Entry tags:

fic, rating: r, snarry-a-thon

Snarry-a-Thon FIC: After Long Silence
Title: After Long Silence
Author: paperbacked
Other pairings/threesome: Harry/Ginny (Sorry! Sorry!)
Rating: Mature – for implied sex.
Word count: 9400
Warning(s): (highlight for spoilers) *Character death. Contains Harry/Ginny! Ew! Also angst (boo).*
Prompt: "Harry's friends think he is delightfully round the twist, while the rest of the wizarding world thinks him endearingly eccentric. What they don't know is that for the past five years since the end of the war, Severus Snape has been Harry's constant ghostly companion."
Summary: After the war, the Wizarding world has to rebuild and move on. But Harry Potter is finding it harder than most, not least because he's just discovered the ghost of Severus Snape in his bathroom.
A/N: With many thanks to my lovely and beautiful betas, perverse_idyll and salvadora for their help, advice, support and grammatical knowledge.

After Long Silence

Speech after long silence; it is right,
All other lovers being estranged or dead,
Unfriendly lamplight hid under its shade,
The curtains drawn upon unfriendly night.
That we descant and yet again descant
Upon the supreme theme of Art and Song,
Bodily decrepitude is wisdom; young
We loved each other, and were ignorant.

Yeats

Of course, he would have to be naked when it happened. Harry Potter, seventeen years old, defeater of Lord Voldemort and three-times winner of Witch Weekly's “Most Adorable Orphan” competition stepped out of the shower, reached sleepily for a towel and found himself looking into the eyes of one Severus Snape, deceased. Letting out a most unmanly shriek, Harry attempted to simultaneously grab his wand – an interesting physical challenge, as it was on the bed in the next room - and find a towel to shield his other wand, to which he was rather more physically attached. Having succeeded in tying himself in a rather impressive pretzel shape, he promptly fell over. Closing his eyes, he rested his forehead against the cool tiles of the bathroom floor.

“Just a bad dream,” he muttered feverishly, curling into a protective ball. “Too much Butterbeer and evil-destroying. A momentary hallucination. Just need exercise...fresh air...”

He opened his eyes. A towel loomed fuzzily into his field of vision. Taking it gratefully, he swaddled himself in it thoroughly before daring to look up.

Snape was still there.

“You,” Harry said, rising to his feet and pointing a visibly quaking finger, “are dead.”

Snape raised a sardonic eyebrow. “You don't say.”

“No,” Harry continued, eyes wide with horror, “I mean, actually dead. Deceased. Popped your clogs. I saw it happen. I buried you! You're dead!”

Snape sighed. “Yes. Yes, Mr Potter, for possibly the first time in your life you are correct. I am dead. Unfortunately, I'm still here.”

“I can bloody well see that!” screeched Harry. “In my bathroom!”

“Believe me, it is far from the idyllic image of the afterlife I'd been cherishing!” snapped Snape in return. Harry paused, breathing heavily, and counted to ten in his head. Slowly, painfully, he spoke.

“I'm going to put some clothes on. When I'm dressed, if you're still here and this isn't some weird hallucination, we'll talk.”

“Very well, Mr Potter,” said Snape, a trifle stiffly. Hoisting his towel up in a pathetic attempt to preserve his dignity, Harry marched from the room.

Once in his bedroom, with the door shut firmly behind him, he allowed himself to collapse onto the bed. Images of Snape's stiff and lifeless body swam into his head unbidden, and he bit his lip to quell a rising flood of nausea and panic. There was no doubt that Snape had died – and yet here he was, large as life, in Harry's bathroom. What was worse, he wasn't even a ghost. The man looked exactly as he had done in all the hated Potions classrooms of - he used the term somewhat self-consciously, as he was barely a legal adult – his youth.

Pulling himself to his feet, Harry stared at himself in the mirror as he shrugged into a clean blue shirt. This was real – the crispness of the fabric, the lingering smell of soap from his shower, the faint, confused expression of his reflection – but unreal too. All things had felt unreal since that final battle, as though he had been waiting for something to happen. He had sequestered himself in Grimmauld Place, away from the crowds of people who wanted something more from him, away from the Weasleys (he told himself that they needed time for their grief, but the nagging guilt which caught at his throat when he thought of all that they had sacrificed for him betrayed the real reason), away from everything. And for a while he had had peace, only interrupted by the beginning of state funerals for the fallen. The first of which had been Snape's, which brought him back to the present, and the very real Snape waiting for him to finish dressing.

He ran a listless hand through his hair, which flattened for approximately two microseconds before rebounding into its usual scruffy mop. The mirror pursed its lips at his expression, but Harry's sour grimace changed its mind about dispensing sartorial advice. Harry sighed, and walked through to the kitchen to face his future.

* * * * *

He decided on tea. He had no idea whether Snape could drink it in his new semi-corporeal state, but the ritual of it soothed him.

“Isn't there a house elf to do that?” inquired a voice over his shoulder. Forcing himself not to drop the teapot and reach for his wand, Harry replied, “Yes, Kreacher, but I sent him away for a while. You can Apparate then, I see.”

He turned round to see Snape looking unusually contemplative. “Yes and no,” he replied. “I wouldn't say it was Apparition as such. I merely focus on something, such as your location, and find myself there. Something of an improvement really – Apparition without the sensation of being squashed down a length of rubber tubing. It's a shame that it comes with the side effect of being dead.”

Blinking slightly at the novelty of Snape being anything other than irate and sarcastic, Harry set the teapot on the table and laid out two cups, sitting down heavily.

“I didn't know whether... you're not a ghost, exactly?” he stammered awkwardly, proffering a cup to Snape, who waved it away.

“No, but I have no need for sustenance I've discovered. It comes with rather... unfortunate side effects.”

He seated himself in a chair opposite Harry's. This close, Harry could see the faint blur around the edges of Snape's body, providing a stark contrast to the everyday reality of the wooden kitchen table and chipped tea service. He felt strangely calm, sitting at this table in this house, drinking tea with a dead man.

“Why are you here, Snape?”

Snape shrugged elaborately. He was wearing strange clothes, not the clothes he had died in, but a green shirt with a black waistcoat and trousers, and Harry could see that the skin on his neck was perfectly healed and unbroken.

“If I knew that, Potter, don't you think I would have enlightened you as to the reason? After all, I have nothing to lose, or so it would appear.”

Here was the Snape he remembered, sharp-tongued, sarcastic. Harry bristled but bit his tongue until he could trust himself not to retaliate.

“Okay. So we don't know why you're here. Or even what you are.”

Snape sighed. “No,” he admitted.

Harry looked at him with sudden suspicion. “You're not an Inferius, are you?” Fumbling for his wand, he pushed his chair away from the table with an audible scrape against the tiles.

Snape scowled. “Mr Potter, am I green? Do I smell faintly of mothballs? And, far be it from me to point out to you the bloody obvious, but as you defeated Lord Voldemort two weeks ago, whom do you think is controlling me?”

Harry blushed, and put away his wand. Moving his chair nonchalantly closer to the table and pretending that he was not doing so, he picked up his teacup awkwardly.

“Well. Yeah. There is that. So. What's been happening to you since you died?”

He could have sworn Snape rolled his eyes.

“Subtle as ever, I see. Regrettably, were I even allowed to tell you, I could not expose your mind to the endless torment that undoubtedly awaits you on the other side.”

“You're joking, right? Snape, you're joking!”

Snape grinned rather nastily and did not reply.

“I know you're joking. Anyway. No offence, but why are you here? I mean, with me? We weren't exactly the best of friends when you were alive.” And even when you died, he added mentally. The memory of Snape's death, his black eyes boring into Harry's own – his mother's eyes – made him shiver involuntarily.

“Your guess is as good as mine, Mr Potter. As good as mine.”

“It's not the memories, is it? Your memories, I mean, about my -”

He trailed off, aware of his slight blunder into the wilderness of tactlessness. Snape probably didn't want to be reminded of his undying and adolescent love for Harry's mother. There was just something about the man that made him fall over his words, made him blush and stutter. Loathing, Harry thought with a quiet satisfaction.

It appeared that Dead Snape was just as competent at glaring as Living Snape. Harry winced.

“I don't think so,” he replied, once Harry had been thoroughly cowed and was contemplating slinking under the table like a kicked dog. “I would feel...incomplete if that were the case. As it is, I am far too complete.”

“Nearly Headless Nick once said that ghosts were made when people were afraid to leave behind the living,” Harry ventured.

Snape laughed bitterly. “Afraid of death? I welcomed death! No, it's more than that. Besides, I can touch things, I can feel. What ghost can do that?”

“Maybe you had something left to do here,” said Harry, after thinking for a moment. “Something left undone.”

The other man raised an eyebrow. “Perhaps. Whatever the reason, it seems I'm bound to you, however distasteful that prospect is to both of us.”

Harry sighed. “Right.” Getting up, he put the cups in the sink, turning his back to Snape.

“I must say Potter, you are taking this remarkably calmly.”

“What's the use in over-reacting? We're stuck with each other. I have more important things to worry about anyway at the moment. Like funerals.”

A moment's silence. Then, “Remus and Tonks?”

Harry nodded, too submerged in the rush of grief that had welled up at their names to notice that Snape had referred to Tonks by her nickname, not the hated 'Nymphadora'. He left the kitchen without further words or explanation. Severus heard him thump heavily up the stairs, waking the portrait of Walburga Black, who screamed a few insults half-heartedly before subsiding into sleep. Staring after the departed Potter, a thoughtful expression crossed Snape's face. Without ceremony, he vanished.

* * * * *

It was raining when they buried Remus and Tonks, a thin, wet, pervasive drizzle of rain that ran down Harry's forehead and fogged his glasses, so that he viewed the entire funeral through a haze of mist. The mourners – surprisingly few – were gathered around the graveside under black umbrellas. There was no music as the coffins were lowered into the graves, no magic, nothing but the words of the liturgy, which felt thin, insubstantial, and Harry found that he was crying soundlessly. They had helped to rid the world of its greatest evil, but in return had been given senseless, endless death. At some point during the service, Snape wordlessly appeared at his shoulder – either unnoticed or, as Harry suspected, invisible to all but himself. And the service continued. And the rain continued to fall.

Afterwards, it was difficult to know what to say to anyone. Mrs Weasley hugged him tightly and Ron laid a hand on his shoulder, seeking to reassure and comfort. They didn't blame him for Fred's death, he knew, but it was hard, every time he saw them, not to blame himself. McGonagall gave him a piercing look from behind a tartan handkerchief, one that seemed to stray to Snape at his shoulder.

“Death shall have no dominion, Mr Potter,” she said cryptically, in a quiet voice. He felt rather than saw Snape react. McGonagall favoured him with a rare smile and walked away.

Hermione threw her arms around him, chastising him for hiding himself away and in the same breath updating him on the budding romance between her and Ron. Harry smiled weakly, trying to avoid seeing Snape's expression over Hermione's shoulder. And then it was over, and he Apparated back to Grimmauld Place, rather than face the cameras and the Wizarding public, rather than face the truth.

* * * * *

“You're brooding, Potter,” said a voice at his ear. Harry was making tea, more for something to do than any desire for refreshment, and he jumped, cursing as the tea spilled. Where the scalding drops hit Snape they seemed to settle and pearlesce, as rain does on a window, without penetration. Harry filed that mentally under “interesting”. Snape, noticing his scrutiny, retreated to the no man's land of the table.

“Damn it, Snape!” Harry said half-heartedly, steadying the pot and setting it down on the worktop with painful care. “Yes, I'm brooding. It's allowed. Some might even say I deserve a bit of time to brood.”

“Ah, here is the Potter I remember. Weltering in self-pity as ever.”

Harry turned on his heel, furious.

“Look, I saved them, all right! I saved them all! Nobody else would do it! I've done their dirty work, I've been their saviour. Aren't I allowed a little peace?!”

Snape looked at him with seemingly limitless scorn and disgust. Harry stood in the middle of the dingy kitchen, red with anger, clenching and unclenching his fists. He had forgotten, almost, the propensity Snape had to make him lose control, to lash out blindly, like an animal.

When Snape spoke again, it was not in the tones of passionate hatred that Harry had grown to know so well, or the sarcastic voice of a frustrated teacher. It was instead a mild disregard, a casual coldness. It cut Harry to the bone.

“And the boy? Teddy Lupin. Who will care for him?”

He found himself blushing an even more furious crimson. Suddenly, he was deluged in shame, drowning in it. He had completely forgotten Teddy.

“His grandmother, I think,” he muttered, staring at his shoes. He could not – could not meet Snape's eyes.

“I see.”

Then silence.

“I am sure Remus and Tonks appreciate your gratitude for their sacrifice,” said Snape.

More silence.

When Harry, wretched and ashamed, dared to look up, Snape had vanished.

Then nothing.

And the days and nights passed without Snape, long hours becoming weeks, becoming months. At first, Harry drifted around the house in an empty daze, more ghost-like than the spectral Snape, angry, miserable. It wasn't fair – it had never been fair, the sacrifices that were expected of him, the services that he was supposed to continually render unto the Wizarding World purely because of an accident of birth. Most of Harry's thoughts were small and self-centred like this in the beginning, buzzing around his skull like wasps, a million grievances and grudges gleaned from years of being everyone's favourite selfless hero. And always on the fringes of everything was the invisible, perhaps imaginary Snape lent a curious heaviness to the light filtering through the dirty windows of Grimmauld Place, as though he were there all the time, just choosing to remain unseen as the dead do in the secret chambers of our hearts.

Harry grieved. Finally, after years of moving on and facing up to the next challenge, here was time at last for regret, for sorrow. He cried for Sirius, Fred, Dobby, Remus and Tonks, the innumerable others who had died for him, Professor Dumbledore. His parents. Maybe it was self-indulgent, but it was necessary and after he had finished, after he felt that he could cry no more, he felt better.

Harry went to the Weasleys, who welcomed him in as he had known they would. Mrs Weasley told him of her plans for a charity for children whose parents had been killed in the war – he agreed enthusiastically that it was a good idea, and promised to be involved. He visited Teddy, who greeted him by dropping a chewed dummy into his lap and changing his hair bright green. There had been no sign of lycanthropy, Andromeda assured him in a proud undertone as Teddy played on the rug. All around him were the signs of people rebuilding their lives, emerging from the wreckage of the war to find something new and clean, unsullied by darkness. Harry saw it all, and saw that it was good. He went home.

He waited for a little while before attempting it, distracting himself with tea and toast as he worked a few simple household spells learned from Molly in an effort to brighten up the house. This turned out to be a mistake. After Harry stopped choking on the clouds of dust that had billowed up out of the curtains, he smiled faintly and cleared his throat.

“I know you're there, Snape,” he said quietly.

Nothing for a moment. Then, just as he was beginning to doubt his sanity,

“Indeed.”

Harry turned sharply towards Snape's voice, filled with a mysterious excitement and trepidation. Snape was there, as though he'd never been gone – but Harry noticed that he seemed much paler, almost translucent, not the shimmering silver of the school ghosts but a strange wavering figure, halfway between reality and nothingness. Snape raised an almost invisible eyebrow.

“It seems that being without you doesn't do me much good,” he said stiffly, and obviously with no little effort.

Harry had to suppress a smile – an alarming occurrence, and one he tried not to think about.

“No,” he agreed succinctly, placing his hands on his hips and looking at Snape whilst trying to stop his lips twitching and betraying a smile.

“Well you could help!” exploded Snape, his semi-visible face distorted with anger.

Harry looked at him quizzically, remaining stoically – and wisely – silent.

“Your hands,” said Snape, his voice sounding both painfully embarrassed and murderous. “You have to place your hands on me, I think. It'll... firm me up.”

Something inside Harry chattered madly at the potential innuendo of that statement, but he swallowed sharply and walked towards Snape, hands outstretched. Where they met the other man, it was like reaching into a Portkey – the same sensation of confusion and stomach-twisting blur, before the room steadied and he found himself looking into the eyes of a gloriously real, irritated-looking and technicolour Snape.

“Ah,” said Harry, gaping dumbly.

Snape looked pointedly at Harry's hands. Harry snatched them off Snape as though they were on fire and retreated across the kitchen.

Silence again – tangible, making the air between them heavy, tainted as though with some faint perfume only dimly perceptible to the senses.

“Finished brooding, Potter?” Snape's voice was silky, deadly. Harry tensed with anger, then relaxed.

“Yes,” he confessed. “Mostly. I don't think... I mean, it'll never be right.”

Snape looked at him with a curious, burning intensity, suddenly closing the gap between them.

“Listen carefully Potter,” he hissed, “for I will say this only once, and even then reluctantly. You are not to blame for their deaths. They chose the course they took. They chose to follow you. They chose their deaths. Snivelling over their bodies and blaming yourself is an insult to their memories.”

Harry found that he was shaking, but drained of tears. It was strange to feel like this in front of Snape, a man whom he despised – strange to feel a slight comfort in the fact that if nothing else, Snape understood.

“Yes,” he said eventually. “I know.”

His tea had gone cold, he noticed absently. There was something about being in Snape's presence that always made him neglect his tea. It took a further moment for the absurdity of that last thought to strike him. When he began to laugh he found himself completely unable to stop; he was amazed by the seemingly endless joy and relief bubbling at last out of him, by Snape's sardonic but tolerant expression, by how easy, how funny it all was.

Gulping, gasping for breath he eventually regained control. Snape raised an eyebrow. Harry shrugged, unable to repress the smile that was stretched rather foolishly across his face.

“So, Mr Potter. What do you plan on doing for the rest of your life?”

Harry smiled even more widely.

“I've had an idea.”

* * * * *

The shelves groaned under the weight of brightly-coloured boxes of seemingly limitless capacity. Rails suspended from the ceiling held racks of luridly, eye-wateringly colourful clothes, all emblazoned with the same crest and the walls were papered with moving posters and images, all of which were for sale. It was the tackiest, most tasteless shop for tourist tat imaginable – more gauche than a cartload of tapdancing unicorns, more sugary than Bertie Botts' Every Flavour Beans. And Harry loved it. He sat in the middle of the room behind a desk seemingly held up by a plethora of key-rings, Ever-Bounce balls and ChewBlue (Chew 'til you're Blue!) Gum, with a grin all over his face. It was so unflinchingly, unrelentingly tacky that it was in fact the best gift shop in existence ever, guaranteed to appeal to those three important age groups – squalling kids, their exhausted parents, and sentimental grannies. Even better, every penny went to the Weasley Trust.

The decision to open the museum had left Harry uncertain at first. The war was over – what good was there in revisiting what couldn't be undone? But Mrs Weasley had persuaded him that it would be a good idea, and eventually he'd acquiesced. Now he was grateful he had. He wouldn't have wanted anyone but the people he was closest to to have created the museum – a museum that was, he reflected ruefully, essentially showcasing some of the most painful moments of his – and everyone else's – lives. But the Hogsmeade Memorial was different. It depicted the events of the Great War simply, and without sentimentality. It honoured the fallen from both sides, without bias.

It was, Harry thought, a perfect piece of history.

He worked in the gift shop. People had sneered at him initially, for taking up an occupation that appeared to be so far beneath him. But Harry, more placid and thoughtful than he had been during his school-days had merely smiled, shrugged, and continued going to work. It was a brilliant arrangement. His fame drew people into the gift shop, the appeal of the shop meant that virtually nobody ever left without buying anything (Draco Malfoy having been the sole exception to this rule, although Harry had a sneaking suspicion that the git had pocketed a few things anyway) and every penny of his wages went back into the Weasley Trust to help kids disadvantaged, for whatever reason, by the war. He worked three days a week, and the rest of the time, well...

Everyone who knew Harry thought that he spent his time when he wasn't at work living a life of leisure. He'd allowed a rumour to circulate that he was writing an autobiography – something he'd never dream of doing, but which everyone, even the people closest to him, seemed to believe completely. Only Harry and Snape knew how he spent his time when he wasn't working at the gift shop.

Snape. He could slip the name so easily into his thoughts now – Snape, who continued his strange, wavering existence, still the same sad, compulsive mixture of spite and bravery that he'd always been, Snape, who made Harry laugh, Snape who made Harry so angry that he had once looked up exorcism rituals, Snape who still made him forget his tea, hideous, brilliant Snape. It must have been a year since Snape had first appeared in his bathroom, a year filled with emotional upheavals and changes during which Snape had remained the constant, the underlying rhythm like the chords beneath a melody constantly shifting in and out of perception. Strong, indefatigable. Unreal? He couldn't say with any certainty, even after a year – no, more than that now, he thought with a shock of realisation. Two years. Two.

When Harry wasn't working, Harry and Snape spent their time trying to research Snape's 'condition', as they delicately referred to it. So far, even after over a year of tireless work they'd had little success, coming back again and again to what they had ascertained at the beginning – that Snape wasn't a ghost in any traditional sense of the word, that he was able to touch and to feel and that only Harry could see him. The researching was a long and laborious process made even more complicated by two key issues: namely that Harry had to learn how to concentrate and apply himself after years of relying upon Hermione, and that it frustrated and angered Snape immensely not to understand his own condition, intellectual superiority having been his one source of vanity for many years, which in turn made him even more irritable and sharp with Harry than usual. The fights that had ensued had often been messy and protracted, neither of them feeling restrained by the teacher-pupil dynamic any longer, but at the end of it all, Harry felt that he and Snape had reached, if not an understanding, then an impasse.

One day, Snape was waiting for him when he got home. That in itself was unusual; he tended to appear only when Harry got very frustrated and shouted for him, despite the effect that not being around Harry had upon his wavering corporeal form. Harry never asked Snape what he got up to when Harry wasn't around, and Snape never volunteered any kind of information. Both felt that it was important to maintain the illusion that Snape wasn't entirely dependent upon Harry.

“Home from the Tat Cave, then?” sneered Snape, as Harry approached.

“I swear that bastard Malfoy was stealing things again. I thought I saw a ferret out of the corner of my eye. A whole row of key-rings stolen.” grumbled Harry, reaching for the kettle and – instinctively – two cups, despite what they referred to delicately as Snape's “nutrition issue”.

“Sounds likely,” agreed Snape. “Although why he would want to steal at all, let alone your brightly-coloured rubbish, when he's richer than Croesus is a mystery to me.”

Harry shrugged. “Still hates me, I suppose.” Turning, he looked at Snape properly for the first time that evening and noticed with a shock how transparent the other man was. Discarding his tea-making attempts, he advanced upon Snape, hands outstretched.

Snape flinched. “Don't.”

Harry stared at him, dumbfounded. “What...? Why?!”

Snape shrugged awkwardly, creating a ripple of light.

“If this thing is symbiotic...I have no desire to kill the saviour of the Wizarding World in order to prolong this half-existence.”

Harry slammed his hand down onto the worktop, rattling the teacups.

“Damn it, Snape! We've been through this. It doesn't sap my magic at all!”

“But what about your soul?”

Harry blinked, confused. “What?”

“Your soul. We've never looked into that. Every time you touch me, you could be fragmenting your soul into a million pieces.”

“I don't think so,” Harry scoffed. “I mean, I would feel it.”

“Like you felt Voldemort's soul?!”

Harry's face twisted with anger, but then resolved itself. He stepped forward quickly before Snape could react and placed both hands on the other man. A moment's stomach-twisting light, which he still hadn't got used to, then Snape was once again real and bright in front of him.

“It's my choice,” Harry said softly. “I can't stand here and not help you.”

Snape, perhaps wisely, said nothing.

* * * * *

The ritual of the evening resumed pretty smoothly after that. Harry was halfway through a dusty tome (borrowed, albeit without permission from the Hogwarts library) when he blinked. Stopped. Ran his finger down the page again, the sound of Snape turning pages at speed momentarily obscured by the roaring in his ears. All of a sudden, he knew exactly what he was looking for, understood completely what he had found. Of course it was here. Where else could it have been?

“Snape,” he said quietly. “Snape?”

Snape looked up from his book with a sigh. “Potter?”

“I think...I think I've found it,” stammered Harry, unsettled, for some reason afraid. He should be jubilant – at last a chance for he and Snape to be rid of each other! But instead he felt as though someone had reached into his stomach and twisted, felt panicky, short of breath. The idea that Snape could leave him had become as unimaginable as losing a limb. He was part of him.

Snape descended upon him in a moment, swooping in a manner that brought back memories of the Potions classroom. The page was crinkled with age, but quite legible.

Memoria Vinculum or Memorie Bond

This shalle occure whenne one party is Tragically Killed having shared his Memorie with an other shortly before this Tragic Evente.

The Memorie shalle bring life to that party which was Tragically Killed for as long as there remains power within that Memorie. This party will be Linked with the receiver of the Memorie in a bond called Memoria Vinculum. The receiving party must Strengthen the Memorie Party with touch to preserve the Memorie. Without touch, the Memorie party will Fade into an Unfathomable Nothingness, beyonde Heavene and Helle.

This bonde shalle persiste as longe as the Memorie is powerfulle. Memories of pain or Greate Unhappiness shalle lengthen the bonde. If many Memories were shared, the bonde shalle persist further.

An Attachmente may grow between the Memorie party and the receiving party...

Snape's hand slammed onto the book, obscuring the rest of the text from Harry's eyes. Harry watched the tendons in the thin hand bunch as Snape screwed his hand into a fist. So real.

“Shit,” he said, succinctly.

Snape closed his eyes slowly, then re-opened them.

“I just wanted to die,” he said. “I was ready to die.”

They sat in silence for countless minutes; a frozen tableau of horror.

“How many years?” asked Harry eventually.

“Maybe, at an estimate, two more. Considering that I have existed in this form for somewhat longer than two years and that they were powerful memories,” replied Snape, slipping into his matter-of-fact Professor voice. Harry could see the balled fist shaking, the long nails biting into the yellowed flesh.

“Oh,” said Harry. “Oh.”

More silent minutes. Harry said at last, “I'm going to bed.”

Snape made no move to stop him. Harry got ready for bed slowly, dreamily. His body didn't feel quite his own. As he lay in the dark, the words of the book flashed through his head again, almost as though he had known them all along – especially that last, truncated sentence about an 'attachment.' What attachment? Surely he and Snape weren't going to...

He closed his eyes, too tired to think any more but helpless to resist the thunder of mixed emotions that swept through him. He... Snape... a bond. On the cusp of sleep, he became aware of a faint noise downstairs – Snape no doubt, blundering around in the study. Harry hoped that he wasn't going to try and experiment with Firewhisky again... not after last time. Still, despite it all, the knowledge that Snape was downstairs was almost a comfort. He felt like a child in bed lulled to sleep by the distant sounds of adult conversation. Yes, thought Harry, succumbing at last to sleep, a comfort. Snape would find him later with a strange half-smile on his face as he slept, his hands woven tightly into the bedspread. Not that he was watching Harry sleep. It was merely that he didn't sleep, as memories never do, brought to a flickering half-life by the confused world of dreams, and that Harry needed to be safe. Yes, that was certain. Harry must be safe.

* * * * *

Business was quiet. After War Commemoration week, the gift shop was looking a little barer than usual because of the roaring trade he had done. In some corners of the shop, you could even see the shelves. Sitting behind the desk, Harry noticed that several displays needed re-arranging, but couldn't bring himself to do it. He was tired, lacklustre, and he'd had the same recurring dream last night as always, a vision of Snape becoming paler and paler, a dream without words, just a terrible rush of realisation and loss. He'd woken with a gasping sob to see Snape standing sentinel by his bed, glancing at him with something that could almost be construed as concern, before Harry closed his eyes and fell back into another troubled slumber. They never spoke about Harry's night-terrors or why Snape was always there. After all, what was there to discuss?

A faint but persistent chiming interrupted Harry's thoughts, and he looked down at the desk to see his digital Remembrall flashing an angry red. Touching it with a finger, he saw a reminder scroll across the screen:

TEA WITH WEASLEYS: DON'T YOU DARE FORGET!

Wincing and grinning simultaneously at Molly's imperious reminder, Harry sighed a little as he thought of what awaited him at the Burrow. Love, yes, and the family he had always wanted, but also Ron and Hermione, who were now engaged, and Ginny, who tried her best but always made him feel impossibly guilty. It wasn't that he didn't love her – of course he did, it was ridiculous to say otherwise – but every time he saw her, he thought of that little girl who had blushed fervently every time she saw him and who had put her hand in the butter dish. Their relationship felt to him like an island he'd once glimpsed through a pair of binoculars on a Muggle beach (she had wrinkled her nose at the comparison, but it was the only way he could explain), something impossibly right some day, but for now just a little too out of focus.

And there was Snape to think of – not that he'd told Ginny that, although she'd once walked into the kitchen when he and Snape were conducting a lively argument. She'd treated him a little more softly after that, as though he might break, and hadn't asked any questions. He tried not to mind.

Tapping the Remembrall again so that it glowed a sullen blue, Harry stared at the garish shop around him and sighed. Something white flashed in the corner of his eye. He was on his feet in a second, wand outstretched, pointing as he shouted the words of the revealing spell. A flash of blinding light, and a very sulky-looking Draco Malfoy stood in front of him, a key-ring dangling from his mouth.

“Malfoy,” said Harry, somewhat unnecessarily.

Draco spat the key-ring out, trying to plaster a smirk across his face. “Potter,” he replied smoothly.

“Why have you been stealing from me?” Harry demanded. He wasn't angry, which surprised him. Maybe dealing with Snape on a daily basis had given him a thick skin.

Draco shrugged. “I don't know,” he replied. “I was bored.”

The insolence of this irritated Harry for a moment, before he realised that it was probably the truth. Allowed to exist only on the very fringes of Wizarding Society after the War, the Malfoys had fallen from a very great height, socially and financially. It wasn't as though anyone would offer an ex-Death Eater a job.

“You'll have to reimburse me,” he said shortly, and scowled as Draco reached for a money-bag. Not that poor then.

“No,” he added quickly, “Not like that. Do you have a job?”

Draco sneered at the prospect of work, but Harry saw a slight desperation in his eyes.

Draco looked away. “ As a matter of fact, no.”

“Fine then. You can work for me. Two days a week in here, in the gift shop. If anything else goes missing, it'll be three. You understand?”

A momentary fury suffused Draco's face, but then, miraculously, it cleared. “All right.” he said quietly, screwing up his hands into fists (which was a very Snape-ish habit, thought Harry to himself) and shoving them into his pockets.

“You start tomorrow at nine,” said Harry, and turned away. He felt, rather than saw Draco leave the shop. All at once, his earlier tiredness came overwhelmed him. All he wanted to do was get home and have a cup of tea with Snape. Snape. Funny how the man had become synonymous with home.

Harry sighed and bit his lip. He was going mad. He was definitely going mad. Slowly, painfully, he began to re-arrange a display. We accept, he thought suddenly, the love we believe we deserve.

* * * * *

And if you'd asked Harry if he'd changed since the War ended, questioned the slight air of stillness which seemed inextricably entwined with his presence now but had been unimaginable during his schooldays, he would smile and turn away without answering. After all, he'd had a lifetime of interviews and press-hounding; even he had acquired the skill of evasion by now. Still, it was strange, mused Rita Skeeter as her Quick Quotes Quill scribbled away busily at her latest memoir (“Rita – The Saviour and I”), how the boy had changed since the war had ended. Of course, some faint trace of a better nature reminded her, he deserved a little peace, he had earned it after all... but he had frankly proved a disappointment, not marrying the Weasley chit as he was expected to do, not producing a brood of Potter heirs, not becoming a figurehead for the new Wizarding Population. Yes, she thought, very strange. Worth investigating. Definitely worth investigating.

Rita clicked her fingers and the Quick Quotes Quill tapped a final full stop and then lay dormant. She smiled grimly and applied a fresh layer of her favourite coral lipstick as though it were warpaint. Nothing escaped Rita Skeeter for long.

* * * * *

When he opened the front door of the house, the reek of sulphur reached Harry's nostrils. He frowned. Snape would keep trying to brew potions, even though every attempt thus far had been disastrous, as though Harry himself had brewed them. Not that Harry could blame him, it wasn't as though there were many avenues of entertainment open to a partial ghost.

Pushing back the kitchen door and discreetly casting a Bubble-head charm, Harry attempted to summon up a voice of cheery unconcern, despite his dismay at the wreck that had once been the kitchen. They no longer appeared to have a kitchen table. On the plus side, however, they wouldn't be short of matchwood for a while.

“Brewing again, Snape?”

“No, Potter,” came the hissed reply. “Clearly, I am dancing a fandango.”

Harry rolled his eyes as he attempted to spot Snape among the rubble. A large and ominously-bubbling lump of twisted metal barked his shin (the remains of his saucepans, he realised with a quiet horror) as he ventured deeper into the mess. Snape was squatting in a crater, observing his hands with an inscrutable expression. The sight filled Harry with unbearable pity.

“I'm sorry, Snape,” he said quietly.

Snape's head snapped up, and he glared imperiously at Harry, who winced.

“Don't pity me, Potter,” he snarled. “I have never wanted, nor needed your pity.”

Harry nodded in silent apology.

“I've destroyed your kitchen,” Snape said eventually, “and for that I apologise.”

Harry sighed. “It's our kitchen, Snape. You live here, too. And it doesn't matter.”

Snape spat. “Hardly. I exist here, Potter. Living implies a choice. And it does matter.”

Harry shrugged. “I can clean it up.”

Snape got even angrier. “I'm not a child, Potter. I can clean it up myself.”

He waved his hands angrily. “Tergeo!”

Nothing happened.

“Tergeo, damn it!”

Nothing. Furious, frustrated, miserable, Snape closed his eyes and disappeared. Harry could sense his relief that he could still manage that. Breathing shallowly, he looked at the ruined room. It felt sometimes at times like these that any friendship, any fellow feeling – any relationship that existed between him and Snape was merely a figment of his imagination, a fantasy he had created to help himself deal with the harsh loneliness of his reality. Too miserable to think any further, Harry waved his hands, not bothering to reach for his wand, and left the room as the furniture began to restore itself.

From the windowsill, Rita Skeeter twitched her antennae furiously. The boy was clearly insane. Speaking to a ruined room then displaying one of the most powerful acts of wandless magic she'd ever seen?! Her readers must be informed. It was her duty.

* * * * *

The headline didn't reach Harry until work the next day. Draco dropped The Prophet on his desk with a look that would have gone better with handling raw dragon dung.

POTTER POTTY?

the headline shrieked. Beneath it was a picture of Harry looking pale and unwell and a three-page exposeé on his “alarming mental health”. Harry raised an eyebrow, and laughed. He stopped laughing pretty quickly, however, when he realised that the article detailed what had happened in Grimmauld Place the night before. If you subtracted Snape from the equation, he did look pretty mad, he thought ruefully. The thought that Skeeter had been spying on him in his home, however, dissipated any sang froid he may have still retained.

Taking a deep breath, he looked Draco square in the eyes. “Please take the till a moment, Draco. I find myself suddenly in need of a Firecall.”

Draco nodded, filling Harry with gratitude for a nature predetermined towards scheming – and, hence, discretion. “Of course,” he murmured in reply.

Closing the door of the office behind him, Harry activated the Floo and stuck his head in the grate.

“Daily Prophet head offices please,” he said. “I'd like a word.”

* * * * *

By the time The Prophet reached its evening edition, the headline was very different – SECRETIVE SON'S STILL OUR SAVIOUR. The paper had decided to dedicate the entire issue to Harry's achievements, which was extremely embarrassing (especially the Harry Potter Song published on the last page, which Draco had already learned and was singing non-stop) but slightly less dangerously close to the truth. All was well, he thought cheerfully, picking up his bag and preparing to Apparate home.

The door burst open and Ginny stormed in and slapped him. Harry blinked.

“Time alone?!” she screeched. “Islands out of focus?!”

Harry gaped like a landed fish.

“You selfish pig!” she shouted. “Hermione's expecting, we never see you, we need you but no, your privacy is paramount! It's been three years since the War, Harry! You need to move on! We need you to move on!”

Suddenly furious, Harry caught her wrist.

“I'm tired of people needing me,” he replied. He Disapparated, Ginny's angry cries reverberating in his head.

* * * * *

Snape was waiting for him when he got home. Slamming his briefcase onto the floor, Harry collapsed on a kitchen chair and allowed his head to slide into contact with the table.

“I saw the paper,” Snape said quietly.

Harry groaned into the wood.

“I'm sorry,” Snape added, scarcely audible. Harry sighed.

“It's okay,” he replied. He pulled his head up and met Snape's eyes. Such intensity. For a moment, he thought of the Shrieking Shack, of blood and confusion and Snape croaking “Look at me.” Yes, he thought, his decision was made.

He stood, not breaking the eye contact and closed the distance between them. Placing his hands on Snape's arms, Harry allowed his head to fall forward again, his ear coming to rest against Snape's chest. There was no heartbeat, of course, only a roaring silence which he found oddly comforting. As Snape firmed up and became more real, he could feel the absolute tautness of Snape's every muscle, the other man holding himself rigidly, almost terrified and yet it was as though he was becoming unreal, more ghostly than Snape, content to drift.

“What are you doing?” breathed Snape, not angry or pleased. He sounded a little frightened.

“Needing someone,” Harry replied. He didn't move.

* * * * *

After that, it became impossible to say who initiated what, who was the bolder and who the more timid. Harry only knew that when the first kiss finally happened, it happened as a mutual decision, a sudden knowledge that stole over both of them, as two lovers will sometimes dream the same dream and, waking, turn to each other only to realise that all that needs to be said has already been said; all the mysteries of love could remain unspoken. And Harry clung to Snape in the cool white expanse of the bed; Snape, who was not as cold as you might expect, Snape who loved him (for this was not sex – they knew that too instinctively, just as they knew how to please each other) quietly until all that mattered was the raft of their bed upon which they clung, the sea of the night beneath clouded with irrevocable stars. For there was passion, and it too found its culmination, a quiet gasp against a shoulder and everything black and white, but after that there was stillness like bell towers drowned by the sea, like the flat line of the Fenland Harry had once seen in a book, rolling endlessly towards water, to resolution.

Afterwards they lay side-by-side, breathing slowly. Harry smiled, glad all over, still a little shocked by the suddenness of it, but filled with the knowledge of how right it was, how it couldn't fail to be anything but right with Snape there beside him, breathing into the dark.

“Are you real?” he asked, not really expecting an answer. He felt rather than heard Snape chuckle.

“Look at it this way. If I'm not, what we have just done only counts as masturbation. If I am, it's more in the way of necrophilia.”

Harry raised an eyebrow. “An interesting answer, Mr Snape,” he replied, mock-seriously. “Tell me, which would you prefer to be? An extremely detailed wank-fantasy, or alive?”

Snape turned to face him, his eyes bright in the white of his face.

“Alive, I think,” he breathed.

They kissed again.

* * * * *

It was as though time took wing after that. There was awkwardness of course – to fall so swiftly from a vague friendship into what could only be described as a love affair was not without its difficulties, and Harry and Snape continued to argue passionately and frequently - the only difference being that these arguments were always followed by, well, passion of another nature. Which almost made it worth it. As Harry drifted off to sleep underneath Severus' arm (for they were Harry and Severus to each other now, although that, too, had taken a while), a thought suddenly rose to the forefront of his mind. He smiled.

“I'd like to see the rest of that book,” he murmured.

“Hmmm?” came the sleepy inquiry.

“The one where we found out about the Memory Bond... it said something about an attachment. You didn't let me read it. I'd like to see what it said, but I couldn't find it earlier.”

Harry yawned, drifting further into a doze with every word.

Snape froze beside him, every muscle suddenly taut. But Harry was already asleep, lulled by Snape's reassuring closeness.

* * * * *

It took a month before he remembered to look for the book again. Snape was frustratingly absent, as he had been quite a lot of late. Harry tried hard not to think too much about the fading of the Memory Bond, about the fact that their time together was nearly ended and that he and Snape had been lovers for barely a year of it. No, he reprimanded himself sternly, that way lay depression and despair, and Severus hated him to be like that. Better to treasure the time they had left, better to be thankful for what they still had...

He ran a finger along the dusty bookshelf. All of his books were gathered here, along with a few that he'd bought for Severus and a few that were remnants of the Black family's collection. Even though he'd taken the book from the Hogwarts Library, it should have been on the shelf – he had the library fines to prove it. But it wasn't. Harry frowned, looking closer. No, nothing. He couldn't quite remember the title, or even understand his compulsion to see it again, but he knew that somehow it contained the answer to a deeper mystery.

“Severus?” he called.

Nothing. He could sense, however, that Severus was near. He concentrated, tried again.

“Severus!”

The other man appeared with a momentary blurring of the air. He looked almost... guilty for a second before his features resolved into their usual smooth mask.

“Harry?”

“Have you got that book? You know, um, I can't remember the title, the one about Memory Bonds.”

The same guilty flash. Then, “No.”

“That's funny,” said Harry, suddenly all gooseflesh and unsure why. “I can't find it.”

“Look again,” Snape replied shortly, turning away. Harry shrugged at the other man's odd behaviour and did as he was told. Still nothing. It wasn't there.

“Severus?” he said, cautiously.

Silence. He closed his eyes and visualised Severus standing in front of him. He opened his eyes. Snape was there. Clearly, the other man had appeared whilst his eyes were shut. Clearly.

“It's really not here.”

Snape shrugged. “Maybe you took it back to the library.”

Harry was suddenly angry. “You know I didn't. You saw me open the letter from Hogwarts with the fine.”

Severus gazed at him blankly.

“Damn it!” shouted Harry. “What are you hiding from me?”

That same blank coolness from Snape. “Nothing.”

“Then why are you being like this? What's the matter?”

Severus gave him a scornful look. Harry felt pinned under his gaze, growing hotter and hotter, angrier and angrier.

Suddenly Snape seemed to crumple. He sighed, and glanced away.

“Have you ever wondered why I don't need firming up any more?” he asked.

Harry blinked at the sudden change of topic, but shook his head. “Not really,” he replied. “I just assumed because you and I... well... because...”

“Because we're sleeping together? Yes, that does seem to be the logical answer,” Snape said inscrutably.

“You mean it's not?”

“No.” replied Snape. “No, Harry, it's not the answer.”

He looked at that moment desperately sad and old. His clothes, the same clothes he'd worn for five years, seemed faded, tired.

“There is no book,” Snape said quietly. “There never was a book.”

Harry gaped. “No book? But Severus, of course there was. That's how we learned about your condition, remember?”

Severus shook his head. “No. There was a book because you wanted there to be a book. Because you needed there to be an answer. So there was a book.”

Harry's legs seemed to give out under him. He sat down with a thump on the wooden floor. His head felt white, buzzy, sick. He couldn't seem to speak.

“You needed there to be a book,” Snape repeated, “and so there was a book. Have you never wondered about it, Harry? How time has passed like this? So strange – so quickly and yet so slowly in places. Almost like a book – jumping between important scenes. But a book badly-written, so that some things stick out. Why wasn't there more of an outcry about The Daily Prophet exposé? Why was The Prophet so quick to rescind the article just because you wished it? Why has everyone been so willing to leave you in peace? Why did McGonagall quote Dylan Thomas to you at the funeral? Why did we become lovers so suddenly, so rapidly when we could barely tolerate each other? How did Draco Malfoy turn out to be a decent human being? Why am I here with you?”

He paused, and drew a long, unsteady breath. “Because, Harry, you wished it.”

Harry was choking back tears, clawing them from his face as he gasped frantically for breath, strove for speech. But Snape continued, merciless.

“What is this house, Harry? Grimmauld Place? Except it isn't, is it? You've been so wrapped up in yourself, you haven't noticed that it reshapes itself to please you, haven't noticed that sometimes there's a bookshelf, sometimes a kitchen. And what are we, Harry? What am I? I'll tell you. Part memory, part regret, part latent homosexuality. You're a mess, Harry. I'm your mess.”

“Please,” sobbed Harry, with the lack of dignity of the truly desperate. “I love you, Severus. Please.”

Severus' expression softened. “And I, you. Always. But I'm not real.”

Harry shook his head. “It doesn't matter! We can be like this! Like we were before!”

Severus smiled a little. “No, Harry. We can't. I was real before because you didn't want me not to be. You didn't think I could be anything but real. But you can't keep on dreaming forever, Harry. You've got to go back and face things. No bonds, no Grimmauld Place, just you, making it right. You always knew that really. That's why you imagined the Memory Bond would only last five years.”

A calm stillness came upon Harry. He reached out his hands to Snape in a wordless entreaty and Severus took them. He knew, at that touch, that it was over. Closing his eyes, Harry allowed the blackness to overtake him. Snape's hands clasped his tightly, like those of a drowning man and they did not, he did not let go.

* * * * *

He'd fallen getting out of the shower, they told him. Hit his head perhaps, although nobody could determine exactly how, and slumped unconscious to the floor where he'd remained until Ginny, frantic with worry, had broken into the house two days later. That had set him back a long time and he'd been in hospital for months – all his life, it sometimes felt. While he was convalescing in St Mungo's, he'd missed Snape's funeral. It was probably better that way, thought Harry. He tried not to think about Sev... about Snape too much.

* * * * *

“Albus Severus,” Harry said quietly, so that nobody but Ginny could hear, and she was tactful enough to pretend to be waving to Rose, who was now on the train, “you were named for two Headmasters of Hogwarts. One of them was a Slytherin and he was probably the bravest man I ever knew.”

Gazing at the gaggle of nervous First Years on the platform, Harry sighed. He hadn't thought of Severus in years. He'd schooled himself to forget the impossible love affair he had shared with a man he had never truly known. Reaching a hand into his pocket, he felt the reassuring weight of the Remembrall in his hand. It was a comfort, somehow, to him in this new, uncertain age. Surprised at the object's heat, Harry pulled it out of his pocket. One word was written on the screen – Always.

It came back to him like this, in dreams and yet here was a tangible reality, plainly displayed on the screen for anyone to see. Snape was with him, then, his long, white body more perfect than any Harry had ever known, his mouth so soft for one so used to spitting insults. Beautiful. Staring at the screen, lost in thought, Harry was taken by surprise when Al barrelled into him, throwing his arms around his father in the needy childishness of one leaving home for the first time. Before Harry could react, the Remembrall flew out of his hand, a momentary glimmer in the air before disappearing underneath the waiting Hogwarts Express, irretrievable. And that, too, was fitting thought Harry through the scenes that followed after – Al's guilt, Harry's reassurance and forgiveness and then finally, finally the slow passage of the train out of the station.

Blinking as the smoke cleared, Harry thought he saw a familiar figure standing on the platform opposite. All at once, his heart surged and he thought of a love that had never died, as love never does, only become glowing coals that still gave a little light, a little heat when his need was greatest. Yes, he thought, better to trust in love than to trust in the dead. Raising a hand in a simultaneous greeting and farewell, Harry blinked. When he opened his eyes, Snape had gone.

Turning to take Ginny's hand, he smiled at his wife, at the life he'd created for himself out of the ashes of another.

The scar had not pained Harry for nineteen years. All was well.


-end-

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