"—and I don't care for pickles with my order. Harry?"

"I..." Harry studied the menu a moment longer, lingering over two options he was undecided about. "I think I want what you got, Severus, only what's sauerkraut?"

"Fermented cabbage."

Harry looked over the edge of his menu, which was printed on a piece of paper big enough that he easily could hide behind it. He frowned overtop the menu at his guardian, doing his best to convey that Snape's answer didn't clarify a bloody thing for him.

"You know how cabbage tastes," Snape prompted, impatiently.

"Er... yeah."

"It's like that, but it's sour and considerably softer. It'll taste as though it's been mixed with vinegar."

"Oh..." Harry dithered some more. "I don't mind vinegar," he murmured.

"The boy will have what I ordered, but with the pickles," Snape remarked to the waiter. He then turned to address Harry. "The sauerkraut is easily enough removed to the side if you don't care for it."

Their waiter collected the menus without further comment and repaired to the kitchen and Severus leaned back in his chair and folded his long fingers over his spare waist. He looked exhausted.

"You could have always taken the pickles off too, you know?"

"I find the flavour lingers. In any case, knowing you, you'll enjoy the sauerkraut, and you've never been terribly picky, at least not from my observation."

Harry nodded, not quite wishing to argue. It was enough that they were seated at a slightly upscale eatery in Kingston upon Thames and that they'd not immediately apparated back to Cokeworth, although now that he considered his luck, he dearly hoped that the return trip wouldn't make him upchuck his nice lunch.

When he mentioned as much to Severus, the older wizard studied him for a moment and informed him that he'd secured tickets for the train back. It would take considerably longer, but he'd thought at the time that they might both enjoy the luxury of avoiding side-along apparition after a trying day at court.

"Thanks for lunch, by the way," Harry quietly ventured, playing with a slightly over-sized fork that was set beside his water glass. "That's awful nice of you—"

"It's awfully self-indulgent of me, actually. I wanted sit-down service for once. There's no need to thank me."

Snape had even taken the liberty to lean his head back against the chair and close his eyes. Harry didn't think he'd ever seen him look quite so knackered before. Perhaps that was why Harry didn't quite buy his excuse. Yes, it made sense for a man as tired as Snape was presently presenting himself to be to want to be waited on for once, but the exact same lack of energy meant that the older wizard hadn't put nearly enough effort into making his tiny fib believable.

Upon exiting the courthouse an hour or so earlier, Uncle Vernon had loudly called to the departing backs of his wife and son that they'd be going out for a meal at a well-respected and locally famous eatery, and Harry thought that Severus' choice of restaurant probably had more to do with that than any fatigue Severus was actually feeling.

Although, whether it was to make Severus feel better about himself and his own stature in the world or whether it was to make up some perceived slight toward Harry was unclear. In any case, that part didn't matter so much. Snape had decided to treat them, and Harry couldn't help but to smile down at the pristine, white tablecloth a bit.

At the very least they were dressed well for the occasion, which was more than could have been said about the last time they'd eaten out at a place with water goblets, proper metal flatware, and table dressings, which was when they'd driven back to Cokeworth from Surrey nearly a year before. Today, they didn't stand out a bit. They looked rather like father and son, he imagined.

Before long, two orders of battered sausage arrived tableside, festooned with flavourful accoutrements that one wouldn't normally find at your ordinary chip shop.

In a telling deviation from the norm, Severus had ordered a beer instead of his usual Coke. Without another word spoken, they both tucked in while the food was still putting off fragrant billows of steam.

"Oh, this is nice..." Harry commented, after having sampled a bit of the sauerkraut on the tip of his fork, "it's likethe pickle, only it's cabbage, isn't it?"

"Yes, it would be quite like a pickle," Severus answered, chewing a potato thoughtfully. He still held the other end he'd bitten off of on his fork tines, in midair. "They are both produced through fermentation, so their flavour should be similar."

"But you didn't want pickles with your order?"

"I don't care for cucumbers presented in any preparation, even if their flavour is significantly altered."

"What if there's a potion you need to take, and it's got cucumbers in it?"

"I would simply have to prepare myself to choke it down—"

"Okay, but what if," Harry continued, thinking up an even more preposterous situation, for no reason beyond his own amusement, "the country ran out of food, and there was no meat or bread—or Twiglets!—and all the spam and rice were used up, and all that was left were cucumbers?"

Snape pursed his lips and set his fork down against his plate. "I—"

"And then, what would you do if someone'd poisoned you, and it was a new poison they'd invented or something, and the only cure was to eat cucumbers or pickles for every meal, every day, for the rest of your life—?"

"That's enough!"

Severus' voice was so loud that Harry nearly jumped out of his seat, and he wasn't the only one. Nearby, other diners had been startled over their meals and were now glancing with open curiosity at their table, where Severus had roused himself from his post-deposition stupor to lean forward over the tabletop, pinioning Harry with the weight of his black-eyed glare.

When he seemed to realise that much of the background noise surrounding them had ceased, his mouth drew into a grim line, and he settled back into his chair with obvious discomfort, picking up his fork and finishing off the bit of potato he'd left on its prongs with a furious motion that displayed his gnashing teeth. He chewed angrily.

It at least seemed enough to dispel the pall he'd cast over the dining room, as most people seemed to feel that any show they might have put on wasn't going to happen. Once most of the attention of the other diners returned to their respective plates, Severus finally allowed himself to set his fork down once more.

"I suppose you think you were being funny."

"I'm really sorry, Sev'rus," Harry hastened to say, his eyebrows drawing together a bit as he prodded at his sausage with his knife. "I don't wanna see you poisoned—"

At this Snape sighed and brought both hands up to firmly massage the sides of his nose, where his sinuses often gave him trouble. "Perhaps it is I who owes you the apology. I see now that you thought indulging such a thought experiment was entertaining. You weren't intending to mock me, were you?"

"I..." Harry shrugged a bit. "Maybe just a little. But only 'cause I thought it might be kinda funny if any of those things happened—not the poisoning bit, honest!—but I didn't mean to mock because I wanted to make fun or anything. There's foods I don't like too."

"I think you have mistaken the word absurd for the word funny. It would be absurd for any of those things to happen. Although, it is true that often absurdity lends itself well to comedy, particularly comedies of error. I suppose, if I look outside myself, I can find the humour in such an ironic scenario. Even if I imagine you yourself would never want to see another cucumber within a day or so if that's all that you were allowed to eat, either because of illness or scarcity. That's a dire world you've invented, to be sure, Potter."

Harry perked up, heartened that Snape seemed to now be taking the exercise in its intended way. "So, what do you think—?"

"Probably plenty of people offing themselves," Snape deadpanned, before he used his fork to swipe a sliver of pickle off of Harry's plate, which he popped into his mouth, gamely. "But not me."

Harry pouted at him and then down at the place where the pickle had occupied. He really liked pickles, and usually there were never enough of them on his plate by his own reckoning.

"If you don't want any more food disappearing off your margins, I suggest you eat up," Severus informed him in a crisp voice, before he began sawing into his own portion with the serrated blade of his knife. He topped a round of battered sausage with seedy mustard and sauerkraut and Harry thought it best to follow the man's lead.

It was all too delicious to pass up, anyway. This wasn't the sort of fare to allow to grow cold.

"Our train leaves in an hour and a half," Severus announced, halfway through their meal. He was checking a small, digital watch he'd strapped on that morning. He tended to prefer them to the more traditional variety, for whenever he wasn't alone and couldn't use Tempus, the additional timer functions proved useful in both brewing and while waiting for sealant to cure on a car body. "I trust there wasn't anything else you hoped to accomplish while in town?"

Harry merely shrugged and picked at his potatoes, choosing the crispiest ones to eat first. "I never got to go into many shops or anything. I'm not even sure what there is to do in town."

"Just as well," Snape shrugged. "I have a pile of work back at the shop that I was hoping to complete before morning, and knowing Da', the height will have doubled by the time we get back."

"You don't think he did anything today?"

"On balance, I think he's probably worked his way through the backlog of parts I needed machined. That's good enough for me."

"I think you give him too much credit," Harry groused. When Snape had it in mind for Harry to complete a task, he didn't stop until Harry was lathered like a horse. When it came to his father, however? Severus acted as though each, piddly little thing the older man accomplished was worthy of celebration.

"It's either give him credit that's entirely undue, or extract nothing of value out of him whatsoever," Snape answered, his eyes sharp. "I hope you realise that I don't kowtow to your ego in such a fashion because I know you're capable of more. Granted, he's capable of more, but as a grown man, and my elder and father, I lack any sort of leverage in getting what I want out of him without greasing the wheels a bit."

"Yeah, I know," Harry answered, allowing himself a bare moment to sulk.

"Would you prefer to grow into the sort of man that he is? Shirking work, throwing tantrums, inconveniencing all around you for the sake of your own pride—?"

"No, alright? No. It's just annoying, is all."

"It is. Yes. Very annoying."

Severus paid their ticket and they wandered around the streets somewhat aimlessly, headed for the general direction of the train station after a fashion. Their course took them from Kingston to Vauxhall where they had to catch the tube into Euston station. That was the nearest they could find a direct route up to Carlisle, and after sprinting through the tunnels, they finally arrived at their platform, which seemed devoid of life compared to the more popular rails.

They loitered near where their train was meant to depart, knowing they had time to kill. Severus purchased a paper and opened it to the puzzles section, and Harry didn't even bother to ask for the Current Events section. After the talk they'd had about risk and reward—and culpability—he no longer felt the sense of direct guilt he had about the happenings in Alaska. Likely, he never should have, but at the time, it had almost seemed that by effecting such a problem on a small scale, he too was just as much to blame for such large-form manifestations of the same issue.

"What did you say to Aunt Petunia?"

"Mmm?" Snape tapped a distracted finger against his lips, holding his pen threaded through the fingers of his right hand.

"Out in the hall we heard her and Uncle Vernon starting to yell about something you'd been whispering to her, during the deposition. And then when they threatened to storm out and Uncle Vernon opened the door we were able to actually hear what was going on in the room."

"Oh, that." Snape didn't answer for a moment but instead wrote 'DonJuan' into a column.

"With nothing to do but to tickle his own fancy, George Bernard Shaw and the principal character of Act III, _, opined on the amusements of the underworld."

Forgetting his earlier question in favour of the clue, Harry couldn't help but to ask what it meant.

"To paraphrase: 'Hell is a place where you have nothing to do but amuse yourself.' Words spoken by Don Juan in the work Man and Superman."

"Oh," Harry shook his head. "How do you know so much?"

"I am merely curious, and, being curious, I feel that I never can know enough."

Curiosity... Harry had moments ago been curious about something... oh! Right.

"So in the deposition?"

Snape chuckled and set the paper down across his crossed knee, capping the pen and placing it into the crease where it wouldn't get lost. "I only meant it as a prank. I couldn't help myself, really. I didn't expect 'Tuney to get so bent out of sorts, but then, knowing her, perhaps I ought to have."

"So then you did say something?"

"I used my Muffliato charm. I think I've mentioned it to you before?"

"Yeah, the one where you can talk without people hearing you?"

"Certain people. I have developed enough control over the charm where I can exclude people at will. Of course, I'm no ventriloquist, and I haven't the skill to throw my voice, but whenever they weren't looking I'd say something while using the charm nonverbally, and it didn't take long for her to realise that at the volume I was speaking, I really ought to have been reprimanded if anyone besides herself could have heard."

"Uncle Vernon made it sound like he could hear you too—"

"Only later on, once I'd figured that it might be funnier if it were the two of them instead of just Petunia. Nothing I said was remotely as scandalous as she and her pet oaf were alleging. I certainly didn't mention anything untoward about her, as I'd rather perish than express a shadow of a passing interest in the likes of her," Snape scowled, nearly spitting the words out. "In any case, it was mostly innocuous things, or at least it would be to my mind. I asked what she could possibly be doing with all that extra time she gained in abandoning you, as she'd clearly recently put on a stone or two—"

Harry choked, and Snape was made to thump him on the back to free his laughter.

"And then I told her that I thought her new standard issue jumpsuit would probably have clashed terribly with Lily's hair-colour, but that it was lucky for her that she'd not have to worry about the colour washing her out, given that she's already disposed towards blotchiness."

This time better able to control himself, Harry snorted. The joke might have been a stretch, given that Snape's own sallow aspect often resembled a slightly jaundiced corpse's natural pallor, but somehow the fact that he, of all people, should feel comfortable to criticise Petunia over her complexion made the remark that much funnier.

Bringing himself under control, Harry cleared his throat. "I thought we're not supposed to use magic around muggles?" He asked, uncertainty colouring his voice.

"Oh, we're not, but even with my Ministry appointed chaperone," Snape sneered, "I can maintain a level of plausible deniability. After all, he couldn't hear me either. Possibly he suspected it was me causing a fuss, but I defy him to prove it."

"Chaperone?"

"My solicitor, Mr. Gorse. He was assigned to make sure that none of the inquiries led to renewed questions about the binding nature of my custodianship. It may well have led to a bureaucratic nightmare for our Ministry if it had. And that's not to mention the mess it would create for the two of us. Thankfully the muggles didn't seem interested in checking that out any further. Whoever was involved in organising the paperwork must have been rather gifted. Either that or the charges brought against the Dursleys are galling enough that no one in their right mind would wish to see you placed back in their custody."

"I don't think they'd take me back if they were made to..."

"There is that as well. Until the allegation that they abandoned you is substantively proven, in the eyes of the law there is still doubt. But the moment it can be proven? Well. Child abandonment carries custodial penalties, under normal circumstances."

Custodial penalties. Harry might have asked what that meant, except he already knew from his understanding of Bertie Tibbons' sentence. It was possible that Vernon and Petunia Dursley might well occupy prison cells if the case ever went to trial.

He felt momentarily irritated that he actually felt sorry for Dudley.

With the thought in mind that his cousin may well end up cared for by someone like Vernon's sister Marge, Harry grimaced. Let the bullying toerag enjoy a lunch out with his parents then. Let him be showered in gifts and gadgets. Harry could not find it in his heart to envy the boy.

Their train was late to arrive, but as soon as it did, they were the first on board, choosing a compartment that seemed unlikely to be attractive to anyone who might wish to join them. In any case, it wasn't a popular route, and they remained unmolested the duration of the trip. By the time they were traveling through parts of the country that Harry could identify as properly northern, Severus had set aside his completed crossword and resorted to staring out the window, his fingers laced together over his stomach.

Usually it was Snape who hated the silence so much, but he seemed in a contemplative mood. Either that or he was merely relieved that the deposition was over and that it hadn't led to any untoward attention paid to their custodial arrangement. In any case, it was Harry who found that the silence quickly began to eat at him.

At least while he was doing his crossword Severus was wont to mutter to himself, and sometimes Harry could 'help' by offering up his own interpretations of the clues, off-base though they always were.

"Did you really think that my aunt was... was in love with you or something?"

Snape blinked rapidly, as though coming out of a spell he'd been put under by the unimpeded view of the English countryside.

"You really must stop with these non sequiturs," he griped, rubbing some grit from his eyes. "I assume you're speaking of our parting remarks? No. I've never been under that impression. Petunia is simply too easy to goad, and her husband doubly so."

"Oh."

"Will there be anything else before we reach the station? Any other questions you've been burning to ask me before my life is once more taken up by minutia too dull to dwell upon in my blessed free moments?" He asked it sarcastically, but there was an undercurrent of sincere curiosity there too.

They were undoubtably close to their home station where Ms. Tibbons would be waiting to drive them home to Backbarrow. They'd passed by countless lakes already, and the landscape was becoming recognisable as what Harry had learnt in the past months to regard as home. It seemed as though Snape really wanted to know if there were any scores to settle before he was to be once more distracted by the ceaseless press of responsibilities he suffered under while in the town of Cokeworth.

Harry thought hard, considering that, while he often spoke to Severus at length, and about any small matter his heart desired, he wasn't often given his kuya's undivided attention anymore.

"It doesn't really matter at all," he began, scratching at his palm where it had begun to itch.

He wasn't prevaricating either. What he'd had in mind to ask really was of no great importance. He found himself curious all the same, however; unsure whether Snape's answer would make him see the other wizard in a slightly different light.

"We have at least ten minutes where I can answer any number of questions that don't matter. Use the time wisely, for I'm not sure when I'll again be able to spare even a passing thought towards any subjects that even you would consider trivial—"

"I wanted to know if you knew that Snowdrop was your sister," Harry interrupted, frowning at the way Snape had grown sarcastic and dismissive. Even though it was normal for him, it could still be terribly annoying.

It brought Snape up short, in any case. He mashed his lips together and suddenly looked more alert than he had in hours. Frowning at a spot of nothing, somewhere over Harry's left shoulder, he ran a finger over his lower lip. "Oh..."

"... You did, didn't you?" Harry prompted, dreading the answer and not at all reassured by Snape's sudden reticence.

His kuya breathed loudly out his nose, seemingly troubled. "In point of fact, I did not. I do, however, question how it is that I shouldn't have known. Particularly after your class Nativity. It seems... I feel terribly foolish, Harry. That I should have missed something that ought to have been obvious."

"Did you really think it was Bertie, then?"

"Of course not! Haven't you ears? Snowdrop's mother said rather explicitly that it was not Bertie who had gotten her with child!"

Harry shrugged. "She could of lied."

"Well observed. Yes, she could have, but I do have a decent sense for such things. Papagena Hill gave no indications that she was lying, and neither does she seem to be the kind of woman who could handily hide such things. If anything, her innate capriciousness seems to demand that if she knows something that may hurt another person, she feels compelled to lord it over them. Competent liars don't tend to allow themselves to be controlled by their bodies of mistruths. Lies are tricky things, indeed, and tend to propagate wildly, but they are also tools when kept under strictest control. Papagena Hill lacks any such talent for controlling her baser impulses."

"What kind of name is 'Papagena,' anyway?" Harry asked, under his breath. He wasn't really asking for an answer, more making a snide comment, but he still received an answer. Sometimes, Harry really did have to wonder whether the size of Snape's ears indicated that he might have been part bat.

"I believe it indicates that someone in the Hill family was, at one time or another, a fan of Mozart."

Harry screwed his face up in distaste. Ms. Tibbons had played selections of Mozart on both the class cassette player and on the wheeled television set that they were sometimes lucky enough to watch. He'd not been impressed. "What? Like that old bloke that did Twinkle Twinkle Little Star?"

"Old!" Severus scoffed. "Mozart died a young man. He was not much older than myself, as I recall. Additionally, Mozart did not 'do' Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. In any case, both the names Pamina and Papagena are from The Magic Flute. An opera. Someone in the family must have been fond of it at some point, and it seems as though Pamina herself liked it well enough to carry on the tradition, although they broke from it with Snowdrop."

"Snowdrop was born almost a year exactly after Nicky was," Harry informed him, "and Nicky was named that because he was born right before Christmas. A gift from Saint Nicholas."

"Mmmm. Oddly sentimental for Papagena, given what little I know of her. Snowdrop too. The first blooms of late winter and of an early spring."

"Yeah, Snow was born in January," Harry explained.

Severus grunted. "Bit of an ill omen for her."

"Huh?"

"I'm merely being self-deprecating. I only mean to say that she's not found herself in the best of company, being born in the most miserably cold month of the year."

The train began to slow and Severus reminded him to double check the seats for anything he might have left or forgotten. A quick rummage through the cushions turned up nothing, and Snape himself lazily elected to leave his finished paper behind in the compartment, with the excuse that the porter would just have to deal with it.

Harry frowned at this but decided against making an issue over such a trifle.

In any case, when they rose to depart, he grabbed up the paper himself and disposed of it in a bin at the station, throwing a slightly challenging glare Snape's way as he did so. It didn't inspire any remorse, however, for his kuya merely shrugged at him.

"Have it your way then."

Harry's mind, however, was already elsewhere.

"Do you think Snow's a witch?" He asked, his voice pitched low as they navigated throngs of muggles.

Snape turned to look back and down at him, over his shoulder. "I see no reason why she would be one."

Harry's face fell a bit. True, he was no especial fan of Snowdrop's, but it might have been nice to have another magical child to grow up alongside. Sort of like Severus and his mother had found each other in Cokeworth. Not to mention that as soon as Harry departed for Hogwarts and Snowdrop learned the truth about her eldest brother, she was bound to feel just a bit left out; and a Snowdrop Hill who felt left out and disenfranchised was a sourpuss indeed.

"Just because my father was married to a witch and spawned a wizard off of her doesn't somehow infect him with magic he can spread elsewhere to the unwary. Magic doesn't work like syphilis, Harry—no! Do not—I categorically forbid you from asking me what 'syphilis' is!"

Harry's mouth snapped shut.

"It's... it's like a pox. An illness. Nasty stuff. No matter, magic is not spread like a pox or some disease. You merely have it, or you don't."

"Like my mum had it, but my aunt didn't."

"Precisely. The likelihood of Snowdrop being born magical when neither of her parents were magical themselves is remote. Mind you, as in the case of your mother, it does happen, but it is so rare that the chances that it should crop up in any given child of muggle parentage is lower than single digits, it's down to a fraction of a percent. I ask that you not discuss our powers with her just yet. It doesn't concern her, and likely will only alienate her from us and Da' even worse."

"Alright..." Harry agreed, rather mournfully. "And you really didn't know?"

Snape stopped and turned to him, pulling them both away from the undertow of people leaving the platform and to a brick column where they were sheltered from the press of bodies.

"I hadn't any idea," he said. His voice was quiet, and his eyes were uncharacteristically earnest. "When I escorted Papagena to Pamina's car back in December she did taunt me, but I didn't quite know what she was driving at. I sort of assumed that she was suggesting that Snowdrop might have been mine! Which—before you get any harebrained ideas—is ludicrous. Unlike Genie, I have never indulged to the point of forgetting myself with either illicit drugs or alcohol, but I suspected at the time that she was suggesting, apropos to my association with Bertie Tibbons, that I just might have had a tumble with her at some point at a party or something and not remembered. I thought rather little of it at the time, but now I see that she was actually mocking the fact that she'd... she'd had Da'." Snape grimaced, his face settling into lines of disgust as he glanced away from Harry, discomfort in his every move.

Harry blinked, nonplussed. How had Papagena Hill had Tobias Snape? And would a tumble have produced a baby? Because if that were so, he'd gotten into plenty of scrapes with Snowdrop in the past few months—as had Nicky!—and to his mind no one had ever concerned themselves over whether a child was imminent.

He decided not to ask. If anything, the dance should have been what he'd asked Snape about on the train, not Snowdrop bleeding Hill (or Snape, or whatever she'd call herself now). Severus hadn't taken it well the last time Harry had asked him where babies came from, and with them supposed to meet Ms. Tibbons at any second, he doubted that to spring such a question on the man at this juncture would do him much good.

"Do you like Snowdrop? As your sister, I mean?" Harry asked, by way of asking what he really wanted to ask: do you favor her over me? Would you prefer Snowdrop Hill as a snot-nosed sibling over me?

Are you still my kuya?

"I'm not sure," Severus answered, drawing a hand down his face. "I don't suppose it matters much the degree to which I care for her, does it? Plenty of people don't care for their sisters or brothers, but they're no less related."

"So, you don't? Care for her, that is…"

Severus frowned down at him, his narrowed eyes signaling that he suspected Harry's line of questioning to be cover for something else. "I don't know the young lady very well. I can't exactly say that in our past interactions she conducted herself in a way to recommend her as a person whose company I'd enjoy keeping, but I had occasion to meet far less agreeable children as a teacher and head of house."

Harry nodded, taking a deep breath and trying to force himself to let go of the lead he'd been following. Once Snape had the sense that he was being baited into a discussion where he'd be revealing more than it seemed, he'd become impossible.

"Yeah, that makes sense," Harry conceded.

Snape looked down at him distrustfully, but finally nodded, himself, as though in so doing he was properly putting the matter to rest.

"If that's all, then provided Tabitha has been punctual, she'll probably be waiting for us in the car park. Come."

Severus was much better at cutting through the crowd than Harry, thus the boy trailed behind the older wizard, who cleared a path using a combination of sheer intimidation and unrelenting rudeness.

Under normal circumstances Harry might have been embarrassed, but he was too tired to feel anything but grateful for the powerful force that was Severus Snape's negatively charged, repellant variety of charisma.

Harry heard Ms. Tibbons before he saw her, for she drew in a deep breath of air—a sure tell she was about to shriek—which was, sure enough, followed by a girlish squeal. She then sang out a greeting to Snape (whom she'd seen first), that apparently had the power of stopping the dour young man in his tracks.

"Eeyore!"

"I—what did you call me?" Snape demanded, his eloquence, for once, failing him.

"I… I always call you that—"

Snape sputtered a denial, but Harry could tell from the reflexive tightening and loosening of the man's fists at his sides that he'd been caught out. He couldn't help himself but to snigger at Snape's expense.

Turning to him with an acrid glare, and red suffusing his ears and cheeks, Snape could do little more than glower and hiss "Desist!"

Harry snorted loudly. "Ok. Eeyore."

Snape still appeared murderous, but in front of his lady friend he could do little about it. He certainly couldn't flick Harry on the ear or anything he might have done had it been just the two of them, like when they were working together in the garage or on a potion.

The drive from Carlisle to Backbarrow was mostly uneventful, although Harry privately thought it supremely awkward to be in a car with Ms. Tibbons within the context of her as Severus' romantic interest. She made conversation, mostly with Severus, and Harry was content to sit quietly in the back, undisturbed.

One or two times she mentioned the goings on at the school, but she always carefully directed her commentary away from Harry's own year, and also avoided mentioning the names of those she was speaking about. It was always "a boy the other day did this," or "I once taught a girl who..." and thus she navigated around any sticking points where she might have disclosed too much, or embarrassed one of the other students in a way that could be traced back to them. Severus joined in with some of his own anecdotes from teaching at Hogwarts, which Harry found far more entertaining, if only because they were so carefully curated to avoid mentions of magic and potions.

It seemed that at their hearts, both magical and muggle children were largely cut from the same cloth and disposed toward the same manner of foibles.

"It must have been so much easier teaching the older set," Ms. Tibbons giggled once, after recounting an episode wherein she had nearly had to deal with a child soiling themselves, apparently in the years where she'd been teaching even younger children of nursery age. "I know that since I've been at Rowky, it's nice that I don't have to accompany the newly toilet-trained on excursions to the loo."

"The older ones have their own problems," Snape grunted, crossing his arms. "I can't say I envy your experience with the waddlers, but try explaining to a thirteen-year-old boy why it's important for him to use deoderant sometime. Or worse, to an entire dorm of thirteen-year-old boys. This didn't only happen once, by the way, I had to address the same issue with the second through fourth years on a fairly routine basis, at least several times each term."

"Oh—" Ms. Tibbons laughed, and she leaned forward over the wheel, her forehead almost touching it as she seemingly fought down the urge to say something rude. "I never thought how it would be as the live-in teacher! You didn't have the girls too, did you? Did they go to... to someone else? To talk to?"

"I did, and they did not." Snape deadpanned, with all the solemnity of a mausoleum. "Or, that is to say, I redirected these inquiries and conversations to the school nurse, but it didn't stop them from coming to me first."

For reasons Harry couldn't understand, this sent Ms. Tibbons into fresh peals of laughter at Severus' expense, and the rest of the drive went about the same way.

Harry welcomed the familiar roads of Backbarrow once they passed a farm with a silo he recognised from their many drives out Gammy's way. It had been a terribly long day, and being nearly anywhere else felt exhausting. In Backbarrow was Cokeworth, and in Cokeworth was Spinner's End, and in Spinner's End was Harry's room, with Harry's bed, and Harry's pet tarantula, and all of the little things that made it his home.

He hadn't realised until they were passing the buildings on the edge of town that he had almost thought he might not be coming back, and it was with a sense of utmost relief that he stepped out to the kerb in front of Snape & Son, where Ms. Tibbons dropped them off.

They'd met there in the early morning, before she was due at school, and thus the Marina waited for them, parked slightly drawn up on the kerb—a practise Harry still couldn't break Severus of, even when the man routinely had to fix suspension systems which had been ruined by just such a bad habit.

Harry waved goodbye to his teacher, who wasn't paying him much mind, wrapped up in bidding farewell to Severus as she was, and he went ahead into the shop with the intention of giving Severus and his petite ingénue a bit of privacy.

What met him was pure chaos.

All of Severus' carefully organised ledgers and paperwork were strewn across the floor. Every cabinet stood open, and some of the doors were off their hinges, hanging awkwardly as though blown open by gale force winds. Streaks and splatters of red were dashed across the laminate, along the side of the counter, and over the desk where Harry sat to do his schoolwork, which was scattered to the winds, along with the food from the icebox. The office was a shambles, and in the midst of the storm, Tobias Snape stood screaming a litany of guttural noise as he attempted to restrain his bloodied hound.

Cur Dog appeared rabid. His eyes were wide, his jaws snapping, and were it not for the hold that Toby kept on his forequarters, he'd have been on Harry in an instant, the boy was sure.

The great dog bayed against this restraint, and Harry wasn't at all sure how it was that Severus and Ms. Tibbons weren't alerted to the commotion, unless Snape had at one point charmed the interior of the space for privacy. He must have done, for by now the whole of Cokeworth ought to have been upon them.

"What's happening!?" Harry yelled, trying to catch Tobias' attention. The man was too occupied with his Herculean struggle, however. He was managing as well as a man in his fifties might have been expected to do after such a protracted struggle, but clearly he was winded and losing steam. Even his swearing was tapering off into grunts, and a few times his hold almost gave way when his foot slipped on a puddle of blood or a stray piece of paperwork.

"Cannae! Cannae hold'im," Tobias grunted before his arms slackened around the raging beast. He fell onto his rump, heaving for breath before he had the sense to hold his arms up over his head in case Curry should turn on him. The dog didn't, however.

He instead lowered his head and charged toward the door that led to the side-yard where their clients' cars waited to be seen to, his long nails scratching gouges in the painted metal of the door. When it didn't give beneath his renewed assault, he ran in a wide circle, slipping several times in his haste, and then threw the entire weight of his substantial body, shoulder first, at the door, apparently attempting to ram it open.

The poor dog's mouth dripped with frothing saliva and blood, and he looked near dead on his feet, but he tried the manoeuver one more time before stumbling, his head held low between his paws as he retched. It caused his tail to dip between his back legs as his back arched in parabolic undulations.

"He's gonna die! He's sick, look! We have to do something!" Harry cried, running toward the feral sighthound. Before he could make it past the counter, however, he felt arms wind themselves around his middle, and he was yanked backwards.

"Ods bobs, thee donnat! Nivver sydle up t'a badly jewkel!" Tobias panted, wagging a stern finger in Harry's distraught face. He turned his grizzled face to look at the dog, who, while still listing sideways, seemed to be recovering his rage nicely and regrouping. His attention wasn't on either of the humans in the room, however, but he gave renewed assault to the door, biting at the exposed hinge and cutting more of his gums in the process.

"Ee's garn mad," Tobias breathed, crossing himself as he stared on with wide-eyed terror. "Mad as arl Gytrash..."

"The fuck's happened to my office!?"

As one, they looked up to the door, where Severus stood looking agog and utterly out of place in his nice suit with his well-washed hair.

"Shhh, Sev'rus," Tobias cautioned, jerking his head to where Cur Dog seemed to be rallying. The dog had paid no attention at all to the new addition to the room, but now made a pass around the back portion of the office, butting his head along the wall, into the cabinet doors and forcing his way behind and under all the furniture that was unfortunate enough to stand in his path.

Snape's mouth thinned into a grim line and he strode forward, ripping Harry away from his father and pushing the boy behind him, toward the front door. "Go stand outside."

Harry had no intention of doing so, but he knew better than to argue. He merely drew close to the door and pressed his back to it, even as he refused to exit. Severus' attention wasn't on him anyway. The older wizard was slowly approaching the dog, his wand unsheathed and held firm in his right hand, as he carefully side-stepped his way towards the crazed animal. As he passed his father at the reception counter, he silenced the elder man with a glare and pointed with his left index finger toward the far wall, issuing a silent instruction that Tobias Snape ought to absent himself from the immediate vicinity of what may turn out to be a violent melee.

Toby didn't need telling twice. He stumbled backwards until he joined Harry by the front of the office, his face a bloodless white.

Upon his approach, Severus issued a low whistle, in an attempt to attract Curry's attention away from the milk crate he was forcing his head into as he shook it side to side with his powerful neck.

The dog was so far gone that the only response Severus got was an answering growl, but Cur Dog kept on with his determined assault on... well... everything. It was difficult to say where the blood had come from, but it must have been his own, and after a fashion, Harry decided that the only place he'd properly seen Curry bleeding from had been his mouth and from a slim, superficial gash that appeared to travel from his right shoulder, over his back, and to his ribs. It was difficult to make out through all of the matted fur.

"Severus, he's bleeding... please don't hurt him," Harry called out, his voice and request sounding somewhat weak, even to his own ears.

Snape spared him a glare, one which spoke eloquently to the wizard's annoyance that Harry hadn't vacated the room, but said nothing in return, instead locking his eyes back on the dog he was stalking.

Curry had come full circle back to the door to the side yard, and was whining at it, apparently having decided that brute force alone wasn't enough to make the portal open to him. He jumped up on his hind legs and scratched the door again, his height standing almost tall enough that he could see out the slim, rectangular window that looked out into the yard.

"What if you just let him out?" Harry asked. "The yard's fenced. Toby, did you try and just let him out?"

"Divvnt want 'im in there back side," Tobias admitted. "Ah think 'e med lowp yon gat... or mebbe make splatters near the cars."

Severus sighed, relaxing a bit. "It'd hardly be the worst place he's ever relieved himself." He made a broad circle around, his wand still held up in a defensive position as he moved so that Cur Dog could see his approach. "You want out? Outside?"

Falling to all fours again, Cur Dog whined, his bright eyes pleading. To Harry's knowledge, it was the only time he'd ever seen the hound treat Severus as anything other than an annoying or inconvenient roommate at best, or as a likely target for his ill-placed urinating at worst.

Snape pointed with his hand not holding the wand at Curry's face. "Go. Back up, move," he kept urging the dog back until he could get close to the door himself, doing a strange dance of dominance with Curry until the dog was properly backed away enough that Severus could reach the door. With a quick movement, he pulled the latch and swung the door back, almost stumbling when Curry's body moved so quickly past him into the yard that it might have blurred.

Harry and Tobias rushed forward then, and the three huddled around the door, intent on seeing what Curry might do now that he was newly loosed into the world outside.

Indeed, he'd wanted out, but not to wee, as Harry had hoped would be the case. He instead repeated his actions from inside in the yard, popping up against the doors of the cars and looking into their windows one at a time while he inspected the perimeter, until he came to the Weasley's blue Ford Anglia, which sat at the far end of the yard, near the chain-link fence which delineated their property. The Anglia he spent at least five whole minutes sniffing at before he used the full force of his hind legs to jump, first onto the boot of the car, from there to the roof, and then to the upper part of the fence, holding fast to the top with his teeth and forequarters while he pedaled his lower legs furiously.

"Severus! Stop him! He's gonna get out!" Harry begged, tugging on Snape's jacket.

Snape didn't, however. When Harry looked up at him, he was confused to see that Snape seemed resolved to let Cur Dog escape. He had a look of firm resolution about the set of his jaw, even as Harry urged him to use some minor jinx against Curry and his father cussed up a storm as he watched his beloved pet do exactly as he'd predicted: jump the fence.

After a second's struggle, the nails of Curry's back feet finally found purchase, and he managed to propel himself up high enough that he got the front of his body over to the other side. When he fell, it was with a torquing motion that Harry was certain would break the poor dog's back. He landed with a terrible crunch in a pile of refuse that had been long propped up against the absentee neighbor's side of the fence, where he let out a sharp cry before recovering himself and darting into the empty lots that stretched from the back alley of the abandoned line of stores to the River Leven.

"You... you didn't stop him," Harry turned, knowing his face must have shown his sense of deep betrayal. "Why didn't you stop him!? You didn't do ANYTHING!"

Snape straightened, and his eyes blinked once, then twice, each time seeming to bring more clarity and sense back into them, as though he'd been in some sort of fugue for the last several moments. He looked first toward his father, who had joined Harry in holding his son to account, and then to Harry himself, looking for the first time in the whole affair, at least somewhat contrite.

"I... he wanted gone. There was something..." he shook his head, the dazed look coming back into his eyes. He frowned deeply and closed his eyes so hard that it looked as though he were attempting to shut out the world. It appeared he was trying to fight the sense of confusion.

"When he... when he looked at me," he attempted to say again, shaking his head as he threaded his fingers through his hair, pulling until it came free from his hair elastic and fell about his shoulders. He gave his scalp a violent scratch and once more mashed his features up.

Harry was beginning to grow concerned about Snape himself in all this. He seemed... not well. Not well at all.

Could whatever had driven Cur Dog to madness have infected his kuya as well?

Before he got too far with that anxious thought, however, Severus finally collected himself enough to glare, even if it seemingly was out at nothing in the yard—or perhaps it was at the Anglia, sitting innocently as though it hadn't facilitated the escape of their family pet. He heaved a disgusted sigh.

"He'll be back. Mark me. He's far too annoying to do me the favour of disappearing forever."