Potter hadn’t been gone five minutes when Severus smelled smoke. He knew the boy had a penchant for getting into trouble, but this was taking things too far!

He swept into the spare room just in time to see Harry reach for one of textbooks that was sitting on the desk. A textbook that just happened to be on fire! Idiot child! Why on earth was he aiming to put his bare flesh into an open flame? Clearly his sense of self-preservation was worse than Severus had previously thought.

“Step away from there! Aguamenti!” He watched the water cascade over the small fire, and when he was satisfied it was out, he turned towards his pupil. Leaning over to meet Harry’s eyes, he asked through gritted teeth,

“What did you do?!”

Big green eyes stared back at him for a brief moment, and Harry tried to speak, with no result. The boy’s gaze left his face then, but not before Severus noticed the glassy sheen creeping over them.

“Try again.”

But instead of trying to speak, Harry raised his wand and motioned.

“You cast a spell?” A nod in affirmation, but nothing else. “Incendio, I presume?”

Another nod. Anger came crashing through him again, and he tightened his grip on his wand in reflex.

“Follow me.” And then, as a second thought, he added, “We are going to the dining area. I need a cup of tea before we talk about this.”

He knew, before he had even cast the water charm, that the child would react badly to his anger. It could not be helped. Severus had no intention of letting Potter go through life undisciplined just because of his history. The boy needed to learn the difference between justified punishment and the abuse the muggles had heaped on him.

Sure enough, Harry did not sit at the table when they reached the room in question. He stayed hovering in the doorway until Severus growled out “Sit!”

Silence prevailed as Severus busied himself with calling the kitchens for tea. As he set down a cup of tea in front of himself and Harry he demanded,“Where did you learn that spell?” Harry didn’t move. “Look at me when I am speaking to you!”

Those damned green eyes peered up at him through the fringe.

Calming himself once again, he said, “Properly please. Contrary to what you may think, eye contact does not denote disrespect. In fact, just the opposite.”

The boy brought his eyes up fully then, but Snape could tell that they were resting somewhere just south of his own eyes. It would have to be good enough.

He accio’d Harry’s quill and parchment and repeated his question. But instead of using them Harry simply raised his arm and pointed across the table.

“Me? Where – ah. Christmas. Well. There is a great deal of difference between you and I, Mr. Potter. I sincerely hope you do not go about repeating every spell you see a professor use!”

He saw Harry’s black hair go flying as the boy attempted a denial, and Severus made a note to teach him the meaning of “rhetorical question” in the near future. It would likely save him many headaches.

“You are an untrained 11 year old who has been raised by Muggles. You have no business playing with spells that dangerous. Do you have any idea what could have happened to you?!” He found his voice rising again in spite of himself. Harry flinched, and Severus could only take a deep breath and a long drink of tea. After a moment he added, “There is a reason that spell is not taught until the senior levels. You could have been injured.”

The softer, more resigned tone of voice seems to affect the boy even more than yelling, Severus noted curiously, as he watched Harry turning circles with the spoon in his teacup.

His point had not truly been made, and certainly hadn’t been taken in fully by the child, but that can wait till morning, he supposed. Harry looked ready to fall over into his drink, although he was trying to fight it. Heaving a sigh, Severus peered over the rim of his own cup and said dryly,

“If you’re only going to play with your tea and not drink it, perhaps you should begin to get ready for bed.” They both know it is not a suggestion.

He turns back to his thoughts, so caught up in planning a thorough and appropriate response to the evening’s incident that he does not see the insecure look that Harry flicks his way as he leaves the room.

Thus, it is nearly an hour and half, 3 warming charms on his tea and one floo-call later before he steps into the boy’s room to check on him. The room is dark; he can see a Harry-shaped lump under the bedclothes. Brandishing his wand, Snape casts a spell to remove the smell of burnt paper from the room and banishes the ashes that are scattered across the desk.

As he turns to his regular task of refolding the boy’s clothes (Harry does try, he knows, but he is rather hopeless at the task), he notices gleaming green eyes tracking him around the room. He says nothing at first, tucking Harry’s trainers under the edge of the bed so he doesn’t trip over them in the morning.

Finally, he moves to the bed and perches himself on the edge, trying not to chuckle as he sees that Harry’s eyes are now closed, that he has gone back to pretending to be asleep.

As he pulls the covers up over the child’s shoulders, he wonders if his own fears and insecurities were this transparent when he was small. Instead of pushing the thought aside instantly, as he typically would, he follows it to its logical conclusion.

If he had been as needy as Potter, so desperate for attention, well, why hadn’t anyone given it to him?

Pulling himself back to the present he takes a familiar toy off the shelf and transfigures it into an armchair. Pulling a potions article from a hidden pocket in his robe he says, quietly, as if he was playing along with the boy’s game, “Go to sleep, Harry.”

It is later than he imagined when he finally retires to his own chambers.

******

“We’re leaving the castle for a while today, do you have your outdoor cloak?” was the first thing Severus said to Harry at breakfast the next morning. The sleepy boy looked puzzled and shook his head.

“I’ll have to shrink down one of mine then, there’s no time to waste, we have a schedule to keep. Eat quickly now and then get dressed. We’ll be leaving in 45 minutes.”

As Harry finished his breakfast he had an irrational thought – were they sending him home because of what he had done? Surely they would give him a second chance? All his things were still up in the tower.

Grabbing his ever-present quill and parchment he scratched out a question, ‘Should I go get my things from the tower?’

“I don’t need you dawdling and wasting time while you chat with your friends. You can simply use mine as I suggested.”

Well, that didn’t tell him anything at all. He tried another tactic. ‘When will we be back? I told Ron and Hermione I’d study with them later.’

Snape raised an eyebrow at the words. “Study? I’m sure,” he drawled. “I cannot say precisely how long we’ll be gone, but I am fairly confident you’ll be reunited with your friends by supper time.”

Harry had never been so relieved in his life.



“Have you ever seen anyone disapparate, Harry?” the professor asked as they walked swiftly away from the castle towards Hogsmeade.

Harry shook his head as Severus moderated his stride so that the boy could keep up more easily.

“Disapparition and Apparition allow wizards and witches to travel very quickly, almost instantly, between two points. It is, however, a privileged form of travel that only of-age wizards can use. I can take you side-along, but you will have to be holding on to me.”

There was a moment of awkwardness, where neither of them knew exactly what to do, and then Severus held out his hand. Harry took it, staring at the sight of their two hands intertwined as if he was trying to memorize the moment. Severus could not resist giving a small squeeze, just before they disappeared.


They would have arrived outside St. Mungo’s hospital with nary a sound if Harry hadn’t stumbled to his knees. Severus winced in sympathy, and admonished himself for not keeping a tighter hold on his charge.

He helped Harry up with little fuss, asking “Are you hurt?” Harry shook his head, blushing the whole time, and wiped the dirt of the front of his cloak. Before he could move towards the entrance of the building however, his teacher stopped him, and pulled his wand. He did not point it, though. He just held it in his right hand and incanted softly, while passing his fingers over Harry’s scar.

“This is between you and I. No one needs to know that you’re here,” he offered by way of explanation.

Harry liked that Snape took his hand again as they walked into the hospital. And they weren’t even traveling magically.


As they entered the bustling hospital the boy seemed to shrink and press into his side. It was not a wholly uncomfortable feeling, although it did make it difficult to walk.

Reaching the reception desk he pulled out his most authoritative voice and said, “Hello, I need access for two to the Magical Accidents ward.”

“Name of patient.”

“None.”

The receptionist finally looked up, slightly confused and definitely weary. “I need the name of the patient you are visiting, sir.”

“We are not visiting any specific patient. I would like to tour the ward.” Cutting her off before she could protest further, he added, “Someone decided to do unsupervised experimentation with the Incendio spell.”

She studied Harry for a moment, who, Severus noticed with a touch of admiration, managed to look defiant, embarrassed, contrite and annoyed all at once. Glancing back to him she raised an eyebrow and looked slightly amused before replying, “Through the doors, 3rd floor.” More seriously, she added, not quite as an afterthought, “Burn victims are housed in the right hand corridor.”

He nodded his thanks, took the visitors passes and moved through.Harry was all eyes as they got off the lift, and clearly didn’t quite understand what they were doing here. That would become frighteningly clear to him momentarily, Severus was sure.

The first was a young girl. Younger than Harry, he thought, though it was hard to tell for certain, as she was heavily bandaged. A woman rested uneasily in a chair beside her bed. They did not enter the room – there was no need to intrude to make his point.

Instead he flipped surreptitiously through the medical file outside her door.

“She’s been here for a week. 3rd degree burns to her face and chest. She will survive, although she will be heavily scarred.”

A small hand went instinctively to a furrowed brow, and Harry looked up at his teacher, making a wand waving gesture.

“Magic cannot fix everything, Harry.” He said quietly, meeting the boy’s eyes. He only looked away when he added, “No matter how much we wish it were so.”

They moved on through the ward, gazing into the patient’s rooms as if at a horrible, tragic zoo. Severus made note of every one of them, from the tiny toddler, wailing in pain, to the boy who was preparing to the leave the hospital. Having the pre-knowledge that most incendio victims were children – those too young and unskilled to handle the spell – did not make the macabre tour any easier on the man, and Harry appeared to grow greener with each patient’s story.

Finally they came to one room where the burn victim was a grown woman. She was horribly burned, they both could tell, her bandages dirty from blood and pus. She was unconscious, mercifully. Her only other companion was a man who was bent over the empty, mussed bed beside her, weeping. Snape moved to turn them both away quickly – this was over the line, and obviously a private hurt – when a voice sounded behind them.

It was the reception nurse.

“They came in just last night. The woman, her husband and a child of 7 or 8. Their son. He’d set the house alight and they were unable to control the fire in time. She got her burns trying to save the boy, rescue him from his bedroom. She did get him out, but he succumbed to his injuries early this morning.”

Reflexively Severus found himself reaching out for Harry. His hands did not have far to go, as the boy was trembling against his side. Had he pushed the child too far in his attempt to make a point?

Glancing down he saw that Harry was staring transfixed at the woman on the bed. A small squeeze of his shoulder, and those green eyes unclouded and looked up at the teacher in shock.

“I don’t suspect he’ll be playing with Incendio again.” The statement from the nurse broke the moment, and Severus replied, “No, I don’t imagine he will. Thank you for your assistance.”

They walked back to the entrance in somber silence, each caught in their own thoughts. As he handed the access passes back to the nurse and stepped outside he gave another glance to Harry.

As soon as they stepped out of the hospital the boy’s defenses crumbled. Severus could see his mouth twisting, and could only assume he was trying not to cry. After a moment Harry took in a shuddering breath and made two signs. [[Home please]]

He moved to draw Harry closer to him, to secure him for Disapparition, and noticed just how heavily the boy was shaking. Making a lightening-quick decision he pulled the boy up into his arms and settled him on a bony hip. “Hang on to me tightly, Harry,” he said.

He needn’t have bothered though, as the child had his face buried against his neck, and had grabbed onto his robes like a lifeline.

********

It was not over though. He had to be sure. With a sharp movement he pulled a chair over to a corner and Accio’d a book off his worktable. Leading Harry to the chair, he asked,

“Did you hurt yourself when you fell?”

Harry shook his head, but Severus pulled at his trouser legs to reveal heavily bruised

knees. He sighed and cast a quick healing spell, feeling more relieved than he ought to when the skin on those knobby knees returned to normal.

“Do not do that again. If you are hurt I want you to tell me so, so that I can fix it.”

He pulled the boy’s chin up and continued, “You are not to punish yourself that way, am I clear?”

Satisfied with the nod of affirmation he received, the professor stood and turned the chair - and the boy in it – to face the corner. He set the book in Harry’s hands and instructed, “You will remain in that chair, reading that book and thinking of the consequences of your actions, until I tell you that you are through.”

He sat down to his own marking, although he was not very productive. He glanced up every few minutes to ensure Harry was moving through the book. It was one from Hogwart’s own library, on magical safety. It was age appropriate, and thus not too traumatizing, although Severus knew it contained more than one ‘cautionary tale’.

Not quite 20 minutes had gone by when he heard the first sob from the corner. He did not say anything right away and only moved from his chair when the crying became more intense – the boy was weeping loudly and messily in the way that only children seemed to do.

It was too hard to hear, even for him. He tried not to think of all the times Potter had been reduced to tears in this room.

“Harry, turn around please.” The boy wiped his face on his sleeve and Snape couldn’t help but grimace. Now wasn’t the time for petty etiquette lessons, however.

“Do you understand why what you did was wrong?”

A nod.

“You could have been gravely hurt, or killed. Dumbledore, your friends and classmates, it would hurt them terribly if something happened to you.”

Another sob, and then Harry pointed towards him with a pitiful face and a question.

Snape knew what he was asking.

“You want to know what I would feel if something happened to you?”

Another nod. He wondered, for a moment, just how honest he should be. And then he mind jumped back to his thoughts of the night before, his wonderings on why he had never received the adult attention that he had so clearly needed. No, he would have to be honest with the boy.

“Me, I would feel nothing.” Harry’s face crumpled impossibly. Severus took several meaningful steps forward, but could not quite get all the way to the chair before he looked across the room and added, “I would feel nothing, Harry, because if something happened to you I do not think I would survive it.”

With that heavy admission, Harry was out of the chair and across the room, flinging himself into Severus’ arms. The emotions of the day overwhelmed him, and it took the professor several moments to realize that Harry was signing [[I’m sorry]] over and over again.

But instead of making the fisted sign against his own chest, as was the standard, Harry was moving his hand against his teacher’s chest, as if he was trying somehow to make his apology more.

It was too much for Severus, and all he could think to say was, “It’s all right, child. It’s over now.”