Year 3

Severus Snape sits on the edge of his bed in the hospital wing and seethes. This whole evening was a disaster just waiting to happen. What with Black on the loose while his pet werewolf masquerades as a teacher; and the dementors, around a school! He doesn’t know what the Ministry was thinking. Sure they managed to catch the man eventually – more through luck than anything else – but almost at the cost of a student’s very soul. Really, with a quarter of the school population being reckless Gryffindor teenagers – not to mention Potter and his ability to find trouble – what did they expect?

He glares at the boy in question, sleeping in the next bed. He thought he had broken the boy of his reckless habit of running face-first into danger but tonight’s events show otherwise. Chasing after a known mass-murderer who is trying to kill him. Trying to Disarm him, a teacher, and knocking him unconscious – ungrateful brat. Standing right beside a werewolf as it transforms. Trying to rescue previously mentioned murderer – even if he is apparently innocent – by running into the largest clutch of dementors ever seen outside of Azkaban. Is the boy really trying to get himself killed? He pauses for a moment. They have talked about this, a bit, over the last year, but he knows the child still has an incredibly skewed view of mortality.

A sudden movement catches his attention and he watches as a now-awake Potter sits up and fumbles for his glasses, the boy’s dazed confusion turning to familiarity as he looks around. Snape stands and walks over to him.

“Yes, Mr Potter, tonight’s adventures have landed you in the Hospital Wing… again. Mr Weasley is also in here, sleeping as Skelegrow repairs his leg; I believe Miss Granger is currently sitting with him, although at least she possessed enough luck and sense to avoid significant injury. Your soon-to-be-ex Defence Against the Dark Arts Professor is no doubt still stalking the Forest, howling at the moon.”

“Sirius?” Snape winces slightly at the worry and hope in his voice.

“Currently in Ministry custody.” He really doesn’t want to be the one to tell the boy his godfather’s likely fate. For knowing each other for only a few stressful hours they seem to have formed an unreasonably strong bond. While it is just possible that Black will finally get his trial and this whole mess will be sorted out, that would require the Ministry admitting that they made a mistake. No. Particularly given the way he eluded them these last months, they are more likely to just have him Kissed and be done with it.

The reminder of the dementors’ powers has him glaring once more at the boy before him.

“Potter, just what were you thinking, running off like that? Between Black, the wolf and the dementors you could have been killed, or worse!” In fact, he shudders at how close the boy came to both those options, several times.

He is pulled back to the present at the incongruous sight of a small smile flitting across the boy’s face. And did he just hear him whisper ‘expelled’?

“I’m sorry, but I had to. Sirius needed my help. If I hadn’t gone then, the dementors would have gotten him!” He shivers, then, his voice quieter. “I didn’t expect for there to be so many, or so strong. I tried to cast my patronus, but all I could hear was screaming; my mum. Then I thought I saw my dad, and a bright light. But there were too many dementors in the way; then it went all dark and silent and cold… so cold. And they weren’t there. I looked for them – they are always there and waiting for me – but they weren’t there.” He realises he has moved closer when the boy’s hands clamp tightly around his arm. “You won’t leave, will you? Promise me you won’t abandon me too.”

Snape’s eyes narrow, a retort on the tip of his tongue – unhand me – when he pauses. This is Harry Potter, his ward. His ward who has just come far too close to being Kissed. He freezes. Or had it actually happened? Maybe that was why he couldn’t find his parents. Could his strange power protect him even from that?

Pushing his speculations to the back of his mind he hesitantly lays his free hand over the child’s smaller ones, pressing them against him.

“Hush child, I won’t leave you; it was part of the oath I swore when I took you in. As long as I live, you are stuck with me. And they might not have been there yet tonight, but I know that your parents love you and will be there when it is time for you to join them. Just remember that there is also those of us here who… care about you. Do try not to leave too soon.”
__________

Year 4

“They were there, in the graveyard.”

Snape looks sharply at the boy seated on the couch across from him. Harry had reported the basics to Dumbledore, but otherwise hadn’t spoken of that night in the weeks since. Not while awake, at least; his nightmares are a different matter.

“Who was there?” His voice is calm, trying to coax out the details the boy clearly needs to share.

“My parents; they visited me this time.”

That explains why his ward is talking to him, at least. While they have developed something of a rapport – it was impossible not to after spending two summers living together – the boy still mostly prefers to share his thoughts with his Gryffindor friends rather than his Slytherin guardian.

“In what context?”

“We were casting spells, me and Him, then two of them collided and turned gold, tying our wands together. Some sort of shield formed around us then beads of light appeared in the middle of the link. I don’t know how, but I knew I had to keep them away from me and pushed them towards His wand. When they reached the end they were sucked in; then They came out. Oh, not my parents, not yet. It was…” He takes a shuddering breath. “It was Cedric first. He was all sort of pale and ghosty but not; but otherwise he looked just the same as before… before he…” Harry trails off, lost in his thoughts, before dragging himself back to his story. “I didn’t know the next two who came out. There was an old man – I think I had a vision about him at the start of the year – and a woman.

“Then my parents came. It was strange seeing them being the ghosts, not me. They were so proud of what I’ve done over the last two years. They told me it was time to break the light, then they distracted Him so I could get to Cedric’s body and the Cup.

“I wanted so much to be able to hug them, or even just sit and chat for a while like I used to, but at least they were there.”

Snape hesitates for a moment, then lays a comforting hand on his shoulder. He doesn’t know if he should feel gratefulness that the boy’s parents were there to save their – his? – son, amazement at the rare magics the boy continues to produce to save the day, or exasperated relief that, this time at least, it was his parents’ journey. After all, only Harry Potter could be prisoner of honour at the rebirth of the Dark Lord and not die in the process.
__________

Year 5

Looking at the teen slumped before him, Snape shudders slightly at the thought of the words he knows he must say. The mutt owes him for this; although he will have to wait to collect.

“Harry look at me. You are allowed to feel angry, you are allowed to feel sad. Your godfather just died, who you loved very much, and you are allowed to grieve.”
The boy is silent for a moment, his face twisting as he tries to put his feelings into words.

“I know, but… that’s not it! Or at least that’s not all of it. It’s my fault he went to the Ministry, my fault he died!”

Snape supresses the urge to roll his eyes. Of course, he should have known. The boy and his foolish Gryffindor hero complex; always rushing to the rescue, always taking the blame.

“It was not your fault. Black was an adult and chose to leave the safety of Headquarters; Bellatrix is an adult and chose to send that curse. You had not control over either of those.”

Harry is shaking his head and he can see that it will take some time before he can succeed in getting his point across. Watching the boy’s posture he groans silently; there is something more. How did he end up as the Boy-Who-Lived’s personal counsellor, anyway? Oh, right, when the child’s mother coerced him into becoming his guardian.

“While you do not believe me now, I will keep telling you until you do. But there is something else bothering you. What is it?”

“It’s nothing, silly really…” Harry twists his fingers together, his voice dropping to a whisper. “I guess I’m… well, kinda jealous.”

He blinks. Jealous? Where did that come from?

“Sirius is dead and I’ll miss him, but he’s free now. Happy. I saw them, just for a moment, when Voldemort was possessing me. Sirius was with my parents and they were hugging and laughing and happy and together, and I just wanted to be there with them.”

A bubble of hope rises in him. Painful as it is, he can use this. On one level, the child clearly sees his godfather’s death as a good thing; freeing him from his life as a fugitive and reuniting him with his lost loved ones. Perhaps that can be used to counteract the guilt he is feeling at supposedly causing said death.

He takes another look at the teen. Who is he kidding? This is Harry feels-too-bloody-much Potter. With his history, he’ll just have a double dose of guilt to work through.
__________

Year 6

Harry sits slumped on the couch. The room should be familiar, he has been in there often enough, but recent events make them seem different, alien. After all, while they were His rooms first, it has been several years since He insisted they are their rooms. But now, after last night… he doesn’t know. Did he even know Him at all?

“I didn’t do it, you know, in the cave.” His tired voice falls flat amongst the empty shadows. “It would have been so easy. Just let the inferi take me and I could see my parents again; Sirius. It’s not even like you’d end up losing your precious Boy-Who-Won’t-Die. But I didn’t. You would have been so disappointed, and I had to help Dumbledore.”

He scowls, his voice rising to a shout.

“With the locket being a fake, it was already an almost wasted trip. Then I finally get him back here and you go and kill him! He was pleading but you just AK him and run off with your Death Eater friends!”

He collapses back, panting. Only the dead silence of the dark room allows his next words to be heard.

“I should have just gone to my real parents.”