Ron, replete after finishing his plate of bacon and eggs, picked up his glass of pumpkin juice and glanced towards the other end of the long table, trying to be surreptitious. He moved his foot sideways until he felt Harry’s foot, then he nudged it persistently until Harry looked at him.

“What?” mouthed Harry. Ron, eyes exaggeratedly wide, indicated with a sideways tilt of his head that Harry should look towards the end of the table. Harry obliged, but he really didn’t have to look to know that he would see Erin and Snape sitting close together, with Erin looking pale and worried, her hands wrapped around her teacup as if she needed the warmth. Snape had just finished polishing off a plate of breakfast, but it looked as if the food had given him stomach ache if the sour look on his face was anything to go by.

Harry looked away; there was something going on because Mrs Weasley, although trying to put a good face on it, was also very pale. But as usual, nobody was going to tell the kiddies anything.

“What’s with them?” asked Ron out of the corner of his mouth. Harry shrugged but Ron chuntered on, regardless of Harry’s lack of enthusiasm for the subject. “She looks like she’s going to be sick, and I don’t blame her, sitting so close to the greasy git.

Harry bit his tongue; Ron had been catching Harry up with his news ever since they had sat down, with Ginny, who was sitting opposite them, listening and offering up the odd comment. When Ron had paused in his recitation of his so far boring holiday, Ginny had tentatively brought up the subject of what had happened in Little Whinging. She reached out to touch Harry’s hand where it lay on the table, expressing her sympathy over the loss of his aunt and cousin.

Harry had left his hand there; it had felt nice. Ginny too, didn’t immediately pull away and when Harry had looked at her, her chocolate eyes had stared back and their expression had been all soft and warm. Harry had felt a little squiggle in the region of his stomach. That was when Harry slowly extricated his hand on the pretext of picking up his glass of pumpkin juice.

Ron was fiddling with the salt cellar. He had gone red with embarrassment when Ginny had mentioned Harry’s sufferings, realising that he probably should have said something before his little sister did, as he was Harry’s best friend. He had mumbled his own condolences, but Harry, who was still trying to get his head around the fact that Ginny had just made him feel like Cho had when he had been infatuated with her, just nodded brusquely in acknowledgement of Ron’s words.

Harry took a deep breath and tried to distract himself from thoughts of Ginny. He tentatively probed that place in his mind where he had filed the Dursleys. It was an uncomfortable subject. Harry felt immensely guilty because he hadn’t really addressed his emotional response to the deaths of the last of his family; he had still not fully worked out how he felt.

He knew he should be mourning, but whenever errant thoughts of the Dursleys popped into his head, he forced them out again. The little trickle of emotions that invariably accompanied these hastily suppressed thoughts were mostly made up of anger and resentment rather than sorrow, and this was at the root of his guilt.

After Dumbledore had admitted to him that his aunt and cousin were dead, Harry had felt totally numb. Oh, he knew he had asked questions, but it was as if he had been speaking from the end of a long tunnel, and the voices from the other end had kept on moving further and further away. He could remember feeling sick and panicky when he had learned about the rest of the horror that had been perpetrated that night. Then Snape had come to the rescue, and he had spent a fair bit of time virtually unconscious or semi-conscious, thanks to Calming and Sleeping Draughts.

He had been shocked, yes, but he had also still been suffering the after effects of the treatment meted out by his uncle…the shock from the injuries that had not totally worn off, as well as the residual pain; it was all too easy to ignore thoughts of the demise of Aunt Petunia and Dudley. Anger and resentment forced their way to the forefront of his thoughts each time, blocking out the sorrow. And that was the sad part. His sorrow was more for the fact that he could not really feel sorrow, rather than the fact that they were dead.

“Stop ogling them, Ron!” hissed Ginny, leaning on her forearms to bring her face closer to her brother’s. “For heaven’s sake, will you grow up?”

Harry tuned back into what was going on around him.

Ron’s ears went red, at his sister’s admonition, but he looked unrepentant. “I'm not ogling him!” he said bluntly. “I'm ogling her. She’s a bit of all right.”

Harry wished he was still daydreaming. He sat in stony silence glaring at his glass of pumpkin juice. Ginny shook her head and rolled her eyes. “A bit out of your league, brother dear. She has to be at least ten years older than you.”

Harry stood up abruptly. Everyone around the table looked up at him and to cover his abrupt movement, he picked up his empty plate and took it to the sink. Mrs Weasley took it from him with a smile. “Have you had enough to eat, Harry dear?”

“Yes thanks, Mrs Weasley. I might go and have a shower if that’s OK.” Molly patted Harry’s newly healed cheek.

“Of course it’s all right. You know you don’t have to stand on ceremony here.”

Harry smiled. “Umm, will I be staying in the twin’s room or will I be in with Ron?”

“You’ll be back in with Ron, dear. Erin will need the twin’s room.”

Surprised, Harry turned to Erin and Severus. He had thought that now he was well again, Erin would be leaving with Snape. “You’re staying?” he asked.

Erin threw him a tight little smile. “For a little while.”

Harry’s brows drew together. What was going on? Now that he was safely at the Burrow, and considering that Snape and Erin had become so close, Harry had assumed that Erin would be going back to Hogwarts with him. Erin didn’t look happy, so Harry knew that something untoward had happened.

He looked at Snape, but before he could say anything, Severus stood, lifting his holdall off the floor where it had been resting near his feet.

“You’ll want your trunk, Potter,” he said brusquely. “Show me where you’ll be sleeping and I’ll enlarge it for you there, so that it doesn’t have to be dragged up the stairs.

Harry knew Snape wanted to talk to him, so he acquiesced, turning to Ron and Ginny before he led the way to Ron’s room. “See you guys in a bit,” he said, ignoring Ron’s aghast expression, knowing that it meant, the greasy git is going into my room! Harry was going to have to try and find a way to change Ron’s favourite sobriquet for Snape; it didn’t sit comfortably with him anymore, and that was going to take some explaining to his friend. How did you tell your best mate that you no longer hated the man who had mentally and verbally tortured you for the last five years, and whom you had blamed for helping bring about the death of your Godfather?

Harry sighed as he led the way up the stairs. Ron would definitely think that he was barking. He silently agreed with that probable assessment of his mental state.

On the top landing, Harry opened the door and led the way into the cramped room. He watched Snape’s eyes widen at the orange light that nearly knocked him back a pace. He suppressed a grin when he saw the man shudder.

Harry sat on the end of Ron’s bed and watched as Snape rested his holdall near Ron’s pillow and summoned the tiny trunk from within its capacious depths. Severus lowered the trunk to rest in the biggest area of free space—which was hardly adequate to house the trunk—and Harry knew he had silently incanted engorgio when it enlarged to its original size.

“When do we learn how to do non-verbal spells?” asked Harry, having seen Snape and Professor Dumbledore do impressive magic without uttering any sound, at various times throughout the holiday.

“You begin this coming year,” answered Severus in an indifferent voice. “Some wizards never master the art. If you are going to have any success, you will find that you have already performed non-verbal, accidental magic. Can you recall any times, before you started at Hogwarts, that something occurred that would normally require an incantation?”

Harry’s thoughts immediately flew to the vanishing glass in the snake enclosure at the zoo, and Aunt Marge bobbing around on the ceiling. But there were other instances also.

“Well?” said Severus, more than a little curious to know what the boy might have done before he had even found out he was a wizard.

“Umm, well, I can remember toys that I might have wanted when I was little, flying across the room to me.” Severus raised his eyebrows but Harry missed the surprised look. “Funny though, I can’t remember actually summoning the toys. My…my cousin generally had them and I knew I wasn’t allowed to have them. It was just that I wanted them so badly.”

Harry left out the handful of occasions he had been shut up under the stairs, starving hungry, but able to smell the delicious aromas of cooking, and suddenly, the locked door had sprung open and a near full plate of food had appeared before him. The accompanying wails of outrage that accompanied the food into the space under the stairs had always made Harry aware that instead of being able to eat that food, he was going to receive a hiding instead. He had quickly learned to bury his face under the thin excuse for a pillow and breathe through his mouth if he was locked up and denied food.

“Anything else?” asked Severus, intrigued. Most accidental magic performed by underage wizards consisted of things shaking or vibrating where they stood when a temper tantrum was being enacted.

Severus could remember an occasion when he had desperately summoned his mother upstairs and away from a violent and drunk Tobias Snape. Severus had been six years old and he had cried out in shock when his locked bedroom door had burst open and his mother had sailed through to land, non-too-gently on his lumpy bed. His mother had been crying hysterically, and Tobias’s rage had made him almost insane. He had finished doling out the beating he had been subjecting his wife to before she had shot away from him, and he had then started on his ‘worthless and freakish’ son.

Like Harry, who had tried to escape tantalising smells under his pillow, Severus had covered his head with his pillow and squashed it tight over his ears from that time onwards when his parents were fighting, willing himself not to do anymore accidental magic. Any time he ever interfered when Tobias was drunk, his mother’s beatings had become even worse and he, Severus had also suffered physically.

Harry’s voice brought Severus out of his reverie. “I banished the plate glass from a snake enclosure at the zoo once. That was just before I found out I was a wizard. My uncle wasn’t best pleased with that little display. And I blew up—well, inflated really—my uncle’s sister just before third year when she made me really angry. She floated up to the ceiling.”

Severus couldn’t hide his astonishment this time. “You used an engorgement charm on your uncle’s sister?” he asked incredulously.

“I suppose so. I thought I would be expelled for that one. Fudge tried to use it against me when I was brought before the full sitting of the Wizengamot for breaching the Reasonable Restriction for Underage Sorcery and the International Statute of Secrecy when I fought off the Dementors in Little Whinging.

“It turns out though, that he was just spouting so much hot air, because I hadn’t used a wand on Aunt Marge, and accidental magic doesn’t count, even though I wasn’t under eleven when that happened. Professor Dumbledore eventually told me that.” Harry frowned darkly. Last years long silence from Dumbledore when Harry had most needed to confide in him, still rankled.

Severus, of course, as part of the Order, had learned of Fudge’s vendetta against Harry, and even being deeply immersed as he had been at that time, in his hatred of anything ‘Potter’, he had been shocked at the lengths the idiot Minister would go to discredit the boy, and hence, Dumbledore. It had been obvious to all of them that Fudge would quite happily have sent a fifteen year old boy to Azkaban if he had won the day.

Severus pushed these musings away, wanting to learn more about Harry’s remarkable accidental magic. It was apparent that the boy had no idea that these displays of accidental magic were anything out of the ordinary. Not so long ago, Severus would have scoffed at these examples, taking them for lies. He knew better now. Harry was not relating these episodes to boast…he was just answering the questions put to him.

“Anything else?” Severus repeated his earlier question. Harry shrugged again.

“Just little things…I turned one of my teacher’s hair, blue. Once in a while, I was able to hide myself from Dudley and his gang just by being really still; for some reason, they couldn’t see me.” Harry gestured that was that, but then he back-tracked. “Oh, yeah…once when Dudley and the gang were chasing me at school, I went to jump in behind a big rubbish skip. The next thing I knew, I was sitting on the school roof.”

Severus couldn’t help himself; his mouth fell open. He closed it again pretty quickly, it going entirely against the grain for him to ever appear gormless. Harry had Apparated when he was…

“How old were you when you did that?” Severus asked feebly.

“About nine, I think,” said Harry.

Severus took a deep breath. He wasn’t going to tell Harry that it was almost unheard of for a wizard to be able to Apparate without a wand. He had never heard of it being done accidentally by an underage wizard.

“I do not think you will have much trouble mastering non-verbal spells,” was all he said in response to this remarkable litany of accidental magic. “Concentration is the key.”

Or fear, obviously.

An awkward silence fell, and Harry, who had his elbows resting on his thighs, kept his eyes fixed on his clasped hands dangling between his knees. He could feel Snape staring at him, but he didn’t feel the whip-like slashes of pure hatred that those fathomless black eyes usually flayed him with…he hadn’t felt that for quite a while now.

Severus put his holdall on the floor. “Lay back, Harry. I want to check your pupils.” That was another thing; Harry didn’t think he would ever get used to Snape using his given name. As he shuffled far enough up the bed to put his head on the pillow, he reflected that now that they were at the Burrow, Snape could easily have reverted to his hateful Slytherin self and the use of the ubiquitous ‘Potter’. As Harry lay down, he found that he was oddly pleased that he hadn’t.

Severus spent five minutes examining Harry’s eyes from every angle and asking him questions about what he remembered. No new memories had surfaced…he remembered everything up to the roadside restaurant, and then nothing until he had woken here in the early hours of the morning. Harry asked the same questions he had asked Erin, and got the same answers. He still couldn’t believe that he has been so bloody clumsy as to slip on wet tiles. As he sat up, he mumbled words to that effect and Snape assured him that anyone could slip on a wet floor in a bathroom, just as Erin had done. The reassurance did not make him feel any less stupid, however.

“Right, Harry. I have to leave. Just take it easy for a while…absolutely no flying for at least two days. Is that clear?”

“But you said that I’m OK now.”

“And so it would appear. But just to be on the safe side, I want you to do nothing more energetic than play wizard’s chess or exploding snap.”

“I’m not allowed outside!”

“If you can be trusted just to walk around the garden, or sit under a tree and read.”

“You have got to be kidding?” said Harry, and when he saw Snape smirk, he knew he had been.

“Heaven forbid that you should open a book unless I am breathing down your neck as I did at the Haven. But you seemed to enjoy your little bit of research there. Certainly, you put more effort into that Potions assignment than you usually do.”

Harry shrugged. “I was in a virtual detention, and I had no distractions.”

“And as distractions abound here at the Burrow, I presume your diligence towards your homework will be conspicuous by its absence.”

Harry shrugged again, and Severus rolled his eyes. “Just behave yourself. Bill Weasley will be here for the duration, and I will be giving him…”

“What did Voldemort want last night?” Harry blurted the words out before he could think better of it. He stiffened his spine when Severus turned back from where he now stood with his hand on the doorknob and drilled him with his basilisk’s glare.

“I know you were summoned,” said Harry. “I woke up and you were gone. And my scar was prickling.”

“You do not have to worry about what the Dark Lord wants, Potter. The adults have everything well in hand.”

“Really?” said Harry, noting the renewed use of ‘Potter’, but he ploughed on, wondering where this new-found courage had come from. He gestured to Severus’s discoloured eye. “If that’s what’s left after last night, I can only imagine what you looked like before you started on the potions and salves.”

Severus took a step forward, forcing Harry to back up so that the back of his legs banged into Ron’s bed and he nearly ended up on his bum. He leaned back even further when Snape thrust his substantial beak right in his face; the tips of both their noses practically bumped.

“It would not be wise to make me angry, Potter. You are fifteen year…”

“I’m nearly sixteen!” corrected Harry angrily. “I should be able to know what’s going on as I’m the one who has to end it all!”

Severus drew himself up and crossed his arms, looking his usual menacing self. “You do have designs on yourself, don’t you?”

Harry pressed his lips together. He wasn’t going to rise to the bait. He wasn’t going to lose his temper completely. When he spoke, his voice was restrained; he hardly moved his lips, as if he was afraid that if he opened them too wide, he would start yelling. “I know that you know about the prophecy, Professor. You know what it says. And don’t tell me that it’s a load of airy-fairy nonsense.”

Harry tapped his scar. “What’s this all about if the prophecy is rubbish? Why do I have this connection with him?” He swallowed. “I don’t want this bloody destiny hanging over my head. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone, not even Malfoy. What hope have I got of killing him? I haven’t got anything special in the way of powers, regardless of what Dumbledore thinks.”

Severus was silent for several long heartbeats as he looked into the anguished green eyes of the child who really did have the weight of the world on his thin shoulders. Then he sighed. He knew Harry was at the centre of the Dark Lord’s plans; the man had made his own worst enemy and continued to emphasise Harry’s importance by his continued persecution of the boy. Severus knew that was because he did not know the full contents of the prophecy and he was becoming more and more desperate to dispatch Harry Potter.

But he couldn’t tell Harry any of that; he had to try and defuse his worries, if that was at all possible.

“Prophecies are notoriously ambiguous, Harry. Even if the prophecy referring to you and the Dark Lord is true, now is obviously not the time for any sort of confrontation. Now is the time for you to continue on with your studies and make yourself the best wizard that you can.” Severus winced inwardly at how condescending he sounded. And the look on the boy’s face showed exactly what he thought of Severus’s sentiments.

“So in other words, just be a good little boy and let the adults get on with things!”

“Precisely,” said Severus and he infused the word with some of his usual asperity.

Harry glared. “Right! I suppose I’ll just have to learn about the murder and mayhem after the fact, just like the rest of the magical world. I’ll read the bloody Prophet!”

Harry pushed his way past Severus to open the door, and coward that he was, Severus let him go, wondering what he would think when no daily newspaper arrived for him to peruse.

8888

Harry bumped into Ron halfway down the stairs. “What took so long?” asked Ron, glancing up towards his room.

“He had to examine me,” said Harry brusquely. “Come on, let’s go outside. I need some fresh air.” And before Ron could respond, Harry clattered away. Ron stood irresolute for a moment, but then he heard footsteps descending from above, and he took off after Harry without any further delay.

Erin looked up from where she and Molly were sitting and talking quietly together when Harry passed through the kitchen and out the back door, Ron not very far behind. She and Molly exchanged silent glances, both of them thinking that their task of keeping Harry and the other kids in the dark was going to be challenging, to say the least.

When Severus appeared in the doorway, Erin could see that he was planning on leaving immediately and her face became set. Molly, now firmly in Erin’s camp, and realising that Severus’s departure was going to be difficult for her, patted her hand. “Go and see him off,” she said quietly, before picking up both their cups and moving to the sink to finish the dishes.

Molly had never been a fan of Severus Snape’s, but he had been caring for and protecting Harry over the last little while and anyone who was so caught up in their common goal of protecting that poor boy was definitely in her good books. Also, knowing that there was an attractive young woman who cared very deeply for the irascible man and that he returned those feelings, somehow made Severus seem much more human to her than he ever had before. No woman would fall in love with a cold, nasty and highly unpleasant person unless she saw a great deal more beneath that very gruff, and rather unattractive exterior. And somehow, Severus no longer looked quite as unattractive as he had always appeared to her before.

Severus led the way back into the living room. “Harry didn’t look happy,” said Erin, determined to delay the moment of departure. It had been all she could do not to race after Harry and Severus, to make sure they did not resume hostilities.

Severus, however, didn’t want to waste time; he knew delay would only make his departure more difficult. He drew Erin into his arms, linking his fingers at the base of her spine and looking down at her worried countenance.

“He’s a teenager. That’s par for the course, isn’t it?”

“Sev, don’t be flippant. What is he upset about now?”

“He wants to know what is going on. And he will not stop trying to find out, I assure you. If he becomes too painful, Bill is here to rein him in.”

Erin sighed and leaned her forehead against Severus’s chest. “I can understand his frustration. He knows something is going on, and he is at the centre of it all. And yet, everyone is trying to keep him in the dark.”

“You don’t honestly think he should be told?” asked Severus. Erin felt the rumble of his beautiful, rich voice through his chest. She felt the words as well as heard them. “You’ve known him long enough to know how impetuous he is.”

“No, of course not. He needs to be protected from himself, but that doesn’t mean I can’t understand his frustration.”

“He’s a typical Gryffindor,” said Severus, and the words were far from complimentary. “He is one of those fools who rush in where angels fear to tread. He is ridiculously blasé when it comes to his own safety but he thinks it is his job to keep everyone else in the world safe.”

Erin lifted her head again and after studying Severus’s dear, unattractive face for a few seconds, she stood on tiptoe to bestow a fleeting kiss on his lips. “Much like one of his teachers,” she whispered.

Twin slashes of colour appeared on Severus’s cheeks. He wasn’t sure whether to be defensive or pleased. He chose the former. “The difference, my love, is that I am an adult and am experienced in the tasks that I need to do.”

Erin was distracted for a few seconds by the words, ‘my love’. That sexy voice did more for those two words than any other voice in the history of man had ever managed to do. At least for her, it did. Erin hugged the knowledge of that love to herself, which made her next words even more heartfelt than they would have been.

“Severus, we’re not talking about making one of your potions! What you are going to do over the next however long it’s going to take, is dangerous because you cannot possibly know all of the variables. How do you know that this creep Voldemort doesn’t suspect you?”

Severus winced slightly at hearing the Dark Lord referred to as ‘this creep Voldemort’. He wondered what the most powerful dark wizard ever known, would think of being thus labelled…and by a Muggle female, no less. The Dark Lord was not a fan of equality of the sexes. Oh, it pleased him to let Bellatrix think that she was his right hand ‘man’, but it was only to keep her under his control. She was too much of a loose canon if allowed to stray too far from his side.

Severus was willing to bet a year’s worth of his less than spectacular salary that he would not be at all happy that a Muggle female had the audacity to deride him thus. There was more than a decided lack of respect in the way Erin referred to him…there was total disdain. He would really have to talk to her about her attitude. But now, all he said was, “I imagine he suspects us all, being as paranoid as he is. But he cannot do what he wants to do by himself. He needs lackeys to do his bidding.”

If Severus thought that that would make Erin feel better, he was sadly mistaken. She stepped back from him and crossed her arms, looking furious. “I swear Severus Snape, if anything happens to you during this…this operation, you had better hope that they kill you, because you won’t enjoy the means I will employ to kill you.”

Despite the danger he was heading into, Severus couldn’t help the tiny twitch of his lips at Erin's threat. She saw the twitch and her face became even more set, her eyes narrowed to slits. She opened her mouth to rail at him, but Severus grabbed her wrist, dragged her up against him and planted his mouth firmly upon hers before she could get an angry word out.

The kiss was really, really delicious, and Severus took his time, but when Erin stood alone a minute later, staring through tear-filled eyes at the empty grate, that delicious kiss was little consolation. She had been frightened enough last night when Severus had gone off to liaise with the murdering scumbag and his scumbag cohorts, but today, he was going off to seemingly socialise with some of them, and that was making her really, really terrified.

8888

After a minute of useless inactivity, and battling the tears that continued to star her vision, but which Erin refused to let fall, she turned towards the kitchen, only to spin back around when the Floo flared again.

Her momentarily deactivated heart began to beat again when, instead of Severus, a young girl with severely restrained hair pulled back in a tight braid stepped from the fireplace with Remus following immediately behind, his hand clamped around her upper arm to steady her.

Remus smiled at Erin and ever the gentleman, he effected introductions immediately. The two females smiled at each other.

“Hermione is the stabilizing influence for Harry and Ron,” said Remus in an affectionate voice. “She is their voice of reason.” Hermione blushed and Erin thought she might be a little sensitive about being labelled the ‘sensible’ one.

“Well, I don’t know Ron very well yet, but I have gotten to know Harry and a stabilizing influence would certainly not go astray for him.” Hermione smiled again and Erin could see the hastily repaired ravages of recent tears. Erin reached out and squeezed the young girl’s forearm. “And he could certainly do with all his friends around him at the moment. They’re out in the back yard, I think.”

“Thanks,” said Hermione and she turned to Remus. But he cut her off before she could speak.

“Go and find them, Hermione. I’ll take your backpack up to Ginny’s room. And don’t forget, not a single word about what you know.”

Hermione’s pale face seemed to whiten further, but she nodded resolutely. “Thanks Professor Lupin.”

“Remus,” he reminded her and after another tight little smile, Hermione went to join her friends.

Remus turned to Erin, noting her strained features. “Severus has left I take it?”

Erin could only nod miserably and then, much to her mortification, she felt tears well up and immediately overflow. She would have turned away, wishing to spare Remus the sight of a sobbing female, but he stopped her by the simple expedient of putting his arms around her and drawing her to him.

Erin didn’t fight Remus’ hold too hard; she needed the contact and she did like Remus, regardless of his affliction. She did wonder at Severus’s aversion to the man; it couldn’t solely be because of Remus’ problem because all of the other wizards she had met were perfectly happy to be around him. And Tonks was more than happy…she radiated joy whenever she was with Remus. Erin sensed that there was another story to be told when it came to Remus and Severus…just one more story in the great, long list of stories that she needed to be told to get a fix on the situation that she had landed herself in the middle of, and the people who were the main players in this painful saga.

But at the moment, Erin didn’t want to hear explanations…she just wanted to know that Severus would be safe…and that was something no one could assure her of. Still, it was nice to be comforted and to know that she wasn’t alone.

Remus rubbed a comforting circle on Erin’s back before fishing in his robes and producing a clean handkerchief. He gently extricated himself from Erin's fisted hold on his robes and smiled down at her. “Here,” he said, and smiled gently. “You need some mopping up.”

Erin huffed out a little laugh and took the hanky. “Not as much as I would have done.” She indicated the front of Remus’ robes where the evidence of her tears had left a dark patch. “Sorry about that. And sorry for being such a wuss.”

“”Don’t be silly,” said Remus. “We can all be pretty wussy when we’re worried about the ones we care for.” He put a hand on Erin’s shoulder and gave it a reassuring squeeze. “I can’t tell you unequivocally that Severus will come out of this unscathed, Erin. But I can tell you that if anyone can interrogate people without them realising that they are being interrogated, it is Severus. He is very good at what he does.”

At that moment, Bill came clattering down the stairs. He saw immediately the ravages of Erin’s tears. She looked away and continued to blot her eyes.

Bill looked at Remus. “Hermione’s here, then?” he asked, and Remus, recognising the strategy, answered in the affirmative and the two wizards moved towards the kitchen, leaving Erin to head for the stairs and the bathroom to tidy herself up.

8888

Harry had been telling the tale of his adventures since they had separated at Kings Cross Station at the beginning of the holiday to Ron and Ginny. They had only been told the bare bones of what had happened at Privet Drive by their parents, and Harry knew that he had to fill in some more of the details. But though Harry cleared some things up for them, he was not going to tell them exactly what his uncle had done to him. They only knew he had been hurt—but not the extent of his injuries—and that Snape had rescued him before the Death Eater attack and taken him back to Hogwarts before attending to his injuries.

Ron and Ginny had both been shocked to learn that their foul Potions teacher was also a healer. When Ron had expressed his horror of the fact that Harry had been so intimately touched by Snape, Ginny had punched his arm viciously and glared daggers at him. Harry was grateful…Ron did tend to go on, and Harry definitely didn’t want to get into any Snape-bashing with his friend.

After Ginny’s none to subtle signal that he was being insensitive, Ron had managed to keep his reaction to Harry’s enforced stay with Snape on the Scottish isle down to nothing more than a pained grimace. All he had said was that it was lucky that Erin had been there to act as a buffer.

“But what is it with the two of them?” asked Ron. Harry was sitting with his back against the trunk of the huge old oak tree in the Burrow’s back yard. Ginny was sitting cross-legged and Ron was lying on his side on the grass, facing Harry. Harry shrugged.

“I mean,” said Ron, “she’s a babe, like I said earlier. She can’t possibly be attracted…”

“Why don’t you shut up before you put your whole foot in your mouth, Ron?” said Ginny with asperity. Harry smiled tightly at her, thankful that she was running interference. He noticed that Ginny had grown a little since the last time he had seen her—or maybe she had looked this hot at Hogwarts and he had been so mixed up about Cho for so long, he hadn’t noticed.

As Ron and Ginny bickered, Harry’s eyes ran over his best friend’s little sister. Ginny had been a part of his life for nearly as long as Ron had. He had never seen her as anything but Ron’s little sister…he sometimes felt like she was his own little sister. She had just always been there, and he had saved her life down in the Chamber of Secrets.

But no brother ever checked his sister out like Harry was now checking Ginny out. How come he had never really registered just how pretty she was? Those brown eyes, so different to Ron’s blue ones, were like melted chocolate. She had inherited her mother’s lack of height, but her father’s slimness; she was very petite, about a head shorter than him and Merlin knew, he wasn’t tall.

Yeah, Ginny had grown, but not really in height…she had grown a nice little pair of…Harry wrenched his eyes away from Ginny’s nicely filled out T-shirt. He knew that his cheeks were burning.

What the hell am I doing? She’s Ron’s little sister…she’s Ginny for God’s sake!

Harry had never been so happy to see Hermione. She was crossing the yard to join them. “Hermione!” he cried, and Ron and Ginny twisted around, grins splitting their faces. Ron sprang to his feet, his blue eyes sparkling. Ginny and Harry also stood.

“Hey, ‘Mione,” Ron said happily. Hermione grinned at them all, but Harry thought she looked a little strained. He was shocked when after giving Ginny and Ron perfunctory hugs, she flung herself into his arms, knocking him back into the tree trunk, and clinging to him as if she would never let him go.

Ron frowned, and Ginny’s eyebrows climbed into her fringe. They looked at each other and then back at Harry as he stared at them, wide-eyed and confused, from over Hermione’s shoulder.

“Erm, Hermione, you can let go now,” said Harry, tentatively.

Hermione gave Harry an extra-tight squeeze before lowering her arms and stepping back.

“So, you felt an overwhelming need to strangle Harry as soon as you saw him?” asked Ron, a note of forced jocularity in his voice. Harry was rubbing the back of his head where it had struck the tree trunk.

“Sorry Harry,” said Hermione, contritely. “But I’m just so relieved that you’re all right.”

Harry didn’t want to go through all of this again. “Look, I’m fine…really.” He held his arms out from his sides and planted a grin on his lips. “Don’t I look all right?”

Hermione bit her lip. “I can see you’re physically all right…” her eyes honed in on the fresh, pink scar that adorned Harry’s face near his eye. The wound Moody had given him had survived his transformation from Aidan to Harry. “…But Harry, you must be upset about your aunt and c…”

“Hermione, Harry doesn’t want to talk about that anymore. It only make things worse to have to keep dredging things up all the time.” Ginny had come to his rescue again.

Hermione’s eyes scanned his face, as if trying to find evidence of deep-seated trauma. It obviously peeved her to have to back off, but she did, though Harry wasn’t optimistic enough to think that her dropping of the subject was permanent. His bossy friend was the most determined person he had ever met in his life.

“So,” said Ginny brightly, breaking the uncomfortable silence, “how was France?”

After a last look at Harry where she appeared to be scanning him for more elusive signs of suffering, Hermione followed Ginny’s lead, and arranging herself neatly on the grass with the others following suit, she launched into a detailed description of her time in France, where her parents had bought a small house on the outskirts of a picturesque village. Hermione told them all that they were all invited to go with her and her parents for a holiday whenever it was permissible for them to do so. Harry gloomily thought that Dumbledore would no more allow him go flitting off to France for a holiday than he would allow him to confront Voldemort right now.

Harry continued to listen without really taking much more in. He was studying Hermione’s now-animated face. Why had she clung to him so desperately? She had obviously been brought up to date with his adventures over the last couple of weeks so she would know that he had survived, fully intact. She also knew as well as anyone did, just what his relationship with the Dursleys had been like. She could not possibly think that he was actively mourning them.

Sure, he would never have wished for their deaths…well, perhaps Uncle Vernon, and look where that wish had gotten him? He had been the only one to survive. The bastard!

No, Hermione was worried about something else. If she knew him well, then he knew her equally as well, and the fact that she had dropped the subject of his sufferings so easily meant that she had realised that she needed to pull her head in before she gave something away. And when she kept shooting sneaky little glances at him, Harry definitely knew that there was something going on.

What is she hiding? Harry looked towards the house. And why the hell had there been so many members of the Order of the Phoenix here so early this morning?