Harry waited inside the door to Snape's office as Snape finished his last bit of paperwork for the evening.  Harry kept his mouth shut, knowing that Snape wanted to keep his full concentration on his task.  Instead, Harry stared around the classroom, finally looking up above his head and snickering when he saw little bits of dried cockroach guts on the stone above the doorway.

"I don't know what you're thinking about, but stop it." Snape's deep voice cut into Harry's smirk.  Snape stood and shuffled his papers, before dropping them in a drawer and warding it shut.   He cast what Harry thought was a monitoring spell on the room, and waved Harry towards the desk.

Harry slowly walked over to the alcove-sized window to the left of Snape's desk, the same style window as the others in the room.  Snape was pointing him to it, and Harry barely had a chance to notice that the image projected in the glass seemed slightly fabricated before he felt a strong hand on his back and he was shoved through the window.   Harry grimaced automatically as he braced for impact, but as with the barrier at King's Cross, was pleased to find open space on the other side.  Snape's dreary front hallway, to be more precise.

A small pensieve was on the kitchenette table and Snape showed Harry how to remove the memory of Dumbledore's lesson.   Harry dumped it into the pensieve and looked a bit apprehensively at Snape, as he wasn't quite sure if he'd done it properly.

"Watch and learn."  Snape said, his voice heavy with sarcasm.  "Mr. Potter, may I enter your memory?"

Harry flushed with embarrassment and had a strange urge to smack Snape's arm. 

They landed at the back of Dumbledore's office, by the door, and Harry was once again taken back by the strange third person view of the memory.   Watching the discussion through once, Harry found Snape's facial reactions to be rather interesting as he heard the information about young Voldemort's life.  From what Harry could tell, Snape had not been privy to any of this before.  At the end of the memory, Snape stopped Harry from leaving and waited for it to start again.

"Forget about the conversation this time."  Snape commanded.  "Focus on the room, and the headmaster's body language."

Harry stared around the room as his memory self chatted with Dumbledore, noting the strange twirling objects that the headmaster kept around him.  Snape seemed to be studying the office himself, perhaps comparing it to the last time he was in there.  Harry stopped by the desk, close to where Fawkes was perched, and catalogued the items there.

"That diary, that's Riddle's diary that I destroyed in second year."  Harry said, staring at the charred and ink stained book on the desk.

"Are you sure?"  Snape asked, pausing by the far bookcase.

"Tom Riddle came out of the bloody book and set a basilisk on me. I'm quite sure it's that one."  Harry swore that after living with Snape over the summer, his eye roll was damn near perfect.   

Snape merely conceded the point with a nod of his head, and moved closer to the desk.

"This ring was not cracked when I inspected it in July." Snape pointed out, mostly to himself.

Harry thought about that with a frown, and he moved his hand over the desk, hesitating over an old brass house key that sat by Dumbledore's inkwell, one that looked like it belonged to an old manor house.  It was old and ornate, tarnished with what seemed to be long dried blood, and a soiled black ribbon was tied to the top of the key.  The ribbon had a small crease mark in it, likely from where it had been hung up on a nail or hook for a long period of time.  Underneath the key was a faded black and white photo of a boarded up old mansion, surrounded by tall and wild grass, which looked rather creepy and haunted.  The windows were completely dark and partially shuttered, the high slanted roof tiles looked half disintegrated, and the only sign that it was a wizarding photo was the small crow that flew from the rafters of the front porch to a gathering of stones in a small field in the distant left background, an area that Harry recognised immediately. Riddle House.

"Is he playing some sort of twisted treasure hunt game?"  Harry asked, shaking his head.  There was a strange pulsing feeling from the key, and he didn't like it.

"So it would seem." Snape replied in a guarded tone, as they were yanked upward and out of the memory.

.......

On Thursdays all three lucked out enough to have one free period in the afternoon after lunch, and at the end of September Harry convinced Ron and Hermione to walk with him to the fourth floor to check out if the stones were on the move again.  Both he and Snape had noted them a few times, at odd times of the day, and Harry was convinced that it had something to do with Malfoy, as Malfoy had never shown up on the Marauder's map when the stones were on the move.

"Muffliato."  Harry cast, as they passed the stairs by the infirmary.   Hermione paused at the slightly distorted sound from around them.

"Where'd you learn that spell, Harry? In the Prince's book again?"  Hermione asked, narrowing her eyes.   She'd been suspicious of Harry's book ever since he'd started using Snape's scribbled notes in it, and actually finding that he understood the theory of potions that way. Sort of, at least he didn't need Hermione's help anymore and did as well or better than her in class.  Harry was well aware that he'd never be the genius that Snape was at modifying and creating potions, but at least he could follow instructions.  Ron had been grateful for the tips as well, but Hermione hadn't stopped nagging Harry about using the dangers of an anointed book until he'd vaguely told her that it used to belong to a family member, and insinuated that he'd found a bunch of heirlooms in the Potter family vault. Neither point was strictly connected to the other, but Harry didn't clarify that.

"Yeah, but Snape's used it before. It's safe."  Harry said, leading them over to the section of wall where he'd last seen the stones melt in.

"I wouldn't count what Snape uses to be a measure of how safe it is."  Ron snorted, toeing the wall.

"Yes, but Harry went on the order task this summer with Snape, didn't he?"  Hermione replied, staring right at Harry.  Ron looked up with an inquiring look.

"I hate it when you do that, Hermione."  Harry smiled.

"It was pretty obvious, Harry. How else would you know that Malfoy became a death eater, or who that werewolf in Diagon Alley was?" Hermione probed, speaking in the excited tone she took when she was sure she'd figured something out.  "And you're still working with him now, aren't you?"

"You could call it that. I got in trouble for that mercury explosion and he's made me do night patrol with him the past two weeks." Harry replied, drawing his wand and casting a tracing spell on the stones.  Nothing unordinary stood out about them.

"Doesn't that just teach you how to avoid him in the future?"  Ron asked, a bit confused.

"Harry, that's brilliant."  Hermione interrupted. "You're in detention, but he's teaching you how to sneak around properly, for when you need to against Voldemort."

"He gave me the lock picking kit, too." Harry grinned, amused at the shocked look on Ron's face.  "Anyway. The stones.  The first time I saw them they melted into the wall here. But they came from the direction of the library, and they seemed to move along the wall like lemmings. It was really strange to see."

"Almost like a relocation spell."  Hermione mused, looking rather thoughtful. "But you cannot just conjure stones to walk about the castle; you can't just create matter. They'd have to come from somewhere."

"You still think this has something to do with Malfoy?" Ron asked, with a calculating look. It was the chess look, and Harry resisted the urge to roll his eyes at Hermione's interested impression. Apparently she liked when Ron used his brains.  "If he's trying to attempt something big, he'd probably want back up, right?  And what's on the fourth floor, but another passage to Hogsmeade."

"And that one is caved in..."  Harry nearly smacked himself.  "Of course, the passage would have to be cleared, and what better place to hide a few extra rocks and stones than in a stone castle?"

They didn't get much chance to discuss their discovery before Harry cancelled the muffliato spell and stood straight, with his shoulders square.

"How gross.  Potty, the Weasel, and the Mudblood having a little ménage à trois at the wall. Better call in a house elf to clean the germs away."  Malfoy said, laughing at his own joke.  Crabbe and Goyle joined in thirty seconds too late for their comprehension to be believable.

"Malfoy. My condolences for your family. All that money and can't even buy dignity, such a shame."  Harry replied evenly, not backing down.

Malfoy's face went white and his lips pursed angrily.

"You think you're so tough and protected because you're Dumbledore's little pet. That won't last long, Potter, mark my words. And you'll pay then."  Malfoy hissed, before spinning and stalking off in the direction of the transfiguration corridor, with overly exaggerated drama.

"He's rather like a pygmy puff, if you think about it. One nasty comment and he puffs out, all flustered.  Sad, really."  Hermione pondered, no doubt remembering when she'd punched Malfoy, as she was flexing her fingers.

"Snape teaching you how to insult people too?"  Ron asked with amusement, as they started to head towards Gryffindor tower.  "Can't imagine that was a fun summer trip. You finally get to go on vacation, to Amsterdam off all places, and you have to go with him." 

"Actually, he wasn't bad.  Taught me a few things about how to get information from people."  Harry grinned.

"Right." Ron laughed. "He's a regular Jimmy Bond, getting all the girls on the side too."

This time Hermione and Harry both snickered as Hermione corrected Ron.  "It's James Bond, Ron.  And Harry, was he like that? What's he like outside of Hogwarts?"

Harry thought about the summer.  Snape was still the same strict and imposing man outside of school, but he was a bit more relaxed and he did have a hidden softer side.  How could Harry explain that Snape had punished him not out of malice but because he'd endangered himself?  Snape had given him a warm bed, his own room, plenty of food, and had even comforted him when he cried over losing Sirius.

"He was very human."  Harry replied.  They walked in silence for a few moments, passing some older students skiving off class.

"I had to pretend to be someone else for the task, it was kind of fun. Having another identity where no one knew me as the boy who lived."  Harry said lightly, again rubbing the side of his head with his wand.

"Mate, you're my best friend, but if you tell me you're Spiderman I will probably kill you."  Ron suddenly stated, sounding very serious but trying not to laugh.

"Ron, I'm not Spiderman." Harry reported mock solemnly.  After a pause, he clarified further.  "I'm not Superman either.  I'm just the Chosen One."

Hermione smacked him with her bag.

.......

 On the way back to their last class of the day, Hagrid called up to Harry from the front entrance way.  He had two pieces of wood in his hands and a small wrapped bundle of what looked like sandwiches left over from lunch.  Though it was raining outside, Hagrid had his patched cloak over his shoulder and his thick rubber boots on, making Harry suspect that he was going to visit Grawp.

"Hi Hagrid."  Harry greeted, wincing a little when Hagrid clapped him on the back.

"Hey there, Harry. Got a favour to ask of yeh." 

Harry nodded and watched as Hagrid pulled random and interesting bits and bobs out of his pockets before finally withdrawing a dull orange chunk of what looked like copper. He handed it over and Harry ran his fingers over the grooves.

"I'm no good at carvin' small things, yeh see, and Professor Snape told me that yer right skilled."

"I'm well...not really. I just did something in wood for fun."  Harry stuttered, taken back by the compliment Snape had made.

"I know. I reckon yeh'll do just as good for this."  Hagrid replied, waving his hand.  He took back the chunk of metal and to Harry's widened eyes, rolled it between his hands until it was warm and pliable.  He then pulled a small, small for Hagrid anyway, knife from his pocket and neatly cut the metal chunk in two separate chess piece sized bits.

"It's Madame Maxime's birthday in late November. I thought it'd be nice to send her a little something."  Hagrid leaned in and blushed, though his whisper was anything but quiet.

"So you want me to carve something, out of the metal?"  Harry clarified, wondering what he could make with them, and if he could even do anything in three dimension.

"Them winged horses she likes so much, that's what I was thinking meself.  Make some earrin's out of ‘em."  Hagrid said, scratching his beard as a slightly dreamy look drew across his eyes.

"Sure, Hagrid. I'll do my best."  Harry popped the metal into his bag, realising that he had only a few minutes to run to his charms class.  Hagrid waved as Harry took off.

....

This time when Harry knocked on Snape's unassuming wooden door there was no answer.  Dobby hadn't brought him down, he'd been able to remember the way himself, but it didn't seem like Snape was there.   Strange, as Snape had told him to arrive at seven, straight up.  Harry checked his watch, noting that it was the plain black face that stared back at him, and not the alert red one.  He knocked on the door again, shifting his bag of extra clothes, but again there was no response.

Poor little lost boy. Come for a good night story?

Harry glared at the snake that was now resting in the top door hinge.

"Is he home?"  Harry hissed back, trying to look stern and meaning business.

Tsk, no manners Mr. Snape.  My day was lovely indeed, thank you for asking.

Harry glared at the snake this time, muttering in parseltongue. Great. Either Snape was detained and he was locked out in Slytherin territory without his invisibility cloak, or Snape was there and expected him to figure out his own way into the flat.

"Git."  Harry said under his breath, putting his hand to the door. It felt warm under his touch, which strengthened Harry's suspicion that his dad was home.  And not answering the bloody door. Unless...

Harry gave a quick glance both ways down the hall before leaning in towards the door.

"Down at Fraggle Rock."

The door clicked audibly as if a key had been placed in and turned.  Harry ignored the snake's jib about his singing skills and slipped into the front hallway, ensuring to shut the door firmly behind him. 

"Figured out the password, did you?"  Snape was sitting in his easy chair, a glass of wine beside him and the radio on.  Harry was surprised to hear modern muggle music playing.

"Good evening to you too, sir."  Harry grumbled, kicking his shoes off by the door, dropping his bag, and walking into the kitchenette to get a drink.

"Don't eat anything yet, I need your blood."  Snape rose out of his chair and Harry blinked. 

"I have no idea why people call you a vampire."  Harry deadpanned, setting his water glass down on the counter.

Snape shot him a bored look and drew the blood samples with quick precision, before nodding at the water.  As he healed Harry's arm, he ran his thumb down the scar left over from the incident in the graveyard.  Nearer to Harry's wrist it crisscrossed with the basilisk's puncture mark, the very faded white spot that even Fawkes' tears hadn't healed.   Harry watched the thumb and shivered at the light touch, before offering his palm up for scrutiny, the cursive words still etched in his skin.

"Even Gryffindors aren't unmarked."  Harry said, in a low voice that made it seem he was talking more to himself.

"So it seems."  Snape dropped his hand and pulled a vial from the fridge, one that Harry recognised from the summer. "I wish to test some healing potions, and you will need to be a child for the tests."

Harry glanced at the vial and tried to keep his face impassive.  Being a six year old over the summer had had its drawbacks, and Harry had had some problems dealing with the simple yet startlingly strong emotions that he experienced on a much faster and exaggerated pace than he did as a sixteen year old.  However, he'd also been able to give in a little more to some of his more basic desires, and Snape had not once really chastised him for playing exuberantly, laughing at silly things, or needing a hug or two. Harry was to spend the night in the dungeons, mostly doing homework and keeping out of trouble, but if he played his cards right he could maybe spend the time sitting with Snape on the couch and looking over some of the old books the man had.  Snape didn't need to know that Harry looked forward to something like that.

"How old?"

"Six again.  I will re-age you in the morning after I have run some tests." Snape answered, unstoppering the vial.

"Alright. But again I'm not fully responsible for how I act."  Harry took the vial and drank it back, grimacing at the taste.  He sat down in the chair and braced for the change.

.......

Snape spent an hour poking, prodding, measuring, and taking the temperature of Harry, standing him up on the desk in his home office in a pair of small transfigured black shorts and a white tank top.   Snape had cast a small warming charm on the room to keep it a tolerable temperature, and had started taking notes in a rather large green folder that he'd pulled from a locked filing cabinet.  It was a thick file and Harry skimmed through it while Snape waited for the blood results to come back.  Harry was surprised to find that the file contained almost his full life's records in it   There was a section from his primary school in Little Whinging, a copy of his inadequately small medical history, dentist information, school report cards,  a few small muggle photographs from when he was much younger, and a few sheets of account summaries from Gringotts.  At the top of the folder was more recent information, including the adoption papers, his passport, the allergy tests results that had come back clean, and a record of his admission to the hospital in Stockport.  It seemed Snape had been very thorough while collecting information.

The blood test came back a lilac purple colour, which had no significance to Harry whatsoever, but seemed to satisfy Snape.  He declared the testing done for the evening, and Harry put his resized clothes back on before leaving the tiny office for the rectangular living room again.  The fire was still going strong, and the radio had switched to a station that played half muggle music and half wizard.  Like most of the few rooms in Snape's flat, the living room was narrow and long, furnished to the point that it was cosy but not crowded.  Harry figured that Snape did not like wide, open spaces, and he could see the logic in that.  Small and well-planned spaces gave more a sense of obscurity and comfort than an exposed and sparsely filled room.

Four badly lost games of cribbage later, and after a mug and a half of hot chocolate,  Harry draped himself on the couch and tried to stay awake.  It was only nine thirty, but the smaller body was making him feel very tired and the night before Gryffindor had had a rather draining quidditch practise.   Not long after stretching out on the couch, a charm sounded near the fireplace and Snape rose to answer the call.  The chesterfield Harry was laying on was off to the side of the fireplace, so Snape just put a blanket over Harry to keep him out of sight.  The last thing Harry heard was McGonagall saying hello.

What felt like only seconds later, but was actually closer to an hour, Harry felt the blanket shifting from him.  He was suddenly a lot colder than he had just been, and his head felt very fuzzy from his half awake state.  Snape was blurry when he opened his eyes, and Harry groaned a little in a plea to be left where he was under the blanket. He didn't care about going to bed, he just wanted to stay put and go right back to sleep.

"Nngh. 'm sleepy." Harry raised small hands up, his eyes closed again, towards Snape.

"You don't fool me one bit, you little snot." Snape said, leaning over and hauling Harry up into his arms with practised movement. He hugged Harry close and Harry locked his hands behind Snape's hair.

"You smell like snail guts." Harry murmured, his head resting in the crook of Snape's neck.

"Indeed, the essence of boy. Slugs and snails and puppy dog tails." Snape said, nudging the door to Harry's room open the his foot.

"Dun like dogs." Harry whispered as Snape lay him down on the bed.  Harry vaguely heard drawers opening and then whimpered a little as the air got much colder.  Snape had removed his jumper and dress shirt to put an old  shrunken t shirt on him, and slipped his trousers off to exchange them for pyjama pants.   His feet were gently lifted and the socks removed, one deep blue and one black striped, and finally Harry was tucked into the warm bed. 

Snape seemed to take a moment to look as he pulled back Harry's sleeves, and then tucked his tiny arms under the covers.  Harry's moppy hair was brushed back from his forehead, and a calloused dry hand gently cupped Harry's cheek.

"Not all affection need be bargained for, little Slytherin."  Snape said, barely audible.  He left the room and closed the door most, but not all, of the way.  

........

Harry woke with a start in the middle of the night, breathing wildly and shivering like he'd been left out in the cold.  He'd not had a nightmare in a while, and though this one was refreshingly Voldemort free, Harry still felt deeply unsettled.  The fake window in the room allowed a blue tinge of moonlight to cast creepy shadows in the crevices of the stone,  something that Harry couldn't help staring at.  A small popping sound suddenly echoed by the foot of Harry's bed and he jumped back towards the headboard onto all fours with a yelp, brandishing the wand that was now longer than his forearm.

"Is Master Harry okay, sir? Dobby is checking up when Master Harry has bad dreams."  Dobby appeared from the shadows, wringing his hands and looking worried.

"I'm....I'm fine Dobby. Just a little scared, that's all."  Harry replied, slowly letting the tension out of his taut limbs.

"Dobby will tell Master Snape that Master Harry is awake." Dobby said, nodding his head but still managing to keep eye contact.

"No! No it's okay, Dobby. You don't need to wake him, I‘ll be fine." Harry pleaded, crawling back under the covers and trying to get ready to go back to sleep.

"Master Snape asked to be told, Harry Potter sir. He can't hear through the dungeon walls."  Dobby tried to explain, looking unsure and a bit upset.  Before Harry could ask anything else, a deep voice from the shadow of the doorway spoke up.

"Thank you Dobby, you may go."

Snape was leaning partially against the wall, with his hair draping forward and partially covering his face.  He was wearing the same red gown from the summer, but this time he had a black house robe wrapped around him and a pair of black pyjama pants on as well.  The dungeons were much colder than Spinner's End.  He walked into the room and sat down on the bed, sitting beside Harry. In his hand he held the jar of cream he'd used over the summer when Harry had had his last nightmare. 

"I didn't mean to wake you."  Harry mumbled, drawing his knees to his chest and wrapping this arms around them as he sat up.   He'd managed to not have any nightmares in the past few weeks that he'd been back at Hogwarts, though a combination of occlumency before bed and sheer fatigue from running around with classes, quidditch, and his friends.

"You did not. It's not quite one yet, and I was reading."  Snape watched as Harry appeared to be hugging himself, his head tucked down on the top of his knees as he sat, staring at the bed covers.

"Dad? Do you ever have bad dreams?"  Harry suddenly asked, looking up and making eye contact.

Snape motioned for Harry to lie back down as he thought about that, thought about the guilt he felt when Lily visited him in his dreams, when he had flashbacks of Lupin in the Shrieking shack, the horrors of what the death eaters had done, and more recently of a boy with brilliant green eyes lost in the darkness of Amsterdam.

"Just memories."  Snape shook his head.  He opened the jar and dipped his fingers into the cool cream, waiting until Harry had rolled onto his side and was facing Snape.  The cream was massaged again into Harry's forehead and on the back of his neck, where he grinned as it slightly tickled.

"That's really cold."  Harry said, slightly smiling.

"It's intended to be." Snape replied, all knowingly.  He pulled the blankets up over Harry, but remained seated beside the boy and put a heavy hand on Harry's shoulder.

"What is that, anyway? It worked really well in the summer."

Snape handed him the jar, which had a few ingredients scribbled on the label.

"It's a prototype. What did you feel it do?"  Snape slowly rubbed circles on Harry's back and shoulder.

"I felt clouds."  Harry said, in a serious voice.  His eyes were getting heavy though, and he felt rather snug trapped under the blankets.

"White clouds?"  Snape asked, watching Harry's eyes droop closed.

"Blue ones."  Harry confirmed, yawning a little. "Prototype for what?"

"For your visions last year. I was not allowed to give it, however."  Snape answered, watching Harry. He checked his watch at the same time, to see how long this dose would take to start working. The best way to test that would be to see how coherent the boy still was.

"One question I've had in my mind awhile, Elliot.  How did you manage to defeat the troll in your first year?"  Snape asked, only partially curious to hear the answer.

"Jammed my wand up its nose." Harry answered happily.  "I jumped on his back, he was tall and smelly, and the wand went up his nose. Ron knocked him out."

"You jammed a wand up the nose of a twelve foot tall troll."  Snape deadpanned, staring at the undersized child lying on the bed.

"Uh. Yeah. Don't do that. You can't clean it properly afterwards, and it had bogies on it. I tried scourgify, but that doesn't work on your wand and if you put it on the table and try to say it again and again it just takes the varnish off the table and then McGonagall gets mad at you."  Harry blabbered, before blinking his eyes slowly open. "What?"

Snape smirked at Harry as he pictured that scenario. The potion had definitely taken effect.

"Mr. Potter, had I known you were this amusing, I would have given you the prototype anyway."

Snape stood up and took back the jar, slipping it into the pocket of his robes.  He walked over to the window and pulled the blinds shut, so the room would be dark without any strange shadows.

"Dad."  Harry mumbled into his pillow, eyes closed again.

"Mmm?"  Snape asked, making his way to the door.

"C'n I call you Daddy? Be funny in the great hall one day." Harry was still lying curled up on his side, but his arms were loose up by his face.  Snape wondered how such a contortioned sleeping position could be comfortable.

"Ah, Elliot Fyodor," Snape said in a silkily sweet voice, "if you ever do that I will ensure to string you up to the rafters by your toes."  Snape left the room with a small smile on his face as Harry snorted into his pillow.