2.

‘Snape! SNAPE! Wake up!’

After a suppressed yawn, Snape opened his eyes to have a look at the man who was shaking him madly. Not too surprisingly, it was Potter – of course, they were in the brat’s flat somewhere in Australia, and some hours before, Potter had disarmed him with a muggle trick and…

‘Potter,’ he sneered suddenly completely awake. ‘Give me back my wand!’

To his surprise, the next moment his wand was back in his grasp, while Potter put on some robes in a reckless hurry.

‘We have to disappear. Now. I’m happy you sleep in your usual clothes.’

Snape was about to open his mouth and to berate the cheeky man, when he noticed that Potter was right. He was indeed wearing his muggle clothes, only the shoes were missing as he lay on the absolutely horrendous sofa. The book was still lying on his chest. Then he caught sight of a grandfather clock facing him, and couldn’t help, but cry out in anger.

‘It’s two o’clock in the morning! What do you think you’re doing?’

Potter glared at him. ‘Try not to yell, Snape. We should leave as soon as possible. They’ll be here in no time.’

‘They?’

‘The Death Eaters,’ Potter answered irritated. ‘I used magic. They can detect it. They will be here as soon as they can gain permission to Apparate into the country. That means that they can be here in any time.’

Australia was surrounded by Anti-Apparation Wards, because wizarding people from all over the world had always tended to flee to that country in case of emergency, and after a while, the local Ministry had decided to take control of the reckless immigration and had created the wards, which had drawn power from the whole magical community in the country. This was the only reason they were still alive, Snape mused. If Voldemort and his lackeys had been able to Apparate into Australia, they would have been dead by now. But somehow, Potter’s guilt or whatever other sense had woken him in time to flee.

‘I see,’ Snape said and put the book on the nightstand. Potter, with incredible speed, grabbed it and took some steps backward with it. His face was so contorted with pain and sorrow that Snape almost pitied him. So, those traces of tears were the brat’s. But soon, he shook his pity off. He turned his attention back to his shoes.

‘It’s-’ Snape began after he had put his shoes on, but he couldn’t finish the sentence.

‘Expelliarmus!’ somebody bellowed and his wand flew out of his grasp in an instant. The next moment the room went completely dark and Snape could sense as Potter threw the floor lamp in the direction of the previous voice and felt Potter grasp his wrist and pull him towards the bedroom. He followed the brat in the sudden darkness deciding to trust in his instincts, it was his flat after all.

Somebody cursed after the lamp’s impact and Snape knew they had a small advantage until the Death Eater got rid of the lamp in the darkness. He smirked. Potter wasn’t wanted by Dumbledore for nothing. Even without a wand, he was quite potent – like the previous evening.

Whack!

Dump!

The unmistakable sound of two bodies’ colliding sounded from ahead and his breath hitched. Their attackers were in pairs or even more and there were only the two of them and Potter was without a wand... Bad luck. Snape heard loud swearing from Potter’s direction, and the darkness disappeared: the first attacker finally remembered the Lumos spell and they were uncovered. Snape jumped to his feet and sought refuge behind an armchair, while Potter grabbed the other man he had collided with and whirled him around so that his colleague’s next curse hit him instead of the brat. The movement was undoubtedly professional, because the hurried Killing Curse spared Potter’s life this way, but the room was dark again, because nobody could perform two kinds of magic simultaneously. Snape heard as Potter dropped his dead shield to the floor and grabbed his arm again without a word. The brat didn’t even try to search for the dead man’s wand: other curses crossed the air around them, and the wand simply wasn’t worth of risking their lives for it. So Snape, out of habit, rolled his eyes, but still didn’t protest. The next moment they were standing in a small room, the door closed behind them, and Potter opened a window and ushered Snape out.

‘We should get a wand,’ Snape murmured and glared at the brat. The room was too dark for it, so his glare missed its purpose. Potter made a nonchalant sound.

‘Go back if you want then,’ he spat through his clenched teeth. ‘I prefer being alive than having a wand.’

Snape cast an irate look at Potter in the semi-dark (again, without any result), but the younger man just shrugged it off and climbed out without another word. With a silent sigh, Snape followed him. While climbing from one windowsill to another, he kept cursing Dumbledore and the whole Order, and everybody who had agreed with the old lunatic that he should find Potter.

An opening door croaked somewhere in the dark, and Potter stopped at a window and pushed it in. It wasn’t locked fortunately, so soon, they were standing in another small room, in another flat, and the window closed innocently as soon as they were in. But Potter still didn’t open his mouth, just opened the room’s door and drove Snape through another, but very similar flat. They were so cautious that the inhabitants didn’t even wake when they left the flat. The only trace of their presence was the closed, but not locked entrance door.

Reaching the street, Potter began to walk so fast than he was almost jogging. For a moment, Snape thought to resist, but inwardly cursing the Headmaster for his stupid idea to sending him to fetch the brat, followed the young man again. “I feel like a puppy,” he though sardonically. “A puppy of Harry Potter’s at that.”

A loud boom sounded from the flat they had just left and a disgusting memento of so much pain and so many sins appeared floating in the air over Potter’s flat: the Dark Mark. The blood was drained from the younger man’s face as he watched the skull and the serpent for a long minute, then he turned on his heel and continued his reckless hurry away from his previous life.

‘We have to go to Perth,’ was Potter’s first sentence when they were quite far away from the flat walking down a dark, narrow street, already in a normal stance, his face regained its normal colour. ‘My only magical acquaintance in this country lives there.’

Snape felt as if he had been hit by a very heavy object on his head. ‘Perth? Are you mad, Potter? That’s the other side of this damned country!’

Potter tiredly rubbed his eyes, and sighed. ‘That’s the only way you can get a wand and return to Britain by Floo or Apparating. You can try flights of course, but I don’t think it would be too safe to go for such a long trip without a wand, especially after that meeting in my flat…’

Snape for a moment couldn’t say a word. ‘And what about you?’ he barked angrily.

‘That’s none of your business, Snape. You can go home and report to Dumbledore that you fulfilled his orders: you pulled me back into this meaningless war.’

‘ME? It was you who stole my wand!’

‘It was you who strangled me and didn’t leave me alone!’

They looked at each other with well-covered hatred in their eyes, but in the end it was Harry, who waved tiredly.

‘All right, just put the blame on me, if it makes you happy. But now, we have to get to an airport as fast as we can, that’s the fastest way there.’

‘I don’t think you’ll find any flights in this impossible hour. It’s half past three,’ Snape interjected and Harry nodded.

‘You’re right. We have to find a place to spend those hours until morning.’

‘What about a pub?’ Snape asked to Harry’s astonishment.

‘Pub? At this time of night?’

Snape smirked. ‘We can find open pubs anytime, just we have to search them in the right place.’

Potter rubbed his eyes and nodded. ‘All right. Lead our way then, because I’m sure I don’t know any pubs in this area.’

***

Harry was quite surprised when Snape indeed found an open pub, but was quite relieved that they didn’t have to spend the night’s remaining hours on the streets. He felt unbelievably tired: his life, his entire life had just been ripped from him forever – again –, and suddenly, he was really grateful for his instincts, which had forced him to pocket the Yeats anthology and now, driven by an unknown feeling, he pulled it out and caressed its cover in thought.

For a moment, his feelings were so intense that he almost suffocated. He should have left it behind, together with everything else he had had just one hour ago. Perhaps that would have been for the best. To leave his old life behind and begin anew, void of painful mementos, but now, that Yeats was in his hand, he couldn’t help but clench it so tightly that his knuckles went white.

He didn’t care what Snape would think about him, sitting there and clinging in an old book. In reality, he didn’t care about Snape at all. It hadn’t been entirely the git’s fault that they had been found: he should have been more cautious too. He was quite relieved that the other man didn’t harass him because of it now, they sat in an almost companionable silence, like two friends: Snape drinking beer, while Harry had chosen to have tea instead. Snape had been the one who had served their drinks, and after some silent minutes, he quietly spoke-

‘I don’t think we can go by plane, Potter. The radio just said that the police had found that dead Death Eater in your flat and now, they are after you.’

Snape’s soft words caused just another wave of pain. His life seemed suddenly upside down.

‘Oh, no,’ he groaned and ran a finger over the book’s cover absentmindedly. ‘So now, I’m in deep shit. Just like I was back in Britain. Isn’t it interesting?’ he suddenly asked and looked at Snape. ‘Any time I meet you I become the centre of the happenings. Perhaps it’s not me, who is a trouble magnet, but you.’

‘Potter,’ Snape growled, but Harry didn’t become frightened.

‘Any ideas, Snape?’ he asked instead cheekily.

‘About what, Potter?’

‘What can we do now? We have to reach Perth in any case. I have no chance against them without a wand, and you have to get home.’

‘We should find somebody here.’

‘Try then.’ Harry shrugged. ‘But I warn you, Sydney is too big for such uncertain adventures. Your chances of running into a local magical person here are less than your chance of meeting some of your good, old colleagues…’

‘Potter!’ Snape’s head jerked up and the man scowled at him, showing all of his teeth.

Harry smirked evilly and shrugged. ‘What? Denying the obvious, Snape?’

The next moment, Snape leaned over the table and grabbed Harry’s collar forcefully, while spitting hatefully into his face, ‘You little piece of shit, you’d better to close that fat mouth of yours! Your stupidity almost killed another person, me, to be precise, and I decided not to mention it, but your behaviour,’ he shook Harry, ‘makes me think that you never even gave a damn about the people dying around you as long as you were safe.’

The next moment Harry’s fist found its way into Snape’s nose (again) and the older man tottered back in pain holding his now bleeding nose in his hands. Harry, mimicking Snape’s previous movements pulled him closer by his collar.

‘It’s Satan reproving sin, Snape, don’t you think? You were a Death Eater, not me, you were the one who tortured and killed people, how dare you accuse me of being careless and virtually a murderer of my friends?’ With a push, he released the older man, who popped back to his chair.

Snape lifted his head, his eyes were burning with unleashed hatred. ‘I never killed anybody, Potter. Never,’ he hissed and pushed a handkerchief against his face. Harry, in response, released a short, sharp laugh.

‘No?’ he asked mockingly. ‘The joke of the century!’

Snape’s eyes burned even more. ‘No. And nobody, I repeat, nobody has died because of me. Quite the contrary, you snivelling, disgusting dimwit. I saved more people in my life than you can ever imagine!’

‘Oh, such a touching grandfather’s tale, Snivellus. But I hope you don’t think you can make me believe your little stories. I know quite a lot of things about you. I know about Voldemort’s ways of initiation… They’re quite bloody…’

Snape, to Harry’s astonishment, stopped arguing, just shrugged his shoulders. ‘I don’t need you to believe me. You, who killed your best friend…’

This blow was just too low, again. Harry paled violently. ‘Snape, you don’t know anything about that… that…’

‘Amazing language skills, Potter.’ Snape smirked, but he was quite scary with the blood still oozing from his nose.

Harry fought hard to regain his composure. He had gone too far that morning, he knew. He wouldn’t have lose his self-control just because of Snape’s taunting words – or most of all, he wouldn’t have to begin the whole argument. But he couldn’t help it, Dumbledore’s favouritism towards the git still scandalised him, the unfairness of it all.

With a sudden decision, he put his cup down to the table and stood up. He didn’t want to remain under the same roof with Snape. He needed to get out, to get as far away from one of the most hated people of his life as he could, and as soon as he could. So, he left the other man behind without a word, almost running out of the pub. Once on the street, he nearly collapsed, but he didn’t let the weakness subdue him, he kept walking, his heart racing in his chest – Snape’s words just burned, ate him from inside. “… you never even gave a damn about the people dying around you as long as you were safe…” The absolute injustice of it, of his whole life, and this man hadn’t even hesitated to use it against him. His friends… Oh, it hurt.

‘Hermione,’ he called out softly and felt hot tears running down his cheeks. ‘Hermione, Ron… loveling… Loveling,’ he cried silently. Those bright eyes looking at him, that smiling mouth, those comforting arms around him… Their common dreams of a quiet, peaceful home in the countryside, with kids and dogs – and all of a sudden, everything was taken from him, his loveling’s eyes were as empty as anybody else’s hit by a Killing Curse – his dreams and his life had died in that day and hadn’t returned since.

No kids, no dogs, no house in the countryside, no peace, and most of all – no loveling.

And Snape just came and threw awful words in his face. He had done, he had really done everything he just could to protect them all. It hadn’t been his fault that they had died.

He couldn’t care about his surroundings anymore, and he didn’t care that he couldn’t care: in reality, he wished Voldemort would be there and put an end to this whole scum called life with a fast spoken Killing Curse, and he could join them in that other adventure – if Dumbledore had been right about it. He didn’t know he could trust the old, crooked man in a serious topic like that when he had betrayed him more times that Harry could even try to count.

A painful shake pulled him out of his thoughts. A strong hand clasped his shoulder and made him whirl around. Harry could hear a slight gasp before he could cast a look at his attacker (though he knew his identity quite well).

‘Potter, come back to that pub.’ It was a command, but Harry wasn’t a student of the git anymore – not as if he had followed his commands even back at school.

‘Leave me alone, Snape. You did what you had to do. Voldemort is here or will be here in no time, I will meet him, I don’t have to go back. Go now.’

‘Don’t play the drama queen, Potter. It doesn’t suit you.’

‘Let my shoulder go, git.’ Harry stepped back.

‘No, Potter.’

‘Why not? You can’t force me to do whatever you want, can you?’

Harry saw on the other’s face that his words had been true. Snape released his shoulder. Harry nodded and turned around.

‘Bye then. I am absolutely displeased to meet you.’

Snape made a tentative step towards his direction. ‘Potter, wait.’

‘No.’

‘Potter!’

‘NO!’ Harry quickened his steps, but he still could hear Snape’s soft footfalls behind him. He growled in frustration. Couldn’t the man ever leave him alone?

‘You forgot your book in the pub.’

Damn it. Harry clenched his jaws resolutely and didn’t turn around.

“I don’t need it. Not any more. It belongs to the past. It can never bring her back.”

He was almost running. Snape’s footfalls still sounded too close.

“Why doesn’t the git leave me alone?”

‘Potter, stop, please.’ The words were choked and hoarse. Snape, Harry could hear, could barely breathe because of his hurt nose. A wave of guilt suddenly pushed him so hard that he almost fell back. He shook his head and turned around.

The man’s face was a royal mess. Clotted blood covered the whole lower part of his cheeks and mouth, he looked like a vampire after feeding. But Harry just couldn’t enjoy the sight.

Somewhere, deep inside, the man had been true. His forgetfulness had almost killed Snape, and the man hadn’t really mentioned it until he had begun to taunt him about his past. Lowering his hands in capitulation, he looked at the man directly in his eyes.

‘Potter, look-’ Snape couldn’t finish, because Harry’s words interrupted him.

‘Snape, I’m sorry. It was very rude of me.’ He waved towards the other man’s nose. Snape involuntarily stepped back.

‘I shouldn’t have said that about Mr Weasley, I guess,’ he spoke up uncertainly.

They just stood there for some long moments. Finally, Harry nodded and waved at Snape, who followed him. Soon, they were standing in front of a shop. Harry went in, motioning Snape to remain outside, but he arrived back soon.

‘Let’s go to a less open place,’ the young man muttered. Once in a shadowy street, Harry pulled out a bottle of water and a handkerchief. ‘I’m going to wash the blood off your face. You’re not presentable in your present state.’

Snape grunted something back, but he obeyed and let Harry wash the blood away.

‘I shouldn’t have hit you,’ he said when he finished.

Snape didn’t answer, not even nodding, just handed the book over to Harry.

‘It’s yours,’ he said softly. Harry touched the book so carefully as if it was a fragile piece of art rather than a book.

‘Thanks,’ he muttered.

‘You’d better clean your own face too,’ Snape noticed quietly. But when Harry didn’t move, he took the handkerchief and the water and washed the younger man’s face.

Harry was so embarrassed that he couldn’t utter a word, just stood there as if he had been rooted to the ground, until Snape spoke up again, ‘We have to find a way to go to Perth then,’ he said in a casual voice, for which Harry was very grateful.

‘I think we should rent a car,’ he answered uncertainly. ‘But I don’t think I can do that with my current documents – oh, and we should do something about my… er… identity.’

‘Dumbledore provided me with some fake documents.’ Snape pulled out an envelope with two IDs. ‘For situations like this. The only thing you have to do is to put in these contact lenses and… let your hair grow a little bit. It should change your whole appearance.’

‘Are you sure it will work?’ Harry looked at him warily.

‘Why?’ Snape furrowed his brows. ‘I don’t know any better solution.’

‘I don’t trust Dumbledore,’ Harry said, his voice sounded bitter. Snape didn’t speak, just looked at him expectantly. Finally, Harry grunted out, ‘If you want to know, it was he, who killed Ron. He, and not my carelessness.’

Next part