It was July 31st. His birthday. Harry usually stayed up late the night before to ring in his birthday by himself when the clock struck midnight, but he was too tired to do that this year because he and Snape had been climbing the rock wall and riding bikes, and swimming in the pool. Harry stretched and yawned in the top bunk as he roused from sleep and realized that today was the day he turned thirteen. He wished he was only turning twelve, because that would mean he could come back to camp next year. He was here now though, and that's what mattered. He wouldn't get a birthday party, but he would get to do fun things all day long and eat good food, and fill himself with junk food at the campfire like he did every night until his stomach hurt. He'd never had a birthday like that before. He'd never had a real birthday before, but he was certain that today would be the best birthday of all even if no one else were celebrating it.

"Rise and shine campers!" called Jake from across the small room, and the others groaned as they woke. Feeling in an unusually chipper mood despite the early hour (it was just after sunrise), Harry stuck his head over the edge of the bunk and hung down, messy hair falling in his face as he hung upside down to peer at Snape who had just woken up.

Snape opened his eyes and frowned at Harry, who was grinning ear to ear.

"You will fall and break your neck."

Almost as if the man had said a spell to prove his point, Harry did fall and landed on his back and the other two campers laughed. Harry lay on the floor uninjured but shocked by his fall and then laughed. He suspected Snape had somehow said a cushioning charm under his breath with lightning speed because Harry hadn't felt anything when he hit the ground. Snape sat up and looked down at him with a raised brow as if to say, ‘See?'

Harry got up and changed for the day, putting on his favorite blue shirt, one of the ones from the clothing closet, and his green camo shorts.

"Can we ride bikes today? I want to go on the bike course."

"Yes."

"Can we take a lunch with us? Maybe we can make it all the way to the signing rock."

"Yes." Snape seemed to be in an irritated mood this morning, but then again, Harry thought, he seemed that way every morning until he had his coffee at breakfast.

"Take your bag with you to breakfast to carry your lunch in," Snape instructed him when Harry was fully dressed and ready to head out for the day.

Harry practically inhaled his meal and Severus could tell that the boy was antsy to go back into the kitchen to get his lunch and put it into his bag.

"You may go and get both of our lunches," Severus said, not willing to consume his own breakfast at such a speed or scald himself with his coffee for being careless.

Harry leapt up with his bag and hurried into the kitchen, and Severus shook his head while the other counselors at their table gave him smiles and knowing looks. He might have sneered, but it didn't fit this place. Yes, he thought in response to their looks, I have somehow become like Rhys and now must endure the child's wild enthusiasm. He still wasn't certain how it had happened over the last two weeks, but it had. Harry had gone from yelling at him and not talking to him at all and moping in his bunk, to agreeing to do things with him, to taking the swimming test, and finally to trusting him enough to scale the rock face with Severus holding onto the safety lines to keep him from falling to his demise.

In the kitchen Harry found the chef and grinned.

"Come for a lunch?"

"Yes."

"I haven't made them yet, so you can have your pick for the day. What will it be? Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, lunch meat sandwiches, or something else?"

"What's the something else?"

"There's leftover chicken in the fridge and that ought to be fine cold."

"Chicken," Harry said. He actually loved cold leftover chicken. Perhaps it had come from years of sneaking cold leftovers out of the fridge at night when he was being punished and wasn't allowed to eat for days on end. He always suspected that Aunt Petunia knew that he took from the fridge at night, but didn't care because she didn't like leftovers.

"What about vegetables and fruit?"

"Um... broccoli and oranges."

The chef dug in a box and pulled those things out and put it in Harry and Snape's bags.

"And dessert?"

Harry looked around the room and spied chocolate cookies on a counter, brownies, and a large chocolate cake. Apparently the chef was in the mood for chocolate today.

"Made up your mind?"

"Can I- can we- I mean..."

"You want all three?"

Harry's cheeks turned red. Yes, he did want all three, but he was only going to ask for the cake. It was his birthday and he never got cake on his birthday. He never got cake on Dudley's birthday either. The only time he really got it was Hogwarts or at the Burrow or if Hagrid sent him a rock cake. He looked down at his shoes. "It's my birthday today. Can I have some cake?"

The chef walked over to him. He was a man living on the larger side of life around his middle. He put a finger under Harry's chin and lifted it so his eyes were looking up.

"Then lad, a cake you shall have, and cookies, and brownies."

"Really?"

"Of course, but I wouldn't eat it all at once or you'll be sick."

Harry grinned. He dreamed of making himself sick on sweets because he'd never been allowed to at Privet Drive. He did every year at Hogwarts at Halloween and Christmas, and now almost every night at the campfire. He always regretted it after he had a stomach ache, but he loved eating it all in the moment.

The chef put two cookies, a brownie and a small piece of cake in both of the lunch sacks. "There you go, and if Severus asks you, you made those lunches up, not me." He winked and Harry grinned again as he said thanks and headed back out to the full room of eating campers.

"Are you ready?" Severus asked, coffee now gone and breakfast eaten at a less than whirlwind pace.

Harry nodded and handed the sack lunch to Snape.

When they got to the bike area Harry was dismayed to find that another camper and counselor had already gotten there first and someone was using Harry's blue and silver bike.

"It is not worth moping," Severus said as he took his customary dark green mountain bike. Harry looked around and decided to take the dark red mountain bike that was his size. Red wasn't so bad, but blue was really his favorite color and he didn't mind the silver either. They headed up the hill to the bike course and Harry took the lead. Confident in his ability to navigate the tight turns in the narrow trails, he went faster than he had always done previously and was pleased to see that Snape was having trouble keeping up with him. Harry didn't want him to break a leg like Rhys though (though if he did he could always use his wand to heal it), so he slowed down.

"I wish there was a harder course," Harry said when they finally stopped riding for lunch, having done the course five or six times in a row. Harry sat crosslegged in the dirt with a tree as his backrest and opened his lunch up, digging past the goodies for the chicken. Snape sat on a flat rock and opened his lunch sack with a displeased look.

"You have packed nothing but sweets for lunch," he said as a statement. He didn't seem angry, more like unsurprised.

"There's chicken in the bottom," Harry said, holding up a cold chicken leg for the dark eyed man to see.

"And cake, brownies, and cookies," Snape said as he took each one out and set them down.

Harry shrugged and devoured his chicken, putting the bone back in the sack before pulling out another piece and doing the same. Severus was surprised that the child ate all of his other food before going for the chocolate cake. The speed with which teenage boys could devour food always amazed him. Harry had his entire lunch, including the three desserts eaten before Severus was to the first dessert.

With a sigh of content at the full belly and to be out in the great outdoors, Harry leaned back against the tree and stared up into the tree canopy, listening to birds chirping nearby, and the gentle breeze blowing through the needles and leaves.

"You seem-" Severus hesitated, "exceedingly happy today," he finished as he slowly ate his chocolate chip cookies.

Harry didn't answer for a moment as he stared up at the small piece of open sky. White clouds were passing overhead. "I never get to do this kind of thing in the summer," he said. "It's too bad Hogwarts doesn't have any of this."

"Wilderness?" He was aware that students weren't allowed to go into the Forbidden Forest alone, but there was still the slightly wild west wood on the other side of the grounds where older students were sometimes allowed to go to hunt for Potions ingredients for class assignments.

"No, bikes, and rope courses and zip lines and stuff like that."

"I would think you would prefer flying to zip lines."

"I do, but riding bikes like this is like flying on the ground," Harry said, not even stopping to think for a moment that he was having a nice conversation with the moody Professor from the Dungeons. He hadn't stopped to think anything like that in a few days now. Not since the swimming test.

"Hm. You do not ride bicycles at home?"

"No. Dudley has two bikes... a trick bike and a racing bike."

"But you do not?"

Harry looked over at him. Of course he didn't. He never got anything like that. He'd tried to sneak a ride on one of Dudley's old bikes once but he'd fallen and even though the bike was ok, Uncle Vernon had punished him severely for ‘theft'. He had a scar on his chest to prove it.

"I like fishing too," Harry said, trying to steer the subject away from the bikes. "Aunt Marge has a stream on her property, but Dudley's too lazy and impatient to fish so I bet he won't use it." Aunt Marge even had the old fishing poles and gear from her late husband that sat unused in her shed. He'd been there to her house several times over the years and she always made him sleep in a tent outside (which Harry quite liked) or in the shed.

"That is who your cousin is with now?"

Harry nodded. Or at least, that's where Dudley had been going the last time he'd seen him. For all Harry knew aunt Marge's lawyer had gotten Vernon and Petunia out of jail and they had taken Dudley home or fled the country or something like that. Harry hoped if they were out of jail that they had done just that... gone away to France or some other part of Europe so that he'd never have to see them again.

"You did not go with him?"

"I couldn't," Harry said. Perhaps it was the fresh cool air, or the cool dirt beneath him in the hot summer day, or the fact that he was full of chicken and sweets, or even that it was his birthday. He didn't know why he felt inclined to answer questions he otherwise wouldn't have, but there he was doing it anyway. "She only got temporary custody of Dudley. It's better not to go with her anyhow. She's not very nice."

"You would rather stay in the youth home than with her?"

Harry's eyes flashed something and Severus wasn't sure if it was anger or fear, but the boy seemed to come to his senses and clamped his mouth shut, and he knew that would be the end of the conversation.

Harry stood up and put his helmet back on and packed his empty lunch sack and one of the empty water bottles back into his bag.

"You are ready to continue around the lake?"

He nodded and Severus stood up and got ready to leave.

On the way down the trail Harry rode faster and faster as he thought about Dudley staying with aunt Marge. What if she had only been nice to Dudley because his parents had been there? She was always horrible to Harry and he wondered if she was being bad to Dudley too. Not that Harry liked his cousin after years of being tortured by him, but he did feel sympathetic for him if he was living a life like Harry had known since he was one.

"Potter!" Snape yelled, but Harry didn't get the warning in time. His bike tire hit a half buried root sticking out into the trail and he went flying over the handlebars head first as the front tire stopped suddenly. Riding bikes was like flying on the ground, he had said, but now he was flying through the air. He threw his arms up over his face in the two seconds that he was airborne, flipped over and fell to the ground with a sickening crunch. His ankle cracked painfully as it made contact with the dirt at an odd angle.

Dazed Harry stared up at the sky once again through the canopy. Ow, that really hurts, he thought. Was this what it was like for Rhys? Snape appeared above him with a worried look and blotted out the sunlight.

"Can you move?" he asked. "Where are you injured?"

Harry lifted his head and looked down to his ankle. He tried to move it experimentally but winced when a sharp pain shot through his ankle and all the way up his leg.

"I do not have my wand to tell what the extent of the injury is," he said.

Harry struggled to get his wand out of his pocket and was glad to find that it wasn't broken as he handed it to Snape.

Severus took it and took note that some dried gillyweed had fallen out of the teen's pocket when he'd pulled the wand out. He used the unfamiliar feeling wand to run a diagnostic scan when he was certain there was no one else in the area to watch him and then sat back on his haunches. "Your ankle is broken."

"No," Harry pleaded. "They'll send me away."

"There are only two weeks left of camp. You will not be missing that much and you will be busy healing."

"Please," Harry said, "can't you heal it?"

"I am not a healer Potter and I have only very basic knowledge of healing spells. You would be better served going to the nurses office and then to a doctor."

"But you can apparate can't you? Can't you take me to the Hospital Wing... or, or St Mungos?"

"Madam Pomfrey is not at the castle during the summer and there is usually a four to five hour wait at St. Mungos... we would be missing for too long and they would send out a search party for us."

Harry couldn't help it, but his eyes welled with angry tears. If only he'd been more careful. He'd already caused Rhys to miss camp for the summer, and now he'd done it to himself too. He hit the cold dirt with his fists and then winced when the action jarred his injured ankle and sent sharp pain up through his leg again.

"It is only camp," Severus said, though even as he said it he knew that it wasn't. He'd wager that for all of the campers there it was more than camp. For most of them it was the only time during the year that they were guaranteed their safety and that they would be well looked after and taken care of. Obviously the same could be said for Harry.

"Not it's not," Harry said, angry hot tears finally spilling out of his eyes. He swiped his bare arm across his face, angry even that he was crying like a child. "It's summer and it's the only one I've ever had. And it's my birthday and I had to go and mess this up like I do everything else. Like I did for Rhys and like I did for Dudley and like I do at Hogwarts."

Severus eyed him carefully. "It is your birthday?"

"Yes." Harry struggled to drag himself to a sitting position and was glad there was a tree directly behind him to lean against (and also glad he hadn't hit that tree head first during his brief and unceremonious flight).

"Today?"

"Yes."

So that explained the three deserts, Severus thought, though he wondered why the boy would tell the cook and not him.

He couldn't deny that the boy often got into trouble at school, but he knew that Rhys accident wasn't Harry's fault and was curious to know what else the child was talking about. "Explain what you said about your cousin."

"If I had just been quiet," Harry said, more tears filling his eyes. "If I had been quieter while I was being punished that neighbor never would have looked over the fence and they wouldn't have put uncle Vernon in jail and Dudley would still be at home with them instead of with aunt Marge."

"Is your cousin in danger where he is now?"

Harry threw his hands up in the air, exasperated and upset. "I don't know! I would be! Dudley's different though. They never treat him like they do me."

"Like punish him in the back yard."

"Never."

"How were you punished?"

Harry looked up at him.

"Can't you just try to heal my ankle?" It had a dull throb if he held still and wasn't that bad. He'd rather stay in his cabin for the next two weeks than go back to the youth home.

"Answer my question," Severus said. He would try to heal the ankle and refrained from saying, ‘and I'll consider it,' not wanting to make the teen feel like his safety was contingent on doing as he was told. That was almost blackmail.

Harry pointed to his now fully healed eye.

"The black eye," Severus filled in for him. His eyes moved to Harry's covered shoulders. "And the rest of the bruises. And scars," he added at the last second. Harry looked away.

"For?" Severus asked.

"For not getting all of my chores done by the time he got home."

"Not that it matters, but how many chores did you not do?"

"I had seventeen on the list and I missed one. He found a little weed in the front garden."

Severus sighed.

"I cannot guarantee that I will heal your ankle properly. I may even make the damage worse, especially if you do not hold still."

"Just try," Harry said, feeling exhausted now that his tears had dried up. The dull throbbing pain was starting to get to him and the rest of his body also ached from the fall.

"It will be painful, hold still."

Holding Harry's ankle firm just above the break and doing the best that he could with Harry's wand, which thankfully was cooperating with him, possibly knowing that it's owner needed help, Severus said the two healing spells that he knew for broken bones and then ran another diagnostic spell.

"It is healed but it will undoubtedly be sore for the next week. My healing spells leave something to be desired and your ankle bone is not as strong as it would normally be. I would give you a bone strengthening potion and pain potion but I have access to neither."

Harry stood up with Severus' help and tested his weight on the formerly injured member. It did hurt but it felt more like a twisted ankle now than a broken one.

"Thank you," Harry said. He felt like he could have hugged the man then for saving the rest of his summer, but he didn't. It would have been too strange. Snape would never allow a hug, he was sure of it. He was nice here, had been nice to Harry, but he was still the dark, oft feared Potions Master who lived in the dark, dank dungeons and who only looked out for his Slytherins. Harry was not a Slytherin. Ok, so maybe he looks out for his campers too, Harry thought as he took the bike handles as Severus picked up the bike for him. And I am one of his campers, he thought.

They walked their bikes back to the camp at a slow pace, Severus leading the way, and had an hour to spare before dinner when they made the cabin. "You will rest in bed until dinner. After dinner you may go to the campfire if you wish, but tomorrow other than meals or the campfire I expect you to be in bed."

"Ok," Harry said. One day in bed... that was much better than leaving two weeks early. At least he still had a chance to do the race across camp with Snape and win that bike. Harry didn't thank Snape again that night, but he felt like he wanted to. Ron would never believe him if he told him that he'd spent the summer with Snape and that he'd had a good time.