"There is nothing more honest than the sounds of shattering.
Its like scraping fine china across a graveled road.
Its like taking pure beauty, and implementing all your woes.
I’ve learned that hope is made of glass, glass that is impeccably transparent.
A glass so fragile that I’m not sure how to hold,
So delicate that with one slip, it ceases to exist.
Yes, hope is made of glass.
Inside I find insecurity that crashes like a wave onto the shore of the brain,
With such force a reaction is too slow, and you submit to its beckoning voice."

-Pieces of the poem 'Shattered' By Sam Small

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Harry felt like glass.  He felt fragile and easily broken, like a piece of fine china that you were only meant to look at, but never touch.  Being untouchable was hard when you were the chosen one.  It was hard when your friends wanted you to be normal so they could joke around with you, but you never felt like smiling.  It was hard when you saw the strain on their faces after they realized they'd said the wrong thing to you, because they didn't want to be the one to break the fine china that you were.  Every time that happened, Harry felt like he was tainting his friends somehow, making them fragile like he was, and he didn't want that.  No one should ever have to feel like he did: confused and turned around inside, easily hurt and even easier devastated.  So he held it together as best as he could.  He put a smile on his face, though he knew it was strained, and forced himself to laugh at their jokes.  He forced himself to ignore when they said the wrong thing and reminded him of Privet Drive, or of Sirius dying, or of Cedric being murdered, or his parents deaths, or... of being completely and utterly alone.  He never really ignored it, every innocent thing they said got to him, ate at him and made the wounds feel raw all over again, but he could pretend he didn't hear, and sometimes that was enough for them.

Harry hadn't always been fragile like glass.  He used to have hope that things would turn out all right in the end, but that bold dream had been shattered too many times.  Hope was more fragile than he was, so much so that he didn't dare try to hold on to it anymore.  It was too bad, and he mourned that he could no longer even bare to think about hope.  It was too bad because while he had hope, he felt stronger, like there was something worth fighting for.  It didn't matter what his family did or said to him if he had hope, because that was enough to carry him through the dark times he was with them.  It didn't matter what happened at school either, because the glimmer of hope was there.  But other people took hammers to it and smashed it to irreparable pieces every time.  The Durleys didn't like his hope, and they tried their hardest to stomp it out of him.  Voldemort snuffed out Harry's hope the moment Harry saw the light go out of Cedric Diggory's eyes.  And finally his hope shattered irreparably the night Sirius fell through the veil.  Harry had never been able to put it back together again after that.  You couldn't spello-tape together tiny shards of glass and expect it to be the same.

Harry felt like he was fractured glass spello-taped haphazardly together.  A person sewn and patched too many times like a threadbare blanket that had seen it's end.  Fractured glass waiting to totally shatter at any moment, at any wrong word by his well meaning friends or at insults thrown by his enemies.  In short, he was coming apart at the seams and he knew it.  He just didn't know what to do about it, because when he finally fell to pieces, there would be no one there that would be able to put him together again.  To say that he was worried about the upcoming event of his final unraveling was an understatement.  He was frantic and afraid, and convinced he would simply cease to exist.  Maybe something as fragile as such thin glass should never have existed at all.

He was having regular panic attacks at the thought of his demise.  Not his death at the hands of Voldemort, that was an inevitability he'd come to expect over the years.  Between classes he sometimes rushed to the bathroom and locked himself in a stall, hoping that Ron was too engaged in talking to Hermione to notice that he'd gone.  Once or twice he'd missed classes now because he couldn't bring himself to leave the bathroom once he'd gone in there, but the teacher's had yet to say anything to him.  He attributed it to it still being the start of term, when students sometimes forgot which classes they were going to next, and where the professors were more focused on handing out essays in the upper years than rule breaking.  He didn't know what he'd say to them when they finally noticed his absenses.

It was actually easier to disappear during the hustle and bustle of the school day, he found.  He could miss a meal here and there and his friends didn't complain.  It was easy enough to say he'd stopped to talk to someone in the halls, or gone to the library to study.  In the common room at night was another story though.  There was really no where to go and be alone.  There was always someone in the dormitory studying, and people were always going in and out of the bathrooms.  There was no privacy there at all.  That only left the rest of the castle, which was blissfully free of people in the hours after curfew.  So far Harry had managed to avoid going out at night, but now he felt he had no choice.

Ron and Hermione were sitting at a table with their heads bent close together over a book they shared.  They were holding hands under the table and ignoring everyone in the full room.  Ginny was helping Neville with Transfiguration, people were studying, and there was a game of Exploding Snap going on by the staircases to the girls dorms.  The loud POP BANG POP of the Exploding Snap game was what had done it.  Harry tried to close his eyes tight as he sat in a chair in the opposite corner of the room with his History book.  He tried to ignore the loud sudden pops and shouts of laughter, but couldn't because the innocent game had taken him to a different place.  He was back in the Ministry, spells going off and glass orbs crashing down around him as thirty foot high shelves cascaded in a panic to the floor.  He was panicking and there was no where to go but out the portrait hole into the cool, dark corridors.

Harry stumbled out the portrait hole and wasn't sure if Ron or his other friends had seen him and would follow, so he picked a direction and hurried off.  It was the last whole thought he had to holding himself together before he found himself hurrying down corridor after corridor, panic making his chest feel as though a hyppogryff was sitting on top.  He was aware that his hands were shaking.  They always did when this happened.  His legs felt shaky too as he turned a corner and went up a small set of stairs.  Finally he leaned against a wall and huffed, unable to get air.  Was this it?  Was this the moment his fragile world would finally come crashing down around him?  It was fitting that it would happen alone.  It was the way he was meant to be: alone.  He wondered if he'd just drop to the floor at some point and die.  He wondered that every time he had a panic attack like this.

In the distance he heard a noise, and feared that Ron had come after him, so he walked forward, trying to be quiet.  His mind was clouded though.  He walked fast around corners without looking to see if there was a teacher or Prefect or Filch's cat, until finally he walked around a corner and stopped dead, because someone was actually standing there staring out a window. 

It was Snape, Harry realized belatedly, and wondered wearily why the man hadn't spun around and started yelling at him.  Maybe it was the far off look in his face, like he was lost somewhere else a million miles away. 

Harry took three steps back around the corner and backtracked down the corridor to a side hall.  Moonlight shone in dimly through the window at the end of the short corridor, and Harry leaned against the wall, finally able to sink down to the ground.  He was curious about Snape, but he had pressing matters of his own to considder.  He put his hands up to cover his face and then allowed them to shakily grip his hair and hold on for dear life.  He was the only thing he had left to hold on to.  He was afraid that if he didn't, he'd lose himself and never be found again.  He took rapid, sharp breaths and tried not to pass out.


Severus Snape stared out a window into the darkness.  The nearly full moon reflected in the lake in the distance, and he focused on it as he stood in the deserted fourth floor corridor.  He liked the night; it was the only time he felt somewhat at peace.  He never felt wholly at peace, that was an impossibility after the life he'd lived and the things he'd done and seen.  But a modicum of peace was what he strove for on his late night walks through the castle or on the grounds.  The silence gave him time to think and gave his mind time to wander, though he hadn't been certain of what it was his mind had been searching for these last years.  He thought of the past and the present, and of the dangerous future.  The future was always dangerous for him, maybe even more so than the present, because as a spy he could never be assured a place in the future.  He could die tomorrow, or if the evil man he pretended to serve called on him this moment, maybe even tonight.  It bothered him, to think he would die and just suddenly not be there.  When he died there would be no peace at all in his passing.  The only one that would come to his funeral would be Dumbledore, and that was not a comfort.  The man was well intentioned but also deceitful, and he played puppet master with Severus and the others more than he liked to admit.

The lake looked peaceful, and the sky was clear.  It was a Friday night, and not having to be up early for classes, he considdered taking a stroll in the crisp night air.  That always served to clear the fog from his mind.  His late night strolls were the only thing that could keep him clear headed enough to go on with his classes in the day.  He had to keep a clear head or else accidents could happen; cauldrons could explode and students could get hurt.  But the very nature of a Potions class made it so his mind had time to wander.  He would teach and then the students would spend the rest of the class brewing.  It left him with a lot of time to think about things.  The only problem was he wasn't supposed to let his mind wander aimlessly during that time.  So Severus worked hard every day to portray the solid image of a man who was unshakable and unaffected by his past, or by anything at all.  He didn't always succeed on that count, letting certain students and their dunderhead mistakes get to him.  He had a reputation to uphold.  He was his reputation, he reflected.  If he was not, then who was he?  Just a man who had had a less than pleasant childhood and a serious lapse in judgement in his young adult life.  A deeply flawed man who had made mistakes and who had yet to attone for most of them.  A man who was really very uncertain most of the time.  No, he didn't want to be that man.  Strong, fortified, unbothered.  A solid fortress that couldn't be broken by anyone.  That was Severus Snape.  That was a noise.

Severus frowned, coming back to the reality that he was standing in a corridor and that it was after eleven.  There had been a noise, he was sure of it.  Curfew for sixth and seventh years had been over an hour ago, so unless it was Filch or a colleague, there should have been no noise.  Ears perked as he stared at the ground, he heard it again.  It was faint and he wasn't quite sure what it was.  Put your mask back on.  Be fortified.  If it was a couple snogging in the hall again he was going to hand out double detentions.

Striding purposefully and silently, Severus rounded the corner, went down the hall, and paused.  It wasn't a staff member, that much was for certain.  Whoever it was was breathing frantically, as if they couldn't draw a full breath if they wanted to, and they were right around the corner.  He slid up against the wall, and finally to the corner, where he glanced around it.  Harry Potter was against the wall on the floor, fingers tangled hopelessly in his hair as he tried to hold back tears.  The sixteen year old's breaths came in short, punctuated stabs and gasps, and for a moment Severus wondered if the Gryffindor had been hexed, but that didn't seem to be the case.  He pulled his head back around the corner and stood there, as still as a stone. 

What was he supposed to do with the boy?  Give him detention for having a panic attack in the halls after curfew?  He wasn't callous, no matter how hard he pretended to be.  Detention was out, but that wasn't an answer to his problem.  What should he do?  He wasn't Minerva or Poppy or Pomona.  He wasn't equipped to deal with situations like this.  Even his Slytherins didn't come to him when they were upset.  Not unless they were angry at some injustice that a professor or student had put upon them.  There were numerous times when he'd seen his students turning to each other in tears, or even to other staff like Madam Hooch or Sinistra.  Even Sibyl.  Never to him.  Not to the sharp tongued, severe man in billowing black robes.  It was who he was.  A man that wasn't fit to give comfort.

So he didn't do anything at all.  Severus stood there around the corner listening to Harry Potter's sharp breaths as the minutes ticked on towards half an hour, until finally the teen seemed to get his emotions under some form of control.  His breathing slowed and he grew quieter.  Severus knew the boy wasn't allright, but he had to leave now if he was going to get away without revealing his presence.  Eventually the child would get up and go back to his common room.  Severus slipped away and halfway to Gryffindor tower he pulled himself into a dark nook behind a suit of armor and waited.  It was another ten minutes before Harry came shuffling past, hands in his pockets and staring at the ground.  He never knew Severus was there.  Severus didn't follow him the rest of the way to his house.  Instead he returned to where Harry had sat minutes before and looked at the spot where the teen had been on the edge of losing it.  Someow returning to the scene made it seem as though he'd been there for the boy, even though he hadn't.  What had he been so upset about?  Had it been over a girl?  Maybe a fight with the Weasley boy?  Maybe something else.  He didn't know, and went back to staring out the window, lost in thought.

* * *

Severus was staring at Harry Potter as he absentmindedly brewed a potion in class on Monday.  He could tell by what the Gryffindor had added into his cauldron that his potion was already ruined beyond repair, but didn't walk down the aisle to the back of the room to say anything about it.  He was too intent on watching him.  The Granger girl whispered something into Harry's ear with a dismayed look, and he looked down into his cauldron with a fallen expression.  Even his shoulder's drooped.  Severus looked away and pretended to be observing the other students.  Potter's potions grades had never been stellar, but he'd always made an effort.  School had only been in for three weeks, but he could tell that the boy's preformance was well below par from his previous years.  His essays came in and it was clear that he had no real understanding of what they'd been studying, and his potions in class further punctuated the point.  Was it possible that whatever had caused the child to breakdown a few nights ago was also affecting his grades?  No one else was having problems yet this early into the term, not even Longbottom or Goyle, who typically struggled.  Severus allowed Potter space in his brain for the rest of class, and then pushed him from his mind until he next saw him.

He wasn't eating.  Severus watched him at lunch and dinner, and then at breakfast the next morning.  His friends put food on his plate (even Weasley loaded his friend's plate up with vegetables), but Harry pushed it around.  He would take a bite here and there and give a tired smile to his friends, but ate nothing substantial to sustain him.  Severus glanced at the Headmaster, who wasn't watching the boy at all.  Interesting, he thought.  Albus always seemed to know what was going on in his school, but not this time.  Was he overlooking the boy on purpose?  Minerva didn't seem to be watching either.  Severus allowed his eyes to wander to his own table and down the two rows of students who ate there.  They didn't come to him with personal problems, but he knew if they were healthy or not.  He was a keen observer and knew when they were sick or tired or cranky, or when tensions were running high.  In contrast, Minerva and Dumbledore seemed oblivious to their golden boy, who seemed to be trying desperately to not appear crestfallen, but was failing.

Severus wandered the halls at night as he always did, but now he was keeping an ear open for anything that was amiss.  Not that he would do anything about it if he came upon Potter again.  The boy didn't appear all week however, so Severus made it a point to observe him during the day when he could.  Meals and classes wasn't really enough time to see anything however, other than that the boy was clearly falling apart.


Harry took his cloak with him in his bag wherever he went now.  Ron and Hermione knew something was off about him, and even Neville had once followed him into the bathroom between classes to ask if he was ok.  He didn't want to be followed.  They would see him coming undone.  They couldn't help so there was no point in that.  Covering himself with the cloak was just easier.  He could say they just missed him in the croweded hallways when they asked, and the first couple of times he said that, they even bought it.  It wouldn't work forever, but he hadn't planned that far.

Under his cloak he found it interesting the things that he could observe.  For instance, the fact that Snape didn't just stare listlessly out of windows at night, but in the day time as well.  Several times now Harry had caught the man looking out to the rest of the world as people passed him by in the halls.  Harry wasn't sure if the man looked lost because he felt that way, or if Harry felt lost so he perceived Snape to be that way.  The man was a rock.  He couldn't be lost.  Not when he had essays to fail and students to shout at.  'Straighten up that tie!'  'No kissing in the hallways!'  But he didn't seem to yell at students nearly as much as Harry had previously assumed.  He seemed to spend all his time far away someplace in his head.  Even in class Harry had noticed, the man seemed far off.  Sure, he still got up and shouted at Neville that he was about to blow up the classroom, and praised Draco for getting perfect marks on his latest essay, but those were the rare times in between the faraway looks.  Was the man plotting to take over the world?  Was he thinking up new ways to torture people in detention?  Harry doubted it.  Neither of those things could make a thoughtful person look lost.

Harry tried to make sense of it, but couldn't, and found himself frustrated that his mind was so jumbled so often now.  He felt like he could never concentrate anymore, and his recent grades showed it to be true.  He was barely earning an 'acceptable' in his good subjects, and in his bad ones his grades had slipped down to 'poor.'  At least he hadn't reached 'troll' or 'dreadful' yet, but he had a feeling he was heading that way with all the speed of a fast moving train.  It was unstoppable like a train too.  He was careening out of control with no power to slam on the brakes.  It was like his head was full of fluff, and whenever he tried to recall information for homework or tests, other thoughts came to him instead.  Thoughts about the light going out of Cedric's eyes, and Uncle Vernon throwing him into walls.  How was he supposed to do well on tests and assignments if he couldn't get his thoughts to unjumble?  He wished he could ask someone to help him figure it out, but there was no one.  Ron would probably try to give him an encouraging smile and tips on how to get his homework done without really working for a grade.  Hermione would probably give him study tips and offer to look over his papers before he turned them in.  That wasn't what he wanted.  He wanted real help.  Help being like he used to be.  Help clearing the cobwebs of insecurity and doubt out of his head.  Death and destruction, beatings and tongue lashings, the light going out of Cedric's eyes, Sirius falling through the veil, oh no!  Harry was breathing erratically and his eyes darted around the common room to see if anyone was watching him.  He felt like they were even though everyone was occupied with what they were doing.  He stood up, ignoring the fact that his cloak was upstairs in the dorm, and dashed out the portrait hole.

He didn't have to look for a safe place to sit and fall apart this time.  He headed straight for the dead end corridor he'd gone to last time.  The only difference now was that the moon wasn't full and the windows were dark.  A dark place to fall to pieces.  A dark place, to fall into the dark place that was his entire mind and being.  He never really 'fell' into a dark place though, because he was already there.  He slid to the floor and brought his shaking hands up to undo his tie.  He couldn't breath with it so tight around his neck, never mind that his chest was heavy with panic and dread, because everyone died around him.

Damn this tie!  It was so tight!  Shaking fingers fumbled with it and couldn't get a firm grasp and he finally threw his hands down flat to the cold floor and tried to find a solid foundation.  Nothing seemed solid though, because he couldn't stop shaking, and he couldn't breath.  Was this the night he was going to die?  Voldemort would be so disappointed that he died of a panic attack, instead of by a curse or other painful means.  He'd probably take his anger out on Harry's friends, snuffing the light out of their eyes in Harry's place.  He closed his eyes tight, trying to block out the image of Ron and Hermione and Ginny and Neville getting killed one after another, but opened them again immediately, because all he could see were their lifeless eyes.  He fiddled with his tie again but it was hopeless.

And then something truly unexpected happened, and Harry startled as a hand came out of nowhere and pushed his shaking hands away from his tie.  He glanced to the right and found Snape there.  They locked eyes and fear gripped Harry for the space of three full seconds, before Snape, with his steady unshakable hands, reached forward and undid Harry's tie for him.  What did he do that for?  Harry shut his eyes tight.  It was an illusion.  Something his muddled mind had made up from lack of oxygen.  Or maybe he was in the throws of yet another nightmare.  He grabbed his right hand with his left, trying to wake himself up, but all he could feel were his shaking fingers.

"Potter."  A calm voice, as a warm steady hand took his shaking ones and Harry sucked in more sharp breaths.  Had there been pity in that voice?  No, this was Snape.  No pity, no sympathy, just cold, calculated Professor Snape.  Harry wished he could be that way.  He wished he could feel nothing at all.  At least then he wouldn't be able to panic. 

He opened his eyes and looked at Snape and was surprised to find that his eyes were not cold and calculating.  They were searching, like they had been the times Harry caught him staring out the windows.  Harry was afraid, and he wished he could breath long enough to say that to the man.  Why, he didn't know.  He would never tell Snape anything under other circumstances, but Snape was there now.  He was the only one who was.

"Help," Harry said.  Help with what, he wasn't entirely sure.  He was foggy and he knew he'd pass out soon if he couldn't get a good breath or two.  It hadn't happened yet, but he always felt like it was going to when he had these attacks.  At least if he died, Snape would see it and be able to tell people what happened.  'He was too fragile.  He broke and died.  There's no one to fight Voldemort now,' he imagined the man would say.  But he was talking and those weren't the words coming out of his mouth.  Harry frowned and tried to understand what the dark eyed Professor was saying to him.

"- do you want me to do?"

"Help," Harry said again.  It was all he knew to say.

Snape stood up and Harry freaked out.  Freaking out on top of a panic attack, that was new.  He lunged forward and grabbed the man's pant leg and looked up at him, knowing he would die if he was left there alone.  The Professor knelt down again and gently gripped Harry's upper arm to put him back into a sitting position.

"I'm not leaving Potter," he said.  Was Snape speaking so gently to him because he was dying?  That was it.  It would just be wrong to give a tongue lashing to a dying boy.  Even Snape had to know that.  "You need to breath."

Had he not been breathing?  He suddenly gulped and tried to suck in air, glad when something got in to fill his lungs.  Snape sat down beside him and held his hand.  No one had done that before.  Not even Ginny, who had tried to get him to go out with her for the better part of last year.

"Breath," Snape reminded him, and Harry sucked in another lungful of air.

"Close your eyes," Snape commanded him softly, and not knowing what else to do because his mind was still frantic, Harry did as he was told.  "Think about a meadow full of tall grasses as the sun sets.  The air is warm and there's a breeze.  The light is golden over the golden grass as it sways in the breeze.  There are purple and red wildflowers scattered throughout the meadow.  It's quiet and peaceful, and there are crickets starting to chirp because evening is near.  There must be a stream nearby because you can hear water bubbling over rocks and toads croaking.  The sky is filled with pink and orange clouds floating slowly overhead.  You are at peace."

Harry was so intent on the slow methodical words and the fantasy they wove that he found himself breathing normally by the time Snape stopped speaking.  Snape seemed to realize it too and let go of his hand.

"Why are you at peace?" Snape asked him.

Harry turned and stared into the dark eyes of the man sitting next to him with his back against the wall.

"In the meadow," Snape said.  "Why are you at peace in the meadow?"

He swallowed, frowning.  This is weird, sitting here with Snape, but I am at peace, for the first time in so long.  He could feel the fragile peace slipping away from him, even as he thought about it, and his mind reached out and grasped for it, and for the answer to Snape's question.

"Because I'm safe, and there's hope," Harry said sadly, turning away so the Slytherin Head of House couldn't see his face.

"Safe from what?"

"People that hurt me."

"Hope of what?"

"That I'll be ok.  That I won't shatter."

"It looks like you've already shattered," Snape commented after a long silent moment, and Harry's head snapped around to face him again.

"What?"  His voice quivered quietly and his eyes were wet.  What had he said?  He'd shattered?  He'd fallen to pieces and was irreparable?  Each time he panicked he wondered if this would be the moment he would cease to exist, but he hadn't envisioned it as happening next to Snape.  If Snape was there, he was there though, wasn't he?  Or was he a ghost simply trying to inhabit a world that wasn't his?

"I've been watching you fall to pieces for weeks.  You're thin and worn.  You're distant and not usually present with those around you."

Hot tears fell from Harry's eyes and he let his head fall back against the wall.  Damn it damn it!  This was it!  He had finally lost his mind!  Snape took his hand again and Harry was reminded that there was something strong there with him, someone strong.  And this was weird, he thought again.  Snape shouldn't be here, holding him together, trying to keep him sane.

"I'm dying," Harry said.

Snape gave him an appraising look.  "You are still breathing, and wizards do not die of Muggle illnesses."

"Inside, I'm empty.  There's nothing left of me.  All I am is fear and panic and dread."

"You believe that, don't you?"

"Dumbledore thinks- I'm some kind of super hero... everybody does.  I'm not invincible. If people knew me at all... they wouldn't believe in me like they do.  I don't have the power to keep myself safe, how can I hope to have the power to defeat a madman out for my blood?  How can I keep anyone safe at all?"

"You are not expected to keep others safe Potter," Snape said, warm hand still holding his.  That hand was really the only thing keeping Harry's mind clear right now, and he suspected Snape knew it.  "You should be worried only about yourself."

"I am worried about me," he said quietly, dully.  "I'm gone.  I don't know if I'm even really here at all.  I can't put me back together again."

"Why not?"

"Too many people have taken me apart."

"Voldemort?"

Harry flinched at the name.  He didn't want to say it or hear it anymore, he realized.  Even if he made it through this night, Voldemort would kill him eventually.

"He- took Cedric apart.  I watched the life leave his eyes.  There was nothing left of him.  He'll do that to me."  It was the first time Harry had really thought about it that way, that the life would be stolen from his eyes when he next met with Voldemort, and it scared him.  Is that why Cedric's death bothered him so much?

"Who else?"

"I don't-"

"You do know," Snape cut him off sharply, and Harry refused to look at him when he finally answered, long moments later.

"They do."

"Who."

"My family."

"They unravel you to the point where you can't breath?"

"They break my bones until I can't breath, and lock me in a stifling cupboard until there's no air left, and forget about me until I'm so alone I think I've already died."

Snape squeezed his hand and the gesture grounded him then as giant hot tears fell from his eyes and rolled down his cheeks.

"Who else?"

"Dumbledore."

"Dumbledore has taken you apart?"

Harry nodded, and Severus really didn't have to hear his answer to know how.  The man did think Harry was a hero, but often forgot that he was just a boy.  He had treated Harry like he was a man for years, not ever stopping to think that he'd never even gotten a childhood.  Then again, he himself had been guilty of the same, throwing insults at Harry as though he were his grown up father, and expecting as much out of him as he would an adult.  He never imagined that the child was unraveling at the edges.  Not until these last few weeks, when more than the edges had come undone.

"I'm losing my mind," Harry said.

"Sometimes we all lose our mind Potter.  Then after that, we're ready to find our way."

"Is that why you stare out the windows?" Harry asked then, finally pulling his hand free of Snape's warm and steady one, and immediately feeling the loss of security as he did so.

Snape stared at him for long, silent moments.  He'd been watching Harry, without ever realizing that Harry had been watching him.

"I stare out the windows to keep my sanity."

"What are you looking for?"

"Who says that I am looking for anything."

"You look lost."  Harry sounded tired but interested.  All those lies Severus pretended to be were crumbling around him.  Not strong, not sane, not snarky, not- him.  He stared at Harry again.  Observant.  Very observant Potter.

"I am... searching for redemption."  Harry didn't ask for what but he did question him with the look in his eyes.  "For the life I've failed to live."

"Failed to live?"

"I've done everything wrong.  I wouldn't expect you to understand.  I stare out the windows thinking about the life I could have lead instead, and I think about the mistakes I've made.  The person I am, and am not."

"You wallow," Harry said.  It was a statement of fact and yet the boy sounded incredulous.  Snape remembered that he himself had told the boy a number of times in past years to stop wallowing.  He was certain the Gryffindor relished the opportunity to tell him he was a wallower now.  Wallow, it really was an awful word.

"I-" do not have to explain myself to you! he snarked to himself, but instead didn't finish his thought out loud.

Harry gave a short laugh beside him and when Severus looked over found the boy looking at him with a tired grin.  "Wallower," he said, and Severus rolled his eyes and looked away.

After several quiet moments, Harry asked, "What kind of life did you want to lead that you didn't?  You have a good job, even though you hate us."

"I do not hate you."

"Despise?"

"No."  He was quiet.  He'd spent years thinking about what he really wanted.  He wanted a quiet piece of the country all to himself.  A house in a meadow of flowers.  A family to share it with.  A world free of Voldemort and his seductive evil that turned good people into monsters on a regular basis and the insane into pure evil.  "That meadow," he said, suddenly afraid to voice his wants in front of this teenager.  One who had called him a wallower and who would probably laugh at him for his dreams.  Maybe he did hate children after all.

"That sounds nice," Harry said quietly.  "Safe."

"You are really in danger at home?" he queried, and Harry's cheeks turned red.  So he was.

"Why didn't you buy it if you wanted it?  They must pay you good here."

They did.  He had a vault full of gold.  Enough to buy a meadow and build a house there and then some.  But he was afraid.  He didn't deserve that place of peace and tranquility.  Not after joining Voldemort.  Not after serving (even shortly) the man who had killed Lily and robbed Harry of his childhood.

"People like me don't get what they want," he said, unwilling to spill all of his private thoughts out for Harry to view and mock.  Though Harry had yet to mock him.  Poke fun at and get even with in the smallest sense, but not mock.  And who would have thought, that at almost midnight he would be sitting on a corridor floor with his back against the wall next to Harry Potter, chatting amicably.

"No," Harry lamented.  "We don't."

"You have your entire life ahead of you Potter.  You will get what you want."

"No I won't," he said sadly.  "I'll never be safe.  No one wants me to be safe.  If I were meant to be safe, I would have a parent or anyone at all to help me with that.  Dumbledore put me with the Dursleys for a reason.  He wants to toughen me up.  Heros are supposed to have a sad life.  I'm not supposed to be happy."

Severus was shocked by how tight his heart felt to hear the sixteen year old say that, and with such resignation.  He'd never met a child so full of grief before.  Harry sounded like he often felt.  Not meant to be happy, isn't that what he'd told himself over and over again?

"Sometimes, you're supposed to have a happy ending," Snape said, not believing in one for himself, but trying to encourage the teen.

"Don't say that."  Harry pleaded and when Severus looked at him, realized he had tears in his eyes again.  "Hope is like glass.  I don't even know how to hold it without it breaking all around me.  It's not nice to try to get my hopes up when you know they'll never come true."

"Neither one of us know that Potter."

"How old are you?"  Harry suddenly asked, seeming angry.

Severus frowned.  A student had never asked him that before.  "Forty."

"Sometimes you're supposed to have a happy ending, you can't know that you won't, but you're forty and you never got yours.  If I live that long, that will be me.  I will be miserable, because I have never had anything.  No-" he paused, and then in almost a whisper continued, "I did have everything once.  But Voldemort took it all from me and left me with a scar."  Harry stood up, suddenly feeling ready to escape this bizzarre dream he was having where Snape had held his hand and calmed him down and spoken to him like a friend.

"Are you returning to your common room?" Severus asked, standing up.

"Where else would I go?  To throw myself off the North Tower?"

Snape stared at him and Harry realized the slip he'd made.  Not that he was going to the North Tower to toss himself off.  Not tonight anyway.  He had thought about it once before though.

"Potter-"

"I'm not," Harry said.

"Yet you mentioned it."

Harry sighed.  "Don't worry Professor.  I'll be around long enough to be everybody's hero.  It was prophesied.  That means it's a guarantee, remember?  A guarantee that I'll get a chance to play that fate out."  He walked away and Snape stared after him.  What a strange night.  Potter had been abused, he was worried for his sanity, and had fallen apart and spilled his guts to a professor he hated.  He'd even called out said professor on his false assurances.  The problem was, Severus wasn't sure he didn't believe what he'd told him.  Sometimes you were supposed to have a happy ending, weren't you?  Weren't you?  He wanted to think it was true.

* * *

Harry had killed Voldemort.  It was January two days after school had started again and the evil man had attacked the castle, drawing it's inhabitants into a fierce firefight and battle of wills.  Neville Longbottom had become a legend, slaying Nagini, the man's eight foot long magical snake with the sword of Gryffindor.  Ron had nearly died.  Minerva too.  And all the house hour glasses at the front of the castle had been shattered, spilling colored rubies all over the place.  Harry had thrown himself at Voldemort after Neville had distracted him by cutting Nagini's head off, and surprised everyone by sucking the life out of the man.  Harry had done what Voldemort had done to Cedric, and what he'd been afraid the man would do to him.  That had been two weeks ago, and the castle was nearly put back together, though there were still scorch marks out on the front lawn, and they hadn't rebuilt the boathouses or Hagrid's hut yet.  And in that two weeks that everyone had been occupied healing and celebrating and putting the castle back together, Harry had made himself scarce.

"Have you seen Potter?" Severus asked Granger on Friday afternoon.  Classes were supposed to resume on Monday, and he wanted to know what state Harry was in.

"He said something about astronomy," Granger said.  She seemed tired, but happy.  It was a look half the castle wore.

"He went to the North tower?"

She nodded.

"How long ago?"

"Half an hour?"

He tried to ignore her startled look as he dashed past her up the stairs.  Potter on the North tower.  That would not be a happy ending.  His lungs were burning by the time he climbed the ladder and opened the trap door to the roof of the Astronomy tower.  Harry was standing there leaning on the ramparts looking out over the grounds and lake.

"Potter," he said warily as he let the trap door bang closed.

Harry didn't turn around.  "Come to see if I was going to jump?" he asked.  He sounded bitter.

"Yes," Severus told him truthfully.  Harry half turned and raised his brows at the man, and then turned back to the scene before him.  The sun was setting and it was beautiful up here.  Severus sometimes came up here at night if it wasn't too windy.  Once when he was in school a gust of wind tried to carry him off the roof in a storm and since then he usually avoided the space.

"Or did you come to tell me about happy endings again?  I'm not seventeen yet.  Not until the middle of summer.  Dumbledore said I had to return to the Dursleys when school's out."

"Albus Dumbledore does not have custody of you.  I would recommend going to the Wizengamot and seeking out emancipation.  With your record of defeating evil wizards, I doubt they would deny you."

"Emancipation..."

"You would have the status of an adult before your birthday, and the power to choose where you go and how you live.  I believe their only requirement would be that you return for your last year of school."

"No one ever told me I could do that."

"I just did."

Harry sighed.  Well, at least that was something.  He had no place to go though.  Escaping the Dursleys would be good, but he'd still be alone and unwanted.  "That's not a happy ending."

"What do you want?"

"What I never had."  When Snape didn't ask for clairification, Harry said more quietly, "A family."

"I'm certain the Weasleys would let you stay with them."

"They're a family," Harry agreed, "but they're not mine.  I've always been an outsider, everywhere I go.  No one understands what I've gone through, and especially now that I've killed a man, no one will understand me.  They'll be afraid of what I can do.  Of what I did."

"Are your friends afraid?"

"Not yet, but they will be once they have time to think about it."

"You're too young to be so negative Potter," Severus reprimanded him.

"This is me," he snarked angrily.  "Deal with it."  He turned and stalked away, and Severus wondered that the teen could go from so lost just a few months ago to so angry.  He was still broken though, just in a different way than he was before.  Maybe he was still lost.

"I bought that meadow," he said as Harry reached for the handle to the trap door.  He stood again and stared at Snape.  "It doesn't have a stream, but it's full of wild purple and red flowers.  It has trees on one side and you can see the mountains on the other."

"Good for you," Harry said quietly, more like the Harry of months before, meek and uncertain.  He seemed happy for him though, something Severus was not accustomed to from others... happiness for his own wellbeing.

"The house won't be built by the end of the summer, but I suspect I can get the walls up and roof on before school starts next year.  Maybe if I had some help."

Harry stared at him.  "You're building it yourself?"

"There are spells to help, but it will still be slow going.  I will be living in a tent all summer."

"Good for you," Harry said again after a long moment, and reached back for the trap door again.

"Potter, do I have to spell it out for you?"

Irritated now, Harry stood straight yet again and stared at him.  "What?  What do you have to spell out for me?"

"If you get emancipated, you'll need a place to live.  A place where there's someone who won't be afraid of you and what you can do, or what you did.  A wide open place that is safe."

"With you?"

Severus raised a brow.

"You're saying I can stay with you?  You hate me.  You've always sniped at me and treated me unfairly.  Called me names and taken points when I didn't do anything wrong."

"True," Severus said.  "I have made mistakes, as I said previously.  And I have regretted being everything that I did not want to be.  The question is, are you going to be what you don't want to be?  Or will you wait until you're starting to go gray to try to get what you want?  You asked me for help once, and I am offering it to you in the one way I can."

Harry walked up to him so they were only a foot apart, and stared into his dark eyes, shoulders squared like a man.  His eyes went back and forth between those he was staring into, as if looking for the truth in those words.  "What if I don't want your help?  What if it was a mistake for me to ask for it?  What if I wipe your memory when you're not looking so you forget you saw me like that at all?"

"That is your choice Potter.  You told me people took you apart too often.  You listed them, but you forgot to mention one."

"Who?"

"Yourself.  If you don't take the opportunities in front of you because of fear, or because of anything else, then you are taking yourself apart.  Denying yourself hope when you needn't run from it."

"Why do you get to say that to me?  After what you've done?  After you clearly ran from your happy ending for so long?"

"Because you need to hear it, and because no one said that to me when I was your age, and maybe if they had, I would have lead a different life."

Harry finally broke eye contact with him as the cold breeze ruffled his hair.  Severus realized the boy was actually shivering and didn't have a coat.  No coat in the middle of January.  Damn the Muggles and damn Dumbledore for not providing the teen with what the Muggles refused to. The child had given his all until he had broken and then some, and they couldn't even give him a coat?

"I'm too much to handle.  You'll get tired of me."

"I do not believe you are glass.  You are stronger than you give yourself credit for.  You are emotionally charged," here he paused because Harry had muttered 'damaged' but then continued on, "but I will not treat you with kid gloves."

"You don't know me at all," Harry said quietly, holding onto his bare upper arm.  Though in his mind he felt like Snape was the closest one to knowing anything about him.  He'd allowed anger to wash over him that Voldemort had attacked them and hurt his friends, and even that he'd killed the evil man, and that had kept him from splintering and fracturing further.  But now he was talking to Snape and Snape was telling him the truth, of all things, and was admitting that Harry was still fighting emotions that were still RAW and felt untamable.  He felt like he was coming undone all over again, like back in Novemeber when Snape had held his hand on the stone coridor floor.

"Perhaps not.  It is an olive branch Potter.  It is up to you whether or not to take it."  He seemed to be waiting for a response, but Harry didn't know what to tell him.  Yes, I'll go with you and let you babysit me for the summer even though I've been given early adult rights.  No, take your bloody meadow and you're bloody olive branch and stuff it!  Yes, no, yes, no, yes, no.  His head was starting to spin.  He was too much for himself to handle, how could Snape not know that he would be too much for anyone else?  And that was the real reason he didn't want to go to the Weasleys.  He didn't want them to know he'd gone crazy.  It wasn't that they'd be afraid of him.  They'd always doted on him and treated him like one of their own and he doubted that would change because he'd fullfilled one old prophecy.  He wondered if there were any more about him in all of those shattered glass orbs then, and that maybe because he'd broken them, this was the reason why he felt doomed to fall without anything to cushion him when he hit the ground.  Yes, go with Snape.  No, he hates you.  Yes, you already told him things about you.  No, he's just a crazy Potions professor who stares out windows.

Severus was cold, and as the wind whipped up, perhaps a little nervous about standing on the rooftop.  He wanted to suggest that they move their conversation inside, at least to the stairs down below the ladder under the trap door, but he feared he'd break the slow momentum the conversation had gained and maybe end it altogether.  He did not want to wake up in the morning to the news that Harry had come back to the tower and jumped in the middle of the night.  He would sleep up here if he had to.  There were other towers though.  Other ways for the boy to end things if he was that determined.  Look at you, Severus Snape, he reflected to himself.  Look at the lengths you'll go to to keep a student safe.  But he didn't admit that even though he'd placed himself in the middle of the boy's problems, that he possibly cared about this student's issues more than the others.  That this was the only time he'd gotten voluntarily involved, and the times students had come to him on their own were fewer than he could count on one hand.

Severus had been staring off into the great expansive landscape he could see over the ramparts as the setting sun cast it all into deep shades of orange and pink.  For a moment there, he'd gone so deep in thought that he'd lost track of his conversation with Harry altogether.  Lost track of what the boy was doing.  But in the space of only a second, a fast movement caught his eye.  Harry had leapt around him to run to the edge.  Severus reached out with long arms and caught him around the middle, pulling him to an abrupt stop in the middle of the tower roof.

"No!" Harry shouted.  "Let me go!  It's not worth it!"  He struggled, but Severus was stronger, even despite the fact that his arm was aching because it had only recently been healed of a broken bone from the battle.

"I'm not letting you take yourself apart.  Not in the worst way."

Harry stopped struggling and fell to his knees, though Severus went down to the stones with him and kept a strong grip around his torso from behind to ensure he wouldn't bolt for the edge again.  He was aware that the boy had sucked the life right out of Voldemort, and could possibly do the same to him if he really wanted to escape, but he didn't.  He didn't even attempt to draw his wand, for which Severus was thankful.  He didn't desire a rooftop duel where the danger would increase threefold.  He was tired and oh so ready to be done with duels and wars and evil men.  Harry was ready too.

Breathing hard as a panic attack threatened to overwhelm him, Harry didn't fight the arms that still had a tight grip on him.  He hadn't had an attack since just before the Christmas Holiday when he had started wondering what the Dursleys were going to have for Christmas dinner and who would cook it for them since he wasn't invited.  But now his chest was tight, and it was all Snape's fault.  Snape had taken his anger away and there was nothing left to fill the gap and hold the seams together.

"Slow deep breaths," Snape commanded him, seeming dismayed, but he was behind him and Harry couldn't see his face.  He couldn't obey either, not when he was certain he'd never get any air into his lungs again.

"Think about the meadow," Snape started.  "A safe place where no one can hurt you, and there are no more battles to fight.  A place filled with tall golden grasses and colorful wildflowers.  Deer graze in it and mice run through it."

"I can't see it," Harry said, eyes clenched tight.  "I can't."

"That's because you need to really see it to understand that there is such a place.  You need something tangible."  He needed to go there to know he did have a place to go like that.  It was obvious now to Severus that the teen was still just that, a teen.  He was unable to make the decision to take what was being offered to him or what was good for him (even going to the Weasleys would preferable to ending it all).  Maybe emancipation had been a bad idea.  He didn't need to be out on his own after killing Voldemort.  He didn't seem to know how to make good decisions for himself, and maybe, Severus reflected, it was because he'd never been taught.  He had spiraled completely, and utterly out of control under his own power, and it was going to end here, on this rooftop.

"You are coming to that meadow with me," he said firmly, as Harry still struggled to breath.

"I- didn't say- yes."  His words were punctuated with gasps.

"No, but I am telling you.  You are coming with me for the summer."

"Who- you- no right!"  Harry tried to sound angry, but he was still just scared.  The lack of oxygen was making his brain hazy again and he couldn't even think of all the words to say.

"You're not going to go to the wizengamot for emancipation.  I'll tell them about your attacks if you do."

"Bastard."  Harry was dismayed that his righteous anger was not making the panic abate.

"I will petition for custody of you and you will stay with me."

"Almost 17-"

"And it would be easier for the both of us if you did not contest my petition in court.  As it is, Dumbledore will be against this.  It is in your own best interest to allow me to do this though."

As Harry tried to get breath, he thought it was strange to be sitting here with someone telling him he wanted to adopt him.  Well, he hadn't used the word adopt, it would still be Proffessor and Potter, but 'custody' was something no one had ever wanted of Harry.  First the man had sat in a dark corridor holding his hand until he was calm enough to stop shaking, and now he was hugging Harry from behind (or more like holding on to him to keep him from tumbling over the edge into the end of his brief existance).

"I will keep you safe."

Harry stilled at that and forgot to struggle to breath.  Safe?  Was there even such a thing?  Voldemort wasn't after him anymore, though his death eaters might be.  And in a meadow in some far flung corner of the country, his aunt and uncle would never find him.  But he'd still be there, ready to be broken in an instant.  Shattered and completely gone, ceasing to be everything that was him.  In that moment, he realized that he didn't even know who he was.  He couldn't wrap his mind around a single detail about himself that made himself unique or special.  He was just, there, existing between hurts, trying not to get killed, or beaten into oblivion.

"Breath Potter!"  Snape was angry behind him, and Harry opened his eyes and sucked in a deep breath, air finally filling his lungs.  When had he stopped breathing?

"Come on, another."  Harry did as he was told and then kept breathing on his own.  He had never liked raising the dark eyed man's ire.

"You're squeezing me too tight," Harry said.

"I don't want you to jump."

"I thought maybe you were trying to hug me so tight that all my broken pieces would stick back together."

"Is it working?"

"Can you let go?"

Severus finally let go his death grip on the Gryffindor and Harry moved forward and stood up, though he looked unsteady on his feet.  Severus stood too.

"You're really going to try to get custody of me?  It would only be for six months."

"Six months to teach you something."

Harry smirked, surprising Severus.  "Really, I always thought you had something to learn from me."

"Perhaps that is so."

Severus, finally too uncomfortable with the high tower rooftop to stay any longer, motioned for the trap door and let Harry lead the way there and go down first.  He didn't trust him to come down second.  When they were down to the bottom of the ladder and then the stairs, Severus wondered what he would do with the boy now.  Everyone was far too occupied with their celebrations and repair work to keep a real eye on Potter.  Even his friends had seemed unaware of his state of mind.

"You will not jump off the roof or try to do yourself harm in any other way."

"No," Harry agreed slowly.  His aunt and uncle had had custody of him for all these years, and he knew for a fact they would be happy if he'd gone ahead and jumped when he'd had the chance.  Who knew Snape was... like this.  It was a side to him Harry had never seen, or perhpas had never cared to notice.  At least not until he'd finally paid attention to the ammount of time the man seemed to drift off into his own world.

"You will be upset if I do not believe you."

Harry looked up into his searching eyes.  "I gave you plenty of reason to not believe me."

"Come with me Potter."

"Are we going to the Headmaster?"

"We are going to the dungeons.  You will stay in a guest room down the hall from my quarters until I can be certain you are safe to be under your own supervision."

Harry didn't argue.  After being on his own for so long, thoughts circling and mind cracking, it was almost nice to have someone else have to worry about him so he didn't have to worry about himself.

Everyone wondered why Harry got his own room for the rest of the year, and Ron complained that it was all the way down in the dungeons, but found that he liked spending time in their own private hangout.  Neville joined them in Harry's room often to study, and no one questioned that the three friends who had battled Voldemort were sticking together in their solitude.  'The brave one, the strong one, the lucky one.'  That's what people called them.  Heremione had been there but had been knocked out cold after only a few minutes, so she didn't have a name.  Harry knew Neville was the 'brave' one, and Ron was the 'lucky' one.  One was brave to attack Voldemort's snake with a sword, the other lucky not to have died from his severe injuries.  But it was his own name that Harry wondered about.  The 'strong' one.  He certainly hadn't felt very strong.  It had to be because he'd put his hands up around Voldemort's throat and killed him.  But the more he heard people saying, 'the strong one' the more he started to believe it, and the less fractured and fragile he felt as the months wore on towards summer.  He still felt damaged, far too chipped away at to be anything wonderful anymore, but stronger and more willing to face a not so certain future.  But Snape reminded him the day he took Harry to the Ministry to petition for custody that the future wasn't so uncertain.  There was a meadow with wildflowers overlooking the mountains waiting for him if Snape could convince the court.  It was Harry who convinced them in the end though.  He said he wanted to go with Snape and that the court owed it to him to grant him his request.  They did and the 'strong' one felt stronger for winning the minor victory for himself.

Snape had noticed the slow change in Harry over the months after the battle.  He didn't seem as on edge, and had even been seen laughing in the halls with his friends on occasion.  Not a forced laugh either, but a hearty guffaw.  And he was eating again, like a teenage boy, not a mouse.  I did that, Severus thought.  I did that for the boy.  The boy didn't come to me for help, I went to him.  Maybe his Slytherins deserved the same.  Maybe he could help them instead of letting them seek comfort from the other staff.  Maybe that was the part of this job that he'd been missing... the part that made him feel somehow incomplete.

Outwardly, Severus Snape was a strong man, lending the illusion of strength to Harry Potter 'the strong'.  Outwardly, Harry Potter was still working to piece himself back together, and his friends were glad to see that he was starting to act like the old Harry again.  Inwardly, Severus felt like pieces of himself (the self he wanted to be) were finally falling into place as he brought Harry to his meadow on the day that school ended.  Inwardly, Harry felt strong enough to hold on to hope.