'Very well. And what about some of the other things "normal" could mean?' Severus said, to change the subject.

'A behaviour can be "normal" for you at the moment, in the sense of being the way you usually function, without necessarily being an innate part of who you are and who you will always be. Just because it has been normal for you for almost all of the life that you can remember so far to be lonely and unhappy and to feel that you can trust no-one does not mean that it was something you were born with and that you can never change the way you think.

"Also, it can be "normal" to react in a certain way, in that most people would do the same, without that making it a sign of good health. It is normal for people to hold onto the attitudes and worldviews that have been appropriate for the situation they had been in, even if the situation has changed and their old way of thinking is no longer relevant. You know that I used to be a slave in a blacksmith's shop until I was seven years old, didn't you?'

'Yes.' Severus spoke tightly, feeling ashamed of the way that he had avoided having any more conversations with Mr Nutt in the past as soon as he started to open up about his life.

'So, did you think that as soon as I was rescued and adopted and had a chance to get an education, I turned into a normal child who wasn't bound by the habits I was used to?'

'I suppose not.'

'The first night that I slept in a real bed, I kept falling out because I was used to being chained up. In the end, I stripped off the sheets and wound them into a rope that I could use to tie myself up with. I suppose a human adoptive parent would have been horrified. Lady Margolotta asked me to show her how many knots I knew how to tie, then taught me some more, and told me about witches who have to learn how to undo knots underwater with their teeth in case they run into trouble in witch-hating regions.'

'She sounds a good teacher.'

'In some ways, she was. Being a monster herself, she knew some of the problems I would face, in ways that a human could not imagine. In other ways… vampires are virtually immortal, and they can create new vampires by biting suitable recruits, so they tend not to have much experience of children. Lady Margolotta didn't always realise how the things she said would sound to a seven-year-old slave child, or how I might interpret them. So I learned a new set of unhelpful habits of thought that I would need to unlearn later on. Development is an ongoing process, always. People talk about "recovery", but it is not a matter of suffering an illness or injury, getting better, and being back to normal. The brain is always learning.'

'But what if there are things I can't learn, because of the sort of "not normal" that I am? If it's because of how I was born, then it can't be changed, so there's no point in therapy. And if it's because of my mind being damaged by things that happened when I was young, then without magic there'd be probably no way of solving them, though I think some Muggles try to solve the problem by causing massive brain damage with electric shocks to melt most of someone's brain to mush so that they can start rebuilding it from what's left. With magic, I'd have to be de-aged to a toddler and forget everything I'd ever learned, and – that would be a waste of having lived. I might as well go straight to reincarnation.'

'I do not know yet whether there are things you cannot learn, nor what they might be. And so far, neither do you. So it is probably best to start from the presumption that you can change in whatever way you wish to, until you have proof that you cannot. But the fact that you do not want to erase your memories suggests that you do not regret having lived, and that you think there are useful lessons to be drawn from looking back at your past experiences, beyond what you have learned from them so far.'

'I suppose so,' Severus said slowly. Did he regret having lived? When he was alive, he didn't recall that he had actually feared his own death much, the way he feared the deaths of people he cared about. But he had feared either that his soul would be irredeemably corrupted by killing someone (which might have been true of murder, but not of euthanasia), or that he might be subjected to the Dementor's Kiss and not have a soul at all. (Though that hadn't stopped him gloating over the prospect of the same thing happening to Sirius Black – but then, he had thought that Sirius Black was so irredeemably evil that he deserved it. Which might or might not be true in a general sense, but what was true was that Sirius hadn't committed the crimes that Severus and virtually everyone else in the world had then believed that he had, and that the legal system had kept Sirius in prison for nearly twelve years for crimes he hadn't committed, without trial, and that Severus had been willing to send him back to that and worse – and that Dumbledore, who knew Sirius was innocent, had sent children to help him escape and go on the run, instead of making sure he was publicly exonerated. None of the adults came out of this very well.)

'Suppose we ask the question about someone else,' suggested Mr Nutt. 'You don't know whether you have a genetically predestined mental illness that can never be truly cured, but do you think that at least some of your friend Konstantine's problems fall into that category?'

'I suppose – I don't know. I think the research shows that schizophrenia is genetic, because if one of a pair of identical twins has it, the other is more likely to have it than a fraternal twin would be. But if it was something straightforwardly always passed down, then his daughter would be the same, which she isn't. So either it isn't something that is always passed on – or not even as commonly as magical ability is – or it's a mixture of genetic vulnerability and upbringing.' Though either way, it was just as well that Elena, before she and Baz had children, would undoubtedly make sure that they both went to a gene-screening clinic.

'Well reasoned,' said Mr Nutt, like the riddle-asking doorknocker which guarded the entrance to the Ravenclaw tower. 'But even if Konstantine had always been genetically predestined to develop schizophrenia, do you think he would have been exactly the same if his circumstances had been different: if he had had loving parents, or if he hadn't grown up in extreme poverty and had been able to go to school, or if he had lived in a world where everyone was entitled to healthcare – or even if his life had been exactly the same up until the age of thirty, but that he had never met Ges Vorrutyer?'

'No.'

'And do you think that suffering from a mental illness, and living on a planet where he didn't have access to adequate medical treatment, means that he is incapable of changing or developing? From the memories you have seen of him when he was younger, was he exactly the same person at sixty that he was at forty? Is he exactly the same person now that he was when he arrived on the Rock immediately following his death?'

'No, in either case. Because – he's the sort of person who can put the past behind him and adapt to being whoever he needs to be right now.' Severus remembered another Aral Vorkosigan quote: 'Bothari … does not have a good sense of self. No strong center. He's a chameleon. A mirror. He becomes whatever is required of him.' But, when what Cheiron required of him was that he should learn to understand his own thought processes and emotions better, and learn to make his own decisions, and when he had no other major responsibilities like protecting a disabled child who was a target for assassination plots, or a suicidally depressed ex-admiral, he was willing to work on prioritising his own health. And so was Anakin. If he had coped with abrupt transitions from being a slave in a junk shop, to a trainee Jedi, to a ferocious terrifying Sith lord, then he could change once more.

Severus continued: 'I told myself no-one had offered me freedom or support or encouragement or the opportunity to change, because Cheiron only cared about Konstantine and Anakin, and I wasn't obviously damaged enough to matter. But – it wasn't really that. It was that I couldn't believe I could change – or I didn't want to, in case changing meant going insane and losing my soul and personality. So maybe I can't change, because I can't believe that I can.'

'Yet you already have.'

'Changing physically isn't the point!'

'No. But the fact that you are willing to sit here having this conversation – or that you could show your frustration with your life by changing into a cat, or that you could dare to become human again after that – is.'

'So why did it take me so long? Or why should things have changed now?'

'Why do you think they did?'

Probably mainly because of the memories he had watched with Anakin and Konstantine and the others, Severus thought. Maybe he had been changing slowly over the years without realising it – or maybe everything had changed at the moment where Miles had challenged Mark by pointing out the limitations of refusing to trust anyone. That, and the moment where Mark realised, 'For the first time in my life, I am going home.'

'Well, I have changed,' he said. 'Not to the point where I don't need therapy any more. But maybe to the point where I'm ready to start. Only – we've just done that, haven't we?'

'Was this enough for a first session, or do you want to go on?'

'I think this was enough. Should I come to the Mook Rehabilitation Centre to register for courses?'

'You're very welcome to come, either this afternoon or tomorrow. Do you want to go home, shower and change first?'

Severus looked down at his damp, sand-encrusted robe. He didn't actually have another spare robe, having lent one to Anakin. It was high time they each went shopping for a new wardrobe. He could wash this robe, hang it out to dry, and stay home and wear his nightshirt for the rest of today, and come to the Centre tomorrow. Alternatively, he could wear his nightshirt this afternoon while he went to the Centre – after all, how many people on the Rock knew what wizarding fashions in his world were supposed to look like?

(In his mind, 9-year-old Severus and 16-year-old Severus were cringing with embarrassment. But he remembered older-Severus, and thought: if I were like him, I'd be confident enough not to worry about what people think of me. I'll pretend I am confident enough, and see what happens.)

'I can be with you in two hours,' he said.

Author's note: I hadn't intended this conversation to take three chapters! I'll try to write something a bit lighter next – but then, the only reason I started taking up this fanfic again when I had planned to take a break from fanfiction until Easter was that my own feelings about my own psychological problems and whether there was any hope for me were nagging at me, so I decided to ask Severus and Nutt to talk me through them.