Aug. 13, continued

He has got to be kidding me. . . .

---

Flashback.

"Than now. Harry, I'm going to petition the Ministry to give me custody of you, until you come of age."

"You have got to be kidding me."

"In no way. You obviously require the proper guidance any young man does, and more. Your . . . guardians have failed you in the past. I will not do so."

"Really." Harry folded his arms over his chest. He'd just turned sixteen - while he was at Topsham, actually, not that he'd realized it until a couple days ago - and that would mean a whole year of being Snape's ward. He shuddered at the very idea. "And what makes you think I want a guardian at all? Or even better, that I want you?" Snape raised an eyebrow, which just chewed Harry's cheese. "Quit that!

Snape's voice was silky smooth as he quirked his eyebrow higher. "We could make a trade."

"Oh, yeah, like I'm gonna let you be my guardian so you can teach me eyebrow tricks? Do you think I'm stupid? Wait, don't answer that."

"Points, Mr. Potter, for use of two blacklisted words." Harry scowled, even as Snape added, "And no, I don't think you're stupid. Just . . . ill prepared."

"Ill prepared for what?" he asked, deciding to ignore the almost compliment and go for sating his curiosity instead.

"For life."

Harry snorted a laugh. "Probably just as well, considering."

"Excuse me?"

"Well, I'm not likely to live past the ripe old age of . . . well, however old I am the next time me and What's His Name meet." If he was flip about Voldemort's name, he didn't have to think about the monster very closely, which was better all around.

"I have no intention of seeing you sent to the grave by that encounter. I will prepare you for that, as well."

"Uh huh. Have you heard the prophecy?"

"Parts of it," Snape admitted, but he looked very uncomfortable.

Harry leaned across the table. This was new. "Really? Did Dumbledore tell you?"

"Not exactly."

"Well then?"

Snape sighed and folded his hands together on the table. He looked Harry in the eyes and Harry saw sadness and a touch of apprehension? there. "I want there to be no lies between us. I will tell you something now that will upset you, I have no doubt. But I would rather we speak about it now, than you learn the truth from someone else. I am not proud of what I did, and I . . . I truly regret what resulted from . . . Well." He looked away for a long moment, and Harry held his breath.

"I overheard Sybil's prophecy. When it was first made. But only the first part, which was why the Dark Lord was so anxious to hear the rest."

Oh my god.

"You . . . YOU told him? You're the one who gave him the prophecy?" Harry voice had almost reached screeching proportions.

"Harry, I-"

"SHUT UP! You dare talk to me about protecting me and being my guardian, and you're the one who got my parents killed?!" Harry was trembling in rage, and he heard the rattling of potion bottles and bookcases all around him as he got angrier and angrier . . .

Snape's face hardened. "It was not only I, if you'll remember. Peter Pettigrew had a fair amount to do with it, as well."

"But there wouldn't have been any secret for him to protect, if you hadn't told!"

"That's not exactly true. I admit, the Dark Lord might not have known as quickly if I had not been in the Hog's Head that day, but I imagine he would have heard it from Peter's mouth, soon enough."

"You imagine! Oh, that's a relief!"

"Potter!" Snape glared at him. "I was wrong. I admit it. The words I spoke to the Dark Lord about a prophecy I'd heard only a line or two from resulted in the death of my best friend. Don't you think I am sorry for that?"

"I don't know what you're sorry for any more. You said . . ." Angry tears came to Harry's eyes and he scrubbed at them before they could fall. "You said you want to protect me, but what happened at . . . at the manor . . . I . . . no one . . ." He gulped a breath, but it wouldn't go down right and stuck in his throat. His ears were buzzing oddly, and his face felt hot. Someone touched his hand, and he jerked it back. "Can't . . ." he gasped, still unable to get air.

"Breathe, Harry," a soft voice said, and he knew, in the abstract, that it was Snape, but he didn't care. "Come on. One breath. In. Out."

Harry wheezed a half-gasp and struggled for more. His head felt light, like he was floating. "Help . . ."

The hand took his again. This time he gripped the slender fingers and held on tight, trying desperately to breathe. "Harry, I'm here, all right? Squeeze my hand. Take a breath for me, you can do it."

On his chest lay a bag of bricks, pressing down and collapsing his lungs. So heavy. Too heavy. Snape hadn't protected him. No one had, not at Topsham. Not from Voldemort. Tears ran down his cheeks, and suddenly he was gazing into dark worried eyes. "Let me in, Harry," Snape said. "I can help."

Despite his doubts, Harry jerked a nod, and the next moment, a whispered "Legilimens," let Snape into his mind.

---

A swirl of images flash past Severus as he wades through Potter's mind, looking for a way to calm him. . . . . Harry can't see, but slashes as from an invisible whip lay open the skin on his bare chest, spraying warm blood across his hands and arms. Though he was writhing from Cruciatus already, he was trying to resist it by biting his lip, or the inside of his cheek. Both are in shreds. But the blood is too much - is the spell ripping him apart at last? - and he screams. In the dark haze of his blind agony, he realizes the feel of magic in the room has changed. Snape is awake! He can't . . . he can't know. It's not his fault! Snape must never know how much Harry is hurt, must never think it's his fault, so Harry quietens his cries and holds the ripping, tearing pain inside, as tight as he can, but he can't breathe anymore. . . .

"No!" Severus yells and pushes the memory away, only to be caught by the next . . . His odious cousin sits on his chest and punches him over and over in the face, so blood fills his mouth and nose. Three other boys hold Harry's arms down, or sit on his legs, and one of them has a handful of spiders he plans to cram down Harry's throat.

Severus has to go deeper. . . . A door slams on a little boy, leaving him in darkness with the thick, suffocating smell of spilt chemicals, of bleach and ammonia mixed together. The boy's eyes burn and he pounds on the tiny slanted door of his cupboard, pleading in a voice hoarse with coughing to please be let out. Once he is reduced to scratching at the door, his hands are bloody and he can no longer see. . . .

Shoving through the door, Severus emerges into the open air of a hallway, and then, outside at last, to a memory of sunshine on a clear autumn day. Warm puffs of air mist in front of the boy's mouth and he sucks them back in, blows them out again, laughing at the sound and sight of his own breath.

This is one of the only happy memories Severus has seen or even heard of from Potter's childhood, and he will use it to get the boy to relax and breathe. Using soft tones, and a gentle hand, he stands beside the boy and breathes with him, smiling down at a Harry perhaps seven or eight years old, laughing along at their antics, and encouraging the memory. He lets it take over the whole of the boy's mind. Breathe. In. Out. Draw the mist in . . . breathe it out.

---

It took a long time. For the span of a heartbeat or two, after he left Harry's mind, Severus was sure it had been too long, that the boy had suffered oxygen deprivation and was dead, or worse. The rational part of his brain reminded him that was impossible, that the moment Harry passed out, his panic attack would have ended and his body would have regained control of his breathing. But fear has never been rational.

After laying Harry on the couch, then dosing him with a calming draught for good measure, Severus sat by Harry's feet, and observed his face. His forehead was wrinkled in worry lines and tension even while he was sleeping. His mouth was pinched around the edges, as if he were constantly in pain.

As they had talked about several times in these rooms, life just wasn't fair.

He now knew enough about Harry's life to understand that he was not, nor had he ever been the primped up, spoiled, arrogant prick that James had been. In fact, Harry often - maybe even usually - put others' concerns above his own. Not keeping quiet in Umbridge's class for Cedric's sake. Or running to slay a basilisk because a Weasley was in danger. Even when he whinged about the unfairness of life, it was usually on behalf of others, and not himself.

Even, Severus sighed to himself, even trying to hide his pain at what was happening to him at Topsham, because he didn't want his professor to be upset.

Merlin, what a mess the two of them were.

Suddenly he realized he was looking at green eyes, watching him. The boy was breathing normally, and didn't seem to be in any pain, although the wrinkles in his forehead were still present.

"How do you feel?" Severus asked, and could have smacked himself for asking such an inane thing.

But Harry merely shrugged a little and looked away, toward the fire in the hearth.

"Tea?" When Harry shook his head sharply, Severus said, "Water then?" and received a faint, "Yes, sir, please," in reply. After he'd summoned a glass of water for the boy and let him drink, Severus set his expression to his more usual blank one. "I would like us to have that conversation again, Harry," he said. "This time, with both of us remaining present."

"Don'wanna."

Severus gave him a mock glare. "I do believe that's a triple point score."

"Maybe two," Harry allowed, with the thinnest of smiles. But Severus would take what he could get.

"Mm. Still, what we want is not always possible."

"I'm tired, Professor," Harry said.

"I know." He paused. Then, "Lily was one of my only friends in Hogwarts. I mean true friends, not just an acquaintance or one of a cohort. We knew each other before we even went to school." He smirked at Harry's surprise. "You had no way of knowing, of course, but we lived not far from each other when we were children. And yes, we were friends, and got along well at Hogwarts, too, the first couple of years, even after I was sorted into Slytherin and she into Gryffindor, even when she spent time with the Marauders," he sneered. "And even when they bullied me and pranked me and all that. I gave as good as I got, and they toned down a bit after the Shrieking Shack incident, though not much. Mostly just stopped doing it where others could see."

He could see that Harry was wrapped up in the tale, as he was himself, remembering his first few days at Hogwarts. He'd quickly realized that, as a half blood, he was never really going to fit into Slytherin, but would always be on the sidelines, watching, so he spent time with Lily, exploring the grounds, sharing excitement about their classes, and enjoying her company.

"It changed, for us, when . . . when I called her that horrid name." He held Harry's gaze until the boy nodded, once, and continued, "She thought I was too far gone to the Dark, I think, if I could say such a thing to her, and I couldn't explain to her the vagaries of school yard taunts, and how being rescued by a girl was almost worse than the prank itself But I thought she would . . . I tried to apologize . . ."

Severus broke off and realized he was staring at his hands now, the same hands which were stained from years of mixing potions and poisons, and which had once held Lily's . . . He looked back at Harry, and his voice was thick as he went on, needing to tell him the whole thing. "It was never the same after that. I joined the Death eaters. She married James. But I never once, never once thought anything I told the Dark Lord would hurt her, nor you or your father. That was never my intention."

Harry stared back at him for a long, long time, and Severus almost wished the boy would scream at him again, or throw something. He had never shared any of this with anyone but Albus, and then, only on the day he finally left the Dark Lord for good. But Harry had to know. And he was sick of lies.

Finally, the boy sighed. His green eyes brimmed with tears, and Severus ached for him, for the boy he had been, and the pain he had endured. "I believe you. And . . . and I'll think about your offer." With that, Harry shoved off the couch and went to his room, closing the door quietly behind him. The table where the journal had been was bare.

In truth, it was a better reaction than he had expected.

End Flashback

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. . . I think he must be crazy. What would he want with a fucked up kid like me anyway? Besides, he still doesn't know the rest of the prophecy. Once he does, he won't want me anyway.