"Legilimens," Snape whispered, then once again attacked Potter's mind. Images flashed past, each imbued with the thoughts and feelings that constituted the boy's memories. He had gotten past the child's defenses far too easily. Arrogant, spoilt brat that the boy was, it didn't surprise Snape that he wasn’t even trying!

He saw three-year-old Harry being knocked to the ground for burning breakfast, seven-year-old Harry being screamed at and locked in the cupboard without meals for a week for performing accidental magic. Snape frowned. He didn't like Harry Potter. Hated him, in fact--there was too much of James in the child to like. But, aside from the unbreakable vow he had made to Lily, he could not knowingly allow a student of his to return to an abusive situation.

He was a teacher; it was part of his job to protect the children in his care. Absently, he watched a few more memories before Potter finally threw him out of his head. Panting, the boy glared at him. "Satisfied, Professor?" he growled.

Severus frowned. "You must learn to throw me out with your mind, Potter. Not a curse, not a hex, but with your mind, only."

Potter gave him a curt nod and positioned his wand at the ready.

"Legilimens," he whispered again. This time, he ignored the stream of memories in favor of building a subtle, almost undetectable link between their minds. Potter was not yet a good enough legilimens to be able to find it. And Severus intended to sever the link before the child ever found out that his memories had been seen.

Years of experience as the head of Slytherin had taught him to use that kind of subtlety; not all the children at Hogwarts came from happy homes, and if abuse was discovered, he was required by law to report it. In this, as a former abused child himself, he always did his duty. In most cases, the child in question refused to talk, but pensieved memories had long-since been deemed acceptable evidence, being less traumatic for the victim.

It was not unethical, exactly. But these things were usually done with the knowledge and consent of the vic-er-subject. Potter had neither the knowledge of what he was doing, nor had he consented. But Snape knew that, if he were right, Potter's treatment at the hands of his so-called family had been hidden for so long that it was more than likely that the child would never tell.

Potter cast another curse and threw him out. "Enough," he said.

Severus walked over to his bookcase, extracted a certain volume, and gave it to the boy. "I should have given you this before," he said. "But the Headmaster and I did not wish anyone to know that you're studying occulmency. It's charmed to look like a potions book to anyone else." He glanced over at Potter to find a surprised look on his face.

"Why now, Professor?" Potter asked.

Snape gave Potter his best sneer. "Because I have no wish for the Dark Lord to find out about these little lessons," he said. "Because I will not let him win due to your rash and irresponsible behavior!"

Anger flashed in the child's eyes and he started to reply, but, with visible effort, stopped.

"I want detailed notes on the first five chapters of that book the next time we meet," he ordered. "I will not see Lily's sacrifice come to naught because you can't learn to occlude your mind!" Snape scowled at him. "Dismissed," he snapped, before Potter could reply.

Shooting him a death glare that might become formidable with practice, Potter left his office in a huff. Severus put on a neutral expression as he left his office and placed the locking spells to keep intruders out. As much as he hated to admit it, he despised the thought of Lily's child being mistreated. Even if it weren't for the vow that she had extracted from him, he would have protected the boy for her sake alone.

His motivations for saving the boy's life had little to do with James Potter, and everything to do with Lily Evans; she had been the first true friend he'd ever had. Although nothing had ever come of it, he had even loved her, more than a little. He was honest enough with himself to admit that.

Severus headed down the corridor to his quarters, said the password, and headed inside where he settled in his favorite chair. He half-closed his eyes and carefully, invisibly, inserted himself into the boy's memories. A large part of him hoped that his old assumptions about Potter's life were absolutely correct, but after weeks of occulmency lessons, he was no longer sure. And if his suspicions were correct, his inaction would lead to his death.

~*~*~*~

Severus cursed softly and creatively under his breath as he came out of Potter's memories. No, not Potter--Harry. Funny, that. The child wouldn't seem as detestable if his name were Harry Evans rather than Harry Potter. He rather thought that it would be harder to mix him with his bullying git of a father that way.

After viewing his memories and experiencing his emotions, Snape knew for a fact that, despite similar looks, the differences between Lily's child and James Potter were like chalk and cheese. Yes, Harry managed to find trouble--but unlike James, he almost never sought it out. As much as he hated to admit it, Dumbledore had been right; he had much in common with the child.

Severus frowned as he considered what action to take. With Umbridge around, he couldn't be too careful as to how he approached the problem. After all, he'd heard rumors that she'd been abusing some of the students with an illegal Dark item as it was.

Frankly, the blatant neglect and obvious physical, mental, and emotional abuse angered him. It was bad enough that a wizard child had been damaged, it was worse that it was the same child whom all their hopes to defeat the Dark Lord were pinned on had suffered that kind of treatment. Aside from that, it bothered him even more that the child in question was Lily's child. He vaguely remembered her saying something about Petunia Evans not liking magic, but he'd never thought that it would lead to the mistreatment of her own nephew!

Severus got up and started pacing back and forth. He could not allow the child to be sent back to the Dursleys. He knew the reasons behind it, but it would do them no good to keep him safe from the Dark Lord if his family managed to kill him over the holidays!

Frustrated, he turned on his heel and strode out of his quarters. His robes flaring, he started climbing the stairs. It was well past curfew, and in the mood he was in, woe betide any student he caught wandering the corridors.

If he were lucky, he wouldn't run into the odious Umbridge woman--all appearances to the contrary, he couldn't stand her! And if the rumors he's been hearing about her detentions were accurate, he'd see her locked up in Azkaban before the end of the school year. People like her had no business being around children.

With his long strides eating up the ground, it didn't take long for him to arrive at the gargoyle guarding the staircase to the Headmaster's office. "Sugar Quills," he growled.

When the door slid open, he stepped onto the moving staircase and headed up to Professor Dumbledore's office. He paused briefly to knock on the door, then entered.

"Severus," Dumbledore greeted him with a smile. "What can I do for you?" he asked. "Lemon drop?"

Severus sneered in response; he was upset, and his preferred response to any upheaval was anger. He clasped his hands behind his back and glared at the Headmaster. "Are you aware of Potter's home life?" he asked without preamble. "Did you look into the kind of people Lily's sister and her husband were before you left the child with them?"

Dumbledore popped a lemon drop into his mouth and frowned slightly. "Minerva had reservations," he said slowly. "But the Dursleys are his family; I'm sure that it can't be too bad there--even though Harry always seems reluctant to return."

Severus scowled. "Of course the boy is reluctant to return," he said silkily. "Any child treated as he has been would be reluctant to go home to the tender mercies of people like that."

The Headmaster pinched the bridge of his nose. "Did he tell you?" he asked softly.

"Of course not," Severus scoffed. "During our… lessons," he sneered. "I saw something that made me suspicious."

"You initiated the link," Dumbledore said. It was more of a statement than a question.

At Snape's almost imperceptible nod, Dumbledore continued. "Does he know?"

"He would not have agreed to it," Severus crossed his arms over his chest. "He does not trust me; I doubt he trusts adults much at all."

His eyes sad, Dumbledore nodded. "He has asked for precious little help in situations where most students would be clamoring for it."

Snape glared at Professor Dumbledore. "He will not be sent back to the Dursleys this summer," he said quietly.

"Severus," Dumbledore began, "The protection that his mother's blood provides--"

"Might as well mean nothing if his loving," he spat the word out sarcastically, "Family manages to starve or beat him to death whilst he is out of our sight!" He leveled a death glare at his mentor. "The boy must not go back--and we must not raise a fuss about it, either." Severus frowned. "It isn't like the Dark Lord isn't aware of where the Dursleys live, Headmaster."

Dumbledore closed his eyes and nodded. "I know. It was only that he couldn't get past the wards that stopped him from killing Harry. I knew that they didn't treat him as well as they do their own son, but I still can't believe that they treated him that badly."

Severus cursed softly. "Lend me your pensieve, and you can see for yourself."

"Language, Severus," Dumbledore chided. He hesitated for a few minutes, then got up and fetched the pensive.

With a muttered incantation, Snape used his wand to remove a selection of Potter's pertinent memories from his mind and transferred them to the pensieve. He watched stoically as Dumbledore hesitantly leaned over and let himself be drawn into them.

Severus knew exactly what Dumbledore was engaged in watching; he had put in memories, which, spread out over time, catalogued a long-term history of abuse and neglect in the Dursley household. Thinking back to the child's behavior, he was more than a little angry at himself that he hadn't noticed the signs.

After fourteen years of teaching, he should have bloody noticed, damnit! For that matter, the other professors should have noticed, too! His only defense was that he hadn't been looking; nobody had because no one expected the Boy-Who-Lived to have those kinds of problems. Severus knew better than most that, as a general rule, people saw only what they expected to see.

He glared at the Headmaster, his neutral mask firmly in place, as the man came out of the pensived memories. "He mustn’t go back," Snape repeated. "Aside from the fact that it might kill him, you would lose my services as well."

Dumbledore steepled his fingers and examined him. "What do you mean, Severus?"

"Have you forgotten my unbreakable vow to Lily Evans so easily, Headmaster?" Snape questioned. "Now that I am aware of her son's condition, if I do nothing, I will die; it is within my power to protect the brat now."

Dumbledore sighed heavily. "For what it's worth, Severus, I didn't know," he said quietly.

"Like many children with his set of problems, he has become adept in hiding it," Severus sneered. "I will question Granger and Weasley to find out what they know tomorrow."

"If you must," was Dumbledore's noncommittal reply.

Realizing that the older wizard had not yet agreed with him that Lily's boy wouldn't be sent back to his horrid relatives, Snape leaned forward and placed his hands, palms down, on the desk. "He will not go back," he said forcefully. "I want your Wizards' Oath on that, Headmaster."

"You have it," Dumbledore grimaced. "I should have listened to Minerva when she said it would be a bad idea to leave him there."

"I will talk to members of the Order," Snape said abruptly.

Dumbledore nodded, resigned. "It has to be reported, and Order Aurors would be the best to handle it," he agreed. "It needs to be taken care of quietly--especially since, well, who exactly has legal guardianship of Harry is questionable."

Snape smiled. Frankly, he didn't care about those kinds of issues. As long as the boy didn't return to his abusive family and he had reported what he knew, both honor, duty, and a fourteen-year-old vow were satisfied. "I'll leave you to it," he said.

Severus swept out of the room and headed down the staircase. It was a matter of minutes to reach his quarters--and he could easily request both Granger and Weasley to stay behind to talk to him the next day. He would find out what they knew, and if they'd been concealing the brat's secret, they would pay, and pay dearly.

~*~*~*~

His eyes hooded, Severus watched as the students bottled their potions and carried them up to his desk. For once, the lesson had been uneventful; nothing had blown up. He savored the rare moment of peace--between Neville Longbottom and the combination of the idiot Gryffindors and his Slytherins in the class, it was a rare occurrence when they made it through a lesson without an explosion or a similar disaster.

"Granger, Weasley, see me after class," he snapped as the students started to clean up.

He sneered at the look that Weasley shot him, unconcerned what his students thought of him as long as they obeyed. "Yes, sir," was the grudging answer.

One by one, the students finished cleaning up their mess, stored their extra ingredients, and left the classroom. Potter hovered by the door, obviously waiting for Weasley and Granger. "Get to class, Potter--unless you'd like a detention--your friends will join you soon enough."

Potter glared at him, then left. "Shut the door, Granger," he ordered.

Silently, she complied. Weasley was glaring at him, probably for threatening detention, and perhaps a little worried about why he'd been kept back. Severus crossed his arms over his chest. "What do you know about Potter's home life?" he asked abruptly.

"Why do you care?" Weasley demanded. "You hate Harry--everybody knows that!"

Before he could say anything, Granger butted in. Insufferable know-it-all that she was, he figured that she just couldn't resist. "You saw some of his memories," she said. It was more a statement than a question. "I read about that."

"Correct, Miss Granger," Severus replied. "I would be remiss in my duties if I left any child in such a situation," he paused for a moment. "Even Mr. Potter."

Weasley bent his head and studied the desk. "I'm not sure he'd want us to tell you what we know," he said.

"If Potter is being mistreated," he began silkily, "he need never return to his relatives. Otherwise, he will have to return home at the end of the term."

"They don't feed him much," Weasley finally volunteered. "We send him food every summer," he paused. "And the summer before second year, Me and Fred and George broke him out--they'd locked him up in his room with bars on the window and weren't feeding him more'n a bit of soup a day."

He nodded in encouragement and turned to Granger. She bit her lip. "I send him food, too," she said softly. "First year, he got me to help him learn about healing potions. At the end of every year, we make a lot of them for him to take home with him, bruise balm, too."

"Has he said anything about how the Dursleys treat him?" Severus demanded.

"He mentioned once that they'd be disappointed that he hadn't managed to get killed," Weasley said. "It was on the train last year. Neville Longbottom and Luna Lovegood were there, too."

"He doesn't like to talk about it," Granger said softly. "I think he wants to pretend that he's normal whilst he's here."

"He was laughing once about his cousin, Dudley, practicing 'Harry Hunting' with his little gang," Weasley said hesitantly. "And he's got scars that he won't tell us how he got—he comes back with more every year, too."

Severus gave them a sharp nod. "Is there anything else that you can tell me?"

Weasley and Granger shook their heads. "No, sir," they said.

"Get to class," he ordered absently. "I will see that Potter has somewhere else to go at end of term."

Granger grabbed her bag and left, but Weasley lingered behind for a moment. "My Mum and Dad would be happy for him to come home with us," he said. "All but adopted him, we have; he's almost as much my brother as the twins are."

Severus frowned. "I don't yet know what will happen, Weasley--I can only promise that he will not be permitted to return to the Dursleys'."

"Thank you, sir," was the soft reply. "We worry about him; he's my best mate, and he really doesn't have anybody." With that, the boy left, leaving Severus to his thoughts.

"What you need is sustained outrage… there's too much unthinking respect given to authority."
--Molly Ivins

~*~*~*~

Harry stared moodily at his occlumency text. He wasn't sure what to think of Snape anymore--the man was still being a right bastard to him, but he'd given him the book the night before. Truthfully, understanding the theory behind occlumency had made it easier to clear his mind. It wasn't that he was exceptionally good at it yet, but his next lesson wasn't until the following evening.

It didn't help that Umbridge was getting worse. He glanced at the scar on his hand and grimaced. He'd just have to keep him head down and stay out of her sight; he had no wish to serve more detentions with her. It didn't help matters any that she'd also taken away his biggest joy.

Briefly, he wondered why it was that Defense teachers always seemed to have it in for him. Aside from Professor Lupin, all of the ones they'd been gifted with so far had been out to kill him. For that matter, even Remus, albeit unintentionally, had tried to do him in. Well, all right, Lockhart hadn't tried to kill him; instead he'd only tried to obliviate him, which, in Harry's opinion, was almost as bad.

Harry slumped back into the embrace of the worn chair and sighed. Ron and Hermione were off doing rounds, and he was just waiting for them to come back. He'd already managed to finish his homework, so he had nothing better to do. Well, he supposed he could read ahead a bit in his occlumency book, but he wasn't sure he really wanted to stop having the dreams; they were his only route to the information that Dumbledore was keeping from him.

"Harry!" Hermione's voice interrupted his musings.

He looked up to see Ron and Hermione climbing through the portrait hole. "Hey," he said softly.

"We promised that we'd tell you what Snape wanted to talk to us about," Ron reminded him.

Harry watched as his two best friends flopped down on the couch. "Umbridge's class sure wasn't the place to talk about it," he offered with a wry smile.

"I swear, if it weren't for the DA," Hermione said, shaking her head.

"I know," Harry said. "It's the only thing keeping me from going completely nuts."

"Snape wanted to know what we know about the Dursleys, Harry," Ron said abruptly. "He says that he's going to make sure you don't go back there."

"What did you tell him?" Harry asked softly.

"Everything we know," was Ron's prompt reply.

"Which, frankly, isn't much," Hermione pointed out. "You haven't really told any of us how you've been treated at home."

"I tried to tell the teachers that I didn't want to go back there," Harry mumbled. "But nobody ever listened."

"They will now," Ron said, slouching down into the couch.

"I went to the library during my free period," Hermione pushed some hair behind her ear. "They'll send somebody to investigate; you'll have to tell them."

"I don't think I can," Harry said. "I tried to tell when I was little, but nobody paid any attention."

Hermione stood up, crossed the room, and gave his shoulder a squeeze. "There's another way," she said. "I read about it in the library today--they can pensieve your memories if you help them, and then they can see for themselves."

"That's fine, I guess," Harry said dubiously. "But how did Snape figure it out? I mean, he hates me, and I never said anything to him!"

"He didn't say, mate," Ron said. "But I asked him why he cared--he said that it was his job."

"Occlumency lessons," Hermione said succinctly. "He saw some of your memories. And Ron's right, it's illegal for him not to say anything if he finds out that one of the students is being hurt at home—that's one place where Muggle and Wizarding laws are the same."

Harry was silent for a few minutes. He didn't know whether to be grateful or angry! What right did Snape have to start prying after seeing his memories? On the other hand, Snape was ensuring that he'd never have to return to the Dursleys. Not only that, but the book had made it clear that the occlumency training itself made sharing a certain number of memories unavoidable. And until he got the hang of it, he wouldn't be able to control what Snape saw.

He supposed that fact was further incentive for working hard at his lessons; he didn't want anybody to know all his secrets. While it was true that Ron and Hermione knew a good deal of them, there were some that he just didn't want to share. He didn't trust anyone that much--especially not Snape. Frankly, he rather mistrusted most adults on general principles. Even the ones he trusted, he didn't trust completely.

"I wouldn't have thought it would matter to him," he offered finally. "I mean, he's been making our lives miserable for four and a half years."

Ron shrugged. "I hate the greasy git," he admitted. "But he is a teacher. I guess it would follow that he cares a bit."

"Are you all right, Harry?" Hermione asked quietly.

"I don't know," Harry admitted, as he stood up and stuck his hands into his pockets. "I think, well, I think I'm going to bed."

He barely registered their goodnights as he headed up the stairs to his dormitory. While it was nice to know they cared, discussing anything having to do with the Dursleys always made him uncomfortable. Harry hurried into his dorm, grabbed his worn, too-large pajamas, and changed quickly. Climbing into his bed, he pulled the curtains closed and climbed under the bedclothes. He attempted to clear his mind, but with the startling revelations of the evening, it was a losing battle. It was a long time before he slept.

~*~*~*~

Harry scooped some eggs on his plate and reached for the bacon. He was no closer to figuring out how he felt about the whole situation than he had been the night before. He yawned a little and poked at his breakfast before taking a bite. Breakfast was quiet, punctuated by yawns rather than conversation.

He glanced up at the head table, skipped over Umbridge, who was wearing a fluffy, pale blue cardigan and a matching headband, and sneaked a glance at Snape. Part of him wondered why the man had bothered to ask questions about him. After all, it wasn't like they got along or anything. He'd grown slightly comfortable in their mutual antipathy.

It was rather confusing when Snape stepped out of his accustomed role. Harry just wasn't sure what to think of the snarky potions master anymore. Did he care, or was he just looking out for himself? Snape was Head of Slytherin, after all.

"Mr. Potter," Professor McGonagall interrupted his thoughts.

He turned around to face her. "Yes, Professor?"

Her face softened. "Some Aurors will be coming to get you out of my class today for an interview, Mr. Potter."

"About my family?" he questioned.

"I expect so." Professor McGonagall made a move as if to touch him, but seemed to think better of it. "Why didn't you tell me, Harry?" she asked. "I would have helped if I'd known."

"You didn't ask," he said quietly. "Nobody ever wanted to know. I said I didn't want to go back there every summer, but no one seemed to care much."

"I'm sorry, Harry," she said softly. "We weren't listening hard enough. Go on to class, and I'll see you there."

"Yes, Professor," Harry whispered. He finished his breakfast quickly, then picked up his books. Ron and Hermione joined him. He hadn't been ignoring his friends, not exactly, but both of them had been quiet. He was grateful for their unwavering, silent support, for he didn't know how he would have managed to make it through the mess he was in without them.

~*~*~*~

Harry kept his head down, pretending to take notes. In reality, he was trying not to panic at the thought of the Aurors who were to interview him about his relatives. A small part of his mind noted that it was probably a good thing that he was such good friends with Hermione; Transfiguration wasn't making an impression, but he could always borrow her notes later to pick up on what he missed.

Harry looked up when he heard a knock at the door. McGonagall gave him a brief nod as he gathered his things and headed out the door.

“Wotcher, Harry.” Tonks gave him a bright smile as he walked out of the classroom.

“Mr. Potter.” Shacklebolt gave him a brief nod.

“Hello,” he said softly. “So you're here to interview me?” he asked.

“We'll be using the Room of Requirement,” Tonks said with a nod.

“Professor Dumbledore will be there, too,” Shacklebolt offered. “And I give you my word that this will not reach the media—Wizarding law prevents anyone from publishing specifics about abuse cases, and that includes names.”

Unwilling to speak, Harry simply nodded. He trailed behind the two aurors as they headed upstairs and to the proper corridor. They stood outside the Room for a moment, then entered into a simple lounge setting. Harry's mouth twisted into a grimace—it looked like something he'd seen in one of Dudley's favorite programs on the telly.

He flopped onto one of the dirt-brown chairs and crossed his arms over his chest. He didn't want to talk about his life at the Dursleys'. Ever. After all, it wasn't like Dumbledore hadn't known—there was no way he could've avoided it! Harry's first letter had been addressed to “The Cupboard Under the Stairs” for Merlin's sake!

He barely registered it when Dumbledore walked in and sat down without a word. The usual twinkle was absent from the Professor's eyes and Harry, lost in his own thoughts, didn't acknowledge him.

Harry supposed that there were things that Dumbledore didn't know about; Dudley's baggy hand-me-downs could hide a multitude of sins. And his relations had always been very careful to hit him where it wouldn't show. For that matter, they'd been careful about just how much damage they'd caused, as well. It just wouldn't have done for them to be taken to jail as abnormal freaks who abused a child.

He watched in silence as Tonks and Shacklebolt sat down across from him. “Harry,” Tonks began gently, “would you tell us about how you grew up?” she asked softly.

Harry bit his lip and stared at his trainers. “I-I don't know if I can,” he said finally. “I never really told anybody; the one time I tried, they told me I was lying.”

“We won't, Harry,” Shacklebolt said, looking uncomfortable.

“Why not?” was Harry's bitter retort. “If the Ministry and the Prophet is to be believed, I'm nothing but an attention-seeking liar.”

Tonks made as if to lay her hand on his arm. For once not censoring his reactions, Harry flinched back. He'd become accustomed to the boisterous jostling and shoving of the dorms and the Weasleys. He'd learned to anticipate things like occasional hugs from Hermione, Ginny, Sirius, and Mrs. Weasley. But he'd never grown comfortable with casual touch. A large part of his mind still equated touches with pain, because the only times that the Dursleys had touched him was to hit him for some real or imagined sin.

Rebuffed, Tonks let her hand settle back in her lap. “We believed you about You-Know-Who, Harry, and we believe you now,” she said quietly.

Harry could see that she was serious, but he'd grown accustomed to not speaking about it. He'd learned to heed the little voice in his head—the one that sounded suspiciously like Uncle Vernon—that said that, if he told, there would be consequences. Silently, he shook his head. He looked up through long eyelashes and saw the Aurors exchange a glance, then look at the Headmaster. Dumbledore gave them a slight nod, as if encouraging them to go ahead.

“There's another way,” Shacklebolt volunteered. Harry could tell that the man was trying to be nice. “There's a special kind of pensieve that we use for children and traumatized victims,” he offered. “We draw out a copy of your memories and the pensieve allows us to view them, but to do that, we need your cooperation.”

Harry drew in a shuddering breath. He didn't want them to see his memories. Hell, he didn't like the fact that Snape had seen enough to report that the Dursleys were mistreating him! But then again, if they knew, one of his fondest dreams would be realized: he'd never have to return to Privet Drive. Wasn't that worth a bit of embarrassment? Slowly, he gave a tiny nod of consent. “Okay,” he whispered. “Go ahead.”

Shacklebolt produced a piece of parchment and a self-inking quill and handed them over. “We need you to sign a consent form, Mr. Potter,” he said quietly.

With hands that shook slightly, Harry took the quill and parchment and signed it before handing it back. He laced his fingers together, put his hands in his lap and examined them minutely; he didn't want anyone to know about the Dursleys, but the secret was already out. There was nothing he could do now but ensure that they couldn't get to him again.

Tonks knelt in front of him and tipped his chin up a little so he was looking at her rather than his trainers, the floor, or his hands. “Harry, love, look at me,” her voice was gentle as she pulled her wand out.

Dimly, he noticed Shacklebolt putting several bottles on a nearby table, but he was too busy trying not to start hyperventilating to notice much. “Good boy,” she said softly. “Now breathe,” she said. “That's right, in and out—big, deep breaths.”

Harry, knowing that he had to cooperate in order to remain Dursley-free, obeyed. “Now,” she said. He could feel the tip of her wand on his forehead. “I need you to concentrate on your memories of your time with your relatives. Start with the earliest memory you have of them, Harry,” she said.

Harry simply nodded, closed his eyes and concentrated. When he was two, he'd been beaten for breaking a plate while doing the washing up. He'd been around three when Dudley had pushed him down the stairs and then screamed that Harry had fallen trying to hurt him. Not only had Harry broken his arm from the fall, but Aunt Petunia had hit him so hard that he'd been practically tossed across the room. Then he'd been locked in his cupboard for three days without food.

Time slowed to a crawl as Harry let Tonks copy memory after memory, detailing a childhood stuffed with beatings, being locked in the cupboard, scant meals, no meals, and constant belittling. He made sure to include times when he'd been the one punished when Dudley had brought home notes about his bullying Harry while Dudley got praised for the same incidents. Finally, they got to the previous summer. As Harry's summer went, it had been fairly normal—hard work, scant meals, insults, and the occasional beating.

But with each memory copied and dropped into the bottles, Harry somehow felt... lighter. No matter what came of it, he was no longer alone; somebody now knew, and there was no going back. Conversely, with each extracted memory, Harry's anger at the people who should have protected him grew. He had tried to tell, but nobody had ever listened. A small part of him wished that, for once, there was somebody who would take care of him, but he knew it was a false hope.

As a small child, he'd dreamed of being rescued, but it would never happen. In a way, Snape had done it, but not really. In reality, Snape had simply done his job; he'd noticed what everyone else had overlooked. Harry's chin sagged to his chest as Tonks extracted the last memory. “We'll take care of it from here, Harry,” she promised.

Harry looked up, exhausted. “What will become of me now?” he asked. “If I'm not going back to the Dursleys', where will I go?” His voice rose with trepidation. “Will I end up in an orphanage during the holidays?” he asked.

Harry knew that he was starting to sound hysterical, but Uncle Vernon had been threatening to send him to an orphanage for as long as he could remember. He'd heard that Voldemort had been raised in one as well, and having something else in common with him was something that Harry wanted to avoid at all costs.

“I won't let that happen,” Dumbledore's voice rumbled.

Harry clenched his fists. “But you knew,” he whispered. “You had to have known; my Hogwarts letter was addressed to the cupboard under the stairs.”

“The cupboard under the stairs?” Tonks questioned.

“That's where I lived,” was Harry's soft answer. “The cupboard was my room until I was eleven; they liked to lock me in there and not feed me when I did something they didn't like after they smacked me about a bit.” He took in a deep breath. They had his memories; they'd know everything soon enough.

Harry started picking aimlessly at a hangnail. “I'm their house elf,” he murmured. “Have been since before I was even big enough to be useful—have to earn my keep.”

“Harry?” Tonks interrupted his chain of thought. “Is there anything else you want to tell us?”

Slowly, he shook his head, picked up his books, and got up to go back to class. Harry listened absently to their comments as the Aurors escorted him to his next class, but he didn't really believe them. He'd ignored the Headmaster in the Room of Requirement, simply because he was angry with Dumbledore for not having noticed earlier. He was furious at Snape for having told what he'd seen in his head. And most of all, he was mad that in the fourteen years or so he'd lived with the Dursleys, nobody had ever rescued him before.

"What after all, is a halo? It’s only one more thing to keep clean."
--Christopher Fry, "The Lady’s Not For Burning"

~*~*~*~

Severus pulled a box out of the back of his wardrobe and extracted a double handful of pictures from it. He put it back in its accustomed place, walked into the lounge, and sat down on the leather couch. One by one, he examined the pictures, smiling slightly at the girl with red hair who was waving at him. He stopped when he got to the last one; it had been one of the last days that he'd seen her alive.

He'd warned Dumbledore about the plot concerning the Potters, then he'd gone to warn Lily in person. A scant month later, they were dead, and baby Harry had been placed with Lily's sister. Severus sighed softly. “He'll never go back there, Lils,” he promised. “The Aurors came today to make sure of that.”

For Lily's sake, as well as the sake of the Order, he and James had called a truce during the last days of the Potter's lives. In public, however, enmity was still the safest stance to take. And he still hadn't liked the man. He smiled a little as he watched a photographic version of baby Harry crawl into his photographic self's lap. Funny, that. As a toddler, Harry had loved his parents, Lupin, Black and his “Unkoh Sebus,” but he'd hated Pettigrew. Briefly, Severus wondered if that should have been an indication of who to trust; as much as he detested small children, it was a well-known fact that they tended to be more perceptive at that age than most adults.

Severus sighed again as he ran a gentle figure over the people in the photograph. He didn't remember who had taken it, but himself, Harry, Lily, and James were waving and smiling back at him from the slick surface. Baby Harry was just starting to toddle in the picture, and was still mostly bald. From the picture alone, it wouldn't have been obvious who exactly was the baby's father; the child hadn't looked as much like James then.

“I'm sorry, Lils,” he whispered to the picture. “I failed you; I forgot how much your sister hates magic, and I never thought she'd mistreat your son.”

He laid his head on the back of the sofa and closed his eyes. In the days following the Dark Lord's fall, he hadn't thought of Lily's child for more than a few minutes; he'd simply been too busy. With his imprisonment and afterwards beginning teaching at Hogwarts, he simply hadn't had the time. And once he'd gotten the breathing space he'd needed, he'd simply assumed that Lily's baby was safe where he was.

Lily had extracted an unbreakable vow from him the last time he'd seen her that he would do his best to protect Harry if the worst happened and she didn't survive. She hadn't asked for perfection, just for him to do his best. In retrospect, he should have checked on the child, but he hadn't thought of it, and as a result, Lily's child had suffered. Silently, he promised her shade that he would make sure that the boy had a chance to be happy, for her sake.

Severus let the pictures drop to his lap. Dumbledore had informed him that Tonks and Shacklebolt had come to take Harry's testimony that afternoon. No matter what happened, Petunia would never get her hands on Lily's boy again. He glanced at the picture of a smiling, happy Lily and promised her that even if he had to take the boy himself, which was the last thing he wanted to do, Harry would be safe and protected.

~*~*~*~

Severus scowled as he stalked up and down the aisle, glaring indiscriminately at the students and doing his best to ignore Umbridge. For some reason, the foul woman had come to do another 'inspection' of his class. His scowl deepened as he considered the self-styled 'High Inquisitor.'

It was bad enough that she'd been planted by the ministry, but she was also incompetent and had managed to push through measures with that fool, Fudge, that were designed to bring down Hogwarts to her own personal standards of mediocrity. One would think with her raging ambition, she had been Slytherin, but it just wasn't so; the odious woman had been a Hufflepuff, and she'd made Longbottom look competent when it came to brewing potions.

Considering how often the boy's potions failed spectacularly, it took an awful lot to be able to say that about another student. “Hem, hem,” she tried to interrupt, but he ignored her in favor of looking into Potter's cauldron.

"It needs to be thicker, Potter,” he said quietly. “What neutral substance wouldn't affect the potion and still be able to thicken it?” he asked. After seeing the child's memories, he'd been doing his utmost to tone down his usual sarcastic behavior around Lily's boy; he'd been keeping a careful eye on him since he'd reported the abuse, too.

Harry frowned as Severus again ignored another, “Hem, hem,” from Umbridge.

“Tapioca?” he ventured finally.

Severus gave him a sharp nod and moved to the next desk. “I wouldn't do that if I were you, Longbottom,” he said. The idiot boy was preparing to toss a handful of nettle leaves into his cauldron.

He froze momentarily. “Why, P-p-professor Snape?” he asked nervously.

“You can read, can't you, Longbottom?” Snape asked.

“Y-y-yes, Sir,” he stuttered nervously.

“Fifteen points from Gryffindor, then,” he sneered. “I suggest you read and follow the directions, Mr. Longbottom.”

“Y-y-yes, sir,” was the soft answer.

“Hem, hem,” Umbridge tried again.

“Yes?” he raised an eyebrow.

Before she could ask a question, there was an explosion coming from the front of the room. “Mr. Finnigan!” he frowned at the hapless student. “Granger, take Finnigan to the hospital wing—everybody else clear out.” Quickly, he cast a strong venting spell before the fumes could reach the students, then cast another to douse the fires under the cauldrons, and started ushering them out of the room.

“If you'll excuse me, Professor Umbridge,” he snarled, “I must find out what that dunderhead did in his attempt to blow up my classroom.”

Before Umbridge answered, he turned and started to check on his other students, making sure that nobody else needed to see Poppy. Unfortunately, it looked like Potter had been hit worse than he had initially thought. Perhaps it was unsurprising, considering that Finnigan had been working at the desk in front of the boy. “Mr. Potter, we need to get you to the hospital wing,” he said quietly.

Potter nodded jerkily. “It's not bad, Professor,” he said. “I've had worse.”

That simple statement made Severus scowl. From his secondhand memories of Harry's home life, he knew that the boy had been hurt much worse than the combination of scalds and boils currently covering him. But that didn't mean he had to like it; Hogwarts was supposed to be a safe place for the children, and he would not allow any of them to suffer needlessly.

“Hospital Wing, Potter,” he said, gesturing forward. He glanced back at the other children. “You lot are dismissed,” he barked. “Now go before I deduct points from both your houses.”

The boy's knees started to buckle, so he grabbed the child before he could collapse and hurt himself further. “Can you walk?” he asked gruffly.

Harry studied the ground, took a deep breath, and nodded. “Yes, sir,” was the soft response.

Severus released the boy, and waved him forward. “Well?” he asked sarcastically. “Are you waiting for an invitation, Potter?”

Wordlessly, Harry shook his head and headed towards the stairs. Severus started to follow him to make sure that the child didn't collapse in the hallways when a call from Umbridge got his attention. “Professor Snape?” she trilled girlishly.

Snape suppressed the urge to snarl at her. He couldn't afford to be sacked—he needed to stay at Hogwarts so that he could report on the Dark Lord's activities without being detected. “Yes?” he snapped irritably without turning around.

“Are you sure it a wise decision to dismiss your students so early?” she questioned.

Severus turned around, keeping his expression blank. “Did I, or did I not warn the class that we would be brewing a volatile potion, and that if it exploded, there would be toxic fumes?”

“You did,” she confirmed.

“Even with the venting spell, it will take some time for the air to clear. As I do not wish to have poisoned children on my hands, class was dismissed. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have injured students to deal with.” Severus turned and strode down the hall, attempting to ignore the twittering of Umbridge as she tried to catch up.

He reached Potter just as the boy collapsed again, this time falling forward and hitting his head on the stairs. Severus cursed softly under his breath, conjured a stretcher, and levitated the boy on it.

He hurried to the Hospital Wing, levitating the stretcher behind him. Out of the corner of his eye, he kept watch on the child, making sure that he wasn't moving around enough to fall off. Harry always did seem to land himself in the maximum amount of trouble he could possibly find. It simply wouldn't do for the child to be removed from those Muggles' care only to seriously injure himself in a simple accident.

Quickly, he lifted the boy onto the nearest bed and called for Madam Pomfrey.

“What happened?” she asked as she hurried over to examine Potter.

“You've already dealt with Mr. Finnigan?” he asked. At her nod, he continued, “Mr. Potter ended up wearing most of the ruined potion.”

Poppy grimaced and, with a flick of her wand, stripped the potion-soaked clothing from Potter and changed him into hospital pajamas. “Do you know why he collapsed?” she asked absently as she collected a burn salve and the remedy for the boils.

“No idea; he said he was fine to walk,” was his neutral answer. “Idiot Gryffindor.”

“Now Severus--” she stopped and shook her head. Quickly, she magicked the potion into the child, and then began to spread the salve on his burns.

“Poppy,” he began softly. “I'm not sure if the Aurors insisted on it yet—but I need you to do a complete medical history on Potter for us.” Normally, he would have left such a thing to the child's head of house, but he was pretty sure that, due to having to keep Umbridge from finding out, Minerva hadn't asked—and he had sworn that Lily's boy wouldn't ever return to the Muggles.

“But those are only done in cases of suspected abuse,” Poppy protested.

Severus inclined his head. “Yes,” was his simple answer.

She closed her eyes for a few moments and sighed. “He's always so thin at the beginning of term,” she murmured. “I'll see that Albus gets it,” she promised.

“Good,” he answered. Without another word, Severus turned and strode out of the Hospital Wing, then headed towards the dungeons. He had things to do before his next class.

~*~*~*~

Severus stared at his student, a scowl firmly in place. The boy was strangely docile, for him. He knew that sooner or later the storm would break, and he wasn't looking forward to the fallout. Potter had certainly inherited his mother's temper! “Let's see how much of that book you absorbed. Legilimens,” he whispered.

The boy's shields were even weaker than before, so he extracted himself quickly. “Mr. Potter,” he began, exasperated, “What exactly is wrong? You're getting worse, not better at this!” Severus made a conscious decision to not belittle the child, at least in private—he decided that to continue to insult Potter would do more harm than good to an already damaged boy.

Harry seemed to consider the matter for a few minutes before answering. “I-I-I don't know,” he answered finally. “I know I need to, but I don't want to cut off my only source of information, either; nobody will tell me anything.”

Severus crossed his arms over his chest and thought for a few minutes. “Tell me about what you've been seeing in your dreams, Mr. Potter,” he said.

Potter frowned. “Why should I?” he demanded. “You went and told about what you saw in my head! Why should I tell you anything?”

Severus sighed. “I had to; it's my duty as your teacher. And I promise that unless it's vital to the war or the security of the students and the school, I won't tell.”

“I've been having these dreams of a corridor in the Department of the Mysteries,” Potter said quietly. “I think there's a weapon there that Voldemort wants.”

“What did I tell you about using that name?” Severus demanded.

Potter flinched. “Sorry,” he said. “But the corridor—I don't know what the weapon is, but he wants it! And I know that members of the Order have been guarding it, and that's where Mr. Weasley was when the snake attacked him.”

“You and your friends are too clever by half,” Severus said dryly, making it sound more of an insult than a compliment. He and the rest of the Order were not supposed to tell the Boy-Who-Lived anything that was going on. He weighed the options; if he wasn't told, chances were he'd go off half-cocked and get himself and his friends killed. And while he didn't know the whole truth, chances were that the child would be the one to get rid of the Dark Lord permanently, because he was one of the few to defy him repeatedly and live.

Deciding on the lesser of two evils, Severus spoke. “If I tell you a little of what's going on,” he began quietly, after casting silencing, locking, and warding spells on the door, “will you concentrate on you lessons and blocking Him out?”

“Will you keep me informed?” Potter asked.

Severus inclined his head. “As much as I am able,” he said. “ If I tell you, you are not to repeat it. You're fifteen, Potter—still a child! And the Headmaster wishes you to enjoy what childhood you have left.” He wasn't sure he agreed with that, but Albus was the head of the Order, and the wisest wizard of the age. He owed him obedience and respect.

Potter gave him a sour look. “My childhood effectively ended when Tom,” he stressed the name, “killed my parents. You know that.”

Severus gave the boy a measuring look. What he saw surprised even him—instead of a normal teenager, he simply saw a very old child. It was true, he reflected, after seeing Potter's memories, he couldn't deny that Lily's boy had neither a real childhood, nor been a child in a very long time. “The Dark Lord,” he began after another moment of contemplation, “is not after a weapon. He is after a prophesy,” he said. “And it involves you. I don't know what it says, so don't ask me, but I do know that you and he are the only ones who can retrieve it.”

“So he's trying to make me go get it for him,” Potter stated.

“Yes,” was the simple answer. “And unless you learn to clear your mind and practice occlumency, he will continue to break into it and try to control you. Now do you understand why this is important?”

“Yes.”

“Will you?” he demanded. The stupid Gryffindor had to learn! If he didn't, all their lives would be forfeit. Severus, for one, didn't intend to die. His preferred method of dying was to simply slip away at a very old age in his sleep. Hopefully, with Voldemort already long dead.

“Yes, sir,” was the reply. “But how? I haven't the slightest idea how to clear my mind, and the book wasn't really all that clear on it, either!” Potter gave him an angry glare.

Severus sighed and began to explain. Sometimes, he wished he hadn't made that damnfool vow to Lily, because it involved protecting the boy from his own idiocy. He suspected it would get worse; after all, there was a chance that the incompetent boob of a minister would try for guardianship of the boy so that he could have him committed to suppress the news of the Dark Lord's return even more. And if that happened, Merlin help them all. 

"I have said nothing because there is nothing I can say that would describe how I feel as perfectly as you deserve it."
-Kyle Schmidt

~*~*~*~

Harry dragged himself into the common room, flopped down onto the couch, and groaned.

Ginny looked up from the book she was reading, set it down, came over, and sat next to him. “Professor Snape have it in for you again?” she asked quietly.

Harry simply closed his eyes and nodded. “I hate the greasy git,” he mumbled.

Ginny reached over, grasped his hand, and gave it a squeeze. “What'd he do this time?” she asked.

Harry flushed. “He told,” was the soft answer. He wasn't mad, exactly, but he still didn't like the fact that Snape had notified the authorities about his family.

Ron and Hermione soon joined them. Ginny gave the two a questioning look. “Snape found out about the Dursleys,” Ron explained.

“And the Aurors came today to talk to Harry,” Hermione supplied. “Professor McGonagall told us that we'd be interviewed tomorrow.”

“So they're going to talk to all of us?” Ginny asked.

Ron nodded. “Probably. Our family, Hermione, and our dorm mates, most likely.”

“I hate this,” Harry said softly. “I mean, I never wanted anybody to know.”

“I hope they don't talk to Percy,” Ron muttered. “He's gone mental.”

“Yes, he has,” Ginny agreed. “And he'd tell Fudge, which would be bad.”

Privately, Harry agreed. The Weasleys were the closest thing Harry had to family, and all of them knew, at least to a certain extent, that the Dursleys never treated him well. It Percy told Fudge, well, he'd have more problems than he did now. Before occlumency lessons, what happened at his so-called 'family's' house was his biggest secret. For years, he hadn't known that how they treated him wasn't normal. It had taken him starting primary school to learn that children didn't belong in cupboards.

He glanced around. There were far too many people in the Common Room to talk about what had been going on. “Not here,” he said quietly. “The usual meeting place?”

Ginny, Ron, and Hermione nodded. Together, the four of them got up, left the common room, and headed to the Room of Requirement.

Harry paced back and forth in front of it for a few minutes, then stepped through the door. Inside, he found a sitting room decorated in Gryffindor colors with plush velvet sofas and chairs arranged into conversation areas. He flopped down onto the nearest couch and curled up into the corner of it. His friends followed, sitting as near to him as they could. Ginny laid a gentle hand on his back. “Are you all right, Harry?” she asked.

“No,” was his short answer. “But I'll have to be the moment we leave here. I haven't a choice.” Harry pulled away from Ginny's light touch and shuddered.

“You know how Harry's been taking 'Remedial Potions' all term?” Ron asked.

Ginny nodded. “From what I've heard, Neville could use the extra lessons more than Harry.”

“If they were really potions lessons, you'd be right,” Hermione said wryly.

“It's occlumency,” Harry said with a sigh. “Lessons to keep Voldemort from getting into my head. And Snape saw my memories of the Dursleys and reported what he saw.”

The four of them sat in silence for a few moments. “Harry, if they're not sending you back to the Dursleys, where will you be going this summer?” Ginny asked finally.

“I don't know,” Harry whispered. “I just hope I don't get sent to an orphanage or something,” he said with a shudder.

“You won't, mate,” Rom promised.

“My parents like you,” Hermione offered. “I think they'd let you stay with us.”

“I know our parents would let you live at the Burrow,” Ginny said decisively. “I, um, overhead a conversation once with Fred and George's extendable ears—they were talking about seeing if you could just come and live with us.”

“Speaking of Fred and George,” Ron began. “Do you think they've been questioned? I mean, they kept sneaking glances at you, Harry, all during dinner.”

“I don't know,” Harry said softly. “Maybe they told Tonks about the bars.”

“Bars?” Hermione looked curious.

“Summer before second year,” Ron explained, “Fred, George, and me broke Harry out of his relatives' house—there were bars on his window that we broke off.” He was silent for a few minutes. “I think they're still in the shed at home, but I'm not sure.”

Harry rubbed a tired hand across his eyes. “I think that was actually one of my better summers at the Dursleys. Before they knew about the Underage Magic Decree, they were so afraid that I'd curse them that they didn't lay a finger on me.” He paused. “There are worse things than to be locked in a room, and they were feeding me a bit.”

The small group fell into silence once again. Ginny slowly reached over and gave him a tight hug. Hermione soon followed, neither girl willing to let go. It didn't take long for Ron to join them, giving Harry, Hermione, and Ginny an awkward, embarrassed hug. “Maybe they won't bother with a guardian for me,” Harry said finally. “I'll be of age in a year and a half, anyway, so I'm not sure it really matters.” He disentangled himself and leaned back against the couch.

“Voldemort's been after you every year since we came here,” Hermione pointed out. “I doubt they're going to leave you to your own devices without a fully-trained witch or wizard around to help.”

Harry grimaced. Sometimes, he thought that his Aunt and Uncle were right—the world would be better off if he'd died with his parents. But only sometimes. Most of the time, he knew better, but there was always that little bit, deep within, that agreed with every rotten thing that Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon had ever said to him.

Sometimes Professor Snape's comments joined them as well. His voice, however, was fainter due to the fact that, while he showed a special antipathy for Harry, the man hated everybody almost equally. It wasn't lost on Harry that Snape kept protecting him every year, either. He figured that the life debt must've been repaid quite some time ago, so there must be another reason for it.

“Tonks said that this won't make the papers, but I doubt it,” he said with a bitter laugh. “Fudge will find out somehow and manage to tie it into his 'Harry Potter's lost his mind' campaign.”

Hermione winced. “At least the real story of what happened last summer will already be out,” she said. “It'll be harder for Fudge to get away with printing all those lies when people read the truth.”

“Maybe,” Harry looked unconvinced.

Ginny glanced at her watch. “It's almost curfew,” she said quietly. “Let's get back to the common room.

Tiredly, Harry heaved himself off the couch and headed towards the door. Part of him hoped that his life would improve, but a larger, more cynical side doubted it. After all, part of the reason why he'd so looked forward to Hogwarts was his ten-month absence from Privet Drive. This year, however, was much, much worse than normal, and he doubted that it would ever get better.

~*~*~*~

“Freak!” Aunt Petunia yelled. “You're worse than your useless, drunken parents! How dare you burn Duddykins's breakfast!”

Five-year-old Harry backed into a corner, desperately trying to stay away from his Aunt. “I d-d-didn't mean to,” little Harry stuttered.

Aunt Petunia hit him as hard as she could, sending him crashing to the floor. Harry suppressed a whimper of pain. He couldn't cry-- crying always made punishments worse. “No meals,” she hissed. “Now get your stuff and start walking or you'll be late to school.”

Gingerly, Harry got up, grabbed his worn rucksack out of the cupboard, and left. He winced at the throbbing in his wrist as he slid the straps over his shoulders. He started walking quickly, hoping that he'd make the mile and a half to school before the bell rang.

~*~*~

Seven-year-old Harry curled up against the back wall of his dark cupboard. His arm throbbed painfully. He grimaced—perhaps it was broken this time. He laid his hand over the place that hurt the most, then started stroking it, humming to himself a tune that he barely remembered.

He didn't know where he'd heard it, but the bits and snatches of song always made him feel better. Maybe his Mummy sang it to him before the accident; he didn't know. Aunt Petunia had never been one to sing songs to Dudley, and she would never have sung to him.

Slowly, the pain in his arm began to ebb and other various aches and bruises subsided. He buried his face in his arms, not noticing when the bruises that Dudley had given him stopped twinging. He wished that the teacher hadn't sent home the note about his cousin bullying him; Uncle Vernon wouldn't have hurt him and tossed him in his cupboard if she hadn't sent the note home.

It wasn't that he didn't like his cupboard—on the contrary, he did. Yes, it was dark, cramped, and full of spiders, but whilst he was in it, nobody bothered him. Most of the time, it was quiet in there with nobody ordering him about. He'd long since realized that nothing he did or didn't do would make the Dursleys love him, and if you couldn't be loved, the next best thing was to be left alone. They almost always left him alone whilst he was in the cupboard.

Harry sat up with a start and rubbed his eyes. He'd been having more nightmares about the Dursleys since Tonks and Shacklebolt had gotten copies of his memories.

“Harry?” Ron's soft voice interrupted him.

“Yeah?” Harry heard the bedclothes rustle and the soft thump of his best friend getting out of bed.

“Have another nightmare?” Ron asked. “Voldemort bothering you again?”

“Just a normal one,” Harry said softly. He heard footsteps cross the small space between his and Ron's beds, and then an arm wrap itself around his shoulders. He let himself lean on his best friend for a minute before pulling back. “Didn't mean to wake you up,” he muttered.

“Couldn't sleep. And you're my brother, anyway,” Ron answered. “More than Percy is, any road. The twins used to help me after nightmares sometimes. 'S only fair.”

“Thanks,” he said, his throat tight with unshed tears.

“Budge over,” Ron ordered.

Harry complied and felt the mattress sink down beside him. “Want to talk about it?” Ron's voice was surprisingly gentle.

“No,” he whispered.

“You know, Harry,” Ron began conversationally, “If we tell Bill and Charlie that the Dursleys have been abusing you, they'll take care of them for us.”

Harry could almost feel Ron's grin. “They don't really even know me,” he protested weakly.

“Doesn't matter,” Ron dismissed it. “Your surname isn't Weasley, but you're one of us, anyway.”

Harry digested that for a few minutes. “Let's talk about something else,” he suggested. “You and 'Mione have been fighting more lately.” He grinned. “Do you fancy her now or something?”

Ron groaned. “Ha-rry,” he said. “Okay, maybe. I don't know. But she's pretty and smart and--”

Harry chuckled. “Yep, you've got it bad.”

The two of them talked for what seemed hours, sharing everything they could think of. Harry even managed to open up a bit and let Ron see some of the secrets he'd been assiduously guarding. Finally, around three am, Harry started to nod off. Ron slipped off the bed, crossed the room, and climbed into his own. Sleepily, Harry wondered how he'd ever done without his friends—especially friends like Ron.

~*~*~*~

Harry's steps dragged as he made his way to McGonagall's office. She'd accosted him that morning during breakfast and asked him to meet her during his free period, which he was loath to do. Eventually, however, he reached her office, so he knocked softly on the door.

“Come in,” Professor McGonagall said.

Harry opened the door, went in, and stood uncomfortably in front of her desk. “You asked me to come see you, Professor?” he asked.

“Sit down, Harry” Her voice was gentle.

Slowly, he sat down and examined the stone floor. “Am I in trouble, Professor?” he asked, trying to avoid any other possible explanation. After all, being asked to meet one's Head of House was usually not a good sign.

“No, you're not, Harry,” she said quietly. He heard her opening the tin on her desk. “Have a biscuit.”

Tentatively, he reached out and took one, then bit into it. “Thank you, ma'am,” he said.

“I know the last few days have probably been difficult for you, Harry,” McGonagall said. “I just wanted to know if there's anything you need to talk about.”

Harry shook his head. “I-I didn't say anything,” he choked out. “I couldn't.”

Professor McGonagall nodded in understanding. “The pensieve, then,” she said. “Harry, I meant what I said first year—your House is your family. I'm sorry I didn't pay attention enough before, but you can come to me if you need anything.”

Harry could feel his face turning red. “Yes, Professor,” he murmured. “I thought people knew—my first Hogwarts letter was addressed to the Cupboard Under the Stairs.”

“Another case of my not paying attention,” she replied. “I've long since stopped watching as the enchanted quill addresses the letters. I'm afraid we've failed you badly, child. Have another biscuit, the chocolate ones are quite good.”

He took another obediently. “What will happen now?” Harry asked quietly. “Where will I go this summer, back to the Dursleys?” Despite everything that had happened, a large part of him still didn't believe that he wouldn't be going back there.

“I don't know yet,” she said. “But neither Professor Snape nor I will allow you to be sent back to those horrible Muggles.”

At Harry's look of patent disbelief, she continued. “He hides it well, but he does care about the welfare of the students, Harry. I promise that you won't go back there ever again.”

“Does Sirius know?”

“The Headmaster is taking care of that, Mr. Potter,” was her soft reply. “I'm afraid that he's the only one who can keep your godfather from doing something... foolish.”

“Thank you,” he murmured.

“I'm afraid we didn't notice that anything was amiss,” she admitted. “You seemed to have problems any other child your age would have, so we simply didn't look further.” Wordlessly, Professor McGonagall offered him the biscuit tin again. “I was focusing on my other orphans because I thought they needed me more. I'm sorry, Harry.”

Tears pricked his eyes, but he wouldn't let himself cry; he hadn't allowed himself to cry in years because it never did any good. “It's all right,” he muttered. “Nothing can change it, anyway.”

“Are there any questions, anything you want to know?” was her next question.

Harry shook his head. “No, Professor.” He finished his second biscuit.

“You can come to me at any time, Harry,” she said. “Even if it's just a nightmare.” Professor McGonagall smiled. “Now, I believe you have some Transfiguration homework due tomorrow. If you need anything, I expect you to come find me. Is that clear?”

“Yes, ma'am,” he answered, then stood to leave. “Thank you, Professor.”

She got up, came around to his side of the desk, and laid her hand on his shoulder. “Your parents would be very proud of you, Harry,” she said, then gave him a rare smile.

Harry nodded, his throat tight, as he left and headed back to Gryffindor Tower. He wasn't sure what to think of his Head of House anymore, either. After all, she'd told him to keep his head down with Umbridge, but now she was helping Professor Snape to make sure he didn't have to return to Privet Drive. Perhaps Ron was right; he wasn't as alone as he'd thought.

"It is very comforting to believe that leaders who do terrible things are, in fact, mad. That way, all we have to do is make sure we don't put psychotics in high places and we've got the problem solved."
--Thomas Wolfe

~*~*~*~

Severus paced the aisles of his classroom, supervising the students as they made the latest assigned potion. Inwardly, he grimaced. Usually, he'd be up at the front marking essays, but so many of the OWL level potions had explosive stages that he simply didn't dare.

He stopped by each table, watching each student work, and making them nervous at the same time. He had made sure to issue dire warnings to all of them about dropping extra ingredients, or joke items in cauldrons and threatened expulsion to anyone who survived that happening. Severus had no wish to spend time cleaning bits of students off the walls, ceiling, and floor of his dungeons. If they blew themselves up, their various bits and pieces would be no good to use in potions, after all.

Severus stopped briefly and eyed Longbottom's potion. “You do realize that your potion should be dark blue, not puce, don't you, Mr. Longbottom?” he asked silkily.

“Y-y-yes, sir,” the boy stuttered.

“Correct it,” he snapped. “And no, Granger, you may not help.”

Severus strode forward and stopped next to Potter's table. He'd been watching the boy more carefully than usual, especially since the Headmaster had left the school. The boy had an Occlumency lesson with him coming up, and he hoped that he could talk to the child then. He peered into the boy's cauldron, absently noting that the color was right for the stage they were in. As Potter started stirring the mixture, he caught a flash of white on the back of the boy's hand.

Inwardly, Severus cursed. It was a scar, and from the quality of it, it was fairly recent. “Potter,” he snapped. “See me after class.”

“Yes, sir,” was the quiet reply.

Severus ignored the glares he was receiving from the Golden Trio and continued to inspect his students' potions, stopping here and there to keep the classroom from being blown up. He didn't want a repeat of what had happened with Finnigan.

Time seemed to creep by slowly until it was finally time to send them off. “Bottle your potions, turn them in, and clean up,” he snapped.

Severus walked over, sat behind his desk and waited for the students to clear out. It seemed forever before the last student scurried out of his classroom. With a casual flick of his wand, he closed the door and put up locking and silencing charms.

“Let me see your hand, Mr. Potter,” he ordered.

Wordlessly, the boy showed him his left hand. Severus repressed the urge to sigh and roll his eyes. “The other hand, Mr. Potter.”

Reluctantly, Potter showed him his hand.

Severus examined the scar his mouth tightening in anger. 'I must not tell lies,' was carved into the back of the child's hand in his own messy writing. “And how did you acquire this scar?” he asked, his voice silky and dangerously soft.

“Detention,” Potter mumbled. “With Umbridge.”

Before they could go any further, Severus glanced at the clock. “This isn't over,” he promised. “But so you don't get into trouble with her, you had best leave for class.” He grabbed some parchment and his red self-inking quill and scribbled the boy a note. “Don't be late for your lesson tonight,” he said, then took down the charms and opened the door with another flick of his wand.

“Yes, sir,” was the reply.

Severus watched as Harry grabbed his bag and hurried out the door. The only ways he could think of to acquire such a scar involved Dark magic or illegal Dark items. That meant the rumors were true, and the Toad had been abusing his students. They were only children, for Merlin's sake!

If she had abused the Potter child in such a way, it was more than likely that he wasn't the only one. Why none of the students had come forward, he didn't know, but that would soon be rectified. He would take Harry to see Minerva, and they would arrange House meetings to find out who else had been forced to inscribe words on their bodies by Umbridge.

Due to circumstances, he could not have the odious woman removed from the school. A slow, evil smile spread over his face. However, there was a set of pranksters set on making her miserable who could... benefit from his expertise. Hopefully, they would manage to get her out of the school so that she could be prosecuted for her actions. Child abuse was highly illegal, after all, and depending on how many students she had hurt, she could end up in Azkaban for a very long time. In his opinion, it couldn't happen to a nicer person.

~*~*~*~

Severus steepled his fingers and looked down his nose at the Weasley twins. He had invented a pretext to haul them into his office for just this... opportunity. He had spent time going through some old notes to unearth the potions that he currently had bottled in his top desk drawer. Normally, he wouldn't dream of helping students create mayhem, but the Weasley twins would be taking their NEWTs in a few months, and this was, after all, a special case.

“Professor,” Fred began.

“...Whatever it was...” George said.

“...We didn't do it,” Fred finished.

The two of them both gave him nervous smiles and attempted to look innocent. Severus didn't buy it for even a moment. “You're not in trouble,” was his quiet answer.

“Then why...” George said.

“...Are we...” Fred continued.

“...Here, Professor?” George asked.

“It has come to my attention that Professor Umbridge has been abusing the students,” Severus began silkily. “With the current level of control that she and the Ministry have over the school, there's not much we can overtly do about it right now.”

“We know...” Fred said with a frown.

“...She's been making...” George continued the thought.

“...Everyone miserable,” Fred said.

Severus gave them his most evil smirk. “There are, however, some other things we can do, with which I require your assistance.”

Twin suspicious looks greeted him. “Our help?” George scratched his nose casually.

“Why ever would you...” Fred leaned forward a bit and gave him a skeptical look.

“...Need that, sir?” George finished the question.

Severus opened his desk drawer and pulled out the potion vials. “These, boys, are some little things I invented when I was your age. I've... tweaked them a bit to personalize them for Umbridge.”

The twins exchanged a look and then turned toward him, sporting identical mischievous smiles. “Gred--”

“And Forge--”

“...At your service, sir.”

“What do they do?”

He handed Fred a few vials of a plum-colored potion. “This one will make her stand up and proclaim randomly that Fudge is an idiot, Dumbledore is wise, and the Dark Lord is back.” Severus smiled nastily. “The effects have been spelled to linger for two months.”

Fred took the vials reverently. “Thank you, sir.”

Severus picked up three vials of rainbow-colored potion and gave them to George. “This will make her hair and skin change colors every time she clears her throat or touches a door.” He grabbed some vials of a sky blue potion and handed them over. “And finally, this will make her say the opposite of whatever she planned to say.”

“Thank you, Professor,” George said with a wide grin.

Severus inclined his head, then handed them a few sheets of parchment. “Here is a list of other experimental potions with prank effects that I have come across over the years. If any of them look useful in your anti-Umbridge campaign, please inform me at once.”

“We'll be happy...” Fred began.

“...To help, Professor Snape,” George finished.

“I have one condition—tell no one where the potions came from,” he said. He nodded as they agreed, then ushered them out of his office. He leaned against the wall and smirked. The pranks that the Weasley twins were responsible for were just as clever as the Marauders' pranks had been, only without malice. They, unlike his school-time nemeses, were equal-opportunity pranksters—with their help, revenge on Umbridge would be sweet.

~*~*~*~

Severus shut the door behind Harry, who had actually been on time for once, then took the seat opposite of the boy. “Tell me how you came by that scar,” he demanded.

Harry slumped and studied the stone floor. “I did,” was his soft reply.

Severus repressed the urge to lash out at him. He was trying, honestly he was, but his first instinct was to insult the child; he had been doing that almost as long as he'd been teaching. “In detail,” he said.

Potter sighed and rubbed his hand across his forehead. “Professor Umbridge assigned me about two weeks of detention at the start of the year,” he began. “She gave me a quill and told me to write lines—I thought it was odd that there wasn't any ink, but she said I didn't need it.” Potter's voice got softer. “When I started writing, it started to dig the words into my hand.”

Severus's mouth tightened into a thin line. “A blood quill, then. Do you know of any other students she did that to?”

“Lee Jordan,” was the subdued reply. “She got him for insolence—you probably would have just taken house points or made him scrub cauldrons. She made me do it again for the Quibbler article, too.”

Severus inclined his head in acknowledgment. “I believe, Mr. Potter, we should see your Head of House about this; Umbridge should not be allowed to abuse students in this manner.”

“But she didn't listen before,” Harry protested.

“She will now,” he insisted. Severus stood up and motioned towards the door. “This is a matter for the Heads of Houses to deal with,” he said.

Harry stood up and started towards the door just as it banged open and Draco Malfoy ran in. “Professor Snape, sir,” he gasped, then looked confused as he noticed Harry.

“Go ahead, Draco,” Severus said. “Mr. Potter is here for Remedial Potions,” he hated falling back on their cover story with Malfoy, due to the fact that Lily's boy had enough to deal with as it was, but there was no help for it.

Draco leered at Potter. “I didn't realize you were that thick, Potter,” he said. “Now Longbottom is, but that's different.”

A quick glance at Potter showed that he was barely holding back from cursing Malfoy. While it was true that Mr. Longbottom was absolutely hopeless at brewing, it simply wasn't done to insult another student in front of a professor. “Well, Draco, what is it?” he demanded impatiently.

“Professor Umbridge sent me,” said Malfoy. “She needs your help—they've found Montague and he's jammed inside a toilet on the fourth floor, sir.”

Severus thought he knew who was responsible for it, and in a way, he admired how they'd made the child disappear, but attacking students could not be allowed. As soon as he had proof, he'd have to assign the Weasley twins detentions. “How did he get in there?” he demanded.

“I don't know sir,” Malfoy admitted. “He's rather confused.”

“Very well,” he said dryly. “Potter, report to Professor McGonagall's office, and we will continue our lesson tomorrow evening instead.”

“Yes, sir,” Potter responded.

He chivvied the boys out of his office and locked it before he swept down the hall with Malfoy trotting at his heels. He hurried up to the fourth floor lavatory and helped unstick Montague from the toilet. Making his excuses, he left and walked towards McGonagall's office, his long legs eating up ground. Upon arriving, he knocked on the door and entered to find her plying the boy with biscuits.

“Minerva,” he nodded to her before seating himself.

“Severus,” she said. “Might I ask why you have sent Mr. Potter to me?”

Severus raised his eyebrow and glanced at Potter. “He did not show you his right hand, I take it?”

“No, he didn't,” she said. “Mr. Potter?”

Reluctantly, Potter showed her his hand. Minerva's mouth tightened as she examined the scar. “Umbridge's doing?” she asked in a deceptively soft voice. From that voice alone, Severus knew that she was beyond angry.

“Yes, ma'am,” was Potter's almost inaudible reply. “In her detentions. She did it to Lee, too.”

“Thank you, Mr. Potter,” she said. “You're dismissed—go straight back to your Common Room.”

They were silent until the office door shut behind Potter. Severus gave her a piercing stare. “Flitwick and Sprout must be informed,” he said. “I believe a few of my cheekier Slytherins served detentions with her as well.”

“We should call whole House meetings,” Minerva said.

Severus steepled his fingers. “I shall have to threaten expulsion for anyone who tells Umbridge about the meeting,” he observed.

“You know your students best, Severus,” she said.

He inclined his head. “If you will talk to Pomona, I'll talk to Filius.”

After mapping out what exactly they planned on saying at the meetings, Severus left and headed to Flitwick's office. They had to do their best to protect the students—all of them, regardless of weather they liked them or not. Snape held no illusions about himself. He was a nasty, vindictive, sadistic, sarcastic bastard, but he still had the spark of the person he used to be—the person who had been Lily Evans's friend. It wasn't something he showed the world. Everyone had masks, and his were thicker than most to hide the fact that he did actually care about a few things.

Because of his potions, he had been responsible for great evils in his life, but there were certain things that he would not stand for, if it were in his power to prevent them. Child abuse was one of them. It was reprehensible enough when a parent was the responsible party, but it was even worse when a teacher abused both the students' and the parents' trust.

While there was little he could do to force Umbridge out of the school, he could assist in documenting what she had done and see to it that she was held responsible over the summer. Umbridge didn't have a chance.

"Let us not look back in anger, nor forward in fear, but around in awareness."
--James Thurber

~*~*~*~

Harry looked up from his charms book and rubbed his eyes tiredly as the portrait hole opened and Professor McGonagall stepped through. She glanced over at them, and he frowned. He knew why she was there—Umbridge. Despite what he'd been told, he couldn't help but feel that he'd let Umbridge win by letting Snape find out about her detentions.

“Mr. Weasley, Miss Granger, please fetch the rest of the Gryffindors.” She glanced around the common room. “We're having a whole House meeting, so I need everyone to stay here,” her voice was pitched to carry.

“What's this about?” Ron muttered as he got up.

“Umbridge, I expect,” Harry whispered. “Professor Snape saw my scar.”

“I told you that you should tell,” Hermione said before darting towards the girls' dorms.

“Prat,” Ron called after her as he headed towards the boys' side.

Harry drew his knees up to his chest and wrapped his arms around them. He really didn't want to be a part of this meeting. In fact, he'd have given anything to disappear right then. “Mr. Potter,” Professor McGonagall's quiet voice interrupted his musings.

“Yes, Professor?” he answered neutrally.

She studied him for a moment before speaking. “It will get better,” she promised.

Harry scowled. “Will it?” he asked. “Because from my perspective, everything keeps getting worse.”

Before McGonagall could answer, students began to come down the stairs, filling the common room, chattering to each other. “Gryffindors, settle down,” she said.

Slowly, silence fell over the room, so she nodded in satisfaction. “It has been brought to our attention that Professor Umbridge has been using a highly illegal and dangerous object in her detentions,” she said.

Harry repressed a snort, and other students stirred restlessly.

“We do not have long until the end of the term, but Umbridge has made herself untouchable. Therefore, I and the other Heads are asking that as much as possible, do not draw her attention. Do your best not to get caught doing anything that could cause her to subject you to one of her punishments. If you do get one assigned to you, you are to come to me or one of the other Heads of House immediately.”

Harry sank lower in his chair, trying to hide from sight. Umbridge hadn't be pleased with the Quibbler article, but there was no way in hell that he'd retract what he'd told Rita Skeeter.

“I need to see every student who has served a detention with Umbridge to come and see me,” McGonagall said. “The rest of you, get up to your dormitories-—there will be no wandering tonight.”

Harry, Lee, and almost a dozen other students made their way to her as the other students headed into the dormitories. He stayed silent, unwilling to be the first one to speak. “Is this about that quill, Professor?” Lee asked.

Professor McGonagall inclined her head. “Yes. I'm assuming that she had all of you use it?”

Out of the corner of his eyes, Harry saw everyone nod. Mentally, he winced. Perhaps if he'd told the first week, everyone else could've been spared Umbridge detentions.

“Very well, then,” McGonagall said briskly. “Tomorrow, during your free periods, all of you are to report to Madam Pomfrey. An Auror will be there to take your statements, and any marks left from Professor Umbridge's detentions will be documented.”

She was answered by a ragged chorus of, “Yes, ma'am,” and “Yes, Professor.”

“All of you except Mr. Potter are dismissed,” she said. “Up to your beds, please.”

The others left, trooping towards the stairs. Harry shifted from foot to foot uneasily. He didn't want to talk about either Umbridge or the Dursleys, and that seemed to be what his professors always wanted to talk to him about lately.

Professor McGonagall motioned for him to sit in one of the squashier armchairs. “Harry--”

His head snapped up when she addressed him by his given name; it simply wasn't normal for a teacher to call him anything but his surname. “Yes, Professor?” Harry deliberately kept his tone neutral.

“Have you had any more visions?” she asked.

“Just the one with the doors that I told Professor Snape about,” he answered cautiously.

Professor McGonagall reached out, as if to touch him. Harry shrank back into his chair, avoiding the touch.

Professor McGonagall sighed quietly. “Harry, you do know that you can trust us, don't you?”

Harry wasn't so sure of that, but he gave her a cautious nod, anyway. He'd long since learned that it was safer to simply agree with what the adults said, and right now he was vulnerable to whatever they wanted to do with him.

McGonagall frowned slightly. He could tell that she didn't entirely believe his nod. “If you have another vision,” she began, “I want you to go straight to either Professor Snape or myself; Professor Snape would probably be a better choice because he's still reporting You-Know-Who's plans to the Headmaster.”

“Yes, ma'am,” he said. While Harry could see the logic in that, it also felt like a rejection. She was shoving him off on someone else, which, frankly, wasn't anything new.

“If you need anything, Mr. Potter, come and see me,” she said. “Now off to bed with you.”

Harry simply nodded and headed up into his dormitory. Moving slowly over to his bed, he fished his worn pajamas out of his trunk and changed into them. He climbed onto his bed and wrapped his arms around his knees.

“Harry?” Ron came over and joined him.

“Yeah?”

“Somebody saw the Umbitch's scar, didn't they?” he asked.

“Snape did,” Harry muttered. “He wasn't happy about it.”

Ron gave him a one-armed hug. “I'd imagine not,” he said dryly. “Hogwarts is supposed to be the safest place in Britain; it's part of why so many people send their kids here.”

Harry allowed himself to lean against his best friend for a moment. “Just once,” he said, “I'd like to have a normal year. One with nobody out to kill me in which my biggest worry is passing potions.”

Ron snorted. “Not bloody likely,” he commented. “Trouble seems to find us.”

They lapsed into silence for a few minutes. Neville, Dean, and Seamus were talking softly at the other end of the room, stopping occasionally to shoot glances at him. Ron opened his mouth to say something, but he was interrupted by the twins entering the room.

“Aww, isn't that sweet...” Fred began.

“...Ickle Ronniekins...” George continued.

“...And Ickle Harrykins...” Fred said.

“...Together.” George finished with a wide grin.

“Shut it,” Harry said, rolling his eyes.

“Aren't you supposed to be in your dormitory?” Ron asked, crossing his arms over his chest.

“The shame,” George said.

“...The infamy...” Fred moaned.

“...Why in Merlin's name...” George put his hand over his heart.

“...Did we get another brother...” Fred shook his head sadly.

“...Who's a prefect?” George pretended to wipe away tears.

“At least Harry...” Fred clapped George on the shoulder.

“...Didn't let us down.” George nodded in satisfaction.

Both Harry and Ron rolled their eyes. “We thought you were over that,” Harry said.

“Yeah—I've been a prefect for a while now, and I usually don't let it get in the way,” Ron pointed out.

Fred and George exchanged identical smiles. “Well, little twins...”

At this, Harry choked, so Ron pounded him on the back. “Does this mean that we're Hon and Rarry now, Gred and Forge?” Ron asked with a grin.

“Well, Harry's one of us...” Fred said.

“...And since you're the same age...” George continued.

“...We figure that...” Fred grinned.

“...It makes you...”

“...Twins, too.”

Harry and Ron exchanged glances. “Guess we must be fraternal, then, because we look nothing alike,” Harry observed.

Ron shrugged. “Well, we could adopt you, but I'm older than you are by about five months.”

Fred and George collapsed onto Harry's bed. “Poor Mum,” George said with a grin.

“...It was a difficult pregnancy...” Fred said with a mischievous smile.

Before George could continue, Harry smacked him upside the head. “Hey! What was that for?” he protested.

Harry rolled his eyes again. “What are you two doing here, anyway?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Ron said. “Knowing McGonagall, she'll probably choose tonight to do a bed check since she sent all of us up so early, and if you get caught...”

“We won't,” Fred promised.

“We're just here to tell Harry that Snape and the Aurors interviewed us about the Dursleys,” George said.

“We knew they would,” Harry said in a strained voice. He shot a quick glance at the rest of his roommates; none of them were paying the twins any mind.

“But we thought you'd like to hear it from us,” Fred said. “We're sorry it took so long, but with pranking Umbridge...”

“We haven't had the time, and we've a message from Snuffles for you, too,” George informed them.

“He said to tell you that the package he gave you was a two way mirror...” Fred began.

“And you're to use it to talk to him...” George finished.

“How did you manage to get word from him?” Harry asked, puzzled. Umbridge had been monitoring the mail for some time now, after all.

A wicked grin spread over Fred's face. “The Owl Office in Hogsmeade isn't monitored,” he informed them.

“We sent an owl from there and had them hold return owls to us.” George said, obviously pleased by their own cleverness.

“Wicked,” Ron breathed.

“Why didn't we think of that?” Harry wondered out loud.

“It's not like we don't know how to sneak into Hogsmeade,” Ron said.

“We could've been sending letters that way all year!” Harry moaned.

Fred shook his head. “They're just not devious enough,” he lamented.

“Pity, that,” George said. “Harry, as both our unofficial brother, and Ron's unofficial twin...”

“...If you need anything whilst we're still here...”

“...You can come and see us...”

“...But we'd better go now...”

“...Pranks to plan...”

“...Umbridge to embarrass...”

“...Be sure to...”

“...Watch the Head Table at breakfast...”

“Don't get caught,” Ron warned them. “We don't need you expelled, and the Umbitch has that power now.”

“Yes, Mum,” George quipped. The twins stood up and left.

“Barmy, both of them,” Harry muttered.

“They made you smile,” Ron pointed out.

“Yeah,” he said. Harry got up and started rummaging in his trunk. “Maybe I should call Sirius,” he said.

Ron moved back over to his own bed. “Tell him I said hello, all right?”

“Sure,” Harry answered. He found the mirror, climbed into his bed, shut the curtains, and cast a silencing spell. He had a lot to tell his godfather.

"All warfare is based on deception. We cannot enter into alliances until we are acquainted with the designs of our neighbors."
--Sun Tzu, The Art of War (fl. 400-320 BC)

~*~*~*~

Severus knelt and kissed the hem of the Dark Lord's robes. “My Lord,” he said, using a slavish, worshipful tone. He hated it. He hated bowing down to a smarmy, psychotic, sociopathic, megalomaniac idiot who was possessed of delusions of grandeur. He was sick of the lies and the deceit that had become his life, but they were also his survival. He dared not drop the masks.

“Severus, my faithful servant,” Voldemort said. “What have you to report?”

“Umbridge is doing exactly what she has been paid to do, Master,” he said. “The old coot has been driven from the school, Potter and his friends are miserable, and my Slytherins are terrorizing the school.”

Voldemort gave him a sharp nod of acknowledgment. “Anything else?”

“Umbridge's incompetence will insure that she doesn't last long,” he said. “The other teachers are uncooperative and the students take every opportunity to terrorize her.”

“Word has reached me that you no longer insult Potter.”

Severus inclined his head. “I was ordered not to, my Lord,” he said. “Apparently, Potter has been mistreated by those Muggle relatives of his,” he sneered. “Most likely, he's making it up to get more attention.” He hated being forced into telling the boy's secrets, but if he were lucky, Tom would believe what he was saying.

Voldemort leaned back in his throne and steepled his long fingers. “Perhaps.”

“He is a spoilt, arrogant child with delusions of grandeur who thinks he can defeat you, my Lord,” Snape said. A little judicious flattery never hurt.

Voldemort's lips curved into a smile as he probed Severus's thoughts. Severus repressed a shiver for both the smile and the Legilimency. The smile, well, that was enough to send small children running away and screaming in horror. Combined with the violation of the Dark Lord's version of Legilimency, which felt a lot like mind rape, it was enough to make any sane person shudder at the very least.

“Very good, Severus,” he said. “But you have yet to find out either what they will do with Potter over the summer, or the contents of the prophecy. Crucio.”

Pain. White-hot, blinding pain. It was all Severus was aware of for what seemed like eternity. When he came back to himself, he tried to control the tremors as bowed low and kissed the hem of Voldemort's robes. “You are most generous, my Lord.” He murmured before stepping back and blending in with the other Death Eaters.

As soon as they were released, Severus disapparated, reappearing right outside Hogwarts' apparation borders in the Forbidden Forest. Quickly, so as to avoid the centaurs, he left the forest and headed to the castle. Minutes later, he was back in his chambers, downing an anti-cruciatus potion.

When the tremors subsided, Severus locked and warded his rooms, pulled out his scrying bowl, and filled it with water. He put the bowl on a low table, then sat down in his favorite chair. Taking out his wand, he tapped the bowl at each of the four compass points, “Fama Albus Dumbledore,” he whispered. He leaned over the bowl, watching closely as the Headmaster's image appeared.

“Severus? I thought it was you.”

Severus inclined his head. “I was summoned, Headmaster,” he said. “The Dark Lord wanted to know why my treatment of the Potter boy has changed.”

“And what did you tell him?” Dumbledore asked.

Severus sighed. “I told him that there had been allegations of abuse that were probably unfounded and that I'd been ordered not to insult the whelp.”

Dumbledore gave him a slow nod. “Have you learned anything of his plans?”

Severus closed his eyes briefly. “He still wants the prophecy, and Potter told me that he's still having dreams of the corridor in the Department of Mysteries.”

“You think that Tom is trying to lure Harry there.” It was more of a statement than a question.

“Of course,” Severus said. “To keep that from happening, I told Harry that there is a prophecy that the Dark Lord wants and that is why he's been having those dreams.”

“Severus!” Dumbledore exclaimed.

Severus crossed his arms over his chest and raised an eyebrow. “He and his friends thought it was a weapon,” he said mildly. “Knowing how foolishly Gryffindor that child can be, he might have gone there and gotten himself and his friends killed.”

“I wanted him to have a normal year for once,” Dumbledore began sorrowfully.

“Ahh, yes, a normal year,” Severus said thoughtfully. “So far, you've ignored him, he's been publicly branded as a delusional, violent teenager, had a lifetime quidditch ban imposed upon him, had his less-than-adequate home life exposed, been tortured by a ministry-imposed defense teacher--”

“What?” Dumbledore demanded.

“You didn't know?” Severus inquired. “Umbridge has been using a blood quill on the students in her detentions all year. We've been gathering evidence; by next week, we shall have everything we need to put her in Azkaban for quite some time.”

Dumbledore shut his eyes and sighed. “I have failed that child more than I thought.”

Severus simply snorted. “The Dark Lord is still trying to get the boy to obtain the prophecy for him,” he said shortly. “I have taken measures to insure that this does not happen; as I said before, Potter now knows what the Dark Lord wants, and is working harder at his lessons.”

Dumbledore scowled. “You were under orders not to tell him anything.”

“Yes,” Severus replied. “And, as usual, he and his friends were trying to figure out what, exactly, is going on, which sooner or later would lead them into a trap.” He raised his eyebrow. “I do not wish to attend another funeral for one of my students; Mr. Diggory's was bad enough.”

The tiny figure of the Headmaster seemed to hesitate before finally giving him a sharp nod. “You seem to understand the boy better than I do right now, Severus,” he admitted.

Severus snorted. “Because I'm being forced to spend time with him, whilst you've been studiously ignoring him. I assure you, it won't last.” At least he hoped it wouldn't; he didn't want to become part of the Potter fan club. The brat had too many people fawning over him as it was.

“Thank you,” Dumbledore said quietly.

Severus inclined his head and ended the spell, slumping tiredly against the soft leather of the chair. A smirk stole over his face as he remembered the shocked look on the Headmaster's face as he'd told the man about Umbridge's detentions. It was a common belief that Albus Dumbledore was infallible and knew everything, and it was always fun to prove that it simply wasn't so.

~*~*~*~

Severus poked at his scrambled eggs. Normally, he'd be leaving the Great Hall by now, but he'd received word that he should hang around to... watch. He looked at Umbridge out of the corner of his eye and watched as she gulped down some pumpkin juice.

“Hem, hem,” Umbridge cleared her throat. Snape watched with hidden amusement as she turned bright blue.

“Hem, hem,” she cleared her throat again and chartreuse spots began popping up on top of the blue. As if the blue and bright greenish-yellow weren't bad enough, her skin now clashed horribly with the fuzzy pumpkin-colored sweater and matching headband that she was wearing over her robes.

With stifled amusement, he watched as a look of horror spread over her face and students began laughing at her new appearance. He glanced over at the Gryffindor table and gave the Weasley twins a barely perceptible nod. Fred grinned broadly while George signaled for him to wait a few moments. Idly, he thought that they must have tweaked the formula; he'd never tried to get it to reproduce patterns.

A bang resounded throughout the great hall as the banners were replaced with new ones depicting Umbridge, her skin and hair in the pictures were splashed with too many different patterns and colors to count—she looked more like a layered stack of crazy quilts than a human being. Added to the... colorful picture were sound effects of a toad croaking, whilst the Umbridge picture's tongue lashed out of her mouth to catch a fly and eat it. Each 'ribbit' had a translation scroll out from beneath the picture, saying more and more outlandish things with each successive sound effect.

Umbridge turned red, then purple. The mix of natural colors made an interesting combination with the prank potion ones. “Effingo!” She roared, pointing her wand at the banners, and then clapped her hand over her mouth.

Obediently, the banners duplicated themselves until every available bit of the walls and the ceiling were plastered with them and the toad noises became almost deafening. Umbridge gasped, her mouth hanging open and abruptly sat down, only to stand up again as the tittering became full-out laughter. “Minister Fudge is an idiot!” she proclaimed. “Dumbledore is right, and Voldemort is back!” she said. Abruptly, she sat back down and then cleared her throat. Bright purple stripes added themselves to the chartreuse polka dots on her skin.

Quietly, Severus stood up and made his way out of the great hall. “One hundred points to Gryffindor,” he murmured, “for a positively Slytherin use of magic in aiding a professor.”

~*~*~*~

Severus glanced at the clock and leaned back in his desk chair. He'd been marking essays while he waited for Harry to show up—not that he'd really been getting much done. It had been pandemonium all day after the Weasley twins' brilliant escape. Part of him wanted to follow them; to escape for a short while, but he had too many responsibilities to just leave.

He had stepped up Harry's Occlumency lessons to three times a week; the closer it got to the end of the year, the more worried he became. Almost every year since Lily's boy had come to Hogwarts, the Dark Lord... interfered with Harry. That time was fast approaching, and if the child were to survive yet again, Severus needed every possible weapon at his disposal.

The child was improving. While he could not yet block visions from the Dark Lord, Harry was developing shields around his mind which would, in time, become formidable. The door opened slowly and a dark head cautiously peeped in. “Sir?” he said.

“You're late,” Severus said without rancor.

“Sorry, sir,” Harry said quietly. “It's a madhouse out there.”

Severus gestured towards a chair. “Any more visions?” he inquired.

Harry nodded hesitantly. “Yes, sir—I think he's going to try and lure me there.” The boy paused for a few moments. “Professor? What if we set a trap or something for him?”

Severus contemplated the idea for a few minutes. Perhaps it could work; if nothing else, they could prove to the general public that the Dark Lord had returned. Finally, he gave the boy a brief nod. “I will discuss it with the Headmaster,” he offered.

“Thank you, sir,” Harry said.

Severus picked up a stack of parchment and handed it to the boy. He'd been considering doing something like this for a while now; not only would it satisfy Minerva, but it would also annoy Umbridge. Putting up with the boy for two more years in classes would be worth it, he hoped. Also, keeping him in potions would make it easier to keep an eye on Harry so that he could protect the boy better. “This should help you prepare for OWLs,” he observed.

Harry took the parchment and gave him a puzzled look. “Sir?” he ventured.

Severus raised an eyebrow. “Yes?”

“Why are you being nice to me? And why are you helping me? I mean, you hate me.”

Severus smirked. “I rather thought that you didn't need more insults and pressure at the moment. As for the rest, let's just say that I'm keeping a very old promise.”

“To who?” Harry looked curious.

Severus crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back in his chair. “I was not aware that you'd become an owl, Mr. Potter,” he observed.

“That's more normal,” the child muttered.

“Now.” Severus leaned forward and fixed an intent gaze on the boy. “We have some things to learn before you can go back to your common room.”

Harry stuffed the parchment into his bag, then straightened up to look at him. “Yes, sir,” he said as he pulled out his wand.

“So far we have concentrated on direct attack,” Severus began. “But the Dark Lord's methods have changed lately, so tonight, we shall work on something more... subtle as well.”

Potter gave him a sharp nod. “I'm ready, Professor,” he said.

Severus drew his wand. "Legilimens," he said, putting as much force behind it as he deemed safe. Blackness. He was surrounded entirely by darkness. He peered around, attempting to figure out where he was, but he couldn't see a thing. Finally, he could see some slotted light coming from one end of the black space.

As he approached it, he was thrown out of Harry's head. He favored the boy with a rare smile. “Very good, Mr. Potter. Now where was I?”

Harry frowned slightly. “I shut you in my cupboard and took the light away,” he said slowly. “It's safe in there, a little cramped, but safe. If I can get trapped, so can you.”

Severus nodded. “We shall have to work on the next stage,” he observed. “But before that, you need to learn to recognize and counter a more subtle approach. Blocking the dreams that the Dark Lord sends you would be a very good idea.”

“Yes, sir,” Harry said.

Briefly, Severus wondered if Harry's lack of cheekiness was really a good thing. Ever since his life with the Dursleys had been discovered, the child had been more subdued than was normal. While it was a nice change, part of him hoped that they'd see a reemergence of the cheeky, impudent brat that he'd grown accustomed to dealing with. He wasn't sure how to relate to this new version of Harry Potter.

"Legilimens," he murmured. This time, he kept his touch light, trying to slide in under Potter's Occlumency shields. It didn't take long for him to succeed. Deftly, he began looking for happy memories, trying to find something that wouldn't be traumatic for Harry to relive; he'd had enough of watching bad memories.

Harry's first time on a broom caught his eye. He watched as Harry flew around the towers of the castle, trying to get Longbottom's Rememberall back from Malfoy. Inwardly, Severus sighed as the boy caught the device at the bottom of a fifty-foot dive. If only he'd been in Slytherin...

He reached the end of that memory and searched for another. He stopped as he caught sight of Black asking the boy to live with him. Severus shook his head. Lily's child had been desperate for a parental figure to love him. He filed the thought away; whoever took Harry in would need to know that.

The next memory that caught his eye was Harry's first Christmas at Hogwarts. He frowned a little when he felt the child's amazement that there were actually gifts for him. With an almost-audible snap, he was back in the cupboard, then thrown out of Harry's mind.

Severus gave the boy a sharp nod. “Good,” he praised. “But you must learn to recognize an intrusion sooner and throw me out more quickly.”

Harry nodded, then reached up and rubbed his scar. “Yes, sir,” he said.

“Is there a problem, Mr. Potter?” Severus asked.

Harry looked down at the floor. “My scar hurts,” he admitted. “It always hurts after Occlumency lessons.”

Severus sighed, walked over to his potions cupboard, and started rummaging around inside. He pulled out a pot of salve, and then gave it to the child. “Here,” he said. “Rub some of this into your scar after lessons. I want you to come to me before you sit OWLs, I'll see what I can do to reinforce your shields.”

Harry took the salve and gave him a shy smile. “Thank you, sir,” he said.

Severus inclined his head. “Now, once more—legilimens.” As he infiltrated the boy's mind once more, he hoped that it would be enough to keep the psychopath out of Lily's child's head. Merlin only knew Harry had enough on his plate with the Umbitch after his blood.

"I am weary of it all, where is the sense in all this pain and joy?"
--Goethe "Wanderer's Song at Night"

~*~*~*~

Harry closed the curtains around his bed and pulled out his mirror. He'd been talking to Sirius every few days since the twins had told him about it. OWLs were fast approaching. He'd shared what Snape had given him with his friends, and he desperately needed to talk to his godfather. “Sirius Black,” he said.

“Hey, Harry,” Sirius's face appeared in the mirror.

Harry frowned as he noticed how tired Sirius looked. “Are you all right?” he asked. “You look ruddy awful.”

Sirius smiled. “I'm fine,” he said. “I've just been working hard on a surprise for when you come home for the summer.”

Harry thought his heart would burst with the joy of it. “You mean I get to stay with you?” he asked, grinning.

“Of course!” Sirius said. “We'll get you an official guardian, so that the Ministry keeps their nose out of it, but you can come and live with me.”

“I miss you,” Harry said suddenly. “Nothing is normal here anymore. I mean, Snape has been being civil and even helping me.”

Sirius looked thoughtful for a few minutes before he replied. “Severus and I don't get on, and we probably never will,” he said finally. “But he's on our side, Harry, and deep down, I think he's a decent person.”

“But I really can come and live with you?” Harry asked timidly. It was too hard for him to believe that he wouldn't have to return to Privet Drive; he just couldn't really see it happening.

“Yes,” was Sirius's unequivocal answer. “If I hadn't stupidly run off after Wormtail, you would've grown up with me. When I think of what Lily's rotten sister and her family did to you--”

“Don't, Sirius,” Harry said earnestly. “I need you with me, not back in Azkaban for torturing Muggles.”

“They'd deserve it,” Sirius muttered. “But I won't.” He favored Harry with a wolfish grin. “I made Tonks and Shacklebolt promise that they'd get them thrown into Azkaban.”

Harry shivered. “OWLs are next week,” he said, changing the subject.

“Have you studied?” Sirius asked.

Harry nodded. “Yeah. Professor Snape even gave me some extra stuff to look at.” He frowned. “I don't know why he did that, either. I think it's because he's mad at Umbridge so he decided to help me to get back at her.”

Sirius gave him a half-smile. “How very Slytherin,” he commented. “He and your mother were good friends when we were in school,” he said conversationally.

“They were?” Harry asked, shocked.

Sirius nodded. “It was one of the reasons why James hated him so much; your father had a crush on your mother for years before she noticed him.”

Harry turned the new information over in his mind a few times before asking another question. “Sirius? What was Mum like? Nobody ever tells me anything about her other than she was pretty, smart, and good at charms.”

Sirius looked surprised. “I guess everyone thinks that since Petunia raised you, she must have told you about Lily.”

Harry shook his head. “I don't think you want to know what Aunt Petunia told me about my parents,” he murmured. “It wasn't anything good.”

Anger flitted across his godfather's face. Visibly calming himself, he started to talk. “Harry, your mother was the most beautiful person I've ever known, inside and out.” He grinned suddenly. “I think at least half the boys in our year had a crush on her.”

“What was she like? What was her favorite color? Did she really want me or was Aunt Petunia telling the truth?” Rapid fire questions streamed out of Harry's mouth.

Sirius laughed. “Slow down, Harry. Breathe a bit.” He settled back in his chair. “Well, first of all, she hated bullies. I think that's why it took her so long to notice James—he had to grow up a bit first. She'd stand up for any student, regardless of House, who was being picked on.”

Harry frowned. “You mean that Dad was a bully?” he asked.

Sirius spoke slowly, as if he were trying to choose his words carefully. “We did some rotten things when we were your age, Harry. We were idiots, and we learnt better. It's a big part of why Professor Snape and I still don't get on and why he's held a grudge against you.”

“And because I look like Dad,” Harry said.

Sirius nodded. “To be helping you as much as he has, I'm betting that he's finally figured out what Remus and I saw a while ago; you resemble James more than you do Lily, but you're her son, personality-wise.”

Tears prickled Harry's eyes. “Thank you,” he murmured. “I never got to ask about her before; the Dursleys punished me for asking questions.”

“Never be afraid to ask questions, Harry,” Sirius said quietly. “And to answer some of your questions, you were not only very much wanted, but planned. Your parents were so happy when Lily found out that they were having you.”

He simply nodded. They talked for a while longer, but were interrupted by a jaw-cracking yawn from Harry. “Go to bed, Harry,” Sirius ordered. “I love you.”

Harry had to bite back tears at that statement; he couldn't remember anyone ever having said that before. “Night, Sirius,” he murmured. “Out.” The mirror turned off, and he tucked it into its hiding spot before climbing under the bedclothes.

He'd known that his Mum died for him, but to know that she'd wanted him from the beginning was something new. Briefly, he wished he could at least remember his parents, but knew that it was just wishful thinking. Sighing softly, he closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep, a barely remembered tune running through his head.

~*~*~*~

Harry hurriedly got dressed, grabbed the Marauder's Map, and threw his invisibility cloak over his head. OWLs were to begin, and he was to see Professor Snape to have his shields reinforced before breakfast that day. Quickly and quietly, he hurried out of Gryffindor Tower and down to the dungeons.

Upon arriving, Harry checked the map before he removed his cloak, knocked softly on the door to Snape's office, and jumped back when it opened abruptly.

“In,” Snape ordered.

Quickly, Harry complied. It wouldn't have done to get caught by one of the Slytherins.

Snape shut the door behind him, then locked and warded it. “Do you trust me, Mister Potter?” he asked abruptly.

Harry considered the question for half a moment. “No,” he said honestly.

Snape gave him a look as if he were examining a mismade potion for what had went wrong, then nodded sharply. “I see,” he said. “In order for this to work, you must trust me, Potter.”

Harry began to study the floor. Could he? After all, the man knew a good number of his secrets. But trust, as a general rule, came hard for him, and Snape was an adult. That fact alone made him wary to even try. In his experience, adults weren't generally trustworthy, especially Snape.

Snape had spent the better part of five years making sure he knew that pond scum was higher on the evolutionary ladder than he was. Snape had spent months rummaging through his head and had squealed about his home life. But, on the other hand, that very act had fulfilled one of Harry's deepest desires, and he'd also given Harry what he craved the most—information.

Finally Harry nodded slowly. “I can try,” he said.

Snape gestured towards a high-backed chair. “I have agreed to do this, even though it will be quite draining for me.” He gave Harry a stern look. “It would not do to learn rely on this, Mister Potter; even the Headmaster could only boost Occlumency shields for a short period of time.”

“Yes, sir,” Harry murmured. He didn't quite know why Snape was helping him; there were few certainties in his world at the moment. Aside from the 'Voldemort wants me dead' one, there was 'Professor Severus Snape hates my guts' truth. But it seemed as if the rug had been yanked out from under him in regards to the latter. If Snape really hated him, why was he helping? Confused, he looked at his professor. “What must I do?” he asked.

Snape circled him twice before replying. “First, you must drop your shields,” he ordered.

“But, sir!” Harry protested. He'd barely learned how to keep them almost constantly up as it was!

“Normally,” Snape's soft voice began, “I would tell you to never drop your shields for anyone, but this is a special case.”

Harry crossed his arms over his chest and glared at his professor. “How do you I know that you're not going to do something to me when I let my guard down?” he demanded.

Snape smirked. “You don't,” he said. He stopped in front of Harry, grasped his chin, and made him look up. “I know trust comes hard, Mister Potter, but unless you want the Dark Lord in your head during OWLs, you will have to trust me.”

Harry jerked back and looked down quickly. He had felt the greasy git's brush against his mind, and he didn't like it. It was Professor Snape's fault that his secrets had gotten out, after all. But what choice did he have? Snape's words were blackmail, to be sure, but he couldn't afford to have Tom in his head during OWLs. Finally, he nodded his consent and slowly let his shields down.

“Close your eyes,” Snape ordered quietly. “I shall have to create a temporary bond between our minds for this to work.”

Harry nodded and obeyed. He almost flinched when he felt the gentle, deft touch brush against his mind.

“Hold out a mental hand, Potter,” Snape said.

Hesitantly, Harry complied. He wasn't sure exactly what Snape was doing, and he sure as hell didn't trust the man. He felt the professor link firmly to his outstretched 'hand' and was almost shocked by the feeling of pure power that radiated through the link.

“I taught you to see your own mind,” Snape said silkily. “Watch what I do. While trapping an invader is a good strategy, it is often better to misdirect them and allow them to think that they are getting somewhere.” As he spoke, the man built layer upon layer of shields around Harry's mind. Catching on to the technique, Harry started helping, building his own shields behind the ones that Snape constructed.

After building innumerable shields, Snape finally released him and slid out of his mind. “The link will allow me to maintain the shields I just built,” he lectured. “Now, behind all the rest, I need you to erect your strongest Occlumency shield and keep it up. The barriers should be able to keep the Dark Lord out of your thoughts.”

Quickly, Harry put up his shields and anchored them to the rest. “Why are you helping me, Professor?” he asked.

Snape glared at him for a moment, then scowled. “The headmaster thinks that you deserve an even chance with the rest of the students—and I find that I quite agree.”

Harry studied the stone floor. “Oh,” he said quietly.

Snape glanced at the clock on the wall. “Breakfast should be served soon,” he said. “But before you leave, I want your word that you will forget the rubbish that those Muggles instilled in you about your marks and do your absolute best.”

Harry looked up in surprise. His professor's voice was demanding, and brooked no argument. The unspoken message was clear; he was to do his best, or else. Frankly, he didn't want to find out what the consequences would be for disobeying the unspoken order. “Yes, sir,” he said. “I promise.”

Snape gave him a sharp nod. “Go,” he ordered.

Harry pulled his cloak out, threw it over his head, and left the classroom. Every private lesson he had with the man only served to confuse him further. Professor Snape hated him, he had no illusions about that. But recently, it seemed as if the man was hell bent on protecting him.

In his world, things like that didn't happen. In his world, adults didn't help, and never believed anything he said. Part of him wanted to be angry, but he couldn't afford to get on Professor Snape's bad side—if he did, his line to any and all information about Voldemort and the outside world might just disappear.

~*~*~*~

Harry pulled off his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose. He'd made it through OWLs that week without much incident, and he was tired. He'd spent most of his time between exams frantically revising, hoping to remind himself of everything he'd learned in the past five years. He would not, could not, fail any of his exams. He simply didn't want to deal with a Professor Snape convinced that he'd fallen back on his old standby—to be average and unnoticeable.

Harry grimaced as he slid his glasses back on and headed down the hallway. He had another Occlumency lesson later that night, and Professor Snape had to take down the temporary barriers that he'd erected on Harry's mind. He'd been going to see the man every morning to have the barriers strengthened, and he'd be glad when he didn't have to do it anymore. Out of everyone's sight, he allowed his shoulders to slump a little and studied the floor in front of him as he walked.

His head snapped up and he frowned as he heard shrill screaming coming from the direction of the first floor. Harry sped up, heading towards the sound with his hand on his wand. His expression darkened as the cause of the noise came into sight: Draco, Pansy, Crabbe, and Goyle were tormenting four first years. Goyle and Crabbe had levitated two of them, hanging the children upside down and were banging them together, as if they were beater bats, while Pansy and Draco were firing pain curses at the other two.

Harry's eyes narrowed as he recognized the curses; he'd done some research the previous year, and the pain curses they were using were one step below Cruciatus. Part of him wanted to charge in, but he was alone. He frowned. He couldn't get Crabbe and Goyle; they might drop the children. But he if he got Pansy and Draco, he could probably make the other two put the kids down.

Quickly, he aimed his wand at Draco. “Stupefy,” he whispered. Draco dropped like a rock. He pointed his wand at Pansy and did it again before stepping out of the shadows. “Put them down,” he ordered.

“Don't have to,” Goyle said.

“We're not done playing,” Crabbe chimed in.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the two first years that were on the ground escape. “Now,” he hissed with his wand trained on them.

Crabbe grinned at Goyle, and they both released the spell, sending the first years plummeting to the ground. When they hit the stone floor, both of them started to cry. The kids picked themselves up and ran before their tormentors turned around.

Harry glared at his classmates. “You know,” he said conversationally. “I really hate bullies. And I don't think that Professor Snape likes them much, either.”

Crabbe and Goyle shook their heads frantically. It was obvious that the last thing they wanted to do was to see their Head of House.

“Mr. Potter,” Umbridge's hateful voice interrupted him. “Detention for assaulting students in the corridor!”

Harry turned around. “But Professor,” he protested. “They were picking on first years!”

“My office, eight o'clock,” she snapped.

Harry's shoulders slumped. “I have remedial potions lessons then, Professor,” he said. He'd long since learned that it did very little good to protest; it only earned him more detentions.

“Fine then,” Umbridge glared at him. “Directly after dinner.”

Harry leveled his best death glare at her before he left. Great, just great. He'd be spending the hours before his thrice-weekly torture session with Snape carving words into his hand.

"If we don't stand up for children, then we don't stand for much."
--Marian Wright Edelman

~*~*~*~

Severus sighed and collapsed into a faded armchair. Albus had asked him to come to Headquarters for a meeting about Harry as a stand-in for McGonagall. The Gryffindor Head was currently in St. Mungo's, recovering from four stunners to the chest. He rubbed his eyes tiredly. It was draining at the best of times to hold up Occlumency shields on someone else's mind, but distance made it even harder.

“Snape.”

“Black.”

“My godson says that you've been helping him.” Black sat down in a chair across from him.

Severus simply half-closed his eyes and settled back in his chair.

“I know about your vow to Lily,” Black began again.

“What of it?” Severus asked.

“It's why you've been helping Harry, isn't it?” Black asked.

Severus inclined his head. “His Occlumency skills are improving,” he said.

“It's not just that,” Black said.

Severus shrugged. “I don't like him, and I probably never will, but he is one of my students.”

He ignored Black's suspicious look and told himself that it was the absolute truth. He did not like Harry Potter. While it was true that he didn't hate the child any longer, there still wasn't a good reason to like him. But he'd become... accustomed... to protecting the brat.

It was merely habit, and the unwillingness to see a student of his suffer. Yes, that was it. That was all. Before Black could say anything else, the werewolf entered and flopped onto the sofa. “Is it true?” he demanded. “Did those Muggles hurt Harry?”

Severus simply nodded. “That kind of treatment is all the boy remembers.” He watched with silent amusement as Lupin's eyes started to change colors, becoming more gold as time passed. He would hate to be Vernon Dursley if Lupin ever ran across the man during a full moon.

“Moony, calm down!” Black commanded. “Harry needs us here, not in Azkaban or dead.”

Lupin favored Black with a predatory smile. “They can't tell which werewolf bites whom,” he said. “Snape, how about we do some... hunting... next full moon?”

Severus snorted. “Going to forego your wolfsbane?” he asked mildly.

“Hell, no,” Lupin said, his smile growing sharper. “I want to remember every moment of it.”

“Planning on killing them, then?” Severus asked.

“I'm going to bite them; and when I'm done, they will be very much alive.” Lupin snarled. “With as magic-phobic as Dumbledore said they are, after the first full moon, they'll most likely die from shock.”

Severus snorted. “As nice as that sounds, why not just poison them and get it over with? It's even less traceable than a werewolf bite.”

Lupin leaned back in his chair and half-closed his eyes. “It's not as... satisfying,” he said. “They hurt my Pack. It's only fair that we turn them into something they'd hate.”

“Remus!” Black objected. “You know as well as I do that they'd end up hurting other people!”

“I fear that Black is right,” Severus said after a pause. “The boy would not want you to end up Kissed. I considered transfiguring them into cockroaches, but I need to stay free as well.”

“And why would you do that?” Remus asked. “I've personally seen how much you hate Harry.”

Severus shrugged negligently. “They're filthy Muggles who have abused a Wizard child,” he said. “That is reason enough.”

Black snorted. “You know, I never agreed with my family on much of anything; nor have I ever been in agreement with you, Snape. Now, however, I agree. They're filthy, rotten Muggles, and the Kiss is too good for the likes of the Dursleys.”

Severus slouched further into his chair. “We might not have to do anything,” he said mildly. “The Weasley twins have been interviewed by now, and I doubt that they took the news well. Now that they have left school, they have plenty of time to formulate... appropriate... revenge.”

Before anyone could say anything else, Dumbledore appeared with a soft, almost inaudible, pop. He sat down, his eyes twinkling, and smiled at the three men. “Good afternoon,” he said.

“Did you know, Professor?” Remus demanded. “Did you know what the Dursleys were doing to him?”

Dumbledore seemed to deflate before their eyes. “No,” he said quietly. “I knew that his life would not be easy there,” he admitted. “And when he came to school, he was thinner and smaller than I would have liked, but I never thought that they would abuse him.”

Severus snorted. “And how long have you been teaching, Headmaster?” he inquired silkily. “We have a few children every year that come from abusive homes—you should have known better!”

Dumbledore inclined his head. “I know, Severus,” he said. “I admit that I wasn't looking,” he sighed. “You know as well as I do that it's only been in the past thirty years or so that we've been required to report such things.”

“What do you mean?” Sirius asked.

Severus spoke first. “Muggles recognized child abuse in 1968, but there wasn't a requirment to report it for another decade,” he said. “The Wizarding world, due to people like the Dark Lord, recognized it a little earlier.” He glanced at Lupin; it was something that the man should know about. There was precious little preparation outside one's core subject that one had to go through to teach, but a child abuse seminar was always included.

Lupin, his eyes still glowing a soft gold, leaned back in his chair. “If I recall correctly, the Ministry's mandatory reporting law was signed in 1975,” he said.

Severus waved an indolent hand. “All of this is beside the point,” he said. “I suppose that I am to inform Minerva of this meeting?” he asked.

“Yes, you are,” Dumbledore replied. “I would myself, but alas! I'm still wanted by the Ministry.”

Black studied the Headmaster through narrowed eyes. “You never told us how much, exactly, you knew about my godson's life with the Dursleys.”

Dumbledore smoothed down his beard. “I knew that they did not treat him as kindly as I would have liked,” he began. “I knew that he was not as well-dressed as his cousin, nor as well-fed, and I knew that they viewed him as an imposition and a burden.”

Black snorted. “Oh yes, a burden,” he sneered. “I know for a fact that Lily and James arranged for whoever ended up with custody of him if they died to get one hundred and fifty galleons a month for his upkeep, with double that for Christmas and his birthday.”

“And they used so much of it on him,” Severus commented, his voice heavy with irony. He scowled. At the current conversion rate, the idiot Muggles had been given seven hundred and fifty pounds a month to support one small boy—to abuse him. The part of him that was still a Death Eater screamed for their blood.

The headmaster closed his eyes briefly. “I did not know,” he said quietly. “When questioned, they always pleaded expense about his clothes...”

Remus snorted. “Did you even bother to check on him?” he demanded.

“I had Arabella Figg watching over him,” he said quietly. “But they only took him on the condition that we would stay out of their lives as much as possible, and Arabella can't see what happens behind closed doors.”

As much as he enjoyed seeing Dumbledore receive some of his well-deserved comeuppance, there were other things to consider, and he had to get back to the school before Umbridge noticed that he was gone. “And what shall we do to ensure that the brat is protected?” he asked silkily. “If we do nothing, he shall end up in the Ministry's custody... and that is the best case scenario.”

“I told Harry that we'd appoint him an official guardian and he could come and live with me,” Black said. “The question is who to appoint.”

“I wish it were possible...” Lupin trailed off.

“Stupid werewolf laws,” Black grumbled.

Severus half-closed his eyes. The Dark Lord had been more closed-mouthed recently about his plans than he used to be. He rather thought that fourteen years of not having a body had made the madman more paranoid than he used to be. That in itself was an impressive feat, as his previous level of paranoia had rivaled Mad-Eye Moody's. He'd been able to allay suspicion so far, but it looked as if his usefulness as a spy might soon be coming to an end. He could only put off giving unvarnished truth to the Dark Lord for so long.

“We cannot afford to jeopardize Arthur's position in the Ministry,” Dumbledore said slowly. “Frankly, Sirius, you still have legal guardianship; the Dursleys simply had physical custody.”

“Let me guess,” Black's looked angry. “The bloody Muggles never bothered to file for it because it was too much trouble.”

Dumbledore inclined his head. “That's why guardianship for Harry is rather, well, foggy. Legally, Sirius, he's your ward, but with circumstances as they are, you can't claim custody of him.”

Severus only half-listened as Black, Lupin, and Dumbledore discussed and shot down several suggestions of on-paper guardians. He knew for a fact that Lucius suspected him. It was only a matter of time before he was uncovered. He had hoped to go longer before making his true loyalties public knowledge, but it could not be so.

The Potter boy wasn't as... odious... as he'd once thought. There was also his vow to take into consideration. Then again, they were only speaking about a technical guardian. “Minerva might do it,” he said abruptly. “Flitwick would also be a decent choice,” he suggested. “Lily was his favorite student.”

There were murmurs of agreement from Black and Lupin, but Dumbledore cut in. “Filius isn't a member of the order,” he said quietly.

“The Flitwicks are traditionally a Light family,” Black pointed out. “And I'm not sure it wouldn't be a bad thing—he was dueling champion, wasn't he?”

Severus once again stopped paying attention to the conversation. He hadn't liked James Potter. Sometimes, he had even hated him. He didn't really like Harry, either. Oh, the boy wasn't the spoilt, arrogant brat he'd once thought him, but it didn't matter.

Severus didn't really like anyone much. But he had promised Lily that he would protect her child. What better way to protect him than taking him in? He could feed him, give him decent clothing, a place to live, and teach him everything he needed to know to survive the war. He smirked slightly. Aside from protecting him, it would be the ultimate revenge on James Potter—to take in his enemy's son, and raise him as his own.

Severus really didn't want to; he had grown comfortable with his solitary life. Truth be told, he wasn't sure it was even a good idea. With a quiet sigh, Severus decided that if there were no other alternative, he would take Harry, for revenge's sake if nothing else.

He would rather not, but he was sure that it would be better than anything the child had before. The only thing left that he could do was to make sure that someone else took responsibility for the boy. It wasn't as if they were searching for a real guardian for him, anyway. Severus was not ready to give up his position as the highest-ranking spy in the Dark Lord's camp. Only time could tell what would happen next.

~*~*~*~

Severus drummed his fingers on top of his desk. Potter was late again. Before he could ruminate further upon that fact, there was a timid knock at his door. “Come in,” he said.

He watched as Harry entered, taking note of the boy's posture. His face tightened; something had happened. Working quickly, Severus put up some perimeter alarms and anti-eavesdropping charms before he spoke. “What happened, Harry?” he asked.

“Detention with Umbridge,” was the sullen answer.

Without thinking, Severus held out his hand. “Let me see the damage,” he demanded.

Wordlessly, Harry showed him his hand. Once again, Umbridge had forced the boy to carve 'I must not tell lies,' into his flesh. “What did you supposedly do this time?” he asked as he turned to unlock his potions cabinet and pull out some supplies.

Harry's face darkened. “Supposedly, I attacked members of her inquisitorial squad,” he spat. “I only disarmed and stunned them because they were tormenting four first years.”

Severus knew that most members of the squad came from his House. “Who was it?” he asked neutrally. The students in question would be punished, if he had anything to say about it.

“Malfoy, Parkinson, Crabbe, and Goyle,” Harry muttered. “Malfoy and Parkinson were using pain curses on two of them, and Crabbe and Goyle had the other two upside down in the air and were smashing them together.”

Severus pulled a camera out of his desk and took pictures of the injury before he poured an antiseptic potion on a soft cloth and cleaned it. “Do you know who the first years were?” he asked neutrally.

“No,” Harry admitted. “But I think I saw a Slytherin crest on one of their robes, and a Hufflepuff crest on another.”

His mind racing, Severus opened a pot of salve and smeared some on the wound. “Anything else you can tell me?” he asked. If he could identify the victims, it would be easier to punish the miscreants. Slytherin, due to the House's reputation, tended to be a rather insular group. Currently, the only first year he could think of with a friend in Hufflepuff was Amarissa Kilpatrick.

Harry hesitated. “I think that the Slytherin had light brown curls,” he offered. “I don't know, though.”

Severus nodded absently as he put a muggle sticking plaster over the cuts. It sounded like Amarissa, all right. “I will deal with them,” he promised.

“You shouldn't have to,” Harry retorted. “They're bullies, all of them, and I hate that!”

Severus remembered the Marauders at their worst and gave Harry a slight nod. “So do I,” he agreed. “But there have always been schoolyard bullies,” he pointed out.

Some of the glassware started to rattle alarmingly. “It's not fair!” Harry's voice rose in volume with every syllable. “Umbridge is one, I bet Uncle Vernon was a bully in school, and I bet that Tom was one, too, and he just didn't get caught! All of them just love to hurt people that are weaker than they are!”

Green fire flashed in the boy's eyes, and Severus knew that he'd have to calm the child before they had an accident. Slowly, so as not to set him off, he approached the boy and laid a hand on his shoulder. Harry looked away and flinched back, but Severus had expected that.

“Look at me,” he said softly. The boy didn't obey, and the rattling grew louder and more frantic.

Harry pulled back and balled his hands into fists. “I would never hurt anybody if I had a choice,” he growled. “Little bullies like Malfoy grow up into big bullying gits who think it's all right to hurt people who can't fight back!”

The boy was almost shouting now. Severus took hold of the boy's chin and made him look. “Calm down, Harry,” he ordered. “I don't want to explain to Madam Pomfrey how you got potion laced cuts from my glassware. Deep breaths; you have to control your temper.”

Harry shut his eyes and obeyed this time.

Inwardly, he breathed a sigh of relief. Severus led the unresisting boy over to a chair and pushed him into it gently. Part of him wanted to revenge his first-years, but the more logical part of him pointed out that while revenge might be temporarily satisfying, justice was better. “I will see to it that justice is done,” he promised.

Harry bit his lip. “Thank you,” he said. “I just--”

“You want revenge on the people that tormented you and are tormenting others,” Severus supplied. “It's natural, but that path is a dangerous one. Justice will serve you better than revenge, Harry.” The boy was more like himself than he had thought.

“Yes, sir.”

“Now,” he began briskly. “I need to remove my shields. Can you create your own, now?” he asked.

Harry frowned. “I've been watching you do it,” he said. “I think I can, but I'm not sure.”

Severus nodded sharply. “Fair enough,” he said. “I will, however, leave the link in place so I can help in an emergency.” He eased himself into Harry's mind and began carefully dismantling the shields he'd been holding up. With a critical eye, he watched as they boy started to replace what he took down, but they were interrupted.

He was thrown violently from Harry's mind as a vision took over. Severus snarled as the child's body began to twitch and he started to cry out. Just as Harry was about to fall out of the chair, he grabbed him so that he wouldn't get hurt. Swiftly, he used the link between them and gave the child a path out of the vision.

Harry woke up with a gasp, his scar bright red. “Tom's got Sirius,” he said. His beryl-green eyes were filled with worry. “He's torturing him!”

“Deep breaths, Harry,” Severus reminded him. “I spoke to him today, and he was still at Headquarters. Do you have a way to talk to him?”

Harry nodded. Severus helped the boy up before he rose to his feet. “Go check,” he ordered. “If he's still there--”

“Then it's time,” Harry interrupted.

Severus gave him a brief nod. “Gather some of the members from your club,” he said. “We'll keep them safe, but they have to be with you; it would look suspicious if you went alone.”

“Then we trap the bloody bastard and his lackeys, throw him in Azkaban, and toss away the key,” the boy said with satisfaction.

Harry turned and hurried out as Severus grabbed his scrying bowl and filled it with water. He was sure that Black hadn't left the house; he'd been spending a great deal of his time preparing a room for the boy to live in. As fast as he could, he incanted the communication spell. As soon as the Headmaster's figure appeared in the bowl, he uttered a single sentence, “It is time.”

Before he could say anything more, his office door burst open and the Weasley girl ran in. “Umbridge has Harry,” she said.

With a muttered finite incantatem, Severus ended the spell. He dumped the water out, put the bowl in a drawer, and followed her out of the door. Quickly, he closed and locked the door of his office, then headed to Umbridge's office with long, seemingly unhurried strides.

He was a few feet from her office when he heard it. “Crucio,” echoed through out the still air. He lengthened his stride and without knocking, burst into the room. Malfoy, Crabbe, Goyle, Carter, Fletcher, and Wainright were engaged in restraining Granger, Longbottom, Potter, Lovegood, and the youngest Weasley boy. Harry was writhing on the ground, screaming in pain as the defense professor's curse hit his scar.

He pointed his wand at Umbridge. “Petrificus Totalus,” he yelled. Severus looked around, noticing the absolutely shocked expressions on the faces of his Slytherins.

Potter had stopped screaming and collapsed on the floor, breathing heavily. Quickly, Severus gave him a cursory look to make sure that Umbridge hadn't done anything else. “Miss Weasley, Mister Weasley, Miss Lovegood, Mister Longbottom, and Miss Granger, take Potter to the hospital wing, now,” he ordered.

Severus conjured a stretcher and levitated Potter onto it, then watched the Gryffindors leave. “Incarcerous,” he said, still pointing his wand at Umbridge. He turned towards his Slytherins. “Do you realize what you have done?” he demanded.

The boys simply stared at him; Malfoy with an arrogant sneer gracing his face.

“All of you can be considered accomplices to casting an Unforgivable,” Severus sneered. “You'll be lucky if you don't end up expelled, let alone in Azkaban.”

The boys had the grace to look ashamed, but Severus knew better. They'd been taught too well by their Death Eater relatives—they were only ashamed because they'd been caught. “You will stay right where you are,” he said.

Severus grabbed some floo powder and threw it in the fireplace. “Amelia Bones's office,” he said, then stuck his head into the fire.

It didn't take long to inform the Aurors of the situation and have them Floo over to take care of the miscreants. Severus excused himself as soon as they arrived, then hurried to the hospital wing to check on the boy. He arrived to find Harry perched on the edge of the bed.

He looked at Poppy. “Is he okay?” he asked.

She nodded. “Luckily, it didn't do much damage.”

Harry snorted. “Umbridge isn't very good at it,” he said. “Compared to last year and some of my visions, her Cruciatus feels like a tickle.”

Ron glared at his friend. “Then what was all the screaming and stuff about?” he demanded.

“Ron, if she thought it was actually doing something, she would have had to stop sooner, and she wouldn't try and come up with something else,” Harry explained.

“How positively... Slytherin,” Severus commented. “Perhaps I should start awarding points to my House on your behalf, Mr. Potter.”

Harry simply rolled his eyes.

“Did you manage to check on your godfather?” Severus asked.

Harry nodded. “He's fine and still at Headquarters. I was on my way back when Umbridge caught me,” he said.

Severus gave him a sharp nod. He hated the idea of sending children off to trap the Dark Lord, but the Order would protect them. He especially hated the idea of encouraging reckless behaviour in Potter—the boy needed to learn to think rather than rush off into danger at the drop of a hat. At least there was a plan in place this time; they wouldn't be relying on the boy's admittedly good luck in these types of situations. “Then the plan goes forward. You have the Headmaster's map?”

“Yes, sir,” Harry answered.

“Good. I expect to be summoned fairly soon.” Severus paused. “A word of advice, Harry. Once you find the prophecy, destroy it. Divination is inexact, and if whatever it says is truly fate, then it will come to pass without our meddling.”

Harry seemed to consider the statement for a moment, then nodded. “Better destroy it than let Moldyfarts have it,” he said finally.

Severus winced and clasped his arm as heat and pain shot up it from his Mark. “Be careful, Harry,” he said. “Come back in one piece—the old crowd will be there to protect you.”

With that, Severus turned and hurried from the room and out of the castle. As he strode towards the edge of the apparation boundary, he hoped to Merlin that Lily's child and the boy's friends would be safe, and that the ambush would succeed. Reaching the edge of the wards, he clamped his hand over his mark and apparated to the Dark Lord's hideout.

Severus dropped to his knees and kissed the hem of the Dark Lord's robed. “My Lord,” he said, using a tone of near-reverence.

“Severus,” the Dark Lord said. “I have decided that you will accompany me and my other loyal Death Eaters to capture the prophecy and the Potter boy.”

Severus, who was still on his knees, bowed from the waist. “It would be my pleasure.” He plastered a cruel smirk on his face before once more kissing the hem of the Dark Lord's robes.

Part of him wanted to be sick, but he'd grown used to suppressing it years ago. If he was there, perhaps he could make sure that no harm came to the boy. If he had to stuff the child into a cupboard and sit on him, he'd make sure that Lily's child was safe, and his duty fulfilled.

“You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on having both at once.”

--Robert A. Heinlein, Time Enough For Love

~*~*~*~

Harry pulled a knee to his chest and looked at his friends. “We're going to have to hurry,” he said.

“What is it about this prophecy?” Hermione demanded.

Harry sighed. “There's some sort of prophecy about me at the Department of Mysteries; it's what the old crowd has been guarding.”

“Do you know what it says?” Ginny asked, curious.

Before answering, Harry gave himself a mental shake. Anyone could have heard them! “Hermione, put up a privacy spell, please?” he requested.

“As long as you're going to let us in on this,” she grumbled.

Harry watched as Hermione put the spell up, then looked at his friends. “I don't know what the prophecy says,” he said finally. “But I haven't managed to block the dreams yet, and we need to find a way to get to London, fast.”

Ginny crossed her arms over her chest. “So... you're still having dreams sent by Voldemort, and Professor Snape just told you to go to the Department of the Mysteries and destroy a prophecy?”

Ron snorted. “Why are you set on doing something that sounds that suicidal? Especially if Snape thinks it's a good idea? Sounds a bit mental to me.”

Harry sighed and pulled a piece of folded parchment out of his pocket. “This is a map of the Department,” he said. “I know exactly where the Hall of Prophecy is. And if we don't destroy this thing and Voldemort gets his hands on it, we're in serious trouble.”

“It's a trap, Harry,” Hermione said, frowning unhappily.

Harry nodded. “Oh yes, it is,” he said. “Voldemort sent me a vision of him torturing Sirius. He expects me to go rushing in to save my godfather—not to destroy the prophecy.”

“Sirius?” Neville questioned. “Sirius Black? But he murdered your parents, didn't he?”

Harry shook his head. “No, Peter Pettigrew did that, killed all those Muggles, and framed Sirius for it. But Sirius is fine!”

Ron shoved his hands into his pockets and stared at Harry. “So if Sirius is fine, there are other people who can destroy the prophecy, why are we going?”

“Because if we go, and I, well, let Voldemort know that we're going, we can trap him,” Harry explained. “The old crowd knows, and they're going to be there to catch him and his Nachzehrers.”

“Very funny,” Luna said. “Death Eaters as corpse-munching vampires.”

Neville paled. “Do'ya think--”

Hermione shook her head. “No. He's kidding, I think.”

“So you're going?” Ginny asked. At Harry's nod, she continued. “He's right, though. We should go with you.”

“No!” Harry objected without thinking. “Ron and Hermione, certainly; Voldemort would expect that. But I don't want the rest of you in danger because of me.”

“There's your 'saving people thing' again, Harry,” Hermione said dryly. “I know you want to keep everybody safe, but this is war and you need all of us to watch your back.”

Ron rubbed his nose. “How are we going to get to London, anyway? We can't floo, and your broom is locked up.”

“I'm not so great at flying, anyway,” Neville muttered.

“What pulls the carriages every year?” Ron asked suddenly.

“Thestrals,” Hermoine answered promptly.

“Hagrid said that he kept them in the Forbidden Forest,” Harry said.

“Didn't Professor Snape give you a plan to get there?” Hermione asked.

Harry shook his head. “We hadn't figured that out yet.”

“Just as well,” Ron said. “You shouldn't trust the greasy git. For all we know, he's working for You-Know-Who and only pretending to be on our side.”

Harry gave Ron an exasperated look. “I don't trust him, all right?” he said. “But Dumbledore does, and he's the one who set this up. Now, we need to get going—the Order is waiting to ambush Tom and his lackeys once they spring their little trap.” He stood up, grabbed his bag, and slung it over his shoulder.

“We're coming with you, Harry,” Neville said. “I-I know I'm not as brave as most, but I won't let you go alone. You wouldn't have a chance with only you and Ron and Hermione, but with me, Ginny, and Luna, too, we'll all survive.”

Ginny grabbed Harry's arm. “He's right,” she said. “And if you don't let us come, we won't let you go.”

Harry knew that there wasn't really time to argue—and six wands were better than three anyway. “All right,” he said finally. “We've got to go, then—I'll explain on the way.”

They made their way out of the Hospital Wing and out of the castle. Remembering Hagrid's lesson on the Thestrals, Harry led them towards the Forbidden Forest, but he didn't know exactly where the herd was kept.

They stopped just inside the boundary. “How are we going to find the Thestrals?” Ron wondered out loud.

Hermione bit her lip. “Thestrals are attracted to blood,” she said slowly. “Harry, do you have the knife that Sirius gave you for Christmas?”

Harry nodded and dug it out of his pocket. “Yeah. I've got some of the healing salve I made last week, too.”

“Is it the magic-infused stuff that we figured out how to make last year?” Hermione asked.

Harry nodded. “Yeah,” he said.

“Why'd you make it, Harry?” Ron asked. “I mean, you're not going to need it this summer, are you?”

Harry shrugged. “Habit, I guess,” he said. “Now... if I'm understanding Hermione right, we need to give ourselves a few shallow cuts to attract the thestrals.”

“Cut ourselves?” Neville looked a bit revolted at the thought.

“You don't have to if you don't want to, Neville,” Luna said. “But it's the easiest way to attract thestrals, especially when half of us can't see them.”

Harry made shallow cuts on the palms of his hands, then wiped the blade clean on the hem of his robes. He handed the knife to Ginny, then started looking around for the thestrals. He moved a bit deeper into the Forest, making sure to squeeze just above his cuts to make them bleed more.

Blood dripped onto the edges of the sleeves of his robes, soaking in, and, he hoped, making him an irresistible target for the thestrals. It didn't take long for the rest of his friends to join him. Neville handed back his knife, so he slipped it into his pocket.

Luna pointed to the right, and Harry turned to see thestrals creeping up on them. The winged beasts nosed the blood-smeared edges of their robes and started chewing on them. “Hey,” Ron protested. “What's doing that?”

“A thestral,” Hermione said, rolling her eyes.

“We'd better help them get on,” Luna observed. “Since only you, Neville, and I can see them.”

Harry nodded, then helped boost his friends onto the animals. He pulled himself up on his. “We'd like to go to the Ministry of Magic, please,” he said.

The beast took off, with the others flanking it. Harry held on with his legs and twined his hands in its mane. The thestrals flew in formation, close enough for him to fill the others in on the plan. They were also flying faster than he'd ever managed to go before, and it wasn't long before they landed near the telephone booth that he remembered from the previous summer.

Harry slid off the animal and slapped it on the rump. “Go back to Hogwarts,” he said. He dug out his salve and motioned to his friends. Quickly, he unscrewed the top and smeared some on his cuts, then on Ginny's. Hermione and Ron each got some and gave themselves, Neville, and Luna similar treatment. He capped the salve and shoved it back in his rucksack, which he then slung over his shoulders.

“We've all gone barmy,” Ron muttered. “I am never doing this again.”

Without answering, Harry strode over to the dilapidated red telephone booth and got in, with the others piling in behind him. “Come on!” he said. “Whoever's nearest the receiver, dial six two four four two!”

Ron did it, his arm at a strange angle to reach the dial. “Welcome to the Ministry of Magic. Please state your name and business,” a pleasant voice said as the dial whirled back into place.

“Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger,” Harry said as fast as he could. “Ginny Weasley, Neville Longbottom, Luna Lovegood... We're here to stop someone, because the Ministry can't seem to do it itself!”

“Thank you,” the voice said. “Visitors, please take your badges and attach them to the front of your robes.”

Half a dozen badges slid out of the coin return slot. Hermione grabbed them and handed them silently to Harry over Ginny's head; he glanced at the topmost one.

HARRY POTTER

SECRET MISSION

“Visitor to the Ministry, you are required to submit to a search and present your wand for registration at the security desk, which is located at the far end of the Atrium.”

“Fine,” Harry said loudly, as his scar gave another throb. He had a feeling that Voldemort knew that they were coming, so they had to hurry! “Now, can we move?”

There was a soft ding as the telephone booth shuddered slightly, and soft yellow lights started to glow. The pavement seemed to rise up to cover the windows as it sunk into the ground. With another soft ding, the door opened and Luna and Harry fell out of the booth.

They got up and together, the six friends sprinted through the Atrium. Harry got a bad feeling when he noticed that the security booth where he'd gotten his wand weighed the previous summer was empty. Wasn't someone supposed to be on duty at all times?

They hurried to the lift, got in, and Harry pressed the button for the ninth floor before getting out the map that Professor Snape had given him the week before.

“Is that the map that Professor Snape mentioned?” Hermione asked, interested.

Harry nodded. “Yeah,” he answered, studying it.

“Are you sure you trust the greasy git?” Ron questioned.

“No,” Harry said honestly. “But take a look at this--” He showed Ron the map.

“That doesn't look like his handwriting,” Ron said slowly.

“Exactly. I know who wrote this, because I recognize it, and I sorta trust him,” Harry said.

“What do you mean, 'sorta'?” Neville asked.

Harry shrugged. “He's an adult. I don't trust them much.”

The lift dinged softly and opened as they reached the ninth floor. “Department of the Mysteries,” a cool female voice said. They stepped out of the lift to an utterly silent hall. Nothing was moving, making noise, or breathing other than themselves.

Harry turned towards the plain black door and started forward, clutching the map in his left hand. “Let's go,” he said.

Luna was gazing around in wonder, her mouth hanging slightly open. Harry stopped short of the door and studied the map. “Maybe some of you should stay behind,” he said. “The designated hiding spots are here, here, and here,” he pointed them out on the map.

“Not a chance,” Ron said.

“We're coming with you whether you like it or not,” Neville insisted.

“You might need us,” Hermione said.

Ginny and Luna nodded in agreement. Harry simply sighed and turned towards the door that he'd seen in his dreams for months. “Come on, then,” he said.

Together, the six of them went through the black door. “Don't close it, Neville.” Harry requested, as Neville had been the last through the door. He pulled out his knife again and carved a zero into it, just to make sure that they could find it again.

“Which door are we supposed to take?” Ginny asked.

“Um, I don't know,” Harry admitted.

“Check the map?” Hermione suggested.

Harry pulled it out and tapped it with his wand. Like the Marauders' Map, little dots with their names beside them appeared on it. “Which door?” he asked it.

A thought bubble appeared next to the dot labeled, 'Harry Potter,' which said, “I wish I could find the Hall of Prophecy.”

Harry repeated the words exactly, and a door slowly swung open. “Wicked,” Ron breathed.

They filed through the door, which immediately shut itself behind them. Harry studied the map, which had begun to trace a path for them to follow.

“We ought to make sure we remember the way back,” Hermione said. “That way, if we get separated, we'll be able to get out.”

There were murmurs of agreement among the group. “It's this way,” Harry said. “The Professor told me that the map would show the safest route so that we didn't find any trouble to get into.”

Ron snorted. “Sounds like he thinks that we go looking for it,” he observed.

“It comes looking for us,” Harry said, distracted. He opened the door designated by the map to find a large storage room. He glanced at the map again. “The map says that this is for cursed objects, so don't touch anything.”

They made their way through the storeroom, making sure not to brush against any of the shelving units that housed a multitude of objects. It seemed forever before they reached another door, which the map pointed to as leading directly to the Hall of Prophecy.

Stuffing the map into his pocket, he opened the door, revealing a room much like the one they'd just walked through. Shelving units filled with glass balls stretched as far as the eye could see. Each set of shelves was marked on the end with a number. Harry looked up to see that they were at number forty-five.

“So where are we going?” Ron asked.

Harry bit his lip. “Sirius should be on aisle ninety-seven, near the end of the row,” he said, giving his friends a slight wink.

Ron started to say something, but Ginny stopped him by kicking his leg. “Let's go then,” Neville said, looking nervous.

They started walking, with Hermione keeping track of their location. Harry noticed that some of the glass balls were glowing, surrounded by different color lights. It seemed an eternity before they finally got to aisle ninety-seven and started walking towards the end of it.

“I don't see him,” Harry said, trying to sound frantic.

“Neither do I,” Ginny said.

“He's got to be around here somewhere,” Harry insisted. “I mean, I saw it happening!” He was glad that his friends had figured out what he was doing. On the way down, he'd decided that he should assume that they were being watched and should put on a show as if he'd fallen for Voldemort's ruse.

The closer they got to the end of the aisle, the more nervous Harry got. Where were the Death Eaters? Why hadn't he and his friends been attacked by now?

“Harry?” Ron called.

“What?”

“Have you see this?” Ron asked.

Harry hurried over to look. “What is it?” he asked.

“Dunno, but it's got your name on,” Ron said.

Harry knew that it must be the prophecy. He eyed the small, dimly lit ball. It was thickly covered in dust, as if it hadn't been touched in a long time. He had to crane his neck to read the label; years of starvation rations with the Dursleys had made him rather shorter than his year mates—especially Ron. In spidery writing was written a date sixteen years previously, and below that:

S.P.T. to A.P.W.B.D.

Dark Lord

and (?) Harry Potter

Harry stared at it for a moment before reaching out cautiously. In order to destroy it, he had to touch it.

“Harry, maybe you shouldn't touch it,” Hermione said sharply. “It could be dangerous!”

Harry pulled a face. “It's got my name on, doesn't it?” he demanded. “That means that it's something to do with me.”

He turned to glare at Hermione, only to have her give him a slow wink.

“Harry, don't!” Neville chimed in. His friend looked nervous, and was covered in a sheen of sweat. But Neville also had a tiny smile on his face, so Harry knew that he, too, was going through with the ruse.

He reached out, grabbed the prophecy, brushed the dust off it, then looked at his friends as if to say, 'now what?' Before he could do anything, from right behind them, a drawling voice said, “Very good, Potter. Now turn around, nice and slowly, and give it to me.”

Black shapes were emerging from out of thin air around them, blocking all avenues of escape. There was just enough light in the dusty storeroom to see eyes glinting through slits in hoods. A dozen lit wand tips were pointing directly at their hearts. He saw a glint of silver behind one wand. Harry knew that the Order would already be in position—they had the Death Eaters right where they wanted them. Pity that their boss hadn't got up the courage to come along as well, but at least they could round up some of his minions.

“To me, Potter,” repeated the drawling voice of Lucius Malfoy as he held out his hand, palm up.

Harry turned around, not as slowly as the man would have wished and gave him a slight smile. He grasped the prophecy ball tighter and stepped back a bit before dashing it on the floor. It shattered, with two white figures coming out of it, but he jumped on top of the pieces for good measure and the figures disappeared.

Malfoy growled and lunged toward him and Harry uttered a single word, “EVADE!” He stepped back, causing the elder Malfoy to stumble and almost fall, then pulled out his wand.

Neville rammed into the nearest Death Eater and knocked him into the shelves. The shelf tipped, then fell, starting a domino effect with the other aisles. Spun-glass balls shattered, each emitting the same white, ghost-like figures that started to speak. The teenagers started cursing and hexing Death Eaters, clearing a path out in the chaos.

“RUN!” Harry yelled and then started sprinting towards the exit, dodging various curses. In the back of his mind, he spared a grateful thought for all the years of Dudley's 'Harry Hunting,' because it had taught him how to both run and dodge at the same time.

He barely had time to notice that his friends were mostly with him, though Neville was breathing heavily and looked ready to drop back.

Suddenly, Neville tripped and landed on his wand, point first, which snapped. Harry spared a hand to help him up, then continued running. Finally, they reached the door they'd come in, and dove through it, with the Death Eaters in hot pursuit. “We have to get out the door room,” Harry said, breathing heavily.

Ron, taking a chance, turned slightly and fired a curse back at the Death Eaters. Half of said people were sporting an interesting variety of effects from curses. As far as Harry could see, the only curse-free Death Eater was Snape; his hood had fallen down so that he could clearly see the man's identity.

They ran flat-out through the next storeroom and dashed into the door room. “Colloportus!” Harry muttered, locking the door with a squishy sound. The door that they'd first come through had somehow gotten closed, and the mark on it was gone.

“I wish we could find the way out,” Hermione panted. A door popped open, and they sprinted through it. The Order was waiting on the other side. They ran to them and were immediately pushed behind the adults as they closed ranks around the children. Some members that Harry had never seen before ushered them towards the protective hiding spaces and stood guard over them as the Death Eaters ran into the Order's waiting arms.

“We, and all others who believe in freedom as deeply as we do, would rather die on our feet than live on our knees”
--Franklin D. Roosevelt

~*~*~*~

Severus dropped back slightly as they reached the door. Mentally, he applauded his students; they'd done what they came to do and gotten away. If he were a betting man, he'd bet that they were being guarded by Order members while the Dark Lord's imbeciles tried to get through the door. He pulled up his hood so that he wouldn't be recognized and moved further behind the other Death Eaters.

Severus had been lucky to be in on this plan—they were to have stolen the prophecy, captured the boy, and brought both to the Dark Lord, who would be waiting for them on the main floor. He had, of course, informed the Headmaster of the plan as soon as he had discovered it; he just hadn't known that he would personally be there. It was unusual for the Dark Lord to send him on raids. Bad tactics, that. One tended not to risk one's skilled labor in such ways.

Finally, using a blasting curse, the buffoons got through the door. Severus followed them, purposely staying in the background. They followed the children through the open door and out into the hall where they were met by a large group of Order members. Soon, the hall descended into chaos with duelers firing curses and hexes in every direction. He fired off some half-hearted curses for appearences' sake as he moved stealthily through the fighters.

“NOOOOOOO!” Severus heard the pain-filled scream. “SIRIUS!” He hurried his pace; the voice was all-too familiar. He arrived in time to see Bellatrix send a cutting curse at the boy. Blood streamed from a cut on the boy's side. He got as close as he dared before tuning into the conversation.

“Filthy nachzehrer,” Harry spat.

“Is itty bitty baby Potter comparing big, baaad me to a vampire?” Bellatrix cooed.

“Oh, I am,” Harry gave her a wolfish grin. “A vampire that only preys on rotted corpses; I need not have fear of the likes of you, nachzehrer.”

Bellatrix's face turned an ugly shade of purple. “Avada Kedavra,” she hissed.

Severus pointed his wand at her. “REDUCTO,” he yelled, and then without thought, yanked Harry out of the way. He didn't stop to look at the damage he'd inflicted on Bellatrix. Instead, he pulled Harry into a corner, ignoring his attempts to get free.

“Foolish child!” he said. “There will be time to mourn the dead later!”

“Death Eater!” Harry hissed. “Why do you care?”

Severus snarled to himself as he yanked down his hood and pulled off his mask. “You are not to get yourself killed!” he snarled. “We have a battle going on, and you are not yet ready for such things!”

He watched the boy fight down his anger. “Yes, sir,” he said finally.

“The others should already have got to safety,” he said in a quieter tone. “Come, let's get you out of here as well.”

“But Sirius,” Harry protested.

“He will be taken care of,” Severus promised. “Come.” He started pulling the child towards the lift. He got both of them in, up to the ground floor, and out of the lift before the mental attack hit. Because of the link, he felt ghost pains on his forehead. He looked up to see the Dark Lord standing not more than ten meters away.

“So you smashed my prophecy, boy?” Voldemort said softly.

“Yes,” Harry snarled. “I'd do it again!”

“And you, Severus, my little snake... you have betrayed me.”

Severus smirked. “I haven't been yours for eighteen years,” he said, then fired a curse at the bastard.

Voldemort fired one back. “All my planning, months and months of work, wasted,” he lamented. “All because of a child and a spy, my loyal Death Eaters failed!”

Severus bowed mockingly. “Glad to be of service,” he sneered.

He saw it coming; years of being a so-called loyal Death Eater prepared him for it. “Avada Kedavra,” Voldemort said softly.

As the green light raced towards them, Severus prepared to grab the boy and get both of them out of the way. But before he could, one of the statues from the fountain jumped out of its fittings and inserted itself between them and the curse. It shattered as Voldemort looked on in astonishment.

“What---?” Voldemort looked around wildly. “Dumbledore,” he breathed.

Severus inclined his head in a gesture of respect. “Headmaster,” he said quietly.

“Get him out, Severus,” Dumbledore ordered. “Take all the children back to school.”

“Yes, sir,” he said. Severus threw up the strongest shield he could manage, grabbed Harry's arm and started leading him to the evacuation point. They had to dodge a few ill-aimed killing curses, but it wasn't long before they reached the sheltered spot from which the children were being kept away from the battle.

The boy was silent. Severus spared him a look and frowned when he noticed that the boy's eyes were wide with shock. He swore slightly when he noticed the blood on the child's robes. Ignoring the others, he conjured a blanket and wrapped it around Harry. He brushed off the annoying werewolf as Harry's eyes started to change color.

“Traitor,” he hissed. “You will pay for betraying me and mine.”

Suppressing the urge to curse, he tipped the boy's chin up. “Come on, Harry, drive him out,” he coaxed. “I know you can do it, child. Put him in the cupboard and expel him.”

Severus could feel the child's struggle, and he wished he could help. The Dark Lord's ham-handed Legilimency wasn't fun, and he wouldn't wish it on his worst enemy. After several minutes, Harry finally managed to throw off the attack. The child's knees buckled, and he started to fall.

Severus caught him before he could injure himself, swung the unconscious boy into his arms, and moved closer to the others. “Severus?”

He scowled at the sound of the werewolf's voice. “What?” he growled.

“What happened?”

“If you must know,” Severus sneered. “The boy just fought off an attack from the Dark Lord and blacked out from the effort.” He smirked as an idea occurred to him. “If you're so concerned, Lupin, then you can carry the brat.”

Severus gave his burden to the werewolf, ignoring the man's words, and turned to the rest of the children. “Is anyone hurt?” he inquired.

“Why should you care?” Ron demanded.

Severus repressed the urge to snarl at the boy. It had been a difficult night, and such behavior would not obtain the information that he needed. “Unfortunately,” he said with a sneer, “you are still my students, and as such, I am responsible for your welfare. Now, is anyone injured?”

All five children shook their heads no. It was a miracle. Aside from getting himself hurt and possessed, and exposing the Order's highest-ranking spy, the boy had managed to follow the plan. Severus resisted the urge to massage the bridge of his nose. “There's a public floo over there,” he said.

Lupin must've caught on to his thought. “Come along, children,” he ordered. “Madame Rosmerta keeps her floo open, so we'll floo over to The Three Broomsticks and then walk up to the castle from there.”

None of the children objected overly much as they made their way to the floo. Severus handed out floo powder and sent Lupin through first, then his students, before following them. Absently, he nodded to Madame Rosmerta, ushered them all outside and up to the castle, then ordered all of them to the hospital wing before taking Potter from Lupin.

He followed the children, holding the boy tightly. “Foolish child,” he said, addressing the unconscious boy. “One of these days, you and I must have a talk about letting your heart rule your head and running off into situations that can get you killed.” He paused for a moment while he climbed the stairs.

“Sometimes, child, you have all the self-preservation instincts of a lemming.” Severus lapsed into silence until he reached the Hospital Wing. He laid the child on the bed, then turned around to search for Madame Pomfrey.

“Poppy,” he called.

She looked up from where she was checking one of the other students. “Yes?”

“Potter was hit by a cutting curse,” he informed her.

She gave him a short nod, then strode over. With a spell, she stripped the child, frowning as she noticed his collection of fresh wounds. With a muttered spell, she cleaned the blood off him, then mended the cuts. “Blood replenishing potion,” she requested absently. “Ennervate,” she said quietly.

Severus strode over to the potion storage cabinet, pulled out the correct vial, and gave it to her, then helped her feed it to the groggy boy. He also helped the child drink a vial of Dreamless Sleeping potion—Harry needed rest.

With another muttered spell, Pomfrey redressed Harry in pajamas. Without conscious thought, Severus tucked the blankets around him, then sat down by his bed. He refused to think about why he had done it. He didn't want to reason out why he felt he needed to sit by the boy's bed. Dimly he heard Poppy fussing over the others and giving them sleeping potions, but he was too lost in thought to pay it much mind.

It wasn't that the foolish child had almost gotten killed. It couldn't be; Potter had a brush with death almost every year. It wasn't that he cared. It couldn't be. The insufferable brat was still the bane of his existence. But there was something... comforting... about watching Lily's child still there and breathing. While Harry was alive, so was part of his friend. Severus reached over, took off the boy's glasses, and placed them on the bedside table.

He took the opportunity to study Harry's face. Strange, that. Looking at the boy without his glasses, he could see more of Lily's features than were usually apparent. He had her nose, and there was something about her in the shape of his jaw. Earlier that year, he'd already noticed that the boy had Lily's smile, despite having James's mouth.

Dimly, he heard Poppy's voice gabbling about the others staying overnight, but he wasn't really paying attention. He had almost failed in his vow to Lily; it had only been luck that had placed him in the right place to pull the boy out of the way. Black was dead. The options that they'd discussed during the meeting at Headquarters were not quite viable anymore.

He didn't know how long he spent lost in thought, contemplating the child's situation before he was interrupted. “Severus,” the Headmaster's voice interrupted.

Severus inclined his head. “Headmaster,” he said quietly. “What happened after we left?' he asked.

“The Ministry showed up,” Dumbledore began. “Fudge saw Voldemort with his own eyes, and most of the Death Eaters were captured, including Lucius Malfoy and Bellatrix Lestrange.”

Severus leaned back slightly. “Good,” he said. “Did they catch Pettigrew?”

Dumbledore nodded. “Sirius's name will be cleared,” he said. “And Harry?”

“He was on the wrong end of a cutting curse,” Severus explained. “And he was possessed briefly. He blacked out after he got rid of the Dark Lord; Poppy gave him some Dreamless Sleep.”

Dumbledore nodded and spent a few minutes watching Harry. “I wish she had not,” he said softly. “There are some things that I should have told him before that he needs to know now.”

Severus gave the Headmaster a sharp look, his hackles rising. “No,” he said. “Are you aware what happened to Black?” he demanded.

A brief look of pain passed over Dumbledore's face. “Yes,” was the short answer.

“Give him a few days, Headmaster,” Severus said. “He has spent most of the last six months having his world rearranged without his consent. Let him find balance before you knock him over again with revelations.”

For a moment, Dumbledore looked as if he were about to object, then nodded. “We have many things to sort out before end of term for young Harry,” he said, as if half to himself.

“He will not be sent back to the Muggles,” Severus said with a scowl. “You have the guardianship papers, do you not?”

After a few moments, Dumbledore nodded slowly.

Recklessly, without thinking it through, Severus plunged ahead. “I am sworn to protect the boy,” he began. “I will keep him safe—it has recently occurred to me that the best way to do that is to take him into my care.”

Dumbledore looked shocked to say the least. “But your spying!” he objected.

“Is over,” Severus replied calmly. “I will still be your spymaster, Headmaster, but I was seen saving Potter tonight. I can no longer be your main spy on the Dark Lord.”

Dumbledore bowed his head for a moment. “I see,” he murmured.

“I will teach him everything he needs to know to defeat the Dark Lord,” Severus said quietly. “I will teach him what he needs to know to stay alive and give him damn better care than the Muggles ever did.”

Dumbledore looked at him. “Are you sure about this, Severus?” he asked.

Deep down, he wasn't, really. But he wouldn't let his doubts stop him. He would protect Lily's child. He would make sure that the boy survived the war intact. “Yes,” he said briefly. “I have the means to provide for him in ways that would make Malfoy jealous,” he reminded the old wizard.

“I have the means to hire tutors to teach him what I cannot, and you know as well as I do that my country estate is under Fidelius and neither Voldemort nor any of his followers know of its existence, let alone its location.” Severus propped his left ankle on his knee.

“I'm not sure this is a good idea,” Dumbledore murmured.

Severus raised an eyebrow. “And yet you thought leaving him with the Muggles was a fine one,” he said. “You should have listened to Minerva and found somewhere else to place him.”

Dumbledore inclined his head in acknowledgment. “I admit that my decisions have not always turned out for the best,” he said.

“Neither have mine,” Severus said. “But this one will. I will protect Harry, Headmaster. Bring me the papers.”

Dumbledore seemed to study the pattern in the stone floor for a few moments. “Very well,” he said. “You shall have them first thing in the morning.

Severus nodded. “Thank you, Headmaster,” he said. “Now that the floos have been unblocked and are no longer monitored, I must make a call.”

“Might I ask whom to?”

Severus favored him with a wolfish grin. “Why, Tonks and Shacklebolt, of course. They should be... visiting... the Dursleys soon, and I wish to be there when they do.” With that as a parting shot, he stood and swept out of the room, leaving six sleeping children, a matron fussing over her charges, and a slightly bewildered Headmaster.

“Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

“Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

“He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.

“The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good.”
--Wynstan Hugh Auden, Funeral Blues

~*~*~*~

Harry woke slowly and stretched. For the first time in what seemed forever, he'd finally gotten a decent night's sleep. It was then that it hit him. Sirius. Sirius was dead. He wanted to scream. He wanted to destroy things. He wanted... he wanted... he wanted to cry.

Now, his status was a gray area. If they'd been telling the truth, he wouldn't be going back the the Dursleys, and Sirius was... gone. School would be out soon and he had nowhere to go. Long experience with the Dursleys had taught him that emotional displays were a bad idea. They were a weakness that he could not currently afford, at least in public.

Following instinct instilled from years of living on Privet Drive, Harry slid out of bed, shoved his bare feet into his shoes, and sneaked out of the Hospital Wing. Once in the corridor, he started running, hurrying to one of the few places in the castle where he knew he would be all but guaranteed to be alone. No living creature would come for him there.

He hurried into the second floor girls bathroom, and sat down in a corner away from the stalls. He drew his knees to his chest and buried his face in them. Crying never did any good; he wouldn't cry now. But for a few minutes, he allowed himself to rock back and forth, comforting himself as he had when he was younger.

Harry wanted the nightmarish reality of Sirius's death to go away. He wanted Sirius to walk through the door and tell him that it had all been a mistake; that he hadn't died. He knew better, though. People who cared about him died. People who were close to him died. And death meant that loved ones got left behind. He didn't care about Dumbledore's version of death. Adventure, bah. Death meant that people you loved got left behind, left alone. Just like he was now.

He drew in a deep breath, but it caught. No, not in a sob. He would not cry. “What's the matter?” a vaguely familiar voice asked.

Cautiously, Harry looked up to find Moaning Myrtle floating near him. “What's the matter?” she asked again.

Harry bit his lip, determined not to cry. “My godfather died,” he said finally.

“Ohh, how terrible!” Myrtle squealed.

Harry shut his eyes tightly. Just what he needed. A gleeful ghost rejoicing in his misery. “He was murdered in front of me,” he said abruptly.

The sentence seemed to sober Myrtle. “I'm sorry, Harry,” she said. “But death isn't the end, you know.”

Hope flared in Harry's heart. “Does that mean he can come back?” he asked.

Myrtle shook her head. “This isn't living, Harry,” she said gently. “I decided to stay as a ghost for revenge, but everyone I wanted revenge on is long since gone.”

“But it means that my godfather isn't gone, doesn't it?” he questioned.

“In a way,” Myrtle admitted. “But if he wasn't afraid of death, he would have gone where most wizards go when they die.” She floated closer to him, sinking down until she was at his level.

Harry hugged his legs tighter. “It's my fault,” he murmured. “I'm the one who said that we should turn Voldemort's ambush against him.”

“Did you kill him?” she asked curiously.

Harry shook his head. “Bellatrix Lestrange did,” he said with a scowl. “She works for someone you might remember—Tom Riddle.”

It was Myrtle's turn to scowl. “He was nasty when the teachers weren't around,” she said. “Always picking on me and laughing at my glasses.”

Attempting to distract himself from Sirius's death, Harry changed the subject. “He was the one that killed you, you know,” he said conversationally. “It was his basilisk that did it, but it was his fault that you died.”

Myrtle's scowl deepened. “Olive Hornby is gone,” she mused. “But if I can find Tom, I could haunt him!”

Harry swallowed hard. A sudden idea popped into his head. He toyed with it for a few moments, examining it from different angles. It would work. He was sure of it! “Maybe you should talk to Professor Snape,” he suggested. “He could tell you how to find Riddle... but instead of haunting him, maybe you could spy on him and tell us his plans.”

A slow, evil smile slid over the ghost girl's face. “Oh yes,” she said. “Tommy will be sorry that his snake killed me,” Myrtle said gleefully. She started to leave, but seemingly changed her mind. “Harry, you'll see your godfather again,” she promised.

Harry simply shrugged, still lost in the tangle of his own emotions.

“He won't come back as a ghost, you know,” she said conversationally. “We ghosts aren't really alive at all. We're more like echoes of the people we were in life.”

“It's just--”

“You miss him,” Myrtle filled in. “Though if you die, I still wouldn't mind sharing my toilet with you,” she said with a nervous giggle before sinking through the floor.

Tired, but thankful he'd managed to get rid of Myrtle, Harry slumped against the wall, folded his arms on top of his knees and buried his face in them.

Part of him felt like destroying things. Another wanted to start crying and never stop. The biggest portion of Harry, however, simply wanted Sirius back. He knew it was impossible, even if, for a few precious moments, he had allowed himself a bit of hope.

He'd learned years ago that wishing the dead back simply wasn't possible. If it was, he would never have lived with the Dursleys. Magic was wonderful, but there were some things that even it couldn't fix—death was one of those things.

Harry knew better than to hope, but five years of living in the wizarding world had made him re-learn how to dream. But... at times like this, he still wished he'd never left the cupboard. Sure it had been a miserable existence, but at least he hadn't allowed himself the hope of something better. There was something to be said for resignation.

When he'd lived in the cupboard, he hadn't really known there was anything else—at least for him. He should have remembered one of the first lessons he'd learned with the Dursleys—for him, nothing good ever lasted, and every good thing was paid for in pain. While things had changed for him somewhat since he had gotten his Hogwarts letter, in a way they hadn't. He had gone from being the Dursley's whipping boy to being the whipping boy for the entire wizarding world.

“Harry!”

He lifted his head from his knees and stood. It was Ginny's voice—she'd recently found his hiding spot. Mentally, he decided that he'd have to find a new one, so that he couldn't be found by anyone if he didn't want to be. Ginny's bright hair was visible as she poked her head through the door. “I knew you'd be here,” she said.

Harry looked at the tile floor. “You know me too well,” he said quietly. “I just needed to be alone for a while.”

Ginny came closer to him and laid her hand on his arm. He tried to conceal a flinch. “I know,” was her soft answer. “But Madame Pomfrey has everyone looking for you—she said that she needs to take a look at you before she can officially allow you to be released.”

Harry scuffed the sole of his worn trainer against the floor before answering. “All right,” he said finally.

Ginny smiled at him, then tugged gently on his arm. He ignored the funny feeling in the pit of his stomach at her soft touch and followed her out of the bathroom. After Madame Pomfrey looked him over, he promised himself that he'd find his new, out-of-the-way hiding spot where nobody would find him.

~*~*~*~

“Harry?”

Harry looked up to see Professor Snape standing in the doorway. He leaned back against the pillows and began to pick at lint on the blanket covering his bed in the hospital wing.

“Yes, sir?” he answered. “I'm afraid I'm stuck here until Madame Pomfrey decides to let me go, sir,” he volunteered.

Harry was still examining the weave of the blanket, so he didn't see the half-smile on his Professor's face. “We can talk here,” Snape said. He drew privacy screens around the bed, cast a few quick anti-eavesdropping spells, and sat down on a chair next to him.

Harry bit his lip and darted a glance at the potions professor. “Professor?” he ventured finally. “Why are you here?” He didn't know what to make of the expression on the man's face.

“First,” Professor Snape began, “My condolences on the death of your godfather.”

“But you hated him,” Harry said, crossing his arms over his chest.

Professor Snape inclined his head. “We didn't get on,” he acknowledged. “However, his death leaves us at an impasse concerning you—we cannot send you back to the Dursleys when term ends, the reading of Black's will won't take place until things settle down, and there is a complete dearth of blood relatives on either side of your family.”

Harry slumped back against his pillows. “I knew escaping the Dursleys was too good to be true,” he muttered.

Seemingly ignoring what Harry had said, Professor Snape pressed on. “I'm sure Black told you of my promise to you mother,” he said.

Harry gave him a cautious nod. “He didn't say exactly what the promise was.”

Snape raised an eyebrow, but didn't comment. “I promised her that I would protect you,” he said. “It has occurred to me that the best way to keep my promise is to become your guardian.”

Harry shut his eyes tightly. It was a nightmare. It had to be. At least with the Dursleys, he knew what to expect. Over the past few months, Snape had become unpredictable to him—his behavior towards Harry had changed so dramatically that he no longer knew what to think anymore.

Professor Snape continued. “I thought it best that I consult you in this matter,” he said. “I promise that you will have decent clothing that fits, a place to live, and food to eat. I also promise that you will never be beaten by me, and I shall make sure that you receive the training you need to survive the war.”

It was still a nightmare. Harry opened his eyes cautiously and gave Snape a suspicious glare. “What's in it for you?” he asked.

“This is my duty, Harry,” he said quietly. “I made an unbreakable vow to your mother that I would try to ensure your safety. I can't promise to replace your parents. Frankly, I still don't like you; but I will do my absolute best to keep you safe as I prefer to keep breathing. Is that agreeable?”

Harry thought about it for a few minutes. He didn't like Snape, either, but in a strange sort of way, he'd grown to, sort of, trust him. That is, he trusted him more than most grown-ups, but not as much as Sirius and definitely not as much as he trusted Ron and Hermione. He had learned, however, that when the man gave his word, unbreakable vow or no, he did his best to keep it. He'd also come to realize that Snape always told him the truth, and never sugar-coated it.

“Can I think about it?” he asked finally.

Snape inclined his head. “You may,” he said. “Though you should know that the guardianship papers have already been signed; I thought that you deserved input in this matter.” With that as a parting shot, the Potions Master stood up and left the room.

Harry pulled his knees to his chest and put his arms around them, ignoring the way the gesture made the sheets and blankets bunch up. Summer with Snape. To make matters worse, summer lessons with Snape. Yes, Occlumency had gotten better, but how would defense lessons be? Would living with Snape be worse or better than the Dursleys?

Harry was inclined to think it would be worse, but Snape's promises stopped him. He swallowed hard. Professor Snape had never lied to him, ever. He had always kept his word as well. That meant that what he said was true. He sighed. It wasn't like it really mattered anyway—he didn't matter much in the long run. The fact that Dumbledore had spent all year ignoring him proved that.

As late as last year, he had believed that the Headmaster cared about him, but he didn't believe it anymore. He was just weird Harry—a freak among Muggles and a freak among Wizardkind -- that no one knew what to do with. Harry was convinced that it was simply the way things were supposed to be.

~*~*~*~

Harry sat curled up in a squashy chair in front of the fire in the Gryffindor common room. He had Quidditch Through the Ages open in front of him, but he wasn't really reading. Instead, he was thinking. Ron and Hermione had been handling him with kid gloves as if he would fall apart any minute. Granted, he was still upset over Sirius' death, but he preferred to do his grieving in private. Ingrained Dursley habits reinforced that tendency.

Sometimes he wondered why Ron had been so jealous of him the previous year. The way Harry saw it, he had nothing to be jealous of! He wasn't just mourning Sirius' death—he was mourning the loss of his last chance at a real home. He wouldn't delude himself—Snape was offering him a place to stay, not a home. He wouldn't put it past the man to stow him away in a garret; technically that would still fulfill his vow to Harry's mother.

He supposed it would be better than being a ward of the ministry. If that happened, he'd be dead within a week; someone would offer Fudge a large enough bribe, and he'd hand him over to Voldemort or the Death Eaters. After the year he'd had, Harry possessed a low opinion of the minister and his lackeys.

“Harry?” He looked up to find Neville shifting nervously from foot to foot.

“Yeah?”

“Got a letter from m'Gran,” he said. Neville collapsed into the couch. “I told her about your godfather,” he said simply. “And I told her that you hadn't anywhere to go for the summer.”

Harry wanted to object—he didn't need anyone else to know about his problems! Instead, he simply nodded and motioned his friend to continue. “Neville, you really shouldn't--”

“I know,” he said quietly. “But you're my friend, and friends help when you need it,” was the stubborn reply. “Gran said to tell you that you can come and live with us—we've got really old wards, and we get goblin warders in every year to strengthen and update them, so you'll be safe there.”

A lump rose in Harry's throat. “Tell her thank you for me?” he requested. “I-I'd like that, but I seem to have acquired a new guardian since Sirius died.”

“But that was just last night!” Neville objected.

“I know,” Harry said tiredly. “Think of the most unlikely person to take me in, and you'll know who my new guardian is.”

Neville considered it for a moment. “V-V-V-Voldemort?” he ventured finally.

“Close.”

“Snape.” Neville looked terrified at the thought.

Harry nodded. “Yeah.”

“Mate, I am so sorry,” said Neville. “Should I start planning your funeral?”

“Might be a good idea,” said Harry with a grimace.

Neville stood up, clapped him on the shoulder with a sympathetic look, and headed towards the dormitory stairs. Harry slumped into the comforting embrace of the chair and leaned his head against his closed fist. At least Neville had taken the news better than his other friends. Hermione was currently calming Ron down—he hadn't exactly taken it well. It wasn't that he was mad at Harry, exactly, it was that he was incensed that it was Snape who had stepped in.

He'd informed Harry in no uncertain terms that he would always be welcome at the Burrow, and that his parents had said more than once that they'd like to adopt him. He was again interrupted by a soft hand running through his hair. Harry tried not to flinch and looked up to find Ginny perched on the arm of his chair. “Ron's mad,” she said.

“I know.”

“I think he wanted you for our brother,” she said.

Harry was quiet for a few minutes. “Fred and George said that we were the little twins,” he admitted.

“I'm sorry about Snape; if he does anything bad, we'll get the twins to prank him into oblivion,” said Ginny.

Harry smiled a little. The thought made him feel a bit better—he might have to go live with Snape for the summer, but he hadn't been abandoned. “Not unless something happens,” he said. “I still have to live with the man.”

“Who knows?” Ginny said. “Maybe he'll be different away from school, and you'll learn to like him. Maybe he won't be such an utter bastard.”

“Maybe.”

“Michael and I broke up,” Ginny said, abruptly changing the subject.

With something to focus on besides his own situation, Harry perked up a bit. “Sorry, Ginny. I know you liked him.”

She shrugged. “We didn't have much in common,” she admitted. “I mean, he got kinda weird after the Gryffindor/Ravenclaw match, and he believed that you were lying at the beginning of the year.”

“I wasn't,” he said softly. She was still running her hand through his hair, and it was making him sleepy. Perhaps if he went to sleep, he'd dream of Sirius. Mayhap Sirius wasn't mad at him for the fiasco at the Department of the Mysteries.

“We all know that, Harry.” Ginny stopped stroking his hair and laid her hand on his arm. “I also wanted to say that I'm sorry about Sirius; I liked him.”

The lump returned to Harry's throat. “He was the closest I've ever had to a dad, you know?”

“I know.” Ginny put her hand under his chin and gently made him look at her. “You still have us,” she said. “When my grandmother died, my parents told me that she was just behind the veil, waiting for me.” She was silent for a moment. “Sirius loved you, Harry. I think that he and your parents are like my Grandmother; they're waiting for you right behind the veil.”

Harry liked that idea. He'd heard death referred to as a door once, but a veil was better. Doors were hard, solid barriers, but veils weren't. Veils were thin, wispy, and easily brushed aside. He really liked that. “Thanks, Ginny,” he murmured.

Ginny released his chin, put her arms around him, and gave him a short hug. She released him, stood up, and smiled. “For the record,” she began, “I'm glad that you're not my brother.”

Harry watched her walk away and frowned. He'd actually liked the hug; it made him feel less alone. But what she'd just said-- He shrugged. That settled it. Girls were just weird.

"Hope is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense regardless of how it turns out."
- Vaclav Havel

~*~*~*~

Severus looked around the room and frowned. It was dirty and looked as if it hadn't been used in a long time. “Tildy,” he called.

With a crack, a little house-elf dressed in a neat tea towel bearing his crest popped into the room. “What can Tildy do for Master?” she said.

“Tildy, I need you to speak to the castle and move that door so that it opens into my quarters,” he said.

Tildy nodded. “Yes, Master Snape. Can Tildy do anything else?”

“I would also like this room cleaned, and the walls cream-colored. We need a bed, a wardrobe, a desk, and a dresser in here, nothing dark.”

“Yes, Master,” she said. “Tildy will take care of it.”

Severus left the room and headed next door to his quarters.

He still wasn't sure he should be inviting Potter into his home, but he frankly couldn't see another option that would give the boy any kind of adequate security. He couldn't back out now, at any rate. The papers had been signed and portkeyed to the Department of Wizarding Family and Children Services. Since he had to stay for a few weeks after term to wrap up loose ends for the school year, it only made sense to prepare a room for the child.

Severus wasn't about to lock Harry away as if he were ashamed of him; Lily's boy deserved decent treatment. He murmured the password to the portrait that guarded his quarters and went inside. Now that the boy's bedroom in the castle was arranged, he really had to consider where Harry would stay on the estate.

Severus sighed. He knew where he should put the child, but no Potter had ever stayed there. “Blinky,” he called.

The old elf popped in. “How can Blinky help?” he said.

“Go prepare the Heir's rooms,” he said.

Blinky perked up; he'd taken care of Severus as a child. “Master Severus has a baby boy?” he asked eagerly.

“No,” he said, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “I have a fifteen-year-old ward who will be living with me from now on.”

Blinky looked suspicious. “And who would this be?” he asked.

“Harry Potter,” Severus said tiredly. He really didn't want to explain, especially to a house-elf, but this particular house-elf had changed his nappies, and wasn't adverse to reminding him of the fact.

Blinky's face cleared. “Mistress Lily's son,” he said with a smile.

“Yes,” Severus answered.

“In the kitchens, Dobby has been crying that Harry Potter's family is mean to Harry Potter, sir,” Blinky said slowly. “And the house-elves heard that Harry Potter's godfather, Sirius Black, is dead.”

“Which is why he will be living with me,” Severus said dryly.

Blinky nodded. “Blinky will go to air out the room,” he said, then disappeared.

At least the matter of the room was taken care of, he thought tiredly. He rather thought that he'd have to take the boy shopping for some decent clothing, but there were a few days yet before he had to worry about that. Severus rather thought that, considering his previous tactics and the fact that the majority of his inner circle was now in Azkaban, the Dark Lord wouldn't be attacking public places in broad daylight anytime soon.

At least the arrest gave them a bit of breathing space while Voldemort regrouped. Severus sighed, shook his head, and glanced back at the pile of exams that he still had to mark. There was an awful lot to do before the majority of the students were sent home. Apart from the marking, he had a feeling that the Headmaster wouldn't deign to wait long to talk to the boy, so he would have to insist on his own presence. Aside from the trauma Harry was coping with, whatever concerned Severus's ward also concerned him.

After deciding that he should get started on the marking, Severus went over to his desk, sat down, and picked up his quill. As he glanced at the first exam, he reflected that it always seemed as if his work was never done. The corner of his mouth twitched upwards momentarily as he remembered that, on the bright side, he would never have to brew potions for the Dark Lord again. With a will, he dipped his quill into bright red ink and started correcting the first script.

~*~*~*~

Severus started to climb the stairs leading up from his office, but stopped as he overheard Draco Malfoy's sneering voice. It had been a miracle that the arrogant boy hadn't ended up in Azkaban for the fiasco in Umbridge's office, and Dumbledore had insisted on not expelling the students who were involved.

Severus had arrived just in time to hear Malfoy threaten Harry. As he came up the stairs, he caught sight of Potter pulling his wand, reaching it faster than Crabbe, Goyle, or Malfoy ever could. “Put it away, Mr. Potter,” he ordered.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the child pocket his wand, but his attention was for Malfoy and his lackeys. “Mr. Malfoy,” he began in a dangerously soft voice. “Just what do you think you are doing?”

Malfoy gave him a sullen look and didn't answer.

“Well, then,” Severus said with a smirk. “Fifty points from Slytherin for threatening a fellow student, and you are to report to my office tonight after dinner.” Now that he no longer had to be nice to Malfoy, he could do what he'd wanted to do for quite some time—put the spoilt brat in his place.

“Why should I, traitor?” Malfoy inquired.

Severus crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow. “Because I am still your professor, perhaps?” he inquired. “Thirty points from Slytherin, Mr. Malfoy, for disrespect to a professor.”

Malfoy glared at him. “Potter got my father thrown in prison,” he said fiercely.

“I think you'll find that your father's own actions are responsible for that, Draco,” responded Severus mildly.

“It's your fault, too,” Malfoy accused.

Severus flicked a piece of lint off his robes before replying. “Are you trying to single-handedly ruin your House's chance at the cup?” he asked. “Another fifty points from Slytherin.” Severus sounded completely bored by the action. “I do not tolerate disrespect from my students.”

Malfoy sneered in response, but didn't reply.

“Might I remind you that after your complicity in performing an Unforgivable that you are on thin ice, Mr. Malfoy? If you wish to be expelled, by all means, continue.”

“Well, well, looks like things have changed a bit around here.” Professor McGonagall had just stumped up the stone steps into the castle. She was carrying a tartan carpetbag in one hand and leaning heavily on a walking stick with her other, but otherwise looked quite well.

“Professor McGonagall!” said Severus. He was fighting the urge to smile as he strode forward. “Out of St. Mungo's, I see!”

“Yes, Professor Snape,” said Professor McGonagall, shrugging off her traveling cloak. “I'm quite as good as new. You two -- Crabbe –- Goyle --”

She beckoned them forward imperiously and they came, shuffling their large feet and looking awkward.

“Here,” said Professor McGonagall, thrusting her carpetbag into Crabbe's chest and her cloak into Goyle's, “take these up to my office for me.”

They turned and stumped away up the marble staircase.

“And what, may I ask, is this about?” McGonagall waved her hand, encompassing Malfoy and Harry.

“Professor--” Harry began.

Severus gave the boy a slight shake of his head. “I came upon Mr. Malfoy threatening Mr. Potter,” he said. “You caught me disciplining my student.” He caught the slightly amused look that flitted across her face.

“Which one, Professor?” she asked.

“Why Mr. Malfoy, of course,” he answered softly.

Minerva's mouth twitched. “How... unexpected,” she said.

“Death threats against other students are inappropriate, as is blatant defiance of a professor,” he said. “Mister Malfoy seems intent on ridding Slytherin of every single extra point that was gained from Umbridge.”

McGonagall raised an eyebrow. “The inequality of the points has not escaped me,” she said dryly. She looked up at the hourglasses. “I think we should right it, don't you agree, Professor Snape?”

“Quite.” Severus gave her a slight smile. “I would say fifty points for flawlessly executing a plan would be fair.”

“Each,” McGonagall said. “After all, two Weasleys, Longbottom, Miss Granger, and Miss Lovegood were not cognizant of the plan until after it was put into action.”

Severus inclined his head, feeling a bit put-out. He still had his principles to live up to, after all. “Very well,” he said as a shower of rubies fell down into the bottom bulb of Gryffindor's hourglass and a number of sapphires fell into Ravenclaw's glass.

“Well, Potter, Malfoy, I think you ought to be outside on a glorious day like this,” McGonagall continued briskly.

Harry headed straight for the door, but Malfoy lingered. “Mr. Malfoy,” Severus said quietly. “You will be in my office after dinner tonight, or you will face consequences that you will not enjoy—is that clear?”

“Yes,” Malfoy replied sullenly.

“What was that?” Severus asked silkily. “Another fif--”

“Yes, sir,” Draco interrupted hurriedly.

“Off with you, then,” he said. Severus knew better than to think Malfoy truly cared about the points; most likely, he was worried about his housemates' reaction to him losing the points in the first place.

Malfoy hurried off in the opposite direction to Harry had taken. Severus offered his arm to Minerva. “On your way to speak to the Headmaster?” he inquired.

She gave him a brief nod as she took his arm. “Of course,” was her answer. “I'm sure that one of the paintings has already informed him of my return—and I sent an owl with the approximate time, but, well...”

“It is always best to report in person,” Severus said. The way she leaned on his arm told him that she was not quite as well as she pretended. He had suspected as much—Minerva was worse than he was about being sick or injured.

“And where are you headed?” Minerva asked.

“The same as you,” he admitted. “The Headmaster is planning on finally doing what he should have done before term started—giving Harry the information he needs to know, and I will be there.”

He glanced over to see surprise cross her face. “Are you sure of that?” she asked.

“I'm shocked that the Headmaster didn't tell you,” Severus observed. “With his godfather's death, Harry was in need of a guardian, and I decided that the best way to make sure he was protected was to take him myself, so he is now my ward. What concerns him concerns me.”

“I must say...” she trailed off. “I know you dislike the boy, Severus.”

He acknowledged it with a languid wave of his hand. “That does not mean that I am not concerned about his safety.”

“Quite true,” Minerva said. She patted his arm absently. “You do realize that, with time, he may come to see you as a father figure.”

Inwardly, Severus winced. Just what he needed—Harry Bloody Potter looking towards himself as a father. The thought came without quite the usual amount of venom. “I hope it will not come to that,” he said dryly. “I have promised him a place to live, clothing, food, and training to survive the coming war...”

“He's fifteen, Severus,” Minerva reminded him gently. “He needs more than to be turned into a weapon.”

Severus snorted. “He's a boy, not a weapon, but his life is in danger every second of every day. He must know how to defend himself, Minerva!”

Minerva sighed. “Sometimes I forget that,” she admitted. “But then I remember all the times that You-Know-Who has almost killed him.”

The two lapsed into silence as they made their way to the Headmaster's office and gave the password. As he stepped on the revolving staircase, Severus decided that not only was he clueless about what he was getting into, but despite fourteen years of teaching, he was probably more than a little unprepared as well.

~*~*~*~

Severus smirked as he scribbled a large red “T” on top of the exam he was marking. He glanced at the clock—it was almost time for Malfoy to show up for his detention. Briefly, he wondered if he could dissuade the boy from joining the Dark Lord, but he wasn't really sure if it was possible.

He didn't look up when the door creaked open. “You're late, Mr. Malfoy,” he said.

Malfoy sneered at him. “I shouldn't have to be here with a traitor like you,” he said.

Severus raised an eyebrow. “That attitude you're sporting ill becomes you, Draco,” he drawled.

Malfoy sniffed. “You shouldn't have betrayed the Dark Lord,” he said.

“He should not have forced me to make potions to torture and kill innocents,” Severus replied mildly. “He should not have allowed some of his people to torture and kill my wife and our unborn child.”

Draco paled slightly. “He wouldn't,” the boy protested.

“He would,” Severus replied calmly. “Perhaps you would like to see what service to the Dark Lord is really like?” he inquired. Inwardly, he was shaking. He did his best to avoid the painful parts of his past, but he had hopes for his old friends' son; he wanted to stop the boy from following the same path that he had at that age.

Malfoy looked suspicious. “How do I know that you're telling the truth?” he asked.

Severus repressed the urge to roll his eyes, took his pensieve out of a drawer, then began putting his worst memories of life in the Dark Lord's service into it. He had considered preparing the pensieve before hand, but in the end decided that it would be best to do it in front of the boy. “Memories that have been tampered with have fuzzy edges in pensieves,” he said dryly. “If you decide to go into the Dark Lord's service, you will do so with both eyes open, Draco.”

Malfoy just snorted and crossed his arms over his chest.

Severus gestured towards the pensieve. “Touch the surface,” he ordered.

Malfoy sneered at him, but obeyed. Dispassionately, Severus watched as the boy was sucked into the pensieve, and settled back into his chair to wait. He would leave the boy to draw his own conclusions from the memories—Malfoy had been coddled far too much in his life as it was. He didn't delude himself into thinking that a dose of truth would stop the boy from joining the Dark Lord, but at the same time, he had to try.

Spoilt brats like Draco Malfoy rarely fared well in the Dark Lord's service. The boy was a bully, but Severus rather thought that he did not have it in him to become a murderer, and for that reason alone he would not survive long in the ranks of the Death Eaters.

Time dragged on as Malfoy explored his memories. Finally, the boy pulled out of the pensieve and settled back in his chair. “My father wouldn't do that,” he enunciated clearly.

Severus snorted. Among the memories of various Death Eater activities had been a series of memories featuring Lucius Malfoy as one of the main participants. “I was there, boy,” he said. “I watched him torture, rape, and kill Muggles. I saw him murder half-blood and Muggle-born witches and wizards after long tortures. I witnessed him tormenting and murdering both innocent babies and children. Don't tell me what your father will or will not stoop to; I have seen everything.”

“I don't believe you,” Malfoy sneered. “You're a filthy traitor.”

Severus stood up and loomed over the boy. “Yes,” he said, his voice barely louder than a whisper. “I am a traitor to an insane half-blood and his slaves. I risked my life and still do in order to be freed from the murderous bastard.”

“My father is not a slave!” Each word rose in volume until Malfoy was almost yelling. “And the Dark Lord can't be a half-blood.” He spat out the last word as if it were something filthy.

Severus snorted in amusement. “Keep telling yourself that,” he said in a soft voice. “Perhaps you can delude yourself that it is true.”

“You're the one who's deluded, traitor!” Malfoy accused.

Severus made a show of examining his potion-stained fingernails before replying. “Is that the best you can come up with?” he inquired. “Really, Mr. Malfoy, you should learn to be rather more creative with your insults. No wonder Potter and his friends seem to beat you so easily.”

Severus watched with some amusement as Malfoy's face darkened and the boy sputtered with impotent anger.

Before the boy could speak, he decided that it would be best to let him leave. Perhaps after some thought, Draco would decide not to be marked, after all. Severus didn't think that Malfoy would be dissuaded, but his own conscience wouldn't let him stand by without doing anything to stop the boy. He had already called a meeting with his seventh years and shown them much the same thing. They were the ones in the most danger of being marked, after all. The Dark Lord rarely marked school children; as their magic was simply not able to be used outside of school, they were of limited use to him.

“I suggest you think over what you have seen, Mr. Malfoy,” Severus said silkily. “You decide what you will become—a slave, or a free man. You're dismissed.”

The boy shot him a glare, then flounced out of the room. Severus returned the memories to his head, wincing as they settled in. He had been lucky enough to avoid active participation in most of the incidents in the pensieve, but they still made him feel unclean. He was much better off working for the Light than for the Dark—at least with the Light, he was able to make decisions that he could live with.

"Everywhere in these days people have, in their mockery, ceased to understand that the true security is to be found in social solidarity rather than in isolated individual effort. But this terrible state of affairs must inevitably have an end, and all will suddenly understand how unnaturally they are separated from one another. It will be the spirit of the time, and people will marvel that they have sat so long in darkness without seeing the light... But, until then, we must keep the banner flying. Sometimes even if he has to do it alone, and his conduct seems to be crazy, a man must set an example, and so draw other souls out of their solitude, and spur them to some act of brotherly love, that the great idea may not die."
--Fydor Dostoevsky, "The Brothers Karamozov"

~*~*~*~

Harry hunched over to obscure his face and stuffed his hands in his pockets as he wandered aimlessly through the castle halls. He didn't really want to see or talk to anyone, and he hadn't yet found a new bolt hole. He'd been walking for what seemed like forever, but he kept stumbling across other students. He felt his ears grow warm as he thought about a few of the... private goodbyes he'd accidentally spied upon.

It was Sunday. The Leaving Feast was to take place that night, and the students would all be leaving the next day. Harry had been accosted by Professor Snape and informed that he would not yet be leaving the castle, and would be moving down to the dungeons right after the rest of the students left. He wasn't looking forward to any of it.

He didn't want to attend the Leaving Feast because it meant that term was over. While it would be a little easier with the rest of the students gone, he was dreading moving in with Snape. Harry figured that if he were lucky, he'd get put in another cupboard. After all, Snape hated Harry, didn't he?

Harry didn't know. If only Sirius were there... But he knew better than to wish for the impossible. Sirius was gone, and would never be coming back. If only he'd never suggested the trap, which, as far as he could tell hadn't worked anyway, his godfather would still be alive. Sure, it had forced Fudge to admit Voldemort's return, but as far as he could see, it hadn't done much else.

After looking up and down the deserted corridor to make sure he was alone, Harry sat cross-legged on the floor. His mind wandered back to where it had been stubbornly stuck since Snape had informed him of the news—that Snape was to be his new guardian. Glumly, he wondered if it was too late to go back to Privet Drive. At least he knew what to expect there.

Echoing footsteps interrupted his musings. He looked up to see a familiar blonde figure coming towards him. She was carrying a stack of parchment under one arm. “Hello,” Luna said vaguely.

“How come you're wandering around here?” he asked.

“Well, the feast is tonight and I've lost most of my possessions,” said Luna serenely. “People take them and hide them, you know. But as it's the last night, I really do need them back, so I've been putting up signs. I'm on my way to put up another now.”

She handed him a piece of parchment. Harry glanced at it and sure enough, it was a list of all Luna's missing books and clothes, with a plea for their return.

An odd feeling rose up in Harry – an emotion quite different from the grief and worry that had filled him since Sirius's untimely demise. It was a few moments before he realized that he was feeling sorry for Luna.

“How come people hide your stuff?” he asked her, frowning.

“Oh... well...” she shrugged. “I think they think I'm a bit odd, you know. Some people call me 'Loony' Lovegood, actually.” Luna sat down next to him and arranged her signs in her lap.

The feeling of pity intensified rather painfully. “That's no reason for them to take your things,” he said flatly. “D'you want help finding them?”

“Oh, no,” she said, smiling at him. “They'll come back, they always do in the end. It was just that I wanted to pack tonight since we're leaving tomorrow. Anyway... why aren't you packing?”

Harry shrugged. “Don't know where I'm going,” he said. “Can't go back to the Dursleys.”

Luna nodded in acceptance. “That man the Death Eaters killed was your godfather, wasn't he? Ginny told me.”

Harry nodded curtly, but found that he didn't really mind hearing Luna talk about Sirius. “I was going to go live with him,” he said, a large lump rising in his throat. He had just remembered that she, too, could see thestrals.

“Why aren't you going back to your relatives?” she asked quietly.

Harry bent his head to study the floor. “It's not a big deal or anything,” he said hesitantly. “It's just that Professor Snape found out how much they hate me... and that how they treat me sort of reflects that and he turned them in.”

Luna was quiet for a few minutes. “When I was little,” she ventured, “something like that happened to a friend of mine.”

Uncomfortable, Harry changed the subject. “Have you...” he began. “I mean, who... has anyone you've known ever died?”

“Yes,” said Luna simply. “My Mother. She was a quite extraordinary witch, you know, but she did like to experiment and one of her spells when rather badly wrong one day. I was nine.”

“I'm sorry,” Harry mumbled.

“Yes, it was rather horrible,” said Luna conversationally. “I still feel very sad about it sometimes. But I've still got Dad. And anyway, it's not as though I'll never see Mum again, is it?”

“Er—isn't it?” Harry mumbled.

She shook her head in disbelief. “Dad says that the people who love us never really leave us, and that they'll be waiting for us after we die. I rather like that, so I choose to believe it.” Luna was smiling slightly.

Harry glanced over at her before studying the floor again. It was close to what Ginny had said, and even rather close to the Headmaster's words a few years before. He wasn't sure he believed it, but he did rather like the idea. “All right,” he said slowly. “Maybe you're right, it's just--”

“You miss him,” she said. “And that's all right, too. So who will you be staying with now?”

Harry bit his lip. “Professor Snape is my new guardian,” he said softly. “I guess they didn't want to chance me ending up with a Death Eater or something if I went into care.”

“The funny thing about being thought odd,” Luna began, “is that people don't notice you as much,” she smiled benignly. “I've heard that your mother and Professor Snape used to be quite close friends.”

Harry looked at her sharply. “Really?” he asked.

Luna simply blinked a little. “Oh, yes. From what I understand, he can be quite nice when he wants to be.”

Harry bit the inside of his cheek. He wanted to protest, but an irritating little voice inside his head reminded him that he didn't know who any of his professors were outside of class. For all he knew, they could have radically different personalities when not carrying out their school and Order-related duties. Part of why he was dreading the holiday was because of that fact—he didn't know what to expect from Snape anymore. The man had become even more of an enigma than when he was just the evil potions master who lived to see Harry expelled.

“Are you sure you don't want me to help you look for your stuff?” he asked, rather than talk about Snape.

“Oh no,” said Luna. “No, I think I'll just go back to my common room and wait for it all to turn up... It always does in the end. Well, have a nice holiday, Harry.”

“Yeah… yeah, you too.”

She walked away from him, and as he watched her go, he found that the terrible weight on his chest loosened slightly. Not much, but a little. Perhaps the holiday wouldn't be so bad, after all.

~*~*~*~

Harry stood beside the gargoyle outside Dumbledore's office. “Tangtastics,” he said softly, then watched as it sprang aside. Slowly, dreading what was to come, he stepped onto the moving staircase and when it reached the top, knocked on the door.

The door swung open. “Come in, Harry,” Dumbledore said.

“Have a seat, my boy.”

Harry glanced around the room, not really wanting to be there. He'd been waylaid at lunch, however, and asked to come and see the Headmaster. His stomach felt as if it had been tied into knots, and the last person he wanted to see was Professor Dumbledore. A small part of him felt that it was Dumbledore's fault that Sirius was dead. Just thinking about it made him angry—Sirius should not have been at the Ministry that night!

Yes, Harry had suggested setting the trap, but it was Dumbledore who planned it, Dumbledore's orders that had sent the Order of the Phoenix there, and Dumbledore who hadn't managed to keep Sirius safe at Grimmauld Place! He clenched his fists tightly as he made his way to a squashy armchair. Professor Snape was seated in the one next to it, and he felt oddly comforted by the older wizard's presence.

Harry sat down in the armchair with a muffled thump, his fists still clenched tight as he hung on to his anger, unable to let it go. He glanced over at Snape and the man inclined his head slightly. It was almost as if he'd come just to make sure that Harry was all right. “Professor McGonagall said you wanted to see me, Headmaster?” he said neutrally.

Harry wished he wasn't there. He desperately wished that, even if it were just for one moment, that he wasn't himself. He knew it was futile, but he wished it anyway. Startled, he almost jerked back when Snape gently laid his hand on Harry's arm, but he stopped himself. Snape kept his promises, and he had promised not to hurt Harry.

“You will be pleased to know,” Dumbledore said quietly. “That there were no other casualties on our side, Harry. The few injured have been released from St. Mungo's, and the Minister is admitting Voldemort's return.”

Harry glanced at Professor Snape for confirmation, then looked at the floor. Snape had told him the truth more often than not, and that was more than he could say for Dumbledore at the moment.

“I know how you are feeling, Harry,” said Dumbledore very quietly.

“No, you don't,” said Harry, his voice suddenly loud and strong. White-hot anger leapt inside him. Dumbledore knew nothing about how he felt; he couldn't!

Snape's hand moved up to his shoulder and gave him a brief squeeze. The slight contact almost emboldened him; he felt as if he had someone there for him for the first time ever; as much as he'd loved Sirius, his fugitive status made it hard for him to be around much. Harry shut his eyes tightly, ignoring Dumbledore to the best of his ability. His godfather was dead. Once again, he was an orphan, a burden of no real importance to anyone.

“There is no shame in what you are feeling, Harry,” said Dumbledore's voice. “On the contrary… the fact that you can feel pain like this is your greatest strength.”

Sirius's death hurt horribly, but Harry had managed to push that aside. White hot anger licked at his insides, filling up the emptiness, banishing the worry and fear that had been consuming him. It filled him with a desire to hurt someone, to lash out at the cause of his pain and the Headmaster was a convenient target.

“My greatest strength, is it?” said Harry, his voice shaking from suppressed emotion. He darted a glance back at Snape, then determinedly stared at a blank space on the wall. “You haven't got a clue… You don't know…”

“What don't I know?” said Dumbledore calmly.

It was too much. Harry clenched his fists tightly, trying to stop himself from flying off the handle and destroying the man's office. “I don't want to talk about how I feel, all right?”

“Harry, suffering like this proves that you are still a man! This pain is part of being human--”

“THEN - I – DON'T – WANT – TO – BE – HUMAN!” Harry roared, clenching his hands convulsively around the arms of the chair. Some of the silver instruments on the spindle-legged table nearby started to rattle alarmingly. One imploded, shattering into a hundred shiny pieces. Several of the pictures let out yells of anger and fright, and the portrait of Armando Dippet said, “Really!”

“I DON'T CARE!” Harry yelled at them as a lunascope joined the first instrument in imploding, the pieces flying towards the fireplace. “I'VE HAD ENOUGH, I'VE SEEN ENOUGH, I WANT OUT, I WANT IT TO END, I DON'T CARE ANYMORE --”

More devices started to break, some cracking the more fragile pieces whilst others simply pulled themselves apart. The table beside him joined them, its legs suddenly falling off.

“You do care,” Dumbledore said mildly. He made no move to try and stop the accidental magic that was currently destroying his office. “You care so much you feel as if you will bleed to death with the pain of it.”

Harry barely noticed the death glare that Snape shot at the Headmaster. “I – DON'T!” he screamed. He felt as if his throat would tear from the force of the sound, and for a moment, he wanted to hurt Dumbledore too, to tear him in half like a piece of Muggle notebook paper.

“Oh yes, you do,” said Dumbledore, still more calmly. “You have now lost your mother, your father, been abused by those who were supposed to protect you, and you have lost the closest thing to a parent you have ever known. To top it all off, your most hated professor has now become your guardian. Of course you care.”

Fury burned in Harry's heart. He tried to yell more, but the words wouldn't come. Dimly, he felt Snape's hand leave his shoulder. “With all due respect, Headmaster,” Snape's voice said, “sod off.” Snape left his chair and knelt in front of Harry.

He desperately looked away, barely containing his rage. The picture frames adorning the walls began to rattle alarmingly.

“Harry.” Long, cool fingers inserted themselves under his chin and forced him to look up. “Look at me,” Snape said gently. “I know you're angry, but I think your little magical temper tantrum has destroyed enough today.”

Part of him wanted to take offense at the professor's words, but he couldn't. Harry flushed a bit in shame as Snape continued to speak. “I'm not saying that you should apologize for being furious—it's only natural. But I do believe that you should calm down.”

Snape brought his other hand up and ran his thumb over Harry's scar. “Breathe for me,” he coaxed. “That's right,” he said approvingly as Harry complied. “Big, deep breaths.”

Slowly, Harry's anger, fear and sadness returned to a more manageable level. Black eyes studied him for a moment before Professor Snape stood up and returned to his chair. Harry took another deep breath as Dumbledore began to speak again.

“You have every right to blame me, Harry,” he said softly. “I was the one who sent you to the Dursleys. I was the one who didn't tell you what you needed to know and spent the year ignoring you in hopes that it would throw Voldemort off track. It was my decision to use Voldemort's trap against him, and I also allowed Sirius to go to the Ministry to protect you.”

“Why did you, then?” Harry asked around the lump in his throat.

“I was trying to protect you,” the Headmaster said softly. “I sent you to the Dursleys because of Petunia's blood connection to your mother—as long as you could call her house home, your mother's sacrifice would continue to protect you from Voldemort and his followers. After you came here, you only had to return there once a year to renew the protections, and you would be safe.”

Harry clenched his jaw tightly before forcing the words out. “Did you know how they treated me?” he asked.

Dumbledore shook his head sadly. “I knew that they had not treated you as well as I would have liked,” he admitted. “Five years ago when you first came here, you were neither as happy nor as well-nourished as I had hoped under the circumstances, but you were alive and healthy. With the threat of Voldemort and his supporters hanging over your head, I thought the fact that you were not a pampered little prince was perhaps the best we could do.”

“What about Sirius?” Harry whispered. “I was going to live with him.”

If anything, sorrow was more deeply etched in Dumbledore's face than before. “He loved you more than his own life,” he answered softly. “He was chafing over staying at Grimmauld Place, especially after he'd finished the surprise he'd been working on for you.”

A melancholy smile flitted over the Headmaster's face. He drew a sheaf of papers from his desk and handed them to Harry. “He had hoped to be here himself to have you sign these, my boy.”

Harry looked at the parchments and frowned a little. “Adoption papers?” he questioned.

The Headmaster nodded. “He wanted to make sure you knew you belonged with him,” he said quietly. “And he knew that he might not survive the war and wanted to make sure that when this was all over, you could disappear if you wanted to.”

Harry bit his lip. Fat lot of good that was when Voldemort was still around. “He didn't have to,” he muttered.

Dumbledore gave him a gentle smile. “Sirius has been your legal and magical guardian for a long time, Harry,” he said. “Because you were so young when your parents died, his magic helped ground your accidental magic when you were little. Magically, you are his son; an adoption simply formalizes the arrangement.”

It hurt. For a few moments, Harry was only cognizant of the pain of it all. He accepted a quill from the Headmaster and signed his name in the correct blanks on the forms. Now, if he ever truly wanted to disappear, Orion Pyxis Black could make an appearance.

“Congratulations, Mr. Potter,” Snape's voice interrupted his thoughts. “You have just prevented the Black fortune from falling into the Dark Lord's hands.”

Harry glanced over at his professor, and was surprised to see a slight smile flit over the man's face. After a moment, he decided that he must have been imagining things. He stood up and headed over to the window. Fawkes trilled softly and popped over to perch on the windowsill.

The phoenix sang quietly. Harry's throat constricted sharply, his grief surfacing with the phoenix song. The song changed slightly, almost as if the bird were singing him a lullaby. Gently, he stroked Fawkes, drawing comfort from the soft feathers and the song.

Dumbledore started to speak, but Fawkes laid his head on Harry's shoulder, seemingly stopping the Headmaster. Fawkes sang softly into Harry's ear and spread his wings over the child.

“I have never seen him behave that way with anyone other than myself,” he murmured.

Severus snorted. “You love the boy, Headmaster; everyone on the staff knows it. Obviously, your phoenix does as well.”

“And that is why I have failed him,” Dumbledore said softly.

Harry carefully gathered Fawkes up and turned around, all-but oblivious to the bird's squawk of protest. “The boy would appreciate it if you didn't talk like he wasn't here,” he said angrily. He stalked back over to his chair and sat down, careful not to further jostle Fawkes.

Fawkes rubbed his head against Harry's cheek and crooned softly to him as Dumbledore continued. “I had a glorious plan, Harry. I thought it would enable you to grow up away from fame and have a normal childhood. I couldn't fathom that your family would mistreat you. I didn't think that life would be easy there with the absence of magic, but I hoped that they would treat you as their own son.”

Harry shot a glare at the Headmaster, before turning most of his attention to petting Fawkes and gently scratching under the phoenix's beak. “Obviously, they didn't,” he said curtly. “I wouldn't want to be like Dudley, anyway.”

The expression on Dumbledore's face said that he would like to pursue that line of thought, but he continued with what he had been saying. “Five years ago,” he began. “When you arrived, you were as normal a boy as I could have hoped for, given the circumstances. Thus far, my plan was working well.

“And then... well, you will remember the events of your first year at Hogwarts quite as clearly as I do. You rose magnificently to the challenge that faced you, and sooner – much sooner – than I had anticipated, you found yourself face-to-face with Voldemort. You survived again. You did more. You delayed his return to full power and strength. You fought a man's fight. I was... prouder of you than I can say.”

Harry glanced at Professor Snape. The man was scowling. “Hogwarts was supposed to be safe,” he muttered. “That bastard-son-of-a-Muggle should never have been able to get in.”

Dumbledore waved his hand as if to silence Professor Snape, then continued. “Yet there was a flaw in this wonderful plan of mine,” said Dumbledore. “An obvious flaw that I knew, even then, might be the undoing of it all. And yet, knowing how important it was that my plan should succeed, I told myself that I would not permit this flaw to ruin it. I alone could prevent this, so I alone must be strong. And here was the first test, as you lay in the hospital wing, weak from your struggle with Voldemort.”

“I don't understand what you're trying to say,” said Harry.

“Don't you remember asking me, as you lay in the hospital wing, why Voldemort had tried to kill you as a baby?”

Harry nodded.

“Ought I have told you then?”

Harry stared into blue eyes and said nothing, but his heart was racing again.

“You do not see the flaw in the plan yet? No... perhaps not. Well, as you know, I decided not to answer you. Eleven, I told myself, was much too young to know. I had never intended to tell you when you were eleven. The knowledge would be too much at such a young age.

“I should have recognized the danger signs then. I should have asked myself why I did not feel more disturbed that you had already asked me the question to which I knew, one day, I must give a terrible answer. I should have recognized that I was too happy to think that I did not have to do it on that particular day... You were too young, much too young.

“And so we entered your second year of Hogwarts. And once again you met challenges that even grown wizards have never faced. Once again you acquitted yourself beyond your wildest dreams. You did not ask me again, however, why Voldemort had left that mark on you. We discussed your scar, oh yes... We came very, very close to the subject. Why did I not tell you everything?

“Well, it seemed to me that twelve was after all, hardly better than eleven to receive such information. I allowed you to leave my presence, bloodstained, exhausted but exhilarated, and I felt a twinge of unease that I ought, perhaps, have told you then, it was swiftly silenced. You were still so young, you see, and I could not find it in me to spoil that night of triumph....

“Do you see, Harry? Do you see the flaw in my brilliant plan now? I had fallen into the trap I had foreseen, that I had told myself I could avoid, that I must avoid.”

“I don't--”

“I cared about you too much,” said Dumbledore simply. “I cared more for your happiness than your knowing the truth, more for your peace of mind than my plan, more for your life than the lives that might be lost if the plan failed. In other words, I acted exactly as Voldemort expects fools who love to act.

“Is there a defense? I defy anyone who as watched you as I have – and I have watched you more closely than you have imagined -- not to want to save you more pain than you had already suffered. What did I care if numbers of nameless and faceless people and creatures were slaughtered in the vague future, if in the here and how you were alive, and well, and happy? I never dreamed that I would have such a person on my hands.

“Your third and fourth years, I did much the same. I could not bear to spoil your triumph after the events of third year, just as I could not add more to your burden after you saw Cedric Diggory killed. Yet I knew I must tell you soon. This year was perhaps the worst yet between Voldemort's assaults on your mind, Umbridge's abuses, and the revealing of secrets long-kept. I knew that I had to tell you. My only defense is this: I have watched you struggling under more burdens than any student who has passed through this school, and I could not bring myself to add another – the greatest one of all.”

Harry waited, but Dumbledore did not speak.

“I still don't understand.”

“Voldemort tried to kill you when you were a child because of a prophecy made shortly before your birth. He knew the prophecy had been made, though he did not know the full contents. He set out to kill you as a baby, believing he was fulfilling the terms of the prophecy. He discovered, to his cost, that he was mistaken, when the curse intended to kill you backfired. And so, since his return to his body, and particularly since your extraordinary escape from him last year, he has been determined to hear that prophecy in its entirety. That was the weapon he has been seeing so assiduously since his return: the knowledge of how to destroy you.”

“He knows something of the prophecy, Headmaster,” Snape said neutrally.

Harry continued stroking Fawkes, carefully examining the phoenix's feathers so as to not have to look at either Dumbledore or Professor Snape. Weariness began to settle over him; the accidental magic he had performed earlier was taking its toll. After a few moments, he was coherent enough to answer. “I smashed it on purpose,” he said faintly. “Professor Snape said that prophecies are often indirect, anyway, and that if it was a true one, it would happen without our interference. Smashing it was better than letting him have it, any road.”

Dumbledore got to his feet and walked past Harry to the black cabinet that stood beside Fawkes’s perch. He bent down, slid back a catch, and took from the inside it the shallow stone basin, carved with runes around the edge, in which Harry had previously seen Barty Crouch Junior’s trial the previous year. “The prophecy was not lost, Harry,” Dumbledore said quietly. “It is known to the person who witnessed it.”

He walked back to the desk, placed the Pensieve upon it, and raised his wand to his own temple. From it, he withdrew silvery, gossamer-fine strands of thought clinging to the wand, and deposited them in the basin. He sat back down behind his desk and watched his thoughts swirl and drift inside the pensieve for a moment. Then, with a sigh, he raised his wand and prodded the silvery substance with its tip.

A figure rise out of it, draped in shawls, her eyes magnified to enormous size behind her glasses, and she revolved slowly, her feet in the basin. But when Sybill Trelawney spoke, it was not in her usual ethereal, mystic voice, but in the harsh, hoarse tones Harry had heard her use once before.

“The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches… Born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies… and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have the power the Dark Lord knows not… and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives… The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies….”

The slowly revolving Professor Trelawney sank back into the silver mass below and vanished.

The silence within the office was absolute. Neither Dumbledore, nor Harry, nor Professor Snape, nor any of the portraits made a sound. Even Fawkes had fallen silent.

“Professor Dumbledore?” Harry said very quietly, for Dumbledore, still staring into the pensieve, seemed completely lost in thought. “It… did that mean… What did that mean?” His fingers stilled as he waited for an answer.

“It meant,” said Dumbledore, “that the person who has the only chance of conquering Lord Voldemort for good was born at the end of July, nearly sixteen years ago. This boy would be born to parents who had already defied Voldemort three times.”

Harry felt as though something was closing in upon him. His breathing seemed difficult again. Fawkes trilled softly and butted his fingers in an obvious attempt to get him to scratch the base of his head.

“It means—me?”

Dumbledore surveyed him for a moment through his glasses, but before he could speak, Professor Snape interrupted. “It means,” he said dryly, “that the Dark Lord is your enemy through his own choosing, and because he’s a vindictive bastard, he won’t leave you alone until one of you is no longer around.” He paused. “That is what’s called a self-fulfilling prophecy, Harry.”

“Professor Snape is correct,” Dumbledore said wisely. “The odd thing is, Harry, that it may not have meant you at all. Sybill’s prophecy could have applied to two wizard boys, both born at the end of July that year, both of whom had parents in the Order of the Phoenix, both sets of parents having narrowly escaped Voldemort three times. One, of course, was you. The other was Neville Longbottom.”

Hope sprang in Harry’s heart. He hated being the Boy-Who-Lived in part because of the fame that went with it. “But then… but then, why was it my name on the prophecy and not Neville’s?”

“The official record was relabelled after Voldemort’s attack on you as a child,” said Dumbledore. “It seemed plain to the keeper of the Hall of Prophecy that Voldemort could only have tried to kill you because he knew you to be the one to whom Sybill was referring.”

“Then – it might not be me?” said Harry.

“I am afraid,” said Dumbledore slowly, looking as though every word cost him a great effort, “that there is no doubt that it is you.”

“But you said—Neville was born at the end of July too—and his mum and dad—“

“You are forgetting the next part of the prophecy, the final identifying feature of the boy who could vanquish Voldemort… Voldemort would ‘mark him as his equal.’ And so he did, Harry. He chose you, not Neville. He gave you the scar that has proved both a blessing and a curse.”

“But he might have chosen wrong!” said Harry. “He might have marked the wrong person!”

“He chose the boy he thought most likely to be a danger to him,” said Dumbledore. “And notice this, Harry. He chose, not the pureblood (which according to his creed is the only kind of wizard worth being or knowing), but the half-blood, like himself.”

Professor Snape snorted, interrupting Dumbledore. “Shows how little he knew, then,” he said dryly. “Lily was technically a half-blood, Headmaster. Her mother was a squib—Lily’s grandparents were progressive sorts. Instead of locking their magicless daughter away, they sent her to the best muggle schools they could.” His lips quirked up a bit. “That was why her mother was so overjoyed when she turned out to be a witch. Sometimes these things can skip a generation, you know.”

Harry looked puzzled. “Then why does everyone say that my Mum was muggleborn?” he asked.

Professor Snape shrugged. “She was raised in the muggle world, and wasn’t told about the magical one until her Hogwarts letter,” he explained. “Since your Aunt wasn’t a witch, I suppose they thought that Lily wouldn’t have inherited magic either. Once she found out, she just never bothered to correct people.”

“I--” Dumbledore seemed at a loss for words. “I was not aware of that, Severus,” he admitted.

Professor Snape shrugged again. “I knew. Cassandra knew and I believe she told Potter as well. As she was muggle-raised, Lily said that she didn’t see that it would make much of a difference.”

“Perhaps I should rephrase some of that, Harry,” Dumbledore said quietly. “He chose you because he thought you were a half-blood, like himself. He saw himself in you before he had ever seen you, and in marking you with that scar, he did not kill you, as he had intended, but gave you powers, and a future, which have fitted you to escape him not once, but four times so far—something that neither your parents, nor Neville’s parents, ever achieved.”

“Why did he do it, then?” Harry asked, who was beginning to feel numb and cold, despite the warm weight of phoenix in his lap. Fawkes trilled softly, as if to lend him comfort. “Why did he try and kill me as a baby? He should have waited to see whether Neville or I looked more dangerous when we were older and tried to kill whoever it was then--”

“The Dark Lord was impatient,” Professor Snape said. “Add to that the fact that he only knew the first few lines of the damn prophecy; as a member of his inner circle, I was privy to that much. He wanted you to retrieve it so that he could learn the rest.”

Dumbledore inclined his head. “Professor Snape is correct,” he said. “Part of the prophecy was overheard by one of his servants, but it was only the first part, foretelling the birth of a boy in July to parents who had thrice defied Voldemort. He did not know of the risk of transferring power to you—again marking you his equal. So Voldemort never knew that there might be danger in attacking you, that it might be wise to wait to learn more. He did not know that you would have ‘power the Dark Lord knows not’--”

“But I don’t!” said Harry in a strangled voice. “I haven’t any powers he hasn’t got; I couldn’t really fight him at the Ministry. I can’t possess people or—kill them--I don’t want to!” Professor Snape’s hand moved up to his shoulder, clasping it briefly. For a brief moment, Harry was grateful for the silent support, even if it was from his most confusing teacher.

“There is a room in the Department of the Mysteries,” interrupted Dumbledore, “that is kept locked at all times. It contains a force that is at once more wonderful and more terrible than death, than human intelligence, than forces of nature. It is also, perhaps, the most mysterious of the many subjects of study that reside there. It is the power held within this room that you possess in such great quantities and which Voldemort has not at all. When you threw the Dark Lord out, Harry, what were you concentrating on in the end?”

Harry thought for a moment. “It hurt a lot, and made it hard to concentrate on much of anything,” he said. “I was using Occlumency, but he broke out of my cupboard. So I, um, concentrated on the people who care about me, and I think it hurt him, because he left.”

Dumbledore nodded, a light smile playing about his lips. “It was that power that saved you from possession from Voldemort, because he could not bear to reside in a body so full of the force he detests. In the end, it mattered not that you could not completely close your mind. It was your heart that saved you.”

Harry didn’t know what to say. He sat in silence, listening as Fawkes began to sing quietly. Far away in the distance, he could hear the chatter of other students as they went about the business of packing to go home.

Professor Snape was the first to speak. “This is a lot to take in,” he said, with his voice missing the old venom. “You will most likely have to kill the bastard in the end to keep him from murdering you.”

Harry swallowed, hard. “So it’s accurate, then?” he asked softly.

“Yes,” said Dumbledore.

The room lapsed into silence again. Fawkes gave him one last trill, spread his wings over Harry, and then launched himself from Harry’s lap and flew back to his perch.

“I feel I owe you yet another explanation, Harry,” said Dumbledore hesitantly. “You may, perhaps, have wondered why I never chose you as a prefect? I must confess… that I rather thought… you had enough responsibility to be going on with.”

Harry looked up at him and saw a single tear tricking down Dumbledore’s face into his long silver beard.

~*~*~*~

With his hands stuffed into his pockets, Harry slowly made his way back to the Gryffindor common room. He wasn’t sure he was ready to see his friends yet, but they’d be leaving in the morning, and he wasn’t sure that Professor Snape would let him even send letters to them, let alone anything else.

“Venomous tentacula,” he muttered when he reached the fat lady.

“And what a nasty plant it is, too, dearie,” she said cheerfully as the portrait hole swung open.

Harry climbed through it and shuffled into the common room.

“Harry!” Hermione’s voice called.

He looked up just in time to see her coming towards him. She wrapped her arms around him in a huge hug. “You’ve been looking like you needed one of these all week,” she complained.

Harry stiffened a little, then relaxed. This was Hermione, after all. He’d gotten accustomed to receiving hugs from her over the years. She was safe; as one of his best friends, she’d never hurt him.

“We’re going to miss you, mate.”

Harry looked up, a little startled, to find Ron standing near them. Ron wrapped his long arms around both of them.

Emotions rose up in him, threatening choke him with their intensity. Here was safety. Here was peace.

He hadn’t cried in front of anyone since he was five years old, but he wanted to now. Harry fought back the tears, refusing to give in, and tried to hug his friends back.

Without letting go, Hermione kissed him on the forehead. “Keep in touch this summer,” she ordered.

“Yeah,” Ron chimed in. “Fred, George, and me rescued you from the Dursleys once—we’ll rescue you from the greasy git if you need us to.”

“Thanks, guys,” he muttered. Harry could feel the heat rising in his face, but in a way, it didn’t really matter. This one moment was a powerful reminder to him that prophecy or no prophecy, Dursleys or no Dursleys, and despite the incontrovertible fact that he was a worthless orphan, he had at least two people in the world that loved him. He knew that unlike most of the wizarding world, it wasn’t because of his status as the Boy Who Lived, nor was it because of whose son he was. As unbelievable as it was to him, Ron and Hermione loved him because he was Harry, and, at the moment, it was enough to temporarily soothe a few of the hurts on his battered heart.

“Justice is the constant and perpetual will to allot to every man his due.”
--Domitus Ulpian

Severus pinched the bridge of his nose and slumped into the armchair. “I suppose you think that went well,” he said dryly.

Dumbledore pulled out a handkerchief and wiped his eyes. “Not exactly,” he said. “I didn’t expect the accidental magic outburst,” he admitted.

“I did. It’s not supposed to be possible here, but he almost destroyed my office once until I got him calmed down,” Severus explained. “It’s part of why I insisted on being here.”

Dumbledore was silent for a moment. “I do wish we could somehow renew the blood protection,” he said quietly.

Severus scowled. He would not allow the boy to return to Privet Drive. Ever. “No,” he said. “I promised him that he would never have to go back there, Headmaster. You know how I feel about keeping my word.”

Dumbledore sighed quietly. “I was not suggesting on sending him back there, Severus,” he said. “I wish this had been discovered much, much earlier.”

“We’ve been over this,” he said. “The boy is still grieving, Headmaster. I doubt that was a wonderful time to tell him about the damned prophecy.”

Dumbledore closed his eyes and sighed. “There would never be a good time,” he said. “He’s still so young for all this! I had planned on having more time—for Harry to finish his schooling… I planned on offering him an apprenticeship with me so I could teach him everything he needs to know.”

Severus snorted and raised an eyebrow. “You knew it was possible, Headmaster, that the Dark Lord would return before we were ready. It would, perhaps, be a good idea for you to give him private lessons next year. You might even consider an unofficial apprenticeship; Riddle is unlikely to wait until Harry has finished his education.”

Dumbledore inclined his head. “Perhaps it would be best, but aside from his patronus, Harry has been an average student.”

Severus laughed a bit. “You didn’t know, Headmaster?” Dumbledore looked puzzled.

“Know what?”

Severus smirked and leaned back in his chair. “The boy has been holding back. I daresay he knows more than he admits.”

Dumbledore frowned and looked worried. “Why ever would he do that?” he asked.

“The Muggles punished him rather severely when he brought home better marks than their dunderheaded son.” Severus’s smirk deepened. “From what I could see, it was not that hard to do.”

Dumbledore had a pained expression on his face as he searched for a reply. “I fear that my decision to place him there has hurt him more than any of us know.”

Severus inclined his head. “You have given me a damaged child, Headmaster. If he truly is to become the Saviour of the Wizarding World, we must heal what we can so that he will beat the Dark Lord.”

“For the sake of all of us,” Dumbledore said softly. “We must hope that Harry wins.” Abruptly, he changed the subject. “Do you think there’s a possibility that Harry could go dark?”

Severus snorted. “The possibility is there. So is the possibility that he’ll tell the whole Wizarding world to sod off and go live amongst the Muggles. Merlin knows that I chose to go dark.”

“But you turned back,” Dumbledore said gently. Severus inclined his head.

“I’ll try and guide him away from that path, Headmaster. However, I will teach him dark magic if I have to if it will help to get rid of the Dark Lord. Frankly, I think it’s more likely that he’d go live as a Muggle before he went dark.” With that as a parting shot, Severus stood, straightened his robes and left, heading down the spiral staircase. It had occurred to him that he ought to have something in the boy’s room to let him know that he was welcome. He wasn’t trying to buy the child’s affection, far from it, but it would be inconvenient if the boy took it in his ridiculously Griffindorish head to run away.

Severus rather thought he had something that might do—during their school years, he and Lily had corresponded during holidays, and he rather thought the boy might like to read the letters. He’d even spent a bit of time making copies of them the night before. All that was left was to put them in a box and leave them on Harry’s bed.

He’d even made a quick trip to Diagon Alley to purchase the document-preservation box they were in. It was a simple one of its kind, yes, but standard to keep parchment from rotting and ink from fading.

Truthfully, he wasn’t sure what to do with the boy. Part of him was absolutely terrified; he’d never been any kind of parent. Yes, as Head of Slytherin, he’d acted in loco parentis for his students. For that matter, he’d done the same for most Hogwarts students when it came to doling out punishments for misbehavior.

This, however, was different. Now, he was Harry Potter’s parent. He had no idea what to do other than providing adequate clothing, shelter, food, and medical care. Severus frowned slightly. Medical care. He wasn’t sure Potter had received much in the way of that growing up. Perhaps the first order of business was to take him to St. Mungo’s for a checkup.

It wasn’t that he didn’t trust Madame Pomfrey; to the contrary, he did. It was just that if there were any irregularities in his medical history, if there were anything that still needed treatment, it would be better if there were actual Healers to help rather than Mediwitches.

As Severus entered his quarters and picked up the box, he nodded sharply. As soon as possible, he would take the boy to hospital to see if there was anything he needed. He frowned slightly. Now that he thought of it, the boy had been wearing the same spectacles since first year. Perhaps a visit to an oculist would be in order as well…

Severus ushered the last of his Slytherins out of the dormitories and towards the Great Hall. Quietly, he made his way through the students and up to the high table and took his seat. He glanced down where Potter and his friends were seated. Good. The boy hadn’t taken it into his fool head to do a runner.

Quickly, he piled breakfast on his plate and started eating. It wasn’t long before he finished and made his way to the Gryffindor table. “Harry,” he said quietly.

The boy looked up. “Yes, sir?” he said.

“Hurry up and finish, please,” he said. Even though he had phrased it as a request, it was not, and by the look on the boy’s face, Harry knew that as well.

Harry nodded and ate one last bite of his breakfast. “I need to show you our quarters here,” Severus said. “You will not be taking the train, so you need to say your goodbyes here. I will be in the entrance hall.”

Without giving the child time to answer him, Severus swept out of the main hall. He had no wish to witness the boy’s undoubtedly maudlin farewell to his friends. He frowned slightly. He would need to contact several old acquaintances to procure summer teachers for the boy, and there was also the matter of assigning his care to Blinky.

Severus smirked slightly at the thought. Blinky was rather… zealous when it came to the physical wellbeing of his charges. In fact, the old house elf was worse than Molly Weasley. There would be absolutely no question of the boy not getting enough to eat with Blinky assigned to his care.

This was not to say that Severus would be ignoring the boy; he had things to teach Harry after all. And it was Blinky’s responsibility to look after the children. It had been for years. Offending house elves was never a good idea, because they could make life rather… uncomfortable for their masters if they had a mind to.

Severus sighed softly and focused upon the matter at hand as Harry exited the great hall. “Come,” he said quietly. Without waiting for an answer, he hurried down to the dungeons, past his classroom, and towards a blank stretch of wall. He pressed a series of stones and whispered the password, “Moonstone.” The door swung open, admitting them into a brightly-lit room.

“Sir?” Harry ventured.

“I will give you the password when I get back,” he promised, knowing that the boy probably hadn’t heard it. “For now, let me show you to your room.”

A bit unnerved by the child’s continued silence, Severus led him through the sitting room, and down to hall to a door that hadn’t been there a few weeks ago. “Blinky!” he called upon entering it.

Blinky appeared with a soft ‘pop’ and bowed. “Master Severus,” he said. The old elf broke out in a large smile as he turned towards Harry. “This must be my new charge,” he said, cocking his head to the side to examine the boy.

The elf glared at Severus and crossed his arms over his chest. “Why did you not tell me that he has not been properly taken care of?” he demanded.

Finally, Harry spoke up. “I lived with Muggles, Blinky,” he said quietly.

“This,” Blinky said, “Is why Wizards need House Elves.”

The old elf disappeared with a loud pop, which was a sure sign of his displeasure. Severus closed his eyes for a moment, ignoring Harry’s discomfort.

“Sir?” Harry ventured.

“The house elves should have delivered your belongings here,” Severus said without opening his eyes. “There is also a box on your bed filled with copies of letters that your mother wrote; they are yours to keep.”

The boy rushed over to the bed, a small smile hovering around his lips and his face lit up. “Thank you, sir,” he said, barely audible.

Inwardly, Severus sighed. It took so damn little to please the dratted child. Black had informed him of the complete lack of knowledge Harry had of Lily. He supposed he would have been pleased in the boy’s place as well. He gave the little urchin a sharp nod. “Stay within castle walls,” he ordered.

The boy looked up from the handful of letters he’d extracted from the box. “Sir?”

“I have to run an errand,” he said. “You are not to leave the castle without an adult escorting you, and I will not be here to do so.”

He saw the flash of rebellion in the child’s eyes. “Why not?” Harry spat.

Severus leaned back against the wall and studied his potion-stained fingers. One day, he thought idly, he’d have to invent something to get rid of the persistent staining.

“In case it has escaped your notice, Mr. Potter,” he began, purposely sounding bored. “You have an insane psychopath and his minions who want you dead. If you were by yourself outside castle walls and were attacked, it is unlikely we would know or be able to get there in time. It is prudent for you to be accompanied, just in case, even on Hogwarts grounds.”

It was almost amusing to see the boy try to think. It was something Severus knew he’d have to rectify—the boy rushed off into danger without thinking far too much for his liking.

“All right,” he said finally. “I’ll stay in the castle.”

“Good.” With that as his parting shot, Severus left the room, and headed back to the main part of the castle, making sure that the wards on his chambers sealed behind him before he hurried to the front gates. Tonks, Shacklebolt, Moody, and a witch from Wizarding Family Services were waiting for him. With a minimum of fuss, they apparated to Arabella Figg’s place.

The pleeze-men, the Muggle counterparts to the Aurors, had made arrangements to meet them at the Dursleys for appearance’s sake. A malicious smile spread over Severus’s face. He hoped the Pleeze-men would kick up a fuss; from the boy’s memories appearances mattered to the Dursleys immensely, and getting arrested would destroy their reputations nicely.

Severus spared a glance at the social worker and frowned. He knew her from somewhere; she must’ve been one of his students.

As they left the old squib’s house, she started to speak. “We received your petition, Professor,” she said quietly.

“Miss—“

“Wilson,” she supplied. “Amaryllis Wilson.”

Severus inclined his head. He remembered her now; she’d finished school ten years gone and been one of his Slytherins. “I never expected to see you working for WCPS,” he commented.

She was silent for a few moments as they got closer to Privet Drive. “Do you remember Primrose McPherson?”

Mentally, Severus winced. “Yes,” he replied softly. She’d been the first death he’d had to deal with as Slytherin Head of House. She had been a quiet, shy child who had gone home one Christmas and never returned—her Muggle father had killed her. He felt Miss Wilson’s eyes on his face. He returned the look in time to see her nod slowly.

“There are different kinds of ambition, Professor,” she said.

“True,” he answered softly.

“I decided that my ambition was to save children like Primrose,” she continued. “I’ve been assigned Harry’s case, but considering how well you took care of us as Head, I’m rather inclined to skip over a few things.”

Severus wasn’t sure what to say—he’d expected the inevitable home visits, interviews, and the like. WCPS was notoriously picky over who they allowed to care for their charges. “Thank you,” he said finally.

“I’ll still be making some home visits and talking to Harry,” she said. To Severus it sounded a bit more like a threat than a promise.

“I expected nothing else,” he said mildly.

“I think I’ll give him a few days to settle in, Professor,” she continued, stopping as they reached number Four, Privet Drive.

Apparently, they’d arrived right on time, because just as they started up the walk, pleeze-kars pulled up with sirens blaring. Uniformed men stepped out and followed them to the door. The Dursleys’ kars were in the drive, and, being Muggles, they could neither apparate nor floo, so Severus figured that they must be inside.

He smirked slightly as one of the neighbors came out to watch. “What’s going on?” she asked loudly.

He knew it was petty, but he couldn’t resist. “Mr. and Mrs. Dursley are being arrested for child abuse,” he said, making sure that his voice carried.

The woman’s eyes widened. “Oh, dear,” she said, bringing her hand up to her mouth. “They spoil their son,” she said. “I never thought I’d see the day—“

“It’s not their son this is concerned with,” Severus said dryly. “They’ve been abusing their nephew.”

The woman shot him a quizzical look. “The one who goes to Saint Brutus’s Center for Incurably Criminal Boys?”

Severus snorted. Briefly, he wondered if Hagrid had bothered to give the Dursleys the standard cover story. “That’s what they say about the boy?” he asked. “I assure you, madam, that he does not attend a school for juvenile delinquents; in fact, he attends a boarding school for gifted and talented youngsters in Scotland.”

With that as a parting shot, he swept into the house. A couple of the Muggle police officers were milling around, looking into the cupboard under the stairs. He could hear footsteps overhead, so he assumed that a few more were there.

Miss Wilson pulled out her wand and cast a few spells. “There,” she muttered. “Now the Muggle pleeze-men won’t see us doing anything out of the ordinary.” She walked over to the cupboard and started drawing a runic diagram on the floor.

Moody was in fine form, glaring at Vernon and Petunia Dursley, who both were cowering away from both him and Tonks. “You were supposed to care for the boy,” he growled. “Treat him as your own! Instead we find out that you’ve been abusing him from the beginning.”

“Damned little freak,” Vernon was turning red with suppressed rage. “He wasn’t supposed to tell!”

Moody let loose a rusty chuckle. “There’s the thing,” he said. “The boy didn’t, but we found out anyway.” He smiled and leaned in closer.

Severus repressed a shudder of his own—he’d seen Moody smile and it wasn’t a pleasant sight. “Get on with it, Alastor,” he said, as he flicked invisible lint from his shirt.

“Quiet, Snape,” Moody snapped. “Now… we haven’t finished sorting through the boy’s memories yet.” He glared at the Muggles. “If you’ve molested the boy, Dursley, you won’t like what we can do—sometimes Muggle methods are best.”

Vernon paled. “W-w-what do you mean?” he stammered.

Moody grinned. “I have a friend who grew up in the Colonies—somewhere in the Southern United States, I believe. A Muggleborn. He says that they have something down there called ‘stump hanging’ for rapists and child molesters.”

Harry’s whale of a cousin, who was sitting in a nearby armchair and guarded by Shackelbolt, spoke up. “What’s that?” he asked curiously.

Moody’s voice dropped to a whisper as he explained the process. “The find a pine tar stump and…”

As Moody explained, Dudley grew paler and moved his hands to cover his crotch.

Severus repressed a desire to laugh as Dursley stammered out denials. “Now, now, Alastor,” Severus said mildly. “You know how rare that kind of thing is; usually before that type of thing can happen, a wizarding child’s innate defensive magic kicks in and kills their attacker.” As far as he knew, nothing like that had happened to the boy—the Muggles were far too afraid of being labeled as freaks to try anything like that—but it was still rather amusing to watch them squirm. He frowned slightly; he hadn’t seen every injury the Muggles had inflicted upon the boy, after all. However, if the slime had sexually abused the boy, Severus was damn sure that it would eventually come out—they’d pensieved all of Harry’s memories of his relatives after all.

Shacklebolt gave the Dursleys a look of utter loathing. “Shall we get these pieces of excrement out of here?” he questioned.

Tonks reached over and put her hand on his arm. He took a deep breath and clenched his jaw.

“Shacklebolt, here, hates people like you,” she said conversationally. “I happen to agree with him—child abusers like yourself deserve the Kiss. Too bad you’ll only get only ten-fifteen years in Azkaban.”

Severus smirked as all color left Petunia’s face. “Remember me, Petunia?” he inquired silkily, as he drew his wand.

“S-s-s-s-severus?” she asked shakily.

He scowled at her. “Oh, yes. I believe the last time we me, you were rather harsh to both me and your sister. Merlin knows what the Headmaster was thinking when he gave her child into your… dubious care.”

Severus crossed his arms over his chest and raised an eyebrow. “You’ve ruined one boy—the neighbors say he’s spoilt rotten, while shamefully neglecting and abusing the other.”

“Quiet down, please?” Miss Wilson requested.

Severus glanced over to see the diagram finally completed. Turning to ignore the Muggle, he watched as Wilson pulled two small vials from her robes. Carefully, she placed a few drops of blood in the center of her work, then added a few dark hairs from the other vial.

With a few long-legged strides, Severus crossed the room to get a closer look. Place magic. He’d never done it, but he’d read enough to recognize when it was being cast. It was obvious, at least to him, where the blood and hair came from as well—he’d collected it himself from Harry the night before. Place magic such as this was still one of the few legal uses of blood magic.

“Please step back, Professor,” she muttered. “I have to get the annaliser set up.”

After a few more minutes of checking and adjusting the device, Miss Wilson pulled out her wand. “Ostende mihi quid videre velim; quid scire postulem, manifesta mihi*,” she chanted softly, using a circular motion with her wand.

The annaliser began to glow, recording Harry’s experiences on the property. The house’s memories flew into the device, which Severus knew would later be used as evidence to corroborate Harry’s pensieved testimony.

In the meantime, the three aurors pulled the Dursleys—including Dudley—out of their seats. The fat pig of an uncle made as if to struggle, but was stopped by the disturbingly eager, bloodthirsty look on Shacklebolt’s face. “Resist arrest, please!” the man muttered.

If Severus hadn’t known about one of Shacklebolt’s first ever cases—the tragic murders of three Muggleborn children by their parents about ten-fifteen years back—he would have been a bit more, well, concerned. They didn’t need dirty aurors on their side; they had too much on their hands fighting the Dark Lord without fighting corruption within their own ranks. Shacklebolt was usually a rather gentle man—it was only child abusers and other heinous criminals that brought out his rougher side.

Miss Wilson joined them. “Mrs. Dursley,” she said formally. “Your son will be coming to Wizarding Child Protective Services until such a time that he can either be taken into care or sent to other relatives.”

“No! Not Wizarding Child Protective Services” Vernon exclaimed. “My son will not live with freaks!”

“I refuse to allow it,” Petunia said angrily. “We’ve done everything we could to protect our Diddy-duddykins from that boy’s freakishness!”

Severus smirked. “You have no choice,” he said quietly. He watched as, ignoring their protests, the aurors bound the Dursleys and frog-marched them out of the house. He made his own leisurely way out of the anti-apparition wards and apparated to Hogsmeade.

The walk to the castle seemed shorter than usual. It had taken much convincing on his part to be allowed to come along to see the Dursleys arrested. Usually, he wouldn’t have been, but the unusual circumstances of the abuse report had allowed a bit of leeway. Severus walked inside the castle and was surprised when a small house elf wearing a tower of knitted hats popped into existence in front of him.

“Master Snape, sir,” the elf squeaked. “Dobby is wanting to take care of Harry Potter. Dobby is a free elf, sir, but Master Harry is Dobby’s friend.”

The satisfaction left from the Dursleys’ arrest lessened as a headache started to build behind his eyes. Being a “friend” to a house-elf usually meant that said elf had adopted a wizard. It was simply in the little creatures’ nature to want to take care of wizardkind.

Severus took a deep breath to avoid saying something he’d regret later. “Blinky has been assigned to the boy,” he said. “Please talk to him.”

The little elf nodded. “Professor Snape is a great wizard!” he said enthusiastically before he disappeared with an almost inaudible pop.

Severus pinched the bridge of his nose as he made his way back to his chambers in search of a headache potion. Along with the usual end-of-term work, there was much else he had to do.

Severus flipped another page in his potions journal and absently scanned the page. The boy was currently asleep. Considering what Weasley had said about nightmares, he was sure that it wouldn’t last long. He considered going to check on the boy. After all, he had made a habit over the years of checking in on his Slytherins—why should he not do the same for his ward?

Bed checks had become routine in the Slytherin dorms to make sure his little snakes were where they were supposed to be and not getting into any mischief. The entrances to their dormitories were also warded to alert him if one of them sneaked out after curfew.

School was out. There wasn’t a curfew to worry about—though he might have to give one to the boy fairly soon. Children needed rules and structure, after all. Harry was no exception. In fact, with his penchant for disregarding rules when it suited him, Severus was sure that Harry needed both rules and the enforcement of the same more than most.

The thought niggled at him—he should go check on the child. Severus huffed in annoyance, put down his book, stood, and headed to Harry’s room. Quietly, he nudged open the door and looked inside. The boy was thrashing in the bed, the blankets sliding onto the floor. It looked as if he were screaming, but there was no sound.

Severus swore under his breath as he hurried to the child’s bedside. “Harry?” he said. “Come on child, it’s just a bad dream.”

The words didn’t have any effect, and he was at a loss as to what to do. Occasionally, his first years had come to him after a nightmare, but he’d never had to wake anyone from one. He’d comforted his Cassandra after one as well, but had been a very long time ago. The boy thrashing became more violent.

“Finite Incantatem,” he muttered, then winced as the boy’s screams washed over him. Gingerly, Severus sat on the side of the bed and pulled the child into his lap. Inwardly, he marveled at how light Harry was; no fifteen-year-old boy should be that easy to pick up, even with strength born from years of lugging filled cauldrons.

He rubbed the boy’s back awkwardly, and tried to restrain him when the thrashing intensified. Slowly, Harry seemed to calm down and slumped heavily against him. Severus knew he needed to put the boy back in bed, but it felt kind of nice to have someone leaning on him. Mentally, he smacked himself for thinking that. This was Harry Potter! Both his best friend’s and his childhood enemy’s son!

Severus sighed softly, picked up the boy, and settled him back into bed. He pulled up the covers and tucked the boy in. He didn’t care! He really didn’t! He’d spent most of the past five years hating the boy, and the eight-and-a-half years before that virtually ignoring his existence. Legally, however, Harry was now his ward. Frankly, he was still trying to reconcile the past with the present.

Severus shot one more glance at his charge before silently leaving the room, almost completely shutting the door behind him. He started to walk back to the sofa when he heard a knock at the door. Cursing under his breath at the intrusion, he hurried over to the wall and pressed the stone that opened it. He raised an eyebrow when he saw the Weasley twins and two of their older brothers, Bill and Charlie.

“What did I give you to assist in the Umbridge war?” he asked, one eyebrow raised.

“You gave us…” Fred began.

“…Prank potions that made her change colors.” George finished.

“And these really are our brothers,” Fred said.

Severus nodded sharply, and allowed them entrance. “What do I owe the dubious pleasure of this visit?” he inquired silkily. He walked over to his favorite armchair and sat down gracefully.

“We’re here about Harry,” Bill said bluntly.

Severus crossed his arms over his chest and raised an eyebrow. “Really?” he inquired. “I was under the impression that as you did not attend school with him, you and Charlie barely knew the boy.”

Charlie flopped down on his couch. “Doesn’t matter,” he said. “Mum and Dad looked into adopting him a few years ago and called us together for a family meeting.”

The twins sat down next to Charlie, whilst Bill took the other armchair. “Percy’s a git who doesn’t count,” Fred said.

“True, brother-mine,” George said. “The rest of us voted to keep Harry. He’s a Weasley, even though he’s not legally. Mum and Dad couldn’t find the proof they needed to get him removed from the Dursleys.””

“If only he’d inherited his Mum’s red hair,” Fred lamented. “He’d blend in better if he had.”

“Mum still wants to make it legal,” Bill pointed out. “I saw all that green yarn she got—it matches Harry’s eyes.”

Charlie grinned. “Well, she’s got hopes—the first Weasley girl in seven generations marrying the last Potter heir.”

Severus wanted to groan. Just what he needed; the Weasley pranking genes combined with Potter’s penchant for mayhem. Before he could say anything, one of the twins interrupted.

“Please,” George said looking a little green. “No making plans to marry off ickle Gin-Gin.”

“The very thought is disgusting,” Fred agreed.

“As enlightening as this is,” Severus said as he pinched the bridge of his nose, “Why, may I ask, are you here?”

“We’re getting to that,” Bill said.

“You see, Harry’s our brother,” Charlie said soberly. “And we’ve heard that you now have guardianship of him.”

“And we Weasleys, excluding The Git,” Fred said. “Take care of our own.”

“We just want to make that clear; we want to make sure that Harry’s all right and that he’s happy,” George said.

Severus almost winced, but controlled his expression through the ease of long practice. It sounded like a threat, but he knew better. If he knew the Weasleys, it was no threat—it was a promise. If he did anything to hurt their precious Potter, he would be hurting, too. “I understand,” he murmured.

“We’ll be checking up on him,” Bill said quietly.

“Mum and Dad argued with Professor Dumbledore every year to let Harry come home with us, Professor,” George said.

“You always helped us, and we know you’re the one who reported it, but we needed to make sure—“ Fred explained.

“Harry’s important to us,” Charlie said. “It’s true that I don’t know him well, but I do know he’s a good kid, and he and Ron are damn near inseparable.”

“I know,” Severus said, at a loss of what else to say.

“Just making sure, Professor,” Bill said as he stood up.

The other three stood up as well. “Can we see him before we leave?” Fred requested.

“Mum will kill us if we can’t say we saw him and that he’s all right,” George said.

“The half-open door at the end of the hall,” he said. Severus watched as the four young men headed en masse towards Harry’s room. Damn it! He’d had a peaceful, quiet life, for a spy, before those Occulmency lessons had to ruin it! For a few moments, he wished for a time when he could hate James Potter’s son in peace, virtually ignoring Lily’s unbreakable vow.

Why couldn’t life stay as simple as it had been before last summer? Mock James Potter’s son, favor his own house, make first years cry… The days when he didn’t particularly have to worry about insane Dark Lords and be personally responsible for teenagers now seemed like heaven.

Even with being discovered as a spy, his life had gotten more complex. Now, he had a Dark Mark that throbbed almost constantly, with occasional flashes of blinding pain, a most-probably emotionally damaged teenager, his usual teaching duties, and the same psychopathic, serial killer Dark Lord after his head.

Severus sighed and leaned back in his chair. There was no going back. He knew it. He’d chosen this path and it was up to him to see it through. He got up as the Weasleys came back into his sitting room and showed them out. After checking on his charge once more, he extinguished most of the lights with a murmured, “Nox,” and made his way to his own bed. He’d scheduled appointments for Harry in the morning, and it would be a busy day. 

"When we walk to the edge of all the light we have and take the step into the darkness of the unknown, we must believe that one of two things will happen. There will be something solid for us to stand on or we will be taught to fly."
--Patrick Overton

~*~*~*~

Harry could have sworn he'd felt someone holding him the night before, interrupting his nightmare and making it go away. It wasn't possible, though. He could not remember anyone, except Ron, ever holding him after bad dreams. His best friend was probably at the Burrow by now, so he must have dreamed the whole thing.

Harry rubbed the last of the sleep from his eyes, climbed out of bed, and headed towards the loo. It didn't take long for him to wash up and get ready for the day. Heading back to his room, he grabbed some clothes and pulled them on, not bothering with the button or zip on the too-large jeans. Quickly, he cinched the belt through the holes he'd had to make for it to work, shoved his feet into his shoes, and cautiously left the room.

Harry's first thought at seeing Professor Snape sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of tea was that he didn't know what to call him.

Professor Snape gestured towards one of the chairs. "Sit down and eat something," he directed.

Without a word, Harry obeyed. He figured it would be best to operate under Dursley-rules until further notice. That was, stay out of sight, keep quiet, don't eat much, and do exactly as he was told. He couldn't really trust Snape, after all. He'd learnt better a long time ago than to put his trust in adults.

"What will my chores be, sir?" he asked. He had to know-despite all the times the Dursleys had twitted him about living on their charity, he hadn't. He'd damned well earned his keep since before he'd stopped wearing nappies. He didn't see any reason why that would have changed at all.

"Chores?" Professor Snape raised an eyebrow.

He knew better than to depend on other people for much of anything. Usually, they let you down. Without looking up, Harry cautiously took one fried egg and a bit of toast and put it on the plate in front of him. "I've always done chores, sir," he said. "I've never taken charity and I never will!"

"I see," Professor Snape said.

Harry went on, ignoring his guardian. If he'd managed his finances right, he'd never have to depend on anyone to survive. That fact was one of the few things he could be proud of. He could take care of himself, and he didn't need anybody! "I've been really careful," he said. "I've enough in my vault to do me through Hogwarts with a bit left over to see me through until I find a job." He picked at the egg, not really eating much of it.

Snape cleared his throat. "I think a trip to Gringotts should be in order," he said. "Black most likely would have seen to it..."

"That is, if I survive that long," Harry muttered.

The last remark caught Professor Snape's attention. His head snapped up and he glared at Harry. "Look at me, child," he commanded. When Harry didn't obey, he felt a hand under his chin that forced him to look at his guardian. "You will survive this war," he said. "I will not allow anything else!"

Harry snorted. "Of course I will," he said, sounding bitter, even to his own ears. "Aside from Quidditch, Professor, survival is my only true talent; I'm like a cockroach, I'd survive even a nuclear holocaust!"

He saw the muscles working in the professor's jaw as the man clenched his teeth. "Despite what the Muggles told you, Harry, you don't have to earn your keep here." Professor Snape let go of Harry's chin. "You're my ward and my responsibility; not a burden." Professor Snape stopped abruptly. "Now, if you're finished with breakfast, we have an appointment for a checkup at St. Mungo's."

Harry nodded. He wasn't sure if he could trust what the man had said, but he didn't have much of a choice but to pretend to go along with it. It wasn't like running away was an option-he'd pretty much figured out the futility of that course of action when he was five. Sure, he'd run away before third year, but that was different. Despite what his relatives had always told him, he was far from stupid. Running away was only an option if you had someplace to run to. While he did, it would only put them in danger. Harry refused to do that. He crammed the last of his toast in his mouth and stood up.

Snape gave him a cursory glance and half-nodded, as if confirming something in his own mind. "You will eat more at lunch," he ordered.

Harry looked at him in complete and total shock. He didn't know what to think, at all. "Sir?" he ventured.

Snape glanced at him as he pulled his cloak from a hook near the door. "You'll not starve here, Harry. You're much too thin as it is." He walked over to the fireplace and picked up a jar. "We're going to St. Mungo's." He held out the jar.

Harry scooped up a handful of the powder and threw it into the fire. "St. Mungo's," he shouted, and stepped into the flames. He tucked his arms close to his body as he traveled dizzyingly through the network. He stumbled out of the fireplace, barely managing to avoid falling. Professor Snape stepped out half a second later.

Professor Snape pulled out his wand and muttered a few cleaning charms over both of them before he headed to the admittance desk, motioning for Harry to follow him. Reminding himself that he had to abide by Dursley-rules, Harry obeyed.

He didn't trust Professor Snape. At all. Well, he'd take that back. He trusted him about as much as he trusted other adults, but that wasn't much. Adults just couldn't be trusted to act in his, Harry's, best interests. Harry figured that it was only two months, after all. He could survive that long; especially if the Professor kept his word. It couldn't be worse than the Dursleys.

Harry had meant what he'd said to the Professor; he was good at survival. Without a word, he followed the man from the admittance desk down a hallway. Doors lined it, with signs indicating what lay behind each. After a few minutes, the Professor opened a door marked "pediatrics" and steered him inside before following. Once inside, they walked down another corridor before entering a waiting room.

It seemed forever from the time Professor Snape signed them in until they made it into an exam room. Harry was handed a loose, thin, cotton robe and told to change. After changing, he was told to sit on a padded table. He shivered slightly while they were waiting for the Healer to show up. Sitting on the table, Harry felt very exposed and very, very vulnerable. It wasn't a feeling he liked.

The rest of the time passed very slowly as he was poked, prodded, and scanned all over. After the first few minutes, Harry mostly stopped paying attention in favor of daydreaming about flying and Quidditch. In his head, he was catching the snitch during a match with Slytherin at the bottom of a seventy-foot dive soon after completing a Wronski Feat that drove Malfoy into the ground. It was much better than listening to the Healer, although part of him watched every move that both Snape and the stranger made.

After a while, he was sent behind a screen to change while Professor Snape and the Healer, whose name Harry hadn't learned, talked. As he pulled his Dudley hand-me-down t-shirt over his head, he caught bits and pieces of their conversation, like "malnutrition," "improperly healed bones," "evidence of rickets in early childhood," "stunted growth," and more worrisome in Harry's mind, "self-inflicted blocks on his magic."

Harry finished dressing and left the safety of the curtained-off area with trepidation. From the little he'd heard, it couldn't be good at all. As he watched, the Healer handed Professor Snape a piece of parchment. Harry couldn't see what was written on it, but he could guess. All the time he'd spent in Hospital Wing made that fairly easy; it was most likely a list of nasty potions he'd have to take.

"Mr. Potter." The Healer's voice snapped him out of his reverie as he walked across the room to stand near the professor.

"Yes, sir?" he answered quietly.

"Did your relatives ever take you to get vaccinations?" the man asked.

Harry frowned. He vaguely remembered hearing that such things were necessary to attend private schools, but couldn't remember Aunt Petunia or Uncle Vernon ever troubling themselves with it. Oh, they'd taken Dudley, but not him. Secretly, he thought that they'd rather hoped he'd catch something that would rid him of his magic, thus making him marginally more acceptable in their eyes. "No," he answered. "I don't think they ever did."

"He would have had to have at least the Muggle vaccinations," Professor Snape said. "From what I understand, they are absolutely required to attend school."

The Healer nodded absently. "That leaves the magical ones," he said. "Tell me, Mr. Potter, were you brought here after you received your Hogwarts letter?"

Harry shook his head. "No, sir," he said.

The healer gave Professor Snape a questioning look. The man sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose as if attempting to forestall a headache. "I remember Lily complaining how hard vaccinations were for her to watch when he was an infant," he said finally. "Hogwarts records rightly list him as wizard-born..."

The healer nodded. "Slipped through the cracks," he muttered. The man wrote something down, then spoke again. "Come back next week; we can begin a series of vaccinations, and start treatment for the bones. In the meantime--"

"Potions," Harry said, pulling a face.

"Yes," the Healer said. "You can either have the prescription filled or--"

"I will brew them," Professor Snape said. "I would not trust the task to anyone else."

In a way, Harry found that fact comforting; he was pretty sure that Snape made the potions for the Hospital Wing, and he hadn't been poisoned yet. Perhaps, though, the reason for that was that there was no way to make sure that he, Harry would end up with a poisoned potion. Then again, there was the Unbreakable Vow that Professor Snape had made to his mum. After all, it was that bloody vow that had made the man take him.

Harry held no illusions about himself. He'd been unwanted and unwelcome since he was fifteen months old. The Dursleys had never wanted him around and he'd bet his vault that Professor Snape felt the same way. The man had practically admitted it, after all, with that little speech about Harry being Snape's responsibility. In Harry's experience, things connected with the words responsibility and duty were rarely pleasant.

Sirius. The simple fact that his godfather had wanted to adopt him, and had even prepared the paperwork proved to him that he had been more than a duty to someone. Merlin! He missed Sirius. He wanted his godfather back with the bone-deep ache that had previously been reserved only for his parents. It wasn't possible, but he wanted it. It was the same longing that was reserved for things that he could never have.

Harry didn't ask for things he knew he wouldn't get, which encompassed anything and everything. He had dreamed of a family that wanted him when he was little. He'd dreamed of a mother and father that loved him, and gave him all the kisses and cuddles and hugs that he'd seen other children getting. Part of him had known it would never happen, but that didn't stop him from wanting.

The Dursleys had rarely touched him. Sometimes he'd provoked them on purpose because their predictable reaction was to hit him. While he hadn't liked being hurt, at least they touched him them; they noticed him then. It had worked for a while, at least until smacks turned into beatings. He'd stopped provoking them after that; it hadn't been worth it anymore. But still-he wanted to be touched just as much as he almost feared it.

He was abruptly jerked back to reality by Professor Snape calling his name. "Come, child," he said, not unkindly. "We need to run a few errands in Diagon Alley."

Harry nodded and followed his guardian back to the public Floo. With a handful of powder, a shout, and green flames, they Floo'ed to the Leaky Cauldron.

~*~*~*~

Harry repressed a sigh. He was bored. The tape measure whipped around him, measuring almost every conceivable part of his body. Professor Snape leaned against the wall, watching with a glint of amusement in his eyes. "He needs a basic wardrobe, including Muggle attire, Madame Malkin," he said. "Please be sure to put some grow-with-me charms on the clothing. I expect you shall see us again before summer's end when he outgrows the charms and the clothes."

Madam Malkin nodded. "I'll see to it," she said.

Harry flushed a little. Aside from his school clothes, and the jumpers that Mrs. Weasley knitted for him, he'd never owned anything new that fit him. He'd kept wearing Dudley's castoffs, partially because the Dursleys would wonder where he got the money to replace them, and also because he'd been trying to be careful with how he spent the money in his vault. He'd figured that he could deal with Dudley's hand-me-downs until he was shut of them for good.

Madam Malkin hauled out bolts of cloth, holding them up to his skin. His guardian approved a few, but sent most back. "Green would look well on him," Professor Snape murmured.

The stitch witch nodded and sent an assistant off for more fabric. Harry repressed another sigh. They'd stopped at Gringotts first, where his guardian had demanded a full accounting of the Potter holdings, to be forwarded to Hogwarts. When asked why, his guardian had replied that it was past time that he, Harry, learn how his money was being managed. According to the Professor, he needed to know for when he came into his full inheritance; it made no sense to leave him ignorant of such things.

Finally, the measuring tape stopped and it seemed like Professor Snape had finished. "That will do," he said, pulling out a money bag. He counted out coins and handed them to Madam Malkin. "Have them sent to me at Hogwarts."

"Yes, Professor," she murmured.

Without a word, Harry stepped off the platform and followed his guardian outside. "The Magical Menagerie next, I think," Professor Snape said. "I need to buy some owl treats for my eagle-owl, Murgatroyd."

"I need some for Hedwig, too," Harry said, thankful he'd thought to grab the galleons he had leftover from Hogsmeade trips.

The Professor nodded sharply. "Stay close," he said quietly. "Most of Riddle's inner circle was arrested-I don't know how far he's come along in recruiting replacements."

"Yes, sir," Harry said quietly.

"We'll make a trip to the cobbler in Hogsmeade for new shoes later," Professor Snape said.

Harry fidgeted nervously with the hem of his worn t-shirt. "Sir?" he ventured finally. "Do you think they'd carry trainers?" He'd pay for them himself; the professor had spent far too much money on him as it was. He frankly didn't know how he'd pay the man back.

Professor Snape stopped and gave him a measured stare. "Then we shall stop at Oxford Street," he said. "I had forgotten trainers, but you do need them. Don't ever hesitate to ask if you need something, Harry."

Harry bit his lip and nodded, silently vowing not to ask. All the things that the Professor had been buying him felt too close to charity for comfort; he'd rarely had anything just given to him. His guardian started walking towards the Magical Menagerie again, so he followed.

Professor Snape moved closer to him suddenly, and he was unable to repress the flinch. He relaxed slightly as the Professor put a hand on his shoulder. "It's all right," the man murmured. "That Skeeter woman is hiding over there; I thought you should know. And we have an appointment with an oculist this afternoon to have your eyes checked."

Distracted by the last admission, Harry protested. "But my glasses are fine--"

"When was the last time you had your eyes examined?" Professor Snape questioned.

"I think I was eight," Harry said, after a few minutes of thought.

"It is past time, then," Professor Snape said. "I wish we could simply fix your vision, but unfortunately, it can't be done until after you stop growing."

Belatedly, Harry realized that he'd been warned about Skeeter. "We don't have to worry about Rita Skeeter," he said, keeping his voice quiet enough so that only the professor could hear.

"Why not?"

"Have something on her," he said. "She won't print anything defaming me."

"How very... Slytherin of you, Mr. Potter," Professor Snape drawled.

Harry wasn't sure what to say, but finally settled on, "Why thank you, Professor!" just as they reached the shop. He followed his guardian inside and, ignoring the owl treats, let himself wander a bit. His eyes were drawn to a terrarium containing a brightly-colored snake. "Hello there," he said, once again hearing only English.

"Hey to you, too, little one," the snake said. "I thought that Speakers were nothing but legend; how marvelous to meet one! You are my Master now."

Harry shook his head. "No," he said. "I will not be your master, pretty one, but I would like to be your friend."

The snake hissed its pleasure at the words. "Why, aren't you the perfect little gentleman?" it inquired. "I have chosen well. You will take me with you and feed me lovely treats, and stroke my scales and let me sleep with you where it is lovely and warm, just like the Georgia summers."

"I, um--"

"And who is that fella with you?" it inquired. "He has a face like he ate a green persimmon, bless his heart. And what is your name, little one?"

Harry cleared his throat. "My name is Harry," he said. "And he's my guardian." The word came out sounding more like ‘father' than anything else.

The snake nodded. "Ah, so you are his hatchling. My name is Sarah Sue Rae."

"Not exactly." Harry shifted from foot to foot. "You are beautiful," he whispered. "But I don't know if he'll let me take you with me, and I don't want to ask."

Sarah Sue Rae writhed a bit in her tank. "You don't need to ask, honey," she said. "I am gorgeous. He will not be able to leave me behind!"

Harry almost jumped as a familiar hand landed on his shoulder. "What have you found?" the man asked.

Harry nodded towards the snake. "She says I'm to take her with me, sir," he said.

Professor Snape's lips quirked up a bit. "It seems natural that a Parselmouth should have a snake familiar," he mused. "It doesn't hurt that it's a pretty little snake. From her color pattern, I would say that she's quite deadly."

"Deadly, sir?" Harry questioned. Part of him loved the idea of having a poisonous snake for a pet, but he wasn't sure he wanted anyone hurt by it.

"Oh, yes," Snape said. "She's a magical coral snake-even treated, her bites can prove fatal." The potions master paused for a minute, as if thinking. "Her venom is also useful in some rather rare potions-it's a bit hard to acquire, but as a neurotoxin, it's priceless."

"I told you, little one, that he would admire me," she said. "He will let me come with you, and I shall protect you from your enemies. I will bite those who threaten you. If they are unlucky, they will survive. You are mine now, and no one will take you from me."

"What did she say?" Professor Snape asked curiously.

"She says, ‘I told you so,' she'll bite my enemies for me, and that I'm hers now," Harry replied.

The was a slight pause. "It would be well for you to have a hidden sting," Snape said slowly. "With the loss of most of his inner circle, Riddle might convince some of my Slytherins to bring you to him next year."

Harry nodded. "Perhaps he will let me take you with me," he told the snake.

Professor Snape nodded sharply, as if deciding something in his own mind. "You may have her," he said finally. "Please make sure that she does not bite anyone if possible-I would hate to explain it to the Headmaster if anything went awry."

Harry was gobsmacked, to put it mildly. He sort of understood the clothes-the professor couldn't have his ward embarrassing him by going around in rags, now could he? Like everything else, the Dursleys had used clothing as a weapon against him. Unless he wanted to somehow be paid back for the clothing, he didn't think that Snape would do the same. "Sir?" he said, his voice cracking a bit.

Professor Snape smirked. "Pick her up," he said, "she's yours."

Harry opened the top of the terrarium and lowered his hand inside. He ignored the shout of alarm from a clerk as Sarah Sue Rae carefully slithered up and around his arm, under his sleeve. He giggled a little as she found a ticklish spot.

Professor Snape sent him a questioning look.

"She tickled me," he said, by way of explanation.

Before anyone could say anything more, the clerk came over, fussing about how dangerous it had been to pick up Sarah Sue Rae. Professor Snape all but ignored him, instead ordering the man to gather supplies to take care of the snake. Harry grabbed a couple bags of owl treats and took them over to the counter, where supplies for his new pet had been deposited. He reached for his money bag, but was stopped as Professor Snape handed over the galleons to pay for everything. "Thank you, sir," he said.

Professor Snape gave him a brief nod, shrunk the bags, pocketed them, and headed out of the store.

In the meantime, Sarah Sue Rae finished crawling up his arm and poked her head out of his shirt collar. "You taste of mother-love," she informed him. "But it is faint; where is your mother, sweetheart?"

"My parents died when I was a hatchling," he explained.

"Then who is the big man?" she asked. "A not-father?"

Harry hesitated, not knowing how to explain. "He is my mother's friend," he said finally. "He is the one who takes care of me."

"Ah," she said, nodding. "He tastes of strange things. Perhaps that is because he needs to clean his scales."

Harry choked back a laugh as she continued. "You need a mother, honey. I think I shall claim you as mine. Yes. You are my nestling now!"

Harry wasn't sure what to make of that, but considering how lethal his new friend was, he wasn't about to object. Instead, he stroked her black head gently, smiling as she hissed her pleasure.

"What's her name?" Snape asked.

"She told me it was Sarah Sue Rae," Harry said.

Professor Snape smirked, and Harry could see his amusement. "That sounds a lot like a Greek phrase meaning, ‘your turn, dude,'" the professor said.

"I am not Greek," Sarah Sue Rae said. "I am a Southern lady, and he needs to wash his fur. He will call me Miss Sarah Sue Rae; it wouldn't do for him to be overly familiar. You may tell him that," she said haughtily.

Harry simply laughed.

"What did she say?" Professor Snape asked.

Harry chuckled. "She says that she's a Southern lady, you have to call her ‘Miss Sarah Sue Rae,' and that you need to wash your fur."

Professor Snape shot the snake one of his infamous death glares and swept down the street. Harry followed, laughing softly at Sarah Sue Rae's commentary. The Dursleys had never really allowed him a pet-they'd barely tolerated Hedwig.

Maybe Professor Snape wouldn't be so bad after all. It wasn't that he trusted the man, but perhaps things weren't so bleak after all. As he followed his guardian into a shop marked ‘Ulysses Argus, Occulist,' that he'd never more than glanced at before, he hoped that maybe this time, he wasn't hated and unwanted as he had been with the Dursleys.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    Chapter 17:

    Consistere

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“No man stands so straight as when he stoops to help a boy.”

--Knights of Pythagoras

~*~*~*~

Severus finished the last of his marking with a flourish.  Finally!  It had been a week and a half since he’d first taken Harry to St. Mungo's.  Since then, he’d managed to do everything from order ingredients for the next school year to brew a third of the potions needed for the Hospital Wing.  He had tutors lined up to teach the boy, along with semi-permanent Portkeys made to transport them to his estate.  He glanced over at the boy, absently noting how the new, thinner, silver frames made him look a bit less like his father.  Yes, much had been accomplished in the short time he’d had custody of Harry.  They'd even done the return trip to St. Mungo's, complete with overnight stay, to correct the improperly healed bones and the dearth of vaccinations.

Most importantly, the amulet he’d commissioned was finished.  It had long been tradition in the wizarding world for newborns to receive amulets on their name-days.  Usually, the pendants had protective magics woven into them during their making, and made impossible to remove by the child in question.  In the cases of old pureblood families, they were usually in the shape of the family crest.  Severus knew that Harry had been given one, but he didn’t know what had become of it.  It was time that the boy wore one again, and the Master jeweler he had commissioned it from had finally finished.

“Harry, come here,” he ordered.

Without a word, the boy stopped playing with his snake and obeyed.  Briefly, Severus wondered what had happened to the cheeky, insolent brat he’d taught for the past five years.  He still wasn’t used to instant obedience from this one.  He pulled a box from his pocket and opened it.  “This is a family crest amulet,” he said.  “I’m sure you’ve seen Weasley wearing one.”

Harry nodded hesitantly.  “Yes, sir,” he said.

“These are given to minors in pureblood families,” Severus explained.  “You had one, once.  To activate this one, we need to put three drops of your blood on it.  It will alert me if you should end up in danger and allow me to Apparate straight to you.”

Evidently, the boy understood the benefits, for he held out his hand immediately, without question or hesitation.  Severus pulled a small, silver knife from his pocket and carefully made a tiny cut on the end of one finger, then squeezed three drops of blood from it onto the amulet before quickly healing the cut.  The amulet let loose a flash of brilliant light before settling down.

Severus stood up and clasped the chain around the boy’s neck.  “You will not be able to remove it until you come of age,” he said.

Harry touched the amulet before replying.  “Professor,” he protested.  “You’ve given me so much—“

Inwardly, Severus cursed the Dursleys.  The boy had spent a considerable amount of time thanking him in the past week, and the rest almost blindly obeying him.  It wasn’t natural.  “I promised to keep you safe,” he said.  “That will help.”  He had been telling himself that the amulet was necessary since right after he commissioned it.  He was determined to protect Lily’s boy, and he had just told the truth; it would help.  He would be alerted if the child were in any danger or distress.  It was worth it.  At least, he kept telling himself that.  He’d never thought he’d use one after Cassandra and their unborn baby died.

“Thank you, sir,” Harry muttered.

“How are your summer assignments coming along?” Severus asked, abruptly changing the subject.

Harry shrugged.  “All right,” he said.  “Sarah Sue Rae’s been trying to make me do them ever since I explained the concept of homework.”

Severus smirked in amusement.  “Get it done, Harry,” he ordered.  “We’ll be moving to my estate next week, and your summer tutors will be coming every day.”

“Yes, sir,” Harry said.  “May I please Floo Ron?” he asked.

Severus gave him a measuring look.  “Perhaps after dinner,” he said. “Have you shown your new pet to Hagrid?”

Harry shook his head.  “I’ve been... busy,” he murmured.

Severus had noticed that, at least.  The boy hadn’t left their chambers except for meals and short trips to the library.  “Very well, then,” he said. “Get your cloak-Hagrid should be in his hut at this time of day.”

Hurriedly and without a word, the boy scrambled to obey. 

Once again, Severus found himself disturbed, off-balance, and annoyed by Harry’s instant obedience.  Where had the child he’d been teaching for five years gone?  Then again, part of him was wondering if he’d ever met the real Harry Potter.  After all, he’d seen the child’s stock of healing potions, and some of them were quite advanced.  To make matters more puzzling, they’d all been perfectly brewed.

It didn’t take more than a couple of minutes before Harry reappeared, wearing a summer-weight cloak and carrying Sarah Sue Rae.  Severus nodded his approval.  “I must speak to the headmaster,” he said.  “You are still not to walk across the castle grounds alone.”

Harry nodded, looking resigned.  “I won’t,” he said.

Together, they left their quarters and headed outside.  It was a matter of minutes before they arrived at Hagrid’s hut and knocked on the door. 

“Come in!” Hagrid’s cheerful voice called.  His face broke out into a broad smile when they came through the door.  “Glad ter see yeh,” he said.  “It’s bin a long time since yeh came ter visit, Perfesser, Harry.”

Severus inclined his head.  “Hagrid,” he said. 

A big smile spread over Harry’s face.  “Hey Hagrid!” he said cheerfully.  “Professor Snape and I thought you’d like to meet my new pet.”

“I would tha',” Hagrid said with a smile.

Severus reached over and squeezed Harry’s shoulder.  “I have a meeting,” he said.  “Would you please escort Harry back to the castle when you’re finished visiting?”

Hagrid nodded.  “I will,” he said.

Severus inclined his head in thanks.  “Be good,” he ordered then left the hut.  He headed back towards the castle.  Perhaps Albus would know what to do about the boy.  He didn’t know, but he was damn sure going to find out.

~*~*~*~

Severus stalked through the hallways, determined to make it to the headmaster’s office, where he could snarl at someone who would appreciate it.  He’d been practising what was, in his opinion, and enormous amount of self-control with Harry.  He had yet to snap or yell at the boy at all.  He was almost sure that Harry’s current behaviour was designed to drive him mad and, to add insult to injury, it was working! The more he thought about it, the more he was convinced that he was right.  He clutched his final mark reports tightly as he hurried to the headmaster’s office. 

“Tangtastics,” he said, and the gargoyle sprang aside.  Not waiting for the moving staircase to take him up, he took the stairs two at a time, hurriedly entering the office.  He stopped short when he saw Arthur, Molly, Minerva, and Lupin sitting in front of the headmaster’s desk.

“Severus, my boy!” Dumbledore beamed at him.  “We were just talking about how you and young Harry are settling in.”

Severus allowed himself to sneer.  “He is doing it to annoy me,” he said finally.

“Doing what, Severus?” Minerva asked, a quizzical expression on her face. 

“Behaving,” he snarled.  “He doesn’t speak unless spoken to, he doesn’t eat enough to keep a bird alive, he does absolutely everything he’s told to do, even if it’s just a mild suggestion-”

“He’s reverted to Dursley behaviour,” Molly said.  “Every summer it takes him a few more days to come out of his shell.  We knew something was amiss there.  I swear, if we’d been able to prove anything before now--”

“But we haven’t,” Arthur interrupted.  “Merlin knows we tried, but without any proof, we couldn’t get Harry away from those people.”

Severus was shocked.  Slowly, he sank down into the nearest unoccupied chintz armchair.  He’d always thought that the cheeky brat he’d been dealing with in his classes was the real Harry.  Perhaps he was... wrong?  “You mean that how he’s behaving is normal for him?”

“He’s a bit shy, Severus,” Lupin said.  “Hard to believe for those of us who knew him before Lily and James died, but it’s true.”

“If we’d only noticed earlier,” Minerva said.  “I knew they were the worst sort of Muggles!”

Severus snorted.  “This goes beyond shy,” he said.  “I would say he’s withdrawn, but it has been brought home to me lately how little I know the boy.”

“Have you considered taking him to the mind healers?” Molly asked softly.  “Ginny went for almost two years after the Chamber incident.”

Severus ignored the other comments, including the headmaster’s assertion that something like that could be dangerous.  An Unbreakable Vow would keep anything that the boy knew away from the press.  It was an idea, he supposed.  Perhaps even a good idea. 

They needed the boy whole and healthy.  Harry needed it to be able to survive the Dark Lord and he had an Unbreakable Vow to the boy’s mother to protect him.  “Perhaps,” he said finally.  “I'll look into it.”

“Have you found tutors for him, Severus?” Minerva asked.

Severus made a show of examining his potion-stained fingernails.  “Of course I have,” he said.  “I have engaged a dueling master for lessons three times a week, for a start.”

“For a start?” Lupin enquired.

“I am eminently qualified to teach him extra defense, as well as Death Eater tactics,” Severus said.  “But I have also made arrangements to fill in the holes in his education.”

“Latin and pureblood etiquette?” Minerva asked with a smile.

“Among other things,” he said.  “I was considering asking if you would like to tutor him in becoming an Animagus, Minerva.”

Minerva nodded graciously.  “Considering his family history,” she observed, “he may catch on somewhat faster than most.”

“I would be willing to teach him some advanced magic,” Dumbledore offered.  “Take him as a sort of... unofficial apprentice, if you will.”

Severus inclined his head.  “I was hoping you would,” he said.  “You told me once that you'd hoped that the Dark Lord would not return until after the boy had grown up and was halfway through an apprenticeship with you.”

Dumbledore simply nodded.

“Can we see him?” Lupin asked.  “I just want to see for myself that he's all right.”

“And then you'll leave again, Lupin?” Severus sneered.  “You should have checked on him while he was with the Muggles.”

“As you should have!” Lupin retorted.  “At the time, I thought that he was in a proper home, and the best thing I could do was to stay out of the way.”

“I thought the same,” Severus said.  “He was supposed to be safe there!  There was nothing dangerous for me to protect him from-or so I thought.”

“Alas, that seems to be a common failing where young Mr.  Potter is concerned,” Dumbledore said. 

“If he'd been in Slytherin, I would have noticed something his first year,” Severus grumbled.

The headmaster had a whimsical little smile on his face at that but didn't comment... much.  “Has anything been done about his magical blocks yet, Severus?” the old wizard asked.

Severus slouched down further in his chair, but before he could answer, Molly interrupted.  “Blocks on his magic?” she questioned.  “Who put them there?”

“It sometimes happens if a magical child is abused,” Lupin began.

“When a child is punished for accidental magic, they start thinking that their magic is bad, so they unconsciously wall it off,” Severus explained.

“Usually we notice because their ability to do any kind of spells is severely limited,” Minerva said.  “The fact that Harry has, in the past, managed some rather advanced magic proves that he will be a powerful wizard indeed.”

“Please may we see him, Severus?” Molly asked eagerly.

Reluctantly, Severus agreed.  “Very well,” he said.  “I believe he is visiting Hagrid at this moment.  Minerva, if you would show them to my quarters, I'll go and get him.”

Barely stopping to notice Minerva's nod of acquiescence, Severus stood and hurried down the stairs, through the castle, and outside.  Suppressing his irritation at fetching the boy as if he were a trained retriever, he knocked on the door to Hagrid's hut.

Hagrid opened the door.  “Dinna think you were coming back, Perfesser,” he said cheerfully.

Severus inclined his head.  “There are some people who would like to see you, Harry,” he said.

The smile faded from Harry's face and he nodded.  “Yes, sir,” he said, standing up.  “Thanks for the tea, Hagrid.”

“Anytime, Harry,” the half-giant said.  “Yeh know yer welcome here, and so's Sarah Sue Rae.”

Harry hissed at his snake, and she hissed back.  “She says thank you, too.”  He left the hut and began to follow Severus back to the castle.

With a blur of white feathers, Hedwig landed on the boy's shoulder.  “Hi, Hedwig,” he murmured, stroking her feathers as they walked.  “Where have you been, anyway?  I've missed you, girl.”

Severus watched out of the corner of his eye as Hedwig gently nipped the boy's fingers and hooted softly.  Sarah Sue Rae hissed at the bird, and Hedwig hooted back.  After a few minutes of apparent conversation, Harry giggled.

It was actually one of the first signs of life he'd seen from the boy since he'd bought the snake.  Severus raised an eyebrow.  “What's funny?” he asked.

Harry smiled.  “From the half of the argument I can understand, they're fighting over who gets to be my mum,” he explained.

Severus snorted.  He rather thought that Lily would object to that.  For that matter, Molly Weasley might have something to say about it as well.  Instead of replying, he nodded. “Molly, Arthur, and Lupin are waiting in our quarters,” he said. 

“Thank you, sir,” Harry said.

Severus gestured for the boy to follow him.  He left the boy at the entrance to their quarters and headed for the second entrance to his private lab.  Some potions ingredients lost potency when exposed to light, which was why most labs were in the dungeons. His lab, however, had an extra room that, due to charmed windows, caught a lot of the natural light that was absolutely necessary for some potions.

That room was exactly where he was headed.  Severus needed time to think, and he thought best when his hands were occupied with complex potions.  He honestly wasn’t sure what to think of his ward.  Sure, he knew that the boy had been abused, belittled, and neglected, but Harry had always seemed fine before!  He entered the room and put on his dragonhide apron.

Merlin!  He’d been making a concentrated effort to not belittle the child.  Why wasn’t that enough?  Quickly, he gathered the ingredients for one of the more complex potions for the hospital wing, put them on the table, and started preparing them. 

It wasn't like he cared for the boy personally, but he couldn't escape the fact that Harry Potter was now his responsibility.  To Severus, that meant a bit more than just providing material necessities; it meant that he had to make sure that the boy was healthy, that his homework was done...  While his heart was definitely not involved-he'd closed it off when Cassandra died and had no intention of ever making the mistake of loving anyone again-he had a responsibility to both Lily and her son to ensure the boy's well-being.  If only he knew how in hell to do it.

His musings were interrupted by an owl, who was wearing a harness embossed with the Gringotts seal, tapping on his window.  Severus wiped his hands on his apron before opening the window.  The owl hooted and held out his leg.  Deftly, he removed a thick packet and a letter from the leg before feeding the owl a treat that he kept there for such occasions.  The owl flew away, but before he could close the window, another owl swooped through it and dropped a letter in front of him.

Severus sighed and picked it up.  Why in Merlin's name was the Ministry of Magic's Coroner's Office sending him a letter?  He spared a fleeting worried thought for his mother and sister then opened the letter.  He grimaced as he read the notice.  Apparently, Sirius had listed Harry as his next-of-kin, and as his guardian, he received the notice from the coroner's office.  The body had been sent to Boothby's Funerals until arrangements could be made for burial.  There was also an apology for taking so long; with Sirius's status as a wanted fugitive, there had been a few hold-ups before his corpse could be released.

“And here I thought his name had been cleared,” Severus muttered.  He opened the next letter to find two invitations to the reading of Black's will.  He glanced at the parcel, but as it was addressed to the boy in care of himself, he was pretty sure that it was the financial records they'd been waiting for.  The sooner the boy learnt how to at the very least read his financial reports the better.

Carefully, Severus put the letters away and turned back to his potion.  Some of the lessons he had planned for Harry were to catch him up to where he would have been had Lily and James lived.  The boy needed to learn to manage his money, politics lessons, Latin lessons in case he ever wanted to create his own spells, etiquette lessons... And those were just so that Harry would eventually be able to take his proper place in society when he came of age.  There were also continuing Occlumency lessons, dueling lessons, both physical and magical, tactics and defense, Animagus... The list was seemingly endless.

At the moment, however, there were other things to consider.  Perhaps Molly was right.  Perhaps he should make an appointment with a mind healer.  He'd need to find one who was fairly high up in the hierarchy, and who wasn't working for the Dark Lord.  He had an obligation to fulfill, after all.  Severus didn't do things halfway.  Doing things halfway got people hurt or killed.  Unfortunately for him, he reflected bitterly, Lily had known it, which was probably why she had extracted that damnable Unbreakable Vow from him.  Even if the cost of breaking it wasn't his life, he would have done his best to keep his word, simply because his honor would not allow him to do otherwise.

~*~*~*~

TBC...