"Severus."

He raised his head to gaze at the aging man entering his office. His eyes narrowed to slits, as Albus Dumbledore moved to stand before his desk, his piercing blue eyes, though filled with that odd combination of emotion they always had when turned to him, never leaving his.

"Albus," he returned.

The old man gave a slight nod of his head; Severus was slightly unnerved by now. Without waiting for his mentor to divulge his thoughts, he asked, "You needed something?"

"Indeed." A pause. "I need a favor of you."

Severus' mind, which was already puzzling over Albus' strange behaviour, leapt into overdrive.

"Has something happened?" His mark had not bothered him since that night last June when Tom Riddle regained his body in the form of Voldemort and summoned his followers to him, but that did not mean the evil wizard wasn't planning something.

He suppressed a shudder. He had not been looking forward to returning to his former master, even though he and Dumbledore had constructed a believable story to explain his failure to appear at that fateful meeting. He knew the Dark Lord was livid, and the quiet of the summer so far left him more shaken than having being tortured by the maniac himself.

"Has there been an attack?" Severus asked, studying the man before him. It was clearly evident that something was wrong. The elderly professor's shoulders seemed to be weighed heavier than usual, his usual jovial features drawn and tense, as if expecting the worse and preparing himself for it.

This unnerved the potions master to no end. "Well?" he snapped, rising from his chair. "Will you answer or not?"

"There hasn't", Albus replied finally, breaking their gaze. "It has very little to do with Voldemort."

For a brief moment nothing moved, save the flames alighting the candles around the room, and the shadows they cast. It occurred to Professor Snape that Albus was not getting straight to the point. The explanation for this, he told himself, had to be substantial.

"Have the odds shifted, Albus?" he asked softly.

"I cannot be sure, Severus."

The younger man huffed angrily. "And why is that, Headmaster?" he snapped. "If the odds have possibly shifted then of course it has everything to do with the Dark Lord. Or can't you see that through those damn half moon spectacles?" He paused for breath, watching his superior before him, whose eyes finally reconnected with his own. "Well?" he snapped. "Explain."

Severus would have been amiss to say he was not satisfied. Albus seemed to pull himself together, and collected the posture reserved for imparting important information to the spy that required his assistance.

"It would seem that there are disturbing reports coming out of Privet Drive," stated the old man, keeping a careful eye on the face before him.

The younger man scowled. "The boy." He spun around to approach the line of bookcases behind his desk. "I should have known." Plucking a book from its shelf and scanning it at random, he asked, "What seems to be the problem?"

He could feel the headmaster's eyes on him even as he spoke. "It seems that Harry's aunt has been missing the neighborhood's bi-weekly tea gatherings." At this pause Severus turned to give Dumbledore a disbelieving glare, only to have the man resume speech. "Her fellow tea ladies seem to have become concerned for her safety. It seems that the amount of screaming, which they have all long been accustomed to, coming from the house has reached a frighteningly new level."

At Severus' puzzled look, Albus motioned for him to be seated, taking the seat before the desk for himself. Severus was too intrigued to even chafe at being told to sit in his own office.

"The neighbors," Albus continued," informed Mrs. Figg, who I am sure you know is my informant, that the screaming and even at times begging has become near unbearable for the families closest to Petunia Dursley's residence, as it occurs at random times during the day and more often in the dead of night. Strangely enough, it seems that while the disturbances are more frequent and frighteningly violent in nature than previous summers, absolutely no one is willing to call the muggle police to stop what they consider to be the discipline of a horribly criminal boy."

The potions master's eyebrows were drawn tight above his eyes. "They can't mean Potter, surely."

Albus' already grim features became even more lined as he replied, "I'm afraid that they do. The Dursley's own son seems to have been given free reign over the summer, and hasn't been seen around the house for weeks. He can go and come as he pleases, while no one has seen Harry, which also seems to be the norm."

Severus stared at the man avidly studying him from over the rim of his half moon spectacles. "And so, I assume you wish for me to visit this Privet Drive," he sneered the name in disdain, "and ensure that the child is indeed safe." His lips had curled by the end of this statement, his displeasure at being set this assignment quite evident.

"I do," replied the headmaster, ignoring his Potions Professor's tone.

Sneer firmly in place, Snape asked, "And if I refuse?"

"You will not."

The younger man shot up from his chair, fiercely glaring down at the seemingly frail man before him.

"I refuse," he snarled.

His purposeful stride across the room was cut short by Albus' next statement.

"You would willingly harm Lily?"

He could go no further. How dare this old fool bring her up? How had the old fool even come to think to use that against him? The heart he thought barely capable to beating, let alone feeling, constricted painfully in his chest. "How dare you?" he demanded in a cold, soft voice. He took a shuddering breath, in which the world seemed to spin on its axis. "You have no right!"

"How dare I?" Albus asked, one eyebrow arched in mock confusion. "I continue to labor under the impression that your love for Lily Evans burns as bright today as it had when you first became friends. If something has changed my boy, please enlighten me."

When the old man paused, Severus growled menacingly at him. He could do no more than fix the man with his best death glare and hope he would die on the spot. No retort, no matter how well worded or well timed could convince the man that he hadn't gotten through to Severus. Because he had, and he knew it.

As did the Potions Master himself. He could, in no way willfully harm Lily, not even under direct threat of the Dark Lord. The traitorous thoughts that had plagued him since the time he knew the boy existed assaulted him now.

Of course the boy carried a small part of Lily with him. He was reluctant to admit that the boy even had a few of her mannerisms, and that the boy would so blatantly mix them with his father's arrogant attitude made him want to rip his hair out in clumps.

And the boy’s eyes, Merlin, Lily's eyes, every time he thought he had a break from the boy, there they were, haunting him with the memories of their last, secret meeting, and the letter that remained unopened from one James Potter that had arrived not three days later.

Pulling himself form his mass of whirling thoughts, Severus stalked over to the door, unceremoniously yanking down a long heavy traveling cloak, vials of various emergency potions stashed within clinking softly as he donned the thick material and threw open the door, choosing to ignore Albus' continued ramblings of 'love never dies' and 'true friendship lasts forever' and such along those lines.

"There is no need for you to await my return," he snarled, before banging the door shut behind him.

~*~

The air was warm and muggy that night, as it tended to be during the summer. The houses were all dark and silent, the area heavy with the feeling of deep sleep. No one anywhere was stirring. No one important, that was, except the messy black-haired boy who suddenly shot up from his bed, shivering and quaking from head to foot, before he involuntarily lurching over the edge of his bed, and throwing up.

Harry crawled over against the wall and huddled his knees against his chest. He couldn't stop the sob that tore through his thin frame. At the back of his mind he was vaguely worried whether or not it was loud enough to wake Uncle Vernon, but another icy shiver cut through him as details of his nightmare swam before his eyes.

Voldemort turned his red, cold gaze to Harry. A wall of death eaters rose high around them, blocking out the moon in the inky black sky above. Harry couldn't move. Crude ropes cut into his skin in places when he breathed, which was frequently, and shallow. His heart was beating in his ear, sprinting in compared to its normal steady pace.

He stopped his stroll mid stride and turned back to Harry, an evil glint flashing in his eyes. Stopping short, he simply stood there, loose robes blowing in the breeze. Then, almost lazily, he flicked his wand.

'Crucio.'

He thought he would die. The pain was almost too real to be a dream. Things passed in a wave after wave of pain and nausea.

Crucio.... Someone screaming.... Crucio.. Cedric dead.... Crucio... Wormtail sniveling in a corner......his scar nearly splitting open...... Crucio... Petunia screeching at Harry for not catching and breaking a plate Dudley has thrown at his head... Crucio... Voldemort's cold, cruel red eyes locking with his..... Crucio... Vernon pounding on the closed door of his cupboard, yelling at him to shut up before he came in and made him... Crucio... Voldemort touching Harry's forehead... Crucio...Vernon pulling Harry through the graveyard, Harry nearly falling down tombstones arranged to look like stairs that he didn't remember before ..... Crucio.... Voldemort's eyes glinting maliciously as Vernon slammed Harry's head into a tombstone, again and again.....

A sudden, sharp blow to his chest had him instinctively curling into a ball. Through the pain raking every single inch of him, his mind vaguely registered that he was no longer in the room the Dursely's had given him, nor was he in the graveyard, once again facing Tom Riddle, as he had thought. The wave of relief that originated somewhere beneath his knees was swept aside by a tidal wave of panic as he took stock of his situation, from beneath his beefy uncle's repeatedly pounding feet.

They were in the front hall, before the still closed front door, his uncle bellowing at the top of his lungs that he had had enough, and that this unnaturalness would stop now before he committed murder. Harry's brain idly commented that he wasn't too far from that end, while his aunt was literally screaming at her husband, begging him to consider the neighbors and the fuss it would cause it he kicked the boy out in the middle on the night, all the while calling Harry every foul thing she could think of, and some he was sure she had overheard her husband use earlier.

Harry realized, as his uncle swept him from the floor and out into the thick night air, that he was not going to live to see tomorrow. He waited for the panic to mount, but it didn't. He had always known he was going to die, and had always had a fair idea as to how he would go, either at wand point courtesy of Tom Riddle, of under the considerable hulking mass that was his uncle.

He landed heavily when his uncle threw him bodily across that yard, missing the small picket fence by mere inches. Harry couldn't help the small scream of pure agony the jarring fall had wrenched from his lips.

His left leg was broken; he was sure, in at least two places. He wasn't sure how he knew that, but he did. His ribs were nearly unbearable, and he was stabbed with a sharp something every time he breathed. But he had more pressing matters to attend to, particularly as he couldn't feel is wand arm, and that one of his eyes were swollen shut. Adding that to the fact that his stomach was swollen and oddly painful, and that his head hurt like hell on every possible side, Harry considered that he might be in the worst possible shape possible if he wanted to escape his uncle.

It suddenly occurred to Harry that Lucius Malfoy's voice was not one he should be hearing on Privet Drive. But there it was, exchanging pleasantries with his uncle over the fence as if the two men were old high school friends at a reunion. Harry's stomach did an odd kind of motion when he realized that the men towering above him were bonding over him. He cringed, despite all his injuries.

Malfoy wanted to take him away. Harry shuddered. He didn’t need a clear head to know what that meant. He’d be before Voldemort within the hour. Living to see tomorrow was definitely out of the question.

The things they were saying! The panic that refused to make itself felt earlier came crashing down with a vengeance. Vernon was going to give him to Malfoy. With another swift kick to the chest and a parting snarl, Vernon retreated into Number Four Privet Drive, and Harry was left with the Dark Lord’s right hand man.

He struggled to catch his breath. If he could just keep quiet and make himself as small as possible, Malfoy might let him live to see tomorrow. He was idly wondering whether or not it would be possible to achieve his animagus transformation, and whether or not it helped to hope it was something small when he noticed that he was floating mid-air.

Painfully aware of just how completely helpless he was, Harry tried to brace himself for the worst. Lucius’ voice cut into his mind’s frantic rambling.

“Hold on, Potter. Don’t go and die on me yet. It won’t do for me to have gone through all this trouble for nothing.”

Harry’s mind was in overdrive. He got one oddly twisted image of Lucius presenting him to Voldemort wearing a violently orange bow, Voldemort’s high-pitched girly shriek of pleasure and Nagini winding herself around his neck before it was too much.

Harry Potter breathed once, twice, shuddered, and breathed no more.