Harry Potter stormed down the corridor. He couldn’t think of many times when he was angrier. Detention? On his first full day back? For helping out a first year? It wasn’t his fault that Draco had cornered a first year Ravenclaw in the girl’s toilet! How was he supposed to help him if he couldn’t go into Moaning Myrtl’s bathroom and perform the counter for a binding curse? Stupid! That’s all it was… just plain stupid! If he never saw Professor McGonagall again, it would be ok with him, he told himself… even if it meant they had to have Snape as their new head of house.

Collin Creevy passed by Harry in the hall, his camera at the ready, but Harry held up a hand before he could even ask, as he passed him.

“Don’t even think about it Collin!” Harry told him, more harshly than he would have otherwise.

Collin looked hurt, but stayed where he was nevertheless, and didn’t follow.

Harry didn’t even slow his pace to say hello to Cho as he passed her a floor down, near the Charms corridor. The last thing he needed was for an ex-girlfriend to try and talk to him when he was angry like that. Harry was wrong though, as he found out a few minutes later when he was still raging, down another corridor.

Harry’s eyes had been on the ground, and he hadn’t seen the Potions Master standing in front of him, talking to a young Slytherin. Harry bumped into him, which would have been bad enough on any other day to get him points taken away. But on a day like today, when Snape happened to be chastising one of his own students, and was already angry…

“Potter!”

Harry let out an angry sigh as he stopped dead, and frowned up at the ceiling.

“Watch where you’re going Potter!” Snape shouted at him, not bothering to lower his voice into that deadly chilling tone he usually managed.

Harry didn’t respond, and thinking that was all that was coming to him, he continued walking on, ranting silently to himself about house favorites and McGonagall.

“Potter!” Snape shouted down the corridor after him again, “Come back here!”

Harry stopped yet again. He knew he should have stopped and apologized for bumping into him, no matter how much it pained him to do so, and now, he knew another detention was coming to him.

This time Harry turned in time to see Snape give his other student one last look of anger, and heard him murmur something about, dealing with her later, but Harry couldn’t care in the least. What did Snape care if Harry had four essays to complete by the next day? He didn’t, Harry reminded himself as Snape strode forward, his cloak sweeping the ground after his menacing stride.

“Potter! My office! Now!” he said through gritted teeth as he strode past him.

For a fleeting second, Harry thought of simply waiting until he had gone around the bend in the corridor, and slipping down a secret passageway he knew to be hidden nearby, but instead followed his better judgment and followed the angry Professor.

They had only gone down two more flights of stairs, when Harry slowed to a stop. It didn’t take long for Snape to figure out that Harry wasn’t behind him any more though, and he was back up the hall in a flash.

“How many detentions do you want Potter?” he threatened angrily.

Harry didn’t answer him though. In fact, it took the sound of the Professor’s angry voice a few seconds to reach his ears.

Harry blinked a few times, and things began to swim before him. His anger suddenly draining away, and instead fading into slight uncertainty, he staggered sideways into a wall. It’s cold, rough surface met his fingers, and he was glad to find that the wall wasn’t moving, because everything else around him seemed to be.

Four feet away, Snape watched as the sixth year shook his head a little, as if to clear his vision, and fell into the wall to his left.

“Potter?” he asked, a little quieter now, though not completely sure this wasn’t some sort of dodge to get out of being in trouble… he certainly wouldn’t put it past him to pull that sort of thing.

Harry blinked again, and his vision cleared as he looked up at Professor Snape.

“What is it Potter?” he asked slowly, clearly seeing that it wasn’t the escape attempt he previously thought it to be.

Harry shook his head as he stood a little straighter. “You didn’t feel that?” he asked him, confused.

Snape narrowed his eyes at the boy. “No,” he told him quickly. “What happened?”

Harry wasn’t sure he could answer that, even if he wanted to. How did you explain that the floor and ceiling had gotten soft and mushy, and you didn’t think you could stand on them any longer for fear you’d melt into them? It would have been hard, and instead, Harry decided to forget about it. Even as he had told that to himself, it sounded stupid, and unreal.

He shook his head again, and steadied himself. The floor remained solid, and he took a step forward. Snape still had his eyes narrowed at him, but thinking, that perhaps it had been a dodge after all, he continued forward, but more slowly this time, so as not to lose the trailing Gryffindor.

They had only made it a few more steps however, before both Snape and Harry stopped. Harry looked down at the floor, which seemed like an ocean of grey stone, all melting into each other. Thankful that his vision hadn’t gone blurry this time, and that he was able to remain standing, he looked up to see if his Professor was seeing the same thing he was. Snape had turned around, and judging by the perplexed look on his face, he was.

“What the-” he had started, but next second, a sudden lightness filled Harry’s stomach, and he melted right down through the floor, the Professor’s words trailing behind him.

Down, down, down. Darkness engulfed him, and he could see nothing around him. Was he falling through the castle? With a brief thought to his sanity, Harry thought he should at least be catching glimpses of classrooms and furniture and other people if he were falling through the school. But there was none of that; only darkness.

He tried to shout, but something was stifling his screams. He tried to breath, but something was pressing in all around him through the darkness, and he couldn’t take in any air. He wondered if he would drown in this waterless abyss, and knew no more.

His body ached all over. He didn’t even want to try to move. In fact, if something hadn’t been calling to him from someplace far off in the distance, he might have been content to lay there on his back, assuming every bone in his body had been broken. But someone was calling him, and as a shadow loomed overhead in the blazing light, it came closer.

“Potter? Potter!” Harry’s eyes snapped open, and he immediately closed them again against the brightness.

“What?” he groaned.

Snape sighed and sat back. For some reason unbeknownst to him, he was overcome with relief that the kid wasn’t as dead as he thought he was.

Harry tried to lift his arm up to shield his eyes better from the brightness, but all his limbs felt too much like dead weight to do so.

“Turn off the light,” he said, almost unaware of saying it.

“You try it Potter,” Snape growled at him, then realizing that he probably thought he was in the hospital wing.

Harry opened his eyes again now, and looked up into the bright blue sky. Before he could stop himself, he asked, “How did we get outside?”

Snape didn’t answer, causing Harry to look over and see if he was still there. He was, looking out at their surroundings.

Harry lifted his head, his stiff neck protesting at the movement. “What?” Harry asked, as he too took in the unfamiliar surroundings.

The Professor looked back over at him now, and got to his feet, wand out and ready. Harry watched him, but didn’t feel so motivated to move, and let his head fall back to the ground.

“Are you able to stand?” Snape asked, half concerned, half annoyed.

“I don’t want to try,” he told him. The anger that had radiated from him five minutes before, was gone now. Instead, Harry’s every thought was focused on his aching, damaged body.

Perhaps this is all a bad dream, he thought to himself. Maybe I was just playing Quidditch, and I caught the Snitch and fell… yes, that must have been it. He had been playing Quidditch. But as he painfully clenched his hands into fists, he felt no tiny struggling golden ball with wings, and knew he had been wrong.

“What happened?” Harry asked, opening his eyes again and tilting his head up to look at the world upside down from the grass. He had only then realized he was on grass… all the hills around them seemed to be covered in grass. Why?

“Get up Potter,” Snape ordered him, a little annoyed.

Harry half thought of telling him what he could do with his order, as they were clearly not on castle grounds any more, but didn’t. Instead, he rolled over onto his side, (with another groan), and onto his stomach, before pushing himself gingerly up off the ground. Once he was standing, his legs told him they’d much rather prefer to sit, but he ignored them as he felt around for his own wand, and felt it in his robes.

The castle was indeed nowhere to be seen… not even off in the far distance atop a hill.

He turned in a slow circle, and said to himself, “Oh, this has to be a bad dream… it just has to.”

Snape looked over at him from the corner of his eye. “Gee Potter, why do you say that?” he asked sarcastically. He realized only after he’d said it that the comment was below him, but forgot about it easily.

“Because I’m stuck out here with-” Harry paused, re-thinking what he was about to say. He was already bruised and was sure he had broken ribs… he didn’t need to add a curse to his list of injuries.

“With me?” Snape asked. Had he not thought the situation so dire, he might have chuckled. “Believe me Potter, there are a dozen worse people I’d rather be stuck out here with than you.”

Harry frowned. He already knew that.

Deciding that there was no one else around, the Professor finally lowered his wand, and Harry did the same. His arms were too tired to hold it up any longer anyway.

“Any idea what that was?” Harry asked him, already knowing he probably had no answer.

Snape didn’t respond for a moment, but finally said, “No Potter, I don’t. I do find it quite curious though, that you were the first to feel the effects of that… magic,” he concluded, deciding there was no better term to use.

Harry didn’t want to believe his ears, and the anger once again came back to him. “You think I had something to do with this?” he asked him furiously, not in total disbelief. He was used to being blamed for everything… not only by people at school, like Snape, but by the Dursleys as well during the summer. Hadn’t it only been two nights ago that his uncle went off in a rage about furniture disappearing and Harry being responsible? And the day before that, Dudley cornering Harry without his wand, telling him to keep his mouth shut about the things he’d stolen from his parents?

Snape was watching him, his eyes narrowing, as Harry remembered something. “Had I accused you of something Potter, you would know about it… I only said that it was curious you knew something was amiss first.”

Harry frowned, doubtful what he was saying was true, but he was too tired, and hurting too much to argue about it.

He looked behind him, and found a big flat rock ten feet off. Slowly, he walked over to it, stumbling once on a smaller stone, and sat down on it’s hard, cold surface. He noticed the Professor watching him as he did so, but ignored him.

“Are you hurt Potter?” he asked him.

Harry rolled his eyes. “If I said I wished I’d gotten stuck out here with Madam Pomfrey, would that answer your question?”

It did. Before Harry knew what was happening in his slight daze, the Professor was at his side, (though not actually as quick as it appeared to Harry), and was kneeling there, wondering how badly he was hurt.

Harry looked up, and thought of saying something along the lines of, my Madam Pomfrey, how much you’ve changed, but didn’t. Right now he only cared about some kind of relief from his aching joints and ribs.

“Where are you hurt?” Snape asked him, a little annoyed at the tediousness of the task. He himself had suffered from the fall, but obviously not as bad as the boy.

Harry was watching him still, both wands still out. “Take your pick,” he said flatly.

Snape sighed and glared up at him. “If you expect me to help you, I suggest you start thinking more about respect than sarcastic remarks.”

Harry rolled his eyes, and said, “It’s not that bad. I can wait til’ we get back to the castle.”

“Perhaps you haven’t noticed, but there is no castle nearby, little lone the one we need to be in.”

Harry closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead in the tell tale sign that he knew the situation was bad.

“Is he near?” the Professor asked him, his voice becoming urgent.

“Who?” Harry opened his eyes to stare into his, but then, remembering that he usually rubbed his scar when it seared, and that that usually meant that Voldemort was near. He was only rubbing his forehead this time though, and lowered his hand. “No,” he told him. “Do you think this is Vol- his fault?”

Snape had narrowed his eyes halfway through Voldemort’s name, and Harry didn’t finish it. “There’s no telling Potter. It very well could be.” With this, he gave another cautious look around, and stood up.

“Do you want a stretcher?” Snape asked. Harry shook his head fervently. If he could walk, then he was going to.

Snape didn’t put his wand away though, and instead spelled out a charm to point them in the direction of the nearest town. Nothing happened though, and Snape looked down at his wand.

“Well?” Harry asked.

He remained frowning, thinking that perhaps he had not remembered the spell correctly. He tried again, and still, nothing happened.

“What’s supposed to happen?” Harry asked him, thinking maybe that the wind would start to blow in the direction they needed to go or something.

“My wand is supposed to hover and point in the direction of the nearest city or village.”

Harry leaned sideways a little to see if the wand was doing anything special, and saw that it wasn’t.

“Is it broken?” he asked him, thinking it would be fitting that only his wand worked, and Snape would have to do whatever he said.

The Professor shook his head, he didn’t know. “Give me your wand,” he told Harry forcefully, holding out his hand.

Harry frowned, and did nothing of the sort.

“Potter, your wand if you want to get out of here!” he chastised him.

Harry rolled his eyes, and held his wand out. Again the spell was incanted, and nothing happened. Wondering if both wands were broken, he tried a number of simpler spells with both wands, and still, nothing happened.

“Let me try,” Harry said now, curious. Just because they wouldn’t work for Snape, didn’t mean he had lost his touch too. But no matter what Harry tried, his wand remained as still and as uninteresting as an ordinary twig.

A lump was beginning to rise in Harry’s throat. If falling through a castle into an unknown place, perhaps even an unknown dimension or something wasn’t enough, they didn’t even have magic to get them out of the mess now.

“Ok, so what now?” Harry asked, more to himself than to the Potions Professor, whom he loathed, and who just happened to loathe him back.

Snape looked down at him, and then to a patch of trees off in the distance. “We take cover until we know what’s going on.”

Harry looked up at him, and then to the patch of trees as well. Surely he didn’t expect him to walk that distance? But it was apparent a moment later, that he did.

“Can’t you just apparate back to the castle and tell them what’s happened?” Harry asked him, angry that he couldn’t apparate yet himself, because they didn’t learn to do that until sixth year, which he had just started.

“I already tried.”

As they walked, Harry found himself doing two things: Reminding himself that Snape was probably his only way out of this mess so he wouldn’t kill him for his snide comments, and trying out his wand to see if it worked every few steps.

Snape would have very much liked to have told Harry to stop muttering the simple incantations and charms under his breath, as it was annoying, but didn’t, because it meant that he didn’t have to.

Finally Harry let out a deep sigh, and stowed the wand in a pocket of his jacket.

Snape watched him in his peripheral vision. “Keep that out Potter,” he warned. Harry didn’t listen, he was too tired to.

The Professor was about to tell him off for leaving himself vulnerable to attack that way, but before he could, Harry retrieved his wand again, but it stay at his side. Snape shook his head, at least it was something, he told himself.

They’d been walking an hour, but finally they made it to the trees they’d been headed for. Harry stopped just before they hit the tree line, and Snape wondered if he’d seen anything.

“Potter?” he asked suspiciously.

Harry tilted his head a little. “Do you smell that?” he asked.

The look on Snape’s face told him that obviously, he didn’t. Harry turned around, “Clean air, and it doesn’t smell salty.”

Snape waited for a further explanation of just how this was important, but it did not come, so he said with a deep sigh, “Why is this significant information?”

Harry thought this should have been overly obvious, but instead of saying so, said, “Clean air… we’re not near any towns, or at least not big ones, and no salt-”

“Not near any large bodies of salt water,” Snape finished for him.

Harry nodded.

“We’re inland,” Snape said more to himself than Harry.

“Isn’t the castle?” Harry asked him.

Snape nodded, “Inland doesn’t mean the same place Potter,” he sneered.

Harry’s shoulders slumped a little, and he looked around for another place to sit. Seeing only dirt, he decided that it was as good as anything, and sank down to the cold, hard earth, his back resting against a tree.

When he turned around again, and didn’t see Harry standing there, Snape looked down to the forest floor to see him trying out a few other spells.

“Damn it,” Harry said under his breath when nothing worked.

Snape smiled inwardly at his frustration. He would have used harsher words than that.

They stopped at the tree line to rest for twenty minutes, before Harry let out a deep sigh, and wondered again why he always seemed to get into this sort of trouble. Just then, Snape said from a few feet away, still leaning against the same tree he had been for fifteen minutes, “I will never understand how you always manage to get yourself into constant trouble Potter.” His eyes narrowed at him slightly as he said this, and Harry looked up, wondering if he’d read his mind.

Snape looked up and back around them though. “I don’t get myself into trouble,” Harry said under his breath, “everybody else does.” As he said it, he knew it wasn’t entirely true, but if McGonagall hadn’t given him detention, than he would have been on his way to lunch with everybody else that day, instead of running into Snape, and being lead down a corridor with a seeming portal to… well, to wherever they were.

Harry tried another spell, trying to levitate a fallen leaf in front of him, but it remained where it was, and Harry let the air of a sigh fill his cheeks. At least he had gotten out of a second detention with Snape, he told himself, barely seeing the upside, as he was now stuck with him there.

Professor Snape looked over at Harry as he moaned, and rolled over in his sleep. They had traveled for another few hours, still getting seemingly nowhere, before they had decided on staying the night there in the forest. If he hadn’t known any better, he would have said it was the size of the forbidden forest, but as they were quickly finding, it was bigger.

The boy moaned again, and Snape wondered just how badly he was hurt. He would certainly let him get nowhere near him to check his wounds, with no way to heal them. It was pure stupidity if you asked him, but, no one had.. It was only the two of them out there, with no magic, no idea how they had gotten there, and what was worse, no idea how to get back.

He supposed of course, that they would eventually make their way into some sort of village or town, or run into some kind of people, who could tell them just where they were. But until then, he was stuck there. They, were stuck there.

He reached up and rubbed his right eye, trying to ward off sleep. With their resident hero asleep, it would do no good for him to be unconscious if a death eater, or some wild animal came strolling along to kill them, or in the animal’s case, have a late dinner.

The morning dawned grey, and Snape stretched, after having slept sitting upright with his back to a tree, his useless wand in his hand at his side. Quickly, realizing that he had fallen asleep without intending to, he looked around, and nearly sighed, when he saw the Gryffindor, still asleep, chest rising and falling peacefully.

Again, he tried a simple incantation, knowing the attempts would be futile. He was almost tempted to simply throw the wand at the ground in his frustration, but refrained from doing so at the notion that they would eventually get back, and he would need his wand then.

“Still not working?” a groggy voice came from his right.

Snape didn’t look over at him. “No,” he told him, forcing down the snide remark that had come into his mind just then.

Harry didn’t roll over to look at him. Instead, he picked up the wand that lay beside him in the dirt, and tossed it over his shoulder at his professor. It landed a foot away, before rolling over to him, and the Potions master looked up.

“Do you always treat your wand so harshly?” Snape inquired as his picked it up and tried the same spell.

“It’s useless,” Harry said tiredly.

“Even so, it may not be later.”

Harry looked over his shoulder, “Well, unless you want me to throw it at someone, or stick it up some troll’s nose…” he had accidentally stuck his wand up a troll’s nose in his first year, trying to save Hermione. In the end, Ron had knocked it out with a spell he had squabbled over with her just that day.

Snape narrowed his eyes at him. “If I see any trolls I’ll be sure to let you know,” he told him, voice lowered to tell him he hadn’t found that incident amusing.

Harry rolled his eyes, and eventually, sat up with some difficulty.

“So what are we doing?” he asked his Professor.

“We will come to a town eventually.”

“Brilliant,” Harry said under his breath. Even if he was alone he could have figured that one out. What good was having an adult around at all if they weren’t good for getting you out of these kinds of messes.

“Potter!” Snape growled, “Why do you insist on being so insolent?”

Harry yawned, “It’s the company I keep.”

Harry’s ribs ached as he walked. He wished not for the first time that he had decided to keep his wand on him at all times, at the Dursleys, instead of wandering down to the kitchen to find a bite to eat when he thought no one else was home. Maybe then he wouldn’t have walked in on Dudley and Piers trying to walk out the front door with Aunt Petunia’s antique desk.

Even as he thought about it now, his ribs ached more from where Dudley had slammed him against the wall with all his weight, as he threatened him not to breath a word.

Unaware of it, Harry was being watched by his Professor, who wore a very odd look indeed. It was almost as if he were trying to decide something. Harry looked up after he stumbled on a small root, and the expression on Snape’s face vanished instantly.

“What was that for?” Harry asked him, mistaking the look for one of anger.

“What was what for Potter?” he asked him.

“You were giving me the: It’s-all-your-fault, look,” he told him, wondering just what he had done now.

Snape didn’t respond for a moment, which seemed to make Harry angrier. “I haven’t said anything is your fault,” he corrected him.

Harry shook his head though and stopped walking. “Sure you have… loads of times. Every day, in fact,” Harry pointed out.

Snape’s lips curled into a thin smile as he remembered the last thing he had caught Harry doing. If it hadn’t been the last night of school, he would have given him detention for wandering around the halls so late… or would he? He shook the notion off that he wouldn’t have, just because of his loss. Not only was he breaking rules that more often than not were bent for him, but he was too accustomed to breaking rules, and now that he thought about it, he should have given him detention for the next, term.

Harry didn’t like the look on the Potion Master’s face.

“I’ve not wrongly accused you of breaking rules Potter,” he said calmly, continuing on to what he hoped to be the edge of the forest.

That was a lie, Harry thought to himself as he half jogged the few steps to keep up, even if he didn’t know it. But he had to know it; everybody else did. Snape always played favorites with his own house, while everyone else got in trouble for sneezing at the wrong time.

“That’s a load of-”

“Potter,” Snape warned him.

“You heard me,” he said angrily. “You play favorites, and so hardly anybody in your house gets into trouble when they’re actually doing bad stuff, while you’re out there picking on me! I’ve gotten more detentions than any other Gryffindor I bet,” Harry finished. He shook his head though, “Except maybe Fred and George,” he added.

“If you get detention, you deserve it,” Snape told him.

Harry shook his head. Snape was almost worse than the Dursleys… almost.

This time it was Snape who stopped, and looked over at Harry. “Potter, you cannot tell me, that you have not broken a countless number of rules deserving of punishment,” he didn’t even have to think for a second to list them off, “Wandering around after hours, sneaking into the forbidden forest, stealing, lying, disobeying the Headmasters direct orders, put in place to keep you safe.”

Harry shook his head, “All of those except stealing,” he said.

Snape stopped his rant and almost took a step back. He hadn’t expected Harry to admit to any of them. “What?”

“All of those except stealing,” Harry repeated. “I never stole anything.”

“You broke into my office and stole Gillyweed Potter,” but Harry shook his head.

“No?” Snape asked him. Harry shook his head again.

“I didn’t do that.”

“Then pray tell, just how did you get your hands on such an ingredient needed for the tournament, which just happened to go missing from my stocks when I checked?” Snape thought he had him caught now.

Harry of course knew how he had gotten the Gillyweed for the Tri-wizard Tournament in his fourth year, but if he told now, he would get Dobby in trouble.

Snape’s lips formed a smile again, which seemed to change Harry’s mind though.

“One of my friends brought it to me the morning of the tournament,” he said flatly.

Snape’s eyes widened. “Having Ms. Granger steal things is worse than the original offense Potter,” he informed him.

Harry shook his head though. “It wasn’t her, and I didn’t ask anyone to do it. I couldn’t figure out how to compete in that event, and that morning, a house elf brought it to me so I could save Ron.”

Snape looked as if he didn’t believe the story in the least. “A house elf?”

“Yes.”

Snape shook his head, clearly telling Harry that he didn’t believe him again.

“I don’t see why everybody insists that I’ve done stuff I haven’t!” Harry half shouted, as he walked off again.

This wasn’t the response Snape had expected. Guilt, admission that he had done it maybe, but not that. He followed, and quickly caught up with him, his legs being longer and being able to take larger strides.

“I didn’t do it,” Harry told him again.

“Did you take the desk?”

Harry stopped, dead in his tracks for the second time that day. He looked up at him, a little confused. “What?”

Snape was studying him now. “You were talking in your sleep,” he informed him, eyes narrowed as he tried to figure out what was going on in Harry’s mind, without actually diving into it.

Harry stared him straight in the eyes, and said, “No,” before walking off again, more slowly this time with the relief that he had only been talking in his sleep, and that was the extent of the Potion master’s knowledge of the incident.

Harry didn’t know for how long they walked before he stopped, unable to go any further. He hadn’t realized it, but he’d been walking extremely fast, probably just to show Snape he could still do better than him, even injured. By the end of the day, they were at the edge of a massive hill… more like a mountain, once Harry thought about it, looking down into a valley covered with trees.

Snape’s footsteps announced his presence behind Harry, and he turned just in time to see the expression on his face. It was one of utter confusion. Harry grinned at the pricelessness of it, before he expressed aloud the expression for the Professor.

“Where the heck are we?”

Snape shook his head. He hadn’t a clue.

Again, Harry settled down, his back against a tree, as he tried countless spells, and got no results.

Snape disappeared for a quarter of an hour, and came back with a number of different leaves and herbs. Harry watched as he dug a shallow hole in the ground, and began chopping up the leaves with a knife Harry had never seen him carry before, before he lit a fire in what was to be considered the crudest of ways (like a Muggle), and stirred the ingredients together. He disappeared several more times, coming back each time with a little water in his cupped hands. Finally, Harry got thirsty enough just watching him, and followed him on the fifth trip, to a shallow running stream.

“What are you making anyway?” Harry asked, speaking for the first time since the argument, not counting of course the question he’d asked.

Snape didn’t look at him, and instead pulled more leaves from a pocket, and added them whole to the concoction. “It’s complicated Potter,” he told him with a sneer.

Harry rolled his eyes. “I’m not a complete idiot you know.”

Snape looked up at this, his eyes asking if he was sure about that. Harry exhaled and rubbed his forehead again. Of course he was asking the wrong person, who thought he was a complete idiot.

“Try me,” Harry finally said, staring into the mess of leaves, and what seemed like a variety of moss with dirt and water.

The Professor glanced up at him, before he said, in a tone that told Harry he was annoyed, “It’s a simple healing potion Potter that takes a relatively short time to make… a few hours at the least. It contains several ingredients, that separate are as good as poison if ingested, but together make a salve that will take care of most of those cuts and scrapes.”

It seemed to Harry that he finished all of this in one long breath, though he had spoken slowly.

“Oh,” Harry said.

Snape nodded. Just as he thought. The boy didn’t need to know. He looked up at Harry again, and stopped stirring for a moment as he considered him.

“So what were you dreaming about?” he asked him. He had been curious about it all day, especially with the reaction Potter had given him, but felt he would get no information by pushing the subject.

Harry frowned. “It’s complicated,” he told him, not realizing what he’d said.

Snape nodded. “Try me.”

Now Harry’s frown turned into a glare as he stared at his Professor, who stared right back.

“Are you mocking me?” Harry asked him.

Snape shook his head and went back to his stirring. “If you choose to view it as such, mocking, than yes.”

Harry could tell, it was going to be a long night. He wasn’t going to tell him anything… he wouldn’t care anyhow.

The sun set, and as he watched the potion simmering, turning into a thick brown goop, turning green, Harry’s eyelids began to get heavy. He fought the urge to sleep, and dozed off a couple of times, waking abruptly when his chin hit his chest. From a few feet away, Snape watched this with some amusement. Though he didn’t know quite why the Gryffindor was trying to fight off sleep, he was nonetheless, and not doing a very good job of it. After another hour, he was out completely, and the Professor settled in against his own tree for another sleepless night.

Harry woke, drenched in cold sweat. He opened his eyes, and looked around the dark clearing. It was still night, or early morning. The fire had gone out, and he could no longer hear the potion simmering. He exhaled heavily, and let his head fall back to rest against the tree. He could see the still shape of Snape across the clearing, asleep. He was grateful, because he’d been dreaming of a lot of bad things, and was probably talking in his sleep again. The last thing he needed, was his enemy feeling sorry for him, because he was reliving the battle at the Ministry, or the broken ribs from Dudley and Uncle Vernon.

Across the clearing, Snape watched as Harry drifted back off to sleep, silently this time. Quietly he wondered how Potter could think it was his fault that Black had died… and also, what his punishment had been for the stolen table at his aunt and uncle’s house. He only had to guess though, to get it right. He wondered if the Headmaster knew.

Harry stood, looking out over the canyon they would have to cross that day. Admittedly, he did feel better after drinking some of the vile concoction, but his limbs still ached, and he wished he were able to take a quick trip to the hospital wing for something better.

He gave a look over his shoulder, and seeing the Professor wasn’t there, he frowned, and looked all around him. From the trees in front of him he appeared though, and said, “It’s a steep hill.”

Harry shrugged. He knew he could make it, he just knew it wasn’t going to be pleasant.

They walked for an hour without another word, and were halfway down to the valley floor. Harry used a thin tree to lower himself down the slope another foot or so, and actually found a level spot to stand. He waited a moment for Snape to catch up, and continued on. A minute or so later, Harry heard a distinctive, “Oompf,” and stopped, looking up at the Professor, who had only just caught himself from tumbling down the slope.

“Damn roots,” he said with a glare down to the half hidden tree root he had tripped on.

Harry cracked a grin, and Snape’s head snapped up to look at him, just daring him to laugh.

“What?” Harry asked him… “I saw it jump out at you,” he paused, and then added with a wry smile, “just like that tree a while back.”

Snape sneered at him, and Harry turned to continue downward, but his own foot caught on something, and he flew face first toward the dirt.

Harry cursed, and shook his head. As he pushed himself up, he looked up to see Snape standing over him, not bothering to cover his own grin or chuckling. Harry frowned, but didn’t say anything. As he picked himself up off the ground and walked off, he wondered how much easier his friends were having things right now back at school… Harry could just see Ron muttering something about Transfiguration being too hard, and Hermione complaining because she forgot to add something to her Charms homework, even though she’d gotten full marks. He shook his head, and tried to push the images from his mind. Right now the only thing that concerned him, was getting back to Hogwarts, alive, so he could be the one complaining about the difficulty of classes, or laughing with Ron about Hermione.

Had he been paying attention, Harry might have seen the big rock in front of his foot. He didn’t though, and not having been back on his feet for more than five minutes, he took a dive as his foot hit it, and went sprawling down the slope.

This time, Snape wasn’t laughing when Harry opened his eyes, cursed more loudly, and shook the hair out of his eyes. He was kneeling there, with what could have been taken as a possible worried expression. Harry glared up at him though, and said, “Don’t even think about it.”

“Think about what Potter?”

Harry glowered, and said, “Laughing.”

“Potter,” Snape said, angrily now. “Your clumsiness is not a laughing matter. If you die the Dark Lord will be given free reign.”

Harry frowned a little more deeply this time, but after a second, his expression lightened and he began to laugh.

Snape was a little taken aback. What the hell was the boy laughing at?

“More like, if I die and you make it back, they’ll blame you,” Harry told him, his back still against the tree he had landed against.

“It’s not a question of, if you die, and if, I make it back,” Snape corrected him.

Harry shook his head, and rubbed the back of his neck with his free hand, his other hand still clutching his wand.

“No, I don’t intend on dying, and you’d better not intend on killing me… other than that, I say if we get back, because we still have no clue where we are, and this,” he held up his wand, “doesn’t give a damn either way.” Harry almost hadn’t finished his sentence though. He had gotten very quiet. Both he and Snape were looking down at Harry’s wand, which had given a little trail of sparkling magic as he’d lifted it.

“Potter?” Snape asked him quietly, not taking his eyes from the wand.

Harry’s eyes were still glued to the wand too. “Yeah?”

“Enchant that locator spell.”

Harry looked up at his Professor for a second, and tried to remember how to enchant the spell that would point them towards the nearest town or city.

“Potter,” Snape warned him.

Harry held up his other hand, “Shh!”

He placed his wand flat in the palm of his hand, and enchanted the words. To his amazement, and surprise, the wand began to spin, and the tip finally came to rest, pointing straight through Harry’s chest.

They both moved to look around the tree in that direction, and knew it was nearly in the same direction they’d been walking for three days.

Without a word, Snape stood and pulled Harry to his feet, and they moved off again, towards the bottom of the valley, and then, the massive hill that awaited them.

They were only ten feet further down the slope before Snape stopped, and Harry did too, impatiently watching him.

“What are you doing?” he asked him.

Snape frowned. “I still can’t apparate.”

Harry rolled his eyes. “What?”

Both wands were withdrawn again, and both faces fell when they discovered that they no longer worked anymore.

“Wait here,” Snape ordered, taking Harry’s wand and climbing back up to where Harry had fallen, and landed.

Harry let out a deep sigh, when he saw that the wands no longer worked there either.

“What the hell?” Snape asked quietly from his spot ten feet above Potter.

“Don’t look at me,” Harry told him when he’d come back down and given his wand back, “I didn’t do it.”

“I’m beginning to believe you less and less Potter,” he told him. It had been Potter after all, who had felt the effects of the portal first, and Potter’s wand that had eventually worked, however briefly, therefore, it was Potter’s fault, in someway that they were there.

“I don’t think you’ve ever believed me,” Harry said flatly, sliding down the slope a little on purpose like a surfer.

* * *

“Potter, stop!”

Harry stopped his climbing, and turned around in the dim light.

“What?” he asked him, annoyed.

“You need to stop,” Snape told him, out of breath.

They’d reached the bottom of the valley, and were half way up the next hill. It was getting dark however, and they were both exhausted.

“Why?” Harry asked him, wiping a little sweat from his forehead. “We might be able to get there by dark.”

Snape looked up at him, as if asking if he really believed that.

Harry sighed. He didn’t want to spend another night out there, where he didn’t have control over who heard what he was saying in his sleep.

“C’mon, I’m hungry, and I’m tired, and I want to get home,” Harry half pleaded with him.

Snape almost asked him just how hungry and tired he thought he was, and if he thought that he in any way enjoyed being stuck out there with him, but didn’t.

“Potter, the town will be there in the morning.”

“Yeah, well I thought school’d be there in the morning,” Harry said more to himself than to Snape. Of course he’d been wrong though. When he’d woken up, and finally opened his eyes, he realized that his nightmare was true, and he had no idea where school was.

With a promise that as soon as the sun rose, they would set off again, Harry conceded to defeat, and settled in for another restless night. Perhaps because of all the quick paced walking they’d done that day, Harry was too exhausted to wake up, and also didn’t dream.

“Get up Harry.”

Harry opened his eyes. It was cold out, and still dark.

“What?” he asked Snape, a little angry that he’d been woken.

“The sun will be up soon.”

Harry sat up quickly. He’d almost forgotten.

Snape shook his head. It appeared that Potter wanted to be rid of his company as much as he did of his.

Harry pulled a few of the berries they’d been eating for the past three days out of his pocket. It was only a handful, and made for a meager breakfast. There was a fresh pile in front of him though, and he ate half of the bittersweet berries not reluctantly.

After a quarter of an hour, Harry couldn’t wait anymore. He rose, and said, “You can wait until the sun comes up… I’m going up the hill.”

Snape didn’t frown in the lifting darkness. He only followed close behind, wordlessly.

Somehow, Harry was able to see where he was going, though he’d never know how. It got lighter out as they climbed the semi-steep slope though, and by the time they were nearly at the top of it, the sun was coming up in full steam now.

Harry used a large tuft of grass to pull himself up, and when he did, he found that the slope wasn’t as steep anymore. A few more feet, he told himself, just a few more feet. And he was right. A few more feet, and the ground leveled out. He stood, and a grin broke out over his face, bigger than he’d ever thought he’d be able to grin again after Sirius’ death.

Behind him, he heard rustling leaves and snapping branches, and turned in time to see the Professor coming. He too stood, but instead of looking out over the great valley, was looking at Harry oddly, wondering why he looked so happy, when mere hours before, he was sullen and sulky.

Harry interpreted the question on his face before he could ask though, and pointed out towards the rising sun.

Snape’s gaze followed where Harry pointed to, and he allowed a smile to cross his lips as well, for there, silhouetted by the spectacular sunrise, was Hogwarts, standing in all it’s glory.

“That’s it isn’t it?” Harry asked hopefully.

Snape nodded. He pointed as well, and said, “See the lake?”

Harry pulled out his wand, and said, “Home, here I come.”

Halfway down the mountain, (as they’d decided it would be called, for the sake of the story), Harry nearly tripped again, but was caught by the back of the collar by Snape. When he’d gone down though, his wand was nearly dropped, and sent out angry red sparks.

This time Snape wasted no time in picking up a pinecone, and turning it into a portkey.

“You’ll catch hell from the Ministry-” Harry started, but Snape waved him off.

“Take hold of it quickly before it doesn’t work anymore.”

Harry did as he was told without question, and immediately felt the familiar pull from behind his navel as his feet left the ground. A split second later, and he was on a cobbled street.

“Where?” Harry asked himself, letting go of the pinecone.

Snape dropped it, and looked around, pleased that it had worked.

Harry answered his own question in the early morning sunlight though as he recognized Zonko’s Joke shop. “Hogsmeade,” he said quietly, smiling.

“C’mon.” Harry didn’t need telling twice, and they set off up the main street towards Hogwarts.

“Hey! Look at that!”

Harry turned to see Madam Rosmerta and the bartender that worked in the Three Broomsticks, but Snape ushered him along.

“They’ve been looking high and low for you two!” she shouted after them. They were already on the edge of town though.

Harry nearly ran up the drive to the castle, he was so happy. He couldn’t wait to get back to classes, and his friends, and his warm bed and all of that food that would be waiting for him at breakfast… and even Draco and the rest of the Slytherins. He could care less about detention anymore either… as far as he was concerned, it would be nothing compared to what he’d just been through.

An owl flew over their heads and up through an open window somewhere above them as they pushed open the door to the Entrance hall, and Harry could only assume it was from Madam Rosmerta to Dumbledore, but they would beat her to him.

Snape had started up the marble steps, but stopped when he realized Harry wasn’t behind him.

“What are you waiting for?” he asked him.

Harry shook his head. “Uh uh… I’m not goin’ back up there until I know that portal thing or whatever the hell it was is gone or closed or utterly obliterated.”

Snape shook his head, and Harry started off for the Great hall, but a voice rang out across the Entrance hall and stopped him.

“Harry? Severus?”

Harry spun around. Dumbledore was coming down the stairs toward them.

“I was unsure when I received Madam Rosmerta’s owl…”

He took in the sight of Harry and Severus, dirty, and a little scratched up, but none the worse for wear.

The Headmaster began to ask what had happened, but before he got a chance, Ron and Hermione came tearing down the stairs towards Harry.

“Harry!” they both shouted, and Hermione nearly knocked him over when she got to him and threw her arms around him.

“Hermione,” Harry complained happily. “Watch the ribs, ok?”

She was crying, and Ron helped to pull her a little looser from Harry so he wouldn’t pass out from the pain. Dumbledore ushered them up to the Hospital wing, and Hermione let him go for that, as she and Ron pelted Harry with every question possible about what had happened, and where they’d been.

“Was it Death Eaters?”

“Was it You-Know-Who?”

“What happened?”

“I’ll bet it was Malfoy.”

“Did Dementors attack you?”

“They try to recruit you for some sort of Auror program?”

“Where were you?”

“Did Snape kidnap you?”

Harry shook his head to all of those, and Madam Pomfrey came bustling over to have a look at their injuries, Dumbledore watching all of this with some amusement as Ron and Hermione finally stopped, out of questions.

“Well?” Ron finally asked.

Harry looked to Dumbledore, and then to Snape, who opposite of the Headmaster, was looking thoroughly annoyed as Madam Pomfrey was giving him a potion for his wrist. Harry frowned. He hadn’t known that the Potion’s Master was hurt… then again, he hadn’t shown it. Or had he?

Dumbledore’s eyes were still twinkling, though serious, and he turned to Snape for an explanation. He told the Headmaster, (reluctantly in front of Ron and Hermione, who were also listening raptly), everything he knew, except about Harry’s sleep talking.

They turned to Harry, who nodded in agreement.

“Oh Harry,” Hermione said, throwing her arms around him once again just as Professor McGonagall came in, looking very frazzled.

Their story was again accounted for Professor McGonagall, and once more for Professor Lupin, who Harry had yet to see there, as he hadn’t been informed of his return to Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher.

“The only question that remains then,” said Dumbledore quietly, “is how you were transported to the mountains beyond Hogwarts.”

“What about our wands?” Harry asked him, desperately wanting to know this as well.

Hermione rolled her eyes, and Harry cut her off before she could say it, “Oh no you don’t Hermione… don’t even say that we would know that if we read, Hogwarts A History.”

Ron and Professor Lupin began to laugh, and Hermione frowned. “No, I wasn’t going to say that. Actually, it’s in another book, but since you refuse to read much of anything…”

“Hermione,” Ron and Harry chimed together, and she closed her mouth.

Dumbledore continued to smile, and said, “Yes, it is unfortunate that you were deposited in the Land of Shadows… I imagine it was unpleasant having to live like Muggles for four days with no Muggle amenities.”

“The Land of Shadows?” Harry asked.

Dumbledore nodded, but it was Lupin that answered for him. “It’s kind of like a magical dead zone… They wanted to build Hogwarts in those mountains if I’m not mistaken, but found they couldn’t, because Magic only worked in a rare few places there, and very randomly. We don’t know why magic ceases to work there,” he added at the questioning look on Hermione’s face.

Harry nodded, and Snape asked, “The portal?”

“Yes,” Dumbledore said very matter-of-factly. “That particular corridor on that floor has a nasty temper magically… Just last summer it dumped Professor Flitwick off in Gringotts, and during my first year as Headmaster here, I was storming down that corridor, a little angry at something when I suddenly found myself on the beach!”

Ron gave a pained look to Harry, and Harry laughed, seeing that the look was matched only by Professor Snape. Both looks quite plainly asked why no one had been informed of the corridor, but Dumbledore either wasn’t watching them, or was not interested in telling them his reasons.

Madam Pomfrey released both Harry and Snape, having mended their broken bones in about a second.

“That must have been horrible Harry,” Ron said as they walked towards Gryffindor common room so Harry could change into some clean clothes, “being stuck out there with Snape for four days.”

Harry grinned, “I made it back ok,” he told him.

Ron and Hermione waited for him at the bottom of the staircase, and after he changed, they headed off towards the Great hall for a long overdue breakfast. Silently Harry was thankful that the rest of the students were already there eating and the halls empty, because next second, Snape was walking up to him and his friends.

“Potter,” he said. He gave Ron and Hermione a look, telling them to get to breakfast, but they remained where they were by Harry’s side.

“Go on,” Harry told them quietly. Ron gave him a look, but Harry shook his head, and they left.

Snape seemed to be considering him, and it made Harry want to squirm under his gaze.

“Have you told the Headmaster yet?”

Harry frowned now. “Told him what?”

“About the Muggles you live with.”

Harry seriously considered just denying the fact that he had suffered a nasty injury from the Dursleys, but put the notion aside next second as Dumbledore walked up.

“Severus?” he asked.

Harry gave Snape a pleading look not to tell him for some reason, but Dumbledore caught it, and said, “Harry?”

Harry just wanted to get to breakfast.

“We were just discussing whether it is wise for Potter to remain in residence with his Aunt and Uncle,” Snape told him.

Dumbledore frowned, “Severus… this has been discussed before. He must stay there as long as he can call it home.”

Harry shook his head. He was grateful for what Snape was trying to do, though he didn’t understand why he would want to relieve Harry’s suffering, no matter what Harry had said in his sleep.

“And if he no longer considers it home?”

Dumbledore looked at Harry now, who suddenly became very interested in his shoes. Looking to the Potion’s master for clarification, Snape said, “I heard him refer to the castle several times as home, while we were away… in fact, on our way here, he said he was on his way home.”

It was Dumbledore’s turn to frown now, but his expression lightened slightly, as if he understood something. “Yes, well, I suppose that we will just have to make this Harry’s home then.”

Harry looked up, both surprised and shocked. He wasn’t in trouble? And did he dare believe his ears that he wouldn’t have to return to four Privet drive?

Dumbledore nodded at his questioning look though, and said, “Yes Harry, you can stay.”

Harry could hardly believe his luck as he jogged down to the Great Hall. When he told Ron and Hermione, they could hardly believe it either.

“That means you can come stay with us at the end of the year Harry!” Ron said happily.

Harry grinned. That was right, he supposed he could.

“Ron,” Hermione scolded him, “School started five days ago, and you’re already thinking about summer?”

“Hey, you saw how hard that Transfiguration essay was the other day Hermione… I’m counting down the days til’ summer holiday!”

Harry grinned, but next second, Hermione said, “You know Harry, you have to make that essay up too.”

“What?” both he and Ron asked.

McGonagall walked up before Hermione could say anything else though, and said, “Potter.” Harry looked up, and she handed him a slip of parchment, before heading back off to the staff table.

“What’s that Harry?” Hermione asked him. Harry shrugged and unfolded the parchment.

“Oh no,” he groaned, and dropped it on the table.

Hermione picked it up and read aloud. “Mr. Potter, your detention will be served at five o’clock Monday afternoon with Professor Snape in the Dungeons.”

Ron looked sympathetic for his friend, and Harry put his head in his hands.

Up at the staff table, Snape was looking less than pleased. At least things were back to normal he thought.

Harry looked up a moment later, and turned to Ron, “How many days left until summer?”

Five o’clock Monday evening found Harry trudging down to the dungeons after a hurried meal in the Great Hall. Ron had sent him off with a sympathetic pat on the back, knowing that something bad had to be in store for him, since he was serving detention with Snape. Hermione only shook her head in a way that said, you’ll live Harry, and as unfortunate as it was, Harry had to agree. He had spent four days out in the middle of nowhere with the man; he could surely survive one detention.

Although he wasn’t worried about whatever work he would be given to do… cleaning out slimy potions jars, or writing lines, or scrubbing the Slytherin bathrooms floor to ceiling, he was worried about something else… something that had been bothering him since Snape had gotten the Headmaster to let him stay at Hogwarts instead of going back to Privet drive. Snape now knew something about him that he could use against him. Harry didn’t like that vulnerable feeling he got just by thinking about it. Harry had a sinking feeling that he had survived all of Snape’s classes so far because Snape hadn’t really had anything to hurt Harry with, aside from grades. Now things were different. He hadn’t yet had a potions class with Snape, because Friday and Monday were double Charms and Transfiguration. Potions would come Tuesday after Care of Magical Creatures, which the Gryffindors still unfortunately had both with the Slytherins. Harry didn’t think he was going to be able to stand three straight hours with the Slytherins. He had already heard bad things from Ron and Hermione, like how Draco had “rescued,” a biting Willy Toad from Care of Magical Creatures the week before, only to take it to Potions the next class to set it down the back of Neville’s pants. Luckily, there had been a substitute in Potions, since Snape was lost in the woods with Harry, and Slytherin had lost ten points for Draco’s stunt.

Harry didn’t look at his watch as he made the higher dungeons, but knew it had to be at least five after five. He was late, and knew he was going to catch hell for it. Instead of running to get there quicker though, Harry let his legs carry him just a little slower to prolong what he knew was coming. At five ten, Harry pushed the door to their dungeon classroom open, and found no sign of Snape.

Harry frowned. The detention slip had told him to meet in the potions classroom… maybe Snape had forgotten. Harry thought about going to his office to see, but then discarded the notion, thinking he might be able to get out of it. Harry dropped his bag on the floor and took a seat on one of the tables the Slytherin’s usually sat at up front to wait. Another few minutes passed, and Harry sighed as he thought about being in even more trouble if the slip had written the wrong location. He reached down and picked up his bag as he slid off the table, and exited down the hallway towards Snape’s office.

The door was creaked open when he reached it, and light spilled out into the dark hallway. Harry sighed, and gave the door a knock to let Snape know he was there.

“Come,” was the annoyed response he received. Harry knew if Snape was in a bad mood, the detention was only going to be worse. He pushed the door open anyway, and took half a step inside, so that he was still only on the threshold of the office. Snape looked up from the papers he was grading, but only for a second to see that it was Harry. “Was there something you wanted Potter?”

Harry frowned slightly before he let the expression leave his face, and said, “Um… I was supposed to serve detention with you tonight.”

Snape looked up at him again and considered him for a moment, and then his watch. “It’s five fifteen Potter, you’re late.”

Harry desperately wanted to snap at him that he hadn’t been late, when he remembered that he was. Instead, he held his temper the best he could, and said, “You didn’t even remember that I was doing detention, sir.” He knew he had better add that sir to the end if he had any hope of getting out of his detention altogether.

Snape frowned for a second as he considered the boy standing before him again. “You were in the Dungeon at five o’clock?” he asked him.

Harry matched his frown for a moment and looked at his shoes, “No.” Maybe Snape hadn’t forgotten. Harry hadn’t considered that he might have waited in the Dungeon, and just considered him a no show.

“No?” Snape asked in a tone Harry couldn’t figure as anything but mocking, because it was so light.

Harry shook his head once, and looked back up. “I showed up at ten after.”

Harry thought Snape would get angry, but he didn’t. He gave him one of those piercing stares instead, that Harry was only used to receiving from Dumbledore. Harry always felt Dumbledore was trying to look right into his soul when he did that. He knew that Snape could look right into his mind if he wanted to, being an accomplished Legilimens, but he didn’t feel that happening to his mind at the moment.

Snape thought a moment more as Harry continued to look him straight in the eye, something most Slytherins could not even bear to do. “I was not there, and instead of skipping detention altogether, you came to my office?” Snape asked more to himself than to Harry.

Harry didn’t nod because it was obvious that that was what he had done.

Snape frowned again, looking down at the stack of papers in front of him, and he looked to Harry to be a little confused. The next second though, and Snape was looking back up at him.

“Sit in the chair,” he instructed him.

Snape was a little wary of what he was about to do, assigning the Gryffindor who had always lacked in Potions such a task, but he had no other task that he felt like assigning him, and felt the help would be welcome in grading the papers.

Harry watched as Snape dived the stack of papers in two, and set the top half of the stack in front of him as he sat in the only other chair in the office, and pulled it up to the desk.

“When you’re done grading those you can go,” Snape informed him.

Harry frowned… he was grading papers? “The assignment is written on the top of every parchment,” Snape told him. Harry looked down and found the assignment on the top of the first page. He thumbed through the stack, and saw that the next twenty pages were the same. They looked like second year potions assignments. “The criteria for which they are being graded is here.” With this, Snape pushed over another piece of parchment, this one aging slightly, as though it had been used for a few years. There was a small water stain along one edge near the top, and a tear near the bottom left corner, but other than that, it was still in good shape.

Harry pulled the grading parchment over, and pulled out a quill from his bag. He was just about to reach for the top assignment on his stack, when Snape looked over at him again, and said, “Do not, make any mistakes Potter, or you will be serving another detention tomorrow correcting them.” Harry gave him a small glare that Snape didn’t notice, because he was already on to grading another stack of assignments, and took up the grading parchment again. This assignment was asking for a detailed description of each of the twelve uses of the Hargon root, and also for a small essay on where and how you could find Hargon root, and how you could distinguish it from it’s close relatives, the Hergion and Tragon plants. This was going to be a long night, but at least Harry felt it wouldn’t be as bad as some of the other detentions he’d had to serve through his years there at Hogwarts.

Halfway through the third essay, Harry was gaining a deep dislike for grading papers, and at the same time, some appreciation for the teachers because they had to do it all the time. Already Harry had marked five points off from Henry Tritus’ essay, because he had missed three of the Hargon root’s uses, and another three points because he had gotten the root mixed up with Tragon. At first he had felt sorry about marking points off, but he was now getting annoyed with each subsequent paper he graded, because all of the information was in the text book the second years had, and could be found if they only read it. Harry even remembered the text from his second year. On Bernice Prichardson’s paper, Harry decided that she had gotten so many things wrong, that she was probably going to end up brewing some toxic potion in the very near future, and not survive it’s test. He took a few minutes to write out the correct answers and other things he could think of that were not written on the grading parchment so that she would know why her paper was coming back looking murdered, since Harry was grading with red ink.

Snape looked over at Harry so many times while he was grading the first few papers, that Harry was done with six by the time Snape was done with his first new one. Finally deciding that he would need to look over the papers the boy graded in the end anyhow, he went back to his own stack, and didn’t look up at Potter again until he started to chuckle ten minutes later.

Snape’s head snapped up, and he frowned across the desk at him. “What Potter?”

Harry looked up, and tried to wipe the grin off of his face. “Um… just something somebody wrote sir.”

“Who and what?” Snape demanded, setting the essay on the uses of Dragon’s blood he had been grading down.

Harry looked uncertainly back down at his own half graded essay, and then back up at Snape, before looking down and reading, “I lost my book sir, and nobody would loan me theirs because they were all working hard on their essays for your class, so I had to resort to other means to find out the differences between Hargon root and it’s relatives, and where you can find them. First, you can find Hargon root in the apothecary in Diagonalley, and Hogsmead. You can tell the difference between Hargon root and Tragon and Hergion, because each has a label at the apothecary, and Hargon costs less because it’s so easy to find in the wilderness because of it’s orange leaves… we even have some in our back yard at home. Tragon is usually the most expensive since it has to be imported from China, and Hergion isn’t usually in stores because it has uses for more dangerous potions.”

Harry bit his lip. He knew Snape was going to probably fail this student, who just happened to be a Gryffindor, which was the reason for Harry holding back the student’s name.

Snape looked thoughtful, and said, “He is only being difficult.”

Harry felt some need to stick up for the student, and said lightly, still half grinning, “He did point out one way to tell the differences, and two places you can find them.”

Snape looked over at the Gryffindor, and said, “Subtract five points for losing his book and tell him he should order another immediately.” He went back to his stack of papers, and Harry sat there, honestly confused.

“That’s it sir? You’re not going to take away more points?” Five points from forty wasn’t bad… that was still almost full marks.

“As annoying as Gryffindors can be both in and out of class, and in writing their papers, Mr. Cranson did fulfill the essay requirement, though not as I would have liked him to. He constantly shows me new ways through his work to revise the assignment so that other students do not write their observations as he does. He is also not a troublemaker in class I have found, if he expresses his… opinions, in his papers. Five points off Potter, no more.”

Harry was still frowning in his confusion as he watched his professor move from one paper to another. So he did know who’s paper it was, and still only took five points off. He was so sure it would have worked out different. Harry did as he was told though, and took the five points off, then writing that he needed to pick up another book, and perhaps to borrow one from Hermione or another older student who no longer used their old Potion’s book.

After another quarter of an hour, Harry had moved on to a stack of fourth year essays about a series of difficult and dangerous potions. He spotted the grading key on a parchment across the desk, but didn’t grab for it because Snape was still using it. He looked down at the essay in front of him, and remembered the right answers from his fourth year though, and so set to work as before, marking points off, and explaining about the right answer whenever he did. He came across two essays with the exact same handwriting, even though the words were changed around, and the names were different, and took full points off for cheating on both papers. He wrote a note across the top that says that if they are going to cheat, they should at least take the effort to write their paper in their own handwriting, and that they should re-do the essay by themselves so that they don’t end up failing whatever test was coming up. Harry was glad that it hadn’t been two Gryffindors that had cheated, but was deeply surprised to find that it had been two Ravenclaws.

Finally Harry was at the bottom of his stack. He put the grade on top of the last essay, a first year one about Wolf’sbane and it’s uses, and placed it on top of the finished pile. He looked down at his watch, seven o’clock. Two hours wasn’t a bad detention. Harry thought back to the five or six hour long detentions that he had served with Filch or even Hagrid out in the Forbidden forest.

Snape looked up when he hadn’t heard the scratching of quill on parchment for a minute, and saw Harry going back over a few of the papers from the bottom of the stack. “Potter?” he asked.

Harry looked up. “Oh… I’m done Professor.”

Snape looked at Harry’s finished pile, which was the same size as his own, and noticed that he still had at least ten papers from his own to grade. “You’re detention is done then Potter, go back to your common room.”

Harry picked up his bag happily, and headed for the door. Snape’s voice stopped him though before he made it out. “Potter.”

Harry turned around, a curious look on his face.

“What did you do to get detention on your first day back?”

Harry frowned now as he remembered McGonagall coming up on him walking out of Moaning Myrtle’s bathroom with Jason Higreteus in tow.

“I had to go into a girls toilet to save a first year from Draco… he put a binding curse on Jason Higreteus so he couldn’t get out of Moaning Myrtle’s bathroom.”

Snape thought about it for a moment, and asked, “Professor McGonagall gave you detention for that?”

Harry nodded, “She never gave me the time to explain.” Harry grew silent for a moment, and then said, “Most people usually don’t.”

Harry turned to leave and this time Snape didn’t stop him.

Severus Snape sat with his head in one hand, quill in the other, scratching out the final grade on the Gryffindor sixth year’s Potion’s essays as the candles on his desk grew to nothing more than melted stubs. He looked at his watch; ten thirty. Even with Potter’s help, he had been grading papers for more than six hours straight. Apparently, in his absence, the substitute saw it fit to assign twice as much homework as was necessary, which may have explained his student’s smiles when he walked into class Friday morning. He might have expected such from his own house, but not from a class full of seventh year Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs.

Across his desk he spied the three neat stacks of homework Potter had graded, one for each year. Severus had intentionally not given the boy his classmates work to grade, because he didn’t want him to play favoritism… but then again, Potter had surprised him more than once that night, and he thought it would have been an interesting test to see what he would have done, should he have needed to mark points off of his friend’s work.

Knowing he needed to check the work Potter graded, he reached across the desk reluctantly. He was tired, and a headache the other staff liked to refer to as, Grading Pains, was setting in.

The first stack he had grabbed was that of the fourth years. At first he felt like letting out a groan, because the grade on the top paper was marked as O, for outstanding, and belonged to a Gryffindor student Snape had not known to do spectacularly in Potions, or anything else for that matter. He read through the paper though, and could not find a thing wrong with it that Potter had not marked. In fact, the only thing Potter had found wrong with it, was something not even on the grading ruberik. It was an obscure use for the plant that the student had missed, and that Snape didn’t remember being in any of the assigned texts. Satisfied with the grade, he moved onto the next paper, a stark contrast to the first. This one was marked D for Dreadful, and had red ink all over it. With his headache, the red ink made his eyes ache, and he didn’t understand how that much could be wrong with how little was written by the fourth year student. Potter had found plenty wrong however, and had also taken the time to write out all of the correct answers, and then some. Snape shook his head. He usually didn’t have the time to do that.

He thumbed through the rest of the stack, and stopped on a random paper in the middle. This one belonged to Ginger Greenwell. It was an acceptable grade, and the paper was marked as the others in the stack were. Severus picked up the other two stacks, and found the same thing as with the first, with the exception that on the top of the second year stack, were two assignments marked with a failing grade, and the same note across the top. Snape frowned at the two papers for a moment, before he decided that they were cheating, and were indeed deserving of the given grade. Snape shook his head again, and rubbed his right temple as it gave yet another throb. He looked at his watch, and gave up on looking over the papers, deciding that if the ten or fifteen he had seen were graded well, than the rest were too. With tired, and slow movements, so as not to anger his aching head any more, Severus lifted himself from the chair, and moved off towards his room, pulling the locked door closed behind him. Silently he wished for the first time, that Potter would get into more trouble so that he could grade more papers. If he would have been thinking straight, he could have made the boy stay and grade more, even though he hadn’t been that confident that he would do a good job.

The next morning, Ron and Hermione strolled into the Great Hall hand in hand, and sat down in the seats next to Harry that had always just been assumed as saved, by the other house students. Harry looked up at them and returned the grin Ron was giving him.

“How’d it go last night mate? Did he make you scrub potions containers?”

Harry shook his head. He hadn’t seen Ron or Hermione last night after he’d gotten back, even though it hadn’t been very late at all. “No, I graded papers.”

Hermione dropped the fork she had just picked up with eggs, and looked over at him. “You graded papers Harry?”

Harry shrugged and nodded. “Yeah, I went to his office and he pushed a stack of papers towards me, and said grade.”

Hermione’s eyes were wide now. “Harry, I don’t think that’s very fair. You shouldn’t be grading papers from sixth year.”

Harry mixed his potatoes and gravy up with the sausage on his plate as he said, “I never even saw the sixth year papers. I graded the first, second and fourth year assignments.”

“And he just let you do that?”

Harry gave an odd look to Hermione. “I’m not incompetent you know.”

Hermione frowned and picked up her fork again. “I never said you were.” She almost had a hurt tone to her voice that Ron seemed to be noticing too.

“Hermione, you should get detention tonight for doing something, and then you can spend two hours grading papers,” Harry told her in a falsely serious tone. Ron cracked another grin, but didn’t laugh outright since Hermione was there.

Hermione looked up at Harry, wide eyed. “It only took you two, hours?”

Harry shrugged, “It was easy. The grading rubric was right there… I didn’t even have to look at the one from fourth year because I remembered the answers from when we did the assignments.”

Hermione gave him a long look, and Harry wondered if he had said something wrong. He wasn’t sure why she was looking so put out. The only thing he could think of was that she had never been asked to grade papers before by any professor. On the other hand, he couldn’t see why she would want to. He had only been doing it as a punishment, even though a punishment for something he hadn’t done wrong. With this thought, Harry gave a long glare up at Professor McGonagall, who didn’t notice because she was talking to the Headmaster. Severus Snape however, who walked into the Great Hall a moment later, caught the look the Gryffindor was giving his head of house, and wondered about it.

After breakfast, Care of Magical Creatures went very well, all things considered. The all things, being the group of sixth year Slytherins who were off in a corner of the paddock Hagrid had taken them too, keeping to themselves. Harry didn’t even want to know what they were planning, but at the same time, felt the need to know to protect whoever was going to be the butt end of their next joke.

Back in the Entrance hall, Harry stood talking to Ron and Seamus as they waited for Double Potions to roll around. Seamus was shaking his head in disgust at the idea that they had to spend another two hours with the Slytherins, when Harry pointed out that Double potions with the Slytherins twice a week, was better than one hour of potions every day.

A drawling voice came from across the hall at that moment, and they didn’t even have to look to know that it was Draco. “Oh GAWD!” Draco was talking to Pansy and Crabbe as they came up the stairs from Care of Magical Creatures. “Another two hours with the famous Harry Potter!? I don’t know if I can stand it… I might feel the need to ask him for his autograph.”

Harry shot a look of warning over to Draco, who took it in good stride by returning a grin. He strolled over to Harry casually, who motioned Ron and Seamus off, who only took a few steps back just in case they needed to step in and defend their friend.

“Have fun out there with our Head of House Potter? I heard you got to serve detention with him last night too… I thought our bathrooms were looking a little more clean this morning… maybe next time you can make them shine.”

“No Draco, I think I’ll leave that task for you,” Harry said calmly, even though he was sending Draco a look that told him to just try something.

Draco scoffed, “Come on Potter, I know those Muggles you live with-” Harry took a quick step towards him, and Draco reached for his wand, although he didn’t withdraw it. Harry wasn’t even thinking about his wand, but more of grabbing up the front of Draco’s shirt, although he didn’t know what he had planned on doing from there. Fortunately for both boys, a distant spectator of the incident stepped up to them at that moment.

“Mr. Malfoy,” Snape intoned quietly. Draco looked up at him. “I would be very careful around Mr. Potter, as he is grading Potions papers for my class now.”

Draco’s eyes grew wide for a moment, and he looked back to Harry, who was looking confusedly up at Snape, and then over to Draco again, with the same confused look.

“Professor?” Draco asked him.

Snape didn’t answer, and instead beckoned Harry toward the dungeons, and away from the crowd. “A word Mr. Potter, if you please.”

Harry gave a worried look back to Ron and Seamus, and now Hermione who had moved to stand with them, but grabbed up his book bag off the floor and followed at a slow pace anyhow, only fast enough to keep up with Snape.

Once down in his office, Snape motioned for Harry to close the door, who did so, but reluctantly. Snape moved around to the other side of his desk, and sat down, before looking up to see Harry, still standing there on the threshold of the office again.

“Professor?” Harry asked uncertainly.

“It is unwise to get into brawls in the middle of the Entrance Hall Potter,” Snape said, pulling some stacks of papers from within a desk drawer.

Harry was in disbelief. “I’m getting detention for that!?” he half shouted. “I didn’t even do anything!”

Snape glanced up at him. “Not detention Potter, sit down.” Harry didn’t move, just stood there, staring down at him.

“Sit, down, Potter,” Snape said again, more forcefully this time. Harry moved to take the chair near him, but didn’t bother putting his bag down on the floor again. He wasn’t planning on staying for long.

“You surprised me Potter,” Snape told him, handing over a few of the papers Harry recognized as the ones he had graded the night before.

“What?” Harry asked, “I shouldn’t have gotten anything wrong on those!”

Snape shook his head. “You did not, which is why I was surprised. You caught things that were not even mentioned in the assigned readings, and wrote out comments on how the students could improve…” here Snape paused, and looked up at Harry from the papers, “which tells me, that you should have done much better in my classes over the years.”

Harry hadn’t thought about that as he had been grading, only that he had remembered most of the material.

“I expect you to do well this year then as well, because I am going to begin grading you more harshly now that I know you know the material.” Before Harry could say anything though, Snape continued, “This will not change no matter what happens in the future.”

Harry wasn’t even looking at him now. Instead he was staring down at his shoes wondering how he had gotten himself into this mess.

“I would like to make a request of you however, that the Headmaster… rather forcefully suggested.”

Harry did look up a this, more confusion playing out across his features.

“I have far too much work to do, and could use the help from someone who will grade fairly. As much as I despise the idea Potter, that would seem to be you.”

Something caught in Harry’s throat. “So I’m getting detention every night?” he asked.

“No. You do not have to accept this job. The Headmaster has informed me that you will be paid for grading papers, and it is your choice to take the position or not. You will of course only be grading the first through fifth years, but, Mr. Malfoy does not know that.”

Harry let a small smile cross his face at that thought despite of himself.

“So I’d have to grade all of the first through fifth year papers?” His mind was drifting to his own assignments, and Quidditch practices since he’d been made Captain this year.

Snape shook his head. “No. Assignments will start to be made due at the beginning of the week. You would pick up one year’s assignments at a time to grade, and get as much done as you can handle by the end of the week… before the weekend. I will be grading assignments as I do normally throughout the week, and between the two of us, all of the assignments would get done.”

Harry thought about it for a moment. He liked the idea of Draco leaving him alone for a while, though he wasn’t sure how long that would last. He didn’t really need the money either, but it could never hurt.

“Have you considered hiring Hermione instead?” Harry suggested.

“Is that to say you do not want the job Potter?” Snape asked in what could have been seen as a threatening tone.

“No, no it’s not that,” Harry put in quickly.

“No,” Snape said more to himself, thinking that Potter was bad enough, but he couldn’t handle Granger trying to re-arrange the way his class was taught and the assignments given.

Harry sighed. Snape hated him, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to be working for the man, and on the same note, why Snape wanted him to work for him. The same thought came to Harry as the night before, when he had been walking to the dungeons for detention, that he now had something to use against Harry should he choose to, and Harry didn’t want to deal with that.

He looked up at his Professor, who was again considering him, and looking as if he were wondering what was possessing him to hire a Gryffindor. Harry nodded though, and said, “Alright… I can do the job.”

Snape nodded, and said, “You begin Monday then. You will come to my office at five o’clock. I expect any papers you grade to hold to the same standard that you graded last night, including no mistakes being made. Any papers you grade will be due by the same time Friday. Just one mistake Potter, and you’re done, understood?”

Harry nodded, again wondering what he had gotten himself into, and then if there were any ways to get out of it. Deciding that there weren’t any good ways, he stood, and left for class.

In the Potions room, both Slytherins and Gryffindors alike were giving Harry odd looks. Harry took up his seat next to Ron and Hermione, and Ron leaned over to whisper in his ear, “Did you get detention again?”

Harry didn’t even look at him. He just shook his head, and said, “No, I got a job.”

As the week wore on, Harry began to notice that he was getting more than looks from his peers, even though he had yet to grade any new papers. Wednesday afternoon, Draco spotted Harry alone out in one of the castle’s many courtyards, and failed to say a thing to him.

Hermione was also making herself scarce whenever Harry came around, which confused and aggravated Harry to no end. Other people Harry could handle, but not one of his two best friends. Friday evening when Harry walked into the common room and Hermione promptly got up and left for the Girls’ dormitory without a word, Harry finally asked Ron what was going on.

Ron hesitated before answering him, and then looked toward the Girls’ dormitory door to make sure it was closed all the way and Hermione out of earshot. “You know how she is Harry,” he said offhandedly. “She’s used to being the smartest one in school, and now… I dunno, maybe she feels just a little,” Ron stopped and looked around again, and then lowered his voice, “threatened.”

Harry’s eyes grew wide with disbelief and a little bit of anger. “Threatened? Ron, she’s still the smartest one in school! You know just as well as me that she’s the reason you and I pass half of our classes! We wouldn’t have made it this far without her notes and prodding us constantly to do our homework!”

Ron shrugged. “I know that, and you know that, and she knows that. I think she just needs reminding.”

Harry let his head fall back and examined the ceiling for a moment before closing his eyes. “How am I supposed to remind her that she’s the smartest person here?”

Ron grimaced and Harry looked back to him. “What?” Harry asked.

“Er…” he hesitated a moment. “Maybe, ask her to tutor you in something?”

Harry sighed. She had been tutoring them since they had gotten there without their asking, and now he had to go and ask for extra extra help. Harry stood and walked toward his room saying to himself, “What do I do to get myself into these messes?”

Ron watched him go, knowing exactly how he felt.

The next morning Harry strode straight over to where Hermione sat, and before she could get up, plopped down next to her. Head in hands, he put on his best distressed sigh, and waited to see if she took the bait.

Hermione eyed him for a moment, and then finally asked, “What, what’s wrong?”

Harry looked up and tried to stifle a grin knowing that his plan was already working. “I don’t know how I get myself into these messes Hermione.” He left the bait again to see if she would bite one more time.

“What messes?” She seemed genuinely concerned now.

Harry took a deep breath and launched into a fantastic story about how he was very stressed out because everybody was putting too much pressure on him, and how he thought all of his grades were going to drop, but he couldn’t drop Quidditch or his new job. Harry also added in at the last that Professor Snape now had it in for him even more than ever because he had promised to grade Harry twice as hard as every other student, and that he expected only the most paramount of work from him, and that he didn’t know for the life of him what he was going to do about it all. The part about Snape grading him harder was true at least, Harry thought to himself.

Hermione went back to her scrambled eggs. Harry’s shoulders fell when she didn’t offer to help him out of his made up predicament. Thinking for a moment, Harry sidled right up next to Hermione and put on his most pitiful look. “Please Hermione,” Harry begged, “will you please help me study for Potions so I don’t lose my job?”

Hermione looked over at him and her face lightened a little when she saw how sad Harry looked.

“All right Harry,” she told him, “but if you want my help then we’re going to study every night of the week.”

Harry’s face fell and he almost dropped his act. Every night? The things I do for friends, he thought to himself, knowing that he didn’t really need the help that badly. “Ok Hermione,” he told her, “every night.”

“Good,” she said. “Meet me in the Library at eight. It’s quieter in there.”

Ron and Harry joined Hermione in the Library at eight that night, both boys dreading the sure to be long and sleep inducing study session with Hermione. Other homework already done for the week, they only had Potions to study for.

Hermione had a stack of books already sitting on a table near the middle of the largest part of the Library.

“What are we studying?” Ron asked, “All the way up to N.E.W.T.S?” Hermione didn’t answer him, and Ron let out a groan. Harry sighed, and took a seat across from her. “Ok,” he told her, “let’s get started.”

By ten o’clock that night, Harry crawled into bed wishing he had not promised Hermione to study every night of the week. Potion ingredients and formulas from the next two weeks lessons chased each other around in his mind as he drifted off into a fitful sleep. That night, he dreamt about Snape slipping him some poisonous potion that would only affect Harry. He remembered nothing of the dream when he awoke.

The first two Gryffindor Quidditch practices of the season filled Harry’s Saturday and Sunday, followed by more long hours of studying Potions with Ron and Hermione in the Library Saturday and Sunday night.

Before Harry and Ron climbed the stairs to the boy’s dormitory, Harry turned to Hermione and said, “I have to grade papers tomorrow night at five… it might take me a while.”

Hermione shrugged. “I’ll be in the library until ten. If you get done later than that, then I’ll be waiting in the common room.”

In their room, Ron fell into his four-poster with a soft “umpf.”

Harry shook his head. “Hermione, she’s crazy.”

Ron mumbled something to his pillow, and Harry said, “at least you didn’t make any promises to her.”

Ron groaned again. He finally lifted his head and said, “I wish I hadn’t.”

Harry shook his head. "Well, at least she's happy."

Still tired from studying with Ron and Hermione the night before, and still aching from Sunday night’s Quidditch practice, where Harry was caught off guard and knocked off his broom by a Bludger sent his way by Dane, their new and very tall Beater, Harry made his way slowly down to the dungeons, and Snape’s office after dinner Monday night. Just as with detention the week before, Harry had a sinking feeling in his stomach about spending what he was sure would be hours on end in Snape’s office, grading papers.

Finally at Snape’s office door, Harry found it open, and he entered silently. Professor Snape was already sitting behind his desk looking over what appeared to be the essays from sixth year. With a jolt, Harry realized that his was on top of the pile, and it had red ink all over it.

“Sir,” Harry said when Snape didn’t look up, even though he was sure he knew he was there.

Snape still didn’t look up or give any indication that he knew Harry had said anything.

Harry frowned and looked around himself, bag still slung over his shoulder. If anything, he thought, Snape will probably just fire me right here and I won’t have to worry about him, or studying with Hermione every night either.

“The papers you are to grade are in a pile on the shelf behind you Potter,” Snape finally said. Harry’s head snapped up from the vile full of glowing blue liquid he had been examining from a distance on a nearby shelf.

“Yes sir,” Harry said quietly, moving to take the stack, a little disappointed, and at the same time relieved, although he couldn’t figure out why.

Harry picked up the rather large stack of papers, first through fourth year, and moved to drop his bag and sit down, but Snape looked up, and said, “Potter,” to get his attention. Harry looked up at him.

“The essay you turned in,” Snape held it up to show him, and Harry’s heart sank. Hermione would have a fit if she saw all the red ink all over it, especially after all of the studying they had done the week prior.

Snape unrolled the parchment a little further. “I am finding myself surprised yet again Potter, at your work. It is exemplary. You even made mention of potions from chapters ahead of where you are in the text, as well as from other books.”

Harry sighed in relief, and wished he had caught himself before Snape had heard it and looked up at him again. “I wish to use this as a grading rubric for another class. May I?”

After a moment, Harry nodded. He didn’t care, just so long as he didn’t have to study with Hermione even more.

Snape nodded, and Harry went to take the seat again. “Potter.” Harry paused. “Do not make me regret what I am about to say.” There was a pause, and then, “You are not to let any student, not even Ms. Granger, see any of the assignments you grade. You are also not to discuss anybody’s grade with any student. Direct all comments and questions to me. But,” another pause, “as I know you do not wish to sit in an office with me for any amount of time, you may take those papers and grade them wherever you wish, if you feel you can do so and still follow the rules I have set.”

Harry looked over to him in wonder. “I, I can leave sir?” he asked.

Snape looked back down to Harry’s essay, as if to reassure himself, and then nodded. “Yes.”

Harry looked at the floor a moment, and then back up at Snape. He was already looking at another essay. Suddenly the long hours he had been dreading had now vanished, and he was free to take the papers elsewhere and do as he pleased… he didn’t even have to grade them tonight if he didn’t want to.

Harry separated out the pile into the four years, and took the first year essays and their grading parchment, and slipped them into his bag, and then replaced the other three years back on the shelf behind him.

At the door, Harry stopped a moment, and said, “I’ll bring them back when I’m done sir.”

Snape nodded, and thought to himself, or else, as Harry departed, and the Potions Master was once again left to himself. Wondering not for the first time that day what had possessed him to make the decisions he had in the last week.

Out in the corridor, Harry felt he could positively skip back up to Gryffindor tower if he wanted to, but refrained from doing so, because he knew how foolish it would look if any of the students or staff, especially a Slytherin, saw him doing it.

Knowing that Hermione waited for him in the library, Harry thought about using the papers as an excuse not to study with her if he graded them slowly enough, so he headed for his dormitory instead, knowing that the common room would be too full of students at this time of night to be able to keep his promise to Snape about not letting anybody see any of the assignments.

Harry was happy to find that only Dean and Neville were in their room, both lying on their four posters reading silently.

Neither boy looked up at Harry as he began setting papers out on his desk to grade. Midway through the third paper however, Dean rose and came to his shoulder. “Wow Harry, lots of work?”

Harry’s head snapped up. “Er… first year papers. Nothing special.”

“Oh,” Dean nodded, but didn’t move back to his bed. Instead he seemed more interested, and contented himself with looking over Harry’s shoulder.”

Harry closed his eyes. He didn’t want to tell Dean to bug off, but he couldn’t have him reading other people’s homework or Snape would probably throw books at him if he found out.

“Oh!” Harry exclaimed, as if he had just remembered something. “I forgot! I’m supposed to meet Hermione in the Library!” He quickly began gathering up the graded and ungraded papers, and stuffed them into his bag again. Dean was forced to step back as Harry did this in such a hurry. “Sorry guys, gotta go or Hermione will kill me for being even later.”

Dean frowned for a moment, but let Harry leave without protest. Having used Hermione as an excuse, Harry now had no choice but to go up to the library, and hope that Hermione and Ron wouldn’t want to watch him grade papers as well.

“There you are,” Hermione said as Harry walked in and plopped down into a chair across from her and Ron. “That was quick. You’re done already?”

Harry didn’t look at her, but shook his head. “No.” He pulled out the stack of first year papers again, and tried to grade the first one, but Ron, just like Dean, was interested in reading what the first years had put down on their essays, leaning over the table and trying to grab one of them.

“Let’s see what little Demetri Harvest wrote on the uses of Dragon’s blood…”

Harry snatched the paper out of Ron’s reach just before he could get at it. “Ron, I’m not supposed to let anybody see what the other students wrote. That’s why I came up here… there’s too many interested people in the common room and dorm.”

Ron looked a little hurt that Harry wouldn’t let his best friend see what he was doing, but didn’t protest. “Sorry mate,” he said quietly, “I didn’t mean anything by it.”

Harry immediately felt sorry for his friend, but didn’t know what to do about it. “Sorry,” he said quietly as well. And then set about to grading the papers as quickly as he could so that he didn’t have to worry about people trying to see what he was doing.

Half an hour later, Harry was done, and stashing the papers quickly back into his bag. Hermione handed him an obscure potions text she had managed to dig up from somewhere in the very back of the library, and directed Harry to a page somewhere in the middle.

At breakfast the next day, Ron didn’t make eye contact with Harry, and only gave low, one or two word responses to his questions.

“Listen… I’m sorry Ron. It’s not that I don’t trust you, it’s that Snape hardly trusts me. He barely let me out of his office with the papers the other night, and he made me swear not to let anybody see them. I just… didn’t want to sit in his office all night grading. I wanted to be up in the library with you guys instead.”

Ron finally looked up at this, and said, “Ok mate. I understand.”

Throughout the day, Ron spoke a little more at a time, until by dinner, he was telling Harry and Seamus a fantastic story he’d read over the summer about an American Quidditch player who could play any position, and once took on an entire Russian Quidditch team, and almost one the game by himself.

“Don’t listen to him Harry,” Ginny told him from down the table, “He got it from one of those foreign wizard magazines just like the Quibbler… loads of made up junk in there.”

Ron glared down at his sister a moment, before turning back to his ham and potatoes, and saying, “It was still fun to read.”

Harry laughed quietly and took a drink of pumpkin juice, but heard a sort of scraping noise from behind him that made him set his goblet down and dive for his bag as it tried to make a getaway from under his bench. Someone was using magic to drag it away from him. Harry managed to grab it just before it slid away under the Ravenclaw table and a pair of third years holding hands on the bench next to it.

Harry swore and then apologized to the Ravenclaws whose meal he had interrupted. Ron and Hermione were standing now, and Hermione pointed to the Slytherin table, where Draco twirled his wand between his fingers, and gave a little wave. “I’ll have it next time,” he mouthed from across the Great hall. Harry and both of his friends glared, and Harry, suddenly not feeling in the mood for food, strode out of the Great hall, bag in tow.

“Harry, wait,” Ron said. Harry stopped by the marble steps leading to the rest of the mid and upper castle. “Are the essays in there?” Harry nodded, and Ron held out his hand, wanting the bag. Harry didn’t move, a questioning look on his face.

Ron tilted his head a little bit, and Harry decided that he was being stupid. He knew he could trust Ron. Harry held out the bag, and Ron took it, and took out his wand. “Obfirmo discidium Harry Potter,” Ron encanted, waving his wand in a complicated little zigzag that ended in a half circle. He gave the bag back to Harry.

“What did you do?” Harry asked him curiously.

“Try to get in,” Ron told him. Harry opened the bag and pulled out the essays, and then slid them back in.

“Yeah?” Harry asked, unsure of what was supposed to happen, or if the spell had even worked.

“Ok,” Ron told him, “Now give it to Hermione.”

Harry did as he was told, and Hermione accepted the bag, and then tried to get into it, but was unable. The seams of the bag tightened, and the brown leather flap on top refused to budge. Ron turned his wand into a knife, and tried to stab the bag, and it wouldn’t even tear or make a mark.

“See,” Ron told him. “Now only you can get in.”

Harry grinned and took the bag back, putting it over his shoulder. “Thanks! Where did you learn that?”

Ron looked down at the ground for a moment, and then he said, “ I looked it up last night after you went to bed… I figured you might need it.”

Harry nodded. “Thanks,” he said again, more quietly this time. Ron and Hermione waited for Harry in the Entrance hall while he walked down to the dungeons and dropped the graded papers off, and picked up the second year stack in Snape’s office. Snape didn’t say anything except to ask how long it had taken him. Harry told him an hour, taking into account the time he had spent in the dormitory, and then walking from Gryffindor tower up to the library.

Back in the Entrance hall, Harry, Ron, and Hermione began their ascent up through the castle towards the library to do more studying.

As with the night before, Harry hurried to grade the stack of papers he had, and then set about to reading whatever Hermione handed him, and taking notes when Hermione scolded him for not doing so.

Confident again that he could do as he had promised, Harry didn’t worry about anyone getting a hold of the papers the next day, until he heard a sly voice behind him at lunch.

“Think you’re smart, don’t you Potter?”

Harry turned around to see Draco sitting at the Ravenclaw table behind him, much to the dismay of many younger Ravenclaws sitting around him.

“What do you want Draco?”

Draco smirked. “I want you to stop trying to play teachers pet to my head of house Potter, because whatever you’re playing at, it’s not going to happen,” Draco paused, and then added, “I’ll make sure of it.”

Harry shook his head and then went back to his sandwich. “Don’t turn your back on me Potter!” Draco said angrily, a little louder, before he realized that there were professors eating in the Great hall as well. Harry turned around again, wishing that Ron and Hermione were not late to lunch this day.

“I’m not playing at anything Malfoy. Don’t worry about me.”

Draco sneered again. “You just wait Potter. You won’t have that job for much longer, and things will be back to the way they’re supposed to be.” With this, Draco stood quickly, and hurried out of the Great hall before any of the professors saw that he was at the wrong table. It wasn’t really against the rules to sit at a different house table, just uncommon, unless invited by a friend from that house to do so.

For the rest of the day, Harry had a paranoid feeling about walking around with the graded essays in his bag, and after Transfiguration directly after lunch, Harry went straight down to Snape’s office and dropped the papers off. He didn’t take a new stack to be graded, leaving Snape perplexed.

That night in the library, Harry opened up a book on potions ingredients most commonly found in Britain and Scotland right away, which drew Hermione to ask, “No papers to grade tonight?”

Harry shook his head. “I’m taking a break. I don’t like carrying them around with me all the time because I can’t leave them in the tower.”

“Oh,” Hermione said quietly. Harry took that response to be, so you don’t trust all Gryffindors now? But ignored it.

A few minutes later, Ron ran into the library and straight to the back where they had chosen a table for the night. “What Ron?” Hermione asked, startled.

“Harry, I think you ought to go back to the tower.”

“Why?”

“Just, go.” Trusting their friend, Harry and Hermione picked up the books that belonged to them, and hurried back to the sixth year boy’s dorm. Inside, they found Harry’s things strewn from one end of the room to the other. The drawers from the desk he shared with Ron were broken and lying on the other side of Harry’s bed, and torn papers were everywhere. Harry’s clothes were torn to pieces and some were hanging from the top of his and Neville’s four posters as if somebody had tossed them over their shoulder and they had landed there.

Hermione put her hand over her mouth. “Oh my.”

Harry scowled. “This is why I didn’t take any papers to grade tonight. I knew Draco was going to do something.”

“But he can’t get into our common room,” Ron said quickly.

Harry shook his head, “He can do anything he wants to with the right password. How long do you think a first year would hold out against a nasty sixth year Slytherin who only wanted one password?”

Ron swore loudly, and Hermione ignored him, saying, “We need to tell Professor McGonagall so we can get the password changed.”

“Brilliant,” Harry said angrily, “and what about my clothes and the rest of my homework?”

Just then Dean and Seamus walked in, and both said, “Bloody hell,” at the same time.

“What happened here?” Dean asked.

“Draco,” Harry said, picking up one of his shirts, which wasn’t fantastic to begin with considering it had come from the Dursleys, and was too big for him anyway. He threw it at the only thing still right side up, his trashcan, and plopped down on his messed up bed.

“What the heck was he looking for?” asked Seamus, motioning to Harry and Ron’s smashed desk drawers.

“Just to get me in trouble,” Harry sighed, grabbed up his book bag again, and said, “I’ll be back.”

“Where-” Hermione began to ask, but Harry just repeated that he would be back.

Down in the dungeons, Severus Snape sat back with his feet on his desk, happy that he had just finished grading the last of the papers he needed to, knowing that Potter would finish up the third and fourth year papers in the next couple of days. At first he hadn’t agreed with the Headmaster’s suggestion that he hire the Gryffindor to help him, but now, twenty sickles a week seemed a very small amount to give the boy for the free time the Potions Master had gained. The money was coming from the Hogwarts vault in any case, which happened to be the largest vault in Gringotts.

Severus almost felt that he could fall asleep in his quiet office at that moment, with no worries involving grading or classes, when Potter suddenly strode in, looking more unhappy than he had seen him in the Shadowland just after they had appeared there.

Snape watched as he walked straight over to the shelf where his stack of papers to grade were kept, took the next two years assignments, and roughly put them in his book bag. “Sir,” he said curtly, and moved for the door again.

“Wait Potter,” Snape told him, taking his feet down from his desk now, and his hands from behind his head.

Harry stopped. “Sir?” he asked, trying to put on the politest tone he could, seeing as how he was not angry with Snape, but instead his favorite Slytherin ferret.

Snape eyed him cautiously a moment, as if judging in what kind of dangerous mood Harry had worked himself into. “You didn’t take papers earlier, but now you take two stacks. May I enquire as to why?” he stated calmly.

Harry looked directly into his eyes for a moment, and his anger at Draco ebbed a little bit, but he wasn’t sure why. Instead, it was placed with a feeling of helplessness instead that he didn’t understand, and most desperately wanted to go away. It was a feeling he hadn’t felt since they were stuck in Shadowland, and before that, when he was being cornered by Uncle Vernon, who had had his fists clenched, and teeth bared.

“Not going to tell me?” Snape asked after a few moments of silence. Harry didn’t look up at him again, but shook his head.

Snape watched him for a moment more, but then waved him away. “Off with you then. You have until Friday to finish those, it’s only Wednesday now.”

Harry didn’t wait for him to say anything else, and instead exited quickly.

When he was out of the dungeon, and halfway up to Gryffindor tower, Harry stopped and leaned against a wall to think. What was wrong with him? He was filled with a kind of fire he was so angry with Draco, and then the next second he was thinking about getting the hell beat out of him by his uncle? He wasn’t scared that Snape was going to curse him or anything, not like when he was a first or second year, but some kind of fear filled him now. Harry struggled with it for a moment longer, and then tried to push it aside and away from his thoughts. The sick feeling in his stomach subsided slowly, and then was gone entirely. Harry shook his head, and then continued back to Gryffindor tower.

Although Professor McGonagall agreed to change their tower password the next day, she did not readily accept the answer that the sixth year Gryffindor boys had given her. All that they had told her was that they were absolutely sure that no Gryffindor had done it, and that it had to have been someone from another house, but with Harry’s insistence, none of them mentioned Slytherin, or Draco.

“Do you have any idea what they wanted with your things?” she had asked Harry.

“No maam,” Harry lied. We just came in and it was like this.”

She eyed the five boys that lived in the dorm closely, trying to catch one of them in a lie, but all held her gaze innocently, and she left them to finish cleaning up the mess that Harry left until morning to clean up.

After lunch, Harry and Ron went back to their room and found that the old desk they had shared had been replaced by a new one, exactly the same as the old, only with hash marks marking off something all along one leg of it. Probably some ancient student counting off the days until the end of school, or perhaps something else. Ron, now proficient at the use of the keep out charm he had placed on Harry’s bag earlier that week, now having placed it on Harry’s trunk and his and Harry’s shared wardrobe as well, placed the spell on their new desk, giving only Harry and Ron access to it.

“Sorry about the assignments you had in there that got shredded,” Harry muttered as Ron finished the spell and tested it out, having Dean who had just appeared through the door also try to open a desk drawer.

Satisfied that the spell was complete and would keep intruders out, Ron stood straight and said, “Nah, don’t worry about it mate. They were old assignments anyway, and should have been burned before Hermione had the chance to see the red marks on them. Did you see that Transfiguration essay that I did while you were lost in the woods? It came back looking murdered!”

Harry laughed, and Ron did too, glad he was able to make his friend smile.

Wearing the same clothes from the day before, Harry made his way to the library that night with Ron, where they found Hermione waiting.

Instead of handing Ron and Harry each a book on Potions however, she pulled out several Defense Against the Dark Arts books, and laid them out on the table.

“What’s this?” Ron asked. “We don’t need tutoring on the DA!”

Hermione raised her eyebrows. “Are you complaining about not doing Potions Ron? Because I could go grab those books again.”

“Oh no,” Ron shook his head and held a hand out for the Defense book. “No complaints here. I just wondered was all.”

Hermione shrugged, and said, “We’re about four weeks ahead in Potions, well, five actually,” she paused, and then continued, “and since somebody is out to get Harry,” Ron coughed at this and it sounded just like, ferret face. Harry laughed, but Hermione ignored both of the boys. “Since Draco is out to get Harry, we might as well brush up on some defense spells.”

“I don’t know Hermione,” Ron said, “Maybe Harry needs a Muggle book on camping or something.”

Harry frowned, remembering feeling pretty useless while he and Snape were in the Shadowland, but here Hermione pulled another book out too, and handed that to Harry.

“What?” Harry asked, a little affronted, “I’m not that useless… I can make fires and stuff… you know.”

“Stick sticks up trolls noses,” Ron added.

“Yeah,” Harry said, nodding, “throw rocks at girls…”

Hermione raised her eyebrows, and pushed the book toward Harry further.

Ron laughed as Harry picked up the book and thumbed threw it, stopping on a page about how to erect a shelter of sticks and enormous fern leaves. “Fred and George always told me that girls were yucky and I should throw rocks at them any chance I got,” Ron said, leaning over to see what was on the page Harry had stopped on.

Hermione scoffed. “Maybe that’s why it took you so long to ask me out. I always thought you hated me, throwing rocks at me in the courtyard.”

“Girls,” Ron said under his breath, going back to the defense book he had been looking at before.

The three of them finished up early that night, and made it back to Gryffindor tower before the other sixth year boys were asleep. Waiting for Harry was a small pile of clothes folded neatly on the foot of his bed. There were four t-shirts, a pair of jeans and a pair of khaki green pants, along with the one belt of Harry’s that hadn’t been destroyed by Draco.

“What’s this?” Harry asked the other three guys, who were sitting on the floor playing some kind of Muggle board game Dean had brought to school after summer holiday.

They looked up at him and Ron, and Neville said, “Well, we figured that you needed more than one outfit for the rest of the year, so we pulled out the clothes we had that looked like they might fit you.

“Oh yeah!” Ron said, as if he had forgotten, “Duh!” He hurried to the trunk at the end of his bed, and began tossing things about. Finally he pulled out two more shirts that didn’t look half bad, and handed them to Harry. “These one’s fit me last year, but now they’re too small. I was going to try a spell to make them larger, but I forgot about them until now.”

One off them was a red shirt with a white stripe across the chest, and the other a violent orange Chudley Cannons shirt with flying figures that moved on it in the same fashion that all wizard photos did.

Harry grinned and looked around at his friends. “Are you guys sure it’s ok for me to wear this stuff… I mean, you guys still have clothes to wear, right?”

They all nodded, and Seamus said, “The pants came from Dean, because he’s about your height, and the shirts came from me and Neville, aside from the one’s Ron’s lending you.”

Harry paused, feeling suddenly overwhelmed by the good friends that he had made, and their gesture towards him. “Thanks you guys,” he told them. The same sickly feeling that had come to him the night before, when he had looked into Professor Snape’s eyes came to him again, and he worked furiously to push it away from himself so that his friends wouldn’t see. They turned away however, seeing that he was struggling with the task.

“Don’t mention it Harry,” Dean told him.

Seamus looked up and said, “Just one thing though mate.”

Harry looked over at him. “Yeah?”

Seamus looked at Dean and Neville, and said, “You have to find your own underwear.” All of the boys laughed, and the new happy feeling replaced the old one that had worked so hard to try to take hold of him only moments before.

Harry nodded, and set his bag down by the side of his repaired bed. They had managed to mend the sheets and blankets, as they weren’t as shredded as the rest of his clothes had been.

Quickly Harry changed into some of the new borrowed clothes, which were all thankfully clean. He put on the khaki colored pants, which fit pretty well if he used a belt, and Ron’s old red shirt with a white stripe. It also fit well, seeing as how Harry and Ron had both grown over the summer, and Harry was as big this year, as Ron was last year.

After he had changed, Harry sat at the new desk to grade the third and fourth year papers, as tomorrow was Friday, and he needed to hand them in to Professor Snape. It took him two and a half hours, as these essays were a little more detailed than the first and second year ones, and also since Harry didn’t feel rushed, and didn’t want to rush through the grading as he had wanted to earlier in the week. Something made him want to stop and take his time now, though he wasn’t sure what. By the time he was done, the others had finished their game and crawled into bed, and the only one still awake was Neville, who was reading some kind of book about Herbs, sitting on the floor with his back against his four-poster.

Harry used a charm to straighten out the papers he had graded, seeing as how they got a bit crumpled when he had stuffed them into his bag in Snape’s office the day before, and carefully placed them in a hard Muggle folder Hermione had loaned him, and then put them back in his bag so that they would be protected by the keep out charm while he slept. Then he turned to look at Neville, and asked quietly, “What are you reading Neville?”

Neville looked up. “Herbs and their uses in obscure potions,” he told him.

Harry frowned a little bit. “Interesting reading?” he asked him.

Neville shrugged. He hesitated, and then said quietly still, “I’m… just trying to keep up with you and Ron and Hermione… I… you guys do a lot of studying about potions in the library.”

Harry didn’t understand. “You’re trying to keep up with us? You actually want to study potions?”

Neville nodded. “I don’t like it when Snape makes fun of me because I don’t know the answers in class.”

Harry frowned again, finally understanding. Where he and Ron were only studying to appease Hermione, Neville actually wanted the help. Although, that wasn’t quite right, Harry thought after another moment. He was starting to enjoy sitting with Ron and Hermione and just studying for the fun of it after their other schoolwork was done. And he was also enjoying getting exemplary grades in potions. The only other subject he had ever done that well in was Defense Against the Dark Arts, and once in primary school before Hogwarts, he had brought home a test with an A+ in math. He frowned as he remembered that his aunt and uncle didn’t even care about the A. They only cared that their wonderful Dudley had gotten a C in reading, and bought him a new video game for the good grades.

Harry looked back up at Neville, the frown gone. “You don’t have to mirror our studying Neville, you can sit in with us when we study Potions.”

“Really?” he asked, a little excited, “Hermione and Ron won’t mind?” Harry shook his head.

“No. Hermione likes teaching I think, and mostly me and Ron just joke around anyway when we’re not reading.”

Neville smiled again. “Thanks Harry, that means a lot to me.”

Harry nodded as he stood from the desk chair and pulled back the covers on his bed. “No problem. We meet in the library about six each night. Sometimes Hermione is in there sooner though. I’d just watch for when she leaves the dinner table.”

Hermione gave Harry and Ron permission to skip out on studying that night in the library so that she could try to catch Neville up to where they were.

“With any luck,” Ron told Harry on their way to Transfiguration Friday afternoon, “she’ll take the next week or so to catch him up, and then we can have a week off!”

Harry shrugged. “We could definitely use the extra time for Quidditch practice.”

“Aww,” Ron said in a joking groan, “but I like being lazy.”

Harry shook his head. “I haven’t had time to be lazy since right before summer holiday last year, and that wasn’t a very good time to be lazy anyway.”

Ron nodded solemnly and gave a sideways glance over to Harry. Harry hadn’t really talked about Sirius’ death at all since it had happened. Ron was so silent as they walked through the corridor, that Harry had to look over and make sure he was still there.

“What?” Harry asked him a little defensively.

Ron looked ahead of him suddenly, and said, “Nothing. Nothing at all mate.”

Harry looked away from Ron and toward where they were walking again. The known familiar sickly feeling was coming upon him, and he didn’t want to sit through the rest of his classes that day confused and hurt. He hadn’t thought about Sirius for quite a while now. He had avoided it altogether in fact. He had come to avoid thinking about Snape just the same way that he had been avoiding thinking about Sirius death now, and this confused him too. Harry wanted to hit himself or stomp on his foot or something, because he didn’t understand, and now he was thinking about both Sirius and Snape. Just a little piece of him felt as if he was going to go crazy.

From next to him, Ron was giving Harry another sideways glance… a very worried one as they entered the Transfiguration classroom, and took their usual seats in the middle of the class. Ron’s look wasn’t for the fear of Harry losing his sanity, only for the fear that his friend wasn’t going to be able to hold it together for much longer. Harry would never know, but Hermione and Ron had spent long hours speaking over the summer about how defeated Harry had seemed since Sirius had died. Sirius was the closest thing Harry had ever had to a dad.

“Stop looking at me Ron,” Harry said quietly, and without any anger in his voice, staring up at the blackboard as Professor McGonagall walked in.

Ron looked away, and said quietly, “Sorry.”

After dinner that night, with free time to spend as he pleased since he didn’t have to study, and had all of his work done for his other classes, Harry headed down to the dungeons to deliver the rest of the graded papers. On his way down he thought about just going to bed early when he got back to Gryffindor tower, but discarded the notion as boring. Instead he decided that he might challenge Ron to a game of Wizards Chess, or maybe even sneak out late at night for a duel. It had been some time since he and Ron had snuck out late at night to explore the castle or find something to do.

Professor Snape’s office door was closed when Harry finally made it there, so he knocked, and the Professor’s voice came from inside, “Come.”

Harry pushed the heavy door open, and set his bag down on the visitors chair to pull out the graded papers. “Hello sir,” Harry said, almost feeling in a good mood at the prospect of having free time to get into mischief. Severus looked up at this, a little surprised. Harry had said Hello and sir to him, in an almost amiable way, and both words together. He had never done this before. In fact, Snape knew that whenever Harry called him sir, it was usually a forced formality, and he never extended him the courtesy of saying hello.

After a moment’s thought, Snape said, “Hello Mr. Potter.”

Harry paused halfway through pulling out the graded papers, and looked up. That’s new, he thought to himself. He hadn’t even noticed that he had said hello, it had just slipped out, but he did notice when Snape said it. He hadn’t said it in cruel way either, as if to sting, as most of his comments were meant to do. Harry handed Snape the papers when he remembered that that’s what he had come to do, and he accepted them. “Thank you Mr. Potter,” he said, genuinely grateful that he had help with grading the essays. Potions and Transfiguration weren’t like most of the other classes there. Most classes had an essay due every few weeks, but Potions and Transfiguration were the exceptions to the rule, and usually had one a week due, though often times shorter than essays for other classes.

Harry latched his bag closed again, and stood straight to leave, but Snape stopped him with a question. Harry wondered at that moment, if he would ever be able to just pick up the papers and leave without being stopped by a question or comment from the Professor.

“You managed to procure new clothes?” Snape asked him.

Harry frowned, confused. How did he know what had happened? He nodded. “My friends loaned me their old clothes that fit… a couple shirts and pairs of pants…” he trailed away, and then added as an afterthought he meant to keep to himself, but slipped out anyway, “this stuff’s better than the hand-me-downs I had before.”

“From your relatives?” Snape was quick with another question. Harry looked up at him again, suddenly feeling the need to escape before the feeling that was starting to scare him gripped him again.

But the feeling hadn’t come yet, and so he nodded, and said, “My cousin is huge and I always got his old stuff.”

Snape had noticed that the boy had always worn rather old looking and worn clothes, that were usually too big for him. At first Snape had only thought that he was trying to mirror the Muggle fashion that young Muggle males usually chose to take part in, but now he realized that he had been mistaken.

Harry was giving his shoes a close looking over as he waited for Snape to say something else, and noticing this, the Professor said, “Professor McGonagall informed the headmaster, myself, and the other two heads of house that someone, whom her sixth year boys swore was not from their own house, had gotten a hold of their house password, and used it to come in and ransack the sixth year boys dormitory. She also informed us that our dear little resident hero’s things had been torn to shreds, and his furniture broken to bits.”

Harry looked up. “She said that?” Harry couldn’t keep the hurt out of his voice at being called their resident little hero.

Snape eyed him cautiously, a little startled that he had rattled Harry so easily, as it had not been his intention.

The long silence as Snape thought becoming uncomfortable for Harry, Harry moved for the door. Snape realized he was going though, and said, “Wait a moment.” Frustrated with always being held back from leaving, Harry stopped again and tried to hold his tongue as the Professor opened a desk drawer and pulled out a small money pouch with the Hogwarts symbol on it similar to the plain leather one that Harry carried his money in.

“There is still the matter of your pay. The headmaster has allowed me to pay what I think you have earned from the Hogwarts account.” Snape handed the money pouch over to Harry, who accepted and stuffed it into his pocket, feeling a more desperate urge to leave now.

“Thank you sir,” he said quietly. He moved for the door, and Snape didn’t stop him this time.

Back in the common room, Harry dropped his bag and pulled the money pouch from his pocket. It felt heavy. Curious as to how much he had earned, the wages never having been discussed previously, Harry opened the pouch, and dumped one gold Galleon and seventeen silver Sickles onto his bed. “Wow,” Harry said, honestly surprised. He hadn’t expected that much. Maybe twenty sickles at most, but a Galleon and seventeen Sickles?

Harry thought ahead to the next Hogsmead trip, which was in three weeks. If he made this much every week, he was going to have enough money to buy some new clothes for himself, and some gifts for his friends, seeing as how they had loaned him their clothes, and seeing as how Hermione was helping him earn an O in Potions. Gifts first, he thought to himself though… they deserve gifts before I get new clothes.

Saturday and Sunday, Harry worked their Quidditch team hard again, seeing as how they didn’t practice any of the other days that week, and this was still only their third week of school, and he wanted to give plenty of chance for their new players to practice. Harry still remembered the Bludger that their new six foot tall Beater Dane had accidentally sent his way the week before, which had given him a nasty bruise on his back that lasted all week. To Harry though, it only seemed that his team was getting worse. Ginny, who was normally a fantastic Chaser, kept sending the Quaffle towards other player’s heads, and when the Quaffle did make it’s way towards a goal post, Ron would stop it from making its way through the hoop, but send it towards Harry instead, no matter where Harry was on the field. Dane and their other Beater Sam also kept sending both Bludgers towards Harry, so instead of getting a chance to direct his team, or look for the Snitch, Harry found himself dodging flying objects ever minute or so.

Finally an hour into it on Saturday, Harry called a time out, and ordered all players and Quidditch balls onto the ground.

Ron and one of their chasers Angelina wrestled the Bludgers into a beat up old box they kept them in, and then stood, panting and out of breath as Harry stood with his hands on is hips.

“What, do you guys really hate me or something?” he asked them, a little miffed, throwing his hands into the air, not so much for dramatic effect, but more because of frustration.

Most of the players looked at the ground. Ron shrugged, and said, “Hey, at least you’re getting good at dodging.

“Well you guys can kill yourselves up there if you want to. I’d prefer not seeing as how I’ve kind of gotten to like you all, but I’m taking a break and going into the locker room to get something to drink and make sure I’ve still got all of my limbs.”

Harry tossed the whistle to Ron, and said, “Take them up and work on aim. I’ll be back in ten minutes. Try not to die while you’re in charge.”

On his way to the Gryffindor locker room, Harry heard Ron telling the other players off loudly for having such bad aim that their Captain didn’t think it safe to be on the field with them. A moment later, he heard the whistle blow, and knew that his players had gone airborne again. Harry shook his head. If he had been a spectator, and not the one that every single ball was aimed at, he probably would have thought it funny.

Once in the locker room, Harry wiped the sweat off his face with a clean towel with the Gryffindor lion on it, and sat down on one of the benches. He let his head fall back against the wall, and wondered what he was doing wrong with his team. They hadn’t been doing that badly the week before. As he thought about it, he looked around the room, and his bag caught his eye. One edge of it was blackened, as if it had fallen into a fireplace.

Curious, he got up and walked over to it, kneeling beside it when he got there. It was a burn mark for sure, he decided. It looked as if it had been hit with some kind of curse or something. And just as when Ron had tried to stab the bag with a knife before, and it had left a small scratch on the outside, Harry noticed that the other side of the bag now contained several small scratches.

“What the heck?” he asked himself quietly. But the answer came to him almost immediately. Draco. First he tried to stab the bag open, and then he had probably tried to blast it open with a blasting curse. Harry shook his head. Why did Malfoy want him to lose his job so badly? It was only a job, wasn’t it? Harry frowned at himself a moment though, and decided that it had become more than that to him even. He supposed that he had spent so much time guarding the papers he was grading all week, and then had lost so much of his clothes and other things because of it, that the job somehow meant more to him. Heck, he was even getting tutoring that he didn’t need from Hermione just so his friend wouldn’t feel put out because of it.

Harry shook his head again. It was only grading papers, he told himself. What was the big deal to Draco?

He tossed his bag aside, and walked back out of the locker room and onto the pitch with his broom. Up in the air, his team was performing perfectly. Both the Bludgers and the Quaffle were going exactly where they were supposed to be going. Harry realized then, that Draco must have had somebody, or multiple somebody’s trying to distract him while he snuck into the locker room and looked for the bag. He imagined that at least, Draco probably got a good laugh out of Harry’s plight up in the air, trying to avoid being seriously injured.

Harry jumped back onto his broom, and went up to take the whistle from Ron, and explain what had happened, as well as apologize.

The next two weeks flew by in a fit of sunny weather as summer ended, followed by several cold, windy, rainy nights as fall was determined to make it’s presence known.

By now Hermione had found several other books for Harry to read on both Muggle and Wizard survival (something none of them had expected to find a single book on). The Muggle survival books contained more about camping and starting fires with no matches or wand, and the wizard survival portion of the stack consisted of certain tree roots and barks, as well as certain berries and other plants that you could cook in a fire that would substitute for food, and would also boost your energy or heal minor cuts and scrapes. Harry found the salve that Snape had made in the Shadowland towards the middle of one of the books, and made sure to memorize its ingredients and how it was made. Neville also made it a point to meet them in the library every night. While Hermione hadn’t gotten him caught up to where Harry and Ron were yet, he was definitely doing better on his Potion’s essays, and was now turning in twice the amount of work he had been, and getting twice as good a grade.

In the last couple of weeks, the Gryffindor Quidditch team met no more magical resistance when they played, but Harry also noticed that Draco had now taken to following him around in the halls, most especially any time he went down to the dungeons to pick up or drop off papers. This annoyed Harry at first, Draco following him around, scowling at him all the time, but soon Harry had decided to have a little bit of fun with it, leading Draco in circles until he tired of Harry’s game, and left him alone. The first time Harry had done this, making several circuits around the Transfiguration corridor, Draco didn’t seem to understand, but the second time, Draco got angry quickly, and decided that it wasn’t worth bothering Harry, if he was going to be bothered himself, even in such a round about way.

Harry was proud of himself for making Draco leave him alone, but found himself sorely displeased to find out the next day that he was followed not by Draco, but be five or six Slytherins everywhere he went.

“What’s this about?” Ron asked him as he stomped on Crabbe’s hand at lunch as he tried to grab Harry’s bag from under the bench as he walked by.

Harry shook his head. “At first I just thought Draco was following me around to tick me off, but now I know he was just doing it to see what my schedule was. Everywhere I turn a new group of Slytherins takes over following me!”

Ron cursed, and Hermione shook her head in disgust. “Harry, one of these times they are going to get your bag and even though they can’t get in, they’re still going to have the papers you need to grade.”

Harry frowned. “What am I supposed to do? Grade down in the dungeon?” Harry didn’t like that thought at all. So far he had managed to avoid Professor Snape fairly well with the exception of the minute and a half he saw him each day to pick up or deliver graded papers. A minute and a half was a lot better than hours on end, though at least they were being civil to each other now, he told himself quietly.

As the day wore on however, the prospect of grading papers in the dungeons was seeming better and better to the alternative. Midway through Transfiguration class, Harry reached down to get another bottle of ink from his bag, and found it missing. He spotted it on the other side of the class under Ken Montague’s desk, and shook his head. On the way out of class, Harry hurried over and picked his bag up to no protest of Ken, who only glared as Harry walked by. “Thanks for keeping this safe for me,” he commented quietly as he passed.

Out on the grounds for Care of Magical Creatures class with Hagrid, the Slytherins they had class with seized every opportunity to nick the bag whenever Harry wasn’t looking because he was trying to care for his baby Clabbert, which was a hairless creature that looked something like a monkey. Twice Ron had to leap on the bag to keep it from being pulled away by magic, and once Hermione uttered a quiet curse that sent Pansy Parkinson to the hospital wing with great boils in a place she refused to show Hagrid or any other class member.

“This is getting ridiculous,” Harry said to himself directly after a massive seventh year Slytherin he only knew as Hans shoved into Harry in the hallway on his way to dinner, and tried to forcefully remove the bag from his shoulder. Harry had already had his wand out though and spoke a quick jinx on Hans that bound his arms to his side, and made his feet move in a quick jig. The seventh year Slytherin looked very odd, dancing about, but not moving his arms.

“Nice Jinx Harry,” Seamus told him as he passed by and went into the Great hall. Harry leaned against the wall and let his head fall back against it. Suddenly not feeling hungry anymore, he decided to seize the opportunity to dash up to the Library, where he felt that he might escape the Slytherins for just long enough to complete grading the second year papers.

Inside the library, Harry peered around corners and bookshelves cautiously, wary for anybody that might be waiting for him, or for any Slytherins that might have tried to follow him. Finding nobody, Harry chose a secluded dark corner right near the forbidden section of the Library, hoping that nobody would find him there. Harry hadn’t even had a chance to undo the buckle on his bag though, before a soft voice met his ears.

“Harry?”

Harry spun around, only to find Cho, a seventh year Ravenclaw behind him, smiling brightly. Harry and Cho had dated in Harry’s fifth year, although it hadn’t turned out very well, and had ended with Cho running in tears from Madam Pudifoots café in Hogsmead.

Relieved that it wasn’t a Slytherin trying to snatch his bag, Harry relaxed a little, and said, “Oh, hi Cho.”

Cho motioned with her hand to the seat next to Harry on the bench, as if asking if it were ok for her to take a seat, and Harry nodded, “Oh, go ahead, I’m here alone.” Cho’s smile widened as she gracefully took the seat next to Harry. Harry hadn’t thought about Cho in quite a while, but now that she was there, he was taking notice of how beautiful she was again.

“So-” Harry started, “how, how was your summer? I mean, mine wasn’t-” but before he could stammer on anymore, Cho had moved in, and had Harry in a passionate kiss. Harry was surprised, but not displeased, and did nothing to stop her. After a moment, Cho pulled back, leaving Harry wondering if he had suddenly become a bad kisser or something to make her stop.

Cho looked around, and said, “So, you have a new job I heard?”

Harry looked around to where she had looked, directly at the empty table in front of him, and then at his bag. Harry nodded, “Sure, I-” he paused, wondering what this was about again. He was sure that the Slytherins hadn’t made her do this, but he wasn’t exactly sure what her motives were for suddenly taking an interest in Harry again.

“I have NEWT Potions this year with Professor Snape,” she said randomly, “I guess you’ve seen my essays then?”

Harry frowned, not liking where this was going. Just to see where it would end up, he replied, “Oh yeah, I get to grade those too. Professor Snape said I was smart enough to grade first through seventh year.”

Cho leaned in to him a little further, and put her head on Harry’s shoulder. “It’s good to know that someone capable is grading our papers for once-” Harry suddenly stood up, almost letting Cho topple to the floor.

“What are you getting at Cho?” he asked her directly, not caring if her feelings got hurt.

Cho was taken aback. “I only, I just, thought you might be able, to help?” She had lost her confidence in the statement by the end, until she was only talking in a feeble whisper.

Harry looked away. “I don’t grade sixth or seventh year papers Cho,” Harry told her.

Cho looked up at him and sat back, shocked that Harry had deceived her. “You lied?” she asked a little angrily.

“Yeah, that’s right, just like you lied and played with my emotions to see if I would cheat for you and grade you unfairly.” With this Harry didn’t give her time to respond, and instead grabbed up his bag and stormed away. What Cho had done was five times as worse as what Draco was trying to do by getting his bag. Cho was trying to get his heart, and then use it against him.

Careful to avoid the corridor with the portal to Shadowland when he was in this much of a temper, Harry made the dungeons in five minutes time. Although the Potions Master’s door was open, Harry didn’t knock as he usually did to announce his presence, and instead, angrily strode in and plopped down in the visitor’s chair without a word, dropping his bag beside him, the only place he knew it would be safe.

Snape watched all of this curiously, wondering what had gotten they boy in so much of a temper, and what would possess him to come to him, instead of one of his friends, or even his own head of house.

“Something the matter Mr. Potter?” Snape asked him cautiously when Harry was still musing over his thoughts a minute later, and had still not said anything.

Harry’s head snapped up, and his eyes met the Professors. Why did he care? Then Harry remembered that he was in his office.

Harry looked away, the anger ebbing from him again all too quickly.

The look that Harry had gotten in his eyes just before he had looked down startled the Potions Master. It was one of hurt and confusion. A look he had never seen Harry wear, not even the night that he had reappeared with the body of Cedric at the end of the Tri-Wizard Tournament.

“Harry?” the Professor prompted, startling himself when he used the boy’s first name.

Harry still didn’t look up. He was trying to master his emotions and failing miserably. He didn’t understand how one person could make a persons anger go away so quickly, and bring back so many unhappy memories at the same time. Dumbledore had a way about him to do that to Harry, whether he meant to or not, but why was Snape able to? Even though Harry’s thoughts were lead back to all the times he’d been treated unfairly or cruelly by all of the Slytherins, or his uncle, or even Snape, he felt a small bit of calm come over him.

“I’m sorry Professor,” Harry said, trying to get up and leave.

As always, Snape stopped him though. “Wait Potter.” With a flick of his wand, his office door was closed, and Harry plopped back down into the seat, unhappy, and hoping that he wasn’t going to feel trapped now that the door was closed. After a moment, no such feelings came to him, so Harry relaxed a little, and was content to sit there so long as he didn’t have to say anything.

“Now,” Snape said, Harry still not looking up at him again, “you are the one who came storming into my office, remember? This leads me to believe that something must be either horribly wrong with the world, and you are now considering me worthy to talk to, or, something is still horribly wrong with the world, and you now consider me the only option. Which is it?”

Harry shook his head, unwilling to answer, as he wasn’t sure of the answer himself. “I don’t know sir,” he told him quietly, examining the edge of the desk in front of him instead of looking all the way up to meet the Professor’s eyes again.

Snape sat back and thought a moment, and then asked, “Do you have the second year papers graded yet?”

Harry shook his head, and the Professor said, “Do so now then.”

Without hesitating, Harry pulled the papers out of his bag, and set them on the desk along with his quill and some blue ink. Grading in the Professor’s office was much better than talking to him and telling him all of the rotten things the Slytherins, and then Cho, had done to him that week.

Severus sat back to watch him grade, not having any grading to do himself. In fact, a few moments more and he would have left and gone to his private study if Potter had not come storming in. Looking around for something to busy himself with instead of dwelling on the boy who would not talk, Snape espied the Wizard Wilderness survival book he was in the middle of reading, and picked it up.

A half-hour later Harry finished the papers, and finally looked up, his mind off of Cho and Draco. Across the desk Harry noticed the book that he was reading. Before he could stop himself, Harry blurted out, “Hey! I haven’t seen that one yet! No wonder Hermione hasn’t been able to find it!”

Snape looked at Harry over the top of the book before lowering it. “Explain,” Severus told him, watching him curiously, as the boy’s mood had changed over the course of 45 minutes from distressed and angry, to almost amiable again.

Harry pointed to the book and said, “Ron and I have been studying every night in the Library with Hermione, and a week ago she gave us a break and brought out some Muggle and Wizard survival books for us to look at. That’s the only one she said that she knew the Library had, but she couldn’t find.”

Snape looked back down at the book he was holding. “You have also been reading survival books?”

Harry shrugged and looked down at the papers he had just finished grading for a moment. “We thought it might be good to know, just in case.”

Snape nodded. “My thoughts were also lead to that conclusion,” he said plainly. There was a moment of silence, before Snape asked, “What were you studying before that?”

Harry looked up again, and said reluctantly, “Potions.”

Snape raised a brow, but before he could say anything, Harry rambled on, “Hermione was put out that I got offered this job, and Ron thought that maybe it was because she was used to being the smartest one, even though she’s usually the reason me and Ron pass most of our classes, because she’s the one who looks over our papers before we turn them in. So, so to get her to talk to me again, I asked her to tutor me because you said you were going to grade me twice as hard, and Ron agreed to it too to make her feel useful again.”

There was another pause as Snape considered this as being the reason that the boy and his friends were now getting exemplary grades in Potions. “How far ahead of the lessons are you?” Snape finally asked him.

Harry shrugged. “Hermione reckons six weeks, but she’s had us reading texts that have potions and ingredients we’re not even going to study this year.”

“And you three have been doing this in your spare time?”

Harry nodded, “Us and Neville wanted extra help, so we told him he could sit in… we just study a couple of hours a night in the Library after we finish our other homework…” Harry trailed away, unsure if he was in trouble or not, though he couldn’t figure out why he would be. Suddenly the possibility of being in trouble by Snape was a lot worse than it had used to be however, not because of punishment, but because suddenly Harry felt the urge not to disappoint the man.

Snape nodded, and then looked down at his watch. “It is only seven in the evening. If you wish to grade the third year papers, you may stay and do so, but you do not have to. You are free as always to take them and grade them where you wish.”

Harry frowned. He didn’t want to worry about the Slytherins grabbing his bag everywhere he went for another week, and he would have to if he carried the assignments around with him.

After another moment’s thought, Harry looked up and asked, “Can I come back and grade them tomorrow night sir?”

Snape nodded after a moment, and then said, “Yes, but, is there a reason why you now wish to grade them here?”

Harry decided that he may as well know, and launched into the story about how people (although he did not mention the Slytherins) had been trying to grab his bag for the last few weeks, and how it was students who had been looking for the papers that had wrecked all of his clothes and his and Ron’s furniture in their dorm. He skipped the part about Cho however, as he didn’t think he could even handle thinking about it at the moment.

Snape thought a moment, and then told him, “Perhaps it is better that you grade the papers here then,” he paused, and then continued, “I suggest that if you want to get these students to leave you alone, that you remove whatever spell you have placed on your bag, and let somebody take it. It may prompt them to stop following you when they find that you are no longer carrying the papers with you. Also, you may want to make it known, that you do not grade papers above fourth year.”

Harry’s shoulders slumped a little, and he thought of telling him that he had already told Cho about that, but thought better of it, and said, “Yes sir. Thanks for the idea sir.”

With that Harry stood, and wondered if Snape would stop him. He did not, so Harry moved for the door, and said, “Tomorrow night sir.”

Snape nodded, and Harry left.

That night, Harry had strange dreams. Cho was at the foot of Harry’s bed in his aunt and uncle’s house in Little Whinging, standing undressed, and whispering something that Harry couldn’t hear. Harry told her to go away, and she vanished instantly, although the whispering still remained. In a desperate attempt to get the whispering to stop so that he could sleep in peace, the dream Harry rose from his bed, and began searching his room for the source of it. On his desk, he found a book that was entitled, “Shadowland: The Beginning to All Things.” When he opened it, the whispering grew louder and more clear so that Harry could hear it in his dark room. “I am coming Harry Potter, as an icy wind that cuts through the trees at night, a stalker in the dark, I am coming, and you will fall to the Dark Lord.”

The dream Harry tried to step back from his desk in Little Whinging to escape the horrible whisper, but still it only grew louder, “I am coming, I am coming, and you will fall to the Dark Lord!”

Harry awoke and sat straight up in his four-poster, sweat pouring down his face. He looked around him, and felt comforted by seeing the familiar room at Hogwarts. His watch read 4:30. Harry flopped back down onto his bed, and tried to sleep again, finding that he was unable to until it was almost time to get up for breakfast.

That day Harry did as the Professor had suggested. He removed the spell from his bag, and made sure there wasn’t anything valuable in there that he couldn’t afford to replace. When a timid third year Slytherin girl made an attempt to grab his bag at lunch that morning, Harry grabbed Ron before he could stomp on her hand, and instead looked down at her as she took it, and said, “Tell Draco that I am only grading papers in Professor Snape’s office now, and will no longer be carrying them around with me. Tell him also, that I do not grade papers above fourth year.”

The girl ran off directly after Harry had finished speaking, and Ron gave him an odd look.

“Don’t worry about it,” Harry told him.

Up at the staff table, Severus Snape watched the tired looking Harry stop his friend from crushing one of his younger students, and was thankful that he wouldn’t have to walk down to their table and chastise him. Somehow he just didn’t think that it would make his Teachers Aid feel any more inclined to do better work if he was harsh on his best friend.

That night Harry wandered down to the dungeons in good spirits. His books strapped together by an old belt of Ron’s, seeing as how Harry no longer had a bag now, Harry took the steps two at a time down to the bottom most part of the school. He passed several Slytherins on the way to Snape’s office, and all of them sneered when he only gave them a wide smile.

When he made Snape’s office, Harry tried to wipe the smile from his face, and mostly succeeded before he knocked on the Professor’s door.

“Come,” came the tired voice of the Potions master. Harry pushed the door open and entered, dropping his books on the floor next to the visitor’s chair. Snape was reading something from a mangy book that Harry didn’t recognize, and gave no notice of Harry’s presence other than the original invite to enter.

Harry didn’t care though. He had been mostly Slytherin free for the day, with the exception of the sneer Draco had given him on his way out of the Great Hall that morning. Harry took the next two stacks of papers he was to grade, and settled himself into the visitor’s chair in front of Snape’s desk. He was halfway through the first stack when a folded note appeared between two essays. Harry frowned thinking that a student had accidentally turned in a note to the professor that was meant for a friend. Curious, he unfolded it and almost choked. In ink that nearly looked like blood was written, “I’m coming for you Mr. Potter. You will die in your sleep.” Harry crumpled the note and threw it across the room. Snape looked up from his book and asked, “Problem Mr. Potter?”

Harry shook his head violently, but started when an icy hand touched his shoulder from behind. Harry spun to see the Dark Lord smiling pleasantly down at him. “I am coming,” he said softly, still smiling. “I am coming.” Voldemort had said it in a reassuring way, as if it was supposed to make Harry feel better. Harry looked to Snape for help, but he was reading his book again, seemingly unaware of the Dark Lord standing in his office, tormenting his teacher’s aide.

Harry began to panic. The hand on his shoulder gripped him harder, and shook him. There was no escape!

“Harry!”

Harry sat straight upright, sweat pouring off of him. Ron and the other sixth year boys jumped back, and stood warily by the side of Harry’s four-poster. Ron pulled his hand back cautiously. It had clearly been his hand, and not Voldemort’s that had gripped Harry’s shoulder, and made him panic in the dream.

Harry looked around for a moment, as if to reassure himself that it had only been a dream, and that Voldemort was not there. The other boys watched him carefully, as if he were a time bomb ready to go off in an instant.

“Ok Harry?”

Harry’s head jerked to the right to see who had spoken to him. It was Neville. “What?” he asked, wiping sweat from his face with his sleeve.

Neville looked to Ron for help.

“You were dreaming again mate,” Ron said quietly, avoiding Harry’s eyes. Harry nodded, “Yeah… yeah, it was just a dream.” He felt as if he needed to tell himself this over and over to make it true. It was just a dream. Just a dream.

Ron looked at the floor, and then leaned in close to Dean, Seamus, and Neville so that only they could hear. “It’s all right. Go back to bed.”

“Are you sure?” Dean asked.

Ron nodded, and waved them off, thus volunteering himself to take care of their friend by himself. This was the fourth night in row that Harry had been having nightmares in which Voldemort had vowed to come and kill him. Each night Voldemort had decided to kill Harry in a new way. The night before Harry was playing Quidditch in his dream when Madam Hooch had blown her whistle signaling a fowl and motioning Harry and his team to the ground. When Harry had landed, he found that it was Voldemort holding the whistle however. Each of Voldemort’s messages started out the same. “I’m coming for you.” Harry shook his head, tired of thinking of it, and noticed now that Ron was still standing by his bed, looking helpless. The other boys watched curiously from their own beds, and Harry wiped the sweat from his face again.

“Come on,” Ron said quietly. Ron slipped his sneakers on without socks, and donned his robe. Harry didn’t bother with either, but changed completely out of his sweat soaked clothes in to fresh ones, and put his tennis shoes and cloak on, before following Ron out of the dorm and down the stairs to the common room.

Ron seemed content to stop in the common room, but Harry made for the exit to the rest of the castle, wand in hand.

“Where are you going?” Ron asked half-heartedly, unwilling to keep his friend there if he felt the need to leave the confines of the tower.

Harry turned to him. “I don’t know. I just… I can’t be here.”

Ron’s shoulders slumped. Harry turned to go, but Ron pulled him back with, “You were nearly screaming this time.”

Harry looked down to his worn wand, and suddenly noticed that it needed a good polish. It didn’t surprise him that he had been shouting. He was horrified. Anger welled in him a little bit that Snape hadn’t helped him in his dream, but then he realized that it was only a dream.

“What did I say?” Harry was curious as to how much of the dream he had revealed in his sleep.

When Ron didn’t say anything, Harry turned around to make sure he was still there. Ron looked up from the floor, and said quietly, “He’s going to kill me.” Ron paused, and Harry thought, that wasn’t so bad to reveal, but then Ron continued, “Dad, why won’t you help me?”

Harry paled noticeably enough that Ron thought he might pass out and stepped forward just to make sure he would catch him if he fell, so he wouldn’t crack his head open on the table next to him.

Harry didn’t pass out, but he did sink into a chair, more defeated than Ron had ever seen him. “Harry?” he asked.

Harry didn’t answer, only looked straight ahead. What was wrong with him? He hadn’t dreamt of his dad. Maybe Ron has misheard him. Maybe James Potter had been in his dream, and he just didn’t remember.

“Harry?” Ron asked again. Harry looked up and shook his head.

“It’s nothing Ron, go back to bed.”

Ron was torn. He couldn’t leave Harry there like that.

There was an awkward moment of silence before Ron finally said, “Harry, if you keep having these dreams, Hermione said she’s going to tell McGonagall.”

Harry’s head snapped up. “Hermione’s going to tell her or you are?”

Ron threw his hand up into the air. “Harry what are we supposed to do? Just lay there and listen to you shout all night? You’re my best friend!”

Harry nodded. “I am. And if you’re mine, you wouldn’t threaten to tell McGonagall.” With this Harry turned, unsure why he was being so difficult with Ron, and opened the portrait hole to exit. From behind him he heard Ron shout, “You live in a room with four other guys! I’m not the only one who hears you all night!” Harry didn’t turn around again though, and kept moving towards the rest of the castle.

Once he was outside of the common room, he realized that he had no place to go. The castle was quiet, and the lack of sound made Harry feel cold and empty all of a sudden. A wave of sickness passed over him as he moved off toward another floor. Voldemort could cause nightmares. Harry was fine with that. He always knew that dear old Voldie was going to try to come and get him again someday… that was prophesy. But shouting out to help for his dad in the middle of the night sent chills up and down Harry’s spine.

Before he could stop himself, Harry reached up and hit himself on the head with a solid fist, trying to make himself stop thinking. If he could stop thinking for just a moment, than maybe he could figure things out. He couldn’t though, and the same old confused feelings came creeping up on him again, bringing with them another wave of nausea.

If he wasn’t careful, somebody was going to tell professor McGonagall that he was having nightmares, and then he would have to go talk to Dumbledore about what was in them. Harry didn’t mind lying to some people like Draco or Lucius, but he hated lying to Dumbledore, and would rather avoid the situation if he could. He knew it wasn’t fair, what he had said to Ron in the common room, because he knew Ron cared about him, but Harry was at a loss about what to do.

Harry looked up when he almost walked into a wall, and realized that while he had been thinking, he had slowly been making his way down to the dungeons. “What-” Angry with himself, and unsure why he was now in the Entrance Hall, Harry spun on his heel and strode quickly up the stairs back towards Gryffindor tower. Only when he was three flights up from the Entrance Hall did he stop and lean against a wall, pale light filtering into the corridor from outside through a small stained glass window above his head.

Harry sighed. And then the answer came to him. It was simple.

By the time Harry had reached Gryffindor common room again, he had made up his mind and had already formulated a plan. Back in the sixth year boy’s dormitory, all the boys were asleep accept for Ron.

As Harry climbed into bed in the darkness, Ron said from his own four-poster, “I’m telling McGonagall if you have any more nightmares.”

There was silence for a long moment before Harry answered his friend. “That’s ok. There won’t be any more nightmares now.” Harry laid down, and beside him he heard Ron sit up in the next bed.

“What do you mean?”

Harry put his hands behind his head. “Don’t worry about it Ron.”

The next morning before breakfast, Harry walked calmly down to Professor Snape’s office, and knocked on the open door. Snape looked up, seeming perplexed, and also slightly rushed, as though he had been hurrying around trying to make it to breakfast before it ended.

“Yes?”

Harry lowered his hand from where it had been raised to knock on the heavy wooden door.

“I can’t grade papers for you any more Professor,” he told him plainly.

Snape frowned. Harry had rehearsed this for twenty minutes until he had fallen asleep again last night, and then again when he woke up.

“Why?” the Potions Master asked simply, setting the book he had been holding down on his desk.

Harry shrugged, and said, “I just can’t.” With this he turned and left. His plan wasn’t going to work if he was asked any questions. Now all he had to do, Harry thought to himself, was avoid the man for the rest of his life. It had seemed an easier solution to his problems the night before, but realizing that he still had Potions class with the man for another seven months before he had a choice not to take Potions anymore put a damper on his hopes.

Harry skipped breakfast and headed to the upper levels of the castle to wait for Transfiguration to start instead.

In his office, Severus Snape sat down heavily behind his desk, suddenly uncaring about making breakfast in time. He had come to realize in the last month and a half that Harry was more complex than most people, but just how complex he got the feeling that he would never know. Across the room he espied the stack of papers waiting to be graded, and found himself unwilling to grade them himself, or find another student to do the job.

And the way Potter had come in so calmly and told him that he wouldn’t do it anymore. Snape shook his head, knowing it an odd way for Harry to act. The boy who’s emotions always seemed to be on an roller coaster ride from one end of the emotional spectrum to the other, but never settling on calm.

In Transfiguration Harry took pages of notes, trying to keep his mind off of his nightmares and the lost job. Ron eyed him cautiously as he had the night before, but Hermione seemed unaware of the events that had transpired, and tried to keep up with Harry on note taking.

That night, Harry went to bed early and quietly put a silencing charm on his four-poster, along with the curtains on all of the other sixth year boy’s beds, knowing that if he had another nightmare, no one would hear him. Just before he pulled his maroon drapes closed though, Ron stepped into the dorm, and closed the door. His eyes met with Harry’s and Ron said, “I didn’t tell Hermione.”

Harry nodded. “I noticed.”

Silence passed between them in a very pregnant pause, and then Ron continued, “And I’m not telling McGonagall either.”

Harry’s attention was drawn back to his friend from where his eyes had been looking at the floor.

“You’re a good friend Ron. Don’t forget it.” He closed the curtains then, and didn’t know if Ron had left or not because of the silencing charm. He had made it through most of the day without a thought to Snape or the dreams, and hoped that tonight he would not dream of Snape or Voldemort.

Harry lay in bed for hours before he drifted off to sleep, and was sure that the other boys that inhabited the room had already gone to bed.

That night Harry walked through the woods, Voldemort riding an enormous snake behind him, and Snape’s voice coming from somewhere in the background chanting, “There’s nowhere to hide. He comes like wind cutting through the wood. There’s nowhere to hide.” Harry began to run, but the snake and Voldemort only came faster behind him. Harry found himself suddenly in a clearing with a wooden structure erected in the middle. A single rope hung from a beam of wood at the top, a loop on the end. “He comes,” Snape said quietly in Harry’s ear, no longer in the background, but right beside him now.

“No,” Harry heard himself say, but his arms were paralyzed, and Snape was leading him to the gallows, standing him on top of a barrel, putting the noose around Harry’s neck, and all the while chanting, “he comes, he comes.”

Harry stumbled out of bed, tears in his eyes as he tore at the collar of his shirt, feeling choked even though the top buttons of the pajama shirt were undone. Why wouldn’t the dreams leave him alone? Harry sobbed once, and Ron was at his side in the dark, kneeling on the floor with him.

“Harry?” There was a shake in Ron’s voice, uncertain and scared.

Harry kept undoing buttons on the shirt until they were all undone and he yanked it the rest of the way off. He could almost feel the rope around his neck still.

“Harry, I don’t know what to do unless you tell me,” Ron said quietly, afraid to wake the other boys if they were not already awake and listening in their beds. Ron didn’t know that Harry had also put silencing charms on their drapes as well. Ron had been the only one to leave his drapes open that night.

Harry looked at him, sweat on his face and chest again, and a tear rolling down his face. “Don’t do anything Ron, please, just… don’t tell anybody.”

Ron nodded. “Whatever you want mate. Just… tell me what to do. Tell me something.”

Harry shook his head. “Don’t do anything.”

* * *

Harry swallowed hard the next morning as he sat at Gryffindor table in the Great Hall, not hungry for anything that he saw there. The sick feeling from the night before hadn’t left after he had tried to go back to sleep and failed miserably. Ron looked just as tired as Harry, and Hermione eyed them both as she chewed her toast.

“What has gotten into the two of you?” she leaned in from across the table and asked. “Harry you’ve got bags under your eyes, and Ron, I haven’t heard you this quiet since your mum caught us-”

“Hermione!” Ron looked up and cut her off sharply.

“Kissing,” Hermione finished even quieter. Ron glared at her and shook his head.

“Nothing’s going on Hermione,” Harry said quietly, rubbing his tired eyes.

“Well it doesn’t look like nothing,” Hermione said, setting her toast down. “Have you been having more nightmares?”

Harry shook his head and swallowed hard again. “I’m just tired is all Hermione. It’s nothing,” he repeated.

Ron glanced sideways at him, and didn’t say anything else.

Harry took notes halfheartedly all day, and didn’t look up at Professor Snape at all during potions. Harry was thankful that he wasn’t called on, and that Snape hadn’t tried to get a further explanation out of him as to why he wasn’t grading papers anymore, because Harry didn’t think he could look the man in the eye and keep it together any more. Not after night after night of dreams of Voldemort trying to kill him and Snape helping.

Still not hungry, Harry skipped dinner, and opted to walk around the castle aimlessly instead. Near the charms classroom, Professor McGonagall stepped out of her office and spotted Harry.

“Mr. Potter,” she said sharply, getting Harry’s attention. He looked up and stopped walking, but didn’t say anything.

She waited, and when he didn’t walk over to her, she came to him instead. “Mr. Potter, it has come to my attention that you aren’t sleeping well at night, is this true?”

A lump rose in Harry’s throat, and anger built in his stomach, making it feel as if a small fire had been lit there. So Ron had told her after all. Even after he promised not to. As if to confirm this, Ron stepped down the corridor at that exact moment, from the same direction that McGonagall had come.

“You!” Harry shouted at him, uncaring if McGonagall heard. “What a rotten friend!”

“Me!?” Ron was angry now too. “What kind of friend tells his friend not to tell that he’s having nightmares where he’s being murdered!” Harry reached for his wand, but couldn’t find it. It wasn’t in his back pocket where he usually kept it, and this with a lack of sleep and the feeling of betrayal by his best friend unsettled him further.

“Some best friend you turned out to be, if you even knew the meaning!” Footsteps sounded quickly from the corridor behind Harry, and just as Harry launched himself at Ron, a strong pair of arms caught him from behind.

Ron cursed, but nobody seemed to notice. McGonagall had stepped in between the two boys now and was facing Ron so as to keep him from launching at Harry as he seemed ready to do also.

“Stop it! Both of you!” she shouted to make herself heard over the continued curses and threats being exchanged between the two boys. When both Harry and Ron ignored her, and Ron had his wand out and aimed at the struggling Harry, she said quickly, “Severus, take him out of here! Quickly!”

Harry was forcefully turned around and moved down the corridor, still cursing the most rotten friend he had ever made. Snape didn’t say anything, only stayed behind Harry incase he tried to make a break for it to make it back to Ron. Harry made no such attempt though, and by the time they had reached Snape’s office in the dungeons, Harry had worked himself into a quiet sort of submission.

Snape closed the door quickly behind Harry, and moved around to sit on the edge of his desk so that Harry was facing him. Harry looked at the ground and tried to turn away, quickly wiping his sleeve across his eyes, but Severus grabbed his shoulders and brought him around to face him again.

“Harry,” he said forcefully, but Harry wouldn’t look up. Snape gave the boy a small shake, and commanded again, “Harry Potter, look at me.”

Harry’s head snapped up at the command. He was in a lot of trouble he knew, and knew that not cooperating was not going to make things any better. Maybe he would just get five detentions right now if he did what he was told instead of ten.

Snape sighed when Harry looked up at him and met his eyes. There was a type of hurt there that Snape wasn’t sure he wanted to deal with. Dumbledore was much better suited to these types of situations, and yet here Harry stood in his office, angry and hurt, and quietly waiting for him to say something.

Severus let go of Harry’s shoulders now that he was looking at him, and not trying to escape through the door. He did not know what to say, or where to begin. Searching the boy’s eyes in hopes of a place to start, and finding none, he asked quietly, “Why do you not wish to grade papers for my class anymore?”

Harry frowned. He was just caught fighting loudly with his best friend, and had to be bodily removed from the situation by a Professor, and all Snape wanted to know was why he wasn’t willing to grade papers anymore? Harry wished that the answer to that question wasn’t tied in with the reason he and Ron were fighting, because he didn’t want to think about or answer either question.

Harry shrugged, and wondered if it would be a sufficient enough answer for the Potions Master, although he had a sinking feeling that it wasn’t.

Snape rubbed his temple for a moment, as if hoping that he could massage the right words to say out of his mind. “Mr. Potter,” he said calmly, “I know that you do not like me, but over the last couple of months I had begun to think that you might have begun to consider me worthy of speaking to.” He paused again, and then finished, “In any case, you just denounced your best friend, and had to be dragged away from the situation before one of you killed the other. Seeing as how you still go to this school, and I am a staff member at this school, you are accountable to me, and will answer my question.”

Harry felt in his left front pocket and found the wand that he had so desperately wanted to curse Ron with earlier. He pulled it out and tossed it lightly on the desk, where it rolled to a stop just before the other edge. “Why don’t you take it then. Boot me out and then maybe he won’t care about killing me anymore, and I won’t have to deal with Ron, or Draco, or Cho or any of them!”

“Mr. Potter, while you and Mr. Weasley seemed quite content on beating each other to a pulp a few moments ago, I highly doubt that he desperately wants to kill you.”

Harry shook his head and sank into the visitor’s chair behind him. “Ron doesn’t want to kill me.”

Snape eyed him curiously for a moment. “Might I enquire as to who does then?” Of course he knew the obvious answer, but he had to be certain of it.

Harry shook his head and Severus sighed again. Already having given up his wand, Severus could not threaten the boy with expulsion from the school. Deciding to tackle the problem from a different angel, he said calmly, “Harry, Mr. Weasley is receiving the same interrogation several floors above us by Professor McGonagall, and most likely the Headmaster. If you do not wish to give me any answers, they will appear knocking at my door momentarily in any case.”

Harry bit his tongue trying to keep himself from bursting out in tears or shouting again. He didn’t realize it, but both of his hands were shaking as he gripped the armrests of the visitor’s chair.

“Voldemort,” he said quietly, a shake in his voice familiar to the one Ron had had the night before when Harry had woken from his most recent nightmare.

Snape waited quietly for Harry to continue. “He comes chasing after me every night in my sleep. He appears suddenly from behind me and whispers in my ear the different ways he wants to murder me. And every night, he whispers, “I’m coming for you, I’m coming for you.” Harry paused, and Snape thought he was done divulging information, but Harry finished with, “Last night he chased me through the woods, and you appeared by my side. You’re there in a lot of dreams. But you never help. Last night you slipped a noose around my neck before I woke up.”

Severus frowned. That would certainly explain the boy’s unwillingness to sit in his office and grade papers for any amount of time anymore. He looked up and tried to catch Harry’s eyes again to no avail.

“You have not been practicing Occlumency?” It was more of a statement of fact than a question.

Harry didn’t answer, and just let his head hang limply where it had been before, so that he could observe his knees from where he sat. Severus took his silence as confirmation of lack of practice and sighed.

“We will need to begin anew then. Look at me Mr. Potter.”

Harry looked up at Snape, horrified. “What?” This had to be another nightmare.

“You did not hear me?” Snape asked, raising a brow, his tone lowering into one that Harry couldn’t tell if it was meant to be threatening or not.

“No, I…” He desperately wanted to be free of the nightmares, but felt certain he couldn’t handle Snape seeing into his innermost thoughts. He didn’t want him to see Cho trying to cheat on her papers by making out with him; he didn’t want him to see the many ways Voldemort wanted to kill him; he didn’t want him to see uncle Vernon beating him for something Dudley had stolen, or Dudley cracking his ribs to make him promise he wouldn’t tell uncle Vernon what he had done; and most of all, he didn’t want his feelings to shine through all of it. It was a scary thought. If he shouted something out he couldn’t lie and say that he was thinking of his father or someone else, because Snape would be watching the scene play out in his mind.

Harry looked down at his sneakers. “I won’t do it. You can throw me out, I don’t care.”

Severus sighed audibly. “While I have wanted to have you expelled many times in the past, that is not my wish at the moment.” He walked to the other side of his desk, and said, “Why do you not wish to rid yourself of these nightmares? Do you like having Voldemort in your head?”

Harry didn’t respond, not even with a shake of the head.

There was a knock on the door then, and Severus said, “Come.”

The door opened, and Professor McGonagall appeared. Harry sat with his head in his hand. Snape raised a brow at the woman, but she ignored him and moved to stand in front of Harry.

“Would you mind telling me what that was all about Mr. Potter?”

Harry shook his head.

“Well then, you will be serving your many detentions with Mr. Weasley then, who also refuses to say why you two seemed intent on killing each other.”

Harry looked up at this. “He didn’t say anything?”

McGonagall shook her head. “No, he didn’t.” She turned to Severus and asked, “Has he said anything to you?”

Harry looked up and met Snape’s eyes for a brief moment, afraid that he would tell her. When his dark eyes left Harry’s and met McGonagall’s, he said quietly, “No. I even threatened him with expulsion.” Here he held up Harry’s wand to show her, and she seemed taken aback. “He gave me his wand freely.”

“Well then Mr. Potter,” she looked at him again. “I have no idea what has gotten you and Mr. Weasley into such a fury against one another, but your temper had better simmer before you serve detention with him. If I hear that you two have anything close to a fight, I will seriously suggest expulsion for the both of you to the Headmaster. As it is a letter has been sent to Mr. Weasley’s parents regarding the matter.” Here she seemed to want to say something about a letter that had been sent to his parents, but couldn’t. “Because the Headmaster informs me you will no longer be living with your relatives, no letter has been sent to them.”

She turned to Snape and said, “If you are done with him Severus, he is to return to his common room.”

Snape looked back at Harry again, and said, “I wish to have more words with him regarding a different matter.”

She nodded. “Fine then. Mr. Potter, other than classes, meals, detention, and Quidditch practice, you are confined to Gryffindor House for the next two weeks unless in company of a Professor or the Headmaster, am I understood?”

Harry nodded, “Yes Professor.”

Here she shook her head once, and then looked at Snape. “Good day.”

When she was gone, Harry shook his head, still looking at the ground. “Why did you lie for me?”

Severus took a seat behind his desk and pulled from it a piece of parchment and a quill, and began to write something down. “I merely bent the truth. You told me nothing of the reason you and Mr. Weasley were fighting.”

Harry shook his head. “He told Professor McGonagall I was having nightmares.”

Snape stopped his writing and looked up at him. “You were that desperate to hide the truth?”

Harry shrugged. “I asked him not to tell, and he promised he wouldn’t… what kind of friend is that?”

Thinking on the question, Severus was silent for a moment. “A friend who cares,” he finally answered.

Harry sighed. He knew that he was right. He wasn’t even sure he wouldn’t have done the same thing if it were Ron having the nightmares, although he wasn’t sure what help it had been telling McGonagall… Snape was the only one who could help with the Occlumency he knew, unless the Headmaster was willing to give him private lessons. With this thought, he knew that he would rather take the lessons from Snape. For some reason he felt safer sharing his thoughts with the man in front of him than Dumbledore, although the reverse had been true in the past. He wasn’t sure if he could take Dumbledore feeling any more sorry for him than he already did.

“I don’t want you to see my thoughts,” Harry finally said after a long and very pregnant silence.

Snape didn’t look up from his writing. “Then learn quickly to hide them, and defend yourself when attacked. Is it any better for the Dark Lord to look upon your mind?”

No, it’s worse, Harry thought to himself silently. “I didn’t do very well with the lessons last time,” he reminded himself more than Snape, because he was sure that Snape remembered it well.

“No,” Severus said, looking up at Harry now. “But perhaps you have more precious memories and thoughts to hide now? I believe the more important the thoughts you have to hide, the harder you will work at it.”

Maybe he was right, maybe not, Harry thought. One thing that he did know however, was that he didn’t want to die in his sleep of fright. That was making it too easy for Voldemort.

“Alright,” he said. “Make the nightmares go away.”

Snape watched him closely. “What do I get in return?”

Harry couldn’t believe it. He had been offering the help freely less than half an hour earlier. Now he wanted payment?

“What do you want?” Harry asked cautiously.

Snape didn’t even have to think. “Grade papers again, and I will teach you how to Occlude your mind so that no one can look in upon it again.”

Harry felt a small wave of relief. “Fine.”

Severus nodded. More than wanting the help grading, he wanted to keep an eye on the boy. He could do that better if Potter was coming into his office several times a week to grade.

Moving again to the front of his desk, Snape commanded, “Clear your mind Potter. Empty it of all thought and emotion. See nothing. Feel nothing. Choose a picture if you must to concentrate on. An object, a color… anything. See only that which you concentrate on, and do not loose your concentration.” He paused for a few moments to allow Harry to do this.

“Ready?” he asked a minute later.

Harry nodded, a weak feeling in the pit of his stomach telling him that he was going to fail. The feeling of betrayal still flowed through his veins when Snape cast the spell at him.

Harry opened his eyes and immediately he was back in his dorm room, kneeling on the floor ripping his shirt off of himself, Ron beside him saying, “Harry, I don’t know what to do unless you tell me.” “Don’t do anything Ron, just… don’t tell anybody.”

He tried to force Snape’s presence out of his mind, and concentrated on pitch-blackness, but only held onto the image for a moment before another memory intruded in, and he was in the Library studying with Hermione, Ron, and Neville. He and Ron were laughing and throwing a crumpled piece of parchment back and forth at each other while Hermione was trying to catch Neville up. Snape’s voice suddenly filled his mind, and he was unsure whether or not the man was speaking with his mouth or his mind, “Concentrate Potter… pick an image. Defend yourself!” The scene of them studying in the library vanished, and Harry tried to fill the void with darkness, but failed, and was suddenly pinned against the wall by his cousin. “Don’t tell anybody you little freak, I’ll kill you if you do and that ruddy twig you call a wand won’t save you!” There was a sudden jab of pain in his ribs, taking his breath away, and then the images and pain were gone.

Harry panted, he didn’t know where he was. He felt cold up against his hands and forehead, and opened his eyes to see stone. It took him a few moments to realize that he was on Snape’s office floor on his hands and knees, head pressed to the floor.

“It’s no good,” he said, “I’m useless.”

From somewhere above him, Snape sighed. “You are not useless Potter, you just do not believe you will succeed.”

Harry shook his head, still trying to catch his breath. Finally he pushed himself into a sitting position, still on the floor, and Snape said, “Return here tomorrow directly after dinner. I suggest that you have your homework done before you come.”

“What for?” he asked him.

“Practice Potter. You are going to practice until you can block me out of your mind completely.”

Harry wiped a bead of sweat from his forehead, and pushed himself gingerly to his feet, forgetting momentarily that his ribs were not cracked at the moment.

He turned to leave, and Snape said, “Concentrate on nothing but blackness for twenty minutes before you fall asleep. Push all other thoughts from your mind. If a thought intrudes, start over for twenty minutes.”

“Yeah,” Harry said, “Thanks.”

When he had gone, Severus rubbed the spot on his own ribs where Harry’s cousin had broken his. He wasn’t sure how much he could take of diving into Potter’s mind if he was going to constantly be in pain.

Harry’s dreams that night, from which he could not wake himself, were filled with the high, cold laugh of Lord Voldemort. “Stupid boy. You cannot escape. Why do you even try? I am coming, and I will kill you. There is no place to hide.”

The next day, Ron stayed as far away as possible from Harry. In every class he sat at the far back of the room and made sure there were no empty seats around him. In Potions, he even went as far as to sit on the Slytherin side, which garnered both looks of surprise, and deep dislike from their Slytherin classmates. Hermione, who had not been told what had happened other than that Harry and Ron had fought, did not want to get caught in the middle, and sat by neither of them. At lunch Ron waited until Harry was sitting down, and sat at the far opposite end of the table with some first and second year Gryffindors he never spoke to.

Ginny took a seat next to Harry however, and said, “He got a letter from mum and dad this morning.”

Harry swallowed his bite of mashed potatoes. “And?” He remembered the last letter from Mrs. Weasley regarding trouble they had gotten into at school. It had been a howler, which magnified her angry screaming voice a hundred fold so that everybody could hear.

“I didn’t hear your mum screaming this morning from a flaming letter.”

Ginny poured herself a glass of apple juice. “Ron was surprised by that too. The letter just asked what had happened and asked if he was ok. It asked if you were ok too, but Ron said he wasn’t going to write anything about you back to them,” she paused, and then finished, “I think they know that if you two fought with each other it wasn’t to cause trouble and that there must be something wrong.”

“Hm.” Harry wasn’t sure why he cared that Ron hadn’t gotten a Howler, but he was glad that he hadn’t.

“He didn’t tell you know.”

Harry looked over at her. “Tell what?”

“About your dreams.”

Suddenly he wasn’t feeling hungry any more. “Then how do you know about them?”

“I’ll only tell you if you promise not to get into a fight with the person who told.”

Harry grunted that he was listening, similar to the way his uncle Vernon often did when Harry spoke to him. It was becoming clear to Harry now that Ginny was on a mission. “I was walking by Professor McGonagall’s office and I heard Dean inside. He said he was worried about you and that you’d made Ron promise not to tell.”

Harry had definitely lost his appetite now. He looked over at Ginny. “You’re not just lying so that I’ll apologize to Ron?”

Ginny shook her head. “Apologizing is your business. I just thought you ought to know that when Ron makes a promise, he keeps it. That’s the one thing about my brother that a lot of people don’t know. He can be a right git sometimes, but once you’ve got his loyalty, it will be there forever.”

Harry sighed heavily. “The only git here is me.”

Ginny shrugged. “At the moment, yeah.” With that she rose and moved off to speak to some other friends from her own year.

Harry looked down the long table and spotted Ron, not touching his food and barely listening to the conversation around him. He knew he had been too quick to doubt his best friend, and wasn’t sure why he had done that.

At dinner, Professor McGonagall delivered the same message to both Harry and Ron, who were still sitting as far apart as possible. Their first of five detentions was to be served at nine o’clock that night cleaning bathrooms on the first through third floors with Filch.

“Brilliant,” Harry said to himself.

After dinner, he made his way down to the dungeons as instructed, and met Snape in his office. Before the door was even closed completely, Snape had his wand out and aiming at Harry.

“Clear your mind,” he ordered.

Harry dropped his book bag and said, “I have to serve detention at nine.”

“That is not my problem Potter. Clear your mind now, or I will clear it for you with a spell that will make you unconscious.”

Harry spared a glare for the Potion’s Master, but it was one without much heart. He closed his eyes and tried to concentrate on the blackness he saw, but as with the night before, thoughts and memories kept making a desperate bid for freedom into his conscious.

Within moments Harry was sitting in the Great Hall again listening to Ginny tell him that Dean had told McGonagall about the dreams, and not Ron. Think of darkness, he thought to himself, think black. The memory receded from his mind slowly, and was quickly replaced by one of Draco trying to become friends with him in his first year. “I think I can tell who that is for myself, thanks,” he had told him when Draco had referred to certain people, namely Ron, as being filth not worth looking at. Draco had withdrawn his hand quickly and sneered at him.

The spell was broken, and Harry was again on the floor. “You are not concentrating Potter!” Snape said angrily. This was the first time any real anger had been in his voice towards Harry in months.

Harry shrugged. “I’m trying.”

“You are not trying Potter,” Snape said quickly and with distaste. “Would you give up so easily in a duel?”

Harry bowed his head. No, he thought, he wouldn’t.

“Then concentrate! All we are doing is dueling with our minds Potter! Throw up some protection around your mind as you would around your body with a protective spell. Once you are well guarded, then you will learn to stab back at me as with a sword!”

Harry looked up and into the man’s eyes. No spell was uttered this time, but Snape was in his mind again. Acting quickly, Harry tried to concentrate on pitch-blackness and nothing else. This time he held his ground a little while longer before Snape was plunging head first into a memory Harry didn’t want him to see.

He and Cho were sitting on a bench in the library and she was suddenly almost on top of him, her lips pressed warmly against his. No, Harry thought, NO! Switching tactics, he thought suddenly of brilliant white blinding light, as if he were looking straight into the sun. He imagined his entire world filled with it, and he could no longer see himself and Cho in the library.

“Good Potter, good!” Snape was saying. Again Harry could not tell if he were speaking with his mouth or mind, and the amount of wondering that it took for Harry to ponder that question broke his concentration, and again Snape was in another memory.

Two hours later, Harry was lying face first on the cold stone floor. Again, Snape had had to lift the spell of his own accord to give Harry time to breath and temper his thoughts again.

“I can’t,” Harry panted. “I’ll never get this.”

“Potter, if you insist that you won’t be able to do this, then you will not ever get any farther in the lessons than lying face first on the floor.”

Harry pushed himself up and looked at his watch.

“Yes, go to your detention Potter,” Snape said as if he had something that tasted bad in his mouth, “Report back here directly after dinner tomorrow.”

Harry shook his head, trying to clear it. He felt weak, and knew he wasn’t going to be much good scrubbing floors and toilets.

On the way out the door, he was given the same instructions as the night before. Clear his mind before he slept.

Near the smallest boy’s bathroom on the first floor he found Ron leaning against a wall waiting for Filch. He didn’t look up at Harry when he approached and took the opposite wall of the corridor to lean on.

After a few long moments of silence, Harry said quietly, “Listen Ron, I’m-” Ron cut him off.

“Don’t talk to me Harry,” he said coldly. Harry’s shoulders fell. He was too weak to keep them from doing so. He wondered if he had lost his friend for good this time.

On hands and knees the two boys silently scrubbed their way through six bathrooms that night, and didn’t make it to bed until near one am.

Too tired to give twenty minutes time to deep concentration, Harry fell asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow. Again there was a noose slipped around his neck before he woke, panting and sweating. Ron had put the noose around him this time, and pulled it tight.

The sun was shining brightly through the dorm windows when the dream ended, and Harry didn’t bother to go back to sleep again. Instead he rose and finished the three pages of homework that he hadn’t had time to do before, and went down to breakfast, not bothering to wait for Ron or Hermione.

At lunch Harry tried to sit next to Ron, but before he had taken a seat, Ron had risen without a word and moved to the end of the table closest to the head table where the Professor’s sat. Seeing this, Ginny came and sat next to Harry again.

“Once you’re on his sh*t list Harry, you’re going to be there for awhile.”

Harry looked at her. “I thought you said he was loyal.”

“He is,” she said, taking a bite of Harry’s sandwich and setting it back down on his plate. “But he’s stubborn too.”

“How am I supposed to get on his good side again then?”

Ginny shrugged. “Be his friend.”

“I can’t. He won’t let me.”

“He will,” she told him, “give it time. Be there when he needs you to be.”

“That could take years Ginny.”

She shrugged, “Maybe.”

* * *

“Up Potter. Get off my floor.”

Harry opened his eyes and pushed himself up. “The floor off limits now?” he asked Snape testily.

Snape aimed his wand at him and was immediately in his mind. Angry that he hadn’t been given a chance to clear his mind, he flooded it with brilliant white light again, and held Snape off for almost a full minute before stray emotions and thoughts intruded and his defenses broke. “No!” Harry yelled audibly as Snape began forcing him to remember things. To Harry it was like the man was thumbing through a book that held a different memory on every page. Memory after memory flashed by him, and Snape stopped on the one of the dream the night before, forcing Harry to again be lead to the gallows, Ron by his side this time placing the noose around his neck and tightening it. The dream Harry looked around frantically, and the dream changed. Snape was now holding the noose around his neck and Voldemort’s high, icy laugh again filled his mind.

“Help,” Harry said audibly. “Why won’t you help me?” As he said this and his words rang around the small study, the dream Snape turned to him and tilted his head. The noose suddenly tightened and Harry’s eyes shut tight with pain. “Help Dad!” he shouted. There was a flash of blinding white light as Harry realized what he had said and forced the intruder from his thoughts. It seemed as if he held the light there for an eternity, when in reality it was only a few moments, and then the spell was broken, and Harry was on his back on the office floor. He pushed himself backward hurriedly, not looking at Snape.

“I hate you,” he said, “I hate you for making me remember things!” He pushed himself up and heaved the office door open. Leaving his bag and books in the office, he ran up the corridor and turned a corner, leaving the door open behind him. He hoped that nobody was following him because he had tears of anger in his eyes. Why was he so stupid? How could he think something like that about a man like that? How could he consider him even a friend? Look at all he’d done to him in the past five years! His father was right to dangle him upside down in the air like he did!

It was only seven o’clock, and there were still lingering students in the halls, mainly older ones, as curfew for sixth and seventh years was nine.

Stupid! he kept thinking to himself, you’re so stupid Harry!

On the third floor he rounded a corner and almost walked straight into Draco. He stopped abruptly, and tried to push his way past, but Draco blocked him from doing so.

“Well well,” he said in his sneering voice. “Where are we off to in such a hurry? Not going to sneak off and grade more papers for my head of house?”

Harry ducked his head. He knew Draco would have a field day with his social life if he caught him crying.

Draco was quiet for a moment when Harry didn’t answer. Harry still didn’t look up, and just waited for him to move. He couldn’t afford a fight at the moment, and he also wasn’t sure he had the will left to make one. Draco stood there and stared at him, taken aback at what he saw. For once the snide comments that were always on the tip of his tongue failed him.

For lack of something else to say or do, he stepped aside, and Harry strode around him, Draco watching him as he did so.

Not wanting to be in a room full of people, Harry did not go back to the common room as he knew he was supposed to, being on the two-week probation. Instead he went back down a flight of stairs, and found his way into Moaning Myrtle’s bathroom. There he sank to the floor with his back against a wall, knowing that both the wall and floor were now spotless, because he and Ron had had to clean it twice the night before, apparently not having gotten it clean enough the first time.

After a few minutes, Harry finally got the tears to stop and wiped his eyes and face clean on his sleeve. There was silence for a while more, and when Moaning Myrtle failed to make her appearance, he rose and went to her stall. The toilet was empty, and he wondered if she were again in the Prefect’s bathroom watching somebody bathe.

At nine o’clock Harry rose and found his way to the bathroom that Ron waited outside on the fourth floor for their second night’s detention. Harry made no attempt to apologize this time, and instead just looked at the floor. When Filch arrived, Harry gave one-word responses to all of his instructions, and set to work silently, Ron watching him do so. Filch left them alone to clean twice for an hour at a time, and the second time he did so Harry stood with anger and kicked the small metal pail half full of water that he was using clean across the bathroom. Ron looked up.

“What the bloody hell was that for?” he demanded. “Now we’re going to have to mop it all up again!”

Harry turned away. It hadn’t been in anger against Ron, but against himself, and Snape.

“I hate Snape,” he said with feeling. “I hate him.”

Ron was silent for a few moments, wondering what had brought this on, and if Harry was going to kick anything else.

“Well good for you,” he said, “we already knew that.” Just then the door opened, and Filch walked in, stopping at the sight of the massive puddle on the floor and the bucket on its side against the wall.

“Been fighting have we?” he asked in an accusatory tone.

Harry looked at Ron for help, and Ron looked at Filch. “No, it was a spill. I tripped over the bucket and we were trying to mop it up again.”

The caretaker gave the two boys a wary glance, assessing the truth of it. Finally he muttered something about “Rotten disrespectful students,” and shouted at them to clean it up and get to the last bathroom on that floor, or else they’d be there cleaning until daybreak. Not wanting to watch the Gryffindors clean, he left again.

Harry picked up the mop that leaned against the wall nearest him. “Thanks,” he said quietly.

Ron grunted. “Kick buckets over on your own time. I’ve still got homework to do.”

That would have been the end of it, but Harry suddenly felt the need to apologize again.

“Ron, I’m sorry-” he began again, but Ron held up his hand to stop him.

“Save it Harry.” He paused, and then continued with, “I don’t know what happened to my best friend, but I don’t know him any more.”

Harry hung his head low. Quietly he said, “I don’t know him either.”

Ron looked over at him, but like Draco, did not have the words to say. They finished cleaning in silence, and left for the next bathroom.

Severus Snape rounded a corner in the corridor, lost in thought. He did not know what to think about what he had seen and what the boy had said. Surely he had to have been mistaken… but with the reaction Harry had given, storming off like he had, and then not showing up for Potions class the next day, Severus knew that he had not been flawed in his assessment of the way the sixth year Gryffindor felt about him. To some extent the thought of any person thinking of him as a parent figure disturbed him. And yet, on another level, another emotion tugged at him, and refused to leave him be. It was an emotion he had tried to push aside for the past month, and he could not even be sure what it was that dogged him so.

Finally he came to the stone gargoyle marking the entrance to the Headmaster’s office. Mixed emotions battling within him, he momentarily could not remember the password. He stood there in thought, wanting advice from the old man, but also not wanting to tell him what he had seen in Harry’s mind.

Minutes passed, and finally a seventh year Ravenclaw Prefect, also the Head boy, walked past him, and then turned and stopped. “Do you need the password sir?” he asked uncertainly, expecting a snide comment in return from the Potion’s Master.

Severus looked at him, and nodded once.

The Head boy walked back to the gargoyle, and said, “Cauldron Cake.” At the speaking of the password, the stone gargoyle leapt to life and stepped aside, revealing the familiar spiral staircase, moving upward to the Headmaster’s office.

“Thank you Vale,” he said, and stepped onto the moving stairs, letting them carry him upwards.

Henry Vale thought on the Professor’s lack of memory of the password for a moment, and then moved off, giving it no more attention in his mind.

At the top of the stairs, Severus had but to knock once, before the door opened of its own accord and revealed the Headmaster’s office.

“Hello Severus,” Dumbledore said.

Snape stepped into the office, and the door closed behind him, again by itself.

The Headmaster considered him for a moment, and then said, “Something heavy weighs on your mind Severus. Do have a seat, won’t you?”

Severus did as he was told and took the visitor’s chair on the right.

“What bothers you so?” Dumbledore asked him.

Snape thought for a moment, and then said, “Harry Potter.”

Dumbledore nodded. “Yes, he has been on my mind of late as well. Minerva informs me that he and Mr. Weasley had quite a row earlier this week… she believes it has something to do with Harry’s dreams.”

Severus nodded. “He has told you this already?” Dumbledore asked him. Snape nodded again.

“Indeed. I must admit, it takes some worry from my heart that he has been confiding in someone,” he paused here, and said, “I believed that he was talking to you, but I was surprised to find that true, given your mutual dislike of one another other in the past.”

Again Severus nodded. He wondered if the Headmaster had been as surprised as he had been to find Harry willingly spending time grading in his office. He had gotten the idea that the boy found it a place of solitude, although he did not know why. Dumbledore watched Severus closely as that unwanted emotion tugged at the Potions Master again and he tried to tuck it away to some forgotten part of his mind. He had come to enjoy the fact that somebody might actually want to spend time with him, even if he was surprised by the notion. He had also taken pleasure in knowing that Potter trusted him enough to teach him something so important as protecting his mind. He could have so easily gone to the Headmaster for these lessons.

Severus sighed, and Dumbledore asked, “Is it safe to assume that you have again been giving him Occlumency lessons?”

The Potion’s Master considered that for a moment, and then replied, “I have… until last night.”

“Oh?”

“It ended badly… for both of us.”

Fingers interlaced in front of him, Dumbledore watched Severus and waited for him to continue, which after a few moments of silence, did.

“He ran from the office shouting how much he hated me.”

“You saw something in his mind that he did not want you to see,” Dumbledore stated, not making it a question. Severus nodded.

“He is not doing well with the lessons. He is doing better than before, but I do not believe his mind is strong enough to force the Dark Lord out when the time comes. He does not believe he can conquer his own mind, and therefore will not be able to do so effectively.”

Dumbledore nodded this time. There was silence between them for a moment, and then the Headmaster said, “I remember once tutoring a troubled young man in the art of Occlumency,” he paused, knowing that Severus knew whom he was talking about. “I tried everything I knew to teach him, and yet he did badly time and again with the lessons. It was not that he did not know the danger of having an unguarded mind, for he had witnessed it first hand at the hands of Lord Voldemort, but instead, it was that he did not care what happened to himself.” Snape didn’t meet Dumbledore’s eyes.

“Do you believe this is the case with Harry?” he asked Snape.

Severus shook his head. “No.”

“Then what keeps him from mastering his own thoughts?”

“I know not.” Snape paused, wondering if he would be caught in his lie. “I have tried all I know with him. I have tried being patient, I have tried making him angry, I have tried showing him the danger of keeping himself unguarded, and yet he still fails.”

Dumbledore’s brilliant blue eyes were fixed on the man in front of him, who would not meet his eyes. “You perhaps have overlooked one technique.”

“And what might that be Headmaster?” Severus asked, finally looking up at him again. Dumbledore smiled the smallest of smiles.

“Perhaps you should play the part that he feels you should be playing.”

Snape raised his brows, knowing that unless Potter had been up there already to talk to him, he could not know what he thought of him as. Uncertain still, he asked, “And what part is that?”

Dumbledore’s head tilted ever so slightly to the side. “You tell me Severus. How does he think on you these days?” Snape looked away.

“I am assuming that this is the thing you have seen in his mind that has upset the both of you so.”

He nodded, but did not answer him for many long, silent moments.

“He looks up to me in a way that he should not.”

“What makes you think you are unworthy of another’s affection?”

“I am responsible for his parents deaths!” Suddenly he was angry, knowing that it had been him that had told the Dark Lord of the prophecy, and essentially him that had killed Lily. “It is wrong that he should look to me to fill their places,” he finished quietly.

“Severus,” Dumbledore said calmly, “sometimes magic, or lack thereof, can create deep, unbreakable bonds between the most unlikely of people. Perhaps the seed of trust in you was planted in his heart and mind when you were both stranded and without magic in the wilderness.”

“It is misplaced then,” Snape said without any heart to the statement. “His father hated me, his mother came to hate me, his father’s friends hated me…”

“And yet, he does not,” Dumbledore finished for him.

“He is wrong to think me a fit replacement,” Snape said immediately after the Headmaster had finished speaking.

There was another long, pregnant silence between the two men. Finally Dumbledore said, “Severus, perhaps he has not the control to master his mind at this moment… the mind can weave fantastic tales of betrayal and fantasies that never existed. But the heart… the heart is loyal to it’s owner, and will never lie. As much as some, or many, may wish that their heart would leave them alone for the pain inside it, it will not lead it’s owner astray. That is old magic Severus… the very oldest. It will triumph when there is no other magic to be found, and the mind has left all logic behind.”

For a moment Snape thought the Headmaster was finished, but then he continued. “Harry’s heart is telling him things that his mind conflicts with, and so he cannot triumph over his mind because his heart is winning out. Once his heart has done so, his mind may willingly go into the submission necessary for him to take control over it. Until then it remains lost on the wind, floating here and there where Lord Voldemort can snatch it up as he pleases and take pleasure in tormenting the boy. Severus,” he paused, and Snape looked up into his crystal blue eyes. “What does your heart tell you?”

Snape sighed heavily and put his head in his hand. He had not expected so much trouble to come to him over offering one boy a job grading papers.

“It tells me things I don’t want it to,” he finally conceded, “but that are nice to hear nonetheless.”

Dumbledore nodded. “I cannot tell you what to do Severus. I can only hope that you let your mind lose this battle, so that Harry can win his.”

* * *

In honor of the Gryffindor common room being flooded, courtesy of Collin Creevy and Daniel Baker, Harry had a short reprieve from Gryffindor tower after dinner that night, and sat instead with the rest of the Gryffindors doing homework in the Great Hall. No other houses being present, the Gryffindors spread out and sat at all four house tables.

He was halfway through a Transfiguration essay, and finding it so difficult to concentrate on anything other than his slip up in the Occlumency lesson, that he didn’t even notice Hermione sit down next to him.

“Harry,” she said. Harry looked up abruptly, startled to hear her voice. She hadn’t been talking to him since the fight he and Ron had had, not because she was angry with him, but because she didn’t want to be accused by either friend of taking sides.

“Hi Hermione,” he said dully.

She looked down at his unfinished essay, but didn’t say anything about it. “Harry, what happened?”

Harry shook his head. “I was stupid. I blew up at Ron when there was no reason to. He didn’t tell you that?”

Hermione shook her head. “He won’t say anything to me about you.

Harry gave a short, humorless laugh. That was Ron, loyal to the end, and he, Harry, had ruined the best friendship he had ever had because he had forgotten that.

“Did you apologize Harry?” she asked him.

He nodded and looked back over at her again. “I tried. Twice. He won’t hear it. He just cuts me off and tells me not to talk to him.”

“Harry, you’ve got to try again.”

“It won’t work Hermione. I know I’m a git, he knows I’m a git, that’s the end of it.”

“Harry,” she tried again, “I think he’s worried about you. Whenever you come into a room he gives you this worried look…”

Harry shrugged. “He probably thinks I’ll blow up at him again.” He sighed. “I had no right to do that. I thought he had told somebody something he promised he wouldn’t… I don’t know why I thought that. McGonagall asked me about it, and then he came down the hall right then and… I was really angry.”

Hermione bit her lip… “Michael Corner said that Snape had to drag you down the hall and away from Ron…”

Harry shook his head. “Almost,” he paused, and said, “besides, don’t talk about Snape to me… or Potions.”

Hermione bit her lip again, and he wondered if she had planned on next asking him why he had missed Snape’s class.

“You’re making this hard Harry.”

Harry shrugged, “For who?”

“For me. For Ron. For you.”

“Hey, don’t tell me that. I told you already, I tried to apologize to Ron. I know how horrible a friend I am, but he won’t hear it out. I don’t expect him to forgive me for that, and I’ll be surprised if he does.”

Finally deciding that he was too distracted to finish the essay that night, he set his quill down and rubbed his forehead.

“Oh Harry,” she said, “I don’t know what to do.”

Harry gave another short laugh. “That should be the motto for my fan club.”

Hermione frowned at him, and Harry immediately said, “Sorry.”

“I don’t know what to do either Hermione. I just lost the best friend I ever had because I’m a stupid git; I’ve been having nightmares every night where Voldemort tries to kill me and people I know and like help him; and to top it all off, I’ve been taking Occlumency lessons and I’m rubbish at it. Each time I try to push him out of my mind I end up face first on the floor drenched in sweat. I can’t do it anymore.”

Hermione gave him a sympathetic look, and before he knew what was happening she had him in a hug. Surprised by the warmth it gave him to hug her, both inside and out, he suddenly thought that Ron was very lucky to have her.

“I’m here if you need me Harry,” she told him, releasing him from her grip.

“I know,” he said, “thanks.”

She held out her hand, and Harry pushed the Transfiguration essay over to her for her to look over.

“You’ve missed a few things,” she told him, pointing at the place he had left off writing. Harry looked at her and grinned for the first time in a week.

“I’m glad you’re still my friend Hermione.”

She smiled and picked up his quill, “I know.”

At nine o’clock Professor McGonagall entered the Great Hall and announced that the accidental flood had been stopped, and that they could once again go back to the common room. Elves were working hard to dry the floor, curtains, and furniture as she spoke.

On his way out the door to the Entrance Hall, McGonagall stopped Harry, and later Ron, and told them, “As for you, you have detention to serve with Mr. Filch on the eighth floor cleaning out the East wing attic.”

Harry nodded and began to make his way up to the top of the East side of the castle. As far as he knew, he had never been up to that part of the eighth floor before, but he figured that the attic couldn’t be hard to find.

Once he was there, he had only to wait a few minutes before Ron showed up, still quiet and not meeting Harry’s eyes. After that it was only a few moments before they heard Filch coming up the hall talking to somebody, whom they could only assume were Collin and Daniel.

“It’s too bad that all the bathrooms in the castle are already sparkling! I have half a mind to dirty them up again right good just to put you two dunderheads to work! Do you know how hard it is to clean up four feet of water!?”

A moment later Filch, Collin, and Daniel came around the corner. The Caretaker had both boys by the collar, one in each hand, and half dragged them along. It wasn’t difficult since both boys were rather small for their age. Collin was a fifth year, and Daniel a third year.

“Get in there!” he shouted at the two boys, pushing them forward and through the door to the East attic. Harry and Ron followed wordlessly. If he weren’t in such a foul mood, Harry might have laughed aloud at the two younger boys and the trouble they had gotten themselves into.

“I’ll have this castle cleaner than it’s been since it was built with the number of detentions you two have!” Filch laughed a laugh that matched his raspy voice, and looked around to Harry and Ron.

“And you two had better not fight neither, or I’ll have you helping these two for the next month!” Harry and Ron gave each other a quick look, but nothing more.

“Spotless!” Filch told the four of them. “I want this attic spotless! That means no dust! No spider webs! I want all this junk sorted out and stacked neatly! And don’t the four of you cause any trouble while I’m gone dealing with that watery mess in Gryffindor tower, or I’ll have your heads too!”

With this he stormed away and slammed the attic door behind them.

Harry and Ron pulled their wands out and began to light various lanterns that they found with a small fire charm to light the attic. Once they had done so, they saw that the room was huge. It was the equivalent size of around eight large classrooms, and it was filled from floor to ceiling in some places, and in others wall to wall with old storage trunks, wardrobes, desks of all shapes and sizes, full-length mirrors, bed frames, and chairs. Each piece of furniture was covered in an inch of dust.

“Well, it’s better than bathrooms,” Daniel said brightly.

Collin nodded and Ron shook his head, “No it’s not. Cleaning bathrooms took two days. This will take you a month.”

Collin pulled his wand out, and said, “We need a spell to get rid of dust.”

“How about a water charm?” Harry asked.

Daniel grinned and Collin’s face lit up again. “Now that’s an idea,” he said.

“Do you want to be expelled,” Ron asked the two younger boys.

“Hey, that was an accident,” said Daniel. “We found that water charm in a book in the Library. We thought it would be good for fighting fires!”

Harry looked over at him as he muttered a wind charm and aimed his wand at a desk, seeing if it would blow the dust off of it. It did, but it also created a cloud of dust that was hard to breath in. “What were you two planning on setting on fire?” he asked, waving his hand around in the air to clear the dust from it faster.

Collin and Daniel looked at each other. “It doesn’t matter now. We can’t use that water charm on it! It said never ending water… we didn’t think it meant that we couldn’t stop it!”

Ron shook his head. “And I thought Fred and George were bad.”

Not facing Ron, Harry smiled, knowing none of the others could see him doing it.

For an hour they heaved heavy furniture around and tried to make a path to the back. Chairs were stacked along one wall, and they stacked desks on top of each other on another wall. Soon they uncovered two windows in the East wall and Harry took an old cloth he had found damp with water from his wand, and wiped it down so they could see out of it. From both windows shined bright moonlight into the room. Harry pushed one open, and then the other, to let the cool night air in, and some of the dusty air from the attic out. Both windows were the size of Harry, and went from the floor to about five and a half feet tall. They were wide enough that he could sit in them if he wanted to and hang his legs out. Beyond the windows was a small ledge, and beyond that, they could see part of the lake, and most of the Forbidden forest.

“Hey, look at this!” Daniel suddenly said from the other side of the room, opposite the windows. Ron and Collin went over to see what he had. It turned out to be a box that looked as if it was made of pure gold.

“Why would they keep such a pretty thing up here?” Collin asked.

“I don’t know,” Daniel said. “Let’s open it and see what’s inside!”

Harry was just about to object, because he knew from first hand experience what some objects could hold inside, but there was a sudden explosion, and Ron was sent flying backward toward the nearest open window.

“Ron!” Harry shouted. He ran to the window Ron had been thrown from and looked out of it. Ron was hanging there on the ledge with both hands.

“Pull me in Harry!” he said frantically.

Harry reached through and gripped both of Ron’s wrists, and tugged on him. He was a lot heaver than he would have thought. For long moments Harry wrestled with Ron, trying to pull him up and inside, Ron trying to walk up the side of the castle wall outside, and not look down to the grass eight stories below. Finally they managed, and Ron was inside, panting next to Harry who was doing the same.

Across the room, Daniel and Collin still stood, open box in hand, watching Harry and Ron, eyes wide.

“What was in that thing!?” Ron asked angrily.

Daniel dropped the box with a clatter onto the wooden floor. “I didn’t do it!” he said quickly.

He and Collin backed away from the small box a few steps just as the door burst open and Filch ran inside, wheezing.

“Didn’t I tell you that if you caused anymore trouble I would kill you!”

Daniel and Collin looked at each other, eyes even wider. “No!” said Daniel frantically, “You only said you’d have our heads!”

“Even better!” Filch moved for the two younger boys, and suddenly Harry was there between Filch and his fellow Gryffindors, Ron by his side.

“We were just moving things Mr. Filch,” he said in as polite a tone as he could. “We dropped a heavy desk on accident!” Filch looked around wildly to see if there was any truth to what he said. As luck would have it, the same explosion that had sent Ron flying out the window, had also knocked several desks on their sides, and even broken a particularly old one.

“Why are the windows open boy? Throwing things out of it were yeh?”

Ron shook his head. “We cleaned the windows off and we opened them to dry and to let cool air in.”

Filch glared at them.

“Get out! All of you! Back to your house!” Startled, the four boys stood there for a moment, and Filch shouted again, “OUT!”

Daniel and Collin ran for the door, and Harry and Ron strode out of it, not as afraid of Filch as they used to be, if at all.

Down a flight of stairs and around a corner, and Harry stopped walking. Ron did also. They looked at each other, and Harry couldn’t help but bust out laughing.

“Did you see their faces!?”

Ron grinned, also laughing, “Did you see mine?”

Harry nodded. “I thought you were gone for good!” They laughed for a moment more, Daniel and Collin nowhere in sight, presumably having already run all the way back to Gryffindor tower.

Harry shook his head. “I was just glad they didn’t flood the attic… it would have made it rain all down through the castle through that wooden floor…”

“Yeah,” Ron said. Sides hurting from laughter, boy boys finally calmed, and took deep breaths. Harry leaned on one wall, and Ron on the opposite one of the skinny corridor.

Ron looked up at Harry, who was watching the floor, a grin still on his face.

“I heard what you said mate.”

Harry looked up. “About what?”

Ron shrugged and looked down at the floor. “About being a git… down in the Great Hall before detention tonight. I was at the table behind you.”

“Oh,” Harry said.

Ron looked up again, and said, “I’m sorry I didn’t let you finish apologizing… I thought you were going to make an excuse for the way you treated me.”

Harry shook his head. “Don’t apologize Ron. I’m the one who should be doing that. I had no right to do what I did,” he paused. “You’re not a rotten friend Ron. You’re the best friend I’ve ever had.” He paused again, and then said, “Come to think of it, you’re the first friend I’ve ever had.”

“Really?”

Harry nodded. “Really.”

There was silence for a moment, and then Ron laughed, and said, “Well mate, be glad that your first and best friend didn’t plummet to his ultimate doom tonight then.”

Harry laughed too, “Yeah.”

They began walking back to Gryffindor tower at a casual pace, but Harry stopped before they reached the end of the corridor. Ron stopped too and turned to him.

Harry held out his hand, “Friends?” he asked.

Ron grinned, “Always mate. Best friends.” They took hold of each other’s hand in a shake, and laughed again as they made their way down to Gryffindor common room.

Harry tossed and turned in his four-poster, sweat pouring from his face. “No,” he muttered, “You lie.”

Ron listened quietly from his own bed, knowing Harry was in another nightmare, and wondering if he should wake him.

“Why do you do this to me?” Harry asked aloud to no response from Ron or any of the other sixth year Gryffindor boys.

All of the boys except Ron had put silencing charms around their beds and closed the curtains tight. Ron knew they could hear nothing of Harry’s conversation with whoever was in the dream with him, and was glad.

“Yes Harry Potter, it is true,” Voldemort told him in his dream. Harry stood in front of him, staring into the red slits Voldemort called eyes. “I do like to torment you. It is the highlight of my day, and I will continue to do so until you die.”

Harry shook his head and searched his jacket pocket for his wand. He would kill Voldemort here and now.

“Stupid boy,” Voldemort told him, and chuckled, “you are looking to defenses that cannot save you.”

Harry shook his head and gave up looking for the wand. He looked around him instead, and found Snape by his side. Harry stood taller, and looked back at Voldemort.

“You can’t kill me Voldemort, he’s on my side.”

Voldemort laughed a high, cold laugh, and said, “Yes, this I know, and he will die for his betrayal.” He paused, and then tilted his head to the side and looked at Harry, “Or perhaps you would wish to kill him first, for his betrayal of everything you love.”

Harry sat bolt upright in his four-poster, wide awake and breathing hard.

There was silence except for Harry’s breathing, and then from the darkness a few feet away came Ron’s voice. “It was just a dream Harry.” Harry wished that were true.

“I don’t think so Ron. He’s inside my head. That’s why I was doing the Occlumency again… to keep him out.”

Ron was still and quiet. “It doesn’t seem to be working, does it?”

Harry shook his head, even though it was too dark for Ron to see him doing it. “No… I’m rubbish at it. Professor Snape says I can’t get it because I don’t think I can.”

Ron laughed. “Since when do you trust Snape so much?”

Harry tried hard to calm his breathing further, because he was still taking in deep breaths from the dream. He didn’t want to admit to Ron that he felt like Snape was the only one that understood him at times. “I don’t know Ron… I just do.”

Ron sighed. “You kicked my wash bucket over and insisted that you hated him the other night. What happened to that?”

That was out of anger he knew, and came also from the fact that Harry didn’t think he could face Snape after that… not even in class. Just because Harry had begun to look up to him in the smallest of ways didn’t mean Snape would accept that. In fact, Harry was sure that he wouldn’t, and that he still disliked Harry as he did before. Why he was halfway civil to him now, he had no idea, other than the fact that Harry helped him with his workload every week.

“Maybe I don’t hate him,” Harry said. “I was angry. I said something to him I didn’t mean and I really don’t want to face him after that.”

Ron thought on that. He thought he knew what Harry had said to him… the same thing he had called him in his sleep unknowing until Ron had told him. Ron didn’t like that idea as much as Harry didn’t. “Well, on the upside,” said Ron, “you’re caught far enough up on Potions that you could skip the rest of the year and still be ahead.”

“I wish,” Harry said, “but there’s no way McGonagall would let me get away with that.” Harry was also sure that he would incur Snape’s wrath if he began skipping his classes altogether. So far he had gotten away with skipping the one… he wasn’t sure if he wanted to chance skipping the rest. He was also sure that at some point Snape would seek him out and make him finish the Occlumency lessons, and that chance was more likely if he began skipping Potions classes as well.

“Better to be in a room full of students with him than in his office with just me and him,” Harry finally decided aloud.

Ron yawned and rolled over. “Good thinking. If you started skipping his classes I recon I’d have to too… you know… just to be a good friend I mean.”

Harry smiled despite the still all to close feeling of Voldemort being in his brain. “That’s what friends are for,” Harry told him.

* * *

“Ok Hermione,” Ron said on their way to Potions, “the plan is that you get to distract Snape so Harry can get out of class at the end without him calling for him to stay after.” Ron had his arm around Hermione’s shoulders as they walked, Harry on Ron’s other side.

Hermione sighed heavily. “Ron, he can’t avoid him forever… what about meal times? And besides, this could work once, but what about tomorrow?”

Ron shrugged, “We can try can’t we?”

Hermione glared at him as best she could, before Ron gave her a puppy dog look and she couldn’t glare at him anymore. “Oh, fine Ronald, but I still want to know why you can’t distract him.”

Harry laughed, and said, “He knows he can’t do it well enough like you can… since when does Ron stay after class to ask questions from a Professor?”

“Yeah,” said Ron, “he’ll know it’s a ruse if I do it.”

Hermione shook her head as they made the door to the Potion’s classroom. “I’m not sure which is worse,” she said, “the logic you two use, or the ideas that goes with it.”

Throughout class Harry didn’t look at Snape once. He didn’t even look up at the blackboard to see the instructions. Instead he looked down at Hermione’s notes, since she had copied the brewing instructions down.

The dream from the night before didn’t enter Harry’s mind once that day, or he might have remembered that Voldemort knew Snape was no longer his servant, but that of Dumbledore’s. Instead it had been washed away by the first pleasant dream Harry had had in weeks. It had been summer break and he was going home from Hogwarts to his parents, Lily and James Potter, who welcomed him with open arms. This dream is the one he was thinking about while brewing his potion.

Five minutes before the end of class, Harry asked Ron quietly, “Is he looking at me?”

Ron looked up and saw that Snape was occupied cleaning a spill Neville had made in the front of the room.

“Nope,” he told him.

Harry hurriedly began putting his Potion’s kit and book in his bag. He wanted to be ready to hurry out when the time came.

“Potion’s in!” Snape called a few minutes later. Harry bottled and labeled his flask, and handed it off to Hermione who quickly made her way to the front of the room, and tried to strike up a conversation with Snape about the uses of Jasp-root and Hen-weed.

From across the room Draco watched curiously as Harry and Ron made a break for the door before any of the other students had finished packing. Snape looked up, but Draco was now moving between Harry and Snape, and Draco being taller than Harry, Harry made it out the door unseen.

In the hall Draco shoved past Harry and said, “You owe me one Potter.”

Harry and Ron frowned as Draco disappeared around a corner, presumably off to his own common room.

“What did he mean by that?” Ron asked. Harry shrugged. He didn’t know, but wondered if he meant for not telling anybody that he had seen him in tears the other night in the corridor.

Harry skipped dinner that night, and waited in the common room instead for Ron and Hermione to appear with the food that they could fit into their bags.

The next day Harry skipped breakfast as well, not feeling hungry after another night’s nightmare filled sleep, and not wanting to run into Snape.

In Potion’s, before Snape could call for Harry to stay after, Ron didn’t have to create the planned on distraction, because Crabbe and Goyle were suddenly in a fight over something shiny that Harry couldn’t see. Snape moved to break up their fighting, and Harry again escaped without notice.

Ron and Harry’s fourth detention that night was not spent in the attic with Collin and Daniel, but instead out in back of Hagrid’s cabin gathering Shadès Nocturne Lily, which only bloomed under a full moon, and were used to make sleeping Potions.

“Yeh pull ‘em up like this,” Hagrid explained to them, showing them how to grip the night Lily so as not to tear the petals. “Be careful with ‘em, because I don’t think Snape will be too happy wit’ yeh if yeh ruin ‘em all.”

Harry and Ron, glad for the reprieve from Filch, gladly got on their hands and knees and began gathering the Lilies. Hagrid, unlike Filch, was on his hands and knees helping them. Within’ an hour, they were finished, and had pulled all of the Lilies up and put them in a small basket.

“I know I was supposed ter make teh detention hard for yeh, but I can’ do tha’ knowin’ tha’ if you two were fightin’ wit’ each other somat must have been wrong.”

“Everything’s ok now Hagrid,” Harry told him, and Ron nodded.

“Good! Good Harry, I’m glad teh hear it!” It was barely ten thirty when Hagrid sent Harry and Ron back up to the castle. He had offered them cake and tea inside before they went, but Ron insisted that he was dead tired, and Harry agreed, knowing what kind of cake Hagrid usually made.

They were almost back to Gryffindor tower when Snape stepped around a corner and blocked their path. Harry wasn’t sure if he had been waiting there for them, or if bumping into them had been an accident.

“Potter,” he said.

Harry looked at Ron for help, but Ron didn’t know what to do. They didn’t have an excuse to get away from him.

“Done with detention early tonight?” he asked.

Very quietly, and not looking at him, Harry said, “Yes sir.”

“Perhaps then, your detention was not made hard enough. I will see that the error in detention assignment is fixed for your last detention.” He moved off quickly, leaving the two boys there alone.

Once he was out of earshot, Harry said, “You know what that means?”

Ron nodded, and said, “Let’s hope he means he’s sending us back to Filch, and not gonna make us clean out old Potion’s jars.” Ron shuddered, remembering the last detention he had spent with Snape, cleaning old rat and rabbit brains out of jars for two and a half hours.

The next day being Saturday, they were relieved to find that they had the day to themselves. Using the excuse of Quidditch practice, Harry and Ron were able to leave the tower and head outside with the rest of the team.

The cool air sweeping his hair back as he flew made Harry forget about Voldemort shooting him full of arrows in his dreams the night before, and for a short while he was happy. That happiness disappeared immediately at dinnertime however, for both Harry and Ron, as McGonagall approached where they were sitting and handed them a piece of parchment.

“This will be your last detention regarding the fight between the two of you. The next time you decide that you disagree with one another, I would hope your time served reminds you that more peaceful means of settling arguments needs to be used while you attend this school.” With this she walked away, and Harry and Ron opened up the rolled parchment. There was only one line of writing, and it read: Your detention is to be served tonight at seven o’clock in the evening in the dungeons with Professor Snape.

“Well, there’s the end of avoiding him,” Ron said.

Harry nodded. “Thanks for trying,” he told him. Hermione shook her head, taking the rolled up parchment.

“I won’t say I told you,” she said.

“This is going to be disgusting I think,” Ron said as they made their way to the dungeons at seven. Harry was silent. “He aims to keep us up all night if he’s starting us at seven!” Ron ran his fingers through his hair once.

“I hate cleaning rat brains,” he complained.

Snape was waiting for them in his office. Without a word he swept past them and lead them to the largest dungeon classroom.

“Clean,” he told them. “Do not use a spell, because it could interact badly with any spilled potions.”

He gave Harry a look Harry couldn’t discern, and turned to leave.

“If your skin begins to burn, find me immediately.”

When he was gone, back to his study, Harry looked at Ron, and Ron said, “Well, that’s not so bad… I won’t have the smell of Rat brain on me for three days this time… I’ll just lose some skin, maybe a hand, from flesh eating potion.”

Feeling on unsteady ground being so close to Snape, Harry was silent as they cleaned the tables, floors and the wall the door was in, seeing as how it had some kind of purple potion splashed all down it’s side. He was certain that Snape would hold him after the detention was served to speak with him, and was surprised when he did not. They had finished by nine, the time when they were usually just getting started with detention, and had gone to tell Snape that the room was clean.

“Fine,” he told them, “off with you.” He didn’t look up at Harry, and Harry no longer felt uncomfortable, but a little put out that Snape hadn’t been trying to track him down or keep him after class the last few days. It seemed in fact, that he was back to his old self: hating Harry and treating him like every other non-Slytherin student.

Ron laughed and talked the entire way back to Gryffindor tower, glad to be done with their detentions, and glad that they hadn’t even gotten dirty cleaning the classroom like they had the bathrooms and attic.

In the common room, Ron sat with Hermione, who was trying to do homework, but was persuaded to play a game of chess instead with Ron. Harry said goodnight early though, and went to their room. It wasn’t that he was extra tired, or even wanting to go to sleep and sink into Voldemort’s torment earlier; he just didn’t want to be around anybody at the moment.

Lying on his back, Harry stared at the ceiling of his four-poster, curtains closed around him. The darkness was comforting to him for some reason, as he wondered at the change in Snape’s attitude towards him. It couldn’t have been that Harry had told him that he hated him, Harry thought. He had to have understood that Harry had only been angry. This forced Harry to the conclusion that he indeed wanted nothing to do with him now that Harry had accidentally called him the “D” word. His stomach ached with the stupidity of the comment, and he longed to retract the comment, even knowing how he felt.

Harry soon slipped into a fitful sleep. This time his dreams were like he was taking Occlumency lessons again. His mind raced and he dreamt one horrid thing after another. First Ron was chasing him through the castle with a knife the size of his left arm, then he was down in the kitchens under the Great Hall, and Dobby was cooking him in an enormous pot to serve as “Harry stew,” for lunch. Harry knew he was dreaming, and tried to wake himself, but could not. Next Cho was trying to kiss him, but her mouth was filled with razor sharp teeth, and her tongue was that of a snake’s, forked at the end. Again and again the dream changed, and again and again Harry tried to escape to the waking world.

“Now you know Harry Potter,” Voldemort’s voice filled his head, “that you cannot escape the wrath of Lord Voldemort.”

His dream changed again, and Harry’s head was suddenly in a guillotine. He willed his mind to change the dream to something else, but could not make it do so. Before he could do anything, the blade came crashing down on his neck, severing his head with a sickening crunch. Instead of being dead though, Harry’s world was spinning. It took him a moment to realize that it was because he was still seeing through the eyes of his severed head, and his head was rolling away from his body.

When his head finally came to a stop on it’s side in the dirt, it was facing a large platform with a gallows built on top out on the front lawn of the castle. There was only one noose, and there was a man standing there with his hands tied behind his back and a black sack over his head. Harry watched as a masked death eater put the noose around the other man’s neck, and took the sack off his head. Under the sack was Snape.

“No!” Harry tried to shout, but his mouth wouldn’t form the words, and instead there was only a gurgle.

Voldemort’s voice filled his head again, and he said, “Severus Snape, I hereby condemn you for treason against the Dark Lord of the world, Lord Voldemort. You have committed the highest act of treason, and have helped Lord Voldemort’s sworn enemy, who is now dead. For this you are to be hanged forever more.” Harry watched in horror, still unable to wake himself from the dream, as the masked death eater kicked the bucket that Snape was standing on out from under his feet. For long minutes it seemed, Harry watched Snape struggle before he was still.

Harry used every ounce of his strength to fill his mind with blinding light. After agonizing moments of watching Snape hang there, he finally managed and was thrown free of the dream.

Harry was on the floor in his room. It was dark, and the curtains of the other four-posters were closed. Ron’s bed was empty. Harry ran from the room and almost toppled down the steps to the common room, because his legs didn’t want to move as fast as his brain ordered them to. The common room was empty.

He made for the opening in the wall that would let him out to the rest of the castle, but it opened by itself before he got there. Daniel and Collin climbed in. Collin was saying, “He didn’t have to keep us until two am!”

The two boys stopped, catching sight of Harry, but he was past them and out the door before they could say anything.

Down through the castle Harry ran. Three times he almost fell down a full flight of stairs, and once when he reached the Entrance hall he missed the last step and hit the stone floor hard. Pain shot through his body, but he ignored it and pushed himself up, continuing on as fast as he could down into the dungeons.

Severus Snape was just standing from a long night of grading papers, and moving for his study door when it burst open and Harry toppled inside, covered in sweat and tears, and looking paler than he had ever seen him. Immediately Snape was on his knees on the floor by his side.

“What-” he started, but Harry cut him off, choking some of the words out.

“He’s going to kill you! He knows you’ve been helping me and you’re not on his side anymore!”

“Potter, what are you-” even as he said it his face paled a little.

“He’s going to kill you. He promised. High treason against the Dark Lord… He knows!” There was an urgency in Harry’s voice that told Snape Harry was fearful for his, Snape’s life, and if he was that fearful, than it must have come to him in a dream straight from Voldemort’s mind.

Snape gripped Harry’s shoulders tightly and commanded forcefully, “Clear your mind Harry… now!”

Harry shook his head, and Snape said again, louder, “Clear it! He is still with you! Be free of him!” Harry sobbed once, but Snape’s grip tightened on his shoulders. Feeling the warmth of his hands, Harry closed his eyes and took a deep, uncertain breath.

“You can and will do this Potter. I have seen you push me from your mind before, and you can certainly push him from it too.”

Harry concentrated as hard as he could. The vision of Snape dangling from the rope kept coming back to him.

“I will not die Harry,” Severus told him. “He cannot kill me because I have you on my side. Clear your mind of the things he has shown you.”

Finally drawing from the strength Snape was giving him, Harry filled his mind with a light so blinding that it pained him to do so. He held it there for what seemed long minutes, and finally when he released the light, a kind of calm came over him that he had not felt in weeks.

Harry let out a deep breath, and opened his eyes to find Snape’s concerned gaze boring into him. Harry choked, feeling another wave of tears coming on, and desperately not wanting this other man to see him cry. The grip on his shoulders tightened again for a moment, and before Harry knew it he had been pulled into a hug.

“This is my fault,” Harry choked out, “he’ll kill you for helping me.”

“Perhaps,” Severus said calmly, “but I do not believe he is willing to face the protective enchantments surrounding the school, you, and the Headmaster all at the same time to get me.” The calmness of his voice sent another wave of calm over Harry.

“He is coming,” Harry said with certainty after another few moments. Severus finally released him from his grip.

“You sound so certain,” he told him.

Harry didn’t look at him, but said calmly, “He will come. He finally killed me in my dream tonight. I think he’s getting tired of toying with me. It will be soon.”

Snape sighed and pulled Harry up off the floor and closed the door to his study.

“If that is true, we will know it soon enough.” He paused and thought for a few moments. “The fact that he knows I am no longer his spy explains the ceased contact with me over the last few weeks. The last communications I had with him were shaky at best, and both I and the Headmaster believed that he was growing suspicious of my loyalty.”

Harry listened quietly, but still did not look at the Professor.

Finally Harry looked up and said, “I shouldn’t be here. I’m putting everybody else in danger. He knows this is where he’ll have to come to get me.”

Severus spared a glare for Harry, and Harry looked away. “Do not be stupid Potter. This is the place you are most safe, because the Dark Lord fears the powers the Headmaster has.”

“What am I supposed to do then? Just sit around and wait for him to come get me? I can’t live here forever.”

“No,” Snape said, “in time the Dark Lord will grow tired of waiting and cast aside any fears he has of powers he does not understand. But until then, you will remain here, inside the castle, and you will guard your mind at all times. If you feel a foreign presence lingering there, even if you are not certain it is someone trying to reach your mind, you must clear it as quickly as possible. The Dark Lord will count on the connection between you and him as a tool to help him locate and destroy you.”

Harry ran his fingers through his hair. “Great,” he said, “my Quidditch team ought to love me… their Captain that can’t play in any game… ever.”

Knowing it was only a joke, Snape didn’t cast a glare at him, and instead only said, “I am most positive that with this news, the grounds will be off limits to all students in the near future. As it is, the Headmaster and other staff have been working diligently to reinforce the wards around the castle and grounds, as well as placing new ones up.

Harry sighed and suddenly felt very tired, as if he hadn’t slept in weeks. Seeing this, Snape said, “You should return to bed. I have need to speak to the Headmaster in any case.”

Harry’s eyes shot up to his. “No,” he said.

Severus raised a brow. “You do not wish me to speak to the Headmaster?”

Harry shook his head. “I’m not going back to bed,” he told him confidently. “I can’t. I only pushed him from my mind because you were there… He’ll just get back in as soon as I go to sleep…”

Snape sighed now, and said calmly, “You cannot stay awake forever. Perhaps the Dark Lord intends to keep you awake so that he can defeat you simply because you are too tired to fight him.”

Harry shrugged. He didn’t know, but he didn’t want to go all the way back up to Gryffindor tower just to fall into Voldemort’s hands again.

“Fine,” Snape said. “You may stay here as long as you like. I will be in the Headmaster’s office, and I may not return until daybreak.”

Severus opened a desk drawer and pulled from it a long rolled up parchment, worn on the outside and burnt on one edge, closed the drawer, and made for his office door.

Harry watched him pull the door open and pause in the doorway. He seemed to want to say something to him, but couldn’t, and finally stepped into the corridor and pulled the door closed behind him.

Inside the office, Harry looked around and spotted many of the jars full of rat and rabbit brains Ron must have cleaned in previous detentions. Even though Snape was gone, Harry didn’t feel quite so alone as he thought he might if he were in Gryffindor tower. Quietly he moved to a shelf full of books and began browsing for anything he might be interested in reading. On the highest shelf, he spotted a newer looking book with a glossy red cover. He pulled it down and was pleased to find it a wilderness survival book. It was distinctly Muggle. Harry sat down in the visitor’s chair again and began to read.

When Severus returned at nearly five am, Harry was asleep in the visitor’s chair, open survival book in his hand. Snape had forgotten about the book. He had ordered it from a Muggle store in London, and had long since finished it. He had intended to give it to Harry, but had gotten distracted by Occlumency lessons.

From thin air, Snape conjured a cot and blanket with his wand and hovered them to the empty space between the two visitor’s chairs and the bookshelves on the wall. Then he used a Levicorpus charm to hover Harry onto the cot. The boy did not wake. Severus was unsure why he did not simply make the boy go back to his own bed in his own house, but he felt some kind of comfort knowing Harry felt safe enough to sleep here, in his office. It had been a long time since anybody had placed that kind of trust in him. Dumbledore trusted him, but that was different… that kind of trust was out of necessity.

Harry awoke, uncertain as to where he was within the castle for a few moments. When he had fallen asleep, he had not been laying down. Opening his eyes, and looking around, he realized he was still in Snape’s office. How he got onto a cot and ended up covered with a blanket, he didn’t know. Harry looked at his watch, having no windows in the office to tell him the time of day. It was nine am. He pulled the covers off of himself, still dressed from the day before, and stood. His body ached from having tripped at the bottom of the stairs in the Entrance hall. His arm showed a large purple bruise from where it had hit the stone floor.

Remembering his fit of weakness the night before, and the hug he had received, being more a symbol of comfort and strength than anything else, Harry made for the office door, not wanting Snape to see him.

Out in the corridor Harry looked around, and found Draco at the end, stopped in his tracks and staring at him with a surprised expression.

Harry stood still as well, hand on Snape’s office door. He would have to pass Draco to exit the dungeons, and the task seemed daunting. He was still tired from the many nights of nightmare filled sleep, and didn’t known if he wanted to deal with Draco and his snide comments just now.

Taking a few uncertain steps forward, Harry watched Draco to see if he would do anything. He only stood still however, eyes locked on Harry’s. Harry continued on and was just coming even with him when Draco reached out and took hold of Harry’s upper arm.

“You slept in there didn’t you…” he trailed off.

Harry looked at him, but Draco was no longer willing to meet his eyes. “Why do you care?” Harry asked carefully and quietly.

Draco let go of his arm and stormed away from him, around a corner and out of sight.

Harry sighed and rubbed his temple. Draco seemed as emotionally exhausted as he felt.

Knowing breakfast was probably over, Harry skipped the Great Hall and went straight up to Gryffindor tower to change. Before he got in the door to the nearly empty common room, Ron and Hermione were at his side, peppering him with questions.

“Harry we were so worried.”

“What happened mate?” Ron asked.

“You weren’t there when Ron went to bed last night and when we got up this morning McGonagall told us there was a restriction for all students placed on the castle grounds and-”

“Did you sneak out or something? Did death eaters try to get you?”

“Harry, we thought you might be dead…” Harry raised his eyebrows at this last statement.

“You two weren’t anywhere to be seen at 2am last night and I didn’t assume you were dead…” Harry pointed out.

Ron looked at the ground and put his hands in his pockets, suddenly looking sheepish. “We were… in the rose garden… you know…”

Hermione hit him across the shoulder with no real feeling to the slap. “Ronald! There are people around!”

Ron looked up and couldn’t help but grinning. Harry shook his head and despite of himself smiled too. The rose garden he knew, was where couples often went to make out, because the rose bushes were many and kept the garden visitors well hidden from view.

“I was just saying…” Ron told Hermione with an innocent tone and a shrug of his shoulders. “I was just ruling places out that he wasn’t…”

Hermione sighed and finally looked away from Ron and back to Harry. “Where were you Harry?”

Harry looked around and noticed that there were a few students sitting around in the common room.

“Up here,” he said, and began up the stairs to his and Ron’s dormitory.

Inside he was pleased to find it empty. Once Ron and Hermione were inside he closed the door and began to strip his shirt off and search for a new one in his trunk.

Hermione’s eyes widened and she promptly turned around and sat on the edge of Harry’s bed facing the other boy’s bunks.

Harry found a new shirt and pulled it on and began to unbuckle his belt. Hermione cleared her throat, and Ron sat on the bed beside her and covered her eyes.

“Keep facing that way,” Harry told her. He pulled his pants and socks off and began putting on clean clothes. “I was down in Snape’s office.”

“All night?” Ron asked, looking over at Harry to see his progress in dressing as he pulled one sock on and then another.

Harry nodded. “He left me there and went to see Dumbledore. He wasn’t there when I woke up but I was on an cot with a blanket.” Suddenly Harry felt very grateful that he had been placed on the cot, as he was sure he would have had a stiff neck and back if he had continued to sleep in the visitor’s chair until morning.

“Why did you go there?” Hermione asked, a little annoyed that she couldn’t look at him and that Ron was still covering her eyes.

“You can turn around now,” Harry said, finally having finished dressing, and now pulling his shoes on.

As he tied his left shoe, he said, “Voldemort killed me in my sleep last night… chopped my head clean off. And then he hung Snape on a gallows… Voldemort knows he’s on our side now… I had to tell him, and I needed his help getting Voldemort out of my mind,” Harry lied. In truth, he hadn’t thought about anything when he had run down through the castle to Snape’s office, he had just gone, to the place where he felt most safe within the castle.

“You can’t tell anyone that,” Harry told them, “but that’s why there’s restrictions on the grounds now. We figure Voldemort’s tired of toying with me and he’s getting ready to come and finish me off.”

Hermione, who had been quiet through this explanation, gasped now and said, “Harry that’s horrible!”

Harry shrugged, now done tying his right shoe as well. “Draco knows I spent the night down there,” he threw out randomly. He was in the corridor when I came out. He seemed put off by it.”

Ron frowned, “Who cares. He’s not the one who Voldemort wants to chop his head off!”

Hermione gave Ron a stern look, and said to Harry, “He has been acting kind of odd lately. His father visited him last week and after that he passed me in the hall several times and didn’t say a word to me about being a mudblood or a know-it-all or a Gryffindor or anything!”

Ron snorted. “And you’re sad about that?”

With another stern look from Hermione, Ron looked at the ground, and Hermione said, “Usually he doesn’t pass up a chance to taunt me or the other Gryffindors, but he’s hardly said a word in the past week… to anyone.”

Harry frowned. He had found it odd that Draco hadn’t told anybody he had found Harry crying in the hall.

At lunch almost every student in the Great Hall was talking or complaining about the school grounds being closed off. It was fall now, and they knew there would be precious few chances to enjoy the last bit of warm weather before the grounds were covered in snow as it was. Now those chances had been snatched away altogether.

The Slytherins seemed to be most irked by this new restriction, and many of them kept pointing at other house tables and making loud, rude remarks about scared Hufflepuffs and fragile Ravenclaws, and about the stupid Potter boy who the Headmaster was probably trying to protect, although Harry never heard the Dark Lord’s name mentioned once in those remarks. Many of the Slytherin’s parent’s were Death Eaters or Voldemort’s sympathizers, and Harry was sure most of them knew that there would soon be a strike on the castle.

As Harry looked over his shoulder at the Slytherin table, and received a particularly nasty sneer from Crabbe, he noticed that Draco was not there.

That afternoon was spent in the common room among a restless house. This day was a sunny one, and now that the grounds had suddenly been placed off limits, everyone wanted to be out on them. Harry sat by himself on the ledge of a window, looking out at the grounds. He too longed to be able to walk where he wanted, because he didn’t like feeling trapped. Most of all though, he wanted to be away from the school completely, knowing he was putting every body else in danger being there.

Ron and Hermione were sitting in a corner of the common room holding hands and going over an essay due the next day when something out on the grounds caught Harry’s eye.

A lone blond figure walked in open sight, hands in pockets and eyes on the ground towards the edge of the Forbidden Forest.

Harry leapt off the window ledge and landed catlike on the common room floor, startling several first years sitting at a table near there. At the common room entrance, Hermione looked up and said, “Harry, where are you going?”

“Need to talk to somebody,” Harry said, and left before she could ask any more questions.

Harry raced through the castle as he had done the night before, only now, not in a panic but in a fit of curiosity. On the second floor he was forced to an abrupt halt, Snape blocking his path.

“Harry-” he started. Harry looked up and tried to act casual, and not as if he were about to break a rule that had been put into place because of him.

“Sorry Professor,” he said, “I have to talk to someone.” Harry stepped around him, wishing he could have told him the truth.

In the Entrance Hall, Harry gave a quick look around and made sure nobody else was there before he pulled the great oak front doors open just far enough for him to exit through, and pulled them closed tight again. Harry ran off as fast as he could towards the direction Draco had been walking in. He hoped desperately that nobody saw him through a window as he had seen Draco, and wished he had thought to grab his invisibility cloak before he had left the castle.

Harry ran for five minutes, reaching the edge of the lake, and continuing on past it when he saw nobody there. Not that he wanted to talk to Draco, but more that he wanted to know what he was up to.

After a few more minutes, Harry stopped to breathe for a moment, trying to think where he would have gone to. Harry had his wand with him, but he didn’t fancy marching into the Forbidden Forest alone.

He had heard from older students long ago that there was an old abandoned garden near the edge of the forest and around the side of the castle, and Harry set off in that direction, thinking it not unlikely that Draco knew of it’s existence as well.

After a short while, a rusted black gate with spikes along the top of each post came into view. One half of it was open. Beyond it, dangling vines and overgrown bushes and plants grew everywhere. There was a stone path, and Harry walked through the rusted gate and onto it. Plants grew over the path so far in some places that he had to walk on flowers, smashing them, to get through. It was a wonderful place, Harry thought to himself, thinking that this is the way gardens should be. There was a weeping willow tree in the middle of the garden, surrounded by benches. The path circled the tree and lead off in a number of other directions. Harry scanned the area, and found a slumped blond haired figure on one of the benches surrounding the enormous tree. Draco’s head hung low and his hands were clasped limply in front of him.

Harry stood there for a moment, and then began to approach cautiously.

After a few steps, he accidentally stepped on a fallen twig from a bush, and it cracked under his weight. Draco’s head snapped up and Draco leapt from the bench, wand out and aimed at Harry. Harry didn’t move, only stared at him.

“What Potter!?” Draco spat, “you would take this from me too!?”

Harry frowned; he wasn’t sure what Draco was talking about.

“I-” Harry started, but he didn’t finish, not knowing the right thing to say.

“OUT!” Draco shouted at him, lifting his wand as a threat. “This is my place! Mine! Hear me! You’re not allowed in here!”

Harry took a step back, not wanting a fight. He had no desire to take anything of Draco’s even though Draco felt he did.

When Harry didn’t move back further, Draco strode forward quickly and shoved Harry back forcefully, angry red sparks leaving the tip of Draco’s wand as he did so. “Didn’t you hear me? You can’t have it! Get out!”

Harry took another silent step back, not sure what was happening. “I don’t want your, garden,” Harry said cautiously. “I just… I saw you leaving the castle and…”

“Thought you’d spy on me?” Draco asked angrily still. Harry didn’t know what to say to that, because that was exactly what he was doing.

“Go back to your filthy castle Potter… it is your castle now isn’t it? Your dungeon and your head of house?”

“No-” Harry started. He held up his hands, and resisted the urge to draw his own wand to put them on equal ground.

“You’re disgusting Potter!” Draco spat. “You have to have everything don’t you? You have to take everything away from me!”

“Now wait,” Harry said forcefully now, starting to get angry and frustrated. “You’re the one with a bloody mansion and loads of money and a mum and dad Malfoy. What makes you think I have everything? What are dead parents worth and a bounty on your head by a load of dark wizards who want to see you dead!? What are nightmares every night where you get your head chopped off or your friends killed worth?”

Draco shook his head and aimed his wand at Harry’s throat, the tip of the wand less than a foot from its target. “A father,” Draco said quietly. “They’re worth a father.” For no reason, Draco lowered his wand and turned from Harry, walking back to the bench he had previously occupied before Harry had interrupted him.

“I don’t-” Harry began, but he didn’t finish, knowing how he felt about Snape.

“Don’t lie to me,” Draco said, defeated sounding and quiet, head in his hands now. “Living parents aren’t worth anything but bruises and scars… at least you have somebody that cares for you.”

Harry was thinking quickly now, jumbled thoughts coming together like pieces of a puzzle. Draco had made many attempts to keep Snape and Harry apart, and then later on when Harry had been avoiding Snape, he had made an attempt to help, and for some reason, that still bewildered Harry, hadn’t told anybody that he had seen Harry in tears.

“You think I took your surrogate father away from you?” Harry asked him quietly, unsure if his assumptions were correct.

Angry, Draco pulled up his sleeves to reveal large week old multicolored bruises on both arms. “You think I want a father who does this when he doesn’t get what he wants? Of course you took the only parent I actually care about having.”

“I… I didn’t know…” something heavy had fallen into the pit of his stomach. Suddenly Draco didn’t seem as pompous as he always had. Suddenly he was just another kid who like Harry, had been subject to torture from a guardian.

“It doesn’t matter,” Draco finally said, still quietly. “It will be over soon.”

“Because I’ll be dead?” Harry just wanted to clarify that that’s what they were talking about.

“Because we’ll all be dead,” Draco said, looking up at him.

Harry frowned. “Not you though…”

Draco nodded. “Father doesn’t recognize me as a son anymore… I was ordered… ordered to kill… so many people,” Draco was having trouble getting the words out now. “I had to kill to be initiated… I wouldn’t do it.”

Harry ran his fingers through his hair. “When is he coming?”

Draco didn’t answer, only looked at the ground for a long, silent moment. “Potter, he’s already here.”

Alarmed, Harry looked wildly around himself, and saw nothing but the garden.

“What?”

From behind Harry there was a snapping of twigs on the ground as footsteps approached. Harry spun around, wand out, and Draco jumped up, only to find Snape standing there, empty handed.

“Back,” he said, “into the castle. Both of you.” Harry and Draco looked at each other and said nothing, wondering how much he had heard.

“Go!” Snape said urgently. Harry and Draco suddenly snapped to action and passed Severus without a word.

The three of them were hardly past the lake when the sky began to darken. Both boys looked up, but Snape kept ushering them along as quickly as they would go.

Within minutes, the sky was almost black with clouds. “How-” Harry asked, but he was cut off.

Solemnly Snape said, “He’s here.”

There was a deafening roar of thunder directly overhead, and the sky darkened further.

“Damn,” Snape said aloud. Harry and Draco stared up at the sky as they began to ran, Snape right behind them.

“What’s happening?” Harry shouted as another deafening wave of thunder made his entire body shake.

“I don’t know,” Snape said. A moment later as it began to rain he said, “This is old magic. I believe he’s found a way to bypass the school’s protective barriers.”

“How’s he going to do that?” Harry asked. They were almost back to the castle now. Up in the lit windows of the Gryffindor Common room, Harry could see many curious faces peering out at the foul weather that had taken over the sun and warmth in a matter of minutes.

“He’s going to come in in the rain,” Draco shouted. Harry wondered how he knew that, but suddenly Draco had stopped in front of him and was pointing a hundred yards in the distance. A death eater was standing there, cloaked and hooded. A moment later another one dropped from the sky, standing steadily by his fellow’s side. It appeared that they had not noticed Harry, Snape and Draco yet, but Harry knew that would not last for long.

The sky seemed to be emptying an ocean full of water on them. It was cold, hard rain, and within moments they were soaked. They stood motionless, watching death eaters falling from the sky and gathering themselves for battle. It was so dark that it was hard to see them, making it hard for them to see them standing there also.

“It’s begun,” Snape said.

“We don’t have a chance,” Draco said, “there are hundreds of them coming.” As the last word had left Draco’s mouth twenty or so death eaters had appeared next to their comrades all at once, and twenty more after them. They were coming in waves now instead of one by one. There was more thunder, and Harry thought it must have sounded spectacular from inside the castle, booming around it’s many corridors and walls.

“Move,” Snape prodded the two boys, steering them in a direction he hoped would lead around the growing mass of death eaters in the near distance.

Just as Harry thought a death eater had spotted them, the castle doors boomed open and professors began streaming out, aiming and firing spells at the mass of evil men and women gathering there. Suddenly under attack they broke formation and some of them dove for cover, others deciding to take the offensive and fire nasty curses and hexes back.

Harry, wand already out, aimed at a death eater’s head, and was about to hit him with the nastiest curse he could think of when Snape pulled his arm down forcefully.

“No!” he commanded, rain still pounding down on their heads.

“We can get them from behind!” Harry shouted.

Snape shook his head. “One professor and two students against an army! We will do better with the others!”

Harry looked back at the Professors in the Entrance Hall. Several of them had already fallen. Draco cursed, and Harry nodded his head in agreement of the situation.

Up in the Gryffindor common room Hermione stood on a table and issued orders. “You!” she screamed at a fifth year Prefect. “Go to Ravenclaw common room and gather everybody above fourth year willing to fight and send them down to the entrance hall!” She pointed at another Prefect, a seventh year this time, and said, “Go to Hufflepuff and do the same!” Both Prefects obeyed her command and ran off, one tripping on his way out the common room door.

“Everybody else! Fifth year and above! We have to defend ourselves! There aren’t enough Professors to do it for you! If you don’t defend yourselves and each other, you’ll die!”

Every face in the house was turned towards hers. Many of the younger students, and some of the older ones were shaking. Fear was on every face, even Hermione’s.

“Who will fight!?” she cried.

Ron stepped up beside her immediately and so did Ginny. Ron wanted to say something to the effect that Ginny was not allowed, but he knew he would not be able to stop her if he tried.

Dean and Seamus stepped to the front of the group along with Neville, who although his face was pale, and he gripped his wand tightly, his face was also determined, and his mind running over curses he was going to use.

“This is it!” Ron shouted. “Are you Gryffindors or not! From the looks of you I’d say you were rotten Slytherins hiding under your bed!” Hermione had already sent one of the braver, and larger Prefects to gather Slytherins, but she wasn’t confident that he would find any.

Still, no more volunteers stepped up to fight. Suddenly the common room door burst open, startling everyone in the room. Many shaky wands were pulled as several people spilled inside, none of them Gryffindors.

“What do you want us to do?” Cho asked, wand out and face fearful.

“How many of you are there?” Ron asked.

Cho looked behind her, and said, “Around fifty Ravenclaws and fifty Hufflepuffs I think. There are a few Slytherins who swear their parents aren’t dark.”

Ron nodded and looked back to his fellow Gryffindors.

“How many from Gryffindor will fight?” he asked.

Nearly every hand in the room shot up now.

Ron jumped down from the table and began issuing orders to the other houses.

“Nobody go off alone! Everybody take a partner, two if you can! Cho, you’re in charge of Ravenclaw… take your people and guard every entrance to the castle you can find! Adams! Ron pointed to a sixth year Hufflepuff Prefect he knew and trusted, and said, “You’re in charge of Hufflepuff! Your people guard the Entrance hall! Chase down any death eaters that get in and kill them!”

While Ron was doing this, Hermione was issuing orders to the Gryffindors around them. “First through third years stay here! Defend the house of Godric Gryffindor! If there are injuries we’ll bring them back here! Fourth years guard the entrance to the house and don’t go any farther than the ends of the corridor outside! Protect the younger students! Fifth, sixth, and seventh years! You’re with us! We attack any and all death eaters as they would attack us! Be careful with mercy! They will show you none!

As the Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws moved off, a new voice sounded, and said, “What about us? What do we do?” Ron looked over as ten Slytherins came through the portrait hole.

“How many?” Ron asked.

“Ten here, four in the corridor!” Ron looked to Hermione for help. He didn’t know that he wanted to trust them. They could turn their backs on them and run or curse them as soon as they stepped outside.

“Patrol the corridors, two in a team, from third floor down!” She pointed at a particularly smart Slytherin, a seventh year, the oldest one there, and said, “You’re in charge of your house now.” The boy nodded and moved off, waving his housemates to follow him.

Outside, Harry, Draco and Snape had almost made their way full circle around the death eaters and back to the entrance hall when they were spotted. Several curses and jets of powerful spells came careening at them through the darkness. Snape pushed Draco to the ground as a curse sailed past the boy’s left ear and missed him only by inches.

Draco, angry now sent three curses back that Harry had never even heard of before Snape could get any off. In the distance they heard a scream of pain, and then a few choice words from a voice Harry recognized as Lucius Malfoy’s.

Draco’s eyes hardened, and he wrestled himself free of Snape’s grip, running off into the darkness.

For a moment Snape believed Draco to be running to the other side to aid in their cause, but found himself mistaken next second as Draco was hurling hexes and curses at his father and any other death eater that caught his attention.

“This is for making my life hell!” they heard him shout.

Harry grinned, and began aiming more curses at the nearest death eaters. Suddenly from above him, there were jets of red, green, gold, and silver light coming down and hitting death eaters. Harry looked up and saw younger housemates aiming whatever spell they could think of at the enemy.

Fifty yards off, several death eaters began to sprout boils all over their faces and bodies, falling to the ground in agony.

While they had the original death eaters pinned down from two sides and from above, more were coming down from the sky in hordes.

Harry cursed just before a sparkling orange light sailed past him on his left and he heard an oomph, and a cry of pain beside him. Harry turned to see Snape on the ground, writhing in pain. “NO!” he shouted in horror and anger. “NO!” He tried to move to see if he could help him, but so many curses were aimed at him that he couldn’t move from where he lay on the ground.

He turned back to the death eaters and screamed, “You filthy bastards! You take away something I love every time don’t you! Friends, family, parents, you don’t care do you!”

In the distance he heard Draco scream in pain and then swear loudly. Harry swore under his breath again.

From the entrance hall streamed several students, Ron, Hermione, and Ginny among them, all aiming curses and whatever else they could think of at the foe. Some students dragged fallen comrades and professors back into the hall and away from further harm, while others dashed recklessly into the fray.

Ron, Hermione, Harry thought as he saw the Gryffindors coming to their aid. Just as he finished a silent prayer for his friends, a high, cold, and all too familiar laugh came from somewhere in the distance, and at the same time from right inside his head.

“See Harry Potter, I told you you would feel my wrath. And now you will die, and your friends with you.”

Harry shook his head. He didn’t think he could block the monster from his mind if his eyes were open, but at the same time he couldn’t afford to close them. He would die if he did, and he would probably die if he didn’t.

“Where oh where can little Harry be, oh where oh where can he be?” Voldemort’s voice taunted him in a sing song voice.

There was a hand on his left arm suddenly and Harry spun to see Snape gripping it weakly. “Force him from your mind… now!”

Harry turned again and aimed a curse at an approaching death eater, and tried to see blinding light without closing his eyes.

“In the castle, where he is safe?” Voldemort asked. “No… not our little hero. In the midst of the fray? Too cowardly for that… off the grounds completely? Not while his friends suffer and die…”

Anger coursed through Harry, and Voldemort said, “But he must be near daddy dearest, because he knows he’s hurt with a curse that will kill him…”

Harry turned to look at Snape again, and again Severus said, “This is a dream Harry. Force him from your mind as if it were a dream! See the light! Do it now!”

“Where, oh where can he be? Best tell me now little boy, and die quickly, or else you will see your friends die.”

Harry gathered up all his will power, and before he released his only defense against Voldemort’s mind, he said both aloud and with his mind, “Maybe he’s right beside you, and it is your time to die.” Harry could see Voldemort spinning around in his mind, sitting atop a tower of the castle like a hawk, watching his battle unfold. Before he could retort, Harry filled his mind with light, eyes open, and blocked the demon from all access.

He looked back at Snape, and in Harry’s eyes Severus could see that the boy had freed himself of the Dark Lord.

“That curse… it will kill you.” Harry said, just to make sure.

Snape nodded, his breathing labored. “This too is old magic. There is no cure that will save me. It will be a worse death than the Killing Curse would give me.”

Harry shook his head, understanding fully the implications of the other man’s words. “No,” he said. “You can’t die. I’m on your side.”

Snape looked deep into the boy’s eyes, and felt heartened by his words.

Harry’s chest tightened horribly as Snape let out another gasp of pain from the deadly curse working its horror inside of him. No, he thought, you can’t die. I can’t lose somebody else. Not again.

Gripping the back of Snape’s robes and aiming his wand at the closest death eaters, Harry stood and began to drag Snape towards the entrance to the castle. He had to stop every few feet to duck or aim, and so their progress became very slow. There are so many, Harry thought. Fifty or so death eaters lay motionless on the front lawn, and another fifty were still fighting, still more of them appearing from the sky that was determined to bring a flood upon them.

He dragged Snape ever closer to the castle, around what he was sure were some dead bodies of death eaters. There was a rasping voice and a moan a few feet from him, and Harry looked over to see a death eater lying on the ground, his hand trying to reach Harry. The man’s hood had fallen from his face, and Harry saw that it was Stan Shunpike, the boy that worked on the Knight bus and was not ten years older than him.

“Help me,” he cried quietly in pain.

Harry hadn’t thought Stan was capable of the murder necessary to become a death eater, but then again, Harry had only ever seen him twice in his life. While he wanted to help the dying young man, the truth was, he couldn’t, and Snape was more important to him.

Jets of light streamed over Harry’s head and one narrowly missed his left arm. There was another cry of pain from Snape, and Harry knew it had hit him.

From the darkness a figure began a mad dash towards the pair, and Harry aimed for the assailant’s head. Before he could get the curse off though, a pale, dirt covered face appeared, blood streaming down one side, blond hair in a mess.

Draco ducked as the ground next to him exploded violently by the hand of a well-aimed curse, and dove for Harry and Snape. Still aiming off curses, he grabbed another part of the neck of Snape’s robes and began dragging him along with Harry. With help, they circled the death eaters and finally made it back to the castle.

“What happened?” Draco asked through the rain and thunder, and the shouts of pain from wounded fighters.

“Some kind of curse… it will be fatal,” Harry told him, wishing desperately that he knew what to do.

Harry was a good fighter, he knew. He knew how to aim, duck, and duel, and if he didn’t have a wand, he knew he was decent with his fists… he’d been in enough fights with Draco and occasionally Ron over the years to know that. He knew how to do schoolwork for a passing grade, and he knew how to keep a secret. There were many things he felt capable of, but this was the one time in his life that he felt so desperately helpless… the one time he didn’t have any ideas, and had the sinking feeling that no matter what he did, he would fail. There was no playing hero this night, Harry told himself. He had finally found somebody that he could not save.

Dumbledore saw the two boys dragging Snape towards the castle, and stepped further forward, aiming harsher spells on the castle’s attackers. The Professors and students around him followed his lead and did the same to give the trio cover.

“Inside!” Dumbledore shouted to them as they passed him, half carrying him, half dragging him up the steps now. “Get him inside!” Severus was floating in and out consciousness now, and was seeing the battle in stages. He didn’t know where Draco had come from, and wasn’t sure if he was there at all but for a few words he’d thought that he had heard him speak.

Severus was vaguely aware of being out of the rain now, and on solid ground rather than lumpy, mushy mud and grass. He thought that he should be cold being inside and being soaked to the bone, but he could feel nothing but violent fire racing through his veins.

Students dashed past Harry, two of them Slytherins, and Harry wondered whose side they were on. He knelt next to Snape, and Draco did the same.

“I don’t know what this one is,” Draco told him. “It looks bad though.”

“Voldemort said it was fatal,” Harry informed him. Draco looked up and caught Harry’s eyes.

“Is he inside your head now?”

Harry shook his head. “He’s gone. He’s up on the roof somewhere watching the battle.”

Draco looked up to the ceiling of the Entrance Hall, and his gray eyes flashed uncertainty and fear, along with something else that Harry was sure was determination.

“If its fatal St. Mungo’s is not an answer,” Draco finally said. Harry nodded. He knew that.

Hermione ran from the Great Hall suddenly, small cuts up the side of her arm and face. She had been fighting through a broken window.

“Harry!” she cried, “You’re all right!”

Harry pointed to Snape, but Hermione had stopped suddenly upon sight of him. “It’s fatal,” he said.

She knelt, and lifted one of Snape’s eyelids, which had been closed. “Was it a curse?” she asked.

“He said it was old magic and that it would be a painful death.”

Hermione pulled her hand back slowly and put it over her mouth. “We already lost Sinistra,” she said.

A large window high above them suddenly came crashing down, and they shielded their heads. A few pieces of glass caught Harry’s arm and tore through his sleeve into his flesh. He cursed, and said. “I wish there was no magic!”

Draco looked up at him, and said, “You would live like a Muggle rather than here?”

“Such a fantastic place,” Harry ranted sarcastically, motioning to Snape. “Magic has killed everything I’ve known and loved.”

Suddenly a hand reached up and tapped gently on Harry’s chest above where his heart should be, and he looked down to see Snape, eye’s half open, looking at him.

“Magic saved you though. The magic of the heart is the strongest of all. Without that, even Muggles cannot live.”

Snape’s hand dropped, and he fell unconscious again. Harry let his head hang low.

They were silent for a moment, listening to the cries of battle rage around them and up through the castle. It was clear that other students were battling from windows high above them, and that death eaters had breached other defenses and gotten inside.

“Wait,” Draco finally said, looking up. “What if there wasn’t magic?”

Hermione frowned, and Harry didn’t say anything. “No, I mean it,” Draco said, getting excited now. “No magic! No magic, no curse! Didn’t you go someplace where there could be no magic Potter?”

Harry looked up, and said, “Shadowland.”

“I don’t understand,” Hermione said. “What’s that got to do with-” and then it dawned on her.

“Stay here,” Draco said, and jumped up and ran off to the dungeons.

Hermione jumped up and ran off too, up the stairs and around a corner. “I’ll be right back!” she shouted.

Left alone with Snape in the Entrance Hall, most of the staff and students having left for the grounds now, Harry knew what he had to do, but wondered if he would be able to. It was a long way to Shadowland. He could take Snape up to the magical corridor, but they had no guarantee it wouldn’t put them further away from their destination, and he didn’t know if he could get it to work again in any case. He didn’t know how to apparate yet, assuming they could get off school grounds, and he couldn’t count on Snape to apparate them safely.

A moment later, and Draco came tearing out of the door that lead to the dungeons, two broomsticks in his hands.

“These are the fastest we have,” he told him, holding them out for him to take. “The Firbolt’s mine and the knock off brand is Goyle’s… I had to wrestle it from him. It’s brand new and just as fast.”

Harry looked to Draco’s face, which now contained a new scratch and a brilliantly blossoming bruise on his chin where Goyle had hit him.

“Why-” Harry started, but Draco waved him off, pushing the brooms on him.

“He’s the only one who was ever nice to me,” Draco said, motioning to the unconscious Snape. “He’s the only person who cared what happened to me.”

Harry took the brooms, and looked down to Snape as well.

“Put a sticking charm on that before you leave!” Hermione was running down the stairs with something long and leather, metal glinting at the end. When she reached them, Harry realized it was a sheath.

“Take this,” she said breathlessly. “I found it fighting a death eater in the corridor by itself… If you can’t use magic, you had better take something, because chances are he’ll follow you in there.”

Harry nodded. He took the sheath and pulled the handle of Gryffindor’s sword out just far enough to see the crimson ruby glittering in its hilt.

Hermione took the two brooms and put sticking charms on both of them. “The cancellation for the spell is Haud Virga,” she told him. Harry nodded.

“He’s on the roof Hermione, he’ll see us leaving. I’m going to draw him off and maybe he’ll call some of his death eaters to him and away from you.”

“But, he’ll kill you Harry,” she said worriedly.

He shook his head, and said, “I’ll be ok.”

She lunged forward and hugged him tightly, and then released him as another window shattered above them.

Draco helped Harry stand Snape up and lead him outside, seeing as how he was halfway conscious again. Once they had him on his broom, Draco looked Harry in the eye, and said, “Ride fast.”

Harry nodded, and they were off. Hermione and Draco watched them rise into the sky for only a moment, and then were forced to begin aiming curses and ducking again, as several were aimed their way.

Dumbledore ran to the pair and gave only half a glance to the two figures growing rapidly smaller. “To Shadowland?” he asked.

“Snape’s curse is fatal,” Hermione said. “No magic, no curse.”

“Good boy,” Dumbledore said, referring to Harry. “He plans on leading Voldemort away, but I intend to keep him here.” With this he screamed, “Lord Voldemort! Show yourself!” as loud as he could, his voice magnified by his wand.

Louder than ever the thunder above them rumbled and the rain fell, and lightning cracked across the sky and struck down not a hundred feet from Dumbledore. Where it had struck the ground, stood Voldemort, wand out, and looking angry.

The rain felt as if it were slicing through his clothes and right into his skin as they flew. Harry was almost flat against his broom, holding onto Snape’s broom tightly next to them, they bumped into each other occasionally, bringing moans of pain and agony from Snape each time.

Every minute or so Harry turned his head and looked behind him to see if they had been followed. He had risen high enough, he had thought, to catch Voldemort’s attention, but now he found himself mistaken.

By now they were many, many miles away from the castle and grounds, and Harry could no longer see the massive black lake. He was torn between going back to lead Voldemort away from his fellows, or continuing on to save Snape. If he turned back, Snape would surely die. If he didn’t turn back… there might not be something to go back to at all.

Deciding that he needed to trust Dumbledore and his friends, he pressed on, urging the borrowed brooms to go faster still. Without warning, the clouds above them thinned, the rain stopped, and as if in a dream, the two of them burst out into open sunlight.

Harry shielded his eyes, stunned for a moment at the brilliant light. Finally they were free of Voldemort’s influence… for a short time anyhow.

On and on they flew, over hills and fields, over houses and small gullies filled with trees. Beside him, Snape was either asleep on his broom, or blissfully unconscious, and unaware of the danger they had just left.

Suddenly Harry’s scar felt as if it would burst open. It throbbed and seared horribly, and Harry wondered if his head were actually on fire. “Arrrrg!” he shouted in pain. Snape lifted his head to look at Harry, his cry of pain awakening him.

“He knows!” Harry said through clenched eyes and teeth. “He knows we’ve left. He’s coming!”

Weakly, Snape looked behind them and saw the dark, thick clouds forming behind them, almost as if they were in pursuit.

“He follows,” Snape said. Harry looked behind them as well, and bit his tongue, drawing blood as he did so, trying to make the pain go away.

Faster still he urged the brooms, and both he and Snape lay as flat as they could to the handles. The angry clouds chased after them at Voldemort’s will, determined to catch up.

We’re not going to make it, Harry thought to himself, again looking back and seeing the storm gaining on them. He didn’t know how far they were from Shadow land, and knew that the only way they would know they were there was if the brooms started to loose their magic. This too scared Harry, the pair of them being so high up in the air. The odds were that the brooms wouldn’t loose their magic gradually, but all of a sudden, and they would drop from the sky like stones.

Unwilling to die by lack of magic, Harry began taking them lower to the ground. Once they were just above the treetops, it gave him the feeling that they were going much faster, because now he could see things racing along underneath him.

After another ten minutes, the storm was almost upon them again. As if reading Harry’s thoughts, Voldemort’s voice filled his mind, and said, “You cannot hide Harry Potter. I am far faster and greater than you will ever-” the voice was cut off as Harry and Snape flew out over a yellowing field, but Harry had nothing to do with blocking Voldemort from his mind.

Wondering what had caused the sudden lack of Voldemort in his head, Harry had his answer as their brooms suddenly plummeted twenty feet to the ground. They had found it… quite painfully, but still… they had found the Shadowland.

“Come on,” Harry urged, trying to ignore the pain in his left arm. “You have to get up… we have to go.” He pulled on Snape’s arm desperately, trying to get him to rise. Severus moaned and finally opened his eyes.

“What happened?” he asked, obviously still in pain, but more aware and less likely to slip into unconsciousness now.

“No time,” Harry said, urgency in his voice. “Get up, you have to get up!” Harry was almost begging him now.

Hearing Harry’s voice made Snape realize that they were not out of danger. With help he sat up and Harry pulled him to his feet. Severus’ midsection hurt like all hell, but on the upside, his nerves no longer seemed to be on fire.

“The curse-” he started, but Harry had his arm still and was dragging him away, the sword attached to his side still.

“It’s gone,” Harry said quickly, “we’re in Shadowland…”

The sky above them was clear, and it was becoming very easy for the pair to tell where the border to the no-magic zone was. A hundred yards off angry black clouds were still gathering on the edge of the Shadowland, but going no further.

After a few steps Harry let go of Snape’s wrist and lead off towards the nearest wood in front of them, which he hoped they could get lost in. It wouldn’t take Voldemort long to figure out that magic didn’t work here, and Harry knew that they would lose if he brought death eaters with him because of sheer numbers.

They ran as fast as Snape’s other injury would let them, and just as they disappeared behind the trees, lightning began striking down on the edge of the field they had dropped into. Harry and Snape stopped for a moment, and turned to see how many had come now that they were hidden in the trees behind thick tree trunks.

Thirty men had appeared, some of them bloody and battle worn. They looked around expectantly, clearly expecting to see Harry and Snape, but found only the empty field instead.

Voldemort was at the front of the group. He looked around with some curiosity, and said, “What is this?” His voice carried on the gentle breeze that floated through the field, and Harry heard it faintly.

“Where are they?” Lucius Malfoy said. Harry was pleased to see that Malfoy had a nasty gash on his head and that half of his white blond hair was stained blood red. His cloak and robes were also torn, and he no longer had his cane, only his wand.

Voldemort didn’t answer him, and instead walked the boundary of the Shadowland underneath where his storm clouds were. Conveniently enough, the clouds were not raining on him and his death eaters, as they had done at the castle.

“An odd barrier,” the Dark Lord pondered. He was silent as he tilted his head and stuck his hand out. It passed from under the cloud and into the light unharmed. He motioned with one hand and the nearest death eater moved forward. “Go into the light,” he told him quietly.

Voldemort studied what happened as the nervous man Harry had never seen before took a few steps forward and turned back to his master as nothing happened.

“What do you feel?” Voldemort asked him.

“N, nothing my lord,” the man stuttered.

Still Voldemort paced along the barrier though. “I see their brooms,” he said thoughtfully, and I am sure they are here, and yet, my magicks cannot pass.”

“Cast something,” Voldemort told the man standing in the lighted field.

“What shall I cast?” he asked him.

Voldemort turned and spied Lucius. “Kill him,” he told the man. “His son is a traitor and he is no good to us half dead. Finish what his son did not.”

Malfoy’s eyes grew big and he took a step back. “M, my lord… surely you do not-”

“Kill him!” Voldemort roared to the man in the field.

The death eater lifted his wand obediently and cried, “Avada Kedavra!” Nothing happened. Uncertain and scared that he would be punished for failing, the man shouted the curse even louder a second time, again to no avail.

Voldemort resumed his pacing. “Return to me,” he commanded softly. The man, certain he would be punished, walked back across the barrier and into shadow where the rest of his fellows stood, but there was no punishment issued.

“Curious,” Voldemort said, “that the boy would come to a place with no magic…” he seemed to be working the puzzle out.

“Perhaps my lord,” Lucius said, a small shake in his voice, “if I could venture so far as to guess… he might have known it would be like this.”

Voldemort nodded. “Yes Lucius, yes, and you,” he paused, and looked at the bloody man, “you are supposed to be dead, are you not?” Malfoy looked to the ground and averted his eyes suddenly. Voldemort had said it as if he had expected Lucius to fall to the ground right there and die on his command, or even play dead like a dog just to satisfy him. When he did not, Voldemort looked away again.

“Find them,” he said. “And whoever finds him will be spared his life and the life of his family.”

The death eaters stood there momentarily, taking in what he had said, and then took off running into the field and towards the trees, Lucius limping off after them. Voldemort followed at a casual pace. Harry and Snape took off in the opposite direction as fast as they could. They had only a small lead on the other men.

“I was hoping to get back to the brooms,” Harry said breathlessly minutes later. “I only brought you here to cure you and lead them away from the school…”

Snape clutched his side, and they had to stop for a breather. Harry looked toward him and saw him clutching his midsection.

“How bad?” Harry asked. “I thought you would be cured.”

Severus shook his head and removed his hand. It was covered in thick sticky blood.

“It has removed all traces of the curse, but this is the result of a blasting spell… the damage was done before we arrived.”

Harry again had the sinking feeling of not knowing what to do. They heard the shouts of men in the distance, and Harry said, “This place is huge… we could lose them in here and they wouldn’t find us for ages… but you wouldn’t live to see us get out…”

Snape nodded. “I believe it is a flesh wound. Lead on. Get us lost.”

Harry nodded and pulled Snape to his feet from the fallen log he had been sitting on.

Fortunately for Harry and Severus, the death eaters following them had no experience tracking somebody without the use of magic.

After they continued on for a half an hour more, Harry turned right and began to double back in a very round about way. Every once in a while they heard a shout in the distance, but they saw no one.

“Do you believe it wise to return to the brooms?” Snape asked, knowing Harry’s plan without him having to say it.

“No,” Harry said, “but I’m not very wise.”

Severus snorted, but refrained from saying anything demeaning to the man who had just saved his life.

The sky was starting to get dark now of its own accord, and Harry thanked the heavens that it was almost nightfall. It would be easier to escape unseen in the darkness. The heavy tree canopy made the forest floor even darker than it already was.

Several times they stopped to rest. Harry was afraid of overexerting Snape with his wound, and the Professor didn’t complain about the rest breaks.

Sitting on the leaf covered ground, shielded from view by several fallen trees, Severus said quietly, “Tell me something.”

Harry looked at him for a moment, and then away, back to the surrounding forest. His eyes were just beginning to adjust to the darkness, and he wanted to see if anybody was coming.

“Ok,” he said quietly.

Severus thought for a moment, and then said, “Why did you follow Draco? The grounds were off limits.”

Harry laughed once very quietly. The darkest wizard of all time was hunting them like wild animals, and Snape wanted to know why he broke the rules?

“He was acting weird,” Harry said quietly. “Ron and Hermione noticed it too. I saw him alone leaving the castle through the window and I wanted to know where he was going.”

“You thought he was going to meet the Dark Lord?” he asked curiously.

“No,” Harry shook his head.

Snape sighed. “Your logic is beyond me most days Potter.”

Harry laughed again. “That’s ok, I never had a clear grasp of why you do things either.”

“What do you mean?” Snape asked.

Harry took his eyes from the surrounding woods, and looked at the man sitting across from him. “Why did you put me on a cot and cover me with a blanket? You hate me… that was just being nice.”

“I do not hate you Potter,” he said, exasperated. He thought for a moment, and then said, “I used to… very much. You reminded me of your father in every thing you did… every potion you made in class… every rule you broke… every friend you made. To me you were him.”

Harry was surprised. He hadn’t expected an answer that meant so much.

“I’m not my father,” he said quietly, watching the trees again.

“No,” Severus agreed quietly. “I can see that now. James Potter would never have gone to the lengths you have to save me. Nor would he have agreed to grade papers, even for money, or to receive tutoring he did not need to spare a friend’s feelings.”

Harry was silent for a long while. Finally he said, “I didn’t agree to grade for the money.”

“Why then?”

He didn’t answer, because he did not know the answer. All he knew was that he didn’t do it for the money. For long moments they sat there, listening to the breeze rustle through what leaves remained on the trees above them. It was November now, and Harry was surprised there wasn’t snow already this far out into the wilderness. Before long though, it began to get colder than Harry would have liked, considering he had no jacket and his shirt was torn in places.

“We are far from the brooms,” Snape said, thinking along the same lines as Harry. “We may need to stay for the night.”

The last time they had been there, it had been the end of summer, and the nights were still reasonably warm. They would probably freeze before morning.

“Let’s walk a little while longer at least,” Harry told him. “It’s dark and we can move better without being seen.”

“It would also be harder for us to see those lying in wait for us,” Severus told him.

Harry stopped trying to get up from his spot on the hard leafy ground, and thought about it. It would be easy for them to walk into an ambush in such a densely wooded area. He sat back down, and said, “Right.”

He looked over to Snape, and asked, “How’s your side doing?”

Severus lifted his hand from his wound, and said, “Better… it has stopped bleeding.”

Harry nodded. That was good. It would take some worry from his mind knowing that Snape might make it through the night, and that if he did, it was likely he would make it back to the castle alive, where they could treat his wounds. Harry had been trying to ignore his own broken wrist. Luckily it was his left. Because his wand hand was his right, he assumed that his sword hand would also be the same.

“We’ll need to take watch,” Severus said, and Harry nodded again.

“You sleep,” Harry told him. “I’ll wake you in a while.” He paused, and then added, “If you lay right next to the tree you’ll be warmer.” He remembered reading that in one of the books Hermione had found for him on wilderness survival. If it wouldn’t have been dangerous to do so, he would have lit a fire or took care to move around and make a bed of the leaves. As it was, the stiller they sat, the more likely it was that if someone came along, they would go unnoticed.

A few hours later, Harry shook Severus’ shoulder. He had only been asleep for the past half hour, and woke immediately.

“Your watch,” he said, and leaned back to rest his head against the fallen tree he had been sitting against next to Snape. “Are you up for it?”

“Yes,” Severus told him.

Despite it being Snape’s turn to keep an eye out for death eaters, Harry could not sleep. He listened as the now cold breeze blew around them, and shivered several times. Even with his eyes closed, he could not drift off.

From the darkness, he said, “I guess I liked that you thought I could do something.”

Snape did not turn to him. “What are you talking about Potter?”

Harry shrugged. “Why I started grading for you… the way you asked me… you never trusted me to do anything before. You always thought I was just a screw up. It was nice that somebody believed in me.”

“Hm…” he hadn’t thought of it like that before. Severus had always believed that if students did well they would have confidence in themselves. He had never thought that lack of confidence from a teacher they didn’t like would bring a student down in grades so much.

“That’s why Neville does so bad,” Harry continued in thought out loud. “You scare the guy half to death… Professor Sprout loves him so he started to work extra hard to please her I think…”

“You are certain it is not lack of talent?” Snape asked, “Or effort?”

“He tries,” Harry said. “He’s always studying… even before Hermione started to help him.” Harry shivered again, and his teeth chattered just badly enough to be heard as the temperature rapidly dropped.

Severus turned to him, and said, “You are cold.” It was not a question.

“No,” Harry lied.

Snape laughed. “I know you are cold because I am cold.”

“Sorry,” Harry said. “I don’t know why I said no.”

Thinking for a moment, Severus said, “Because you are afraid for me to know the truth about you.”

Harry frowned. “Where do you get that from?”

“You avoided me for almost a week because you did not want me to know you secretly thought of me as… a parent figure.” It was hard for Severus to make the words he was thinking come out of his mouth.

Heavy silence hung between them as Harry shivered. He wrapped his arms around himself, more for comfort than warmth. “It doesn’t matter,” he finally said. “You don’t think of me that way.”

When Snape didn’t answer, Harry’s suspicions were confirmed. It made him uncomfortable to know that Harry looked up to him.

“You do not want me as a parent Potter,” he said quietly after a long pause. “You spent five years hating me… what would make you like me enough to think of me like that all of a sudden?”

Harry didn’t have an answer to give him right away. He hadn’t thought about it really. Before he had called out the “D” word in his sleep when only Snape was in his dream, he hadn’t even realized the way he had begun to think of the man.

“You decided you didn’t hate me all of a sudden,” Harry said. “Why can’t I do the same? I guess… I guess…” he didn’t know how to say what he wanted. It was like he didn’t have the right words in his vocabulary and he needed to make up some whole new ones. “You made it so I didn’t have to live with my relatives,” he finally finished. It made perfect sense to him, but he knew Snape would not understand this time.

“You were obviously being mistreated,” Severus said after a moment, trying to understand how him making sure Harry lived in a safe place made him stop hating him.

“You knew,” Harry said, trying to clarify what he had meant. “You knew that, and you didn’t tell anybody else…” again he was lacking the words he wanted. “Some days, your office felt like the only safe place… sometimes it felt like you were the only one that understood me. Ron and Hermione… they mean well, but they don’t understand what it is to have Voldemort inside your head… they don’t understand what it is to be stuck under a prophecy where you’re forced to become a murderer or be murdered. They don’t understand…” Harry trailed away. “They can’t understand what it is to not be fed or be hit, or not get any presents on holidays because their family hates them.”

“And you believe I understand all of these things?”

Harry thought on that. “Maybe not… but you try.”

A forceful gust of wind blew their hair around, and gave Harry goosebumps all up and down his spine.

Snape sighed after a long while, and finally said, “I have come to enjoy your company while grading, and I also value the trust you have come to place in me Harry. I do not know what it is to feel for a son… but I have certainly come to value you as a friend. If that is what a father feels…” he trailed away and Harry’s chest tightened uncomfortably again.

Sirius was the closest thing he had had to a father, and that had ended quickly enough. Just when Harry had come to feel that he had some kind of parent, Sirius had been snatched away from him. Now he was feeling the pain of that all over again. He had felt the same wave of emotions when Voldemort had told him that the curse Severus had been hit with was fatal.

“Everybody around me dies,” Harry felt the need to suddenly inform him. “They take everything I value.”

“Come here,” Snape said, half an order, half a request. Harry scooted over to him the three feet that they were sitting apart, and Severus put his arm around Harry’s shoulder.

“It is not your fault that people die. The Dark Lord is a murderer, you are not.”

“I will be,” Harry said.

“Perhaps, but until that day, regret for lost friends and family should not be on your heart, and even then, it should not be. I am alive now because of you.”

“You almost died because of me… if I hadn’t gone after Draco you wouldn’t have followed me.”

“If you hadn’t gone after Draco, I would still have ended up out on the grounds fighting with the other Professors. It is not up to you to assign such guilt… the world and its tragedies do not revolve around you.”

Some of Snape’s old, harsh tone came through in his last statement, but Harry brushed it off. “Sure seems like it sometimes though.”

They were silent, and Harry was enjoying some of the warmth he was getting from the arm placed around his shoulder. It took some of the chill from the wind and cold night air.

“Sometimes, the world is not as it seems,” Severus told him quietly after a few moments. “Things change.”

* * *

“No sign of them my lord.” The short man that brought Voldemort the news bowed down and shook, not only with the cold, but with fear.

“I did not ask of news of not capturing them,” Voldemort said testily. He reached over and struck the man across the face with the back of his hand. “Return to me when you have found them! While you stand here they run deeper into the depths of this… this wood.” As he said this last bit, he stopped and thought. He didn’t know how far the expanse stretched, but he was betting they didn’t want to be there just as much as he didn’t. Eventually, they would crawl from their hiding places and try to reach the edge again.

“Leave me,” he told the man still bowing before him. “Search through the night. If I catch you sleeping, you will die by my bare hands.” The man hurried off, shouting something to other death eaters nearby that were coming back to report the same news he had.

Voldemort began to chuckle. Yes, he thought… they will return, and then, I will kill them both.

* * *

In the morning, Harry was quick to rise and suggest that they move off. He was uncomfortably aware that he had spent the night sleeping with his head on Snape’s shoulder. Even if Snape were his real father, he was quite sure that was not something sixteen year old children did… not guys anyway.”

It took them two hours to reach the edge of the wood and field in the gathering light. Light from the sunrise was turning the golden field a beautiful shade of pink. There were no storm clouds on the boundary now, and no signs of any other humans.

“I don’t like it,” Severus said quietly from their hiding spot. Harry shook his head. “Me either.”

From the corner of his eye, Harry caught a flash of movement from across the field. It was only a glimpse, but Harry was sure he had seen an arm from the trees on the other side of the border.

“I saw something,” Harry said.

Snape nodded. “As did I.” Harry scanned the field, and spotted their brooms lying nearly on the other side of it.

“I think they moved the brooms to the other side of the boundary… they’re trying to draw us out.”

They continued to watch, but did not see any more movement.

Finally, when the sun was well into the sky, Harry said, “I have an idea.” He pointed off to his left and said, “Go a couple hundred yards into the trees.”

“What will you do?” Severus asked him, eyeing him carefully.

“Draw them out.” He unlashed the hilt and sword from his belt and handed it to Severus. “Take this and I’ll draw them out… they can’t hit me with anything from where they are anyway, and if there are still some on this side, you can chop them to pieces.”

“This is not a good plan,” Snape told him.

Harry shrugged, “I’m not very wise,” he told him, “remember?”

Before Severus could do anything, Harry jumped up and ran ten or fifteen steps out into the open field. As predicted, a red jet of light came from an unthinking death eater’s wand, and fizzled into non-existence at the boundary. Feeling cheeky, Harry stuck his tongue out at the trees across the field, and ran back into the wood.

“That was pure idiocy!” Snape scolded him. Harry suddenly lunged for the sword Severus still held though, and pulled it from its sheath. He pushed Snape down to the ground and leapt over him. There was a cry of pain, and Severus turned in time to see Harry pull the bloody sword of Godric Gryffindor out Gregory Goyle’s father. The man fell to his knees, and then down to the ground on his face. Harry turned wildly on the spot, adrenaline pumping through him, but saw no one else.

Severus turned also so that he and Harry were now back to back, turning slowly.

“Too bad Slytherin didn’t have a sword,” Harry said, still feeling cheeky, “or Hermione might have grabbed that one too…”

Severus picked up a large branch the size of a baseball bat and readied himself to fight. “He did,” he told him. “Voldemort found and stole it.”

Harry didn’t like the sound of that at all. He knew that there was magic that could pull objects from long distances, or even from thin air. Voldemort was the type to know those kinds of magik’s.

They stood there, ready for battle for long, silent moments, and no one else came. Harry was betting that any other death eaters around had seen Goyle’s death and decided not to attack.

“What next?” Harry finally asked. Severus shook his head. “I don’t know.”

Death eaters could have been behind any tree, and so could Voldemort have been. There was a sudden rasping noise that made Harry shudder from near his left foot. He looked down, and saw Goyle’s back heaving as he regained consciousness and tried to breath. A moment later a gurgling noise accompanied the rasping.

“Remain alert,” Severus ordered Harry as he kneeled next to Goyle. He rolled the dying man onto his back. Harry took a deep breath and held it there as he saw the pool of blood on the ground under where he had been laying, and the blood soaked robes of the man. He was responsible for such damage.

“Where are the others?” Snape asked him harshly.

Goyle opened his eyes and grinned stupidly. With much effort he found words, and said, “You’re on the top of his list Sev… he wants to kill you more than the kid… isn’t that something?” He seemed to find this information amusing, although Snape and Harry did not.

“Where are the others?” he repeated, a little more softly this time. “What is their plan?”

Goyle shook his head. “Throughout the forest. Only me and Avery guarding the field… brooms on other side of border.”

“Where is the Dark Lord?” Severus asked him.

The dying man shook his head again. “Somewhere- not here. He vowed to kill us all if we didn’t find you and bring you to him dead. Others called him back… had to retreat.”

“Hm…” Snape stared into the other man’s eyes, and Harry was sure he was searching his mind for the truth.

Goyle took another rasping breath, this one long, labored, and deep, and Harry was sure it was one of his last. “He’s furious with you,” he told Severus. “He swears to see his most loyal traitor dead… after the prophecy… he never thought you’d betray him after you told him of the prophecy…” Snape paled visibly. This was something that weighed on his conscious every day… he did not need to be reminded.

There was a slow gurgling noise, and finally Goyle lay still and silent. Harry’s heart was beating rapidly. He had killed a man, and not by magic either… he had driven a sword through his stomach. He was now as bad as Voldemort.

“Sileo in pacis filius obscurum,” Snape said quietly, still kneeling next to him.

Harry shivered. “What was that?” he asked.

“When a wizard dies,” Snape said quietly, rising, “it is tradition to offer a final spell to guide their entrance to whatever afterlife they seek. It meant, rest in peace, son of darkness. He served in darkness, and into darkness he will most likely go.”

“No,” Harry said, trying not to grit his teeth. “About the prophecy… he said, he never thought you’d betray him after you told him of the prophecy. What prophecy?”

Severus stood there looking at Harry. The boy’s eyes seemed both knowledgeable and also hopeful. He knew perfectly well what prophecy, Severus was sure, and at the same time, hoped it wasn’t true.

“What prophecy?” Harry asked again quietly, his arm lowering and Gryffindor’s sword going with it.

Severus lowered his eyes to the ground. After all they had gone through… after all he had come to feel for the boy… he knew it would be ruined now. He would lose a friend, and as well he should, he thought. He deserved it for his betrayal of Lily. Harry deserved to know why his parents had died. It was because of the man standing in front of him. It was because of the man he now thought of as dad. The brutal deaths had been on the account of the man Harry had tried so hard to save from death’s grips.

From the day Harry had been admitted to the school, Severus had been determined that he wouldn’t find out about his betrayal of the boy’s mother. Now it was the only right thing to do, to tell him, and he didn’t know how to do it.

“Your prophecy,” Snape finally said, looking up and meeting Harry’s eyes. He seemed taken aback, but remained silent. “There’s no excuse for it Harry,” Harry flinched at his name coming from the lips of the traitor standing before him. “It was a dark time… darker than these… back when I was still the Dark Lord’s servant. I-” he paused. He didn’t know if he could let Harry as far into his past as it would take to tell him the story.

“I thought he would spare Lily… I begged him to.” Harry was shaking his head now, green memory flashing before his eyes. He could still hear his mother’s screams.

“Murderer,” Harry accused him, eyes narrowed. He lifted Gyffindor’s sword again, anger pulsing through his veins, his heart aching to the beat of betrayal. He had trusted Snape, sometimes above his best friends.

Severus looked down, away from the sword. It was Harry’s right to take his life if he wanted it. “I give my life to you freely if you so choose to take it.” Having said this, Severus felt some kind of ancient agony… some kind of heavy burden lift from his soul.

“Coward!” Harry screamed. “Stand and fight me like a man!” Snape looked up at him and held his arms wide, offering up his body to the boy in front of him.

If his wrist hadn’t been broken Harry would have been holding onto the sword with both hands. His arm was shaking with rage, and the weight of the heavy sword wasn’t doing him any good. “Fight!” Harry screamed again. He couldn’t push the sword through the other man’s body if he wasn’t under attack. He wasn’t going to murder him in cold blood. The only reason he had done this to Goyle was in self-defense.

“I cannot hurt you,” Severus said quietly. “I swore an oath to protect you.” Harry’s entire face contorted with this.

“What? What oath?”

“To Dumbledore,” Severus said quietly. “After I told the Dark Lord of the prophecy… I went straight to Dumbledore and told him my mistake. I begged him to help…”

Harry was shaking his head again. “No! You lie! You don’t make any sense!”

Severus shook his head. “He put your family under protection with the secret keeper… after Lily-”

“Don’t you dare say her name!” Harry shouted at him, anger boiling up inside of him again.

He paused, and then continued, “After your mother and father died, and Dumbledore had placed you under the care of your relatives, I made a promise to him, to protect you… for your mother.”

Unexpectedly, Harry began laughing. “You expect me to believe that?” he cried with another wave of humorless laughter. “You lied to me all this time! You lied about everything! Why would I trust you now?”

Snape looked up at Harry, and then dove at him. For a split second Harry believed that he was going to try to wrestle the sword away from him and try to kill him with it, but the next moment they were both on the ground, and Harry heard a familiar sly voice.

“Well well… I suppose I should just let the boy kill you Severus, and then take care of him when you are gone… that would be amusing wouldn’t it?” Harry scrambled to his feet, leaving Snape lay where he was amongst the crunchy leaves. Lucius Malfoy stood a few feet away, sword of his own in his hand. It was a thinner sword than that of Godric Gryffindor. On its hilt was a green emerald, and a single snake engraved below it.

Lucius was not smiling. He looked worn and ragged from his injuries, and Harry wondered if Draco had caused any of them. He looked down to Severus, and laughed.

“Or you and I could kill the boy Severus… your punishment might be less to the Dark Lord if you killed him… and mine will be less for bringing you to him… we can do this the easy way or the hard way. Either way, the boy will die.”

Harry lunged at the tall, blond haired man with his sword, and missed. Lucius stepped to the side and Harry fell past him, barely gaining his balance again. Lucius hardly gave him a glance as he sailed by, as if he weren’t important, and instead kept looking down at Snape.

“I underestimated you Severus,” Lucius told him. “I did not think you had the cunning to defy the Dark Lord and live through it. But you can’t be terribly smart if you defied him willingly…”

Harry gripped the sword with both hands now, gritting his teeth at the pain caused in his left wrist as he brought the sword above his head from behind Malfoy and swung it down. Lucius turned suddenly and there was the sound of metal on metal as he blocked Harry’s attempt to split his scull in two.

“At least he has the loyalty of your son,” Harry told him, trying to stun the other man enough to get the upper hand on him.

Malfoy smirked. “My son… that is interesting isn’t it, that you would refer to him as my son. No, I don’t have a son. No son of mine would betray me the way that Draco has.”

Harry stepped back quickly and tried to take a jab at Malfoy, but again was blocked by the thin sword of Slytherin. “Maybe he wouldn’t have betrayed you if you hadn’t beat him constantly.”

Malfoy flinched. “Do not, ever, imply that I was a bad father!” he shouted. This time Lucius took the offensive and swung, trying to decapitate Harry. Harry ducked though, and at the same time stabbed towards Lucius, making a deep gash in the man’s only uninjured leg.

“That was for Draco you bastard,” Harry said as Lucius fell to the ground. He swooped and snatched up Slytherin’s sword, amazed by how light it was in comparison to the massive sword of Gryffindor. “I ought to kill you for your betrayal of him.”

Lucius’ eyes flashed fear for only a moment, and then he began to laugh, almost as high and cold as the laugh of his master. “Foolish boy… you may take my life, but the Dark Lord will have yours, and that of your pathetic surrogate father, and my foolish son. Ending my life now will only negate my suffering at the hands of the Dark Lord in the future.”

Harry stepped back, making sure he was out of Malfoy’s reach. “I didn’t say I was going to kill you,” Harry said, tilting his head, “I only said I ought to kill you. I would much rather know that you were tortured by Voldemort himself… he’ll do a better job than I can.”

Harry turned and began to walk away, knowing that if Lucius tried to get up and attack him, he would hear it before it was too late to turn around.

“You will die!” Lucius screamed. Harry didn’t turn.

“Not before you do, and not today.” Confidently he strode towards the edge of the wood, and out into the open field. No spells came flying at him this time. He would take Avery on single handed if he came into contact with him. Hurried footsteps came from behind him, but from the labored breathing, he could tell that it was Snape. Not wanting to carry two swords, he handed Gryffindor’s to Snape, preferring the lighter one; what did he care any more if Snape was hurt and couldn’t carry a heavy sword?

At the place where he thought the boundary to be, Harry stopped and pulled his wand from his pants pocket. “Accio brooms,” he said. Both brooms zoomed out of the grass thirty feet ahead of him and landed at his feet. He picked one up, and took a step back into Shadowland, Snape doing the same.

Harry tucked Slytherin’s thin sword between his belt and pants at his side to keep it there, and held on to Draco’s broom tightly with his good hand. Without turning to Snape, he said, “I don’t really care if you live or die. You deserve whatever you get for murdering the only family I ever had. If you make it back to Hogwarts, stay the hell away from me.” With this Harry ran forward, broom in hand, and leapt onto it, soaring high into the air. A spell shot up at him from someplace in the trees below, but he was high out of its reach before it could get to him. Curiosity was the only thing that drew Harry’s glance behind him to see Snape, also on the broom and also in the air a good distance behind him.

Harry kept his wand out, gripped as tightly as he could keep it in his left hand, holding the broom tightly with his right. He scanned the trees below him as often as he could spare, along with the sky, keeping watch for any sign of Voldemort or his followers.

Anger no longer coursed through his veins. Instead, the feeling had been replaced by a dull numbness that overtook him. Snape had been responsible for his parent’s deaths. Something more than this stabbed at his heart though. Harry thought that Snape had been helping him with Occlumency and being nice because he had wanted to… but that was lies, just like everything else in his life always turned out to be. He had only been helping him because he had promised to. Every once in a while Harry felt disgusted with the whole idea that he had ever thought of Snape as anything other than a murder and death eater. He felt like he wanted to be sick. Nothing in his world ever turned out to be real. It was all false.

Once the lake came into sight, Harry slowed down and began to circle the grounds. He wasn’t sure he wanted to land and make his way into the school to see all of the death and destruction that had been caused. Something inside him feared that he had lost the one place that he could call home, and the people that made it that way.

From above, the outer damage to the castle and grounds was apparent. Black cloaked figures lay dead on the lawn, all death eaters he hoped. There were places where the grass and dirt had been blasted away, leaving gaping holes instead. The windows around the front and one side of the castle were mostly gone, broken into little shards like the way he felt his life had become. One piece of wall on the front of the castle had caved in, leaving a massive hole. Harry could see people walking in and out of it to the grounds.

Despite Harry’s warning for Snape to stay away from him, he still circled, as Harry did, just far enough away that Harry couldn’t cast a spell at him or tell him to leave him alone. It aggravated Harry that the man wasn’t just a few yards closer, so that he could curse him from the sky.

After long minutes of circling, Harry finally landed near the now broken steps leading to the Entrance Hall.

Somebody, a student he didn’t know shouted from inside the Entrance Hall, “He’s alive! Harry Potter! He’s back!”

“Harry!” Hermione ran out the great hall and down the broken steps immediately. An uneasy feeling came over him as she let him out of her hug when Ron did not appear.

“Where’s Ron?” he asked, lump in his throat.

Hermione stepped back and said, “He’s ok. He’s up on the third floor on the East side heaving stones back into place so McGonagall can seal the wall up again…” Harry nodded and looked around.

“Where’s Draco?” but before she could answer, he spotted him at the top of the steps.

Harry marched up to him and handed him back his Firebolt. “Thanks for letting me use it,” he said, hoping Draco wouldn’t ask why Snape was still out on the lawn with Goyle’s broom, not advancing any closer to them.

“Yeah,” he trailed away as his gaze searched for the Potion’s Master.

“He’s down there,” Harry said, not turning. “Goyle’s father is dead. I killed him.” Hermione gasped, and Draco’s full attention returned to Harry.

“With what?”

“The sword.” Here Harry remembered Slytherin’s sword and pulled it from between his belt and pants where it had stayed securely even during flight. Draco’s eyes grew wide when he saw it.

“That’s not the sword you started out with,” he said, almost in accusation.

Harry shook his head. “No, this is the sword Lucius Malfoy tried to cut my head off with an hour ago.”

“My father?” Draco asked.

Harry handed him the sword. “He’s not your father… this is yours now. Right now he’s probably hiding somewhere from Voldemort.” For some reason Harry felt that he needed to clarify that Lucius Malfoy was not dead… or at least not by his hand.

Draco took hold of the sword, and as soon as he had, Harry strode away, off into the entrance hall. Hermione followed him.

“What happened Harry?”

He waved her question away. “I’m not talking about it.” He stopped and looked around. “Who is dead?” his question was blunt, and Hermione didn’t answer for a moment.

“Three first year Hufflepuffs… they snuck out of their common room and tried to take on Beatrice Lestrange. Professor Sinistra… Cho…” she paused here to see the effect on Harry after learning that his former girlfriend was dead. Harry still felt numb, and didn’t say or do anything, so she continued. “One of the Slytherins that was on our side was killed, along with about a hundred death eaters… they’re still out on the lawn. Aurors showed up right at the end of the battle and one of the older ones died… I don’t know what his name was, but he wasn’t in the Order. That’s it.”

Harry shook his head. Too many senseless deaths. They were quiet for a moment, and Harry finally said, “Give me something to do Hermione.”

She bit her lip. “Part of the Dungeons are flooding… they need help replacing stones there.” Harry didn’t look pleased with this idea, so she continued with suggestions. “You Know Who blasted half the roof away from the tallest East Tower… you know… the one with the attic you and Ron had to clean… Filch is there with Professor Flitwick and some students trying to replace that. Or you could go and help Ron and McGonagall with repairing the-” Harry walked away, not in any of the directions Hermione had given him. He wanted peace and quiet to work things out, but at the same time, did not want to be alone. What he really wanted was to be somewhere that Snape couldn’t find him.

Once Harry had disappeared up the steps and around a corner, Snape entered the Entrance Hall, leaning heavily on Draco, who had gone to retrieve him, for support. “What happened?” Hermione asked him. Severus waved her question away in the same manner Harry had. “He is angry with me. Do not worry yourself with it.” He paused, and then asked, “Where are the injured being taken?”

Hermione moved to support Snape’s other side as he almost collapsed forward, and Draco strained under the weight of his Head of House.

“In here,” she said quietly, helping Draco move him to lay on a table in the Great Hall.

Harry walked through the castle, surveying the damage done. Every once in a while he found a scorch mark on a wall or the floor, or a place where a blasting curse had taken out a chunk of stone. Quietly he waved the easy spells that would fix these damages, and moved on. As he walked, he wished that he could get rid of the numb feeling overtaking all of his senses. Even anger would be better than what he felt now.

He was careful to avoid the magical corridor on the third floor, and after a short while found himself standing next to a group of third years trying to repair an intricate stained glass window.

“No, that doesn’t look right,” Marcus Delwin, the tallest of the third year Hufflepuffs said.

“I agree,” Harry said. He startled the boys, and they jumped at his presence. None of them said anything, and Harry moved to look at the window. A few pieces of it were still missing. The boys had been piecing it together like a puzzle and then sealing the pieces into place.

“Try this,” Harry said. He motioned for the boys to put the remaining pieces down, and when they did so, he moved his wand in a semi circle and said, “Restituo statua vas.” The pieces flew into place, and some of the misplaced ones rearranged themselves and sealed into a whole window again.

“Wow,” one of the smaller boys said. “What did that mean?”

Harry shrugged. “I don’t know… something in Latin. We broke one of the windows in Gryffindor tower once and the Weasley twins knew the spell to fix it.” Harry remembered he and Ron breaking the window because they had been throwing around a Muggle football that Dean had brought back with him after Christmas break one year.

Harry showed them the spell again on the next broken window in the hall, and then told them to go and find whatever windows they could and repair them. The boys ran off eagerly, again leaving Harry alone. He pondered on the meaning of being left alone after they had gone. This was the way he was supposed to end up, he told himself… alone. No parents, no girlfriends, no anybody. Eventually he would lose Ron and Hermione too, and then he would lose himself eventually… if he hadn’t already.

He shook his head. Whatever God there was didn’t like him very much, he thought.

Down in the Great Hall, Madam Pomfrey hurried from table to table tending to injured students and staff. She had just finished applying a burn salve to a first year boy who had gotten caught in some crossfire when Hermione came and found her, and told her that Severus was in dire need of attention.

Severus lay on his back on the table quietly, Draco by his side, waiting to be looked at by Pomfrey. Neither of them said anything as they waited. From the next table over there was a moan as a Ravenclaw girl began to regain consciousness. She already had one arm bandaged and some kind of salve on a scratch across her left temple. Severus sighed. By all rights, he did not deserve to be here. The scene of Harry screaming at him to fight back in the woods kept running across his mind. Coward! he had screamed, stand and fight me like a man! Fight! Harry had almost been in tears, and his arm had been shaking as he held the sword. Being called a coward by any one else he knew would have drawn rage from him… but being called a coward by Harry made him feel as if he was being torn to shreds inside and out. He knew he was a coward… but hearing a friend say it… hearing a son say it…

Severus turned his head slightly and looked over to Draco, remembering he was there, who was gazing across the hall at the injured students and staff… Draco didn’t know the names of half the people… he had only ever associated himself with Slytherins… Slytherins who hated him now for choosing the other side.

“Why?” Severus suddenly asked. Draco looked over and down at him from where he stood.

“Why what sir?”

Severus paused to think. For some reason it took some kind of nerve he wasn’t sure he had left to confront Draco about what he had overheard in the garden before the battle.

“Why me?” he finally settled with. “What did I ever do to deserve such loyalty from you?”

Draco looked away immediately, knowing what he was referring to now. Years of being tormented, beaten, and yelled at by his father flashed before him, as if they had happened just that day. He didn’t know why. His head of house was the next closest thing he had to any kind of father he guessed. Draco had always felt a kind of gratitude that he hadn’t ever felt for anyone before, towards Snape, for looking out for himself and other Slytherins when every other Professor and student in the school hated him.

“I do stupid things,” Draco finally said quietly, still not looking Snape in the eye. “I’m not a good person… people hate me… but you still looked out for me while I was here,” he paused, and then said, “I didn’t deserve that, but you did it anyway.”

Severus sighed again and looked back to the enchanted ceiling, which had a massive scorch mark directly above him. He knew what it was to be Slytherin… and he knew what it was to be hated. Sometimes he saw so much of himself in Draco that he could not help but feel sorry for him. He hadn’t known everything of the boy’s situation at home until now, but he had had an idea.

Some people were evil from the start, he knew… like the Dark Lord, and Lucius Malfoy, but others didn’t start out bad. He had known Draco as a small boy, and remembered the light in his eyes… that light had not been there when he started at Hogwarts. It had been taken from him by force. He tolerated the boy’s acts of rebellion most days because he knew that down inside there was still something left to save… still some kind of good to be seen.

As he lay there in thought, he didn’t notice the visitor approach until a brilliant pair of blue eyes appeared from above, looking down into his. The headmaster’s face was worn and tired, but the light of triumph and hope still shone in his eyes.

“You survived Severus, I was most overjoyed to hear of your return.”

Severus raised a brow. Beside him, Draco was pretending to look around the Great Hall again so that they would ignore his presence there.

“I should not be here,” he told the old man, voicing his thoughts allowed. “He had every right to kill me…”

“Voldemort?” the Headmaster inquired, knowing that wasn’t whom Snape was referring to. Across the table from the Headmaster Draco flinched at the mention of the name.

Severus shook his head. “Harry.” This drew Draco’s attention.

The Headmaster looked over at Draco with a warm smile, and said, “If you could please excuse us for just a moment Mr. Malfoy… I would like a word with Severus before Madam Pomfrey realizes he needs medical attention.”

Draco nodded with a quiet, “Yes sir,” and moved off, unsure of where to go. He spotted Hermione, and not knowing why, made his way toward the girl he had always picked on and called names.

“I was pleased to see young Mr. Malfoy’s eyes opened last night as he ran repeatedly back into the fray for a cause that he chose, and not one that was chosen for him,” Dumbledore said.

Severus nodded. “He is no longer safe outside the castle walls… Lucius and the Dark Lord both intend to kill him.”

“Alas,” Dumbledore said, “the price we pay for making our own path in life…” he trailed away and Severus swallowed.

There was silence between them for a few moments, and then Snape said quietly, referring to Harry, “He knows who told the Dark Lord of his prophecy.”

“When he flew in without you, I wondered,” Dumbledore told him. He was quiet in thought, and then, “It was one of those truths that could not be kept a secret forever Severus. Whether you had told him, or the Dark Lord, or another, he would have found out eventually.”

“Then I wish he would have found out before this year,” Snape said angrily. If he would have known, he would have kept his distance and held his hate for Severus, and neither one would have felt the pain they did just then.

“Severus,” Dumbledore put a gentle hand on his shoulder. “The heart tells no lies, remember? When your mind leads you astray, your heart will always endeavor to bring you back to the place it feels to be right. If it is in his heart to kill you, then he would have done so. Let him work things out on his own. Sometimes there is no other way then to leave your fate in the hands of a higher power.”

“What higher power allows the evilest wizard of all time to roam free?” Severus sat up with difficulty, angry now. He knew that the old man held some higher power in high regard… knew he believed in something greater than himself… something that controlled the universe and all it’s mysteries contained within. “What higher power allows children to suffer at the hands of parents? What higher power allows us to feel so much pain? Is this not an evil power? Is this not the description of Lord Voldemort?”

Gentle surprise showed in Dumbledore’s eyes as Severus said Voldemort’s name… a first since he had known him. Severus too seemed to realize his error, because he sank into quiet contemplation.

“Severus, can you see darkness?”

Frowning, he looked up at the Headmaster. What kind of question was that? “Of course I can see the dark… who can’t?”

Dumbledore shook his head. “Once a room is dark, can it grow any darker?”

“No.”

“Why?” Dumbledore seemed to fall into Professor mode, and it annoyed Severus. He did not feel in the mood to be taught anything at the moment.

“Because, it cannot,” Severus said through gritted teeth, half because of the pain in his side, half because of annoyance.

“What about light?” Dumbledore asked him. “Can light grow any lighter?”

“There are variations on the depth of light… a room can be dim but still be lit.”

“Why then can darkness not become darker?”

Severus sighed. “Darkness is simply the absence of light.”

The Headmaster smiled now. “Darkness is the absence of light,” he repeated calmly. He paused for a moment, hoping that that would sink in for Severus, but it apparently did not, so he continued. “We can see evil all around us Severus… we witness it daily in the form of cruelty towards others… we witness it in the form of Voldemort, in the form of hate, and in the form of war mongering and violence… there is obviously evil in this world. We also see good around us… sometimes it is not as evident as evil… sometimes the good in the world is in the form of love, or kindness, or an act of bravery not for oneself, but to save another. Is one evil thing worse than another? Is one murder less of a crime than beating a defenseless child? You see Severus, like darkness, evil can become no more so than it already is… it is simply the absence of love, kindness, and righteousness on the behalf of others rather than yourself. Because there is so much evil in the world does not mean that it is caused by whatever higher power you believe in… it is simply caused by the lack of that higher power in some people. Would this not be a safe assumption?”

“Your logic is flawed,” Severus said calmly now. “Any being with power like you insist that it has could make itself present in any place at any time… therefore eradicating evil.”

Dumbledore nodded. “Yes, it could. How do you know it isn’t everywhere at once? Tell me… a student has an assignment in your class… one that you assign every week and is graded on completion, not the right answer… all they must do is take the time to write out one answer to one question… if they do not do the homework, what do you do?”

“I give them a D for dreadful dunderhead,” Severus answered. “Assignments are not that hard to complete.”

“And if they complete the assignment?”

“I give them a passing grade. Is there a point in this that is relevant to my situation?”

A small amount of pity displayed on Dumbledore’s face, only for a moment, before it was gone, and he said, “Severus, if there is some higher power… which I do not expect to persuade you to believe in, and he she or it was everywhere at once, trying to eradicate evil, how would that power do so if people did not want it there? How would it do so if they make it so that there is an absence of that power in their world or their lives? People choose to be good or evil Severus… Voldemort for instance, had every chance to change his thinking… he still does. Young Mr. Malfoy however, has chosen a different path for himself than the one that was so strenuously laid out for him by his friends and family.” He paused to let Snape think on this, and then continued, “Severus, you chose a different path for yourself at one time… for whatever reason. Something happened, and you chose a different path, the one that you are on now. We all have a million paths to choose from every day… turn left, or turn right. Do the homework, or don’t do it… Harry chose not to kill you in the Shadowland… he chose to let you live. Perhaps it is because his heart is leading him on the path that he should be on, as I believe yours has done.”

Dumbledore removed his hand and took a step back as he saw Madam Pomfrey begin to make her way over to them. Before he turned to walk away, he said gently, “To answer your question Severus, it is the kind of higher power who wants to be let in, but is pushed out by so many. It is the kind that tries to make the sun shine out the clearer in the end, even if we do not see how that is possible with all the things going on in our lives. Because we don’t understand sometahing, does not mean it can’t be… for instance… we still have no clear grasp on the meaning of magic, and why some of us have it, and others do not, or why there is magic in the rest of the world, but not in Shadow land…”

Madam Pomfrey was almost to them now, and Severus glared at the old man in front of him. Why did he always have to be so wise? Severus could never win an argument with him… ever. He had been given a lot to think about.

“I will return later,” Dumbledore told him as Madam Pomfrey bustled over, looking frazzled.

As the Headmaster moved his way between tables, giving words of comfort to others, and Madam Pomfrey forced Severus to lay back down, he thought to himself, Why couldn’t he have just given me a pat on the back and told me it would be ok? It was a juvenile thought, and he scolded himself for it silently as Pomfrey pulled a burn salve from her bag and began to apply it to his injury.

It would take weeks to repair the castle after Voldemort’s attack. A determined silence fell over the castle and grounds, and all of its residents as they mourned the loss of friends and colleagues. Students were still restricted to the inside of the castle unless accompanied by a Professor for purposes of repairing the castle and grounds.

Instead of classes resuming as normal, Professors took their older students around the castle each day with newly learned enchantments and spells and gained their help in reinforcing the school’s protective barriers. Younger students were put on repair duty, because sealing and repairing spells were the easiest ones in need.

An entire team of aurors was placed on permanent duty at the school in the likelihood of another attack. Aurors, staff, and students alike were on edge. A number of parents had even pulled their students out of school… mainly first, second, and third years, afraid that they would get caught in another angry attack and die.

Harry James Potter was not worried about crossing paths with Severus Snape as he walked down the corridors on his way to McGonagall and Flitwick’s joint class one rainy afternoon. It seemed that the man had taken his order up with full heart to stay the hell away from him. In fact, he had not seen a trace of him since he had landed on the front lawn with Draco’s broom a week ago.

As the weeks wore on and there was less and less to do around the castle, Harry began to feel more and more lost without something to keep his mind off the man who had betrayed him in so many ways. He wondered why Snape had not come to find him… had not come to make amends, but at the same time did not want to see him. The fact that he had not come to find him meant that he really had not cared about him at all. He had only helped him with Occlumency lessons and looked out for him because of a stupid promise that made him feel better about himself for betraying his mother and father.

Occasionally Professors still took their classes to another part of the castle to make final repairs or new protective enchantments, but for the most part things had returned to normal. Some of the edge people had felt had worn off now that there were no new signs or news of Voldemort. As Harry sat next to his friends in class he felt emptier than ever. Things would not be the same, he told himself. Whatever hopes he had had for having somebody to look up to were gone. He would not go looking for that kind of friendship again. Harry had begun to accept the fact that he was going to end up alone.

Draco seemed to be in slightly higher spirits than Harry. He no longer spoke to any of the Slytherins, or any other students for that matter, but still Harry felt that something other than that about him had changed. Suddenly he seemed more… interested in things. The usual sneer that had found a home on his face had been replaced with curiosity. Harry wasn’t the only one to seem to notice this. In most of their shared classes, Harry noticed Draco sitting off by himself, listening attentively to the Professor as other Slytherins glared and jeered at him.

The first snow fell early that year. Care of Magical creatures had already been moved inside to one of the larger first floor classrooms for security purposes, so none of the students seemed to mind the cold weather arriving early.

In his free time Harry had taken to roaming the corridors over the last few weeks, feeling oddly out of place amongst his friends in Gryffindor tower. Ron had gained some new kind of power it seemed… Harry didn’t know how to explain it, but suddenly his best friend had more confidence. Suddenly he seemed more independent. Harry didn’t mind the change. In fact, he thought it was a good one, and was glad to see that Ron had gained some more popularity, but it still made him feel out of place. To Harry the weeks seemed like only a day… it was as if things in his life were normal, and as he knew them one day, and then the next he was flying off to Shadowland, and everything he had known and come to treasure as normal had fallen away, like the ground had been taken from under his feet, and he had come back to find things mostly the same, but still altogether different.

Harry walked slowly down the hall, light filtering in through the newly repaired windows as a light snow fell. He wished he had someone to confide his thoughts to, but again didn’t feel like Ron and Hermione would understand.

“He cannot know.”

Harry paused at the sound of Snape’s voice coming from a room a little way down the hall, the door cracked open. He didn’t know why, but he was drawn to the conversation… he felt somewhere deep inside that he was being talked about, and was not surprised to find that he was right.

“Severus, it cannot hurt him to know the truth,” Dumbledore said calmly.

Harry frowned. Why were they all the way up on second floor? Dumbledore’s office was higher up and Snape’s was down in the dungeons.

“He cannot know,” Snape insisted again. “It will only place him in more turmoil than I have put him in.”

From the corridor Harry heard the Headmaster sigh. “Why?”

There was a long silence, and Harry wondered if they had heard him. Finally Snape said, “Because it pains me every day to remember. I wish I did not know… why would I wish that dreadful knowledge on him?”

“I do not think it is as bad as you believe-” Dumbledore started, but Severus cut him off.

“Did you love her!?” he asked him hotly. “Did you have to deal with the pain of being her best friend and seeing her pass by every day, falling in love with the man who tormented you on a daily basis!? Did you betray her and her son? Are you responsible for her murder? Are you the coward that went to the Dark Lord with the information because you hated her husband and all he stood for?”

Dumbledore sighed again. “Severus-”

Snape cut him off again. “Yes or no.”

“No.”

Harry was torn. They weren’t talking about him… they couldn’t be. If they were, it meant something that Harry didn’t want to admit.

“Well I am that man… that coward,” Snape continued, his anger boiling down to some kind of hatred for himself. “I am the one that caused him to be without mother and father. I am the one who caused him so much pain! I am the coward who does not deserve to be here, but is because of some force you claim that rules the universe.”

Harry swallowed and a brick fell into the pit of his stomach. He had been walking around for the last four weeks feeling numb… wishing he felt any other emotion aside from numbness, and here Snape had found enough anger and hatred and pain for the both of them. How could a man who had done so much to ruin his life feel so much sorrow over the fact that he had done so?

There was a scrape of a chair and Harry’s stomach did a somersault in panic as he took several steps backwards very quickly. Somebody, probably Snape, was about to leave the room, and walk out to find Harry eaves dropping on his tirade. Harry turned and ran down the corridor as the door opened and Snape stormed out. Luckily he went down the corridor in the opposite direction than Harry was going.

Harry stopped and leaned against a stone wall when he did not hear footsteps coming in his direction. He let his head fall back to rest on the wall and sighed. Every time he thought he knew something about somebody, he found out that he was wrong. First Snape was an evil man who had it out for him, then he was the tormented boy in a memory being picked on by his father and his father’s friends, then he was the only person he thought really understood him, and then he was back to being an evil man. Harry didn’t know what to think of him now. Now he was just a man. Just another somebody who had made a mistake and was haunted by it daily. Harry knew all about being haunted. If it wasn’t for him not practicing his Occlumency lessons, Sirius would still be alive…

Again he felt lost and uncertain. It seemed to be a reoccurring theme for him that week. Why did things always have to be so difficult for him? At least he wasn’t having nightmares with Voldemort in them anymore, he told himself as he continued to rest against the wall. Another brick fell into the pit of his stomach as he was also reminded of the fact that that was thanks to Snape that he did not die in his sleep every night.

Harry so desperately wanted to go and talk to him, to tell him all he had been thinking and feeling since the battle, to tell him about Ron and Draco and the dreams staying away… but how could he? The last thing he had said to him was to stay the hell away from him. What was he supposed to do now, walk into his office and say, hey, how’s life treating you? Harry shook his head, disgusted with himself. This was his fault… it always was. Somehow his temper always got the better of him and he always ended up alienating those who cared about him or that he cared about. He was surprised Dumbledore still talked to him after he trashed his office the night that Sirius had died.

He ran a hand through his messy hair and closed his eyes. He felt stupid for doing it, but in his mind, he asked, mum… dad… what would you do?

Severus Snape sat behind his desk, head in hands, door closed most of the way so that nobody could see in, but not completely. He had left it that way since he had returned, half hoping that Harry would walk in and sit down as he would normally have done before the battle, even though he knew the boy had every intent on never seeing him again. This was a misery that some higher being had reserved all for him, he thought to himself wryly. No matter how Dumbledore said it or how much he insisted that there was a higher being and that it was good, there were too many things wrong with him, and wrong with his life to let him believe that.

Your stupidity has cost you so many things Severus, he told himself silently. Your best friend, your humanity, and now a son. He still had Draco, he thought to himself, knowing how the boy thought of him, and knowing how he had come to think of the boy recently, but still something ate at him… something gnawed at his insides every day knowing that Harry would hate him forevermore for the same reason he hated himself everyday. He knew he could never atone for his sins against Lily. He would never see her again, and she had died knowing the kind of horrible person he had turned out to be. She had died because of him.

Severus hadn’t spent the last few weeks completely alone… Draco had come to see him on quite a few occasions, taking advantage of his open door. But still he felt alone. He felt just as alone as he had before the beginning of the year, if not more so now. There was no thing he could say to himself or do to make him feel less alone. The burden that had been removed from his shoulders by telling Harry that it was he, Severus Snape who had caused the death of his parents, had been replaced by one of some deeper turmoil within himself. He had not previously thought it possible to feel worse about himself as a human being than he had before, but now found himself mistaken.

There was a gentle knock on the door as Severus sat musing the situation he was in, which he had caused in every way. Thinking it most likely Draco on the other side of the door, or some other student, he did not get his hopes up as he had for the first three weeks that it was the one person he most wanted to talk to.

“Come,” he said, lifting his head from his hands and lifting a quill to parchment so that he could pretend to write.

The door was pushed open and somebody entered, and still Snape did not look up, scratching out furious words that meant nothing to him on the parchment. “Yes?” he asked calmly.

There was silence, and he stopped writing, but did not look up. He was afraid to see who was standing in his doorway.

Harry looked to the ground, suddenly feeling ashamed of himself. “I uh…” he paused, and Severus looked up at him, amazed to find him standing there. Severus stood, and Harry fidgeted, knowing he was being watched now.

“We had a deal…” he started, not knowing where to go from there. “You said you would teach me Occlumency if I graded… I… I’m not having dreams anymore so…” Harry was uncomfortable under the black gaze coming his way. Inside it felt as if all the little shattered pieces of himself were trying to fit themselves back into place, but weren’t coming together right. He felt so lost and hurt that he didn’t think he’d ever be right again.

Harry refrained from looking up at Severus because he knew if he did that the thin wall he had placed around himself would break and he would be in a world of hurt.

“I’ll grade,” he finally said after long moments of uncomfortable silence, “if… if you’ll have me.”

Harry looked up and Severus met his eyes for a moment. There was a kind of hurt there that he didn’t know if he could handle on top of his own. He nodded wordlessly and motioned with a hand to the visitor’s chair. Harry didn’t move though. He remained rooted to the spot. A question burned inside him that he needed to know the answer to.

“Did… did you only help me because of the promise?” he had difficulty getting the words out.

Severus bit his lip and looked down. When he looked back up Harry’s eyes were waiting. He shook his head. “I helped you, because you trusted me to do so… and because I liked having you around.”

Something inside Harry’s stomach jumped, like a butterfly, and he had to look away. Severus walked slowly around the desk to face Harry, even though he didn’t look up at him. Harry leaned forward and put his head on Severus’ chest, eyes closed trying to hold back the hurt that wanted to escape them. Severus put an arm around his back and held the back of his head tight in the other. “I’m sorry,” he told him quietly. “You have no idea what it does to me everyday to know I caused you such pain.”

Harry inhaled deeply with these words. He no longer felt so desperately alone. They stood there for long minutes, Harry no longer holding back the tears that wanted to escape. Finally he said, “That’s ok… I’m ok so long as you’re here…dad.”

Harry waited patiently for Snape to push him away, to tell him to leave, that he didn’t think of him like that, that he couldn’t, but no such thing happened. Severus gripped Harry more tightly, and sighed. Quietly, he said, “Thank you son… thank you.”

That night Harry sat and told Snape every detail of his last few weeks without him. He told him of Draco being outcasted by the other Slytherins, of Ron suddenly becoming more popular, of Madam Pomfrey hunting him down two days after they had returned and scolding him for an hour about not coming to her with his broken wrist… as they talked and laughed into the night, both men felt a burden lift from their hearts and souls that they did not think possible to remove.

In the early hours of the morning, a wizened old wizard stopped outside of his Potion Master’s door, and listened to laughter coming from inside the office. A smile crept across his face as he listened, and he knew that the pieces had fallen as they finally should. In such a dark, and dangerous world, all was right for a time. He knew that the bond formed between the two men inside the office on this night was one that they would both need desperately in coming months. He also knew that it was the type of bond that would be with them forever.