Harry squinted his eyes.

Hmm…no difference.

Maybe if he turned his head to the side, just so?

Nope, still no difference.

Snape was still Snape.

The man had been baffling Harry all day, ever since his unexpected outburst about hating Harry…or was it about not hating him? Harry really wasn’t sure what that had all been about.

He might have been able to forget about it if Snape hadn’t immediately afterward passed up on the perfect opportunity to injure Harry. Since when would the man not only give him back a sentimental possession, but also smooth out the edges to make it safe for him? It was a small thing, certainly, but something Harry never would have thought Snape capable of doing.

And then, most shocking of all, he had actually accepted Harry’s thanks! Without mocking jeers or thunderous rage, even.

Harry squinted only one eye at Snape this time. It made the man sitting across from him at the kitchen table look a little blurry, but other than that…he still looked like Snape.

“May I assist you with something, Mr. Potter?” came a familiar voice from a familiar body, and in a familiar impatient tone. Yep, definitely still Snape.

Harry looked back down at his dinner plate, poking his fork into a bit of steamed carrot. “Er…no, sir. I’m good.”

Snape turned back to his own plate of food, spooning the last bit into his mouth before pushing the plate aside. It immediately disappeared from the table. Harry couldn’t help but notice that his professor even chewed methodically. It was like everything about this man was systematically meticulous – his potions, his classroom, even his eating habits. Not that his outburst earlier had been methodical, or his action with the mirror predictable…

And then there was the prophecy. Harry had been thinking about that a lot all day, too. Could it really mean what Dumbledore thought it meant? Was Snape destined to have so large a role in the war as to decide its outcome? Was it really possible that he might be the key to helping Harry figure out how to defeat Voldemort? Or…was it possible that Harry or Dumbledore would be the deceived of the prophecy and Voldemort the victor?

Only Snape probably knew the answer to that last question. Now that Dumbledore had presumably shared the prophecy with him, he must have the best idea out of anyone of its meaning. Not that Harry would ever ask him, of course. The man was a spy. If he was misleading Dumbledore, he’d hardly tell the truth about it now.

“If you have something to say, Potter, swallow your food and say it!” Snape didn’t really look angry, but his sneer spoke volumes of his irritation at Harry’s staring.

Harry looked down again. “Nothing to say, sir; I’m fine.”

“Do not toy with me. You obviously have something on your mind, and I am not in a mood to mollycoddle it out of you. Have your say, then kindly desist in scrutinizing me.”

Harry chewed the last bit of the food in his mouth, thinking quickly. He couldn’t tell Snape what he had really been thinking. He grasped quickly for something to say. “Unusual creatures,” he blurted out. “I was wondering why we never saw any in that forest.”

“Pardon?” Snape knitted his eyebrows together in confusion. “What gibberish are you going on about?”

“In the forest with Remus and Moody, right after we left the Dursleys,” Harry explained, “Dumbledore sent you that wand, and the Portkey, and a note. And the note said to watch out for unusual creatures. I didn’t ask before, but I really wondered…what creatures exactly was he talking about? And why didn’t we see any?”

Harry swore then that Snape actually twitched his lips in amusement before responding, “We did not see any unusual creatures, Potter, because there were no creatures to see. It was a code. As is the case with all Order messages, the headmaster could not guarantee that the message which he sent me would not be intercepted. He could not simply spell out the password to the Portkey. If he had, and if it was, in fact, seized by the wrong party, Lupin and Moody would be dead by now.”

“Oh.” That made sense. It was pretty neat, actually, to think of codes and rendezvous and such. Still…how did he get a Portkey password out of such a cryptic message?

As if reading his mind, Snape summoned a quill and a piece of parchment from the other side of the room and scribbled something on it before passing it to Harry.

Every uNusual crEature deeMed riskY, it read.

“‘Enemy’ was the password,” Snape explained. “First letter of the first word, second letter of the second word, and so on.”

Harry’s eyes lit up with understanding. “Oh. That’s pretty cool. Do you always use this code when passing messages? Or do you have different codes for different things? Or something else? Or some way to –”

Snape held up his hand. “One question at a time will suffice.” But his eyes weren’t narrowed, and his mouth wasn’t set in a straight thin line. Harry was starting to think that maybe Snape didn’t really hate answering these types of questions, even if they were from Harry. “We do, in fact, have various codes for various uses. The headmaster also uses certain devices to communicate with certain people, thereby ensuring that not one single person knows every one of those methods. Taking into account the Dark Lord’s effective means of gaining information, to entrust even the most trustworthy of Order members with every last piece of information would be foolhardy.”

“So what are some of the other codes, then?” Harry asked eagerly, pushing away his mostly finished plate of food. Finally something more interesting to learn than how to count to one hundred with his eyes closed!

“I could not tell you that, even if I were so inclined,” Snape said shortly.

Harry slouched back into his chair. Well. That didn’t last long. “You don’t even have some measly, harmless code or password you can tell me? It’s not like I’m going to go around telling You Know Who about it or anything,” he pointed out.

“Mr. Potter,” Snape began in his lecturing professor voice, which basically guaranteed Harry wouldn’t like what he said, “the Order does not devise methods of communication purely for your amusement. If the need arises, you will be provided with a thrilling code of your own, no doubt involving numerous nonsensical phrases concerning unusual creatures. Until then, you will desist in questioning me regarding matters which are none of your business. Understood?”

“Yes, sir,” Harry muttered. He still thought he ought to have a secret code or password or something. If nothing else, it would lend a little bit of fun to his otherwise tedious summer.

After a day of mostly silence between the two of them, however, Snape now seemed inclined to discuss a few other things – things not quite so interesting to Harry as secret codes. “I informed you this morning that I would test you on your Occlumency efforts over breakfast. As certain…distractions prevented it, we shall do so now.”

“Occlumency. Oh, joy,” griped Harry, but he sat up straight at Snape’s warning look.

“Did you practice the three exercises the headmaster assigned to you?”

“Yes,” Harry answered without meeting his eyes.

“The truth,” Snape snapped.

“Okay, fine. I tried the first two and totally failed. But I did read about the third!”

“Explain your attempt at the first exercise,” Snape ordered.

“The book said to breathe in and out, counting as I did. I…um, tried, I really did. A couple of times, even. But I just kept thinking about other things. I don’t get it – how in the world can somebody just shut off their mind to everything around them? It’s impossible!”

“It is not impossible; it is necessary,” Snape retorted. “And the second exercise?”

“I tried to imagine myself somewhere else. But then I just kept thinking about other things again. It was other things about that place, though, not about the here and now.”

“What place did you use as your anchor for the exercise?”

“Just…a place,” Harry answered feebly. How did Snape always know exactly the wrong questions to ask?

“I cannot determine the reason for your lack of progress without understanding how you are failing to clear your mind, Potter. You will be frank with me. Understood?”

“Yes, sir. But, um…I thought you weren’t teaching me Occlumency. The headmaster is supposed to be doing that this time.”

“The headmaster and I have reached an understanding. He will be overseeing your practical lessons, yes, but as I am the unfortunate soul saddled with your company at the moment, I will be ensuring that you stay on task in completing your reading and homework exercises. Now answer the question.”

Harry was starting to think that coming up with ways to avoid answering Snape’s questions were pretty pointless. The determined man always managed to come back around to getting what he wanted to know, and Harry was out of distractions involving “unusual creatures.” So he sighed and resigned himself to…well, he didn’t know to what, exactly. He would usually predict ridicule, but Snape was acting rather oddly today, what with all his shifting back and forth between civility and snappishness.

And now he wondered if the reason for Snape’s unpredictable behavior today was maybe that Snape himself was undecided as to how to act. He had been rather upset earlier about Harry proving to be different than Snape had expected…or wanted…him to be.

“Answer the question, Potter! I do not have all day!”

Case in point.

Harry braced himself. “I imagined I was in my cupboard,” he admitted so quietly that anyone with less sharp hearing than Snape’s would have had to strain to hear.

Snape definitely hadn’t expected that answer from Harry, if his furrowed brow and lack of a quick response were any indication. He cleared his throat. “Potter…I do believe the book said to focus on a pleasant thought or memory, did it not?”

“Er…yeah, it did…”

“And did you enjoy being locked and starved in said cupboard?”

“Of course not!” Harry answered indignantly.

“Then I fail to see why you chose that…prison, of all places, as a memory with which to focus on clearing your mind.” Snape was giving him a look which clearly said what he thought of Harry’s level of sanity.

“It wasn’t – I mean, I didn’t –” Harry stopped, took a deep breath, then started again, “It was a horrible place, yes, when I was being punished. But it wasn’t always…you know, a prison. It was also my room. Sometimes it was the only place I could go to get away from them. And cramped and dark as it was, it was mine.”

“It was yours,” echoed Snape, drawing out the words. He still looked at Harry like he thought he was nutters. “Perhaps we should revisit the concept of happy thoughts, Potter. You were to focus on something pleasant, not on a reminder of being treated fractionally better than a house-elf.”

Harry flushed and mumbled, “It wasn’t all bad…”

“The cupboard? Or living with your relatives?” Snape asked, and Harry looked at him in surprise. It almost sounded like the man was personally interested in the answer. Snape apparently realized that at the same moment, because his expression closed off completely. He didn’t take back the question though, and Harry had to think a moment before replying. He’d hated life at the Dursleys, no question about that…but this conversation was straying into dangerously personal territory. Harry wasn’t about to give his professor more ammunition for future taunts than he already had.

He settled for a  halfhearted shrug and a watered down truth. “Both, I guess. It’s not like I was afraid for my life, you know. They just didn’t like me all that much.”

Snape examined him for a moment with his expressionless eyes before getting back to the point. “Elaborate on your attempts at the exercise.”

Harry inwardly breathed a sigh of relief at the reprieve from delving further into his childhood. “Okay…yeah, it didn’t really work so well.”

“Explain.”

Harry gave him a blank stare. “Explain what? It didn’t work, that’s all. I got distracted, just like with the counting.”

Snape crossed his arms over his chest in obvious exasperation. “Getting the information I actually need from you is like trying to obtain venom from a live Acromantula, Potter – nigh unto impossible!”

Harry crossed his own arms. “Well, if you’d stop trying to pry into my personal life –”

“This is not personal, Potter; this is war. Even if it did not benefit you to retain control over your own mind, it most certainly benefits our fight against the Dark Lord. Besides, what do you think that you can possibly have to hide? I have already discovered more useless information about your ‘personal life’ than I have ever desired to know. Discussing your thoughts within the no doubt minuscule amount of time you actually dedicated to the exercise cannot possibly be more damaging to your pride than not improving upon your Occlumency would be to your life.”

Harry absorbed Snape’s words, eyes trained on the tabletop in front of him. Snape was right, in a way. The professor did already know most everything Harry had never wanted him to know. And fighting Voldemort…that was more important than Harry’s stupid pride any day of the week, wasn’t it? But still…thinking about it, he suddenly realized what it was that was holding him back.

“You don’t know how I feel about it,” Harry murmured.

“Come again?”

“So…you know things, okay?” Harry raised his eyes to the dark material covering Snape’s folded arms. “You know about lots of things neither one of us wanted out in the open. But…when it’s all said and done, it’s okay. More okay than I thought it would be, anyway. I’ll live; I’ll get over it.” He paused, taking a deep breath. “I’ll get over it because…you still don’t know the important stuff. What I think of it all, how I feel about it, how it’s made me brave about some things and afraid of others. I…can’t let you know that. Even if it will benefit the war, I…I just can’t.”

The silence in the room was so thick after his admission that he almost wished he could grasp for the words and take them all back. Though…he guessed he had said what needed to be said, even if Snape did hold him in complete contempt for it.

“Occlumency,” Snape broke the silence guardedly, as if he couldn’t believe he was about to be forthright with Harry in return, “is a complex and delicate study. It requires a certain level of trust between teacher and student, a level of trust which I insisted to the headmaster innumerable times last year that you and I do not possess. Could never possess, as a matter of fact.”

Harry almost nodded his agreement but wasn’t sure that would be the appropriate response. He remained still and listened, watching Snape’s arms as they unfolded to rest on the table.

“I do not care to trust you, Potter. And do not fool yourself into thinking that I care one bit whether or not you trust me. However,” Snape paused, “it appears that the headmaster’s assertion that a semblance of trust is not necessary in order to follow up on mere homework assignments was inaccurate.”

When Snape didn’t speak for a full minute, Harry figured he’d said all he wanted to say. “So…we’re, um –”

“At an impasse, Potter. The correct phrase in this situation is, ‘I believe we are at an impasse.’”

“Oh. Right. That’s a…good way of putting it.” Harry couldn’t think of a single other thing to say.

“Return to your studies,” Snape ordered crisply before standing from the table.

Harry stood as well and hesitantly asked, “So…that’s it, then? You’re not overseeing my homework anymore?”

“I will ensure that you do not spend your holiday lazing about. If the headmaster wants you to be tested on the materials, he can very well do it himself,” Snape sneered slightly as he shoved in his chair and walked toward the door.

Harry silently made his way to the drawing room as Snape climbed the stairs, presumably to work in his lab. The books Hermione and Ron had brought him for the upcoming school year were strewn across the table and floor where he had spread them out after breakfast that morning in his attempts to avoid all things Occlumency and Potions. Actually cracking his Hogwarts books had seemed like a decent way to avoid Snape until dinner and also to avoid a tongue lashing at dinner.

Harry collapsed on the sofa. He wasn’t at all disappointed by this latest development, he decided…but he would have thought he’d be a bit more elated. After all, he didn’t have to discuss his exercises with Snape anymore! They really would both be better off if they could avoid living on the same continent; they both knew that. Plus, as Snape had said…how could it even work if they didn’t trust one another? That really made sense, actually. If Harry wasn’t willing to share a part of his mind, then how could anybody help him figure out how to control it?

It was only…well, who knew when Dumbledore would have time to start their Occlumency lessons? He was so busy with the Order and running Hogwarts and who knew what else. How was Harry going to learn Occlumency if he had no constant tutor? And as much as he’d been fighting it, the events of last year had at least taught him that, like it or not, learning Occlumency wasn’t necessarily a horrible idea.

But come to think of it, maybe it really wasn’t Occlumency itself that Harry disliked. It was the horrid methods of learning it that he hated. He really didn’t know which was worse anymore: withstanding vicious attacks on his mind or being forced to read that boring old book.

If he could just figure it out and have the ‘learning it’ bit behind him, his life would be a whole lot easier.

Especially, as he was to reflect several hours later, not knowing how to properly clear his mind made slowly drifting into sleep on the drawing room couch much more risky an endeavor. And whether it was his mind not being clear that caused it to reach into Voldemort’s mind once again, or whether it was a fluke brought on by the dark wizard’s intensely joyous state, Harry did not know…

His followers stood before him in a crowd of identical black hooded robes and masks, and he allowed himself a moment to revel in the symbolic uniformity. It represented so much of his own vision. One day, the wizarding world – no, the entire world – would be so wholly consistent, so unpolluted by the foul blood of the dissimilar, the weak…the Muggle.

He smiled, admiring in his followers the living, breathing testament to the purity of his ambitions.

His smile only grew as his newest prisoner was led through the sea of dark robes to stand in his presence. The crude Muggle clothing the woman wore contrasted with the surrounding Death Eater garbs. It served to emphasize the pollution she and her kind were responsible for condoning.

It was no matter. The Squib would die today, though not before he gathered the information necessary to lead him one step closer to his prize…and one step closer to the power he craved.

No, he didn’t merely crave that power. He deserved it.

“Where is Harry Potter?” he questioned, drawing his wand on the shaking woman. He loved knowing that it was he who caused her to shake in fear.

She tightened her lips in a silent refusal to answer.

“Crucio!” His smiled widened as the collapsed figure writhed in pain. He let up an instant later, unwilling to destroy this frail excuse for an offspring of wizards before his questions had been answered.

“Where have they taken the boy?” he repeated smoothly. “You know that Dumbledore cannot hide him from me forever. I will find him, with or without your help. Tell me what I need to know, and I may allow you to live.”

The prisoner’s violent shaking did not prevent a look of defiance from crossing her face. She opened her white, trembling lips to foolishly declare, “You will never win! Albus Dumbledore will –”

“Albus Dumbledore is a fool,” he interrupted smoothly, smile disappearing from his face. The Squib was beginning to spoil his excellent mood. “I will ask once more: tell me what you know of the location of Harry Potter. Refuse, and you will die this day a more torturous death than one ridiculous boy is worth.”

She tightened her lips into a thin line, eyes simultaneously showing defiance and terror.

“So be it,” he hissed, joy completely spoiled at the less than worthwhile find. The Death Eater who captured her had assured him that her resistance would be as frail as her aged, thin frame. The Death Eater would be punished.

“Kill her,” he ordered his followers. “Slowly. If she decides to remember any information of value, stop immediately and bring her to me.”

She would die. But now…now he must exercise the next step in his plan to locate the elusive and protected boy.

He turned away, leaving his followers to carry out the fate of one Arabella Figg.

Harry opened his eyes abruptly, for one endless moment certain that he had been placed under the Cruciatus Curse. The pain in his scar throbbed in time with his pounding heart.

The moment of confusion ended even while the pain did not, and all the moments thereafter passed too quickly. Harry began to panic before he even rose to his feet. Every second he wasted was another second closer to Mrs. Figg’s death! He bolted through the door to the hallway and up the stairs. Not stopping to think of the distinct possibility that Snape would curse him into oblivion, he charged through the door of the potions laboratory without knocking.

Snape was in the corner, his back to the door. He spun around, wand in hand, at the sudden intrusion. Seeing Harry, his face hardened, eyes flashing.

Before Snape could start in on him, Harry leaned his arms on the nearest table to catch his breath and gasped, “Mrs. Figg! He’s got Mrs. Figg! They’re torturing her, and she’s going to die!” Breathe. Look Snape in the eyes. “They’re killing her!”

The anger faded from Snape’s face as quickly as it had appeared. He reached Harry’s side and, grabbing him by both shoulders, shoved his shaking body into a nearby chair. The professor’s entire frame was tense with urgency as he searched Harry’s eyes. “You had a vision from the Dark Lord?”

Harry could only nod, panic setting in.

“Arabella Figg?” Snape asked quickly.

Harry gave another quick, jerky nod.

“Tell me what you saw. Exactly, beginning to end. Be quick, and be thorough.”

Harry tried in vain to swallow a fresh burst of panic. “He – he was with his Death Eaters.” Harry gasped for breath.

“Breathe, Potter. In. out.”

He tried, but talking was more important. “He was happy because he had a prisoner! He was happy,” Harry gasped for air, “because he thought he could get her to tell where I was, but she wouldn’t, or couldn’t, either one, and he told them to kill her. Slowly, though. He said slowly…so she might still be alive!” He shoved against Snape’s hands where they kept a tight hold on Harry’s shoulders. “You have to tell the Order! She might still be alive! You have to go now and tell them to find her!”

Snape didn’t move, despite Harry’s attempts to push him away. “Where are they? Describe the surroundings – outdoors or inside? Forest, graveyard, shack, mansion? As many details as you can remember.”

“Inside, I think. Um, some kind of huge room, maybe?”

“Was there anything in the room? Anything at all that might identify it?”

“It was dark, I think it was a stone floor. Maybe? I didn’t see anything but the people! I told you everything. Please just tell the Order!” Harry couldn’t keep the panic from taking over much longer.

Snape did not hesitate now; he swept out the door so quickly that if Harry had blinked, he’d have missed it. Snape gone along with his message, Harry brought his knees up to his chest, slowly rocking back and forth in an attempt to distract himself from his racing thoughts and his throbbing scar.

But he knew there would be no distraction for this.

He knew Mrs. Figg. Not well, really. But he still knew her. She had watched over him before he knew who she was. She had even testified for him at his hearing last summer.

And now…now she was going to be killed by Voldemort in his quest to locate Harry. She was going to die because of Harry. He was about to be responsible for yet another death.

He clambered off the chair to reach a wastebasket. He felt about to retch, but he didn’t. He sat there, on the floor near the wastebasket, just in case.

He wasn’t crying, and he didn’t know whether to feel guilty for not crying. Would Mrs. Figg hate him if she knew that he wasn’t crying after seeing her being sent to her death? He brought up his knees again, but he didn’t rock this time; the shaking of his body was all the movement he could handle.

Where was Snape? He had to have gotten in touch with the Order by now. Were they looking for her? Had he left to look with them?

The moments stretched by, and Harry didn’t know if it had been mere minutes or long hours before Snape reentered the lab, his black shoes stopping directly in front of Harry. Harry couldn’t look up; he was afraid of what news Snape had brought. His body shook violently.

After a moment, Snape knelt to just above Harry’s eye level, and Harry didn’t have any more excuses. He met the professor’s eyes, terrified of what he might see.

“I contacted the Order,” Snape said evenly. “They were aware of Arabella Figg’s disappearance and had been searching for her. Until I made contact, they had no reason to believe that she had been taken prisoner by the Dark Lord. They have increased their efforts to find her. However,” he paused before saying evenly, “their efforts will most likely be in vain if she has, indeed, been handed over to his followers. I expect she will be dead before the day is out.”

Harry lowered his head to his knees at hearing it put so bluntly. Still, even through the turmoil he felt inside, he appreciated Snape’s bluntness. Dealing with the truth was hard enough without having to sift through a sugarcoated version of the truth.

He didn’t lift his head when Snape rose to his feet and walked to the other side of the laboratory. He heard shuffling and the sound of bottles clinking against each other, and then Snape was back beside him.

“Drink this.” The closeness of Snape’s voice told Harry that he was kneeling again.

Harry raised his head a fraction to see a small bottle of potion being held out to him, and he took it and poured it into his mouth without question. This was probably the first time he’d ever taken a potion from Snape without suspiciously questioning him, he thought absently.

He leaned his head back, his shaking almost immediately lessening as a calming feeling spread throughout his body. It didn’t take away all of the panic or the pain of his scar, but it did make it easier to breathe.

“Better?” Snape asked, though Harry knew by his clipped tone that the question was clinical rather than caring.

Harry nodded, unfocused eyes staring ahead of him. “He was looking for me.”

Snape hesitated before saying quietly, “I know.”

Harry rolled his head to the side, taking in Snape’s searching look, though he couldn't think what Snape might be searching for. “How…” Harry gulped, needing to ask the question, but not wanting to know the answer, “how many others has he killed, trying to find me?”

“Less than he would have killed were he not distracted by this latest plan.”

Harry closed his eyes, knowing what that meant. Mrs. Figg wasn’t the first person Voldemort had tortured and killed for information on Harry’s whereabouts this summer. He licked his lips, then croaked, “Who else?”

“It is not necessary for you to know –”

“Who else?” he demanded, desperate eyes boring into Snape’s. He didn’t even care if Snape saw how shaken he was. He just needed to know who else had been needlessly killed in the pursuit of keeping Harry safe.

“Two Muggles from your neighborhood, shortly after we left,” Snape said, giving in to Harry’s plea. “The Dark Lord appears to have now abandoned that route, as none of the residents of Privet Drive seem to know anything about you beyond your uncle’s claims that you are a delinquent in attendance at a school for criminal boys.”

“And the Dursleys?” Harry whispered, not sure why he cared, just that he didn’t want them dead. Not dead because of him, anyway.

“We believe he has decided them of more use alive. Nonetheless, they are…under certain protections.” Snape sneered at that, as though dubious about the wasting of wizarding protections on them. From Snape’s odd behavior today, Harry wondered if it was because he had seen them being so horrible to Harry…but then he remembered the image of Uncle Vernon threatening Snape with a lawsuit and figured his professor wouldn’t need to have any other reason to not like the Dursleys. Still, even in the midst of this nightmare, it was somehow nice to know that even Snape couldn’t stand Harry’s horrible relatives.

Snape held out another bottle of potion in the silence, but as Harry reached for it, Snape held it back, just out of his grasp. At Harry’s questioning look, he explained, “Dreamless sleep potion. Go to bed. Drink this just before you sleep.”

Harry stared. “I can’t go to bed! Mrs. Figg –”

“The Order is looking for her. You can do nothing from here to change her fate. Go to bed,” he repeated, in a tone Harry nearly mistook for gentleness.

Harry opened his mouth to argue, then shut it again. He was too tired now to start an argument with someone even more stubborn than himself. He rose to his feet, but he paused before accepting the potion that Snape still held out to him. “Um, sir?” he ventured before he could change his mind, though he carefully avoided the professor’s gaze. He took Snape’s silence as invitation to continue. “I…I kind of think that maybe…an impasse isn’t an option.”

Snape still didn’t answer, so Harry chanced a glance at him. Great - the unreadable expression was in place. Harry really hated that expression, even if he wished he could master it himself, sometimes.

“If I…take this potion tonight, what am I going to do tomorrow night? And the next night?” He swallowed, but he forced himself to go on, “I…I don’t know how many more of that kind of vision I can take…”

Snape studied him for a moment before asking, “Are you prepared to trust me, Potter?”

Harry tried to nod, but he couldn’t. Even Snape would see it for the lie that it was. “Um…maybe you could just…tell me how you cleared your mind when you were learning?”

“I was three years old,” Snape pointed out.

“Yeah. But couldn’t you tell me? I mean…how did your mum start to teach you?”

Snape crossed his arms. “If you think that I am about to tuck you in –”

“No,” Harry protested in a rush. Definitely not. He crossed his arms too, only it wasn’t defensive; his shaking was getting worse again. “If you could just tell me what she told you, maybe I’d have some chance of actually learning something.”

“She sang to me,” Snape answered, surprising Harry by not only giving him an answer, but not immediately kicking him out of the lab.

“Oh.” Yeah, definitely not going to ask Snape to do that. Just the thought would have been enough to cause Harry to shudder if he hadn’t already been shaking.

“I was told to focus on her voice, and on the intervals of music. Then I was to focus on the words only, forgetting her voice or the melody. In this way, she taught me to focus my mind on one thing at a time, effectively blocking out extraneous details.”

Harry nodded. It made sense, but he still couldn’t figure out how to block out his own ‘extraneous details.’

His frustration must have shown on his face, for Snape withdrew the bottle of dreamless sleep and set it on the counter. “Prepare for bed, Potter. We will convene in your bedroom in fifteen minutes. And I will not,” Snape repeated, lifting his chin, “be tucking you in, singing you to sleep, or otherwise operating in any way parental toward your wretched teenage self.”

“O-okay,” was all Harry could manage before Snape steered him toward the door and out of the lab.

After a moment of staring at the closed laboratory door, he managed to calm his shaking long enough to make it to his room.

He tried not to think about Mrs. Figg’s terrified face, but it kept resurfacing in his mind’s eye. All he could do was hope that Snape wasn’t coming to his room to humiliate him or taunt him about his old, ragged Dudley hand-me-down nightclothes. He needed help to clear his mind from these and other images – to keep Voldemort away and, truth be told, to keep away the nightmares he knew he’d be having tonight. Nightmares filled with death and guilt.

He wasn’t ready to trust Snape, but he was still the only one who could help him. And so…right about now, Harry was ready to accept what little bit of help Snape was ready to offer.

Fifteen minutes later, as Harry listened to the sound of approaching footsteps with a mixture of hope and trepidation, he could only manage two measly, understated thoughts:

This was going to be interesting…

And there had better not be any singing.