Albus Dumbledore stood at the window of his office that overlooked the grounds of Hogwarts, stared at the Forbidden Forest, and tried not to give in to despair. All the signs he'd received pointed to Harry still being held by Voldemort, and yet, still alive. The only thing he could think of was that Voldemort was trying to kill Harry by other than magical means. Starvation, perhaps, or exposure. Why else would he keep the boy so long, and with no gloating pictures in the Daily Prophet -- where he practically owned the editors -- or the faintest word of boasting from any of his minions? Lucius Malfoy, for one, had been uncommonly quiet these last weeks, and it disturbed Dumbledore no end.

The Order was in fine fettle in containing many of the Dementor attacks, but they were spread thin, too thin to spare anyone to search for either of his "two boys." It was not hearing from Severus that particularly worried him. There had been no word from him, not one. Not in almost two weeks. Always, always, Severus sent word, via Patronus message or owl or something, when he was going to be gone longer than expected. And he had been gone since the day Harry disappeared.

Turning from the window, Dumbledore caught sight of the other person in his office: Minerva McGonagall. She was being terribly patient with him, considering she had her own duties to see to, and he was wasting her time by staring out of windows. But he had used the time wisely, he thought. He had come up with a plan.

"Minerva," he said as he gazed at her over the half-moons of his spectacles. "How much do you know about population dynamics?"

---

Many, many miles away, Severus Snape sat in front of a fire, in a room that was too warm, and brooded. Behind him, on a bed, the Golden Boy slumbered, his rasping breaths the only audible reminder of his presence. Severus was angry with the boy, and not just because of the way he had goaded Nott, or because Severus had been forced to kill to save his life, and not even because the boy's eyes just didn't seem to be healing properly. No, he was angry because the boy showed no signs of getting over his latest sulk.

Oh, Severus understood, sort of, the teenager's desire to be sulky. Hell, Severus enjoyed a good brood as much as the next person. But they couldn't afford it now. Not where they were, and not with the Dark Lord watching their every move. It was only a matter of time before-

A scream broke his reverie, and Severus was on his feet in an instant. The boy was still in bed, hands clutched to his face, still covered by the bandage . . . no, they were at his forehead. His back was arched as if he was currently under the Cruciatus, and the scream! Merlin's ghost! Like a wounded rabbit. Severus went to his side and grabbed at the boy's arm, to keep his fingernails away from where they dug at flesh, tearing at the scar. Despite his recent infirmities, however, the boy's panic made him strong, and he ripped his arm away from Severus, back still arched so taut, Severus was actually afraid it might snap.

Blood dripped from the boy's hands, and gouged skin lay under his nails, and still he clawed, and screamed.

Severus grabbed him again, this time at the shoulders, and pulled the boy close, turning him so he could press the boy's back against his chest, pinning his arms at his sides. "Occlude, Harry," he whispered into the boy's ear. It was unlikely anyone would hear him over the screams. "Clear your mind. Come on, now. Push him out." But the boy did not seem to hear him, or could not do it, and long minutes passed, of horrific screams that grew softer only because the boy's voice hoarsened. And then, panting breaths and near silence, signaling the end of this trial, and Severus loosened his grip.

He had heard, of course, that the boy suffered nightmares, and visions of the Dark Lord, when he slept. But he had never seen it. The actuality was far worse than he thought. The boy was still trembling with the after effects of the Cruciatus. He recognized the symptoms all too well. He'd wondered, a time or two the previous year, if that's what he was seeing when he met the boy in a dark corridor or in Dumbledore's office late at night, after one of these "nightmares", but had thought it impossible. And now he knew. Very few things were impossible, he was learning, when it came to Harry Potter.

The tremors would ease with time, he knew, but the process would speed if he could give the boy a potion he'd specifically developed for the purpose. He debated asking for permission to fetch one, but decided against it. It was possible the Dark Lord did not know the full extent of the boy's connection to him . . . and if he did not, getting a potion to ease the effects of that spell would clue him in.

He realized after a few minutes that the boy was clinging to him, now, hands fisted in the sleeves of Severus' robes, and that he still had not spoken. Quietly, Severus said, "Vision?"

The boy nodded against his chest, and drew a shuddering breath. "Was havin' ‘nother go at Bella. He's still mad."

Severus suppressed a savage smile of triumph. He'd never liked the cold, crazed bitch, and for her to have fallen out of favor was all to the good. "Anything else?"

Harry shook his head, then let out a moan; the movement obviously pained him.

"Just stay still awhile," Severus told him. "It will pass."

"I know." The voice was so tired sounding, so resigned, that Severus was taken aback. Did any of them know, truly, what this boy had gone through? Especially over the last five years. He knew, vaguely, about what had happened when Potter met Quirrell in the room with the mirror, and that he had somehow fought a basilisk and the spirit of Tom Riddle, and once more come out victorious. He knew that Potter had gone against Dementors more times than any who did not live at Azkaban, and had faced Voldemort again at the cemetery of the Dark Lord's rebirth. But he hadn't really thought about it in more than the abstract. He hadn't really considered what the impact of all that fighting and surviving had been on the boy's psyche.

If the Dark Lord's plan was to show this boy kindness and thus gain his trust whilst usurping him for his own purposes . . . it was possible it would work.

In the meantime, though . . . "You need to get up now, and wash yourself, Potter. You're a bit ripe."

The boy stiffened, obviously affronted, and Severus continued, "How many days has it been since you had a proper bath?"

A shrug. Back to indifference, were they? "Tell you what, Potter. Either you get up and take a bath, or I'll dunk you in there, clothes and all."

The boy shot up, wresting himself away from Severus' hold. "You wouldn't!"

"I would. It's high time you snapped out of this . . . this lethargy. You've spent enough time wallowing."

"Wallowing!"

"Yes, wallowing," he sneered. "The Headmaster thinks so highly of you. What would he say if he could see you like this?"

"He'd see that I'm blind, Snape! And, and . . ."

"And?"

"And here, and alone, just like always."

"Oh, for pity's sake, stop it. You're not alone. I'm here, locked in just like you."

"Not like me!" A flush had crept up Harry's neck and reddened his cheeks. He'd turned around on the bed, so that he was facing Severus, even though his eyes were still covered. On his knees, his hands in fists. "What do you know, anyway? You think you know me, but you have no idea what I'm like, or what's happened to me."

Since Severus had just been thinking along those lines, he made a non-committal noise, which might have been interpreted as a snort of amusement, if one had it in mind to take it that way. As he expected, the boy exploded. "Laugh, sure! What does it matter to you, if everyone who ever cared about me is dead? If my relatives hate me or abandoned me to die? All that matters to you is that I look like my dead father, who was an arse to you when you were kids. I've never done anything to you like that, and yet you've always hated me. You treat me like I'm dirt, just like they do." His hand swung out to encompass the whole of the world.

"What of your fan club?" Severus asked, still prodding the boy out of his malaise.

The boy actually growled at him. "The same fan club who whispers about me every time that Skeeter woman prints her stories? The same ones who thought I'd petrified students and tried to kill them and who thought I was telling lies for attention? Those fans?"

"I meant your Miss Granger and Mister Weasley."

"Oh. Them." The boy subsided once more. "Hermione's always stood by me. Always. Ron . . ." He sighed. "Not so much."

Surprised, though he really should be, he supposed - the youngest Weasley boy was rather immature - Severus pushed a bit farther. "Not as enamored of you as she is?"

Potter made a snorting noise of his own, sounding disgusted. "He was jealous of me, jealous, when my name came out of that bloody cup in fourth year. Jealous that some Death Eater git was trying to kill me. I told him he could have the bloody fame and the whispers and Daily Prophet stupidity and all of it. I sure don't want it. I just wanted to be normal. Not some freak."

The way he said the word made Severus frown. "Freak?" he echoed.

The boy slumped, cushioning his head in his hands and hiding his face. His shoulders hitched up in a shrug and he shook his head. "Never mind."

Oh, no, you don't, Severus thought. Not when I've gotten so close to having you back to your defiant self. "Who called you that?" he asked, taking a guess.

Only one shoulder shrugged this time. "Dursleys. But I don't care."

"No?"

"No!" Potter's face came up again, looking furious. Good. "And neither do you, so leave me alone!"

"I would like nothing better," Severus said. "Alas, we are stuck together, you and I, and we shall have to make the best of it."

Potter snorted again and turned away, rolling over on the bed. "Whatever."

"I warned you . . ." Severus used his wand to levitate the boy, who squawked with indignation as he rose off the bed. With a swish and flick, he sent the boy floating into the bathroom, and he followed, manually turning on the taps and adjusting the temperature. Wand still up, as Potter shouted protests from his position near the ceiling, Severus let the water run long enough to get a good few inches in the deep tub, and then lowered the boy into it with a splash.

Sputtering, Potter swiped hair off his face. "You stupid, slimy-"

"Git?"

"Yes!" he said fiercely.

"Indeed. Now, you'd be better served if you removed your clothes . . . or would you like me to do that for you, too."

"No! I'll do it." And he immediately started pulling off his soggy shirt.

Satisfied, Severus moved to the door. "I expect soap to be used liberally, Potter. We'll change the dressing on your eyes when you are through, but try not to get it wet, regardless."

As he closed the door to the bathroom, the boy muttered, "Yeah, well, shouldn't have dunked me then . . ."

Severus returned to his place before the fire, and smiled.

---

Harry griped and muttered through his whole bath, though he did use a liberal amount of soap, and he did try not to get the bandage on his eyes wet. He didn't like his chances for being able to see again, and he certainly didn't want to do anything to jeopardize them. But Snape was such a git! And mean! And sarcastic and snarky and completely unsympathetic!

And he'd tried to talk Harry through his vision, and tried to ground him, help him through the pain. It hadn't worked, of course. Voldemort was too close, he thought, and his anger too harsh. And, of course, Harry was rubbish at Occlumency.

But Snape had tried. And he had warned Harry about washing, really. And Harry had to admit the potions master was right about that; he was ripe. How many days had it been since his eyes were injured, since Nott died? He didn't know. It was hard to track the days when he couldn't see, and even harder, when he refused to eat, and couldn't sleep properly. He'd been falling into a black hole with smoothed sides that he could not climb, and though he still did not know how to get out of it, at least he realized someone was watching him from above, and might be able to throw him a rope.

Maybe.

Washing his hair was hardest, with trying to keep his face dry, but he leaned back into the water, keeping his face out, to wet it, and then, after shampooing, to rinse. Probably there was some residue, but without his wand, he couldn't cast a proper spell to get it all out. Not that he was allowed to use magic on summer hols anyway, not till he was seventeen . . .

A sudden thought struck him, making the constant trembles from Cruciatus worsen. He'd used magic, at the Dursleys, when the Death Eaters had come for him. If nothing else, if he lived to get out of this place, and his eyesight was restored, he had an expulsion from Hogwarts to look forward to. Or a trial like the one last year, at any rate.

Rage and despair warred inside him as he finished washing, scrubbing his skin violently, teeth clenched and all his muscles tense. He rinsed off more slowly as his rage subsided, leaving him hollow inside. When he was done, he stood unsteadily in the tub and groped for a towel where he remembered them being before. The soft cloth was gentler on his skin than he had been, and soothed him, at least a little. He wrapped the towel around his waist and went back to the other room, feeling his way along the wall.

"Professor?"

"Yes, Potter?" Snape's voice came from near the fire, he thought, and sounded very neutral to his ears, without that same tone of condescension he heard so often and expected now.

"Could you . . ." He sighed and swallowed his pride. It hurt his throat, going down. "Could you help me with clean clothes, sir?"

"Yes, Potter."

He heard Snape rise and walk toward the chest of drawers, a drawer opened, and then the side of the wardrobe. Movement again, closer. "Come here, Potter," Snape said. "Toward the sound of my voice. I've laid your clothes out on the bed."

Hesitantly, Harry obeyed, having to trust a man who hated him so readily and fervently. He took two steps, small ones, and then a bigger one, and his hand brushed the top of the bed. Groping again, he found the clothes: shirt, jumper, pants, under clothes.

"All right then?" Snape asked. As Harry nodded, he continued, "Let me give you some privacy, so you may dress." Harry heard the door close to the bathroom, and hurriedly pulled on the dry clothes, wondering what had taken the snark out of the snarky man.

A few minutes later, Snape had him sitting in a chair by the fire, and was changing the dressing on his eyes. He had Harry open his eyes briefly, to check for damage. Harry could discern light, but no shapes, and the light burned. He closed his eyes quick again as tears formed against the burning. Snape didn't say anything for long moments, but pried one lid up, and peered at him, then pried up the other, shielding the light from his eyes with his own body.

"What is it?" Harry asked after the second lid had been replaced. "Are they getting better?"

"It's slow going," Snape said. "It'll be some time before we know for certain."

Harry nodded, swallowing thickly. It was his own stupidity that had brought him to this. All of it.

"It would be better if I had access to my lab. I have an idea for a potion that might help." His voice was very soft, and Harry had trouble catching it, but the meaning was clear.

"He won't let you brew here?"

The snort of amusement was clear this time. "Not for my own purposes. And not now, at any rate." A pause. "Are you feeling better?"

Harry held out his arm. Tremors still ran through it, but not as bad as just after he'd woken from the vision. "Yes, sir."

"Good." A hand grasped his elbow and pulled him to the bathroom, where Snape turned on the water in the sink, the tub, and then flushed the toilet. In the ensuing roar of water, a low voice whispered in his ear. "We're leaving here tonight."