The Space Between Failing and Falling • Snarry •

Chapter 15: Hope and Headlines

It's astonishing how instantly Harry's nearest and dearest accept Severus.

He goes alone to meet Dromeda whilst Harry is with his cousin, and she chides him for the finger paints that Teddy is now obsessed with. They talk about pure-blood culture, how she has had enough of the mithering impotence in politics, and she says all sorts of cryptic things like, "When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change." It's probably something to do with True Love, and when he gives her his deadpan expression, she just winks at him and offers him more food.

As he grows more accustomed to his place beside Harry, he becomes more stunned at the implication that this isn't some kind of cruel joke. That he won't wake up from this pleasant dream and find himself back in 1998, miserable and alone. He fears for the future, and pictures war generals busy conspiring a new nightmare.

The hopelessness of his imagination is like soaking in muddy water.

Against all odds, Harry wants him. It's laughable—he doesn't even belong in the same world as Harry—and so he decides the best action regarding their engagement is inaction, and to simply put one foot in front of the other.

Now Severus is finally on a decent salary, he buys Ted his first tickets to a Quidditch match. To mark the occasion, the boy's hair and eyes are navy blue (it's Puddlemere v Ballycastle). When Wood, the old Gryffindor Keeper spots Harry in the crowd, the manager snaps a group photo of him, Harry with Ted on his shoulders, and Wood.

Usually on the Teddy-watch Weeks, Severus drops 'round after work and reads to Ted until he falls asleep. Then he and Harry might watch terrible Muggle films about dinosaurs or funny films with guns in them (the only reasonable explanation he can come up with is that it takes Harry's mind off the war). They do stupid coupley things like stand next to each other by the hob, Harry holding the pan whilst Severus stirs, arms around each other.

The photograph of Nina is gone from the mantelpiece.

On the alternate weeks, they go for long walks hand-in-hand around Highbury, Islington, and Stonehenge. (After all, Harry hasn't got his Apparition licence, and this is becoming some sort of a joke between them).

At sunset, they'll often practice mind magic upstairs at Spinner's End. He allows Harry to press his light into the blackest corners of Severus's mind, be present in his worst humiliating moments, at the very extent of his limits. It is like being stripped naked and it takes everything he has to not shove Harry out, retaliate, lash out.

Harry sees his father punching Mum in the head. There was that unpleasant moment when the Dark Lord shattered his knees. His father weeps at a funeral as his younger self stares forward blankly. Potter, Black, Lupin, and Pettigrew disarming him, tying him up and locking him in the loo.

There's an unending supply.

The way Harry exits his mind is inelegant. He can't see Harry's expression; his own eyes are nearly always squeezed shut. He'll often feel lips on the wrinkles between his brows, then a chest pressing into his face, and hands rubbing circles on his back as Harry curls over him as though to shelter him.

It won't work. The damage is already done.

After Harry first unsteadily peered around his mind, Severus told him he'd need more practice, and lamented the fact that they didn't have a Pensieve. He needs one now more than ever, especially since he has so many new memories of war. But it's not as though he could've emptied his entire history into it.

With mutual trust and vulnerability, Harry makes progress.

Sometimes, Harry kisses the most hated part of his body, and baptises Severus with his tears. Thankfully, he never offers worthless platitudes, and is simply there, a warm presence. The force that Harry brings is like a font of personal purification—his loving energy decontaminates the most hideous truths.