Severus awoke during the early hours of the morning to the sound of an ear splitting scream. Becoming fully alert at once, he snatched his wand off of his bedside table and rushed into the hallway. Surely the Dark Lord couldn’t have returned already… Dumbledore had told him that he had been greatly weakened by his encounter with Potter and would not be able to return to power again for a long time, perhaps for few years to come…

Severus mumbled a quick spell, causing a bright light to emanate from his wand. As he stood in the doorway of Potter’s room, he scanned it for any signs of intrusion. He found none. The boy was still screaming. Severus was slightly startled to see that he was thrashing around on the mattress, and clearly unaware of his surroundings. Severus became alarmed and rushed over to the boy’s bedside.

“Potter! Potter, you need to wake up! Potter!” he shouted. Harry showed no sign of hearing him and continued screaming and thrashing. The potions master reached out gently and touched the boy’s shoulder. “Harry,” he said, feeling rather odd to be calling the boy by his first name. Severus shook his shoulder gently. Harry did not wake up, but stopped thrashing. He continued to scream. Snape cursed himself silently for having neglected to give the boy a Dreamless Sleep potion.

Instinctively, Severus reached out to the boy with one of his hands. He placed his hand on the boy’s back, beginning to make slow circles around it with his hand. He mumbled a few comforting words to him, realizing that he was unsure of what to do. He moved his hand to Harry’s head, smoothing a bit of his hair down as he did so. He stroked the boy’s hair.

“Harry, everything is alright. You’re only having a bad dream. You’re safe.” he whispered.

Harry opened his eyes blearily, and Severus hastily disentangled his fingers from the boy's hair, feeling very awkward. “P-Professor?”

“I believe you were having a nightmare, Mr. Potter.” Severus murmured, more gently than he usually spoke. He silently cursed himself for deciding not to continue administering the Dreamless Sleep Potion to the boy.

“Did I wake you, sir?” he asked, looking alarmed.

Severus nodded. “It is of no consequence,” he stated quietly. Luckily, it seemed that Potter had not injured himself further by thrashing around. He ran a quick series of diagnostic spells, which confirmed this. “Would you like some tea, Mr. Potter? Personally, I’ve found that tea can be relaxing…” Snape said, and then trailed off, wondering why he was telling the boy this.

Harry nodded and moved to get up.

“You do not need to move, Mr. Potter. I will fetch the tea.”

Harry watched as Snape stood up and left the room. Had he been imagining it, or had Snape been trying to comfort him? He thought that somewhere while he was still in a deep sleep, he had felt hands -- hands that felt a little bit too real to have been in a dream -- rubbing his back. Harry was definitely not about to ask him. Snape would never comfort me. I’m lucky he isn’t laughing at me because I had a nightmare, or yelling because I woke him up. I imagined it, or else someone’s hand was touching me in the nightmare… yeah, that’s it… he thought. He was soon startled back to reality by the sound of potions master clearing his throat at the door.

Severus handed the boy a cup of tea, which Harry grasped with slightly shaking hands. “Potter, are you certain that you’re feeling alright?”

Harry nodded. “It was only a nightmare, sir. It just startled me a bit. I’m sorry that it woke you,” he said, grimacing slightly. He was not a baby, and the last thing he needed was for Snape to think even less of him than he already did because he couldn’t deal with a simple bad dream. Besides, he was still embarrassed as hell that he’d had to share details with Snape about how the Dursleys had treated him.

“These nightmares, Potter… you have them often, am I correct? Do they tend to have a particular theme?” Severus asked.

Harry nodded, biting his lip slightly. “I’ve had them quite a lot, ever since I was small,” He heard the potions master sigh slightly, and knew then that his omission of information had not gone unnoticed. “They’re, um… usually about the Dursleys, the nightmares.”

Snape nodded in acceptance, now somewhat satisfied with the explanation the boy had given him… though completely dissatisfied with why it was even necessary. The Dursleys were most definitely the cause of most of Potter’s trust issues and uncertainties… “Potter, you are aware that I could continue to give you Dreamless Sleep?”

“No,” Harry said, a little bit too loudly. He paused, just long enough to enjoy a sip of tea, before speaking again. “I mean… thank you for the offer, Professor, but I can’t depend on a potion for the rest of my life. If I took it for a while, the nightmares would come back once I stopped taking it again, so I don‘t really see any point in it.”

Severus considered him thoughtfully for a moment. “I admire you bravery. But this decision may also be a foolish one. You were lucky that, while you were thrashing around in your sleep, you did not injure yourself further. You may not have such luck next time.”

Harry made a noncommittal sound. “I’ve been meaning to ask you a question, Professor. I haven’t had injuries like this before and I know it’s still taking a really long time, but is it normal for my injuries to be healing quite this fast?”

He shifted slightly in his chair. “I’m surprised that you haven’t deduced the answer for yourself,” Snape said, his face astonishingly free of a sneer. “Your magic seems to be assisting in the healing process. Such occurrences are not as uncommon as one would think, actually.”

Snape was surprised that he hadn’t deduced the answer? Did that imply that he didn’t think Harry was a hopeless idiot after all? Harry decided that, more than likely, it was probably just another one of Snape’s ways to insult his intelligence. “I don’t suppose there’s any way to assist my magic in healing me any faster?” Harry asked rather dejectedly.

Severus let out a short, bark-like laugh. “I’m afraid not.. However, I am fairly certain that myself and your magic are doing what they can to speed up your recovery. Now, I assume that you plan to stay awake? I took a trip to Diagon Alley earlier, and I do believe that you have some reading for school to catch up on,” he said, indicating a pile of books on the table. In one swift movement, Severus was back in the doorway. He heard the boy groan in dissatisfaction at the mention of school work, and smirked a bit to himself as he made his way down the hall.