When Severus finally slumped through the front door back into his home hours later, he was not surprised to see that the trio had fallen asleep together in the living room. Harry was protectively placed on the couch in-between the other two. He was curled up tightly in a ball and all three grasped their wands tightly in their hands.

Lizzie pulled an afghan from the back of an unused couch and covered the sleeping teens. She tugged their wands from their grips carefully and laid them on the unused ottoman. With a tight, sad smile, she turned to face Severus.

"Lizzie," he started, but she cut him off.

"Leave them." She walked back over to Severus, "Let them sleep, Sev, they're probably frightened and confused, waking them up will only intensify this."

"Liz, they need to know what is going on."

"And, it can wait until morning. Come on, Baby, we should get some sleep ourselves." Reluctantly, Severus allowed Lizzie to take his arm and lead him upstairs to his bedroom. Hours later, he lay awake next to the only other women he ever loved contemplating how what was supposed to be a regular summer instead took his life and put it through a juice squeezer. He felt like carton of muggle orange juice, squeezed and full of pulp. To add to the new perspective on the Golden Trio was the impending proverbial storm on the horizon. Voldemort knew he was a spy and he knew he harbored Harry Potter. However, for all intensive purposes, they were safe. The Dark Lord would have a right hard time getting through the wards Severus erected around the sleepy beach town.

He rolled over and faced the window. Through the venetian blinds, the first baby streams of light were slipping through. Sleep would have to wait for another night.

"YOUR MOTHER!"

"If you would kindly refrain from insulting my mother, Lizzie, that would be just swell."

"Oh, shut your pie-hole, Sev, and hand me the burn cream!"

Hermione was jostled awake by the sounds of cooking and raised voices from the kitchen. She groaned and tried to sit up, only to find that Harry had been using her thigh as a pillow. Behind him, Ron was curled up and his limbs were intertwined with Harry's. His head was at an odd angle, having been half on his friend's waist and half off. Hermione had a crook in her own neck and it seemed that the only one who was comfortable of the three was Harry. How could he not be? She was his pillow and Ron was his blanket.

She stretched as much as she could and absently took note of the actual blanket draped across their bodies.

"FUCKING A!"

There was snort from Severus, "So very eloquent, my love."

"It hurts like a bitch and my boyfriend won't get the damn burn cream!"

"I am not a boy, thank you very much."

Another snort, this time from Lizzie. "You keep telling yourself that and maybe one day it'll come true."

Gently moving Harry's head off her, Hermione stood and stretched again, sighing when she heard her joints crack. She padded lightly into the kitchen. Lizzie was running her hand under cold water and watching Severus as he stood on a chair and searched through a cabinet above the refrigerator.

"Don't you have a potion? You have to have a potion! You're a damn potions master!"

"My stock is out, I need to refill it, you wretched woman! I KNOW I have some of the muggle stuff in here somewhere."

Lizzie cursed, "I don't want the muggle stuff; I want burn cream!"

"This IS burn cream!" There was a shuffling of objects and a triumphant ‘AHA!' before Severus hoped down from the chair. "Found it!" he turned and caught sight of his student. "Good morning, Ms. Granger."

Lizzie snapped around and flashed a smile, "Hey, girl, hey!"

"What happened?" Hermione asked, still sleepy.

"Genius, over there, somehow managed to burn herself on the toaster. Mind you, it's charmed to only heat food." Severus opened the jar of burn cream and took Lizzie's hand from under the water.

"I'm tasty, like food, it got confused," came the muttered response.

Severus chortled and, casting a quick drying charm, scooped some of the cream out and gently slathered it on the reddened area. There was a slight pause before Lizzie yelped.

"YOUR MOTHER! THAT HURTS!"

"My mother doesn't appreciate your animosity toward her."

"Stuff it, Sev! It's a damn saying, you know that! OW! Gimme that!" She snatched her hand away and covered it with a napkin. "Fucking HELL that hurts! Damn muggle shit don't work at all!"

Hermione smirked when her professor rolled his eyes, "Liz, love, it works; it just takes a little longer than potions..."

"Useless, if you ask me. Kind of like that toaster. Where's my wand?"

"Up my ass and to the left, care to search for it?" Severus gestured toward a chair for his (hysterically laughing) student to sit in and turned back to the stove to continue cooking Lizzie's abandoned attempt at breakfast.

"Don't tempt me." She smirked and with her good hand pinched Severus' butt.

He squeaked and, Hermione would swear, actually blushed. She pretended not to notice.

It wasn't long before the smell of bacon and French toast roused the two sleeping teenage boys. Ron, especially, could smell food a mile away. They dragged their feet into the kitchen and took seats at the table, sleepily yawning and rubbing their eyes.

"Good morning, Sunshine," Severus teased when Harry gave a particularly long yawn. He placed glasses of orange juice in front of the friends and two more where he and Lizzie would be sitting. "I'm happy that the three of you did not do anything overly Gryffindor last night."

Ron looked up, still rubbing sleep form his eyes. "Why would we...oh."

As the previous night came back to the tired teens, Hermione asked, "What happened?"

"Lucius made it perfectly clear that he knows where we are. Suffice it to say, he's a bit pissy right now." The potions master said.

"Wonderful," Harry muttered.

Sitting across from him, Lizzie said, "You're all safe, of course. Dumbledore came and checked the wards himself last night. They're as strong as can be. That dumbass can have all the fun he wants, but he ain't getting into this town."

"We're positive that he can't?"

Severus nodded, "We're positive, Harry. We can stand just within the borders and mock Lucius until we're blue in the face and still he won't be able to do a thing."

"Professor?"

"What's my name?"

Harry's face turned slightly red, "Sorry, uhm, Severus?" The older wizard nodded for him to continue. "Have you ever heard of Murphy's Law? Whatever can go wrong will go wrong? It might be a muggle thing, but..." he trailed off.

"I'm familiar with it, yes?"

"Well, I'm pretty sure that Murphy had me in mind when he wrote that."

"Oh, did he?"

Harry nodded, "Which means that Malfoy will find a way, I'm sure of it..."

Hermione chuckled, "Harry, Professor McGonagall says you run on ‘sheer dumb luck.' I'm sure not everything goes wrong!"

"I survive because of sheer dumb luck; I get into those situations because everything goes wrong."

"Interesting thesis, but, I'm hungry. Let's forget about Murphy, Lucius, and all the precarious situations Mr. Potter here gets himself into." With a quick wave of his wand, the food that Lizzie cooked floated over the table. The witch herself sat next to Severus, sucking the part of her hand that she managed to burn as she did so.

"Where is the burn cream?" Severus scolded.

"Wasn't working, so I washed it off," she replied.

He scoffed, "Honestly, woman! So you'd rather suck on your fingers like a damn toddler?"

"Not like a toddler, like--"

Severus cut her off by clamping his hand over her mouth. "Let's keep it PG, yes?"

It was fruitless though, as Ron and Harry clearly figured out what she was going to say and were giggling like first years. Hermione, at least, had the decency to look shocked.

Lunch came and went and with the morning came afternoon. As the sun beat down and heated the glass of the windows, Harry found himself with nothing to do. Hermione was holed away in Severus's library, Ron was dozing on the couch, and Lizzie had flooed up to Georgie's to see how everyone was doing. Severus, however, was nowhere to be found.

After taking a shower and pulling on denim shorts and one of his new shirts (‘Rock is a Religion' written in bold black on a green tee), Harry, barefooted and still damp, stepped onto the front porch of the house. The heat assaulted him as soon as he walked outside. Severus kept his home magically cooled to about 70 degrees but outside could not be helped. The thermometer nailed to the porch told Harry that it was 98 degrees, which, of course, meant nothing to him. The smaller writing next to the Fahrenheit numbers read 36 degrees Celsius. This he understood; it was bloody hot out! To make matters worse, there was not a breeze to be felt. In the distance, Harry heard the sounds of laughing children and the calls of the seagulls. The air smelt faintly of the ocean and the roar of the waves nestled around him.

He stepped down the porch, purposely knocking the large steel wind chimes as he did so. Their sound resonated through the air. Several birds flew by overheard and Harry's ears picked up the ripping sound of a hose being quickly unraveled. He followed the noise to the side of the house.

Severus was pulling the long green garden hose from its base on the house over to his Camaro. He had two big buckets out with a multitude of bottles of cleansers, soaps, and waxes along with sponges and rags. As Harry neared, Severus heard him and looked up.

"Nice shirt."

Harry laughed, "Yeah, some guy picked it out for me. He's some loon who acts all badass when he's teaching when in real life is just a softy in love with his car."

"One of the most meaningful relationships," Severus answered, while filling a bucket with water and soap, "a man can have," he handed Harry a sponge, "is the relationship he has with his car."

Harry, used to washing his uncle's car, dipped the sponge in the bucket and brought it over the black surface of the driver's side door. "Just like the most meaningful relationship a Hermione can have is the one she has with a book?"

Severus laughed, "She came begging to me, about two hours ago, to let her into my library."

"I believe that will be the last we will have seen of her in a while." The two worked in silence for a few minutes, washing and rinsing the Chevrolet. The cool water ran over Harry's feet and splashed at his ankles and shins. He took notice to see that Severus was also in shorts and barefooted. The bottoms of his dark wash jeans were wet with water. He wore a white tee-shirt and a green bandana on his head to keep the sweat from falling into his eyes. It was so unlike the image of the dour potions professor at Hogwarts that Harry sometimes had a hard time connecting the two.

Severus and Snape were two completely different entities and with this thought, Harry realized that Severus Snape was one hell of an actor. Not only did he fool the Dark Lord into thinking he was loyal, but he also had all of Hogwarts and most of the Wizarding world fooled into thinking he was some eternally pissed off misanthrope. When, in reality, he was so much cooler. He was laid back and humorous; sarcastic and caring; rebellious and mysterious.

In the background, a muggle classic rock station played Boston's More Than a Feeling; Harry found himself washing the car to the beat of the song. He was so into what he was doing that he did not notice Severus fill the other bucket with the freezing hose water nor did he see him creep up behind his student. It wasn't until the bucket was dumped over his head that Harry realized that Severus' sponge lay abandoned on top of the car.

He gasped and wheeled around to see the smug look on Severus' face. With reflexes born from dodging Dudley and honed by Quidditch, Harry snatched the running hose and turned it on his professor, soaking him to the skin.

Severus gave an unmanly yelp and ducked behind the car. "This is war, Potter!"

"You declared it, professor. Prepare to be annihilated!" There was shriek of laugher when Severus grabbed his wand and yelled his spell. Harry tried to duck as the stream of water shot out at him and turned so it hit his back. He took the moment of frontal reprieve to squash his thumb into nozzle of the hose and turned his handmade jet stream of water on the older man, hitting him square in the face.

Severus coughed and laughed, "All right, all right! You win! You Win! UNCLE!"

Harry snorted, "Well, that's one way to cool off. Though, I didn't need another shower in the span of an hour." He pulled off his soaking shirt and laid it on the fence to dry.

Severus had removed his own and placed it next to Harry's. He re-tied his bandana and laughed. "I needed that; it's bloody hot out here!"

"Yeah, and I know how you old people suffer from heat stroke."

The man's jaw dropped, "Excuse you, Potter, I am NOT old." He paused, "Yet."

"Exactly."

"I don't remember the last time I let a student talk to me like that!" He said, his voice unbelieving.

"That would be the Alzheimer's." The look on Severus' face when Harry said that was priceless. He laughed loudly. "Memory loss is such a sad thing, but there really isn't much to be done for the aging mind."

"Harry!"

The teen picked up his sponge and started washing the car again, "Denial, of course, is another symptom." A yellow sponge filled with soap hit his shoulder, giggling, he sent it sailing back to the assailant. They dropped into a comfortable silence and finished the car within the hour. It was nearing 2:30 when Severus, with the help of Harry, capped the wax and put everything away in the garage. Slipping the can of Turtle Wax on a shelf, Harry spied something covered by a white tarp in the corner. "What's that?" He asked.

"The other most important relationship a man can have."

"What?"

"We'll save that for another day," Severus steered Harry out of the garage and onto the porch. Harry sat on the swing and waited while his professor disappeared into the house for a few moments before returning with a tray floating behind him. With a new, dry white t-shirt on, he sat in one of the wicker chairs and set the tray on the table. On it was a pitcher of sweetened lemon iced tea, a plate of honeydew wedges and two glasses filled with ice. He moved the table so it sat in-between his chair and the wooden swing.

"Thanks," said Harry as he took a slice of the melon. Severus only nodded and poured them each of glass of iced tea. Sitting back with a wedge for himself, he bit into it, chewed thoughtfully for a moment before swallowing and finally speaking.

"How are you handling everything?"

"Everything?"

"The demise of your trip, being kidnapped and escaping, Malfoy, and all that rot."

Harry sat back and wiped at some of the juice from the melon that was running down his chin. "I feel fine?"

"Is that a question or an answer?"

"I don't know," Harry said, "should I not be okay?"

"You can feel as you wish to feel. Are you really okay with everything?"

Harry thought. He allowed the soothing tones of Stairway to Heaven weaving up from the muggle radio to lull him. He took another bite of the honeydew. "I'm perfectly fine. Is that weird?"

"On the contrary, Mr. Potter," Severus spoke, sipping his iced tea, "it reflects wonderfully on your person. You have resilience and stamina, very important traits to attain."

Harry nodded and looked thoughtful for a moment. "I guess with growing up with the Dursley's I had to be resilient."

"The human mind has an uncanny ability to adapt to just about any situation."

"We're complicated creatures, aren't we?"

Severus tilted his head, "That we are."

Harry was quiet for a moment. When he next spoke, his voice was softer than usual, "Sir, don't you think, I mean, is it possible that the mind is a little too adapting sometimes? It's just that, well, some things we really shouldn't be able to cope with so easily, don't you think?"

The professor thought this out for a long while, biting into Harry's words like he bit into the melon, rolling them around his mouth and squishing them with his tongue, pulling every bit of juice from them that he could. He swallowed. "Nature, Harry, has given all creatures forms of coping mechanisms. Humans, of course, are much, much, more complex. If we weren't able to mold to our situations, if we were unable to withstand horrible, atrocious happenings, we would cease to exist."

"But some things, Severus, they're too much. People shouldn't be able to handle them."

"Like what?"

Biting his lip, Harry answered, "Like watching a classmate die; like seeing evil reborn; like watching a loved one be murdered, and other things, like, let's say a muggle witnesses a car accident, it's a bad one right? And in it, the person driving one of the cars, well they die horribly, they get decapitated or sometime just as bad. They saw that, they saw someone die, their last moments. Sir, how do you move on from that? Children who are abused, spouses who watch the love of their lives succumb to cancer, children ripped from their parents, families torn apart, being in some freak train accident and living while others die. It's too much, Severus, for anyone, isn't it?"

The older man sighed, "We have all seen or will see something absolutely horrible in our lives. Some, like you or I, will witness events that outweigh other catastrophes. Yet, if we were unable to move on, we would fade and disappear. The strong survive, the weak don't. Weak people, and I'm not talking physical strength, Harry, take the easy way out. Suicide or seclusion, they give up and let go. But those with will and strength, those who try, now, they live. They find it within themselves to move on, to become good people, to not let it change them for the bad. Do you understand, Harry?"

His student nodded, "Yes, sir."

"Harry, people have the ability to adapt so that they survive. A child, for instance, who was abused and neglected growing up can do one of three things: They can take the easy way out and kill themselves, or they can become bitter and vengeful, or, like you, they can grow into a loyal and kind human being. It's not a straight path though, not at all. Sometimes we veer from the road, hit a rocky curve, have to slow down, retrace or steps, re-evaluate our lives and only then can we stop being bitter and start to be human once again. And every person, Harry, every person, is on a different route, every person is on a different part of their road. Some stop, those are the ones who end their lives, some take the ugly road and turn bitter, and some persevere and keep going, they keep trucking."

"Like you, sir?"

"Yes, like me."

"What about Voldemort?"

Severus thought first and then answered, "I want you to believe that every person has good in them. They have bad too, but it's the good that we're fighting for, Harry, and that good, sometimes, not often, but sometimes, can diminish to so little it really isn't there. But, and listen closely here, that is very rare. I need you to believe that no one is wholly bad, I need you to understand that even on the ugly road, there are forks and paths that can lead you back to redemption. Every road, just like in the real world, is connected. Start on a road and it will, at some point or another, take you where you want to go." He turned his empty palms up then, showing Harry that he had given him what he could.

Harry was quiet, digesting this. He sat still for a long while, looking out over the horizon where the Dark Mark had lain the night before. He weighed his options and spoke slowly. "My uncle tried to beat the magic out of me. I think he was mostly afraid of it, but there it is. He beat me; he starved me; he hated and mistreated me. I am a statistic."

"You are more than a number, Harry, it's high time you learned that. You are a bright young man with a promising future."

Harry laughed sardonically, "A promising future? Sir, I could very well die in this war. I have more of a chance at losing my life than any other."

"If you keep walking on that path, then yes, you will die," Severus tapped his chair with his index finger. "No matter what you do, your life is passing, every second, every moment. What matters isn't how much time we have left but what we do with the time we do have. How are you going to spend your time, Harry? Living like any day now you could die? What kind of life is that? You didn't survive your childhood just by waiting for the second shoe to drop, you had hope and THAT is the most important thing anyone can have."

"I'd like to tell you, Severus, about my relatives. Someday, but not today. I don't think I'm ready for that yet."

"When you are, I'll be there."

Harry smiled softly, "Thank you, sir."

"Don't mention it," Severus said.

They lapsed in a short silence. After a few moments, Harry asked, "Sir, what happened last night?"

"A lot of confusion. The long and short of it is that Lizzie and I both saw the Dark Mark and made our way to the border of town where it was cast. Lucius was there, of course, still is, if I know him at all. Some words were tossed back and forth; he tried to hex us but soon realized that my wards absorb curses. I, more or less, told him to tell the Dark Lord that I hadn't been loyal to him for a long time and to shove his wand up his ass and allowed Lizzie to make fun of him. That was brilliant."

"What did she say?"

The older man laughed, "She just mocked everything, from his cane to his hair to what he was wearing. It was amazing. Afterwards the headmaster came and checked the wards and Liz and I came home."

Harry folded his legs underneath himself like a pretzel and bit into a second piece of melon. He held the wedge with both hands, holding the shell of it steady as he took sloppy bites from the middle, juice dripping down his face. Severus was taken aback to how young he looked. Small enough to fold himself up on a porch swing, young enough to bite straight into the middle of the green melon instead of eating from end to end, and innocent enough to see no wrong in any of this. The wizard sighed and looked away. Harry was almost 17. He was almost an adult in their world.

This...child...was to be their savior? He had no doubt that Harry could and would defeat the Dark Lord. What bothered him was how unfair the situation was.

Harry had barely begun to live.

Just because he could defeat Voldermort didn't mean he would survive to see the aftermath. It didn't mean that if he survived he would be the same afterwards, despite all the things he had just said to the boy.

"Severus?"

Brought out of his reverie, Severus saw Harry staring at him. He blinked and shook his head, taking a drink and smiling in reassurance to the teenager. "Hm?"

"The Alzheimer's seemed to be kicking in again."

Severus made a face, "Brat." He was answered with a light laugh. "You're sunburned." He observed Harry's reddened skin.

Harry looked down at his arm, "So I am, no biggie. I got burned all the time when I worked outside at the Dursley's, I'll take care of it in a bit."

"I probably have some Aloe based serum in my stores. I can get it."

"It's fine, don't worry," Harry said, pressing his index finger gently into his skin and watching it go white then back to red, "I'm used to handling things like this by myself."

"No, let me."

Harry looked up from his arm.

"You don't have to deal with these things alone anymore."

"But, Severus..."

"But nothing, Harry," he stood, "you don't have to do everything by yourself, not any longer, not anymore. Let me help you."

And so, Harry did. He watched as Severus vanished inside and reappeared some minutes later with a salve. With gentle hands, he smoothed it over Harry's reddened skin on his back, taking care not to scratch or hurt him.

On the radio, several chords rang out, and a wizened voice sang, "And the days go by like a strand in the wind. In the web that is my own I begin again. Said to my friend, ‘baby, nothin' else mattered'."