my wet hair obscuring my eyes, it took me far too long to regain my sight.

In the interim, the monster made it to the grouping of trees nearest to where Neil fell, and it was now sifting through, noiselessly and with a terrifying level of competence.

Murray's eyes were as wide with terror and the edges of his mouth were cracked and white with spittle. He looked around sightlessly, he was so utterly terrified; but whenever his wild gaze passed over The Thing's hiding spot, it shifted itself into the cover of the trees, apparently trying to avoid Neil's roving surveillance. It didn't notice that I'd approached, nor that I'd spotted it where it hid.

I glanced back quickly for the others. They were a quarter of a mile off each, making for nearby farms. The older Murrays managed to make it over the wall that demarcated one of the adjacent sheep enclosures, and were steadily closing in on the farmhouse. Bertie, who'd run in the opposite direction, had lowped the nearest dike. I didn't see him. I only hoped that he was outside of the monster's field of interest.

It was Neil whom it had eyes for now. The Thing devoted itself to his weakened form where he lay on the ground, and I stood only a little ways off from there, an easy second meal if I were to be noticed.

With each pass of Neil's eyes over the Thing's hiding spot, it grew bolder and bolder, moving from tree trunk to tree trunk, and sometimes crouching behind bushes as it shadowed the boy. Every time Neil looked away it stalked closer then again hid behind whatever new cover was available. At times it even seemed to shrink in size—either in width or height—to accommodate the surroundings.

I grew desperate. The Thing made it within a couple of yards of Neil, and "watched" his every move, its great head jerking with every small movement that Neil himself made. Its void eyes didn't land on me once.

I... I didn't know what to do at that juncture. I didn't know what spell might work against whatever demon had crawled out of the earth and set itself upon us, nor which spell might deign to work for me and my weak grasp of casting.

With no other options available, I settled upon the last course of action I could possibly take.

The rock I'd tripped over was still at hand on the ground before me. I seized it between both bleeding palms and hefted it over my head, stumbling as I rose to my feet and took a cautious step forward.

Being a young boy, raised in a town where I was frequently at odds with other young boys, it seemed only natural that I should try and bludgeon the Thing about the head with it.

I got as close as I dared with the giant slab carried over my head, and the greedy beast didn't look up. Neil's thrashing about was too enticing.

Finally, within five feet of it, and to its rear, I lobbed it with all of my strength at its shoulders and head. It recoiled when it was struck at the back of its mangy skull and scurried deeper into the trees as I stumbled backwards, trying to keep all of the hiding places it might choose to use out in front of me instead of behind.

It was a coward. It preferred to hide. It enjoyed the hunt. The stalking.

When I got near enough to Neil, who was whimpering after having seen the beast that had managed to get so near to him, I pulled at his shirt until he stood and I made him look to the trees too.

"Keep your eyes on the trees and bushes. Don't lower'em for anything," I hissed through my teeth.

"If it gets behind us, we're dead."

Neil let out a piteous whine and his knees seemed to shake.

"Don't look back at the school. We're gonna walk backwards to the school." I tugged him and encouraged him to begin taking cautious steps back. "Don't even blink. Not until we're inside. Don't look away even when we reach the school yard."

"O-o-okay..."

He smelled of fear, even to me. Like he'd pissed himself. I didn't look down to check, however.

We walked back like that the entire way, and nearly tripped half a dozen times. The only thing that kept us upright was our persistent fear that we might literally lose our heads should we falter for even a second.

"

As I said: we could feelit watching us. Or at least I could. I'm not actually sure how much of a help Murray was...""And you got back to the school then?" Harry asked, leaning forward in his seat. His eyes were wide behind his spectacles and both of his hands gripped the edge of the table. "Nothing... nothing else?"

Snape regarded him with no little annoyance but did eventually nod, even if it seemed that he thought he'd been robbed of his more theatrical retelling of events. "Yes. We made it back then."

"How did you kill it?" Harry pressed on, not at all satisfied with the end of the story. "What was 'It?'"

Snape breathed deeply out of his nose, seeming to collapse into regret. He shook his head and sent his tendrils of ropey hair flying about his shoulders. "I'm afraid it never was killed. Nor did anyone I warned find it. And I still don't know what it might have been.

"In the years since I've toyed with the idea of a werewolf or some other lycanthropic permutation, but the moon wasn't remotely close to being full, and it was the middle of the day. Moreover, years later I had an experience with a real werewolf. Needless to say, they looked nothing alike.

"Whatever it was had elements of non-corporeality and manifested at least a few characteristics of the shapeshifter. In all, it wasn't a bad guess on my part that it might have been a boggart—that's a fae-adjacent shapeshifter, Potter. A relatively harmless one, all things considered—but when I'd used the Riddikulus charm against it, the spell didn't fail in my casting, but upon its application. That is to say: not a boggart."

"And... and Peter? And David? Bertie?"

"You know very well that Bertie is just fine, living out his custodial sentence," Snape rolled his eyes at the pronouncement. "Peter and David Murray also survived the encounter. And Neil for that matter. He never was quite right after, though."

Harry frowned at this, especially the way that Snape smirked when he said so. "Mrs. Murray says he was never okay because of what... what happened. And she said that you told everyone he'd only seen a boggle or something—"

"Yes. 'Or something.'" Snape agreed, with a laconic shrug.

"You almost died!" Harry nearly shouted, growing irritated with the way that Snape seemed not to see the impact of his own story. "You all almost died, 'cause you wanted to get back at Neil just for telling on you! Was it worth it?" He scathed, hissing through his teeth when he could barely restrain his anger enough not to raise his voice.

Training his black eyes on the boy, Snape glowered across the table, having crossed his arms over his chest. "I'm not fool enough to think he deserved what happened in the end, Harry. I'm not happy about how things turned out—"

"You told Gammy that he deserved it!"

"I believe I said that it was 'no less than he deserved,' by which I meant the initial attempt to frighten him, not the events over which I had no control. He also wouldn't have been in that position to begin with had he not stalked Bertie and I out to the field past the school yard."

"It doesn't sound like you meant it that way," Harry replied, heat colouring his words. "It sounds a whole lot like what my dad and the blokes he hung around did to you at Hogwarts, and you seemed really upset about that when you told me about it."

Snape rose and slammed his palms into the table, causing the plates and cutlery to jump and shift loudly over its surface. "I did not know that there was something hiding within the warren! I did not send Neil in himself with the full knowledge that there was some beast capable of murder lurking within the depths! If anything, I myself was most at risk! I was also eleven and didn't expect that there was anything remotely magical hiding out in the Cumbrian countryside—"

"Come on, Severus! I bet there's tonnes of... of creatures 'round here!" Harry argued, thinking back to when Severus had explained to him the dangers of foraging when there were such things as magical hogsweed that lurked amongst its non-magical plant brethren.

"I know that now, Harry. I had no conception that Backbarrow was anything more than... well. Thoroughly mundane and boring in every way when I was coming up here. It seemed about the furthest place from where I'd expect to find such a monstrosity. You must understand I only wanted to give Neil a shake. The sort of... of malice you are describing is not something which would have occurred to me! At least... at least not at that age," he finally admitted, looking, at the very least, a bit contrite at last.

Harry glanced down to see that Curry was peering up at him through large, doleful eyes from between his knees. He reached down to pet him and scratch behind his ears while feeding him the last bit of abandoned sausage.

"So... so there was a time at one point where you... you would of—"

"Make no mistake that I was a very angry young man, Harry." Snape sat heavily in his seat and sagged, looking rather like a melting wax figure, he was so lachrymose. "Had I the opportunity, I would have paid back to Sirius Black what he'd done to me with ten additional sins heaped onto my conscience."

"You... you would of?" Harry asked with a wince. Everything Snape had told him of the Marauders had been terribly unsavoury, even when the man had done his level best to temper his criticism knowing that he was making his own confession of sorts to his former enemy's son.

"I consider myself to be very fortunate that I never got the opportunity," Snape answered. "For my soul, if for no other reason."

Harry's hands clenched into fists. He hated that Snape had been bullied and felt as though he hated even more to hear that his kuya had planned such a scheme against another boy in a similar vein. But he also remembered exactly the chain of events that Severus had explained about how his parents had come to meet their end.

Severus' betrayal had been tragic and devastating, no doubt. It was nothing, however, compared to the treachery served to the Potters by their former best friend, Sirius Black.

His heart filling with hatred, Harry nodded his resolution. "I guess I'm glad I wouldn't of had that opportunity either," he agreed. If he ever met the perfidious monster, he'd want to see him done to death too.

A/N: Some of you might be wondering at the choice to use Severus' voice this way in this chapter. I was looking to avoid putting the entirety of the story in quotes—which I think would have lessened the impact—and by cutting away to his memory, told in first person, the longer his narrative goes the more Severus becomes a narrator in his own right and is able to include the little details that he might not even be telling Harry, but which the reader gets to see: little background flourishes that help add atmosphere but which add next to nothing to the story he has to tell Harry. I think, looking back, I was trying to recreate the feel of The Princess Bride, when the grandpa and the kid banter, and then it's a slow sink into the story which then becomes immersive in its own right.