Harry's feet pound against the grass, his arms pumping at his sides, and he feels the burn and ache in his chest, the soreness in the back of his throat, the ache of his tired legs. Just a while further, just a little longer—

He comes over the crest of the hill, and he skids to a stop, bending over and setting his palms against his knees. He breathes heavily, and he glances up as the sun comes properly over the horizon, the grounds bathed in golden light. The sky is a painting in peaches, and pinks, but there is blue visible now, too. The sun is warm on his face, and it's soothing compared to the heat that clings sickly to his body, and he shudders out a breath as he Summons his bottle of water to his side, guzzling down several gulps of the stuff.

Down the hill, he sees the Hogwarts gate open and close: Snape is a silhouette of pitch black in the distance, and Harry raises his hand – he doesn't wave, doesn't bother to move his hand at all. Just raises it in a sign of recognition.

Snape is looking his direction, he thinks, but he doesn't wave back.

Harry drinks some more of his water as he slowly makes his way down the hill: his legs are throbbing, and he can feel all the blood pumping in his body, feel it… It's not exactly as good as killing somebody, but it's certainly a sensation.

"Out for your morning jog?" Snape says dryly as he comes up the path, spruce trees arching over his head. Harry puts his hands in his pockets, trying to look cool and unbothered despite the way his legs are quaking underneath him, and despite the fact that he can't control the heavy work of his lungs. It's twenty to seven in the morning, and in the golden hour, Snape's sallow skin looks positively yellow; his white shirt is buttoned tight to his neck, as usual, his robes much the same, but he holds himself a little too stiffly, like he's ashamed of having been caught.

"Doing your walk of shame?" Snape wrinkles his nose, his lip curling, but Harry sees his left hand give an infinitesimal twitch at his side. He wants to reach for something, wants to adjust a part of his clothing, and isn't… "What, you got a bite on the side of your neck?"

"Get inside," Snape snaps, and Harry laughs, taking another long swig from his water as he moves inside. "How long were you running?"

"An hour," Harry says. He feels giddy with the exercise, in a bright and airy mood, and Snape's dour demeanour just makes him want to laugh: he tries to do it quietly, so that nobody "Give or take. I want to be able to shower before anyone else gets up."

"A charitable decision. You look revolting."

"Who was she?"

"Shut up."

"She pretty?"

"Shut. Up."

"She a vampire? Are you a vampire? They—" Snape's palm claps hard up the side of Harry's head as they step into the entrance hall, and Harry laughs again despite the pain. With the thrum of the endorphins still hot within him, the pain is negligible anyway, and Snape reaches up, drawing a lock of greasy hair back from his own face.

"Severus… Harry." Albus stands in the doorway to the grand staircase, and Harry inhales slightly, bringing himself up to his full height, and Snape shoves him in the shoulder hard enough that Harry stumbles, having to grab at the wall to keep from falling. Sniggering, he swigs at his drink and shoves an amused look in Snape's direction: Snape's expression is cold, his lips thinned. "Playing in the grounds?"

"Mr Potter was just going down to the dungeons to wash himself of his morning's toil," Snape mutters, scowling, and he crosses his arms tightly over his chest. Harry feels himself chuckle, and he runs his hand through his hair, feeling the flush on his cheeks. He could push it further, he thinks, but he doesn't want to risk it – there's only so much good humour Snape will actually take at a time, and he must be tired, after being up all night, or at the very least, sleeping in someone else's bed. "Is there a reason you're up at this hour, Albus?"

"Alas, my friend, oft do I wander these halls when sleep evades me… The elderly, I fear, have sleep-ins pass us by." Harry wonders how bizarre the old man's sentence is intended to be, and he glances to Snape as he pushes the doors closed and shuts out the light of the dawn. "Why don't you walk with me to the staffroom? I have some invoices for the condensers: I'll pass them to you before you move down to bed."

"You can say it's war business," Harry says dryly, and both Snape and Albus look at him for a moment, Albus with his lips quirked into a slight grin, and Snape with a roll of his eyes: Harry gives them a mock salute, and then he steps away from them, heading back down toward the common room.

ϟ ~ THE LERNAEAN HYDRA ~ ϟ

"What was he doing awake, so early?" Albus asks, and Severus regards him grimly.

"I believe he's taking up advice Lucius once gave him," Severus answers, and they begin to walk together down the corridor, in the vague direction of the staff room. No one will yet be wandering the halls, Severus is aware – a handful of students might already be in the library, and a few of the other staff will be in their offices or their classrooms and readying for the day's teaching, but that is all. Even Argus, at this hour, is unlikely to be wandering, unless some dreadful spill has occurred in the night. "Jogging." Nonetheless, Severus casts a swift Muffliato to ensure no one might overhear them.

"Ah," Albus murmurs, and he slowly moves his lips into a fond smile, loosely hooking his thumbs in the orange fabric of his belt. "Of course. Physical fitness… It always rather passed me by. You exercise, though, don't you, Severus?"

"I perform my calisthenics of a morning," Severus says at length, and it is true, at least. He does enough to keep himself fit (Lucius had instilled the habit in him rather early on), and that is as much as he needs, for he's always possessed a wiry strength about him. He will be doing no such thing today, however – his back aches from the position he'd been in, his shoulders pushed against the mattress and his legs wrapped clumsily around Bartemius' waist, the other man driving into him. His thighs feel weak and slightly tremulous, and there's an uncomfortable lack of tension in his body, a lingering warmth.

It's awful, that he should feel so relaxed and comfortable, after having Bartemius pin him down, after having to open himself up for the man, let him drag his filthy tongue over Severus' neck and touch him—

His skin feels too tight on his body.

How many years has it been since he debased himself for the sake of furthering his progression within the Death Eaters? About the same amount of years as Severus has had sex at all, coincidentally.

"And this morning?"

"I would rather not discuss it." Amusement sparkles in Albus' eyes, and Severus sets his jaw. "You find this amusing, then?" He's surprised by the venom in his own voice, the tightness in his tone, and he clenches his hands at his side. "You find this funny?"

"Severus," Albus says in a placating tone, but still the mirth lingers on his face, that twinkle in his eyes, and Severus hates it. He's always hated that look on Albus' face, how small it makes him feel, how obscenely unimportant. He remembers even as a young boy, seeing that expression on Albus' face in the aftermath of some tumult with Potter and his ugly friends—

He'd looked like that during Severus' O.W.L.s, he remembers. He'd had that smiling look on his face as he'd come into Slughorn's office, where Severus had waited, his cuffs stained with Black's blood, because disarmed he had done all he could to lash out at any of them, and Black's play-wrestling with Potter couldn't protect him from the sudden punch of Severus' knuckles against his eye.

The look had drained out of his eyes and off his mouth when he'd seen Severus' face, seen him in the chair, his arms wrapped as tightly around his body as they could go, unable to prevent himself from shaking.

"I merely think," Albus says warmly, in some dense attempt, perhaps, to be paternal – as if Severus has ever wanted more paternity in his life, from anybody, "it positive, that you should take some time to relax."

"I didn't relax," Severus says, and he almost says more, but he catches his tongue in his mouth before he can. He can see Albus' expression change, see his silver brows furrow in concern, and he says, "The Dark Lord has plans for the coming weeks."

"Attacks?" Albus asks with concern, but Severus shakes his head. It makes his robe rub tight against the sucked-in bruise on the side of his neck, and he tightens his jaw slightly. This is the true hypocrisy of Albus' supposed care, that he should be so worried over Severus, and yet it is so easy for it to evaporate, in the case of more important matters. Nearly every matter is important than Severus himself, to the great and oh-so-kind Albus Dumbledore.

Severus tastes bile in his throat, and he is aware of the ridiculousness of his own thoughts, of the hyperbole inherent in them. The unfairness, even. Severus is an unfair man – why shouldn't he be?

"No," Severus says. "Nothing so simple, as a matter of directness. A plan of infiltration, in St Mungo's, the Ministry of Magic, various markets and libraries, public services… He is nervous, I believe, as to the search for the Dark Mark, and even though only a fraction of his followers carry it on their skin, he is wary of losing any member of his Inner Circle. Already, I feel, he had been moving away from it as a focus, but I believe he may seek out other methods to ensure his immortality, if ensure his immortality it does."

"Is Hogwarts part of his method of infiltration?" Albus asks softly.

"If it is, he made no mention of it. I will submit a full written report when I can," Severus replies. "Albus, I haven't slept, and I am teaching from eleven onward."

"You ought eat something, my boy." There again, the paternity. Severus could spit.

"I am not your boy, Albus," Severus says, and he turns to walk away.

He doesn't sleep, when he retires to his quarters. He doesn't even bother to try. He drinks a black coffee, and he digs a cigarette from the back of a drawer, smokes it too quickly and tastes how stale the tobacco is, because the packet is too old. He picks a book from the shelf at random, without even looking, opens it to the dedication.

He regrets it as soon as he looks at the neatly looping handwriting, the faded blue ink. The spot of blood staining the corners of every page, because when he'd once retired to bed with a nose bleed, he hadn't realized he was staining the book as well as the sheets.

To Severus, my liquid son,

Something for you to pour over.

Love,

Mum.

He throws the book at the wall, and then flinches when it hits the vase on the end table instead, throwing it to the ground and making it shatter. The daffodils the house elves had placed in the vase, which Severus has never liked, but has never disliked enough to actively destroy, sprawl on the floor like little green corpses with yellow heads.

Severus doesn't have an ashtray for his cigarette, he realizes, and he tosses it, mostly unsmoked, into the fire.

Mercifully, his timetable for the day is primarily third and fourth years – young enough to be frightened and quiet in his classes, but practised enough to be somewhere approaching competent in their work. Severus teaches in a haze of exhaustion, eats some green vegetables and naught else during lunch, and wishes he would spontaneously drop dead. When it comes to his final class of the day, wherein he must field what seems to be a thousand questions from one Luna Lovegood, he is utterly exhausted, and aching all over. The pain from before has only been compounded.

He writes the damned report. It is riddled with spelling errors, and in places he smudges the ink, but it is legible enough, and even if it weren't, he would hand it to Albus anyway.

"Have you slept?" Albus asks, when Severus passes him the folder.

"I will sleep once dinner is through."

"What about the staff meeting?"

"What about it?"

"Are you going to attend?"

"No."

"Severus," Albus says admonishingly, and Severus gives him a dead-eyed stare that requires no concentration at all, requires no focus to make it disconcerting. Albus looks at him, for a long few moments, quietly kind, as if he hopes that Severus might budge, and choose arguing with Filius and Pomona over budgetary divisions and judging some squabble between the prefects over sleeping for the first time in thirty-six hours.

Finally, Albus relents.

"Very well," he says lowly. "Come, let us to dinner." Albus' fingers brush against his shoulder, and Severus is too tired to prevent himself from flinching at the touch. Albus' paternal expression sharpens to the slightest distaste, and again, Severus tastes the bile in the back of his throat.

He is glad when they finally sit down to dinner.

The evening post comes in, and he looks at the owls as they fly into the room. A few of them bear newsletters and periodicals – gossip magazines and the like. He sees Minerva snatch one particularly offensive volume from the air, making the tawny owl it is attached to screech in indignation, and Severus feels himself smirk when he sees the shirtless (and pantsless) wizard on the cover.

"I'll take that," Pomona says without shame, and Minerva rolls it up and smacks her lightly on the nose with it: the wizard on the front cups his crotch and rolls his hips into his own palm. Severus bites his tongue, and Pomona does her very best to keep her lips tight shut, but then bursts into laughter, tipping her head back. Minerva shoves the magazine under the table, her hand clasped over her mouth.

A Hufflepuff looks in their direction, her expression very glum at the loss of her pornography, and Severus takes a sip of his wine, which he had ordered watered down: ordinarily a thick, blood red, it is the colour of pink carnations.

There's a sudden, cut-off scream from the Slytherin table, and Severus whips his head to look at them. Draco Malfoy stumbles back and away from the table, letting out ugly, sharp whimpers of noise, and Severus sees glossy photographs tumble from the envelope he had taken from an owl's leg, dozens of them, shining red.

"Minerva," Severus hisses, and he hurries across the room, flicking his wand at the photographs and gathering them swiftly up before anyone can get a look at them. Potter is already on his feet, and he and Nott support Draco from each side, dragging him from the room gibbering and sobbing against Potter's shoulder, and—

Severus sees the photographs. He sees their animation, and he sees the way Lucius gasps and chokes and whimpers under the flash of the camera, his throat open and cut all the way to the bone, his jaw opening and closing, his eyes wide. The photographs are taken at various angles, but most show a close angle of his face.

He is so exhausted that he actually feels dizzy for a moment, and his stomach lurches as a wave upon a shore, but he will not let himself vomit in front of the students, will not allow them to see him brought low by so ridiculous a spectacle as these photographs – particularly not when they were likely sent to the boy during dinner, at least in part, to ensure Severus too might be shocked at the sight of them.

An inspired idea of Bellatrix's, perhaps. Stuffing all the photographs back into the envelope, he glances at the students that had been unluckily seated about Draco, and he sees the difference in those that had caught a glimpse of the photographs, and those that had not: the contrast between sickly horror and desperate curiosity is palpable.

He follows Minerva and the boys out into the corridor, and he stops short when he sees Draco. He is as pale as a sheet, hyperventilating and trembling.

"It's alright, Mr Malfoy," Minerva says. "They were merely photographs, they can't harm you: you're alright."

"Because he's already dead," Draco blurts out tearfully as Severus hurriedly pulls the doors of the Great Hall closed again, and then he gasps out, "And he died like that."

"Mr Malfoy," Severus says, and Draco's weaken beneath him like wet reed, and Nott catches him under strong arms, lifting him up from the ground. The perfect response to photographs of one's dead father, Severus' mind supplies wryly: a dead faint.

"Hospital wing or dormitory?" he asks cleanly to Minerva as Draco's head lolls unconsciously against his chest. He looks so small, like this, so small and so fragile – Lucius had never looked that small, even in the throes of dying in the photograph, his pale skin glossy and blood-flecked under the camera's flash, a shine off his eyes. Severus reaches back and sets his palm against the stone to keep from swaying on his feet: Minerva, thankfully, is too distracted by Nott's business-like tone and ease of response in a crisis to notice.

Potter does. Potter is pretending not to notice, but Severus can feel him examining him.

"Hospital wing," Minerva decides.

"Potter, get Pop— Get Madam Pomfrey," Severus says, and confound the dizziness assailing his head, confound it all. There's a second's pause as Nott, Minerva and Potter each stare at him, at the fractional break in his control, for just a moment, but for too long.

"I'll get her, sir," Potter says, "and I'll let the headmaster know what's happening. The owl is already gone, but if Professor Flitwick goes out to the owlery now, he might be able to note on the wardstone if any new birds have come in through the ward net this evening."

"You're quite right, Potter," Severus says, and he presses the envelope into the boy's hands, which are steady and neatly held, just like Nott's. Potter stares down at the manila of the paper, and then he shoves the flap down tightly against the paper, as if he might close Pandora's box, once opened.

"I'll give this to the headmaster, sir?"

"Yes, Potter," Severus agrees, and he follows Minerva on shaky feet toward the infirmary. Between them and just ahead of them, Nott carries Draco with absolute ease, as if he scarcely notices the boy's weight.

"What was in the photographs?" Minerva asks. With a shaking hand, Severus hands Minerva the single photograph he had kept back from the pile, entirely by accident. Autopilot, the Muggles might call it. What a horrible thing. "Oh, Merlin," she whispers. "They took these as he was dying?"

"It would seem so," Severus says lowly. His blood feels thin in his veins, and when they get to the infirmary, he sinks down to sit on the bed, watching as Nott gently lays Draco on the one parallel. Draco is just coming to again, hazy and disoriented.

"What do I do, Healer?" Nott whispers, and Draco responds dreamily, not yet fully connected to the world again.

"No healing yet," Draco mutters, shifting his head back into the pillows, and Minerva reaches for Draco's wrist, pressing her thumb to the pulse point there as Poppy rushes into the room.

"Are you alright?" Minerva asks him.

"Focus on the boy," Severus says. "Not me."

"Severus—"

"Please," Severus whispers. Minerva pushes a glass of water into his hand, and Severus hesitates before he takes it, drinking from it greedily. It's too cold – it makes his teeth hurt. He doesn't care.

ϟ ~ THE LERNAEAN HYDRA ~ ϟ

Harry sits in silence on the edge of the Astronomy Tower, feet hanging from the parapet, his legs swinging slightly. He feels the breeze card through his hair and blow his cigarette smoke away, and he takes a slow drag, tastes the tobacco on his tongue. It's the first cigarette he's smoked at Hogwarts, and he feels there's something illicit about smoking it here, in full sight of all the castle and all the grounds below him.

He doesn't care.

All he can think of is the blood, and the fleshy pink of Lucius Malfoy's throat bared to the air: how could his eyes have been so wide, and his mouth so open, and his body so— so bloody? So glossy and red and shining, and the way he had moved, the way his mouth had… Had just moved, like he was trying to talk with his whole damn neck ripped out. He feels sick just thinking about it, and he does his best to focus on his fag.

He hears the shift of the door behind him, but he doesn't move at all, staring out over the grounds and the forest, the empty Quidditch pitch. Although he feels a presence get closer, he hears no footsteps, and that means it's either Mrs Norris, or Professor Snape. "Alright, sir?" he asks quietly, taking a guess in the latter direction.

"Thirty points from Slytherin for being out of bed and out of bounds, Potter," Snape says, and Harry feels him step up behind him more than he hears it – Snape's damned boots are as quiet as ever. He wishes he knew the enchantment for it. He wishes he knew a spell to close someone's throat once it's been ripped open – or maybe a memory spell you can do on yourself.

"Okay," Harry agrees, and he holds out his cigarette packet behind him, not bothering to look at his head of house. There's a short pause, and then he feels the shift in weight as Snape takes one, and he drops the box back into his pocket. He hears the swipe of a match, and when he glances to his right Snape is cupping his hand around the cigarette's head, lighting it quickly. "I expected you to confiscate the box."

"I still might," Snape mutters weakly.

"Have you eaten yet?" Harry asks. Snape had looked tired this morning – now, he looks like he's on the verge of crumbling into dust. "You look like you're about to drop dead."

"Poppy forced twelve crackers down my gullet in the infirmary." Harry blinks. He does not think Snape has ever revealed a personal detail about himself before, unprompted, and without a lot of needling first. He must really be feeling sick, or shocked, or— Or whatever.

"Oh. Good," Harry says weakly.

"If you say so."

"You should call in sick tomorrow."

"Shut up, Potter," Snape says irritably, but he doesn't dock any more points or complain any further. He leans his elbows heavily on the parapet, and he puts one of his hands against his forehead, smoking the cigarette like he's trying to win a race.

They can't be there for all that long, smoking in silence, Harry seated on the wall, and Snape beside him, in line with Harry's chest. It would be nice, to be the tall one for once, if it weren't for the circumstances.

"I can't sleep," Harry says. Snape looks up from his hand, and Harry sees his expression. He doesn't know what he's looking for in Snape's expression, exhaustion, or anger, or fear, or something, but he sees absolutely nothing. It is the same mask of expressionless distaste as it always is, but with deeper bags under his eyes, and pastier skin.

"He's crying," Snape says. He doesn't look at Harry, and instead, his dark eyes remain focused on the forest in the distance. Harry remembers the way the Acromantula had poured from under the trees last year, and he wonders if he'll ever see something like that again. He hopes not. Harry doesn't bother to ask how he knows about Draco, because it makes sense that he would know, that he'd understand.

"He closed his curtains, and he put up a silencing ward," Harry says, pausing to take a drag of his fag. "But it doesn't… It doesn't matter, you know. I still know he's in there, crying his eyes out." Snape says nothing, the cigarette between his lips, and then he exhales a cloud of dark smoke. Harry breathes in slowly, and then demands in too sharp a voice, "Can't you— Can't you do something?"

Snape's head slowly turns to the side, and one eyebrow raises sardonically, although the rest of his expression remains the same. "What, pray, do you suggest I do?"

"I don't know!" Harry snaps helplessly, and he hears the crack in his own voice, feels Snape's black eyes boring holes in the back of his head as he focuses desperately on the ground far below them instead of on Snape himself. "Bring him back?" He barely does more than breathe out the words, but Harry knows he hears them. Snape doesn't dignify the stupidity, the sentimentality, of the question with a response, and for that Harry is grateful.

Swinging himself down to the ground, Harry puts out his cigarette on the grey stone, and then he flicks his wand at the cigarette butt, trying to silently Vanish it. A little of the ash fades away, but that's all, and then he spits out, "Evanesco," and watches the cigarette butt fade from view. He moves back toward the staircase.

"Potter," Snape says, and Harry turns back to look at him. One bony, veiny palm is outstretched, the fingers neatly together. He looks like a monolith, a statue, standing like he is, silhouetted in the crescent moon with his hair shifting slightly in the wind and his robes not fluttering the barest bit. Harry sighs.

"It's not as if it's my only packet, you know," he says. Snape raises his eyebrows slightly, and Harry takes the Silk Cut from his pocket, dropping them into Snape's palm.

"Detention with me tomorrow night," Snape says. "7pm."

"You should call in sick tomorrow," Harry says again.

Snape looks at him for a long, long second, and then he says, "Lucius Malfoy was a personal friend of mine, Potter. Were I to be absent from my classes tomorrow, it would be taken as a sign that this amusement on the part of the Death Eaters has affected me." Harry feels slightly sick, and he turns his head slightly away before he replies.

"It has affected you," he says. "Hasn't it? I don't think I'll ever get the way he looked out of my head."

"You did something not dissimilar to the throat of Rickard Mucliber." Harry thinks of the knife in his hand, the way it had felt as he'd pressed it up and into Mulciber's thick throat, the gush of the blood over his hand, the way his neck had squelched as he'd stamped down on it…

"Why would you say that?" he asks quietly, aware of the sour taste on his tongue. "Why do you have to be such a twat?"

"You're a murderer, Mr Potter," Snape replies in a mild tone. "That rates higher on twattish behaviour, in my view, than a statement of fact."

"Profanity sounds funny coming from you," Harry says. "Can you say fuck, too?" Snape's expression changes. Maybe it is because he's exhausted and hungry; maybe it's because he has Harry's cigarettes; maybe it's because he feels bad for making Harry feel bad. The latter seems the most unrealistic.

Snape leans forward, making use of the slight height advantage, and he leans right into Harry's face. Harry can smell the cigarette smoke, but he can mostly smell Snape – the potions, the coffee, the ink. He thinks he catches a hint of perfume or cologne, but if it's there, it's not his. It must be from the woman he slept with last night.

"Fuck," Snape says, emphasising the fricative sound.

"That'll cheer Draco up," Harry murmurs. "I'll show him the memory." Snape leans back, and he actually, honest to God, really… Chuckles. It's a tiny laugh, barely more than a nose exhalation and a slight quirk of his lips, and then the blank expression trickles back onto his face. "Are you okay?"

"Focus on Draco," Snape says slowly, his voice quiet.

"Okay," Harry says. "When I go downstairs, are you going to throw yourself off the tower?"

"Yes," Snape says. "I plan to slit my wrists first, and see which method kills me first."

"Scientific. Cool."

"Good night, Potter," Snape says, with a tone of finality.

"Good night," Harry murmurs, and he heads back down toward the dungeons.