Harry Potter pushed himself onto his elbow and looked confusedly around him. His first assumption was that the complete darkness around him was due to the hour of night, and yet, even as he rubbed the sleep from his eyes, he could tell that it was not quite right. His room, that is, Dudley’s second bedroom, had a window through which he could see the moon and stars from his bed. He extended a hand – he could not see it – and his fingers brushed against soft drapery.

He pulled it aside. He blinked as sunlight hit him full in the face, and again as it revealed four more bed-like shapes curtained in Gryffindor red. Puzzled, he sat on the edge of his own bed, resting his chin on his palms, and tried to figure out how he had come to Hogwarts without his knowledge; he tried to remember exactly what had occurred the previous night.

He had planned to stay awake until midnight, when Hedwig would return with his birthday present from Hermione. Waiting for Hedwig, Errol, Pigwidgeon, and the various school and hired owls was Harry’s personal birthday ritual. Yet this year, he had fallen asleep before they had arrived. He stood up, about to stretch his arms, and the soreness in his legs, shoulders, and all down his back, reminded him of why he had been so tired.

He’d had to scrub the roof yesterday. He’d been up there all day, the sun beating remorselessly down on him, his only reprieve the two trips he’d taken to the bathroom. Harry did not know whether the roof was outside of the blood wards, and had been unwilling to face his uncle’s wrath on the off-chance that Voldemort would descend upon Little Whinging in broad daylight, but he had kept his wand tucked in the waistband of his pants the entire day.

His wand! Harry patted his drawstring pajamas, relieved to find that his wand had not fallen out in transit. He pulled it from his pants, and hesitated as he held it aloft. Magic came naturally in the castle, but it was summer. His warring instincts gave way to the realization that it was his birthday – he was seventeen – and now he could do magic whenever he pleased. He triumphantly Summoned his glasses, a wide grin settling on his face as they smacked into his hand.

Now that he could see, he looked around, properly, and noticed that he had slept on top of the sheets; the bed was perfectly made, save for where he had been. There was a head-shaped indentation in the pillow, and a smaller set of creases where his glasses had slipped off his face. There were identical marks on his cheek, he found as he rubbed it. He then spotted a square of parchment on the bedside table. He Summoned that, as well.

It was in Dumbledore’s handwriting; Harry could tell at once. Being back at Hogwarts for the first time since his funeral, having expected never to return, he realized that he fiercely missed the old man. The task of finding and destroying the remaining Horcruxes seemed insurmountable without the Headmaster’s help. He turned his eyes back to the letter, hoping it contained some last trace of the man’s wisdom. It said:

Dear Harry,

Happy birthday. I am sorry to have missed it.

You are surprised, undoubtedly, to find yourself in your bed at Hogwarts. You were transported here, at the stroke of midnight, by Portkey. That is, I used your wand to create a timed Portkey. Forgive me for neglecting to inform you beforehand; I was incapacitated, and then dead, shortly afterwards.

Perhaps you can guess my reasons; I will write them regardless. At midnight, you became an adult. The blood wards around your aunt’s house fell, and you were therefore in mortal danger. You can imagine that Tom and all his Death Eaters would have struck precisely then. He does have a flair for dramatics.

I have one last task for you, Harry. You will likely encounter a person you hate above all others, within the castle. Keep your temper, for me, and listen to what he has to say. Appearances can be deceptive. You will need him.

You are not a boy anymore. You have become a fine young man, and I congratulate you. I am sure your parents would be proud of you, as I am.

Yours in the light,

Albus Dumbledore

Harry returned the note to the table, taking great care not to wrinkle it. He scrubbed surreptitiously at the wetness on his cheek, making an effort to think of the letter’s contents and not its author.

A man I hate? He furrowed his brow. Surely Dumbledore did not want him to have a nice chat with Voldemort, did he? And at Hogwarts? That was unthinkable.

He reached for the robes hanging from the bedpost. So that’s where they went, he thought, recognizing the set he’d thought the house elves had misplaced. Dumbledore had really put quite a lot of thought into this, right down to the shoes, which were not his own, but were charmed to fit. As he tied his laces, he pondered the other people at Hogwarts whom he hated.

There was Snape; an implacable, burning hatred, mingled with a fierce desire for vengeance, reared in Harry’s chest when he thought of the man. Dumbledore could not expect Harry to parley with his murderer. No, it would have to be someone else.

He made his way down to the empty common room and flopped onto a couch. The lack of other students made him uneasy, though it was perfectly natural at this time of year. Maybe Dumbledore’s talking about one of the students? He got to his feet, scuffing his shoe against the thick carpet, thinking. Malfoy, perhaps? But he was wiser, now. He could see that it was no more than petty rivalry, that he did not hate the boy, after all. When he thought of Malfoy, he thought of a pathetic, desperate soul, like an ugly wild animal backed against a wall. He knew the difference between hatred and contempt, and surely, Dumbledore did too.

But there was someone who evoked both, in his mind – Peter Pettigrew. He remembered the man cringing and cowering, the same man who had sold his parents to Voldemort because he had been afraid. Harry hated him, to be sure, but why would Wormtail be in Hogwarts? And why would Harry ever need him?

Harry paced the floor in front of the big Gryffindor fireplace, which seemed eerily quiet without a fire in it. Pacing was an old habit of his, one he had developed spending hours alone, locked in Dudley’s second bedroom. It was not something he did often at Hogwarts; but he was alone, and the low table was as good as his bed for a course.

He could go out, of course, but the passwords were reset every summer, so he might not be able to reenter. Did Dumbledore mean for him to stay here, then? Until, perhaps, the man he hated came to meet him?

He fingered his wand, looking for something to do, with his newly liberated magic. Aimlessly shifting and levitating the furniture would not be the least productive. Perhaps he could light the fireplace. Looking more closely, he found that there was no wood, not even on the rack by the hearthstone. Had the house elves taken it away for the summer?

House elves, he remembered. Harry lowered the wand in his right hand and snapped the fingers of his left. “Dobby!” he called.

The elf appeared at his side with a pop. “Harry Potter, sir!” he squeaked, all enthusiasm and flapping ears. “Dobby is expecting you today! Happy birthday, sir!”

“Er… thanks, Dobby. Wait, did Dumbledore tell you I was coming?”

“He did! Headmaster Dumbledore is telling me, a long time ago. He said I is to give you a password.”

“Go on, what is it?” said Harry. Trust Dumbledore to read his mind, even from the grave.

“It is ‘faith’, Harry Potter sir!” The elf’s enormous eyes regarded him without blinking. “He was saying to tell you that it is the only password.”

“The only password…” A strange glint appeared in his eyes; even without seeing the knuckles whitening around Harry’s wand, so fixedly did Dobby watch his face, the elf seemed to shrink and retreat a step or two.

“Yes, Master Harry sir. Is Dobby wrong?”

Harry appeared not to have heard him. “The only password in all of Hogwarts, he means?”

“He was not saying anything more, Harry Potter, sir.”

“He never did.” Harry looked down at Dobby, and seemed to notice him for the first time. “Thanks, Dobby. You’ll be around if I need you?”

“Yes sir! Headmaster Dumbledore was telling Dobby, I is serving Harry Potter now!”

“Right. Well, I’ll see you later then.” He mustered a smile for the elf, who positively beamed as he disappeared with a pop.

Harry stood where he was, staring blankly at the now empty space where Dobby had been. He forced his fingers to uncurl themselves, replacing the wand so its tip barely protruded from his sleeve. By the turbulence of his gut, he was likely to hex anyone he encountered, friend or foe, by pure instinct. Better that the fraction of a second it took him to draw his wand be afforded him to think.

He pushed open the portrait and ventured into the eerily quiet corridor. He was not perturbed by dim, deserted hallways; he had done his fair share of roaming the castle after dark. It was merely that sunlight spilled in through the windows, and a faint breeze played at the drapery, yet Hogwarts itself was completely still. There were no ghosts, no life in the suits of armor, not even the smallest peep from anyone in the paintings. He had half a mind to see if Moaning Myrtle still wept in the girls’ restroom, but did not; he knew where he had to go.

Harry reached the gargoyle guarding the Headmaster’s office, much sooner than he had thought possible. It seemed to leer at him, this time around, as though it mocked him for hoping – wildly, desperately, for one fleeting moment – that at the top of the revolving staircase, Dumbledore was waiting to offer him a lemon drop, and all would be well.

“Faith,” he murmured to the gargoyle. It hopped aside, revealing the familiar stone steps behind it. Harry entered, and ascended.

There was no one at the top of the staircase, and Harry told himself that he hadn’t expected anyone anyhow. He laid a hand on the doorknocker– his left, as his right slipped the wand from his sleeve – and froze. There was a noise behind the locked door, unmistakably that of another person.

His first thought was that McGonagall had, after dropping the “Deputy” from her title of “Headmistress”, begun relocating her domicile. Surely his Head of House, or more properly, former Head of House, would be glad to see him; she had undoubtedly been apprised of the Portkey affair. He knocked twice, and pushed open the door.

Sitting behind Dumbledore’s desk, with quill in hand, was none other than Severus Snape.

Harry’s wand leveled itself at a point between Snape’s eyes, before either of them had blinked. “You!” Harry roared, seeing red.

“Me,” Snape agreed, unperturbed. He did not flinch, did not even move, save to deliberately raise the quill and point it admonishingly at Harry. Despite the bloody haze clouding his vision, Harry could see the tip of Snape’s wand against the man’s palm.

“You want to duel me, Snape?” he demanded. Despite the surety that he was no match for the man, as demonstrated the night of Dumbledore's demise, quite a large part of him desperately wanted an excuse, any excuse, to attack him, to rend him into a thousand pieces and toss them off a tower, to give outlet to the rage which by some heretofore unknown measure of will manifested only in a trembling of his wand and a few fizzling red sparks.

“I have no interest in dueling, at present. Or rather, no interest in dueling you, Mr. Potter.” Gesturing with the quill, he added, “You should put away the wand now, before you do yourself an injury.”

Harry’s subsequent snarl sounded much like that of an enraged carnivore. “What did you do to her, Snape?”

Snape did flinch, then, or seemed to, without moving, if it were possible. It was a long moment before he replied, voice like the grave, “What are you talking about, Potter?”

“You know perfectly well what I’m talking about, Snape! McGonagall! What did you do to her?”

“Ah.” Some of the tension visibly lifted from Snape's shoulders; the glint in his eyes seemed to reveal amusement, undoubtedly at Harry's expense. “She and the rest of the Order – if you have yet to notice, we are alone in the castle – are currently participating in what will likely go down in history as The Battle of Privet Drive.”

Harry gasped as the full meaning of the pronouncement seeped through the anger pulsing in his temples. “The blood wards!” He lowered his wand – it was now aimed at approximately Snape's chest. “Voldemort's there, isn't he? And – and the Dursleys...” He narrowed his eyes as the thought struck him, and added, “Why aren't you there?”

“I have orders to the contrary.”

“Whose orders, eh?” Harry demanded. “Voldemort's! Not Dumbledore's – can't be, 'cause he isn't around to give orders anymore, is he? Is he?” By the end, his voice had cracked,  but he made up for it with a fierce glare.

“Actually, they are the same orders from both.”

“They – what? But he's dead!” Harry raised his wand again, releasing a hissing gout of steam. “You're lying!” he accused. “You're a filthy Slytherin liar, aren't you, and –”

“The headmaster was perfectly capable of leaving written instructions, as I am sure you are well aware.”

The man's tone of voice, more than anything, was what gave Harry pause. Written instructions... The haze of unadulterated rage retreated a little as he recalled Dumbledore's letter. A person you hate, he had written, and listen to what he has to say.

“Yeah,” he ground out, “I know what you're getting at. He was right. I hate you.” But Merlin, did it feel good to say it to the man's face!

“Shocking, of course.”

“Well? What do you have to say for yourself?”

“I suppose you cannot be persuaded to take a seat, like a civilized person.”

“You're one to talk, murderer,” spat Harry, who did perch on the arm of the nearest armchair, but kept his wand trained on Snape.

“I will not deny that I killed him, but it was under duress, and by his own orders.”

“You’re telling me he wanted to die? Do you think I’m bloody blind, Snape? It was murder!”

“He preferred to think of it as ‘fulfillment of duties owed.’” There was a world of bitterness in Snape's voice. “I gave him my word. He asked me to do it.”

“He asked you not to do it – he begged you!” Harry's wand twitched in his hand as the memory of Dumbledore's last words sprang unbidden to mind. “I was there! I saw him! I saw it all!”

“His plea was… intentionally vague. Recall – for once in your life, use that miserable brain of yours – recall that he said 'please', but did not specify further. Has it occurred to you that it might have been deliberate? The Headmaster was quite a bit cleverer than you realize.”

“You Slytherins can twist any damned thing to your advantage, can't you? I guess you'll be telling me he's not really dead after all, or some rubbish like that! You expect me to believe you?”

“Not at all. Your current reaction is more in keeping with my expectations. The Headmaster, however, seemed to think you would be more easily swayed. Then again, he also seemed to think he'd be of more use dead than alive, the old fool.”

Harry bristled at that. “Don't talk about him that way! You've no right!”

At long last, Snape seemed to lose his façade of almost unnatural calm. “You are not the only one to mourn him, Potter,” he hissed, black eyes glittering like jet. “Your presumption thereof is offensive and childish.” He returned the quill, which he had begun rolling between thumb and forefinger, to its stand with rather unnecessary force. “To think that the Headmaster had such hopes for your coming of age... Fortunately for the continued survival of the Wizarding World, I have significantly less faith in your mental capacity.”

There it was, thought Harry, the word “faith” again. It bothered him more than he would admit, but he was glad he was not the only one in the room without Dumbledore's faith in the other. That, at least, felt familiar, in this room where everything now felt wrong.

He almost missed Snape's next words: “I insisted on preparing a Pensieve.”

“You can fake memories – I learned that last year.”

“Then you will be pleased to know that none of them are mine.” He stood abruptly and, keeping one eye on Harry, turned to the portrait behind his chair.

Harry had not noticed it before, so intent he had been on Snape, though the painting was larger than any of the others on the walls. Dumbledore was fast asleep within the frame; the image, canvas though it was, brought an uncomfortable lump to Harry's throat.

“Headmaster,” said Snape, “if you would be so kind, I have need of your Pensieve.”

The old man did not stir. “Headmaster, this charade has gone on long enough. Do not pretend you have not been eavesdropping the entire time – you do not deceive me.” Snape let some of the irritation he surely harbored creep into his tone of voice. Still, Dumbledore remained soundly asleep, and Snape drew his wand.

“Don't!” Harry shouted – though it was more a croak than anything – and sprang from his seat with wand in hand.

“I am hardly going to hex the portrait, Potter,” Snape said with a sneer. He tapped the frame with the tip of his wand, remarking to the portrait, “I don't suppose an Alohamora will work on you. Very well, I can guess the game you're playing, Albus.”

Portrait-Dumbledore did awaken then, and, as if nothing out of the ordinary had transpired, asked brightly, “Did you call for me, Severus?”

Before Snape could so much as fit a word in edgewise, Harry was pressed forward against the headmaster's desk and managed to choke out the word “Professor” in greeting even as his throat and lungs rebelled. He mutely blinked away the impending tears, thinking, I won't cry in front of Snape. I won't give him the satisfaction.

“Oh, Harry,” said Dumbledore, breaking into a wide smile, “I'm so very pleased to see you. Happy birthday, my boy.”

“Thank you, sir,” he whispered. There were a thousand things he wanted to say, a thousand unanswered questions, but in that moment, all of them were forgotten.

“I trust you haven't been giving Professor Snape a hard time, Harry?”

“Oh yes, he trusts me to the extent that we need Pensieve verification, Headmaster – he hasn't been difficult at all,” Snape said crossly.

“Call me Albus – I don't know why you insist on such formality, Severus. As for the Pensieve, you know that it is – ”

“ – a last resort,” Snape finished for him. “I am well aware of the fact, but surely you can see that we have not budged an inch since Potter's arrival. I should think this qualifies!”

Dumbledore sighed. “Very well,” he said. Harry imagined that he looked a tad disappointed as his portrait swung open.

“Yes,” Snape said. He swallowed, visibly, and forced himself to continue, “though at the time, you must understand, I thought little of it. I myself don't put much stock in Divination; I was looking merely for information with which to advance my position in the Dark Lord's circle, and I happened upon the prophecy. I gave very little thought to its contents; I did not imagine that the Dark Lord would... imbue it with the significance he did. Had I known – I promise you – had I any notion that he would think – that he would come after Lily... I would never have – I would sooner have died myself.”

Snape lapsed into an uncomfortable silence and turned away from him; Harry caught a glimpse of his red-rimmed, suspiciously bright eyes in the windowpane. Groping for something, anything, to say, Harry whispered, “I believe you,” and found, in the telling, that it was true. Snape was a good actor, he knew – had to be, to have survived Voldemort and Dumbledore both, and for so long – but Harry was sure he wasn't feigning the unsteadiness of his voice or the slight trembling of his fingers. There was something a little too desperate, too haunted, in the thin frame of his shoulders.

Snape did not acknowledge him, but schooled his expression, a veneer of icy, almost inhuman calm settling over his features. Harry imagined it was the mask he donned in Voldemort's presence, and understood, more clearly than ever, how Snape had survived two decades as a spy. The man went on, as if nothing out of the ordinary had occurred, “As soon as I understood the Dark Lord's intentions, I went to the Headmaster. I confessed to him everything; I came to him a repentant Death Eater, begging redemption for myself and sanctuary for Lily.” He darted a glance at Dumbledore's portrait, which was staring unabashedly at Harry, and perhaps purposefully away from Snape.

“The Headmaster made me an offer. He would place her – all three of you – under the strongest protections known to wizardkind, secret you away where the Dark Lord could never touch you, in exchange for my allegiance and services as a double agent. He did not tell me, then, that he took the prophecy as seriously as did the Dark Lord – that he had already planned to arrange such protections for your family – and so I came away with a sense of profound indebtedness, believing that he would go to such... extraordinary lengths, at my behest.”

He looked over at Harry, a swift, sidelong glance beneath his lashes, without turning his head. “You know the plan we devised. I was to replace Horace Slughorn as Potions master, and work for the Order of the Phoenix, while maintaining my position in the Dark Lord's circle. I would answer directly to the Headmaster, for as long as was necessary – as long as the war would last.

“I returned to the Dark Lord, and reported to him a much-edited version of our conversation – I told him that the current Potions master intended to retire at the end of the year, and that the Headmaster had offered me the position. It was not particularly unexpected, at least on merit; Professor Slughorn had indeed planned to retire for some years, and I had been one of his best students. I had a few publication credits in academic journals in Britain, and one in America, at the time. The Dark Lord was greatly pleased at the prospect of placing a Death Eater so close to the Headmaster, and pressed me to accept the offer, despite my apparent reluctance.

“I began teaching very soon thereafter. I had no inclination and little natural talent for the job, but it was a small price to pay, I thought,” said Snape, mustering a half-hearted grimace. “I did not significantly interact with the rest of the Order of the Phoenix, at the time, given that many of its members still doubted me – though the Headmaster's favor did much to alleviate their – understandable – concerns. I was not privy to their workings and strategy as a whole; I only knew what was relevant to her, including that James Potter had foolishly refused the Headmaster's offer to stand as their Secret Keeper, preferring Sirius Black, instead.

“That incident, I learned much later, was not what it appeared to be. The Headmaster had no intention of becoming Secret Keeper; it would have in all likelihood forced a Death Eater attack on Hogwarts, which the school could, at the time, ill afford. Instead, he quietly approached Potter's three greatest friends, and explained to them the predicament. Each of them came with inherent liability, to be sure – Pettigrew was too weak, Black too valuable to the Order as a combatant, and Lupin too susceptible to the Dark Lord's sway over Dark creatures – but their apparent loyalty to Potter made them the most suitable candidates. Black volunteered, naturally, and Potter accepted, over the token protest of the Headmaster.

“The conclusion to that story, I believe you know. Black was suspicious of Lupin at the time; Fenrir Greyback had just made an overture to Lupin, which he declined, but which nonetheless made Black wary. He therefore turned to Pettigrew to concoct his scheme, without consulting the Headmaster – who surely would have advised against it – trusting entirely too much in his own cleverness, as he was wont to do. The Dark Lord originally approached Pettigrew merely to force him to divulge Black's location – Black had gone into hiding – and instead, upon threatening Pettigrew's life, soon discovered that Black's disappearance was a ruse – that Pettigrew was the true Secret Keeper.

“The Dark Lord had gone alone to Pettigrew; none of the Death Eaters knew what he had discovered. But he sought me out, specifically, once he had the information. You must know, Harry, that the Dark Lord knows well how to reward his followers, to buy their loyalty and gratitude. He bade me accompany him to Godric's Hollow, that I might witness the demise of my childhood tormentor.

Snape brought a hand to his face, his long fingers covering his eyes. Harry could see his throat working, and looked down at his own knees, his hands clutching them. When he raised his head, he could make out the dampness on Snape's knuckles in the firelight. The man shuddered, the breath rattling in his lungs as he inhaled, and lowered his hands.

He spoke again, very quietly. “This news brought me no joy, as you might imagine. I – with no other recourse, as I was not in a position to even contact the Order, or the Headmaster – I asked him to spare Lily. You were the only one he had to kill, according to the prophecy; your parents were relevant only as members of the Order, and, more importantly, as obstacles to your destruction. Lily should not have mattered to his plans.” Snape closed his eyes, a gesture of infinite weariness, or perhaps some emotion Harry could not name. “I – he – the Dark Lord – did not know that we had been anything more than acquaintances – schoolmates – and certainly not that she had been any sort of friend to me. I merely – you might imagine, given the animosity between myself and James Potter, the sorts of things I might have said to convince the Dark Lord that I had personal, selfish, vengeful reasons for wanting Lily alive. He was not surprised to hear them – similar things have happened to the families of Aurors and other members of the Order. He – he agreed to reward me with the beautiful wife of my greatest childhood enemy.

He turned his gaze upon Harry, eyes haunted, desperate. “You must understand that you and your father were not at all my priority. For your mother's sake – I saw that she was unfathomably happy with him – I did not truly wish him dead, and I would have had you spared, if I there were any way to manage it, but in the end, what mattered to me was that Lily was unharmed. You were nothing to me then, Harry, except perhaps the fruit of an unwelcome union and living testament to the sum of my mistakes.”

“I understand,” said Harry, because he did. Against the tally of indignities and insults – trifles, now – he had suffered at Snape's hands, against the circumstances of his parents' demise, such disregard – and so long ago – meant very little. “It was my mum you cared about,” he said, and then, in saying so, realized the missing piece of the story.

“You loved her,” he whispered, and his tone was that of wonder.