HP: Those Years Sleeping with the Half-Blood Prince

“We’ll need that,” Ian interrupted him, looking at him with his gray eyes. “You need a place to stay, and we need someone to work through those notes with. We can’t count on Aris and Kevin; one’s too theoretical, and the other’ll blow up the crucible. It’s a win-win situation.”

He spoke casually, as if discussing what to have for breakfast the next day.

Severus's Adam's apple bobbed.

He knew it wasn't a "win-win" situation; Ian was giving him a way out, in the least hurtful way possible.

This thoughtfulness made his chest tighten; something was stuck there, unable to go up or down.

"...Thank you." That was all he managed to say.

"I told you not to be so polite." Ian stood up, stretched, and said, "I've put away the toiletries. Get some rest. We'll talk about it tomorrow... tomorrow."

He walked to the door, put his hand on the doorknob, paused for a moment, and did not turn around.

"Severus, it's not shameful to be sad, and it's shameful to be angry."

The door closed gently.

Severus sat alone on the edge of the bed, listening to Ian's footsteps disappear at the end of the corridor.

The room still held the warm aroma of stew and the faint scent of Ian, like grass after rain or old book pages.

He slowly lay back down and pulled the blanket up.

The sheets were clean and smelled of sunshine, completely different from the perpetual musty smell of his cold, damp room in Spider's End.

He buried his face in the pillow and closed his eyes.

This time, he wasn't dreaming.

……

Severus stayed at the Burkes' house.

Leah and John treated him gently and naturally, neither overly enthusiastic nor deliberately avoiding him.

Leah would fry an extra egg for breakfast, and John would hand him the Daily Prophet as if he were another son.

One August morning, Ian put down his copy of "Today's Metamorphosis" and suddenly said, "Let's go for a walk."

Severus looked up from the book.

“Just the two of us.” Ian poked at the fried egg on his plate with his fork. “My dad has a cousin in Scotland, Duffy Burke, who lives near Caithnessshire by the sea. He wrote to say we’d be welcome to stay for a while, and my mom thinks it would be good for you to have a change of scenery.”

Severus was silent for a few seconds. "That's too much trouble."

"Uncle Duffy is eager for someone to go. He's obsessed with studying the magical aquatic species along the Scottish coast and is in dire need of young people who can understand him."

Ian put down his fork and looked at him. "How about doing me a favor? I'm really not interested in the hybrid variant of the thorny bird and the burrowing bird. You can talk to him, and I'll just nod along."

That's half true and half false.

Duffy Burke was indeed an eccentric enthusiast of magical creatures, but Ian knew Severus always had a way of engaging with such obscure knowledge.

Severus looked at him, his gray eyes calm, but with a hint of expectation deep inside.

"...Okay," he said.

Leah prepared plenty of energy drinks and a detailed Muggle first aid guide for them, while John gave Ian a small bag of Galleons and a piece of parchment with the words "Signal if you're in trouble" written on it.

Two days later, they arrived at Diagon Alley via the Floo network, then took a creaky Knight Bus, enduring a bumpy ride for almost a day, and finally stood in front of a stone house that looked as if it could be blown away by the sea breeze at any moment.

Duffy Burke was a short, stocky, dark-haired man with an extremely loud voice.

He was indeed excessively enthusiastic, just as Ian had said, and kept talking to Severus about the "suspected subspecies of the horse-shaped sea monster" that he had recently observed, until Ian yawned and said, "If we don't go to sleep soon, we won't be able to help clean up the seaweed tomorrow."

Their room was in the attic, low-ceilinged, but the window faced the sea, and at night they could hear the endless sound of the waves.

For the first few days, Severus did indeed fulfill his duty of "chatting".

Uncle Duffy's collection is bizarre: anemones that change color when soaked in a jar, a box of driftwood carvings that supposedly predict storms, and even a small bottle of glittering powder that he insists is "mermaid scales".

Severus was able to join in the conversation and occasionally even point out a taxonomic discrepancy, much to Uncle Duffy's delight, who slapped his thigh in surprise.

Ian, on the other hand, was happy to have some peace and quiet.

He spends a lot of time walking along the rugged coastline or lying on a leeward rock watching the clouds.

Sometimes Severus would come to him, and the two of them would sit on a high place, watching the leaden sea stretch to the misty horizon, neither of them speaking.

Once, they went too far and rounded a headland, where they discovered a shallow hole carved out by the waves.

The entrance to the hole was piled with white seashell fragments; the inside was dry and lined with fine sand. Ian crawled in first and patted the spot next to him.

"Doesn't it look like a rudimentary version of the Room of Requirement?"

Severus bent down to enter, brushing the sand off his robe. "It's far too shabby."

But they stayed there for a long time that afternoon.

Ian pulled out several notebooks from his leather bag. The sound of the waves became the background noise as they exchanged views in hushed tones, occasionally arguing, the soft scratching of pens on parchment filling the air.

Seabirds occasionally flit past outside the cave, their calls carried away by the wind.

"It's very quiet here," Severus said suddenly, closing a book.

"It's quieter than at home," Ian added, his eyes still on the notes in his hand.

Severus did not deny it; he looked out at the turbulent sea and nodded.

Ian looked up and stared at his profile for a moment. "Want to go back?"

"No," Severus answered quickly, paused, and lowered his voice, "It's very nice here."

The next day, Uncle Duffy received an urgent message from an owl about a possible gathering of Greendylos on a coast in the south.

He was so excited that he danced with joy and was about to leave immediately. He hurriedly handed Ian a bag of food and said, "Take good care of the house and don't let the petrels nest in the chimney." Then he hopped on his old broom and disappeared into the drizzle.

The stone house fell completely silent, leaving only the two of them.

Without timetables, experiments, or the social masks that must be maintained, time becomes relaxed and stretches out.

Together they lit the fireplace in the damp weather and tried to make a stew with the odd ingredients left by Uncle Duffy, which turned out barely edible.

At night, I would sit by the fire wrapped in a thick blanket, listening to the intermittent wizard radio broadcasts on the radio. The signal was often interfered with by storms, accompanied by hissing static.

One night, a serious speech from a Ministry of Magic official was being broadcast on the radio, urging people to "remain vigilant and report suspicious activity."

Ian reached out and turned it off.

The noise subsided, leaving only the crackling of burning wood and the distant roar of the waves.

"Fifth grade now," Severus said suddenly, leaning back in the old sofa, the firelight flickering on his face.

"Hmm." Ian poked at the fire. "In the year of OWLs, Aris must have already drawn up a thirty-inch-long study plan."

"He will."

"And you?"

Severus paused for a moment, then said, "What needs to be learned must be learned."