“Don’t tell me your little friends have abandoned you?”  Severus scoffed.

“Don’t know.  Didn’t tell them.  They’ve not met the Freak.  They met Harry. Someone I wanted to be.”  The boy shook his head slowly. “Someone that I realised recently I can never be.  You have to be who you are in here,” He tapped his chest. “Everything else is just playing pretend.”  

“Very poetic,” Voldemort sneered, covering up his unease with derision.

Potter’s shoulders slumped more.  

“Where will you go now?  Provided you are allowed to live,” Severus asked, glancing at the dark lord.

“Somewhere no one will look at me?  Somewhere they don’t expect me to be a murderer?  Somewhere that everyone who passes by doesn’t automatically hate me?  I don’t want to be something special. I just . . .” Potter sucked in a shuddering breath.  “I just want to be the me that’s inside my head.”

“And if that perssson turnssss out to be againsst Dumbledore?”   Voldemort hissed.

“I’m already againsst Dumbledore.  He’s againsst me.”

“My Lord?” Severus questioned.  

“I think we can accommodate Mister Freak,” Voldemort’s smile was cold and it raised the hackles on the back of his neck.  

“Meaning?”  Potter asked in a wavering tone.

“How would you like to live here?”  

“With you?”  

Potter was trembling.  

“Down the hall," Voldemort amended.

“And I don’t have kill anyone?”  Big green eyes stared out from a far too pale face.  

Severus made a mental note to have the boy checked over by a healer--a human one.

“No.”

The silence in the room was heavy enough that Severus found it difficult to draw in a full breath.

“All right.”