Previously in twenty-one days

He had mixed them together to the best of his ability and knowledge, but none of them had complained about the pairings.

They would be able to keep each other alive as long as possible even if he would die before them. He didn't intent dying before them, even if he would rather die himself than letting those children die, but at the same time he knew that they all needed him until the end. He however couldn't guarantee that and so he had taken precaution. Just in case.

Chapter thirteen

Day seven

Sunday, eighth of September

Narrowing his eyes and tilting his head to one side he watched Harry closely, nearly blinking at him stupidly – a thing that actually had him worried. Severus Snape never blinked stupidly.

And yet – right now he did.

"Which year exactly will you find yourself in if you add 321 years to the year 1471, Harry?"

Well, the outcome was the same – the boy just looked at him, blinking, then at his fingers, still blinking but his confusion growing, back at him, his confusion turning into frustration, and finally back at his fingers still frustrated, as if he were frustrated over the fact that he didn't have enough fingers for adding 321 years to the year 1471.

Well - the boy simply only couldn't concentrate because he was hungry, he told himself, because surely a fourteen year old surely could add 1471 and 321 together.

"Maybe it will help to write the problem down at a parchment to solve it." He suggested, but he was met with another confused blinking from the boy, as if he couldn't understand how that would be of any help, before Harry finally bent over to retrieve a parchment from his bock back. He watched the boy scribbling the numbers down, blinking at them just as stupidly as he had blinked at the boy earlier, a moment ago, and then …

Walking over he watched the boy drawing short vertical lines onto the parchment and he again blinked at the boy stupidly, unable to actually tell him to stop. He had written the number 1471 at the top of the parchment and he had scribbled the number 321 underneath. And now he was drawing those lines at the middle of the parchment.

What was that blasted boy doing, for Merlin's sake? And it had started so easy – with a lesson about the ultimate healing potion being brewed for the first time in the year 1471 and for the last time 321 years later.

Flashback

"Well, Marvin Man Doran's first attempt of brewing this potion, that had caused his own death in the end, had been in the year 1471, but he hadn't been the last one who had tried brewing an ultimate healing potion. The last one had been Warden Man Doran, actually a descendant of Marvin Man Doran who had found the potions journals from his ancestor, 321 years later."

"Then he tried that potion … well, sometime around 1700 or 1800."

"Between 1700 and 1800 there is a time span of hundred years, and Warden Man Doran already had been ninety years old when he tried that potion. He didn't die because of old age, even if he had not been a young man anymore when he had died, but – just like his ancestor – of one of his cauldrons exploding. So, care to get a closer date?"

End flashback

After twenty of those lines the boy started over underneath them.

Did he really intent to draw 321 lines onto that parchment and then count them?

"What …" He started, not able to keep his confusion out of his voice. "What exactly are you doing, child?"

"Uhm …" The boy made, looking up at him, blinkingly. "Trying to find out when Warden Man Doran brewed that potion?"

"No, I mean – what exactly are you doing with those lines?"

"Uhm …" The boy again made, looking at the lines he had drawn on the parchment so far and then looking back at him. "Well, if I … I mean … that is …"

"Did you ever learn how to solve an arithmetic problem?" He asked, his confusion growing at the boy's lack of understanding.

"Uhm … no …" The boy quietly said, looking down at the parchment rather than at him.

"You are not serious." Snape said. "What have you done during primary school?"

There was a pause during which the boy paled even more than he already was. Then –

"I've never been there, alright?" The boy suddenly jumped up, glaring at him for a moment and then turning and leaving the classroom, nearly running into his office, leaving a startled Potions Master and a confused class behind who stared after him in shock, frozen to the spot, some of them blinking just as stupidly as he had earlier. But then Snape leaned his hands onto the desk the brat had been sitting at a moment ago and let his head fall forwards.

How stupid was he?

The boy had been neglected and abused, starved – was it really a wonder that he had not been to primary school? And honestly, suddenly a lot of things made sense to him.

Potter – Harry! For Merlin's sake!

Harry had been able to read and to write, but to written instructions he always had been slower than the rest of the students in his year and his handwriting had been – well, not just untidy but nearly incomprehensible in the beginning. Not like the handwriting of a child facing his fifth year of education, but his first.

Of course he couldn't have known about the boy not attending primary school, but now knowing the boy's history, it was a possibility he could have thought of. The boy's abuse never had become known after all, and if the boy had attended primary school, then there surely would had been one or another teacher who would have noticed the signs. And he doubted that a seven year old child would have managed to hide them as well as he did now with his fourteen years.

With a sigh he straightened up.

"Continue the discussion." He calmly said. "I will rejoin at a later point." And then he strode out of the classroom as well, following the boy into his office, easily finding him sitting on the floor in the corner where he had been sitting only days before, after he had told the class about the nightmares he and Theodore had.

Again, just as he had done back then, he lowered himself onto one knee in front of the boy, watching him for a moment before he gently reached out and placed his fingers underneath the teen's chin, lifting his head. With his other hand he gently ran his thumb over the boy's cheeks, wiping away the tears that ran down the pale cheeks.

"You have been alone for long enough, child. Would you care to enlighten me as to why you think you deserve to be alone with your grief still?" He asked, closing his eyes for a short moment. He had never been prone to give comfort but in the light of recent events it was left to him to pick up the broken pieces of this child's life.

"I didn't mean to upset you." He quietly said. "And neither am I about to blame you."

"I know." The boy murmured between his tears.

Snape's fingers curled with surprising strength and gentleness around Harry's cheek before the Potions Master narrowed his eyes at him, and Harry looked surprised at how much emotions he saw in the Professor's dark eyes.

"What happened?" He simply asked then, leaving it open for the boy to tell him what had happened that he hadn't been at primary school, or what had happened so he had learned reading and writing without attending any school in the first place. He couldn't imagine the boy's aunt having the patience to teach the boy reading and writing, but somehow the boy had learned it, and he couldn't help wondering how.

There wasn't an answer for a long time and Snape seated himself at the floor beside the boy, showing him that he wouldn't leave him alone right now. He would not simply give up. It might be that they died down here, but while they lived, he would do whatever he could to help them, never mind with being hungry, having cramps, nightmares, or simply needing someone to heal their scattered minds.

The boy sitting on the floor beside him made a sound in the back of his throat, an odd sound that startled the Potions Master and he could see the teenager recoiling before folding in on himself, hugging his arms around his chest while the green eyes seemed to express all the emotions the boy couldn't voice or show and Snape finally snapped, resting a strong hand on the brat's bent back.

But then –

"I've been in pre-school." The boy quietly started. "For about half a year or something like that. But I often missed a day or a week because I've been sick or because uncle Vernon had … well … and so aunt Petunia simply kept me at home at one point or another. Once the teacher had called aunt Petunia to get me from school because I've been ill, but I haven't been ill, I just had not had something to eat for a few days. But I couldn't tell that to him. However, at that point aunt Petunia kept me at home all the time. She feared the teachers would find out. She told them that they had brought me to a school for sick children or something like that, I don't know for sure."

"And in pre-school you have learned how to read and to write." Snape simply stated. "So that was the reason you have been able doing so when you came to Hogwarts. And that was the reason you always have been slower with written instructions or that your handwriting was a mess."

"Yes." The boy said. "But it was better that way anyway. Staying at home meant less beatings."

"How so?" Snape asked, wondering what the boy meant. To his information that far Harry had been beaten at home, not at school.

"Aunt Petunia wouldn't beat me like uncle Vernon did. She only made me doing chores." The boy answered with a sigh. "But at school, being better than Dudley, it was just as dangerous as being a complete idiot. I always had to be careful so I wouldn't be better than Dudley but wouldn't be stupid enough so the teachers called on aunt Petunia to come to school because of it. And that wasn't easy as Dudley is so stupid it is nearly impossible to beat him with it."

For a moment Snape couldn't help smirking, imagining the stupidity of Potter's cousin, but then he sobered quickly. It wasn't funny, it was far from being funny. Turning slightly he once again placed his fingers underneath the boy's chin and gently turned his head so he had to look at him.

"What happened if you did better than your cousin at school, Harry?" He quietly asked, already knowing the answer.

"My uncle would beat me and lock me in my cupboard and aunt Petunia wouldn't let me eat anything for days." Harry quietly replied, trying to look down. But Severus didn't let Harry break eye contact as he continued.

"I do understand much better now, child." He said. "And I do thank you for sharing this information. Actually, I think you have been blocking your magical - and your educational abilities for so long that you do it unconsciously now. Might it be that you – unconsciously – are trying to replace your cousin with Ronald Weasley? Because your standard is much around his, just always a tiny bit lower."

Shrugging his shoulders Harry finally managed to look away and Snape let him.

"I think you are much more powerful and intelligent than you have willingly let yourself be." He said, hoping that the teen would take his words to heart. "Even if I always told you otherwise throughout the past three years, you are not stupid. And I want you to remember, I do care for you, and I will never, absolutely never, punish you for doing your best, no matter if it is much better than even I can do. That is a promise, son, and I always keep my promises!"

Son!

At that one word Harry fell completely silent, his throat feeling scratchy suddenly and his voice, he was sure, had abandoned him. A hesitant hand pushed through his hair and Harry tried to calm himself. His breathing was coming faster and he knew that soon he would start crying – again!

Startled, Harry yelped when Snape suddenly moved his arms around his shoulders in a strong but careful grip as he pulled the wizarding child to him, the grip around the thin and bony shoulders tight, and only when the boy relaxed into the embrace, calmed down bit by bit, did Snape relax his arms, loosening his grip without letting the boy go entirely. The child's head was nestled under his chin and his worry just increased. The teen felt too small and slight in his arms, more like a small child than like the teenager he was, and it was a long time before the older wizard released the child completely.

"Are you feeling better now?" He quietly asked. He didn't let it show, but he was angry, very angry. Not at the child however – for once as it normally always had been this child he had been angry at – but at the child's relatives, at the child's aunt and uncle. And he promised himself, again, that if they made it out of this, then they would pay for what they had done to a wizarding child, to any child.

He had never been a man prone to hope and only in his very darkest moments, when he had been sure, when he had known, that he might die at any moment, had he indulged himself into believing that everything would turn out well, but now … now he couldn't help hoping, hoping that everything would turn out for the best so he simply could take Harry into his home, so he simply could give the blasted brat what he never before had gotten from anyone.

Still there were a few more moments of silence between them, the boy only nodding at him, before Snape continued.

"Are you ready to go back so we can solve this arithmetic problem of yours together?"

break … ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ … line

It actually was so easy, solving arithmetic problems, and he wondered why he never had thought of solving them the way Snape had shown him after they had come back to the classroom and Snape had seated himself at the table beside him, explaining to him how he could do it.

Well, Snape had said that – if one didn't know how to solve them, then it wasn't easy to find out about this way alone, that a child normally learned this way of solving arithmetic problems in primary school – which he hadn't attended. And as he never had learned that way of solving those problems, he had done them the only way he could have thought of – namely drawing those lines and simply counting them together.

And Snape had even said that he would give detention to everyone who dared giving him, Harry, troubles because he never had attended primary school, including him and for a moment he had wondered how he would give himself troubles because of this. But then – well, he always had blamed himself for stuff. As it seemed, Snape knew him rather well meanwhile and somehow he didn't know if this was a good sign or a bad one.

Well, but then Draco had shaken his head and had said that he never would have imagined him, Harry, not having attended primary school if he hadn't said so, had asked where he had learned all the other stuff they needed at Hogwarts and were taught at primary school normally. None of them had given a scathing remark or something like that.

And now that Snape had shown him what exactly he could do with numbers he actually wondered if he shouldn't drop divination and chose arithmancy instead. It really had been so easy and – silently, he didn't want to get detention after all – he had blamed himself for being so stupid in the first place.

Flashback

"You have the number 1471." Snape said, simply turning the parchment over. "Write it down."

He did, writing the number down onto the parchment.

"The number you have to add is 321. Write it underneath so that the last numbers are directly underneath each other. Always do it that way so you won't get confused, that is important."

Well, he again did as Snape had told him, writing the second number underneath the first one so that the one of 321 was directly below the one of 1471 and so on.

"Good." Snape said. Taking a pencil from his robes and Harry nearly gaped at him. He never before had seen Snape writing with a pencil instead of a quill and ink. He watched Snape drawing vertical lines between the numbers, separating them. "Those last numbers are the units, the seven and the two are the tens, the four and the three are the hundreds and the one here is the thousands. See that you always write the units, the tens, the hundreds and the thousands below each other."

Harry nodded at the Potions Master, wondering why the man was so patient and why he explained it so well to him. Well, he surely would make a mistake with this one, he always did, and then Snape wouldn't be so patient anymore.

"Now you simply add them together." Snape said. "One added to one is what?"

"Uhm … two." Harry answered, not understanding why Snape asked this. It was clear that one and one was two. Everyone knew this, even he. He needed the entire …

"So you write the two underneath both tens. What is two added to seven?"

"Nine." Harry answered, writing the two below the two ones, still not understanding. He did not need the …

"Exactly." Snape said. "And now you simply write the nine below the tens. What is three added to four?"

"Seven." Again Harry answered after writing the nine down where it – obviously – belonged to.

"Correct. Write it down below the hundreds." Snape said and he did so. "Now, you hove no number below the first one from 1471 and for now we simply fill this space with a zero. And what is it if you add nothing to one?"

Well, he already had written the one below the one and the zero and Snape actually smirked at him. At him! Snape! Snape actually smirked! And not in his normally evil way but nearly as if –

But surely Snape couldn't be proud of him! Not over such a simply thing he had …

Well, Snape actually was proud at the brat.

Harry might be fourteen years old, but he never had been to primary school and even pre-school he had visited for half a year only. And yet the boy seemed having understood the concept as to how he best solved a four-digit arithmetic problem. Reaching his pencil towards the boy he continued.

"Take this so you can correct eventual mistakes you make. And now try to add 2342 to 5357."

Well, the boy definitely had – somewhere along the way from his sixth month of pre-school to his fourth year of Hogwarts learned how to write four-digit numbers, however he had managed it, maybe trial and error, and suddenly the thought struck him that during Harry's first year his cauldron mostly had been exploding because of the wrong amount of ingredients. Maybe if the boy had addressed him with his problem, they could have avoided that.

But then – how should Harry have managed addressing him with this? He had made the boy's potions lessons a living hell since lesson one. He never had given the boy a chance in the first place. And even if Harry would have dared – would he, Snape, had taken the problem seriously? Would he actually have taught the boy how to do math? Or would he not rather have sneered at him? Reprimanded him for his stupidity?

The lack of scratching from the pencil over parchment made him looking down and he frowned.

7699

That was correct, and Harry had done this one by himself, looking up at him now, questioningly, expectantly, nearly even scared, and he placed a hand on the boy's shoulder.

"That is correct." He said, allowing himself another smile. "This way you can add as much numbers together as you want, never mind how many digits they have. Try 1253, 14312 and 54432."

Well, this time he watched the boy writing the numbers below each other and he could see the insecurity Harry displayed now, that there were three numbers to add, not being sure for a moment if it would be as simple as with two. He didn't interfere however, wanted to know if Harry would manage on his own. And the boy did, the result was correct.

"Absolutely correct, Mr. Potter, well done." He said, not able to keep the pride out of his voice and the boy gave him a tentative smile in return at the praise, for it was high praise coming from him, Snape, and the boy knew it as well as did he. "And I will take your new ability as a new standard when it comes to handling the amount of potions ingredients you have to use in your potions. So be warned, I do know now that you can add."

He watched the boy for a while longer, allowing the boy watching him at the same time, and he wondered how Petunia could have rejected this boy so much. And he knew that the woman had. Even though most – if not all – of Harry's physical scars were because of that … that animal … didn't mean that the worst damage had been done by him too.

Affection – no, he didn't dare using the word 'love' – but affection of any kind, warmth, praise – as rare as it might be –, care of any kind, was vital in the upbringing of a healthy and care-free child, even he knew that. But Harry had had none of those things while growing up. The physical abused at the hands of his uncle was despicable in itself, but the neglect on his aunt's part was just as bad, if not even worse than that, because any child craved the affection and the care of a parental figure.

And if a child had a parental figure who actively abused him while the other parent just stood by and watched on, did nothing while even spoiling another child with love and warmth and food at the same time, that was just sickening.

And of course Harry never had said anything, because in all of his experiences, any complaint only would be dealt with harshly, even brutally.

"Never again, child." He finally said, simply placing his hand onto the boy's shoulder. "You will never have to be there again and you will never have to fear asking for something – and even if it is only how to solve an arithmetic problem." He placed the fingers of his other hand underneath the boy's chin and gently pulled Harry's head up so that he could look directly into those green eyes. "And that is a promise." He added.

End flashback

break … ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ … line

Soft sobbing got Snape out of his slumber close to midnight and he lifted his head from the journal he had been writing in earlier. He really should lay down if he was so tired that he fell asleep upon his work. But it simply had been important, writing down the day's events, how the potion he had used on Harry's eyes yesterday had started to work, that Harry never had been to primary school, that he had started to teach him math. That Draco had been very helpful in this, that Pansy had had her first breakdown and that they were running out of none-poisoning ingredients for their – 'soups'.

But that day had been so full of activities, of chatter and of – blinking he realized that the day had been full of normal day life, full of normal things like conversations, like learning, teaching, games, full of even laugher and full of tears. Obviously they had started to go into a routine they all seemed comfortable with, and obviously they all …

Well, they lived down here.

They actually lived down here.

Another sob caused him to look over the children and he easily could make out Miss Granger, Hermione, sobbing, laying on her mattress beside Ronald Weasley that was her partner, the boy sleeping on peacefully.

Sighing he got off his desk and went over to the girl, going onto one knee beside her and softly placing his hand on her shoulder he quietly said her name. He didn't know how she would react and he didn't want to startle her too much. He knew the reactions of all his Slytherins, but with the Gryffindors, he would have to learn theirs.

"Come over to your – common table." He said, getting off the floor beside the girl to give her some space. He went over to the mantelpiece and poured tea into two cups. The one thing that would not run out for another week. He added honey to the one for the girl and brought them over to the group of tables the children had brought together at one point or another during the past days.

"Have you been wakened by a nightmare, child, or have you been unable to sleep at all?" He asked, shoving the cup of tea with the honey towards the girl that now sat at one of the chairs and he seated himself beside the girl.

"I've had a nightmare." The girl answered, reaching out for the cup.

"What happened?" He simply asked.

The girl looked at him startled for a moment, but then she sighed, taking a sip of the warm tea.

"I've dreamed of my parents." She finally said. "At first everything was normal, my father had been in his dental surgery and mum had been at home, cooking. But suddenly my father had been in a cave, searching for old skeletons, even if he isn't an archaeologist. And mum had been in the kitchen and suddenly there hadn't been any food there and she couldn't go out to buy something. She tried the telephone to order something, but it didn't work either. And dad too couldn't get out of that cave and he suddenly realized that all the skeletons had been died because of lack of food."

"You are aware that in your dream you simply have projected our situation upon your parents, child?" Snape asked, placing a comforting hand onto the again sobbing girl's shoulder.

"Yes." Miss Granger said between her quiet sobs. "It was horrible nevertheless."

"Our situation is horrible, Hermione." Snape said. "No one can deny that. And it is normal that in your dreams you are working those horrors over. If you wouldn't you would go crazy sooner or later. We need our dreams. Sleep without dreaming would give us no comfort in the long run. I know that it is frightening, but it is necessary. Maybe you want to start writing a journal before you go to bed? That would help with your fears."

"How so?" The girl asked unsurely and it was clear that she didn't want to because she didn't want to acknowledge her fears.

"If you write your fears down in the evening before you go to bed, then it will be the first step in working them over in your mind. Your dreams won't be so violent then as the process of working them over already has started on the paper." He answered.

"But I don't want to write about it." The girl admitted after a moment of silence. "It is bad enough to think about it during the day."

"I do know that acknowledging your fears is a difficult thing, Hermione." Snape answered. "But it is necessary. We all have the same fears as have you. And we all have to acknowledge them because only then they will be less frightening. It might not work, but it is worth a try as it mostly does. Simply take your potions copybook and start the journal."

"But …"

"The potions we will be brewing down here due to the schedule your classmates have worked out, you simply may copy them on a parchment and the moment we are out of here I will get you a new copybook for the subject I am teaching." He said, interrupting the girl's protests. "And seeing as you surely won't be able to go back to sleep right now, you might consider starting right now with simply writing down your dream. I am sure that this way it will not repeat itself for at least tonight when you go back to sleep later."

break … ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ … line

At one point during the past half an hour while she wrote down her dream, she looked over at Professor Snape who had gone back to his desk, writing on his own papers. Only that the man wasn't really writing but watching the others that were sleeping, especially Harry, she noticed, and he was looking very tired and worried, and somehow – more human than she ever had seen him and she started to realize that the black clad man actually cared deeply, that the dark and tough man actually seemed to like - no, to love Harry.

Well, she didn't better say this sentence aloud, she knew, or she would be in really, really serious problems then.

A few days earlier, she never would have believed anyone who would have told her about such a thing, a caring Snape, a Snape that was ready to take Harry in, Harry of all people! Who explained things to them patiently and who didn't snap at them, even with all their nerves already strained. But now she saw it with her own eyes and it was such a strange and foreign thing that she would need a few days more to really understand it. Snape caring for them, even the Gryffindors. Snape caring for Harry especially.

It had felt strange, using Miss Granger's given name, but slowly he got used to using the student's given names – not entirely, but somewhat at least, sometimes. And he simply had felt it necessary in this situation. That girl too was no one who had caused any troubles so far. None of them had, he had to admit - aside from Ronald Weasley, and out of jealousy. But he had promised Harry that he would not hold it against the redhead and as long as Weasley behaved further, he would keep his promise.

Walking into his office he noticed that the girl had gone back to her mattress and now – apparently at least – was sleeping much better than she had before and he was satisfied.

Harry awoke at one point in the middle of the night, all sweaty despite the coldness down here. Well, he hadn't been able to take the dreamless sleep tonight and he noticed that he would not get anymore sleep right now anyway. So he left his mattress and went to a corner in the classroom where he sat down on the cold stone floor, not wanting to wake Crabbe, Vincent, with his restless movements at one point or another.

He leaned on the wall behind him and closed his eyes, shivering slightly in the cold dungeons air and at the cold stony wall touching the back of his damp shirt, but immediately the flashbacks in his mind were back again. The feeling of being unwanted, the fear of being rejected sweeping over him and it was then he realized that he was never going to be loved. He would always be the Bloody Boy Who Lived, no matter what he did to change that image.

Quickly he reopened his eyes. He didn't want to feel that right now. He didn't want to have those flashbacks.

Snape had promised him that he would care for him, and he believed the man, as strange as it was. Snape caring for him, Potter. Snape of all people. He still couldn't grasp that thought entirely yet. But Snape had promised. And Snape had said that he wanted him. In his own sarcastic and strange way Snape had said that he wanted him – even if the thought caused him a headache as Snape had phrased it. But he wanted him, had even offered him a family, that he would be his father, that he would brew a potion to make it permanently. Would it be some kind of … adoption potion? Did Snape even have the ingredients he needed for this potion? Wouldn't Snape need the consent of the ministry or something like that? Or the Dursleys?

He shuddered at that thought. He didn't want to go to the Dursleys to ask them. He didn't want to go back to them at all.

He had not lied to the Professor when he had told him that he already was ready for this. That he was ready to be the – grumpy, old Potions Master's, the dungeon bat's son. He was ready, as strange as it was. Ron probably wouldn't understand it, but he wanted this. Snape had given him already so much more than he'd ever had. Even if the man had been making his potions lessons a living hell since he first had set his foot into the man's classroom.

But that was the past. And he had learned soon enough to be flexible, to adapt to new situations. And Snape did care, what was all he ever had wished for, that someone cared.

He didn't notice his eyes dropping close and he didn't notice sleep capturing him once more.

break … ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ … line

Of course Harry had managed to wake up and to leave his mattress at exactly the time he was not present in the classroom, even if it only had been ten minutes he had left to get his office in order before going to sleep himself and with a sigh he went over to the wall the boy was leaning against, shivering in his sleep at the cold dungeons air. Stupid child!

Lowering himself onto one knee in front of the idiotic boy he noticed that he was back to sleep already, but he also noticed the still damp shirt and the barely audible but nevertheless unsettling wheezing the boy's chest gave away with each breath. Of course the boy shivered with cold if he was sitting here in the cold dungeons air, wearing a damp shirt. The boy probably had woken from a nightmare.

His breathing had been difficult in some ways since that potion had exploded. He was sure that the boy's lungs had not been affected too badly, that he had gotten the healing potion for the boy's lungs into him quickly enough. But his breathing even so had been more difficult since then and he knew that sitting here in the cold dungeons air surely wouldn't do any good to the child's already weak lungs.

Gently curling his fingers around the boy's upper arm he called out his name, started to pull the boy off the cold floor, away from the cold wall in his back.

"Wha'?" The boy asked in his sleep dazed state, barely opening his eyes.

"How eloquent, Mr. Potter." The Potions Master drawled. "Idiot child! Sitting here in the cold while wearing a damp shirt. You could have gotten me from my office. It isn't as if I could go away so far, you know? Next time you wake from a nightmare you will get me, you disobedient little brat."

At his words the boy gave a small smile away in his half-sleep while allowing him, Snape, to lead the boy back to the mattresses, and he had to admit, despite the harsh words he had chosen, his voice had lost its touch. It must have lost its touch if the Gryffindor could smile at his words. Impertinent brat!

Gently shoving Potter down onto the mattresses he lay down himself, opened the buttons of the boy's damp shirt and then pulled the shirt off the boy's small frame. If he slept with this damp shirt on him, he only would catch a cold. So pulling the boy that was already back to sleep close into his arms he threw Harry's and his own blanked over both of them so he could keep the small body warm with his own. He knew that some of his colleagues would protest now, but he didn't care. They were not in their situation and they would have no right to judge anything they decided or did, as long as it kept them alive and as healthy as possible.

It was much later when Harry woke again, shifted in his sleep and for a moment he wiggled himself deeper into the warmth that embraced him, a warmth that not only had to do with the temperature, he knew, but with something else as well and he basked within the feeling of safety as deeply as possible, hoping that he somehow could safe this feeling – just in case.

It took him another few minutes, minutes of pure bliss, until he opened his eyes and gave a sigh, his surroundings slowly coming into view and into his awareness and suddenly he noticed what exactly the warm feeling was, one of Snape's arms curling around his upper body and his head resting upon the man's upper arm like on a pillow.

Taking a startled breath he tried to get away, but immediately the grip around his upper body tightened.

"Stop this annoying wiggling and go back to sleep, you insufferable child, it is still too early for being awake." Snape's voice drawled from behind him.

break … ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ … line

Something – or someone – Harry – wiggling in his arms woke him from his sleep and he opened one eye, easily noticing the boy basking in the feeling of being held, knowing that probably the child never before had been held like this and he couldn't help feeling relaxed at the knowledge that finally the boy was and that apparently he enjoyed the feeling – as much as he wished the brat would go back to sleep so he himself could do just the same.

A few minutes later however the boy moved in a more startled way and he guessed that he – finally – had woken up completely, realizing in whose arms he lay and he tightened the grip he had on the boy to keep him from getting away.

"Stop this annoying wiggling and go back to sleep, you insufferable child." He growled, opening one eye to look down at the child. "It is still too early for being awake."

"I'm sorry, sir." The boy immediately apologized. "I didn't mean to …"

"Shut up, brat." Snape interrupted before Harry could make a fool of himself. "I pulled you to me last night and you are quite fine right here where you are. You have been much too cold after sitting on the cold floor wearing a damp shirt."

He could tell that the boy wanted to protest but that he was just too tired and that the warmth he offered simply was too beckoning.

"Okay." Was all he heard from the brat before he fell back asleep and he himself closed his eyes again too.