The silence following his words was perhaps the longest and most nerve-wracking of Harry's life. Snape was sure to laugh in his face at his weakness and spend the remainder of his career at Hogwarts tormenting him over it. He knew this was a mistake and that he was being a sentimental idiot, but he couldn't just turn his back on Snape when the man might actually need some human contact, even if his offer did brand him a fool.
But Snape didn't laugh or sneer. After another prolonged pause, he gave a nod and a cautious, "All right," still looking as though he anticipated mockery.
He'd never expected Snape to agree and was stunned that he had, but Harry did his best to hide it. "Great. Let's get the hell out of here."
Harry was pleased to see some of the hardness and suspicion leave Snape's face. It wasn't as if the older wizard's expression changed any. Snape still had that characteristic, studied blankness to his features, but the lines around his eyes didn't seem as deep.
They turned to the door together and left Headmistress McGonagall's inner office behind them. In the outer office, Harry crossed to the hearth and took down the bottle of shimmering floo powder from the mantle. "Do you want to go first?"
"After you," Snape said.
Harry could feel Snape's nervousness. Rather than remarking upon it, he gave Snape as much of a smile as he could manage, took a handful of powder from the jar, passed the bottle over to Snape, and then said, "I'll be waiting on the other side. The Three Broomsticks, Hogsmeade, Scotland."
Even as he stepped into the floo, he wasn't certain that Snape would actually follow him.
For the third time in as many hours Harry found himself hurtling along the floo network. His stomach was doing the roller-coaster ride it usually did as he sped past countless fireplaces. Finally, his journey came to an abrupt halt and he was literally spat out of The Three Broomsticks' hearth.
Around him, the pub was in its typical Saturday night bedlam. A couple of dozen people were crowded at the smoky bar. The tables were packed with witches and wizards whose conversations were competing with the melancholy Celtic air being played by a musicianless guitar and pennywhistle in the corner.
Harry took in the familiar scene at a glance, his attention focusing on the beautiful innkeeper who was talking to a pair of goblins at a nearby table. Even after ten years of near complete disinterest in the opposite sex, Harry still found Rosmerta stunning. The fact that the tousled blonde's heart eclipsed her physical attractiveness only made her all the more beautiful in his eyes. She had always been kind and considerate to him, even through the worst of his publicity. He appreciated how she looked after her patrons. When he came here, he never had to worry about being harassed by reporters or having the staff sell glimpses of his private life to the media.
"Harry!" Rosmerta called as he staggered to regain his balance. Looking way too lovely for a witch her age in her burgundy bodice, black lacy shawl, and black, billowing skirts, the innkeeper came to join him. "I wasn't expecting you tonight."
"Hello, Rosmerta," Harry greeted, and then turned as the fire behind him flared and ejected Snape.
Harry could feel many eyes turning their way as Snape's tall, black-clad form filled the floo. Even though Snape stumbled like every other floo traveller, he seemed a dangerous and menacing figure as he appeared in the busy pub. Power rustled around the Potions master like dried leaves in an autumn wind.
Harry reached out to steady Snape as the man staggered into the public room.
Harry couldn't help but notice how the conversations closest to the hearth stilled as the customers nearest the floo recognized Snape. He heard several whispers of 'Death Eater' before the conversations started up again. He knew Snape had to have heard those words, but he never reacted to them.
"Severus!" Rosmerta's exclamation overwhelmed even the Saturday night din. Her round, pretty face was all grin as she held out both her hands to the dour Potions master.
To his shock, Snape took hold of her offered hands and gave them a squeeze, "Rosmerta."
Snape looked almost human for once. In fact, if Harry didn't know better, he'd say that Snape was pleased by her effusive greeting.
Harry was so shocked to see anyone casually touch Severus Snape that he couldn't help but stare. The fact that Snape allowed it was equally astounding. As Harry took in the sight of the witch with her wild, honey blond curls holding onto the grim Potions master, he couldn't help but think that they looked good together, that Snape didn't seem nearly as menacing or homely when he was behaving like a normal human being instead of a reclusive ogre.
Rosmerta freed her right hand and reached up to touch Snape's cheek.
"I've missed you. It's been way too long," she complained in a heartfelt, meaningful tone that seemed to go over Snape's head entirely. Most men either blushed or smiled when she made that type of overture, but Snape seemed impervious to her charms or perhaps simply unaware, Harry decided, watching them closely.
Snape inclined his head, his voice turning grave again as he answered, "Nine years."
"That's right. You haven't been in since Albus . . . well, it's good to see you now. So good to see you." Her eyes turned Harry's way. "You're not together, are you?"
Snape and he looked at each other. The absurdity of the very idea of them doing anything together socially was clear in Snape's gaze, as it no doubt was in his own.
"Apparently so," Snape drolly replied before Harry could.
Laughter as melodic as wind chimes rolled across them as Rosmerta eyed them both. "Well, I've seen everything now! Severus Snape and a Potter pub-crawling together! The world must be coming to an end!"
"Really, Rosmerta, you're exaggerating," Snape said.
"And we're hardly 'pub crawling'," Harry protested.
"Exaggerating, is it?" She asked, her bright, smiling eyes focused on Snape. "Might I remind you that the last time you and a Potter were together in my pub, I had to have five tables and twenty chairs replaced? And it took my staff three days to get the blood out of the floor stones!"
Snape's dark gaze swept towards Harry for a moment before returning to her. "That was a different Potter."
"Yes, it certainly was," she agreed and reached out to give Harry's arm an affectionate pat. "What can I do you for tonight?"
"Someplace quiet?" Harry asked, looking uncertainly around the crowded, noisy room. He'd forgotten what this place was like on Saturday nights. Though he'd needed a change of scenery, the noisy crowd was too much for him to take right now, and he suspected Snape felt pretty much the same way, if his pale, drawn expression were anything to go by.
"This way, lads," Rosmerta said, leading them through the most populated part of the pub, past the self-playing guitar and pennywhistle to a nearly deserted room off to the side.
The lights were a little dimmer in here and the noise level significantly lower. Harry could barely even hear the instruments and laughter on the other side of the white wattle wall. A pair of young witches sat near the entrance, speaking across the table in such soft tones that their hat points almost touched.
Rosmerta led Snape and him to a table for two at the far end of the side room. An incongruously romantic votive candle sat in a crystal holder in the centre of the table, casting spears of refracted light across the well-polished table planks. "Will this do you?"
"It's perfect," Harry approved. "Thanks, Rosmerta."
Ever the paranoid, Snape slid into the chair that faced the entrance. Harry took the seat across from him.
"Will you be wanting dinner?" Rosmerta asked.
"Drinks for now," Harry said.
"Your usuals?" she glanced from him to Snape, sounding as though they came in here together every week like he and the Weasleys did.
Harry nodded.
"I drink -" Snape began.
"I remember. Davillier cognac. Unless you've changed it?" Rosmerta checked.
"No, it's the same," Snape said.
"Good. I'll be back with your drinks in a moment," she said. Looking to Snape, she added a playful, "Mind my tables. The cost of good workmanship has tripled in the last thirty years," before leaving them with a wink.
"You took out five tables in a fight with my father?" Harry couldn't help but ask as soon as they were alone. In the flickering candlelight, Snape looked knackered, which made him feel guilty for asking, but he couldn't just let an opening like that pass.
Considering how freely Snape had joked with Rosmerta about the incident, Harry was hoping to get his companion to relax a little, but the man seemed to fold into himself. Invisible defensive barriers popped up all around him as he answered in a low, strained voice. "They weren't able to get me from behind that time."
That time. Harry hated the sound of those two words and everything they implied.
"It was just you alone against all four of the Marauders?" he questioned, trying to understand. For all that everyone swore he was just like the man, there were times Harry didn't understand his father at all. He'd hated Draco Malfoy with a passion in school, but they'd never blasted up a pub or attacked each other from behind like his dad and his friends had apparently done to Snape. He supposed this wasn't the best time to be asking this kind of stuff, but it certainly beat dwelling on the memories he'd taken from Westfield.
At first he thought Snape wasn't going to answer – no particular surprise, that; the man never did consent to answer any of Harry's questions about his interaction with his father – but after a moment Snape said in a slow, cautious tone, "No. Lupin never joined in their childish pranks, and Pettigrew was worse than useless in a fight. It was just two to one."
This was the first time he'd ever gotten anything other than a rebuke when he'd dared question Snape on this subject.
"Just two to one," Harry repeated, his Gryffindor spirit of fair play offended, even if it were his father they were discussing. "And the blood on the floor?"
"Pettigrew's. He managed to get himself caught between one of Black and my volleys. Pettigrew ended up in infirmary for a week, and your father, Black, and I in detention with Filch every day for six months," Snape succinctly supplied.
Unable to believe he'd received an actual answer, Harry considered his next question. There were a million things he wanted to ask Snape, but he found his tired mind questioning a totally tangential concern. "Did Filch use the thumbscrews on you?"
"What?" Snape looked at him as if he'd lost his mind.
"In first year when he took us to detention in the Forbidden Forest, Filch said he missed being able to torture students," Harry explained, recognizing that it had been a really dumb thing to ask. He felt rather like the fellow in the fairy tale who'd been granted three magic wishes, and then wasted one wishing for a clean hankie.
"Potter, do you have even a passing acquaintance with the word 'gullible'?" Snape asked in a tone that might have been amused.
Harry felt his face heat. "You know what a miserable git Filch is. Nothing would surprise me."
"Albus Dumbledore was Headmaster back then. Can you honestly see him allowing thumbscrews to be used on students? Your godfather barely received detention for attempted murder," Snape said in a tone that sounded nowhere near as upset as he normally became whenever this subject came up.
Like a fat goat tethered to a tree in dragon country, the bait sat out there, tempting him. Harry knew Snape's throwaway comment wasn't a casual oversight. Snape never let things slip. If he mentioned something unexpected in a conversation, it was an intentional opening, but Harry wouldn't put it past the bastard to dangle something like that in front of him and then refuse to illustrate upon it out of sheer, malicious glee.
The Shrieking Shack incident, that was what Snape was referring to. Harry bit his lip to hold back the dozens of questions he'd wanted to ask for so long. There was so much he didn't understand, so much he needed to know, but he wasn't going to push Snape, have him cut the conversation off, and give him his usual reprimand. This was the first time in memory that they actually seemed to be communicating rather than sniping at each other, and, for some reason, that seemed more important to him than satisfying his curiosity.
At last, Harry said, "You, er, usually refuse to even speak to me about that."
"Yes."
That was it, just a flat 'yes', no explanation, no apology.
"May I ask what's changed?" Harry questioned when no further comments seemed forthcoming.
"You could have taken this information and anything else you wanted from my mind earlier. I couldn't have done a thing to stop you," Snape said.
"You don't owe me any answers, at least not for today," Harry snapped, disgusted by the very idea that Snape would now feel he had to sell him a piece of his soul in repayment for his help.
"I owe you something," Snape replied without his usual venom. "If it weren't for you, I'd be in Azkaban right now."
Snape took his debts very seriously, Harry knew, recalling how this man had protected him, his worst enemy's son, from Quirrell in first year when the DADA teacher had tried to curse him. Snape had made it plain that he'd abhorred the life debt he'd owed James Potter, but he'd still honoured it.
Harry didn't want Snape owing him, any more than he wanted to owe Snape.
"You don't owe me a thing," Harry protested. "I didn't do anything that anyone else wouldn't have done if they'd had the abilities."
"Didn't you? Four of the people in that room today have known me fifteen years or longer, yet you were the only one who protested my innocence." Although the words were nearly casually voiced, Harry could tell how disturbed Snape was by that fact.
