Harry was sleeping when Snape returned that evening. He'd done his exercises after Remus left and had then spent an hour gathering a big pile of driftwood. Snape had claimed he wasn't "cleaning up" the beach, but he'd found a deflated beach ball, a pair of women's pants that looked like they would fit Uncle Vernon, an old life vest, a small rhinestone-studded dog collar with a name tag reading "Miss Priscilla" and an empty bottle of Uncle Sylvester's Hair Replacement Formula for Folliclely Challenged Gentlemen. He'd done most of the lifting and dragging with his left arm and had a handful of splinters for his trouble. He'd fallen asleep on the hammock after coming back from he beach and had slept right through meditation and the time slated to read the Grindelwald book. The animagus book was still upstairs in his beside table drawer.

He stretched in the hammock and opened his eyes. It was still light outside, though the sun had begun to set and the glow from the west over the cottage rooftop dropped pinkish hues on the water.

"I was about to wake you," came Snape's voice from the kitchen. How did he do that? wondered Harry. "We'll be cooking our supper in the fire tonight. Come here and wrap up the corn and potatoes and I'll go get the fire going."

Harry glanced at the clock on the porch. Nearly 7—he'd slept nearly two hours. Perhaps conjuring his patronus a half dozen times had tired him out—though he didn't think that filling his mind with the dream image of dropping off the Astronomy Tower on the thestral with Luna would wipe him out so thoroughly. He made his way into the kitchen to find Snape rummaging through a corner cabinet. "Wash them first, then wrap them in the foil. Put a couple pats of butter inside each package." Snape had pulled out a rather dangerous looking oversized fork and an enormous pair of tongs and dropped them on the counter, leaving the room again without additional comment.

An hour later they were sitting on beach chairs beside a fire that had been banked to glowing embers. Snape was using the tongs to dig out the foil-wrapped packets and Harry was balancing a stick with several fat sausages on it above the coals. The moon has climbed a bit in the sky—it was waxing toward full—and the glow over the beach softened the otherwise sharp shadows of the scrubby plants and grasses growing on the edge of the sand.

"Never ate by a campfire before," said Harry a bit later as he dropped a sausage onto the open foil of a potato packet. He'd taken a bite and nearly burned his tongue on the hot grease.

"It can be quite pleasant if it's not necessary," said Snape obliquely. Harry puzzled at the statement and decided that Snape was saying that having no choice but to cook your food on a campfire and eat in the open was not enjoyable. He imagined Snape on the run, or lost out in the Forbidden Forest, or on some sort of primitive camping trip with a group of Muggle Boy Scouts.

"'S good," he said around a mouthful of potato. He was sitting with his legs crossed, still in the chair, facing the fire, facing the ocean. Snape sat beside him at an angle and was somehow managing to eat his fire-cooked dinner without getting nearly as messy as Harry was. Harry finished eating, balled up his foil wrapping and tossed it into the fire. He sat and watched Snape for a few minutes. The man was eating his corn one-handed, seeming to chew thoughtfully between bites. He finished, tossed the cob into the fire, then turned and addressed Harry, diving right into 'the discussion' without warning or preamble.

"Not so long ago—only a couple months, in fact—you and five of your friends snuck off into the Forbidden Forest, located a herd of thestrals and directed them to take you to the Ministry of Magic in London. If I am not mistaken, several of these friends couldn't even see the beasts that were carrying them….carrying them for hundreds of kilometers, I might add."

Harry didn't particularly like how this 'discussion was staring out, but knowing there was nothing for it, he nodded, biting his bottom lip. Interestingly, Snape seemed to be expanding on the very topic Remus had discussed with him here at the beach earlier in the day.

Snape stared at him, very hard, a moment. "This conversation is going to be about trust, Harry," he said more softly, the sharp, disbelieving near-anger now gone from his voice. "It is necessary that I understand some things before we go … forward."

"OK," said Harry, his voice low as well. He watched as Snape stirred the embers with a long stick then placed several more large pieces of wood on the fire, inviting the suppressed flames to come back. "What do you want to know?"

"Had you ever ridden a thestral before, Harry? Had any of you?"

Harry shook his head.

"Had you ever known anyone else to have ridden one? Did you even know for sure that they could be ridden?"

Again, Harry shook his head. In the heat of the moment, it had seemed obvious—their only alternative. Now, he could see how ridiculous it appeared.

"What made you think a thestral had the ability to understand you? To listen to your directions and take you where you wanted to go?"

Harry shrugged. He had absolutely no idea. It had just seemed right, somehow.

Severus spoke slowly and clearly. "Yet, inside the castle were a number of individuals—adults—that you might have trusted, correct? Some, indeed, that you did trust?"

"I tried telling you," Harry retorted. "You were my last hope."

"By the time you tried telling me anything," said Snape with the barest hint of resignation in his voice, "it was too late. And you told me not because I was your last hope, but your only hope. By that time, you'd gotten caught in Umbridge's trap. Of course I knew what you meant, and I acted immediately. But you had no real reason to trust me, did you? I had worked quite hard to be sure that you did not, in fact."

"I trust you now," said Harry. "I…I've been trying, you know? To not ask nosy and impertinent questions. To not…eavesdrop. To not … worry … about what's happened to Dumbledore's hand, or what's happening at Hogwarts with the Ministry and the Unspeakables."

"I realize that," said Snape, his eyes connecting with Harry's, acknowledging that he had noticed and for some reason that simple acknowledgement struck Harry deeply. "But still, I would like you to explain to me why you put your trust in a beast—magical or not—and not in one of your professors? And I am talking about going to a long-term member of the faculty instead of sneaking into Umbridge's office to floo call Grimmauld Place."

"It's not that I trusted the thestrals…" began Harry.

Snape raised an eyebrow. "No?"

"No. It was more like…like instinct."

Snape looked slightly smug at this revelation. Harry didn't understand why.

"You are saying, then, that you trusted your own instinct?"

"Yeah. Why not? I've always had …"

He saw the trap too late. "I mean I never…"

Snape inexplicably rescued him.

"For many years, I have believed you to be impetuous and arrogant, flaunting authority, disregarding rules. As a first year, you decided to protect the Sorcerer's Stone and battled a troll. As a second year, you entered the Chamber of Secrets and confronted a basilisk. During your third year, you faced a werewolf and an escaped suspected murderer. Need I go on?"

Harry shook his head. It was embarrassing, put out on the table like that. "He wasn't a murderer."

"I now sit here and ask myself why," continued Snape. "Why have you gotten into these situations every year? It is actually quite simple. You trust no one but yourself. Oh—you may trust your friends—I will give you that, but I am sure you do not listen to them when they voice concerns, as Ms. Granger most certainly must have done on more than one occasion."

Harry swallowed. It was true—and look where this misplaced trust had gotten him at the Department of Mysteries.

"Harry, I am not saying that this kind of trust is totally misplaced." Harry looked uncertain, and Snape continued. "So I ask myself again—why does this child trust no one? Why is he so wary of adults? Why does he rush in where angels fear to tread?"

Harry poked his stick into the fire in front of him; the wood settled and the coals crackled. He didn't comment, not even on Snape's use of the word 'child' to describe him.

"Would you like me to answer those questions—or would you prefer to?" asked Snape.

Harry looked over at Snape and shrugged half-heartedly. "Go ahead," he said, resigned.

"You don't trust because you have never been given a reason to trust," answered Snape, as if the whole thing was crystal clear. "And while I place the majority of the blame for this squarely at your aunt's hoofs, the responsibility extends to every adult who has kept information from you that might ultimately have helped you, that has made deplorable decisions on your behalf or that have affected you. You learned early not to trust and when you came to Hogwarts, you were presented with one dangerous situation after another because the adults entrusted to teach you and guide you were often inept, moronic or blatantly evil. Adults have consistently let you down, Harry, so you trust only yourself." He paused and regarded Harry a moment. Harry felt his gaze and poked the fire again.

"This hasn't been much of a conversation about trust, has it?" asked Snape with a wry smile.

"More like a monologue," answered Harry.

"You are free to speak at any time," answered Snape. "Speak up. Deny what I am saying. Rail at me if you'd like."

"No need to," answered Harry. "I … I remember Professor McGonagall talking to me about getting all those detentions with Umbridge." Snape raised an eyebrow at the mention of those particular detentions. "She told me to use my common sense—to think about who Umbridge was and who she was reporting to. And then she told me that as my teacher Umbridge had every right to give me detentions." He looked up at Snape. "I guess she must have regretted saying that, especially after what happened to her. Still...what with Dumbledore not even looking at me and Hagrid gone half the year…"

"Harry," interrupted Snape. "A few moments ago you said that you trust me. Now I will return the favor, so to speak, and trust you with some important information. This next year, at Hogwarts, I…I will be watched…closely. Both myself and Professor Dumbledore believe it is imperative that I continue my current operations. Harry, I cannot treat you any differently at Hogwarts than I have in the past. The Headmaster may have given me to you, but you are going to have to view this as temporary, a loan so to speak. Once we are back at Hogwarts, you will need to rely on others, to learn to trust others as you apparently have learned to trust me. Despite the difficult circumstances, we cannot have you…I cannot have you…regress in this. It will be important in the end."

Harry had listened to Snape, his heart in his stomach, a warm heart suddenly turned to ice. Not really knowing where he was going, he began to speak.

"Last night we talked about this connection between us that we had to explore further—to understand. Last night I wanted to break it, to make sure nothing happened to you because of it. And Dumbledore—Dumbledore said no—he said that wasn't really what I wanted. And he left you here with me. To take care of me, I guess." He began poking aggressively at the fire with the stick.

"What you just told me—it means that when we get back to Hogwarts I'm Harry bloody Potter again. You'll treat me the same as always and take points from me when Malfoy lobs stuff in my potions and give me detentions on Quidditch Saturdays if we're playing Slytherin." He gave a forced laugh. "Oh, forgot, I'm banned from Quidditch for life. Guess those detentions won't be so bad anymore." Snape remained silent as he went on. "And you'll make fun of the Weasleys and not acknowledge Hermione's brilliance—she's brilliant at Potions you know—and in general treat the Gryffindors like the dirt on the bottom of your boot."

He looked up at Snape to read his face, but Snape's face, as always, was inscrutable. He continued.

"And every time he calls you…I might know. I might feel it like burning ice."

"We will work on that," said Snape.

"I don't remember signing up for this," said Harry. None of this should surprise him—he wouldn't have been caught by surprise like this if he'd just been thinking, if he'd just kept up his guard. But anger was fighting with acceptance and coming out on top.

"This?" questioned Snape.

"Yeah, this." He pushed back his overlong fringe. "This scar. This life! This summer!"

Snape carefully, deliberately rolled back the left sleeve of his white button-down shirt. Harry saw him study the ugly brand on his forearm.

"And that is where we are different, you and me," said Snape. "I clearly remember signing up for this."

Harry was instantly sobered. Emotion welled up inside him to replace the anger that had been overwhelming him.

"Why did you?" he asked suddenly. He indicated Snape's forearm.

"Why do you ride thestrals?" retorted Snape.

"It's not the same," said Harry quickly.

"Oh, but in a way, it is," retorted Snape.

Harry stared at the ground, thinking. "We were desperate," he said at last. "I didn't trust anyone to help me find another way. I didn't think there was another way. I didn't think about the consequences." He paused and looked up at Snape. They had matching sad half-smiles.

"Next year—back at Hogwarts," continued Harry, changing the subject. The icy lump that was his heart began to melt a little bit. "It won't be the same as it was before. It won't be the same because I'll know."

He felt stronger inside. More sure. And he still had two weeks here at Shell Cottage. A lot could happen in two weeks.