The Weasleys grew worried when it was made clear to them that Harry had to go away with Snape. It did not help that Harry looked absolutely listless and did not say a word. Ginny gave him a hug that he barely managed to return and when she pulled away he cast her a look of a wounded and subdued animal.

“One or two nights, at most. I’m sure Mr Potter wouldn’t want to push my hospitality beyond that,” Snape said briskly to Mrs Weasley.

When they walked out of the gate with their backs to the Burrow, Harry felt anxiety rise within him like a roaring monster and he had to clench his teeth hard not to cry out of anguish.

“We’re Apparating. Grab my arm and I’ll guide you,” said Snape and, almost in the middle of a step, with a cracking sound, they were gone.

They reappeared in a short and narrow lane cramped between the windowless walls of two dirty grey houses. Harry thought he saw a fair haired little boy dart around the corner.

“Best place to Apparate at. Muggle area, but no one but kids here. They’re afraid of me,” said Snape in a matter-of-fact tone. Harry believed him. They walked the few steps up the lane and turned right at the corner, reaching a street that stretched far ahead with similar small, two-storied terrace houses in an endless row. They stopped already at the second house and climbed up a few steps to a door that had once been white. Harry wondered if this was the place where Snape grew up. It looked poor and desolate. 

“What’s the name of this town?” asked Harry. Snape looked like he would have liked to come up with an excuse not to answer the question, as if there was some kind of pitfall hidden in it.

“This is Spinners End in Destersbridge,” Snape finally grunted. Harry recognised the name. His aunt Petunia had mentioned it, but Harry had never visited the town with the Dursleys. It awoke some curiosity in him and he was somewhat pulled out of his lethargy. This was obviously the town where his mother had lived as a child. He only had time to cast one last look over his shoulder before Snape ushered him inside. He had a glimpse of a monotonous view of a hillside full of tiled roofs with thickets of oblique chimneys before the door closed behind him.

They entered directly into a small room that was a compound of a living-room and a library with shelves crammed with books from floor to ceiling. It was small with an armchair and an old sofa grouped around a low-slung table.

“Drinks maybe?” proposed Snape, knitting his brows as if he disagreed with the proposal at the same time as he spoke. Harry did not answer. “Let’s have a cup of tea,” Snape made up his mind. “Have a seat.”

Snape disappeared through a hidden door that suddenly appeared at the right end of the room that probably led to a kitchen. Harry’s inside was still in uproar. He felt like vomiting one moment, and like running away and hiding the next. He tried to calm down. He would have to trust Snape, as hard as it might be.

Harry stood rooted at the same spot when Snape came back carrying a tray that he put down at the table before he turned slowly to Harry.

“I want you to give me the draught that you’ve been carrying around these past weeks” said Snape. “For your own safety,” he added. Without a word, Harry put his hand inside his shirt and when he stretched his hand towards Snape and opened his fingers, there was a tiny glass phial which Snape took, looked at and then let into a small leather pouch that he conjured up. He thrust it in a coffin that shut and locked itself with a snap.

“Have a seat,” repeated Snape. 

Harry stood as if paralysed and looked at his hand that had held the phial. He lifted his gaze to meet Snape’s.

“Oh, please!” Snape burst out. “Spare me your sentiments of guilt, Mr Potter. You haven’t committed the act of cowardice, have you? Yet.” He remained silent for a short while, then said almost dreamingly: “I know of a boy who carried similar bottles twice in his life. The first time, when he was sixteen, it was the girl he loved who prevented him from taking the potion. The second time, he was eighteen and it was Lord Voldemort who saved him...”

Harry’s eyes widened.

“At least he thought so at the time,” Snape added lightly. “Now, have some tea, please,” he said in a commanding voice and Harry sat down out of sheer surprise. When he had taken a few sips of his tea, he felt a bit better, strangely. He started to observe the room in more detail. Glass jars filled with yellowish liquid and what might be organs or dead creatures stood on those shelves that did not contain books. It reminded Harry of things he had seen in Snape’s office at Hogwarts. They suddenly stood out as pretty innocent topics of conversation, and clearing his throat, Harry asked:

“What are those things in the jars, Professor?”

“They are in fact from the Muggle world,” Snape answered promptly. “Not so long ago it was popular among Muggle doctors to keep organs from autopsied bodies, to study their anatomy, which is the Muggle word for the material structure of bodies and their parts. They do not of course take into account the magical essence of the organs, as they cannot feel it. What’s special for all these organs that I have collected is that they’ve been classified as healthy organs by Muggle pathologists, but if you know how, you can detect traces of Black Magic. In other words, their owners have died by wizard hands, by means of Dark Arts.”

Harry pondered this a moment.  Snape was known, at Hogwarts, to entertain an unhealthy fascination for the Dark Arts which allegedly had been the reason Dumbledore kept him from teaching his favourite subject, Defence Against the Dark Arts, for so long. On the other hand, the post had been cursed by Voldemort, and no teacher had been able to keep the job for longer than a year. It must have been important to Dumbledore to shield his counterspy from curses and have him stay at Hogwarts, Harry thought.

“Why, Sir,” Harry said cautiously, “do you keep them?” Snape looked annoyed.

“People,” he said, “have questioned my interest in things that have to do with the Dark Arts, already when I started this collection in my youth. I always tried to explain to them that if you want to defend yourself against Black Magic you have to learn its essence first, you have to see it and feel it.” Somehow, Harry got an obscure feeling that Snape was talking about Harry’s mother when he referred to 'people'. Harry made an effort to divert his thoughts from the delicate topic.

“Do you have a human brain, Professor?” he asked. Snape rose and brought a big round jar containing a white lump with a shape that Harry recognised as a brain: the convolutions along the surface that penetrated and lost themselves deeper inside the tissue, the division at the middle long axis and the protuberances at each side. Harry put his hands around the glass and tried to detect something.

“So what has happened to this brain, Sir?” he asked “Is it hurt by Dark Arts?”

“Do you feel anything?” asked Snape. Harry removed his left hand from the jar, then approached it slowly again.

“I feel tickles in my palm from here,” he said hesitantly and stopped his hand a few inches from the glass side.

“That’s perceptive,” said Snape, surprised, before he continued: “As I said, most of the organs in my collection are from Muggles. But that particular one is a wizard’s brain. Of course, anatomically we look exactly the same as Muggles, but you can reveal and measure the magical content by a simple spell.” He rose, mumbled some words while sweeping the wand slowly round the object and finally pointed at the brain. “Revelo Magic Quantitas!” he said and the brain started to glow with a golden shimmer that intensified only to die out subsequently. There were patches that did not shine at all, though, and other areas that went out quicker.

“This brain is damaged by a dark curse, which you felt the traces of. The wizard it belonged to was in love with another wizard’s wife and the husband, who was an acknowledged and well respected wizard, believed they were cheating on him.  The husband went to see the other wizard who lived in the next town. He forbade him ever to leave his town again, or he would die. This wizard did not deem his concurrent capable of cursing him with a deadly curse and disregarded the warning. But the next time he stepped out of the boundaries of his own town, he did indeed fall down dead. He was brought to the local hospital where the Muggle doctor performed an autopsy and found a perfectly healthy body and no cause of death. This doctor preserved the organs to make it possible for future diagnosis - which I fulfilled, in a way, when I found this brain in the same Muggle hospital about two hundred years later. I have written about this case in Progress in the Understanding of The Dark Arts. You see, you can deduce from the patches of damaged magical content in the brain that you just saw, exactly which curse he was hit with.” Snape drew his breath. Harry stared at him. He had rarely seen his teacher this enthusiastic in the classroom.

“I guess you must study a lot of brains before you’re able to make that out, Professor?” said Harry. Snape let out a snorting sound that Harry judged actually might be an unaccustomed laugh.

“Yes, well, I did study a lot of brains when I was a medical student at St Mungo’s,” said Snape.

“You’re a doctor, then, Sir?” asked Harry surprised.

“A healer, yes,” Snape corrected him. “I went to St Mungo’s School of Magical Medicine for three years, before Voldemort commanded me to Hogwarts.” Harry stared at him. “When Voldemort disappeared seventeen years ago, Dumbledore persuaded me to stay at Hogwarts but he encouraged me to finish my medical education on the side, and I became a healer. I used to work at St Mungo’s during the summer holidays to keep up my skills,” said Snape. “Not the past two summers, though...”

“I wish someone had told me you were a trained healer,” muttered Harry. “Professor Dumbledore always insisted on you being called in serious situations instead of Mme Pomfrey, but he never told me why.”

“He was a bit secretive and uncommunicative at times, was he not, dear Professor Dumbledore? Or he might have had his own reasons to leave your prejudices against me unchallenged,” Snape said enigmatically. “Now, I’m afraid we must get down to work. You must tell me all the places you have resided in during the past year. We have to look at all probabilities. You might have been influenced by some Dark Force any time, any place. Let’s get started...”

“Couldn’t you sort of examine me and tell whether I’m contaminated by something? Do a diagnostic spell or, I don’t know, feel with your hands over my head or something?” asked Harry.

“No,” said Snape with a frown. “You’re well right now, aren’t you?... except for all the...er… emotions? The Dark Forces are not present now, as I understand it? It only shows itself at night and only during the attacks?”

Harry nodded.

“So I’ll have to wait until you have an attack to examine you. But we should prepare with background information. First of all: you’ve told me that you’re convinced of the piece of Lord Voldemort’s soul having been detached from you, is that correct?”

“I am. I don’t feel his presence like I did before, and my scar never hurts. I don’t have the kind of headaches I used to have frequently and I’m much more able to concentrate now than before. I used to grow tired fast. And I don’t need my glasses, my eyesight has become normal, which is an unmistakable sign, isn’t it?” answered Harry.

“Yes, I noticed you don’t wear your glasses anymore,” said Snape.

Several persons had commented on the fact that Harry no longer wore glasses and the most common reflection used to be that he now looked less alike James, his father. The likeness had been remarked upon so often since Harry entered Hogwarts at the age of eleven, that he had grown tired of hearing it. The same likeness was the ground for the ill-will, not to say hatred, which Snape had transferred from James to Harry and which had made him treat his rival’s son most unfairly at school. Harry wondered whether Snape, too, thought he looked less like James. If Snape did, he kept it to himself.

“I can feel that the part of Voldemort is detached from me,” continued Harry, “but I don’t know if it’s still there somehow, getting at me from the outside, if you know what I mean? It shouldn’t be able to exist on its own, should it? That’s the thing with horcruxes - they need to be attached to an object or to a living being?” 

“That’s correct,” said Snape, “but we had better keep the eventuality in mind. So little is known about horcruxes, especially ones attached to humans. It’s not a common occurrence. Now, tell me, where were you a year ago?”

“Probably at Grimmauld Place, preparing to sneak into the Ministry to find Umbridge who we thought had the locket that was one of Voldemort’s seven horcruxes,“ Harry started off, eager to comply with Snape’s query. He told Snape the whole story about how they had got hold of the locket but been forced to flee from London. How they had slept at different places in the country every night in a tent.

“We had no means of destroying the locket so we took turns to guard it as it affected us adversely. I was not able to produce a Patronus when I wore it, and it made Ron bad tempered and mean. We fought and he left us.” Harry turned his head away - it was painful to recall that moment of discord.

He continued with telling Snape about the long weeks of cold, when Hermione and he did not know how to proceed. How at last they had decided on Christmas Eve to go to Godric’s Hollow which was where Harry’s parents had lived before they were killed by Voldemort and where they lay buried. In a quiet, emotional voice, Harry told Snape about the statue of his parents at the village square and the wrecked house that was still there.

”You don’t need to tell me about it, I’ve been there - I know,” said Snape in a tight voice, looking down so that his long black hair covered his face.

Harry described the visit to the churchyard and how they had met the old woman who they believed was an old friend of Dumbledore’s and how they followed her home. Snape interrupted him and asked for more details about what Bathilda Bagshot’s cottage had looked like, and what objects Harry had seen in the room, but Harry had difficulties recalling such details.

“Anything might have been hidden in there,” Snape said irritably. “You should at least have felt if something of a Dark Force got to you, if a curse hit you. Are you sure you didn’t?”

“I didn’t feel anything except consternation at her strange behaviour and maybe some fear. Wait to hear what happened next,” said Harry and described how he had followed the old lady upstairs to the attic, not realising she was speaking Parseltongue and how she had transformed into a snake - Voldemort’s snake, Nagini - and attacked him.

Snape’s usually so impassive face could not help crumpling up in abhorrence. Harry suspected the professor was reminded of Nagini’s attack on himself. Harry told Snape how narrowly they had escaped and that his wand had broken.

“By the way,” Snape interrupted Harry again, “...what has happened to your ability to speak Parseltongue?”

“I still speak it, but it’s more like a foreign language that I’ve once learnt, if you see what I mean? Before, I didn’t even realise when I heard it or spoke it, like it was a natural language for me.”

“Well, that’s another change that confirms that the piece of Voldemort’s soul has separated from yours,” said Snape.

“A few weeks after Godric’s Hollow would be the point of time you sent us your silver doe Patronus and gave us the sword of Gryffindor,” Harry continued. “Ron returned the same night, which was lucky because I nearly drowned as I dived for that sword. I had forgotten to take the locket off and it dragged me down under the ice. If Ron had not been there… Well, at last we were able to destroy the locket... We were mystified but grateful to the person who had given us the sword,” added Harry, at which Snape smirked briefly.

Harry went on with the description of the eccentric house where Xenophilus Lovegood, the father of Harry’s friend Luna, lived, which was where Harry, Ron and Hermione had gone next. Snape was interested in this place as well and Harry did his best to describe all the strange things it contained. Harry and Snape agreed that Mr Lovegood was not likely to harbour objects of Dark Arts, simply a lot of odd objects in general.

“Something still might have been hidden in there, it’s not to be excluded,” Snape finished. “Unfortunately the man is dead, so we cannot ask him.”

“But why is it important to know where I was hit with this Dark Force?” asked Harry. “Is it not more crucial to find out its nature?”

“Where can give clues as to what,” retorted Snape. “And it’s vital to know where it caught you, as you might have to return to the same spot if you want to reverse a curse or to liberate a Demon. “

Snape wanted to know why they had visited Mr Lovegood. Harry launched into the explanation about the Deathly Hallows, which took quite some time. The incredulity on Snape’s face at first when he realised it had to do with a children’s fairytale was substituted for intense attention as Harry told him about Dumbledore and Grindelwald, their friendship and their subsequent disagreement. Harry spoke about the Elder Wand, the Resurrection Stone and the Peverell’s invisibility coat. Harry watched the Slytherin traits of calculation, greed and grandeur work on Snape. When he finished his tale of the three Deathly Hallows and told Snape how he destroyed the Elder Wand after the battle, Snape let out a deep sigh and remained silent for a long time.

“Dumbledore was right,” said Snape finally. “You are an extraordinary wizard to have resisted the temptation of keeping that wand. I’d say it was for the best, but all the same…” He shook his head. He looked Harry directly in the eyes. “I’m not sure even your father would have resisted. But neither would I, of course,” he said. “Your mother, on the contrary...”  Snape looked down. Harry felt slightly embarrassed, flattered and annoyed at the same time by Snape’s comment about his father.

“Just a moment.” Snape stood up and disappeared through the door to the kitchen again.

Harry rose to stretch and peer out through one of the small windows. It was getting dark outside and the street lamps were lit. The town stretched ahead on the slope of the hillside on which Snape’s house was located. Harry was only able to distinguish dim lights. He had glimpsed a tall mill chimney as they entered the house but no special features seemed to characterise the Muggle town in this direction. He didn’t even see a church tower.

Snape returned with sandwiches and Harry only then realised how hungry he was. Snape flicked his wand towards the fireplace and flames started to dance. As they sat down, Harry asked cautiously, without looking at Snape:

“Where did she use to live, Sir, when she lived here with her parents and aunt Petunia?” He gestured towards the window.

“You never visited your grandparents then?” asked Snape.

“Not that I remember,” answered Harry. “The Dursleys used to leave me with an old lady down the street in Little Winging when they went away on journeys.”

“I think Lily’s parents died only a few years after…” Snape didn’t continue. “They lived at the opposite hillside, Humfield Street number four. It’s a better area than this,” he added a little bitterly.

“Strange that you two should meet then,” said Harry.

“Not really,” retorted Snape, “I drifted around a lot, went away exploring and one day I caught sight of her and understood that she was like me.” There was a painful tightness in his voice and Harry said no more. They ate their sandwiches in silence. Dishes were disposed of with a sweep of Snape’s wand. They were ready to continue.

Harry told Snape how they were captured by the werewolf Greyhound and his gang and brought to Malfoy Manor to be handed over to Voldemort.

“The news about that misadventure reached me. The Dark Lord was very angry that you managed to escape. And the Malfoys sank even deeper in disgrace,” said Snape. “That house is full of Dark Art objects, of course, but Lucius would have secured them not to hit anyone at random. If something happened it must have been intentional. Tell me in detail what everyone said or did to you.”

Snape listened intently when Harry told him how Hermione had been kept to be tortured by Bellatrix Lestrange while Ron and he had been locked up in the cellar. Harry told Snape about his encounter with Peter Pettigrew, former friend of Harry’s parents and traitor.

In Harry’s third year at Hogwarts he had prevented his godfather, Sirius Black, from killing Peter Pettigrew when they uncovered his disguise as an Animagus rat. When Pettigrew later on helped Voldemort regain his body and powers, Harry had bitterly regretted his softness, although Dumbledore had told him not to underestimate the importance of such an act of mercy.

In the cellar of Malfoy Manor, when Pettigrew was just about to grip Harry by the throat with his strong silver hand, Harry had reminded Pettigrew of the life debt he owed him. Pettigrew had hesitated a split second which caused the silver hand, magicked by Voldemort to obey only a loyal servant, to turn on Pettigrew instead, and strangle him to death.

“He deserved it,” said Snape grimly, “not for betraying Voldemort but for betraying her.” He was agitated. “Of course a hand like that is an advanced piece of Dark Arts, but I cannot believe it could be designed to have other functions or have the capacity to transform into a different entity to plague you now.”

Harry went on describing in what manner they had been rescued by the house-elf Dobby who had been loyal to Harry since Harry helped set him free from the Malfoy family five years previously. He detailed the fight when Ron and he had gone to rescue Hermione out of Bellatrix’ hands and how he had conquered the wand from Malfoy in a less than elegant wrestling match and how they had at last escaped. Bellatrix, however, had managed to throw a silver dagger after them which caught Dobby in the chest just before Dobby Dis-Apparated with Harry and his friends from the Manor.

Ron, Hermione and Harry had stayed at Bill and Fleur’s place at Shell Cottage. Snape and Harry agreed this was an unlikely place to harbour Black Magic, as it was not even an ancient house. When Harry went on to describe how they prepared to break into Bellatrix’ vault in the wizarding bank, Gringotts, Snape shook his head in incredulity.

“Three teenagers, how could Dumbledore set three teenagers on this mission?”

Snape was familiar with the underground galleries kept by the goblins at Gringotts. He had seen the large number of magical objects in Bellatrix’ vault with his own eyes.

“Did you feel anything?” he insisted.

“I expect it would have been hard to distinguish any particular sensation at that moment,” Harry defended himself. “We were frightened. We knew we had been uncovered and were desperate to find that horcrux before they came for us. We didn’t know if we were going to make it. It sort of ended up in one single feeling of desperation.”

“Try,” Snape said acidly.

“It must be the same for you, when you’re too deep in your Occlumency thing - hiding thoughts and emptying yourself of feelings, or whatever it’s about,” retorted Harry. “You’d be observant of your surroundings and vigilant of course, but you would not be able to actually describe any of your own feelings, would you? They would be too far away, secondary.”

Snape frowned.

“Well, it was the opposite in my case,” continued Harry, “feelings were so much in alert, my body couldn’t register any other influence.”

Snape and Harry glared at each other.

“Ron and Hermione were in the exact same situation. Wouldn’t they be affected too if it happened in the vault?” Harry finally asked.

“Not necessarily if you touched an object that they did not. And how do you know that they’re not affected? They’ve been away all summer,” responded Snape silkily. Harry’s eyes widened in horror.

“They’ve been in touch,” he said anxiously. “Nothing in their letters has betrayed they were not well.”

“Some people have a tendency to conceal that kind of information,” Snape said pointedly. Harry flushed and turned his head away in angry humiliation.

“Well, Ron and Hermione will be home soon, I heard?” asked Snape after a short pause.

“Friday,” Harry answered reluctantly.

“I could always ask Kingsley permission to examine the objects in Bellatrix’ vault, if it’s still untouched,” said Snape more to himself than to Harry. “So, you escaped on a dragon, didn’t you? The tale spread all the way to Hogwarts.” Snape made an effort to sound encouraging.

Harry grudgingly continued his narrative. He was growing hoarse from talking so much. From that point on, Voldemort had been aware of the fact that they were after his horcruxes and Harry had felt Voldemort’s roaring anger in his head and used it to see where the last horcrux was hidden: at Hogwarts.

“You could use the connection between you then?” Snape asked thoughtfully. “Maybe it was for the best then, that you never learned Occlumency.”

“I believe it was an impossible task to learn Occlumency!” exclaimed Harry. “I mean towards Voldemort in particular. A part of him was attached to me and the connection only grew stronger in the end. I don’t think I could have endured it much longer...“

Harry continued his story of how they had Apparated to Hogsmeade, been rescued by Dumbledore’s brother Aberforth and then been let into Hogwarts by a secret passage to find and destroy the diadem of Ravenclaw, hidden in the Room of Requirements, while teachers and students were preparing to fight Voldemort and his Death Eaters.

“You left the school as soon as you realised the uprising, didn’t you, Sir?” asked Harry.

“Yes, I was at an exposed position. No one thought me on their side at Hogwarts. My role was to keep a close check on Voldemort’s actions, and in the end my final assignment was to find you and prepare you for your death,” said Snape heavily. They sat in silence. They had reached the end of Harry’s narrative. They both knew what happened after that.

“It’s getting late. Let’s proceed to the practical arrangements.” Snape sounded peremptory and efficient again. “We’ll sleep in this room. It’s small but it’ll have to do.” Harry jumped up as Snape started to move the furniture away from the fire place where he conjured up a bed.

“Just a mattress on the floor for me, please,” muttered Harry. “I sort of toss around during the attacks.” He felt embarrassed. Snape Evanesced the bedstead without comment.

“I’ll take the armchair,” said Snape.

“I’m sorry for the inconvenience, Sir.” Harry felt stupid.

“Not at all,” Snape responded with excessive politeness. “I’m used to that armchair, usually dose off in front of the fire...” His voice trailed off. He too was uncomfortable.

Snape spent some time picking out books from the shelves. He spread them over the table and put a large pile of heavy books at one end of the sofa. Harry saw that it was mostly works on the Dark Arts and some works of Magical History.

The excitements of the day had used up all Harry’s strength. Pictures started to play themselves on the inside of his eyes: crystalline bottles, the sweeping movement of a bat through the garden at the Burrow, bleeding palms and the long lines of street lamps in a dark city. Harry sank down on his mattress and almost before his head hit the pillow, he was asleep.