They were sitting in the midst of a natural clearing within the forest near their cabin.  He could hear water trickling somewhere close by, and there were birds singing in the early morning air.  The world was waking up, both from the night and from the long winter, and the forest was bright with new life.

“I want you to clear your mind,” Severus instructed very calmly.

“I can’t,” Harry answered, more than a little frustrated. 

He heard rustling coming from in front of him. Even though his eyes were closed, he was still pretty sure that it was Severus moving toward him. 

A warm hand touched his head briefly and for once, he didn’t flinch.  He could almost hear the smile in Severus’ voice when he spoke next, and he didn’t have to guess about its origins.

“Don’t think,” Severus’ voice was soft and deep.  It made him want to focus on the sound as it wrapped around his ears and mind.  “Listen,” his mentor added, touching a thin fingers to his ears.  “Listen to the birds as they fly about and hear the sounds they make.  Don’t think.  Just listen.  Listen to the water.  Let the sounds as they surround you and breathe through it.  I’m not going anywhere.  You are safe here.”

Without even realizing it, Harry nodded. 

“Feel the ground underneath your body. Feel the sun on your shoulder.”  Fingers touched his shoulder and he became more aware of the sun resting in that same spot.  He could feel the heat from the sun soaking through material of his clothes and unconsciously, he relaxed a bit. 

He was sitting cross legged and he shifted a bit to keep one of his feet from going numb from where it was pressed against a rock.  The ground under him was covered in old crumbling leaves and newly blossoming clover, and he thought he could smell a bit of both. 

“That’s right,” Severus voice murmured.  “Breathe.  Feel.  Be.”

His mind tried to interject a thought about something, but he ignored it.  He could think later. 

“Breathe with me.  In through your nose,” Severus said, as they breathed inwards together.  “Hold it for a moment,” he said.  “And now release through your mouth.” 

Again and again they repeated the process with Severus adding extra instructions here and there, reminding him to listen and to feel to his surroundings. 

“All living things, be they plant or creature or even the smallest of organisms,” Severus informed him in a slow dreamy voice that Harry could feel almost as much as hear.  “All living things carry magic within them.  We are connected to the world and the world is connected to us.  Even the earth itself breathes with us.”

Harry took another breath inwards with Severus and for a moment, he thought he could feel the earth shift slightly under his body as it too took a slow breath.  The wind in his ears and on his face moved past him as he breathed outward, and he imagined that the world was exhaling with them.  Unthinking, he smiled at the sensation. 

“When you are quiet enough, the sounds of your body can become much louder,” Severus said next, his voice as slow and quiet as before.  “In addition to the sounds of your lungs, one can learn to hear their heartbeat, and in some instances, even the movement of your blood through your veins can be sensed.”

Harry felt as though he was melting into the ground and for a moment, he pulled back, afraid of losing himself.  Luckily, Severus was watching and he effectively deduced what was going on. 

“Don’t fight the sensation, Harry.  I will not leave you alone.  I’m here, right here with you.”  Severus hands moved to touch his knees lightly and Harry immediately added that sensation to the flow of awareness surrounding him. 

“Right here together with you, Harry,” Severus added again and this time when Harry felt his endings begin bleeding into his surroundings, he let himself go.  Severus was with him and if need be, he’d bring him back.  He trusted the man to keep him safe.

For an unknown amount of time, Harry floated somewhere between awake and asleep, awareness of the world around him steeping within his consciousness and mingling with his own sense of himself. 

. . .

That night, he dreamed of something different from his usual round of Lupin nightmares.  He was in his room and the strange thing was, he knew he was dreaming.  He looked out the window of his dream room and saw the lake that sat behind their cabin.  Harry had specifically picked his room so as to have this view, and as always, the sight of its moving water calmed something within his centre. 

What was unusual though was the strange greenish-blue flower that had now opened just outside his window.  It seemed to be swaying in the not-quite light of the dream, and as Harry looked closer, the flower seemed to pulse and grow larger. 

He heard a ghostly tune begin from somewhere, and with a start, he realised that the sound seemed to be emanating from the direction of the stranger flower. 

“What are you?” He whispered, quite unafraid.

The flower pulsed again and the tune grew louder, just as a leafy vine began extending toward him.  Harry’s eyes went wide as the vine tendril passed through the window as though it wasn’t even there, and then suddenly he was reaching out his hand.  A thin green tendril wrapped around his finger before the dream faded and he found himself awake in his bed. 

Quickly bouncing to his knees, he clambered over to the end of his bed and drew the blinds on his window and looked out.  Dawn was just barely beginning to break over the world and he tried to see if he could spot the flower from his dream.  There was nothing beside his window—which was just as well, since he was fairly positive that he would have been a bit disturbed by its appearance there—but down by the very edge of the lake, his eyes caught on something and his eyebrows rose in surprise. 

There was a small flower growing there, just barely visible in the greyish light of the early morning, but there was no mistaking its colour.  It was greenish-blue, just like the one in his dream had been.  

. . .

“I believe,” Hadwyn said at the end of their somewhat awkward tea, “that you owe me a life debt.”  He turned to the partially bound man sitting beside him and raised an eyebrow.  They had released one of Sirius’ hands to allow him to feed himself, but otherwise he was still bound in and to the chair. 

Over Sirius’ spluttering of disagreement, Dumbledore eyed Hadwyn with a look that clearly asked, Are you sure you want to do this?

With brief smirk, Hadwyn nodded. 

“He’s correct, Sirius,” Dumbledore’s voice broke through the other man’s protests, bringing a brief moment of silence to the room.

“How so!?” Black finally managed, clearly outraged.

“Without me,” Hadwyn answered with a sharp grin, “you’d be on your way to the Dementors right now.”

Sirius shut his mouth with a snap and looked at Dumbledore with a baleful expression. 

“What do you require of him, Hadwyn?” Dumbledore asked, purposely not looking at Sirius.

“Even with the testimony of the rat,” he said with a sneer, feeling quite certain that Severus would be proud of the level of his disdain.  “The legal process will take a bit to catch up with Mr. Black here, and until it does, I would like to keep him as my guest.”

Dumbledore’s lips were quirking as though he found the situation entirely too amusing to speak to, while Sirius’ face was caught somewhere in between dismay and wariness. 

“If you’ll excuse us, headmaster,” Hadwyn stood and gave the older man a nod.  “We must be on our way.”  With a flick of his wand, Sirius was floating behind him, and with one more spell, the man was disillusioned.

“I’m sure I don’t have to warn you to remain quiet,” Hadwyn warned just as they arrived at the base of the stairs.

For the most part, the trip was silent.  Students passed him with hardly a glance.  Although he wasn’t nearly as frightening a professor as Severus, he did manage to have an air of focused intent around him that made many would be troublemakers back off. 

Finally, as they neared Severus’ (and his) quarters, the impossible happened; someone saw past the disillusionment and witnessed who he was transporting. 

“Professor Long,” a young voice said somewhere around his right elbow. 

He looked down and found that there were two young girls standing just beside him.  Both second years, they were two of the most elusive members of the house of snakes that he had met. 

“Miss Darc, Miss Hobbs,” he greeted them with a nod. “Can I help you with something?”

Staring past him, in the direction of Sirius, Hobbs nodded and said, “Did you know that you have a hitchhiker behind you?”

Hadwyn raised an eyebrow and glanced at Sirius out of the corner of his eye.  The man looked utterly gobsmacked.

“You should tell him that it isn’t polite to leave his mouth hanging open like that,” Hobbs added demurely. 

“I believe you just did,” Hadwyn said with a small smile. 

“See you tomorrow?”  Hobbs asked.

“9 o’clock sharp,” Hadwyn nodded. 

“Goodbye,” Hobbs said, turning to go back down the hallway.  Darc turned a bit slower after her friend, the small round faced girl having not said a word during the entire exchange.

“Goodbye Jayne,” Hadwyn said to the child.

“Bye sir,” Darc whispered before running quickly after her best friend.

“Strange children,” Sirius murmured.

“You have no idea,” Hadwyn said just under his breath, opening the portrait to his quarters with a softly spoken word.

Sirius floated in behind him, his head bobbing just under the top of the portrait doorway.  Hadwyn directed him into the bathroom, following just behind him, before ending both spells with a quietly voiced “Finite.”

“You are going to take a bath,” Hadwyn said, waving idly to the huge ornate tub sitting beside them.  “Unfortunately for the both of us, I don’t actually trust you enough to do so on your own.”

“Now come off it!  Where am I going to go?” Sirius asked belligerently, the ropes around his body twisting as he unconsciously fought against them.

“The world is not the same one that you left.  Your friends, do you even know where they all are?” Hadwyn asked. 

His face closing off, Sirius barked back, “Peter is hopefully with the aurors now; James is dead; as for Moony, last I heard, he was here teaching.”

“Two out of three isn’t bad,” Hadwyn murmured, cancelling the incarcerous, causing the ropes to disappear into oblivion. 

“I can bathe myself!” Sirius growled, taking a step away from Hadwyn.  “What do you mean, two out of three!?  Where’s Moony?”

Hadwyn stepped up to the tub and fiddled with the taps for a moment before turning back to the irate man beside him.

“Where. Is. Moony.”  Sirius demanded, advancing on him when he didn’t immediately answer.

“I really think you’ll be more comfortable sitting down,” Hadwyn said, waving his wand and spelling the other man’s haggard clothing off into a corner of the room. 

Sirius yipped in embarrassment and immediately transformed—or at least, he tried to.  One of the wards that Hadwyn had enacted on his way in kept unauthorized persons from transforming within the walls of his quarters.

Instead of turning into a dog, Sirius found himself naked and hogtied on the floor.

“Must we go through this again?” Hadwyn tsked, choosing to forgo magic and simply pick the blasted man and put him into the tub himself.

He released Sirius of his bindings just as he dropped him in the water.

“Augh!” Sirius yelled as he got water up his nose.

Rolling his eyes and sighing, Hadwyn pulled off his outer robe and calmly rolled up his sleeves and grabbed a bar of soap.  Picking up a flannel with his other hand, he set about making suds and then turned the soapy washcloth to Sirius’ dirt encrusted flesh.

“Don’t touch me!”  Sirius floundered in the water in front of him, splashing and ducking every time Hadwyn came near him.

“Were you this contrary as a child?”  Hadwyn asked with a frown.  “Merlin, even Harry doesn’t make as big a fuss as you when it comes to bath time.”

As he had expected, at the mention of his godson, Sirius stopped raising a racket and went completely silent. 

“What do you know of Harry?”  Sirius’ eyes were wide and Hadwyn took the opportunity to start scrubbing the man’s back. 

“More than you, I’d say,” Hadwyn answered vaguely.

Sirius squeaked and flinched back as Hadwyn reached the top of his arse, but he only stopped to roll his eyes again and then continued. 

“Get over yourself,” Hadwyn instructed, the Scottish lilt in his voice becoming stronger the more he was forced to fight with Sirius for control.  “I’ve seen more naked men in my life than you, and believe me when I say it, I don’t care what yeh look like!  More importantly,” he added as Sirius once again squeaked and tried to squirm away.  “I’m not interested!”

“Why are you here at Hogwarts?  Where’s Snivellus?” Sirius dared sneer in response.   

Narrowing his eyes, Hadwyn chose that moment to suddenly pull Sirius underwater, sending a great tide over the side of the bathtub as the man fought against him. 

“What was that?  I didn’t quite hear you,” Hadwyn said with a scowl as he surveyed the sopping wet mess in front of him.

“Are you trying to drown me?” Sirius retorted haughtily between gasping breaths.

 “If I wanted to kill you, I could find a drier way to do it, trust me.” Hadwyn answered, raising his wet sleeves up to eye level.

“Why am I here!?” Sirius asked just as Hadwyn began to pull him out of the bathtub.

“To keep you outta trouble,” Hadwyn answered, drying him off brusquely before wrapping a large towel around his waist and marching him toward Harry’s room.

After getting him dressed in a pair of Severus’ old trousers and a grey button up shirt, Hadwyn pushed him into bed and sat down on the chair next to him. 

“Yeh asked where Moony was.  I’m assuming that’s Lupin, correct?” Hadwyn said.

Sirius nodded; his eyes wary and dark as he stared back at the man whom he now owed his life.

“Yeh asked where Harry was too, but I can’t tell you one without the other, since they’re related.”

“What happened to my godson?”  Sirius leaned forward in the bed and reached out as though to wrap a skeletal hand around Hadwyn’s throat, but he stopped short at Hadwyn’s warning glare.

“You know much about Lupin’s childhood?”  Hadwyn asked instead, leaning back and watching Sirius with a wary eye.

“Only that—.” Sirius stopped. 

“That he got bitten as a child, yeah?” 

Wordlessly, Sirius nodded. 

“Know much of his father?”

“Kinda quiet,” Sirius shrugged.  “What’s this got to do with Harry?”

“Lupin’s father raped him as a child,” Hadwyn stated, not bothering to sugar coat the news.

Sirius’ eyes nearly bugged out at this information.  And then, “That bastard!!!” Sirius screamed, lunging forward at Hadwyn.

He caught the other man easily and kept him from hurting himself until he had calmed down a bit.

“I’ll kill . . .” he heard Sirius mutter.

“You won’t,” Hadwyn contradicted.  “He’s dead.  Been dead at least half a decade, it seems.”

Sirius slumped back against his pillows, briefly defeated.  “What about Moony?  Where is he?  Is he all right?”

Hadwyn shifted in his chair and stared back at Sirius thoughtfully.  “You two were close?”

“Closest,” Sirius confirmed, his voice rough with unreleased emotion.

He frowned. 

“Just tell me,” the other man pleaded with him.  “Please.”

Hadwyn crossed his arms and braced for the explosion he felt certain was coming.  “It seems,” he cleared his throat carefully, “that your friend was more like his father than anyone knew.”

Sirius’ eyes were incredibly wide.  “Who?” He whispered hoarsely, his hands clenched in the bedclothes.

“Harry.”

. . .

‘Dear Professor Snape,’

‘I want to apologize for upsetting Harry the last time I was in your quarters.  I’d been so worried about him, and I thought that you were taking advantage of his vulnerable state in order to do something to hurt him.’

‘I just wanted to say that if he’s happier with you, then I’m glad.  Really.’

‘Sincerely,’
‘Hermione Granger’

She folded the letter over with trembling fingers and attached it to Hedwig’s leg.  She had been up in the astronomy tower having a good cry when Harry’s owl had flown in out of seemingly nowhere.  She had tried to write back to Harry before, but all of the letters had been returned.  Now it seemed, she had her chance. 

She hoped she could be forgiven.  Ron was still angry at her, and with Harry gone, she was alone again.  She missed them both, but especially Harry.  She hoped he was healthy and happy without her.