It's mostly the same. [ There's a verbal shrug in his words. ] Seventeen, eighteen... [ how long did it last? Where was the line when it imploded into hate? It seems hugely unimportant, in retrospect. ] The war ended when I was twenty-one. I... [ Severus looks at her, expression wry. ] It should be clear: I did a lot of things, then. On my own accord, all of them, some more encouraged by outside parties than others. If there's a list of awful things that went on, that is rather far down on the list.

[ It was enabling all of his worst instincts, it was wildly inappropriate, it was probably emotionally abusive, it was ultimately something he didn't enjoy, but it wasn't exactly going to put her in prison. He sees it as something that happened, not something that happened to him. Unlike an incident he keeps out of his mind deliberately, Severus is cognizant of what that affair did to his attitudes about sex. It is what it is. ]