Without waiting to see if Snape would reappear, Harry retraced his steps, sticking religiously to the path until he came within sight of the cottage. He had a horrible suspicion that the most poisonous creatures were nocturnal. The mist settled on him like a fine, cold rain.

The door yielded to a vicious kick - damn this crap about no magic! A quick ‘Alohomora’ would have hurt his toe less. In his room he could have done with the ‘Packing’ spell that Tonks had once shown him. It would have saved a lot of time. Angrily he began to fold and assemble his possessions and shove them into his trunk. Snape had been right about one thing - he did want to leave. He’d Floo back to Hogwarts immediately, before Snape returned. To hell with Snape. To hell with Dumbledore and his good-natured meddling.

There was one more thing Harry needed. Hurrying downstairs, he went to the bookcase to retrieve his mother’s poetry book. He didn’t see why Snape should have it.

When Snape decided to spill the beans, he didn’t mess about, did he? Well, Harry had asked for it. He’d wanted to know about his mother and now he did. Snape had been painfully honest. Once the floodgates were open, there’d been no stopping him. So his childhood had been shit too - join the Club! Anyway, Harry knew now. He knew and he could move on, draw a line under this episode in his life. He didn’t need to see Snape again, ever. He wanted to dissociate himself from anything to do with his so-called ‘father’ and his vicious, lewd, murderous past. He’d go back to Hogwarts, talk to Dumbledore, tell him that the ‘reconciliation’ with Snape had been a complete, bloody fiasco, and that he wanted to change schools as soon as possible. If Dumbledore thought he was shirking his responsibilities, that was tough. He could transfer to another wizard school to finish his NEWTs - somewhere like Beauxbatons. Why had he said that, and not Durmstrang? All this French business was getting to him!

The book in his hands felt strangely warm and heavy. He gazed at the uninspiring, taupe-grey dust-cover, it’s thick, coarse paper tattered at the edges. ‘An Anthology of Modern French Poetry - From Baudelaire to the Present Day’ : the title was in plain capitals, a royal blue. Third edition. Harry opened the cover and gently traced his fingers over the pencilled name, Lily Evans. The book stirred. The pages began to flip purposefully, searching for a certain place. Harry smiled: his mother must have used a ‘mark your favourite pages’ Charm. Now he’d find out her favourite poem!

He perched in the chair by the fire - the same one as the previous evening - and waited for the book to settle. Finally it came to rest and lay open at some verses by Rimbaud. Five lines highlighted themselves, claiming his attention:

‘Qu’est-ce pour nous, mon coeur, que les nappes de sang…’

Oh, Merlin! thought Harry, scrabbling through the first line without making much sense of it. I’m going to need help translating this. He dredged in his memory for an appropriate spell.

“Lingua Anglica reddo!” It can’t have been quite the right spell for the words on the page before him remained resolutely French. But, as he read them again, he found that the meaning was forming in his mind; he didn’t have an exact translation, but he understood.

‘Qu’est-ce pour nous, mon coeur, que les nappes de sang,

Et de braise et mille meurtres, et les longs cris

De rage, sanglots de tout enfer renversant

Tout ordre; et l’Aquilon encor sur les debris;

Et toute vengeance? Rien!...’

‘What does it all mean to us, my heart - the sheets of blood and ash, and a thousand killings, the long frenzied shrieks, the sobs of every hell overturning all order, and the North wind still above the ruins, and each revenge…? What does it mean? Nothing!...’

Harry skimmed through the rest of the poem; other lines stood out as his eyes ran over them:

‘Tout à la guerre, à la vengeance, à la terreur…’ (‘Everything for war, vengeance, terror..')

Harry almost dropped the book in disgust. That had to be Snape’s favourite, not Lily’s. It was virtually a Death Eater battle-song. He probably chanted it to himself before a raid to get in the mood.

The little volume quivered and the pages began turning again, more quickly this time, taking Harry to ‘Correspondances’ by Baudelaire. The words engulfed him in a rich, full-bodied glow like a draught of vintage red wine:

‘Il est des parfums …

… d’autres corrompus, riches and triomphants,

Ayant l’expansion des choses infinies,

Comme l’ambre, le musc, le benjoin et l’encens,

Qui chantent les transports de’l’esprit et des sens.’

‘There are other perfumes, corrupt, rich and triumphant; they expand into infinity like amber, musk, benzoin and incense, singing the raptures of the mind and senses.’

That poem had to have been chosen and marked by Snape. Was that how he felt about his potions? How could he when he hated potions so vehemently? How could he bear to teach Potions? He wouldn’t take them himself, but he’d give them to other people? Why was everything about Snape so contradictory and irreconcilable? There was something too physical, too sensuous about these verses - the thought of Snape reading them made Harry uncomfortable.

Another, well-thumbed page fell open:

‘J’ai revé tellement fort de toi…’ (‘I have dreamed so intensely of you…’).

“Oh God!” exclaimed Harry, shutting the book suddenly. He couldn’t bear to read any more. This was like prying into Snape’s secret journals. It was as bad as James and the Veritaserum. The image of Snape sitting here by his fire, alone, reading these words of passion and longing and despair, was absurd, laughable. But Harry wasn’t laughing. He felt very sad.

He got up and walked to the window, peering out into the blackness. He couldn’t see anything. He wondered where Snape was, where he had gone, whether he was coming back. He might have Apparated anywhere - Hogwarts, London, Paris… he might have thrown himself into the lake… he might be waiting on the doorstep… Harry ran and flung open the front door, but there was no one there.

‘Quig might know where he goes. I’ll see if I can get him. Maybe ask for something to eat at the same time. Doesn’t Snape ever bother with meals?’ Harry took a pinch of the black sand and flicked it into the fire as he had seen the Professor do. Then he waited. But there were no slapping footsteps; the elf was not at home either. Harry went into the kitchen to fend for himself. Then he went upstairs to unpack. He had to face it - he wasn’t going anywhere.

Returning to the sitting room, he sat in Snape’s arm-chair, the poetry book on his knees. It held a voyeuristic fascination for him. He felt he detested everything about the man and yet… he wanted another glimpse into the world of this other Snape, the darkly romantic, tortured soul. It was aeons away from the man he had thought he knew, whose pleasures in life centred around belittling the brewing skills of his students and eviscerating small rodents. But the book remained unopened on his lap.

Dumbledore had said that he and Snape were alike, that they had a lot in common. After today Harry could see the parallels only too clearly; he could recognise the similarities in their lives – their unhappiness and isolation and, less forgivably, the force of their latent anger and aggression. He realised the extent of the restraint Snape had shown in the cellar, forbearance even, under conditions that would have provoked far milder men.

Harry’s opinion of James had sunken into the abyss. A bolt of retrospective alarm shot through him as he realised that he and Draco could have been in exactly the same situation. Except that he, gullible, naïve Harry, had presented himself to Malfoy on a plate. It said a lot for the Slytherin that he had kept, more or less, to their bargain. Snape had always seemed to have some regard for Draco, but Harry had assumed that was a part of his Death Eater façade. Perhaps he had seen some quality - honour among Purebloods? – that Harry had, until recently, missed.

Harry checked the time. He had been back over two hours. Where was Snape? He peered outside again, but the darkness was as impenetrable as ever; he discovered he was pacing the room, growing uneasy. Once more he picked up the poetry book and curled up in the chair, his father’s chair.

‘Le front aux vitres comme les veilleurs de chagrin…’

(‘My forehead rests against the window pain like someone whose sorrow allows him no sleep…’).

Oh, Merlin! This is heart-breaking stuff. I really can’t read this. The pain and loneliness behind the words choked him.

‘Si tu savais…’ (‘If only you knew…’). Who? If who knew?

Harry allowed the firelight and warmth to lull him into a doze. He could feel himself slipping into sleep and he welcomed the release it offered from his fruitless analysis of the day’s conversation. He floated into the security of a familiar dream: his family - he and his parents. As dreams go, it was always uneventful - no one ever seemed to do anything very much, they were just there, James and Lily, a comforting, dependable presence. Only this time, it wasn’t James in the dream, it was Snape standing in that soft-focus twilight REM zone, with his arm around Lily’s waist…

Harry didn’t want to wake up. Languidly checking the time again he found, to his astonishment, that he had been asleep for nearly three hours. It was getting late. His first thought was that Snape must have come in and not wanted to wake him.

“Sir?” he shouted, “Are you there?”

But the house was silent and empty. In spite of himself, Harry was starting to get anxious. He felt uniquely responsible for this tempestuous, highly-strung man with his explosive moods, his dark insights and penetrating intellect.

It was nearly midnight when the door catch clicked softly and Snape came in. Harry leaped to his feet in relief.

“What time do you call this?” he yelled at Snape, “Where the hell have you been?”

“Still here, Potter? I thought you would have been long gone.” Snape stood in the doorway, unfastening his dripping cloak with chilled fingers. Harry turned on him:

“Is that what you were doing all this time? Keeping out of the way so you wouldn’t have to face me? I didn’t think you were a coward too.”

“I prefer to see it as giving you the opportunity to avoid a further unpleasant confrontation. Look, Potter, if you’ve got something to say to me, say it. If not, just leave. I’m too tired to argue.”

He moved across to the dying embers of the fire to get warm. Harry, engulfed by a sudden tide of emotion, felt shipwrecked; he floundered and struck out:

“How could I go? When I didn’t know where you were, or if you were ever going to come back? Or if you were alright? You’ve been gone for hours! You’ve been out there all this time and you’re cold and wet and now you’ll get sick again and that’ll be all my fault too… You tell me, How could I go?”

Snape looked at him in surprise.

“I’m alright, Potter.” He sank into his chair in exhaustion, adding wearily, “I will take a Potion if you wish it.”

Harry appreciated that Snape had just made a major concession. Without being asked he opened a new bottle and poured him a Firewhisky. Snape, bending forward to unlace his saturated boots, glanced up at Harry,

“Leave the bottle, Potter. I intend to get extremely drunk…”