Snape grimaced as he looked at Potter. They were sitting on the wall of the promenade looking out into the sea. Harry was gnawing on a chip with as much fervour as a hypogriff with a juicy bone. Unfortunately his favourite pumpkin jumper was covered in grease, not to mention the mushy peas that had given a light green covering to his hands and face, and even his hair.

‘More chippy,’ Harry said eagerly, holding out a chubby fist. He looked at the paper wrappings than Snape was balancing on his knee. The Batman didn’t seem to have even touched his. Wordlessly, Snape handed the toddler another chip. He didn’t have the stomach for them anyway after watching Potter eat his with all the decorum of a troll at a tea party.

‘Last one, then we better get you cleaned up,’ Snape said dubiously. He cast his eyes around for somewhere quiet to take the boy, but everywhere seemed littered with people with young children trying to make the most of the warm weather. ‘Come on, lets walk on a bit,’ he said when Harry had finished eating.

‘Walky,’ Harry said firmly.

‘Yes, alright Potter, you can walk, but hold my hand.’

They walked along the cobbled streets of the promenade towards a low bridge which joined two sides of the harbour together. Harry had been fascinated earlier to see it open up in the middle with a loud horn that made him jump to allow a large fishing ship through. Now though, he was not prepared to walk across it as Nape seemed to want to. He didn’t want to fall into the sea thankyou very much. He stood his ground as Snape tugged on his hand.

‘Come along Potter,’ Snape said.

‘Fall!’ Harry protested.

Snape realised the problem immediately. Sighing, he hoisted a wriggling Harry into his arms and lifted him so he could see out over the harbour into the sparkling waters of the open sea.

‘No ships, see?’ he said.

Harry shook his head obstinately, pointing at a big red ship docked just below them.

‘It’s not moving Potter,’ Snape said. ‘Really! Professor McGonagall told me you were intelligent. I shall have to correct her.’

Harry looked at him blankly and Snape sighed with exasperation.

‘Never mind.’ With that he carried Harry deftly across the bridge, negotiating the pushchair with his free hand. Harry did not protest anymore, simply resting his head on the Batman’s shoulder. He could not be scared when he was safe in the Batman’s arms.

As Snape suspected, the streets on the opposite side of the harbour were more deserted. There were many side streets leading off from the rear of craft shops and tea rooms, and he was able to find an empty one to clean Harry up with a flick of his wand. He then allowed Harry to tire himself out by peering into the windows of various muggle workshops, where they were blowing ducks out of molten glass, baking fudge in huge, cast-iron ovens, or spinning wool from the local sheep into jumpers and throws.

As they came to the end of the parade of shops, Snape noticed that they had reached the foot of the East Cliff which held Whitby Abbey. He had been to the Abbey before, though he did not care to remember the reason for it now, and he knew that there were exactly one hundred and ninety-nine steps to negotiate to reach the top. He looked down at a yawning Potter dubiously; however, something made him desire to see the Abbey in the sunshine instead of the dead of night, and so pointed to the wide stone steps.

‘We are going up there, Potter. Do you think you can manage to walk it?’ He failed to mention that the alternative would be to be carried, and not to be fastened once again into the pushchair, but Harry did not seem to register that it would be impossible to push him up the steps.

‘Me walk!’ he said indignantly, racing towards, what Harry was sure was a huge mountain.

With a slightly smug sneer, Snape folded the pushchair and followed. They had not quite reached the half-way point before Harry had slowed down almost to a complete stand-still, and was bright red in the face and heavily out of breath. He pointed to his legs with a whine.

‘No more, Nape,’ he said.

‘We’re not even half-way to the top,’ Snape said. He grasped the small hand. ‘Come on, the exercise will do you good.’

‘Rest, …’ Harry said feebly.

‘We’ll rest when we get to the top.’

So half holding, half pulling Harry’s arm, Snape and his young charge wound their way to the top.

When they reached the final step, Snape stood to one side of the steps and paused as Harry caught his breath. He scanned the familiar graveyard and church building with unreadable eyes. He glanced over the gravestones; many of their inscriptions had been eroded into nothingness from the salt and sandy wind that blasted relentlessly year upon year. He traced the lines of the cliff, connected to the graveyard by a thick grass verge and a wire fence poorly designed to stop desperate muggles dashing themselves onto the rocks below. There was a crooked path that ran the length and breadth of the summit, winding its way round the outside and eventually connecting to the small mining village at the other side of the Abbey.

Snape’s gaze eventually settled on the wreck of the original monastery. Snape knew that the building had passed into the hands of witches and wizards in 1057 following the Viking attack and destruction in 867. Few knew, however that it had remained habitable after the subsequent attack by the muggle King Henry in 1540. Most muggles were convinced that it was simply a ruin at the top of a cliff – a landmark for sailors returning to the North-Yorkshire shores. Many visited, paying a fee to the curators, and leaving extremely unimpressed by the wasted and dilapidated stone that they had been hoodwinked into paying to see.

Then again, Snape thought wryly, muggles could often see nothing very far beyond the end of their noses. In fact, the monastery had been sporadically, but very much habited till just over fifteen years previously.

Snape felt a small tugging on the pin-striped trousers he had changed into. He looked down to see a tetchy-looking Potter. He realised that his afternoon nap was probably well overdue.

‘We will go and sit over there,’ he said, pointing to a green bench positioned at the uppermost point of the cliff.

When Snape had settled Harry, to little protest, into his pushchair, he sat down on the bench, barely noticing the peeling paint and splinters that were in need of repair. The bench was forward of the graveyard and looked out onto the sea and sands and the landscape of the West cliffs of Whitby which lay above the promenade on the other side of the bridge. Snape ignored the faint lines of the bed and breakfasts and ant-like people milling about and stared instead into open water which twinkled like a sea of stars in the bright afternoon sun. He wasn’t exactly sure why he had chosen Whitby as their seaside destination. In the memory he recalled earlier, his mother had taken him to Bournemouth - hundreds of miles south of the point he sat now.

He allowed himself now, with the sunshine on his face, to remember the last time he had been to the top of the East cliff. It had been a black night then. The North Star had not even been visible through the thick grey storm clouds that eclipsed the night sky. In the distance, Snape remembered seen the warning light of a lighthouse desperately searching the seas for muggle sailors in danger.

Snape was early and had been first to arrive. He was closely followed by more of his mark, all eager to receive their instructions from Lucius.

‘Tonight,’ Lucius had said with a wicked glint in his pale eyes, when all the juniors had gathered, ‘the Dark Lord requires Severus to lead the strike.’

What followed next would haunt Snape like so many deeds he had committed at the Dark Lord’s bidding to his dying days. They had mounted their brooms and wreaked havoc like avenging angels with Snape dishing out the majority of the orders. Snape knew that it pleased the Dark Lord to believe that he could command the elements, and that night it had been a magical storm that had capsized the Lady Love to desperate cries of the sailors as it was lost forever. Snape remembered with disturbing clarity his own heady feeling of power that evening. He felt like he had belonged to something magnificent. The practical aim of the strike had been to prevent other sailors from docking near the East cliff; it worked - the muggle fishing council convinced themselves that it was the submerged rock formations that made the area so treacherous. But the real purpose, as with many of the Dark Lords strikes, was more simple. It was a demonstration of power that he encouraged all his followers to engage in. It was what kept them dedicated and passionate about the cause.

Snape sighed. He wished that he had not revisited the East Cliff. He did not like remembering what he had felt when he had truly been part of the Death Eaters. It wasn’t really that it shamed him, it was that the feelings it conjured still attracted him. Snape had never been able to combat the pull he felt towards power and infamy. If he was going to reason it with himself, like a mind healer in St Mungos, he might have said that he was attracted by it because it was the opposite of what he had experienced throughout his young life. But it was not in Snape’s nature to pity or excuse himself. He had accepted what he was long ago, when the Dark Lord had sought out the Potters as a reaction to prophesy that Snape had communicated to him. What he was able to do was wage war on his feelings; submerge them to a space somewhere deep within himself which would not appear at the surface for months, or even years at a time. He had always been adept at occlumency and he used it to bury any feelings he had now about his past, the Dark Lord and Lily Potter.

‘Nape, wee wee.’

Potter’s sleepy voice bought him back to the present. He had woken up and was now looking around impatiently. Snape realised that he had been sat on the top of the cliff for nearly an hour.

‘Can’t you hang on?’ Snape demanded. There was not, as far as he was aware, any place that he could take Potter to go to the toilet, and there were too many dog walkers around to apparate back to Hogwarts.

Harry pouted and shook his head. He could feel an urgent pressing on his stomach and he knew that Snape had not been putting a nappy on him for several days. He didn’t want to make the Batman angry by wetting in his pushchair.

‘No Nape! Wee WEE!’ Harry shouted in desperation, much to the amusement of a lady walking two yapping Yorkshire terriers past them at the time. She paused in front Snape.

‘You better let him go in a bush,’ she observed, with a twinkling smile.

‘In a bush?’ Snape repeated.

He supposed that in the circumstances it was unavoidable.

Harry in the end found it a big adventure. He didn’t even mind when one of the lady’s Yorkshire terriers bounded up on him midway through. He collapsed into helpless giggles, and Snape had to be very quick to make sure that he didn’t get an impromptu soaking.

‘Me like the seaside,’ Harry said happily, as Snape helped him clamber down the hundred and ninety-nine steps.

‘Humph!’ Snape said. ‘Wait a minute,’ he said. ‘Your hat’s slipping.’

Harry stamped his foot impatiently, waiting for Snape to retie the hated bobble hat under his chin. He had given up trying to protest against wearing it. Last time, Nape had told him that he would smack if he ever took it off again.

Before he retied the woollen straps, Snape paused. His eyes fell to the familiar lightening scar on the small forehead which he always kept hidden in public behind the ridiculous bobble hat. He realised that he had spent a lot of time looking at the scar recently. Suddenly, something seemed to click into place. He realised that he needed to go back the Burrow immediately.

‘Come on Potter, we’re going to see Molly.’

Before Harry could protest, Snape had him at the bottom of the steps, fastened in his pushchair with Cheep-Cheep shoved under his arm – grown-ups were really very tricky!

Snape then found a secluded building and apparated with the toddler directly to the Weasleys home.