Luminous Autumn
Autumn.
Autumn was the time for long walks. The leaves on the trees surrounding Hogwarts had all turned odd shades of auburn and death, littering the borders of the visible footpath leading to and from the Forbidden Forest. The sun, though lower in the sky, cast a golden light that made everything glow with a warm, nostalgic hue. His hand was tightly clasped into Severus’ as they walked through the winding trial, other hand holding onto a repurposed picnic basket that was now for collecting potions’ ingredients.
Severus walked at a pace that made him have to break into a slight jog to keep up but he had gotten used to it over the past week. They stopped around a bend, Severus allowing him to wander a few meters away as he bent wordlessly to pick at a wild aconite cluster he had found in the clearing.
He wandered around, kicking dirt and rocks around with his imperviously spelled boots. The weather had been erratic the past few days and there were little puddles around that had not quite dried up. He spent the time jumping into puddles, putting his ears to the trees, listening for the hollow sounds of thousand year old magic thrumming through barks. As he laid his head on what seemed like a particularly old oak across the clearing, he looked up through the thick of the tree canopies above them where he could just make out the darkening clouds that had begun to flood the afternoon sky.
His eyes fluttered close as he thought about the magical plants, creatures, people like them who have walked this very same path, who had put their ears to the very same trees as he had done. He wondered what happened to people who were no longer here, where would they go, whether their families missed them, whether anyone even knew they had gone missing.
It seemed only a brief while ago that he had come to live with Severus and Harry remembered a time when if he had gone missing, that quite possibly no one would notice.
Harry sunk into the dirt piled up at the edge of the tree’s roots and had only closed his eyes for a fleeting moment before he felt the first of the raindrops fall onto the tip of his nose.
“There you are, Harry, I told you to stay close,” his ears perked at the echoing sound of a familiar languid voice in the distance. His eyes shot open, coming into focus on a dark figure coming towards him from some distance. Had he wandered far? he thought to himself before pushing himself away from the tree but making no move to close the distance between the voice and himself.
“It’s time to go,” Severus said, lips pressed into a thin line when he stepped close enough to inspect the state of Harry’s yellow cloak which had been soaked through with mud despite the spells applied.
“It’s just started raining,” Harry pointed up at the darkening sky, suddenly reluctant to leave.
“Quite the reason to go back, isn’t it?” Severus had not bothered with the comment and turned back towards the general direction of the castle, expecting him to follow.
“I don’t want to go,” he whinged uncharacteristically before he could stop himself, stomped his right foot, fisted his hands into his cloak and shook his head so hard until it spun.
“Harry,” Severus turned back with a stern look on his face, “We spoke about this just this morning. When I say it is time to go, it is final and you are to listen.”
“Harry,” Severus called out again when Harry shook his head once more, “Let’s. Go.”
The rain had started to pick up slightly by now but the kind that was barely mist, floating wherever the wind would bring them. Suddenly overwhelmed by an odd connection to the raindrops, he shuffled his feet, burying the soles into the airy soil. Severus stood across the small clearing, hands folded across his chest now, a small slither of annoyance crossing his features as he tapped his foot on the rustling leaves. His hood was up and even from the distance, Severus felt tall, his presence immense and imposing.
“Let’s go, this is the last time I will repeat myself, Harry.”
The sky crackled in warning.
“No, Severus,” Harry said back in a daring tone, eyes haughty and challenging. He stood still, large pupils boring into Severus’ soul through the thick of his fringe.
Severus stared at him, eyes wide and disbelieving.
“What did you just call me?” Severus said in a dangerously low whisper but the forest had been so silent, it’s air so still that Harry could hear every syllable enunciated, every lilt elucidated.
“I hate!–”
“Harry James Potter!” Severus slashed his sentence into half like he would parry a curse, “You will not complete that sentence if you do not mean it!”
Harry’s face grew red and wet.
“I don’t want to go back!” he yelled.
“I don’t want to go back,” he whispered to himself again then slumped his shoulders and squatted onto his heels, “I don’t want to go back.” He thought about how awfully childish he was acting now and his heart sank further. “I don’t want to go back.” Holding his head to his knees, he rocked himself, over and over and willed the storm to pass.
There was a slow crinkling of leaves until a pair of worn black boots came into his watery vision. He wasn't even sure why the tears had come. He shrunk deeper into himself in the presence of those boots, wanting nothing more than to disappear, to be taken, to be hit so hard the sky would spin and for nothing to make sense.
“Stand up,” the voice commanded instead.
He stood in automation but he had not dared even a glance at the man, afraid of the look of disappointment on his face, the dissolution of this arrangement. Surely, Severus would leave him here in the forest for the wild magical beast to have or worse, send him back to Uncle. He hugged his arms to himself and waited to be scolded, to be held, to be struck, to be loved, to be abandoned? Harry was no longer sure.
“It’s time to go, Harry,” the voice said firmly but when hands swam into his peripheries, he couldn’t help but flinch and let out a soft wheeze like some sort of dog who had once been beaten. He curled further into himself.
“I am reaching for your hood, Harry,” the voice assured as the hands froze midair. And when Harry stayed silent, deft hands gently lifted the hood of his cloak, smoothing down his curls underneath it before they retracted completely.
A rough pale palm was held out in supplication.
His own gravitated towards it and when it came into contact with the warmth of another person, he finally dared to look up where Severus looked neither vexed nor exasperated, only pleased that he had taken his hand. A tight clasp closed around his cold digits and Severus pulled him flush against him where he placed one hand at the back of his head and another between his shoulder blades. Strong arms held him there, his face pressed into the wool where it was almost hard to breathe but smelt just like home.
“Breathe,” Severus hushed, rubbing his back, “Breathe.”
Harry let out a breath he hadn’t know he was holding and tried to take a deep calming breath but the way Severus was holding onto him made it hard to expand his lungs fully. “I’m trying, it’s hard, you’re holding me too tight,” Harry choked into Severus’ wool coat whose body shook as he laughed. Severus relaxed his hold on Harry and they both stayed like this for what seemed like a long time until the raindrops grew inevitable. With a quick flick and a muttered incantation, a shimmering, translucent dome of magic unfolded above them, spreading outward like an umbrella of pure force. The raindrops, which had fallen relentlessly moments before, now splattered against the invisible barrier, each impact sending tiny ripples of light across the surface. The shield held firm, deflecting the downpour as it cascaded around them in torrents, the sound of water pounding against magic creating a low, rhythmic hum. Beyond the protective dome, the world blurred in the chaos of the storm—trees swayed, the ground turned to mud, and the wind howled like a wild beast. But beneath the shield, they both stood dry and warm.
“Child,” Severus said to him, voice heavy, muffled and rough under layers of clothing, flesh and bones where his right ear was pressed against. “Let us go,” he whispered but the last of it had upturned, as though he had been asking for permission. Let us go, child? Let us go?
Harry nodded his head into the warm body and they went.
____
The days at Hogwarts were not quite the same as they had been at Spinner’s End.
Where Spinner’s End was small, muted and simple, Hogwarts was perpetual, endless, everlasting. He had vague recollections of the time when he was a little younger than now and very sick, where the halls were filled with an unceasing stream of students who called his father “Professor Snape”. He remembered the hospital wing in the alcove high above where they seemed closer to the clouds than the ground. He thought about the way his father had been popular amongst the students who wore cloaks with green trimmings, the reverence and respect they afforded him, the same way Draco seemed to. He wondered then, if Severus had been important before he had met him, if he had stolen Severus away from a whole different life he knew nothing about.
There were no students at this early in Autumn but Severus had informed him that a week from now, things would be different. There would be less space, less freedom to roam the halls as he wanted, less time with Severus. Less, less, less. He would be expected to stay in their quarters while Severus taught where there was a never-ending supply of books. Severus had here, more books in total than he did at the Manor or at Spinner’s End. The room was not unlike what had been available at Draco’s house. A small studio with three adjoining doors leading to two bedrooms and a bathroom. The kitchenette was flush against one wall and bookshelves lined two others.
On one end, the large windows that were usually spelled to look out onto the black lake actually looked into it. And when he had first arrived and taken an unusual interest to the bright orange squid that lived in it and would occasionally become visible from the window, Severus had taken the creative liberty to leave it unspelled. The squid, which felt freer that he ever felt, would make large ripples in the water, so strong they would hit the glass windows with a large thud that sounded as though someone was knocking on the front door. He would turn to look and Orange would be there, in a place beyond Harry, close but impossible.
When the rest of the student body arrived on Monday the next week, they rained down on Hogwarts like a stampede of hippogriffs. Harry avoided them like the plague, choosing to seek refuge in the dark, damp but warm innings of Severus’ chambers. Harry kept to himself, unseen and unheard.
They had fallen into a different sort of routine than at Spinner’s End. In the morning here, he would awake to the smell of breakfast. Most of the time, Severus stayed down for the meal with him though occasionally, he would be in the Great Hall instead which left a dreadful, prickling feeling in his gut. He would try to settle his mind on those days, knowing that Severus would join him for lunch and dinner to make up for it.
He missed the way Severus had been all of his in the days of Spinner’s End, where the world was constructed only of their presence. Harry spent his hours reading, using his invisibility cloak to get him places unseen. The little bracelet that Severus put on Harry tracked him and spoke to him on messages engraved. Lunch is ready. It would say around lunch time. Harry only had to hold onto his wrist and wish what he wanted to say.
Stay where you are, the bracelet would say sometimes, I will come to you. And under his invisibility cloak, Harry would wait, wherever he was, whether he was in a secluded corner of the library or the top of the astronomy tower or by waiting by the steps of Hagrid’s hut, Severus would come and it would feel just like the afternoon Severus had arrived to pick him up at Privet Drive in what was another lifetime.
____
At Hogwarts, the steps were everywhere. The staircases twisted in impossible angles, some curling sideways, others disappearing into the shadows, vanishing into hidden alcoves or secret doors. They stretched into infinity, each new landing revealing more stairs that spiralled beyond sight. In this living maze of steps and landings, like Harry’s own life, there was no sense of beginning or end, only an endless journey punctuated by upwards and downwards, of chaos and a glow in the distance.
When he was six, after a spectacularly painful night with Uncle, weakened and crying and unable to limp down the stairs, he had instead fallen and bounced down the entire height of it, crashing into the wall at the landing. Uncle, who was washing up in the bathroom, had come running at the sound of tumbling where Harry wailed and yelped like he had broken something. Nothing had been physically broken but Uncle had been generous and gentle that whole evening after, allowing Harry to covalence in his cupboard with the door open to allow fresh air into it, the whole scene of earlier evening long forgotten. He did not touch Harry for almost two weeks after.
The fall had been almost restorative, though at that time, Harry lacked the vocabulary for it. What he knew was this: the pain that had come with falling, the aches and bruises gained from his own will were clean, honest, pure. A kind of pain that was not attached to filth or disgust or worst, shame. It had been revitalising, knowing that he could hurt himself more than Uncle did, and that he had in his hands, control of his life for the first time.
The next time, before he was even conscious of himself acting so, he had thrown himself down the staircase where again, Uncle had been tender and merciful the whole evening. And when Uncle began to do the Thing in his cupboard if only to stop him from his arduous journey down the stairs afterwards, Harry began hitting himself against the sharp edge of the shelves in his cupboard and when he was slightly older and began to crave a sharper, crisper pain, he started stealing the spare blades from Uncle’s stash of razors when he was sent to clean the master bath. When Uncle noticed, and of course he did, he told Harry to keep the self inflicted slashing to where he could not see and to keep the cuts clean because it was absolutely fucking revolting and made Harry keep his shirt on every time after. The next day, a bottle of rubbing alcohol materialised in the cupboard.
Arriving at Spinner’s End, razor blades were short in supply and Harry could only make do with what was available in his scant room: the bed frame, the corner of the desk, the wall and the drawer pulled out. He found new uses in hangers, quills and a small blade he found that was used to sharpen it. Severus had closed an eye to his self abuse if it had been mild enough for dittany or bruise paste, but required Harry to inform him if he did anything of this sort so they could be healed immediately. And on the days Severus felt were Harry’s worst, he would stay by his side, holding and hushing him until he fell asleep and all notions of harm were but a distant wish.
This was all it was for some time until he stumbled across a spell, haphazardly scribbled across a book Severus had laid open on the dining table where he was working on another improvement of his potions. Sectumsempra, it wrote, for use on flesh. Under it had also been written: for enemies, and what was Harry but his greatest adversary?
Draco was due over any minute now but the knowledge of the spell was an itch that had to be scratched. He yelled to his father that he needed the washroom and when he arrived in it, had been too enlivened by the idea of release that he had forgotten to lock the door behind him. He set the lid of the toilet down and hopped onto it, starting small with a whisper as he stared down at his fingers, where as the spell fell out of his mouth, a thin crimson line appeared at the very edge of his finger pad. He tried it by focussing on his wrist where he found, if spoken it with greater intensity, generated a larger gash. He found that if he simply thought of the spell in his head and traced his fingers where he wanted the cut to appear, it would, just like magic. As he did so, he imagined himself releasing his dirtied blood, every trace of Uncle’s fluids, every memory of Privet Drive. It felt like he was resetting himself, like he was returning himself to his original being.
Draco’s haphazard knocking and lazy calls through the bathroom door had startled him into making deeper cuts than he meant to. And the horrible pureblood whinging started and then the door opened despite Harry’s panicked cries that he wasn’t dressed or some other blatant lie he had told to prevent it. The look on Draco’s face was something Harry didn’t think he could forget. He quickly tried to explain, gathering all his wits and then some more, attempted to cajole the boy into helping him clean up his bloodied mess but all the colour had drained out of Draco’s already pale features and when Harry moved to stand and had instead collapsed onto a heap on the floor instead, Draco bolted down the stairs, screeching Severus’ last name like it was bloody murder.
Within the next minute, Severus had pounded up the stairs and Harry who had already helped himself back up into upright position had his arms immobilised in Severus’ strong grip, pinned straight down against his body. They apparated straight down to the laboratory where Severus cleared a bench with a muttered spell.
Then, in a blood loss induced fugue, Harry heard a voice singing.
Vulnera Sanentur.
Vulnera Sanentur.
Vulnera Sanentur.
Severus handled him roughly, inspecting the last two cuts across his cheek and the tear in his sweater right above the collar bone which revealed another bloody slash across his light pale flesh.
He’d been careful with his habit since he came to Spinner’s End but even Harry knew he’d gone overboard with it this time. He tried to tell himself that Draco was just looking out for him. Draco, who was his age. Draco, who had never experienced a single day of Harry’s.
“Harry, what did you do,” Severus repeated a pitch higher with great urgency and when he refused his initial badgering. And when Harry had shaken his head again, not feeling sorry for what he had done but sorry that Draco had gone and gotten Severus instead of simply helping him clean up, dark eyes turned their focus onto Draco who had been promptly casted aside earlier.
“You. Speak.”
There was silence for a moment. Draco looked between Harry and Severus.
Draco trembled, too afraid to speak.
“Your father–” Severus only had to start.
“Sectumsempra!” The blonde boy blurted out, pointing at Harry with his shaky index finger, “Harry was saying– He was saying–”
Harry, who still did not speak, starred daggers at him so hard Draco shrunk behind Severus.
“What?!” Severus yelled as he spun back around to face Harry, loudly and almost ferociously the jars of ingredients rumbled on their black wooden shelves around them.
“Harry said he saw it in a book!” The flood gates burst open this time and Draco began to cry, “It was in a purple book! The spell! He said he didn’t mean to! I just– I was just– I was just going to get him! He told me not to come in. He told me–”
“Sectum–” Severus had stopped himself, he looked angry, redness had overtaken his pallid features. Severus’ eyelids flittered to a close. Harry counted to ten. Vexed, Seething, Crossed. Harry tried to think of all the synonyms Severus would have him list of Anger because Anger was the least of his worries. This was something more.
Furious, Livid, Incensed.
Inconceivably Exasperated.
Draco sniffled, wiping snot that had leaked from his nose and moved to open his mouth again but Severus simply said, “Don’t–,” then after a very deep breath, “Draco– you will go in the sitting room. You will floo call your mother and you will give her a brief of the events that have transpired this evening. And you will tell her that you will require her to come through immediately to pick you up and that I will be in touch with her later.”
“But Uncle Sev–”
“Leave,” his voice warning, “Draco. Now. Please.”
Severus had shut his eyes and pointed directly at the door of his office.
Draco swept away without another word, leaving Harry alone in the room with Severus.
In the dimly lit room, a cauldron sat nearest to the front bench, simmering on a low flame, casting a soft, eerie glow across the stone walls, the only evidence of what Severus had been doing before he had been called away. The potion inside bubbled gently, its surface occasionally breaking with a quiet, hissing pop. Tendrils of steam curled upward, carrying the subtle scent of herbs and something metallic, mingling with the tension that hung thick in the air.
Severus still stood a few paces away from him but he had turned back around to face Harry, the anger on his face completely wiped away. Harry watched as his usually composed demeanour faltered like plaster peeling for the walls. His dark eyes, normally warm and inviting, were now filled with a desperate plea. The silence between them was almost palpable, growing heavier with each passing second.
"Harry, please," Severus's voice broke the stillness, a rare note of vulnerability lacing his words. "I need you to talk to me."
Harry's gaze was fixed on the floor, his dark curls shadowing his expression. The rhythmic bubbling of the potion seemed to underscore the silence, each pop and hiss amplifying the distance between them. Severus took a step closer towards him, the flickering light from the cauldron reflecting in his eyes.
"You can tell me anything. Anything, I promise,” Severus told him.
The potion simmered on, its soft sounds the only response in the quiet room. The tension tightened like a coiled spring, a terrible chasm separating Severus and him. When Harry looked up, dark eyes screamed. Why do you want to hurt? Why did you do it? Why will you not speak to me? Why are you hurting?
“Why?” Severus asked.
“Why?” He asked again, firmer, when Harry refused to speak.
“Why?” He cried this time, holding onto Harry like he was about to lose something precious, something that cannot be lost.
“Speak to me,” Severus begged.
“Harry, please…”
Please.
Please.
Please.
Harry, who had been looking at Severus, turned his gaze away and fixed it instead, on the jar of frog legs sitting on the third highest shelf. And the only thing he could think of was how nice it would be, to have died when he could.
Harry continued, not that Severus could stop him but less often now that he knew how much it hurt Severus that he did so. Every slice he made in his flesh that he had shown to Severus the following morning felt like he had made one on Severus’ heart too. And so he tried to limit himself to five per day. Five and he would stop. On some of the better nights, he would be oddly determined to try to break out of this horrible habit and he would instead pad into Severus’ room when he was sure the man was asleep, climb in and sleep at the very edge of the bed where he was sure Severus would be mortified if he did wake to his sneaking around. It was not normal, Harry knew, but nothing about him and his childhood had been normal.
Though tonight was not one of those nights.
Like the stairs at Hogwarts, the steps at Privet Drive, Harry raised his shirt just enough to lay out each wound parallel to one another, a ladder made of magic running across his ribcage, one step after another as if it were going up or going down but always leading to the same place where it hurt most in the hollow of his chest and an old, sick part of Harry wished Severus would let him keep his souvenirs when morning came.
____
It was around this same time that he finally met Mister Remus J. Lupin, who was also a professor at the school. Remus whose name he had gotten used to being shouted into the floo system as early as he had been at Spinner’s End. It was finally nice to put a face to the name Severus spoke to so often, crossed legged and sat before the fire, head in a cloud of ash.
“This is… Professor Lupin,” Severus introduced with a muted grimace.
The man who had hazel eyes and mousy brown hair that glittered golden in the fading sun, who wore earthy patched up clothes and was taller than even the lanky Severus, had bent at the knees to smile at him. He looked lovely and kind, carried the warmth of his heart on his sleeve and was the sort of man that would think twice of killing a spider but because Severus’ tone had been hesitant, it had rubbed off on Harry so he stayed behind his Pa, afraid, even to extend his hand for a greeting.
“I’m Remus. Pleased to finally meet you, Harry,” Remus greeted with the brightest smile on his face.
Harry peeked up at Severus whose arm had wrapped around his shoulders and was now rounding him forward, though his hands never left him.
“Hullo,” Harry offered shyly, quickly turning around to plant his face into Severus’ wool robes which earned a small chuckle from both the adults in the room.
Remus came around often afterwards. He was a much better teller of stories of James Potter than Severus would ever be. Harry watched them closely where Remus seemed to Severus what Uncle Lucius was to Aunt Cissa but only in a weird Severus-like way because like Harry, Pa seemed to hold people at an arm’s distance, as though anything closer would physically hurt.
He watched them take walks around the grounds in the evening where Harry would spend the remnants of daylight sprinting across the edges of the black lake, as fast as his tiny legs could bring him until the gentle breeze froze his face and made his fingers numb. He would keel over, pant as he looked back at Severus and Remus who loitered leisurely at a distance not too far behind, engaged in thoughtful conversation (Remus’ lips moved more than Severus’) and when Severus caught him looking, he would stiffen, then pick up his pace, leaving Remus trailing behind him as he caught up quickly to Harry.
Later in the season, when mornings began in a pale, silvered light, the sun barely mustering the strength to rise, its warmth diluted by the thinning atmosphere, Remus began to join them on their hunts for potion ingredients. Remus who had gotten out his winter coat, would kneel on the floor and tie Harry’s boots onto him. Afterwards, he would throw him over his shoulder like a rucksack of potatoes, which was different from the way Severus held him.
The earth had begun to feel different, hardening underfoot as the days grew colder, the ground beginning to freeze in places where shadows stretched longest. Remus who was stronger, could carry him on his back for longer distances, could run through the forest like it belonged to him. Severus would walk behind them, carefully avoiding the small patches of frost that would have materialised after a cold night, delicate and crystalline. Harry would giggle and squeal, look back at Severus who would regard him with an odd smile, reach up his hand above them, letting his hand sweep past drooping leaves as Remus carried him off into the wind. They would run through the forest, Harry on Remus’ back, occasionally losing sight of Severus. By the time they emerged from the forest, they would both be panting from exertion, contentment filling their hearts, a dreamy smile plastered on their faces. For Harry, who knew nothing about Love, this felt as closely as Severus had described it.
It seemed like an easy enough concept to grasp, the idea of Love.
His birth mother’s capacity for love was what kept him alive the day Voldemort came to his home at Godric’s Hollow where he killed James and Lily Potter. Severus said it was special, something only belonging to Harry, a kind of feeling no one could take away from him no matter what happened to his flesh. His mother had loved him, and apparently so had his father when he’d press Severus further.
“More than his broom collection, I’m sure,” Severus said with an undirected sneer.
“And that’s… so much?”
He nodded but looked at Harry as though he’d grown another head.
“And Mum too?”
“Definitely, Mum too,” Severus said solemnly. He waved his wand over Harry and a golden elvish shimmer appeared around him. “This is yours, Harry,” he explained, twilight eyes twinkling in the glimmer as if they held the entire galaxy, “It is an ancient form of blood protection evoked by Lily when she shielded you from the Killing Curse with her own flesh. Nobody can take this away from you.”
Harry stared down at both his hands, stunned by the glow emitting from them. “Mum loved me,” he repeated with a small gulp.
“Yes, she did. Very much so.”
“And Remus?”
“Yes, Remus loves you too.”
“And you, Papa?”
“Yes, Harry. Always.”
He wanted to hear Severus repeat what he had said, over and over because he would not, could not grow tired of hearing it, an endless loop of promises and avowals of sweet, cherished things he wished he was. Harry pursed his lips together, afraid to smile though they were in the dark and Severus would not see him. He was afraid that if he became too happy about this one thing, that perhaps someone in the sky would look down and see how unworthy he had been of that little fleeting happiness, that how dare he, Harry, be giddy over anything at all and that that something would rip it all from him. He took the little bit of happiness and tucked it very deeply into his chest where he was certain no one but himself would know.
He listened to Severus’ stories about his mother and where Severus would pick out similarities between Harry and his mother, stories in which he felt, perhaps, there was a time, in which he was someone’s son and the knowledge of that was so overwhelming it felt seared into his skin, a bright golden shimmer across his chest. He wondered if Remus and Severus loved him all the same. If it was Love, too, the way Lily and James had loved him. Child of… he would envision written on his chest, a proud proclamation of attachment but it would fade off before he could see to whom exactly he belonged to. He looked at Severus, eyelids heavy with slumber and he would wait until the very last possible moment before he spoke.
“Pa,” he mumbled.
“Yes, Harry?”
Harry thought he wanted to say Goodnight, or perhaps it was to ask Severus to announce that Harry now belonged to him, that he was a child of Severus T. Snape and that Severus would recount to him the silliest stories of his mother in Hogwarts until he fell asleep or tell him about Mister Remus J. Lupin who seemed to make Severus smile more often than he did at Spinner’s End. But before he could say or ask or tell, sleep swallowed him whole.
For now, his happiness felt flawless.
Autumn, with its thin mist softening the edges of the world as if the landscape were caught between waking and dreamscape, was Harry’s favourite season.