Walk the Shadows

'Well, what are you waiting for? Give it a try.'

Harry startled but pressed the two spots and mumbled his way through the Latin -- Merlin, his accent was atrocious! -- and the door swung inwards, revealing the sitting room once more.

'Tea?' Severus asked as the door shut on its own behind them. They were going to have to talk, and he'd found the boy did better if he had something in his hands that he could focus on.

'Yes, sir. Thank you.' Well aware of the routine, Harry collapsed onto the couch, looking tense already.

Severus suppressed a sigh and went about making tea for them. He glanced at the boy while he set up a tray, and wondered what was going on in that knobbly head of his. More self-recriminations, he was sure.

Back in the sitting room, he waited while the boy adjusted his tea with sugar and cream, waited for him to blow on the drink a bit, waited till the boy took a tentative sip and then finally met his gaze.

'Well,' Severus said. 'That was an adventure I don't care to repeat.'

'I'm sorry, sir,' Harry blurted. 'I didn't realize you . . . I didn't know your broom . . . I'm sorry I almost killed you.'

'I daresay. That wouldn't look good on your transcript at all.'

Harry gaped at him again. This was getting old. 'Did you . . . are you joking?'

'Naturally. I would hope that your transcript would be the least of your concerns in the event of my untimely demise.'

'Yes, sir! I didn't mean to put you in danger, I just . . .'

'You just what, Harry?' he asked softly. 'What were you doing, going up like that?'

The boy stared at his teacup with an intensity Severus seldom saw in him, ever. 'I'm just so cold, Professor. Everything feels . . . I feel like I'm in a dungeon. His dungeon, and I can never get warm. I just wanted to feel warm again.'

'I see.' He took a sip of his own tea, letting it sit in his mouth a moment before swallowing. 'You do realize, of course, that the higher you go, the thinner the air, and thus, the colder it becomes.'

Twin blotches of red appeared on the boy's cheeks. 'Yes, sir. I know. Or, I knew that, but it . . . it didn't seem real, not until I felt you fall away.'

Severus frowned. 'What do you mean by that?'

'I don't know, exactly. Just, when I was blind, and we were there, I could tell where other wizards were, from their magical . . . signature, I guess. That's what I've been calling it. It's how I knew where to aim when we were trying to escape.'

'And how you knew when I'd awoken, later,' Severus said softly.

'Yes.'

Severus waited, but it seemed the boy was not ready to go on about Topsham, yet. 'And so today . . .'

'Today, I felt you following me, but it wasn't till I realized that you'd stopped that I figured it out. About the sun, I mean, and not being able to touch it, really.' Harry turned the cup around in his hands. 'It was weird, what I was feeling. But then, once you were gone . . . I was just afraid.'

'Afraid that you'd killed me.'

Harry nodded, but remained silent.

'Well. I bear at least part of the responsibility for that,' Severus admitted. When the boy looked at him in shock, he waved his hand lightly. 'We hadn't set any limits for you in the vertical plane. I should have done so, to avoid any confusion. I shall rectify that oversight before we fly again, I assure you.'

The boy's mouth moved, not unlike a large fish. 'Are . . . are you serious? I almost killed you, and all you say is that you should have told me not to?'

'Not exactly. I should have told you not to go above a thousand meters, for instance. Then there would have been a rule that you would have broken, and we could deal with the consequences of that. This,' he waved his hand again, 'was merely a miscommunication.'

'Aren't you going to send me away?' Harry's emotions were splayed all over his face; he'd never make an Occlumens this way. They'd have to work on that. 'To St. Mungo's?'

'Have you broken any of our rules?'

'N-no, sir.'

'Well, then, why should I send you away?'

Harry shook his head, as if trying to wrap his mind around a difficult concept. 'Because I almost killed you!'

'But you didn't. And, in fact, I believe Madam Pomfrey, for one, is under the impression that you saved my life. So.' He inclined his head. 'Thank you.'

A bark of a laugh escaped the boy's throat, and he looked torn between laughing more, or perhaps bursting into tears. Severus prepared to Reparo something, if need be. 'I will never understand you, Professor,' Harry said at last.

'Good,' Severus replied. It would never do to be predictable.

TBC . . .

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