Running a hand through his messy hair, Harry turned with a huff and slid down the wall, trying to control his emotions. Hurt and angst were feelings he was familiar with... feelings he often hated because they defined him. But disgust. This was something new... something that consumed him totally and irreversibly. He might as well change his name, because as far as he was concerned, he had ceased to exist as Harry Potter or Harry Snape.

"Harry?"

Harry let his hands fall from his hair and let his head fall back against the wall as he looked up at a surprised Draco.

"Mum brought me back early." He surveyed Harry's hand and the blood on the wall, and the misery on his friend's face.

"It's true isn't it? You- you went to see the Dark Lord?" Draco's voice shook a little bit.

"They dragged me there," Harry clarified. He would never have gone on his own.

Draco fell to his knees beside Harry and looked to Harry's right arm. Whilst it was covered, Draco knew what was there. Of course, Harry thought. Lucius was probably one of the masked men present when Harry had made the pledge to kill his father, and of course he would have told Draco.

Harry pulled up his sleeve with his uninjured hand and let the inky black snake burn into Draco's memory for a few seconds, before tugging the sleeve back down. "Your father told you?"

Draco looked stricken and nodded solemnly. "Came home gleeful... came home touting how the great Harry Potter had finally fallen. He held you up as a shining example to me Harry."

Harry eyed Draco's arm then, but Draco caught his eyes and shook his head. "No. Mother won't let me take the mark until I'm 17."

"It was you I thought of when I did it," Harry said, hanging his head again. "I thought about how you used to act to everyone all the time, and I put on a smirk and did it. I thought... I thought it was better to have the mark than to be dead."

"Are you mental?" Draco asked. Harry's head shot up then, expecting that Draco would have agreed with him, but apparently not.

"Mother's been planning my escape for years! Expects me to hide in Africa or America or China for all I know, but she said I won't be joining. We... we were hoping you would defeat him by then! Don't you see what you've done? You can't break a promise to the Dark Lord!"

Harry stared hard into his friend's eyes then and said, "Watch me." He pushed himself up off of the dark corridor floor and made to move away, but Draco's arm shot out and caught him.

"You have to tell him... your father. He'll know what to do." Draco said it with such certainty that it almost seemed simple to Harry, but he knew that nothing in his life could ever be so simple. He had finally gained his father's approval, and now he would lose it again.

"Forget it."

"I'm serious Harry. Do it. Tell him. At least he ought to know the Dark Lord knows about you."

"How could he not know? Everyone in the castle knows! All the death eater's kids know!"

Draco looked down and then said, voice faltering, "I never told. I think some of the others told their parents once, but they didn't believe them. I don't know how, but I don't think it ever made it back around to the Dark Lord. Even father was surprised that Professor Snape had deceived him. He's in real danger. If you don't kill him, someone will."

Harry heaved a sigh. "Just... leave me alone. I can do this on my own. I don't need anybody's help." Harry turned to leave then but Draco was determined to show Harry how foolish he was being.

"Coward." The word hung there in the air between Draco and Harry's back for a full thirty seconds before there was a flurry of movement and Harry had Draco pinned to the wall, wand aimed at Draco's throat.

"I'm a man with nothing to lose anymore," Harry said through gritted teeth, hatred and disgust at himself in his eyes. "Don't mess with me Draco, or you'll regret it. Understand?" And then, finally he was gone, down the hall and out of sight. Draco watched after his friend's back as he disappeared. Harry Potter was gone.

* * *

There were two days left until the other students came back from the break, and Harry agonized over anybody else finding out about his secret. Surely Ron and Hermione would disown him, and Mr. and Mrs. Weasley wouldn't let Ginny see him anymore, that was if she even wanted to, which he doubted she would very much.

In the hall, Harry snubbed Kenai, not even having the decency to acknowledge him with a look as he passed, and did the same to his father three times before something happened that he had not expected. Severus Snape demanded some respect from his son.

Harry had just passed by Severus as he had tried to say hello, and had not even looked up, scowl firmly planted in place, but Severus grabbed his arm to stop him, much in the same way Draco had tried to do days before.

"Harry, you will look at me when I'm talking to you." It was a quiet command; uncertain and weary.

Harry looked up and Severus was shocked at the hatred which he found in his son's eyes. "Let go of me, now." Harry was barely able to ground out the words, face contorting with rage, words deadly.

"Excuse me?"

"You heard me." Harry yanked his arm free of the man's grasp and tried to stalk away, but Severus had gripped Harry's shoulders now and had gently pinned him to the corridor wall.

"What has gotten into you since Christmas? You wear the clothes we gave to you and speak to me as if I am the devil."

Was that what this was about, Harry wondered. The man gave him clothes like a house elf and then expected respect after so many years of torturing him? "You want your filthy clothes back? Then take them!"

He struggled free of Severus' grip then and began pulling his clothes off, starting with the new black boots that Harry so loved, then moving to his zip up hoodie, and finally yanking his shirt off over his head. He did not realize as he stood there looking murderous and panting without a shirt on that he had exposed his arm.

"Here. Take them! I don't want anything from you ever again!!" His father seemed not to be paying attention to his words though, and Harry followed his father's gaze down to his arm. Oh. That.

He looked up into his father's face, but the other man's eyes were still glued to the tattoo.

"What is that?" Severus asked around a lump in his throat. He already knew, but hoped it was some cruel joke. He had worked so hard for so long to ensure that Kenai would not go through what he did, but never suspected that Harry may end up in the same situation.

Eyes glazing over, Severus heard a dying voice come to the forefront of his mind. ‘Protect Kenai Severus. Help him to remain innocent.' ‘How long can a father manage that with a growing son Cassandra?' ‘Forever if you can manage it Severus. I don't want him to know the hurt we have known, nor the hate."

Severus came out of his reverie and looked up into Harry's eyes. "You have taken the fledgling brand."

Harry looked away, anger ebbing from him only to be replaced with hurt and fear, and an anxiousness that ate at him. Old friends. Harry hit his knees on the cold stone corridor floor next to the pile of clothing, and bowed his head. With a sob he said, "I didn't want it. I had to. I didn't want it. I didn't want it." He was shaking his head and covering the mark with his hand, as if hiding it meant it wasn't really there at all.

Severus knelt down next to his son and put a hand on his shoulder, and lifting Harry's chin so that he could look into his eyes he said, "You will tell me what happened, and we will deal with this together."

He lifted Harry to his feet, dressed the boy again with a flick of his wand, and guided him down through the castle to his dungeon quarters where thankfully Kenai was out, and let the tired, numb looking boy sit on the couch. He didn't cry, although Severus would have preferred it to the dead look in his son's eyes as the boy told him what had happened five days before.

"I didn't know what else to do. I just kept thinking about Draco... what Draco would have done. And I did it. I dishonored mum and vowed to stab you with a knife if only he would give me the brand and teach me to be more like him."

"And he believed you?"

Harry held up his sleeved arm as proof and said, "He only gave me the snake... why did he only give me the snake?"

"It is the fledgling brand. The skull comes after you have murdered in his name. The more times you do it, the darker and deeper the brand goes. If you ever see Lucius Malfoy's brand you will understand. It goes all the way down to his bone. I have seen Beallatrix Lestrange bleed from an open wound... her brand has seeped into her blood and made it black."

Harry shuddered then, and wrapped his arm around himself. "Can't we remove it?"

Severus looked down at the ground, hands clasped between his knees. "Some believe it can be done, but if and only when the Dark Lord has been defeated, once and for all. The brand is but a complicated protean charm, much like the coins your club uses to signal when a meeting will take place.

Swallowing hard, Harry finally looked up and met his father's eyes. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I didn't want to disappoint you... I-" Severus held up a hand to forestall him.

"You have not disappointed me. Do not ever think that because of the way I have mistreated you in the past, that any of it was your fault or could ever be your fault. I have been a sorry excuse for a parent and no amount of apologizing can ever make up for that."

Old curiosity burning in Harry's throat, waiting to be let out, Harry asked, "But why? Why couldn't you just be my dad? Why did I have to live... with the Dursleys for so long? Didn't you know what they did? Didn't you care?"

A lump once again rising in his throat, Severus set forth to explain what had happened with Harry's mother, although he could not expect the boy to understand his own feelings of loss and how he tried to separate himself from those feelings with apathy. At the end he said, "I had no guidance from your mother on how she wanted you to be raised. Kenai's mother... gave me a direction to go with him, and I did all I could to keep my promise to her. Sometimes at your expense."

Harry wrung his hands together, and tried to understand what his father had told him, but was having difficulty understanding why his father couldn't have at least let him stay with him instead of the Dursleys. Ron had lots of siblings but Mr. and Mrs. Weasley somehow cared for them all.

"I don't know what to do," Harry finally said. "I can't... I can't kill you."

Severus cleared his throat and said, "I have a plan. But you must agree to do as you have said. If the Dark Lord does not believe you were sincere, then we will both be dead, and all for naught."

Harry swallowed hard, unsure what plan involved him actually killing his father.

"I am unsure how much time the Dark Lord has allotted for you to succeed in your task, so we must be ready. Come, we have much work to do." He rose and motioned for Harry to follow him into his private potions lab. As anxious as ever, Harry followed, wishing he could have just one quiet year at Hogwarts... one year where nothing would go awry in his life.