He swung his feet to the cold floor and slid his hand under the pillow. He felt a familiar easing of tension as his fingers closed around his wand. He'd once tried to magically attach his wand to his hand before he slept, but had woken to discover he'd cursed his wardrobe to ash during the night.

It hadn't made a difference. In his dreams, he was still wandless. He had no curses or shields to cast. She still died.

He stripped off his nightshirt, performed a quick cleaning spell, then dressed for the day. He stopped in his bedroom doorway and glanced to the left. The rosy light of dawn splashed across the plaster wall, across from an open doorway. He moved towards the doorway and looked into an attic room.

Light glowed from a window on the opposite wall, creating shadows on the objects shoved against the sides of the room: a wicker chair with a broken seat; a striped pillow with its insides spilling out; a stack of grammar-school workbooks, faded and yellowed by time; a small tri-corner pirate's hat. Under the brim, he could see a child's scrawl in faded chalk-marks: "Severus."

A small bed had been set in the cleared space in the center of the room, its headboard spotted with photographs. The boy was flung across it, his arm hanging over the side. His breath came in deep sighs. A pair of glasses were precariously perched on a stack of moth-eaten blankets. With his eyes closed, he was a perfect replica of James.

Snape had the sudden mad urge to attack him while his defenses were down. He pulled away and crept down the stairs. The boy was a fool for asking to stay here. He was a fool for allowing it.

A memory pushed at him: spring leaves, and a silver light. He locked it away. He had more immediate matters on which to focus.

He descended to his subterranean workroom and stared moodily at a shallow pewter bowl which held a deep violet liquid. He'd worked with Dumbledore to develop a potion that would ripple if the passageway that brought the boy here reopened. Except for the occasional swirling shadow, the liquid was as still as the night. He peered at the bowl closely. Even the swirling shadows had become less frequent. Whatever this soul's origins, it had put out new roots voraciously.

Severus clenched his hand near the bowl, willing it to stir. The boy needed to go back. Not that he wanted the other, but he understood the other. To see that familiar form, taut with anger, took him back to teenage battles on the Hogwarts grounds. It gave him satisfaction that he could make the son feel what he had always felt: fury, powerlessness, humiliation.

To have those accusing green eyes strike him with outrage and loathing... Snape swallowed. That felt right, too. But for other reasons.

Snape shuttered his feelings and focused on the book lying open on the scratched oak table. But no new information had appeared since the last time he read the passage. There were three ways that might reopen a doorway between worlds, and two endangered the boy to an extreme level, tearing his soul from his body.

The third option was safer. If performed properly, it would involve a gentle tugging of the soul away from this body, and then back to its own world. Snape pressed his fingers into his chest as he considered what he would need to do to cast the spell. No tearing of the soul. Not for the boy, at least.

He re-read the book mechanically, part of his mind wondering how Dumbledore would respond to the information he'd sent him. He hoped he could find some solution other than that third option, but the tome offered no new possibilities. He closed the book only when he heard the creak of floorboards that told him the boy was up. He girded himself before ascending the steps.

The boy stumbled into him the second he entered the kitchen.

"Sorry," Harry mumbled, rubbing at his wild thornbush of hair. He stood blinking vacantly mere inches away.

It made Snape's skin itch, but he held his ground. He had learned long ago to resist the urge to back away. Potter and Black had crowed the word 'coward' whenever he showed any signs of intimidation.

The boy hovered and clung like a Remora on a shark, but there was little Snape could do about it. This was not a helplessness he could alleviate with curses and hexes. Even his attempts at insults were ineffective. They evaporated away in Harry's presence like ice in a furnace.

Harry finally moved aside, mumbling and yawning a spell that resulted in a slice of bread blackening into a thin disc. His glasses were pushed up to his forehead as he rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. Properly awake, he frowned at the charred object. He set another slice of bread on a plate and held it out to Snape.

Snape sighed, but cast a heating spell that toasted the bread nicely. All the Muggle devices that his father had bought for the kitchen had eventually broken, and Snape had never bothered to replace them. The only one that he still used was a refrigerator that stood forlornly in one corner.

He remembered the day it stopped running, a few months after his father had died. It was the day his mother had left for parts unknown. She'd only taken with her the things she valued highly: her wand, her potions, a photo of her parents she'd always kept on her dressing table. She'd left most of her clothes in the closet. She'd left her wedding ring on the kitchen table.

Snape had reluctantly searched his own possessions. As he'd suspected, everything was still tidily in place.

It was on that day that the refrigerator had shuddered to a halt. Neither he nor his mother had ever bothered to pay the electric bill. Still, with a cooling charm, the object was useful.

However, the lack of electricity had the unfortunate effect of making the boy dependent on him. The lessening of restriction on his magic helped, but Harry's skill was focused mainly in potions in and mental defense. His cooking spells left the kitchen a shambles. So, when a meal involved more than the opening of a tin, Snape took charge.

He spread jam on the toast and handed it back to Harry. He had faced Death Eaters and Dementors to protect the boy, and yet the simple act of preparing a meal was like a punch to the chest. There was something disturbingly intimate about giving food to a child.

Harry munched on his toast as he pulled a crumpled envelope from his back pocket. "This came for you while you were downstairs."

He stared at the note he was handed. It had Dumbledore's seal on the outside. Perhaps the headmaster had found another solution, another pathway. Anything other than the option he'd discovered. He ripped open the envelope. There were only four words inside:

It must be done.

He focused on the words until his eyes hurt. Then he folded the message into his robes and turned to Harry.

"Get dressed," he said.

Harry frowned as the put his plate in the sink. "Are we going somewhere?"

Snape nodded curtly. "Godric's Hollow."

* * *

The warm air was cut by a cool breeze as they Apparated onto the street, Snape holding tightly to Harry. Before them stood a skeleton of rotted wood and broken glass. The rooms and stairwells could be seen through the blackened holes in the siding.

A war raged inside Snape. It took everything he had to keep himself immobile and expressionless. He took several deep breaths and slowly released Harry.

Harry approached the house softly, as though he might wake someone within. It wasn't until he passed through the front gate that Snape was compelled to follow. He stepped through the jagged frame that had once held a front door. He could taste mildew and soot in the air. He heard a shuffling, and spied the boy in a dark corner of the entrance hall.

Harry was staring at the floorboards as if they hid a terrible secret. "Do you know how it happened?" he asked.

He did. He'd never asked Dumbledore for the details, but word of the Potters' deaths and Voldemort's disappearance had blazed through the wizarding community. Snape caught most of the details from the whispers of his colleagues, and his vivid imagination had supplied the rest.

"I heard this is where he died," said Harry, gazing down the hallway. "That bit's the same, I think. But Mum..." Snape unwillingly followed the boy's eyes to a set of warped stairs leading upward.

Harry carefully tread on the first step, which let out a creak. He paused, slowly shifting his weight forward, and the step held. Climbing slowly, he checked each step for sturdiness before moving forward.

Snape's joints had turned to ice. He had visited this house, climbed those steps on so many nights, after he had tossed and turned himself to sleep. First, as a young man, with the blood pounding in his veins, unwillingly seeing the two of them together, curled against each other. Later, he saw himself, curled over her cold body.

Now he could only see the stairs rising above him. Gravity pressed heavily on him, far too heavy for him to ascend. He heard roaring water, battering against his carefully constructed walls. He would turn back. He would write Dumbledore, tell him...something...

The boy paused on the fifth step and turned, crouching down. Now at eye level, he peered at Snape through his thick lenses. Then he slowly descended and threaded Snape's fingers through his own.

"Best if we climb together," he said. "Less dangerous."

Snape found himself placing one foot above the other on the steps. The wooden boards groaned, but held their weight. They reached the old nursery, which was little more than four walls now. The roof had caved in, and the floor sagged toward a sharp-toothed hole in its center.

Harry leaned forward to look through the hole, balancing precariously on the rotted boards. Snape felt a tug. He looked down to see that his knuckles were white against the boy's hand. He jerked Harry backward onto firmer ground before releasing his grip.

His skin chilled in the cool morning air. Through the crumbling roof tiles, he could see grey clouds gathering. "The protection was created here," he said.

"Her life for mine," whispered Harry. "My dad told me that I had the same protection when I was a baby. He said that right afterwards, she was...it was like a living death. But he brought her back, and the protection faded." He rubbed at the scar on his forehead. "We had to create a new protection for me. For all of us."

Snape heard his words though a fog. His tongue was thick and heavy as he spoke. "Her sacrifice...may protect you here. The spell may be connected to you both."

Harry's eyes moved across the room, following the thought. "And if we're connected by that protection, there's a pathway? A way back home?" His eyes shone. "I could go home today."

A restlessness crept into Snape. He attributed it to a desire to complete the task. Soon, the boy would be away from him. No more stomping feet, cheeky grins, constant questions.

No more thoughts of what could have been.

A memory nagged him again, at the corner of his consciousness. A wisp of silver, spring leaves on an oak tree. A hand clutching his arm. He shoved it from his mind and began the chant that would begin the first step towards sending the boy home.

A blue mist blossomed from his wand. The incantation caused any spells cast in the room to appear in physical form; magic made flesh. It was only in this way that Snape could see the magical protection in physical form, see if it was entwined to both Harrys. Only then could his soul be guided away, and the other returned.

The blue mist rose, obscuring the morning sky visible through the broken roof tiles. The magic within the room began to manifest. Tendrils of wood grew from the floors, twisting upward and outward. Plaster dust showered down as the walls bulged and snaked outward, tangling around the wooden columns. The house creaked and groaned. Snape and Harry stepped around the limbs as they grew, the air thick with the scent of moldy plaster and burnt wood. When the spell was complete, a forest of tendrils was woven throughout the room, knotted and twisted around each other. They rippled gently, undulating against magical currents.

Harry clambered over a thicket growing out of the floor. Snape moved toward him, rubbing a finger against a small tendril. It was warm and smooth, the grain of the wood visible on the surface. Perhaps a manifestation of a simple spell: a levitation, or a Lumos.

Harry peered at the swaying, twisting limbs over Snape's elbow. "Brilliant," he whispered.

"Mmm," said Snape. But he was pleased; he'd never attempted this spell before.

They picked their way carefully around the tendrils. Some were thick, corded through with the matter they'd manifested from. Others were thin and whip-like, poking at the air as they coiled and curled.

Snape pushed aside a thick, fuzzy column and saw it: black tendrils, knotted in a throbbing mass. They twisted and writhed, rasping against each other. The smell of charred wood smothered him.

Avada Kedavra.

Snape led Harry around dark tangle. They both kept well away from it. He heard the laughter of boys passing outside, uncaring of what had happened in this very spot.

Behind the snarled knot stood two pale yellow branches, thick as Greek columns. Wound around each other, they reached through the blue mist towards the sky. They thrummed like a distant summer storm.

Snape reached forward and rested his hand against the warm limbs. A scent surrounded him.

Lilacs.

The boys passing outside had stopped, as their shouts were getting louder.

"Mum," whispered Harry. He leaned forward and pressed his forehead against the tendrils. They rumbled in response.

They both stood there for a moment, leaning into the living heart of the protection spell.

"What do I do?" murmured Harry.

Snape reluctantly removed his hand from the tendril. "What do you feel?" he asked.

Harry pressed the length of his arms around the twined pillars. "Hmm. Soft blankets. A warm hand on my face. Arms holding me."

Snape's heart twisted, but he kept his face still. "You're attached to the protection."

Harry turned his face toward him, his face alight. "I can go home?"

He nodded. Casting another spell, the two limbs glowed, and smaller tendrils erupted from the smooth golden skin. They reached toward Harry, prodding him. Beckoning like little hands, a tiny chorus of whispers vibrated through the air:

Come home, come home.

Harry closed his eyes as a small yellow finger brushed his cheek. "I can feel it," he said. "I can go back."

The air was thick with blue mist, and it should have obscured Harry's features. But instead, Snape found himself noticing small details he'd never seen before. Details he'd never seen beyond the features of James Potter: the way Harry's nose turned up just slightly at the very tip, how the tops of his ears stuck out of his untidy hair, the spattering of freckles across the tops of his cheeks.

Lily's freckles.

Another tendril skimmed across his neck, and the boy shivered.

Snape eyed him, and felt that they were both teetering at the edge of an abyss. "I thought Gryffindors were known for courage," he said.

"I can't help it," Harry whispered. "It's like...something's coming. Don't you feel it?"

He did indeed. A yoke pressed upon his chest, and he had the deep urge to look over his shoulder. One of the boys outside shouted something, and the words finally became clear.

"Filthy Mudblood!"

It hit him like a splash of icy water. He realized, to his horror, that the voices weren't coming from outside the house. There weren't even coming from outside the room. The voice shouting those words was his own, high with anger and adolescence. Two words he would regret for the rest of his life.

He shook his head, forcing the memory back. The dark places of his mind were being twisted forward, wringing out his fear, his guilt, his shame. He and Harry locked eyes.

The weak light did not hide the color draining from the boy's face. "Dementors," said Harry. The boy tried to raise his wand, but was bound by the tendrils that enclosed him. They sank into his skin, trying to pull the soul from his body. A defenseless soul that a Dementor would greedily devour.

The sight of Lily's hurt and angry face blazed in front of Snape's eyes. He set about undoing the spell, but his talent and skill had abandoned him. It took three stumbling incantations before the tendrils drew away. Harry took one step forward and crumpled in a heap.

Snape raised his wand to create a Patronus, but before he could utter the words, a death rattle filled the room. Frost seeped into his bones. The world tilted, and he was upside down, hearing the laughter of Potter and Black. He forced himself to stay in the moldering room. The images from the past spun away, and he found himself on the floor, a short distance away from Harry. A small, round man with pointed features was leaning over the unconscious boy.

"The Dark Lord was right. You could not resist the draw of this place. You saved us so much trouble, little Harry Potter. My master has need of your body...and your blood." The points of his fingers pecked at a vein on the tender flesh of Harry's wrist. Then he snatched at the boy, grabbing Harry's arm. With a heave, he slung him onto his back. His head twitched from side to side. Shifting Harry's weight, he twisted, offering his face to full view.

With a shock, Snape recognized him. "Pettigrew."

Pettigrew jerked violently at the sound of his name. Then he saw Snape through the falling mist, and gave him a crooked grin. "Oh, he's eager to see you too, but there's only time for one. We shall see to your body later. As for your soul..." He gestured, and Snape heard the scrape of sinew on bone behind him.

He turned, and the smell of decay overwhelmed him. A Dementor closed in.

"Expecto patronum." His throat closed around the utterance. A thin thread of silver spun from his wand, breaking apart into curling wisps.

He heard Pettigrew stomping towards the door. A moan from the boy being carried away across his shoulders. A sharp cry.

He tried again, but it was no use; he could not imagine ever being happy, not in this place.

The Dementor's dark hood surrounded his face, cutting off the light. He must save the boy. But he was tumbling into the dark recesses, slipping down, down... He felt the long, bony claws of the Dementor tilt his head upward.

And then, a memory, of silver and spring leaves, a clutching hand-a memory he had been pushing away all morning-burst to the forefront of his mind.

He was lowering his wand, watching the dappled sunlight filter through the budding branches. Something glimmered behind the curve of a gnarled oak tree. He stepped closer, the soil spongy under his feet.

Two silver does stood side by side.

Lily was clutching his arm, her wand still out. Her eyes were wide. "What does it mean, Severus?"

Severus could only stare, filled with a curious lightness.

The cold fingers released him. He fell, the wooden floorboards knocking against the back of his head. A brilliant light flooded him.

He pushed himself onto his elbows, blinking against the radiance. His eyes focused, and he saw a silver doe bounding lightly over a thicket of tendrils. She cantered to a stop where the wisps of his attempted Patronus were trailing weakly along the floor. They gathered around the doe's hooves, glowing. The fragile curls grew and transformed into a cloudy shape, and then there were two does standing side by side.

Severus blinked, and tried to push the memory away again, but the does remained. They were truly there, not just an image from the past. Then he recalled the something Harry had said to him, when he'd first entered this world. That his Patronus was just like his mum and dad's. A doe.

The first doe turned and nuzzled the other. Their noses touched, two points of darker grey. The point of contact became hazy, and the two forms rippled, gentle waves lapping toward each other. The hazy forms flowed inward, merging and coalescing.

And then, a single silver doe was moving slowly toward him. She shone more brightly than his Patronus, a soft glow springing from each delicate hair on her coat. Her large eyes shone as she dipped her head close to his chest, as if to reassure herself that he was well.

It hurt to look at her. And yet, she was his. He could feel the essence of himself radiating from deep within her.

She shimmered, undulations coursing through her. Then she broke apart, waves of light cascading downward. The light poured over Severus, frothing against him in millions of tiny starbursts, seeping into his skin.

It was the sheltering peace of quiet after a storm. He breathed deeply, and was buoyed by a sense of connectedness to another life...to Harry. For a brief moment, he could feel the truth and the power of it.

The light faded, and she was gone.

He gazed at the empty space remaining before he remembered his surroundings. Scrambling to his feet, he pushed a tendril aside. It crumbled at his touch. The effects of the spell were receding.

He saw the boy over the tops of the broken tendrils. He could see that he was trembling, but he was standing on his own two feet. He held a defensive posture, his wand out, in a stance that reminded Snape of himself.

The Dementor had vanished, and the rest of the room appeared empty until he heard a scrabbling in the corner. Pettigrew was huddled there, amid the dust and debris. He rubbed his arm and moaned.

"I've got his wand," said Harry, revealing the slip of Hawthorne in his left hand.

Snape strode around the thicket of branches to stand next to Harry. "We're leaving. Now." He directed his wand at Pettigrew.

The man who had been trembling in a corner a mere moment ago moved like a thunderclap. He spat a short incantation, and the second wand Harry was holding flared red. The boy cried out. The muscles in his left hand convulsed, closing in a tight grip. His lower arm rippled with dark magic.

Snape grabbed Harry's left arm, holding his wand inches from the boy's hand. "Expelliarmus!"

The wand held fast. The curse worked its way up past his elbow. Ragged cuts formed as the muscles tore away from the skin. The boy moaned, his knees buckling.

Pettigrew threw out another incantation. Snape held the still-clenched wand out, away from Harry. An oily liquid gushed from it, splashing down with a hiss. The droplets gathered and snaked towards them, eating through the floorboards greedily.

Snape flung out a hex, and what remained of the roof rained down on Pettigrew. He dragged Harry behind a heap of broken tendrils, hurling defensive spells behind him.

Pettigrew scrambled behind a chunk of broken plaster, calling for his wand.

Harry howled as his arm snapped into a straight line away from his body. The wand sunk into his hand quivered, trying to pull him towards Pettigrew.

Snape wrapped an arm around the boy, who had fallen unconscious. He kicked a broken branch toward the advancing acid, and watched it devour the obstacle. He felt the strain of the forces pulling the boy away from him, and made a decision.

A rough chant over the clenched hand. He gritted his teeth against the popping and snapping as magical forces pried the small fingers backwards.

The cursed wand fell to the floor. The liquid advanced on it. The two met, and sparks showered upward.

Pettigrew leapt from his hiding spot. "Finite Incantatem! Finite Incantatem!"

Snape smiled grimly and hauled the boy toward the stairs. He hoped the blasted wand was eaten away to the core.

His hope proved wanting.

They were in the upstairs hallway when Pettigrew's curse hit the wall behind them. Fissures streaked out from the point of impact. The house trembled.

Snape thudded down the first few steps, his arm aching with the weight of the unconscious boy pressed against his side. He stumbled, his shoulder slamming against the wall.

Another blast, and there was a splintering crack beneath him. With a lurch, the stairs collapsed in a crash of splintering wood.

Spikes of wood jabbed at him as he fell. Throwing one final hex, Snape held the boy tightly and Disapparated.

They landed in a heap in front of the house at Spinner's End. Snape wasted no time in hustling the boy inside. Harry's breath was coming in fitful gasps as he laid him on the living room sofa. Snape ripped open the front of the boy's shirt and tore off the sleeve. The arm had turned a sickly yellow-green color, and a spider web of veins were spreading over the surface of the skin.

Snape murmured in a rhythmic voice, working against the dark magic. Harry fell against the faded cushion, his eyes rolling back into his head. Snape felt the sweat trickling down his temples as he watched the black lines crawl toward the boy's heart. Harry released a long, rattling sigh.

Then silence.

Snape choked on his chant, his mind stuttering to a halt. This had not happened. He had not failed. "Wake up," he muttered. A fire roared to life in him. "You will answer me," he ordered, his voice battering the walls. "I have not tolerated your insolence, your laziness, your recklessness and stupidity, all for it to come to this! Do you hear me, Potter? Potter!"

Nothing.

"Harry?"

His legs gave way, and he sat down heavily on the floor. The memory welled up in him again. What does it mean, Severus?

Nothing, he had finally told her, as he memorized the placement of each tiny freckle. It means nothing.

With trembling fingers, he reached out and touched the boy's cheek. The skin was still warm, and light downy hair brushed against his fingertips. He watched as his hand stretched into the distance, and darkness edged into the corners of his vision.

A prickling in his palm brought the room back into focus. Beneath his fingertips, a silver light glowed. The brightness grew, rippling through his arm and hand, his fingernails turning translucent.

Snape pulled his hand away, and the light suffused Harry's face. There was a pulling inside of him, at something warm and familiar. He could smell rich earth, feel the press of ground against hooves.

The boy jerked like a puppet on a string and rasped in a deep breath.

Snape stared, dumbfounded, as the web of black veins curled and shriveled under the skin. Coming to his senses, he bundled Harry into his arms and carried him upstairs. The boy was moving restlessly by the time he placed him in his small bed.

Harry's eyes snapped open. His gaze darted wildly until they settled on Snape. "Hey," he said, yawning, as if waking from a nap. Then he groaned, his body curling around his injured arm and hand.

"Lie still," Snape instructed, conjuring a chair next to the bed and closely examining the cursed areas as he knit the cuts along the arm. The veins had faded, but the arm was still discolored. The yellow-green color had congealed into lumpy splotches across it. Snape suspected they would turn into large pustules if he didn't find a way to remove the residue of the curse. He made a mental checklist of the potions needed. Then he cradled the smaller hand in his own, resetting each bone and mending each joint with delicate precision.

"Better," said Harry, touching his affected arm gingerly.

"No numbness?" he asked, keeping the roughness out of his voice. If there had been no feeling, there was a strong chance he would have had to remove the arm. Numbness in the hand was not as serious, but it might have kept him from climbing, or Quidditch. Severus realized he couldn't bear that.

Harry shook his head. "Just sore." He struggled to sit up. "Did I muck things up for you?" he asked.

"I'm rather used to saving your life at this point." Snape placed a hand on Harry's chest and gently pressed downward.

The boy fell back on the bed weakly and sighed. "I meant Pettigrew. You attacked one of his servants."

Snape replayed the morning's events. "It is not irreparable." He studied the boy. "You're aware of what I must do when the Dark Lord returns?"

Harry nodded, his eyes far away. "This might have been my last summer here. Once he returns, if Dumbledore insists I stay within the defenses of Hogwarts year-round..."

"Then...your father...can claim he is unable to break those defenses and deliver you to the Dark Lord." Snape paused. "It's a precarious position."

"Nature of the job, my dad says."

"But if you have no magical protection in your world-"

"I have protection. We both do. Didn't you see it?"

Snape recalled the silvery light that had filled the boy when he touched him. It had brought the boy back from the threshold. The silvery light that was so like... "The doe?"

Harry nodded. "Patronum Duos."

Snape breathed in sharply. "When two family members share the same Patronus, the two can merge into one..." He remembered the feeling that the doe had been of himself, but more than himself.

"It's rare. And when the whole family shares the same Patronus..."

"Patronum Totus." The protection was extremely powerful. Once established, the Patronus did not need to be consciously summoned, but emerged in times of great need. "My touch...cured you." His hand ghosted over the injured arm, landing on Harry's chest. The strong beat of the heart reassured him. "But that should not have happened. I am not connected to you the same way my counterpart is."

"We're connected," Harry said softly. "Maybe there was someone else in that room. Someone who could sense what we both need."

"No." Snape stood, turning his back to the boy. The grief that had been threatening to overwhelm him all day was too close to the surface. His mind frantically threw up barricades. "It does not matter, in any case. We cannot return to the house, and that eliminates the one chance we had to return you home."

"But...if we were careful...my Invisibility Cloak..."

Snape had no desire to return to that place, but there was a moment of regret before he faced the boy and shook his head. "It will be closely watched for magical activity. Perhaps, eventually, the Dark Lord will focus his attentions elsewhere, or after he's defeated..."

The light faded from Harry's eyes. "You mean years from now."

Snape focused on the buttons of his robe. He fingered them gingerly between a thumb and forefinger. "It's not so intolerable here." He glanced around. "If you wished to clear out some of this old rubbish, perhaps..."

The boy shifted, raising his good arm to finger a photograph stuck to the headboard. The photograph of Lily, silently murmuring as she stirred her potion. "It's nothing to do with what's here," said Harry.

Snape had the vague feeling he should say something. "I will brew a potion to cleanse the curse from your system. And...lunch. You should have lunch. Until then, you should rest."

The boy nodded listlessly, his eyes once again fixed into the distance. Snape could think of nothing else to say, so he left the boy lying on his bed.

Harry drank the potion, but left his lunch on the tray near the bed. A few hours later, an untouched dinner joined it.

By the third day, Snape had given up threatening and cajoling and sent off a message to Dumbledore.