Evening Snack by Hopeless Wanderer

"It's broken,"

Harry kept on pulling the handle, paying no regard to the voice coming from over his shoulder. The handle got stuck with a frustrating click every time, and Harry scowled, his hand reddened around the hard plastic.

"I want a slushy," he gritted out, the cup in his other hand slightly shaking.

"The machine is broken," Snape said once more, this time sounding closer. He sounded as if he was talking to a child or an injured animal. Harry still had his back to him. He wasn't ready to go back. Not yet. Not ever, if he could help it. He wasn't honestly expecting them to find him this soon. He wasn't expecting or desiring to be found by Snape of all people either.

"I don't care," Harry said, and wracked the handle once more, his face wrinkled from frustration upon the clear glittering blue slushy inside the glass cylinder. He didn't necessarily want it that badly, he didn't even think he could touch it in this state, but he needed proof. He needed something to go right with his life tonight.

"The others are still out looking for you, Potter. If you want it that badly we can-"

"No." Harry turned, the cup clenched in his hand as he faced the blurry vision of the man clad in black. He had lost his glasses, not sure where. He was in too much of a hurry to run, to notice. He can vaguely gauge out the expression on the man's face.

Mild annoyance.

Harry wasn't surprised. His entire existence was nothing more than a mild annoyance to this man.

"Don't be such a child," Snape said, and Harry felt his jaw click from the sheer force of his clenching teeth.

He turned around and fiddled with the handle. The machine was stationed outside the station store, it was all but bare of muggles and cars, aside from the boy behind the counter, who seemed too scared of him to step out and stop his mad wrestling with the broken slush machine. "I asked the guy in the station," Harry said, pushing his cup under the handle once more. "He said it's broken. They don't have another one, and I'm not walking to another gas station. I want a slushy from this machine." he took a long deep breath. "Now leave me the fuck alone,"

He could practically hear the man sneering behind him. "There are search parties out for you," the potion master drawled and Harry hit the cylinder, the glittery blue slush moved inside but the handle didn't budge.

"I don't care," he finally said. Snape could easily take him by force. Harry didn't care. He was tired. Really, really tired.

The kind of tiredness that was scary.

"You don't because you're an insolent brat--"

"Oh!" Harry surprised himself with the chuckle that bubbled right out of his throat. Oh the audacity of this man, he thought. The cup tumbled right out of his hand. "Oh this is rich! I'm an insolent brat! Do you hear that gas station boy?!" he shouted to a quivering teenager behind the glass. "I'm an insolent brat. Just like my dad." he chuckles once more, the kind of chuckle that used to scare him. The burry shape of the boy inside stares back at him. "Although you don't have a backstory on him, but this is Professor Snape's ending move,"

Snape walked up to him then, his hand clasping on his shoulder in a bruising grip.

"Potter, for the love of Merlin," the man said, "Stop causing a scene. You already made enough trouble for one day,"

"I cannot believe you," Harry said, pushing Snape's hand off of him. He bent down to pick up his cup. "Why are you even here looking for me?" he asked. "Didn't you have better things to do?"

Snape crossed his arms at him. "Well, there's not much to do when a student runs away from school,"

Harry scoffed. He wasn't going to let Snape guilt-trip him into returning to school. Not now, not like this. He didn't understand what was so hard for them to understand. He needed space. He needed time. Not numerous search parties the moment he's out of school.

"Let me guess… two months of detention, except if I get to live that long,"

"There are Death Eaters all around, just waiting for you to stumble out of protection, boy! Do you have any idea how much your recklessness is going to cost?"

Harry was not impressed by this speech in the slightest. He turned back to slamming his cup into the plastic handle. "Let me guess again," he said, "My life?"

Snape growled, and from the corner of his eye, Harry saw the man pulling out his wand.

"Oh don't do that," he said, he had forgotten his own wand in his haste to get out of the school. That must have been hours ago, the sun was starting to set now. Harry wished he could sleep in here, maybe bunk with the clerk boy he has mortified into silence.

"Others should be made aware of their hero boy being intact. They're currently risking their lives to find your sorry behind,"

Something in Harry's heart clenched, and it burned, the same way a stab wound would, closing around the knife that was the source of misery. Harry didn't want this. Any of this. He didn't want other people risking their lives for him, not even Snape, but they did. He didn't want to run away from school, but he did.

He didn't want his parents to be dead because of a damn prophecy. But they were.

"Potter,"

Harry huffed. "When I hear you and don't respond, it's not because of my inferior intellect, Snape," he said with a grudging roll of his eyes. The sky was turning into a bleak swirl of orange and black. "It means that I'm actively ignoring your existence,"

They weren't in the man's classroom, and Harry had had enough of this. Enough of everything. What he needed was solid, endless black. No sound, no sight, no annoying potion masters… just nothing. Maybe when he finally got to die it would be like that.

Harry's stomach recoiled.

"That is not how you address your teacher-"

"I'm dying." He cut the man off, alleviating his cup from the machine once more. He was really getting overworked over a damn slushy. "Your egotistical title is currently at the bottom of my list." he paused for a bit. "Under the slushy,"

Snape's wand was out, but carefully kept out of sight as the man sneered once more. It was a permanent jeer, the kind that Harry was all familiar with. Disdain, superiority… as if Harry was worth less than a gum stuck to his shoe. He was used to that look, he's been seeing it for five years. "I could care less about your pathetic opinions, Potter," he said. "You're being exceedingly, disgustingly dramatic. Albus thought you could be treated as an adult, but apparently that wasn't the case,"

Harry flinched in spite of himself. That was a sore spot. It was too new, having only happened a few hours ago. Albus Dumbledore saw it fit that Harry knew exactly what future laid ahead of him. Harry was not expecting it to turn out the way it had.

Die or kill. Which was worse, really? Slushy, or no slushy.

"He was wrong," Harry admitted. "I'm a coward. I'm not denying it," he was a Gryffindor, yes, he wasn't necessarily scared of dying, contrary to what Snape was thinking. Harry was scared of himself. Because he had a part of that monster in him. He was going to die no matter what. So really, it wasn't the question of dying or killing, it was only a matter of dying and killing, somehow merged into one mutant, heinous act.

He was killing in the act of dying. He was disgusted. Moreover, he was disgusted for feeling repulsed. He wanted Voldemort gone too. He wanted the war to be over with too. Well that wasn't possible, unless Harry died and a part of Voldemort died with him.

Dumbledore's words couldn't have been clearer.

"I'm glad you recognise your flaws," Snape said and Harry finally let go of the machine. It was no good. What was previously broken could never be fixed. It was the same as him really.

"I'm not," Harry said and started walking away, towards the store. He needed something, and dragging Snape around until he got bored enough to use force seemed vaguely amusing.

He wouldn't take Harry by force.

"You're frightened, Potter," Snape said, following him to the store. Harry threw an apologetic smile to the boy behind the counter, completely ignoring Snape entering behind him. Clad in robes.

"Do you have muggle money?" he asked the man, as he headed to the shelves. It didn't matter whether or not Snape had money, they were going to wipe the boy's memories anyways. Better that, than Death Eaters somehow finding him.

Harry kind of wished they found them now, and killed him by accident.

"Why would I have muggle money?" Snape snapped, and Harry picked up a packet of crisps.

"Then you better wipe his mind nicely,"

"This is ridiculous." Then the man leaned in closer to whisper. "We need to leave now, Potter. In case you haven't noticed, there's a price on your head, people could be dying right this second in the name of protecting you,"

He did have a point that Harry couldn't ignore. "Tell them I was found. But I'm not returning yet,"

"I am not your servant!"

Harry opened the crisps. "You are if you're here. I need time and space. I need to think,"

He wasn't expecting to be found this quickly. He had run to the grounds, trekked about half an hour along the edge of the forbidden forest, and then suddenly disappeared with a crack as he saw Hagrid running to him. He needed to apologise to the half-giant once he returned before it was too late.

"Think at Hogwarts," Snape said.

"How did you find me?" Harry asked, "Not even I know how I ended up here." he had never been to this gas station in his life. He had just disappeared, and when he opened his eyes, he was standing before the slushy machine.

The power the Dark Lord knows not.

That sounded about right.

"You're fifteen, of course you wouldn't know," Snape rolled his eyes irritably. Every second that he spent in the store seemed like torture to him. "I used a tracing potion, I had your belongings on hand. It only took me an hour,"

The shiny soda cans caught his eyes, and Harry hummed. "And you didn't tell this to Dumbledore, because?" he said as he headed to the coolers.

"Because I was expecting to find you in the midst of an existential crisis." Snape said, "I was also expecting you to be intimidated by my presence and return immediately. I didn't foresee this level of theatrical performance,"

"Nice," Harry opened the cooler with a small click and plucked out a purple can. It felt blessedly cool against his palm. "Are you surprised I'm not intimidated?"

"Your fear is completely unfounded and baseless, Potter," Snape said. And Harry actually turned to look at him, he gulped. "You seem to be under the impression that you're walking to your death on a plank with a sword jabbing you in the back. That is not the case,"

"Aren't I? Did you hear the same thing I did? I'm the only one that can defeat him. And there's more… I have to kill him seven times for it to stick, apparently,"

Snape harshly glared down at him. "Stop talking about the subject, now," then for reassurance, he turned and pointed his wand at the wide-eyed clerk who had an ugly green phone clutched to his chest.

"Consopio," the man muttered, and the clerk slumped down in his chair, face planting the glass counter.

"That was mean," the beverage tasted like grapes and something sweet. Harry started on the crisps.

"There are currently over thirty people looking for you," Snape said, "An entire organisation is on your back. What put you under the impression that you had to do this alone?"

Harry stared back at the man, the soda felt tangy and repulsive in his throat. He put the snacks on the shelf. "There's a piece of him inside me," he said, blinking hard. He wondered where that piece was, in the throes of his mind. Was it on the surface? The mean side of him, or was it lurking down beneath, biding it's time for years?

"I know," Snape said. This time more patiently than before.

Harry reached for his crisps. "And if I don't kill it, and him, he'll kill me,"

"I know," Snape replied, and they both started strolling between the aisles.

"Do you think dying hurts?" Harry hated himself the instant he asked that question, but instead of the harsh rebuke he was expecting, Snape actually seemed pensive for his question.

"It might." The man finally said.

"Do you think it hurts when I kill that part of him?" The real question was, would it hurt when Harry had to kill himself to take that part with him?

Snape knew what had been said. The double meaning behind the words. "Albus wouldn't let you kill yourself, Potter,"

Harry rubbed his eyes with salty fingers, the crisps crunching in his hand, as he discarded the empty soda can on a random shelf. On impulse, and unable to stop himself, he reached for a box of chocolate waffles, ironically, the same kind that Aunt Petunia had stacked in her cupboards for Dudley.

"He has no choice," Harry said, wondering whether this was his first and last chance at tasting his waffles. "That part of him has to die, or Voldemort wouldn't,"

Snape flinched at the name but didn't scold Harry beyond a cautionary glare. "That is a long way to come yet, Potter,"

"But it has to happen, he has to be stopped and he won't unless I die," the chocolate waffles Harry found, tasted exactly like they smelled in his childhood. They smelled of missed opportunities and affection. Of losing too much in order to gain.

This was so unfair.

"I have known Albus Dumbledore for more than two decades, Potter." Snape himself, surprisingly extends a hand to Harry. Harry titles a box and drops a waffle into the man's hand. Snape nods. "He divulged that information to you for a reason. He entrusted you with it," he said and then passively bit into his waffle, his eyes casually running along the shelves.

"He shouldn't have," Harry thought that he honestly preferred not knowing that he had to die right before he did.

"No life is lost without a cause. Everyone dies, Potter. Whether their deaths have meaning or not. All anyone can do is make sure that their deaths meant more than the sum of their lives."

"This is not comforting,"

"You don't need reassurance," Snape replied with certainty.

Strangely enough, Harry found that the man was somewhat right. "I need to feel as if I don't have the entire world on my shoulders," he said, fiddling with the box in his hands.

"Then think about the future," Snape shrugged as if it was that easy. "The days past this one,"

"There isn't one for me," Harry muttered.

"There isn't one for anyone," Snape pointed out. "But people do it anyway. Not for comfort, but for purpose. Some take it with a grain of salt. If you look past the worst now, you would come to appreciate the best,"

Harry ducked his head and then slowly nodded. He and Snape started walking back to the counter.

"We need to get back now, don't we?" Harry hated inconveniencing anyone any further than he already had. He wasn't feeling better, not in the slightest, but he understood what Snape was trying to say. At least, he thought he did. For now, he just wanted to get back to the castle, with his friends, crawl back into his bed and cry. He would figure everything out later.

He was going to let future Harry deal with it.

"We do." Snape nodded, and as they approached the counter, the man took out his wand once more, mumbling under his breath. Harry realised that the man was wiping the boy's memory.

"He would be better off not knowing me," Harry hummed, although he felt bad for eating all those things and having anything to pay with, in return.

"He would be better off not knowing any one of our kind," Snape said.

"Okay, but you owe me a slushy," Harry paused. "Sir,"

Snape smirked. "We'll see, Mr. Potter,"