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"I saw Snape."

Harriet would never have heard those three words if her ears weren't so attuned to the man's name. Students talked a lot in the corridors, as they entered class, and even in class. She was telling them to be silent many times per day, and she didn't usually pay attention to their blabbering.

But if there was one thing she wouldn't ignore, it was Snape.

"You saw Snape?" she repeated, rounding on the girl, a fourth-year Ravenclaw.

"Um, well, I think I did," the girl said, looking uneasy. "I'm not sure that was really him. It looked like him, but—"

"Where?"

"Top of the Astronomy Tower."

"When?"

"Around midnight last night," the girl said with a wince.

She shouldn't have been up there, but right now Harriet couldn't care less.

"Only for a handful of seconds tops. And then he sort of disappeared?"

"Like he's a ghost?" another student said.

"No, he was—he was normal-looking. Not transparent."

"Thank you, Amanda," Harriet said. "Five points to Ravenclaw."

"For being outside the dorm past curfew?"

"For good observational skills and honesty in the face of potential punishment."

The girl beamed.

Harriet went on with the class. Outwardly, she was behaving normally as she guided the students through the intricacies of the double Shield Charm. Inwardly, her head was filled with thoughts of Snape, a whirlwind of worry and confusion. How could he be on top of the Astronomy Tower? How could he disappear? And why?

He had survived the battle. She had poured potions down his throat, had Levitated him to the Hospital Wing, had gone to face Voldemort wishing that Snape, had least, would go on. She had come back to find him still unconscious. She had remained by his side, and at some point in the morning, he'd woken up. They had talked. Bleary-eyed and drunk on victory, she had confessed feelings—very confused feelings, barely coherent. He had told her she was embarrassing herself.

And then he had disappeared.

Right in front of her eyes.

There had been no pop of Disapparition, no displaced air of a Portkey. There had just been a Snape one second, and no Snape the next.

She had considered it might have been his reaction to her Feelings. Absconding without so much as a by your leave seemed a very Snape thing to do. But he hadn't reappeared. He had left them all sitting between confusion and anguish, unsure of where he was or even if he was still alive, and while he would have cheerfully inflicted this kind of torture on Harriet, he wouldn't have done so on McGonagall, or Draco, or Lucius.

It had happened back in May. It was now October, and Harriet would follow any lead she found.

The top of the Astronomy Tower was deserted. The wind howled, whipping at her hair and snagging at her clothes. She took a cursory look around and found no trace of Snape. Of course, it wasn't like he would have left a graffiti somewhere. I WAS HERE -SNAPE. No, she'd never been lucky.

She conjured herself a chair, and sat.

He'd be seen at midnight, fine. She would wait. She was patient (lie). She wasn't desperate to see even one atom of something vaguely Snape-shaped (another lie). She could wait six hours for nothing and she wouldn't go insane (God, what would she even do if nothing happened?)

Possibly it wasn't normal.

She should have been going on with her life with perhaps the occasional Snape-related thought, like all the others had. Should have been logical about this and extinguished that stupid crush back in her fifth year, when it had arisen after a string of Occlumency lessons and Snape being all intense and using his long fingers to rub at his lips and caress his wand. Should have killed it dead right then. Instead she had let it flourish, and though the Dumbledore thing had put a damper on it, it had roared back to life the moment she had seen the truth.

Then, while she sat besides his bed in the Hospital Wing, it had devastated her insides and seared its way into her very soul, and she had opened her mouth to blab it all to an understandably confused and uninterested Snape, and then he had vanished.

"What were you doing when he disappeared?" Draco had asked her.

She had lied.

"Telling him how glad I was he was alive."

"Maybe that's why he fled. He couldn't bear owing you a debt."

"That is unlikely," McGonagall had said. "Severus can be prickly, and he certainly can be rude, but he wouldn't leave us like this."

Harriet sighed, tapping her foot on the floor. Only five hours to go. When night fell, she braced herself against the railing and watched the last rays of the sun as it sank below the forest, setting fire to the trees and bloodying the bellies of the clouds. The sky turned pink, then blue, then a deep indigo. Velvety darkness encroached, and with it the icy cold of a late Autumn night in Scotland. She draped her robes tighter around her. Her Lumos threw ragged shadows onto the balcony.

Almost midnight now.

"Snape?" she ventured.

The wind whistled in answer.

"Snape. Are you out there?"

A bird hooted overhead. Not Snape—unless he was secretly a bird Animagus and had been watching them all worry about him from afar. Still, unlikely.

"Please be there. I really need you to be there."

"Potter."

The voice came from the other balcony on the opposite side. Harriet was there in three great steps, her heart racing, her mouth gone dry.

"Snape!"

It was him. He stood clad in his timeless, black frock coat, a monolith in the darkness, pale face and pale hands sticking out, so white they glowed. At his throat, the bandage was dark with old dried blood. His eyes were so sunken into their orbits one could have mistaken him for a corpse.

"Listen to me, and do not interrupt," he said in a raspy voice, the same one he'd had in the infirmary when he had told her she was a fool. "I do not know where I am. I am exerting a great deal of willpower to come here, although I do not know by which means I am accomplishing it. We have one minute before I am gone again, and we've already wasted half of it."

"What?" Harriet said. "What do you mean one minute?"

She couldn't bear the thought of him going away again. He was here, he needed to stay here, he couldn't—

"I have been here twice before, in this very place, and both times at night. I believe this suggests a pattern. Research the matter. Recruit Minerva, Draco, and—" He sighed as he said the next name. "Granger. Do not involve the Ministry, Potter. Is this clear?"

"Yes, but what do you mean, gone? Where are you going? Where have you been all this time?"

A look of utter weariness flitted over his face.

"I do not know," he said.

And then he was gone.

The wind whistled again, and Harriet was alone.

*

"Here?"

"Yes."

"Right here, on this balcony?"

"Yes, Draco. I've already explained it all, do you want me to repeat once again so your small brain can grasp it all?"

"Merlin, fine. That wasn't an attack on you, Potter. I was merely expressing my skepticism at the randomness of the location. This isn't even where—"

He trailed off. No, this wasn't the balcony where Snape had killed Dumbledore.

"Did he appear in pain?" McGonagall asked.

She was pacing up and down the balcony, wand out, casting diagnostic spells.

"No. He looked awful, tired and pissed off, but not in pain."

"If he has no idea what's happening, that doesn't bode well for us," Hermione said.

She had brought a book at least half as heavy as herself and was paging through it, her lips pursed. Harriet tilted her head to read the title. Of flesh-flaying curses and others dark delicacies. Oh, great.

"Did someone do this to him?" Draco said. "Or it could be an old family curse that activated because he nearly died, I've heard of such things…"

"He did not say when he would be back," McGonagall said, which was not a question.

"I don't think he knew," Harriet said.

"Let's start at the beginning," Hermione said with cold logic. "We make a list."

That took an hour. Then everyone looked at everyone as they all stood there.

"He said it was night when he popped up," Harriet pointed out. "You can go back to whatever you were doing. Nothing will probably happen before nightfall."

Everyone sort of looked at her.

"I have cleared my schedule," McGonagall said.

"I've got nothing urgent to do," Draco said. "Plus, it's a Saturday. Nothing exciting ever happens on Saturdays."

"We're not leaving, Harriet," Hermione said.

So it was.

McGonagall conjured a brazier, and they huddled around it as they traded stories about Snape. McGonagall recounted the days of a young Snape, the Potions prodigy who wanted more exams to prove his genius. Draco spoke of an attentive godfather who taught him Potions and later let him swipe bottles of Firewhiskey from his secret stash. Harriet and Hermione recalled Snape the strict teacher and his fondness for verbally eviscerating his students.

And at midnight, Snape appeared.

"Following my instructions," he said, giving Harriet a piercing look. "That is new, Potter."

"Hello sir," Hermione said. "Please answer the following questions: are you in immediate physical danger?"

"No."

"Describe where you are when you're not here."

"A blank nothingness."

"Is there anyone there with you?"

"No."

"How are you able to come here, and by which means?"

"I force myself through a block imposed on me mentally by an unknown source, and I appear here. It is not Apparition, nor any other form of magical transportation I'm familiar with."

"Can you do it again as soon as you leave?"

"I did."

"You did?"

"Do not make me repeat myself, Granger. We are on a time limit."

"Snape, you've been gone a day," Harriet said.

"I am aware. It seems time for me passes differently than it does for you."

"Do you have any idea what could be causing this?"

"We have been over this already. No, I do not."

"Final question: have you noticed anything different about your body? Random aches, pins and needles, an odd throb somewhere?"

"No," Snape said. "If this is a curse, there are no physical symptoms."

He was going to disappear. Any second now, he'd vanish, going God knew where, and they couldn't stop it. It was the most cruel joke the universe had ever played on her—on him. Snape had survived the war, and she didn't get to see him, and he didn't get to live peacefully, finally free from Voldemort.

Any second—

She leaped forward and tackled him in a hug. He tensed. A rumble built in his chest, no doubt an insult or an order to unhand him at once, and he was so thin, she could feel his bones, and warm, so warm—

And then she was holding onto nothing and he was gone.

"Sixty seconds exactly," Draco said. "Merlin, that's precise."

"This was utterly foolish, Miss Potter. You could have very well ended up stuck with him!"

"At least he wouldn't have been alone."

"We learned some useful information," Hermione said, reviewing the list. "Let's put our heads together and see what we come up with."

The answer was: not much.

They all went to bed first, and woke up on Sunday to go to the library. There, they scoured all the books they could find on dark magic and strange curses, but none matched whatever was happening to Snape. The 'blank nothingness' description gave them little to work with. The time dilatation effect was a little more useful, but that pushed them into books about time-travel, which sent them off course because it wasn't just time-travel: Snape was evidently moving through space as well.

Draco complained about useless research halfway through the day, and then left on the pretext of consulting his father. Whether he was actually going to was anyone's guess. Hermione had barricaded herself into a veritable fortress of books and couldn't be interrupted on penalty of death, so Harriet was left to wander around the library, poking at random books. McGonagall was in her office doing Headmistress things. There was still a castle to run.

There were still students to teach, and Harriet should have been preparing her classes tomorrow. A stack of essays sat on her desk from Thursday, awaiting grading. Instead she was here and consumed by thoughts of Snape.

"Snape," she said out loud.

Maybe the trigger was his name. Maybe all she had to do was say it, and he would appear, no matter the place or the hour or—

No.

That wasn't it.

Draco came back with a picnic basket containing delicious-looking sandwiches and two bottles of French wine.

"In case he's hungry," he said.

"It's been three minutes from his point of view," Hermione said. "He can afford to go without food a little longer."

"If I were stuck like him, I'd want food," Harriet said. "Good thinking, Draco."

"Thanks, Potter. You know, sometimes you're alright."

At midnight, they all gathered on top of the Astronomy Tower.

"You imbecilic girl! You utter, brainless Flobberworm of a witch! What were you thinking? No, don't answer that. There was not a single thought between those ears, that much is plain. You shall never attempt such a thing again, Potter!"

"That's ten seconds you just wasted insulting me," Harriet said. "Should I feel flattered?"

Snape speared a dark glare through her (another two seconds wasted), then addressed McGonagall.

"Any progress?"

"We are working on it. Severus, the Ministry might—"

"No."

"It really would be better if—"

"I said no and if you keep insisting I shall spare myself the trouble of coming here again."

"And stay back there forever?" Harriet said. "That'd be stupid."

The dark glare pivoted back to her. It was so intense it sent a shiver down her spine.

"At least I shall be spared the sight of you, Potter."

Well, okay, that was uncalled for. But so very Snape.

"So terribly sorry, sir. I'll make sure to stay out of your way as soon as there's an actual way to step into."

"Here," Hermione said, handing him the Portkey, an old electric kettle. "It's codeword-activated."

She held up a sign with said codeword.

"Understood," Snape said.

"And this," Draco said, offering him the picnic basket.

"A thoughtful attention, Draco. Thank you."

"See you soon," Harriet said, smiling.

He vanished.

They waited, but he didn't reappear.

"I guess the Portkey idea is a fail," Draco said.

"We'll find something else," Harriet said.

*

Trying to Apparate to him wielded no result. You needed to know where you were going exactly, and a 'blank nothingness' was far from a definite location.

House elves couldn't locate him. When asked, Kreacher frowned and said he could not feel Snape. Other elves confirmed the same thing. It was as if he didn't exist for their magic, which was all sorts of distressing to Harriet who tried very hard not to think about it.

That left a third option—instead of reaching for Snape, they would attempt to keep him here.

"Ehwaz here."

Harriet traced the rune with one fingertip. It gleamed blood-red in the light of the torches. It was very fresh, and it was hers. She had insisted on that last part. Hermione had argued that any blood would do, and technically she was right, but Harriet needed it to be hers.

She needed to bleed for Snape the same way he had bled for them.

"And a double Dagaz to seal the circle," Hermione said.

Harriet completed the runes. She wiped her hands with a handkerchief, then dipped a finger into the jar of dittany paste they'd gotten from Snape's cupboard and slathered some over the cuts across her forearm. The wounds quickly healed.

"One binding runic circle, complete," Hermione said, and yawned. "That should do it. If he can be bound, that'll do the trick. If he can't, well…"

"We'll keep trying."

She yawned again and rubbed her eyes.

"You don't have to stay," Harriet said.

Hermione hesitated.

"You're exhausted, 'Mione. You pulled an all-nighter customizing the runes. Go to bed."

"You're okay with being alone here?"

"I won't be alone. Snape will be here in less than an hour, and then either he'll stay or I'll go to sleep too."

"Okay. Good luck! Hoping I'll wake up to a very pissed off Professor Snape."

"You think he'll be pissed off?"

"If you save him again? Oh yes."

Harriet snorted.

"It's not me. We're a team."

"You know what I mean," Hermione said with a little smile. "He'll focus on you. He always does."

Harriet thought about that once Hermione had departed. It was true, wasn't it? Snape had singled her out from the moment she had stepped foot at Hogwarts—because of his history with her parents, which no one had bothered telling her about. Then he had kept focusing on her. At some point the reason for that had shifted, though she only saw it in retrospect. She had ceased to be Lily's and Jame's daughter in his eyes, and had become Harriet Potter, someone who infuriated him all on her own merit.

And now he knew about her crush.

About her… crush wasn't the right word. Affection? Devotion? Love?

Ugh, love.

This was hopeless. Why had she chosen to love Severus Snape? It would have been easier with anyone else. Draco. His father. The bloody Giant Squid.

But that was the thing, wasn't it? She hadn't chosen it. It had sort of struck her in the face, and now she had to deal with the consequences.

"Potter," he greeted her as he appeared at the usual hour. "What is this?"

"Runic circle, tostabilize you. We'll see if you still go away after a minute."

He studied the runes.

"Adequate work. Granger's, I presume."

"She came up with the runes, and I drew them."

His gaze swept over their surroundings.

"Where is the rest of the group?"

"All busy. Hermione went to bed early, spent last night in the library working on the runes. Draco is back at Malfoy Manor scouring the library, and McGonagall had to deal with some kind of problem in the forest with the unicorn herd."

"So I am left with you."

He said it like a curse.

"Sorry, sir. I promise I'll leave you alone once you're back."

"Oh, will you?"

A challenge now, threaded with anger. Which, okay, fair, she did drop her feelings on him like an anvil the moment he opened his eyes, but she could behave.

"I'm invested in your happiness. Apparently that involves me being far away from you, so yes, you won't see me. Unless you decide to remain a teacher, I guess, but then that's on you."

"You're teaching Defense?"

"Don't look so surprised. People still think the curse is active and no one was too keen to fill the post. I can teach a proper Shield Charm and I'm not hiding Voldemort at the back of my head, and or any dark secret either, so McGonagall asked if I'd do it and I said yes. And it's fun. Not sure I'll be staying next year, but I'm here for now."

"You should stay."

"I—wait? I should?"

"You heard me."

"Okay, but why? You're supposed to tell me I'm the worst teacher alive or something."

"I would wager you are more competent than all the fools you had during your school years."

"Quirrell, yeah, Lockhart, definitely, Crouch, well he was horrible as a person, Umbridge, okay, but I'm not better than Lupin or you."

"I was excluding myself, obviously. Don't downplay your skills, Potter. You are—"

And he vanished.

Harriet groaned.

"I'm choosing to believe you were going to say I'm brilliant. Best student you've ever had. The prettiest, too. And then you were going to kiss me, and we would have lived happily ever after. The end."

She cleaned the runic circle off the floor with a flick of her wand, stretched, yawned, and went to bed.

*

The next night, she was alone with him again.

"No progress has been made, I take it."

"Everyone's working very hard on it. Hermione has brought a mattress to the library, Draco looked like he had ingested two liters of coffee last time I saw him, and McGonagall had a single frizzy hair out of her bun."

"I am touched," Snape said.

She eyed him. Was that sarcasm?

"You matter to people, you know. A lot."

"I have not come here to listen to more of your sentimental drivel, Potter."

"But it's not. I wasn't talking about me. Clearly you know how I feel about you, and let's never revisit that again, I'm with you on that. I meant other people. Hermione, Draco, McGonagall, Lucius, the entire House of Slytherin. This morning a second-year stopped me in the corridor to ask me if the rumors about your ghost haunting the Astronomy tower were true, and if they were, could I tell you she was sad to hear of your death but happy you had decided to stick around? Elizabeth Marrow. She didn't even have you as a teacher and she's concerned about you."

Something softened in Snape's face.

"I… do not deserve it," he said slowly, like he was trying to fill out the entire minute with that single sentence.

"No one deserves it more."

"Says the witch who killed the Dark Lord."

Harriet snorted.

"I dealt the final blow, big deal. I never would have gotten in any position to do it without you, Snape. You and Dumbledore, you were—you were the thinking heads behind it all, and Dumbledore's already gotten all the gilded laurels and words of praise. Posthumously, which sucks, but in the end he had a great life. Now it's your turn."

"For the gilded laurels and the words of praise? I shall be waiting with bated breath," he said in a tone so arctic Harriet swore a blizzard had come in.

"For a great life, you git."

He considered her in silence.

"Do not bother showing up next time if there is no news."

She grinned at him.

"I guess you'll have to try and stop me."

*

"Potter. What did I say?"

"I dunno. It's been an entire day, kind of forgot. I do have a life outside of this, you know."

"Leave me at once."

"Not happening."

"…"

"Wait a second. You can't move? And where is your wand?"

"I can move, and my wand is on my person. I am simply exercising restraint. If I were to start cursing you, the others might think my time in the grip of this curse has altered my sanity, and that would introduce a false variable in the equation."

"Oh. Okay."

"You cannot possibly be disappointed that I am not attacking you."

"No, I am. I'd love to have a friendly duel one of those days."

"You would lose. Badly."

"Yeah, I know. Still would like it. I'm kind of jealous of McGonagall and the epic fight you had in the Great Hall."

"Surely you've realized by now it wasn't a fight. I was running interference, parrying her every spell while throwing them at the Carrows under the pretense of a duel. As soon as I had taken them out, I left."

"Mmmh. Like a giant bat."

"…"

"Can you fly around in the blankness?"

"There is no point."

"Why not?"

"Nothing changes, Potter. Whether I am a hundred feet in the air or on the ground, it is the same."

*

"How are you today? I mean, tonight."

"Hardly five minutes have elapsed since the infirmary, Potter."

"How are you this minute, then? Come on, I'm trying to have a conversation here."

"Yes, I've noticed. It is unpleasant."

"Okay, fine. We can just spend the minute staring at each other if you want."

"…"

"…"

"I am tired and wishes to hear there is news."

"There isn't. Sorry. I'd have started with that if there was."

"Regrettable."

*

"No."

"Just one game."

"No."

"Pleaaase?"

"I am not playing Exploding Snap with you, Potter."

"Are you afraid of losing?"

"I am afraid my keen intellect will wither should it ever be used for such a game."

"But Exploding Snap isn't about intelligence. It's a game of quick reflexes and stupid puns. You're great at the first, and I'm sure you've heard enough of the second after twenty years of teaching."

"Nevertheless, my answer remains the same."

*

"Potter. What is this?"

"Don't tell me you've never played tic-tac-toe."

"How on earth did you reach the conclusion that I would enjoy playing this game with you?"

"Okay, fine. Rock paper scissor?"

"Potter—"

"Oh, what about green light, red light?"

"Potter."

"Yes?"

"What are you doing?"

"...trying to entertain you? I don't want you to be bored."

"I suffered through the Dark Lord's Cruciatus for three years. I can endure a little boredom. In fact, it might even do me good."

"Oh. Yeah. Alright."

"Do not look so wretchedly disappointed, you horrid girl."

"I'm not."

"You are an abysmal liar."

"I'm not!"

"..."

"..."

"Give me that tic-tac-toe grid. You start. And wipe that grin off your face."

"Yes, sir."

*

And at last, Hermione found the answer.

"It's a curse. An old French one, la Malédiction de Minuit. The Midnight Curse."

"Voldemort did this," Harriet said.

"He is the most likely culprit," McGonagall said. "One last blow against Severus before he was vanquished."

They were all gathered in her office. It was a cold November day and the wind battered at the windows, carrying flurries of snow.

"How do we stop it?" Draco said.

Hermione tapped one finger against the cover of the book she'd brought.

"It doesn't say."

"What does it say?" Harriet asked.

"Not much. I've looked, but the curse is not well-documented. From what I've uncovered, it was invented by some French hermit in the fifteenth century, and then entirely forgotten. It banishes the subject to another plane of existence, a barren void with nothing at all. It's meant to be permanent. The fact that Snape even managed to break through to pop back into our reality is incredible."

"Fuck that, it's not going to be permanent."

"Of course not," Hermione agreed. "But I don't think we'll find the answer in a book."

"Gasp," Draco said. "Shock. Horror. Where did Granger go and who are you?"

"Let's ask Severus," McGonagall said. "That may be the key."

"I take it there has been a positive development," Snape said upon seeing them all.

"Yes and no," Harriet said. "We found out what's happening to you, but it didn't come with any solution."

Hermione recited everything they knew about the curse. Snape's frown deepened as she spoke.

"I have never heard of this Midnight Malediction."

"And yet you've managed to partially break through it," McGonagall said. "How are you making yourself come here?"

"I wish for it," Snape said, which they already knew. "At great cost. It feels like punching through a very old, very stubborn ward."

"Yes, but precisely? You think of Hogwarts? Of the Astronomy Tower?"

"I think of… someone," he said, the words pulled from him with a pincer.

"Who?" Hermione said.

Snape remained silent. Something was happening on his face, as if an emotion was rippling beneath the surface of his skin, desperately trying to break through while he was holding onto it with both hands and a leash. Harriet was getting concerned. Was he in pain?

"Sir, it's important," Hermione said. "That person is the trigger that allows you to push past the curse. We need to know who this is so we can start reverse-engineer it."

"I think of Potter."

There was a long, textured silence.

"I'm the trigger?" Harriet said. "As in, you want to strangle me so much you make yourself come here?"

"For Merlin's sake, Potter," Draco muttered. "Don't embarrass the man."

"Him? I'm the one who's embarrassed right now! Never mind, it doesn't matter. How do we exploit this?"

Hermione was nibbling on her lips.

"Well… it's enough for a short escape, but it never lasts, so the curse is boomeranging you back to the blankness, sir… There's a tether. We need to cut it. Or we need to strengthen what calls you here. Harriet, take his hand."

"We tried that, it didn't work. I hugged him, remember?"

"Take his hand," Hermione repeated, so Harriet did, because Hermione was her friend and she trusted her, even when she was talking nonsense.

Snape's hand was warm. He was looking at her like the very act of holding her hand was a strain on his patience.

"We'll just wait and see," Hermione said.

But her hopes were in vain, for Snape disappeared anyway.

"See?" Harriet said, waving her Snape-free hand. "Doesn't work."

"So touch isn't the trigger. We need to approach this differently…"

Hermione wandered off, muttering to herself.

"I'll look into person-to-person bond magic," McGonagall said, which sounded very ominous.

Draco was still glaring at Harriet.

"You're hopeless, you know that, Potter?"

"Shut up, Malfoy."

"Absolutely hopeless," he said, and left her alone on the balcony.

Harriet bristled. It didn't feel good sparing verbally with Draco. It was so different from the way it was with Snape, where they were both sniping jabs at each other and both enjoying it, somehow. It thrilled her. With Draco, it was a chore.

"We'll get you out," she said to the empty air.

She went to bed.

In her dreams, she was calling for Snape. He was stuck in some vast, endless whiteness, out of her reach, and she wanted him next to her, so she called. Come. Come to me. Her words reached him, and suddenly he was there, right in front of her. You took your fucking time, he growled, and then he was grabbing her and kissing her and the dream became something else entirely.

She didn't have the opportunity to enjoy it because she woke then, her eyes snapping open in the darkness. Slowly, she prodded at the idea floating in her head. Snape, kissing her… no, no. The thing before that.

Calling for Snape.

Summoning Snape!

That was it.

She jumped out of bed and to the library, where she found Hermione among several listing towers of books.

"Summon the Snape," she said.

To her credit, Hermione understood immediately.

"Yes," she said, snapping her fingers. "We can summon him—"

"—with the Dark Mark," they both finished together.

Hermione emitted an enthusiastic noise, jumped to her feet, and leapt for one of the books in her piles. She pried a thick leather-bound volume free, causing the collapse of the entire tower. Opening the book without paying attention to the literary catastrophe she had caused, she started scanning the pages.

"We'll have to bring back Voldemort," Harriet said, "which obviously sucks, and is going to be very hard, but we can do it."

It was for Snape.

For him, she'd resurrect the bastard and then kill him again.

"We don't need Voldemort. We have you."

"Me?"

"You vanquished him. The Dark Marks are yours by right of conquest."

"Why is this the first time I'm hearing about that?"

"Well, because that's something that happen between Dark Lords, normally," Hermione said while simultaneously reading her book. "When one Dark Lord defeats another, they can claim all the spoils of war, which include the dead Dark Lord's servants. Depending on how they were marked, of course, but you'd be amazed at how often Dark Lords brand their followers in their flesh... No one expected you to become a Dark Lady, so everyone kind of assumed you wouldn't claim the Marks."

"Right."

"But you can claim Snape's, and then summon him. That's a great idea, Harriet!"

"Thanks. Came to me in a dream. Okay, how do I do it?"

Hermione closed the book with a snap.

"I was just checking that. Apparently you just will it to happen."

"Will for Snape's Mark to answer to me and just… come to me? Like that?"

Hermione shrugged.

"Let's go ask Draco," Harriet decided.

Draco was decidedly unhappy at being woken up in the middle of the night. He glared at them, then ranted that this could wait, then ordered his house-elf to fetch him some tea and a buttered scone, which he consumed while maintaining his glare.

"Alright," he said. "You better have a good reason for this rude interruption of my beauty sleep."

"Did Voldemort ever summon you through the Dark Mark?"

"Yes," he said slowly. "Once. Oh, you think you can—"

"—summon Snape, yes. How did he do it? How did it feel?"

Draco grimaced.

"It was very unpleasant and mildly painful. And I've no idea how he did it. Do you think he and I were pals, discussing the intricacies of dark magic? I doubt he ever let any Death Eaters in on that kind of secret."

"Mm. Okay. Thanks."

"Wait, that's it?"

"Unless you have more to say, yeah. You can go back to sleep."

Harriet swept out of the room. Hermione followed.

"Are you going to do it now?" Draco said from his bedroom.

"Yep!"

"I'm coming, wait for me!"

They gathered in the Great Hall. It seemed fitting that Snape would be freed here. Harriet stood before the Head Table and thought about Snape. About the Dark Mark on his arm. The brand he'd carried for half his life. It was hers.

She had to believe it was, had to think like a Dark Lady.

She had defeated Voldemort in single combat, and in doing so she had gained Snape.

"Don't be noble," Hermione had told her. "This kind of magic works on intentions, and it's ruthless. You must think it's true, even if it's awful."

It was awful.

You couldn't own people, least of all Snape, who was a wild storm caged in a wiry body. He was made to be free. It was entirely absurd that he had spent his life under the yoke of two masters, and Harriet was glad it was over. She would not be a third.

He would be hers for only a second.

One second, that was all she was asking for. Just enough to grab him from the clutches of the curse and cut him loose.

You're mine, Snape.

And there he was.

Staggering and clutching his left arm, half-hunched over, he exhaled a short gasp. Painful, Draco had said. Had she made it worse? Had that been agonizing because she had no experience doing this? Fuck, they should have practiced first—used Draco so she could get a handle on that power—fuck—

"Is that your solution?" Snape snarled.

His black eyes smoldered, scalding Harriet's face. She had no answer. All that lay on her tongue were apologies, and he wouldn't accept those.

"It works," Hermione said with the ruthlessness of someone who just had her pet theory proven right. "Let's wait a minute to see if it holds."

"How are you feeling, Severus?" Draco asked.

"Like a dog whose leash has been yanked."

Harriet winced.

"Don't be dramatic," Hermione said. "This is a clean, simple solution, and we didn't even have to get into any dark rituals to achieve it. Harriet's claim over you supersedes the curse's, which means by asserting it she should have disrupted the initial pathway, which means it's effectively been dispelled."

"Are you sure?" Draco said.

"We'll know in thirty seconds."

Snape spent them all glaring at Harriet, who spent them locked in misery.

He didn't disappear.

He remained right there, solid and radiating dark anger.

"It's done," Hermione said.

Snape swept past Harriet and out of the Great Hall.

"He'll thank you," Draco said. "At some point."

Harriet really doubted he would.

*

Snape remained at the castle over the next days. He spent most of his time in his quarters, but he did come out for lunches, during which he sat at the table and chatted with McGonagall, with Hagrid, with Sprout and Trelawney and even Filch.

But not with Harriet.

He barely acknowledged her. His gaze skirted around her as if she were some sort of Boggart whose sight was untenable, and when he did talk to her (on one occasion, prodded to by McGonagall, on another, because she was in his way), he did so in such cool tones they could have solved global warming if he kept talking to her.

Harriet wrestled with her guilt and vented her feelings to Hermione.

"It's not like I wanted to claim him as mine. It was the only way to save his stupid arse! And, and I didn't even get to tell him I didn't want to do it, because he's just avoiding me all the time. I saved him, doesn't it count for something? Without me he'd still be stuck back there!"

"Go talk to him."

"And yes, I know, summoning him like that reopened fresh wounds, and now he must think I'll do it again or that I'm on my way to become the next Dark Lady, and he's treating me as such, but still, it's not fair."

"Go talk to him, Harriet."

"I can't," whined Harriet, who very much could.

She taught her classes and complained to Hermione and went to bed early. Such was her life.

*

"Potter," said the silver peacock as the animal pranced around her. "I require your help at the manor. Please come as soon as you're able."

Harriet sighed through her nose. She didn't feel like dealing with Draco right now. On the other hand, today was Sunday and so far she'd done nothing but mope. It was four in the afternoon. She teetered between laziness and curiosity, and eventually the latter won. Plus, Draco had said please.

A house-elf greeted her at the gates and escorted her through the gardens. Inside, the house was cool and silent, portraits of a dozen Malfoy ancestors judging her from their frames. The house-elf led her to a small sitting room and left her there.

"You came," Draco said, rising from his chair when she entered. "Excellent."

She froze.

Seated on a plush purple sofa was Snape.

He looked as surprised as she was.

"What have you done, Draco?" he said in such frosty tones the ambient temperature dropped by five degrees.

"Something you'll both thank me for very shortly."

And Draco, that traitor, swept out of the room, closing the door behind him.

"I didn't know," Harriet said. "That you would be there."

"That much is evident from your face, Potter."

"Right."

She wondered what else he could see on her face.

Snape said nothing. He didn't move either. Harriet cleared her throat and approached the table, where a tray with a glass pitcher of something amber-colored sat. That looked like alcohol. If she was going to be stuck in a room with Snape, she might as well get drunk. She served herself a trickle of it and took a sip.

God, this was sweet. And yet somehow too strong. Tears sprung in her eyes. She swallowed back a groan.

"Apricot liqueur," Snape said.

She risked a glance at him. He didn't look like he was close to imploding or calling her names, so she ventured a question.

"You drink this?"

"Not me, no. Draco enjoys it, as does his father. I don't drink alcohol."

"Me neither," she said, setting the glass back on the table.

There was a silence. It wasn't awkward, or even particularly tense, so she decided to just do it.

"I'm sorry for doing it like that. We could have found another way, but I wanted to save you now, and I didn't really think about how it would feel like for you. You're not a dog."

She should have rehearsed this. What was she even saying? You're not a dog? Great going, Harriet.

"Indeed," he said.

It lacked a certain scalpel-to-the-face quality. She chanced a longer glance at his face and found it more pensive than murdery.

"I may have reacted excessively," he said next.

Now she was staring.

"Given my past, and the violence of the summoning, I assumed the worst. When it was revealed it was you, I then assumed you knew exactly what you'd done. But you don't, do you?"

"I claimed you. I didn't want to, but it was the only way. It's done now, and I'm sorry."

"No."

She frowned.

"It is not done."

"What do you mean?"

"Your claim remains," he said, jaw grinding. "It sits there on my skin, ever prickling. It feels… like a whisper of silk. The very end of a feather teasing my nerves. Your stare on my nape."

"I—I had no idea."

"So I have deduced."

"I'll fix it," she said, and half-climbed on the sofa next to him. "I'll fix it!"

She gestured at him. He gave her a sideways look.

"Potter—"

"I'll withdraw the claim. It's fine if I do it, right? The Midnight Curse is gone, so you won't bounce back to the blankness? You'll stay there?"

"I will."

"So let's do it right now. I need to touch it. Sorry, it's—"

She huffed in frustration, her thoughts running ahead of her mouth.

"It feels like I need to touch it. I can't explain why. I could claim you remotely, but I need skin contact to undo it."

"Yes," he said flatly. "You do."

He reached for the buttons of his left sleeve and undid them methodically to bare his Dark Mark. It blazed dark on his pale skin, skull and snake entwined, the ink nearly glistening.

"Why does it look so fresh?" she said, and then realized she knew the answer.

She had claimed him.

She had renewed the spell, and as of the moment she had pulled him free from the Midnight Curse, she was effectively his Dark Lady.

It was vile. A brand of ownership stamped upon his flesh, and she had burned it anew, and there must have been pain and horror and indignation all over again as it happened, and then he'd been yanked out of that vast white space and face-to-face with his new Master, and it was her, and—

"I'll fix it," she vowed. "Can I—can I touch it?"

"You may."

She pressed her hand to his forearm. The Mark was warm under her palm. It felt alive—a squirming, writhing thing that had no fucking right befouling Snape's arm. She would annihilate it. She would burn it clean, eradicate every trace of dark ink, turn her claim to ash, to nothing, and he would be free, as he should always have been, as he deserved to be.

Light spilled between her fingers, blinding white. It glowed sun-bright, blazing, but she forced herself to look at it, squinting as tears sprung to her eyes.

She had to fix her mistake.

Undo it all, free him, make it so no one would ever use that Mark against him ever again—

Something snapped. Beneath her hand, and then somewhere else, in her mind or her soul or a third place she had no name for, and then the light died and she knew it was done.

She lifted her hand.

Snape's forearm lay bare and pink and healthy. No trace of the Dark Mark remained. His tendons flexed as he closed his hand, then opened it again. There didn't seem to be any lingering pain. Good.

"It's done," she said, which was redundant—they both could see it.

She wanted to touch his arm again. Run her fingers over his skin, felt its warmth, lick at those tendons—

She got up abruptly.

"Okay. Um, have a good life, Snape."

Yes, good. A very normal goodbye. He wouldn't want to see her again, so that was appropriate.

She turned and headed for the door.

"I'm afraid that won't be possible," he said. "Not without you."

Her heart gave a brutal kick in her chest. She turned, and he was right there, a looming tower of brimming intensity. His mouth collided with hers. She had no idea what was happening or how on earth her actions could have led to that, but she wasn't complaining. Snape was kissing her—she was kissing Snape—so the world could fuck off and dissolve into a shower of pink soap bubbles if it wanted and it would all be perfectly fine.

She moaned as he slipped her his tongue. A groan thrummed against her lips, coming from him. The way he was kissing her was at once lazy and urgent, which didn't seem possible. Another absurdity brought on by Snape. He might have very well broken reality when he decided to kiss her, that was how improbable it was.

Her back hit the wall.

His hands roamed over her, eager, greedy. Desire wound tight in her belly, setting her nerves aflame. She grabbed at his shoulders, at his hair, at wherever she could reach him. He was tall and wiry and strong, and muscles tensed beneath her fingers as she explored him by touch. Their hips rubbed together. More heat flared between them. She bucked up into him, arching needily, gasping when she felt the bulge of his erection.

He hissed against her lips, a sharp, short sound, and she thought for a second she had hurt him before he grabbed her by the hips and picked her up. Not hurt, then. Rabid desire given voice.

He deposited her on the table, and she spread her legs so he could step between them. Leaning down, he took her mouth again. His hands had slipped under her robes and were caressing her shoulders, hotter than the sun.

"Maybe we should wait to—ah—be back at the castle?" she said.

She didn't want him to stop, but she was wondering where having sex in someone else's house without their knowledge ranked on the scale of impoliteness.

Snape chuckled and nipped her jaw.

"Draco knew exactly what he was doing when he maneuvered to get us both here."

"So he expected this?"

This being Harriet Potter half-naked on his antique mahogany table while Severus Snape devoured her with his gaze and worked to bare more of her.

"He knew," he purred.

His large hands cupped her breasts, and Harriet temporarily surrendered all thoughts. Clever fingers rolled and pinched her nipples, summoning more heat, wrenching moans from her lips. Her cunt gave a needy pulse. She reached down to palm his groin and groaned at what she felt.

"So he's fine with us doing it here… on a table that must be older than Lucius' grandfather?"

Her fingers spread over the hard line showing through his trousers, mapping it out.

"That table has never had something so exquisite as you draped across its frame."

Her thighs were bare now, his hands stroking her there. He glided them upward, and paused, watching her through heavy-lidded eyes.

"Yes?" he said.

"Yes, yes, yes..."

"I am going to need you to say it out loud, Potter, so what you want is very clear."

"Fuck me, Snape."

She wasn't sure what he did with her knickers, whether he snapped them off her or Vanished them altogether, but in the next second they were not there, and he was. A slow press of cock inside her, her cunt gripping at every hard inch as he pushed in. She grabbed the edge of the table. Had half a thought to watch it—watch Snape's cock enter her—then decided the sensations were already a lot and she had to deal with that first.She trembled through it, her body throwing out all kind of signals to her brain—pleasureadrenalinehotfull—moaning in low tones.

"Potter," Snape said, but by her estimation he was only halfway in and she needed him all, so she emitted a growl, which he somehow understood to mean don't stop.

Strange. They had always struggled to communicate, but right now with his cock inside her they managed just fine.

He was so thick.

She'd felt it beneath her fingers, but having it all inside her made for a different experience in the same way merely repeating an incantation differed from actually casting the spell. His cock was there, thrusting in and in, opening her up for him, a rigid column of heat that brought incredible pressure and friction.

"You reckless girl," he said, now fully sheathed. "On a table?"

Ah, oops, he had figured out it was her first time.

"Doesn't matter," she said.

"You should have—"

She clenched around him. He fell silent mid-sentence, which was quite something for him. His eyes were dark and deep and unfathomable, and when she gave him another squeeze of her inner muscles, they lit up with a feral glint.

He abandoned his attempt at reasoning her then. His hands bracketed her hips, pinning her in place, and he moved. Withdrawing, surging back in, a steady back and forth that had her toes curling and sparks erupting in her vision. He speared into her to exquisite fullness, the throb of him a filthy beat between her thighs, driving her to madness.

To her slight dismay, she was making a lot of noises. She had learned to keep her voice down whenever she touched herself, as even under a Silencing Charm, she never felt quite safe in the dorm, but right now all that training had vanished. Gone like her knickers, and she was moaning and gasping and mewling, panting for breath between Snape's well-timed thrusts.

"Uh, uh, uh, gnnnh…"

She couldn't even manage a good, or a yes, or a fuck it's great never stop. Only incoherent noises.

With another whine, she grabbed his shoulders, clutching at the coarse wool. Her nails would have left indents in his skin if he'd been naked. Regrettably, he wasn't, but in retrospect perhaps that was for the best. She might not have survived a naked Snape. She needed to prepare herself for it first.

And right now, he was—well, he was fucking her, which was blowing most of her brain away, but with the little cluster of neurons still available to do some thinking, she could observe he was naked in another way. The emotional way.

The usual blank wall he called his face had fallen off, and she was seeing actual emotions on his features.

Lust, raging and wild. Concern, somewhere there in the set of his mouth. Even something that looked like affection around his eyes.

She marveled at it all.

Was that what it took for his walls to come down? A taste of her cunt?

"We should have done this—earlier," she said, very proud of herself for stringing the words together.

"No," he growled.

His fingers flexed at her waist, and his next thrust came with more force.

"On your desk, in your office—"

"Potter," he said, and it was a warning, but in a good way.

"Professor."

He made that hissing sound again—his composure, fraying.

"If you keep going, this will end rather abruptly," he said through gritted teeth.

She held her tongue. Bit it, actually, so no more words would be forthcoming. She didn't trust her brain not to throw more at her so she had to cut the line somewhere.

"Good girl," Snape said, which was so unfair.

Then he seemed to take her sudden muteness as a challenge because he switched from smooth thrusts to some kind of percussive strokes that set fire to her cunt and electrified her spine, leading her to produce even more wanton noises. He watched her as the most embarrassing sound in the history of sounds made by Harriet Potter tumbled out of her mouth with each surge of his cock inside her, and he smiled, the bastard.

She attempted a glare, though with little efficiency. She'd never been good at glares in general, and she was apparently especially rubbish at them when a tall, dark and handsome man who she was in love with was pumping between her thighs.

"You'll call me Professor next time," he said, voice wrapping around her like a velvet vice. "In my office, Potter."

She produced an enthused whimper.

"I will bend you over my desk and you'll be a good little student for me, won't you? Or perhaps you can ride me in my chair… wearing your skirt and nothing else."

He groaned on his next thrust, shuddering against her.

"This is an appalling place for your first time... unworthy of you… You deserved far better… a bed, silk sheets… a five-course dinner before that…"

No no no—what she needed was his cock in her and his wiry body right against hers, just like that.

"S'fine," she panted. "Love it—"

"Oh, do you? Then I should hear it, don't I?"

She opened her mouth and let him hear everything. Trembling little keens, gasped-out moans, quivering cries, the whole range of her vocal expressions as he fucked her harder, as if rewarding her for obeying. Her whines transitioned to sobs. She clawed at his shoulders, frantic, silently begging him to not stop, to never stop, to fuck her until the world ended and the very last stars burned out and the universe stopped being, she didn't care, she would ride it all out to the end with him—she would—she would—

She crested on a wave of unimaginable heights, cunt spasming, heat rushing to every part of her along with violent throbs of ecstasy. Thoughts fled her head. She didn't need them anymore. There was Snape, and there was this, and it was enough.

He grunted. His mouth pressed to her throat, his breaths rattling in his chest, he squeezed her tighter to him. The lewd slap of their bodies meeting rose to a crescendo. He tensed, and spilled in hot pulses, painting her insides slick with come. She huffed his name. His tongue swiped lazily at her throat.

They slumped into each other.

Once she had recovered, she attempted a cuddle, though she didn't expect much success. Snape didn't strike her as the cuddling type, and they were both vertical anyway, so it would be more of a hug. Somehow, he allowed it.

His heart beat strongly in his chest, echoing hers. The wool of his frock coat was coarse but warm, and it all felt too nice to move.

"I would be yours if you would have me," he said.

She hummed and hugged him tighter.

"No brand," she said.

"No brand," he agreed.

He took her hand and twined their fingers together.

"Perhaps a ring."