Snape crossed his legs and motioned for Harry to sit. The hospitable gesture struck Harry as way too odd, considering this was Harry’s own room.

Nevertheless, he sat, though not in the desk chair Snape had indicated. He’d rather sit on his semi-comfortable pile of shirts on the floor. Maybe it would feel less like a formal interrogation if he wasn’t directly across from Snape in an actual chair.

His fingers found a loose thread from a shirt in the pile as he leaned up against the wall, and he gratefully fiddled with it while he waited for Snape to begin. He wasn’t exactly sure how this was supposed to work. Had he made a mistake agreeing to this? Now that he had committed himself, would Snape let him not answer a question if he didn’t want to? The man couldn’t know all the right questions to ask anyway, right? Harry didn’t even know what would be the “right” questions for Snape to ask.

Snape looked cool, calm, and collected – the direct opposite of what Harry felt like at that moment. Even so, Harry didn’t have the slightest guess what the man was thinking. He looked as if he had slipped into spy mode or something…like he was carefully controlling what he allowed others – Harry, in this case – to see.

Clearing his throat, Snape explained the rules of the game. “I will ask you a question, Potter. You will answer it thoroughly and to my complete satisfaction. Then you may do the asking. If I am not convinced that you have answered my question truthfully or completely, I will in no way answer yours. Are we clear?”

Harry didn’t speak, just nodded. He twisted the thread around the tip of his finger.

Snape leaned back a bit, settling in. “First question, Potter. Where is your wand?”

Harry had braced himself for the inevitable questions about Uncle Vernon, and at this unexpected first question, he drew his brows together in confusion. His wand? Snape had passed up on the obvious to ask about Harry’s wand?

Alright then, Harry could do with an easy question to start. “It’s in my trunk.” He gestured toward the padlocked item and sat up straight to ask his own question.

“Not so fast, Potter,” Snape held up his hand. “I said a complete answer, did I not? Explain what your wand is doing locked in your trunk.”

Harry felt a wave of…well, Slytherin…roll over him. “That wasn’t part of your question, sir. I thought it was one question each,” he dodged.

He felt certain Snape was going to fight him on that, but for some reason, the man conceded. “Very well. Continue,” he invited, waving his hand in a falsely gracious motion.

Harry felt smug. He had just out-Slytherined the Slytherin! Maybe he would enjoy this a bit after all. Not about to let Snape get to steaming or something that might end their arrangement, he rushed on to ask the question he had been dying to know since he’d gotten to thinking about his vision yesterday. “What is Voldemort’s plan?”  He leaned forward, eager for Snape’s response.

“The Dark Lord, Potter!” Snape hissed. “Ask it again, correctly, this time.”

Sheesh. “What is You-Know-Who’s plan?” he asked again. Fine, he would play this game as long as it gave him answers. But he wouldn’t give Voldemort the courtesy of calling him what his followers called him.

“World dominance. Explain what your wand is doing locked in your trunk.”

“Wait! You didn’t answer my question!” Harry was indignant.

Snape simply shrugged. “The Dark Lord’s plan is to ultimately achieve world dominance, Potter. If you wanted a different answer, I suggest you ask a more specific question next time. Now. Explain.”

Harry was even more incensed now. “You haven’t asked a question yet, sir.”

Snape’s exasperation was starting to show. He brought his fingers up to rub the bridge of his nose. “Potter!” he snapped and then, with a deep breath, started again, more calmly than he obviously felt. “I can see my previous explanation of this process was not adequate. Allow me to begin again.” He lowered his hand. “I will ask you a question. It may come in the form of a question or in the form of a statement. I trust you will be able to tell when a response is expected.” Harry had the feeling that if Snape were inclined to eye rolling, he would have right then. As it was, he merely continued, his words slightly more enunciated than normal. “I will ask a question and demand explanation until I am satisfied that my topic has been reasonably covered. Allow me that courtesy, and you may do the same. However, do the simple service to both of us of starting your questioning with an inquiry that does not require a full month to adequately answer!”

“Okay, alright,” Harry huffed. “Sounds fair,” he then conceded in a more civil tone.

“Good. Now. Why is your wand in your trunk?” Snape deliberately arranged his query in the form of a question, an edge of sarcasm to his tone.

“It –” Harry stopped suddenly at a faint thump down the hall and waved at Snape to keep quiet. He watched the door, listening intently for any sign that Uncle Vernon was on his way back. He heard another thump, followed by the slam of Vernon’s bedroom door and his heavy footfalls back down the stairs. At the sound of the car starting up, Harry jumped up and over to the window in time to see Vernon’s car leaving the driveway. He had no idea where he could be headed, but just knowing that he was gone for a little while longer gave Harry a feeling of relief.

He padded back over to his seat on the floor. What was the question? Oh yeah, the wand. He raised his head to answer the question, only Snape was just looking at him with another one of his inscrutable expressions. Harry decided to ignore it.

“Dudley and I aren’t exactly the best of friends,” he began. “Oh, Dudley’s my cousin,” he explained, not sure if Snape actually knew that. “Anyway, we were in the kitchen a couple days ago and he said something I didn’t like. So I…sort of pulled out my wand and threatened to turn his hair into feathers if he didn’t take it back.” He sneaked a glance at his professor. “I wouldn’t have done it though! I mean, I know about the underage restriction. I’m not stupid enough to chance getting expelled over something like that.”

Nothing in Snape’s face indicated that he was going to harp on it, so Harry continued. “So, um, Uncle Vernon sort of walked in and saw me with the wand, and he took it away and locked it in my trunk. I think he was afraid I might actually curse Dudley,” Harry explained, even while wondering why in the world he was defending Vernon to Snape.

He straightened. “Am I done?”

“Nearly,” was Snape’s response. “What did your cousin say to warrant a magical threat?”

Harry fixed his eyes on his thread, winding it around a different finger. “He was just ragging on me.”

Snape waited for more, to which Harry sighed. Snape had better be this forthcoming with his questions, Harry silently groused. “I talk in my sleep sometimes. Loudly. Dudley’s heard me before, other summers. This time was about Sirius.” he admitted.

“Very well, Potter. Your turn.”

Finally! Harry leaned forward. “What does Vol – I mean, You-Know-Who – want with me?”

Snape gave him an exasperated glare, to which Harry threw up his arms. “I don’t know enough to get more specific than that! Just give me something to go on, okay?”

He watched as Snape considered how best to answer him. “He wants you for your blood,” he finally stated.

That was not what Harry had expected Snape to say. His blood? What did that even mean? “You mean…do you mean he wants to kill me?”

“No. It is to his greatest benefit to keep you alive…for the time being. I mean precisely what I said:  he wants your blood.” Snape explained, “As I stated earlier this afternoon, the Dark Lord has been gaining strength steadily ever since his return to power little more than one year ago. I believe you remember the potion he used in that instance?”

Harry nodded.

“Then I need not remind you that your blood was a key component in that potion.”

Harry nodded again.

“Something happened as a result of that potion that even the Dark Lord did not expect. He surpassed his previous strength of abilities. He became capable of far more than he was even during the previous war, and he has determined that it was the use of your blood in the potion that allowed his power to grow. For a reason upon which one can only speculate, the connections between the two of you do not end in the mind. The interaction of your blood with his…I’ve never seen anything like it.” Snape paused, no doubt lost in scientific thought.

Harry couldn’t last more than a few seconds before clearing his throat in an impatient ploy to bring Snape back from whatever potions-centric world of his mind he’d drifted off to.

Fortunately, Snape continued. “The Dark Lord wants to capture you in order to acquire as much of your blood as possible – without yet killing you. He now believes it is the way by which he will rise to ultimate power. Indeed,” Snape contemplated seriously, “if he is correct, and if he succeeds, there may not be an army of wizards on earth that can stop him from reaching his ends.”

Snape allowed Harry to soak in that last thought before continuing with his own line of questioning. “The trunk. What else is in there?”

It was harder for Harry to shift gears than it had been for Snape, especially after what he had just learned. He couldn’t help a feeling of bewilderment. How could the man possibly expect him to abandon the important topic of himself and Voldemort to talk about his school trunk?

Well, he reminded himself, the sooner he played along, the sooner he could ask his next question. And considering how informative Snape was being, he was not about to give up now.

“The trunk. Right,” he thought aloud. “Well, my wand, obviously. My school robes and books. Pretty much all of my stuff that has to do with magic…which is most everything, actually,” he frowned to himself.

“The lock is your uncle’s doing?”

“Erm…yeah.”

“And how long have those items been locked from your sight? Other than the aforementioned wand.”

“Since I got back here for summer holiday,” Harry answered, eyes on his hands. He was back to twisting the string, which was just about to break into two pieces. “After Moody…” he stopped, realizing he’d just brought up one more thing he’d have to explain. “Er, Moody and some of the others kind of threatened Uncle Vernon at the train station at the beginning of summer to leave me alone. So when we got back to the house, Uncle Vernon said the only way he’d feel safe enough letting me roam about the house was if all my magical stuff was locked away. I managed to sneak out a few things, including my wand…for a while, anyway.”

“I take it your relatives…dislike…magic?” Snape questioned carefully.

Harry let out a short bitter laugh at that understatement. His thread finally broke apart, and he threw one half to the ground, still twisting the other. “They like things to be normal. Magic isn’t normal,” he explained simply. “To them, I mean,” he rushed to explain, not wanting his own views about magic to be misunderstood.

He cast questioning eyes on Snape, hopeful that he had said enough to be able to ask another question of his own.

At Snape’s slight nod, he dove right in. “This plan to get me and…my blood…” Harry shuddered. Saying that out loud was kind of creepy. “You said he wanted to keep me alive. I don’t get it. Why take the chance of me getting away? Why not just kill me and take it all?”

“For several reasons,” Snape began right away. Harry wondered if he, too, was eager to answer so he could get back to his own questions. “This is a new revelation to him. He does not yet know what other uses you may present to him. As for the blood…as long as you are alive, you will keep producing more of it. He does not know yet how much it will take to reach his maximum power. It would hardly benefit him to kill you only to learn that he needed more.”

“Right.” Harry racked his brain for something else to ask on topic so he could get more information before having to wait his next turn. “How does he plan on keeping me then - alive, I mean - without escaping? Does he have some magical dungeon somewhere? Some Frankenstein-type lab so he can strap me up to a table or something?”

Snape looked a little confused at that last bit, but he didn’t ask for clarification. “A potion, Potter,” he answered, entering professor mode. “A potion has been developed which will allow your body and magic to function regularly, while keeping a leash on your mind. Similar to a sleeping draught, only both far more potent and far less likely to lure your body into a vegetative state, as would most definitely be the case with the overdose of a sleeping draught.”

A potion...he felt chilled at a sneaking suspicion. “By ‘been developed.’ Um…you mean that you developed it…don’t you? For me…”

Snape’s steady stare confirmed the answer to that question.

“Oh,” was all Harry could say. He didn’t understand why he wasn’t enraged at that. Of course, it didn’t really fall out of the scope of what things Harry had imagined Snape might do in Voldemort’s service. He felt another chill at the horror of being placed under the influence of a potion like that…to be living, but not really living…

“Ahem.” This time it was Snape clearing his throat for Harry’s attention. “I do believe it is my turn.” Harry wasn’t sure if he was imagining it, or if Snape had looked the slightest bit uncomfortable. But whatever he’d seen in the man’s eyes was gone in an instant, so he really couldn’t be too sure.

“If your school books are locked in that trunk until September, how do you intend to do your summer homework?”

Harry dropped his thread altogether. “Wait a minute. I’m asking about the war and all you want to know is what’s in my school trunk and when I’m going to get my homework done? What is this, some kind of joke?”

Snape quirked a brow. “Joke? I would have thought you’d be thrilled, Potter. Or would you rather I find something else to ask? I am sure I can adequately satisfy your desire to be more invasively questioned…”

“I’ll cram the weekend before classes start,” Harry took the hint and answered the question. “Unless I get out of here before then. Last summer I got to stay at headquarters for the last few weeks, and a couple summers ago I got to go to the Weasleys. If the headmaster lets me go somewhere else again, then I could do it there. Of course,” he reflected, not sure why he was venturing to be quite so honest with his professor on this particular topic, “I guess in the past I’ve been a little…er, excited to be anywhere but here, so homework hasn’t really been the first thing on my mind…”

“Really. I’d have never guessed.” Snape’s dry comment lacked any vindictiveness, which Harry found really, really odd. He was, after all, discussing the lack of effort in Harry’s homework, something Snape historically liked nothing more than to point out with malice. “You are forbidden to do your schoolwork here, then?”

“Well…yeah,” Harry said honestly. “They haven’t always locked up my trunk though, so before I could sometimes get my stuff out and work on it in my room after they were all asleep.”

Snape fell silent then, as if Harry had given him something greater to ponder than the state of his summer homework. As if he’d discovered a piece of the Harry Potter puzzle.

Harry shifted uncomfortably. He was starting to feel really weird talking with Snape like this. They hadn’t even argued for most of the time they’d been talking, and he resisted the urge to pick a fight just so they’d be on familiar territory.

Instead, he got up to stretch. He hadn’t been sitting for too long, but he felt like it had been for ages. His bad shoulder was starting to scream at him again, though at least the other one was only slightly sore. He paced a bit, letting his mind wander back to Snape’s revelations. He figured he should take advantage of Snape’s silence to think about his next line of questioning. He tried not to let himself over-think what he had just learned, which was already a great deal, but there were loads of questions still on his mind, and he needed to figure out the best way to get them out before he got too caught up in thinking it all through.

He wanted to know more about Voldemort’s plan – now that he knew what it was regarding Harry, what was the whole story with them watching the house?

And he wanted to know about Dumbledore and the Order. What were their latest developments and what were they up to lately in response to Voldemort’s increasing threat? Or wait…that led to another question.

“Does Dumbledore know about this? And the Order? About him and…me. You know, the whole blood thing,” Harry blurted, suddenly needing to know.

Snape was looking up at him, but he must have been deep in thought, as it took him a moment to answer. “Yes. I have kept them apprised of the situation. What they do not know is that as of yesterday, the Dark Lord has resumed his attempts to capture you. He had been giving you a wide berth as of late, waiting until the optimal moment.”

“The…optimal moment…” Harry prodded.

“He needed to be certain that everything was in place prior to retrieving you.” Snape’s focus returned completely to the conversation. “This plan is too important to him to allow any room for error. As the most arduous item was the potion that I was creating for him, we had hoped to lead him to believe that the potion was not of a formulation that would allow quick preparation. That was easy to do – he would never suspect that the potion, which was difficult to develop, was actually quite simple to brew. It was to buy us several more weeks, by which time the headmaster would arrange for your secret early return to Hogwarts. You would have been guarded, of course. We had counted on the Dark Lord to plan his capture of you within that one week window.”

“So something went wrong, then.”

Snape sneered, his first since the conversation began. “Yes, something went wrong,” he bit out, his words laced with sarcasm, though Harry couldn’t tell if his biting tone was directed at Harry or at himself. “My allegiances were discovered. After the Dark Lord knew that I had betrayed him, it was only a matter of some effort to gather my findings and assign someone else to brew the potion. One hour! With the proper ingredients at their disposal, that is all the time even someone moderately skilled in the art of potion making would require to brew it to completion.”

Harry thought back to his vision, of Snape writhing in pain as Voldemort had cast the Cruciatus Curse, of Wormtail coming up to him. He wondered if those papers the rat had given Voldemort had anything to do with Snape’s potion. Maybe, if that was the only thing keeping him from going after Harry…

Taking Harry’s quiet reflection for the end of his questioning, Snape wasted no time starting in with his own. And, Harry realized, he had apparently exhausted his supply of “easy” questions.

“Is the scene I overheard indicative of the usual exchanges between you and your uncle?”

This was the type of question he’d been expecting in the very beginning of their conversation. He sourly wondered if maybe Snape hadn’t given him simpler questions at the very first on purpose. He was by now so caught up in hearing Snape’s informative answers that he didn’t want to stop them by not answering something himself.

It didn’t help that he felt off balance by the general lack of outright hatred Snape was letting show. Harry still didn’t believe for one second that it was gone or anything – just that Snape was playing a part to get what he wanted. Still, knowing that didn’t make the situation any less weird. Even though his opinion of the man was unchanged, it was harder to be cheeky when Snape was purposely not egging him on.

“Should I rephrase the question?”

Harry looked up, halfway hoping to see a familiar snide face to put normalcy back into their exchange, but Snape’s features were neutral, his expression saying he had meant the question exactly as stated.

Harry took a breath and let it out slowly. “He likes to yell a lot. That part’s spot on. The, um…other part…” Harry couldn’t quite vocalize what they both knew he was referring to. “Not really. I mean, he hasn’t…you know…for years.” He brought his hand to his cheek, holding in a wince. It still wasn’t all that bad, really. It wasn’t as if Vernon had punched him or anything – it was just a slap. Feeling how it was still sore, though, Harry figured he’d have a bit of a bruise for the next few days.

“He has hit you before, then?” Snape apparently had no qualms about saying it out loud.

Harry shrugged, studying the floor, hoping against hope that Snape wouldn’t press for an actual answer.

No such luck. Snape simply asked again, in a different way.

“You claim that he hasn’t hit you for years. Obviously, then, he has in the past. Explain.”

He settled back into his seat. One of his hands was shaking a bit, and he willed it to stop. “I…I don’t…I mean, what is there to explain? Sure, alright, he has! He hates me and he’s never been exactly shy about letting me know! What else is there to say?”

Snape studied him, an odd expression in his eyes. If Harry didn’t know better, he’d think Snape was a bit…unsettled. Ha! Not likely. He amended his absurd thoughts about the rigid Potions master and focused on the next question directed his way.

“Does the headmaster know how you are treated by your relatives?”

Harry shrugged again, then elaborated when a look at Snape confirmed that he wasn’t going to accept that in response to his question. “He knows they don’t want me. I’ve never talked to him about specifics, so I don’t know if he knows everything,” he said honestly, “not that I think it would really matter. He knows I hate it here, and he sent me back anyway. For my own good.” He said the last part bitterly, though he guessed he had come to accept the headmaster’s reasoning, albeit grudgingly. If he really was protected from Voldemort in this house, well…he guessed he could try to be mature enough to understand that there were worse things that could happen to him than being stuck with the Dursleys. Well, it was possible that there were worse things, anyway.

Snape gestured, indicating to Harry that it was his turn. “Last question, Potter. For now,” he added firmly when it looked like Harry might protest. “I do believe we have each gleaned sufficient information for proper consideration. We may continue later if we are in agreement.”

Harry slowly nodded, part of him actually feeling kind of relieved. He could think of loads more questions to ask, but he was pretty exhausted from all they’d discussed about both Voldemort and the Durlseys. He guessed he really could do with a break.

This made him think hard about what questions he really wanted answered now, and he settled for focusing on an immediate concern. “Okay, so then…is Wormtail the only one watching the house or are there others? Are they taking turns or something?”

Snape pierced him with a stare, suspicion lacing his voice. “How do you know that Pettigrew was assigned to watch?”

“Oh. Um…” Oops. He hadn’t thought about the fact that Snape hadn’t told him that part, and he still wasn’t ready to discuss his vision. So instead, he explained in fair detail the accident he’d seen the day before – the car, the bike, the rat jumping off the hood. “I saw the rat and remembered what you’d said, and I just figured…”

Snape still looked suspicious. Harry could tell he didn’t really believe that was all there was to the story, but he answered Harry’s question without bringing up more of his own. “The Dark Lord will likely have only one person on watch at a time. He has other schemes to keep himself and his followers occupied. The individual on watch will, however, call others instantly to their side if they see you about to leave.”

“But I did leave – that’s what I don’t get! I was outside and they had a chance to get me, and they didn’t. Why?”

Snape leaned his back against the wall and closed his eyes, apparently finished with the conversation. “The wards, Potter. They extend to the edge of your aunt and uncle’s property. As long as you are within those boundaries, they cannot touch you.”

Snape’s eyes popped open and he fixed a warning glare on Harry. “You are not to take that to mean wandering the yard is permitted. Warded or no, once you are outside the front door, all available followers of the Dark Lord will be called and waiting for you to set one foot too far. An insignificant accident is not the only method they have at their disposal to try to lure you from safety.”

He glared at Harry until satisfied that he had properly understood, then leaned back against the wall, closing his eyes once more.

Harry did the same, mind reeling from all that he’d been told. In light of all that, he couldn’t help thinking of the prophecy again. How was he supposed to defeat Voldemort if he really was even more powerful than before? What hope did he have against all the plots and schemes and means at Voldemort’s disposal? It all seemed so daunting.

The earlier boredom was a distant memory as silence spread over the room, both wizards lost in thought. Harry barely registered the sounds of first Aunt Petunia and Dudley, then Uncle Vernon, arriving home again, nor did he pay attention to the fading light outside his window. He finally lay down, his growling stomach barely registering through the multitude of thoughts running through his mind.

Sleep eventually claimed him, all of his cares drifting away as he found himself transported to a familiar surrounding: the landscape of peaceful dreams, high above a Quidditch pitch on his broom. He soared high above the frenzy of players below him, and he felt free. But he at once had the nagging feeling this wasn’t the first time he had been here, that there was something important he hadn’t been able to do before.

A snitch was fluttering before him.

Catch the snitch, he thought. All other worries vanished, and he felt happy and determined. He just knew something important would happen if he could only catch the snitch.