Dimittite et Dimittemini - Zazzylele - Harry Potter (2024)

Chapter 1: Severus - Prologue

Chapter Text

Prologue

Black robes and anonymous white masks observed the Dark Lord duel Crabbe, Goyle and Tempelton, his wand twirling in precise curses and protective spells. The gathered semi-circle of Death Eaters, Severus Snape among them, watched as Crabbe was thrown back by the Expulso Curse despite his shield. Severus’ hidden features tightened into an aborted wince, not just from the explosion's brightness but from the chilling laughter that followed it. This marked the fourth duel the Dark Lord had staged that summer. It was a testing ground for the efficacy of new spells and the strength of old ones after his return; the entertainment of reducing his followers to unconscious lumps of flesh only served as a pleasant side-effect.

Severus had not yet had the pleasure of being called upon, and he fervently hoped to avoid the dubious honour. He didn’t fancy being subjected to any more curses, and casting a spell that actually struck the Dark Lord, despite the minimal chance of such an attack succeeding, could result in equally unfavourable consequences.

“ Sectumsempra! ” The hiss reached Severus’ ears and would have made his eyes widen if his mind hadn’t been completely cleared of emotion, any he felt rising to the surface quickly drowned again in the still pool of his Occluding mind.

The curse, Severus’ curse, struck Titus Tempelton, a lower-ranking Death Eater who had joined last month. He’d been a dead man by the second day he showed up. Severus didn’t know why he’d bothered learning the name of a doomed idiot too weak-willed to perform Accio successfully half the time.

Professional hazard, he supposed; it paid learning to recognise Death Eaters immediately, analysing the way they slinked or strutted, the different inflections of their voice… it was essential that Severus knew at all times who was surrounding him, despite the capes and the masks. With the Dark Lord calling them by name as if they were all standing naked before him, Severus had always found the cloak-and-dagger pantomime utter bullsh*te since the beginning.

Clear the mind, a shallow pool of irrelevant thoughts . He could not afford such musings while at a gathering.

Tempelton lay prone on the wooden floor, his limbs spasming as tiny cuts opened all over his body, bleeding profusely as he tried to heal himself in vain. It made nameless things squirm in Severus’ stomach, observing the results of his childishly proclaimed genius. Sectusempra had been one of his more successful inventions. He’d been so proud, in Sixth year. He still was, he couldn’t deny it. It was elegant, to the point, causing not simply pain but despair in its victim, a frantic animal panic once realisation hit that healing spells did not work, and despite the seemingly irrelevant cuts, they kept growing in number, in uncomfortable places… digging deeper and deeper until one could feel the life literally flowing away. He couldn't deny the objective beauty of his curse and, at the same time, he could be so repulsed by the sad*stic aspect of it that he had never managed to use it again. After.

After his whole existence became one long cry of guilt so strong it was a voiceless scream.

Titus Tempelton died. Severus had never taught anyone the counter-curse. All spells should have a counter, a way to reverse one’s actions. It was balance, a way to right a wrong. Justice.

There was no justice in death. There was no counter to death. Severus had tried.

“My most loyal friendsss, join me alone.” The Dark Lord was apparently satisfied with the exercise, calling on his Inner Circle to stay behind while the rest of the gathering dispersed. Goyle Rennervated Crabbe and they all fell to their knee, their head bowed in a position of such subordination Severus would have cracked a tooth if he were allowed to grit his teeth. But he wasn’t, he was occluding.

There were only seven of them, empty spaces left by the truly most loyal of them sentenced fifteen years ago.

“How long until we can all be together again, Nott?” the Dark Lord asked, his voice soft, eerily on the same thought-length as Severus.

“My Lord, the investigation into Azkaban’s security proceeds well.” The man hastily replied, inching forward with his foot. “I had to Imperio two Aurors but have also found one who could be interested in our cause. I’m confident we shall have enough resources in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement to be able to free our Death Eaters before December.”

“Most excellent news. I look forward to it.” His snake, Nagini, hissed as if echoing the Dark Lord’s pleasure, coiling around his feet as he paced leisurely in front of them. Severus allowed himself a grimace behind his mask, dreading the moment individuals such as Bellatrix and the Carrow twins rejoined the ranks. It looked to be an unavoidable future, if the flock of bleating sheep at the Ministry insisted on being oblivious.

“Avery, are your contacts at the Ministry to be trusted?” The Dark Lord’s attention shifted to a new object.

“Y-yes, Master. Of course.”

“Very well, then I have a task for you. You, and Malfoy.” Red eyes flickered to Severus’ left, where Lucius’ shoulders tensed imperceptibly. “You are the only ones who can accomplish it.” The madman liked his build-ups. Severus inhaled carefully to manage his impatience, but it was the middle of the bloody night, for Merlin’s sake, just get bloody on with it.

“The Prophecy which briefly impaired me… I want to know it in full. You will get it for me.”

Severus' heart lurched in his ribcage and started pumping fast blood to his limbs. The prophecy, the prophecy, it was the litany beating the tempo in his chest. Severus felt like choking as thoughts scrambled to scurry away all possibly relevant information. It was somewhere? The monster could access it? Complete it?

He shoved all emotions under the lake again, froze it over in his mind, clung to that mental metaphor with shaking white fingers, nails biting into his palms.

“The Prophecy?” Goyle raised his fat head, co*cking it in a mirror of mindless bafflement that his son sported regularly in his Potions class. “My Lord, why waste time-”

“Crucio.” The curse struck the idiot so quietly it was lost among the screams that escaped the oaf of a man. The two Death Eaters closest to him stepped away to avoid being hit by a struggling leg, or having their robe grabbed by a flailing hand. It lasted less than a minute, the Dark Lord obviously did not want to lose his train of thought. He tended to get carried away with that curse.

“It must be inside the Ministry, buried deep within. Find it, bring it to me.” Lucius’ hooded head on Severus’ left nodded as he proclaimed his loyalty and reassured of his ability to carry out et cetera ; Avery echoed him to the word. Severus could not listen to them, he had to leave, warn the-

Occlude, Occlude he was a loyal Death Eater. He violently schooled his thoughts, but he could hardly control his body’s reactions. Adrenaline, already cursing through his veins since the Summons of the Inner Circle, doubled, painfully rushing down his arms, his legs, constricting his gut, urging him to do. When was this Merlin accursed meeting going to end?

“M-my Lord, there is something else you might want to know. From the Ministry.” Avery also raised his head, careful not to flaunt the nervous dart of his eyes in Goyle’s direction. Severus narrowed his eyebrows, able to think of only one piece of news in the last forty-eight hours which Avery would think important. The knowledge of the madman’s renewed quest for the prophecy buzzed in Severus’ ear like a malaria-infected mosquito.

“Go on, Avery,” the Dark Lord encouraged softly.

“My informant contacted me earlier in the evening. He said Harry Potter performed underage magic in front of a muggle and was sent a letter of expulsion from Hogwarts.”

Murmurs broke out among the Death Eaters while Severus allowed his thoughts to freely express his exasperation. If the Dark Lord were to forcefully lift his chin and perform Legilimency, he would see true disgust at the boy’s blatant disregard for rules, bone-deep disdain for his constant need for attention and his arrogant exploit of his special status within the Wizarding World which came from nothing more than still being alive after the Killing Curse. Like almost everything surrounding Potter’s existence, from the moment he was born, luck had everything to do with it, and neither intelligence nor particular talent in any field entered the scene. Mundugus’ co*ck-up with surveilling the boy had reached the Order only two hours before Severus’ Call, which had left them too little time to argue on a solution while Dumbledore pretended to hear them all out.

“What caused him to act so?” The Dark Lord asked after a moment, immediately silencing the gossiping Death Eaters. It was a wonder the organisation remained so predominantly middle-aged male, what with such a strong inclination for high-pitch tittering and scandal mongering resembling pre-pubescent girls more than sad*stic criminals. It seemed like his life was destined to be surrounded by their kind twenty-four seven, not even summers providing a much needed respite.

“He-he, well, he performed the Patronus Charm, Master. My source is unclear on why.” Showing off shiny showy magic for an audience. Arabella Figg claimed she saw Dementors, but the fact remained; the boy, his head swollen so big from June’s victory as to be painful to keep upright on his neck, instead of running away chose to engage. Severus couldn’t even say he was surprised, merely pissed off at the sheer selfishness of the brat. Here they all were, trying to deal with a dunderheaded fumbling Minister and a brewing war, and the boy had the gall to get in the middle of rogue Dementors; as if surveilling him round the clock in the guise of underpaid babysitters were not enough, now he forced the entirety of the Order to work overtime to acquit him of just charges as well. Merlin, he hoped Dumbledore would let these stick.

He wasn’t going to, realistically, but Severus immersed himself in a few seconds’ daydream; of Potter being confined to a safe house, alone and cut off from any sensible outside contact, protected from the Dark Lord but undergoing necessary damage control; more importantly, no need for Severus to see him for years.

“Snape,” Severus bowed his head at the address, consolidating his Occlumency shields, “what do you know of thisss?”

He chose his answer carefully, in such a way that he could answer with the barest essential as to satisfy the Dark Lord’s curiosity. First rule of a double agent was never volunteer unasked information. Less is more, as the general popular culture would say.

“I heard the charm was in response to a Dementor attack.” That had been Arabella’s first words of the Firecall, followed by a barrage of impressively imaginative abuse directed at the crook for abandoning his post. Black had jumped at the chance of bringing Potter to Headquarters, as idiotic as that idea was, and while voices had piped up in favour and against it, Dumbledore had limited himself to postponing the issue to after he had dealt with the Ministry’s incompetent threat.

The prophecy though, that was going to spur a much longer argument, one Dumbledore could not possibly avoid. The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches… he had to go and warn them. Warn Albus. f*cking end already, the night’s gathering was taking bloody forever.

“ Dementors in a muggle neighbourhood?” Nott asked as if it was abysmal behaviour on the dark creatures’ part to be seen floating about in a muggle street.

“The boy is to be expelled? His wand broken?” The Dark Lord asked, his tone rising at the end in polite interest, as if the matter was fancy teatime chatter. It did not surprise Severus that he knew this was the boy’s second offence already. Third, technically, if one was of the cohort that believed the incident with the blown up aunt was accidental magic and not a bit of Potter thinking himself above rules and common decency with a prank.

“As much as the thought of not having to personally teach the brat entices me, my Lord,” Severus sneered, “I assume Dumbledore to be personally taking care of the matter. He would never let his precious boy-star be expelled. From what I could gather, all charges will pend on a Ministry hearing.”

“I see,” was the reply, no inflection to the hiss.

“Is this not a good opportunity, my Lord?” Lucius spoke up, his slick, cultured baritone spiking a hot stab of jealousy inside Severus. He’d spent the whole of First Year carefully mimicking Malfoy’s speech; wanting to purge co*keworth and anything of his father’s from his life. Lily had teased him mercilessly for practising the subtle sound of his tongue between his teeth, or the careful shape his mouth had to make to pronounce the middle vowels. Once upon a time he would have bled himself dry and infused Malfoy blood in his veins if it meant removing his childhood’s existence from his body. Middle-class Lily Evans had never understood. “If it really was Dementors, the boy will be moved to Hogwarts or another safe location.” Lucius continued. “Surely even Dumbledore would not leave him with filthy muggles after a Dementor attack.”

“Well, my little viper? Is that the old man’s plan?” Severus shuddered at the Dark Lord’s sudden whisper right above his head. He kept his eyes trained on the feet that had abruptly entered his field of vision, bare white with black and brown dirt smeared on the instep.

He took a second too long to answer and bone fingers dug into his chin, pulling his eyes up to meet snake-shaped red ones. The Dark Lord’s probing into his brain was as gentle as the screeching of chalk on a whiteboard. He relaxed all his muscles immediately, appearing to submit after a moment of instinctual resistance.

There were claws tearing through the web of memories and emotions that Severus presented like a muggle cinematic set. He Occluded as he guided the Dark Lord down the thread of irritation and distaste, always true emotions he kept well stoked with whatever had to do with the Potter spawn, to a modified memory of the Order meeting that had taken place only a few hours previous. He did not need to conceal the knowledge of Headquarters’ location as it was naturally blurred by the Fidelius charm, and the Dark Lord knew it. He did blur the members that Severus had taken great pains in concealing as they were the most recent acolytes and had been unknown to Pettigrew, such as the eldest Weasley spawn, the metamorphmagus girl, the crook. The memory flashed to the surface and the Dark Lord grasped it eagerly. The kitchen of Headquarters was bathed in amber glow, with the hour grown late enough to make Severus' eyes ache from the intensity of the light. Members of the Order of the Phoenix sat around a massive wooden slab, a piece Black had somehow managed to procure from Merlin-knows where, moth-holes lining the edges.

“Harry must come here, Albus. Bloody hell, Dementors!” Black was saying, eyes shiny and deranged.

“Dementors…” Molly Weasley muttered, clutching her hands. “Would it really be safer here than at his relatives’ house, though?”

“We do have guards surveilling the neighbourhood around the clock,” Lupin agreed reluctantly with a glance at Black’s face.

“Surveillance my arse, Remus, he just had to defend himself from Dementors! ”

“That’s what he said,” Severus muttered, causing the mutt to jerk to his feet, the chair clattering to the floor.

“Harry is not a liar, unlike you, you cowering-”

“Constructive opinions only, gentlemen,” Arthur Weasley intervened, ignoring Moody’s grumble about entertainment. “The boy needs to prepare for the hearing, if nothing else.”

Shacklebolt interjected with, “I fear the Minister was quite set on full punishment…”

“We cannot leave Harry there, it’s been long enough!” Black jumped back in. Severus made himself speak again, changing the truth of the event only slightly, an imperceptible glitch.

“ How would this even come about?” He sneered. “If you do intend to transfer him somewhere else, and I do not recommend it to be here, I assume you will need a band of soldiers to escort the boy wherever it is you want to squirrel him to? ”

“Indeed a good observation, Severus. The Ministry has put heavy restrictions on portkeys and is monitoring the Floo network… Alastor?” Dumbledore turned to the ex-Auror.

“Aye. The boy can fly, can he not? Broom is as safe a means of transportation as any other, I’d say. Not at all, that is. But with a few weeks to organise, we should be able to do it with minimal risk.”

“A few weeks? ” Black cried.

“That does seem a bit excessive, my friend,” Dumbledore agreed. “Would you think the eighth of August doable?”

Moody grunted. “If we must. I will need volunteers. This will be a dangerous mission. ”

The Dark Lord relinquished Severus’ mind like the releasing of a taunt spring.

“In six days! ” he crowed to the rest of the Inner Circle, while Severus was left panting, thankful of the support from the ground as he leaned onto one arm, pushing air into his nose and out again. His brain was pulsating like a throbbing muscle, coals slowly heating his temples.

The Dark Lord surveyed his kneeling men, pacing agitated in his flowing black robes, his wand dangling from two fingers. Urgency thrummed in Severus’ mind alongside the developing headache.

“Out, now!” The madman shouted, prompting everyone into a jerky scramble for the door. “Leave me! All but Snape,” he added, and immediately he was obeyed. Buggering Merlin and Morgana, Severus gritted his teeth against the pain building in his head and remained genuflected, his kneecap aching. The cold drafts of the dungeons certainly were doing nothing for his joints, he should complain to the Headmaster. He was not twenty anymore, and serving a madman was clearly an ambition best suited to bright-eyed and healthy-bodied teenagers, Severus was too tired for it.

“Where is the boy hidden, Ssseveruss?” The Dark Lord bent down in front of him. Severus fought off the shudder at his proximity and at the hiss echoed by the bloody snake, slithering into a corner of the room. He unconsciously Occluded even more tightly as he prepared to give an answer the Dark Lord would not like.

“I do not know, my Lord.”

“ Crucio! ” He was expecting it, his body so tense it jerked like the bowstring after the release of an arrow; he fell on his shoulder but barely felt that pain as the rest of his nerves exploded with fire. He liked to think he didn’t scream this time.

His mouth must have been open, because when he managed to breathe again it felt parched, dried out.

He laboriously pulled himself to his feet, his head always bowed, waiting to be dismissed, the prophecy the prophecy still a disharmonious staccato in his chest.

“Get me that location, Snape. Get it to me, that my Death Eaters may capture the child. I will relish killing him more than any muggle.”

“Of course, my Lord,” he articulated, sweat dripping down his temples. He was dismissed by an offhanded gesture he was only too glad to obey.

In the adjoining chamber, the Inner Circle remained assembled, engaged in casual discourse or, perhaps more fittingly, more gossip. An indistinguishable distinction amidst idling purebloods.

“The Dark Lord’s favourite joins us,” Nott sneered at him, his mask gripped at his side. He showed his angular features without a hint of concern for anonymity. The lower-rank Death Eaters had left.

“Leave him be, Ignatius. He is reaping a hard-earned reward, putting up with that demented coot for the past decade,” Lucius extended his benefactor hand, magnanimously including Severus into the circle.

“Well over a decade,” he corrected in a monotone, halting only for the length of one acknowledging nod. “And I’m afraid I cannot stay and chat more, a volatile potion I set to brewing before the Call vies for my attention.”

“But of course.” Nott had never liked him. Most purebloods never had, looking down at him because of his father while secretly jealous of his magical prowess. Lucius Malfoy was one of the few who had chosen more wisely, opting to pull him into a patronage-based relationship rather than an envy-fueled rivalry. None of them possessed half the magical aptitude they bragged about to back up challenging Severus to a duel.

“Of course,” Lucius concurred, “I will walk out with you.” He matched Severus’ long stride and followed him outside the Riddle House, the Unplottable lair the Dark Lord had temporarily chosen.

“It would please us immensely if you came to dinner tomorrow. Or later today, as the case may be,” Lucius chuckled to himself, his eyes fleeting over the brightening sky. “I know Draco would welcome the opportunity to discuss his summer coursework with you. Narcissa even set the house-elves to preparing toad-in-the-hole. We haven’t had it in some time, and it used to be your favourite, did it not?”

The invitation was not unappetising. Good conversation with two cultured, if self-important, adults; excellent wine he would only taste; the perfect excuse of a sleepless night to retire early. Severus could feel something inside him yarning for such an evening, it could be pleasant. It would be, and the thought of it made his headache spike with a vengeance.

“As delightful as that sounds, I fear I’m otherwise engaged. Another time, perhaps.” He had to report to Dumbledore immediately. The pressing rush felt familiar. Severus hurried to the edge of the wards and Disapparated.

He concealed the Death Eater mask under his robes as he marched from Hogsmeade to the castle gates, carefully blocking Lucius’ words from his mind; the last time he’d had toad-in-the-hole at the man’s house was a lifetime ago. A different man had sat across the aristocrat, younger and brash, holding wine he had taught himself to recognise as fine wine but did not care for, a sip all he could ever tolerate before the smell of alcohol coated his body with cold sweat. A naive child, scared but clinging to the myth of the great Albus Dumbledore, the only wizard the Dark Lord feared, the man to whom he had indentured himself with the promise he’d keep Lily safe.

Since then, any dish involving sausages tasted like ash in his mouth. Such a ridiculous connection, a bloody stupid recipe and her… being gone. Sometimes, when he felt particularly maudlin, he would go to the unsavoury pub in co*keworth, order toad-in-the-hole, and feel his stomach twist with nausea, his skin stretched tightly over his face like a gruesome mask, the wound in his gut raw and still oozing blood and infection. He could break the link with Occlumency, of course he could. He didn’t want to.

Chapter 2: Severus

Chapter Text

Severus

Tuesday 3 rd August, Hogwarts

It started to drizzle as Severus pushed one foot in front of the other on the road from Hogsmeade to the school, the dampness on his feverish skin providing unwelcome relief as the urgency of his report thrummed in his bloodstream, urging him on, faster, longer strides the closer he got to Hogwarts. The adrenaline that had sustained him turned into an incipient anxiety attack by the time Severus ploughed through the main entrance; it was kept at bay only by Occluding so tightly his head was one huge migraine.

The prophecy, he’s going after the prophecy. He managed to spit the password at the guarding gargoyles, his hands developing a tremor from the after-effects of the Cruciatus mixed with the extreme fatigue of a sleepless night and a two mile march; but nothing else mattered because he wanted the full prophecy, he believed the prophecy to be about the Potter child, he was going to kill them, kill her, Dumbledore had to protect her, hide her, just make it to the top of the stairs, he said she’d be safe, safe, he had given everything…

Severus burst through Dumbledore’s office door struggling to draw breath, the prophecy, she was in danger, a sense of despair so deep it exploded like a collapsing star, momentarily obliterating his Occlumency shield and spotting his vision with red and black dots.

“Severus? You were Summoned?” Albus’ calm voice tugged at his brain and his ears filled with a rushing noise as his mental shields once again slammed into place. Every emotion and memory suffocated beneath the cool waters of the lake. It left him reeling, and he braced himself against the nearest flat surface, inadvertently upsetting one or three knick-knacks that crowded the shelf he found himself leaning on.

“Yes,” the answer escaped barely moving lips. Struggling to calm his breathing, to not give the Headmaster anything to narrow his eyes at, Severus straightened his posture and swallowed. He inched closer, eyeing the frilly death traps Dumbledore called armchairs and opting to stand despite the weakness of his knees.

“The prophecy, Headmaster…” was still the first thing that tumbled from his mouth, after which he forced himself to inhale and exhale, ignoring the old man’s quirked eyebrow. He mentally re-calibrated where he was, when he was.

“The Dark Lord wants the full prophecy, Albus. He’s tasked Avery and Malfoy to get it from the Ministry.” But no, that was the wrong thing to report, it was not the information that had yanked him here on a chain. Severus gave himself a sharp shake, reviewed from start to finish the events of the night, goosebumps breaking out on the nape of his neck. “But there is more. He knows about Potter’s incident. He’s going after him, six days from now.”

Severus finally got a handle on his breathing and linked his arms behind his back to squeeze them together, stop them from shaking. He detested the Cruciatus aftershocks more than suffering through the curse itself. It was humiliating, the display of utter defencelessness.

Dumbledore, of course, noticed everything, managing to look down on him despite being seated behind his desk.

“I imagine this must be hard for you, my boy,” was his first reply, a non-sequitur in a grave tone. You cannot f*cking imagine, Severus wished he could have growled.

The old man was sympathetic but hardly apologetic. This was the moment they’d been waiting for, Severus actually getting to spying for the Light, earning his atonement through bouts of torture at the hands of a madman. The adrenaline-induced flashbacks were just a bonus that would keep him loyal to his oath despite his hate for Potter’s spawn.

“Why in six days?” Dumbledore asked, phlegmatically.

“It was the most time I thought we could get away with. He knows you will be moving him to a magical location, and he knows it will be by broom. He asked me for a date. We must move now .”

“And the prophecy, you said?” The Headmaster got to his feet and rounded the desk to Severus’ side.

“Yes. He wants to know it in full. He only told his Inner Circle.”

Dumbledore’s eyes gave that Merlin-accursed twinkle as he pondered the new information.

“Anything else?” As if that weren’t enough.

“Nott is progressing with things at Azkaban but there is hardly anything we can do about that.”

“Of course.” Dumbledore took a few paces around the room, his hands held together behind his own back in thought while Severus stood immobile, his head throbbing and his body twitching minutely as it would until he managed to down a nerve-restorative potion.

“You did well, thinking of a date so far in the future. It should leave us enough time to transport Harry safely if we decide that’s the way to go.”

Severus snorted, as if Dumbledore hadn’t already decided the next five steps the Order was going to take, at least . Now that someone else was handling the situation, Severus found he could inhale to the full capacity of his lungs. With a better oxygenated mind, he allowed himself to indulge in his own private rant.

As if prophecy-hunting wasn’t bad enough, of course the spoiled brat wouldn’t be happy unless he too wasn’t directly in the middle of the worst of the mayhem. Trust Potter to pick the absolute worst time to draw attention from the bloody Minister himself, forcing the whole Order to mobilise for his needs while they were trying to stave off an open war.

“We must inform the others of these developments, I dare say.” Dumbledore waved his wand and his phoenix Patronus appeared. “It is a bit late, or rather, early, for a meeting, but we are a bit short on time, as you said,” he smiled at Severus as if sharing a private joke. They weren’t. “Now, wake the rest of the Order, Kingsley, Alastor, the Weasleys, Sirius and Remus, I think should do. New information calls for an urgent meeting at Headquarters,” he told the Patronus, sending it off with a flick of his wrist.

“I will retire then, shall I?” Severus nodded his head and tried making for the door. He was too exhausted to sit at the same table as Black and Lupin on top of everything else.

“Severus, we shall all need to hear your report in full. Do you not want to take part in deciding what happens to the boy?”

“What you do with him does not concern me in the least, Headmaster. Stuff him in a trunk and stick him in the attic until the school year, for all I care.”

“Really, my boy. Is this going to be a recurring conversation every Order meeting?”

Severus grimaced at the chastisem*nt, hating the patronising tone treating him like a child, calling him boy , which Albus knew full well never failed to get on his nerves. He did it anyways, the kindly cruelty of someone who thought they always knew better than anyone else.

*

By the time they Appearated in front of Grimmauld Place it was nearly late enough for it to be breakfast time. Severus’ mouth pulled in a contemptuous grimace as they had to tiptoe into the dark hallway, listening to the whispered greeting of the Weasley matriarch as they were invited into the smell of bacon and eggs, the kitchen already full of children sluggishly consuming their mugs of milk and their full plates of food.

“Severus dear, and Albus, have you already eaten? Can I offer you a cup of tea and some eggs?” Molly called over her shoulder as she returned to bustling in front of the stove, her wand flicking everywhere in her, frankly impressive, control of household charms. Of course, if they hadn’t bred like rabbits, there would be no need to be so efficient at cleaning dishes. Severus did not want to imagine the horror of cooking for six adolescent boys without a House-elf.

Severus could feel the judging stares of the four junior redheads and the extra bushy one as he took the seat farthest away from them all even as Molly shooed them upstairs.

“Coffee,” he replied.

“I would enjoy a cuppa, Molly, thank you very much.” Albus sat at the head of the table while Arthur Weasley, the werewolf and the mutt trickled in to replace the children. Severus doubted the room’s intelligence and common sense had been raised much in the switch, but this was what the Order had to work with.

“Snape. Had a fun night out with your fancy friends, did you?” Black smirked, making his gaunt cheeks even sharper and more deranged. Severus curled his lip, staring him down.

“I was busy doing my part for the cause. You, on the other hand, nap and perform no doubt dauntless cleaning charms at the hovel you call house.”

“You insult the house that is currently hosting and feeding you, Sni-”

“Sirius, enough,” Lupin deigned to intervene, as usual only a show he put on when other adults were present, which unfailingly made Severus’ blood boil even more.

“Quite right, boys. This is rather a grave meeting.” Dumbledore turned to welcome the last Order members, waiting for them to take a seat around the table.

“Are you sure you do not want any breakfast, Severus? There is lots here if you feel like. Toast and butter, if you rather.” Molly’s hand fluttered around him, Severus could imagine she would have placed it on his shoulder if he hadn’t thrown her a chilling look.

“I am fine, thank you.” Her cuddling made his stomach twist uncomfortably, leaving him feeling slimy and dirty, suddenly acutely aware of the unclean mess of his hair after it had no doubt dusted off a chunk of the Riddle Ballroom floor, and the hem of his robes spotted with Titus Tempelton’s blood. Blood tended to stain all those present when killings happened at Death Eaters gatherings, no matter how far away one placed himself.

“Oh, alright. I will be just a moment then, make sure the kids are getting ready for the day.” Molly bustled out to check the miscreants weren’t spying on the meeting again.

“Very good, very good. I’m happy to see all of you in good health. The hour is early and time is precious, especially in this instance, so I will get straight to the point. Severus brought dire news of Voldemort’s next intentions.” Dumbledore began, with an acknowledging nod to Alastor Moody’s entrance. His magical eye rolled and fixated downwards, distinctively seeming to analyse Severus’ blood-reeking robes. “First and foremost, leaving aside his efforts with Azkaban, it appears Voldemort has renewed his interest in the Prophecy.” Murmurs broke out in the small kitchen, so identical to a wholly different audience it made Severus sneer at the baseness of human nature. “We shall need to make sure he does not get it. The damage such knowledge could give him is worrisome.”

“Do we know what he wants, exactly? Doesn’t he already know the prophecy?” The werewolf asked, his canine eyes narrowed in confusion.

“He possesses a fragment of the prophecy, as it was relayed to him fifteen years ago. However, the full extent of it, as is recorded in the Hall of Prophecy, eludes him. I believe that is what he is currently seeking.”

“What do you suggest we do, Albus? Take it and hide it somewhere? Here, perhaps?” Shacklebolt, one of the few sensible members of the Order, asked.

”Oh no, the Prophecy is quite safe where it is. There are restrictions to the Hall that ensure it.” Predictably, the Headmaster did not elaborate.

“The Hall of Prophecy, that’s in the Department of Mystery, yes?” Moody growled, his glass eye flickering around and around the seated members. It stopped more often than not on Severus. He tried not to give it any mind. They all thought they were so much better than he was, righteous and courageous, while he, the only Slytherin affiliate, the necessary evil they had to entertain to defeat a greater one. Severus sneered, instinctively Occluding even as he realised his mind was already a tabula rasa, completely sealed off.

“ Still, as protected as it is, it would be good to have a surveillance rotation on. ” Lupin mused.

“Indeed.” Albus adjusted the frame of his half-moon spectacles.

“As good as that may be, we don’t have the manpower, Dumbledore.” Shacklebolt objected. “We are already watching Harry Potter around the clock…”

“Ah yes, which ties in well with the next point of discussion for the meeting.” Albus’ eyes twinkled, which made Severus want to roll his own and thump his head against the table. Why did he always give in and come to these farcical meetings? The pretence at discussion, the veneer of democracy that the Headmaster insisted on maintaining was truly laughable. As if he didn’t have everything already planned out and put into action like the machiavellian war general he really was, under the benign grandfather exterior.

Severus couldn’t possibly be the only one who saw the mask. Minerva, sometimes, gave little prompts that told him she was much more shrewd than that, but everyone else… their naiveté grated on his already flayed nerves like a hot iron spike.

“It appears Harry will be needing extra protection. We cannot risk him being attacked by more Dementors, for one thing-”

“Definitely not! I’m going to kill Mundugus-” Black burst out, which Dumbledore serenely ignored.

“And for another, the Death Eaters are looking for his home.”

“But the bloodwards-” Molly Weasley murmured from the door, having rejoined the adults at some point.

“The bloodwards will hold, but we can hardly expect Harry to stay locked up in his house all summer. He has a right to a normal childhood.”

Severus disagreed with that wholeheartedly. He thought they should plant an Order member in the Dursleys’ house like a live-in babysitter and tie Potter to the bed, possibly dosed with the Draught of Living Death, feeding him through a tube until the beginning of term. No accidental magic, no Ministry hearing, no chance of his family spoiling him rotten, albeit the damage was already done there.

Clearly, the child-supervision they had set up had not worked. Then again, only a badly assorted bunch of idiots would entrust such a job to Mundugus Fletcher, a known criminal, but Severus wasn’t the one in charge. He only had an Unbreakable Vow to protect the brat, why ever would Dumbledore consult him on his guard rotation?

“So he’s coming here, right? You’re bringing him here? There is no better or safer place, you know that, Dumbledore,” the mutt jumped in, and to Severus’ horror the old man nodded slowly.

“Yes, I rather think that would be the best solution. We were planning on bring him here later in the summer on any account.”

What an absolutely horrendous idea.

“You cannot truly be considering that, Albus,” Severus sat forward, his eyes intent on the old coot. In truth, he could not care much one way or the other, but he found himself vocally disagreeing on account of principle. If Sirius Black thought it was a good idea, clearly they were all missing something.

“You stay out of it, Snape, it doesn’t concern you at all!”

“It does, as the boy will be here, seeing the face of every member of the Order!”

“His friends are here!”

“And they have only tried to spy on the proceedings the last eleven times,” Severus turned to Dumbledore. “The boy is brazen, impudent and impulsive. We have no certainty he will not endanger Headquarters or Order members by inadvertently revealing something to the press!”

“The house is under Fidelius charm, Severus, honestly,” Molly huffed. “And I think it’s a wonderful idea, bringing the boy here. His friends are all here and have seen our faces plenty of times.”

“Daily Prophet reporters are not interested in your brood or Granger, Molly. They are quite interested in discrediting Potter. What do you think he will do once he finds the Wizarding World doesn’t believe his gospel truth?” Find the first reporter avid enough for a story to interview a fifteen year old and spew all sorts of secrets, that’s what. Anything to be on the good side of his fanbase again.

“I doubt Harry would do anything to endanger the Order, Severus,” Dumbledore replied calmly while Lupin restrained Black in his chair. “Besides, you know better than anyone we cannot leave him there. He is too vulnerable,” the man lowered his chin, meeting Severus’ eyes with a full blast of twinkle. Severus swallowed his retort. Something told him he should save his arguing strengths for the immediate future. The meddlesome coot was plotting.

“So if no one else has any other doubts? No? Good, I think that settles it, Harry will be joining us soon. Alastor, do you think you can organise an extraction mission before the eighth of August? Well before then, if possible.”

“I will need volunteers. Combat -ready volunteers,” Moody growled, leaning on his cane. “At least a dozen, able to fly. We need at least two days for danger assessment and planning.”

“I will leave it all in your capable hands. Meeting adjourned, everyone,” Dumbledore pushed himself to his feet while the rest of the Order broke out in chatter. Severus hurried to the door. “Thank you, Molly, for your hospitality. Sirius. Severus! I shall need one more word with you.” Merlin’s droopy balls.

Severus stopped in the middle of the foyer, rotating slowly and wholly despairingly back towards the Headmaster.

“I know you are impatient to go back home, Severus, but one more thing occurred to me, if you have a moment.” Dumbledore waved in the direction of the library and Severus really had no other option but to consent. The other Order members were free to pass behind them and make their way to the front door while Severus was stuck standing in the dimness of the Black library.

“What is it?” His tone was curt and his body was running on fumes. The longer he delayed taking the potion for the Cruciatus aftershocks the more permanent the damage.

“Did Voldemort,” and Severus gritted his teeth against the name screeching in his ears, hating how he winced, “mention anything regarding Harry’s scar? Or seem preoccupied, as if looking for some sort of… awareness?” Dumbledore’s voice was grave, even more so than when Severus reported to him hours previous.

“Nothing of the like,” he replied carefully, wondering how the f*ck was he expected to know. Did the old man think he could perform Legilimency on the most powerful madman of the century? Was managing to fool him and lie to his face not enough now? “Why? Do you suspect something?”

Albus’ eyes twinkled in reply which drove Severus round the bend when he did not bother to answer verbally.

“Was there anything else, Headmaster?” His arms folded tightly in front of him, his eyes darting to the door and back.

“As it happens, there is. You see, I have a… feeling… now that he has returned, and especially with the ritual he used. Harry has always been particularly susceptible to his magical imprint…” he paused, purely for dramatic effect. Severus reminded himself the man was a genius and more powerful than he was. Also probably senile to some degree. Patience was a virtue. He controlled his baser instinct and waited without giving him the pleasure of explicit restlessness.

“I rather think it would be beneficial to the boy and to the Order if he learned to close his mind to this awareness he has of Voldemort.” Severus winced even as he braced for the name. There was a reason no one should say that name. In the early days, the Decutere Curse had flayed one bastard alive for spitting it in the Dark Lord’s face, a nameless Gryffindor who believed himself daring, a paragon of virtuous freedom. Severus’ mind behind the shield saw the halfblood twitching in mid-air, skin peeling off slowly like melting wax, exposing raw muscle and blood.

“You speak of Occlumency?” Severus asked, not concealing his bewilderment.

“Yes, Harry should learn Occlumency, especially if there is a risk he should come to face him again. And you, of course, as the most talented Occlumens to my knowledge, should be able to teach him splendidly.”

Air got stuck in his throat and Severus couldn’t exhale for several seconds; his face wanted to contort in utter confusion as Dumbledore’s words were processed in the forefront of his mind.

“I must not have heard you correctly, Headmaster,” he said flatly.

“You did, my boy. This isn’t only a favour to me, you understand. It is essential Harry’s mind is protected, both for himself and, as you quite rightly mentioned at the meeting, for the other Order members.”

“There must be trust, a bond… at the very least some sort of relationship between mentor and pupil for Occlumency to be taught correctly! The only bond the brat and I share is that we both despise each other.” This couldn’t work, why was Dumbledore even suggesting this?

“Now, Severus, you are an adult and a Hogwarts professor. Surely, you can find a way to mend broken bridges.” Broken bridges? Broken bridges? There was never a bridge to begin with! Not with him, the carbon copy of his school bully, who spoke, acted, believed himself so superior to anyone else he might as well be the second coming of his father. There had always only been damp planks slogging down the river that separated them on two opposite banks. No bridge to speak of. He already taught the brat two hours a week, had to see him every day three times a day at meal times for nine months a year, was that not torture enough?

“Occlumency is the most advanced of the Mental Arts!”

“And Harry is bright, Severus. Might I remind you, he mastered the Patronus Charm aged thirteen. He won the Triwizard Tournament against competitors who were three years his senior, and-”

“Yes, yes, spare me the lauds of the great Boy Wonder.” Severus flapped his hand animatedly. “This cannot be done, Albus. Be realistic.”

“I have no intention of breaching on your territory, my dear boy.” The man had the gall to smile at him. “I think I will remain a proud optimistic in this.”

“Albus,” his name almost a growl. It was going to happen over his dead and putrefied body. “You are a more accomplished Legilimens and undeniably a better teacher. You can spare a couple of hours a week for your favourite hooligan, surely you can teach him,” he tried.

“And risk augmenting the connection through Voldemort’s hate for me?” Dumbledore asked serenely, the old man enjoyed watching him squirm every time he used that name. “Not to mention the risk of possession, which would enable Voldemort to glance into my mind.”

“Albus, be reasonable. The boy will never acquiescence to learn from me, during the summer no less. It will only be a waste of everyone’s time.” Severus was not whinging. He was debating a clearly sensitive issue with the utmost logical argument and employing perfect poise. His face was surely thunderous and not desperate, in an effort to drive the point home more clearly.

“Now, Severus,” Dumbledore’s tone became stern. “It is to protect Lily’s child.” His blue eyes iced over and Severus took a step back as he felt the probe of them at the edges of his iron-clad walls. Not seeking entrance, there was no need for that. Merely a reminder. A promise. Just like her name, invoked like that of a punitive goddess. “I wouldn’t ask if I thought it wasn’t necessary,” Dumbledore finished quietly.

Severus hated it.

“If there is no other way,” he pushed out through clenched teeth. Forever a servant to Masters, reduced to utter powerlessness and he could only blame himself.

“Very good, my boy, very good.” Albus turned, his irritatingly good spirits already back. “I’m sure you will find the best way to let Harry know of this arrangement. I would strongly suggest this remains between the three of us. The fewer people know, the smaller the chances Voldemort comes to know as well.”

And he left the library. Severus heard the front door open and shut quietly while a litany of profanities ran through his mind. Outwardly, his hands curled into white fists.

He was only too glad to Apparate to co*keworth, which was such a discordant feeling as to make him lightheaded for a moment.

He marched along the alleyway on the side of his parents’ house, the door opening under his magical signature. He closed it behind him and leaned back to breathe in the decay and misery of his childhood home. Finally blessedly alone. He should chug down his potions, possibly eat something and probably nap for the rest of the morning, such as it was.

The solitude rotted into a sense of loneliness before he could open his eyes and make his way to the laboratory. He swallowed against the bitter jealousy, of what he didn’t even know. He just recognised the taste in his mouth, the empty wanting of something that he couldn’t name and would never get. No one had asked him of the Death Eater meeting, no one had thought to give a sh*t for why his hands spasmed. No one cared.

Chapter 3: Severus

Chapter Text

Severus

Friday 6th August, Order HQ, London

It had been three blissfully quiet days before Severus was summoned to London, where he found a gathering of active Order members larger than any he'd seen since the initial official meeting at the start of summer. Moody, Tonks, Shacklebolt, Fletcher, Jones and Diggle, the three adult Weasleys… the townhouse’s corridors were overfull, and the screechy old bat hanging in the foyer only added to the racket.

“We flew with Harry Potter!” Diggle was telling whoever was in earshot. “But the boy truly has marvellous skill for the broom.” Severus rather wished he could stick his fingers in his ears and hum.

Lupin sidled up to him as soon as he entered the kitchen.

“Mad-eye and the rest of us just returned with Harry,” the creature saw fit to comment on the blatantly obvious. Severus threw the wolf a glare and walked farther down the row of chairs.

“I got him his Firebolt. Takes after James, doesn’t he? Lily wouldn’t ride a broom if you paid her ten galleons.” The mutt barked out a laugh and Severus curled his hand into a fist, tight under the table, bit back his retort that Black knew nothing about her.

How dare he. Three years they had truly known her, two and a half before she and Potter went into hiding. What did Black know, what did any of them know of her, when Severus had been the only one by her side since they were eight? His jaw ached with the vehemence of his clenched teeth; he focused on relaxing it.

“There was something off in that house,” Nymphodora Tonks stumbled on the leg of a chair and found herself seated.

“Of course there was, it was a muggle house!” Hestia Jones replied. The chatter seemed to be endless, and of course completely centred on the Golden Boy. Whenever he stepped into a building, suddenly the entirety of its inhabitants could think and speak of nothing else. Severus caught himself glaring at empty patches of wall, paranoid the brat was causing some sort of mischief with the aid of his blasted Cloak.

“I’ve been to muggle houses before, Hestia.” Tonks retorted. “I meant it was more like a feeling. His room, when I helped him pack, didn’t look like a happy place, is all.” She kicked one foot under the other and sprawled back on the chair.

If the Potter spawn were a more talented wizard, Severus would suspect a jinx or a curse of some kind, there could be no other explanation because, surely, the life and home of a fifteen year old could not be so interesting as to be the sole topic of conversation for the hour long war meeting.

He would have reckoned the same held true for staff meetings at Hogwarts, only to have his sanity sorely tested on numerous occasions when hours were squandered dissecting the latest stunts of Harry-bloody-Potter long before December came around.

“Those muggles are arseholes, Harry told me-” thank Merlin Dumbledore stepped into the kitchen and cut off the mutt’s spew on Potter’s imaginary hardships. Severus dreaded having to acquire the knowledge of how many fewer presents the brat had received this birthday compared to previous ones, or whatever nonsense he’d been complaining about.

“Shall we begin?” Dumbledore led the discussion, a shorter affair than any of them had expected, for it was over in barely half an hour.

“Well, then. That seems to be all, my friends. I’m afraid I have to dash, Hagrid mentioned the need for an urgent Firecall this evening. I will see you all soon.” Severus was left looking at Dumbledore’s eye-sore robe as he hurried out, essentially leaving Severus with the Merlin-forsaken task of actually engaging with a child before the start of term. He should have included a clause in his contract against this sort of abuse of power when he signed on as professor.

“Molly,” Severus stepped closer while everyone else either returned to their chat or left; he hated every moment in the warmly lit kitchen, the smell of baking roast and the tinkling sound of Bill Weasley setting the silverware for dinner.

“Oh, Severus dear. Are you staying for dinner?” Her tone was apprehensive, which almost made him want to smirk and say yes, only for the sad*stic pleasure of watching her fluster in embarrassment at having to play nice with Hogwarts’ dungeon gaul sitting at her perfect little family table.

“No, I’m afraid not. I do need to have a word with Mr. Potter, if you’d be so kind as to fetch him for me.”

“Of course, of course. I’ll only be a moment.”

Severus left the kitchen, striding down the hall to wait in front of the library, ignoring Black stalking his heel.

“What do you want with Harry, Snivellus?” Black, ever showcasing his maturity, forced him to turn in the middle of the hallway. Severus’ eyes flickered down the mutt’s form, at fingers unambiguously close to a wand. He tensed, but made no motion to draw his own weapon. He still had some sense of the fact that they were in the middle of a narrow corridor and minors could tumble down the stairs at any moment.

“Nothing that concerns you, Black. You may head back to the kitchen and help set the table. I’m sure you’ve picked up enough household charms these last few months to finally be of use to someone.”

“You greasy git, what you say to my godson you say to me, I’m his legal guardian-”

“And yet it appears as though he rather his relatives’ house, seen as this is the second summer he chose them over you,” Severus shot back in a soft voice, his lip curling at the way the mutt riled back, his head shaking like an offended dog’s.

“You slimy snake, talking out of your arse as always. Dumbledore may say whatever he likes but a rotten core never-”

“Boys, really now,” Molly Weasley’s irritating soprano brought them back to the hallway, at the audience of wide-eyed teenagers. Naturally, the Wonder Boy could not set one foot in front of the other without dragging his two sidekicks along with him. Just like his father, he had assembled his little band of blindly devoted henchmen right from the start.

“Er, right. Sorry kids. All in the kitchen now,” Black waved his arms, his wand disappearing back in its holster, and redheads scrambled down the hall once Severus turned his thunderous expression at them.

“You wanted to speak to me?” The Potter spawn, dressed abysmally and flushed in the face, no doubt fresh from some sort of mischief for which Severus could happily wash his hands of, sauntered up to him. His eyes darted to his godfather and then to Severus’ glare, dropping down immediately to even worse-worn shoes. “Sir,” he finally adjusted his tone.

“Unfortunately such is my task at present.” Severus opened the library door and gestured him grandly inside. “Privately,” he enunciated for the mutt.

“I said I will not allow-”

“Sirius dear, could you come help me with the knives? They insist on being extremely finicky when it’s anyone else’s magic but yours handling them,” Molly Weasley interjected, and Severus sneered at Black before shutting the door in his face.

Feeling like he’d rather die, or even willingly serve Black a cup of tea rather than have this conversation, Severus scurgified one side of the sofa and sat. He watched impassively as Potter inched around the other available seats, looking for something that didn’t look like it was encrusted with blood or pillowed in dust. His options were to share the two-seat sofa with Severus or brave one of the two once-green-now-musk-coloured armchairs across from him. Severus' glare roved over his gangly yet still short form, his mess of hair and badly repaired glasses. He always had broken glasses at the start of the school year, it was like the boy was incapable of caring for his possessions. No wonder his relatives had given up on buying him new frames, the amount of money he must have made them spend in his younger years made Severus shudder.

“Well? Sir?” Potter asked, after he had perched himself on the armchair. Severus enjoyed the boy’s grimace of disgust which well encompassed the whole of their situation.

“It is Dumbledore’s wish that you be taught Occlumency,” he started, pitching his voice low. Then working hard to not make it sound as depressed as the concept was in his mind, “by me,” he forced out.

“Ocu-what?” Potter blinked owlishly, his eyes large and somehow greener for it. Severus curled his lip in an impatient sneer.

“Occlumency, Potter, a very delicate and useful Mental Magic that enables a wizard to protect their mind from intruding forces.”

“Are you talking about reading minds? Is that possible?” The boy’s eyebrows climbed up, hidden by his fringe, while he grew paler. Did he worry Severus would look into his mind and recite all his perverse fantasies to the castle at large? As if he had any interest in traipsing through the self-obsessed vainglorious mind of a teenager!

“Hardly, as degrading Occlumency to simple ‘mind-reading’ would be akin to comparing sixteenth-century muggle Alchemy to potion-making . The human consciousness is not a book, Potter, it is a complex web of neurons which Occlumency is able to shield.”

“And I have to learn it? Why does Dumbledore-”

“ Professor Dumbledore to you, Potter,” Severus snapped, at the limit of his patience.

“Yes, but why?”

Possession. Somehow, he knew the Headmaster would not look favourably upon Severus revealing the full horrific scope of the incipient war.

“Consider it a pre-emptive measure against the Dark Lord. Perhaps it could even teach you to curb some of your most foolhardy tendencies.”

“But then… why does it have to be you? I’m sure Remus can-”

“ Lupin possesses a fortitude of mind which barely ranks above that of a feral beast.”

“He is the best teacher-”

“Spare me your childish idolisation,” Severus interrupted tartly. The boy’s adoration of Lupin was so seeped in daddy issues and filtered by the desire to earn paternal approval it would make Freud salivate. “It might have escaped your notice, Potter, while you were busy sunbathing on your relatives’ back lawn, but we are at war. The Headmaster suspects the Dark Lord might infiltrate your mind, looking for a weapon that could disintegrate the Order from the inside out. Your assignment is to make sure that. Does. Not. Happen.” He articulated, his voice dropping lower and lower. “ The only way for it is to learn Occlumency.”

"Professor Dumbledore thinks Voldemort-"

"Do not- " Severus spat, but the boy pressed on with nary a hesitation.

"-could read my mind from a distance? Like Imperio- ing me?"

Severus had to pause; he ground his teeth, his eyes surveying the brat's agitated limbs, his narrowed eyes intensely studying Severus' countenance.

"Not unlike performing the Imperius Curse," he finally decided to say, grimly. "For now, the Headmaster suspects a deeper... connection between you and the Dark Lord, which we want to sever."

“OK, I... understand. But why does it have to be you?” The boy griped. “You don’t even like-”

“You will at all times address me appropriately, Potter!”

“Fine, you don’t even like me, sir! Is there no one else…”

“Few wizards and witches ever achieve enough magical finesse to attempt Legilimency. Occlumency requires double the aptitude and self-discipline, which is why I am certain this endeavour is useless and doomed to fail, as you do not possess an ounce of either.”

“What is… never mind that, why even bother then! Sir.”

“Believe me, I have tried to get out of this in more ways than you can contemplate in that minuscule brain of yours. The Headmaster wishes it, and this is how it shall be.”

Severus straightened his back to his full height and dared the boy speak against him again. Potter finally quelled at his glare, muttering to himself but looking away in defeat. Severus curled his lip in annoyance both at the behaviour and at the need for his next words.

“Moreover,” he began, slowly. “Professor Dumbledore also impressed the need for this… arrangement to be kept quiet. That means no one else must know you are learning Occlumency.”

“What!” Potter exploded, sitting up, almost standing in his childish outrage. “I can’t even tell my friends? Tell Sirius? How am I supposed to explain why I’m with you- where are we even going to go? Hogwarts? How often-”

“Sit down and be quiet, boy, if you want at least one of those questions answered.” Potter shut his mouth with a click of teeth, and Severus allowed heavenly seconds of utter silence to pass while the boy stewed in his enforced silence. “It is Dumbledore’s wish for Occlumency lessons to remain a secret between the…” bloody Merlin it sounded awful in his head, voicing it was simply torture, “three of us,” he hissed. “There will be a cover story. You will be taking remedial Defence Against the Dark Arts lessons, from tomorrow on until he or I deem you ready.”

“As if anyone would believe that!”

“The Dark Lord has risen again. No one will question the Headmaster's suggestion that you start taking your studies more seriously.”

“And what, this tutoring wasn't around when I was legging it from a bloody dragon last year?”

“That is all beside the point, and I would watch my tongue, Mr Potter, as you do not want to make our future and unfortunately frequent time together any worse for yourself than it already will be,” Severus paused to let that sink in. “The cover story you will use with everyone,” he stated clearly, pinning the boy with a rigid stare. “Everyone, Potter. That includes your friends and all other creatures you interact with in this house. Have I made myself crystal clear?”

“…yes, sir,” the boy muttered sullenly.

“Good. We will meet every morning for the rest of August, practise Occlumency for two hours or as long as the exercises I set for you demand, and you will do theoretical reading in the afternoon.”

“My summer’s done, then?” Potter’s tone could not have been more arrogant if he tried. Severus ached with the need to subtract House points.

“You had a full month of dilly-dallying at your relatives’ place. Now it is time to be responsible and act like the adult you insist everyone treat you as.” Severus stood, performing a voiceless scurgify on his robes from the odd dust particles that had found their way on him, and made for the door. “Tomorrow. Eight o’clock in the morning,” he said from the door. The boy opened his mouth to protest. “Do not keep me waiting,” he added icily without leaving him time to retort. He would not hear of whinging about it being Saturday or it being too early. If nothing else, the schedule was going to be built around Severus’ needs. Chances of being called to a Death Eater meeting that early in the morning were minimal. The Dark Lord liked to sleep in.

Chapter 4: Severus

Chapter Text

Severus

Saturday 7th August, Spinner’s End, co*keworth

Severus’ eyelids shot open like those of a vampire waking in their coffin. A foreboding oppression kept him stuck to the bed, wide awake, trying to rationalise his gut feeling. It hit him like a reverse Obliviate. f*cking Potter.

He pushed himself vertical, feet planted on the floor, and groaned into his hands; the whole thing was simply ludicrous. They weren’t going to last a week.

After morning ablutions, Severus stalked downstairs and found himself in the middle of the living room at Spinner’s End, rotating in place and taking in the shabbiness. The charred wood bookcase, filled to the brim from floor to ceiling, was the only corner of the house he liked, or that was truly his own. He doubted his arsehole of a father had known how to read, and his mother had owned all of two books she kept hidden under the mattress of Severus’ childhood bed.

The sunken-in sofa, the stained coffee table, one-too-many-times scurgified carpets and the mould-eaten kitchen were just as pitiful as they sounded in his head. He summoned his Patronus and sent it to Albus, not caring that the luminous creature was likely going to wake up the old man at half past six in the morning. He requested access to Hogwarts via Floo and demanded a Pensieve be brought to his dungeons. He would sooner wear and teach in pink than bring Potter to his childhood hovel. The level of ridicule that would spread through the castle would be about on par.

He retreated to the basem*nt, another corner he had carved for himself once he’d inherited the bloody house. He'd thought of relocating, once, but he'd not be able to afford it, and he'd found he did not really want to. The greyness and misery floating down co*keworth’s river suited him, as did the hopelessness and abandoned people in the neighbourhood. And it was where Lily had grown up. Sometimes he thought she'd been the only happy and bright thing in the tiny town, breathing life into it, and she brought it away when she moved.

There was an electric coffee machine in the basem*nt. The kitchen was unfit to host any kind of edible food, so Severus had bought the appliance and installed it there. It had taken some tinkering to make it work despite the magical traces pervading the laboratory, but he’d managed. Electricity, after all, was simply another form of energy, as was magic. He made himself a well-earned cup of coffee which he drank while bottling and labelling the Herbicide Potion and Noxious Poison he’d finished, setting the cauldrons to cleaning themselves while he brought out the ingredients he would need for his afternoon experiment; lined them up on the counter, ready to be chopped and minced and grounded.

Once he really could not think of anything else that could delay his departure, short of attacking the kitchen with acid to start making a dent in the microbiome that had developed there, he resigned himself to leaving the house and Apparating to Grimmauld Place.

When he pushed inside, the soft sounds of silverware clinking against ceramic plates reached his ears, and he was unsurprised to walk into the kitchen and unavoidably loom over the Potter spawn and Billy and Arthur Weasley, the woman Weasley busy scooping scrambled eggs onto Black’s plate.

“Oh, Severus! What a… surprise! Do you want to sit down for breakfast?” Molly was the quickest to recover from her shock. Severus bit back an impulsive scathing reply.

“I will not be staying that long, Molly. I only came to retrieve Mr Potter.” He pinned the boy with a dark glare, watching as for once he lowered his eyes in some sort of repentant display and busied himself with wolfing down his hash browns and eggs as if he’s never seen food before.

At the confounded looks around the table, Severus grounded his molars together.

“I assume the boy has not explained where he will be for the morning?” Severus asked softly, ignoring the muttered “the boy is right here,” coming from the cheeky brat.

“No he has not, now you explain what you’re doing in my house uninvited, Sni-Snape.” Black held his cutlery upright in clenched fists, menacing intent evident and so unsubtle it was pathetic.

“Provided I can come whenever I wish, as you so generously donated this ‘house’ to the Order, rest assured, Black, I would never willingly set foot here unless obligated by a truly superior cause. Namely, retrieving your ungrateful godson for his remedial lessons.”

“Remedial lessons?” Arthur Weasley asked.

“Er…” Potter eloquently replied, which had the power to exhaust Severus’ patience like nothing else. The boy was playing thick on purpose, manipulating him into doing all the unpleasant work. It was enough like what Dumbledore had done that his answer came out short and decidedly impolite.

“Defence tutoring. Dumbledore saw fit to invest Potter’s precious time here for something other than learning how to scrub floors. Although please, do not let me stop you from trying to teach him the responsibility of common chores, as I do think it is about time the boy learned the meaning of work.”

“I know how to scrub floors-” Potter’s peeved objection was cut off by his so-called godfather.

“I don’t believe for a second Dumbledore thought that you would be a good choice of teacher for Defence. You’ve never even managed to get the position!”

“I could truly not care less what you believe, Black. The matter is no business of yours.”

“The hell it is! Remus is three times more qualified than you are, he should be giving Harry lessons.”

“As much as I doubt Lupin’s skills reach that far, I shall tell you what I told your dunderheaded godson. Take it up with Dumbledore.”

“Oh I will, and you will wait right here while I get it sorted. I’m not letting you drag Harry anywhere with you.” The psychotic man climbed to his feet, and Severus automatically moved one foot back so he was standing side-ways, reducing the vulnerable target for the enemy.

“Let me? You wouldn’t be able to stop me if you tried, Black.”

“Watch it, Snivellius!” The mutt drew his wand but Severus’ own was already pointed at that inbred well-shaped nose. “What are you going to do? Throw Dark curse after Dark curse at Harry until he either manages to block one or is too injured to continue? Forget Remus, I know I could do a much better job.”

“The fact you believe knowledge against the Dark Arts is reducible to duelling is all the proof you need to know how unfit you are.”

“Come, Harry, why didn’t you tell me you needed to practise defence? We can do it here, the attic-”

“Sirius dear, if Dumbledore-” Molly tried to intervene, but Black had a mad glint in his eye, and his wand was still aimed at Severus’ chest. Severus contemplated using Expelliarmus to emphasise his point. He really really wanted to disarm the mutt, bash him against the wall and Petrify him; show him how small, how insignificant he was in a fair fight, when it wasn’t four against one. The urge was so overpowering Severus had to throw up an Occlumency shield. Warding off the childish impulse, he inhaled deeply from his nose and breathed out quietly. His wand-arm did not move an inch.

Potter, from the high magnanimity of his white stallion, deigned to step in, alleviating the room’s anxiety for the sudden kidnapping.

“It’s alright, Sirius. If Dumbledore asked Snape, er, Professor Snape, he must have his reasons. I should go. I’ll see you soon, yeah?”

The boy pushed away from the table, brought his plate to the sink in a frankly astounding display of social politeness and ducked through the door, his eyes cast down as he hurried down the hallway. Severus swept his eyes over the room, sneered at Black’s quivering form, and followed without a word.

“In here, Potter,” he called softly, stepping into the sitting room where the connected fireplace was. “Drink this.” He gave the boy a vial.

“What is it? Sir?” Severus rolled his eyes at the scrunched expression of a fifteen year old pretending to analyse the contents of a potion, as if he could describe it beyond ‘yellow-piss coloured’.

“That, Mr Potter, is a Blurring potion. Ingest half of it, it will confound the Floo detectors and make you pass without your magical trace lightning up the Ministry with blaring alarms.”

“Oh. Why didn’t I simply use this to get here, instead of evasive broom flying?”

“Because this is my own invention. And no one asked for my input on your method of transportation.” As if Severus would freely provide information without being asked. Never volunteer information.

Severus grabbed a handful of green powder, waited for Potter to do as instructed, and threw it into the fireplace.

“Potions Master’s Office,” he called clearly, before stepping into the flames.

His rooms at Hogwarts were just as he had left them in June. Severus ignored Potter’s ungraceful clambering out of the fireplace as he marched to his personal library and skimmed his index across his Occlumency section; his library was, of course, sub-categorised by subject, as only tiny and severely amateur libraries were arranged only by alphabetical author. He pulled out a beginner’s manual.

“Sit.” He pointed to the chair on the other side of his desk, setting down Mind Over Magic: Occlumency for Beginners. “Read the first chapter.” He left the boy grumbling to himself while he went to retrieve the neat package in front of his door, satisfied in finding it to be the Pensieve he asked for. With a bloody note, of course.

Keep it until you feel the need. You earn as much trust as you give. -AD

Severus curled his lip in half a snarl and crumbled the note, then he opened the Pensieve and set it on a side-table. From the corner of his eye he could keep watch over the brat’s progress, supervising that his attention stayed focused on the book. As satisfied with that as he was likely going to be, he started the awkward process of storing memories temporarily into the Pensieve. Memories decayed if they remained too long there, so he would have to put them back at the end of the day, as fun as that sounded. As he brought the tip of his wand to his temple, gathering all the links to that first particular memory, sounds, smells, taste, emotions, he wondered if he couldn’t just leave them there. He was going to remove three of his worst memories, effectively sealing them into his subconscious and removing them from his conscious mind. What exactly stopped him from… forgetting to restore them altogether?

As his worst humiliation and third-worst mistake, all elegantly knotted together in the absolute worst day of his Hogwarts student days, flowed out of his mind and into the Pensieve, Severus truly pondered that question. Why not forget? And that thought brought on a much scarier one. Why not simply dump his entire sorry life in there? Give himself a mild case of amnesia, maintain basic recognition of faces and socio-cultural norms but without specific experiences tying it all together, no emotional ties, no regrets. No guilt.

But no, he had a job to do. He could not forget his mistakes; pretending they hadn’t happened wouldn’t fix anything. Lily would still be dead, it would still be his fault. He wouldn’t be able to atone properly. He deserved the guilt.

He grimaced at the remembered pain, the most vivid of the mental links, as he called his second-worst mistake to the forefront of his mind, kneeling in front of the Dark Lord, willingly holding out his bare left arm for the madman to imprint his mark, a brand of servitude if ever there was one.

He unconsciously skimmed around the other memory, went to remove the grief-soaked oath in Dumbledore’s office afterwards. The promise. No one must ever know. At the time he hadn’t been sure he would even reach the day when the oath would come into effect. But he was a Slytherin, deep down. Survival was wired into him; he wouldn’t have been able to kill himself when he got down to it. Suffering in silence was as much martyrdom as he could tolerate, the only thing that made him feel like he was actually atoning.

He could hardly leave it there. His worst mistake. He could not risk the boy, inept as he was, yet possessing the universe’s best reserve of good luck known to man, somehow stumbling into it. His worst mistake. He forced himself to recall the dingy pub, the dry wood of the door pressing into his face. Trelawney speaking in a voice that wasn’t her own. Rushing to the Dark Lord, on his knees, breathless with disgusting triumph. Into the Pensieve, the silvery wisp a dimmer shade than the rest.

“Put the book down,” he told Potter. Severus moved behind the desk and readied his wand. The boy had startled at his voice; he had probably dozed off, and the book thudded to the ground. Muttering an apology he bent to pick it up, his eyes glancing uneasily at Severus’ wand. “We will be applying the first principle. Clear your mind.”

“What does that mean?”

“You will address me properly, Mr. Potter, class environment or not,” Severus hissed.

“What does that even mean, sir.” The boy clearly desired to try his patience from the very first few minutes of their lessons.

“I assume that after almost twenty minutes, you managed to make your way through the first few pages of the book, yes? If you possess the barest of comprehension abilities, you will have grasped what Occlumency does. So, to protect your memories, empty your mind of thoughts.”

“I still don’t-”

“Wand out, Potter. Close your eyes, empty your mind. Shouldn’t be too difficult for you,” he couldn’t help the deserved jab.

The boy furrowed his brows but lowered his eyelids, to all appearances doing as told, and Severus was left looking into the defenceless face of James Potter. Of course, he’d never been that vulnerable in life, not in front of Severus. Eyes closed like that, Potter was utterly at his mercy.

“When you’re ready,” his voice came out soft, it sounded threatening to his own ears. “Open your eyes and prepare to throw me off.”

Severus swallowed silently, bracing for the co*cky grin, brown eyes darting around looking for complicity from his troop of lowlifes.

Potter blinked, and incongruously green eyes looked back at him. His thin shoulders under an oversized T-shirt pulled back, tense but ready. The sight almost made Severus shake his head to dispel the unsettling feeling. Instead, he yanked it under the iced pool in his mind. It was then he realised the action was f*cking useless, as he’d have to lower his Occlumency shields to perform Legilimency. Reluctantly, he did so.

“What are you going to do? Sir?” There might have been apprehension in Potter’s tone, if not for how he held himself, bold chin jutting out, spoiling for a fight.

“I will attempt to break through your mental barriers. Your job is to keep me out, or push me out, in any way you can manage. Ready? Legilimens,” he pointed his wand, having to look into those eyes, sync the pupil’s movement with his own and throw his consciousness into a foreign space. He kept to the outskirts, watching a rush of emotions envelop him, taking him into the stream of subconscious thought, a fat child riding on a bicycle, jealous jealous resentful, a big dog chasing him, child-Harry scrambled up a tree, his hand, his knees scraping in search of purchase, bellowing laughter from two fat adults on the lawn, resentful but scared scared, a heavy cloth fell down over his eyes, a familiar voice “you could be great there, you know,” scared, but that was only anxious, scared terrified when on his knees at the edge of a lake, hundreds of hooded figures floating towards him like black fog, the memory was disturbing enough that Severus retreated of his own accord, aiming and failing to speak in a neutral voice.

“Whose dog was that?” He asked to distract himself from the legion of Dementors descending on the boy, a child facing a hoard of Dark creatures, no wand in his hand… He survived well enough, he told himself. It had been his own fault, running after his insane convict of a godfather.

“My Aunt Marge’s,” was the curt reply, pushed out between pants. Severus couldn’t give a rat's arse about the dog, but something about the barrage of memories tugged at his senses. A child terrified enough to climb up a tree to escape a snarling dog… Severus was unable to find the source of amusem*nt that had had two adults howling in laughter.

He shook his head, unsettled feeling fading as irritation for the matter at hand settled in.

“You’ve done nothing to empty your mind, there was no resistance at all. Focus,” Severus hissed, relaxing his own mind to try again. “Make an effort this time. One… two… three, Legilimens,” he jumped more easily into a consciousness that wasn’t as unfamiliar as before. This was the true subtle threat of the Mind Arts; succumbing to one breach made all the following increasingly easier for the attacker, the more familiar they became with the victim’s protection, the location of their memories, the flow of the links webbing the consciousness together. It was more dangerous than Imperio, because it required more skill. Any oaf could perform an Unforgivable with the right motivation, but to enter a mind and whisper a suggestion, alter a memory or even perform a carefully localised Obliviate, the victim none the wiser, no magical trace left that would betray outside manipulation…

Potter was braced for a fight, memories of all previous flight-or-fight stances rushing past, and Severus found himself swept into a river of all-encompassing emotion, a black dragon reared its spiked head, enormous wings whipping the air, scared terrified comfort comfort, Lily, Lily waving at him from a mirror, her face soft in a smile directed at the scrawny child sitting in front of her, silent comfort grief wailing, somewhere above him a man’s heartbreaking sobs while under his arms Cedric Diggory lay cold, his eyes wide and empty staring at him, empty, Severus pulled back, tasting bile as he watched the boy fall to his knees, gasping for breath.

“You are making no effort whatsoever to subdue your emotions!” The angry shout came out unexpectedly, unable to compartmentalise the surge of emotions that those memories dredged up without Occluding.

“You… haven’t told me…how!” The boy picked himself up, leaning his hands on his thighs as he caught his breath. Severus could not help but feel that he was being deceived; the great Harry Potter on his knees, showing weakness to his hated professor. He was doing it on purpose, hoping Severus would give up at the show of laziness and utter ineptitude.

“You’re handing me all your worst memories, not even trying to divert my attack,” he hissed. “The Dark Lord could tear your mind to pieces as easily as shredding paper. I told you to empty your mind!”

“I don’t know how! You haven’t explained anything!” The boy shouted back, then swallowed in regret at his own outburst, his cheeks flushed red.

“Did Mad-eye Moody explain before cursing you with Imperio? Because I've had to endure hearing about how you were the only student in the entire school, most of whom was older than you, who managed to swat it off like an annoying fly on your first try!” He ranted. “Tell me Potter, are those stories all fabrications of yours to augment the myth of the Boy Who Lived?”

“No- I don’t- I don’t know,” the brat scowled, confirming Severus’ suspicions. “That was different!”

“How so?” He asked quietly. The boy wavered at the change of tone, then shrugged, his abysmal behaviour setting Severus' teeth on edge.

“The classroom- there was a voice ordering me to do something I could fight against, and I was fighting against my own mind to follow the instruction! Here there’s nothing… it’s just memories… there’s nothing I can physically do.” Eloquent as expected, but Severus had to concede, not wholly nonsensical. Occlumency was still too theoretical to him, he could not construe the correct metaphors in his mind, perhaps due to a lack of motivation. He would have to dig deeper, push the boy into a reaction of self-preservation.

“There is very little to physically do when performing magic, Mr. Potter. Magical potential rests solely in a wizard’s ability to abstract. Let us try again. Calm your mind, dispel your emotions. On three, one… two… Legilimens!” Severus flowed into the boy’s consciousness, picking the emotion most likely to provoke a response. Scared terrified at the hoard of Dementors drifting on the lake, scared scared at the angry hammering of the fat man, boarding up the door’s letterbox, scared scared scared of being in the dark, his breath echoing in his ears in a too small space, pitch black, scared scared- playing hide and seek? Hardly warranting such strong emotion, Severus unthinkingly followed that memory, looking for context but of course got scared, hurting, children running after him, Harry Hunting again. A weak push against Severus’ consciousness told him the boy was reacting, he had halted the overflowing stream of images and shoved at him, a pup digging his head against his leg, making Severus fall back a step only by virtue of pigheaded insistence, easy to side-step as he followed the next web-thread. Hurting hurting, a messy haired child, so young he didn’t yet wear glasses, crying alone in the middle of a pristine kitchen, snot all over his face, wailing presumably because of whatever happened to make his knees skinned raw, alone-

a zap made Severus drop his wand. He blinked several times to re-orient himself and narrowed his eyes as he surveyed the boy, once again on the ground and breathing heavily.

“A Stinging Hex is hardly going to discourage the Dark Lord, Potter,” he said levelly, but recognised the attempt was as good as it was going to get for their first lesson. “However, I will deem it sufficient for today. Get up and take the book with you. You will finish reading the whole of chapter one and chapter two for tomorrow. Practice clearing your mind before sleeping,” he told him, turning on his heel to take advantage of his office’s sanitised kitchen to make a cup of tea.

“Right.”

“Take the rest of the potion and use the Floo,” he threw over his shoulder, not bothering to check the brat followed instructions. If he got in trouble with the Ministry because of his own carelessness, it would only raise the chances of him actually being expelled from school, and his education being entrusted to whoever in the Order was available, namely not Severus.

He brewed his tea and sat in the adjoined sitting room, in one of the two armchairs in front of the unlit fireplace. His memories flowed like liquid silver inside the Pensieve, beckoning him. He studiously ignored them, sipped his tea; without its usual shields, his mind drifted to the flashes of emotion-fueled memories crowding the boy’s mind. It was undeniably strange how childish fear had been interwoven into games such as what he could guess was hide-and-seek and some sort of muggle game of catch or tag. Hunting, the mind had named it.

It hardly mattered, trying to interpret memories without context was an exercise in futility, nor did Severus care about whatever was going on in the brat’s mind. What was truly troubling was the amount of free-rein emotion everywhere. The realism-fuelled outlook about the poor success of this whole ordeal plumped to abject pessimism. The boy might have been a natural at the Patronus charm and defence against the Imperius curse, but Occlumency, much like potion-making, was decidedly outside his natural inclination.

Just Severus’ luck, the two subjects the Boy Wonder of the Wizarding World was a complete dunderhead at, was what he was forced to teach his ungrateful hide.

Chapter 5: Harry

Chapter Text

Harry

Saturday, 7^th August, Order HQ, London

When Harry returned to Grimmauld Place it was lunchtime, which meant sitting at the table in the kitchen with all the Weasleys and Sirius and the odd member of the Order popping by, like Remus and Mundugus, which in turn meant he couldn’t tell Ron and Hermione anything. To Mrs Weasley’s kindly questions of “How’d it go, dear?” Harry stuffed his face with food and mumbled “alright” around it, and to Sirius’ more insistent, “What did you two do all this time? What did Snape show you?” Harry stuffed his face with even more food and made noncommittal noises, his eyes requesting help from his friends who promptly managed to distract the adults with random questions about doxy bites and de-gnoming techniques. Harry was burning to tell Ron and Hermione everything, but he knew Dumbledore wanted him to keep Occlumency a secret, which put him in a bit of a tight spot.

He would keep up pretences with the rest of the Weasleys and Sirius, as much as that pained him. After watching Snape and his godfather have a go at each other twice in the space of twelve hours, he actually didn’t fancy the idea of telling Sirius that his Potions professor was attacking his mind and attempting to read every last thought and memory he ever had. He found he was almost glad he could lie about it. It was humiliating, and Sirius would surely get overprotective about it.

On the other hand, he had no intention of keeping something like that from his friends, there was no point. Hermione would figure out the truth anyway, and he needed to vent his frustrations to someone before he exploded.

Sitting through lunch and through the following careful instructions by Mrs Weasley on how to wage war on doxies to disinfest the Drawing Room was the longest two hours in Harry’s life. Ron’s continuous meaningful glances didn’t help.

Finally, they were left alone. With Ginny and the twins busy cleaning out a separate room, his friends immediately put their heads close together and looked at him expectantly. He was so grateful to have them, the rush of affection was only dampened by the horrible memory of Snape Legilimising him.

“Bloody defence tutoring my foot,” Ron sympathised as soon as he finished recounting the basics of the morning.

“You’re telling me,” he muttered. They started spraying the curtain-infested doxies.

“Honestly boys, you’re missing the point here. Harry gets to learn an extremely advanced magic, and according to professor Dumbledore it may be fundamental to protect you against You-Know-Who!”

“It’s Snape, Hermione! Snape invading his mind every day for the rest of the summer!”

“If he doesn’t get fed up with me for some reason and decide he’d rather Voldemort have his way with me than see me one more time,” Harry added to his friend’s outraged reply.

“I think you should make the most of this. Professor Snape is an extremely powerful wizard, you know. With Occlumency he’s managed to fool You-Know-Who and spy for the Order!” Hermione observed. She carefully sprayed and zapped another doxy.

“He’s a slimy git, is what he is,” Ron loyally mumbled, and Harry had to vehemently agree. It had been a horrible experience, standing there with those flinty black eyes dissecting him like a doomed flobberworm, and then worse, the person he hated most after Voldemort and Pettigrew seeing all his worst memories, and him powerless to stop it.

“I still think you should make an effort, Harry. If Dumbledore thought this was necessary, it means-”

“I know, Hermione. I was there! I saw him return, I fought him!” Harry exploded, fed up with her reasonable advice. They hadn’t even seen Voldemort, they had never directly fought him, not once in all those times Harry had stood there, terrified out of his mind and not knowing what to do. He was well aware that he should take all the help and training he could since his track record showed he was due another meet-and-greet with the darkest wizard of all time sometime by the end of the next school year. “The point is, I could actually use some more hands-on tutoring instead of this… this… mental meditation thing. You know, actual Defence? I could have really used it last year, at that!”

“I know what you mean, Harry,” she replied, more quietly, exchanging an annoyingly meaningful glance with Ron, as if he wasn’t standing right there. “I just thought you should try making the most of this, since this is what Dumbledore is giving you. Even if it is with professor Snape, whom you don’t like very much.”

“And who hates Harry as well,” Ron reminded her.

“Right.” She gave him an unimpressed look. They were almost through with the doxy-battling, and Harry could feel a headache coming on. He was exhausted, and it was barely past two in the afternoon.

“Are you going to tell Sirius, mate?”

“No way, he’d go mental.” Harry pictured Sirius’ eyes widened to an even more spirited look than the one he usually sported and repressed a worried shudder. “You’ve seen how he and Snape act towards each other. I don’t want Sirius to do anything rash.”

“Yeah, probably for the best,” Ron agreed.

“There was something odd, though. Before we actually started the lesson, Snape put some memories into the Pensieve. I think it was even the same one Dumbledore has in his office.”

“Perhaps he needed to review them later?” Hermione tried.

“I don’t know, I thought he did it because of the lesson… I simply don’t understand why bother. He was entering my mind.”

“I could look into it. I was planning on doing some light reading on Occlumency anyway, it sounds fascinating and maybe there are more techniques you could try. I just wish I could go-”

“To the library,” Harry and Ron chorused, both grinning.

“Yes, well,” she sniffed. “I meant to say, Hogwarts’ library. There’s one here too but…it… doesn’t like me very much. I might need you or Sirius to get the books out for me, Ron.”

“Yeah, sure thing,” Ron hastily agreed, probably not wanting to get into why the house was so hostile to Hermione. “Do you think he needs the Pensieve to hide traitorous memories?” He asked in a low voice. It made Harry stop to think.

“He’s a person, Ronald. Maybe he simply has memories he doesn’t want to share. He is entitled to private memories, it doesn’t make him a bad person!” Hermione retorted, immediately incensed.

“Yeah, what about me then?” Harry interjected. “The greasy git gets unrestricted access to my mind, how’s that fair?” He felt warm remembering some of what Snape had seen. Not so much the traumatic Hogwarts things, he was sure they had been widely gossiped over at staff meetings already, but all the Dursleys’ related things… some of which he hadn’t known he still remembered. Dudley’s bloody bike, how could that be still stuck in his head, ten-odd years later? It was just one of the many many presents Dudley got and Harry hadn’t, it was hardly particularly mind-blowing or significant, why was it still there?

“All I’m saying is,” Ron added, trying and failing to not sound intrigued, “we know he’s a spy. But he could be spying for the wrong side. Like a triple agent.”

“He already is a triple agent, technically,” Hermione said. But Harry reckoned Ron could be onto something. What if Snape only pretended to pretend to spy for the Light? What if the whole Occlumency thing had been his idea, as a way to… to look into Harry’s head, weaken his will or something, make it easier for Voldemort to read his mind? His brain certainly felt more fragile than it had that morning, as if the continued attacks had made it sore.

“Why would he need the Pensieve, though?” Harry asked, going back to the original point. “He’s invading my mind, not the other way around.”

“I’ll do some research later,” Hermione said.

“Great. I’ll do Snape’s homework,” Harry agreed unenthusiastically.

“He gave you homework?” Ron, outraged on his behalf. “But it’s only your second night here. What am I going to do?”

“Your summer homework?” Hermione suggested. Ron groaned.

After dinner there wasn’t much of a choice, they managed to pry Keeping It Closed: The Occlumency Chronicles and Beyond the Pensieve: Occlumency Unraveled from the Black library and they all settled in the freshly cleaned Drawing Room to work.

Harry really tried. He plodded through the first chapter, having to re-read it from the beginning because the text was dense, written with occasionally creative spelling and used possibly four or more syllables whenever it could. The use of commas was apparently a concept unfamiliar to the author, as was the use of indented paragraphs. The result was a block of black text, lines very sparingly broken by white spaces, page after page. He was struggling through the beginning of the second chapter when his attention snagged on the word ‘path’. For no reason whatsoever his mind found ‘path’ to be inordinately delightful, and kept cartwheeling on it with all sorts of associations which dragged his reading to a halt. Path sounded like bath and it brought him back to his first ever bath, last year at Hogwarts with Moaning Myrtle and the egg, although surely Aunt Petunia must have helped him bathe when he was younger. Sometimes he found himself grateful for the fact that his relatives were muggles, he didn’t fancy the idea of Aunt Petunia Scurgyfing him every evening before bed, quick and done with, as she would no doubt have done if it meant she could avoid interacting with him for longer than a minute.

Unfortunately, ‘path’ was a bloody common word in chapter two.

Ron playing chess against the board didn’t help, as the vehement arguments between the knight and the queen distracted him and the sudden noise from shattering pieces made him startle, his heart beating a mile a minute for no reason.

“Oh, here it is,” Hermione piped up. Harry blinked, realising he’d just flipped two more pages but he had zero clue what had been in them for the book to now say: “therefore undeniably frogs and pools can prove advantageous inasmuch as flies and ice may constitute viable alternatives to bricks.”

“Uh?” Harry asked, as Ron sat up from his sprawl on the ground, looking curious as well.

“It says here…” Hermione cleared her throat, her finger skimming the page of Beyond the Pensieve. “I’m going to summarise, the syntax is truly awful, but it says that Occlumency, and Legilimency too of course, is a very advanced Art, probably the most dependent on a wizard or witch’s creative ability as it relies on building an imaginary defence around an intangible place. And then here: ‘Intimate trust is needed between teacher and student to learn the Art. This is because it is not unusual for the teacher to show their own mind-landscape to the student as a way to concretise the magic. The reverse-connection might also happen inadvertently, when the student rebounds the Legilimency spell, thus performing the attacking magic while the teacher’s mind is open and vulnerable.”

“Merlin, this sounds way too sexual to be right.”

“Ron!” Harry and Hermione said together, the three of them wearing identical traumatised expressions. Great, that was now seared into Harry’s brain.

“Sounds mental, is all I’m saying,” Ron muttered.

“Yes, that’s rather the point, I should think,” Hermione said smiling, which made all of them burst out laughing for no reason other than it was past ten in the evening and they were all tired, but together. The warmth of their presence made Harry think that, despite everything, the month-long silence, Cedric’s death, Voldemort’s return, and having to spend the foreseeable future doing private intimate lessons with Snape, he’d rather be here with them than anywhere else.

“So that’s why Snape’s putting memories in a Pensieve? He’s worried I might accidentally look into his mind?” The possibility of his most hated professor, who, incidentally, hated him right back, could invite him willingly into his mind for an actual explanation on what the f*ck he was supposed to do, didn’t for a moment seem like the more plausible option.

“This doesn’t disprove my triple agent theory, you know,” Ron mentioned.

“It doesn’t prove it either. Maybe he has other personal memories he’d rather Harry not see. But yes, I guess that explains the Pensieve.”

“Right,” Harry cleared his throat and tried to go back to his own reading, only to realise he had to go back pages and pages to pick up where his attention had wandered off.

“Are you OK, Harry?” Hermione asked, gently.

“Yeah,” Harry’s leg was bouncing like mad.

“More trouble reading?”

“Yeah.” There was no point in denying it, he could stay up all night and not be able to absorb a single word. It might also happen that his brain decided he was interested in Occlumency, and then he’d be able to read the next three chapters in an hour. The chances of that were ninety-five to five. If he was being generous.

“Right. How about I read a page at a time and summarise it to you? That way we both learn at the same time.” She put down the other tome and scooted over to his part of the sofa. Harry felt bad but handed the book off anyway. He was too tired to object, his scar kept burning on and off as if on a timer and he hadn’t had a decent night’s sleep in weeks.

Sleeping was hard. He didn’t like closing his eyes only to see Cedric’s empty stare again.

Chapter 6: Severus

Chapter Text

Severus

Sunday 8 ^th August, Spinner’s End, co*keworth

Severus was just about to slip a note of muggle money into his pocket for a trip to the local shops when his left arm spasmed and the ten pound bill floated to the ground; his right hand gripped his burning Mark as if he could suppress the pain that way. He was not going to be able to go to the supermarket before it closed, which meant he would have no coffee tomorrow morning nor any edible food for lunch. He should have checked his stores before seven in the evening; idiotic of him, really, to forget his body needed human sustenance that did not come from a cauldron. Additionally, the Dark bastard had the worst timing.

Severus pulled up his sleeve, grimacing uglily at the Mark, and pressed two fingers to the skull’s mouth, activating the Protean Charm.

He knelt in the usual dim room, at the feet of the lone figure standing in the middle, his Occlumency shields already erected in his mind.

When no other Death Eater appeared next to him, Severus knew it was going to be an unpleasant meeting. He hastily reviewed all the tasks he’d been assigned by the Dark Lord, all the potions he’d regularly delivered, all the information he’d shared… this was going to be about the Potter spawn. It truly seemed that the boy persecuted him like a vengeful poltergeist. Everything in his life this blasted summer had revolved around the boy.

“Sssnape.” The Dark Lord managed to hiss even the plosive consonant in his name. “I find myself very displeased with you.” His voice was seductive even as the oppressive stench of Dark magic curled around Severus, threatening pain unimaginable.

“My Lord?” He pretended not to know what it was all about. Delaying the inevitable by useless seconds allowed him to segment his thoughts, tuck away his fear and anxiety in the smallest bubbles of the icy pool in his mind, compressing his anger and hate of the snake-like madman in front of him, concealing everything deep in the crevices of his mind so it could not slip out while he was too out of his mind with pain.

“You gave me wrong information, Sssnape. Luciuss Malfoy arrived to a deserted house. Empty. No muggles. No neighbours. No. Harry. Potter.” The voice was soft, tickling his ear as the Dark Lord ducked to hiss closer to his face. Severus swallowed, inhaling the scent of gore oozing from the floorboards and exhaling quietly to control the tightness of his limbs. The tenser he was, the more it was going to hurt.

“I did not know, my Lord.” Dumbledore had Confounded the neighbours, sent away Potter’s family for an extended vacation and made sure no one remembered seeing a dark-haired boy going with them so that the Dark Lord wouldn’t try to track them down.

Crucio still struck him, an explosion of incandescent metal burning along every nerve in his body, his muscles turning liquid as he probably fell to the ground, writhing and screaming because it was never going to end, this was his due, his time in eternal damnation for his betrayal, his role in her death-

It ended abruptly, leaving Severus gasping on the ground, his vision still spinning momentarily in the bewildering absence of pain.

“What are you 'sorry' for, Snape?”

Had he said that? His aching mind scrambled upright as he pulled his body onto bended knees and tried to get back control of the situation. He needed a plausible excuse, he should have prepared one but with Occlumency lessons and the ignorant, centre-of-the-universe Boy Wander…

“I’m sorry…” he said, his throat hoarse, “it must have been… Black.” The first name that popped into his mind. “Sirius Black, my Lord, he’s the brat’s godfather. Rash, unstable from Azkaban. He must have acted against Dumbledore, gone to retrieve the boy himself. Him and other members who do not trust me, and I didn’t know. Couldn’t warn you in time, my Lord,” his voice sounded strained, his carefully controlled vowels, his precise diction, gone; Severus hated that more than anything else, more than the humiliating display of weakness that came with screaming oneself raw during the Cruciatus. He sounded like his father, slurring his words drunkenly, constructing a barely coherent sentence.

“That does not please me, Sssnape. Crucio!” It was the Dark Lord’s way of feeling better. The pain was beyond rationalisation. Severus preserved a sliver of consciousness by picturing Sirius Black suffering right alongside him, writhing on the ground, his spirited gaul-like eyes wide and liquid with tears. It made Severus feel better. He hoped the mutt would do something as impulsive as that, traipsing outside the house, getting spotted by Death Eaters. Get them all well rid of him.

When Severus stumbled through the door of Spinner’s End it was the witching hour; he allowed himself to slide down the closest wall and accioed a Nerve Regenerative potion from his laboratory. He downed it with his eyes closed and promptly lost consciousness.

He regained his senses only a few hours later, his whole body contracting into cramps. He summoned another Nerve potion, a relaxant and a Pain Relief, dosed himself up to his eyeballs and managed to pull himself from the floor to collapse more dignifiedly on the couch. He muttered an Alarm spell to wake him at seven and drifted off again.

He awoke groggily, his eyes swollen and grimy and his head weighing half a ton. He’d been having a nightmare, buried trauma resurfacing due to the brittleness of his overused Occlumency shields. His hand rubbed his eyes and came away wet.

He masoch*stically ignored it, grumpily waved away the Alarm and with several curses and groans pushed himself to his feet and headed for the shower. As he dressed with slow movements in his usual black garb, he thought about how much he hated Harry Potter.

It wasn’t enough that, in one of his weakest, grief-addled moments, Dumbledore had extracted a Protection Oath from him which effectively bounded him to a Master as much as the Dark Mark did, making him forever walk the halls where he’d been tormented as a teenager, and where he’d lost her for the first time.

No, the cruel old man now forced him to look at the spoiled arrogant brat every day, for hours, staring into those eyes that Potter stole from her, having to deal with the physical stupidity-spewing result of Lily choosing another. Not any other, but James Potter, of all the wizards and muggles in the whole goddamn world.

Was this the universe’s punishment for Severus? For his jealousy, his pettiness, his obsessive unrequited love? Would successfully teaching her offspring Occlumency atone for his sins?

He f*cking well hoped so, because Apparating to Grimmauld Place only to find himself alone in the same room as the werewolf at five to eight in the morning was just about what his sleep-deprived, tarnished soul could endure. The nagging and completely irrelevant knowledge that the wolf in the kitchen in his night-clothes could only mean he’d slept over was bloodcurdling. The passing thought that Lupin and Black might be shagging made him grimace and resolve never to stay the night at Headquarters, the threat of catching the sounds of howls and dog whimpers too real for comfort.

“Good morning, Severus.” The run-down man gave him an offending smile. “Here for Harry?”

“Can you contemplate any other reason I would set foot in this hovel when not explicitly ordered by Dumbledore?” Snape bit back.

“Right. He just finished breakfast, he’ll be along in a moment. Coffee?” And Merlin, Severus wanted to say yes. He’d tragically re-discovered he was out of fresh coffee that morning, and every minute he was awake without it was making him more irritable. Sod him if he’d accept a cup from the wolf.

“No,” he said. He briefly wondered where Molly Weasley was when one needed to be offered food, for once. Of course, it only proved that the Universe revolved around Severus and that its only mission was to arrange everything else so that he’d be as miserable as possible.

Severus turned away from the kitchen, ignoring Lupin’s next pitiful attempt at chatting, and waited by the entrance to the sitting room, forced to listen to the snores from the endless row of portraits in the corridor. When he finally heard the thundering of feet down the stairs, he presented the Blurring potion to camouflage the boy’s magical signature with a sneer.

Potter mumbled a greeting, accepting the vial and drinking the correct amount. Severus hadn’t been sure he could trust the boy with it, so he watched him like a hawk. He pulled an extra vial out of his robes.

“Take this for your return and follow me.” Turning on his heel, he Flooed straight to his office at Hogwarts.

“Sit,” he ordered, as he went to tear out the same memories as the day before, again feeling the urge to simply overturn his whole brain in there and possibly then knock the Pensieve over; watch it all spill onto the ground, unrecoverable.

Blinking away his darker musings, he left the silvery wisps as they were and went to sit in front of the brat, the desk between them.

“Did you practise clearing your mind before bed?” He asked, narrowing his eyes at Potter’s too quick affirmative. The boy did not look well rested. He did look apprehensive, his fingers tapping against each other, like he could not wait to be out of there. Severus annoyingly empathised. “We shall see how true that is soon enough. On your feet, wand out.”

He waited for Potter to be somewhat in position, seeing too much on his face; never mind clearing away thoughts and emotions. Idiotic Gryffindors, so proud of showcasing to the world their righteous bravery and anger and love, as if those weren’t all powerful tools to guard deep in one’s chest, lest someone else turn them against you.

“Just like yesterday, Mr Potter, except you shall try making an effort this time. Prepare yourself. One… two… three… Legilimens,” Severus flowed into the boy’s mind like water, no barriers to speak of, saw the Golden Trio on a train, younger by at least a year, maybe two, bodies leaning towards the centre as they whispered, “Padfoot said so,” Potter was saying stubbornly. “Honestly, Harry, Sirius has been through a lot-” “Don’t use his name, Hermione!” The Weasley boy cut in, eyes looking around the empty compartment. Padfoot, an even more ridiculous name than 'Marauders'. Merlin there was no end to stupidity. He followed the link, friends, affection affection, the same three in a bleak room, Grimmauld Place in all likelihood, their hands full of doxicide.“Bloody defence tutoring my foot,” said Weasley. Something like a tugging sensation pushed uselessly at Severus’s consciousness, the attempt feeble enough that he paid it no mind, anchoring himself more securely in the memory even as his own foreboding threatened to distract him. The boy wouldn’t have dared disobey him… but of course he had. “You’re telling me,” Potter whinged. “Honestly boys, you’re missing the point here! Harry gets to learn an extremely advanced magic, and according to professor Dumbledore, it may be fundamental to protect you against You-Know-Who!” Severus watched Granger spray another doxy with mounting anger. “It’s Snape, Hermione! Snape invading his mind every day for the rest of the summer!” Severus grasped onto another memory zipping by, which obviously Potter didn’t want him to see, the Trio sprawled in the same drawing room, cleaned, the Occlumency manual in front of Granger as she read aloud-

Severus broke the Legilimency link and glared down his nose at Potter.

“You told your friends about these lessons after I had explicitly prohibited it,” he said, his voice coming out softly. Perverse pleasure mixed with fury twisted his mouth in a sneer as he watched the boy flush and his limbs twitch in agitation.

“I couldn’t keep-”

“Not only that, Potter,” Severus interrupted him, his utter unrepentant tone enraging him even more. “You could not be bothered to do your own homework, and enlisted Miss Granger to do it for you. Is there no end to your entitled laziness?”

“It wasn’t-”

“It is not enough that the great Harry Potter be singled out to be privately tutored on an extremely advanced branch of magic, and permitted to perform said magic during the summer,” Severus gathered steam, teeth bared as he finally felt justified in spitting the boy’s unearned and thankless privilege in his face. “You could not even muster the effort to sit in a chair and read the assigned chapter, which was given to provide you with sufficient theoretical understanding as to be able to learn during practical-”

“It wasn’t like that! Sir!” The brat shouted, making Severus blink, momentarily rendered dumbstruck by the insolence.

“Do not interrupt me, boy, you are skirting very dangerous grounds.”

“Sorry. Sir.” He didn’t sound sorry at all, his green eyes blazing as he stared right into Severus’ own. Merlin but the boy was beyond thick. “But it wasn’t like that. She was only helping me study. I did learn the chapter.”

“Did you, now?” Severus kept his voice low and menacing. “The Boy Who Lived can only learn with a study group? Are you going to ask Miss Granger to sit your OWLs as well?” He sneered as the boy, red-faced, struggled to come up with a reply. “I have to say, that might be the only remaining option for you come May, as I have yet to see the fruit of your and Miss Granger’s hard labour last night.”

“If you were half-decent at your job, I wouldn’t have to ask Hermione for help understanding what you are supposed to teach me!”

“Watch yourself!” Severus growled, incensed at the unrepentant cheek of the boy, no respect for authority and not even minuscule incentive to earn what he was given. “One more word out of you, Potter-”

“And what, you’ll give me detention? You’ll teach me a lesson? Give it a go, you git, come on then!”

Severus’ breaths were shallow and uncontrolled as he pointed his wand at that miniature James Potter, jerking his wrist to motion he do the same. He was somewhat aware this was mad, he’d lost his patience and all composure; he was aware of it even as his temples pulsed bright hot and he couldn’t stop his tongue from goading.

“You wanted instruction in Duelling? Let’s get to it then. Show me how you confronted the Dark Lord with all the skill and power of a barely pubescent boy!”

“I never claimed I confronted him! I barely got out alive!” They held each other at wandpoint, and Severus noticed how steady his own arm was compared to the boy’s. His adult hand, dirt and potion ingredients embedded under his fingernails, looked too big when compared to Potter’s, thin and trembling and barely fifteen. Acid burned the insides of Severus’ stomach.

“And yet you told your fans and anyone that would listen of your daring battle. Now show me!” He insisted. He would turn this into an educational moment; truly teach the brat a lesson, show him how ignorant he was, and no one could lament he’d abused his authority.

Despite the scorching-red anger pumping from his chest to his limbs, he spoke the incantation aloud, moving his wand in a wider horizontal slash than strictly needed to telegraph the attack.

“Impedimenta!”

“Protego,” The boy shouted, rebounding the jinx carelessly. “It was luck!”

“Entomorphis,” was also blocked with a well placed Shield charm. Severus did not bother replying to the boy’s excuse. “Flipenda!”

Potter opted to dodge, his wand slashing the air, “Impedimenta!”

He’d been well balanced but rushed, and Severus blocked it easily.

“Come now, Potter,” he sneered, “Levicorpus.”

“Protego,” the boy’s shield was strong enough that Severus had to duck to avoid the rebound.

“Expelliarmus!” Potter tried, which Severus countered with mounting irritation.

“I said, show me what you did against the Dark Lord! Or do you rather I just pluck the memory from-” but he didn’t finish the threat, the row of vials lined up on the shelf behind the boy exploded. The shattering distracted Severus enough that the next Disarming spell caught him right in the chest, knocking him into the wall, and made his wand clatter to the ground.

“I have been showing you, Professor.” Potter’s voice was low, anger coiling tight in his words even as his chest rose and fell like a scared bird’s. “I used Expelliarmus.” It took a moment for Severus to parse such a simple sentence. “You taught it to me, you know,” the boy said, still angry. Still low. “Second year. It saved my life in June. It might be the only useful thing you’ve ever taught me, so thanks for that.”

He made to leave, and in his disarmed stupor, Severus had to concede the dramatic exit to be expertly executed. Then again, Severus wasn't about to give him credit for it.

“Regardless of your duelling exploit,” he called, “you broke the last supply of a much needed potion, Mr Potter.” Blasted Nerve Regenerative, blasted idiotic brat. Potter halted and reluctantly turned his head back.

“It was an accident.”

“Be that as it may, you will stay to remedy it. You shall prepare the ingredients while I personally see to its preparation. It will be tedious and time-consuming, which should impart upon you the crucial lesson of controlling yourself in sight of consequences.”

Severus summoned his wand to his hand wordlessly and stared down the boy as he visibly bit his tongue on a retort. Snape didn’t even try to resist the impulse, they were working on the subject after all. He performed a silent Legilimency, brushing at the surface thoughts of his mind and perceiving the boy’s poorly articulated thoughts about Severus’ teaching ability. It rankled, the ignorant dunderhead knew nothing about potion-making, how could he presume to know what made a good teacher?

"Read page thirty-seven." He flicked his wand for ingredients and manual to arrange themselves on a clear table and marched out of the room. He couldn’t very well call the brat out on unvoiced thoughts. Trust and all that.

As Potter inched towards the tome with raised eyebrows, Severus shut himself in the en-suit, bracing against the sink with his eyes closed to avoid seeing his ugly mug in the mirror.

f*ck. Severus wanted to scream it as he momentarily lowered his shields to reassess his emotional situation, adrenaline draining from his blood. He swallowed back that insistent scream.

Expelliarmus. Expelliarmus. The boy had gone against the most powerful mad wizard of the century with a Protego and a f*cking disarming spell. He could have died.

Harry Potter would have died and Severus would have failed Lily and never realised he would have been entirely to blame. Again.

He’d done nothing to ensure the boy knew how to protect himself against an attack. He’d assumed, even as all the bloody universe tried to point out differently, repeatedly, that he’d be safe within Hogwarts; that there was yet time before the Dark Lord’s return, before Potter graduated, afterwards even, for him to learn.

Severus inhaled and exhaled slowly, icing over the pool in his mind several centimetres thick before resurfacing and joining the awkwardly stood boy in his office.

“Get the book and follow me,” he said, directing the ingredients to float behind them as he settled into his personal potions laboratory, directed the book in Potter’s hands to open to the right page and began the Nerve Regenerative, issuing sharp corrections on his mincing and crushing technique as needed.

Chapter 7: Severus

Chapter Text

Severus

Monday 9 ^th August, Hogwarts

Too much Potter. Too much. With dark irony he recalled a time when he used to complain in the staff room that double Potions with Gryffindors was torture, the Founding Fathers’ way of testing the mettle of Potions masters. He knew something about torture, and he knew about impossible tests, and it had seemed to fit the bill. Two hours every week with Potter had seemed just about what he could handle.

Now it was every day, several hours. And yesterday’s impromptu Remedial Potions had forced more unwanted time with the brat. Simply put, too much.

He Flooed to his office at dawn to monitor the Restoration Potion and add the last ingredient before he could let it decant for the next several days. The Cruciatus remedy he had concocted was a multi-day task, which was why he always made several batches’ worth to store. He had begun to, anyways, after His return.

Severus’ nerves were scratched to fraying with each quiet day the Dark Lord let pass after the thwarted kidnapping two days prior, with no new task doled out to compensate for Severus' egregious error. It had forced him to imbibe Dreamless Sleep, which was assured to f*ck up his circadian rhythm for the rest of the week. In short, he was in a foul mood when he received Potter the next day, five minutes late and still chewing on a piece of toast.

“You are late.” His tongue clicked against his teeth on the last consonant as the pestiferous brat stepped his foot out of the fireplace. Potter’s messy hair looked less styled so and more like he’d tried brushing but the comb itself had yielded at the task. A trim was sorely needed, his hair fell into his eyes and almost made him blind.

“Sorry, sir,” the brat muttered, his eyes fleeting to the clock above his desk and his lips thinning into an aborted scowl as he seemed to regard five minutes not worth the fuss. The cheek.

But Severus would rise above it. He would not allow a child to drag him down to his level again.

“Let us begin,” Severus cut out the chitchat and pointed his wand. Potter had his own raised faster than it would have been had it already been in his hand. It gave Severus a pause, the length of a heartbeat, before he murmured, “Legilimens.”

He was made dizzy by the rush of emotions screaming around him, the loudest being anger, anger, a barren room at night, crumbled letters around him, anger anger loneliness the boy cooing softly to his white owl, alone alone hurt, a pitch-black place, oppressing him, a tiny plastic thing in his hand, made up of ridges that he traces with a fingernail, details etched into an unknown shape, GET OUT, Severus tumbled into another overflowing stream of memories, running without breath being chased by a gang of older boys, a dog growling and laughter pushing him up a tree, so thirsty tiptoeing into the kitchen- the memories shifted again, more forcefully, and Severus went after that last trace, looking for a thread back to that memory; only because the boy obviously didn’t want him to see it. He followed the fear; with a vicious sense of triumph he found an echo and stumbled ungracefully into a new setting, a graveyard, the chill immediately crawled into his bones, nothing compared to the shudder that went through him as he heard a too familiar voice hissing “kill the spare”, the boy’s voice screamed a futile denial, a green jet of light almost simultaneous to the sound of a body dropping to the ground. The visceral fear and the nauseous guilt from the memory hit Severus like a second heartbeat. He instinctively shied away, retreating to his office, finding himself short of breath as he struggled to put back his own Occlumency shields; stop himself from thinking about Lily, still warm in his arms but with eyes that were green and lifeless, an oxymoron that should not be permitted in the universe.

Severus exhaled loudly and clamped his jaw shut. He did not want to know that he shared something with the Potter boy besides animosity. He’d told Albus they had nothing in common, that these lessons would fail because they were utterly and completely different, with nothing that could ever resemble understanding between them.

He looked at the boy, gasping on his knees again; protected by the emotionless frosted pool in his mind, he could see he’d pushed too hard. Objectively, lucky as the brat had been in June, Severus didn’t know what Dumbledore or Lupin or his relatives had said to him about Cedric Diggory’s death. He vaguely recalled Molly Weasley tutting worriedly at the state of the boy when he first arrived at Headquarters, restless and with insomnia shadows under his eyes.

“You showed me that on purpose.” He couldn’t help the accusation in his voice, although this thesis was easily disputable. Potter had instinctively diverted his attention from earlier memories of childhood, likely intending to push a more recent, harmless one in front of Severus. Inexperience and uncontrolled emotional turmoil had made them end up in the graveyard.

“The textbook said diverting an attack can be just as useful as out right blocking,” the boy pushed himself to his feet, his hair stuck damply to his temples. “Sir.” His chin came up defiantly. So it had been intentional? He had learned a modicum of basics from the book.

“That was not a wholly abysmal attempt,” Severus forced himself to say. “Handing the Dark Lord painful memories is not the best strategy in the long run, but it will suffice for today.”

The boy’s shoulders visibly relaxed in relief as his wand fell to his side. Severus walked to the Pensieve but found he did not want to put those memories back.

“Have you done your potions homework yet?” He asked, idly.

If his sleep had been troubled, he doubted the boy had mustered the will to undertake much studying earlier that summer, assuming he had even harboured such intentions to begin with.

“Er, I haven’t finished them yet, no.” The brat was so hopeless at lying Severus could not believe the short memory he’d seen about the Sorting. Slytherin my arse, the Hat had almost made an embarrassing blunder that time.

“The morning is still long. I suggest you use the time and the quiet here to work on that before you return.”

“Is that a suggestion or an order? Sir?”

Severus turned, his body tight with the urge to shake the boy, snap at his careless arrogance, just how dare he. “It’s just that,” the brat stammered, seeing Severus’ dangerous scowl, “I didn’t bring any books with me.”

Severus wordlessly Summoned the Fourth year Potions textbook from his library and wordlessly sent it sailing to his desk. He knew that if he opened his mouth more unpleasant things than simple insults would come out and despite how much he wanted to spit curses at James Potter’s selfishly idiotic son, he didn’t quite fancy the talk Dumbledore would sit him down for after the fact. Any momentary satisfaction would be quickly doused by the knowledge that the brat had tattled on him to the Headmaster. After yesterday’s performance, Severus had promised to have better control over himself.

“I am taking your ‘not finished’ as juvenile slang for ‘not started’.”

“Right. If I could also get some parchment, sir?”

“You’re a wizard.” You’re a witch, he’d cried in another life, watching those same eyes widen the exact same way.

“Transfigure it for yourself.” He placed a muggle ballpoint pen in front of him, silently Vanishing the ink inside.

“What about- er, well, underage magic. Sir.”

“Now you worry about that?” Severus raised a sardonic eyebrow. Children could be such dunderheads. Then again, perhaps it was a good thing that know-it-all friend of his hadn’t thought of looking into the Underage Trace. “Never mind the details. Suffice to say, within Hogwarts’ walls, if I say you may use it, you may do so.”

“Er. OK.”

Severus settled in the sitting room’s armchair, which allowed a direct line of sight to the boy but kept him well out of range of fire. Ignoring the Pensieve with supreme willpower, he picked up the most recent issue of Potioneer's Digest: Mystical Mixtures and Magical Elixirs and started reviewing it.

It took Potter a series of concentrated tries and random pink smoke before he grinned to himself and half-turned towards Severus as if expecting praise, a sheet of parchment proudly clutched in his hand. Thankfully, he thought better of it and finally the Potions book was cracked opened and some sort of studying began.

Severus read through two articles on different possible antidotes to Veritaserum before Potter’s jittery leg broke through his reinforced Occlumency shields.

The boy was incapable of sitting still. When he wasn’t occupied with scratching words onto the parchment, he would use his finger to skim the pages of the book, while his other hand twirled the quill, inevitably resulting in ink blotches scattered everywhere.

Severus narrowed his eyes, calling on his detailed-oriented focus to observe Potter from a spy’s perspective.

His arms were skinny, the effect no doubt exacerbated by the oversized sleeves drooping well past his scrawny shoulders, as if he’d stolen clothes from his much older cousin. It could appear as the common foal-like gangly asymmetry of adolescent boys at first glance, except Potter was short, barely as tall as Granger, where almost all his male peers would soon be as tall as Severus. The shadows under his eyes were pronounced, and he kept rubbing them.

How many near-death experiences had the boy survived? Three, four?

Without looking away from the hunched form, Severus closed the periodical in his hands and slammed it on the coffee-table. The reaction wasn’t an instinctive and confused flinch. Potter was on his feet with his wand in hand and his eyes perfectly trained on the source of noise, his whole body tensed in a defensive posture.

“Sit back down, Potter,” Severus ordered, but found himself waiting with an unknown reserve of patience for the boy to blink, head shaking even as his eyes kept darting around for hidden threats.

This confirmed a whole host of symptoms that could match post-traumatic stress, a diagnosis that surely wasn’t that far-fetched considering what happened in June. Once he was perched on his chair again, Severus rose and joined him on the opposite side of the desk.

“Are you getting regular sleep?” He asked, moderating his tone. Trust, that was at the base of an Occlumency mentorship. Trust, he kept repeating it like a mantra. He couldn’t give a rat’s arse about earning Potter’s trust, but learning Occlumency was hardly for him. It would protect the boy from the Dark Lord for Lily. It was for the greater good. Merlin’s balls, he’d sound like Dumbledore and be made a saint by the end of this.

“Are you asking me if I’m following my bedtime, sir?”

“Watch the cheek, Potter,” Severus snapped. He inhaled and forcefully relaxed the grimace. “Maintaining a well-rested mind is crucial for success in Occlumency. Now answer the question.”

The brat mumbled, his head ducking as he fingers mangled the hem of his shirt.

“Speak up, boy.”

“What do you care!” Potter exploded, his face flushed and eyes narrowed.

“If you believe you can get away with such arrogant disrespect only because of your name and the fact that the whole world revolves around your needs, rest assured, Potter, it shall be my life’s work to disabuse you of the notion!”

“If your goal is to make me feel not special, I’ve got news for you, sir, because dedicating so much time to remind me how worthless I am makes me feel like I’m the centre of your world!” The boy had the gall to shout back.

“Get out, before I decide to test the school’s magic by giving you detention during the summer,” he hissed. The brat scowled but turned on his heel and marched to the fireplace. “Take the potion,” Severus snapped before the boy could create a whole political mess by alerting the Ministry that the Great Harry Potter was travelling from the Slytherin head office at Hogwarts to the Most Ancient and Pure House of Black.

For f*ck’s sake, Severus grabbed the first breakable object his hand found and flung it at the wall. The sound of shattering glass released a mass of fury.

If the brat thought a screaming match would get him out of homework, he thought wrong. With a muttered Reparo the jar of Egyptian crocodile toenails was restored and he levitated it back to its shelf.

Severus scanned the five lines Potter had scrawled on his Transfigured parchment, and used red ink to cross out most of the third and fourth line. I doubt you know what ‘equipoise’ means, I suggest rephrasing sentences you lift directly from the textbook, and added the Occlumency homework underneath. He rolled it up and was about to march to the Owlery when he remembered his observations.

With a sigh that came out from deep in his gut, he set the parchment aside and got a fresh one out, dipping his quill in black ink to jot down a note to Dumbledore. He let him know the boy still needed to process what had happened, preferably by seeing a Mind Healer. His professional duty done, he gathered both missives and a phial of Blurry Potion and stalked all the way up to find an owl. Like hell he’d be going to pick up the brat like a glorified babysitter all through August.

When he came back he was sweating and a headache had exploded with a vengeance. His damn memories still glowed from the Pensieve, soft and beckoning. He restored into his mind getting the Dark Mark and the memory of making his other life-chaining oath to Dumbledore; but like a Veela’s song, an enthralling enchantment that brought inevitable doom, despite knowing the pain hidden there… Severus found himself sitting in front of the low table, holding his breath as he dunked his head in.

It was the day of his Transfiguration OWLs; Severus ignored his younger self and went to loom over the red-headed girl in the front row. She wore her scowling expression, her eyebrows narrowed and lips pursed, which told anyone who approached that she was too absorbed by what she was doing to follow polite etiquette for social interactions. They had always been on the same page on that matter. She was sixteen and beautiful, and in this moment, these last few minutes that Severus wasted by focusing just as hard on his own test, they were still friends.

They hadn’t spoken in days, Severus having had to tutor his housemates, gloating at their praise, while she prepared in the library. It had become tense between them, Severus knew this rationally, but he could not remember it. He remembered meeting up to whisper excitedly about the possible questions on the exams, and sending notes with book references they each had found worthy of further peruse. He remembered her smiling at him from across the Great Hall, where he would always sit facing the Gryffindor table, despite the position granting him the irritating view of his four bullies as well. It all changed after the bell rang for the end of this exam. Lily never smiled at him again. She never looked at him again, but that one time, his last hoarse apology at the portrait of the Fat Lady, her beautiful green eyes misted with tears. When the bell rang, and the exam parchments were called to the supervisors, Severus left the memory.

The pain in his sternum was too great to bear sitting upright; he slid down to the floor, his back to the armchair, curling on himself as he gasped for breath, unable to cry. He’d already spent all his grief, this was only guilt, the knowledge she would have looked like that before the Dark Lord, bright with righteous anger that misted her eyes, strong and unmoving in front of any kind of wretchedness, and barely older than sixteen.

She’d been right about not forgiving him. She had rejected their friendship and so was not betrayed by a friend, that night. But Severus had never stopped loving her, so his actions did betray the woman he loved.

He knew she could never forgive him; how could she? Beautiful, bright, brave Lily, who could not find it in herself to forgive him that slip of the tongue, how could she forgive his greatest mistake?

Atoning was all he could do, the rest of his life, as short as it might be now, dedicating it to expiate his sin, suffocate the guilt that way lest it overwhelm him.

Of its own will, his wandarm pointed at the single liquor in the room, ready to Accio the nightcap he offered Minerva when she came by at the beginning of term and during the holidays.

But no, he must not turn to the bottle. Even as low as he’d come, he would not turn into his father. It was barely lunchtime.

He accioed Dreamless Sleep instead, dosing himself for a few hours.

Chapter 8: Harry

Chapter Text

Harry

Tuesday, 10 ^th August, Order HQ, London

Harry knew he was dreaming, yet he somehow kept forgetting it.

Snape loomed over him, his eyes flint black and furious as he hissed “no, for Merlin’s sake, Potter, how can you be so stupid. You’re supposed to mince the doxy wings, not crush them,” and on and on every time Harry grabbed a new ingredient for the absolutely foul concoction they were making. It wasn’t a pleasant dream, but Snape’s berating only brought on irritation, not the heart-freezing fear the graveyard nightmares brought. Suddenly, the floor of the fuzzy undetermined lab opened right up and swallowed him, and he wasn’t dreaming anymore.

He was boiling with fury, pacing with cold feet on the stone floor, his snake hissing “can I eat him now, Masssster?” But he ignored her, too irritated even for parseltongue.

“You had assured me, Avery, that it would be mine by tonight,” Harry said softly.

“M-my-my Lord I’m sorry. Podmore was well within my grasp, I don’t know what-”

“Crucio!” Harry’s mouth formed the curse, a red jet of magic hit the Death Eater and he went down screaming, the volume increasing to unbearable levels before it dropped down to nothing, whimpers and pleas that Harry ignored. It wasn’t enough to reduce his irritation and he couldn’t keep him under for too long; the simpleton was loyal if not exactly useful. He might yet redeem himself.

Harry turned to the other three kneeling figures, their faces obscured by white masks.

“Crucio!” But that was repetitive, boring. “Precido ad vexationem!” They all cried out in pain, their hands, the only skin visible, turned purple with the flourishing of small bruises breaking out under their skin; some of them had to lift their masks to spit out blood.

“Is this enough incentive to bring me what I want? Four of my most loyal followers, and none of them know how to get into a room!” Harry cried.

“Rookwood, my Lord,” the voice was breathless but Harry knew it was Lucius Malfoy. Jerking his head towards the sound, he could make out the bottom half of his face, his white lips stained with blood. “He worked in the Department of Mysteries. He must know more.”

“Victor Rookwood is not here, is he.” Crucio, and Malfoy writhed on the ground.

“Mercy, my Lord, mercy,” he begged pathetically, his purple-spotted arm reaching out to the other figure kneeling at Harry’s feet. He too had removed his mask to spit out blood, and he stared at Malfoy glacially, with black soulless eyes and an inscrutable expression. It attracted Harry’s attention, and he stalked towards Snape, ducking towards him.

“Do you know, Severus? Do you know why our little mole failed?” He didn’t leave him time to reply; like a snake he seized his chin, his fingers digging into Snape’s sallow skin, pulling his face to meet him eye to eye… a jumble of pointless rows of schoolchildren in a dark classroom, repetitive mindless cutting of the mandrake root, one inch slices again and again… the prophecy, SHOW ME, sitting in front of Dumbledore “are there measures in place, to protect it?” and the old man watching him from the top of his half-moon spectacles, “it’s been taken care of, Severus, do not fret. It doesn’t concern you.” He insists to no avail.

“I don’t know, my Lord,” Snape gasped, and Harry knew he was telling the truth, but placed him under Cruciatus anyway, his muffled groans soothing his rage-

Harry sat bolt upright, the sensation of having to puke so strong he had to press his hand to his mouth and swallow twice.

It was just a dream. Just a dream. He kept telling himself that, except he couldn’t make himself believe it. Ron’s snores were the only grip he had on reality in the darkened bedroom, his mind achy with holes and his scar burning. It was burning. He reached for it, trying to rub away the pain, but his fingers came away wet.

It hadn’t felt like a dream, he’d been there, he’d spoken to the snake, he’d used the Cuciatus Curse. On Snape. And he’d enjoyed it. He shuddered, wanting to somehow rip the memory from his mind, feeling slime deep in his gut. No matter how many times he’d wished something awful would happen to his professor, he’d never hated him quite so much as to wish multiple rounds of Crucio on him.

Would Snape be able to return home? Harry had felt like his whole body was a screaming wobbly jelly after he’d been hit with the curse, and it had only been a very short time, only twice. Snape had also been hit by that other spell, which Harry hadn’t recognised.

He slipped out of bed, quietly rummaging through his trunk for the Invisibility Cloak even though he knew not even a bomb would likely wake Ron. He knew this was stupid, but the awful squirming in his stomach was hardly going to let him sleep, and he could still feel Crucio tingling in his own veins from the beginning of summer.

He remembered the Blurry Potion that Snape had sent him, and got that as well before sneaking downstairs. He’d learned exactly which steps creaked and which didn’t back on his second night, when the usual Cedric-themed nightmare woke him up drenched in sweat.

He sneaked into the library, closing the door behind him and after drinking half a dose of the horrible potion, threw a handful of green powder into the fireplace and pronounced clearly but as low as he could, “Snape’s Office, Hogwarts.”

When he stepped out, the chambers were deserted. Stupid.

Harry shrugged off the Cloak and raked his nails through his hair. Stupid, what had he been expecting, the man conveniently passed out on a couch at school? But of course he wouldn’t come here, Snape didn’t live at Hogwarts, the castle wasn’t home to professors like it was to Harry. Snape must have a proper home, like normal people. Well, he likely had a late eighteenth-century gothic manor, with webs and coffins in the corner, and a pristine lab with all sorts of human parts in jars from students who’d failed their NEWTs… but he certainly wasn’t going to come here. Harry had wasted the Blurry Potion for a midnight stroll, and he was going to have to explain it somehow to Snape later that morning.

The panic that had gripped his stomach after the dream loosened as even the images stuck behind his eyelids became fainter.

Worse yet, what if he’d mindlessly overreacted? It could have been a simple dream.

The thought that his subconscious could come up with such a vivid sequence of him torturing his Potions professor was disturbing.

Looking around the semi-darkness of Snape’s office and sitting room, Harry found himself taken aback by their familiarity. Not less ominous than the first time he’d stepped into them, but somehow not as daunting. They were meticulously ordered, the floor to ceiling bookcase in the sitting room had spines perfectly aligned to one another, the armchairs and the coffee table set in a precise arrangement with the rug and fireplace. The Pensieve sat empty, no shimmering memories to tempt Harry.

Curious, he stepped towards the only unknown room left, peering around the ajar door. The kitchen was pristine as well, Aunt Petunia would actually have loosened her pursed lips for a nod at the perfectly clear counters. Only one element stood oddly out of place, the same book Harry recognised from helping Snape brew two days before.

Pent-up energy thrummed up from his gut to his brain, urging him to do something. Snape could be in a bad way and there was no point in telling the adults at Headquarters. He needed to do something, help in some way, and he’d come all this way already… so… only he wasn’t sure what he could do.

He remembered Snape grumbling about being out of stock of the Nerve Regenerative potion. When he’d passed the office, the shelf that he’d destroyed with accidental magic still had no bright green vials lined up. Harry checked if the door to Snape’s private potions’ lab was unlocked. He almost jumped out of his skin when the hinges squeaked open under his hand.

Inside sat two cauldrons of Regenerative potion, decanting. Snape had said they’d be ready in seventy-two hours after taking them off the fire. It had been at least forty already. Did Snape have a supply at his summer house, wherever that was?

Furrowing his forehead, Harry returned to the kitchen and thumbed open the book to the first dog-eared recipe. Much like the first time, he winced with a Pavlovian reaction to Hermione’s three-hour-long rant on proper book handling echoing in his head at the sight. Grinning to himself, he skimmed down the page, almost black with its familiar spindly tight scrawls, which crossed out, corrected and added wry comments to almost every line of the recipe. At the end, Snape had added: “after thirty-six hours, can add Adder's fork to speed the process. Less potent.”

Harry pressed his lips together, considering. He didn’t know if Snape had several doses of Nerve Regenerative stored elsewhere, and messing with these batches might push the professor over the edge, leading him to use Harry’s pickled eyeballs for potion ingredients after all.

He’d better not fiddle with that. He did notice there was only one other dog-eared page in the massive book, and he curiously opened it to reveal the recipe to Murtlap Syrup, ‘Healing potion for internal damage of most kinds’. Under the rather generic description, Snape had added internal dark-curse damage. AVOID EPIDERMIS. Whatever that meant.

From extensive research at the local library for homemade remedies for black eyes and assorted beatings, he knew bruises were the result of broken blood vessels spilling blood where it shouldn’t be. Was that the sort of internal damage the recipe accounted for?

Harry didn’t particularly relish re-thinking about the dream, but the bright purple spots that had broken out on Snape’s and the other Death Eaters’ hands had looked like bruises, and they’d been done by Voldemort, so he’d bet they fell under the category of dark curse.

Book in hand, he went back to the shelves where Snape kept a few of his potions, and Murtlap Syrup was not on any carefully-annotated label among them. He tried Snape’s private storage in the lab, but it wasn’t there either, though he did find the ingredients needed for the potion. If Snape really was out of the Syrup, Harry might help with that.

He didn’t want to go back to Grimmauld Place, lay in bed and re-run the entire dream in his mind over and over, he’d go mad. No, he needed to do something, be useful, and the recipe didn’t look too complicated.

Harry placed the book on the sterilised work counter and read through the ingredients carefully, like the man had told him when he’d basically kidnapped him for an illegal hour and a half of detention after they’d duelled. First, you read the instructions. All of them. Read it once thoroughly, then twice to find in which phases it can be broken down, and a third time to note which elements it will need. With Snape’s scowling silky voice repeating over and over in his head, Harry did that. He read it over twice, and then a fourth time as well, because on his third pass he kept getting distracted by the sarcastic comments Snape left everywhere between the lines and running vertically when there was no more space. They echoed the scathing comments Harry often found in blood red ink on his own essays, but reading them as they criticised someone else’s work… they were funny. Snape had a pretty dark sense of humour, which Harry couldn’t help but enjoy. When not directed at him.

He would need Honeywater, Murtlap tentacles, Fluxweed (seed obviously, add greenery here only if you are in need of brown concrete to stick bricks together), Dittany (profane, of the four kinds use Origanum dictamnus, why are Troll-minded simpletons compiling grade 8 potions?), flobberworm mucus and Horklump juice. The recipe proper did not specify much, but Snape had circled 60 grams twice for Honeywater and minced! To keep eyebrows the right colour, do NOT slice. Throw in whole for fast-acting poison, beside Murtlap tentacles, which told Harry he would need a scale and a mincing knife. Snape had blown a casket when he’d seen Harry use the slicing knife to mince. Harry hadn’t known there was a difference. Aunt Petunia, as overbearing as she could be about cleaning and cooking, had never complained Harry had not minced the garlic correctly when eating his dinners.

He sighed, and as Snape had insisted, he read each line again and prepared the ingredients in the order he would need them, weighing and mincing what needed to be weighted and minced. He would not admit to himself the neurotic pre-organisation helped him focus.

A crash almost made him cut his finger. Harry dropped the knife haphazardly onto the counter and rushed into the office with his heart in his throat.

Snape lay on the floor, evidently having collapsed a few steps away from the fireplace. He was face-down, his oily hair covering most of his sallow face, black Death Eater robes still on and the accompanying white mask tied to his forearm.

“Professor!” Harry threw himself beside the man, not exactly wanting to touch him but hardly able to tower over his prone form and simply call his name. He ended up waving his arms uselessly over the body, unable to convince himself to shake him or even take his pulse to check he was still alive. He swallowed. That was something people did, when the fact they were dead was uncertain, right? He hadn’t needed it with Cedric. Cedric had been dead, stone-cold dead, by the time Harry had thrown himself on his body and Accioed the cup.

Dead, Snape couldn’t be dead, could he? Rigid and empty-eyed if he tried to move him… What should he do? He’d managed to Floo, he had to be alive, right?

Snape groaned in pain and attempted to stir, without much success.

“Professor? Professor Snape, wake up. Wake up, sir, come on.” Harry found the courage to place one hand on a black clad shoulder and give a little shake, which prompted a howl of pain coherent enough to make Harry scramble back on his arse.

He couldn’t just leave him there on the floor, and he hardly knew what was wrong with him. He had no way of knowing what he should give him, or who to call. Should he Firecall Dumbledore? But where would he find him? The Headmaster did not live in his own office just as much as Snape didn’t live there and it was the middle of the night. Go back to Grimmauld Place, the Order? But then he’d be stuck there, no Blurry Potion to come back. Besides, Snape would hate people seeing him like this. He knew Mrs Weasley would never make fun of Snape’s momentary weakness, but he couldn’t exactly say the same for anyone else from the Order. Most he didn’t even know, and Sirius… he hated to admit it, but the rivalry Snape and Sirius had wasn’t of the healthy type.

“Come on, sir,” Harry muttered, more to himself than to the unconscious man, and getting to his feet he pointed his wand and muttered wingardium leviosa. Snape’s body lifted carefully from the floor, and with painstakingly tiny steps, Harry directed it to the armchair by the fire. Too late did he realise he should have Transfigured it into something flatter, a sofa or a bed or something. Cursing under his breath, he settled limp Snape as best as he could on the armchair.

“Sorry, sorry, sir,” he muttered at Snape’s pained moan as he was draped less than comfortably across the armchair. Harry hurriedly Transfigured the other one into something larger and squatter. In his haste, he didn’t really print an image of anything in his mind, so the armchair came out looking like an asymmetrical stretched-out recliner. Shaking his head, he tried again, picturing as clearly as he could the sofa at the Dursleys. White and wide enough to sit two huge bums and still leave a small space for Petunia. As he squeezed his eyes to hold the image, he figured out it wouldn’t work because he’d never sat on that sofa. He’d only ever patted it down when he was tidying up the living room, and for the life of him he couldn’t get a grasp on the finer attributes for Transfiguration. The Weasley sofa popped in his head as the next best thing. Tattered and worn, but comfy. Long if not very wide, with wooden armrests on either side. He carefully pronounced the incantation and the misshapen armchair turned into something that could passably be called a sofa.

Sweating as if he’d run ten laps around the castle, he Levitated Snape again and settled him there. After that his arm dropped, shaking with adrenaline and tension as he once again approached the unconscious figure. In all the floating around, the oily curtain of hair had parted from Snape’s face, revealing bruises bursting underneath the skin like violet bubbles, leaving most of his face and his hands spotted with hideous reds, purples, greens and yellows, all of which looked tender to the touch.

Feeling helpless, Harry lit the fireplace to ward away the chill that even in August lingered in the dungeons, and hurried back to the lab. With renewed purpose and a load of new pressure, Harry refreshed his memory of the Murtlap recipe and set the cauldron on the fire. The normal student-appropriate bronze kind, he wasn’t about to touch the shiny silver or gold ones Snape had in the lab.

He then read the recipe for the seventh or eighth time, he’d lost count. He could do this, there were only eleven steps, stirring clockwise except for once, at stage eight, anti-clockwise. With a pounding heart, Harry poured the Honeywater and let it heat up until it turned a turquoise colour. The next step was stir the potion (clockwise, seven times, it’s usually the magical number seven, is someone just supposed to guess the number or continue until their arm falls off and the honeywater coagulates completely?), then let it simmer for ten minutes. (Then remove from the heat! Remove, hardly a minor detail. What imbecile with a brain the size of a pinky toe wrote this? Petition to remove them from the Potion-makers’ register). Harry used the big clock on the wall to count down the minutes, reading ahead even though at that point he could recite the whole thing by memory, wry comments included. As he waited he went back to Snape, tried calling his name again to no avail. Back and fro, twice more.

After time was up, he added the Murtlap tentacles and stirred clockwise until the potion turned burnt orange (even a colour-blind person can tell the difference between light and dark, and a carrot juice colour is NOT the correct bloody colour. Terracotta orange is what is need here). He added the Fluxweed seed until the potion turned yellow and then moved the potion back on the heat as Snape’s notes recommended and stirred (anti-clockwise) until red (and not green, colour-blind idiot, send a complaint for clear underperformance of academic cross-referencing and corrupt peer review too). Then (crushed) dittany leaves and the flobberworm mucus until the potion became purple… Harry kept on stirring with an achy arm until the potion turned a dark shade of red, which transitioned back to orange (THIS will be carrot orange) with Horklump juice, after which Harry turned off the fire and allowed it to cool with bated breath.

Harry looked in on Snape again, but the man didn’t give any sign of consciousness. Peering back into the cauldron instead, Harry didn’t think it looked half bad. The amount of different shades of orange were giving him anguish attacks, and he caught himself wondering what if I am colour-blind, but realistically, he’d done everything Snape had told him. Quite literally, following his notes down to the tee.

Now there was nothing more for him to do. He rocked from one foot to the other, debating whether starting another batch of Nerve Regenerative would help anything when Snape woke up and inevitably berated him for existing. He went so far as to line up the ingredients,, but he couldn’t bring himself to start mincing and slicing and crushing. Snape had harped on and on about how expensive the ingredients used willy-nilly by students were, and he didn’t want to make the man angrier than he was already going to be.

Perhaps he’d make him breakfast. Harry was quite good at breakfast. He thought even Snape and his exceptional nose would have nothing to criticise about Harry’s tea and scrambled eggs. Well, knowing Snape he’d find something, too runny yolk, not enough salt, but when he woke up he would definitely appreciate a cup of tea.

Harry went to the kitchen to fill the kettle and started looking for tea bags.

Chapter 9: Severus

Chapter Text

Severus

Tuesday 10^th August, Riddle House

Severus dragged himself out of Riddle House by leaning on walls, and once he could find no more vertical support he took crawling into serious consideration. His body spasmed and he almost fell onto the cobbled path; new pain shot up from his ankle but so dull he was barely aware of it. The rest of his nerves were still busy firing flashes of piercing electricity to his brain as if worried he’d forget he was in no fit state to move. As tempting as folding himself down to his hands and knees sounded, Severus had seen Avery try it and pass out, likely from the blinding pain of his knees bruising like soft peaches due to the Precido Curse coupled with a Crucio spasm hitting him at the wrong moment, making him lose balance and face-plant on the floor.

Lucius had his blasted cane, which he gripped tighter than if he were a new invalid, and he reached beyond the Anti-Apparition wards in a few minutes.

“Do you have a remedy, Snape?”

Being left alone, panting beside Crabbe, was what pushed Severus to abandon the comfort of the door’s frame and stumble forwards. He ignored the fat man’s beseeching request. He focused his entire mind on Occluding the pain and propelling his legs forward.

Apparating was one of the most excruciating experiences of Severus’ life. He could not remember a night when he’d been in this much pain. Only the Dark Lord’s punishment for not immediately responding to his call in June could compare, but then he’d been allowed almost two hours of unconsciousness before Lucius had Renervated him and carried him to Malfoy Manor.

He slammed open his front door with a spell, and shut it behind him the same way, sure he couldn’t master the coordination to unlock it and twist the door handle. He managed to stumble to his laboratory, his hands shaking uncontrollably. He pushed aside phial after phial, gritting his teeth as the back of his hand turned black with one comprehensive bruise. There was no f*cking Regenerative Nerve potion and no Murtlap Syrup. He’d finished both stocks at the house and he hadn’t bothered to replenish them since he had access to Hogwarts’ office that summer.

“f*ck,” He spit out, his chest caving in. He closed his eyes and leaned back against the wall, his shoulders breaking out in painful bruises. He wanted to laugh. He chuckled, which left him breathless from pain.

He’d chosen this. The Mark had been imprinted on his arm with his whole-hearted consent and he’d felt powerful. Naive, stupid child he had been. Kneeling at another man’s feet, glowing with pride at any word of praise falling from that mouth. He’d asked for the Mark, and in his blind search for acknowledgment, he got Lily killed. And for nothing.

He felt sick to his stomach at the thought; he would give his life gladly if it meant he could have protected her better then, or if he could somehow exchange it for hers now… but if her death had, at the very least, got him something in return… some higher status he’d dreamed of as a boy, some true recognition of his worth… he’d have felt sick the rest of his life, probably would have found the courage to off himself, but at least her death would have meant something. But no, he’d got her killed for nothing.

Severus thudded his head against the wall only to feel a rush of satisfactory pain momentarily blinding his field of vision with red and black spots. He needed the Regenerative potion at least, he wouldn’t be able to make any other potion, let alone Murtlap Syrup, with his unpredictable spasms.

Appearating was out of the question, he knew he’d just bloody splinch himself in half, and with his current appearance he’d end up in Azkaban with a trial in a few years’ time.

He could manage the Floo. He could. His mind was a frozen block of ice. He didn’t even allow a wince on his face to acknowledge the pain. He dragged himself back up. To the living room, fireplace, powder, address, step in.

He passed out.

A rhythmic bubbling, a burst of air every ten breaths coupled with a strong smell of citrus fruit told Severus he was in his lab even before he had enough presence of mind to think about opening his eyes. Then he did, and with the sense of vision also came the other three senses, namely the absolute agony coming from his touch receptors. With a groan he sat up, sweat stinging at the nape of his neck, but even in pain he was comforted by the distinct lack of vomit anywhere in his vicinity. The dark spots dancing at the edge of his vision definitely would have warranted throwing up from pain.

“Professor?” A hesitant voice called, far enough away that Severus didn’t startle. His eyes did snap up, to see the bloody Potter spawn, dressed in his most tattered oversized shirt and trousers to date, thin arms held together against his torso, looking at him with wide irritatingly green eyes. “Sir, should I get the Nerve Regenerative potion? Or… tea?” The last word was mumbled as the boy recognised the fury that was distorting Severus’ face.

“What are you doing here, Potter? How dare you,” he coughed as his voice gave out. Obstinately, he tore it out of his raw throat, barely above a whisper, “To come into my office and snoop around, poking your nose where it doesn’t belong!” Severus would have risen to his full height but as it was, croaking those two sentences had left him panting and in enough pain to feel lightheaded.

“I wasn’t sneaking or snooping, sir! I only finished the Regenerative-”

“You came in here without my permission, and used my ingredients! That is my personal stock, Potter, and you… with your grubby hands- how much did you waste? I will have you pay back every last- what were you going to give me? Were you about to dose me with whatever poison you managed to turn them into?” The horror of the situation dawned on Severus all at once. “Did you ruin the potions?”

Forget the bloody money, the Nerve Regenerative was his own creation, he hadn’t marketed the recipe yet, no one else in the world knew how to make it, which meant he couldn’t simply go buy a batch if his own was ruined. And he couldn’t make a new one himself, not with how his hands were quivering, all his muscles screaming with cramps, and bruises breaking out for breathing on his own bloody skin too forcefully. f*ck, f*ck, bleeding f*cking Merlin and Morgana , he was going to kill the boy with his own blackened hands.

“I wasn’t going to force feed it to you! I was about to show it to you to make sure it’s OK!” Potter shouted back. He took a step forward, breaking out of the insecure mask he’d worn mere seconds before to bring forth all the might of his teenaged presumptuousness, fists at his side and his chin held up haughtily. “I used the shortcut you noted down in the book. The Adder's Fork. Whole. And only for one cauldron.” His righteous anger seemed to deflate as he went on, his voice lowering and his arms coming back around himself. “More than forty hours had passed, and you weren’t waking up…” the softness of the tone left Severus dumbstruck. His pulse was irregular and equally confused, which only heightened the surreality of the moment. The utter stillness following Potter’s words was broken by one particularly violent aftershock tremor going through him, at which he’d have cried out if the boy weren’t staring at him wide-eyed and right there.

“Bottle it, then.” Severus snapped, the sharpness ruined by him trying to recover a normal breathing pattern. “Pass it here.” How bad could he have messed it up? Forty hours had passed, and all he’d had to do was drop in an Adder’s tongue. Surely, surely he could read well enough to not get a Viper’s tongue. Or an Adder’s tail. Surely. Severus’ heartbeat picked up agitated at a whole host of potential disasters ran through his mind for all the possible wrong single and whole ingredients being added to a decanting Regenerative potion. Some of them he’d had to experience first-hand during his experiments. None of them had been pleasant. He’d almost puked out his own stomach with the Adder’s tail. f*ck.

The boy presented him a phial of moss-green liquid; backlit by the hearth’s fire it looked clear and dense enough. Severus opened it and took a whiff, grimacing at the smell which was the right amount of acrid, even if not quite as overwhelming as it should be. The boy was staring at his inspection sequence with a sceptical look on his face.

“Not as strong as it could be,” Severus pronounced. “But it shall do for now.” He’d only had to add a single Adder’s fork, pick it out of its jar and dump it in the potion. Even the most dunderheaded First year could have managed that much, and Potter was supposed to prepare for OWLs. Severus should have resigned from his post if he’d managed to mess that up.

Half scared of his own judgement, it could have been too easily impaired by the hit on the head when he lost consciousness on his way there, he drank it. The taste of spoiled chicken running down his throat convinced him he was going to die, poisoned by James bloody Potter’s spawn, because he was an idiot, and he’d deserve it too.

He didn’t die, to his ambiguous relief. The potion reached his stomach and got absorbed by his system; Severus could feel each muscle tissue greedily sucking it in and the nerves in his limbs relaxing, slowly healing over.

“I… I thought I would prepare Murtlap as well.” Potter’s voice, closer than it had been the first time, made him realise he’d closed his eyes. He snapped them open, fixing the boy with his own dangerously sceptical look.

“It was tagged in your book…” the boy mumbled.

“Well? Give it here.”

Potter rushed back to the laboratory, while Severus didn’t quite know if he should feel despair that three extremely expensive Murtlap tentacles had been wasted in Potter’s attempt to be useful, if that was what it had been about, or tentatively… what? Proud that the boy had pilfered from his personal cupboard? Relieved that he might not have to rise just yet and endeavour to brew a potion, when the mere touch of the air gave him bruising the size of apples?

It wasn’t the first time Severus had been hit by the Precido Curse; he had enjoyed the previous occasion even less, but fifteen years ago he’d had the Syrup on hand, because he’d been a naive child, but he’d been an unemployed, friendless, preparing-for-a-Potions-Master’s naive child, which had afforded him an abundance of spare time to concoct batches of healing potions, first for himself, and then for the Order.

The potion Potter delivered was a cool yellow, with the right amount of grainy matter floating about.

“Get a spoon from the kitchen,” he told him. The boy readily obeyed. Severus carefully dosed the syrup, feeling irritatingly self-conscious as those damn eyes in that annoying face watched him too closely for comfort.

He fed himself two spoonfuls and waited two minutes before looking at his hands, going so far as to lift up his right sleeve to check his arm; he watched how even the more stubbornly dark bruises slowly faded to green and yellow, before smoothing out into his natural sallow skin-tone.

“That was an acceptable brew,” Severus conceded, feeling dizzy and almost high from the absence of pain. He was going to add a vitriolic remark on Potter’s new-found ability to follow instructions but, when he turned his head, the boy was grinning at him, a small sheepish curve to his lips which nonetheless crinkled his eyes in a distressingly familiar way.

“Your comments on the page were scathing enough to keep me from getting distracted,” the boy said, as if to break the awkward tension after Severus’ inadvertently neutral remark. He sounded amused at the notion. Would Lily have sounded the same if she’d known he began defiling books with dark sarcasm after she broke their friendship, after there was no one to share it with? The abrupt surge of memory flooded him with too much grief and guilt to contemplate for longer than it appeared.

“How did you know to come?” Severus asked the boy instead, keeping his voice level. The brat didn’t answer, looking away in silence which was answer enough. Dumbledore was right after all, the old coot. There was a dangerous link between the boy and the Dark Lord.

“You haven’t been practising Occluding before bed, have you?” Severus could have made his tone more accusatory, but he was tired, and realistically, they had only been practising Occlumency for three days. Becoming a proficient Occlumens required years of dedicated study. Still, the boy could make more of an effort.

Potter shrugged, still tight-lipped, which was starting to test Severus’ patience.

“Still difficulty sleeping through the night?”

“The nightmares are pretty vivid,” the boy admitted, as if confessing to a great shame. Severus bit his cheek against his more impulsive retort at that.

“Did Professor Dumbledore speak with you?” He asked.

“Er, no, sir,” Potter looked confused. “I haven’t seen or heard from him since June. I think he’s avoiding me,” he muttered. If only Severus could get away with avoiding students during the summer.

“And at the time he didn’t refer you to a psychologist? Has Mrs Weasley or that werewolf-”

“A shrink? What? No!”

“Do not interrupt me, Potter! And moderate your tone, you are speaking to a professor,” Severus hissed, a headache spiking behind his eyelid. Blasted Boy Wonder, he was the epitome of a pain in the bloody neck.

“I’m not crazy! Why does everyone insist on making me out as cracked in the head! I’m not!” He waved his arms around exactly like a deranged person; Severus would have magnanimously reassured him that indeed, he was not crazy, but the brat went on, “ You should know I’m not, you’re his bloody spy!”

“Do not curse at me, boy,” Severus spat, momentarily too enraged to think, until a shudder running down his back told him the more rational part of his brain had processed Potter’s words better.

Knowledge he should not possess was right there, ripe for the Dark Lord to pluck out. How had the boy come to know about his double role? Why had he come to this office, in the middle of the night? He had yet to receive a straight answer to that.

“You have no idea what you speak of, so keep your mouth shut, if you know what’s good for you.” Chills chased up the nape of his neck as he heard words coming out of his mouth, his brain still playing catch-up with all the implications. Amazingly, the boy shut up.

Silence fell like a crashing rock in the room; Potter’s eyes fleeted across the titles on the shelves to his left, his throat bobbing with a swallow as he adamantly avoided meeting his glare.

Severus wanted to ask about the shrink, insist on the importance of talking to a professional. But the boy was almost as pale as Severus, the shadows under his eyes longer and darker than the day before; most disturbing of all, his limbs were still, possibly too tired to jitter or fidget. It took a good hour to brew Murtlap Syrup, more if one was unfamiliar with the process. He’d also had time to let the Regenerative potion sit with the incorporated Adder for at least thirty minutes. On top of that, although it rankled Severus only thinking about it, he had probably Levitated him from wherever he’d fallen and onto the sofa. A shyly Transfigured sofa. Solar time was difficult to guess down in the dungeons, but the clock on Severus’ mantel read five to six. The boy had been up all night, and looked the part. Severus didn’t want to argue, for once.

He bit the inside of his cheek and let it go.

He did need the boy to open up about his anxiety or insomnia or whatever symptoms he had. He couldn’t have the Boy Who Lived break down into a maniacal crisis or off himself because of PTSD and other assorted trauma from the god-forsaken Tournament. Lily would kill him. Quite literally too, thanks to the Oath.

“Would you like a cup of tea, sir?” Potter asked, polite as he’d never been in Severus’ vicinity. He wasn’t quite ready to thank the brat yet, but he nodded slowly, watching as the scrawny thing scrambled to the kitchen, new energy being infused into him from some incomprehensible reserve that children had.

He came back with a steaming cup, turmeric and ginger by the scent, and nothing for himself.

Severus accepted the cup.

“The Nerve Regenerative potion I use is my own variation. It was originally developed against neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson’s and Huntington’s,” Severus started, apropos of nothing. He sipped the tea and waited for the boy to perch opposite him. “I adapted it to suit the peculiar requirements brought about by prolonged exposure to the Cruciatus Curse. It takes a deep understanding of the theory behind elemental interaction to create a new potion… but there is a great deal of simple trial and error too. Brewing is soothing to me, I can immerse myself in the process, clear my mind of all else and concentrate solely on the precise steps of preparing and adding ingredients, analysing how they interact as I proceed through the preparation.”

He took another sip, studying the boy’s curious expression. He displayed so much on his face, Severus wasn’t even tempted to peer into his mind. Although he would have loved to know what had caused the change in the boy’s demeanour. What had switched inside that pig-headed mind to go from self-assured arrogance to quiet attentiveness?

“After the Dark Lord fell, because of my part in the war,” he forced out, the words scraping his throat anew, panic almost choking him at the unplanned honesty. Severus glanced back up to check for the sneer that would allow him to end the conversation he’d stupidly begun, or a disgusted judgmental look, but the boy’s eyes merely frowned in concentration or confusion, hard to tell. He knew Severus had been a true believer, Dumbledore had told him two years ago. Perhaps he’d forgotten. “After that, I faced many sleepless nights. Occluding didn’t come as naturally as it does now. I figured out that if I dedicated a set amount of time to potion-making in the evening, my mind sufficiently relaxed and I was able to Occlude well enough to fall asleep.” Severus drank a larger gulp of tea as he struggled to maintain his tone level, his face smoothed from emotion. The boy had leaned in imperceptibly, those eyes, polluted by those glasses, studying him closely. “Is there something like that for you?” He wondered.

The boy pulled back, his nose briefly pulling wrinkles around it.

“I don’t think brewing potions would help me relax,” he said, and Severus rolled his eyes at the sheer idiocy of that statement.

“Undoubtedly not.” He wondered if Potter has understood the point of the whole speech, or if it had been too subtle for a Gryffindor’s acumen. A Pensieve look overtook the boy’s face.

“Flying…” he hesitated. “I mean, I suppose flying feels like that. For me.”

Severus didn’t hide his snort either. Of course it was flying.

“Indeed. Nothing instils a sense of tranquillity quite like zooming at break-neck speed through the air astride a stick,” he commented, not quite meaning the teasing tone with which it came out. He cleared his throat. “School will be in session soon. You should try making a routine of it. Twenty minutes or so before bed.”

“Oh. That would be nice,” the boy mumbled, surprised.

Severus glanced at the clock again, with its longer hand slowly inching towards a quarter past six.

“It is still early, and I have business to attend to. Are you going to go back and sleep a few more hours before our lesson?” He asked, as he gathered his strength to stand. Not as excruciating as it could have been, but not a pleasant experience either.

“Er, no, sir. I mean, if I can choose.” Severus raised an enquiring eyebrow. “I’d rather do something… productive. Perhaps I could do my homework? I would stay out of the way, sir.”

To say Severus was surprised was an understatement. To say he was highly suspicious was more apt. The boy was up to something, possibly more snooping once Severus left him in the room on his own. Then again, sending him back to Headquarters only to use the Floo again in a couple of hours was a waste of Blurry potion, and subsequently his time. He would teach the boy how to brew it for himself later.

“Fine,” Severus spelled the Potions manual, and the Herbology one he happened to have on hand, to the coffee table. He also Vanished the ink of three muggle pens for the boy to practise parchment Transfiguration. Clearly, from the lumpiness and general look of the sofa, he inherited his father’s aptitude for the subject as minimally as he’d inherited Lily’s ability with Potions. Although his Murtlap Syrup had been passable. “You may work on those until I am available again. We might as well start Occlumency earlier since you’re here.”

Severus went to his office to write a report to Dumbledore on the previous night. Normally he would have used his Patronus, but he wasn’t going to summon her with the brat here.

He summarised the Death Eater meeting as succinctly as he could, limiting himself to one sentence describing the Dark Lord’s displeasure at Podmore’s failure and a second sentence with his own considerations, before spelling the message to travel via Floo, using the internal castle-network to communicate with the Headmaster’s office. That done, he went to check on the state of his laboratory, feeling a new wave of apprehension as he crossed the threshold.

He had expected stains and used tools everywhere, and at least one burned out cauldron.

The place, surprisingly, was as immaculate as he’d left it. The work-counter was clean and smelt sterile, the shortcut Regenerative potion stood on one side, and the still decanting one was left covered up as he’d done. The Syrup was bottled and carefully labelled, and the cauldron and anything else used to prepare it had been stored away. He would suspect House-elves, but they had been explicitly banned from his chambers when he had taken residence. Arching an eyebrow to himself, Severus waved his wand and had the rest of the Adder-modified potion bottle itself, and the cauldron went into the sink to rinse. Storing the new batches of potions, Severus took the opportunity to down a Pepper-up before returning to his office.

Dumbledore’s reply didn’t delay.

Your observation regarding Tom’s likely next step is insightful. We will address it at the next Order meeting. As Harry is with you, I take the opportunity to mention the approaching date for his Hearing at the Ministry. I would advance my wish for you to prepare him for it. I find it would be the perfect opportunity to test his Occlumency in a real-life setting. Might be useful to try out on minor stakes.

- AD

Chapter 10: Severus

Chapter Text

Severus

Wednesday 11 ^th August, Hogwarts

Severus did not like being manipulated or backed against walls. Nonetheless, it remained Dumbledore’s favourite method of interacting with people, and despite his initial annoyance, he had ultimately grown accustomed to it. He ignored Dumbledore’s message until the next day.

Dedicating an hour of their schedule to preparing for a ridiculous farce of a hearing was plenty of time to throw away. Adding to that, mentioning the hearing was going to drive the boy’s limited attention capabilities right out the window.

So Severus had him practise Occlumency on Tuesday, for their fourth lesson. Loath as he was to admit it, the boy’s strong will was undoubtedly an asset in his ability to divert Severus’ quests into his mind, if nothing else. The boy had figured out that particular memories tended to destabilise him, and he practised throwing them at him over and over. Quirrell untying his turban, Cedric Diggory collapsing to the ground, escaping a full-grown werewolf in the forest, running from a basilisk, skin melting and steaming under tiny-looking hands, facing a magnetic young Tom Riddle, a hoard of Dementors closing in from the river… Of course, the technique would be a sound one only in case of rare or cursory mental attacks. The brewing session that followed allowed Severus to vent his baseless panic and ill-mood.

On Wednesday, Severus was braced against any new horrible near-death encounters the boy had had at Hogwarts, and even if he hadn’t been, he’d become inured to the episodes he’d already seen. Even as reckless as Potter was, he could only feasibly have a limited number of horrors in his repertoire, considering he’d been in that school four years. Severus shuddered to think what trouble he’d be able to get into the older he grew.

“Sit,” he said, once the boy came through the Floo. Despite their previous talk, he didn’t look any better rested or less skinny, or on time. Severus had half a mind to go to Molly Weasley himself, demand to know why, by Merlin, was the boy not looking healthier after almost a week eating at her table.

Potter sat, his restless fingers twirling his wand as he expectantly waited to begin.

Severus sat back in his own chair and brought his fingertips together in front of him.

“I hope you are aware that tomorrow’s lesson will not happen, as you will be busy travelling to the Ministry for your disciplinary hearing?”

“Yes, sir.” Severus allowed his eyes to flicker down, noting that anxiousness was not in his carefully flat tone but in the way his hand stilled on his wand, gripping it as if readying to cast, before relaxing again.

A small tug in his sternum reminded him he should feel vindicated that Potter would finally be facing suitably stern consequences for his actions. He also knew, as did everyone else with an ounce of sense, how farcical the whole arrangement was, as if Albus Dumbledore, even stripped of his First Order of Merlin as he’d been, would allow his darling student to be expelled from Hogwarts, and for an act of self-defence at that. Be that as it may, it wasn’t Severus’ job to pander to him or needlessly reassure. If Potter felt worried by his predicament, perhaps it would instil some sense of caution to his future actions.

To cling to even the most ridiculous of hopes was only human.

“The Headmaster, in his infinite wisdom, suggested we use this setting to gouge your progress in Occlumency.” Severus announced.

“Er, and how do I do that, sir?”

“You leverage whatever you may be feeling as you go in, you construct a shield in your mind that allows you to hide all your emotions while outwardly you will appear perfectly calm, no matter what anyone in the tribune might say to you. This practice will also have the added benefit of allowing you clearer and emotion-free recollection of the events when you are questioned.”

“Right,” Potter said, his tone curt. “And how do I do that? Sir?”

“We will work on it today. Sit up straight.” Severus let the chair’s backrest support his shoulders, his wand held loosely between his interlaced fingers.

“OK, but I’ve been trying to build walls or whatever since we began, and I haven’t managed it yet,” the boy complained.

“That is because you’ve been leaning on a shortcut, which proves effective as much as it is temporary,” Severus’ own tone was low and barely restrained. Why did the brat insist on being so difficult, it was beyond him. “Empty your mind, nod when you are ready, and we will proceed with a mock interrogation.”

The boy huffed a breath, blinked and nodded.

“Go over the events of the second of August for the court, Mr Potter,” Severus intoned.

“Er, OK. Well… it- should I start from- I mean, I was just walking-”

“Use your own words, boy. From the beginning.” Severus bit out.

“Right,” Potter’s eyes narrowed. He visibly swallowed his annoyance and started with renewed focus. “I had left the house to go for a walk. It had gotten late, and I was on my way back… my cousin Dudley was with me, when suddenly, it became dark. Truly black, I couldn’t see my hands, and Dudley was scared because he couldn’t… he didn’t know what was going on. I wasn’t sure myself until I felt the chill. I knew then there was a Dementor, I remembered from- but not just one. There were two, and they attacked us. So I-”

“Stop.” Severus said. He regarded the boy, his detached yet coherent re-telling made his eyes narrow. He carefully filed away several questions for later. “Describe it again.”

“But you didn’t even let me finish.”

“Indeed. You are here to answer questions, Mr Potter. My question is, what happened that night? Again.”

Potter’s green eyes darted away for a split second before returning to stare at Severus.

“I went for a walk in the late afternoon.” His voice was much more certain. He hadn’t rehearsed the story beforehand. “I met up with my cousin, and by the time we made our way back, it was evening. Suddenly everything was black. My cousin got scared, I lost my wand, and by the time I found it… the chill from the Dementors… there were two of them attacking us. I had no choice but to perform the Patronus-”

“You know how to perform the Patronus Charm at your age?” Severus asked, channelling the pompous aristocrats he'd unfortunately had one too many dealings with in his career.

The boy frowned at him.

“I learned it in my Third year from my-” he began slowly.

“Don’t. Don’t brag about it, Potter, you’ll only elicit more malicious questions. Stick to answering as succinctly as you can. So, ‘can you really perform the Patronus Charm at your age?’” He made his tone even more jeering.

“Yes, a fully corporeal one,” Potter retorted. Severus nodded.

“Finish the story, then. You called your Patronus…”

“Right. Well, my Patronus drove them off just in time. Then Mrs Figg, that’s- well, that’s my neighbour who is actually a Squib-”

“Don’t add details, Potter,” Severus interrupted him, exhaling loudly. “Less is more, have you never heard that Muggle saying?”

“But she is, she’s been working for Professor Dumbledore all this time.”

“Of course. The blood-wards are all very well and good, but the Headmaster wouldn’t have left you in the Muggle world without a minimum of surveillance,” Severus replied.

“She’s been there all my life and I never knew…”

“Let us get back on topic, Potter,” Severus pinched the bridge of his nose. Why was the boy getting so hung up on this? Truly, he had the attention-span of an overexcited pup.

“Well, that’s it. That’s what happened,” the boy sat back, belligerently.

“Indeed? And how well engaged is your Occlumency?” Severus snipped.

Potter’s jaw locked, his eyes fleeting to the potion ingredients around the office.

“Go over it again, from start to finish. Keep your tone and mind blank,” Severus ordered. They had to repeat the exercise twice more before he got a clean, unemotional version of the events from Potter’s perspective. The detail of the wand, of being separated from his cousin, would explain why the boy hadn’t immediately sought to escape. Grudgingly, Severus had to recognise there had been no better alternatives, except perhaps not go traipsing anywhere he pleased barely two months after the most dangerous Dark wizard had been resurrected.

“Why were you out alone?” He asked.

“What? I can’t even take a walk in my neighbourhood now?”

“Considering you had front-seats to the happenings of the beginning of June, I do not see what would possess you to gallivant on your own.” Severus sneered. Potter scowled, his lips pressing together as if he were refusing to answer.

“Well?” Severus pressed, drying up his reserve of patience for the day. Sweet Morgana, they had been at it less than an hour.

“Is this still practice for the hearing, sir?”

“Learn to answer questions without the cheek, Potter. You do not want to get on the court’s bad side.”

“I had to get out of the house, OK?” He exploded. “My relatives can be… difficult. I take walks to spend less time with them. Satisfied?”

Severus' mind quietened to static. It grappled with more information than it was expecting to receive. Not the superficial meaning of the sentence, but something else; the tone, the careful choice of words, it nagged at something in the back of his mind. He pushed the annoying buzz away.

“Control your emotions,” was what he said, at length. “It is time we got on with our lesson. Prepare to Occlude.”

Potter jumped to his feet, body nervous with energy. He rotated his wand-wrist, shaking out the tension before nodding once.

“Legilimens!” Severus slipped into his mind and immediately headed for the more recondite memories, blurry and half-faded images which acquired more definite shape the longer he forced the mind to reckon with them. He managed to make out something heavy gripping the leg of a boy projected half-way into weightless space before Potter diverted him to the Chamber of Secrets, the echoing water and the slithering hiss making Severus’ absent heart jolt. But he knew this memory, knew almost down to the second what would happen, and the boy had survived. Miraculously, but he had. He went back to treading the memory links, finding a day at the zoo, a fat blond boy pounding at the glass tank of a snake, and younger Potter rising a sceptical eyebrow as he watched the other child, diverted again, but this time he managed to not be thrown completely off track; he maintained the unexpected link of ironic contempt, and found himself in a car with the same rotund kid, two adults in the front arguing as they drove dangerously fast along a countryside road. He could feel the boy straining to push him out, but he wasn’t employing any finesse, merely the metaphysical version of throwing himself bodily against Severus. Hardly a winning strategy, as he outweighed Potter by at least forty pounds.

Severus retreated of his own will, staring down at the huffing teenager.

“You are distracted,” Severus accused. Potter looked away, his lips pressed together. “A verbal explanation would be appreciated, I am not in the habit of wasting time, Mr Potter.”

“It’s just… the hearing, alright? It’s stuck in my head!” Potter crossed his arms tightly in front of him, his wand still in his hand dangerously sticking up, towards his head.

“For Merlin’s sake, Potter, turn that wand away from your face before you accidentally blow your brains out in a fit of pique.” The boy muttered under his breath but did as told. “The entire purpose of the previous monumental waste of time was to prepare you for tomorrow. You are well-prepared, as novel as the concept may be for you.”

“It doesn’t work like that, sir! If anything, now I can’t not think about it.” His left hand rose to grip his hair, then smoothed it back down, patting it into place.

“I do not understand where all this preoccupation comes from,” Severus said, not hiding the annoyance in his tone.

“It comes from knowing, professor, that people never act rationally when my name comes up, and from what the Daily Prophet’s been saying…”

“You are needlessly complicating the matter from within your self-centred world by elevating yourself to someone who credits more attention than you actually do.” Severus bit out.

“I’d love for that to be true,” Potter might have mumbled, but Severus ignored it in favour of outlining the issue in the simplest terms so that even Potter could not distort it in his usual melodramatic way.

“You are a student. You reacted to a mortal threat. Your cousin, albeit a muggle, already knows of the Wizarding World. Not only is this an extenuating circ*mstance in regards to the Underage Magic regulation, it also negates the charge of breaking the Statue of Secrecy. Isn’t that what happened?” He’d seen Potter’s memory of that evening a couple of times by then, the dynamics regarding the attack clear, despite the persisting mystery of what the f*ck were two rogue Dementors doing in Potter’s muggle neighbourhood. From his discreet inquiries amongst the Death Eaters, none of them had been behind that genius stunt.

“Sure,” Potter mumbled. Severus inclined his head to the side, considering him.

“Perhaps a few rounds of sparring will wear you out enough to stop you from overthinking, considering the limited number of neurons at your disposal,” he finally suggested.

“Oh, yeah. That’s be grand- I mean, that could work, sir,” Potter grinned to himself and hurried to get clear of the desk and chair, his limbs animated by a frenzied energy. Severus took care to pull up Cushion charms all around this time, padding his expensive phials and his first-edition texts and the floor, in case Potter in his over-enthusiasm failed to duck or parry.

They had just finished a warm-up exchange of jinxes, the brat producing a decent series of Flipenda and Jelly-leg Jinx, when Severus muffled a groan, his body curling instinctively around his left forearm. Potter was quick enough with his reflexes to deviate his own stupefy at the last moment. Severus congratulated himself on the Cushion charm, which avoided the wild red spell disintegrating half his potion shelf.

“Professor?” He called, taking a step closer.

“Don’t,” he pushed out, hating his breathlessness. f*cking again, he was being called again. A surge of loathing for the boy, witnessing such a moment, filled him. “Sit absolutely still and do not touch anything. Anything. Do not attempt any other potion-making, Potter, do I make myself clear?”

“Crystal.” The boy was mocking him. He was going to crow to all his little friends about how low Severus Snape had stooped, grovelling on his knees at the mercy of a lunatic.

“We’re finished for the day,” Severus hissed, before turning on his heel and Flooing to Spinner’s End. He hastily donned his Death Eater robe and grabbed the white mask before Apparating to the Dark Lord.

“Time has come to convene on the best plan to free our fellow comrades-in-arms from Azkaban.”

Severus sneered behind his mask. This wasn’t going to be fun.

It wasn’t. They all got tortured, Inner Circle and minor minions called there as fodder in a pathetic concerted effort to assuage the Dark Lord’s insanity.

Every time the Cruciatus hit him, incandescent knives turned his nerve endings white-hot and the agony left him breathless, open mouthed on the ground. Atoning, atoning, atoning. You chose this. You caused this. It was his mantra, the shield he erected to stem the flood of pain from overwhelming the rest of his cognitive abilities.

With difficulty, the jail break was finalised and there was very little Severus could have done or said to prolong or hinder the Dark Lord’s plans. Dumbledore was going to be disappointed with him.

When they were finally released from that hell, he palmed off a Regenerative Potion to Lucius, muttering “You’re welcome,” before stumbling away on his own, towards the Apparition point.

With a crack he was as close as he could Apparate to Hogwarts, and he summoned his Patronus and told her his warning message for Dumbledore while walking. He didn’t much care what the old man was going to do with it at that moment. He couldn’t give less of a f*ck if he decided to storm the prison himself, or if he pretended to ignore the information, and act surprised at the next Order meeting when Severus would have to report in front of everyone, facing their scowls and judgmental comments on why he hadn’t done more to warn them, or counteract the plan.

He’d done all he could. He had. He wanted Bellatrix Lestrange out of a cage even less than the general populace; having to deal with another skilled nutter Legilimens on the hunt for traitors and retribution was hardly at the top of his birthday wish-list.

He trudged up to the castle, laboriously pulling himself through his office only to find the Potter brat coiled on his favourite armchair, the one that faced the two doors and had its back to the room’s only empty corner.

Severus hadn't yet opened his mouth to have a go at him when the boy jumped to his feet, the textbook sliding off him and onto the ground, completely forgotten.

“Professor, you’re back! Should I get the Nerve Reg-”

“No.” Severus stopped the barrage of misplaced solicitude, desiring nothing more than to fall back onto his armchair and kip for the rest of the day. “I thought I told you to go back to Headquarters.”

“You don’t look so well, sir. I can get-”

“I told you to leave, Potter!” Severus would have loved to shout, but his voice strained his already abused throat, breaking humiliatingly in the middle of the order. He damn well did not look alright, he’d suffered through two sessions of torture within the span of twelve hours. He wanted to collapse and not think.

“I know what the Cruciatus feels like, Professor!” The brat had no compunction about shouting either. Severus was momentarily stumped as his fuzzy brain processed those words, and his eyes took in his form, thin and straining shoulders, hands in white fists by his side, and bright green eyes narrowed in irremovable stubbornness. “Why will you not let me help?” He asked, more quietly.

Severus had to take a few moments to digest everything, pushing down the hate and humiliation and heartache crowding his mind.

“Get the Nerve potion. The fully matured one,” he finally sighed. “You know where it is.” He eased into the vacated armchair, clenching his teeth against any sound of pain, while Potter retrieved the potion from the laboratory.

He wordlessly set it down in front of him, and disappeared again, this time in the direction of the kitchen, the third room adjacent to the sitting room. Severus downed the healing potion, barely aware of it working its magic; he could hear Potter puttering about outside his line of sight. It made his skin prickle with anxiety, knowing he was there dreaming up Merlin knew what chaos and mischief. He didn’t call him back.

He must have drifted off, because when next he woke the disorientation made his headache flare.

He looked around, nose smelling the pungent scent of citrus and verbena, which drew his eye to the tea prepared on the coffee table, paired with two Ginger Snaps and a second dose of Nerve Regenerative potion. He could hear scratching, quill on parchment, coming from his office.

Potter was still there.

His insides wretched into an uncomfortable squeeze and Severus found himself pulling his mental shields up so tightly he developed a piercing migraine. Still, even as he suffocated the nameless emotion, it hit him that the picture was wrong. Potter was the child, Severus was supposed to be the one tending to him, leaving out tea and biscuits and keeping watch close by, unobtrusively. He’d done the latter, several times, usually during the last few days of term when Potter seemed to inevitably but with concerning regularity find his way to the Hospital Wing on extended convalescence.

All the times the boy was in hospital… too many for comfort, he could feel Lily’s righteous fury breathing down his neck. For f*ck’s sake, the flying car incident still made his eyes bulge out of their sockets.

He’d loiter nearby while the brat lay unconscious, but never ventured closer than outside the corridor; he always steered clear, too disgusted with the sight of the Potter spawn moaning to all his slavering fans, surrounded by cards and food and visitors.

He glanced at the clock and saw that well over four hours had passed, and he was overdue another dose of healing potion. He downed that first, then sipped at the tea after a Heating spell.

His movements drew Potter’s attention, who scampered in on silent feet with an expression of cautious relief.

“Hullo, professor.” The boy managed to look innocently young and well into teenaged awkwardness at the same time; it was in the way he nervously pressed his open palm flat on his head, perhaps trying to tame the tangled mop of hair, perhaps making sure the fringe fell well over his scar.

Severus watched the familiar fidget, expression stoic even as he reluctantly acknowledged that it was the opposite of what his father used to do. James Potter would intentionally muss up his hair whenever Lily walked into a room. Severus recalled the gesture with an always renewed urge to punch his smug face, the co*cky self-assured smirk Potter sported with the action never failing to drive him to the brick. He and Lily used to challenge each other at the best Potter-swag imitation.

“I made you lunch,” the boy continued, earning a disbelieving look from Severus. “I wasn’t sure… well, I didn’t know how long you’d be asleep. But… well eating, and energy and all that. I reckoned, you wouldn’t mind… I would have made a sandwich, but there were only eggs and bacon.” A cold sandwich would have been better, considering he couldn’t have predicted when Severus would wake up. Then again, he didn’t make a habit of keeping food in the kitchen during the summer. The eggs and bacon he technically used as potions ingredients, kept under stasis in the fridge. Potter dawdled some more before twisting and retrieving a plate.

Clumsily, he manoeuvred around the coffee table, pushing the tea-cum-biscuits out of the way before setting the lunch down.

He then moved to the side, standing there like a post, as if awaiting Severus’ judgement with bated breath.

Narrowing his eyes, Severus thought it prudent to sniff at the forkful of scrambled eggs to make sure there was no trace of rancid or bitter or honey-sweet smell, all fast acting recognisable poisons. They smelt flavourful, which was not a description he’d ever given eggs. He ate, chewing slowly and disliking the scrutiny.

“Good,” he said. He didn’t comment on food, but the boy kept his bright green eyes so fixed on him he was either fascinated by the process of eating lunch or he was expecting something. Because he was a masoch*stic prick, Severus could’t help the slight Occlumency probe into those eyes, to see how superiorly Potter thought his cooking skills compared to Severus’ more than fair response, to see what mean little moniker the boy had linked to Severus. He could only skim the surface thoughts, but pulled back immediately at the brightness of the boy’s childish pride and sharp relief.

Potter’s grin fell into a frown.

“Did you just Legilimised me?”

“No,” it came out smoother than silk. But something resembling the boy’s pride wormed its way into his chest. To detect what Severus had just done was a sign of practised sensitivity. That was good. “But I could easily have. We need to work on those shields. While Occlumency shields can relax when not actively in a fight, you must never let them fall completely.”

He ate some more, with Potter trying not to look to be hovering by fidgeting and looking back to the work he’d abandoned in the other room. The thought came unbidden on the foot of a still not quite concretised suspicion.

“Have you eaten?”

“No!” The boy said defensively, too quickly, as if the question had been accusatory. Odd. Severus took the span of a breath to calibrate his answer.

“It is past lunch time. You should have. If bacon and eggs are not suited to your meal habits, you can call a House-elf. I’m sure they would be happy to indulge the whims of the great Harry Potter.” The sneer pulled at his mouth out of routine; for some reason Severus thought he should soften it into a neutral grimace. He tried, but couldn’t speak to the result.

“Oh, thanks,” the boy mumbled.

Odd.

“Are you planning on lingering there indefinitely, or will you actually get on with it?”

“Right.” Potter turned on the spot and the sound of cracking eggs and searing bacon filled the silence; Severus made a good dent in his own meal.

They ate in uncomfortable silence, sitting on opposite armchairs; Severus was inept at small talk, especially with a child he was used to loathing, as the teenager himself. Lunch dragged on endlessly in his personal opinion, but fortunately, Potter seemed to regard eating only in the form of inhaling food, which had him scraping the plate around the same time as Severus finished carefully chewing his bacon, despite starting later.

Severus mutely watched as Potter gathered both empty plates and began rinsing them without being told to do so. It seemed as if his relatives had managed to instil some basic manners in him.

Chapter 11: Harry

Chapter Text

Harry

Thursday, 12 ^th August, Order HQ, London

Harry’s eyes snapped open with the daunting end of a nightmare. It maddeningly retreated from his memory before his awake brain could parse it out and reassure Harry that it was indeed, just a dream. Dismayed, he saw no light filtering through the window’s heavy drapes yet. It was some indeterminable time before sunrise, and his body, covered in cold sweat, did not feel like venturing out from under the covers to find out when it was, precisely. So it was that he spent what felt like hours simply laying there; his stomach alternated between constricting into a walnut and trying to climb out his throat as all possible scenarios of the disciplinary hearing ran through his head.

He tried to construe, which apparently was a different concept from build, his Occlumency shield in order to stave off some of his anxiety. The operative word there being ‘tried’. The possibility of him actually being expelled hovered in the air like a golden snitch, zipping around his head and fueling his frustration. The fact that Sirius had not enthusiastically assured him he’d be able to live at Grimmauld Place if he did get expelled was what made him queasy. We’ll see, he’d said, which in adult-speak always meant no. It didn’t matter that Harry would much rather share that dark, dodgy prison with his godfather if it meant getting away from the Dursleys.

He couldn’t bear the darkness and his own thoughts any longer. He swung his legs out of bed and tiptoed out of the room. He winced as the door creaked open, glancing back at Ron’s bed, where his friend lay sprawled out and snoring loudly. More carefully, he crept downstairs, where the large clock on the first landing signalled half past five.

The kitchen was obviously deserted. He assembled dry toast and tea out of habit, sat at the table only to realise he wasn’t really feeling hungry or thirsty enough for either.

The steam curling up from his cup was the palest grey. Harry wondered how it was possible for steam to have a colour when water didn’t. And really, if he narrowed his eyes and focused on the warm spirals, he couldn’t honestly say they had any colour. It was a reassuring pattern though, that puffy, insubstantial evaporated water… the laziness with which the whorl rose was hypnotising, like the silvery substance he’d seen in Snape’s Pensieve. His memories. Harry would pay several galleons to get a glimpse in there, finally understand the man. Did he hide there the reason he had it in for Harry? There must be a reason. There had to be. He’d hated him at first sight, bullied him since day one in Potions, and Harry couldn’t believe it was just misplaced jealousy, as Ron suggested. Snape could be petty and no doubt he sought recognition, like all that business with Sirius at the end of Third Year, but the man was a spy! He couldn’t be jealous of Harry’s so-called fame, he wouldn’t desire being splashed on the front page of the Daily Prophet every other day. Which left either a genuine reason for his dislike, something Harry had done but didn’t remember, or perhaps the man truly was the only one who could see Harry for who he was, without all the blinding Boy-Who-Lived sh*te. And like his relatives, the only other people who knew him and cared nothing for his unearned glory, Snape knew there was nothing particularly special or likeable about him.

Either way, it would be nice to know so that Harry could act accordingly. The man was maddeningly inscrutable. Except when he lost his temper, then Harry knew exactly where he stood, and how to behave. He rather preferred that version of Snape, the familiar one he’d known for the last four years, rather than the odd one that had been popping up from time to time during their last couple of lessons. The day before had been an exercise in constant vigilance, as Moody would say. It had been… nerve-wrecking more than anything, the professor running hot and cold with no way to predict the mood swing. Harry had had a hard time keeping up, replying as he was expected.

“Harry dear, what are you doing up already?”

He was on his feet, his chair clattering to the floor, his hand clutching his ratty T-shirt in place of his wand, which he’d left upstairs.

“Oh, I didn’t mean to startle you,” Mrs Weasley said, looking perplexed at the display. It took a couple of forceful breaths before Harry could mumble an excuse, heat crawling up his face while his heart painfully reminded him how ridiculous he’d been. Stupid, overreacted again. And he’d been unarmed too. How could he leave his wand out of reach?

More sounds filtered through Harry’s numbness and Mr Weasley joined them in the kitchen, dressed smartly and with a smile for Harry.

As Harry sat back down to not appear rude, although what he truly wanted was to disappear upstairs, the adults began to explain the plan for the day in soft voices. Harry struggled to connect his brain to now. Mentioning Dumbledore had the power to finally switch on his higher mental faculties and set his gut to seething at the same time.

The Weasleys kept reassuring him that the Headmaster had everything in hand. ‘Dumbledore knew what he was doing’, so everyone kept telling him, except Harry hadn’t seen or heard from the Headmaster since June. The man had been at Grimmauld Place the day before, and had gone to all the trouble of sneaking in and out in order to avoid Harry. Was he supposed to blindly trust the man would care enough to show up in his defence, like a higher entity, when all summer he had gone out of his way to not speak to him?

His stomach, which had previously been ambivalent between squeezing itself into nothingness or being wretched out, decided his mouth was the way to go. By the time Harry had thrown on his best clothes and stood back by the kitchen door to wait for Mr. Weasley, it was making a valiant attempt at climbing up his oesophagus.

A whoosh from the library startled him so badly he knocked into the kitchen wall.

“Oh, who could that be?” Mrs Weasley wondered, rubbing her hands dry on her apron to take hold of her wand as she went to check. “Severus, dear, so nice to see you!” Came her voice a moment later, and she came out all smiling, with a looming shadow scowling behind her. “Do you want a cuppa? I can get breakfast going for you in a moment if you’re staying.”

“Hullo, Professor.” Surprised, Harry stepped aside to allow Snape to walk through the door. What the hell was he doing here? Had he forgotten Harry had the disciplinary hearing and came to pick him up for his lesson… two hours early?

“I won’t trouble you, Molly, I won’t be long,” Snape said, radiating awkwardness as everyone waited for him to explain why he was there at the crack of dawn.

Despite knowing very well what everyone was waiting for, he refused to provide the information.

“Well then,” Mr Weasley said, smacking his thighs and getting to his feet. “Well, Harry and I were just about to leave for the Ministry.”

Harry looked to Snape. He met his inscrutable black stare and, for the first time ever, he felt like the man was not actively loathing him. Tentatively, he got the feeling that perhaps his professor had come over to wish him luck or something, and being an antisocial vampire of the dungeons, he wasn’t quite sure how to go about it.

Whatever the reason for his silent, looming presence, as he got a hug from Mrs Weasley, and then from Sirius, who had thundered down the stairs with a huge grin, and even got a manly pat on the shoulder from Mr Weasley, Harry felt empowered, surrounded by so many adults there for him.

“What’s the grouchy bat doing here?” Sirius asked, to no one in particular. Harry thanked Merlin that the Weasleys were busy putting on coats and whispering to each other, and that Snape limited himself to a long-suffering sneer.

“All will be well, Harry dear, you’ll see,” Mrs Weasley said, ushering him gently down the corridor. At that moment it felt like it would be. He could do this, despite Dumbledore’s avoidance, which threatened to tear his home away from him. He could.

“Thanks for coming, Professor,” he added, glancing sheepishly at the stone-faced man, other words sticking to the roof of his mouth. The vagueness of that statement felt as much as he could get away with. Snape nodded slowly, his eyes flickering over his school shirt and trousers, then to his forehead, which prompted Harry to try smoothing out his hair, making sure it covered his scar despite knowing his hair had free will and proudly made use of it. It was anyone’s guess what Snape thought about Harry’s appearance.

“We’ll be off, then. See you all in a few hours,” Mr Weasley received an affectionate pat-pat on his arm by his wife and led the way outside.

They got back for lunch, and everyone received the news in such a way that told Harry getting acquitted of all charges was not as granted as they had previously made it seem. Snape had gone back to wherever he spent his days when not forced to interact with Harry, and was possibly the only member of the Order, aside from Dumbledore, not there to greet him

The longer Harry had to sit at the lunch table, his face hurting with forced grinning while Mr Weasley waxed poetics about Dumbledore’s heroic entrance, the more Harry’s fists curled tighter and tighter. His nails bit into his palm, a rush of hot anger and humiliation washing over him.

“So, how was it Harry? Did they accept your explanation?” Hermione asked in a low voice, Ron leaning towards him from his other side while the adults kept with their own conversation.

“I was barely allowed to finish a sentence. Then Dumbledore swoops in, does his thing, and not once does he look my way. Not even a cursory glance,” Harry burst quietly, surprised at how fuming he was.

“Doesn’t matter much, though, does it, mate? You weren’t expelled and your wand wasn’t broken. That’s the main thing,” Ron remarked, missing the whole point.

“You weren’t there, Ron. They kept insisting I was either delusional or making it up for attention!” The wave of anger surging in his head was so heated that he had to push away from the table and leave, lest he explode and hurt his friends like he’d done when he’d arrived from the Dursleys’.

“Harry! You haven’t eaten-” Hermione’s voice called behind him, but he ignored her, climbing up to his room fuelled by what he was perfectly aware was irrational anger. He just couldn’t seem to reason it away.

The more animalistic part of his brain reminded him he hadn’t eaten since picking at his food the night before, but his stomach, shrunk to the size of a walnut, was already overflowing with leftover stress, which was converting directly into irritation. It wasn’t like he was going to starve if he waited until dinnertime.

Throwing himself onto the bed, spread-eagled, he could only think about the way Dumbledore, sweeping in dramatically at just the right moment, had spoken to everyone but Harry. He hadn’t looked over at him once. Was he mad at him for bringing back Voldemort? For killing Cedric? Was this his punishment?

Sudden familiar guilt tripped over his nut-sized stomach. Maybe Dumbledore was angry with him. If only he hadn’t participated in the Tournament, or if he’d realised who Moody really was… he’d spent the most time with him. The man had put an entire class under Imperio, how could Harry not have suspected a thing?

Harry wasn’t sure how long he stewed in silence, he knew at some point Hermione and then Sirius came to knock on his door, calling for him to come out. Harry ignored them. He felt betrayed, although rationally he knew it wasn’t them he was blaming. He just needed to be alone for a while.

What set Harry’s blood to boil was the fact that no one outside Grimmauld Place believed Voldemort had returned. They all thought that he’d made up the dark wizard’s resurrection, that there wasn’t an evil monster roaming the streets, having a rollicking jolly time with his minions holed up somewhere, torturing people.

No, the Ministry wasn’t listening, they all but slammed a LangLock on him at the hearing, and instead, it was driving an entire newspaper campaign against him. Dumbledore had dumped him at the Dursleys’ in complete darkness for close to two months, and no one, not even Sirius really, thought he deserved to know what was going on with the war, a war he saw begin, he was responsible for allowing to return. But no one seemed to think he had a right to know anything. Mrs Weasley insisted on treating him like a bloody toddler when he’d seen death first hand, and had got into enough life-and-death situations to warrant at least being considered old enough to know what was going on!

It was some time before a third knock roused him from his interior rant, and he ignored it just the same as the other two, despite the visitor not saying anything. It was probably one of his friends again, or Sirius or Lupin. Secretly, he wanted it to be Dumbledore, with an apology and an explanation.

Someone muttered alohom*ora and came in without announcing themselves. The moment the doorknob turned, Harry scrambled up from the bed, his wand in his right hand held in front of him.

Snape, of all people, closed the door behind him, a plate of tea and buttered scones floating over his shoulder and an expression on his pale face that clearly stated he was hating every second of the whole ordeal.

Without saying a word, he made the food hover by Harry’s head. He couldn’t do much else but take it, feeling extremely weird about it. And embarrassed for the state of his and Ron’s room. Blushing, he set the tea on the bed and scurried around, tidying up the worst of the mess.

“Spare us both the pretence, Potter. Another bomb of clothes and stationary is going to explode in here the moment I step out,” Snape sighed, making to approach a chair, presumably to sit, but grimacing at the sight of it buried beneath a pile of clothes and loose parchment. He remained standing.

“Eat something. Has no one told you, you are severely underweight?”

“Er, no,” Harry replied honestly, glancing at the unappetising scones. He was dreadfully thirsty though. “Thanks?” He meant for bringing up food. It must have been his idea. Somehow, he could not picture anyone managing to bully Snape into doing anything.

The silence threatened to turn awkward, and only biting his tongue kept Harry from blurting what the heck are you doing here to Snape’s face.

“As I understand it, you were acquitted of all charges,” the professor finally said, using his low smooth tone.

Harry folded his arms close to his chest, studying that sallow face. He couldn’t get a read on the blasted man. How was he supposed to know what to do, how to act, if he had nothing to work with?

“I s’pose,” he edged. Harry was ready for a third degree interrogation on the exact phrasings he used on the second-to-last question posed by the Minister, and on the tip of his tongue were all kinds of excuses on why and how Occlumency hadn’t worked, defending that it hadn’t really been necessary, besides…

“So whatever happened to put you in such a mood?”

He was not expecting that. It was such a random, colloquial thing to ask for Snape, that Harry replied without thinking.

“Dumbledore is mad at me.”

Snape raised an eyebrow, the two black curtains framing his face less oily than Harry remembered.

“Oh? What makes you think that?” His voice was still level, although Harry detected a hint of the unavoidable Merlin-you-are-a-hopeless-dunderhead.

“At the hearing he wouldn’t talk to me.” This sounded childish and not as bad as it felt to Harry. “He didn’t even look at me, and he all but ran out of the place as soon as it was over!” He tried to explain, and then the rest came blurting out. “I don’t know what I did, and I don’t know how to fix it! No one believes me, but I have so many questions and only he can answer them, and after everything that happened after the Tournament he said to be patient, but I have a right to know-”

“Do you hear yourself, Potter?” Snape’s iced tone cut into Harry’s pacing around the room, smothering all his steam.

“Yes, but-” he wasn’t quite sure how he’d complete that, so he was partly glad that Snape spoke over him.

“But again, I would expect nothing less of the Boy Who Lived, dramatically shutting himself in his room and refusing to eat when he doesn’t get his way. It is not enough that the Headmaster of Hogwarts personally argues your case to exonerate you. You want him, in the middle of organising the resistance for an incipient war, to accommodate your every request, answer all sorts of inane questions regarding a matter that does not concern you.”

“Except it does concern me, sir! I was there, and if I have to fight-”

“You are an underage wizard not even half-way through his schooling!”

“But I-”

“There are complexities hopelessly beyond your understanding, boy, and you think you can play at war while utterly refusing to do the part assigned to you, which is learn Occlumency. You half-arse the only task that might be of any contribution to the cause, yet whinge endlessly when everything is not delivered to you immediately. You prove to be the spoiled attention-seeking brat everyone fails to see,” Snape finished viciously.

Harry swallowed, looking away to blink rapidly at the stinging in his eyes. He hugged his arms to his body, looking at his feet and silently pleading for Snape to leave. His jaw clenched and he found his mind throbbing with a poor attempt at raising some sort of Occlumency barrier.

He would have thrown him out like the man had done to him countless times, but he didn’t want to risk his voice betraying him. So he stood staring resolutely at his scuffed second-hand shoes, flinching as the door opened and slammed at the professor’s exit.

The silence after the shouting match resounded loud in Harry’s ears.

He felt cut open, exposed. After he’d let the professor into his room and let his mouth run with all his worries and indignations… he’d received sneering contempt.

But maybe Snape was right. So what if Dumbledore hadn’t want to look at him? He was Headmaster to over three hundred students in a school the size of a castle. Literally. No other student complained that they didn’t have one-on-one chinwags with the Headmaster regularly enough. In fact, any normal student actively sought to avoid finding themselves in the Headmaster’s office.

All summer, Harry had been seething over being kept in the dark, ignored by Dumbledore, but wasn’t that the same situation every other kid at school was in? Granted, Ron and Hermione had known about the Order of the Phoenix before he had, but they knew just as much about the war as he, and they definitely did not think Dumbledore ought to sit them down and update them.

Snape was right, and admitting it to himself gave him cold shivers, but it was hardly any use denying it. He was an attention-seeker.

On top of that, Harry had played a pretty big role in resurrecting Voldemort. Cedric had died because of it. Because of him. Perhaps Dumbledore was angry at him, at his uselessness which made him responsible for re-starting a war. And even after all that, he still hadn’t been taking Occlumency seriously, resenting the extra work while demanding to be included in sensitive information that Voldemort might whisk from his mind at any moment.

Snape was right about this, at the very least. He did think himself special. And he very clearly wasn’t.

Chapter 12: Severus

Chapter Text

Severus

Saturday 14 ^th August, Spinner’s End, co*keworth

Severus awoke with a hammering headache and about as rested as he’d felt when he went to bed, which was after he’d paced up and down the house cursing at himself for a good hour.

He sat up, each of the twenty-four vertebrae in his spinal column popping in sequence as he heaved himself to lean on his thighs, feet planted on the floor. He hadn’t wanted to admit it last night, frustration still making his limbs quiver… but.

Severus found it a tragic irony that despite the meticulousness of his day-to-day life, the careful control he exercised over his diction, appearance, and most of all, his thoughts, when he failed, he failed spectacularly. He took great pains to ensure he never made mistakes, but the universe seemed to study all his efforts, burst into a great laugh and arrange its pieces to watch him not only make a mistake but irreversibly bugger it.

He sighed, prepared for the day and went to get coffee in hopes that Merlin, God, Dumbledore, someone, would tell him how to salvage yet another relationship he’d f*cked up.

A second cup of coffee did not get rid of the clawing beast in his gut, or the image stuck in his mind of those green eyes shrinking with disappointment for a fraction of a second and then looking away to hide their hurt. The memory was a slippery thing he’d tried and tried to wrestle under the pool, suffocate under the ice, but it kept flashing to the forefront of his mind, slashing at him like a Cutting Curse right across his lungs.

This was why he didn’t interact with people. He wasn’t capable of maintaining interpersonal bridges, never mind mending them. Bloody bridges.

He deserved to be alone, and everyone was better off for it. He knew some disgusting gene in his abusive drunkard father and his arrogantly careless mother had crisscrossed to make an unredeemable scumbag out of him. There was a proven pattern, over and over, during his friendship with Lily. It was happening with Harry. The boy had been delusional in his perceived grievances, certainly, but Severus had felt the need to cut him down as if he’d outright insulted the Headmaster and threatened to look for the Dark Lord himself. Vitriol had poured out of his mouth like a dam, his own anxiety and frustrations condensing into a projectile that shot dead a convenient scapegoat.

He’d gone too far last night, overtaken by a moment of irrationality and comfortable behavioural patterns, but he could hardly apologise to Potter. He also could not face him later that morning.

He slammed the coffee cup on the worktable.

It was hardly all his fault, the boy had been perfectly fine in the morning, the hearing had gone well, and the next thing Severus knew, Black was brandishing a wand at him, accusing him of messing with the boy’s brain. And after a self-centred spew of nonsense, the spoiled brat reacted like that when Severus called him out on it. He wanted Severus to believe he now suddenly cared that much what Snape thought of him? He’d been saying sh*te at him for four years and the boy had been happily shrugging it off, not shy at all in replying in kind.

He could not spend a whole morning looking into those eyes. He had other things to do besides... time-sensitive potions and whatnot. Jobberknoll feathers had arrived two days ago, and it was about time he started on the Veritaserum, which the Dark Lord had requested weeks ago.

He wasn't about to give the madman the full-strength batch from his private stock. By stirring clockwise instead of anticlockwise, he could dampen the potion's effect just enough for a member of the Order to resist it. Brewing the truth potion was a long and tedious task, requiring most of the day to prepare and then a lunar cycle to simmer. Friday was the perfect day to start the process.

He scratched a note cancelling the day’s lesson and Flooed to Hogwarts for an owl. He really should get a blasted animal of his own.

Severus woke up on Saturday trying to come up with a new urgent errand or commission that would have to push all other engagements to another day. When he started contemplating a trip to Greece to gather ancient Aloe to improve on the Prostate Potion, he let out a loud exhale and went to Hogwarts to prepare for the Occlumency lesson. The memory of Harry’s dulled expression had been yanking at his insides for too long; Severus admitted to himself he needed to see the boy again if only to superimpose any other facial expression to that.

He found a well-threaded path in his mind that pictured the boy stomping into the office with a conceited smirk, chin high, fingers artfully ruffling his hair and greeting Severus with a challenge, like nothing had happened.

He could not imagine any other scenario, he didn’t have any other data to conjure one. He had a fifteen-year old who had watched two people die, who had actively fought for two other people not to die, one of them an even younger child, and had withstood the Cruciatus twice.

What he had was an insolent brat, short-tempered and impulsive, not particularly excelling in any subject but bright enough to survive a madman hellbent on killing him, and who had a keen sense of where trouble was and headed straight towards it. In that, Severus included getting up in the middle of the night and thoughtlessly rushing to his hateful professor’s bedside to prepare healing potions and not leave despite being repeatedly told to do so.

Severus couldn't predict what awaited him when the fireplace flared green and flushed out Harry Potter, three minutes late. He sat back in his chair, Occluded all his emotions and watched the boy dust off his slovenly oversized T-shirt and trousers before stepping forward, wary. His whole demeanour betrayed how the boy was carefully approaching a wild beast.

He came to stand by his usual chair but did not sit, his eyes skirting around the room but never meeting Severus’ own, his usually fidgety hands were held motionless and carefully open by his sides, his shoulders tense around his ears.

Nonetheless he was the first to speak, the courage of a Gryffindor even in the face of an orc.

“Good morning, sir.” His tone neutral, not sullen like the first few lessons, or vivacious as the most recent times.

Severus exhaled silently from his nose and made his voice as level as Potter’s.

“Sit. I will allow you an hour to read chapter seven of the textbook, since I doubt you found the time with… all the excitement.”

The boy’s jaw twitched, his eyes flicking up for a brief second before settling somewhere between Severus's chin and the portrait behind him.

“I did do the reading, sir. This morning.” From that, Severus gathered it hadn’t been a productive night sleep-wise.

“You may complete your Potions assignment-”

“I've finished that already, sir.”

Severus would have reprimanded him for the interruption but the continued use of sir in such a dull voice was becoming unnerving. He hadn’t thought Potter capable of speaking so politely for so long.

“The Charms and Transfiguration homework, then.” Severus kept desperation tucked safely under his mental shield. He knew the boy had completed Herbology two days prior; Severus had been pants at Transfiguration all his life, and it hadn’t been Lily’s strong suit either, but he rather thought he could manage Fifth year theory if the boy needed help with his essay. He could get a House-elf to pick up the books from the library.

“I left my drafts and notes at Grimmauld Place,” Potter said carefully, tenser. He probably worried Severus would make him re-start from scratch. He’d been known to be that petty. In other circ*mstances he would have, but the boy wasn’t there for detention. What other subjects were there? Could he get away with asking about Astronomy?

Clutching at thin air, Snape. Was it as embarrassingly obvious to the boy as it felt to him?

“Duelling might be a sensible warm-up before today’s lesson.”

“I’d rather not, sir,” Harry muttered, and it sounded dejected. “Let’s just get on with it.”

Right . Severus stood while trying to regain mental balance. The boy copied him immediately, wand in hand, braced for the gallows. It made Severus’ teeth clench at the insisted show of martyrdom. He’d offered him several opportunities to delay this, he’d been prepared to offer them one after the other until lunchtime came round and he could plausibly send the boy home. He had been the one to turn them all down, blasted ungrateful brat.

He could quiz him on the chapters he had supposedly read, but Potter was right. Better get on with it.

“Clear your mind, focus on constructing your shield,” Severus murmured.

He observed the boy blink slowly, an air of grim determination about him, purple shadows under his eyes and a steady hand gripping his wand. Harry gave a terse nod and Severus hesitated for the count of two heartbeats.

His mind whirled in overdrive, analytically presenting flashes of snapshots of the boy, since his arrival at Headquarters, moments that had resonated as not right with Severus but which he had viciously ignored.

Not right, not right , a tiny, tinny voice in his mind had been chanting when he marched out of Harry's room at Grimmauld Place. He’d dismissed it as guilt over needlessly biting the boy's head off, but now it was louder; echoing at the sight of the boy’s threadbare clothes, muggle jeans cinched tight with a belt, brown duct tape plastered on the top of his right shoe; Tonks’ voice, there was something off in that house.

Severus had refused to see how all of this piled up, but as he counted down and articulated the Legilimency spell, the need to assuage such a doubt, despite how ridiculous it sounded, burned in his mind, leaving no time to ponder the ethics of his next action.

He hadn’t consciously decided he was going to dig deeper, hadn’t allowed himself to question the necessity or the ethical implications of it. It might just be Severus’ paranoia and own projected trauma. Merlin knew he had enough of it to spread like an infection, and he’d been doing a marvellous job of it too.

The moment he found himself hovering directionless in the web of the boy’s mind, he zeroed in on memories of ‘home’.

The mind was a web, as he’d tried to explain to Potter once, construed by analogies, associations, contrasts. Every image, every concept, every experience, all linked together in a boiling pot where the single compounds didn’t mix but gravitated together in a scalar hierarchy of similarity. Being a Legilimens was like being an astronaut, Apparating in the middle of a universe, with memory-planets and emotional moons, and visible threads tying everything together even as it moved, ever-changing and ever-expanding, with its own black holes and bright concept-stars. Severus followed the thread of ‘home’ which brought him to the centre of a vortex of Hogwarts memories, walking into the Great Hall, mesmerised by the enchanted ceiling, playing chess in the red and gold common room, laughing as Ron messed up his spell, flying, zooming after a shiny golden ball. Confused and ignoring Harry’s attempts at diversion and blocking, Severus looked for ‘family’ associations, finding a whole system of friends, Weasley family, redheads laughing around a table, Sirius Black greeting him after shouting at a painting, Black, ‘you could come live with me, if you wanted’. And not once in any of that did he catch a glimpse of Potter’s childhood, fond memories of his aunt and uncle.

Wise now to his intentions, the boy renewed his efforts to push him out, but Severus brushed them off, moving horizontally along a visible thread of contrast. What is the opposite of home and family to Harry Potter?

A small boy climbing a tree terrified of a snarling dog, three adults laughing at him from the lawn, mowing that lawn, hot sun searing the nape of his neck, his thirst developing as a headache pounding hotter at his temples, a toddler, his face covered in snot and tears, so alone in the middle of a pristine kitchen, Harry pushed at him, managing to pull the memory like a rug under Severus’ feet, but he was unfocused, angry, desperate and tired. With too little sleep, his barriers were feeble, his concentration scattered. Severus had warned him to sleep more.

A dark place, oppressive, it’s pitch dark but he knows it’s small, because if he uncurls he’ll bang his head or his hand or his foot against the wall and he’ll make a noise, which his Uncle said absolutely not to do. Hunger gnaws at his stomach like a live beast, but smoothing his thumb over the plastic figurine feels nice. Even if it’s broken, he can still imagine a story about the soldier bravely defending the common people, getting hurt while saving children captured by the villain.

Pulling farther away for a greater overview, Severus found a stream of similar memories, a dark place… a wardrobe? A cupboard. Hunger, a cat-flap, bars on windows and the sound of a key locking the boy in a room, ‘ we’re going out’ . A loose floorboard with a hidden stash of treasures .

Severus wasn’t aware he had re-entered his own mind until he blinked and he was staring at the physical boy, older, flushed and with dark hair plastered to his forehead, quivering with exertion and the roughness of his gasps.

“What was that?” Severus uttered, his throat somehow making the correct sounds.

“What was what?” The boy challenged without missing a beat. Anger twisted his mouth.

Anger was an easy emotion to recognise; it was versatile, as Severus very well knew. It protected from shame, fear and grief.

Harry’s chin came up in arrogant defiance and for the blink of an eye he was James Potter, daring him to tell the whole school about their feral little secret and go against Dumbledore’s request, break the Life Debt he owned him.

There was no point in discussing anything with Potter when all he had to do was perform Occlumency again.

“ Legilimens !”

“ Protego !”

Severus’ mind was defenceless against the unexpected rebounding spell which flipped the wand out of his hand; he watched almost uncomprehendingly as his own childhood memories flashed before him, innocuous if uncomfortable. The worst of it were silvery wisps floating behind him in the Pensieve.

He recovered quickly from the surprise attack, congratulating himself on the foresight of using that failsafe, paranoid as it had seemed at the start of it all. He stomped down on the flow of memories and threw up a barrier thick enough to eject the boy from his mind.

“Well, Potter…” Severus swallowed, tasting bile for some reason. The boy stared at him wary and confused, probably not having expected the reverse-Legilimency either. “While hardly a useful technique in the sort of attack the Dark Lord might launch, it certainly proved… effective,” Severus articulated slowly. He took his chance and put an end to their shared hell. “That will be all for today.”

Harry left without a word.

Severus stared after him, his mind reeling with images he had not wanted to see.

He had all the facts, hard evidence and no matter how he twisted it in his mind, he could not convince himself he didn’t have the whole context, or that it was an isolated incident.

He could say it wasn’t as bad as it could be, all he’d seen was neglect and emotional abuse at worst. Severus had been neglected by his mother and beaten by his father, and he knew which one he hoped to find in the house, alone, when he went back every summer. He also knew he wouldn’t have gone back at all if he’d had anywhere else to go.

His teeth were chattering.

Shaking, he fell into the washroom and gripped the sink, squeezing his eyes. He tried to contain, ward off, suppress the knowledge that the boy’s family life was not happy.

Severus opened his eyes to find his ugly mug staring right back in the bathroom mirror. Blotchy red skin and eyes blown wide; he saw the deep lines around his mouth, in the space between his eyes. He was a man closer to middle-age than not, almost twice the age James Potter had been when he’d died. Those years suddenly weighed like a boulder, time Severus had stolen from his bully, from her, with the result of shutting their son in a house with despicable people.

He didn’t know everything, he reasoned. He didn’t have all the facts.

It could be aloof disdain permeating the Dursley household. There were worse things than living with three people who sneered down at him and ignored his existence, locking him occasionally in a cupboard as punishment.

It could be worse. There could be memories he hadn’t seen in full, context he hadn’t seen, more traumatic events that the mind had buried deeper, away from the conscious level Severus had limited himself to.

It could be worse, sounded like a threat. Terrifying in its duplicity.

Severus did not know what to do.

He went into the kitchenette and his hands moved about making tea.

The real problem was, he hadn’t had the chance to get more information, which would have tipped the scale one way or the other.

It could be worse could be prickly condescending reassurance if all he’d witnessed was being put in time-out, being assigned responsible chores and being a picky eater. Severus had endured seventeen years of belt beatings and curses spit in his face, the boy in comparison was almost an adult, he could withstand two more summers, four months total, with a harsh but overall disinterested family.

It could be worse could also be the ominous promise which hid a whole host of abusive episodes, from which Severus shied away because-

Because Harry Potter was the scion of one of the Sacred Twenty-Eight goddamn families of Wizarding Britain, a literal hero to the masses since he was twelve months old, with Albus Dumbledore as his magical legal guardian.

Because he was Lily’s child, and his relatives had taken him in. Petunia, despite her annoying and sour character, had accepted to raise the boy.

Hadn’t she?

The Evans sisters had been inseparable before Hogwarts, and Lily wrote Tuney for years afterwards, despite Petunia undergoing a complete change of personality after their first year. She called Lily freak and made her cry; summer afternoons Severus spent biting his tongue because any rude, justified comment against Petunia earned him vehement reproach.

He never understood how Lily could defend her so, after being treated like a plague-ridden aberration. When his Slytherin companions disparaged his muggle father and his weak-willed witch mother, to his back of course, he hated it but hardly out of loyalty. He felt ashamed, ripped open with his worst secrets and thoughts exposed. They were right, muggles were hateful. Most of them.

But that was besides the point. Lily could be bloody stubborn when she wanted, so it wasn’t outside reality that she had got through to her arse of a sister at some point. Severus wouldn’t presume to know what relationships between siblings, or even within normal families, were like; but they had been close, before Hogwarts. Did they mend their relationship before the war started, or perhaps just before going into hiding, the high-stakes offering a good excuse for Petunia to come down her high horse without losing face?

They must have, Lily had been so adamant about it. Lily had died. Her house burnt down, her own parents murdered in a raid. All that was left of her was the child, how could Petunia not accept him and care for him?

The child, who was spirited, cheeky, hardly the withdrawn domestic abuse victim Severus knew how to spot among the students.

It hit him, then. He could simply treat Harry Potter like any other student.

He would go to Dumbledore with his concerns, hand off the problem of speaking to the interested party, the family and whatever medical personnel should be involved. He was a spy, after all, this was what he did. He observed, he found out secrets, he reported them to a higher power.

He placed the untouched cup of tea on the kitchen counter and marched to the Headmaster’s office. The guardian gargoyle let him through easily enough, which told him Dumbledore was likely sitting behind his desk, his hands linked in front of him, his eyes twinkling maddeningly behind his spectacles.

Entering the round office felt like stepping into a parallel, unsullied world.

“Sherbet Lemon, Severus?” The man held out the plate of sweets after inviting him to sit.

“I’m here to talk about Harry Potter, Albus,” he said, ignoring the offer.

“Now, my boy,” Dumbledore interjected with a suffering tone. “I know the relationship between the two of you is not an easy one…”

Admittedly, it would have been the correct sequitur to many previous talks about Potter that Severus had brought to this office. He’d begun much the same way many times during the last five years.

“This is not about Occlumency. Or rather, details about his home life surfaced during our lesson today. I thought it best you be informed.” Severus despised chitchat. It was painful, sitting at the High Table every day and having to make small-talk with his old professors. Minerva was the only exception to the rule, because Minerva was Scottish.

“Oh?” Dumbledore said, politely. He sat still and attentive, exuding perfect interest. As Severus recounted the disturbing memories, the lines on the old man’s face deepened, a more serious look dimming his eyes as he looked at Severus gravely.

“What exactly troubles you, Severus?” He asked. Severus’ mouth hung open for too long as he stared at the man, his mentor and second master.

“This is not about me,” he said very slowly, a block of ice weighing down his gut. His eyes narrowed and a wholly unbidden thought came to his lips and out, in the same level tone. “You were already aware of the situation.”

“Not the details, of course, but Harry had mentioned in the past he didn’t much like going back to his relatives in the summer.”

“Not the details,” Severus echoed. “A child tells you they do not wish to go home after nine months away, and you do not question why?”

“He only asked at the end of his first year. A lot had happened, you recall, and I was sure to speak to Petunia. He did not ask again, and I assumed the matter was resolved.” Dumbledore shrugged it off as he had done about Severus refusing the Sherbet Lemon.

“What did you say to Petunia?”

“Really, Severus, it’s been years, and I do not see how any of it concerns you.”

It was downright belittling, how he kept twisting everything back to him, as if Severus were a narcissistic arsehole and not an educator responsible for over three hundred students’ welfare.

“What did Petunia think of Harry going to Hogwarts?” He asked, his tone lowering.

“What should she think of it? Harry belongs here.”

“And the husband? How did he take the news of the boy being a wizard?”

“This feels like an interrogation, my boy,” Dumbledore’s attempt at joviality fell flat.

“You have yet to answer a single one of my queries.”

“I do not answer to you, Severus.” His voice turned dangerous, his eyes flashed with controlled magic. The fact he was refusing to answer was slowly building a mounting panic somewhere deep inside Severus. He Occluded fiercely, inhaled quietly and attempted again.

“The boy is much like his father,” he said, an offhand comment.

“He is,” Dumbledore agreed readily, lying. Severus made a noncommittal noise.

“Despite growing up in a… shall we say, different environment. I assume you had your reasons for choosing it for him.”

“Indeed. As I often tried telling you, Harry grew up away from the spotlight a Wizarding family would have inevitably put him under. He had as normal a childhood as anyone can ask for.”

“Of course. As normal as a magical child raised by non-magical guardians can have.”

“Yes. We all face hardships. It is how we face them that which shapes our being.”

“And Potter’s hardship is living with a family that does not care for magic, is that right?”

Dumbledore inclined his head to the side, allowing an empty beat to fill the room with unsaid.

“They do not like magic, no,” the Headmaster finally admitted. Severus would have liked to feel vindicated in being proven right, except that his father used to ‘not like’ magic either. He would curse at them the muggle way, rip apart the house looking for his mother’s wand when suspecting she had performed magic. Beat it out of them.

“How strong is their dislike ,” he pronounced the word slowly, enunciating the hard consonants, “exactly?” He recognised it mattered nothing at all at this point, but he needed to know. Lily would want to know.

“My boy, a diamond is hard-compressed carbon. A sword is made by hammering metal into shape. Harry Potter is the only one who can save the Wizarding World.” The answer might have seemed thrown-together nonsense, but Severus had sat through enough of Dumbledore’s half-explained schemes to follow along.

“…You truly believe a brash, hot-headed child is going to defeat the Dark Lord?” The idea was preposterous. The madman had murdered Potter’s parents and used his blood to come back to life, what more could link him to the boy?

“If pushed in the right direction…”

“Pushed how? Trained in combat? He is fifteen.” He is Lily’s child.

“I dare say he will surprise us all.”

Severus lost the very tenuous grip he had on his temper.

“Albus, for f*ck’s sake, is that why you told me not to interfere in the Triwizard Tournament?” He had to dig his nails into the armrests to keep himself seated and not explode, as his own words registered and the truth of it tore a light in his mind. “You were happy he was chosen, weren’t you? A full year of deathly riddles and trials to train your child-saviour!”

“I had nothing to do with that, you know it full well,” the Headmaster’s tone lowered again to that grave octave which made the air around him quiver with power, if he willed it.

“Do I?” He had hired a Death Eater. Not even his first, considering Severus was right there. “And the chamber of secrets? The philosopher’s stone? ”

“The stone was a test, yes. I wanted to test his mettle, make sure he had the right, pure mind to defeat Voldemort.” Severus could not help himself, as tense as he was, he could not hide the flinch at that name; he grit his teeth looking at the grandfatherly man. Dumbledore knew the effect of that word and did it on purpose.

“And the Dursleys?” He asked quietly, picking the name out of Harry’s memories as he’d never actually bothered to check on them, inquire after Petunia’s unfortunate life-partner, not even scout the neighbourhood Lily’s child was living in to make sure he hadn’t been stuck in a grimy town in the decaying middle of nowhere.

“I do not know what you mean, Severus.”

He wasn’t going to get anything out of him. Severus’ skin itched as he made one last attempt with a sigh.

“I am telling you, then, something is not right there.” He said it sure that it mattered nothing at all. “What is more, as I mentioned to you already in writing, he has not talked to anyone about last year’s events. His mind is frazzled, the trauma of fighting for his life and watching a classmate be murdered on top of it, is making him unstable. Something has to be done about it.”

“What makes you think I have done nothing about it?” Dumbledore lowered his chin, hiding a smile behind his hands. The twinkling look he gave Severus was more than knowing. It was self-satisfied. “Harry is going to be fine, my boy. I’m sure of it.”

Chapter 13: Severus

Chapter Text

Severus

Sunday 15^th August, Spinner’s End, co*keworth

Severus sent another note to postpone Sunday’s lesson, citing unavoidable personal business. It was all bullsh*te, of course. Severus Snape was being a coward and the self-loathing that inspired left him balancing on a hair’s breadth from either punching a wall or hurling himself into the nearest pub and not come out for a few days. The latter alternative terrified him. The third option was to actually confront the boy, but in his present state of unreasonable, haywire anger, neither teaching Occlumency nor interacting with a breathing human with whom he was already on shaky ground would have a positive outcome.

Severus shut himself in his laboratory in his decrepit grimy house, which had never been his home and yet still was the only other place he’d ever lived in besides Hogwarts.

He made mind-numbingly simple potions, restocking an already perfectly well-stocked Hospital Wing, and tried emptying his mind.

He was still overtaken with sudden urges to punch walls repeatedly until his knuckles shattered, or pop by the frankly too nearby market and pick up a bottle or two of whiskey. Rum, vodka, he wasn’t particular. He’d never been drunk again since that night at twenty-one, stupid and drowning in grief. He had never touched alcohol before then, and in a moment of pure, unaddled teenage stupidity, rivalled only by the night he’d agreed to the Dark Mark, he thought getting drunk would help with the suffocating pain.

Severus, like his father, was an angry drunk. He’d shouted, he’d shattered glass and plates, he’d got into a muggle pub brawl, he’d blacked out and the next day was somehow even worse than the day before, because she was still dead, it was still his fault, and his body’s aches matched his mental agony. He never managed to take more than two sips of alcohol after that, and only if the social situation put him on the spot.

This sudden blindingly stupid need which Severus refused to meet soured by midday, turning into hate.

He hated Harry Potter. The boy managed to destroy his life only by existing. The moment he was born, he had condemned Lily, he had forced Severus into an Unbreakable Vow to yet another master, and now this. Forcing this guilt and bile and simmering hate onto Severus, when all he had wanted to do was atone for his sins. Bloody Harry Potter was making it f*cking hard.

Sunday was a day of swinging from outward hate to inward hate, with the occasional, sublime moment of both kinds balancing perfectly and coexisting well enough that Severus did end punching a wall. It was either that or running down the street, and the bloody supermarket was the open twenty-four seven kind.

He did not spell his hand to heal. He left it that way, all through the night, until he awoke with a heavy head and throbbing, purple knuckles which he had to magically mend in order to be able to make coffee.

*********

He Flooed to Hogwarts half an hour early on Monday, extracted the usual memories to safe-keep in the Pensieve, then went to prepare tea.

Severus was a Slytherin, and he’d been evidently spending too much time in a Gryffindor’s mind because all the options he’d considered for the past forty-eight hours were to dramatically swoop in and physically intervene in the Dursley situation, or do nothing and feel righteously guilty about it.

There was, however, the third option.

Severus carefully set the teapot to the side of the desk, and two cups, with biscuits on a plate, and settled back to wait.

He could not ignore what he knew, but he did not have to make a production out of it. He could just… wait it out. He could get the boy himself to tell Severus what he wanted to do about his relatives. Severus would listen, which was more than any adult had ever done for him when he was younger. He would suggest solutions, if the boy asked. He could help from the sidelines.

The Floo released a flush of cinder and a teenager, at eight o’clock. Potter was, for once in his life, on time. The brat.

“Mr Potter,” Severus greeted from his seat, shoulders leaning back on the backrest, his tone perfectly neutral.

“Hullo, sir.”

Severus raised a curious eyebrow as he watched the boy almost stomp his way to his usual chair, a school bag sliding to the floor beside him, and a deep scowl pushing his mouth into a pout.

Biting his tongue against a reprimand on posture, Severus inhaled silently and cleared his throat to prepare himself to be approachable. He could listen if the boy had troubles he needed to share. Getting him to talk about his nightmares would be a good start.

“Is something the matter, Potter?” Merlin’s balls, he couldn’t seem to lose his sneer.

“Nothing, sir.” The boy muttered sullenly, sat up straighter of his own volition, as if to signal he was ready to begin.

“Tea?” Severus said instead, lifting the pot and pouring for both of them, adding milk, and sugar for the boy.

“Er, OK.” The boy shot him a worried look and picked up his cup. He waited for Severus to take the first sip before following suit.

“You seem preoccupied,” Severus commented. “Care to share?”

“It’s nothing. Sir,” the boy bit out. Severus Occluded, stifling his crawling frustration under the pool.

“Talking about it might help clear your emotions. As I’ve told you, our time here is useless if you do not make an effort at removing all distractions from your mind.”

The boy’s leg started bobbing up and down but he didn’t look nervous. Severus held the silence well, sipping his tea.

“It’s just the Daily Prophet, sir,” Potter let out, sounding as frustrated as Severus was, albeit probably for completely different reasons. He made a noncommittal noise to encourage the boy keep going. “It’s just been saying bullsh- I mean, utter nonsense about me. All throughout the summer.” The rant sounded different from the one Severus had witnessed in his bedroom at Headquarters. It was more controlled, wary even. It sounded like a test.

“The Prophet has always been a collection of creative writing exercises done by Fifth graders with the journalism ethics of a tabloid, Potter, I do not see why you would read such a rag.”

The boy met his eye with an even deeper scowl.

“You read it too, sir,” he accused, with a bit too much fire. “You quoted it last year.”

He knew what he was referring to. Rita Skeeter’s article on the four Triwizard competitors, Severus remembered it well because it had been worse than reading first-years’ potions essays. Worse than reading Gregory Goyle’s, which set a new holistic record. But the Slytherins had been referencing it all day, and Minerva had been tutting at the paper through breakfast, charming all the copies brought into the staff room to rip themselves up; he could hardly have remained ignorant. Reading it first-hand was surely better form than relying on hearsay.

“I hardly believed those tears to be genuine grief,” he retorted, piqued despite himself. He’d easily seen through the act and Skeeter’s embellishment. The boy had clearly been aiming to restock his fanbase playing the sensitive-hero card, a necessary facade given how horrendously he’d been doing on the sympathy front, after the Champions’ names were announced. Severus could laud the Slytherin angle, if nothing else.

“What do you… you thought I put on a show? For Rita Skeeter!”

“You did not?”

“No! There were never any tears to begin with!” Severus looked at him and was surprised to realise that he believed him, because he knew what Potter looked like when he lied. To protect someone else, when he thought he was in the right, Potter was defiant, his chin rising while red tinged his cheeks. His eyes lowered, stuttering answers, when he was in the wrong. The true outrage soothed Severus from reprimanding him for the tone.

“Very well, then.” That had been a good conversation for one day. “Shall we begin?”

Harry hesitated a moment before nodding. He clambered to his feet and pulled out his wand. Someone really should get the boy a wand-holster.

“Clear your mind. Take five minutes to empty it,” Severus said, for what felt like the hundredth time. “Think of flying,” he added, a sour taste in his mind. Potter closed his eyes.

They were about to begin when Severus' forearm burned. He hissed, his right hand immediately grasping his left. Their eyes met, and clear as if he’d performed Legilimency, he saw worried anxiousness, and that, for some unfathomable reason, spiked Severus' fear.

f*cking Dark Lord, why would he be up at eight in the goddamn morning?

He momentarily forgot about Potter in his haste to slam back his Occlumency barriers after lowering them for the lesson while at the same time trying to parse the reason for the Summons.

He stalked to the fireplace before turning back, to green eyes wide and fixed on him.

“Go back, we’ll resume tomorrow,” he said, his voice level and remote from the thickness of his shields, which did nothing to pull his heart back down his throat.

Severus had to Floo to his house to grab his mask, if nothing else, and then be able to activate the Protean Charm.

In the back of his mind, he could not stop reviewing all worse-case scenarios. There was always the chance, after all, that he’d arrive to see Lucius or Nott whispering in the Dark Lord’s ear: traitor; his Occlumency could slip, all it would take would be the fraction of a second, and He would know everything. Or he could arrive to find the boy had been captured, broken and bleeding on the floor, the snake coiled around him…

But that was impossible. Harry was safe, at Hogwarts, headed to Grimmauld Place. Dumbledore himself was Secret Keeper there, he could not be touched.

He knelt with all the other ridiculously masked Death Eaters. The Dark Lord skipped up and down the semi-circle, crowing.

“Finally, my friendsss. Today we celebrate anew,” he said once they were all there. Severus swallowed, horror creeping like ice up his lungs. “Our long lost comrades, my most loyal followers, have rejoined us.” He spread his arms as if embracing them all, and from a side door, needlessly dramatic, Bellatrix Lestrange cackled in, and her revolting husband, followed by Rookwood and the sad*stic twins, and others who came to fill in the empty spaces of the Inner Circle. They looked like Sirius Black had two years previous, skeletal and unkept and mad.

The raid on Azkaban had happened, and the Dark Lord had not involved him. He had kept Lucius Malfoy in the dark too, if his tensing beside him was any indicator, but that knowledge was small comfort.

Bella danced in front of them, screeching insults of the ‘unloyal-unworthy’ variety, and Severus clenched his jaw; his job had just become that much harder.

The Dark Lord was happy to let Bella unwind by performing the Cruciatus on two terrified muggles, brought in especially as a gift for the newcomers.

The show was disturbing enough without the cheers, and obligatory running commentary around him. Severus did not shut his eyes as Bella finally, finally killed them, but once the rest of them were free to go, he left Riddle House exhausted and got blinded by the light of midday.

It was only f*cking noon.

He did not rush despite the urgent need thrumming in his veins, exchanging pleasantries with fellow Death Eaters and congratulating Nott on his part in the jailbreak. He Occluded, carefully not thinking about having to tell Dumbledore, immediately.

He did not rush to the Apparition point, he walked leisurely, nodding in acknowledgment as he went, and then Disapparated to the alleyway next to his house.

He walked in, threw his mask to the ground and changed his robes which stank of Dark magic.

On automatic, he stepped into the Floo to his office, too late thinking he could have simply Firecalled Dumbledore or sent a Patronus. He would use the walk up to the Headmaster’s tower to assemble a coherent report on the Azkaban escape.

When he was transported to his office at Hogwarts, he saw Potter with his head dunked into the Pensieve.

Severus' breath stuttered; he was across the room, wrenching the boy out of the fifth-year memory by his arm and throwing him as far away as he could.

The boy stumbled and fell and Severus towered over him.

He couldn’t think straight, he was aware of that much, but the idea that Potter had seen- that he had witnessed- that he knew exactly what his father and his cowardly friends did- he could laugh about it with his friends, they would share the funny episode of James Potter having a lark at the expense of poor, misfit Snivellus, and they would laugh-

“If you utter a single thing of what you saw-” Severus’ voice was choked with anger, he was shaking with it.

“No, of course I w-”

“Out! Get out!” Severus bellowed, before he changed his mind, before he pulled the boy up by the scruff of his neck and physically threw him out, or made him feel how funny it was, to be suspended in mid-air, laughed at by everyone, and Lily- “Never come back here again! Get out!” the boy scrambled away. Severus threw the first thing his hand touched, panting with the vehemence with which he hurled it at the fireplace as the boy disappeared, his nerves searing at the sound of shattering glass.

He was done.

He slammed the door to his office as his feet marched towards Dumbledore’s office. He was done.

Chapter 14: Harry

Chapter Text

Harry

Tuesday, 17th August, Order HQ, London

Harry chewed on toast that tasted like cardboard. He could stomach only two bites before setting it down and finishing his tea. Beside him, Ron was trying to sync spooning eggs in his mouth in time with his chewing of sausages. Harry had happily let him nick his own eggs, but now watching his friend eat was making him ill.

“Oh, Harry!” Hermione exclaimed, coming into the kitchen and taking a seat in front of them. “Has Professor Snape cancelled today’s lesson as well?” She asked, a perfectly reasonable assumption to make, seen how inconsistent Snape had been this last week. For a moment Harry thought about lying. Well, not really lying, more like saying a half-truth. Replying to the question, as he’d done when Mrs Weasley had asked that morning, and again when Ron came down for breakfast to find him still there instead of getting his head poked at by Snape. Harry took another bite of toast to buy time.

He decided he could not face this sequence of interrogation again tomorrow, when he yet again did not leave for Occlumency lessons.

“I don’t think he’ll be teaching me further,” he mumbled then. Mrs Weasley tuned into their conversation with a frown and Ron gulped down the breakfast plate he’d managed to fit in his mouth and made a choked, questioning sound.

Harry carefully finished his slice of toast, feeling full enough to last until dinner.

“What do you mean?” Hermione asked, after it was clear he didn’t have any intention of adding information.

“Well, Professor Snape thinks I’ve learned enough now to carry on by myself.”

“How do you mean?” She insisted.

“Who bloody cares-”

“Language, Ron!”

“Sorry Mum. Who cares about how, Hermione, he’s free of the git. I mean,” Ron shot a glance at his mother’s reprimanding posture and amended, “I mean, you’re free to have two weeks of actual summer.”

“It’s just- He reckons I know enough to practise on my own.” Harry shrugged in Hermione’s direction, purposefully being vague due to the adult in the room.

“That makes sense. The new term will begin soon, and you’ll probably receive plenty of chances to practise at school,” Mrs Weasley said, before turning back to tutting at the Prophet.

Harry had never been more relieved about the absurd cover story about DADA tutoring the resident Order members had been fed. To the adults, the fact that he'd ceased to receive remedial Defence training wouldn't seem as significant as abruptly ending his attempts to prevent Voldemort from possessing him, or whatever.

Thankfully, his friends didn’t ask anything else with her there, but he dreaded the moment Hermione would bring it up again. Apart from it being a perfect fuse for another row between her and Ron, Harry didn’t like lying to them, and he also did not like thinking about the truth.

He felt bile coming up with compounded guilt, both for f*cking up with Snape and for witnessing what he had.

It had been stupid of him, he would admit that. The Pensieve had also been right there, possibly containing all the answers to the mind-boggling questions Snape’s weird behaviour had brought on. Talks over cuppas, silent yet non-judgy stares which seemed to dig into Harry’s brain more efficiently than even Legilimency did… Snape had not by any means become an approachable adult, but there had been something… off. Something had happened, and Harry had needed to know.

He got more than he’d bargained for, obviously.

He regretted it. He should have got out as soon as he realised what he was seeing, but by that point he’d been too entranced by watching more of his parents, and then…

Now his thoughts were in an entangled jumble of confusion.

He simply couldn’t believe that his father had acted like that, that Snape had been right all along in calling him an arrogant prick. And Sirius had been there beside him, egging him on. He shook his head, not to simply dislodge the image from his brain, but to erase it.

James Potter had been a wonderful person, mischievous yes, but not a bully. The Marauders had played pranks, but everyone at Hogwarts had agreed they’d been just like the Weasley Twins, harmless chaos. McGonagall and Hagrid… everyone but Snape had always said so.

He played with his empty cup of tea as he waited for Ron and Hermione to finish breakfast but heavy skipping steps coming down the stairs filled him with dread.

“Harry!” Sirius greeted as if conjured by his dark thoughts. Harry was braced for the friendly pat on the back, but it still made him stiffen.

He forced a smile as the others chorused their own greeting.

“Not keeping old Sni-Snape waiting, are you? Just say the word, mate. I don't care if he's our only spy against Voldemort, I'll duff him up if he threatens to turn you into pickled potion ingredients.” Sirius grinned, taking his seat at the head of the table. His words stabbed at Harry despite their joking tone.

“I’m finished with my extra lessons it seems,” Harry replied, his tone light. The weight in his chest grew heavier as he listened to Sirius grin and chat with Ron about Buckbeak.

“We can make use of an extra set of hands in the mornings!” Mrs Weasley said. “We’ll clean out the Music Room today. You three finish up and join me there, alright? I’ll go wake the twins and Ginny in the meantime.”

Ron groaned and even Hermione lifted her eyes to the ceiling, while Sirius adopted an apologetic expression either over the impossibility of rescuing them from the Weasley matriarch or over the fact that the out-of-season spring cleaning was due to his house being a horror-show.

“Er, can I have a moment with you?” Harry asked, speaking to his Godfather. “There’s something I need to ask you.” He tried not to sound ominous, and by the way Sirius’ eyes lit up, he succeeded.

His friends caught the hint and excused themselves to go up, which left him alone with his father’s best friend. Harry wanted to fix Sirius with a grave look, he wanted him to take this seriously because he knew the moment he’d mention Snape, he’d be brushed off.

But he needed to know why, even if he couldn’t mention the details. He supposed he could tell Sirius what exactly had happened, keeping vague the reason for a Pensieve in Snape's dungeons... but it felt disloyal to Snape, reminding someone else of that horrible day. Harry felt ashamed, as if he were somehow responsible for his father’s actions, a dead man he’d never even met.

“Well? What is it, kiddo?” Sirius saw the uncertain air about him, and leaned forward to catch his gaze. Harry’s eyes went back to stare at the teacup between his hands.

“I just… wanted to talk about my dad,” he said.

“Sure. Anything in particular?” He asked, relaxed.

“Did he ever, er… pick on other kids?”

Sirius frowned in confusion. “No, of course not,” he said immediately. “We might have played a few pranks, but it was all in good fun.”

“What about Snape? Did he… I mean,” he realised he really couldn’t ask about it without details. Damn it.

“Snape? What did Snivellus say to you? Because I can assure you, he was always jealous-”

Harry huffed loudly. “No, it was just… something I heard. About how after the OWLs exam, my father hexed Snape to hang upside-down in front of everyone,” Harry alternated between mumbling and having to control his voice from anger. Anger won over second-hand shame when Sirius chuckled.

“Levicorpus, I’d forgotten about that.” Sirius’ grin spread wider as his eyes unfocused, remembering.

“Yeah,” Harry said, tartly. “He hit Snape with that, and he hadn’t been doing anything.” ‘It’s more the fact that he exists’, James had said.

“I don’t think Snivelly had done nothing to deserve it. But he and James had a bit of a feud going on. Hate at first sight, you might say. And Snape gave as good as he got, I can tell you. Although James was always the better duelist, everyone in school knew that.”

“It doesn’t make it right…”

“No, of course not.” Sirius’ eyes widened, finally noticing Harry’s mood. “We were fifteen and idiots.”

“I’m fifteen!”

“Yeah, but look, Snape was envious OK? He was an oddball with no friends, always running behind crowds of Death Eater wannabes, and James was the popular one. He had good grades, he was great at Quidditch, and, most of all, he despised the Dark Arts. Because he was a good person, Harry, yeah?” Sirius saw from his expression he hadn’t fully convinced him. “Look,” he added, “your father was my best friend, and he always fought for what was right. We were young, and sometimes we could be little berks, but we grew out of it.”

“Yeah, OK,” Harry said heavily. Everyone made mistakes, he supposed. It sure would have been nice if they had all managed to clear the air before graduating and dying, though. He doubted James had ever apologised to Snape, seen as the man was still holding a grudge the size of Stonehenge and dumping it on Harry’s head.

He just couldn’t shake off the dirty feeling he’d got by standing there among all those other laughing students, and watching it all happen without being able to help.

At least his mother had stepped in, she had been a decent human being. Although her defence brought him little pride. The small twitch on her expression told him she’d found it funny too. She had clearly never experienced bullying either, to think picking on someone, strong with a whole group of people behind you, was amusing in any way.

Harry was poor company the rest of the day. He tried to lift his mood by pushing the memory back in his mind, Occluding, thinking of nothing at all, but he was so overwrought with feelings about it, he couldn’t. It didn’t help that he couldn’t share it with his friends either. He wanted reassurances that they also thought it was wrong. Not that he thought Ron or Hermione would ever do anything like that, but it would have been better if he could just tell them the truth. Avoid Hermione’s nagging about the pain in his scar and Ron’s comments on how grand it was that Snape was probably never going to look at him again. Never mind giving him a passing grade on anything this coming semester.

By that evening, he felt exhausted and not at all sleepy. Ron was snoring by eleven, which made Harry’s attempt at falling asleep drop drastically to the realm of impossible. With a sigh, he went to the small desk in the corner and turned on the lamp, confident in Ron’s ability to sleep until noon even with the sun shining right into his eyes and hippogriffs inciting a revolt.

Dear Professor Snape

He wrote, and immediately crossed it out, wishing there was a way for him to address a letter of apology without using the word dear so close to Snape. Shaking his head, he wrote again dear Professor Snape and then set the quill down so it wouldn’t smudge the page while he figured out what to say.

I apologise for what I did the other day. It was a gross violation of your privacy and trust, and I’m sorry.

He didn’t know how to word his repulsion for his father’s actions, or for how sorry he was for looking into the damn thing. He’d been feeling confused, thinking about the thin boy he’d seen the previous time, and so mad that Snape had purposefully looked for his most humiliating memories in retribution. He’d all but stripped Harry of all his own secrets and he’d been so angry… he’d let curiosity convince him it was only right he knew what his professor was hiding.

He scratched everything out and began again.

Dear Professor Snape,

I sincerely apologise for what I did on Saturday. It was a gross violation of privacy, and I regret it deeply. I cannot justify my actions, nor do I find at all funny what my father did. He was completely out of line.

Why had he f*cking looked into the Pensieve? He’d been curious, of course, but he’d been left alone in that bloody uncomfortable office other times too, and he’d managed to resist.

So Snape had said a few oddly thoughtful things to him, and he’d become slightly more agreeable during their lessons, yet Harry managed to send it all to hell with one spur-of-the-moment lapse in judgement.

The crux of the matter was, he was still curious because he still didn’t understand. In Snape’s head when Harry had rebounded the Legilimency, he’d seen a glimpse of a crying child and an unshaved, towering man, and then a boy huddled in a small, bereft room, looking unhappy and alone. He’d wanted to know… for a moment, Harry had thought the Professor could understand a part of him that he hadn’t let anyone else discover. Snape had seen all those mortifying personal things at the Dursleys’, after all, he’d known about stuff no one else in the world knew. Ron and Hermione were his best friends, but he would hardly burden them with all the going-ons of his home life.

The image of the laughing students circling around younger Snape’s writhing form came back to him. Harry clenched his jaw and crumbled that draft as well.

It wasn’t alright, he realised. He couldn’t accept Sirius’ unapologetic excuse. Snape had been doing nothing, minding his own business while sitting on a shaded patch of grass, and it had been the Marauders against one. For Merlin’s sake, James had scurgified his mouth, choking him until Lily had intervened. Snape had not done ‘something to deserve it’ nor would he have purposefully pit himself against the Marauders at any point. Harry was familiar with the sort of helpless rage that came when Dudley and his gang harassed him, and he’d have been mental to willingly go look for such an uneven fight. Snape was a Slytherin to boot. Harry could believe the man would retaliate in kind, as Sirius has said, and Slytherins fought underhandedly and unfairly, but never against the odds, that would be the opposite of cunning. At this point, he found it hard to even believe it wasn’t always James spoiling for a confrontation, backed by three other people.

Harry hated thinking he had anything in common with Snape, but his second-hand robes, the crying boy in the dirty room with his parents shouting… it tugged at something inside him.

Snape had also called Lily, the only person who intervened on his behalf, a horrible slur and that wasn’t alright either and it annoyed him to no end because of course Snape would refuse to allow simple categorisation. He had to be a member of the Order but also an ex-Death Eater. He had to insult and berate Harry and then have these utterly bewildering moments when he’d pay attention to him, offer him tea and come to wish him good luck before the hearing despite never actually using so many words.

Snape was bloody maddening, and Harry was angry on his behalf for how James had treated him, even as he knew calling Lily that was also out of line.

He wished he could just knock on his door and explain. He probably wouldn’t allow Harry to get a single word out as things stood, but at least he’d have tried.

Harry smacked his head so hard he cringed and looked over his shoulder as Ron’s snore stopped. He held his breath, waiting. His friend rolled over and sniffled a couple of times before settling back into his rhythm.

Harry mouthed a curse. For no reason at all, his mind chose that moment to replay his escape from Snape’s office, and he remembered that in his haste to get out, he forgot to take the second dose of Blurry Potion. Hopefully that hadn’t been too grave a lapse, making a bad situation worse. The hearing had gone well, there was no reason for the Ministry to still be keeping tabs on him, right?

Harry fell asleep sometime after midnight, only to gasp awake before dawn. The image of Cedric Diggory, struck by a green jet of magic and collapsing to the ground only to turn into James Potter, fifteen and messy haired, was still too vivid behind his eyelids. Blank brown eyes had been the only feature that told Harry it wasn’t his own body he was sobbing over.

He rubbed his eyes, then felt for the shape of his glasses on the bedside table. He didn’t want to go back to sleep.

He ended up at the desk again, pulling the Occlumency textbook over the crossed-out letter draft. He knew lessons were over for good, and yet to himself he could admit he was disappointed. It had been awful and painful work, but he’d almost got the hang of it, he’d thought.

He started reading the Occlumency chapter he would have been assigned, there were only four more to go. He read it, and then tried finishing his Charms essay, but by then it was morning, the twins sauntered into their room without knocking and George threw open the drapes wide while Fred mimicked a spider crawling up Ron’s limp hand.

It was loud and familiar, the second whole day with the Weasleys. They laughed and they played Exploding Snap, Harry smiled and spoke at the right times, but by the end of the day his whole body was buzzing with pent up restless energy, which he'd have normally exhausted during Occlumency or even better, duelling. He wouldn’t get to practise spells again until September.

It was strange, thinking that against all odds, they’d lasted almost two weeks.

At night, Harry laid in bed like a mummy until his thoughts started spinning in a downward whirl so fast they made him nauseous.

Boredom was nails racking up his arms and corroding the back of his throat with bile. He slung his legs out of bed, momentarily uncaring if his moving about woke Ron.

Feverishly, with more blood than was necessary pumping into his limbs, he scratched out a new letter. The handwriting was not his best work, barely legible in fact, so he had to write it out a second time.

Dear Professor Snape,

I deeply regret what happened on Saturday and I sincerely apologise for my actions. I cannot explain why I did it, but I know I violated your privacy and I’m sorry.

I want you to know I would never do what my father did, nor do I think any of it was funny. You were right in calling him arrogant.

He thought Snape would like that, Harry admitting he’d been right. He wished he knew how to say more, and that he hoped the professor would forgive him, but he didn’t feel comfortable putting that in writing. He didn’t reserve a lot of hope of Snape changing his mind. The man was a master grudge-holder, he’d managed to hate someone, however justified it was, for fifteen years after that person’ death.

He avoided re-reading the letter because he would simply tear it up again. He signed it, folded it and gave it to Hedwig, hoping she’d be able to find wherever Snape spent his time when not in his office at Hogwarts.

Now with a rush of adrenaline on top of the jitters coursing through his body, he wandered down to the kitchen, reckoning he might as well try seeing if Mrs Weasley had camomile that might get him to shut his eyes.

The house was deadly quiet as he ghosted through the corridors.

He stopped in the doorway of the kitchen, surprised at seeing Lupin hunched over his own hot beverage, the steam warming his drawn cheeks and bringing some colour to them.

“Can’t sleep either?” Remus asked, smiling sadly at him.

“Not really.” Harry went to sit opposite and nodded at the silent offer of tea. Herbal infusion, as he discovered after taking a sip.

“My body feels on pins and needles this close to the full moon. It makes sleeping a difficult endeavour,” Lupin commented, his tone ending on a note that opened the conversation for Harry to pour out his own sleeping troubles. He stayed silent.

“How is Defence tutoring going? It must be a very formative experience for you. Severus is one of the best in the field.” His casual regard for Snape irritated him.

“I don’t think it will be going anywhere,” he admitted, his voice curt. “I messed up.” He was relieved to finally say it.

“How so?” Remus’ question wasn’t curious or eager. It sounded sympathetic.

Harry was suddenly sure Snape would never accept his apology, would probably see the handwriting and throw the letter in the fire without even glancing at the first word, but he needed someone to hear how bad he felt.

“I… I did something I shouldn’t have,” he said. “I snooped into something personal while he was away and he didn’t take it well.”

“Did you apologise?”

“I tried, but he was furious at the time. And I wrote him a letter. Do you think he’ll read it?”

“I don’t know him well enough to speak for him, but I know Severus can be very reserved and values his privacy greatly.”

“Yeah, I know,” Harry muttered. “I just don’t know what to do. I… I didn’t mean to see what I saw. I’m sorry, and I wish I could take it back.”

“It doesn’t work that way, I’m afraid,” Remus said, not unkindly. He took a long sip of his tea, looking deep in thought.

“You know, if telling him doesn’t work, maybe you could show him,” he said.

“Er, what?” Harry asked.

“Severus really enjoys pumpkin spice biscuits. Your mother used to make them all the time.” Harry’s eyebrows rose in surprise. He knew the recipe, Aunt Petunia made them for Uncle Vernon’s birthday every year. With maple glaze, ‘just like my mother used to’ she’d say, placing the biscuits one after the other on Vernon’s plate. The two images, black-clad Snape and sugar-glazed biscuits, coexisted in his mind without being able to fuse in a comprehensible concept.

“Er, biscuits? I should bribe Snape with sweets?” He guessed. Harry wasn’t sure if Lupin was taking the mickey out of him or if the herbal tea contained some other kind of herb he should be wary of. Lupin smiled wolfishly in reply.

So… Snape was a sweet-tooth? The knowledge was staggering.

“How do you know he likes those specifically, though? Did my mother bake them for the whole school or something?”

“Oh no,” Lupin shook his head, then paused. “He never told you?” He asked, hesitantly.

“Told me what?”

“They used to hang out quite a bit. Severus and Lily.”

And wasn’t that the second mind-blower in the space of fifty seconds.

Harry opened his mouth to ask what!? But Lupin looked away, burrowing his face in his mug of steaming tea and re-emerging slightly wide-eyed.

“I really don’t know much else, they had fallen out by the time Lily and James began dating in Seventh Year.”

Harry frowned, having to push down a well of bubbling questions while his mind was left reeling.

He finished his tea, still trying to wrap his brain around the fact that Snape had known his mother and had never said anything about it.

If he truly could not get him to forgive him, he’d never be able to ask.

He went to bed and miraculously slept through the night, getting woken up by Hedwig grooming his hair.

“Hey girl,” Harry yawned, stretched, patted the nightstand for his glasses to put them on. “What do you have for me?” His owl held out her leg. Harry made a face at the familiar envelope. He pulled out the letter, wholly unsurprised at finding his own words slashed in red at various points, a spidery cramped handwriting scathingly taunting him.

I deeply regret what happened on Saturday and I sincerely apologise for my actions when writing a sincere apology, one shouldn’t artfully skirt around the object of remorse with something as vague as 'actions’. If you were truly acknowledging the appalling inappropriateness of what you did, you would spell it out. I cannot explain why I did it colour me surprised you cannot give rational, accounted reasoning for your thoughtless impulsivity and entire disregard for other people, but I know I violated your privacy and I’m sorry this sounds like a truly heartfelt apology, Potter, I’m touched you are able to express such profound remorse for the breach of my privacy, which tells me you have learned nothing at all, nor is your dunderhead milksop-sized brain capable of it.

I want you to know I would never do what my father did, nor do I think any of it was funny elevate the register of this tosh, would you? ‘Amusing’ would have been a suitable synonym which would at least make the sentence sound less likely to be uttered by a five-year-old. You were right in calling him arrogant pitiful and utterly pathetic attempt at flattery, and it hardly does me any good that a senseless, dim boy like you tells me what I already know to be true, nor does it in any way excuse the disrespect and complete disregard of my authority and my person. On the whole, the use of a dictionary would have greatly contributed to the substance of such piece of writing. On the other hand, the lacking evidence of self-reflection and explicit guilt admittance does not bode well for the sincerity of it, despite what it says on the first line.

Biscuit-bribing it was.

Chapter 15: Severus

Chapter Text

Severus

Monday 23rd August, Hogwarts

A knock on the door pulled Severus out of his musings regarding what projects to accept for his NEWT-level curriculum; he accepted only the best, and since the classes were so sparse, he taught Sixth and Seventh Years together, with the lower year assisting older students in chosen brewing experiments, provided he had vetted them first.

Severus furrowed his brow at the door, wondering if Minerva had come to rehash the decision to appoint Draco Malfoy as Prefect. He had plenty of other arguments he could make, and Potter not being given a badge was not a suitable counter-argument. It was the least of basic professional integrity.

He stood up, ready to efficiently shoo away whichever colleague had braved the dungeons after the staff meeting.

He opened the door and found the bloody Boy Who Lived himself, stood there like a knob, a fancily decorated tin cradled in his arms. Severus’s nostril flared as he summoned his iciest glare.

“It’s for you,” the boy thrust the colourful metal container at him before Severus could slam the door closed. “Sir,” he added, making it sound almost like a plea. Severus sneered and didn’t move, forcing the brat to keep his hands extended and weighted down by whatever it was he’d brought.

"What the hell are you doing here, Potter?” He didn’t even care that he cursed. School wasn’t in session, and the brat was lucky Severus' rage had exhausted itself enough to limit him to spitting the question instead of hexing it at him.

“I came through the fireplace in the DADA office because I knew it would still be empty, and I thought it would be better than Flooing directly to your study,” the boy rushed through the words in one breath. Severus was not amused.

“What are you doing here, Potter.”

“Er, well, Remus said the staff meets on the 23rd to discuss lesson plans and prefects and…. Well… I knew you’d be here.”

“Are you thick, boy? Or is this further attempt at mockery?” Severus hissed.

“No! I just-” the boy swallowed; his arms, grown heavy, sunk a little before thrusting out determinedly again. “I wanted to apologise in person.”

Severus sneered more deeply at the façade of innocent honesty.

“You think I would accept anything from you?”

“Please, sir. It’s… it’s biscuits.”

That was... a weird way to preface a prank.

Severus fixed him with a darker glare, but, bloody Gryffindor that he was, the brat wasn’t cowed. Without moving from the unfortunately open threshold, he ripped the tin from the boy’s hands; he opened it, expecting either cheap supermarket tea biscuits or half-death earthworms writhing in jelly.

The scent of cinnamon and nutmeg hit him first, and blood drained from his face as he found himself holding pumpkin biscuits. The very same ones, with the unmistakable beige-coloured glaze, ugly enough to be believably homemade.

Lily.

“What is this, Potter?" he snarled. "Speak, now.” He ignored the boy’s flinch, despising the horrible, cheap glasses polluting those green eyes. His fingers, wrapped around the tin, were white with how tightly he was holding on.

“An apology, sir,” the boy snapped, then seemed to regain his composure. “Remus said my mother used to make them.” Severus swallowed, which did nothing for the distant ringing in his ears. Potter continued babbling. “And I learned the recipe from my Aunt… she made them for my Uncle every year. For birthdays, you know? I used to help. And they were nice, so I remembered the recipe.” Severus could barely spare the neurons to piece together Potter's incoherent explanation. His eyes seemed unable to divert from the sweets, piled one atop the other in a fanciful metal tin. Where had the boy even procured such a container?

Severus swallowed again; slowly, as if handling an especially volatile potion, he set the gift aside, on the first flat surface he could find.

The ringing in his ears ceased. Focusing on his next inhale, he felt the alveoli in his lungs absorbing sweet oxygen, infusing his bloodstream with renewed cognitive clarity. He began compartmentalising the sensory memory that had assaulted him.

Bloody brat, trust Harry Potter to spring pumpkin spiced biscuits at him and render him dumbstruck.

How many times had he dreamt Lily knocking at the door in Spinner’s End, carrying a tin just like that one, filled with forgiveness? Every summer after that fight in Fifth year. He’d begged, and he’d waited. Subconsciously, he had never really stopped waiting for her to forgive him like she usually did. Until he had f*cked up one too many times, and she could not anymore, even if she’d wanted to.

Yet still, years after her death, on a summer afternoon his mind would play the impatient knock on the door, his nose would sniff maple sugar. And the grief would be so overwhelming he would have to curl on the ground, rocking like a child.

But Harry Potter was not Lily Evans.

Severus looked down on the boy, scrawny and nervously twisting the ruined hem of his shirt between his fingers; while his mind presented logical, if miffed, arguments in favour of slamming the door and pitching the tin into the rubbish, some organ inside his torso incoherently refused each and every one of those sane reasonings.

His jaw locked, his hand on the doorframe tightened.

Severus turned his back on the boy, leaving the door open and leaving Potter standing there awkwardly while he grasped at a moment of privacy to rearrange his face. It was not enough, he needed something to focus his thoughts.

“Come in,” he snapped, so Potter wouldn’t disappear, then strode to the kitchenette, uncaring if the boy was uncomfortable standing in the middle of his office. He put the water on and watched it boil. As the saying went, it took forever, which, in Severus’ opinion, was still too soon.

He jabbed at his mind for a script to follow. What was he supposed to do now that he’d let the boy in? Forgive and forget? Berate him some more?

His mind categorically refused to offer any sort of aid while his heart kept drumming painfully in his chest.

They were never talking about it again, but he’d accept the apology. That was a sound plan.

When the kettle whistled and he’d poured two cups with milk, he returned to find Potter perched on the armchair that wasn’t Severus’, reading the last few pages of the Occlumency textbook.

“I have already accepted your poor attempt at bribing, Potter, no need to put on more of a show.”

Severus directed the tea to float steadily to the low table, setting it down with a muted clink. Potter closed the book but kept the page marked with his index; he followed him with expectant eyes as Severus took the seat across from him and gently accioed the pumpkin spice biscuits from where he’d set them down.

Severus didn’t care for the undivided scrutiny as he carefully chose a biscuit and gave it a sniff. It smelt the same, he was sure of it, despite the fact that more time had passed than the length of their actual friendship while she was alive.

Really, he could count on two hands the number of times Lily had baked them for him, the same number of times a thoughtless comment or a too snippy remark had hurt her, and he’d had to apologise for days before she accepted it, and signalled the strength of their friendship with Severus’ favourite sweet. Until she didn’t.

The boy was quiet and unnaturally still as Severus chewed and swallowed and took a sip of tea. They were good and he wasn’t going to admit it. He’d already conceded to forget the boy’s abhorrent actions despite embarrassment still attempting to colour his cheeks when he thought about that incident, and a student, this student, witnessing it.

It was never to be mentioned again. It never happened.

“Don’t let the tea go to waste,” Severus said, and the boy sprung forward to gulp half of it down, scalding his throat. Potter coughed, his eyes wet with pain, and Severus fought hard not to let his lips twitch at the childish antics. He tapped his finger at the tin, inching it towards him.

Was the boy skinnier than he’d last seen him? His hair was surely messier, as if he’d been running sticky fingers through it.

Potter hesitated before grabbing a biscuit of his own and biting into it. Crumbs fell everywhere but Severus would Vanish them later.

He enjoyed the silence.

“Right.” Which lasted not long enough. “So do you want to…?” Potter asked, tentatively.

“Talk about it? No, Potter.” Severus felt ancient. “Let the matter be forgotten, and never speak of it again.”

“…yeah, OK.” The boy hid his face in his tea cup. “I, er… I almost finished reading the textbook,” he said, once he re-emerged.

Severus was not feeling up to chitchat, especially not with this boy. Not with the scent of pumpkin spice pervading his space.

“Are you expecting a brass band and commendations?”

“No, sir.”

Severus gazed into the lit fireplace, conflicted by the twin urges of sending the boy away and, at the same time, keeping him there, where he could see him.

“So, you actually like them? The biscuits?” Harry asked.

“I have accepted your gesture, Mr Potter. As my tolerance for teenage antics is not as well-practised as it was a week ago, I dare say it would be best for you to go now.”

“But we will resume lessons?” The boy’s tone was anxious.

Severus floundered, unable to comprehend this child's thought process. He seemed anxious to continue spending time with his hateful Potions professor, not the opposite. Why? What was wrong with him? Who in their right mind would want to voluntarily spend time with Severus?

Flashing lights, knowledge on the boy which Severus had carefully sealed away in his self-righteous fury, blinked like alarms in his mind, momentarily overwhelming him.

There were many things they weren't talking about.

“Tomorrow. Nine o’clock,” he finally said. He would need time to mentally prepare.

“Oh. Yeah, OK.” Potter was daft enough that he smiled at the ground.

"Use the Floo here. I will not be answering my colleagues as to why they came across a student traipsing through the castle before their peace absolutely needed to be disrupted, as mine has been."

“Very generous of you, sir.” The boy quipped. Severus turned a menacing glare at him, but Harry was still smiling, timidly including him in the joke.

“Shoo, Mr Potter. My generosity is not bottomless.”

“Do I need to use the Blurry Potion, sir?” He asked, getting up, his hands already lowering to the empty teacup. Severus assumed he was instinctively cleaning up after himself.

The reminder once again struck him as the rage dissipated, unearthing the ethical struggle he’d been grappling with prior to the entire ordeal: the ominous connection with the Dark Lord, which he’d left unchecked for days now; the psychological strain of the several brushes with death the boy had survived, which had yet to be addressed... all troublesome matters, but not as pressing, for now, as those concerning his home life.

“Leave it,” he waved him off. “And no, I do not think you’ll need the potion again. The Ministry has acquitted you, and the Headmaster has seen to it that all their tracking measures on you are lifted.”

“OK, then. Thanks.” The boy retrieved his textbook, shouldered his book-bag. “Have a nice day, Professor,” and he quickly Flooed back to Headquarters.

Severus inhaled sharply, then exhaled, loud and long. The scent of spices and sugar hovered in the air like incense in Church, a reminder of the sacrality of the moment and all its symbols.

He’d accepted the boy’s apology, and now he had to find a way to tolerate the type of proximity and trust that Occlumency lessons forced on them. It had felt like they’d got close to it, before it all fell apart.

Tomorrow they would begin again.

Chapter 16: Severus

Chapter Text

Severus

Tuesday 24 th August, Spinner’s End, co*keworth

Severus woke at a quarter to six, his limbs crawling with restless energy.

It had been years since he had a dream vivid enough that he remembered it once awake; with Occlumency, he’d trained himself to keep his subconscious brain activity well-separated from his conscious one. Yet he remembered this dream, even as the images behind his eyelids lost their clear contours and the colours washed away with each passing second. Hogwarts library, the sun through the window warming his left side, reflecting off the page he was reading; the soft rustling in front of him keeping him company, red strands becoming vivid fire in the sun. He couldn’t recall the exact melody of her voice, but her excited whisper echoed as he regained consciousness; she shared a humorous tidbit from her own reading and cackled at his dry answer.

Severus sat up and thrust nails into his hair, gripping his scalp, feeling the urgency in his limbs to stand and do.

Her child would be in his office again, studying him with eyes so much like hers they must have been fitted for divine punishment. God, Merlin and bloody Morgana had congregated to sentence him thusly, make sure the last years of his life were spent being judged and found wanting by Lily’s eyes, set in a face the spitting image of his childhood tormentor.

Stop. This was the thought pattern that kept inducing the same error. Focus

He might look like James Potter, he might occasionally sound like her, but Harry Potter acted like neither. They needed to recover the understanding they’d had before that sh*tstorm of dubious judgements had erased all progress. Occlumency was what mattered. There was a cold war going on and if the Dark Lord gained access to the boy, it would mean chaos. The Order would not recover if their child Saviour were to be injured beyond repair. Morale bollocks, as far as Severus was concerned, but Albus was quite intent on the power boost that ‘hope’ provided the side of the Light.

Harry Potter was a child, whom he, Severus, an adult, could pretend to tolerate.

Harry Potter was a traumatised child, who had suffered through experiences that Severus found too familiar if he stopped and focused for long enough.

That wasn’t right, there was no need for foolish empathy.

His objective was to impart the fundamentals of Occlumency so that Potter could perform reliable shielding techniques. One, passable, shield technique, he amended. It was important to set realistic expectations.

He inhaled his coffee and closed his eyes to curse, with feeling. His thoughts were going in circles; he was exhausted from the exercise and it wasn’t even half past seven in the goddamn morning.

He concluded his morning routine and stalked to his office at Hogwarts; he settled in his chair and glared at the clock, whose hands indicated ten minutes to eight.

Despite the impatient persona he often wore, Severus was very good at waiting. He waited ten minutes in perfect stillness, his brain fully engaged in consolidating his Occlumency shields, testing for holes and weaknesses and preparing to orderly take down his defences for that day’s lesson.

He called for the House-elves to prepare tea and put it under a stasis charm to keep hot.

At two minutes past eight, Severus leaned his elbows on his desk and linked his fingers in front of him, trying to find logical arguments to push back the mounting irritation. They needed to rebuild the tentative understanding they’d had before. It would not do to rebuke the boy for being late, he kept reminding himself.

At seven minutes past eight, the office’s fireplace wooshed and Harry stumbled out, as graceless as he always was when using the Floo.

“What in the world could make it so hard for you to be on time, Potter?” Severus bit out. The boy cringed.

“I’m sorry, sir. I was up early, and I tried distracting myself from- well, I guess I succeeded a little too well, and then I had to rush.”

Severus inhaled and forcefully expelled his irritation. He jerked his chin for the boy to sit and studied him openly. As ever in their brief summer acquaintance, he looked like he’d tumbled out of bed and into clothes that had been left to be thrown out, his eyes dim with purple shadows under them.

Severus cleared his throat. Heat already tingled under the skin of his hands and cheeks for what he was about to push through his teeth.

“How was your evening?”

Potter blinked twice and wrinkled his forehead. The frown stuck; obviously, such a question sounded as ridiculous as it felt saying it. What did it say about Severus, that he found it easier and, honestly preferred, to have chinwags with Death Eaters rather than with teenage students, around whom he technically spent two thirds of his days, and had spent almost all his life with?

“Er, yeah. Yeah, OK.” Potter cleared his throat as well. “OK, I s’pose. And… yours, sir?”

“Pleasant enough.” He’d had Lily’s biscuits for supper, had savoured each bite, although he was reluctant to finish the tin. “Tea?”

“… Sure. Thanks, Professor.”

Severus poured the House-elves’ tea and pushed the complimentary finger sandwiches closer to the boy’s elbow. Harry mirrored him sip for sip while his knee bounced at an increasingly distracting rhythm. Half-way through their silent staring match, the boy’s eyes began darting around the room, never settling on one thing for long.

“Shall we?”

Harry clanged the cup onto its plate as he rushed to his feet, the chair grating against the stone floor. Severus winced at the assault on his eardrums.

“Sorry,” the boy mumbled, digging out his wand from his trousers pocket. Forget magic, it was a god’s miracle the weapon had not yet snapped due to teenage carelessness.

Severus set down his own empty cup and stepped away from his desk, pressing his wand between two fingers before whipping it up to point straight at Potter.

“Have you been practising Occluding before bed?”

“Yes, sir.” He lowered his eyes, his ugly glasses sliding down his nose.

“I am about to glimpse into your mind, Potter. Try again.”

“I tried,” he muttered. “Sometimes, honest. But it just… I’m not sure it was doing anything, sir. So I stopped.”

Severus pinched the bridge of his nose hard enough to leave nail imprints.

“The exercise is outlined in chapter two of your textbook, Mr Potter. Read it before bed and put it into practice. Let us try it now. Clear your mind.”

“Sir, I’m still very unclear on how-”

“If you are talking, you are not doing it right. Close your eyes, brush away all your emotions… all stray thoughts as well. When you are in control, we’ll begin.”

Potter threw him a glare. “Ready when you are, sir.”

“Legilimens!”

Severus slipped into the boy’s mind like vapour, tumbling into a vortex of classrooms, bubbling cauldrons, rows of students, the little faces intent on their potions looking more mature from Harry’s perspective than they did to Severus. A stalking shadow moved among the workstations, barking instructions. Severus glanced disinterestedly at his own memory-counterpart, more interested in discovering why this episode had been at the forefront of Potter’s mind. Immediately, as the boy felt his intention to snoop, he began to ineffectively push him out. Corners of the memory became blurry or even faded to black, but only to be counterbalanced by other elements which acquired extreme detail. Memory-Harry's potion glowed with an unhealthy piss-coloured concoction, most definitely not the neon-green that a cheratine cure for Growing Fingernails should be. The boy had no clue what he was doing, neither then nor now, as he continued to grope blindly at the memory in futile attempts at shielding. “Mate,” Ron whispered urgently, his eyes wide as they tried to warn Harry of danger incoming. Memory after memory of himself swooping down on the boy overlapped, a tall rigid shadow that sneered and made him feel rage and confusion and humiliation. “Mr Potter. Decided to catch up on fan-mail last night rather than study for today’s practical, I see.” Snape loomed over the caldron, muddling Harry’s careful stir count as all his attention focused on the shadow breathing down his neck. Severus looked for threads of new memories to change scenery but all he could see refracted dozens of times was the same image: green-tie snickers, anxious, anxious, angry at the bullying, angry, confused confused, because the boy could not understand where such hatred came from, something deeper than simply ‘because he’s a lonely git’ as Weasley said. The potion started sizzling, tiny drops like fire sparks shooting out. Harry scrambled to his feet but the git behind him clawed at his shoulder and forced him back down. “Now, Potter. If you had actually done last week’s assignment, you’d know how to handle this mishap. Review for the class, Mr Potter. What is causing the acidic imbalance?” Severus had no clear recollection of this episode, he could tell it was a Fourth Year class only because of the curriculum, but Potter looked sick and young, barely thirteen. The spike of panic that greyed the memory but for the potion in front of him made Severus’ absent gut tighten. The silky voice reinforced his panic as animal instinct told him to move away from a scalding liquid he didn’t know how to control. “If I knew that, sir, I would have done it already,” Harry snapped after failing to interpret Hermione’s smoke signals on the answer.

Severus cut the spell, retreating into his body where his contorted viscera squeezed their discomfiture at him. The boy leaned on his knees breathing heavily.

“What technique were you attempting to employ?” Severus spoke through his teeth to keep the cutting vitriol in check. His irritation was not solely at the boy’s ineptitude, this once.

“Any? None? Listen, I’ve been trying to tell you-”

“Potter, for the last time. Watch your tone and think about what you’re saying! You told me you all but finished the textbook. Choose one of the shielding techniques outlined and stick with it.” Severus managed to level his tone by the end. He could be patient. The child was learning and the subject was admittedly a complex one, as he’d tried to argue to Dumbledore when he’d given him this thankless task. “The easiest one, as I’ve repeatedly told you, is to clear your mind.”

“Right,” Potter bit out, frustration clear in the tightness of his jaw. Merlin’s balls, they truly were back to square one.

Stop. Focus. Trust requires patience. Or something.

“Let us go again. Get your shield ready. Three, two, one…”

Shield, the f*ck- Lupin’s carefully shaved face smiled at him. “That’s a very good memory, Harry. Let’s try it,” and for the first time actual mist spurted from the tip of Harry’s wand, coalescing into a formless screen. By no means perfect, but he’d done it, the triumph was so sweet, so new, the opposite of “you’ve done nothing to empty your mind!” The strain was like a muggle attempting to move the TV remote closer with his mind, exhausting and useless. “Make an effort this time,” he’s f*cking trying, why else would he willingly step foot in this godforsaken dungeon-

Severus left the erratic thoughts, refusing to submit to such mental self-pity. He allowed seconds of silence for the child to regain his bearings.

“I can see you are trying,” he said finally. He grimaced at the headache developing at his right temple, “but-”

“But how about you explain stuff for once, instead of harassing me for your lack of teaching skills?” Potter snapped.

He did not seem to care how hard Severus was working on maintaining his composure, and it stung.

“Do not blame others for your own shortcomings. Your inability to focus-”

“I focus just fine when I’m told what to focus on.” Clearly, Severus had overplayed his hand in his attempt to keep his temper, and now the boy interpreted ‘approachable’ as synonymous with ‘doormat’.

“My patience has a limit, and you are quickly approaching it, boy. Sit down and-”

“You always do this. Slam us with a reading assignment or write a formula on the board and expect everyone to get it without explaining bloody anything.”

“Here we are, the prodigious son of Transfiguration genius James Potter," Severus sneered. "Just like your father, if it doesn't come naturally enough you don't bother applying even an ounce of effort to it.Some material takes time, Potter, it doesn't all just fantastically happen because you demand it to.” His words had the ability to change Potter’s frustrated demeanour to one of self-righteous fury, his hands pulling at the mop of hair on his head, making it resemble his dead father’s more than ever.

“I wouldn’t know what James Potter was capable of, I’ve never met the bloke!”

“You had no trouble grasping the Patronus charm in Third Year-”

“That’s because I trusted Lupin! Because when I struggled to do it, he cared enough to try to understand what was going wrong. He told me he knew my father and shared stories about him to help! Were you ever going to tell me you knew my mother?” The words hit Severus like a physical slap. “Or were you going to selfishly keep it to yourself forever?”

Harry’s angry gasps echoed in the too small office.

Severus stood frozen, cold crept from his chest and outwards to his limbs; it made him shiver and some part of him noted how funny it could look: the boy all but steaming with overwhelming emotions while Severus turned into an unfeeling block of ice.

“Well?” The boy pushed, and he was always doing that, engaging with others in energetic push and pulls, never simply existing in a conversation but always participating to the fullest and demanding equal reciprocation; he demanded and challenged and drew attention to himself without even trying. It wasn’t James Potter’s effortless charisma, it wasn’t Lily’s carefree exuberance. There was an intensity to him which was only Harry’s.

“How do you have this knowledge?” Severus managed to utter.

“How? Is that your answer? Who cares how I know, I do, and you’ve kept it a secret from me. Why? She’s my mother.” The word was a cut, a slash right to the centre of Severus' chest which immediately began bleeding. This was utterly beside the point, how had they got so side-tracked?

“You know nothing.”.

Harry stepped back at Severus' hissed words, his momentum finally waning. They scowled, rigid stances oozing resentment; they’d completed yet another cycle and come to their familiar angry stalemate. The boy turned to march off, back to Grimmauld Place.

They couldn’t part like this again. It was a truth Severus hated but acknowledged. It would be easier; more comfortable, frankly, but they could not. He was used to doing things he didn’t like, at this point in his life.

“Harry,” he sighed. Potter, damn it. Severus’ eyes slipped close in a wince as he realised he was more raw and open than he was pretending to be.

Harry turned on his heel slowly, his mouth gaping in shock at the minuscule but telling lapsus linguae. Severus hastily proceeded before the boy could recover.

“She has nothing to do with the topic at hand.” Severus swallowed, and with a blink froze the hot mess dribbling everywhere in his mind; he summoned his Shield and thrust his analytical cognitive ability to one side and everything else to the other. He sealed the latter part away for later. “It has become evident that there is a lacuna we need to address regarding Occlumency. Otherwise, there's no sense in carrying on with these lessons.” He made a calculated pause, allowed Harry to accept the proffered subject.

The boy crossed his arms; his wand, still grasped tightly in his fist, jutted awkwardly towards his face. Severus scowled at it and Harry rolled his eyes but quickly adjusted it to a safer position. He waited.

“Perhaps I… took for granted that you would be able to construe the correct framework from your previous experiences with Mental enchantments.” At Harry’s blank look, Severus clarified, a touch curt, “The Patronus Charm. The Imperius Curse.”

“Right. Mental enchantments.”

“Indeed.” He gestured to take a seat as he walked back to his own desk. He interlaced his fingers to order his thoughts. “Both these magicks need strength of character and enormous ability to focus. To… erase all external and internal stimuli, all the despair and negative emotions surging from within, in the former case, and the external instruction gripping one’s consciousness in the latter,” he said. “You are already capable of doing this. An Occlumency Shield employs the same fundamental imagery. The mind focuses on a single element and magnifies it until it becomes everything, until there is no space for any other thought or emotion.”

“OK, but what is this ‘single element’, how do I find it?”

“You don’t find it, you decide what it is, make it up, if you will. One usually picks an imagery that helps construe the idea of blankness and defence. A brick wall, a pool, a desert… it is a metaphor the mind builds and reinforces until it can protect the rest of the conscious and subconscious at will. A Legilimens will collide with this scene and not be able to move any deeper.”

“But then the attacker will know I’m hiding something. You can’t use this when you’re confronting Voldemort, or he’d know-”

“Don’t say-'' Severus exhaled a sigh. “This is a beginner’s technique. The following step would be layering the Shield, allow only memories one chooses to surface and seep through for the Legilimens to find and think that’s all there is. It takes years of practice, do not concern yourself with it now.”

“Alright. So I have to build this defence… and it can be anything?”

“Anything you are able to focus on fully and for an extended period of time,” he added. Harry made an unhappy noise. “Use your words,” Severus told him, dryly.

“How long are we talking exactly, with this ‘extended period of time’.”

Severus pursed his lips, trying to follow the boy’s erratic thought process. He distinctly remembered the polyjuiced Moody last year gloating about Potter resisting the Imperio for almost a full hour.

“What is your concern, exactly?” Severus imitated the emphasis. Harry pouted at the mocking.

“It’s just that… picturing a wall or a lake or whatever for more than a few minutes… I- it’s- it seems pretty boring. I don’t know that I can keep my mind from wandering.”

Heightened emotions, unreliable attention… Post-traumatic stress was a diagnosis that kept arising in his interactions with the boy, but it didn’t necessarily explain the full extent of his reactions, especially under pressure.

“You might try making the shield more interesting, as intricate as you can. Draw it on paper, if you need visual support at the beginning. In fact, this is your assignment for tomorrow. Decide on an image, make it as complex as you need for it to keep your focus as long as you can. We shall test it next time.”

Chapter 17: Harry

Chapter Text

Harry

Tuesday 24 th August, Order HQ, London

Ron suggested a game of wizard’s chess that evening, and Harry reckoned his head might actually split open if he forced it to do any more quiet focusing. His eyelids felt like thick drapes which kept trying to close, but out of stubbornness or fear, he refused to let them. It was barely eight, no self-respecting fifteen-year-old went to bed at eight. He was also hoping exhaustion might wear out his brain enough to stop it from having nightmares.

“Here, I’ll play you, Ron,” Hermione said, slipping down from the sofa to sit cross-legged in front of the fireplace. Her mouth pressed into a thin line as she studied the way Ron was lining up the chess pieces, as if hoping to glimpse at his strategy from the way he set up the board. Harry threw her a thankful smile. Hermione rarely played against Ron, she hated losing at something that, for all intents and purposes, was supposed to rely on logic and study.

Harry snuggled deeper into the sofa, shaking his head as his two best friends began bickering on who should have the white pieces. The pieces had opinions too, and it created a warm chaos which made Harry laugh and intervened to referee a rock-paper-scissors shoot-off.

“You seem cheerier, mate,” Ron noted, after his opening move. Hermione grumbled and took entirely too long to choose a pawn to order forward.

Harry shrugged. Was he cheerier? He definitely felt lighter than he’d felt in weeks. The whole mess with Snape's Pensieve had been resolved, miraculously the man had accepted his apology and everything was back to normal. Although it was still a bit awkward around the professor.

“Only, you do seem calmer, Harry,” Hermione agreed. And oh, the two of them agreeing on something certainly put a damper on things. Had he been acting like that big of a wet-blanket? Harry cleared his throat, hating the thought he might have been straining his friendship because of his messed up sh*t.

“Might be I’m finally getting the hang of this Occlumency thing,” he joked.

“Oh, how has today’s lesson been?” Hermione pounced, sitting straighter on her knees. Harry felt bad, as for the longest time all he’d been able to share from his practicals with Snape had been, ‘it’s been sh*te, thanks for asking’. He felt like he owned her the most recent discovery, however slight it was.

“I might have had a breakthrough with the construing of this mental shield. Snape sort of explained, this time.” She’d been trying to help for days now, but even Hermione had been having trouble with figuring out the dry instructions given by Magburp in Mind Over Magic .

“What did he say?”

“No, mate, don’t distract her!” Ron groaned at the low priority the chess game had taken.

“Yeah, messy boy, keep your insipid notions to yourself. You’re not helping what is already expected to be a bloodbath!” The black queen added.

“Hey!” Hermione pouted at her side of the board.

“Don’t get too excited,” Harry told her. “It wasn’t a mystical revelation or anything.” He roughly explained the metaphors Snape had used. “I’m supposed to draw it to visualise it better.”

“Well? Why aren’t you doing it?”

“Because I dunno what to use, Hermione,” he muttered, a bit too sharply. She pursed her lips and turned her head back to the game.

“I’m sorry,” he said, seeing her hurt expression. “I’m just not in the headspace right now to make up a detailed picture of sand, or bricks or some body of water or other.” He looked down at his hands, wringing the hem of his Dudley hand-me-down shirt.

“At least he’s resumed lessons,” Ron tried spinning the mood back to a positive charge.

“We’ve cleared up some stuff.” Harry shrugged again. “With Snape, I mean.”

“That’s good, I s’pose,” Ron muttered it more like a question. Hermione moved her rook with a bit too much feeling.

“But have you really talked about… whatever it was? I’m sorry, Harry, you know I don’t mean to pry, but you haven’t really told us anything about what happened. And that’s alright, if it was too personal, only… whatever got Professor Snape or you to end lessons… these things need to be talked through and actually resolved, not simply swept under the rug like you boys like to do.”

“It was nothing. Really,” Harry sighed.

“Plus, as much as I might see your point, ‘Mione, I doubt even you could get the Dungeons Git to rationally discuss whatever got him in a snit this time. The man has had it in for Harry since the first day of Potions. There’s nothing rational about it.”

Hermione made a noncommittal noise at him, her hand hovering over her knight before choosing to move one of the pawns.

Harry hugged his knees to his chest.

“It’s been… confusing. Being around Snape. He’s just so… inconsistent. One moment he’s asking me how my day was, the other he’s snarking at my father like we’re back in his bloody Potions class.”

“You’ve been drawn into polite chitchatwith Snape? How the heck have you managed that, mate?”

“Bloody badly, is how I managed. What do you answer the git that’s asking you how was your evening? ” Harry lowered his voice deep in his throat to best capture Snape’s baritone.

“Man, I would have ran out of there faster than the twins when mum catches them with an experiment. Did you check for polyjuice?”

“He didn’t drink a single drop of anything for the whole two hours I was there.”

“I’ve been telling you, boys, he’s a Professor. He’s a person. Just act like you would any other professor, Harry. I’m sure once he realises you’re not your father, it’ll be fine.”

“Right.” Harry still couldn’t mention to them the small detail wherein not only had Snape hated his father for many justified reasons, his mother might also have been around… somehow, in some form. For the life of him, Harry couldn’t picture it. “So this mental shield? Do you guys have any thoughts on it?”

Hermione let out a frustrated cry when Ron’s knight beheaded her queen.

Harry was brushing his teeth when sudden pain flashed white-hot behind his forehead. He instinctively covered his scar with his palm, trying to compress the blinding agony. Gritting his teeth, he pulled his hand away to see traces of vivid red on it. He looked into the mirror over the sink, pushing his fringe back. His eyes widened as he stared at a trickle of blood oozing from his scar.

A new stab of pain made him grip the sink and curl in on himself, pressing the fleshy part of his palm against his forehead again.

Fuzzy images filtered through in his mind’s eye, a swelling feeling of fury or elation, red light and screams that made a cackle escape from Harry’s gasping lips. The sound coming from his own throat horrified him.

Black shadows writhed behind his squeezed eyelids as he tried and tried to call up a calming image, something to block all this… out of desperation, he pulled the memory of his best friends playing chess a short time ago, the hearth and the comfy sofa, the feeling he’d go of overwhelming affection. It was a memory he’d imprinted in his mind to call on for Patronuses charms, but it was all he had at that moment to try and fight off the viscid feeling of pleasure and rage that were stabbing at his scar.

He didn’t know if it worked, or if Voldemort merely stopped feeling, or stopped wanting to project those feelings, but the onslaught began to fade. Harry twisted to slide down the bathroom’s wall, huddling up to hide his head in his knees and breathe heavily.

A shiver of disgust wracked his frame and contorted his mouth in a grimace. When he’d woken up two weeks ago from a similar nightmare-vision, it had not been as bad as this. It hadn’t been as vivid, he hadn’t felt so dirty , as if infected by Voldemort’s evil. Perhaps his subconscious had shielded him better from it, or the dream-like quality of the whole scene had made it less real once awake.

Harry felt like puking now, but didn’t have the strength to get up. He swallowed convulsively and remained quivering on the cool tiles of the bathroom.

Seconds or hours later, he became aware of his body again, of the achy feeling in the bones of his arse after too long sitting on a marble floor, and of the sound of his breaths whooshing between his teeth.

Was Snape alright? Harry hadn’t seen anything specific this time. He could hope that the professor hadn’t even been summoned, but… Merlin, it felt wrong to worry about Snape after all he’d done in the past to get Harry expelled and generally make his time in the Potions classroom absolutely miserable.He didn't want to think about this.

Unsteadily, he used the edges of the sink to pull himself up. He numbly made his way to his room. He hummed in response to Ron’s ‘all right, mate?' and burrowed deep beneath the covers.

He slept in fits, all too glad when he checked the time and it was finally, finally after dead-of-the-f*cking-night o’clock.

He grabbed day clothes and slipped into the loo to change.

He was going to be on time today. It was a quarter past six, but he was not going to get distracted, and he’d leave the house before five minutes to eight, so he’d be early and Snape couldn’t be pissed at him. He would shower and dress and have breakfast and wait in front of the Floo until it was time. Three easy steps, no chance of getting sidetracked.

Shower, dress, breakfast. Nothing else, he promised to whoever was listening as he turned on the hot water.

Harry showered. He dressed. While attempting to manage his hair into something that didn’t resemble an offensive bird’s nest, he caught sight of his angry-looking scar. Leaning over the sink, he peered at the inflamed edges and grimaced, running through the few concealing spells he knew. He couldn’t perform magic outside of school, technically, but perhaps Snape would let him go to the loo and he could apply a charm while at Hogwarts. Or he could he ask Hermione to lend him some make-up? No, he’d look ridiculous, he had no idea how to apply Muggle concealers, besides. But he had some time to experiment. The scar looked like a weirdly arranged group of pimples that had burst and crusted over. Disgusting. He wet his hand and tried to flatten his fringe to cover the worst of it. He might need to invest in some hair gel. Would he actually take the risk of looking like a Malfoy-esque prat, though?

Shower, dress, breakfast. f*ck.

Harry did not dare look at his watch to check how long he’d actually spent in the loo. He rushed downstairs, going straight for the cupboard and almost knocking out of the air the tea and scones Mrs. Weasley was levitating to the table.

“Oops. ‘Morning Mr and Mrs Weasley. Thanks.” He forced a smile for the two adults and sat down for breakfast.

He started chewing before he allowed himself to look at the time. Ten past seven, he was alright. Plenty of time.

“Heya kiddo!” Sirius climbed out of the cellar to the kitchen. Harry curiosuly eyed the heavy-looking bucket he Godfather was carrying.

“‘Morning,” Harry mumbled, softening the scone in his mouth with a gulp of tea. “Are you going up to feed Buckbeak?”

“Yep. You want to join me?” Sirius' tone was hopeful. Harry hadn’t been particularly sociable the last few days.

“Yeah, OK.” He hadn’t been able to go and see the hippogriff since his arrival, and he felt like Sirius was also feeling neglected. He could hang out with him for half an hour, that would still make him early to Snape’s. He only had to keep an eye on the time and not get carried away by Sirius’ stories. He swallowed the rest of breakfast, knocked back his cup of tea and hurried after his Godfather.

Buckbeak also remarked on Harry’s rudeness on not visiting the attic sooner. The hippogriff greeted him with an offended screech and forced him to keep his bow for almost four long minutes before accepting the apology. Prideful horse-bird.

They fed him stinky rats, and Sirius showed him how to groom his feathers. Harry had to ask about how in hell he had managed to shove a hippogriff into the attic of a house with more narrow corridors and rickety stairs than the Shrieking Shack, which prompted Sirius to put on a whole comedic act in his tale, which had them both crying with laughter. If Harry's laughing was a bit more hysterical crying than actual mirth, Sirius didn’t notice in the dimness of the room. Was it so bad that he clung so desperately to the nice things around him, when they were so few and far between? How had his friends put it? Cheery. Harry didn't feel any cheer, he felt all over the place. Nightmares about Voldemort and Cedric weren't letting up, exhaustion pressed at the edges of his mind constantly and, despite yesterdays' burst of optimism, he knew he was stuck with Occlumency, with no real improvement since they'd began weeks ago. Harry did feel much lighter now that he could put aside all the unpleasantness that had ruined the shy familiarity growing between him and Snape. That was the only relief he'd felt in months.

Shower, dress, breakfast. f*ck.

“So sorry, Sirius!” Harry spun and threw himself down the stairs. He checked his watch. Double f*ck. “I’ll be late for Snape. See you later!” He shouted over his shoulder, not even sure his Godfather heard him.

He threw Floo powder into the hearth and shouted the destination. It was a few minutes after eight. So close, dammit.

“I am sorry, sir,” he blurted out as soon as he was sure ash wouldn’t choke him. His feet carried him into the ominous office, his head bowed as he came to stop beside his usual chair, not wanting to look at Snape’s stoic features. “I really tried, but-” he bit his lip, not wanting to bring Sirius into this.

“But you lost track of time, I gather,” Snape’s silky voice was sarcastic. “Sit, Mr Potter, your jitteriness is making me apprehensive.”

Harry obeyed automatically, finding the courage to lift his eyes and study his professor. His lungs expanded with a full breath as he saw the man didn’t look particularly put out. He wasn’t wearing his usual stone-cold mask either, which meant he probably wasn’t Occluding.

“I trust you had a pleasant evening,” the man over-articulated every word. Harry was not caught off-guard as he’d been the previous time. He was also less taken aback by the awkwardness of the delivery. Snape was trying.

“It was OK. And yours, sir?” Trying something, at least. Harry wasn’t sure what that entailed, which left him wobbling on a tightrope, not knowing if he could actually trust the man holding out his hand to catch him, or if he should prepare himself for the other shoe to drop and knock him into a neck-breaking fall.

The slight pinch at the corner of Snape’s black eyes made Harry lean slightly forward, last night’s awful episode coming back to the forefront of his mind. He took a breath to tactfully ask about it, but Snape cleared his throat and noisily pulled open a desk drawer. Curious, Harry snapped his mouth shut.

The man dug out a rectangular case, about the length of a wand but thicker on the sides, and placed it on his desk. He cleared his throat again and shifted in his seat.

Harry stared, baffled, at the bland brown package.

“Er, what is it, sir?” Did Snape want him to guess? Was it an Occlumency exercise? Had he missed a reference to long rectangular boxes in his reading assignments? Was there a reading assignment he’d forgotten about?

“Open it and find out, Potter.” The man’s voice was curt and about as friendly as Buckbeak’s screech had been, which set alarm bells blaring in Harry’s head. He really didn’t like it when Snape used his surname like that, it sounded like he was speaking to someone else. He’d called him Harry the day before, was that going to be a one-off?

He braced for corroding smoke or a flesh-eating sentient box, Monster Book of Monsters style. Harry picked up the package and carefully tore open the unmarked brown paper wrapping. It revealed a rigid case, of a darker hue, imprinted in the centre with an elaborate golden O, and underneath ‘since 382 B.C.’

Confused, and progressively more worried by Snape's uncharacteristic display of patience, despite Harry taking ages to get to the bottom of this mystery, he pulled the lid from the case.

A triangular piece of rich leather, with leather straps, lay inside. Harry co*cked his head to the side. It looked like a small sheath, like… wait.

“Is this a wand holster?” Harry asked, still grappling with making sense of the situation.

“Very good, Mr Potter. A bracer holster, I feel I should specify, given the amount of time it took you to recognise such an essential piece of wizarding wardrobe.”

“Uhm. I’m not sure I follow, sir.” Harry admitted. The smell of new leather was strong but not overpowering so and his fingers were tingling with curiosity. He didn’t know if he was allowed to actually touch it, though.

“There exist two varieties of wand holsters, Mr Potter. Plebeians opt for those that dangle by one's hip. That is a spectacularly ill-advised choice on several fronts, as not everyone thinks to enchant their holsters against Accio spells, and in a street duel, any wizard worth his salt will try disarming their opponent first thing. Furthermore, such precarious placement leaves the wand prone to careless handling, which could result in incidents like snapping. It is also an impractical choice when wearing proper dress robes. Conversely, a bracer is a superior option, as it secures the wand to one’s inner forearm. It offers both protection and discretion for one's weapon, and it can be quickly retrieved in any situation." Snape paused, and Harry blinked at the onslaught of information. "Have you never wondered after the preference for wide-sleeved robes among wizards?”

“A flare for the dramatic?”

Snape scowled at him, but Harry couldn’t help it. The lecture was very interesting and all, but his mind was still trying to puzzle through what they were doing at it in the first place.

“Traditionally, bracer holsters are the signature of a wizard who knows what he’s doing,” Snape said.

“OK,” Harry said, helplessly. He knew it was pissing Snape off, but he had no idea how to manage a situation he didn’t understand. Why wouldn’t Snape bloody say what he actually wanted with this, instead of playing rigged guessing games.

“It might not be dragon-leather, Potter,” he snapped in the still baffled silence, “but showing some gratitude would-”

“Wait, wha- is this for me?”

“Who else would it be for, boy?”

A list of names came to mind in response to that. Dumbledore. Hagrid. Snape’s dog. Alright, Harry didn't know many people who interacted with Snape, but his own name was certainly nowhere on the list, was the point. How the heck was Harry supposed to know Snape had gone and got him something? He'd sooner think it was a self-congratulatory gift Snape was showing off, before he’d think that.

Wow. Snape had randomly decided to give him a present.

“I- Thank you. Thank you, Professor, this… it’s…” Harry’s hands trembled as they finally got to study the sheath and the strips of leather which evidently served to tie the holster around his arm. “Thanks,” he whispered. He felt hot all over as Snape’s piercing black gaze bore down on him. “Why- I mean, what’s this for?” And by ‘this’ Harry meant this madness you’ve descended into, which was scaring the sh*t out of him.

Snape shifted in his chair again.

“We discussed the safety hazard of carrying your wand about like a common stick. It is a weapon. As I have decided we will carry on with our duelling practice in conjunction with Occlumency, I thought you should start wearing the appropriate attire.”

“Oh.” Most of that was news to Harry, but it sounded wonderful. Too wonderful. “OK. Er, thanks again, sir. This is… this is brilliant.” He was still a little dumbfounded. Snape had gotten him a gift. “Can you… help me put it on?” Harry tentatively extended his left arm, and the man obliged without a word, fitting the straps snuggly to his skin. Merlin, it was great. It looked brilliant.

Harry sheathed his wand and tried unsheathing it with a smooth movement and it felt awesome. His chest was filled to bursting.

He was about to beg for a duel but the tightness around Snape’s eyes returned for a moment. The man drew back from him, hiding the quiver in his hands under the desk. Perhaps it wasn’t the best time for duelling practice.

Harry was disappointed, but his concern over Snape’s health was stronger. He had got used to the sallow skin and the oily curtains of hair on his professor, but the air of exhaustion reminded him too much of that time he’d had to watch over his collapsed form for most of the night.

“Could we go over more Occlumency theory today, sir?” Harry asked.

Snape’s eyebrow jumped in surprise and then he narrowed his eyes at him.

“Have you thought about the form you want your shield to take?”

“Uhm, about that. I’m not sure I’ve found a way to solidify it yet. Could you-” Harry took a deep breath, his fingertips smoothing over the texture of the leather holster. “Uhm, go over how to do it? I understand what the end result should be, I just don’t get… the process before that.” He dreaded sitting through another lengthy theoretical explanation, but he was resolved in memorising every word and reporting back to Hermione for a Harry-suitable translation. She’d become frightfully good at it since last year.

Snape’s face became remote, in a familiar switch that told Harry the man was Occluding as he looked down at him.

Harry lowered his chin, ready for a scolding. When the man got to his feet, Harry’s heart doubled its rhythm, pumping loud in his ears.

“Follow me,” the man said in his silky voice.

Stunned and slightly light-headed at the burst of adrenaline, yet undecided if he was going to need it or not, Harry wordlessly did as he was told, walking behind his billowing robes to the Potions’ lab.

Snape’s wandhand trembled as he spelled a book to float to the workstation and flip open.

“Cough Elixir, Mr Potter. Memorise the steps, prepare the ingredients and brew it.”

Harry blinked, squinted at the recipe which was familiarly annotated with more corrections than printed text, and looked back at Snape.

“Construing an Occlumency is comparable to brewing a potion. You have to be methodical, it must absorb you. There should be a rhythm that keeps your focus but calms you in its routine. Brew.”

Harry followed directions. Calm he was not. No matter how softly Snape remarked on a mistake he made in slicing an ingredient or adjusted his hands on the stirring rod for more rhythmic stirring, he flinched every time.

It was obvious it wasn’t working, and Snape looked put out about it.

“May I do it again?” Harry asked.

The professor motioned with his chin to go ahead. The second run went much smoother. There might be something to this, which was sparking all sort of ideas in Harry’s head.

“I want you to know I am taking this seriously, sir. Occlumency, I mean,” Harry said while he set about cleaning the workstation. Now, cleaning, there was a mindless but rewarding task.

The man’s face remained expressionless.

Harry breathed in deeply. Could he tell Snape? He hadn’t told anyone but his friends yet, but there was only so much they could do to help, and so many ways Hermione could urge him to seek out an adult. Could that adult be the dour Potions Master?

Harry swallowed before inhaling again to speak.

“My scar’s been hurting. A lot. Last night it- it was bad.” He focused his eyes on drying the used cauldron, waiting for Snape’s ridicule. He was such a crybaby, whinging about this. Merlin, why had he opened his mouth?

“What do you mean?” His voice sounded dangerous, but it made him bolder.

“Sometimes I wake up and it’s itchy, but lately it… it’s a scar, but it’s magical so I don’t know if that’s normal, and a curse scar too. Hermione says they do that sometimes, she’s been researching since June, but she hasn’t had access to the Hogwarts library so-” Snape’s eyebrows were climbing up his forehead. Where was he? Right. “Not the point. It’s more like a burning sensation now. And sometimes, when it’s really intense I… feel weird. They’re not my emotions, or I’m angry and suddenly I’m furious. I dream and like last night… It’s how I knew you’d been hurt, although it wasn’t as clear last night, I didn’t see much, it was more sensations and vague shapes.”

“Potter, stop mangling your shirt, it’s sufficiently threadbare as it is.”

Harry untangled his fingers from the hem of his shirt, annoyed at the man. He scowled.

“Am I to understand,” Snape took his own deep breath in, paused. He gestured to the sitting room and the armchairs. Harry plopped down on his least favourite of the two, still waiting on Snape’s response to his confession.

“Am I to understand that your mind has been permeable to alien intrusions, presumably from the Dark Lord, to such an extent that you’ve experienced visions ?”

“Er. Yes, sir.”

“Since when?” Snape’s voice sounded hollow.

“Not long,” he hastened to say, wanting to remove the horrified look in the professor’s eyes. “Just since… June, I suppose. First Year too, I had a few episodes but-” he shrugged.

“How often now?”

“I don’t know, I’m not always sure…” Harry admitted, feeling odd at the interrogation. Feeling strangely gratified that there were more questions, and that Snape hadn’t dismissed his words as a cry for attention. “Every other day, sometimes a few days apart is when I feel… off. I’ve only had clear visions twice, I think. I-” he stopped. This he hadn’t told his friends. Harry hesitated. His thumb found that rubbing against the smooth leather on his forearm was soothing. His new wand holster, which Snape had bought him. “I’m not an outsider in these visions. I am Vol- him. It’s like I’m inside his body, I speak with his voice-”

“You share his mind,” Snape finished for him. Harry nodded, his throat closing up.

Snape leaned forward on his elbows, his oily hair swinging to hide most of his face. Just as Harry was starting to worry he’d said too much, the man looked up, meeting his gaze and holding it steadily.

“This only serves to confirm Professor Dumbledore’s suspicions,” he said. “You must work more diligently on Occlumency, Harry.” His tone was rigid, sharper and less controlled than it had been all morning, but. Harry.

“I know. I understand, sir.”

Snape nodded once.

“You will tell me if you have another episode." He sighed. "I suppose we can conclude today’s lesson.”

Harry jumped to his feet, itching to go back to Headquarters and revise a few chapters of Mind over Matter. There was a passage that had just come to mind that…

Harry halted in front of the fireplace, pulling back his outstretched hand before he’d grasped a handful of Floo powder.

“Will you ever tell me about her? My mother?” Harry turned to ask.

Snape paled and visibly stiffened, his mouth contorting into something that promised to be a dangerous snarl.

“It’s just that…” Harry hurried to explain, “everyone praises my dad, talks about his… adventures, but- I-I know nothing about her. No one seems to have been her friend without meeting my dad first, except you. I only know that she had green eyes and red hair.”

Harry was sure he could hear portraits murmuring outside the office, it was so quiet.

“Has your aunt never talked about her?” Snape finally asked, his tone carefully neutral even as his jaw clenched. Harry did not hide his scoff, his arms crossing in front of his chest.

“I would sooner believe Voldemort didn’t return from the dead than believe a word out of Aunt Petunia’s mouth.”

Snape remained silent. He rubbed distractedly at his left sleeve, evidently too caught up in his head to react to Voldemort’s name.

Just as Harry was about to give up and head off, the professor cleared his throat.

“I promise I will answer your questions about her,” he finally said, his voice weirdly hoarse. He did not meet Harry’s eyes. “Just not tonight.”

Harry smiled although the man remained unaware of his expression. He could accept that, he could be patient. Sometime in the future, when things were less tense, he would broach the subject again. The idea of a quiet time following a successful Occlumency lesson, the perfect setting, no longer felt outside the realm of reality.

Chapter 18: Severus

Chapter Text

Severus

Wednesday 25 th August, Spinner’s End, co*keworth

Severus was ready for a very long vacation. Unfortunately, the school year had yet to even begin.

The issue, of course, was that he found himself… not worrying, exactly, but… preoccupied with concerns about Harry. For no reason he could articulate, never mind coherently express to anyone who felt the need to poke their nose in his private business, he went about his late evenings and mornings occasionally wondering if the boy had slept well, if he’d eaten, if he was getting up to any mischief with his friends or if he was quietly enjoying his days in that musty old house before returning to school.

On Wednesday morning, he admitted to himself he did not have the strength of character to resume Occlumency yet, not with such a fragile understanding between them still; the certain failure of progress would unnecessarily sour his mood and chuck everything to hell. He did not cancel the lesson, however, as he did want to check on the boy.

It had become frightfully clear that no one up to now had bothered to inquire after his health. Harry Potter walked and talked and appeared, some way or other, every September at the school gates, and that seemed to be enough for all the tutors supposedly tasked with his survival. Hogwarts professors, with Severus as their staunch headman, had naturally expected the family raising him to patch him up after each traumatic event of the past four years.

That had been an erroneous assumption. So, then, removing the relatives from the picture, left the Weasleys and the mutt. The former were generous people, but they did have seven children of their own to look after, and one could not expect them to keep track of random strays as well. Especially when said stray was so very good at pretending everything was fine, and not asking for help. Black had perhaps the closest semblance of a caring family, as the boy’s nominal Godfather; but possessing the maturity and life experience of a maladjusted teenager himself, anyone assuming Black could be in charge of a fifteen-year-old’s physical and emotional wellbeing was beyond delusional.

Severus now saw a bloody severe void of responsible and dedicated adults in Harry’s life, and as he came to this realisation, the prickling unnamed urge in his limbs, which had been nagging at him for some time now, increased.

Animated by this new mysterious magic, he prepared his coffee, completed the last potion left in stasis in his laboratory and waited for a reasonable time for the shops to open.

Being a Tuesday, Severus was able to pop to the local Tesco at half past seven, forebodingly marching among the aisles and acutely missing his billowing robes. He got bread, cheese, ham, eggs, ravioli, spinach and bananas. He ticked off the macronutrients in his mind, making sure he’d got sufficient carbohydrates, proteins and vitamins to feed a teenager. Feeling like a dunderhead, he paid the cashier and Apparated to Hogwarts.

He put the perishables in the enchanted fridge; he weighed the bread and fruit in each hand as he pondered a good spot for them in a kitchen that had never actually seen food meant for human consumption, and ended up settling them on the counter, next to the stove.

He was early and Harry was going to be late.

Normally, he would have used that time to draw out his usual memories for the Pensieve, but there was no point in subjecting himself to that when they weren’t going to perform Occlumency, no matter how tempted he was to scrape it all out and throw it all away forever.

He decided to review Potions articles from the fellows in Switzerland.

Potter stumbled out of the Floo a few minutes after eight. Severus left his work on the coffee table in the sitting room and eloquently raised his eyebrow, gnawing on his cheek to keep from making a scathing remark.

“Hullo, sir,” Harry mumbled, always wary as he approached the office's mahogany desk. The boy's fingers drummed against the chair's backrest while Severus cast a cursory glance over him, seeing a coil of nervous energy and drawn features. His eyes slid self-consciously over the boy's exposed left forearm and the wand holster there. Had Harry shown it to his friends? Had they expressed admiration over the new toy, the clean seam line; was he truly happy with it? Or had they sneered at Severus' pathetic token, an attempt by the lonely git of the dungeons to buy affection? He hadn't meant it that way; the boy had needed one, the subject had come up in conversation with Lucius Malfoy and his son's birthday gift, and... well. Or had Potter hidden it from them, ripped it away the second he got back, shoved it in his satchel, embarrassed at having accepted something from his hateful professor?

“Good morning. Have you given thought to the exercise we discussed yesterday?”

“Uhm. Yes, sir.” He perched on his seat. “I tried construing a shield before bed, following the textbook’s instructions and all.”

“I take from your wilful omission that your sleep is still troubled?” Severus did not bother sitting down.

Harry hung his head as if ashamed. “I swear I tried Occluding but…” but, Severus completed in his head, they’d suspended their lessons before the boy had developed any sort of solid technique against outside intrusions. Never mind images conjured up by his own brain.

“We might try something else to properly exhaust your mind today,” he pronounced, gesturing to get to his feet. Harry did, wariness making his movements slow, his eyes jumping from Severus’ face, to his hands, to shadowed corners of the room, to the doors. “Duelling,” he specified.

“Oh.” Once comprehension hit, Harry’s mouth curved in a grin. He hurried to move away from the desk and to a space where he could move freely. His smile broadened as he extracted his wand from its holster with a flourish, executing it smoothly enough to suggest it was a practised action.

“You have a good sense of the environment around you,” Severus observed carefully. “Don’t forget to use the terrain of battle to your advantage.” Harry nodded.

Severus briefly enchanted wards for his jars and potion shelves, spelling the parchments on his desk to roll up and Vanish to his classroom.

“I am going to show you a new spell. It is a Conjuration of shooting arrows. It can be easily blocked by Protego, but with enough practice and stamina behind it, it can be particularly useful as a distraction against your opponent, or better yet, when you need to cover your back as you move or prepare for a more complicated incantation,” he began. “The spell is Magnavis Telorum. I will demonstrate the wand movement.” Severus turned to aim away from the boy, tracing his wand in the air and over-articulating the Latin. Harry’s attention was razor-like as he followed the action, mouthing the words. His eyes widened as he saw the conjured triad of arrows bounce off the stone wall.

“You may attempt it now,” Severus told him. The boy jumped at the opportunity; his stance was solid as his hand executed the spell with more proficiency than his pronunciation betrayed, obtaining a single arrow to pop into existence and clatter to the ground.

“Wait, let me try again,” he said, before Severus could give constructive criticism. The second time did not produce worthwhile improvement.

“You are not synching the spell to the hand gesture,” Severus murmured, stepping closer to his side. He enunciated the spell again, performing the wand movement more slowly. It took no more than this slight adjustment for the boy to perform a decent Arrow Shooting spell.

“How do I direct them at a target, though?” He asked, his brow furrowing.

“Precision is not the objective of such a cast.You are creating a diversion, so concentrate on duration and quantity.”

Severus demonstrated again, and in short time they began a mock duel, exchanging jinxes and arrows, the smell of magic strong in the air.

“This is good enough,” Severus called after they’d been at it for longer than he’d planned. The boy loosened his duelling stance, leaning on his knees and panting through a grin.

“That was wicked, Professor,” he said.

“That was considerable form, Mr Potter,” Severus replied. Pointless to diminish his performance. Harry’s ability to act and react to such rapid-paced situational stimuli, improvising with good intuition when faced with an unknown new factor was, indeed, considerable.

“Really?” The boy asked, his voice odd. Severus raised a confused eyebrow at the vague question. “You really think so?”

“I am not in the habit of handing out inflated praise, Potter.”

“Yeah, I mean, no, I know. I just- I almost got blinded with that Confringo, and then I ducked from the arrows when I should have shielded…”

“Nevertheless, you recovered both times. There is no right or wrong in a duel. It is the one place you can… shall we say, get away with unconventional techniques, if that allows you to survive .”

“Oh. OK.” Harry lowered his eyes, his arms pulling around his chest. “Thanks.”

“Go wash up. It is time for lunch.”

Severus waved his wand, causing the door to the loo to swing open. Harry blinked, perhaps about to object to the implicit invitation. Severus hoped he wouldn't; he lacked any justifiable grounds for insisting that Harry stay for lunch. He pivoted on his heel and commenced dismantling the protective wards around his office.Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the boy nod to himself and shuffle to the bathroom.

Setting the room back to rights took no time at all; when Harry joined him in the kitchen, Severus had been staring at the contents of his open fridge for the better part of three minutes, debating whether calling for a house-elf would be considered cheating.

He had decided to pay better attention to the boy, but after all no one had prescribed he actually cook for a picky, spoiled teenager.

Not spoiled, he reminded himself. Just a picky eater? Food allergies? Why else would a fifteen-year-old look so malnourished? He’d seen Ronald Weasley eat.

“You re-stocked your fridge!” Harry noted.

“Indeed,” Severus sneered, feeling like stocked was an overly generous word. He should have brought minced meat to make ragù or sour cream and more vegetables for a soup. His current options were ravioli or sandwiches.

“I can set the table while you prepare something for yourself? Or… I can go to the kitchens here, if you’d prefer to be alone, the elves won’t mind giving me something to eat.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Potter. I don’t want all this food to go to waste. Just tell me what you usually eat, and I will prepare it.”

“Uhm, OK. I’ll have anything, really.” The boy turned, saw Severus’ unamused expression and felt the need to hastily add, “I can cook too. I can make a mean grilled sandwich, if you’d like.”

Severus paused, pondering. The food situation was one mystery he could solve today; given Potter’s appalling skills in Potions, he couldn't help but feel a certain curiosity about the boy’s unusual confidence.

He nodded minutely. “Do not make a mess of the kitchen.” He stood back, watched Harry arrange the eggs, ham, cheese and bread on the counter to his satisfaction before starting a brief hunt for utensils. Severus left to wash his hands, then returned quickly to subtly observe Harry’s preparations.

“I swear, Professor, I’ve done this before. I won’t burn down your kitchen.” The boy threw him a wary look over his shoulder right when he was pressing down the knife into the cheese, missing his fingers by a hair’s breadth. Severus’ heart skipped a beat and he bit the inside of his cheek.

“I have not made any comment to the contrary,” he retorted.

“The eyes digging into the back of my head beg to differ,” Harry muttered.

Severus cleared his throat, crossing his arms on his chest. “Your skills in handling potion ingredients and caldrons leave something to be desired. I do not think it a stretch such ability transfers poorly to cooking,” he groused back.

The muscle on the boy’s jaw jumped as he obviously held back another retort. You earn as much trust as you give. Severus groaned at his mental Dumbledore voice.

He turned away, pretending not to have seen Harry’s glare, and began spelling cutlery and plates onto the table.

Sizzling butter filled the room, soon followed by the scents of cooking bread and melting cheese. Where the boy had got the butter from was anyone’s guess.

“Do you cook often at your relatives’ place?” Severus asked, pitching his tone as nonchalant.

It got him a shrug. Severus did not bother to fill the silence.

“It’s ready,” Harry said. He flipped the sandwiched onto the plates, serving Severus before sitting with his own meal.

The boy squirmed in his chair, his eyes fixed on Severus and the plate before him.

“If you don’t fancy it, I can whip up something else," he added anxiously, his jittery knee tapping away faster. “I always cook at my relatives’,” he continued, as though he were trying to appease Severus with a response to his earlier question. “I started out just helping my Aunt when I couldn't even reach the stove, but eventually, I was in charge of breakfast and dinner. When there weren’t guests over, of course, I can’t make anything fancy, but I can handle the basics. I could make-”

“Eat your sandwich, Potter,” Severus said curtly, picking up his own and taking a bite, demonstrating how it should be done. shifted his gaze away and finally started devouring his lunch. Severus didn't appreciate the mental picture Harry’s blabbering had conjured for him: a tiny black-haired child ambling around a kitchen with a woman who couldn't seem more indifferent to ensuring he didn't cut or burn himself.

“Make yourself another one,” Severus instructed when he saw Harry swallowing the last mouthful.

They each finished their own meal at different paces, awkward silence enveloping all the space not taken up by the sound of frying bread.

Severus wiped his fingers diligently as he waited for his unfamiliar lunch companion to finish choking down his second sandwich.

He got up, set the kettle and pulled out tea bags by hand. He needed to buy new flavours.

“Are we going to start up Occlumency again, sir?” Harry’s voice drifted timidly from behind him.

“Has Professor Dumbledore spoken to you yet?” He asked instead, fully aware of the non-sequitur. He sat down to watch Potter lift his chin, immediately on the defensive.

“I haven’t spoken to the Headmaster since the beginning of summer. I told you.”

“You have done, yes,” Severus acquiesced. “I merely sought to understand if you had been given the opportunity to talk to someone about last June’s events.”

“Are you still on about that shrink- I’m sorry, sir, only, what does that matter now?” His voice was still belligerent, yet Severus appreciated the boy was equally reluctant to start a quarrel.

“It matters,” Severus said, “as being able to discuss such things with a professional might help with your sleeping patterns.”

Harry remained silent for a few beats, looking everywhere but at Severus.

“Isn’t there a potion or spell for it?” His tone was mulish.

“Yes, but it is highly addictive,” he answered honestly. No one better than himself knew the dangers held by Dreamless Sleep. “Why not simply talk about it?”

In the following silence, he could hear the water gurgle as it heated up in the kettle.

“…I don’t want to re-live it,” the boy said, carefully. His arms hugged his torso and he kept diverting his eyes from the conversation. “No one can understand, besides. The… horror… watching him climb out and walk about and chuckle at the pain he was causing…” Harry shuddered. Severus felt the oddest impulse to do something like offer a Warming charm.

He inhaled sharply, the motion drawing the boy’s eyes to him.

“ I understand,” Severus said softly, holding that gaze.

Harry swallowed, a pained expression pulling at his eyebrows.

“Have you ever seen someone die?” The question was barely a whisper. Severus did not dare to close his eyes or look away. Trust.

“Many.”

The boy took a moment to absorb his answer.

“What-” he started, but shook his head, censoring his original question. “What do you do? Afterwards?”

It wasn’t a banal question, but Severus knew what he’d really meant to ask. He knew it as well as he knew the feeling of waking with bile in his mouth and the foulness of the Dark Lord’s breath hissed in his face. What was it like, the boy had wanted to know. What was it like to stand witness to a slaughter, unable to intervene as innocent nobodies fell to the ground with vacant eyes?

“It was terrifying,” Severus said, low. He answered what Harry had not spoken. “It is so, every time. Survival is an animal instinct ingrained deep in our brains. When you watch someone die, there is a part of you that wishes you could save them, and, in some ways, that you ought to save them, that not doing so makes you equally guilty. But at the same time, there is another part of you that stands frozen in place as the other person falls. That part of you which is scared of being next and is simply relieved when it survives. To feel that relief, to be glad even, that it is not you lying there… it is natural. It’s human.” Severus sighed. He lifted his eyes, which had fixed on the sleeve of his left forearm. “Afterward, you just keep on surviving. It is a duty, to keep going when you've been given such mercy."

The kettle began to whistle and Severus magicked the tea to be poured and served. He dunked the herbal bag into his cup and watched the water slowly tinge with colour.

“What if you didn’t deserve this mercy? What if-” Harry’s whisper broke.

Severus could not help sliding his eyelids closed as he wrestled his grief and his guilt back into the pools of his mind; he had to push them deep down, where the waters were murky and dark, and he did not resurface until all was enveloped in ice so cold it steamed.

“What if you’re the reason they’re dead?” It was breathed out, but the silence was absolute, the words so clear they could have come from inside Severus’ head instead of from across the table. He couldn’t breathe. Does the boy know? He cannot. It is impossible… why is he doing this to me?

Harry forged on, oblivious. “I… it’s my fault he’s dead, Professor. I know it is and I’m sorry, I-” the child choked on his words, his lips pressed into a line as he struggled to regulate his breathing. Severus sat frozen, a f*cking dumb stone held witness to Harry’s confession, misconstrued as it was.

The same impulse as before, a rush of blood urging him to move, do something, bloody anything to help him, pushed him out of his chair and slowly made him approach the stoically gasping child.

There was a voice in Severus’ head, spitting at him. It was shouting, slurring the words, a drunken man barely coherent, ringing in his ears, an echo from the past which made him afraid to follow this new feeling. Protect.

He was quite evidently too late in protecting this child; he’d failed, and Harry thought he should blame himself for Severus’ shortcomings.

He gritted his teeth against his father’s wordless insults and reached to place a hand on Harry’s shoulder; he lowered himself to one knee, turning the boy so that he could not duck away, and squeezed that shoulder as if the action could hold onto him, pull him back from the chasms where he’d fallen.

“Cedric Diggory’s death was in no way your fault, Potter,” he spoke, his grip on him tightened as the boy shook his head refusing to loosen his clench jaw. “Look at me. The Third Task had been orchestrated by a Death Eater twice your age, under the nose of the entire faculty of Hogwarts and the Ministry, including Albus Dumbledore. It was us who failed you and Diggory. His death is our responsibility, not yours.” He wished he could say it was the Dark Lord’s fault, but Severus knew that did not help any argument. The Dark Lord was Evil; he was a natural force. There was no more satisfaction in assigning blame to a tsunami and cursing it for the devastation in its wake than there was in condemning Evil for its malevolent deeds. It was the Light’s negligence that had caused two schoolchildren to cross paths with a tsunami. It should never have happened. “There was nothing that you could have done differently. You survived and you brought Diggory to his family. That was more than most others have done. No one blames you, Harry. No one.”

The words felt awkward on his tongue, like poorly chosen ingredients reluctant to blend into a cohesive potion. Though the boy still avoided looking at him, the sniffles subsided.

“Do you understand?” He pressed. Harry’s hung head nodded, which Severus took as a signal to let go of the boy. He felt feverish and pumped of adrenaline at the same time; his mental shields were in place, despite appearing uncomfortably porous.

He cleared his throat, walked back to his seat and drained his cup of tea. It scalded his throat, which prompted another discreet cough.

“Finish your tea, biscuits are in the sitting room,” he instructed, removing himself to his office.

He purposefully sat in his hard-backed chair instead of sprawling on an armchair. This was so that he could maintain an aura of composure for a little while longer. He needed Potter to go away now. He needed… time to process.

The boy could also use some time to process. And a professional to help him with it. Severus was not a psychotherapist. Severus was the furthest thing from a non-judgmental listening ear as one could get. Severus wanted a bottle of rum before retiring to bed. He might have to curse the cupboard containing Minerva’s firewhiskey against himself.

It was blessed minutes later before the boy reappeared. His face composed, his eyes alert, his right hand twisting in the hem of his shirt.

“Have you got homework to do?” Severus asked.

“I've completed all of it,” Harry answered, clear surprise in his voice. “I don’t think that’s ever happened before.” Severus’ eyes tighten at that, crumbs of memories coming back from previous Occlumency lessons. The boy must have misinterpreted Severus displeasure, because he hasten to add, “Not because I didn’t- in summer after First year I would have loved to work on it, you know, prove it hadn’t all been one messed up dream but… well, you saw.”

Indeed, he had not seen enough. He’d vaguely begun to intuit it.

“Very well. You may go back to Grimmauld Place then, and return tomorrow for our lesson.”

“Er, about that, sir. The Weasleys planned to go to Diagon Alley tomorrow morning for books and stuff,” Harry said, sheepishly.

“Fine,” Severus felt drained enough that he wouldn’t mind postponing lessons by a week at least. “Save a missive of mine stating otherwise, come after lunch.”

“OK. Yeah, thanks, Professor.” Harry stepped closer to the fireplace, awkwardly holding a fist of Floo powder. “Thanks, sir.” He repeated.

Severus exhaled loudly as soon as the boy was flushed away. Pinching the bridge of his nose, he cursed Albus Dumbledore just to remind the empty room who was responsible for the fraught situation he found himself in.

Chapter 19: Severus

Chapter Text

Severus

Monday 2 ^nd September, Hogwarts

Severus chose to stop by the staff room on the morning of his second day at Hogwarts, feeling unusually sociable after a full week of no Death Eater gatherings; he’d been able to flush out almost all the after-effects of the Cruciatus without being subjected to a new round halfway through the medication. His hands were as steady as they had stopped being after June. He was cautiously pleased and was filled with an uncomfortable warmth that compelled him to bestow his company and good mood, as ephemeral as it might be, upon others.

The Sorting Feast the night before had been amusing if nothing else, as the Umbridge woman attempted to unsettle Dumbledore by hijacking the nonsensical-speech portion of the evening. She hadn’t had much luck, as the Headmaster was the most self-assuredly unflappable man that ever lived, but Severus had enjoyed watching someone else be infuriated by it for once, despite Minerva breeding kittens beside him at the woman’s presumptuousness.

As soon as he stepped into the staff common room on Monday morning, the four people and the half-dozen portraits present turned to gawp at him. He scowled at all of them but for Minerva.

“Are you about to descend for breakfast?” he asked her.

“I am.” She approached him with her no-nonsense demeanour, not hiding her surprise at his invitation; Severus did not make a habit of frequenting his colleagues outside of mandatory staff meetings and occasions when he could gloat about Slytherin Quidditch wins. “And will gladly accept your company. I mean to share a vexing issue.” Minerva glowered quite impressively, gathered up one side of her robe and ushered him out of the room.

“Have I missed something?” He followed her quick step down the stairs.

“I’d say. What an awful toad of a woman. Do you know, her voice reminds me of a pygmy puff. A pregnant one, being strangled.” Minerva grumbled. Ah, Umbridge. “Honestly, it is no wonder Cornelius sought to shove her off to us at the first opportunity.”

Severus smirked although there truly was nothing amusing about interacting with the pink woman. He was going to place a detection charm on her chair to tell him whenever their esteemed colleague graced the Great Hall so he’d know to keep out. Less entertaining last night had been sitting next to the eye-sore explosion of fuchsia for the duration of the Feast. He’d seen Harry chuckle at one of Severus’ particularly forceful conversation-deterring glares.

“She certainly seems intent on giving Albus a run for his money in the clothing department,” Severus remarked casually. “My fear is we will all develop achromatopsia to survive.”

Minerva snorted. “If only. She believes herself queen of the castle already. We'll see about that.”

They reached the Great Hall, entering from a side door to the right of the High Table, and sat in companionable silence. Severus poured himself the second coffee of the morning and Minerva sipped at her tea.

His gaze swept across the Hall, slipping into a familiar routine. He catalogued the students eating while rushing through summer assignments; those gorging on breakfast to more comfortably rush through those assignments afterwards; others mournfully smiling with friends as the start of lessons loomed. Potter, for once, was in this last category rather than either of the former ones. Severus couldn't resist observing the boy's demeanour, his tense posture that did not relax even as he joked with the other two thirds of the Trio, his restless knee bouncing nervously enough that Severus could see it even under the table. Still, alternating duelling and Occlumency had seemed to improve his sleeping patterns and his dedication to studying, which Severus counted as a major achievement.

“You got to work with him quite a lot, these last few weeks, I heard,” Minerva said pithily, pointedly looking in Severus’ same direction.

“Not my idea of a relaxing summer holiday, I can assure you.” He managed to divert his attention, looking down at the dredges of his coffee.

“I do hope you haven’t been too hard on the boy, Severus,” Minerva said, and he bristled. “He faced something quite horrible last term.”

“Believe me, I’m fully aware.” Severus lowered his voice. “More than most.”

“Right, of course.” Minerva threw him a quick glance and demurred at the dangerous expression on his face. “I only meant to say, I know the two of you have a strained relationship. I hope that getting to know him outside of the rigid school environment allowed you to… see each other under a different light.”

Severus grew tired of her pointed comments. While perfectly capable of a cunning conversation, sly implications did not suit Minerva McGonagall.

“Do you not have class schedules to hand out?” He asked. She accepted that his social reserves had run out and rose, conjuring a bundle of thick sheets into her hands.

He followed her with his eyes, sneering at the groans from most students. He imagined their complaints stemmed from him managing to snatch most morning periods for Potions, the earlier the better. He adamantly refused to teach dunderheads who had already sat through four hours of lessons, their scattered, underdeveloped working-memory brains sluggish from digesting lunch. He reserved afternoons for NEWT classes and upper-level Ravenclaw-Hufflepuff students. He’d endured Slytherin-Gryffindor Fourth years on Friday afternoons last year, and had kicked up enough of a snit to persuade Minerva to never make that happen again. He could not wait for the moment when he could ban Neville Longbottom from ever looking at a cauldron again.

Speaking of OWL year students, he watched as the Golden Trio received their schedules, Potter’s eyes fleeting to the High Table and meeting Severus’ sheepishly. He turned away, his hand obsessively smoothing down the hair over his scar.

Severus Transfigured his napkin and cutlery into parchment and quill.

My office after dinner. Do not be seen. ‘Chiaroscuro’ is the password for this term to use only, ONLY in this occasion or for a life-or-death emergency. If I catch you in my office for anything less than having been struck by a Dark curse, you will get an automatic detention every night for the rest of your Hogwarts career.

He did not bother signing it, he Vanished it and made it pop up by Harry's elbow. The boy startled at the unexpected sound, glancing around for its perpetrator before warily unfolding the letter and reading. His eyes shot to Severus and grinned at his quirked eyebrow. The boy’s optimism was unsettling, as clearly he had given no thought to resuming classes under the greasy git of the dungeons.

Severus enjoyed the first Fifth Year Slytherin-Gryffindor class of the year less than Potter seemed to have done, all things considered.

It started with Severus’ delightful speech addressing the upcoming OWL examinations, after which he began his rounds to ensure that no dunderhead thought to add the leaves or seeds of Hellebore instead of the syrup; he aimed to keep the death toll in his classes at Hogwarts’ record of zero since his appointment as Professor. Harry had been progressing decently, until he forgot to add Hellebore altogether.

Pulling up his Occlumency shields, he Vanished a perfectly Acceptable potion and made the obligatory scathing remarks along the lines of ‘have you altogether forgotten how to read, Potter? No? Then, pray tell, is one pair of glasses not enough to see that Hellebore syrup is to be added as a fourth step in a six-step recipe? Will you be counting on Miss Granger to read to you during your OWLS as well?’ The boy looked up at him, eyes wide before narrowing in silent anger. Severus gave him a pointed glare before calling an end to the class. This was exactly why he’d asked him to meet that evening.

He took his time spelling the room to order after the last student left for dinner, Occluding unconsciously before realising he was putting off planning for their conversation.

He sat down next to Minerva for tea, exuding enough forbearance that neither she nor Filius thought to include him in their conversation. He saw Harry sit at his own table, then leave too early in a huff.

Severus did not rush through his dinner, although he was cursing himself for giving the boy the password to his chambers. There was nothing there he could snoop through, but the idea that he could rankled him. He'd thought it a good test, or a show of ‘trust’ that morning, but clearly he'd miscalculated. He’d forgiven Harry for what happened with the Pensieve, but he still didn’t trust him. Did he?

He got up as soon as it was polite to do so and left for the dungeons.

He muttered the password to his office and barged in, only to find Potter curled up on the chair in front of Severus’ desk, somehow having managed to wrap his arms around his legs while still keeping his arse in the chair. Children truly had enviable flexible joints

The boy unfolded as soon as he heard him enter and shot to his feet with a curious expression half-way between angry and timid.

“I should have apologised for what my father did,” he burst out. “I realised now I never actually did get to that part. But I’m sorry, sir, he was awful, his behaviour was completely out of line and I’m sorry.”

Severus regarded him in silence, stood just inside his chambers. When he was satisfied the boy had exhausted most of his restless energy in that outburst, he rounded the desk and sat in his own chair, waving his wand for tea and sandwiches to appear from the kitchens. He pushed the plate pointedly in Harry’s direction.

“It is hardly your place to apologise for someone else’s actions,” he said softly. “All the more when you have never met them.” It felt like he was reproaching himself.

“I’m not… I would never…” Severus really could not imagine what the boy was trying to articulate. He had expected a challenging accusation on his unfair treatment in class, or a demand for an explanation. As usual, Harry’s mind was not as predictable as Severus rather hoped it would be. “I know you think I’m so much like him,” the boy forced out. “I used to be so proud of being compared to him, even when you did it, sir. But I don’t want to be like him. I couldn’t be, even if I wanted to.” Of course not. His abhorrent relatives had made sure of that.

“You are much more like your mother than you are your father,” was what came out of Severus’ mouth, and he regretted it instantly. The boy’s eyes jumped to him, at the rawness in his voice, and opened his mouth to surely ask more, but Severus continued. “Be that as it may, I do not understand where all this is coming from.” He pushed the food plate closer still. Harry obliged, picking up a sandwich.

“I don’t… understand what I did wrong. Today.” Severus’ insides squeezed painfully at those words. It would have been a whinge in James Potter’s voice. It would have been a confident, demanding tone in Lily’s voice. She’d been bright and vivacious and smart, but never patient. It was the voice of an anxious child now, Harry’s expression of fear.

“You did nothing. It is why I wanted to speak with you.” They should have had this conversation sooner, he knew. Severus had selfishly procrastinated. When he was assured of Harry’s attention, he explained. “My role within the Order,” he began, pausing to wait for the boy’s nod of understanding at the term ‘role’, stumbling through the Floo, shaking uncontrollably from aftershocks of the Cruciatus Curse, “is not a part-time job, or an assignment that can be carried out at leisure in my spare time. Some students expect me to act a certain way. It reinforces their belief in my character and my true… inclinations.”

Harry furrowed his brow, co*cking his head to the side in confusion. Gryffindors.

“Everything I do and say, students report to their parents. Some parents need to be assured of my allegiance to certain… values. And families,” he rephrased. He saw when comprehension dawned on him, his eyes widening, then narrowing.

“So you’ll be picking on me and insulting me for the rest of the year, and failing me,” he added pointedly, “just so the Slytherins see that you’re one of the bad guys?” It was so overly simplifying it, it felt like he was insulting Severus. “Why would V- You-Know-Who even care about my grades?” He asked indignantly. Fair point.

“Leaving aside everything else you just said for a moment, Mr Potter, I have to admit, I had not realised you held such passion for academic achievement.” Severus managed to soften his sneer into a smirk.

The boy mumbled a jumbled assortment of ‘OWLs’ and ‘Hermione’ and ‘Auror’ which Severus chose to ignore to address the impressively oversimplified summary the boy had made of his life-long work as a double agent.

“But you are right, the Dark Lord does not care how well you do in Potions. He does care that I show support and allegiance to pureblood families. And I expect you not to make the reductive assumption that those types of families are limited to Slytherin House.”

“Right, OK.” The boy finished his sandwich and grabbed another. “So I’ll just keep my mouth shut and get by with Ds, shall I?” He asked sullenly. Severus opened his mouth to scold him for his tone and work on an acceptable alternative to the issue, but the boy beat him to it. “What about Occlumency? Are we going to continue the lessons, Professor?”

“That was the other matter I wanted to talk about.” He allowed the diversion while he pondered what he could realistically do about Potions. The thought that Potter could perform half-decently in his class to not deserve a merited Dreadful had not crossed his mind before now. “Ideally yes, we are, for I’m not entirely satisfied with your ability to shield without sufficient head-start and calm. Those are not the conditions one usually finds oneself when confronted with the Dark Lord. That said, considering the workload for exams this year, I suggest meeting once a week, after dinner. It should be enough for steady progress, provided you practise before bed each night, and during the day as well whenever you feel your emotions overwhelm you.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Tuesday at seven, then.”

“OK. Wait,” Harry’s face crumbled in a sheepish cringe Severus had never seen before. It would have tugged at his insides endearingly, but this was Harry Potter, and the first reaction to anything new from him was staticky panic.

“What is it?”

“I’ve got detention tomorrow.”

There was a moment of silence.

“Already?” Severus couldn’t believe it. “That must be some sort of…” except it wasn’t a record, was it? He shook his head in exasperation. Harry fidgeted, clearly having followed his same train of thought.

“Yeah, OK, I know what you’re thinking about. And I admit, the flying car in Second year was a bit of a foolhardy moment.”

Severus wanted, exactly like three years ago almost to the date, to throttle the boy. Foolhardy, my arse.

“You could have got yourselves killed. And by an inane Muggle method at that!”

“Yeah. I mean, yes. I know, sir. Sorry,” he mumbled.

“Never mind. I have time on Saturday, then. After-” he added loudly, before Harry could bleat about the blasted extreme sport the school believed was friendly competition. “-Quidditch practice,” he finished.

“Oh. Sounds good, sir.”

“I assume the detention was for cheek,” Severus couldn’t help asking. And assuming. The boy scoffed.

“Apparently, I’m not supposed to tell lies.” That was random enough to elicit careful curiosity.

“Have you?”

“Have I what?”

“Told lies.”

That earned him the darkest glare yet. “Only if you too, like apparently the rest of the Wizarding World, believe I made up watching You-Know-Who get resurrected, and that Cedric Diggory just dropped dead on his own.” The tone was scathing, a challenge reminiscent of the time Severus had asked him about the Daily Prophet article. This time, Severus didn’t lose his composure as he quirked an eyebrow and pushed deep under his icy pool any unprofessional thought about the pink toad-shaped pygmy puff they were currently forced to call Professor of Defence, for that was easily whom they were talking about.

“Oh, we both know very well I wholly believe in the Dark Lord’s return.” He allowed himself a smirk. “Would be quite the unfortunate situation for me if I did not.”

That made Harry grin, however briefly, his eyes widening for a microsecond in surprise.

“Right well,” he sighed, “Umbridge-”

“Professor Umbridge to you,” he said softly, not quite erasing all sarcasm from his voice.

“She says I should stop saying that. Spreading lies about his return.”

Severus took a sip of his own tea and leaned back in his chair.

“Did the Sorting Hat not almost put you in Slytherin, Potter?”

“Why?” he asked in answer, because they both knew that it had, as shocking as it had been to discover.

“Simply put, there are more ways to deal with a dragon than just charging it head-first,” he said. “More subtle, definitely more successful, ways.”

“Only, I didn’t charge the dragon head-first, Professor,” he interjected and smiled cheekily. “I used a broom and flew away.” It would have been funny if Severus didn’t still pale whenever he thought of the damned Horntail. “Anyway, Professor McGonagall has already given me the speech, sir,” Harry sighed.

“And you are going to ignore two heads of House twice your age,” Severus retorted. He wasn’t sure if he felt sour because of Potter’s arrogance or because Minerva had beaten him to counselling him on the matter.

“I don’t do it on purpose!” Harry cried. “I see what you mean, sir, I agree it’s the smart way to go about it. But she… she provokes me,” he huffed, which made Severus snort.

“After four years in my class, I’m offended that you let that toad-like woman get a rise out of you so easily.” It occurred to him he’d so casually referred to his unapologetic bullying of the child, for the first time since their forced re-acquaintance. Harry seemed equally at a loss on how to carry on with the conversation.

“Yeah well…” he shrugged, ever eloquent. There was uncomfortable silence, during which they both finished their tea and food; Harry kept opening his mouth and breathing in as if readying himself to speak, only to close it again. Obviously he was struggling with a question, but Severus was not feeling magnanimous enough to help him.

“Will you tell me about my mother now? Were you friends?”

The question, as Severus should bloody well expect by now when dealing with Harry Potter, came out of nowhere and it punched him right in the gut. He couldn’t believe how much he had spent in the boy’s mind and still managed to be surprised by the boy’s thought flow.

Severus held himself very still and very quiet as he struggled to control his breathing and not give away the unexpected wave of grief and guilt lapping at the icy surface of his Shield. Hide her. Hide them all! He fiercely Occluded.

He inhaled loudly, interlacing his fingers on the desk and leaning forward, letting his hair obscure his face.

The boy had become a statue as well, observing him too keenly, seeing him like few people did.

He wanted to deny him, but he’d been thinking about his promise. The last promise he made, that is, more than a week ago, now. Harry had been more patient than he’d expected, and it was his right to know, wasn’t it? Severus had been the one to stupidly mention her this evening after all.

She’d been hovering at the edges of his mind since the boy had appeared at his door with her peace-offering, a comforting and terrifying presence at the same time, equally likely to sooth and destroy him for daring to bring her out, form her name to her son.

“She was a very special person, your mother,” Severus murmured, hoarsely. He swallowed, wished for alcohol, cursed himself again for the foolish promise he’d made the boy to revisit the subject. He didn’t want to.

Some part of him did. A heavy rock-like thing in his chest swelled and warmed at hearing his own words; glancing at the boy’s rapt face, the vertigo increased but so did the desire to throw himself into the void, experience the rush of adrenaline that reminded him what being alive meant.

“We lived in the same neighbourhood. We were around nine when I first saw her perform accidental magic. I was the one to tell her she was a witch.” Severus smiled. “She thought it was an insult until I managed to explain.”

It was hard. He had to obstinately chip away each word from that shapeless stone inside him, put the little pieces in order, check that they weren’t too sharp, too jagged to make him bleed on the way up from his chest to his mouth.

He didn’t want to lift his gaze to look at the boy until he discovered it helped, watching the emotion Harry displayed so easily on his face as he listened to the story of the bright, muggle-born witch discovering Hogwarts.

Harry let him talk without interrupting, and then allowed him precious minutes of silence for Severus to gather himself.

“You should go off to bed now.” He cleared his throat, reality suddenly clear and raw around them. “Straight to bed.” Severus narrowed his eyes in mock seriousness.

“Thank you, Professor.” He met Severus’ gaze unflinching and an understanding passed between them. The boy pulled his lips in half a smile, standing awkwardly and retreating his satchel from the floor.

“Mr Potter?” The boy stopped on his way to the door. “Today’s assignment got you an Acceptable. Considering the not irrelevant amount of time I had to spend watching you mangle Mandrake root and slosh Honeywater about this summer, I will not be grading anything else that is not at least an E in the future.”

The boy gave him a genuine smile. “Thanks, sir. I’ll be going then.” He pulled his damnable Cloak over himself and disappeared. “Have a good night, Professor,” came a disembodied voice, before the door opened and closed, seemingly on its own.