The bagpipes felt heavy in Harry’s arms and he shifted awkwardly, unsure how to hold them properly. McAullife waited patiently for him to get comfortable, then adjusted the bass drone on his shoulder slightly.

“Inflate the bag.”

“Huh?”

“Breathe into the blow-stick and inflate the bag.”

Harry did.

“Alright, give ‘em a blow,” he said.

“J-just like that?” Harry asked.

McAullife nodded.

HONK!

Harry coughed and winced. The pressure needed to force the air through the blow-stick was much harder than he’d expected, and the sound was… not pretty.

“Not easy, is it?” McAullife asked, not troubled.

“Yeah,” Harry admitted.

“That’s why you’ll be startin’ on a practice chanter.”

“A what?”

McAullife lifted the pipes off of Harry’s shoulder and stuck a long, thin stick in his hand. “A practice chanter.”

Harry looked at it. It looked like the stick hanging down from the normal pipes, with eight holes drilled into it. No bag, no drones, just a pipe.

“It’s generally a good idea to start with one,” McAullife said kindly.

Harry nodded and placed it to his lips, then hesitated.

“Go on.”

Harry blew into it, varying the effort he put into his air until the tone was slightly tolerable. He covered the top opening with a finger, then the next one, and kept covering more holes until they were all plugged. He listened to the changes in pitch curiously, having to take multiple breaths of air as he experimented with different notes.

“How long until I can use the real thing?” He asked.

McAullife chuckled wryly. “We’ll see. D’you know how to read sheet music?”

“No…” Harry said, wondering if this would be a big deal.

“Ah, well,” McAullife shrugged. “Not too hard to learn.”

Harry was beginning to wonder if his deal to work for lessons was worth it.

At the old man’s urging, Harry ran through the scale. At some point, McAullife had settled the pipes onto his own shoulders and started playing along. The sound of the full pipes was much richer than his little practice chanter, but Harry remembered how overwhelmed he’d felt when he realized how much there was to keep track of with the full set. Arm pressure, drone position, chanter, keeping the bag inflated, just breathing... 

After half an hour was up, Harry felt ready to lay down on the grass and just breathe. His lips hurt from blowing into the chanter, and his ears were ringing a bit.

“Cheer up, lad,” McAullife said, clapping him on the shoulder. “You didn’t think it would be easy, did you?”

Harry had known, in a sort of intellectual way, that learning an instrument would not be an easy task. Still, he hadn’t really understood until he’d tried to do it.

“No,” Harry admitted, then stood up straighter. “But I’m not giving up.”

“That’s the spirit!” McAullife grinned, and the two walked back towards the village. Harry stopped by his shop briefly to pick up the workbook on learning sheet music. He flipped through it as he walked, grimacing at the illustrations and font. It was clearly designed for children, but as such was simple and easy to understand.

He opened the door to the cottage and walked in, not looking up from the book.

“And you’re going to do that… how often?” a weary voice asked.

Harry finally glanced up to see Snape at the kitchen counter, glaring at him balefully. “Uh… every morning?”

Snape returned to the eggs he was scrambling, muttering under his breath. Harry sat at the kitchen table, trying to ignore the man’s ill-temper. He didn’t think Snape was truly angry, but years of avoiding people in a temper were hard to forget.

He jumped slightly when a plate was thumped onto the table in front of him. A glance up and he caught Snape’s apologetic wince, and then Harry began eating the eggs, wariness partially fading into confusion. Snape was annoyed and tired, but fed him and seemed to feel bad for startling him. His own family would lock him up or refuse to feed him at any mild inconvenience.

Snape sat down across from him, head in his hands. Harry watched him, the last dregs of fear draining out of his system. Eventually Snape looked up, running his hands down his face. He cleared his throat and asked, “So, what are the terms of your arrangement with McAullife?”

“Two hours of work for one hour of lessons,” Harry said.

“But you were only out there for half an hour.”

“That’s why I work every other day.”

“Hmm.”

Harry resisted the urge to fidget. “Sir, I didn’t mean to do something wrong. If you really don’t want—”

Snape waved a hand and stood. “No. It’s alright. If you wish to work for a reward, that’s your own business.” He grabbed his apron from where it hung over the privacy screen and started for the door. He was halfway out of it when he paused, looking back at Harry. He opened his mouth slightly, as if to say something, then gave an awkward smile that turned out more like a grimace and left.

Harry turned back to his eggs, flipping open the workbook but not really seeing the notes on the page. That attempt at a smile, while unsuccessful, helped Harry understand that he wasn’t in trouble. He hadn’t broken any rules, but that had never stopped adults before. It seemed like Snape wasn’t about to make a big deal about it, however, so he relaxed.

He stood up to grab a pen and began labeling the notes on the staff.

Severus waved to the manager Allan and washed his hands at the sink before taking his station at the counter. He reached for a scaling knife and set to work, the mindless monotony of the task allowing him to think about other things.

He hadn’t meant to alarm Harry earlier, but in his irritation he hadn’t been able to see how tense the teen had become. He should have known, as children from less than ideal households tended to be extremely sensitive to the moods of those around them.

He turned the descaled fish over and grabbed a different knife. Making a deep cut behind the head near the gills, he tried to forget the flinch. Harry knew that Severus wouldn’t hurt him. 

Didn’t he?

He made a similar cut on the other side of the fish, removing the head with a firm cut through the spine.

“Fresh batch o’ salmon come in yesterday. Peter’s crew had a good haul.” Allan noted, passing by.

Severus nodded, but made no reply. Allan, used to his employee’s reticence, was not bothered.

True, he’d been annoyed by the bagpipes that morning (Harry had left, sheepishly informing him about his lessons, and Severus had known the minute a short silence in the music was followed by an unholy blast that it was going to be a long concealment), but it wasn’t the only issue that worried him.

The last two days and their conversation the night before had been an unwelcome reminder of the war that faced them just outside the boundaries of the safe place they had found. Severus didn’t know how long their stop here would last, but the tenuousness of their position was never far from his mind. One spell cast, one mistake in his anti-tracking wards, one lucky guess from the searchers pursuing them… any small error would be enough to end everything they had built here.

Not that it’s very much, he thought, descaling the next fish with a little more vigor than strictly required. Every time Harry curled up to sleep on the couch, Severus felt a pang of guilt and… well, inadequacy. He knew that he wasn’t his father Tobias, that Harry had no reason to depend on or expect anything from him besides what a teacher might reasonably provide. In fact, based on what he knew of the Dursleys, he probably expected far less than that. Severus knew that this situation was nothing like his own childhood, but he still saw himself instead of Harry whenever he thought about the depressingly thin wallet in his back pocket.

It wasn’t that Severus was incapable of providing. His qualifications in the wizarding world were stellar (discounting his Death Eater status), but the truth was, this was not the wizarding world. This village was not a perfect sample of the muggle world either. The options for work were limited here, and none of the residents lived in expansive wealth. Still, it rankled to know that Severus was unable to even provide a bed for his charge.

He wasn’t too great at providing emotional stability, either.

His sleep had been interrupted and not particularly restful the night previous. His various concerns had run through his mind on loop. The war, the ministry, the trial. The village, Harry, his job. 

Carefully running his finger across the fish, he checked for any stomach bones he may have missed. Feeling one, he pulled it out. He began cutting up the fish into equal salmon steaks, making deft slices into the skin for ease of cooking. He wrapped each steak into a square of butcher paper, taping it closed and placing it in a growing stack between his station and Francis’.

“How are you doing, Samuel?” Francis asked, placing his own freshly-wrapped steak next to Severus’. He had been the worker assigned to showing him “the ropes” when he first arrived, and had been impressed with Severus’ knowledge of preparing fish.

“Surviving,” Severus said wryly.

Francis nodded in understanding.

Why does it bother you so much? Severus asked himself as he reached for another fish. The parallels between his life in Spinner’s End and their hideout here were few. He and Harry were not related. Severus didn’t waste their money on liquor. Their home, while one room and not really their own, was clean. They ate sufficiently, and Harry's clothes fit. Harry was actually safer here than at school, which is not something Severus would have said about his own home. Nor did the teen try desperately to earn his approval.

Doesn’t he?

Ridiculous! Harry Potter had never liked his potions professor. Neither did I ever give him reason to. That, at least, was one similarity. Both had past conflicts with their guardians. It had never stopped a younger Severus from wishing that his dad loved him, but the situations were not equal.

“At least I never tossed him down the stairs,” Severus muttered, finding more satisfaction in chopping the salmon’s head off than was probably healthy.

“What’s that?” Francis asked.

“Nothing,” Severus said shortly. A moment later, he asked, “Where can I buy a bed around here?”

Francis glanced up at him. “A bed?”

“My son. He’s been on the couch ever since we got here. Doesn’t complain, of course, but still.”

“Ah, I see. Well, McAullife’s doesn’t exactly carry furniture, but you can either take a short boat trip to the city and get one or pick from a catalog at McAullife’s and he’ll order it for you. Either way, you have to pay the boat fare on top of the frame price.” He cut out the spine of his fish, considering. After a brief pause, he said, “But you don’t have to order one. Several people ‘round here are handy with a hammer. If you buy the lumber, we’ll build one for you.”

“I can’t accept-"

“Don’t say anything about charity, Sam. You can pay us in dinner afterwards, or give some money to the younger lads who are trying to save up. In the end, though, it’ll still be cheaper than buying something from the island, and it’ll probably be better quality, too. You’ll have to buy the mattress, but we can take care of the frame itself.” He caught the look on Severus’ face and crossed his arms. “You’re part of the village now, yeah? Don’t know why you’ve decided to stick around, but you have, and we take care of our own. What do you think the rest of us do when something breaks? This isn’t anything the boys and I wouldn’t do for anybody else.”

He and Severus stared each other down, until Allan strode past and they returned to their work.

“Well?”

Severus breathed out heavily through his nose. “Alright.”

Francis grinned at him, and although Severus didn’t smile back, he felt some of the weight on his shoulders lift a bit.