Cauldron's bubbled. Potions simmered. And Snape was yelling at Neville again. Just another ordinary day in Potions Harry thought as he looked up to see the vile man scowling down at Neville and making him cower over his cauldron.

"Pretty rotten if you ask me," Ron muttered under his breath, giving the man the same evil look he was currently giving to Neville. Harry nodded. He was about to say something else when Hermione feverishly shushed them for the fifth time that afternoon.

"Will both of you hush! I can't concentrate! This potion is hard enough as it is! He's going to be testing us you know and class ends in a few-" she was cut short by a long shadow falling over their table however. Three sets of Gryffindor eyes rose to meet those of the glower belonging to the castle's most hated professor.

"Cheating are we Potter? Well, we'd better test your potion now then before you add any of the last minute ingredients Miss Granger was whispering to you."

Hermione paled and sat back. Any other teacher would have trusted her word, but it was no good trying to tell Snape that he was wrong.

"Fine," Harry said blandly. "I was done anyway." If the man thought he was going to add sir to the end of that he had another thing coming, Harry thought bitterly.

With a wave of his wand Snape waved the fire down under all of the cauldrons in the room, signaling the end of brewing time, and glared nastily at Harry. "Stick your finger in the cauldron Potter."

Harry did as he was told and placed his finger in the clear blue liquid. It was surprisingly cool for having brewed over an open flame for the last two hours. He pulled his pointer finger out of the potion and waited, staring at Snape knowing that he had brewed the potion right and he would see James and Lily's names appear in the potion, as that is what the paternis sentimentis did, reveal one's parents. Instead, he heard Ron snort and say, "Wow, you really bunged that one up mate."

Snape and Harry looked down into the potion at the same time, and a frown came over Harry's face. Ron was right, he had royally screwed the potion up somehow. White letters floating on the water's surface read: ‘Lily Evans,' and ‘Severus Snape.' He glanced up to see Snape sneer.

"Very funny Mr. Potter. Whatever you added to your potion has just earned you a zero for the week. Place your finger in Mr. Weasley's cauldron."

Harry did as he was told, and as soon as the white letters appeared bearing the same false witness as the first cauldron, Snape wrenched Harry's hand painfully out of Ron's cauldron and gave him a deadly glare. Curious now, others had come over to their table and were gawking into Harry's cauldron.

"It appears Mr. Weasley has also earned a zero for Potter's foolish play for attention." He pointed into Hermione's cauldron which Harry had faith held a perfectly brewed potion, and was bitterly disappointed to see the same two names floating on it's surface once his finger had gone into it.

Startled, Harry suddenly found himself being dragged across the isle to Draco's cauldron and having his hand plunged deep into the cool potion. He wasn't sure what was going on, but Snape was starting to loose his cool now, and his grip on Harry's wrist was growing painfully tight. He was sure he'd have a bruise by dinner. Draco's potion was no different than the others.

"OUT! YOU ALL RECEIVE ZEROS!" When people remained frozen to the spot, Snape shouted even louder, "OUT! OUT! OUT!" pointing to the door. There was a flurry of movement as books and bags were grabbed hastily and quills and parchment lay forgotten on desks as students rushed for the door. Harry saw Ron and Hermione giving a fearful glance as they exited, and the door magically slammed closed behind them, actually hitting Ron on the way out.

Harry had no time to think because in the next second Snape was dragging him from cauldron to cauldron, seething as he plunged Harry's hand into each one, and then onto the next as they each exhibited the same results. Finally Snape spun Harry around, and inches from his face bit out through gritted teeth, "I don't know what you've done to these potions Potter, but I will find out, and when I do you will be serving detention until the end of your seventh year and then some, am I understood?" Holding tight to the back of Harry's robes, he waved the door to the corridor open with his wand and shoved Harry out and into the opposite wall, the door slamming hard again with a resounding thud.

The hall was quiet, and Harry was breathing hard. What had just happened? Just a few moments ago his normal day had turned into... something else. Was he dreaming? Had Draco bewitched all of the cauldrons?

Confused, Harry rubbed his wrist where Snape had gripped him so hard and indeed left fingerprints, much as Uncle Vernon usually did, as he walked up to the Entrance Hall. Ron and Hermione weren't the only ones lingering and waiting to see if Snape had let Harry out of the room alive or not.

"What did he do?" Ron asked quietly, still rubbing his back where the door had slammed into him. The hall was quiet, and empty except for the dismissed potion's class.

"He shoved my hand into every cauldron."

"And?" Hermione bit her lip, already knowing the answer. There was no way that many students could mess up the potion, especially not her.

"They were the same," Harry said quietly, aware that the rest of the class was still gathered there around them listening.

There was quiet for a moment and Harry realized that he was not the only one thinking on the gravity of this situation. Suddenly Ron broke the silence by turning to Draco and spitting out, "What did you do to the potions? I saw you messing with Neville's earlier!"

"Don't look at me!" Draco shouted. "I don't know how to make them all lie!"

The hall hushed again as they watched Harry mull over the new information. Lily Evans and Severus Snape. Lily Evans and Severus Snape. Lily Evans and Severus Snape. The images of the same names flashed before his mind a dozen more times as they had done in the room below.

"I think I'm gonna skip dinner," Harry said quietly, and people parted to let him pass. When he was out of sight, Slytherins and Gryffindors alike gave each other a worried look. What did this mean? How did the son of the Slytherin Head of House end up in Gryffindor?

* * *

Harry lay in bed that night more awake than he wanted to be. Life wasn't fair, was it? No, of course it wasn't. It wasn't meant to be. His mother had died and he'd been stuck with the Dursley's for sixteen years. And now there were revelations that didn't make any sense at all. Snape was his father? It didn't seem that he knew beforehand, so Harry knew he hadn't let Harry go to the Dursleys willingly. And yet, he didn't seem to like the idea of being Harry's father anyway.

Biting his lip until it hurt, Harry felt the confusion bubble in him, and squirmed in discomfort. Here was the thing he had always desired: a parent, a father. Here was the thing that had escaped him with Vernon, Remus, Sirius... and even Dumbledore. The bruise on his wrist told him that it wasn't a dream, and he was confused because he didn't know if he wanted it to be or not. Past experience told him that Snape would never accept him, and yet, here was hope dangling on a string, like the slow spinning redemption he'd always wanted. He wanted to be somebody's son. He wanted somebody to be proud of him, to love and cherish him. He wanted somebody to claim him as their own.

You're being selfish Harry, he told himself. And as he drifted off to sleep he told himself, I know. I want to be.

"Do you think it's true?"

"He doesn't look like him."

"Sure he does, look at that hair!"

Harry felt like a turtle without a shell. He wanted to melt into a wall and become part of the stone so that nobody would speak about him as he passed as if he couldn't hear them, or see them pointing and giving him strange looks. Any hopes he might have had that morning upon waking of having a normal day were gone. He had believed it all a bad dream until he noticed Ron and the others in the sixth year boy's dormitory giving him a good looking over.

"What?" he had asked, and they all looked away, as if they were shy and had never met him before.

Noting Snape's absence at the head table, Harry scarfed breakfast down in the Great Hall that morning wishing he were unaccustomed to all of the unwanted attention. Unfortunately this was a regular occurrence.

This was the year, he had told himself almost seven months ago. This is the year that nothing bad will happen to make me miserable at school. And so for six and a half months he had been a normal, teenage boy at Hogwarts. He'd dated a fifth year Ravenclaw for a while before Christmas, gotten dumped for being somebody different than she'd thought, gotten good grades here and there, mostly in Charms and Defense, and even tripped over his tongue in front of several other girls he had an eye for, including what he was sure was the only gentle Slytherin girl, a seventh year named Keoni who wouldn't give him the time of day.

But no. With two months left until summer, he was walking through the halls getting stares and comments, as if he were the world's most interesting specimen. It didn't matter that it wasn't true, that somebody had probably messed with the cauldrons, no, they all believed the lies. Harry wished that he could believe the lie he was trying to tell himself, that everybody had simply bunged up their potions. But Hermione he trusted, and she re-brewed the potion for him during their free period after Transfiguration that afternoon. Once again the same white letters appeared.

"Why didn't they do this when you were a baby?" Ron asked, staring down into the cauldron.

Feeling snarky all of a sudden Harry snapped out at him, "Because nobody thought my mum was sleeping around with some git while she was married to my dad!"

Hermione looked back and forth between her two best friends for a moment in Myrtle's bathroom before she said, "Harry, we don't know that's what happened. She might have gotten married after-"

"Does it matter?" Harry felt like shouting, even at his friends. "She still slept with him! Still had some kind of feelings for him! How could she? How could he be a part of me?"

"He's not," Ron said, shaking his head. "No way mate, you're still Harry Potter, no matter what some stupid cauldron says."

Harry tried to slow his breathing and calm at that thought that Ron and Hermione still had some confidence in him. He couldn't deny that he felt anxious inside that somehow they might abandon him now that he was Severus Snape's spawn. That is what he was, he thought bitterly. Ron and Hermione were offspring, but he was spawn... his dreams of being somebody's son would never be realized.

"I hate this," Harry said quietly having run out of steam. "I hate how everybody looks at me like I'm different, just like they do every year."

Ron patted Harry on the back. "Well, at least we can count on one thing mate."

Harry raised a doubtful brow.

"Well, we know Snape will be his same old spiteful self in Potions next period. And we can't get a bad grade today either since he failed us for the week." Ron gave him a mischievous grin and Harry tried to return it but his stomach was bubbling with upset and he couldn't.

Unfortunately for Harry, Ron was very mistaken. Compared to Snape everyone else was being completely normal. Snape on the other hand seemed out for blood. The second Harry walked into Potions Snape was scolding him for having his tie undone. Then once he was in his seat Snape was taking points away for slouching and for shooting him dirty looks, which Harry wasn't since his eyes had been resolutely glued to his table.

Harry succeeded for getting a double D for the day on top of his previous fail, and losing over 25 house points for one thing or another even though he had yet to say a single word in class. In the end Harry hurried out of the room with Ron and Hermione on his heels. He skipped dinner again in favor of solitude in the boy's dormitory with his hangings closed.

He hates me for sure, Harry told himself after he threw himself down onto his bed in the empty room and buried his face in his pillow. He knows I'm his son and he made it an extra point to make me miserable. Harry tried to tell himself that he didn't care, but couldn't bring himself to that conclusion. He hated Snape with a passion. The man had intentionally been all over Harry since day one. And yet, something inside wanted to be wanted. Something deeper still made him feel unworthy. There is something seriously wrong with me if everyone in my family despises me, he thought sadly. He had always told himself there was something wrong with them for hitting him or locking him a cupboard, but now his instincts were betraying him and telling him the opposite.

Maybe things will be better tomorrow, he hoped as he drifted off into an unpeaceful sleep, knowing it probably wouldn't be.

* * *

"Potter! Detention!"

Harry cringed as he turned to see Snape striding away down the long corridor, robes billowing. He wasn't sure what he'd done this time, but he'd been scrubbing floors for Filch, cooking meals for the elves, and doing lines for Snape for the last week and a half. Every time he turned around it was detention or lost points. People in his own house were really starting to despise him now that their chance at the house cup was a long past opportunity. At least Ron and Hermione were still standing by him, he thought. So long as he had them he was ok.

Harry didn't follow after Snape. He didn't want to. Maybe I can just run now and never look back, he thought, although he quite thought he'd like to finish school so that he could keep his wand. He toyed with the idea for a moment longer before he started down the hall after Snape. What he really wanted was for the man to stop taking every opportunity to beat him down so thoroughly. Not a chance, he told himself as he entered Snape's office a few minutes later and Snape stood glaring him down.

"You will write 500 times, ‘I will not stand in the hall preening myself.'" Harry frowned. He had been standing in the hall looking out the window towards the pitch where Ravenclaw was practicing, but he hadn't been touching his face or hair in any way.

Harry sat down and pulled out a quill. His hand was still killing him from writing lines yesterday. ‘I will not stick my nose up in the air like an arrogant brat,' 300 times was killer, and he wasn't sure if he'd be able to make it through this afternoon's detention. It was Saturday and he'd rather be out flying or doing anything than be sitting in the office of the man who hated him the most... his father.

Around 100 lines he toyed with the idea of throwing in random sentences every once in a while such as ‘I hate you Snape,' or ‘you're a wanker' but instead he was horrified to find that he'd written, ‘my father hates me' several times. Panicking because he had to hand this paper over to Snape when he was done, Harry looked around for anything to erase the lines, but found nothing.

"I did not give you permission to look at my personal belongings Potter!" Snape snapped out, putting intentional emphasis on Potter.

Harry quickly went back to writing lines about preening himself and prayed that Snape would not actually read every line he wrote. The offending words were lost in the middle of the page somewhere anyhow, and once Harry had written a few more lines they blended in nicely. Good, he breathed, good.

McGonagall seemed so flustered by Gryffindor's lack of points that she was now giving points to every Gryffindor for every little thing. Hermione was getting ten points each time she raised her hand ‘for being eager to learn Miss Granger', and Neville was getting points for putting his name on his assignments. She even made a surprise inspection of the tower one day and gave Ron thirty points just for making his bed.

"At least someone's doing something to earn points back," Ron told Dean one day, unaware that Harry had heard as he exited the common room. Harry tried to ignore it, but he had a feeling that even his close friends were no longer so close. Hermione was busy studying for end of year exams and Ron had been distancing himself and spending more time with Dean, Seamus, and Neville.

"Hey Potter, will your daddy be accompanying you to parent's day?" a seventh year Ravenclaw shouted at him one day in the hall after lunch. The others around him laughed and Harry hurried on. Everyone had been talking about the upcoming family weekend on Saturday. Even Hermione's parents were coming to tour the school and talk to her professors. Mr. and Mrs. Weasley would be there for Ron and Ginny, and Harry would be left to himself.

As loathe as he was to admit it, he wanted to go. He wanted one person there who cared about him enough to attend such a useless function. Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon had always gone to these things for Dudley in primary, and even then he wanted somebody to go with him to ooh and ahh over his school projects and good grades. Of course his grades had slipped in the past month and half since the incident in Potions, but still, he wasn't that bad of a student and he was still passing everything but Potions.

"I'm so excited," Hermione said that Friday evening at dinner. "I've always wanted to show them around Hogwarts."

"Yeah," Ron said. "I mean, my parents already know it but I wanted to show dad that secret dueling room we found behind the Library. I told him and he reckons even Fred and George didn't know about it."

Harry looked down at his plate and pushed the food around it a little.

"Will you be going Harry?"

Harry looked up at Hermione's question, stunned. He noticed Ron had gone quiet and was staring off into space.

"Sorry?"

"Will you be going on Saturday?"

"Yeah, whatever Hermione, real funny. Thanks."

He went back to his food, but Ron said, "Hey, it was just a question. No need to be rude about it."

Harry looked up. "Rude is asking if I'm going to parent teacher night with my father who hates my guts and doesn't speak to me except to give me detention."

Other people at the table were interested now and had stopped eating to listen, although nobody was looking at him.

"Just forget it," Ron said suddenly, going back to his food. "You don't get it."

"Don't get what?"

"Never mind. Can't expect you to understand what it means not to be rude."

Harry didn't know if he felt more like crying or punching Ron in the face. Was this what it took for Ron to turn on him? Having a different father? Now all of a sudden Harry was rude just because Snape was? Before he did something he was going to regret, he stood up and left the table, hundreds of eyes in the hall following him.

I'll just keep my head down Saturday, he told himself, stay in the tower and sleep in. I won't give Ron any more reason to hate me, seeing as how I'm just so rude.

Saturday morning found him in prime position to be frowned upon however. For as hard as he tried not to go down to the Entrance Hall where students were greeting their parents, that's where he ended up anyway, hopes of maybe touring the castle with the Grangers or Weasley's pulling him out of bed and dragging a comb through his hair. Some part of him hoped he would go down the stairs to find Snape waiting for him, wanting to go with him, but a sharp ‘you've got to be kidding' stare from the man made Harry feel deep seeded shame instead.

Harry ducked his head and stood off to the side behind a banister at the top of the stairs and watched as students hugged their parents and younger siblings as they came in through the sturdy oak front doors. Hugs and kisses and I missed you's. Was that what it was like to be loved? Harry ached for that so badly. He always had but now it was magnified having a parent so close and knowing he was despised and hated.

"Come here boy."

Harry looked up at the sound of Lucius' Malfoy's voice. He had never liked the man much, especially since he had threatened him after freeing Dobby, but he supposed he couldn't be so bad if he treated Draco right, and Harry could tell that he did.

"Me?" Harry pointed to himself, unsure if Draco's father was talking to him.

"Yes you. Come here." It wasn't quite a demand. Draco looked up at his father and seemed just as stunned as Harry did.

"You are not here with your father?"

Harry bit his lip, afraid an insult was coming his way or an order to get out of the hall since he had no place there. "No." His eyes were drawn to the floor as his face turned red. Confused, he wasn't sure why he was suddenly feeling embarrassment. Perhaps because he knew Snape was Draco's godfather and a friend of the Malfoy family, and therefore he felt like a real disgrace being disowned by his own father.

"You will accompany Draco and I today then."

Harry looked up at him. "Sir?"

Lucius surveyed the crowd and found Severus speaking to several other parents of Slytherin students, and then turned back to Harry. "Come along then. Draco was about to show me a secret dueling room behind the library."

He lead off and Harry and Draco gave each other a questioning look before following behind him up the stairs. Harry didn't notice the look Ron and several others were giving him as he followed the Malfoys. He wasn't even sure why he went, but the feeling of so desperately needing to be wanted hooked him behind the navel like a portkey and he let his feet carry him away up the stairs.

Feeling awkward, Harry followed Draco and his father to the dueling room and several other hidden rooms Draco had found. Lucius then showed them some of his favorite hiding spots from his own days at school before they headed back down towards the lower floors in search of Professors to discuss grades with.

They came across professor McGonagall first, who told him that Draco was getting full marks in Transfiguration and had an aptitude for the subject.

"And Mr. Potter?" Lucius asked, brows raised.

Harry looked up, confused again. Did he just ask about Harry's grades? Why did he want to know? McGonagall had the same questioning look on her face, suddenly realizing that Harry was there with them and not just mulling around the hallways by himself.

"Mr. Potter also has an aptitude for the subject, although his grades have dropped in the last two months."

"Ah, well, he has had a lot on his mind, has he not? I'm sure that they will pick back up again." Here he gave a pointed look to Harry, whose cheeks tinged red again and he nodded.

"See there, he has agreed to it and all is well."

McGonagall nodded, curiosity still dancing over her face, and Lucius thanked her before they moved on.

The same scene played out again with Flitwick, Sprout, Hooch, August, and a number of other professors, some of whom Harry hadn't had in class yet.

When the three of them were finally alone in a corridor together, Harry asked, "Sir?"

"Yes?"

He hesitated, afraid this was all a hoax of some sort, and then asked, "Why are you doing this?"

Draco by now was very curious about the answer as well. He had been ignoring Harry for the most part for the day, but now that Harry had spoken up, he looked to his father for an answer.

Lucius turned to Harry and leaned on his cane. "Severus has long since looked after my son when I have been unable. Now I will look after his when he is unwilling."

Harry swallowed, throat dry and sore. This was the first time anyone had really acknowledged that he was Snape's son, and he was suddenly overcome with a wave of emotions. He had been so hurt and lost in the past two months, but had pushed it all back and tried to take things one day at a time. Seeing that Harry was suddenly struggling, Lucius reached out and put a hand on Harry's shoulder.

"Do not let it get to you. He can sometimes be a fool."

Harry nodded, and bit his lip, trying to bite back all that was fighting to get out.

When he finally had control over himself, they set off again towards the Great Hall where lunch was waiting.

"I don't know if I'd should go in," Harry said, hesitating at the door as some other parents and students passed them.

"And why not?"

"Well, my friends... they'll get mad if I sit at Slytherin."

Lucius motioned inside. "There are no house tables today. Too many parents have children from multiple houses."

Harry peered in and saw that it was true. There were Ravenclaws at Gryffindor table, and Hufflepuffs at Slytherin.

"Come then. You look too thin to skip a meal."

Harry looked down at himself and then allowed himself to be guided into the Great Hall. He had already been skipping a lot of meals, he thought to himself. He tried to ignore the looks he was getting entering the hall with Lucius and Draco Malfoy as they took a seat at Hufflepuff table next to a group of Hufflepuffs and their parents.

"Hello, I'm Denise Richards," said a Muggle woman who held her hand out to Lucius. "Are these your sons?" Her two daughters gaped at her question, but she didn't seem to notice.

"This one is," Lucius said, placing his hand on Draco's head instead of shaking her hand. "And this one is Harry Potter, a friend of the family."

She looked him over and smiled before reaching across to shake his hand. Harry took it briefly and then concentrated on filling up his plate with asparagus, which he hated but did to keep his hands busy as it was the only plate near enough to him to reach.

Lucius engaged Draco in talk of Quidditch for the next half hour, asking Harry occasionally about Gryffindor tactics and games, to which Harry gave short answers and then sat listening at how normal Lucius Malfoy seemed compared to the monster Harry had always envisioned him as when the man crossed his mind. He doted on Draco, and for a brief moment before scolding himself, Harry envisioned Severus Snape sitting beside him running his fingers through Harry's hair and laughing at a joke as Lucius did to Draco.

Unconsciously Harry gazed up at the staff table, where he was brought back to reality by a scathing look from Snape. Hurt more than he liked to admit, he hung his head. There was a gentle hand on his shoulder then, and Harry turned to look at Lucius, who was leaning in and talking gently to him. "I do not pretend to know why he acts as he does towards you, but I do know that he is a complicated man with complicated emotions. And until he comes around, you are always welcome at Malfoy Manor. It is very close to Snape Manor."

"I don't know where that is," Harry said. "And every year the Headmaster makes me go back to my Muggle relatives."

"The Headmaster is not your guardian," Lucius said matter of factly. "Not now that you have a living parent. And since Severus will most likely not impose rules on you as to where you stay, then you are welcome to stay with us should you so choose. You will simply ride the train with Draco and come home with him."

Harry glanced at Draco, who was suddenly very interested in his potatoes. Perhaps Lucius had had words with him when Harry had gone to the bathroom earlier, because Draco had been nicer to Harry today than he had ever been in the last six years.

"Thank you sir," Harry said. It was a nice invitation, but Harry didn't want to stay with the Malfoy's. He didn't want to stay with the Dursley's or at Hogwarts either. And yet, Lucius was probably right: the scowling man at the table would never let him into his home.

That evening as Harry made his way back to the common room, he felt in a daze. For the first time in two months he felt sort of good. It was nice having someone there to comfort him and ask about his grades, even if it wasn't his own parents. It was weird too, spending the day with Lucius and Draco Malfoy, but what wasn't weird these days. Harry was forcefully reminded of how much his life was changing when he entered the common room and found Ron telling a joke to Dean and Seamus.

"I mean, what can you expect with his father being who he is? Can't expect him to use a napkin at lunch or anything. Didn't you see how he hogged all the vegetables to himself like he owned the whole table?" Dean and Seamus laughed hard then, but stopped when they saw Harry standing there behind Ron.

Harry's mouth was dry again and he didn't say anything as Ron turned around. The common room had quieted down now to see what was going on.

"Well?" Ron asked, holding his arms up, "did you want something, or are you just going to stand there and stare at me?"

Harry looked him in the eyes, feeling betrayed and trying to keep tears from flowing out. "I thought you were my friend. Why would you say mean things about me?"

Ron snorted and Harry turned to go, but he didn't get very far before Ron shouted, "Hey! How was I supposed to know I was being tricked into being friends with a Slytherin! Don't see any of use tromping around all day with Lucius and Draco Malfoy do you?" He had a look of real anger on his face, and Harry turned to look at him for a brief moment before he could no longer hold the tears and left for his room before they spilled his emotions all over the ground in front of everybody.

As he lay in bed listening to people laughing and talking downstairs, Harry finally confronted the truth. The Malfoy's aside, he was truly alone now. His friends had abandoned him, the school hated him, and his father didn't want him. What else was there? Certainly not a life that felt settled and safe. Certainly not something he wanted to continue on with.

McGonagall had scolded him several times already, threatening to tell his ‘father' that he was skipping classes, but Harry told her to go ahead because he didn't care whether or not Harry skipped classes. He had stopped going to Potions completely because he couldn't handle sitting there in a room with a man who spent his time acting as if Harry didn't exist. So much for the hope that had captivated him so early on in this ordeal. His dreams of determining himself to have a real family had flown out the window when Ron and the others had so completely abandoned him to his own struggles within himself.

There was no vindication in life, not for him, he thought to himself. No support whatsoever. But had there ever really been? Perhaps with his parents, no, scratch that he reminded himself yet again, with his mother, there might have been. But perhaps she had not really wanted him at all. If she and Snape had split up, or if she had not told Snape that Harry was his, then perhaps she was ashamed of him, and was ashamed of Harry as well. Harry sodding Snape. He should just change his name to that. It did have a ring after all, as Ron had found out and taken to deriving pleasure from as of late.

Even in Harry's dreams Ron taunted him, Hermione ignored him for the next big homework assignment, he fell further and further behind in his coursework, and Draco stood by silently and watched it all with a look of distaste and pity on his face. All too close to real life and Harry felt trapped and knew he could not escape this life if he could not find a way to reconcile his feelings and escape the literal pain he was feeling deep in his muscles, heart, and mind each and every day.

It was a sunny Saturday afternoon when Harry had just such a dream in which he felt trapped and uncertain, and unable to free himself. Suddenly Harry was five years old again and running down the sidewalk in front of Four Privet Drive. In his dream he had just found out that he had a living father and would no longer be force to suffer at the hands of the Dursleys. He turned to look behind him at the front door of the house, and instead of finding chubby Dudley, he found a younger version of Ron making a rude gesture at him. Distracted, Harry fell face first to the pavement and ripped his knees and hands open. Injuries smarting, he sniffled as a long dark shadow fell over him. He looked up to find his father, finally come at last to save him. But instead of picking him up and whispering something soothing into his ear, the man crossed his arms and stared down at him in disapproval. They stayed like that for a long while and Harry sweated in the sun, before finally Snape shook his head in disgust, and walked away without a single word. Harry had been judged. He was not good enough to be taken in.

Instead of waking however, the dream suddenly changed, and now Harry was outside a small cabin in the shady woods. He had fallen again on some grass, and this time his father ran outside and scooped him up in a warm embrace, whispering a love and content and peace over him that he had never known. Harry snuggled closer into his father's chest and smelled a sweet potion on the dark shirt. "Don't fret child," his father soothed him, running his hand through an unruly lock of Harry's hair. "I will always save you from yourself." Just as Harry looked up at his father's smile, the dream faded, and Harry was left breathless in his stiflingly hot dormitory. Early evening sun flooded into the quiet room as motes of dust drifted softly down, but Harry felt as if his heart was slowly being stifled and drowned in darkness. He was confused. Where was he? Which dream was true? Had his father taken him from the Dursleys or not? Did Snape love him and he had been with him for all of these years?

Breathing hard, Harry felt emptiness settle over him after a moment as he realized that his dream was not real. Why couldn't his dream world and waking world be one in the same? Rolling over to bury his face in his pillow in order to stifle a sob, Harry realized that he suddenly felt lost. He wanted so desperately what it seemed that he could not have. How did he obtain a dream? Could he simply go and ask for it?

Swallowing past his too dry throat, Harry sat up and scrubbed at his eyes. His body ached as it so often did now, and he felt sluggish. He just couldn't do it anymore. He had to do something... had to try anything, else his anguish eat him alive. Ron not wanting him was one thing, but his father not being part of his life was another emotional wound entirely, and he felt as if without guidance he would not survive.

Mind made up he combed his hair, put on some old sandals that Hermione had once transfigured for him, and made his way down into the common room. People eyed him as he passed, but said nothing, and he tried to ignore the taunts that followed him out shouted by his former friends.

Emptiness still engulfing him from the loss of the wonderful dream embrace, Harry was drawn down through the sunny castle to the cold, dark dungeons. Draco gave him a curious look on the way down the stairs, but said nothing, and Harry continued on. He just needed reassurance, he told himself. Any words of comfort at all to get him through the rest of the day. His mind had often wandered towards darker thoughts in the course of the last few days and they scared him, but none so much as they did now, when he felt too hopeless to continue on without the help of this one person who somehow had come to mean so much to him.

A sudden hope filling him to the brim gave him the courage to knock on the door after staring at it wordlessly for a full five minutes. This was the moment, he just knew it. Inside, the dream vision of his father promised him again, whispered that he would always be there to scoop him up and save him from himself.

"Come." He almost didn't hear the voice on the other side bidding him to enter. He pushed open the door and stood there on the thresh hold. His father glanced up briefly, gave a short sneer, and then returned to his paperwork.

"What is it Potter?" Not a warm invite, but a command.

"I-" Harry cleared his dry throat, and then tried again. "I was hoping to have a word with you."

Snape didn't look up. "Make it quick. I don't have time for this."

The words stung him, more than they ever would have before. Harry inched in gently, and was just lowering himself into a visitor's chair when his father barked, "I said make it quick Potter! Not sit and have a cup of tea!"

Suddenly Harry's chest was tight with panic, and he couldn't move. No, this had been a bad idea. This was not the father in his dream. This was not a man who could ever love him in any lifetime, despite the feelings Harry had for him, despite the need Harry had for him.

"Well! Say what you came to say and leave!"

Feeling betrayed by his own body, Harry's lower lip trembled slightly, and he willed with all his might to gain control over his panicky limbs, willing them to move and carry him far away from here. And they did. He was running far and fast, unable to stop the sobs, unable to stop the hurt from escaping him, the tears from flowing, the anguish from seeping out. Pulling on his hair because he felt like his heart was going to burst at any moment, he finally collapsed on his knees on the cold hard earth and lay there sobbing, not even realizing that he had run clear out of the castle and out into the Forbidden Forrest.

The evening sun eventually faded into darkness, and darkness faded into a cool night before Harry looked up and realized that he was laying in the dirt hugging himself. He felt numb. Somehow in the haze that his mind was in, he had made a decision to end it, and making that decision freed him from the need to feel so much emotion.

Just three more days, he told himself. While everyone is at the feast, I can finally put myself at rest. As he walked back up to the castle, he felt some modicum of peace, and knew that this was the only way.

He felt as if he had suddenly come out of a fog and could see things clearly. How very strange for someone who felt like he was still in a daze, he thought to himself as he watched other students pass him by in the corridor outside of Charm's class. He had decided to go back to his classes for the last few days, to see what interesting things he might be able to learn before the end of things. Hermione and Ron were dating for instance. That was interesting, Harry noted as he watched them hold hands at the desk in front of him. And Ginny had been moved up to sixth year Charms now because she was so far ahead of the other fifth years, and Neville must have gotten himself a tutor or something because he was able to transfigure a rabbit into a pinecone now in Professor McGonagall's class. He reveled in the fact that McGonagall wore earrings, little silver ones with blue orbs on the end, something he had never noticed in his time there before.

He mused that he suddenly felt the need to understand every little thing in order to pass out of this world and into the next. He had no one to tell these little revelations to, so he kept them to himself, drawing odd looks sometimes as he smiled when nothing funny had been said at all or when he put steak and kidney pie onto his plate at dinner.

Draco has been awfully nice to me, Harry thought, wondering if he would accept his Firebolt as a gift. He would have given it to Ron, but Ron wasn't speaking to him anymore. How odd, that Draco was nice and Ron was not, and that was interesting too.

Without looking through the lens of emotion, Harry was able to re-evaluate the way his father had treated him. Harry had just assumed he deserved his father's love and attention, as he had always assumed of the Dursleys. But now he saw clearly that he did not deserve anything from anybody. He had never deserved Sirius' love, or Lupin's kindness, or Dumbledore's leeway. He had certainly deserved Snape's attitude though. Perhaps I'll write a note of apology to him, he thought, wondering if Draco would allow him to leave it with him, Draco was being so nice after all, not sneering and making snide remarks as the others were.

The three days flew by, and Harry frowned when he realized it was already nearing the time for the end of term feast to start and he had not even written his apology letter yet. He sat down in his favorite place in a hidden corridor by the windowsill with a Muggle pen and parchment, and in his nicest writing penned, "Dad. I loved you and you didn't even know it. I just wanted to apologize for being so unworthy of everything. I never meant to be a burden on you or mum. I wish things could have been different. I wish I could have deserved your love. Please don't let Draco feel bad over what I did. I know he's been watching over me."

He read over it twice and scolded himself for the emotion he had allowed to creep back into his heart as a tear slid down his cheek. Broom and a piece of spello-tape in hand he folded the letter and taped it to the broom, and waited outside the library where he knew Draco was returning borrowed books.

The halls were empty as other students had already made their way down to the start of term feast, and Harry imagined they were waiting anxiously to hear the Headmaster's speech right about now. A smile crept over his face at the thought of all the delicious food waiting for his friends... former friends.

It wasn't long before Draco appeared from behind the library door and paused, evaluating the smile and calmness on Harry's face as he stood waiting with broom in hand. He held it out and Draco shook his head.

"You've been so nice lately... I know you never say anything, but I wanted you to have this in any case."

Draco shook his head mutely again.

"I'll just leave it here then, and you can come take it when you want it. The note is for my dad."

"Give it to him yourself you coward," Draco spat, suddenly angry, and Harry flinched back.

"I tried," Harry said, taking steps to calm himself mentally. He did not want to be riled up for the task ahead. "Just, wait until the end of the feast, or give it to him before you leave tomorrow."

Draco shook his head again, and Harry gave a half smile. "I have to go now." And then he was gone, back to Draco he began to climb stairs and was out of sight. This is it, he thought to himself. I finally feel normal, after all these years.

* * *

There was a loud crash in the hallway followed by something rather solid slamming into the outside of his locked door. And then there was frantic pounding and Draco's harried voice carrying through from the other side.

"Open it! OPEN IT OPEN IT OPEN IT OPEN IT-" When the door swung open by Severus' wand, Draco fell inside and landed heavily on the floor, standing up in a panic. Knowing that by nature Draco did not scare easily, his mind drifted to thoughts such as the return of the long dead dark lord, or the grave injury of one of his Slytherins.

"What is it?" He asked, instantly alert.

"It's Harry!" Draco half shouted, out of breath as his asthma demanded he be after such a prolonged run down through the castle.

Severus stood straight and his face hardened. "Excuse me?"

"He's on the North Tower sir! He's going to kill himself!"

Severus narrowed his eyes. "That is not funny Mr. Malfoy, and you will be spending the feast in detention for such a-"

Draco held up a crumpled piece of parchment and cut him off. "I'm not joking! He's gone to end it!"

Suddenly Severus' chest tightened uncomfortably, and he asked in as calm a tone as he could, "And you know this how?"

Narrowing his eyes, angry now, Draco struck out with, "Because I'm the only one he's got. Father charged me with looking after him since you wouldn't, and I saw it in his eyes you stupid son of a-"

Draco never did get to finish his sentence however, as Severus had hurtled past him out of the office and away up through the castle. He never saw the mixed look of worry and relief etched across Draco's face as he promptly collapsed into a visitor's chair, too lightheaded and out of breath to fetch anyone else.

Severus felt as though he had never run so fast in all his life. What he would say when he got there, he did not know. It was not that he was running to save his son, he told himself, but that he was running to save a student. He was a professor after all, and was charged with the safety of all students, even one he had spent so long despising.

As if in a dream, he felt his legs would never move fast enough to get him there in time, and he prayed there would be some time to talk sense into the boy. Calm and collected, Snape reminded himself as he hurried up the ladder to the rooftop of the North Tower, "Calm and collected and-" the sight of Harry there standing on the battle ramparts in the fading light took his breath away. There was his son, ready to kill himself, and he lost all control he liked to imagine that he kept such a tight rein on in times of desperate need. Suddenly all the despise and anger he had been feeling over the last three months seeped back into his heart and he stood there and crossed his arms.

"Time to end your little stunt Potter," he said with a scowl. "This is not an appropriate way to draw attention to yourself."

Harry didn't answer, and he couldn't see the hurt in the boy's eyes since he was facing away, silhouetted darkly by a sun the boy considered that he would never see rise again.

"He- he wasn't supposed to give you that letter until tomorrow," Harry said very, very quietly, almost too soft for his father to hear, and Harry feared to turn around and spy his father scowling at him for yet another unworthy thing he had failed at. He could not fail at this.

Heart throbbing a little too much for his comfort suddenly, Severus narrowed his eyes again and tried to keep composure, but found himself failing, angry still that the boy thought he could win people's sympathy in such a way. When long moments had passed however and it was becoming apparent that the boy was not coming down, at least not back to the tower roof, he decided to change tact's.

"I didn't think Prince Potter cared about his parentage so," he taunted, hoping to anger the boy into backing down. "Not with the way he turned his back on his friends and ignored his not good enough father for the last three months." His chest grew painfully tight then as he became aware suddenly of a feeling he did not realize lay buried inside. He didn't feel good enough himself.

Looking back up at the boy, he saw the sixteen year olds head hung in shame. "Maybe it was that I cared too much," he whispered, although the wind caught it and brought it back to Severus' ears, making him stiffen with the realization that the boy was in more pain than he had cared to notice of late. A memory that felt distant of the boy trying to tell him something before tearing out of his office a few nights before flooded back to him. Harry had been seeking help, and his own father had turned him away.

A small sob brought Severus' attention back to Harry's back again, and he heard the boy struggling with himself. Uncomfortably aware of the fact that he was still standing on the edge of a very tall tower, Severus beckoned, "At least have the courage to turn and face me like a man before you hurtle yourself off."

Harry turned, footing unstable and for a brief moment Severus feared he would fall, but then he stood firm again, facing him with such an agony in his eyes as Severus had never seen before in someone so young. Not a man, he corrected himself, but a child.

Voice and body shaking, Harry asked, "Why do you hate me so much?" and then he slipped and was gone over the side of the tower. Faster than Severus would have thought possible, he was at the side and gripping the child's franticly squirming wrist, terror filling the green eyes below as he looked to the distant ground and then back up to the one thing keeping him from certain death.

"Don't you dare let go Potter," Severus gritted out with a look of determination. Scared eyes met his as the boy gave the smallest shake of his head. Dangling like an awkward doll on a string, Harry flailed and tried to grab on with his other hand, not strong enough to manage in the end.

"Use your feet," Severus directed as he reached forward with his other hand to get a better grip on Harry's arm and his fingers found purchase on the thin sweat jacket for a moment before slipping.

"Please," Harry squeaked, and for a moment he considered asking him to let go, to let him slip away, but seeing the determination in his father's eyes, glinting like a long lost imagination of hope, he said, "pull me up," instead.

With the last bit of strength he had in his tired arms, Severus hauled the thin teen up over the ramparts and onto the roof, where Harry stood steady for a moment, and then collapsed on the ground, pale and unconscious.

Stunned, Severus watched him for a moment, trying to verify that he was indeed still breathing, and then stooped down and scooped the light boy into his arms, and carried him down through the castle to safety.

He had been at the boy's bedside since had carried him there and laid him down gently. He listened to Poppy's diagnosis and fought with himself internally in an epic way about the way things had happened. You are not good enough for him, he had to remind himself every time he thought of taking the boy home for him to recover there. You have already failed him, and will continue to do so in every way. The side that wanted to leave this place with his son fought back valiantly however. Do you want to be part of the cure, or continue to be part of the disease? If you take him, you can try to repair some of the damage you have so foolishly inflicted. And if you do not... then you cannot stay here if he is to continue school because you will only cause more damage by ignoring him.

Hand over his eyes as he sat hunched in the wooden chair next to Harry's bed in the early evening sun, he sighed and closed his eyes.

"You haven't slept Severus."

He opened his eyes and peered out around his hand to see Pomfrey checking Harry's vitals again. He cleared his throat.

"I uh..." he shook his head, at a loss for words for the first time in so long. "I don't know what to do." His voice was quiet and without direction.

She eyed him carefully for a long moment, before responding. "He's very ill Severus. The prolonged depression and lack of a consistent diet has opened up his immune system to the Wizarding Influenza. He cannot go back to the Muggles he lives with because they will not know how to take care of him in his current condition. He is welcome here for the summer, but given the circumstances, I do not think it would be good for stay, and neither does the Headmaster."

When Severus didn't respond, she continued, "Minerva is considering taking him home with her tomorrow if the Weasley's decline to take him in."

Leaning further forward and running a hand through his hair he said, "They will not take him. Two of their children have not been exposed to the virus and Molly will not risk the health of her children. Mr. Weasley has also made it clear that he will not tolerate his former best friend now that his parentage is different than previously thought."

She nodded. "Minerva it is then. I'll send a message down to her this evening after dinner so that she can prepare a room for him."

"And that's it then?" he asked, looking up to meet her eyes.

She surveyed him quietly again and nodded. "As far as I know, there are no other available options, so yes, that is it then. And I suggest you go and get some sleep before you end up here in Harry's condition. It will be better if you're not here when he wakes in any case."

Too tired to truly consider what she said, he stood and obeyed, taking his leave to return to his quarters where a soft warm bed beckoned him after such an emotional 24 hours. Despite exhaustion though, he returned to his office, where he promptly spied a crumpled piece of parchment on the floor where Draco had left it the night before.

Unsure if he wanted to know what was inside, he picked it up and was surprised to find the name Dad, written carefully on the outside. He had perhaps expected an explicative instead of such a personal term. Curiosity finally drew him in and he found his breath caught as he sat down in the chair Draco had occupied the night before.

‘Dad. I loved you and you didn't even know it. I just wanted to apologize for being so unworthy of everything. I never meant to be a burden on you or mum. I wish things could have been different. I wish I could have deserved your love. Please don't let Draco feel bad over what I did. I know he's been watching over me.'

I am the disease, he concluded, heart sinking. I have been the disease to this child, the one to eat him up and spit him out time and again. Disheartened he shook his head, knowing he was just like his own father had been to him, with the exception that Harry had taken things harder than Severus had as a child. Severus' heart had grown cold and calloused, but Harry's had grown soft and had been ripped in two, so much so that he felt he could no longer deal with the burden alone. And when he had asked for help dealing with things, Severus had turned him away.

An unbidden thought crept into his mind then, eating at him like the disease that had once tried to consume him as a child. ‘Here lies Tobias J. Snape.' That was all his father's lonely tombstone read, set apart in a dark graveyard alone. There had been no funeral or memorial service, nor had there been any mourners. That is where diseases end up, he reminded himself. Just an empty memory, unwanted for all the pain it was worth. Just an ugly memory best forgotten.

And Severus did not want to be forgotten. Aside from the fact that he did want somebody to care for him as Lily once had, he also wanted somebody to care for. He wanted Harry, and he wanted to be everything the opposite that his own father had been to him.

Crumpled paper still in hand, he rose, determined to make things right.

* * *

"I really don't think this is a good idea Severus, the Headmaster will not approve."

"The Headmaster does not hold parental or custodial rights to my son," Severus said, deeply ashamed inside that they now thought him incapable as well as a hazard to Harry's health. It was no business of theirs, he tried to tell himself, before being reminded that for a long time they were the ones caring for his son, both before he knew and before he was willing.

Poppy tsked and left the room before returning with a number of potions and other phials.

"You know as well as I that I can't do anything for the depression, I'll charge you with undoing what you've done. But the influenza I can help. He's to get one dose of the blue bottle with every meal, one of the red before bed, and one of the green when he's nauseous, but no more than twice a day."

Severus nodded as he took the potions and packed them into a small suite case made especially for housing fragile potion bottles.

"He'll be weak for a while yet because the virus is unkind on his system. When he starts gaining strength back you'll know he's recovering, but it may be a week or more before you see any real change. My guess is that he's been feeling the effects of the virus for at least two weeks already."

Nodding again, Severus gathered Harry's wand and glasses off of the bedside table and looked around to verify that he had not missed any other belongings. He had spent the evening packing and going through his son's things in Gryffindor tower and had already sent them ahead through the floo to his home outside of Letham so that he could gather his son in the morning before Minerva got the chance. And now it was finally time to do what he should have done long ago.

"Harry." A gentle shaking roused the boy from a deep sleep, and he cracked his eyes long enough to see his father standing over him, gentle hand on his shoulder.

"It's time to go."

"Where?"

"Home."

Frowning as he tried to swallow but found himself unable because his throat was so dry, Harry cleared his throat instead and asked weakly, "Is this a dream?"

Severus shook his head, and Harry closed his eyes again, wishing never to wake up from this one, wonderful dream.

Harry had been vaguely aware for days now that this was not a dream, or if it was, he was in a deep coma somewhere, probably in the Hospital Wing or a loony bin. He felt colorblind almost, one day blurring into the next as Snape... his father? Severus? brought him warm, wholesome food, fed him medicines, fluffed his pillow now and again, and even tucked him in (he swore it was true) even though the man did it when he believed Harry to be asleep.

Harry felt overly weak and Snape explained to him that he had contracted the wizarding influenza, a long feared disease in the wizarding world that with proper care would dissipate after a few weeks and he would be well again.

"Why did people fear it so much?" Harry asked one day when he felt able to speak without throwing up all over the floor, as he had done on his first day there.

"Because before these potions it wiped out much of the wizarding population throughout the world. From millions to thousands, perhaps even more."

"Oh," Harry said, throat dry.

Severus looked around the spartan room that was Harry's now. "You may unpack your things when you feel able, and may decorate as you see fit provided nothing inappropriate or disrespectful of the female kind is found here." Packing Harry's things in Gryffindor tower had given him some insight into his son's life, which Quidditch teams he rooted for, what some of his grades were, the overlarge and faded clothing he owned, but he had not seen anything derogatory towards women there. Just in case, it was a good rule to start off with seeing as he was soon going to be a 17-year-old boy.

"If you wish to read, I will unpack some of your books, or bring something to you from the library downstairs."

"There's a library?"

"Yes."

Harry sighed. This was probably the most they had spoken to one another in the four days since he'd been there, mostly because Harry was too ill to think too much about what to say.

"I want to get out of bed... aside from the bathroom," he clarified. Snape had been helping him to the bathroom since Harry didn't yet have his balance. At least the man had some sense of privacy, Harry thought, remembering how he would leave him alone once he was there.

"When you feel able, you may move freely about the house and grounds as you like. You may even visit Malfoy manor two properties down if you so wish. I believe there is a path that connects ours and theirs through the back of the Haworth's and Calgary's properties."

Harry cleared his throat. "Ours?"

Severus frowned, uncertain of what the question entailed at first until he remembered saying that the property was theirs. "Being my son, this property and home is also yours. Please treat it with respect as I have done, and it will stay in good repair for your children."

A long sigh escaped Harry's lips, and Severus suddenly felt the need to get up and do something. "I will be back with lunch in an hour if you feel up to eating. Until then," he reached into Harry's trunk and withdrew a Muggle novel Hermione had once given him about a boy named Brian whose plane had crashed in the woods. Setting it on the table, he gave Harry a last look and left the room.

Eying the novel for a few moments, Harry decided he didn't feel like reading. He didn't feel like much of anything in fact. He really wanted to attribute it to the illness, but he couldn't deny that he had been feeling this way for months now, depressed and lethargic and unwilling to do much of anything, let alone try to comprehend what was happening right now.

It had taken him almost dying, followed by him becoming very ill to get his father's attention. What would happen when he got better? Wasn't Snape just taking care of him because he had to? Harry was uncertain because for somebody only doing what he had to, he was certainly being very nice to him. He didn't complain once when Harry barfed all over his shoes, twice, or when Harry was unable to eat the meals the man had prepared for him, or even that Harry hadn't yet been able to get up out of bed to do chores. Normally by now he'd be back with the Dursleys scrubbing floors, weeding the garden, and getting the snot kicked out of him by Dudley and uncle Vernon.

Body aching from laying in bed for so long (6 days now since his father had rescued him from certain demise on the tower), Harry was unwilling to lay there any longer. Head pounding as he pushed himself up off the bed, he waited for the room to stop spinning and then stood slowly, trying to remain steady. He didn't feel like putting posters up on the walls, he didn't feel like putting his clothes in the wardrobe, and he didn't feel like putting his books away in the desk. "What then, you stupid oaf?" he scolded himself aloud. Why the hell did you get up?

Spying one of the two windows across the room for the first time, he crossed hardwood floor and barely caught himself from flying face forward when he tripped over his own feet. Steady once again, he made his way to the window and sat on the edge of the desk as he looked out. There were pale yellow fields beyond the house, and beyond that there was a thicket of dark green woods which looked like a tempting place to go and hide.

He propped open the window, longing to be free of the stiflingly hot room, and breathed in deep as cool, refreshing air rushed in. He wasn't sure where they were, but he thought that for the start of June it should have been warmer.

Head out the window Harry realized he was on the second floor of the house. Spying the window on the other wall, he slid off the desk and wobbled on unsteady legs towards it before propping it up as well. Out this window he could see more fields, and in the far distance a single large house and perhaps even a road.

Feeling weak again, Harry thought about trying to make it back to the bed, but before he took a step his legs buckled and he crumpled, landing heavily on the floor under the window. "Fantastic," he breathed, and set to work trying to get back to the bed.

* * *

Severus was uncertain. What did he say to the son whom he had so callously treated? How did he give comfort to the boy who was ill because of him? What did you want your father to say to you, he asked himself, trying not to recall the shabby house on Spinner's End in London. All he'd ever wanted was confirmation of love and some sign his father cared, but it never came. Hands on the counter to hold himself steady, Severus cursed himself. He didn't think about it because he didn't like to feel like that little boy all over again. And then he cursed again knowing that Harry felt like that because of him. It was as if Tobias reincarnate had taken over his son's body in order to torture his grandson, and Severus was suddenly determined not to let it happen.

A loud thud from upstairs drew his attention, and he hurried out of the kitchen to see what had happened. Up the stairs and into Harry's room, Severus saw his son struggling below an open window to get up off the floor, but his strength had failed him and he was frustrated with himself for not having control over his body. At least anger was worth something, he told himself, something more than depression.

"Do you want my help?" Severus asked from the doorway. He did not want to deprive the boy the dignity of getting himself up if he could do it, but if he could not then he would help him back to the bed.

Harry looked up suddenly and the anger left him, leaving his face blank once again as it had been before, depressed and empty. He nodded, and Severus moved over to him and lifted him under the arms and carried him back to the bed.

"It is good that you were able to get up on your own, but you must try not to over do it or the recovery will take longer."

Harry nodded, and Severus brought Harry's wand to him and set it on the small bedside table. "When you want to close the windows, try this. Perhaps after breakfast tomorrow you will have regained some more of your strength. He left Harry alone again, and Harry closed the windows with his wand with a loud thud, suddenly angry for some reason he couldn't pin down.

* * *

Over the next few days, more of Harry's strength returned and he was able to move about his room for longer periods of time. Severus helped him down the stairs so that Harry could start eating in the kitchen with him, and showed him to the library and other parts of the house such as the living room, the den, the back porch, and even the secret entrance to Snape's lab behind the bookcase at the end of the downstairs hall.

Harry really wanted to feel as if he were enjoying this new, tidy, cozy house that he was not required to clean like a house elf, but could not bring himself to feel anything other than melancholy. It was almost as if he had hurt for so long that he did not how to feel anything else now. Even his momentary little bursts of anger from a few days before had vanished, and he felt empty all over again. Just as Harry was wishing for some other company than Snape, who seemed to be feeling as awkward as Harry felt nothing at all, a visitor appeared one afternoon, asking for Harry.

Draco walked into the living room where Harry sat on the couch looking out the window, and Harry was suddenly grateful that he had decided to wear jeans and a t-shirt today instead of pajamas from breakfast until dinner.

"Hey," Draco said, standing still as if he was unsure if he were wanted there or not. Snape had let him in but had gone to do something else instead of watching the awkward exchange.

"Hey," Harry replied, taking in the boy's casual summer clothing. At school Draco wouldn't be caught dead in a pair of shorts, even the khaki ones he was in now. When his eyes moved up to Draco's green polo shirt, Harry almost snorted, thinking that even in the summer holidays Draco held true to Slytherin colors.

"What?" Draco asked, hands in his pocket.

Harry shook his head. "Nothing. Your shirt's just green is all, like Slytherin."

Draco looked down and then shrugged. "And? Yours is red like Gryffindor."

Eyes widening a little, Harry looked down to realize it was true. Without thinking about it he had put on his favorite shirt that morning, the deep red one that reminded him of Gryffindor.

"Shut up," Harry said, a little embarrassed, but it wasn't rude and Draco didn't take it as such.

"You want to go out in the fields and catch pixies?"

Harry shrugged, and said, "I guess." He stood up, making sure his legs were steady, because he'd never forgive himself for stumbling in front of Draco, and then followed him out of the room and out the front door.

The sunshine felt wonderful and improved Harry's spirit marginally because he hadn't been outside in so long.

They walked in silence for a while before Draco stopped and pulled out his wand and started shooting gusts of air into the tall wheat around them. They heard a few small giggles, but other than that nothing happened. Harry had never been pixy hunting before, so this captured his interest in a way nothing had since what he had perceived to be his last few days on earth.

"So, did he stick you in the secret dungeon yet?"

Harry frowned. "The secret dungeon?"

"You know, the one he puts naughty children in before he eats them." Draco laughed then at the frown on Harry's face to let him know he was joking.

"When I was younger and I would come here in the summer, uncle Severus would threaten to stick me in his secret dungeon when I wasn't being good. He said he'd feed me to my parents and they wouldn't like the special stew he made out of me because I would taste sour like my attitude."

Harry gave a little laugh then too at the absurdity of it, but remembered similar stories he had believed as a small child.

They were quiet for a short while as Draco continued to try to rouse the field fairies out of hiding, and then asked, "So it hasn't been too bad, has it? I mean, rotten luck being sick for the start of summer, but he's not terrible, is he?"

"I have my own room," Harry said in thought, realizing that it had been given to him freely, and not begrudgingly such as Dudley's second room had been when he was 11. "And he told me I could roam around when I wanted."

"Are you allowed to come visit us?" Draco asked hopefully, and Harry nodded.

"Come on, I'll show you the path then." He motioned for Harry to follow, and they went at a slow pace so that Harry didn't use up too much of his precious regained energy.

"See here," Draco said when they reached the thicket of trees. "This path leads straight through to our house. It's three stories and white with big pillars, so you'll know it when you see it. My room is on the side on the second floor. I'll put a green banner out the window so you'll know which one it is," Draco said in a hurry, as if he expected Harry to sneak over there in the night sometime just to find him.

"Why?" He suddenly had to know.

"Hm?" Draco turned to him, eyes bright, and Harry wondered how he could hide such a friendly face at school all the time when he was trying to be rotten to Gryffindors.

"Why are you doing this? You... watched me at school, and now you're being nice to me."

Quiet for a moment, Draco said, "Maybe because you needed a friend, and nobody was kind enough to be one to you."

"But you've always been so mean before," Harry pressed on, not wanting Draco to get mad, but feeling the absolute need to know.

The blond boy looked ashamed all of the sudden and said, "I was rotten, and I'm sorry. I don't know if I can explain to you the pressure other Slytherins put on you to be like that when you get into the house, but when you're a first or second year, you think it's cool to do, to put others down. It's not until you get older that you realize it's not so great anymore, but by then you're supposed to keep up to their expectations. I am sorry though."

"So, you didn't have to change," Harry said quietly, kicking his shoe into the dirt.

"Dad asked me if I wanted to turn out like Uncle Severus, all angry and alone like, feared and hated."

Harry looked up then, and Draco finished, "And I said no."

Trying to swallow past the lump in his throat as Harry realized yet again that the Malfoy's were perhaps not who he had thought them to be, he said, "Thanks," before swaying on his feet alarmingly. Draco stepped forward and grabbed Harry's arm to steady him.

"C'mon. Better get you back before Uncle has a fit over you."

"What, don't want to carry me back?" Harry teased, the hint of a smile on his face.

Draco laughed as they walked and said, "Nope, and he'd have a fit over how dirty and bruised you were from me dragging you."

It was meant to be a joke, Harry knew, but as they walked, he realized that Draco probably would drag him all the way back, because he wasn't strong enough to carry him as his father was. But isn't that what a real friend did? Dragged you back to reality, even though it was a struggle? And Harry suddenly realized what a real friend was, for the first time, and he looked like Draco.

Harry looked up from Hatchet, the book he'd finally picked up to read. It was the day after Draco had come to visit, and boredom had finally gotten to Harry enough to make him pick up the book.

"My clothes?"

Severus nodded. "They are not exactly fit for a young man of your stature." He held up his hand at the frown that had come over Harry's face to forestall a misunderstanding. "I am not criticizing your choice of clothing, I am only suggesting that they are too large for you and perhaps it is time to buy clothing that will fit your frame. Since you have regained most of your strength, I thought you might enjoy a trip to Diagonalley and Muggle London in order to procure new clothing."

Harry bit his lip. He was getting a bit bored, but he wasn't sure if he felt up to going out and being seen with his father just yet. He was certain by now that the whole world knew and would be staring down their noses at him as other students at Hogwarts had done.

"If you prefer to spend the majority of the trip in Muggle London, I will not be opposed," Severus said, sensing his son's anxiety.

"Ok," Harry said hesitantly.

"Good, gather your wand and money pouch then."

Surprised that his father meant they were leaving right then, Harry did as he was told and put his wallet in his back pocket, a gift from Hermione a few months before they had found out that their Potion's Master was Harry's father.

"Here," Harry looked up to see Severus holding out a handful of Muggle notes and a handful of Galleons."

"For me?"

"You will need money for clothing, will you not?"

"I have a vault at Gringotts-" he started, but Severus raised a hand to quiet him again.

"As well as a clothing and supply allowance from me," he said.

Harry closed his mouth. He was not accustomed to being given money freely. He had always been careful with his parents- with his mother and James' money because he knew he might really need it someday to rent a flat or something.

He took the money quietly and put the Muggle notes in his wallet and the Galleons in his money pouch, trying not to think of how strange it was to still consider James Potter his father when in reality his father was alive and well standing there before him, ready to take him on an outing.

Thankful that they weren't using the floo, which always made Harry queasy, he waited patiently as Severus explained the basics of apparation to him as an impromptu lesson, before motioning for Harry to take his arm so they could leave.

A moment later and they were in a deserted Alley of London.

"This is an alley hidden from Muggle eyes by magic," Severus explained. "There are several others throughout, which I may show to you once you are well enough to begin apparation lessons."

They made their way out of the alley and into the bright sunlight and down the street. Harry had never been shopping in Muggle London before. Aunt Petunia sometimes took him along to get Dudley's clothes, but made him sit in the car outside and watch as Dudley came out with large bags of name brand shirts and pants.

"I don't know where to go," Harry said, and Severus waved his worry off with his hand.

"I know of a few places," he said. "I grew up in London down the street from your mother and aunt, and when I was old enough to get a job, I began purchasing my own clothing."

Harry looked him over briefly and wondered if he was being lead to a store where they only sold black slacks and black button up shirts. After a five minute walk down the bustling street, they entered a small clothing boutique that appeared to only sell young men's clothing, and thankfully, there were more choices then black, although there was an entire section dedicated to it.

"I believe this is where Draco gets some of his clothing," Severus said, and as Harry looked, he saw the same pair of khaki cargo shorts he had seen Draco in a few days before.

"We will stop at other stores before we go home, but try to pick out clothing to get you through the summer as well as the next school year."

Harry nodded, remembering the wad of cash in his wallet, and moved off to browse through the store. He felt strange, as if the clerk and his father were both watching him, but when he looked back the clerk was occupied with a newspaper, and his father was looking at pairs of shoes along one wall.

It wasn't long before Harry had taken a variety of short and long sleeve shirts, a few pairs of shorts and pants, and some socks and underwear up to the counter. He had spied a red and tan hat that he wanted on a rack of hats, but had decided against it because he didn't want to squander the money on things he didn't need.

"Are you finished?"

Harry looked up at Snape and nodded, before noticing the same baseball cap he had been looking at in his father's hand. So he had been watching him.

They paid for the purchases and outside in another alley, Severus shrunk the three bags down to the size of a business card and stuck them in his pocket, leaving the hat out for Harry, who gratefully crammed it onto his head to hide his scar and unruly black hair. At least this way if they did go into Diagonalley he wouldn't be so noticeable.

Severus took him into another clothing shop, where he told Harry to pick out a pair of sneakers, a pair of hiking boots, and a pair of sandals. While he could tell that his son was sorely tempted to pick out a bright red pair of sneakers, he thankfully refrained and instead bought a white and blue pair. They also purchased a winter jacket, gloves, another red hat, this time a beanie, and several lighter sweat jackets.

"We will go to one more store down the street before we venture into Diagonalley for lunch and a few more items of clothing and supplies."

Harry was unsure just how much clothing one person could have. They'd already bought more new clothes than Harry had ever had in two or three years combined in his time at Hogwarts, and he wondered what was left to buy except pajamas maybe.

The next store they went into had nothing to do with clothing however. It was a department store called IKEA, and Severus led Harry over to the large furniture section.

"The desk and other furniture in your room were spares from Hogwarts that I must return. You will need to pick out a bed, a desk and chair, a lamp, a side table, and perhaps a comfortable reading chair. You may also pick out any posters or other decorations you see fit, such as an area rug, blankets and sheets, and curtains."

"Uh," Harry said, looking around, "I don't know where to start. I don't really have any money left in my pocket." In truth he wasn't sure he liked having this much money spent on him because he didn't think he deserved it.

"Do not worry yourself over the money. The room needed to be furnished regardless, and you should have furniture to your liking."

Harry nodded slowly, still feeling overwhelmed. Seeing this, Severus lead him to the twin beds and started pointing out benefits and disadvantages of certain frames.

"This one's ok," Harry said, coming to one with wooden drawers underneath. He could put his books in there, he thought, and at a raised eyebrow from his father Harry said, "I like this one."

Severus made a note of the model number on a small pad of paper withdrawn from his pant pocket, and they moved onto the desks where Harry picked one out along with a blue chair on wheels, a red desk lamp and wooden bedside table, Severus making notes as they went.

At Snape's insistence they went through the décor isles and Harry was made to pick out a rug (large red and tan checkers), an overstuffed red chair, and two new posters, these ones of baseball, which Severus learned that his son also liked. They had just finished picking out bedding (also red and tan) and were about to leave the store when Harry froze and Severus turned to see what was wrong.

Following his son's gaze, he found a large, beefy man and a large beefy boy staring at electronic Muggle game consoles.

"But I want them both father! I have to have them both to play all of the games that you're going to buy me for my birthday next week!"

"But how will you play them both with one TV in your room Dudders?"

The large boy gave his father a suggestive look and his father nodded. "Of course we'll have to buy you a second TV for your room, and an entertainment center for them both now that the wall has been knocked down to make your room bigger."

The boy gave a smug smile and turned in triumph to see Harry watching them, mouth wide open. He didn't seem to recognize him at first in the newer clothes and red hat, and said, "What are you staring at punk?"

His father looked over at Harry and Snape now too, and his eyes narrowed in recognition.

"Take off that ridiculous hat boy, and who did you steal these clothes from, huh?" He was advancing on Harry, but Harry was frozen to the spot, unable to move as he had been taught not to when he was in such trouble. The more you struggled, the more lashings you got, he remembered, and braced for an impact that never came.

"Excuse me, are you talking to my son?" Severus was in between them now, speaking in a deadly tone that took Vernon a moment to register.

"You're son? This boy is my nephew and I know for a fact his father is dead. The worthless little whelp didn't come home for the summer so that the could shirk his chores!"

Harry watched in awe as Severus took a step towards uncle Vernon without even drawing his wand, and uncle Vernon took a step back. "This is my son, and you are never to threaten or speak to him in such a way again, lest you find yourself turned into something irreversibly unpleasant, do I make myself abundantly and overwhelmingly clear?"

Vernon's nose crinkled in disgust and he grunted something Harry didn't hear before grabbing Dudley's wrist to a loud protest and stomping off and down the stairs to the first floor of the department store.

Once he was sure the unpleasant man was gone, Severus turned to Harry, who was still frozen to the spot. "That was your uncle?"

Harry nodded.

"Are you fit to continue?"

Harry nodded again, and they made their way downstairs where Severus placed and paid for an order of all the things they had looked at before they left.

Meeting Vernon Dursley had not been a pleasant experience, and judging by the way he had treated his nephew, Severus began to see why the boy was wearing rags compared to the way his cousin was dressed. Never in his life had he seen a parent be so controlled by their own child, and it was wonder that Harry had not turned out like his beefy cousin. Perhaps it was a miserable blessing in disguise he decided, miserable for the way he had been treated, and a blessing for the way he had turned out in Severus' absence.

They apparated quietly to Diagonalley where Severus tried to persuade Harry to pick out some Quidditch posters, but the boy had closed in on himself again and was no longer interested. Severus picked out several posters anyway including one of the Weird Sisters, a band he knew many of his older Slytherins liked, and one with the Gryffindor lion on it, which happened to list the current Gryffindor team with Harry as it's Captain.

After a subdued lunch, Severus left Harry to his own devices outside while he went into an apothecary to pick up some supplies he was low on, and looked out the window a few minutes later to see Harry conversing with Ronald Weasley. It was a short conversation ending in Weasley making a rude gesture and stomping off, leaving Harry staring at his shoes. Severus finished his transaction quickly and made his way back outside.

"Am I to assume he still wishes nothing to do with you?"

Harry shrugged, hat in his hand now instead of covering his hair. Apparently it hadn't worked to conceal his appearance.

"Then allow me to make a suggestion that is for your own peace of mind: perhaps it is better to let him go than to continue to be hurt by someone that doesn't have the decency to care."

Thinking back on his words later in the evening, Severus would realize that perhaps saying that yet another person didn't care about Harry might not have been the way to go, but the message still got across he hoped. Harry needn't put up with having his feelings stamped on in such a way, and before Harry went to bed that evening, he told him so again.

Later in the night Severus was woken by a muffled shout coming from Harry's room. He stood in the doorway for ten minutes watching as his son struggled in a dream, begging not to be beaten by his uncle, begging for forgiveness when he need not from his former friend. At that moment, silhouetted in the doorframe as Harry finally fell back into a peaceful sleep, Severus realized that much like himself, his son had a hard time letting go of old wounds.

Click. Click. Click.

Crack.

Harry had been roused by the strange clicking sound, but drawn out of bed when the window above his new desk had cracked loudly. The sun was just coming up and he rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. Nightmares had been plaguing him again in the last few nights since he'd seen his uncle again, and he wished he'd been getting more than a few hours of sleep each night. His father had asked him about it, but he didn't feel like trying to explain.

I'll have to explain that, Harry thought as stood he looked at the long radial crack in the middle of his window, wondering what had caused it. He moved to the window and looked down to see a guilty looking Draco with a handful of pebbles. Harry lifted open his window and pointed to the crack.

"Are you going to explain that to him or me?"

"Are you a wizard or not?" Draco dropped the rocks and put his hands on his hips.

"Not until next week I'm not," Harry said, remembering a far off time when Ron had once asked Hermione if she was a witch or not. He tried to forget the comment as he watched Draco withdraw his wand and fix the crack.

"You're on wizard property you know. Age rules don't apply unless you're in the Muggle world."

"Really?"

Draco nodded. "They can't tell if it's you or your dad doing the magic."

From out on the short grass, Draco watched as Harry's head disappeared for a moment and then as he reappeared with his wand. "So if I bind your arms to your sides nobody will bother to come looking for you?"

Draco glared, "You would do that when I came to ask if you wanted to catch water dragons?"

Harry raised a brow. "Muggles call them lizards," Draco said exasperated. "But they're the same thing you know. The ones in the stream actually breath fire if you make them mad."

"There's a stream?"

"Yes, and if you don't hurry up they'll all be sleeping by the time you haul your butt down here."

Draco ducked as Harry suddenly threw something down at him, and closed the window. It was a gray sweat jacket, he realized too late and he picked it up and put it on in the chilly morning air. The sun had just started to come up over the horizon, and it wouldn't warm up for another couple of hours at least.

It was only a few minutes before Harry came out the back door with a red hat bearing the letter HGW in tan font across the front. He was wearing a new red sweat jacket and a pair of blue cargo shorts much like the one's Draco was wearing.

"Got new clothes," Harry muttered when he saw Draco looking him over.

"Figured," he said. "What's the HGW stand for?"

"Hogwarts. He helped me change it from ATM, whatever that meant."

"Oh."

They walked across the field and into the thicket of trees Harry could see from one of his bedroom windows. After a short while they came to a clear stream in the darkened shadows of the trees as the sun had not yet penetrated this place yet.

"What do we do?" Harry asked.

"Get in and catch dragons," Draco said with a look on his face that said, what else?

Draco waded into the cool water up to his knees and complained about the coldness of the water for a minute before he rolled up his sleeves and plunged his hands into the water, coming up with a small gray lizard with a long red tongue.

"Looks like a snake with legs," Harry commented, amazed that Draco had been able to catch one.

"This one's magic," he said. "He'll change colors if you set him on some leaves. He tossed the unhappy lizard to Harry, who caught him and picked up a green leaf, which he held next to the lizard. As promised the lizard turned from gray to green, followed by an angry hiss. Harry set him gently on the ground where he scurried away into the woods.

"There's different kinds in here, some Muggle. Don't rub your eyes if you touch a yellow one, because they're poison. The fat little brown ones bite, and the fat little red ones breath fire if you agitate them too much."

Harry grinned as Draco plunged his hands back into the water and came up with a red one who promptly tried to set Draco's hair on fire.

"I want to try," Harry said, climbing into the icy water and shivering. He had stepped into a deeper spot than Draco had and the water had gotten the legs of his shorts wet.

"The biting ones live in the deeper spots," Draco said. "Look into the water for anything that doesn't look like a rock."

Harry did as instructed, and a few minutes later when he pulled up a green toad, Draco laughed hard until Harry hurled the poor toad at him and it landed on his face, knocking him over.

"Agh!"

Harry laughed hard as Draco came up soaked, and then splashed him.

They continued catching lizards until they were sure they had all abandoned the water because of the intrusion, and then used their wands to dry themselves off and get warm. By now the sun was coming up and had helped in this endeavor.

"If you ever catch a blue one, don't let it go because they're rare and worth a lot of money," Draco said knowledgably.

"What do the blue ones do?" Harry asked as they sat on the bank looking at the shimmering water.

"They're good potions ingredients. Rub them on your tongue and you'll fall in love with the next person you can get to rub the lizard on their tongue."

"Eew," Harry said, unsure if Draco was joking or not.

"It's true it is," Draco insisted. "Dad says that's how they used to do it in the old times before there were many potions. Now they dry them out and turn them into powder which is used in love potions."

Harry sobered then, swearing he would never turn a blue lizard over to become potions ingredients. What an awful fate, he decided. One day you're swimming in the water and the next you're simmering in a cauldron. Somehow this train of thought depressed him again and he looked down at his watch.

"It's breakfast time. I should probably get back before my dad wonders where I went."

"Yeah," Draco agreed. "me too."

They stood up and Harry started away before Draco called out, "See you!"

Harry turned to wave, and then continued home.

* * *

Clink. Clink. Clink. Smash!

Harry came back into his darkened room just in time to see the rock sail through the window and land on the floor with a thud. That was an awfully large rock to be throwing at his bedroom window at ten in the evening, he thought, cursing Draco for the noise it had made.

Sure enough, Severus had appeared in the door frame from his reading downstairs a moment later, looking at the rock on the floor and then at Harry, standing there wondering what to do. With a wave of his wand the rock was gone and the window fixed as Severus moved over to the window and looked down to see a white blond face framed by blond hair.

"Perhaps we should install a ladder for Mr. Malfoy, so that we can spare the windows any more damage," Severus said, turning to Harry, whose face was now red.

"A, a ladder?"

"Unless you'd like to tell him that he is welcome to come up any time via the front or back door."

"Oh."

Severus had not failed to notice that most days Harry disappeared off to somewhere with Draco. Sometimes he was gone in the morning when Severus rose, sometimes throughout the day. This was the first time his godson had tried to rouse his son out of bed at night however.

"Go on," Severus said, waving him away with his hand. "Go get into whatever mischief it is that Draco wants you to get into, provided that it will cause no living creature any harm, and that it does not involve vandalism, alcohol or another substance that would be forbidden at Hogwarts."

Harry started to move away, but then hesitated. "I'm, I'm allowed?"

"It is summer and it is only ten o'clock. If you are back in bed by midnight then I do not foresee any issues."

"Oh, ok." Harry moved towards the door again, but Severus reached out a gentle hand to stop him.

"And do tell Mr. Malfoy to use the door next time. He likes to think he is sneaking around when I know perfectly well he always informs his parents of where he is going."

"Ok," Harry said. He almost said thanks, but wasn't sure if he should or not. He had the feeling that this was some sort of trick, that when he came home he'd be in trouble and find himself out on the street. How could Snape be so strict with him at school and so lax at home?

Harry hurried off and out to meet Draco, and Severus watched from the window as the two boys disappeared off into the night, wands lighting the way. Normally he would have been unsure of what to do with his charge, whom he had always previously assumed had needed a strong hand of discipline to keep in line. Now he felt that was far from the truth. The boy seemed to be respectful and responsible, and more than anything needed time to adjust.

Severus had not failed to notice that the purchased posters still sit rolled in a corner, and the boy's previous decorations and posters had still not found a home on the walls either. He was still depressed, was the conclusion Severus had come to, and he was still working on a way to bring the boy out of it. At least he seemed to have some peace when he was with Draco, he thought, and he left the window to go back to his reading.

* * *

"There it goes." Draco pointed up at the sky.

"What did you wish for?"

"Alyssa Leatherby."

Harry laughed out loud as he lay on his back staring up past the tall golden wheat to the dark night sky.

"You?" Draco asked.

"Alyssa Leatherby."

"Shut up!" Draco said, rolling over to punch Harry playfully in the shoulder.

"Nah, her hair is too long. It's way down past her waist."

"What did you wish for?"

Harry sighed and closed his eyes as the calm night breeze floated over him, gently sweeping through the field and through his hair. He didn't really know what to wish for. Answers he supposed. He wasn't really sure what was going on in his life right now.

On the one hand, he really liked being Draco's friend and spending time with him, but on the other hand, he really missed Ron and Hermione and knew they would probably never accept him again.

Then there was his father. He wasn't really sure what to make of him. He had been so nice, and yet Harry couldn't help but thinking that this was all a bizarre dream. He would wake up in his dorm in Gryffindor tower crying again, still hurting and alone. Or maybe he would end up back there if he messed something up really bad.

He really wanted to be free of this depression too, because it seemed that every time he started to enjoy himself, some stray thought would drag him back down again and he would be swept away in a current too strong to fight.

"Must be a big wish," Draco said quietly when Harry didn't answer after so long.

"I just don't know what to wish for is all," he said.

"Aren't you happy living with your dad now?"

Harry nodded. "I guess that's the problem. I am, but I'm not sure if he's really happy living with me. Look at how much he hated me before now. Can he just give all that hate up that easily? What happens when we get back to school? Is it back to ‘detention Potter,' ‘minus fifty points for your cheek Potter,' ‘you're the laziest scum of the earth Potter."

"Did he tell you that?" Draco asked incredulously.

"No," Harry said, "but he might as well have."

Draco wrinkled his nose as another star crossed the sky. "There it goes," he said, pointing. "See it?"

"What did you wish for?"

"That your dad would never be mean to you again."

Harry thought on that. "Why'd you wish for that?"

With a smile, his friend said, "Cause you didn't know how."

The day the letter arrived, was the day Severus had had enough. It angered him to see his son so hurt by one whom he had once received so much care.

The brown barn owl had dropped the letter in Harry's cereal one morning at breakfast before hooting loudly and flying away. He had watched as the boy had eagerly torn into the letter, only to be deeply disappointed by what he'd found.

Had Harry simply taken the letter with him when he'd sulked up to his room, Severus wouldn't have pried, but he'd dropped it on the table and gone to his room to be alone.

The writing was instantly recognizable as belonging to the youngest Weasley son, and Severus was learning to despise the boy in a way he'd never done with Fred and George, despite the constant pranks they had pulled on him.

"Dear Harry," it started. Severus had hoped the letter wouldn't be too harsh, and judging by the greeting it didn't seem that it would be. But less than a sentence later and Severus was fuming.

‘It has come to my attention that you are under the impression in all of your infinite wisdom, that you are going to be returning to Gryffindor tower upon your royal arrival back to Hogwarts. I have been elected by the other house members to inform you however, that the majority vote has decided that you shall no longer be allowed entrance to the tower because your blood is too pure for the likes of us.

Furthermore, if you insist on coming back to the tower, do not expect to be greeted warmly or to have any friends. Pureblood traitors are not allowed.

Yours sincerely, Ronald Billius Weasley the II, seventh year Prefect of Gryffindor Tower, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.'

Eyes scanning down the page further, Severus was even more disgusted to find a smattering of signatures, including those of most of the sixth and seventh year Gyrffindor boys, and some of the sixth and seventh year Gryffindor girls. He noted the names of those who had not signed, including Neville Longbottom, Ginny Weasley, and Hermione Granger, and wondered if they had refused, or had simply not gotten the chance.

Scanning the letter again Severus knew that the boy could not have written something of this nature on his own, and was reminded of the ‘charm' quills the Weasley twins now sold in their shops. Much like a quick quotes quill, you could say anything you wanted to it and it would make you sound like the prince of the land. Knowing what type of language Mr. Weasley usually used in school, he would bet ten Galleons that he had told the quill to write, ‘Hey Harry, you suck, we don't want you back, -Ron.'

Sitting down at his desk in the den, Severus pulled out a new piece of parchment and a quill and penned two letters of his own, one to the Headmaster, to which he attached a copy of Mr. Weasley's elegant little letter, and one to Molly and Arthur, asking them to please make their son cease and desist from contacting Harry, because he was causing a loss of self-esteem and feeling of self-worth. His self-restraint was perhaps not what he would have wished it to have been however, and at the end he added that the tactics Ron was using to get at his son were deplorable, especially after the type of friend Harry had been to Ron in times of need.

The letter to the Headmaster was more of a business matter, because he wanted action to be taken against those who had part in the letter, and wanted reward given to those who had refused to sign. Mr. Weasley was not acting the part of a Prefect, and Severus did not want to see the torment he would inflict on Harry once they were back at school should he retain the position.

Severus watched over the next few days as Harry refused to see Draco and steadily grew more unhappy again, closer to what he had been at the beginning of the summer. It was three days after he had sent his letters away by owl that he had come to the conclusion that if Harry didn't get better by the end of the summer, than he might need to stay home and tutor him for his seventh year for his son's mental and emotional health. He wasn't a fan of running from one's own problems, but he could not see another way, especially knowing the measures the boy had tried to take to deal with his pain in the past.

With a shudder, Severus remembered the look on his son's face as he stumbled backwards right off the battle ramparts. The image of his son trying to make up his mind of whether to let go or climb up was also seared into his memory forever.

Just thinking of checking on Harry up in his room, there was a knock on the front door, and Severus rose, prepared to turn Draco away yet again. He was persistent if anything, Severus mused, because the boy had already come by before breakfast and threatened to fly up to Harry's window on a broom if he didn't come out. Severus had long since put unbreakable charms on Harry's windows from any outside intrusions, but he had no doubt Draco would eventually drag Harry outside and down to the stream one way or another.

He was surprised then to open the door and find Molly and Arthur Weasley instead of Draco.

"We need a word with you Severus," Molly said, tone dangerous.

He nodded, figuring he would hear from them at some point because they had always been very protective of their own children.

"We must do this outside," Severus said, stepping out and closing the door most of the way. "Harry is up in his room."

Molly and Arthur exchanged looks before Arthur held up the letter Severus had sent and asked in a calmer way than Molly could, "Would you please explain to us the meaning of this insulting letter?"

Severus straightened. He'd thought the letter had been clear enough. "Starting two months before the end of the term, your youngest son began to pick on Harry by calling him names, singling him out, and telling him all manner of things unsuited to come out of a sixteen year old boy's mouth towards another human being. He continued to speak ill of my son in Diagonalley when Harry approached him and attempted to reconcile differences, and then sent an appalling letter to my son a few days ago telling him that he was no longer welcome to be a Gryffindor."

"Absurd, not our Ronald," Mrs. Weasley scoffed, throwing her hand up in the air. "You know that we have always loved Harry as if he were our own, but if he's going to be spreading rumors like this about our Ronald, then he's no longer welcome to our home or to be part of our family."

There was the sound of a door creaking quietly behind them, and Severus, Molly, and Arthur turned to see Harry standing there, pale and broken looking in the doorframe. "I never had a family before," he said quietly, visibly struggling with himself. "And when I found out I did, Ron told me I was a traitor and didn't deserve to be his friend." Slowly Harry turned and closed the door, and Severus turned back to the Weasley's. Molly and Arthur were giving each other worried looks.

"He's so pale," Molly said, hand over her mouth.

"He's been ill with the Wizarding Influenza," Severus said. "He had gotten over it but I fear the emotional strain he's been under in the last few days had brought it back upon him."

From a pocket he withdrew the letter that Ron had sent to Harry, and handed it to Arthur, who read it silently and then paled himself. "He wasn't joking dear," he told her, handing her the letter.

"Aside from the fact that I was outraged as a parent, I also sent a copy of that letter to the Headmaster as staff at the school. We do not tolerate bullying at Hogwarts, and I expect that the Headmaster may have consequences for those involved in the writing of this letter."

Molly was still too shocked to speak it seemed, so Arthur said, "Yes well, you can bet there will be some consequences at home as well. We really are sorry Severus. We never wanted any harm to come to Harry, and I don't think that Ronald realizes quite what he's done."

"Be that as it may, if Harry does not get well in the next month before school starts, he may not be returning. I cannot justify putting him under such strain when his health is clearly at risk."

"What will you do? Home school him?"

"I may, or I may send him to Durmstrang for the year. Lucius has long since been talking about sending Draco for a year abroad and I'm sure if I sent Harry that they would send Draco."

"Draco... Malfoy?" Arthur asked, giving a look inquiring why on earth Severus would want to do such a thing.

"Yes, Mr. Malfoy has been a good friend to my son during the last few weeks, and especially during the year when the rest of the school turned on him. He stuck up for Harry and informed me when he was ill at the end of the year, when no one in Harry's own house would inform a staff member."

Stricken with the thought that the Malfoy terror they'd been hearing complaints about for years from their own children had actually been a better friend to Harry than their own son, they apologized deeply once more and then left. What an undesirable thing to have to go home and deal with, Severus thought sadly, knowing how much they cared and trusted their children. To know one's own child is a bully is almost worse than having the child who is being put down.

Feeling the need to find his son and ensure that he was all right, Severus pushed open the unlatched front door and found Harry slumped on the hall floor crying.

"Harry?" No response.

"Son?" Severus kneeled down and before he knew what was happening Harry was in his arms holding on for dear life, and Severus had been knocked to a sitting position on the floor. He held on tight and struggled within himself not to do what Harry was doing and break down.

"Why?" Harry asked. "Why did you tell them?"

"Because you're my son and I love you," Severus replied. "I will always do for you what needs to be done."

Harry began to sob and buried his face in Severus' robes. His whole life was upside down and inside out. Despite that he knew it was wrong what his former friends had done, he still felt like a traitor. He was still unsure of who to believe in or what was going to happen next, and he was still in pieces over trying to reconcile it all inside of himself. He did know one thing though, and that was that his father loved him, and he had finally found the open arms he had needed so badly to take comfort in. Deep inside, he knew that he was home.

Draco was lying face down on Harry's bed flipping through a magazine full of Quidditch tactics he had brought over to share with Harry.

"Well I can't very well if you're looking through Quidditch monthly can I?"

Rolling his eyes, Draco tossed the book onto the floor and rolled onto his back to stare at the strange poster on the ceiling.

"Ok, go," Draco said, trying to imagine the strange Muggle game as he stared at the poster of the man with the large stick.

"There are two teams. One team stands in the field in different spots and some try to catch the ball and one man, the pitcher, stands in the middle and throws it towards the batter from the other team. The batter tries to hit it with the bat and run around the bases before the other team can catch it and tag him with it to get him out."

"And the point is?" Draco drawled.

Harry stuck his tongue out at him. "The point is you're hopeless. Even my dad watches baseball."

"No way, not Uncle Sev," Draco said confidently. "He's didn't grow up Muggle like you. He doesn't even have one of those picture boxes the Muggles are all addicted to."

"No but his mum was a Muggle and she took him to see baseball games."

Draco frowned. "But it sounds so boring. Look, they're so afraid they wear helmets!" He pointed at another poster Harry had just hung on the wall by the window Draco had constantly broken.

"That's so they don't get smashed in the head with the ball. It's hard like a rock and they throw it really fast, like a small Bludger coming at you trying to break open your skull."

A throat cleared behind them, and the two boys turned to see Severus standing in the doorframe with a small box in hand.

"This sounds like an unusual conversation," he commented, and Harry shrugged.

"I was explaining why they wear helmets when they go up to bat."

"Ah."

Too curious for his own good, Draco pointed and said, "Are you going to show us what's in the box?"

"Only if you determine yourselves not to scream like small children." This of course roused Harry and Draco's curiosity and they hurried over to where Severus was standing.

"I have a birthday present for you Harry. I know it's a day early, but it arrived in the mail a little early and I did not want it to escape."

"Escape?"

"Here."

Harry took the box and opened it to find a small, curious looking kitten with big round eyes, and soft fluffy brown and white fur.

"Wow, a kitten?" Harry asked, pulling it out of the box.

Draco snorted then and said, "Oh yeah, real scary uncle Sev. Bet we'll be having nightmares about this one." He looked at the kitten and then gave Harry a playful punch in the arm. Suddenly Harry dropped the creature and he and Draco jumped back because the animal had sprouted wings, turned inky red, and grown three inch long fangs and a set of scales.

"Aaagh!"

The little monster ran around the room in circles, frantic, before taking refuge behind Severus leg. It was still small enough to hold in one hand, but something with fangs that long was still a little disconcerting.

"What is that thing?" Draco asked, picking himself up off the floor.

Severus chuckled and said, "It's a changeling."

"A what?"

"Like one of the chamelion dragons you catch in the stream, it can change at will with the exception that it does not change to blend with the scenery, but with the owners mood."

Draco eyed Harry and asked, "What kind of monster is in there to turn a kitten into that?"

"I would suggest a playfully destructive one. When you punched him in the arm he probably had the urge to do the same in return, so the creature turned into something a little more destructive."

"So," Harry asked tentatively, stooping down to pick up the little monster, "will it change into anything I want?"

Severus looked thoughtful, and said, "It does have a mind of it's own. Sometimes it may refuse to change, as they can be known to be quite stubborn, especially if their owner is."

Harry held it up to Draco to see, but he wasn't willing to stick his fingers that close to the fangs.

"How about red and gold?" Harry asked it, and in an instant it shed it's scales and had long fluffy red and gold patched fur, similar to the checker rug they were standing on.

"Wow," Harry said, "It's great! Thanks!" he moved forward to give Severus a hug, and the creature changed back into a kitten again, keeping it's red and gold color.

Harry pet the animal for a moment before he paused, and asked, "When we get back to school, how will I know that it's mine if it keeps changing into other animals?"

"Because you are its owner and it will find you when you want it to," Severus replied.

"Just like that?"

"All you have to do is will it to you and it will come."

Harry grinned and handed it off to Draco, who ran out of the room with the changeling without a word.

Harry squeezed his eyes shut, and they heard a shout from Draco in the hall followed by laughter as the animal came charging back into the room and up into Harry's arms.

Hedwig watched all of this from the open windowsill with a reproachful eye, and then turned her back on them and went back to sleep.

Draco hurried back in, nursing a shallow scratch on his hand and said, "I've got to have one."

"I had to pay a trapper in Norway to find one in the deep caverns in the mountains. They are very hard to find and therefore very expensive."

Harry felt bad then that his father had spent so much money on him, but received a stern look for his trouble and went back to the kitten.

"I will leave you to your new pet then."

"Wait," Harry said. "What does it eat? Where does it go to the bathroom?"

"It eats whatever you can eat, along with grass and other plants, and it goes to the bathroom wherever you designate it to. I would suggest outside." He walked out of the room and downstairs, and could still hear the laughter of the boys playing with the monster upstairs.

"Ha ha, you can train it to go on the toilet Harry."

"You think?"

"Well if it goes where you tell it."

"And how's it going to flush?"

They watched in amazement as the creature sprouted a wing with little toes on the end like a bat, and used it to pick up a quill that had fallen on the floor.

"It has fingers," Harry said with a grin. "Guess that solves that problem."

"So what's its name? I vote on monster thing from Norway."

"Bit long. What about Sirius?" The monster growled then, and Harry said, "Ok, Remus?" Another growl, and Draco jumped in, "Draconis?" They kept on in this manner until Draco said the name Kenai, and told Harry that it meant bear. The changeling purred, and they laughed.

"Kenai it is then, little monster."

* * *

Kenai insisted on riding on Harry's shoulder, or in his jacket pocket for the next three days. He burrowed a hole through Harry's chocolate cake on his birthday, and learned to use and flush the toilet within two days. He made Harry laugh so much, that Severus wondered at the change in the boy.

Perhaps his changeling abilities wear off on its owner, he mused. He had been pleased to find that the boy had properly decorated his room now, and finally seemed to have an abundance of energy again as young men should have.

Severus was surprised too by the affection and loyalty the boy seemed capable of showing once he came out of his shell and started trusting. It seemed to Severus that the day they sat in the hall, Harry huddled in his arms and clinging to him for dear life, was the day that Harry had been able to let go of past hurts and begin to latch onto the idea of a future... a future with a family.

"Dad."

Severus looked up from the book he hadn't been paying attention to, and spied his son in his new pajamas and new Slytherin socks (courtesy of Draco).

Harry sat down on the couch next to him and leaned in to give him a hug. Despite being quite sure that seventeen-year-old boys did not give their fathers hugs, Harry was also quite sure that he had seventeen years to make up for. "I love you."

Severus sighed, for once in his life truly content. "I love you too son."

Albus had tried to let it lay, tried to give Severus and Harry their space once the truth had come out, but he'd seen how that had worked out, with Harry on the top of the North Tower, and Severus stressed out beyond all reason. No, it was definitely time to pay them a visit, and hope that his reasons weren't overtly apparent.

The best way was unannounced, so that Severus did not have time to prepare or to coach Harry on what he was allowed or not allowed to say or indicate. Albus shook his head as he walked slowly up the drive to the small house in the countryside of Letham. It was beautiful country, and he had always admired the place where Severus had chosen to settle when he had been able to afford to buy a home.

Minerva and Poppy had been worried as well, and had asked him to check up on Harry throughout the summer, but he had refused, waiting for any communication at all. When he had received the copy of young Mr. Weasley's letter he had of course taken the appropriate actions, removing the boy from the position of Prefect, and handing it instead to Neville Longbottom, who was surprised to say the least. Also, for the first time in centuries, summer detentions were sent out through the mail and sixteen students had spent five days at the castle helping Filch clean as detention, not to mention that Gryffindor house would be starting out in the negative as far as house points were concerned, a move he hoped would draw them together as a house when they had clearly moved so far apart.

‘Will you take him from there if he's being mistreated?' Minerva had asked that morning before he'd departed, and Albus had given her a nod in the affirmative. ‘Of course dear lady, I would be remiss if I did not care for the welfare of the child.'

Saying and doing were two things entirely different in nature however, as he reminded himself as he neared the front door. Severus might give up a fight to save his pride if nothing else, and there was nothing Albus could do except get Harry to testify in front of the Wizengamot to remove him from the home.

With grave expectations, Albus lifted the knocker and let it fall three times. He waited patiently, heard an ominous thump somewhere from inside the house, and then the door swung open to reveal Severus.

"Severus, my boy, may I come in?"

Severus moved aside and the elderly headmaster entered, eyeing the ever clean state that the house always seemed to be in whenever he had visited in the past.

"This way," Severus said, setting a book down on a narrow hallway table that he had been holding in his hand. He motioned for the Headmaster to follow him into the living room, and offered him a seat on the couch. They both sat down in the quiet room, and Severus tried not to grit his teeth because he knew exactly why the man was there: to check up on him and see if Harry was still alive.

"I trust Harry is recovered from the influenza?"

Severus nodded. "With surprising speed," he said, knowing that sometimes it could take months, but Harry had gotten over it fully in three weeks.

"I am glad to hear it."

Albus cleared his throat after a long silence, and Severus narrowed his eyes and failed from refraining a smile. Let him squirm, he thought bitterly. I'm capable and you can't wait to ask to speak to Harry alone, to try to convince him to leave with you.

Just then there were several loud thuds, followed by hysterical laughter and more thuds.

It was Severus' turn to clear his throat then as he shouted up the stairs, "Not in the house!"

Albus looked concerned as they heard more thuds, but then they heard a door open in the distance, followed by a herd of stampeding elephants, laughing all the way as they stormed down the stairs, past the living room, and out the front door onto the lawn.

"Was that Mr. Malfoy?" Albus asked as they heard more laughter coming from outside.

Severus nodded and motioned for the Headmaster to follow him out of the room and up the stairs. "You can see them better from upstairs."

He lead the aging wizard into Harry's room, where he was pleased to find it hadn't been torn apart by the rough housing, and pointed out the window facing the thicket of trees across the field.

Through the open window they could hear the boys laughing as they tumbled over each other several times, picking themselves up and continuing on to the woods. It took some straining of their ears, but they were also able to hear laughter and splashing of water.

"I had not realized they had become such close friends," Albus commented as he looked around the room and spied the new furniture, various posters, and multitude of things that were in shades of Gryffindor colors.

There were also newer looking jeans and shirts draped over the edge of the desk, laying on the floor in one place, and haphazardly thrown over the back of the overstuffed red chair.

"Draco slept over last night," Severus said to clarify the mess.

Albus nodded and continued to look at the room, until he spied a curious little creature napping on the pillow on the bed.

"Is that a dragon Severus?" It was patched red and gold and he could not recall seeing such an animal in his lifetime.

"A changeling," he corrected. "From Norway. It was Harry's birthday present."

"My word, a very exotic gift indeed."

Arms crossed, Severus felt particularly smug all of a sudden that the man had apparently found nothing wrong with his care of Harry up to this point. They heard more laughter from the woods off in the distance.

"This is the reason why we're here Severus," Albus said. "It's for them. We work so hard to make this world a better place, and often forget that they are the reason."

Severus nodded. "As I have come to realize."

Feeling slightly ashamed of himself for thinking so terribly of Severus and his ability to adapt and change, Albus left the house that afternoon, determined not to chance assumptions so lightly again. He had come intending to take the boy from a good home, and left determined not to.

"All right all right," Harry said, throwing the last few snacks in the bag along with his treasured new clothing, Kenai in his shirt pocket watching this process curiously.

"Surely you do not need this much for one overnight campout?" Severus inquired, coming to stand in the doorframe of the kitchen. They had packed most of the fridge and pantry away, and he had no doubt that the Malfoy pantries were running bare at this moment as well.

"Well we need the marshmallows for smores," Harry explained as he stuffed them into the already overfull bag. "And the sausages for breakfast, and the cheese to catch lizards-"

"Water dragons," Draco corrected with a roll of his eyes, but Harry ignored him and continued.

"And we needed the kettle for tea and the cups for-"

Severus held up a hand to forestall the onslaught of words, and nodded. "Clearly you have thought this out. Where will you be camping?"

Harry and Draco looked at each other and then shrugged. "A flat spot?" Harry guessed, and continued packing.

"Don't know yet Uncle Sev," Draco said. "The stream runs all the way through our property and doesn't belong to anyone on the other side. We just figured on walking until we came to a good spot."

"And you will not go farther than the Chrisholm property, correct?"

Draco nodded and Harry raised his brows signaling that he needed an explanation. As he had found repeatedly over the summer, his father and Draco knew so much more about the area than he did, such as the troll that lived in a hole in the ground a mile south that sometimes sold wizards unicorn dung for a high profit, and the mage that lived on the other side of town that made the weather hot and dry if any of the farmers angered him.

"The Hewitts live on the other side of the Chrisholms," Draco told him. "And they're all crazy. They're Muggles who are convinced that there are witches and wizards and who once tied the town mayor to a stake when he refused to make a city law stating that all citizens had to submit for a witch test."

Harry shook his head and laughed. "Did they burn him then?"

"No, but they are from America." Draco laughed then and said, "Bet they're religious too. Tell him the time they tried to corner you at the market Uncle, because you were buying the goat cheese and they thought you were going to use it in a ceremony." Draco laughed hard and Severus gave him a stern look.

"There is nothing wrong with believing in a higher power," he said, and Harry was reminded of the Bible he had seen on his father's bedside table the other day when he had been sent to retrieve something.

When they were packed and everything had been shrunken down and charmed to be light enough to carry, Severus saw the boys off with a warning not to stir up trouble amongst the neighbors. Normally he would not have allowed them to wander so far for an entire night, but there were only days left until they were to return to school, and he did not want to spoil their summer fun.

Harry and Draco had been wandering farther and farther from the Snape and Malfoy properties since Harry's 17th birthday, and afraid that Harry would rebel against what little authority Severus did have now that he was of age, he did not know how tight to reign him in or how lax to let him go. One overnight campout did not seem, terrible for two seventeen year old boys however, and Severus had grown to trust Harry more than he would have ever thought possible given his past misgivings of the boy.

Each day as Harry returned from as far as the two boys could travel on foot (which turned out to be near ten miles if they were ambitious), he would tell Severus of all the things that he had seen and discovered. For instance, there was a cave full of red fire breathing lizards at the base of a tree on the Mavis estate, a nest of green sleep dust pixies in a field just south of town, and a tree full of stinging bees on the other side of Malfoy Manor (which, Severus hoped for Harry and Draco's sake, they did not stumble into again, because his stock of sting balm was nearly depleted after their last encounter with the vile creatures).

Wondering if he should venture out at sometime in the night to check on the boys, he sat back in his favorite chair in the den and pulled out a missive from Lucius Malfoy, enquiring yet again about sending Harry and Draco off to Durmstrang, and hinting overtly that they may have an open spot on staff for a qualified Potions Master with references. He shook his head. He had considered sending Harry to Durmstrang several times over the summer, but the child seemed to be doing so much better now. He could not deny that Harry had seemed to grow more and more anxious each time mention of returning to Hogwarts came about, but that was to be expected for someone who had gone through what Harry had.

Severus was nervous too, he admitted to himself, folding the letter and sticking it in a desk drawer. He did not want to see Harry fall back into the cycle of depression that seemed so easy a pit to trip into for him.

Perhaps I will keep a close eye on him, he told himself, and cross that bridge when I come to it. He may be fine at Hogwarts, or so he tried to reassure himself, remembering his own seven years as a student at the school. Children could be cruel, and despite the hope he had held with each coming year that it would be different for him, that he would have friends, he was always bitterly disappointed. Wait and see, he told himself, just wait and see.

* * *

Harry and Draco hiked for an hour before they made it to the Chrisholm property and stopped at a flat spot next to the stream.

"What if it rains?" Harry asked, looking to the patches of blue sky beyond the thick canopy. "We'll get flooded out."

"Nah," Draco said. "It never rains this time of year, not unless the mage gets mad."

Harry shrugged and they began setting up the tent and warding against the crazy Americans on the next property. "Don't want any nasty surprises in the night," Draco said as he cast an anti-Muggle charm on the area.

Harry laughed and said, "Well I don't want to be tied to a stake and burned if that's what you're implying. Nasty way to start a day if you ask me." Draco shoved him playfully and Harry accidentally stepped into the shallow stream.

"Hey, now my shoes are wet."

"Use your wand wizard," Draco said, rolling his eyes. "You are 17 now."

Playfully Harry stepped out of the stream and put his hands on his hips. "Maybe I'll become a mage," he said, shutting his eyes shut tight. "I'll just think hard until your hair turns jet black like mine."

Draco laughed and threw a dirt clod at him, forcing Harry to open his eyes again. He pointed to his hair and said, "Still blond, see. Guess you'd better take some classes at Durmstrang then where seventh years can learn mage magic."

"Really?" Harry was intrigued. Why didn't they teach that at Hogwarts?

* * *

Lightening flashed, illuminating the dark landscape. Peering up through the screen door on the back porch, Severus cursed at the sight of a clear sky. Curse the temperamental mage who had to choose tonight to cause havoc on Letham, and on the two boys camping out somewhere in what was sure to be an unpleasant storm. He prayed that they had thought to waterproof the outside of their tent with a charm and that they had chosen to set up on high ground, because otherwise they were likely to be swept downstream, tent and all.

Calm, Severus, be calm, he told himself. Two capable 17-year-old wizards, who will take offense if you go after them before their campout has even properly begun. He sat back down on the couch with his Muggle newspaper and confirmed that the forecast was clear and warm for the night. As lighting lit up the windows once again, he flinched, and considered taking a mild calming draught. Why did being a parent mean so much worry?

* * *
Harry's first thought upon waking was that he'd had a very good dream. His second thought was that his first thought was stupid, seeing as how his hair, arms, and feet felt wet as well. He opened his eyes to see the top of the tent light up as lightening streaked across the sky, and that he and Draco were laying in three inches of cold stream water.

"Draco!" Harry said, shoving his snoozing friend hard. Draco started and sat up, hair askew on the side he'd been laying, and looking around wildly.

"What?"

Harry motioned to the water they were sitting in and then crossed his arms. "Never rains this time of year?" he asked, and Draco looked around in astonishment again before cursing and muttering something about the mage.

Just as Harry was about to suggest a water repelling charm, the tent shifted menacingly as another gush of water soaked in through the sides.

"It's not even raining," Draco complained, thinking now that perhaps they should have chosen a higher spot.

Another gus h of water and now there was almost a foot in the tent, and Harry shouted, "We're going under!"

Scrambling madly to escape the rush of water, they grabbed their bags and began stuffing clothing into them, abandoning the packages of crackers, chips, and wrapped cakes floating atop the water. Within a couple of minutes they were outside the tent, and just in time as they watched it float downstream with their snacks and sleeping bags.

"My shoes were in there," Draco complained, and Harry realized he'd left his jacket in there as well.

It was in this soaking, muddy, and sour mood that the boys arrived on Severus' back porch two hours later. He had just thrown his own coat and shoes on, ready to search for them when the door swung open to reveal them, tattered and worn looking.

"Thank God," Severus said, lowering his hood again when he saw them there, dripping all over the floor.

"Draco lost his shoes when the tent floated away, so it was slow going coming back."

"Why did you not go back to Malfoy Manor? It was a far sight closer than coming back here."

"We tried," Draco grumbled. "But it was on the other side of the river."

"You mean stream?"

Harry shook his head. "No, he means river. It was a foot deep when we set up camp and five feet deep leaving. It jumped the banks and flooded out the neighboring fields. Even part of ours is under two feet of water."

Severus nodded and instructed them to remove their clothing so that he could cast warming and drying charms on them. Before they were finished, he had already sent his doe Patronis to Malfoy Manor, informing Lucius and Narcissa that all was well.

Within minutes the boys were dry, but Severus had sent Draco upstairs to shower off because he was the more muddy of the two, and had instructed him to put on some of Harry's clothing temporarily. Severus did not know if it had been the change of environment, or just a natural growth spurt, but Harry had grown several inches over the summer already and was now as tall as Draco. Severus had needed to charm Harry's clothing bigger twice already.

"You did not think to build on higher ground?" Severus asked as he brought hot chocolate out to Harry, who was sitting on the couch wrapped in a towel.

He gave his father one of those looks that didn't need deciphering and said, "Somebody informed me that it never rains this time of year."

Severus chuckled then and took a sip of his own hot chocolate. Normally he preferred tea, sometimes something stronger, but hot chocolate had more of a calming effect on him than anything else, and he needed that after a long night of worry.

"Perhaps you can try camping out again before we return to school next week."

Harry shrugged and said, "I think I had enough of the outdoors for a while. Too bad the summer won't last longer."

"Oh? I thought you enjoyed school."

"I guess," Harry said, shrugging again. "But I never had a better summer than this one, and I never had a worse school year than the last one." He paused, thinking, and finally voiced the same concerns that Severus had been having himself.

"I don't want to go back to the way it was. What if I go back and they're all still really rotten?"

Setting his hot chocolate down, Severus looked Harry in the eye, simultaneously commanding his attention. "You have the right not to have to deal with such people Harry. Unfortunately there is not much that can be done except to stand tall and let them know they are not getting to you. They may never tire of the way they treat you, but it will deter them more if they believe their attempts fruitless. It took me more than my seven years there to understand that."

Harry sighed. Stand tall, he thought. He didn't know if that would help, but any advice was better than none at all, especially if it was coming from his father, the man whom he had come to love and trust over three wonderful summer months. Summer had the tendency to do that, he supposed, to bring people together in a way that could not be done under foul weather. He could not explain the magical feeling of cool fresh air on a summer night, fireflies and pixies lighting the fields, or the feeling of freedom running through a field, knowing he was not running from something but rather waiting to return home to tell of adventures he had had.

"You won't leave me, will you?" Harry asked, looking up into his father's eyes, already knowing the answer. "When we're back and people expect too much from us."

Putting a hand around Harry's shoulder, Severus said softly, "I will never leave you."

* * *

"There he is."

"Geeze, look how tall he got."

"Think his dad brewed a growth potion?"

"Why is he walking with Malfoy?"

"Think they're lovers now?"

There was a fit of giggles at the last comment as they passed groups of people staring at them.

"Same crap, different year," Draco sighed, bag slung over one shoulder. It had been the same the night before at the start of term feast, where Draco had discovered that he was no longer wanted at Slytherin table now that people knew he was friends with Harry.

"Stand tall," Harry said, clapping him on the shoulder.

"Words from a wise friend?" Draco questioned.

"Nah." Harry smiled and stood to his full height, determined to walk down the hall and ignore everyone. "Just from a wise father."

He left Draco standing there as he walked away, and Draco admired the strut that seemed so natural to Harry, making him look confident and uncaring of what anybody else thought. Then he jogged to catch up, giving a supreme look to those around him as he too stood tall, determined that this would not be a bad year.

Harry didn't know what had caused the change, but it was there, and Ron still wasn't speaking to him. Harry could deal with angry people. That was just a common part of his life, dealing with Uncle Vernon's fits of rage, dealing with an angry father or angry best friend, but not talking at all just made Harry feel bad, as if he should be ashamed of something he had done because other people were ashamed of him.

At least Ron wasn't taking part in the new line of torturous name calling that the Slytherins had devised. Most of the other houses found this particular type of bullying apprehensible, but Draco informed Harry that once a Slytherin ‘defected' so to speak, that their former housemates saved the best for them. In this case, they were spreading rumors at every turn that Harry and Draco had been caught in the back of the library kissing and holding hands.

"Despicable," Neville said to Harry in disgust as they sat at lunch on their fifth day of classes. A fourth year Slytherin had just walked by Harry and called him queer.

"That's just not right," Ginny agreed. She wasn't against Harry, but there had obviously been a line drawn in the sand by Ron in the previous year that she wasn't allowed to cross without losing her brother. Hermione seemed to be abiding by the same rules as Ginny.

"Thanks," Harry mumbled, pushing his potatoes around his plate. Suddenly he wished he had mage powers and could speak a spell to tie all of the Slytherin's shoelaces once they rose from the table. Harry had been warned by his father not to seek out any sort of revenge, to simply stand tall and take the higher road, but it was ever so appealing to get back at them in some way.

"Once they are over their juvenile, immature thoughts, they will regret what they have done to you. Do not live a life of regret," his father had told him just that morning when Harry had been tempted to punch a sixth year boy in the face for asking him if he could have his number to give to his gay Muggle cousin in Blackpool.

Unfortunately, Severus had not had a chance to speak to Draco about taking the higher ground before Draco had gotten himself detention for tackling a group of cackling fourth years. One of them had a manufactured picture of Draco and some unnamed boy, and they were waving it around threatening to send it to the Daily Prophet.

"Gee, welcome back to Hogwarts Draco, the place where they love to ruin your life anew each and every day," he snarked as he scrubbed floors in front of McGonagall's office. Harry had apparently volunteered himself to help by cursing at a group of Ravenclaw girls that told him that he could come be one of the girls in their group if he wanted.

"I don't get why they have to be such jerks," Harry said. "Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws can be friends with each other or Gryffindor, but as soon as a Gryffindor and Slytherin become friends..." he trailed off and sat up, forgetting that he was supposed to be scrubbing floors. "Geez, can you think what it must have been like for my mum and dad?"

Draco stopped scrubbing now too. "How did that happen anyway? I mean, aside from them I've never heard of a Gryffindor and Slytherin actually getting together."

Harry bit his lip. He had been wondering for a while now, ever since the day the potions refused to lie in Potions class in fact, but had been too afraid to ask. He feared somehow that asking his father would drive him away. "Don't know," Harry said. "I never asked."

"Well, if they can cross the line then I'd like to try. Have you met the girls in Slytherin? They're terrible, and we're all just expected to intermarry!"

Harry grinned as he sloshed some more water onto the floor with his sponge and began scrubbing again. "Oh yeah, and who would you ask out in Gryffindor?" He was afraid that Draco might say Ginny, but instead he was surprised.

"Hermione Granger. She's so smart and pretty. Bet she'd never give me the time of day though."

Stunned, Harry sat up again and asked, "Is this the same Draco that called one of my best friends a Mudblood in third year?"

Draco's cheeks tinged bright red and he looked away. "Yeah, well, that was back when it was cool to sit high and mighty in the Slytherin throne. Father wouldn't write to me for weeks when the Headmaster told him what I'd said."

"Really? I didn't think he knew."

"Hagrid told him," Draco said, "and mother's mother was a Muggle. When father did write to me again it was to say how disappointed he was and how sad mother was that I could utter such a word."

"And?"

"And I never said it again."

Harry nodded in approval. He had no idea that Draco's bloodlines weren't as pure as he had always been lead to believe.

* * *

The taunts continued over the next week, and so did the detentions, not only for Draco and Harry, but also for the foul-mouthed students whom the teachers overheard.

Severus was most displeased, and when a third letter that week from Lucius had arrived that morning, asking Severus once again to reconsider taking the boys to Durmstrang, he was sorely tempted to write back right away that he would. He did not want to fight Harry's battles for him however, and knew ultimately that the decision was up to Harry and Draco. He hated to think of the boys not having friends for their final year at school. Granted, they would have to come back and live in this wizarding community after school, but hopefully at that point some of the students would have grown up enough to realize their error.

It was with this mindset that Severus called for Harry Wednesday evening after dinner, and took him into his quarters to talk to him.

Harry sat expectantly in a leather chair, having only been in his father's private Hogwarts quarters twice now, and both within the last week and a half since they had returned to school.

"I wanted to speak to you about opportunities," Severus said carefully. Harry was listening intently, and Severus continued. "It is regarded as tradition that young wizards should go abroad, either for a year of study or go abroad for travel at some point in their early adult lives. Some of your classmates have already gone abroad for their summer vacations... Mr. Weasley for instance, went to Egypt I believe, and at some point Romania to visit his brother."

Harry nodded, remembering how excited Ron was to take those trips.

"You may have noticed that Hogwarts has had exchange students now and again from America or France, or other parts of the world, and sometimes students from Hogwarts get the opportunity to study abroad at one of the other magical schools." He paused to be sure that Harry was still with him, and he was.

"What I wanted to speak to you this evening about is taking opportunities at opportune moments. This would appear to be one of those opportune moments."

"It is?" Harry asked. His stomach squirmed uncomfortably now. He just knew that his father was going to send him away rather than deal with the trouble surrounding him.

"Indeed." Well, it was now or never, Severus told himself, and he plunged on. "In the end, it is your choice, but I wish you to consider a year at Durmstrang with Draco."

"Draco's going to Durmstrang?" Harry asked, suddenly alarmed that he hadn't heard news of this yet from his best friend.

Severus held up his hand. "As of now, no. But Lucius and Narcissa have been considering sending him to Durmstrang for a year for sometime now, and as of late Lucius has particularly been pestering me about it. Narcissa will not let Draco go so far away without a friend, and a trusted chaperone."

"Chaperone? You mean, you would be going too?" When Severus nodded, Harry launched into questions about leaving his job at Hogwarts for a year and having the money to do that, but Severus held up a hand to forestall his hurried speaking again.

"Since I have started work at Hogwarts, I have rarely had a chance to spend money on myself, aside from the purchase of our house and land. I have more than enough money saved to take a year off of work. In any case, the Malfoys have offered a living stipend for the three of us if we agree to go. Lucius has also hinted at a temporary opening for a Potions Professor at Durmstrang."

"And, and your job here?" Harry queried. "Would it be here when you got back?"

Severus nodded. "From time to time professors take teaching opportunities elsewhere, or take a leave of absence for personal reasons. Leaves of up to two years are allowed before loss of a job becomes a possibility." Harry didn't look convinced, so Severus continued with, "The year before you came to school professor Flitwick took a year off to study Aborigines charms in Australia, and three years before that Minerva took a year to visit family in America while she studied to help a wizard who had turned himself into an animagi and was unable to turn himself back."

Harry sighed. "You're serious about all of this? You want me to go to Durmstrang for my last year of school?"

"It is not a requirement, just something I wish you to consider. It would appear that this would be an opportune time to do so when so many students within the school have lost their senses. There is also no guarantee that once you choose to go to Durmstrang that you will be allowed to attend. They do not accept people on an application basis. There are interviews and tests to go through."

"I don't speak Bulgarian or whatever they speak there."

"The school is in Norway, and because there are students from a variety of countries, most students know English and all students know charms to put on themselves to make them speak and understand any language."

"Huh." That was more information than he'd ever known about Durmstrang before.

They were silent for a few moments and then Harry asked curiously, "And they have mage classes there?"

Head tilted a little, Severus nodded, not realizing his son was interested in such things. Hogwarts had one class towards the end of the year for seventh years for wandless magic, but it barely scratched the surface of the topic, and most Hogwarts graduates never became proficient at it.

"Can I think about it for a while?" Harry asked.

Severus nodded. "You may, keeping in mind that it will take at least a week to set things in order and set up interviews with the Durmstrang Headmaster and Staff."

"And if I choose not to go?"

"Then I will not be disappointed, and neither should you. I understand that Hogwarts has become a second home to you and you may not wish to leave it without heavy consideration."

Harry left his father's quarters with a lot to think about. The chance to study at another school, a chance to start over, at least for the year, was a great opportunity, but his father was right. He felt like this was his home, and he loved the castle and grounds dearly.

"What's that look for?" Draco asked him the next day during a free period they had.

"Dad wants us to go to Durmstrang for the year."

Draco raised his brows, curiosity definitely peaked. "And?"

"Do you want to go?"

Draco raised his arms and asked, "Are you serious? How could you want to stay here? Most people are so hateful and rude. This isn't a school, it's a slaughterhouse." Harry looked around the Entrance Hall, where Draco's voice had raised the attention and ire of a few others meandering between classes.

"So that's a yes?"

Draco nodded. "Besides, they have all sorts of classes there that we don't have. Mage classes and Occlumency classes, and I heard they teach martial arts too."

All of those things sounded intriguing to Harry, and he nodded as he thought.

"I guess we're going to Durmstrang then." He grinned, suddenly more excited than he could remember being in a long time. Draco jumped and gave a whoop, and they ran off to tell Severus.

* * *

The school was abuzz with rumors about Draco and Harry transferring to Durmstrang.

"Is it true?" Ron asked quietly, coming up behind Harry in the hall one day.

Harry turned, unaccustomed to hearing Ron's voice directed at him.

"What?"

"Is it true? They say you're going to Durmstrang."

Harry shrugged. "I'm going to try. We leave tomorrow for interviews and a tour of the school. My dad says the school year is shorter there so we'd be back for the last two weeks of classes here to take NEWTS and graduate."

"And you'd just up and leave like that?" Ron asked, voice still low and unenthusiastic.

Harry considered his friend, because Harry could not shake the feeling that somehow they were still friends in spite of everything, and wondered if Ron would be sorry to see him go.

"I just need a change for a while," he said. "Every year it's the same here... because I'm the boy-who-lived, I'm also the boy-who-people-love-to-walk-all-over when they feel like a good laugh."

Ron looked down at his shoes at the painful truth in Harry's words, and said, "I'm sorry you know. For being rotten."

Harry nodded, and after a moment, moved forward and cupped his hand on Ron's shoulder, drawing his friend's eyes up to his own. "I know," he said. "No hard feelings."

Ron frowned as Harry stepped back. "What does that mean."

Severus called Harry's name from down the hall and waved for him to come to him for a moment, and Harry waved back. Then he grinned and turned back to Ron. "It means we're still friends if you'll have me as one." Then he turned and jogged to his father and they were gone, around the corner and out of sight. Ron didn't move for a long while, amazed at the forgiveness Harry had in his heart, the forgiveness Ron had always admired.

* * *

"We will apparate to Malfoy Manor to collect your father Draco, and then take a Portkey to Printzhof in Norway. Durmstrang is a short walk from there."

Severus gripped Harry and Draco's arms just outside of Hogwarts grounds, and they reappeared in the entrance hall of Malfoy Manor. Harry and Draco went up to Draco's room to wait for Lucius to be ready and talked about what they knew of Durmstrang.

"Father says there will be tests of magically prowess during the interview," Draco said, lying on his stomach on his blue bedspread.

"What kind of prowess am I supposed to have? How do they admit first years?"

Draco laughed. "Hasn't uncle Sev. been telling you anything about it? They have a wizarding primary on another part of the grounds. Most Durmstrang students study magic from the age of seven. Father says a first year at Durmstrang knows what a third year at Hogwarts knows."

Suddenly Harry felt nervous and said, "Great, so I'm like a fifth year asking to be admitted to seventh?"

Draco waved him away. "No worries. You know how to make a Patronus, right?"

Harry nodded, and Draco said, "That's still pretty advanced magic. I bet that will be enough. I bet they'll want to see a fancy shield and maybe some good transfiguration too. Maybe a good charm."

They talked about the things they would show the interviewers for a short while longer before they heard Lucius calling them down, and they hurried downstairs, both already dressed in Muggle suits. Draco didn't understand why they had to wear Muggle suits instead of dress robes, but Severus told them that the clothing styles were different for wizards in Norway, and that they didn't wear any sort of robes. Harry remembered the brown and sometimes red school uniforms that the Durmstrang students wore when they had come to visit for the Tri-Wizard tournament.

By the time they had portkeyed to Printzhof, a small town much like Hogsmead with the exception that building styles were different and there were Muggles and Wizards alike living there, Harry's stomach was doing summersaults. He suddenly wanted very much to impress the Headmaster of this new school, and did not want to miss this opportunity for something new and different.

It was a little chillier here than it had been back at Hogwarts, but it was sunny and bright, and Harry took in the beautiful forest and small river as they walked towards Durmstrang. The castle loomed into view in the distance, sitting on a peninsula in the Norwegian Sea. It was only four stories high, but Harry noticed the abundance of separate buildings near the castle but not connected.

The grounds were well manicured and there was a wide variety of trees and plants, and even a small stream running beside part of the castle.

"Students do not live inside the castle as they do at Hogwarts," Lucius said as they passed three tall, long stone buildings. "They live in dormitories separate from the school, and some live off grounds in the village with their families."

"Who watches them?" Harry asked, referring to the students in the dorms. "Do teachers live there as well?"

Severus chuckled then and said, "Teachers have their own building, and students on each floor of the dorms act in a similar capacity to Prefects, keeping order and reporting to staff if there are any issues."

"Are there houses then?" Draco asked.

Severus looked at Lucius and then said, "I do not know. I have not met many people who have attended or taught here."

They walked up a white stone path and into the main Entrance of the castle. While the castle was stone on the outside, the floors on the inside were mainly polished wood. The walls were covered in deep scarlet wall hangings featuring the school crest, which was a double-headed eagle with some foreign characters Harry could not yet decipher.

While they waited patiently, Severus noted with amusement the look of awe at how different this castle was to Hogwarts.

"There's no portraits," Harry said quietly to his father, and Severus nodded.

"They believe to paint a magical portrait is to steal a persons soul, and to put one of these portraits up is to be watched by people in the afterlife. They do not approve."

"No wonder they always looked so freaked out during the tournament," Draco commented, going quiet suddenly as a female dressed in a red and brown uniform appeared at the top of the stairs.

"The Malfoys and Snape's I presume?"

Severus nodded, and she said, "Welcome to Durmstrang Institute for the Magically Gifted. Please follow me to the interviewing room."

Harry gave Severus a worried look and received a squeeze of reassurance on the shoulder for his effort. It was worth it, he thought, glad that his father was there with him. He peered at Draco as they climbed the stairs, to see that Draco had just gotten the same comfort from his own father.

On the second floor they were lead down a long, straight corridor with a variety of windows, through which Harry could see open water, and in the distance a shoreline and some houses, which he assumed, was Printzhof.

Finally they came to a large wooden door, and the woman said, "They will wish to see Mr. Potter first. Mr. Snape, they may call you in at a later time."

She motioned for Harry to enter and the others to take a seat on long intricately carved wooden benches on either side of the door. With a last reassuring look from Severus, Harry pushed open the door and tried to remember all of the things his father had gone over with him in the last few days about interviewing and certain things that were inappropriate to say in this particular culture.

Inside, instead of finding the Headmaster, Harry found an entire panel of people waiting to interview him, with one man in the middle sitting slightly higher than all the rest.

"Mr. Harry James Potter?" the man in the middle asked, and Harry nodded.

"Yes sir."

"Welcome to Durmstrang Institute. I am Headmaster Dragomir Yan, and joining us are many of the professors that teach at this school. Was your trip well?"

The man seemed very friendly. Not quite Albus Dumbledore, but much better than Igor Karkaroff had been when Harry had dealt with him during the Tri-wizard tournament.

"Very well, thank you sir," Harry said, standing in the center of the room with his hands behind his back, as there was no place for him to sit.

"We have some questions for you, if you will please answer them as honestly as possible." Headmaster Yan turned to his left to a stern looking man who reminded him of how he used to perceive his father, and the man cleared his throat.

"I am Andon Spas, professor of the Dark Arts." Harry waited patiently, wondering if he was supposed to say hello. He had been told already that they didn't defend against dark arts, but they taught it carefully, for use in certain circumstances only. Before Harry waited more than few seconds however, Professor Spas asked, "Please tell us why you have a different last name than your father."

The question took Harry by surprise. He had been prepared to answer questions about his ancestry, because his father had told him Durmstrang took preference of long wizarding lines over short ones, and he'd been ready to answer questions about his previous schooling and study habits, even about his involvement with Voldemort, but not this.

"Until recently we didn't know that I was Severus Snape's son. I grew up believing that both of my parents were dead, and because my last name was Potter, I was lead to believe that James Potter was my biological father." There, that didn't sound too bad, and his voice wasn't that shaky, was it? Thank goodness that his father had shown him the spell to make them speak the same language at least, or else Harry would be in real trouble. But when the next question came, he was sure it hadn't helped and he was going to struggle through the interview anyway.

"How recently?"

"Six and a half months ago sir."

"And what was your reaction to finding out your father was alive?"

Harry paled. He had been asked to answer truthfully, and he didn't want to lie. "I was upset. I didn't think he liked me very much and nobody talked to me about it for a long time." They were all staring at him, as if waiting for something more, but he had nothing else to say, and after a moment, Spas said thank you, and another professor, a female this time, spoke up.

"Hello Mr. Potter. I am professor of Herbology, Nonna Lara. Please tell us about your previous education in Herbology."

Harry wanted to sigh, but withheld as he began to answer questions that he did feel prepared for. The Professors of Transfiguration, Occlumency, and Charms asked questions, intermixed with the Headmaster asking for clarification here and there, before the last professor in the room who had yet to speak, stood up and came to the center of the room.

"I am Ratko Spas, brother to Andon Spas. I am the teacher of defense. Your first test is to defend yourself."

Taken aback by the sudden request to be tested, Harry watched as the man waved his wand and reached out to grab two long staffs that had appeared in the air. They were the same ones Harry had seen the Durmstrang students at Hogwarts carry during the tournament.

"You have used one of these before?" Spas asked, and Harry shook his head.

"No sir."

"You will learn to do so now. Defend yourself in whatever way you need. Do not fear to hurt me."

Harry nodded that he was ready, feeling uncomfortable with the weighty staff in his hands instead of his wand. Suddenly the man used the stick to jab at Harry, who's Seeker reflexes kicked in and he jumped back, spinning and ducking wildly in order to escape the onslaught of movement coming from the other man's attacking staff. He couldn't explain it, but though his feet remained on the ground, his mind kicked into flying mode and he felt as if he could perform the same moves he usually did in the air. It was the most amazing feeling to feel yourself flying through the air, here one second and gone the next, staff becoming the perfect counterbalance to keep yourself from falling. And while Harry had yet to land a hit to his opponent, he had also not been hit by the man with lightning fast reflexes.

Around and around the large room they went, Spas stabbing and swinging, forcing Harry to duck, twirl, spin, jump, and once even to use the wall to run and kick off of in order to fly high over the man and his weapon. And then it happened. From the corner of his eye, as he preformed the crazy, jump and spin dance, he saw a wand appear out of the other man's sleeve, and quicker than he knew what he was doing, he had dropped the staff, and used his wand to throw up the most powerful block he knew of that took the least amount of time and spell work to cast. It surrounded him just in time to block a red hex from hitting him square in the chest.

Breathing hard, Harry held the block up until his opponent lowered his wand and turned toward his colleagues, as if at a loss for word.

"Are the truth spells up?" he asked, and the Headmaster nodded.

Spas looked at Harry, breathing ragged himself, and asked again, "You say you have never used a weapon such as this before." He held up the staff clearly for Harry to see.

"Not until just now sir," Harry said, standing straight again and trying to ignore the stitch in his side.

"And yet you defended yourself as if you had been in my class for seven years."

With one final breath, Harry said, "I don't know what happened sir. It was like flying on a broom, but on my feet. As if I knew each way to move without losing balance."

"And without getting hit," the man said pointedly. Harry wasn't sure if he was in trouble or not, but a movement in the corner of his eye caught his attention, and he saw his father standing there in awe. Clearly they had invited him in in the midst of the staff battle, and allowed him to watch.

Ratko Spas bowed to Harry then, who did the same, and retook his seat behind the staff table. Headmaster Yan motioned for Harry and Severus to retake the center of the floor, and asked, "Severus Isaac Snape, are you prepared for your son to undertake a year at Durmstrang Institute of the Magically Gifted, understanding that he will receive an education beyond that of which he has already received, becoming a new person each and every day, working for the better?"

Harry thought that it sounded rather like a marriage proposal, but did not laugh at their custom as his father nodded, and said that he was prepared for such a thing. Turning to Harry, the Headmaster asked, "Harry James Potter Snape, are you prepared to undertake a year at Durmstrang Institute of the Magically Gifted, understanding that you must work to receive your education, and work towards being a new and better person each and every day, abiding by the basic rules of human respect and decency upheld at this institute?"

Harry nodded. "Yes sir, I am."

The Headmaster smiled then along with the other staff seated there, and said, "Let me be the first to welcome you then as a student at this school. It is sure to be a very different experience than what you have had in previous years, but also unforgettable."

Harry turned to his father then and grinned, and was pleased to receive an arm around the shoulders.

"You will be pleased to know that your son passed every test administered to him. Both modest and honest, sincere and adeptly skilled at defending himself with a wand and a staff. His previous grades sometimes leave something to be desired, but with a long track record of sincere learning aptitude, we believe he will fit perfectly in this institution."

"And we are honored to have the opportunity," Severus said with a bow.

They were given instructions to talk again with the woman who had lead them inside, and then were sent out, passing a worried looking Draco on the way in, and meeting an anxious Lucius on the bench.

"Don't worry," Harry said sitting between Lucius and his father. "He'll do great."

Lucius nodded, knowing Harry was right.

Draco nudged him quietly and Harry looked up to see Ron standing a few feet off, looking nervous himself, Hermione standing next to him with Ginny on the other side. Leaving Draco with their things by the front door, he walked over to... his friends, and stood before them, not wanting to say goodbye, despite what they had put him through in the last six and a half months.

"You're really leaving then, aren't you?" Hermione asked, looking as if she were going to start crying.

Harry nodded and bit his lip. "I'll be back. The school year isn't as long and-" he stopped talking when he found Hermione in his arms suddenly trying to squeeze him to death.

"I'm really sorry Harry. If I hadn't been so involved with studying I would have been there fore you more and you wouldn't be going away now."

Feeling awkward, Harry cleared his throat and when she stepped back, he said, "It's not you guys. It's just, time for something new. They teach Magery there and I think that will be interesting."

"And the Dark Arts?" Ginny questioned, brows raised. Harry turned his attention to her, surprised the question was coming from her and not Ron.

He cleared his throat again and said, "Yeah, well, I'm not sure about that yet. Dad says it's not all the same as the dark arts we defend against, but I still don't know that I want to take it." He thought back to the long conversation he'd had with his father the night before, about locator spells and other magic that was forbidden in most parts of the world because it did things like invade people's privacy. ‘Even Occlumency is still considered dark in the America's,' his father had told him, ‘and yet they teach that at Beaubatons and at times at Hogwarts to those with a certain aptitude for it.'

Harry just couldn't shake the feeling that he would be learning things that Grindewald and Voldemort had learned, and that he had spent so much time worrying about trying to defend himself against.

"Well," Ginny said quietly, "so long as you don't come back to us Harry Grindewald or Gellert Potter." She gave him a sly smile to let him know she was joking, but the only laugh was Hermione's nervous giggle.

"Send pictures Harry," Ginny said, and came forward to give him a gentler hug than Hermione had. Harry didn't want to let go, but it was Ron's turn to clear his throat then, and Ginny stepped back, giving Ron room to say what he needed to.

"I heard that their Quidditch team doesn't play like ours does against houses... Charlie said that sometimes they play other small schools, and that once when he was in school they played Hogwarts."

Harry nodded. "Dad says they're not big on Quidditch there, because they have fighting clubs instead."

"Yeah, well just know that we'll give you a run for your money if you come back to play against us."

Finally Harry cracked a grin and said, "You'd better Captain." He had handed over his Captaincy of the Quidditch team to Ron two days ago, sad to know he was going to a school where Quidditch was not the big sport. Draco was none too pleased with this fact either.

"It's time to leave."

Harry turned to see Severus coming up through the entrance to the Dungeons with a jet-black trunk levitating in front of him. "We have a long journey tonight."

Nodding to his father, Harry turned back to his friends and got another hug from Hermione and Ginny.

Ron approached again nervously and held his hand out. "Friends?" he queried, unsure if Harry's offer to remain friends still stood.

A small smile passed over his lips and he took the hand. "Friends."

* * *

It was dark, and positively icy when they arrived by Portkey in front of a tiny brown two-story house outside of Printzhof.

"Leave the trunks here and I will levitate them in," Severus instructed, wanting the boys to get inside as quickly as possible.

"Ugh, why is it so cold when it was fine three days ago?"

"The winters come earlier and harsher here," Severus said, closing the door behind him. The living room was small and connected directly to the kitchen and dining room, which turned out had a rounded wall. There was a small square table in the middle of the room with four wooden chairs, and two small couches against the walls in the living room, with a round firepit in the middle of the stone floor. Severus aimed his wand at the firepit, and immediately there was a roaring fire, which Harry and Draco stood next to in the hopes of warming up.

Off of the large room there were two doors as well as a narrow staircase along one wall. Severus opened the first door and said, "This is the bathroom." A second door next to it revealed a long narrow bedroom with a wardrobe, a desk, and a queen-sized bed. "This is my room. I suggest you go up stairs and see to your room while I bring your belongings in."

Reluctant to leave the fire, Harry and Draco headed to the stairs, and Harry noticed for the first time that the ceiling in the living room went all the way up to the roof over the second floor.

Upstairs they found a semi-circle bedroom with two beds, two desks, two chairs, and a small two-seat couch. There was one window in the very center, and a long straight half wall, which they could look over to see the living room and fire pit.

"Well, at least the heat will rise up here," Draco mumbled, not happy with the living arrangements. Harry understood since he had seen Draco's large bedroom with a queen bed, and private bathroom.

"Where do we put our clothes?" Draco asked.

Harry motioned to one of the beds, which had drawers underneath just as his bed at home did, and then to the second bed, which along with the desk next to it sat on top of a long two foot high wooden platform. This bed also had drawers underneath of it, but the platform also had two long rows of wooden drawers that pulled out of it.

"That one's mine," Draco said, climbing the two wooden steps up onto the platform and throwing himself down onto the bed. Harry shrugged and began pulling open drawers below the platform. They were full of dust and old spider webs.

"I don't think anyone has lived here for a while," he said, clearing the cobwebs away with his wand, and then turning eight of the 16 drawers crimson on the outside. "The red drawers are mine."

Draco watched as Harry leaned over the half wall and used his wand to lift his heavy trunk up to the second floor and next to his bed.

"What, not going to lift mine?" Draco asked, and Harry shook his head.

"Get up and do it yourself," he joked, and Draco threw his pillow at him.

They spent the next half hour unpacking and organizing, before they started to hang their posters on the wall, Draco scoffing as Harry hung three or four baseball posters next to his Quidditch posters above his bed and in various places around the room. Draco rooted for an opposing Quidditch team clad in silver and blue, and made a point of hanging his posters right next to each one of Harry's.

They were almost done when Harry heard his friend let out a noise of disgust. "Ugh... you've got to be kidding me."

Curious, Harry set Kenai down on his desk next to Hedwig's cage, and went to look at a hole in the floor that Draco had uncovered when he had moved the couch. It looked like a chute that curved downward and towards the other side of the house.

"Do you smell that?" Draco asked, and Harry nodded, wrinkling his nose.

"Smells like something died."

Just then they heard the toilet downstairs flush and looked over the banister to see Severus coming out and going into the kitchen, and the boys immediately broke into laughter, unable to contain themselves any longer.

"We're going to have to plug this hole," Harry said, and Draco nodded, wiping his eyes of tears.

"Why in the world would they put this here?"

Harry shrugged. "Too cold to have a vent go outside?"

Draco looked into the hole again, and said, "I don't think so. Look, there's something slimy in there."

Harry looked, and sure enough it appeared that the room's previous occupant had once used the hole in the floor as a toilet.

Before they went down to eat the late-night dinner that Severus had cooked for them, they stuffed both old pillows down the hole and transfigured them into a clay plug, satisfied that they would not live in a bathroom for the next six months.

That night as Harry lay in the strange bed in the strange little home, in this strange new place, he wondered what his friends were doing at that exact moment in Gryffindor common room. Probably wondering about me, he thought, and he lay awake for the rest of the night, too excited and anxious to sleep.

* * *

Harry was thankful that they had made the move on a Friday night so that they could have Saturday and Sunday to adjust before having to go to classes immediately. He was also too anxious to do much adjusting, and took to sitting on the couch looking out one of the living room windows as a few students passed by on their way to and from Printzhof and Durmstrang in the cold, windy weather.

"Do many students live with their parents in Printzhof?" he asked Severus on Sunday after two young men that looked about his age passed by.

"It is my understanding from the Headmaster that around fifty live in the area, some in Printzhof, some in a small village in the other direction on the other side of the Durmstrang grounds.

Draco set down the Dark Arts book that he had been issued by the school and said, "I thought there were Muggles there too."

"There are. This is the only Muggle Magic village in Norway. Many of the families in the village who are not magic, have parents, siblings, or children that are, and have grown accustomed to this way of life."

Looking like he had smelled something rotten again, Draco went back to his book and didn't ask any more questions, and Harry went back to looking out the window, almost starting to dread what was to come Monday morning. He desperately did not want his life at Durmstrang to end up as his life at Hogwarts so often had... distant, lonely, and left wide open to criticism.

* * *

"What do you have first?"

"Breakfast."

Harry narrowed his eyes at Draco. Both schedules said that they were to appear at Breakfast in the Feast Hall for their first few weeks, ‘in order to better become acquainted with customs and traditions' the note attached to their time-tables said.

"After that," Harry clarified, looking over his own schedule. He didn't mind setting out alone for a few classes a day, but he didn't like the idea of going at the whole day alone either.

"Defense, then Dark Arts, then Lunch."

"Those are the same for me," Harry said. "After lunch I have Magery and Charms."

Draco shrugged. "Huh. I have Transfiguration and then Occlumency," he said.

Harry looked at his schedule for Tuesday and concluded that he had Transfiguration while Draco was taking Herbology, and Occlumency while Draco was taking Charms.

"You're not in Herbology at all?" Draco asked, and Harry shook his head.

"Well you're not in Magery."

Draco stuck his tongue out. "If you ask me Occlumency sounds bad enough without having to take Magery too. Father tried to teach me occlumency before and I was daft at it. You won't be able to do anything like a Mage if you can't control your mind in Occlumency."

"Maybe that's why Professor Agda teaches both," Harry said. He didn't know of any professors at Hogwarts that taught two subjects, but then again Hogwarts and Durmstrang had different subjects and requirements.

"At least we have Potions together. I heard the new Potions Master is a real piece of work," Draco said a little louder as Severus walked by, buttoning his black sleeve cuff.

"And I heard that the new Potions Master has the ability to assign detentions to whomever he wishes," he said pointedly in Draco's direction.

Draco raised his brows and went back to stuffing books in his new school issue bag: a tan messenger bag with the Durmstrang logo in red on the front. "Will they give you detention for not wearing the uniform uncle Severus?" Draco asked with a falsely sweet smile.

Harry looked up at this. Severus had not approved of either the red or brown uniform that had arrived the evening before over dinner.

"Black shirt and slacks are also allowed, provided they are in good repair. Do you not remember Andon Spas wearing the same attire during your interviews?"

"I'm just saying," Draco said, hands in the air as he stood and spun in his own new brown school uniform. "If I have to wear this piece of junk, you should too."

"Do you not approve of the red one issued to you?"

With a snort Draco shook his head, "What am I? Gryffindor?" He gave a sly smile down to Harry, who was wearing the crimson one, feeling more at home in it, even though it was basically the same thing Draco was wearing.

"The letter said either one was acceptable for classes."

Books and schedules securely tucked away in their bags, Harry and Draco set out across the crisp ground and down the dirt path towards the school a few minutes later. Their rented home was just a few minutes from school grounds, but the castle was still a good fifteen-minute walk from the edge of grounds. Severus had promised to check in with them at lunch, and did not leave the house with them.

"Do you have the map?" Harry asked anxiously, and Draco pulled it out.

"Where's the Great Hall?"

"First floor near the Entrance, just like Hogwarts, and it's the Feast Hall," Draco reminded him, pointing to the parchment with his finger. "We can't get terribly lost. The school is only four stories high." He and Harry looked up to the short towers then, and Draco finished with, "Don't get any ideas."

Harry sucked in a deep breath of the crisp morning air. "It's different now. You know that."

"Yeah, well, just hold onto your Firebolt, because you're going to need it if you're going to beat me out during tryouts."

"Can't be that hard," Harry said. "Everyone I've talked to said they're not that into Quidditch here."

Upon nearing the castle, they followed groups of students coming from the village and the dorms into the castle and then into the Great Hall.

"Where do we sit?" Draco whispered to Harry as they watched groups of friends find seats together. "There aren't any houses here."

Harry pointed to two empty seats at one of the many long wooden tables and they moved that way, only to be thwarted by a group of girls giggling loudly as they tried to sit there.

"Maybe a different spot," Harry said, and the girls giggled again.

"English?" one of the girls asked in a thick accent, and Harry nodded. She drew out her wand, a rough piece of wood, and aimed it at him, encanting the translation spell that Harry and Draco had forgotten to charm themselves with that morning before leaving.

"Better?" Harry asked nervously, and she nodded.

"You'd best sit before they fill," she told them, and not knowing where else to go in the swarming hall, they did as they were told, uncomfortable not knowing anyone around them.

"I am Anika, and this is Jannike," she said, indicating her friend with hair as blond as Draco's.

"I'm Harry," he said, offering out his hand as Severus had told him to, along with direct eye contact.

"And your friend?" she asked, nodding to Draco, who was staring off distantly at a group of boys at another table.

Harry nudged him and he came back to reality. "Draco," he said, not bothering to give her any eye contact. She frowned and turned her attention back to Harry.

"Your friend... he is of the male persuasion? Yes?"

Harry snorted with laughter then and knocked into Draco who looked horrified as he broke eye contact with the boys at the other table.

"No!" Draco shouted. He gave one last look at the other table then, and asked, is that Nikola Yan? Keeper for the Bulgarian National Team?"

Anika leaned to the side better to see around Draco and said, "Yes. That is him. He is always gone on weekends for practice."

Draco looked back at the table at the boy that was clearly popular, and Anika asked Harry, "You are sure, because I have a friend?"

Harry grinned and said, "He's just stupid is all. Bulgaria is one of the teams he roots for. He's got a big poster of Krum on our bedroom wall."

"Well I have to root for someone," Draco said, "might as well be a Quidditch team," he said, feeling snarky all of the sudden because Harry had already seemed to make a new friend and he had seemed to get off on the wrong foot so early in the morning.

Food appeared on the tables then, and instead of continuing on with the conversation they had started as Harry had expected, Anika and Jannike turned to each other and ignored Harry and Draco for the rest of the meal as they tried to figure out what they were eating.

There was a tart red berry sauce next to cereal and some little balls that tasted like fish. Unlike Hogwarts, there was not a choice of what to eat. Everybody in the hall had been served the same meal. Also, instead of pumpkin juice, there was water or coffee, and nothing else to drink.

When they were finished with breakfast, they tried to stand in order to leave and find their classes early, but received dirty stares and a reprimand from a boy with mousy brown hair who said they were being rude and were supposed to wait until their table was dismissed.

Finally, at eight am sharp, two professors started moving amongst the tables, dismissing them one by one.

"This is going to be a long year," Draco whispered to Harry when they were finally dismissed, the last table out of ten.

Harry shrugged. "It's very orderly."

They headed outside with a mass of other students and followed a small group of students their age away from the castle and towards the woods, labeled Tumma Wood on the map. They had to cross a small river over a low wooden bridge and walk into the woods a short ways before they came to a clearing surrounded by a ring of odd stones marked with runes. Professor Spas (Ratko, the younger of the two brothers), waited in his brown uniform in the center of the clearing.

Unsure of what to do, Harry and Draco did as the other fifteen or so students did and circled him, bags on the ground near the stones circling them.

Professor Spas snapped his fingers, and a long wooden staff appeared out of thin air. This was one of the classes Harry was truly looking forward to. Charms and Transfiguration, couldn't be too different from Hogwarts, and he knew Potions wouldn't be, but Defense was something new altogether, and Harry looked forward to regaining the feeling of flying on his feet with the staff an extension of him once again.

"The staff is sacred, like a wand." His words hung in the chill air, and Harry was curious as he listened with the others, waiting for the professor to say something else. Instead, they heard only silence for long moments, before Harry was startled by the lighting fast movement of his professor, swinging the staff over his head and spinning around in a mesmerizing way. When he came to a sudden stop in front of Draco, students around them laughed when Draco flinched, the end of the dark wooden staff less than an inch from Draco's nose.

"And the depth of courage, will tell the depth of a man's soul," said Professor Spas, before swinging the staff over his head again and then down once again towards Draco, who flinched again, but refused to move away from the man who was swinging the staff too close to him for comfort.

Spas snapped his fingers again and another staff appeared, this one blonder in color. It hung in the air before Draco, who snatched it up and stood at the ready. Spas backed up and motioned for Draco to move out into the center of the circle, away from the protection of his peers. Harry's stomach clenched then, suddenly worried about his friend. He had not seen Draco in the interview and did not know how he had preformed.

Draco and Professor Spas stared at each other for long tense moments, and Harry was aware that several of the males on the other side of the ring were smirking. Without warning, Spas made the first move, stabbing towards Draco and swinging his staff upward, trying to take Draco's legs out from under him, but Draco jumped and dodged and what followed was like a mesmerizing dance, as beautiful to watch as it was to be the dancer holding the staff in the interview, flying on your feet. For several minutes, both opponents moved deftly and quietly, the sound of the staffs whooshing through the air keeping all eyes on the battle. Suddenly Spas was on the ground and Draco came down hard onto one knee in the dirt, staff coming down hard with him, stopping short an inch from the man's face. Harry was surprised to see Draco looking angry now that he was still, breathing hard with sweat running down his face in a single bead.

The other boys were not smirking now, and seemed eager to witness the finish of the professor who so often bested them in the ring, but it did not come.

"And the compassion of a man, will show you his willingness to change and grow," came out Spas' voice, steady and even, not laboring for breath as Draco still was.

Draco stood and Spas pushed himself up off of the ground.

"List the ten tenants of defense," Spas said quietly, snapping his fingers and surprising Draco as the staff he was holding disappeared.

Harry and Draco listened mutely as the ring of classmates said in unison and with vigor, "Face your opponent without thought to your own failings. Face your opponent with courage. Face your opponent with thoughts of his next move in mind. Feel the earth and wind as you move. The staff is sacred, like your wand. Without balance, life is void. Without heart, the battle is lost. Without order, victory is useless. Believe not others have compassion for your life. Do not assume you are better than your foe."

Silence rang in Harry's ears when they were done, and he pondered on the ten tenants of defense. Many of them didn't make sense, but then again, that's what they were here to learn.

* * *

"You cannot sit there." The voice was gruff, and Harry and Draco turned to see a large boy with a smooth wand sitting on his desk behind them.

"Why not?" Draco asked.

The boy glared and Harry grabbed Draco's sleeve. "C'mon, better to sit someplace else and not make enemies on our first day."

Draco grumbled something and then moved with Harry to two empty seats in the back.

Just before class started, Harry watched as a pretty girl with brown, flowing hair sat in the seat he had previously tried to occupy. The large boy did not stop her.

Harry tried to sit through the Dark Arts lesson with an open mind, trying to keep in mind what his father had said about locator spells and other things that invaded privacy but were otherwise harmless, but today was not one of those days they were learning a harmless spell. First up on the agenda was a nasty slicing hex that would slice open a person's flesh right down to their bone. Andon Spas, the Dark Arts professor, was so different from his brother, that aside from similarity in looks, Harry would not have thought them related. He was gruff and sharp with his words, again reminding him very much of how Severus once seemed to him, especially as a smaller child. While Ratko was fast with a staff, he was gentle with his tone and words, coming off to Harry as thoughtful and strong. His brother Andon came across as downright mean, threatening students who didn't get the spell right the first time, calling them names, and sometimes even snatching their wand away from them when they didn't move it right.

"At least we're not practicing on each other," Harry mumbled to Draco, who was intent on getting the spell right before the end of class.

"At least we're not getting house points taken away for being awful at it," Draco replied.

Harry had to agree, for as much as he wanted to do well here, he felt he could not put his heart into learning the Dark Arts he had spent so long fighting, and without his heart in it, his wand refused to work.

"Prissy Potter Snape won't do the dark little spell?" Spas taunted him then, coming up behind Harry. "Better give me your wand then and sit by the window before you hurt yourself. You can have it back after Fika." He snatched it away and was gone, off to berate someone else. Students stared at Harry, the only student to actually have his wand taken from him, and Harry moved to the empty seat by the window.

So much for not making enemies on my first day, he thought, and wondered if he could convince his father to get him out of this class before they had it again on Wednesday.