Archive of Our Own

Clarence had trained many herbalists over the years, but Samuel was of a kind he hadn’t seen in a long, long while. A kind he had done his best to cut out from his life, as a matter of fact, even though he could never entirely shut out his baby sister and, after her death, his nephews and his niece. And after the boys’ deaths, well, he’d kept an eye on Molly, of course; she was a good sort. But she looked too much like her mother, and her family kept her quite busy, so they drifted apart. He hadn’t wanted to intrude.

Clarence lost what little contact he had kept with the magical world, after that. If they didn’t want him, well, he didn’t need them. He’d proved that well enough, throughout his long life.

But this young, young-ish, man… he was one of them; Clarence could tell. Clarence himself might be a Squib, but he had spent his first eleven years in an old magical family, and while he didn’t have any magic himself, he still had a sensitivity to it. It was useful, in his line of work, and if all his previous apprentices and trainees had been very Muggle, this one was most definitely not.

No, Samuel was one of them, but… he didn’t seem to be aware of it. He spontaneously sorted plants between magical and not, though he always gave other reasons to explain his sorting, and things kept happening around him that should not happen unless magic was afoot: tea that kept warm for too long, glass phials that bounced on the tiled floor instead of breaking… but Samuel didn’t seem to find any of it strange, nor did he seem to do it on purpose.

Clarence met Samuel – John Doe at the time – in the hospital where he sold some of his wares every Saturday. Some of the doctors recommended teas, infusions, sometimes essential oils to their patients, and Clarence was happy to provide; it wouldn’t cure, but it provided comfort, and that was important, too. Not-yet-Samuel had been sitting on a bed, looking out of the window into the grey sky, bandages around his neck and torso peeking out from under his gown. When Clarence walked past his room, Samuel slipped from his bed, stumbled to the door, and knocked the packages from Clarence’s hands.

“Hellebore,” he’d said in a rough, gravelly voice. “You’ll kill them.” And then he’d slid down the wall to sit on the floor, as if he’d used up all his energy.

“Hellebore?”

“Poison.”

“Well, yes, but I’m not carrying any.”

Then-John Doe had looked at the packets strewn on the floor, picked one up, and held it out.

Clarence had opened the packet, frowned at what he saw, and brought everything back to his shop. And yes, there had been hellebore mixed in Mrs Jennings’ verbena. Needless to say, Clarence changed suppliers, but he also got talking with the nurses and doctors.

The mysterious John Doe had come to them grievously injured, feverish and delirious when he wasn’t unconscious, but even when he started to recover from whatever had happened – there were theories: mauled by a wild animal? suicide gone wrong? but nothing quite fit – he still didn’t talk. They’d assumed his vocal cords had been too damaged for him to ever talk again, but apparently not.

After the hellebore incident, he started answering questions, but he didn’t remember anything – or he said he didn’t. The only time he seemed to know anything was when Clarence brought him herb samples; he recognized them all, even listing their properties and preparations when asked.

Since he didn’t remember his own name, John Doe went with the saint of the day – Samuel – and shrugged when asked what he wanted to do once he was recovered. The social workers were fretting a bit because Samuel had no support network… and that was how Clarence got a new apprentice.

Clarence was getting on in years and he really should have retired years ago, but he liked his work, and he didn’t want to close the shop he’d built and cared for over such a long time. But the youngsters of the day, they didn’t want to come live in his small village, and Clarence had stopped long ago trying to find anyone. He figured he’d die in his shop one day, and that would be it.

But now, with Samuel, he’d found someone he felt he could trust to keep the shop going. Clarence first encouraged him to take courses, think about getting an accreditation, perhaps sign up for classes at the Open University. Anatomy, physiology, biology… they would help, Clarence knew.

But Samuel had, in fact, an already sound grasp of these things, and he was familiar with basic chemistry. Or, Clarence wondered once while watching him measure, prepare, and take notes on an experimental tincture, not quite chemistry. He’d dug out Clarence’s old microscope, and was writing equations that didn’t look like what Clarence remembered from long-ago Muggle chemistry classes. The symbols looked more like runes, and that was when it hit him for the first time.

Samuel was a wizard, and he had forgotten he was. Clarence couldn't let him go and use runes around Muggles, especially when the poor man didn’t even realise those were not part of regular, non-magical science, so he dialled down on the courses advice and focused on how to talk to clients because small talk was really not Samuel’s forte. In the first few months he tended to skip the niceties and stick to the bare essentials when advising patrons, but they forgave him a lot when they saw the scars creeping around his neck and heard the rasp in his voice. He got better, week after week, and his advice became sought after.

All in all, Clarence thought, things were going well.

“You should take a holiday somewhere; you’ve been here for five years and you’ve never had a break from the shop.”

“I have.”

Clarence scratched his cheek through the thick beard that covered it. “Please don’t tell me you count training courses and seminars as a break.”

“Why not? You said a break from the shop. Those were not in the shop.”

“You’re going to count driving lessons next.”

Samuel raised an eyebrow. “They were in a car, not the shop.”

“And the original purpose was for deliveries.”

“Which by definition are outside the shop.”

Clarence sighed. “A holiday won’t kill you.”

“But it might kill you; you can’t go climbing the ladder whenever a client needs top-shelf herbs.”

“Are you calling me old? You are, aren’t you.” Clarence narrowed his eyes in mock-anger. “Whipper-snappers like you don’t know what it’s like, getting older.”

“I can recommend a tea blend to help with common ailments for old geezers like you, Mr Gray.”

Clarence burst out laughing. “There’s still room for improvement, if that’s how you talk to customers.”

“I haven’t had any complaints in a while.” Samuel leaned back against the counter, relaxed and so much more at ease now than he was when he first left the hospital, wary, paranoid really, and too quiet. “Have you?”

“No, you know clients love you, for some unfathomable reason.”

“It’s because I’m good at giving them what they need.”

That he was; magic guided him, and Clarence suspected his past, deeply buried self had a background in Herbology, or perhaps the healing arts. “And at least a third of them flirt with you.”

That was a somewhat touchy topic, and Samuel frowned. “They do not.”

“They do, and you know it. And in all these years, you haven’t gone on a single coffee date!”

“Is it part of the job description, now?”

“Of course not, but… you’ve been here for years now, and you haven’t made a single friend.”

“You’ve just said clients loved me; make up your mind.”

“They do, but you don’t have actual friends.” Clarence watched the frown deepen; he knew what Samuel was thinking. It wasn’t the first time they’d had that conversation, after all. “Yes, you’ve got me, but I’m old; I won’t always be here. I don’t want you to be lonely, when I’m gone.” Which would be somewhere in the distant future… as long as he didn’t have another heart attack, of course. Not that Samuel knew about the first one.

“I should check the drying rack; I think the herbs are ready to be bagged.”

Samuel whirled and stalked to the storeroom behind the counter, his steps quick and more silent than they should be. Clarence had long thought he must have worn long, flowing robes as a wizard, with the way he moved. His memories of Wizarding fashion were old and a bit hazy, since he’d been kicked out of home at eleven when it was clear he’d never receive a Hogwarts letter, but he did remember the robes. They tended to billow at precisely the right height to slap on a child’s face, when it was windy.

He sighed, wondering if he’d ever manage to get Samuel to loosen up and do something just for fun. He had a damn tattoo on his arm, a skull and snake design that looked old and that Samuel generally kept covered. Clarence wondered what type of misspent youth ended up with such a design, but it got one thinking: it was a peculiar kind of tattoo, after all, the kind death-obsessed kids got, or those who liked really loud music – not that Samuel listened to a lot of music. It wasn’t magical either; it didn’t move, and it was quite faded by now. Samuel didn’t like people looking at it or asking questions, like for his scars – the ones on his neck and shoulder, but also a bite mark on his ankle, and some that looked like cuts that had badly healed. Some small, too-round scars, too, that looked very old and that Clarence didn’t like thinking of. Samuel also limped at times, as if he’d torn ligaments, but there was no visible scar on his knees or hips.

And sometimes, just sometimes, he had really bad nightmares. Back when Clarence first took him under his wing, Samuel slept on his couch, before they turned the attic into a small flat he moved in during their first spring together. He wouldn’t talk about them in the morning, and Clarence played along on the pretence he hadn’t noticed, but he knew. He’d seen; he’d heard: a pained groan, a choked-off scream, muttered words. Red-rimmed eyes in the morning, deep gouges on his arm, the one with the tattoo, where he’d clawed at it.

At first, Clarence had wondered if he should get back in touch with his niece; he knew there had been bad, bad things happening in the Wizarding world a few decades ago. He knew her brothers hadn’t died peacefully, back then. But he also didn’t want to go back to a society where he didn’t belong, that didn’t want him, and he didn’t want to bother Molly after all this time. Samuel might have been a wizard in another life, but he’d built up a whole new self in this one, in the Muggle world, and so what if he had nightmares? Everyone had a painful past to work through; who was Clarence, who’d resented his family for years, to throw stones?

No, better to leave the past where it was supposed to be.

Except when the past came in through the front door, making the little bell tinkle and Clarence’s blood freeze.

The young man was a wizard; it was obvious. Not only could Clarence feel that aura of something, the something he’d never had himself, but his knitted jumper had a golden snitch pattern; it was quite the giveaway.

“Can I help you?” Clarence asked.

The young man glanced around, eyes too sharp for a random customer, and stepped up to the counter. “Hello,” he said. “Do you have something that would help with, uh, allergies?”

“Allergies.”

“Yeah, I keep sneezing around flowers. That’s allergies, right?”

Clarence tugged on his beard, thoughtful. The young man had no reddened eyes or nose, he breathed just fine… “Hm, yes, it sounds like allergies. I don't have any Pepper-Up, though. This is not that kind of shop.”

“Pepper-Up – are you…” The young man’s eyes narrowed. “You’re Clarence Gray, right?”

“I am. And you are…?”

The question seemed to throw him for a second. “I… My name’s Harry.”

“You’re a wizard.”

“Yeah.” His shoulders drooped but then he lifted his chin, defiant. “I work for the Ministry. There’s magic in and around your shop, but you’re registered as, um…”

“As a Squib.”

“Er, yes. So I was sent to investigate in case there’s an untrained young witch or wizard, a Muggleborn magical child, or maybe a late-bloomer, living here. To keep the Statute of Secrecy safe, you know.”

“What do you do with Muggleborn children: take them from their family?”

Harry’s eyes widened. “Of course not! We just talk with the parents, explain things so they understand what’s happening. We find it's easier to talk to them early, instead of dumping everything on them when the child turns eleven. We also give them one of these,” he pulled a little Snitch out of his pocket, “for the child to play with; it dampens magical outbursts. Plus, during and after the War, a lot of children didn’t get the training they should have had, so I go there and explain it’s all over now, and that it’s safe to join Wizarding society and learn about magic and how to control and use it.”

“War?” Clarence frowned. “Safe?”

“You… don’t know?”

“I’m a Squib, young man. I was kicked out of your world when it was clear I had none of your magic, and I didn’t really keep up with it.”

The young man looked a bit sick. “But maybe your children, or grandchildren, or…”

“I never had children.”

“If not you or your blood family, could there be…” Harry’s eyes were on the framed certificates on the wall behind Clarence. “Who is Samuel Gray?”

“Probably the reason why you’re here. But I don’t think he needs you or your people, not anymore.”

“Well, still, I’d like to make an assessment so that…”

Clarence cut him off with a raised hand. “When was your War?”

“A few years ago; it’s all better now. Voldemort’s gone for good.”

“Voldemort?” He’d heard the name before…

“You don't recognize the name?”

“I’m not sure; I lost touch with my niece, oh, twenty, twenty-five years ago, and she was the only witch I ever talked to even back then.”

“That was the first War.”

“First…” Clarence shook his head. “Nevermind. Samuel, I believe, is a wizard, but he’s also forgotten all about it. He doesn’t even know that he is, and I think he’s content that way. He doesn’t need to be reminded.”

“He’s got your name.”

“Right, well, it was simply convenient. He didn’t remember his own, so he went with mine.” He looked up at the clock over the door; Samuel would be almost done with the deliveries by now. “And I think he’ll be back soon; you should leave.”

“I don’t want to hurt him or you; I promise, but I’d just like to make sure he’s safe and that there’s no risk of…”

The doorbell jingled again. It was too late.

You had to give it to young Harry; by the time Samuel had finished telling Clarence about Mrs Johnson’s foot ailments and Mr Pylls’s arthritis, his face was back to bland politeness. But he’d recognized him; Clarence was sure of it. He knew who Samuel was – had been, in his previous life.

“Good afternoon,” Samuel said. There was absolutely no trace of recognition in his eyes; Clarence could tell. Samuel was the guarded sort, certainly, but Clarence knew him too well by now. Whatever was keeping his memories away or had erased them, it was strong.

“Er, hi.”

“This young man here asked if we had anything for pain from an old sprain; do we still have some of that paste left?” Allergies, really.

“I started a new batch after we sold the last pot; let me check in the storeroom.”

Once Samuel had disappeared in the back, Clarence looked at Harry over his glasses. “Don’t. Whatever it is you’re thinking of: don’t.”

“I thought he was dead. I saw him – I saw him die.” Harry’s whisper turned into a choke on the last word. “There was so much blood…”

“Samuel is my employee and my friend; he’ll inherit this shop, too. He doesn’t need you. Take your paste and leave him be; it’s best for everyone.”

“But…”

The door to the storeroom opened and Samuel set the paste on the counter. “Here. Rub it on the muscle twice a day for a week; come back if you need more.”

“Er, alright. Thanks.”

Samuel gave him a brusque nod before returning to the storeroom, taking the list of orders he’d left on the counter with him.

“Ten pounds,” Clarence said.

“You know I don’t need the paste.”

“You’re here; you might as well take it.”

Harry ignored the pot and kept staring at the door behind Clarence, looking like he’d seen – well, like he’d seen a ghost. Which he just had, in a way. “He doesn’t recognize me.”

“No.” Clarence sighed. “Ten pounds.”

“I… fine.” He pulled out a wallet and slapped a ten quid note on the counter. “Is he happy? Is he – does he have friends, a family?” There was an intensity in his voice that made quite a few alarm bells ring in the privacy of Clarence’s mind.

He put the note in the cash drawer, looking at the young man over the rim of his glasses. “He’s got me. Our patrons like him, although he’s not close to any of them. He likes it that way. He’s got a home; he’s got a life, a future here. If your war, your world almost killed him, why would he go back? What’s waiting for him, there?”

Harry’s fingers finally curled around the pot. “I don’t know; it’s just… I don’t know what to say.”

“I understand.” And he did, really; the young man’s shock was genuine, that much Clarence could tell. Harry didn’t seem like a bad sort, but Clarence didn’t want to lose Samuel, be it to his memories or to the Wizarding world. “You should go now,” he added gently.

“You really care for him, uh?”

Samuel was like the son he’d never had, but he wasn’t about to tell that to Harry. “Shouldn’t I?”

“Not a lot of people did, before. I… I’m glad. I’m happy for him.”

The young man gave him a somewhat tremulous smile before finally leaving; Clarence released a long, slow breath, and hoped never to see him again.

The next few days were as uneventful as Clarence preferred them to be. He chatted with their patrons and let Samuel do most of the work, as he increasingly did. Clarence liked knowing that he could retire, and that his shop, his life’s work, would be in good, safe hands after he retired.

He hadn’t told Samuel, of course, but he would soon be the sole shop owner. Clarence was over eighty by now, although his official (Muggle) papers made him quite a bit younger; it was more than time. The few, never-quite-enough drops of Wizarding blood in his veins afforded him a slightly longer than Muggle average lifespan, but still: it was time. He was old; his heart was already damaged, and he had someone willing and able to take over while Clarence enjoyed his hard-earned leisure.

Or rather, that had been the plan, until the young Wizard came back a week later, his jaw set.

“Hello, Mr Gray,” he said, polite and flinty at the same time.

“Good morning. What can I do for you?”

“I came by last week about…”

“I remember you. I also remember telling you to stay away from Samuel.”

“Yeah, you did.” Young Harry deflated a bit. “I just… I can’t. I know he’s not here right now, so I thought… I don’t know what I thought. Sn… Samuel is alive, and I have so many questions for him; I never expected I’d get to talk to him again.”

“You don’t, not to the man you used to know.”

“Right, but…”

“No buts. You’re not to try and make him remember.”

A client entered the shop and the young man stepped aside, letting Clarence deal with Mrs Douglas. As soon as she left, he hurried back to the counter and leaned over it, as if it would make him more convincing.

“I won’t try to make him remember; I swear. But I think I need to talk to S… Samuel anyway, get to know him like I never could before. I think he’s still the same, just without all the, um, baggage.”

“Baggage. Is that what you call a man’s life? Everybody’s got baggage, young man.”

“Harry. My name’s Harry.”

“So you said. Is that your actual name? The one he knew you under?”

“Yeah, but I figure it’s common enough, and I’m less likely to forget it than a made-up name, you know? I’ll just go with a different surname. Uh, Spinner. Harry Spinner, sounds good, right?”

“Not really.” Clarence took off his half-moons and wiped them on his shirt. “It’s a terrible idea, Mr Spinner.”

“But why? Why is it so terrible?”

“What was your relationship, before? You said you both fought a war, but how old can you be to have fought in a war years ago? He’s, I think, in his late thirties, maybe even forties, given he’s one of you magical folks. You, on the other hand, are not.”

“He was my teacher.” He huffed a laugh. “And that doesn’t even cover half of it, really. I was part of the war even before I was born; my parents were targets, and S...amuel was involved, too. It’s a long story.”

“One you want to dredge back up, however bad it sounds. Because even if you say you won’t, your mere presence around him makes it all more likely to come back to the surface, all that he died to escape.”

“He didn’t die so he could escape; he was murdered. He died a hero, the bravest man I ever knew; he…”

Clarence shook his head; Samuel didn’t seem the kind to die in a blaze of glory, but neither was he a coward who would run away from something. “He died, and he’s now living a quiet, peaceful life where no one will murder him.”

Harry frowned. “Hopefully not, although some people might if they learn he’s still alive.”

“What?”

“It hasn’t happened so far, so I reckon it’s fine.”

“That is not as reassuring as you seem to think it is.”

The young man shrugged. “Wards or patrolling Aurors would only draw their attention, so there’s not much we can do about that. And look, about Samuel, about me talking to him… I wanted to speak to you as a courtesy, but you can’t stop me; I won’t let you. The only one who can is him, if he says he doesn't want to see me anymore. You’re not his dad.”

Ah. Clarence swallowed, thickly. No, he wasn’t Samuel’s father, but he – no matter. It was between him and Samuel, not this fresh-faced lad. “I’m his employer, and his friend. Who are you, to him?”

“His employer?” He looked stricken for a moment. “Yeah, you kinda look like his last, um, employer. The whole,” he waved a hand at Clarence, “kindly old man, white beard and glasses, shtick. He was… it’s complicated.”

The door jingled, and Samuel strode in, paper bag in hand. “I bought you one of those cinnamon buns you like,” he said before turning to Harry. “Good morning. How is your sprain?”

“You remember?”

“Of course.” He looked a bit taken aback by the eagerness in the young man’s voice. “It was only a week ago.”

“Right, right, of course. Um, I’m much better, thank you. How are you?”

Samuel blinked. “I am well, Mr…”

“Spinner. Harry Spinner.” The young man’s grin was blinding, sincere; eager, even. “Call me Harry.”

In other circumstances, Clarence would be amused at seeing Samuel so discombobulated; as things stood, he gritted his teeth when Samuel shook the offered hand, slow and wary. “Samuel,” he said. “Samuel Gray.”

“Well, Samuel Gray, your sprain potion was nothing short of a miracle; you can definitely count me among your fans now.”

“Er. Just Samuel is fine.” He shifted on the balls of his feet, taking a step away as he put the paper bag on the counter by Clarence’s hand. He was uncomfortable. “It wasn’t a potion; potions are… they’re… we don’t sell potions.”

“Of course; I was joking.” Young Harry was pointedly ignoring Clarence’s glare. “It just worked like magic, you know?”

He was going to murder the little idiot. “Did you need anything else, Mr Spinner?”

“Well, do you have anything for bruises? I spent Saturday afternoon playing Qu… catch with some friends, and wow, I’m black and blue everywhere.”

“From playing catch?”

“Well, not only catch; once the kids were in bed we upgraded to harder games, but we were not entirely sober at that point.” He gave them a rueful smile, and Clarence’s heart sank as he saw Samuel’s stance loosen now that he was in familiar, professional territory. He was knowledgeable and confident, moving to the shelves where the arnica was stored.

“Arnica montana,” he said. “You may know it as wolfsbane. Apply topically on skin without lesions.”

The young man’s eyebrows rose over the frame of his round glasses. “I thought wolfsbane was aconite, not arnica.”

“Different local traditions,” Clarence cut in. “So, you know plants?”

“Oh no, not really; vague memories from school trips; that’s all.” He took the arnica and paid without a fuss, which was at least an improvement on his previous visit, and promised he’d come back to let them know about the results.

“We know it’s going to work,” Clarence grumbled at the door once Harry had left. “He doesn’t need to come back.”

“He could have an unexpected reaction, or fail to use it properly.” Samuel sat on the second stool behind the counter and unwrapped his plain scone. “You don’t like him.”

Clarence sniffed. “Who gets bruises playing catch? Or gets drunk as soon as the children are in bed?” Who would come disturb the peace that Samuel had found, that Clarence had found?

“He’s a customer. I thought we weren’t judging customers.”

“Well, I don’t trust him.”

“Hm.” Samuel considered his scone before putting it back in the bag. “It’s not like you.”

“It’s entirely like me; I’m a good judge of character and I don’t trust him.”

Samuel hummed again.

“Look, I picked you to work with me and I never regretted it, did I? I can tell these things. I know people.”

Samuel’s eyes didn’t stray from the piece of paper he was folding and unfolding, but he looked quietly pleased. Proud.

“Anyway, I doubt he’ll be back.” Clarence eyed the bag. “You’re not eating?”

“I’m not hungry.”

“It’s your throat, right? The weather’s getting cooler.”

“Hm.” Samuel stood up and gestured at the door behind the counter that led to the lab and storeroom; he had never liked it when Clarence – or anyone, presumably, except it was only ever Clarence nowadays – spotted a weakness, and he generally removed himself from the situation.

Clarence had seen him angry, truly angry, only once; it hadn’t been at Clarence. But it had been a revelation, in the first days of their acquaintance: a torrent of rage suddenly pouring out of him, his hands trembling, his face contorted; the doctors at the hospital had tried to sedate him but Clarence had managed to talk him down, tell him the child would be fine. That the social services would make sure he was safe from his guardians from then on. He’d looked up at Clarence with such hope, like he wanted to trust him, trust his words, so much. Like he knew better than to hope, too, when they heard the next day that the child had gone back to his guardians. Like he wasn’t surprised at all, like he knew the world was cruel, already.

After that, after knowing that the calm exterior covered much more than what it looked like, their relationship had changed. Samuel hadn’t only been that quiet blank slate with surprisingly accurate plant knowledge, but he’d become… human. Someone without a past, maybe, but with a personality, with flaws and qualities, with things he liked and things he loathed. Clarence had known, then, that he was going to take him in.

In the years since, Samuel had never flown into such a violent rage again, though he sometimes had short outbursts that he quickly controlled. He could be grumpy when his environment got too noisy, and he had a bit of a temper, especially when he realised he’d made a mistake. Clarence was glad he hadn’t been in the car during the driving lessons, though Samuel had quickly become proficient behind the wheel. It was a curse and a blessing all at once: he didn’t like failure, and he pursued goals like his life depended on it. Maybe it had, before. Maybe he’d needed that focus, during that mysterious war.

Right now, he just didn’t want to admit that he still suffered from his old injuries, like it was something he should be above. Those injuries had been the reason why he’d ended up in the hospital, and had probably happened at the same time he’d lost his memories. He never talked about the hole in his past, about the decades he was missing, but whenever the scars hurt, he got moody.

And now that young man…

Clarence took his glasses off and closed his eyes. He could feel it, feel Samuel drift away already; he could tell he was about to lose him. Harry didn’t look like someone who took no for an answer, like someone who backed down from a challenge. He might have sounded sincere when he’d said he wouldn't try to take Samuel away, but he was young, impulsive. Cocky, too. He believed Samuel had a lot to offer to him, and he had the biggest card to play: who Samuel had been, who he could be again. He had magic, and he could give it back to Samuel.

He only had to show what magic could do, and Samuel, inquisitive and a man who would never stop at an I don’t know, would demand explanations, evidence, details. He’d realise he had that power too; he’d want to learn, relearn everything, and he’d leave Clarence. Leave his nice, quiet life in the nice, quiet village, and go back to a world where children fought wars.

He rubbed his eyes and put his half-moons back on; he’d scare customers away if he started snivelling in the shop.

Cindy Patel, who owned the haberdashery down the main street, was here again. She was nice, not particularly pretty but well-put together, with practical, understated clothes that were perfectly adjusted and always had a nice little touch that belied their apparent plainness: buttons that matched her earrings exactly, a matte pattern on a satiny fabric, delicate embroidery on the underside of her jacket’s lapels.

Clarence hadn’t really noticed at first, but when he realised she came by almost every week and made it a point to talk to Samuel, he started to pay more attention. He’d watched them closely, afterwards: she asked for his advice, tried to engage him on other topics, even suggested they go have a coffee or something together a few times.

He never took the bait. He’d first thought Samuel was shy, or perhaps oblivious; he wasn’t. He agreed she was pleasant, then went back to checking their stocks. Ms Patel never entirely gave up, but she didn’t come as often, these days; what little flirting she tried was more a habit than a true hope for more.

The usual song and dance would go without a hitch; she offered to go for a pint after work, he declined, she left.

Others tried their chance, too: Lynn Gull, a single mum who worked at the pub and, off the books, as a seamstress; Farah El Hajj, the solicitor from the city who came by when she visited her ageing parents; John Farnis, the chemist and local Royal Society for the Protection of Birds enthusiast. All had expressed interest, one way or another, and Samuel had ignored them all: men, women, it didn’t seem to make a difference.

Then, there had been the ladies from the art club: they’d seen his drawings of herbs and plants and tried to get him to join their weekly classes; he’d refused. The little group that rode dirt bikes every Sunday morning; he’d turned them down. The hikers, the gardeners, the church group – they all got the same reply, with an extra glare for the church group.

“I don’t do cults,” he’d said.

Mrs McDonald had been quite shocked.

So, yes, Clarence worried; Samuel had not really made friends beyond Clarence himself, and Clarence felt the years coming faster and faster, these days. Harder, too. But also because, suddenly, his behaviour changed.

Mr Harry Spinner had a new reason to come every week, now: his best friend was pregnant, and would he have anything for morning sickness? His old neighbour had arthritis; what could he recommend? He got a sunburn after an afternoon out with his godson, he had calluses on his hands, he had a rash. Samuel never called him out on it, even as the claims were growing more far-fetched by the week.

And one day…

“Hi,” Harry said. “Is Samuel here?”

“He’s out for deliveries.”

“Oh. When is he coming back?”

“When he’s done.”

“Right.”

“Can I help?”

“I can wait.” He walked around the shop, looking at shelves and smiling, sometimes. “His handwriting is still the same.”

“He doesn’t remember. He won’t remember. Why do you keep coming?”

At that, the young man turned back to Clarence, chewing on his lip. “Maybe he will; maybe he won’t. But even if he doesn’t… I don’t know; I just like coming here. He doesn’t treat me weird.”

“Like I treat you weird?”

Harry laughed. “Oh no, I meant like… Er, well. People…” He made a frustrated gesture at his face; Clarence felt he was missing something here. “They recognize me.”

“I don’t recognize you.”

“No, that’s true. But in the Wizarding world people do, and it gets old.”

“If he remembers who he is, then so will he remember who you are.”

“Well, he never treated me any – okay, no, he was a real arsehole to me, but at least it was sincere, right? And he saved my life too, so there’s that. He never… it’s complicated.” That word again. “I watched him die. I watched him die and I did nothing.”

Ah. The very bloody not-death that he’d mentioned before. “How old were you?”

“Not even eighteen.”

“And him?”

“Thirty-eight.”

So Samuel was forty-three now, and this young man twenty years his junior.

Harry moved and his eyes became invisible, hidden behind the light reflecting off his glasses. It hit Clarence in that moment, how hard it was to read the young lad: whether he could see his eyes or not, it didn’t change anything. He was personable and outwardly confident, but it was hard to say how much of it was real and how much was not; the more he was around Harry, the less he felt like your run-of-the-mill twenty-something. There was something, under the smiles and the wild hair. Clarence could believe he’d been a boy thrown in the middle of a war; there were edges there, jagged and lurking below a deceptively ordinary surface.

“It must have been tough.”

“Yeah, well, the entire year – years – were, and when he… yeah. So I’m glad he’s alive. I didn’t let him die, after all.”

“Were there other children in your war?”

“The whole school.”

“The school where he was a teacher?”

“Headmaster, by the end, but yeah.”

Clarence shook his head. What a horrible image: hundreds of children fighting a war, this young man watching a teacher bleed to death, unable to do anything. Of course, when it had really sunk in that he was a Squib, that he’d never have magic, that he’d never be part of that world, he’d railed and cursed and cried. When his parents kicked him out, and all he knew, all he had to define himself by was that he lacked something, oh – he’d been angry, full of rage and despair. But it had happened decades ago and he was at peace with it now, mostly. And frankly, when he heard about such things, he was almost happy he was for all intents and purposes a Muggle. What a right mess it all was.

A customer came in and Clarence focused on him for a while, as Harry pretended to consider tea blends and ignored the transaction on the other end of the shop. As soon as the client had left, Clarence sighed and turned the sign on the door to Closed. It was near lunchtime, after all, and he needed a break. This work business was getting old and he was tired of it. If only his retirement plans were not on the verge of collapse, he thought, eyeing the young man.

“Right. I’m having tea,” he muttered, turning to open the door to the storeroom. He glanced back at Harry and added, “Fancy a cuppa?”

The young man nodded and thanked him, so Clarence went to busy himself with the kettle and measuring out tea leaves. He wasn’t as anal about it as Samuel, who went about tea-making like one would handle volatile… ah, yes.

“What did he teach?” he asked, carrying a tray with the teapot, an opened pack of biscuits, and two cups.

“Potions. Defence against the Dark Arts, his last year.”

“Potions.” Clarence picked a biscuit. “It’s like chemistry, yes?”

“Er, sort of. I was pants at it, but he was a terrible teacher, so.”

“Was he?”

“He hated my guts, for a start. I got special treatment.”

“And yet, you want to befriend him.”

“As I said: it’s complicated.”

“I’m not certain what you can achieve here. You need him to be who he was, but I’m not sure that’s possible.”

“Yeah. And he wasn’t… I think he’s happy now. Or at least – well, he wasn’t…” He sighed. “But I also don’t think he’d choose to forget; he’s been many things but never, never a coward.” Harry dunked a biscuit in his tea. “I called him that, once. A coward. He’d just done one of the bravest things I had ever seen, but I didn’t realise it then. I didn’t know the truth. And he died – thought he was dying – with everyone believing the worst of him, me included.”

“You don’t any longer.”

“No.” Harry fished a soggy bit of biscuit out of his tea with a spoon. “I wish he knew. I wish I could thank him, that I could tell him that he’s a hero, now. Or, well, that he’s famous; people are aware of all the sacrifices he made. There are books about him and everything; can you imagine?” He chuckled, a bit darkly. “He’d hate it, actually. But it would be fun to see him glare reporters down. He can be terrifying, you know.”

“He’s not a people person. It's hard to picture him as a teacher; it took him at least a year to get him to interact with clients half-way decently.”

Harry grinned. “Did he insult their intelligence? Threaten them?”

“No.” Harry looked a bit disappointed, but perked up when Clarence continued, “But it was obvious he wanted to, sometimes.”

“Aha! That's very much like him. It is him,” Harry corrected.

“I still can’t imagine him in a classroom.”

“He terrorized us, but I guess sometimes we terrorized him too. Neville – one of my friends – he kept exploding his cauldron; it’s a miracle no one died.”

“...exploding cauldrons?” It didn’t sound as bad as a war, but still.

“Yeah. But I reckon it was his fault anyway; if he hadn’t been such a bastard to us Neville wouldn’t have messed up his potions so often.”

“You’re painting quite a picture, one that I find hard to reconcile with the Samuel I know.”

“He’s not that different, really: he’s just – hm.”

“What?”

“It’s like all the things that were weighing him down went away. He doesn’t remember all the crap he did, and all the crap done to him.”

“But not the good, either?”

“Yeah, I don’t know that there was a lot of good.”

“You mentioned he looked happier now. You could let him be; he wouldn't remember, but it doesn’t seem like that’s such a bad outcome.”

“Yeah.” Harry stared into his tea, swivelling his cup around. “You know, we had Divination lessons, reading tea-leaves and all that.”

“See anything?”

“No. To be honest, I never did.” Harry frowned, like he was actually seeing something, now. “It was all a load of crap anyway.” He set the cup back on the saucer, a slight frown between his eyebrows. “I don’t want to take him from you, you know.”

“But you will. If he remembers, he’ll leave.”

“I don’t know. Maybe not.”

“Hm.”

Clarence gathered the cups and saucers and empty biscuit pack on the tray but Harry picked it up before he could. “I’ll take it back to the kitchenette.”

“The kitchenette, eh?” He frowned. “You’re awfully familiar with areas that are off-limits to our customers.”

“Not familiar yet, but I heard you mention it before and I’m curious.”

Of course, Samuel came back through the front door right as young Harry was coming back into the shop through the door behind the counter. He raised his eyebrows at Clarence, and Clarence shrugged. Harry stepped out from behind Clarence and greeted Samuel with enthusiasm.

“Samuel!”

“Mr Spinner.”

“Harry, I told you to call me Harry.”

“Yes, every week without fail.”

“I’ll stop when you do call me Harry.”

Samuel snorted. “And then it’ll be something else. What’s ailing you today, Mr Spinner?” he asked, turning the Closed sign back to Open.

Harry opened his mouth, closed it, looked at Clarence. He looked sorry, a little; defiant, quite a bit. “So, I have these old scars,” he said. “I wonder if you have anything to make them less visible.”

“Hm. Are they painful?” His dark eyes flicked to the jagged scar on the young man’s forehead.

“They used to be, but not anymore.”

“Scars, plural… How did you get them? How old are they?”

“They’re all pretty old by now.” And then, cool as you please, Harry took off his jumper and started undoing the buttons of his shirt.

“Er, Mr Spinner…”

Clarence felt his eyebrows crawl up his forehead as two red spots appeared on Samuel’s cheeks.

Harry stopped when his shirt was half-open over his chest. His skin was smooth and lightly tanned, like he spent time outdoors and without a shirt regularly; there was a bit of hair, dark like on his head, and from what Clarence could see, he looked fit. Well, he was young and pretty active; nothing surprising there. Samuel’s reaction, however… that was surprising.

Clarence cleared his throat pointedly. “Are you planning to scare our patrons away?”

Harry laughed, a mischievous tilt to his lips. “Well, I’d hope the opposite would happen. What do you think, Samuel?”

Samuel didn’t look like he was thinking about anything at all, and Harry noticed. His eyes widened, perhaps in surprise, then his smile widened. “I’ve got a burn scar here; it’s the most recent but still a few years old.” He pointed at a too-smooth, hairless patch of skin. “What do you think?”

“I…” Samuel frowned and bent forward, but he wasn’t looking at the old burn; he was looking at Harry’s hand which was holding the fabric aside. “What’s this?”

“Uh?”

“On your hand; what is it?”

Harry’s face blanked out. “Uh, nothing.”

“No, not nothing. Can I…” He almost grabbed the hand but he stopped at the last second; his fingers hovering.

Harry exchanged a glance with Clarence. “Alright,” he finally said.

Samuel gently took Harry’s hand and examined it, the divot between his brows deepening. “What… I Must Not Tell Lies,” he whispered. “How… this is not from an accident.”

“It’s a long story.”

“Did you do this to yourself?”

“Not exactly. Sort of? Not really. As I said, it’s a long story.”

“Ah.” Samuel let go of the hand and stepped back. “My apologies; I’m prying.”

“No, no, I understand. It’s just hard to explain. It was a long time ago.”

“Of course.” He looked at the burn from where he was, staying a good three feet away from Harry. “And this was from… it doesn’t look like a cigar or cigarette burn.” He pursed his lips.

“Have you seen many of those?” Harry’s eyes were intent, like he was trying to drag something out of Samuel.

“Some.” He didn’t elaborate. They’d seen a few at the hospital, of course; sometimes, children came in who had them. Clarence knew to steer Samuel away when he heard from the nurses they had hurt kids in the ward; his outburst back when he’d still been a patient himself had been quite the warning. But there were also several on Samuel’s own skin, more of those too-round scars scattered over his back and shoulders, a few more on his arms. They didn’t tell a very good story, and it was one more reason Samuel kept as much skin covered as he could. “I will prepare a balm for this; it should work better with fresh ingredients. As for your hand and forehead, you can start with yarrow, and we’ll go from there.”

“Not dittany?” Harry was pointing at a jar further up on the shelves.

“Maybe later, if yarrow doesn’t give results.” He gave one of his almost-smiles, a barely-there curve of his lips that young Harry stared at. “Are you trying to take my job?”

“What? Er, no, no, I love riding a desk all day long.” He blinked and raised his eyes back to Samuel’s. “When should I come back? For the balm?”

“It should be ready by tomorrow afternoon. I’ll prepare the yarrow too; I think I can make a paste instead of soaking compresses that you’d have to keep on for hours.”

“Er, okay. Sounds good. I’ll be back tomorrow, then. At 5?” He started doing up his buttons.

“We’re closing at five.”

“I mean, just before?”

“That’s fine.”

“It’s a date, then.” Harry’s head popped out of the neck of his jumper, winked, and left the shop.

It was suddenly very quiet.

“Well,” Clarence said.

“Yes.”

“We should check our macerations.”

“Right.” He didn’t move. “These scars…”

“Yes…?”

“I don’t know what to think.”

“I don’t either.” Well, that wasn’t quite right; he suspected they held special significance, and that Harry had impulsively decided to bare them to Samuel. Not all of them; he’d seemed genuinely disquieted when Samuel spotted the words on his hands, but… Clarence had lied; he knew what to think. He knew that Harry had decided to do everything in his power to force Samuel’s memories back.

Young Harry’s scars wouldn’t fade, not those he’d first shown anyway. When Samuel frowned and locked himself in their little lab to try and mix something new, Clarence pulled the lad aside.

“Those scars won’t change, will they? Not with what we have here.”

Harry whipped his wand out and waved it at the door leading to the lab. “No, probably not. Although the one on my hand is getting lighter,” he said, turning it this way and that in the sunlight streaming from the shop window. “But he never looks at it.”

“It seemed to affect you in a way the others didn’t.”

“It’s…”

“Don’t say it’s complicated; I’ve heard it enough coming out of your mouth.”

“Okay.” Harry raised his eyebrows a little. “It’s a long story, then.”

Clarence rolled his eyes. “Not much better.”

“There’s no pleasing you, is there?” The young man smiled, a bit wistful. “That must be familiar, to him.”

“From what you said before, I’m not sure I want to be compared to whoever’s in his past.”

“Fair enough.” He looked at the door behind Clarence. “Can I go in?”

“It’s not open to clients. And he’s working,” he added when Harry turned a very earnest expression on him.

“I’d like to tell him it’s fine, that some scars are really better now. Maybe it’s because they’re too old by now to improve, or something.”

“He won’t buy it; he’ll know you’re lying.”

“Well, not entirely. I got this one as a baby,” he said, pointing at his forehead.

“How?”

“Er, bad guy tried to kill me.”

“That won’t help.”

“How so?”

“He doesn’t like it when children are… hurt. Though it’s generally domestic violence that makes him angry, not…” Clarence waved a hand at Harry, who didn’t look the least bit surprised.

“Well, I can tell him it was a car accident. That's what I was told, when I was a kid.”

“I really wish…” Clarence sighed. “You're toying with him. It may not be what you think you’re doing, but it’s what’s happening.”

“I’m not; I…”

“He likes you. You’re showing interest in him, and he doesn’t know why; he can’t know why. If he ever learns the reason behind your presence… if he ever remembers…” Clarence shakes his head. “From what I’ve gathered, it’s only going to hurt him.”

“What is: me, or his past?”

“Both. They’re the same thing, aren’t they? His past is why you’re here, and you are his past.”

Young Harry frowned, but he was undeterred, not that Clarence thought he could really stop him. He looked at his veined hands spread out on the old counter, the age spots on his skin, the scuffs and scratches on the wood, as Harry walked around him and went into the storeroom.

The visits became more and more frequent, and young Harry hardly ever gave a pretext, after the scars semi-fiasco. He’d ask for a tea blend suitable for his pregnant friend once in a while, but most of the time, he came for a chat and didn’t pretend otherwise. He brought flowers and plants some days, asked Samuel if he recognized them, if they were useful; most of the time, Clarence recognized them as magical. Most of the time, Harry left them around the shop, and most of the time, Samuel brought them upstairs to his attic flat after they closed the shop.

They didn’t seem to have any particular impact on him, but still, Clarence knew it was coming; he’d seen it happen often, around him. He knew the signs; it was in the air.

So, when Samuel asked him to mind the shop on his own for the last 15 minutes, he wasn’t surprised. When Samuel went upstairs, and when he came back at five on the dot, his hair still damp and with a fresh shirt on, he wasn’t surprised. When he saw Harry waiting outside, when he saw the young lad’s grin and Samuel’s shier smile, he wasn’t surprised.

He didn’t like it, but he wasn’t surprised.

He shooed Samuel out, closed the shop, and climbed one flight of stairs to his own rooms. He rubbed his knees, brewed tea, tried to read some Wodehouse, turned the telly on, then off; nothing really took his mind off what he knew was coming. He left his front door ajar, and waited for the sound of creaking floorboards.

Samuel came back late, or maybe later than what Clarence had hoped, but he didn’t ignore the door. He knocked on the jamb and let himself in, and Clarence’s heart sank as he saw that the top button of his shirt was undone, that his posture was looser than usual. He’d drank a bit, maybe… maybe done worse than that. Clarence had never raised children; he’d never known what it was like, waiting for your baby to come back home after a first date. But Samuel, a 43-year-old man who remembered nothing and no one up to the day Clarence took him under his wing, was his anyway.

And Clarence feared a world of hurt was waiting for the two of them, just around the corner.

“How was your date?” he asked, trying for casual and probably failing.

“It wasn’t a date.”

“Did you have a good time?”

Samuel looked nonplussed. “You don’t sound too happy. You were the one who kept pushing me to make friends, and now that I’m doing exactly that you’re angry at me?”

“Friends, uh.” Clarence snorted. “Is that what we’re calling it? You want something else, Samuel.”

“I do not.” Samuel threw a paper bag on the kitchen table with more force than it warranted. “And even if I did, that is exactly what you’ve been trying to get me to do, for years. Like with Ms Patel, or Ms…”

“Yes, yes, I know. But all these people wanted you in that way. I’m not sure Harry does.” Or if he did, that it was for the same innocent – well, innocent in a manner of speaking, of course – reasons as Samuel’s.

“I brought you back a slice of cake. Lynn said they had extra, and asked if we – if I wanted to take some home.”

“Thank you.”

“I…” Samuel looked at the floor, the chairs around the table, the cushion behind Clarence’s shoulder. “Good night, then.”

“Samuel…”

The only reply he got was a door closing, the stairs creaking, the soft footsteps above.

He threw the cake in the bin and went to bed.

Young Harry kept showing up at the shop and whisking Samuel away for an hour, two, five; sometimes Clarence saw them seated at a small table in the tearoom, steaming cups in front of them and a slice of carrot cake that they were sharing, sometimes they had dinner at the pub, and a few times they went for a walk along the river. At least, that was what Harry said; Clarence had never gone with them even if Samuel had asked him a few times to join them.

He didn’t want to, and he reckoned Harry didn’t want him to either. Samuel… Samuel looked a bit lost, sometimes; he looked like a man out of his depth and excruciatingly aware of it. Not always, far from it, but here and there, Clarence saw it: Samuel would fidget with his cuffs when Harry came by, frown at his hands; he’d avoid Clarence’s eyes when Clarence asked about Harry. It was worrying, was what it was. He might be pretending they were just friends; he might even believe it, but Clarence knew better.

“Samuel.”

“Hm?”

“Samuel, stop fiddling with the jars; they’re fine.”

“I think the peppermint is…”

“The peppermint is fine. Come have tea with me.”

Reluctantly, Samuel joined him to lean on the counter while Clarence poured water in the two cups.

“We haven’t had a good chat in a while. How is it going, with young Harry?”

“How is what going? What do you want to know, exactly?”

“You’ve been seeing each other for a few weeks now.” Clarence spooned some sugar into his tea. “If he’s important to you, then he’s important to me.”

“I thought you didn’t like him.”

“Well, he’s a fine lad, charming, good-looking. He seems smart enough.”

“But?”

“Are you happy with him?”

“What?” Samuel’s dark eyes snapped to his. “What kind of question is that?”

“He’s courting you,” for want of a better word, “and you’re letting him court you. I think it’s a perfectly reasonable question.”

“Courting?” Samuel snorted. “What kind of century do you live in? And it’s not courting; it’s just having a friend. Which you’ve been pushing me to do for years, by the way, not that you’re one to talk.”

“Samuel. I know you don’t remember…”

“Don’t.”

“No, you listen to me.” Clarence might be old; but he was still fast enough to catch Samuel’s arm and stop him from leaving his tea and the conversation. “You don’t remember decades of your life, and yet you’ve built a brand new one here. You’ve brightened my days, Samuel, and your well-being is important to me.” He squeezed the wrist that he was still holding. “But you’ve forgotten a lot, and among what you have, is all the stuff you learn when you’re young. Harry is flirting with you. Are you aware of that?”

“He’s not.”

“He is. And you like him too; are you unaware of that, too?”

This time, Samuel tore his arm away and took a few steps back. “This is ridiculous. Did you have a point in all this drivel?”

“I’m worried for you. I don’t trust young Harry to…” He sighed. “He’s not a bad sort; that’s not what I’m saying. But does he even know that you’ve lost what, 40 years?” Did you tell him, he meant, How far did you open up to him. How close are you to remembering everything. “Does he know that you have no experience of this?”

“I’m not a child!”

His teacup shattered, and Clarence closed his eyes for a brief moment. When he reopened them, Samuel was already collecting the shards and mopping the tea.

“There must have been a crack in the china,” he muttered, “and the hot water was too much.”

“Of course.” Clarence was well-aware there had been no crack in the china, but what else could he say? “And… I know you’re not a child, but your gentleman caller may not realise that you’re… lacking experience. I don’t want you to get hurt; I hope you understand that.”

“So you want me to stop seeing him, after badgering me into seeing people who are not you.”

“Oh, Samuel.” He took the damp towel from Samuel and wrapped his old, wrinkled hands around his. “I just don’t want his expectations to hurt you.”

Samuel, his eyes lowered, sighed. “What about your expectations? What about mine?”

“I don’t have expectations.”

“Of course you do. You want me to manage your shop…”

“Our shop, soon to be entirely yours.”

“You want me to manage this shop, and let you climb that rickety ladder, and have friends but only friends you’d approve of, and…”

“I want you to be happy. When I met you at the hospital you were all alone, and I just wanted…”

“So what, I’m your project? I’ve been your project all along, for you to do what you want with it? With me?” He snatched his hands away and started pacing, anger an almost visible halo around him, pulsing and roiling. Clarence eyed the rows and rows of jars around them, and wondered if he’d have to renew his stock sooner than planned.

“You’re not a project; you’re like a son to me.” There, it was out. “You know that.”

“I don’t! I really don’t! You all want something from me. I can feel it; I can almost taste it! You…” He stopped pacing, glared at the shelves. “I don’t know what it is, but I’ll find out. You’re keeping something from me; don’t think I haven’t noticed. Both Harry and you, you know something I don’t, and you won’t tell me.”

“Samuel…”

“Don’t think I can’t tell that you're hiding something,” he snarled, whirling to point a finger at Clarence. “For my own good, isn’t it?”

Behind him, hidden from passers-by, Harry’s head appeared, floating above empty air. The rest of his body was revealed when he took off a sort of cloak he was wearing, and he stuffed it into a backpack right as he made the doorbell jingle with a pointed finger.

“Er, hullo,” he said.

Samuel wiped all emotion from his face and turned around.

“Harry. Apologies, I didn’t hear you come in.”

“That’s alright. I just thought I’d come say hi; I just wrapped up with a family in Swinton. I hope that’s okay?”

“Of course,” Clarence said. “You do travel a lot with your job, don’t you?”

“Yeah, but it’s never far enough that it takes me a really long time to get there.” Harry had told Samuel he was a social worker, and although he’d never mentioned a car around Clarence it was probably what he’d told Samuel. “The weather’s lovely outside and I’m done for the day; would you like to join me for a walk?”

“You two go; I’m minding the shop.”

“I’d really like it if you joined us, Clarence.” There was a strange urgency in the young man’s voice, one that had never been in there before.

“Our customers…”

“Please?”

Clarence looked at Samuel. He was stony-faced and showed no opinion whatsoever, and it was hard to say if going with them was the best or the worst idea. He didn’t want to play mediator, but there was something unsettling in Harry’s green eyes, and Clarence could feel a warning prickle run down his back.

“Oh, fine; we can close an hour early today.” He was reluctant to leave the shop, yes, but that thing lurking in the lad’s gaze…

Clarence picked his walking cane and Samuel the wide-brimmed hat he favoured when it was sunny outside, an old-fashioned monstrosity that at least did its job of preventing him from turning into a peeling tomato after an hour in direct sunlight. They ambled through the streets to the river path, and walked along in a strange, tense silence. Samuel was still stewing, and Harry… Harry was waiting for something. He kept darting glances left and right, and patting the sleeve where Clarence knew he kept his wand.

He was expecting an attack, Clarence realised. But why would he take them here, out in the open, if he was? The water looked as it always did, at least; things were not…

Things were wrong.

It was too silent. The whole area was quiet. There was no one, no child splashing in the shallow water, no one walking their dog; even the birds and insects and scuttling rodents had gone silent. The realisation they were in imminent danger slammed into him right as Samuel did, rolling them into the taller grass to the side of the path and throwing a hand out. A shimmering dome covered them, it was solid when Clarence prodded it but let Samuel out when he stood up. His face was blank, and his eyes looked… well, they looked bloody terrifying in their cold emptiness.

This, Clarence, thought, is who he was. Who he is. This is the man Harry wants back.

He watched him stalk away, unable to leave the dome himself, and saw young Harry shoot lights – spells, Clarence figured – at two blurry figures that were hard to make out through the dome. Samuel was out of sight, but when he reappeared it was to throw a rock at a third assailant, making whoever it was stumble, and then to knock him down with his fists. With his own fists, like a brawler. He kicked his opponent’s head for good measure and picked up their fallen wand, and then…

Well, it was hard to describe. There were lights, shouts: darkness fell on them then disappeared just as fast, rocks, blood… he saw Samuel wave his wand and cut a man almost into two; Harry yelled something and the river swelled and took someone with it, too. It only lasted for a few minutes, enough for one of the attackers to find him and destroy the protection Samuel had thrown over him, but Harry saw the woman and blasted her away. It had been a close call, close enough that Clarence picked up a sharp-looking rock and got ready to bludgeon anything that came too close.

He didn’t have to, in the end.

The fight stopped and he slowly got to his feet, watching around in case one of their attackers sprang back into action, but nothing happened. Samuel was standing there, looking down at his hand, at the wand in his hand. His hair was a mess, there was blood and dirt streaked on his face and a large gash on his flank, but he didn’t seem to be aware of anything but the wand.

Young Harry holstered his own want up his sleeve and took a step closer, then another. He reached out to touch Samuel, but Samuel took a few quick steps back, eyes wild.

“Don’t touch me,” he gritted out.

“Are you… how are you feeling?”

Samuel shuddered, closed his eyes, dropped the wand. His breathing was going faster, and he looked both exhausted and ready to snap; the gentleness in the way Harry was talking, moving, was almost as unsettling.

“You?” Samuel asked. “You knew?”

Harry lowered his eyes for a second, opened his mouth.

Samuel ignored him and whipped his head around to glare at Clarence. “And you… did you know too? You did, didn’t you? You both knew. You both…”

“Severus?” Harry said, in a small voice.

But Samuel had already disappeared with a loud crack.

Back at the shop, after Harry had waved his wand at each of their attackers and done something, Clarence wasn’t surprised to find Wizarding fuzz – Aurors, Harry called them – milling around. Some were really obvious with their Muggle clothing that was a few decades outdated, and Clarence was thankful Harry quickly ushered them inside.

He listened to them talking about rogue criminals of some kind and asking if he’d seen anything suspicious recently; Clarence said he hadn’t, up until they were attacked by the riverside.

“You, as in Mr Potter and you? No one else?”

“Yes,” Harry cut in. He glanced at Clarence. “Who else should there be?”

“What about this Samuel Gray, the one on your wall here?” an Auror asked.

“He has days off.”

“Hm. Mr Gray, how did you meet Mr Potter?”

“He came to my shop. We talked. He came back.”

This didn’t seem to satisfy the Magical Bobbies, so Harry cleared his throat and spoke again.

“You know my job,” he said, “and you know Clarence – Mr Gray – is a Squib. I came here to investigate unexpected magical activity, but it was only an old family heirloom.”

“Well, a Squib living among Muggles shouldn’t really have…”

“It’s fine, just an old knife that never needs sharpening. Nothing Muggles would find suspicious; I promise.”

Clarence looked at the door behind the counter, the one that led to the storeroom and the small lab. He did have such a knife, and while Samuel had never asked about it, he certainly favoured it. And Harry had noticed it wasn’t quite entirely Muggle, of course.

“It was a gift from my niece Molly Prewett – Weasley, now. We lost contact a while ago, but she said I should have something from the family, to remind me that I was still part of it.” He snorted. “Even if most of them never even acknowledged me.”

“Oh, Mrs Weasley! She’s a legend among us; you know? Killed Bellatrix Lestrange; who’d have thought – the entire department loves her, Mr Gray.”

“Right.” He was bemused, but he rolled with it, taking his cues from a Harry who clearly had sway over these folks. “Now, can I hope to go back to my regular activities?”

“Well, we don’t know why you were targeted, and…”

Harry cleared his throat. “I don’t think it was Mr Gray who was the target of some Voldemort sympathisers who never got the memo. No offence, Clarence, but…”

“None taken.”

“But why here, then?”

“Well, it’s a Muggle neighbourhood; they might have thought I wouldn’t be able to defend myself as well if I tried to hide magic. Good thing there weren’t a lot of people on the banks, right?”

The Aurors overstayed their welcome, but they were gone before the sun set, at last.

“You do seem famous,” Clarence said.

And right at the same time, “You’re Mrs Weasley’s uncle?”

In the end, Harry went to the curry place down the street and got them some takeaway; it looked like they had a lot to talk about.

Contrary to what Clarence had expected, Harry kept visiting. He told him about the Aurors’ investigation – their assailants somehow never mentioned Samuel and only talked about Harry being their target, and from Harry’s smug smile Clarence could guess what all the wand-pointing had been about after the fight. They didn’t remember anyone apart from an old man and Harry.

They talked about Molly, too – how she was doing, her children, her life. Harry brought some pictures, told him about her family; Clarence started to think that, maybe, he could send her a letter, once he mustered the nerve to do so.

Young Harry also told him about Samuel’s past life – Severus Snape, Potions Master, spy, martyr, murderer, bully and bullied, half-blood turned blood purist turned double agent, born in poverty and died Headmaster of a prestigious school. He hated Harry and protected him in the same breath, and he was a man in many, many shades of grey. Which made them both look at Samuel Gray’s herbology certificate on the wall and smile at each other.

“He always dressed in black,” Harry said. “Well, and he had a grey nightshirt.”

“How would you know about what he wore to bed?”

“Um.” At Clarence’s horrified look, Harry almost snorted his tea out through his nose. “No! Oh gosh, not like that – it’s just, when things happened at night the teachers didn’t always have time to change into, you know, day clothes.”

“And should I assume that you and the other students were also supposed to rush out of bed when there was an emergency?”

Harry grinned. “I generally took curfew as a suggestion rather than a rule. He, uh, didn’t like that about me.”

“That I can imagine.”

And, like every time they met, they asked the same questions.

“Did he come back?” Harry’s was.

“Did you find him?” was Clarence’s.

And the answer was always, “No. No, I’ve hoped, I’ve tried, I’ve called everyone I could think of and I’ve tried all the spells I could remember; I’ve gone to the river again and I’ve gone to the school, I’ve gone to his favourite bakery and I’ve gone to his old sad house, but he’s not there, he’s not there.”

Harry had left a magical message for Samuel’s – Severus’s – eyes only, one on the empty grave that bore his name, one on Harry’s mum’s tomb, and one on the memorial for the old Hogwarts Headmaster that Severus had killed out of duty.

But, still, nothing.

Until, one day when Harry had just come in for their bi-weekly chat, a woman followed him in.

Her back was very straight, her hair a steel-grey curtain around her face, and her eyes as dark as Samuel’s. She took in the shop with quick eyes, and walked straight to the counter.

“Mr Gray, yes? And Mr Potter.”

“Yes, Ma’am. What can I do for you?”

“Where’s my son, Mr Gray? Mr Potter?”

“Mrs Snape?” Harry was gaping, a rather unseemly sight.

“I go by my maiden name these days, young man. Well?”

“You’re his mum?”

“Did I stutter?”

“You’ve never come before.” Clarence frowned; if she’d known he was here, why only show herself now?

“He seemed fine. Happy. Safe. I can’t say I trusted you much at first, what with the whole…” she waved at him, “…harmless old man pretence, but you’re not like that old codger.”

“Codger? Do you mean Dumbledore?”

“Yes, Potter, I mean Albus sodding Dumbledore; who else could I mean? He did enough harm.”

“How can you…”

“I can. What did he ever do for my son? What did he do for you?”

“I…”

“I don’t care about your feelings. I left my son here because I could see he was finally at peace, without me and without the magic I gave him. But now he’s disappeared? Now you’ve lost my son?”

She set two scarred, stained hands on the counter; they looked like Samuel’s. His, too, were scarred and stained – not by a former smoking habit, like Clarence had first assumed, but by years and years of working with Potions. His, too, were long-fingered, strong-looking, with yellowing nails. Not because of nicotine, of course.

“He remembers,” young Harry said. “We were attacked a few weeks ago, and he… it all kicked back in, I think. And then he dropped the wand he’d just stolen and Apparated away.”

“Without the wand?”

“Yeah.”

She whistled. “Not bad. He’s not as rusty as I feared.”

“He’s still wandless and angry; he was really pissed off when he remembered.”

“Are you sure he remembered everything?” Clarence said. “He was in shock, yelled a bit, but he was still confused.”

“Yeah, it’s hard to say. He cast lots of spells and he didn’t seem to hesitate when it was life or death, and then he looked, uh…” Harry frowned in thought.

“Afraid, I think. He looked afraid.”

“Yeah. Yeah, he looked bloody terrified.”

“And then, you lost him. A Squib and the Boy Who Lived, each as useless as the other.”

“Hey! It’s rude to…”

“What? Aren’t you supposed to be our Saviour, the killer of the Dark Lord, our Wizarding Knight in Shining Armour? And you,” she went on with an accusing finger pointed at Clarence, “aren’t you supposed to know all the Muggle ways? Did you report him missing, at least?”

“Now he’s got his memories, or at least some of them, back, I thought it wasn’t a good idea. He might just lash out at officers, or hide even more.”

“And I agreed with young Harry here; he knows your son well.” And, yes, Clarence had also felt Samuel’s temper combined with the history the young man had painted sounded like a potentially explosive situation. “It seemed more prudent to explore other avenues first.”

“And you failed.”

“So far.”

“Do you have another idea, Mrs Prince?”

She looked down her not-inconsiderable nose at Harry. “I might.”

Clarence watched her chop, dice, weigh, and purse her lips at his knives.

“Why did you come here, Mrs Prince? You don’t need a Squib’s herbology shop to brew your potion.”

“True, I don’t.” She pushed a mortar and pestle in Harry’s direction and pointed at the jar of shimmering scales she’d just put in front of him. “But I don’t know how much he remembers and you, Mr Gray, have been good to him in this new life he found himself in.”

Harry kept grinding his mystery scales as he asked, “What about me?”

“You’re here to grind those dragon scales.”

“I’m done.” He slid the mortar to her and crossed his arms.

She took it, measured out a small quantity of powder, and sprinkled it into her potion, turning it pale green.

“Mrs Prince,” Harry said.

She ignored him.

“Mrs Prince, you’re his mum; even if he doesn’t remember much, he’s got to remember you.” Silence. “I can understand why you’d ask someone from his Muggle life, but me?”

“I understand that you’ve wormed your way into his Muggle life, as you’re calling it.” She waved her wand and the large copper pan she brewed in floated away to cool on a rack near the window. “As if he hadn’t had enough of you and your accursed family.”

“Hey–”

“And, Mr Potter… you’re the last person he saw when he died as a wizard.” She slid her wand up her sleeve, her eyes still on the pan. “He spent years making sure you lived, and then he died with you for company.”

“There’s something else.” She was avoiding looking at the young man, and the way her fingers whitened as they gripped her sleeve told him she was hiding more. “What is it?”

“We have to wait until the potion has cooled.”

“Mrs Prince,” Harry said.

She kept staring at the pan.

“Mrs Prince,” he repeated. “When was the last time you talked to your son?”

Her lips thinned, but she didn’t reply.

Clarence was glad to hear the doorbell jingle and have an excuse to leave the two of them.

The night was falling when Samuel’s mother declared the potion was ready. She produced a knife from somewhere, cut a thin line on her arm, and let a few drops of blood fall into the pan.

The potion smoked for a moment, then a large ball of translucent liquid rose from the pan and slowly turned on itself. As it turned, the surface changed, and soon it looked like a small Earth floating in front of their eyes.

“Severus Tobias Snape, my son,” she said.

The globe stopped rotating and a small light started blinking; she waved her wand and the globe shimmered, then a particular area lifted up from it and spread out like a shimmering map in front of them. The small, bright light was in Scotland; she tutted and waved her wand again.

“The Forbidden Forest?” Harry whispered.

“Indeed.” She popped the sphere with the tip of a finger and caught a droplet in her palm, coating her wand with it; the map dissolved in thin air. “Let’s go.”

“I’m not sure it’s safe for Clarence.”

“Excuse me?” he said.

“It’s a pretty dangerous place, even during the day.”

“And I’m a Squib?”

“Well, that too, but also, um.”

“Potter thinks you’re old and will trip on every root. Am I wrong?”

Harry looked guilty.

“The young have no idea of what the old can do, do they, Mr Gray? Come, I’ll Side-Along you.” She offered her arm, and after putting on a light jacket and grabbing a torch and his cane because, yes, he was old, he took it.

Clarence’s first thought was that the Forbidden Forest certainly looked forbidding. The trees were all quite close together, and it was full of unsettling noises; creaks, squeals, scuttling and growling. Mrs Prince had her wand up and a magical orb lighting their way before Harry had even joined them, and he did the same. The two orbs bobbed ahead, and she held her wand loosely between her fingers and watched it twitch until it decided on a direction.

The ground was really treacherous, and Clarence patted himself on the back for bringing both his own light and a cane. He used it more to feel for roots and stones than to help him walk, but he was glad to have a thick piece of wood that felt solid in his hand in case they encountered… something. It would be a magical something, presumably, but even magical somethings wouldn’t like a good thwack over the noggin, right? And given how wary both Harry and Mrs Prince were, he figured any help, even non-magical help, counted.

After trekking in what felt like circles for ages, they reached a small clearing. Moonlight barely reached the mossy ground, and strange shapes stirred when they got near. The three of them stopped on the edge of the trees, and Harry pointed at one of the shapes.

“Can you see them?”

“The skinny dragon horses?” Clarence whispered back.

“Yeah, them. Thestrals. They’re sweet; just don’t spook them.”

They stepped in and the animals huffed, but didn’t react otherwise. Until Harry turned on his heels and went to pet one of them that he’d apparently recognized; the horse-like thing whinnied softly and seemed pleased by Harry’s attention. The petting lasted only a few minutes, but Clarence could feel Samuel’s mother tensing beside him. He first thought it was because she didn’t like the beasts; it was true they looked unsettling, but they were calm and non-threatening, in spite of their appearance. However, when he followed her eyes, he understood.

Samuel, Severus, was there, on the other side of the clearing, mostly hidden by a group of thestrals and the shadows between the trees. He was wearing a long black robe tied at the waist with a piece of rope and his hair was hanging in his face, but Clarence recognized his nose, his eyes, even as far as he was. Presbyopia had its advantages, after all.

Severus had seen Harry, and he was trying to back into the tree cover behind him, but he must have stepped on a dead branch because there was a sharp crack and Harry’s head snapped to the side.

“Snape!”

But he’d already disappeared.

The thestrals grew agitated and made crossing the clearing even harder; by the time they reached the place where Severus had been standing, the ground was trampled and it was impossible to know where he’d gone. Wait…

“What does your wand say, Mrs Prince?”

“Not much. There’s a lot of magic around us, and it’s confusing the spell.”

“He’s got to be staying somewhere, though,” Harry said, “and he hasn’t got a wand.”

She considered him. “What are you thinking?”

“The Shrieking Shack. I think it’s about 20 minutes that way,” he added, pointing ahead and to the left.

She frowned, but started walking again, faster than before. She didn’t check they were following, and didn’t seem to care; in fact, she looked like she’d forgotten about them.

Clarence and Harry exchanged a glance then went after her, at a slightly more sedate pace.

“That’s where he died,” Harry murmured. “And where my godfather tried to get him eaten by a werewolf.”

“Ah.”

“No one would ever go live there, especially him, but that’s why it’s a good hiding place, right?”

“But why would he hide there? If he was a student and then a teacher here, everybody would recognize him. It’s risky.”

“I reckon he didn’t think about where he was going.”

“But going back to a place where a giant snake and a wolf tried to kill him?”

Harry shrugged. “I don’t know what was going on in his head. But he survived both, so maybe that’s why.”

“Maybe.”

They continued in silence, but not alone; as they were making their way through the woods, creatures accompanied them. Whenever Clarence tried to turn his light in the direction of the noises, he couldn't see anything, but if he only looked out of the corner of his eyes, he could make out the moving branches, he could hear the rustling leaves . He thought he spotted a centaur, maybe a unicorn, more thestrals, but it was hard to tell; the shapes were vague and lost in the shadows.

Eventually, the forest grew less stifling; they could see the night sky, and after a few more minutes a village further down the road they’d reached. And, standing at the edge of the forest, stood a house.

It looked about as welcoming as the forest: a window was broken, moss was growing on the walls, and it hadn’t had a fresh coat of paint in decades. But, through an undamaged window, they could see a yellow light flickering. Someone was in there.

He was waiting for them.

There was an old chair in a mostly empty room, its stuffing coming out from tears in the worn fabric, and he was sitting there, back slightly too straight, eyes empty like black tunnels. Clarence remembered young Harry talking about Occlumency, about how this man had been, was, a master at hiding his thoughts. Around the chair, the floor was much darker, like an old stain spreading… ah.

“Hello, Samuel,” he said.

“What do you want?”

Make sure you are safe, tell you the customers miss you, that you can come back, if you’d like. Please come back. But that ship had sailed when he remembered who he was, so Clarence just said, “I wanted to see you.”

He snorted. “You wanted to see someone I’m not.”

“I don’t think…”

“Severus.” Mrs Prince stepped forward, but he ignored her.

“You,” he spat out at Harry. “Here to avenge Dumbledore? Your parents?” He spread out his hands, like he was offering himself. “Come on, then. I’m not armed; you could have me bleed out like a pig, have me die right where I should have five years ago.”

“No!”

“No? You spent months trying to get me to remember so I’d know who finally killed me and why, and now you’ve changed your mind?”

“I never wanted to… ugh!” Harry yelled out in frustration and whirled around, pacing the room like a caged lion.

“Severus,” his mother repeated.

He kept ignoring her. “Coward,” he told the young man.

“You…!” Harry raised a finger at him, shaking with rage, before lowering it. “I can’t believe – no one, no one has ever made me as angry as you can!”

That only made Samuel, or Severus, smile. It wasn’t a nice smile, really; it was a face that Clarence barely recognized: the cruel lips, the empty eyes, they were very different from the man he’d known. Or, rather, the man he’d known hadn’t felt the need to threaten, to exude so much menace and malicious intent that the air itself seemed to darken around him.

“Your mum is here,” Clarence said. He didn’t know what else to say.

“That woman thought it best to ensure I thought her dead, and I shall respect her wishes.”

“I didn’t have a choice.”

His eyes snapped to her. “Didn’t you?” He got to his feet and stalked out, but neither Clarence, Harry, or Mrs Prince moved.

They listened to his footsteps fade into the depths of the house, then a door creak open. Then, silence.

“He’s left,” Harry said.

“I see those glasses aren’t wasted on you.” Mrs Prince knelt and put her palm flat over the large bloodstain on the floorboards. “This is why he came here. There is power in this place; he left a lot of himself here.”

“Blood?”

“Not only. He lost blood, but he lost something else too; he’s here because he’s drawn here. What he’s missing, he thinks he can recover here.” She stood up. “But he doesn’t know what it is.”

Clarence thought back on his chats with Harry. “Memories. What he’s missing is memories.”

“I thought now he had those back… oh.” Harry blinked. “Oh, those memories.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I was there when he died,” he told Mrs Prince. “There was nothing I could do; so much blood everywhere and I couldn't…” He raised his hands, looked at them. “I couldn't do anything. But he managed to give me the memories, the information I needed to defeat Voldemort. Some other stuff came through; I don’t think he controlled it much; what mattered was that I got the important bits.”

“He extracted memories as he was dying?” Mrs Prince sounded incredulous.

“Well, it was more… they were leaking out of his eyes; he didn’t do it like I’d seen people do it before, with a wand.”

“He was crying the memories?” Clarence stared at Harry. He hadn’t really thought about the way wizards extracted memories, but he certainly hadn’t expected… that.

“It sounds bad when you say it like that, yeah.”

“It is bad. He probably pushed out whatever he could, as fast as he could, without caring about doing it safely since he thought he was dying.” Mrs Prince turned to Harry. “Where are those memories?”

The young man mumbled something unintelligible.

“I beg your pardon?”

“I said, I’ve kept them at home. My home, I mean.”

“Well?”

“Well, what?”

“Well, are you going to fetch them?”

“Shouldn't we go after him first?”

She shrugged. “He won’t go far, not if he wants answers. We’ll find him when the time’s right.”

“Harry,” Clarence said before the young man Apparated away. “Harry, what about the people who attacked us? They were after him, weren’t they?”

“Yeah.” He glanced at Mrs Prince. “I think he’s safe in the forest, as long as he stays there.”

Clarence pursed his lips. “It looks like a dangerous place.”

“Yeah, but the thestrals were protecting him, and maybe some other creatures will too.”

“Beasts…” Mrs Prince frowned. “You can’t rely on non-sentient beasts to act consistently. You said you were attacked?”

“Some of them are sentient, and the attackers are in Azkaban.”

She didn’t seem very reassured, but didn’t stop Harry from leaving.

“That child,” she said once he was gone.

“Hm?” Clarence didn’t mind having a chat, but he’d have it sitting or none at all; their trek through the forest had been long, and he was too old for all that running around. He let himself fall with a sigh into the chair Samuel had vacated just a bit earlier.

“That child… he’s his mother’s son.”

“Aren’t we all?”

“I knew his mother.”

Clarence leaned against the backrest, stretching his sore legs in front of him. “Young Harry told me about the history he and his parents share with your son.”

“Pah! What does he know? He wasn’t even born!”

“As he said, he saw some of Samuel’s memories.”

“Severus.”

“Well, I’ve called him Samuel for years; you can’t blame an old man for sticking to his habits, can you?”

“You're not that old.”

“I am, for a Squib. Old enough that you seem quite young to me.”

She rolled her eyes, and for a second her face was just like her son’s.

He chewed on his cheek, worried his lip, tugged on his beard. Finally, he took the plunge. “Forgive me for asking, but what’s this about him believing you dead?”

“Exactly what it says on the tin.”

He raised his eyebrows. She huffed. He tilted his head. She frowned. He widened his eyes.

“Oh, for…” She sighed through her nose. “You’re a manipulative old man; you’re aware of that, yes?”

He smiled beatifically at her.

“You look a bit like him, you know. Albus Dumbledore. You could be related.”

“A lot of old families are. So?”

“So, speaking of families. My family happened to me.” She gathered her cloak closer, and looked out of the window. There was only darkness to see, but still, she looked. “When Severus was fifteen, my brother died. My parents hadn’t liked me marrying Tobias, a Muggle, but I didn’t matter as much back then. But, when their heir died without a child, even if all there was to transmit was a name, they tried to take me back. They’d have married me to someone else, made me produce a pureblood heir. I escaped, faked my death, and ran away.”

“You abandoned him.”

“I abandoned him to the tender care of his father, who at that time was not the man I’d married any longer. I ran away from him, too. And I let Severus take all of Tobias’s rage, now that it couldn't be diverted on me from time to time.”

“You saved your life.”

“But in doing so I doomed his; is that what you want to say?”

“Well.” Clarence wiggled his fingers around his cane; he remembered some old, old scars on Samuel’s skin. “And you never told him?”

“I was afraid they’d use him to get to me. I thought it was their doing, when I learned he joined Voldemort; my family always blamed Muggleborns for what they’d lost over the centuries. If he thought me dead, if everyone thought me dead, both he and I were safer. We couldn’t be leveraged against each other.” She closed her eyes. “They’d have killed him, too – I feared they’d kill him.”

“He almost died anyway.”

“But he didn’t. He’s a survivor.” She smiled, a flash of white in the gloom. “More lives than a cat, this boy of mine.”

“So why come back, now?”

“They’re all dead. I took the name back, the crumbling farm, and I spat on their graves. And then, I went and found my son.”

Clarence was silent for a moment, trying to imagine being stuck between two bad choices. “You could have saved him from your parents or from your husband, but not both, then?”

“I barely escaped as it was; with him, with a boy not old enough to use magic freely…” She shook her head. “I regretted it; I still do, to this day.”

A shout rent the air, and they both turned in the direction it came from.

“What was that?” Clarence asked.

“I don’t know; I can’t see anything.”

Another shout, lower, and a loud crack like thunder without lightning.

“Something’s happening out there.”

“You don’t say.” He pushed on his cane and gritted his teeth when pain flared through his ankles, his knees, his hips; sitting down had been a mistake after all. He joined her at the window and peered alongside her. “I don’t see – ah.”

An arc of light crackled above the yard between the Shack and the Forest, illuminating the scene for a few seconds. Harry and Samuel – Severus – were facing each other, and the light was coming from the young man’s wand. When the arc faded, a rosebush caught fire and gave off enough flickering light to still make out the two figures. They were shouting at each other, sparks coming out of young Harry’s wand and dancing around Severus’s hands.

“Shouldn’t we intervene?”

“I’m not certain,” she replied, forcing the window open with a spell when it refused to budge under her hand.

“…you die; of course I was upset!”

“Ah.” Clarence put a hand on the window sill to help steady himself. “They might be at it for a while; it’s been a long time coming.”

She hummed in question.

“Young Harry came to our shop for the first time almost a year ago, now. He’s been on a crusade to get Samuel to remember all he lost ever since. Too many things left unsaid and questions left unanswered, as I understand. I told him he shouldn’t; I told him it would only cause harm. He didn’t listen.”

“Cause harm to whom?”

He shrugged. “I didn’t think he’d get the replies he wanted, and Samuel was… content, then. He had a quiet life, a home, our shop.”

“He had you.”

Clarence didn’t reply.

“You thought Potter would take him away from you.”

“Can you blame me?”

“You lied to me!” Severus yelled, outside. Clarence had never heard him yell like that before; he didn’t think he could, what with the damage he’d sustained to his throat. “I didn’t know any better and you let me believe…” Ah. His voice had broken, and all that was left to him was a visibly uncontrolled burst of magic roughly aimed at Harry.

“I didn’t let you believe anything – anything wrong, anyway!”

Severus threw something at the young man’s feet; Harry bent and it picked it up.

“What is it?” Clarence asked. He squinted, but in the low light and with most of it hidden in Harry’s hand, he couldn't even guess.

“Some sort of phial, I think.” Mrs Prince narrowed her eyes. “Possibly the one Potter kept my son’s memories in.”

“And your son took those memories back.”

She sighed. “He’s always been impulsive.”

“I take it he shouldn't have done that?”

“Absorbing back a lot of memories that have been away from you for a long time is… a delicate process.”

“Of course.”

“And with the identity he developed with you clashing with the one he’s just recovered…”

“Not the best time.”

“No, not the best time.”

“I knew Harry to be reckless, but Samuel…” Samuel had been controlled, cautious.

“Oh, Severus hides it well most of the time, but when he’s aroused…” She gestured at the scene outside with her chin. “He’s his father’s son, too.”

Both men were very close now; Severus was gripping Harry’s coat and the young man had his wand digging into Severus’s side.

“Aren’t you worried? They’re going to kill each other.”

“I doubt it,” she said. “The thestrals are watching from the edge of the trees, but they’re not doing anything else.”

As they watched, Severus shoved Harry away and stepped back, hands half-way up; on the ground where he’d fallen, Harry was reaching out to him.

“I never lied! Samuel is you and you’re Samuel; you’re one and the same!” He got to his feet, and with each step forwards he took, Severus took one backwards, shaking his head.

“It’s just… a lighter you, without some of the stuff that hurt you, but it is you!” This time he was faster and he managed to grab Severus by the elbows. They were closer to the Shack now, close enough that even when he lowered his voice, it was easy enough to understand Harry’s words. “Your writing is the same, and no one can use a knife like you, and I remember that time you just destroyed that woman who was slapping her kid – that gave me a proper flashback to school, except this time it wasn’t aimed at me, so I could enjoy it.”

“All things you remember from your school years, when I was your teacher.” Severus’s voice was down to a rough whisper. “And we hated each other.”

“Not anymore. I know you, now.”

“If I’d known I’d live, I wouldn’t have given you all of these.”

“I’m grateful you did.” Harry moved a hand to rest it over Severus’s heart. “I’m grateful for so many things.”

“I didn’t do it for you.”

Harry smiled, before stepping away and reaching under his coat. “That's fine. There,” he said, extracting something long and thin, “I found it in the Shack, when we went back for your body. All that was left of you, that and the blood. We thought Death Eaters had found your body before us, but…”

“They did.”

“What?”

“They did find me. I was almost dead, barely conscious, and there they were. I think I Apparated out of instinct, without any control at all, and ended in a Muggle area. When I woke up again, I didn’t remember anything.”

“It must have been scary.”

Severus didn’t reply, plucked the wand from Harry’s grip.

“Grimmauld Place is empty at the moment, if you need a quiet place to recoup. I promise I won’t bother you.”

“Potter…”

“Harry, remember? It’s Harry.”

“Harry.” He stared at the wand in his hand, rolled it between his fingers. “Thank you.”

And he disappeared with a pop.

The young man stood there for a long while, staring at the spot where Severus had been just a moment ago, before looking at Clarence and Mrs Prince.

“Well,” he said. “It went better than I expected. I guess now we just wait and see.”

“Grimmauld Place?” The name was painfully familiar. “The old Black house?”

“Yes.”

“But you’re not a Black; your mother…” They wouldn’t have let a Muggleborn – a Mudblood – marry into the family.

“No. Sirius Black was my godfather and I inherited it from him, so now it’s mine to do as I please. I don’t live there anymore; he can stay as long as he needs.”

“Are all the Blacks dead, then?”

“Not quite; I’m planning to leave the house to my own godson one day, once it’s entirely cleaned up.” He made a face. “It’s gloomy and has lots of shady artefacts, so it’s really not safe for a kid, but Severus is familiar with it already. He’ll be fine.”

Clarence cleared his throat, pushing his memories away. “Do you mean to say that you sent him to a dark and dangerous place, all on his own, right after…” He waved a hand. “…all this?”

“Um…”

“Nevermind. Can one of you take me back home? There’s nothing else I can do for you, and I am tired.”

They’d upended his life, taken Samuel from him, destroyed all his plans and hopes; the least they could do was let him go back to his little life, in his little flat, above his little shop. All alone, now. A little shop that would die with no one to keep it alive, and soon after, so would he.

Samuel’s flat above his would be empty: he wouldn’t hear the floorboards creaking, he wouldn’t hear him go down the stairs, knock on his door, come in for a late-night tea; he wouldn’t smile at his awkward brush-offs whenever Ms Patel asked him out, or the way he visibly refrained from strangling a customer who insisted on buying what they’d talked about on the telly instead of what Samuel recommended.

The shop was dark and felt cold when Harry brought him home; the young man was very gentle and polite and offered to help him up the stairs, too, and all Clarence wanted to do was to kick him out, him and his fresh, unlined, stubborn face.

“I’m sorry, you know. I really am.”

“What for? You got what you wanted, didn’t you?”

“I don’t know. I wanted him back, but not at the expense of the life you two had here. I know it was one or the other, but I just… I hoped…”

“Having is not so pleasing a thing, after all, as wanting, isn’t it?”

“Yeah. I thought I could find a way, that it would all work out, but… yeah. It didn’t.”

Clarence left him there on the shop floor, standing with his head down and his hands in his pockets, looking like a child just discovering that the world could and would betray you. It was a sad sight, but Clarence’s heart was too heavy and his legs too achy to feel much about it, and he climbed slowly up to his rooms above.

He didn’t sleep much that night – in fact, he didn’t sleep at all. So, as the sun was barely above the horizon, he left his bed and creaked his way to the bath for a long soak, in the hopes it would soothe his old bones. But when he reached the tub, he found three glass vials perched on the edge, with a piece of paper stuck under them. He pulled it out and went back into his bedroom to fetch his reading glasses, and when he saw the handwriting he fell more than sat on his bed.

Clarence,

it started,

All these years, you have been more generous and patient with me than I could ever deserve or repay.

I saw the way you limped last night, so I brewed you a few potions that will help: from the green vial, three to five drops in the bath, to relax your muscles; from the blue vial, two drops in a glass of water whenever a flare-up occurs. Spread the balm in the red vial over aching joints.

They will replenish when empty; you needn’t worry. I understand if I am not welcome any longer, but you can be assured I will only ever hold respect and gratitude for you. You need only tap my signature thrice at the bottom of this letter should you ever need me or my services.

Yours,

S.

He hadn’t committed to a name, not in this letter. And what was this rubbish about not being welcome? Clarence resisted the urge to ball the letter in his fist and hurl it at the wall; it would be pointless and unsatisfying. The vials would be more satisfying to throw, but even if they weren’t spelled unbreakable, it would be a waste of something he sorely – quite sorely – needed right now.

So he put the letter on his bedside table, set his folded glasses on top of it, and went to have his bath.

It was way too early to open the shop, but Clarence was already at work: inventory, books, preparing orders… he had things to do, and he was on his own these days. The letter taunted him from the counter where he’d placed it so he didn’t have to go back upstairs to fetch it, but it was still not a decent time to call – or however wizardkind called it – someone. Except…

He looked at the familiar handwriting. Samuel had always been a light sleeper; he went to bed late and rose early, to the point that Clarence had often wondered if he slept at all. And Severus, this new – well, old, really – version of his Samuel, was probably no different. Young Harry had insisted they were very much the same person, after all; he wouldn’t wake him.

He would surprise him, but Severus had said he’d come, and Clarence trusted his word.

He tapped the S three times, and waited.

There was a knock on the shop door, although no one was there. Rolling his eyes, Clarence went and opened it, making the bell jingle.

“Why didn’t you just come in?”

The air shimmered and Samuel came into view. “I didn’t want to assume.”

“You’ve lived and worked here for years; there’s no assuming.”

“I’m not who you thought I was.”

Clarence peered at him from above his glasses, and Samuel froze. “What?”

“Nothing.”

“What, Samuel?” He shook his head. “Sorry. Severus.”

“You just reminded me of someone I used to know.”

“Someone you liked?”

He pursed his lips. “It’s… complicated. He both saved me and doomed me. I killed him.”

“Ah, the old Headmaster? Yes,” he added at Severus’s raised eyebrows, “young Harry filled in the blanks for me. But I already knew you were a wizard, almost from the start. The signs were all there.”

“Ah.” He looked flummoxed for a second, but quickly covered it. “Did you use the potions? You seem to move better than last night.”

“I did and I do, thank you.”

“Good.” His eyes darted to the shelves, as though trying to find something to say.

“Would you like some tea?”

“Certainly.” He didn’t move, though.

“Upstairs?” Knees be damned; he wasn’t having this conversation here or in the cramped lab.

“Clarence…” He picked at one palm with the fingers of his other hand. Nervous, Clarence thought, but not trying to hide it.

“I am not angry at you, or whatever it is you’re thinking. Come on up; we’ll have some biscuits too, yes?”

Severus followed him, quiet, and when Clarence nodded at him went about making tea. He knew where everything was and he knew Clarence’s preferences; busying himself with something he could do with his eyes closed would settle him, or so Clarence hoped.

“You don’t look like you’ve slept much,” he said. “Harry said the house he sent you to isn’t the most welcoming.”

Severus snorted. “It certainly isn’t, but it’s still better than the one I grew up in.” He paused, looking at the kettle on the hob. He was boiling water the regular – the Muggle, the Squib – way, without his wand. “I went there first. The house is still standing, and so are the wards and spells I’d put on it. I thought it would have been demolished, sold perhaps if anyone could have wanted it.”

“But it was waiting for you.”

“I went in. Everything’s covered in dust, dark, stale; I packed a few things and Apparated to Grimmauld Place. It’s not much better, but there’s a proper bathroom, at least. I could clean up. After that…”

“After that?”

“Well.” He poured the water into the pot, sat in front of Clarence. “I brewed your potions, then I visited a few graves. I was hoping…” His hands curl into fists on his thighs. “But I should know better than to hope.”

“Aren’t you being a little dramatic?”

His lips briefly curved upwards. “Perhaps. But I left, I betrayed you.”

“You left, but you didn’t betray me. Where’s this balderdash coming from, now?”

“You had plans, and I…” He made a squeezing gesture. “I crushed them into dust.”

“You didn’t. You can still come back for good, if you’d like, and if you don’t, well. You didn’t plan any of it. I can’t say I’m happy about this, but from the moment young Harry came into the shop…” He sighed. “I could tell he knew you, and I could tell he wanted – no, he needed you to remember. And I could tell he was the kind to get his way, too.”

Severus laughed, a quick bark of amusement hidden behind his hand. “Not always, but there are few who can out-stubborn Potter.”

“I would wager you’re one of those few.”

“Perhaps.” He opened the biscuits and angled the pack in Clarence’s direction. “We’ve certainly clashed over the years. Rather spectacularly, at times.”

“Last night was spectacular, yes.”

Amazingly, Severus’s cheeks turned a dull red. “I let my temper get the better of me.”

“And Harry cooled it.”

Clarence watched as Severus fussed with the teapot, poured tea, stirred his own cup intently although he hadn’t added milk nor sugar.

“I wasn’t sure, you know. Before you remembered. I wasn’t sure if he was genuinely flirting with you, or if it was a means to an end, to forcing your memories back.” Severus kept ignoring him, so he went on. “I was terrified – would he use you then discard you once his curiosity was satisfied, once he’d got all the answers he wanted? Would he hurt you? I never thought he wanted to, but… I could see it happen, so clearly. And you seemed content, here with me; I wondered what bringing back a past that had left you almost dead and with your previous life a blank slate would do to you. Nothing good, I feared.” Clarence took a sip, burned his tongue. “How are you feeling today?”

Severus snorted. “Like life was so much simpler before he barged in.”

“But are you happy to have your life back?”

He shrugged. “My life? What life? I expected to be dead after the war. I should have been. I didn’t have anything – I still don't have anything left, really, apart from a derelict house.”

“So you regret it?”

“No. It was gnawing at me, not knowing. I needed to know, although I suspected it might be rather bleak. I wish…”

“Yes?”

“I wish this hadn't hurt you, in the process. You helped me, and…”

“Severus.” At Clarence’s sharp tone, he looked up. “Severus, you can come back. Upstairs is still your home, if you want it. You don’t have to work in the shop, of course, but if you don’t want to go back to your childhood home or young Harry’s grand old decaying place, you can stay here, for however long you wish.”

“I can work; I should work. Given I’m dead, I can’t access what little money I had at Gringotts, and I…” He rubbed his face. “Clarence, I don’t know what to do.”

“Well, you still have everything you had as Samuel Gray. Samuel Gray never died.”

Severus hummed, possibly in agreement.

“And your mother…”

“No.”

“You could talk to her.”

“No.”

“She mentioned a farm; I think she’s staying there.”

“No.”

“No you won’t, or no you can’t?”

Severus didn’t reply.

“Just… think about it. I think she could have some answers for you, too.”

He shuddered, but his lips tightened and he jerked his head in an almost-nod.

“Right, well. The shop will open in an hour or so; I’m going down to finish the essential oils inventory I started earlier.” He gulped what was left of his tea and got down the stairs, his fingers tight on the railing; he’d left his cane in the shop and he was paying for it right now. He tried not to worry about Severus and what he’d do in an hour; he had no right to dictate the man’s life. What would a Potions Master do in a Muggle shop like this? It wasn’t his place; it wasn’t his world.

But Clarence had an inventory to do.

Severus fielded questions from their customers all day long, although they were not so much about their own ailments than where he’d been, how he was, whether he was back for good. Several had made the link between the attack by the river and all the city officers that had roamed about the town for a day, and asked if he was feeling better; more than one insisted that he’d been missed, sometimes with unsubtle looks at Clarence. Ms Patel even asked about ‘Samuel’s young man,’ which made him mutter something about the delicate stage of a preparation in their lab and disappear into the lab. Clarence had to drag him out once she was gone, promising he’d be more of a buffer next time a client got too nosy.

“You know, we could tell them the truth.”

“The truth?”

“That you remember.”

“I never told anyone I’d forgotten anything.”

“Oh, come on, it was an open secret.”

Severus stared at him in horror.

“Don’t look at me like that; people knew I had no family, and then suddenly there’s a new guy living here, bearing my name, who never ever talks about his past?”

“An illegitimate child would have made more sense.”

“Yes, well. You also were not in the best shape when you first came here.”

“I was perfectly fine.”

“You hardly talked, you still had bandages around your throat, and you sometimes stopped doing whatever it was you were doing to stare at nothing. You don’t know how many people asked me if you’d been in a war, in a bad accident, or something like that. I never confirmed or denied, but…” He scratched his beard. “It’s Farah who first suggested you had some sort of amnesia; she’d had a client like that. Poor guy had seen combat and come back with big holes in his memory; he’d needed an attorney to help him the first few years afterwards. I hear he’s better, now.”

“I didn’t… it wasn’t like that.”

“You were in a war. Twice.” Clarence patted Samuel – no, no, Severus; it was so hard to break the habit of years – Severus’s hand. It was pale and long-fingered, and Clarence’s was gnarled and liver-spotted. “You’re so young; you’ve got so many years ahead of you. Don’t hide in the lab whenever someone asks a question you don’t want to answer; decide on what you want to tell them, and stick to it.”

“I don’t want to tell anyone anything.”

“Ah, but it doesn’t work like that. You’ve been here for five years; even if you just decide to leave for good…” Clarence cleared his throat. “Even if you do that, there will still be questions. People will worry, will wonder.”

Severus looked down at the wooden table, its scratched, pitted surface. “I don’t want to leave,” he said in a low voice. “But I don’t know if I can stay. I am not who I thought or who they think I am.”

“Why couldn’t you?”

He gripped his left forearm for a moment, then went back into the shop proper; the doorbell had just rung.

In the end, with the help of a woman who introduced herself as Minerva McGonagall, Severus Snape was back in the land of the living according to Wizarding law. She came in one day, a stern-faced, straight-backed woman with keen eyes, and waited silently until Severus turned to face her. He hadn’t been expecting her, it had been obvious in his stiff shoulders, his wide eyes; he'd even looked like he was a little bit afraid of her. But after a long, frozen minute, her expression had melted into joy and she’d thrown her arms around him, and after that she’d been a regular visitor.

She was someone important; he could tell, but she also was someone who shared a long history with Severus.

They would have long conversations that Clarence wasn’t privy to, and he suspected they had a lot of things to tell each other. She brought paperwork, some books and journals, and once a bottle of very fine booze that the three of them shared one evening. She kept trying to get Severus to meet the people he used to know, but he refused for a long time, even his mother, even young Harry – although he and Severus had kept sending each other letters, like blushing teenagers. Owls were now a fixture in the neighbourhood, which delighted John Farnis, and the way Severus eyed the tree on the other side of the road every morning was not a little cute, although Clarence knew better than to say so out loud.

Still, after a few weeks, things were settling into the new normal. The townspeople all had accepted that Samuel was actually not Samuel, but that they could still use that name; Severus had also finally gone to visit a few of his former… friends? Clarence wasn’t sure it was the right word, but he left a few times, often coming back shaken, but not unhappy. He mentioned a former student and his mother, former colleagues from the school he’d worked at, as well. It always took a lot out of him, and usually he didn’t go into the shop itself the next day, holing up in the lab and preparing oils and decoctions and tinctures. Sometimes, also, he brewed – mostly potions for Clarence, but a few times for Minerva, for Harry too: he saw Severus tie a small vial to an owl’s leg, once, a large brown bird that always carried the young man’s mail.

And on one Friday afternoon, Molly Weasley, née Prewett, came into the shop, and it was Clarence’s turn to be struck dumb. She charmed the window opaque and fussed over the both of them, opened her bag and extracted more food that they’d need over a week, two jumpers, and a mountain of pictures for Clarence to look at. She gave him a shiny gold coin, the kind he hadn’t seen since childhood, and told him that it would activate every Sunday at half eleven, if he wanted to join them for lunch; Severus warned him that the Weasley Sunday Roast was a rowdy, loud, and crowded affair but that didn’t matter; Clarence would go one day. They chatted for a long time, even after Severus had gone upstairs to give them some privacy.

And as Molly was about to leave, the doorbell rang again.

“We’re closed,” Clarence said. “Sorry, we forgot to turn the sign over.”

“I’m not here to buy anything.”

Molly turned around. “Eileen,” she said. “It’s been a while.”

“A few decades. You haven’t changed.”

“No more than you have.”

Mrs Prince’s eyebrows raised, just like her son’s; she nodded at Clarence. “I didn’t know you had visitors.”

“I was leaving.”

“Does he know you’re coming?” Clarence asked.

“No. He’s ignored my letters long enough; I am done waiting.”

“Eileen, as one mother who’s made mistakes to another…”

“What?”

Molly looked apologetically at Clarence, and led Mrs Prince outside. He watched them talk for a while in front of the shop before walking away together; Severus’s mother didn’t come back that evening. But Molly started sending Clarence little care packages: a jar of cookies, some jam, and another letter was often included in it, for Severus. Sometimes a small parcel, too.

After Molly’s visit, he started replying; after a few weeks, he started sending back things, too – a vial of something or other, most of the time. And as autumn crept in, finally, he told Clarence that he was visiting his mother.

Clarence didn’t go to Molly’s house right away. Meeting a lot of people for the first time in an unfamiliar place, especially with his history with the magical world, didn’t sound like a good idea; first, several members of the family paid him a visit or three. Somehow, Severus was never there when they arrived: they didn't seem surprised to miss him, and Clarence wondered if they’d warned him. At any rate, he made himself scarce.

The first to come was Molly’s husband Arthur, then her eldest son; both had many questions – about a young Molly, about her side of the family, her brothers. Bill came a second time, with his wife and little girl; they went to the river, and watched her run after all the butterflies and damselflies and dragonflies. Then came a quiet young man, somewhat prissy, who reminded Clarence very much of Molly’s brother Fabian. When he told Percy about it, it transformed him – he hadn’t felt he really belonged in the family, he said, but now he did.

After so many visits, he didn't want to wait any longer; he planned to go to the Burrow the next Sunday. But, as he watched Severus sitting there, his brand-new glasses perched on his nose as he read an old leather-bound book, a cup of tea cooling by his elbow, he made a decision. Why wait?

“Why don’t you come with me?”

Severus closed the book, using his finger as a bookmark. “I’m not invited.”

“Of course you are; Molly and Arthur both said so the last time they came.”

“I wasn’t here.”

“No, you never are. But you’re invited, nonetheless.”

“I doubt they’d want to see me.”

“George wants to pick your brain about potions, something about his shop?”

“George Weasley?” Severus snorted. “He doesn’t need me to create ever more ill-advised concoctions for his clientele.”

“What, he’s good?”

“In his limited field, yes. Limited field.”

“See? Something to talk about.”

“I cursed his ear off.”

“He doesn’t seem to hold a grudge about that. Look, you don’t have to stay for the whole meal, but…”

“But what?”

But, Clarence knew that a certain young man would be there too, and he felt that it was high time they actually saw each other again. The intense back and forth of letters was all well and good, but Clarence was getting on in years, and he’d like to see them get somewhere before his time came. Of course, he couldn't say so to Severus, not unless he wanted to send him into some epic sulk about either Clarence’s mortality or his meddling, or possibly both. Still, he had to reply something. “But, having you there with me would certainly make things easier, even if by now I’ve already met all of them.” Let it not be said that Clarence was above a little manipulating, when the occasion warranted such.

And of course, Severus sighed, grumbled, and did what Clarence asked.

Young Harry was outside playing with a group of toddlers when they arrived. His arms were bare in the autumn sun, the shape of his muscles obvious under his tanned skin. He raised his head, smiling, when he heard the pop of Apparition; when he saw who it was, his mouth turned into a surprised O.

“Potter,” Severus said, roughly. “And assorted Weasleys and Weasleys-in-laws.”

Clarence slipped his arm free from Severus’s, and gave him a little push in the young man’s direction. “Come on, now,” he whispered.

“You planned this.”

“Not really, but I thought it was time.”

“We all did,” a young lady with bushy hair said. “Harry’s been moping for ages, and you can’t even see his kitchen table under the piles of letters. It’s getting ridiculous.”

“Granger.” Severus was tense; he slipped one hand under his sleeve, probably looking for the comfort of his wand. “You know who I am. How can you…” His words tapered off, like he didn’t know how to finish his sentence.

“Severus.” Harry had found his voice again. “Severus, they’re right. It’s been long enough.” His lips quirked up. “You can have a shouting match or two later with whoever you want, but for now I…” He took a step, then a second, then a third; his hand reached out and wrapped around Severus’s wrist. “Walk with me?”

Stiffly at first, but looser with every step, Severus walked with him. Clarence watched them, watched his protégé, his apprentice, the son he never had but claimed anyway, let himself be led further away into the fields surrounding the Burrow, until they were far enough to Apparate away. He stared at the empty spot for a while, wondering if Severus would be back that night, or if he’d be back on Monday morning, or maybe even later.

“Finally,” someone said from behind him. “Can’t believe that greasy old Snape, of all people, is who he’s settled on, but blimey, I wouldn't have survived one more minute of pining.”

“Ron!”

Clarence turned back to the house, to the sea of red-heads, red like his own hair used to be decades ago. Clarence Gray, born Corvus Black, a scion of the many-branched Black family who was kicked out of the Most Ancient and Noble House at eleven, had found his blood family again, and they welcomed him with open arms. And as for the family he’d made, the son he’d chosen, well: all parents had to watch their children leave, and hope they’d come back. Samuel had left once and come back as Severus, and Clarence knew he’d come back again; their bond, though not from blood, was much stronger than Clarence’s had been to his own parents.

Arthur led him inside; Percy, who looked and behaved so much like Fabian, offered him a glass of port.

And on Monday morning, just before he opened the shop, a somewhat dishevelled Severus hurried in. Clarence didn’t tell him that he’d buttoned his shirt all wrong, didn't tell him that he could see the mismatched socks, one red and one green instead of his usual black, when his trousers rode up as he sat.

But he smiled like a cat that got the cream all day long.