“Thank you for agreeing to meet with me.” Severus Snape said as he sat down at the small table.

“It’s not a problem at all. I’m just sorry that it took me so long to do so.” Harry reassured him.

“I heard about what had happened. It shouldn't come as a surprise that someone in your profession would be more than a bit busy." Snape said as he took a sip of his tea.

"You'd be surprised." Harry snorted bitterly.

"Oh?" Snape queried, waiting for Harry to elaborate.

"Some of our more... colorful... patients were... less than forgiving... about the disruption to our usual workload." Harry said carefully. Talking about the patients he’d had to treat and transport was a tricky thing. On one hand one shouldn’t insult the people who were effectively their customer base and medical privacy was a thing, but on the other hand paramedics, doctors, and nurses were still human and no matter where you worked you needed a way to complain about the stupid, the entitled, the scammers, and the other bad faith actors so that all the stress they added didn’t overwhelm and cause an Inccident with the inevitable snap brought on by not being able to let off steam regarding a bad (or even just heavily annoying) day at work.

"More fools them." Snape said derisively.

Harry and Snape descended into an awkward silence as they drank their drinks. Neither was quite sure how to breach the subject at hand. It wasn’t really the kind of thing that would naturally come up in conversation. Plus neither of them were particularly good at making small talk; Snape didn’t have the patience or personality for it being the no nonsense somewhat cantankerous bastard he was and Harry just didn’t have the experience not really having anyone to develop the skills with back in his formative years when such typical social interactions were taught to children. 

“So...” Harry began carefully, not wanting to piss Snape off by thinking that he was trying to waste Snape’s time by beating around the bush too much, “I know it’s kinda stating the obvious here, but you Remember.”

Snape nodded. It was obvious since if he hadn’t Remembered, then he would never have had the need to track down and look up some random bloke he ran into in a petrol station’s men's room a couple of months ago.

“I also won’t bother to ask you if you Remember exactly what happened to send us here. No matter how hard we try, none of us can despite the fact that it should’ve been the last thing any of us remembered.” Harry said, continuing on. He did have a point to all this rambling; he was just finding it increasingly hard to both know what he wanted to ask and to get around to actually asking it. 

Again Snape nodded. And maybe living in this world had had an effect on him, or he was trying to be polite about it but he made no motion of asking Harry to ‘get on with it’; which is something that the old Professor Snape Harry knew would have done (and actually had on occasion). That or he too was struggling with the whole getting on with it thing, and as a result wasn’t about to call Harry out on it lest he then be called on to get the conversation going. Still, they would only be able to pussyfoot around the subject for so long before they either had to actually get to the meat of the subject or give it all up as a bad job that would likely have to be revisited sometime else (it was not like they could just sit in the cafe all day no matter how many pastries or cups of tea they bought to justify being there in the first place). 

Harry took a fortifying breath, and... Come to think of it, what exactly did he want to ask Snape. None of the questions that came to mind seemed right, “Why is this so bloody hard” he ended up practically snarling in frustration.

“Was it difficult with Draco?” Snape asked. Given the circumstances in which he had met Harry, he knew that Harry knew Draco. Draco had been too miserable and ill at the time for Snape to confirm that he too Remembered, but he was confident that that had been the case.

Harry went to say that that was different, but stopped before he could do more than open his mouth a little. That was the point that Snape was trying to make (at least, that’s what Harry thought it was). The truth of the matter was that it hadn’t been this difficult with the others. He hadn’t really expected to run into the others (except maybe Percy, and that was only because Ron had invited him to come meet his brother), and they just kind of... clicked. And then it was the five of them, and they all knew that the other four knew, and then before any of them had known it they were all moving into the same house together. He couldn’t even really put his finger on why Draco and the others had been different. Sure Ron had been his best friend back Before, and after roughly five years of sharing a room he’d been close to Neville even if they hadn’t been as close as him and Ron. But he hadn’t considered himself to be that close to Draco, what with the whole being bitter adversaries thing that they’d had going on (although it kind of made sense if he actually took the time to think about it. Sure they were the furthest thing from friends, but just because they didn’t like each other all that much didn’t mean that they didn’t know one another). And he hadn’t been close to Percy (mostly because of the age gap between them), but Ron had been, so he hadn’t questioned it. 

But with Snape... Maybe it was actually simple and he was just overcomplicating things because this was Professor Snape and somehow that put everything in a whole different category (but then, when had anything in his dealings with Professor Snape been simple and straightforward. Why would this be any different).

“I cannot help you figure out what you wish to ask, or make it any less awkward than it already is.” Snape said calmly, slipping slightly into the same cadence he had used back when he was teaching Harry potions, “What I can tell you is that I was unaware that there might be others who Remembered until I saw you and Draco. 

“What now?” Harry asked, feeling a bit lost in a way he hadn’t in a long time.

“We return to our normal lives.” Snape casually stated. Harry went to protest; it just didn’t seem right for that to happen. He had Ron, Neville, Percy, and Draco to understand what it was like while Snape had no one to do that for him (at least, as far as he knew. Just because Snape hadn’t mentioned any of the others, it didn’t mean that he was unaware of anyone else who Remembered like they did) and Harry couldn’t just let that stand; not when he could actually do something about it (no one, not even Professor Snape, deserved to be isolated like that). Snape held up a hand to stop him before he said anything, “We each have our own lives and obligations, and I for one am not willing to drop everything and relocate to a new city simply for the convenience of being closer to you and the others. That does not mean that we can’t keep in contact or visit when it’s convenient. Burbage is only about a two hour drive from Birmingham depending on traffic, which is far from an insurmountable distance, and there is always phone calls and email for the times when visiting in person isn’t practical or desirable.”

“I guess.” Harry said, starting to fiddle with his cup. This visit was sure turning out to be an emotional rollercoaster, and he really wasn’t sure what to think; about anything. Maybe he’d been working too hard (but then again, when wasn’t he) and all the overtime thanks to the blackout a couple of weeks ago was melting his brain. Or maybe it was that meeting up with Professor Snape again was stirring up too many complicated emotions from back Before. They hadn’t been on the best of terms after all; even taking into account the whole teacher/student from notoriously rival Houses, theirs had been a contentious relationship with Harry reminding Snape of both of his parents (and the complications that brought about. Snape hated James Potter but had loved Lily and even fourteen years later still felt guilty for the part he’d played in their deaths) and Snape pushing a lot of the buttons that Harry hadn’t even known that he’d had by unknowingly embodying a lot of the more undesirable traits of Harry’s aunt and uncle (unequal treatment of students based on their House and his personal opinion of them, verbal abuse and other bullying tactics used on those who’d managed to get on his bad side; often for things that were beyond their control - such as being the son of someone he hated).

“Do you think that there’s others like us out there?” Harry asked as he finished his tea. 

“I think that it is fairly likely. Whatever it was that happened had to have some sort of substantial area of effect to catch us, Draco, Mister Longbottom, and both Mister Weasleys. Unfortunately neither of us have any way of knowing how many other people got caught up in the effect, who they are, or even if they ended up in this world as opposed to some other world that we don’t know.”

“Draco?” Harry prompted, caught up a bit on the phrasing of that. It seemed a bit unusual that Snape would use Draco’s given name but refer to the others by their family ones.

“He is, or rather was, my godson.” Snape pointed out.

“Did you know my mother here?” Harry asked, getting a bit curious about other possible changes between the worlds. (It would be nice to get to know someone who had known his parents - and wasn’t his aunt and uncle since the only things that they’d had to say about the matter wasn’t complimentary; and possibly not true if Harry went by what they’d told him back when he was a wizard. There’d been no Padfoot or Mooney who’d gone to school with them, or teachers of theirs who remembered them fondly and could be persuaded to share a story or two if begged).

Snape shook his head, and looked at his watch. “I’m afraid that I hadn’t had that pleasure. Nor did I have the displeasure to attend school with your father. And on that note, I’m afraid that it is time for me to be going. It was not a burden to speak with you; perhaps we can arrange to do so again at another time.”

Harry glanced down at his empty cup before nodding goodbye at Snape. “Maybe next time I can ask Draco or one of the others to come as well.”