“Thank Merlin it’s Saturday,” Ron says, heaping a final mound of scrambled eggs onto his plate. “I woke up and thought it was Monday, and I started panicking over all the homework I hadn’t done.”

“I noticed,” Harry says dryly. “I think the whole dormitory did.”

“Yeah,” Ron agrees, completely unembarrassed. He stuffs the last bite into his mouth, cheeks bulging like a chipmunk. “Feel like a round of chess, Harry?”

“I would think you’d feel like doing your homework,” Hermione says crisply, buttering a piece of toast. “I don’t put much store in Divination, as you well know, but I can see what happened today repeating tomorrow.”

“Well, it’s not Monday yet,” Ron says comfortably. “How about a game, Harry?”

Hermione rolls her eyes before going back to a long strip of parchment. She keeps scratching away at it while the Great Hall clears out and Ron takes out his chess board.

“This is the first normal thing I’ve done in ages,” Harry says happily, surveying the board.

Ron and Hermione exchange a small smile. Harry, preoccupied with setting up his pieces, doesn’t notice. Nor does he think to ask why Ron already had his chess set with him.

Harry loses the first game, and they declare the second game a draw. Ron stretches and yawns, craning his head to look at Hermione’s parchment. “Who’s this epic for, then? Not Krum?”

“No,” Hermione says, blushing faintly before snatching the paper away from him. “Today happens to be Dad’s birthday, and I’m sending him a note, if you don’t mind.” She bundles up the parchment and trots off to the Owlery.

“I’ve forgotten when Dad’s birthday is,” Ron murmurs absently, watching Hermione as she flounces off. “Someone’s always turning up a year older in my family.”

Harry says nothing, putting the chess pieces back into the box. The subject of fathers has nothing to do with him.

Ron has Quidditch practice, and despite his pestering Harry declines to come along. It would just be too depressing, and anyway, he really should start on his piles of homework. He gathers up his things and heads for the library, feeling unaccountably gloomy. As he turns the corner, he hears two voices, a high-pitched trembling one and a much lower drawl. Harry can’t hear what Snape is saying, but it must be poisonous, because the kid starts crying and still Snape hisses quietly into his ear. Finally the boy dashes off, wiping his eyes hastily as he spies Harry.

“What was that all about?” Harry asks, crossing his arms over his chest.

Snape straightens up, waving his hand indifferently. “Hufflepuff.”

“First year. Why was he crying?”

“It isn’t hard to do.” Snape strides toward Harry, not speaking again until he has cast a Silencing bubble around them.

"How is your arm today?"

"Okay. Hermione thinks it might scar."

"Does she need more murtlap?"

"No. Ron dug up a big mess of it."

"Fine," Snape says. He studies Harry with a guarded expression. “Is something wrong, Potter?”

“No,” Harry says, folding his arms over his chest. “Why?”

“Something about your expression.”

Harry frowns. “I’m fine, and I have homework to do, so—”

“I’m sure you do, but I have a more interesting idea,” Snape drawls. “I’d like to show you something.”

Harry’s heartbeat quickens inside of him. He's learned to hate surprises. "What is it?"

"Let's call it Switzerland."

And with that strange reply, Snape sweeps past Harry, down several flights of stairs, and into the Potions classroom. Harry, nonplussed, follows, and watches as Snape fiddles with a jar on a shelf. He's handling it in such an odd way—the rows of bottled newt eyes disappear, and there is simply a deep, blank doorway. And then Snape dips into the chasm of darkness, his footsteps immediately disappearing.

Harry looks dumbly in front of him. But before he can properly make up his mind, the doorway starts to shrink. Harry jumps up and runs over to the dwindling opening, just squeezing through before it disappears. And then he is enshrouded in darkness that smells like candle wax. The darkness is so silent and complete that there is nothing to do but hold himself steady and wait for his eyes to adjust. Harry’s patience is rewarded as a doorway takes shape a few feet away, coming into focus like an inkblot dripping onto a page. The door opens of its own accord, and so Harry steps through it. There isn't much to see, just a couple of chairs, a table and a sofa.

Then things get brighter—someone has magically lit the smudged oil lamps that dot the room. Harry shivers as he looks around. There aren’t any windows, but now he does spot a couple of doors leading off from the main room.

"Can you guess where I have brought you, Potter?"

Harry turns around and faces his teacher, who has materialized out of nowhere, perhaps for effect. "I have an idea."

"These are my quarters."

“Oh.”

Snape rocks back and forth on his heels. "And have you sorted out why I have brought you here?"

"You said something about Switzerland."

"Switzerland tends to be neutral in times of war."

"And you think your rooms are neutral?"

"You and I have never spent any time here together.”

"So?"

"You were correct in stating that my office holds no pleasant recollections for you, Potter. After our conversation the other night, I got the idea of providing us a place without—without memories. I could think of no other feasible spot at Hogwarts."

"A place without memories," Harry repeats, turning the phrase over in his mouth.

"Yes," Snape says. A long pause follows. "You're free to leave, of course. I just thought it might be refreshing to fight with you under a different ceiling. Forgive my stupidity."

"Give me a second to get used to the idea," Harry says, flustered. "How would you like it if I brought you to the Gryffindor common room?"

"James already thought of that, years ago. He hexed the Fat Lady so I couldn't escape."

Harry winces. He hates hearing these things about his father.

“So,” Snape says, his voice curiously flat. “What do you think of my Switzerland?”

Harry shifts from foot to foot. He glances back at the door behind him. “What if someone finds us down here?”

“Meaning?”

"Is—is it against the rules for a professor to bring a student to his private rooms?" Harry ventures. "I mean, if someone saw us here alone—they might think it—improper."

Snape's eyebrows shoot up. He looks at Harry with no little surprise and strides across the room, moving faster than Harry would have thought possible. His voice is very low when he speaks.

"What exactly are you insinuating, Potter?"

"N-nothing," Harry says, fighting the urge to take a step backwards.

"I didn't bring you here to do anything improper," Snape says, placing heavy emphasis on the word. "What do you expect me to do that is improper?"

"I only meant," Harry starts, reasonably enough, "that if someone saw us alone together in your rooms, they might think you had—um—not the best of intentions. Murder, for example. Or—well. Other things.”

"Just because you have her eyes," Snape hisses, "does not mean that I cannot differentiate between the two of you."

Now Harry does take a step back, shaken by the intensity of Snape’s gaze. "I'm not—I'm not accusing you of anything— I'm just saying—”

"I know what you are saying," Snape growls, steamrolling over Harry. "James accused me of being improper too. He saw me alone with Lily our fourth year.” He glares at Harry, daring him to fill in the blanks.

“What exactly do youthink would happen if a professor saw me here?” Harry asks. “You think they'd throw you a parade? Or hex you before you hexed me?"

“Perhaps they would think you had snuck down here to attack me,” Snape snarls. “Or am I always to be cast as the villain?”

“If the shoe fits,” Harry snaps, not feeling charitable. “You have a reputation when it comes to me, Snape. For, like, evil doings.”

“Reputation is an idle and most false imposition.”

Harry heaves a frustrated sigh. “Never mind. Okay? Just forget it. It doesn’t matter.”

"It does matter,” Snape growls, looking more infuriated by the second. Then he takes several deliberate steps back from Harry. "I'm not planning anything improper.”

“Good,” Harry says flippantly. He runs a hand through his hair, making it stand up every which way.

Snape folds his arms over his chest. “You know,” he says in deadly tones, “sometimes you really do remind me of James.”

Harry feels something snap inside of him. “Do you think for ONE BLOODY DAY you could shut up about my dad?”

Snape’s eyebrows shoot so far back they almost disappear beneath his hair. The color rises into his pale cheeks, and he takes an angry step towards Harry. And of course, someone chooses that very moment to rap on the door leading to Snape’s quarters. Both of them freeze. A strange looks passes over Snape’s face—like a child caught with his hand in the cookie jar—and then everything happens at once. The person knocks again—and Snape grabs Harry by the arm, drags him across the room, throws open one of the other doors, and shoves him inside. Then Snape’s footsteps fade away, and his low grumble of a voice greets the visitor, and Harry is left completely alone.

And so, of course, he immediately tries the door. It’s won’t open. Harry frowns, the lines etching into his face. He really does get locked up with alarming frequency.

Harry forces himself to step back from the door. He knows he can’t blast it open or use an unlocking charm—not while Snape has an unknown visitor. Instead he lights his wand, intent on examining his surroundings. He is in a tiny room chock to the brim with shelves of bottled potions. It smells astringent, like vinegar. Probably this is where Snape keeps the stuff he doesn’t want his students to touch.

There is, of course, no place to sit. This room—storage space—is not meant for inhabitation. So Harry carefully sits on the ground, clutching his wand so hard his knuckles turn white. If he were a little younger, being locked in here might terrify him. And if he were a little older, it might fill him with scorn. But Harry is neither young nor old, and so he just sits tensely, his heart thudding as he waits for Snape. He can hear the man speaking, and another, higher voice. After a few minutes, the door closes and the alien voice fades away.

Good. Now Snape will come get him.

But nobody comes and lets him out. Harry twists his wand, wondering if he dare use it. But what if Snape’s visitor comes back?

What if Snape has left him here to rot?

Just when Harry has reached the peak of his bewilderment—and perhaps the peak of his fury—the doorknob turns.

“I apologize for the accommodations,” Snape says quietly, sweeping open the door. “I know being in close proximity to so many potions must be your worst nightmare.”

Harry pushes past Snape and into the main room, which now seems positively cavernous by comparison.

“That was Professor McGonagall,” Snape announces. “She is one of the few people in Hogwarts who has access my quarters. Can you guess what she wished to speak to me about?”

“No.”

“You, of course,” Snape drawls. “She told me to stop giving you detention. Neither the first time nor the last we will have that conversation, to be sure.”

Harry says nothing.

“That was a fairly ridiculous reaction on my part,” Snape calmly adds. His anger from before seems to have dissipated. “You would have been just as safe hidden in one of the bedrooms, and rather more comfortable, I dare say.”

“You didn’t need to lock the door,” Harry says, barely containing his fury. “I would have stayed until you came and got me.”

“I know that,” Snape says. “The spell I cast was to keep others out.”

“The door wouldn’t open.”

“Yes, it wouldn’t have opened for anybody but me, that was the whole point of the spell, now wasn’t it? A simple precaution, Potter. Entirely unwarranted, since I strongly doubt Minerva wanted to hex you. Me, perhaps, but not you.”

It is a joke, but neither one of them smile.

“You were angry at me,” Harry hisses. “You were angry because of what I said about you being improper and you wanted to get back at me and so you locked me in there.”

“After the Room of Requirement, I would not wish imprisonment on anybody but my worst enemy, Potter.”

“You left me in there. Even after McGonagall went, you left me in there for ages.”

“It was not so very long.”

“Four minutes,” Harry says, voice rising. “Four minutes and thirty three seconds, you great stupid git.”

“Do not call me that!”

“I will if you act like one!”

“Did you not notice how angry I was?” Snape demands. “I was furious with your—your implications, even after Minerva left. So I left you where you were safe from me as well as the rest of the world for four bloody minutes and thirty three seconds. Apparently that’s how long it takes to get my temper under control.” He glares at Harry. “And it takes you less than a minute to make it flare up again.”

Harry glares right back at him. “And you couldn’t have let me out and then cooled off?”

“I do not trust my temper around you,” Snape hisses. “Haven’t you figured that out yet, Potter?”

“Then you’re useless,” Harry says fiercely. “You haul off and slap me once—and then you just give up? You think it’s better to leave me locked up then to deal with me?”

“For Merlin’s sake, I thought I was doing the right thing!” Snape explodes.

“Well, you were wrong,” Harry says heatedly. “I’d much rather be out here fighting with you than in there alone.”

At that Snape pauses. Then he sighs. “Point taken.”

“Now,” Harry says grumpily, sitting on the sofa. “What were we fighting about, anyway?”

“Your presence in my quarters,” Snape says dryly. “Congratulations, Potter, you’ve been proven right. Apparently it is rather dangerous for you to be here.” He narrows his eyes. “Minerva might have accused me of impropriety, after all.”

Harry squints up at his professor. “Actually I think I’m tired of fighting about that.”

“Fine,” Snape says in a hard voice. Then he takes a deep breath, and says, much more naturally, “Minerva also wanted to know if I had seen Dumbledore. He appears to have disappeared since your meeting with him.”

“That’s not my fault.”

“Did I say it was?”

“That’s what you were thinking.”

“I beg to disagree.” Snape glides across the room, sitting in the armchair across from the sofa. He waves his wand and a cup of tea materializes in his left hand. He takes a sip, his dark eyes thoughtful.

“What are you thinking about?” Harry demands.

“I’m considering the implications of your previous accusation. You thought I locked you up to punish you.”

Harry should have expected this. “That’s not quite what I said.”

“You said I was angry and wanted to ‘get back’ at you and so I locked you up.”

“So?”

“I just find it interesting, Potter, that your assign me the same punitive motivations as your uncle.”

“Oh, come on,” Harry growls. “You’ve spent the last five years trying to find reasons to punish me. I don’t think Uncle Vernon has a lock on that.”

“I never punished you by doing that.”

“Well goody good for you,” Harry says fiercely. “You bullied me and my friends in a billion other ways.”

“So you are saying your words have nothing to do with your uncle? You really thought I would lock you up to hurt you?”

“I don’t know,” Harry snaps. “What would you think if I shoved you in a closet and locked the door?” He pauses, going in for the kill. “You didn’t take well to imprisonment before. Remember?”

Snape flinches. Then he schools his expression and leans forward. “Explain this away, then. Why did you think I blamed you for Dumbledore’s disappearance?”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“Your uncle often blamed you when things went wrong, even when it had nothing to do with you.”

“Yeah, and?”

“And,” Snape drawls, “I wonder why you thought I would blame you for Dumbledore’s disappearance, when that has nothing to do with you either.”

“Nothing to do with me? I destroyed his picture of Ariana!”

“Ah,” Snape says, cocking his head. “Interesting.”

“It isn’t,” Harry says. “And you used to blame me for things that weren’t my fault, you know. I’ve got about a hundred examples.”

Snape puts his cup of tea down with a clatter. “So, tell me, Potter, is there any way in which I do not resemble your uncle?”

“Yeah,” Harry says, studying the ground. “You don’t hate me.”

“No,” Snape says quietly. Then he sighs. “You know, sometimes I think I’ve only ever hated one person in my life.”

“Voldemort?”

“James.”

“Voldemort killed Lily, Snape!”

“Yes,” Snape says. “But James took her away from me.”

“He didn’t kill her!”

“That doesn’t mean he wasn’t monstrous,” Snape says, eyes hooded.

“He was a boy,” Harry argues, a lump in his throat. “You were just boys who didn’t get on.”

“Yes,” Snape says softly. “That’s all it was.”

“And you think I’m the one who can’t move past my childhood?”

“I think the child is the father of the man,” Snape says somberly. “And sometimes that child turns tyrant.”

“Well, I’m alright,” Harry says stonily. “Your potions closet reminded me of my cupboard, okay, but I’m not freaking out about it. I’m not huddled in a corner sobbing.”

“No,” Snape says. “You looked cranky more than anything when I opened the door.”

“And so what if it did upset me a little?” Harry continues. “Maybe I’ll always have a thing about small dark places that smell like cleaning solutions. So what? How often is that going to happen to me?”

“You mean besides today?”

“Yeah.”

“It is a weakness that could be exploited by the Dark Lord.”

“If Voldemort ever locks me in a cupboard, I think I’ll have worse things to worry about,” Harry says heavily. “And you have the same weakness, I think, for being locked up.”

“I know,” Snape says. “I have been thinking about the best way to combat that. I do not want the Dark Lord to realize I now dread imprisonment.”

“Any ideas?”

“Yes,” Snape says. “But none palatable or feasible.”

“Don’t lock yourself up,” Harry says suddenly. “It doesn’t help you get over it.”

“You sound as though you speak from experience.”

“I locked myself in once. Didn’t—didn’t work.” Harry takes a deep breath. “You just need a vision—like mine. Like the flying one that I showed you.”

“Did you use that today?”

“No,” Harry admits. “I was too busy counting the seconds until you let me out.”

“Alright,” Snape inclines his head. “I will try and think of a calming vision. It sounds rather like Occlumency.”

“No,” Harry says. “You don’t want to clear your mind. You want to fill it—fill it with something special.”

“I see. Thank you for the idea, Potter.”

“You’re welcome,” Harry says, a trifle uneasily. He’s entirely unused to Snape thanking him.

“Something still seems amiss with you,” Snape says, tapping a long finger on the arm of his chair. “What is it?”

Harry shrugs.

“Is Umbridge giving you trouble?”

“No.”

“Are things alright with your friends?”

“Yes.”

“Are you worried about Dumbledore’s disappearance?”

“Not really.”

Snape huffs. “I’m not going to keep questioning you.”

“Good.”

Barely two seconds elapse before Snape asks another question. “What do you suppose lies at the other side of silence, Potter?”

“I don’t know.”

“George Eliot called it a roar.”

“Good for him.”

“Her.”

A long silence follows. Perhaps Snape is waiting for a roar, but Harry will have none of it. “You act like we have only two options,” Harry points out. “Either I say nothing at all and keep it all bottled up inside, or I start yelling and never stop, like some kind of nutcase. You always act like there’s no middle ground.”

“Perhaps you should prove me wrong, then.”

Harry glowers at Snape, feeling like he’s been tricked. “Fine, but you have to show me middle ground in return.”

Snape bows his head in agreement.

“It’s about my dad.”

Snape winces, ever so slightly. “I will do my best to produce an appropriate reaction.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

Harry eyes him skeptically but plunges in anyway. “Today is Mr. Granger’s birthday and Hermione went off to mail him a card, and Ron said he sort of forgot when his dad’s birthday is, because he has the luxury of forgetting it, you know—and—and—and I don’t even know when my dad’s birthday is!”

Snape looks at him, his black eyes glittering. “I see.”

“Do you know when it was?” Harry asks, staring firmly at the table. “The date, I mean?”

“No.”

Harry tries not to feel disappointed. “Yeah. Why would you know? Forget it.”

“I’m sure Black and Lupin know.”

“I don’t care who tells me,” Harry mutters. “I just want to know.”

“Now?”

“Yes,” Harry says, the urge suddenly enormous. “Now, Snape. Find out now. Can you?”

“Yes.”

Snape gets up and snaps his fingers. Immediately, a small house-elf appears.

“Go to the library and fetch me the ledger of Hogwarts students from 1971. Quickly, Tappy. And you are forbidden to tell anyone you saw Potter here.”

The elf bows and pops away.

Harry stands up, suddenly filled with energy. He paces the room, a weird ball of nerves inside of him. The wait seems interminable until Tappy returns.

Snape takes the dusty ledger and dismisses the elf. He expertly pages through the book until he finds what he is looking for. “James was born on March 27, 1960.”

Harry sinks onto the sofa, absorbing this, already hoarding it like a precious gem.

“Why did you never ask anyone before, Potter? Surely someone would have told you.”

“I didn’t want to.”

“I see.”

Harry is quiet, stolen into his own thoughts, when a small pop announces the return of Tappy.

“Please, sir,” the creature squeaks. “Madam Pince is wanting her book back.”

“Of course,” Snape drawls. He closes the ledger with a snap and hands it to the elf.

“Wait,” Harry says, panicked. “What about my mum’s birthday?”

“Oh,” Snape says quietly, “I don’t need to consult a book to tell you that.”

The elf bows and disappears with the ledger.

“So,” Harry says. “March 27, 1960.” He swallows. “Um, thanks.”

Snape ignores this. “It appears I am older than your father by about three months. Fascinating.”

“Now you’re fourteen years and three months older than him,” Harry says somberly, his mind flashing back to his young dead father, eyes wide open in shock.

Snape looks down, frowning. “That is an odd thought.”

Harry stores his father’s birthday away in his head, hidden until he can savor it by himself. “You know,” he says, casting about for a different subject, “you weren’t kidding about this place being neutral. There’s nothing out here, really, that hints this place belongs to you.”

“Oh,” Snape says, “that is because I keep all the important things hidden.” He smirks. “It will not surprise you to learn that I also have habits held over from childhood.”

Like hating my father, Harry thinks. Out loud, he says, “Like what?”

“What do you think an ill-tempered Muggle father does when he finds his child doing magic?”

“Oh,” Harry says, understanding now. “The same thing his uncle does, I suppose.”

“Yes,” Snape says, closing his eyes. “I learned to hide magic at an early age. And Lily—I kept Lily away from him too. Tobias never met her.”

“That was probably a good idea.”

“And you, Potter,” Snape says. “My first impulse today when Minerva rapped on the door was to hide you away.” He stares right at Harry. “Curious, that.”

“Yeah,” Harry says. “Curious.”

And suddenly he doesn’t mind so much that Snape locked him up.