In the future, looking back on the days which followed, Harry would recall an overwhelming sense of emptiness. Time passed and he undertook the various tasks that Snape appointed to him, but he didn’t feel anything. Where once he had been angry he was now a shell, devoid of emotion. Numb.

He craved nothing more than to curl up in bed and sleep endlessly, but of course Snape refused to let him. Every day the Professor bullied him out of bed, and gave him orders to make potions, practise occlumency, to study and finally to talk. Always, always to talk.

It was strange, Harry thought, that Snape was so insistent discussing all his problems, just when they no longer mattered to him. He knew he ought to care but he was too exhausted to hurt anymore. He didn’t particularly enjoy these stilted talks with Snape but found that the sooner he gave in and got it over with the sooner he would be left alone. 

For his part, Severus soon discovered that Dumbledore’s fears about Harry blaming himself were all too accurate. In fact the boy’s capacity to take responsibility for everything no matter how incredible astounded him. Usually Severus managed to remain calm during their decidedly awkward conversations. At times however, he struggled to keep his composure. On such occasion was when they talked about Harry’s abuse at the hands of his uncle. 

‘What do you mean it was your fault?’ He demanded heatedly. ‘I can tell you most assuredly that there is no way on earth that you could possibly have deserved what you uncle did to you.’

Harry sighed. ‘I know he shouldn't have hit me like that, I’m not stupid. It’s just... I could have behaved better, tried not to wind him up so much.’

‘And what terrible acts did you commit to warrant such fury?’ Severus demanded. ‘As I must have missed those? From what I’ve seen you had the audacity to step outside your bedroom and the temerity to seek food when you were hungry. Grave crimes indeed.’

Harry shrugged.

‘You don’t get it. I know what my uncle’s like. I could have crept downstairs when he was asleep to get food.  That’s what I always used to do. He only really loses it when I argue back to him... I brought what happened on myself really and....’

‘And?’ Severus waited  relentlessly for him  to complete his thought.

‘I... think I kind of wanted it to happen. For things to come to a head. I mean obviously I didn’t want to get hurt like I did, I didn’t think he’d go that far. But I knew Sirius would be coming to see me at some point and I’d already told him I hated the Dursleys. Not that anyone ever listened, they just made me go back there because of the wards. I think I thought if he could just see how bad it really was he’d take me away.’

Severus said nothing, his silence somehow eking more information from Harry. About things which he found uncomfortable. About things he hadn’t even admitted to himself.

‘And of course I got what I wanted, didn’t I? I got hurt, he took me away and felt so bad about me being a defenceless, stupid kid, unable to protect myself from a muggle yet alone Voldermort, that he decided to go to Ireland...’

Severus shook his head at that.

‘That had less to do with Black believing you to be incapable than thinking it was wrong for so much responsibility to rest on you.’

‘No. I know he didn’t think I could do it.’ Harry said with certainty. ‘It’s why he never even tried to train me when I stayed with him. Do you know I could have stopped him going?  After he’d told me he was going and we argued, he told me he wouldn’t go if I wouldn’t agree with it.   I could have stopped him. I should have stopped him from going and getting killed.’

Severus shook his head again.

‘Sirius was set upon going to Ireland from the moment he escaped Azkaban. Before he even met you. It was the first thing that he told the Order after his name was cleared, before he’d even recovered. He was always going to go there. You might have delayed him until term started again and you went back to Hogwarts, but no longer.’

‘Whatever.’ Harry couldn’t even be bothered to argue. ‘It still would have ended the same. He still would have ended up dying because of me.’

The more time Severus spent talking to Harry the more concerned he became. The boy wasn’t angry any more but he was dejected. He didn’t seem able to work up much interest or enthusiasm for anything. His birthday came and numerous gifts and owls arrived but later on the same day Severus noticed the presents and letters lay untouched in his room. And he still asked for dreamless sleep every night before bed.

 ‘You’re having it too often.’

‘It’s just... I dream constantly about Sirius otherwise and it stays with me all the next day. The potion really helps. I hardly dream at all when I’ve taken it.’

 ‘It can be dangerous; people have been known to develop a dependency upon it...’ Snape paused in the middle of his sentence and eyed Harry carefully. ‘Did you just say you hardly dream at all?’

Harry nodded. ’It works pretty well.’

Severus looks at him strangely. ‘Harry, you shouldn’t be able to dream at all when you have taken dreamless sleep. Are you still occluding before you go to sleep?’

Harry nodded and Severus continued to look at him thoughtfully.

 Harry shrugged. ‘It’s not like they’re proper dreams, or nightmares or anything. Mostly it’s just hearing footsteps.’

‘Footsteps?’

‘Yeah. Everything’s black and cold and I can just hear someone walking past.’

Severus looks at him as though he would like to say more but hesitated and eventually replied ‘tell me if you dream anything else which is unusual.’

Harry shrugged. Whatever. ‘Can I go outside and fly now?’

Snape nodded. Flying was the one thing that Harry still volunteered to do, albeit less enthusiastically than in the past.

Harry took his broomstick and went outside. It was a beautiful summer’s evening but in the fading sunlight it was chilly so he’d pulled a cloak on top of his jeans and t-shirt. Gracefully climbing onto his broomstick he headed up in the sky, feeling the whoosh of air rushing past him during the incline. If only Sirius was here now, the evenings they had spent flying together had been his favourite times with his Godfather.

Closing his eyes for a moment to focus, Harry sped up to distract himself, zooming towards trees at the far edge of the grounds. Executing a sharp turn for a moment he felt his stomach lurch as he slightly mistimed his turn and almost collided with a thick branch. Glancing towards the house, after all Snape had already warned him once about his flying, he laughed in relief when he realised he’d got away with it. The pounding adrenaline running through his body felt wonderful as for the first time in days he felt alive.

Ten minutes later Snape headed out of the house casting a notice-me-not charm. Harry had seemed to have stopped his destructive behaviour over the past few days but old habits die hard and he found himself loath to leave the brat unobserved for any length of time...

As well he might. Watching Harry fly Severus felt his heart in his mouth. What the hell was he doing, he thought as he watched the boy career towards the enormous oaks at break-neck speed. And were his eyes closed? Severus wanted to yell at Harry, tell him to watch out and come down immediately but hesitated to make any noise in case he startled him and caused him to fall. Opening his eyes as he reached the trees Harry zigzagged amidst the branches, then leaning far back on his his broom to miss one, his cloak suddenly caught on another branch behind him...

Suddenly wrenched back by his cloak, Harry made a desperate grab for his broomstick but lost control. How he had managed to avoid disaster until this point Severus wasn’t sure. Pure luck and instinctive lighting-reactions had somehow avoided a head on collision but a crash had always been inevitable.

As Harry hurtled towards the ground, desperately trying to temper his descent, Severus snapped into action firing off several superior cushioning charms alongside a feather-light charm so that when Harry hit the ground the force was minimal.

Helping the boy up, it was Harry’s utter lack of repentance which finally made Severus crack.

‘You stupid brat, you could have killed yourself!’ 

‘I would’ve been ok.’Not the right thing to say, Harry realised immediately from the expression on Snape’s face.

Snape still had his wand out, as well, but by now Harry was confident the wizard would never hex him.

Unfortunately Harry hadn’t considered that he might hex his broomstick.

A muttered phrase under his breath and the broomstick flew out of Harry’s hand and landed on the grass in front of him, bursting into flames.

An echo of Harry’s previous anger awoke somehow from where it had been lying dormant.  

‘Put it out!’ He yelled furiously.

It did no good. Severus just yelled straight back at him with equal rage. ‘You can’t be trusted with it!’

Harry made a grab for the broomstick to try and roll it on the ground to extinguish the flames but he couldn’t hold onto it without burning his hand. Tearing his cloak off he tried to smoother the flames and for one moment it seemed that he would be successful until his cloak started to smoulder and then set aflame as well.

His anger had disappeared as quickly as it emerged. He turns towards Snape with a grief stricken face.

‘Please put it out.’ He said pleadingly.

‘No.’ Snape snapped back unsympathetically.

***

Wordlessly Harry carried the burnt remains of his broom back to his room. He laid it carefully on his desk.

It was just a broom. It shouldn’t hurt this much. Just a broom.

That Sirius had given him. That he had loved and which reminded of him of all the best times he had spent with Sirus this summer, flying together, mucking about, spending too short a time together.

How could Snape do this to him? He could have confiscated it or banned him from using it. He didn’t have to do this. Of course it was Snape what did he expect after all? He was a fool to think that anything had changed between them. He would never forgive him for this.

But perhaps he could mend it? He’d already tried reparo but the must be other stronger spells he could use? There were hundreds of books in the library. He would work his way through them.

An hour later, surrounded by piles of discarded books, Harry was no further forward. He’d found a means of shielding brooms from fire which would have been brilliant to prevented the fire damage beforehand. Everything else so far had been useless. It seemed that you could repair small objects which had been burnt, things like books and parchment but not broomsticks. He wouldn’t give up, there must be other books...

‘Potter.’

Leave me alone.

‘Potter!’ Snape called again, impatiently.

Don’t you get it, I don’t want to ever speak to you again.

‘Potter get down here immediately!’

Fine. You b*****d. I’m coming.   

Snape was just about to jump to his feet and storm up to drag Harry down to dinner when the boy appeared in the doorway. Avoiding eye contact, Harry walked around the table and drawing his chair as far away from Snape as possible sat down to eat.

Snape narrowed his eyes at the brat. So he’d decided to sulk? Well he certainly wouldn’t get any sympathy from him. They both ate their meal in stony silence. As soon as he finished Harry disappeared back to his room.

** *

Later that evening Severus went up to Harry’s room to tell him briefly that he was being called and to check if he would be all right while he was gone. Intuitively Harry realised that Severus was really checking to see if he had calmed down and to check he wasn’t about to start smashing the place up again or throwing himself off broomsticks. Not that he could now anyway.

Harry sighed. ‘I’ll be fine.’

‘Occlude your mind.’ Severus ordered as he turned to go.

Harry suddenly felt a sense of panic.

‘Wait! What’s going to happen to you tonight? Voldermort wants you to tell him where I am...’

‘Do not concern yourself. I will be fine. I have... other information to provide to the Dark Lord.’

***

Despite his assurances Harry slept uneasily. He didn’t take his dreamless sleep and kept half an ear listening out for Snape to apparate home. Several hours later he finally heard a sound below, he sped downstairs, dreading what he might find.

To his relief Severus seemed to be perfectly fine.

‘I occluded.’ Harry said in answer to Severus’ raised eyebrow. ‘I didn’t see or feel anything. I just heard you get back.’

‘Your occlumency is improving.’ Severus remarked throwing his Death-Eater mask and cloak onto a chair. ‘Come on. Back upstairs. You need your sleep.’

‘I guess I probably wouldn’t have seen anything anyway, even if I didn’t occlude. I mean if he wasn’t angry this time...’ Harry replied as they climbed the stairs.

‘Oh but he was.’ Severus said calmly pushing the boy towards his bedroom.

Harry looked at him with fear in his eyes. ‘What happened?’

‘Not with me Potter. I enlightened him that I had discovered a traitor, one of my fellow death eaters. This allowed me to redeem myself in the Dark Lord’s eyes, provided an explanation for the Order gaining certain information and had the benefit of ridding us of one of his number.’

Harry shivered as he climbed back into bed at the casual mention of the unknown death eater’s demise. Setting up someone else to take the fall for your own spying. How very slytherin.

***

The next day when Severus came to see where Harry had disappeared to after breakfast he found him in the library. He glanced down at the books Harry had in front of him. Still looking up how to repair the broomstick. Has the boy really not yet realised it was impossible?

‘For goodness sake, Harry. Perhaps a replacement can be purchased when you have shown you can be trusted with it.’ And you will bloody well have to earn it.

‘I don’t want another one. I want to mend this one.’ Harry replied stubbornly. ‘Don’t you get it? Sirius gave me this. It was the first thing he ever gave me.’

Of course Black gave it to him. Looking back upon it Severus could vaguely remember a huge fuss when the broomstick had arrived with all sorts of tests being carried out because Minerva suspected it was a gift from Black, whose name at that point was still uncleared. You utter fool, Severus cursed himself mentally. The boy was grieving for his godfather and now you’ve destroyed their strongest link? And now the boy was obsessively searching for a repair spell which didn’t exist.

‘I may as well tell you now, that there is no way of mending the broomstick.’ Severus said his face giving nothing away about his true thoughts. ‘So you can cease this fruitless search and employ your time more productively.’

What an utter b*****d, Harry thought as he snapped the book in front of him shut and glared at his Professor.

Severus appeared utterly unmoved.

‘Put all the books back where you found them and come down to the lab.’ Severus instructed. ‘There is a potion I want you to practise and there is something else I have to tell you.’

In the potions lab Severus set out the equipment is his usual precise manner although his mind was barely focused upon what he was doing. He was surprised by the depth of his remorse over the broomstick incident and his mind kept flitting back to Harry’s expression when he’d begged him to put the fire out. Nevertheless he forced himself to put the matter out of his mind as he heard Harry approaching the room. There was no point dwelling upon an act from which he could offer no reprieve from. In any case, he had other more important things to discuss with the boy. He’d delayed for as long as he could but the time had come for him to tell Harry what was going to happen tomorrow.