"This boy grew up under the epithet of freak - for a time, he even believed that was his name."

Harry Potter was a freak. He knew that, had known it all his life. Words his uncle hissed at him, words children chanted in the playground. Freak. Freak. Freak.

It was so engrained, in fact, that for a while he thought it was his name. It was only when he started school and his teacher called the register, that he realised his name was Harry. Harry Potter.

For a time, school was good. He didn't have any friends, but his teacher was nice and stopped Dudley bullying him sometimes. He'd always pay for getting Dudley into trouble when he got home, but it was worth it to have someone looking out for him.

But then he moved up to year one and his teacher was Mrs Richards. She didn't like him from the start, and told the entire class he was a nasty little liar and would end up in reform school one day.

Harry stopped enjoying school after that.

On his first day of reception, he made a sign that said "Harry Potter" and stuck it to his cupboard door. He wrote his name on every picture he drew, every book he dug out of the bin. That, if nothing else, reminded him of his name.

He had so very little, that he must place some claim of ownership on those things he scrounged. He wasn't allowed to use the special felt tip pen at school anymore, because Mrs Richards caught him writing on his arm. He tried to explain that he was just writing his name, but she said he'd get blood poisoning and that it was just encouraging him to be a little vandal, and he'd be graffitying the walls next.

He did manage to steal a felt tip from Dudley's room once, and he used it to draw on the walls of his cupboard. Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon never went in there anyway, so he was safe.

He still wrote his name a lot, and drew his parents. He'd found a tattered old picture of his mother in the back of a photo album, and he treasured it. He still didn't know what his father looked like, but he could guess, by assuming he looked like himself. In the photograph, his mother had red hair, and green eyes, his eyes. Her nose was like his too, but those were the only obvious resemblances. So Harry must look mostly like his father. That made looking in the mirror a lot more enjoyable. Sometimes, he takes off his glasses and stares at himself in the bathroom mirror, and pretends it's his father he's looking at. That his father is there, in the reflection, just out of his reach. That his daddy is looking out for him, in every mirror, every puddle, every reflection.

It gives him something to hope for.

"- and the boy soldiers on because he is the hero and that's what heroes do."

"Just a child, with sellotaped glasses and knobbly knees and messy hair."

Harry Potter had never seen so much food, or so many people in one place at once in his life before. He wondered if the things were directly proportional - the more people, the more food, automatically.

He stared down at his plate, then around at the other students, then back down at the food.

He picked up his fork and tentatively speared a baby potato. He brought it slowly to his mouth, and let it hover there for a moment, like a nervous teenager leaning in for his first kiss. He just let it stay there, not quite touching his mouth, breathing it in, the heat warming his lips, the scent wafting up his nostrils.

He took a final, deep sniff, before parting his lips enough to let in the tip of the potato. He clamped his teeth down, detaching a large sliver. It was quite possibly the most wonderful thing he'd ever had in his mouth - a far cry of the leftovers he got at the Dursleys. It was warm and smooth and buttery, and he fought back a moan as he chewed slowly, relishing each bite.

"Enjoying the potatoes, Harry?"

He looked over at Ron Weasley, who was watching him with amusement, and grinned sheepishly.

"Mm," he nodded. "They're really good, aren't they?"

"Yeah," Ron agreed. "Try the sausages, they're excellent."

Harry heaped a few sausages on his plate. They were indeed good. Maybe even better than the potatoes.

The pudding was the best though. Harry's first bite of treacle tart sent jolts of sweetness through his taste buds, and it only got better.

He finished the pudding a lot quicker than the main course, and, feeling warm and full and sleepy, he glanced around. So many people. There were about a hundred on each table, and they were all talking loudly over each other. He'd never seen so many people, and he was getting uncomfortable.

In an attempt to calm himself down, he glanced up to the High Table, where there were only teachers. He saw Hagrid, who was digging into a jam tart, and waved when he saw Harry looking at him. Harry grinned and waved back, then turned his gaze further down the table. He saw Professor Quirrell's turban before he actually saw Professor Quirrell - the thing was so big! - and then he turned his attention to the man Quirrell was talking to.

He felt a funny, scared squirming in his stomach at the sight of that man. He had long, greasy black hair and a hooked nose that put Harry in mind of a hawk.

"Percy," Harry said, still looking at the man, "Who's that talking to Professor Quirrell?"

"Mm?" Percy said, and followed his gaze. "Oh, that's Professor Snape. He teaches Potions, and he's Head of Slytherin. No wonder Quirrell looks nervous, everyone knows Snape's after the Defence job. Knows a lot about the Dark Arts, does Snape."

Harry nodded absently, and continued to stare at the side of Professor Snape's head. Then, something very strange happened. Snape turned his head to look down the Gryffindor table. The moment his fathomless black eyes met Harry's green ones Harry felt a stab of pain jolt through his scar. He sucked his breath in sharply through his teeth, and clutched his forehead.

"You alright, Harry?" That was Ron, who was staring at him now in concern, a spoon of chocolate ice cream halfway to his mouth.

"Yeah," Harry nodded, tearing his gaze away and looking around at Ron. The pain dissipated and he lowered his hand slowly. "Yeah."

Ron was still looking at him oddly, so Harry said, "Headache. Just a little one. It's gone now."

Ron smiled sympathetically. "Yeah, probably ‘cause you're just not used to this many people talking all at once." He gave a crooked grin, which Harry returned.

"Yeah," Harry agreed. "That'll be it."

*

The dormitory was a lot better than the Great Hall, Harry decided. For one thing, besides him, there were only four other people in there, and usually they were asleep. For another, the beds were massive four-poster, with curtains he could close, shutting everything else out. It was like his cupboard, but cosier and softer. He would have been quite happy to spend all his free time tucked away behind those curtains, but Ron would start asking questions.

Still, it gave him somewhere to hide, like a cupboard, and people usually left him alone there. And there was magic here, and friends, people who liked him. He considered that magic all in itself.

There were downsides, like Potions, where Professor Snape snapped and snarled and sneered, and the Slytherins would laugh. But Harry was sure they'd get over it. And even if they didn't, he could live with it. He lived through much worse at primary school.

And the Gryffindors always stood up for him, like he was someone worth defending. That made up for all manner of things. That made up for when he caught them staring across the Common Room at his scar. Made up for the looks people gave him sometimes, like he was an exotic animal in a zoo.

Still. It didn't bother him unduly. He knew, in this world of magic, everything was going to be alright. It would be alright.

"A child who looks out with innocence and naivety and hope for this brave new world."

"We hate him because he acknowledges that our hero is a child."

"Mr Potter."

Harry jerked his head up and looked into the dark eyes of Professor Snape. The man scared him, had done ever since the Welcoming Feast, when he'd seemed to make Harry's scar hurt. And even if he'd done nothing, Harry would have been wary of him, because Snape was an adult, and adults were Dangerous.

Snape was glaring at Harry now. Harry didn't like the way the man said his name, like it was something unpleasant to be spat out.

The Dursleys said his name like that.

And Professor Snape really seemed to despise him. Harry wasn't sure why, as the man had radiated hatred from the first Potions lesson Harry had had. Harry thought it odd, but not as much as the vitriol Ron had spewed after the class on Harry's behalf. That made up for any random loathing, Harry was sure.

He was used to people hating him. Was used to it, and had accepted it. He wasn't used to people standing up for him. So, the way he figured it, was that he'd rather have people standing up for him because he was hated by someone, than not be hated by someone, and have no one standing up for him.

(He'd never expressed this to anyone, so it was never explained to him that it was a somewhat warped way of thinking.)

But despite being accepting of the situation, Harry was still scared of his Potions professor, especially when the man loomed over him the way he was doing now.

"Mr Potter," he repeated, "the hellebore goes in before the moonstone. Or is your intention to blow yourself to Kingdom Come, ruining a perfectly good cauldron in the process?"

"No, sir," Harry mumbled, staring into the orange concoction.

"I thought not," Snape sneered. "Therefore, you will provide me with one foot on the correct brewing of this potion, and where you went wrong, on my desk on Monday."

"Y'sir." Harry continued to stare downwards, cheeks burning with shame. He started as Snape waved his wand, and banished Harry's potion.

"Start over, Potter," Snape decreed, and swept over to the Slytherin side of the room.

While researching his essay that evening, Harry discovered that had he continued to make his original potion, even if he had added the hellebore and moonstone in the correct order, because he'd been stirring counter-clockwise, instead of clockwise, the mixture would have given off a gas that would have seeped into the brewer's, Harry's, lungs, and caused him to cough blood painfully for days.

He'd told Ron this, who'd snorted, and said if Snape knew that, he probably would have let Harry continue with the first potion.

Harry wasn't so sure.

"We all hate him for upsetting our hero. Except that he saves our hero. Except that he protects our hero."

"He is willing to be the Bad Guy, as long as the boy stays aware that the fairytale has its holes. But then he must teach the boy to block his mind from the Real Bad Guy."

"Legilimens!"

With a rush, memories that were not his own were racing through Severus's mind. Cedric Diggory, dead in the graveyard...Wormtail tying Potter to a tombstone...Lily screaming...

And then...

A fat boy, chasing after Potter...Petunia Dursley holding Potter's arm to a cooker...long hours stretching to days locked and starved in darkness...a fat hand crashing across Potter's face, sending him crashing to the ground...the snap of a deliberately broken finger...

Get out!

The shout was not his, and before he knew it, he had been expelled from Potter's mind. The boy in question was on his hands and knees, sweat dripping into a puddle on the floor.

Severus looked at him for a long moment, and Potter didn't look up. For a while, all that could be heard was the loud, heavy panting of a child whose deepest secrets had just been revealed to someone he hated.

It took Severus a moment to realise the boy is hyperventilating.

"Come, Potter," he said, hauling the boy up from the floor, and seating him in the chair. Tentatively, he patted him on the back, gaining a rhythm and more confidence, as it seemed to calm him down.

When, finally, his breathing was back to normal, Harry - Potter! - looked up at him. With the same look he usually has when looking at his potions master, albeit amplified.

Severus wondered how he ever mistook that terror for arrogance.

"Please, sir..." Potter began quietly, nervously. "Can I please go?"

Severus knew there was no way he could continue to be around Potter today, so he nodded. Potter grabbed his bag and was out of the office like a shot, leaving Severus to stumble to his quarters and reach for the Firewhiskey.

He'd heard the stories, of course. Stories of cupboards and starvation and abuse. He'd always dismissed them as exaggeration. So what if Potter wasn't idolised as a prince at home? That could only be good for him.

But now...now he'd seen those memories, he couldn't brush them off so casually.

He'd thought - assumed - that Voldemort was the biggest threat in Harry Potter's mind. He now knew that was not the case. Because while the boy did fear the Dark Lord, Potter also knew that every confrontation he'd had with him, he'd won, more or less. Suffered losses, but won.

He didn't have that comfort with Vernon Dursley.

Severus also knew it would be harder to hate the boy. Harder to glare down at the messy-haired head, and see James's son, rather than look into the green eyes and see Lily's.

Harder to see ‘Potter' not ‘Harry'.

It would be harder to continue protecting him at a distance, knowing that the threats against the boy didn't just come from the magical world.

It would all be a lot harder.

It was then that Severus realised things just got a lot more complicated.

"Several people know that their hero was raised in a cupboard. Snape knows that he never left it."

 "He can no longer offer help from a distance."

Harry stood outside Snape's door for three minutes, thirty-three seconds before he finally plucked up the courage to knock. He knew, because he counted. This Occlumency lesson seemed far worse now, more than any other, even the ones where he knew he hadn't practised.

Because now Snape Knew.

He'd spent the week avoiding his potions master like the plague. He'd skulked at the back of Potions classes, praying that Snape wouldn't call on him.

He hadn't.

And that was what had Harry the most anxious. Now that Snape Knew what Uncle Vernon did, Harry would have expected the news to have gone round the Slytherin common room, and then round the school in record time. Something else for them to laugh about. Boy who lived, delusional and abused. But he'd not even heard a whisper of anything of the sort.

And in class, Snape had seemed rather...off. Distracted.

So, after much worrying as to why Snape hadn't disclosed the details of Harry's childhood, Harry had come to the conclusion that Snape wanted to be the one to taunt him with it first. In private. In Occlumency, where he could do anything he liked to Harry, and Harry couldn't complain because no one knew he was having these lessons.

Which was why it took so long to summon the bravery to knock.

(You're not in Gryffindor for nothing)

"Enter."

Harry actually jumped at the cool voice, despite expecting it. He opened the door just enough to let him through, and slid into the office, closing the door behind him. He took his time doing so, ostensibly so as not to let the heavy oak door slam, but really because he was putting off turning around and facing his tormentor.

"Potter."

Harry jumped again and cursed his own twitchiness. He did turn around and try to look up to Snape's face, but lost courage halfway up, and ended up examining the man's left elbow instead.

"Sit down, Potter."

Harry sat.

Is it me, or is this chair not as uncomfortable as usual? Harry had long been of the opinion that Snape charmed the chairs in front of his desk to be as hard as possible, to increase the discomfort of whichever miscreant happened to be sitting in them.

Harry dared to glance up at Snape from under his fringe. The professor was sitting opposite him with his fingers steepled, resting his chin lightly on them. Harry looked down again.

"Potter."

Harry peeked up again.

"Yes, sir?"

Snape cleared his throat. He looked almost...uncomfortable.

There was a drawn-out silence, then Snape reached into his desk drawer, and produced a thick book. He slid across the desk to Harry, who looked down to read the title.

"A Guide To The Art Of Occlumency."

"Read that, Potter, and practise the meditation techniques described."

For the first time, Harry brought his eyes up completely to stare at his professor.

"Yes, sir," he said. What was going on? Why was Snape being so nice? Well, nice for Snape, at any rate.

Snape looked away. He looked awkward again.

"Dismissed, Potter. I expect you to have made good headway into that book by next week's lesson."

Harry gaped, then, realising he'd just been released from Occlumency lessons for another week, grabbed the book, and lurched to his feet.

"Yes, sir. Thank you, sir."

It was a peace offering, an olive branch, the beginning of the end.

When the Occlumency resumed the next week, it was not as...invasive. Harry no longer felt like his most intimate self was being raped.

And Snape made sure Harry had gotten the hang of the meditation techniques before Legilimising him again.

They even started to have conversations. Admittedly, they were strained, but Harry enjoyed having an adult he could talk to about the war.

It didn't happen with his knowledge. It didn't happen with his permission. But Harry started to trust Snape.

"Without either of them realising it, they begin to like each other."

"And he was all alone, and no one wanted him."

"Sir?” Harry asked nervously. Snape made a hmm-ing noise to show that he was listening. He didn’t look up from the potion he was stirring, and Harry was grateful for that. He found it easier to talk to the man when he didn’t have to look him in the eye. Snape seemed to share this view, and most of their conversations were conducted by looking at the wall over the other’s shoulder.

“Sir,” Harry said again, “are my parents buried?”

Snape’s hand stopped stirring abruptly. His whole body seemed to freeze, and Harry felt somewhat alarmed.

“Sir?” he asked.

Severus took several deep breaths, to calm himself. The boy’s innocent question, coupled with, Severus knows without looking, big, curious Lily-eyes, had taken him off-guard, and he knew that his normal reaction to something that surprises him – to snap – will not do in the situation.He took another breath.

“Why –” He cut himself off before he could snap: “why do you ask?” Of course the boy would want to know what had happened to his parents’ bodies. And Severus doubted Harry had had anyone before he felt comfortable asking. Though why the child – brat, he reminded himself fiercely – had to choose him of all people to latch onto is anybody’s guess.

He’d been almost enjoying the quiet evenings that Harry spent down in his office (and he found that if he thought of the boy as Harry rather than Potter, it was easier to see the boy, rather than the blighted father. The fact that it also means he didn’t have to see Lily as much either was an added bonus. He couldn’t take that daily knife in the heart).But he had been finding Harry’s quiet presence while he brewed or marked essays rather soothing. And now he had to deal with questions like this.

“Your parents…” he managed, but had to stop because of the lump growing in his throat. Harry was still watching him closely, as though worried for him after his moment of freeze-frame.As though worried for him.

It was at that point that the realisation hit him, and he wondered how it had taken him so long to reach such an obvious conclusion.

Maybe because it was only obvious to an unbiased observer, not a participant who felt the way Severus did about that boy’s father.

But the realisation did hit him, and when it did, it did so like a freight train.

He had become attached to Harry Potter.

He had become attached to Harry Bloody Potter.

He should have expected it, really. By allowing the boy into his life more than was absolutely necessary, he had appreciated and resigned himself to the fact that the child – abused, lonely, and lacking in adult role models as he was – would no doubt develop some form of emotional attachment to the man who spoke to Dumbledore on his behalf and demanded that Harry be returned to Grimmauld Place with his dogfather for the summer, and every summer after that. But Severus had never stopped to think that he himself might become fond of the brat.

Because he had, he realised with an inaudible groan. He would always have protected this boy for Lily’s sake, but now he wished to protect him for both Harry’s sake, and his own. He didn’t want Harry to die, because he, Severus Snape, Greasy Bat, terror of Hufflepuffs and scourge of Gryffindors, would miss the boy if he were dead.And wasn’t that just a kick in the teeth.

Harry was still staring at him with impossibly wide, concerned eyes, and Severus felt the uncontrollable urge to comfort the boy.

“I was friends with your mother, Harry,” he said abruptly. If possible, Harry’s eyes went even wider, though now the concern had been replaced with a tentative hope.

“Your parents,” Severus continued abruptly, “are buried in Godric’s Hollow. If you wish,” he paused, because Harry’s eyes were glowing at him, “I shall take you to see them one day.”

He had to turn away at the expression on the boy’s face – like a man who had just crawled the Sahara and then been offered water by his own personal guardian angel. Severus did not deserve such gratitude.

Yes. A lot more complicated.

“A single bulb that flickers but somehow never goes out.”

But Harry Potter is still the Hero, so he fights the Villain and wins.

Harry knows he will die the minute he steps out onto the battlefield. Death is all around him; people are fighting atop corpses. Corpses of his friends and his classmates and people he never even knew.

He feels the guilt for each one.

When he faces Voldemort, he looks him directly in the eye. The screams and sobs just seem to melt away; there is nothing in the world but him and the man that condemned his parents to the cold, dark earth. Nothing around them, and nothing, finally, standing between them.

In the end, he couldn’t tell you how it happened. All he knows is he raised his wand, and Voldemort collapsed. That was it. No bright light, or dramatic speech, or great explosion. Just a man, his life leaving him quietly and without a fuss.

Then Harry feels a sharp pain, and the world tips. His head bounces off the ground when he falls, and he coughs. His feels liquid on his chin, too thick to be saliva.So this is how it ends, he thinks, all alone on the battlefield. He doesn’t think anyone has even noticed – not Voldemort’s death, nor his own impending one.The thought makes him feel sad and impossibly small. He had been sure of his death the minute he saw Voldemort; been resigned for it for years before. But now that it is fast approaching, he feels far more scared than he thought he would be.

He is dying alone, surrounded by people too busy to notice. He finds it fitting, in an ironic way. But still, he wonders at how much of the pain in his chest is from whatever happened to cause him to bleed out.

He doesn’t want to die on his own.

Then suddenly, there is someone there; someone is picking him up and holding him tight. Harry’s vision is mostly gone now, but he knows the voice anywhere.

“Idiot boy.”

The arms holding him are warm and strong. He can feel the steady heartbeat against his chest. The rhythm lulls him.

“I killed Thicknesse, but I was too late. I…Merlin, Potter, what were you thinking?”

Harry Potter smiles, closes his eyes, and exhales his last breath.

Quietly and without a fuss.

A world of neither Black nor White, but a rainbow of Grey.

"He is built back up into a great hero, a superhuman, someone of newspaper articles and chapters in books. He cannot be brought back down, cannot be changed back from paper and print into the child he was."

The news of Harry Potter's death sent the media into a frenzy; several newspapers put it on the front page with scarce mention that the Dark Lord was also dead.

Severus snorted and put the Daily Prophet down on the staffroom. In life, they called the boy insane more than once; he cannot bear to look at their canonisation of him now.

Severus knows different.

He remembers that boy in his first Potions class, mixing up the hellebore and the moonstone. He remembers the way the child had spoken in a mumble and never looked anyone in the eyes, like he thought no one cared what he had to say. The way he clutched at anyone who showed him the slightest bit of kindness, like he was starving.

The papers won't write about that in their articles. The books – both the ones hastily being written now and the ones to come – won't talk about his unkempt hair and knobbly knees. When people speak of him in revered tones, they'll call him a hero. They won't say that he always wore broken glasses, because no one was ever bothered to get him new ones. The mundane little realities of a martyr are dull, after all, even when the martyr was still breathing.

Severus stands angrily, and stalks off to his dungeons.

All those thousands of sheets of paper will never know the real Harry Potter, because few people knew the real Harry Potter in life.

The door to his quarters slams shut behind him, and he stands in the middle of the sitting room, breathing heavily. He does not know why this angers him so much, but it does; fills him with a rage so great that almost seems to possess a dull intelligence of its own.

His eye is caught by a package on his desk. Reaching for it, he tears off the paper and pulls out what's inside. It is a book. Thick and familiar.

A Guide To The Art Of Occlumency.

The rage leaves him all at once, and he is left with nothing but grief. He sits down heavily, clutching the book in both hands. He remembers another pair of hands that clutched this book as tightly. They belonged to a dark haired boy staring at him with wide, grateful eyes. He is unable to get the image from his mind.

He opens the book, intending to flick through the pages. A scrap of paper slips out, fluttering to the floor. He reaches down for it.

He recognises the handwriting at once, is halfway through making a mental note to scold the boy about his abysmal penmanship before he catches himself.

There are only two words on the paper. He stares at them for a moment and then, to his utter horror, feels a lump rising in his throat. He tries to swallow it, but it catches on a sob. A low keening comes from deep in his chest. He sits there, note in one hand, book in the other, for longer than he cares to remember, face twisted in a grimace of mourning.

Harry Potter saved the world.

That little boy does not deserve to be dead.

That little boy.

The thought bolsters him. He straightens, his eyes glinting with determination. He pushes the book to one side and pulls a stack of parchment towards him. He dips a quill in the ink pot and begins to write.

Harry Potter was a person. A child, with a beating heart and pounding lungs and a life he never got to live. People should know that.

The paper flutters back to the ground, unnoticed.

"Thanks, Professor."

"Once upon a time."