Severus Snape takes a seat at high table, neither looking at nor speaking to anyone until he has pointed his wand at his goblet, watched as it fills with claret, and drained it at a single go.

Snape is not a heavy drinker, but he has always made a special exception for the night of the Welcoming Feast, having learned long ago that extra fortification will be necessary if he intends to survive the evening with his nerves intact. In a few days he will again have adjusted to the presence of the students, shattering the fragile peace that reigns in the corridors during the summer months, but until then the sound of hundreds of chattering adolescent voices will haunt him in his sleep, like crickets outside the window of a town-bred man on holiday in the country.

At least, he thinks, he isn't the only the only member of staff who requires a bit of bracing up at the start of term. The golden-brown liquid in McGonagall's teacup might look like tea, but it certainly doesn't smell like Darjeeling.

The feast begins, then. Snape sits scowling at his empty plate through the Sorting, glancing up through his hair only when new members of his own House are announced. When Dumbledore at last begins his welcoming speech, Snape allows his eyes to travel over the assembled mass of students ranged in the Great Hall before him, finding everything just as expected. There is Draco, holding court among the elder Slytherins; there are the huddled knot of new Slytherin first years, whispering nervously and shooting him quick looks over their shoulders; there is the new Head Boy (Hufflepuff) and Girl (Ravenclaw), looking proud and polished and perfectly pompous; and there is—ah.

Harry Potter.

Looking as rangy, underfed, and bright of eye as he always does at the start of term.

Snape rakes the boy with his gaze and finds himself suddenly...perplexed.

There's something different about Potter tonight.

He can't quite pin down what, precisely, has changed, but he spends most of the rest of the feast trying to do so. There is nothing obviously unusual in his appearance, no alteration to the badly mended glasses, overlarge clothing, or untidy black hair he always sports. Just a lingering sense of wrongness, invisible perhaps to anyone who does not know the brat as Snape does.

He is, after all, the only member of staff who has ever been able to see Potter clearly—to look past the innocent facade and bright, soulful eyes, and know when the boy is up to something.

The boy is always up to something.

And if there is, in fact, some kind of spell at work (a glamor, perhaps?) altering the boy's appearance, then it is unlikely to be there for no good reason.

And now Snape knows, providing him with all the reason he needs to make the first week of Potter's return to school as unpleasant as scholastically possible. It is enough to turn his usual start of term ill-temper into good cheer.

Just then a voice speaks to the right of him, startling him from his daydreams of assigning Potter a two-year long detention, and nearly causing him to upset his wine into his parsnip.

"Jinxes need eye contact, Professor Snape," it says, sounding rather amused.

He turns to look at Minerva McGonagall, who is not quite smiling as she begins to carve up her meat.

"I beg your pardon?" he inquires stiffly, dabbing a spot of wine from the back of his hand.

"There's no hex or curse I know of that can be cast by boring one's gaze through the back of a person's head," she continues calmly. "Or I would have used it myself by now."

"I'm sure I don't know what you mean," he says, addressing himself to his own dinner with a will.

"Of course not," she says calmly, but the smile does not leave her face.

Snape keeps his eyes on his own plate for the rest of the meal.

*

"Potter."

The boy's head jerks up from over his cauldron, and his eyes meet Snape's, wary and a little fearful.

Despite the fact that the first sixth year Potions class of the term is nearly over and no one in it has provided Snape a single excuse to take points from Gryffindor, the boy's look is enough to fill him with a warm, satisfied glow.

"Remain after class," he tells him.

Potter does not reply, but a bright spark of frustration ignites in his eyes. He jerks his head in a nod and returns to his work, which, much to Snape's disappointment, fails to explode in his face before the end of class.

Granger and Weasley throw sympathetic looks at Potter as they file past his desk on the way out the door, which merely confirms Snape's suspicions. Of course they would be in on whatever scheme the boy is planning. Probably they are as fearful for their own skins as his.

When the classroom is empty, Potter stands before his desk with a strangely unreadable look on his magic-distorted features. Snape has gathered his wand, but has not yet managed to raise it or speak the incantation he means to before the boy starts to speak in a high, strained voice.

"Sir," he blurts out. "I'd like to say something, please."

Snape blinks. Confession, perhaps? Unlikely, from someone as arrogant as Potter, but he is curious despite himself.

"What might that be, Potter?" he says, arching an eyebrow.

"I want to apologize, sir. For looking into that Pensieve last term."

At Snape's look, he begins to speak in a rush, as though afraid Snape might jinx him before he has managed to get it all out. "And I want to apologize for my father, too."

Then he waits, not quite managing to look at Snape.

It is, Snape tells himself, even as his gut twists unpleasantly with a mixture of foreboding and anger, undoubtedly a scheme of some kind—the boy, perhaps, has figured out that Snape suspects him, and hopes to derail the coming inquiry with this display of remorse. But Snape will not be derailed, and now he finds that he wants to know what the boy will say, how far he will take the charade.

So he looks at the boy, an expression of mockingly polite attention on his face, and eventually Potter sucks down a breath and continues.

"I know you think I'm just like him," he says, staring down at the desk. "I used to think—used to hope that I was. Everyone said so, and I never heard anything but good things about him, and—I thought I knew what he was like. So I never believed—the things you said about him. But then I saw that memory, and—well, he was wrong to do that to you." His voice changes, growing pained, a little wistful. "And I don't think I can be much like him. I think—if I'd been at school with him, he'd have picked on me too. I'm not—good at stuff, like he was. I'm not popular."

He looks up, but not at Snape. His gaze is trained somewhere in the distance, and there is a faint flush rising from inside his collar. "Still, he was my father. And I hate feeling ashamed of him, it's like losing him again. So I figure if you can hate me because of how he was, I can apologize to you for what he did. Since he can't do it himself, and I want to think that he would, if he could. And I know you won't believe this," Potter darts a glance up at Snape, then looks away again, "but I swear I wasn't trying to—invade your privacy or anything when I looked into that thing. I didn't know the stuff in it would be personal. I thought it would be something about the visions I was having—and no one would tell me anything about that, so..."

Potter trails off, and after a moment, shrugs. "Anyway, I'm sorry. That's all."

Snape stares at him for a long moment.

He has to give the boy credit. He has done the thing very well. A lesser man may well have been taken in. The gestures, the slight, shuffling hesitation, the way he can't seem to quite meet his eyes—all of it might read as sincerity, to anyone who did not know Potter as well as he.

It is a long moment before Snape speaks again. When he manages it, he finds his throat rough, and a little dry.

"Look at me, Potter."

The boy lifts his head. He looks strangely—hopeful. A consummate actor indeed.

"Apology accepted," says Snape coolly, then raises his wand. "Finite Incantantem."

Potter recoils the moment the spell leaves Snape's mouth. He throws a hand up, as though to deflect a blow, and stumbles backwards, catching the corner of a desk on his way down and hitting the floor with a crash.

Snape strides out from behind his own desk and stalks toward the sprawled form of the boy, anticipation urging him on like a fierce hunger. It can only be an expelling offense, this secret, for the boy to go to such lengths to protect it, which means that for Snape this moment borders on apotheosis.

Potter lies on the floor, curled in on himself with his back turned to Snape. He watches as the boy presses a hand to his face, and flinches.

Then, before Snape can take another step forward, Potter scrambles to his feet and begins to run for the door. Snape watches him scurry, amused and mildly insulted, but does not stop him until he reaches the exit. A lazy flick of his wand sends the door flying shut in the boy's face, nearly catching his fingers.

Potter stands facing it, shoulders heaving with his ragged breath. He stands still for a moment, then his hand seizes the handle and rattles it furiously. Snape's amusement deepens—he must be truly desperate if he thinks for a moment that Snape's wards will be broken with such a childish gesture.

He takes his time advancing on the boy, savoring the moment as the distance between them shortens. When he comes to a stop a few paces behind Potter, the boy's shoulders hunch, and he seems to grow visibly smaller.

"Look at me, Potter."

But Potter does not move.

"I said turn around, Potter! Or I will call the Headmaster."

When the boy still refuses to obey, Snape decides this is all the excuse he requires. He reaches out and seizes the boy's shoulder, ignoring the gasp this elicits, and turns him forcibly around, driving him back against the wall as he does so.

And then they are face to face, and Snape lets him go abruptly, snatching his fingers back as though they have been burned.

Potter's head is bowed; he is staring at the floor as though in hopes it will open and swallow him. Snape can nonetheless see what the glamor was hiding. It is...not what he expected.

He is too taken aback even to cover his shock with a curt word or gesture.

The left side of Potter's face, from brow to ear to chin, is one solid bruise, or rather a mass of several bruises of varying ages. Some are older and yellowing, others still purple and dark. His lower lip is split and swollen, leaking blood, mirroring the neat gash on his forehead over his right eyebrow.

Snape takes a deliberate step back to get a clearer look at the figure in front of him. Now he can see long narrow bruises in the shape of fingers at Potter's throat, half concealed by the gaping collar of his shirt. He suspects, with a thrill of dark knowledge, that the bruises do not end there.

Badly disturbed, Snape still manages sufficient control over himself to sneer when next he speaks. His heart, however, is not quite in it.

"Brawling on the school train, Potter?" he asks, though he already knows the answer.

"No sir," mutters Potter, still gazing at the floor.

"Then explain this."

The boy's reply is so quiet he cannot decipher it. "Speak up, Potter."

"I said, sir, that I'd rather not discuss it." And then he does look up, and Snape is startled by the expression in his eyes—equally pleading and defiant. "I haven't broken any rules."

"You do so in failing to answer my questions satisfactorily, Potter."

"Then give me detention!" Potter shouts, and winces in the next moment, touching his fingers to his lips as a fat drop of blood appear at the corner of his mouth.

Snape gazes down at the boy, hands balling into fists at his sides, torn between doing precisely as Potter suggests, if only to vent his own frustration, and offering the boy a handkerchief.

But he does neither of those things.

"Why would I give you detention?" he inquires silkily, taking a step forward.

Potter's back is against the wall, so he cannot get any farther away, but he flinches at Snape's approach. Snape stops where he is—something in that flinch disturbs him, warns him that he is nearing a line he does not truly wish to cross. "Why," he continues, "would I subject myself to hours of your company, when can I simply summon the Headmaster and allow him to deal with your—problem?"

He recognizes the wild look in Potter's eyes as panic. "Assign me to Filch, if you don't want me," he says quickly, in a voice that trembles too hard to sound like anything so insolent as a demand.

There is something in that display of fragility that causes Snape's patience to finally give way. "I want answers, Potter," he snaps, "and I will have them from you—one way or another."

He raises his wand level with Potter's face, and watches the boy's eyes widen. Potter apparently does not realize that if he Legilimizes a student without Dumbledore's permission he will be in more trouble than even Potter is worth, and for a moment Snape enjoys the sensation of having regained the upper hand.

"Don't!" says Potter wildly, not quite shouting. "I can't—sir, please don't."

It is the hopelessness behind the plea that has Snape lowering his wand, more than anything else. Something about the tone of his voice causes Snape to suspect that Potter has said "please" before, in that same desperate tone, and been ignored.

They stare at each other for a long moment. Then Snape exhales loudly, pinching the bridge of his nose.

"I cannot debate this with you all afternoon, Mr Potter," says Snape, in what he hopes is an even voice. "Nor can I simply let you go," he says, cutting the boy off even as he opens his mouth. "The teachers of this school are entrusted with your safety, and I will not incur the Headmaster's displeasure by—"

"He'll never know," Potter interrupts. "I swear it. Professor Dumbledore is the last person in the world I want to find out."

Despite himself, Snape laughs. "You foolish boy," he says easily. "Do you really think anyone in this school can keep a secret from Albus Dumbledore?"

The flush along the unbruised portion of Potter's face is just as he expected, but the words that follow are not.

"If Professor Dumbledore was really all-knowing, this would never have happened in the first place." His mouth tightens. "Or else he is all-knowing, and he doesn't care. Either way, you're off the hook."

Snape ignores the cold suspicion that washes over him at the boy's pronouncement."Mr Potter. I am not trying to get myself 'off the hook,' as you put it. I am trying to help you."

"Why?" Potter's voice is very nearly shrill. "I already told you, no one's going to think the less of you. I'll just reapply the glamor, no one will notice. No one ever notices!"

No sooner has Potter finished speaking than his mouth drops open slightly, then shuts in a firm line. He closes his eyes too, screwing his face up tightly. He has obviously said more than he meant to, and suddenly Snape finds it easy to pity him—that last phrase alone has told Snape nearly everything he needs to know.

A heavy weight seems to settle on his shoulders, then—a weight approximately equal to that of a frightened, injured, angry sixteen year old boy. He tries to shrug it off.

"This is not the first time you have come to school hiding injuries beneath a glamor, then?" he says calmly. "Dumbledore has you wrapped up tighter than a maiden's virtue during the summer—you go nowhere he does not allow, and he allows you nowhere but your relatives' home and the Burrow. Yet your injuries would have been treated, and no doubt avenged with deadly force, if Molly or Arthur Weasley had seen them, so I am left to conclude that you obtained them while in the care of your Muggle family."

He pauses, looking for some kind of reaction, but all he gets is a slight twitch of the boy's shoulders at the mention of the Weasleys. He presses on.

"None of your injuries have been treated; there are newer bruises layered over the older ones, and you cannot have hidden them with a glamor during the summer or you would have been up before the Wizengamot for the second year running on charges of under-age magic use."

Potter's eyes remain closed. He has turned his face away, a flush once again rising from beneath his collar.

"So that leaves just the one question, Potter."

The boy still does not acknowledge him. Snape takes half a step forward, and when he speaks finds that his voice has gentled, almost unconsciously.

"How often does it happen?" he says quietly.

There is no response.

"Harry," he tries again.

Ha, Snape thinks, triumphant, as Potter's eyes open and he turns around to stare up at him. Thought that might fetch you.

"Please stop," Potter whispers.

"I already told you, I cannot—"

"I mean stop acting like you care about me!" The boy's hands are clenched into fists now, his voice quiet, shaking with all the effort he is exerting to keep himself under control. "Please, sir. It just—it makes it harder."

Snape's brow contracts in honest confusion. "Makes what harder?"

Potter covers his face with both hands, pressing his fingers to his eyes. When he speaks, his voice is muffled, but fierce. "I have to act like nothing's wrong," he says. "If Dumbledore finds out, he'll send me somewhere else, away from the wards, and I won't be safe. Voldemort will get me, or my friends. And if he doesn't send me somewhere else, then I'll know that he knew all along, and he still let them—" His fingers clench, so hard Snape knows that he must be pressing them into the bruises, causing himself deliberate pain. "I have to pretend it's all fine, or people will die, like Sirius, and I can't keep pretending with you standing there, acting like you care, when I know you don't, you've always hated me—"

Snape watches, horrified, as Potter's knees buckle underneath him and he collapses to the floor, sliding down the polished wood surface of the oak door with a whispering sound. Potter reaches out to balance himself with his hands, revealing a face smeared with tears and blood from the cut over his eyes.

Before he quite knows what he is doing he has sunk to one knee before the boy and reached out with both hands to steady him. Potter meets his eyes, more surprise in his expression than Snape finds flattering, and Snape—

He should leave. He should sedate the boy and floo for Pomfrey, or Minerva or Albus or all three, and have done. He would be out of his depth in this situation even if it were a student of his own House, one he hadn't been at bitter odds with for the last five years.

But he doesn't turn away. His grip tightens on Potter's arms, until a hiss of pain from the boy and a backwards wrench of his shoulder reminds him that, whatever happens afterwards, there are problems here that do have solutions, many of them in potion form.

"Stay here, Potter," Snape says, and gets to his feet, feeling suddenly very tired. "I will be back in a moment."

He could simply summon the necessary potions from his cabinet, of course, but he wants a moment alone, a moment to gather himself and think what on earth he is supposed to do with a Harry Potter who is desperate rather than defiant, a Harry Potter who suddenly reminds Snape much more of himself at his own age than he ever believed possible.

Somewhat to his relief, Snape returns from his office storeroom to find that Potter has picked himself up from the floor and seated himself on one of the benches beside the laboratory workstations. His elbows are propped up on his knees and his hands are cupped around the back of his neck, but his breathing is quiet, no puddle of tears gathering on the stone floor below him.

He looks up as Snape approaches and grimaces, a kind of apology in his expression.

"Sorry I carried on like that, Professor," he says, passing a hand over his eyes. "I haven't been sleeping well for awhile. When I'm tired, everything feels—different. Bigger, somehow."

Snape is intimately familiar with the phenomenon but he does not say so, turning his back on the boy to unpack the case of potions he has brought into the room with him. He lines the bottles up in a neat row on the table behind him, beside a clean folded flannel, and turns back to Potter with his wand in hand.

"Relax, Mr Potter," he says, as the boy stiffens as soon as he catches sight of the wand. "I do not intend to perform Legilimency on you. I propose a bargain instead."

"Bargain?" says the boy warily.

"I assume you did not visit the hospital wing when first you arrived at school for the same reason—whatever it might be—that you do not want the Headmaster apprised of your condition. Am I correct?" Potter nods and he continues. "Then I will mend your injuries myself as best I know how, on two conditions. The first being that if I find you are damaged beyond my competence to heal you, we will go to Madam Pomfrey straightaway and with no argument. The second being that if I am to keep this from the Headmaster, I will require you to answer my every question truthfully and completely. Is that understood?"

Potter shifts uncomfortably where he sits. "I appreciate it, sir, but you needn't bother, really. The bruises will go away—"

"Like they always do?" Snape interrupts, with a curl of his lip.

Potter blushes again, looking away.

"No arguments from you, Potter. Either you accept my terms, or I summon the Headmaster directly. I need hardly add that it is against my better judgment not to do so anyway—"

"All right!" says Potter hastily. "I mean, yes, sir. Thank you."

"Take off your shirt, then."

Potter freezes. "What?"

In reply, Snape reaches out, seizes Potter's sore shoulder, and gives it a firm wrench, which has Potter emitting a high-pitched whimper. "I shall need to see what I'm dealing with, if I'm to deal with it properly."

"Right," Potter says, sounding resigned, and sets about removing his jumper and tie. Snape turns back to the row of corked bottles when Potter begins to unbutton his shirt, already sufficiently uncomfortable with the forced intimacy of the situation to not wish to add to it by watching the boy undress.

He opens a vial of bruise salve and turns back around, only to nearly drop the bottle when he catches sight of Potter's torso. Potter catches his eyes, then looks away, abashed.

"Tell me, Potter," Snape breathes, when he is again able. "Your uncle. Did you rape his daughter?"

"What?" Potter says, looking stunned.

"Kill his dog? Steal his life-savings, burn his house to the ground, anything that would remotely justify this level of damage? I ask only as a curiosity, I assure you—Dumbledore would no doubt insist I save your neck no matter what atrocities you committed. I am merely interested whether there was any glimmer of a rational motive behind this."

To his surprise, the faint hint of a grim smile plays at the corners of Potter's mouth. "He thinks I tried to kill his son."

"Did you?"

"Dolores Umbridge was trying to kill me. Dudley got in the way."

"Hmmph," is Snape's only audible comment, though he is aware, distantly, that a soupcon of unexamined emotion, strongly flavored with outrage, is beginning to simmer in his gut. He shoves it to the back of his mind. "You have cracked ribs," he diagnoses. "Does it hurt when you breathe?"

"Every time I move," Potter admits, pressing a hand to his side and wincing.

Snape takes a seat on the bench opposite him and regards the brilliant explosions of purple and blue decorating the ribs of the boy in front of him.

"Talk," he says, "whilst I work. It will take your mind off the pain."

"Talk about—gyah! About what?" Potter winces as Snape puts a hand to his third rib and presses slightly.

"Are you being deliberately obtuse?" Snape snapped. "How you come to be in this condition, of course."

"Well," says Potter, appearing to consider the matter for a moment as Snape runs his wand over the affected area in a diagnostic pattern, "I reckon the worst of it comes from being hit by a car. That was day before yesterday."

Snape stills suddenly, his eyes darting up to meet the boy's. "A car."

"Yeah. Yes, sir. Oh, sorry, I forgot. Cars are like—well, like carriages, a bit, only they—"

"I know what a car is, Potter, I am a wizard, not a troglodyte. Were you on foot at the time or in another vehicle?"

"I was in my uncle's driveway," the boy admits with obvious reluctance. "He—it wasn't going very fast, I mean."

"You may as well abandon the pretense that your uncle will not feature in this conversation sooner or later," Snape says idly, completing the diagnostic scan and reaching for the pot of salve. "Unless you wish me to believe that your aunt is capable of summoning enough force—"

"She's capable of summoning a frying pan," Potter mutters darkly.

Snape scoops a quantity of the salve from the pot. "Hold your arm out straight," he says, and begins to smear the ointment over the most colorful areas. "Hit you with a frying pan, did she?"

"No," Potter admitted. "Not since I was—" He breaks off and looks away.

Snape works in silence for a few minutes, spreading the herbal paste in a thick layer across the blue and purple bruises, giving the boy and himself both a moment to consider what they next wish to say. There is a question Snape does not want to ask, but the longer he waits, the more certain he is that asking it is necessary.

"Last year," he says finally, "during our Occlumency lessons, I saw a number of your childhood memories."

Potter does not reply, but Snape can feel his muscles tense beneath his hands.

"I saw your cupboard, and...your cousin's treatment of you, rather a lot of enforced fasting, and sundry other incidents that can only be ascribed to outrageous neglect on the part of your aunt and uncle. But I never once saw them lay a hand on you. Not so much as a slap or a shove. How," he says, smearing the last of the ointment on and wiping his hands on a flannel, "do you account for that, Potter?"

The boy blinks. He appears to be deep in thought. "I'm not sure, honestly. I just.—I really didn't want you to see it, that's all. So I sort of—you know, shoved it all to the back of my mind."

Snape stares at him for a long moment; then, feeling suddenly overcome by infinite weariness, shut his eyes.

"Shoved it all to the back of your mind," he repeats, covering his face with his hands and pinching the bridge of his nose. "Tell me, Potter. What—precisely—do you think Occlumency is, if not the art of hiding your thoughts where others cannot find them? I thought you lazy and undisciplined; I had no idea you were, in fact, brain damaged. You could have closed your mind to the Dark Lord if you had been half as motivated to do so as you were to keep your relatives safe from retribution!"

Potter looks up at him, startled, his eyes wide.

"I just never thought of it like that," he says quietly. "I just didn't want anyone to know about the bad parts."

Snape glares at him, disbelieving. "You didn't want me to see the bad parts."

Potter shrugs and nods.

"Potter, the parts you did allow me to see contained enough abuse to spoil and embitter ten childhoods."

The boy narrows his eyes, looking as though Snape has just presented him with a complex logic puzzle. His voice is quiet, tentative, and he drops his eyes again before speaking.

"I'm sorry, sir. I don't blame you being upset with me."

"I am not upset with you, Potter!" Snape says loudly, startled and incredulous.

Potter blinks at him. "You're yelling at me, sir."

"I—" Snape stops, considers, and feels his shoulders sag.

The boy makes a fair point. If he isn't upset with Potter, why does he feel this way—as though he could snap a strong man's neck with his bare hands, and would dearly like to try? Why does the thought of Potter, unable to defend himself from base, brutish Muggle violence make him tremble, as though in fury or loathing? What is Potter to him, but a tool? What does it matter if the boy spent his summer in pain and fear, so long as he lives long enough to defeat the Dark Lord?

What is it to you if Lily's son is in pain? whispered a sly voice at the back of his head. She was only your best friend, your one defender, loyal to you even after you sold her to your master. You got her killed—you're the reason Harry's looking at you like that—as though he doesn't think he deserves to be touched unless he's being struck.

"Why have you shielded your uncle from reprisal for his crimes?" asks Snape abruptly. "Do you imagine you deserve his treatment of you?"

Potter averts his eyes. "I don't think I deserve it exactly. I know my uncle is a little—irrational."

"But you clearly think the abuse you have endured is somehow acceptable," Snape interjects, summoning the bandages that wind themselves like a corset around Potter's torso. "It is not acceptable. It is outrageous, and Vernon Dursley deserves to be in prison at the very least. Do you not see that?"

Potter squirms uncomfortably. "He's put up with a lot over the years. He's scared of me, I think—of what me being in his house could bring on his family." His eyes darken. "And he's not wrong to be scared. The moment I turn seventeen the wards will fail, and after that—Voldemort might kill them all, just on the off chance it might upset me. That's a lot to risk for a freaky kid you don't even like. I'm sure he thinks he'd be better off if he'd never let me out of my cupboard." Potter's eyes grow distant. "He probably would."

Snape's hands tighten on the bandages. Potter gasps as he cinches them tight. "Do not defend him to me, Potter. It is highly distasteful."

"I'm not defending him!" Potter protests. "I just—I can't help seeing it from his perspective." He sits quietly for a moment. "You heard about the Dementors last summer, didn't you?

"I did," Snape replies, now turning his attention from the boy's ribs to his shoulder.

"Uncle Vernon wanted me out of the house then. And you really can't blame him for that, I did almost get his son worse than killed. But Dumbledore sent a Howler to remind my aunt about the blood wards, and she said I had to stay." The boy hisses in pain as Snape handles his shoulder, checking whether it is dislocated or merely strained. "I—I think," Potter continues, in a slightly choked voice, "that she and my uncle must have made a bargain or something while I was away last year. That she wouldn't interfere with anything he did to me, as long as he didn't kill me or kick me out. Not that she ever interfered much before, but it was never quite as bad when she was around..."

"So by your own admission, he has been hurting you for years, long before the incident involving your cousin last July?"

"Nothing bad, really," Potter says hastily. "Mostly he just let Dudley at me. He could always lock me in the cupboard without food if he got really angry. He hardly hit me at all until I went to Hogwarts."

Snape stops what he is doing to stare at the boy. "Potter, are you even listening to the words coming out of your mouth?"

Potter frowns. Snape stands, sighing, willing some of his frustration to dissipate. "Stand up. I need to fit you for a sling."

"I don't need a sling," Potter says quickly.

"You do if you intend to play Quidditch this year," Snape tells him in a voice of forced calm.

"I can't go about wearing a sling, people will think—"

"What will they think, Potter?" Snape seizes the edge of the counter and leans in to face him. "That you narrowly escaped death or permanent disability because your magic makes your uncle nervous? What is wrong with you, boy? This—farce of yours cannot continue!"

"Why not?" Potter shouts, leaping to his feet as well in a move Snape is sure must have caused him pain. But he doesn't flinch. "Listen, sir, I don't mean to be rude, because you've done a lot for me and I appreciate it, but I know you hate me. So I don't see how it can matter to you what happens to me, as long as I live long enough to kill Voldemort."

They stand there, glaring at each other, both breathing hard. The sound of his own thoughts issuing from his own mouth appalls him slightly, both because they are heartless and because he sees now, in a moment of shattering realization, that they are no longer true.

If they were ever true.

"You still haven't explained why the prospect of letting the Headmaster in on your little secret fills you with such horror," Snape says when he is once more in control of his voice.

"Yes I did—" Potter starts.

"Not in any language spoken by human beings, Potter," Snape cuts him off. "Tell me again, this time with less babble."

Potter stares at him, then speaks in a clipped voice, as though reciting a speech.

"My aunt's house the only place in the world Voldemort can't get to me. If I go anywhere else, he'll try to kill me, and he'll kill anyone who gets in his way. My uncle may hit me sometimes, but Voldemort will do a lot worse, so between the two risks, I choose him."

"There's more to it than that," Snape insists. "You said that you think the Headmaster already knows—"

"I don't know that," Potter says shortly. "But you said yourself that it isn't easy keeping secrets from him. If he does know—and he let me stay there anyway—well." Potter draws a long, shuddering breath, and in a blink the defiance that had borne him to his feet is gone. He looks very young to Snape, suddenly. "I wouldn't blame him. Everyone looks up to him—he has to make hard decisions. But all the same, I don't want to know about it. It would—make things harder."

A moment later, his speech ended, he sinks down on the bench again, as though he no longer has the strength to hold himself up. Snape stands looking down on him, feeling oddly overwhelmed.

"I owe you an apology," he says brusquely after a few second have passed.

Potter looks up at him, eyes wide.

"You were—sincere, I believe, in apologizing earlier for your behavior last term. I did not believe you could possibly mean it. I know now I was mistaken."

Potter eyes him warily. "What made you change your mind, sir?"

"What you have told me here today—what I have seen—" Snape cuts himself off, his hand balling into a fist again. "No one as arrogant I have always thought you to be could possibly have endured all that you—" He stops again, finding his voice rough. "And you think you deserve it," he finishes in a whisper. "Don't argue with me, it's written all over your face. You've come up with explanations and reasons that sound very nearly logical, but all it means is that you don't think your uncle deserves anyone's anger. You don't think you deserve anyone's help."

The boy's face is an open book, and just now it tells the tale of a child on the ragged edge of hope.

Snape rubs a hand over his face, feeling that he himself is nearing the end of some invisible tether. He sits again abruptly, reaching for the bruise salve, and reaches out to dab the bruises on the boy's neck and face.

Potter, who had been gazing at the floor, glances up just as Snape lifts his hand. He flinches violently, raising an arm to shield himself and ducking his head.

A furious wave of heat seems to crash over Snape, but he controls it, remaining perfectly still with his hand poised in mid-air as Potter, blushing, unfolds himself and sits up straight again. Snape waits until he is sure that the boy has collected himself, then reaches out and begins to dab the salve over the bruises with the gentlest touch he can muster.

He works in silence for awhile before speaking again. "You are operating under a certain misapprehension that I wish to correct," he tells Potter, not meeting his eyes.

"What's that, sir?"

"Albus Dumbledore," says Snape, "loves you. Yes, Potter, I mean that. I would know, I've endured years of hagiography from him on the subject of his favorite boy. And even if he had no particular regard for you at all, he is at his fiercest and most formidable when it comes to the safety of his students. He would move heaven and earth to keep you from harm." Potter is very quiet, and Snape adds, "And you ought to let him."

The boy recoils at that, twitching away from Snape's hand. "I—Professor, no, I just told you—"

"You are not rational on the subject, Potter, or you would have seen by now that the dilemma you have created for yourself is a false one. You think that by subjecting yourself to the physical agony of your uncle's abuse, you spare yourself the emotional agony of seeing your friends come to harm. This is not the case. Other arrangements can be made. And they will be made, the moment we are done here."

"What—no!" Potter jumps to his feet again and begins to back away. "You can't—sir, please, what about our bargain?"

"I am cancelling it," Snape replies evenly, standing up but not advancing on the boy. "I understand your fears, but they are unfounded. You must trust my judgment on this."

"I'll deny it all," says Potter, sounding desperate. "I'll reapply the glamor."

"He will see through it in a moment," says Snape, trying his best to sound patient.

"No—Professor, please don't do this." To his horror, Snape sees that the boy's eyes are filling with tears. "I know you don't like me, but I'll do anything, I swear, I'll scrub out every cauldron you've got—"

"Potter." Snape feels suddenly very tired. "I would no more regard your wishes in this matter than I would believe a person under the Imperius curse insisting they wished to drink poison. I told you before: I have been entrusted with your safety, and whatever you may believe of me, it is a charge I take seriously."

"Sir–"

"Would you prefer I dealt with the matter myself?" Snape spits, suddenly unable to control himself. "You may at least rely on the Headmaster to subdue your uncle through civilized means. I, on the other hand, would consider myself bound by no such restrictions."

The boy stares at him, honest confusion troubling his eyes. "But why?"

"You wouldn't understand," Snape says, himself again. "Enough of this. Albus should be in his office at this hour, we will speak to him immediately."

"I won't go," says Potter at once, with a furious flare of his nostrils. "I'll fight you all the way down the corridor."

Rather to his own surprise, Snape finds himself, not sneering, but smiling in genuine amusement. "I have no doubt that you would."

And then, careful to keep a non-threatening distance between them, Snape strides past him to the fireplace, where he seizes a handful of floo powder and tosses it into the flames.

"Albus," he says, "I need you here."

Then he straightens, and turns back to the boy, who has sunk, white faced and trembling, to the bench again, where he sits with his head bowed.

And waits.

Dumbledore steps out of the fire a moment later, a look of cheerful inquiry on his face. It is rare for Snape to summon the Headmaster to the dungeons, normally preferring the greater privacy of Dumbledore's highly warded office for their conversations. But he is not so eager to force his will on Potter as to subject either of them to the scene that would arise if he were forced to stun the boy and levitate him through the halls.

"Good morning, Severus," says Dumbledore, brushing ash from his resplendent purple robes. "To what do I owe the nearly unprecedented honor of this invitation?"

Snape lifts a hand and indicates the bench near the back of the classroom where Potter sits, still shirtless, though he has turned so that his injured side is facing away from them. Dumbledore's gaze follows his gesture. He lifts his head when he catches sight of the boy—a rare expression of surprise, coming from the most inscrutable man of his acquaintance—and shoots a quick look back at Snape, who merely arches an eyebrow in reply.

Dumbledore turns toward the boy, taking a step forward. "Harry?" he says quietly. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing, Professor," says the boy in a flat voice.

"I am sorry to contradict you, but I have been here less than a minute and I can already see that is not the case."

Potter shrugs, but otherwise does not move.

"Potter," Snape calls, "if you cannot bring yourself to be forthcoming with the Headmaster, I have no objection to explaining the matter myself."

Potter tenses—then turns his head, just long enough to glare at him. From where Snape is standing, he can just see the edges of the massive bruising on his face; Dumbledore, however, is in a position to see more clearly.

And even if Snape hadn't known that, he would still have been able to tell the moment when Dumbledore caught sight of the boy's injuries by the way his back straightens, how the expression of mild concern on his features hardens for a brief instant into something harsh and furious.

Four long strides bring Dumbledore sweeping across the classroom floor to where Potter sits, hunched miserably in on himself.

Snape watches from behind his desk as Dumbledore stands over the boy for almost a minute of complete silence, studying him with a look of absolute concentration that soon has Potter squirming. Then Dumbledore sinks down on the bench Snape has recently vacated and rests his hands on his knees, still gazing at the boy.

When he speaks, it is in a calm, slightly weary voice that belies the rigid tension of his back and shoulders.

"Harry," he says. "Look at me, please."

Potter winces slightly. The words recall to Snape the way their own conversation had begun an hour ago—with him throwing the boy against the wall, demanding the same thing of him in a snarl. His stomach twists uncomfortably.

"Please," Dumbledore says again, and Snape reflects that, whatever his own failures, there is at least no way the boy can mistake that plea as a threat.

Potter does not lift his head, but he does look up at the Headmaster through the fringe of his dark hair, and this seems to satisfy the man.

It occurs to Snape that the greater part of courtesy would probably be to absent himself from this conversation, to go and wait in his office until Dumbledore calls for him. But he does not stir.

Earlier, Potter raised a question that Snape suddenly realizes he very much wants to know the answer to, though he is not certain what he will do with the answer when he has it.

And Dumbledore seems not to mind his presence. He is, in fact, so intent upon Potter at the moment that Snape would suspect he has entirely forgotten that there is a third person in the room, if it weren't for the fact that Dumbledore would never forget any such thing.

He watches as Dumbledore reaches across the space between the benches to catch one of Potter's restless, fidgeting hands in his own, squeezing it tightly for a moment, then releasing it. Both the boy's hands still after that, resting motionless on his knees in an apparently unconscious mirror of Dumbledore's own position.

They sit so long in silence that Snape actually begins to worry that the Headmaster is too overcome to speak. But then he sighs, and a fraught moment seems to pass; when he speaks again, his voice is steady—too tender to be called businesslike, but, all the same, slightly brisker than before.

"Well, Harry," he says. "I begin to wonder if, every time we meet from now on, I shall have to begin our conversation by apologizing to you for some disastrous error of mine."

Potter lifts his head by a fraction of an inch. "What do you mean, sir?"

"Arthur Weasley suggested at the beginning of last summer that members of the Order should make the occasional unannounced visit to your relatives' home during the summer, to ensure your safety and well-being. I dissuaded him from this idea, believing that if your aunt and uncle were obliged to endure a steady stream of visitors from the wizarding world, life at their house would be even more uncomfortable for you than it has been in the past. So the guard over you was limited to the same peripheral patrols as last summer, and we contented ourselves that if you were in any difficult, you would notify us by owl post, or lack of it."

There is nothing accusing in the brief silence that follows, but the boy sounds almost guilty when next he speaks.

"They made sure I wrote every three days, just like Lupin and Moody told me. I had to show them I was sending the letter out with Hedwig. They always read it first."

Dumbledore shuts his eyes briefly, then opens them again. "I must confess that scenario did not cross my mind. Or rather, not in a way that encouraged me to entertain it as a serious possibility."

A long silence follows. Then Potter blurts out, "So you—you didn't know, sir?"

Dumbledore gazes at him thoughtfully. "I knew, of course, that your relatives have always been ungracious towards you and resentful of your presence. Likewise, I knew that your uncle was furious after the Dementors attacked you and your cousin last summer. But while I suspected he would do everything in his power to make you miserable, I did not believe he would dare to harm you." He gives a small, rueful smile. "To be frank, I thought his own sense of self-preservation would prevent him giving into any temptation of the kind."

"He wouldn't really think about that," says Potter. "I don't think the magical world is really real to him, most of the time. It's usually just me and my...freakiness."

"Actually," says Dumbledore, "I was not alluding to consequences from the wizarding world at large. I was referring to the fact that under-age wizards are permitted to do magic out of school in order to defend themselves. I—assumed, perhaps wrongly, that you would remember this if your uncle ever became dangerous, and protect yourself."

"I was defending myself last summer and I nearly got expelled," says Potter, sounding bitter. "I never know which side of me the Ministry's likely to be on, so I didn't think I'd better risk it for anything that wasn't a matter of life and death."

Dumbledore nods soberly.

"Would you mind," he says, after a moment, "describing to me how, precisely, you came by your injuries?"

Potter hesitates. "Which ones, sir?"

Snape, strangely attuned to nuances in the boy's speech now that he is attempting to listen with Dumbledore's ears, winces at this, knowing how much it will convey to the Headmaster.

But Dumbledore's expression remains one of quiet concern, betraying no hint of fluctuating emotion. "The, ah, greatest portion. I can hardly imagine he merely struck you, to cause so much damage."

"A couple of days ago he sort of—um." Potter flushes brilliantly. The bruise salve is already beginning to do its work, leaving more unblemished skin to display the reddening. "Bumped into me with his car. It might have been an accident, I don't know. I was cleaning out the garage when he pulled in, and—well. I think maybe he thought it would be funny."

"Funny," Dumbledore repeats. If Snape were not studying his face as intently as he is, he might easily have missed the way Dumbledore's nostrils flare ever so slightly. "I see. And the rest of it?"

Potter has half turned away to gaze out a window. "It was all just normal stuff. How he always is, just a little—more. He'd—shove me a little harder than usual, or use the back of his hand instead of—" The boy's mouth twists; he shakes his head once and grows quiet.

"That," says Dumbledore, sounding weary, "would seem to answer my next question, which was to inquire whether anything of this nature had occurred prior to this past summer."

Something in the way Potter hesitates, then draws himself up, suggests to Snape that the next words out of his mouth are likely to be some kind of reassuring lie. He cuts the boy off before he can open his mouth.

"Mislead the Headmaster," Snape says in a warning voice, "and I will present him with a pensieve record of our conversation to supply the deficiencies of yours."

"I wasn't misleading him, sir," Potter retorts. "Anyway, I don't think there's much left to figure out, is there?" He looks back at Dumbledore. "It was never—quite like this, before."

"Not so bad, you mean."

"Yes, sir."

"But he has hurt you before."

Potter shrugs. "I guess. I mean, yes, a bit, sir. Nothing I couldn't handle, though."

"I see." Dumbledore adjusts his spectacles. "I assume that your uncle was punishing you, at least in part, for the danger he felt you exposed his son to last summer."

"He was really angry about that, yeah. But I think it was a lot of stuff, really."

"No doubt," said Dumbledore, in a quiet voice.

"Sir," Potter says, "how did you know it was my uncle? I know you said—but, I mean, did you—"

Snape finds himself speaking up almost before he knows what he is going to say. He can see the thought running through the boy's mind, the suspicion that will become a conviction if it is not arrested.

"Potter, I figured it out the moment I laid eyes on you," he drawls in most derisive voice. "It wasn't exactly a feat of deductive brilliance."

Dumbledore neither looks at nor interrupts him, merely lifts a hand that silences him instantly.

"I have always known that your uncle possessed the capacity for violence—being an ill-tempered, physically imposing man, with a special prejudice against you, it would have been absurd to suppose otherwise. But I give you my word, I had no inkling that he had, or would, ever dare to act on his worst impulses with regards to you. Clearly I underestimated what his fear and anger would lead him to do, and for that, I am—more sorry than I can say."

Potter speaks in a rush, not meeting Dumbledore's eyes. "I just wondered if you figured it was worth it, so long as I stayed safe from Voldemort."

"Oh, Harry." Dumbledore raises a hand, pinching the bridge of his nose. Snape wonders if it unnerves the boy as much as it does him to see Dumbledore so clearly out of sorts. "No. Never that. Though I suppose I cannot blame you for thinking it." He lowers his hand again and turns all the force of his steady gaze on Potter. "As much as it pained and disturbed me to know that you were unhappy and neglected in your aunt and uncle's care, I did allow you to endure it because I believed that to make any alternative arrangements would put your life at risk. But I would never have allowed them to lay a hand on you, not for any consideration. And if you truly believed I would, then I have failed you more profoundly than I ever thought possible."

A tightly wound coil of tension inside his chest seems to relax as Snape listens to Dumbledore speak. Not that he is surprised—it is no more than he suspected. But the assurance is strangely good to hear, nonetheless.

"I didn't really think that, Professor," Potter says earnestly, and to Snape's surprise he realizes that the boy is upset—not for himself, but for Dumbledore. "Honestly. It crossed my mind, but I was just being stupid."

"Then may I ask," says Dumbledore, "why you never told anyone before now? I believe I can guess why, but I would rather hear it from you."

"Well." Potter looks uncomfortable. "It was just never that bad before. I wasn't about to crack up over a knock or two. But I knew you wouldn't like it, and I didn't want—please, sir," he says, leaning forward, "you aren't going to take me away from them, are you?"

Snape cannot resist a derisive snort at that, but neither Potter nor Dumbledore looks at him.

"Because I don't want to go to the Burrow," the boy continues, "or anywhere else that might make Voldemort come after my friends. It's just one more summer, and I promise, if he ever does anything like that again, I'll—I'll jinx him or something."

To Snape's consternation, Dumbledore does not deny the boy immediately. He sits, looking thoughtful, before speaking.

"Certainly, times being what they are, it is advisable to take advantage of every possible protective resource at our disposal—"

"Albus, you cannot be serious!" Snape says, before he quite realizes what he is doing. "They might have killed him! He cannot possibly—"

"Severus." Dumbledore turns to look at him for the first time since crossing the room to sit with the boy, and there is a look of mild understanding on his face. "Hear me out, please." He turns back to Potter. "While I do believe it would be a good idea to make use of the wards at your relatives' house for as long as possible, I cannot permit you to carry on there precisely as you have done in the past. For one thing, I do not really believe that, should your uncle attack you again, you would defend yourself with all necessary force. That is no negative reflection on your character, Harry, merely an acknowledgment that you have lived with ill treatment for so long it may not be in your power to distinguish between tolerable rudeness and unacceptable brutality."

Potter flushes, but, Snape notices, does not bother to deny this. "What should I do then, sir?"

"For the moment, I believe you should go to the hospital wing. While I see that Severus has tended your injuries admirably, there may still be more Madam Pomfrey can do for you. And I promise you," he raises a hand to forestall the protests the boy is clearly about to make, "the details of this conversation, and your visit there, will be treated as confidential. I hope you will want to confide in your friends, but I will not force you to do so before you are ready. In the mean time, please leave the matter of your living arrangements for next summer to me. I promise to keep you fully informed of my progress."

Dumbledore stands then, and, perhaps more out of habit than willingness to comply with directions, Potter stands with him.

"You can take the floo to the hospital wing, Potter," Snape tells him curtly. "The powder is on the mantle."

Potter glances at him, and Snape finds himself taken aback by the gratitude he sees there. He averts his gaze back to the Headmaster, who is looking attentively at Potter, as though waiting for him to say something else.

"Professor," says Potter. "Were you going to—is my uncle going to—to get into trouble over this?"

"I frankly fail to see why you should care," Snape cannot resist telling him, the acid in his voice not entirely directed at the boy.

Potter shoots him a look over his shoulder. "You would. Sir."

"I do intend to have a conversation with your aunt and uncle, Harry," says Dumbledore, a new, graver note in his voice. "I trust you understand the necessity of that."

Potter does not reply. The look on his face seems to say that he doesn't understand it, but can guess what they will say if he admits this.

"I do not intend to do them any permanent damage," Dumbledore says, his voice light, but no one is fooled.

"It's just..." Potter drags a hand back through the untidy mop of his hair. "Any time anyone's ever done magic around them, they've come off the worse for it. Like with Dudley's tail and the Ton-Tongue Toffee, and blowing up Aunt Marge. I just don't think it's—going to help anything, if they feel like they have any more reasons to be afraid of me when I go back."

"Potter, they do not deserve, nor does the Headmaster require, any intervention from you."

"It's all right, Severus." Dumbledore puts a hand on Potter's uninjured shoulder—carefully, slowly, Snape notices, and the boy does not flinch this time. "I only mean to speak to them, Harry. I promise you."

Potter nods. "I, uh. Guess I'll go on to the hospital wing then."

"Yes, I think that would be a good idea. Don't forget these." Dumbledore points his wand at Potter's discarded shirt, jumper, and tie. They fold themselves into a neat bundle, and float into Potter's outstretched hand. "I will be along to see how you are in a little while."

He walks with Potter up to the fireplace, and takes down the box of floo powder, holding it out long enough for the boy to gather a handful.

"Thank you," he says, again touching Potter's shoulder, "for talking frankly to me, Harry. I understand how difficult it was."

Potter swallows tightly, then nods. A moment later he disappears in a burst of green flame.

Snape and Dumbledore stand together in silence for a moment after the boy has gone, Dumbledore lost in thought, Snape watching him for some clue what he means to do next.

"Thank you, Severus," he says at last, startling him. "For looking after him."

Snape doesn't bother to sneer since Dumbledore isn't looking at him. "The boy needs a bloody keeper."

Dumbledore darts a keen glance at him. There is something behind it that Snape finds disturbing, but it is gone in the next instant.

"I wonder," Dumbledore continues, musingly, "if you would care to accompany me on a call to Surrey?"

Snape looks over at him, startled.

Then smiles.

"Certainly," he says.

"It is just now approaching six o'clock," says Dumbledore, examining a large gold pocket watch. "I believe we have sufficient time at our disposal to accomplish our errand and return in time for dinner. Are you prepared to leave immediately?"

"You should, perhaps," says Snape, looking closely at Dumbledore, "acquaint me with your intentions before we depart."

"Ah." Dumbledore returns his glance critically. "Well, that is relevant of course. But first things first—do you happen to keep any Muggle clothing here?"

Snape blinks. "No, not here. The house I inherited from my parents is in a Muggle neighborhood, I keep some there. Do you really think we ought to—pander to their ridiculous phobia of magic, Albus?"

"I think," the Headmaster returns, "that we should choose our battles. Vernon Dursley is not burdened by an over-abundance of intellect, and I think he will hear us the more clearly if he is not distracted by trivialities. Now, let me see."

Dumbledore's eyes narrow, studying him from head to toe. Snape is struck by a moment's foreboding. "Albus—what are you—"

But before he can finish the question, Dumbledore has tapped him on each shoulder with his wand, and Snape looks down to find that, while he is still wearing his own black trousers and white shirt, his outer robes have been Transfigured into a short, Muggle style suit jacket and waistcoat.

"That will do, I think," says Dumbledore, looking satisfied. "Well—perhaps—" He flicks his wand again, and Snape looks down again to find that the two top buttons of his collar have unfastened themselves.

Snape knows well enough that protests would be vain, so he contents himself with glaring, even as Dumbledore taps his own shoulders with his wand, and his sweeping velvet robes mold themselves into what, at first glance, appears to be an ordinary Muggle suit, but which, on closer inspection, seems to be made, not of wool, but deep, midnight blue velvet.

"I suspect he will call me an 'old hippy' again," Dumbledore muses, "but I think I will leave my hair as it is. There are limits even to my indulgence."

Snape arches an eyebrow. "You have spoken with him before?"

"Briefly, and the encounter was not satisfying. Now, I think we can walk to The Hog's Head and Apparate from there. You know the house number, I believe?"

Snape nods.

"Then let us be on our way."

*

They walk in silence until the castle gates close behind them, and then Dumbledore picks up the thread of the conversation again.

"I think," says Dumbledore, "you wanted to know my intentions towards Harry's relatives. They are very simple. Without resorting to any overt threats, we are going—as the Muggle saying has it—to put the fear of God into them. Which is to say, we are going to disabuse them of the notion that they can mistreat Harry without consequence, and convince them to accept the alternative arrangements I have in mind for Harry's last months in their house."

Snape finds that he approves of the Muggle saying. The concept of God has as little meaning for him as it does for most wizards, but, as he understands it, Muggle iconography of the Hebrew God bears a striking resemblance to the person of Albus Dumbledore, which lends the phrase a fairly accurate pictorial significance.

"What arrangements are those?" he asks.

"I believe Harry would be best served if a member of the Order were to keep him company for the summer, until his birthday. An adult who can be trusted to deal, ah—decisively with any threat his uncle may pose to him. I believe this will take some doing. Their own blood kin, however despised, is one sort of housemate; a fully grown wizard will be quite another. But I hope to overcome their reluctance with reasoned persuasion, and perhaps a touch of judicious blackmail."

"I see."

"Yes, I believe you do." They walk in silence for a moment, the cool air of evening already beginning to replace the heat of the early day. "Tell me how Harry came to confide in you."

"At wandpoint," Snape says, provoking a laugh from Dumbledore. "During the feast I...happened to glance over at him. I observed at once that he was sporting a rather badly applied glamor." He gives Dumbledore a shrewd look over his shoulder. "I am surprised you did not notice it yourself."

"I did notice it," says Dumbledore evenly. "However, I also noticed you noticing."

Of course you did. Snape manages, with Herculean strength of will, not to roll his eyes. "When he appeared in his first Potions class wearing it still," he continues, "I decided that it would be—prudent to find out what he was concealing."

"And what precisely did you find?"

"Three bruised, possibly cracked, ribs, contusions covering the entire left side of his body, lacerations on his forehead and lower lip, and a fracture of his left cheekbone." Snape recites the tally automatically. He knows that is not the information Dumbledore wants, but at the moment it is all he is prepared to offer.

"How did he react to your discovery?"

"He was reticent, but he answered my questions—once he had stopped trying to bolt, at least, and after I promised him I would not bring the matter to your attention."

Dumbledore arches an eyebrow. "I am surprised he would believe such a promise."

Snape notes that Dumbledore is not surprised that he would make the promise and then break it. "I do not pretend to understand how his mind works," he says, affecting unconcern.

"That would be a presumption, certainly, but I find his behavior rather suggestive, don't you?"

"Only suggestive of severe head trauma," Snape says, savagely kicking out at a stone on the dirt path before him. He watches clouds of dust rise up around his feet and wonders idly when it will rain again. "He was fully prepared to hide behind that glamor for as long as it took the marks to fade and to return to that house again next summer. I knew the boy was as rash, as—" Habit dictates that the next word should be arrogant, but he knows better now, doesn't he? "reckless as his blighted father, but I had not thought him as foolish as this."

"He is not a fool," says Dumbledore. "He learned very early in life that he could not expect help or protection from anyone—even, or perhaps especially, from his teachers and guardians. It is very difficult to unlearn lessons of that kind."

"I have saved his wretched neck every year since he started at this school!" Snape says, exaggerating slightly in his outrage. "It is his own fault if he is too dim-witted to perceive the difference between dislike and disregard for his safety."

"Hardly an uncommon failing at his age," says Albus. "He is, I grant you, not very subtle, nor skilled at perceiving subtlety in others. But—forgive me—you have always been aware of this. If you truly wished Harry to trust you, I am confident you could have achieved it long ago. I must therefore conclude that you prefer to be at odds with him, for reasons of your own."

"You know very well that if word reached the Dark Lord that the boy trusted me, he would begin to make demands I could not fulfill!"

"Do keep your voice down, Severus. Remember we are out of doors." Dumbledore nods courteously to a pair of witches who pass by them on the high street, clutching their shopping baskets. "I am aware of that fact, of course. I merely suggest that you seem to be strangely uncomfortable with Harry's mistrust of you. Almost—" The corner of Dumbledore's mouth twitches. "Disappointed."

"I am uncomfortable with the fact that all our lives depend upon a boy so unintelligent and unstable that he cannot be bothered to lift a finger to defend himself against a common, bullying Muggle!" Snape hisses in a low voice. "How is he to defeat the Dark Lord if he cannot see to his own safety?"

"I have told you before that I do not believe it will come to a contest of wands between them," says Dumbledore calmly. "Nor do I want Harry encouraged in that idea. Voldemort will not be conquered by brute strength."

"It comes to the same thing, Albus," Snape insists. "I don't care if the boy's great conquering power over the Dark Lord consists of snogging him to death, he needs to learn how to focus his mind and discipline his feelings. He has given a rather poor showing in that regard so far."

"I do not think you ought to draw any conclusions about Harry's abilities based solely on his dealings with his family. Family is often...exceptional."

"You cannot excuse him keeping this secret," Snape says, around grinding his teeth. "He has no business jeopardizing everything—"

"Severus, that is quite enough. I will not allow you to speak as though Harry's only worth lies in fulfilling the prophecy."

Snape feels himself flushing at the rebuke. A denial springs to his lips, but at the suddenly knowing look in the Headmaster's eyes, he converts it to a reprisal of his earlier theme. "Forgive me, Albus, if I am a little concerned that the wizarding world might be plunged into everlasting darkness because the boy is too stiff-neck to ask for help when he needs it."

"He spoke to you, eventually."

"I compelled him."

"Nonetheless, he was more forthcoming in his conversation with you than he was with me."

"Albus," Snape growls, even as they round the corner of the lane and come within sight of The Hog's Head. "What precisely are you attempting to imply?"

"You wish me to speak plainly?"

"Yes." For once in your life, Snape does not say aloud.

Dumbledore stops and directs a keen gaze at him. There is a look on his face that makes Snape wonder if his invitation to frankness was ill-advised.

A moment later, he is certain of it.

"I would like you," Dumbledore says, "to make yourself available, in the event Harry should need you."

Snape's mouth is suddenly very dry. "'Available' in what way?"

Dumbledore's gaze strays to a point somewhere in the distance. A long moment passes before he begins to speak again.

"The years to come," he says in a quiet voice, "are going to be extremely difficult for Harry. They will be difficult for everyone, of course, but Harry's burdens are unique. You are...one of the few who understands how unique." Dumbledore gives a small, quick smile. "He will need—support. Yet his godfather is dead, and he will not turn to the Weasleys, for fear of endangering them. And for myself...I do not know how much longer I will be able to assist him directly."

The hair at the back of Snape's neck prickles at this, but he waits for the other man to finish.

Dumbledore breathes deeply and exhales gustily. "As Harry is James' son, you have...distanced yourself from him. And, as he is Lily's child, you have protected him. But he is more than the offspring of two people you once knew. He is himself. And he is in more peril than perhaps anyone but ourselves realize."

Dumbledore turns his head to look at him again, and Snape nearly wishes he hadn't. There is a kind of fierce urgency in the Headmaster's eyes that Snape has seen before, always preceding loathsome requests he cannot refuse.

"The very distance you have labored so long to create between yourself and Harry has already enabled him to entrust you with matters he dares not bring to his friends. He thinks you do not care, so he is frank with you."

"It is true Potter is frequently insolent towards me," Snape says curtly. "That is hardly the basis for—"

"You are deliberately misunderstanding me," Dumbledore interrupts, somehow managing to sound both patient, and as though he is nearing the end of his patience.

"I have just told you," Snape nearly spits the word out, "If I am seen to be—friendly with Potter, everything I have worked for this past year will be destroyed. You know this."

"Well, I don't expect you to bring him in to dinner on your arm, Severus," says Dumbledore, the corner of his mouth twitching again. "But it isn't as though you are never alone with him—how many detentions have you assigned him over the years?"

"I see," says Snape. "When Potter breaks rules from now on, I am not to punish him. I am to serve him biscuits and butterbeer and ask how his day has gone."

"I leave the details to your own ingenuity," says Dumbledore, smiling openly now.

"Albus, never tell me you're planning to make me stay the summer with Potter and his relatives," Snape says, a bit desperately.

They have reached the door of the Hog's Head; Dumbledore's hand pauses in the act of reaching for the latch.

A moment passes before Snape realizes that the convulsive shuddering of the Headmaster's body is actually silent laughter.

He wipes a tear from his eye before he speaks again. "No, Severus. I assure you, that is not what I had in mind." He smiles. "Though I confess that the thought of loosing you upon them is—well. Best not to linger over the possibility, or it may become a temptation."

Dumbledore leads the way through the door and proceeds directly to the fireplace, with a cheerful wave to the barman across the deserted tables and chairs of the open room. He takes a handful of powder from the box on the mantel and throws it in, then leans forward slightly so that his head is wreathed in green flame.

"Ah, Arabella," he says. "I hope I did not startle you. Yes, I am very well, thank you. I wonder if Professor Snape and I might beg the temporary use of your floo. We've a call to pay in the neighborhood." A pause, then: "Thank you so much. We will be through directly."

Dumbledore straightens, then gestures to Snape. "After you, please, Severus."

Snape steps over the hearth and, seizing a handful of the powder, throws it down around his feet. "Number 7, Magnolia Crescent," he says, and then the world around him dissolves.

The lawn of 4 Privet Drive is at once a marvel of geometric precision and an offense against nature, in Snape's opinion. He follows Dumbledore down the walk to the front door, well aware of the fact that much of the rigid manicuring around them is Potter's handiwork—the boy's memories of his life here (the ones he did not successfully shove to the back of his mind, Snape thinks irritably) are dominated by images of weeding, mowing, and pruning. This awareness only deepens the well of bewilderment in which Snape has been floundering for hours now. Clearly, the boy can focus when he is properly motivated—but there is little chance of Snape being able to provide sufficient motivation, when Potter is so clearly accustomed to harsher masters.

Dumbledore pauses on the front steps and, as though divining Snape's thoughts and the troublesome feelings they have produced, directs a shrewd look at him over his shoulder.

"I beg that you will leave the handling of Vernon Dursley to me, Severus," he says, then gives a small smile. "Feel free, however, to glower wherever you feel it is appropriate."

Without waiting for a response, Dumbledore knocks on the door. In accordance with the Headmaster's directive, Snape arranges his features in the fiercest glower he can muster. It is not difficult, with such inspiration.

A few seconds later the door opens, revealing a tall, beefy man with a large stomach overhanging his belt and a thick mustache as carefully tended as a girl's coiffure. His mouth opens automatically, no doubt in the semblance of some polite greeting that dies on his lips as soon as he takes in their appearance.

"What do you want?" he says, clearly unable to decide what to make of them and settling for a middle-of-the-road rudeness that probably serves him in his dealings with most people.

Dumbledore inclines his head politely. "Good afternoon, Mr Dursley. I am Albus Dumbledore, Headmaster of the school where your nephew Harry attends. This is Professor Severus Snape, one of Harry's teachers. We require a word with you."

Even though there is no obvious threat or anger in Dumbledore's tone, Snape knows all too well the effect of that devastating courtesy, which implies the recipient is unworthy, rather than undeserving, of open rudeness.

Dursley's face immediately begins to purple. He must be more perceptive than he looks, Snape thinks—or perhaps he is simply reacting to the mention of Hogwarts.

"Now see here," he begins at once, his imperious tone belied by the nervous way his gaze darts from Dumbledore to Snape and back again, never quite meeting their eyes. "I take no responsibility for anything the boy does outside this house. We made it clear when he started at that place we'd have nothing to do with whatever he gets up to while he's with your lot. He's got some freak godfather somewhere, go and take it up with him."

Dumbledore allows a moment of silence to fall after Dursley's rant, long enough to direct a rather steely gaze at the shorter man. Snape takes the time to wonder how Potter, whose grief at Black's death had been overwhelming by all reports, managed so much restraint as to keep the news of Black's death from his family. Not that the temptation to confide in them would have been very great, Snape imagines, but it interests him nonetheless, being an indication that the boy possesses heretofore unsuspected levels of emotional discipline.

"I am well aware that you have preferred to distance yourself from Harry's concerns, Mr Dursley," Dumbledore says at last, in the same even tone as before. "We nonetheless require a moment of your time. If your wife is home, we should like to speak with her as well."

"She's gone out," Dursley says quickly, then steps back from the door. "Come in then, if you must. Quickly, before the neighbors see you." He is visibly less tense, almost as though, in his mind, the pleasure of denying them something has allowed him to regain the upper hand.

Dumbledore and Snape follow him into a large, comfortably furnished, if rather over-decorated parlor, lined with dozens of family photographs, none of Potter. Dursley walks to the center of the room, then turns, and stands facing them with a look of mingled expectation, impatience, and badly concealed fear. He does not sit down, or invite them to do so. Dumbledore, however, seats himself in a large, comfortable armchair facing Dursley, who, after a moment of resistance, sinks down on the edge of the sofa as though the strength is leaving his legs. Snape comes to stand behind Dumbledore's chair, folding his arms across his chest.

The silence that fills the room then has nothing to do, Snape is quite sure, with Dumbledore organizing his thoughts or thinking what to say. Watching Dursley's face, he suspects that the Headmaster is giving the Muggle a chance to wonder what has brought them here—to examine his conscience, if he possesses such a thing. Dursley's face is growing an even deeper shade of purple, but he does not dare to speak first.

After almost a full minute, Dumbledore begins.

"I wonder, Mr Dursley, if you have ever wondered why, in all the course of Harry's time here in your home, no authorities from the Muggle world have ever come visiting to see about Harry's welfare? I am sure you must be aware that in situations such as his, that would be the normal procedure."

Dursley is silent. He looks stunned, as though Dumbledore's words had been a blow.

"It is because, under wizarding law, the Muggle guardians of wizard children are accountable to agencies in our world for their treatment of their charges," he continues. "However, owing to the peculiar circumstances surrounding Harry's becoming an orphan, I persuaded the relevant authorities to leave the oversight of Harry's placement and safety to me. I, in turn, placed him with you—for the reasons I explained in my letter of fifteen years ago."

Dursley swallows a few times, then speaks in a gruff voice. "What about it?" he says. "Gave him a roof over his head, didn't we? And never saw a penny for it, either."

"You did provide him shelter," says the Headmaster. "And with food and clothing. After a manner of speaking." He adjusts his spectacles. "But we will not address those particular offenses just now. I am rather more concerned with the fact that two days ago Harry returned to school in an even poorer state of health than usual after spending a summer in your home. In addition to the fatigue and under-nourishment we have regretfully come to expect, he had a number of unusual injuries and a rather peculiar explanation for how he came by them. Can you guess what he told us?"

Dursley is rigid now. "I don't care what the boy told you. He's a filthy little liar."

"Is he?" says Dumbledore calmly. "Well, that is possible, I suppose. But as the matter is in some doubt, perhaps we ought to determine the truth of it. Now, let me see..."

Snape watches in rapt fascination as Dumbledore lifts his wand and draws, with the tip, a circle in the air an arm's length away from him, some inches over his head. Murmuring to himself in a language Snape does not recognize, Dumbledore concentrates on the circle until a pillar of smoky light shoots up suddenly from the floor, like a column of boiling water encased in glass.

Dursley gasps, his hands clutching convulsively at the arm of the sofa.

Snape looks from Dumbledore, to the column, where the mist is beginning to resolve in the form of shadowy figures: two people, moving about inside a room—this room, perhaps. They look like the reel of an old Muggle film in the grey and black palette of their rendering, and, though their faces are not yet distinct, he recognizes Dursley's rotund silhouette, and the smaller, slighter shape of a young boy, hard at work polishing a piece of furniture—the coffee table that even now sits to the left of him, Snape realizes.

Snape watches closely until the stooped figure glances up—it is Potter after all, suddenly very still, a look on his face that speaks at once of anger, resignation, and fear. The reasons for this become clear a moment later when a large hand descends on the boy's shoulder and seizes him, spinning him around. It is Dursley, leaning over the mute figure of Potter, and though there is no sound to be heard, it is plain from the older man's gestures and expressions that he is shouting at the boy, who at first seems to make no answer back, then lifts his hands defensively, indicating the table behind him. He has no sooner dropped his hands again than Dursley has lifted one of his own, bringing the back of it down heavily against the side of the boy's face, sending his glasses flying and the rest of him crashing to the floor, narrowly missing the sharp corner of the table.

One look at Dumbledore confirms his suspicions; the Headmaster's features appear to have been carved from stone. He lifts his wand again and the image passes away, to be replaced by others, moving faster now. Hundreds of scenes of daily life in the Dursley house pass before their eyes in the next few minutes, most of them involving Potter and his uncle, though the aunt and cousin occasionally come into view. Most of them ending in some kind of petty violence that the boy does not defend himself from.

"How is this possible?" he says quietly to Dumbledore.

"Very basic sympathetic magic," says the Headmaster, expressionless. "Harry has cared for this house, more so than any of its other inhabitants, and the house has, in turn, come to care for him. I merely invited it to speak; this is what it had to say."

Snape looks over at Dursley, who is no longer purple, but pale, and sweating. A variety of expressions play across his face; fear, alarm, and a trace of honest confusion that Snape understands when he speaks next.

"You're making this up," Dursley whispers. "It's some kind of trick. I never—I may have disciplined the boy, but I didn't—I wouldn't have—"

Dumbledore waits until the last of the images have faded from view, then with a third flick of his wand, the pillar dissolves into so much smoke, sucked from the room by a breeze from the open window. All three men sit in silence for a moment, before Dumbledore speaks again.

"In the interests of fairness, Mr Dursley, I believe I must acknowledge myself partially to blame for these events." Snape whirls on the Headmaster, an outraged exclamation on the tip of his tongue, but Dumbledore lifts a hand to silence him, without taking his eyes from Dursley. "Being Muggles, you were naturally unprepared for some of the particular challenges of raising a wizard child. You would not have known how to control Harry's outbursts of accidental magic, for instance—though as I understand it, most of those outbursts occurred whilst attempting to defend himself from various members of your family." Dumbledore's voice grew, if possible, a shade cooler. "I had hoped that Petunia's experience growing up with Lily would help her in these situations, but perhaps I presumed too much. In any case, we will never know whether assistance from the magical world would have benefitted you or not, as I did not offer any. I had my reasons, but I expect they would mean little to you.

"Nonetheless," Dumbledore says, just as it looks as though Dursley is on the verge of relaxing somewhat, "there is no excuse for what you have done to Harry. I refer both to the gross physical injuries you inflicted upon him this summer, as well all the lesser cruelties he has endured at your hands over the years."

Dursley is sliding by inches to the far side of the couch closest to the patio door, all the while muttering phrases under his breath that no one can quite hear, such as "out of context" and "exaggerated."

"It may interest you to know that when I told Harry I intended to pay you a visit this evening, he specifically requested that I not use magic against you, or harm you in any other way. You might think on this, and consider how much you have wronged him. A lesser person need only have stepped aside and allowed me to do my worst. You may believe," Dumbledore gives a wintry smile, "that I was prepared to do it."

Dursley's face, which had been reddening again, turns abruptly so white that Snape wonders how much longer he will cling to terrified consciousness.

"In return for this consideration, which gives me some pain, and which you yourself know you hardly deserve, I am offering you a chance to make—partial—amends to your nephew."

"What do you mean, amends?" Dursley demands instantly. Not even his own keen sense of self-preservation seems able to restrain his outrage.

Dumbledore nods, as though Dursley has just agreed to something. "Harry will return once more to your house this summer, for the two months preceding his birthday. He will return in the company of another wizard, to whom you will extend your hospitality—"

Dursley's reaction is sudden, violent enough that Snape's fingers twitch around the handle of his wand, though he does not step out from behind the Headmaster's chair.

"I'll do no such bloody thing!" he roars. "Every time one of you lot come near my family, someone ends up with a tail, or fireplaces explode—I won't have it! I'll turn the boy out first, and the devil can take him!"

Dumbledore has opened his mouth to speak again, but Snape raises his wand first. It feels good, like scratching an itch one has had to ignore for hours. Dursley goes quite rigid at the sight of it, and is quiet long enough for the Headmaster to begin talking again.

"You will not turn Harry out," he says in a voice of quiet but absolute authority. "Not if you wish to remain a free man. Or a living one."

Dursley stares at him, and even Snape gives Dumbledore a quick look. "Are you threatening me?" he whispers.

"Merely acquainting you with facts," Dumbledore answers calmly. "There are those who would kill you without a thought because of your connection to Harry. The magical pact which your wife sealed in receiving Harry into your home has kept you and your family safe from them, no less than Harry himself. It is likely you would be nearly as safe inside a Muggle prison, but between the two I believe I can guess which one you would prefer.

"Well! We will regard that matter as settled then." Dumbledore comes to his feet, smiling broadly and ignoring the trembling Muggle who stands pale and sweating across from him. "Now, Severus, is there anything you wish to add?"

Dumbledore turns an expectant look upon him, and Dursley jerks as though he had forgotten Snape's presence.

The words are out of Snape's mouth before he is aware he has begun to speak them. "I want to see the cupboard." He seeks out Dursley's eyes, watches them widen. "The one where you kept him."

Dursley stares at him, looking as much confused as wary. Dumbledore, however, does not blink.

"Very well," says the Headmaster. "I am sure that Mr Dursley can direct you there. I myself will take some air in the garden. You will find me there when you have finished, Severus."

Dumbledore meets his eyes for a brief moment before turning towards the front door. And though Legilimency does not really work that way, though Snape is sufficiently accomplished an Occlumens to be immune from such casual invasions, he divines the meaning behind that look as clearly as though Dumbledore had spoken aloud. No permanent damage, Severus, it says. I did promise Harry, after all.

Then Dumbledore is gone, and Snape is alone with Dursley, who takes one look at him then shoots to his feet as though anticipating attack.

As though Snape would ever let him see it coming.

"The cupboard," Snape repeats in a low growl. "If you please."

Sweat begins to drip down the man's face. "Why do you want to see that?"

It is a fair question. Snape is not sure himself. Morbid curiosity, perhaps? He has seen it so many times inside Potter's mind that maybe he merely wishes to compare the reality against the boy's perceptions.

Whatever the answer, he feel no inclination to explain himself to this Muggle, so he replies merely by giving a cool smile and tightening his grip on his wand. The man's eyes bulge slightly and he scurries from the room towards the staircase. Snape follows.

The cupboard door is narrow and not tall. Snape would have to stoop quite low to fit through. Potter, on the other hand, has always been small for his age; Snape wonders for an instant whether they had starved him for that very purpose.

"Open it," he says, and Dursley produces a key, although he nearly drops it before managing to fit it in the lock.

The cupboard holds mostly cleaning supplies now. Mops, brooms, buckets, jugs and cans of corrosive cleaners crowd the view, but Snape perceives signs former habitation, if only because he is looking for them. There is a moldy looking grey flannel blanket wadded into one corner, and beside it a tiny heap of broken playthings—a yo-yo with no string, toy soldiers missing heads and limbs. A child's drawing of a flying motorcycle, looking as though it has been wadded up and smoothed out again, is still taped to one wall.

Snape stands there, staring for a long moment. It is Dursley's voice, of all things, that pulls him from his reverie.

"What is it you teach?" says the man, in an almost normal voice.

Snape glances at him, then looks back into the cupboard again. "Potions."

Dursley grunts. "The boy's mentioned you."

Snape does look at the man then, unable to conceal his surprise. "Has he?" he says.

Dursley jerks his head in a nod. "First summer he came back from that place," he says. "Said you'd take it out of him if we didn't let him do his homework."

Snape's mouth twitches, but he does not smile. Not here.

"Look here, Professor—er—Snape—you teach the boy. You have to know he's a troublemaker."

Dursley's tone is strangely affable, almost chummy, as though with Dumbledore gone he feels himself to be in friendlier company.

"What of it?" Snape says shortly, more uncomfortable in the knowledge that he and Dursley might be in any way agreed than he has been yet since arriving in Surrey.

Dursley throws a quick glance over his shoulder, as though afraid Dumbledore might be near enough to listen. Then he leans in slightly. "So—all I mean is—if I've been hard on him, it was for his own good. Boys need a firm hand, you know—and that one was born to be the curse of anyone who comes near him."

Snape turns slowly away from the open cupboard and looks down on the other man. He allows a few seconds for Dursley to register the several inches of difference in their heights before speaking.

"Dursley, I do not care if Potter pissed in your flowerbeds and set your curtains afire. There is no justification for what you have done to him." And then the dam breaks, and all the frustration he was unable to vent upon Potter or Dumbledore comes out as he snarls down on the shorter man. "You stupid Muggle—you have no idea how much depends on the boy—your ignorance may mean the death of thousands, the destruction of—" He cuts himself off, panting, suddenly aware that he may already have said too much. "You had him in your care from infancy," he adds derisively. "Who is to blame for his flaws, if not you?"

Dursley straightens then, a little of the furious pride that had met them at the door seeming to return to him. "All you bloody freaks stick together," he mutters. "I should have known."

It is suddenly too much. Snape's hand shoots out of its own accord, bunching in the man's collar. He shoves Dursley against the wall opposite the cupboard, and jabs the point of his wand into the man's thick neck with a snarl.

"I would kill you now," he says, "if Potter did not have further need of you. Be warned. I have done worse for less cause, and I have not the Headmaster's...prudence."

He releases his grip on Dursley's collar, then takes a step back. Dursley remains standing as though pinned against the wall, afraid to move.

Snape turns to go, then stops and looks back over his shoulder for one last glance inside the cupboard. Then he stops, and stoops, and picks up a toy soldier with a missing arm.

Dropping it in his pocket, he turns and stalks from the hall, in search of the Headmaster.

Dumbledore greets him in the Dursley's front garden with an inquiring look, but Snape says nothing as they make their way back to Arabella Figg's house, and the Headmaster, thankfully, does not press him. Dumbledore is first through the floo, giving the direction as "the hospital wing, Hogwarts," and after a moment's indecision, Snape follows him to the same location.

He hears Potter's voice the moment he steps out upon the hearth, shaking the soot from his Muggle clothing. He takes a moment to end the Transfiguration and restore his robes to their former state, listening to the conversation behind him as he does so.

"I'm fine, Headmaster, really," the boy is saying. "I don't need to stay the night."

Snape spins on his heel to find Potter struggling to sit up in bed, Madam Pomfrey to one side of him, trying to push him back down again. The Headmaster stands at the foot of the bed looking slightly amused.

"Potter," Snape drawls, catching the attention of all three. "Two hours ago you were insisting you didn't need treatment at all. You can hardly expect anyone to take you seriously regarding your state of health after that."

Potter flushes—then, incredibly, grins. "It's all right, sir, I don't expect you ever take me seriously." Then he turns back to Madam Pomfrey, missing, Snape hopes, the startled look he cannot quite prevent passing over his features. "I mean it, though. I feel fine."

Snape rolls his eyes. Madam Pomfrey opens her mouth to speak, but before she manages to do so he has taken three long strides and arrived at Potter's bedside. Potter, Pomfrey, and Dumbledore all look up at him expectantly.

Snape leans over the bed and jabs the boy lightly in his injured ribs with two fingers. Potter emits a high-pitched gasp and turns white, his hands bunching in the bedclothes.

"An overnight stay, I believe you said?" Snape addresses the question to Madam Pomfrey, even as he smirks down at the top of the boy's head.

"At least," she nods, her mouth twisted in a strange combined expression of disapproval and amusement. "I don't allow anyone to leave the hospital wing with Skele-Grow in their system, it's not safe."

"There you have it, Harry," says Dumbledore, speaking for the first time. "I am afraid that you have been over-ruled. Do not be cast down, it happens to the best of us. Now, I am afraid that I have business to attend to elsewhere in the castle. Professor Snape, however, can answer any questions you may have as regards our—" his eyes flicker briefly from Potter to Madam Pomfrey, who arches an eyebrow, "business of this afternoon."

Snape takes an automatic step back. "Headmaster, I have my own work—"

"Nothing you could see to before dinner begins, Severus. You might as well spend the next few minutes here as anywhere." He arches a quelling eyebrows in Snape's direction, then turns away, effectively cutting off any further protest. "Harry, I am glad to see you so well mended. I trust you will abide by Madam Pomfrey's instructions until you are fully recovered. You are welcome to come see me later, if you still have questions after your interview with Professor Snape. I will be in touch with you shortly in any case."

With a nod to Harry, a bow to Madam Pomfrey, and a hand clasped to Snape's shoulder in passing, he sweeps from the hospital wing. The doors open for him automatically, and shut behind him with a resounding thud.

"Drink this in half an hour," Madam Pomfrey is saying to Potter when Snape turns his attention back to the sickbed, "and call me, or send Severus, if you begin to feel lightheaded. I wouldn't leave you, but I'm overrun with a case of dragonpox in the Hufflepuff girl's dormitory." She tucks Potter's blankets in around him, as though hoping to secure him to the bed by doing so, and brushes past Snape with a low murmur of, "do watch him, won't you?" that Snape has no opportunity to reply to.

Potter speaks when they are alone. "Sorry, Professor," he mutters, looking down at his hands.

Snape arches an eyebrow, though he knows it will not be seen. "For which of the afternoon's manifold inconveniences are you apologizing?"

"Getting stuck with me here. I wouldn't want to hang around either." Potter darts a glance toward the doors, as they swing shut in Madam Pomfrey's wake.

"It is you who are stuck, Potter. I do not plan to linger, I assure you." Belying his own words, Snape summons a chair from the side of an empty bed across the room. It lands with a faint clatter to the right of him, and he seats himself stiffly. "Ask your questions, and be quick about it."

Potter pushes himself upright in the bed with a wince. Nearly all the bruising is gone from his face and neck, and the cut over his eye has healed to a clean pink line. "Right. Um. So...Professor Dumbledore went to see my aunt and uncle?"

"The Headmaster and I visited your relatives' home in Surrey, yes," Snape corrects him dryly.

Potter blinks at him several times. "You—you went too? But why?"

"The Headmaster requested I accompany him," says Snape, carefully skirting the edge of the truth, "and I went for that reason, none other."

"Oh." Is it Snape's imagination, or does Potter seem embarrassed? "So what did my aunt and uncle say when you got there?"

"Honestly, Potter," Snape huffs. "Do you really require an answer to that question? You know your relatives, how do you think your uncle reacted when two wizards appeared on his doorstep?"

"Oh. Right. Good point." Potter looks still more abashed. He turns his head, avoiding Snape's eye. "I'm sorry if he was horrible to you."

"The fact that you are currently drugged to your eyeballs still does not excuse the utter inanity of apologizing for the man who—did this to you." He waves a hand to encompass Potter's many injuries; the boy flushes slightly. "At any rate, we spoke only with your uncle. Your aunt and cousin were not at home."

"What did you say, then?"

"I said very little," says Snape, unprepared to recount the brief conversation he'd had with Dursley outside the cupboard. "The Headmaster, however, confronted your uncle with incontrovertible proof of his crimes against you, and promised him a gruesome death by dismemberment if he touched you again."

Potter's eyebrows make a slow ascent into his hairline. "Dismemberment? Professor Dumbledore?"

Snape waves his hand again, negligently. "Well, perhaps the dismemberment was merely implied. The other, however, was not. It was pointed out to Vernon Dursley that he and his family have benefitted no less than you from the wards that protect you while you live there. And while it has always been Dumbledore's intention to offer his family assistance and protection when you turn seventeen, it hardly needs saying that if they abandon you before time, no such assistance will be forthcoming."

"So that's—that's all? You went all the way to Surrey just to tell him he had to take me back next summer?" At Snape's look, Potter shrugs. "You might have saved yourself the trip, that's all—he never said he wouldn't."

"Surely you aren't sulking?" Snape says, arching an eyebrow ."You were the one who insisted you not be removed from your uncle's care in the first place."

"Of course I'm not!" Potter says, nearly shouting, and for the first time since that afternoon he begins to look angry rather than merely abashed. "I never wanted anyone talking to him in the first place, if you remember, sir. I don't whine about things I know can't be helped."

Snape takes a long moment to regard the boy in the bed across from him. He prefers Potter like this, defiant and bristling, rather than vulnerable and cowed. Still, there is an underlying fragility to the boy's air that disturbs him; he wants to expose it, long enough at least to see whether it can be mended or patched. This is for his own sake, as much as for the boy or anyone else. He is tired of walking on eggshells around Potter, tired of pulling all his punches. The sooner the boy is on his feet again, the sooner Snape can return to his favorite hobby of cutting him down to size.

When he speaks again it is in measured and carefully neutral tones.

"It is very important to you," he says, "that no one should be under the impression that you think you deserve—anything."

"What? That's—I never said that." Potter's confusion is stronger than his impatience this time.

"But you did," says Snape smoothly. "Perhaps without meaning to, but then you are so woefully transparent even at the best of times...I wonder what you think it will gain you? This ruthless emotional parsimony of yours."

"I wonder why in the world you would be interested, Professor," says Potter through gritted teeth.

"It is my privilege to analyze my students without reference to their comfort," Snape informs him loftily. "And in your case, working out your motivations may be key to apprehending you before you can put your next suicidal stunt into practice."

He meets Potter's gaze and does not look away, though for a few moments he is tempted; there is a hardness in the boy's eyes that does not belong in the gaze of any teenager.

"Can I ask you a question, sir?" says Potter, then goes on without waiting for an answer. "If you'd never heard the prophecy, would you have let me go when I first asked you to, without bringing Dumbledore and all the rest into it?"

"If not for the prophecy, and the role that you play in it," Snape informs him in his driest tones, "the Headmaster would never have assumed responsibility for your fate when you were an infant, and you would undoubtedly have grown up a proper little princeling in a proper wizarding household—in which dearly-to-be-wished-for case, the events leading up to this entire scenario would have vanished in the resultant vortex of shifting chances and causalities. In other words, Potter—no. But it is a useless question. You might as well ask what I would have done if the earth were flat or the sun rose in the west."

Throughout this speech he keeps his eyes trained on the ceiling over their heads, an intentional gesture on his part, at once meant to suggest that to look at the source of such stupidity would be beyond even his strength, and to save Snape the necessity of watching Potter's features either dissolve into a rictus of agony, or go blank with incomprehension, or harden even further. He doesn't want to see any of that. He doesn't want to become any more attuned to the nuances of the boy's emotional drama than he has already done. It is an uncomfortable place to be, and he doesn't wish to reside there any longer, Dumbledore's orders or wishes be damned.

But the intolerable fact of the matter is that he is attuned to the boy, could hardly be otherwise, closely as he has watched him for the last six years. And for this reason, he knows that there is another question behind the one Potter seems to be asking; furthermore, he knows that the hidden question is the real one, the important one. It is the same question Snape would have asked Dumbledore himself during a different era in his life, if he had dared to do so. But he never had dared, and it seems Potter will not either. Another shared legacy of shared childhood griefs, no doubt.

"I was surprised to discover myself famous in your relatives' home," Snape adds, purposefully switching the topic to one that will throw Potter off-balance. "Vernon Dursley recognized me, apparently from your description."

Potter does not deny this. "Thought it might put him in a good mood," he says, the corner of his mouth curving in an expression that might be either a small smile or a faint sneer. "I thought he'd like knowing there were wizards who hated me as much as he did." His smile slips away, his eyes growing distant. "Was wrong about that, as it turned out. That was definitely the worst summer of my entire life."

"Which summer was that?" Snape asks, before he can get the better of his curiosity.

"Before second year. My first summer back from school. They weren't going to let me go back to Hogwarts, you know." Potter blinks, still looking at nothing. "Locked me in my room and fit bars over the windows. Nearly stopped feeding me altogether. I reckon I'd still be there if they'd had their way."

Snape quells the immediate outrage this information provokes and thinks back to the summer in question. "That was the year you and Weasley arrived at Hogwarts in a flying Ford Anglia."

"Yeah," Potter mutters, seeming to slip a little further beneath the blankets. "That was a really stupid idea, but when I couldn't get onto the platform at King's Cross, I panicked, you know? I'd spent the whole summer wondering if—if Hogwarts, and me being a wizard and all of that was just a dream. That summer really was a bit like a bad dream—you know the kind, where you really want to get somewhere, but stuff keeps happening to keep you away..."

"I do know," Snape mutters, almost to himself, willing himself not to think of the number of times he has visited Godric's Hollow in his dreams just in time to warn Lily she had been betrayed.

"Bet it gave Uncle Vernon a turn, you showing up on his doorstep," says Potter, a gleam appearing in his eyes.

"I rather think it did, but why would you say so?"

"Well, if he remembered what I said about you, he'd know you were—er. Not someone to mess with, that's all." Potter manages to look faintly abashed.

"Oh?" Snape arches an eyebrow.

"Well, I was eleven, and you were about the scariest person I'd ever met." Another bitter smile. "These days I have a little more perspective."

No doubt. Snape eyes the boy critically. "Do you still think that of me?"

"What, sir?"

"That I am a man like your uncle."

He expects a blush, a nervous sort of backpedaling. Potter is frequently insolent, but he is not often blatantly insulting. He does not expect the furious glare of outrage he sees in place of a blush.

"How can you even ask me that?" Potter demands. "I just told you, Professor, I was a kid at the time. I'm not eleven anymore, I know better than to think you're a bad person just because you hate me. You've got loads better reasons than Uncle Vernon for not liking me, but you've never hurt me, or let anyone else hurt me if you could help it. I would never compare you to him."

It is a strangely warming sort of benediction, considering the source. Potter has averted his gaze again, and though neither he nor Snape can seem to think of anything to say in reply to it, the silence between them is not precisely uncomfortable.

He is oddly conscious of the boy's unspoken question of a few moments before, and whether it is the fault of the enforced intimacy of the events of the afternoon or something inside him unbending in response to Potter's olive branch, he does not know; but it seems important to him suddenly to make some answer to it. He cannot know, after all, what sort of difference it would have made to him if Dumbledore had ever done the same for him at his age. Maybe none.

Maybe all the difference in the world.

"How long have you known about the prophecy, Potter?" he asks, when the silence has winded along for another minute.

Potter looks up at him in surprise. "Dumbledore—Professor Dumbledore told me about it after—after the fight at the Ministry."

Snape looks at him consideringly. "Time enough for the full import of the thing to sink in, would you say?"

Potter shrugs.

"Then I confess that I find your lack of rebellion rather remarkable for a young man under a death sentence."

Potter lifts his chin, a stubborn, determined, and strangely adult look coming over his face that Snape cannot help but note with some admiration.

"It's not a death sentence," he says. "Dumbledore doesn't think it is, anyway, and I reckon he'd know better than anyone. I always knew Voldemort was going to keep after at me until he'd finished me off, that's been obvious since that night in the graveyard. The only difference the prophecy makes is that now I know I might have a chance to finish him off instead." A grim note enters his voice. "Or take him with me, anyway."

"And you're quite resigned to that, are you?" Snape says in some disbelief.

"Like I said, sir, I don't whine over things that can't be helped. I know that I've got a shot now, and that's more than I had before."

If it were anyone but Potter speaking, Snape would find all this noble resignation rather suspect; but if the years of their acquaintance have proven anything it is that Harry Potter is nothing if not pathetically sincere. And after all, knowing what he does now about the boy's upbringing, is it so remarkable he should value his life so cheaply? Who has ever taught him the value of it?

"I wonder, if your sense of duty is really so keen, how you justify exposing yourself to the continued risk of your uncle's violence." Snape is careful to speak neutrally, without accusation. "Surely you must have realized that if he had killed you, all our best hopes of victory would have died with you?"

"He wouldn't have killed me—"

"He ran you down with his car, Potter! For a joke, that's all your life is to him! Is it no more than that to you?"

He looks away, but Snape cannot let it rest there, not until he can see in the boy's eyes that his meaning has penetrated. Snape stands and walks over to the side of the bed; Potter looks up at him, a little wary, and Snape bends down until his nose is mere inches from the boy's face. He speaks in a low, intense voice, filled with an urgency that he himself hardly recognizes.

"I don't suppose you happened to glance into a mirror before applying that glamor, did you Potter?" They are so close together that the fringe over the boy's forehead stirs with Snape's breath. "Do you have any idea what you looked like? Two of your ribs were broken; you were already beginning to run a fever. Had I not apprehended you in your pretense, you would have died of blood poisoning; one more week, and you would have been beyond all aid. That is how close he came to killing you, that is how ably you assisted him in the attempt."

He straightens again, his eyes never leaving Potter's face. Snape nearly regrets the harshness of his words; the boy is pale, dangerously so. Snape glances from the clock over the door to the fireplace behind him; when had Pomfrey said she meant to return?

Snape sits in his chair again, on the edge this time, elbows propped on his knees, fingers steepled together. "Let me put this to you another way. Suppose it were one of your classmates. Suppose it were Miss Granger. What would you say to her if she were in this situation? If she behaved as you have done?"

"That's different," says Potter immediately, two furious spots of color high on his cheekbones. "I'm different. I always have been."

"That is mere arrogance," Snape tells him easily. "You are born to a remarkable fate, I grant you, but you are no less deserving of the privileges of safety and consideration that most people enjoy. Indeed, you may have a better right, because you know enough not to take them for granted."

Potter's color is a little better now, and there is look of sardonic amusement in his eyes that Snape cannot help but feel bodes him no good. "Let me get this straight, Professor," he says. "You—you—are telling me that I deserve to—to be safe and happy. You're telling me this?"

Snape replies by glowering at him. "I have already confessed myself to have been...laboring under a misapprehension once this afternoon. Is it your desire that I abase myself entirely?"

The ironic look on Potter's face gives way to honest confusion. Snape huffs impatiently and looks away. He sits, drumming his fingers against his knees, then gets to his feet and paces the length of the room twice. He comes to a stop beside his empty chair, and stands with his back to Potter, facing the doorway.

He recognizes the necessity of what he is about to say, but he wants to be able to make a quick exit afterwards.

"Very well," he says, gripping the back of the chair, then turning on his heel to face Potter again. The boy has grown pale once more, and his eyes are wide and apprehensive.

Snape take a step closer to the bed and gazes down at him.

"Listen to me carefully, Potter: I will say this only once, and if you repeat it to anyone I will call you a liar. There is nothing wrong with you. The fact that you have a valuable role to play in this war does not mean you have no value of your own. You asked me what I would have done today if there were no prophecy. I say that I would have not have done anything differently. If the Dark Lord were dead, and all his followers fled to the farthest corners of the earth, your safety would still be a matter of import to me. For as long as you continue to be noble, insufferable, and reckless, I will protect you to the best of my ability. I have my reasons for this, and they are none of your business. That is all I have to say on the matter, so it had better be enough for your delicate Gryffindor sensibilities."

Snape resists the temptation to turn and leave without waiting for Potter's reply, but a dim sense of courtesy—and curiosity, too—keeps him where he is. Potter is sitting straight up in the bed, white as the sheets he is clutching in his hands.

Potter's eyes are wide and bright. "Professor. I..."

And then anything more he may have intended to say is lost, as his eyes roll back in his head and he slumps, unconscious, back onto the pillows.

Snape stands for an instant, frozen in shock. Then he leaps forward and seizes the boy's hand where it has fallen limp at his side.

"Potter!" he shouts into the boy's ear. "Potter, wake up, damn you!" He presses his fingers to the inside of Potter's wrist; there is a pulse there, but it is thin and thready.

Swearing under his breath, Snape dashes to the fireplace, seizing a handful of Floo powder and flinging it into the flames.

"Hufflepuff common room," he shouts, and disappears.

The first thing Harry Potter sees when he opens his eyes is an ample bosom in starched white robes hovering a few inches above his face, as the figure attached to it presses a hand to his forehead and mutters to itself in a low voice. It sounds so irritated that, if not for the anatomical discrepancy, he would immediately have suspected Snape. Only if it was Snape leaning over my bed, there'd probably be a pillow over my nose and mouth, he thinks, and is surprised by the stab of guilt that follows immediately on the heels of that thought.

That's not right, he realizes, closing his eyes again as the sleepy fog cushioning his brain begins to dissolve and a hundred sharp, bright, hurtful memories from the afternoon rush back into his consciousness, making him long for the restful darkness of sleep again. Snape's not...Snape anymore.

Tired and muzzy as he is, Harry can easily imagine what Snape would say in reply if he were to make the mistake of voicing a thought like that out loud. But how else to say it? For six years now, he'd thought he'd known a man called Snape: cruel, incapable of sympathy, or kindness—towards Harry, at least. Whereas now...

Of all the people Harry would have preferred to learn the truth of what had happened to him at the Dusleys, Snape was definitely last on the list. Not even Voldemort was as far down it as Snape. Voldemort, after all, didn't see him in class three times a week, and Harry didn't have to call Voldemort 'sir' and be respectful no matter what vicious things he said to him.

But then, if Harry had known yesterday that Snape would find out, he would have imagined a very different kind of reaction from him than the one he had got. He would have expected mockery and contempt, or at least a drawling observation in the style of Draco Malfoy: I do feel so sorry for those people whose home lives are as pathetic as their performance in my classroom...

But it hadn't gone like that at all. Far from dismissing him with a gibe or a sneer, Snape had dragged the whole story out of him in excruciating detail. Unwillingly, Harry remembers how Snape had looked as he listened to Harry talk about his life with the Dursleys—how the same eyes that had so often gazed at him with loathing or malice had widened in horror, then narrowed in fury, all in the space of a few seconds before their expression grew once more shuttered and impenetrable. The way Snape had looked during those first few unguarded moments had reminded Harry of nothing so much as how Sirius had looked that night two years ago, when he'd seen the gash Wormtail had cut into Harry's arm—not just angry, but outraged that someone had hurt him.

And he had healed him. Harry hadn't realized how much pain he was in until Snape's salves and balms began to do their work and he'd felt the muscles in his arms unclench for the first time in weeks. Snape actually touching him without recoiling in disgust was another thing Harry never thought he'd ever see, but Snape hadn't betrayed any distaste or hesitation; he'd been brisk, businesslike, but very careful not to cause him any more pain. He'd done such a good job, in fact, that Madam Pomfrey hadn't done more than raise an eyebrow at Harry when he arrived in the hospital wing—he'd told her he'd fallen off his broom, a story she never would have accepted if she'd seen what he looked like an hour before.

And then, afterwards...Snape had returned with Dumbledore to see him after visiting with Uncle Vernon—what Harry wouldn't give to have been a fly on the wall during that conversation—and Snape had stayed after Dumbledore left to talk to him. Harry remembers that much, but he'd gone more than a bit fuzzy towards the end of that conversation, and now he can't recall what they had been talking about. This bothers Harry—he has the dim notion that it had been important, whatever Snape had been saying to him, but somehow he doubts Snape would repeat it if he asked him.

I should really thank him, Harry thinks, feeling another odd stab of pain in his chest. If he's even still here. I guess I could go to his office, if he's left already—only he told me last year never to set foot there again. Maybe I should go anyway, give him an excuse to hex me good and proper—he'd probably enjoy that more than a thank-you note...

Harry opens his eyes again and blinks from behind his glasses, contemplating his position. The white-robed figure, which his now-fully-awake brain has identified as Madam Pomfrey, is still leaning over to him in such a way that if he moves at all, he'll be earning himself a slap. He opens his mouth to speak instead, finding his mouth dry and his tongue thick.

"Whuh—whuzz happening?" he manages, after swallowing a few times.

At the sound of his voice, Madam Pomfrey straightens immediately, much to Harry's relief. She takes a step back and begins to scowl down at him, tapping her finger against the rim of an empty potions vial as she does so.

"'What's happening', Mr Potter," she begins, in a lecturing tone, "is what is bound to happen when you ignore my instructions after ingesting several volatile and highly reactive potions." Her nostrils flare in irritation. "Exactly what part of 'drink this in half an hour' was too complicated for you to understand? As much time as you have spent in my care since you came to this school, I should have thought I could rely on your common sense by now."

Harry hasn't got the time to do more than blush in response to this—he doesn't remember Madam Pomfrey telling him to drink anything, but he's not about to admit he wasn't paying attention—when a second voice, speaking from the other side of the room, preempts him.

"You're mistaken, Poppy, if you believe Potter ever uses what sense he does possess for his own benefit," Snape drawls. "He is far too noble to waste that meager commodity on himself. He keeps it in reserve for when people need rescuing."

That's practically a compliment, for Snape, Harry thinks wonderingly to himself, even as Madam Pomfrey turns on her heel, hands flying to her hips. Now that she is no longer blocking the view, Harry can see Snape leaning against the opposite wall of the infirmary, slightly hunched, his arms crossed over his chest.

"That's enough of your cheek, Severus Snape," Madam Pomfrey tells him, and at her chastising tone Snape suddenly looks younger than Harry has ever thought of him as being. "I notice you didn't bother to remind him, and it's not as though you had just taken a full dose of my strongest pain-relieving draught."

Harry finds himself tensing automatically for the explosion that is sure to follow; but to his amazement, Snape does not lash out. Instead, he nods, and when he speaks his voice is quite calm.

"You are perfectly right, Madam," he says. "I apologize for my carelessness."

There is a tone of such weariness in Snape's voice that Harry immediately tries to prop himself up on his elbow for a better look at the man, but Madam Pomfrey rounds on him instantly.

"Oh no you don't," she says, placing her palm flat against his chest and pushing him back down again. "You will remain horizontal, or you will suffer my displeasure. I trust," she adds, addressing Snape again, "that you will see to it, this time."

"I cannot linger," Snape says, stepping away from the wall and squaring his shoulders. "But I spotted Miss Granger hovering outside the door a moment ago, and I'm certain she can be relied upon to enforce your edicts."

"Hermione?" Harry says, and, unthinkingly, attempts to sit up again, only to be thwarted a second time by the increasingly irritable matron.

"Lie still, or I'll send them packing," she says in a voice of low warning.

"Miss Granger, Mr Weasley, and Miss Lovegood are yet outside in any case, Potter," says Snape. "I'll send them in to you on my way out. If that is acceptable?" he adds, with a glance at Madam Pomfrey.

She nods. "But for no more than ten minutes."

"I will inform Miss Granger," Snape says, and without another word or backwards glance he sweeps out through the tall double doors. Harry cranes his neck from his pillow to watch him go, a strange, sinking feeling in his chest.

So that was it, then. Nothing more, no sign or indication from his teacher to indicate that anything that had happened in the last few hours had changed things between them. Harry knows it's stupid of him to feel bad about that, so he tells himself it's just the potions, making him sleepy, making him think and feel things he ordinarily wouldn't.

He lies there quietly a moment longer, before he hears whispering and muffled footsteps approaching his bed. He shuts his eyes—until Ron's voice, coming from a few feet away, startles them open again.

"Merlin's pants, Harry," he says, in a wondering voice. "What'd Snape do to you?"

Harry restrains a groan and keeps his eyes trained on the ceiling. He had forgotten how it would look to his friends, him disappearing into Snape's office for hours, only to turn up in the hospital wing afterwards. And now he'll have to set them straight, which will mean telling them what really happened. This is not a conversation he is looking forward to.

"Oh, don't be stupid," says Hermione immediately, for which Harry could have kissed her, as it saves him the trouble of saying it himself. "Of course it wasn't Snape—was it, Harry?" she adds, a bit uncertainly.

"But he was fine!" Ron says, rounding on her, before Harry has a chance to answer. "And now he's in the hospital wing! Who else could it have been?"

So far, they've been standing a few feet back, too far away for Harry to see them without sitting up or craning his neck uncomfortably. But then Luna walks away from them, up to the edge of Harry's bed. She angles a hip onto the mattress and perches there lightly. Harry meets her eyes.

"I don't think you were," she says quietly. "Fine before, that is. Were you?"

Harry blinks up at her, less in surprise than in recognition of her sad, knowing look. Of course, he thinks. Of course Luna would realize before anyone. She knows more, sees more clearly than anybody Harry has ever known—except for Snape, maybe.

"No," he admits, keeping his eyes on Luna, ignoring Ron and Hermione's gazes. "No, I wasn't fine."

A rustling noise, and then Ron and Hermione are standing over him as well. "What do you mean?" Ron demands. "Who blacked your eye then, if not Snape?"

Most of Harry's bruises are gone now, including the ones around his neck. But Snape hadn't healed the black eye, and neither had Madam Pomfrey—she had told him, when he asked, that it wasn't safe to use magic there when his eyes were already weak.

"I got it over the summer," he tells Ron. "I just kept it hidden."

"What," says Ron, sounding faintly scandalized, "with—makeup, or something?"

"A glamor," says Harry and Hermione at the same time. Harry looks inquiringly at her, and she blushes.

"I could tell it was there," she says, sounding apologetic. "I'm sorry, but it wasn't a very good glamor, Harry. I just thought you were—well, hiding a spot, or something."

"Right," says Harry, flushing. Ron, however, still looks incredulous, as though, in his opinion, glamors are barely a step up from makeup.

"Where'd you learn to do a glamor?" he demands.

"Those Defense books Sirius and Remus gave me last Christmas," says Harry. "There was a whole section on magical concealment and disguise."

As always, mention of Sirius' name automatically dampens the tension in the room. Nobody seems to want to be the first to speak afterwards. The four of them sit in silence for a moment, and Harry is grateful for it, though he knows that any second now the conversation is going to take a turn in the direction he least wants it to.

Predictably enough, it is Hermione who brings it up, a curious look of mingled resolution and hesitation on her face. Her voice, when she speaks, is quiet, tentative.

"Those bruises..." she says. "Was it—did your uncle do it, Harry? Did he—hit you?"

In a way, it is a relief to simply be able to reply to a question, instead of having to come up with a way of saying it on his own. "Yeah, he did," he says, in the least emotional, most matter-of-fact tone he can muster. Then he glances over at Luna again, who hasn't said anything for a minute or two. She meets his eyes and gives him a smile that is somehow both sad and encouraging.

A moment of silence follows—then Ron swears loudly, and kicks the empty chair where Snape had been sitting a few hours before. It topples over and skitters across the smooth stone floor.

"Keep it down, Ron," Hermione hisses. "Madam Pomfrey will have us out!"

But Ron doesn't seem to notice her. "So that's what all that 'I've got to do my Potions essays, I don't have time for Quidditch' rubbish was about this summer," he says, his face growing red. "You were too sore to sit a broom!"

"Pretty much," Harry admits stiffly. "And on that subject, when I came down here, I told Madam Pomfrey I got hurt falling off my broom, so if anyone asks you're to back me up, all right?"

Ron opens his mouth to answer, but Hermione, looking worried, breaks in first.

"Harry," she says, biting her lower lip. "I know it's not—not an easy thing to talk about. But I really don't think you ought to lie about this. You simply can't go back to the Dursleys anymore. People will have to know."

"They know already," Harry tells her, glad that they won't have to argue about this—one more thing to be grateful to Snape for. "Dumbledore does, at least. Snape...made me tell him."

"What d'you mean, Snape?" says Ron immediately, eyes bulging. "What does Snape know about it?" Harry has no difficulty in hearing the question Ron isn't asking: You mean you told Snape, but not us?

"I had to tell him, Ron, I didn't have a choice," he says shortly.

There is a look of dawning comprehension in Hermione's eyes. "Of course," she says, looking from Harry, to Luna, and then to Ron. "That's why Snape made you stay after class today, isn't it? He figured it out?"

"Sort of," says Harry. "He saw the glamor too—apparently I'm pants at them," he adds, with a wry smile.

"What happened?" says Hermione, sounding strangely fascinated. Even Ron looks curious, if angry still. Luna alone merely looks attentive.

"He stripped the glamor off me, that's all," says Harry, shrugging. "He was—actually pretty decent about it. Insulted me a fair bit, but he healed a lot of the damage so I wouldn't have to go to Madam Pomfrey looking like I'd been run over by the Hogwarts Express."

Ron could not have looked any more stunned if Harry had just announced his intention to nominate Snape for an Order of Merlin, First Class.

"I imagine Professor Snape was very angry with your uncle," says Luna, into the silence that follows.

Harry looks at her curiously, but before he can say, "How did you know?" Ron's snort has cut him off.

"Why's that?" says Ron, looking at Luna as though she had been in the middle of telling a joke and left off before delivering the punch line. "Because someone stole his favorite punching bag?"

"No," says Luna, giving Ron a strangely cool look. "Because protecting Harry is Professor Snape's job."

At that, Harry, Ron, and Hermione all turn identical looks of consternation on Luna, who seems a bit surprised at their apparent incomprehension.

"He saved Harry from Voldemort in his first year," she begins to explain in a patient voice. "And he came to help him when he thought Sirius Black was going to kill him. He followed Harry everywhere during the Tri-Wizard Tournament. And I saw his face when Umbridge slapped you that time in her office last year," she says, turning again to Harry. "He looked quite furious, I expect he would have hexed her if all the Slytherins in the Inquisitorial Squad hadn't been watching."

Even more silence follows on the heels of this remark. Then Ron gives a sharp burst of laughter that sounds less amused than derisive.

"That git landed on Harry with both feet the first day he ever met him," Ron tells her. "And he's never missed a chance since then to run him down or make his life more difficult. Does that sound like the kind of thing you do to someone you care about?"

"No, perhaps not," says Luna, sounding rather unconcerned. "But Harry does end up in danger rather a lot, and I imagine Professor Snape is very often quite worried about him. It's no wonder he's a bit cranky."

Hermione is beginning to look as though she's 's just discovered a chapter she skipped by accident in her Arithmancy textbook, but Ron just stares at Luna for a moment, then shakes his head a little pityingly. "Look, Luna, no offense," he says. "But Snape being...nice to Harry—well, that's got as much chance of happening as someone spotting one of those Blibbering Humdingers you're always going on about."

"That's enough, Ron," says Harry at once, the words coming out a bit more snappishly than he meant them to. He doesn't like it when people twit Luna about her strange beliefs; and besides, what Luna's saying...well, it makes sense, actually. A dim recollection stirs in Harry's mind—of something Snape told him, something he can't quite remember clearly: I will protect you...I have my own reasons...

"Sorry," Ron mutters apologetically, addressing the comment generally to Harry and Luna, as well as Hermione, who is glaring at him.

A moment later, though, she leaves off glaring and turns her attention back to Harry. Her hand finds his lying on the bed beside him and tightens on his wrist.

"How are you, Harry?" she says, her voice quiet and serious. "Really, I mean, not just physically."

He catches her fingers and gives a squeeze back, as much in gratitude for the gesture as to assure her that yes, he really was all right.

"I'm fine, honestly," he says, trying to match her serious tone, knowing she will mistrust any display of false cheer. "Summers have always been miserable—this one wasn't really all that different. I'm here now, that's all I care about. And Dumbledore's fixed things so next summer will be better—so really, this is about the best thing that could have happened."

Hermione's expression softens slightly, though she still looks a little unconvinced. She has no time to question him further, however, as in the next moment Madam Pomfrey swoops down on them from her office, making shooing gestures with her hands.

"Ten minutes are up," she tells them. "Out, now, all of you. Potter's got bones to mend."

"What?" The tips of Ron's ears are glowing red with indignation as he whirls on Harry. "He—you broke bones?"

"Two ribs, and they won't heal with chattering. Off you go." Madam Pomfrey gives one final glare around the room, then returns to her office.

"It's fine, Ron, really," Harry tells him. "I'll be out of here in time for classes tomorrow."

Luna reaches out and presses her hand lightly against Harry's; he smiles at her, and she slides off the edge of his bed. Hermione bends down and kisses his cheek, then turns for the door, only giving him a brief glimpse of her rather watery smile. Harry looks at Ron, expecting him to follow—but after the girls are out of the room, Ron stands there for a moment, frowning fiercely.

"You should have told us," he says flatly. "If I'd have known—you know Dad would have sorted those Muggles out in about two seconds flat—"

"I do know," says Harry quietly, interrupting him. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you, I just—I was enjoying being away from there finally, I didn't want to think about the Dursleys while I was at the Burrow. And besides," he says, grinning a little, "I knew your mum would have a fit."

"No joke," says Ron fervently. "Mum would've gone ballistic. Forget Dad, she'd have sorted your uncle out in about half a second. Without a wand."

Harry can easily picture this. "There's no point telling her now, though, all right?" says Harry. "She'd just get upset for nothing."

Harry expects Ron to agree immediately—after all, he's never eager to provide his mother with fuel for her famous tirades—but instead, Ron frowns at him again, looking for a moment strangely like Hermione.

"You weren't just saying all that to get Hermione off your back, were you?" he asks. "About telling Dumbledore, I mean."

"No, he knows all about it," Harry assures him. "He's already been to Surrey and back to talk to my uncle. Snape went with him, too, which is a little weird, but I reckon if anyone deserves Snape in a temper it's my uncle."

"Blimey." Ron looks impressed by this, in spite of himself. "Would've liked to have seen that. From a safe distance, mind."

"Me too," Harry grins.

Just then, they hear Madam Pomfrey's voice, trilling through her open office door.

"Mr Weasley," she calls, "I am not opposed to throwing you out of my infirmary by force."

"Right," says Ron, stepping back from the bed. "Well. I'll see you at breakfast, I guess?"

"Yeah, I'll be out of here by then," Harry assures him. "See you."

"Hope you feel better," Ron says, ducking through the double doors that lead to the corridor, just as Madam Pomfrey emerges from her office.

"This just came through the floo in my office," she says, approaching Harry's bed and extending an envelope towards him. Probably from Dumbledore, he said he'd be in touch later, he thinks, and waits until Madam Pomfrey leaves before examining it.

It is a plain parchment envelope, with his full name written across the front, and it feels bulky, as though it contains more than just paper. Harry rips the envelope open and turns it upside down. Two items fall out of it onto his bed: first, a toy soldier about three inches high, made of dark green plastic, with one arm broken off—and second, a folded letter covered on both sides in dense black writing.

Harry ignores the letter for a moment to snatch the soldier up and stare at it in bewilderment. He knows what it is, of course: you could buy about a hundred of them in a plastic bag for dirt cheap in Muggle groceries. Dudley had played with them he was little—and so had Harry, actually, having fished a handful of broken ones out of the rubbish and hidden them under his bed where he'd kept that odd torch that never seemed to need new batteries. Several of his soldiers had looked just like this one—Dudley always seemed to snap off the arm holding the tiny plastic gun, maybe because it stuck out at an angle and he was always mowing them down with his huge, heavy model tank. But none of that explains what a cheap, broken Muggle toy is doing in an envelope that must have been sent by a witch or wizard, having come through the floo. It is, quite possibly, the first thing Harry has ever seen at Hogwarts that was made from plastic.

Harry stares at the soldier a moment longer, then sets it aside and picks up the letter that accompanied it. As soon as he has unfolded it, he recognizes the cramped, spiky black writing that covers the parchment—though he has never before seen it outside the margins of his Potions essays. His heart begins to beat a little faster as he starts to read.

Potter, it begins.

With your usual efficiency, you managed to waste nearly an hour of my time in conversation this evening without ever once coming near the point of the exercise, which was to acquaint you with the new arrangements the Headmaster has made for your accommodations over the summer holiday. As you are presently unconscious, and, so Madam Pomfrey informs me, unlikely to wake for some time, I thought it expedient to put this information into writing. You can then show it to Miss Granger, who will no doubt be able to define all the words over three syllables for your benefit.

Bemused, Harry looks back over the paragraph. Exactly which word does Snape think he'll need help understanding, 'accomodations'? Honestly, what a wanker. Just because he doesn't drop big words into conversation all the time just to show how smart he is... I'll just have to write him back, Harry thinks. With a dictionary. The smug git...

He looks back down at the letter. The handwriting has grown, if possible, even less legible than before.

The Headmaster has decided, in accordance with the unfathomable wish you expressed this afternoon, that you will return to your relatives' home this summer as usual. You will, however, be accompanied by an adult member of the Order, whose presence, it is to be hoped, will deter your uncle from...further criminality. Vernon Dursley's cooperation in this venture has been secured.

Cooperation? Uncle Vernon? Harry reads that last sentence over again. I'd like to know how they managed that...

The Headmaster has yet to decide which person will accompany you to Surrey. I am not eligible for the task myself, and I can only guess who he does have in mind—your werewolf friend, perhaps, or one of the elder Weasley spawn. As it seems to me that your duenna is more likely to be chosen for bonhomie than for sheer efficacy as a bodyguard, I have instituted an additional precautionary measure in the hopes of keeping you a little longer in the land of the living.

The item I have enclosed with this letter is a device modified from a standard Portkey. To activate it, you must tap it three times with your wand, then say Porti ____, filling the blank with the name of your location. Do not trouble yourself by attempting to give the noun its proper Latin declension; I have made allowances for your deficiencies in that area, and the Portkey should respond to the English name just as well. If you manage the incantation properly, it will alert me, wherever I am at the time, and give me a means of reaching you more or less instantly. I need hardly tell you that the Portkey is only to be used in case of an absolute emergency, when or if your then-current guardian is utterly incapacitated and both or either of you is in mortal peril. Nonetheless, you are to use it if you have need—if I hear afterwards of an instance in which you ought to have called me and failed to do so, I will make you regret it. Assuming you are not dead.

Tell anyone about the Portkey, and you will become acquainted with regret earlier still. Burn this letter and scatter the ashes. Keep the Portkey with you at all times, and likewise your Invisibility Cloak.

S. Snape

Harry stares at the signature for a moment, half expecting the letters to rearrange themselves and spell out a taunt along the lines of something the Marauders' Map would say if the wrong person tried to read it: Mr Snivellus presents his compliments to Mr Potter and would beg to inquire whether he was really daft enough to fall for such an obvious trick... But the writing does not alter, at least not until his vision goes blurry from not blinking.

Harry is vaguely conscious that if he had received this letter two days ago, or at any point before the end of Potions today, he would have been furious. Snape has practically outdone himself, insulting him on average once per line—but all of that is overshadowed by the last paragraph, and the small green plastic figure he is clutching in his right hand.

He uncurls his fingers and takes a closer look at the toy soldier. Suddenly, his breath stills in his throat. Then, slowly, as though the soldier (or rather, the hope that is growing in Harry with each second) might break, he turns it over and looks at the underside of the soldier's left boot.

A small "H" is written there in permanent black ink, clear and unfaded even after more than five years.

So few things had ever really belonged to him before he came to Hogwarts that he had become rather attached to what he did have—and so, as though it would be enough to keep the Dursleys from taking it away from him if they had discovered it, Harry had written his name on every water stained book, every broken toy fished out of the rubbish he'd ever got his hands on. Of course, there wasn't room for his full name on any of the little soldiers in his collection, but Harry can still remember sitting on the bed in his cupboard, marking them all with his initial by the never-ending light of the torch.

It doesn't mean anything, really. Only that this is not merely like one of Harry's soldiers; it is one of Harry's soldiers. And somehow—it had ended up in Snape's hands.

Snape was at the Dursleys, Harry realizes suddenly, feeling a bit stunned. He must have seen my cupboard. No, not just seen it—if he found this, he must have been inside it. But why? Uncle Vernon never would have wanted to show him that, not when he was already so angry—unless Snape made him...

Harry lies back on his pillow for a long time, turning the broken toy soldier—now reborn as a Portkey—over and over in his hands. He lies there until the light under the door in Madam Pomfrey's office is extinguished and the lights in the ward automatically dim to three-quarters brightness.

He sets the soldier aside, then, and closes his eyes. Sleep, however, does not come, despite the many soporific potions he has ingested over the course of the evening. His head is simply too full of too many confusing thoughts to let go any of them just yet.

After about an hour of this he gives up, opens his eyes, takes a quick look round the infirmary to be certain Madam Pomfrey isn't going to swoop down on him the moment he sits up straight in bed. Satisfied that he is alone, Harry reaches for his school bag, lying on the floor beside his bed, and extracts his quill, parchment, and a bottle of ink.

Smoothing the parchment out on his Potions textbook, Harry dips the nib of his quill into the ink, and scratches out the first line.

Dear Professor Snape...

Harry grins to himself. He has several dozen words of four syllables or more to think up before he can write the letter properly. If that won't put him to sleep, he doesn't know what will.