Severus Snape strode dangerously along the corridor that led to his dungeon. His robes were bellowing with unusual vigor, and he gave his head an occasional, vicious snap to flick the hair from his eyes.

Potter was waiting for him in the classroom. He'd deliberately kept the boy waiting twenty minutes; enough time, Snape thought, for him to have worked up a fine nervous tension.

He flung the door open with a resounding clash-the boy leapt, startled. His face was slightly swollen, eyes red. He was, no doubt, mourning the loss of his wretched godfather. He was clad in his pajamas, as he had been when Snape had fired called him from his dorm room at ten o'clock. He had wanted to transact this business in private, and anyway, had the idea that Potter would not be asleep.

"Why are we here, Mr. Potter?"

Harry jerked with shock. He hadn't had much sleep since Sirius… A tear slowly ran down his cheek and he wiped it, impatient.

"Because of what happened. At the Shack." Snape nodded. Potter looked awful. On closer inspection, he had dark circles under his eyes and he looked as though his hands were shaking a little. Blasted brat. He was holding his grief over Black inside and it was eating at him. Snape couldn't have cared less, naturally; he was only worried about what Lily would have thought had he let her son suffer this way.

"That's correct. Not only did you disobey and sneak out of the castle, you endangered yourself and your friends, you sought out a dangerous criminal," he held up a hand to silence Harry's protests, "You stunned me when I came to help you, and almost got yourself killed by a werewolf. Is that all?"

Harry pulled himself up to his full height and snapped "Sirius wasn't.."

"Did you know that at the time? You were going to kill him, were you not?"

Harry nodded. Tired, so tired. He wanted to sleep but he couldn't. When he tried to sleep, he saw the Dementors, crowded about Sirius, sucking his soul.

"I see. Professor Dumbledore and I had words about this tonight. I have finally convinced him that his detentions and house points simply aren't enough for you. A more personal touch is required for our Mr. Potter. It would seem the Boy Who Lived is too special even for something as basic as COMMON BLOODY SENSE!" He yelled the last few words, pleased that Potter looked suitably afraid. "Your parents died for you, boy. You seem determined to throw that gift away. Lily Evans was the finest witch I ever knew. You may not care whether her death was in vain, but I do."

The conversation had taken a painful turn. Harry felt more tears building and shoved them down. His insides were twisting and jerking.

"What are you going to do?"

Snape smiled a singularly unpleasant smile. "I believe," he said silkily, "Steps should be made to see that the punishment fits the crime." He clamped a hard hand around Potter's bicep, and drug him outside.

Harry was barely aware they were moving until the cold air of the outside hit his face. He allowed Snape to drag him along, muttering about idiot children, until, to his shock, they stood right in front of the Whomping Willow.

Snape threw the stone and disabled the thing handily. It stopped it's menacing whirling and the Potion's Master grabbed a low branch. "Pick one."

As though in a dream, Harry picked a branch and handed it to the teacher. Snape examined it quickly, nodded to himself, and began dragging Harry back to the school. He was more awake this time, and wondered why Snape would ask a student he didn't like to help him harvest Potion's ingredients, and especially, what Potion requires a willow branch. A sudden thought, ridiculous and yet strangely compelling, popped into his head. Harry shoved it away and simply concentrated on keeping up.

Back in the classroom, Snape set to work peeling the branch, carefully stripping the bark as well as the leaves and twigs. He had every intention of teaching the boy a lesson, but he didn't want to scar him or draw blood. Harry watched him with dull, unseeing eyes.

Obviously had no idea what was going to happen, at least this time. Spoiled brat had never been punished properly in his life, that much was certain, or else he would never have dared pull such a stupid, reckless stunt. Just thinking about it made Snape's blood boil anew.

He summoned his chair and sat down in it, holding the willow switch in his hand.

"Come here, Potter." Harry didn't like the looks of this a bit. He shuffled over, uncertain. Surely Snape would not…He couldn't possibly….Dumbledore would never let him…

"Pull down your trousers and lie over my knee."

Harry paled at once. Snape had to admit that it was nearly funny, watching the boy comprehend what was going to happen. "You can't.."

"No? Dumbledore seems to think I can. Would you argue with Albus Dumbledore?"

Harry seemed frozen in place. He wanted to move, to protest, but his body wouldn't obey. Instead, traitorously, it hooked his thumbs into the waistband of his sleep pants and jerked them to his knees. He had never been smacked before, didn't know where Snape wanted him.

Snape guided him over his lap, careful not to hurt him. He even took Potter's glasses and carefully folded them and put them on the desk behind him, not wanting him to thrash so hard they flew off his face.

He put one arm around the boy's waist and used the other to tug his shorts to his knees atop with his sleep pants.

This provoked a reaction. Potter squeaked, unable to conscience being half nude before his teacher. "Please, professor-- "

Snape ignored him and raised the switch. It slid through the air with a soft 'swisssh', and  struck Harry right where he sat. An instant later, he stiffened, cried out. "Oww!"

Harry was shocked. It didn't just hurt. It bloody well HURT! He couldn't help it. He cried out each time the switch fell, because it felt like a very thin line of fire was being burned onto his backside at every stroke.

"What are you being spanked for, Potter?"

Harry squirmed. "Because I stunned you ahhhh, it hurts!"

Snape had to smile a little, times change but the reaction of a child under a switch was not one of those things. He raised the switch and began a new set of stripes, these more toward the center. Harry sucked in air and Snape steeled himself for the barrage of howls and screams to follow. Instead, the boy seemed to be holding his breathe, an act of direct defiance, and Snape decided to quell by it making his blows quicker and harder.

"It's going to hurt more, because we aren't half done. What else did you do?"

Harry was struggling to not sob. "I tried to f-find Sirius. I went to Hogsmeade (owwww!) I went after Lupin even though I knew it was (ouch, please!) dangerous. I almost got Ron and 'Mione hurt, and I snuck out, even though (yowww!) we were suppose to be inside."

Snape slowed a little. "That's right. You were thoughtless and rude and thoroughly foolish, and I intend to make sure you think twice before you ever do anything like it again." He raised the switch and gave Harry the hardest set yet, right on the crease between bottom and thigh where he sat down. He was gratified by the result.

"OWWW, NOOOO, STOP! I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'll never do it agai-ahhhhhhhh! Pleeeeaasse, no more, it huurrrrts! Oww, not there, pleeeease, not theeeere! I have a test tomorroooWWW!"

Snape felt a grim sense of rightness with his actions, watching as the Boy Who Was Going to Live With a Very Sore Behind For A Few Days protest. Not so arrogant now, was he?

After a moment, Snape did stop, setting the switch aside. The boy continued to writhe, kicking, for a full minute before he realized the blaze in his behind was not being added to anymore.

Snape let him cry it out without saying anything. The sobs didn't abate-if anything, they increased. After a reluctant pause, Snape put his hand on Harry's back and began to pat.

"Alright, Mr. Potter. Calm down before you make yourself sick, won't you?"

Harry simply couldn’t stop. The dam that he had erected around all his feelings had smashed open, and now weeks worth of terror and worry were gushing out of him. He put his head down and bawled harder than he could ever remember crying.

Snape was disturbed. This wasn’t about the spanking, not anymore. He let the boy cry for another minute and, sighing, righted the brat, pulling his sleep pants up and setting him on his feet. Harry hugged himself, still crying as though his heart would break.

Snape shook his head, feeling concern despite himself. He grabbed the boy’s puny little arm and drug him, unresisting, to his office. The fire sprang to life at once, and Snape pushed the crying child down gently on the couch, then sat beside him.

“Professor, I’m s-s-orry. I’ll stop, I will, I--” Harry was torn between a desire to not seem like a bigger baby than he already did and an equal desire to let some of the agony and fear of the past few weeks drain away. He tried to stop the tears, he really did, but all he did was make himself sob harder from shame and embarrassment.

“That’s quite alright, Potter. Tell me, though, why so much fuss? “

“I don’t know, I n-n-never cry like this.” Harry buried his face in the crook of his arm and waited for the taunting to begin.

Snape cursed to himself. Damnable child, all he’d meant to do was whip him, out of respect to Lily’s memory, and then have done with it. The boy would have a sore bum to remind him to behave, and Snape could quiet the green eyed ghost that stared at him so sadly . Lily….. He swallowed hard. It always surprised him, his grief for her, still fresh and strong after all these years. It stayed buried for months, years, and then something would remind him and it was as though he had lost her only yesterday. Lily…

He attributed what he did next to his suddenly raw grief for her, the only woman he’d ever loved. He scooted to the very edge of the couch and put his arms hesitantly about the boy, who shrank back like he’d been burned. Snape blinked in shock--most children in that position would have thrown themselves wailing into the nearest adult arms for comfort.

“Potter, stop this nonsense at once. Now, boy!”

That did the trick. Harry’s tears stopped as though he had turned off a faucet, which was itself irregular. Snape had been working with children for too long not to find it even more unsettling.

“What in the world has come over you?”

“I’m sorry, sir. I didn’t mean to cry like that, it won’t happen again.”

Snape took in the boy’s dull tone and strangely glazed eyes and made a snap decision.

“Potter, you have exactly five seconds to tell me the meaning of this, all of it. Otherwise, I’ll get the veritaserum from the Potions store and we’ll do it that way. Again, and for the last time: What is the meaning of all this?”

Harry is seven, seven and small, and so very very hot. It’s mid August, the sun is hot and strong upon his neck, sweat runs down his back and soaks his T-shirt. He’s helping Uncle Vernon prune a tree, a thunderstorm knocked a branch out of the big live oak on the line between the Dursleys property and the Hoomplys, and Mrs. Hoomply called and demanded they fix it, and Vernon is in a filthy mood. The unusual heat doesn’t help, his mood is getting worse by the second, and he flings the pruning shears down and watches his nephew trying to drag the heavy branch to the curb by himself.

The idiot child succeeds, and comes back to finish up. Vernon folds the ladder up and directs Harry to take the end and carry it, quite forgetting the shears, and the little boy’s sweat glistening hands lose their grip and he falls hard, scraping the skin off his hands and somehow landing on the shears, giving himself a nasty gouge on the back of his thigh. Blood is running down the back of his leg, his hands are burning, and he looks at Vernon with huge teary eyes, wanting so much for his uncle to care.

Vernon notices Harry has dropped his end, and the man’s tiny supply of patience runs out. “What’s the matter with you now?’

Harry holds out his raw palms and whimpers. He hurts all over, and he wants his uncle to make it all better. Vernon snorts. He towers over the small boy and says slowly

“We took you in after your worthless drunken father and mother were killed. We fed and clothed you. We sent you to school. All we ask is you help out a little from time and time, and you -can’t -even -manage- that-successfully. Instead, you stand there whining like a crybaby over nothing.”

“But my leg is--”

“I don’t want to hear it. You’re as bad as your father, that’s what you are.”

Harry feels tears threatening. One runs slowly down his cheek, and he whimpers a little more.

“Please, Uncle, I’m sorry. Let me help, I won’t whine anymore, I p-promise.’

Vernon doesn’t even look at him. “Too late. Go on, boy, I can’t bear to look at you.”

In the cupboard, Harry blows on his palms while he sobs. He’s a bad boy, he can’t even help because he’s too stupid. No wonder no one likes him! He resolves to be better tomorrow, to be the best boy he can be. The pain is fading but he clings to it. It’s all he deserves.

XXXXXX

Harry couldn’t meet Snape’s eyes. He didn’t want to remember. The memories made him feel strangely itchy. He hadn’t intended to be so shamefully weak. He shoved the small bright sliver of pain the memory had evoked in him, the rage and helplessness, into a small darkened mental chamber and slammed the door with a resolving clang.

Snape watched as the child drifted, clearly debating whether to tell the truth. The boy’s face was like a blank sheet of parchment, his emotions ink carelessly dribbled all over. As he stared, the boy’s left hand drifted up and pinched hard at his right wrist, at the tender fold of skin near the bracelets of Fate. He seemed almost unaware he had done it. The pain calmed the struggle, and he exhaled and turned to Snape.

“I’m sorry, sir. I haven’t felt well lately and--”

Something in Snape awoke and growled. The boy was lying to him. He sat back and waited just long enough for the boy to squirm under his gaze.

“Tell me, if you would, Mr. Potter: How stupid do you think I am?”

Harry twitched in shock. “I-I don’t think you’re--”

“ Of course you do. Otherwise, you would never have told me such an obvious lie. Two lies, actually. You would have made for a miserable Slytherin, Potter. The first rule of lying is to never underestimate the person you’re lying to.”

“But I--”

Snape allowed himself a brief grumble of laughter. “Count yourself lucky, boy, that I thrashed you earlier. Else I would be doing so right now, for your sheer audacity.”

Harry wasn’t sure that ‘lucky’ and ‘thrashed’ belonged in the same sentence. What he was sure of was the fact that he was tired, and hungry, and sore. And angry. Snape had no right to dredge these memories up, to make him feel weak. He had no right to hit him. Most of all, he had no right in invoke Harry’s Mum, whom, he was sure, would never have allowed the greasy, smirking berk anywhere near her son.

“Why don’t you then?” The words spilled out before he could stop them.

“Why don’t you beat the living daylights out of me and send me away? I don’t have to tell you anything. You can’t make me, so why don’t you just SOD OFF and leave me ALONE?”

Snape listened to the outburst with stoic dignity. The boy was panicking because he felt cornered. Snape decided to indulge him until the end of the outburst, then said calmly “Very affecting, Potter. First of all, I have never beaten a child in my life. I simply gave you exactly what you deserved for your bad behavior. Second, I am under no particular imperative to, as you so crudely put it, ‘sod off’. I will desist when I feel you have answered me with honesty and respect, which issues I assure you we will address in the near future. Finally, you are behaving like a three year old, and since you cannot act like an adult, I see no reason to extend you the courtesy of treating you like one.”

Snape pulled his wand from his sleeve and gave it the merest flick. Harry was unable to move, unable even to speak. The body bind felt like being wrapped in the thick grey quilt of Dudley’s, on those occasions that Dudley and Piers had wrapped him in it before throwing him down and kicking him senseless.

Snape accio’d a vial of something lavender, with mellow flecks of mint green. Snape uncorked the vial and easily opened Harry’s mouth. “This, Potter, is Soothing Syrup, often given to children to calm them. Swallow it now, there’s a good boy.”

Harry wanted to be furious, but he felt far too pleasant. The world was hazy and dim, Snape’s voice was very far away, and he was pleasantly surprised to find he could move a little. His eyelids were like lead. He shut them, and within minutes he was sleeping.

Snape breathed deeply, pinching the bridge of his nose. The Soothing Syrup should not have made Potter sleep. It was becoming clear that the situation was not what it seemed. What to do?

He could let the little brat have his way. Snape, after all, had not stayed alive these long years by minding other people’s business. A curious Death Eater was more often than not a dead Death Eater ere long. Snape’s life was orderly, calm, predictable. His little house was not much, but it served his needs. He had a large library, a warm study, a life quite devoid of nasty surprises. Severus Snape had no use for surprises, nasty or otherwise.

On the other hand, Snape was not a monster. If Potter was hiding something harmful, he wanted to see that the boy got help. He would never voluntarily see a child hurt, never again, and this secret keeping was clearly making the boy miserable.

And he’d meant what he’d said. Lily Evans had been a fine woman, an excellent witch, and the first real friend he’d ever had. He could not think of her without a stab of grief. If he had once thought she might be more to him…time cures us of the idiocies of our youth. She’d married that insolent wretch Potter, who’d never been half good enough for her. He looked at the sleeping boy, who was curled in a fetal position, shivering. Snape transfigured a ruler into a blanket, and covered the child with it. The boy shifted and moaned. A nightmare was coming, Snape could tell. He’d had enough himself, after all.

Without pausing to reflect, he put a hand out and gently pressed his palm to the boy’s head. “Shh, Potter, it’s all right. Back to sleep.”

The boy twisted, and for a split second Snape recalled with heart breaking clarity the smell of Lily’s hair. Some kind of muggle shampoo, something that smelled like apple.

That decided him. He charmed the couch, to assure Potter wouldn’t wake and run away, then put a pinch of Floo powder into the fireplace. “Dumbledore’s office” he said as it swallowed him.

He spared a last thought to Harry, trapped in the shell of his own mind, exhaustion staving off the inevitable nightmares. The boy would wake soon enough, and there would be answers.

Severus Snape, former Death Eater, spy, potions master, was on the prowl. Dumbledore was the first stop along the way.

The Floo spat Snape out on the carpet of Dumbledore’s office. The man himself was sitting behind the desk, sipping a cup of tea and perusing what seemed to be an old book of spells.

“Ah, Severus” he said without looking up “How wonderful to see you. How did it go with Harry?”

Snape ignored him and took a moment to tidy himself up. He sat, unasked, upon the leather armchair and, clasping his hands in his lap, fixed the headmaster with the glare that scared even seasoned Death Eaters. Dumbledore rummaged for a moment and picked up a purple tin. “ Would you care for a sherbert lemon?”

Snape blinked. Damn the meddling old fool, he was good at this game.

“No, Headmaster, I would not. I would like to ask you a question.”

“Anything, Severus. Tea?”

“No.” Snape felt a tiny spike of anger in his veins, felt his heart rate go up ten or twelve beats in two seconds. Dumbledore played the grandfatherly part to a tee, always had, but he missed nothing. Doubtless, he enjoyed watching his difficult, irascible Potions Master twist in the wind.

“Headmaster, there seems to be a problem with Potter. The boy seems…off.”

“Off? Off how?” Dumbledore leaned back in his chair, smiling serenely.

“As though his mind is troubled, but he cannot bring himself to tell anyone.”

“At his age--”

“No, not like that. As though he cannot bring himself to admit that he has been hurt. He cried uncontrollably, yet shrank from my touch. When I questioned him, he--he pinched himself. I couldn’t get a straight answer from him, and a simple dose of Soothing Syrup put him to sleep.”

Dumbledore looked momentarily blank. “Well, I’m sorry to hear that, Severus, but what would you have me do?”

Snape sat up straight, unable to believe it. Dumbledore, not oblivious to the child’s suffering as much as indifferent? The Golden boy, his favorite, their savior?

“Albus, this child shows every sign of having a serious problem. Are you not eager to discover why?”

Dumbledore’s twinkle was wholly gone. He looked old, and tired. His shoulders hunched. When he looked at Snape, his face showed the weariness of his long life. “Severus, I cannot be all things to all people. The boy’s life may not be ideal, but I’m sure it will all sort itself out in time. Our concern is to keep him safe so he can fulfill his destiny.”

Snape felt sure for a moment that he had misheard. The man couldn’t care less. He was content to watch Potter rip himself apart inside, so long as the boy could be a good little pawn and do his bit.

“Is it that easy, Headmaster? You just close your eyes and let the world move on about you? Potter is suffering, perhaps seriously, and you simply do not look?” “Now, really, Severus, that’s hardly fair--”

“Fair? There’s nothing fair about this, old man. Potter’s is not the only problem you’ve ever ignored. Other have been hurt through your blindness.”

“I believe we have discussed what happened with the Marauders, Severus. Mistakes were made, I grant you that, but--”

“What about Tobias? I begged you, begged you for help, and did you even once spare me a moment of that attention which you gave the others?”

“And for that I apologize. The fact remains, there’s very little we can do for Harry. The situation must be endured.”

“I disagree. You have the influence to step in and--”

“The situation is much more complex than that. Lily Potter’s sacrifice was made from pure love, and that love is all that protects Harry from You Know Who and his minions. The wards will hold another four years. We cannot endanger him until then.”

“ We cannot allow him to go home to his relatives in this shape. As emotionally unstable as the boy is, he’s likely to have a catastrophic bout of accidental magic. The wards are no good if he’s blown the muggles up in a fit of pique.”

“What would you suggest, Severus?”

“Couldn’t another family take him? The Weasleys, for example, or Andromeda Tonks and her husband?’

“We cannot give him to a family, it’s much too dangerous. It’s safer he stay where he is.”

“ Suppose he goes back and the situation worsens, headmaster. Do you really think they’ll owl us if Potter is too depressed to eat? He could hurt himself.”

“That is merely a risk we must take.”

“This is a human life you’re talking about. Is there no alternative?”

“The wards could be transferred. It’s difficult, but it can be done. And it would take a terrible sacrifice on the part of whomever took him in.”

“Sacrifice?”

“To transfer a blood ward, the wizard to whom it is being transferred must make an Unbreakable oath.”

“ I see.”

Snape’s own nature would ordinarily have encouraged him to end it there, to walk away. Potter’s home life might or might not have been ideal, but it wasn’t as though they were torturing him or starving him. His demeanor indicated a lack of discipline, certainly, but that was neither here nor there in terms of the potions master.

He found he couldn’t. The evening had started with Snape’s attempt to quiet the ghosts of his past and assuage a little of his guilt, and if his methods had been a bit… extreme, he felt as though he had gotten through.

It was the tears which did it. He wanted to know what could make a boy, hurting, sad, angry, utterly alone, stop crying with the finality of a man shutting a window. And it in woke in him some memory of another skinny dark haired boy, whose tears had been ignored and sired rage instead. Rage, and an almost consuming madness, a desire to strike back which had cost innocent lives. The Mark on his arm seemed to weigh a thousand pounds, seemed burned into his very soul.

He had no family, no friends, nothing that bound him to anyone or anything. As a spy, his life was inevitably going to be short and brutal. He would never marry or have a child of his own; perhaps by helping this one child, he could atone, just a little, for what he had done.

“Suppose, Albus, I were to take him.”

“Suppose you did. In many ways you are the ideal candidate. Still…” Dumbledore trailed off significantly.

“ ‘Still’? We agree that I am a suitable candidate, and you express some reservation which you cannot bring yourself to name? Dumbledore lost for words at last?”

“I wonder why you would want to bind yourself to a child you hate.”

Dumbledore smiled, not a twinkly smile but a slow, almost sly quirk of the mouth. “ I am wondering who it is you are trying to save.”

Snape got very quiet and very still, which never meant anything good. His face flushed red high along the cheekbones. “You dare impugn my motives when you were content to watch him destroy himself?”

Dumbledore cocked his head. “ She’s dead, Severus. Doing this will not bring her back.”

Snape had heard enough. He walked, shaking, to the fire place and prepared to throw a pinch of Floo powder from the ceramic jar on the mantel.

“Severus” he turned to look at the headmaster, still too angry to talk “Is nine o’clock acceptable?”

“For what?”

“For the oath ceremony.”

Snape brought himself to nod, just once, and then was gone. The last thing he saw as the room began to whirl was Dumbledore, twinkling at him with hard blue eyes.

XXXXXX

The first thing Snape heard in his office was the boy’s moans and cries.

“Sirius, no, please….I’m sorry…..no…..” It trailed off in mumbles and whimpering groans. Snape was unsure, and decided to wake the boy if it got any worse. He tried to grade a stack of papers, but the sounds from the couch were simply too distracting.

“Potter. Potter! Wake up!”

The boy jerked awake with a start. “Hunh! S-Snape?”

“Professor Snape. You were having a bad dream.”

Harry tried to sit up and found he was unable. It was as though he was held down by pieces of invisible spello tape.

“Unstick me, I want to get down.”

Snape smiled the way a cat smiles at a small defenseless bird with a broken wing.

“Have we forgotten what few manners we had to begin with, Potter?”

Harry glowered. Miserable greasy git. “Please, sir, may I get up and go now?”

Snape never even considered. “No.”

“But you just said--”

“I never said you could go. You’ll stay with me tonight.”

“But why? ”

“Because I’ve decided that is what’s best. Perhaps if you ask nicely, I’ll allow you to use my guest bed.”

Harry was in no mood to play Snape’s little game.

“This is stupid. I feel just--”

Snape moved fast. He was looming over Harry like a bat before the child had time to finish his whine. “I did not, Mr. Potter, ask after the state of your feelings, nor do I remember asking whether you approved or not. I don’t know how else to make this plain for you” Snape bent over Harry and took the boy’s jaw in his hand, making him look Snape right in the eyes as he spoke

“You. Are. A. Child. You. Do. Not. Get. To. Decide. Adults. Decide. For. You.”

Harry glared ferociously. “You can’t just keep me forever. You’ll have to let me sometime, and I’ll tell Dumbledore. He’ll--”

“Yes, Potter, by all means run and tell on me. See what the headmaster says about it. Tomorrow. Tonight, you will stay with me and rest.” He held up a hand.

“ You can, however, choose to make your time as pleasant or unpleasant as possible. If you behave, I will give you a vial of Dreamless Sleep so you will not have nightmares. I might even feel moved to give you a little aloe for those stripes.”

“If, on the other hand, you behave like the brat you are, I will carry you to my chambers just like this, and simply force feed a potion of my choosing, which might be a good deal less pleasant than Dreamless Sleep ever was. Or, I could simply stick you on a stool in the Potions classroom. At least you’d be on time for a change come Monday. It’s your choice.”

Harry seethed. Miserable, mean, unfair, unkind, selfish, cold bastard. Wait until Dumbledore heard tell of this. He’d --

“Well? Which is it?”

The thought of another sleepless night, writhing under the effects of some awful potion, or else being stuck for days in the dark, chilly dungeons by himself was too much to bear.

“The first one.”

“The first one what?”

“The first one, please, sir.”

Snape gave him a distinctly nasty half smile and muttered the counter charm. Harry’s limbs felt as though they had been asleep for hours. His arms and legs were achy and tingling, and his backside was still uncomfortably warm and stinging. He longed to rub a bit, but he’d be damned before the greasy bat got to mock his weakness over that as well.

Harry got up and followed Snape, who took him to a part of the dungeon he had never been in before. Snape whispered a password and they were in.

It was plain but warm, and very clean. Books were lined up in orderly rows on all four walls. Snape showed him to the guest bedroom, which had a small but inviting bed and even more books. Harry climbed into the bed, wishing to keep Snape sweet until he could escape his clutches. Snape glowered at him a little, then disappeared for a moment. He returned with the promised vial of Dreamless Sleep.

“I’m not tired yet.” Even as he said it, Harry knew it was not true. The catnap in the office had whet his appetite for more sleep, and he fought not to ruin his protest with a yawn.

“You don’t have to be. I have no intention of letting you out of my sight until morning at the very earliest. Of course, if you’ve changed your mind…”

“No! Sir.”

Snape fought a smile. The boy was not wholly stupid when it came to certain things. Perhaps, with help, he might have made a passable Slytherin after all. Harry drank the vial dry. Immediately, his eyes grew unbearably heavy, his body filled with sand. It was all he could do to roll onto his side and off his sore backside. He was asleep within seconds.

Potter sniffled a bit in his sleep. Snape hoped he was not getting sick. That was the last thing anyone needed. Still, as a precaution, Snape pulled the quilt under the boy’s chin and tucked him in.

Snape nodded, satisfied. He would go tomorrow and see the Muggles Potter lived with. They would give him the boy. All he’d need to do is persuade them; how hard could that be?

The sun was rising over Privet drive as Snape Apperated with a pop onto the dun colored pavement. He caught a glimpse of Arabella Figg at the window of her little house and gave her a quick sneer; he had always found her a very silly and light minded woman.

The air smelled like grass clippings and wet newsprint. He had worn Muggle dress, a pair of black dress slacks, white shirt and black wool jumper. He had the needed documents in a slim briefcase he’d transfigured for himself. His wand was tucked up his sleeve; he would take no chances, even safe in the comforting monotony of suburbia.

The house was a neat brown structure, with a nicely manicured lawn and carefully boring flowerbeds. He walked up the dew slicked steps and gave a single powerful knock. A rumbling was heard from within the house, and a moment later the largest man Snape had ever seen (barring Hagrid) pulled the door open and stared down at him with undisguised hostility.

“What’d’ya want, then? It’s seven bloody AM on a Sunday.”

“Mr. Dursley, I am Severus Snape, and I must talk to you about your nephew.”

The door stayed closed. “Are you one of them?”

“If by them, you mean a wizard then yes, I am. It’s a rather pressing issue and if I could step inside for a moment--”

Dursley shook his great head. “Oh, no. The last time one of you people came inside, my son got viciously attacked. A wonder he wasn’t killed. How do I know you won’t do the same?”

Snape gave the man his most feral grin. “Continue to test my patience and I shall relieve your suspense at once.”

The door swung open, Dursley not being an idiot, and Snape found himself in the most neutral living room he had ever seen. So much beige in one place, he reflected, made him feel rather like a bug in a child’s sandbox. Dursley’s wife came down the stairs in a hideous puce bathrobe and matching fuzzy slippers, her hair done up in a multitude of curlers, which gave her the look of a rather startled hedgehog. Her eyes widened at the sight of him, and she gave a little scream.

“You! You were Lily’s little friend. Cerberus, wasn’t it?”

“Severus. Yes, Petunia, I remember you well. Glad you see you have not changed.”

She bristled. “Why are you here? Has the boy done something?”

“That very much depends on your definition of ‘done something’. I’ve come to speak to you about the possibility of transferring guardianship.”

Vernon gave Snape a speculative glance. “To whom? One of your sort, I expect.”

“Well, yes. I assure you, the boy would be well treated. I would personally oversee--”

“Why now?” Dursley spoke up again. His jowls were quivering just a little with some kind of emotion. For a second, he wondered if he had had the wrong impression of the family-- was Dursley upset at the thought of losing his nephew?

Fortunately, the question resolved itself almost immediately.

“Why not twelve years ago? Couldn’t you people have done this before? Because, you know, we‘ve incurred rather a lot of trouble caring for him over the years. Raising a child isn’t cheap, is it, dearest?” He addressed this last to Petunia, whose beady eyes were glinting with greed.

“Of course not, precious. Just the food must have cost us, what, hundreds of pounds a year. Not to mention clothing, doctor visits, things for school… Thousands, all told. Not that we minded, of course.”

Snape watched with a detached sort of contempt. Disgusting. These awful Muggles wanted to-- to sell the boy, as though he were a prize pig or a wheel of Stilton. He was half tempted to transfigure them into toadstools or flobberworms, but that would not have gotten the papers signed. Unfortunately.

What to do? Threats have their virtues, though not without equal drawbacks. Perhaps a little intimidation? No, these people were far too stupid, he wasn’t going to waste perfectly good spleen on these morons.

As though in answer to his quandary, the perfect solution popped into his head. He almost smiled, but held himself in stern check.

“Of course, madam. I imagine a little gift could be arranged…to ease the burden of your loss, of course. If you’d be so kind as to wait for just a moment?”

Snape Apperated to the very edge of Hogwarts and, nearly running to his office, quickly fire called Minerva. She had in her position a certain collection of magical objects, which she used to teach her more advanced students, and which she had carefully charmed to counter the very nature of the thing. After promising her the moon, stars, and several especially time consuming potions, she gave it to him, curious but trusting Snape enough not to ask. He removed the charm with the spell she’d hastily given him and transfigured an official looking bag for the ‘gift’.

He was back in fifteen minutes, appearing in the beige room just as a carbon copy of the man was coming down the stairs.

“Who’s that, Mum? Is he some kind of salesman?”

Snape turned and gave the boy his patented stare, and watched with pleasure as he was reduced to a quaking bowl of suet pudding, which he did rather resemble anyway.

Snape handed the heavy muslin sack to Dursley, all the while fighting the urge to grin like a wolf. Dursley’s piggish eyes lit up, and he spilled the sack into his lap with a whoop of glee.

“Petunia, get your coat. We’re off to buy that vacation home!”

Snape put out a restraining hand. The Muggles had almost forgotten he was there in their haste to use the largesse they had received.

“Mr. Dursley, there is still the matter of your nephew’s guardianship. If you sign here?”

He gave the man the ballpoint pen he had brought in deference to Dursley’s sensibilities. Dursley barely even looked at him, simply scrawled a line which might have read “Vernon R. Dursley” if the reader were drunk and upside down.

Snape gathered the papers and watched the Muggles as they gathered the gold, still squealing with glee, running out the door still pajama clad. He heard the motor on their car start, and they pulled away in a roar of engine and a smell of burning rubber.

Snape wondered if they’d forgotten that it was all of seven thirty AM on a weekend, or if Muggle businesses stayed open all the time. He also wondered what they’d do when the gold they intended to use vanished in four hours or so. Leprechaun gold has a nasty tendency to do that.

XXXXXXXXXXX

Back at school, Snape checked on Potter. The lad was still curled up asleep in the fetal position, almost lost under the blanket. Snape had rarely seen another person sleep, and never a child. He was struck by the trusting, open quality of Potter’s face. His body had relaxed as he slept, indicative of the restorative quality of the potion. His breathing was regular and even, still very deep.

Snape wanted the boy asleep for as long as possible. Technically, Potter had no say over who his guardian was, but it would be better for everyone if he had at least an inkling this was going to happen.

At eight thirty he woke the boy. “Wake up, Mr. Potter, we need to have a little talk.”

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

It was an angry Harry Potter who flew down the corridor twenty minutes later. Snape followed close behind, not wishing Potter to do something stupid that might create a problem. He wore a calmly indifferent expression which foiled Potter’s adolescent rage .To borrow a Muggle phrase, Potter looked mad enough to spit ink. He had paused only long enough to allow Snape to transfigure his pajamas into trousers and a pullover. His slippers had become trainers.

The boy was forced to wait for Snape to say the password (“Bertie Bott”) and plunged headlong into the office, prepared to get to the bottom of the thing for once and all.

“Ah, Harry” said Dumbldore, twinkling with a vengeance “How are you doing today? I trust professor Snape has filled you in.”

Harry was almost too overcome with shock and upset to speak. “You know about this?”

“Of course. I approved it myself.”

“But why? He-- He’s-- he hates me and wants to see me dead.”

Snape opened his mouth to protest and saw Dumbledore make an nearly imperceptible shake of his head. Dumbeldore gave Harry a reassuring smile.

“Of course he doesn’t. He only wants what’s best for you, the same as the rest of us.”

“ You can’t mean it! How do you know he isn’t planning on handing me over to Voldemort?”

Snape finally stepped in. Pressing one hand to Potter’s bony shoulder, he put his mouth right to the boy’s ear and whispered “That is quite enough. Unless you’d like a repeat of last night-- and don’t think I won’t-- then you will stop yelling and behave yourself. We still have the issue of your disrespect in my office to address as well. I would remember that.”

Harry stopped at once. He’d frozen like a statue when Snape touched him-being touched made his skin crawl, always had. He made himself take a deep breath, slow his breathing, count to ten. His muscles untensed just a little.

Snape gave an approving nod the boy couldn’t see. Dumbledore watched the scene play out inscrutably, hands steepled under his chin.

“Anything else, Harry?”

“He, uh, punished me last night.”

“I authorized him to. He feels-- and I agree-- that perhaps a different track--”

“You told him he could smack me?”

Dumbeldore’s eyebrows lifted a quarter millimeter. “I authorized him to discipline you however he saw fit. In our world, Harry, physical chastisement is not at all uncommon. As you were Muggle raised, you are unlikely to have had much experience with this aspect of Wizarding culture, but, I assure you, I have total faith that his choice was sound.”

The fire flamed green and Minerva McGonagall popped out. Dumbledore had evidently told her what was to happen and why. She gave Snape a smile and immediately went to Harry’s side, murmured in his ear that the teachers, in deference to his grief, had excused his exams.

“Minerva, are you ready to do this?”

McGonagall nodded her head. Dumbledore walked around his desk and joined Snape in front of the hearth. They linked hands, and Dumbledore said formally

“Do you, Severus Snape, agree to house Harry James Potter until he is grown, and protect him, under pain of death?”

“I do.”

McGonagall raised her wand and a flash of green sealed the vow. It was done.

Snape walked his charge along the halls, much subdued. Potter wouldn’t look at him, shoulders hunched. A perfect teenage sulk, Snape thought, what a shame it’s wasted on me.

He led Potter to his office, and sat down in his chair.

“Now, Mr. Potter” Snape enunciated carefully, “We will address your poor behavior towards your elders these past few days.”

Harry didn’t like the sound of that a bit. He fought the urge to run as far as he could, knowing Snape would find him. Snape didn’t seem especially inclined to get on with it; quite the opposite, he looked to be relishing this awkward silence.

“ Have you anything to say in defense of your atrocious conduct, Potter?”

Harry loathed the way the greasy Potions Master spoke with such icy clarity at times like these. Couldn’t the vampire bat ever try to act like a human?

“ That glowering is not endearing you to me in the slightest. If you have nothing to say, then let us discuss the matter of your punishment.”

The professor walked around the desk and stood directly before the slight boy. Harry’s head came up to the man’s shoulder. He felt very small.

“Go to the Potions classroom and retrieve the switch you selected last night and bring it back.”

“No!” Harry hadn’t exactly meant to protest; it was simply the idea of another switching was simply too intolerable to be borne. It was babyish, and humiliating, and it hurt. He began to say more but was cut off without hesitation by the Greasy Git.

“If I accomplish one thing over these next four years, it is my fondest wish that it be communicating to you the notion that you have no choice in some matters. You may be the Golden Boy, but you are also a child, and naughty children who don’t obey get punished.”

Snape shifted to let the boy by. His teeth were gritted, his hands clichéd into fists. The brat’s temper was appalling. He reached out and caught the back of the child’s shirt in his hand.

“I would hurry, Mr. Potter. Dawdling will get you extra.”

Harry seethed the whole way to the Potions room, which was blessedly deserted. The switch was lying on Snape’s desk, along with his own wand, and he retrieved both. The thing looked deceptively benign, almost innocent. The anger in his stomach roiled and produced a healthy amount of fear as well.

Why had he let Snape goad him into losing his temper? The nasty man had no business prying around his feelings. He had avenged himself by whipping Harry’s arse (bare arse, a voice reminded him; he flushed with shame to remember). Shouldn’t it be over? And now he was Harry’s guardian. What sorts of awful things would he do to him? Could it be worse than the Dursleys?

His legs carried him slowly back to Snape’s office, the fear stone in his stomach growing heavier with each step. He couldn’t believe how much the switch had stung, and for a long time, too. He writhed with trepidation, recalling his shameful cries and pleas. Fussing like a two year old over a spanking, even if it did sting like blazes.

His palms had begun to sweat a little by the time he reached the office and slowly opened the door. Snape was still standing in front of his desk, clearly waiting. He held out his hand at once and Harry, nearly sick with anticipation, handed him the accursed thing and waited.

Snape eyed him a long moment. “That trip, Potter, took you seven minutes. It should have taken you three, which means you dawdled, against my express command. Very well; twenty extra ought to do. Are you ready for your punishment?”

Harry tried to speak and found he couldn’t at first. “Yes, sir” he finally whispered. Snape spun around and walked towards his chair. He pulled it away from the desk and moved it to face Harry. Harry made himself walk to the Potions Master and watched while the man raised the switch and…..threw it into the fire.

“Couldn’t just leave it laying around.”

Snape was having trouble controlling his amusement. Potter had dragged himself through the door like a man expecting to be killed. He had half expected the child to start crying when he took the switch from him. The look on the boy’s face when he threw the thing into the fire had been priceless, a mixture of confusion and hope.

Not that he was getting off scott free. The sooner Potter learned to obey, the better for everyone. He would get himself hurt or killed, and probably his two little friends as well. Had he been Snape’s responsibility from the first, the stunt with the troll would have been the first and last-- he wouldn’t have sat down for a week, and that would have cured him of his troublesome tendency for adventure then and there. Of course, had he been Snape’s responsibility, he would never have gone in the bathroom at all….

“Now, Mr. Potter, your punishment. You will write the headmaster a letter, apologizing for your rudeness to him and promising better behavior in the future. I will be checking it myself, so don’t think you can try something clever. I also expect a two foot essay about why you believe the rules do not apply to you, and fifty lines of “I will treat my elders with respect.” All this by the farewell feast, is that clear?”

Harry’s great relief caused him to nod loosely, his clenched hands relaxing at once. Snape happened to glance down and see where the boy’s nails had dug furrows into his palms. Something was wrong, though he couldn’t initially put a finger on it. He caught Harry’s right hand in his own and flipped it over, meaning to examine it.

The reaction could not have been more violent had Snape tried to break the child‘s thumb. Harry immediately tried to pull away. He took a step back, attempting to twist so the palm was downward. He jerked free and shoved the hand into the pockets of his jeans, glaring savagely at the floor.

“Potter’ Snape’s voice was ice “You will give me your hand this instant. How dare you behave so insolently. This instant, Potter!”

“Like Hell I will. Why don’t you--” And the rest was cut off as Snape’s patience ran out. He pulled the boy over his lap and pinned his wrists. He brought his hand back and hesitated a second. The child was bound to have welts, and Snape had no desire to damage the little monster, deserve it though he might. Shifting his leg, Snape brought his hand down hard on the back of Potter’s thigh. He jerked and yelped quite satisfactorily, and Snape repeated the process a further three times before he was convinced the little tantrum had been avoided. Setting the boy on his feet, he mutely held his out his hand.

Harry was furious and ashamed. He was far too old to be smacked, yet he had gotten himself bent over the Potions Master’s lap twice in the last day alone. He really didn’t want to give the man his hand, but he also didn’t want to get swatted-those smacks on his thighs had hurt a lot.

Snape was amused by the way Potter’s lip was obviously trying not to protrude as the boy sulkily let Snape see his palm. Spoiled little brat-- it would have served him right to get a proper smacking. He was lucky Snape felt generous. If he had ever done such a thing to Tobias… Snape shoved the thought away and gave his attention to the little hand he was holding in his own.

The palm seemed fine, on further inspection, but when he flipped the hand to look at the back, his scowl deepened several degrees. The boy’s first and second knuckles were strangely swollen, badly bruised and clearly uncomfortable. Snape studied them a long moment, and then dropped the hand.

“If I didn’t know any better, Potter, I’d say those knuckles had been broken lately. And mended badly. It wasn’t Quidditch. Did it happen at the Shack?” He gave Potter a very stern look, the one that promised terrible reprisals if he lied.

“No, sir.” Harry’s voice was as carefully neutral as possible. He was still staring at the floor, which Snape found irritating to the extreme. He put a hand beneath the boy’s chin and forced his eyes up.

“So how did it happen, Mr. Potter? And I warn you, boy, if you dare try to lie to me…” Snape leaned forward a little in his chair , making the scrawny boy take a small step back.

“ I um, got upset when Sirius--” Harry couldn’t choke the rest out through the huge lump in his throat, and he took a second to force his tears down and then made himself look at his guardian.

“So you expressed your grief through, what, punching something?”

“The wall.” Snape chanced a look at Potter’s face. The boy looked as though he didn’t know whether to cry or yell; Snape felt a moment of consternation at the abject stupidity of doing such a thing to oneself, mingled with disgust. Had no one noticed this before?

“Go and sit down. No” He stood and walked toward his office “Do not argue, Mr. Potter.”

Miracles of miracles, the child obeyed. Snape went to the Potions store and found something that would take care of the bruises and swelling.

He brought it back, and was pleasantly surprised to find Potter sitting on the couch, staring blankly. His eyes snapped to life when he saw Snape, though he wisely held his tongue. He took the potion without complaint, and the swelling improved at once.

“Who healed you so ineptly, Potter? Was it Granger?”

Potter didn’t answer. His face told the story, and Snape nodded wearily. Of course it was.

“ I asked you a question, boy. Did you not hear me?”

Harry closed his ears and pretended he was stone. If he did this long enough, Snape would get angry and maybe leave him alone. It had always worked on the Dursleys-they would try for a while and then give up, thinking he was merely stupid and stubborn.

Snape threw up his hands. Reckless, horrible, arrogant….

“Fine, Potter. If you’re determined to keep behaving like a baby, I’ll treat you as one. I would have thought last night was enough, but evidently not.” He got a good hold on Harry’s arm and yanked him up.

He conjured a small wooden stool and promptly set it in the corner. Ignoring the boy’s shocked look, he lifted him and plunked him, hard, on the seat. The boy hissed sharply but at least seemed to be staying in place.

“ You’ll stay there until you can behave like an adult.”

Snape went to his desk and waited. Soon, he was confident, it would come.

Harry squirmed on the hard seat, even while he crossed his arms over his chest. This was worse than not fair; he’d wanted to have a little time with Ron and Hermione, and now he couldn’t, just because Snape wouldn’t act like a bloody human being for once. On top of that, his head was pounding and he had to use the loo.

He wished there was someone, anyone, to whom he could express the maelstrom of feelings. No one had explained this sudden change to him. Had his aunt and uncle thrown him out? How had Snape convinced Dumbledore and McGonagall to let him be Harry’s guardian?

Dumbledore. His chest tightened a little. He would have thought the older wizard cared about him a least a little. His relatives had never liked him; did he simply alienate everyone somehow?

Even McGonagall hadn’t tried to stop it. She knew how much Snape hated him; knew what a cruel, uncaring git the man was. She’d always acted as though she cared about Harry. Had he done something? The same thing he’d done to Dumbledore?

The thought made his heart drop icily. He had spent so long telling himself that his relatives were liars when they told him that no one would ever want him. Had they been the only honest ones? The only ones who’d ever told him the truth?

Snape saw movement out of the corner of his eye. He set down the letter he’d been perusing and looked at his ward. The boy was stiffly siting on the stool, arms folded, jaw clenched, exactly as he had been for the last forty five minutes. Proud as a peacock, just like his insufferable father. Snape felt a sudden wave of anger at his treatment by them all those years ago, and impatiently shoved it down. As an occulumens, he had long since trained himself to suppress feelings which might prove “tells”, or strong indicators of a feeling one wouldn’t want known. Which might, he sometimes mused, explain some of his hostility towards his students and the other staff; he suppressed so much rage for so long it had to leak out eventually.

He felt a fleeting but real urge to grab the boy and shake him until his teeth rattled but he pushed that away as quickly as the one before it, and with more force. He took three deep breaths in a row, and reminded himself for the ten thousandth time in his life that he was not his father.

“Perhaps there’s something you’d like to tell me, Mr. Potter?”

Harry forced himself to sit up and ignore his misery. “No, sir, nothing.”

Snape studied the boy for a moment and felt a moment of perturbation when he saw his face screw up for a split second. He hoped with all his might that the boy was not about to cry; Snape hated emotional scenes with a fiery burning passion.

To his relief, Potter didn’t cry. Mercifully, the boy retreated into stony silence, and Snape felt a wave a relief, which he did not suppress. If he wanted to sit and sulk like a two year old, that suited Snape fine.

Harry became conscious of a new affliction- he was hungry. He became aware of a gnawing sensation that reminded him he’d been picking at his food for days. He wondered whether Snape was going to let him eat any time soon. His squirming intensified.

After a solid quarter hour of seemingly endless figeting and sighing, Snape had finally had enough. The brat was making it impossible for him to concentrate. He rose silently, intending to creep up behind the boy and scare him into obedience, when he heard a small voice say quietly “Yes.”

Harry was in an agony of self loathing and doubt. Not only did Dumbledore and McGongall hate him, now his friends would as well. It wasn’t Hermione’s fault the bone healing charm didn’t work- it was just really hard and she had at least made it a little better….

He simply couldn’t stand the stool a second longer. He was hungry and headachy, his bladder was screaming, and his backside had begun to ache slightly, then burn with a low throb that was getting more and more unpleasant as the moments passed.

“Yes, what?” Asked a voice that hovered right directly above him. Harry jumped, then calmed enough to whisper “Hermione did it.”

Snape stepped back. “Very good, Potter. Is there anything else you’d like to say?”

Potter nodded vigorously. “Yes sir? May I please be excused?”

Snape did a double take. “What?”

“Please, I need to step out for a moment.” The boy looked desperate.

“You have five minutes.” The boy streaked out of the class faster than a baby boomslang, and Snape was disgusted to find himself shaking his head in amusement.

To his further amazement, the boy made it back in a reasonable amount of time. Panting slightly, he stood in front of his teacher, disheveled but unbowed.

“Perhaps you’d like to tell me what prompted this little incident, Potter?”

The boy blanched but held his ground.

Snape felt the shaking urge come back and this time, because the real danger of it was passed, he let himself fantasize for a second before he said very quietly “If you prefer not to tell me, I can call Miss Granger down and ask her myself.”

Harry hung his head, and a very small sniffle escaped him. He pushed his sadness down and concentrated on being strong. Crying never made anything better.

The sniffle had not missed Snape’s notice. “Why are you so violently opposed to telling me about this-- misadventure, Potter?”

The answer was so soft Snape almost didn’t hear it. “Don’t want to get her into trouble.”

“ Surely you understand what she did was dangerous? Why did you not simply tell an adult?”

Harry quietly repeated what he had thought to himself earlier.

“That’s just your problem. It didn’t end badly this time through a combination of blind luck and Miss Granger’s prowess as a witch. You never think about what will happen the day your luck runs out. And it will run out.”

“But it didn’t, and--”

Snape felt a moment of real rage. Stupid child, rushing headlong into danger. Trying to get himself killed, not caring what happened to the others. No regard for personal safety, none for his friends, none for the rules.

“ Because you are lucky. Suppose she had botched the spell and it maimed you. Or bounced back and maimed her. Is that what you want, Potter, to see one of your little friends killed because of you? Or worse than killed?”

“Killed?”

Snape was pleased to see the lad’s face a cheesy white. He was getting through at last.

“Yes, killed. Magic is unstable, Potter. Why do you think the ministry regulates everything so carefully? It isn’t for their own amusement, I assure you.”

Harry felt sick. He firmly believed that the various life threatening endeavors undertaken by the Trio were the right things to have done; the fact that he might have killed Hermione when he might just as easily have gone to the infirmary hit him more strongly than the Devil’s Snare or Aragog ever could have.

“And while we’re on the subject, Mr. Potter, if you ever endeavor to hide an injury from me again, you’d best hope it’s the one that kills you. Especially a self inflicted injury; it ends here and now, is that clear?”

Harry nodded. Snape looked at his pocket watch and raised his eyebrows.

“It’s late. I suppose you’d like something to eat, before I send you to your tower? Or would you prefer to tell them that the Greasy Git both beat and starved you?”

“No, sir.” The boy looked ready and eager to be gone, Snape noted wryly, though he had evidently believed, as did all Gryffindors, that Snape was unaware of their little pet name for him. He quickly called an elf and ordered rolls and cocoa for Potter to eat, a light meal because lunch was not far in the future. The elf thoughtfully brought some porridge and juice as well, and Potter ate as though it were going out of style (being a generally abstemious sort, Snape tended to forget that others couldn’t live on bread, cheese and coffee like himself).

After the boy was finished all but eating the napkin, he looked to Snape for permission to leave. Snape savored the sensation of his waiting a long moment before he gave the child a single nod.

“ I trust you understand why no one can know of this arrangement for the nonce, don’t you, Potter?” The boy nodded a little.

“I’ll expect those lines and that essay by the feast, Potter. Fail to have them and anything that happened here will seem like a child’s birthday celebration, understood?”

Harry couldn’t help but smile at the prospect of going to the tower and seeing his friends. He managed to walk slowly until he was out of sight; Snape heard his trainers crashing up the stairs as he broke into a run.

“For Merlin’s sake” Snape thought to himself “ Did the boy just grin at me?”

Harry’s visit to the tower was largely uneventful. He greeted Ron and Hermione and, when they asked him about where he’d been, he lied. He felt awful about lying, but he simply couldn’t tell them the truth, even if Snape had not ordered him to keep mum. It was too weird and embarrassing.

“You mean he hauled you out of bed at six o’clock in the morning for a special detention? After he kept you out after curfew? Barking mad, just as I always said.” Ron shot Hermione a vindicated glance, which she did not return. Something about this seemed funny to her, though she was unsure of what, exactly. She settled for chewing her thumbnail and mulling it over in her mind.

“How about a game of chess then?”

Harry would have loved a game, but he had those damn lines to write, not to mention two feet of essay. He actually got a decent start on the lines before lunch, and even made a small start on the essay. After they ate he allowed himself to be tempted into a small game of chess after all, then another, and, breaking for dinner, it was almost eleven o’clock before he realized what had happened.

It took him until almost two to finish the lines and write a foot of the essay, and he knew he’d have to stay up late the next night to have any chance of finishing his essay by the feast. He stumbled to bed and the next day was as bad as he thought it would be.

It was the custom at Hogwarts that the last class was a sort of summation of what had been learned, as well as a goodbye for the summer. Snape forsook this custom, and much preferred to simply have the children make a potion of some sort.

He strove to ignore Potter as much as possible, not wishing to call attention to the situation. To his irritation, he could not keep his gaze from wandering over every so often. The boy was white as a ghost, with dark circles under both eyes. He wondered if it was nightmares again. He would hate to put the boy on a regime of sleeping potions, because they could prove habit forming, but if the child wasn’t sleeping, that could prove just as detrimental.

Fortunately for Snape, and much less fortunately for Harry, Snape happened to be walking quietly behind the Trio as Ron and Harry discussed the chess match of the night before. Specifically, the aftermath wherein Potter stayed up until two AM. Snape’s ears perked up at once. At the front of the class, he collected the potions and looked at the back left corner with a cold smile. “Mr.Potter, I will see you after class. The rest of you, dismissed.” The scholars raced gratefully for the door and Harry, feeling like a man condemned, walked to the front and waited.

“What time did you go to bed last night?”

Harry was tempted to lie, but had an eerie feeling that Snape would guess, and had a further notion of how Snape might deal with dishonesty. The bat was still giving him a look which could charitably be called “nasty”, so he inhaled and blurted out

“Late.”

“How late, exactly? Ten o’clock, perhaps? Eleven?”

“N-no. Later than that.”

“I could have sworn lights out is eleven.”

“It is. Sir.”

“So you ignored your curfew?”

“ I had to finish--”

“Finish what, boy? Those lines shouldn’t have taken long, nor the essay. Had you put your shoulder to the proverbial wheel, it shouldn’t have taken more than three hours or so. How long did it take you?”

Potter couldn’t look at him. Insolent brat kept his gaze locked on the floor. His hands began fiddling with the strap of his book bag, and Snape could not restrain himself from giving them a gentle swat. He had to break the boy of this fidgeting; it was bloody impossible to talk to him while he did it.

“I don’t, sir. A long time.”

“Would you care to explain to me why it is Mr. Weasley seems to think you were still awake at two o’clock this morning?”

Harry went stock still. Uh-oh. His mind scrabbled for a plausible excuse but Snape only let him writhe a second before, in an uncharacteristic fit of mercy, he cut the boy off.

“ I take it he was right. Would it happen to be because you used your time poorly?”

Harry nodded, shamefaced. It was bizarre, having Snape care about what time he slept. Snape was pleased the boy had the good grace to be ashamed. Not that he’d expected any better from the brat…

“Very well. Since you can’t manage your own time, I will help you. You will report to my office at six o’clock and write the rest of the essay while I watch. And bring those lines, I want to make sure you did them well. You’re dismissed.”

Harry raged the whole way back to Gryffindor tower. Damned stupid mean greasy bastard, he just wanted to torture Harry. Bloody git. It wasn’t fair, he had no right to humiliate him, why did he stick his nose into other people’s business?

After dinner, Harry toted his book bag down the stairs and knocked at Snape’s door. It swung open at once, and the Git himself was sitting behind the desk, writing on a piece of parchment.

“Good evening, Mr. Potter. Do sit down.” The professor had transfigured a desk and stool that sat directly in front of his own. Harry groaned-- this was apt to be a very long night.

By nine o’clock, Snape had, through a combination of threats, glares and dire intimations, prevailed upon the boy to finish the essay. The child’s writing was dragon scratch, of course, and his spelling absolutely horrid. The little monster himself was no better, all pouty looks and martyred sighs. Snape finally got so irritated that he gave into his worse angel and favored the boy with a slow, snakelike smile.

“You are acting like a spoiled brat, Mr. Potter. You are so intent on complaining that I feel as though you should have something to complain about. Very well: Since I cannot trust you to go to bed at a reasonable hour of your own volition, you will go directly to bed as soon as you get to the tower. No games with your little friends, no reading, no conversation. Straight to bed. Perhaps that will improve your surly attitude a bit. And I warn you, boy: I will know if you disobey, and punish you right then and there.”

It was all Harry could do not to cry. He had wanted so much to spend time with Ron and Hermione before the summer holiday; on the other hand, a whipping in his dorm room was too horrible to contemplate. And deep down, he was honest enough to admit he felt tired. His sleep had been awful for almost a week. Every time he shut his eyes…..

“Well? Do you understand me or not?” Snape had no time for childish antics. He had to prepare his home for a child, when no child had lived there for almost twenty years, not to mention how to get the boy to Devon from King’s Cross. Not for the first time, he wondered whether he was quite mad in taking Potter, of all people, into his home.

“Yes sir.” Harry squared his shoulders and looked the tall man right in the face. He wouldn’t give the bat any reason to think his meanness affected Harry even a little. It didn’t. Harry didn’t care if Snape ruined his time with his friends, not a bit. His bravado was failing rapidly as he thought about it, the tears he’d been fighting all day crowding to get out.

The boy was unhappy. Snape tried not to care and did a fair impression, except for a bothersome little tickle in his chest. The tickle was urging him to be more understanding, the child was thirteen, after all. It was natural that he wanted to idle his time away, rather than do healthful things like homework and sleep.

Stupid interfering tickle. “Potter, if you can wipe that look off your face and try to mind me tonight, then I suppose you could stay up a bit later than usual tomorrow. I imagine you’ll be too excited to sleep at light outs anyway.”

Harry’s face lit up. Was Snape actually acting like a human, instead of a total birk? The man was still making that hateful mean face at him, and said louder than necessary “That’s only if you can manage to behave tonight. Do you think you can go five minutes without that rebellious streak showing through?”

“Yes, sir.” The boy looked ready to smile. Snape pointedly didn’t look at the brat, but waved him out with one hand. “Go on, then. I’m going to check to see you’ve obeyed me.”

Harry picked up his things and made for the door. The halls were silent and dark as he went back to the tower. For his part, Snape ordered a large pot of strong black tea from a house elf, wishing for a bare second he was a drinking man. He had a sudden idea that, between the boy and this suddenly troublesome sense of compassion he was developing, it would be a long summer indeed.

The train pulled out and Snape heaved a sigh of relief. The children were gone, and he had a few precious hours to himself before he had to pick the brat up at King’s Cross. He’d shucked his robes and sat in his traveling clothes, a plain dark pullover and slacks.

He always felt sad leaving Hogwarts, whether as student or staff. The castle was more his home than anywhere, really. The little cottage was nothing more than a way station that marked the interminable days between terms. He’d saved his first year's wages from school to put the down payment on it.

He had a sudden flash of --not nostalgia, certainly-- for the squalid little den he had called home for seventeen years. 412 Spinner’s End. He remembered with sickening clarity the rancid smells of gone over food from the dishes in the sink, the gritty, stained carpeting, the water damaged ceiling that had collapsed and left him with a three foot hole in the floor of his room. Mum, her eyes dim, wandering the halls, marooned so deeply in her own misery she had never truly seen him. Towards the end, when it had gotten really bad for her, she had stopped bathing, stopped washing her hair, and the thick smell of human dirtiness had overlaid the gin and filth.

And Tobias…. Snape felt his hands clinch into fists. He had never, so far as he recalled, idealized his father, but as a small child he must have loved him at least a little, before rage and contempt and finally hatred won over whatever love might have remained. He breathed deeply and banished the house from his mind.

Consistency, stability, the promise of order. The sea air would do him good, and he had Potter to oversee. If his suspicions about the boy’s home life were correct, it was likely these were the very things that the boy needed. Snape occasionally felt a certain abstract sadness he’d never fathered a child of his own, but he’d long ago decided that the line, poisoned on both sides, should end with him. That he should be raising the child of the man he’d loathed silently for years…

He shook his head. Foolish maundering, more suited to a Hufflepuff or Gryffindor than a hardheaded, pragmatic Slytherin. He shrank his trunk and made his way to the gate, his goodbyes done.

XXXXXXX

Three hours later Harry scanned the crowd for Snape. He couldn’t see the Grim Reaper like silhouette, but he had no doubts that the bat was here somewhere. His orders were to walk towards the carpark as though his uncle were waiting for him, and he drug his feet as he walked. This was an unknown quantity, living with Snape. He half wished he could have vanished into the crowd, or gone with Ron, or--

“Oof! Sorry, sir!” He jerked back in shock. Snape glowered down at his ward with an undisguised air of menace. “ Running me down will not get you out of this, Potter.”

He gripped the boy’s forearm in a death grip before shrinking his trunk and tucking it in his pocket. The boy would just have to hold the owl, which Snape hoped mightily wouldn’t make obnoxious noises or leave messes (much the same aspirations as he had for Potter, actually).

For a horrible second, Harry was convinced that Snape really was going to turn him over to You-Know-Who when he grabbed him so hard, but Snape merely seemed annoyed. With an admonition to “Hold that blasted bird”, Snape Apparated them. Harry had seen it done but he was unprepared for the sensation that he was being vacuum sealed like a salad.

When they stopped it was in front of a pokey little house. They were surrounded by trees, and the birds were singing. Snape let go of the boy’s arm and walked toward the front door. He fished in the pocket of his slacks and came up with a key, which he fit in the lock.

“Are you simple? Come in.” Harry followed him in, not sure what to expect. He had assumed that Snape lived in some dark mansion with howling noises and mist, but this was a fairly standard Muggle house, from the looks. The porch had some comfortable looking chairs and a box for firewood.

Snape led the goggling boy through the sitting room and into the kitchen. The rooms were comfortable and warm and smelled faintly of soap. There were even rag rugs on the floors. The boy was peering at things as though he expected them to explode.

“As soon as you’re done making a fool of yourself gawking, Mr. Potter, do let me know and we’ll discuss your new home.”

Harry was jerked out of his reverie. He looked at the smirking Potions Master and reined in his urge to make a smart remark. The insufferable bastard was leaned casually against a counter top, sleeves rolled up. He cocked his head and waited, and finally Harry realized he was waiting for a response. “Yes, sir.”

Snape took a moment longer than he needed answering. Let the brat learn his place. “ Very well. Firstly, do you understand the term‘ in loco parentis’, Potter?”

“’In place of parents, sir. “

“Correct. Within our world, having the guardianship of a minor child had different ramifications than it does to Muggles. A wizard guardian is well and truly in loco parentis, Potter, do you know why?”

Harry shook his head. Snape was taking his sweet time with this, that was for sure.

“Because a guardian makes an Unbreakable Vow. That means that if I fail to defend you, or do you harm, I will die, because it is assumed as a matter of course that parents will die for their children. It enforces a bond like that, do you see?”

Harry nodded, feeling his eyes prickle. Mum….

Snape had the same thought and plowed ahead. “ Another useful term for you: Paterfamilias. Have you ever heard it?”

Potter shook his head ‘no’. He hadn’t liked the sound of it; Latin seemed to spell no good.

“ I thought as much. It means that, as your guardian and the head of this household, I am the ultimate authority. Everything that happens to you from this point on, good or bad, happens under my auspices. Every action you take reflects on me and my ability to parent and control you, and I warn you, Potter, if you do something that reflects poorly on this household, you will be the sorriest little boy in all England.”

Harry definitely didn’t like any of this. He flushed a little, torn between anger at this new control and worry that Snape would do something terrible to him if he sneezed too loudly.

“You understand, of course, that I cannot do you harm. I can, however, make your life most uncomfortable. I believe you remember how I deal with bad behavior?”

Harry flushed. Damn him for bringing the humiliations of the past few days up.

“Good. Know this right now: I do not tolerate mischief, laziness, or backtalk. I have no problem putting you in the corner for any of them, nor giving you lines or essays to write. More serious misdeeds, like lying or cursing, will earn you more severe punishments. I recommend you think about that the next time you try to lie to me, because soap tastes awful and I have a fresh bar waiting to go in your mouth.’ Snape stretched and cracked his knuckles, making Potter jump a little.

“Oh, and Potter? The next time you hurt yourself, or hide an injury from me, or try to get yourself killed, or disobey an order, you can go directly outside and find a suitable switch, is that understood? I will not have you hurt or killed because you are being a stubborn little brat. And for your own sake, don‘t let me catch you drinking, ever .”

Potter’s face was slowly going a deep pink along his cheeks. Even his ears were getting pink. Snape wondered if it were embarrassment or temper. He didn’t care; he intended to see Potter a productive, respectful adult if it killed him, which it probably would.

“All right then. The first bedroom on the left is yours. Why don’t you put your things away and then you can skulk about the rest of the house until lunch. The only places you may not go are my personal bedroom and the basement. Other than that, amuse yourself quietly.”

With that, Snape turned on his heel and walked up the stairs, leaving Harry gaping after him. The man had to be mad. Not that he’d done anything overtly insane (yet), just his whole demeanor was so….Harry shook his head. It made him angry that Snape got to tell him what to do, and even angrier that he intended to use children’s punishments to keep him in line. At the same time, the rules were bearable and he seemed content to leave Harry mainly to his own devices. Which meant a nice quiet summer of broom rides and reading. Harry squared his shoulders and picked up his trunk, leaving Hedwig to softly hoot her questions alone as he made his way upstairs.

The house was pretty much a regular house. His room was small but comfortable, and he’d put most of his things away. He’d let Hedwig out to forage, and she’d zoomed away without hesitation.

The library he’d saved for last. The room was easily the biggest in the house, with bookshelves covering all four walls. Some of the books were magical, but a surprising number were Muggle. On top of one of the Muggle shelves was a stack of records and a small record player.

Harry had seen record albums like that in the past; Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon had a record player and a small handful of albums. Once, while he was living in the cupboard, he’d woken at night to low music. Peeking out his cracked door, he’d seen his aunt and uncle, dancing to ABBA. His aunt’s face had been flushed and his uncle wore a soppy grin he’d never seen before or since.

Grabbing the chair from behind the desk, he took it to the shelf and climbed up, meaning to give the records a closer look. His aunt’s records were mainly things from her college days; these looked different. Standing on tiptoe, he pulled out the closest one.

A man in a powdered wig was looking back at him, eyes strangely cheerful, as though he and Harry shared a secret. The title was Italian, or maybe Spanish. The others were the same, though some titles were French, some German, and a few in languages he didn’t know on sight.

The house was quiet. Too quiet. Snape felt edgy; if it was this quiet, then Potter was up to no good. He crept down the hall, prepared to catch Potter at…something, anyway, and opened the door of the library. The brat was standing on a chair, absorbed in something, and Snape felt a mixture of pique and curiosity. The idiot child could break his neck falling off the chair ( and Merlin help him if the floor was scratched). On the other hand, what could interest Potter long enough to keep him still for longer than five seconds?

He walked as softly as possible and came up directly behind the boy. He child was gawking at the music collection, studying the cover of the album in his hand. His lips were moving as though he were trying to puzzle the words out by sound, and that damnable mop of hair was hanging in his eyes, making him blink a little from time to time.

Shooting his hands out, he caught Potter about the waist and swung him down in one quick motion. The child went rigid with shock and didn;t resist when Snape whirled him around.

Harry felt seasick. Snape had swooped in and whirled him so fast he felt like a mouse being pounced on by a cat. He still held a record in his hands, and he found himself facing a Potions Master who looked distinctly displeased.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

“I just wanted to look at--”

“You could have been hurt, standing on a chair like that. Besides which, you have no call to stand on a chair to look at anything. Everything you should be looking at is eye level to you anyway.”

“I was curious about the records, that’s all.”

“You had no business looking at them, much less touching them.” Snape took the record from the boy and studied it to make sure that no mischief had been done to it. His scowl grew several degrees.

“You never said I couldn’t. I only wanted to see what they were.”

Snape took a deep breathe and counted to ten. Twice.

“I would watch my tone if I were you.”

Harry felt himself getting upset. Snape had no reason to be so bloody mean about things all the time. It wasn’t like he was some baby who was going to get marks on things, or act careless and break them.

“But I wasn’t--”

“Mr. Potter, I don’t care to hear your excuses. We aren’t at school any more; I don’t have to tolerate your disrespect.”

Harry’s sense of self preservation, never strong at the best of times, took this exact moment to go on vacation. Not entirely, but enough that Harry mumbled something that sounded a lot like “ I still have to tolerate yours.”

Snape, besides having a good sense of self preservation, had excellent hearing. It wasn’t long after that Harry found himself facing the corner, Snape’s hands pressing hard on his shoulder. “Do. Not. Move. An. Inch.”

Snape left the boy, trusting he was too scared to defy him directly, and went into the kitchen. He calmly filled the kettle and turned the stove up high. He watched the dancing orange flames and took more deep breaths.

He was occasionally shocked, even after all these years, that the damned things could arouse such a strong feeling in him. He could admit in the honesty of his heart that Potter probably hadn’t meant them harm. The boy was curious, and there were much worse things he could have been curious about in the house. Snape had burned most of it after Tobias died, fed it into the grate, but there was still probably something he had missed that would scar Potter if he found it. He made a mental note to dose the boy with Dreamless Sleep and go through everything with a fine toothed comb to be sure.

That said, the boy wasn’t going to give him cheek, no matter the provocation. Why couldn’t the child ever just leave well enough alone? He had never met anyone with such a limited sense of self preservation, not to mention impulse control. The longer he observed Potter, the more of Lily he could see in him, especially the way he’d cock his head when deep in thought. That sass, though. Pure Potter.

The kettle screamed. He made himself a cup of oolong almost strong enough to have self awareness, and drank it without milk or sugar. The acrid bitterness and burning heat would have put off another man, but Snape had long since found that there can be meaning in suffering, little nuggets of insight waiting to be dug by a person with sufficient sand to withstand the discomfort and soldier on.

Fortified, he marched back the library. He half expected the boy to have slipped out or something, but he stood ramrod straight in the corner, arms crossed. His fringe was hanging in his eyes, which made him look a bit like a pouting sheepdog.

Snape pulled the desk chair out and sat down on it. “Come here, Mr. Potter.”

Harry had surmised that the command boded nothing good. He briefly weighed his options and decided that, unpalatable though it might be, his best chance was to obey Snape.

Snape got a hold of the boy’s arm as soon as he was close enough. He gently pulled the boy so he was standing on Snape’s right side.

“You are correct that I forgot to mention that the records are off limits. I should not have done, and will strive in the future to remember these things. That said, you were disrespectful to me and behaved foolishly by standing on this chair. Had you fallen, you might have been seriously hurt. I don’t feel as though this warrants serious punishment, but I do feel as though a reminder of the rules, and the need for you to obey them, is in order.”

Harry’s stomach slid down his insides. He expected any number of dreadful things, but not what actually happened. One moment he was standing beside Snape, getting lectured, and the next he the floor was rushing at his face. Something broke his fall, and he was less than pleased to discover something was Snape’s lap. The man grabbed both his wrists in one hand and held them, then brought his other hand down hard.

Snape swatted the boy for thirty seconds before he said anything. He had to admit, the child took it well, squirming but not wailing or kicking. Snape stopped and put his hand on the small of Potter’s back, waiting.

“ Why do adults make rules for children ?” SMACK

“ Oww! Because they want to keep us safe.”

“That’s right. What would have happened, had you fallen? I might not have found you for hours. Do you want a head injury?” SMACK

“ No!” The boy made a noise, like he was strangling back a cry.

“No what?”

“ No sir!”

Snape waited a couple seconds, and then:

“The bigger problem is the respect issue, Mr. Potter. What would happen if I spoke to Professor Dumbledore the way you spoke to me a moment ago?” He swatted the boy twice in the same place.

“He’d dismiss you…stop!”

Snape swatted even harder. “What did you say to me?”

Harry jerked-- it shouldn’t have hurt nearly as much as it did. “Sorry! I’m sorry!“

Snape nodded. This was much better. “As I said, I ought to have remembered about the records. I will make a real effort to do so in the future, but you, young man, will be in this position a good deal if you can’t learn to trust that I make rules for your welfare and respect it, is that understood?”

Harry would have agreed to kiss Pansy Parkinson ( or anyone else) to get Snape to stop, and he signaled his assent by nodding vigorously. Snape whacked him again and said smoothly

“Verbal answers, please.”

“Yes, sir.” He gave a strangely muffled groan like the ones he had been making ever since he’d cried out.

Snape gave him a last half dozen right where he sat. The boy was crying just a little by then end. His tears slowed and then stopped and he lay, sniffling, still on Snape’s lap.

Did the Greasy Got coat his hand in iron? Had he charmed it to make it hurt more? Harry was torn between anger at Snape ( and himself) and a grudging respect. He hadn’t really thought about the risk when he tugged the chair over, but the floor was stone and the chair rather rickety. It’d be just awful to have fallen and broken an arm or something on the first day of hols.

He was less certain about the respect issue. He could see the point, but, in fairness, Dumbledore wasn’t a mean, nasty birk like Snape. Also, even if Snape had been young, he doubted that the man could remember what it was like. Had Snape’s parents also been gits? That would explain a lot. And he hadn’t been that cheeky…

Snape seemed to sense his thought, because he said from above

“ Understand that I let you off lightly. You may feel that you did nothing to merit a spanking, and some would agree, but I myself am a firm believer in the snowball theory.”

“ I don’t understand.”

Snape sighed. “ It means that large problems start as small ones. Most thieves don’t wake up one morning and rob a bank, do they? They start snitching sweets and simply move on from there. I’d just as soon nip this bad attitude of yours in the bud, rather than watch it get you in more trouble than it already has.”

Harry guessed that arguing back in this position was unwise. After a second, Snape grabbed him under the arms and lifted him to his feet. Harry felt a moment of dizziness, and then felt Snape’s hand on his chin, dragging his eyes up. The fingers digging into his jaw decided him; the man had indeed charmed his hand to make it stronger, no mere human hand felt like that.

Half an hour later, Snape and Harry sat at the kitchen table. Snape was drinking another cup of tea, and Potter was watching him warily while sucking an ice cube. It was one of six still in the bowl, which Snape had set in front of him with a curt order to finish them. He wondered whether Snape considered this lunch.

Snape had been staring off into space and this, coupled with the ice cube weirdness, was making him uneasy. The man was obviously unbalanced.

“ I never told you to stop, did I?”

Harry picked up a cube but did not put it in his mouth. “Do I have to?’

“Yes, you have to. Have I ever given you an order I have not meant, boy?”

Harry sighed and shook his head. “No, sir.”

“Honestly, children complain about everything these days. Always sighing and whingeing about the slightest things.” He gulped a little more tea. Harry half expected steam to come pouring from his ears, the man drank it almost boiling.

“Why do I have to eat these?”

Snape gave his idiot ward a chilling look and said nothing. The boy was getting a haircut as soon as this was over. It was like talking to a pile of grass shavings wearing glasses.

“Because, you brat, I stupidly assumed you’d prefer a little pain relief to additional punishment for your naughtiness. Unless I was mistaken and you’d just as soon go outside right now to look?”

Potter actually squeaked, which thing Snape made a mental note to laugh about later. The boy quickly popped the ice cube into his mouth and said nothing. He was staring at his fingernails, which he had bitten to the quick, though Snape was pleased to note that the broken knuckles had healed well enough.

“Why did you do it, Potter? No, don’t answer me with a full mouth.”

Harry waited until the ice was gone and kept looking at the table.

“Because I didn’t want to make a fuss.”

Snape felt incredulity fighting with…. something else.

He bit down his pique and made himself answer calmly.

“ I more than anyone appreciate and laud that impulse, but there are times when a certain response is natural and normal. It is normal to cry and vocalize during a spanking, Mr. Potter.”

Harry said nothing. He hung his head and sat fidgeting. His relatives had had nothing but sharpest scorn for any declarations of pain from him. Or weakness, or illness, or tiredness. Anything which might lessen his usefulness to them. He had been trained early and well, and he found the idea that Snape, of all people, was encouraging him to holler and fuss was simply too much. He gave his head a clearing shake and began sucking another cube.

Snape watched the boy. His lack of artifice was really quite useful. It would take a long time to convince him, if in fact it wasn’t already too late. Had someone reached out to him at thirteen, would Lucius and Edmund Nott and Jonas Avery have held the same dark appeal?

Wool gathering, meaningless sentimentality. He shoved the chair back from the table roughly and went to the icebox. He opened it and pulled out a bit of roast beef and cheese. He got the bread from the breadbox and sliced it. He could feel Potter’s eyes burning into his back.

“ Has no one ever told you it is rude to stare, Potter?”

The boy mumbled something. “Not with a full mouth, boy! I’ve met hippogriffs with a finer sense of decorum, and I mean that.”

A second later : “ Can I do something to help, sir?”

It was the last thing Snape had expected. He stopped and looked at the boy, who seemed relieved to have found something he could do. At least the fidgeting had stopped for the moment.

“Thank you, no. You can sit and come up with answers for the questions I’m going to ask you as we eat.”

Harry was relieved that Snape was going to give him more than ice for lunch. He was moderately certain that Snape didn’t mean him outright harm, but he was equally sure that the man had to be some kind of nutter. Look at him, for Merlin’s sake, with his weirdly greasy hair and ugly black woolens in summer.

He jumped when Snape put the plate in front of him. It was a sandwich, and to Harry’s glee it was roast beef and cheddar, his favorite. He waited until Snape had sat down to dig in, and they ate silently for some time.

“Tell me, Mr. Potter, what possesses you to do it?”

“Like I said--”

“Yes, yes, but besides that. I’ve seen you get badly injured and never bat an eyelash. That time Lockheart vanished the bones in your arm, for example, you took it far more stoically than you should have. What, does it please you to see what you can take?”

Harry blushed a little, because yes, it did please him. He liked the security of knowing that he could handle things, liked being able to decide what hurt him, liked the way he could make psychical pain distract him from worse hurts inside.

It started small, like most things do. When someone yelled at him, or called him a name, or locked him in that damned cupboard for days at the time, he’d find a way to make himself not care. He’d dig his nails into his palms, or pinch himself, or bite his lip.

When Snape had smacked him (how it galled him to think that, even to himself!) it had seemed reasonable to distract himself from the nasty berk’s stinging spanks by biting his cheek. Except, Snape was hard to shut out, and so he’d had to bite really hard. So hard he’d drawn blood, which he rarely did. And then, when he’d licked his lips, a little blood had clung. And Snape, being no idiot, had seen it and extrapolated.

“Well?”

“I -- I guess so. It isn’t a big deal, really--”

Snape stood up so fast his chair hit the wall and knocked down a small framed picture. The glass shattered but Snape didn’t seem to notice. He moved like a snake, leaned over the table and grabbed Harry’s wrist.

“ That’s where you are wrong. It may not be a big deal now, it may not be a big deal tomorrow, but someday it will catch up with you. Do you have any idea, any idea at all what you could do to yourself?”

Harry was afraid. Snape looked really angry. Really angry. Angry enough to hit him across the face, or shake him like a rag doll, or…

Snape realized a moment too late that he had scared the boy. He was sheet white, looking as though he expected Snape to hex him to death at the very least. Snape dropped Potter’s wrist and inhaled loudly. He made himself sit back down.

Harry took a sip of his water and watched the man. The color in his cheeks faded a bit. He put his head into his hands a moment and seemed to want to speak.

“Mr. Potter, I did not mean to…frighten you in any way. As you may have intuited, I have…strong feelings about this issue. I would hate to see you… do yourself irreparable harm to yourself.”

He sipped his own water and pointedly did not look at the boy. The child’s breathing returned to normal and he said, after a long silence

“Professor?”

“Yes, Potter?”

“ I didn’t mean to make you upset.”

“I know. After we eat, you’ll be taking a potion for the cut you put in your mouth and a dose of soothing syrup and then lying down. You still look sleep deprived to me.”

Harry balked at taking a nap like a little kid but didn’t dare give Snape a hard time. He waited for the man to stand, but instead he rolled the sleeve of frock coat up, shoved the shirt sleeve aside and thrust out his arm.

Harry was torn between a sort of fascinated disgust and pity. The skin was ridged and crenellated, shiny pink. It looked as though Snape had some terrible accident or something in the not so distant past.

“Twelve years. And it was no accident.” Snape could not help but Legilimize the boy, wanting to know what was going on behind his strangely impassive face.

“ What…”

“That’s not the point. The point is, had I not acted like a damned proud fool, it might not have scarred like this. Is this how you want to look, Potter, like an alligator?”

Harry was unsure how to respond, not wanting to make the man feel worse about his disfigurement than he did. Snape picked up on the child’s (misguided) empathy and said quietly “The correct answer is ‘no’ Potter.”

“ I refused to get treatment because I refused to show weakness. More the fool I, boy. Weakness and need are not synonymous, do you understand?”

Harry nodded slowly. His perspective on Snape had shifted a little. Something caught his eye and, being young and innocent, he blurted out thoughtlessly, “What’s that?”

“That” was in fact a strangely faded line, like an old tattoo. It was surrounded by scar tissue but untouched. Snape immediately jerked his shirt down and fixed his coat. Harry saw him swallow hard. He looked both sad and strangely ruthless.

Snape writhed internally. He had taken this boy in to atone, and part of that, he felt, was (relative), age appropriate honesty. He refused to contemplate telling the child a lie about it. No matter how messy and shameful, he owed it to Lily, the woman he had as good as killed, not to make her son believe that he was something he was not.

“That, Mr. Potter” he almost whispered “ That is the Dark Mark.”

The boy’s head jerked up. Snape saw the pulse in his throat leap and Potter swallowed hard.

“Voldemort.” There was no question, no childish tremble. His eyes were flat. Snape felt a chill creep down his spine. For a trace of a second, the merest thousandth of an instant, he felt as cold as he did in the presence of the Dark Lord himself, the child’s gaze was that penetrating. That devoid of pity.

“Yes.” Harry’s stomach slid in a greasy half loop and he clutched the arms of his chair hard. Snape was… is (?)…somehow involved with Voldemort. He felt for a moment the same elemental chill that the Dementors had evoked.

“Did he---?” He gestures at Snape’s arm, and Snape nodded. “Yes, Potter. He believes in--lasting lessons, shall we say.”

Snape expected Potter to scream, cry, cower. Anything but this calm, measured scrutiny. The child was chewing something over in his mind, that much was certain.

“Then you left? After he--?”

“Scarred me. I left him after your parents--after you-- after that Halloween.” Snape couldn’t tell the boy about Lily. He needed his trust first. He needed to help the boy feel safe enough that he could withstand such a blow to his world.

Snape looked as though he wished he was anywhere but where he was. Harry felt crushing weight, a sadness he didn’t understand yet. It made his skin prickle unpleasantly. Why was everything so ruddy hard?

“All right, that’s enough for both of us today. Go upstairs and I’ll bring your potions. Put your pajamas on, and Merlin help you if you simply threw all your clothes in your drawers rather than folding them.”

Harry had done just that, and he made his way up the stairs slowly, still feeling that strange sorrow. By the time Snape arrived with the potions, the clothes had been jostled into some semblance of order and Harry was sitting on the bed, PJ clad.

Snape held two vials in his hands. He had taken a little time in getting the potions. He felt drained, though they had barely scratched the surface. Would it have been better to tell the child? Snape shook the thought away and handed Potter the healing potion. The boy winced at the taste but swallowed it. The second was the Soothing Syrup. It actually tasted nice, sort of like the Muggle treat they called marshmallows.

Harry didn’t feel as instantly sleepy as before. It was more a pleasant, insistent fuzziness that made his earlier…whatever it was…fade away, there but distant. He found he could push it away to deal with later. Snape was still there, but he too had faded. The man was lingering beside his bed. Harry tried to feel something about this. It was easier to close his eyes. His breath evened.

Snape picked the light cover off the end of his bed and draped it over the prone body. The child seemed to sleep folded in on himself. His hands were clasped at his chest. He felt a moment of--not awe, but perhaps welcome acceptance--that the child’s face had that open look again.

He snorted. Stupid. Leaving the room ( it looked like Potter would be out a while), he went to the library. Pulling his wand from his sleeve, he pointed it at the nearest shelf. The books floated out and neatly arranged themselves on the bare desk. He methodically sorted them into three piles: Innocuous, Age Inappropriate, and Never in Hell.

The first were things he’d owned as a child, or which wouldn’t warp the boy ( well, not worse than simply being James Potter’s progeny had anyway). The second were things Potter could look at when he was a bit older, if he showed sufficient maturity. The third…

How old had he been when he’d found it? Nine? He’d been looking through the shelves (even in that foul little hovel, they had had books) when his hand lit upon something. A sketchbook. He opened it causally, idly. A few were landscapes, ruins, ducks at a park. A small sheath had fallen from the back, and he picked it up.

He liked the papers and books, at nine. Not the music, he’d never liked the music, but the books and drawings were interesting. He especially liked the ones his Dad had made during the War. He’d left most of a leg in France, had his Dad, but he’d made a lot of really brilliant drawings of tanks and stuff, even some airplanes.

So he’d been smiling when he retrieved the papers from the floor. He didn’t for long; smile. He’d been crying when he finally closed it. He hadn’t had the words for what he’d seen, not for years. He only knew he’d seen something bad, something forbidden. Of course, after Tobias died he’d seen the rest. Old enough to understand at eighteen. Old enough to be sickened.

‘Damn you” Snape thought fiercely “ I think you wanted me to find it.“

He realized he was clutching the desk’s edges so hard his hands hurt. The knuckles were white. He was glad the old monster was dead, and whatever atrocities he had wrought were dead with him.

There was a noise from within the house and he all but jumped. He walked quickly to the kitchen and found the boy’s owl rapping at the window with a clawed foot. She had the remains of a mouse in her beak, which she thoughtfully swallowed before she flew in.

He expected her to fly to her cage, or find Potter, but to his irritation, she fixed her great marble like eyes on him and followed him to the sink. He filled a glass with cold water and drank deeply. The owl’s gaze was unswerving. He tried his Death Glare on her, which could turn some of the most dangerous dark wizards in Britain to quivering simpletons. Nothing.

“What is it, then? Has my skin turned green?” The owl tipped her head to one side and studied him. Then, very deliberately, she perched on his shoulder and gave his ear a friendly little chomp.

Did this mean she liked him? Or at least didn’t hate him?

Hedwig sat still a moment and flew off. She was tired, but, having checked her boy’s new brood parent and found him adequate, she’d decided to go to sleep. On the whole she liked being the boy’s owl. She was relieved he was away from those nasty nest mates he’d been living with. Here, she could fly freely, and with that pleasant thought she put her head under her wing and began to snore ever so gently.

Snape wondered when the boy would wake and what would happen. He’d finish the library and try to find something to occupy the boy’s time. He could always restock his personal potions store. He allowed himself a smile, thinking of the weeks of chopping he could put the little brat to. Not to mention quartering blat slug spleens, and de eyeing beetles, and peeling the linings from bicorn gizzards.

The horrid little monster would just ruin them for spite, he decided. Still, he had to come up with something. If the brat thought he’d lie around all summer, reading whatever took his fancy and flitting here, there and everywhere on his broom, he had another thing coming.

Harry had, at one point in his life, been under the misapprehension he had been bored in the past. He realized now how very, very wrong he had been. Being locked in the cupboard has been spidery and loud ( it was under the stairs, after all), Professor Binns managed to make dirt seem vivacious, Lockhart was…Lockhart, but this, this was…

"I dare say I wouldn't fall asleep, Potter. They might attack you."'They' were in fact a gaggle of shimmery green pixies. "Dragon mites" Snape called them. Harry was sitting on his backside on a small hummock, near a nondescript field about three miles from Snape's house. He was waving a strip of blue towel through the air, watching as more and more pixies clung to the surface and held on for the ride.

He had been a de facto carnival ride for what seemed to be a million hot, tedious hours. He wished he knew what they were doing, or in fact why Snape couldn't entertain the stupid pixies himself. Ever since the Cornish Pixie debacle in second year, Harry found the little things slightly distasteful. These were at least cute, chubby little celery colored creatures that looked the slightest bit like teddy bears.

Snape watched his ward and grinned to himself. Ahhh, the pleasures of being the adult. He himself wore a pair of heavy leather gloves and a hat rather like a bee keeper's. He was attempting to harvest a blood orchid, rare and precious, that he had found the day before while taking his morning walk. The problem was, the orchid was not cooperating; they didn't call them blood orchids for nothing. The razor sharp leaves would twist as soon as he tried to grasp the stem. Still, it was pleasant work and at least Potter was occupied.

The pixies let out a high pitched squeal and glowered as one. Harry picked up the pace where he had been nodding off, looking as though he were waving an iridescent green fan. The sun was directly overhead and he felt very thirsty. He narrowed his eyes at the wool clad back a hundred feet away and resolved to find a suitable revenge for this, if not now then when he was older.

Snape was cheerfully indifferent to all this adolescent plotting. He had given the boy a haircut over the brat's frantic protests. "Please, professor, my hair is worse when it's short. Aunt Petunia cut it short once and I looked like an escaped murderer."

"Looked like what?"

"No, it's true. It stuck up every which way, I looked right dodgy. Dudley laughed so hard he fell out of his chair."

Snape had given the boy his most marrow chilling grin. "Now that you've phrased it like that, Mr. Potter…. I must see this phenomenon myself."

Snape was loathe to admit the brat was right. He looked…peculiar to say the least. Still, the boy was a wizard. The hair was growing quickly, and as Snape pointed out "Well, at least Miss Bulstrode isn't here."         

Harry jerked with horror. "What?"Snape put on his best solicitous look.

"Why, Mr. Potter, didn't you think I'd noticed the adoring glances you throw at her every Potions class? Really, it's rather sweet, she's a lovely girl, you'll be very happy together." Knowing full well that Potter (and the idiot and the know-it-all) were actually glaring at Malfoy and his fan club.

The conversation had its intended effect. The boy shuddered and was silent for a good long while.

Snape finally succeeded in snipping the bloom and watched as a bluish, viscous sap turned red as it oozed out. He held his collecting phial up and carefully filled as high as it would go.  They rarely gave much, but the sap made a superior blood restorer, and the leaves made an effective and safe cholesterol blocker. He resolved to brew both as soon as possible, and owl them to Poppy.

He flicked his eyes to Potter. The boy had lost his battle with sleep and the dragon mites were swarming all over him, especially on his glasses. As unhappy as they were to have lost their towel, the boy himself was a satisfactory amusement. Snape grinned to himself. He could shoo them off. Could.

Instead, he pulled out the copy of Potions Weekly he kept in his trouser pocket and commenced to read about advances in baldness cures ( like Muggle remedies, mostly expensive and ineffective). Still, they were doing some interesting with fleabane and catwort…

XXXXXXXXX

  Snape had just about decided that the man who'd written the article was a fuzzy headed crackpot when he heard a noise from Potter's part of the field; he looked up in time to see Potter writhing on the ground, howling for help.           

 Snape rose slowly to his feet, folded the journal in his back pocket and ambled casually to the hummock.

"Something the matter, Mr. Potter?""YEEESSS!""Whatever could it be, I wonder?"

"SNAAAPE! MAKE THEM STOP!"

"Beg pardon? I didn't hear you say please."

"PLEEAASE!"           

 Snape sighed and flicked his wand. The Mites were dispersed, en masse, in a little cloud that blew to the other end of the meadow. The boy lay there a long moment, glaring up at his guardian. Snape's face was twitching oddly. Harry hoped fervently he'd been stung by a wasp, until he realized Snape was doing his best not to laugh.           

"It's not funny!"

"I agree. It was quite hilarious. I only hope I can do the story justice at the opening feast."           

Potter's eyes got big. "Wait, what? You can’t tell people about this!"

Snape gave his most evil blank stare. "Can’t I?" Then he turned and began to walk away.           

" You're joking! You have to be joking! "" I never joke." 

Harry racked his brain."You wouldn’t."

            Snape smiled.

Harry frantically looked for anything that he thought would dissuade Snape from his lunatic plan. He had a reputation! Not to mention that little dark haired Ravenclaw that smiled at him sometimes.

   Snape stopped and considered. “Why should I not do this? You and your little friends have embarrassed me more times that I can count. Not to mention, a corrective dose of humility might keep you from developing a swell head.”

            “ I don’t have.”

  Snape hrumphed. “ I suppose I might see my way clear to keeping this a secret if I thought you were willing to show me you’ve changed.”

  Harry eyed him as though he thought Snape meant to turn him into a toadstool.

“What do you mean? Sir?” It seemed a good idea to be respectful while his social life hung in the balance.

    “To start with, you aren’t stupid, Potter. That may be the only time I ever say that, so I hope you listened. There is no earthly reason you should make the marks you do except idleness and sheer stubborn pride. An hour of study a day, of the subjects of my choosing, under my supervision. No attitude, no pouting and no wasting your time. Understood?”

     “This is blackmail! You can’t do that, teachers don’t-- ”

  “I am acting as a concerned guardian. Obviously simply asking, or expecting you to do what you’re told, will not work. So I have simply found a more—immediate way of getting through to you. This is the only deal you’re getting, Potter. Take it or leave it.”

     Harry nodded. “Alright. Can I still fly and do other things?”

“I wouldn’t want you underfoot all the time. My ears need a small chance to recover every day.”

    They began the sunny, quiet walk home and Harry sighed. He decided he loathed all pixies everywhere, especially Dragon Mites. What kind of creature attacks by tickling it’s victim into submission?

It was hot. And still. The air was like a blanket, wet and tinged with salt, the sun hung above the cottage as immovable as a boulder. It seemed as though the afternoon would never end.

   Harry sighed and slammed the dusty cover of the book he was reading. The shower was hissing monotonously upstairs, which would have flooded the house with even more wet heat, had Snape not cast a steam dispersal spell. The man the Griffyndors called the Greasy Git was actually one of the cleanest people Harry knew—he showered at least three times every day, and cleaned the house with a devotion that approached religious.

  He had assumed that when Snape wanted him to study, he would be stuck reading Potions texts for an hour a day for the rest of the summer. While he had been reading a fair amount of purely academic work, Snape had been giving him a surprising amount of less traditional texts as well.

  Right now he was stuck slogging his way through an old book Snape had dug from Merlin knew where. The cover was a mud colored brown, the spine cracking, and the whole thing stank of mold, with a slight undertone of mouse and silverfish. On close inspection, Harry had found a name, written in faded brown ink: "T. Snape".

  He wondered who this mysterious Snape was, and why he had passed on his book so Snape the Younger could torment innocent teenagers with it. Whoever he was, Harry hated him. Passionately. He heard a squeak on the steps, and quickly opened the book and tried to look interested. Snape poked his head in and sneered at his ward's strangely shorn, clearly faking head.

  "Taking a little nap, are you, Potter?" Snape shook his damp head firmly and fixed the little monster with a jaundiced eye. He'd been plotting mischief, no doubt. Granted, he had been good for the past few days ( more or less- Snape was determined to break him of his fidgeting, but was thus far unsuccessful). To Snape, this didn't mean the boy was being good—quite on the contrary, it simply meant the boy was getting more clever about hiding his tomfoolery.

  "No, sir. I was reading the, uh, the Iliad you gave me." Snape snorted. "Were you? Then perhaps you can tell me who it is Diomedes wounds in book five?" Potter squirmed. He cleared his throat and got the panicked look of a deer caught in the path of a speeding magic carpet. "Ummmm, Aga—Ag-- " Snape made a contemptuous noise. "Agamemnon? Why would he fight Agamemnon, Potter, when they were on the same side?"

  Potter turned a dark pink. He wouldn't look Snape in the eye, and Snape felt a moment of elemental satisfaction, having caught the little liar out. He debated a number of things he could do to the boy, but he had a batch of Pepper Up potion going and he had to make sure it didn’t get too much heat—otherwise, the unlucky recipient could have his entrails boiled.

  Not, of course, that Snape would have much minded boiling the spleens of several acquaintances to shriveled nubs, but he was moderately sure Dumbledore would tick him off if that happened. Might be worth the risk…..

   “Please, sir, may I go outside?” “So you can soap windows and throw stones and whatever else you plan on doing?” Potter stood straighter and squared his bony shoulders. “I would never. I just want some fresh air. It’s ruddy hot in here.” Snape felt a tug of indecision. On the one hand, he didn’t want to reward the boy’s lackadaisical behavior by letting him play. On the other hand, he certainly wasn’t getting anything done in the house, and if he gave one more martyred sigh Snape thought he might snap and hex his mouth shut ( a definite ticking off, that).

  “Alright, then. If you think you can stay out of trouble. Can you?”

Potter gave him a hurt look. “I haven’t been in trouble once since I’ve been here. Not once, and you still don’t--”

“Because I know you, Potter. You get a look about you and one can almost see you itching for mischief. Thank the stars your little cohorts aren’t here, else you’d already have fallen down a well or been attacked by magpies or something equally improbable.”

   Potter muttered under his breath. “I didn’t quite catch that, Potter. Would you care to repeat it?”

“No sir. Thank you, sir.”

“I mean it, boy: I’d better not find you up to trouble or you’ll be sorry. Go on, now. Be back at dusk, and don’t go so far you can’t shout if there’s a problem.”

   Potter scarpered off so fast it was like he was made of smoke. Snape watched him speculatively a long moment, winced when he heard the door bang open and then went downstairs. It was nearly time for the powered beetle eyes, and perhaps he would start that snoring cure he’d been meaning to explore…

  Harry walked a short ways away. It felt good to be outside, away from the smothering heat and silence of the house. He found a comfortable stone and sat, content to let the sun play on his face a moment. Mmm, summer hols were heaven when you didn’t work like a dray horse. He heard a slithering behind him and lazily opened his eyes.

 A little green snake was busily moving by his foot, mumbling to herself about everything she needed to do before the winter.

“Hello.” “Hello. Must find that mouse’s nest, the hay in the meadow is—Did you talk to me?”

“Uh huh.”

“ Fancy that. I’d love to chat, but there’s just so much to do. Good day.”

Harry had thought he’d never want to talk to a snake again after last year, but these one seemed nice. Maybe a little distracted, but nice. He wondered where she was going.

  He could follow her a little way, right? Snape said as long as he could yell, he was fine. He got up and walked behind her, following her down a path. The smell of the sea was stronger, a grey salty smell. Harry had never seen the sea up close and was rather keen. He could hear a distant whooshing, like birds.

   The snake had led him to the edge of a small rocky outcrop. She vanished into a hole in the rock and was gone. Harry looked at the small patch of ocean below him. He had read all kinds of books about the sea and sailing. He had liked to pretend he was Bluebeard when he was younger, which was sort of embarrassing now but gave him hours of amusement as a kid.

 The heaving of the waves was almost hypnotic, enticing. He watched it a long moment and shifted gently to ease his tired leg. His foot kicked an unstable rock, and to his horror, he felt himself begin to slip.

Snape was blessed with many diverse talents, but none had ever served him half so well as his ability to hyper focus on whatever he was doing at the time. Deep concentration allowed him to finesse his potions, to carefully draw forth the potential hidden in each bit of lace wing or bat toenail. In his heyday, potions wise, he could spend days like that, eating whatever was set in front of him without tasting it and sleeping without remembering he had done so.

He found himself slipping into that state now. He was pleasantly relaxed, carefully paring manticore spleens and mashing them into a fine paste for later use. He even hummed a little while he worked, something perhaps a dozen living people had ever heard ( and those he had frightened into silence long since, at least so far as his expressions of human emotion went).

The last spleen was carefully mashed, and Snape stood and stretched. He was starved. Had the boy eaten? His mind dismissed the thought for a second and then circled back for a closer look. The boy----took a walk --no slammed doors-- no sighs-- house silent-- must not be home.

Snape reassured himself that nothing could be wrong. His wards had not gone off. He hadn't heard the boy scream. Assuming the boy had obey him, then….Snape wondered if he was getting as dotty as Albus pretended to be, grabbed his cloak and set off. Not running, not exactly, not yet.

Upstairs was dark. Snape felt a metallic needle of fear pierce his throat. "Lumos".

He breathed a sigh of relief when he found the boy's trainers, caked with sand, sitting beside the chair. Sand. White sand. There was no sand on his property. Worse, as he looked closer, he saw a few speckles of something darker and more vicous. He had no proof it was blood, but since when he Snape needed proof-- of anything-- to give Potter hell? Flooded with relief, he marched off, rather looking forward to the battle he anticipated.

Harry hurt all over. He felt like Dudley had mauled him with his Smeltings Stick, only tipped in iron. His body was a mottled patchwork of bruises, a few really nasty scrapes and a cut on his shin which had bled a worrying amount of time before clotting. He was dozing when Snape threw open his door, conscious as ever about making a dramatic point. The last haunting strains of dread dissipated when he saw the miserable little brat curled on his side, hand over his face to block the light from the hall.

"POTTER! Get up this second, you deplorable little nit wit!"

"Huh! S-Snape? Wh'times'zit?"

Snape flicked on the light with a wave of his hand and jerked Harry's covers off before the boy had even gotten his glasses. He winced as soon as he saw the damage-- Potter looked like he had been attacked by a herd of starving hippogriffs. He pushed his concern for the boy down and focused on his anger instead.

"Well, Potter, how kind of you to grace me with your presence, and in such fine condition, as well. Tell me, wherever did you get those huge bruises you neglected to mention when you slunk in and crawled up here?"

Harry sat up in bed, forgetting he wore no PJ top. " I didn't slink! I just didn't want to interrupt you, is all. Besides, I--"

"Potter! Have you no sense of self preservation at all? Not only did you flagrantly disobey and then hurt yourself, you have the audacity to talk back about it? I can do nearly anything I want to you, and you court disaster ?"

Snape made himself calm down and look at the boy objectively. First heal him, then kill him slowly. Savor it. The child's arms were purple, his hands doubtless a fright. "Turn around." The boy's back was a battlefield of small cuts and large black and blues.

"Did a proper job of it, didn't you?" He felt something rising in his stomach. Snape probed it for a moment and then pulled his attention away from it. It didn't feel right to him.

"How are your legs, then, Potter?"

"Bad."

"Sorry?"

"Bad, sir. Especially the backs."

Snape gestured for the boy to stay where he was. He went to his private stores and pulled out a phial of Bruise Heal, a salve for Potter's scrapes and a small draught that would help the boy sleep without pain.

Harry had expected many things from Snape, but not what actually happened. Snape returned with his hands full of phials ( Harry moaned internally) and salve. He forced the Bruise Heal down Potter's gullet and proceeded to anoint his scrapes and cuts with the salve. They stopped stinging at once, though his muscles still burned.

"Thank you. Sir. It's much better."

"You're welcome, boy. Now, why don't you tell me WHAT THE BLOODY HELL YOU THOUGHT YOU WERE PLAYING AT? ARE YOU TRYING TO GET KILLED? HAS THAT IDIOT WEASLEY RUBBED OFF ON YOU?"

The blood drained from Potter's face and Snape was forcefully reminded of the night that had started all this. This time the boy would not be so easily cowed.

" I wasn't playing at anything. I saw a snake and followed her and--"

" A snake? You nearly killed yourself for a snake?"

"No, sir. I wanted to see the ocean, and the snake went to a nest in the cliffs and I went too, but I slipped and almost fell."

" Strangely, Mr. Potter, I can't recall there being any cliffs on my property. In fact, the nearest ones are over a mile away, far beyond comfortable shouting range. Didn't I tell you to stay within shouting distance?"

"Yes, sir."

"How did you get hurt?"

Harry felt his insides twist. Nothing he said could salvage this situation, so he simply told the truth. " I lost my footing and slid down part way, but there's a tiny path a few meters down. I slid directly onto it."

Harry didn't mention how close to death he really had been, how dry his mouth was even thinking about it, the way he had nearly slid over the edge, the leaden thumping of his heart, the buzzing gnat thought in his mind “This can’t be it, can’t be it, can’t be it”.

                Not for nothing was Snape a feared man. He leaned forward and got directly in the child’s line of sight. “ I’d like to tell you I’m surprised, Mr. Potter, that you don’t remember the little talk we had at Hogwarts about foolishly risking your life.  About the sacrifices that have been made for you. About the many people who don’t wish to see you dead. ‘

                “I won’t, however. It would be a waste of my time even to try, because you have given ample proof that you are too stubborn and selfish to listen to the adults in your life—don’t sit there and try to gainsay me about this boy, I’m in mood for your cheek—simply rest assure we will have further dealings in the morning and you shall not like them.’

                Snape pulled his wand and murmured an incantation. The floorboards around the bed glowed briefly blue, and Snape said “Try to walk away.”

                Harry couldn’t. “Age line. Your punishment tomorrow will depend in part on your good behavior tonight, so don’t try and cross the line or I’ll know. I’ll bring you something to eat later, and then you’ll go to bed.”

                And that’s what happened. Or should have happened, and did happen until 3:16 AM the next morning, for that was when Snape was woken from a pleasant dream he couldn’t quite remember by the Potter brat. More accurately, by the Potter brat’s screams.

Snape jumped up at once when he heard the first noise from Potter’s room. Death Eaters tend to share a number of characteristics, chief among them an ability, like a solider’s, to go from sleep to perfect wakefulness in the time it takes for the eyes to fly open. Woe to he who was late because he had been sleeping, a lesson they had all learned early and well.           

Forsaking his dressing gown, Snape flew down the hall as though the hounds of Hell were after him. His bare feet pounded the worn boards, his wand clutched in one sweaty fist. He realized suddenly that the wards had not pinged, not once.            

     He kept running. Potter had his faults, Merlin knew, but he did not cry wolf. If anything, he’dwait until the wolf had a firm grip on his calf before he raised the issue with anyone at all. Snape threw open the door, wand at the ready, adrenaline surging hotly in his veins.           

   The boy was writhing on his bed, clutching the pillow as though it would keep away whatever grim figment was assaulting his mind. His face was screwed into a tight mask, and his mouth opened once again to admit that horrible keen.           

   Snape didn’t hesitate. He grasped the boy’s shoulders in his hands and gave him a hard shake. “Potter! Potter, wake up! You’re not there, you’re here! Potter!” Potter’s eyes opened but they did not focus on him; instead, the boy shrank away and cried out “ I didn’t mean for it to happen, I tried to save you!”           

    Black.  Damn his eyes, the bastard was tormenting Snape from beyond the grave.  They boy was reliving his death, and the guilt that came with it. Snape made a choice. Conjuring a face cloth and a pitcher of cold water, he wet the flannel and rang it out  over Potter’s head.           

   Harry could see the Dementors circling like buzzards, dozens of them. Sirius curled in a ball on the ground, shrieking, trying to make himself invisible to them. The first one grabbed him by the hair, pulled up his head and—           

    A stream of icy water hit Harry square in the forehead. His eyes focused and he realized that Snape was standing beside him. In pajamas, no less. He looked less than pleased, and Harry, falling into the default that had been hammered into him, cried out “ I didn’t mean to wake you sir, I’m sorry!”           

   Snape fought an instinct to find Dursley and hex him. What little progress had been made over the past days had been lost in two seconds because of that oaf and the harridan he had married. Potter looked terrified and very young. Snape swallowed and spleen and said, as calmly as he could “Of course you didn’t, Harry.”           

  Had Snape just called him by his first name?  Harry’s fear of Snape became mild wonderment instead. Could he still be dreaming? Snape even looked less cross than usual, though, of course, Harry wore no glasses. It could be a trick of the shadows.           

    Snape was rubbish at this sort of thing. What was he supposed to do now that the boy was awake? Did he …hug him? Or say something comforting? Comfort wasn’t his forte. Perhaps put a hand on his shoulder, or something avuncular like that? That struck Snape as rather the right note, but before he could command his disbelieving hand ( which, thinking this was some neural misfire, refused to move) to sally forth, Potter solved the problem for him.           

    “Thank you, sir, but I’ll be fine.  Perhaps you should go back to bed; I’ll be alright.” Snape was absurdly moved by the child’s brave front.  ‘Stubborn little monster’, he thought with something that couldn’t be affection.  The boy looked like death warmed over, he was shaking like a boggart haunted chest, and his voice trembling so hard it took him a second to get it out. He gave Snape a ghastly rictus that might have passed for a smile in Hell. Then, with that same creepy air, he hid his face in his hands and burst into tears. Hard.           

    Comforting as it was to see the boy acting his age about these things, Snape was unprepared for the violence of his emotions.  Huge, gasping sobs ripped from his chest as he rocked back and forth, tears streaming down his face. He looked ready to collapse.           

   Harry had finally reached breaking point. The nightmare, the scare of the cliff and his near death, Snape’s anger at what had been an innocent if foolhardy exploit, his impending punishment for the same, it was too much. Harry flopped on the bed and buried his head in his arms. He didn’t care if Snape saw him acting like a baby. He wanted the whole world to go away.           

   Snape recognized emotional catharsis for what it was and let the boy go. He had thought the night in his office had taken care of most of it but he could see that the issue had merely been buried.  The boy looked so and sounded so miserable; he was shivering on top of everything else. The blankets had been kicked off, and Snape, helpless to comfort the boy, pulled them up and onto his ward’s body.            

    Harry felt Snape move. He’d be leaving, of course, disgusted by his ward’s lack of control. Stupid. Couldn’t even handle a nightmare without falling all to bits. A small weight engulfed him and he realized Snape had pulled the covers up for him. Snape covered him to the neck and his hand seemed to hover there for a moment. Dimly, Harry felt it rest between his shoulder blades and despite himself, he relaxed. This is Snape, he reminded himself, this is Snape.           

   Snape was as shocked as Harry. He hadn’t meant to touch the boy, and he definitely hadn’t meant to leave his hand there. But the child had undeniably responded to his touch. Snape wasn’t used to people feeling comforted by him. Unsure, he began to rub a little circle on the child’s heaving back, and was relieved ( and secretly gratified) that Potter’s hysterics began to ebb.           

    Harry was tired. Exhausted. His face was stiff and sore from crying, his voice was hoarse, and he felt as though his limbs weighed a thousand pounds. He was still weeping. He couldn’t stop. Snape was still rubbing his back. That was fine with Harry. Anything was fine with Harry, so long as Snape stayed there. Of all things, he could not bear to be alone.           

    The boy’s sobs finally quieted.  Snape could hear him forcing his breath back to normal. He slowly withdrew his hand. From the pillow came a muffled groan that sounded like “All my fault.”           

    “What was that? Roll over.” Potter obeyed, for once. “My fault. I was supposed to save him. Got there too late. All my fault, all my --”          

    Snape had heard quite enough, and he didn’t want the boy working himself up again. His hand darted out and grasped the boy’s chin.“It. Most Certainly. Was. NOT. Don’t ever. Say That. In Front Of Me. Again. Unless. You’d Like. A Whipping. You Will. Never. Never. Never. Forget. Understood?”           

    Potter shook his head. “You don’t understand. D-Dumbledore, he gave Hermione and me a Timer turner so we could save him. He told us to save him but I couldn’t make the Patronus come. Stupid, stupid! Can’t do anything right!”           

   Snape was filled with a terrible rage. Dumbledore allowed two school children to use a Time turner to make them responsible for saving Black’s life? He used the savior of the Wizarding world and an innocent girl, exposed them to the dangers of time travel and for what?  To save a man he could have saved himself?           

   “Hush, boy. Calm down. What do you mean?”

“There were too many of them. The sky was covered, and then it was in my head and I couldn’t make the Patronus and it was too late!”

“You mean the Dementors made you see something?” Potter looked ready to cry again.

“Mum! It was my Mum, and she was screaming, and then that bolt of light --” Then he did begin to weep again, but much more gently, a leaking of his pain that barely made noise.           

   Snape froze for a second and then gently pushed the boy against the pillows and tucked him in. Potter hadn’t been able to save Black because he had been listening to his mother die in his head. Poor Lily. Snape shook his head to clear it. Lily was dead and beyond suffering. Her son was not, and had heard—and in Black’s case, seen—two people he loved die almost at the same time. Poor Potter. Poor Harry.           

    Snape, wrapped up in the horror of the thing, hardly heard his own voice but Harry did, and always remembered it. He would call it forth again in times of great pain or trial, and the feeling it had evoked in him.           

“Shh, Harry. They can’t hurt you worse than they did, child. You’ve nowhere to go but up.”

  Snape came back to find Potter looking at him. The boy’s face was swollen but his eyes bright. He tried to sit up and Snape lightly pushed him back down. He was uncertain of what should happen now. What did one say, one do, in these fiendishly complex and trying moments? Having insulated himself so well against other living creatures, Snape was aware of a disconnect within himself.

  Harry felt alert. He didn’t want to sleep, he’d been sleeping for some time. He wanted to take a night flight, or read a wizarding comic. Or else watch telly, but Snape didn’t have a telly. Not that the Dursleys had let him watch much, but Harry had snuck down often during the years, late at night, and developed quite a taste for old horror movies. Then again, maybe a horror movie would have been a bad idea even if one had been available, given the circumstances…

  Snape, having taken through stock of his inner resources, found them wanting when it came to the emotional health of Teenage- Brats- Who- Never- Listened- And- Made- His- Life- A- Misery. The things he might have wanted, or enjoyed, or accepted when he was this age were much different.

“I’ll never drop off, sir. Can I get up?”

   “No, Potter, I’ll not have you wandering about causing mischief. On the other hand, you’ve had too much Dreamless Sleep lately. You’re a risk for developing a dependency, and I won’t have people saying I turned the Golden Boy into a opium fiend. Among other reasons, because then half the staff would then be at me to ease the pain of teaching you lot of adolescent dunces.”

   Harry started to object but was caught by the image of the staff banging at Snape’s door at odd hours. He remembered a scene from an American film Aunt Petunia had been very fond of, and flashed on Flitwick gasping out “Give me something for the pain!” Harry let out a helpless chuckle and gave in, shoulders shaking.

   Was the boy crying again? Snape steeled himself for more histrionics. Except that the boy was shaking with…laughter? He never made people laugh. It couldn’t be; misplayed grief, that was all.

  The boy sobered and looked at Snape. “ Not the pain of having to work with certain other teach--oww, Snape!” Snape let the boy’s earlobe go and gave him a satisfied smirk. “Sorry, Potter, would you care to say it again?”

“What about a book? I have a book on Quidditch that I could look at.”

“What, and have you getting riled up? No, Potter, if you’re determined not to sleep, I shall choose.”

“That’s sure to put me to sleep.”

   Snape raised a dangerous eyebrow and told himself sternly that the brat was most emphatically not funny, especially when he ought to be contemplating his poor behavior from earlier. He fixed the boy with a fearsome glare.

“I will ignore that little remark, Mr. Potter, but I urge you to consider that we still have our discussion of today’s incident to undertake. React accordingly.”

Snape raised his wand. “Accio Illiad.”

   The worn book flew into his hand. He pulled the desk chair over to the bed and settled back, crossing his legs, preparing to open the book.

  “ You don’t have to stay, sir. I’ll be all right.” The last time Potter said that, he’d had a crying fit. Snape stared at him skeptically, but the boy seemed to mean it. He stretched out a hand for the book and after a moment’s consideration, Snape batted it gently away.

“I’ll be staying here, thank you. Since I’m up, I’ve decided to use this opportunity to torture you with meaningful literature and then an adult conversation after.”

“You don’t have to read it to me. I’m not a little kid.”

  Snape was amazed to detect stroppiness in the boy’s voice. Was it heartening or worrisome he’d bounced back so quickly?

“ I must insist, Mr. Potter. Homeric literature is meant to be experienced aurally.” When the boy looked confused, Snape clarified “ You’re meant to hear it aloud.”

  Harry huffed and lay back, resigned to some moldy old tome about the adventures of some boring person no one had ever heard off.

“Sing, Goddess, the rage of Achilles son of Peleus, that brought the Greeks incalculable pain, cast the souls of heroes into Hades’ depths and left their bodies as carrion upon the Trojan plains, feast for dog and bird…”

   Despite himself, Harry was drawn in. This Achilles was an interesting bloke, a little like Ron in some ways, like how touchy he was. The whole war seemed really stupid, actually.

  Snape read on in a smooth, even voice. The boy was still watching him, but Snape sensed he was getting sleepy. He read on, softer and softer, and heard the boy’s breath slow and deepen. Snape enjoyed Homer; it was like visiting an old friend.

  He stopped at the end of Book One. Potter--Harry?-- was asleep. “Never drop off, indeed” Snape smirked to himself. He turned the light out and quietly put the chair back at the desk.

  As he crept out, he became aware of a sound. He froze in time to hear Potter mumble to himself. “What a waste”, it sounded like.

  Agreeing silently, Snape went down the hall, climbed into his bed and shut his eyes. Surprising himself, he slept again, and his dreams were good.

Snape’s eyes snapped open at 9:30 that morning. He shook his head to clear it and wondered why he felt as though something had happened. Then he remembered. It had. The Iliad was beside him on the bedside table, and he picked it up and paged through it a bit. He had skipped most of the catalogue poetry and simply read the more exciting bits.

He remembered reading it for the first time when he was about eight or nine. His father had swung the door to his room open as Snape pretended to sleep under the dirty comforter. “Boy? Are you awake, boy? Put your head up, ya great lump, I’m talking to ya!”

Severus had poked his head out. “Yes, Da?”

“ ‘Yes, Da!’” Soundin’ like a yer Mam, no good slut she is! Brought you somethin’. Sit up.” When his Da was drunk his accent would come back—the accent he had worked so hard to loose at University.

Severus was scared. When his father brought him something, it could be anything. A hug, a toffee, a whipping with the heavy brown leather strap that his father kept in a drawer. He had no choice but to obey. He forced himself into a sitting position.

His father stumbled as he walked the few steps between the door and the little bed, which was too short to be comfortable now. He reached under his coat and pulled out a book.

“This was mine when I was your age. Thought you might like it.” He shoved it clumsily into Severus’ still small hands. It was too dark for him to read the title. He hugged it to his chest.

“Read it, won’t ya, an we’ll talk about it?”

Severus nodded. “Yes sir, I will.”

His father leaned over and Severus could smell the heavy gin fumes on the man’s breath. “ There’s a good boy, Sev. Back to sleep now.”

He lay down and watched from slitted eyes as his father made his ponderous way to the corridor, stumping painfully on his crude wooden leg. They’d offered him a better one but he’d always refused. Severus knew what he’d hear next; his father would yell at his Mam, his Mam would cry, and then the hitting would start…

Snape came back. His slapped the book down on the table and threw his legs over the side, shoving his feet into his slippers.

Twenty minutes later, showered, dressed and shaved, he felt alive. He started the breakfast and, carefully spelling the pot not to over spill, he walked upstairs. He opened the door, fully expecting to find the boy lounging. Instead Potter was sitting crossed legged, clearly waiting to get up. Snape undid the age line and the boy leapt up.

“Glad to see me, Potter?”

Potter flushed. “ No sir, I mean yes, I ah--”

Snape waved a hand to stop his idiotic stammering. “I get the gist. Breakfast is in fifteen minutes and I expect you looking as though you didn’t roll in the mud yesterday. Understand?” The boy streaked to the bathroom in his traditional ‘herd of starving animals’ run. Snape wondered how the Weasleys did it. They didn’t look like they’d been tippling…

Harry yanked a t-shirt over his head and raced down the stairs. He was half scared Snape would throw out his breakfast, though he’d never done such a thing before. He’d been really angry when Harry went to bed, when Harry thought he ought to have been at least a little more understanding ( bad things can happen to everyone, after all). Then, when Harry woke him up crying like a stupid little kid, Snape had been…well, maybe not nice, but not as totally evil as he usually was. Harry wondered what had happened—was Snape some kind of were-git who transformed into a decent bloke once the sun was down?

Porridge was on the table and they ate in silence. Snape seemed less than inclined to talk and Harry hoped that if he were quiet, Snape would forget he was suppose to punish Harry and go back to mucking about with the gristly bits of disgusting animals. He hunched down a little and ate the last few bites of his meal. Now if only he could …

“Potter, what do you think you’re doing? You look even shiftier than usual. Sit up and get that sinister look off your face.”

“I don’t look sinister.” Harry felt his stomach sink when he realized that Snape had not forgotten. He had an awful idea he knew what his punishment was….

The waiting would kill him. “Professor, about last night--”

Snape didn’t look up from his paper. “Are you so eager to resolve the situation? I would have thought you’d prefer to put it off as long as possible.”

“It’s the waiting.”

Snape nodded sagely. “Waiting builds character. Besides, the ministry had leveled a six percent tariff on foreign harvested unicorn hair. Who wouldn’t want to read about that, perhaps five or six times in a row? I’m a very slow reader, Potter.”

Snape let the little nuisance squirm for another thirty seconds before he put the paper down and fixed him with a stony glare that would have frozen water solid.

“You have thirty seconds to explain why you don’t deserve to be punished severely for this, Potter. Start now.”

“ I didn’t mean for it to happen. I just lost track of how far I’d gone, that’s all. I never meant to fall, and I never meant to wake you up.”

Snape sighed. Merlin this was hard. “First off, you aren’t in trouble for waking me because you had a nightmare. You will never be in trouble for that, even if you wake me every night until you’re thirty seven. When I took you, I understood a certain amount of sleepless nights were inevitable. Do you understand, Harry?”

Potter nodded, looking at him as though he thought it was a trick. Snape had an urge to go and strangle the muggles for teaching him to be afraid of being human.

“Tell me, Potter, would your relatives have been upset had this happened when you were younger?”

Harry nodded vigorously. “ I had a nightmare like that once when I was ten and my uncle locked under the stairs for a week because he had a meeting the next day.”

“As your guardian, Mr. Potter, I may not encourage you to do things which are against the law or will hurt someone. I can, however, tell you that once you’re of age, I will gladly give you an alibi if you wish to transfigure them into flobberworms. I will even teach you the correct spells. Not that I encourage that sort of vigilantism, of course.”

It was Harry’s turn to nod sagely. “Of course. You could use them as potions ingredients.”

“Potter! Don’t be absurd, boy. Your aunt would clabber any potion she was diced into.” Harry started. Had Snape just made a joke? He wasn’t smiling but Harry almost thought…

“Now, back onto the subject at hand. You knew not to go that far, did you not?”

Potter nodded. “Yes sir.”

“And you knew you were farther than shouting distance?”

“Yes sir.”

“And you knew that should get me if you were hurt?”

Potter swallowed. “No sir. You said not to interrupt you.”

“I thought you understood it was different if you were injured.”

“I didn’t know I was. Not until you pointed out how bad it was later.”

Snape took a deep breath. Yelling wouldn’t help. “You saw the cuts on your arms and legs.”

“Yeah but I didn’t think they were a big deal.”

The cut on the boy’s calf was deep. It must have bled and bled.

“Potter, that cut on your leg must have hurt. It must have bled everywhere. Didn’t it occur to you that you might have lost a good deal of blood?”

“It bled a lot. But I was all right to walk back, and then I put a damp paper towel on it and it was fine.”

Snape took three deep breaths. Yelling wouldn’t help, yelling wouldn’t help yelling wouldn’t help. “ But did it hurt?”

Harry thought. “ A little. Not as much my arm did that time with Lockhart.”

“Do you remember that smacking I gave you in the library the first day you were here?”

Harry’s face flushed. “Yes sir.”

“How much would you say that hurt? On a scale of one to ten, ten being the worst?”

Harry thought. “Maybe a three or four.”

Snape nodded. It wasn’t as though he had been trying to crack the boy’s bones, but neither had those swats been love pats. The child’s abnormally high pain tolerance was becoming a problem.

“ In sum, you knew you were disobeying but not until it had already happened. Is that correct?” Snape gave Harry credit; the boy nodded and then stood still, not trying to beg off or plead his case. His face had a distinctly white tinge to it, like milk.

“ You’ve put me in a rather bad place, Mr. Potter. I believe you when you say you weren’t maliciously naughty; I don’t think you mean to do these lunatic things as often as you do, which isn’t to say I don’t think you never mean to do them.

On the other hand, you endangered yourself. The Dark Lord has many followers waiting for his return. Any one of them would gladly kill you, and that’s if you were lucky. Do you know Swinburne, Mr. Potter?”

Potter shook his head. “ Swinburne said: ‘ At the door of life, by the Gate of Breath, there’s worse things wait for a man than Death.’ Do you understand what that means?”

Harry nodded. “ That death is better than…” he couldn’t finish. He swallowed convulsively. His nightmare from the night before popped unbidden into his head.

Snape’s hand, heavy and hard but carefully gentle at the right times, settled itself on Harry’s shoulder. “Calm down, Potter. Deep breaths, that’s a good boy.”

Harry made himself calm down. Snape felt a sharp stab of –well, not guilt but something. The child had been naughty and needed to be punished but he should have known better than to scare him with ‘a fate worse than death’ so soon after Black’s inglorious end as Dementor food.

“All right, Harry. My point is, you must think about these things. Calculated risk is one thing; risk for its own sake is another. Yesterday was the second thing. Further, from now on, regard seeing your own blood as both bad and unusal. If it bleeds more than a minute, you’re to come and get me, is that clear?”

Harry nodded. “Yes sir.”

“Let me ask you: If you had a ward and he behaved this way, in these circumstances, knowing the rules and the penalties for breaking them, how would you handle it?”

Harry winced as Snape's hand came down hard on his thigh. He had to admit, though, the greasy-no, after last night he was Snape, might be Snape for a good long while-had been decent about the whole thing. Given him a choice, even. That was new.

He was beginning to regret having chosen to take the smacking, though, because Snape was walloping him really hard. He hadn't had to go get a switch, because, as Snape said, he hadn't meant to disobey ( more or less), but Snape was determined to make his point.

At least once it was done it was over. His other option had been staying in his room for a few days. Harry knew Snape wouldn't starve him and would let him go to the loo and all that; but Harry had a deeply ingrained hatred for anything resembling a cage, no matter how comfortable it was. So he'd chosen the smacking.

Snape rested his hand on the boy's back. The little brat, he had to admit, was handling it very well. Potter was gasping and sniffling but thus far had refrained from the wailing theatrics of some of the Slytherins Snape had had over his lap in the past twelve odd years.

He had no idea what had possessed him to ask the boy's opinion. He was an autocrat at heart, after all- most Slytherins are. Perhaps the fumes from the potion he'd been making had disrupted his brainwaves. He made a mental note to check the vents at the earliest opportunity.

Harry was having not dissimilar thoughts. When Snape had asked him, Harry had blinked. Once, twice. He eyed his guardian carefully. "Sorry, sir? What did you say?"

Snape repeated himself. He didn't seem to have gone mad. He was watching Harry with what seemed to be real curiosity. Harry felt his skin crawling under the scrutiny. He didn't like being watched, especially by a man who missed nothing.

"May I have some time to think about it, sir?" It did not go unnoticed by Snape that Harry's manners seemed to improve in direct proportion to the amount of trouble he perceived himself to be in. If he could only convince the boy that his guardian was in a constant state of low grade maniacal rage, life would be grand.

"Yes, Potter." Snape pointed to the corner and Harry gave a groan just a little louder than it needed to be before he obediently went and stood with his nose to the wall. Snape was a little pleased despite himself. The brat was taking this seriously, or as seriously as any offspring of James Potter could. He would have expected cheek about having been punished enough ( which he most certainly had not).

Harry gave the matter serious thought. It seemed to him that, were the circumstances reversed, he would be understanding. Accidents happen, after all. And really, it was only a little harmless... No it wasn't. His innate honesty made him admit it wasn't harmless at all.

Snape's remarks about a fate worse than death had not gone unheeded. He had seen Sirius' fate and knew that something almost as unpleasant could befall him at the hands of the wrong wizard; he was vaguely aware that magic had depths and peaks, unplumbed except by a few, where lurked things greater and more terrible than anything he could conceive. Sometimes he felt it in his veins, the raw power of it, and he shivered in the corner, thinking of what that power, in the hands of someone like Lucius Malfoy, could be manipulated into doing.

He was quiet so long Snape rather thought he was asleep on his feet. After the night he'd had, it wouldn't have been a surprise. Snape began to move quietly towards him, intent on giving him a good shake to wake him up.

Potter turned around, so fast they nearly collided. Harry jumped and even Snape started slightly. "Well, Potter ?"

Harry bit his cheek for a moment before he replied. "I still don't know. I'd never really thought about it until now. It's hard, isn't it?"

Snape sighed wearily. "If only you knew, Mr. Potter."

Harry thought of something. He felt scared and curious in equal measures. Drawing a deep breath, he bravely looked his guardian in the eye a moment and said casually "I wonder...what my Mum might have done."

Snape felt as though he'd been punched. He felt the blood drain from his face. Potter noticed; the boy blanched like he thought he'd given Snape a heart attack, which he damned near had. The longer Snape thought about it, though, the longer it seemed a fair question.

"Why do you ask?"

Harry knew he'd made an awful mistake but soldiered ahead. "Because I honestly can't think of what to do. I figured she'd know if she were here."

Snape nodded. "Why Lily and not James?" He had to know, given how the boy idolized his father.

"You said my Mum was the finest witch you ever knew. I guess she'd ...my Dad was...you said..." The boy shrugged helplessly.

"If you mean James was a bullying ass to me, you're correct. However, I have no doubt you loved you very much."

Harry felt a warm glow of pleasure in his stomach for a moment before he pressed on. "Yeah, but the thing with Lupin...at the shack. How could he?"

Snape made himself take a deep breath. "Because teenagers are impulsive, Mr. Potter. Because they didn't think things through. I have an idea that ...incident...was much more Black than your father. James tried to stop it once he realized it wasn't all braggadocio on Black's part. It wasn't his fault it had gone too far."

He gave his head a clearing shake. "All right, Potter, stop trying to weasel out of this by bringing up the past. Would it make it easier if I gave you a choice between two options?"

Harry nodded cautiously and Snape felt a bit better about his prospects. He was learning. Perhaps someday he'd even have a sense of self-preservation and Snape could relax and start reading paperbacks again.. Twelve years of hyper-vigilance are really quite exhausting. He wondered how Mad-Eye did it. Being utterly deranged must help, he concluded, and turned to the matter at hand.

The boy was lying very still. Snape reached into his sleeve and got his wand. ‘Accio hair brush'. Snape felt the child stiffen and he wrapped his arms a little more snuggly about the boy's skinny waist.

"By rights I ought to have switched you, you know. I don't think a few swats with a hair brush is too much compensation compared to what you might have gotten."

Harry was very tempted to argue that ‘a few' is relative to what side of the brush one is on, but wisely held his tongue. He supposed that Snape had a bit of a point.

The hair brush floated towards him and Snape caught it mid-air. Cursing himself as a soft-hearted idiot he cast a very slight, wandless cushioning charm on the brush, just a tiny one. He wanted Potter sore and attentive, not bruised and yowling, after all.

"Ten, Potter. Count them to yourself, that makes it easier."

SMACK! Harry jumped! It really stung! Not as badly as the switch, maybe, but it smarted something awful.

"Why are you being punished, Harry?"

"I went too far and almost f-fell."

SMACK! "T-Two!" Snape tightened his arm even more and shifted the boy slightly upwards.

SMACK! Harry was finding it very hard not to cry. He sniffled hard and tried to breath deeply. Snape wasn't having it. The boy would learn a normal pain response if it killed him.

SMACK SMACK SMACK! Harry couldn't keep it together anymore. The tears began to drip down his cheeks and Snape was strangely heartened to hear him sobbing slightly.

SMACK SMACK SMACK! "Owwww!" Harry felt shame through the burning pain in his backside. He was such a baby, such a stupid...SMACK!

"If I hear that again, Mr. Potter, you'll get ten more before bed tonight, is that understood?" He punctuated it with a swat with his hand and Harry twisted sharply and gave a nod. "I couldn't hear you."

"Y-yes sir!"

SMACK! The last two were on his sit spots and Harry yelped again and then went limp. Snape put the brush down at once and realized he had a lapful of crying teenager.

He began to pat Potter's back gently. "Calm down, Potter. I've given you worse than this. Deep breaths, that's right." He let the boy finish his cry in relative peace and, when he felt his breathing normalize, lifted him to his feet.

Harry was embarrassed that Snape had seen him cry so much in the last few days. Not to mention, that brush stung like hell. He dropped his head and tried to think of something, any thing to say. Snape beat him to it. "Your room until lunch, Potter, and then it's done."

He sulked a little ( just a tiny bit, mind you), although he could admit to himself that it could have been a hundred times worse. Snape called him down and he sat without undue strain, if a little squirming when he thought Snape could not see. As they were doing the dishes they heard footsteps on the porch and, looking out the window, Snape made a noise of dismay and opened the door.

Arabella Figg walked confidently into the little house, clutching a hamper of food almost as large as she was. Having dispensed with her usual housedress and cats, she was attired in a faded black dress and cardigan, liberally sprinkled with evidence that Snowy, Whiskers, Paws et.al were alive and well. Her springy curls were carefully topped by an absurd turquoise hat. Two spots of rouge stood out on her cheeks, and she smelled strongly of some sweet perfume.

Snape felt his stomach drop greasily. Oh Merlin, what had he done? He suppressed his urge to slam the door in her face and gestured her in. “Arabella, how…delightful. To what may we owe the pleasure of your company?”

Mrs. Figg gave a trill of laughter that made him want to punt a small child. “Oh, Albus just wanted me to see how you boys were getting along.” She laughed again, apropos of nothing. He carefully knotted his fists at his side and tried to look pleasant, not a small feat for someone who can quiet a classroom of teenagers with a single well placed sneer.

“Harry, darling! How have you been? Do come here, I’ve brought a whole hamper of goodies for you!” Harry wasn’t sure what would be worse; running and coming home to an irate Snape or actually having to eat something made in Mrs. Figg’s cat-strewn kitchen. He took a hesitant step towards her and was enveloped by two doughy arms and a cloud of lilac perfume that would have made a buzzard think twice about a dead antelope.

“I didn’t know you were a witch, Mrs. Figg.” He said for lack of anything else to say. The woman ceased her rummaging in the hamper and trilled again. Unbeknownst to Harry and his guardian, they shared a moment of complete sympathy- they both wanted to stab themselves in the ears to avoid that nails on glass noise.

“Oh, I’m a squib. But from time to time dear Albus asks me to give him a bit of a hand, and so… here I am!” She drew out a dodgy looking plate of hard, lumpy things that Harry eventually determined were biscuits (ideally). She held one out and he obediently took one and nibbled the corner. It crumbled, spilling a drift of burned cinnamon into his mouth like a malign snowstorm.

“Well, Arabella, we’re certainly glad you could stop in, but as you can see, I’ve done nothing to the boy. He hasn’t been mauled by rabid selkies, nor dropped down a well, so if that’s all you needed to do…”

“Oh, Severus, how you do go on! I’m going to visit my daughter Lucinda, she lives in Bamstaple, you know. You remember Lucinda, she married that nice plumber from…”

Four hours later, Snape was wondering exactly how many years in Azkaban it would cost him if he accidentally transfigured her into a mouse and fed her to her filthy cats. He was now intimately familiar with the dealings of her entire extended family, muggle and magical alike, their loves and hates and horrible, brain scarring medical problems ( he’d never had to slightest inclination to find out what an episiotomy was, but he knew he’d never rid himself of that particular mental image, thank you very much). To make things worse, Potter had seemingly defected.

“Can I get you another cup of tea, Mrs. Figg?” The boy would ask with a nauseating doe-eyed expression that, had Arabella the sense given a flea, she would have recognized as an errant fraud. Of course, she was charmed, the foolish old baggage, and simpered obligingly.

“Potter, haven’t you somewhere to be?”

The boy gave him that same sickeningly sweet smile. “No sir. I thought I’d help you entertain our guest.” He tried to look as winning as possible. Fortunately, Mrs. Figg was very nearsighted and couldn’t see the way Potter was shaking with laughter. First the old woman, and then Potter. Divide and conquer, Snape, divide and conquer.

“Arabella, I would love to invite you to dinner, but the boy and I have plans. We’re going to take… a walk …in the woods.”

“We are, sir?” Potter was relishing this. Well, Snape would see how he felt once he’d been transfigured into a seven year old girl, wouldn’t he? With pigtails and a little flowered dress. He shot Potter a look of pure death and Potter responded with a sunny grin. Picture the little ruffled socks…hair bows, hair bows…

“Oh dear, the woods. I’m afraid my knees simply aren’t up to that any more. Just the other day I was telling my daughter Louise that…”

“My goodness, Arabella, didn’t you say you were to meet Lucinda at four thirty? It’s nearly half past three.”

“Oh, my! You’re too right. Well, it was wonderful, boys. I shall be sure to tell Albus you’re doing splendidly. I’ve made you a nice hamper of food, especially my famous pasties… Don’t hesitate to owl if you need anything…anything at all.” And then, Snape noticed with faint horror, she seemed to be batting her eyelashes at him. As though she were flirting. He suppressed his gag reflex and ushered her out.

The door slammed. Snape was ready for payback. Potter was sitting, head on his arm, shaking. For a second Snape was alarmed; was the boy having some of attack or something? Snape was momentarily halted in his resolve to skin the boy alive. “Potter? What are you--”

Harry gave in. Clutching his stomach, he fell on his side, laughing. He tried to speak but all that would come out was giggle after giggle. Snape, now that he was assured the boy was not in distress, could kill him with impugnity.

“You terrible, ungrateful, wicked little brat, I ought to--”

Harry tried to stop laughing but could not. He waved his hand frantically, trying to interject, but Snape hadn’t had a decent tirade in weeks and would not be denied.

“ Skin you alive, you malicious little horror, having poor Mrs. Figg on that way! If I had done such a thing when I was young, my father would have--”

Potter was still laughing. How dare he laugh at a Snape tirade! The boy would scrub cauldrons until he had a permanent smell of iron about him. Perhaps that would teach him some manners…though transfiguration still had it’s charms…

“ But sir---sir---Bulstrode--”

“What are you on about, Potter? What in the world does Bulstrode have to do with--”

“It’s rather sweet, she’s a lovely---lovely girl, you’ll be very—very happy—together--”

Snape suddenly realized what the boy was talking about. He snarled as menacingly as possible “You cheek brat, I have half a mind to--”

“Is there a problem, sir?” The boy was sobering slightly. Tears were running down his cheeks and his newly shortened hair was sticking up at angles. He smiled up at his guardian, looking thoroughly naughty and pleased with himself. Snape didn’t know whether to box his ears or laugh aloud.

The boy had, he admitted, behaved in deeply Slytherin fashion. Taking revenge in a subtle and torturous way, making an unexpected and perhaps valuable ally, creating a reputation to confuse his enemies ( because Potter wasn’t half that polite and attentive to his elders), and doing it all in a way that few would suspect and fewer could prove. He felt a little swell of pride; all his doing, no doubt about that.

“How…Slytherin of you, Potter.” That sobered the little monster, right enough—Potter had done well, but a person should never kid a kidder, so to speak.

“Since Mrs. Figg was good enough to bring us food, let’s tuck in.”

It was exceptionally bad food. Snape picked up a pasty and tried to force himself to eat it. Beside him, Potter paled a little. “ I wouldn’t eat that, sir. Who knows what’s in?”

“Potter, it’s a pasty. Just meat and vegetables.”

“She has an awful lot of cats, sir, and getting them hauled away is expensive…”

Snape set the pasty down and gave the boy a look. “What a thing to imply. I ought to smack you and send you from the table.”

“I wouldn’t worry too much, professor. I mean, cats are hard to catch and all…it probably died of old age. It’s a mercy, really. Save a lot of graves, do Mrs. Figg a favor. It’s not as though the other cats are going to come poking about looking for him.”

Snape tried to smother his mirth. Wretched little creature, ought to…

“ Go on, Potter. Go read that book I gave you and I’ll make us some sandwiches.”

Potter sauntered off and Snape performed a quick silencing charm and then, unheard by anyone, laughed.

He hoped Potter would enjoy his cheek. He had to go and check on that blood orchid, after all, and needed a diversion. Pocketing the strip of toweling, he went to the ice box to see what they had.