“Is it my imagination,” Ron muttered to Harry as he handed him a ladle in Potions class, “or is Snape even nastier than usual?” Snape snapped at Neville so hard that the nervous boy nearly knocked over his cauldron.

“I’m sure it’s just your imagination,” Harry whispered back, imitating Snape’s most sarcastic tones. Ron grinned, looking down at their cauldron.

“Potter!”

Harry stifled a groan and turned up the force of his glare.

“What,” Snape whispered from the front of the class, managing somehow to make himself heard, as usual, “is the rule about whispering in this class?”

“You’re whispering, Professor,” Harry said, before he could think better of it. An amused snort came from Ron. The whole class took a collective breath as Snape’s expression grew darker than his perpetually black robes.

Twenty minutes later, Harry stormed out of the dungeons with Ron and Hermione at his heels. Ron was sympathetically spouting profanities at Snape under his breath. “He had no right,” Ron ended, fuming. Harry thoroughly agreed, but refrained from commenting. He was a bit afraid he’d begin shouting, and he didn’t need another teacher taking more points from Gryffindor. Even Hermione didn’t berate him for losing control with Snape yet again.

“Harry, are you all right?” she said instead, adding hastily, “It was a bit cruel of Professor Snape to allude to Sirius…” She trailed off to glare at Ron, who had spluttered, “A bit?”

Harry felt a now-familiar pang at the name, but no more. A memory of himself at Privet Drive arose in his mind. The summer had begun with him almost drowning in grief, but it had gotten better when Dumbledore had had him moved to a secure location. He’d been lonely there, but it had been far better than at Privet Drive.

His friends were looking at him expectantly. “I’m alright, Hermione,” he said firmly.

She gave him a searching look. “I think you really are,” she said with a maternal smile, making Harry blush. Ron said nothing, but gave him a slap on the back as they arrived at their next class. Harry spent this period pondering whether or not Dumbledore’s persuading Snape to let more students into the NEWT class (a historical change, he was told) was a blessing or a curse.

“Sev?”

Harry sighed in mock exasperation. “Would you mind standardising my name once and for all?” he drawled. “This flitting between alternatives is rather ridiculous.”

The messy-haired, green-eyed brat in his arms looked up at him and grinned. “But I like flitting, Severus—hey! Stop that!” He ended in helpless laughter.

Harry suppressed a smile as he held the child down and tickled him into submission. He was glad the boy had chosen his mother’s nickname for him, of course. But in the innermost recesses of his mind, he had to admit that out of all the boy’s names for him, he was rather partial to ‘Dad’.

“Severus!” the boy howled, twisting for all he was worth. The sound of his unrestrained laughter was like music to Harry’s ears. His child was happy. The boy really didn’t laugh enough. To be fair, he himself almost never laughed. But no child of Lily Evans’ should have the world-weary look the boy had recently been sporting.

He pushed away that thought quickly as he released his hold on the panting child. The three-foot tall boy sat up and adjusted his spectacles (they’d been knocked askew in his struggle to get free), all the while scowling at Harry. Harry smirked back; inwardly exulting in the grin that was breaking through the child’s scowl.

“That wasn’t fair,” the boy declared.

“What have I told you about fairness, my young Gryffindor?” Harry purred. His smirk widened when the boy climbed back into his lap, pouting.

Harry woke up smiling for the first time in years. Sunlight was streaming into his dorm. Ron wasn’t up yet, though Neville’s bed was empty. He felt rested and energetic.

He suddenly sat up in horror. What kind of dream had he just had? It was almost as if—Harry grimaced at the thought—he’d been seeing through Snape’s eyes, instead of Voldemort’s.

And the child in his dream had been Harry himself at about four or five years old.

Not liking where his thoughts were leading him, Harry sternly told himself to forget his absurd dream. Then he saw the time. “Wake up, Ron! We’re going to be late!”

Harry exchanged an amused look with Dean. Both were listening in as Hermione rather acerbically berated Ron for shovelling down his own breakfast.

“What’s wrong with Malfoy?” Harry asked in an effort to break up his friends’ bickering. Ron sent him a grateful glance when Hermione stopped talking at once to look at the Slytherins’ table. Something did, indeed, seem to be the matter with Malfoy; he was sitting apart from all his housemates, looking unusually lonely and left out.

“Well, that’s something you don’t see every day,” Ron said.

Hermione lowered her voice. “It seems his family fell out of favour with Voldemort after Lucius Malfoy’s capture last term. Malfoy’s become a pariah of sorts among the Slytherins.”

“About time he got a taste of his own medicine,” Ron said.

Harry couldn’t care less about Malfoy’s standing among his housemates. He was thinking about something else. “What else did I miss while I was shut away in that safe house?” Why, oh, why wasn’t he allowed the luxury of newspapers while in hiding, even ones that were rubbish at reporting the truth?

His friends exchanged uneasy glances. “Nothing much to add to everything we talked about on the train yesterday, Harry,” Ron answered. “Death Eaters, Lucius Malfoy, Old Minister of Magic, New Minister of Magic. Did I mention the Death Eaters?”

Harry stiffened as he felt the back of his neck prickle. A discreet glance at the front of the Great Hall showed that Snape was looking his way. He quickly looked back down at his breakfast, but the feeling didn’t abate. This time he deliberately locked eyes with the potions master, glowering as fiercely as he could.

Immediately, his surroundings disappeared. He had the queerest sensation of falling, as though he had just poked his head into a Pensieve.

As if it wasn’t enough that he had to endure the Dark Lord’s presence on a regular basis, Harry thought, as he looked at the sobbing child on his bed. On his bed. In his bedroom. Whatever had possessed him to offer this level of comfort to the son of the man who had ruined his life?

He turned towards the door of his bathroom and found himself held fast. “Don’t go,” the child begged. Snivelling. The boy was snivelling. Oh, the delicious irony of applying that particular word to this particular specimen of the Potter family.

He nearly snapped at the boy, but held himself back just in time. “I’ll be back in a minute, child, I promise.” He forced his voice to be gentle and soothing. Occlumency had kept him alive thus far, but this kind of application of his skills was far more satisfying and far less dangerous.

By the time he had changed out of his robes and into his nightclothes, the boy had calmed a little, to Harry’s relief. He sat on the bed and reached for the boy. “What do you need?” he asked quietly.

“Hurts,” was the only thing the proud boy said in reply, shifting his tiny body a little closer to Harry. The rest he didn’t say out loud, but the answer was clear enough to Harry—he knew the child far better now than he had ever wanted to, or even dreamed of.

Physical pain was something he had stopped enjoying seeing in another. So he bowed to the child’s wishes and pulled him close, putting his arms around him with an ease that alarmed him. “I will continue trying to find a cure for this pain, I promise you,” he said.

“Thanks,” the boy whispered, sounding far too touched over so insignificant a gesture.

“Pain does not reduce you to tears this easily,” Harry said after a pause. “What else is upsetting you?”

It was also alarming how quick the boy was to trust him with his burdens. “Sirius,” he said, his breaths coming faster. “I’m sorry, Professor, I know you hated him, but he was the closest thing to a family I had left and—” his breath hitched, “and now h-he’s gone…”

Harry gritted his teeth. His Occlumency was failing him yet again where this child was considered. He could already feel himself sharing in his grief—over Sirius Black, of all people. Pulling the child still closer, he ran his fingers through his messy hair, and felt a mixture of amazement, triumph and shame as the child slowly relaxed and made a soft noise of contentment.

“And?” he pressed.

The boy’s fingers tightened on Harry’s shirt, his body stiffening again. “A-and I don’t want to be a—a…” He stopped, but once again, had made himself clear without words.

The child wanted to leave. His Occlumency shields crumbled and fell. Harry was dimly surprised at the maelstrom of emotions those little words caused. Why had he expected anything else? Of course the boy wanted to leave. It was probably in his blood. He was Lily’s son, after all.

Fool, he addressed himself in the privacy of his mind. He had gotten in far too deep when he wasn’t looking.

“Harry?”

“HARRY!”

Harry blinked. He was surrounded by a sea of faces exhibiting various degrees of concern and fear.

“Erm,” he said. “I’m fine?”

Everyone seemed to relax a little. “You don’t seem very sure, mate,” Ron said, trying and failing to smile. He and Hermione herded Harry out of the Hall and away from the staring eyes. Harry looked back at the staff table and saw that Snape was still looking at him. He turned away quickly, but Harry thought he looked rattled.

“Just when I was trying to avoid a reputation as a lunatic,” Harry muttered.

“Was it a vision from Voldemort?” Hermione asked.

Harry thought about that for a moment. Could this be from Voldemort? “I don’t see how,” he said slowly. “My scar didn’t burn.”

Unless he’s found a way to enter my mind without the scar.

“Then what was it?”

Harry swallowed. “I don’t know.” He explained what he’d seen in his dream and his latest vision.

“Snape’s doing it!” Ron announced—rather weakly; he had gone slightly green at the images Harry had described. “It has to be!”

“Ron,” Hermione said, exasperated, “he’s in the Order and Dumbledore trusts him!”

“Well, how else would Harry be seeing visions of Snape acting like he’s his father?”

“Dumbledore’s been wrong before,” Harry said, more bitterly than he’d intended. “Snape was looking at me when I got that weird vision. And it’s his eyes I’m seeing through, all of a sudden, instead of Voldemort’s!”

“But he can’t send you a vision through legilimency,” Hermione said, sounding deep in thought. “He can see into your mind, but he can’t send you anything. Or at least that’s what I’ve read…” Harry knew she’d be in the library as soon as she could.

“But what’s the point?” Ron exploded, echoing Harry’s thoughts. “Driving Harry bonkers? No offence, mate,” he added apologetically.

“If this keeps up and we don’t find an answer, I’m going to Dumbledore,” Harry said grimly.

“But Harry, don’t you see? Snape will be in more danger if Voldemort gets to know about your vision! A supposed Death Eater associating, um, amiably, with Harry Potter!”

“Unless Voldemort ordered him to do it,” Ron shot back, hefting his bag. “And why was Snape the one who took Harry to the safe house last summer? Why couldn’t it have been someone else?”

“You’re just angry he took Harry away and you couldn’t spend more than a couple of days with him!”

Harry sighed and tuned them out as they arrived at McGonagall’s class. It was all very well to try and guess what it was that Snape had done to him, but what if those images had been real?

Oh, not this again, he told himself. Look where that got you last time! Sirius died because you took a false image in your head to be true!

It did no good. Harry ran the images through his mind over and over again. Was he finally going crazy? Was he so completely pathetic that his mind conjured up images of the only adult who must hate him almost as much as Voldemort, in the light of a loving parent? What kind of sick role reversal was that, anyway?

All right. Let’s assume I’m not crazy, Harry thought, waving his wand threateningly at the fat rabbit he was supposed to be turning into a fluffy cushion. What’s left then?

Sirius. He had mentioned Sirius in the vision, mentioned him as if he were gone already. It (whatever it was) had to be after The Ministry, then. Snape had seemed to hate him as usual, and then like him too, by turns. Harry suppressed a hysterical giggle. If that really happened, he’s the mental one, not me.

He remembered the Death Eater whose head had been turned into a baby’s at the Department of Mysteries. Maybe Snape had kidnapped, tortured and obliviated Harry in the summer. Maybe Snape was actually Harry’s father, not James Potter.

This last thought was so ridiculous that Harry let out an involuntary snort of laughter. It came out much louder than he’d expected.

“Mr Potter, do you find something amusing about your failure to perform today’s task?” came McGonagall’s voice, sounding very tart.

Harry blushed and began to pay attention to his work.