Madam Pomfrey judged Harry fit to leave the Hospital Wing only two days before the end of the break. She clearly didn't want to even then, but Harry was chafing to be let out of the restrictive aura of the Hospital Wing, and Professor Snape agreed with him. The somber, medical chamber was no longer having a soporific effect on his mood. It was time for him to be moved. Harry had expected that he would be released to Gryffindor Tower, but considering the circumstances under which he had ended up in the Hospital Wing knocking on death's door in the first place, he supposed he should have realized that wasn't going to happen. Instead, Professor Snape informed him in tones that brooked no disobedience, he would be taking up resident in Snape's spare room for the remainder of the holiday and possibly continuing into the new term if his mental heatlh continued to concern the professor.

Harry had swallowed hard and agreed.

Now he found himself wishing that he hadn't as the professor led him into a small, oval-shaped chamber that was clearly his new accommodations. A bed took up most of the space, spread with a blue-and-green coverlet, but there was also a small wardrobe to one side and a slightly battered desk. The carpet was plush beneath his feet, a welcome respite from the chill that seeped from the dungeon walls.

"You will remain here until dinner," Snape told him. "This door will remain open. The same charms to prevent self-injurious behavior have been placed over this room, as a precaution. You may take a nap, study, or read anything of your choosing. If you do not have anything you wish to read, you may come and knock on my study door and I will show you to my personal library, where you may choose one book from the shelves I say are acceptable. Is that understood, Mr. Potter?"

"Yes, sir," Harry whispered softly and found himself gently propelled into the room. Snape disappeared down the dimly lit hallway, but Harry had the sense that he was listening, waiting to hear if Harry had another breakdown. There had been an embarrassing amount in the past few weeks. All the repressed sadness and grief and anger had just exploded from his mind--as if the suicide attempt had been enough to purge him of the numbness, to open himself up to past wounds...and Merlin, were there a lot.

The first time he had burst into noisy, braying sobs, he had expected Snape to scoff at him or turn his back. To leave the Hospital Wing or scold him for being a sniveling brat. Instead, the Potions professor had awkwardly gathered him up, mindful of the bandages that covered some very painful healing wounds, and simply held him, letting him sob into the man's black-robed shoulder. It had been a brand new experience for Harry, who had never been allowed to properly cry before. Who had never been allowed even the smallest measure of comfort with his relatives since he was very, very small. Aunt Petunia had tried to treat him decently for a while, but that ended as soon as his first burst of accidental magic occurred and her worst fears were realized.

Professor Snape had known Aunt Petunia, a fact that had shocked Harry. He'd known she was a vindictive nosey old bat, known the petty cruelties she was capable of, and told Harry in no uncertain terms that absolutely nothing that any of the Dursleys had done was his fault or deserved in the slightest bit. Harry still didn't know what to make of that. Old habits did not die hard, particularly when they had been learnt with your own tears and blood. But he'd promised the man he would try to understand and he supposed in time, maybe he would.

For now, though, he flopped on his new bed. It was surprisingly comfortable, much like the bed in his dorm. He actually appreciated the color scheme in here more than the garish red and gold. Blue, green, cream, and the wood of the desk and wardrobe made for a soothing palette.

The bandages on his arms chafed against his still-healing injuries, but he knew better than to pick at them. The charms tended to think he was making another self-injurious attempt and brought Snape rushing to find him. It was extraordinarily embarrassing to explain he'd merely had an itch, so Harry had trained himself to ignore it as best as he could. Snape could have put some sort of balm on them, to lessen the itch, but he refused for now, saying that the healing marks were a good reminder to Harry not to ever let himself get so low again.

He hadn't realized two hours had passed until Snape gently rapped on the door with his knuckles and informed him that it was time for dinner. Flushing, Harry scrambled off the bed, nearly falling when his toe caught against a loose thread in the carpet. He righted himself though with a minimum of flailing and carried on past the professor, whose mouth was twisted in a smirk that Harry suspected held in the man's laughter.

"You will not ever return to the Dursleys," Snape informed him over dinner, when he'd just taken a bite of mashed potatoes. Startled, Harry coughed them out inelegantly all over the tablecloth.

"What do you mean, sir?" Harry finally managed to sputter out, taking a long drink of pumpkin juice to soothe his abraded throat.

"You are seventeen, correct?" Snape questioned him. Harry nodded. "As such, you are of age in the wizarding world and can leave regardless. But I wanted to make that particularly clear in your case, Mr. Potter, because I believe that you would return anyway, to serve as their put-upon house elf if they so demanded. Am I wrong?"

Reluctantly, Harry shook his head.

"Precisely," Snape stated, taking an almost savage bite of his roast beef. "And thus, I assure you, I will not allow you to return to the Dursleys."

"But..." a weak protest crossed Harry's lips before he could stop it. Snape arched one eyebrow at him.

"Yes, Mr. Potter?"

"If you're ordering me around...then...then aren't you doing the same thing? In a way? Sir?" he fumbled his way through the minefield of how he felt, feeling more and more like an incompetent git.

To his surprise, Snape merely looked thoughtful.

"You have a point, Mr. Potter," Professor Snape acknowledged. "Very well, I propose a deal. You stay with me until break ends and possibly a bit after, you attend Mind Healing sessions with both me and a licensed Mind Healer for the rest of the school year, and we shall come back to this conversation. How does that sound?"

Dumbfounded, Harry could only nod. He felt like his professor had been replaced by some sort of strange boggart. It couldn't possibly be the real professor Snape, could it? Even knowing how the man could act with his guard down, how his opinion of Harry had changed, it was a shock experiencing it like this. The man cared. About him. The worthless freak.

As if he'd read the boy's thoughts (and perhaps he had), Snape pointed his fork at him.

"And you will never refer to yourself as a worthless freak again," he said sharply. "You are not worthless, Harry. You are priceless."

"Priceless," Harry repeated softly to himself and grinned. He liked the thought of that.